Shadow of Mordor is a better assassin game than Assassin's Creed
There are a lot of parallels between Monolith’s Shadow of Mordor and Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series. You stab enemies in the back, climb around walls and structures, jump from high towers, kill enemies from ledges, sneak past enemies in strongholds with very clear cues of their awareness, and so on. But every single Assassin’s Creed game falls short from being a true assassin-like experience in a way that Shadow of Mordor nails perfectly, and that is the need to be cunning and manipulative, not just brutally powerful.
It's well-established today that the first Assassin’s Creed game was tirelessly repetitive, but it still got one thing right (or at least tried to). Before you would kill a target, you would gather intel on the target’s vulnerabilities. Things like where the target will be, how the arena is laid out, where there are less guards, etc. If you wanted to, you could study this intel and piece together the perfect attack plan to sneak, stab and escape without a fuss. After all, that’s what a proper assassin should be able to do, and it was something that had never really been possible in a video game before. This was the true value concept explored with the first game’s innovative open-world mechanics with crowd camouflage, parkour, climbing, and dynamic AI, even if the overall experience was boring and incomplete.
Unfortunately, the perfect kill never really happened in the game because it was too tedious to carry out. Plotting an assassination with text documents, maps, and obscure hints was a chore, and offered no guarantee that you could successfully carry out the plan if something went wrong or if you missed a key detail. Instead, it was easier to just slaughter your way to the target, stab their throat and get out. Combat was a simple timing game of “press X to win.” Guards weren’t a threat, and targets gotta die. The result was the same whether you orchestrated the perfect kill or not. Might as well make it easy.
Later iterations of Assassin’s Creed introduced better ways to creatively kill enemies on-the-fly without making a scene. You still got the satisfying thrill of being a silent, European ninja, but you didn't have to tediously study any boring documents. Slaughtering your way to the bad guy was still a perfectly viable option—it was just more messy and time-consuming than being sneaky. Stealth was usually the cleaner, more enjoyable option.
Many years later, Shadow of Mordor offers more than just stealth, and it does more with it. While stealth is certainly a big part of the game and a much easier way to take out your targets, it’s usually not an option for the captains who make up the crux of the game. Instead, each captain has a series of strengths and a few weaknesses to compensate. Some captains can be easily slain in five different ways, others are virtually invincible except for one or two weaknesses. Between stealth, combat and ranged attacks, you will only get so far with just one offensive strategy. You must combine tactics from each playing style and use the environment to bring the toughest captains down.
The stark difference between Shadow of Mordor and Assassin’s Creed is that many targets in Mordor cannot be killed with raw combat alone, whereas combat in Assassin’s Creed is your fallback safety net that is easy to complete, but not as fun as stealth. In Mordor, you can certainly try to fight down your tougher targets, but one mistake might cost you your life. If you fail, you must face a more powerful captain amongst an even more powerful horde. Unless you want to undo your progress in the game, you have no choice but to cleverly exploit weaknesses. You are too weak on your own, but with cunning, you can beat anybody.
As I worked my way through Shadow of Mordor, I easily dispatched captain after captain using the same strategy I used in Assassin’s Creed: stealth-until-you-get-caught-and-then-fight.
But then, I bumped into Stakûga the Whisperer.
Freaking Stakûga.
Apparently I defeated this meathead before. I didn’t remember him, but it was clear that he wasn’t happy. Unfortunately, I was too focused on killing his boss at the time (warchief) to realize that Stinkystank was actually the more dangerous target. Before I knew it, his poisonous clubs took me down before I could find my rhythm. Jerk.
Of course, I had to track him down and finish the job. I've conquered every action game I've faced before—Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, God of War—and I don't go down like that without bouncing back. Besides, every captain I had taken down so far was fairly easy. Start with a stealth strike, and then whittle down the captain’s health with combo strikes until his head pops off. Simple.
But Stankypants was a monster. His poisonous blades knocked off a chunk of my health in one hit, his gang of rent-a-thugs followed him everywhere, his attacks were lightning-fast, and he parried my combat finishers like an ugly Batman. His only weakness was ranged attacks. Who the hell plays a combat game with a bow and arrow? I hadn’t leveled up my bow at all.
After failing to counter just two quick strikes, his poison brought me to my knees. Even when I recovered from Last Chance, one more hit put me back down and I was done. Over and over again.
To make matters worse, my revenge quest actually undid a lot of my progress—new captains grew up the ranks of Sauron’s army like ivy on a wall. But I really wanted ol’ Stacky dead. I had an alarming lust for video game orc blood.
(For those of you who know Shadow of Mordor, this was before I got the Brand ability. I was on my own for this fight.)
So, eventually, I had to accept that the only way I would bring down Stakûga was to focus on his single weakness—ranged attacks. I swapped my runes for more arrows and slow-mo focus and interrupted him in the middle of a hunt where his mob was busy watching him instead of protecting him. After perching myself in a spot far, far away with extra arrows nearby, I Legolas’d his face as best as I could. I was shocked to see him tumble down within a few seconds. Shoot. Why didn't I do this sooner?
Well... I never needed to before. I mean, technically it was possible for me to have whittled away his health in combat if I had perfect reflexes and timing, but with the extra baddies and the zero room for error, it just wasn't happening. I had to accept that Stakûga was more powerful than me and reassess the situation. I had to be deadly with wits, not with strength.
That’s the point of assassinhood (no puns intended), and why Mordor does a better job of making you one than Assassin’s Creed. An assassin isn’t a gladiator. An assassin isn’t a juggernaut. An assassin is a smart, quick killer that is two steps ahead and uses anything and everything at his disposal.
And that’s pretty awesome.
Heh.
Isn’t it a little crazy that a Lord of the Rings game is a better assassin game than a game with “Assassin” in the title?
With the PS4′s recent 3.50 update you can now play your PS4 from any PC or Mac. As this feature was originally limited to Vita and PlayStation TV adopters, computer users may not be aware of how the feature works and how it is best used.
I’m a young dad with a full-time job, so my time to game has gotten more and more scarce. The Xbox was my main console for many years. I picked up a Vita at launch—my first PlayStation device ever—and loved it. When I discovered that remote play would be supported for all PS4 games, that made the decision for me to get a PS4 over the Xbox One. It’s how I have kept my favorite hobby going.
I’ve been using this feature since it was available and I’ve learned that there is more to the feature than just playing PS4 games on a portable device. Things like the connection you have, the device you play on, where you are playing, and what game you are playing all affect your experience. You want to make sure you get the best experience possible, so there are some things to consider.
Part 1: Optimizing your Connection
Let’s get one thing clear right off the bat: you will always have some kind of a delay simply because you are not viewing the screen as it is immediately being rendered. Better connections will minimize that delay and make your games more playable, but it will never be exact. Maybe someday as the Internet gets faster we won’t notice as much, but for now it will be noticeable.
You have three ways to connect to your PS4:
Directly via WiFi
Over your local area network (LAN)
Over the Internet
The absolute best experience for PS4 remote play is to connect your PS4 and your computer to the same network via ethernet. However, if you don’t want to be tied down by wires, the second-best setup is to connect your PS4 via ethernet to a wireless router with 5GHz frequency. A router with 5GHz is faster than a router with 2.4GHz, and the PS4′s built-in wireless tech is 2.4GHz. By connecting your PS4 to a router with 5GHz, you get a faster connection, which means less latency. In my tests, this was the closest I got to the lag being unnoticeable.
Connecting the PS4 to your network also opens up the ability to play remotely in any room that has a nearby hotspot. I set up my PS4 in my relative’s house in a basement and was able to play two floors above. Destiny before bedtime? Why not?
If you don’t have a wireless router, or if you don’t have one somewhere that you would want to play, you can still connect to your PS4 directly via wifi and have a good experience. Just make sure you’re close to the PS4. If you leave the room, you’ll probably have problems.
Whether you connect your remote device directly versus over your network is determined in the PS4′s settings. Go to the PS4 home and choose to Settings > Remote Play Connection Settings > Connect Directly with PS Vita / PS TV. Based on my tests, this setting also adjusts how a PC or Mac connects. Sony probably forgot to update the text here.
When you initiate remote play from your device, it first checks to see if your PS4 is within local range. After a few seconds, it starts rummaging through the Internet to find your system and connect.
Playing over the Internet
When you want to remote play over the Internet, again it’s best if you plug in your PC or Mac into your network via ethernet. Wifi will work as long as you are close to an access point and the network is fast, but you are dealing with the PS4′s 2.4GHz frequency which will slightly slow it down, plus any obstacles between it and the wifi access point.
Sony says you need at least 5mbps download and upload speed for remote play to work, and this generally holds true. You may find this speed at most residences and offices with broadband, but rarely will you get this at public access points at places like restaurants, airports or hotels.
You can also tether to a phone’s LTE connection with good results. Just be warned that on average, remote play uses about 1MB of data per second. That’s about 3.6GB per hour. It won’t do any favors for your battery, either.
As you remote play in different environments you will be able to feel the strength of your connection just by how the game handles. Feel the connection. Feel it.
Sometimes you need to try multiple times to get connected. It has something to do with the way your router keeps track of connections and prioritizes bandwidth. In any case, if at first you don’t succeed, the second time you probably will. If not, you don’t have a strong enough connection.
You might ask, do I really need 5mbps? Do I really need to be close to the wifi point? Do I really need to be wired in to the network? The short answer is no. But you will better off if you do. A bad connection starts with a longer delay, but it also shows up with dropped frames, distorted images, blurry video or just a dropped connection. Feel free to play with your boundaries, but don’t be surprised if you get frustrated wrestling with it.
Part 2: Getting the Right Environment
Yes, you can play your PS4 anywhere, but it still needs to be a good environment for a game. A few things shake up the experience.
How strong is your connection? If it’s anything less than a rock-solid connection, you won’t have much fun playing twitch-based shooters or other games that require precise timing. You’re better off playing something more slow-paced like strategy, puzzle or exploration games.
How much time do you have? What’s great with remote playing is that you can play anywhere, but you don’t always have the same amount of time that you do when you are at home in front of your TV. Add in the time it takes to get situated, connect and launch the game, and you’re already starting at a time disadvantage. Not all console games have enough to do in less than ten minutes to justify the effort of remote play. Have you tried mobile games?
Where are you playing? Can you sit comfortably? Are other people around? Do you have headphones? If your game requires sound, it’s not polite to blast your speakers with others doing their own things. If you have headphones, hopefully you have enough time and are in a place that you don’t need to look out for interruptions. In my case, I had to be aware of a crying baby at a moment’s notice.
Part 3: The Right Games
The Vita is limited in the amount of buttons you have (Destiny and Fallout 4 were kindly designed for the platform), but this isn’t as much of an issue when playing on a computer. When you’ve got a DualShock 4 in hand, it’s more about the right game for the right environment. Here are some recommendations:
Destiny. With a million things to do and a scaling difficulty curve depending on what you’re looking for, Destiny is perfect to play remotely when you have some easy quests to complete or errands to run. With remote play, it’s no problem to knock out story missions, patrol missions and easy strikes. Save the raids and Crucible for prime time, though. As far as I know, you can’t easily party up with friends in remote play, and the delay might be enough to make competitive play difficult. Just try to play somewhere that you’re not likely to get interrupted, since you can’t pause this one.
Fallout 4. Another game with a million things to do. Aim isn’t super important in Fallout 4, especially if you take advantage of VATS frequently (which you should). You may want headphones to really suck in the breathtaking moments of the game, but otherwise it’s a perfect fit for portability. And, unlike Destiny, you can pause it, so interruptions aren’t as much of a problem.
Most indie games. Lots of indies are minimalist on the graphics and don’t require too much twitchiness, so the resolution downgrade and lag aren’t much of a problem. Indie games are also great for discovering new ideas with exceptional execution. Some of the best games out there come from small teams with small budgets. While you can certainly get a million amazing indie games on your PC itself, they can’t beat the price of free with PlayStation Plus.
Remote play is one of the most technologically ambitious features to grace console games, but it’s here and it’s only going to get better. With the right setup, you can enjoy your favorite games in more places. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Please Use These 5 Paragraphs for Destiny LFG Instead
I don’t use Destiny LFG much, but for some reason I found myself on it during a recent late night gaming session to see what a lonely guardian could fight for.
Dear Lord, people.
Come on, guardians, if you’re on a website with the purpose to invite players to play with you, please try to write something that makes you look a little more pleasant than a thorned cockroad in an underwear drawer. Salty LFG comments will only bring tension and frustration to what should be a fun experience. I understand a no-nonsense, get-something-done-quickly perspective, but don’t let your in-game stress turn you into the Grinch who stole Xurmas. You can do better than that.
Besides, an LFG site is a perfect opportunity to really express some creativity! Think about it. It’s like a dating site, but with a fraction of the commitment and you’re guaranteed to be doing something you enjoy. A little humor and personality in your introduction can go a long way.
For your convenience I’ve whipped up a few paragraphs with some extra personality to fit whatever you want to do. Please use them! Feel free to mix them up as you need.
1. The Drill Sergeant
All right, maggots! Who’s ready for some serious Oryx ass-kicking? The BarbaricBaker is looking for the nastiest, grizzliest Guardians in the galaxy to put the Taken King in his place! We’re rolling through The King’s Fall on Heroic. Scrubs, dummies and babies less than light 319 NEED NOT APPLY. We’re going to do this, and we’re going to do this fast! WHO’S WITH ME???
2. The Jock-ernaut
What UUUUP guys it is Friday night and I am ready for some DESTINY. Tonight, the Crucible is calling my name and I am looking for some chill players who are ready to roll out the skills to crank out the kills. Light level doesn’t matter, just come ready to play and have a good time.
3. The MBA Grad
Greetings, Destiny players! Our clan, DestinInc., is looking for highly motivated, technically-minded Guardians who are ready to grow themselves in a fast-paced environment. Requirements: 300 light with a Grimoire score of at least 3,000, at least one year of experience, and healthy appetite for sarcasm.
4. The Gumshoe
Hi guys! I have no idea what I’m doing or how this site works or what an iron banana is, but I’m good at this game and just want to see what else is in this game besides heroic strikes and crucible. If you’re looking to run a raid and don’t mind showing the ropes to a competent player, give me a shot.
5. The Poet
Greetings dear Guardians, I’m posting to say
We’re looking for two more to join us today.
The King needs a beating, but not any old fight.
We’re doing the challenges, and doing them right.
So if you’re a warrior and like to wax lyric,
Come join the crew that is gallant and heroic.
BONUS: 2Honest2Furious
(aka what your grumpy messages actually sound like)
I need to do King’s Fall challenge mode. Don’t waste my time. Don’t be someone I don’t like. Don’t be weak. Don’t be clueless. I need to do this fast and I don’t want anything not going my way. This is serious business. I need this.
Nor for its collectible value. Not because it shows to others an undying passion for an intellectual property. Not even for its unbeatable retro style. I want it because it somehow knows everything about what I’m doing and what I’m doing next in Fallout 4. It keeps track of my progress and tells me the next step. It records all of my notes, items, abilities, lessons and whereabouts. It is the iPhone of the apocalypse that somehow is more useful with its all-knowing personalization, something I would rather have over my instant distraction device.
See, as your life gets more complicated, you pick up a lot of to-do’s. It’s hard enough to get them done, but it’s really hard to keep track of them. What’s on the list? Where do you keep the list? What goes on the list? The Pip-Boy magically does all this for me, so I can focus my attention on exploring the wasteland and picking my next activity. In real life, task organization is a slow, manual process.
When my list is piling up with work tasks, house chores, social obligations, life goals, errands and whatever, it would really be nice to have them all laid out on a beautiful, organized dashboard.
It’s funny, because video games used to be a lot less helpful with their executive tools. Classic Zelda games didn’t have waypoints or step-by-step directions. You just had to go somewhere and try things until something happened. Early RPG’s didn’t keep records of quest progress, so you needed good notes or a good memory. The original Metroid didn’t come with a map, so if you wanted one, you had to draw it yourself.
Game developers noticed these frustrating barriers to the most enjoyable parts of the game, so over time it has become standard to implement tracking systems and interfaces that organize what you’re doing and prioritize your next move. Destiny is a great example of drawing order out of checklist chaos. Just about anything you do in that game will earn you something, but you can easily pick a quest to focus on and work on particular steps. If you focus your efforts right, you’ll get what you want more quickly. Without that quest dashboard though, it would be impossible to manually stay on top of all the stuff to do in Destiny.
The thing is, game developers have the advantage of already possessing the data they need to organize these lists within their games. Doing the same in real life requires capturing the data from the real world into a system that is designed to know what happened and what needs to happen next. For example, in a work environment, a company’s IT team gathers data and automatically plugs it into set workflows and automations. These automations render useful knowledge into an application like SalesForce or HubSpot for employees to work with. These systems themselves are readily available, but they require a significant amount of effort to design, implement and iterate on.
I understand that this makes me sound horribly spoiled (because I am), but as someone who has been playing video games for most of his life, I’ve gotten used to skipping the moments to document and plan. Game developers do that for me in advance so I can enjoy the game they made. Hopefully when the Internet of Things becomes a thing, I’ll be able to create systems that automate planning for my normal life. Maybe it will even do stuff for me. But until then, I have to train myself to organize my lists, break down tasks, mark my progress and plan next steps. Like an animal.
Oh well.
For what it’s worth, I use a combination of Wunderlist and iOS Reminders to keep track of stuff to do. I’ve found Wunderlist to be great with organizing tasks and keeping good note on them, but I still use iOS Reminders because I can dictate them with Siri. They both also synchronize between my iPhone and Macbook, and the Wunderlist dedicated app is stable and responsive.
Any.do is another great task manager and has a delightful user experience. It promotes getting stuff done and helps you schedule things at a convenient time. However, I found Wunderlist to function better on my Mac and is easier to interact with.
I’ve never really understood those friendships between people where they trade insults at each other and laugh it off, but Freedom Wars gives me a better idea.
Freedom Wars takes gleeful pleasure in finding trivial things you’ve done and penalizing you for it with ridiculous sentences and trivial reasoning on top of the sentence of one million years in prison that you start with. The game rarely tells you in advance what you can do and what you can’t do, so each penalty is a discovery of “Oh, I can’t do that either?” You develop this resigned understanding that the slightest infraction will net you more time in prison than most murderers and thieves will have in the real world. You’re going to get a lot of penalties, so they stop being irritating and become more like a joke.
And what the heck are these rules anyway? They’re rife with double-standards and self-contradiction. My favorite exchange so far went something like,
“Hey Scott. You look tired. Do you want to rest?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
PENALTY: 20 YEARS. YOU DENIED GRACEFUL TREATMENT FROM YOUR CONCERNED SUPERIORS.
“Okay fine, I’ll take a rest.”
PENALTY: 20 YEARS. YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO LAY DOWN. YOU MAY ONLY SIT.
Well if I had known that, maybe I would have responded differently!
It also makes you accept your punishment with a fingerprint, signifying “Yes, I agree that I did something wrong, I deserve this punishment, thank you for correcting my ways.” And the whole time, the governmental mascot is brightly smiling at you, reminding how generous it is for granting you the luxury of being an indentured servant.
Thanks, jerk! I love you.
I can only imagine how much fun the developers at Studio Japan had when they were told, “Build metrics tracking for every move that the player makes in relation to everything else, and then invent random infractions that pop up as soon as the player breaks them.” I mean, you don’t even start with the right to take 5 steps in your prison cell. You’re not even allowed to use your legs. And someone there built the mechanics to count your steps while you’re in your cell so it could throw the penalty at you.
These penalties create a tension while you play. You’re constantly aware of what you’re doing and remembering all the rules you need to follow, hoping that you don’t add more years to pay off in missions. But despite your best efforts, another penalty will come along that you didn’t know about with a ridiculous justification of how your behavior is a “waste of resources” and that you need to do a better job “contributing to the glory of your Panopticon (country).”
And of course, everybody in the world plays along with this abuse and joins in the fun. Hmm. Hmmm.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but it reminds me of a game I like to play with my daughter. She’s not even two yet. If she’s sitting on a bed or a couch, I’ll shove her so she falls back and she giggles like a maniac. As soon as she gets up, I push her over again, and she thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world. Of course, she’s small and sprightly enough to never get tired of picking herself up over and over again, but if someone kept pushing me aside like that I’d be knocking them across the room. But to her, it’s fun. Funny how that works.
If you’ve got a Vita and don’t know what this game is, Freedom Wars is the Vita’s last AAA release that it will probably ever see, and it’s free with PS+ for the rest of December. Pick it up. It also happens to be a very fun 4-player cooperative arena combat game.
But seriously, you guys need to play Rocket League
Rocket League is a perfect game.
Best game ever? Not necessarily. But it is a perfect game.
By that I mean it is masterfully crafted from its premise down to its execution. There's a ball, a field, two goals, and a bunch of angry rocket cars. You have to get the ball into the goal by frantically throwing yourself at it like a human missile, somehow getting enough speed and control to make it through the posts without interference or mistakes. It's chaotic, it's brutal, and it's freaking addictive.
Why wasn't this game made sooner? I mean, it's just soccer, but instead of slow humans huffing their way across a massive field and occasionally dueling with their legs, you have supercars that can go from one end of the field to the other in three seconds. You get all the satisfaction of fluid, coordinated movement towards an objective without our human limitations. Why didn't anybody think of this until now?
One thing I love about Rocket League is that it is persistently fun even though the mechanics never change. It's a perfect example of a game with skill-based progression because it takes time for you to learn the abilities, understand the physics and feel comfortable with toggling ball-camera and car-camera, not to mention figuring out the best strategy to win on-the-fly. But newcomers can also jump in and instantly have a good time zipping around the field and slamming the ball around because it just feels so good. I’ve introduced the game to two people so far and both of them are hooked.
When I first started playing Rocket League, I played for three straight hours and didn't win a single match—but I had a blast the entire time. I was a little confused at how to play better and what I was doing wrong, but I was having too much fun learning to be bothered with it. I figured that I would learn what I needed to learn in good time, and It was better to just enjoy myself along the way.
So far, I've found that the best strategy for 3v3 or 4v4 is to position yourself relative to the ball in a place where you can dash in at the right moment and knock it into the goal. When the ball gets in a corner, somebody will be there to push it either across the goal or out to the other side. If the ball gets kicked across the goal, that's the best moment to blast in and knock it for a score.
And that's my favorite moment of Rocket League. A lot of games make you feel awesome, but Rocket League makes you awesome. When you line yourself up perfectly with the right angle, the right amount of speed, and the right timing against the oblivious ball, and you fire up your engine, flare your turbo, jump into the air, flip like a maniac and pound the ball into the goal, everybody gets to see your perfect moment of glory in perfectly timed slow-motion replay and the crowd goes wild.
There's no canned animation, no preferential treatment, no assists or perks in there to present an illusion of power. Just you, the goal, and an overpowered vehicle to go wild with.
Every goal is a pivotal moment. Every goal is a celebration. They're so awesome that they explode on impact, sending you and anyone seen nearby flying sky high.
I was especially impressed to find that online players would use the quick chat options to compliment each other, saying "Nice shot!" or "Wow!"after scores, which were often followed up by a "Thanks!" Even when players cried "Nooo!" or "$#@%!" it only added to the competitive fun. In a community where most games are about murder and a kill is followed by an insult and a rude gesture, Rocket League's positive sportsmanship is good for everybody.
This kind of sounds like a review, and maybe it is, but I just had to share how much fun I was having and applaud Psyonix for making a game where every second is exhilarating. Bravo.
The other side of The Taken King’s exclusive welcome content
I'm surprised that Destiny's next expansion The Taken King has brought up so much controversy. With this new expansion, Bungie is encouraging new players to jump into the game with some select exclusive content, including class items, emblems, shaders and emotes. These come with a special collector's edition of the game for $8o USD that includes Destiny, The Dark Below, House of Wolves, and The Taken King, plus some nice swag. This is a great deal for new players.
The price is a little steep in the UK, I think it should go down to whatever equivalent there is for $40 US. But I’m okay with paying more for this expansion than the previous ones. New classes, strikes, crucible stuff and a raid is good enough for me.
However, long-time players call this an "injustice" because they want to have those exclusive items. To acquire them, they would have to spend an extra $40, and they would be paying for content they already own. Bungie has promised that long-time players will receive "even better" exclusive content, but we don't know what that will be yet. These outraged players have demanded that Bungie release this content for faithful players without needing to purchase the complete collector's edition.
An “Injustice?”
Look, I would understand the outrage if it were exclusive Exotic or Legendary weaponry or armor. Guns and gear make the game. But shaders and emotes?
Shaders are color schemes to make you look different and don't affect how you play. There are dozens of them and more are released with each expansion. I would be surprised if any person felt the need to stick with one shader and call themselves complete. And with the limited vault space, it's not realistic to think you can collect every single one.
As for a exclusive emotes, I’m not sure why those are so valuable either. Emotes don't offer much communication, they're just to add some fun punctuation to mundane moments in the game. They might not even be that different to the current ones we have.
The point of this exclusive content is to tell new players that they are not only welcome, but that they are special. Having access to something that others don't makes you special. To take away that exclusivity would remove that special gift, reducing them to just new players who missed the boat and have to catch up.
Instead of demanding that we have all of their stuff, we as Destiny players should be welcoming newcomers. New players will build the playerbase. They will expand our community for multiplayer events and it will help support Bungie to build and improve even more content. If you're the more sadistic type, it will give you more kinderguardians to pwn in the Crucible.
The point of cosmetic customizations
Besides, Bungie has been offering exclusive cosmetic content to build personas for players based on what they have done since the beginning. Beta participants were awarded an exclusive emblem. Founders got one too. People who bought the Collector's Editions got a ghost shell and other stuff, which I will never get. But you don't even see these emblems anymore because people have moved on to others that signify achievement over "I bought this edition" or "I was in the beta." Within a month of The Taken King being out I guarantee you that you will see new players scrapping their coveted shaders and putting on whatever new ones come from The Taken King's endgame.
The point of these cosmetic items isn't to give you endless possibilities to customize your guardian. It's to show others that you are a Founder, or a Champion of the Vault of Glass or the Trials of Osiris. The exclusive items with The Taken King Collector's Edition mean "I am new, and I want to jump in all the way."
If you are a founder, I would think you would want to be known as a founder, not as a newbie. So you should wear the founder's shaders, emblems and emotes, not the newbie's shader's, emblems and emotes.
Don't put on the peasant's clothes when you can be a king.
But this isn't even the main issue. The shaders and emotes and whatever other exclusive pieces are coming, whether they were exclusive weapons or armor, that's not the issue. I’m more worried about the community’s attitude.
Entitled Bullying
The bigger issue is that so many people have decided that they are entitled to content and that they can boss Bungie around.
When someone purchases Destiny, or The Dark Below, or House of Wolves, where does it say "now that you have purchased this content, you are entitled to all future content we will ever release for this game."
It doesn't.
When you log 1,000 hours into Destiny, where does it tell you "Thank you for playing Destiny! You are entitled to all future content we will ever release for this game."
It doesn't.
When you acquire every exotic, legendary, shader, sparrow, and class item, where does it say–
It doesn't.
You are not entitled to everything in the game. You are entitled to buy the content, and you are also entitled not to.
If you don't think Shaders, Emotes, class items or whatever are not worth an extra $40, don’t pay for it. It’s not worth it anyway.
Nobody is forcing you to buy everything in Destiny.
Now, you're more than welcome to tell Bungie that you wish you could have the content without paying $40. But when you are demanding it, you're not just being unreasonable. You're bullying the people who are trying to give you a good experience.
They don't agree that you're entitled to everything. Because you're not.
If anything, Bungie is entitled to continue to build Destiny the way they want to because it is their game. You may have spent $100 and 1,000 hours, but they have spent every workday of their career pouring their sweat and passion into this thing. You are entitled to like it or not like it.
Those shaders and emblems are not for founders. They are for the newbies. And if you don’t want to pay $40 to get them… you'll live. Batman just came out.
But on the bright side, I am confident that they will do something nice for founders like me. They’ve already promised as much, and we’ll hear about it soon.
Okay. Who else is ready to go back to enjoying the game?
I've written before about how much I enjoy Destiny, and I still do! But a lot of people struggle with the competitive multiplayer. Some even avoid it altogether. I wish that wasn't the case.
The reality is that competitive multiplayer is hard, much harder than the missions, because players don't hold back. In the missions, you can take all the time you want, fail as many times as necessary and still come out on top at the end. But in multiplayer, it's not just your rewards that are on the line--it's your reputation and confidence. Failing in the Crucible can be very upsetting after taking so much time honing your skills. Repeatedly failing makes it worse. Besides, most of the rewards you wanted were only attainable through things like raids and strikes. Why bother?
My struggle
The first time I played multiplayer in the original Halo on Xbox, I got my butt kicked over and over again. It seemed like everyone I knew could play this game and I was missing something. It wasn't until I picked up Halo on PC and really applied myself that I learned the strategies that worked. I really studied what people were doing versus what I was doing, and tried to do what worked more often. Part of it was just learning how to aim and move at the same time, which got easier the more I played. The other part was knowing how to move, what guns to use, when to throw a grenade and when to melee, how to outsmart players, and also how to keep calm under pressure when I was losing. Over time, I found myself winning more often, and eventually became a leading player in most of my matches.
When Halo 2 came out, I got back together with the friends who beat me before. After getting kicked around while I learned the new guns, maps and physics, I found myself using those same strategies in slightly different ways to match how the new game worked. And I started to win. It was awesome to see my friends bewildered that I was doing so well when I didn't even own an Xbox yet. When I did get my own Xbox, we must have played Halo 2 on Xbox Live for over a year.
Competitive multiplayer in shooters is one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences gaming has to offer. Nothing validates your skill like winning, and building that skill offers a more satisfying challenge that no mission against computer players can match. Taking my skills online in Halo 2 remains some of my favorite gaming memories in my life. But I had to earn them first.
Ten years later, Destiny builds off of what Halo started in gameplay and added a massive variety of customization and incentives to make the multiplayer and campaign a cohesive experience. But people still struggle, and unlike Call of Duty or Battlefield where multiplayer is silo'd into preference, players actually have a reason to give the Crucible another shot because it is part of the full experience.
But if players return to the Crucible and are only met with more frustration, more losses, and more blows to their egos, they're not going to continue, and they're going to miss out on one of the best parts of the game. In fact, competitive shooter multiplayer is, in my opinion, one of the best experiences gaming has to offer. I don't want people to miss out on that.
And while I had the perfect storm of free time, social pressure, novelty and determination on my side, not everybody feels as patient to self-teach the way I did. And there's nothing wrong with that.
So here I am, sharing a video in the hopes that it will motivate some Destiny players to get back out there and give it another go. I also have some less structured Let's Play videos walking through more specific tactics and aspects to build an a la carte learning resource, and I'm building on it regularly. If you struggle with the Crucible, or you are too nervous to try, I hope these will inspire you to get out there and fight. It will be worth it.
Why you shouldn't regret buying that game that just went free on PlayStation Plus
PlayStation Plus is an amazing value. For just $50 a year, you get six free games every month across three platforms that are critically acclaimed and often cross-compatible. Over the course of a year, this can total at over $1,000 of value. It's undoubtedly the best way to game on a tight budget.
However, an unexpected side effect with this is the fear that the games you buy will eventually go free later. That is, you’ll have paid for something that you could have gotten for free if you just waited.
If you buy indie games, this is pretty much inevitable. It just happened to me with Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition—I bought the game for half off about three months after launch, and it went free in May with PS+.
But I'm not upset. And when this happens to you, you shouldn't be either, because when you buy a game with your own money, you enjoy the game more.
This is a weird phenomenon, but it happens. People get more out of something when they invest in it. As a recent example, there was a study mentioned in TIME Magazine about people trying to quit smoking. They found that quitters were twice as likely to benefit from a help program that required them to wager their own money than those who participated in the same program for free.
Something about investing part of yourself into something you want yields a higher sense of enjoyment from it. If you spend your own money on the game, you are more likely to have a better experience with the game than those who got it free through PS+. You could even argue that PS+ robbed others of the opportunity to enjoy the game more.
Earning your games
When I was a kid, a friend of mine had a massive collection of games, probably twice as large as mine. On more than one occasion, I saw one of my favorite games and asked him, "Oh! You have this! This game is awesome! What did you think?"
My friend sighed, "Eh. I haven't really played it that much."
Um, what?
How do you own such an awesome game and "not really play it that much?" Who does that? Why squander the opportunity?
But I found out later that this friend got a lot of his games from his parents. He didn't have to mow as many lawns, babysit as many kids and shovel as many driveways as I did to pay for games.
For me, each game I bought was a treasure. They were specifically researched and selected for my collection based on price, quality and overall fit to my tastes. And when I was out in the cold building snow banks on sidewalks, I would think about what that game would be like whenever I felt too tired to continue.
I know, melodramatic, but you were a kid once, too.
So by the time the game was in my hands, popped into the console and fired up, I was already convinced that this was going to be an awesome experience. It's not like I dropped $60 on curiosity. That expectation meant I was going to appreciate as much as possible.
So if you bought a game, enjoyed it, and later found the game free on PS+, you probably got more out of the game than you would have when it released with 5 other freebies.
The right game at the right time
After last month’s epic reveal of Yooka-Laylee, the spiritual successor to the Banjo-Kazooie games, I felt the urge to go back to the original. Of course, I wasn't going to dig out my Nintendo 64 and play in half-SD like a peasant when there was a a perfectly good HD re-release on Xbox 360. So I went and bought the Xbox version for $15 and fired it up.
As luck would have it, Banjo-Kazooie on XBLA went on sale just a month before Yooka-Laylee was officially revealed, so I had missed my chance to pick it up for about $6. It has also gone on sale with Banjo-Tooie on numerous occasions. I would have liked to own the games back then, but to be honest, I wouldn’t have enjoyed them as much as I am now.
Now that I know a new, modern iteration of the Banjo games is coming, I felt like I had been granted permission to go back to my childhood. After playing Banjo-Kazooie for two hours, I honestly felt like I traveled back in time.
No... Seriously.
I nearly fell over in my chair when my wife came through the door to ask me a question. In my head I was nine years old again. Nine-year-olds don’t have wives. Oh, right. I’m not nine anymore. But it sure felt like I was.
That nostalgia was worth $15. I wouldn’t have gotten that in April.
When you SHOULD be upset
The only time you should be upset for buying a game that went free on PS+ is if you haven't played it yet. In that case, you bought something you didn't enjoy, and you wasted your money.
And don't tell me you bought it because it was on sale and you were going to get to it eventually. Tell that to your backlog.
When you spend more money on a game, it means that you value that game. We get more out of what we value. Don't kick yourself for how you spent your money. Enjoy what you bought.
Working Playing Parenting Cooking Eating Sleeping Not sleeping Reading Thinking Listening Looking Thinking some more Remembering Planning Worrying Anticipating Not remembering Planning to remember Planning in case I don't remember Checking Remembering Nailing Celebrating Sleeping Dreaming Waking Repeating Noticing Blogging.
I asked a Destiny online group if they would exercise for Glimmer, resources, rep, marks etc. Would you?
Because almost every single one of them would.
New technology has made it easy to see how far you walk, how many calories you burn, even how well you sleep. I hear great things about how Fitbit comes with software to motivate you, how you can “friend” other people and compete with them for health goals. That’s great, but simple gamification isn’t always enough to get someone moving.
But then I had the random thought, what if you could gamify fitness and add tangible rewards to something else that people valued?
And then I thought, people (like me) are crazy about Destiny. It’s totally addictive, but not in the fitness kind of way, obviously. And it’s a huge grind—so much of the stuff in the game requires hours and hours of the same tasks to get them. What if you could grind in a different way that was good for your body?
So I posted this question on the Facebook group for IGN’s Fireteam Chat podcast. It has over 3,000 members, and it’s one of the friendliest communities of its size I know. Within five seconds I had one like. Within ten minutes I had three likes and five yes’s. Now I have over 70 comments and 99% of them said absolutely.
Of course, some wanted to cheese it, because they’re Destiny players. Things like strapping a Fitbit to their kids or their dog, or a paint mixer... You can’t cheat fitness, punks!
But really, nothing is stopping Bungie from actually doing this.
I momentarily forgot that my iPhone already counts my distance. So there you go.
What about you? If developers were to add fitness goals to the games you already like, would you go out and run?
I’m a blogger, so you should know a little more about me and what I have to say.
I’m a new dad, so my time to blog is a bit limited, but it’s important to me.
I’m a husband, so I get to enjoy my best friend every day.
I’m a gamer, so usually I’ll talk about games on my blog.
I’m a philosophy enthusiast, so I have deep, thoughtful opinions on what life is and the life I live, but I’m not up-to-verse on every idea and thinker out there... yet.
I’m a psychology major, so I understand how science works while understanding its limitations in making sense of human existence.
I’m a Mormon, so I have a deep knowledge of and appreciation for God that I try to live every day.
I’m a returned missionary, so I was one of those guys with the guts to knock on doors and offer my religion with genuine intent, and I know enough to explain why common opinions against religion are missing the point.
I’m a BYU grad, so that facial hair in my photo is actually my first beard in years and I have to show it off, obviously.
I’m a feminist, so I will always push for respect, appreciation, and fairness towards women.
I’m a critical thinker, so I like to go beyond snap judgments, classifications, slippery slopes and other shortcuts to explain things, and I will happily question my own notions and arguments in case they are flawed.
I’m a writer, so I choose my words carefully.
I’m a sympathetic person, so I like to share what I know with people if I feel it will help them.
I’m a musician, so I can read music and catch patterns and snobbishly critique pop songs while I bob my head in enjoyment and wonder why.
I’m a singer, so I have had amazing opportunities to perform and travel that I will treasure my whole life.
I’m a bass, so I can pull off a pretty good movie trailer voice guy impression.
I’m a marketing professional, so I love to look at advertisements and business strategy and appreciate good ideas and creative work.
Sometimes I like to break patterns just to see what will happen.
I’m ambitious, so I do this among other things in the hope I will one day end up getting paid for having fun every single day and challenging myself along the way.
I had the pleasure of attending a panel about psychology and video games at PAX East by Patrick O'Connor, PsyD, Kelli Dunlap, PsyD, and Sean Knuth, PhD. Linked here are the notes I took on a .pdf. I'll update this post with links to the Prezi and the video/audio as well once I see them. I also appeared on a podcast some time ago discussing similar things, which you can listen to on SoundCloud.
Not mentioned here is my exchange with Sean Knuth after the panel where I asked about a comment he made. Dr. Knuth is a forensic psychologist, and he said that there was no research to support the claim that video games might cause violent or aggressive behavior. When I was getting my bachelor's degree in psychology, I spent a lot of time reading psychological research on video games. When I would search in the database for "video games," probably three out of four results would include discussion on violence or aggression. There is no shortage of studies trying to prove that violent video games cause aggressive behavior.
However, as I learned more about the science of psychology, I was able to see where each of these studies were misleading or not measuring things properly. Many studies poorly defined their terms, missed confounding variables, or drastically inflated the implications of their findings. I shared some examples of problems I saw with Dr. Knuth, and he agreed wholeheartedly with them. In most cases, it seems, psychologists don't properly understand what video games are or how they affect us.
For example, in some studies, aggression is measured out of behavior like blasting loud white noise at another person. The louder or more frequent these sound blasts are, the more aggressive the blasting person is. Even if we assume that the violent content of a video game is the cause of this aggressive behavior, blasting white noise is hardly on the same level as mass murder. I don't know about you, but I haven't been planning a white noise drive-by lately.
Studies like these wrangle a statistically significant change in aggression purportedly triggered by violent games, but their definition of "aggression" is not what people use in the real world.
I work in marketing now, so it's rare for me to geek out on psychology as it is, let alone psychology and video games at the same time. It was awesome to do both at PAX East with professionals.
Anyway, enjoy the notes to see what else was talked about at the panel — a history of the controversy, how games are being used in therapy, how games are viewed by psychologists nationwide, how games can be good, and how to help make games more accepted worldwide as normal and good. And again, you can listen to me talk more on this subject here.
