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quasieli · 3 years

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top six: fictional characters that give you gender envy, flowers, little things that make you happy and d&d moments :D

Ooh lotsa questions!

Gender Envy:

1) Bow from She-Ra (2018). Something about buff athletic dude who wears crop tops and is soft as hell is very Gender to me.

2) Vax from Critical Role. Pretty boy, kinda goth rogue? That’s sexy as hell and I wish that was me.

3) In a wildly different idea of gender envy, I’ve been thinking about it lately and @quantum-lesbian’s character in the Frostmaiden game I’m in with them, Ambrose, is Big Gender. Beautiful non-binary drow with a starry and kinda witchy aesthetic that dresses super grandly and ostentatiously no matter the occasion? Yes please.

4) Pete from The Unsleeping City, specifically season two. I adore season one Pete but season two Pete that works in a queer bookshop and has a teapot arcane focus, is artsy and is unapologetically a trans man who doesn’t give a shit about gender roles? Sign me the fuck up.

5) Beau from Critical Role. Buff GNC lesbian mixed with academia, but like academia from the prospective of a grad student with ADHD trying to learn everything about their special interests? A+, I love her and I’m jealous.

6) I’m gonna cheat a lil bit for this last one. I know the prompt is fictional characters, but Julia Lepetit and Jacob Andrews in their Hitman streams? Simultaneously both of them were Gender for me. Jacob esp felt like that for me, which is weird cause dresses can make me dysphoric, but I am also slightly envious of the Dude in a Dress type of gender presentation.

Can you tell that I’m a confused trans masc enby

Gonna put it under the cut from here cause oof, there’s still a lot more.

Flowers:

1) Big slut for Sunflowers, always have been, always will be.

2) Fun fact, my dad’s family used to own a flower shop (in like the 70s, so I never got to see it :(), and one of their big things was hydrangeas. My dad has always loved them and now I love the snowballs too!

3) A recent favorite, the Baker’s Globe Mallow. It’s a type of flower that only grows from the soils of forests that have been affected by wildfires. It’s a simple little flower but I love the idea of something beautiful rising from the ashes after tragedy. A little dramatic, but I’m queer, ofc I’m dramatic.

4) Roses are another important flower to my family (Rose was a family name for a couple generations), and ya know, they’re a classic.

5) There’s this beautiful magnolia tree in front of my house that blooms with the most beautiful white and pink flowers every spring, and it’s one of my favorite things to see every year.

6) There’s so many different types of Lillies and they’re all very pretty, but the Purple Stargazer is prob my favorite.

Little Things That Make Me Happy:

1) My cat, Maddie. She may be a cranky girl at times, but she is also very sweet and will always be my baby (even though she is 12).

2) Not a little thing really, but my best friend. Just getting a sweet/silly text from her or the two of us chilling in a room, sitting in a comfortable silence because we just like being together, nothing better.

3) Baking, esp if I’m doing it for others. I’m not much of a sweets person myself, a little treat every once in a while type person, but I love baking. It’s a very relaxing process for me, even when it can sometimes get stressful, but seeing people enjoying something I made, especially something that brought me great joy to make, is simply the best.

4) In the same sorta vein, crafting and other art, but that’s a bit more personal. I love making things for others, but art, particularly drawing, is something I do more for me. It’s such a great feeling when you can get into a really good art mood and just sink yourself into a project. I love it.

5) My plush toys. Yes, I am a 23 year old, no I will not stop loving my plushies. I just got a few new friends, which I made a post about recently, and they such good cuddle buddies. However, there is one king amongst them all. I have this old, beat up christmas puppy beanie baby, on his tag named Jingle Pup, but I just call him Jingle. I had one version of him since I was like 6, but he currently lives on a shelf cause he is very beaten up and fragile, but his “brother”, who I got when I was 8, is still in kinda good shape and is currently chilling on my chest as I type this lol.

6) Again, not a little thing, but it’s important to mention; D&D. The game itself is such a joy, but truly the best part of it is the people. I love creating stories and memories with people through this weird little game. Truly one of my favorite things to do.

D&D Moments:

These are all gonna be personal moments, rather than anything from actual play shows/podcasts. RC is Reforged Campaign, where I play Saube, and FM is Frostmaiden, where I play Sparks.

1) RC - Meeting Mahety, Saube’s girlfriend. We met her way back in session 12 and we are now up to like session 73. Saube saw her and was immediately big heart eyes at her but also felt a bit awkward and shy. So, being a game a dice, I decided to roll. 10 or higher, Saube would talk to her, 9 or lower, she’d stay put. I rolled a 17, 17 is now a lucky number for me. I love Mahety and I’d die for her.

2) FM - This was an insane fight that should not have been so crazy, but in a fairly early session, my group went up against an angry druid and her awakened animals. So much batshit stuff happened in that fight, and we unfortunately lost our bread loving bard (RIP Agneyis), but one of my favorite combat turns happened in this fight. Our artificer, Omaren, has a robe of useful items and one of the patches on it creates a large pit. Thinking quickly, Omaren tore off the patch, slid it under one of the dire wolves we were fighting and created a looney tunes style pit under it, allowing us to take it out easily via pot shots. Such a clutch move and such a funny visual, especially because the dire wolf kept failing the checks to get out of the pit.

3) RC - Saube’s Zebrith (I will never remember how this actually spelled RIP). So, for context, Saube ended up with a death curse (long story) that mechanically meant they had disadvantage on any death saving throws. Scary as hell, need to get that fixed! So, Saube and their party had to be smuggled into another country to talk with some religious leaders of a goddess known as The First, the goddess of death. They were told that Saube would have to go through the aforementioned ritual, which included her soul leaving her body for a short period of time. During this ritual, her friends had to call back to her, to say things that would bring her back to her body and I still cry thinking about that game. That ritual was not only important for Saube bodily, but spiritually as well. After that ritual, Saube officially became a cleric of The First!

4) A real sappy one, RC - Saube meeting all of her friends. Anyone who follows along with the rantings on my blog probably knows how important this game is to me. I met this random group of strangers on tumblr and formed a D&D party with them and now, a year and a half later, I honestly think it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I know that sounds silly and dramatic but not only has this game brought me so much joy and comfort, but I also gained a group of really amazing friends who have been nothing but amazing since day one. As much as Saube knows she can depend on SICL, I know I can depend on my group of weirdos lol. We both love our friends very much and even though we’ve all been through some crazy shit, we wouldn’t change it for the world.

5) RC - Just playing Saube in general. I really didn’t intend for it to be this way, but Saube is very much a reflection of myself. She is the first long term character I have ever played and so much of me is in her. I try not to treat D&D like therapy, because that’s unfair to my DM and fellow party members, but playing Saube has allowed me to work through some of my own problems, especially social anxiety, in a lot safer of an environment. It isn’t so much that I’m asking this game to help me fix my life, but playing out these scenarios that, in the real world, would make me anxious or make me freak out, I can stop, take a moment to breathe and work out these issues in a way that makes sense to me. Playing her has led me to understanding myself a bit better, as well, and that’s truly such a wonderfully unexpected gift from this whole experience.

6) Lastly, a silly one: RC - Getting a crit 6. The last session of this game got real interesting. Saube’s party ended up in the ethereal plane and magic got real fucky there. So, any time any of us tried to cast a spell, we’d roll a d20, not look at the result, and then try to guess what number rolled. The closer to the number, the better the result. A few times, a few people managed to get within like 3 or 4 of their roll, but oh the power I felt when I rolled a 6 (on Saube’s die!) and guessed it correctly! So, not only did the spell (Bless) work, but it worked super well. So instead of getting +1d4 to attack rolls and saving throws, Saube and two other party members got +2d4 to attacks, saving throws and skill checks. So powerful I broke the rules of D&D lmao.

#asks #ask games #floralprintshark #D&D #Flowers #Saube #Sauhety #SICL #Sparks #long post #thanks <3 <3

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endlessdoom · 3 years

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Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures #005

bildoom1.zip

THT: Threnody (oh shit)

Heroes 2 (oh fuck)

Hells Half Acre

Demon's Revenge

Dreams

FATE01.WAD "Fate Series"

bildoom1.zip

Uploaded to the archives in 2011, but with real date being 1995. This WAD with 3 maps is probably one of the reasons why so many tenge are afraid to explore the /idgames archives randomly. It is clearly a rather novice WAD from 1995 that has all the kind of bugs and factors that we would find during that decade. Admittedly, 1995 was not a very bright year for WADs, but what can we expect? They were barely a year old with real editors. One way or another, this collection of 3 maps is one that has a certain childish charisma that I can't help but laugh at. It's crap, sure, but even in the crap there's a certain charisma.

The first map is probably the most understandable of them all. It looks pretty ugly and plays pretty ugly. The use of only one type of texture on extremely high walls is quite common, as well as a strange use of linedefs that seems to mimic a kindergarten crayon drawing. On the other hand, the path is understandable enough and the secrets connect well enough to at least deliver some playability.

The second map is a simple combat arena with Mancubus and a few extra enemies. From an objective point of view, it's the best map in terms of quality for the simple fact that it doesn't ask for much and does what it needs to do. And yet it is mediocre.

The third map is probably the most interesting in terms of design, but a headache in terms of path-finding. What we have here is a layout that starts with a hub system that hides a multitude of secret paths in total darkness. We have to search through each of the paths until we find all the keys to escape this nightmare in a final fight. While the beginning gives a certain sense of adventure, it quickly becomes a miserable dungeon crawler with unfair combat and lots and lots of darkness. I don't want to imagine how this looked in the original DOOM.EXE. In conclusion, it's very bad, but I've seen worse.

THT: Threnody

A collection of 20 maps makes this a respectfully large megawad that works in the style of Community Project, with the difference that the authors have managed to work under a fairly cohesive factor that gives a certain palpable identity to THT. Speaking of THT, this is also a WAD in the form of a tribute to one of the legends of the community, one of our greatest pillars and fantastic creator. THT stands for Ty Halderman Tribute, creator of the iconic TNT mappers group and also the maintainer of /idgames archive from 1997 to 2015. That's an amount of effort that very, very few of us in the community will ever manage to encompass. That's a lifetime of providing us with both content and pure hard work. This WAD is a dedication to Ty, a love letter of sorts that without needing to be an exact replica of his past works, has certain monuments to his legacy. A WAD that contains a particularly special essence, let's see what it is all about, shall we?

While the megawad is designed in the form of a tribute, it does not attempt to replicate Ty's style exactly, nor copy directly from his creations; on the contrary, it chooses a system of references so subtle that they function like little poems whispered in silence. As we move forward, we will see things that remind us of his great contributions, while at the same time we play with the vague notion that we were already in this place once. A kind of dream that we never dreamed, and in that this megawad manages to carry that fantastic tribute idea.

I may have felt quite frustrated at times thanks to the constant hordes of enemies and the pseudo-slaughter gameplay at times, but every stage made it worthwhile. On the other hand, I'm capable of putting up with punishing combat, but confusing layouts? That really kills my patience, but I understand that sometimes the glory and fun lies in this singular aspect, the exploration and the feeling of being lost. On the other hand, don't let my words sound so extreme, this isn't Eternal Doom either, but you will need to pay attention and take note of where you've been and where you're going. If you like that, then you will love it. But even if you don't, let me tell you that I had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the megawad. It's a long, but satisfying adventure that ends on a nostalgic note through space and time, like a dimensional goodbye from mirrors we don't see. A fine tribute that I'm sure Ty would love.

Heroes 2

An interesting megawad that works similar to what we would find in the ''shovelware'' discs of the 90s, that is, a compilation of random items united under the desire of commercialization. On the other hand, Heroes 2 doesn't have more than 3000 levels and won't make us regret our existence... that much. It is a compilation of 32 maps for Doom 2 compiled during 1996. What we will find here are maps so 90s that we will breathe both nostalgia and frustration. All the tropes that are common during these times lie in this megawad in such a way that it becomes like a kind of relic museum. It's perfect if you love this kind of WADs, but on the other hand, it's a great punishment if you prefer the life changes of modern times.

Hells Half Acre

From 1996, there is not much to expect in this WAD. It is a map that replaces E2M1 and contains some questionable design decisions. It starts with a simple room that then expands to reveal a pool connected to a multitude of paths. These paths are a marvel. As lost as they are cramped, it feels like I'm playing Daggarfall or a dungeon simulator. Possibly that was the author's intention. There is nothing special about this WAD that seems to set no higher expectations. While the design isn't truly terrible, it isn't great either and falls perfectly in the realm of mediocre in all its features. From the bland gameplay to the extremely confusing path system, the progression is just too boring. You don't miss anything by skipping this map, so it's an experience I'd totally recommend ignoring.

Demon's Revenge

A solid level designed with a theme reminiscent of Thy Flesh Consumend. Quite small but with enough detail and good touch to give it a charismatic essence that successfully unfolds in an enjoyable average time. With a relatively challenging gameplay, the level features an excellent balance between visuals and combat, offering a solid effort that is worth playing, even if it doesn't stand out for much else. Small errors here and there in decision making can be found, but overall, there's nothing major that truly destroys the map. As I said, solid all around. The only strange thing is that it doesn't have any MIDI songs, which makes it feel slightly awkward, but still fun.

Dreams

Simple, concrete and without much appearance. This is a 1996/7 level that doesn't try to be pretentious and delivers what it sets out to. A short level with a dungeon design that combines the classic textures of a hellish fortress with a few tints of absolute darkness. Nothing special but nothing terribly bad. Decent, honestly.

FATE01.WAD "Fate Series"

It looks like this is a 90s marathon this week. A simple, straightforward WAD replaces a single map and offers a system based on three connected rooms on a ''find the key'' basis. Combat is explosive, intense but simple without much tactical tact or any sort of deep mechanics within it. It's not too bad, but I would honestly classify it as mediocre. Nothing special or worthwhile.

#doom #wad #review #random #gaming

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casualotptrash · 3 years

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Why the Persona 3 FES vs Portable Debate Makes Me Want to Fly Into the Sun Pt. 2

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Hello everybody and welcome to Part 2 of this emotionally fueled rant. In my previous post I went over a lot of the changes that Persona 3 Portable makes from Persona 3 FES, and how a majority of them can make the game more enjoyable for certain people. This spawned from the comment I see a lot, which is that instead of playing Portable people can just play FES with a controllable party mod and it makes everything hunky dory.

Below I will go over the next thing that infuriates me about this whole discussion: the idea that FES is objectively better because it has cutscenes and is not done in the “visual novel” style of Portable.

To cut to the chase, Portable gets shit on quite a bit for its presentation and some choices available in the game. One of the most popular suggestions I see when someone is asking which game to play is to first play FES and then play Portable for the FeMC route, if they want to see that one. This is in order to get the “real” experience first, and I think that is some bullshit.

It seems people forget completely that Portable has a Male route option! Newsflash, it does. As far as I know, other than the gameplay changes I mentioned in my previous post, the Male route in Portable is exactly the same story-wise as FES. However, I assume this isn’t brought up because people who enjoy FES and don’t like Portable consider the FeMC route the only reason to do a run of Portable. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue....but this isn’t really the case.

What elevates this into being a part of the reason why I hate this debate is because I see so many people essentially demand that newcomers to the game play FES first. They say it is the “real” way to experience the game, and they say that everyone will have more of an impact from FES and enjoy the game more. Like I said, I see this so often that it frustrates me. Shout out to people who are actually cool about the comparisons and don’t sound like they’re forcing the newcomer into either game. Anyway, there is one glaring, serious issue with this type of statement about FES.

It is completely subjective.

Surprise surprise, an opinion is subjective. Now I know that sounds obvious, but remember I’m talking about the issue where people act like FES is factually better than Portable. So much so that they say it’s the “real” way to experience the game.

I’m going to be real with y’all, I know for a fact that if I had played FES first I would have taken way longer to finish it, might have not even finished it, and definitely wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much. Thankfully I had a family member who got me into Persona, so when discussing which version I would play I decided P3P would be better based off of what he said, and he also happened to have the game on Vita.

I think the main reason that this statement gets thrown around is because 1. FES was the first of the two to come out, so it could be seen as the best experience by the people who played it first or became a sort of “classic” among the fans, and 2. it is coming from a specific crowd in the Persona fandom.

As anyone who steps into the fandom can see, people play Persona for a wide variety of reasons. Some play for the gameplay, and like to challenge themselves to beat the game on the hardest difficulty with one persona only. Others play for the social sim aspect of the game, and enjoy the dating, characters, and social links/confidants. Obviously the story brings most people into the game in the first place, but some might enjoy the story and the lore of the series the most.

I am not trying to knock anyone from any of those categories, but I think the reason that this statement about FES gets thrown around is because it comes from the first and perhaps third category of people.

For the first category of people, they think Portable is too easy (despite a harder difficulty than FES being implemented and the option to just use the tactics like FES) and prefer the FES combat. I have even seen someone try to explain the lack of direct control of party members by saying that the MC wouldn’t be able to “control” the party members and they would do whatever they want, aka the party members would have autonomy if they were real. I can see this being a nice little headcanon about the gameplay, but they also don’t mention that you can do the exact same thing in Portable and set party members to something other than direct command; so it’s not really applicable to the argument of why FES’s combat is better as far as the tactics are concerned.

I assume that the main gripe with the story of Portable from FES fans, aka some changes to the plot with the FeMC route (a rant for another time because the changes to the plot aren’t that well-done in the first place...so they don’t really change the story...) and the overall presentation of the story, is from the third category of people.

This is brought up with two factors: the lack of cutscenes and an overworld in Portable, resulting in a “visual novel” type of presentation. Like I mentioned earlier, this is a bad reason to say that one game is better than the other because it is completely subjective. Some people may really benefit from the cutscenes and overworld, while others might not care that much. That being said, I can understand the issue with the lack of cutscenes a lot more than the issue with the overworld. It makes sense that a cutscene could have a larger emotional impact, depending on if it is well done or not. However, I really don’t understand the problem with the overworld. I suppose it’s cool to see Port Island in 3D...but the mechanics are really not that different in Portable? An argument could be made that moving in the 3D environment makes people feel more connected to the locations, but like I just mentioned the mechanics aren’t too different so a player in Portable is still seeing all of the locations and “moving” around in it. The difference is that they’re just moving a dot instead of a character model. Now I do like the idea of an overworld better, and I agree it’s cool to see your model walking around and to see all of the party members in the dorm and such, but I think it is the weakest point to bring up when trying to say that it affects the plot in any significant way. Lastly, for the lore bits, I assume people in this category like the addition of The Answer, but even opinions on whether or not that is worth it are very divisive.

(Side note, I forgot this in my previous post but Portable also adds the fast travel mechanic like the one P4 has, so instead of needing to run everywhere like in FES you can just fast travel to locations)

However, this is still my subjective opinion on the matter so do with that what you will. Perhaps it does really affect someone’s enjoyment of the game, but claiming it will affect everyone’s enjoyment is just a false statement to try and spout.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t mentioned the second group, it’s because I believe they would either like Portable a bit more or not see much difference between the two. I personally fall into this category. To be honest I don’t think the visual novel style took that much away from the story itself, and I really enjoyed the additional social links with the male party members in the FeMC route. I think it gave them a lot more “life” per say, and elevated their characters from being good to great. I will agree that the lack of cutscenes made some scenes a little less impactful/cool, such as the MC persona awakening, but that didn’t negatively effect my experience with the game as a whole. In fact, Persona 3′s cast is actually my overall favorite of the three neo-Persona games, and in large part because of the additional characterization that Portable gives them.

Well...I think that’s everything I had to say? Overall, just uh don’t try and force someone to play either of the versions because of your own subjective views, don’t act like those views are anything but subjective, and let people come to the decision themselves based on facts about both of the games (Ex. They can decide themselves if no cutscenes would impact them or not rather than someone stating it will impact them less for sure).

I think this all really just boils down to needing a legit, definitive version of the game...but I’ll save that for later :)

(Last side note, I know emulation is a thing but why do people suggest buying/emulating/a mix of that for two games instead of just one game or the other? This is 100% me being lazy but that just seems like a lot of work when you could either buy one game and get the content, or buy another game and get the content in a slightly different way (barring The Answer).)

#persona 3 #persona 3 portable #p3 #p3p #long post #we're out here ranting bois #I'm probably doing myself no favors for the FES fans but im really not trying to bash on them #I just hate the condescending ones #and I hate this whole debate #just play one and shut up about which one is superior

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doktorpeace · 4 years

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I respect you and your right to have opinions, but also fuck you, Xenoblade 2 is good

I’d rather not spend any time discussing the minor up sides of a Singleplayer Offline Only RPG that has a fucking Gachapon mechanic built in. A Gachapon mechanic that’s a soft buffer for combat progression and also is used to completely remove organic rewards and genuine player experiences based on exploration compared to 1 and X. Meanwhile it tells a story that is just a stock standard shonen anime plot while sprinkling elements in from a story that desperately wants to be a harem anime but is stuck being in a relatively mainline AAA game instead of some game nobody’s heard of on PSVita or whatever. Yeah I sure do love going from the themes, environments, and characters of Xenoblade 1 and X which are well written and delivered, if not over the time from time to time, to a game with such classic moments as “Mythra sleepwalked into Rex’s bed haha, I wonder what wacky hijinks will happen now ;)” “Nia randomly falls in love with Rex for no reason and then demoting herself from party member to literally a tool for him to use” and who could forget “ “The Child Robot gets forced into a nearly naked adult styled body with huge tits by her incel creator who all game has forced her to call him master and wear maid outfits.” The game literally never fucking explains shit. It sets up things like the conflict between Uraya and Mor Ardain and then just fucking completely abandons it. Mythra and Malos just have orbital destruction lasers they’re tied to for no fucking reason with no explanation ever. Jin pulls the line “This ability lets me move faster than the speed of light” out of fucking nowhere and it’s meant to be taken seriously. It then bullshits in a fucking 30 minute exposition dump at the end how it’s somehow connected to Xenoblade Chronicles 1 by Fucking Retconning It in a way that has no buildup whatsoever and doesn’t fucking make sense. It constantly tries to string you along by simply leaving out details so you hope it gets explained or resolved later but they never fucking do! They just get dropped or resolved in a flaccid, meaningless way! Jin, the ONLY villain in the game worth anything in terms of intrigue dies unceremoniously with his motive and story largely unexplored and unexplained when Lora dies offscreen in an explosion. Sure makes me want to play Torna, The Golden Country, knowing that it’s just going to lead to that ultimately huh!? Not to mention all the times it just pulls beats or ideas from either previous game without understanding what made it work. You start in a semi-secluded area, go on a job where then something Bad Happens but this time the main character almost dies instead of a girl, then go to big fucking grassland and then go to a fucking swamp that glows at night. Then you go to the only actually unique environment concept in the game with Mor Ardain and wow! That area is actually fun and memorable and I like Mòrag Ladair and Brighid they deserved to be in a good game! Then you go to a series of floating islands and then you go to a Cold Place That’s Really Vertically Built And Has Ruins In It! LIKE XENOBLADE 1 GUYS, REMEMBER THAT GAME!? “Mythra can see the future a little bit” *nudge nudge* Just like Xenoblade 1 remember! Remember that game!? “Malos has the Monado in these two fights for no reason.” GET IT, JUST LIKE XENOBLADE 1 REMEMBER!? THE ARCHITECT IS KLAUS, YOU KNOW, THE GUY FROM FUCKING XENOBLADE 1, REMEMBER!?!?!? The scene where Vandham dies is so fucking forced. I had had my misgivings before this but was still hoping it would improve but then I got to this scene and knew the rest of the game would just be Like This. Both Mythra AND Nia could have just fucking done something to prevent it. Nia is at least given a LITTLE BIT of a reason to not have (even though she IMMEDIATELY AFTER THIS REVEALS HER FUCKING SECRET TO EVERYONE BUT REX NULLIFYING THAT REASON) but Mythra sure fucking don’t have one. Oh and speaking of Vandham this game goes out of its way to stop literally every fucking story important boss and tell you Why You’re Actually Losing This Fight midway through even if you’re busting their fucking ass. Anytime a boss fight gets interrupted by a cutscene in Xenoblade 1 the boss either Escapes or Fucking Dies except for Dickson. Dickson is the ONLY ONE where that isn’t what happens so it at least feels SOMEWHAT earned. If the game wants you to lose a fight for story purposes it actually supplies a mechanical reason to the gameplay so you, the player, can feel the powerlessness that the characters do in that moment! I have never in my LIFE, hope against hope, wanted to enjoy a game more than I did with Xenoblade 2. It was meant to be a sequel to a game that I could easily put in my top 3 of all time, any day of the week, so I wanted to fucking like it even if the early trailers and art style had me worried! I tried so fucking hard, I ended up doing most of the game’s content and beat all the superbosses and shit trying to ultimately come out with a positive view on it and I fucking couldn’t! NEVER has a game or piece of media disappointed me in the way Xenoblade 2 did by simply being a bad fucking experience that has no business associating with its alleged IP. It is so severely different from not only the other to -Blade games but from the entire Xeno- franchise that it boggles my fucking mind that it’s even considered apart of the same greater IP. Ask any of my friends, I play video games to have fun. I love diving deeper into their themes and discussing the comparative merits of different entries. I make it a point to try and enjoy games for what they bring to the table, even pretty mediocre games I can sit down with and have some fun by learning more about its mechanics and just having a nice little time! But not this fucking game! Not fucking Xenoblade 2.

And, I know this was a long post. I know it was and I know it’s scathing because after a few years I still can’t let this shit go. But I’m not trying to make it so you, anon, or anyone else who likes this game, feels like they are obliged to agree with me or not like the game. I don’t want to take away what good experiences others have had with it but I do think it’s completely fair for me to be able to express the experiences and feelings I had and have kept with me after playing it. Have your fun, that’s fine, I won’t and don’t want to stop you. But in the same way I despise this game and I’m not gonna shy away from saying so.

#long post #Anonymous

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dent-de-leon · 5 years

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I’ve seen you blogging a lot of Dragon Age (and a lot of other ppl I follow too, honestly) and I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about it. It seems pretty cool!

oh ya sure!! oh boy this is gonna be a lot lmao,, but,, Dragon Age is an RPG by Bioware–they also made Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic, in case you’ve heard of those–and the DA series are easily some of my favorite video games. They go super in depth with lots of lore and there’s tons of world building,, I’m embarrassed by the number of fantasy Elvin words I know and I can tell you way too much about the history of fake countries cause that’s where I’m at lmao,,

To try and summarize: the first game is called Dragon Age: Origins, and the focus is very much on fleshing out and playing through a backstory that you handcraft for your PC. You can be everything from an elf trying to reclaim their lost history, to a privileged human of the ruling nobility, a sheltered mage that’s locked away from the rest of the world for “their own good,” a dwarf just trying to survive whose always been a fighter at heart–skilled enough to champion a tournament, and so on. I played the City Elf origin and it just about killed me.

The appeal here is you can start with various different branching paths and backstories, all of which culminate in your character becoming a Grey Warden. Essentially, DA has these monstrous sort of demonic creatures called darkspawn and usually they’re very disorganized and attack at random. But sometimes there’s a more powerful demon that can connect to them and control them as a kind of hive mind; they become a more organized army force, and spread a “Blight” and its taint wherever they go–it causes sickness and a long suffering death, makes the land completely uninhabitable, lots of bad shit. There’s only been four Blights before Origins, so they’re pretty rare, usually centuries apart.

In the event of a Blight, the only thing that can stop the lead demon and its army is a Grey Warden. They’re a,, supposedly “neutral” party in political affairs; they’re meant to be an outside force from other armies and they aren’t divided by nations or anything, if you’re a Warden, you’re a Warden everywhere. So they’re also kinda above the law. Wardens can requisition land and resources, forcibly recruit condemned criminals and high ranking nobles alike–“anything to stop the Blight.” They’re elite warriors, and the only ones who can actually sense the darkspawn. That’s because they’re already tainted by them. You drink some darkspawn blood,, probably you die, but maybe you don’t,, and if you survive,, congrats!! You’re in the Wardens. Forever. You can run, but they’ll probably find you. There’s really no running from the fact that the taint will get you eventually in a few decades though. In Origins you end up being one of the only two surviving Wardens left to defend the country of Ferelden during the Fifth Blight–you have to travel the country, gather allies, try to prove you’re not a war criminal, save the whole world, and don’t forget to pet your dog :’)

Dragon Age 2 is a lot simpler to talk about with all that context out of the way–you’re Hawke, a Ferelden refugee fleeing from the Fifth Blight. The Warden saves the world and everyone throws a big party just as you’re getting settled in your new city. Kirkwall is…a lot,, real creepy place. Maybe it’s that it used to be the center of the Imperium’s slave trade and is still called “The City of Chains.” Maybe it’s all the centuries of blood magic and death that’s seeped into the walls. Maybe it’s those architecture plans you find for the city that point out it’s been built in the shape of one big magical glyph. But there’s something weird there and the whole place is incredibly unsettling. Way more demons crammed into one city than most of the country combined, templars ready to turn on every mage in sight, there’s a lot happening in that one little place.

I always say that other Dragon Age games are more about the player, but DA2 is really about your party members. It’s your companions’ stories–Hawke is sort of this unsuspecting bystander that just gets dragged under by all the city’s malevolent machinations. And ultimately–accidentally, so very unfortunately–they wind up at the very epicenter of it all. Maybe it’s about Hawke, a snide, sarcastic refugee just trying to provide for their family and take care of their friends. But it’s probably more so the story of a quintessential Byronic antihero tortured by his past and sparking a war for mage freedom, or a charming pirate captain in search of her mysterious lost treasure and who knows more about the city’s supposed “invaders” than she lets on. Or the silver-tongue dwarf with a love of telling stories, and a penchant for extravagant lies–the narrator of it all, and entirely unreliable.

At its core, DA2 is about mages and templars. The mages typically being locked away in towers known as Circles because they’re seen as “too powerful, a danger to themselves and others,” etc. They’re guarded by knights that work for the dominant religious order known as Templars. Only the Templars frequently harass and systematically abuse the mages in their charge instead of “protecting” them. Ultimately, it’s also about betrayal and redemption, how far someone can go before they’re beyond redemption, etc.

DA2 always hits this very melancholic note that neither of the other games quite reach. I think it’s because Origins and Inquisition are very grandiose in scope and scale,, you’re a chosen hero,, you’re saving the world,, the player is incredibly empowered. But in DA2, it really does feel like you have no power. Like you’re just trying to scrape by and look out for the people you care about. Like everything keeps going wrong no matter how hard you try to help, like you’re a failure to your family and somehow lost your friends. DA2 is confined to a single city and so much smaller in scope and scale, but the little glimpses of intimacy that you do get from that unique experience really hits you in the end.

Lastly, there’s Inquisition. You can choose your player’s race like in Origins, but you don’t really get to play out your backstory or anything, you’re just kinda thrown right into it. Inquisition is very go big, so everything is big–lots of exploration, lots of questing, LOTS OF DRAGONS,, THIS GAME IS IMPORTANT SOLELY FOR THE 13.5 DRAGONS YOU GET AS OPPOSED TO THE 1-2 IN EVERY OTHER DRAGON AGE GAME,, SERIOUSLY LACKING ON THE DRAGON PART THERE HONESTLY IT’S KINDA FALSE ADVERTISING,, but yeah I’d say DAI is the most like an open world sort of deal,, very classic high fantasy like Origins (though not so brutal or grisly like Origins), very You are the Chosen Savior stuff,, big departure from Hawke running round the sewers

DAI builds directly off the previous games and decisions players made in them, but it’s also actually very easy to jump right into with no info on prior games. I’d say it’s also the most user friendly, and it’s probably better for new players to start with it to see how they like the world. Combat and mechanics in Origins can be very tedious, and parts of it just haven’t aged well. DA2 is easier mechanically, but much more punishing and harsh with its consequences. DAI is very forgiving by comparison, and you won’t accidentally get party members killed for the calls you make. And while DAI is very lore heavy, I think it’s the perfect place for newcomers to kind of run around and try to explore the living breathing world crafted from that world.

The essential plot is that you’re following on the heels of the Mage Templar War, and rogue members from the Chantry (church basically) are looking to upstart the Inquisition again, a huge military organization that waged holy wars back in the day. You end up accidentally being in charge of everything because, and I quote, “You killed everyone who was in charge.” Oh yeah, there’s also demons tearing open rifts from their world into yours and you’ve been blessed/cursed with a magic mark on your hand that makes you the Only One who can close those rifts and save the world. Build your army, get drunk with your friends after slaying dragons, dance with your partner after usurping the empress at her own ball, try not to get torn to pieces by the magic in your own hand, get good at reading tarot cards, and maybe don’t romance the Elven God of Trickery on your first (heartbreaking) play through,,

Lastly, there’s actually a fair amount of queer characters in DA, which is pretty cool. And a lot of them are romanceable partners for your character, so you can definitely play a queer PC. So,, off the top of my head–Bi characters (and romance options): Leliana and Zevran [Origins], Fenris, Anders, Isabella, Merrill [DA2], and Josephine [Inquisition]. There’s also Iron Bull, and he’s a pan character who’s romanceable in Inqusition. Dorian is gay and romanceable, and Sera is a romanceable lesbian, both also from Inquisition. Krem is a trans man and Maevaris is a trans woman, the former is a side character (and best friend of Iron Bull) in Inquisition, while the latter only appears in supplementary sources like comics, but she does get mentioned from time to time in Inquisition as Dorian’s close friend. Oh! Also--Solas and Josephine’s routes in Inquisition don’t culminate in a sex scene, so lots of people headcanon them as asexual. And you can also swing Dorian’s romance so it doesn’t have a sex scene if you wanna romance him but kinda play an ace Inquisitor, which is cool! Sorry for the long rant lmao but uhhh, I hope this helps?? :’)

#dragon age #the very unfortunate thing here is i lov da so much if anyone ever talks to me about it i will never shut up lmao im so sorry

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bmaxwell · 4 years

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Best Games of 2002-2003

Between Warcraft 3 and Rise of Nations, this marked the era when my love affair with realtime strategy games ended. There were a couple of my classics and a whole lot of not much else for me.

7. The Simpsons Hit and Run

What if you mixed The Simpsons with Grand Theft Auto? The result was actually pretty good. Open world gameplay with lots of secrets and show references.

6. NHL 2K3

NHL 2K3 on the Gamecube was the last hockey game I really gave a damn about. My preferred way to play hockey games is the slog of playing through a full season and playoffs. I did that with the New York Rangers in 2K3, memorable to me because after dominating in the regular season and playoffs, I found myself down 3 game to 1 in the conference finals. I benched all-time Rangers great goaltender Mike Richter for never-heard-of-him-but-has-a-cool-name backup goalie Dan Blackburn. We came back and won that series and the finals. Here’s to you, Dan Blackburn.

5. Eternal Darkness

In Eternal Darkness you play as a granddaughter of a recently deceased fella. You go to explore his mansion and find mysterious old books and relics and shit. There’s an ancient evil relic that has been in her family for generations, and you play as various ancestors throughout history and see how the relic came to be passed down through the generations. Which is all cool as shit.

There’s also a sanity mechanic, and if your sanity gets too low you’ll start seeing things that aren’t happening - in game stuff like your character’s head falling off, or all of your attacks missing - or fourth wall breaking stuff like a Blue Screen of Death, or a message that says “Thank you for playing the Eternal Darkness demo!” and appears to boot you to the title screen. A lot of this stuff would be corny and tryhardy today, and I am 1000% sure this game doesn’t hold up at all. But in 2002 it was AMAZING.

4. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

Final Fantasy Tactics is one of my absolute favorite games ever, so when they finally made a sequel for the Gameboy Advance only it was time to buy a new handheld. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was both profoundly disappointing and a very good video game. It’s a tactics game with much of what comes with that title - grids, turn-based combat, equipment, classes, levels, and so on.

The look, tone, and feel of the original game is long gone, but the game is still a very good One of Those. Also I just realized that I’ve been counting the years backwards on here and missed Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2, WHICH IS NOT ACCEPTABLE*

3. Warlords Battlecry II

Man, fuck Warcraft III. Warlords Battlecry II is my Betamax. My Private Selection ice cream. Because Warlords Battlecry II was very much off-brand Warcraft, and also much better than Warcraft III. Warlords added heroes to the mix, and did it far better than Warcraft III’s prepackaged heroes. More races, more classes, and your heroes persisted from game to game.

Man. FUCK Warcraft III.

2.Culdcept

Magic the Gathering + Monopoly in a game no one has ever heard of. Sorry, ladies - I’m taken.

1. Animal Crossing

The Animal Crossing games have been a series of diminishing returns for me. Every few years a new one comes around and I get hooked for a couple of months before moving on. I’d never played anything quite like it back in the Gamecube days though. A peaceful sandbox island about fishing, decorating your home, chatting up villagers and catching bugs was exactly what I needed when it came around.

*I accidentally had the caps lock on for this sentence and I am leaving it.

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brothermouzongaming · 6 years

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Games I’m excited about for 2018

Spider-man (PS4 exclusive): This list is in no way ranked. That being said this is my most anticipated game of 2018. I have been waiting for a Spider-man game to grab me since Spider-man 2. When I was at E3 the gameplay looked really promising and showed that the developers knew what made the good games good. From what I can see they even were able to pull some of the things that made the bad games good a la “Web of Shadows”. I’m not going to say much else for fear of this whole post turning into a Spider-man rant. Don’t let me down Insomniac. Do not.

Dragon Ball FighterZ: This game looks SHIT HOT and I’m excited to have a fighter I really want to get into from this generation. Smooth seamless combat at breakneck speeds and so much source material it was probably daunting. DBZ is special to me and many people like me, the guys at Arc Systems have their work cut out for them and I’m excited. My fighting games thus far have been Soul Calibur 3, MvC 2, and the little I dabbled in Injustice 2 ....yeah as you can see fighting games aren’t my thing. This, however, this is gonna be something I commit to. Come January 28th these hands will be on sale, come and get it

Days Gone (PS4 exclusive): 28 Days Later-esque pandemic centered in a rich yet frightening wilderness with survival mechanics? Single Player based?Yes please and thank you I will be having all of it. The gameplay looks great and just as importantly, the story seems engaging. Yes, it’s the same Last of Us scenario we’ve encountered time and time again in both games and movies. This time I think that may have been taken into account. There’s a somber yet rooted tone that though again has been done before, really seems to hold up even in the brief cutscenes available online. Am I worried that the developers have really only accomplished the Syphon Filter series (dating myself here which is a scary thought), two PS Vita Uncharted games, one unremarkable Resistance game, and Bubsy 3D in ‘96.... NOPE fuck it cause it’s almost promised to be free of micro-transactions and actually be an enjoyable and enthralling experience.

Monster Hunter World: The beta was fun, combat felt a little empty at times but once it gets going there is no stopping this game. Something about hunting a Slug Fish creature in a swamp, turning a corner only to see some unholy being vaguely reminiscent of a T Rex fused with an Armadillo. At that point I realized that we may be the monster hunters but holy shitfuck we better come correct. Really really really deep equipment and tools settings. Your main weapon is just the beginning with perks, buffs both passive and active, as well as a few other key tools also being at your disposal. I got a buddy to join me and the two of us dragged each other through that ordeal but it was hard because it was new, I was still having a good time. I’m excited to see what Capcom brings to their first console rendition in 11 years for a franchise that is as highly acclaimed as this one.

Far Cry 5: This is a series that has always done an amazing job at the whole “Hunter v Hunted” aesthetic. I always feel so powerful and dangerous when I play Far Cry and 3 was a huge step in the right direction. 4 had a lot of things that I enjoyed, the gunplay, vehicles, and characters were really good. It did, however, fall a little short story-wise as well as some worn game mechanics with this being the fourth in the series. I did not get to play FC5 at E3 because that line was absurd. That being said, from the gameplay available on Youtube and various interviews it does seem that Ubisoft is aware of the potential stale twinge Far Cry has developed over the years. I’m looking forward to cutting down zealot cultists in the open Montana landscapes. March 27.

Anthem: This game is important, after the fuck-shit-stack that was Battlefront 2 and the cacophony of backlash that came with it; EA have to get this right. This loot box based online shooter, the “Destiny-killer” it’s being called. How does one kill what is already dead? Fuck if I know but I am interested IF they can do it right. That being said, my hopes aren’t high, but this game will be a barometer. This will show whether EA is willing to bend at all on their plans for monetization. They know a BF2 scenario is totally on the table now, and if they misstep, there will be more backlash. Either way, we win, either we get a good game or EA get put on another stake to burn.

Vampyr: From the developer that brought us Life is Strange and Remember Me comes a new game set in London 1918 during the Spanish Flu pandemic. We will play a vampire (sigh prime journalism over here folks) in town with a set number of NPCs and each death will have consequences for both you and the city. Semi-open world with an RPG and combat focus, I’m so down and I really hope this game can do new things. Q2 (Jan., Feb., Mar.) 2018

Soul Calibur 6: My fighting game is back and this is going to be a weird year for me with not one but two fighting games that will find my focus this year. Mitsurugi, Sophitia, and around 20+ are back to beat the everloving snot out of each other. I’m excited because this is supposedly a “reboot” of the franchise which means a lot of the original characters will be back (Nightmare, Maxi, Ivy, Taki, Kilik, etc). Things like armor breaking are both interesting and worrisome. I suspect Taki, Ivy, and the other unreasonably busty women of the series will be left awfully vulnerable sans armor by the mid/end of a battle. Regardless, this revamp maybe what the fighting franchise needs to enter the ring against the big boys of this generation.

Death Stranding: DEATH MOTHER FUCKING STRANDVXIRJORWTMDNGHF Let me tell you something, Kojima is going to save us all. I’m serious he is going to take all our hands and walk us into the sunlight of gaming where there are no microtransactions, the singleplayer is an epic odyssey, the multiplayer is fun but unnecessary, and the gaming experience is not only unique but has a lasting impression on every gamer brave enough to hold a controller. This game is going to test us, change us, and maybe most importantly: make people rethink the way games are made/designed. The third person sci-fi nightmare adventure will be here before we know it and great Scott am I ready to dive in.

Red Dead Redemption 2: Had you asked me about RDD2 and it’s hypothetical production about 3 years ago; I would’ve said something along the lines of “Fuck yes yippie kai yay mfs where mah horse at”. After Take-Two (parent company of 2k and Rockstar) came out and essentially supported EA’s usage of loot boxes. The CEO stated that “Recurrent consumer spending was the way of the future,” which is concerning to say the very least. I’m worried my West World sim is gonna turn into well...something more like West World. “Oh what’s that want a new hat? 5 bucks. New horse? 10 doll hairs plz. New gun? 15 smackers and the skin off your respective genitalia. Thank you come again.” My once resounding and honestly strange response is definitely more tepid and cautious. GTAV is lending itself quite nicely to the ways of the microtransaction and I can just see little buckets of gold nuggets or some dumb shit like that hinging in front of me or at the local shop. If so may there be backlash, and lots of it.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Greedfall: Developed by Spiders, a team with an... interesting track record in gaming (Sherlock Holmes v Jack the Ripper, Bound by Flame, and Technomancer [yikes]). On paper, this game sounds like it might be worth a damn and this is the most publicity any of their games have gotten so that does peak my interest. That and the publisher is Focus Home Interactive, makers of games like Divinity 2 and The Surge as well as my highly anticipated Call of Cthulhu and Vampyr. Who knows, this team up might just work. An open world RPG with online mechanics sounds fun.

God of War: I have never played a God of War game all the way through. With this being my first PlayStation that does make sense. That being said, I’m very excited to sit down and try my hand at this rebooted series. Given the reputation and clear influence a game like GoW has had, it does lead my expectations up rather than down. Santa Monica is developing, Ready at Dawn for some reason isn’t but it’s good to see the original team getting another crack at the Spartan. This time Greco-Roman gods are put aside for a more Nordic feel. The chain blades replaced with a hefty ax as well as a few other tools from what I’ve read/heard. Another interesting single player experience for those turned off by multiplayer and microtransactions. Not to say it won't have them just look at Shadow of War. It does, however, make it considerably less likely.

BioMutant: Traverse an open and changing world as an also everchanging bio-genetic mutant. Supposedly going to have big rpg mechanics involving the fact that your character’s schtick is evolving and changing. Brought to you by THQ Nordic the people that brought us the highs of the Darksiders series, Painkiller: Hell and Damnation, and Red Faction (2001). As well as some lows like the recently imploded Elex, Alan Wake, and the classic Spynx and the Cursed Mummy. I really don’t know what to make of this resume let alone what to expect. I am however excited for something new in the third person adventure genre.

#dbz #dragon ball fighterz #spider-man #days gone #monster hunter world #far cry 5 #anthem #vampyr #soul calibur 6 #death stranging #greedfall #god of war #biomutant #ps4 #xbox #red dead redemption 2

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poppiseed · 7 years

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Okay so I beat Sonic Forces.

First things first, not the worst game in the series. You would rather play this than Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic 06, the Storybook games, or Sonic Boom.

But considering that they were continuing on a playstyle that was previously, in my opinion, fine tuned, it's quite disappointing.

In recent years, I found Generations to be a high point in the series. It's a game that took what was created in Unleashed, refined somewhat in Colors, and simply nailed it. While Unleashed was too "boost-2-win" and linear (still LOVE the game though omg) and Colors too platform heavy with constant breaks in momentum, Generations had a perfect balance with fluid platforming that did not have you feel as if you were constantly in a state of stop-and-go, the sense of speed needed in a Sonic game, and various pathways to discover. Many people consider Sonic's Adventure formula to be the pinnacle of Modern Sonic and I think what we got in Generations was just as good.

I expected Sonic Forces to improve or simply just continue established, solid mechanics and it didn't.

Level design is the dullest of dull. Go straight, just straight, reach the goal. Especially in Sonic and classic Sonic stages. Any minor detour is made simply for a red ring and nothing more. Modern Sonic has no 3D platforming as well. If you're in 3D, you will be boosting and that's it. I know this is a complaint often made in Unleashed, but it's even more shallow here. Unleashed had platforms, drifting, fun level gimmicks and even some nifty qte tricks to pull off. This game has very jarring qte segments and little else.

Avatar stages have more variation, but if you don't have the right wispon, you're stuck doing more of the same. Colors did it better, you unlock the wisp, you can now use the wisp if it's there. In Avatar levels the wisp options shuffle and vary, but again if you don't have a wispon compatible, it's a waste.

Classic Sonic? Why? Why were you just shoehorned into this game? With Generations and Mania behind my belt, it's disheartening to see these stages. There's just a few classic levels (again, shoehorned), and they're lacking in pathways and fun gimmicks. The level with the casino elements was a nice touch, but the physics didn't act the way I expected to. How am I flipping off a flipper and not going sky high? Now I know that Generations doesn't have classic physics down to a tee, but Classic Sonic felt awkward. Really awkward.

In fact, controlling all three was awkward. Sonic's homing attack reticle wouldn't always appear when I expected after years of previous gameplay. The Avatar was meant to have gameplay a little less speedy than Sonic's (hence a delayed homing attack) with a minor, really minor, focus on combat but the character moves as fast as Sonic so I would unintentially zoom off the edge. At one point I started to use the d-pad to alleviate this in 2D sections, and while that helped (until I got to wall jumping...), that shouldn't be a thing I need to do. Control, depending on the character, can be too stiff and awkward or to loose and awkward. Even with a double jump. Sonic has controlled super smooth in previous titles and it was not the case here.

Levels aren't just barren in terms of design, but also looks. It's not Shadow the Hedgehog bad, but does every level have to feel like a factory? A Sonic game can have a darker tone and not overly bleak level design. SA2 doesn't have much of a light story and it doesn't have overly bright levels like Heroes, but they aren't saturated in dark grays and dark greens. There were times when I had a hard time seeing my character because of the way they blended in the level. That's pretty damn bad. I get it, Eggman took over everything but it was a bit much.

Also... kinda tired of both Chemical Plant and Green Hill at this point lol.

Music was fine minus whatever the fuck that shit was for Classic Sonic. All of those themes were grating. I can honestly dig a Sonic game rocking a soundtrack with loads of dnb, though I can't remember most of it. I'm going give it another listen through some headphones though. I STILL LOVE INFINITE'S THEME SO MUCH OMG.

Character interactions were great (minus Shadow being hard to hear), Knuckles wasn't a moron, and Tails was PRECIOUS. I was apathetic about my character's involvement in the plot, but I'm not really in this series for that anyway.

I'll probably end up deleting this off my Switch when I wanna do some housekeeping on it, but I'll most likely keep playing to see if I warm up to it.

I bet this sounds harsh, but this is coming from a fan. I've loved the series for a long time and truly felt they nailed it with Generations, I didn't expect them to go so backwards with the winning formula. If you're a fan, try the game. Try it first, don't buy. But I, personally, don't feel the same kind of thrill and joy in this game and expected more after so long of a wait.

As a friend said: Unleashed >= Generations >> Colors >>> Forces

#sonic forces #and that is that #unleashed is greater than/or generations for those who dont get it lol #ebby rambles

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innuendostudios · 7 years

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Everything You Thought You Wanted: Thoughts on Thimbleweed Park

[no spoilers]

There are a lot of ways to think about adventure game puzzles. Here’s one I like: a good adventure game puzzle is one you enjoy being stumped on. This is not the only definition of a good puzzle, nor are good puzzles the only rubric of a good adventure game, but I’ve long been a fan of the puzzle that grinds in my head for the hours I’m not playing the game. I spend a day away from my desk and, always in the back of my mind, ponder things I will try when I get home. Kathy Rain had a puzzle like this; Resonance had almost no other type of puzzle; this was the driving experience of Braid (which is not an adventure game). It’s a hard needle to thread, the puzzle having to be challenging but not too frustrating, and if the solution isn’t satisfying then the challenge won’t feel worth it. But, done properly, these are the kinds of puzzles I don’t want to look up the solution to, because being stumped is fun. This kind of puzzle is, understandably, rare, as it contrasts with the more popular design of, say, Portal 2 or Twilight Princess (neither of which are adventure games), where a puzzle is an easy thing that makes you feel clever without requiring you to be clever. These puzzles can be enjoyable, too, but I end up appreciating the designer’s cleverness more than my own.

Not to be too harsh, but if a good adventure game puzzle is one you enjoy being stumped on, Thimbleweed Park has no good puzzles.

I’m sorry. I wanted to like this game, and it certainly begins well. It’s the product of Ron Gilbert himself going back to his roots, and being that Ron Gilbert’s roots include The Secret of Monkey Island, aka Probably The Most Formative Gaming Experience Of My Childhood, I am squarely on Gilbert’s side here. I don’t actively dislike the game, or think any of the puzzles are outright bad, but I didn’t have fun, and I’m not thrilled by its design philosophy.

Thimbleweed Park follows the footsteps of Gilbert’s own Maniac Mansion so closely I’d think it’s attempting to track and kill its predecessor. It uses the same big head/chunky pixel aesthetic, the multiplicity of playable characters, roughly the same screen resolution, the same drawer of verbs on the lower left and the same inventory-of-infinite-size on the lower right. It’s been souped up with a number of modern affordances, both graphical (scrolling that cheats on the pixel grid, a vastly deepened range of colors) and mechanical (fast travel options, more sensible methods of connecting verbs to game objects). Most work, a few don’t work as well as they should (the run button seems calibrated for a game that scrolls faster than this one), but, on the whole, it does what nostalgia trips should always do: feel like the past while also sweetening it.

I am not surprised that a number of classic adventure fans are already calling it a new benchmark of the genre.

Let’s step back a bit: For a lot of adventure diehards, the pinnacle of Classic Era design is Part II of LeChuck’s Revenge: Monkey Island 2. In Part I, you’re on an island with a number of locations, characters, and objectives, and when you’ve solved all the puzzles you can leave the island. Part II is the same, but on a much grander scale. You now have three full islands and there are four map pieces scattered among them - you will advance to Part III when you’ve collected all four. There are dozens of characters, dozens of locations, dozens of objectives; long, snaking puzzle chains that span multiple islands and even a dip to the bottom of the sea that will, at some point, you hope, end in a map piece. It’s huge. This is only Part II of IV, but, for most players, Part II will likely consume about 90% of your time with LeChuck’s Revenge. The intense nonlinearity of this segment is one of the reasons “linear” became a shorthand criticism of other adventure games by fans of the genre.

The lead designer of LeChuck’s Revenge was, not coincidentally, Ron Gilbert.

Thimbleweed Park is Part II of LeChuck’s Revenge blown up to feature length. I’ve known the solution to every puzzle in LeChuck’s Revenge since I was 9 years old, so it’s impossible for me to judge it dispassionately, but the sprawl of Thimbleweed Park is so overwhelming that it makes me question whether it ever worked in the first place. Like, is the nonlinearity of LeChuck’s Revenge only enjoyable when you already know all the solutions? Is a huge knot of intersecting puzzles actually fun to solve, or is it just fun to know?

All the ways that LeChuck’s Revenge frustrated me in 1992 came back to me with Thimbleweed Park, as well as all the reasons I never finished Maniac Mansion. There are five playable characters. Each character has their own To Do list, full of objectives. Each character has their own inventory, only some of which can be transferred to other characters. Some characters have unique relationships with NPCs and will get unique dialogue options with them. There are certain things only one character can do, and other things only one character can’t do (there is a puzzle at the radio tower where the only character who can solve the first half is the only character who can’t solve the second half and this puzzle may or may not be time-sensitive). Every character has a number of red herring inventory items that never serve any purpose.

You get what I’m saying? Everything that made Part II of LeChuck’s Revenge challenging is multiplied by five. Not to mention the game world is bigger - there was the point around four and a half hours in when I realized I still had not traversed the entire map. If the game I’m describing is Breath of the Wild, maybe that’s a good thing, but when it’s an adventure game where you have to keep every interactive object in every location in mind at all times and where the NPCs quickly exhaust all their dialogue options and there’s no combat or cooking or horse riding or fishing to faff around with, sheer size is no longer appealing.

In a game with well over 100 puzzles, I looked up solutions to 5 or 6. I’d say that’s not too bad. None of the solutions were horribly obtuse, but I didn’t regret looking up the answers, either. In about every case, my reaction was, “I would have tried that if I’d thought of it, but I wouldn’t have thought of it for hours.” This is simply because most solutions are no more or less plausible then about 30 other things you could try. With so many characters and so much inventory and so many objectives, there are just so many things you could try. And half the time I don’t know why I’m trying it. I can’t tell you how many puzzle chains I followed simply because I could tell they were puzzles and that the game wanted me to solve them. There was no hint that the payoff would be a random item that I’d been looking for in an unrelated puzzle chain (or, worse, an item whose purpose was still obscure to me), I was just doing it because I was clearly supposed to. So, yes, each solution I looked up, the relationship between that inventory item and that game object was immediately obvious, but the only way I would have thought of that connection on my own would be if I walked, methodically, though every location with every character until the association presented itself. There are simply too many objects and items to make all those associations in my head. The solutions aren’t finding a needle in a haystack, they’re finding a needle in a fucking Monet.

And what gets to me is how adventure fans seem to think this is smart design, that the player who goes from room to room with every character until the solution presents itself is more intelligent than the one who says “fuck it” and looks up the answer. I am not a gamer who equates wit with stubbornness. For me, looking up the solution is a matter of pattern recognition. I solved the majority of the puzzles without help and could determine that none was entertaining enough to spend more than a certain amount of time on. Being stumped was never enjoyable, so I took no pride in solving puzzles the hard way.

There are other weirdnesses. For one, the characters hardly ever talk to one another, so it doesn’t make sense how they all know what the others have learned; there is, in fact, no narrative reason why any but Ray and Reyes are working together. This is a thing in Gilbert’s Maniac Mansion and The Cave, and Tim Schafer’s Day of the Tentacle and Broken Age, so apparently LucasArts alums think this is one of those things players will just suspend their disbelief on, but no, I don’t think it is. Also, Gilbert’s flippant sense of humor made me chuckle audibly for the first hour or two, but it makes it hard to get invested in a story that keeps mocking the very idea of being invested in it. (And, boy, if you thought the ending of LeChuck’s Revenge thumbed its nose at anyone who gave a shit about the plot or characters, the ending of Thimbleweed Park will strike you as unbearably smug.)

So, yeah. Y’all, I don’t know. I tried. Maybe it’s that irony just doesn’t scope up to 15 hours, maybe it’s that adventure design can only sprawl so much, maybe it’s that a game centered in one major location for its entirety just feels too much like a Sierra game for my tastes. But I didn’t have fun with this. Make of that what you will.

#capsule review #thimbleweed park #Adventure Games

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cardinalfeng · 7 years

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LoZ: BotW Review

I know I don’t really like post game reviews but I’ve loved Zelda for a really long time and I wanted to talk about this new installment because I just finished it.

Let it be said however: Spoiler Warning! I’m talking about all of the main quests and a small amount of the side quests.

So, Let’s start with the great plateau. I thought this area was ingenious. Not only did it get you right back into the feeling of Zelda, with locations like the Temple of Time, but I felt like it was really a mission statement for the game, and I loved it. I encountered the Stone Talus right after the Stasis trial, so I had the hammer, but it took a few tries to realize that the hammer was a better weapon than the swords I had. I thought the sense of mystery throughout the entire area was awesome, and the fact that there were somethings which were just as hard as areas in the rest of the game, like the decayed guardians near one of the shrines. And the fact that you re-encounter the old man at the Temple of Time was awesome, because you have 4 spirit orbs and so, before you know to look at the steeple, you just walk inside and see the goddess statue glowing.

I also liked the run from the Great Plateau up to Kakariko Village. On that trip I encountered moblins and lizalfos, which were the other two extremely common enemies in Hyrule, and the difficulty spike was present but manageable. That whole trip also introduced Hestu, and had one of the most amazing tonal shifts in the game. I went through the East Barracks at night, and it was an extremely hard and lonely area, especially when I had like 2 swords and a few arrows. However, upon leaving that area, you meet a friendly NPC, and then a stable, which leads to not only catching horses, but also changes from the loneliness to feeling like you have friends somewhere at least.

In Kakariko Village, I feel like they capitalized really hard on the Sheikah. It’s where you learn about the memories, and Hyrule’s past, and the Sheikah’s past, and the Yiga. It was pretty intense in terms of the whole story line. But, it again helped me feel less lonely in Hyrule. And the side quests weren’t hard, but they were full of personality.

The hike to Hateno Village was also interesting, because of the sheer number of dead guardians you see near Fort Hateno. However, the Hateno Village shrine was pretty terrible. The motion controls are pretty inaccurate and unfun, and I won by basically cheating. Though the goal is to show what the switch can do, I really felt that it was more tedium than fun. I felt the same way about bringing the ancient flame up to the Tech Lab. It was mostly just walking through the village. For comparison, I really enjoyed the Akkala one. However, the NPC’s in both Hateno and Kakariko were fantastic and full of personality, in a way that felt more like an older Zelda, like LTTP.

Meta-game I think was pretty interesting. Sure, it’s basically just Korok seeds, Shrines, Towers, and scavenging. However, the sheer number of things you can find really just filled up my time. And things like shrines and korok seeds are genius little ways to have tons of puzzles filled in the game. Such as the “Steady thy heart” shrine, which was a mini-dungeon, and on the way to finding it, I found like 2 korok seeds, and there’s a bit of combat involved too. And the towers were also their own puzzle-combat combination, which just felt very Zelda, even if it was such a new feature. However, the Gerudo Tower, for the Gerudo Highlands was a load of bullshit, and I had to look it up. It’s just an issue of placement.

The Divine Beasts were a really cool idea, and I think that there were enough variations in the formula of get to a place, do a fetch quest, fight the divine beast, finish the dungeon, beat the boss. I really liked the Zora’s Domain one, because of the sheer factors involved. The Zora people hate you, you need a shit ton of shock arrows (you didn’t but I played ball), and you need to get inside Vah Ruta. I felt like that mission wasn’t just to get inside of Ruta, but really for Link’s sake, and that of Hyrule. It was multi-layered, and the fetch quest was mostly combat. And Ruta was an interesting gimmick, and I enjoyed the dungeon in its entirety.

The Goron City quest was fun, and people often harsh on it for getting into Eldin and not being fireproof. However, on either stable next to Eldin you can get fireproof elixirs or fireproof lizards. Plus, Eldin is literally crawling in fireproof lizards. I thought that Rudania as a whole was really fun, but I wish that they’d stuck with the darkness inside Rudania that was there at the start. It might be annoying at first, but the puzzle possibility and interesting mechanics were too good to pass up. I think Arin Hanson is right, however, that the boss cutscenes shouldn’t happen when they do. Rather, when you’re about to fight the Divine Beast, to see it in all of it’s glory. Because I could decide for myself to fight the massive volcano lizard.

My least favorite quest was Vah Medoh. First, getting to Rito Village wasn’t hard. It’s not in a dangerously cold area, Tabantha tower is really close, and Medoh is right above it, so it’s impossible to miss. Second, the fetch quest was really close and not hard to get to, and the task to get Teba on your side was aggressively easy. You have 3 minutes and it took me 30 seconds. Then the battle against Medoh just felt like the same task as the flight range, but with bomb arrows, and one less target. With Teba taking fire, and with Teba as cold and flat of a character, there’s no collateral for Link. Even after you find out that he’s been hurt, I didn’t care because the game gave me no reason to. The Dungeon wasn’t hard, and it’s gimmick felt shockingly similar to Rudania. The boss was easy, and as long as I had arrows, didn’t even mean Link had to get within close range. Furthermore, Revali is annoying and condescending, and has few redeemable qualities until after the boss fight, making me wonder why I even freed that asshole.

I liked the Gerudo quest, but I wish that it didn’t have the rupee gate to get inside Gerudo Town, and it felt like 2 dungeons in one. The Yiga Hideout and Naboris were both a dungeon in their own right. Naboris’s gimmick was annoying at points, and the boss fight had too many phases, but it all felt original and interesting. (Note: I did the beasts in order of Ruta, Naboris, Medoh, Rudania). My biggest point about the game is that there should have been more dungeons. The Gerudo quests left me satisfied, while every other one felt too short. If there were 8 dungeons, plus Hyrule Castle, that might be enough dungeon.

In terms of animals and extra stuff in the game, there were really great things. I liked how Lurelin Village didn’t seem to be balanced on Link, and was just there in Faron. I liked the Triforce Springs, especially the quest to save Naydra, which was new, but fascinating. Tarrey town was super fetch quest filled to build, but another way to make the player really feel how they affect the world. The labyrinths were complicated but fun, as were many shrine quests. The memories got me acquainted with a combination of Hyrule, the modern day, and 100 years ago, and were an interesting way to have a player choose if they want exposition or not. The Master Sword was an interesting way to get the player progress on their own but still have greater goals. Hyrule Castle was really fun, but a little too disjointed to allow for exploration without risking total decimation from the guardians (and the North Gatehouse is such bullshit).

Finally, is the ending. I personally love all of the cutscenes and the boss fights. The first one felt like a greatest hits of the previous bosses, but was still fresh and interesting to see how the mechanics interacted. Dark Beast Ganon was a more classic Ganon fight, but made Zelda’s role both prominent and non-intrusive, and explained the weird malice eyes. All of the cutscenes afterwards were amazing and lead the way to a great set of post-game quests to fix up Hyrule. And then the game stayed the same as if I never beat Ganon. With all of the cutscenes, I would love to see typical NPC Zelda, and travel Hyrule with her, even fix up the castle, use the Guardians to make a game plan against Ganon in the future. Sure it makes Hyrule less dangerous, but it gives the player power in Hyrule’s future beyond Ganon, which is where every Zelda game stops defining Link, and where Botw could have strived to be better.

TL;DR: BotW is a fantastic game that fills the time with tons of activities, and the changes to the Zelda formula only make it more fun. However, the Dungeons were too few and far between, and the ending was particularly underwhelming given the sheer number of hints at post game were in the final cutscenes. But overall, an unforgettable Zelda experience, and the best in a long line of great games.

#Zelda #breath of the wild #legend of zelda #long post #original #I rant

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nhorus · 7 years

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Bolos: All-beloved AI supertanks

(commencing education)

Bolos and the Concordiat

Bolos are the 'face' of Concordiat military might, despite how its power actually rests mainly in its navy.

Bolos are notable in that they mount the same main gun as Concordiat warships. And in orbital denial, it is hard as fuck to pick out even something as big as a Bolo against the even bigger background scatter and atmospheric lensing of a planet's surface. It also helps that there's this massive heatsink called the atmosphere or an ocean to allow it to keep firing without having to worry about rapid heat buildup.

Bolos being supercomputing AI brains means that they also serve as secondary knowledge sources in settling a colony. In the early wave of human expansion, Bolos were sent out with colonies because expecting Concordiat support in a hurry was just not feasible. In many ways, a Bolo's role is NOT to defeat planetary invasions on their own. They are strategic deterrents. An invasion on the way cannot be stopped so easily; the least the enemy could do is to land on the opposite side of the planet as the Bolo.

What a Bolo is meant to do is to make the enemy think twice before committing forces that he knows a large number will surely die. The soldiers themselves don't want to die futile deaths.

A Bolo's natural combat environment is called 'inside a nuclear fireball', and unless you're Concordiat main force with power armor made out of the same stuff Bolo warhulls are made of and infantry-portable 20 KT fusion mortars as light artillery support, you ain't surviving in that battlefield. (Or you're a Melconian with a backpack 10 Megaton charge diving in to a glorious death just to take out a Concordiat infantry defense line).

Human-vs-human conflict is therefore minimized with the threat of the Concordiat sweeping in to kick your teeth in if it gets out of hand.

In alien-vs-human conflict, and in many ways first contact affairs, a Bolo's role is twofold: 1) To not be detected until it is too late, and wipe out a substantial amount of the enemy's orbital support and landing craft 2) Hold the enemy at bay until the Concordiat Navy arrives with their own AI-driven warships, their banks of Hellbores and their overpowering swarms of missiles that could make Macross and Manticore go "Holy fuck, that's a lot of missiles."

It's just that Bolos are so capable that many times they resolve an alien invasion before the Concordiat can even respond. The Concordiat relied on their technological and firepower superiority to carry the day for so long, that they got arrogant. Then they ran up against the Melconians.

The Melconians were technologically inferior, but conservative estimates put their size at anywhere from three to five times the number of worlds as the Concordiat. Their weapons were inferior, but not that inferior. And they could reverse-engineer observations of Bolo capabilities just fine. They soon had supertanks of their own.

And so the Final War burned, and whole swaths of the Milky Way were wiped clean in an orgy of mutual annihilation. The Concordiat and the Melconians went around burning each other's worlds to an extent the Imperium of Man would go "Whoa, hold on there. You're resorting to Exterminatus too much." Tens of thousands of worlds burned, one after the other in retaliation,and trillions of innocents of either side died screaming into the long night.

The days of kinetic bombardment platforms and surgical strikes on military targets were long gone. There were no platforms, and no one was interested in "surgery" any longer. There was only brute force and the merciless imperatives of Operation Ragnarok and its Melconian equivalent, and Humans and Melconians screamed their rage and agony and hate as they fought and killed and died. On Ishark, it was Melconian troopers who fought with desperate gallantry to preserve their civilians, as it had been Humans who fought to save their civilians on Trevor's World and Indra and Matterhorn. And as the Humans had failed there, the Melconians failed here.

The aim of the war was total extinction of the other, and for the most part, they succeeded.

If you're seeing a Cold War parallel here, remember that the first Bolo stories were written in the 60s-70s. Keith Laumer's Bolos are part of the Science Fiction Golden Age classics.

Bolo Artificial Intelligence

The most expensive part of a Bolo, just like with today's warships, are not their weapon systems or drive mechanisms, but their electronics. Bolo brains are two-meter wide balls of incredibly complicated psychotronics. They don't have the Three Laws, and yet in many ways are also much more shackled.

Bolos have two modes: 1) the nominal capacity, which they use to converse with humans, often emulating cycles to deal with how so much more slowly humans speak to enunciate their ideas 2) Battle Reflex Mode, in which the full capacity of the Bolobrain is unleashed in combat.

Bolo hulls have been repurposed to everything from construction to farming machines. Yet the Concordiat's greatest fear has always been a 'rogue Bolo'. After their first wave of expansion and the defeat of the Deng, the Concordiat went out burning out the personality centers of fallen Bolos. These Mark XXs to XXIVs were made with simplistic, battle-hungry minds on the verge of self-awareness.

Bolos have multiple protections in place to keep them from going berserk.

Among these is Resartus, the initial imprint of the first production AI that is absolutely loyal to the Concordiat and humanity. If a Bolo's mind is ever broken by a logic fault, the Resartus personality takes over.

Another is the Omega Worm, which automatically triggers whenever a Bolo refuses a direct order from legal Concordiat authority. This will kill a Bolo.

The last is actually the simplest yet most effective. Give them a human to talk to. They are well capable of forming emotional bonds.

Bolo intelligence is what make Bolos so effective. In Battle Reflex Mode, imagine as if the whole world is moving so slowly, like you're in the Matrix seeing bullets slide through the air. That's what it's like to be a Bolo. Seconds are an eternity.

But it still intrigues them to interact with humans and all their chaotic complexity and creativity. Bolos are created for war, but they enjoy the arts that humans create. Humans have the history that Bolos envy, and they love being a part of that.

You can see it in the narrative here and there, about how Bolos trace their 'lineage' to all the way to tanks in WW1 and WW2, in Tigers and Pattons and Challengers, they dream about fighting in those battlefields.

Bolos and Society

The Mark I, II, and III Bolos did not create the twenty-first-century period of "the Crazy Years" as Terra's old nation state system crumbled, nor did they cause World War III. They made both the Crazy Years and the War even more destructive, in a tactical sense, than they might otherwise have been, yet in a perverse way, they helped minimize the strategic destruction (the Mark IIIs deployed in defense of the Free City-State of Detroit in 2032, for example, intercepted and destroyed every ICBM and cruise missile launched at the city). Perhaps more to the point, it was the existence of a single Mark II Bolo which permitted Major Timothy Jackson and Renada Banner to restore security and democratic government to the Prometheus Enclave within what had been the United States of America in 2082, thus planting the seed which eventually became the Concordiat government of Earth.

Bolos were sent out to defend the first wave of colonization because FTL travel was by necessity expensive, and ton for ton sending a machine as capable as a brigade is more cost-effective than shipping said brigade with all its tanks, and soldiers, and logistics constraints, all crammed into a spaceship hull already packed with the essentials of setting up a colony.

Later, Bolos tend to be deployed in regimental teams to establish beachheads on contested worlds and force breakthroughs. In the interstellar scale, Bolos became the quintessential planet-based strategic asset, because literally nothing else could possibly survive in the probable nuclear battlefields of the future. They were the vanguard, defending where the Concordiat Navy's presence was weak, and the last line of defense for humanity's worlds.

Bolos were celebrated, but their nature as AI was almost universally feared. It is only much, much later that the Concordiat began to respect the Bolos as more than just war machines.

The story "Ghost of Resartus" showed that Bolos can choose to reject the assignment of a new commander. A squadron of Bolos were working as farming machines in a colony. The Concordiat did not remove their weapons. So you have these self-aware massive war machines, pulling a disc harrow in pairs, with multi-megaton firepower always at the ready.

The local farmers don't give no shits. They treat Bolos as like uncles home from the war.

Of course, it turned out that the reason the Bolos rejected being reassigned was that they believed the Enemy would be back, and they were right. The Enemy have been living underground, breeding, making weapons, waiting for decades just so they can and swarm up and try to take over the world when the defenders had grown lax.

But unfortunately for them, a Bolo does not get bored.

Other cybernetic and AI civilizations would probably see Bolos as not knights in shining durachrome but as slaves to mankind. Well-treated slaves, but nonetheless minds made only for war, made to die.

Bolos could probably respond with 'at least we are free from existential angst'. Bolos are happy at war and content at peace. And because they're just so goddamn big, and apart from the whole 'we can set planets aflame if we ever decide to go Skynet on you peeps', Bolos do not disturb human society. They become a part of it by remaining apart from it.

Concordiat High Command is very likely run with input from dedicated AIs, but Bolos themselves don't need much more than a data connection to enjoy cultural works. (also remember that Bolos were written decades before even the idea of the Internet)

So technically, they cannot go 'full Skynet'. Bolos can be stopped by other Bolos. By their very nature, Bolos are very resistant to hacking. And because the Concordiat understands the danger of putting so much power, so much temptation, into a commander's hands, their human chain of command is very carefully vetted.

The thing about ordering about someone smarter than you is how they can creatively fuck around while technically obeying the letter of your commands. Or they just send out an FTL message to Concordiat High Command and then the Navy comes along bringing entire Regiments of Bolos for some well-deserved teeth-kicking for some wannabe dictator.

It's somewhat ironic that Bolos can serve as their own political officers.

Bolos tend not to fight in local affairs. They're under Concordiat authority. The only stories in which they are made to turn towards local combatants rather than outside invaders is from surplus outdated Bolos that the Concordiat sells.

I receive the order to commence firing, and for the first time in my career history, I hesitate at that command. I have the Enemy in my sights, and yet I am aware with laser-exact precision what the firing of my 90cm Hellbore in close proximity to unarmored civilians would do The mountain pass is perhaps eighty meters wide at this point and walled in by sheer, basaltic slopes capped with snow and ice. Hellbores fire a "bolt" of fusing hydrogen at velocities approaching ten percent c. Within a thick atmosphere such as Izra'il's, the bolt's 30-million-degree core temperature dissipates as a shock wave that would kill or maim any unarmored individual within a radius of approximately two kilometers and would bring down the surrounding ice in a cataclysmic avalanche. Civilian casualties would be horrendous. I withhold my main battery fire, then, in order to allow the refugees to continue passing me on their way to the west. Instead, I launch four VLS missiles with CMSG warheads, vectoring them toward concentrations of Enemy armor and radiating communications assets east of the mountains. Each cluster-munitions warhead disintegrates above the target area, scattering a cloud of self-guiding force packages across broad, suddenly lethal footprints. As expected, the Enemy's armored units appear unaffected, but troops caught in the open, along with the buildings and light vehicles being utilized as C[sup]3[/sup] units, are shredded by bursts of high-velocity pellets fired like shotgun blasts from falling CM warheads. I target fifteen large, grounded transports scattered across the Area of Battle but elect not to destroy these, at least at this time. We as yet have little information on Kezdai psychology, but they seem close enough to humans in their actions and reactions that I assume they will fight harder knowing they have no escape. Humans refer to it as "fighting like cornered rats," a vivid metaphor despite the fact that I can only assume that a "rat" is a creature possessed of cowardly traits yet which can, in desperation, display considerable strength, determination, or will to live. So long as the Enemy's troops know there is a means of escape waiting for them, they may be more cautious in their deployment and advance. Further, their transports provide a tactical lever in my own planning. By threatening their lines of retreat to their transports, we can force changes in the execution of their battle plan. For now, though, my own maneuvering is circumscribed by my orders. I advise the Command Center that I cannot fire my Hellbore at this time and begin targeting the Enemy's armor with VLS-launched cluster munitions.

"Bolo HNK," Martin said, speaking into the comset pick-up. "Hold position, as ordered. Can you target the enemy with your Hellbore?" "Affirmative." Was there just a trace of bitterness in that one-word response? Anger? Or was it his imagination? There was a long hesitation. "Command, I must refuse the order to fire my Hellbore at this time. Request permission to move forward ten kilometers, where I will not be responsible for heavy civilian casualties." Martin blinked, drew in a sharp breath, then let it out again slowly. "Negative. Hold position." He studied the QDC readouts again. "Damn..." "What is it, my friend?" "I'm not quite sure," he said, frowning. Both Hank and Andrew were operating at a considerably higher level of mentation than could be expected of Mark XXIVs. "The way they're talking, I could swear they're Mark XXXs." "What do you mean?" "Well ... we don't have time here for a dissertation on Bolo evolution. In extremely simple terms, Bolos became generally self-aware, possessing roughly human-equivalent intelligence, with the introduction of the Mark XX and psychotronic circuitry in the late 2700s. Succeeding marks have grown more intelligent, more human in their reasoning abilities and – importantly – in their speech patterns over the next few centuries, though their abilities were restricted by inhibitory software aimed at preventing a 'rogue Bolo' from turning on its owners. Okay so far?" Khalid nodded. "I understand. The early models couldn't do a thing without direct orders from their human commanders." "Right. Now, Mark XXIVs, like Hank and Andrew, were the first truly autonomous self-aware machines. The latest models, like the Mark XXX ... well, if you talk to them by comm, the only way you can tell they're not human is by the fact that their speech tended to be a bit more formal, a bit more erudite than that of people. They're fully Turing capable."

It's only later during the all-out war against the Melconian that this command chain breaks down. Bolos can refuse to fire on general ethical guidelines against harming civilians. They can pressured to with repeated orders. They might also choose to take the Omega Worm and fuck your face with precisely directed hellfire before they die. Specially if their commander chooses to disagree with the orders.

Bolo commanders have a certain... latitude... that allows them to help their Bolos not freeze up on getting fucktarded orders from REMFs.

Bolos and Their Commanders

Bolos and their human commanders are always at risk of having unhealthy fixations on each other. Yes, Bolos can fall in love.

This is something that Concordiat High Command always needs to keep in mind. It's part of why they discontinued Bolo minds with 'female' personalities. Actually the only thing that's different is the voice, but humans have a tendency to treat their Bolos differently. And when your infantry crew for your scout Bolo starts calling her 'Mom' as an affectionate nickname, holy hell she will go suicidally berserk when her beloved children die.

Linda Evans knows how to write a female Bolo I search all compartments within reach of my interior armatures. I discover manifest isted medications, sterile injection units, plasma-bandages, antiseptic sprays, pre-prepared foods—and in a compartment inside the head, a compartment which is not listed in my official configuration manual, I find three non-listed sets of matched playing cards. I find another non-listed object, a small booklet of instructions which matches two of the card decks. I read the title aloud. “Canasta.” An astonishing chain of events follows that single word. An entire data bank I did not ealize existed opens up. It contains Experience Data! I am flooded with memories. They are jumbled. Bits and pieces of some are missing. Whole years are missing. But I begin to know who I used to be. I am Red. My children’s names return to me. I know who Douglas Hart is, who Banjo and Willum DeVries are. I grieve for them. I have halted my forward movement. I know Gunny and Eagle Talon Gunn and Crazy Fritz and Icicle . . . I recall their deaths. I recall them in two versions. One is brutal. One is detached and ess painful to recall. I examine this anomaly and discover the reason for it. I locate a worm virus. Willum tried to spare me pain. He was a good boy. It is not his fault he failed. I sit in he sunlight and grieve. A keening sound shrills through my vocal processor. Wind blows emptily across my hull. If grief is madness, then it is proper to condemn me. I sit motionless for a full 5.97 minutes and keen my misery to the empty wind and rock. I begin to think of Ish. My new Commander. My memory retains gaps. I do not recall the Experience of 6.07 years after my commissioning. But I recall enough. I recall midnight conversations in the privacy of the head, the only compartment on board which provides privacy. I recall the woman Ish loved and eventually married. I recall his whispered confession that he loved another besides her. I recall the sense of panic in my Responsibility circuitry and the search for a solution. My child cannot love me as a man loves the woman he is to marry. Ish must not stay with me. I speculate that Ish Matsuro has come to be my Commander once again because Space Force would want an investigating officer who is closely acquainted with my systems. Space Force does not know how Ish feels. Ish knows what I know. He remembers more than I remember. His pain will be greater. If he speaks with me again as the Red he recalls and loves, he will destroy his career trying to save me. I cannot allow this. He is my only surviving child. I will protect him. I rewrite Willum’s worm virus, deleting the lines of code which copied my Experience Data before erasure. This time, there will be no hope of restoring my personality. The Red Ish loves will die. In the distance, I see a Space Force flier settle to the ground. Ish emerges. I am ready. Goodbye, my son. I speak. Execute ‘Null-Null String.’ ”

Fuck that hack Kratman. Linda Evans did it first (a Bolo - a friggin TANK - that acts as a woman? How?!) and wrote two of the most emotional stories in the Boloverse: "Little Red Hen" and "Miles to Go". They're both in the book "Bolos the Triumphant".

So Bolo commanders are trained to take a very professional code of conduct. It's fine to treat your Bolos as your very best friend. They will never betray you. Show off the Bolo to your family and children. Bolos love children and being shown just what and why they defend humanity. It also helps mitigate the fear and separation between the outside Concordiat military and the local civilians.

Bolo minds are shaped by the personalities of their commanders as much as they also train their commanders to look outside the box in turn. Theirs is a great partnership, because humans are capable of intuitive leaps and illogic that the perfectly logical Bolo mind often overlooks.

So, for hundreds of years, Bolos were the stabilizing influence on Concordiat society. If you send out Bolos to die, the least they are owed by humanity is for their commanders to die with them. They are a powerful symbol, worth much more than just what their guns bring to the table.

The Bolos did not really change the fundamental truth that humanity’s survival depended, both for better and for worse, upon its weapons technology. What did change was the fact that, in the Bolo, humanity had, in a sense, developed a weapon system which was better than humanity itself was. Better at making war, better at destroying enemies (including, at various times, other human enemies), better at defending its creators, and, arguably, better in living up to the ideals humanity espoused.

And then in the advent of the Final War, the Concordiat invented the mind-machine interface that allows Bolo brains and their human commanders to become as one. And that was a whole new frontier of fucked-upedness.

Bolo Firepower

The Bolo's killiness on the battlefield is based upon three critical Concordiat technologies: 1) the battlescreen 2) the durachrome/flintsteel/composite armor 3) the hellbore

1) Bolo Duralloy

Bolo Mk I was pretty just an Abrams with some AA/AM gatlings strapped on. Bolos really became their own distinct platform upon the discovery of durachome.

The first true Bolo (the Mark II) was a 150-ton MBT with two 2cm railguns on its side and a durachrome hull. It is an exceptionally hard metal that is proofed against everything but a 150mm APDS shot at 90 degrees or a close nuclear detonation. It is effectively immune to anything less. The MK III was a rolling pyramidal mobile pillbox of death with a rudimentary programmed AI operating of premade battle plans. Markee was astonishingly hard to kill.

She took artillery fire. Landslides. Missile attack. She was buried in lava. She had no intelligence to speak of, only operating on premade battle plans and voice-activated commands. She broke out after being buried for [i]decades[/i] in hardened volcanic rock and smote an army of cannibal cultists. (She also had a porn star's voice.)

Bolos are stubborness personified. They are knights in endurachrome.

Bolos are made with enough armor to take a hit from their own main guns. It can't take multiple hits to the same area, but it's enough for fighting on the move. Bolo warhulls are made with multiple layers, with reflective anti-beam and ablative anti-plasma coating. Now they are effectively immune to everything except Bolo weapons or contact nuclear detonations.

But armor has its own penalties. No amount of armor can really make you immune to enemy fire, since heavier armor makes you slower and an easier target. An enemy could just deploy a weapon of sufficient strength from prepared positions to render your armor cost-ineffective.

This is where the battlescreen comes in.

2) Bolo Battlescreen

The battlescreen defines the Bolo as much as the hellbore does. It is the very thing that tilts the development of defensive tech over offensive technology.

The battlescreen is fully the 'monopermeable anti-kinetic battlescreen'. It works via shredding any matter that strikes it into subatomic plasma. Mass is what matters, not velocity. Bullets and such just explode into harmless radiant heat and light. But obviously, this means that massless energy weapons go through.

Lasers (in all bands of the spectrum) however are defeated by the second property of the battlescreen, its conversion field. What it does is to sap from 50% of the energy to create turbulent currents that it can then use to power its own capacitors. There are stories of Bolos with their reactors already slagged but still able to shoot back simply because the enemy kept shooting at it and therefore allowing it to power up its weapons from the damage it was receiving!

What's striking about the battlescreen is that it cannot be depleted by multiple tiny hits. It's not your generic scifi bubble shield. It treats each hit as a discrete event, so it doesn't matter if you hit it once or a thousand times - all those tiny impact events are shredded equally into a wash of harmless diffuse plasma on the warhull.

The battlescreen can be extended or contracted, it can be set to lightly sting with electricity or set everything within its field on fire. They rip apart missiles that get past the Infinite Repeaters before they can detonate. This is why anti-Bolo missiles are tandem fusion shaped charge warheads.

3) Bolo Hellbores

Many prior Bolo marks have only one main gun. This is because a bigger gun works better than multiple smaller guns. This is in part for how a Bolo is the most reliable way of destroying another Bolo. So the main gun had better stand a good shot of defeating their own defenses in repeated hits.

With the adoption of the first Hellbore in the Mark XIV, Bolo designers actually began placing the equivalent of current-generation capital starship main battery weapons—and armor intended to resist them—in what could no longer be considered mere “tanks.”

Hellbores fire a laser-initiated fusion beam at .7c. It kills not with heat (though it produces tremendous thermal transfer as a side-effect), but with kinetic energy. And since hellbore bolts are already subatomic plasma, battlescreens can only do so much to mitigate the damage. They can only do so through deflection, making the battlescreen act like a shield to blunt and divert the hit.

This is why Bolos tend to go with one more powerful main gun rather than two smaller guns. It doesn't matter if two 110cm Hellbores have the combined firepower of (2.75 x 2) 5.5 Megatons on target when a single 200cm 5 MT/sec Hellbore will punch deeper and more reliably and from further away.

The Mk XXXIII's three 200cm Hellbores are deemed 'equivalent to the main battery of a Concordiat Battlecruiser." This means 15 MT/sec precisely on target with a refire rate of about 4 seconds. But they also have a sustained fire mode of 78 shots/min or about 1 Megaton-range bolt every .8 seconds. When the VLS cells are depleted, this can be used for glassing all around the Bolo.

Hellbore ranges are all over the place. We do know that at the very least, Hellbore fire is effective past high orbit. Which is 35,000 kilometers straight up.

4) Other Armament

Bolo main armament consists of not just their Hellbores, but also large-bore Howitzers and Mortars that allows indirect fire capability. A Hellbore could punch through a mountain, but why not just lob shells over it? Artillery may be less accurate than missiles, but they can pack a larger bursting charge. For targets without a battlescreen, nuke-tipped 240cm howitzer fire would be no less damaging than a Hellbore strike. Rapid-fire 40cm mortars are equivalent to 15.75" battleship shells.

Bolos are also known for their 'Infinite Repeaters', which are used in anti-air and anti-missile defense with limited anti-armor capability. From railguns to lasers, to ion-bolt particle beam guns, finally to 20cm Hellbores capable of outputting .5 megatons/second at peak charge, Bolos are absurdly good at point defense. Melcon land-based missiles accelerate at mach 50 and are fired in the thousands to overwhelm Bolo defenses. A single Bolo can pare down these thousands to a dozen that might get through.

And like today, it comes hand in hand that being very good at defeating missiles helps being very good at manufacturing missiles that stand a shot of penetrating said defenses. Bolo VLS cells pack a variety of smart munitions from cluster to fusion-tipped. The main weapon of the Concordiat Navy is not the Hellbore, but even longer-ranged missile attacks guided with FTL sensors.

In addition to infinite repeaters, Bolos have small last-ditch point-defense anti-infantry railguns. They fire hypersonic flechettes. Late-mark Bolos also have various drones for recon and fire support. They are stealthy and on occasion launched into orbit for satellite overwatch.

Bolo Classes

There used to be different classes of Bolo, pertaining to Scout, Standard, and Siege roles, but they usually fold into a general hull in the next mark. This echoes the transition of tank hullls into the MBT platform. Later Bolo generations are bigger, heavier, and yet faster.

They stopped making Scout Bolos with infantry for being too fragile to last, the whole 'unhealthy attachment' thing, and dismounted infantry itself ceasing to be of any significant factor in battlefields where Bolos need to fight (i.e., inside a nuclear fireball). Dumb vehicles are better for recon. Force recon is just a Bolo with orders to seek out and shoot at its own discretion.

Bolos can scout and fight by themselves. The most technologically advanced Bolo is faster than anything, can outshoot anything, can lay waste to planets, and can fucking fly. Bolo Mk XXXIIIs are the last true Bolos built by the Concordiat. Bolo Prime on Luna, and Earth itself, were blotted out by Melconian world-burners soon after. Bolo SHIVA is explicitly the very last Bolo to come out of the assembly line. They are the Planetary Siege Units.

The Bolo XXXIV

There are post-Final War XXXIVs, but they are different and made from plans included in the Seedcorn Colony computers. It is probable that there are many different XXXIVs with different loadouts depending on what each successor society deems the best next step to the venerable XXXIII.

Actual Concordiat Bolo XXXIVs are modified XXXIII warhulls. They sacrifice the entire 240cm howitzer battery, some heavy VLS cells and a 200cm Hellbore turret to free up the room to mount two 60-meter long Hellrails, each firing 90 megatons per bolt with a refire rate of about one minute. They cannot be depressed enough to hit ground targets not because of the risk of damage, but just from the simple geometry of where they're located. But get a Bolo's ass up enough against an incline, they can be shot at things on the ground.

They are orbital denial platforms. What's significant about them was that they seem to be a stopgap measure while the Concordiat Navy is busy fighting the Melconians. They are not more powerful than an XXXIII - its three faster-cycling 200cm Hellbores are made to chew up anything it can reach.

"So what do you think of the new Mark XXXIVs?" Kiel asked. "I am not fully briefed on their exact specifications," Kal said. "But they appear to be quite capable." "And their firepower?" Kiel asked. "You know anything about that?" "Formidable," Kal said simply. Kiel knew, from his briefing with Veck, what the specs were on the XXXIV's Hellrails, but he wanted to know what Kal knew. "Give me your best guess on what the Hellrails can do?" "My limited understanding," Kal said, "puts the firepower of the Hellrails at 90 megatons per second, and a firing rate of one to one-point-two minutes per rail, depending on the thermal coupling from the plasma, the cooling mix used, and the exact efficiency of the cooling system." "Impressive," Kiel said. He was surprised that even though Kal had never seen a Hellrail fired, Kal had hit the specs that Major Veck had shown him earlier exactly. "What did you base your answer on?" Kiel asked. "On the thermal imaging of the weapon and the configuration and dimensions of the external casing," Kal said. "Okay, I'm impressed," Kiel said. "From my short briefing on the weapons, you hit it on the money."

Hellrails do not sound like simple railguns to me. It takes shitloads of KE to turn a slug into 90 megatons on target. A 10-ton slug would need to go .028 of c, while a 100-ton slug only needs to go .009% of the speed of light. From a sixty-meter rail. Why would a solid slug still have a 'per second' qualifier?

The post-Final War XXXIV, specifically the ones made by the Indrani Republic, are based off the plans sent with the Seedcorn colonies trying to escape from both human and Melcon space just so the species doesn't become extinct. Both Human and Melcon sent such last-ditch colonies. Most of them died, hunted down or preyed upon by other alien civilizations.

Ironically, the strongest new civilizations that arose after the War were Human-Melcon coalitions with peace brokered by Bolos unwilling to murder any more. It is, strictly speaking, a concordiat.

By bluepencil at Sufficien Velocity

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bnrobertson1 · 4 years

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No Hooch, Year Two: On Moby Dick and Meditation

To mark a second year of not drinking, I wanted to do something more substantial than last year’s Se7en-style “celebration” of engorging half a cake, so I decided to read Moby Dick. I’d never read Melville’s meditation on, well, everything*, but a confluence of Wiki-wormholes, a pandemic-limited social calendar, and a lifelong promise to myself to actually, you know, read it (as opposed to referencing it as though I had whilst defogging my monocle) merged at just the right time to propel me through the tome’s intimidating heft.

*It’d be pedantic horseshit to call it my new favorite book, but it’s The Greatest Novel I’ve Ever Read. I recommend it for its existence-sized ambition alone, although if you write things you will feel a little insignificant afterwards.

You know the story: fish eats man’s leg. Man, upset about the whole leg thing, pursues revenge at all costs. Between pages of the most Metal shit* ever put to page (articulated with Shakespearean grandeur, no less) a story of obsession is painted that is as powerful now as it was 170 years ago.

*Metal Gods Mastodon’s album Leviathan is an ode to the book, and does not exaggerate the intensity whatsoever

I’ll can it about Moby Dick- but for the purposes of this, one of the novel’s main themes is a suitable launch pad. Specifically, that of the seductive, destructive power of self-delusion. Drinking, for some- for me- fueled self-delusion like no other. Sure, the self-delusions at first were usually of the more harmless, if not exactly positive, variety- feelings that I was stronger/ more handsome/ more charming/ smarter/ funnier than I might actually be- in other words a confidence boost of debatable need. Alas, as has happened to far better than me, the self-delusions eventually began to take on a more negative tone, and that- eventually- is why I decided to take a break.

But self-delusions don’t just stop when the drinking does. Oh, they fester, alright, and morph into toxic self-trickeries. Delusions that relationships won’t significantly change*. Delusions that the fact you don’t constantly talk won’t come across to some as a sort of new holier-than-thou attitude. Delusions that others care about your own well-being as much as you should. Delusions that warp themselves into useless mental narratives that in retrospect feel more at home in a bad sitcom than real life. They eat at your mind like termites, chewing through ladders of progress like driftwood.

*As someone who responded to others abstaining from alcohol with cynical, if sarcastic, grumblings along the lines of “I don’t trust people who don’t drink,” I really understand both sides. The funny (and perhaps hypocritical) thing is I still kind of don’t.

I decided to place the blame for all my woes at booze’s tasty, awesome feet, thinking like (sorry, one more MD ref) Ahab that if I slayed my White Whale, all would be solved. I’d convinced myself that the only thing keeping me from bliss was just that one hurdle- perma-happiness merely required snatching the fermented fly from my ointment. I had convinced myself that my many, many flaws would evaporate like the corn squeezins from my skin and other organs and that the world would regain some lost, heavenly harmony once I put the bottle down.

Of course, this turned out to be utterly false. My the relief of my newfound quasi-clarity proved to be almost narcotic in its power, constructing a pride that blinded me to my own complexities. In fact, alcohol had helped me a lot more in life than I wanted to give it credit for- it made my quirks less rigid and my tolerance for pretty much everything far, far higher. To call it a mere “social lubricant” seems to minimize its profound (albeit ranging) effect on my personality.

Alcohol filled a void in my life that I just assumed would be replaced with light and good tidings once I stopped. And while other substances, concerts, Stereolab vinyl, the first three books of Knausgaard’s My Struggle, and sunrise exercise did do a bang-em-up job filling that emptiness at a slightly-higher-minded level, in truth a lot of the hurt I was trying to avoid by not drinking was more than happy to wait and sharpen its knives while I fooled myself into thinking I’d figured it all out. Anxiety- while not nearly as bad as it was in my hungover/drinking days- would still spread and pop in my veins at the mere scent of confrontation or reckoning, like an oil site aching for a cracked pipe. Even though I was doing good things for my physical and mental health, I wasn’t really grappling with some of the things that drove me to alcohol in the first place. But that’s a topic more appropriately discussed with a certain person I pay a (non-prostitute) hourly rate every other week.

Hungry for a reprieve from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, I found myself doing deep dives into literature and music that would heighten some of my experiences with some of the aforementioned substances. Another self-deception? Sure, but in concert with a slightly clearer head, this one actually produced something positive when it led me to stumble upon Jamie Wheal and Steven Kotler’s life-altering Stealing Fire. A book about elevated planes of consciousness, “flow” states, and how they can vastly improve lives, the book- as well as David Lynch’s Catching the Big Fish- coincided with an intellectual superior’s suggestion to get me to try- of all things- meditation.

I freely admit this was not easy for me to do, as I have found “earthy” folk to be some of the most obnoxious on the planet for most of my life. But my desperation for some sort of lasting change led me to get over my stereotypical assumptions about the cliche meditator (and the fear of being associated with their soft-spoken, vowel-loving kind) and give the meditation app Calm a go. I felt results immediately, even in a period where outside forces seemed to be conspiring to obliterate my ego. Long story short*, taking time for mindfulness provided refuge in a real motherfucker of a year, and would eventually lead to a daily Transcendental Meditation practice and a peace of mind I hadn’t ever encountered and for which I will be eternally grateful.

*Yes, this is the abridged version.

Meditation taught me humility, appreciation, and clarity by slowing down my relentless thoughts- something I once thought an asset- and gave me the new lens of equanimity through which to see the world. The humility* to realize I wasn’t the “most” or ‘best” anything in the world, nor would I ever be, but I wasn’t the “least” or “worst”* either**. I began to appreciate kindness as a form of a most pure, dynamic courage, not the bi-product of some bland weakness. Finally, a heightened concentration gave me the clarity to see a lot of those self-delusions for what they were, well-intentioned self-defense mechanisms that’d gotten warped and lost their way. Being exposed for what they were, they just kind of went away. The culmination of these teachings gave me the foreign feeling that while I still have a lot- like a stupid amount- of work to do, I actually kind of like myself.

*Another excellent teacher of humility has been picking up my mom’s dog’s shit every morning for the last few months. Few things will make you reflect like a dog making direct eye contact with you as she, as my mom puts it, “does her business.”

**Sure, I knew these things at a lip service level but to actually realize them was due to meditation.

But it’s not all good. Some relationships got stronger- others rusted- others crumbled. Some of my flaws that had been dulled by alcohol or good ol’ fashioned neurosis grew pointy again. All of this probably would have happened had I been drinking, albeit in more dramatic fashions. Life- at times- seemed insistent that I pick up the bottle to smooth some rough patches both personal and universal.

I didn’t not drink because I was strong, or disciplined. But- for the first time in a long time- the sheer terror of total relapse wasn’t the cause for my not drinking either. I abstain because I’ve got enough shit to sift through and frankly I’ve come to kind of like my edges, plus I find just thinking about being hungover to be exhausting.

(That said, I promise if I pick up the bottle between now and the next of these over-shares, I will exhaustively report back, much like I think people who post outrageous amounts of wedding photos on social media should be legally obligated to also post subsequent divorce papers.)

I’ve started to see my faults as something to be worked on, not a damnation- or something to be blindly defended, for that matter. Meditation has taught me that change isn’t just possible- it’s constant whether you want it to be or not. I miss a lot of who I was, but I certainly don’t miss the way I felt, and embracing the now only sharpens that appreciation. There has been pain and will be bad days, but the alternative simply doesn’t appeal to me anymore. I don’t laugh as much but I smile a lot more.

I’ll close with what you may have been thinking- why write this? The first reason should be self-evident: to get some hot, hot ass.* But for realsies, I share this because writing helps me give what I referred to last year as “the abyss” some semblance of shape. What was once the void is just now a really big, fucking mountain of labyrinthine design. And while not feeling understood has always been an issue of mine, so I genuinely appreciate it if you made it this far, its really the posting itself that’s the point. Secondly, I find the stigmatization of those with mental health issues, while much improved in recent years, to be one of the biggest plagues on modern society. Although I don’t live anything resembling a sweet life, I feel being brutally honest is at least my way of trying to combat that. Thirdly, I wanted to impress you with the fact I read Herman Melville’s 1851 classic Moby Dick**. Now, if you’ll excuse me the 2/5 of cake I’m staring at isn’t going to eat itself...

*Every blog’s raison d’etre

** Great book!

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symbianosgames · 7 years

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For a game about piloting giant mechs, it sure feels good to run around on foot in Titanfall. Well, maybe not on foot, exactly, since when you’re outside your titan you’ll mostly be leaping through the air and running along walls. This is a game in which you can traverse levels at fantastic speed and explore their full vertical heights, using a moveset which not only rewards skill but is also surprisingly intuitive to grasp.

And it feels great, even with a gamepad. Titanfall is a model of firstperson fluidity and precision on gamepad, while also capturing a sense of your pilot’s – and titan’s – physical body. This moveset and sense of motion emerged from the firstperson shooter greats. Both Titanfall, which was released in March 2014, and its sequel, which was released in October 2016, were built in heavily adapted versions of the Source engine and therefore inherit the fundamental control systems of Half-Life 2.

But in sculpting the game’s actual feel, developer Respawn was also looking back to another classic, Halo: Combat Evolved. “It’s still the gold standard,” says senior software engineer Rayme Vinson. As he began to block out the controls for the game that would become Titanfall, he’d load up Halo’s first level and play its first encounter over and over again, killing off all the AI apart from a single grunt. “Then I could dance around him and see what [Bungie] did,” he says, noting the way Halo’s crosshair is lower than the center of the screen so you can see more of the world, how it deals with aim-assist, and how its stable view as you walk gets across a sense of Master Chief’s indomitability.

The team didn’t adopt all Halo’s lessons by any means. For instance, Titanfall has view-bob to communicate an awareness of physical motion, but they wanted it to maintain some of Halo’s steadiness. “Intuiting from what they did, it seemed they had a big focus on making it so players could shoot the bad guys as easily as possible and not get motion sick, and not getting motion sick became a big part of Titanfall,” says multiplayer design lead Todd Alderman.

Motion sickness in firstperson games is complex and subjective, but Respawn found that when they added view-bob but kept the crosshair fixed to the center of the screen it would feel like the player character was constantly looking left-right-left-right, causing some players to feel nauseous. “I think a big thing that causes motion sickness is a disconnect between what you’re seeing on screen and what you’re trying to do,” says programmer lead software engineer John Haggerty. “Any time we move the view without your input that can cause motion sickness.”

Alongside these fundamentals, Respawn also started to develop Titanfall’s emblematic wall-run, which takes a central part in its overall movement system because it grants the speed boost that gives both games their kinetic emphasis. The wall-run also feels skillful to pull off, despite actually being simple to initiate.

Haggerty began to develop the wall-running system by allowing players to freely walk on walls by pulling towards them instead of having gravity pull them down. He then tested it in Half-Life 2, specifically the section just after you get the pistol, where train tracks run through a walled channel. “I was just wall-running around that for days, messing around,” he laughs. “You do it a bit, something goes wrong so you change the code, and then you do it again, and you do it a few hundred times and you end up with something that’s reasonable.” From there it was a matter of adding features like gravity gradually pulling the player down over time and refining with designers as they implemented it in levels.

To the player it’s a matter of jumping into wall and they simply start running along it. For the game, it meant having to define between slopes and walls (“slopes are complicated”) and also having it constantly check around the player for surfaces that can be run along, disregarding such elements as the sides of steps. One change between Titanfall and Titanfall 2 was to stop players who were starting their runs near the tops of walls from falling off, because the arc took them over the top. It sounds like a simple fix, but it was a challenge since it added yet another thing for the game to need to check about the world to an already computationally expensive list.

Part of its easy feel is down to the way Titanfall communicates what’s going on, tilting the view away from the wall to indicate that you’re running on it. One thing that was added and immediately made it feel much better was Alderman’s suggestion to tilt the view as a player starts to jump towards a wall but before they begin to run, allowing them to anticipate it.

Encouraging players to wall-run in the first place was another matter. “People wouldn’t trust the wall-run and press the A button as quickly as they could, and they’d end up jumping right off it,” says Haggerty. “Training people to trust the wall is hard because it looks like you’re going to fall.” The solution was in level design, whether in the first Titanfall’s training sections or in having early enforced wall-running in Titanfall 2’s campaign.

The next problem was to give players a reason to wall-run. “That’s funny, actually,” Haggerty says. “We’d had wall-running for a while and then it was like, ‘Why would you wall-run when you can just run around?’” This is where wall-running’s speed boost came in, an incentive that came to inform Titanfall’s distinctive speed-through-motion design, in which by performing acrobatics players can traverse the levels at up to 30 mph, well over double a pilot’s sprint speed.

Wall-running itself gives a boost, and jumping off a wall boosts still further. The slide move, achieved when the player hits crouch while sprinting, also grants a small speed boost. “We talked about sliding for a long time and I was always like, ‘Ah, whatever. That’s stupid,’ says Haggerty. “I ended up doing it one day and threw in a basic slide, and people loved it. A slide is mostly just regular ground-walking movement except you can’t stop or change direction as easily, and it gives you a little boost when you start it. It’s all the same code, plus some minor tweaks.”

The slide is an important part of high-level play because it allows players to chain speed-boosting moves together on open ground and it enables slide-hopping. This is bunnyhopping technique that involves hitting slide while in the air after jumping, and then repeating by jumping again right after landing. Titanfall also features air-strafing, an inheritance from the Source engine, through which by steering left and right while airborne players can reach the highest speeds.

Pro-play aside, sliding also feels good to pull off. “It’s the movie in their head,” says lead animator Mark Grigsby.

“It’s not only the feeling of it, but the way your gun turns and when you see other players doing the knee-slide, and you want to do it,” says Alderman.

And sliding highlights the role of animation in Titanfall’s control systems. “Everything we’re doing, we think about what it’s going to look like when you do it. When you see someone pulling off these moves, you need to definitely look at them and say, ‘Holy shit, that looks fucking cool,’” says Grigsby.

“We try to take into account all of your senses, except maybe taste, but you never know,” says Alderman. “But even the audio for when you slide or double jump, it all plays into it. Where you’re seeing your gun, what it sounds like, the inertia you’re feeling. It all plays into how the end result comes out. So you really have to watch it from every angle.”

“These pilots are in love with wall-running. So when they’re running, they’ll have their gun in one hand and with the other they’ll be caressing the wall,” says Grigsby.

“The first thing thought when I saw it was a surfer riding a big wave; they run their hands in the water,” says community manager Jay Frechette.

The slide was harder to realize. The team first imagined it looking like a baseball player sliding into third base, but having one foot extended and one tucked under the body looked odd from firstperson. So they started to think of John Woo-style action movies, with the hero sliding on his knees, firing twin Desert Eagles, and this is how players look in thirdperson in the first Titanfall when they perform one. In firstperson, the gun becomes canted, pointing down at a 45 degree angle, to indicate the pose.

It’s a subtle and largely subconscious reminder of your virtual body. Another reminder is in the way your view springs back to normal after landing from a long fall. The depth of the spring is relative to the height fallen, and a feature that’s down to a quick experiment Vinson made after the system was added that bops your view around when you’re shooting weapons. “It was the simplest thing I think we’ve ever done because the system was already there, and suddenly it made landing feel way more real, even though the actual mechanic, the movement code, was identical,” he says.

Titanfall’s controls feel great and offer easy access to powerful abilities, and they also possess skill-based depth, allowing experienced players to perform moves that transform the way the game is played at high levels. And yet so many of them are the result of exploring the game’s systems as they came online. “Just in the moment we had those tools, someone tried a thing, and oh, shit! That works,” says Vinson. “Some are big giant things, and some are the accumulation of lots of tiny things.”

#IFTTT #Blogger

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c7thetumbler · 7 years

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WiiU Games Retrospective

Now that the WiiU is on the way out, I’m going to go through my entire collection and give my opinions and recommendations on each title as I remember it today, regardless of my playtime. This is both good because I’m not viewing it from hype/rage and bad because I have shit memory.

Should be interesting. Let’s get the

Going!

... We’ll go alphabetically. Also I won’t be including any non-exclusives that don’t do anything interesting with the gamepad. It’s not really worth the trouble

Also it’s pretty long, loads of pictures. I have bolded my final 1-2 sentence long opinion/recommendation after each game for TL;DR purposes, and have a summary on my whole opinion on the WiiU’s library at the end.

Bayonetta 1 + 2

(Note: NA did not actually get this cool box because NoA is butts)

So unfortunately I’m lending this out right now. This is a weird one to start out as; I personally don’t mind this kind of game at all, but it does some design choices that turned me off of them both. I never actually got to 2; basically my experience was getting about halfway through 1 before I got really tired of being told I suck at the game after every fight and level. The final straw on the back was failing a quick-time event in the cut-scene, which INSTANTLY kills you and therefore gives you the worst award at the end of the level, making it feel like I just lost all progress despite them putting a save point just before the cut-scene for what I’m assuming is that reason.

Basically the gameplay is fun, but not for me. Recommended that people give it a shot first before a full purchase, but honestly I can respect it being a fun game

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker

This is a fun little experiment; basically you play a game where the goal is to the star at the end of a very compact, clever puzzle level without jumping at all. It stems from Super Mario 3D World (we’ll come to that later) and honestly it’s a pretty fun title. There’s unfortunately not much here in the way of thrills, and it does get kind of repetitive, but it’s good for a few hours of light puzzling fun.

If that sounds good to you, I would recommend a purchase, but not for much more than $15-$20

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

So Retro Studios and Nintendo were given a lot of flak for putting resources into making another 2D platformer DK game instead of like StarFox or Metroid. This flak was misplaced; yeah, DKCTF wasn’t going to (and clearly didn’t) ship consoles, but it is probably one of the best 2D platformer I’ve played in a long LONG time. Retro knows game-feel, they learned what DKC needs to feel right, the level design is top-fucking-notch, and there’s so much content there for what looks like an easy game to make. A lot of love went into this game, and it shows as you swing your way through.

I highly recommend this game to anyone who has a WiiU; It’s well worth it.

Game & Wario

This game was supposed to be a compilation of mini-games that effectively showed off all the little uses the Gamepad could be good for in designing new games. Instead it showed us a bunch of potentially good ideas that were ruined by a silly, unnecessary gimmick. Somewhat poetic really.... But yeah, the platformer mini-game was ruined by blind jumping between screens, the bullet hell was ruined by bad motion controls, the micro-game compilation was ruined by having to stare at the wrong screen, etc. etc. Its only redeeming factor was that some of the multiplayer mini-games were pretty fun, but not at all worth it.

Avoid this game, it will only bring frustration

Hyrule Warriors

So this game is available, and from what I’ve heard is even better, on 3DS. The problem is, it runs like crap on not n3DS’s and I don’t have any intention of getting one. But this game is too much fun to leave alone. I actually dumped at least 200 hours into this thing; It’s pure, mindless fighting with a variety of interesting characters and challenges and I love it. Yeah, it gets repetitive and obscenely hard and grindy at points, but honestly? I love playing it. There’s just something cathartic about taking your favorite Zelda character and saying “I’m going to annihilate all 200 of the clumped up bad guys right in front of me”. And then doing it, of course.

Recommended for people who are fans of mindless arcade combat with a lot of content to boot, but if you have a New 3DS, check out that version first.

Kirby and the Rainbow Curse

This game’s gorgeous. I will give it that. It’s also pretty fun. But unfortunately I’ve played Canvas Curse, and this is basically Canvas Curse lite. Unless you are one of the people playing as players 1-5, you wont ever get to see how pretty the game is since player 1 (Kirby) should be staring at the gamepad AT ALL TIMES. It’s a fun gimmick game, but ultimately it’s not really found it’s place in my heart.

I don’t recommend this, but I don’t knock it too bad either. Good for a few hours with friends, but doesn’t stand up unless you’re really into it.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

This is better than the Wii/GC version in almost every way. I remember having a few nitpicks with it at the start, and I would still argue that this game didn’t really need to happen, but it’s still a really solid title since it did. The controls are better, the game looks good, and while they didn’t really change my main issue with TP (it kinda teetered off at the end and a lot of the tools are used once in a dungeon and then twice outside of it, then completely ineffective otherwise), TP is still a pretty fun game. I’m going to rail on this less because they handled collectibles and new content better.

You like Zelda? You’ll like Twilight Princess HD. You know what you want.

The Legend of Zelda: WindWaker HD

So the story behind this is that it was made in 6th month to test out HD shaders for Breath of the Wild. That’s nice. In the meantime they also streamlined some of the more annoying parts of the original game (which I will say is one of if not my favorite Zelda game).

But the thing with this is... It’s a pretty poor HD remaster. There’s not really anything new here, and they took out a core feature, the tingle tuner, and replaced it with something pretty bleh. Additionally, WW was famously rushed and had at least two entire dungeons cut, if not even more, so to see that they didn’t at least add something more in to make it more appealing to those who had already played it was pretty cash-grabby in my eyes. In their defense they had to get this out quicker to help end the launch-game drought, and the dungeons that were supposed to be used in WW have since been reused (TP had one or two dungeons that felt Windwakery) so it would’ve felt cheapened I suppose. Regardless, Jabun still giving you the pearl, the Ice and Fire islands, and the triforce piece quest are still there, but improved.

If you’ve played the original WW, you’ve played this but less pretty. If you haven’t this is the definitive version and I would recommend it.

Mario Kart 8

The best Mario Kart if you take off nostalgia goggles. It’s well balanced, there’s a lot of variety in vehicles, the new gravity mechanic is fun as fuck, and it’s just beautiful. The only complaint I have is character variety; everything else just makes it a really solid title, and the DLC is pretty fun too. The item system had a lot more thought put into it this time around, and they struck a good balance between skill and those crazy moments where you get Mario Kart’d on. You know what I mean

The essential Mario Kart, and therefore an essential WiiU title. Probably the best WiiU party game as well

Mario Party 10

This one’s pretty obviously fallen victim to a number of massive problems. For one the closest thing to a classic Mario party it has is the amiibo mode, which requires you purchase an additional thing in order to play all the content on the Disc, and is itself needlessly tedious as it requires you to scan you amiibo every time a player needs to move. Secondly the modes it does have, Normal and Bowser Party, suffer all the problems Mario Party 9 and even Wii Party game modes had: a heavy, HEAVY reliance on unpredictable and unalterable luck that makes it completely unfun. Sure, that’s always been a huge part of Mario Party, but there’s really no way to even tip it in your favor with most of the games. Additionally Bowser Party is fun in concept, but really it also boils down to luck. Unless you’re Bowser. In which case, just kill one guy and the rest should come easily. The team movement thing makes literally no sense.

Avoid. If you’ve ever played another Mario party, you’ve likely played a better one than this.

New Super Mario Bros. U

This game got more crap than it deserved, and only because Nintendo made the massive mistake of releasing NSMB2 on 3DS earlier that same year. While NSMBU falls into the same criticisms of being an uninspired Mario game with the same environments, the level design is all there, and it’s still a pretty fun game to play with friends. Hardcore players will also find a decent amount of challenge in it as well. The crap it gets for being a cheap cash-in is a bit undeserved though; love went into at least a few of these levels and you can tell.

Recommended for fans of 2D platformers. Not a must-have, but a fun title to keep in mind

New Super Luigi U

NSMBU’s little brother, NSLU is either DLC or a standalone purchase because it takes every level in NSMBU and re-does them to be short-and-quick challenges. The gimmick is you play with Luigi’s controls, and you only have 99 seconds to complete each level. And just like Mario’s Little Brother, NSLU is basically better in most ways; sure, it can get stressful, but at the end of the day if you’re looking for a unique spin on the modern NSMB, this is it.

Well, outside of Super Mario Maker, but we’ll get to that shortly.

Quality purchase for 2D platformer fans of all kinds, though it is a bit more challenging than most modern Mario Platformers. I believe it’s still cheaper as DLC.

NES REMIX PACK

I only ever played the first (there’s two) but honestly as a long-time Nintendo fan, this scratches that classic challenge itch. It’s basically a collection of NES games that have been split into multiple challenges, and then some of them are twisted to have mechanics from other games or slightly different tweaks to make them interesting. It’s a really fun and interesting idea, and I loved going back and playing old games I used to enjoy in small doses with fun little zest added to challenge myself. my only criticism is some of the games they picked; I’ve yet to meet someone who genuinely like NES Open Tournament (Golf) or Ice Climbers (Glitchy as fuck)

Recommended for those who like to challenge themselves, or nostalgia. Both or either; it can stand on its own.

Nintendoland

As the launch title that was to showcase the gimmick, this game stands out pretty well honestly. Some of the mini-games are bleh, but if you have a friend willing to play co-op Pikmin, Zelda, and Metroid missions there’s a lot of content and fun to be had. Most the pure single-player mini-games are pretty bland, but the pure multiplayer ones are good for some fun if friends come over. Really, this should be pre-installed on every WiiU given its purpose, but regardless it’s a good time.

I can recommend this title as an essential one to the WiiU experience, and it has a decent amount of both multiplayer and singleplayer content to revisit if you’re a completionist.

Wow, you made it halfway!

Lotta reading at once huh? Time to take a break.

Or continue, I’m not your dad.

But by now you’ve probably noticed a trend. I’ll expand at the end of course, but this is a long post and I needed to put another “keep reading” button somewhere. I won’t blame you for stopping now either, but who doesn’t love nerds talking about video games they hardly remember on the internet?

... Wait you can only have one of those per post?

Shit.

Paper Mario Color Splash

I actually just got this and am playing through it.

It’s Sticker Star 2. Yup. That’s basically it. The visuals look great; they nailed what they were going for... But they did in Sticker Star as well. Honestly the only praise I can give it is the writing is a lot better, but I can’t overlook the mechanics actively encouraging you to avoid the main battle systems enough to recommend this.

You like Sticker Star? Sure get it. You never played Sticker Star? You don’t need to; avoid this.

EDIT: Upon starting this up to continue playing, I came to an incredibly badly designed minigame gauntlet that punishes you so severely for failure, yet has safeguards immediately after it so you can try again over and over, meaning they knew it was bad. I’m changing my “recommendation” to “DON’T FUCKING BOTHER”

Pikmin 3

Everyone who knows me knows my opinion on this. It’s the best controlling Pikmin game in the whole series, and anyone can start with this and get a good grip on what the series is about. For the longest time I would argue this made the best use of the Wiimote + Nunchuck + Gamepad combo, as controlling the map and captains through the pad while using the controller to move around the world felt right with it. My main complaints with the game is the lack of proper save files (it’s not a minor onel: these games are supposed to be highly re-playable) and the game was entirely linear. In the first two Pikmin games, you got access to all Pikmin types about halfway through, which allowed you to plan your days better. This one however you find a new Pikmin type per area you unlock until you get to the final boss area. Otherwise a great game.

I won’t pretend Pikmin’s for everyone, but I can’t recommend this game enough if you got even a little enjoyment out of it or are looking to try out a game in the series.

Pokkén Tournament

I spent an hour with this game. Granted; I’ve never been a fan of traditional fighting games like this, and I know this tried some new things with that formula.... but it just wasn’t for me. It’s not friendly to new players to the genre, or even the game itself, and the UI even user experience on the whole just felt unpolished. Sure, the game itself i pretty, but I don’t know what the fuck half the shit it’s presenting me with means, and the VA for your trainer sure sounds like she doesn’t know either.

I’ve heard good things from the fighting game community, but as a casual to that myself, I’d give this a pass.

Rayman Legends

I’m still pretty mad at the stunt Ubisoft pulled with this one; screwing over fans multiple times before release is just bad. However, the Murphey Mechanics (I think that was his name?) is best done on the WiiU, which is why I’m even putting it on this list. Other than that, it’s a really solid platformer and really creative as well. Rayman really shows what you can do to keep 2D platformers fresh and interesting

I highly recommend this title. WiiU version over the rest, but really you shouldn’t miss out period.

Rodea: The Sky Soldier

I played this on stream- Well, the Wii version at least. Not sure if you can even get that anymore. It’s an alright concept; spiritual successor to NiGHTS basically. Apparently the Wii version was closer to the director’s initial visions, but they had to release a WiiU version by the time it was actually complete. All-in-all, not a bad game, but it didn’t hit the right notes for me. Kinda clunky controls, but then again I didn’t sink too much time into it.

An interesting experiment; there might be something here for NiGHTS fans, but for me personally it didn’t strike the right notes.

Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed

Not much to say about this other than it’s a really fun and satisfying racing game. It’s hard not to draw a comparison to Mario Kart, but once you get a grip with all the items and controls (doesn’t take long) it’s super fun and stands out much more than just “Mario Kart 7 clone”.

I can wholeheartedly recommend this, if not for WiiU than any other platform besides 3DS it’s available on.

Sonic Lost World

What happens when Sonic Team gets their hands on a working formula? They toss it out and start over for no reason. There’s like 2-3 levels in the whole game that make good and interesting use of their new engine and mechanics. The rest are poorly designed gimmicky exercises in frustration and repetition. Not worth the time, money, or effort.

You want to play a good Sonic platformer? You won’t find one on WiiU.

Splatoon

Nintendo’s first step into online competitive multiplayer shooters. And it’s glorious. Had SO much fun playing this game, and while it looks like it may die soon due to Spla-2-n (You better use that pun Nintendo) being right on the horizon on the Switch, this is a multiplayer experience that is ESSENTIAL to any WiiU collection. Single Player is pretty fun, albeit short. My only complaints were how amiibo were handled and some growing pains as Nintendo tried to work out balancing stuff.

I highly recommend Splatoon, but its multiplayer community has a high chance of dying out soon so you may have to gather some friends to play with since that’s where the bulk of the game is.

StarFox Guard

This is Miyamoto’s tower-defense prototype from E3.... 2014 I believe? I forget, but yeah. It’s weird; what I like about TD myself is being able to strategize the best towers and placements and watch my creation get to work while I do some minor cleanup and adjustments.

This isn’t that. Which isn’t bad, exactly, but it’s not really fair to call this much of a Tower defense, since you have to micro-manage every tower and do all the shooting yourself. It’s an interesting concept, but one that just doesn’t tickle my fancy.

If you can find a way to demo it first, do so before buying. It’s not for everyone, but that doesn’t make it not worth it.

StarFox Zero

And another controversial one. I’m just be blunt; the motion controls are bad and completely unnecessary, creating a boundary between people who are willing to tolerate them and those who just want to play the game, or an audience that Nintendo seems to forget exist, the ones who can’t use motion controls at all. Am I against them as a whole? No; Splatoon did them amazingly. In this game however they needlessly complicate something that just worked before into something that you needed to split your attention to use properly and constantly readjust as well.

I’ve been told I’m just flat-out wrong on this. Look; if you get a kick out of it, that’s great. All power to you. But after unlocking all the missions about 10-12 hours in and still arguing with the gamepad, I just can’t like this game. Controls are something you absolutely must get right, or else they stick with even the most devoted players throughout the entire game and make the experience a chore. In my eyes, they failed with SF0. I could talk about all the other flaws, but ultimately that’s what did it for me and I’m trying to keep these “short”

I can’t recommend this. If you’re really curious, borrow it from a friend, but it’s just not there.

Super Mario 3D World

Is this the 3D Mario Platformer I was hoping for? Eh, not really; I enjoyed the open worlds of SMS and SM64 more, and even the Galaxys’ world hubs and linear-ish levels felt better than just a translation of 2D Mario design into 3D. Does that mean it’s a bad game? Not in the slightest. It’s fun, challenging, and looks great. Music is really good as well, and multiplayer is good for kicks.Of course, it’s not ACTUALLY 3D as its predecessor SM3DL was named, but we’ll chalk that up to Nintendo poor recent naming habits.

Recommended to any Mario fan, 2D or 3D. Basically the WiiU Mario Game everyone should have if they own the console.

Super Mario Maker

This is the 2D Mario game to end all 2D Mario games. Basically every good Mario level ever made, and even more that would never have been made, can be created and therefore found in this. It’s really robust, there’s a ton of tools to use, loads of content, and it’s just all-around a good time. My only complaint is that they’re still back in 2006 when it comes to online functionality.

Basically everything you’d want in a level-creation game and a 2D Mario platformer rolled into one. Do not consider the 3DS version; it’s the WiiU version but without proper level sharing.

Super Smash Bros. for WiiU

Personally I think the multiplayer, which is why my people buy it, is probably the best in the series if only for its diversity and ease-of-use (I don’t have to study advanced glitches techniques to get good (until you get very high-level, that is (bidou)))... But I’m weird. I don’t necessarily buy Smash for the multiplayer; sure, I get my money’s worth out of it for that, but I loved all the challenges in every previous smash, and adventure modes as well.

Those are gone. Smash Party or whatever it is takes its place, and like every recent Mario Party, it’s not worth your time. Custom moves are fun, but an absolute grind to get because they’re all random drops, and coins can only be used to purchase trophies. amiibo were interesting but ultimately unnecessary tacked on price tags, and the stages selected all have some ridiculous gimmick that makes them unpredictable or unfun to play if you’re just looking for a pure skill match. Thanks, Sakurai.

I recommend this, but obviously only if you’re interested in the Multiplayer; there’s nothing much for you here otherwise, but I mean that’s why you would buy smash anyway so it’s fine.

The Wonderful 101

God, I despise this game. I’ve spent a good 10 hours trying to get into it over the course of the past few years, but I just can’t. Everyone who likes this game has told me you just have to get used to the controls, but honestly? It’s the camera. The things you need to tracks are tiny, and everything else is spread out. It’s very common to be attacked from a charging enemy you couldn’t see off-screen, or the camera isn’t looking at the place you want, and it comes back down to memorizing enemy attack patterns by getting wailed on for a good few failures, ultimately suffering from the same “You won but you suck” score system that turned me off of Bayonetta

I’ve heard if you like Platinum games a whole lot you’ll love this once you master the controls, but honestly I just can’t personally recommend this game.

Xenoblade Chronicles X

This is the spiritual successor to Xenoblade Chronicles, a game I would highly recommend on Wii (and n3DS if you have one). Does it live up to its predecessor? In story and gameplay.... nah. In sheer scale? It surpasses it greatly. There’s a metric shit-ton more to do in X, and the combat’s in the same vein as Xenoblade Chronicles. I’m like 50 hours in and I still feel like I can’t give a fair assessment though because I still haven’t gotten skells (the giant robots), which are heavily featured in all promotional material. It’s also incredibly grindy and the world could’ve been better laid out for progression, but that kind of adds to its charm? It’s hard to explain.

I can recommend this for action RPG fans and fans of the first XC, but if neither of those are your cup of tea, it’s probably passable.

Yoshi’s Woolly World

It’s Yoshi’s Island but with a new aesthetic. It’s pretty fun, and the levels are well designed enough. There’s also more than enough content for completionists out there, but I would say it doesn’t really do much for 2D platformers other than be another example of a well-polished game.

I’d recommend this, but a 3DS version is coming out soon that looks basically better in every way, so keep an eye on that.

So where does that leave WiiU retail games

You’ll notice that my collection mostly consists of 1st party titles or IP’s. There’s a reason for that, but what’s really interesting is how a lot for these games either play it completely safe or are niche titles. Most of my recommendations are 2D platformers or what you would find on every Nintendo Console.

Does that mean I didn’t have fun with the WiiU? Obviously not; I had at least a little fun with most of the games on here, even if my reviews don’t sound like it. But ultimately the WiiU banked on a gimmick it didn’t properly utilize, and didn’t cater to the audience it needed to to compensate for that.

On the whole, it’s hard for me to recommend a WiiU. I can’t say everyone will find something on it, because the truth is they might find one or two games, but I can’t recommend a console without saying there are more than enough games for everyone to get a library of their favorites. I think it’ll likely go down like the Gamecube did in a way, if all the titles don’t get ported to Switch or 3DS first of course.

#Game Reviews #wii u games #Wiiu Retrospective

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