#and due to the genius of its design almost every player is going to end up with the same end goal!

[pagesofkenna]

I finally played Firewatch the other day and it wasn't what I expected but I still enjoyed it, and I felt a little conflicted at the end but ultimately decided I liked what it was doing even if I think it didn't do it perfectly

and then when I was looking up an answer to a plot question I had I kept finding people whining and groaning about it being a bad game, and two things

why is it that when I don't like a short indie game for specific reasons I cannot find anyone who seems to share that opinion with me, but when I do enjoy a short indie game all the gamerbro reviewers are climbing out of the weeds to explain their specific reason for not enjoying it??

one of the negative comments I saw said something to the effect that it 'did not give [them] any reason to explore around' and i just-. i dont-. i need gamer bros to understand that if they're not naturally curious, if they're not naturally driven to explore the spaces around them, maybe stop playing games that use exploration and natural curiosity as one of the main driving mechanics

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E111 (Sept. 29, 2020)

@eponymous-rose‘s internet is out tonight, so I’m here late and without coffee! Let’s see how many typos we can fit into an hour and a half episode.

Tonight’s guests: Ashley Williams JOHNSON, oops!! & Liam O’Brien!

We open with Brian in light-up vented sunglasses and Henry at his side, as always. Dani is very excited to be back and has fun-buns in her hair tonight. So cute! Everyone talks about how much they’re Zooming these days for work, and Liam mentions he and Matt & Marisha did a digital cocktail night. He and Dani arrange on camera to have a distanced, masked meetup in the park so Dani can see Liam’s dog again.

No announcements! Tonight, we’re discussin’ episodes 110 and 111.

Starting with the end, Brian jumps right to it by asking how they feel that Molly is alive. Liam 100% thought we’d be back to him, but still wasn’t ready when it happened. Caleb doubted he was alive. Both Liam & Ashley marvel at the numerology that keeps cropping up throughout the show. Brian hates not being able to see it at the same time the show happens live; Ashley was biting her tongue not telling him spoilers. (He doesn’t want to hear spoilers unless Yasha dies so he can be there for Ashley if needed.) Brian says he has a little reality trauma from the night Pike died in the pre-stream game; it was the first time he’d realized how much it affected the players.

Ashley’s realized how much she misses unpacking the game with Brian when they get home. She just has to sit with it until everyone else gets to see it. Brian: “Instead she comes home and I have to fill her in on the Real Housewives of Amarillo, Texas.”

Reunion dinner with Trent! Liam talks about how the way things unfolded with Trent is not at all how he imagined it in his pre-game creation; he’d expected more of a fracas, more of an unexpected clash. “Caleb might have been a different person if he’d run into these people earlier in the story. The M9 changed him before [Trent & co] came back and got to him.” He’d imagined Astrid & Eodwulf to be complicated encounters, but says what Matt’s designed has been even harder than that. A fight on a mountain is one thing, but walking into a room with “what Trent dropped, is impossible to cope with.” It also means that if what Trent said is true, anything Caleb does now is effectively of Trent’s design, even killing him.

He doesn’t think Caleb would have gone anywhere near Trent & co without the M9. “The Mighty Nein--it took a long time--but they cracked Caleb open like a walnut.”

He thinks what Matt has done is much more murky than the simplicity of murder, such as the Briarwood arc. He can’t just exact his revenge now.

Liam says that the tempation to tinker with time is no longer as all-consuming as it was. He might still be tempted if Matt dangles a bunch of carrots in front of him, but he thinks that now it might be better to make sure that that kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore for anyone else (!!!). “It’s still a nugget in his brain and it’s still possible he could be tempted by the drug, but what he wanted in the beginning was entirely selfish, but now that the M9 are involved he owes it to them, to the people of the country, even on the Dynasty side--is so complex that if Caleb were to get that carrot and chase it, he would be risking everything.”

Ashley agrees that most of their choices are no longer black and white. Many of the situations feel more like real life. Liam agrees and says he’ll sometimes make decisions that he’s both really happy with and regrets at the same time. They both look forward to what Matt will reveal in Act 3.

Brian feels it’s tough to gauge how deep they are into what Matt’s planned for the campaign. Liam says that thanks to Matt’s skill, he really doesn’t know what Caleb wants right now.

Ashley agrees, and talks about how she created Yasha to have more to overcome than Pike. She loves what Matt’s doing in terms of allowing each of them to overcome more emotional hurdles than physical ones in this campaign.

Going back to Molly’s grave was very exciting for Ashley since she wasn’t able to be there when he died in the game & wanted to do what she could to honor him. Yasha, however, was very hesitant but knew what needed to be done. She’s not very open with her emotions, but both she & Ashley were stressed. They all could feel the energy in the studio & knew Matt was about to do something mind-blowing. Liam: “You could feel all the dust in the air coalescing around Taliesin.”

Brian trips over Eodwulf. Liam tries to help him find some pronunciation shortcuts. Ashley: “You say it so beautifully.” Brian: “Thank you.” Ashley: “Not you.”

Caleb knows how wickedly intelligent & ambitious Astrid is, and was heartened by the wavering he saw in her at the dinner. However, he can’t trust her until he knows why she’s where she is.

He really feels that if they’d had this dinner 60 episodes ago, Caleb might have tilted back along the evil axis and he would have had to retire the character. He had a playlist entirely for if Caleb turned evil and left the party.

The vision of Zuala was a huge deal for Yasha, even along every other instance she’s had of being mind-controlled, etc. “That’s guilt I think she will always carry with her, but at least she’s starting to forgive herself.” Losing the chains, sprouting wings again--Ashley reiterates that she didn’t know that was even a possibility, she just picked the skeletal wings because they were dope--were huge moments in the character development. Ashley’s glad Beau was there at the moment of the first flight; Ashley thinks of the quotation “Happiness is only beautiful when it’s shared,” and because Yasha tends to keep things very much to herself, having someone there to share it made it more impactful. “That was a cool moment. There’s been a lot of healing for Yasha these last episodes.”d

Ashley also says sometimes in that moment, when all eyes are on you in a one-on-one with Matt, everything goes muffled like Saving Private Ryan. “Wub wub wub.”

Dani feels that the only way she could even have the conversation with Zuala was to let her go in the first place.

Liam thinks one of the things that Yasha & Cad share is that still waters run deep. He loves how much Yasha hangs back sometimes, only to then reveal some new moment like the fighting pit. Apparently Ashley also has a knife collection, and uses that metal side of herself when she wants to let that new side of Yasha show.

Cosplay of the Week: Crystal Armstead (@riyuski on twitter) in a Reani cosplay. Beautiful!

How does Liam feel about the return to Rexxentrum? Very, very complicated. Caleb loves magic and lights up when he sees it, which is wrapped in the Soltryce Academy; he brought folks to the dance hall for the same reason, which was wanting the M9 to see the things that he loved about the city.

Yasha felt the same way about visiting the Chantry of the Dawn. It was a memory of a very traumatic moment (almost killing Beau), but given everything that’s happened between then and now it was cathartic to see again. There’s been a lot of healing in the past few weeks. It also felt like a physical representation of Yasha’s growth, the last time she was controlled against her will like that (or at least, until she was mind-controlled by Vokodo. Ashley sighs, aggrieved.)

Brian: “The tower really feels like a love letter from Caleb to his friends.” Liam: “It is, and a love letter from Liam to his friends.” When he looked at Caleb’s spell list, he remembered how amazing the mansion was in Campaign One and how many role-playing moments it led to and knew he wanted to incorporate it. However, he knew it could never be the same as Scanlan’s mansion because Caleb doesn’t have the same improvisational genius as Scanlan does. Liam has been “tinkering with this machine” for over a year, waiting for the moment to reveal it. He loves that he got a chance to see Jester’s room in time to have her tower room reflect reality. He’d discussed the tower extensively with Dani & Matt. Brian: “Hey! What am I, chopped--what’s the saying?” Ashley: “Chopped cabbage?”

Ashley marvels at the design of the dome. Liam talks about how Caleb knowing Caleb has been abused has been slowly getting better, but he also loves now being able to juxtapose that healing with his innate love of magic and how beautiful he finds it, how he loves to use magic as his artistry. The Soltryce Academy wasn’t “Welcome to DEATH SCHOOL,” it was the Sorbonne. It was amazing, everything he wanted. It was only one bad apple within that recruited him and turned it all bad.

Liam also points out how much it means in real life to be able to express his love and care for his friends in person too.

Ashley talks about how much she loves Yasha’s armor in a meta sense because it’s so cool and useful, and great for her armor class, but struggles with what it represents in game. She might not be able to let it go due to its sheer utility, and she may have to find an in-game reason to justify keeping it.

Ashley segues a moment into talking about her velvet top which apparently has a matching velvet scrunchie. She’s asked to demonstrate the scrunchie and ties her hair up in a way that I have never in my life seen someone do with a scrunchie before, and my hair’s been waist-length most of my life. I watch it again in slow motion. How did she DO that??

Caleb’s been looking for the right time to tell Jester about his past for a long time. She’s a good person and makes him feel like he might be capable of becoming a good person at the end, because that’s how she saw him. Liam knew from Laura that Jester wouldn’t condemn him, but Caleb put it off as long as possible. He also wanted to take the time to make sure Caduceus & Yasha knew the whole story too before they went to dinner with Trent.

Liam was also relieved to get it out, because he could never remember who knew and who didn’t, and now he doesn’t have to track it anymore. “Now we can move forward. Now we can heal wounds, maybe.”

Ashley feels Cad picks up a lot, more than most people realize. Yasha was really affected by Cad’s line: “Patience can be good, but it can lead to apathy.” She really feels it opened her eyes, and she appreciated the simplicity of him pointing out her hair’s growing back white again. Having a friend notice “hey, you’re changing for the better” really means a lot. She’s interested in seeing how this means things might change with Beau.

Dani points out that it also reinforced for Yasha that she can want things too--she can be patient and just continue to be with the group, as she’s wanted, but it’s okay to want more than that too. Ashley remembers Veth asking her what her purpose is. There’s a part of her that knows Yasha is still figuring that out, and she’s interested to see how Yasha will continue to change. She’s always spent her life serving somebody--the Sky Spear, Obann--and then even after she joined the M9, it was very centered on “what do you need, what does the group need, how can I help with our next job?” She’s going to have to take some time to figure out what she wants.

Fanart of the Week! Lovely Yasha & Beau flight art by @JMNP7888. The wings look amazing!

Brian: “One of the things we want to talk to you about, Liam, is about the Vokodo fight and the FUCKING disintegrate spell.”

Liam: “That was one of the most insane 60-90 seconds of gameplay that ever existed for the table, and definitely for me, in the entire history of the show. A lot of people think I just went, oh man, just bet it all on black. But what if I told you that...I Larkin’d the first 20 seconds of that fight and then at a quarter to midnight, I forgot that the reflection was a thing? I just forgot it was a thing! I spent that whole battle thinking I’m just here to banish things. I might buff my friends a little bit, maybe I’ll counterspell, but I’m just here to banish. And it didn’t work and it didn’t work and then it did! Finally it did and Jester made it work and then he was GONE. And then everyone got greedy and it was done but we brought him BACK. And it was a quarter to midnight and I’m not an animatronic D&D lesson machine, I’m just a guy playing D&D at 11:45 at night, and he came back and everyone started Goodfellas circling him and kicking him, and Beau & Yasha are gonna kill him, and then it’s my turn? Disintegrate! And then the room was quiet, and then time passed, and Matt asked, you really cast Disintegrate? And I said yes, of course, and Matt started rolling dice, and in the back of my head I started wondering why he asked if I was rolling Disintegrate. Oh no. In the back of my brain, I was like, well, just tell him that’s not what you did. Tell him you didn’t remember the reflection thing. But he’s already rolling dice! You can’t take it back now. Hold on a second. I’m going to take you on the journey I went through. I was thinking: you have a spell save of 17. This thing wasn’t that fast. +1, +2, maybe? Anything under 14 is okay. That’s 70%. 70%. That’s okay, right? And still no one said anything to tip me off that I was in ELDRITCH MADNESS at that point, no one said anything about the reflection! And then I realize it can reflect back on us, and I realize this is...disintegrate. And then I started becoming morbidly, macabre-ly fascinated at the puppet dance of death I had created. Well, this is a mess. I have made a mess. Let’s just sit in it. And somehow, nonsensically, spectacularly, it worked out in my favor. I went home that night and I got in bed next to my wife, who was fast asleep, and I stared at the ceiling going, dude. Duuuuuuuude. Duuuuuuuuuude.”

He apparently also told his therapist about this and how terrible it was and how close he “danced myself to the precipice like a crazy person!” Marisha (as told by Liam): “Epic roll, though.”

Matt told Liam that night that if it had been reflected, it would have gone back on him. “If a player throws an M80 in the middle of a room, it would reflect on that player who threw it.”

Ashley talks about how interesting that Yasha is not performative, and yet has been doing these public performances with the harp. It’s a great experiment for Ashley--Yasha doesn’t like the attention, but feels like she is making something beautiful for the world.” She’s trying to change something about how she views herself & her place in the world. She was raised to be a weapon for the Sky Spear, but she’s also extremely gentle and loves flowers & beautiful music, and the further away she’s gotten from the tribe, she’s falling in love with gentle, beautiful things. 

Liam also points out it easy (real, but simplistic) to make an entire character centered around a single personality trait: “I’m angry all the time. I’m sad all the time.” He thinks it’s more realistic to see nuance in personality.

Liam can see some paths for Caleb to find peace & do good. He doesn’t know if Caleb is conscious of those. He thinks it’s a huge step forward to admit he was molded in this direction at all and that it wasn’t all his choice, but doesn’t know if this is the same possibility as redemption.

He also mentions Essek in this answer: there was/is attraction there, both intellectual and physical--the forehead kiss was a big marker of that--and he’s interested in seeing where that goes because he’s invested in Essek’s redemption arc on its own, but Essek is not as high on the list as other things Caleb/the M9 need to work on. He loved the “high spy times” of the Essek arc and the tangled-up-ness of feelings getting involved at the same time as intense commitment to duty.

Liam always felt Matt would bring Molly back in some aspect, even though Caleb always demurred because he doesn’t believe in fate. Dani and Brian agree that this is the start of a new act.

Ashley cried at the Vilya reunion. She thought that was an incredible moment and was so glad to see Keyleth. Liam: “Keyleth as part of our story is everything to me. That story is really important to me, so getting just a glimpse of her again was so important to me.” They could all see how that affected Marisha & how special it was to her. Liam: “It was such a great note in her song or color in her painting. She achieved magnificent things and was powerful and great, but had a very heartbreaking and sad ending, so to have this sliver of joy go back in is so complex and beautiful and masterfully done.”

Aaaaaaand that’s all for tonight! Remember, no Critical Role this week. Talks will be back in two weeks. As always, don’t forget to love each other. <3

[tcm]

The Makers and the Breakers: The Hollywood Studio System By Constance Cherise

From anecdotal tales to darker narratives of downright malevolence, movies about the Hollywood studio system are as prevalent as the subject is understandably intriguing. Films like A STAR IS BORN (‘54), THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (‘52) and, just for a bit of naughty camp, DAISY CLOVER (‘65), to name a few, all allow a voyeuristic gaze behind an enchanted curtain. The major Hollywood studios controlled all aspects of filmmaking, distribution and the lives and appeal of their stars.

A studio executive’s expertise was to home in on the "It" factor of an actor. Then the build-up of publicity would begin. A well-engineered system of perfectly timed pulleys and cranks, bells and whistles would turn, and it didn't matter whether stories about a star were the truth, embellishment or lies, from the studios perspective stars weren't actual people, they were commodities that were bought, sold, traded and used as pawns to the benefit of the studio system. (A thorough reference on this is Jeanine Basinger’s The Star Machine) But, if anyone had ill feelings about their treatment, only those that were the most daring spoke up. The cliché “You'll never work in this town again” wasn't just a catchphrase, it was wholly and utterly true. Speaking up too loudly about one's gilded cage could end a career faster than Eleanor Powell’s “machine gun” tap dancing. As quickly as the mechanism could build a pretty face to stardom, it could just as easily grind to a halt, meticulously dismantling at record speed.

The true genius of the studio system was its innate and pristine ability to create a persona around the most capable assets that their commodity had to offer. An exceptional dancer with buck teeth? No problem. Send her to the dentist for cosmetic surgery. A heartthrob of a man who was too short? No problem. Elevate his shoes and make sure his counterpart wasn't wearing heels. A knockout beauty who could dance but was too ethnic-looking? Change her hair color from jet black to red, perform electrolysis on her hairline, add luscious waves, put her on a diet and change her name from Margarita Carmen Cansino to Columbia Picture’s own Rita Hayworth.

The system found what was innately undeniable, played up the strengths and buffed, polished or cleverly disguise the flaws, a process still happening in media. But the studio system of the Golden Age was far-reaching. Its governance traveled beyond its inner sanctum into affecting contractors' personal lives. A moral clause was a standard part of an actors’ contract. Both law enforcement and mobsters were part of the studio’s payroll, a necessary tactic thought to keep its stars in line and to protect the industry's overall reputation. If a star found themselves in a compromising position, there was always a hired hand, such as in the case of MGM's Eddie Mannix, to respond, repair and refute, regardless of the cost. Studios further exerted control by means of inclusivity. By creating an insular studio with every conceivable notion at their fingertips, including health facilities and a police force (as was present at MGM), the studio system was privy to inside information by way of design and therefore able to thwart potential problems sooner rather than later.

Opinions amongst stars who were part of the system varied. Some found it confining and artistically stifling (United Artists was created as a direct result of the burgeoning studio system in 1919), while others enjoyed its protective embrace. Fred Astaire was not a particularly handsome man, but his virtuoso skill of dance was undeniable. By the time he made it to Tinseltown, he had already been a star on the stage and his elegant persona was well polished. Almost the same could be said for Gene Kelly, except that Kelly was quite handsome with his all-American chiseled features and athletic body. He too came to Hollywood bearing Broadway accolades. Anything else either star may have required was worth any level of contribution on the part of the studio. But most stars didn't come fully assembled.

Numerous classic musical fans are aware of actor and untrained dancer Debbie Reynolds’ account of bloodied feet while rehearsing “Good Morning'' for the film SINGING IN THE RAIN (‘52), a story she confirmed in a TCM interview with late host Robert Osborne. Reynolds would star in multiple roles where dance was required, and for someone who was not a professional, with training from expert choreographers, she fooled us all. Ava Gardner did not go looking for the fame that found her. She was discovered through a photo in a shop window. The daughter of sharecroppers, Gardner had no experience in acting to speak of, and in fact, had a free-spirited reputation of reluctance. She had to be trained out of her deep southern accent, but her naturally stunning features combined with her charm literally smoldered the camera.

For all the contract players who willingly or unwillingly accepted the exploitation of their assets, there were those few who refused to play by studio rules. One not to cower was Mae West, who solidified her autonomy by demanding and receiving one dollar more than the head of Paramount, Adolph Zuckor, as well as full script approval of her films. MGM’s Luise Rainer, after becoming the first woman to consecutively win two Academy Awards, turned her back on Hollywood due to its iron grip. "I did not like the superficial life that one is naturally forced at times to live,” Rainer stated in a TCM interview. William Haines, one time voted as America's top male star, refused to hide his homosexuality living an open life with his lover, defying the orders of traditional marriage by Louis B. Mayer and as a result was fired from MGM.

That's what the studio system did: take an inarguable asset, create an inflated persona around it, smooth the dents, add a little extra padding where necessary and package it to be received exactly how they envisioned for public consumption...or...destroy it. After all, with over 70% of Americans attending film theaters at least once a week, the public turned the film industry into a multi-million-dollar business during its Golden Age when the average price of a ticket was 25 cents. Studios were readily aware they held the power and used it skillfully to full advantage.

The studio systems tactics could easily be viewed as a calculated sleight of hand, however, it unequivocally delivered, and its final product was polished, pristine and precise. But for those that were plucked from obscurity, was it truly a sleight of hand? One could argue that you can't get blood from a stone, and if that statement is true, the studio’s techniques of engineered transformation couldn't possibly invoke aptitude that didn't already exist somewhere within, however miniscule. Perhaps, instead of the credit studio’s retained for creating stars, its genuine function was to awaken exceptional latent potential that was simply waiting to be discovered.

[zaph1337]

Monster Hunter Rating 30: Fatalis, the Dark Demise

The world of Monster Hunter is a dangerous one. Monsters with powers unlike any animal we know run rampant, and some of them are so powerful as to be compared to natural disasters, or maybe even gods. These “Elder Dragons” are viewed as forces of nature given body and mind, and wherever they are, they’re almost always at the top of the food chain. But it begs the question: what is the strongest Elder Dragon of them all?

Some would say that Lao-Shan Lung, the Old Mountain Dragon, holds that honor. After all, it will destroy entire mountains if they stand in its path, and every hunt with one is a race against time to prevent the monster from reaching and destroying the fortresses that separate it from the settlements it would crush beneath its feet as it wanders. But why does Lao-Shan Lung wander? Why does it never go around the obstacles in its way? Why will it never fight back against the hunters that pose a serious threat of killing it? The answer is one that no one wants to accept: Lao-Shan Lung, what may be the living incarnation of an avalanche or some other seismic force, is not wandering. It’s running for its life. Elder Dragons may be the embodiments of natural phenomena, and though we may not like it, death is just as natural as landslides and lightning. We’ve come a long way, but it’s finally time to talk about the final boss of the first Monster Hunter game: the Black Dragon, Fatalis!

(How it appears in Monster Hunter 1)

(How it appears in Monster Hunter World: Iceborne)

Appearance: If the wiki had a third render of Fatalis that I liked, I would’ve put it up there. Anyways, Fatalis looks just like an archetypal European dragon; four legs, two wings, horned head, and a long tail. It looks pretty generic, but there are a few things that help it stand out. First off, it’s huge, being 4110.6 cm (134.9 ft) long in every main series game it appears in except for MHW:I, where it’s 4137.17 cm (135.7 ft) long. That’s 30+ ft more than Diablos or Gravios, and if you wanna see how big Fatalis is compared to a person, well...here’s an image from MHW:I:

Yyyeeah, it’s big. Something else that’s interesting is the fact that Fatalis has eyes which are literally made of crystal, which is why they look shiny in the above image. They still look a lot like traditional dragon eyes, though. In fact, basically all of its design elements are things that you’d expect to find on European dragons, which makes Fatalis look rather generic. You’d think that even in the first game, the devs would be more creative with their final boss considering the other dragons in the game, but that’s just it: Fatalis stands out when compared to a lot of the other dragons in Monster Hunter because it looks just like a European dragon and not much more. This makes it feel like it’s not just a dragon, it’s the dragon. When you hear stories of dragons wreaking mass destruction, you’ll likely imagine something that looks just like Fatalis, and I believe that that’s exactly what the developers of MH intended when they made it. It’s kinda genius, in that way, and combined with the overwhelming presence Fatalis has thanks to its size, I feel like I have to give it an 8/10.

Behavior/Lore: Since I like to cover the lore of a monster in this category anyways, I thought I might as well change its name to reflect that. Anyways, people don’t know a lot about Fatalis, such as how many there are, where there ideal habitat is, their mating rituals, stuff like that. The reason why we don’t know a lot about Fatalis is that it kills literally everything it sees, which tells us a lot on its own. Fatalis doesn’t always eat what it kills; it just kills for the sake of it, and since literally everything that breathes seems to be on its sh*t list, this has led to the conclusion that Fatalis hates all livings things on the grounds that they exist.

As I alluded to in the introduction, the natural phenomenon that Fatalis likely embodies is death itself. All other monsters are terrified of it, and, as seen with Lao-Shan Lung, will go to great lengths to stay as far from it as possible. How strong do you have to be to make a monster that bulldozes mountains run for mommy? Well, let me put it this way: Fatalis obliterated Schrade Kingdom in a single night, and now uses the ruins of the castle as its den; the very sky above the kingdom’s remains is a perpetual bloody red, with a miasma of purple clouds that hover over the fallen settlement. And that’s just what we know is true; according to legend, Fatalis could scorch all the world’s lands in a matter of days, causing the end of life itself. Obviously, this can’t be proven, nor do I know if they’re talking about one Fatalis or all of them (however many there are), but when legends like that are circulating, it’s a wonder that people aren’t living in constant fear that this thing will decide to visit their settlement one day and kill everyone. Well, not so much a wonder as it is a conspiracy; the Hunter’s Guild, fearing that the fear of Fatalis’ capabilities could lead to an outbreak of panic and anarchy, has done its best to relegate Fatalis and all stories related to it to the realm of fantasy. Only hunters who the Guild believes are skilled enough to possibly repel or kill Fatalis are allowed to know that it exists, and even then, when the Guild sends them on secret missions to fight it, they almost never come back.

Though Fatalis leaves few witnesses to its attacks, there are some who provide valuable information about the dragon’s habits. After Fatalis kills a hunter, it melts said hunter and their equipment down, then applies the remains to its body to armor its hide, making it even harder to kill. Now, some say that this is an instinctual behavior, like how the monster Nerscylla wears the hides of its prey for the same purpose, but Fatalis is only known to do this to humans, which wouldn’t make sense because killing monsters would give it more material to cover itself in. This has led some to believe that Fatalis knows that hunters make armor from the remains of the monsters they kill, so it makes armor out of them to mock them in death. If this is true, then not only is Fatalis smart enough to have a concept of irony, it harbors a special kind of hatred for humans in particular, and it presumably enjoys killing them. These things make Fatalis even more terrifying and dangerous than previously thought, and put its attack on Schrade Kingdom and its occupancy of Schrade Castle in a new light.

Speaking of equipment, the few times anyone has actually killed a Fatalis and made weapons and armor from its parts, they’ve almost always regretted it. Those that wear Fatalis armor have been victims of disturbing phenomena; horrible nightmares and periods of unnatural, unwanted strength are a common occurrence, and some have reported feeling as though something is possessing them and forcing their legs to move against their will. In extreme cases, hunters who have been knocked unconscious while wearing the armor report feeling that something was controlling their bodies before they awoke. But those people are the lucky ones; hunters who wear Fatalis armor for extensive periods of time often disappear without a trace, or even die for no apparent reason.

Not even the weapons are safe. Some cause the wielders to hear phantom screams, others induce feelings of gnawing despair or paranoia, and some are even said to corrupt the wielder’s soul, turning them into a force of bloodshed and chaos as Fatalis was...or is. In Monster Hunter Generations, a cave in Pokke Village contains a giant version of a Black Blade, a Great Sword made of Fatalis parts, which can be mined for Fatalis materials. It’s been noted that the damage done to the blade by mining it will regenerate in a matter of days; when you combine that with the symptoms of using Fatalis equipment, it gives credence to the possibility that Fatalis lives on through said equipment, controlling the bodies and minds of those that slew its corporeal form. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant; the fact remains that Fatalis equipment has a deleterious effect on those that use it, and as such, it’s recommended that none should attempt to utilize anything made from Fatalis’ remains at all.

If you thought that Fatalis as a life-form was fundamentally wrong before, then I have one last bit of absurdity for you: the one time anyone ever found a Fatalis egg, the newborn that hatched from it grew to its adult form in literal hours, and presumably hated everything that breathes from birth. Other than that, we don’t know anything about its life cycle or parental habits, and the wiki doesn’t say what happened after the baby reached maturity, but we can reasonably assume that it was a bloody event.

I’ve never been more enthralled by a monster’s lore than I have been reading about Fatalis. The developers really went out of their way to impress upon players just how unnatural and evil Fatalis is, and the result is the monster to end all monsters. I think my favorite parts are the fact that the Guild covers up Fatalis’ existence to prevent society from collapsing and how even its equipment is too dangerous to be around. And even with this, there’s still so much we don’t know about Fatalis, which makes it even more intriguing. With how much I’ve been thinking about all this the past few days, I feel like I have to give this category a 10/10.

Abilities: Obviously, Fatalis is one of the strongest monsters in the series. Its body is very durable due to its habit of melting down hunters to use as armor, and even the membranes of its wings are has hard as metal. It can both fly and charge at high speeds, with the latter doing massive damage thanks to Fatalis’ raw strength. However, its most famous ability--and its deadliest--is its fire breath, which is equal in power to some other Elder Dragons. The streams of fire that escape from Fatalis’ maw are even bigger than the dragon itself, and can be so powerful that they one-shot hunters caught in them. Fatalis can also spread a cloud of reactive powder around it; igniting this powder causes a devastating explosion.

Now, conceptually, these attributes and attacks aren’t too crazy, but there’s one more thing I want to mention: In Monster Hunter 1, you fight Fatalis in 4 quests (assuming that the wiki’s quest list for the game has all of them), and in all of those quests, the goal is “damage Fatalis as much as you can to drive him away,” not “slay Fatalis.” This means that Fatalis is so much more powerful than anything else in the game, the Guild does not believe you are capable of killing it. Despite all of your accomplishments up to that point, the Guild still doesn’t think you have what it takes to kill the darn thing. Now, considering the goal doesn’t say “slay or repel” or anything like that, I was under the impression that you couldn’t kill Fatalis in the first Monster Hunter, but a video on the wiki shows that you can, so I guess the devs phrased it that way to make you feel even cooler for achieving what even the game thought was impossible. It’s a nice touch. Anyways, Fatalis’ abilities may not sound like anything special for a dragon, but the sheer power behind its attacks, as well as how much work you have to put in to damage it in any meaningful way, gets it an 8/10.

Equipment: Since most, if not all of Fatalis’ equipment is inherently evil, I’ll mention if the descriptions say exactly what they do to the user. Let’s start ourselves off with a Hunting Horn called the Black Lute:

According to its description in MHFU, “[a]nyone who hears this Horn feels faint.” Kinda counterproductive, considering the Hunting Horn’s whole gimmick is that it buffs you and your allies with magical songs. Its upgraded form, the Fatalis Menace, isn’t much better, as “its song causes listeners to turn into disheartened beasts.” So already we see the dangers involved in using this weapon, but the description is lore that doesn’t impact gameplay, so strum to your heart’s content! As for how the Lute looks, I like the use of Fatalis horns as the majority of the main body, and the little red gem is a nice touch. Next up, something a little less evil, actually! The Dual Blades called Double Dragon require both Fatalis and Lao-Shan Lung parts, which I guess makes them okay to use?

I say that these aren’t evil because their description just says “[t]he Dragon element infused in these Dual Blades hits enemies from both sides.” Though, you do have to make them by upgrading the Fatalis Sword and Shield called the Black Sword, and according to its description, “[t]he void it creates envelopes all in its path[,]” which makes me think that these are probably still unsafe to use. Though I do like how the blades are different shapes and sizes to match up with the dragons they came from. But you know me, if a monster has a weird or goofy weapon, I gotta show it off, and Fatalis isn’t exempt from this. So here’s the Light Bowgun called the Black Parasol:

I was gonna make a JFK joke, ‘cause one of the theories surrounding his assassination was that someone used a gun disguised as an umbrella to shoot him from the side, but I don’t think I can make a joke like that without being tasteless, especially since this weapon apparently has “an assassin's thirst for death.” But here’s some tasty lore for you: the Black Parasol’s upgrade in the Japan-only MH4U, the Dark Parasol, was “designed behind the scenes by the Guild for assassination purposes.” This may be a translation of the Japanese description, so “assassination” might just mean “kill,” but it makes you think about how weird it is to call hunting a monster an assassination; there’s a chance that the Black Parasol was made by the Guild specifically to kill people, and that just raises more questions. As for the Parasol’s design, it’s so out of left field that I can’t help but find it amusing. The doily-like trim combined with the swirly handle makes it impossible to take seriously, which was probably the point.

Now, here’s where things get a bit messy; the wiki doesn’t have very many pictures of Fatalis armor. The ones it does have are small, not the standard Fatalis armor, or don’t have an image of the male armor to go with them. So, I have to resort to using the small images of the “S” armor from MHFU. I’ve made them bigger to avoid straining anyone’s eyes, but they’re all blurry now, so I apologize if I miss any details you think are important. Here’s the Blademaster armor:

Oh, my God, they gave the women’s set a helmet! Aaaannd it’s for the armor set with low-quali renders online. Yaaaay. Okay, that aside, this does look awesome. It definitely looks like armor that would make you evil if you wore it, and the curved horns on the helmet really add to that theme, as do the spikes on the arms and legs. As for the Gunner armor:

It looks really cool, too! Seems that the wings are attached to the arms in lieu of arm guards, like the ones you see on other Gunner sets. The horns on this set are pointed up this time, presumably for reasons related to peripheral vision or something like that, which is helpful for someone using a gun. The boots on the armor look like dragon feet, and combined with the wings and other design aspects, makes this armor feel like the one that’s most likely going to let Fatalis’ soul overtake you.

Overall, the equipment does what it was made to do: look powerful, yet evil at the same time. It seems like something that fanfic authors would make use of for their worldbuilding--something like how the greatest hunter in the land went missing after killing Fatalis and making equipment from it, only for horror stories of a black knight wielding cursed armaments wiping small settlements off the map and slaughtering travelers. This is the first time that equipment lore factors into the scoring for this category, and I might have to look at the descriptions of the equipment I choose in future reviews to see if that affects my opinion on it any. For now, Fatalis’ equipment gets an 8/10.

Final Thoughts and Tally: The creators of Monster Hunter wanted to make an unforgettable final boss, and they succeeded. The concept of a truly evil, apocalyptic monster in a world where most monsters are basically animals adds to its intimidation factor, and I can only imagine how kids felt when they saw Schrade Castle and the skies above it for the first time. It honestly makes me sad that I never had the original Monster Hunter as a kid, ‘cause the impression Fatalis and the fight with it would have had on me would likely have stuck with me to this day. One thing’s for sure, though: if I ever get a Monster Hunter game besides Rise, it’ll probably be Monster Hunter World and its Iceborne expansion, ‘cause aside from the Coral Islands, fighting Fatalis in a modern game would be exhilarating. 8/10.

[moulds12-blog]

The Manipulation of stats

A couple weeks ago I was stunned when I heard a statistic that seemed to go against everything I had been told. Cristiano Ronaldo is often derided for many things, from his appearance to his declining pace. Yet, one of the biggest sticks used to beat Ronaldo is his woeful ability to take a free kick. By contrast, barely a week goes by where a successful Lionel Messi free kick does not appear on my twitter feed. Which brings me to my shocking statistic. Cristiano Ronaldo has scored more free kicks than Lionel Messi.

If you are a fan of data and numbers, then sport is your idea of heaven. Every sport is full of a wide range of statistics which can be used to form a multitude of opinions. For example, one could use statistics to argue that David Moyes is a better manager than Sir Matt Busby, due to his superior win percentage as manager of Manchester United. Yet, here we find the danger with statistics and the complex nature of how to interpret them.

In football Ronaldo and Messi are a statistician’s dream, with new records broken almost weekly and new avenues constantly explored. However, these statistics tell only so much of the story. For example, since November 2014 nobody has scored more goals than Lionel Messi for a club playing in Europe’s Top 5 major leagues. In that time Messi’s team, Barcelona, has dominated the Spanish League and the domestic competitions. However, during this period in the Champions League, regarded as the main accolade for a European team, they have only tasted success once. In contrast Cristiano Ronaldo won the European trophy three times with Real Madrid in that period and was the top goal scorer in the competition on each of those three occasions. So, one can ask who really has had the more successful period?  

In November one of England’s greatest ever rugby players, and their most successful captain since the 1920s retired. Dylan Hartley finished with 97 caps for England which places him only behind Jason Leonard as England’s most capped rugby player. His win percentage of 85% as captain was higher than Martin Johnson’s, the Captain of England 2003 World Cup winners, and only exceeded by WJA Davies who captained England to 10 victories in 11 games between 1921 and 1923. Statistically England have lost one of their greats. Yet, his retirement barely managed to rear its head in the media above the Saracens salary cap storm. Furthermore, how many people would really argue that Dylan is a great of English rugby, or that he was a better leader than Martin Johnson? It is likely that very few would choose Dylan over players such as Brian Moore when selecting their all-time England XV.

Cricket is a game that is all about numbers. In cricket the object is to score more runs and take more wickets than your opponents. Statistically, English cricket is about to reach the end of its Golden era. Sir Alastair Cook retired last year as England’s greatest ever run scorer, while James Anderson is already England’s greatest ever wicket-taker. Yet, Cook’s critics would argue that he did not play in the style of David Gower, while Anderson’s deterrers would say he benefited from an era of poor batting technique against the new ball, compared to the batsman Bob Willis faced during his career. Cricket after all is a game of averages.

Statistics are complex and often baffling, conflicting with everything we presume to know. Yet, statistics play such a major part in sport, for spectators and participants. Coaches use statistics to help formulate their game plans, manage players, and dictate their decision making. Statistics are a wonderful tool, but they have to be used in the right context. Statistics show the world in black and white, but to garner their true meaning you must give them colour. Muttiah Muralitharan finished his career with 800 test wickets the most by any bowler in the history of the game. Shane Warne finished with 708. Nevertheless, many regard Shane Warne as not only the better spinner, but possibly the greatest bowler ever. You have to look deeper for the answer. Muralitharan played as the spearhead of the team on pitches which favoured spin. Shane Warne played on pitches designed to favour quick bowlers and was just one part of an incredible bowling line up which also included Glenn McGrath, the man who until recently had the most test wickets of any seam bowler in test history. In the black and white world of statistics Murli was the greatest ever, but in the colour of history Warne will forever be the genius.

[fantroll-purgatory]

hi!! this character is part of a set of 12 (encompassing all canon classes, blood colours, & aspects) i made over the past month or so in celebration of homestuck being a decade old. they’re all based on various vocaloid songs. (*rubs my evil little hands together* I don’t think you understand how excited I am for this. I get to combine all of my teenage interests together in one place!) (You say you’ve got 12 Trolls coming so I’m going to base all of my classpect comments on making your characters better fit the Titles you’ve assigned them!)

Alternia or Beforus or some type of AU?An AU Alternia! Same planet at base, entirely different backstory with different ancestors & different population & rules and all that jazz.

Name (preferably include how you came up with it and why): Cimova Vienne. “Cimova” is from The Czech word for “decimate,“ decimovat. "Vienne” is from the Viennese Waltz, the dance style!

Theme: she’s based on the song World’s End Dancehall! while it’s open for a lot of interpretation in regards to what’s really going on there, my own basic interpretation is simply “the world is ending, so instead of stand in terror, celebrate what life you have left and dance.” so that’s the interpretation she’s based on. (You even linked the lordxwillie video I’m getting flashbacks to being 13 right now god. WED Is still a bop and Wowaka is a genius though.)

Age:9 sweeps / 19 human years old

Strife Specibus:Spearkind.

Fetch Modus:Hop & Step. It’s essentially DDR or a real-life rhythm minigame of sorts – each captchalogued item is assigned a separate movement sequence; she has to repeat the steps correctly to get the item she wants. Enough screwups and it’ll eject her entire inventory (and she needs enough space to move about, too.)

Blood color: Tyrian!

Symbol and meaning:

it’s essentially a stylised line drawing of a person dancing! i prefer not to use the trollcall zodiac for my own trolls, so i tend to make my own or find them while researching lol

Trolltag:[DD] devantDenouement. “devant” is a dance term meaning ‘in front of;’ “denouement” essentially means “finale.” so essentially it just means she’s “in front of the end.” like it’s just in sight?

Quirk:Proper senNtenNce capitalizationN ~ Separates words with “~” inNstead of periods, doubles the letter “n” to give a sort of feeling of ascenNsionN ~

Special Abilities (if any):none! well, sort of – she gets vague prophetic visions on occasion, as explained in the backstory. but it’s not caste-related. (Classic Doom. Also remember that Tyrians have INCREDIBLE physical toughness and psychic resistance- they’re the only ones who can survive the Vast Glub.)

Lusus: An enormous sea monster! Sort of like a sea hydra, with multiple heads. Partly scaly in a pattern reminiscent of a leopard’s spots, with a ring of material almost resembling a lion’s mane at the base of the neck where every head meets. it’s inspired by the Beast of the Sea from the Book of Revelations!

Personality:Surprisingly upbeat because of her own personal philosophy that you should live every day to the fullest. If you’re bogged down by nothing but your own attitude and something happens, you’re going to die with only regret! So she goes out of her way to avoid that. She’s pretty lighthearted, loves to joke around (even if her jokes can have a bit of a meaner streak to them), and tries to extend as much empathy as her limited highblood understanding can allow, though she still slips up easily. It’s hard to catch your own tone sometimes. She’s also got a pretty short fuse despite her nicer demeanour and tends to crack easily because of all the pressure she’s under. (Positive Doom players are a rarity but this is definitely one of the ways to do it! I think a big thing she’s missing here is some fatalism. She’s a Doom player, a Seer, and a Prospit Dreamer, so her having a distinct idea of Fate as a thing you can’t battle against is definitely something that would happen.) (My suggestion here is to make her something of a positive nihilist? Like “We’re all gonna die someday- what’s the point in delaying the inevitable when we go and do whatever we want and have fun!”)

Interests: Dance (every & any kind, though she actually prefers studying & researching the various forms of Alternian dance to actually performing a majority of them. she likes actually dancing ballet & ballroom style), court etiquette due to her extensive amount of time in the presence of the Alternian court, treasure-hunting and deep-sea diving. She’s also got an interest in risk-taking and risky activities as a whole and does a lot of things for a thrill. The one (1) thing she is actively banned from is FLARPing, so she just has her friends tell her stories about that (and adores them, so it’s an interest in its own right.) (Why though? Because she’s an Heiress? I’m not finding much of a canon justification for her not being allowed to Flarp, but it’s been a while since it’s come up, admittedly.)  (Doom is associated with Coding and strict rules, but I actually think you could use her love of Dance as a Doom extension! She particularly likes Ballroom and Ballet you mentioned, both forms with rigorous training and technique and a colloquial tie to rigid society!)

Title:Seer of Doom (As a Seer, she’ll passively and fully comprehend the death and inevitability that will follow and haunt her for the rest of her life. This extends to rules and game design, so within Sgrub she’d be practically the ultimate rules lawyer! She’d know every particular innately, every weird rules interaction.) (This, of course, extends to the Inverse, the Witch of Life: Her incredible understanding would allow her to exploit loopholes for her and her team in order to change how the grow as people!)

Land:Land of Stairways & Dead-Ends. A maze of a land that leaves you climbing and descending with no real end or way to get around in sight, leaving the wandering consorts desolate and lost. Her quest would be to basically find a way through the land & clear out / map out a path from beginning to end. (Lands aren’t my forte, admittedly; these are hard to come up with!)

Dream Planet:Prospit

Backstory For Context: as one of last-hatched the Tyrian bloods that wasn’t a direct descendant to the current empress, she was originally raised with the expectation that she’d simply become a high-ranking member of troll society without getting any chance at the Alternian throne. However, in adolescence she started having vague, prophetic visions of doom, death, and unavoidably grim circumstances. Unbeknownst to her, this was her designated abilities as a Seer of Doom manifesting in a latent sort of manner. Through these vague, occasional visions and her distribution of warnings to the trolls involved, she caught the eye of the empress & her personal court, and was eventually granted the privilege of becoming her heiress due to this skill. Despite not being her true descendant, or really anyone hatched near said descendant’s birth. So she’s been getting used to the pressures of being raised as an heiress recently. (The one thing that’s confusing me about this is where the Fuchsia Bloodlust went? We know Feferi doesn’t feel it with quite the intensity Meenah does, but it’s a very big concern for your character who lives around other Fuchsias.)

(heeled shoe base made by fan-troll, everything else hand-sprited)

(some particular notes about her base outfit: for one she’s specifically wearing dancing shoes! and also because of her particular situation & status she’s pretty recognisable as-is, so within the AU’s allowances she just elects to keep her symbol stamped on the ankle of her socks.)

[ainchase]

Elsword

“What do you want?  If you have something to say, then spit it out.”

1st Year

155 cm

Specialty: Kendo, household chores

The only 1st year student at the Velder High kendo club. He started learning kendo since he was a kid, having admired his older sister, a promising kendo champion. He joined Velder High as it was the only school in the area with a kendo club.

He’s never discouraged or intimidated in any situation, which comes off as arrogance at times. However, he trains relentlessly every day, saying that he’s got a long way to go if he wants to catch up to his sister, and he’s never been free of scars for this reason. He spends most of his time at the kendo club when he’s not in class.

He’s gotten several warnings for carrying around his practice wooden sword around everywhere which did little to deter him. He’s become more cautious about it though, and tries to not get caught. Despite his clumsy and reckless tendencies, he’s surprisingly good at household chores. He can be brutally honest at times, but he is just inexperienced at expressing his feelings and means no harm.

Aisha

“I told you not to run in the classroom!  Ugh, these idiots!”

1st Year

157 cm

Specialty: Nagging, magic (?)

A class president who’s never missed 1st place in the school ranking.

She’s managed to maintain her image as a bookworm since entering the Velder High, but according to the rumors, she levitates brooms with magic to clean when no one is watching. Other rumors say that she left some problem students midair 100m off the ground overnight to “correct” their behaviors. It’s been widely speculated that might be the reason why there is not a single student who doesn’t grow quiet in front of Aisha, even the most problematic students.

She appears as a Perfect Model Student who lectures others all the time and doesn’t lack a single thing in her life, but even she has a naive, pure side to her; her after school hobbies include reading shoujo manga or romance novels, believing in fairy tales of destined love.

Rena

“Call me if you need any help. I’ll run to you like the wind!”

3rd Year

170 cm

Specialty: Archery, tending plants

Velder High Student Council President, who’s always kind to everyone. She is trusted by all with her innocent smile and heartfelt sincerity.

She doesn’t hesitate to help anyone in need. As kind she is, she is also known to be merciless to wrongdoers. According to the school legend continued to this day, a student messing around at the flowerbed was soon found kneeling before her and begging for forgiveness.

She’s incredibly athletic, and many sports team have tried to recruit her but to no avail. She shows up every once in a while at the archery club, but otherwise she spends most of her time for the student council. She claims she suits looking after plants instead, but not many students believe that as she is the first one to run over to land a flying kick to those who cause problems at the school.

Raven

“...If that’s what you really want, then I’ll take you on.”

3rd Year

184 cm

Specialty: Leading people

In the past, he was the ace player at the kendo club, but had to leave all that behind due to unknown circumstances. At one point, he was the leader of an infamous student gang which was involved in several incidents.

He had spent a lot of his earlier days in the dark, but he was able to turn his life around somehow. He’s left the gang completely and cleaned off his dark past. He would love nothing better than to just spend his days in peace now, but he often ends up getting involved in unwanted fights with other students. It’s usually because people mistake his scars and his bluntness as hostility, not to mention those who wish to challenge him because of his infamous reputation in the past.

Recently, he’s been visiting the kendo club from time to time to spar with younger students.

For reasons unknown, he has bandages on his left arm at all times. Apparently, he never takes it out of his pocket. As the rumor goes, he only takes it out during a fight, but since no one has lived to tell the tale, its actual appearance remains a mystery.

Eve

“...How rude. Please be respectful at school.”

1st Year

167 cm

Specialty: Designing and inventing robotics

A mysterious transfer student. Cynical and refined, she is nicknamed “Her Majesty the Queen” by her fellow classmates ever since she slapped Elsword on her first day of school when he destroyed her precious inventions.

She has strange devices on her forehead and ears, but it’s absolutely forbidden to ask her about them. She shows extraordinary talent in robotic engineering; she’s even borrowed an entire facility of the science club to develop robotics in her spare time. Perhaps due to her past trauma of Elsword wrecking her creations, the security system is known to be a bit over the top.

She displays affection to her creations, more than she does to humans, but seeing how she can be beyond cold to other creations that does not meet her standards, maybe not all of her creations equally deserve her affection.

Chung

“Hello, everyone! Nice to meet you!”

1st Year

155 cm

Specialty: Cello, academics

Thanks to his excellent grades and polite manners, he was referred to the vice president position of the student council, despite being only a 1st year student. Both the teachers and students alike love this model student because of his positive personality, never hesitating to help anyone in trouble.

He doesn’t quite know what to do with the fact that he’s getting confessed frequently by male students because they mistake his pretty looks. He is especially good at playing the cello, and carries it around despite his small stature.

He attends Velder High as a part of his lesson to be the successor of his family’s business while his father is abroad.

Ara

“KYAAAA! I’m late!”

2nd Year

168 cm

Specialty: Calligraphy

She grew up in a strict household, where she learned to be respectful and courteous to others. Unfortunately, all the grace and refinement she’s learned goes out the window, because she makes frequent mistakes thanks to her innate clumsiness.

Being exceptionally talented in all things athletic, she tried join several sports clubs. However, she either got the rules confused or destroyed the facility due to her immense strength. She gave up eventually, but she accepted other’s suggestion to be a cheerleader instead and has been cheering everyone since. Her pure and innocent smile is her trade mark, making her fairly popular at the school, even though she herself is not aware of it.

The stray cat(?) she found one day doesn’t want to leave her side, and tries to get inside her bag every morning she gets ready to go to school. There’s a rumor going around saying that her older brother has made friends with the wrong crowd and became a core member of a gang. She’s worried because she had tried to contact him many times, but cannot reach him.

Elesis

“It’s important for students to continue to train themselves.”

2nd Year

163 cm

Specialty: Kendo

The captain of the kendo club, head of the student disciplinary committee.

When she catches anyone trying to climb over the fence to ditch school, she chases after them in a flash. It’s almost impossible to run away from her.

She didn’t get to spend much time at home, because she was always busy with kendo competitions since she was a child. She’s won numerous awards from world championships, but for some reason she’s left all that behind and currently attends Velder High as a normal student. Judging from how much she cherishes her younger brother, who is in the same kendo club as her, a rumor says that she quit being a champion just for him.

Add

“Hmph, what are you going to do with the fact that my name is ‘Add’?”

2nd Year

168 cm

Specialty: Disassembling and modifying machines

A problem student who has trouble getting along with his classmates because of his personality, but he is a genius; he’s often the top of his class. He is targeting a core blueprint that Eve supposedly has for his own personal agenda. 

According to the rumors,he is a son of a world-renowned family of scientists who have invented many incredible things in the past, but apparently due to unknown circumstances he's left the family and is currently living by himself. 

He's able to pay the tuition with the vice principal’s support, but it seems like he’s always on a tight budget. Sometimes you can catch him at the grocery shop during timed sale. Despite his cold exterior, he seems interested in animals as he can be seen spending his time observing cats near the school.

Ciel

“I’ve baked some cookies. Want to try them?”

3rd Year

188 cm

Specialty: Gunnery, butler activity(?), baking

An ex-core member of an infamous gang. He was forced to transfer to a different school with Lu after an incident.

He secretly looks after Lu so she wouldn't get caught up in trouble. He's known as her personal butler because of this, but he doesn't seem to mind his new nickname.

Although he looks distant and serious, he loves cute things; he carries around little trinkets of plushies on his bag or his phone. You can see him near a toy shop, playing the claw machine with expertise.

He loves to bake and often hands them out to students in the class.

Lu

“I am the Luciela R. Sourcream!”

3rd Year

141 cm

Specialty: Eating desserts

She was one of the leader of an infamous gang from the Demon School.  Betrayed by those she trusted, she was falsely accused of something and was forced to transfer to Velder High. Apparently she’s looking for a chance to get her old position back.

Nowadays she tries to get around quietly without catching any attention, but she ends up catching attention anyways, in a different way, thanks to her cute appearance and bold attitude. She is asked to play a role in the theater club many times because of this, but she rarely gets on the stage because she only wants the good roles.

She hangs out with Ciel who transferred with her, and seems to leave all the annoying tasks to him. She loves sweet desserts, and joined the baking club with Ciel, where she has taken the role of taster, as she is not gifted with baking in any way.

Rose

“I’ve successfully arrived at the school. For the chairman, transferring school is not a problem.”

2nd Year

182 cm

Specialty: Gunnery, repairing and modifying guns

Elite member of a foreign army school. She transferred to Velder High of Elrios to investigate the source of a great disaster that threatens her home country.

Perhaps due to her upbringing in a military family, she is extremely athletic and boasts an outstanding marksmanship. She is especially attached to guns and can be seen secretly taking care of a model gun she carries with her.

Having been trained with a strict military education, she can be harsh with herself when it comes to training and self-disciplining. She carries around bag with the weight of a full gear that soldiers normally carry. She also eats battle-ready rations like jerky or energy bars for meals, and is always ready for battle. Her soldier-like tendencies surprise people but it doesn’t look like she is aware of it.

Ain

“I’m a bit busy right now. Can you come to the student council room if you have a business with me?”

3rd Year

182 cm

Specialty: Can do whatever he puts his mind to

The scribe of the student council, who deals everything with composure and a soft smile.

Separate from his student council duties, he’d volunteered to be the manager of the kendo club. He visits 1st year classes quite often, under the pretext of supporting the young 1st class club member. He appears to be closer with the 1st year students than students of his own class.

He frequently calls in sick due to an accident he was involved in before he started attending the school. He can be seen taking classes at the 1st year class the next day. It’s very unusual, but strangely he doesn’t draw enough attention so he gets called out on it very rarely.

He’s always smiling and no one has seen him making any other expression. He can be brutally honest without any regard for other’s feelings, but it doesn’t seem like he himself thinks it’s particularly big problem.

Perhaps he is religious seeing how he performs certain actions before lunch.

https://imgur.com/a/c6C8H

[carrollstreetstation]

days before doom, 1992-1993

doom was a watershed moment in gaming culture. it changed everything; it rocketed id software from stardom into super-stardom, making them one of the most well-known names in the western games industry. it redefined the discussion on video game violence, climaxing in the shitstorm that surrounded the 1999 columbine shooting. and it put the first person shooter firmly on the map for good, looming large over developers, serving as the chief example of what happens when you push the envelope just that extra bit. it’s impossible to overstate just how important doom is. but the key thing about watershed moments is that there is a status before them as well as after them. in the years immediately preceding doom, the first person shooter genre was starting to grow in size, and a variety of approaches to design were prevalent. here, then, are three of doom’s immediate predecessors.

wolfenstein 3D

the early years of modern PC gaming were a strange time; the burgeoning field of home PCs (at the time called IBM-compatibles) were replacing the multitude of home computers that ran with proprietary hardware and software, with increasing parity between brands when it came to internals and a slow gravitation towards plain beige boxes (not counting some of the more experimental models.) PC game development was something of a wild west, a career for hobbyists and isolated-but-brilliant coders. id software were no different, a motley four-man crew consisting of programmers, designers and an artist, who liked heavy metal and super mario, who met working in the games department for the computer magazine softdisk but chafed under softdisk's office culture. after proving that side-scrolling games could be done on then-underpowered PCs using a technique john carmack devised, they formed id software and began "borrowing" softdisk's computers over the weekend to design their own games, to be sold independently. after getting busted by the management, they left softdisk with no criminal charges under the stipulation that they write one game every two months for softdisk for a period of time, but without any direction from softdisk.

id software were now free to pursue their own avenues of game design, with john carmack's programming genius at the helm. alongside the now-classic platformer series commander keen, carmack's experiments in writing a first person engine had resulted in early landmark titles hovertank 3D and catacomb 3D. while catacomb 3D had been the result of carmack's assertion that he could write a faster texture renderer than the fully-textured ultima underworld, which he'd seen at a CES demo in 1990, wolfenstein 3D was intended to be the next step up -- faster, more action-packed, and -- most importantly -- violent.

similar to how catacomb 3D was a first-person followup to john carmack's softdisk title catacomb, the wolfenstein franchise goes back before its “3D” entry. the series began life in 1981 under the auspices of industry legend silas warner, whose apple II classic castle wolfenstein was a vastly different sort of game. a top-down shooter, castle wolfenstein is by all accounts the first stealth game, in which the player must hide from patrolling nazis, using stealth and subterfuge to complete their objective and escape from the castle. ammunition was scarce and the player was sometimes better off holding up guards and stealing their equipment, rendering them harmless. the game was a smash hit, with a followup coming three years later.

the idea to utilize the wolfenstein name was john romero's, but they ran through a number of alternate titles beforehand, among them "hard cell," "luger me now," and "how do you duseldorf?" after meeting with silas warner himself and getting his blessing, id software went ahead with the wolfenstein name and the rest is history.

on a technical level, wolfenstein 3D was the next step up from catacomb 3D. while the basics of the engine were unchanged (textured walls, but no floors or ceilings) there were several notable updates under the hood. the most visible difference is the switch from the EGA display standard, which allowed for up to 16 colors (out of a palette of 64) to VGA, which could display up to 256 colors. that this switch was done mid-development is made plain in the somewhat limited palette in the art assets, with an abundance of shades of blue, turqouise or purple, all of which were common colors in EGA programs and games.

the second big difference was speed; players could move at an almost inhuman rate around the mazes of the game, and the focus was on action over the more sedate tactical espionage of castle wolfenstein. the emphasis on speed figured into the game design; plans for features like dragging bodies out of sight of patrolling guards were scrapped for the sake of keeping up the breakneck pace.

perhaps the standout element, of course, was the violence. sex and violence in video games and other media was an increasingly hot topic; the 80s had been marked by controversies surrounding games like custer's revenge and splatterhouse, and the legacy of 1976's death race 2000 cast a bit of a shadow as well. but nothing could have prepared the industry for what was to come in the 90s. wolfenstein 3D managed to slip in ahead of the shitstorm that id's next game, doom would get embroiled in alongside mortal kombat, but even still it drew concern from id's retail publisher at the time, formgen. artist adrian carmack (no relation to john) had long been a fan of gory themes in his work; doing the art for the relatively kid-friendly commander keen had chafed him, and he relished the opportunity to do something grotesque. hovertank 3D had been a good start, but wolfenstein 3D gave him the opportunity to really cut loose, and in response to formgen raising its concerns, he added much more violence to the art assets, the levels being dotted with skeletons and corpses, and tom hall and john romero recorded themselves screaming almost random phrases in broken german to give voice to the enemy forces. the original three episodes of the game culminated in a final battle with hitler, resulting in one of the goriest deaths ever seen on a screen at the time. (it's worth noting that this isn't the first time hitler's been exploded in a video game...)

like doom, wolfenstein 3D saw a number of ports over the years; a mac version had updated graphics, but the one that most people remember is probably the SNES version, which is infamous for its censorship. gone were the nazis (hell, the bad guys didn’t even speak german anymore!) gone was the blood (it was sweat instead) and hitler himself was replaced by the generic “staatmeister.” the development of the SNES version is a particularly sore memory for id software, in part due to this censorship and in part due to the initial contractor (rebecca heineman) assigned to the porting project going AWOL.

wolfenstein 3D has a long legacy. the serious tone of castle wolfenstein had given way to a grindhouse vibe, stripping away complexity to leave one of the first pure action FPS games, where you go from point A to point B while killing everything in your way and occasionally using keys to progress. while its design was primitive compared to later games, with strictly orthogonal walls and an unchanging height, it proved the potential of the 3D engine for creating realistic environments. while the franchise has seen a couple of revivals, most recently in the utterly brilliant wolfenstein: the new order, it's wolfenstein 3D that laid the groundwork for the future, making the first person shooter popular and proving that shareware distribution was, for the time, a viable method of publishing games.

and besides, everybody loves dead nazis.

pathways into darkness

speaking of dead nazis...

if id software were once the rock gods of PC gaming, bungie were the jazz masters of mac gaming. formed by a pair of college students in the early 90s, they got their start assembling and shipping copies of minotaur: the labyrinths of crete by hand, which is a seriously humble origin given the legendary status bungie holds today as the creator of halo and destiny. their early focus on mac development was largely due to jason jones, who grew up on apple computers, but also because the field was a lot more open in mac development at the time.

after the moderate success of minotaur, they set about working on a first person shooter, inspired by wolfenstein 3D. minotaur and bungie's earlier game operation: desert storm were quirky in an intellectual kind of way; operation: desert storm came with a glossary of military terms and trivia, and authentic maps of the kuwaiti theater of operations during the gulf war. pathways into darkness was no different, which set it apart from the mindless fun of wolfenstein 3D. initially intended to be a first person version of minotaur, they chose to write an original story instead, a lengthy tale of a secret special forces mission to stop the awakening of a dreaming cosmic monster deep beneath a pyramid in the yucatan peninsula. along the way one can speak to the dead that litter the pyramid's corridors, ranging from the player character's special forces comrades to a lost nazi expedition that had entered the pyramid in the late 1930s looking for a potential superweapon.

in terms of technical stuff, the engine isn't a purely orthogonal game like wolfenstein 3D is. instead, walls are quite narrow, with beveled ends; while the underlying map design does seem to be grid-based, the grid squares appear to be much smaller than the massive blocks of wolfenstein 3D, which allows for narrow columns built out of in-game architecture rather than having to use sprites. lighting is not universal, either, and visibility fades into black off in the distance, though a flashlight pushes the darkness back a little. the initial version of the game used gradients for the walls and floors; the powerPC version finally texture maps these.

at times, the game comes off feeling more like a cross between a survival horror and an adventure game with dungeon crawler elements; a text parser requires some specific keywords for talking to the dead, and some of the puzzles are obtuse as hell, and it's entirely possible to play yourself into a corner without realizing it for hours. meanwhile, time actually passes as you play, and you only have five in-game days to complete your task. a weight limit determines how much you can carry, and healing options are limited to rare blue potions and sleeping, the latter of which uses up time. ammo is scarce until you find a certain magical item that lets you create duplicates of anything you put into it, and enemies respawn, furthering the constant threat. saving the game can only be done at save points, which are far and few between.

in spite of its difficulty (or perhaps because of it) pathways into darkness was a smash hit; it was the first native first person shooter for the mac (not counting the colony) and launched bungie into stardom, enabling them to expand their operations.

unfortunately, accessibility to this fantastic game is quite limited. mac owners will be pleased to know that it's available for free on the app store; for everyone else, there's basilisk II (or sheepshaver for the powerPC version) but setting up can be quite the chore.

in addition, art game genius brendon chung has devised his own spin on the early hours of the game in the form of doom 3 mod pathways redux.

ultima underworld: the stygian abyss

ultima and its major competitor wizardry are probably the two greatest influences on RPGs, east and west. a lot of the things we take for granted in RPGs now were invented and codified by these two series. for most of the early 80s they dominated sales, but by the early 90s they'd lost their grip on the market as their successors began to take over, especially final fantasy and other japanese series. ultima VI had shown the franchise still had the chops, but wizardry was fading fast, and by the 1990s only a cult following in japan really still cared about it. as the cRPG scene began to go dormant in the face of the rising wave of jRPGs, the bigger names began to experiment, tossing out a few spinoffs in an attempt to remain relevant. most of them weren’t successful -- the worlds of ultima series seem to have gone forgotten -- but there was at least one runaway hit.

ultima underworld: the stygian abyss began as the brainchild of paul neurath, who worked at origin systems, the company richard garriot founded to aid in publishing his ultima series, and which had grown into a huge company by the 1990s. neurath was dissatisfied with the simplistic graphics of earlier dungeon crawler games like wizardry, and wanted to create something that built on suspension of disbelief. he founded blue sky productions (not to be confused with bluesky software, creators of vectorman) with the intent of developing this game. the famous demo shown at CES 1990 came out of the early work; origin was so impressed that they offered a publishing agreement and suggested the game be rewritten as an ultima spinoff.

i've written a lot in this space about immersive sims; one of the more invisible aspects of immersive sims, particularly the "traditional" ones like thief and deus ex, is a development process that is perhaps more organic than that of other studios. ultima underworld was developed in such an environment, and is often described as the first immersive sim -- and indeed, it would seem to fit by most any standards, including mine. stepping away from the grid-based movement of classic dungeon crawlers like dungeon master or, yes, wizardry, realtime movement combined with more tactile world interaction pushed ultima underworld out of the hoary old dungeon crawler genre and into something a little more interesting. there's actually a surprising amount of things to see and do, and the entirety of the dungeon is open to you. in a very real sense, ultima underworld laid the groundwork for everything from deus ex to skyrim to dark souls, on top of being leagues ahead of the competition in terms of technology, with fully-textured everything, curved walls, sloped ceilings and floors, and some early 3D models. it's also singlehandedly responsible for launching the career of warren spector, whose previous production work had been wing commander II and one of the worlds of ultima spinoff games. spector would go on to produce system shock, which was in a very real sense the sci-fi counterpart to ultima underworld, and the rest is history.

of course, a game with ultima underworld’s cult popularity can’t go without a sequel. by september 1992 origin was forced by money issues to sell to electronic arts (a shocking move given garriot's long-running hatred of EA founder trip hawkins.) blue sky ended up merging with lerner research, a small outfit that mostly did flight sims, to form looking glass technologies, and it was under these auspices that ultima underworld II: labyrinth of worlds was created in 1993, with much stronger ties to the ultima franchise than its predecessor. years later, arkane studios (they of dishonored fame) would create a spiritual sequel called arx fatalis. and just as the ultima series lives on in garriot's upcoming shroud of the avatar, so too will ultima underworld, in underworld ascendant.

i'm on record as saying i strongly dislike ultima as a series, finding them to be mostly unplayable and difficult to take seriously, and i think garriot is a hack resistant to change, even positive change that would make his games more accessible to people other than crazy assholes who speak in faux-old english in their daily life. i find ultima underworld's controls to be clunky and its historical slowness on DOSbox has long precluded me from being able to get into it. but even i must admit that ultima underworld, and ultima as a whole, are among the most influential games ever made, which is why whenever some gaming site talks about gaming history and ignores the franchise and its influence on everything from final fantasy to bioshock, i have to wonder just how lazy they really are.

this article is a complete rewrite of an earlier entry.

history of FPS masterpost

[kingofbluebell]

Video Game Forecast 2017

Due to some computer trouble and my lack of time to edit this week, I'm pushing the first anime review on this blog to next week. I want this review to be a good first impression for the greater anime community, and besides, if I rushed it out I'd be letting myself down. Instead, I'm going to ramble on at length about the upcoming games for 2017 that I'm excited to play because people sure love making lists on this topic. Yes, I touched on most of these games in post two weeks ago, but I didn't flesh out exactly why I was excited for them. As always this list reflects my personal taste which is sure to be different from anyone else who reads it. I'm trying to square away some other projects before the first load of games comes knocking at my door so let's finish this quickly. Just like with my other list posts I'll include a table of contents at the start for easier browsing.

Dragon Quest VIII

Gravity Rush 2

Yakuza 0

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age

Persona 5

Nier Automata

Super Mario Odyssey

Yooka-Laylee/A Hat in Time

Etrian Odyssey V

Kingdom Hearts 3

Dragon Quest VIII 3DS: Unlike the feelings of disappointment that grew as I reached the end of Dragon Quest VII, there is a precedent for me to enjoy this game a whole lot more. Dragon Quest VIII is one of my favorite games of all time, and the ability to easily play it anywhere is always a boon in my book. Sure the lack of the orchestral score, decreased resolution, and a voice actress change are making me hesitant to play it, but at its core, it's still Dragon Quest VIII: the pinnacle of the classic JRPG.  I'll get used to the new voice for Jessica as I did for Chie and Teddie in Persona 4 when Golden came out and like that enhanced release, I'm excited to test out all the new features chief among them being the lack of random encounters. To me, this was the major thing holding back the original Dragon Quest VIII, even if the encounter rate was relatively unobtrusive, and with Akira Toriyama's iconic monster designs seeing those slimes scuttle across the world map is going to be a delight. I'm also curious to see how they've extended the story, especially with the inclusion of the two bonus characters. Plus I want to see what outfits I can put on my favorite guy Yangus.  Unless another game appearing later on this list gets localized this year, or I muster up the will to plow through the Shin Megami Tensei IV duology I can't see another game vying for time in my 3DS this year.

Gravity Rush 2: Sure the dream to have this sequel be another defining title for the PS Vita is long since dead, but the combination of this game existing at all and the befuddling presence of the Vita in 2017 is more than enough to satisfy me. The original Gravity Rush translated very well to the PS4, and demo proves the controls have been refined even further. Being built from the ground up for the PS4 has not only improved the controls, but the brief glimpse of the vistas we'll be able to float through are anything to go by the developers certainly know how to make use of the rest of the PS4's hardware. I hesitate to classify Gravity Rush as a sandbox series, but that's mainly due to my reticence to play many of them now. Most of these games are heavily padded with additional objectives and exist on a playfield so large they become overwhelming. Gravity Rush also contains the myriad of collectibles and repetitive side missions of increasing difficulty however it doesn't immediately hit me that I've done this all before. The series' unique movement options and that said movement options only improve with every digression from the main plot certainly aid in this feeling, yet there is clearly something more. The original Gravity Rush's world, possibly stemming from the fact it was originally a portable game, felt compact and that translated into a more focused experience. I can't wait to see how I can mess around with the sequel's settings, but I hope the developers give me more ways to interact rather than more ground to cover.

Yakuza 0: If there were any franchise that exemplified the tenets I mentioned above it's Yakuza. The way folks over at Sega have gone about expanding the fictional city of Kamurocho, not by expanding the map but instead increasing the number of locations the player can explore in the same space is nothing short of genius game design that reflects actual urban development. This cost saving measure has not only allowed longtime fans to become familiar with the city as they would their real-life neighborhoods but also for the developers to make it come alive by including dozens of unique side activities on top of the already expanding and satisfying combat mechanics. While I'm still relatively new to the Yakuza franchise, my time playing the PS2 entries of the franchise make me excited to play more. I have no reticence jumping into a game further down the development timeline because I don't mind going back to older eras of 3D action games with their relatively stiffer controls. From what little I remember Yakuza 3 is a large step up from the PS2 era titles, and besides the story, design and charm of the franchise are more than enough to get me going back to older games even after playing the most refined game the series has to offer (in English).  I'm just happy Sony and Sega are giving this franchise another chance outside of Japan. Even though prequels tend to get a bad rap in most media the Yakuza series storytelling pedigree has me excited to see how Kazuma and Majima turned into the men we've grown to love. In fact, the game being prequel has also given me the opportunity to sell the concept of this game to as many of my long-time GTA, martial arts, and crime-fiction loving friends as I can. The two-year localization wait for this game is almost at an end, and I can't wait to delve into the opulent world of 80's Japanese crime.

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age: I've been a fan of the way Yasumi Matsuno crafts RPGs since before I could easily pronounce his name. His approach to story and characters are as nuanced as the game mechanics that encapsulate them. In my opinion, they're some of the few RPGs that have a real balance between their gameplay and narrative aspects which is saying a lot given the tendency for Japanese RPGs to rely more heavily on the latter for player engagement. The world(s) of Ivalice is one of the most intriguing fantasy settings ever created in any medium and while it saddens me to say we may never get another chapter in its story I'm more than happy to return to its grandest one. Final Fantasy XII was already a huge game within the constraints of a PS2 title, and I'm sure this PS4 upgrade will do its sweeping landscapes justice. More importantly, I'm excited to experience the Zodiac Job system after all these years. The original's license board being fully open for each character, while certainly gave multitudes of customization options, felt almost too broad to the point it became unwieldy to manage. Having a more focus skill set for each playable character will go a long way into making the fights more strategic. After playing Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir I'm curious if this collection will give us the opportunity to use either system for character progression though I'm doubtful it will. What I don't doubt is this title coming out in 2017. With news of more delays on Kingdom Hearts 3 and the Final Fantasy VII remake not to mention the impossibility of any localized version of Dragon Quest XI so soon, this HD remaster will be a solid stop-gap title for Square's RPG market.

Persona 5:  The changing tides of Japanese game development, as well as the maturation of my taste, has made the (Shin) Megami Tensei series overtaking such giants as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest my favorite JRPG meta-franchise. Even almost succumbing to "Persona 4 Fatigue" and being let-down by Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE are not enough to change my mind. Persona 5 has a lot to live up to and from what little I've allowed myself to hear and see it has certainly impressed those who've played it. I'm grateful to have not been spoiled on any of the major plot developments and even many of the finalized game mechanics in the extended wait between the Japanese and global localization. I'm not normally the type of person to care about spoilers, but I've managed to hold back my excitement this long so why throw it all away at the eleventh hour? I haven't seen a new trailer for the game in at least a year, and I've gone so far as to avoid the English VA introduction videos for fear some of their characters are introduced too far into the story. I expect to either set up a myriad of blacklist programs or just take a sabbatical from most online interaction until I beat the game once so as not to be "tainted" by even the most benign meme. Sure I might become a hermit for a few weeks once the game arrives, but it'll be worth it to finally get to enjoy another full-fledged JRPG from masters of the craft.

Nier Automata: Rather than a screenshot I'm starting off this section by showcasing a very telling tweet from Drakengard/Nier creator Taro Yoko. There seems to be an unexplainable amount of pressure for this game to be amazing, and I'm still trying to break down how exactly we got to this point when at E3 2015 there were so many people confused about "the weird guy in the creepy mask".  It's not like after the reveal of Nier Automata the rest of the franchise was made more readily available to a wider audience to get them acclimated to the franchise. The first two Drakengard games weren't released on the PS3 or PS4, and I don't believe Nier is eligible through streaming on PS Now or is backward-compatible with the Xbox One. You would think after the unfortunate state Drakengard 3 released in, being plagued with slowdown and having a third of the content locked away as DLC that cost as much as the base game, that the series would have stopped there. In fact, most fans were shocked Drakengard 3 came out at all. Despite the odds, it seems some folks at Square Enix must enjoy Taro's work and want let him continue to lead projects, which for people like myself is a delightful aberration in this industry. I wouldn't say I'm the most knowledgeable Drakengard/Nier fan, I haven't spent much time looking at the fan-translated supplementary materials, but Nier is still one of my favorite games of all time, so that's why I have high hopes for its sequel. Outside of folks like myself, I believe everyone else's hopes lie are with the developer of Nier Automata: Platinium Games. Despite some recent disappointments, which can partially be blamed on rushed development cycles for licensed products, Platinum Games have been responsible for some of the most mechanically complex and energetic games of all time. Their reputation certainly precedes them at this point, and I think a lot of people believe they'll bring a similar flair and finesse to the combat in Automata. However, after playing the demo it's clear that Nier Automata is going to play a lot closer to the original Nier than Bayonetta. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but that means that 2B isn't the next evolution of cyborg Raiden. Combat in the original Nier was a simple hack and slash with some interesting magic mechanics, and I believe Platinum's involvement with Automata will go a long way in smoothing out the combat in ways Taro's previous team at Cavia was just not capable of doing. From what the demo provided it's clear that Platinum succeeded at this without sapping a lot of the particular flavor people look to get from Taro's games. Personally, I'm ecstatic Taro gets to work with a team known for massive and intricate boss encounters because I can only imagine how much they'll be improved compared to those found in the original Nier.  My biggest wish for 2017 would be for Nier Automata to be a resounding critical and financial success not only for Taro but also for Platinum. After the cancellation of Scalebound and Activision pulling out of licensed game development it'll be a rough time for them to find another project so soon and they could certainly use a big win.

Super Mario Odyssey: While everyone else seems blown away by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild the game that piqued my interest more at the Nintendo Switch presentation was Super Mario Odyssey. Seeing Mario in a more sandbox oriented platformer for the first time in over a decade immediately grabbed my attention, and the idea of Mario going on a globe-hopping adventure will aid in making the cliche level tropes you see in most platformers have some distinctive flair. I must admit seeing one of the areas called "New Donk City" made me giggle more than the realization that a lot of the elements in the trailer mimic the original Sonic Adventure. More important to my potential enjoyment of the game was seeing all the additional movement abilities Mario as acquired for this new title. Mario can now swing as if he's performing an uneven bar routine and his hat, that is somehow sentient, can be thrown to act as an additional platform to reach greater distances. I'm unsure if the fan favorite "long jump" has made the transition to this title but it would surprise me if it didn't. Despite all of this I don't think Super Mario Odyssey, despite coming after a collection of solid titles, will be enough for me to purchase a Switch. My infatuation with portable consoles will have me buying the console eventually, but I'll be waiting until I hear more about that new Shin Megami Tensei game.

Yooka-Laylee/A Hat in Time: I'm putting both of these in the same paragraph because my thoughts on each of them are the same. Before Super Mario Odyssey got announced, these were the only 3D sandbox oriented platformers (have to find a better name for that before I take a deeper look at these games) on the horizon after the genre died out just at the start of the 7th console generation. I may not be the biggest fan of Banjo-Kazooie (certainly not its sequel), but I played and still replay on occasion the hell out of Insomniac developed Spyro the Dragon games. I adore the freedom you get roaming large levels and using your platforming prowess combined with your ever expanding move set and power-ups to tackle the various challenges put before you. I even like collecting a ridiculous amount of different collectibles, which is why I'm one of the few people who still emphatically enjoy Donkey Kong 64 outside of the memes. All these factors, as well as a majority of the original Banjo-Kazooie team involved with the project, convinced me and many others to heavily back Yooka-Laylee. The pedigree of the developers and constant updates have put a lot of our fears to rest after some rather large Kickstarter kerfuffles soured plenty on crowdfunding. I can't say I know as much about A Hat in Time though its smaller, inexperienced team and more meager funding explains its near four-year development cycle. Still, I've heard plenty of positive things from those who've backed the project and got to try out the demos. My fondness for the subgenre will have me giving this a shot as well if it reaches its promised release date this year.

Etrian Odyssey V: Last year I fell deeply in love with the plodding and challenging dungeons of the Etrian Odyssey franchise, completing two games. As arduous as they were I enjoyed (almost) every second of my hundred hour journeys, and I anxiously awaited the next title to be localized. I can understand Atlus wanting to make sure their global launch of Persona 5 to go smoothly before announcing any concrete release dates for games, but the wait for any news of Etrian Odyssey V's English localization is making me worry. Now with the Switch the next big thing from Nintendo resources from all companies, including Atlus, shifting to support it. It concerns me that a more niche title like Etriany Odyssey will be forgotten as we move to new hardware. Still the overwhelming success of Pokémon Sun & Moon, the lack of any announcement of a Switch Pokémon RPG, and the fact that Atlus USA tends to localize games for older hardware more often than other companies has me hopeful. Will we see Etrian Odyssey V in 2017? It's possible, and if it turns out to be true this year will be an even better year for games. Until then I should probably take the time to brave Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl to make sure I'm not too rusty.

Kingdom Hearts 3: I know anything can happen now than Final Fantasy XV, The Last Guardian and Owlboy came out last year, but I'm not holding my breath for Kingdom Hearts 3. I can guarantee to be there day one, but until then I'm not even touching 2.8 until the "third" entry in this franchise gets an actual release day. Just because I still harbor deep feelings for this hot mess of a series doesn't mean I need to be beholden to its whims. I'm not fifteen anymore.

So that's all the games I'm interested in checking out this year. I've chosen a lot of safe bets this year, but a lot of that has to do with me wanting to play a lot of highly rated Japanese games that have taken a while to localize. If any of the heavy hitters on other peoples' lists turn out to be great, I'll try to squeeze them in if I have the time and cash. In addition, every year there are a handful of smaller titles that blow everyone away that few initially knew about and when those inevitably rear their popularity onto the gaming landscape, I'll try to check them out too. I'd love to hear what games the people that read this post are looking forward to in 2017 so either leave a comment here or on my Twitter.

See you next week.

[williamsjoan]

DualShockers’ Game of the Year 2018 Staff Lists — Grant’s Top 10

As 2018 comes to a close, DualShockers and our staff are reflecting on this year’s batch of games and what were their personal highlights within the last year. Unlike the official Game of the Year 2018 awards for DualShockers, there are little-to-no-rules on our individual Top 10 posts. For instance, any game — not just 2018 releases — can be considered.

After the absolutely monstrous year of video games that 2017 had, I don’t think that we are going to see a year similar to that one in a long time. Hell, I thought that last year’s excellent lineup would put a damper on this year’s games no matter how good it was. However, boy was I wrong: 2018 straight up told everyone to put a sock in it.

What most surprised me about this year was the variety of games I thoroughly enjoyed. Throw in some indie titles, your typical single-player AAA experience, multiplayer shooters, VR titles, and you are left with a something to play for whatever mood you are in. Sadly, there are plenty of games that I need to get to that could have possibly made this list such as Astro Bot Rescue Mission, Hitman 2, and Monster Hunter: World. However, I plan on getting to them as soon as the holiday ends.

That being said, here are my top 10 favorite games from 2018:

10. Mario Tennis Aces

To start the list off, let’s discuss the best Mario Tennis game yet. Yeah, I said it! Mario Tennis Aces had a forgettable and easy single-player mode. But let’s forget all about that and talk about what really matters, the online mode.

Oh my god did I play so many Mario Tennis Aces multiplayer matches. The game didn’t have all too much content, but damn was that multiplayer addicting! The tournament system was genius; even though the scoring system doesn’t mean much, there was a two-week window where winning a tournament meant everything to me.

What was surprising was the vast difference in gameplay when playing as different characters. Playing as Boo had me curving tennis balls all across the court. If I wanted to just blast some tennis balls down the other player’s throat, Bowser was the right guy for the job. Yoshi could probably return almost every ball hit his way and I can only imagine the player on the other side throwing his Switch into the wall when I won a rally of 50 or more hits. Mario Tennis Aces was excellent, but it makes me want the one true king in Mario sports titles back, Mario Golf. In due time my friends. In due time.

Check out the DualShockers review of Mario Tennis Aces.

9. Moss

In a year full of wonderful PSVR experiences, Moss was one of the standouts. It showed me how clever level design can be in virtual reality and how many different ways that the new tech can be utilized. Rather than being in the typical first-person perspective, the all-seer perspective–as I like to call it–was such a unique way to solve puzzles and control the adorable Quill.

If I could describe Moss in one word, it would be “magical.” Playing the game was similar to being at Disney; everything just felt so wondrous. The storybook narrative, the incredible environments, and unique level design had me enthralled. Polyarc created one of the best VR games on the market, and I can’t wait to see what they have planned next.

Check out the DualShockers review of Moss.

8. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild — The Champions’ Ballad

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is my favorite game of all time. I have had the time to reflect on it, and I can say that without a doubt is, as no other game has captivated me like it. So, of course, I was happy to jump back into Hyrule with the game’s second DLC expansion, The Champions’ Ballad.

I know that The Champions’ Ballad released last December, however, I didn’t get to it until January of this year, so it still counts! Even though the second expansion pass didn’t live up to some fans’ expectations, I still believe that it provides some of the best shrines and I would say the best boss battle in the game.

What might have helped was that I had not popped back into the game in a while. I beat it at launch and beat it a second time on Master Mode when the first DLC launched, so it had been a while since I had popped back in. It might be a short time for some, but for my favorite game of all time, it was a while for me. Revisiting my favorite open world was like going back home and having that favorite dish your mom makes.

The Champions’ Ballad provided me with new content to the most memorable, fascinating, and wondrous game I have played, and that might be all it needed to do to make me love it. Does that make me biased? Probably.

7. Marvel’s Spider-Man

I am not as high on Marvel’s Spider-Man as many of my colleagues: I found the missions to be repetitive and not many of the side missions stood out to me. However, swinging through New York City was so damn fun. I don’t think I had ever used the fast travel mechanic just because I would much rather swing my way around and over buildings. I am not sure how Insomniac Games made it so damn easy and intuitive, but they did a phenomenal job on not only the movement but combat mechanics. Combining brutal kicks and punches along with web attacks was fast, fluid, and surprisingly easy to get a grasp of after only an hour of playtime.

Insomniac also compiled a wonderful narrative, and much of that was due to Yuri Lowenthal’s performance as Spider-Man/Peter Parker. If it wasn’t for Red Dead Redemption 2 and God of War, he would have been a shoo-in for the performance of the year.

I am personally not that big of a comic book/Marvel fan. Woah, whoah, whoah, before you raise your pitchforks: I do enjoy all the movies, I am just not as into them as others. However, I was incredibly invested in the story of Marvel’s Spider-Man, and I am eagerly anticipating the second entry into the series.

Check out the DualShockers review of Marvel’s Spider-Man.

6. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds

It almost became just a part of my nightly routine. Around 8:30 every night at the beginning of the year, a couple of my buddies and I would hop on the Xbox One version of PUBG and try to win a few chicken dinners before bed. Even though it was frustrating as all hell to play sometimes at launch due to frequent crashes, terrible framerate, and entire buildings taking forever to just render, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was probably the game I played the most this year. Despite its hiccups, and it had a whole lot at launch, the game is still an experience unmatched by other Battle Royal shooters.

PUBG provides some of the most suspenseful multiplayer gameplay on the market right now. You could run into ten other players depending on where you drop, or you could possibly get run into one other player and somehow get that sweet chicken dinner. I know that the game still has a multitude of issues that still are not fixed, but PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is still an experience like no other. Just one match sucks me right back in.

Check out the DualShockers reviews of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds on PS4 and PC.

5. Firewall: Zero Hour

Firewall: Zero Hour, developed by First Contact Entertainment, is the game we all dreamed of when we were kids. With the power of PSVR, rather than just controlling the first-person shooter, you are now inside the first-shooter. I am still blown away by how well everything worked. Using the PS Aim controller to, well, aim of course, is incredibly intuitive and fluid. Besides learning how to move with the thumbstick on the aim controller, it is as simple as just pointing and shooting, and boy is it fun.

As a competitive tactical shooter, Firewall: Zero Hour is a mind-blowing experience and shows how limitless the possibilities are for PSVR. When an enemy was around the corner, I would peek my gun barrel around the corner and take them out. If I got pinned down behind cover, I could stick my gun over and blind fire to give myself an opportunity to get to safety. My only issues with the game were that it had some annoying quality-of-life issues at launch when it came to matchmaking, and how long it would take to start a new match.

Firewall: Zero Hour was my favorite VR experience this year, in a year that was absolutely packed with some of the best games that PSVR has to offer. Now, all the game needs is a rounds system like Rainbow Six Siege. Please, First Contact! I am begging you!

Check out the DualShockers review of Firewall: Zero Hour.

4. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate lives up to the Ultimate name. It is the definitive Smash experience and even though it released just a couple weeks ago, it has provided me with some of the most fun I have had all year. I mean, what did you expect? It’s Smash Bros. except, this time around, there is much more content to enjoy rather than just regular Smash battles with your friends.

World of Light, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate‘s single-player/adventure mode, has had some mixed reactions across the internet. However, I am a firm believer that it is the best single player offering in any of the games in the series. Running into familiar and new faces while collecting Spirits has provided me with hours upon hours of enjoyment. Collecting and switching different Spirits in and out might sound tedious to some, but I have enjoyed every second of it. With a stellar single-player mode, the biggest roster in the series by far, a knockout soundtrack, and that same old, yet refined Smash gameplay, Ultimate is the best in the series and a must-buy for Switch owners.

Check out the DualShockers review of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

3. Celeste

Talk about a game that caught me off-guard. Celeste was not only a great platformer, but also had a very emotional story that impacted me in an unexpected way. Here I was thinking that I was just booting up a new, retro-style platformer. But next thing I knew, I was up at 3 AM, captivated by Madeline’s conflict with her own inner demons and also torturing myself to find strawberries. Celeste is the best platformer of the year, and I don’t think it is even close. (I haven’t played The Messenger or Guacamelee! 2 or many other of those types of games yet, but it just sounded cool to say)

I think what stood out to me the most, along with other many other players, was how unexpected of an experience that Celeste was. When I first started, I was thinking I was going to get a fun and challenging platformer, but that was going to be most of the experience. I never would have guessed how impactful the narrative was going to be and how it tackles deeper subjects such as mental health issues. At the time, I was going through some personal problems and this game helped me to cope with those emotions, as well as tackle them head-on. Maybe in a lesser year, Celeste would have taken my personal top spot.

Check out the DualShockers review of Celeste.

2.  Red Dead Redemption 2

It seems crazy that Red Dead Redemption 2 isn’t the definitive game of the year for everyone’s list. After the excellent Grand Theft Auto V and the almost infinite amount of money that Grand Theft Auto Online continuously makes even to this day, the sequel to Rockstar’s classic Western seemed like it was going to be the most ambitious game ever made, and I think it just might be.

Red Dead Redemption 2 had an absolutely phenomenal and heart-wrenching story; the downfall of the Van der Linde gang was a beautiful mess, even though we all know where it was heading. The world is by far the most immerse open world ever created. Roger Clark captured Arthur Morgan and his enlightenment so well, and these are only just a few parts of why I enjoyed the game so much.

While the game is groundbreaking in many aspects, there are still some little nitpicky things that I can point out that bug me, such as the lack of traditional fast travel systems, clunky gameplay, and that it might go on just a tad too long. However, Red Dead Redemption 2, despite its minuscule flaws, is one of the best open world games ever created.

Check out the DualShockers review of Red Dead Redemption 2.

1. God of War

To me, God of War might be the closest the closest thing to a perfect video game. In my opinion, there is not one flaw that I can point out. In fact, I think that most aspects of the game can be considered as the best we have ever seen from the medium.

The narrative in God of War reached a level of storytelling that I have didn’t think the industry could reach. The simple, yet extremely detailed story left me captivated. Christopher Judge made Kratos into a purposeful character and gave one of the best performances I have ever seen. The Leviathan Axe is my favorite video game weapon I have ever used, and it was just so damn satisfying to play with.

Cory Barlog and Sony Santa Monica created an absolute masterpiece that other developers will be studying for a long time to come. God of War set the bar so freaking high that it will be hard for any game to follow this up next year. It is the pinnacle for storytelling, gameplay, level design, world building, and artistry, and because of that, God of War is absolutely one of my favorite games of all time.

Check out the DualShockers review of God of War.

Check out the other DualShockers’ staff Top 10 lists and our official Game of the Year Awards:

December 17: DualShockers Game of the Year Awards 2018 December 18: Lou Contaldi, Editor in Chief // Logan Moore, Reviews Editor December 19: Ryan Meitzler, Features Editor // Tomas Franzese, News Editor December 20: Scott Meaney, Community Director December 21: Reinhold Hoffmann, Community Manager // Ben Bayliss, Staff Writer December 22: Ben Walker, Staff Writer // Chris Compendio, Staff Writer December 23: Eoghan Murphy, Staff Writer // Grant Huff, Staff Writer December 26: Iyane Agossah, Staff Writer // Jordan Boyd, Staff Writer December 27: Max Roberts, Staff Writer // Michael Ruiz, Staff Writer  December 28: Noah Buttner, Staff Writer // Rachael Fiddis, Staff Writer  December 29: Steven Santana, Staff Writer // Tanner Pierce, Staff Writer December 30: Travis Verbil, Staff Writer // Zack Potter, Staff Writer

The post DualShockers’ Game of the Year 2018 Staff Lists — Grant’s Top 10 by Grant Huff appeared first on DualShockers.

DualShockers’ Game of the Year 2018 Staff Lists — Grant’s Top 10 published first on https://timloewe.tumblr.com/

[thesteadydietofeverything]

Video Game Year in Review: Remakes, Remasters, and Re-releases

I’ve never made a list of remakes, remasters, and re-releases before, but then again, I don’t think I’ve ever played so many in a single year to even be able to. 2018 was a particularly busy year in this end of video game releases, nearly exclusively due to the Nintendo Switch. Now in its second year, the Switch may have been light on brand new first party titles, but the rush of seemingly every developer to get new and old games alike on the portable console came into full swing. “When’s that game coming to Switch?” has turned into a question that could be reasonably applied to...just about every game, but perhaps no more so than great Nintendo games originally released on their previous, unsuccessful console, the Wii U. These games enjoyed a second life in 2018, with many, including myself, playing 2014 games that we never got to as if they’re brand new. Switch re-releases don’t account for every game on this list, but they are a very clear majority...

5. Bayonetta (Switch remaster) - This is the one game on this list that I actually didn’t like. But I tried. Like it’s spiritual cousin, Devil May Cry, Bayonetta is a game that makes you feel shitty for not being good at it. I consistently got low grades on my combat performance, but didn’t feel like the game was offering any particularly helpful guidance in how to improve. It just kept pushing me forward, with dwindling currency, supplies, and patience, all the while just being a bit of a dick to me. If I found gameplay to be more fun, maybe I also would have been more willing to be entertained by its puerile, edgy aesthetic, but as it was, that just became another thing to grate on my nerves. If there’s one thing I gained from this game, it’s the assurance that not every popular game from the late 2000’s that I missed out on while I was barely playing video games is worth catching up on.

4. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Switch re-release) - The Donkey Kong Country games have always eluded me. I never had a SNES, so I couldn’t quite get into the bizarre proto-3D graphics of the originals once I finally checked them out. Tropical Freeze is the game that finally proved to me why people love these games so much. Donkey Kong is an unusual platforming star - his hulking frame gives him a slightly out of control momentum that is off putting until it’s suddenly satisfying, and that moment within the first couple hours of play where how to control him suddenly clicked was the start of two weeks of compulsively playing this game to completion during my summer break.

3. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (Switch re-release) - What a unique game. A puzzle platformer whose main mechanic sometimes feels like your player character’s lack of an ability to jump. With a perfectly minimalistic mobility design ethos, this delightful experiment encourages you to explore the little 3D dioramas that make up its levels to completion. I’ve been obsessively mining each of them for all they’ve got before moving on to the next one, and it’s slow going - I’ve still probably got about ⅔ left of the game to go. But the thought of it is actually making look forward to my upcoming, otherwise painfully long flight to Japan, because absorbing myself in this seems like the perfect way to make hours go by without notice.

2. Dark Souls: Remastered - Before this remaster, I had played brief moments of the original Dark Souls on a friend’s PS3. Really, though, Bloodborne is where I fell in love with Souls-style games, and last year I obsessed over the excellent, overlooked Nioh. Finally coming to this game after more recent games in its style was a mixed experience for me. Obviously, the rather plain, blocky textures of the last generation are already aging quickly, but the game still has enough style and atmosphere that I wasn’t particularly bothered by that aspect of it. The combat, however, felt...bland. I know, I know, this game and its predecessor, Demon’s Souls, are praised for revolutionizing action RPG combat, with their tight controls and deliberate moves. If it weren’t for this game, the combat I love in Bloodborne and Nioh wouldn’t exist. But having put so many dozens of hours into Nioh, a game with combo attack strings and multiple stances, made the switch back to a game where each weapon basically only has two attacks, feel just kinda elementary. Not easy, mind you - despite my experience with this style, I still found this game to be welcomingly challenging, but performing the same moves over and over again just wore thin.

Nevertheless, this game has something that no game inspired by it has quite been able to replicate, or even, seemingly, really tried to, and that’s the incredible, interlocking level design. Yeah, Dark Souls 3 and especially Bloodborne obviously pull some similar magic tricks in connecting separate sections together, but regardless, feel like fairly linear games. Firelink Shrine in this game has three separate directions you can head in to start with, and the paths just keep branching from there. This game puts remarkable trust in the player in her ability and desire to explore, experiment, and undoubtedly die many times before finding the path of least resistance (because even that path offers plenty of resistance). This is the aspect of Dark Souls that kept me going. Not only has it not aged a day, it’s almost even more impressive in retrospect, a lightning-in-a-bottle kind of  flash of creative genius.

1. Yakuza Kiwami 2 - Last year’s Yakuza 0 was my first Yakuza game, and this year’s Yakuza Kiwami 2 was my fourth. As you might have guessed, I’ve fallen very, very hard for this series. For those not familiar, Kiwami 2 is a remake of Yakuza 2, originally on PS2, just as last year’s Yakuza Kiwami was a remake of the original game. While that game used 0’s engine, which was made for PS3 originally, Kiwami 2 uses the brand new, very pretty engine used for Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, which was released earlier this year. This game recreates just about everything in the original game, and adds a hell of a lot more. This feels so much like a brand new game to me that I considered just putting in on my main top 10, and honestly, the reason that I didn’t had less to do with the fear of breaking any non-existent rules about what qualifies for a year-end list, and more to do with the fact that The Song of Life was already on there, and I just wanted more space to talk about how much I love the shit out of Yakuza.

This game improves on Kiwami in just about every aspect. The main story is a lot more compelling, and it’s obvious that Yakuza 2 is tonally where this series really came into its own, with its so-serious-it’s-actually-kinda-funny Japanese gangster soap opera, mixed with deliberately silly as hell sub stories. In particular, there are two very deep and expansive side stories built around mini-games added to this game: the cabaret club management game borrowed and modified from 0 and the Majima construction clan battles borrowed and modified from The Song of Life. While I appreciated these in those respective games, something about the execution in this game just got me absolutely obsessed. Kiryu’s roll that he fits into with the misfit hostesses of the cabaret club and their scrappy underdog story is my happy place. The older professional wrestlers that play the mumbly, grumpy businessmen/fighters in the clan battle mini-game led to a couple of scenes that had me gleefully cackling out loud. Starting this game out, I had arguably already spent more than enough time playing Yakuza games over the last couple years, but it’s a testament to just how endearing this game is that after 40 or so hours of play, if Kiwami 3 were to suddenly be surprise announced and released, I would have been happy to jump straight into it.

[twobeardgaming]

I know this is a bit of a late review of a COD game with the attention on Black Ops 4 Beta, but this was review I wanted to get out. I have to start by saying me and Call of Duty have a bit of a love, hate relationship. Back in the days of Xbox 360 Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 were two of the greatest games of the period to me. This is most likely due to the fact the genius that is Vince Zampella and the Infinity Ward studio were behind the games, following on from his classic version of Medal of Honour Allied Assault (Medal of Honour quickly went downhill after he stopped working on the franchise for me).

The games that game out between and either side of these titles were made by Treyarch, were very average, and my attention turned back to the Modern Warfare series very quickly after their release. And that is just my problem. Since Infinity Ward stopped working on Call of Duty it just has not been as good. But that does not seem stop me buying each year’s incarnation…..

Every year I say “last years was ok, but I think I am done” But the hype train starts up. A few friends are like “are you getting COD?” I avoid pre-ordering and then like some sort of addict, release day comes round and I end up buying it – I should probably be ashamed of myself!

I have to say for the release of WWII I am actually impressed. It was a welcome return to “boots on the ground” after Infinite Warfare – to be honest I am not sure I even consider Infinite Warfare a Call of Duty game, flying round in a spaceship is not Call of Duty for me. Call of Duty is fast paced, adrenaline filled, visceral action. Or that is what I am hoping for. But that is enough about Infinite Warfare.

The campaign is based around Private Red Daniels, and the majority of it around the WW2 years of 1944 – 1945. As you play the part of Pvt. Daniels’ in the story, you progress through Europe from Normandy and through to the showdown in Germany fighting back the Nazi’s. Part of the story is how your squad support you and you use their special skills to support you, as you play a bigger part in supporting the Allied Forces. I like to play every campaign on Veteran difficulty. I find it adds at bit more challenge and longevity to the game and a bit more of a tactical edge. Rather than being able to just run around like John Rambo, which can make the experience quite short lived. From what I gather on standard difficulty you would probably be looking at 6 hours, on the hardest difficulty veteran, probably 8 – 10 hours.

Having played pretty much every previously released Call of Duty game, there was that feeling of deja vu about it. When I think back to WW2 games released around 10-15 years ago, certain level themes were a given. A D-Day landing level was about as sure as the sun sets to be in a game. And you could bet your bottom dollar at some point you would need to blow up a tank by sneaking up and planting explosives on the back of it, or having to run across a warzone to pick up a rocket launcher and a level where you would run through some trenches and blow up a/some anti air craft guns. Most of these clichés are here. But they have made a welcomed return with modern-day graphics applied to them.

The game plays in its usual silky smooth 60 fps. If you are playing on the Xbox One X or on the PS4 Pro you should see the benefits of HDR with improved clarity and the enhanced lighting and shadows.

In terms of the multiplayer game. There is fun to be had here, and the game is as fiercely competitive as it ever was. “Squading” up with friends is a great way to enjoy what is on offer. Most of the maps are well thought out and provide an enjoyable game. In the main, I found the game pretty refined for an online experience, but there are some issues.

At times you will lace someone in the back and get hit markers and they spin round and seem to kill you in one hit. I have noticed people hiding behind boxes/crates and you can only see your enemies head and shoulders, 3, 4 or 5 hits they can sometimes still be standing. It seems in all a bit strange bearing in mind how easy you can get killed – or maybe  I am just a bit crap! These issues, I assume are lag related, are not constant but can be frustrating.

Whilst I can stomach the previous grumble, the game can still be real fun, if I ever have one burning criticism of the series it would be the Call of Duty community. How parents are letting their children play 18 rated video games is beyond me, and I do not expect to have to listen to some squeaky kid giving it the big ‘un online. This can be rectified by muting them or being in party chat, or you can tell them where to go! But you still have people who play the game, in my view, “not in the spirit of the game” People who will happily sit on a stair case or in a corner with a mine and a shotgun all game or lie down in the corner of the map, I mean, really? – Come on it is a game, bloody play it! I am sure that was not the intention for game play when the game was designed.

Anyway enough of my gripes with the community, as you progress through the levels and obtain kills and complete challenges you gain XP for your character, gun and division. The division being a new area for you to gain XP for essentially adds another benefit or perk to your class. Character XP allows your character access to higher levelled guns or equipment and once you reach the top you will like previous games, be able to prestige and start the levelling up process again. Prestiging does have the benefit of opening up rare skins for your favourite weapons. Weapon XP allows you to attach certain attachments to you gun, less recoil, increased reaction, rapid fire, scope, extended mags etc You will want to open up some of these options quite quickly as the basic guns are often a big disadvantage.

There is now a hub area to obtain challenges, prestige and test guns on a firing range. Picking up and completing these challenges opens up additional XP to level up or titles or equipment to keep you interested in the proceedings. You can also give the firing range a go and test out your weaponry and any adjustments you may have made to them.

In terms of game modes on offer you will find every mode you would expect from a Call of Duty game. From the straight forward Team Deathmatch and Free for All to the objective driven modes Headquarters, Domination, Search and Destroy, Hardpoint, Kill Confirmed, and War. If you are feeling as though you have skills, you can also give ranked play a go.

If Co-Op gameplay is your thing. The Zombies mode is present again. The mode relies on you working with 4 team mates and trying to complement each other with your class choice whilst completing a number of objectives to progress through the game. Sometimes the objective is not clear, so reference to an online Wiki or playing some more experienced players may help. As much as I have bashed the community in this review, there were some pretty helpful people online when I was playing this mode, credit where credit is due.

Verdict

Make no mistake, this is a good game. I would go as far as saying it is a really good game, and if you are looking for a WW2 first person shooter this will certainly scratch that itch. It has almost relit my passion for Call of Duty (looks like I am back in for this year’s edition!) The nagging problem I have is what I mentioned in the first paragraph. Vince Zampella knows how to make an excellent first person shooter and if you are after an excellent first person shooter, rather than a war time first person shooter, I would plump for Titanfall 2 over this everyday (especially as you can pick it up for around £5.00!), but would happily recommend both to anyone keen on the first person genre.

A very solid 8/10

Genre: First person shooter Players: 1 Publisher: Bifrost Ent. Release: 03/11/2017 Format: Steam, PlayStation 4, Xbox One Current price £24.99

Revew – Call Of Duty: WW2 (Xbox One) I know this is a bit of a late review of a COD game with the attention on Black Ops 4 Beta, but this was review I wanted to get out.

[mlpextremelover]

Haifuri

“Haifuri” aka “High School Fleet” aka “That One Show That’s Like ‘Girls und Panzer’ But Is Different From ‘Girls und Panzer’ Because They Operate Battleships Instead Of Tanks” has conquered every part of my brain. I find myself in the middle of the night thinking about Haifuri: Did I like it? Did I hate it? Remember when that thing happened? etc. This show has managed to occupy my every thought process and I need an outlet. Normally I like to keep reviews spoiler free but that simply cannot be the case this time. Get ready for my longest review yet.

I’m gonna start with what I enjoyed from the show. The animation is solid, each character is unique and recognizable, movements are fluid for the most part, the battleship design is cool, and the interior shots/settings are really neat. The battle scenes are surprisingly well done; we see each compartment of the ship performing their individual tasks and coming together to overcome hardships (pun intended). What I enjoyed even more was when battles aren't happening. Much like Girls and Panzer, the show excels in its amusing slice of life moments. Dealing with problems like running out of water and putting on festivals give depth to the show and personality to the crew. "That girl who fires the torpedo" "Those three that does the cooking" and "Trumpet player" start to have names that you remember, friends they hang with, emotions they express, hobbies they enjoy...etc. Whoever wrote the show understands that supporting characters with personality is the difference between a fictional world that's alive and one that's not.

Now on to the parts I didn’t particularly enjoy or is straight up confusing. Last night I compiled a list of things in Haifuri that bothered me, spoiler ahead.

1. Mike (me·keh) and Moka

       Mike(Misaki) is our main protagonist and captain of the ship, and Moka(Moeka) is her childhood friend and captain of another(much bigger) ship. The story mainly revolves around the fact that Moka’s ship is in distress and Mike wanting to save her friend. The premise is fine... Except I literately don’t give two shits about Moka. Moka is a prime example of why the “childhood friend” trope is one of the dumbest things in anime. In the first episode we have Mike and Moka as children and it shows the two of them sharing the dream of becoming “Blue Mermaids” who protect the sea. In subsequent episodes we get some flashbacks of Moka expressing her view that “everyone on the ocean is family”, an ideology in which Mike adopts. We get excessive shots of Mike looking worried about Moka. And that’s it. Moka literately have no personality other than “childhood friend of Mike”. Imagine being at a party and the people you talk to only talk about their other friends who isn’t at the party. That’s what it feels like when it comes to Mike and Moka. Mike on the other hand, does get some character development. That being said, out of every other character on the ship (there’s 32 total including the cat), Mike managed to be the most bland and brain dead of them all. She’s in the protagonist role simply because it’s easy for audiences to project onto her blank personality and insert themselves into the show instead. Her most notable trait is that she’s afraid of lightning due to a tragic event in the past. Luckily the show tend to give more screen time to more eccentric characters in the grand scheme of things. 

2. One-liners

       “The wind is blowing, the wind of hope” said Moka in a room with the windows closed and door barricaded. This line of dialog completely ruined what’s otherwise a decent action sequence. “Tama, fire with your soul” (it’s a pun when spoken in japaneses) and “With this shot, we’ll grab our chance” are just some other glorious eye-rolling one-liners in this show. Anyways, these really don’t detriment the show all that much but are still worth mentioning. 

3. Flashbacks

       Flashbacks, when used correctly is one of the best story telling mechanisms out there. Sadly, it’s been used much more frequently as a way to avoid actual good story telling. If something truly important had happened in the past then it’s almost always better to show it in the beginning rather than in the middle. If you did it correctly the audience wouldn’t even need a reminder in the form of a flashback. I’m referring to Mike afraid of lightning and her relationship with Moka. Instead of sprinkling bits of flashback throughout the series and frequent reminders of who Moka is; I truly believe the story would flow a lot better if we got the whole first episode dedicated to Mike’s past and Moka, where Haifuri begins in the present time should be mid-episode 2. This way I might connect better with Mike as a main character and give a damn about Moka. 

4. Why things went wrong

       This is a major spoiler point. This whole mess is due to some magical virus carried by rats that infected the instructor’s ship and surrounding ships. A zombie-like virus that controls the host to be hostile against the uninfected. The doctor on board, due to her character trait as a genius found the antibody/cure. Oh, and in early stages of infection spraying the infected with sea water would also do the trick. Like... wtf. It’s not how viruses, geniuses, antibodies or seawater work. But, whatever, it’s a show that’s meant to be entertaining so this is just me nitpicking. Still... Wouldn’t the instructor purposefully sabotaging the students in hopes of framing the principal to gain power made for a more logical and dramatic plot? 

5. Logic

     If you have any common sense then there are points in the show where you’ll go “Why?”, “How?”, “What??”, “k, that just happened.” or a mixture of those reactions. The most notable one is in episode 4 when a crew member got infected and is going crazy so the German deputy captain straight up throws her into the ocean. Ok... the impact should’ve killed her. However not only did it not kill her, she just magically gets shot back up onto the ship by the ocean “Moana” style and is no longer infected due to being in contact with saltwater. (O.O) HOW??? That sequence of events has kept me up at night, I’m so baffled by it that I’m losing sleep. Another lesser wtf anime moment is one of the Blue Mermaid captain got these robotic looking cat ears on her head. Like, why does she have those? Nobody else in the entire show is wearing robotic cat ears. Is it a fashion statement? Do those serve a purpose? The show doesn’t even acknowledge them once but they’re there!! Again, I’m left wondering.

6. Marketing/Other

       This anime is so poorly and confusingly marketed. It’s initially called “Haifuri” but on MAL it’s “High School Fleet”. It was released last year and i somehow completely missed it. It’s a ghost of an anime. Several sources have conflicting information as to if it’s an anime original or based off of a manga. The VA for the main German character that threw the indestructible girl off the boat has voiced several characters in hentai. <--This isn’t a negative point, just something interesting I wanted to mention.

7. Right things at the wrong time

       There were several instances of this in the show but I’ll only mention the most aggravating one here: So the Blue Mermaids has this oath that they chant which goes “Live on the sea. Protect the sea. Sail the sea”. It’s honestly kinda cool. Anyways, Mike and Moka always say this to each other as kids and it’s real sweet and cute and stuff. At one point mid-battle Mike and the other main characters each say a part of the oath and it actually sent a chill down my spine. This was such a cool/symbolic moment for these characters. Mike only ever said the oath with Moka but in that moment you realize she’s no longer  saying to herself but with h̶e̶r̶ ̶c̶r̶e̶w̶  her new family. This fantastic moment only happened once, and it wasn’t even that big of a battle. Instead of something like this during the finally we instead get Moka’s “The wind is blowing, the wind of hope”: a shitty one-liner from a character with no development. 

8. German

       I don’t speak German, and I don’t need to in order to wince at the German spoken in this anime. I can’t really fault anybody here since it’s probably asking too much for native Japanese speakers to nail German lines. 

9. No introduction

       Out of the 32 characters on the main ship in Haifuri, only like 8 of them got somewhat proper introductions. This is not an objectively negative point toward Haifuri but I can easily see how it might agitate viewers. I personally found it neat that I got to know side characters over time through familiarity, but for others this may be a hassle. At some points I had to pull up the wiki after seeing a character and wondering “what do you do here again?”. For me this is actually a positive trait, the show wasn’t going to introduce 32 characters one by one so it instead did something neat and gave you the “first day in a classroom” feeling. 

10. Exposition

       The world setting of Haifuri is given through exposition. However it was a neat moment I had upon realizing that the city beneath the ocean at the coast is the sunken remains of modern day Japan and not Rapture.     

You might think that  with all these negative points I must have had a terrible time with Haifuri, but it’s quite the opposite. I for the most part very much enjoyed watching Haifuri. It’s madly entertaining compared to the majority of animes out there. These negative points are more so pet peeves of mine than real negatives that truly ruins a show. And to be honest, I derived quite a bit of enjoyment from these nitpicks. In the end the ship crew of Haifuri really made an impact to me and it’s an anime that I’m unlikely to forget. 7.5/10 

[yogaadvise]

What Elizabeth Gilbert`s New Book `Big Magic` Can Teach Us About Fear

Although I've been a functioning author for virtually three years, virtually whenever I rest down to compose something, I become Stuart Smalley's evil twin, flogging myself with the anti-affirmation, 'I'm unsatisfactory, I'm not wise sufficient, as well as, gosh darn it, individuals aren't going to like this.'

I'm not the only innovative individual who locates themselves scaling a mountain of concern and hesitancy each time they get fracturing on a brand-new task. (I desire I could state I bask in this, however I don't.) I've fulfilled many actors, artists, writers, artists, visuals designers-and numerous other individuals that desire be-who are as likewise hurt. For example, when I interviewed Reese Witherspoon concerning her recent well-known efficiency as a recouping heroin and sex addict in Cheryl Strayed's memoir-turned-movie Wild, the Oscar winner trusted that she was virtually paralyzed by instability as the initial day of shooting approached.

' Every single time I begin a new [ motion picture], I'm horrified,' Witherspoon said. 'I desire to vomit, often I have panic assaults. You get that pit in your tummy, like you're not going to be able to do it, which you're going to be asked to do something you can not accomplish.'

And when I spoke to John Taylor, bass player for Duran Duran, he stated that complying with every one of his mega success as a participant of among the largest bands of the 80s, he invested years saddled by anxiousness that he 'had not been the actual thing.'

' I keep in mind coming to be actually familiar with all those session musicians as well as a small amount embarrassed of my very own playing style,' he claims. 'It almost made me wish to go and also conceal away. Among the worst traits you could get is self-conscious.'

Turns out, Eat Pray Love writer Elizabeth Gilbert-the worldwide-bestselling writer of the beloved travel and also self-discovery memoir (and also its followup, Committed, and also the well-known unique The Signature of All Traits)- has actually additionally invested years vanquishing her own self-doubt satanic forces and also coaxing out her imaginative side. At the same time, she's come to be something of a specialist. In 2009, she offered a TED talk on locating 'Your Elusive Creative Genius', at 10 million sights, it places as one of one of the most watched of perpetuity. After that earlier this year, she took to the roadway with Oprah on the mogul's The Life You Want Weekend tour, resolving readers concerning the significance of daring to be strong, charting your very own life training course, and discovering how to overlook your fears.

' Your concern is one of the most monotonous feature of you,' she stated throughout a talk that I view on YouTube for ideas whenever I'm determined to obtain a publication cover tale or publication proposal over the coating line. 'Additionally, these are specifically the very same concerns that everybody that has actually ever before completed a book-or created anything-feels. To puts it simply, your anxieties are simply regular old mass-produced, made-in-China, sold-at-Walmart fears-nothing penalty or valuable or artisanal concerning them.' As well as additionally: 'Fear just ever before informs you one point: quit. Whereas creativity, nerve, and ideas only ever before desire you to go. I want us all liberated from the course of fear, for numerous factors - but mostly since it creates such a damn boring life.'

To that end, Gilbert has published a brand-new publication, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, a go-and-get-it overview that allows us a glimpse right into her very own job procedure, in addition to her thoughts on exactly how concepts and ideas are born and also materialize. It also works as a pointer that, although she's sold 12 million copies of Eat Pray Love, Gilbert coincides as us: She has a continuous friend in worry. The difference is, she's discovered to approve its omnipresence and also obtains on with business of developing her art (in this case, writing) anyhow. Below, some of her Magic concepts and also tips that I have actually located to be especially effective.

' If you are alive, you are an imaginative person.'

Reading Huge Magic, I typically found myself amazed by exactly how Gilbert had handled to occupy residency in my head as well as unpack so several of the writing-related stress and anxieties I had kept up there. There's that continuous irritating sensation that I'm a fraud. It does not matter that I have evidence to the contrary through years of published write-ups, I still often ask myself just how I have the audacity to think I can achieve whatever it is I'm concerning to do. The entire time I was composing my 80s songs narrative history, Mad World, I 'd get one songs publication after another and also admire the work of 'genuine' authors, something I never ever pictured I could ever before really be. Apparently, this is a preferred concern among innovative types (see John Taylor's tension re: not being 'the genuine point'). In advising us that all us modern humans share an ancestry of makers-' decorators, tinkers, storytellers, professional dancers, explorers, fiddlers, drummers, home builders, cultivators, problem-solvers as well as embellishers'- Gilbert emphasizes that anyone with a pulse has it in their DNA to be imaginative. 'The guardians of high society will certainly try and also convince you that the arts belong just to a picked few,' she creates, 'however they are wrong as well as they are likewise frustrating.' The next time we are falling victim to the fallacy that we have no right to call ourselves creative, 'for paradise's purpose, a minimum of protect on your own!' Gilbert states. 'Protecting on your own as an innovative person begins by specifying yourself. Stand high and claim it aloud: 'I'm an author.' 'I'm a singer.' 'I'm a garden enthusiast.' 'I'm a professional dancer.' 'I'm a developer.' Hearing this news, your heart will mobilize appropriately.'

' Imagination is a path for the take on, but it is not a course for the fearless.'

Gilbert has actually pertained to approve that creativity as well as fear are 'adjoined doubles': any place the former goes, the latter is right there next to it. 'If your goal is to be fearless, after that I believe you're on the wrong course,' she says, 'because the only genuinely courageous people I've ever before fulfilled were straight-up psychotics and a few incredibly negligent three-year-olds.' Plus, advancement has actually configured our anxiety to secure and guide us off of circumstances with unclear outcomes, for 'anxiety dislikes unpredictable outcome.' In various other words, our fear is here to remain, so Gilbert recommends we stop spending so much energy and time aiming to do away with it. 'The much less I combat my anxiety, the less it fights back,' she creates. 'If I could kick back, are afraid loosens up as well.' Additionally, stop allowing concern fool you into assuming it has superhero powers, in reality, the only power it has is the one you believe it has. Whenever fear bullies you, advise it that it's just False Evidence Showing up Real.

' You're not needed to conserve the world with your creativity.'

' You're constantly out for the gold star,' claims my pal and Mad World collaborator, Jonathan Bernstein, that never appears to have any kind of trouble writing his television reviews as well as star profiles. He consistently produces dazzling, typically cackle-out-loud duplicate, and in no time at all flat. When it comes to me, a.k.a. Ms. Perfect, Ms. A +, I compose like my life depends upon it-which, allow's face it, it does not. States Gilbert: 'Worldwide where you and also I live'- i.e., not contemporary Iraq, Nigeria or North Korea-' the stakes of our imaginative expression are low.' As the songwriter Tom Waits as soon as informed Gilbert: 'The only point I actually do is make jewelry for the within of people's minds. That's all.' While innovative failure may bruise our vanity, do not mistake that for genuine risk. And also by the method: Just what is innovative failing anyway? So we didn't market the painting or obtain that part in the play-that doesn't imply we failed. By being innovative in any way, we have actually succeeded. Which leads me to the next point ...

' Attempt stating this: I enjoy my creative thinking.'

When you're staring down a due date or have faced a relatively blockaded imaginative obstacle, anxiety suddenly changes right into Godzilla, roaring 'I informed you so!' causing you to meekly sigh: 'You're right-I needs to've never taken this on.' Anxiety desires you to believe that your creative work is a drag and also a task, it would certainly like absolutely nothing more for you to give up as well as provide up. Do not! 'I started informing myself that I appreciated my job,' Gilbert says. 'I declared that I appreciated every solitary aspect of my imaginative endeavors-the agony and also the euphoria, the success and also the failure, the pleasure and the shame, the droughts as well as the work.' Doing something could seem radical. We innovative kinds like to hem and also haw-where do you believe the term 'tortured artist' comes from? If you find yourself going down this dismal path, that's when you have to, in the words of supervisor Werner Herzog (whom Gilbert estimates in the book): 'Quit your whining and return to function.' Due to the fact that nothing prevents worry like placing your nose to the grindstone. Gilbert's book is called Big Magic, neither spells, prayers, nor finger breaks are going to help any of us reach our imaginative goals. For Reese Witherspoon, it took seeing a therapist to allow her to provide such a naked (both metaphorical and also actual) efficiency in Wild. For John Taylor, it took discovering a champ in 'Stylish Funk' producer/musician Mark Ronson to aid him regain his bass-playing prowess. For me, it takes the day-to-day heeding of the William Wordsworth quote I have taped to my computer screen: 'To begin, start.'

[comiconverse]

Game Review: Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward

Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward is a mystery interactive novel and the sequel to Zero Escape: 999. It’s available on PlayStation Vita, Nintendo 3DS and has just been re-released on PlayStation 4 and PC as part of The Nonary Games bundle pack. Alan Stock figures out whodunnit this time in a spoiler-free review for ComiConverse.

Game Review: Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward

The unlucky cast of Virtue’s Last Reward. Credit: Chunsoft

After loving Zero Escape’s premier title, 999 – Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, I couldn’t wait to play the sequel and continue this crazy tale. But there was one problem: I didn’t have a Vita or 3DS to play it on. So with squirming anticipation I impatiently waited for the PC port which has finally arrived. The Nonary Games bundle recently released for PC and PlayStation 4 includes both 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward, remastered with slightly better graphics and small improvements over the originals. You can read my review of 999 here – and you should definitely play it first, as Virtue’s Last Reward contains many spoilers and references to 999 which will definitely diminish the impact of that classic story for you, and some of the events will be confusing without the first game to provide context.

One of VLR’s many “escape rooms”. Credit: Chunsoft

  Virtue’s Last Reward (we’ll call it VLR) is firmly in the interactive novel genre. That means a lot of reading text and listening to dialogue, interspersed with a bit of puzzle solving. This game is massive compared to 999 – it’s a much slower paced game and you’re looking at around 30-40 hours at least, if you want to experience all of the story. But like 999, the writing, premise and complex plot are so good that you’ll find yourself unable to put it down as you unravel all its mysteries. I’ll be going a bit more in-depth than usual in this review as there’s so much to talk about regarding the story, but will keep things spoiler free as the plot is full of twists and revelations.

Silly costumes abound, as evidenced with smug git Dio, who only seems to care about himself. Credit: Chunsoft

VLR sees a rehash of the events of 999 in a different setting. Nine seemingly random people are abducted and wake in a strange facility, imprisoned by the mysterious Zero (identity unknown) and forced to play the deadly “Nonary Game”. They will be forever trapped until one of them opens the Number 9 Door allowing at least one of them to escape. In order do that, they are funneled into puzzle “escape” rooms – after solving them they gain access to the “Ambidex Game”. Win 9 points in the Ambidex game and you can leave through the Number 9 Door, but it only opens once and only the winners can go through – leaving everyone else to rot forever.

The players congregate around the sacred Number 9 Door – their only route to escape. Credit: Chunsoft

The Ambidex game is a version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma in which the players can choose to Ally or Betray each other, with the votes made in isolation. If each Ally they both gain points, but choosing Betray if your opposite number chooses Ally gets you more points, and punishes the Allying player too. Co-operation to Ally should get everyone out alive, but each character has their own motivations. Mistrust is heavy in the air with events taking twists and turns including murder, the revelation that one of them is probably Zero, and the announcement that the bracelets they’ve been fitted with will inject a deadly poison should they disobey the rules or reach zero points. How will the players get out of this situation, who will get out alive, and just what the heck is going on? They are compelling reasons to keep playing Virtue’s Last Reward and uncover the truth behind it all.

One of the many interesting scientific conundrums the game discusses, usually requiring a lengthy explanation from one of the players but in an easy to understand way. Credit: Chunsoft

You play as Sigma, a young, normal chap who’s one of the unfortunate nine players. You get to see his thoughts and feelings as he reacts to the situation and chats to the other players, and occasionally you get to choose dialogue responses. You also get to make bigger decisions like whether to Ally or Betray other players, or choose which doors to go through. Like 999, at regular intervals in VLR the players are forced to go through coloured doors in the facility to reach puzzle rooms, but due to the colours of their bracelets they can only enter these in certain combinations of players. It’s a clever idea but not as ingenious or well integrated into the plot as the mind-blowing number bracelet system of 999. Anyway, this means that you will always be paired with different people for each room, allowing you to learn more about those characters in the process.

Credit: Chunsoft

The locked rooms are classic Escape game puzzle environments and are well designed, tying in nicely to the themes of the game and the setting. This time around, it’s a fully 3D environment that you explore from a first person viewpoint rather than static screens which makes for some nice immersion. Once again, a clunky inventory system hinders matters somewhat. Puzzles are nothing revolutionary but enjoyable enough – the difficulty is definitely up a notch from 999, with some puzzles very tricky, and others veering towards frustration. For the most part they’re good, but I had to use a guide in a few places for solutions which were left a bit too open to interpretation. There’s two difficulty settings – on Easy you get progressively detailed hints from your companions, on Hard you’re on your own. A flaw in VLR is that by finishing a room on Hard you can earn a reward in the form of extra files, giving more background story and game development tidbits, so you won’t want to miss them. But there’s nothing stopping you from cheating the system by playing a room on Easy and then just replaying it on Hard, already knowing the solution. I played without hints but when I tried them, I found they gave you the actual answers way too quickly anyway. Still, the puzzle rooms offer a nice change of pace from the story and there’s plenty of them, too.

Exploring the Rec Room, one of the puzzle rooms. Credit: Chunsoft

For the rest of the time though, you’ll be immersed in the story. Like 999, it’s is quite melodramatic, with a heavy dose of sci-fi/thriller and is full of twists and turns. It does border on the ludicrous and silly at times, going a bit overboard even compared to 999’s crazy plot revelations. But it’s all engrossing if you take it with a punch of salt and enjoy it for the imaginative and surprising events which often take you by surprise. There’s a big emphasis on scientific principles, philosophy and a lot of genius, mind-bending ideas which are sprinkled throughout the story. The setting is a disappointment though, the characterless facility lacking the intrigue of 999’s sinking cruise liner.

The girl you first meet, Phi, is a real mystery. She’s well written for the most part and has a great voice actor (in English, anyway) who really grows on you. Credit: Chunsoft

VLR is much lighter in tone than 999 was in both visuals and writing – so although there’s plenty of suspense, there’s a lot less darkness to the plot, less gore and a lot more wit and lightheartedness instead. There’s plenty of humour which is fun, but it feels out of place at times considering the player’s dire circumstances. Unfortunately, all of this reduces the tension a lot. In 999 the players had 9 hours before they would all die, and something critical or horrible happened at regular intervals. Your choices really felt like they mattered too. In VLR there’s no deadly time limit and less urgency and dread overall. Apparently it was a conscious decision by the publisher, who thought the horror aspect of the first game put off the Japanese market. Instead, VLR is more of a slow burn game, with occasional punctuations of action and high drama. This is a shame, but I found that I was still engaged enough by the plot and mysteries that I didn’t mind the slower pace.

Zero Jr, an AI rabbit who introduces players to the game, typifies the different, more lighthearted approach in VLR. Almost gone is the menace of 999 with it’s sinister masked Zero and the threat of death around every corner. Thankfully, apparently the reigns were taken off again for the third game in the trilogy, Zero Time Dilemma. Credit: Chunsoft

A game like this lives or dies on its characters, and fortunately they are pretty good. The writing’s strong, with a great translation job by the same company that did 999. The players are rendered in a cartoonish 3D, although from its mobile roots the animations are simple and stiff, and lip synching is way off, at least with the English dub. Still, it’s a big step up from 999 to have characters expressing themselves in real time. The characters are mostly likeable and intriguing and some of their endings are great, shedding completely new light onto them. But there’s still lapses and ludicrous behaviour on display, such as a total lack of interest in each other and their reason for being there at the start of the game, and their witty and sometimes creepy jokes in moments of high drama.The voice acting is mixed, but there’s some great performances in there, especially the weird rabbit AI of Zero Junior, who although tonally a strange fit for the game, brings a great amount of character (and sadly is rarely seen during the later stages). On the topic of sound, the music is also great, hitting the perfect note of sci-fi intrigue and creepiness, catchy tunes in puzzle rooms and ramping up to just the right scale for big reveals and moments of drama.

Credit: Chunsoft

What makes Virtue’s Last Reward and the whole Zero Escape series so special is their fragmented storylines. On your first playthrough, you will probably hit either a “Game Over” screen (maybe you die or someone else escapes), or you’ll reach an annoying “To Be Continued” screen. At this point, you’re shown a huge flow-chart of the story showing your route and other routes which are filled with question marks. From here you can jump to any major decision point in the storyline that you’ve found, or re-visit story and puzzle segments. This means you can now go back in time and make a different decision. You could Betray someone instead of Allying with them, or perhaps choose to go through a different door with different companions. A much welcome quick-skip feature allows you to quickly fast-forward through dialogue you’ve already seen, and this along with the flow-chart makes the replayability much smoother than the original 999. It’s worth noting though that a flow chart like this has also been added to the Nonary Games re-release of 999, fixing one of the big issues I had with that game in my review.

Part of the story flow-chart. I can only give credit to the script writer and game director Kotaro Uchikoshi for managing to create a compelling branching plot this complex. Just look at it! Credit: Chunsoft

So the story unfolds as you replay the game again and again, making different decisions each time. You’ll see whole new plot threads by taking different routes, learn more about the players, discover new puzzle rooms and ultimately start to solve some of the hundreds of mysteries the story throws at you. It’s an amazing structure for a number of reasons. With each playthrough, you’ll learn more about what’s going on, the motivations of the players, and nuggets of information about the grander schemes involved. This casts light on things you’ve seen on previous runs, making for some great puzzle piecing together as you start to connect the dots.

Choices, choices… Credit: Chunsoft

This information gained from multiple playthroughs also ties into the structure – the annoying “To Be Continued” screens act as locked gates which can only be breached once you have learned information from other runs – but once you do unlock them, it all makes sense why this is. There’s nine “real” endings (one for each player) and multiple Game Over endings to find, but they’re mostly locked away, meaning info from one ending can gain you progress in another thread to reach a different ending. For example, you might find a computer with a password you don’t know the answer to, ending that story thread temporarily, but discover the password in a different playthrough, allowing you to jump back to that point in time and progress using what you’ve learned. By carrying on in this way, you’ll finally uncover the last secrets of the Nonary Game. The word “ending” is a bit of misnomer in VLR, as each ending is really just a stepping stone on the way to the “real end”. It’s an ingenious structure that builds on what made 999’s story so great.

The character “K” in his silly robot suit is a bit of an enigma. He claims to have amnesia and doesn’t know who he is. Who lies under that suit? Of course, the other players don’t trust him one bit to begin with. Credit: Chunsoft

The multiple mysteries about the Nonary Game, the facility and who the players really are keep you guessing and adapting your whodunnit theories as you play through the events again and again. For example on one run you might suspect a player of being Zero, the next you learn something that completely changes your mind and pushes suspicion onto someone else. It’s a mind-boggling array of jigsaw pieces which fit together in multiple ways until you eventually start coming close to a final, correct solution. The cool thing is that for each person playing Virtue’s Last Reward, the experience will be different depending on which order they experience events in.

The bracelets in VLR are not as cleverly thought out as the ones in 999. In this game their colours change “randomly” between Ambidex Games allowing the plot to put together the character combinations that it needs. It’s nitpicky to point this out but the system in 999 was so clever and well integrated with the story its hard not to be a bit disappointed at the bracelet system in this one. Credit: Chunsoft

Although the flow-chart structure of the game is well executed and ties into the overall plot very cleverly, it does have some flaws. First of all the question marks scattered over the chart give you too much indication about how much story lies down each decision path, and it spoils the mystery of where the most interesting choices lie. It can be disheartening to see just how much you still have left to uncover. Secondly, it creates pacing and continuity problems. The ability to jump into any point of the action and to the critical path “locked gates” means that a lot of the dramatic moments and reveals can be seen in a disjointed way, depending on the order in which you view them. You could easily have a long period of slow mystery, uncovering puzzle rooms and hitting “To Be Continued” screens, and then find the “keys” to unlock multiple plot gates in quick succession, bringing epic drama and revelations one after the other in a mighty deluge, lessening their impact.

The Ambidex Game is a cool idea and the amount of points that each player has affect all of their decisions. Unfortunately, although initially the decision whether to Ally or Betray is agonising at first, it’s a shame that you end up having to pick both options eventually anyway, removing the sense of consequence and making voting more of an excercise in curiosity. Credit: Chunsoft

Although the disorientation of jumping around the narrative fits with the themes and the plot, it’s gets annoying because it’s easy to forget what led up to that particular decision point. In 999 you were forced to play through the game from start to finish each time. The ability to jump around the plot is a huge improvement – but you lose the sense of continuity as a result. I ended up replaying whole story segments before decisions that I jumped back to, so I could remember what was going on. Things can get a bit repetitive – you’ll get pretty tired of seeing the same old rooms and backgrounds again and again, and slightly different variations of discussions about who should go through which door. You’ll see the same events played out time and time again but in slightly different ways. Until you start to get the “real” endings, there’s also frustrating lack of closure as you come across repeated Game Over and To Be Continued screens. But like Groundhog Day, there’s a satisfaction to be had in knowing the location and events inside out as you replay and learn more and more about what’s been going on during the game’s timeline.

Embarassing titillation tactics continue in this game with the absurd clothes and figures of Clover and Alice, helping to undermine the seriousness of the plot and distract in more ways than one. There’s a slightly creepy pervy undertone in a few of the things the characters say too, although it is self-referential to this within the game. Credit: Chunsoft

Regarding the Nonary Games version of Virtue’s Last Reward – technically, the graphics aren’t going to win any awards, it just offers better resolution graphics but the basic environments and characters are always going to be of a fairly basic handheld quality. It’s certainly not the prettiest game anyway, with lots of drab, grimy environments as befits the setting that do get tiresome. As a PC port, it’s a poor show in general. Controls and the inventory are cumbersome and although the mouse lets you do almost everything, there hasn’t been a good adaptation from the touch screen controls of the handheld version. This means moving the camera is laborious and although the memo system which lets you take notes is a nice feature, it hasn’t been reworked for the PC, making it slow and awkward. I had to run the game at very low settings even on my decent laptop to get a decent frame rate, the overall optimisation is poor. Additionally, the price is quite high for the bundle considering these are both old games with mediocre ports (although the 999 port is supposed to be a fair bit better than the original).

It’s hardly a graphical tour-de-force but like many good games, how it looks doesn’t matter. Credit: Chunsoft

But you won’t care about graphics once you get into this dense web of intrigue and suspense. You’ll want to the secrets behind the Nonary Game. Who are the players, really?

Who is Zero?

Where is the facility?

Why are you being forced to play a deadly game?

Why does Zero leave you odd information about the world outside? Why was someone murdered and who did it? Why are you solving puzzles and voting against each other? You replay the same events again and again making different decisions, seeing how things change, piecing the puzzle together. Half of the fun is playing detective as you play, I had paper sheets full of unanswered questions and theories. If you just revisit each decision point with no pause for thought, you’ll uncover the truth eventually but you’ll miss out on the fun of puzzling things out for yourself.

This is a great work of narrative that you won’t be able to let rest. It’s an admirable sequel for a story that must have been very hard to follow up on (whilst still making sense) and it ties nicely into 999. Virtue’s Last Reward may not be as clean and clever a story as 999 but it expands well on its ideas, and still comes out with one of the best stories in videogames which will surprise you even after thirty hours of play. It’s quality stuff and I can’t wait to get on with the third, and final game of the series, which I’ll review soon: Zero Time Dilemma.

  The post Game Review: Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward appeared first on ComiConverse.

[justincudahy]

The Sound and Music of the Last of Us

             I’m an Xbox fanboy. What does that mean? It means that I’m biased and ignorant when it comes to gaming. I only purchase and play Xbox products, and hold a grudge on other gaming systems such as PlayStation, Nintendo and PC. It’s not a good attitude to have, and we should probably be celebrating the gaming industry instead of starting console wars on forums comparing every single aspect there is to each respective gaming system. Despite my narrow-minded views, I still like to give credit where credit is due. For example, I believe PC gaming is the best system in terms of visual achievement. PCs can hit 60 FPS, 4k graphics, meanwhile the majority of Xbox One games can only hit 1080p, 30 FPS if lucky. I think the Nintendo Wii was genius, since it revolutionized what has now become motion free gaming, which Xbox and PlayStation have finally adapted to. Unfortunately, the Kinect for Xbox and Move for PlayStation ultimately failed, and could never replicate what Nintendo could achieve. So, where am I getting at here? Well, I’ve complimented all the popular gaming systems except the PlayStation. PlayStation is the only system outside of Xbox that I mildly respect, and for good reason. Both consoles are basically the same exact thing. Same controller layout, same graphic capabilities, interfaces, etc. However, where they differ is their exclusives. Basically, both companies strike deals with game publishers to release games only for their console, making it exclusive. For example, some of the exclusives for Xbox include Gears of War, The Halo Series, and The Forza Series. Meanwhile, PlayStation has games such as Little Big Planet, Bloodborne, Uncharted, etc. PlayStation also has The Last of Us, as an exclusive, and that breaks my heart being an Xbox owner. Since its release back in 2013, The Last of Us has earned the reputation of being one of the greatest games of all time. It’s won over 120 awards, including Game of the Year honors and currently maintains a score of 95 out of 100 on Metacritic. It has sold 3.4 million copies in its first three weeks of release, becoming one of the best-selling PlayStation 3 games of all-time. Can you see why I’m upset now?

           Yes, The Last of Us is a great game. Seriously, there were times where I considered buying a PlayStation just to play The Last of Us. Unfortunately, I can only rely on Let’s Plays to get a piece of the experience, which I suppose will suffice. Why has it become so reputable over the last four years? What does a game have to do to be crowned “Game of the Year”? It needs an interesting and well-told plot, smooth and addicting gameplay, graphics, content, AI that work… the list goes on. Another critical aspect is the sound design and music, which The Last of Us executed perfectly. So much so, out of the 120+ awards, 10 of them were in the category of “Best SFX/Score”, which means something.

           How important is sound design and effects? According to Jonathan Lanier, Senior Audio Programmer for the game believes that, “So much of the experience is sold through audio”, and he’s right. When it comes to establishing a certain emotion, or feeling, maybe things help evoke that feeling. The dialogue, atmosphere, characters, and sounds. Sound effects are often overlooked and underappreciated in video games, because it is easy to miss, but can have a large impact. For example, one of the variants of infected in The Last of Us is an enemy type called “Clickers”. When you first hear that rapid clicking layered with the sounds of moaning, it confuses the player. It’s peculiar, but also unsettling. The origin of how that sound came to be was explained in the video, and was very interesting. The audio team was sitting around in a room trying to think of what kind of noises they can use so that players could hear it in the game and automatically associate it with a certain enemy. After playing around with their throats trying to produce the best sound they can create, they were able to record the perfect one. To replicate the sound, they had use the back of their throat, making a sound almost like a creaky gate or door. Add a few short clicks and there you have it. Now that you have this weird and annoying sound, how can this be put in as a means of scaring the player? Lannier tells us in the video that the way to do so is to first introduce the soundscape as a way of allowing players to know what certain enemies sound like. Later in the game, you reintroduce that sound, but this time from behind a doorway or somewhere you can’t see. When this is done, the brain automatically triggers a response throughout the rest of the body, creating fear. The same can be done for other different genres as well. “It’s Hitchcock-ian, it’s more about psychology, about what’s happening in the audioscape rather than what you are seeing.” When I first heard Lannier explain this process, my mind automatically reminded me of the game Fallout 4. The game is set in the future, in post-war Boston. Landscapes are littered with rust and decay, people and animals have transformed due to radiation, and it feels like humanity has been sucked dry. Let me bring back those people that I mentioned before. Due to the high radiation in the environment, these “people” evolved into enemies called “super mutants” who are extremely aggressive and will attack anyone on site. Of these mutants, there are variants of this enemy that differ from one another based on size, weapon, etc. One of these variants is called “super mutant suiciders”, which you can probably guess by the name, will try and take you out by also taking themselves out. They wield a bomb, that beeps, and the closer it gets to you, the quicker that beeping gets before it finally detonates. So, you can imagine what my reaction is like when I’m wandering around the wasteland minding my business, and then all of a sudden I hear a beep off-screen that is getting louder and faster. You panic, and look all around trying to figure out where it’s coming from so that you can confront it from a distance and survive. Fallout, like The Last of Us, uses this kind of sound design to its advantage, but evoking certain emotions to the extreme, whether it’s fear, laughter, sadness, etc.

           Apart from sound design and effects, another important part of The Last of Us is its music. It’s what drives the emotion in a game, and without it, there is no effect. Academy Award winner Gustavo Santaolalla composed the game’s soundtrack, which won numerous awards, and for good reason. The theme for The Last of Us keeps to the basics, utilizing only guitar for the melody and is accompanied by a subtle, yet powerful timpani that helps build it up throughout. It’s mesmerizing to listen to, and extremely effective. While creating this theme and rest of the soundtrack, Santaolalla asked himself “What is the minimal that you need so that you can pull of what you are trying to achieve…less is more, it’s not about the dialogue and exposition inside a scene, sometimes it’s the look in a character’s eye. Same with audio. Strip it all away, then when it hits, it is impactful.” The soundtrack fits perfectly with the game’s theme and environment, which only adds to the experience. Once again, this same technique applies to all games, with some being able to pull it off better than others. I will use The Fallout Series this time as another example as to how they could make their audio so effective for players. One of the coolest aspects of the game is the environment. As I mentioned earlier, it takes place in a post-apocalyptic future, where technology has advanced, but media and culture hasn’t. As a result, the game’s soundtrack consists of oldies dating back to the 1950s and ‘60s. After toggling to the game’s radio station on the menu, you are immediately welcomed by music from The Ink Spots, Dean Martin, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, and many more. Yes, the series also creates their own score for its games, which are just as powerful, but in this case, the soundtrack is the clear winner. It is evident that each one of the songs was chosen by developers for a specific reason, because of how well it fits into the games environment and atmosphere. “The Wanderer” by Dion & The Belmonts is about a person who “Roams from town to town // Go(es) through life without a care”, basically describing the core plot to Fallout, which is extraordinary when you think about it. I can still remember playing Fallout 4 for the first time, exploring the vast wasteland with the character that I created and being overwhelmed with it all. All of a sudden, Skeeter Davis’ “The End of the World” came on the radio, and I listened to the lyrics, I can’t help but feel a certain dread come over me. It was such a weird feeling, because I’ve never felt an emotion that strong before while playing video games. This just goes to show what kind of an effect music can have in video games.

           After watching this video and writing this response, I feel like I’ve become more tolerant and less narrow minded with the whole “console war” debate. When it comes to gaming, people should focus less on what system is more superior than the other, and instead celebrate the achievements that have been made across the industry.