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.

Now Playing: Rise of the Tomb Raider

So first off, got to say I'm glad to have stayed in the dark about a lot related to this, and even the PS4 release. I heard of some of the modes, and the VR extras coming with it, but never for a second did I expect them to actually treat the anniversary edition special like it should be. I don't know why, but companies rarely really do anything relevant for their iconic game's anniversaries. Heck, Metroid just got one of it's most hated games released around the marker with Nintendo just briefly mentioning it, and dropping that. Insomniac did something similar for R&C. However when Tomb Raider's 20th anniversary first-time PS4 release came in the mail, I saw it was a nice jacket-sleeve case, then a neat little leather look (just in looks) for the case itself, which opens with... a built-in art book? Yeah, that's really weird, but really awesome. It's a tiny little art book that mixes dev artwork, with some fanart, all properly credited and a huge portion of it pre-dating the recent reboot's style. It's not the biggest deal ever, but it's just the perfect little touch that's ideal to me for someone celebrating something like this. Don't give us some lame PSN avatar, or attach the "anniversary" to some lame spin-off you were going to make regardless of the year, but actually give people a tangible and real little trinket that fans can appreciate and feel a slight sense of nostalgia with. That's the kind of thing that gets you remembering and respecting a classic or aging franchise, and even if you're just some guy who just blindly picked up the game, it's still a nice little addition. So just like with the Witcher 3, I've gotta give credit where the finer touches and fan-care is given. It's stuff like that, which just puts a smile on your face even before the game starts.

So what about the game itself? Well early on, things are looking pretty good. It almost went all Uncharted 4 on me and started using flashbacks after the very beginning, but things are quickly getting back on track with a single main story. The moments from then that are flashbacks, are merely interesting story devices to show the past with her father, something I'm really glad they're exploring. They also tie this in interestingly, with Lara's surrounding friends and the mundane world. Lara's mother, and the reocurring friend of Jonah, think she's kind of crazy and they just want to have a normal life. Her father went insane with the same path she's following, and honestly I'm still not sure we know whatever happened to him and if the Trinity group got to him. Oh yeah, let's talk about that! The only weird thing on that note of the story, is that this has next to nothing in common with the old game in tone aside from the more gritty drama vibe. That's probably what they were actually going for considering it's more in line with Lara being interested in tomb raiding (and the tone those adventures usually take), but it's just kinda weird.

So... Templar?

It feels like they just came out of the first game developing things from the ground up, then suddenly the second game has all of this new lore that's all old news to the pre-existing character of Lara and her mother. No more island queen or sun cult, now it's an old underground mercenary group that dates back to ancient history, who want to control the world through tracking old powerful artifacts. It's essentially Nazi occult specialists + AC Templars + ancient conspiracy type case (the ending twist might be aliens... I dunno yet), whereas the old game was just "Lara, this island is insane. Why'd you crash here of all places?". I like it all so far, especially if they keep a paranormal tone in as all TR games have had, but it's just a strange move to pull. Then again it's not the first time, considering TR's first reboot decided to have a remake of the first game and tie that in with the new reboot's story, and then have a sequel to the reboot with the first game's new cannon considered in and... okay yeah that's way weirder.

Now purely speaking of gameplay, it's going well and doing mostly what I would expect. The game has innovations in odd but sensible places, such as a crafting system being used instead of a one-way upgrade guns with scrap deal. You'll actually need wood and mushrooms to create something like a toxic arrow, instead of just a magic scrap upgrade. They also thankfully fixed the dumb and distracting colored captions. Now you have the option for it, or standard subtitles. I can't speak for everyone, but every serious gamer I've known or seen has kept subtitles on in them games, but some teams just make them sloppy and TR'13 was one of them. One really surprising tweak, is the health and difficulty. You can now heal yourself by crafting, and on difficulties beyond normal, there will be times where you can't regenerate your health or may even be completely dependent on craft materials. That's kinda awesome, not to mention a true difficulty curve that already has me wanting to replay the game on a new setting. I still do have the complaint about how slow the game starts up, and also how painfully hand-holding the HUD and survival mode is, but I guess that's just going to come with most of these AAA adventure games. Hopefully in the future they have some HUD adjustments you can make to help fix this. You'd think devs would learn from Dark Souls by now that not everybody likes this crap.

So, everything seems really good. If there's anything left I haven't mentioned, it's either because I haven't played enough (like the extras), or I've already mentioned how much I like it from the older entry. I really am happy to be on another adventure here, and it's more fun so far than some of the dragging through Uncharted's latest (but with less impressive of characters. Eh, that's alright, I didn't buy it for a movie). Rise of the Tomb Raider ain't likely GOTY material, but it's a lot of fun, and I'm glad it's finally out on PS4. I think I'm only just getting started, so I'm looking forward to seeing where things go from here.

2016's hyped indies in review

People who sit there and treat indie like its under threat, or being held back as a stigma, are kidding themselves. Sure people hold it to different standards, but its often fitting to their own world of tropes, trends, habits, and values, and to say anything less of it is robbing it a part of its identity. To tell me I can't point out "another rogue-lite retro-inspired indie" is like telling me I'm not allowed to call a AAA game "long and grindy". But I'm not just talking about the bad obviously, I'm talking about the general traits and habits. Indies are so well developed, established, and known that they're filled with their own world full of it. Looking at AAA or indie is almost a bigger part of identifying it than the genre its in by this point. People get hyped, and discuss about their favorite indies of this year, looking at which is coming up that look great, which missed the mark, and which stunned them or did something powerful. Sure at the end of the day they're all games, but that doesn't stop us from debating about western and JRPGs, so why do we have to pretend indies are above being called indies?

I say we celebrate their development, and I've really been wanting to do this article for a while now. Ever since I wrote up this article, I decided I would come back to some of my most hyped indie games once I've let them sink in. Figure out which ones work the best, why, my hype previous to grabbing it, and a 1-5 rating on fulfillment (not a review score, just its impact and how it compares to expectations. A 2 game could still be better than a 4 in pure quality). Now just to be clear, these are games I've played or was hyped about to some extent. I'm not naming off every single game, nor even all the ones I've played. Just the ones that got me excited in some way, and willing to talk about. There's a ton out there, and I'm just not dashing out to jump on Slain, Mighty Number 9, and Hyperdrifter just lost my attention.

Now for code here...

1 = Its not so good, or was a total disappointment

2 = Its a little disappointing.

3 = Hit the mark, but did little else.

4 = Surprising and good

5 = Amazing! Left a big impact, and went beyond.

Firewatch

Why I was excited: Its a game with a great theme to it, and looked fun enough to be worth a trip. Seriously, why hasn't anyone else thought of the gameplay and story potential of being a park ranger? Its actually got a lot going for it. Well someone took it up, turned it into a suspenseful plot, and gave you some great dialogue options to have with a buddy. I wasn't super hyped about it, but I loved its idea, and when the time came around I found myself with the cash to burn on it. Probably the most I've ever put down willingly knowing this was probably a walking simulator (including Journey).

Result: Its a walking simulator with nice voice acting (without having played the later updates). That's really it, and I could move on from there. However I'll be more sincere and offer up the best and worst bits about it without discussing the much disliked ending. I still think its theme was still awesome, and its existence and how easily the voice acting reels you in is part of my point on why it stands up well for what it is. Its a great trip to take, and the visuals delivered beautifully. However it was bugged as hell, and with its massive patching and file-size for a story I went through, I found myself deleting it and not returning. I'd say its got a much higher return probability than something like Gone Home, but its a game I'm not going to play nearly as much as Journey, nor does it hit on those same amazing notes. Firewatch is a fun, suspenseful drama through a nice setting, pretty graphics, and a good moral theme, with some very sloppy handling.

3/5

Stories: Path of Destinies

Why I was excited: This game sparked the damn article that I linked to, read all about that there. I was absurdly excited to play this multi-branching story all about magic, air-ships, and a swashbuckling fox rogue as a protagonist. I adored everything about its premise, and the action RPG look to its gameplay was reassuring. I was a bit patient, and somewhat skeptical that something would go wrong, but I was all giddy about the game thanks to its tone.

Result: Eh, this is why you don't go crazy over the premise. and while that was what kept me super excited, like I did say I held some skepticism back, so don't go accusing me of hypocrisy. Still it was ironcially the premise that held the gameplay back. You see, the full story that I didn't hear until later, was there was some time travel and a groundhog day sort of effect of "do it again, and better!" type of content. That sounded kind of fun, and extended the gameplay, but... this is where short length comes in to screw with repetition. This is another indie game that is about an hour long (no surprise), but wants you to replay it a lot. Each session and story is about five levels of play, based on your direction. What ends up happening is you wind up repeating the same 8 or so levels over and over and over and over again, with little to no changes. Your upgrades just don't linger around well enough to keep things interesting with the repetition, and eventually you find yourself only replaying to see new story snippets. Oh but the story repeats from the same three starting points, and so you'll be even repeating story scenes. Everything else about the game is pretty great, except for the lack of camera controls. The combat gets surprisingly crazy fun, the writing is still amazing, the graphics are exactly how I wanted them to be, and the characters are all lovable. I just really, really, really don't want to be stuck playing the same damn levels that much. I got my victorious ending, enjoyed all my trips to get there, but was exhausted of the repetition and haven't touched the game since then.

2/5

Enter The Gungeon

Why I was excited: See that guy in the picture? That monster, who is obviously a knock-off of several other monsters? That's the Beholster, a ridiculous boss, in this ridiculous game. My eyes gravitated as smooth as butter to both the name and monster this game was advertised with. This thing came out of nowhere, shouldn't have been appealing to me as I hate its genre, and yet it was just so amazing looking. I... I... I suddenly needed this game. The art, the energy, the stupidity, it all bubbled into a little game that had torn my full attention away from anything else.

Result: The most addictive rogue-lite I've probably played. I spent a good week mostly playing it, and even played it through when I had and still hadn't finished Ratchet and Clank. A rogue-lite that does that is doing something incredible. Not to say the game was spectacular, because it still has issues I hate the genre for. Its still absurdly difficult, hates the idea of letting you progress levels unless you do it all in a single run, and it has a fairly poor character cast with just a lacking sense of interest in who I'm going to pick. Still the art, the energy, and the stupidity all held through, and the game oozes so much charm and fun that I just loved it and played it way more than I should have. I've since put it down and haven't been back into the same loop, but sometimes I'm just sitting there thinking of what to play, and I remember that giant smiling bullet face and go "lets do a round of Gungeon..." and simply lose an hour to that before figuring out the real game I was supposed to be playing. Oh and what little I've done of Co-op was fairly interesting and crazy, so there's that to.

4/5

Moon Hunters

Why I was excited: Moon Hunters is one of those games where as you see the trailer, you feel like the ghost of an excited christmas kid has possessed you. The music, the premise, what I saw as gameplay, it all folded into an emotion that was just sheer raw excitement and I just wanted to watch it over and over again until I was able to find the secret "insert money, get game" button. It sadly wasn't in the trailer, and wouldn't be an option at all until years later. The first warning sign should have been the fact they talked like a beta would be coming up, then kind of went "uh, yeah... totally happening the NEXT summer... maybe... we think". For reference, this game was around my view at the same time as No Man Sky's reveal trailer, and it only released a few months ago on the PS4, and as you can see looking between the two... its a bit weird that it took so long compared to a massive 3D space game (which itself had to be rebuilt at one point due to flooding wrecking everything). Moon Hunters seemed to get somewhat disappointing every time I heard from it along that long trip here. They had reached well into stretch goals with their kickstarters, yet scrapped ambitious features shown off, had various delays, had buggy releases on both of their platforms, got poor reviews even from their own backers, and the vita port just isn't happening even if it looks made for the device. I wound up hesitant about the game upon launch, rather than thrilled. It was once a dream come true to see an RPG all built up around a mythology story, where you became a myth hero in a world full of that magic and religion at the fore-front, yet by launch what I was looking at essentially conflicted the myth RPG with the tag-line "co-op personality test game" because... well that's how far it kind of fell. It somehow went from myth based amazement where you became a legendary hero of your own making, to just asking you what kind of hero you were in a game that had some mythology. Which is like every other RPG ever, just with this one playing up the mythology more because that's what it used to be. Can I cry? I kind of want to cry about this happening.

Result: By this point, I just don't know anymore. I was forgiving of some things not making it, but this just isn't what I really would have wanted much. Its... okay, I think. The final boss feels horribly balanced almost NEEDING co-op (and going way too long even if it was well-balanced), the unlockable trait chain (like getting to talk to animals) doesn't make a lot of sense and is counter-intuitive to fast repeating plays, and it's generally kinda shallow. Oh and there's a bad optimization bug. That being said, it still manages to be fun, and hold a good atmosphere, but it does so little even if you decided to go in setting expectations low. But they weren't too low, at one time this game looked like a dream come true, now it's barely passable as just another RPG with random elements. Considering the competition, I honestly haven't even bothered to play it much, so I guess that speaks for it falling pretty far from what I wanted, and even from some of my middle-of-the-road optimism. It's not terrible, but it's far from the dream game I once saw and looked on in constant excitement and even had an email subscription to.
1/5

No Man's Sky

Why I was excited: This is your fault, and an example on how powerful hype is. I was closer to the de-hype train than I was hype. I wrote articles complaining on its price, calling out the ridiculous and contradicting nature of the over-hyped fans, pointed out how some were expecting the wrong stuff out of this, and how un-vague the game was since we've seen it a hundred times before. However the game once upon a time had my total interest in the same way... all on its reveal actually. It was this big bold mysterious game that showed up out of nowhere. First-person space travel, full ship fleets pulling in, pew-pew laser battles in space, big alien wildlife and beautiful exotic vistas, and the promise of an endless universe. It was like FPS Space Rangers 2, but I waited to hear more details before going crazy over it. Then words like "procedurally generated" cropped up, crafting, survival, how your main threat was these little dumb drone things that fuss at you for mining too much, etc. Everyone else was still on this super space adventure high, or pretended the developers told them of nothing and whined about information, but really it was so obvious this was just another indie survival crafting game. I was still somewhat curious and interested, but was totally against the AAA price.

However as it released I was really in the mood for some good space adventures, I wanted something with a nice flow open rhythmic adventure to it, it was confirmed the game had a sense of spaceman spiff type wonder, and then I was out in town on a day when I got some money back and was noticing several major stores had this game out of stock already. I found the last copy at the closing 10 minutes of bestbuy, and grabbed it.

Result: Meh. Its not a bad game at all, but its just not a great one by any stretch either. Its buggy, impractical, and by its very nature tedious, and oh yeah the vocal part of the developer have proven to be total frauds who should be sued, so that's all not adding up so well in favor of this ambitious indie game. However you know it speaks volumes for the value of the medium and basic gameplay loops when it still manages to prevail as somewhat fun and exciting at times. Its still nice to see new creatures, find that one planet that is full of wonders, and just kind of enjoy a chilled out game with a podcast. As the patches hopefully come to stabilize the game and bring more substance and balance out of it, maybe it'll be worth keeping, but for now I actually found myself actually selling it after a while of not returning to it. Still not a bad game.
2/5

Abzu

Hype: Games deserve to stand on their own more than we make them out to be, but sometimes you just have to compare them to others and with good reason. Bloodborne for example almost needs to be considered in with Dark Souls, as Dark Souls to Demon Souls. Abzu is another, because the one and only Journey was fucking incredible and one of the best games to ever be made, and this one clearly goes for a similar approach underwater. I held back on it though, not as instantly compelled, and with less money to spend during its release. Also Journey's theme really hit me, this one didn't up until I started thinking "maybe this is Ecco for people who don't hate themselves", so I didn't expect the theme to be as good. However as time went on, I grabbed it in a sale recently. Oh and as a result, it's worth noting this game has no long-term investment comparisons on whether or not it's worth replaying.

Result: Games deserve to stand on their own more than we make them out to be, or in this case, more than they made Abzu out to be. When I was hyped and thinking of this with Journey, I thought of the two together in the same way one thinks of  Ketchup and BBQ sauce; both serve the purpose of flavored condiments, but you need to still use them with the right stuff rather than carelessly mix them. Abzu doesn't have the same fluid grace, seamless immersion, nor impact of Journey, but you can see it trying so hard to strike lighting twice with even shameless repeats of some elements. There are collectible sea shells for.... no reason, it's just there to be a collectible quota whereas Journey gave you the benefit of added movement or thematic story bits on the walls. There's a scene where you zip through and the camera pans sideways weirdly to show you something... kinda nice, but just feels there to match Journey's weird camera fixed slide into blissful beauty. Meanwhile it takes some liberties that aren't so welcome, like having scripted moments you have no control over just so they can show you something they thought was "cool". At one point I entered an awesome glowing cave, and wanted to look around, but the camera magically stuck in place so that it was fixed to show me a shark moving when I got closer.... and then that was it. Think of every useless FPS script where a squad member has to open a door for you, combine them, and then imagine I was even more pissed in that single instance. The game is more intrusive like this in various areas, not letting you appreciate what was free and flowing art from Journey, but rather constructed just to be a cheap imitation like Journey.

Well okay "cheap imitation" isn't doing it justice. Look, Abzu is still incredible, and clearly made with a lot of heart and care, just not the same stuff that went into Journey... even if it's trying so hard to think it is another one. It still manages to provide lots of cool moment, and was still given a lot of clear awesome quality stuff. Actually I'll flat out say the music is just better. Some of the scenes are very unique. Interacting with nature, is far more present than it was in Journey. Oh and the first moment you enter the strange celestial weird thing, is just amazing... even if it becomes a super-predictable formula for the next 2 hours. The meditation feature is also awesome... even if there's an intrusive "PRESS THIS BUTTON TO DO STUFF!" that never goes away from the HUD. Yeah I'm sure you get the point I'm making, this game is one step forward, and two steps backward... and no you didn't misread that. It's a great game, worth your time, but not worth more than Journey and I can't say it was the same great experience at all even if it tries to. The fact I've played it a bit in 4 sittings, and it's only slightly longer, is telling that it's not as good as Journey where I locked myself in, brewed some fancy tea, turned off the lights, and played until the credits had my eyes flooding the room with emotion. Still it's a damn good game and I'm trying to say that, still voice my complaints, without sounding like an ungrateful jerk about it. This is arguably the best "disappointment" on the list.

Conclusion?

I'm sure if I were actually a normal site with standard traffic and audience, people would think I'm bashing a lot of these games or even indies in general, but I'm not really. A lot of this is truly in the wording, and about the hype and execution, rather than a full review. I think each of these games have their share of issues, but the only one I'd argue is bad is maybe Moon Hunters (with others up to more of your preference). However this does conclude kind of a creeping suspicion... as much as I can be hyped for these indie games, the fact is I didn't entirely predict them to deliver. Moon Hunters, Stories, and Yooka-Laylee (which isn't out yet), and heck even No Man's Sky all stand a chance to be the best game ever from a concept stand-point. But I constantly preach that we aren't to judge things by that, because then you'll have your imagination plant the expectations rather than sane reasoning. Truth is they all have their limits, and that's especially the case in an indie atmosphere. These are small teams looking for easy ways to both build and also work a good loop into play. Every game on this list has a massive structural compromise (either big length cuts, or computer generated design), and one that's not present among entries like Doom, Witcher 3, or Uncharted 4. Sometimes that's part of what actually makes these indie games fun, but... just fun isn't exactly spectacular on it's own.

In the end, what I find myself truly coming back to, are the indie games that found some way (intentionally or not) to make the best of themselves, or to even circumvent the usual restrictions. I come back a lot to games like Armello, Hoard, Journey, Serious Sam, and Garry's Mod. Perhaps I might add Dust to the list as well. These are all games that have either a far more impactful or significant adventures that works alongside it's mechanics rather than pure artsy-ness (like Journey and Dust) and it wont matter much if it's shorter than a AAA adventure. Others don't use the normal nonsense of cutting things at all. Armello and Hoard are built from the ground up to be multiplayer-like in replay and structure, but so grounded in their themes that they make up their own campaign and solo function without another player. Then there's games like G-mod which takes the unconventional approach of using other games and open-ended anarchy type function to run off of endless sandbox fun, or Serious Sam that just throws a middle-finger to compromise and gives you a real full-blown shooter that is just fun. In the end I'm much more likely to come back to Armello because of it's amazing lore and uncompromising structure, than I am to revisit a slightly pretty and well performed camping adventure. I'm more likely to remember how awesome Serious Sam is and get a kick out of that than I am to play another round of Stories and bore myself with how much it re-uses the same levels and forces the same intro cut-scene on me when SS has more levels than I could usually finish.

While this indie industry is needed and should continue for wacky successes like Gungeon, and the fact that the compromising games are still fun and refreshing, they're not taking over like some people pretend they are. Don't sit there and pretend like HyperRoguePixel is your new GOTY when you look at what we're actually getting all across the year. I guarantee you if No Man's Sky was a AAA game, you'd have that vocal hipster crowd that would use it as an example of "AAA gaming is dying, and all of it's a disappointing failure! Go indie!", but the truth is those games exist on both sides. You know what else does? Serious Sam, and Witcher 3, though there's a justified reason you'll hear way more about Witcher 3. Now that being said, I do believe we're still getting to a point where more of these bigger indie games can happen, and more appealing ones can exist alongside them. Serious Sam was around since the freakin' late 90's after all, and it hasn't gone anywhere now. Then there's stuff like Strafe, and... well look at Yooka-Laylee, how the hell is that game compromising when it's a full 3D platformer!? Meanwhile new themes are also getting explored, and whether they're compromising smaller efforts like Virginia's detective theme, or something much more crazy like Shyness, new things are happening thanks to this industry. There's also still a strange trend of occasional fox-centric fantasy adventure games coming out, which suits me fine and will compliment Stories. Meanwhile though, I do hope to figure out more of the indie games that don't compromise so much, because as this year comes to a close I keep finding myself thinking Armello is still so damn cool. I want more games to leave me walking away saying that, and feeling like I just bought them this year, when it was in fact... the last.

In space, no one can hear your hdd scream

Here we go again, and funnily enough, with the same game franchise. On a new article on destructoid, there is a pretty clear observation the game will take around 130gb for the special version with Modern Warfare's remaster, 40gb for the remaster, and 90gb for the main game that... honestly, less people want. Now I could tear into the very fact that they intentionally designed this in a bullshit DRM-riddled way that forces you to have the disc and everything installed just to play the best version of a game made back in like 2007. However the real issue I want to discuss is that some people just wont be able to play either of the games themselves in a practical manor. If you missed my old rant, it might be worth seeing again as a lot of it is still relevant.

Now I will offer the disclaimer that since this game isn't even out, we may find something doesn't match up right. This isn't the first time a box warning was off-key for the space demanded, with some games under and over-doing their stuff from the marking (but with one-fucking-hundred and thirty, I can't imagine it under-estimating). So I'm really, really, really keeping my fingers crossed this is just compensating for the estimated DLC and patching plans in some weird move.... because if not, fuck you, 'cus that's what's coming next in addition to that 90gb/130gb game size! I can't imagine why it'd be that size, but then again we covered the likely obvious reason in the last article on this; absolute disdain for basic compression and quality. Either that, or everyone has 4K textures for each hair of their body.

COMPRESSION! DO YOU SPEAK IT!

So let's assume it was going to be 90gb/130gb because it's still all we have to go on. So last night I tried downloading Resident Evil remake off of PSN thanks to +. That's about a 15gb game, and it took relatively around 8-10 hours. I don't have a bad internet connection. I can often go about watching HD youtube videos while two other people stream netflix or Hulu on separate TVs, and still have a game downloading in the background (sometimes that means dropping the stream quality, but only occasionally). My internet isn't some stone age stuff, and even I'm fearing for this kind of thing. However for some people, it truly is stone-age stuff, and yet they're about to have their little camp fire rained on. We're not just talking about little communities, but also mixed service from american companies with a careless monopoly, and the entirety of the Australian continent. For others (arguably less fortunate), there's monthly data caps that this game alone makes up about half of, which means you're practically budgeting the very use of your internet and just installing this game to working conditions is a matter of spending half your monthly pay at the liquor store.... except, we're also talking about people spending $60+ on the game as well. Oh, and let me remind you, this game's center of attention is online play! So you're practically giving up youtube, and netflix for November just to access your COD game.

Look, whether you're just impatiently waiting for the game to install everything after deleting some games you haven't played in a while, or you're actually planning around the game and knowing that even then you're actual play day is two days after release (due to download wait), this should be concerning. With the upcoming consoles being even more demanding and begging for higher textures before devs know shit about what they're doing here, it's not going to get any better. Some people are going to absolutely need discs to even get the first 50gb off the ground, and thus it's also a detriment to people who rely on digital media (which is a weird choice anyway, but at least it's usually a choice). This is just a general disaster to HDD drives, and the conditions of the internet, and it's a careless and stupid move that gets between you and the basic game you're playing. 130gb? What the fuck are you thinking Activision and Infinity Ward!? What are you designing that takes that much space, and why are you so stupid as to lock the remaster with this insane requirement? Memory, and game spaces are genuinely getting to be a problem to the point where people can't even play the games anymore. If something isn't done to fix this issue, I can't imagine this ending well for the gaming industry as it tries to progress with ridiculous and unjustified HDD eating problems. This isn't just a problem anymore with 500gb being too small of a console HDD (even if that's part of the issue), this is a problem with the games themselves being too big to even use for some people.

Smile pending for a 2 day download now