kapanbenernya

[kapanbenernya]

I'm done and moving

yep, I'm done with tumblr for now

ate my fuckin drafts like 3 times and that's it I'm done

I might go to another site for writing/blogging but for now I'm done bye see ya

[kapanbenernya]

The State of This Account -- and What to Expect in the Future

Hey, it's been about a week since I last posted anything in this account. And it's been around 6 months since I posted the Back 4 Blood review. So yeah, you can say I'm not very active on tumblr. I mean not like it's a problem.

In a much, much older post, I have already said that I will only write as a creative outlet. To express and communicate things that I am unsure that my friends or families are as interested as I am. And most importantly, to have fun in doing so. And that's why I don't make publishing quotas and I don't wear myself out if I don't write anything at all.

That being said, I feel like writing right now. And I feel like writing about this very account.

I started this account to express myself on my opinions about video games. Hence why the earliest posts are about reviewing games. But now that I'm older and stuck with a career, I find myself having a little less interest in video games. It could be because of the dwindling amount of free time that I am currently experiencing; and how I'd rather use that precious time to do things that feel more "productive".

I mean it's not like I've completely stopped playing games. I still do. The games I frequent right now is Honkai: Star Rail, ZZZ, Counter Strike 2, and the reigning champion: Fate/Grand Order. The weebs among you might notice and question that three of those lineups are gacha games, and they are notorious as major time sinks. And from that, you might be able to point out the discrepancy of someone who claims to have a deficit of free time wasting those on not one, but THREE gacha games at once.

And you know what? I have no rebuttal. I am guilty as charged. But, I hope that I can explain--not defend-- the reason that those three games are what I pick as my games. I know that I have promised this in an older post, but I will try my hardest to actually keep it this time.

As for Counter Strike 2? My friends played it. Enough said. Currently we are a group of five. And let me tell you, there's not a lot of games that can support 5 player co-op; let alone ones that we are interested in. We played 4-players coop like B4B and L4D before, but there's always one guy that end up being just an audience and we didn't like that. Plus CS2 is "free" if you already owned the previous iteration, which is CS:GO, so no problem with money.

And with the topic of CS2, I must talk about the other outcome of playing it: I started making videos.

"Oh shit that's me"

Started because I have to crop a flashbang fail to my friend and here we are: 9 videos in a series. Mostly just SovietWomble's bullshittery series clones but not as good. As you can see, there's hardly any subscribers but I don't mind. As long as my friends are still laughing, I will continue to make them. Or at least, until I get bored.

Right, so what is there to expect from this account the future?

Nothing has changed, it'll still be random topics that interest me. Don't expect a fixed schedule or anything because I'll only pop in here when the inspiration strikes. Could be a few days from now, a few months, probably never. Who cares? I do. And I mostly care about my own comfort above all else. So stay tuned, and I hope the things that piqued my interest may inspire you the way it did to me.

25/8/2024

[kapanbenernya]

I wish I took More Photos

As the title suggested, I wish I took more photos. Of me. And my friends. And the things we went through.

No, this isn't some surge of unforeseen narcissitic feeling. Lemme explain to you:

The year was 2009. The hottest artist was the Black Eyed Peas, the latest iPhone was the 3G, and phones cameras are starting to make great leaps in terms of quality. What used to cost a fortune in cameras and films is now free, ubiquitous, and can be carried everywhere in our pocket in the same space as our phone. Because our camera IS our phone.

Hell almost all phones had cameras by that time, even the shitty ones

The idea of the camera phone was something they tried to bank on. They went pretty fucking crazy with it. From phones that can rotate to finally inventing the front camera. And yes you read that right, front cameras wasn't a fucking thing back then. All we had is a little square mirror thing that --theoretically--one can use to estimate the result of the picture.

And with the rise of the phone camera quality and quantity, came the effect it had on the people taking it.

You have people doing the duck face in front of mirrors shot with the flash on, guaranteeing the absolute fucking shittiest pictures ever. Ever saw the meme where a girl went to the McDonald's toilet and took 300 pictures? That was a real thing. And they'd post ALL 300 to their facebook profile. I am dead fucking serious, I lived this shit. Taking pictures went from something deliberate and special into something that's cheap and meaningless. I was disillusioned by how mundane taking pictures had become that I actively avoided it out of second-hand shame. This extended to when people asked for a group picture, whether it be friends or family. I would always refuse because I thought the act of taking a photo is just inane. Never have I thought that in my later years, I would come to regret it.

Looking back through social media and picture albums I realized how little pictures I had of some era of my life. I still have the memories, but most of them has become fuzzy. I have nothing concrete that I can look at to remind me of the things I've done, places I've been, and the people I loved. And not just vacation pics or sleepover stuff, this included important pictures like my college graduation, school reunion, etc.

It wasn't until I'm nearing my 30s that I started participating in family and friend's group pictures, and I believe it was already too late by then. We're now taking less family trips, my friends are now working adults and have less time to hangout, hell some of 'em are even married and virtually chained to their toddlers.

I still have "mental scars" from the old days when I am strongly against having my picture taken. To this day, I still feel very uncomfortable taking a selfie. I am also still against having a picture taken of me without a group, which have led to missing some memories from when I had a duo trip to Japan with my brother. I think I'm gonna scrounge what little pictures my friends took of me from Facebook and start my own photo album. I fear that one day I will just have a book full of photographs but the memory gone; reducing it to but a meaningless picture. But I guess it's still a better alternative than losing both.

16/8/2024

[kapanbenernya]

Back 4 Blood -- It is Now Literally Left for Dead

As I have touched in this post, this is one of the games I still play, and for good reason. It has huge replayability, it's easy to pick up, it can fit all of my friends, and most importantly: it's fun. Yes you heard it right here folks, I like Back 4 Blood despite being aware of all it's faults and imperfections because it's still fun. And because of that, I will spend what free time I have to talk about this game and what I appreciate from it.

First, let's talk about the apocalypse

As we all know from the Left 4 Dead comparisons everyone throws around, the setting to Back 4 Blood is a plague apocalypse. Notice that I use the word "plague" instead of the straight "zombie" apocalypse because there are almost no zombie apocalypse in mass media anymore. Ever since the year 2010-something everyone just shied away from it like last month's fast fashion.

"LOOK AT HIM STILL USING CONVENTIONAL UNDEAD ZOMBIES! LOOK AT HOW MUCH OF A SIMPLETON HE IS!"

And with the traditional undead zombies declining in popularity, rose the new hotness that I can only describe as scientifically induced zombiefication, in which the "zombie" is caused by a scientific phenomenon like fungus, virus, bacterial infection, etc. Popular examples including 28 Days Later, The Walking Dead, and of course, Left 4 Dead. In the world of Back 4 Blood, the cause of the zombie mutations is an entity called the Worm which is said to proliferate in the waters and could mutate human flesh into all sorts of malformed abominations. And it's up to us, the cleaners of Fort Hope to thin their numbers and save the future. Or at least our group's future

But who is our group? And what are the Cleaners?

As mentioned before, we play as Cleaners. Essentially a ragtag group of survivors from Fort Hope sent out to execute missions such as community outreach, resupplying, and more often than not, blowing shit up. The characters available to us ranges from a soldier, a doctor, a delinquent, a prepper, two war veterans, and two nutjobs each with their own unique craziness. The variation is more than just salad dressing mind you, as each character comes with their own character and party skills. Such as the doctor that affects how well you can heal and how resistant the party is to long-term health damage, The prepper that can somehow turn the zombies into pinatas of ammo and grenades, and a young man whose only purpose is to annoy me every time he opens his fucking mouth.

"No seriously, Jesus Christ, just shut the fuck up Evangelo"

On top of the skills that comes with each unique character, you also have to build your own personal skill with the Skill Card system. It's essentially buffs in the form of cards that you form into a 15-card deck filled with multiple buffs and/or debuffs that will combine to fill a certain role within the team. The cards are unlocked via an in-game currency called copper (boy am I glad they didn't charge us micro-transactions for those) and you earn copper by playing the game. The system sounds pretty okay on paper, since you unlock your skills quite organically and slowly build yourself up as you play. But as you know things that sounds alright on paper might just be fairy farts in the real world, and the skill card system is no exception. The downside is that the skill cards are unlocked via packs that will randomly spawn on the shop. So if you're in a hurry to unlock certain cards, you can take a cactus up the arse and get fucked.

Wait. We've veered too much into gameplay territory now. Let me actually switch the topic to gameplay

It's no secret that the gameplay is very much similar to Left 4 Dead, so any attempt to explain the gameplay is a waste of time because everyone knows Left 4 Dead at this point. Its simple formula of "move from the starting point to the finish zone while dodging obstacles in the form of zombies" has been tried and tested for so many years now that it can almost vote. Attentive readers might have realized that I didn't put the words "killing zombies" in there because it wasn't really the main objective in L4D. They're more nuisance in the form of very bitey assholes, not unlike a teething baby that just learned to run.

"Yeah, not so tough now are you?"

Aside from them however there also the special infected that are so famous that they don't need an introduction. What I need to emphasize however is how good their designs are. I'm talking about each of them are so visually and audibly distinct, and how their roles are so synergistic with each other that they are still downright terrifying to face even with a tight 4 man group.

As the self-proclaimed "spiritual successor" of Left 4 Dead, and how the tagline for the game is "From the creators of Left 4 Dead", one would rightly assume that the game would at least maintain such quality. A thing that they unfortunately, did not manage to do with this game. Dishonorable mention goes to the special infected that can be very hard to discern unless the game spells it out for me. Not to mention that their roles aren't very distinct from one another that they all just blur out into "collective nuisance" for me. Overall, such a letdown from the people that made L4D.

Before we go to the final say, let me list the good things I really like from this game

Oh my god, it's the weapon system. The way the weapons handle, the customizations, the brutal melee weapons, the satisfying OOMPH some of the weapons have, and aiming down the sights? Good lord killing zombies haven't been this cathartic since COD Zombies. This is one of the reason why I think this game is still fun despite all it's shortcomings. The other reason? Nothing else except the fact that it's very much competent. It already has a satisfying gameplay loop that could carry the game by itself. All we need it just for the devs to keep this putrid ball of cadaver rolling.

And as we are now in the current future of 2024, we know that the Developers have pulled out like a couple of teenagers fucking on a risky day. This post by the Developers (almost exactly a year ago, by the way) has cemented the death of this game. The lack of community modding means that the game will stay the same as it was until the servers inevitably close. It truly has been the final nail in the undead coffin. The devs did say that they were gonna "be Back, bigger, bolder and better than ever!", but seeing how they treated this promising IP? Might as well get the phone ready to call CPS

In Brief

I'd still play it. No matter how much shit the community says about this game, I'd still play it given the chance. I still truly believe it's a competent game that just need a few fixes. I dare the developers to get off their ass and actually put community modding and/or map maker to the game. If that happens, I'm willing to bet one of my testicles that the game will re-flourish and we're going to start seeing a lot of new fan-made content and fixes it sorely needed.

But we will not get it of course. Not because the devs are lazy or incompetent, but I'm thinking it's because there is no money to be made in implementing it. We still remember the backlash about "Paid mods" back in 2015 so monetization is a very tricky issue. Apart from that, the devs will just look greedy by doing so. And trust me, Turtle Rock Studios cannot afford to tarnish their reputation any more than this. Not after Evolve

22/02/2024

[kapanbenernya]

Super Cub -- Why I Like this Anime

Let's first get something out of the way: I'm not big on animes; I am more of a manga man. Settle down folks, and let me articulate my point for a few minutes.

First, I like that manga can be accessed leisurely. Meaning that I can just sit anywhere with a book or some scanlation and I can put it down and pick it back up anytime I want without allocating a special schedule in my day just to sit down and watch something.

Second, I think the voice acting in animes can be a bit much. With all due respect to the English or the original dub: it can be cringe. Yes I know it's a great moment in life when the protagonist du jour finally awakens the power of gangbang and unleashes this legendary super move that he made the fuck up just fuckin now, but for the love of God you don't have to scream like that.

And now that I have elaborated on those two points, it's time to seal it up in a bin, throw then out, and flush em away, because it is now time for me to gush about this 2021 anime that I adore: Super Cub.

So what's Super Cub about?

No it's not about a furry that awakens superpowers, it's about a girl in a small town named Koguma. As the show says verbatim she has no parents, no hobby, no friends, no money, and no goals in life. She essentially is nothing but a husk at this point just trudging through life. One day, she bought the titular "Super Cub", a Japanese low cc motor scooter. And suddenly she finds her life changing slowly but consistently.

Koguma, and her new whip

And then suddenly the scooter talks and transports her to the scooter isekai filled with motorbikes and adventure right?

Wrong. Nothing happens except "girl with bicycle" is now "girl with scooter". No magical powers, no talking scooters, no secret assassin, and no sudden tiddies. The anime is so mundane that the only "crisis arc" in the first episode is just the protagonist being stranded at midnight because she ran out of gas. Apparently it didn't cross her mind that her bike that runs on combustion engine needed fuel to run, or that she needed to refill it. The second episode started with Koguma kind of wanting to brag to her classmates about her new bike, except she decided against it. And her decision was correct since when her classmates found out that all she owned was a manky old bike, she got nothing but jeers.

Goddammit Koguma, does anything nice ever happen to you? Ever?

And this is the point the protagonist snaps and the evil that's sealed inside the cursed bike helps her exact revenge! Mwahahahha...?

Also wrong. And I hope you'd stop interrupting me, little voice in my head.

One positive thing actually happened to her. One of her classmate named Reiko is actually super into manky old bikes. And that's when Koguma finally found her first friend. The friendship itself also doesn't feel forced or rushed, it started from small awkward talks up until the point Koguma stayed at Reiko's house and finally feels like they're comfortable with each other. They didn't just automatically become best friends and raise a gang of super cubbers together.

Nope, not in the anime. They could not afford the hair gel

That's it? This shit sounds like it fuckin sucks

Maybe if you compare it to high-octane production these days, but I believe this slow paced next-to-nothing-happens is exactly the stuff that made me fell in love with the anime. The closest comparison that I can make is Yuru Camp if it was even MORE slowly paced. And sometimes you don't want some fast-paced action, you want something comfy to wind down from the daily hustle and bustle of life. And to me, something like Super Cub is absolutely perfect.

The other thing I like about this anime is how real and sincere it feels. The super cub didn't change Koguma in any way shape or form, Koguma changed herself. It was her that decided to pick up the bike, it was her that decided to reciprocate Reiko's friendship, and it was her choice to improve upon her life. The bike simply enables her to do so.

In Brief

I'm just gonna say it straight: I like it. I like the beautiful still shots of the scenery, I love the occasional classical music they put in the quiet scenes, and I love how grounded and heartfelt the characters' motivation feels. I also love how the anime seems to have an implicit moral message that "Life can change". If you feel you are stuck with your life going nowhere, try to make a positive change; no matter how small, no matter how slow it takes, as long as it changes you for the better. I mean who knows, it might be the thing that will finally take you where you wanted to be.

With your Cub, you can go anywhere.

7/7/2023

[kapanbenernya]

Fuck it, this is a blog now

Yep, I didn’t really have anymore games or things to review or talk about anymore these days. Ever since I started this tumblr, I’ve been having less and less free time that I can allocate to dumb shit like this. I’ve been getting more and more serious responsibilities at work and I intend to take them seriously. This is how some people might say “real life happened” kind of thing.

You see, my father had a family business and I am currently next in line to inherit it. It’s not a bad business but let’s just say the systems in place are still manual and I have problems replacing it with newer systems. I can just solve half my problem by hiring an IT guy to make a software for me and it’ll knock hours off my workload, but currently it costs more than I am ready to pay. It’s not that hard work, mind you, it just takes a lot of time due to it being manual.

Meanwhile on the video games side of things, I think my will to play just dried out. The list of games I’m hyped or even just looking forward to playing has been steadily decreasing with the years. Is it the quality of newer games and how they’re just live service grind-a-thon games designed as a vacuum that sucks up your time and money? Is it how the price of games have been through the roof recently and how $70 - $90 games are now the normal price? Is it because that I have less free time and now prefer spending it on other hobbies or just hanging out with friends? Believe me, I wish I could stop pondering and give you a definite answer instead of going “all of the above” but this is just how it is.

I feel like all of these seemingly disconnected happenings just converged into one event and made me have less interest in video games overall. I mean I still play them, it’s just that I no longer play them like I used to.

Speaking of games that I still play, currently it's: Persona 5, Back 4 Blood, Fate GO, and Arknights. And these are the only games which I think I can talk about, and will touch briefly on this post.

Persona 5 was an old fave of course, I played it back in my PS4 days. Cleared it once, tried the new game plus for a few weeks and suddenly never touched it again. I'm currently on the same streak with Persona 5 Royal which came to XGP/PC a few months back. I've finished the base game plus the DLC contents, and is currently stuck on NG+ because I couldn't be bothered to continue. How quaint.

Back 4 Blood was a surprise for me. When I first heard of B4B, I thought of it as just "L4D with ADS" which I think could hinder the gameplay since L4D's "rush from point A to point B" gameplay doesn't mix well with the rather slow and deliberate approach of ADS. Plus there was the rocky launch, bugs, lack of new content during the first year, not to mention this video which pretty much slammed B4B for 26 straight minutes. The video completely addressed everything that is wrong with B4B, although I am still hesitant to use the word "wrong" with B4B. I personally don't think the game is "bad", I believe B4B's only one true sin is that it wasn't L4D levels of polish. Despite every problem mentioned above, me and my friends are still having an absolute blast with this game and I have warmed up to it because of that.

As for Arknights and FGO... well, they're rather different from all the games I've talked about on this blog. For a start, they're what's called a gacha game. For those of you that don't know, gacha game is basically a game that involves using currency (real money or in-game currency) to receive a random in-game items, depending on the game systems. For Arknights you get operators, and for FGO you get servants. Same shit, different names. I promise I'll talk about all the different gacha games I've played over the years now. They won't get their own post since they have a lot of similarities though.

Anyway, that's it, that's about all that you can expect to see in the future. Those, and any random topics I wanna talk about but can't find any ears to which I will burden with stories.

[kapanbenernya]

God of War -- BOY

Well here it is lads, another one of those elusive PS4 exclusives. This one however, is one I've been kinda looking forward to, unlike HZD. It's because I used to own a PS2, and I also owned God of War 1 and 2, and holy balls if they weren't some good games. I happened to miss God of War 3 because I didn't get to play it in the short moment that I owned a PS3, but I've seen all the important bits on the net, so I think I'm ready for GoW 4. But it seems that I needn't have done that because GoW 4 is not THAT connected to the past events of the series, and all the important tidbits are explained in-game.

Now let me warn you from the start that I'm afraid God of War isn't going to get a fair assessment from me because I happen to be playing it together with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. And for the time being, Sekiro has got the advantage because I'm a sucker for FromSoftware Games and I can play it on my PC without having to turn on my PS4 which is hooked to my brother's monitor because my monitor doesn't support HDMI (yeah, it's rather old). So let's see if Kratos can duke it out with one hand tied to his loincloth

First, let me tell you bout the story

The story follows Kratos, currently living a peaceful and secluded life in the woods of some Nordic woods after he's ran out of gods to kill in Greece. We soon learned that he has now retired from the all the God killing business and has settled down with his family. But since happy happy family timey doesn't make a God of War game, of course shit's gonna get fucky real quick. I mean the game opens with Kratos getting interrupted by a drunkard after doing a funeral for his wife. If that doesn't spell out an incoming rage-induced adventure right out the front door, I don't know what will. So since Kratos' wife had a last will which is to scatter her ashes somewhere that entails hiking a mountain, you can kinda guess where the direction of the game goes: it's bring your son to an impromptu deicide session! This time, the norse pantheon of Gods!

Okay, now that the story's out of the way, I guess I have to talk about the gameplay

This is it, isn't it? The part where basically everyone on the internet angrily slammed their keyboard like it owes them money. Usually their point goes like "Where is the OLD combat? Why is the camera so close? OOH look at those red arrows on the back! The old Kratos doesn't need those!". And well, I agree to some part. I mean the old GoW games did put a lot of emphasis to the fast and brutal combat where kratos can swing, slam, and rip his enemies while flipping around the battlefield in search for unfortunate enemies to turn them into red orbs. So you can see why switching to a 3rd person camera juuuust behind Kratos can be a bit jarring. The wide angle of the old GoW means you are aware of all enemies on the screen and what they are doing, and that you are basically free to buzz about where you want. Being on 3rd person cam means that you can only see a portion of them and that your movement is a bit more limited. This makes the combat feels a lot more restricted compared to the old free flow combat, and basically what made people go "this is NOT God of War".

But let's try to distance ourselves from the old god of war and give GOW4 a leg to stand on its own. Is the combat still good? Yes, but it does takes some getting used to. I have to admit: even after playing it from start to finish I still haven't fully grasped the combat. I still couldn't beat some of the Valkyries even on normal difficulty, where previously I could beat normal bosses just fine in the old GoW combat. Is this a sign that the combat isn’t as good? Of course not, this just means that I’m a scrub and have no business playing a video game.

So if the combat is not as good, why do we keep up with it?

Well turns out GoW does have a secret weapon: a dynamic story. You can feel progress and see things change, unlike Sekiro, in which the only thing that changes is my frustration and willpower to play the game. You see how Kratos treats Atreus differently at at the start of the game where he's basically one quip away from strangling the little fuck himself compared to the later portion of the game where he more or less sees him as an actual companion instead of a talking overgrown sperm. This isn't something that you get in a lot of games, especially not the old God of War games. If Kratos had a child in the old God of War (one that isn't already dead, mind you) the only interaction we will get it a QTE where you just yeet that bitch gone and fuck another round of prostitutes.

Now that the technical shit's out of the way, I'm going to put some REAL personal gripes

God of War, you've changed. This time it's not about the gameplay or the story, it's the whole theming and tone of the game. Gone is the brutal Kratos that solves every problem by turning it into a bloody mess. For example, Remember how in the Alfheim level where we gotta solve some riddle to advance the setpiece? Well in God of War 2 the riddle was bash man's head into pillar and let the blood flow. So what the fuck happened? God of War has always been about the fantasy Greek architectures, the mythical beasts and the Greek gods, and how you're gonna kill those mythical creatures in those majestic places. It's about Kratos angrily going on about his revenge to the whole pantheon of gods and everyone who happens to breathe around him. So tell me, how did THAT turned into bring-your-son-to-work day? How did it turn into a Naughty Dog game where your character fumbles through sights of nature while the plot just meanders around to breed more sub-plots? I mean imagine if they made a new Devil May Cry where Dante's grown old.

Oh wait...

Okay how about… Imagine if Dante's now stuck to a wheelchair running a retirement home named "Devil May Shit in Pants" telling people about devil triggers and the pulling thereof?

Well okay, maybe you say "God of War has changed, deal with it", and maybe you're right. Maybe the change in story and theme is to reflect the state of who Kratos is now. No longer is he the angry god killer that reacts to everything with unbridled rage. He's now a family man, a grieving widower, and a not-so exemplary father figure. He's old and more vulnerable, and it shows when he fights: he's visibly exhausted and panting after certain fights, he no longer pulls off the crazy rip and tear motions, and he now submits to dodge rolling away like every other pleb. Or maybe it's because games with violence, gore, and gratuitous moneyshot kill-cam has lost it's value and simply became the norm. Just another thing mass media plops out day in day out. And so, the dev chooses to explore the other side of being mature that's never before expressed in video games. About responsibility and what it means to be a dad on a field trip with your child to kill every motherfucker on the planet.

Wait, isn't that basically The Last of Us? Well never mind, then!

In Brief

For you old fans of the GoW series, chances are you wanna know if GoW 4 carries the heritage of the old series or--like Kratos himself-- buried it in shame and never speak of it again. Well, we've already established that the combat isn't the same as the old one, so the only leg it's got is the story section. Whether or not you enjoy GoW 4 will depend on how invested you are in the father and son story it tells. I personally disliked it at first but gently warmed up to it and ended up more excited to finish GoW than Sekiro. Although to be fair, it's only because finishing GoW does not feel like I'm breaking a wall with only my limp dick.

27/12/2022

Trivia: This review was started all the way back in 2018. And for comparison, the sequel to GoW4 (GoW Ragnarok) has already been released months prior to this review. I am a failure and I will one day stand in front of God and be responsible for all of His time I have wasted

[kapanbenernya]

Coffee — and My Love-Hate Relationship with It

A bit of background: I have never been a daily coffee drinker. In fact, I am never a daily caffeine consumer at all. Now, this might be shocking to most of you caffeine addicts out there that someone could survive an 8 to 14 working hours daily and not even dependent on an energy boosting liquid. And what’s even more shocking is my father’s relationship with coffee, which I will tell you in a second.

But first, let me tell you about my opinion on coffee

Let’s start with how I had my first taste of coffee. It was stealing sips at my father’s cup of coffee as a kid; an experience that I believe is shared by some of you. I tasted it, and I loved it. It was creamy, sweet, smooth, and not at all bitter. Plus there is a taste of what I can only describe as a certain taste of deepness, a taste of something dark and earthy. This is of course the taste of coffee itself, but at that time I barely had any notion what coffee is—let alone what it tastes like. So naturally I asked my father “hey what is this drink you have every morning? I think it’s delicious and I want some”. He gave me some, and so I decided that I liked coffee.

Fast forward to now, and I still love the taste of coffee. Canned coffee, instant coffee, fresh brewed coffee, Mochas, Cappuccinos, Lattes, etc. I'm also interested in the many many ways to brew coffee. So much so that I purchased my own V60 drip brewer. I've tried it a few times, but I still find ways to fuck up in the blooming stage of the brewing. I always end up with a channel. In retrospect, if I want a micro brewer that I can use in about 10 minutes flat every morning I should have went with an AeroPress. But I chose the V60 because there's a little bit of skill and (arguably) art involved with it, and that's why I love it and also why I'm not in any hurry to change it.

Well that's the love side of the coffee, what about the hate?

The hate is--surprisingly-- what made a lot of people love coffee in the first place: the caffeine. That's right, it's weird enough that I am not dependent on caffeine in this modern day and age, it is also the face that I am quite sensitive on caffeine. One cup on the first day will go down easy, and will not affect my physiology whatsoever. But if I dare to drink another cup the following day, my body will go fucking haywire. I will be laying down, wide awake past midnight and my heart will blow like a war drum. And what follows is more and more days ruined because of one single hiccup in my sleep schedule.

So that's it then? No caffeine for you? At all?

Actually not true. I have found out through experience that drinking up to three cups of tea a day makes absolutely no impact whatsoever. This might be attributed to the fact that tea has less caffeine in it than coffee, as stated by this article. Also the fact that the tea in my house isn't made that strongly and is steeped multiple times a day, so maybe it's just diluted to hell and back. The downside? I don't feel the positive effects of caffeine at all. While drinking coffee does fuck me up like a spike strip on a busy highway, I do feel that caffeine induced increase in concentration and productivity throughout my day. A thing that I did not notice at all when I replaced it with tea. So that's the tradeoff: I get to drink something not boring whilst not fucking up my sleep schedule, but in exchange I get almost none of the benefits of caffeine.

In Brief

Like most of the things in my life, I can only summarize my relationship with coffee as "I love coffee, but coffee does not love me back". But I still have no intention of giving up coffee at all because not only do I love the taste, but I also absolutely adore the art and care that's involved in the brewing of coffee. I mean if I just care about caffeine and flavor I can probably supplant it by drinking tea infused with dirt from my mud flaps, but I daresay that there is absolutely no romance in dunking a bag of leaves in hot water. So maybe I'll just get decafs or tank the agonizing times it'll give me like an abusive spouse. I swear I am not a masochist.

07/09/2022

[kapanbenernya]

Yes, I’m still here -- No, I’m not dead yet

That’s right folks. It’s been 2 years since my last post and it’s been 2 years since I last opened this site in general. In those times, I’ve been busy working, connecting with family and friends, and still playing games in my free time. Admittedly, I feel more human than I’ve ever been the past few years. But happier as I may be, I still feel like something is missing. I still feel like I want to do something that involves a creative process.

So in the past few months, I’ve been thinking about trying some cooking recipes, re-learning the guitar, re-learning photography, write game reviews again, or even do something new entirely. What matters is that I get to flex and train my creative muscles again. So for a few months I mulled and considered about “oh you’re working full time now, what about your job?” or “oh will you even have the time to do it” or “what about your motivation? you did quit once, you know” and most importantly, “are you sure this is really what’s missing from your life?”. I spent a few agonizing months just stewing in my thoughts until I realized that I went back to my bad habit of just thinking and considering without any action at all. A habit that have impeded a lot of my aspirations to a halt. That is, until I found this video from Adam Ragusea.

Really? The guy that seasons his X and not his Y? What about him?

In his video, I find that his question of “why we do what we do” really shakes the fundamentals of how I view my own activities and how I do them. With such a simple sentence, he invites us to ponder the purpose of our mundane activities and an almost ritual-like habit it forms. He asks us the question of “why are you here and doing this thing?” and it made me reflect on my habits for the past few years, and most importantly: it reminds me of why I started writing in the first place. I started writing because I wanted to have fun. I write video game reviews because I love video games, and I want to talk about them, but I realize that no one in my social circle should be burdened about long-winded one-sided conversation in a topic only I am interested about. And I loved the feeling of peppering it with witty jokes and accompanying pictures to help make it interesting to read. And I do it because I actually love to write. And also because it’s the easiest medium that—in theory— requires very little in terms of skill and investment.

So here we are! 2 years later and a renewed spirit, I’m back to writing again. What am I going to write? Anything! Over the past few years I’ve re-discovered my passion for cooking and how accessible it is for me. I’m also still interested about video games, and I have such a huge backlog of video games I want to talk about. So yeah, expect me to drop in sometime to talk about a slightly awkward topic that I don’t talk about much in public: my favorite things.

Cheers!

2/9/2022

[kapanbenernya]

A Hat in Time -- Cute as Heck

Yeah, I don't know where to start on this one. I mean I did liked Spyro: Year of the Dragon and that similar muppet video game when I was a kid. But I was never really into the 3D collect-a-thon, because the PS1 was the only console I had at the time, and most of those games were on the Nintendo 64. Hell, I didn't even know there was a Nintendo 64.

I told you, I was a dumb fuck when I was a kid

I picked this up because a friend kinda recommended it to me. I asked him about this game, and he said "it's pretty good, but the light-hearted-fun kind of good". Well shit, that's something I haven't heard in a long time to describe a video game, what with everything gotta be "gritty" and "realistic" but they end up edgy and depressing. After all of those things considered, I thought to myself, why not?

Let's have some light-hearted fun!

The first thing I noticed when I googled it is that it was a kickstarter project. I'm not gonna lie, I was kind of pessimistic. What, with your Mighty No. 9 and Yooka-Laylee ending up being one of the most expensive disappointment in the history of kickstarted games. But between the two, Mighty No. 9 was the one that caught my attention the most. I mean Keiji Inafune was in the team behind it. And that guy was the father of Megaman. This is like if BombTag was made by the guys who made Bomberman but also being a lot more shit than the current version of BombTag. So you can clearly see why it was a cruel twist of fate that it turned out to be crap, it had all the pieces and all the money it needed to be the homecoming diva of the year that will receive all the scholarships, and look how it ended up: a 60-pound crack-whore that sucks dick by the nickel. Well I decided then that wallowing and speculating about how this game might be another pile of shit is just wasting my goddamn time, so I moved on to finally playing the game.

The first time I started it, I wasn’t impressed

I’m just gonna be honest and upfront about this, I think the graphics sucked. I understand that you’re angry, but this is my paragraph, so shut the fuck up. Ok, how do I explain this? I mean the graphics are cel-shaded, which actually compliments the theme this game was going for, I’ll give it that much. But it’s fucking bad, even for indie. There are clipping issues everywhere, shading that went crazy and mis-matched, and a few more minor issues. They didn’t disturb the game though, not at all. I just think that if you’re making a game that’s on kickstarter and a few projects like this one has failed miserably, maybe don’t make it look like Wind Waker went a few rounds with a semi truck. But again, as I have said, it does not affect the game in any way, just a minor complaint from me really. The graphics aren’t the strength of this game anyway.

To be fair, graphics wasn’t Wind Waker’s strong suit either

To me, the strength of the game lies in the gameplay

The story is that you are some alien kid in a spaceship fueled by thingies called Time Pieces. On your way home some mafia guy asked you to pay the toll, in a blue suit, in outer space, without rockets. You gotta admire his dedication. Anyway, he fucks up your ship and as a result all your time pieces got scattered across different themed worlds. And thus begins your journey of collecting all 40 macguffins so you can kickstart your magic spaceship-home-base-thingy! Now please relocate your eyes back to it’s original place after rolling it so far backwards from hearing the sub-par theming of the game. Don’t worry, I promise everything gets better, because I will finally talk about the gameplay in the next paragraph

The gameplay at it's core is a simple 3D platformer. You jump, you slide, and you attack enemies. Pretty basic shit on the surface level, if not deceptively so. Thing is, there are moves that you can get from a combination of jumps, slides, and wall hops that can get you further than your little minds can handle. And like it or not, this is a thing that you have to master becuase the platforming will only get more and more challenging as you progress throuh the levels, especially the secret levels that can be hard as balls. Thankfully, they usually teach you how to do things by introducing a mechanic in a story first, and only after then do they allow you to go wild.

The second part of the gameplay is the objective, which is to collect all the scattered time pieces thingy to re-fuel your spaceship. This is achieved through a set goal depending on the levels of the game. And since there are 5 unique worlds in total, each with levels of their own, you can bet your ass that there’s a lot of gameplay variety. This is in one hand, a good thing since a lot of variation can be a guarantee that you will not get bored by doing the same thing again and again. I guess this is a thing that comes from being a kickstarted game. This dev guy wants this, that dev person wants another thing, and the everybody just frankenstein’d all the different concepts into one big ball and hope for the best. Thankfully, it worked in favor of the game, since the interchanging themes and mechanics means that every level feels fresh and novel. Although I must say, this also results in one particular level that’s very different in tone from the rest of the levels. I mean for comparison, In one level I was in a town full of bald Mafia men, pushing them off cliffs and ledges for fun. Meanwhile, in the next level I was being chased by the lordly ghost woman in a haunted mansion. Now, since the other levels are anything BUT scary, I thought that this horror-themed level is just children level of scary. You know, like your talking bones or bed sheet ghosts. What I didn’t expect was a sincerely terrifying level that made me genuinely scared. 

Wow, I never expected that my pants could be so brown.

I gotta tell you though, that level wasn’t some kind of genius design or some avant-garde breakthrough. It’s just your generic scary enemy chasey chasey sequence you’ve seen a million times. It’s just that you can really feel the horror because you didn't expect it to be there. It’s like walking into Disneyland to find everything has been replaced by spiders and mickey had hung himself on the main attraction.

One thing that I felt is that the game is very short. 25 levels in total (excluding the DLC) with bonus missions for extra time pieces that amounts to 40. That may seem to be a huge number, but trust me it isn’t. The reason why is because the game is a bit of a cakewalk. The bosses themselves aren’t hard, except for the purple ghost guy that can spam AoE attacks like it’s going out of style. After playing it fully, I get the feeling that I’m not quite the intended audience for this game. I feel like A Hat in Time is made to be played by children. It’s just a feeling I had though.

In Brief

You know what I felt when I played A Hat in Time? Joy. Pure innocent child-like joy that leaves a grin on your face. The kind of grin you used to get when you played in the yard with your friends or family. It’s a different kind of joy from the triumph when you defeat a hard boss in Dark Souls or when you get the top frag in shooter games. It’s warm and optimistic and leaves you content. If you’re a kid looking for a good kiddie game, this one’s for you. If you’re just looking for some good old fashioned nostalgic platformer game, this one’s also for you.

Hey we don't judge things over here my guy. A game's a game, and what matters is you enjoy what you're playin'.

[kapanbenernya]

DiRT Rally -- DORIFUTO NO NO NO

I've never been a believer in superstitions, magics, or the occult. But if one day I happen to come across a shooting star, I would like to make a wish so that a time machine can be a real thing that's functional within my lifetime so I can go back in time, punch past me in the face, and ask myself "What the fuck were you thinking? Why did you buy this game?". Granted, it was my friend that invited me to buy DiRT Rally on the basis that it can be played together for shits and giggles to tide us over until the next MHW updates. But really, what was I thinking? The last racing game I touched within years was Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and the most recent game that fits the bill is Euro Truck Simulator 2. And comparing ETS2 to DiRT Rally is like comparing me to Mick Jagger. One's big, slow, and mundane, while the other is flashy, popular, and probably involves cocaine at some point.

Oh but whatever, you don't come to me to listen about my story, you come here for my assessments about games, so here we go. Consider this to be what happens when a rally scouting agent got so piss-drunk that he thinks signing up a truck driver as a rally driver is a good idea. Hmm, actually let's roll with that, let's do up with some role-play to keep things interesting.

So let me present you the story of how a truck driver's world went upside down after being signed up as a rally driver, starring Mr. Johnny Tanktop

Hello there, my name is Johnny Tanktop. I am a truck driver and part-time wifebeater. I was doing my usual round of stout at the local drinking hole when I noticed a guy had been eyeing me for a while. Finally after his fourth pint, he brisked his way over and sat on the empty stool beside me. My first thought was "there goes my bum's virginity". He spoke to me, and I soon find out that he's a rally team manager. Phew! I guess my bum will stay unsullied for a while. He's been going around scouting for fresh talent and I seem to fit the bill. Actually about half the fucking country would fit it too, since all he said he needed was ”a good pair of both limbs and a driving license”. Since he promised me good earnings with skills I'm already familiarized for a long time, I decided to take up his offer.

The next day, I went to the place he promised he’d meet me. It’s a run-down old garage next door to a grocery store. “This does not seem promising”, I thought to myself. I knocked on the door a few times, and he came to the door to let me in. To my surprise, he had nothing in his garage but an old computer hooked up to an even older monitor on a desk. He told me that he's about to teach me on how to be the best rally driver ever. When I pointed out to him the lack of automobile, he just laughs and pointed to the computer. Turns out it's filled with video clips of rally tutorials. You what? Are you really expecting me to be able to drive rough terrain at breakneck speeds after watching 5 videos? By that logic I should've been crowned king of the world from all the YouTube videos I've watched, along with everyone else! But whatever, no use whining now, might as well try to absorb whatever knowledge I can before I inevitably crash and burn, literally. 

The videos are helpful in the same way as showing a presentation about genetic splicing to grade-schoolers. It's advanced shit with mumbo jumbo up the ass that you can't help but think that it was meant for people with way more knowledge than you, but you're supposed to nod your head and pretend that you know about the subject matter anyway. I mean you can tell me all about weight distribution, traction, pitch, yaw, but they're very much useless unless I feel it myself while driving. Like for example, what the hell is a "Scandinavian Flick"?

Personally, that's what I call "finger-banging a nordic woman" 

These videos does not help me in any way whatsoever because these are all theories. You know what would help me? A practice track. A real one, the one with cones, the one with courses focused on certain aspects of driving, the one with an automobile instead of a 14-inch CRT monitor. I believe a practice track is super important, and not having one is going against common sense. I mean what? Are rally drivers born with a stick shift in hand and starts drifting in their baby strollers by the age of 4? But after all has been said, I noticed that the manager has already fallen asleep about halfway through my rant. I woke him up, and somehow all he took from it is that I'm ready to race. Seeing how there's nothing else to do, I begrudgingly agreed on it anyway.

It's on to professional career it is

So the boss man gave me a set amount of cash. I used the majority of it to buy the shittiest car from 1960 from a nearby dealer. I notice that there are loads of varieties of cars, just teasing me with cutting-edge technology, 6 gears, and a chassis not made out of repurposed biscuit tin. I think this is a tactic to tempt me into working hard so one day I can afford those hot rides, but I don't care. I then meet up with the manager and turns out he's already enlisted me into a rally in Greece. He told me to get ready, but all I can hear is "I've chosen this lovely countryside road as your grave spot. Don't forget to sign the insurance papers, also can you tell me your next of kin?". But you know what? I'm in too deep this time. I've gone and bought a car, I watched all the videos, might as well pretend I'm professional now. Hearts and minds, right? 

Well few days later and I'm actually in Greece. As far as I can tell, this is some real shit that's going on. They got tents, officials, I even got a faceless stranger to fill in as my co-driver. Hang on now, shouldn't my co-driver be someone I know? Shouldn't one of my friends that I've trained and bonded with be the co-driver? Also shouldn't you teach me what the fuck his signals fucking meant? What the fuck is '90 turn left actual'? What the hell is a 'joker'? Why do we have to take it? I'm not in a fucking bat-mobile, am I? Is rally driving just a part of the Batman training program?

I think I know where this is going

I mean the 2 minute tutorial is unfair enough, but withholding some information is just fucking with us. You know what? Fuck. This. I'm gonna drive anyway. Whatever happens, happens. So off I go to the starting line in my car. Helmets on, seat-belts buckled, next-of-kin notified, light turns green, and pedal to the metal. I was in control for a while until my robotic co-driver spouts more of his nonsense. All I can do is try to comprehend his speech and wing it. Three more turns and there I was; face down, ass up, and holding on to dear life. Although the officials might've been fucking Merlin and Gandalf because my flipped car got teleported back into the upright position and neither me or my co-driver suffered any damage. I got out of the car, about to see my manager and give him a piece of my mind, but soon I found out that he's nowhere to be found. All I can find is a ticket back home and word that he's took off to find newer talent. With a heavy heart, I decide to retire immediately, fly back home, and do what I do best: trucking and occasional spouse-beating

Well, that about summarizes my experience with the single player content, now let's talk about the reason I bought the game: multiplayer

So here we are, me and my 2 friends, about to have a race together. I asked them about how the game's been treating them so far, and turns out it's the first time they launched the game and that I'm the one with the most experience. Ho ho ho! I can already imagine how this night will turn out! Instead of one inexperienced driver crashing his car, there will be THREE inexperienced driver crashing their cars. But whatever, we tried it anyway... With the expected results. Turns out we are all terrible and have none the slightest knowledge on how to drive rally. It was madness! If this was a real rally event, I could already imagine the people watching this bursting into tears with laughter at this amateur hour. I'm sure we just became the three biggest idiots on the race track. There's one guy who always gets a time penalty over 30 seconds, another guy that always has one of his tires flew off no matter what cars he used, and then there's me: going as slow as chauffeuring an old lady with a heart condition through a crowded school zone. But the funniest thing is that I still win because the others fuck up more. At least that was the case until they find the brilliant strategy of ramming me off the goddamn road, those wonderful human beings.

Aside from fucking around on the track however, there is nothing else entertaining we could find. I mean there's only like 2 tracks available, and crashing ourselves silly can only carry so much gameplay. There are actually more tracks that we can unlock, but unfortunately, to unlock it, we have to progress through the campaign, which means doing that sign reading type of rally that we can't do. And that means we can't progress any further because we aren't actually interested in the gameplay to begin with. So we all said "what the hell" and promptly forget about the game and never speak of it again.

In Brief

It only takes 2 hours of gameplay for me to know what kind of game this is. This is a game for enthusiasts (and by enthusiasts, I mean maniacs). The kind of guy that owns steering wheel controllers they welded into a deck while sitting on a repurposed leather seat from a Mercedes. The kind of guy that wanks to pictures of cars, all the while praising the angle in which it opens its doors. The kind of guy that knows all about your engine problem but lacks the mechanical skill to actually fix it. The kind of guy that brags about his fastest lap times in the game but has to bribe the DMV after the 22nd failed attempt on his driving license. 

Slamming aside, that's really all I can say about the game, because this game simply isn't for me. I do not own the necessary knowledge or passion to pass judgement to this game. So take my words as mere winds passing through a valley. I really should've ended it with a race-themed metaphor, but I don't care.

27/11/2019

[kapanbenernya]

Path of Exile -- Daddy Diablo’s Little Hellspawn

 Do you remember Diablo? If you're a guy that's been playing the PC when LAN was still the best method to play together since the internet is still an undependable piece of shit it was before puberty hit it hard and turned it into digital cocaine, you probably do. That's right, how can you forget about Blizzo's isometric dungeon crawler? I still remember my first hit of Diablo II, it was in the computer lab of my middle school. I never tried it again since until my college days, when me and my 3 friends basically rushed through the story in 3 days straight, all while cramped together in a 3 x 4 metres room. I'll spare you the gnarly details, but one of them involved laying my legs on the bathroom floor just to make some room.

So, um, let me change the topic here: Do you LIKE Diablo? Well if you remember it and are still playing it's sequels to this day, I'd say you do. And you know who else likes Diablo?

These guys!

That's right, they like Diablo so much they made their own Diablo. They cloned Diablo, mutated its genes and gave birth to their own brand of grindy isometric RPG: Path of Exile and Torchlight, respectively. 

I've actually played Torchlight before, the first and the second. The first one was very simple: 1 town, 2 pets, 3 classes, and like, a billion enemies. The second one was more fleshed out with more towns, more classes, but I didn't like it as much as the first. I liked the first one because it doesn't try to emulate Diablo that much. It's got a more laid back cartoony style, which sets it apart from the competition because it's always demonic horrors with these kind of games. Don't wanna swing too far from under Daddy Diablo's hairy ballsack, eh guys?

That's about all I can say about Torchlight, so let's change gears and finally talk about Path of Exile.

Story is, you are a criminal of some sort in a city that seems to be filled exclusively by pompous assholes, and your sentence is --you guessed it-- being the person that rubs the King's left ballsack until it shines. Of course you fucking don't, it's exile. You are sent away into the wilderness before you stain all the marble and rugs with your filthy criminal hands. So on your way. the boat you are sent on shipwrecks because God feels like karma's been to slow these days and he wants to take control once in a while. You then awaken in the land of Wraeclast, filled to the brim with criminals, monsters, and other undesirables you might think of. And so begins your journey to find your path. As an exile. The Path of Exile, if you will (BOOM TITLE DROP). 

And that's about all the story you need. For the rest of them, you can make an effort and click on the NPCs. If you do want to bother yourself by reading all the flavor text you can access in the game, you will actually find a quite decent story of the city, the culture, their gods and progenitors, and why everything is fucked the way it is now. I personally couldn't be bothered because I know it’s going to be the same shit over and over again. In fact, let me summarize everything for you, the plot is basically "Everything's gone to shit, there’s demons everywhere, oh God somebody do something”. That's my mantra for the story of Diablo, and it works fine enough with PoE. Now let's talk mechanics

I promise you, this is where the section where the game shines anyway

Now I'm not gonna go into the details here because almost everyone knows the general mechanics of isometric RPGs: you click around to move, attack, use skills, pickup items, drop items, initiate conversations, end conversations, open loot, pay respects, and so much more. What I'm going to discuss is the one thing that I think is the unique selling point of PoE, which is the Skill Gems. In PoE, the skills are not tied to your class or level or any skill tree, it's tied only to the aforementioned skill gem. To equip a skill, you have put the skill gem into a socket in the equipment in accordance to their color: red, green, or blue. So if you happen to unequip an item with a skill gem, the skill becomes inactive and you can't use it. To me, this is a game changer since it changes the way you look at weapons and armors from the old traditional way. The old way was that the higher the number equals better weapon or armor and usually it's the one you want. But in PoE, this might not be the case since the skill system is tied to the equipment. And here comes the part where you have to think hard. Let's say you found some cool new bling to wear with higher numbers than the one you have, so naturally you wanna equip it right away, right? But what about the gem slots? The colors? The gem links? Does it accomodate your build? How about element resistances? Is it an armor armor or an evasion armor? It makes you choose between the mystic plate mail made out of virgin tears with a measly single slot or the plain white T-shirt with 6 linked slots. It's like making you consider going out in a Lamborghini that'll turn all the ladies' heads or a minivan because it can fit more whores.

While you're thinking about that, let me give you another headache: the passive skill tree.

Intimidating, isn’t it?

This is the reason why I decided against playing the game when I first heard about it from my friend. I can’t give you the numbers because I couldn’t find the total number of all the passive skills on the internet. And I think it’s a testament to how utterly ridiculous it is! I mean the internet’s got all kinds of information, so the fact that the total number isn’t available means that no one can be bothered to count them all. And you know that internet nerds would do anything just to get any semblance of productivity and sense of self-worth. Oh whatever, it’s not the numbers I’m here to talk to you about, because in the long run the numbers aren’t important. The important one is the passive build. If you’re not familiar, a build in RPG is kind of like a template or a preset that you plan in accordance to how you want your character to be. Or in other words, building your character. In the case of Path of Exile, your build is about taking the right passive skills that supports the active skills you want to use. Now that you know what a build is, here’s an advice to save you from tears: pick a build before you play. Well ok, maybe you’re a veteran RPG player or you just wanna go in blind and improvise (like me), but how about you think again? There are about 100+ passive skill nodes you can take from the God-knows-how-many are available, not to mention the active skills you’d want to use. I mean the numbers alone are terrifying, how about the synergy between the passives and the actives? What if you want to change your active skills and the passives are no longer compatible? Should you take the health node or an offensive node? How about the special nodes that grants you unique abilities? Would you like to invest in the socket node that buffs your skill gem?

OH GOD OH LORD MAKE IT STOP

So far I've listed the mechanics and the happenings of the game. So here's the last thing on my checklist before I draw my conclusion: do I enjoy it? 

Well, here's the part where it starts going sideways.

On my playthrough, of course I decide to go at it with my friend, since these dungeon crawlers are kind of made to be played that way. My friend told me to search for a build guide, but I decided I'm gonna be a brave boy and go blind on this character. For a while, we journeyed together, slayed together, get slayed together, and fought over the loot together. Then I went offline for several days and came back to find my friend had continued grinding for those days. The power gap had become too much of a difference to the point he coudn't flex his arms without a monster dying somewhere in the vicinity, and that's already after the party nerf. Turns out the stat nerf doesn't mean that much shit when he's already got most of the endgame skill jewels. So there I was just picking up the loot while he's busy mowing down the enemies. The most helpful thing I could do was cast a debuff spell to curse the enemies (as if they aren't helpless enough already). And it is in that moment that I thought to myself, "How am I anymore useful than the golem following his ass around?". It is at that moment where I stopped taking the game and its fancy ass skill tree seriously and just go at it for shits and giggles.

But of course, being a credible man of high-credibility and redundancy, it would be unfair to judge the game based on my experience with my friends. I mean how would I know that my friend didn't ruin the game for me? He turned me into a vestigial golem for fuck's sake, and I'd bet your ass that wasn't the intended game experience! (I mean maybe, I didn't check if there's a fucking build for that). I went off to set out on a lonely journey of my own; alone and without any companions 

ok I'll stop with the redundancy thing, I promise

So I made a new character to test out the game unhindered by my friends only to have it backfire on me because after half an hour of playing alone, all I can feel is the grind. I mean it made sense, at least when I'm with my friends I can still chat and crack jokes with each other. Take the social aspect away and in comes the grind, just like real life.

So finally I gave up on the new character and I'm about to give up on the game entirely. Or at least that was the plan until my friend suggested to take a look at my sloppily made character. 10 mins after he looked at my build, he told me that I got a lot of things wrong and that I'm a fucking waste of human life. He then proceeds to tell me which passives to get, which skills to throw away, and gave me his hand-me-downs. Afterwards, I took my optimized guy for a test drive, and I found out that he performs a lot better than before. And that's when the game feels great for me. No longer am I dead after I brushed elbows with a monster, and no longer do I have to spend 3 minutes to clear a normal enemy mob. It turned my dungeon crawl into my dungeon one way bullet train to Funtown. The grind feels less grindy, and that's about all I can ask for because I'm starting to enjoy the game proper. Or at least that was the case until I beat the final boss and my friends introduced me to the endgame content. I went in confident as hell, and I ended up getting 1 hit-KO’d once more. No. That’s too much. This has been an uphill struggle from the start and now that I’ve reached the peak, my reward is another mountain to scale. So no thanks buddies, I’m fully content with THIS mountain peak, it’s a good enough place for me to throw myself off the cliff.

In Brief

There's no easier way for me to summarize PoE. It always goes back to the Diablo comparison, so the conclusion is: if you like Diablo, I'm 90% sure that you'll like this one. The other 10% however depends solely on your tastes, and the differences lie in the skill gems and the passive tree which is the 2 things that defines PoE. Here's the cliffsnotes to help you with your decision so you can get on your way. If you think Diablo is too simple and you want a creative challenge in creating a build that feels unique to you, go get PoE. If you like Diablo as is and you think that the skill gem and passive tree appeals only to maniacs whose wrists should be broken with pipe wrenches for their own good, I'd suggest you buy an expensive mobile phone and keep your credit card nearby.

The one thing I learnt from this is that it's all about optimisation. It's either you go all-in and find the best build, skill, and equips or you'd better off not playing the game at all, because all that's left is the grind and pain. And fuck me if grind and pain is what passes for fun these days. Cause if it does, then I fear for the humans of the future and how they're gonna have to find a way to eat spaghetti with their ball-gag still on.

15/4/2019

[kapanbenernya]

Monster Hunter: World -- Big Things to Kill

Monster Hunter is a series of game series that I never get to play on the PS2 era. Somehow, everybody could get a copy of it but me. The only copy I had was when my brother got ahold of one, but it was the Japanese version, and neither one of us understood Japanese at the time. So you can say it was unhelpful, like when you’re lost in Tokyo and your guide is actually another lost guy from Iran.

Not long after I started college, I was teased a second time when my pals whipped out their PSPs and played Monster Hunter by LAN. I remember them shouting "GET THE PAINTBALL" and "MONSTER'S ON AREA 15" and I thought "holy shit that looks fun" until I realize people were giving us curious looks with a slight hint of disgust and now everybody knows we're dweebs. Now that my story's out of the way, consider this review an honest virgin viewpoint of the series. Because I'm new to the series, not because I haven't got laid yet. Alright fine it's both, happy?

The story of MHW is about humans pioneering the colonization of a "New World" with monsters in it, as opposed to the "Old World" which is old and with monsters in it. Okay, that wasn't the best description, but what the hell, right? The game didn't quite explain why we have to do this, but perhaps it's because the leather industry needed a shot in the arm or humans are just realistically evil evil apes with compulsive need to kill something lest civilization goes tits up. Actually not really, they do explain it after a while, and since this isn't a story that'll win any awards, I'm gonna spoil it right now: a big monster classified as an Elder Dragon went to the New World and we're sent out to figure out why. That's it.

Now off we go to kill everything with fangs and claws

If you think I was joking with that headline sentence, I was serious. In this world, every problem starts and ends with monsters. Luckily, that also means everything can be solved with good old fashioned animal slaughter, which brings us to the main point of the gameplay: monster hunting. There's only one point and ONLY one point of a MonHun game for me, which is BIG THINGS TO KILL. I mean ye got a series full of huge breathtaking monsters, what else are you gonna do about it? Well, I know exactly what i want to do: I want to track it, discover it, stand in awe at it's majesty, and kill every single one of them because I need materials for weapons, armor, and maybe some leftovers for furnitures and art projects. Nothing like culling lesser beings for fashion purposes, eh? And they say this game ISN'T realistic. And I kinda liked this system. The thought of beating a monster using it's own species' repurposed body parts while screaming "MY WEAPON IS YOUR MOTHER" amuses me somehow. Don't think about it too much though, the guilt will set in faster than you think.

In the eyes of the monsters, we are ALL Leatherface

The monsters are the lifeblood of the game. I mean it's in the fucking title. If they didn't focus on the monsters, somebody better get fired. Each monster has different elements and resistances, but they generally have the same weakness: getting the ever living shit beaten out of them. The only difference if you follow the strategies and hit them where it hurts is that the damage will be more effective, some monster powers will be suppressed, some parts will break,  they will stagger more easily and eventually fall over, leaving them whimpering in pain on the floor while you beat them senseless, you MONSTER (which is ironic because you are the hunter which hunts monsters but your behavior is the monstrous one and now I've lost the will to explain the joke any further)

My only complaint about the monsters is how when you're halfway into the game and have already had a sizeable roster of monsters under your belt and made into your belt, it just makes you fight all of them again from the start. “Oh don’t be THAT sour, surely you’ll notice that they're stronger this time and you fight them in the neighbor's house sometimes?”. Well alright fine, but how about you think about the whole scenario for a moment? This kind of behavior, coming from a game which already had FIVE generations of monsters readily available. I think it is an absolute dick move. It's like winning a meet and greet with The Rock but all you get is 7 bootleg DVDs of The Scorpion King. And not to mention we still actually get to face off new monsters after we're done with the 2nd lap, one of them being the final boss. That seems like gameplay padding to me. But of course, as of writing this I've already gotten news of a new biome as well as a few returning monsters from the older series in the form of DLCs, and CAPCOM's plan just clicked in place. Why add the complete roster when you can patch em after as DLCs and make money, amirite triple A game devs?

You know what? I’m getting angry, so I’m gonna skip that shit and talk about the gameplay instead

Monster Hunter claims to be an RPG game and that's why it deserves a few hours of standing on the corner for lying. There is no role except the role of beating monsters till they're meat floss. The only choice you have is the weapon set. You can be the hard hitters with the greatsword, the switch axe or the hammer, the all-in defense guy with the lance and the charge blade, the support with the sword and shield and the light bowgun, or you can cheese the game with the longsword, the heavy bowgun, and the bow. You can also craft armors which has unique armor skills that will buff you with special abilities. There are also set bonuses which grants extra perks if you equip an armor set, but since I found out that it's better to mix-match your armor to focus on certain abilities, they're rather irrelevant most of the time. And while talking about mix-matching armors, I find the Layered Armor system to be a Godsend since it averts you from the blight of looking like a fucking clown on laundry day. Now, with the weapon systems and armor skills in action, it is only natural that you make a build that suit your gameplay so you can maximize your abilities and fulfill the needs of you and your group where everyone fills a specialized role. Oh wait, so it IS a role playing game after all...

Oh well, if anyone needs me I'll be in the corner wearing a hat that says 'dumb motherfucker' on it

The weapons in this game are a nightmare to me. Everything is slow and cumbersome. What isn't slow is awkward or weak. I mean even the double sword that looks whoosh whoosh locks you into a combo with each press of a button. This reminds me of Dragon's Dogma and that one time I got thrown in jail after I kicked an old man because I got locked into a combo. The worst part about the weapon has got to be the lock-on system that just straight up lies to you. CAPCOM, do you understand what a lock-on system is? It means that whatever I'm targeting and where ever they are, when I initiate my attack, it will go at their direction. You better give the lock-on system more respect from now on, because at it's current state all it does is yank the camera away into an awkward position while my character swings his weapon at God knows what. You know a pretty good example? The smart kid at the next table that gets straight As? The smart nerd whose answers you can peep on? Dark Souls.

Oh look! Another "game journalist" comparing things to Dark Souls, how original. Tell me all about MHW is the "Dark Souls of Monster Hunter".

Yes, I love Dark Souls, but not everything has to be like it. I mean if I fail to make my sex partner cum, I wouldn't want her to kick my balls in and tell me to try again next time after my balls pop out. I only refer to it this time because the lock-on is better than MHW. And in this game where the monsters can leap from Wester Ross to Nova Scotia, I'd say weapon tracking and a decent lock-on system is pretty much mandatory. But that's okay, I've come to accept and embrace it. No! I don't care that my fully charged super swing that I prepared for 5 minutes lands on a different zip-code to where the monster currently is, now stop asking!

In Brief

I love this game. I love taking down big powerful enemies, I love it’s co-op gameplay. Hell, even the strange weapon system is starting to grow on me. I love that it’s simple enough that you can bumble your way to victory, I love that there’s a ton of depth to the build that you can make from the weapons, armors, and the decorations, and I love how the difficulty ramps up nicely that you’ll have to make a build because you will have to master it to take on the really strong hunts. 

That being said, I do have my complaints that I haven’t listed yet. It’s about how the game starts to get flat the moment you’re in your 100s. It’s even flatter if you’re doing it by your lonesome. So basically, it’s like marriage then; you start all lovey dovey, then it gets boring and eveything starts to feel really tough, and then it all falls flat when you reach 100. And by fall flat I mean you die because, uh, life expectancy, man

26/12/2018

[kapanbenernya]

Horizon: Zero Dawn -- There’s Only One or Two Giant Dinosaurs

Did you know that I own a PS4? Of course you don’t, why the fuck should you care? I’m literally a stranger on the internet that communicates to you via an internet post floating on the information superhighway like a piece of turd lost in the everflowing sea of turds in a septic tank. But enough rambling on the subject of human feces and back to the topic at hand, I own a PS4.

I used to own the PS2 and I remember having a CD holder shaped like a thick book that holds all my PS2 DVDs, and I remember it being filled to the brim until I have to double-stack the DVDs or else it won’t fit. So why did I bring this up? Because I want to compare that to my PS4 library which consists of 4 blu-rays. No I’m not fucking kidding, I only got 4 games, two of which are a copy of Bloodborne that I had to buy twice because I bought the wrong fucking region and the DLC won’t connect. 

Maybe right now you’re asking yourself, “What’s with the rambling man?” and well... Here’s the thing, I’m gonna be honest from the start: I wasn’t that into Horizon: Zero Dawn (HZD). I bought it just as a filler, to bulk up my library of PS4 exclusives. So yes, I just wasted two paragraphs explaining that I didn’t buy HZD because I think I’ll enjoy it, I bought HZD just to own it and maybe get a kick out of it or two.

Oh well, let’s talk about the game anyway

In this game, you play as Aloy, a woman without a mother in a tribe that places value on matriarchy, which is why she is branded an outcast by her tribe. Wait what? Doesn’t matriarchal society puts more privilege and power on women? So why was she shunned? She’s a woman! Shouldn’t she be given power instead of you know, kicked out?

Something tells me this tribe doesn’t respecc whamen as much as they think they do

But Aloy isn’t all alone in this cold cruel robotic world, she’s got a foster dad whose name I already forgot. I mean it’s not my fault, he’s not that important anyway. All he does is teach Aloy everything she ever knew so that she can go to the yearly outcast acceptance tryouts, nothing important there. Sarcasm aside, it’s still kinda true that his only purpose in the game is to be the plot advancing sacrificial lamb. No spoiler alert needed! His death flag has been raised ever since he become the parental figure of the protagonist, kinda like Batman’s parents or Uncle Ben. 

But no worries, his sacrifice wasn’t in vain because Aloy finally gets accepted into the tribe! By virtue of being the sole survivor of the test because some tribe of edgy fuckboys killed everybody else. And not long after, some killer robots showed up at the door, late to party and and thrashed the place up some more. With the tribe left in tatters, Aloy is appointed as a scout and sent into the world to figure out the threat that looms over the world. Also, Aloy may or may not have been born from a mountain and now have a personal quest of finding out about her origin. And if she had extra time, probably find out whatever it is the old Shaman smoked until she came to the flawless logic that mountains can give birth to humans.

The threat is, as usual: robots gone apeshit

Have I mentioned that the setting of the world is a post-apocalyptic world where people formed tribes and most animal have been replaced by robots? So yeah, two very important aspect of the HZD world. Anyway, the robots and the humans live happily among each other, and by that I mean they kill each other every time their gaze meet. But so far, things have been manageable as long as the humans stay the fuck away from the robot’s territory and vice versa. 

Let me explain about the robots a bit. The robots are various versions of wild animal replacements: stags, bulls, leopards, hawks, saber-toothed tigers, giant fire-breathing chickens, and 30-foot tyrannosaurus rex with frickin’ laser beams.

We all know the mastermind behind the fucking dino, don’t we?

As you can see from my incomplete list alone, the robot variety is rather robust. And the variety is supported by the uniqueness of each robot species. Every robot has different weaknesses based on elements and since the design of each robots is largely varied, the locations of the weak points can be very different. I can see the love and care that went into designing each species, and it shows. Although I gotta admit the herbivores are kind of boring when compared to the carnivores. The herbivores are kinda samey and lame, all you get to do is maybe ride it to town and turn some primitive heads. Meanwhile, the carnivore’s got all the nice toys. The kind of toys that shoots laser and kills people. And guess what? You can shoot the turret off with an arrow then you can pick it up and fire it up their tail pipes.

Now I gotta say, the first time I see the robots, I was like “fuckin’ sold, this shit is G U C C I”. But then after I actually play the game and have come face to face with a lot of them, I wasn’t into them anymore. I don’t know why, but I find the enemies boring after a while. Perhaps its because somehow I find fighting the animal bots has become a chore and not a fun activity to do. I mean the animal bots tend to flock together, so you’re almost always outnumbered, and the bots usually can kill you in a few smacks. This results in a lot of untimely deaths during what I thought would be a sunny stroll in the meadows. Also I think the big machines have too much health. As you can see, I don’t think this is a good thing, the same way a rubber tire isn’t an excellent snack just because you can chew it longer. However, you can actually make all of these problems go away if you choose to stealth it up and crouch like the little bitch that YOU ARE. Hey, dev-person-man-guy-thing, nobody in their right mind looks at a robot T-Rex and say, “Boy, I can’t wait to stealth crouch around this bad boy”. You know what we wanna do? We wanna ride it, or kill it, or ride it AND THEN kill it. Maybe take down a few rival tribes in the process.

And that’s just the fuckin animal bots, there’s also the war bots that looks like a cereal box that grew spider legs. Not only is it visually boring, it’s also plays like shit. Either you have to go play hide and seek with it or it’ll blast you with piss like you’re a really tough shit-stain on the toilet bowl. But the worst of the worst has got to be the human enemies. Fucking hell, in a world filled with creative animal robots, adding human enemies will just bring the standard down. They’re boring to look at, boring to fight against, and just plain stupid. I hate how the so-called “stealth kill” alerts every motherfucker in the area. I hate how you can’t stealth kill the “elite enemies” until you unlock a certain skill. In short, I just hate humans in general.

Not in real life, mind you, I’m a God-fearing peace loving man of the people, man.

Great, since I’ve run out of places to spank HZD, I’m just gonna randomly list all of its best parts.

I like how we can grab some healing items that can be used on-the-go in an instant, and I like how it can be easily found in the wilds like some drive-through salad. What I don’t think I like is how the plants aren’t that easy to differentiate from one another. I mean if I’m gonna make a jump, roll, tumble, and scoot myself down a goddamn hill while dodging lasers fired from a turret mounted on a 20-foot robot tyrannosaurus, that plant better be the healing plant instead of that useless resist fire plant. 

Another thing I like about the game is the weapons. There are quite a variety of weapons at your disposal, and it’s the good kind of variety. The kind of variety that makes each weapon had a distinct feel and different purpose, and I like them all. My favorite is the the tripwire weapon that’s the greatest thing since the invention of fire. The sleeper hit was the sling that I thought was shit but it’s actually great because it can fire ice projectiles that immobilizes the big enemies and freeze their armor. 

This very very tight weapon system is also supported by your ability to craft ammo on the fly. This might seem like a trivial thing, but hear me out now: by enabling you to craft ammo mid-fight, the game makes sure that the pace isn’t halted by the fucking menu screen and you get to keep your focus and maintain the flow of the battle. Because you know what kills my combat boner when I’m in a middle of a tense fight against robot dinosaurs? Having to pause the game and open up the crafting tab because my arrows ran out.

That’s it, that’s about everything I can say about my experience playing the game. There are some things that I actually left out of my review like the world design, the characters, etc. It’s because I think that it’s not that important to mention or it’s just mildly mediocre and not worth reviewing.

In Brief

What’s wrong with me? Do I not like video games anymore? 10 years ago, all I had to do was fire up my PS2, boot up GTA: San Andreas and just grab a bike and cycle from Los Santos to Las Venturas and I was having fun. 5 years ago I finished Dark Souls after 2 years of git gud, and I didn’t let the difficulty break me. Now I’ve got a game filled with creative and challenging enemies, a big open world to explore, and a fuckin robot dinosaur for God’s sake. Why didn't I have fun with it? I don’t think I have an immediate answer for it, but at least I know there’s two possibilities. One, is that I AM actually losing my touch and I’m not that into video games anymore. Probably all this adult thing and living my life that’s gotten in the way. The other one is that my tastes has actually gotten better with time, and now I notice the intricacies and can distinguish whether a game is good or bad, and I simply did not want to waste my limited time with games that I didn’t really like that much, including HZD.

I guess we can learn something from the animal robot designs. No matter how well you design an element of a game; visually or audibly, it won’t be appreciated as much if it does not add much to the gameplay --or worse-- plays like shit. Because you ARE making a game, and all the elements that you design will ultimately be judged from how it feels as a game. You can paint the robots with naked titties, but if they’re boring to fight, people will still think of them as badly designed. As for the case of the war bots and the human enemies? Dogshit.

9/10/2018

[kapanbenernya]

Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide 2 -- Extreme Rat Extermination Service

So not long ago, my friend told me about another game on steam that he wanted me to check out. The game in question was Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide 2. He said it’s some kind of four player co-op game like Left 4 Dead 2. Actually he needn’t explain the game to me because I actually owned Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide, the game that came before this one. I remembered buying it years ago and unable to actually play it until years later because my PC and my internet could not support the game. Actually now that I think about it, I still never get to really play it because nobody is still interested in the game. You know what? Let’s forget everything I said about it and refocus on Vermin 2.

Yeah, I’m just gonna call it Vermin 2, the full game’s name is too fucking long

In Vermin 2, you are some guy/elf/dwarf living in some Victorian Era London type of world fighting giant rats and buff white dudes. This very basic and very unrepresentative description of the world and the lore of the game might just net me an invitation to the chopping block by the Warhammer fanboys, but I don’t care. Look, it’s a Warhammer lore okay, so cheat-sheet's probably there’s a god or some gods with their respective cults and war happens, hopefully involving hammers. Here’s what I can gather from the prologue: a rat guy and some lovechild between a viking and an orc wants to open a portal to somewhere not good, and our heroes must stop them. 

Warriors from the northern region with horned helmets? Wonder where the inspiration came from

Our heroes are a ragtag band of five people which includes a soldier with kickass facial hair, a religious nutter, a fire witch, a scottish elf-woman, and discount Gimli. The gang was formed in the events of the first game which I have absolutely no idea how it happened because I didn’t play it, and I have no intention of checking the lore. I mean have you SEEN the lore? If you can be bothered to check, it’s actually rich and ornate, with multiple race and languages. That’s why I will never touch it without a 10-foot barge pole; I still aspire to have a decent sex life someday. 

But I’m getting sidetracked, so here’s how the number of heroes will affect the gameplay

The hero you choose will define your play-style. Or to be more exact, the play-style you prefer will mostly dictate which hero you will find enjoyable. You wanna be a quick whoosh whoosh DPS? Go for the elf. You wanna be a stone-wall tank? Go check out the shield-bearing duo: the soldier and the dwarf. You wanna be kinda useful and kinda useless at the same time? Go for the character that looks like he’s from Bloodborne. Interested in being the prick that fills everyone’s screen with bullshit? The fire witch’s your lady, matey. But that’s not all the depth that comes from choosing a hero. You got 3 class for each hero, each offers different passive buffs and hero skill. Don’t think you can try them all instantly though, the game’s gonna make you work for it. You will have to unlock the classes by leveling up with the first class already unlocked from the get-go. 

I mean if they didn’t do that, I’d be able to make a joke about being in a classless society etc etc.

After you’ve chosen how highly you are ranked above the local commoner, in comes the weapons. Your main bread and butter is the melee weapon. Of course there’s the good old stereotype on the weapon variety: fast but weak, strong but slow, and medium but medium. The only ones that are a bit different than the rest are the weapons that’s paired with shields, which allows you to block more incoming attacks from enemies before getting your guard broken. Okay, let’s see the variety of shield weapons available: fast but weak, strong but-oh bother, it’s just the fucking same. Mind you, these weapons are not shared among heroes, for each weapon are exclusive to one hero and one hero only. So don’t think you can cheat the game by giving the whoosh whoosh elf a goddamn mace and shield. 

But as the old adage goes: “man cannot survive on bread, rats, and buff dudes alone”, so here comes some tasty peanut butter spread to save us from blandness in the form of ranged weapons. As with the melee weapons there are also varieties of different types of ranged weapon for each hero and class, and also like melee weapons, exclusive to each hero. Now, don’t expect to me explain the uniqueness of each weapon type and/or combinations, because that shit’s up to you to try and decide which one’s up your alley. 

With those weapons explained, care for a little test drive on rats and buff dudes?

Believe me when I say there are a lot of enemy variations in this game. First off, there’s two factions of enemies going hand in hand to knock the living shit out of your party: the Skaven and the Chaos Army. Although for simplicity matters, I preferred calling them rats and buff dudes respectively, simply because that’s what they are. To start, you’ve got the mob enemies. They’re weak, plentiful, bland, and makes up for 90% of the enemy. And then there’s the elite enemies. They are enemies that have different behavior and approach towards your party. There are ones that disables a player, the ones that punishes loners and drags them away from the party, area denial, the big tanky mini-boss, and so on. These elite enemies are unique in design and therefore can be easily distinguished from the mob by audio cues and vision, especially after the in-game characters shouted callouts before the enemy can even be seen anywhere in this plane of existence. But the one thing I find curious is that design-wise and gameplay-wise, I find that the elite rat enemies are more interesting than the elite buff dudes. I mean you got the sneaky rat and the hooker rat that makes you stick together, the gas rat and fire rat that pushes you away from a beloved choke point, and gatling rat that’s 100% bullshit. But the elite buff dudes are just variations of even buffer dudes that charge in blindly with the mob with roughly the same results or fat dudes with magic hurricanes that’s just here to fuck your shit up, fam.

I gotta admit, still hilarious when it happens to everyone except you

Well, what else can I say about the game?

It’s your standard co-op four player PvE combat goddammit, what else do you wanna know? You grab your friends, choose your weapons, pick a map, and slay some rats. Simple, true and tried ever since the old age of beat em’ up games to the crowned exemplar of the 4 player co-op FPS genre: the Left 4 Dead series. But as of writing the previous sentence, why do I suddenly think that If I was given a choice to play Left 4 Dead or Vermin 2, I'd prefer Left 4 Dead? I mean they were basically the same: traverse map towards the objective, enemy mobs spawning at the worst possible timing, and stupid stupid teammates that just gotta fuck shit up right before the level exit.  After taking my time to reflect on both games, I think I kinda know why. I think it’s because some of Vermin 2′s elements is pretty fucking shit.

You see, the enjoyment of the game doesn’t stem from the gameplay alone.It’s also affected by the amount of bullshit you gotta go through to actually experience the gameplay. And with vermin 2, the bullshit comes from having to struggle with the bad netcode. My playtime was 23 hours, and I’m quite sure the amount of time I spent waiting for my friend to be able to connect to my lobby is about a third of that. No joke, you know the worst record? 30 minutes. And even after the four of us can connect, it’s everybody’s guess whether or not we’re still gonna be a four man party after the level or someone’s gonna get dropped from the lobby for no particular reason. And what happens when someone or everyone got dropped? That’s right! Restart the fucking lobby! 

And by restart the fucking lobby, I mean more gambling whether or not the fucking thing’s gonna connect again.

Another lesser complaint I got is the weapon power system. Unlike L4D which just plops you the same weapon on every campaign, in Vermin 2 you gotta find your own weapons via lootbox that you get by completing campaigns or challenges. Thing is, the weapon power you can get from the lootbox is capped based on the difficulty that you play. So get this, you start out with bad default weapons which will result in you getting beaten to mulch which motivates you to get better and better weapons until you hit the cap. What’s next? You have to move on to the harder difficulty with your capped weapons, which will result in you getting mulched again. So there you go, trapped in a cycle of mulch-ification towards better weapons. The small number of maps available didn’t help either. Only 13 maps in total, compared to 12 maps in L4D and L4D2.

13 is less than 12? This guy’s off his rockers

Yeah, yeah, dodgy mathematics aside, do remember that every map from L4D is divided into 4/5 segments each. That adds up into around 48/60 maps total, and I needn’t elaborate further to show you that 48 is bigger than 13. That’s not taking into account the numbers of custom maps readily available. Yeah, who’s the brainlet now, bozo? And I swear, the quick play is deliberately messing with my party. Somehow we always end up on the map where we gotta pop some pimples in a cave. If not that, the one where we gotta connect the lines on some temple. I swear to God, small map pool or not, this is ridiculous. It’s like this map tosses off the map RNG every once in a while so it gets chosen.

Now, if you’re a smarter person, you’d have followed the dotted lines all by yourself and successfully deducted the 20 car pile-up all these problems caused. But since unlike me and my big smarty brain, you didn’t know that 13 is less than 12, I fucking doubt it. Here let me explain to you and your slowy slowy boo boo brain.

visual pun, ladies and gentlemen

That’s right, 13 maps, 4 difficulty, and there you go on the mulch-ification cycle.  Hope you don’t get bored of running the same levels again and again before reaching the higher difficulty. I know I sure did.

In Brief

After all the spanking I gave the game in the last paragraphs, it’s still fun, and it’s still a good alternative for L4D. Especially more so if you like L4D, but you’d like it more if it was melee-focused, class-based, grindy, and all-around dodgier. It’s kind of a shame really, because I can see that this game had potential to be better, but in the end it just got tossed aside with the remark “like L4D, but made by somewhat incompetent spods”. All because while the core gameplay is very much fun and functional, the elements that support it ends up being a hindrance, not unlike a brake on a car that could go off randomly. This game kinda proves that you can make a gold bar shaped like the world’s sexiest pair of titties, but bury it in deep enough bullshit and people are going to stop giving a shit, mainly because you already had shit deep enough to fertilize the Sahara desert.

P.S.

I am very much aware that the connection problem might stem from me and my friends’ own internet connection, but I did rule it out because L4D works like magic in comparison, and this proves that SOMETHING had to be wrong with the game to cause all the connectivity problems.

27/8/2018

[kapanbenernya]

Magicka 2 -- DUNKA DUNKA

If you read my previous post about BombTag, I mentioned very early on that I bought some games on the CNY sale. One of those games was Magicka 2. Recommended by my friend because we played Helldivers, which is from the same developer, Arrowhead Studios. So I thought, why not?

Although I enjoyed my time on Helldivers, I remembered a few years ago when I played the first Magicka, and I didn’t enjoy it. The game was filled with connection issues and lots and LOTS of friendly fire. The friendly fire grew from hilarious, to slightly annoying, to really grinding my gears. So I said “fuck this shit, if you wanna kill me so badly, come here and do it in real life”, and stopped playing since then. I expected the same from Magicka 2, so my hopes aren’t exactly high.

First, let me explain what Magicka is all about

In Magicka, you play as a wizard and your job is to slaughter almost everything that moves with a combination of powerful spells, including fire, thunder, water, cold, life, death, rock, and shield. When I say almost everything, I do mean almost everything. Enemies, NPCs, friends, even Y O U. You are also equipped with a physical weapon that ranges from the basic sword, a torch, a fiery machete, and an M60 7.62 NATO caliber belt-fed machine gun.

"Have at thee, heathen"

The depth does not lie in the story or how you progress, the depth of this game lies in the combination of the elements and how you choose to apply them. Enemies are grouping up? Hit them with chain lightning. Enemies are using spells? Make a shield wall in front of you and watch as their spells bounce back right at them. All of this sounds very great on paper, but from my experience, every possible mix-match will be forgotten once the player got a hold of the meta. Sure, you can mix and match the elements and adapt your playstyle against every kind of enemy, but ever since I found out that an electric death beam that’s on fire can solve most of my problems, varying things up can go out the window. And it's pretty hard to pick a spell when it gets chaotic, which is ALL THE TIME. it's like trying to defuse a bomb on a speeding supercar on the German Autobahn while Iron Maiden is playing.

And that’s not all, status effect can also come into play! For example, if you are not careful with your fire spells, you’ll start a barbecue so massive, you’ll be the menu instead of the chef. And if you are submerged into a body of water, like a river or a pond, you will be wet, and you will not be able to cast lightning spells

I mean technically you can, see how that works out. 

But sadly, this is kinda unexplored since anything else other than wet will give you no significant problem other than draining your life and being a medium level nuisance. The problem being, that you need the thunder element to cast a very important spell: revive. Trust me, with the amount of death that occurs in this game (by enemies or friends), you're gonna want to keep the revive spell on the shortcut.

The actual story is there, but it’s not that important. Basically it’s a series of events that happens one after another, just so you have a reason to kill everything that stands between you and killing everything some more. And I kinda feel bad about it. I can see the effort that went into the story, especially how they made everything filled to the brim with humor. I honestly just glanced through everything because when I’m not busy being chased by an oversized thermidor monster, I’m getting meteor’d by my super capable friends. And if you think for a second that I can make the time in between them to read the fucking fluff text, you seriously do not understand what CHAOS means!

Well, that's about all I can say about Magicka. If you're interested and you want to kill your friends, I suggest you pick up this game. I also recommend you to pick up Magicka 2

Are you talking about Magicka 1 the whole time? I thought you were talking about Magicka 2?

Well you see, that was intentional, because there are almost no significant difference between the gameplay of Magicka 1 and Magicka 2. It’s the same spell-casting genocide simulator it has always been, only with better graphics and better netcode. I don't really mind though, because I don't think it needs to be THAT different from the original. Some would say that it doesn't have to be a sequel, it just needs hella amount of patches and expansion packs, but I argue that they should shut the fuck up.

And now that we're talking about Magicka 2, I'm gonna rant about all the annoying things I felt when I played the game. mind you, I'm only gonna complain about the things that the game is responsible for, so all the blood pressure that comes from team killing are not included.

First off, movement in this game is annoying. It's annoying that you have to use the mouse click to move around because the battlefield is dynamic. It's just stupid how many times I got killed because I forgot where I was going and my character forgot that running into a death beam will have adverse effects to someone's health. I eventually got sick and changed to the contoller for this very issue. But then another problem arises, it's the spellcasting that gets awkward. Since there are 8 elements and four buttons, you have to use a shoulder button to cycle the spells out. And trust me, this will result in a lot of wrong combinations, and will be responsible for at least half your death. But I guess it's still better than dying from your brain forgetting to hit the fucking brakes.

Second, it's a chore to play single-player. Yes, yes, I know, it's a party game, and nobody parties alone but the creep nobody likes because he smells bad and butchered a cat that one time. But still, can't the devs at least make a difficulty adjustment if the player wants to play alone? Maybe the other guys are offline? Maybe the other guys are playing other games? Maybe the other guys still hold a grudge because that cat was very cute?

Third and final, it's too short. Me and my friends cleared all the campaign, and our total playtime clocked in at 4 hours. Seriously? The download time was longer than this! It's like courting a girl for a year only to find out that you lasted 3 minutes. And that's already counting the after-sex smoke break.

In brief

You see, Magicka (yes, both games) are like a theme park. It’s a zany place simply there so you can have balls-to-the-walls fun without giving a care in the world. There’s the wacky rides, the jokes you do with your friends, the laughs together when you kill them with a meteor. But it all starts wearing down the longer you’re there, because while the rides are fun, they can get a bit boring after a while, your stomachs are starting to turn inside out, and the voices are telling you to stomp another kitten. It also falls apart completely if you’re doing it alone, because there is no worse experience than having fun while there’s no one to share it with. Basically what I’m trying to say is that I’m lonely and I have no friends.

Wait, what?

27/5/2018

[kapanbenernya]

Far Cry 2 -- Toto ft. Ubisoft

It's currently May 2018, and Far Cry 5 has finally hit the shelves. If you want to know about Far Cry 5, let me give you a cheatsheet: it's Far Cry 3. Yes, there's only ONE Far Cry game after Far Cry 3: it's Far Cry 3, but with the sceneries changed and more toys added. That's why I skipped Far Cry 4 after playing the intro for about 5 minutes, because I'm basically replaying Far Cry 3 again. So with that in mind, let's revisit Far Cry before it becomes Far Cry 3

Now, come join me in Africa

The game starts with a Half Life style in-game railroaded cutscene-but-not-really thing where you're forced to sit down and enjoy all the hard work that went into rendering the foliage, the forest fire, and badly animated humans with blank stares. Great for showcasing the Dunia Engine, not so much for replayability. Especially if there's a game-breaking bug like 30 seconds after the game starts proper and there's no way to skip the fucking thing. After a few minutes, you contract malaria and proceed to pass out on the cab like you’ve had too many drinks. You are then saved by the Jackal, a legendary weapons black marketeer you’re supposed to kill. Starting to think we might not be as professional as our CV shows. The Jackal guy decides to spare your life and leaves you to the liberation front shoot-o-rama that’s happening outside. You then pass out again, and one of the liberation fronts pick you up at random. They then give you a stern talking to for killing their boys, and proceed to hire you and give you weapons on the spot.

"This is the guy responsible for killing our boys with a pistol, a machete, and a fever. Let’s give him a rocket launcher when he wakes up”

So the game starts proper after you’re forcefully employed by the local liberation front by virtue of saving your malaria ridden ass 

Your first job is to save some guy like you from the rival liberation front. This person then becomes your buddy. Oh yes, there's a buddy system here, with 2 being active at a time. One buddy is your storyline buddy, the other buddy is your saviour buddy. The storyline buddy is your main buddy and will give you a slight variation to the missions. Usually calling you after you accept a mission from the usual guys, and tells you all about how the two of you could've done it better. I would've liked this to affect the story in some way, because there's a "buddy history" system, like an affinity I guess. It tallies how many times you've helped each other and how much they love you. Sadly, I haven't the slightest clue how this system changes the game because my buddy got killed in a normal shootout two missions in and I don't feel like reloading a save just to save her. What happened next is that I was sent to rescue another guy that becomes my replacement buddy. So I guess this system is very important for the game that you have to always have some guy. What bothers me is that there is a limited roster of buddies available, which means you can only have so many of them killed until they're completely gone. So what happens then, when all the guys have died? That is something I'm not interested in finding out.

The gameplay is your standard old timey sandbox shit. Although those words ring hollow since the gameplay has become the blueprint of sandbox games nowadays. Here's how everything goes: go to mission dealer > do the generic mission > acquire currency and/or XP > spend currency and/or XP upgrading yourself > rinse and repeat, probably do the side-missions which are also generic mission thingy. The missions themselves are kinda bland, they're always go to a place and kill/destroy/steal someone/something respectively. Now if I withdrew the title of the game and ask you to guess the game, you can say any sandbox game all the way from Assassin's Creed to Mafia III, and you'd still be fucking correct. I have to admit the newer ones have polished the elements through and through, but of course there's still only so much that polishing can do.

Perhaps my biggest complaint is that there’s no feeling of progress. The missions are so random and disconnected, it just feels like you're messing around and making money instead of tracking down the guy you're supposed to kill. Why are we doing missions for this liberation front instead of searching for the Jackal? Okay, granted, they DID save our ass on that shootout, but they're the motherfuckers who might've shot us in the first place. But how do you make sense of the fact that after we're done with those guys, we went out of our way to do missions for THE OTHER front? The one that rivals the first front? After seeing this, I decided to drop the game. It has nothing more to offer but generic missions, tedious commute, annoying checkpoint shootouts, and boredom. They do have meaningful events that happen, but everything in between is just making do with smashing puppets with guns and explosions until the next event comes along.

Now let's compare that to the current state of Far Cry games (And by that, I mean let's compare it to Far Cry 3)

In Far Cry 3, your protagonist is set, he's Jason Brody. His story is that he's a rich douchebag in a douchebag circle of friends and they went on a holiday to the tropical island that just so happens to be where the local pirates make a living.

Should've stick to Starbucks next time, eh lads?

They of course got captured, and Jason's brother get killed. This certainly gives Jason the motivation and incentive to fight back, which is to avenge his brother and rescue his douchebag friends. You see, this is called theming. It's about knowing what the goal of the game is and knowing that all the things you do is building up for that goal. You don't learn the multi-stab just to get sick-ass tattoos, you learn it so you can smack the pirates harder. You don't climb radio towers to check off a side quest, you do it because it unlocks new guns to riddle new bullet holes into your enemies. You don't fight a giant ink monster just for the promise of tribal titties, you do it for... uhm...

Actually on second thought...

My point is, the way the game is designed gives Far Cry 3 a great sense of progress and growth. You feel how you, the protagonist grow from douchebag doughboy to a ruthless killer with sick-ass tattoos. This is what in my opinion, Far Cry 2 lacks. You are always a badass mercenary from the get-go, and you don’t have any more motivation but the promise of money to go on. And that shit’s flimsy compared to Far Cry 3, isn’t it?

In Brief

I’ll be the first to admit that Far Cry 2 is fun. The gameplay is very much stellar. It’s become the pioneer’s blueprint for the gameplay of Far Cry games to come. Sure it lacks polish, but it’s good. But apparently not good enough that I eventually stopped giving a shit about it because the important sense of progress is just absent. And while it could be a trivial thing in some games, I believe it is important for a game as huge and expansive as Far Cry 2. After all, it’s the glue that holds the whole experience together, Without it, you’re just randomly setting things on fire and dying from malaria. 

With all the slamming I give Far Cry 3, it’s still my favorite of the series, and the only one I have played from start to finish. It made clearing checkpoints and killing baddies fun while also gets you invested enough to make you want to do so. And what about Far Cry 5? Well I told you in the beginning, it's just Far Cry 3 in rural America. Wait, there's fishing in this game? All bets are off lads, I'm going in.

24/5/2018