The new standard of open world games

When GTA3 came out, it sparked a massive change in the way many 3rd person action games could work. It started a revolutionary trend of giving players an easy to make sandbox environment where you could freely walk around in and accept jobs at your own pace. ...or not do jobs. Before you were most likely at the mercy of the level design. Go through this hallway, kill these enemies, survive, and that's how you progress. With GTA3 it became a matter of explore this massive city, and when you want to go ahead and join an assignment for some kind of challenging experience. You basically had the entire game put in front of you, and told you're the king who can do whatever as long as you can follow a couple basics. Amazing! So why then do quite a few people still cling to and prefer linear games? Those have got to be outdated by now, right? Actually its quite the opposite. GTA3 barely has a mention anymore, where as a game like say the original Half-life can still impress very well to this day, and there's quite a few good reasons for that.

Here you go, read this post from quite a long time back if you want my whole reasoning in disliking open world games. Image is broken, sorry. If you want the quick summary, here's a good quick little quote that does the job well.

It goes like this... follow quest, drive from A to B to get something done, go to next quest, do what it says and get some good exposition. After that you sadly need to do something you really hate... like trailing someone, or escape the cops even though you do that ALL the time when you're not in a mission. next quest and... well this is familiar, this was the same objective as the first mission. Put it on loop and you have the normal open world formula IF you go straight at the core. If you do not, well there are side missions.... like taking territory by killing specific people. Or racing. Or a side quest that is exactly like one of the repeating mission sequences. And there are like 10 of each type of those side quests. Then you have a sandbox open world to play in. Out of that the latter sounds like the only real fun one.

A whole world full of repetition

Yeah they're repetitive as hell. While a linear game tells you stories, retains its balance, and can cost effectively accomplish whatever the artist envisions at this point, an open world game running like GTA3 is just... ugh. Its repetitive, gets annoying, has too much filler, and doesn't give room for people to flesh out the campaign or even more important aspects in meaningful ways. It spreads itself too thin. Its mostly fun while its a new concept to let a player drive freely in a whole city, but terrifyingly artificial to the more experienced gamers. The funny thing to is there was already sort of an open world format that didn't fall into the level repetition: 90's collect-o-thons. Play from a huge list of levels whenever you want, explore these somewhat big (for PSX at least) levels, and goof around with all sorts of jumps and whatnot. Having grown up around those, There are still plenty of differences, but I honestly found it to be a more reliable format for getting both freedom and hand crafted well done campaigns. Unfortunately open world games only took the repetitive element of collectibles from them, turning them into collect-o-thons in the insulting way. So are open world games really at a loss? No, this is not at all how open world need to be. I'm playing The Witcher 3 and literally all day (or at least the day I started this post) I've done nothing but side-quests and I've been getting a deep and constantly moving story from multiple supporting characters, imputting unique actions as Geralt, and having a blast with the balance of the mechanics while not quite knowing what to completely expect next. Its a well crafted unpredictable adventure, and not the slightest bit like what I've come to expect from open world games.

Now admittedly this isn't too new. Skryim has done the same, Dragon's Dogma, MMOs, etc. Don't get me wrong they certainly fall into a trap of repetition, but not on quite the same level as the GTA formula. In most RPGs you've got an inherently better sense of adventure. The writing is more unique, the world full of monsters, and the side quests sometimes take advantage of that. Still in dragon's dogma, skyrim, MMOs, and dragon age inquisition you've still got those dumb chore-like missions where developers just run out of ideas. How many uninspired caves did you have to go through in skyrim? How about those great sidequests in dragon's dogma like collecting 40 skulls? You get the idea. You're still finding those weird times where the game just tosses you out there in an easy job that occupies your time. Oh and of course because these are RPGs, you'll literally be grinding... so there's that. Sure its not as obvious as watch dogs convoy mission #14, but you're still finding those moments where the RPG structure is also held to its own restrictions of a thinly spread, grindy, and repetitive open world. Its just more hushed about its looping activities.

He'll consume your soul through over-using cave lairs

Meanwhile with Witcher 3, it truly drives home that next-generation idea of everything being your story. Its that idea bioware has been trying to tell us, what skyrim so clearly wanted to do, and what the open world deception has wanted you to believe all this time: Its a massive open world full of new opportunities, adventure, and just a feeling that nothing ever gets old until you've done absolutely everything. Every side-quest reads out as a part of the story, a part of the world, and as a legitimate thing the Geralt would do. ...and if its not on your own personal agenda, you've got the option to step away and let the merchants get mugged, guard bully people, or leave the refugees to beg if you deem that stuff as below your monster-slayer calling. Either way it tends to feel fluid and reasonable, meeting that perfect sync between main quest and open world play, as well as good story telling plus player interactive story telling.

Oh and even the collectibles, aside from power places, don't exactly repeat. You see a mysterious area with something and its just a question mark. You get there and maybe at best its marked with "guarded treasure", and then its some seemingly random RPG loot. You don't know its stats, its worth, or even if its junk at your current level, but you know its treasure of some sort that was placed there for value, and that mystery drives you ever closer to exploring the whole darn world. Meanwhile in FC4, no matter how awesome the mystery of those maskes were I just ended up getting sick of it around the last 10 or so. It was just a bunch of dumb masks and I just decided to heck with it, and took a hiatus from the game rather than uncovering everything like I planned. Giving me 4 different massively numerous collectibles to run around a massive land for just gets old when you know those same 4 items, lose the suspense to finding them, and don't feel well rewarded for it. The mystery of just general treasure on the other hand... that's a bit harder to get old, and just having one single repeating reward like the place of power ain't so bad.

Between Witcher 3, Shadows of Mordor's nemesis system, and maybe Far Cry 4 (sidequests had good context at least), there are new standards set for open world games and I look forward to seeing that followed across this generation if AAA really is spending their expensive budgets right. They should be able to now pull off the time and staff to create fully realized worlds for exploration, and giving tasks meaning, or at least re-inventing the repetition into something more organic. Less of this watch dogs or saints row nonsense where you walk up to one of a few repeating activity formulas and play some silly mini-game that ends without character or personality. Get good writers, get a good idea of the world, and build that world rather than building a 40 hour grind of distractions. That is what a true open world is, and Witcher 3 is a prime example of that. Now then, I'm going back to explore some more, because that game is amazing.

 

If it ain't broke... oh wait, is it?

So this has been a topic I've been wanting to discuss for a while, but I'm glad I kind of waited. I wanted to discuss the topic of game patches, performances, and expectations related to it now. Previously I was just going to do another "Mah games must be complete or you're horrible!" rant, but now I've got more to say to the topic, more sides to cover, and more thoughts into it. Its not that black and white as to just complain that developers need to be more responsible. Also I may have missed that golden timing of 2014 where everything big was damn near broken, but we're still seeing and going to see problems whether they be on the scale of Unity and Master Chief collection, or more so on the freak luck nature or silly glitch style of the recently released Witcher 3 or those Last of Us save issues. After hearing the discussions go on for a while I want to cover 3 major aspects: Patches and how the community has reacted to them, The reality of current games and why its not exactly the dev/pub's fault for everything, and of course where it is still the developer/publisher's fault and why there still should be more caution.

Patches & consumer support

I emphasize consumer support and not developer support here, because first up lets talk about how the community has had some interesting binary responses to the subject of patching bugs. On one hand you usually have people that claim they're going to stop or have stopped buying launch day games. You're offering them an incomplete game that wasn't functional, and you're not worth supporting at full price. They may also fuss about how this only happens in gaming, and that this wouldn't go well in the car industry (because that's a great analogy, right?). Oh and mark their words, becuase "the crash is coming!". This is sad in two ways, as one they can have a point (except about the car example, that's still just plain bad reasoning). The second reason its sad is they're so rabid about this half the time that they may go about ripping a game apart for such silly things as a patch note page full of obscure bugs only 1% of the population is reporting and are making a mountain out of an anthill while terrifying people out of a great game. If its not terrifying people out of a good game though, its making the more sane ones laugh and take the side less seriously, which while they've earned that is still terrible because of point #1: they still have some solid ground to stand on, and they're still kind of right to an extent.

The other side you hear is about making sure you stick it back to the backlash. Stop nagging patches because they're here to help you, and save you from worse games. Stop scaring developers, and stop your moaning so you can enjoy a good game. Unfortunately they also tend to use an argument that annoys me worse than anything the anti-bug people say to counter the idea that the past was better: back before patches, a game would release broke and that's it. Entire games were ruined, oh no. Except here's the thing, while that's factually correct so are the other guys... and I'd say they have way more ground to stand on because its also a fact that the past was better for game stability. When you got a game, it worked 90% of the time. Its was so rare that I've only ever owned a single game that was messed up by its launch status, and my dad owned one as well. That's it, two games in my whole PlayStation 2 library (specifically Enter The Dragonfly and Angel of darkness, both were kind of ruined in more ways than bugs before release so I'm not sure a patch would have fixed them) that I've ever truly taken in 1st hand account that they had game halting issues. Anything else was just silly glitches, or freak freeze incidences. On top of that a couple of games with just less happy reception (not necessarily broken in any ways) got enhanced re-releases because it was cheap enough to do so, and in the process they actually made it up to the consumer in a big way like getting some fancy director's cut of the game, so its actually false to just assume there was never a solution.

Today I can tell you ridiculous game frustrating bug or performance experiences from Modern Warfare 2, MOH warfighter, Assassins Creed 3 and Far Cry 3, Ratchet Deadlock HD, R&C FFA's vita port, Skyrim, Rage, Metro Last Light, Two Worlds 2 (well not really frustrating, but damn is it unpolished), Dust, frequent crashes on Trials Fusion, Far Cry 4 (co-op was entirely unplayable), Killzone 3, Bioshock Infinite (weapon switching went completely broken when replaying any old save, I have to restart the entire game over), oh and the infamous PS3 port of Orange Box. Not all those bugs are considered equal with some just being annoyances and others totally killing my mood to play, but they're all there enough to have gotten in my way at some point. I also consider myself lucky compared to what I hear or that I came in after some patches for some of those games, because many of the problems out there are things I've never seen, from games I just don't play, and by far most of my game experiences are still playable. Even Skyrim being on that list took forever until it started crashing frequently, or became hydrophobic and wouldn't like me being in the water, but that was months after other people were in a fit on how terrible it was. I'm not a glitch hunter, or some unlucky guy that just gets nailed with everything, but yet I've still seen an undeniably large increase in game problems.

In PS2 land this game happened, and.... well that's about it

 Now add that to the feeling of fear you get from hearing something like save corruption glitches, and the fact that some of these patches (whether you experience what they fix or not) are eating up entire small game's worth of your harddrive space now, and you've got a common mess on your hands. My point is that this is a part of the general gaming industry now. To even imply that pre-patch gaming was anything like this but worse without the fixes, is just downright deceptive or incredibly ignorant. Most of the games broken to this extent were likely shovelware cases, or made by shoddy companies you wouldn't trust anyways, but even then I can't name too many examples off my head without going into the NES era. Bugs have gone from a rarity to a possible risk for every single game you're looking at one the shelf unless it has Nintendo's name on it. So please, stop defending them as this absolute necessity that has made gaming infinitely better. It hasn't, and the proof is all around you. However to give them some credit though, its not necessarily as bad as the anti-patch riot wants to make things seem. That and while patches weren't necessary before, they are now, and that's due to the next subject...

Gaming has evolved, and that has its costs...

So anybody remember what kind of games were always considered buggy just by genre or style back in the days before big patches? Yeah it was open world games like GTA, RPGs, and anything Reality Pump or Bethesda touched. Guess what we tend to have a lot of now? Well no not reality pump stuff, but generally we're seeing a massive shift towards open world games lately. GTA had its share of clones when it started things, but now we've got lots and lots of different games working that formula. Many have even claimed its the next "fps" in terms of flooding the market as the mainstream flavor of the generation. The ridiculous amount of hype behind the obviously mediocre watch dogs helps show that as well. So... naturally put 1 and 1 together to get 2. More open world games, more emphasize on size and interactions, more things to calculate, more challenging hardware to keep up to date with, a desire for online work, and you just have a more stressing and busy making process that is going to be left with some tiny fragments of missed polish. You can't expect them to be supernatural entities printing out perfect massive online worlds. That's also why suggesting "only games can get away with problems!" is a stupid thing to be arguing. Of course they're one of the very few things that can be mass produced with problems, but nothing else out there lets you interact to such a degree, and if there is (maybe an application?) it also has bugs and a support line to help you through them. Surely with enough time almost anything can be sorted out, but where as back in the PS2 days you could have annual releases without a problem, even bigger teams can barely make a polished game in two years. Programming is more demanding at the same time as the people's desires, and as a result you have a stressed time slot to make games. However these larger teams of people still need to be paid, and so the publisher can't give every game the 4-5 years it would need to be perfect. Now of course a lot of times they're still releasing things too early and don't deserve a full payment with their rushed releases, but they still have a time limit and they need to compromise at some point on that and say "this is good enough, we'll let the world figure out what we missed and patch it".

Its not just open world games either though. Call of Duty has at least three different entire modes on top of their big push. Those campaigns we laugh off still take a lot of work even if 1/3rd isn't playable thanks to terrible scripted sequences, then there's horde modes or special side co-op missions (or both), and then there's online mode which in addition to their overcomplicated balance structure (so many perk and weapon combinations and then all that grinding) also means a matter of map work, stability tests, statistic tracking, etc. Its not that they didn't have enough time to think of risks before, its that they didn't have time to sanely program all of it in and still keep up with the old without removing or losing polish on some big part. This kind of mode arrangement has almost become standard, even when its not wanted. Battlefield 3 had an even worse campaign and a tacked on co-op experience alongside its bigger multiplayer package, Space Marines tried to also keep up with the 3 mode standard, I'm pretty sure gears of war does it, Uncharted 2-3 has it, and more. Its so rare that we have a game as focused in a linear level design mode as The Order, Dishonored, and Wolfenstein anymore, and whenever we do see something like that people love to whine and demand more for the sake of it without coming

Focused mode games are becoming rare

to understand what the game even is. Meanwhile back in the PS2 days there was usually one mode, and maybe a simpler (and honestly better for it) competitive multiplayer function. Something as big as Timesplitters Future Perfect with medal challenges, story, multiplayer, and a level editor where you could make any of those previously mentioned modes was a rare treasure, and even then it was easier to make there than it would be on a modern system with modern AAA expectations. Actually that game is a perfect analogy when you look at Haze, a game by the exact same people with less modes, and way lesser results in quality of what it did have, and it was all blamed on the new hardware (admittedly this was also PS3's cell in the early stages). It didn't even look that great either, it was made earlier on with visuals that some HD re-releases honestly beat. So yeah something going to give in, and sadly the polish will show that. Meanwhile Nintendo is still making almost exactly what they've been doing their whole 3D career, they aren't exactly matching up to other complicated games and so its easier to see why they come up so clean in addition to their great standards.

Now I'm not all for forced evolving games and whatnot, and I don't like a lot of the costs, but at the same time simple bugs are easily one of the more acceptable things that make it worth what's being asked here. Servers having problems on launch? Ok, I get that fine. I got stuck in this weird corner for goofing around over there? Yeah, that's frustrating, but alright I wont do that again. That's so much more tolerable and acceptable than plenty of these other crap things, like forced disc installation despite that no it actually isn't universally required (thanks wii U for not treating us like idiots), or how ridiculously over-bloated some companies get with their overspending, or the fact that some aspects have actually gone backwards and devolved for the sake of cutting corners on their irresponsible spending like p2p matchmaking. Those are things that really piss me off about the "evolving" gaming industry. However when I buy a game like Witcher 3, with so many features in a massive open world RPG form being put across 3 platforms, and they somehow made it in 3 years, yes I expect some minor glitches and maybe even a wacky irritating one but I'm not going to cry about it. I'm a little surprised at just how many nitpicks are there, but I'm able to easily accept it and say it was worth all the effort and things they put into the massive game. All the things I can do, all the places I can go, all the great writing, voice work, choices, and small details, its all a great sign of what out latest hardware can put together and it is so worth the occasional pop-in during my cut-scene, or even a slightly disappointing combat system. I didn't need this to be put on hold another 5 months to fix that stuff, I'm fine with them releasing it now. With the reports of save issues or crashes, yeah I can't exactly blame the people suffering for being a little upset, but it was still worth it to put that game out there and I can patiently wait on patches for those to be corrected.

A game worth patching for!

Even given the circumstances, lets face the honest truth that games also aren't even as bad off as a lot of people like making us believe and maybe considering the complications we might actually be lucky. Its hard to say for sure without being an experienced developer. Yes some games are broken in horrible ways and they deserve our rage, but how many people are actually experiencing the worst of Witcher 3's problems? How many people bought Infamous, Shadows of Mordor from last year and got hit with issues? You probably didn't. What about anything Insomniac or Naughty Dog has made (unless you were one of the unlucky few to get the corrupt save in last of us, but I say "few" for a reason)? Wasn't Tomb Raider released in great shape to? I'm just tackling big names as well, we could look at Shadow Warrior, Bullet storm, Wolfenstein: New Order worked well with or without that ridiculously big day 1 patch, and I'm pretty sure most people were doing fine with The Order earlier in the year as well. We still have plenty of great games that release in great condition, and even some of the glitchy ones aren't that bad. Bloodborne had bad loading screens and wall collision issues, but its nothing less than fantastic and it worked well enough for anybody. On top of that, its worth noting to that even some poorly polished or glitchy games are still amazing to play. Two Worlds 2, Postal 2, and pretty much any Bethesda game (any arkane game as well, even before bethesda acquired them), and just some obscure B grade games that might just click with you.

I think the internet just loves playing up how bad something is, and with our wide reach and connections we may also be highlighting little minority incidents that rarely happened. I mean just look at the PS4's launch, people jumped on a new red ring of death faster than one could possibly be proven, and that's because it didn't actually exist. Over a year later and the PS4 has what appears to be a fairly normal failure rate, although oddly enough the controllers have a much higher problem considering rubber it was originally made with, but that's not what the internet choose to talk about. They instead wanted to hype up this rare hardware error as an epidemic, and for the first month of release it was treated like one. I'm kind of seeing that happen with the witcher 3 right now, I can't go to a website without hearing about these rare problems blown up in my face. Its important to get that information out there of course, but some people take it way too seriously and go on their boycott tangents on why gaming is in the ditch because a few players had to re-install the game to get it working. It can get a little silly, and going back to what I said earlier it can make people start to lose faith in the subject of backlash when at times it might be needed.

...and speaking of which...

There's still a mess to clean up

There's a line to draw with what is an is not acceptable, and yeah I'm fairly sure quite some games have crossed it. I'm looking at you Ubisoft and all those black screens (even after patches) I got in co-op FC4, all those images around of Unity, and then I'm also looking at a few other interesting examples. How do you mess up a remake of a game so badly that people still can't play it long after patches, reports, and complaints? Ask 343 studios, they managed to screw up one of the best potential values of last year with the Halo Collection, which from what I still hear was broken enough that even after months they had to cancel some kind of contest or competition event because of how bad it worked. Bethesda, why did you release Skyrim with a near game breaking problem you knew about but couldn't fix for months and months (and even then some say it still doesn't totally work)? Battlefield 4, you're in the same bin as Halo here, how do you keep something messed up for that long? Why did a re-release of GTA5 go gold when they knew it still needed basic optimization forcing a day 1 patch, and then months later are still tweaking the damn thing? Oh and Batman Origins, nice to hear the team directly come out and say that you released the game broken and were going to leave it that way while you make DLC. Also, sorry wii U owners you're not even getting that.

We're at a point now where its apparently clear that publishers will not stop trying to find ways to cut corners and make a game for profit before fun or common decency. Its hard to come across ones that will show proud respect their consumers, or even be subtle about their greedy intentions. Releasing

even some indie devs rush their game out

complete games just isn't on their biggest priority list at times, and one of several things indicated by this is within the way they're made incomplete, poorly tested, possibly ignoring the tests that they do run, and naturally buggy as a result. At least they make sure their companion apps, in-game DLC store button, pre-order bonuses, and season passes work are there in full order and support on day 1.

The anti-patch people do need to be taken seriously at some point, and if you're dismissing them all then honestly you deserve what's coming to you from that. There really is a problem with some publishers in gaming, and we have to actually stand by something like the Battlefield series, or the next 343 game and say "prove yourselves". Don't buy it in masses, wait for the super fans to go in first and then buy it 1-2 months down the road if things look clean. Even if it released perfectly, it still sends the message that they're to pay for what they did before, and that people wont just trust you. If they swear up and down it works and you just buy into it day 1 over that, they see you've learned nothing and are completely gullible. However I'm also going to say its innocent until proven guilty. That's what the extreme boycotters don't get. That's where you have people making paragraphs ranting about how Witcher 3 or a simple re-balancing patch is somehow the embodiment of every gamer's suffering, and they get rightfully laughed off. Many games are still working just fine, or just doing their job, and yes sometimes they do need patching but its a quirky little hole found in your typical video game, and you don't need to lose sleep over it. However just know that this isn't a universal case. If a game fails to meet decent quality, or even manages to get bugs mentioned in reviews (I know, a miracle that a critic would actually do their job right), then avoid it or don't go rushing for its sequel if its already too late.

As much as I hate to be that guy the gaming crash was in large part caused by broken games, alongside games too close to each other, and over time they just stopped buying them enough to cause a big scene. Maybe that wont happen again, but just in case the threat is real... well, we've got quite a few symptoms of another one coming. Asking that just enough people don't pre-order or day 1 buy Battlefield 4, the next AC, the next COD (ha! Like that'll happen), and the next Halo, and maybe some will start to wake up. Like I said, super fans will still be there and there will still be there alongside honest youtube critics to test it for you. Let them take the blow, and see if things really do work right before sending them your money. Don't reward poor work. Just don't get carried away and ignore brilliant games with tiny flaws. Heck even dig up the heavily flawed cult hits, they're usually interesting.

Like this magnificent train wreck, deadly premonition.

Photorealism: A dream or a nightmare?

Photorealism is supposedly a goal of the gaming industry, and potentially other various areas of culture. Its the idea that we have so much power that we can almost become worldy creators, making something so close to the world we truly do live in that we cannot see a difference. It means that our graphics would be unbelievable, textures that you could feel just by looking at them, real reflections, and believable emotions. At least in theory, this is an incredible dream. Yet the more I think about it, and the more I hear of it, it actually sounds like quite a nightmare.

Okay so lets set aside what should be the obvious pitfalls. Lets ignore the ridiculous budget demands, numbers like resolution and framerate, and the implications it would have on the market. Those are all very important consequences, but lets return to them later and start with a very simple and basic concern that shatters this idea of photo-real gaming. Ever heard of the Uncanny Valley effect? It looks kind of like this, or this (especially the dude in the middle). Its a real effect where something can look disturbing if it is very realistic yet still evidently mechanical in some slight or even subconscious way. I don't actually believe it to be as big of a deal as some do, and can tolerate movies like Final Fantasy Spirits within without ever truly feeling creeped out. Actually I kind of appreciate how surreal it looks in the occasional movie. Meanwhile a video game... uh... I just can't... no. We admittedly don't have a perfect example, but I'd kind of like to keep it that way. Considering we have a social community that whines and pretends a game is broken if it runs at 30fps, I can't see them handling the uncanny valley effect either.

The thing is we can see something realistic from a movie because... its a movie. We're not using it, we're looking at it and we see everything just as intended and captures and sold to us. If they wanted it to look real, they film it and actually capture real living people for the scenes. If they wanted to fake something, its never actually the people they turn into CGI but rather monster, explosions, mechanical things, or they just outright animate the whole dang thing. Meanwhile a game never is promised or locked into running consistently, and cannot actually capture real life and drag it into a programmable and interactive game. The closest is motion capture and scanning replications. Everything is artificial in some way, and that especially goes for the straight forward visuals and the rate at which they perform. You're in control of the game, and as such you're working within a space of programs that you as a sole individual (unless its multiplayer) influence. Naturally you can go beyond what is expected, or cause numbers of strange variables to mess with something. Whether this is a simple 5fps drop in performance, or outright falling through a wall or floor, you can usually break a game in some way without even intending to do so. The more expensive things get, the more we rely on online (and depend on servers and players), and the longer and more complicated games get to make, the more issues we're going to see in games. That's why games have been getting sloppier and need patches these days as it is. So imagine having your hyper realistic unharted suddenly teleport to the wall during a cover animation hiccup, or lagging in your realistic COD game. Heck let me ask you in both of those examples if you'd still be okay with killing waves of enemies, when it looks like you've got a lot of "photoreal" dead people lying around you at the end of every battle... assuming they don't creepily fade out. The worst thing though just might be having a photo-real Team Fortress 3...

Games aren't just a matter of looking real, and as more people come out to push the tech I get worried we hit a period in which some lost the desire to work with restrictions. That was before the major indie boom, so naturally that's not the real case in the whole picture, but still its a shame that the more we move on in gaming the more people just want to talk about how "serious" and "emotional" there game will look if they can make it look so close to the real world. Nobody ever talks about how cell shading might look with reflective waters, or how a comic book style might benefit from advanced particles, or how far 2D games have come, or how modern textures would improve say Mario 64, its instead all about using that tech to make your vision look stupidly like something we already have: real life. Yeah I have that vision to, its called my eye sight, but when it comes to gaming I'd rather see something more unique and fun. Its why I think that Killzone 2 always looked better than uncharted, while Uncharted just tried to be serious looking Killzone at least had a crazy art direction with its industrial torn sci-fi world, glowy lights, and exaggerated dark tones. It was cool to see, and many fans actually hated the change in tone with Shadow Fall. Then there's some truly amazing art styles where the game doesn't look serious at all, like Okami, Ratchet & Clank, Mario Kart 8, Borderlands, and more. If photorealism took over, we might just lose even more of what we have left in these stylish games. Art is one of those areas where restriction is supposed to breed creativity, but instead we just have a bunch of people flying close to the sun only to burn before they touch it. I don't want even more of that!

Look its nice that tech is advancing and I can agree that Shadow fall, The Order, and Infamous all look good on the PS4, but the biggest thing to surprise and impress me with its graphics out of all the newest generation games I've played would have to be Mario Kart 8. Seriously, its just so happy! The cartoon world of mario elevated perfectly onto higher hardware. It has brighter colors, high resolution, great particle and motion effects, having things splash up on screen in a racing game, and incredible textures that just give a certain pop to the TV screen. I just love it, and its the only game out of all the new stuff that consistently puts a smile on my face by just its graphics. Meanwhile the serious stuff.... just looks too close to serious stuff to actually enjoy it. Maybe the first playthrough of them would amaze me. I love the reflective surfaces, the perfect textures, and that amazing art style of level 9 for the first time in Shadow Fall, but quickly the whole thing just kind of became ordinary. Aside from the wonderful level 9, very few things there really impress me anymore because it just kind of became normal. On the other hand going back to Okami always leaves me playing with the paint brush just because its so visually different, and again MK8 just always keeps that smile on my face because its just so darn happy in its HD cartoon style. Now if Ratchet & Clank takes Nexus' graphics up a few levels further, then my eyes may not be able to take its awesomeness.

Beautiful!

However lets move onto the other implications, because its not just a matter of performance and alternative graphics. Lets try to pretend I know what development is actually like. Okay, sarcasm aside we do know that games are harder to make today so that we could achieve the hardware and complexity we have now. Heck Atari games could be made in months by one person, and now we can barely have a well functioning game made in two years by hundreds of people and they're expecting sales of up to 3+ million and they can't even be expected to work complete and make the best of the hardware we have now. So... you expect this exact same industry to be on the road to photo-realism!? That road sure has a lot of curves, turns, and needs some paving to fix a few holes. The budgets would be ridiculous, and dev time hitting a new ceiling. Oh and lets consider that the only game that has the sort of polish required to meet photorealism might just be The Order 1886, which is 6-7 hours long with a terrible ending, only a linear campaign, and a tried and true formula and that was after delays and 4 or so years of development. Do you expect that to work for 30+ hour RPGs, and open world games? Now to play against my skepticism, if scanning technology or capture stuff gets so good maybe we will see a lot of this stuff streamlined and cheaper. Though then again we'll also probably see people hiring major actors (sure we get one or two names on occasions now, but imagine entire hollywood type casts) so... nevermind, its still too expensive and ridiculous. Its AAA, you can count on them to overblow things where it doesn't help and to cut corners in frustrating places.

At te end of the day I just don't sympathize with this desire to go all the way or go home with graphics. Photo-realism just seems destined to mess things up in some way or another, and nothing is really accomplished besides saying you can do it. Some games are blessed to be held back by their restrictions, or make us of an art style. Minecraft is blocky for a reason: Its about building a world out of those blocks. I think more games would feel right at home following a similar pattern, taking what they are and going proudly stylish with it rather than looking so serious. Of course there's exceptions and moments now where serious stuff isn't bad, and I feel somewhat hypocritical with my article around talking about how awesome some of the serious games look because of how stupidly dated they are now, but ultimately my question is why are we asking for photo-realism? Is that really going to help improve our games? I can't help but feel like the only people that would truly, really, and honestly answer that with a yes are the same ones that pretend animation is for children only. Yet Team Fortress 2 still looks damn fine to me for an M rated FPS. I wouldn't exactly give that up with more bills to pay and scaring half the audience, rather I'd encourage the art style to stay awesome.

Just perfect!

Now Playing: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Okay so I'm supposed to talk about the game and first impressions, but holy smokes I just got to talk about how awesome CD Projekt red is first even as a guy that's never touched their content before. Well for starters they're against DRM enough to fly in front of steam and say "not good 'nuff, try ours instead" and make their own site called GOG (a great site I recommend ahead of steam if they have the game you want) while still distributing through steam for those happier there. Then they have a no bullshit common PR stance where most of their info and press releases are down to earth and normal, humane, and just kind. I do emphasize most, but I'll get back to that soon. They support pre-orders through physical rewards, remastered their first game and stuffed it with bonuses when they decided the DRM was just too bad long ago, they were confident with their game to let people play it for 12 hours, and then... well and then there's how it directly effected me with seeing a $60 retail copy that claimed bonuses. Open the game up (out of its beautiful DVD-like jacket case) and its so much that the paper holder things literally broke off as I was opening it! We're talking story manuals, physical soundtrack (screw the guys that are shoving this digital nonsense and calling it Collector's editions now, I'm looking at you Sony), a poster, a map, stickers, and at the very front of it all was a red slip of paper that is thanking the gamer, talking about their work, and restating the news that there will be 16 free updates to come for the game.

Of course there will be people out there telling me this is some awful persuasive corporate trick. Fine, yes you can say that and given the normal market I can't totally blame you. There is also the ongoing downgrade controversy (though that's still handled better than most). Still if this is corporate evil, its corporate evil done right (I've been meaning to write about that sometime actually). This stuff makes the consumer feel good, it adds value and collectibles to their product and world. Yes it builds loyalty and gets your fans pumped up, but its out of happiness while others are starving you into corner, asking for loyalty by giving you bread crumbs. However I don't personally even go that far with that idea, I think they're just doing everything right. Build something good and they will come, and then they seem to go out of the way to throw extra incentives to light the way to that good thing, is there anything wrong with that? For what little shoddiness they have down with the possible downgrading, I sure think they've done WAY more good to make it alright. Nobody else I know of goes this far out of the way to make an ordinary gamer buying a normal $60 copy at a wal-mart feel that great, and its just wonderful that they're putting this much good will out there at a time like present. Heck... even if this happened years ago, just look at this stuff! Have you ever had a new game break its own case because it was too much extra content to contain!? That's just flippin' awesome! Between the hype and the extras, its no wonder it was nearly sold out (got the last PS4 copy I was told, and to add to it they actually put it out for sale late and turned some away) Its a collector's edition without the figurine & fancy art book... and I really mean that, just look at it.

This^ is the normal copy. Now compare to this

I just had to talk about how great it feels to see people that understand the free market, and earn their loyalty through work and good will. I feel that much better buying this on day 1 and taking a pretty big risk on a game I wasn't sure about. However what good are bonuses to a game that isn't good? Thankfully that's not the case, because the real question isn't so much as "is it good", rather its "why is it so good?" because I'm not sure why I love it so much, but I just do. My first impressions (which are kind of maybe 10 hours on in at this point) with the game are steadily climbing into the idea of a masterpiece. Despite babbling on about all the extra crap for the first two paragraphs, I actually forgot what was in it the 2nd night I was playing this game because its just one of those games that totally occupies your mind and time for a while, making you forget the simple things like its map, or that there's a helpful lore book, and instead really hooked on the game. I don't quite know what it is about it, but so far this game has been taking everything I typically think about both open world and RPGs and tearing it out in a good way.

RPG stats are fun to keep up with when the combat is meaningful and there's so much to do with it (alchemy, hunting, crafting, dismantling, selling, and a very weird but interesting upgrade system), and the open world is fantastic when its so well crafted and cared for that even your out-of-game screenshots are saved by name of the area. The open world aspect is especially immersive, and if it wasn't for the internet and chores I'd have my life sucked away entirely by it. Its done at a perfect pace where every side quest, every slightly important NPC is given special lines of dialogue with choices, haggling prices, perfectly morally gray twists, and set pieces that inspire a theory on how you may have influenced it differently. The game feels just as much about the story as it does the open world size, and the two tie perfectly together. I don't feel like I'm in some robotic thin stretched world so much as a world full of stories, legends, and possibilities. Its all so unpredictable and so engaging. I can't quite figure out why they made it feel so good compared to say Bioware games, but I guess they just do the talking just enough. Not even once have I felt like there was too much of it. The gameplay itself moves at a similar pace. It might just be my favorite RPG (not counting souls stuff, because that stuff is barely RPG-ish anyways). Oh and the music, while nothing too new, just manages to do something right. I find myself actually paying attention to it, and having it inspire awe in the scenes it plays within. Its not quite on the level of say Skyrim, but its close and feels much better than the typical orchestrated soundtracks. I especially love the softer tracks. I'm so happy the soundtrack comes with the game, and I'm enjoying it now as I type (Cloak & Dagger FTW!).

Love the story, and its pacing is perfect!

Yet despite the massive size marketed on the box and interviews, its actually so many of the small things I love. Maybe cut-scenes and dialogue trees for side-quests is a bigger one of the small touches so I'll just gloss over that again. What really got me was that you have real-time facial hair. Seriously. The fact that I had a long beard after waiting on a wraith mission just got such a weird thrill out of me. Its all the resources at your disposal, the way you logically use nature as your health kits rather than any single dedicated magical source. Its the fact that the animal AI is very realistic, unpredictable, and scared. Its that awesome feeling of piecing together a mystery and tracking things. Or just the little moments and surprises in the middle of missions. Things like that just have me all so happy and thrilled to keep  playing in this amazing new game. Of course I still love the size as its an excuse to keep experiencing it, and it really is massive. However its the small things that keep me really interested... I mean heck, I even got excited over spending 10 minutes in a menu to craft my first armor set, that's just unlike my usual self but Witcher knows how to make the small things interesting.

The weird thing though is that's also where the game sort of stutters on, certain small things. Its actually really weird really. You hear of this being the next big thing in AAA, you hear on how it might be GOTY, and all this hype for a massive project by a team that has been dedicated to giving you high end PC RPG experiences... and yet some of the silliest polish flubs are left clear as daylight. Its nothing actually bad, its just that its amazing how many little oddities are in there. Cut-scene pop-ins, trees that actually fade in and out disappearing as you bump into them, scenes and loads stuttering, laughable quest tracking that might get you lost if you rely on it too hard, camera angles glitching out, and some weird combat hiccups. Its nothing to cry over, but its the kind of combined lack of polish that my mind associates with middle tier obscure games mimicking AAA rather than the next big game. That's not exactly an insult either, while everyone obviously wants the best polish possible the reality is that's tough, but this game is so worth going through regardless. The whole thing has a middle tier charm about it really, aside from just how massive and narratively detailed it is. The combat is different, the inventory feels old school without being terrible, the fixed character is a strange but welcomed change from the norm of the genre, and there's just a lot of neat little things your typical team just doesn't think of. Its great really, and I can tolerate any small glitches as long as it stays away from some of the major stuff some people are reporting (crashes and save issues).

The biggest complaint I do have though is on the combat hiccups I glossed over. Now I'll be loaud about admitting that I'm flawed in fighting and that I could use more practice, but some of these things just aren't my fault. Sometimes rolls or swings don't quite work, both you and enemies just don't connect right all the time, sometimes entire functions lock-up or just decide to take a break on you, and then there was a boss fight I recently had where the sword fighting enemy was not only immune to blocking for an unexplained reason, but would also hurt me if I attacked him while blocking (it wasn't a counter-attack either, it just plain hurt me). Oh and on that last one, it was inconsistent because his block animation sometimes didn't matter and stunned him anyways. I love the combat on paper, but in execution it doesn't even follow its own damn rules and these moments can be a little frustrating. That previously mentioned boss fight ate up pretty much my entire health inventory by the time it was over, but I kind of felt like it was an unnecessary sacrifice if the combat had actually worked right. The worst wasn't actually even that fight though, the worst thing happened during a typical bandit battle in the woods. Riding on horse back, and the very last guy left was low on health when suddenly everything except the steering stopped working. Bow wouldn't fire, sword wouldn't swing, I couldn't get off my horse, and even the bandit was kind of stuck to his position for a bit. I had to nearly die by letting myself get hacked off the horse to get things running again, just to finish off a lone bandit. Thankfully that was a freak occurrence, but still a rather hair pulling one. Funnily enough though one of the best combat encounters was with a werewolf side-quest that out-leveled me (level 3 taking on a level 7 quest) and pushed me to try and try again.

When combat does work, it is great

Still complaining about this game, even something that sounds as important as combat, is like complaining some amazing old treasure you found at an antique shop has a tiny scratch on it. At the end of the day, you've still got something incredible on your hands. I absolutely love this game so far. I'm almost glad R&C got delayed so I could take a risk on this instead. So many times I just find myself saying out load that this game is just "sooooo good!". I've got a bunch of potential youtube videos planned, some exciting quests to venture into, I'm so excited about the main campaign's direction and constant mystery, I'm hoping to see some of the characters return, every new dialogue cut-scene has me excited to hear the conversation exchange and what choices might present themselves, and I keep looking at that map with eyes of wonder thinking "what else is out there....". On top of that I already see a lot of replay potential and a sense of discovery in what was already traveled upon. That goes for everything, choices I made in conversation, the way I did quests, the way I've build my character, and just that curiosity of how I'll do things differently with the knowledge I have on the core mechanics. I just hope this enjoyment lasts, its hard to tell with RPGs. Borderlands had me addicted for a week, and now I never want to look at the series again because I'm so sick of numbered gun stat comparing. So I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed that this game just gets better rather than worse over time, but there's really no telling with RPGs.

Its all enough to make me look at the silly cover quote and acclaim of "defines next-gen" and has me nodding my head. Its a truly new experience for me that capitalizes on features of the old like dialogue cut-scenes and choices, open world explorations, and options while also doing just enough new and specializing in the newer hardware to give it a feeling that nothing else before hand could have contained such a good game. The AI, the scale at which it calculates things like even the beard growth and diverse time and weather, and then even something like the screenshots being named by their area, its all pretty incredible and it feels like Projekt Red  was truly making this special for the present time. Its kind of hard to believe they've only been working on it for 3 years (as claimed on the red slip of paper). It truly does feel next-gen, above and beyond Trials, Killzone, Wolfenstein, Bloodborne, Far Cry 4, and the other games I've played. Though Shadows of mordor comes close with that great nemesis system. That's not to say any of those games are bad or any lesser, but they're all marks of the past in some way where as Witcher 3 just feels so powerfully new and unique to me. Then there's also a rather humorous but good article on how amazing it is that Witcher 3 simply doesn't slow you down with NPCs, as they keep to your pace most of the time. Maybe its just my lack of experience with RPGs or even just the series itself, but I can nod my head and say that this was a risk worth taking traveling to risky and unknown territory, and it feels like it does the best it can in most areas.

Cool

However what's terrible is that I haven't gotten further whenever I've spent time making this long article. :p So if you'll excuse me, its time to go back to Witcher 3. I'm off to track the bog witches and see what they may be up to. Oh and again thanks for being awesome CDPR, I look forward to whatever your next IP may be, and I should probably look into grabbing the original witcher sometime if I end up finishing this one. I'm truly interested in their work at this point, past, present, and future. However one thing at a time, lets get back to witcher 3...

Riding off into the sunset!

Top 10 game themes

Yeah I don't you just absolutely love that feeling when a game stars up blasting you with an incredible theme. Its one of the best first impressions possible honestly, because before you even see the game its already grabbing you in and amazing you through audio choice alone. Then your mind is just tuned in and pumped, and the game can just... well kind of do whatever and still have some essence of that great music carry over. 1st impressions aside, it can also just stick with you. It can feel great each time you jump into a game, it can live on in the fanbase as a massively iconic piece, and it can even inspire you to come back when you've since put the game down for a few weeks or longer. The power of music isn't to be downplayed, and its kind of a shame that only every so often is there an amazing theme. Heck quite a bit of the fantastic soundtracks out there are from smaller or less discussed games, and its almost routine now to hear of an indie making a soundtrack more special and personal while waiting on a game like Skyrim to show up with a fantastic soundtrack. Still fantastic performances exist in quite a few places, and its time for me to narrow things down to my favorite 10.... or at least try to. Okay so some basic disclaimers and ground rules:

1. This is for themes. Maybe sometimes I'll do a soundtrack, or best not theme game music, but for now lets talk about game themes, be it explicitly titled or extremely iconic enough to be considered a theme. It also only counts for the game in question, no bending the rules into a character's theme. That being said though, apologies to Duke Nukem, because his amazing theme wont be in since its not actually in the game to the best of my knowledge. This also means some other incredible soundtracks will be left out, including one of my favorites Donkey Kong Country, because honestly the theme itself wasn't as good as the others.
2. I'm doing my best to put these into numbers, but that's really hard and I'm also pretty sure I'll end up leaving out some fantastic themes out there. So like with my (already regretted) characters list this is a situation where I'm sure I'll not truly cover everything
3. Sorry guys, but I'm not a big fan of really old game music. In addition to it being out of my time (late 90's), I just don't see a ton of value in it. I don't hate chiptune stuff or anything (love aqua kitty's soundtrack for example), but there's no theme out there that bests this stuff in my book. Its a popular thing though among gamers, so I guess its just best to warn you that this isn't another one of those classics lists.

10) Trials Fusion

This just has a really feel good vibe when paired with the art style and goal of the game, and is a great way to set it up. Its this strange industrial trance type song with simple but catchy lyrics, and just a strange pumped up sciency sports feel to it. It feels great, and I always pause for a moment to listen to it for a bit. Its not exactly the best thing ever, but its perfect for the game, and feels great to listen to, and is just one of the better themes I've come to remember in recent times. Heck it might be the newest game on the list really.

9) Turok Evolution

For some reason I was considering the nice but slow and interesting industrial theme of Unreal Tournament for this spot when for whatever reason that reminded me of this gem. Its not the kind of theme that stays on your mind, or comes up during this conversation, yet it probably deserves it. Its a really finely made theme that begins with a simple flute, and bursts in with a full on tribal toned orchestra accompanied by the ambiance of the wild and time-less world of the game. Its a great way to start out the game (alongside the animated menu background that you could actually watch for quite some time), and has this strange effect of getting you excited without being consciously aware its the theme that's doing it.

8) Spyro: The Dragon

I'm actually just not sure where to put this one, I feel just as safe putting this at like #3 as I do #9 or so. Spyro's got an incredible soundtrack, but its kind of a weird one and that's what the theme is showing. Its upbeat, has a nice rhythm, great drumming sound, but yet you don't know how to classify it or when it'd be a great time to listen to it. Its not necessarily perfect or odd for the game, it just works and sounds great. Either way though it belongs on the list, and hearing this theme or even so much as a piece of another song that sounds close to this theme puts a smile on my face and makes me not only feel all good about the great times with Spyro, but also just... well listen to it. Its so darn happy in itself. You can put it on as the music in your car on a nice sunny day and it just works and lifts your spirits up. Its a great theme song from an amazing soundtrack, and definitely belongs somewhere on this list, anywhere short of best or last.

7) Two Worlds

I love that this song is actually called "play the game" in title and shows up appropriately at your main menu. Two Worlds is... a very interesting game I guess we could say, but I think it stands a bit underrated and its theme song is one of various areas where that sort of shows. Thing is though I'm not quite sure if I'd put it higher or not, because it is a great theme but a bit slow for the sake of getting you so excited. I merely got to the good part because I was being harassed by the awful DRM, or on the better GOG version simply sorting through options. Its not a fantastic theme in all the ways, but as a song in itself it might just be one of the very best out of this whole list. As a fan of Symphonic metal I just love everything about this song, and it just feels right at home within a fantasy game. Nice operatic vocals, gentle immersive opening pace, awesome climatic rock feel in the later parts, and... well its just great. I actually in part bought the GOG version with the promise of the soundtrack, simply because I loved this song on its own merits, as an actual song. I was actually listening to it off my Vita today. The first time I heard this song I waited for it to loop, and combined with that sweeping map view I just sat there doing nothing on the menu but imagining what would await in a game that started with this amazing theme. As a song its fantastic. I'm just not quite sure its a shining example of how to do a perfect theme though, because of its slower opening, but I guess there's a certain other song guilty of that on this list as well. Lets not get ahead of myself though.

6) Doom 3

This is quite the opposite of TW's theme. Its not quite good enough to go on its own, but as a theme for a game it just absolutely nails the game. Every monster that wants to tear you apart, every crazy gun you pick up, every crazy PDA file you find to uncover the lore, every dark spooky corner with a jump scare, all of that is just felt within the presentation of the menu and this rockin' theme song. Its just perfect for Doom 3! It feels so good to hear it start up, and it just makes me want to go grab some off brand or weird energy drink out of the fridge and prepare to fight demons in some cheesy industrial mid-2000's corridor shooter, and I couldn't ask for a better theme for precisely that kind of game.

5) Skyrim

This is what I was sort of implying from Two Worlds' spotlight. Yet another RPG with an incredible theme in sound, and actually somewhat reminiscent of symphonic metal as well. Its just got that epic scale, and powerful choir vocals, if you managed to fuse the two songs together you'd have a knock-off Epica song. However it also falls into the same trap, and this time I actually did miss it. It wasn't just by accident, or a single rushed entry either, I actually went for over a week of playing without ever hearing the wonders of this theme song. The menu is dull and black with only fog, the music is really slow to even start (and I really mean start, you can actually play the game without even hearing a sound sometimes), and even when it does all you get for bit is the drumming... which just sounds like a generic and rushed choice that could totally be any other game's theme, so given the menu you kind of accept it as that and run off into the game. Meanwhile people were telling me about this legendary theme song I was somehow missing. I even recall asking a friend over at his house if he played skyrim, and he answered by humming it while inviting me to watch him play on the computer, and I was left kind of clueless since I didn't know what the heck he was trying to sing. However one amazing day I put the game on and walked away, only to come back and hear the middle of a masterpiece. I shouldn't have to explain why I feel its so great, it just is. Listen to it.

If anything I guess its not higher on the list because... well honestly it reminds me a bit like this song without the metal, vocals, and same great climax. I was really into listening to Epica at the time (well I still do, they're my favorite band) and this song specifically, and just found Skyrim by comparison to be a lesser version. I just don't listen to it that often, don't feel very compelled by it, and just don't wait on its slow star up. It sounds kind of weird to dismiss it because of that, but its close enough to the stuff I love only to find it not so unique as a game, and yet its not close enough to what I love to truly feel like an amazing stand-alone song (at least Play The Game has a gentle opening pace that sets it apart from straight up symphonic metal). It only made it this high on the list because I can tell a lot of work was put into it, and it truly is still a great theme song.

4) Halo

You should have known this would be on here somewhere. The funny thing is... its actually kind of lost a bit of its value. I guess its just from hearing it so much. However I still can point to every single thing it does right and just really take in and appreciate that feeling it gives off. Those ethereal choir vocals, that long energized opening guitar riff, and that rocking build up, it all just works. Its a piece of nearly all the themes previously mentioned on this list, unified in an amazing way (rocks like Doom, tribal beat like turok, epic choir like skyrim). Its all that more incredible considering I wasn't used to hearing this sort of energetic rock/metal song combined with choirs and orchestra when I originally heard it so many years ago. The best part might just be that the theme feels connected with many other songs in the soundtrack, so its not just a one trick pony but rather a big grand opening into a game that just keeps delivering on such a grand sound paced at just the right moments to make things feel truly special. Love it! Just not quite as much as I probably used to.

3) Awesomenauts

Who wants a video game theme that sounds like a fantastic action packed saturday morning cartoon? YEAAAAAH!!! Awesomenauts is basically what happens when you slap together the art styles of R&C, EarthWorm Jim, and then splash it all in an 80's-90's vibe of saturday morning cartoon style fun. The theme song and intro really show that. However I'll assume people are awesome enough to have played or seen the intro before, yet they might miss out on the great extended version, so I did you the favor of linking it to that. The singing is great, the sound effects feel right with the mood they're pulling off (or the video intro itself), and the pacing of the song just feels perfect. I just really love this song, whether on its own (you have to get used to the sfx, but its still great) or with the game, and it makes me wish we kind of had a real Awesomenauts cartoon to go with it. Its truly one of my favorite themes out of gaming, even if that's because its mocking a cartoon.

2) Dragon's Dogma (original copy)

Another RPG huh? So are you expecting another operatic, or choir driven thing, or will I name drop epica again (haha, I just did)? Nope, surprise! Totally unexpected J-rock song! I've gone ahead and included the trailer/music video form, but in-game its the exact theme just in the start menu. I was absolutely hyped through the roof on this game when it was coming out. However I didn't care about anything other than monsters, and how perfect the combat was going to be. When I got home all excited, and was met with this J-rock ambush, I was even more blown away. You guys did it! You kicked yet another stupid RPG cliche and threw out the boring orchestra crap for something that just plain rocked. You took the right pages out of action games, and gave us an amazing combat driven adventure fantasy game that kicks off with a high energy rock song that just sounds so damn good. I actually ended up listening to this song every single time I started up the game. The entire thing. Every time. It was just one of those things, one of those game rituals I had to commit to because of its quality, it was just that great. I'm not even really a fan of J-rock either, it just took me by surprise as a great song to hear. It was uplifting, instrumentally reminds me a bit more of power metal than rock, and just made me want to go run out in a field and fight monsters with some fantasy sword and magic. Many said it didn't fit the game, but... I dunno, I felt it loosely worked well and I just really enjoyed it. Like Play The Game I grabbed this song for normal listening, but unlike that song its perfectly paced and became a ritual pleasant experience for an already amazing game.

The only terrible thing I can really say about it is that Capcom lost that message and tossed out the theme in the Dark Arisen re-release, which is why I stress that this theme is for the original copy only. Maybe you could argue that its not the real theme, but I think its one of those theme-like songs that went above and beyond expectations and overshadowed the lame opera/harp song as the true iconic theme for Dragon's Dogma. Its one of those themes so good that it became known with the game, and was even mentioned in various reviews. Yeah I'm sure it counts as the game's theme more so than the dull harp thing.

1) Tomb Raiders themes (nearly all of them)

Honestly when Tomb Raider rebooted it went through quite a massive change while still trying to appeal to some of the same adventure fans. I think it managed to do pretty well in a lot of places (once I stopped listening to the idiots telling me it was an alternate uncharted). However if there's one thing they ruined, this and the rest of the musical direction might be the biggest offender. Its slow, soul-less, generic, and a run-of-the-mill movie orchestra toned thing. Its not some iconic theme that stands out, its not memorable, and it only fits the game in a by the scene dramatic sort of way. I don't even remember where it even shows up and I played the game 3 and a half times, They were ashamed to put it in the menu and I can't figure out what scene they tied it to. However this is apparently their "theme" with the tagline backing it. I'm not exactly trying to attack a good game, and the music is serviceable enough to pass. However the step back in the music department just makes this more important as a good theme, and highlights it more as a fantastic contrast. Its a perfect example of not only what an incredible theme can sound like, and how it can be used to shape and mold the ambitions of any game. While its hard to choose an absolute favorite theme, very few have ever felt as powerful to me as Tomb Raider's older themes... which is ironic considering I haven't taken any major part in them apart from Legendary, the reboot, and at least half of Underworld. Yet that's just part of the kick to it, even without knowing the roots of the games as a fan, their theme kind of tells me what its like and commands a strange degree of respect. Well that and it makes for a good first spot because unlike the last 2, its purely made for the game (awesomeanuts tried to mock a cartoon, and DD's was made by a real band) and more of a true theme.

Tomb Raider, especially the 1st, 3rd, and legend, all had an incredible thrill to their theme. It felt mysterious, it felt haunting, it was enchanting and otherwordly, and yet it channeled into that familiar part of your soul that says "I'm ready for an adventure!". The choir in each one is perfect, the ambiance was incredible and dripped with a certain hard to describe but easy to love atmosphere, and it just made you feel empowered to play and be a gamer exploring made up worlds of imagination and enjoyment with surprises, treasure, and monster around the corner. On top of that I guess its also an easier top choice because its one single series that has hit gold with its themes more than once, and it all keeps the same quality and adventure concepts while adding twists to them.

Taking my favorites as an example, the first just sounds really mysterious and gentle while also carrying the previously mentioned enchanting/haunting tones. It keeps things simple and to the point. TR3 has more of an ambiance to it, like there's a wind or energy to the air, but still most of the same basic sound. It picks up a little more, and teases a sense of action or danger, only to end on a far more beautiful sound (instead of just fading, there's more of a peaceful lull to it alongside a ghostly but gentle hum). Legend on the other hand is running on more of its own course completely, yet it strangely... still carries the same qualities. Its still very enchanting, but the big change (other than the familiar melody) is the tone. Its much lighter, less like a tomb feel and more like a globe trotting action adventure (which is what the game is). Its got a feeling of higher stakes and action, but still that distant feeling of mystery. Its got more of a sense in its timeline, like Lara knows what she's doing and is ready for it with more of an experienced outlook on things, but has still yet to see it all. All 3 are amazing themes that fit the tone and feeling of the game within them, but on the whole nearly all the themes are amazing. Its the only game on this list with not just a single great theme, but a franchise built off of a reoccuring and amazing theme whether its remixing the original or coming up with something else that is still very rewarding on your ears.

Delaying the delay pain.... and ramblings on summer droughts.

Well a sad news day indeed when one of my most anticipated titles all year gets delayed. It wasn't the most popular upcoming game, it wasn't showing any footage yet, but still it felt like a simple wish. Yet here it is, Ratchet & Clank both movie and game are delayed for spring of next year, about one year of what we were originally told. Very sad indeed, but honestly... I can't actually be too sad. We're still getting a movie on one of my favorite franchises ever along with a new game, and its more promising that the game isn't necessarily being rushed to meet with it this year. I've got to be honest, I kind of suspected this might happen the rate at which it was being advertised. However now with a lonely summer coming up, uncharted 4 also delayed, and my biggest game being delayed that must mean 2015 is another dull boring 2014.... right? Yeah screw that nonsense, ungrateful fools that bring up that kind of logic don't know how to have fun. 2014 was a fine year, and so is 2015 so far. If I hear summer gaming drought one more time I might flip.

Here's a newsflash. I have a backlog, you have a backlog, everybody is always talking about backlogs, free stuff if you've got PS+, new DLC, or steam sales, and you can damn well put that controller into your hands and play them instead of whining about how Batman's upcoming game isn't served to you in the morning on a silver tray. If you don't have any of that stuff to play at your finger tips, and you've actually truly worn out what you have (you probably haven't), then go to the digital store or gamestop and take a look around for something cheap. You haven't seen anything close to all the stuff you could have had fun with. Have you ever gone hunting dinosaurs in a semi-realistic arcade simulator? You can for $12 as Carnivores HD, an obscure game on PSN that'll keep you busy. That game you avoided because the internet said it betrayed the series is only $10-20, and its probably not all that bad. Like adventure games? Okami HD on PSN is possibly one of the best 40 hours you'll ever get out of an adventure game, so go check that out because the sales sure say far too many have missed out on it. Oh and how about those remasters you people keep pretending you hate for no good reason, I'm certain you didn't play all those games yet many of those remastered were great games even people outside of the genre could find value in. ...and then there's Bulletstorm, sly cooper 4, Monster hunter, R&C nexus, Lords of the Fallen, and countless other decent titles that have had low sales but good quality and a decent change up from the norm, and you're probably one of the dumies that ignored them before because it wasn't your hyped up release so why not correct that and grab it now. sigh... point is, there's a ton of great games out there that could be played. Stop whining over the small gap in new massive hit games, they'll bombard you soon enough in the later half of the year. Meanwhile the rest of the market didn't fall into a black hole, and in fact many great games out there are actually amazing hidden gems. I'll be discovering what many missed (and will probably miss again) when I pick up Legend of Kay anniversary instead of R&C later this month.

The world isn't over just because a game didn't release on time. Sit down, drink a cup of relaxing tea, and play that weird cheap game that slightly interests you, or that game you missed, or that thing that's been collecting dust unplayed because some friend gave it to you at a busy time, or those dozens of games you'll buy and "play later" from a steam sale. Best of all though, actually take good care of the great games you do have and enjoy them again. Yes, its called replaying, when you're not stupid enough to let gamestop rip you off with trade-in prices and ruin your collection by giving it away. Some amazing moments, battles, strategy, or alternate paths can be made in games when you relive them, and that's part of what every great gamer should be doing in some down time away from big press releases and roaring hype machines from busy game releases.

I suppose I got a little side tracked from the very start of this post, but this has been a long time coming really. Sure its sad that I miss out on both a movie and a game this year, but next year will be even better, and this year for now just got an open space free where I can buy or try something brand new instead. Legend of Kay looks a little more possible, and I'll have something left over to maybe try out something weirder, or maybe even somehow scrap together enough to pick-up Witcher 3 without screwing over my plans for Doom (assuming that doesn't get delayed, which would still be okay) and MGS5. Either way I just don't see the point in sitting and complaining about delays, and acting like some ungrateful goof that doesn't know how to have fun. It really kind of annoys me to hear that "nothing exists" to a so-called gamer just because some marketing company isn't shoving hype into our faces. Heck if anything, quiet time for gaming is actually somewhat of a blessing because of that. I can quietly look through things, hear people chat about unique games, and respect more of the novelty, nostalgia, and oddball stuff that exists out there rather than sift through corporate speak and marketing. Well okay, there's E3, but apart from that its nice and quiet. That's actually what makes the quieter part of the year in gaming somewhat of a beautiful thing really.

So... fine come delay things if you must, but don't whine. Instead go out, have some fun in the sun, and when you come back in sit down with a good old game and start again... or discover what you've missed for the first time.

You can make the summer a very nice time for games