#I just want a good story and fun gameplay for christs sake

[sevplays]

one day videogames'll stop being Dark Souls Emulators

one day I'll be able to actually play a game without immediately being eviscerated by the first pack of enemies I come across

one day

[protagonistheavy]

I cant stress enough how annoying the OW2 PvE shit is. It's a kind of incompetency from a production standpoint that I just cant stand -- it's outright deceptive marketing, telling people for YEARS to get hyped for all this PvE content, only to pull it out from under the userbase's feet.

It was THE thing that a sequel was sold on. That whole animated cinematic with the giant robot and showing off new abilities and getting Overwatch together. Just a total waste of time now, huh.

It's fucking skill trees, too. Was that really too fucking complicated for them to handle? They couldnt just make a web of abilities and bonuses and let you have fun with them, they couldnt figure out how to do that in time. I mean seriously, it's SKILL TREES, every fucking video game has them, it's such a simple thing and Blizzard finds a way to make its users feel like fucking idiots for even wanting/expecting that much.

It sucks for me especially because for the past month I've been brainrotting about what PvE would look like. I was amped imagining all the skill tree combinations, the new mechanics, the possibility of a weapon system to totally change how heroes might play, the gameplay in which you'd get materials to craft upgrades, various items you'd find or bring along on missions... Of course, we get none of that, we get nothing. We get more Archives bullshit, just more linear straightforward missions of horde killing with a few elites.

I just look back and know now that I was silly to think we were getting a good product even at SOME point. How naive I was to not realize how the PvP content and battlepass clearly had all the attention/budget, leaving no time or energy for PvE. I mean lmao, stupid me, for thinking Blizzard could incorporate skill trees, when they showed it off in gameplay trailers and footage as totally functioning. Stupid me for not thinking "oh obviously theyre just gonna scrap this whole aspect of the game."

Disappointment doesnt even begin to describe how I feel. This is just plainly tragic at this point. The dreams back from Overwatch 2016 are just gone now lol. Such a great game with so much potential, wasted. I really cannot imagine myself playing the game anymore at this rate, PvP was barely keeping my interest as a time-passer, but now that the shine has worn off, even that is just dull and uninteresting. I was waiting for PvE, really thought I'd be able to re-engage with the game if I knew that was coming out, but if it's just going to be the same Archives shit with, what, ooooh solo player missions? Yeah fuck off. I wanted real PvE! I wanted to maximize heroes and obtain new abilities and discover fun combos and feel like Im active in the story of Overwatch! But they can't do it! Blizzard just totally dropped that ball and it's taken them years to come out and admit it.

All in all, I just really want to know why Blizzard hates Overwatch's story so much. Why do they constantly keep compromising it. For the sake of PvP? Do they just constantly worry that if they stop making content for PvP for just a little bit, the whole game will die? They put millions of dollars into Overwatch League only for that to effectively capsize within two years, but the most they can do for Overwatch's lore is a few shitty kids books over the span of years? And all these resources they made -- they had a whole fucking demo for PvE content in 2019! All that, just gone? At best recycled for more Archives bullshit? Fuck! Why even ass around and pretend you HAVE a story? Why not just say fuck you a little louder and scrap ALL story content, clearly Blizzard doesn't want to even be engaging with story content so why keep tugging us along acting like one day we're gonna get it? Jesus fucking Christ. How can they do this to their own staff? Making them work on so much bullshit that gets flushed down a toilet. Why even bother. Why even make these people go through the effort of even thinking about story content when it's plainly something that's never gonna happen. Oh my fucking god.

[zippityzap]

My Top Ten Favourite Moments in Sonic Games

The past 30 years the Sonic series has had a lot of memorable moments, too many to list fully, so in celebration of my recent follower milestone, today I’ll be presenting and explaining my personal top ten favourite moments. I would like to emphasise that this list is very subject and is highly influenced by my personal experiences with the Sonic series. It’s not intended to be objective by any means, and I would love to hear what moments you guys would put on your own lists! Additionally, this list is only for things from the games, in the future I’ll make another list for other Sonic media

Without further ado, let’s get started!

10) City Escape’s GUN truck

Interesting set pieces and small scripted moments in levels have been a staple in the Sonic series since the beginning. Sure, they’re not always challenging from a game-play standpoint, but they’re always an entertaining spectacle. One of the most ionic of these moments (and one of my personal favourites) is being chased by the GUN truck. City Escape is already a highly memorable level from the get-go, but the truck sequence is the cherry on top. An additional shout-out to both of the Generations versions of the level for not only bringing it back but changing it up just enough to surprise you and keep you on your toes!

9) Escaping Null Space

Forces is one of those games that I would describe as a truly mixed bag. Yeah, there are a lot of things about the game that kinda sucked or were disappointing, but when it hit a high, BOY did it hit. While I agree with many people that having the Null Space portion of this level actually have gameplay in it would’ve made this moment impact a little harder, I’m just in love with that transition from the silence of null space to the bombastic chorus of Fist Bump. I thought it was a really exciting moment that hypes you up for the rest of the level.

8) Sonic Heroes’ opening cinematic

Heroes was my first 3D Sonic game, and consequently it was my introduction to a lot of things that are staples for the Sonic series. Vocal themes, an extended cast and their interpersonal relationships, story routes that connect to each other. These are some of my favourite things about the Sonic series, so even if some aspects of the game aren’t that great, I could never ever hate or even dislike Heroes. I feel like the opening cinematic to Heroes (the one with the theme song as the music) is the aspect of Heroes that really encapsulates those feelings best. I must’ve spent hours as a kid letting it play over and over again singing along to it.

7) Shadow the Hedgehog (2004) title screen cinematic

Before you laugh, here is where I must remind you that this list is extremely subjective and highly influenced by my personal experiences and memories. Ok now imagine this: you are a 7-8 year old kid, and your experience with media that isn’t mainstream radio or educational children’s tv shows is fairly limited. You’re getting deep into the Sonic series for the first time thanks to playing Heroes and seeing some of the cartoons and you’re interested to know more about the series. You visit Sonic Central, the official site at the time, and they have a music player with a variety of songs from the games. One of the songs it plays is I Am (All of Me). I won’t lie, I was a little blown away because I’d never really heard anything like it before, so I go to find out more about the game it’s from and I come across that opening cinematic.

I think it’s very, very, easy as an adult to laugh at the Shadow the Hedgehog game and it’s… direction, but adult me was not the target audience of that game, kid me was. Say what you want but the effect that game was going for I think is something that just hits best with sheltered little kids, and I’d be curious if anyone else had a similar experience.

6) The ending of Sonic and the Black Knight

I won’t go into too much detail on this one, since this is very much a fan favourite moment and many others have gone into detail about why it’s so great. Black Knight is certainly one of the games that captures Sonic’s character the best, and his words at the end of the game certainly encapsulate this. Followed by the amazing credits theme of Live Life, the ending of Black Knight is certainly one of the most emotional moments in the series.

5) Sonic Generation’s credits

Anniversary games can be a bit of a controversial subject for the Sonic fandom; 06 was one of the games released for the 15th anniversary while Forces is often considered to be a 25th anniversary game. I think Generations really achieved the feeling and the specialness of a celebratory event though. It’s one of my favourite Sonic games and the whole game is full of brilliant moments but I feel the credits really evoke the celebration vibe: a Sonic 1-esque music melody as the credits song, showing footage from the original games each stage is from, and the cherry on top: a ‘Happy Birthday’ message to Sonic recorded from fans who attended the 2011 Sonic Boom and Summer of Sonic conventions. It genuinely warms my heart every time I finish the game.

4) Metropolis Capital City level

Forces gets another representation on this list! Honestly, I believe the parts of Forces that were exciting, such as this, really demonstrate my opinion that Forces had a lot of potential to be a really good game. But I digress, this was my favourite level from Forces because it shows how fun of a villain Infinite could be. The way that Infinite follows you for most of the stage and uses illusions to fuck around with the stage itself? That’s really fun, and it’s not just stage gimmicks for the sake of having a gimmick, it ties into the powers of the villain and makes the player feel involved in a way because Infinite is messing around with you specifically and is having to make to think on your toes. Granted, part of makes this stage stand out so much in a good way is because it’s so different from the rest of the game and it takes you by surprise, so maybe the impact wouldn’t be as hard hitting if this sort of design was used more in the game, but c’mon when you have a villain who’s powers are illusion-based, the sky’s the limit!

3) Sonic Unleashed’s opening cutscene

Can you believe this game came out over a decade ago and the opening cutscene still looks this stunning?! Depending on who you ask, some might even argue that this cutscene has yet to be topped, and honestly, I’m in that camp. Not only is the rendering beautiful and the choreography of the action exciting, but this scene does a wonderful job of setting up for the viewer regardless of how much prior experience they have with the series who Sonic and Dr. Eggman are, as well as setting up the events of the game. I recall being very happy when I heard the animation team for this cutscene would also be handling the animation for the movie.

2) Beating Sonic Unleashed for the first time

So, this is another pretty personal one. I played Unleashed for the first time a few years ago and it is in my opinion, one of the most difficult Sonic games. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes for completely bullshit reasons. My first ever run of Eggmanland was around 40 minutes long and apparently that’s considered a pretty decent time for your first go, but christ it was a nightmare to finish (looking at you, that one section where you have to platform on pipes without a drop-shadow). The following boss sections weren’t much easier- I don’t rage much with video games, I tend to whisper swears under my breath at most but that part where you’re running on the Gaia Colossus had me screaming in anger every time I lost a life.

BUT when I finally beat the difficult sections? Felt like finally cracking your back after feeling stiff all day. Like taking the first sip of water after a walk on a hot day. The relief and satisfaction I felt was indescribable and slowly winding down while Dear My Friend plays as the credits theme was blissful. I don’t play difficult games that often so Unleashed is one of very few games that I have this sort of memory with.

1) Watching my dad get the good ending of Sonic 1

Here’s a small amount of backstory for this pick. My dad got his first job at 19 and he used his first pay-check to purchase the then newly released Sega Mega Drive. He had a lot of games for the console including Sonic the Hedgehog. He kept the console and games in good condition, and they were still perfectly playable by the time his first child was born (aka me!). Sonic 1 was the first video game I can remember playing at roughly 2-3 years old. I wasn’t good enough to get past Green Hill Act 3 but I loved watching my dad play through the game.

I’ll admit; his playstyle’s a little odd, he avoids speed when he can and instead, he likes to search for as many rings and extra lives as possible, but it was so enjoyable to watch nonetheless. The best bit was whenever he would manage to get all the chaos emeralds in a playthrough and be able to get the good ending. Sure, the only difference between the good and bad endings is just some flowers, but it was nice to see him be happy that he was able to achieve that ending.

And that’s the end of my list! Upon looking over it I realise most of it is either openings or endings to games…oops. I suppose they tend to be parts of games that get special attention during development since they bookend the journey. When I get around to making the second list, I’m sure it’ll have more variety, and as I said before, I’d be very interested in hearing what everyone else’s favourite moments are!

[its-sixxers]

Video Game Questionnaire

Tagged by @slothssassin!

Tagging any of y’all hoes (or non hoes) who wanna talk about some got dang VIDYA GAEMS

Rules: Fill in your answers below and tag some buddies!

-Games-

First game you ever played: Pokemon Red on the OG game boy. Hell yeah.

Favorite game: Don’t make me do this. D: Probably a toss up between:  Heroes of Might and Magic III, Knights of the Old Republic (1 and 2), Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines aaaand Fallout New Vegas.

Game you hated at first but now love: Darkest Dungeon! I found out my gameplay groove and now really really like it. I didn’t hate it before, just found it frustrating.

Game you used to love but now hate: I don’t really hate any game that I used to love (even World of Warcraft), but I can’t ever go back to the Mass Effect Trilogy for reasons that are probably obvious to anyone who’s played it. I got hurt too bad man. :(

actually just recalled and this is gonna be a SPICY opinion: FFXIV. I had a lot of fun with it but the RP scene drove me off really fast. WoW’s Moon Guard gets a lot of shit, but FFXIV was miles worse for general grossness. I don’t begrudge anyone who has fun with the game or RPs in it (there’s a lot of fun lore!) but I don’t have the energy for trying to sift through that amount of nightmare to find like the dozen cool people lol.

Game with the best group/companion(s): This was a hard one. There’s games that have my favorite characters ever but also have some really annoying companions, there’s games with characters I like across the board but the execution is weak. I’m just going to say VTM Bloodlines for easiness’ sake. A great cast and I actually think I like them all for specific reasons. Yes, even Ming Xiao. Maybe especially Ming Xiao, actually.

A game with your favorite ending:  Bloodlines even though I had to turn godmode on for the last combat portions teehee. I just love the twist. :D

A game with the WORST ending: See Mass Effect above. Yes it’s been like a decade, no I’m still not over it.

Best character customization?: HRMST. With mods, Fallout 4. Without - I played Black Desert Online for a whole 3 seconds and it had an insane amount of options but I found it overwhelming lol.

Also putting a cut here cuz long post.

-Hero and Companions-

Your favorite playable character:  Jedi Exile or the Courier.

The funniest playable character: Garrett from the Thief series is a smartass and I love him for it. The Courier also gets some great options, naturally.

Your favorite companion(s): Oh christ here we go. Carth Onasi, Jolee Bindo, HK-47, Atton Rand, Kreia, Bao-Dur, Kaidan Alenko, Garrus, Tali, Wrex, Legion, The Entire New Vegas Gang, Butch DeLoria, Charon, Deacon, Preston.

Companions you could live without: This is a difficult one since even companions I’m not super fond of have their place and purpose in the narrative, usually. I’m going to say G0-T0 and Hanharr from KOTOR 2 as they kept that game from the Best Companions title lol. I don’t play dark side and both of them just felt a little underdeveloped for me.

oh and skadge from SWTOR, fuck skadge

-Relationships-

Favorite game friendship(s): Shepard + everyone, Morrigan and the Female Warden,  Josie + Inquisitor, The Courier + everyone, Sole Survivor + everyone, Female Revan + Bastila, Exile + the new Jedi gang.

Favorite companion banter: This might make me a basic bitch but Deacon. The interplay between goofiness and sadness is just perfect.

A relationship you loved but went bad: Revan and Carth. It went bad because Revan fucked off to the Unknown Regions and left him behind, then we find out why in SWTOR (and they canonize Revan as a dude BOOOO) and it’s dumb lol.

A relationship you weren’t sure of but loved: Kaidan and Shepard when Mass Effect 2 rolled along. Being railroaded into working with Cerberus had me VERY annoyed at the time and Kaidan’s 100% right to also be mad about it so I was like oh god yeah I’d break up too. Mass Effect 2 has the best companions + side story but the worst main quest fight me. (Actually don’t pls)

A character you wish you COULD romance: Let’s list em off, shall we: D E A C O N, Nick Valentine, Glory, Nathaniel Howe, Bao-Dur, Nines Rodriguez, LaCroix, Beckett. Let me do it you cowards.

A minor character you wish could be a companion: Harding in Inquisition, Glory (actually most of the Railroad would be nice), Scout Haylen, Fahrenheit.

-Fun-

Shoutout to a random NPC: All the Jawas in KOTOR I love them. Oh and Officer Chunk in Bloodlines, that stupid, stupid man.

A game you love watching playthroughs for and want to play: I don’t actually seek out more than one let’s play of a game. :V I’d say the old Call of Cthulhu game though - it’s really neat but buggy as all hell and the one time I tried starting it up it ended up breaking real big time. It’s fun to watch people luckier (or more tech competent) than I am play it and I wish I could do the same.

Love watching playthroughs but won’t ever play: My boyfriend and I sometimes do this thing where he’ll stream a game he’s playing and I’ll sit in voice chat with him while I work with the stream in the other screen, so probably the games he’s done there. Most recent ones have been: Metal Gear Solid, FF7 and FF9.

Online gaming or solo?: I looove solo games but I love online more. Being in an LDR, playing games together online is really good. I enjoy having fun with friends, and I also enjoy the competitive aspect that comes along with online games. It really pushes me to be better at things and improve. Usually I’m in some kind of MMO - it’s looking to be WoW for the forseeable future right now. Sometimes I’ll get dragged into games like Planetside or Destiny and have a fun time for a month or two as well. :) I had a ton of fun with Sea of Thieves a few months ago too! Living our Captain Jack fantasy.

Why do you play video games?:  More than ever recently - creative inspiration. I like poking into weird games or games with a really strong art direction or good writing. (EYE Divine Cybermancy, Pathologic, Sunless Seas/Skies, Cultist Simulator, Dishonored, Darkwood, and Darkest Dungeon being a few of them). I also just really like a good story and good characters. Being able to immerse myself in another world is great. I also play them for that little cookie of accomplishment - beating a hard boss (LOOKING AT YOU NAMELESS KING) or figuring out a puzzle (Cultist Simulator is chock full of those) or surviving spookies (Darkwood big time). Video games are great and they hold my attention better than TV or movies as I actually have to engage with them lol.

[kyokyo866]

Hello Kyo, I wanted to stop by and say some things that have been bothering me. I don't care if you decide to answer this or not, honestly. I just want you to know some basic stuff. First of all, please get off your high horse and fucking wake up. You are 24 years old, and you have no job and are not a student. You repeatedly state you're a game programmer but I don't see you making money off of that, and I am quite certain your Lets Plays on Youtube doesn't earn you a living.

Commissions are not a job (especially with your art level), and saying you’re on or will be on disability is no excuse. I know people who have severe mental retardation that still go to work every day from 7:30 to 5. If you get your disability, great, but don’t mooch off the tax money of other people who actually go to work and earn their living (and for Christ sake, off of Dig) so you can just sit at home and play games. Not to mention, your games aren’t that great either.

Dreamtalia was unnecessarily long with Germany being overly obsessed to the point it was quite disgusting and irritating, and Italy being the fanbase idiot self sacraficing woobie who can’t take care of himself worth a damn. There were a few more characters that were out of character just for the sake to fit into the story and it was revolting to say the least. Bad God is another new plague that is taking over the internet to the point the fandom itself is becoming quite ruined.It’s too full of OCs that make no damn sense with too many plotholes to count. I respect you and Lubo are close and have several AUs no doubtly that you come up with together over the years, but this one in my opinion was not one that is worth the large spotlight that is taking over the fandom. But you are not going to listen to them because you don’t take criticism, either.

Somebody says they don’t like their work and immediately you are “Nervous sweat"ing and making it awkward for everybody else. The same could be said for when you were in the chat when I peeked in; just when people were trying to make sense of your ideas or thoughts, you dismiss it like nothing ever happened. However, you go about and target other people in the Hetalia community such as Leanne and KingDespair as ‘people who are low’, and in turn that’s I guess somehow supposed to make you better?

Like that one time when you and Lubo read Leanne’s Angeltalia fanfiction; I wasn’t a fan of the fanfiction itself but the way you and Lubo butchered it was /disgusting/. Also gameplays? Critiques? Don’t you mean flaming and bashing? You make everything about yourself and disregard anything anyone wants to accomplish or say to you at points as well. You throw temper tantrums instead of taking the mature alternative and PMing them, for example…

… for Imaginary Nightmare’s case, to take the music out after you finish the Lets Play. The route you decide to take instead is bully them off the internet, when you insist and talk about having a fun and accepting environment. You hassle people, without thinking if they’re ever going to pick up game development or creative writing again, all because you decided to act immature. You say you lost an artist for Dreamtalia?

Truly sad, but you didn’t have to go about and act like a baby right after by posting a guilt tripping status. And you say you don’t have much to contribute to the chat? Kyo, it is a gathering space where people just go to have fun. Just because they don’t shower you to your “Glorious” satisfaction doesn’t mean you are “just there”. It means you can finally sit at everybody else’s level and stop trying to be this horrid Godly monster you and the fandom itself made you out to be.

Please keep this in mind when you are talking with the members in the chat. In order to invite you back, one had to mention that Bad God was involved. Meaning, if your AU was not in the spotlight, you most likely didn’t want any part in it. That is very selfish. Also, ‘add me back in’? You could’ve easily gone to the link on DeviantArt and logged in yourself without someone having to ‘invite’ you back in. The fandom is NOT here to worship you and your ideas. Thank you and have a good day.

mkay

[terryblount]

Far Cry: New Dawn Review

Far Cry: New Dawn is the latest installment in a series that recently turned fourteen years old. New Dawn is not a DLC; it might be considered as an expansion of Far Cry 5 since it continues that story but I think a sequel is a better word to describe it.

I am amazed the game does not have little ponies.

Far Cry was one of the best FPS (first person shooters) that mixed action with stealth and while the first game was a pretty realistic shooter with a sci-fi twist, the rest did not follow in its footsteps. Far Cry 3 and Primal had some supernatural nonsense (this one does as well) but nothing close to the sci-fi elements that were introduced in the first game. I honestly enjoyed every game until Far Cry 4. After FC4, though, I reached my limits mainly due to the lack of creativity. Ubisoft tried to change things with FC5 and it did, though those changes were not enough to make the game feel fresh or interesting (at least they removed the towers).

“Problem makers must be solved. So rabbits, are you problem makers or problem solvers?” – One of the twins right before bashing someone’s head with a helmet.

These are the twins, so instead of having one boring villain now you get two in the price of one!

Since Vaas (“You are so fucked Jason”), no main villain really made an impact on me. The story was always an important part of the Far Cry games and without a solid antagonist the story, usually, falls flat. Of course no matter how cool Vaas was, the gameplay evolution of the third game is what made Far Cry what it is today (and in case you haven’t figured it out yet, I love stealth games).

Oh dear God please do not remind me of that music.

Even today, I believe that Far Cry has the perfect stealth mechanics in any FPS game. Not only that, but with each new iteration the Far Cry series only becomes better. Unfortunately though even if the gameplay has always been good, most of the other parts were not so much. I thought the fifth game will be the end of the series but, apparently, I was mistaken. I was also surprised as I thought New Dawn would be a glorified crappy pink re-skin (since it hasn’t even been a year since the release of Far Cry 5). Looks like it wasn’t – or at least not as much as I initially thought – and to be honest, I liked it in spite of all the pink crap (even if it does make the game feel like it was built for little girls!). Seriously, the pink colour is frigging everywhere! I did not like the game as much as Blood Dragon which, in my opinion, was amazing – and I am still hoping for a sequel – but New Dawn is better than Far Cry 5.

“If I wasn’t blind as fuck I would have joined the fight” –Grace Armstrong, probably the best sniper in Far Cry 5 but not anymore.

For the sake of spoilers I am only going to say that the game continues exactly where the fifth game ends (or to be more precise from a specific ending since there was more than one). Seventeen years after the incident people resurface and start to rebuild the world. A group of ruthless murderers called the Highwaymen, led by the twins Mickey & Lou, terrorize the inhabitants of Hope county in Montana (I get it’s a catchier name but why not Highwaywomen since most of them are women? I mean even the leaders are women. Just a thought).

“Are you ready to go so fast that your pubes will pull back and tickle your asshole?” – The Monkey God’s faithful servant Hurk right before handing me the keys of his deadly car.

After the near complete annihilation of the safe haven Prosperity, Carmina Rye (the daughter of Nick & Kim Rye from FC5) asks survivors lead by Thomas Rush to help them. Since Rush is helping to rebuild communities all across the country, with the help of experts he has recruited over the years. Shit hits the fan very soon though and a full frontal assault begins at the train where Rush and the rest of his people are using for transportation. That’s where you take the role of the captain of the security who, minutes after the attack, rushes in to save his people. Unfortunately, everyone dies and Rush gets captured. The captain as the sole survivor is being found by Carmina who leads him to Prosperity and the fight against the Highwaymen begins.

Don’t even ask! Seriously just don’t.

The story is nothing special but certainly more “believable”  and enjoyable than what we got in Far Cry 5, though most characters – with a few exceptions – are nothing extraordinary. While there is a comedic tone here and there, the actual story is rather serious. I mean, it is a survival game so how fun can it be right? Speaking of which, if you could adjust some things, remove some others and put zombies in the mix, this could easily pass as a “The Walking Dead” game (which could have been better than the one we recently got). I also do not know why Ubisoft chose to, once again, go with the silent protagonist (maybe it is the RPG elements which Ubisoft tries to put in every single bloody game it makes but more on that later) but for me it’s getting tiresome; this is not a sandbox RPG for the love of god.

“Lollypop lollypop, you are going to eat dirt lollypop” – Little girl outside the arena before I enter with the fight name Lollypop.

The voice acting is pretty good but the lip-syncing is not always that great. Moreover, most of the characters from the previous game return in this one. The main antagonists, the twins, are OK I guess. They are “psychotic” and “logical” with extremely violent tendencies and without showing any kind of empathy or sorrow, however they are not very menacing or scary and their looks do not fit their characters. As such, they become a bit forgettable.

Yap, this is where I found the naked guy.

I mean, take a look at Vaas. His looks matched his personality almost perfectly (he could be psychotic and insane while at the same time he could be funny and clever) and most importantly there was a serious reason for you to fear him and hate him at the same time (I think the writing was better as well). The twins failed to emotionally engage me with their personalities/looks as I basically didn’t really care or worry for anyone except for Rush. Even so, there is a part  involving the twins that I really liked though it becomes forgettable rather quickly (if you’ve played the game, you understand the part I’m referencing). I do not want to spoil anything more but I have to say that some of the returning characters make much more sense in this world rather than the one that Far Cry 5 was based on.

“Loot them but do not defile them” – Father Jerome while I am going through someone’s pockets.

Visually speaking, the game looks just as good as Far Cry 5, and some may say that it performs a bit better than it. The only performance issues I’ve encountered were some random stutters (from time to time) and, for some odd reasons, the subtitles kept resetting whenever I was launching the game. Other than these two minor issues, though, New Dawn ran fine on my system. For more details on performance please read John’s analysis.

Well terrorizing and killing innocents is hard work, he deserves a break, a permanent one.

Music and sound are fine. There are some audio glitches though they occurred rarely, but Christ the music playing at the outposts is frigging horrific. Terrible, just terrible (no wonder why all the highwaymen are losing their fucking minds after listening to it). Thankfully, there is another radio station that plays classics and although I am not a big fan of that genre, it sounds heavenly better than the other station.

I told you BOY, you are not allowed to play with grenades before dinner! Now go eat your veggies and come back to teach you how to politely stab people in the face!

Now let me address the elephant in the room  – not actual elephants like in FC4 as there aren’t any ride-able animals this time – the RPG elements. Yes, Ubisoft did implement some of the changes/features we saw in games like The Division or AC: Odyssey. Unfortunately, Ubisoft keeps copying and pasting stuff to every game it makes, even if these elements do not fit in specific titles. What it doesn’t seem to understand is that New Dawn’s lasting appeal won’t be extended by adding them, and that all of its latest games look alike and/or play the same. In reality, what these RPG elements actually do is make the game boring and repetitive as hell, and I’m certain that no one wants unnecessary grinding that does not come with, at least, worthy rewards. Also, I find it really stupid – in a Far Cry game – to shoot an enemy 100 times in the face so that you can kill him/her, just because he/she is one or two levels higher than you; it’s bullshit.

That crap is all over the place so that’s why we call her Glitchy Gina, she doesn’t like that as you can see.

“I always hated that motherfucker” – Gina after shooting some random highwayman.

I do get that some people like this but it makes no sense to me in this particular series. But hey, at least you can turn off the damage numbers and enemy health bars, thus making it a bit more tolerable.  Thankfully, I did not rush the main story and all the missions I completed were on the same level I was, so I never had to shoot someone in the face more than once (or maybe twice if they wore a helmet). On the other hand, I had a couple encounters with some mutated animals which could only be killed by shooting specific parts of their bodies.

Even the god damn fire is pink…the bodies?! What bodies? No, there are no bodies here.

The shooting is – as always – pretty good and the non-restrictive cover system works, once again, great. The melee combat is also solid and I do appreciate the return of the knife take-downs. Actually, these may be the best take-down animations I have seen in a Far Cry game. You can use numerous melee weapons like bats, pipes and shovels but all the stealth take-down sequences feature a knife. As for the advertised new weapon, the saw-launcher, it is cool but I stopped using it the moment I realized there is still no gore or dismemberment in the game.

“Go sinner, with our blessing and hope” – Leader of the hunters before I go burn everything to dust .

Stealth, as usual, is great but some parts felt a bit weird since you can now move the camera while doing take-downs and using skills like the chain take-downs (which worked perfectly in the previous games but did not this time around or maybe I was doing something wrong which I doubt since I have played extensively all of the previous Far Cry games). By the way, I will never understand why you throw a bat instead of a knife when you do the advanced take-down.

This nice old lady is a killer, she might not look the part but she is, trust me.

Instead of a skill tree you now have perks, just like FC5. You earn perk points by doing challenges like killing ten enemies with a handgun. After a specific part of the main story you get access to some new perks which I found unnecessary. Honestly, if I knew what these silly perks exactly did, I would had never unlocked them, though that’s a personal opinion as I am almost certain that some people will like them.

He seriously expects me to take the apple?! I am no Snow White father, oh wait wrong book.

Weapons customization is completely gone. All weapons are pre-made and there is no way for you to make any modifications no matter the weapon you choose. To be honest, I didn’t really mind that very much. However, I was really annoyed by the newly introduced weapon rarity level system. Due to this system, players will need a level X weapon to kill a level X enemy as anything below that feels like a water-gun. At least almost every weapon feels unique and has different stats.

“You will be the Shepard of my people” – Joseph Seed.

Surprisingly enough. there are no fetch missions or annoying side-quests in New Dawn. All of the side content is tied to the main story. I am truly amazed that there isn’t any of Ubisoft’s classic fetching crap flooding the map. Speaking of the map, it is smaller than before and most of the surrounding areas are radioactive (thus impassible). Furthermore, Ubisoft did something interesting with the outposts this time around. In the previous Far Cry games, players could liberate outposts and after that they could use them as resupply centers and/or fast travel points. This time if you capture an outpost, you can abandon it and the enemy will take it back from you. You can then re-capture it though it will be much harder as enemies will be tougher (though the rewards will also be better).

The Cap after a bloody fight taking over an outpost. I wonder who cleans all the mess he leaves behind.

The most important currency in the game is Ethanol (which translates to power fuel) and Prosperity, being your home-base, needs several things to expand and grow. You can upgrade many parts of Prosperity, like the infirmary or the garage, and you need Ethanol in order to upgrade them (which you get mainly by capturing outposts). There are three upgrade stages, with each stage providing different bonuses. The only thing that needs more resources than Ethanol, so that it can be further upgraded, is the main building (as it requires specific people called Specialists so that they can operate specific sections of your home-base). I honestly prefer this way of upgrading your base compared to the older games in which you had to hunt numerous animals to get skins for crafting better equipment. At least this makes more sense now.

It’s so funny that they think they can put me down with fists and bats when I have already killed hundreds of them, just by staring at them. They should be fleeing up the mountains crying for their mommies.

One great addition to the game are the Expeditions. These missions are taking place in different locations outside Montana (like San Francisco) and they have a very simple goal; steal shit from the Highwaymen (so the baddies are all over the states but live in Montana? And you also fly all the way to these locations with a chopper? Oh well). These missions are a nice break from the green fields of Hope County and can be done solo or with a gun for hire.

“They penetrated our defenses so deeply” – Bean, creator of Wikibeania, after the attack on Prosperity.

Speaking of which, and just like the previous FC game, guns for hire are back. These are people or animals who are willing to follow your command into battle, from a cute doggy to an angry wild boar and from an old lady with a sniper to a guy with a mask and bow who says absolutely nothing in the whole game (he just moans a lot… and he sucks by the way). In order to recruit them you will usually have to do a mission involving them like rescuing some nice doggies from some evil twisted motherfuckers who are butchering them. My doggy, by the way, had more than a hundred kills.

I fed these guys to the dogs, stupidity is untreatable anyways.

As for the game’s boss fights… well… they are awful. I mean… OK… I get it; it is not that easy to make a memorable boss fight in a, mostly, realistic first person shooter. However, making your boss absorb enemy fire like Sponge-Bob is not the freaking solution. Put some armour on them or do the hide and seek trick, make it a melee-only fight, hell even make a god damn QTE-fest sequence like Far Cry 3 did; it will still feel better than what we get in New Dawn. Seriously, in the final fight the boss had 3 arrows stuck in its damned head for the first three seconds of the cut-scene… it was ridiculous I tell you.

The Rye family reunited! Even after everything I have done I still don’t get a hug. Ungrateful bastards!

“Even if there are less cars now people still drive like assholes” – Gina after being hit by another vehicle.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, there are microtransactions in the game. Truth be told they are not intrusive and you can get almost everything with the in-game currency, but if you want to unlock every single weapon then get ready for some glorious grinding. Microtransactions have no place in a single player game in my opinion. It’s unacceptable, plain and simple.

Currency for microtransactions. I donated all of mine to my pet friends.

In conclusion, Far Cry: New Dawn is OK. It’s certainly not the best Far Cry game but it’s way better than the previous one (even if you include all of its DLCs). Is it worth purchasing and playing it right now? Maybe. All I can say is that I didn’t encounter any problem that could ruin my experience (I mean it doesn’t have the awful and crazy spawn times that were happening in the previous game). If you liked Far Cry 5, chances are you will also like this one. If you lost interest in the series after Far Cry 3 then this might also be a nice breath of fresh air. At least it was for me and it has been a while since I had fun with a Far Cry game.

  Melee

Stealth

Shooting

Upgrades

Cover System

No Busy Work

Weapon Variety

Villains

Boss Fights

Freaking Pink

RPG Elements

Silent Protagonist

Microtransactions

Lack of Customization

        Playtime: 17+ hours total

Computer Specs: CPU: i5 4440, GPU: MSI 960GTX 4GB, RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws X 8GB HDD: Crucial 275GB MX300, OS: Win7, 1080p

Far Cry: New Dawn Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[easy-win-games-blog]

STILL GOOD? — GRAND THEFT AUTO III

This is ‘Still Good?’, an editorial series in which I look back at both favourites games of mine and classics that I somehow missed, working out how these titles stack up today and whether or not they’re worth going back to.

tl;dr — has <insert game> aged well?

That said, let’s dig into Grand Theft Auto III.

Originally released in 2001 for the PS2 GTA 3 was hailed by critics and fans as a landmark in video game design. Its core gameplay mechanics — driving, shooting and navigating an open world — had all been seen before, but this marked the first instance of these mechanics being put together in a seamless and (for lack of a better word) good way. Mix this with elements of The Sopranos and the popular gangster movies of the time and you’ve got one spicy meat-a-ball.

Upon its release it received fantastic reviews across the board, sitting on an aggregate score of 97% (Metacritic) for the PS2 version. It was called, "a luscious, sprawling epic,” a, "technological marvel ... that captures the essence of gritty city life in amazing detail,” and "on a scale that's truly epic” (quotes lifted from Wikipedia). From here on out, aided by various other releases of the time, the gaming landscape was irreversibly shifted towards a focus on cinematic storytelling and open-world settings. It’s become difficult to not find traces of GTA 3’s DNA floating around a most modern releases.

It’s also very easy to get ahold of today. A mobile version was released for its 10th anniversary, but if you prefer something more solid it’s also available on the desktop App Store for Mac, Steam and on Xbox 360 through backwards compatibility if you can find a hard copy.

This sure is a celebrated classic, but it really hasn’t aged well.

If you’ve gone ahead and put in the work by reading my About page you’ll know I go hardcore with the GTA series. GTA 3 especially introduced me to mature video games in a way that I’ll never forget, but unlike other classics of the medium like the 2D Mario games it’s really tough to go back. I finished the game in high school on a MacBook using a trackpad, and recently bought it and Vice City on eBay for Xbox (these versions received various graphical improvements over the PS2 version) and have played maybe half of 3 so far since then.

But it’s hard, man. I love GTA but I’m honestly struggling to continue. It’s a weird case because I can look past its dated graphics and the driving is fine, but nearly everything else is just frustrating. My major gripe with playing this game now is that the controls are absolutely shitted. Locking on to enemies is vague, both in the sense that it only sometimes works with certain weapons and that the lock on rectangle is very transparent. Combat lacks any kind of possible finesse and relies upon a lot of dumb luck and blind button mashing, and moving Claude around feels like I’m controlling a marionette puppet.

And the camera…

There’s a strange feature I’ve found both in GTA 3 and Vice City on Xbox, and I’m not exactly sure if it was apparent on PC or PS2 (but I’m probably wrong). The option to rotate the camera around your player, whether you want to focus on enemies or check out the scenery, is gone. Completely. Instead, when you move the right stick, the camera jumps into a first-person perspective from which you can’t actually do anything. No walking, no combat. Its only really purpose is to change what direction you’re looking (duh), which is just slow and painful. Especially in combat because you have to stop, change the camera, and then move or perform some kind of action to go back out to third-person.

Imagine, if you will…

A mission tells you to go into Chinatown.

Easy, you get there.

But uh oh, you’ve been ambushed by gun and baseball bat-wielding Triads!

You pull out your Uzi and pump a clip into one guy at your 12 o’clock, but three more guys on your 6 you have opened fire!

You act fast, and duck into first person mode.

Five seconds later you’ve turned to face your foes, and have lost half of your health in that time. Now, to lock on.

In a daring move, you lock onto Triad #1 on your right, shoot two rounds and wait for another three seconds while you automatically reload (something that can’t be done manually).

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

You got him! Well done! You’ve also got next to no health.

Time to aim at the next pistol-packing Triad.

But uh oh again, you’ve locked onto someone with a baseball bat instead. You can’t switch your target on the fly, silly, and now you have six guys in total all around you shooting and beating you to death.

You’re dead, good luck next time.

As 2K18 gamer bro, this is frustrating as hell. And this happens constantly. A lot of combat scenarios, in my case at least, came down to me trying over and over again and succeeding only by shepherding the AI into a tight pack and using up the five molotov cocktails I’d scrounged to burn them all alive like a pack of zombies.

I was too young to be involved in the original hype of this game, but I imagine there was a big emphasis on strategy and player freedom in the marketing leading up to the game’s release. I get that, and GTA 3 sure is revolutionary on that front, but by today’s standards it just isn’t good. When the game at hand has a focus on combat and action it’s not a good thing when success comes from manipulating the infrastructure of the game itself. I don’t feel like I’m playing it the way it was meant to be played, but I don’t see any other option.

To make my point clearer, take the example of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. There are a lot of points in this game where you’re surrounded by enemies, who mostly all have guns. There’s no cover-based shooting or anything of that sort in San Andreas, but the fluidity and freedom of the movement with the ability to crouch, walk while crouched, jump and vault over obstacles, strafe, free aim and lock onto and attack enemies without having them in your immediate line of sight really make the difference. Just the ability to freely rotate the camera around CJ and switch lock-on targets make combat scenarios infinitely more strategic and playable than GTA 3.

Sure, San Andreas only exists because of 3’s legacy, but in three short years so much of the Grand Theft Auto formula was refined by intuitive but glaringly obvious improvements for San Andreas, making it now so much easier to go back to than 3. I would put San Andreas, a now 14 year old game, in front of any gamer in 2018, tell them to play it and be confident they would have fun and play with a full sense of control.

The other area where GTA 3 really lacks is in its narrative elements.

In the game you play as Claude, a mute blank slate of a man who wasn’t actually given a name until a one-off skippable phone call in San Andreas. At the beginning of the game we find Claude robbing a bank with his girlfriend, Catalina, who betrays him as they make their getaway with the line, "Sorry babe. I'm an ambitious girl, and you're just small time.”

Immediately, there’s confusion. Stylistically, it’s cool for sure. There’s shotguns and convertibles and action, but who is this lady? Why do her ambitions stop her from robbing banks with her lover (something they have been doing together for around nine years)? She must just be psycho or something, because she jumps in a sports car with some other guy, so to her it’s more beneficial to share the money with the getaway driver than with your long-term boyfriend. What’s more, Claude can’t explain any of this because he can’t talk, so these questions linger for the whole game and never get answered.

You can see here by making Claude the blank slate that he is that it’s likely the intention from Rockstar was to let the player use the mute as a vessel through which they could project themselves, personifying the game with their own personal flavour. Only, there are numerous and very definitive displays of Claude’s character throughout the game that the player might not agree with.

Character defining moments for a character who isn’t meant to have character.

For Christ’s sake, it’s implied he shoots a woman point blank at the end of the game because she talks too much.

It’s a weird half measure. It feels like Rockstar were trying to toe the line between an open world RPG packed with player personalisation and a fully scripted cinematic experience like Goodfellas. They’ve learned since, and their campaigns have been largely compelling ever since, but this feels like a big misstep.

Also, a minor issue I have; the cutscenes and cinematic moments of this game look like dog shit. The direction, cinematography and pacing of nearly every cutscene is awful. Claude will walk to someone’s door and knock, only to be answered an instant later by immediate talk as if this other character intuitively knew he was there. The shots will cut out parts of character’s faces, sometimes ending at their forehead or mouth, and as the cutscenes conclude it isn’t uncommon for Claude to start heading for the exit as the mission boss is still mid-sentence, as if he also intuitively knows the conversation is about to end. Even if the mission parameters haven’t been outlined yet. It’s almost as if the residents of Liberty City have been endowed with psychic abilities (but only in 2001 because Liberty City Stories is much more aligned with the rest of the series in this regard [maybe it’s something in the water]).

Coming from later GTA games, this just doesn’t feel like GTA.

The story overall is also just bland. It’s the most generic revenge plot you could imagine, with some out-of-nowhere betrayals such as that of Salvatore Leone — the local Mob boss.

After completing a number of tasks, both extremely dangerous and tedious, the Don congratulates you on your achievements and your loyalty to the Leone family. This feels pretty good, especially since the missions immediately preceding this moment are a hellish cluster fuck full of shoddy AI and stupid mission design. And you know what? He’s right. You have been loyal to him. You’ve done literally everything he’s told you to do and more. As this happens, he asks you to collect a car parked somewhere Downtown. So, like the good little Mafia errand boy you are, you skip down the hill to get it, only to be sent a page from Salvatore’s girlfriend of all people that the car is a trap and that you’re about to be murdered. Surely enough, the car is rigged with explosives, so your only option is to actually betray Salvatore and flee the first island with his girlfriend as you plot your (second) revenge.

It’s simply not good writing. There’s no cause and effect, no setting up of any kind. You are blank man. You work for blank Mafia man. But blank Mafia man turns on you, because he is bad Mafia man after all. You get blank revenge. It’s high school shit.

Just like Catalina. Take that blank man example, but substitute ‘black Mafia man’ with ‘blank girl’. It’s bad writing.

When it comes to games and movies it becomes hard to define what is good, especially in cases where legacy and nostalgia are involved. Super Mario Bros. 3 or World or whatever might be a better game than OG Super Mario Bros., but you might see OG Super Mario Bros. as the better game because it gave birth to what came after it. In my opinion that’s a really weird viewpoint to have, especially since gaming culture is so focussed on iteration and improvement. Some see it as sacrilege to say an old classic just doesn’t play well, but that’s the case because games as a medium inherently get better as we improve the craft and polish the development process.

With this in mind, and everything else I’ve already said, Grand Theft Auto III is not a good game in 2018. It’s not fun and it doesn’t control well. The story is bad and the moment-to-moment writing is no better. From a historical stance, I think it’s definitely worth playing, but if GTA V was your first introduction to the series and you want to explore its past GTA 3 is not the place to start.

STILL GOOD?

Not really, no

Am I completely wrong? Is my subjective opinion too subjective? Did I forget to mention how much San Andreas fleshes out both Salvatore Leone and Catalina and their character arcs in this game? Shoot (pew) me a message up top through the Ask Me Anything link OR hit me up on Twitter @easy_win_games.

Illustration left-to-right: Catalina, Maria, Asuka, Kenji, Donald Love, Toni, Luigi, 8-Ball, Salvatore Leone. Claude in the foreground.

- Editorial & illustration brewed in-house -