I was expecting Little Nightmares to be like Little Big Planet if it was directed by Tim Burton. This comparison isn’t far fetched seeing the makers of Little Nightmares, Tarsier Studios, contributed to many previous Little Big Planet games. Instead it turns out it’s more closer to Inside or Limbo than my original comparison.
For one this isn’t so much a kid game. While Little Big Planet would be rated G in Australia (for General Audiences), Little Nightmares is rated M (for Mature Audiences). There’s good reason for that as well, because while it won’t give me nightmares, I’m sure it could give little kids nightmares! The reason for this is the game is based around a little girl called Six, who must escape from a prison like scenario. There’s platforming to be done, some minor puzzles, but mostly it’s about sneaking around, hiding and running away from creepy characters trying to capture you.
The characters are pretty amazing. Stylistically they remind me of an old stop motion film from the 90s called The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb. The size of your character and the other characters really helps give a sense of scale, as to how small and vulnerable you are. In fact the whole game has this real tactile feel to it. Much like Little Big Planet, the textures to everything have a sense of realism, despite it’s somewhat cartoonish/claymation/puppetry nature.
The overall atmosphere is great, with a wonderful soundtrack and near constant feeling of tension as you slink your way through various sections of this mysterious location. I would suggest avoiding seeing as much screen shots as possible prior to playing the game so you get as surprised as I did in parts. It soon becomes apparent that there is something a bit sinister going on at this place. I could be wrong, but the regular featuring of imagery such as butchered meat and obese characters makes me think the game is giving out a subliminal message about consumerism and meat eating.
Unfortunately though, as much as I was enjoying many elements of the game, Little Nightmares quickly become known to me as “Little Frustrations”. I played on PC with a controller. This should not be an issue as this game has simultaneously launched on PS4 and Xbox 1. Plus from what I’ve heard, the keyboard controls are not as good as a controller. Which must be very bad, because I constantly found myself fighting the controls. I often was having to be a contortionist, to reach multiple buttons at the same time to pull off running/jump/grab moves. Many sections require fairly precise platforming. Trial and error games can be about failing until you figure out the solution of how to approach a section. This is the not the case here. Majority of my failings I felt were because of imprecise/awkward controls rather than my own failings.
This might somewhat have been avoided had controls been able to be remapped, however unfortunately this feature is not included. Perhaps something to come in a future patch. Luckily though the game doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. My playthrough clocked in at 4 hours, but on average most people seem to be taking about 3 hours. If the game was any long, I think the controls may have frustrated me to the point of giving up.
Overall, Little Nightmares is a great little game that is somewhat held back by bad controls. Even if it had better controls, it wouldn’t have been quite the masterpiece that Inside is. That said, if you can deal with the controls for a short period of time and are after a creepy, European flavoured puzzle platformer with some of the most interesting art style and atmosphere of the year thus far, then you might get a kick out of this dark surreal cinematic wordless tale, straight out of a child’s worst fears.
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When I first went to see the original Guardians of the Galaxy film, it was almost out of obligation. “Shall we go to the movies?”. “OK I guess we could see that Guardians of the Galaxy” I said with not much enthusiasm. See I don’t actually go to the cinema, or watch films the often. Guardians was not on my radar as a must see at the cinema. I hadn’t even heard of the Guardians of the Galaxy before. I just figured Marvel were scrapping the bottom of the barrel as they continue their assault of superhero movies every few months.
I walked out of that cinema after seeing the first Guardians, blown away. It just had everything, and done everything right. It caught me off guard, which was something going into Guardians Volume 2, I knew I wouldn’t have. I knew I wanted to see Guardians 2. I couldn’t be surprised this time round. There was a real risk of it being a let down after the brilliance of the first film. However I did get a surprise… Vol 2 is just as awesome as the first film.
The Guardians team return with Starlord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot struggling to keep its newfound family together as it tries to unravel the mystery of Peter Quill's true parentage in the outer reaches of the galaxy. That’s about as much as I’ll put about the plot as I hate to give out spoilers.
This was also a concern for me. Having seen a few trailers, I had wondered if I’d seen all the good bits and jokes already. I was wrong. In particular, on the jokes side. Guardians Vol 2 is probably the funniest movie I’ve seen in years. It’s a crucial part of what lets it get away with it’s ridiculousness, as it never takes itself too serious like most other sci-fi does. In fact in many ways it’s probably a comedy first, drama/action/sci-fi second.
It’s greatest strength as per the original film is it’s characters. Every character is strong, even more minor characters (though some of the cameos were a bit unnecessary). On face value if you don’t know the Guardians, the characters look pretty average, but the chemistry, in particular between the main 5 guardians, is just pure gold. I keep thinking it would be great to have spinoff films as well, but I wonder if this group is at it’s best when they are working with each other. Which makes sense as Volume 2 continues the theme of family at it’s core, whether that being the family you were born to, or the family you’ve chosen.
To me as long as you have awesome characters, the plot can be weak and still be enjoyable. That’s not to say Guardians Vol 2’s plot is weak, but the characters and world is just so engaging, I don’t think I even thought too much about the plot. It’s a rollercoaster ride from start to finish and it looks good while doing so. I am not a fan of 70s/80s aesthetics and sounds, which is what heavily influences Guardians of the Galaxy, yet it doesn’t bother me, which just shows the strength of this film. Even the fear I had that they might over use Baby Groot did not come to fruition. He had equal airtime as everyone else, and while yes he was def there for “cuteness” factor, he doesn’t feel tokenistic. All the characters play their role to bounce off each other. In many ways, Guardians feels like a Marvel version of Cowboy Bebop/Space Dandy.
If you enjoyed the first movie, it would be an absolute disservice to yourself to not see the second film. If you haven’t seen the first film, do yourself a favour and see it, then immediately go see Volume 2. The recent Star Wars films, Episode 7 and Rogue One really didn’t much for me. Neither have most of the DC or Marvel superhero movies interested me in any way (outside of the Dark Knight Trilogy). Guardians of the Galaxy on the other hand continues to deliver one of the most enjoyable film experiences I’ve had in years, and I can’t wait for Volume 3.
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Paradigm is another new indie point and click adventure as part of an unintended renaissance. Unlike the recent Thimbleweed Park and the upcoming re-master of Full Throttle, this game is not made by former Lucasarts alumni. That said, you’d be hard pressed to not think it’s from that stable, considering this game has a similar polish to it as mid golden era classics such as Sam n Max and Day of The Tentacle.
So who did create Paradigm? A solo indie dev (disclaimer: from my town of Perth) by the name of Jacob Janerka. He was somewhat helped out by some others for sound, music and voiceovers, but mostly this game is produced by just one guy over a few years after a successful kickstarter meant he could quit his day job and focus on producing a slick little adventure game.
Set in the strange and post apocalyptic Eastern European country of Krusz, you play as the handsome mutant, Paradigm, who's past comes back to haunt him in the form of a genetically engineered sloth that vomits candy. You could say more about the game’s premise, but it would not only include spoilers, but it might not even make sense. This game certainly is full of the zaniness you expect from some classic point and click games. The influences are scattered throughout the game for those with a keen eye and whom have recognition of the references. The game is also not afraid the break the fourth wall and jump through various genres for mini games.
Still, the game is far from derivative. If Thimbleweed Park was recreating the lo-fi pixel art of Maniac Mansion from the late 80s, Paradigm definitely more so fits the later 90s mould. Each scene has been beautifully digitally painted. You could quite easily see most locations being printed as collector items at conventions for super fans. The art style also has a 70’s vibes about it as well, in it’s fashion and paint style. It use a limited animation style that in some ways has probably been used for efficiency sake, but perfectly fits stylistically.
To say it has a diverse cast of characters would be an understatement. Despite the leaning towards the bizarre, most of the puzzles are pretty straight forward. I played on the medium setting and only found in the last quarter of the game that I was referring a bit to a walkthrough (of which there is conveniently a link to one hidden within the game). Overall there’s about 6-8 hours of gameplay here, which gives good value for the $15USD asking price, while not outstaying it’s welcome.
The voice acting is pretty much all top notch, with Jacob doing many of the voices himself including the protagonist, Paradigm. But there is a large cast besides Jacob as well, including Fryda Wolff who recently played Mass Effect Andromeda’s lead, Sara Ryder. It’s this quality voice acting that really assists it in setting it apart from many indie titles as far as production values go.
It’s a pretty slick experience overall except for one major bug. At least for me, I found the in game cursor regularly separated itself from the windows mouse cursor. This seemed to happen whenever you went close to the edge of the screen. From what I could tell, the fullscreen mode was actually running in a semi full screen windowed mode. Perhaps it was something to do with the fact I was running it in 4k. Perhaps it’s actually set up for a max of 1080p (though it looked great in 4K). It could be a bug of the game engine used (Visionaire). Still one hopes this gets patched soon as it could be quite frustrating for those less patient, sending you out of the game to your desktop (luckily it doesn’t close the game or lose your progress).
That one bug aside, Paradigm is solid point and click adventure that can hold it’s head high with many of the classics of the genre. In many ways I’m surprised it didn’t get picked up to be published by Double Fine or Devolver as it would have been right at home under those banners. It’s an amazing achievement for a solo dev (with additional input), and it will be interesting to see where Jacob goes next with his inventive style.
If you’re interested in the game but not quite convinced yet, you can try out an old demo of Paradigm at http://www.paradigmadventure.com/
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Last year Microsoft announced at E3 that is was working a super powered new Xbox by the codename “Scorpio”. It was a pre-emptive attack on the fact Sony was going to be releasing the Playstation 4 Pro later in 2016. The Playstation 4 Pro has been out now for almost half a year now. We still don’t have a release date for the Scorpio yet (other than Q4 2017), but we do now have it’s specs.
The Playstation 4 Pro was touted as Sony’s 4K capable version of the Playstation 4. That was only half true as in most instances it was having to use a rendering technique called checkerboarding by essentially uprez-ing games running at 1440p and 1800p to the full 2160p. Some would call it cheating and not true 4K, and technically they would be correct. Still that didn’t stop me wanting to get one so that I could get the best out of PS4 games such as The Last Guardian.
The Scorpio on other hand should actually be able to do native 4K gaming. To give some perspective here’s how much graphics power the current gen consoles have and what the Scorpio is expected to achieve.
Xbox One: 1.31 teraflops
Playstation 4: 1.84 teraflops
Playstation 4 Pro: 4.2 teraflops
Xbox Scorpio: 6 teraflops
As you can see the Scorpio has about 4x the power of the Xbox One, 3x the power of the PS4, and 1.5x the power of the Playstation 4 Pro. While this doesn’t tell the full story, it does show that the Scorpio is certainly going to be the most powerful console of this generation.
Now Microsoft have revealed the Scorpio’s full specs. The CPU has eight custom AMD cores running at 2.3GHz. It has 12GB of DDR5 memory, 1TB hard drive (not an SSD) and an AMD GPU with 40 compute units running at 1172 MHz. And unlike the PS4 Pro, but much like the Xbox One S, it has a 4K UHD blu-ray drive.
So no doubt the Scorpio will take the crown for the most powerful console of this generation. But in reality what does it mean? Well yes you will get true 4K gaming, something you can otherwise only get on a PC with a high end graphics card. But will that make a difference? Microsoft says the Scorpio is for the “premium customer”, which is another way of saying it’s going to have a premium price. My guess is about $699AUD, but who knows maybe even more. The PS4 Pro on the other hand is already out now at a retail price of $549AUD, and is likely to get a price drop at E3 later this year to help counter further Scorpio announcements. So will a “premium” customer buy a Scorpio? That’s hard to say, because a premium customer, may more so be a PC gamer. Instead of buying a Scorpio they could probably buy a GTX 1080 graphics card for their PC instead. And seeing most of Xbox’s exclusives are now available on PC as well, there’s less incentive to get the console. This is what it comes down to… the games.
The Scorpio will be more powerful than the PS4 Pro, but the PS4 Pro is out now, likely cheaper and has long list of highly rated exclusive games already available, with a heap more coming out this year. The new Nintendo Switch can barely chug along at 30fps at 900p in Zelda Breath of the Wild, but it doesn’t matter. The game is getting 10 out 10 reviews and basically selling a console based off that alone. Xbox owners are only really missing out on the upgraded resolutions for games. The Scorpio isn’t a new console, just an upgraded version like the PS4 Pro, so the old Xbox One will still get the same games as the Scorpio. The Xbox One S has a 4K blu-ray player and can output video (not games) at 4K and with HDR. So is there much incentive to upgrade as an Xbox One owner? The same tough question Playstation 4 owners had with the Pro.
I’ve held off on buying an Xbox One, partly knowing the Scorpio was coming later, but also because of the lack of exclusive games. I’ve always been a Sony fan over Xbox. There just isn’t the games there that I’m interested that I can’t play on PC or PS4. In simple terms I’ve always said, if ya want console FPS, go with X-box, if ya want adventures, go Playstation. I’m not into Halo, and honestly that’s the only thing the X-box has over the PC really. Sunset Overdrive looked cool, but the main X-box game I wanted was Forza Horizon 3 and you can now get that on PC.
Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do. It’s estimated that the PS4 has sold about double the amount units of the Xbox One. An expensive new Xbox is probably not going to remedy that situation. They’re going for the hardcore crowd, but the problem is, that crowd may very well be part of the “PC Master Race” and not bother with consoles. Perhaps Microsoft are pegging the Scorpio like a mini 4K semi-portable gaming PC.
Time will tell. We may even get to finally see the design of it at E3 soon. They’re going to need at least one new exclusive game that is going to showcase the console much like Horizon Zero Dawn (and to a lesser extent, The Last Guardian) did for Playstation Pro. Perhaps having the most powerful console will start attracting more development to the platform. One thing is for sure… if you do become a Scorpio gamer, your games are gonna look good.
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In late 2014, legendary game designers Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick launched a successful kickstarter for their new game, Thimbleweed Park. Who are Ron and Gary? They developed the classic point and click adventure game, Maniac Mansion, which essentially created a whole new genre of games. Thimbleweed Park aims to recreate the magic of those types of classic games. So does it succeed at creating a nostalgia trip that is also a good game at the same time?
If you don’t know what a point and click adventure game is, you are likely a lot younger than I. Mainly designed to be used with a keyboard and mouse, a point and click adventure is pretty much that… pointing and clicking on things. They are narrative driven games full of puzzles, which were notoriously known for not being logical. Lucasarts and Sierra were the kings of this genre with cult hits such as The Secret of Monkey Island, Sam n Max, Police Quest, Space Quest, King’s Quest and of course Day of The Tentacle, the sequel to Maniac Mansion. Ron and Gary worked for the Lucasarts, and helped create and shape this genre of games that would dominate throughout the 90s until the genre (along with Lucasarts and Sierra) seemed to fizzle out around the turn of the century.
Double Fine Adventure by Double Fine Studios (headed by Tim Schafer, another legendary Lucasarts point and click adventure designer) is known as one of the first major game kickstarters. Originally it asked for $400,000 to create a classic style point and click adventure. They ended up with over $3 million, which lead to scope creep creating a much more contemporary adventure game (which resulted in Broken Age). This probably left at least a few old skoolers yearning for a classic pixel art style point and click adventure game.
Cue Thimbleweed Park. No doubt Ron and Gary would have noticed that is what some Double Fine Adventure backers actually wanted, which gave them the opportunity to deliver a game just like that. Despite getting a decent kickstarter haul themselves, they stuck to their guns and have delivered a game that looks like it could have been a direct sequel to Maniac Mansion, straight out of the late 80s/early 90s. Yes the pixel art is a bit more refined/advanced, but if there is one magical part of Thimbleweed Park, is it totally succeeds at essentially creating a time machine and presenting a game at the same quality level of a classic Lucasarts game from that era.
Thimbleweed Park, much like Maniac Mansion/Day of The Tentacle sees the player controlling multiple characters. In this instance there’s five. Agent Ray and Reyes are two detectives investigating a dead body in Thimbleweed Park. Delores and her Dad are dealing with Uncle Chuck and his obsession with his pillow factory. And Ransome the Clown is dealing with the consequences of his act being to insult people in the audience. Characters are important in these sorts of games. I really struggled to like the Agents at all, to the point of disliking them. The other characters are all likeable though in their own ways, including the various people who inhabit Thimbleweed Park. By the end of the game thought I had grown quite attached to this quirky misfit bunch, so if you are struggling at first, hang in there.
Hanging in there is a decent amount of time too. I was more so expecting a game that would last 4-8 hours, but my playthrough clocked in around the 13 hour mark. I played the casual mode and while I did find a few times where I got stuck to the point of needing a walkthrough, I will say puzzles in the casual mode were mostly logical. It was more a challenge in finding where a certain item was, or who to give it to etc. There is also a hard mode for those old skool hardcore point and click fans, which going by a walk through I read, it probably amounts to doubling the puzzling. I’m sure the puzzles in the hard mode are much more obtuse, much like the classic games of this genre were. This also gives some replayability, if you do your first run in casual mode, you can come back and replay it again with harder puzzles involved.
There are a few minor quibbles with the game. I found in particular near the start of the game, some of the voiceover dialogue seemed a bit lo-fi in quality. I didn’t notice this later on, so I’m not sure if it improved or just became accustomed to it. It was to the point that it felt like some lines/characters were recorded in different locations. Speaking of the start of the game, it’s starts off a bit abrupt and awkward. Sometimes plonking you right into the action can work well, but in this instance it feels like not much context is given. Once you get a bit further into the game though, it does pick up more and more as you progress in particular once you get access to all of the characters. Though one slightly bizzare feature (perhaps due to budget constraints) is that the playable characters most of the time are not able to interact with the other playable characters unless there is a specific item to give to that character. The playable characters often have exactly the same dialogue as other playable characters when they interact with the town’s people. These two factors create a feeling of essentially playing one character split up as 5 for the purpose of being able to do puzzles that need two characters in different places. While playable characters have their distinct personalities, this re-use of dialogue diminishes that. It is perhaps all a symptom of it being a small indie game that makes it hard to create enough dialogue for multiple playable characters. This is fair considering triple A games sometimes won’t even have a male and a female character as they claim it doubles the amount of work.
That said, this game is a love letter to the genre of point and click adventure games, and it does it well. It is unforgiving in not contemporizing it’s gameplay. It is full of game references that only fans of the old classic games will get. It’s constantly breaking the fourth wall. The nostalgia doesn’t just stop with the references, gameplay and graphics. The world and characters are also somewhat influenced by retro TV shows like X-Files and Twin Peaks (both of which had rebirths as new shows recently as well). If you want a piece of gaming history, that is actually new, you’ve come to the right place. Cult fans of the genre will likely think Thimbleweed Park is exactly what they’ve been after. The question is, will anyone outside of that cult following enjoy Thimbleweed Park? It’s hard to say. They might find it too archaic, however with the indie revolution in recent years bringing back pixel art driven games such as Undertale that have been popular with younger generations, there is some possibility that Thimbleweed Park could be an introduction to a much forgotten type of game. And perhaps this is just the beginning of a revival, with Paradigm out this week, and a remaster of Full Throttle about a week later. Perhaps after many years in the dark, point and click adventures are ready for a new golden era thanks to indie studios.
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The Ghost In The Shell live action film was always going to have an up hill battle to win hearts over. Any anime or game to movie adaptation has usually ended up in disappointment. It is challenging to translate a successful franchise from one format to another. With this starting position, coupled with accusations of “white washing” with the casting, there were many sceptics of the Ghost In The Shell film prior to it coming out. Now it is out, does it suffer the same fate as other anime to live action translations?
I am a fan of anime. Five years ago, I actually released an indie documentary series about anime and the culture that surrounds ( https://www.youtube.com/user/animazetv/playlists ). Ghost In The Shell forms an important part of anime’s transition to being watched in the Western world. It, along with Akira were seen as important films in the 90’s that helped break anime into the American market. It’s something we take for granted these days with anime being everywhere, but it was a much rarer commodity in Western countries as little as 15-20 years ago. It was also highly influential, with in particular it being the major influence for The Matrix films.
I’ve watched both Ghost In The Shell features plus some of the Stand Alone Complex TV series. That said, it’s been many years since I watched anything Ghost In The Shell related, so my memory of plot lines and characters are very vague or non-existent. While I did consider re-watching at least the first anime film prior to seeing the live action version, I decided coming into the new 2017 film with no prejudice was a benefit.
Ghost In The Shell (2017) features Scarlett Johansson playing the lead character Major. She is a woman whose mind has been placed into a cyborg body, a marrying of human and machine. Designed as a perfect soldier devoted to stopping dangerous criminals and terrorists as part of the Section 9 team.
Visually the film has a solid cyberpunk look to it, somewhere between Blade Runner, Deus Ex and The Matrix. It’s also got a nice soundtrack courtesy of former Pop Will Eat Itself member, Clint Mansell, who is also known for his work on the Mass Effect 3 soundtrack as well as many films.
Once we get past the more superficial side of the film though, it can get a bit hit and miss. Some of the supporting actors are bit weak, which can lead to the occasional awkward/cheesy scene. Without giving any spoilers, there is one scene later in the film whereby the Major meets a person in their house, seemingly just walking in and entering into casual conversation with this person like as if it was completely natural.
We can’t talk about reviewing this film of course without discussing the accusations of “white washing” the casting. I am pro diversity, but I actually think casting Scarlett Johansson as the lead was a good choice. She looks quite similar to the major. As the director of the original Ghost In The Shell anime stated, “"The Major is a cyborg and her physical form is an entirely assumed one. The name 'Motoko Kusanagi' and her current body are not her original name and body, so there is no basis for saying that an Asian actress must portray her. Even if her original body (presuming such a thing existed) were a Japanese one, that would still apply". I also think the character of Batou was portrayed well. The cast overall is quite multicultural. The world, at least in the live action film, is presented as a bit of a melting pot. Sure if this live action film was produced by a Japanese film studio, no doubt the Major would have been played by a Japanese actor. But it’s not. It’s a Japanese property, made by an American film studio, shot in New Zealand and Hong Kong. This is quite a world wide collaboration. Meanwhile the emphasis on race of the main cast members overshadows the fact there is strong female lead, something that also contributes to diversity.
Despite this negativity, coming into the film with low expectations, I walked out of the cinema thinking it was a good solid sci-fi film. It may not feel like it brings much new to the table, but keep in mind sci-fi films have likely been copying Ghost In The Shell’s ideas for over 20 years. I may not remember much from the anime, but one thing that always stuck with me was it’s tone. It’s very deadpan. The live action very gets this tone right.
This does present a complication though. The mainstream looking for an action movie will possibly find the film boring (there was actually someone in our cinema literally asleep snoring... not sure if that’s related). Meanwhile cult fans of the original anime features will likely hate at least parts of the film. I guess I’m in the middle, so I had an enjoyable experience watching it. It’s definitely spurred me onto wanting to revisit the original anime. I think this live action Ghost In The Shell is a starting point, that could be developed and refined for sequels. Unfortunately I’m not sure there will be sequels, as at time of writing, the box office sales are half of that of the budget to produce the film. Though perhaps it will get it’s own cult following in blu-ray and digital sales. It’s a shame if there isn’t sequels, and who knows what that could mean for future anime/manga to live action adaptations in the future such as Akira and Battle Angel Alita.
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Samsung didn’t have a good year last year, with the major battery issues with their Samsung Galaxy Note 7. For a small or struggling company, such a disaster could have killed the company. Luckily for Samsung, they are a huge company with a wide range of products to sustain the financial losses. That said, that’s not to say there hasn’t been reputation loss. After what happened with the Galaxy Note 7, it wouldn’t be unusual to think that people might think twice about buying a Samsung smart phone in future. With this in mind, Samsung really needs it’s next phones to really hit the mark to regain that trust. The new Samsung Galaxy S8 announced this week, arguably their flagship mainstream smart phone, is their next chance to regain crown of android phones.
Samsung started hyping this new phone with a video that was showing examples of what a phone was, and that the S8 wasn’t going to be a phone like smartphones are currently. Unsurprisingly, the S8 is not a radical new vision of a smart phone. In many ways it’s just an extension of the Galaxy Edge. It has a screen goes edge to edge. There’s no physical home button on the front, instead using a on screen button with haptic feedback. This has lead to the a fingerprint sensor on the back. You can unlock it with the fingerprint sensor, or use the iris or face scanner.
There is two models of the S8 which feature different screen sizes, the S8 which is 5.8” and the S8+ which is 6.2”. This makes the S8+ have the same screen size as the recently release Nintendo Switch, though obviously a lot higher resolution than the Switch’s 720p screen. Both the S8 and S8+ have the same resolution of 2960 x 1440. This translates to 570 pixels per inch on the S8 and 529ppi. At these resolutions, ppi is almost becoming irrelevant now. The back camera remains as a 12mp capable of 4K video recording, while the front camera is an 8mp camera with autofocus.
It’s got a new intelligent assistant system called Bixby. It has it’s own physical dedicated button on the side which is interesting considering the removal of the home button. Specs wise it’s got a Oct-core 64bit cpu, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage (expandable), IP68 water proofing, dust resistant, wireless charging compatible and is running on Android 7.0 Nougat. It’s also got one major feature over the iPhone that will make many people happy… yes it has a 3.5mm audio jack. Speaking of audio, the S8 comes with some AKG earphones. I always wonder if there can be significant gains in quality within small earphones, but having them made by quality headphone company like AKG is definitely a good start.
There are various accessories you can get for the phone including 360 degree camera… the Gear 360. Also the Gear VR virtual reality headset returns with it’s new controller. There’s also a new docking station called Dex that turns your Android phone into a android based desktop computer, including office and some adobe software support.
The phone is available in a variety of colours including Midnight Black, Orchid Gray, Coral Blue, Artic Silver and Maple Gold (some colours may not be available in all countries). Pre-orders are open now with the release landing on April 28.
The main feature that is intended to grab attention of course, is that screen. It from a design point of view look great, though I do wonder how ergonomic phones will be with bezels disappearing. The next iPhone has been heavily rumoured to have a similar screen design, so in ways the S8 could be a preview of what we might be seeing from Apple in 6 months time. I personally will probably never switch from iOS to Android. I’m just not a fan of the OS. But for those who are (and there’s many), the Galaxy range remains, (despite the Galaxy Note 7 bump in the road) a worthy contender for Android users.
The Mass Effect series is one of my favourite gaming series of all time. I have a strange history with Mass Effect. As I was a PS3 player at the time, the original Mass Effect didn’t originally come out on PS3. So this meant my entry into the series was Mass Effect 2. Then shortly before Mass Effect 3 came out, I decided to crazily buy a 360 and a second hand copy of the original Mass Effect and smash through before the finale came out. So going 2 to 1 to 3 was a weird combination, and meant my character in 1 was separate to 2 and 3. Still this did not destroy my journey and liking of the series.
Five years after the release of Mass Effect 3 we have a new Mass Effect game. This a fresh beginning however, set 600 years after Mass Effect 3 with a whole new crew. But it’s not only a fictional new crew, the Bioware team behind the game is also a bit different, the most significant of which was Casey Hudson, director of Mass Effect 3, leaving the team. So can this new team (both virtually and reality versions) deliver a new Mass Effect game that lives up to previous entries in the series?
Before getting too much into this, I think it’s worth mentioning I am calling this “First Impressions”, not a review. This is because I am so far only 16% through the game (and about as many hours). I don’t think it would be fair to call this a review, when there is so much more to do in the game. What you read today I think is after having played a good sized chunk of the game. However if my first impressions change dramatically once I complete the game, I will update my views. I am also playing on the lowest difficulty level, so I won’t have much to say about the combat, as it is not a major component of this narrative based difficulty level.
Mass Effect Andromeda sees a mission to another galaxy in search of a new home. This storyline sits well with Bioware’s new found emphasis on exploration in Andromeda. To assist with your exploring, we see the return of a land vehicle, similar to the much hated Mako vehicle from Mass Effect 1. Don’t let that put you off though. The new vehicle, The Nomad is much easier to control. It’s still sometimes a bit awkward, but perhaps this will improve with upgrades. Speaking of “vehicles”, you also have a new ship to get used to, The Tempest.
While you won’t be seeing any familiar faces, you will be seeing plenty of familiar alien species. In fact thus, far there’s only been a few new alien species, which is a bit disappointing considering you are visiting a whole new galaxy full of planets. You play as one of the Ryder twins, either as a female or male human. One thing I do like about RPGs is a character creator, which normally I’ll sink at least an hour into. Mass Effect Andromeda’s character creator is a bit limited. I’m not sure if this is somewhat to have a somewhat predetermined character with some options for variety, but most characters will look fairly similar bar some skin and hair colour adjustments. This is partly because you can only change the face. No body type or height options. You can also customize what your twin looks like. The cool thing is your Dad in the game has looks based off what your character looks like.
Speaking of characters, thus far I’ve found them to not be very interesting. While the range is all there, the serious military style characters, the tough and I don’t care for authority style characters, the crazy characters and so on. None of the characters I feel can touch the quality of the original Mass Effect crew. The humans in general are very bland. The aliens are much more interesting, but don’t be expecting a Garrus here. It’s not that I need characters to not be serious. My favourite character from the original trilogy was Thane, who was about as serious as a character would get in the original crew. Just give me one good character to care about in the game and I might be alright. Even your character is pretty straight. I’m playing the male Ryder twin, and he very much comes off as a mini version of Sheppard.
Graphically the game does look nice. Mass Effect games have always looked particularly good in the close up talking scenes, and that detail is definitely there in the designs. The animations on the otherhand… are not so good. The humans in particular can look like soulless androids at times. It can be off putting and distracting at first, but I gradually seemed to get over it. Still it shows Triple A titles of this scale still struggle with the uncanny valley, when there’s so much content to deliver. Still while the game can look great at times, I did find a lot of the worlds looking very similar. Settlement pods, vault ruins that all look very similar. I mean this is not to say previous Mass Effect games didn’t have this fault as well, but we are talking next generation Mass Effect game here, and sometimes it feels like it hasn’t progress much in 5 years other than some sharpening of the graphics. The open world nature certainly expands things. Space based games are challenging to develop. It’s not like Grand Theft Auto where you can base something around one city and just make everything in it top notch. We’re talking multiple planets/cities to create here. Bioware did consider going down the procedural generation route so that you could visit all planets much like No Man’s Sky, but decided to stick to a handcraft system instead. Still the level design can feel blocky and modular much like last year’s Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Perhaps this is a symptom of the futuristic based games.
Combat I won’t say much about due to playing the game on the lowest difficulty level. I’m not a fan of combat, and mostly play for the stories, world and characters. So it’s great Mass Effect Andromeda offers such a difficultly level. If however you want even somewhat of challenge, I obviously recommend playing on at least normal. Thus far I’ve not died from combat, only from falling off edges on accident. I don’t know if it’s related to my difficulty level, but my team mates are very useful. I’m not even giving them commands and they are clearing out half of the enemies for me. Which is great, because it always sucks when games have companions that seemed to never be able to shoot an enemy. The enemy AI doesn’t feel like it’s progressed much since the last Mass Effect. It still has a shooting gallery feel in some scenes.
Overall thus far, I have to say, I’m just not really enjoying it. I’m playing it. I’m going through the motions. But I’m not invested in the story, the characters or the world. The best thing about the Mass Effect series was the characters. It’s what stood it apart from most games. Only Rockstar and Naughty Dog could compete character wise from the games I’ve played over the years. Andromeda thus far doesn’t have strong characters, nor a story to feel compelled to keep playing. With Fallout 4, I just got hooked straight away, and wanted to just play all day and night. With Mass Effect Andromeda, I can play 4 hours at most before I’ve had enough for the day. I haven’t played any Mass Effect for 4 years (the last was the final DLC for ME3, The Citadel), so it is hard to remember how this new game compares with the old ones. I probably have some rose tinted glasses on about how good the original games were, but the fact remains, I’m just not engaged by Mass Effect Andromeda, and if it wasn’t a Mass Effect game, I probably would have given up.
Don’t give up on it straight away though. It does seem to get a bit better as you go along, get your ship, the Nomad, your full crew etc. I can only hope it continues to get better. Unfortunately there’s so many good games coming out in the coming weeks such as Thimbleweed Park, Paradigm, Full Throttle and Little Nightmares, that Andromeda is probably going to go on the back burner for a while. I will try to complete it one day, but I’m certainly in no rush to do so. Also EA disrespecting longterm fans whom have pre-ordered by letting randoms play the game a week early as long as they’ve paid $7 for an EA Access subscription, doesn’t do the game any favours.
Much like the clunkiness of Mass Effect 1, if this game too turns into a trilogy, perhaps feedback will refine the new formula. All said and done, this is very much a Mass Effect game though. If you’re a big fan of the series, then you should at least give it a go. If you are new to the game, you might even enjoy it more so than a longterm fan, as you will be coming into it fresh, without the same high quality precedent the original Mass Effect games set.
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Indie Developer Tinytouchtales first came to most people’s attention because of Card Crawl. It was a weird situation as it came out at the same time as a near identical game, Donsol by my one of my favourite indie game artists 100 Rabbits. To further complicate the situation both games were extremely similar to a prototype game from a while ago called Scoundrel. They were solitaire dungeon crawler card games. It’s such an obvious concept, it’s not surprising it hadn’t been done many times before (and perhaps it had). While Donsol like all 100 Rabbits games/apps was a work of art, I actually found myself keep coming back to Card Crawl instead. After Card Crawl became one of my most played games on my phone, I was of course looking forward to Tinytouchtales follow up, Card Thief.
It’s taken a bit longer than expected, but it’s finally out. Has it been worth the wait? Card Thief is in many ways a spiritual successor to Card Crawl, but at the same time is very much a different type of game. Where Card Crawl had you equipping weapons and armour and fighting monsters to progress through a dungeon, Card Thief sees you being stealthy, sneaking around castles stealing diamonds and treasure chests while trying to escape undetected.
Despite it being quite a different game, it will feel somewhat familiar to those whom played Card Crawl, mainly due to the art style. The artist who did the art for Card Crawl, Max Fielder is back with his distinct art style. It helps make Card Thief feel like it’s part of the same world as Card Crawl. It helps with giving people more of that Card Crawl style, while keeping the game play fresh.
The game is based off a 9 card grid. One of the cards is your player, and the other cards are obstacles and buffs that you need to navigate by plotting a direction to move around the card grid. You can also have up to 3 special cards in your hand to assist with your journey through the castle. There is a tutorial at the start and you do need it. Unlike Card Crawl which was really easy and natural to get into, Card Thief on the other hard has a larger learning curve. It’s mechanics, at least first come across a lot more convoluted. I guess this is a symptom of the game being much more original than Card Crawl. The number ratings of cards are constantly changing as you make moves, which shows unlike Card Crawl, this game would never work as a physical card game. Still I did eventually find myself getting into the groove of the game, and while I haven’t mastered it, now that I’m past that initial bump of getting to understand how it works, I have a desire to keep coming back to it, which is a good sign.
The game is currently only $2.99AUD which is a steal for the replay-ability of the game. If you enjoyed and kept playing Card Crawl as much as I did, you pretty much owe to the dev to purchase this game, even if you don’t end up enjoying it, given how much value Card Crawl gave. And there’s incentive to grab it now, because the dev has made it cheap for now as it has less features than Card Crawl, but they plan to add feature updates later which may increase the price. That’s not to say it doesn’t have good features already, with classic hook you stuff that Card Crawl had like unlockable cards (with no in app purchases) and daily challenges.
Whether long term I will find myself keep coming back to Card Thief as much as I did with Card Crawl remains to be seen, but for the time being at least, it’s an early contender for mobile game of the year.
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So today I finally got my hands on a Nintendo Switch for the first time… a very brief time, but a time none the less. While arguably questionable that I could cast judgments about this new console with such little use of it, I did already have a wealth of knowledge about the Switch prior to using it, that it was quite easy to get some first impressions from it.
The first thing is, it’s small. Like of course it was going to be small, but prior to the announcement of the screen size (6.2”) it was hard to really gauge how large it was going to be, in particular the screen itself. When the screen size was announced to be not a heck of a lot larger than my iPhone 6 Plus screen size, while considerably smaller than the iPad Mini screen size, I had concerns about how good it would be to play on a screen of that stature.
The tablet component of the Switch, in many ways looks like a cheap Android 7” tablet that you find in a bargain bin. It has a really thick bezel, which makes you think, is this the largest screen you could squeeze into this device without damaging battery life too much? I can’t help but think there will be like a Switch XL released in a year or two’s time with a large screen. Despite it looking like a cheap android tablet, the construction of the tablet component feels really solid and high quality. Except for the kick stand. The kick stand is unbelievably cheap and flimsy, I can see that being commonly broken. Also unlike some other devices with kickstands (ie: the Microsoft Surface), there is only one angle that the kickstand can be used at, which severely limits it’s potential.
Another component that feels cheap is the dock. Really cheap feeling plastic, for essentially a fancy AV switch box, it’s hard to understand where the value of $130AUD comes in for one of those docks (the price if you wanted to buy an additional dock). It feels like something that should cost half that price (and probably costs 1/10th the price to manufacturer it).
The Joy-con controllers feel quality enough. While I only spend a short time using one Joy-con, I couldn’t’ help but think, that even with my tiny hands, that the controllers were far from ergonomic. Holding the Switch in portable mode with the Joy-cons connected to the tablet portion, it felt not bad, but I couldn’t help but think the weigh balance ratio should get tiring after a while.
I only got to play one game, which was 1-2 Switch, a compilation of mini party games that attempt to show off the Joy-Con’s features. I played 5 of the 28 mini games including Boxing gym, Quick Draw, Samurai Training, Table Tennis, Beach Flag. The quality of these games ranged from Bad to Terrible. The full motion video featuring actors is really cringeworthy. Luckily I found a skip button that could bypass a lot of that. I guess the game is not aimed at me. It’s aimed at the same casual audience as Wii Sports and Wii Fit. Perhaps it might succeed with that audience as it promotes not looking at the screen to play. The games weren’t overly intuitive all the time though, so I could see a casual gamer maybe struggling with it, but perhaps that’s part of the “fun”.
I like the Switch game cases. It’s something a bit different to the usual blu-ray/DVD style covers. However it’s such a waste of plastic. You open up the case to find the tiny cartridge the size of an SD card sitting inside, taking up maybe 1/20th of the space with nothing else in it. They surely could have shaved about 1/3 of the top of the case off.
So yeah that about covers my first impressions. It probably comes across as highly negative, and I guess perhaps if I had spent more time with it, with some good games, I might have had some good things to say about it. I still really like the concept of the Switch. I think it’s the best iteration of a hybrid concept any company has made thus far. This is the future of console gaming in many ways, but it is also quite disappointing in other ways. With reports it can’t even keep a constant 30fps on Zelda, it’s not a good look for performance when it’s already struggling at launch. What third party developer is going to put any high end recent game on the machine, with specs so lagging behind the Xbox One and Playstation 4. Bethesda is releasing Skyrim on the Switch. While this no doubt great news for Skyrim addicts looking to do some adventuring on the go, this is a game that is over 5 year old. If it ends up being a game library of cartoony Nintendo games and 5 year old triple A titles, the Switch could easily find itself in a similar predicament as the Wii U.
Which is one of my main reservations of getting a Switch. I bought a Wii U a couple of years ago with Super Mario Maker. I played it a few times and it’s gathered dust ever since. I wish I never bought it and had got a Switch instead. But because I have the Wii U, I find it hard to justify purchasing the Switch, when all it offers is portability over the Wii U. Many of the key titles for the Switch are available on the Wii U for this year. At the same time while I’m intrigued by Zelda, I can’t seem to commit to buying the Wii U version, knowing the higher quality Switch version exists (though the Wii U version may become more of a collectors item much like what happened the last time a Zelda game was released on two console generations).
So from my very short hands on, my recommendation is, if you are a massive Nintendo fan, you already have a Switch, and it’s pointless reading my impressions. If you’re not though, save your money. At least for now. It’s basically just a Zelda machine for the next few months. It’s highly expensive (though has some impressive tech). I’d recommend waiting a year at least to see if the console gets the third party support it needs to make it successful. A price drop would also make it a more attractive option, but Nintendo are not famous for doing such things, so I wouldn’t hold your breath.
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The Mobile World Congress is the preview for smartphones and other tech coming out in the year. Here’s a few of the major announcements from this year’s event:
Nokia
Nokia made it’s name in the early days of mobile phones for their brick phones that were highly durable. Now Nokia have brought back the Nokia 3310 with specs that are not a huge upgrade from the past. It has a 2.4”, FM radio and a 2 megapixel camera. This phone is only 2G. In Australia supposedly 2G is getting phased out, so this phone may more so be aimed at emerging markets and developing nations. You might be able to throw the phone at a wall and it still work, but it’s not much use if your country is not going to be using 2G in the future. Oh but they have brought back the classic game Snake though.
But Nokia hasn’t completely gone nostalgic. It also announced 3 new smartphones, the Nokia 6, Nokia 5 and Nokia 3. The 6 model comes with a 5.5” screen and 16mp camera. The 5 has a 5.2” screen and 13mp camera, while the 3 has a 5” screen and 8mp camera. The 6 and 5 are made from aluminium, while the 3 a combo of aluminium and polycarbonate. The 6, 5 and 3 will all run on android. It’s disappointing that Nokia are no longer making Windows Phones. Windows Phone is the only other mobile platform that could lure me away from iOS. Maybe this will be the year Microsoft finally release a Surface phone.
Samsung
No phones from Samsung at MWC, but that’s understandable after the battery issues from last year. Instead they announced a few tablets. The Samsung Galaxy Book is a Windows 10 tablet that comes in 10” and 12” models. The 12” model has a Kaby Lake Core i5 processor, with 4GB or 8GB RAM. Storage wise it’s available with either 128GB or 256GB, but also has a micro SD slot for expansion. It will likely be a big year for USB-C ports, and the Galaxy Book is no exception, coming with 2 of them. The 10” model only has a Core m3 cpu, 4GB RAM and half of the storage and usb ports. The Samsung Galaxy Book also includes a keyboard cover and S-Pen. I’m not sure it’s a Surface Pro beater, but it at least gives it some competition. If windows isn’t your thing, Samsung also announced an android tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3.
Samsung continue their VR push in 2017, but adding a controller to their Samsung Gear VR. This should no doubt make the device more useable, which is already an impressive budget VR headset for those with the latest Samsung smartphones.
Blackberry
So yeah, Blackberry is still a thing is owned by TLC these days. They’ve announced the KEYone smartphone. It has a 4.5” touch screen, but also a classic Blackberry style physical keyboard. It’s not running on Blackberry OS, instead it’s operating on Android. Blackberry reckons the phone will get a solid 2 days of non stop use, which no doubt makes it perfect for it’s business audience. It seems there’s a theme here between the return of the Nokia 3310 and also this physical keyboard based Blackberry. Is it a way to stand out in a crowded smartphone market or are some people longing for an old skool approach to phones.
Huawei
Along with a new smartphone (The P10), Huawei announced a smartwatch, the Watch 2. Looking much like a traditional watch available in a Sports or Classic model. It has 4GB of storage, heart rate sensor, GPS, NFC, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The battery life is estimated to last up to two days with normal usage, which is not much better than an Apple Watch. It can be run however in “watch mode” that just basically displays the time and isn’t always on, allowing for an additional 40 hours. Speaking of running, the watch will be running on Android Wear 2.0 and there will be a fancy Porsche Edition of the watch as well.
Other Announcements
Other products announced include more android smartphones such as the Lenovo Moto G5, and the LG G6. Meanwhile HP are not missing out on the Surface clones, with their built to be rugged HP Pro x2 612 G2 (a name that rolls off the tongue). If there’s any more major from MWC over the coming days, The Geeklee will bring some more news.
There’s so many games out there these days, that it’s hard to keep track of them all, but I try my best. I do vaguely remember having seen something about Night In The Woods a few years ago, but clearly it didn’t seem to get me to track it from there. I then 2 years ago, stumbled upon it in an indie game exhibition at Seattle’s EMP Museum. I had a quick play (I was in a bit of a rush as we were flying out a few hours later), and was impressed by it’s slickness, to the point that I just assumed it must have already been out. It wasn’t already out, so it remained only vaguely in the back of my mind. It was only when a friend mentioned the game a few times, that I started to take notice of it more. And then in the past 2 months, I got surprisingly hyped about the release of the game, counting down the days until it would pop up on Steam.
Night In The Woods was kickstarted 3 years ago by a small indie team, receiving over 4 times it’s original $50,000 funding request. They could have kept adding features as stretch goals to get even more backers, but they wisely saw this as scope creep (something I wish the developers of Star Citizen would take note of). After a few delays, it’s finally out. So what’s it like?
Well if you aren’t into hipster aesthetics, you could easily be put off by the art style. I think this is part of what put me off from buying in early to this game when I first heard about it. But don’t let it put you off. The art style is a really flat, almost children’s book like. But this definitely ain’t not kid’s game. It’s about young adult life, a coming of age story about young people trying to figure out what to do with their life, when it seems like there’s limited options. It reminded me a lot of South Park Stick of Truth. It feels like you are playing a real live animation.
The protagonist, is Mae, who’s dropped out of college and returned to her small home town to live with her parents. As what happens with most people who return to their home towns, a lot is the same, but a lot has changed. Her friends are all working dead end jobs. The local coal mine has been closed down, which has hit the local economy badly, with less money and jobs around, causing people and businesses to leave the town. The game is in many ways a modern life simulator of what happens to a town like this once society moves on from dated industries like coal mining.
But it’s not all mundane, day to day life going ons. There is something weird going on in the town, and in-between dealing with friends and feelings, you will find yourself trying to figure out this hidden mystery. There’s also some very abstract dream sequences. It makes for an interesting contrast.
The game is a very heavily narrative driven adventure. Most of what you will be doing is just talking to people around the town. There is a lot of talking to go through if you engage with all the characters in the town, so keep that in mind when choosing whether this game is for you. This is however broken up with some exploring, mini games and platforming.
The exploring is somewhat limited, but there definitely is some hidden components you could miss if you don’t snoop around. The mini games are basic, but really help break the game up a bit and give it variety. The guitar hero style mini game in particular is enjoyable, even though I don’t think there’s any way to be good at it. It could easily be separated as a stand alone mini game. The platforming can be fiddly and frustrating in parts. In particular there’s a platforming section near the start that is supposed to teach you to triple jump. I got stuck on this for about 10 minutes to the point of almost rage quitting. Perhaps you don’t suck as much I do, but if you do, keep at it, because I didn’t really come across anything as frustrating as that afterwards. It was pretty smooth sailing from there on. The game works well with a controller (especially for the force feedback scenes).
The general gameplay loop is waking up each day, going into town, and choosing a friend to hang out with at night. At first impressions, it probably seems like quite a linear game, and I guess the main story line is linear, however it’s the choices you make like which friend to hang out with, which makes playthroughs somewhat unique and giving it a level of replayability to it. Choosing to hang out with one character at night, means you’re missing out on hanging out with another character, therefore you’ve not seen that scene during your playthrough. This became apparent when I realised I had not seen the iconic “Donut Wolf” during my playthrough. Also you have a journal which you add scribblings into. When you see blank pages, it makes you wonder what you missed. While it can frustrate a completionist that wants to see everything in their playthrough, it does mean you could do at least a second playthrough, and see some new things you didn’t experience the first time. This is a good feature to have with narrative games. It can be even extended further, as there is a full rouge like game called Demon Tower that you can play on Mae’s computer.
As you have probably noticed from the screen shots, all the characters are andromorphic animals. I’ve since seen human versions of the characters done up as fan art, and it’s interesting seeing these interpretations, because the characters, despite being animals, do come across much more human than most human game characters. All of the characters are strong, with some of the most authentic dialogue I’ve seen in a game in a long time. I became quite attached to the characters and the town, much more so than I did with Oxenfree (which I only recently got around to playing through). The characters are very much defined already. You are playing the character of Mae, not yourself. Mae is a bit of a jerk. Often in dialogue choices you have the option of being a jerk, or being a jerk in a different way. This ensures you can’t taint the character by trying to make them a better person. Mae has her traits, and you will be going on that journey with her. Much like Costume Quest, if there was one thing missing, I’d say it’s voice acting, but it’s understandable that there’s none considering it’s budget.
While as mentioned, it could be seen as having hipster elements, the game is in fact quite grunge. So much so that I could just imagine Gary Numan’s ‘Down In The Park’ playing in background (the game actually has a great original soundtrack). It’s got goths and punks. There’s stealing and knife fights. One of the most challenging things media can attempt to do is make bands and music culture cool within it’s content. Night In The Woods pulls it off authentically.
Overall this game is not for everyone, but for those whom it is, it’s an awesome little unique game. I say little because I originally expected it to be about 5 hours long. I was surprised to find my playthrough was around 13-14 hours. Granted I am a slow player, who likes to check every nook and cranny while talking to anyone whose mouth moves. But for those whom equate a games value with it’s length (not me), I think you could find you’d get at least 8 hours of gameplay out of it, not including if you did additional playthroughs or tried to complete Demon Tower. This is great value for a game released for $20USD. As I said though, this game ain’t gonna be for everyone, COD kids need not apply. If you are unsure about it, there’s two free supplementary games you can download here: https://finji.itch.io/ . The Longest Night is reminiscent of a mini game from Night In The Woods, while Lost Constellation is more like a full game, that will give a good feel for what the gameplay of Night In The Woods is like. Between playing these, you’ll get a sense of whether Night In The Woods is your jam.
2017 is going to be a huge year for adventure games, and Night In The Woods starts the year off strong with a potential Game of The Year candidate. I look forward to seeing what it’s developer, Infinite Fall do next.
The Geeklee “unwraps” aa pretty rare Limited Run physical edition of the awesome Firewatch which came tied for 2nd in the The Geeklee Top 10 Games of 2016...
Today it was announced that the long running Australian TV Show Good Game had been cancelled. This includes the main Good Game show, Good Game Pocket and Good Game Well Played. Good Game Spawn Point, it’s weekly show for younger gamers (G and PG rated games) will continue to be produced on ABC ME hosted by Bajo, Goose and Rad.
An official statement was posted this morning on the Good Game’s facebook page:
OFFICIAL STATEMENT
Sad news. After the program’s summer break, two of the key presenters of Good Game announced they were leaving to pursue other opportunities.
In light of this major setback, and changes in the way audiences are choosing to get their information about gaming, the ABC has decided to end the long and successful run of the show. We plan to continue Spawn Point in a new format.
We expect to retain all the remaining Good Game team.
The ABC would like to acknowledge the wonderful work of Janet Carr and all of the Good Gamers. Any show that makes it to a 10th birthday is something to be proud of. Good Game pioneered video game TV. Its commitment and innovation has been repeatedly and appropriately awarded. The show has had a tremendous run and plenty of adventures, none of which would have happened without the ongoing love and support of you, the GG community.
Thank you.
Those two “key presenters” were Hex (co-host of Good Game and Good Game Spawn Point) and Nichboy (host of the daily online show, Good Game Pocket). Neither host had shown any indication about leaving prior to today. All online messaging prior to this sounded like Good Game was looking forward to a big year ahead in 2017. This calls into question the PR statement as to what has really happened. If hosts did leave on their own accord, they can be replaced. There’s no reason to axe 3 shows because of it. There are some indicators that there could be more to this story than we know at this point.
Around the 3rd quarter of 2016 saw the host of Good Game Well Played, Hingers leave. He did have multiple other things on the go though such as stand up comedy, doing fill in shifts on Triple J radio and SBS’s The Feed TV show. The trigger for this leaving however was taking up a job commentating at Riot, creators of the popular eSports game, League of Legends. So at that point there did not seem to be reasons for concern.
Unfortunately though there were more high profile departures from the Good Game team by the end of 2016. Series creator and Executive Producer Janet Carr left. Director of the main Good Game show Ben Shackleford also left, as did production co-ordinator Sam Gordon. Tobias Venus whom had only just started with the team in 2016 was also reportedly let go. It’s hard to tell at this stage but there may be more of the team whom have left or not had contracts renewed.
With all these key staff leaving last year, perhaps that should have been a sign that something was up. The PR statement makes it sound like they just randomly decided to axe 3 shows because two presenters left, which just doesn’t add up. It’s makes more sense that it’s something more to do with the new direction of the ABC is going.
When the Coalition Government took power in 2013, there had been sustained attacks from the Government on the ABC, both culturally, claiming left wing bias and also on a funding front, cutting budget of the national broadcaster. Even when Malcolm Turnbull took over as Prime Minister, whom had previously been a regular friend of the ABC, the pressure against the ABC did not seem to subside much.
The key moment however was when ABC Managing Director Mark Scott was replaced by Michelle Guthrie in mid 2016. Guthrie had formerly worked for Google and the Rupert Murdoch owned News Corp. It is argued that News Corp had much influence in the election of the Coalition Government in 2013 with anti Labor Party newspaper covers such as the infamous “Kick This Mob Out” article. It has been suggested by some that the Coalition would like to privatise the ABC. This caused a lot of backlash and protest from the community, but perhaps recent decisions under Guthrie’s leadership suggests another way of attacking the ABC. Good Game is far from the only show affected. Science show Catalyst was heavily stripped back for 2017, from a regular show to occasional special reports, seeing many staff given the chop. Radio National had a heap of music shows cancelled and conservative commentators taking their place. The ABC also closed down The Drum website, which regularly featured opinion articles. ABC’s chief operating officer, David Pendelton and director of television, Richard Finlayson also recently announced they were leaving the ABC.
One of the reasons supposedly behind changes is the evolving media landscape, reiterated by the line in the official statement “changes in the way audiences are choosing to get their information”. It’s easy to get caught up in buzzwords like “innovation” and “agile”. However if it was true that the new digital media landscape is the reason behind these changes, then why these specific changes? If there’s a show that’s going to understand technology, surely it’s a science show like Catalyst? And coming back to Good Game, it’s literally a show dedicated to technology.
Good Game already had all of it’s shows available on youtube and iView. Good Game Pocket in particular took the similar approach that modern youtubers and twitch streamers take, by providing current daily news and let’s play videos, regularly interacting with it’s audience. So if it’s all about moving with the times, why would you cancel the most innovative show on the ABC?
Good Game originally started in 2006. I would guess I probably started watching around 2008, as at the time the hosts were Bajo and Junglist. Junglist was replaced by Hex under controversial circumstances in 2009. There is of course varying stories behind the reasoning behind this, but the official line from the ABC was that Junglist had been underperforming. Fans of Junglist still to this day, 7 years later suggest Good Game lost it’s hardcore gaming edge with dumping Junglist. Fans of Hex on the other hand praised her presence in helping create a more inclusive gaming community in Australia, with a well known female role model within the industry.
Once Good Game got past that turbulent time, it went from strength to strength. Good Game the main show was for adult gamers. Good Game Spawn Point was created children. In more recent times Good Game Pocket was created to provide regular current content and Good Game Well Played to cover the specialist nature of eSports. Good Game has always had a great mix of quality reviews that could completely change my mind about a game, insightful reports about the game industry and serious issues that affect the culture, all while maintaining a sense of fun and comedy. In the 90s there was a gaming TV show on channel 9 I watched as a kid called The Zone. My rose tinted glasses would tell me that it was great show, but that was so long ago, it’s hard to judge now. Any other gaming show that has featured on mainstream television in Australia has usually been nothing more than an advertorial for games publishers wanted to push.
Not Good Game though. Due to it being produced at the government funded ABC, it was literally part of it’s charter to not be commercial and instead provide unbiased reviews. This no doubt has garnered much respect both from fans and the industry alike. Yes you can not deny the popularity of youtubers and streamers. When people like Pewdiepie have over 50 million subscribers, you can not ignore the fact that at the very least, young people are moving away from traditional TV and getting their fix online instead. But I will argue a few points.
The ABC isn’t a station for young people. It’s for all ages. So even if the younger audience is moving on (though lines at conventions to meet the hosts of Good Game would say otherwise), what about older gamers? The average age of a gamer is 36 nowadays. Gaming isn’t just for kids, but this move by the ABC makes it look like is by only retained the kids version of Good Game. And wasn’t it the kids that are consuming their entertainment online? So why keep the kids show, but ditch the adult show? What about the adult gamers. Perhaps they haven’t moved to online for their quality gaming entertainment fix. So wouldn’t it make sense for the nation’s broadcaster to keep the show that is aimed at them? I’ve seen comments by older gamers saying they will miss the show as they don’t have much time in their lives to seek quality gaming information, and Good Game provided it in a short burst of 30 minutes once a week. I have to agree with this to an extent. Good Game (the main show) is the only TV show I can think of, that I always went out of my way to watch each week when it was broadcasted live. Now this ritual is gone and even less reason to continue to watch free to air TV and Australian content. If you are ditching shows because you are competing with online, then what happens to the ABC in the future?
I would also argue that you can’t compare content created for the internet versus a traditional TV production. There’s a reason there’s a team involved in the production of Good Game as opposed to one person with an internet connection and a webcam. It’s because Good Game had more depth than most video content you find on the internet. Most gaming video content online is people spewing their freestyled opinions on subjects (check out The Geeklee unboxing videos for example!), or simply just playing through a game (sometimes to the detriment of game developers).
You wouldn’t find an in-depth report on mental illness and gaming. Or visiting school kids to discuss the games they developing. This takes research. It tells stories about Australia. It tells stories about gamers. It tells stories about people, which is what the ABC is supposed to be about. This is part of what Good Game provided, which I feel you would rarely find elsewhere. Online has been great for democratizing discussion (I mean hey, look at this very blog), however it has also caused the cheapening of journalism and critiquing, due to the lack of money and the 24/7 news cycle. Now it’s more about whether you can get a great click bait title to get hits rather that quality reporting (as is evidenced by many media organizations downsizing).
So what can I say, it doesn’t make sense logically, but I also have decent suspicions as to why it has happened. All I can say for sure is how much of a positive influence Good Game has on me over the years, and how much I’ve enjoyed it. The Good Game presenters felt like good friends I didn’t personally know. 10 years is a long run in the TV world, especially these days. I just can’t see in this instance, why it had to be the end. Maybe one day it may return if Good Game Spawn Point continues to prosper.
I want to thank all of those involved in Good Game, both past and present for your passion and dedication to gaming and this TV show. It really showed through everything you did. You changed the Australian gaming culture and industry. You provided endless hours of quality content which not only respected the intelligence of gamers of all ages, but created a welcoming, inclusive and accessible environment whether you were a “noob” or a core gamer. It feels ironic that Good Game was at the peak of it’s game, celebrating 10 years and now this happens. I hope those leaving go onto good things, and those remaining can at least keep providing a quality gaming show for the kids of Australia. They deserve it. I just hope adult gamers can have this gap filled by something else of a similar quality in the future.
#putoutyourcontrollers
#praiseboll
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2016 was a great year for games, and 2017 is shaping up to be a good year as well (and there might even be some surprise releases we haven’t event heard of yet). Here’s my 20 of the games I’m most looking forward to in 2017, potentially in chronological order. And yes… they’re mostly adventure games…
Quarter 1 2017
Night In The Woods – 22nd February 2017 (PC)
I was lucky enough to visit to check out an indie game exhibition at the EMP Museum in Seattle a couple of years ago. I played a demo of Night In The Woods there, not even realising that it hadn’t come out yet (nor that it wouldn’t come out for another 2 years from then). You wouldn’t have known because it was looking as slick then as it is now. It’s 2D sidescrolling adventure game focused on narrative. A cat known as Mae returns home from College to her home town of Possum Springs and thus begins the journey of life. It’s got a bizzare, slightly hipster vibe and morbid humour to it. It’s quite unique. If you want to get a taste of it, you can try out for free two prologue demos (Longest Night and Lost Constellation) here: https://finji.itch.io/
Paradigm - Early 2017 (PC, MAC)
While we’ve seen a lot of point n click remasters of classic Lucasfilm games, and a heap of Telltale’s evolution of the genre, we’ve not had many games that have truly evoked the spirit of those classic 90’s adventure games. Enter Paradigm.
Paradigm is a surreal point-and-click adventure game set in the strange and post apocalyptic world of Krusz; a land inspired by a mix of Eastern Europe and the 70’s and 80’s. You play as the unattractive yet over-confident mutated Paradigm; who must prevail through inconvenient trials to overcome the insecure yet tyrannical sloth antagonist, Olof!
Paradigm has been developed by Jacob Janerka, whom I don’t personally know (though have had a couple of chats with), but is based in the same city as me, Perth, Western Australia. The detail of the art is awesome. The game was originally supposed to be released in January 2017, but got delayed. Going by what’s left to complete the game, I think there’s a good chance of a quarter 1 release for this game. I’m just surprised this game hasn’t been picked up by Double Fine Presents or Devolver for distribution. You can try out a free demo here: http://www.paradigmadventure.com/
Thimbleweed Park - Early 2017 (PC, MAC, XB1, iOS, Android)
If Paradigm takes us back to the style of classic 90’s point n click adventures, Thimbleweed Park authentically takes us back to the 80’s. And whom better to take us there than the legendary Ron Gilbert, one of the Lucasfilm originals, responsible for iconic games such as Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island.
A body has been found in the river, bloated and pixelated from the decay of a death come too soon. Agents Ray and Reyes arrive and are immediately suspicious of each other’s intentions. A cursed clown, a disinherited game designer, and the ghost of pillow salesmen join the story and add their own complications. Play and switch between all five characters as you explore the vast, strange, and manipulative world of Thimbleweed Park while unravelling a dark and humorous neo-noir mystery.
Thimbleweed Park perfectly evokes the style of Maniac Mansion, but with update amazing looking pixel graphics, with some really nice lighting effects that really give it a feel of a cross between the X-Files and Twin Peaks. While still no confirmed date, I think it’s pretty safe to say this will come out first quarter. The biggest challenge for me is deciding whether to play it on PC or iOS.
South Park: The Fractured But Whole - Early 2017 (PC, PS4, XB1)
South Park is a TV show I’ve watch since the first season came out, but it’s only been in more recent years that I’ve realised it’s true brilliance as the show has got more political over the years (while never picking a side, instead making fun of all sides). What puzzled me was why the South Park: The Stick of Truth game flew under the radar for me. I don’t think I even got it on release day. It may have been not until it was like half price that I grabbed it. What a mistake that was, because it was a perfect recreation of the show. It was literally like you were controlling the cartoon. All the humour and characters were there and it also done well with parodying the RPG genre.
While Stick of Truth had Cartman and the gang dressing up as fantasy characters, The Fractured But Whole has the kids of South Park switch it up by dressing up as Superheros instead. This will be a day one purchase for me this time round. Trey and Matt return, being heavily involved in the production of the game. It’s looking as slick as the last game, while aiming to improving the depth of the combat. It was originally supposed to come out early December 2016, it’s now aiming for “Early 2017”, so expect this in quarter 1, possibly early March 2017.
Mass Effect Andromeda - 21st March 2017 (PC, PS4, XB1)
Mass Effect is one of my favourite game series of all time. As such, Mass Effect Andromeda should be my most anticipated game of 2017. Yet I’m cautious to get too excited about it. Perhaps it’s because some of the key team members behind the original triology are no longer involved in the production of the game. Perhaps it’s the fact the new characters aren’t looking the greatest, and will struggle to meet the lofty heights set by the original cast. Will choice actually really matter this time round?
Still it’s still gonna be a Mass Effect game, and even if turns out to not live up to the original trilogy’s standards, it will still be a decent game. It may also improve on the previous games in some areas. I’d be happy if Mass Effect had no combat at all, so Andromeda’s focus on semi open world exploration should hopefully take away some of it’s combat focus.
Mass Effect Andromeda is set 600 years after the original trilogy, seeing human kind searching for new planets to setup shop in a new galaxy. We will be the aliens. We will be the invaders. It should make for some interesting galactic politics. Despite my concerns this is a day 1 purchase for me, and no doubt will consume me as explore every section of it’s galaxy within the main game and likely DLC (though no season pass has been announced). If they do this right, it’s an early contender for game of the year for me.
Tokyo 42 – Early 2017 (PC)
Tokyo 42 is described as the lovechild of Syndicate and GTA 1. Set in a future Tokyo, the game will see you become an assassin and uncover a dark conspiracy that will affect everyone. With open-world single player and competitive multiplayer, you will buy and use a host of weapons and tools to approach the many challenges of this beautiful little world.
This is a game that is pretty much selling me purely on art style. The Japanese influenced isometric graphics sucker me in. Unfortunately it would likely end up on my pile of shame of games I haven’t gotten around to playing much like the spiritual successor to Syndicate, Satellite Reign. As such it’s def on my radar for this year, but probably not a day 1 purchase.
Quarter 2 2017
Little Nightmares - 28th April 2017 (PC, PS4, XB1)
Little Nightmares is the only game from here on that has a confirmed release date. Looking like something straight out of Tim Burton’s mind, it also reminds me of this stop animation movie about Tom Thumb that came out in the 90s.
This game is set to be like a dark version of Little Big Planet, or a brighter version of Limbo. Hopefully it plays as well as it looks. It’s got triple A game style, with an indie game price (only $20USD), so this is going to be one I’ll certainly give the benefit of the doubt and try out close to launch if Mass Effect or some other game isn’t still consuming my life.
Tacoma - Q2 2017 (PC, MAC, XB1)
Tacoma is the long awaited second game from the developers of Gone Home, a game that really changed my gaming life. Along with Dear Esther, essentially birthed the genre of FPX (First Person Explorers), or the more derogatory term of Walking Simulators. What these games did was strip away the combat elements of First Person Shooters like Bioshock and just create a game focus on world and narrative building. To some sections of the gaming community, gameplay to them means shooting things, so to these types of gamers, Gone Home wasn’t even a game. But to more mature gamers, this was exactly the sort of game they’ve been waiting and really inspired me to want to get into indie game development.
Gone Home was set in ordinary American home. Tacoma takes things in an opposite direction to an abandoned space station. This should be one of my most anticipated titles. A FPX set in space from Fullbright? Sign me up! But I am a bit cautious and I’ll tell you why. Because most FPX games are developed by small indie studios, the way they get away with it is by not physically seeing characters in the game. Unfortunately Tacoma takes the path of having avatars play back memory like sequences not too dissimilar to Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture. I hope this pays off, but I am a bit sceptical about it. Still just out of respect for the brilliance of Gone Home, this is definitely a day one purchase for me.
Sometimes Always Monsters - TBC 2017 (PC)
How can a game made in RPG Maker be possibly my most anticipated game of 2017? Because it was possibly my most anticipated game of 2016! Let me tell you why. I watched a review of the original game Always Sometimes Monsters. The reviewers seemed to be deeply affected by the game. I couldn’t see how this low res, generic looking JRPG style game could be any good. Yet when I saw it for cheap enough, I decided to give it a spin. I’m so glad I did, as it’s one of my favourite games of all time, and find myself regularly discussing it with others.
The reason being is choice. Many may have been disappointed to find their choices in the Mass Effect trilogy has little effect on the ending of the series. What Always Sometimes Monsters didn’t have in the graphics department, it certainly made up in having possibly the best choice/consequence mechanics I’ve ever played in a game. Think of Grand Theft Auto if it was presented as a pixel art American version of a JRPG with no combat. Instead you are constantly presented life choices in the game where by there rarely ever is a right answer, and all choices can lead to perceived negative outcomes. It’s just like real life!
Sometimes Always Monsters continues this journey. In fact if you’ve played the original game you can use your save file and continue on with the same character in the sequel with all your choices you made affecting the future game. It’s got an improved art style this time round that I’m really digging. It was supposed to come out in 2016, but didn’t quite make it. There’s no solid release date, so I’m chucking this in the quarter 2 section. If you don’t believe me how great this game is (and it won’t be for everyone), pick up the original game and try out it. It’s regularly on sale for a couple of dollars. If you dig it, you’ll want to play it through anyways so you can continue the story on in the second game.
Knights and Bikes – Q2 2017 (PC, MAC, PS4)
Kinghts and Bikes is a co-op adventure about childhood, inspired by The Goonies, Secret of Mana & Earthbound, from developers on Tearaway, LittleBigPlanet, Ratchet & Clank. If it’s hipster style doesn’t grate me, the innocent nature of this game could very well be infectious, much like a non-dark version of Stranger Things. Secret of Mana is one of my favourite games of all time, and Little Big Planet was always an undeniable polished game series, so there is great potential here. I’m interested in the fact it has co-op (much like Secret of Mana), so hopefully I can convince someone to jump on the couch and play this through with me.
It was recently picked up to be published by Double Fine Presents, which is perfect, considering it’s similarities to Broken Age and Costume Quest. It doesn’t have a set release date but I’m estimate a late quarter 2 arrival.
Cuphead - TBC 2017 (PC, XB1)
Cuphead has been popping up and grabbing people’s attention every now and the past few reason, and for good reason. It’s art style is authentic interpretation of classic early animation (think Disney’ Steam Boat Willy) style. The way this game is looks and moves is astounding.
My only concern is this bullet-hell game supposedly has a brutally hard difficulty level. That does not bode well for people who suck at games, but it’s certainly not gonna stop me trying. It’s painstakingly hand drawn, which gives good reason why it’s been delayed so much. With a whole 11 months more to release it within, it will surely come out this year finally. I’m predicting a release before July.
Quarter 3 2017
Full Throttle Remastered – TBC 2017 (PC, PS4, VITA)
I’ve spoken about Paradigm and Thimbleweed Park which both pay tribute to different eras of Lucasfilm point n click adventures. Well here’s a remaster of a classic Lucasfilm game that I’m looking forward to finally playing. Full Throttle by Tim Schafer is being remastered by his studio Double Fine much like Day of The Tentacle and Grim Fandango. I haven’t played Full Throttle before, but I always remember it’s distinct cartoon style back in 90’s gaming magazines. This finally be my chance to play it. You can play it in it’s classic pixel style, or the new remastered the graphics. The remastered graphics just looked like a smoothed out widescreen version of the original, much like the Day of Tentacle remaster, so I think I’ll play this in the remastered mode. There’s no set date other than 2017, so I’m estimating an early quarter 3 release date at this stage.
Wonder Boy 3 - TBC 2017 (PC, Consoles)
The classic Sega Master System sidescrolling adventure game, Wonder Boy 2 and 3, are some of my favourite games of all time. I like them so much, I’m tempted to make a game myself in the style of it. Well recently two indie devs bet me two it and announced two Wonder Boy inspired games, both likely to release in 2017. Wonder Boy 3 will be re-skin/re-master of the original Wonder Boy 3. I never owned Wonder Boy 3 as a kid. A friend had, but I only every got the occasional go of it. I now own it as part of my retro game collection, but perhaps this remaster will be the way I play it through from start to finish. I think I prefer the original art style, as this remaster has a very “flash” art style to it, that I’m rarely too keen on, but I will certainly give it a go, based purely on my devotion to Wonder Boy.
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom - TBC 2017 (PC, PS4, XB1, Switch)
The other Wonder Boy inspired game is not a remaster, but more so a spiritual successor. After a few different incarnations, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom does come across as a modern version of Wonder Boy. It unfortunately has a similar “flash” style of art work to it much like the Wonder Boy remaster, but perhaps there’s no other way to approach it without a total pixel art throw back. Whether this can live up the legend of Wonder Boy games, or if it will turn out to be a cheap copy is remained to be seen (Mighty No.9 reportedly didn’t no do well recapturing the magic of Mega Man). Alas, much like the Wonder Boy 3 remaster, I will be grabbing it anyways.
Memories of a Broken Dimension – TBC 2017 (PC)
You dredge the satellite transmission. Awash in static, harsh structures emerge. Trace a guide line through crushing atmosphere; phantom signals lead to encoded relics. Exhumed from a frozen void, fragmented ruins assemble. But when the stream thaws, no system can handle this overflow...
That’s the description of Memories of a Broken Dimension. If you haven’t guessed already it’s going to be a very dark, abstract experimental game. It’s visually right up my alley, feeling like a music video to my favourite music. I haven’t played it yet but there’s a free early prototype available at https://xra.itch.io/memory-of-a-broken-dimension . I’m not sure what to expect with this game, but perhaps it will turn out to be one the surprise life changing games of 2017. We shall see…
Overland – TBC 2017 (PC, MAC)
Overland is a squad-based survival strategy game with procedurally generated levels set in post-apocalyptic North America. Every random level is full of close calls and hard choices. Manage allies, fuel supplies, medkits and weapons by making the right choices on the procedural roadmaps.
The art style for this game has certainly grabbed me, and the premise sounds interesting. It could have a lot of replayability to it. My issue is I really want to play this on a touch screen like a phone or tablet. Alas only PC has been announced as a platform. Much like Tokyo 42, I’m not sure I’d actually play it on PC, so I may sit it out for a while an hope for a mobile port in the future. If you are keen for it now though, you can purchase an early access version of the game at http://overland-game.com/
Quarter 4 2017
Red Dead Redemption 2 - Q3/Q4 2017 (PS4, XB1)
Quarter 4 is usually the time of the year the big Triple A titles fight out for the Christmas dollar, and I expect this year to be no different. Red Dead Redemption 2 was announced last year, with not much information to go by. It’s hard to know if John Marston will feature in it. One thing that is hinted at though is that likely after the success of GTA Online, there will be a strong multiplayer component to the game. Red Dead Redemption was undoubtedly Rockstar at it usual impeccable level.
I didn’t get into it so much due to be not being into Western/Period piece settings. However I can not deny the quality of this world building and have no doubt that RDR2 will end up on many gamer’s game of the year lists. Essentially, if Rockstar makes something, I’m gonna get it. It’s that simple. No firm release date yet, but I’m going to assume a November launch.
Uncharted The Lost Legacy - TBC 2017 (PS4)
Speaking of the other giants of world building, if Rockstar are the kings of open world games, then Naughty Dog are certainly the kings of Action Adventure games. Uncharted 4 was a great game that made my top ten of 2016. What likely started out as a DLC for Uncharted 4, The Lost Legacy has evolved into a full stand alone game featuring Chloe and Nadine from the Uncharted series as the protagonists. The announcement trailer had a much darker feel to it than the usual Uncharted series, while still being identifiable as part of that world. We’re not talking The Last of Us dark, but whether the whole game has this darker tone or not for the whole, or if it was just this particular scene, we shall wait and see.
One of my criticisms of Uncharted games is it often felt like it dragged on an extra 5-10 hours longer than it should have, often filling it up and stopping progress with waves of generic military goons. The Lost Legacy is meant to be somewhat in between the length of The Last of Us Left Behind DLC (approx. 3 hours) and the full Uncharted 4 game (approx. 17 hours). This should see The Lost Legacy clock in around 10 hours which could be the perfect length, which certainly makes me look forward to diving into this game. When that will be, I dunno, but I’m guessing in the second half of the year sometime.
Cyberpunk 2077 – TBC (PC, PS4, XB1)
While I do own The Witcher 3 (it came free with my graphics card), I’ve never played a Witcher game. Not because I don’t think it would be a good game, but when I’m prioritising my game playing time, I have to pick games in settings I’m interested in. I’m not really interested in fantasy settings (hence only 3 hours in Skyrim on my belt compared to my 120 hours in Fallout 4). My favourite settings are based in the future, whether it be set in a dystopian nuclear wasteland (Fallout 4), a shiny galactic universe (Mass Effect) or dirty grimey cyberpunk world (Shadowrun). Cyberpunk you say? Yes the neon drenched, acid rain, neo noir blade runner esque worlds are my favourite worlds of all regardless of the medium.
The Witcher 3 is so acclaimed by critics and fans alike, I constantly feel like I’m missing out. When CD Projekt Red announced it was making a Cyberpunk 2077, I realised I will finally get the chance to experience their quality game making. While I have had no association with the original Cyberpunk 2077 license, if the Witcher is really is “that good”, then applying that team to a cyberpunk game could very well end up in my favourite games of all time list.
Still we know very little about the game, other than it will have a multiplayer component (which is exciting). The game was first announced 4 years ago, with a concept art trailer released in January 2013 show and telling very little. We’ve literally heard or seen nothing since. The developer has said it wasn’t going to talk about it any more until after Witcher 3 was done. The Witcher 3 and all of it’s DLC is now doubt, so expect a big announcement at E3 later this year. Hopefully it will be a Fallout 4 style announcement that tells us it’s coming out in November, but there is very much the chance we won’t see it until 2018. At the very least we should at least know and see more of the game this year.
Squadron 42 (Star Citizen) – TBC 2042 (PC)
I am a veteran backer of Star Citizen from early 2013. I religiously followed the development of this game for the first year or two. It wasn’t until I saw them miss the original release date of November 2014, and just about every other single deadline they’ve set since, that I’ve noticed the cracks. I now have little faith in the game ever being completed despite the over $142 million in crowd funding (more than most Triple A titles). I’ve resigned myself to the fact my money has probably been thrown in a buggy tech demo equivalent of a fire. While Star Citizen is to be a MMO, it has a single player campaign called Squadron 42. Oh how I wish they had just made Squadron 42 first with a limited scope, and then later built a MMO based on that. We could have very well had a game by now, over 5 years since Chris Roberts original prototype. Instead we have 2 games with a never ending scope creep which will never be reigned due to the cult like obsessive white knight fans that destroy any discussion of constructive criticism of the game to defend how many 1000s of dollars they’ve spent on concept images of spaceships (which kinda defeats the point of crowd funding a game).
Unfortunately despite all of it’s money, nearly 6x the amount the developer CIG said it needed to “fully fund” the development of the game, the lack of progress see the very likely scenario that they will run out of money before the game is complete, with likely lawsuits to follow. Still I hope CIG prove me wrong, because I do want to play this game one day, but when that day will be, and whether when that day comes, if the game even ends up being any good are another matter altogether. Squadron 42 does feature a big cast such as Mark Hamil and Gillian Anderson, but what little they’ve shown of it (we haven’t see anything from it for about 6 months), it’s not been very impressive, in particular a military speech scene was quite cheesy. The list of problems with Star Citizen could fill a whole blog post of it’s own. Squadron 42 has missed many release deadlines, so if at least the first chapter of it doesn’t release this year, even the most blindly devoted fans of this game will surely have to see the end is nigh. Let’s hope CIG get their act together, and pay back the people who put so much faith in them.
Some Surprise Indie or Triple A title
Finally, there will surely be a surprise game we don’t even know about yet that will blow people away. Whether it will be a surprise last minute launch announcement like Fallout 4 (maybe Half Life 3?) or the next break away indie hit like Stardew Valley. There’s a lot of games to look forward to this year, but perhaps our favourite games will be ones yet to be expecting.
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