A simple theory on the complicated issue of female characters in gaming

Well as I mentioned not long ago, I was finally enjoying Tomb Raider, or specifically Tomb Raider Legend. I absolutely hate it that it comes down to this, but that innocence of just enjoying a game as it is and the character as is just isn't there anymore and I'm pretty sure the current trend of Social Justice Warriors invading the opinions of the internet are at fault. If you're playing a typical game (generic characters, or a shallow custom character games) its not exactly on your mind, but anything slightly different like playing a weird mascot-like character, or a fixed position as a female character, and suddenly there's the nagging voice of the internet at the back of your mind crusading that everything needs to be this way or counter-arguments to it. So in other words the feminists and social justice warrior's own arguments kind of pollute and ruin bits of their own wish come true games. Its not natural to just play Tomb Raider or Metroid, instead your conscience will intrude in marketing talk vs vocal comments on the internet, and excuses made for and against certain character designs. As for those average games mentioned earlier, if its a fixed one like Watch Dogs or Gears of War then its only a matter of browsing the web before you come across a community bashing the character design only because its "another gruff white male". Yeah because obviously skin color or gender means so much to character development. Way to go social justice hypocrites, you've brought racism/sexism into gaming while ironically claiming to fight it. Its just like that time Anita insulted female gamers by implying they need special handicap controls. Is there any more evidence needed to suggest that this topic needs to die already so we can just enjoy the games for the gameplay and stop dragging political agendas into an entertainment industry?

Anyways ranting about SJW topics isn't exactly the point of this article, so I wont go much further. However what I want to get around to is the fact that this did eventually lead to an interesting theory on helping the vision of more strong female roles in gaming. While I am against the SJW idiocy, I am in favor of more diverse characters. I also have to admit that the SJW side is just one piece of the stupid topic, and there are actually guys in charge of games thinking the opposite wrong: That there can't be female characters because it "wont sell" or whatever their fake and slanted stats say as they plan their cut pre-order exclusive content instead of developing a good story. So as I was playing Tomb Raider the theory started out by kind of thinking about how it was funny that a lot of female characters in gaming just seemed... different. Not exactly because they were female characters, but because of what they did. Lara does a lot of puzzles mixed with loose combat, and big globe trotting adventures. Faith practically brought parkour into gaming on her own and is still one of the best examples of it while others half-ass the effect. Samus explores hostile alien planets and survives by unusual suit methods and level design that is just convenient enough for her suit powers to get through in odd puzzle-like ways. Chell places and warps through portals to solve facility tests. Finally.... correct me if I'm wrong here since I didn't play it much, but whoever the heck the girl from beyond good and evil does a lot of photography in odd and forbidden areas while defending herself with a blunt staff from aliens and government agents. The female characters often brought up in gaming have unusual roles compared to the usual spots filled by dude characters that often do the typical stuff the genre commands of them. Samus is often compared to Master Chief, but out of the two its easy to pick which one actually has more specially crafted design choices (its Samus, and she doesn't even need to speak to be better). MC just has a gun as he holds up a typical space marine FPS cliche, while Samus goes on true adventures. Now you do still have male characters doing more dynamic things (I feel that Samus's true male counter-part is Link who follows a very similar game formula), but more often then not the majority make up for the mainstream or streamlined games. They often feel a bit more dull and uninspired as a result to. However it also occurred to me then that it was a very odd coincidence that about every single female lead game was an adventure type game of some sort, and females almost never, ever appear in a good lead role in a solid, generic, or safe and popular style of genre. Also I'm obviously leaving out custom character games when I say this, as there are countless tried and true RPG games that let you play as a female, but there's also no real character development to those games.

so much unusual-ness

Seriously think about it. Out of which of these games has any sense of solid, consistent, and popular gameplay design that could appeal to many people. Actually lets also take note of how many have combat that lacks a lot of punch you would expect from a combat driven game as well:

-Tomb Raider (especially before the reboot)
-Beyond good and evil
-Remember me
-Metroid
-Mirror's edge
-Portal
-Gone Home
-Nearly every casual point and click game ever
-Contrast

Many of those aren't very well refined, and when they are they aren't a massively popular type of experience. Yet the funny thing is a lot of them actually still sell well anyways... its just that publishers don't know when enough is enough. I think a lot of its "poor sales" is a matter of comparison and stupidly high targets. Yeah sure Mirror's edge wont print money like Battlefield, but that's got nothing to do with the female lead, its because Battlefield is one of the biggest names in one of the biggest genres where people around the net participate in its competitive multiplayer experience. Yeah Metroid isn't as popular as Zelda, especially in Japan, but that's because Zelda's lighter and fantasy tone is more marketable than Samus's Pseudo-shooter and dark sci-fi style. Furthermore I mentioned combat earlier, lets think about that for a second. A ton of the female driven games have it, but the fans will all tell you the same thing: they aren't games about the combat. However combat is a big part of many popular games. I'm not saying it should be in every game, but chances are you are going to have a popular game if you have well made grounds for fighting. As I said long ago in an article about why violent games are all over the place, its actually a very social experience and one that can appeal to a broad group of people. Its an easy way to establish a conflict we can identify with as well as a win/lose condition (like "you need to kill evil goblins, or they'll kill you), its competitive opening up that sportsmanship side of gaming if you can take it online or just have really smart AI, it can encourage skill and fast paced thinking creating a decent rush/challenge or even just an easy power fantasy to enjoy, it has a unique system of tactics and strategy, and its a good feeling of escapism from the real world reality of the fact that violence is very ugly and terrible. On top of that massive and well known genres like RPGs and Shooters primarily center around combat. Meanwhile nearly all of these games really phone it in. Even Remember Me, which was a brawler in the end, was really strange and clunky in how it did things and sold itself off of other features that would end up being barely present at all. Many of these games would rather focus on different things like puzzles and experimental platforming.... and puzzles don't sound so mass appealing, and experimental platforming is unrefined and flawed leading to a love it or hate it opinion that divides gamers. In other words, its not likely getting you those COD/GTA/Madden numbers. You'll get a strong and enthusiastic cult following that sings constant praises for your game (which about all of these have), and you may even see solid sales, but nothing to blow your mind. This obviously isn't something just related to female games either, you can see the same effect with the oddworld series, some obscure Nintendo games, and Sly Cooper compared to his more popular brothers. It isn't just about the character, its about the whole game play, as it always has been.

However lets look at the exception to this rule out of all the games I mentioned, and it all comes full circle back to what got me here in the first place: Tomb Raider. Specifically the reboot. "The game had sold more than 1 million copies in less than forty-eight hours of its release in the United Kingdom" "Tomb Raider set a new record for the franchise" "As of June 2014, Tomb Raider has sold over 6.5 million units." All of this is from the wikipedia article with source links all over the place. I think Portal 1 beats the numbers, but that's not exactly a fair comparison considering it was bundled with more tried and true games and was also available cheap on stand alone digital (plus its just had a longer lifespan). The only number I can find with Portal 2 is 4 million. The point is though, Tomb Raider sold really well compared to most games (despite Square's stupid target numbers) and even outsold its past games which were kind of funky in design. Oh gee, I wonder why? Well it had traces of its past counter-parts, but the new and successful one adopted a weird zelda-like formula while hiding it under a design that looked like a big mainstream 3rd person action game. You had magical "survivor vision", a dozen or more QTE events and cinematic set pieces, 3rd person cover shooting with regenerating health, an XP and hunting system, easy "press X" platforming, and a gritty dark story presentation. Oh yeah, and the bow that for some reason started showing up everywhere was also present. Completely disregard the character for a second, and there is nothing even remotely unusual about this game except how it weirdly has a zelda/metroid tone hidden under all the shooting. However even that is widely acceptable and enjoyable by now, and tomb raider pushes it into a mainstream shooter condition of it and everything sells really well as you should expect. Contrary to what crap square had to say (alongside sales for other games like hitman) the game was a mainstream success that stayed relevant long after its released, and still has people praising it to this day as one of the best action adventure games in recent times. This is exactly what I've been telling both the stupid and radical publisher and SJW views for a long time: Its the gameplay that matters, not the gender of your character. If you want to see a gender represented well within a mainstream success story, make a game that feels acceptable to the mainstream.

Now look I'm not going to go around and tell people they have to mainstream everything. I absolutely hate that, and I appreciate hardcore and niche titles a lot. Games like Mirror's edge, the old tomb raider, and Gone Home have a passionate following for a good reason. However I've also got to admit I'm no fan of a lot of the above listed games, and its for the same reasons I hear other people talking about it: the puzzles. Similarly I don't expect everyone to appreciate my idea of  good niche game. If you want more female game characters out there, simply put you need more games, and you need more of them to have a mass appeal in mechanics and presentation. If you make COD with a female lead, its still going to sell well, but its also going to be yet another generic COD game. Problem is there is nothing even remotely close to that sort of game with a female lead. The closest ever would be Perfect Dark, a shooter released years ago before console shooters even had true aiming (well it had sequels, but they weren't very notable games). If you made a game like Watch Dogs with a girl, its not going to hurt, its still going to sell like any big ambitious open world game would. Thing is though we don't see that either. Instead they seem attached mostly to puzzling adventures, and complex treks through unusual territory with oddly tuned mechanics just like about any of the Oddworld games, and Alan Wake (which took several years to reach 2 million). Its not that those games are bad, or have characters that aren't appealing enough, its that their gameplay isn't up to par with what the masses love. I've got to also back up and admit though that mainstream or generic games in itself wont necessarily print you money either. Not every shooter makes tons of money (Tomb raider sold better than most of killzone combined), not every RPG is as successful as Skyrim, and Fuse can sure as hell tell you that being a generic co-op shooter with moderate to no marketing isn't so rewarding. On a similar note sometimes a weird game will also get lucky and sell big, or have just the right condition that boosts sales. However the rule mostly holds up that a tried and true game, sequels, or a wide appealing games will sell better than one that is just weird looking and unproven. Giving the females some time within generic games wont hurt. Sure it wont technically make them "strong role model leads" as some people claim to want, but you can't have your cake and eat it to. The truth is for all the fussing that males dominate the face of gaming, a huge majority are forgettable and boring, and a couple just got lucky by being at the right time and place like Mario and Gordan, who otherwise has no special identity. Female characters currently make up a large chunk of the characters that actually matter and have development because they go on interesting adventures, and they really reach out and touch niche audiences for being such awesome and unique adventures, but that's the most of where their reach extends because its not familiar or straight forward enough to appeal to the same large demographic that plays RPGs, shooters, and platformers. I'm not asking to see the end of these niche games and adventures, but I'm saying we need to see some branching paths here if we want females to take off as a popular thing. Its called "selling out" for a reason. If publishers want to see big sales on games with a female lead, make the games that you know will sell well instead of betting it all on weird experimental games. I mean seriously, you cannot blame gender on how mediocre Remember Me was.

Now can we get a true Metroid FPS please? Just kidding.... sort of....

Alpha Prime Review

Feels like an honest box art

Ejecting originality. Proceed to planet Fun? [Y/N]

Alpha Prime is a game released on PC back in 2007 by an indie team trying to tackle an FPS shooter during that transition period... without any of the transitioning bits, and arguably not even the best of the games before it. It was a shooter trying to hop onto the success that Half-Life 2, Doom 3, and F.E.A.R were pulling on and the game was described as a "tried and true" attempt for the company to tap into the core PC market. Honestly it really wears that influence on its sleeve, meanwhile Modern Warfare was about to take the world by storm and Bioshock was the new big shooter everyone else was talking about, so an indie game that was clearly goofing around with old fads didn't stand much of a chance. It got overshadowed and burried without a doubt, but in the end how good exactly was it?

The game is centered around corridor shooter style FPS gameplay on an asteroid mining base known as Alpha Prime. The base has gone completely mad with miners going insane, robots with busted circuits going rouge, and just when you begin to think that's your enemy the real bad guys show up as an elite military unit from a big corporation that wants you dead and the mining minerals secure for secret powers it holds. You go through fighting these guys from room to room with various staple FPS weapons like rifles, shotguns, pistols, and grenades and interacting with the environment to push on. For the most part it all plays out like a standard PC corridor shooter of that time. It was more clearly driven off the success of Half-life with a very gimmicky but fun physics engine allowing you to mess with, break, and throw around all sorts of objects in a room. The art style looks borrowed as well, mostly looking like a brighter more optimistic version of Doom 3. The glows, well lit rooms, and flashy particles can't hide the character models and textures that are just so.... well Doom 3-ish. Then I suppose those on wall health dispensers don't help, every game except maybe FC1 at the time was doing it after Half Life put up those dispensers. Actually while we're at it to, there's even a Halo-ish jeep thrown in towards the later half of the game, and a FEAR style slow-down element tied in as part of the game's minerals that made people go crazy (and this doesn't effect you for some unexplained reason). However with all these "me to" bits floating around, and the game constantly pulling at the cogs of older games, I can't help but feels like it sort of develops its own charm by intentionally riding off of others. Besides it isn't without its perks.

For starters I'm going to get it out of the way that the shooting is better than about every game I can name its copying from. Its got ADS, effective general aim, peeking, guns feel good and strong, enemies are satisfying and challenging targets, and its just fulfilling to fire (if you exclude the awful flamethrower and sniper rifle). Oh and of course the slow down bullet-time feature is nice. The game is one of the best aesthetically pleasing shooters of its time period and maybe even of its whole style, except maybe Wolfenstein: the New order. Compare that to the very strange robotic hit boxes of doom 3, and the dull and horribly inaccurate guns of HL2, or the floaty feeling left to FEAR's guns, and you can see where it beats them. Plus out of all those, I think only FEAR had ADS. The game's only down side to this factor is it was certainly within that time frame where hitscan weapons were becoming an issue, and the game did nothing to hide this. Enemies were straight up aimbots. There's even a glitch you can trigger (and several have reported on this if my own account isn't good enough) where you can look into a camera behind cover and see the enemies shooting the wall perfectly at the position you are behind. They actually register you and hit you precisely on the mark with little if any spread once you've got their line of sight. This enforces a means to quick save/load a lot and go through a sort of trial and error feel to the game where you must beat them on resources and precision. However.... I'm sure I'm going to be looked at as crazy for this, but I absolutely adore this and the drive it brings just like I do with Far Cry 1's "AI issues". They both are hard games focused on lazy but effective AI shoot outs that enforced a feeling of sharp precision. When the gunplay feels this good, and there are quick saves to help out (though FC1 could learn from this little detail), I don't mind returning to the fight and getting it just right. The AI isn't impossible or anything, its just that it requires an adrenalin rush of movement, precise headshots, and lean and peak movements that outmatch the AI trigger finger. The rush, thrill, and satisfaction just feels unmatched by most games, even when many others clearly put more effort and meaning into their AI. Though speaking of which, the AI isn't completely lazy anyways. The miners are crazy and dumb people that charge at you, and the robots behave like.... well, dull robots, however the military units that you fight the majority of the game behave with some decent competence. They have actual battle chatter and talk with each other, calling out grenades, and communicating when a "friendly" goes down, and they weave in and out of cover when they feel the need to. On top of that seeing a more heavily armored shotgunner is steadily walking towards letting off a bursts of shells it makes for a pretty intimidating sight if you've got under 50hp left. You also can't always rely on cheap exploits like kiting, sometimes the enemies will surprisingly wait for you or even reposition themselves to surprise you if you while you hide behind a corner or a door. The AI isn't anything ground breaking, but its impressively competent coming from an indie team.

Oh yes, there is a lot of this

To accompany the gameplay's many shoot outs, there are bits of interaction and physic based extras. You can break open a glass pane and get to a throw-able explosive device, you lift lids off crates to get to extra ammo, have a device that hacks into doors or cameras and explodes internal wall circuits, or you can simply stay at the gym and play basketball. Thankfully the game doesn't stop you with many of those see-saw puzzles, but it does a lot to show off and push its physic engine in your face, along with other minor distractions. Similarly there are one or two unique levels where they put a vehicle into the game, or moments where it makes you travel down a path with limited oxygen supply. There's just enough variety to justify enjoying the 10 levels presented. The levels themselves don't look to varied up, and it is a corridor shooter in a literal sense. There's plenty of decent level design at work, but it all looks fairly similar. With that in mind though, its not a bad looking game at all. The blue, gray, and slightly glowing halls look fine and live up as sort of a campy 00 era sci-fi corridor shooter. Its also got a fantastic electronic industrial rock soundtrack to fit right in with that sort of art choice. There's plenty of computer terminals, some office spaces, and some pre-killed corpses lying around to attempt to give the place some interesting life and to show that it was indeed once a facility filled with workers rather than the murdering psychos that are left.  The actual tech side of things isn't too bad either, if again you don't mind the Doom look. It supports more resolutions, maybe just a bit more polygons, has flashier effects and brighter colors, but in the end it feels similar to Doom's look... and I've got to say it doesn't age too badly and considering how well optimized it, I'm generally impressed. Its not going to wow you by today's standards, but it just feels right for what it is. I guess the windows could seriously use some improvement though, glass in this game both looks and reacts like some sort of bizarre alien substance in itself with how it chips away in very tiny fragments and looks like it was tinted with dust.

Shoot some hoops after you shoot the bad guys

Where the game falls completely flat on its face though is the story. I love the presentation, and I love the gameplay, but the story is just unquestionably awful. It shows slight pieces of potential as a gripping though cliche sci-fi plot at times, but it can't ever deliver. Its voice acting is the first red flag. The main character is going for a style that is supposed to sound like a cheesy wise-cracking action hero, and while the attitude works on its own the voices deliver stays the exact same tone the entire game. There's no real human emotion or basic changes to it, its like someone just phoning in some lines with a cool voice, and he isn't the only one with this problem. However that's when the voice acting is at its best. At its worst is with a guy named Paolo Bellini who is possibly more well known than this game itself for how awful his voice acting is. Its just something I'm going to have to link to you. So here you go, enjoy. Meanwhile the writing itself just never lets itself go anywhere interesting. It starts off ok with a mission to track someone down on a troubled asteroid mining facility where things have gone wrong. The mining facility was crippled when a mineral called Hubbardium turned out to really screw up people's psyche and screw up technical equipment. This is also the element used as an excuse to give you bullet time, and for whatever reason you are immune to the awful side effects that have caused nearly everyone else to go insane. Rumors were also floating around that the planet was ruled over by a monster of some sort called Glomar, but many cite it as a myth or exaggeration about the minerals just behaving weird and life-like. However the story ruins any potential it has as it goes along. Confused writing mixed with attempts to add a couple of plot twists rush together at the end, and the game ends with an ending I'm sure wont be satisfying to many people. I would explain in more details, but either I can't because its so convoluted or forgettable, and for the fact that it would technically be spoilers since most of it comes off kind of rushed in the later half. Even the website seems conflicted about its own stories, describing the crazy guys or "mutants" as just illegal miners after the place was shut down. So which is it, illegal miners and pirates like the website and marketing says, or psychos turned from weird minerals as the in-game context tells it? Either way the message is clear, this is not a story driven game, and it would be nice if they had the option to skip some of the stop and chat comm messages that pop up ever other level for 5 minutes of your time.

Verdict and Closing Notes:

linked score

I think Wile E coyote was a decent choice for the "flawed" review card.

Text version (in case image is broken):
+ Excellent gunplay and battles to compliment solid FPS mechanics 
+ Great Industrial themed OST that suits every part of the game
+ Fun and quirky presentation, physics, and tone, even if it all is a bit familiar.
+ Its $5 or less

- Absolutely horrible story, dialogue, and voice acting.
- Aimbot AI creates a tense difficulty that may turn off many players
- Hacking wasn't used enough, and the game just doesn't go very far with its ideas

On one hand I feel like I've gone easy on this game. I know it released to a lot of hate, and isn't so interesting. Its basically a really good looking budget corridor shooter, the exact opposite of what we expect from indies now. Even those that defend it usually jump to the excuse that "well, its worth $5" which isn't exactly saying a lot. On the other hand though, I simply can't find enough wrong with the game to justify hating it myself. Its got plenty of problems I can still see in it. I especially hate how underused its "hacking" feels, and how downhill the story went so fast. In addition I guess I didn't explain the enemy types very well, but that's because they just didn't go out of the way to truly stand out apart from whether or not they took a bit more bullets to kill and carried a different weapon. 90% of the game just looks like fighting other guys with guns, with the occasional spider droid tossed in. Still for all its down sides, it presented a lot of familiar things in a combined package fused with amazing gunplay, and for that reason and with little getting in the way its hard for me to be angry at any of its disappointments for too long.

 As a matter of fact its a game that just feels like a straight up blast of nostalgia and comfort to me. Its not exactly an iconic sort of nostalgia, but instead sort of like those games copying a pixel art style, or paying a homage to a combination of retro games. We almost never get that with shooters (there's serious sam.... and that might be about it), but this feels like it unintentionally wound up as one that hits the mark for me. It just does everything right to feel familiar and right at home with the era of shooters I loved most, and its modern enough to still feel slightly relevant while its kind somewhat died beyond Bioshock. The gimmicky physics, the twitchy moderately spongy enemies, and just straight up raw corridors of constant precision gunplay at the core with action packed music following it as you traverse a hostile blue and gray scheme sci-fi facility all add up to this great comforting blast of nostalgia. It never feels unique enough to warrant anything to its own name, but because it does so well combining the successes of others it almost feels like a big tribute of why corridor shooters were so much fun. Heck even the publisher, Meridian 4, sounds like some cheesy name you would hear from and older sci-fi FPS. Actually its the game's name as well; How much more generic gamey sounding sci-fi name can you get than Alpha Prime? Its a more mindless junk food type comfort game that I turn to when I just want to play a good shooter on the computer with no technicalities or questions asked and an energy drink ready to go with it. Its not the best of games, and doesn't even come close to touching my favorite FPS games, but its a fantastic and nostalgic sort of corridor shooter that I find myself returning to frequently for short bursts of amusement. At the very least... well I guess I'll agree with the common defense that it is at least worth $5. There's also a really good demo you can grab and judge for yourself.

Leaving no stone unturned....

Do you ever get that feeling that you love a game for every reason, except the actual task of playing it? Its something you can be excited about, something that's may be for you in art direction/setting/tone but in the end you just can't stand to play it... or maybe you just suck at it and can't play it. Both are true for me with the Tomb Raider series. I grew up watching my dad play them, and loved all they contained, but could never get anywhere for myself. Since I was so little, I wanted to dismiss it on my comprehension skills, but instead its the design as I would later return to find out. I couldn't beat the original or its close follow-ups even today. What about the future and remakings of it though? I think I've dropped Tomb Raider's name before when discussing the newest one as being over-rated, but it wasn't like I was saying that with some troll-face on, I was disappointed to feel sour about it. It was a glorious adventure with an awesome earthy gritty feel to its setting and graphics, great cinematic effects, and a fun plot. The game was just ridiculously on rails and everything I did except for selecting my XP rewards felt tied to what the game wanted rather than my abilities. As a gamer that comes for immersion within a fun fiction world, but stays for the depth and mechanics, I found neither in a game that placed me on rails and treated me like some sled dog. As for the originals and even most of those middle ground games, I was simply stuck. I can't handle the way it did platforming, and if I can there's a really weird and unintuitive level puzzle stopping me from going further, and even if I get by all that... the combat just sucked and the game was still super linear. However the reasons to want to play it were also increased, with amazing sound/music design, inspiring environments and enemies, boss fights from brilliant monster, and still brilliant art choices despite ancient hardware that is difficult to look back on in places. Many talk like Uncharted was supposed to be the blockbuster spiritual successor that would probably be up my ally as a shooter fan, but its not... when I'm done with that, it had pieces that feel good, but ulitmately it was a 3rd person shooter with a hollywood type story and set pieces stepping in. Its an absolutely great series, with the 2nd being among my top 10 PS3 games, but It just doesn't have that weirdly captivating charm I found within Tomb Raider.

Thankfully though, I'm stubborn. I don't just give up on something that feels like it grips at a part of my heart and soul. After playing with the demo of it, and catching it on a steam sale, I've got Tomb Raider Legend downloading as I speak and I feel like it might be the breakthrough a relief I need from the series. Not for good, as I'm sure its still going to be very bottled up and linear, but something with more heart than the 2013 release and yet more relaxed gameplay unlike its archaic tank-control originals. I just wish the music department carried over and the game would load up to this. The theme is still incredible though.

Playing through the demo, the platforming was amazing compared to what I'm used to. Its not as simple as either the "free run" climbing or button prompt of current mainstream games, but looks like it and requires a different look than a traditional platformer. The only puzzle in the demo was basically an oversized physics style game, with many saying that's kind of how it works for most puzzles in the reviews. Even the combat feels improved with a fast paced lock on action feel to it all. Its nothing to stand on its own, but its better than the originals and has a weapon system that gives it potential to dominate over what the 2013 reboot had since it likely has more than 4 to it.

I don't expect the end results to blow me away. I think I'm way over expecting the series to come around as a mechanically gripping game. However I am expecting an adventure, and I'm hoping the mechanics are good enough to keep it worth going through. I'm really impressed with what Tomb Raider Legend has shown me so far. Its close counter-parts underworld and adventure aren't quite cutting it much like most of the series, but maybe... just maybe Legend was made out to be that little oddball that finally clicks into place. I'm hoping so. The last time I took a risk like this was Dark Souls, and it paid off to be possibly the greatest game I've ever played. I'm not exactly expecting Tomb Raider to do that, but I hope it will be an enjoyable adventure that leaves a good impact. If not... well I'll try again some day.

Oh but it takes up 9GB according to steam for this linear 6 hour (as I'm told) enhanced PS2 ported adventure. o_0 Seriously, how did they manage the files right? Anniversary, which I think is a longer game modeled after the first, is by 4gb... so I think they had some refining left to work on when this was being made. Regardless if that's also the period in which they designed a game I could enjoy, then heck I'll take it.

Avoid the crocs, and make it through this one!

Now playing: Sin

I haven't really done one of these articles in a while... but there's sort of a good reason. I was going to do one for carnivores 2 and Watch Dogs at the same time, but renting and entertainment purposes pressured me to stay on Watch Dogs rather than type about it and Carnivores 2... well I stopped playing it when that article was being worked on, so yeah not such a great topic. I may come back to it later though, my dino hunting wasn't over. After that incident, I went to a flea market and snagged a bunch of good games. This included:

-Halo 2 on PC. Score!

-Dragon Age origins. Started it and already like it more than the PS3 version, but I really don't know if I'll see my adventure through or become reminded of why I abandoned it the first and second go.

-Dawn of War Platinum. I own it through steam, but for a 3rd of a dallor this game is worth more than owning in material form. Plus the manual is thick, and it comes with a hefty disc full of old THQ demos.

-Half-life GOTY edition. Funny story about this one. I typed in the key code just to see what happened and suddenly my game went from Half-life 1 and TFC to the entire half-life history of mods and the main game. Looks like I'll finally be able to play blue-shift. Who says 2nd hand gaming can't work with steam? It enhances it.

-Sitting ducks on PS2. Hey, I barely knew it existed, loved the show, and it called itself "open world". Turns out you can still go wrong, but oh well its a novelty to say I have it.

-C&C tiberium wars. I barely know anything about C&C other than that it isn't my main preference of RTS. However it was worth a shot, and I'm sure I can sink my teeth into it later down the line.

However a bunch of good games in one place means backlogging rather than straight up playing them until the sun rises. So yeah there wasn't much to focus on... at least not until GOG put up Sin gold on summer sale, and I'm trying to force myself to see it through. I'm..... not sure how that's going to go.

Now from a core gameplay and atmospheric presence, Sin is a game I absolutely love. Heavy weaponry, mutant filled story, awesome music and cheesy characters, and old school shooter mechanics that hit right around the same time Half-life was becoming a massive thing. It was trying to be different and lift up the 90's shooter style a bit by taking about everything good about it and giving it more story, upgrading the armor system and hit detection, and adding in stealth sequences on top of multiple objectives and path systems. That's pretty awesome, and while I like the era of gaming that followed after half-life I have to wonder what would have happened if Sin took over instead. However I think there are a couple of reasons it didn't, and among them is the fact that Sin just feels kind of clunky.... ok, really clunky.

Don't get me wrong now, its enjoyable, but to say its buggy is an understatement. Crouch jumping is much harder than it should be, stealth and disguise systems are extremely primitive and wreck weirdly (getting hurt by clipping into a wall will blow your cover), the sound is almost comically repetitive, the pick-up system is wacky, and to wrap it all up there are just parts that come off as half-functional. Its down to the point where you'll be reloading saves potentially a few times because one spot will randomly stick you there or fail you in some way, especially if you want to beat side objectives. At one point I was around an abandoned subway station with the secondary mission to protect civilian hobos. This got harder as they were grouped closer to the bad guys, but at one point I noticed a really nice opportunity. Alongside the typical hobo theme there are of course flaming barrels, and with barrels in an old school shooter... they tend to explode. The only civilian in sight was one right beside me with his own barrel. The barrel I was looking to shoot and test this theory on was on another floor level down some steps with two villains firing at me. Well my plan worked, I shot the barrel, and had a weird little flare flash take over the model and kill the guy.... only another barrel several feet parallel to the one I shot exploded as well, and one just out of my view on the same floor judging by a funky flash, and the one right beside me that the hobo was staying by. It killed everyone like a hit some magical remote detonation. Fine I get it, splash damage happens, but with the spacing and the horribly laughable effect that took place there is no way one barrel was supposed to detonate the whole room! The optional mission was of course failed, but I said screw it to the idea of loading up the save and redoing that crap just because the game glitched it all up.

That's really nearly all I can say about the game. Its amazing how much time feels stolen from me trying to simply play the game right, and on easy difficulty to. With that being said though, when the action and guns are going it is a ton of fun, and has a lot of charm to it. Its very sad to know how underrated, overshadowed, and unappreciated this game has had it. Heck its difficult to even find images for it. Its own unfinished episodic sequel has more images floating around, and that's probably just because its newer and had more coverage left out there (well that and it catered more to pervert fantasies, I really hate it when games do that). It might be buggy and clunky, but I can see a lot of heart and charm was poured into a mechanically amazing shooter. I'm not sure how much I'd agree that it was the "last of its kind" but it deserves more recognition. I really hope I can hold back any frustration and win this game, I would love to continue enjoying this.

What should we expect with Doom 4?

So I've talked about Wolfenstein a good bit. I've been trying to put together a review of it, but at the same time I wonder what's the point? I'm biased as hell towards that kind of shooter, loved it to the point of beating it 100% and making it my 2nd platinum ever, and I've given a lot of my thoughts on it. Its not perfect, but no single flaw is so big that its worth dedicating a review for to warn people. I just can't imagine it'd do anything but waste my time and keep me from playing games or making better articles. Still I'll see what I can do to make a proper review for it, maybe it'll still happen. However one thing lingers on my mind: that little bonus imprinted annoyingly over the entire corner of the boxart that says "Doom 4 beta access". Oh yeah, that's a thing that's happening. Its so weird to see that, and I look onto it with a mixture of curiosity, hope, and fear. Unfortunately I think its mostly about the concerns that I linger over. I can say with great enthusiasm that I hope it turns out great, I hope the action and mechanics are great, and I hope the game brings us a true exciting and thrilling ride with the enthusiasm the original holds to this day. However a quick look at the leaked record of the game is troubling and given past records of similar things surrounding the situation it just doesn't look good. Finally we got a good teaser, and more news is soon to come, but is it really going to be good?

What we know so far is that there seems to be multiple points poking at the idea that instead of Mars we are fighting demons on earth. We also see the cyber demon in the teaser, pretty much confirming that industrial and sci-fi style fusing with monsters. I believe there was also confirmed art renders somewhere of a main character that looked sort of like a rugged soldier. However it also matches the idea that maybe it was still with that Call of Doom format as rumored. Is that good or bad? Honestly, if it has a turret section its not the end of the world. If it has scripted events and set pieces, that's to be expected to some extent otherwise you're just being stubborn. Its about how much of it happens though, how it influences the pacing, and whether or not there are core solid mechanics to found a good FPS on in the first place. How do the guns feel, how is the AI, what types of monsters are there for good diversity, is there a reason to explore, are the level designs good enough to do that anyways, and how is the general challenge? Of course above all, the question also is how much do you get to shoot? If its really "Call of Doom" that sounds to me like scripted sequence, QTE style events, and gimmicky toys pop in every 5 minutes because the game is afraid you might figure out its core is too shallow and effortless to be fun. If that really is what the new Doom has in store, then I'm afraid. If it actually lets me shoot a lot, has good mechanics that make it enjoyable, and it sticks to some roots while also giving my some pleasant next-gen set pieces occasionally withing using its creative cheesy setting, I'll be a very happy FPS fan.

Sadly it seems a lot like when older game companies aim to put a new shooter out in the market it flops and fails horribly. Duke Nukem Forever, and Rage were two examples too many of this. The same guys and focus that made these games a high adrenaline blast just aren't really there anymore, and the guys in now instead conflict with each other on what they want to do and how to follow the new trends. The games became murky, overstaffed, and overly ambitious while backtracking, all ultimately leading to games that not only were just bad and often failing because of more modern influences done wrong. Thankfully this was a bit more acknowledged with Rage, as old time FPS veterans or fans at heart made some incredibly good comparisons between Doom and Rage while pointing out Rage's failings in its design. So maybe some of the criticism and specific complaints got around, and they'll know to fix this. Maybe they know better than to nerf the game, and take after Wolfenstein's influence that whether on console or PC you can make a fantastic fast paced old school shooter and also innovate on it.

Leaked concept art...possibly no longer legit

Now of course personally I'd like to see Doom done a little more old school than Wolfenstein. Less narrative and character driven story, less hub levels, less bullet based weapons, and more off the walls fast paced silly action. Again please learn from rage and don't do the slow and dumb pot shot cover style gunplay. My biggest concern with Doom just might be the health system. Don't make everything one big bullet sponge, instead give the player some form of health management responsibilities giving you a solid statistic of survival. My 2nd wish is that it learns from one of the most popular mods of all time: Brutal Doom. Brutal Doom took the insane canvas of doom and turned it up to 11, introduced better gunplay, new animations and combat moves, and increased both the minions and their gore/gib factor so that it was all to the extreme. I don't want this doom to show up missing its own aesthetics, I want it to embrace the over the top ultra-violent world it really is. I want to be able to actually feel some sense of shock over what the virtual unleashed hell on earth looks like, but I also want to be able to enjoy it in the fictional context of having a satisfying shotgun on flesh effect that gibs it to bits. These are my main two wishes... well in addition to the obvious desire of a fun general game of course. Whether or not this will actually happen, I have no idea. Maybe it'll go for the boogy man horror route again like Doom 3. Maybe... maybe they didn't learn and we'll be looking at another Rage situation. After all, it sounds like Bethesda was pressured to group a team that was messing up Doom in the first place with the rage team that already released an unorganized mess of a game. Can they really pull together and produce a truly compelling Doom game? I can hope... but honestly I'm just not sure what to expect. At least in the end we already have a timeless classic with a game like Doom and Doom 2, and Brutal Doom came along and did most of the upgrades to it we could have asked for. So ultimately we can't really lose out on anything with this new game... we still have a genius old FPS game out there from the ID team that we appreciate.

Watch Dogs was extremely average.... but is that bad?

Vulnerability detected: Angry customers in pursuit

Yeah so Watch Dogs released, and... honestly people are quick to side with extremes when it comes to this game. On one sides its a horrible scam. Press X to hack, no drive by shooting, QTE ending, spoiler bait, E3 graphics are still a lie, GTA clone, etc. Somehow even "future assassins creed" is also thrown in as a complaint. Just check out this video for a quick summary of all the hate its getting. Some of it by the way is a blatant lie (cars and town life are fine on 360/ps3, even the video uploader that was linked to for evidence admitted it was just a one time glitch he recorded) and obvious flame pandering because hey why not keep the hate snowball rolling. On the critic side its yet another game critics hype up, say nice things about without really telling you why, and then let it die off while they talk about future trendy things they'll give the same cookie cutter positive scores. Honestly though.... I'm kind of baffled about both sides, in case you couldn't tell before. The problem isn't a love it or hate it game, the problem is actually the opposite... its blatantly average and a mixed bag of everything we've ever seen and done before done just yet again with a brand new theme slapped over it. I sort of called it. Not exactly like this, but I knew it wasn't really anything too special and it would be sticking to the common open world formula. I did expect it would have more identity to it though, but at face value it just doesn't, save for minor designs that represent the IP (character, fox line logo, and the hacker theme). Everything at face value is the same as you've seen it somewhere else before.

It becomes very obvious across the game that its really kind of reaching out to different things, but re-knitting it in its own odd mutated way. This is even apparent outside of a gameplay standpoint, where allusions from batman to robin hood are made, you're a gravely voiced "anti-hero" because that's on the check list to, you've got wolf moon shirts and old memes subtly floating around, shoe horned betrayals and revenge stories around the plot, and even anonymous and deadmau5 inspirations falling into place at some point. Again, I haven't even begun talking about how it seems like a generic open world video game. It hits cliches and elements, and it hits them pretty hard. GTA, assassins creed, Far Cry 3, and Saints row 3/4 elements are very present influences, and I'd even say Infamous and spider-man to a very small degree. You have the overused generic layout of side-quests, towers, typical mission format, and all the typical types of activities they imply: Tailing missions, Instant fail stealth missions, worthless mini-games that further nothing, even building prompt style platforming to a small degree, and areas that lock down things just so you have more padding to chase after. Don't get my negativity wrong, I'm not angry with Watch Dogs here, I'm just being blunt about my impressions on general open world games. Actually Watch Dogs thankfully makes the tailing jobs few and most general main missions a lot less painful than most open world games. Still it has their problems in there to some degree anyways. Less painful doesn't necessarily make that pain any good. Open world games are great don't get me wrong, just with their share of issues more so than many will admit. Moving on, you have shops for clothes, guns, earn money, encouraged driving, You have a morality meter, and level up system that are next to worthless or have odd calls made within them. You have randomized crime, stealing money, stealth, a signature melee weapon, enemy tagging, and of course the prompts... they're all over the place. The game pretty much plays up like just another open world game, only it stretches to touch nearly everything outside of the RPG counter-part. Everything feels familiar and surreal, some of it unnecessarily tacked on, and other areas oddly lacking like they just forgot about them or didn't have the enthusiasm to do it right. In the end I guess it feels like a far more engaging form of Rage. Oh but at least there is a nice little camera hacking system that you can use to scan the area, hacker prompts that make care chases fun, "car stealth", and of course the puzzles. However honestly none of that ever feels too unique, even if that's about all the game had going for it with that word "unique". Wasn't this supposed to be that brand new IP everyone was excited about? I think it missed the point a bit.

Totally worth a new IP!

However somewhere within it all, my position and feelings kind of switched. Instead of feeling careless and uninspired I suddenly hit a point where a jolt of intrigue ran through me and I found the game to be engaging, and was pretty hooked on it. I became kind of sad whenever I had to turn it off, and I always turned it off when I had to (like hurt eyes, late time, town trip, etc). For the week I had this game, I ended up feeling a bit attached to it. I also started tallying up a solid list of things that I just generally enjoyed. Loved the character's outfit, the retractable police baton was an awesome signature weapon, the plot had interesting unexpected bits that made what was otherwise one big cliche all the more interesting, the side quests could be fun enough to be worthwhile in between some missions, motorcycles feel so good to ride, the guns felt good as far as 3rd person shooting goes, stealth was a blast, low default health made gun fights tense, utility devices were interesting to use, car chases are amazing, spying on people is fun once you get over how creepy it is, etc. Also to restate what I said earlier, the things that often made open world games a bit of a chore were less prevalent here.

Now in large part I really started to wonder: Was it really the game that was "average", or was the game simply doing its job in a style of game that refuses to go through true innovative changes? Well its still average, but its really far from the only one and doesn't deserve the blame on its own. For the most part open world games are still on and have mostly always been on the old GTA3 formula. You have side quests, main quests, a pile of weapons, authority or faction side that gives the game more chance of a fail state, and a sandbox city to play in. Very few games really do anything to stray from that. Its obviously built more over time, like morality systems, physics, new side-quests, and XP systems, but it ultimately keeps building on the same thing. You have a couple that innovate by making the character and setting different, and a few really play it up well like Infamous and prototype where the powers heavily alter the combat and lore/story, but ultimately the formula, corner cutting, and routine are all the same. The closest we've seen to a core formula change that I know of has probably been randomized crime with side jobs that sort of start themselves, but even then that's not really much. Meanwhile open world RPGs and MMOs have done far more innovating, but the 3rd person action sub-genre never really moved far to anywhere at all, and I feel like Watch Dogs is a big lesson in that. When you don't dump a super budget into it, don't have any awesome core mechanics (again infamous), don't change the setting, and knock down other similar illusions you really see the experience more for what it is. There aren't any gimmicks or labels to keep people from seeing how mediocre it is. No pirates and sloppy ship combat, no over the top pants on head retarded humor, no wild west and lassos, and no super sized city sandbox and brand name are here to cover up the stale formula. Its Watch Dog's fault for not being one to break the mold, but then again when nobody else is doing much either or relying on, you have to wonder a bit.

"look at all those kids still playing follow the leader"

As I type this though I know I'm a bit conflicted with myself about this. The idea of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind. Its true to, I don't like games changing for the sake of change. However its also a matter of balance, and I really want to make that clear because the industry really has no idea at all what that means anymore. By contrast to this situation where open world formulas and mechanics rarely ever change, look at FPS where its bottle-necked into a sloppy mess of change for the worst and only has that one formula anymore. Then there's my other favorite, 3D platformers, which have nearly stopped existing. I'm not asking for that with Open world games. I don't want "GTA clones" to die. I don't want side-quests, main quests, tail missions, moral meters, and gang themes to all just die and stay in the past. That would be horrible. Instead I just wished there was more of an alternative, more experimenting, and more ideas open to interpretation. Watch Dogs isn't bad for going in with low gimmicks and high safety style... its padding out a successful and enjoyable style of games, and it has nice subties and signs of personalization from other teams than what we already have. It isn't much, but its sort of what I've come to call "genre padding". Sort of like what Quake 4, Alpha prime, Turok evolution, and Prey were for shooters. Were they new, special, fancy, full of eye catching gimmicks, and must haves? No, but they worked and provided fun gameplay that combined common elements to create a general and fun though mixed quality game. They added to the diversity of games of a certain style to choose from, were subtle entries with mixed (or even bad) reception, and did cool stuff that could catch someone with an unexpected surprise that interested them somewhere down the line. Its especially fascinating to a kid who has seen less games, but might be interested with some small novelty... like seeing that giant harvester spider tank in quake 4, or playing with exaggerated shaman powers in prey. In Watch Dog's case it would be something like seeing that rat masked DJ guy and thinking "oh cool, a villain like that dub-step guy!" or hacking a digital street sign with a meme for a quick laugh. In my case I really loved how they executed combat (angry joe is with me on this one as well), enjoyed the hero, enjoyed some plot points, and a few other minor things.

Ultimately a game like GTA5 is pretty much objectively superior, but when you have a couple of games along just doing minor personal adjustments, I really appreciate some of them. I liked the story, character, combat choice, health, car chases, and more so much from watch dogs over GTA. Actually... I'd even go as far as to say it was just a generally more engaging game to me. Again I got to a point where I didn't want to turn this game off... with GTA5 I played it off and on some more for the curiosity to see when I could open up something more, as if I was looking for the reason to be invested. I turned it off after simply doing some work on it... almost like I was whittling. It was a grand game and I certainly acknowledge that I didn't spend the time I needed to with it, but I also know when a game is better at engaging me and GTA5 didn't. When I got mad at Watch Dogs, I punched through it and rocked on like any blissful gamer should. This was a bit difficult with the painfully annoying loading found all over the game, but I worked with it. When I hit a rocky point at GTA5, it felt pretty typical and I sighed and stepped away from it. I stepped away quite a bit really, sometimes from frustrations, and sometimes just from not being compelled. My point? While the game isn't breaking any records, its another game to choose from, another that has its own touch even if at face value its a wannabe, and its another chance to bring in and include more people that would have missed out or avoided the other games. Its genre padding, and that's not a bad thing.

Plus GTA doesn't have my approval stamp written on it like watch dogs does

Some spoilers coming up ahead in the next paragraph. Nothing major, but be aware you'll lose some small surprises

Another interesting thing that came to mind was its morals, and I kind of love it now that doing some research got me thinking about it. While its actual in-game moral meter is a tacked on joke, the game's true underlying theme is a moral minefield and many are upset that it didn't engage any of the subject matter. However I cry foul on those accusations, and found the morals within it to be fascinating. Its about a 15 hour storyline, stars a character with a super hacking phone and knows other hackers as well, the protagonist monitors his own family for safety concerns while bemoaning the government for monitoring people, a giant conspiracy surrounding cyber blackmail, and has commentary from the news and Deadsec (basically anonymous) pushing their view points on the giant police state the city has become, and allows the player themselves to manipulate and see pieces of it all themselves whether they're stealing money through webcams or tracking and stopping crime with it. Its almost impossible for this game to ignore the morally gray theme. The morals are all over the place, and honestly I question anyone's comprehension abilities if they missed it under all of this. The truth is though that it isn't shoving it in your face like a wallstreet or tea party occupation screaming their moral views as if their plan could end world hunger over night. Instead the game kind of leaves it up to you, and shows you potential to see either view point or keep it level. On one hand hackers rule over and practically own the whole city. They are holding digital blackmail over police, city officials, companies, and other members. Basically it ends up almost like crooked capitalism where the "rich" end up getting richer from bought lobbying only instead its digital conspiracies against people, and its flat out said that one of the most lethal and troubling gangs is helped out by the ctOS system because cops only notice and go after the small crimes while the real threats sit back and relax on personal information and using the system to their advantage. Similarly a major hacker like the player easily causes absolute havoc and wrecks lives at the touch of a button, as well as being capable of spying on things they have no business in knowing. Its not just the player either, the Anonymous inspired group hacks their way into news programming to warn people of the dangers and exploits the system to show people how awful and unsafe it has become. It gives a slanted side way too much control. On the other hand if that control is given to the right people, they can help out and benefit the people who simply have no business going independent. You fight crime, rescue the helpless, and you're able to even track and punish people behind a giant underground human trafficking auction. On a similar note, why would hackers be holding black mail if the city officials were good to begin with? Maybe they should be given a hard time and face justice down the line like the rest of us. They wont be able to hide from a police state situation this big... would they? Well that's up for you to decide really, the game isn't shoving that into your face and force feeding you any pre-set morals and politcs. Being a mostly libertarian type thinker, I found the world to be appalling and myself to set an example that it was a terrible system. I was almost happy to make the cops regret living in a city they had too much control over as I used it against them beyond even their limits, and I felt happy to make the people angry at their problematic traffic system and the city that made it so it could fall apart at the touch of a button. I felt sort of like the Deadsec/anonymous guys showing them this is what happens when you connect everyone a little too much. However I also felt a bit of enthusiasm to go after gang groups myself, and also loved the sound of the Vigilante when he talked about breaking a guy's legs over the cruel conversations a gang member sent through text that I caught. I also stopped a terrorist-like fire bomb attack on a school of children.... much like in real life you can't rely on the government to do anything right, so it was kind of cool feeling like I could be that voluntary crime stopper myself. While I was clearly against the whole ctOS thing, it wasn't without its traces of joy especially within a fictional context of a game, so I was enjoying the ideas given here and without a pre-labled moral position set for me.

Oh... and one more thing: Online mode. Yeah that in itself is like one big moral gray area surrounding it, and I think that is one of the most clever elements in the game if it was intentional that way. If you leave it on, you can have your single player open world game invaded at any time. Yeah that same game style you've been trained to cause havoc, ruin, and glitch hunt on can have another player watching you at any given time without any warning. This is done by someone selecting to tail another player, and just so happens to pop into your game without you knowing it until you either accidentally bump him or suddenly the next phase hits and you have to chase the guy down. If you feel uncomfortable by this, then yeah you'll probably be the kind of person that hates this ctOS crap. On the opposite side of the fence though you could sort of live more in your role more as Aiden as being the kind of guy who actually liked sneaking into someone's else's business for your own gain through points, cash, and starting your own rivalries. Maybe you actually get a good kick out of using this system, and kind of like and support this sort of connectivity.

End of minor spoilers.

To conclude on what I've been saying... Watch Dogs is still really average. However after the first hour or two I really find it hard to care about that issue too seriously. The topic nagged at me the entire time I was playing. Oh no, this is a triple A horror story where they didn't do anything special because of "risks". Oh yeah been there, done that. How is this worth a new IP? Yet I was nagging myself not because it was bad... if that was the case I'd try to ditch and forget about it like Medal of Honor's last game. However I kept nagging myself because I was curious as to why I was having so much fun (give or take frustrations, but like I said I pushed through them because I wanted to enjoy myself again).  The game is far from perfect, and I could tear its flaws apart bit by bit, but that's not why we're here to play games. Watch Dogs was fun, engaging, and even after I beat it it lingered on my mind for some time. Its the first open world game I've played in a long time that has me saying that, and it didn't need strong gimmicks to do that either. However... it is bad enough that for now I'm keeping my money and I really don't want to burn $60 on it. Its good, but like some awesome things and other genre padding games have it I also see it with a lot of flaws, and it just hurts to think of spending so much money on it. Someday, some time, I would like to look forward to playing this game again and on a superior platform like the PS4. For now it lingers on my mind as an interesting experience, and it provokes an interesting discussion on what an average game means and to how it appeals to people... or repulses them. Its kind of sad to see it have such monster hype only to see it released and bashed as a combination of Ubisoft's sour E3 stunt, and people's overdone hype levels. I think its a fairly interesting game that does well. However I've also had a similar feeling with Turok Evolution, and I can deal with that fading into mixely received obscurity. I guess I'll do so with Watch Dogs. However at least the hype lead it to sell phenomenally, and that means we may be looking at a better sequel. Please do good justice to it Ubisoft.

A bigger thrill ride than it had any right to be.

Can we please drop the blind hype?

Mysterious beast

I hope I wont be so long with this message, but its one I think needs delivery no matter how I put it. It comes after this years E3 as people were disappointed with Sony for not showing us anything on the Last Guardian.  Team Ico has made two big PlayStation 2 hits. Ico, and Shadow of the Colossus. Their 3rd one is running into some serious trouble, and it was supposed to be the one that elevated them into a new era when it seemed promising. Here is what was revealed on it. Nice, but no gameplay sadly. Another trailer exists, but its very similar and again has nothing mechanical or in game shown off. The world hasn't played a brand new game from this praised artistic team since 2005. Still that's not exactly a shocking statement despite its context. There also hasn't been a new entry in Acclaim's Turok since I was in late elementary school. There hasn't been a new Doom game in about 6 or 7 years. There hasn't been a new true Spyro game since like the year 2000. F-zero fans have been shunned the last generation as well, and StarFox has been around for about 20 years but only one game within that time has seriously kept it on the map. Games come and go, and so do teams, and sometimes there can be long waits in between a game entry. Thankfully we've learned to be skeptical about that situation, as something has clearly gone wrong. Something very apparent with a game like Duke Nukem Forever. There's also colonial marines. However this doesn't seem to be the case with The Last Guardian. Some people are finally catching on, and asking why the game has more excitement than skepticism, but its still got a lot of unexplained hype. So to those still holding onto extreme expectations, this article goes out to you.

While hype for a troubled game is potentially dangerous it can be forgivable if the expectation isn't too high, and I'll admit I myself feel enthusiastic for both this game, Prey 2, and Doom 4, but instead my problem with this hype scene is that it exist in a way that says the game will be incredible even without evidence. Actually there's a lot of evidence pointing to the contrary in the case of Last Guardian. Director left for social games, some other key team members left, the game has been silent for about 4 years, and its console generation has left. It sounds like it would be a mess, but it might still be something cool. Might is the key word, but hype doesn't like to hang out with that term too often, and many are just talking like it is still going to be incredible when/if it releases. I seen the same thing with Last of Us.... which doesn't help my argument necessarily since that was a true hit, but until that happened it was kind of pathetic. I mean we had it teased by basically showing off plants, and knew it was Naughty Dog who was making it, and that was all it took for The Last of Us to cement itself as a legendary game. Why!? Then we heard the concept was yet another post-apocalyptic shooter in a time where people were starting to say they were sick of it... but oh don't worry, its an exception to the rule and the best thing ever even though we don't know squat about its genre, mechanics, characters, or anything important to what makes a game a good game. Hallow teaser, overused cliched boring concept, no gameplay, and people were still hyped it like it was going to invent space travel. If you're excited to see what Naughty Dog has planned next, that's fine and I've got to say I was curious and hanging onto the news as well, but hyping up nonexistent gameplay as the greatest thing ever is just absurd. To this day I can't help but wonder if that colored the views with the game. It was a great achievement on the team's part, but I wonder if people took that good quality and multiplied it just like reviewers do the majority of the time (you know, like when they have a strongly covered game, spam you with its advertisements and hype previews, and then give it an 8-10 without exploring hardly any mechanic to tell you why its so special). Whats probably worst though is that it derailed from the criticism....

In the eyes of many it couldn't do any wrong if it hit a certain quality mark, and from there it just becomes magically perfect to many people... to the point where the blatant lying trailer about AI was forgotten about by most and even in that exact video you have more people worshiping it than you have people demanding ND be held to their own promises. However actually doing that would require thinking about what you're interested in the game for, and that's where it all goes back to square one: if you're literally hyped over nothing, you're not paying attention to what the game means and what it is doing, and from there you can go to some dangerous roads whether through the consumer being let down, a sour fad developing, you tell the industry they can get away with certain things, or again the problem where you don't get people to improve.

Its all okay! They made this

Isn't it time we learn now to be careful about that kind of thing? Like I said before I'm not hating on the simple principle of hyping something, as that's just part of life... we anticipate things. However to anticipate something so much, and without any justified cause, it begs the question of one's own ethnics and competence. I'm excited a lot for prey 2. Why? Well conceptually it was amazing, it had a brilliant CGI trailer, has an underrated past game entry, and some old gameplay footage that was interesting. Even then though I'm not taking my hype too seriously, and I tell myself its subjected to harsh change at the potential of being in a publisher/dev power struggle as well as a potential team switch and rework. Likewise I expect other dreamers to take caution with this as well.

Last Guardian is made by a company with a great record... so fine, lets hope with confidence that it'll be something interesting. However where else has the game looked promising? Where else have you seen something in the game that facinated you? What caught your attention to the point of child-like excitement? It'll take more than a logo to start dubbing a CGI trailer responsible for the best game that never happened. Its not that I doubt Last Guardian; For all its troubled development I honestly expect it to show up and surprise me one year with interesting gameplay. It has a unique setting and idea, so I hope to one day see its concept in action and see a reason to watch it better. There's got to be a reason Sony's still dumping money into this thing. Still we need to cut the crap out with blindly hyping things that don't exist as games yet. You stand higher potential to hurt the game's ratings, hurt your own expectations, hurt others gullible enough to fall into a contagious hype train trap, and I wouldn't be surprised if you were also enforcing dumb pre-orders in the process (though by then you often have game footage to go by). Truth is you need more than a name, or some pretty CGI E3 trailer to truly know whether or not a game is worth it. These are video games, not movies. See what it plays like. Start to pay attention to what mechanics you want to see, know what stories you want told, and see if a game relates or engages you. That doesn't happen through teasers, flashy over-ambitious E3 showings, or company logos. Once you can seperate the two, you not only know better what to expect, but you can start to get the word out and better judge the game and that even applies way outside of this "blind" hype bit and into just general gaming. For example, imagine if Assassins Creed actually had better combat by now because people said something before going all google eyed over the pirate tag. I guess I'm getting off subject here, but I'd just be repeating myself, much like this mistake of blind hype does. Just stop hyping without a reason guys.

Don't kill it with your anticipation

Playing devil's advocate: In defense of exclusives.

Now before I go into this discussion I'll warn you I go through a lot of long winded and hypothetical arguments that I can't fully back. That's nothing different than the usual, but as you can tell by the title this will be a strange take on an issue and requires a lot more chatter and theories than usual. Despite that things are as usual with my facts or lack of them. I'm not a game developer, I'm not a publisher, I don't glue my eye balls to statistics or charts (though if there is a handy one I might bring it up anyways, but its not often and I don't put much faith at all in them), and I'm not exactly cracking scientific or mathematical stuff. I'm just a gamer, using some common sense, a big canvas of writing space, and some witty (but potentially wrong) thoughts based on a combination of opinion, experience, perspective, and thinking it through. Okay, proceeding...

Things are about to heat up

So rumors have been going on for a while that Fallout 4 is Xbox one exclusive. Is it true... probably not. Bethesda has an association with PC gaming. Their console ports are nice.... usually... but they are first for the PC community, and their games live on long lifespans in part thanks to being a modder heaven. Heck I'd even go as far as to say the games actually developed by Bethesda feel like they're making the gameplay decisions and open worlds that they have in part because they want to inspire a world of community imagination and modding. However guess who else has had a strong association with a certain platform? Insomniac who has been long associated with and love from Sony's side for nearly 20 years, and... oh hey, look their dream game is coming to the Xbox one and only the Xbox one! Yeah there are plenty of differences in these two cases, but the lesson to be learned is don't get caught up on certainty. The very team that developed a game that sparked my passion for gaming and my mainly sony focus would end up building their own passion project exclusively on the only platform I have 100% no entry in. If this can happen, I believe Bethesda probably can go exclusive to something if they really have the incentive. Also its a deviously good move for Microsoft to do. Face it, it will work and get sales up, even if you declare a grudge war against the publishers and make some steam boycott group to vent with because it works so well.

 I'm all for games being available to as much people as possible. Its nice for as many people as possible to get some great games, and exclusives for the most part really do screw that up and screw consumer. However what is it like for guys that are on that secret access club to enjoy those games excluding so many others? I dunno, I was too busy enjoying Killzone 2 to care that I was missing out on, or I might have been listening to all the guys praising how good Deus ex 1 is over its multi-platform sequel, or maybe I was enjoying how well focused and unique a game like Tearaway is. Oh wait, maybe I do know what its like to be in on exclusives, and honestly so should the majority of gamers who have been playing a decent library for at least 5 or so years. Some of these games are among our favorites and are legendary classics, or at the very least most of them are cult hits where some in quiet circles of the internet praise a game as a mark of unappreciated revolutionary status. So why don't we act like it and why do we fuss about the act of exclusives? Its easy to hate on exclusives, to suggest that they're a hazard on the industry from the corporate side of things, and to cry when a game looks so good but is out of our reach or not on our ideal platform. However I don't think we give them enough credit, nor are we willing to admit when we're actually wanting them or asking for them. Its kind of funny that part of the ongoing complaint with the Xbox one (or new consoles in general) is that it has "no games", but suddenly the internet is ready to raise pitchforks at the potentially painful news that just maybe the Xbox one has a choke hold on one of last generations biggest PC games. In similar news we just witnessed the Wii U launching up in sales by literally 666% within the UK alone when Mario Kart 8 was sent out. So I think its time I wrote an article on this. Exclusives have their own way of benefiting people, and even though it would in fact be better for everyone to share the fun there are undeniable benefits to having a game tethered to a single piece of hardware.

For starters, lets get the most obvious piece out of the way. Some of the guys who have actually been sharing some love to the idea of exclusives are of course the "PC master-race" guys. They've been constantly harping on how multi-platform games can deteriorate potential, lower the bar, lack features, or just release under buggy conditions all thanks to consoles. While they aren't right and its a sad side effect of scapegoating in the industry where blame of lazy development gets shifted instead to an inanimate machine, there is some truth is those statements and it applies to all sides of the gaming world. When you spread a game across many platforms (Up to the potential of 6 right now just including triple A games. More if you open up mobile markets and portables) you have to make either multiple engines, or a really scalable engine. This isn't bad in itself, and contrary to what they say some of the "best" looking PC games are multi-plat (Battlefield 4, Crysis 3, Metro: Last Light) however this is just the beginning. You then have to make sure the controls fit across multiple styles ranging from the Wii U's giant tablet controller, a traditional controller, and then a big keyboard coupled with scrolling and proper mouse sensitivity. Options must reflect each set as well. Then you have to do Trophies, two separate forms of achievements, then run servers across several different terms of services and hosting methods if you have any sense of online connectivity, and finally the distribution including the "going gold" stage of getting review copies out. In the end this all takes away time that could be used to further perfect each version, include good options (especially key for PC version and motion control functions), and this is all without counting the community itself. The community itself is split thanks to this, potential DLC, and even updates. If you buy a game like Killzone, Halo, or Primal Carnage you can enjoy each game knowing that the community shares the same servers, everyone on the forum has an account you can friend on the same system as the game, and that help is all there for you using the same controls scheme and bugs you face. There's a comforting sense of unity among you. Oh and those reviews... also unified on one platform, meaning you get a better grasp of bugs and optimization even though reviews are often lousy with that anyways.

The forums share in your suffering soldier

By contrast you just don't get that with a game like Call of Duty (and many others, but to keep with recent multiplayer FPS examples it fits best obviously). Its mostly considered an Xbox thing, but lets face it... the community still has its division, there are corners where PC community talks of good modding that was forgotten by most of the world, and its always a risky gamble to see the quality of each game as the optimization across all platforms is up for serious questioning. Ghosts was probably the best in the recent series as far as polish goes.... if you were playing on consoles, but then turn over to PC and it can't give you a proper FOV slider, runs horribly, sucks up more space than is necessary, lies about ram requirements, and wont even let gamers attempt to run the game if it detects anything slightly below its bloated system requirements. Some of these have since been fixed, but there was never any reason they needed to be in there to begin with. Average reviews of this game didn't scratch a damn thing about this, and it was up to Youtube critics and specialized journalist sites to point out just how garbage the port job was for fellow PC enthusiasts. Funny how that works, specialized seems to be the key word here and it was the PC specialists that debunk a faulty PC job. In similar fashion this is why I, as mostly a PlayStation gamer, keep a Specialized Playstation website like PS lifestyle among the top 3 journalist sites I visit. Much like with an exclusive itself, a site that is focused is straight to the point and connects with everyone on the same place and way so that it can deliver the most direct and on point experience.

Another good example of a sour multi-plat release would be the more recent game of Watchdogs. Watchdogs went head on for 6 platforms total, and while the consoles and PC could certainly handle more than it put out the fact is it didn't have any time to make any version as spectacular as it should be. PS3 has PS2 era stuff in it while games like AC and the newest GTA surpass it, PS4 looks nice but should have been able to handle the E3 2012 content, and even further could be said about the PC but instead the PC looks nearly on par with PS4 and handles far worse because they couldn't be bothered to sit down and take the time to optimize it right. Would exclusivity helped it? That's not certain and is only a guess, but I honestly don't think anyone properly believes it did its best and most are blaming it across not just consoles but the fact that it went for EVERY console and PC as around the same time. In a world where we have such fantastic games as shadow fall, and Infamous, I fail to believe that Watchdogs is the best it could have been under 1080p and at just 30fps. To set the record straight I'm not hating on the game for being everywhere. I'd rather take the lesser graphics and hope that many enjoy it, however it really is a show case to the darker side of this decision coupled with a team pushing the game too soon. I can start to see why the PC guys are so bitter and quick to blame consoles, even when that isn't a lone solution.

Furthermore I've been mostly talking from a developer team and player standpoint. The elephant in the room though is that this sort of thing helps your console and video card makers. Now for the most part, yes it is industry BS and it would be a more perfect ideal world if you could run up to any retailer, grab Mario, Halo, and Uncharted off the shelves and put it on your best gaming rig or your favorite console. However the truth is its a competitive thing to keep it dangling in front of you and to encourage you to buy it on their terms to some degree. You want Halo and to be the first guys to play on COD map packs? Be a good boy and stick with Xbox. Want the best of alien shooting from Resistance, or a blockbuster adventure with Uncharted? Well put down everything and grab a Playstation! Want those special hair physics on Tomb Raider, or to make the most of the already detailed world of Metro? I hope you have the right graphics card, because we're screwing over the other half of the PC customers by making a deal to have some settings only work with our brand! However mean this sounds, its a part of the competition, and I think it actually does do a bit of good here and there. Its all speculations and "what ifs" but when you look around its effective, works, and its what makes some of these games and companies that back them just what they are. Bungie was in some deep trouble before they ever got the chance to finish Halo, when Microsoft saved them and pulled them into a deal while their game transformed to become the massive hit its known as today. Likewise why do you think games like Killzone, Gears, and the upcoming Order game look so much better than a typical 3rd party game? They're not only exclusives and able to focus on one version as mentioned before, but I have no doubt that they're being pressured to represent the system at its strongest. Why would there be pressure to do this? Because its competing against other similar machines, and they're encouraged to show consumers which one is the better pick. Competition breeds a certain quality so that you're pressured to buy the better thing.

Ultimately this competition also breeds a sense of urgency, and desire. Why do you think the PS4 is doing much better than its competition? Its not only just because of current markets, and past fumbles from other guys, but its also because Sony built up a reputation of having more exclusives.

Nintendo has maintained their idea of old IPs and continues to get people with those expectations. Meanwhile Microsoft was mostly known for Halo, and Gears, and if you don't need either of those they didn't have much of a hook over you compared to Sony, Nintendo, or PC. This wasn't just some wild guess either, it was all over the internet. People weren't looking fondly at the shown games, and what few did were looking at Killer Instinct's interesting reboot, or Dead Rising 3. A few were looking into TitanFall, but everyone sighed with relief and turned to the PC side because it wasn't a true exclusive. Meanwhile even though Sony wasn't doing much better, there was a sense of trust in knowing they would go far with exclusives. Now the world is looking at Sunset overdrive with great ambition ever since it truly revealed its gameplay. Oh and let me take a quick break off of Xbox to bring up the mario kart 8 sales again: 666%!!! What more proof is there to show that these consoles sell in part from exclusives? Now in recent time Microsoft is starting to finally understand that and tease up to as much as 15 exclusives for Xbox one and these will likely be shown at E3. Honestly I'm jealous. I'm supposed to be. That's the point. Its supposed to make me get up, walk down to the store, and purchase this system so I have a choice to buy any of those 15 games that appeal to me.

Now with consoles causing and needing to invoke a sense of desire, this ultimately sounds demoralizing to the fact that we have consoles, and at first glance it kind of is. If things were just down to the graphic card wars, lets hypothetically say it stays around 50-50 (apple isn't much of a competitor on this, so that's why I'm strictly speaking on inner parts) and PC gaming itself feels unified as the ultimate and only gaming thing. Every game that existed, would run on PC. Now that sounds good, but then again we go all the way back to the beginning of the idea of why consoles exist to begin with. While its mostly about the exclusives right now, at some point consoles were entirely different and alternate machines with their own gigantic list of pros and cons. To some point those pros and cons still exists, but less apparent. However consoles have opened up way too many factors, and honestly if they never happened it could have had scary consequences. Gaming wouldn't have the same people, revenue, competition, or style as it does now. Actually I'd even go as far to say that maybe places like Steam and GOG wouldn't even exist. DRM was something that could be escaped thanks to consoles, but if there was no alternative DRM could do whatever the hell it wanted and people would know it as the only way to play games. You'd have some competition from a fraction of the market that just naturally didn't care, but that probably wouldn't be enough to kick off anything. With consoles people have an entire library, economy, and publishing style to turn away to and when those numbers pile up it becomes tempting to target them. Then a console version of some PC games is made without that DRM, and it sells better. How to you bring back DRM haters while also establishing a trust with developers that they'll have secure DRM-like sales? You build a better system, one like steam, where the threats and bullying of DRM are far less noticeable than ever before... and in addition you just make the general system something to desire. I truly do believe this wouldn't be the way it is now without consoles.

Aren't you forgetting something....

Now with all this being said I'd like to debunk my own stuff a bit. Like the title suggests, it was about playing "the devil's advocate" which means I don't totally support the argument I'm discussing. Remember what I said about PC elitists and fanboys using consoles as a scapegoat? Well I'd like to explain more about that... Obviously the consoles themselves aren't actively doing anything. If you want to complain about the lack of FOV, the optimization, the visual scale, the controls and mechanics, it all comes out from the publisher and developer made decisions and testing. The machines... they just sit there and you can run certain things on them. The same can be said at large. In an industry where some of the best looking PC games are considered again: Metro, Crysis 3, and Battlefield 4 I would think people would understand now that its about who's at the reigns, and how much they're willing to commit to their game (or what their publishers will let happen). So that whole talk on focus... I honestly believe while its easier on a team to make a more exclusive game, ultimately the right care can put them on amazing levels no matter what consoles they're made for. Ground Zeroes was made across old and new generation games, but upon playing just the PS3 version it blows away 90% games on that console. That's not to say effort will take games beyond their hardware on that hardware, but I believe they can certainly be stretched to large near max potential on each platform.

Heck to strike this issue more on the head, sometimes a focused game doesn't even live up to complete expectations. Most of Insomniacs games weren't even on par with the best 3rd party games and even when they caught up it was still lesser than the usual PS3 exclusives. Likewise the majority of games exclusively on steam right now don't use up much potential power and could easily fit on consoles or even handhelds. Some like Risk of Rain honestly don't even work well on keyboard. An exclusive wont always guarantee the max quality of the hardware. Honestly the most important thing overall is the dedication of the team to make a correct, well optimized, and high performance experience for all their customers. Its just that its a lot easier when all the work is done for one machine. Ultimately exclusives still suck, and its sad to see a good one pop up that locks out people that adore it. You can say whatever bitter things about a platform's library, but anyone with a decent love for gaming will envy some game on every platform and its not a good feeling.

Now what about the good value for the consumer where it feels like a game is unified? Well that can backfire to. Sure games like COD and Battlefield are split all over the place, with people bringing in xbox focused guides, some trying to be a vocal for the PSN community, the nintendo guys begging for more COD players and feeling left out, or the PC guys discussing its port while going on about completely foreign control schemes to everyone else. However the thing about those games that the list used earlier doesn't have.... Primal Carnage, Halo, and Killzone absolutely suck at publicity and public talk. Seriously. Halo is an exception back on 6th gen where it pretty much was the big thing with multiplayer shooters, but it got lucky there. Beyond that most exclusives just don't get blown up to be the front of discussion, and that really sucks when you're a huge enthusiast for the game. Sure you can run to the forums and chat with a tightly knit, well informed and unified community, but it kind of sucks when I can't talk to my xbox360 friends about how much of a masterpiece Killzone 2 is while they all talk to each other about how fantastic a Halo Reach match was. Likewise those big high selling multi-platform games are staying where they are on the top of every news site list for a good reason: Everyone knows them, many play them, and they're hugely marketed to just about anyone with one or two platforms of any kind above mobile while Killzone, Halo, and whatever awesome PC multiplayer indie game all sit in their own little corners quietly looking to scraps of players when their launch hype died down.

If fallout 4 really ends up going to Xbox.... I've got mixed feelings about it. Not straight up hatred and pain that many will rage about, but I will sympathize a bit with them for their loss. It belongs to the PC community first and foremost. Even if PC gets it and its only a "console exclusive" to the xbox it still sucks big time... and makes even less sense honestly (its not even a solid business move, its just wasting everyone's money). However assuming its a full exclusive I will also be congratulating big time xbox fans and hope they get an amazing game that does the best it can with the hardware, and they can enjoy their easy recognition to it as an xbox centric game. I'll be really pissed if this becomes a trend for Bethesda, as they're my favorite publisher aside from Sony. However its business, it happens, and contrary to what some say it does have its upsides. Just not enough upsides as sharing the enjoyment with as many as possible.

They look happier together