Back on PC

So for those that don't remember I made a partial announcement within a long ago article on how my laptop was all messed up. I lost it to a bad spill, and wrecked it up good, losing the vast majority of data and access to over 120 games (probably just about 35 I loved, but the rest being okay or backlogged bundle fluff). It wasn't like I lost an expensive gaming laptop or anything, but its still a bit pricey. When we're paying $60 per new game, being set back on a $300-500 laptop is a console investment without the serious hardware to back it up. So it was a bit of a mess, and sadly right when I was really into playing Awesomenauts with a steam friend. Well after nearly a year (or what felt like one), I've remedied that solution. It took a bit of a hassle, as the first model had some minor keyboard issues with a not so minor fix where I just had to swap things out. Now things seem to be pretty good, and I think things are going to go well from here. Its still low-spec, though slightly less so than the past laptop, and hopefully that makes up for the reality that I have to use Windows 10. ...and I must say, its a great time to be back.

As soon as I brought steam up, I noticed Turok was 50% off. Awesome, wanted that when I couldn't, so I'm grabbing that now. Screw Undertale, its freakin' Turok! Then as I was enjoying Dark Souls 3 on the PS4, I decide to take a break and a storm decides to show up. No problem, just keep playing on the laptop! Searched up and quickly found a starter pack B20 Brutal Doom mod that came with the emulator, and a level pack that practically serves as the length of another Doom game. Sweet, right as I was hyped on the new Doom. Storm flickers off the power for a minute, but that just meant my screen went dark for a bit, kept ripping demons apart unbothered.

I've been checking out GOG & steam store fronts constantly, looking at all the weird little games I've missed, figuring out what to prioritize next, and recapturing some fun on old demos. Ever hear of the developer Spiderweb? They've been doing these super old-school strategy RPGs for years, or rather one person as some say it. He's been mass producing it through multiple well written series, and quite some time back I took an interest in Avadon. Slapped on the latest game's demo, and played it for a good while, and I've got to say its shockingly good fun for a game with so much text, turn based number crunching, and other weird nerdy niche goodness. I might have to do an article on them, and do some digging to find out why they aren't discussed much with the others that keep that genre alive. For some reason there's a draw to them I don't get with others. Anyways its just another PC exclusive deal that's welcoming me back into the world. Feels great. Oh and no more nasty tablet glitches, connection malfunctions, or clunky flat keyboard. Things will hopefully be smooth-sailing from here.

So ugly, and yet so uniquely fun. A weird corner of PC gaming that I can now reach again

Oh, but Dark Souls 3 is awesome to, so I might be discussing that some in the near future.

Greatness awaits? Maybe not.

So reports are in that the rumored PS4K/PS4.5 is a thing that is probably happening. Its pretty much confirmed by now with some seriously strong reports coming out. I don't think it takes a genius to figure I'm not exactly happy about it. However its not just that I'm not happy over it. I mean I figured at some point a PS4 slim would happen, and that would be alright. The "screw early adopters" argument is one with some merit, but it doesn't travel far. You practically screw yourself over by being an early adopter of... well, pretty much any common appliance I can think of off the top of my head. Still its hard not to be sour from within that position, and this is a unique case where early adopters are screwed over not by missing a better bundle or a slightly more efficient model, but by a model that stands to potentially play games better and may cannibalize their console's side of the market. Now that being said, this is all predictions and counter-arguments to gossip. We still haven't heard anything from Sony about this PlayStation 4 "Neo", but it looks to be pretty much confirmed. Still they could potentially settle a lot of unrest at E3... but, It'll take a lot to swing my mind from some pretty bad predictions I have about this situation.

So for starters let me stress something: No this is not an answer to your prayers on having a console system that is up to par to make up for the supposed "lack-luster" and late release. For starters this isn't a massive gap, and there probably never will be one in a conventional sense (VR might do something for you though). If you read through the report carefully you'll not only notice similar architecture, but also the blatantly stated regulations that include there is to be no extra features, every game must work on both systems, and you could even put the system to use by a mere patch. This isn't exactly aiming to dethrone the smug PC master-race. It might let you play movie in 4K for the few that even have a television for that, and it can bump up games as if it were a remastered edition of... well a game that should have been running like that to begin with, but I'll get to that rant later. Basically this isn't a big overhaul worthy of double dipping from what it looks like.

Not as much of an upgrade with the Neo, so no.

However the real problem comes in with the fact that this is mandatory double system development, and developers aren't happy about it (as both Dice and a supposed "report" indicates). It'll be more time consuming and costly, which naturally sounds right and makes perfect sense. There have been two counter-arguments: 1) Oh yeah, so devs are whiny for getting what they asked for. They blamed the hardware, and now they're getting what they wont (False, they aren't allowed to go very far with the hardware and are making for the old as previously discussed). 2) How is this any different than them doing PC? I don't get why this would be such a big fuss? Because they barely do it well on PC to begin with, or even outsource them. On top of that, this effects console-only teams. Even a porting master still has an addition mode they must sink time, testing, and thus money into. As I answered in red, the arguments don't hold up. The saddest bit about even bothering to argue at all, is that this is honestly bad for us in the end. If developers really could just tap into a stronger system, they'd obviously be happy with that breathing room and you wouldn't hear a lot of crap from them. Fact is though they really will be forced to spend more time with this. And how does time management look in this industry right now?

Lovely.

When developers had trouble in the past, it meant that either the game would be cancelled, or they simply had problems and finally dealt with it. In the worst case scenario you got Spyro Enter the Dragonfly, but that was a very rare case on consoles of an older era. Now games are both more complicated, and consumers are easier to exploit, so difficulties, poor management, and irresponsible decisions get the penalty passed onto us. They say they can just patch it later, make us pay extra for content that was made alongside the game, and we're also seeing some pretty backwards steps in user accessibility to (especially in regards to the online only trend of now). If sony forces another harsh block in their path, EA isn't going to just delay the next football game, its going to simply release in more of a hurry than it already is. If it costs them more, maybe they can make microtransactions they already through in there a little more tempting by making it harder to achieve them by organic gameplay means. Oh and now, a game like Doom that said "we're doing 1080p/60fps" might be changing their tune to "Screw it, only the new version gets it because that was easier, and we're not working as hard to get that on the original PS4". Of course that's even assuming a team would dare use the Neo for 60fps.  In the current trend, its all about sacrificing everything else and I doubt they'll use the extra hardware for 60FPS when they can make shadow 20% more real instead. Halo 5 lost its split-screen multiplayer for the first time in franchise history over poor compromise decisions (admittedly it involved 60fps, but it cost an entire function and way of playing the game). Killzone Shadow Fall decided their campaign should be in 30fps because they'd rather push on graphics harder despite the fact that it'll just look outdated in 5 years anyway. This was the attitude throughout PS3's lifecycle as well, meanwhile there are PS2 and older games that held a better framerate. The irony is this is all coming from someone who could care less about 30 vs 60fps, I only know whether or not the framerate is solid. However the fact remains that this isn't a hardware problem, its a priority, polish, and accessibility problem. Telling devs "Here's this new hardware you MUST code and test for before your tight release schedule" is just going to make things worse, not better.

So if you're wondering "How can this cannibalize on the old game's market if they aren't allowed to develop far from it" your answer lies in the above rambling. Its also the Neo's market you have to worry about to though since bugs will persist through to that version, but it'll more likely fall apart on the older side for obvious reasons. We live in a weird time in which devs want to comspromise on everything for the sake of making their games look slightly better, and they'll cut corners and lie about any other efficiencies to save time and money in achieving that. The new PS4s might become the new 30fps standard, whereas old PS4s get sloppy port jobs like what happened with Black ops 3 or Advanced Warfare on the PS3. They wont care to fix the pop-ins, the glitches, the muddy textures that barely load in, the square jagged bits bleeding onto textures, because that wasn't the version worth their efforts. You might not go missing any features, but nothing stops them from making the old version look as repulsive, artificially obsolete, and lazily done as possible. Then have I even mentioned indies? Indies might start to fade and revert back to the PS3 type releases rather than the improvements we're seeing now. They might be used to the PC platform, but their optimization record is mixed, and they don't always see much of a reason to come to consoles as it is. So when you put up this barrier, well you just broke that whole "we made this much easier and welcome to indies!". Meanwhile some are behind to the point where they're launching badly optimized games from a test kit reference (looking at Firewatch here), since that's cheaper than buying a normal PS4... so why would they take the time to optimize across two separate PS4 models? Oh, and then there's VR.

Will they still thrive on PlayStation after this?

The PlayStation VR was looking to be around a $600 investment for everything efficient aside from the console from what I can loosely recall (so don't hold that against me so much if I'm off by $100 or so). That's an expensive opening investment for a fairly competitive, mysterious, and unsure market. This is also by a company that doesn't have a pleasant history behind their peripherals. The move, the eyetoy, that weird book thing, and 3D television were all things that never went far at all. That wasn't to say they were bad, the Move was kind of awesome, and I'm sure 3D was fun for the right games. However things just weren't there, and now sony has even advanced that record to abandoning an entire console alongside its accessories like PlayStation TV. However their VR looks promising. Its something that's interesting a lot of people, and Sony has a lot of upcoming games, tests, and studios doing work on it. It sounds like it could have actually gone somewhere, which is why I completely blew off this rumor of the PS4.5 back when it surfaced. Sure they were experimenting with future console bits, but why would anyone be stupid enough to release an adjusted console when they need to sell their fans on VR? Why would they now tell people the best exlerience from Sony now costs around $1000 while simultaneously hurting their consumer trust? Might as well get a damn good gaming PC for that price. Well they seem to be up for pulling this move, but I'm still wondering how they were this stupid to do something like this!? Well, unless they have a super convenient bundle that puts them at a big loss, we might be seeing one side cannibalize the other.

So basically this topic seems really bad and kind of depressing to me if I were to be honest. I want to turn away and just keep my mouth shut and pretend it doesn't exist until an official announcement, yet I find myself compelled to talk over and over again about just what this could mean. Despite some nice regulations that sound good on paper, this sounds like a disaster waiting to happen if modern trends are anything to go by. I haven't even brought up the "what ifs" on how this might just set the trend alongside Nintendo's 3DS issues, and may even linger to next generations and just make console gaming as a whole a bit... well, more useless really. Maybe Sony can still surprise me with some good news in the end, but as far as I'm concerned this really puts a damper on an otherwise fantastic year for gaming. I feel like this stands as a potential danger to VR, indie gaming, and the quality of gaming in general. Well at least even if this does wreck some stuff up, we got plenty of good games to come out like normal on the PS4, including the awesome and new Ratchet & Clank.



Leaving this on a happier note.

Where's Clank? The flawed new origin story...

So this is a very weird problem to have. The new Ratchet & Clank game has been out, and I've really enjoyed it. Its not a new best of the franchise, but then again I can't say I was expecting such. Its just really great. If I slapped some meaningless number score on it, I'd probably say 8/10 and "Awesome", and I will get to a review of some form later after I also watch the movie (and tie in a review for it as well). The franchise has come a long way, and I'm very happy to have a good entry on the latest PlayStation console. You can also think back to a lot of the adventures, and just how much these two characters have done. They started off bickering and fighting only to find a common goal in the end and unite on their first story. Then they felt like excited agents going into Going Commando only to have a really big adventure unfold on them that really gave them a lot of drama. Then by the 3rd game, they had their own television show where clank was kind of ironically a star, and was tested against his friend Ratchet when Nefarious tried to take over with robots. Clank helped and operated on the phone line for Ratchet in Deadlocked, giving him vital intel and even an escape plan in the end that set everyone free. Their times were troubled again in Tools of destruction where Clank kept seeing weird things. Despite some dispute, they made up for it, when suddenly Clank was snatched out of the air by those mysterious companions. The next two games Ratchet spent searching for him, where they wound up stumbling upon each of their major origins, and had to make sacrifices as they clashed.

The Duo has stayed strong through many games, often serving at each other's sides in interesting ways, and then.... then you play the remake and ask yourself at the end just what the heck made them friends? Like actual friends? In the original 2002 Game they grew to hate each other, but at least it was a relationship and they patched it up in the end. Here they're just together because... the franchise demands it, and they make smaller comments off each other, but that's really it. This was the perfect chance for an awkward start, for them to learn and goof around with their obvious differences, and for them to each realize their strengths and weaknesses on their first big adventure. Instead they meet, get a sense of their mission, and simply go at it. Ratchet even flat out lies to Clank and Clank never brings it up 3 or so levels later when it should be. Heck if I were to nitpick, Ratchet also has a line that reverses his old "ew, nerd!" stance to more of an enthusiastic "I'm in nerd heaven!" style. Maybe it makes a slight bit more sense given he loves his gadgets and mechanics, but that's less of a contradicting style with his buddy that made them who they were for the last ton of games.



Hello!?

In the end though, this hurts Clank way more than it does Ratchet. Ratchet has a clear start, a clear goal, and does most of the actual work, has his dream happen, and is the player's character for 90% of the game. He's always sort of been in that position as the true main star, and that's fine. However Clank was always given his own time, his own conflicts, and had those interesting moments defining his place in the story. I admittedly have a bit of trouble putting my finger on his Going Commando and Nexus presence, but they weren't such big offenders. An origin story though? Yeah, there's something wrong if you choose to just slap the two together like this for a first time galaxy saving adventure. As a fan its not as obvious because you know their true history, heroics, and character, but once I seized the moment and remembered this was the start... I was kind of disappointed. Clank just doesn't have a strong presence here to call his own. He still has playable portions, still talks like clank, and as a long time fan and gamer I was happy enough that he acts like normal; Its just that when it came to the plot writing itself, he was just tossed into the mix and told to follow Ratchet's adventure to becoming and saving the Galactic Rangers.

On top of that, with the sudden serious surge of deeper plot elements in the later series, none of it is present or even teased here. Clank is still treated exactly like he was at the start where he was just a robot out of a robot factory. Nothing more to it, except at least this time he gets a short level bit there. How he was made as the guardian of the great clock and wound up there is still entirely a mystery. No supernatural robots, no mention that Ratchet is the last of his race, and heck Dr.Nefarious basically died alone as the way it was left off (no robot tease or buttler). For an origin story, it not only missed the point of building a better friendship between the two at their start, but it also just missed any purpose in adding anything after all the hard work they had done to the framework of the story. The major plot changes basically boil down to Dr.Nefarious being added, The Galactic Rangers rather than just Quark, and... well, obvious visual improvements. Of all things, ironically the protopets only old fans know are teased rather than something like the Zonni that would actually add to the origin plot. Its just a really weird oversight. Maybe the movie holds the answers, but that shouldn't be the case for a game that has more room, scope, and is the true medium and heart for the franchise. It should all be here within the game, and the story that it tells. I guess I'm just shocked that they had this big opportunity, and just didn't do much with it. Of course, none of this stops the fact that the game is still a lot of fun, a great value, and that I'm very excited to jump onto challenge mode and play it while anticipating the movie.

Ratchet & Clank series mini-reviews

BEFORE READING: Please note this article is perhaps done a bit lazily even if the work behind it was a lot. However this was made ahead of time for the original release of R&C (where I would have probably posted it a month or two weeks before the release LAST YEAR), and then that got delayed meaning this got delayed from its pre-written schedule. So this is a pretty super old draft by my usual standard. However all of the thoughts in it were complete, and I haven't undergone any super revelations to make me think that I should bother to change any of my opinions or views expressed here. I've also gone ahead and updated three photos that went bad since that time.

No you really didn't misread that. I'm going to be doing a full (although very brief) review of the entire home console developed R&C series (which does not include the two PSP games, or minor mobile related stuff. Sorry I just haven't bothered with them, and fans barely even acknowledge them anyways). There are however 3 catches to keep in mind...

- I promise a certain time gap has happened. These are not straight forward or perfect reviews fresh off of playing the entire franchise. As much as I love the series, that's a bit much. However I have experienced all of the games to some degree somewhere within a 2 year time frame from the writing of this, so its not like I'm fueled by pure nostalgia either.

-Once again, these are brief and off the rails of my normal review. As a matter of fact I'm going to actually resort to pointless number scores. Sure I stand by the fact that in a mature review they don't mean squat, but here its kind of just a fun way to pin point a game's place in the series. If I stuck to my normal methods you'd just be stuck with a ridiculous amount of "awesome" marks. Lets say for the sake of establishing semantics that 1 = unplayable, 3 = mostly unenjoyable, 7 = fairly good with some flaws, and 10 is about as close to perfection as the series may be. You can figure out anything in between.

-Uh... well I'm a big fan and that's just important to keep in mind. That means I'm more enthusiastic about some games or features, and yet more critical about others, but ultimately I'm not coming in from a newbie friendly mindset. I may not make sense all the time to someone who doesn't know about the series.

Now lets see how Ratchet & Clank have endured through the years...

The PlayStation 2 trilogy (+1)

Ratchet & Clank (2002)

R&C started out fairly simple of course. This game had no weapon leveling, a more typical health system, no strafing, and compared to its successor less mini-games and side activities. In some ways its actually pretty good, but in others... well this is probably the best game to go with for a re-imagining, so I'm kind of happy its getting a reworking. The game still started the adventure formula the series is known for however. You go from planet to planet, blasting and platforming your way around a big cartoony sci-fi world with your gluiding robot helper Clank. You also still get held up by gadget restrictions, get pushed to hunt for extra stuff, still have some insane weapon ideas and a big arsenal to collect, and you even still have to talk to the plummer at one point. Its just all very... primitive.

The good side, and what I really love about this weird start to the series, is how simple everything kind of lasts. While it was kind of lame at first to go without any leveling, I actually enjoyed how the whole world was balanced around it. The same blaster you started with could carry you over the entire game with just a slat tap of the trigger for most enemies. No hulking sponges to strafe all over the place with for 30 seconds, it was just like a platformer where it was run up and kill or be killed. Every hit felt lethal and punishing because of the small health, but each shot fired was equally as abusive to the enemy. Things were just simple and clean.

Onto the cons... Well for starters lets get it out of the way that Ratchet is more of  jerk in this game, which turns a lot of people off. I don't see it as a bad idea, but its not the best execution either. Also the voice just sucks, even if I'm not proud to say that Johny Test does Ratchet's voice after this game I can at least say it works whenever you can keep that terrible show out of your mind. As for gameplay... well, having an entire game without strafing just kind of sucks. Even though the game wasn't made with it in mind, you can almost instantly tell what a major improvement this was for the future. Enemies still swarmed you, and shots still fired in much of the same fashion, the thing is though you're just loosely flailing around and not capable of having the control and precision future games gave you. Heck there are parts of the game where all you can do is run in 360 circles with the flame thrower because of swarms that you can't strafe around to properly pick off. However by far the worst part of the whole game is the 2nd race. The first one is fine, but the 2nd one is just a total pain to complete. Just... very frustrating. Thankfully there weren't much more mini-games, which I can't say for the 2nd one but lets get to that later.

Rating: 6/10 (okay). Ratchet starts off on a very simple an unrefined state. Its very fun from more of  3D platformer perspective with that feeling more clear and fresh in this one with its simplified combat. However lets face facts here, the series was built up to market and sell itself on crazy weapons and that is more rich and fleshed out in future installments. This game is alright, but dated by the series' standards.

Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (2003)

There's a small voice within the community holding the 2nd entry up as the best of the whole series. Personally I decline from putting it up in that position even if I agree a certain quality of it accels (more on that later), and the very name sends a small feeling of dread and frustration. This was my rocky start to the series, and I stand by the phrase "rocky" with a jagged cliff end in mind. Of course, this series wouldn't be one I loved so much today if it was terrible. Its not, just very frustrating. The difficulty at moments was insane, the space battles could be a bit too loose, the mini-games annoying , and then there's a moneybags type character around seemingly every planet or so stealing those bolts you wanted to put on the increasingly hiked gun prices.

At its core the experience is fun, except for those said mini-games. Seemingly at every turn the game wanted to distract you, like the sad mindset many COD games are set in. However the core mechanics introduced the better challenge mode, conceptually awesome space levels, upgrade-able weapons & health, and just more general mayhem to enjoy. However the thing that changes my feelings to the most extreme is the adventure... oh yes...

I'll sit there playing the mechanically better and amazing games in the series when memories of Going Commando start to pop in. Memories of the Theif's awesome vox voice, memories of beautiful rainy planets that relaxed me at their very sights, memories of battling double crossing crime organizations, searching for crystals across massive open world deserts and arctic fields full of massive monsters, the shock on my mind at the game's multiple twists, amazing level set pieces like a deadly tour guide where you can protect a robot civilian group before going into the off-limits weapon testing facility, and the one and only appearances of some great characters and enemies. I still want Mr. Fizzwidget (the real one?) and Angela to make a return. Also this game had a bestiary, a feature I would always love to see return but never has. The game was probably the best adventure in the entire series on simply all that you go through, see, and experience. For that... I think I might occasionally once in 3 years or so revisit and play the game through again and endure the headache of some of its balance issues and distracted mini-game problems. At least I'll give it credit for coming up with arena mini-games, but it wasn't properly executed until later in the series.

Rating: 7/10 (Flawed Fun) R&C's 2nd adventure is possibly the best of all time, if only it were just a matter of being in the adventure. The actual reality is that the mini-games, difficulty, and frustrations endured will send you almost packing home from such an thrilling experience. However this was the best evolutionary point of the series with better combat experience and ideas that would become perfected in later games. Its still safe to say that this is a great game to play, but its just one of those that may have you on the verge of hurting something at its lesser points.

Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (2004)

Oh yeah! R&C2 has a minority calling it the best thing ever, but the majority agree it is between two games and I so agree with each of them. This is one of them. Basically it took everything great about the 2nd game's mechanics, then perfected and refined them to be more user friendly and endure a better campaign. It was the first game that had streamlined ammo restocks, a more clear health system, the most advanced weapon system to be seen at the time (5 level weapons + challenge mode), 3 quick select slots, 3 full weapon wheels meaning you never worried about dragging on in some pause menu just to use a weapon once and put it back, and you had more power-ups than ever before. Oh and as for the story and adventure we were introduced to one of gaming's greatest villains Nefarious, quark became the lovable hero wanna-be he is in current games, there was a well crafted hub world in place, and you worked more as a heroic team with galactic rangers in a way that really amped up the game's scale in narrative alone.

When I was little I remember playing a demo of this game over and over before getting the final release. It was a level of a city blasting cyborg aliens, slime guns that could turn users friendly, and then there was the arena battle... oh yes loved and replayed the heck out of that. For the time being, friendly AI was something I adored in gaming, and this game's ranger arenas were just perfect for me at the time. Those alone were a huge selling point to me, and when I got the game with 5-6 sessions of the darn things, and the returning arenas from R&C2 (which would become a staple) I adored this game.

Rating: 10/10 (legendary) Yes if this were a real review, it would really be the first legendary I hand out. This game was absolutely near perfect in every way back in its day (except maybe the sewer hunting area was a little lame compared to R&C2's equivalents), and looking back now its the highest point in R&C's early life for a good reason. It still holds up as one of my favorite games in the whole series and its only rivaled by one other I'll get around to discussing later. The only thing I hate about this game is the hack puzzles, the ridiculous end game difficulty spike, and... that's it really. Fairly subjective stuff as well. Oh and again, this game gave us Dr. Nefarious, best villain ever. 10/10 without a single doubt, and one of the best games I've probably ever played. This is what made me realize this series was going places.

Ratchet: Deadlocked (2005)

A lot of people like dismissing this as a spin-off and forgetting about it, but I really don't get why. I got this for christmas one year, totally surprising me to find yet another Ratchet game out there (and why clank's name wasn't present). I also wondered about the clear halo-esque vibe of the box art. I was in for a good time though, as the game was a blast and at the time probably tied or beating R&C3 (looking back though, R&C3 is a clear winner). Its too similar to the rest to cut it out as a normal spin-off, but its also a bit weird in that it cuts off some of the weird extras of the other games. However I mustn't care too much for those extras, because at one point in my life I just played this game over and over and over and over again until the challenge mode count on my profile actually went over 23 or so. And the other catch was that wasn't my first profile, so its at least two playthroughs higher than that.

Thing is as the title and box art would suggest, this game is more about combat. Yes even more than normally. Its got almost nothing else to it. You've got vehicle sections, and combat, but that's almost it. The adventure is rather confined and maybe shorter, the characters are relatively short lived to this game, and the planets always have smaller areas with a linear string attached to them pushing you on simple objectives. Its A to B with a lot of shooting, leveling, and short platforming bits. No puzzles, or non-arena based mini-games, which is a blessing if you ask me. However the combat focus also introduced the fun combat bots which gave you some minor extra breathing room and abilities, and the combat theme meant it had to give weapons extra leveling room, and one special leveling layer that I still miss as it was forsaken to just this entry: Modifiers. Modifiers came in magma, acid, shock, brain washing, morphing, freezing, and... uh well that useless time rift one. You basically stuck an elemental or crazy effect on nearly any weapon and gave it a totally new twist and strategy. I would freeze people with a rocket launch, then coat them in a magma mine deployer, and then smash them with a giant lightning mace, and then I could go back to the same arena totally changing those mods around and having a totally different order and effect of chaos. It was fantastic, but left a small desire to see it go even further. Why can't I make my blasters set enemies on fire? What were to happen if I combine ice and electric with my shotgun? Things like that, but the reality is this would be the one and only game for them.

The odd downside to this game might just be the bosses. For such a combat focused game, the bosses had almost no screen time and got progressively less interesting until the final two (and even the final boss was kind of "meh"). Gameplay wise they were as generic as could be with missiles, slashes, and those odd artillery stuff you see telegraphed, and story wise they just came and went with the 3rd exterminator being totally voice-less and lacking any distinguishing characteristics except for a joke that he was a good chef. I'll admit I loved Shellshock as an arnold impersonator, but he was still quite short lived and for such a tough guy taken out as the first real boss. The next big complaint will come off as rather similar, but the adventure spirit just isn't so present. Planets are very linear and the general direction of the story leaves you not really caring much for the places you go. I will say that its not actually much of a complaint though as its kind of what the game is... its about the combat, and not the adventure. Its just that I'm saying this so you don't show up expecting one with this entry. Don't get me wrong it still has some great concepts and ideas, and I adore the simple combat sports show theme alone. Oh and if you're playing the PS3 HD port version, prepare for a bit of a buggy mess. The game was cheating the PS2's hardware and simply wasn't meant to work as it was, but had some wizardry behind it that pulled off well. However porting it to another system... it sort of falls apart. Frame-rate issues make the game literally go into slow motion at various points, cut-scenes glitch out, and early on Ratchet's face outright collapses on him with some very strange visual stuff. Also the cut-scenes are still SD and the game just generally didn't have much done with amping it up for modern consoles. Its just a shabby port job, but one that is still playable and one I'd recommend if you have no other access to the game.

Rating: 9/10 (awesome) I sound a bit harsh on the game in some spots, but its generally a warning for those unaware, or a reminder for those who have forgotten what the game was like. Being a fan of the arena and combat of the series though, this "spin-off" was made for me and I love the game. Again, it once competed in my younger mind as the best of the series and thus one of the best games of all time, and while I don't favor it over a good adventure entry now I do still adore the game.

Future Series

For the first time R&C would start to actually tell a story that worked throughout a series of several games (I guess that's the power of going HD or something). R&C always had surprisingly good stories and epic adventures, but they seemed a bit disconnected and the references rather small, and some characters outright disappearing. Now... the series would go on a bold step to talk about Ratchet and Clank's character beyond him just saving the day. It would actually go on to uncover their origins.

Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction (2007)

Debuting on the PS3 in its early days, Ratchet & Clank would move onto a bold new adventure. Metropolis, the most commonly attacked series in the game, starts out under siege as Ratchet finds himself embarking on the start of a fairly dramatic story. Gameplay is fairly similar, but ultimately a little oddly executed. You had weapon upgrades running off of their own currency to do some cool but odd stuff, but still leveling normally as well, and then you had a strange grenade system. The grenade system deployed weirder utilities that didn't upgrade much themselves nor were they supposed to be used for anything more than a light tactical twist. However some of them, like the disco-bomb, and Mr Zurkon, would become staples of the series as it went on.

The story is pretty good, but the adventure attached to it feels rather hit or miss. You'll find glimpses of cool ideas and great moments (be it narrative or gameplay) coming in, but then they pass you onto some odd gimmicky tool you forgot about, or reach some point that just isn't as fun. They also re-introduce space combat in the form of Starfox64 style rail fights, and have you hunting through fields of monsters again. Actually... now that I think about it, in quite a few ways this game feels like its trying to hit that Going Commando spark. A dramatic female side-kick, hunting through fields, space combat returning, and stuffed full of so many gadgets that the game itself isn't even able to keep up and instead shoves them in your throat like mini-games inconsistently. Even a few levels and areas remind me a good bit of R&C2. The thing is gameplay is much better and more refined with its improvements, however the adventure kind of sucks compared to R&C2. Its still a good and epic one, but if that's what they were trying to mirror the 2nd game, it just didn't work.

Rating: 6.7/10 (Okay) This is actually quite a bit like Going Commando, and I would even rate it almost up to its place in rating. The thing is though where as R&C2 was an evolutionary phase and had a strange high and low sort of enthusiasm, Tools of Destruction wasn't quite the evolution and just sort of drags along a middling line of good, but not great in both gameplay and narrative. The tools are actually probably the worst bit, as they feel forced and there are too many to see consistent use of them. Still the game is fairly good, just kind of... eh. Its actually the first in the whole series that I actually just lost interest in and dropped out for a while to go play something else. Actually still to this day I haven't beaten challenge mode. I'm going to remedy that sometime though...

Ratchet & Clank: Quest For Booty (2008)

Enter a really short, easy, and forgettable minature Ratchet game.... with possibly one of the best intro music pieces of the series! Okay yeah that's a bit weird to say, but moving on... this game basically takes off of Tool of Destruction's love of pirates, and has Ratchet going in search of clank with the help of some unreliable pirate buddies. Ratchet does a good bit for a small price, but its still a small deal overall. There really just isn't much to say here. There's some good humor, some fun moments, and some cool ideas, but Ratchet's leveling gameplay and arsenal doesn't have a place under such a short and constrained title.

Rating: 5/10 (okay) Not a finer point in the franchise. It came, it went, and people didn't bat an eye until the next game. This was just a fragment of a normal game, like the opening quarter worth without any of the progression to make you truly enjoy things. Its still a fun adventure, has some good platforming bits, and of course the dialogue and story is as good as ever, but it really just goes no where other than to fill a tiny story gap that... honestly isn't even needed, you can still just as easily skip this game and just figure out things for yourself between ToD and CiT. I seriously think this game might just be worth more because of its theme music on the PS3's menu.

Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time (2009)

best blue/orange ever!

If you call yourself a Ratchet fan or even express the slightest of interest in the series, you must get this game right this very second. Right now. Yes I'm talking to you, this is your sign, go get it right now. Are we clear? Because this is one of the best games ever made IMO. This is the 2nd of the two games everyone adores, only this fixes the difficulty spikes in R&C3, and has Nefarious returning nd being possibly at his best yet. The story is here and good, the planets are awesome, the arena is fun, the weapons are fantastic and well refined, the platforming is all good, the theme of time is well used, the tool balance is good, Clank is actually interesting to play as for the first time, and there is even a spyro-esque collect-o-thon element overlapping the typical formula. Oh yes and there's no puzzle crap or convoluted tools, and things like the hoverboots are vastly improved. Combine that with the advanced physics, graphics, and the fact that this is the last game that will seem to feature the real Ratchet look (before the hideous spin-off engine revamped the style). If its not the highest point in the whole damn series, then Insomniac hasn't made it yet and I will be camping outside of gamestop for the successor to the crown. "Tell me more" You say? Gladly!

Basically Ratchet is in search of Clank who has gone missing. Dr.Nefarious returns and turns out to be the behind it, stealing clank to force him to operate the great clock, a massive machine that actually controls universal time.... at least that's what most people think it does, but I wont spoil the true conflict behind it. The story winds up covering some of the mysterious nature of where both Ratchet & Clank came from, and makes them question their destiny and what they're supposed to do. Its a plot that goes as epic as it may sound, while still retaining the humor and great characteristics the series is known for. Radio stations also add a nice touch while you're cruising through space, but that brings us to the gameplay...

I'll cut the gameplay description short by noting the newer traits. The game trades the usual metroidvania style for something more like a collect-o-thon. You have small space flight sections that take you from planet to planet like a hub world, and little side quests, asteroids, and moons you can go on as well to get extras. Your main collectible though are creatures called Zoni, and getting them will get you past certain gated points as you move on, and give your ship more upgrades. Clank's portions are changed from weird helper puzzles to an awesome time themed puzzle session, where you record various versions of yourself in order to play back and unlock set door pieces. These traits combined with the typical formula make for a very refreshing and exciting well crafted experience, and with such a high narrative point the game refuses to present a dull moment. Its a great game through and through. The only complaint I can truly make at what's there is that the first half of the game is dubbed as a little too easy. I thought this on my first run but then thought to myself "maybe I'm just so good now after all that I've played in the franchise." Nope! Told my father to give the series a try here, and he said out loud at some point that the game was just way too easy. However when "too easy" is the worst part of an otherwise perfect game, you're not really having much of an issue. Well okay that and a couple visual effects have some ugly jaggies, but phooey to complaining about that in a serious manner when the game is literally one of my all time favorites.

Rating: 10/10 (Legendary). If I were to go into great detail we'd be here all day, but just trust me on this... this game is one of the best. Its one of those games I keep coming back to for a full playthrough, one of the few I've totally platinum-ed and 100%'d on everything except skillpoints (because some of those are just ridiculous), and one of those games that is just so amazing that it has you simply taking a moment to pause within the game to just look at everything and say "life is just fantastic".

Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus (2013)

I hesitated to trust this game after a certain incident happened with the series, but we'll get to that later. However I'm so glad I picked this up, because at the end of the day... or year, it was one of the best things I played in the supposedly all-star year of 2013. And yet all it was, was a mere budget short release just advertised to be barely more than Quest for Booty. I already covered this in a review, but lets go over this game another time...

Into the Nexus was advertised as essentially a short epilogue adventure to the Future sub-series. Whether or not we'll ever get a game that forwards on the story line, who knows, but they wrapped this one up in an okay way. You had Ratchet's story coming to terms with his move as he is faced with a villain that wants to do quite the opposite. The villain shares a very similar fate as Ratchet but would rather tear apart the universe than to accept the short stick of luck. Its neat, especially when Thugs 4 less are involved again and better improved over their R&C2 counter-parts.

However the gameplay is where things really shine. You've got essentially every great piece of the formula mashed into a small game. Hunting? check. Arenas? Check. Awesome clank puzzle twist? Check. Cool cinematic battles? check. Ryno parts? Check. Challenge mode? Despite the short length, yes! I could go on and on. The only thing they didn't manage to cram in were space battles. They even managed to introduce the best jet pack type gadget yet, which goes fairly unrestricted at two portions and its really fun. Generally the game is an outright blast.

Rating: 10/10 (Awesome) I was thinking of giving it a 9 type decimal rating by comparison with the other games, but screw it. Just emphasize the "awesome" part and not a legendary like the other 10s. Its not up there with R&C3 or crack in time, but for a $30 mini-adventure it does absolutely everything amazing it possibly could accomplish. There isn't anything truly bad about it other than the fact that it is indeed short. Its also the most gorgeous game yet, even if I still hate the A4O engine model of the characters. If this was an apology for the series down time, consider it accepted, but I would still love to see a full game soon. Please be good Ratchet 2015!

Spin-offs from deep space

Yeah I know at this point you're wondering either why there is a huge time gap between CiT and Nexus, or you're wondering if I skipped out on some. No I did not, its just that those two are neither contributing greatly to the story set within the Future series, nor do they play as good R&C games. So I saved an area for them here. Deadlocked might just count as a spin-off of course because of its strange theme as well as its placement in the series, but honestly it has two major differences from these games: First off it still did a lot to feel like a R&C game. It was more minor changes rather than a full on spin-off. You could also argue a lot of differences on that scale crossed between the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd R&C games as it was evolving. 2nd major difference is it didn't suck and actually had optional multiplayer done right. These two spin-offs on the other hand.... well....

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One (2011)

just miserable

This game deserves an entire article worth hating on, because its not just a bad Ratchet game, but its a terrible game going under a formula that I will never comprehend fun under. I really need to talk about it with more space and time dedicated to the issue. I call it forced gimmick co-op gaming. Its the kind of thing where half the gameplay is made up of buddy puzzles where you just tell or wait on the other player or bot to stand on the opposite switch of you. Did that? Good, here's a cookie! It might as well be called Skinner Box with Friend's: The video game! Its just you pushing a switch, or swinging, or doing something synced with a buddy and that's somehow called gameplay and they manage to stretch it across the whole damn thing. Oh and as a bonus, this is where they decided to completely screw up Ratchet's art style which is even carrying over into normal games like nexus (movie seems to be adding back in more details thankfully, but still not so sure), so its literally scared Ratchet.

However lets talk about the gameplay anyways... Well you're basically playing from a fixed overhead view under a co-op style game of up to 4 players. You run around and shoot enemies with a somewhat normal loadout. The thing is though that weapons don't work like normal, and enemies are extreme bullet sponges because one of those co-op gimmicks is attached to basic gunplay. You have to both shoot an enemy at the same time, activate a weird ring, and then wait for it to give you extra points as it just sits there to soak up shots. R&C may have bullet sponges in most cases, but this is double if not triple what you're used to, and its for the sake of making sure you play together... by forced gimmicks. Likewise that's how your tools work, that's where some doors and gates come into play, and that's what set pieces take advantage of. Just about the entire game is making sure you and a disfunctional bot, or a potentially uncooperative friend do everything at the same time.

The only good thing, and I really do mean that, is probably the story. Quark is president, Dr,nefarious returns (and has to work with everyone), and some mysterious stuff is going on within a planet that was once peaceful and tribal and now being altered with some strange stuff. That's a pretty great set-up, especially president quark. Heck that's almost what makes me hate this game even more... that one idea sounds so good on paper, but yet its thrown into a game where Quark gets used as just another interchangeable player character spouting out repetitive one liners in the game. There's not much room for his character to really do what he usually does when he's forced to be treated like someone could play as him. Still the story is good enough that I forced myself through. Any other compliments, like maybe one particular platforming challenge or set piece, are so small and short lived that its just not worth referencing. Well okay, I will say the reversible cover on the case is cool.

Rating: 2/10 (Heresy) The only thing that saves this game from a 1 is the fact that it functions... and even then I'm not sure that's a good thing. I got this game from a 3 for $10 sale (I was aware of how bad it would be, so I waited quite a bit) and still felt ripped off because I could have got deadspace 2 or fallout vegas instead for the 3rd game. That's really sad putting those two games as more desirable as a Ratchet game, but the thing is this isn't actually one. Its a terrible gimmicky co-op game in line with other terrible co-op games that I'm baffled even exist, and I'm confused as to how anyone calls them fun. This just has Ratchet's face, story, and some humor tacked onto it. Insomniac, don't you ever do this again.

Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault (2012)

So after a terrible co-op game, did Insomniac learn a lesson? Not really. Enter the next multiplayer themed game, and another abomination. This game took to online multiplayer and traded 4 players for two and a competitive scene. Ironically however you could only play couch co-op in... well co-op, the versus was strictly online for some stupid reason. That's actually kind of sad because the core basis of this game would have, unlike All4one, been fun with a buddy. They actually got co-op right here. You basically played R&C under a 3rd person perspective again, platforming, and earning crazy guns to shoot up stuff with. The twist was that there was that you were strictly playing between attack & defend stuff. You had to run out and smash some outposts, then return back to base to design your own defenses and defend generators.

Did it work? Well yes, to an extent... and very limited one. The thing is that it wasn't made to last. R&C was never known or used well for competitive multiplayer, so that's dead and gone while all that matters is the campaign which was rushed and shallow as ever (even compared to all4one). The attach & defend nature of objectives got ridiculously repetitive, weapon collecting was designed around a very weird principle of finding pods, and there was no real diversity. Oh and there were only about 6 levels, and a plot that was good but fit for more of a 30 minute episode feeling rather than a meaningful adventure in the series. On the bright side, the game was actually fun in some parts and had some interesting ideas. Maybe in a better world the multiplayer would have lived long enough to entertain and grow a community around it. On the down side though, the game just lacks the effort to make it anything good. Co-op only split-screen, rushed story and campaign mode, repetition that just makes the gameplay a grind rather than leaving that to the RPG stats. It just wasn't that good.

Rating: 4/10 (Hersey) I'm a little surprised that many people actually prefer A4O over this one. Its like what I say about Spyro's 1st PS2 entry: Sure its bad, but at least it has some resemblance and fun parts that we love out of the older games. This game actually has some fun combat, the defense pieces can be fun at first, and the co-op is something I actually wanted to try with somebody. Its... still bad, but its close enough to fun to have fooled me into buying it based off the demo and even having some short lived moments of joy. Then when Nexus released the next year I remembered what actual Joy from start to finish was really like, and vowed to probably never play these two spin-offs again.

On a final note with these spin-offs, this sort of thing is the epitome of why I don't hate on COD simply for not changing. There are other reasons to criticize some annualized series, but innovation isn't the first thing that comes to mind. I'll take a new adventure in a great series over something so different that fans try to pretend it doesn't exist, and new comers ignore it outright because they can't be bothered to play sub-par material from a series that has lost its identity. That being said I don't totally hate spin-offs, if they're done intelligently and done in a way that doesn't hurt the series cannon. However I think R&C dragged it out the wrong way, and I'm worried the series' low sales might have been in some part because we haven't gotten a full on new Ratchet adventure since 2009 (though do note sales figures were dropping after ToD, so its just a rough guess to say Nexus sold poorly because of the spin-offs).

Now Playing: Assassins Creed Syndicate

This Jacob is a lie, but we'll get to that later...

I know its been a while since I did one of these, but every time I start typing one up, it gets side-tracked by a bigger issue until I'm just not playing X game anymore, or I'm not in the mood to blog. However this time, I've got one I'd love to discuss about getting into: AC Syndicate. I left the AC series after Black Flag. Really AC is the fastest I've ever had a series go downhill in my book though. AC Brotherhood was my introduction, and an incredible game that had me hooked and thrilled constantly. I ignored much of the side stuff, but I still loved the way everything worked so much that the hours and fun rolled on by. Revelations? Fun at first, but damn did something just get dull and dry about it. I can't tell you why aside from the aesthetic, but it just fell way out of interest. AC3? Holy shit dude, longest tutorial ever and gameplay that removed just as much as it added. AC4? Lets take the most overrated element of AC3 and theme the game around it, force on ship stealth that makes no sense, and then go all generic on land because we don't know what kind of game we want to make. That's what their thought process looked to be in my eyes, and the people demanding the naval combat be its own game are probably on the right path (not that I'd play it, but keep it out of AC and focus on making that better). Considering I only ever finished AC brotherhood, and saw Unity coming around the corner stripping away even more features (not mad about the ship though, thanks for throwing that out), I found it time to pack up and move away from the series. I'm late into buying Syndicate though, because between the lack of "8GB patch" news, some actually positive reviews, and a theme I'm most curious about (as well as the continued lack of naval combat. I can't believe people actually like real-time trajectory combat with awful steering). I was getting into an AC mood again, and things just pointed me in that direction. So on a $20 off sale, I got on it.

What do I think so far? Its good. I wont pretend its anything more or less, but I'm having a good time with it. It meets a weird middle ground that feels very familiar out of Ubisoft. Its not quite as strong as Witcher 3's open world (almost nothing really is), but definitely far more engaging and interesting unlike Just Cause 3. Its pretty much a tiny step up from most AC's past in that regard, not exactly connecting you to "find mystical armor piece number 5/8" but rather asking that you bump into Charles Dickens for another Ghost Club hunt and along the way helping him will give you a rare item. The combination of map clutter, but useful story interactions within a believable, suiting, and dynamic world all make for a game that is just half-addictive to play regardless of the quality in any given moment. One moment you'll be heading towards your next mission, then you suddenly see a cart to hijack that pays in that resource you want. Then you find yourself on the other side of the map, but oh hey there's a fast travel point I can go unlock. Now back onto the story, right? Oh, no there's a crate over there that may or may not contain a rare item. Darn, now the train vault is full and I have to go empty it... oh, but I'm rich enough to buy that cape I want with money to spare. 10 minutes later in menu management and planning with your character customization, then you'll be asking yourself about if that mission is worth chasing after again, or if you'll just go save some children or talk with Charles Dickens again. That's how so much of my time so far is going, and I really don't think I've gotten nearly as far as I should have in the main story. Oh and the intrusive meta plot has stuck to quick cut-scenes so far, so that's nice.

So much to see in London

So what about the core gameplay? Yeah its alright. I know the grappling feature has been a love it or hate it kind of thing, but I'm on the love side of it. There's still plenty of climbing around, and its effective enough, but if you just want a quick and stylish exit or roof crossing its there. I welcome the feature, and I'm really not too certain about why climbing buildings is such a romanticized feature anyway (3D platformer fan here, jumping on things has had more interesting gameplay before). There's also the new sneak function, which is okay. Its pretty much a crouch button with an extra stealth indicator. My only issue with this is that not using it removes the classic AC hooded look, which is a shame. I also love that jumping has an up and down function, even if it doesn't always make a lot of sense, it does in fact work well more so than what I remember of AC3 & 4. I have some mixed feelings about some of the extra stuff in the interface and meta-gaming though. The best part is that financing things is sort of back, with a time themed vault and some gang upgrades to improve it. You now have a leveling system in place for both enemies and characters, artificially gating off areas and items. The list of unlocks is interesting, but as always I'm asking myself if the game would have been just better if you just give me the stuff. Funnily enough though, AC may prove that wrong, as one of the easier unlocks is automatic looting. Looting has been a mild chore for the entire series up until this point, so... yeah, guess its hard to argue that this system is making it harder on us. Still that kind of thing bugs me a bit and I still can't help but wonder why something like the kidnap function had to be invented with an annoyance, only so you can get rid of that annoyance by upgrading it away 3 hours into the game. Furthermore they dragged the process out in one of the weirdest ways possible. Traditionally you get a skillpoint when you level up, but now you get XP, and then that XP gets you skill points, and then you need to spend skill points up to a certain point to level up. So the entire leveling, gating, and enemy combat system is all based on whether or not you spend the last two points required on something like taking less fall damage. Seriously guys!? I love that I'm working on upgrading these assassins now, but this system could still use some serious polish before I see it as a true upgrade for the franchise.

Meanwhile combat is another weird change, but not so bad. Combat was at its best in the AC2 arc and its probably going to stay that way. You had a real health system to keep up with as well as armor, you had your tools and weapons that were numerous enough to form an actual wheel, and then you had a large variety of raw brawling capabilities ranging from the stunt and counters that carried over to the more interesting stuff like grabs, disarming, dust throwing, I think blocking, and grabs had their own separate action wheel. I think AC3 made tool use a bit better, but aside from that I can only remember them taking away various things that made combat feel so interesting. That certainly helped me dislike the last two games I had played. Here in Syndicate they at least owned up to the fact that their new streamlined combat sucked, and decided to rip off someone that did streamlined melee combat better; its the "batman" system now. I'm kind of alright with that, because while I don't like batman and think AC has had better ideas before, it at least actually makes sense in what they originally wanted to do with streamlining combat. You've still got a lot of complex things to worry about within combat, its kind of difficult when you lose focus (as it should be), and they polished it well enough that it looks and plays fine enough. Plus there's kidnapping now, and fists feel like a fair trade off with the new knock-out function that emphasizes stealth. Then its all neatly tidy in the interface, and easy for players of all kinds to grasp and learn while still keeping you on your toes in challenge.

Finally, lets talk polish, story, and other extras (I tried wrapping this up into one praragraph, but its just not going to work. Sorry). Story so far is interesting, but mostly just a set-up as far as I'm concerned with it as of now. You're given an intro with an Indian assassin Green (very nice detail, as the two nations were certainly connected in this time period, and I don't think it was for the better considering the imperialistic attitude of Britain at the time) who is calling out for desperate help... after being tired of the last calls being ignored. From then on and numerous times, London is built up to be an assassin's nightmare. Its a cruel world heavily fortified by the Templars, with an evil master-mind using London's high power and trade connections to aim for ruling the entire world. Your boss scoffs at the very idea of going there, but you soon find your two characters really don't care and gladly set off against orders. You meet with Green who believes you're there to answer for the letters, which I guess sets up potential for an interesting internal conflict within your own group later on. Its pretty cool. Aside from that, the story has mostly just been about clearing white chapel, and searching for either the mystical treasure or stopping some messed up syrup.

The character swapping is also handled well, with each getting their own story arc, and having different preferences and goals in mind. I definitely like Evie more, because between her more thoughtful attitude, and the fact that Jacob follows the Edward Kenway mentality of looking like more of a street bum with an expensive jacket rather than an assassin, I definitely find myself playing Evie more. She's got the more classic looking robe, the customizable cape, the color variants suit her more, and she... just looks more like assassin material. Don't believe the marketing or stock picture look of Jacob sporting the hooded assassin style, he looks nothing like that in most of the game. Sure I suppose you can mock me and say I'd rather dress like the girl, but she's more like the personality and style of what you'd expect from a game called Assassins Creed.

Well, they're both fun characters in the end

As for polish and presentation, well its kind of mediocre for an AAA game, but its passable. The graphics aren't as wonderful as everyone hyped it up, it looks pretty much like a better textured version of AC4 with a dirtier environment. The glitches pop in mostly around character models, with AI bugging out and walking their patrols into a wall, and other character models just deciding to bug out or animate weirdly to begin with. On the very first mission I remember seeing a floating hammer going to work in a factory. The worst part though is just the load times. Holy crap, the load times are quite the thing I didn't expect. I think it beats out Witcher 3 by a few minutes, and I sadly find myself using load times more. I've found myself at least twice actually walking away to browse the web or get something, and by the time it loads I actually forgot I was waiting on it rather than merely pausing the game for a while. But hey, at least the presentation is excellent. I do really mean excellent, at least until we get to the enemies. Kids walk the street alongside adults, people talk with each other and ask "excuse me young man, where's the nearest haberdashery". There are thieves and dynamic events unfolding. Carriages fill the streets in various shapes, sizes, and passengers. Your own gang walks around (more if you own more territory) and join in on the fights you may start. You have cops patrolling, and usually some questionable ones guarding gang territories. Sometimes they choose to fight you, other times they'll be a total 3rd party and jump in on bashing bad guys. Oh, and the music! Its one of the best scores I think I've heard in a game since... well, Witcher 3 (I don't know why I keep bringing that up, but its fitting). Its not the kind of stuff I'd listen to on its own, but still its phenominal as a game piece. Violin-centric, and constantly moving in a steady or suspenseful rythem that suits the moment. The music works almost like its attached to the world, sweeping you into awe as you gaze from a building peak, strumming a dramatic melody as you rope around to your objective, or occasionally surprising you with an enchanting operatic piece in idle street travel time. The music is just excellent, and the best thing from AC's stuff alongside the unique Revelations theme, and the singing pirates of Black Flag. The only real flaw I have with the general presentation comes when you notice the enemy models. Its been so long since I think I was consciously away of repetitive faces. Its like a PS2 grade effect honestly. Every women watchguard looks the same, every brute is the same bald headed burly man, your targets are usually one of the same models simply dressed in stuff that honestly looks like SS Nazi uniforms, and the random grunts seem to be whoever is wearing a bowler cap in between. The riflemen and brutes especially carry the problem, being obvious standouts that seem to have a thousand identical clones.

At the end of the day, this is still what I said... a good game. Its not changing my mind on my GOTY ideas for last year, but its a fun game worth the money I paid for it. Its got some silly stuff about it, and some things I disagree with it on, but I find myself still well hooked into it. Honestly I'd rather be playing it, but I've been a write-o-holic lately and feel a "now playing" is owed. It has that fitting match of formula that is somehow a bit outdated, yet manages to suck me in and do its job anyway. I kind of like Ubisoft for being able to pull that off, but they felt to be pushing away from me with poor decisions in the franchise. After giving it a bit of time off though, I feel welcomed back in with a melting pot of changes and familiarity. I can get over the faults well enough to get to the enjoyment in the series. Its fun sneaking around, surprise jumping enemies from cable shots, hijacking carriages for loot, gaining territory and gang power, and being a part of a tale with so many fascinating characters in the unique historic fiction landscape that AC is good at. Oh and there's no awful naval combat in sight. Yeah I'm not going to let that slide, I don't get why everyone likes that mode, but I certainly don't. The best thing to come out of AC4 was a singing crew and tropical environment, the ship stuff itself just drove me to be annoyed. Syndicate is better off on land, with rich and interesting London streets, sporadic carriage chases, grappling around tall buildings, listening to awesome violin scores, and bladed canes slapping the bowler caps off of gangs.



Its good to be back with the creed

Doom closed beta thoughts

Some of the best things in life come free... or temporarily free at least. When I first heard of Doom seriously happening outside of the dark rumors, I read and drooled over a bullet point list of amazement. Brutal melee, no regenerating health, loads of weapons you could carry around, a gory sci-fi facility, etc. It all sounded perfect for Doom. Then another source added in "Oh yeah, there's multiplayer to" (paraphrased of course), and that vague kind of nonchalant mentality is exactly how I felt. The game sounded so perfect, so amazing as it was originally told, that multiplayer slapped on top of it (especially knowing how multiplayer FPS usually works) was just something I shrugged at and said "well I guess that's a thing that will be there". Turn to today, where I've been sinking time into the closed multiplayer beta as well as having even played a hush-hush alpha for the multiplayer. My reaction now? Holy shit! Doom is going to be an all-star game at this rate where ever mode is fighting for your time and love.

So the game basically works like an old-school arena shooter at its core. You've got modern touches like a loadout system, more meta-like bonuses, grenades, and the growing standard of animations like vaulting and melee kills. However the good thing is, unless you're a super purist this stuff shouldn't ever bother you. The game is still dotted with tons of items and power-ups, is instantly noticeable for being faster than your other FPS, and the gunplay even is left most intact with arena shooter mentality. You'll be platforming across chasms to grab that super health pack, leaping into corners of the map for armor, racing around others (team and foes alike) to get that special power or weapon for an edge, and frantically running around dedicating bullets into bringing down your opponents health and armor. The two weapon loadout system doesn't rule out the fun in mixing the right weapons for the right area, and power weapons mean you'll still be hunting for other guns. Meanwhile the hack module meta-game reward just allows you to have these simple and randomized helpful prizes like being able to see enemy health, or to mark the guy that last killed you. Its mostly stuff to make your own experience a little smoother, but from an outside perspective you wont notice the difference and have just as good of a time fighting these guys back without any module assistance.

I will especially vouch for how satisfied I am with the gunplay and current balance of everything. Bethesda/ID hasn't yet pandered to the current day's crowd in mass market shooters. You've got health packs, armor plating, and then there's the beautiful fact that it actually lasts in a normal battle. Yup, no 1-3 hit reflex kills on average. If somebody did kill you that fast, well they earned it through beating everyone to a specialty, or by placing a damn good shot on you with their rockets, grenades, and plasma bombs. The only matter of "pull the trigger first" mentality comes after you've won a race to the big guns. Otherwise if you're running around with normal loadout stuff, you'll have to assert maneuverability, aim, and smart speedy decisions to drill your opponents down to 0 first. Fights can be actual fights, with intense back and forth, mind tricks in mid-fights, can go from short to long range or vice versa in seconds, and gives the room for retreats and chases. Its all chaos, and incentives the use of map memory, tricks, weapon mastery and combos, and adrenalin-fueled races to the good stuff. Demons are also intentionally OP, able to absorb three times as much damage, while dishing out nearly insta-kill type weaponry. However there's a timer, various ways to deal with them, and they're mortal. Plus there's that subtle twist in Warpath where you almost have to move away from the objective to get one, so the winning team on the objective is less likely to dominate, and whoever gets it may find their time trimmed down once they find the spotlight of the game. A good team can take a demon out almost as soon as one comes into being, but the usual case is that its a good frightening wild card to throw into the match that gives you that "Oh shit!" moment. That's exactly why I love this game to, and one of the core reasons I look to enjoy a multiplayer FPS to begin with. You get these fast racing moments, unpredictable wild-cards and frenzy kills, and then there's just that joy in tricking or slipping up in front of someone and feeling great or laughing off the "good one" move someone pulled on you. Its all a thrill that's been missing for far too long from most FPS games.

So what about the rest of the stuff? Well let me cut that short, because it truly is trivial at best. For personalization there's selecting what demon rune you may be getting, your armor, your two weapon + grenade loadout (3 custom ones in the beta), gun paints that work exactly like your armor paints, and what hack module bonuses you'll bring into each map. The main thing to take away from, is that unlocks seem to be more based on cosmetics than guns. You unlock the lightining gun and static rifle, but that's basically it. Aside from that you're essentially getting a random set of colors or armor pieces to play with, and every round seems to end rewarding you two hack modules at least. If I had any complaint, its that the customization could use a little extra user interface polish, and they reprioritize what's unlocked at the start... because only glossy paint and lacking any black is just plain wrong for this kind of game. Meanwhile graphics are perfectly set to compromise a little on models and common textures, whereas special effects are the highlight of the show. Blood dripping from walls, explosions, camera effects, etc all glorify the screen. Meanwhile at the rate you're moving, the only time you'll stop to notice the UT3 type models is when the 3D pop-up of your killer shows up while you wait to respawn. Its perfect for the theme and style of game, and looks great. Plus consider they're sure this is going to land at 60fps/1080p, so looking this good and running like that is a treat.

Oh yes, it feels good.

In the end, Doom's multiplayer taste is just amazing. It shows a project with the right heart, energy, direction, and fun factor to be a true old fashion FPS game in the right ways as well as just a damn good game in general. I can only imagine the campaign is even better, and the map editor will allow for some great possibilities. If I have any concerns with the multiplayer portion itself, its that the balance will be questioned by people who don't know what they're talking about (COD fans saying "Ew, guns are too weak"), or the fact that the demons aren't properly tested with only one of them ever being in either test phase of the game. Still, what we experiences is showing off something brilliant. Its refreshing, energetic, thrilling, and most importantly... its fun. Maybe one could even say fun as hell... because, pun. No? Well fine, its awesome either way.

Raising the price on indie games?

How much do they seem worth to you?

Recently I wrote an article about No Man's Sky launching in the $60 AAA range of retail prices. Its right here and if you haven't read it, now might be a good time as it holds some relevance to this new subject that's cropped up. I wouldn't be surprise if the timing wasn't just a coincidence to. The article was on publishers thoughts about raising indie prices, which of course 2/3rds of them said "yes" to... because these are publishers. The one team saying "nah" was a hybrid small developer that has made their own projects in addition to publishers and porting others. So I think I trust them as creators and marketers more so than T17 that... really hasn't done the best with their own franchises before turning to publishing others. However I'm getting ahead of myself. The question here is about the price of indie games. We live in a weird time where hating on AAA is popular yet we all buy and love to hear about them anyway, and glorifying indie games as something amazing is become very common. Its a huge part of what sold the recent consoles as well. So is there a reason we're still seeing them and expecting them around the $10-20 average range, or are they really ready to jump to higher costs? Well, I feel like the bad guy trying to say this, but I think there's some genuinely good reason to keep those games down in price.

Well okay so for starts let me say that for the most part, I look at games per value in mostly the same light. At face value, a game is a game, and so its up to whichever one is better. Nothing about and indie game is bad by just being labeled as an indie game. As a matter of fact if you really wanted to drag the subject out, I'd even say most of the indie label is a screwed up lie since many are in fact getting published by a publisher (I'm especially looking at you Journey). Its just a different and simpler process than say Ubisoft publishing a new Assassins Creed. The way I value a game comes down to two steps: Does it have something I want that much + how much was put into it. That last one is harder for people to comprehend, but the two are more attached than they seem. We already fuss plenty at AAA for making online only stripped games at $60 for the same reason. We should be seeing competitive prices, and you're not following that principle if you were to run off and make a unity minecraft game and sell it for $60. Its as I said in the No Man's Sky situation, if I feel your game didn't take as much work as a AAA game, I'm not going to expect to pay as much for it. So that already sets back quite a good number of indie games, since they can't slap together million dollar games out of thin air... and just as I also said in that article, I wouldn't necessarily want them to anyway. Now the first point was much easier to understand: Quality gameplay at a suiting price. Simple enough, so a "good" indie game can just rocket its price up, right? Well... let me twist the question around: How many indie games that you have, would you have paid $30-60 for - without playing them first? My answer:

• Serious Sam at $30 or $40. Especially if it came as the full franchise. Maybe this is a slight lie though, because in competition with everything around me, I found myself merely jumping on it during a humble bundle sale for the whole collection and paying less than $10. Still in theory, I'd put their worth around $40.
• Garry's mod at the same range, IF it came with all the prop content (which is probably not legally possible unless they worked something out with Valve).
• Does Shadow Warrior count as Indie? If so, yeah that works.

Yup, its a small list. Maybe that's because I just don't play a lot of indie games, nor have the high end PC for a big selection of the more expensive ones (Lychdom battlemage may be worth $30+ to me, but I knew it wouldn't run on PC, so we'll see what I do as it comes out later this month on PS4). Still this is my list of indie games I can think of that I've played, and saw enough potential in before-hand that I would pay high for them. I would love to put Torchlight 2 up there, but in truth there's no way I'd pay that much for an ARPG top-down game without any direct control (mouse click to move). That right there, is the track to my logic behind why this list is so barren.

You can kind of see it to. Serious Sam fits in more with the right side

That logic with Torchlight 2 expands big time to other games. Heck if I were to honestly confess now, I'm one of really many people who don't even buy most indie games at their standard price. Its because just about each and every one (even the "good" or "ground-breaking" ones) have some strange quirk about them. You're going to find some weird controls, some weird layout, some notable corners cut or short length, or maybe its in a genre that just plain isn't worth or needing full budget and big price treatment. I sure hope you weren't planning on selling me Never Alone, or Fez for $40+ for side-scrolling puzzles. Likewise as amazing, heart-felt, ground-breaking, and instant-classic lifting status as Journey raised I wouldn't have paid more than $20 for it because from the beginning it was marketed as minimalistic and short. If I hadn't known how beautiful it was going to be before-hand, you weren't going to convince me to pay a high price to take that kind of risk. The same applies to how many weird indie games do stuff like omit or change up such basic features. I held off on Tinker until it was $5 (technically less as a game, it was bundled) because it was riding off of 3D platformer fame without a JUMP button. Yes let me say that again, 3D platformer, no jump button, and oh yeah it had mediocre reviews to with universal dislike for its combat system.

That's not just Tinker though (which is still a fun game by the way), but games all over the place carry wacky traits like that. Sometimes it sounds amazing, as that's obviously why they're made to begin with. If I had a computer, I'd slap down money for Super Hot's time freeze gunplay. Likewise I'm sure platformer fans were foaming at the mouth with Fez's interesting premise. Then there's Crypt of the Necrodancer, which... you should just go and look up if you don't know it, its a crazy idea. However for people like that, there are also guys sitting off to the side questioning if that'll be the thing that kills the experience. You can't make them put down a lot of money without hearing of a sale, but they'll easily be persuaded by Uncharted 4 which they know if they like or not by now, has extras, multiplayer, and a lengthy campaign with fun challenges worth replaying it through. And you want to put Super Hot up to that? Its main premise is so alien, short enough that even fans question it at $20, and its minimalistic art direction is... well, minimalist. Yeah, no thanks to raising the price on that. $20 or even $15 is just fine right there. We're still talking about the "good ones" to. The lesser ones aren't so much about being different, but rather just being very cheap or smaller filler experiences. My key point is that you've got to remember these "amazing ideas" and experiences so unique within indie don't come free, like they do for the critics who hype them up as such. Its instead coming in at a price at the same time as more expensive games we already know we love and care about, and you're fighting to sell us on these weird and quirky tales made cheaper and shorter instead. So its natural to expect them to be cheaper. Those three games I listed, all had the one fact in common that they were so easy and familiar to understand and had the right kind of content, that by merely looking at them I may want them more than the typical market stuff. Plus, Shadow Warrior had a retail release, so that helps me want it.

A beautiful bullet hell, but still just a bullet hell game

Whenever I do find an indie game that is worth its price at launch, its usually there to suit me at that level. Its not too expensive for what its offering, has something about its presentation that grabs me, and has tolerable or even amazing sounding gameplay. However once again I will point you to that list of three if you ask me "what if it were priced higher?". Take for examples Stories coming up at the same time as R&C. As it is, I'm just one small step from pre-ordering it. I really am ready to just buy and tear into that game, and love it to bits. Every piece of it feels perfect from a premise standpoint as I've spoken of it before. You double its price to $30? Heh, looks like I got to re-check my savings and think about this some more. Maybe its a big game, and that's good... right? I better look up some stuff about it, form expectations, and analyze this game to make sure its the right type of game. Oh... I guess maybe X might impact the game badly. And the writing might fall short later. Oh, I see how this mechanic will play out, maybe I don't want that. Oh this preview guy said it was just "okay". You know, maybe I don't want this game so much anymore, and I'll skip on Lychdom as well because now I have to hold money back for when Stories goes on sale and I just don't know what'll happen. Ratchet & clank will be good enough for now. End of scenario.

See, we do this crap all the time when it comes to AAA because its high and expensive. We need a break from that nonsense. I thought we had the indie market there for us as a relief and breath of fresh air? I thought it was all about selling us cheaper more standout experiences, or passion projects, or weird niche things that appeal to us and we can just enjoy without worrying? Stories is all about that, fit perfectly for me, and I couldn't be more blindly and childishly excited for it as April 12th approaches and I can grab it for a comfortable $15. Its a game I can just be happy about for existing, rather than being frightened that I'll lose something by buying it. I got $20 on my PSN account now, and because I'll have a smooth $5 left over from buying it, I am encouraged to spend that leftover (+ probably a couple added onto it just to meet a price of the 2nd indie game) on another more cheaper indie game. See, now I've supported two indies for a cheaper price instead of avoiding two because of one of their costs

Even looks like a graphic novel I'd buy in an instant!

In the end though the true answer to the situation stays ambiguous and probably ever-changing. Indies aren't technically held back by anything that I'm aware of. They can set their price models, their content, and usually give away free stuff but they can charge for that too. Its just that those prices need to suit the worth. I don't think No Man's Sky will be worth $60 as I already went over, so I'm not buying that. I don't think hardly any of the indie games I've gone into would have been worth that much to me. But if you think you've got hot-stuff, give it a try. The Witness didn't do but too bad at $40 despite the super niche product and high piracy rate. You just need to really know your market, and your own product's value. In the end I suppose publisher Rising Star's Mathers was at least half-right on his poorly worded observation. It is a buyer's market, and you're competing for people to buy your project above all others and pricing it to their expectations. That's not "entitlement" though, that's called freedom and capitalism. You can't force us to buy your games at a ridiculous price, sorry your feelings are hurt about that Rising Star.