Twitter news isn't news

Not gaming, not news

So recently PlayStation Lifestyle had something... mildly amusing on the front page. Guillermo Del Toro, one of my favorite names in movies alongside Wes Anderson (and that's about it... I'm not too fanatic over TV), has once again put out a hashtag FuckKonami piece again. I just read it as "he said it again" because... well, that's how the heading is, but when I got there it turned out to be just him shoving it casually into a tweet of "Happy Holiday" (IE. Christmas for people who are too frightened to say Merry Christmas or Hanuka for others) greetings. ...and of course the bitter part of it gets headlines. Now on one hand, this was only a bit mildly irritating, but it's still expressive of the point I want to make here. Konami deserves this to make news, but... nobody else does.

Twitter news is a stupid new phenomenon, that as far as I can remember, has practically turned gaming press into tabloid news overnight. Notch said something mean on twitter? It's somehow news. He tried to explain it, but can't well in under 100 letters? Its an update to the non-news "news". Dice said they hated their competition's trailer? *Gasp* Must be on the front page of our news site! Twitter is like the satire of Tabloid, but it forgot the humor, with people rushing to report on what internet celebrities say in under 140 characters. All they basically do now is slap the link to a tweet in, some word fluff, and then boom it's a new page that generates hits. It's lazy, stupid, and not in the slightest news, and I'm kind of sick of it. Don't get me wrong, news on twitter can happen, and that's why every professional has a twitter. Every game company and youtuber I know runs one, and they relay quick bits, or gloats through them. Sometimes interesting stuff also goes through it, like the No Man's Sky hack debacle that happened recently where... I'm not sure people still know what went on, but it was interesting and could indicate trouble at the company. That's relevant and news. Someone leaking a game detail on twitter, or putting up new screenshots, its news. Someone says they're fired or quitting? Could be a big deal. However for every one of those, we instead get a few tabloid fluff pieces. Meanwhile somewhere out there an underdog or even popular indie team is actually relaying something of relevance that goes missed. Like, this.

Yeah, absolutely nobody I know of reported that a Linux demo was now available, something niche gamers might greatly value since Linux goes a little underdeveloped for, and yet one of the biggest upcoming indie releases just proved they're porting to it and have a demo up and ready through GOG. You'd know that if someone fed you through GOG or Playtonic news, but instead you get "Someone still hates Konami!" at the top of your page. Oh and nobody I know of has reported on Kitfox's brand new upcoming game! Yeah, a whole game out there by a proven indie team is just unreported for months, and so to is their expansion to Moon Hunters. The new game is called the Shrouded Isles, there, a blogger just did more journalism for that game than the journalist sites I visit often. So can we please stop this and focus more on real news? It exists you know. Hell, go check out the Youtube channel NoClip, started up by former GameSpot employee Danny o' Dwyer, he's doing more of actual game journalism through the use of Youtube and patreon than entire teams of staff, editors, and writers for gaming press sites. He actually goes in and interviews game developers, talks about their processes, and splits up hour or so worth of video content in neat presentation with game clips and awesome professional documentary type interviews. Its fantastic. Meanwhile... what we call game journalism is just spreading twitter news and info they're fed by publishers. They do this by taking things they could simply retweet on their own damn twitters, but pass it on the news site as news. No wonder written press sites are supposedly dying to stuff like video content and grass root creators. Well to that... I'll just leave this yawning fox to explain how I feel about twitter news...

What a crysis

Crytek is a weird, but cool company... when it comes to making games. Otherwise its quick to point out what goofs they are by just asking "What games did they make again?" and "Aren't they the guys who think graphics are most of the game?" The answer to both of those questions are quite sad. Somehow the same people who started Far Cry with this awesome B grade alien plot, were among the very first of this "play it your way" trend with semi-open level designs, and had you powering through aliens and soldiers in a super suit customized to your liking, are the same guys that only successfully made a moderately recognizable trilogy, and only talk like their sole purpose is selling a pretty engine that looks glossy (no seriously, I don't mean that as some emphasis on good graphics, I mean there's just a vibe with every crytek game that its just textured to look strangely like glossy plastic at some points. Am I just crazy or something?). They don't make any recognized games outside of Crysis (which has ended as far as I'm aware, and never was a major seller), especially with Ubisoft hijacking Far Cry and doing some amazing stuff with it, and then there's just blatant flops and wastes of time like Ryse or their experimental VR as if that's a good use of a failing company. Oh yeah, and the remainders of Free Radical were sold off, and they really are a failing company having now decided to close all extra studios, and have only just now paid salaries employees were owed for months. *sigh*

Okay, so the first problem is exactly what I just stated. They were never making strong progress out there. We're past about 3 years into the new generation of consoles, with enough time for all major publishers to pump out a dozen or so games. These guys aren't publishers (even if they had enough extra companies to call themselves one), but even Insomniac has three titles on consoles (with like 7 or so smaller games floating around on mobile or Oculus, and spider-man coming next year), and then Dice basically has had two releases in this year alone, even ID has come up with an actual hit release, Blizzard has been hitting out a bunch, and yet these guys... don't even have a single PS4 game I can play right now. Even comparing them to Guerrilla, nearby region competitor and similarly as obsessive over visuals, and they've had a 2+ million seller out at launch, long support window, and are on their way to making their first open world game, and they've also stopped to go send important figures to work alongside a long passed vita game. Crytek, what the hell have you been doing with all those companies, and all this time? I appreciate patience in game design, but even if you could afford to waste time, you can't afford to keep all those studios open and only make experimental flops. You could have made Ryse something great, but its a clunky and silly combat game that was made to look nice, the same is being said for the stumble into VR which was a risk you should have never taken. At the very least, you could have made profitable mobile games to keep a money flow, but nobody has ever heard of such a thing. I'm almost willing to encourage you to go hug up to a publisher and be bought into Ubisoft (Ubisoft seems like the best fit, and maybe you could even get back to Far Cry if you ever wanted to). Maybe they'd give you more of a focus and pace, and also supply you with easier funding. However I have two hypothetical solutions I'm much happier to ask of you first, assuming you're even able to try them with whatever is left...

1) Crysis Trilogy

Psst! Hey, graphic whores at Crytek! Yeah, what gives with your "derp, 60% of the game is graphics" and yet you miss the obvious train to update your console ports to modern systems while everyone else is doing it! Welp, I guess 60% of your game died years ago then, much like 60% of your company. You want to know what I would love to change about having no crytek games on my PS4? Having the full Crysis series on one disc I could pop in, and play through any of the three campaigns. That'd be awesome! I don't care if you ditch multiplayer, I don't care if you have to beg EA to do it, and I don't care if you go the sloppy ill-advised route of 30fps, just bump up the visuals and assign them all to a working PS4 disc that has everything campaign-wise from all 3 games on it. It'd be an easy cashgrab to people who missed out on the chance, and what small amount of megafans you have, as well as those who just buy it to review its technical stuff. It can't be that expensive to make, and you'd get people talking about it all again if just maybe for a little.

2) Timesplitters

Welp, the picture just did my job for me. Yes I'm offering yet another HD remaster sorta solution, and yes I'm also aware of Timesplitters rewind. Meanwhile Crysis is sitting on and doing nothing with a series that is somehow a mere cult-hit and yet is more discussed, loved, and remembered than all of Crytek's catalog combined... and we haven't had a single entry from that since 2005 which was just after Far Cry 1. So basically, Timesplitters's last release was nearly before Crytek even started, and its still more discussed, and what does Crytek do when they have their hands on the cult-loved game complete with a petition for its resurrection? NOTHING! They did nothing, even when presented someone who had started remaking one for them, they continued to do nothing. The very least they could do is designate a small volunteer team to help out with the fan project, and yet they had one of the most interesting names in FPS go to waste, and their skeleton crew of a team wound up being pushed to make a poor-man's COD clone side of their Crysis multiplayer, up until they were sold off to Deep Silver WITHOUT their own IP Crytek wasn't even using. So they still have it, and still sit on it. This is another reason people really don't care about your possibly demise Crytek. In addition to making little of relevance, you sit on and dance around a great nerd legacy of FPS brilliance and nostalgia, and you have the best opportunity to flaunt your engine with either a remake or a new game using it, or even just a freakin' PS2-PS4 emulation port, but you just leave it dead in a corner while burning money on cinematic Xbox exclusive romans, and first wave PS exclusive VR walking sims. What the hell is wrong with you guys!? Don't even begin to talk about whether or not the IP is risky, when you go and pull those stunts in its place.

So, getting that anger out of the way, there's four or so great options to take with this beloved series that will net you easy money from at least a cult crowd...

-PS4 emulation. Charge $10-20 on PSN for each game.

-Full HD remake, or a heavy remaster in the form of something more like Legend of Kay. Either way, make multiplayer an online relevant thing for whichever game it works best, but obviously keep the bot support available and don't be an idiot about it.

-Get your team involved with the makings of Timesplitters Rewind, and ask for part of the profits.

-Make Timesplitters 4. This should probably be the last resort, as its more costly than updating something, and there ain't a whole lot of casual or new FPS players who will get what this is without somehow re-releasing the past games to them first. Oh yeah, and you waited until you had nobody of the original team, kind of a goof there huh guys? Maybe if this was a priority sooner, it could stand better on its own. Still, it ain't an option I'd ignore completely, so here it is.

Dang, still remember when this looked like it was happening!

wow, this all came off a bit angrier than expected. I came into this with the idea of "Hey guys, here's two very easy projects to consider for some simple flow of cash!" to "Oh, now I kind of see why these guys are always being yelled at". Look, I really do like some of Crytek's games. I don't hate the guys. I also think they unfairly get beat up and thrown under as a "ew, they just have nice graphics" team. People overlook all the quality and effort that went into Crysis, or have the quality of modern day Far Cry eclipse the awesome original. I don't see it that way, I hear of Crysis and Far Cry 1, and I think of some awesome sci-fi games. I think of fun gameplay, diverse open fields that are worked in a linear fun campaign. I think of how awesome and strong in length Crysis 2 was, or that awesome scene where you're driving in this mass field of neon blue and gray hills at the finale of Crysis 3, or just how damn fun it was to get into a trial and error and then triumphant rhythm with Far Cry's gunplay and intense AI. I really enjoy some of their FPS games, and I have a strange sense of pity with this team. However the writing has been on the walls, and these guys have sat and done nothing but frustrating things on the corporate outlook. They're this weird company that really isn't quite sure what they are, what their place is, or how they should be using their money. They're a frustrating and poorly managed team to look at, and it'll be sad if they go away, but at the same time its clear why they would. I hope they manage to change that in time, if they still have time to fix things left.

Developers continue to make their own problems through matchmaking...

A game within a game: The Waiting Game!

In an ongoing effort to completely miss any clue of wrongdoings, the game designers of today continues to find ways to goof up their online gaming experiences while somehow trying to convince you they're a bigger deal than ever before. Doom recently had to readjust their playlists (again), to give players what they were asking for, and complaining so much about. Now I haven't been playing any Doom MP lately, mostly because I literally couldn't from the crappy matchmaking which was unable to find anybody for my broad range of modes, so I'm not able to entirely wrap my head around all the constant playlist changes. I know at one time most modes were independant with a couple general playlists, then it got reduced towards objective vs more kill based modes (yay, 2 choices!), and... I think what they just recently did was throw Team Deathmatch in with the objective modes for some bullshit logic of "well that's team oriented, so same thing!" People were rightfully mad, and now they switched some stuff back.

In similar news, a For Honor alpha tester broke NDA to speak of the game's P2P issues, and while that is bad, he specifically talked about the issue of finding matches. Meanwhile I still hear it all the time from other teams, like TitanFall 2's team earlier pre-release talking about fixing a better matchmaking system so that you can get into games faster, and not to worry of bad playlists, etc. Back before Battlefront, they tried to spin their backwards step as a good thing for "skill" ranking and skill play. ...and then Overwatch gets away with pretending they're giving out candy whenever they come up with a playlist that *gasp* tweaks the rules a tiny bit by player count or basic rules you could really just alter up in a private bot match. Admittedly that's not a direct problem, but its kind of funny we're at that point now where online is somehow supposed to be a big deal, and yet we're grateful for "features" or "updates" that give us simple stuff we could do ourselves back in the 90's.

what a mess!

Okay guys, hold onto your butts, because I'm going to purpose a really crazy idea here. It might even be so radical, it could even be illegal in certain states. Its a real wildcard! You ready? What if... the people who bought the games, who played the online, and filled the servers and game rooms, and went to go discuss stuff with the forums, could actually decide for themselves what they want to play? If you still haven't passed out, I'd like to continue this idea: What if they could select their own maps, choose what size of a room they want to play in be it 2vs2, or a full match, and then they could even look and see various tiny modifiers like a couple unpopular weapons banned, or the gravity or health are slightly tweaked? What if every time they logged on, and went into the multiplayer to find some matches, they had a rectangular box that flooded with searches and findings on all these community driven choices, and options, with filters to help them find the right one or cancel out any full lobbies, and when they find the one that best suits their preference they just clicked on it and loaded right into that match? I know, freakin' Illuminati shit right there!

...AND IT DOESN'T STOP THERE! The cool thing about it, is that the majority of the time you let the community have that kind of control, you get some insanely weird and unique results. You could have an FPS turn into a tennis-ball game, or find that people actually like moon gravity with one shot kill weapons, or at the very least give themselves the "arcade mode" update so devs can focus on more important things. I also have these strange images from crazy fringe groups on what this arcane idea would look like. I mean can you imagine, this being found on one of today's games, or this thing that dares to have a GAME MODE selection. Then there's this conspiratory piece that suggests people would somehow enjoy playing in a 14 player server and a 40+ within the same game. Stupid idea, right? But these guys really thought of everything when fabricating this idea, including tracking the ping and region of some of these, which is weird because... I mean we just have to have the devs do that for us under tiny option pre-sets hidden away in the menus.... right? I mean we can't possibly have the community part of a game actually be in-part controlled by the community. That would just be awful, like if we had a choice between more than two loafs of bread on the store shelves to choose from; It'd be total apocalyptic anarchy!

What have I done!?

Alright, alright, I'd like to say the joke and sarcasm is over, but let me remind you this was actually a loved update at the supposed height of our advanced online gaming. That's probably the real funny part. Look, I wasn't even in on the gaming scene early, and I already know and see the great effects of actually giving a shit with the server setups. My first online game was Team Fortress 2, and one of the best things about it was discovering how it all worked. I remember finding custom maps, talking to the creator of one even, of seeing weird rules and new mixes come into play, and if nothing else I mostly just liked looking at all of my choices and going "I feel like playing on this map & mode today". Just the little things were even done better in this system. If you're worried and crying about the possibility that someone else might "boost" their progression faster so they can play with generic weapon #43 at level 60, then fine (well you'd be a nosy obsessive nutcase with a fragile ego who forgot what the point of a game was, but let's pretend it's fine that you get worked up over how "fair" the other persons stats are rather, than the fun abilities of a game and a long lasting creative community), but you'd still benefit from this system when you don't have to wait a full minute to find a CTF match and then find its taking you to your least favorite level. Even if you stripped a server browser down to its bare minimum, you can still find matches that take you to your favorite levels and modes, find the player count range you're comfortable with, and just join it. No playlist bullshit, no waiting and waiting just to be either disconnected or slapped into the middle of a losing game, and no worries over whether or not the game is "dead" when it drops just the littlest bit and you get a wait time that's 10 seconds longer. You just go in, find your game, and play.

However we sadly live in a world where only Dice seems to care about this stuff anymore, and even they don't always feel so good about doing the right thing (again, Battlefront). However for every sad excuse someone might come up with for why things are better this way, whether its because you think people are too stupid to make their own choices, or because they think this is somehow for "skills and serious play"* (because nothing says competitive like sitting on the couch waiting for your XP to get up for just participating in the match), there's a ton of problems matchmaking has opened up and it would just be fixed to go back to the way it was before. The playlists, the DLC splits, the very stability and ability to get into a match, overpowered weapons that never get fixed, the fact that certain modes go dead, etc. Those all get either fixed, or greatly improved, when you can look at a full list and just make your own choices and actually give the community room to be... well, the community. Nearly every single time a dev has to make a statement, or claim, or plea that you believe them this time they've got it working, I'm left baffled they still haven't figured out what a Server browser is, and how it would solve it all. Aside from this blog post, I don't even think I can be bothered with the energy to say it all again, I've instead just tweaked a simple old phrase because it suits the situation so well: If I had a dime for every time a server list would have solved some online game's problems... You know, maybe I can hope someday somebody gets it, and we can go back to a time where someone made a tennis ball mode on TF2 through the pyro class and physics. However honestly, TF2's very existence really might have come from the same mentality as server lists, and so to did things like DOTA. Even bots themselves, all came from a mod, which came from devs just deciding that the community areas of the game should be run by the community. Despite how easily devs have let themselves forget, I'm one of those players who won't, and I'll keep bringing it up every time a developer does something stupid... by making the decision to go with forced matchmaking instead of the wonderful stuff that gave us pyro-tennis.

*Additional fun story about this being a competitive issue. Back in Killzone 2, for some odd reason suicide bombing with rockets became a real thing. Players would rush up with the base RPG gun, and blow themselves up at point blank range with someone, either trying to take out a group cheaply, or just to grief other players. You can't exactly balance this well, and I'm not sure how you would, it was just a strange player phenomenon. Meanwhile the RPG as a general weapon was usually unpopular among more reasonable players. So it was a big and well-received trend to ban the gun through the server lists, or even the class that used it, and many people ran to those servers for that as a good thing. I imagine the only other thing we could do would be just yell and pout on the forums to "fix the RPG" without any constructive way on how to do so, and it never did get a real "fix" that stopped anyone from doing that. So... yeah, community will even fix your competitive play in the right instances. If you're only worry is still "but he got the achievement unfairly" then really go think about where you went wrong in life when THAT is your major concern with giving players more to do in a game. I'm even looking at you Devs, and the fact you think a precious achievement, or your stupid skinner boxes, are somehow more important than a constructive and resourceful community that caters to everyone's needs.

My top 5 games of 2016

This year has been a great year, and as a result maybe I'm a little jumpy on making this list (started outlining things and writing the honorable mentions out on november the 15th). I want to warn people that if The Last Gaurdian or TitanFall 2 slips into my grasp way after, or near the end of this list, and it turns out to be too amazing to keep off... well I guess I'll have to write another article about that, and amend this one. However for now I'm really eager to discuss some of the awesome titles that came out this year, and I'm feeling pretty sure about how I've selected most of these... especially the top 3. So first like always, let's start with the fantastic games that, for some reason or another, failed to make the top usual 5.

Honorable mentions...

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider is a series that means surprisingly a lot to me for something that I could never exactly play right. I've already discussed that before, but now what about this game? Well, it's a pretty awesome sequel to the 2013 game. I really think the newer guys behind Tomb Raider are trying their hardest to do something interesting with the action adventure 3rd person shooter field. Last time they incorporated metroidvania aspects perfectly into a 3rd person Uncharted-ish environment, and had such a map that people like Angry Joe confused this for an open world game. Now they pushed that further with side missions, dotted the game with elements of crafting, and a variety of loot including tiered hunting animals. This is some sort of frankenstein monster of linear action adventure, metroidvania, open world collect-o-thon, and then there's the extra stuff that incorporates everything from walking sim style story telling to score attack arcade play and zombie slayer nonsense. It's all fun in some way or another, and it's all a part of this really great adventure. As long as they don't join the full open world trend and become yet another generic Ubisoft-lite game, I look forward to seeing what happens next in Tomb Raider's new series. I had a blast going through this adventure. However, between the year of it's actual release, and a slight vibe of "well it was just an adventure", I'm not sure it did anything to really put it on the list. TR will be sitting this one out as an honorable mention, in part due to MS's bullshit contract deal, and in part due to just the competition and impressive stuff of this year. Oh and also, there's yet more lies in the marketing (just like the first game) where they pretend this is a globe trotting adventure. Thankfully for the better, 90% of this game is focused in some icey mountains. If a tutorial level in syria counts for "globe trotting" then someone needs to get their head together.

StarFox Zero

This might just be the best example of a sub-set of games that make it on an honorable mentions list. It's an awesome game, make no mistake about it... especially you idiots that blame it's failure on the controls. The controls are fine, and more so the TV/gamepad system is especially fine. That's not just my opinion going and telling you I lived through it, I'm going to tell you what everyone else is neglecting: You can change the entire view instantly with no consequence at the touch of a button! Yeah, so all that moaning you hear of people who can't coordinate between two screens in front of them are neglecting the fact you could play this game basically off the same screen by just the exact same method you'd change the camera view in a racing game. Anyway, the game still isn't the best thing ever though. It's a fantastic arcadey shooter, and has some amazing moments like the final fight with Star Wolf's team, but it just doesn't do enough to make me care in the long run. It's great fun, has some cool stuff, and it's fantastic we got another star fox game, but it's just not worthy of breaking through and doing anything spectacular in my book other than giving me some really awesome ship fights and scenes. ...oh and making me pissed at the internet for being full of whiny incompetent people who can't figure out how to push buttons and play a damn video game. In the end, it's just... well a good shooty game. Screw the haters, go play it, but let's not pretend it's anything close to GOTY.

Garden Warfare 2

Probably more than the others, this game should definitely be on this list. It took a game I already though was great enough to sloppily apply to a previous GOTY list, and improved it in ways nobody should have saw coming. It was a full blown sequel that instantly puts the past entry to shame. Bots, a hub world full of missions, co-op integration, free updates, and of course the obvious sequel stuff like new characters, abilities, maps, and mode functions like the ability to play survival as zombies. The game was far more accessible, fun, interesting, and had an absurd amount of content to fool around in all seamlessly designed together as one big world. However it's a bit of sad irony that I have to say it's still the accessibility that killed it for making this list. While it's more fun and well designed than the game that wins #5, the difference is I can actually jump in and play and have fun in #5 easier, whereas this game I can't. They still tacked on the stupid as hell forced online DRM that leaves me paranoid I won't be able to just sit down and play the game (and once ruined an amazing survival sessions I was playing OUTSIDE OF MULTIPLAYER BY MYSELF), and then you also need to cram every single update onto your harddrive before you play taking a game up a good notch in size even if you just want a quick round with some bots. Between the paranoid online requirements, and other awesome games using up the memory it would take to put this on, I just haven't touched this game since the season I bought it. I've even once considered returning it for a better trade value, but here I remain convinced I'll one day return to it and still love this game. However for now, that time hasn't come back around to remind me that this game is worthy of GOTY. Instead I'd rather reward games I truly kept enjoying throughout the year, or left a lasting impact. GW2 collects dust despite all of its best efforts, because some idiot decided it was still a good idea to limit the player with DRM. Well a sincere fuck you to the people behind that plan, and all those that leap on the sorry excuse that it's somehow necessary for data.

And now for the main list, starting with...

5) Enter the Gungeon

In retrospect, this is usually where I feel I goof up on marking my list out. I quickly search for a game that meets my odd standards of having to first release this year, AND any game that also provided some weird eye-opening fun I came back to at some point in time, but yet I quit playing in all general fairness. Stuff like Risk of Rain, or Garden Warfare 1, and honestly I have to wonder if that's really the best (Bioshock Infinite > RoR). Maybe in retrospect this will be another one of those games, and I should just break my rules and slap Tomb Raider on here instead. But right now all I can think is... well, Gungeon was really still just plain amazing for what it is. What it is isn't some massive true redefining game that'll have me remembering 2016 for years to come, but that's more for #1 anyway and this is still a fantastic game

Gungeon is a rogue-like that actually managed to keep me hooked even beyond Ratchet & Clank and Stories (an indie I was super hyped about). That alone is pretty amazing. It wasn't a long-lasting feat, after about two weeks I left the game alone for a while, and mostly just come back for single innings. Still unlike Garden Warfare 2, I actually do still come back, and could easily see myself just casually booting up the game and enjoying a run with some podcast on the background. The colorful characters, the excellent pacing and combat momentum, the crazy and yet somehow consistent lore and puns, and then the fact that you actually have a say and skill level to triumph over the rampant tone of chance all made this an amazing rogue-lite/like/whatever. This game just oozes an energy of fun and charm, and just did a lot of things right that made me surprisingly confident in it's ability to always entertain. That's not something that can be said for the majority of its genre, and I hope people learn lessons from it like the teleporters allowing fast travel across room floors.

4) Rachet & Clank (remake)

Is good, good enough? Yeah, I sure think it is. R&C was the most hyped thing for this year at one point, but some other much better things happened this year as things went on, and Ratchet & Clank itself... well, it didn't break any record, and had some hit and miss aspects about this year's running. However it was still fantastic as just a really fun general game. The characters were very humorous, the locations and remade aspects went well, it's a huge step over the original that it imitates, there were a few subtle cool changes that I'd love to see continue in the series, and... well, it's more Ratchet and Clank, one of the best franchises out there. It was a good dose of cartoon action + 3D platforming, and I was bent on 100% the majority of aspects within it, so I think it did it's job of creating a fantastic and memorable experience. The story telling kinda sucks at an all time low for the series, but aside from that blunder, I can confidently say this is one of the best games of this year and I'm so happy for it's success.

3) Dark Souls 3

If you include last year's unfinished list (with Bloodborne on it), the souls franchise has made it consistently on my GOTY list ever since I started playing them. However even with that being said, there might be something extra special about Dark Souls 3. For starters, it's the first game in the franchise I actually beat. Even though I knew this would be listed, it was only just now as I was thinking about what to say that memories start flooding back about what an adventure it all was. Dark Souls 3 more than the rest was a true adventure. It had just that perfect level design and confusion to leave me wandering and wondering, being confused on where to go next, being turned around in awkward spots, having me decide "screw it, now I'm charging in and it's time to just see what happens" and actually turn up successful at some of those moments. It's got moments where I gritted my death and slew a boss on my first try out of sheer tenacity and in-sync reading of his character and being into my own relations, and yet was stomped on by the tutorial boss over until I crushed him... going double swords in and shieldless and literally rolling with the punches. I pushed through the swamps in the early game, taking all of its punishment and beating the odds, only to realize I was lost and had missed my turn and was in some higher level area. As I went back and took the right path, and a grueling hard journey into the cathedral, it turned out to be a dead-end with the story telling me "Our goal is past the swamp now!" and I just collapsed in hysterical laughter. I was lost in a dungeon for hours, slowly calculating and puzzling out it's many labyrinthian directions (with this fittingly eerie song stuck in my head), halls, cracked passages, and where the most feared enemies were and how to skirt around them, until I met sweet relief by figuring out where I was supposed to really go to progress. I stopped at various parts to just gaze at the sky, and wonder about the lore, the place I was in, or just enjoy it all for what it was right in front of me. All of these things collectively come together as the true hassle, fun, irony, and determination come together to point at the master workings of a game that can replicate an experience worth taking. A true mark of time well spent, an experience achieved, and yet I probably sound like a nerd because we're really still talking about a video game.... but it speaks truly more to the medium itself and what it can do.

Now add that all on top of the common praises you should know about the souls franchise by now. If you don't, it's about damn time you go grab a game and experience it, and I won't mind recommending this as that game. This is the sort of Journey-like experience I can't redo, but I don't need to redo it so much as just embrace the amazing mechanics, and common praises Dark Soul still gets and deserves, because even without that amazing list of events and adventuring, I could still put this game on this list and say it's incredibly well built, fun, and everyone should play it.

2) Dishonored 2

So this should be expected, despite being kind of quiet on it after playing. Dishonored 2 is a fantastic follow-up to one of the best games to release across the last few year... or dare I say, even one of the best among the decade. It's practically everything I could ask out of stealth gaming. The tools, spyring, theiving, mystery, and then added elements of steampunk and mysticism, it's all there. Now Dishonored 2 follows up the events with two characters to choose from, new powers, new levels, improvements to combat and abilities, and things are only getting better through patches. Dishonored 2 has been a lot of fun, and will continue to provide a lot of fun for a good while longer as it begs for replays. I especially love how this game has given you more direct combat options for non-lethal runs. 

If I were to complain about the game in any particular ways, it's that it lacks a slight bit of the heart and charm that certain parts of the original did. Its not that 2 did anything wrong, but just there are certain things from 1 it didn't bother to compete with. There's no place quiet like the elegant party level, no massive hub world full of interesting/eccentric characters (you get a tiny boat hub with essentially two grumpy people, and depending on your actions a quiet guest that comes and goes), the world feels more careless in how it responds to the player's actions, and the targets feel a slight bit more binary in how you deal with them. Again there's no real wrong or complaint for the game itself, it's just that in comparison it's lacking a certain undescribable essence of the first. But yet with commitment to patch in a freakin' new game plus mode, and to have made the entire game playable with two different now fully voiced characters, there's clearly still effort and care. I guess its just a matter of... well, you can't just cram everything into a new story.

...and in case you haven't noticed, there's a funny coincidence going on where Dark Souls 3 got spot #3, and Dishonored 2, but I'm not exactly going to fulfill this entirely with spot #1. It may not have a number to its name, but it's not an original, but rather the 4th entry in its name...

Game of the year: Doom

I still remember the early announcement of Doom. It sounded like a glorious return to form with classic FPS mechanics, fast paced action, and brutal doom type glory kills. I was excited, but I was excited for a classic FPS. I just wanted another really damn good shooter that realized itself as a shooter and was fun for that reason. The actual video reveal was a little weird, and I didn't quite understand everything, but was still excited. My excitement held through the new trailers, the glory kills looked excellent, and I was amped up to play a fun shooter with a timesplitters style map maker implemented. ....and that excitement for just another great shooter, was blasted to mars itself, because Doom exceeded my expectations by a long ways. It was not just a great shooter, it is probably the best shooter. The real kick is, I didn't even need to beat the game before I was having that sort of revelation. I was playing the Argent tower level (about level 4). It was at the stage where I beat that first mancubus fight after a few failed tries, after a great battle, and then climbing up some beams and finding that there was a great tower to climb. As the energy pulsed, the battle fresh in mind, I pulled out a plasma rifle for reassurance, and climbed up with Samuel Hayden's awesome cheesy dialogue talking about hell energy and other technobabble, and I felt almost dizzy with all the excitement and a slight deja vu feeling... the feeling that so many fun bits are here, but in a new unexperienced and better form. All I could really say for certain though, was this game was amazing, and I was so looking forward to the rest of what lied ahead. ...and it was awesome! With the right kind of FPS being my favorite sort of genre, where else do you expect me to put the best game of its kind in YEARS! Of course its #1 on the damn list, it might also be #1 on games of the last decade. 

However I suppose I have to explain this further. Doom has an incredible multi-layered soundtrack that works with the flow of the gameplay to burst intense distorted metal in heightened combat sequences. Doom has health and ammo tied towards its very movement and enemy systems, encouraging your types of kills, ammo, and rewards to benefit based on how hard you slaughter demons and plays into the core loop of an FPS in a way no other FPS has actually done. Doom has also gracefully refined said combat system to work between a Serious Sam style wave shooter, and that of a classic linear scope level with complicated and well thought map and inventory design. Doom has secrets, hidden extended lore, fun easter eggs, and and upgrades. Doom has 60FPS on every platform, amazing visual ques that extend beyond whether or not you think the game looks nice, but it also does look fantastic with hellish and industrial details rendered wonderfully in an art style that can only be called DOOM. Doom has a map maker on all platforms that allows you to create everything from awesome campaign levels, to a freakin' harvest moon clone where you build a farm so you can buy upgrades to kill demons. Doom has a fun frantic multiplayer that balances between then MP of now, and that of the UT era when multiplayer was actually fun and taxed your map memory and movement skills in addition to gunplay and reflex. Doom has a cheesy saturday morning cartoon style story about hell energy, demon bios from an alien planet we describe as hell, and self-aware humor that taunts the notion of even telling a story. Doom also has free updates that have given you an even faster-paced arcade mode you score points off of, and has finally given us bots. The only thing Doom doesn't do is cure any problems, and solve poverty, which is a problem because that means impoverished individuals aren't out there playing this game and that needs to change because everyone should have Doom! Unless you've had your eyes and ears ripped off by demons you weren't killing, you should have known by now that Doom is a game worth having, so go grab some caffein, grab a copy of Doom, and enjoy one of the best games to come out in years... never the less this very year. Doom is my Game of the Year, and one of its only problems, is that it doesn't properly title itself to stand out from the lesser Dooms of the past.

PSA: Skyrim SE's older TV issue

UPDATE:

Welp, Final Fantasy 15 now has the same issue, putting to rest the idea this was somehow attached to upscaling textures in a re-release. Now brand new games are coming out, brain dead and oblivious to the notion that they can in fact add screen adjustment functionality. Stuff like the MP meter is cut out, and Square had to say they need to patch this soon. I say to both Skyrim and FF15...

USE THIS! PROGRAM YOUR DAMN GAMES RIGHT!

Original:

So as I recently wrote about, I've been playing Skyrim. I usually don't go into details on my set-up and life, but basically that session of Skyrim was on the working bigger screen end of things. Now switch between that, and my other house where I have a smaller (I want to say it's 29'', maybe 21'') Vizio TV that I got mid 2010. Both are HD 1080p televisions, though I recognize only my bigger TV represents the full effect well. However when I got home and set up my PS4 to the smaller TV, happily booted up Skyrim, I realized the menu was loading with pieces going off screen. No worries, I might have to just reset the PS4 for the screen size option to read! Nope. Tried fooling with a couple more options, but it was always the same. Skyrim didn't fit the TV, and ignores the supposedly universal PS4 screen settings.

So naturally, I looked the problem up, and found the solution wasn't so easy for everyone. A lot of people on the corners of the net are having this problem. Some people fixed it by toggling some settings, like fit screen, or turning off overscan, but either way Skyrim SE was one of the first games with this issue and not everyone is getting an easy fix. One guy went into some kind of deep engineer settings for the game to get it to work, others can't find any of the previously mentioned settings, no engineer code or secret, and no way to get Skyrim working right. I fit into that camp, and can't see my statuses entirely, my item menu is on the edge of the screen when opened, I'm only not annoyed about lockpicking because I can see that the first digit indicates I've got over 50.... just that 5 was clear though.

I don't really know what to say. It's easy to usually fuss and say that Bethesda is dumb for not letting the game run with common PS4 settings, but I honestly can't say for sure when that does and doesn't work. Some people reported something similar with Bioshock collection. Maybe whatever tech they do these remasters or older engines in can't work with other resolutions than what it was programmed as. I get the feeling that wouldn't be the full truth, and they may have just goofed this up or taken some shortcut, but that's a theory as to why this might be the way it is. Either way, 4 weeks ago they at least acknowledged this problem, so maybe there's some small hope. 4 weeks ago though, so... eh. Either way for whatever its worth, I feel this was important to warn others. Don't go wasting money on a copy that's broken if you have an older (even 5-6 years) TV, until this gets fixed. Bethesda, please fix this.

Warrior down!

Now playing (double): Skyrim + Aragami

Although I've been playing Skyrim Special Edition lately, I just got Aragami in the mail (signature version, because physical copies are awesome but the "digital" art and music is just stupid in the standard physical release. So... this is technically my first EU printed game. Cool, I think?). Thankfully it didn't take the odd estimation of "december 13-sometime in january" length. I'm sure I'll have some first impressions before I finish this article, so might as well make this a double feature while I enjoy the Aragami soundtrack.

Skyrim: PS4 edition

Might as well call it what it is. Each version of this game is kind of different, and sadly the PS4 suffers from the worst, but more due to Sony's bullshit this time rather than Bethesda. That being said, when I see a significant price drop around this time of season (skyrim weirdly suits christmas time) with a free hat thrown in, I had a hard time resisting. I've got the PC version on my low-end intel laptop, I've got the sloppy and original PS3 release, and now I've got something that mixes the best of both worlds. Mild mods from the PC and running on more solid performance, while at the convinience of my controller and TV... oh and it's the best I'll graphically get to see the game up until whenever I can get a gaming PC. Meanwhile the hat is fantastic, thanks for asking.

So in my crude justification for spending money on a game I didn't really need, I still wound up having a lot of fun. Not only that, but... I've barely bothered with mods. Some moments aside, I'm kind of appreciating what I love about Skyrim again rather than what I've bashed it for here in the past. I love this game for everything that isn't a slap in the face from its RPG mechanics. Adventuring, exploring caves for treasure, developing your sneaking skills, dealing with socio-political cultures during a civil war, and just enjoying the night sky.. it's all pretty awesome. I can still find some old reviews back in its release where people were so impressed by finding a book that tells you of a cool legend, then how you could go to the actual cave and find the treasure it was based on. How cool is that!? Well the game really has a lot of faults, especially back on release with the PS3 version, but for all its faults... it really is a truly amazing adventure game.

So for the time being, I've set aside any remarks, frustrations, or pain that came from the RPG parts. If that attitude stays or goes is a mystery, but for now I'm having a blast. I've made another Khajiit character, who's very opportunistic, sneaky, and bow + mace happy. However as time is going on I'm finding myself using magic a bit more, and I'm also trying to more actively approach crafting, shopping, etc. At some point I'm going to deviate from mods, but right now I'm just having fun deviating from my actual mission to meet the greybeards. The marketing is slightly off if you want to come in and feel like some super hero power-viking that always beats up dragons. Instead the game is at its best not when you're looting through pockets to number manage a dumb inventory restriction so you CAN go fight that dragon later, but rather it's best when you're actually out there just lost and... smiling. It's really about the journey rather than the destination in Skyrim... because that destination has some cheap mini-bosses, outbalanced stats, and a clumsy inventory. But the adventure face of skyrim is more like this little trip, or moments that look sort of like:

Aragami

This game came out of nowhere, and at first... meh. Dishonored 2 was going to be great, so why? But even though that came true, Dishonored left me wanting a tad bit more, and as I was drinking a Cherry Blossom lager one day I remembered this game and the CE copy in the store. Eventually this lead to me grabbing the game's full physical form. My skepticism was however a little present on the basis that this was a full "true" stealth game (instead of stealth action). That's code for contrived game that fails the player if you even blink off cue, and rips all the fun out of better stealth games that don't necessarily FORCE stealth. However this game has proven to be an interesting middle ground between what pure stealth fans probably like in forced challenge, but mixed with the open design and choices of players from awesome games like MGS, Thief, and Dishonored. The most obvious diversion it takes from pure stealth, is that your not sent back to a 10 minute checkpoint because the guard smelled you. You can actually directly assault a guard, it's just extremely unlikely you'll win and it's very counter-productive.

However in breaking away from genre labels and traditions, we might find the real truth is both better and worse. Aragami is a great game from a stylistic stand point, with beautiful scenery and art style, a great choice of theme with a shadow ninja in a fantasy Japan setting, taking interesting spins on surrounding influences by blending Dishonored style powers with Thief style light based hiding, and music that is so good. However it does have its share of faults around the edges, including one I'm real worried about: checkpoints. I've lost at least 15 minutes of planning, waiting, mapping things out, and picking off guards, working up a perfect kill counter for level 3, only to have it all undone because the stupid game goofed on where I was teleporting to (aimed at a river bank, it teleported me clipping into the floor, then threw me into the water where I "died"... and for the record the game never even hinted at water being a real obstacle either). I was in a good mood so I wasn't actually mad, but it was a busy night and between making progress in Skyrim or trying to fight with this 15-20 minute segment all over again, I took Skyrim so that I wouldn't be frustrated. Checkpoints in games are usually fine, but if you dare to put them in a stealth game you better not be an idiot who puts them between 20+ guards, multiple rivers and halls, and then send a player back (like the area I died in). These games are all about waiting, planning, and trial + error, and you're on a fast track to pissing people off when you rip away all that stalking and timing especially when one of the encouraged credentials of every level is stealthy mass murder. AND stealthy pacifism (meaning you have to either perfect the guard pattern to kill them all, or to avoid them all). Oh, and the other issue with the game is simple optimization issues... yes, even after the patches which supposedly fixed that.

Still, Aragam is off to a fun start. One of the best parts of the game is that despite the checkpoint issue, the best moments can sometimes be just winging it and testing just how far you can push your movements around guards in split-second decisions. I've had such a good feeling from doing stuff like watching a guard walk a corner, teleporting to that corner he JUST stood by, and then as think you can get him... he walks just out of range and sits around a bunch of lights you can't be by. So... the second his feet touch the shadows, you phase a reinforcing pool of darkness and pop right up to take his head. Stuff like that is incredibly satisfying, and tense, and a part of why I love this game's pure stealth cycle... it's challenging sure, but it's got a lot of options, level designs, and you can actually fight your enemy in quite a few ways. One of those ways apparently includes sprouting a shadow dragon out of the ground, but I haven't gotten that far myself yet. So between the whole shadow ninja with Kitsune statues and cherry blossoms all over the place in this beautiful game, to the wide array of trying to dance around the shadows in secrecy, this game is a great new twist on stealth from an indie team I still know nothing about. Gotta give credit to these guys though and hope they continue to do awesome stuff.

From out of a time capsule, how will Team Ico do?

I'm shockingly excited for The Last Guardian's release, coming early next month... but not for the reasons you're probably thinking. I'm almost excited out of curiosity, or like a living experiment coming into play. The question hangs in the air, nagging my mind: Will people still love Team Ico's style? Personal feelings on the game itself are more... eh. It's a game I kinda want to try and hope to enjoy, but I just know this sort of game isn't my style. Then I think about it and wonder, is it anybody's style anymore? Obviously some will appreciate and love this game, but enough to be a success story like it was in the past?

Team Ico builds their games a little strange. They were almost a type of indie game, before the indie games of today. They worked within AAA constraints of the 2000's to make minimalistic, puzzling, enchanting, and carefully crafted games. These are the kind of game to appreciate for the patient ones, for the quiet types, and for those willing to put up with the down times and struggles for the good little moments within a grand adventure. It's the sort of person that will actually take the time to notice and appreciate the fact that all of Trico's feathers are carefully rendered, or who first wondered what that blackish blood gushing from the first colossus was about. That type of person was easier found and sold to back then for a profitable game, but now when we're all consciously aware of the tedious escort missions, we're holding radar guns to the framerate, we're constantly distracted with social media, and your best and worst sellers are online games laced with constant progression systems that spoon feed your constant achievements, and sale expectations are around 6-10 million at times, it's not hard to see how the landscape has changed. I don't think everyone is holding that sort of expectation to TLG, but I just know there's going to be some critic outlets that call it outdated, boring, or tedious. People eat this stuff up in indie circles for $15, but what about the bigger game that's asking $60? And that's all setting aside any doubts that it's dev hell status has some implications.

That being said, I'm not a doomsayer here. I think there's still going to be people out there to love this game, and a surprising amount of hope is in the air for it in the circles it's mentioned. As a matter of fact, fan's hope are probably what saved it. I can't speak too well for them since I'm not a big Shadows of the Colossus fan, but I feel like I get the general idea... and there's still quite a good number of people who insist it's their favorite game to have ever been made. That's no light acclaim, and in a world full of minimalist indie games compelling all sorts of people, SotC still stands out as something special, with occasional murmurings that Ico was also amazing. Yes, Ico, the other giant escort mission game that Team Ico made and named themselves after. So clearly there's more going on than just surface level stuff. You can't sit there and pitch someone the idea of Ico on "Well, there's this girl you have to pull around and traverse a castle with." Instead it's probably more suiting to give them an image like this, or this, and promise them it's an enchanted and yet haunting adventure that awaits them. Some will be more skeptical and questioning... probably like me, trying to find the mechanical interests. Others will just be guided towards that promise of adventure, and maybe they'll find something incredible.

Heck, just talking about all of this and looking up screenshots to put here, has kind of reminded me why I wish I was more suited towards loving this kind of game. I love the sense of detail and imagination crafted into these adventures, I just hate linear puzzle solving. I don't think gamers have necessarily moved beyond the type of games Ico puts out, but I just think they're hard to come by and we're not exactly bringing up a generation that's likely to get involved with it. I'm also speaking from the idea of critics, and their lashing out. I feel like some people aren't going to be addressing their expectations right. I'm very interested, curious, and somewhat excited to see what really happens. But of course, in the end, it barely matters in the general gaming landscape. What counts, no matter how small or niche, is the group of gamers that really are ready and have their expectations set right. The type of people who do stop to admire Trico's feathers, or the details in the environment, or the mysteries of the cryptic story telling, and all the care that went into the AI of the characters or the subtle animations at work. These are the sort of people ready for a gripping adventure, the kind that only Team Ico can make. I hope it delivers that well, and somewhere out there becomes a new "best game ever" to somebody.

Nidhogg 2's incredible art style...

Nidhogg 2 is the sequel to a neat indie title that was all about one-on-one fencing type combat. It was simple, but lovable (according to those who've played it), and was especially good for couch multiplayer. The game seemed to be a great success, and now we're looking at a sequel coming out. Yay! However there's one unmistakable and strange decision that has some people a little concerned... let's see if you can spot the difference:

A little odd, huh? Well it's crazier in-motion. People are really off-put on the new look, and suggest it's like trying to imagine a nude homer rip-off, or the same for two sesame street characters, and then there's a comment even describing this as perhaps a Chinese bootleg copy of the original game. I can't exactly call any of that wrong either, because the trailer took me by surprise and had me thinking "WTF am I looking at!?" all the same. If this was done on april 1st, I think everyone would think it's a prank animation cooked up to look like the a laughable sequel. Meanwhile the original Nidhogg was just simple pixelmen, and it still looks tame and normal enough by now, complete with a slightly strange and neat artsy bleeding effect. However that's also what makes me go against the grain here, and just admire how incredible this all is. Incredible is truly the perfect word too, because it doesn't necessarily mean a compliment, but rather questions the odds. ...but it is also a compliment from me, because I also said that I admire it for doing just that.

I can point to Nidhogg and say "that's a game where pixel people fence each other" and we're done. I can compare it to atari graphics, or tell you it's another retro aesthetic indie game, and you generally know what camp to fall into with a game like this. The most interesting thing is that bleeding color that sort of paints the world. That's it. Now with this upcoming game, my explanation is more like... "bat-shit crazy weird naked cartoon doll things throwing axes at each other and bleeding their own skin color". There's no simple comparison in a world full of pre-defined styles, genres, and games. Sure a lot of it is mixing, but we always find a way to drag comparisons in. No, here, it's just Nidhogg 2 and that's all I can leave with on my mind, unless I try to leap to outside medias like earlier where I mentioned Homer Simpson.... and even that is vague. If you walk up and tell someone you've got nude homer clones beating each other with axes, swords, and bows, while avoiding death by giant worm, you'd be so confused and yet interested in what weird game the indie world has unleashed, or what it has to do with the Nidhogg name if you're somewhat familiar. Perhaps it's technically a failure of marketing when they're no simple pitch, but heck this is a sequel, so I don't think that matters so much. The worst thing to worry about is nagging purists, who would rather have Nidhogg stay as a "timeless" generic retro pixel game #874 on the digital store page. ...or you could be fucking incredible and have people's jaw drop in confusion as they see the game for the first time!

Look, it's weird, and yes it's ugly. I get that. It's absurd, it's silly, it's confusing, and it was revealed with no warning or clue; Yet I kind of admire that, and that's why I'm even here talking about it. I feel like the people disliking it, are the same type that would have fussed about Windwaker, or the ones calling the new Doom out as a generic Halo type game, but both games wound up being amazing and proving the vocal outcry wrong. People don't tend to have a very open mind about these things, and don't pay much attention to the finer details or disciplines. That's part of what always worries me about how vocal and dependent on the internet we are. What if they're really going to cave-in and change everything? I'd like to hope not, or they meet us half-way and find a way to actually implement a toggle graphics function or pixel character skins. Meanwhile though, I personally think this is a great step. They struck a more original style rarely seen, and I appreciate being actually confused and intrigued for once at a game all over again without it interfering with me knowing the mechanics. I can still tell this is a fast-paced one on one combat game like the first, but this time I have nothing to visually compare it to. No "oh it's just cell-shading, or it's retro, or it's going for semi-realism", no it's... it's just fucking Nidhogg 2. That's all it is. That's all it needs to be, and that's awesome. For better or worse, it's also technically incredible, and it has me talking about a game I would have otherwise just dismissed as a sequel to an indie game I might play someday. Well, now it's burned on my mind... so good job guys.

Controversy Corner: Bethesda blindfolds, and voicing my opinion

So today's topics of controversy are around the fact that Bethesda has decided to withhold games from most of the press, and the voice actor strike going on right now. Here we go for round 2 of controversy corner...

Bethesda isn't handing out early review copies

So Bethesda has unleashed a surprisingly vocal F-you to the general public by suggesting that it won't be giving out any early review copies. It will continue to give out copies to youtubers to make the game look nice in their let's plays (something they didn't exactly mention specifically, but are doing so anyway), but no more review copies. This even includes rediculously enough, the Skyrim remaster. Why? To make sure everyone gets the same experience... except certain video coverage of people playing or showing off the game. Obviously the excuse isn't good enough, and people aren't happy with this. If you'll remember, I also already covered how this messed with perception around Doom. However I never expected this to start to apply for all games, and sadly 2K has supposedly fell to the same deal. This looks like it might become just a common thing, with the courtesy of getting the review copies out early fading.

The weird thing is, this isn't something I'd normally expect of a company with such promising material, so the normal argument of "they just want to hide their bad games!" doesn't carry a lot of weight to it. I mean yes they certain can hide crap, and they've also published disappointments via Brink, Rage, and some other weird game I can't even remember. However that's very rare for them. We're talking about a line-up of some of the best FPS and RPG games to come out among their years, and a line-up of games that in some way challenge the market place for the better. Even if you choose to call them mediocre, or cry about how disappointed you were with Fallout 4, none of those complaints were things you'd typically see addressed in reviews. The only guys who'd give that type of critical coverage, are youtubers who can still hit the same marks in just first impressions alone. I'm not saying don't be any less angry or alarmed about this decision, but I'm just commenting that it's a weird and unnecessary one. I'd almost be willing to say they're more accurate in their statement about achieving player parity, and that they really want everyone to be on the same page so they can continue to rush out games in need of big day 1 patches instead of merely producing terrible games.

However in the end, this is still another stupid move from AAA gaming that doesn't consider that maybe the nice way is a little better. By resorting to this dumb scheme, you've not only opened the gates to encourage a widespread effect, but also made people second guess or hold back on your games, risk rushed reviews that can be damaging in either direction, and it's just a downright cowardly move that nobody really appreciates. I don't see a winner in this situation, just a confused attempt to try and exploit your abilities on the market, and it's a move that won't play out in a desired way. As I stated back when this occurred with Doom, set your expectations accordingly. There's rentals, waiting, or if you really feel like you love everything you see, go ahead and dive in. However now I'll almost feel guilty if I just dive into a pre-order, because I don't want Bethesda to think I'm rewarding this stupid move with anything. This is a lot of cowardice coming out of an ironically bold announcement to make, but being bold enough to say something stupid isn't necessarily a good kind of bold.

Vague thoughts on the voice actor strike...

So voice actors have officially gone on strike, and various games and studious are effected. Trying to handle the situation and look into things, I've only realized just how out of touch I am with this side of work routine and the politics lurking around it. Trying to dig through the documents and claims, seem to be grasping either at things I don't understand, or back and forth talks that don't seem to line up right with the reality of the situation. I think a lot of my ignorance comes from just not knowing the voice acting environment, and such a big union run place like California.

I don't work in a very union happy state and from what I hear of them, that's a pretty good thing. However they clearly have some benefits otherwise they wouldn't be around, and so I'm not going to sit and pretend like they're villains... nor the companies. In having come from this side of things, I'm also not the type of person to fall into this trap of thinking the companies are all evil super villains, and the unions are exclusively there for the heart and well-being of the people. If you are truly in this for the right reasons and can let go of "sides", you'll find a good amount of the "we're super good guys for the safety and fairness" people have some skeletons in their closets, and you should hear out others for a reasonable conclusion. That's why these deals made in the end are often considered compromises, both sides have something to do here. If we just tripled the minimum wage, it sounds happy to say all us hard workers get more money, but it could have some seriously devastating consequences including mass layoffs and higher product prices to compensate. Of course nobody advocates for that extreme, but nobody will admit it when they try to trickle it up and deflect any criticism with "Oh, so you just care about greedy companies instead of the people!" So just please bare in mind reasoning over feelings, because its terrifying when people let their feelings get ahead of this stuff. That being said, I'm a horrible example or rationalizing this subject because of my confessed ignorance on how to even interpret the information that's out there. Do some research yourself instead of taking everything I say at face value, especially if you've had more experience with these kind of situations or even just union agreements in general.

Okay so, honestly I can't go too far into the technicalities for reasons stated above, but some key points came to my mind with certain things I read.

• Some actors are asking for royalties on games, citing movies as their source. Specifically, GTAV actor suggested that his work behind a game that went on to sell billions should have given him more money. I... just can't bring myself to agree with this, simply off of opinion that I don't think the voice actor is as deserving of the revenue as people who are continually supporting the game. Royalties should go towards the actual makers, and a voice actor should get what they put into the game for their time and work. Besides, with all the minor voices that go into the game, where would we draw the line? At what point does a successful game mean bigger payouts for what actor? Why is an actor entitled to the success of such games anyway? Their importance varies, unlike that of a movie where the actors and acting is one of the biggest core points, whereas the voices could be tossed out the window almost entirely for a game like COD that gets its success more on multiplayer. I don't think the guy who does "OBJECTIVE TAKEN!" needs an extra payment for every 1'000 copies sold, nor the star of a mode only 20% of the players played. Now the guy that voice Stanley parable is a whole different story. Meanwhile if we talk Uncharted, we're basically using actors for a movie at this point with mo-cap and all. See what I mean, this is highly inconsistent, and you can't just point to movies and cry "it isn't fair!" These guys are being paid $200+ an hour, and I'm not seeing the problem with just putting in some good time as the star, and walking home with the time you put into it. If this does get passed, I'll be very curious about how the finer details work.

• There's potential safety issues at stake if one claim was right. Some have spoken out against this idea of... well, speaking out too much and too harshly in one sitting. If it's really true that people are essentially doing dying screams for up to an hour or more, that might be a concerning. I think they need to be put on more of a system of variety, able to work in normal or idle dialogue, and then do the death parts. On that note as well, how many death parts are they really doing? I mean, having just been through Rise of The Tomb Raider and dying plenty, the majority of deaths were almost sound effects of stuff like just falling over dead, collapsing with a smack on the ground, or even a snap. Very few actual screams, so... devs/directors/whatever, how about you don't push them too hard on this? It's for your own sake to, as you don't want to hurt their voices. On the other hand, some things have come to light bringing this claim down a peg or two. The union seems to have lost interest according to some document interpretations I've read, and if they were up some are asking for "hazard pay", which is just stupid. Don't sit there and cry about doing your work, instead ask for safe conditions FIRST. The idea of a hazard pay for voice actors to do their job of voice acting is both ridiculous, and exploitable.

• The idea of more pay in general is likely on the table, and I'm not sure how to feel about this. On one hand it's $205 or so per hour on average, and that's a lot. On the other hand, places like California are very expensive, and I don't know how much this kind of job's payout will end in general. Maybe they only stay in around 4 hours per game (I seriously doubt it, but just hypothetical) and need each hour to go far. ...or maybe these guys are making a killing, and their unions are just trying to get more money out of them by pointing to other things like movies. I don't want them asking for more money just because Tom Hanks or whoever makes more. Now that being said, I'm curious as to how much has changed over the course with the mainstream use of Mo-cap animations. I know actors like Nolan North go into this stuff, and I certainly hope they're paid more than just the dude who's yelling in a microphone for several hours. At the point of serious mo-cap stuff, they're practically real actors, just being edited and enhanced into the digital world later rather than being given it through pure camera.

• Transparency, because apparently game devs aren't even letting their own workers know what the hell is within a game. Look, I get that you don't want your game leaked out (especially if you show it to them, and they just walk out uninterested but with full knowledge), but you have to compromise with the very people you work with and give them some good details. There's NDAs, and you can add sueing or whatever to it if possible. There, happy? Because what's worse than a game being leaked with.... very little actual consequences and more way to leak than just actors, is having a team that isn't sure what they're even doing! I'm entirely for the voice actors on this part.

Give Dr.Nefarious whatever he wants though

Finally, I'd like to conclude this with one... probably unpopular opinion. Actually I'm surprised and impressed with the others I've heard suggesting similar. I'd like to perhaps see some replacements and new blood come into play here, and perhaps a continuation of just more random people. I know our medium has been evolving, and getting more attached to high paid and good actors, and some really good performances. However at some point you need to draw a line at what's necessary, and some of these games are going way too overboard. Far Cry Primal has at least two big name actors, and they don't even speak freakin' english with all their talent. Why!? By contrast a role like putting JK Simmons in Portal 2 has basically made that game that much more of a legend, with his quotes being pulled all the time, shouted out by fans, merchandised, and I'm even among some people who know that actor from that game itself and into his other work. It's hard not to find people either equate him to Peter Parker's boss, or Caveman Johnson, and that's kind of awesome. ...but then we go back to Primal, we keep hearing about how Advanced Warfare got Kevin Spacey like it was some big deal, and then there's people like Nolan North and Troy Baker who just show up in everything. We don't always need that kind of stuff. Stop, step back for a minute, and really think about what your game needs and go accordingly. Not everything needs to go big and go broke, that's a part of why we're in this situation now where AAA gaming is getting hard to be a sustainable business.

You want to know who my favorite voice actor was in gaming this whole year so far? A guy called Darin De Paul. Among his small time work in voices, doing stuff like the fairy tale Geico commercials, advertising a big mac, and being one of thousands of voices lost among those behind skylanders, he's also the badass Samuel Hayden from this year's Doom (*insert random jab at Bethesda here from the last topic*). He runs a humble little business website for contact, and seems to be just a smaller freelance sort of guy you just call up for smaller roles. But he was incredible when put to the task, and could easily become a staple guy with the right performances, and if the right games continue to contact him. That's the kind of little guy stuff I'm used to seeing. A life-time favorite of mine is the guy who voice Dr.Nefarious, who is most famous for voicing a guy in Star Trek... and practically nothing else. He also does Andrew Ryan, and was a villain for one episode in the live action The Tick, but aside from that I haven't seen any of his work. He's a fairly humble guy, but with a big presentation when he brings out his character. I'm used to voice actors of that scope still getting the job done. Oh and Dust: An Elysian tale is full of amazing voice actors doing either small time work, or even being animators at heart. By contrast, the voice swap with Snake for MGSV was just stupid honestly, and I'd sooner have the older voice back than accept the idea of some expensive TV taking his place. Gaming essentially came from more humble or even in-studio type performances, and I don't think it'd be a crime to stick with that except for where serious talent is needed. So while I do in fact still want things like a safe working environment, and transparency, I wouldn't want teams bending over backwards just to get Nolan North into his 55th game, or so they can reach for big hollywood names. Keep getting fresh blood in the system, don't overreach just for some trivial big name a few people might recognize, and... well, just do what's right for the game in question. It's okay to be fun, and have a cheesy voice again, instead of always going after serious stuff.

Excellent performance Mr.Paul.

Let's talk about buyer beware...

So alright, a couple of people have brought up No Man's Sky as an issue again, and in one case it was thought provoking enough that I wound up having a lot more thought into than even I thought there was to discuss. I'm not here again to dismiss them as liars when I've already done that, but rather seeing more long-term effects and dealing with the community as a whole has made me realize... gamers are a bit shittier about this topic than I thought they were. Even worse, There's some people on the opposite side of the issue I want to talk about asking for another issue. In a round about sort of way it really all revolves around the general topic of what some refer to as "buyer beware!" Basically it's a nearly self-made warning for consumers to tell each other when a product is just garbage, or doing something really wrong. Something like a video game lying about having actual multiplayer, or that weird new steam game being a cheap assets flip.

Open markets, and buyer warnings, are a good thing

For whatever reason, people really threw a fit when valve opened the flood gates and let just anything come in. I certainly have respect for those that ask for better categorization and polished gaming, and I have been critical before of how Valve works in their store, but I feel that blaming the existence of new games is a false diagnosis of such issues. I lightly covered this topic when a bunch of pre-school game ports from the 90's flooded and took over the "new releases" spot for a day. That's just ridiculous and careless, but if you read through the whole article I'm not at all upset with those games existing. Whether it's a bad asset flip being sold cheaply for someone to play and mock, or it's an obscure classic someone is going to be overjoyed to see, they're all welcome on the store page and I'd rather have them here than nothing but "Good games" ...because that's not an objective statement, and trying to quality control on that factor is impossible. Still some sights try, and so that's why GOG has less releases, but more respect from certain circles of gamers. That's fine, it's a free internet and all, but I still like having choices.

However they key thing in this environment is that "buyer beware" needs to be a real thing, and Steam has at least got that much down pretty darn well. Buyer beware is what I use to describe the ability for users to warn each other, and the tools they have to do so. Decent user review systems, forums with free speech and criticism, etc. Steam really does have a great score system in place, even so much as updating things to allow you to mark reviews as funny for when someone just jokes about it, so you can separate them from actual positive vs negatives. Then you can see user playtimes, the scores aren't mucked up by number scores, and there's a "useful" vote. Right on the same page is an instant link to the forums, and there's also a recent and general score combination. It's all a good tool system that's great in that sense.

The only flaw with Buyer beware, is that it takes someone to stumble into a bad game a few times before the word gets out. However that's ironically just another part of buyer beware, because if nobody has bought or said anything on the game, that's a bigger risk for you to take. Know this, observe this, and don't just go running into any random obscure game. I think that's a much better deal than the idea of "Take 700 games away, because they are not worthy as decreed by thy higher-ups!" that some people are calling for. Once again, I cannot see how some of the critics out there have called for the removal of such games. Sure when you open the flood gates a lot of it will be bad, but just don't buy those then. Simple. Stay smart, stay sharp, and buy what you think is fun. Occasionally there's a gem, or something some kid out there will love, that slips by that simply wouldn't have made it through on some super locked-down elitist market. Open markets were supposed to be a big deal to PC gamers, so start acting like it. This is the first thing I wanted to address, but not exactly the most important...

When the snake starts eating it's tail...

In recent times, I've noticed a strange confusion come out of the ideas of how buyer beware works. Somehow over the recent years, we've reached a point when fanboyism and hatred somehow go full circle and work their way into each other, ultimately both aligning to beat up the people who are participating warning others. How does that work you might ask? Well picture this scenario: A hyped game is coming out that looks promising to be an amazing farming simulator. You can plant acorns that grow into trees, work alongside other player farmers to build an industrial farm, and animals all have their own life cycles. Most people are vocally thrilled and excited, pre-orders are flying, but there's a minority of skeptics off to the side suggesting it's just a boring time sink game they've seen done better in some way and they don't pay that much attention to the finer details. Now the game comes out after two years of hyping, and waiting, and... it sucks. All of the features are gutted, with online outright missing with the only connection being leaderboards. There was no warning for this nonsense, and you're outraged. You go and give it a bad steam review, rant on it's forums, maybe even seek a refund despite giving it a slight chance beyond Steam's typical policy, and you're leaving a nasty comment along all the press sites reporting new news of this disaster. However on all these sites, you start seeing a more dominant opinion, or a pushback to your comments. The fanboys rise up to tell you how you're wrong for suggesting false ads, how every other game does it in some tiny way, or how there's technically online with leaderboards reaching a net. Meanwhile on other places you're getting beat on because "How dare you blame the devs for deceiving you! Wasn't it obvious this game would be bad! But no, you went and bought it anyways, and now you're complaining because you're an entitled dirtbag!" Another backs this up with "You actually trusted the devs? Really? Idiot! You're just angry because you want revenge for being so disappointed in your own decision.". So... you're not allowed to warn people, because the fanboys will argue with you and tell you you're wrong, and others will say you're dumb for daring to have even a little hope to any game that ever exists... ever. Just watching the trailers made you a "sheeple" in their eyes, and if you dared to buy the game and complain, you were an entitled gullible consumer that deserves everything you got.

The sad thing is, that's not a farm simulator I made up off the back of my head, rather I loosely fitted some situations of what actually happened with No Man's Sky, and you can go see the similar case scenario. Thankfully if you're reading this, I don't have to defend myself from any of the venom spitting cynics, because I was already a big outspoken skeptic of the game before I decided to take a dive on it and grab it. I really did fall into the mood of wanting it. However because I wasn't so attuned to the hype and wishful thinking, I was also genuinely shocked to fact-check and see how much of the lies I had missed from not being a super-fan. I was fairly pissed with the uncovering of so much false crap related to this game, and it was all being well documented. Now if you want to criticize me for not sticking to my guns and buying it at $60, that's fair game and I'll agree that's a blunder on my part. But, no I wasn't one of those guys to rush out, pre-order, and expect an actual universe in a box that would be fun for the entire ride. I expected a craft survival game with a nice polish. However that doesn't give me the right to sit on some ivory tower, and spit on those who were paying attention to the news, and excited for what that news gave them to work with. That doesn't give anybody the right to tell them they were wrong for being an informed consumer, because that's what lead them to the hype train, that's what kept them going, and that's where things fell off when they weren't delivered. They were the informed ones, not the other way around. So you can kindly shut your trap when you try to arrogantly argue with their presented list of lies, complaints, and debunks, because... they're kinda doing their job to fulfill the buyer beware part. These cynics are essentially trying to play Darth Vadar, and think it's a good idea to choke anybody who wasn't with them on their dark side of assumed hatred and negativity.

Again, this is where people lose track of what buyer beware means. Buyer beware does not mean shaming everyone into submission, or pressing out people for daring to speak up or dream a little. It means letting people warn each other, fuss, complaint, and generally bring attention to the matter. Sure it can be slightly annoying to hear someone moan about how No Man's Sky doesn't let you land on asteroids, but it's even more annoying to hear people cry back that the complainers should go hide in a hole, and it's the most annoying to actually have someone miss these complaints and run out and waste $60 on a bad game that they could have been warned about. 

Furthermore there's just something plain stupid and deceitful about this super cynical "trust nothing!" attitude. If nobody actually trusted any of the trailers, we wouldn't have them. If we weren't allowed to trust interviews, we wouldn't have them. If we weren't able to dissect features or discuss mechanics, people would be out of their freakin' jobs. Instead those jobs exist as a part of informing the consumer, as a part of marketing the game, and a part of knowing what you're getting. Sure marketing can be tilted to a decietful light, but it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. We still live in an industry where 9 out of 10 times, if someone tells you that X feature is in, it's going to be a part of the game. Very rarely is that not the case. Aliens Colonial Marines, and No Man's Sky are two cases that jumped the shark completely. Other similar cases that are brought up, are things that were blatantly disproved ahead of the launch, like CGI trailers and renders, or downgrades on stuff like WatchDogs. Again, the informed hyped train comes to grips with this before it happens. So when a game really looks good, is a successor to something really good, or is very descriptive and enticing, and it keeps our hopes solid all-around... it usually means it's going to be a good game. That happens a lot more than people give it credit for. Uncharted 4, Dark Souls 3, Abzu, Tomb Raider, Overwatch, Bloodborne, R&C, Black Ops 3, etc, there's a ton of recent games that delivered on their ambitions. Personally I was even hyped sky-high for the new Doom in the face of so much constant skepticism, and it beat my expectations, rather than falling apart. It's my GOTY right at this moment. ...and the funny thing is I know I'm not the only one here, hype is still a big deal. It's just a bunch of pretenders acting like they don't care about games anymore.

Now it's Dishonored 2's turn to show it's cards

Now on the other hand, I won't say that customers who dive into hype don't share some partial blame, but it's not worth silencing them or bitching against them over. Don't pre-order unless you're absolutely sure of a game, try to hold your expectations to a reasonable level, don't let your imagination take over mechanical reasoning, and it's always better to wait a few days or even one or two weeks after a game's launch to see how it is in the public's eye. Game's combat this careful consumer mentality through some fairly shallow ways, and they can be easily overcome. Not a lot is usually lost if you don't get the day 1 edition... which lasts on shelves post-month for most games. However again... we're not all on that bandwagon, and not every game is worth treating by poking it with a stick first to see if it has cooties or whatever. If we all were like this, there'd be no point as nobody would be there to communicate it's issues. And if we don't let these people communicate these issues because we mark them all as gullible and dumb, then that also defeats the purpose. There's absolutely nothing wrong with expecting Uncharted 4 to be good, and buying it day 1. It's okay to be all excited, and grab that CE of Doom if you really wanted that statue and have enjoyed all the coverage so far. It's NOT okay to expect No Man's Sky to be super space everything game 9000, but it's also not okay to go running around silencing people who were mislead after even more careful planning. Sometimes a game genuinely does tell and live off of a huge lie, and that's on the liar's fault, not the consumer. So... can we stop trying to kill the messenger over that matter? That'd be great, thanks. Buyer beware is only as good as the tools and our communication lets it be, so don't screw that up just to fulfill your ego-stroking quota on how much better you are for not being interested in the next disappointing game.