Vega Archives

Writing about video games by Edrey Vega twitter - @archives_vg

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The Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl situation.

*Op-Ed*

The Hype

Pokemon fans tend to be among some of the most abused fan bases when it comes to classic franchises. Some would say things started going south with the release of Sun and Moon, some would say X and Y, and then, of course, there is the "Gen Wunners," as they're usually called, who tend to believe strictly in gen 1 and 2 superiority. One common thread in all Pokémon discourse is that no Pokémon fan can agree with another what constitutes a "good" Pokémon game looks like.

I was born in 1992, making me the perfect candidate to be a "Gen Wunner," and I technically wear it, while I do resent the title. that is only to preface that when Diamond and Pearl was released, I was in 9th grade and found most of the Sinnoh Pokemon to be overly designed and ugly. But to the generation of Pokemon fans younger than me, Diamond and Pearl is to them what Red and Blue is to me, meaning there are thousands of people in their early 20′s who believe this to be one of the if not the best Pokemon entry and will defend this game at all cost.

So it's 2001, and the Game Boy Advanced just launched, a console incapable of trading with the previous Game Boy. This presented a problem for Gamefreak, with older Pokemon being harder to find in Generation 3′s Ruby and Sapphire, so they made remakes of the first generation of Pokemon games as Fire Red and Leaf Green. This started a trend of remakes, the latest 2014s Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire (or technically Lets GO Eevee and Pikachu). This created quite the expectation for several growing early 20 somethings. “Where is my Diamond and Pearl remake?” they collectively asked. 

The Announcement

Despite the cynical takes I’ve seen on the Pokemon 25th anniversary "Pokemon Presents," I didn't think it was nearly as bad as they claim it to be. For example, I thought the intro movie was an entertaining and nostalgic look back at almost every Pokemon game in the last 25 years. The attention to detail with the titles they chose to highlight was impressive and almost like a sign that they remember when the series was overall of higher quality. While I am a bit skeptical, another highlight for me was Pokemon Legends Arceus announcement. The idea of an open-world Pokemon Game set in a past version of Sinnoh sounds intriguing, I saw how Gamefreak handled open-world areas in Pokemon Sword and Shield and you can color me unimpressed and apprehensive.

Then they show the highly anticipated and expected, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. The trailer starts off pretty strong, with a montage of memorable scenes from the original DS game, which in hindsight only made the reveal of the games visuals all the more devastating.

Cut to a shot of the character Dawn in her starting home but wait, what's wrong with Dawn? she is now horribly disfigured. Im usually a fan of “chibi” aesthetics but this one felt immediately lifeless. The character has been foreshortened with the grace of someone using hacksaw for the first time. It seems as if no artistic consideration was put into how these characters would look in this new style. This feeling only grows as you continue to watch the trailer and see how the "chibi" style fared with all of the non-player characters, which, in my opinion, is far worse. It seems as if they were more concerned with making 3D models that matched the origional games sprites that they didnt stop to consider how these models appeared. 

Then comes the larger models used in battle, what some people claim to be the remakes saving grace (visually speaking at least). It’s understandable why people claim those models look better than the overworld models, but the improvement is minimal, to say the least. These battle models are larger and more detailed but just as stiff, lifeless and flat as the overworld models. Not to mention the Pokemon are using the same tired models they've been recycling since generation 6 and continue to battle in spaces that remind me of what a low budget high school play looks like.

Besides goofy and awkward walking animation, the trailer doesn't really have much else to say past this point. It really does feel like ILCA said, "you like Diamond and Pearl? here it is again, but we made it ugly".

The Fallout

This is when the situation begins to unfold in different pockets of social media, I primarily experienced it on Twitter. While it did seem like most Pokemon fans were rightfully disappointed in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearls appearance, both in terms of technical graphics and art style, it seemed like another group of fans seemed vehemently opposed to any and all criticism of the trailer claiming "we finally got what we wanted"

While it merely comes down to a matter of artistic preference, I don't think it's unreasonable to hold one of the highest-grossing franchises in the world to higher standards. Additionally, this is only one in a long series of disappointment from Pokemon titles, and I liked Pokemon Let's go. Die-hard fans who have been with the franchise from the beginning are scared that they'll never see what they consider to be a high-quality Pokemon game ever again.

Hope?

There might be light at the end of the tunnel after all. Like I previously stated, Pokemon Legends Arceus seems like an intriguing enough concept, although I do remain skeptical. Also, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl were good Pokemon games, so while the art style might look silly and animate stiffly, the general game should be fun.

After all, I am looking forward to playing this game and will more than likely buy it at full price.

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Wheelchair Simulator

Everyone’s out to get you

Living with a disability can be very difficult, I think most can agree on this. Yet we regularly take what we have for granted and fail to show empathy to our fellow disabled humans. Wheelchair simulator attempts to correct that lack of compassion by putting us in the shoes of the main character in a wheelchair. Using a wheelchair alone is not enough to capture the feelings of a lifetime of disability, so Wheelchair simulator opts to put you in a hyper-aggressive world. This is played for laughs and works perfectly as I couldn't help but chuckle every time our narrator informed me that the drivers in the cars I was dodging were actively trying to hit me. It highlights that lack of empathy with humor

To aid the player in their quest for empathy Wheelchair Simulator uses a narrator to lead you through its threatening world. This helps to add both a voice and personality to the game and is where most of the humor of the game comes from.

Wheelchair Simulator is also available in VR in beta form, we will be looking at both version and comparing them.

Controls

While Wheelchair Simulator controls mostly fine in normal mode the controls turn into an unresponsive mess in VR. The primary method of forwarding propulsion in VR is using the Vives grip buttons to hold your wheels and moving your arms. This, in theory, would perfectly parallel wheelchair use, but the unresponsiveness of the grip buttons and the unrealistic momentum lead to frustration.

Frustration would have been bad enough on its own, but Wheelchair Simulator VR is the first VR to give me full on motion sickness. This is in part due to the primary objective of actively dodging traffic. While this is difficult enough in the regular version, it's a dizzying nightmare in VR. Struggling with the physics while rapidly looking around to make sure you’re not sent rocketing by an eighteen wheeler can quickly induce motion sickness.

While mostly fine the regular version of Wheelchair Simulator also has plenty of issues with how it handles. Moving the wheelchair is a slow, clunky mess and literally anything on the floor, yes even a small tree branch, can send you into a faceplant. Not to mention a frequently encountered bug where I would fall backward instantly upon spawning sans button press. The primary gameplay loop is primarily built upon losing and restarting, with the narrator encouraging you every step of the way, this bug rendered that system frustrating and sluggish.

A good laugh goes a long way

Wheelchair Simulator sells itself as a comedic game and while I recognize that video games have a tougher time than most genres conveying humor, here its done mostly effortlessly. The game's premise of a world filled with people who would go out of their way to purposely harm disabled people is inherently as humorous as it is preposterous The physics and ragdoll effects are also worth a good chuckle and can add a good amount of spontaneity to the levels.

The best part about Wheelchair Simulators humor is that it's in service of the primary goal; to teach empathy for the disabled. its hyperbolic world and the cartoonish art style is disarming and helps the message come across as sincere.

Closing

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Nintendo E3 2018 predictions Redux

The yearly video game industry trade show event known as E3, or the Electronic Entertainment Expo, is almost here and no one has more eyes on them than Nintendo and their digital event.

Nintendo is currently in a very sensitive position, they’re coming off a very successful year, selling 10 million Nintendo Switch consoles by December 2017. Given the success of the Switch, many are looking to Nintendo this year to see if they can continue to support their console with the same quality of creative and fun games from both first and third parties.

Nintendo has been making up for their Wii U days since the switch launched with the Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and while its safe to say that fans are very pleased with the quality of switch games so far. This E3 is Nintendos opportunity to show us that they are committed to bringing quality games to the Nintendo Switch.

Now let's get to predictions, it seems that there are a number of Nintendo franchises that exist in a limbo-like state where they have been technically announced but all we've seen was a title screen. One of my favorite franchises, Pokemon, is currently in this state. Having been technically announced in 2017 at E3 without any supplementary imagery or video, my hope is that we at least get to see what the game will look like this year. Fire Emblem got similar short shrift with another bare bones announcement going as far as to claim that it would be released in 2018, something that I'm sure is untrue. While we still may not know much about Metroid Prime 4 we at least got a short teaser sporting some funky tunes, I believe this E3 will have much more Metroid Prime 4, probably at least a trailer with gameplay and hopefully more funky tunes. What we do know is that Retro Games Studio is not developing Metroid Prime 4 which ties into the biggest rumor following Nintendo going into E3, that is Star Fox Grand Prix supposedly being developed by Retro Games Studio. Given that the only proof for this is a sometimes credible source and just a piece of paper with a logo printed on it, I'm not quick to say this is a certain one.

A game that is a much more safe bet would have to be Smash Bros for the Nintendo switch, whether its a port of Smash Bros 4 or a whole new game remains to be seen, I cant tell you. My honest opinion is that it’s a port but I do have hope that it'll be a brand new title but given that Nintendo is hosting the invitational at E3 an announcement is pretty much guaranteed. Fortnite on the switch seems to make too much sense not to happen, aside from Chance the Rapper publicly asking for it on Twitter, It would make sense that one of the most financially successful game in the past year would seek out the most financially successful console in the past decade, the install base is too large. It's not only Epic, other third parties seem to be on the Switch train, the Spyro the Dragon remake has all but been confirmed for the Switch and so has a port of Diablo 3 and there are even rumors of a Borderlands game being announced at this years E3.

Last year was a big one for gaming, a lot of games that will go on to be considered landmark titles of the generation were released. This year E3 needs to excite and comfort, letting us know that good times are still to come and not just a fond memory. I believe that Nintendo is not only producing exciting new games but are also doing a respectable job at making sure all of their games that were practically ignored on the Wii U finally get the attention they deserve and I applaud them for that. I look forward to seeing what they do bring to the table but as well as what they omit, all in all, an exciting year for gaming and Nintendo.

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Reverie review

Borrowing its aesthetic from Earthbound and its gameplay from early Zelda titles like Link to the Past Reverie manages to carve out an eccentric identity. Taking place in the fictitious Island Toromi off the coast of New Zealand, the main character is a boy named Tai visiting his grandparents for the summer. The New Zealand setting influences this game significantly, the games central plot revolves around dueling spirits from traditional New Zealand mythology. The game even opens with a retelling of the Legend of New Zealand where the demigod Māui fishes the island of New Zealand out from the bottom of the ocean. The developers, Rainbite are not coincidentally New Zealanders themselves.

During Tais stay in Harikoa village he is tasked with taking on 6 dungeons. Tai is gifted a cricket bat upon arrival which functions as this games sword. With the ability to swing it in all directions plus a roll that makes Tai extremely agile you begin to take on the Islands dungeons. The first of which is conveniently located in his basement. After solving the dungeon and defeating a boss, Tai frees an ancient Maori spirit, gains more overall health and continues to the next dungeon.

While the similarities to Earthbound are purely cosmetic Reverie borrows far more from The Legend of Zelda. The layout of the overworld and dungeon will be familiar to any Zelda fan at a glance. The dungeons follow the same structure of puzzle solving to obtain keys to be rewarded with a new item that will allow further exploration of the dungeon. While the puzzles were imaginative, albeit a little too easy, and the items were always a pleasant surprise the dungeons were padded out with combat rooms that felt repetitive. The overworld, while smaller than most Zelda games was teaming with puzzles, side activities, and new paths to discover once new items are found.

As more and more of the main items are collected the number of paths available increase. Toromi island is teaming with collectibles, mini-games, and Easter eggs. From stumbling across a peaceful grove inhabited by kiwi birds to playing a microwave in a game of pong, the surprises kept coming. In my opinion, this was even more fun than the dungeons due to the juniors and unpredictable nature.

Reverie is a very brief game, it took me 5 hours, and that’s with going out of the way to explore. Although you may not spend too long on Toromi Island, the time will be well spent. Reverie is a joyous game that while never challenging 

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The Padre Review saved

With cryptic puzzles, a Lovecraftian atmosphere, and a surprising amount of humor The Padre does a great job at building a sense of progression and keeps players guessing. The Padre at first seems to be a love letter to Alone in the Dark. The Padre borrows its adventure game mechanics from Alone in the Dark. We even go as far as seeing the first room from Alone in the Dark replicated in The Padre. Everywhere I turned in this game I found references to a myriad of different games, from Zelda to Portal. This sort of referential treatment is usually annoying but in an environment as grim as the manor from The Padre the jokes and subtle nods where welcomed.

There may be a lot of references to other games in The Padre, but the story is very original. You follow a priest, the titular Padre, named Sandro. Sandro sets out to find a missing priest whom he has no love for by the name of Benedictus. As Sandro searches for him, he finds himself in a manor. Sandro is unknowingly entering a house infested with otherworldly monsters, demons, and parallel shadow realms connected via mirrors.

A Lovecraftian Twist

Games of this genre are well suited for Lovecraftian horror. Their often time slow and clunky controls only exemplify the cosmic dread of Lovecraft's work. While The Padre sometimes strikes a perfect tone for the cosmic horror, it spreads itself too thin in an attempt to convey many themes. There are several visual references to Cthulhu; including the primary antagonist who is practically a spitting image of it by the end. The various notes found around the manor are perfect examples of cosmic horror. The letters, sometimes torn notes, occasionally official documents are teaming with agony, confusion, and dread.

The Voxel style, while very stylistic and sometimes beautiful doesn't do much to contribute to the atmosphere. In addition, it can make the pixel hunt that is all too common in adventure games even more frustrating.  While the lighting does go a long way to establish atmosphere, it can turn the previously mentioned pixel hunt and some puzzles into scanning the room with your mouse, trying to see if the cursor changes. There is a lot of fantastic attention to detail and artwork throughout this game, but I couldn't help but wonder if it was adding or detracting from my immersion.

Sandro's a Real Gordon Freeman

Initially unarmed you quickly find a trusty crowbar. While you do unlock guns later in the game, the crowbar remains your most useful ally and the weapon you will most regularly have equipped. The click to attack style of combat used here is mostly acceptable throughout the game as you typically face only one very slow-moving enemy at a time.  The combat does devolve when multiple enemies appear. Stunlocked in place by enemy attacks you find yourself unable to move and frustrated.

This combination will leave you helplessly stuck unable to move or attack and await death. When you're not stun-locked, you might unintentionally move while intending to attack allowing enemies to attack and stun-lock you.  While mostly serviceable, the combat can become a real source of existential dread, and something tells me that might have been Shotgun with Glitter's intention.

The Controls can sometimes combine the perfect feeling of anticipation and horror.  Any time swift movement or timing is required you will be forced to wrestle with the controls. You will plead endlessly with Sandro to move accurately while trying to dos something as simple as trying to open a door.

Pacing The Padre

The Padre's narrative is one of its strongest selling points, while the story is a little vague and mysterious, you end up liking Sandro as a character. Not to mention the tales of loss, torture, and the occult found around the manor. Near the end of the game, I knew every room in the estate and had comprehensive knowledge of the layout.

There is a sense of progression to most adventure games that I find to be the draw. Going from only being able to explore one or two rooms to slowly unlocking more and more. Seeing how new items become applicable to puzzles in old rooms will not only make you feel like a crafty genius but helps further the feeling of progress. Some of the puzzles can be more frustrating than amusing. While I enjoy difficulty the level of complexity and obscurity to some of these puzzles borders on extreme. It took me around 8 hours to beat this game, most of that time was spent trying to solve a push and pull block puzzle that seemed impossible and was resolved by luck.

Parting Prayers

The unique aesthetics and humor of The Padre go a long way, enough to set it apart from other games in the genre as well as the indie early access space. The frustrating puzzles and lackluster combat may turn some people away, but the sense of exploration and discovery should be enough to keep fans of the genre entertained. This is a game for not only adventure game lovers, chalk full of references and gritty storytelling. I look forward to seeing what happens next to Sandro.

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What I Learned by Replaying Animal Crossing in the GameCube.

I was born in 1992 making me 10 when the first Animal Crossing title premiered on the Nintendo GameCube. If you were watching a lot of T.V at that time at that time, which believe me as a 10 year old I was glued to the T.v daily, then you were probably bound to notice these amazing Animal Crossing commercials that were airing around the time of the games initial release in September 16 2002.,

These commercials were amazing and really resonated with me, the live action costumed cartoon aesthetic was done really well but what appealed to me most of all was the promise of a virtual world where I can just freely exist. No need for grand objectives, no need for enemies to defeat, I could just exist. This concept for a video game has always intrigued me, I remember desperately wanting to play a Sims game at this time. The game boasted about the fact that its a world that's always on, even when the player isn't playing.

It touts its multiplayer, frankly making it seem like a more multiplayer focused experience than the game truly is. It even claims to have activities such as being able to get a job (I know you get one from Tom Nook the first fay you arrive but this is short lived). To be completely honest while I love the Animal Crossing commercial, it has a special place in my heart, it frankly over sells the game as an experience with more to do than is actually present. I understand that this was probably more in part to explain an unconventional game to an audience that was (at the time) perceived to not be very receptive to those types of games but still, this would ultimately lead me down the road of disappointment.

I had a great time with the original GameCube Animal Crossing, while its hard to remember exactly how many hours I put into it I can vividly remember checking in on my town of Gotham every school night throughout my middle school years. Walking around, talking to the villagers, fishing, and catching bugs we’re a lot of fun and enough to keep me entertained for at least an hour a night. In my youth I had a bad tendency of skipping through dialogue so certain nuances like how the museum worked were sadly lost on me.

Ultimately I found myself bored with all that Animal Crossing on the GameCube had to offer. Part of that was my own fault for being a stupid child but part of me cant help but feel oversold on the game from the commercial. I expected a village sprawling with people and possibly interpersonal conflict. Instead all I got were some well meaning animals and a rather greedy and mean racoon.

Another problem which derived from being a child, at least in my specific case was the lack of being able to participate in the multiplayer at all. To this day I can not tell you how the multiplayer in the original Animal Crossing works because I had absolutely no one to play with.

Its no secret that the original Animal crossing was light on activities this was a common criticism of the game and while i really did enjoy a lot of aspects of the game I feel like one of the most important aspects of the game, the ability to decorate your home and villager, was lost on me as a 12 year old. I remember only getting furniture villagers as gifts and just randomly plopping them down in my home. While I did fully upgrade my home and did recognize this as the most tangible goal in the game, I never had any drive to take the time to decorate these rooms, I don't think the concept even crossed my mind.

Everyone’s different and while I would be willing to bet that there was atleast on 12 year old out there who became enthralled with decorating and more stylish aspects of original Animal Crossing I would be lying if I didn’t say that I hardly even recognized them.

I never felt the yearning to collect the various furniture and clothing items present in the game and the items that I did collect were haphazardly strewn around my many rooms. Upon replaying it as an adult it was plain to see that collecting and arranging clothes and furniture was just as apart (if not more so) of the game as talking to your villagers and acrewing wealth in order to live in a mansion.

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I’ve started streaming I twitch!

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Logging into an old World of Warcraft character is a nightmare

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Valve cracks down on “sexually explicit games. “

Video game developer and digital storefront owners Valve have begun a new crusade against sexually explicit games on Steam, targeting primarily the Visual Novel genre often known for their risque storyline.  Developers such as MangaGamer have claimed that their games were falsely removed seeing as they had worked alongside a Valve spokesperson and sent every them “every potentially questionable graphical asset” 

Valve has been very vocal in the past about not wanting sexually explicit games on Steam but the severity as to which they follow through on this sentiment has fluctuated from time to time. All the way from allowing the uncensored Kindred Spirits, a game from previously mention developer MangaGamer, onto steam to banning all sexually explicit games from Steam Greenlight.  Suddenly and without warning on May 18th developers start to receive notices that their games have been flagged for pornographic content and will be taken down from steam if these aspects of the games aren't removed.

This all in spite of the assertion MangaGamer makes that their game isn't pornographic and an exploration of sexuality. This is all made worse by the simple observation most people are making on their own, the fact that triple-A games seem to be immune to this sort of treatment. Sure, that is to be expected, there's no way Valve is delisting the Witcher 3 due to its sexual content.  What this means for games that aren't sexual but are explicit such as Genital Jousting remains to be seen. Some have suspected that this was all in an effort to make pass certification for the Steam Link app on iOS. The service that allows you to stream games from Steam to your phone just launched their beta on Android and plan on releasing the iOS app soon.

To me, it seems like Steam should have never allowed these games on their services if they ever thought they would need to remove them. As unrealistic as it may be I would also like it if they applied this ban fairly and equally. Although I do understand that the intent of games such as the Witch 3 is not to arouse therefore relieving it of its status as pornography the same argument could be made for a lot of the Visual Novel games receiving a takedown notice. Most of these Visual Novels are at least 5 or more hours of dialogue and exposition before the player may be exposed to a bare breast, these novels are no more pornographic than the early God of War games. While I respect Valves right to sell whatever they want on their digital storefront, I can't help but feel uneasy about the amount of backpedaling Valve has done and with the severity.

Luckily for these games, they don't need steam to survive. Visual novels are immensely popular and there are plenty other places to download these titles, they will live on. That being said this is a big financial blow to those developers that we're seeing a nice influx of funds from the steam sales which can if you get on the right charts, be notoriously good. Not to mention the growth and exposure that the Visual Novel genre had when exposed to the millions of users on Steam. These will be trying time for these game developers but I wish them luck and look forward to seeing where this takes the genre.

source: http://blog.mangagamer.org/2018/05/18/regarding-recent-inquires-into-steam-content-policy-notices/

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A Eulogy for the PlayStation Vita

I was in middle school when the original PSP came out. leading up to the launch of the PSP the narrative among the students of my middle school was that the PSP was cool, for adults, and will be their all in one media player (this was pre-smartphones) and that the Nintendo DS was for children. I never subscribed to this way of thinking and somehow convinced my mother to get me both consoles. The PSP while a respectable console that sold 80million units and had a decent library still couldn't hold a candle to Nintendo’s 3DS. After watching my PSP collect dust on a shelf for several years I was pretty disillusioned by the promise of experience console gaming on a handheld.

When Sony announced the PlayStation Vita in 2011 I was much older and wiser and felt like I could see what would surely be a failure of a handheld. Two years and an obsession with Persona later and I am hunting for Vitas on eBay, landing a lightly used one for a little over 100 dollars. There are a few ways in which the Vita shines bear mentioning, after all, there is a reason why people are so sad to see it go but there's also a reason why no ones surprised that it's going. The most apparent positive aspect of the Vita is the hardware, it is sleek, heavy, and feels like a powerful machine, which i is, the Vita is capable of some amazing graphics the likes of which I thought were impossible on a handheld console. What really got me to buy a Vita though was its ability to play old PlayStation 1, PSP, and digital indie games on the go, which sadly also doesn't take advantage of the consoles power seeing as most of these games are 2D. That being said you can play Personas 1-4 on the Vita which makes it a pretty amazing console in my eyes.

No one was surprised when Sony announced in May 2018 that they would stop manufacturing physical games for the Vita, I had read articles and seen videos predicting this would happen as far back as 2014. I even think the reason they announced this before E3 was so that we wouldn't have another E3 where we wondered if they would even mention the Vita, they got ahead of it the answer is; no, never. The Vitas shortcomings are remarkably similar to that of the PSP which makes you wonder why Sony didn't learn their lesson from the PSP. That lesson obviously being that no one wants to pay an exorbitant amount of money for your proprietary memory card for really no reason at all other than greed. Honestly, people know how much digital memory should cost, we all see the price differences between your product and Sandisk micro SD cards which to the consumer are functionally the same. This decision really handicaps your console and keeps people from wanting to build a collection of games on your platform, especially considering how many download-only indie titles were released for the console.

At the end of it, all the PlayStation Vita died a death of a million cuts and was the victim of the death spiral that comes with not having enough games come out for your console. There are no games on it so no one buys it so developers don't support it so fewer people buy it and so on until it spirals out of control. The Wii U and Neo Geo saw a similar demise and I hope first parties have really learned that software trumps hardware every time. The PlayStation Vita will be missed but most games worth playing on it came out before the Vita itself, so hop on eBay, I am sure now is a great time to purchase one, may it live one.

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News: Cliff Bleszinski dissolves Boss Key Productions

Boss Key Productions was the video game studio started in 2014 by ex-Epic employee and industry wunderkind Cliff Bleszinski, know all throughout the industry for the success of the Gears of War franchise. When it was announced that Cliff would be opening his own studio I think most people were met with equal parts excitement and worry. Cliff was mostly seen as a hot head and someone who regularly stuck his foot in his mouth. As someone who was 15 when the first Gears of War game came out Cliff Bleszinski was always kind of a hero to me, a man who wanted to be seen as a rock star in an industry that isn't really known for that type of behavior.  At the time I found it refreshing and I genuinely enjoyed his brashness.

Cut to 2014 and the now well seasoned Cliff is leaving Epic and starting his own Studio Boss Key Productions, Now it is 2015 and we start seeing what their first project will be. The title is LawBreakers previously known as BlueStreak. LawBreakers would go through a troublesome development period where they not only shifted around gameplay mechanics but also pivoted the pay scheme from free to play to $29.99 which Cliff touted at conventions as “none of that 60 dollar multiplayer only bullshit”. Price aside LawBreakers suffered from being too similar to the very popular Overwatch, a game that had been getting ripped off constantly in its first year of release to the point where people had become hypersensitive to this. Cliff knew that people would be quick to cry “Overwatch clone!” so he actively pleaded with the media saying

“Let Overwatch be the Goliath that it is, there's room for Battlefield and Call of Duty, there's room for Tekken and Street Fighter, there's room for multiple games in a genre, the problem is there's usually only room for about three and everybody after that is picking up the scarps. So we hope we can at least be 2 or 3 in that space."

I feel like asking your audience up front to join teams 2 or 3 doesn't instill much confidence. Even though there are typically multiple big franchises in a genre most of them have equal claim to the number one position in the eyes of each individual fan. The argument about whether League of Legends or Dota 2 is better is allowed to continue because neither of the creators has gone out in a public platform and conceded to being spots 2 or 3. It's honestly unnecessary you don't need to give us an excuse to like your game and it shows an immediate lack of confidence.

So it was no surprise to me when Lawbreakers launched at around 3,000 concurrent players in its first week which was 60% lower than what it reached during the beta.  Ultimately the market had become oversaturated with even the Goliath Overwatch taking hits in player count.

Then what seemed like a ray of hope beamed down on Boss Key Production, they made a Battle Royale game called Radical Heights. Which while seemingly making the same mistake of copying the flavor of the week genre worked much better since they were much earlier to the party. Sporting a 90s retro aesthetic and with bicycle transportation and combat. While a lot of people shamed the game, calling it an easy cash grabs I did see a lot of people having fun with it and genuinely enjoying it even with its early access jank. With co-founder Arjan Brussee returning to Epic it was clear what was going to happen to Boss Key Production. Good news is that the Radical Heights server will stay up for the foreseeable future, but who knows when they will pull the plug.

Cliff, on the other hand, seems to be getting the rest he deserved after leaving Epic, I hope he can clear his head and come back with a great game with a clear and concise vision because I believe that he is capable of giving us another amazing game. I look forward to seeing the end of this redemption story.

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Firewatch LTTP review

Firewatch was a game that originally I originally wrote off as just another “Walking Simulator”, A genre that I was initially excited about but got quickly burned out on. Recently the developers of Firewatch, Campo Santo joined Valve which like everything Valve does, stirred up a lot of interest and got the rumor mill churning. This influx of speculation had me wondering why I ever wrote this game off, to begin with. I remember the conversation on the game revolving around one of the characters Delilah, whether she was real and the fact that you never get to see her in the game. This was all I knew about Firewatch before I started playing it.

So there I was getting ready to wander the forest and form a meaningful relationship with a stranger over a walkie-talkie. What I wasn’t sure expecting was the heart-tugging intro to the game where you, as the main character Henry meet and fall in love with your wife who later gets diagnosed with early onset dementia. This to me was a strong intro and really did a good job at establishing the tone of the game. The intro all succeeds at making you very sympathetic towards Henry making the story all the more compelling and immersive.

After the intro, you are thrown into the forest with Delilah, a fellow Firewatcher. The gameplay at this point is mainly navigational, you are tasked to go in a direction and you do so by looking at a compass. The way the compass and map are used are pretty novel and serves the purpose of the game immensely. instead of just having the map in a menu and the compass on a HUD, Firewatch has Henry hold the items in the first person. This further immerses me in the world, not being able to hold a compass and a map and run at the same time makes sense and feels mostly right. I say mostly right because I sometimes struggled with the controls. I played this on the PS4 so maybe the mouse and keyboard controls are better but I found using the walkie-talkie to be a cumbersome experience. Personally, I didn't like how it used the off press to confirm a dialogue choice. Sometimes I would get asked something over the walkie-talkie while looking at the map causing me to make a mad dash of buttons just to be able to answer on time. it usually wasn't a problem and the controls are mostly fine and at worst serviceable, the game doesn't require precision. What did bother me was the frame rate, I constantly had skips and slowdowns which doesn't make much sense since the game wasn't a graphical powerhouse.

While Firewatch isn't the most graphically demanding game it more than makes up for it with the art style. This to me is up there with God of War (2018) and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, in terms of beauty, really any screenshot of this game could be a desktop background or billboard. Where this stands out the most is the use of color, from the vivid green forest to the yellow canyons Firewatch continued to stun me with its use of color and lighting to create atmospheric, abstract, and sometimes alien landscapes. There is also a photo mode which cleverly works in the setting of the game, the 1980s.

As you explore Firewatch puts you in many interesting scenarios, from having to bust skinny dipping teens, to tracking down a stalker that's been keeping notes on your conversation with Delilah. Your relationship with Delilah can be what you make of it, I chose to be very open with her about the marriage, dementia,  and I generally kept the mood unargumentative. Throughout most of the game, the narrative is doled out through Delilah. she wakes you up in the mornings and is usually the last thing you hear before the days are done. The writers did an amazing job at making Delilah seem real enough to be a person but also vague enough for you to project whomever you want into her. This I think was the driving force behind the lack of face reveal for Delilah and is also the catalyst behind the popular albeit lazy theory that she never existed. ultimately developing the relationship with Delilah became the driving force of the game for me I found the dialogue entertaining although I wish we had learned more about Delilah's life instead of just hearing things we already knew about Henry.

The other thing really driving me in this game was the mystery which I found extremely compelling. I am a sucker for a good mystery, as long as I'm left speculating I happy. While the main mystery in the game turned out to be a macguffin of sorts and wasn't this huge spy conspiracy in the middle of the forest thing they originally made it out to be. instead, it tied into another side story, one about a missing boy that Delilah knew. These boys and their story continue to appear throughout yours making you pretty sympathetic towards them. While I didn't dislike the resolution to the mystery I didn't think it was the worst. 

the amount of great art, intelligent writing, and well thought out and paced game design that went into this game is astounding and that's saying a lot for a game that was only several hours long.

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News: Campo Santo joins Valve

The twelve person team at Campo Santo have joined Valve. The news broke April 21st posted on Campo Santos blog wherein they explain the amicable deal between Valve and Campo Santo. Essentially Campo Santo is a part of Valve now and while they will continue development on their new game In the Valley of Gods, which will be released as a Valve game. They will also continue to update their previous game Firewatch.

Sometimes Valves actions can confuse and bewilder fans, I have always seen them as the eccentric billionaire of the video game industry. While Campo Santo joining valve isn't as confusing as some of their previous decisions it doesn't seem to be completely in line with the directions that Valve has been going in this past couple of years. One has to wonder what type of project Campo Santo will take on after they finish development on In the Valley of Gods. Given that their style of game development has a very heavy focus on narrative many will be interested in seeing their take on a Valve IP. To be honest I would be extremely excited to see anything from the Valves vault be given the Campo Santo treatment.

All in all, I think that it is a positive in the industry, a creative team like Campo Santo expanding their resource pool should have a good outcome. I am very excited to play In the Valley of Gods and see what they come up with next. I have linked to the original Campo Santo blog post below

source: http://blog.camposanto.com/post/173170027579/campo-santo-news

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God of War (2018) the most successful 3D Metroidvania?

As someone who really enjoys Metroidvanias, I have been like a kid in a candy store these past 5 years with releases like Hollow Knight, Axiom Verge, and Guacamelee coming out. The Metroidvania genre seems to be more alive and thriving than ever. Despite the immense popularity no one has managed to create a successful 3D adaptation of the genre. While most genres had their 2D to 3D conversion take place in the 90s Metroidvania genre hardly existed back then and its defining elements were either worked into other genres or disappeared altogether. So while games like Bioshock incorporated elements from the genre I believe that it wasn't until March 20, 2018, that we saw what I would consider the closest thing to a 3D Metroidvania. 

The early parts of God of War should seem oddly familiar to anyone who is familiar with the Metroidvania gameplay style. As you traverse the world you will come across all manners of glowing blue crystals, and magically sealed doors. The game even makes a point to tell Kratos (through exposition)  that he is currently unable to access this area. This to me is part of what separates God of War from a game hat lightly incorporates Metroidvania like qualities and actually weaves the finding of new powers that allow you to access previously blocked areas into the main fabric of the gameplay. I felt a familiar sensation when I learned that I could now have Atreus shoot blue arrows at the glowing blue crystals to activate bridges to new areas. I thought back at the numerous blue crystals I had already seen scattered across the game and how I might use them to travel through the world in a different way,

Honestly all that God of War is missing is unlocking a double jump for Kratos and I can't help but look forward to the inevitable sequel to this game, While I am confident that it will be largely similar and probably equally as entertaining but I am most intrigued by how they handle their quasi-open world and Metroidvania like progression. Will we see Kratos powered down at the outset of the next God of War? This was would be an interesting way to draw parallels with the original trilogy as Kratos receives a Metroid like power down at the beginning of God of War 2. I hope to see other third-person actions games adopt this mannerism, even something as simple as Uncharted could be positively influenced by Metroidvania conventions. The feeling of progressing deeper into a tomb or cave with new climbing equipment would be a welcome change of pace to the linearity of those games. All in all, I think that this adoption of the genre is a positive step in the right direction.

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Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom review

In the past year, we have seen a renaissance of Japanese role-playing games resonate within the mainstream in a way in which they failed to do so all of the previous console generations. Games like Persona 5, Monster Hunter: World which was huge in Japan finally got the attention they deserved in the west. Sporting art from the legendary Studio Ghibli and developed by the much-respected Level-5 the first Ni no Kuni found great success on the PlayStation 3. Some of the biggest complaints about the first game among western audiences were the combat system which implemented an ATB gauge, not unlike Final Fantasy XII and ad an extensive monster catching leveling and evolving mechanic similar to Pokemon. While I did enjoy the latter I too was not a huge fan of the former and was instantly relieved when I saw that they had overhauled the battle system. Instead of playing out like a quasi-turn-based battle it is much more action oriented very similar to a Tales Of game. This battle system is not only more engaging but also makes the battles seem much quicker. The player can chain together light, heavy and ranged attacks as well as a series of special attacks activated by pressing R2 and corresponding face buttons. The player also can equip up to 3 melee weapons at a time some can cause elemental damage while others will provide you with a buff when you're full health for example. All of this makes battling a faster and more engaging process which is great because you will be doing a lot of it as you travel the world of Ni no Kuni II.

The game uses an almost old-school approach to traveling around the open world. In fact its less of an open world and more of an overworld which pretty rightfully pays homage to classic Japanese role-playing games. The game continues to shine when it comes to the towns which to me has always been an integral part of Japanese role-playing games. The design and themes of the towns range from neon filled pagoda style gambling dens to steampunk towns inspired by a mythical view of technology. Your journey from one town to another in a quest to unify all kingdoms under the king Evan Pettiwhisker former king of Ding Dong Dell. You play as Roland, a man who has been transported from what I can only assume is our world into the mythical world Ni no Kuni II takes place in. The setup tot he story is honestly pretty original and extremely quick considering this is a Japanese role-playing game, which is notorious for their slow starts. You explore the world with several party members all of which you are free to control at any point that they are available in the game.

While the story starts off extremely compelling and has a generally more mature tone than the first Ni no Kuni it does eventually begin to work itself in a semi-predictable formula of arriving, solve, recruit. This is only slightly a detriment to the game as several parts of the story still managed to compel. The characters remain interesting while still being lighthearted the whole way through. There is even a chapter that attempts to break the repetitiveness I mentioned by introducing an element of mystery and betrayal to the story. While the story does its part to entertain I fund myself mostly drawn the to town building aspect of Ni No Kuni II. In this game, some side quests reward you with a citizen of the kingdom of Evermore, a kingdom the character is in charge of building up, structure by structure. While this town building aspect of the game can be a little limiting seeing as it doesn't allow you to freely build any type of building anywhere in town I still greatly enjoyed freely exploring the world of Ni no Kuni and using the rewards from my exploration and side questing to build up my kingdom.

Ni no Kuni II didn't move me, it never brought me to tears or made me think critically for any extended period of time but what it did do was entertain me for over 60 hours and that is no easy feat. I bought this game new at full price and it was well worth the money and I believe that the changes made to the battle system make it appeal to a broader audience that maybe wasn't into the slower pace the first Ni no Kuni.