Dropping the old PS+ sales fable

Look guys, I don't understand why this sort of thing set in, but I want it to stop. Stop with the bullshit pricing lies, and tell people how things are. When PS+ went up, with the encouraged deal that it was a value of under $5 for a whole year, I remember it sounded amazing. For just a chip out of your pay, you could have all these extra savings and freebies. Except... it's not so easy, because it wound up being $50 at the checkout. It always has been. So what's with this bullshit about it being $5 a month now? And even weirder, why the hell are other consumers talking about it this way all the time? This especially sparked up in a conversation with a journalist when discussing PS+'s value...

"The amount of entitlement people have from paying a few dollars per month is astounding. Somehow they expect 100s of dollars in free games every month for the $5 they put in."

Riiiiight....look dude, it's a lot easier to pretend a bunch of people are "entitled" when you're using a phony sales pitch to discuss what they're actually paying for. Do you get free PS+ in with your review copies of games as well? Because it's like you're not actually making the actual payments. It cost $60, and that's an important distinction. Saying it's $5 a month is just sugar-coating it, trying to make you feel better about how far the value goes, or even trying to make the argument (like here) that you're complaining your $5 doesn't transform into the best possible mileage. Really, we paid $60, and like anything you burn $60, I'd like to enjoy it. You know what else also happens to work this way, where you pay some giant sum at first for a bunch of things you don't know about until it's here? That's the season pass gamble, and last I checked, people were critical as hell of that and didn't try to spin some bullshit about how Battlefront's pass was just like paying "$5 a month". The only difference is, season passes last forever.

There is a real difference present. Not only can you no longer sugar-coat your arguments about how "entitled" all the paying customers are for voicing their opinions, but you also have to consider actual math and savings, and embrace the fact that PS+ is actually gambling. You'll be faced with the questions like:

• Can I afford to put down $60 for fun and games at the moment?
• Do I want to use that $60 on a service that does not directly add anything at this moment?
• If I buy PS+, can I still afford to spend money on this new game I've been excited for?
• How far can $60 go, and what is the best route for me?

It actually becomes a lot easier and humanizing to see that these "entitled" gamers might actually find better value elsewhere. $60 up front can get you a year worth of possible savings, deals, freebies that are amazing, or you might be looking at a loss of games you directly know you wanted. If somebody just put $60 in my pocket, I know up front I could make a decision between buying Dark Souls 2 remastered, that new Tooth and Claw game I want, and the Uncharted trilogy remastered I've been thinking about. That's five games I know I want, which is about how many PS+ games I've probably loved and found true value in, except for better or worse I'm actually doing the picking here. That is the difference! The upfront payment of $60 is what lead me to actually drop PS+. It was the final straw, the thing that made me say "No, I'm not paying that much for what I can't see. Maybe another day when I'm better paid." So let's drop this bullshit that it's $5 a month. I would love it if that were true, and Sony should put out the option, but instead you're paying $60 for a year of gambles that end in an expiration, where they come searching for another $60 they rip out up-front. That is the reality, stop pretending otherwise.

In defense of Andromeda...

So recently, I finally got to play Mass Effect Andromeda. I'll fully disclose my casual flying interest was more on the basis of being contrarian, but the reason I write this article... was genuinely because I was kinda right to be. You see, I'm really not a fan of Mass Effect, or Bioware's style of making games. They tend to make these games that have real good ideas, and then some real shit stuff mixed in with some cringe-worthy design choices. Witcher 3 honestly outdoes them on every single damn front, aim, goal, and design Bioware ever attemps to do. Whether it's the better writing, or the choices and roleplaying that feels like it actually matters, and all within one of the best and truest of open worlds that can be observed in gaming. I never was able to enjoy Bioware's stuff, even when I put myself in the right kind of mood to, something always got in the way. So when people all unite to say a game was seriously disappointing, or just outright bad, I get curious as to why people are in agreement with what I've been saying... but for different reasons. Then it actually gets out that the open design and combat are actually better... but it doesn't matter, because the fan's hearts are broken, and the game was bugged to hell. Well I put on the same mentality that let me endure Two Worlds 2, and decided to dive in to see what was better or worse about this entry. In the end... I not only think it's better, but I'm considering making my first serious purchase for the first time ever (considering the rest of my attempts were gifts or rentals). I genuinely liked Andromeda. Though I will make it very clear, it still has issues, including much of the typical Bioware bullshit.

My face is tired, and I must scream

Everyone loves to make fun of that one line. You know what I'm talking about, and if you really don't, well it's right above in the image. People have essentially laughed and mocked it to the point of putting it on a plaque, and passing it around as the schoolyard's best prank. It's the icon of infamy for this game, and then there's.... oh yeah, like nothing else being mentioned. People really hype the dialogue as something terrible, with quite a lot of cringing. Then I hear quite a few others talk about how poor the decisions are, or the reactions in your character and how they don't match up with what you choose. To that I ask... are you newer to this than me? Seriously, where the fuck have you guys been, this is like Bioware's code of ethics. This is up there among one of the reasons I most detest in a Bioware game, yet somehow most are only seeing it here like it were a new discovery.

Somewhere out there in their offices, I'm sure they have a rule written that at least 40% of the text to talk must betray the player's expectations (whilst pretending you have strong sense of choice), and this game is only the sixth or so time in them doing it. That's why there's a freakin' emotion icon right with the choice, because god knows you can't actually decipher the path you're taking without it. That's the only thing with some accurate guide, a good game wouldn't need it. But sure, let's all point and laugh at this particular entry only because we already started with "my face is tired". That is a terrible, and horrendous line, but... it's like one of maybe three or four missteps in two books worth of scripts and dialogue. I'm not going to condemn the game on that. Same with the choices in your way. You get wedged into some weird scenarios where they over-simplify your possible solutions and answers, including an attemped murder case where attempted murder isn't even in the vocabulary and you must decide whether or not a guy should be free for misfiring, or busted for a false murder. That is honestly a dumb design, but... it's nothing new! It's on a dialogue wheel, not in a void of awesome possibilities. As a guy who's been forced to trudge through Mass Effect 2's first three-four hours over and over, and over again, trust me I can tell you there aren't a tone of real choices that matter, nor a lot of my preferred methods. Mass Effects has always been more about the thrill ride and seeing ideas, than giving you actual deep control. Before you argue, just remember ME3's ending. I'm only dealing with it here because my expectations were set so low long ago, and I'm able to enjoy the rest of the stuff surrounding the dialogue that dances with two left-feet.

Shepard is dead

I kinda get this, but at the same time it's one of the sillier complaints too. On the better side... well, it's your beloved main character of a bold and impactful story-heavy series. You stuck with him a trilogy all devoted to making him the coolest guy in the known and unknown universe, and now he's tossed aside. But at the same time... you guys can't seriously go buying the game, and saying it's unexpected. This was all over, Shepard wasn't going to just show up here. He's not your pal, he's not your hero, he's dead in the 3rd game, and this is a totally place and theme going on in the same universe. Same IP, new story, and new characters. If I can deal with the butchering and loss of Spyro after a solid trilogy, and then a total betrayal of what his entire branding and genre was, I'm sure you guys can live with a faithful recasting that expands upon the features and tries anew.

Oh, and I freakin' love the new story and characters, just saying. The prior trilogy that I knew of did some cool stuff to. I liked the illusive man and that mysterious plot, I loved how the opening of ME2 gave a cool reason into constructing a confused and lost shepard, and I enjoyed some of the politics at the citedel, or some of the scenes. Oh yeah, and Garrus was amazing, nobody sane and stable is fighting anyone on that point. Still, I really, really, really dug into some of the overlapping stuff going on here. Let's go over some of it just to recap on how epic in scope this story really is:

• Sent to colonize a new galaxy, 600 years into the making, only to find things go wrong and a mystery is out there.
• Mysterious aliens that can be barely understood, and those aliens are studying other mysterious aliens they don't understand, and then you get stuck helping other aliens who are fighting the first aliens over what the mysterious other aliens are all about. All of the 3 new races are conflicted in mystery, and trying to kill each other over figuring out, and you just show up and get stuck being a 4th array of aliens that they don't know, and you don't know them. It's the best kind of confusion.
• SAM is an awesome concept that melds well with gameplay and story. A convinient scanning guy, and perk gifter, while being secretly mixed into your brain and passed on from your father. Oh, and it all came from an illegal process, and SAM is like an unrestricted super computer leaching onto your brain. Questions? Of course you have them, so play the game and figure out more.
• Where are all the other ARKS?
• There was a freakin' mutiny onboard with all sorts of lingering angst to figure out and solve, old rebels lingering out there, and then even the guys who helped out became their own outlier group to figure out and win back.
• There's a power struggle between all the main commanders, and it laughably turns out the one winning was an accountant who got lucky by having all seven of the higher commanders die in a random flash of chaos.
• Oh yeah, and that random flash of chaos is kind of a weird piece of the plot that also needs to be resolved.
• You've got a twin sister/brother who is trapped in cryo sleep, with occasional concern or breakthroughs there.

Now on top of all that, there's all the new characters at work here. I personally love Vetra's character a lot, being a person who's simultaneously a cunning rogue, and a stern commander. Then there's the braggart veteran warrior Drak who's surprisingly chill and yet gruff, the bumbling everyday man of Liam, the previous mentioned accountant commander who is power hungry enough to annoy you, yet is also a total fanboy for you. There's so much here, meanwhile back in ME2 and 3... it was all a bit meh to me. I loved Garrus's character, and the rogue that came with DLC, but beyond that... all so meh. I really never grew a big attachment to any of them, but with Andromeda it's harder to find someone I don't care about in some capacity. Even a few of the ones I am more bitter about are kinda cool in how I don't quite like them. Meanwhile, I don't see the problem others do with Scott Ryder either. His voice actor is just fine, and he's a chill but confident type I can get behind and relate to in a reasonable sort of manner. Shepard was never bad either, but... I felt he was just trying to be serious and done with things. Gruff, stern, and a commander, but the sort of guy I'd usually see as an NPC than the main hero. I can't say I miss him much myself, and I thin Ryder could be given more of a break.

So, those glitches and wonky things?

About that... by this point in the patch, I ain't got much to report on. One time a wall was invisible until it loaded, another time there was a silent line (a common glitch in this kinda game), and there was occasional animation hiccups in trying to have it leap from gameplay to conversation. Aside from that, I'm thinking this all went roughly smooth, especially considering the shit development cycle I heard this game go through. They pulled this thing off incredibly well for a game that was essentially made by a B-team in around a year's time (they claim it was a decade in the making, but it was almost ALL concept and writing type work. Due to engine flips and all other sorts of mess, it was essentially crunched on in around a year or two's time). Though I do also understand that some characters came out looking a little ugly, but I'm personally more forgiving because I've seen much worse in gaming. Still, a fair point to bash, it's 2017 and you're wondering why humans look like animatronics with synthetic rubber skin stretched across their faces.

Still I won't deny there are some... other problems. I was fairly livid a couple of times when stupid things sent me back to my ship, interrupting the flow of my first real colony. Look guys, of all times for an "are you sure" button, you freakin' need it on the loadout thing. Nobody else on this whole world uses a back button for CONFIRM AND DEPLOY right on the most vital options for a mission. But here we are, where a multi-tab and layered system of options is set to go with the simple accident of an accidental extra press of backing out of one of the several menus of your choice. It's so easy to slip up on this, that I go ahead and do a manual loadout at the locker before I do it via mission deployment, just because I know it could screw me over and send me out with the wrong squad mate or weapons. Then there was the nomad. Who the fuck puts an instant evac, again with NO CONFIRMATION MENUS on the common exit vehicle button? It's admittedly a hold button at least, but I never would have thought driving around in a jeep would have a single button that just teleports you to the ship, right off the planet. That's a tad bit extreme, especially when there's no "are you sure" things. I never thought I would be asking for those annoying prompts, but Andromeda does fuck up in that area, and I won't deny that a bit. Then there's just all the damn convoluted minerals, the fact your ship has to manually fly over little sight-seeing, and you have to wait on that to load, and the mission strike teams are slow and grindy as hell, etc. There's lots of little dumb things like this in the programming. The shitshow of a dev cycle this game went through shows here more so than anywhere else, and I'm not sure if they will or even can just patch this stuff up with a magic wand.

Oh hey, level design is actually used

When people compliment the combat of this game, it's an understatement to leave it alone at that. The combat actually isn't too improved in itself. You still have weightless laser guns, enemies that bathe in your ammo before going down, and a very shallow system of squad commands and perks + powers. The only real addition at surface level is the evade and momentum type stuff, and the reason why that actually works is because: they actually have half-decent level design this time! Seriously, has anybody ever gotten on Mass Effects case about this, or is it just me? Damn near every level in this wide galaxy was a connection of corridors with hiding walls, maybe a slight open area, and then a funnel into another series of halls. Every single level was the most literal and textbook example of a corridor shooter, and not the fun Killzone 2 kind, but rather literal corridors everywhere. That's a really stupid oversights for a game that pretends it's all about an open story, exploring the galaxy, and presenting ideas. It bored me to death, and made me dread the levels in any replay, especially Korlus.

Every damn level was like this!

I'm not a big fan of open world as a concept, because it's usually done lazy or I just don't care, but Mass Effect was always a series where I was asking myself "why not!?". Besides, it was clear the linearity here wasn't for tighter quality when it was all the must dull corridors ever. It was begging for open world. Exploring the galaxy, making friends, doing side-quests, it all just made sense to open the game up to reflect those themes. ME:A finally does that,  and then realizes it enough to give you boosts, jet jumps, fun platforming challenges, and offroad fun. It embraces it even better than Dragon Age now, and we've got a galaxy with planets that are actually welcoming to the basic idea of moving around. You still have those funnels and those walls, and the vault place I went through was a callback to ME shit design, but I've got my expectations within reason, I'm not expecting a Far Cry here. If a few places still need to be tight or were designed in a hurry, fine, but the game has enough diversity and mechanics working within that, that it's actually fun. I still remember being able to run up a cliff, jump off of it, land on top of my space ship, and have my crew make fun of me for it. That kind of thing was great, and a step up where Mass Effect finally upgraded to modern standards. ...so yeah, naturally within all of this, the combat is also more fun, because I'm not fighting a 7th wave of bulletsponge enemies thinking "when is this stupid hallway going to end!?", instead it's more to push forward and to actually see what happens next.

So is it a "golden world" or not?

Andromeda feels very similar to my outlook of the main plot honestly, except I didn't go in expecting glory and golden worlds. I came in expecting a strange game that had a mixed and mediocre reception, and for it to possibly be the change I wanted in the series. What really happened, whether I see it that way or not, was disaster behind the scenes. However in the debris, there's still hope, and a lot worth exploring and seeing. It's not a golden world, but it's a place worth staying with some work, and after the patches I'd say some of that work has been done. The rest is the sort of thing that's up to the player: Unfold the story. There are some cringe moments, and remaining Bioware bullshit that make me shake my head, or agonize over something, and the occasional newer feature that is just poorly done, but for every moment that frustrates or slows the journey, there's more telling me to move on and see what's next. It's an actually decent game that seems inviting, unlike Mass Effect 2 that I tried so hard to trudge through time and time again, and could not enjoy it so well in all the time there. ME3 was better, but not good enough to send me back. But with everyone bitching about Andromeda... well, it's brought the game's price down to a comfortable level, and I think I'll buy it while reminding you guys to chill out. Some of the complaints just pale when considering the whole series was always flawed in places, and then others are just not bad enough to stall me from a good adventure. It's not a fantastic game, but it's a good enough game, and I'm excited to see more from it and will be considering a purchase.

Less posting...

So, I haven't been posting on here much lately, and now that's definitely going to happen even less. Prior to recent events, I worked very loosely under an off and on schedule thanks to knowing an awesome self-employed guy. Now, I work a more ordinary job at a restaurant and am writing this on my first day off. My time is running much shorter, and while I love writing, there's some other things to do in that time.

However even prior to this new switch in time and pacing, I was writing elsewhere. I was off getting deeper and deeper into creative writing, wrapping up work on posting a novel-like story on a forum, and diving deeper into new projects, an episodic sci-fi series, and very recently a story I'm cooperatively writing with a pal. Oh, and a blog detailing extra bits or ideas about such stories. Every time I tried to start an article here, it was only started or half-assed, and never made it to publishing. This blog just felt less relevant to what I wanted to do, and instead of printing out 5-15 bits a month, I found myself with nearly nothing to say within reason or inspiration. Last article was on the joke that was the Arc Survival controversy, but now it's just too late, and feels too stupid to really discuss.

So I'm going to be taking a bit of a break away from here, only turning out stuff when I have the time and true passion. You might see me put out a final two before hiatus, because I want to ramble on a bit about creatures in fiction, and about platformers and intuitive gameplay, but then that'll be about it for the foreseeable future. I'm going to likely return to more of a habit about keeping games to gaming, and writing to writing, and not intermingle with them on here so often. This isn't exactly a goodbye, but it's likely it could boil down to a post every three or so months rather than my old activity.

The games of E3...

So E3 happened. And a lot of things at E3 happened. So this is my summary and thoughts on things that grabbed my attention. It should be recognized that I did not watch the live streams, and have merely looked over at the after-math type news. Still, if it was good enough for the internet, it's good enough to write and post about what stood out to me. Still, I have not seen everything. Also, another note is that nothing makes this list other than just the thought that I have something I want to say on it. This isn't a straight hype list, best of E3, or other nonsense. A lot of this is positive stuff, but still most of this is just "I want to talk about it" stuff.

Far Cry 5

Far Cry has kind of been one of those games I guess I quietly fanboy over. I'm not major fan, I mean there's nothing really to be attached to in the usual sense. Every game is a new character, a new place, new atmosphere, but mechanically... it's a mix of features and mayhem to a scale that make it the closest thing to a modern day Mercenaries game. You've got war torn people, can hire in stuff, all sorts of outposts and territories to capture in addition to eccentric story mode quests, and then they mix in so many other features that just feel so good. Far Cry 3 to 4 was a "re-skin" to shallow minds exhausted of surface-deep relations, but to me it was the mile between a good game, and a mastering of such work that it went towards my GOTY. Far Cry 5 is doing little to slow that down. It's another sequel, featuring most of the core mechanics and principles, and I'm happy enough with that.

I barely paid attention to it, but what I saw was essentially "we upgraded your primal pet. He's super-dog, your trusty side-kick". That's all I really saw at a surface level, but it's good enough for me. I'm essentially sold already, I know it's going to be a good time if they keep the base features. I ran a mental checklist in my mind, and everything from AI hiring, to re-breaking your hand for healing, was back in. Even my concerns with a more stale setting eroded when I realized just how good Ubisoft is at building a world anywhere, and it's honestly still looking like a great time. It might also be one of the only games that I'm possibly too impatient to wait for, it just doesn't feel like a 2018 kinda game.

...oh yeah, and because those guys are already out there, if you want Far Cry to be a different game maybe... *gasp* Go to a different game. Maybe you didn't notice it, but there's tons of other products that are doing different stuff at E3. It's kind of the point of E3. So quite expecting Far Cry to suddenly cater exclusively to your vague "change" wish. It doesn't revolve around you, and can't read your mind as to what you wish it to transform into. I'll probably have to write another article on this continuing bullshit of "ew, it's the same" all over again. ...I guess you could say the internet stays stays the same on that regard.

Metro Exodus

Like Far Cry, it's has little to do with "what did you show", and more like the fact that you did show it. Metro is a damn good series, and as long as it does it's job and gives us a fun ride, I'm fine for that trip. Metro showed us more Metro being Metro. You walk through dark places, beat up mutants, explore the outdoors while worrying about supplies, and then get attacked by a crazy set-piece monsters. It's the best scripted nonsense type of game out there, and I think they can manage to get away with releasing yet another brilliant FPS game that I should theoretically hate. The big news is essentially, Metro is back for a 3rd round, and depending on my mood during launch... I'll probably be there for it. It's supposedly open world, but I have no idea how that's going to work since it isn't shown off in any way, so we'll see for that. I'm hoping they can keep it all good under that new direction.

Assassins Creed: Origins

Here's where things get more difficult. AC is simultaneously a great and terrible franchise. It has so much clutter, dips, turns, inconsistencies, and just... it's a mess. It's become every single flaw of AAA rolled up into one. There's no focus, it's cluttered, it's too new and gimmicky, it's too "the same", etc. It's everything wrong in a box, but it's also fantastic. It also has some fantastic ideas, some of the most unique settings in direct video games, has so many cool stories to tell, so many chances for cool moments to pop up, and so many way to just grip you. Now, they're doing it in egypt. I was enchanted for all of half a minute, before sky-spy fad rolled in and started marking targets by arbitrary numbers that were whispering "you better have a matching level requirement for your blades to stab these normal people". Seconds later, and we were seeing skinner box shoving confirmed with a level up system, followed up with some of the most clunkiest combat I might have ever seen in the series, ending the last second with a magic controlling arrow mode. Following it up with an epic cinemaitc-like showing of the world, a giant snake, and real bosses, and you have a roller coaster ride of cringe and delight. This game... has my attention, but it also has my fury. It's one of those games I am so badly hoping it turns out great, but I'm lying every time I say I think it's going to turn out fantastic. Everything that is right and wrong with the AAA industry is present here, and... c'mon now ubisoft, we've been waiting on Egyptian assassins creed since Brotherhood. Do not fuck such an easily cool thing up with your focus-tested bullshit, and slopped together clumsy combat. I guess, come October, we'll see where it ends up.

Wolfenstein: The new Colossus

Do I need to justify why this is amazing!? It's a new Wolfenstein, doing more of what made it amazing! Dual weapons, lots of guns blazing, nazi stabbing, but it takes place in american now with some crazier new characters, further developed relationships, and a lot of new crazy enemy types. Yes, yes, yes! Love it all! I still haven't heard anything about the mechanics, but I don't see why they'd change it up. Since then, they got two answers that were both in their favor: People loved the first. And then, people loved Doom perhaps even more. So yeah, old-school mechanics are amazing, they have zero reasons to ditch them, I think I'm justifed in hyping on this train. ...and then they have the nerve to tell me it'll be at the end of this year. Bethesda, you're trying way to hard to win E3 with just this one game.

Shadow of The Colossus

Turns out Wolfenstein wasn't the only big attention grabber with Colossus in the name. Now that word, almost always spawns yet another game in mind, and it is exactly that game... again... remade on PS4. I didn't quite expect this, but yet nodded my head, understanding that there was a clear demand for such a game. SotC is a classic that people still compare a few other games to, and think about when talking amazing PS2 quality, or just great art and indie-like products. It was a strange boss rush adventure concept that just worked, and I can still remember my friends in middle school talking about how weird but cool it was. When I got it with PlayStation Plus, I would get these weird moods for a lonely adventure, and SotC was one of the sole best things to itch that scratch. However as a general rule, it ain't my thing. I'm not all too into just an entire game dedicated to boss rushes, and empty gaps of searching and wandering in-between. I have to be in a special mood for that. Disconnected, concentrated, time on my hands, lonely adventure mood, the will for patience and trials, etc. I needed to essentially be in such a mood that would require me to go on a real adventure. Be willing to test my patience, have my gear, and be ready. If I wanted that, SotC was the best thing there is, and I welcome it's presence back. Depending on the price, I might have to pick this up and go at it, excited to return. However, it ain't normally my cup of tea, so my hype is a little waned. I... don't know. Still, awesome of Bluepoint games to go behind this game, and I wish them luck. It's going to make some people very, very, happy.

Spider-man

I'm going to come right out and say it, this was my biggest disappointment out of real feelings across the E3 show. I didn't have a whole lot of hope behind it, but still... it managed to hurt a slight bit. I remember seeing the original tease to this, and thinking "...yeah. Yeah! Yeah, Insomniac and Spider-man, yeah! This could work! Spider-man and Insomniac both love attitude, it's new and bold grounds for a great company, I love almost all their work, and just look at all this energy behind it. This is going to probably be fun, and maybe it'll bring out that inner-kid of me that used to love this superhero." Now jump to present day. I was distracted almost instantly, as the web slinging was damn button prompts on corners as if it were hacking from Watch Dogs rather than YOUR BEST METHOD OF MOMENTUM! Then insert dry and overused arkham comb combat, half-assed stealth, and then a glimmer of hope as you could sandbox the environment, right before the entire second half of an 8 minute trailer wound up falling into the grips of rapid QTE chase script sequence. Oh boy, so exciting to press the shoulder buttons at the right time, I'm totally spider-man here guys! It was overscripted, cliche among one of the formulas I hate the most, and then there's the fact that it just plain didn't appeal to me. Not a second I spent thinking fondly of anything I saw, it all had me kind of either in Okay or lower territory.

Look, I'm not trying to burn the hype train here. Insomniac seems to show a lot of respect for the character, and I know this is giving you a lot of things spider-man deserves. There's some nice winds and nods at play, great care in the polish and presentation, and it genuinely does seem spider-man-y. If that's all you want, to play spiderman, you're looking at one of the best games in a long while. However as a gamer, and Insomniac fan, who was merely hoping by chance to be pulled into spider-man from loving a just plain great game, it failed in every way. I'm not thrilled at all, and I can only hope future trailers will show me a better side with the promise that set pieces don't fill 1/3rd of the game, and it actually fixes Arkam's style by actually being fun. I'm not holding out for that kind of high hope though. Some people lost their shit and called this their darling child, but I'm stepping back cringing a bit like I wound up in the room by accident.

Dishonored: Death of the outsider

Look, I'm thrilled about this somewhere in my mind, especially after discussing Spider-man that can't do web-swinging right, while Dishonored has shown us how momentum powers are done right. However, the space requirements are a bitch, and I just haven't even been enjoying Dishonored 2 itself quite as much as I should because other things are consuming the memory, and rotating out. That, and we have absolutely no gameplay to be excited about. I love the idea, the plot, and the fact that anybody can jump in with it as a standalone, but I can't be excited for anything else. I know Arkane will do well though, so I'm sure I'll get around to visiting it, and I'm sure some of it will be fantastic. I'm looking forward to seeing what they bring, especially with the weird cyborg-looking style. I was beginning to be worried Dishonored was done at 2, but it looks like they came up with a follow-up to the original DLC plan they pulled with the original. I'm glad about that, just... not as much as I feel I should be. But on the other hand, Prey is amazing and current GOTY for me, so still good on you Arkane!

Beyond Good & Evil 2

Oh yeah, it happened. Finally happened. I don't have a lot of attachment to this franchise, but damn does it still feel good. I respect it for what it was, and I love this insanely creative type of world, and with this reveal... they just slapped you in the face with it, over and over. It was fantastic. A crazy British monkey with a giant metal grappling claw, a pig with a Fu Manchu type mustache passing deals, crazy hover craft police mobiles, space warp drives, diesel punk color pallet, and they all swear like sailors. It's fucking amazing nonsense that reminds me of why games are awesome! I'm going to keep my eye on this, cautiously optimistic.

Anthem

Hey look, it's not Destiny! That's the vibe I got from this one for the most part. It's trying hard to be it in a lot of ways, sounding like another online only looter adventure with cheesy clean mic buddies having a good time about playing co-op together on a mission. It's, like Destiny, a game that would look so cool and appealing to me if they just made a traditional fun adventure shooter with it. Instead, it looks like you're going to be comparing weapon variables, number crunching, and running back and forth with chore work quests, while hoping your internet stays connected to bullshit forced servers just in case you wanted to play with your friends. IF under the chance it comes out honoring single players, I might give it a rent and see where it goes there. I'll give them this credit, it didn't look as slow, dull, boring, or predictable as the other Bioware things they usually touch. It looked like a genuinely normal sci-fi action game made by whoever else, until the co-op crap slapped itself in the way and instantly felt more Destiny inspired. I guess what I'm saying is, I've got a heavy skeptical eye on this one, but it stands out just enough to actually put here and talk about. I can't really say Bioware did right or wrong, just that they didn't do so wrong that I continue to shun them in a corner with a giant "overrated" stamp like they usually deserve.

A new Bubsy is freakin' genius!

No, I swear, that title is not sarcastic. Bubsy is back, and it's actually a really cool thing. Holy fudge-nuggets, this was a crazy announcement, yet I am entirely in love with. Partially because the internet is melting, and it's hilarious to read the comments, but the other part... because this is absolutely insane enough to just work. Still... I can't believe it's actually coming back! This... is... real.

Okay, let's take a step back here for a second, and pretend you've never heard of Bubsy. He ain't exactly up there, competing with COD, WOW, or LOL (man these popular games have some stupid acronyms). So maybe you haven't heard of him. Well, he's sort of infamous for just how terrible of an old "mascot" he was. He's one of those classic games that are a ton of fun to simply beat up on, because of how his consistently bad design, cheesy humor, and even the lengths at which they went to sell him on, all combined for the perfect storm to make him simultaneously memorable and hateable. This ain't another cheetah-men or Action 52 where a in-the-know crowd tells you how terrible it is, it's more like a reject that fell out of the same school as Sonic and Mario, where you just kinda know him as soon as a part of the gaming culture ride. His career ended in 1996, upon his third attempt at a video game: Bubsy 3D, which is essentially argued as one of the worst games to ever exist in the history of... ever. It's so bad, there's been one or two guys I've seen name their lowest score "Bubsy". I'm serious. ...and after decades of just being reflected on as a classic horror (where people actually challenge themselves to play his games), he's actually coming back! The "What can possibly go wrong" memes borrowed from a pilot of his own failed TV show, could not be better placed.

However here's the thing, I am in full support of Bubsy happening again. I'm not one of those guys who have an attachment to just hate him on sight. Furthermore, as I thought of it some more, I realized it was actually hidden genius buried in absolute stupidity. If you just made a random 2D platformer now, that's just it. Nothing else, maybe 8 or so people would spot and talk about it, then forget it's happening. You bring back this crazy bullshit absolutely nobody asked for unironically, parade it's infamous corpse around as a new game, people will all be talking about it. Bubsy is coming back to town, no warning, reason, or logic, it's just happening. Bam! Instant marketing access. Say what you want about infamy, but this is just at it's absolute best! It's even still loudly cheesy, with the one-liner spewing cat going as far as to even say the title and company name. It's almost like he's egging you on to hate him, while still truly just wanting to sell you a brand new game like anybody else. It's... stupid crazy genius! Everyone is truly talking about it!

As a matter of fact, I'll just stop for a bit and quote some of my favorite comments:

"That's one way to exploit nostalgia I guess"
"We move further from God's light everyday."
"E3 is saved!"
"You see internet this is what happens when you misuse the word irony"
"Half-Life hasn't made a comeback but Bubsy has"

Finally, I guess I'll address the real skepticism that's surely present. On top of that, some people seem almost genuinely mad that Bubsy is getting a new game when ___ doesn't. I get the weirdness of that, but it's not like Accolade Games had access to Spyro, Gex, Beyond Good & Evil, etc. ...though that Half-life one kind of cracks me up. I know Bubsy's name means about as much as dirt to most people, and it's not what you had your money waiting for, but at the same time... it ain't really that hard to forgive a bad franchise. It's actually much worse if a good one gets mediocre. A bad one always has a chance to do better somewhere down the line, and the only people that should be worried are the ones making it, or some weird minority that loves it and craves a sequel. It's been 20+ years since the last Bubsy, and I think that's plenty of time to have it communicated that we DO NOT like the weird mistakes of the former games. With a responsible dev in hand, I think they're more than capable to make a solid and cheesy return for Bubsy.

...and if not, well hey, that's just another bad Bubsy game and we can all look back and laugh at this event. I'm actually strangely excited to see how this turns out. I kind of have a soft spot for colorful, crazy, and humorous games. I'd rather have a new Gex, but heck, I'll keep an eye on Bubsy here.

A new audience doesn't need an overhaul

So recently the Crash trilogy remake became an amazing discussion point, for something I've wanted to say for a while. During a discussion where they had some unique questions, and even teased the possibility of a future with new games, this little bit was found in the conversation:

We wanted to broaden Crash’s appeal, so we had to keep in mind the new audience that might’ve never played these games before. It was important for us to consider that audience and how they might react to any decision we make. As a result, whenever we made a decision, we had to constantly ask ourselves: “But who are we making this decision for?”

Here's my very simple answer to such a question: You're making this for gamers that want to have fun. At least, that's my hope.

You see, when people usually pose this sort of situation, they mean to shift it to "streamline" which is often just a buzzword for making it trendy, generic, and match the current fads. They do something absurd to it, like how the new thief decided they needed an unlock system, special vision, and button prompts instead of intelligent level design. This was all in the name of "appealing to new audiences" while cynically hoping the old would just buy it because it was inspired and named after the game they were hoping to see again. People don't understand that what made the game fun for them (so they had fans to begin with), was in the game itself. But supposedly we're told to believe that can't possibly be true, and we have to carve the gameplay out, and fill it with trendy modern conventions you can get from any other game on the market. It's stupid, and so phony to the game itself that mere months away from Thief's launch, they listened to feedback and throw the entire XP system out the window, and implemented a customization system to help fix problems regarding other features. However the damage was done, and a corporate mindset overruling the actual heart and soul of the game carried through to it's very core. Not many people talk about the game that just came out a few years ago, but a die-hard fanbase still passes on words about how amazing the classics were, how well they were designed, and why they should be experienced.

Back into the shadows you go...

I like Thief to, and tried to congratulate it's customization as accessibility in the right direction. However, the game itself just didn't leave a lasting impact, and upon further revisits I've come to the conclusion it's just fun for virtual kleptomania. Just about any other stealth game short of MGS4 is a better choice for the genre, and Thief's influence, and you're better off playing Dishonored for a successor. You know, Dishonored, the new IP that came in a time where new IP's weren't supposedly possible, but it took sales because it won over people with it's charm, options, and it's clear path as a damn good stealth-action assassination game. It actually knew what it wanted to do for fun, Thief had a frame and filled it with a bucket list of mainstream features. It didn't need to do that. All they needed were to make a new story, make some interesting and complex levels, follow up on and improve all the options to the gameplay, and learn from areas that don't hold up such as the bland sense of direction from within those convoluted levels.

The thing people don't get, even some gamers repeating this sad excuse, is that games are played, remembered, and loved for a reason. New people of today aren't some foreign alien entity, they're human beings who also want to have fun, and can have fun under similar game designs. However games fall apart and go into obscurity faster than any other medium. A game like the original Doom is still amazing for so many reasons. People love it's exploration, it's horror and influence, the combat and monsters, and all the secrets. However this was before 3D was even a real thing in games, the level layout had little to no consistency, and you couldn't look up or down. People can still enjoy Doom on a freakin' calculator if they wanted to, but not everybody wants to do that. However whether they want to or not, we can all still find the fun value in Doom, despite it being old and needing emulation just to run. You could give a kid today the old NES Super Mario Bros, and they'll still get it and enjoy it the same way. They can run, jump, find secrets, and challenge themselves to try and try again. However they might not be able to tell if the character they're playing as is even human, because they're such horrible pixel blobs on the old systems. So you redo that gameplay, add to it, fix what was broke, and improve it on newer systems. You do not need to ditch the secrets, inject a half-hearted crafting system, and give Mario a dramatic edgy anti-hero backstory, just because you think this is what the kids dig today. These games were fun once, because they were fun period. They age badly in physical hardware, but have timeless elements of gameplay that are great entertainment.

All you need to do to get a new audience, and succeed in keeping your old audience, is give them a fun and faithful game that is truly entertaining. I don't expect the Thief guys were running around, pondering how to wreck their game, but they sure didn't seem to be treating the game with it's integrity. They took short cuts in level design, and then implied it was because newer players don't like open-ended levels. That's just plain stupid, and the fact some gamers buy into this idea and start blaming newer games just makes it all the more ridiculous. People will still seek out those challenges, complexity, or advanced design, it wasn't something that just died with one generation. Not every potential fan was born during the original release, had the access to it, nor has the will to go backwards and play it on it's old retro format. So, give them a new release. Give them newer graphics, new extras, new things that are full feature improvements, fix the obvious mistakes, and make ti a nice shiny deal they can't refuse while also showing the old fans how great their game was. That's how you do it right!

...and so far, despite the silly statement, I'd say Crash Bandicoot absolutely nails this lesson. They went above and beyond the call to give us the entire trilogy, seem to match the levels design and crafty sensibilities perfectly, are giving us updated cut-scenes, graphics, and fixing issues like the first game's physics. They're letting Crash be Crash, and are letting that fun speak for itself. Guys, Crash doesn't need to do anything stupid just to appeal to a new audience. Those people are out there, and can enjoy running, jumping, a humorous cartoon bandicoot, and mastering techniques for the best of secrets. They're out there, and I'm certain some of them are watching Crash with great curiosity, and they're going to finally pick it up and see just what the Nostalgic fans have been drooling over. Then... both nostalgic and some new comers, will be having fun. Not because you threw Crash Bandicoot out the window and replaced it with XP systems, Detective mode, and killstreak multiplayer palooza, but because they still enjoy the Bandicoot's wacky shenanigans on the most brilliant and up-to-date adaptation yet.

The culture war comes from both sides...

I really hate to get political, but sometimes the politics in gaming or the gaming community comes out in such a way, that it only feels right to talk about it. It started with something I wanted to say in regards to a piece of Prey. There was a spot in the game which I was surprised didn't cause more of a fuss/virtue-signaling than it did, and for once I'm quite happy with the internet. ...and then something else happened, and now I realize why the internet can still be stupid. There's not only one guy who did make a fuss about the issue, but Far Cry 5's poster happened, and now people are bitching about that. It's time to talk about the culture war again, and this time I'm not angry at the typical social justice crusaders, because this time it's their supposed opposition that is doing the exact same damn thing I hate.

If you can remember from the way I've discussed things before, you could get the idea that I hate the intrusion of SJW politics in journalism and discussions. I've always hated it. This idea that you're gaming experience is somehow different based on your skin (pretending people are oppressed on face-less online gaming), or this thought that females have to be funneled into a narrowly perfect image or else it's hurtful, or the fact that they push for developers to re-write their games, characters, or humor to suit their sensitive needs. It all came to a boiling point long ago with a hastag consumer revolt, and ever since then and the more recent American elections, the culture war has been in full motion in all it's bullshit glory. Like usual with what you'd expect from a reactionary push back, at some point the stupid reaches circular motion and comes around to the other side.

I hate this stuff because I don't want to be demonizing developers over petty shit, divisive tactics that hurt friendly communities, or put down artistic expression of any kind (save for just bad art, then criticize it right). I want everyone to be able to walk in, pick up a game, and have fun with it. That doesn't mean zero politics in gaming, or that you can't complain about how a game was made, but let's keep things within reason and know that fun and art is the biggest thing here. Not everyone has to have "representation" to have fun, and not every game needs to be a safespace tailored to your views of the world. Naturally, that puts me in high disgust when the right-wing or supposed Anti-SJW watchdogs start sounding pretty familiar, beating on those war drums that demand or demean developers over things related to political or cultural ideology. So let's talk about two examples where I fear the anti-SJW part, is become exactly the thing they hate...

Prey's Nontroversy:

Assuming that picture holds, that above is Danielle Sho. She's one of the more... perhaps, interesting side characters of Prey. She felt a little forced at first, but in retrospect she has a bit more staying power than countless other of the 50+ names that are actually documented on the station. You see, the weird thing is your progress is blocked with one of many "your-princess-is-in-another-castle" halts to the main campaign, as you're told the one door you need is voice locked even to a top-class dude, by someone you've never heard of until now. So you've got to go and find voice samples of this character to collect their voice, and this means going through multiple voice logs, and is one of the only mandatory moments of audio-log collecting in the game. It just so happens that you'll uncover a lesbian story in the process. I'm going to admit the thought hit me that with all these contrivances, it felt a tad bit forced, and I still wonder if Arkane was doing it for points from the "look at me, we're so progressive" crowd.

However, maybe this was a genuine twist they wanted for one of their characters. It's hard to say these days whether inclusiveness like this is genuine, or forced. Fine, you know what, life goes on and the game was still fantastic. The character became a tad bit more interesting than normal anyway. She also loved games, played music, was in a band even in the middle of a space station, had some rebellious stress against upper-management, and (MILD SPOILERS) was badass enough to escape out into space, and used her dying breath to send you an email (from freakin' zero-G space) reminding you to seek vengeance on someone. Plus everything else that surrounded that level area was awesome, so it's kind of good to have taken that detour.

Whether or not her lesbian side was a choice to please certain people, Sho was still a neat character in an amazing game, and that's all that should count. Again, I'm glad I didn't see the bulk of the internet throwing a parade or hate mob against the decision, they just... let it be. The game was the center-point as an amazing game. It wasn't to last for everyone I heard from though. It bugged me a little when a small youtube reviewer decided it was worth his time and breath on the review to smack-talk SJWs, and talk down on this scene. He further showed his ignorance, by suggesting he could find no straight relationships in the game, when there were actually a few. When I called him out on this as being just as bad as SJWs complaining about "evil agendas", and how we can't perfectly assume this was agenda driven, I got this weird response that... not only is wrong, but misses my point completely:

"Given that statistics show that the number of people who say they are gay is less than 3% (some claim less than 2%), it is HIGHLY questionable how these extreme minorities constantly end up in media creations. Meanwhile, openly conservative/libertarian individuals make up a FAR, FAR larger portion of the world but are rarely represented in media (and if they are, it's a temporary character who is presented as a  negative stereotype). Yes, it's obviously an intentional effort to shoehorn these relationships into media despite their extreme rarity. This is an agenda -- the Social Justice agenda."

Okay, so... I could debunk that first off by noting the fact that there's an extremely normal amount of straight people in the media, and gay portrayal is still fairly low. I could also note it's definitely way lower than Libertarian anti-government type plots (full of entire resistance armies going against an over-reach of power) across any work of media. Oh, and gay rights are a part of libertarian philosophy. Still he's upset that Prey doesn't meet a right-wing inclusion quota, sounding familiar to the stupid demands of the left. Ultimately the fact remains, he proved absolutely nothing about how this was the social justice agenda, he just further espoused this "they're messing with my games! My... perfectly good games, that I still rated fondly, but still... ew, SJWs!" Oh yeah, I did mention that, right? He enjoyed the game, mostly singing praises about it until that one moment. He just had to virtue signal, and pledge his part to stick his finger in and yell at SJWs. It's absolutely unapologetic virtue signalling of the most obvious kind, and it achieved nothing other than starting an argument with people who were less agenda driven, and more of just... disturbed by his politically charged comments. Comments that nobody else I've seen make, because we're too busy enjoying a good game.

It's about the freakin' gameplay!

Far Cry 5 (allegedly) hates American Southerners

Oh, but it gets worse. Anyone see the Far Cry 5 image circling around? Oh boy, do I have something special for you:

Have a full-size one, go on. I want you to see whatever details you want, because... you know where this is gonna go. So this has been making the rounds lately, and a minority of the community is already pissed off and discussing how anti-right wing, anti-white, and anti-religious this game is. Probably anti-nationalist too, because... we're seriously just throwing this all into the same pot until it loses it's meaning, just like how everything to the left is racism or... something with a misused placement of the phobia suffix. I am so happy to emphasize that minority point, but it's sadly a larger issue than Prey's deal. Quite a few guys are just making Ubisoft jokes, or wondering about the gameplay, but... there's still those posts cropping up. It also doesn't help that people like The Verge are running with this stir-up, suggesting quite out-right that Ubisoft is indeed making white and redneck the great evil. So, uh... does this at all sound a bit... familiar? Yeah, we've been here before, with complete idiots like this Kotoku article. (I'm sorry, it hurts me as well to link to that site).

So now what do we have here? The exact same idiotic assumptions in place, but culturally reversed. We're looking at artwork before any real trailers are out, and complaining about an "agenda" applying on the developers based on YOUR views of the culture war (Offense is taken, not given). It could easily be a terrible or false assumption just like the supposed "racism" problem, but nope we're really running with this idea that (to quote a guy) they're going after "trump voters". Okay, so let's play along for a second:

1. If this game were anti-white, the "sinner" prisoner wouldn't look white. I mean... for all we know, maybe he's not, but since we're playing the judge-a-book-by-it's-cover game, he sure looks too white to be anti-white.
2. What kind of American nationalism changes the flag? I know it can happen, but it's stupid to throw a fit over how the villains are super american, while they have a different flag. Alternatively ubi could have taken a stab at the confederate flag if they really wanted to lash out against certain people, but yet here we are with this weird cross version of the stars (not here) and stripes.
3. Admittedly the image is difficult to find at a good resolution with the entire picture, but the one I have sadly cuts off the bottom where you find ammo crates and the front piece of RPG launchers. Now with that knowledge in addition to the assault rifle, the planes in the background, and the freakin' painted wolf, you're going to sit there and tell me these are normal American citizens? Or normal rednecks? Oh please, you'd have to not only stupid, but find that your own assumptions on southern culture are exaggerated. These guys are extremists, the usual bad guys.
4. Even IF they were mocking religious conservatism, this is nothing new. Remember Sabal, the religious nut of FC4 who wanted to wash away the sins by killing whoever he deemed as heretics? Oh but now it's a problem because they're white Americans? Or alternatively, you're going to say "see, Ubisoft is anti-right wing this whole time", to which I'll remind you the other side of the coin. If you didn't see Sabal's ending, you'd see the one where Amita the liberal drug-lord, came into power and forced people to work "for the common good" at gun point. Oh, and it was implied she murdered a little girl just to make sure she erased all religious culture. Extremism was the enemy, not your stupid culture war beliefs, and thankfully people were smart enough to applaud the way it was done in FC4. How sad is it that with FC5, we're here where a minority of the supposed skeptic/right-winger community are coming out as snow flakes, offended by a game art.

Oh, hey, there's that iron cross thingy again.

So, alright, let's pretend we're all sane people again and assume we'll be fighting extremists in Far Cry 5. What other game has also done this? Here, I'll even star the ones that aren't religious-like. Well: *Bioshock, Bioshock Infinite, Deadspace, Zeno Clash, RE4, Possibly Skyrim, any game with nazis*, 2016's Doom, Borderlands 2 (cult of firehawk), Soulsborne games, Probably any Warhammer 40'000 games (even if you'll usually be playing as a religious nut to, it's kind of set to be the space crusdades), and... oh hey, perhaps maybe any game inspired by modern day terrorism where we're actively worried about religious radical nutjobs in real life! Funny how often you can see this pattern when you put down your own self-centered world view of politics, and look around a bit. It's not a personal attack on you, it's one on extremists... oh unless you are an extremist, then fuck you.

This is also all coming from someone who is an american white southerner. Over at one of the places I stay (parents separated) I've got a bit of peach moonshine left in a mason jar that sits over on a table, a confederate flag flying out in the front yard, a basement with a collection of guns and even historic swords or replicas, and it's surrounded by a decent amount of woodland scenery. Now most of that is admittedly a byproduct of my father, who's definitely a bit more redneck than me and has choose to do stuff like fly that flag. It's definitely a part of my family and history though. However I think I respect him enough to think and hope that he's not at all worried about being offended by artwork for a virtual game. He's got more things to worry about, including actual SJW outrage like the fact a monument in town is eyed to be taken down by the city. He's not concerned or afraid of liberals having their own voice in the media, we're both actually fans of that cheesy film Ferngully after-all, and he liked James Cameron's Avatar even more than I did. He's concerned when the culture wars comes in to rewrite history, or destroy it altogether, and suppress freedoms like that of expression. He is occupied more with that, than to actually become that very thing himself and hate on Far Cry 5 because "Oh no, the bad guys of a fictional video game have church and apple pie. How dare they!"

Apple pie: Conquering the world as soon as it gets out of the oven

...and here's the thing, even if Ubisoft is pushing an agenda here... WE TOLD THEM TO DO THAT IF THEY WANTED TO! Do you remember when SJWs were bitching and complaining, begging established things to change? (well, it still happens, no need to "remember") It was said time and time again, stop ruining our fun, and go do your own games. Well, maybe now Ubisoft has decided to speak up more politically. Let's say they were blatantly obvious about it, one of the bad guys had a "Make America Great Again" hat on his head, the sinner was an illegal alien being executed, there's a massive wall being built in the background, and one of those guys even had a nazi symbol because... that's what the left thinks all trump supporters are doing apparently. Well guess what, we told them they can do that, because that's exactly how art works! We told them if they wanted their messages, if they want to put more gay or trans people in games, then go and make your own damn games with that exact thing there. What the hell do you think is going on whenever a game has actual nazis as villains!? How about all those games with Russian spies and fictional depictions of cold war threats? How about nearly everything in Killzone, and how it was a sci-fi depiction of various historic events redone with a slightly deeper perspective on the antagonists? How about the founding father loving, white christian only type, pro-'murica of Bioshock Infinite? These are political messages in the games, and we're fine with that! Now when the shift turns just a slight bit in this awful climate, you've shown you're okay to go back into the culture wars, slinging mud or demanding games to be burned down because they offend you? No, fuck off, and go make your own games. ...oh, and if you're a nationalist, you can leave America because I can tell you right now, you do not stand for the amendments it was built on if you're going to have your fragile little ego and feelings hurt over a video game.

Bioshock Infinite had an absolutely fantastic job of writing one very crucial part in the game. Not everybody agrees with it, and it's sparked some people who were upset by the sudden turn, but I feel like it's the most important part in all of this and exactly why I choose the heading image. This minority of right-winged snowflakes bitching and moaning about their hurt feelings are more closer to the Vox Populi than they are to the actual founders that look like them. They came out of this viewpoint that their voice was unheard, so they reacted in a great way. They rose up to fight the bitter and divisive press, they donated to those that actually needed through charity, and they fought against this threat. However somewhere along the lines, it wasn't good enough for some of them. Some of them had a taste for something bolder, and decided to snap at the "roots, or else it'll grow back", and with the growing sight that it's good to be revolutionary, good to be against the liberal side, and a cool punk-rock sort of rebel against the establishment, they think it's points for their side to fight tooth and nail on this culture war front. They became the same horrible monsters, or perhaps even worse, than the ones who they claimed to fight against. The rebels in Bioshock infinite, the supposed warriors of virtue and justice, who then turned around to collect scalps and torment innocent citizens, and kill children, became monsters that were far from just. Now, the right-wing has it's own people of social justice, watch dogs with teeth who want to bite and chew out the "social justice" they don't agree with, and claim it's the fair and just thing to do. I'm calling it out for what it is, and remembering my place and principles. I enjoyed wrecking both the founders and Vox Populi in Infinite, and I saw it coming a mile away. I see it now in the culture war, and I sure hope it doesn't spread to be another giant monstrous disaster.

...but I'll just be here, enjoying video games, and hoping that idiots don't wreck them and their ability to express whatever cool things the artists come up with. To me, the only sad thing about this FC5 piece, is I'll miss the adventure to exotic places. However, maybe I'll enjoy laughing as I hijack a moonshine area or something. Who knows, I'm looking forward to hearing about the gameplay either way.

2017 so far...

Welp, with the year coming around to sort of a half-way point, I feel there's plenty of games to discuss again. This is sort of my excuse to talk about what I've been playing and feeling without writing an entire Now Playing, even if a few of these games will have such a thing done already. This is about any game I've been playing that feels worth documenting right here. That said, I have to say I haven't played a whole bunch of strong-feeling games that released in this exact year. That's not to say the games have been bad, but a whole lot of them are games that were in some way out earlier, and are still fantastic. I don't know how this is going to come down to GOTY if this keeps up, but I'll figure it out. Maybe I'll have played more like Nier by the time that happens.

Far Cry Primal

Someday, I hope to get back into this game and play it through some more, but yet there's really not a big pull, and from what I can remember... I think I see why. It's a big deconstruction of modern presentation and what we usually know for a Far Cry game, and yet an amplification of what we do know as an Ubisoft "sandbox" game. Far Cry 4 hid it in chaos, great writing, an interesting civil conflict, and just a loud and proud sense of fun as well as new features. Primal... has you reading subtitles to figure out what cavemen do, and there's not really a whole lot beyond fetch quests. Go get this guy, go get that guy, now go hunt this animal to prove yourself "worthy". In-between these incredible (hah!) story concepts, there's an absurd amount of even more blatant activity checklisting going on. Almost everything is divided up into a list, and honestly the funnest part of that was going around to outposts and fighting people. That wound up being the bulky of my gameplay experience, until I just got bored of even that.

Don't get me wrong, Primal isn't a bad game, and has some great ideas in there. I love the new pet taming system, the little bleedout detail with the animals, some of the environments are amazing, and then there's the way you need to work on cold protection and stay close to fires. There's a clever bit of survival details snuck into an otherwise mundane ubisoft game, but ultimately a lot of what makes a mundane ubisoft game so dull and mockable are on loud display. It never tries to even hide it, it's clear even when your pet system is like opening and calling a freakin' inventory complete with grayed out critters you haven't unlocked or leveled up to yet. Everything included the little trees are glowing items to pick up and check off in your inventory, you have a stash system to keep up with, a giant tree that you have to unlock to unlock the unlock tree (seriously), etc. It's just a bunch of busy worked wrapped up in an awesome theme that... they buried under the busy work. This is why people are fed up with your formula Ubisoft.

...oh, yeah, and the melee combat is broke as fuck in a game that's going to be filled with it. How on earth... *sigh*

Uncharted 4

Uncharted 4 is just the best, right guys? No, not really. I think... unless I'm confusing this with another post I did somewhere else, I think I went over the fact that Uncharted 4 doesn't pace itself right for me. I love a lot about it, but it's amplified on Uncharted 2's issue of pacing issues and weird moments. The combat is great, platforming is fine, story is great (especially once you get through the slog of an opening with five or so flashbacks), etc. However it's still not beating Uncharted 2 in just how fun that was. I have to wonder what others are seeing in this to dub it the best thing ever. It has to be the emotional investment and good writing of the story alongside it's presentation. Especially with that ending man, because... dang, it's just the best ending to any franchise I can think of. But yeah, I think it still has people thinking too emotionally, and less critically. That's not a bad thing necessarily (games are meant to be fun, and that's all that counts in the end. So good on ND for making a game people just hypnotically love), but I'm still left scratching my head as to how this was supposed to be one of the best out there. I think as I've gone along, it's been further proven as others come out and celebrate the exclusives Horizon and Bloodborne more in the long run. Those are games with actual... well, more gameplay worthy things going on for them. Uncharted 4 is still pretty fun, and I've enjoyed it. Oh and that ending, holy crap, that ending is still incredible. In the end, I was slogging through this game way more to conclude the good story than I was to truly play a fantastic game. It was a good game, but one I could kind of put away after it was done, and walk away to think of other things.

EDF 4.1

Yeah, keeping this quick and image-less, it's EDF yet again. I had some raw senseless fun, love the new fire effects on this, but hate the stingy weapon system on this go around. I sunk time into tons of levels, played some co-op with my dad later on, and I've had some quick and fun laughs with it. That's really all there is worth reporting. Go kill some bugs, or... eh, don't. I've discussed this in better detail with the Now Playing article on it, go search that up if you want a bigger talk.

Watch Dogs 2

Remember how I said Far Cry Primal was a step backwards in how to present an Ubisoft game? Watch Dogs was okay in doing that sort of thing, able to engage me with a real cool story about vigilante-ism (uh, or whatever the word I'm looking for is), revenge, and a couple subtle gameplay quirks that worked with it. Watch Dogs 2 however steps forward completely, not only giving you a more fun and quirky story worth your time and investment, but tying it in flawlessly with awesome side-quests, your stats, online, and just the world itself. Watch Dogs 2 takes a more goofy and cheesy approach, being compared to the movie Hackers more so than an actual story of hacking. That puts it in a better spot than the association with batman the original had, and it truly feels like a good fit. Every mission had some kind of fun story to it, there are some neat little twists, and yet it surprisingly feels more genuine and realistic with how it perfectly bleeds some real life culture and internet goofs through into the game. There's even a point where you're able to leak an Ubisoft game, which was a real legit preview to some upcoming project. Very clever guys. This is how to spin your formula in a way that truly works. It's not just a checklist, it's a world worth exploring. 

Oh, and the hacking gameplay is so much better as well, with one of the best little things being the fact you can remotely drive other people's cars! It just feels so good to run around and goof with things this time around. Nearly everything is just so fleshed out and fun, that I'm actually doing some of the lesser side-quests like the Uber car rides just as a break from the more legit side-questing... and even they sometimes surprise me with moments of good content, like a daredevil youtuber who asks you to do tricks, or a guy that leads you into a gang turf war. I kind of miss the old character at times, but it's still all so good. I feel a bit guilty for not having finished this yet, because I needed to clear some space and bigger games were coming up at the time. Still I definitely need to get back and play some more.

Gravity Rush 2

Gravity Rush 2 is quite an odd game. In addition to being an open world super hero gravity manipulator collect-o-thon, it also just feels... so much like a Sony + Nintendo collaboration. Something about it is just plain fun for fun's sake, charming, creative, very gamey, and yet so free and feature packed. It's the best of both worlds, and yet... for some reason I'm just not entirely hooked on it. I love it a lot while in the moment, but I kind of need to be in the moment. When I turn the switch off, or swap out another game, suddenly GR2 is just that game I played once upon a time. The story is alright and everything, but nothing about it sticks with me. In the moment, it's fantastic. Out of it, and it doesn't feel like it exists. I don't know what the actual problem or lacking feature is, but it's there. On top of that, I also hate some of the quest goals. A couple of times the game is just plain tedious, like a mission that quite literally has you exhausting your powers through miles of un-broken fetch quest errand running. Yeah... that just sucks guys, no other way about it.

Worms WMD

Worms actually came back. Awesome! This worms game is very well crafted with tons of the good classic features, even some improvements like the amount of on-screen worms you can have, diverse weapons, and even entirely new features like vehicles, crafting, and turrets. Despite it's look on the surface, the new art style really does hardly anything. Every exact movement and actual control is the exact same, giving an artificial feel to the new direction, but everything else is a sign of exactly what the art style evokes: change without forgetting the soul and spirit. There's a lot of new and awesome stuff, with nothing bad missing. Often T17 can't seem to put together a worms game with even their own normal features functioning together, never the less with a successful gimmick. This game is the true successor we get once a blue moon, and it feels good to finally play a great worms game again.

For Honor

For Honor is an amazing game, trapped to shitty and terrible mistakes. It's a living example to the idea that maybe, gameplay isn't all that matters... the thing it's built on does, because publishers can easily make it a bitch to get to that gameplay. I only rented this game, and I loved the time spent with it and the orochi fighter. I enjoyed practicing advanced kills, practicing with bots, figuring out optimized strategies, loved dueling, but then again I also lost 30 minutes of a solo campaign level because someone was fooling around with the same set of hook-ups that had the wi-fi. Why am I losing all that progress to a solo level? Because Ubisoft has fallen into the stupid trap of thinking that for some reason they need to throw their players under a bus, forget how proper saving works, and lost my sale all by their forced and unnatural online only position for the game. Alongside The Division, and word about a big online emphasis on AC, this is why I fear Watch Dogs 2 might be the last good game I get from them. Even though they make amazing games like this, it doesn't matter, I'm out if you don't respect my time and ability to just sit down and play a game. But what about those who do love online? Well fuck you to, because they have their entire system tied to outdated (back even when it launched) P2P type matchmaking that stops your fight and crashes on you if the host has a life and leaves, or the game just has a digital brain fart.

Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (Remaster)

Turok 2 is (as far as I can remember) the first FPS I've ever played, and had so many cool things... in the entire ten minutes or so I saw for the time at least. I never could beat the first level, and even now let's face it... it's a bit crazy for a first level. There are people even now refunding it over that, or saying it does in-fact take about an hour or two. Oh and the developers seemed to know it to, because they only made six levels like it. However it's a good thing I'm not one of those 1st level quitters anymore, because this remaster hit the right spot and made some great adjustments that made the game far more accessible. The awesome weapons, animation, and weird gameplay of the time all shine through with a remaster, and with added gore and a mode that mocks Super Hot... because why not? It was a spectacular nostalgic high during the month Turok 2 released, and yet it was all still weirdly new, and I've got to say I really enjoyed playing through it again... even if it wasn't all quite smooth sailing with the naturally crazy designs. Also they put a freakin' sun in the underground level for some reason, what the hell Nightdive?

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (Remaster)

Because one wasn't enough. When I said I was on a bit of a turok high during 2's remaster, I mean for the franchise, so I ran back to play the first one as well. I really enjoyed re-exploring it with more respect for the differences between the two, and even wound up writing an article on the sort of strange sense of innocence weird games like these bring. It was very simple, yet complex enough to have depth, and it was really fun just getting back and making an even harder push to advance where I last left off. Both of Nightdive's remastered versions are worth a run for any major FPS or retro game fan.

Horizon: Zero Dawn

There are two major issues with Horizon that keep me from enjoying it way more. 1) The pacing for the main quest started to bottle itself up into long exposition halls. I love lore and everything, but this feeling of making an open world game and then forcing a major point of your game to go consistently down some of the most poorly designed corridors is stupid. Give me lore, but not at the expense of what the game has set up for you as actual gameplay. 2) I can't play on one of my televisions, because Horizon is among the games designed so carelessly that they aren't optimized with all televisions properly.

Bitching set aside, this game is pretty awesome for the most part. Nothing as phenomenal as some are making it out to be. It's essentially witcher + Far Cry with a cool theme, and a crappy bioware dialogue system occasionally edging in. There's nothing amazing about that, and before someone brings up "but these guys just did killzone before", then fuck you for ignoring how amazing Killzone was, and how talented Guerrilla have always been. Like Killzone, Guerrilla has taken popular overused tropes, and refitted them with an amazing touch. They just happened to choose the genre that everyone is more crazy for right now, and I'm slightly less so. I love the dynamic part destruction, the story, the machine monsters, but some of the repetition, open world fluff, and inventory management creeps in and brings it back down a little. It's a really good game, and definitely among the best of this year that I've played, but... well it's really good. Not incredible, just really good in my opinion.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Nintendo's doing something right, even if they're still screwing it up pretty hard in some ways. I've enjoyed, what, like... three articles bashing Nintendo's decisions around this particular Zelda, or it's fans defending the terrible weapon durability system? There's a lot of minor issues within this game, but for all that it has, Zelda has really done one huge element of it so good: exploring. Exploring in this game just feels so good for some reason. Running around, fooling with pick-ups, climbing everything, figuring out the little hidden depth in the game, it's all great. I've kind of put the game down for a while somewhere fairly early on due to other things just going on, or distractions, but make no mistake, I do appreciate a lot of little things this game is doing. While Horizon manages to hit a lot of great refinements in the familiar, Zelda revels in just the child-like play that should be in all open world games, yet is really in so few. In the end I'm not sure I can pick a better of the two, but they're both really fun open world games, and I'm glad I gave into my curiousity and gave this Zelda a chance.

Snake Pass

Snake Pass is a weird one. I loved it's core concept, absolutely delighted by the idea. It was a 3D platformer type environement, but formatted for a leg-less, no jumping snake. Unlike say Tinker, which was just a 3D platformer designed so badly they didn't put in a jump, Snake Pass was designed from the ground up with this crazy yet delightful twist. However the truth is, it's really more like a physics puzzle, just disguised. The level design and everything gave it away. It's very straight forward, very linear, small bits for levels that stack up in these little menu for "worlds", and the extras are just little collectibles on the sides. There's a sad lack of freedom or interest in the levels beyond just the very obstacles themselves. That said, I'll play Snake Pass any day over freakin' Never Alone. Snake Pass was still fun, full of good spirits and charm, and held my attention for the duration of it's whole adventure. Oh and if Sog-gee's world music doesn't sooth your soul, it's probably because you don't have one. That one piece of music is almost worth the price of admission. Snake Pass is a real fun and quirky puzzle platformer, even if it isn't as entirely fun as the games it's imitating at the surface.

BulletStorm: Fullclip Edition

This game got caught up in a lot of flak for various reasons, and it's sad nobody seemed to really give it a break. BulletStorm was an awesome overlooked shooter from last gen, and it's nice that it's not only back, but improved at the gameplay level and even given an option that essentially rewrites the campaign around a new character: Duke Nukem. It's a really good fit, though certainly not implemented the very best. It has issues, but it's a fun extra, and then there's all the other gameplay features. New echo levels, returning multiplayer, a new game+ with unlimited ammo for guns you've maxed out challenges for, etc. It's all a lot of fun, and I enjoyed returning to this game with a new sheen of polish.

Yooka-Laylee

Yooka Laylee is a good reminder of two things that ironically hinge on opposite ideas of the reception with this game: 1) The internet has inconsistent and stupid principles where they are eager to rip or praise a game over shallow or barely existing reasons, even the so-called professionals. 2) Rare was a bit overrated, and not the king of platformers like they're made out to be. I'm mostly going to talk about the 2nd one as it regards the exact game here. YL really reminded me of how Rare was never the king of it's hill, but still fun despite the faults. They have odd polish, knacks for making some occasionally strange puzzles or view shifts, and then there's just the extra contrivances. These guys made Star Fox Adventures, do I really need to say more?

Yooka Laylee is a lot of fun in most respects. It's got a fun spirit to it, some nice levels and challenges, but for every step forward it takes... there's a catch or a step back somewhere. The levels have a cool expansion gimmick, but yet there's only five of them... IN A 3D PLATFORMER. Then there's all the cool abilities you can get, which add some cool variety but... have some contrivances, including a really dumb energy meter that limits one of the most core moves and systems of general momentum. Then there's all the collectibles, some of which... are next to useless like how the transformative ones are very shallow, or how awful the minecart mini-game is. Yooka Laylee is a fun mess where a smaller team of leftover rare developers got to try and do something new on a slightly different scale and time, and it's a mixed bag of success and annoyance. It's worth a try, but perhaps not for $40, and it certainly isn't a good flagship to sell the genre on.

Prey

Ever since the first trailer, I was hyped for this game, even if some of the logic was irrational. No I'm not a Shock series fan. No, I don't like horror games. No, I don't necessarily have any interest in a space game that's designed to make you backtrack. However I do love Arkane Studios, and alien monsters with a slight thriller suspense. Is that good enough? Apparently so, because I fucking love this game! While it truly does take after System Shock in a lot of ways, and has that sense of horror layered in with the design, it's also got so much of what makes Arkane one of my favorite developers out there. The game is built with the heart and mind of that sneaky, introverted, crafty, and observing lonely player; the exact type of gamer I am, or think I am. The upgrades are found, not acquired through arbitrary XP counters. The quests and treasures are best found by paying attention, and being as nosy as possible. The people are all a bit eccentric or weird, and have some sense of confusion to their history that makes you very curious about them. The story is full of tricks, clues, and "gotch ya!" surprises. The best moments, are those accidents or strange occurrences within the world, where your creativity or resourcefulness clash with the environment to fantastic and unexpected results.

Then there's the real reason this game is topping stuff, and getting extra press attention and love: The detail and level design. There is so much insane care and thought put into the littlest of details. There's D&D games being played from the crew, an origin stories to a toy weapon you can find, people being grumpy or laughing at one another, secrets being shared or clues dropped that you can legitimately use, and choices or reactions to them are far more open than you might initially expect. I've heard of stories and player choices executed in ways I didn't know were possible, from people who had a genuine different outlook or course of action, and took to play styles I never thought of. There's quite a few opportunities where what appears like a binary choice, really has so many subtle outcomes. You can fetch or delete an important voice recording with some awful details they'll hate, but let's say you send it to them. Then right as they're about to go through it with you, you can choose to delete it right in front of their face and watch them freak out about it. Stuff like that is just brilliant, and when piled on top of all the other typically stuff I love in a game, Arkane has proven yet again they know exactly everything on my bucket list to make a brilliant game.

It's easy to see why Prey is my GOTY so far for this year. I've only played a human-only run so far as I write this, so I've yet to even unleash a massive part of the game, and I'm definitely ready to replay it. However my play time was over 30 hours, and I'm not that kind of guy to stay with a game over 16 hour-ish mark without it concluding. So... that's got to really say something here. This game is just brilliant. If you're into the slower, more crafty and exploratory First-person games, you owe it to yourself to grab this ASAP.