#honestly this is where having a customisable character can save a game for me

[themojaveexpress]

Sometimes I remember I bought Dying Light 2 shortly after release, and I had a really good time with it, for the most part. I was like wow, this is actually really fun. Sure it's a bit too shallow for my tastes, but it's fun and has a really pretty post apoc vibe that was taking some obvious inspiration from generic medieval aesthetics which I thought was neat.

And then I finished the tutorial area after about 5 hours, and lost all interest after seeing the actual game map.

[ourloveiselectrifying]

Hi...!

I saw your game update post and I have to ask, how did you make the character custom thing? I'm a noob in creating games, so honestly the amount of options you've got there terrifed me! It's awesome but the work... Nevermind, would it be possible for you to do a tutorial? Or at least give some tips, or maybe suggest a person who explains stuff like that? I would be very, very thankful 🙈

Btw, amazing job, you're talented ;)

Hello! :3

I don't normally do these on the blog because it's not Kevin/OLiE, if you want to join the OLiE discord server you're welcome to and if you're stuck on someting me or another dev might be able to help out!

But- a small tutorial!

It's just tons of variables and condition switches within condition switches, this is most of them for the customiser! :3

This is the hair colour button. It's action is to increase the "haircolour2" variables number! there are 30 different hair colours. I don't want the button's action to let the variable go past 30 so that's why there's the If statement, which sets the variable back to 1 and then it can go back up to 30 again. ("If(haircolour2 > 29")

the "at customiserbutton" is a transform so I don't have to make a hover/idle image and it's 29392394X cooler than having an image change on hover, there's a very simple guide on doing a transform at the bottom of this ask :3

This is one of the condition switches for a hairstyle, you can display something different for each variable. This condition switch changes the secondary colour for the first straight and short hairstyle. The hair is is uncoloured/greyscale. The image is the same but theres a transform applied to each variable number (" matrixcolor=TintMatrix("#212121")) ") This changes the grey uncoloured hair to like black! The #numbers are a hex/html colour code and you can goog "html colour picker" and goog will give you one. :3

This is a composite. It's like layers in an art program, the first is the bottom and the last is the top layer. For the hair there's three layers, the bottom colour, the second colour, and the line art! The first set of numbers is the size of the image/canvas. The other sets of numbers next to each layer determines the placement of the layer. I've got it set to (0, 0) the first number moves it left/right and the second is up/down, I wanted it to be exactly where I saved it in my art program so I've not increased/decreased the numbers.

that composite then went into a condition switch for each hairlength (hairstyle)! Theres one of these for each hair texture too, then a whole set for the hair on the back of the head, and another set for a few that needed middle layers (parts of the hair behind the head and infront of the body.

Then each of these hairlength condition switches went into another

and finally these hairtex condition switches went to the the displayed image/character/composite!

I fucked up the placement of the eyebrows and the entire character, so that's why the placement for each layer is -15, and the eyebows are 1! Didn't have open everything in my art program and move it! :3

The amount of switches and variables for this was insane and actually managed to lag the game. So I don't know if I can say I'd recomend my stupid way of doing a customiser until I can figure out how to let Renpy/OLiE have some more crumbs of ram to preload the hundreds of images for the customiser Sdkfskdfjl

Have a tip! Add this to the end of every single condition switch!

( "True", "gui/playericon/nothing.png", )

Make it an image that's easy to recognise mines the players thoughts icon. It will display when your variable is set to something your condition switch doesn't have a displayable for (for example if my hair colour variable somehow went over 30) instead of just crashing your game and giving a confusing error code or none at all.

Another is if your game is crashing when you make the condition switch/composite, make sure you've put a capital C and S, ConditionSwitch and Composite, I've made tons of these and still forget a " , " and capitalisation all the time.

Don't get discouraged because your game keeps thowing out errors/crashes that's just how it be, take a few deep breaths and have a break before looking over your code again! :3

I hope some of this was useful lol, and I wish you good luck on your project!!! 🍀🍀🍀

[shinysamurott9]

I finished Xenoblade X again today and... wow.

OK so, I played Xenoblade X for the first time last year in a marathon of Xenoblade 1, X, and 2, and honestly, compared to 1 & 2, I didn't enjoy it as much. It was the only one I didn't really know much about going in. I felt like it had a lot of good parts, but I hadn't any idea what I was doing because the game has literally no tutorials and I ended up stumbling through the game when I wasn't able to use my Skell, so I just didn't have as much fun with it compared to the trilogy.

However, after finishing Xenogears and the Xenosaga Trilogy, I thought it would be a good idea to give X another shot as a nice way to bookend playing the Xeno series, specifically after watching some guides and learning how the combat actually works (Thanks Enel)

And, holy shit. Out of every game I've ever played, this and DMC 3 are the ones I'm most glad I gave a second chance. I genuinely could not stop thinking about this game after I started playing again. Before I stopped pretty much as soon as I beat the final boss, this time I went literally all the way and completed the entire Mira Survey. I'm just gonna take this chance to go in and incoherently go off about about all the stuff I have in my head about this beautiful mess of a game.

Ok so the combat. Overdrive, is a completely balanced mechanic that doesn't allow you to completely take the main game’s difficulty and snap it over your knee like a fucking twig. Except it is. Like, it is honestly comical just how trivial almost everything becomes with the right arts on your build. And if you throw really busted arts like Ghostwalker/Ghost Factory or Blossom Dance into the mix, literally nothing can stand up to you bar the literal endgame superbosses, and a big part of that is just because a lot of them, Telethia in particular, are in positions where you literally can't fight them on foot and realistically survive without a highly specialised build. But with that proper build, that probably takes a lot of grinding, you can still beat them fairly quickly, save for Levael The Terminus, because it's literally in the middle of the ocean. All because of this funny counter gear.

Going along with Overdrive, is the amount of customisation this game offers you. Almost every weapon type offers you at least a couple arts that work really well alongside Overdrive. The build I ended up with at the end was a Knife, Dual Gun combination, mainly because Smooth Recovery, is an amazing art for Overdrive, and Black Butterfly and Full Specs are great compliments for an Ether Build with Executioner as the main Damage Art. Yeah sure I ended up using Ghostwalker/Factory like most Endgame builds, but hey that shit is comically busted, and I absolutely love abusing stuff like that, intentional or otherwise. Plus I do enjoy the idea of my Cross, Coraline, using the arts of Irina and Elma, her immediate superior officers in BLADE. Which actually brings me to,

I was honestly surprised at how much thought I ended up putting into my Cross this time around, but it was fun. Not just deciding on a good look both when creating her and finding what gear she'd wear, but also thinking about how her character woukd respond to the situations and dialogue options presented throughout the game. It's to the point that Coraline's basically become my first OC, depending on how you count Milton the Mythrakid I guess, since he's an interpretation of a character we know exists but we haven't seen or heard about. Either way I definitelywant to do more with Coraline. Probably gonna draw her some more as time goes on to get a better feel for the design as well as drawing her skell too just because.

That actually brings me around to the story. I'll be the first to admit that overall X's story falls short compared to the trilogy andveven Gears and Saga but it still has a lot of solid stuff that really git me thinking, in addition to stuff I only picked up the second time around, something Xeno stories have been fantastic with since the beginning with Gears. Obviously spoilers ahead as I talk some notable stuff in the plot

This moment really stuck out for me after simmering on it for a while. Because this idea that memories and the continuation of a person's consciousness are what make them who they are would continue as a prominent thematic plot point in the following games. Xenoblade 2 emphasises it the most heavily with Blades losing their memories with each reawakening, thus they lose their "contuity of consciousness". It's quite literally the central source of conflict for Blades and is everywhere in the main story and side content with characters like Praxis, Theory and Vess. Xenoblade 3 has this too, albeit as a more subtle background element with the Agnian and Kevesi Soldiers effectively being reset upon death as they are reborn, however there are still cases where things slip through the cracks, most notably with Eunie and Ashera. Yet despite that, Monica asserts to Eunie that whatever her past life was, it wasn't her and she didn't make it, all because soldiers simply don't have that continuity of consciousness.

Thinking about it now X has plenty of thematic ideas that 2 & 3 would go on to pull from. Things like a cycle of death and rebirth, something that Blade and NLA are trying to achieve with finding the Lifehold Core. As Lao puts it, they're the lucky ones who can come back as many times as they want. Lao's arc is particularly well done all things considered. A moment early on that stuck out to me was when they were discussing how Lin got her spot on the Whale as a way to repay her parents who were crucial in getting the ship going in the first place. Lao, whether he shows it or not, would have some misgivings about that, and Elma seemingly picks up on that and is quick to point out Lin's own skill were crucial in her getting her spot and that it wasn't just pure nepotism. It's really interesting to see Elma pick up on Lao's misgivings so early. If we do ever get an X sequel, which I do think and hope we will sooner or later, I'll be very curious to see where Lao's character goes from here. Speaking of characters who I really want to learn more about,

Elma is a really interesting character honestly despite the many unanswered questions surrounding her, it just has me more intrigued to learn more about her. The question of what her species and planet are like is one i really want to see explored someday. Funnily enough, 2 actually gave us a breadcrumb of that. Elma has a line when receiving a Seafood pouch item, one of her favourite categories, where she expresses fascination with the concept. "Making meals out of marine lifeforms, fascinating" which I've always taken as her species just straight up not having a concept of seafood. Idk why, it's such a minor inconsequential detail that isn't even from X but I always found that super interesting. Her designs are also two of my favourites in the Xeno series, especially dince they double as subtle references to Kos-Mos and T-Elos. I think I lean a little more towards Alien Elma though, something about the crystal hair is really cool to me.

A few other Miscellaneous things I can think of:

The sidequests are fantastic. While many are a little tedious, they do a really good job of building the world and fleshing out the natures and cultures of the different alien species that come to inhabit NLA.

The Affinity Missions go hand in hand with this, they do a great job of fleshing out all the different party members all the while giving you an avenue to learn their unique abilities. Most of those party members are also really well developed abd mostly compelling characters. Even the most if the ones who seem like assholes at first, like Boze or HB, do get better as their affinity missions progress. They clearly knew it was a great concept as it came back in 2 & 3 with the Blade Quests and Hero + Ascension Quests.

The ost is fucking incredible, I've been adding X music to my personal playlist over the course of my playthrough because there's so much good stuff in it. It's honestly criminal how much you end up missing because the Overdrive and Flight themes override 90% of them.

Skells are incredibly cool and a brilliant way to bring in the concept of mech combat systems from the previous Xeno games.

Phew, I think that's everything I've had to say. I've called out many of this game's flaws in other places and most of that I do still stand by. The game is in desperate need of an actual tutorial and QoL improvements. The game's draw distance can be quite frustrating at times trying to find specific things or characters and getting certain materials can be a really annoying grind, (Neinail Materials), but if you can put up with that there is a hell of a game there. I don't know if I'd consider it better than the trilogy, just because it has more complete stories, but it's quite close.

Overall I'm so happy I gave X a second shot and now I'll definitely be there waiting for a port or sequel. It's easily the most underrated game I've ever played. I'm confident it'll happen at some point but either way I'l likely have more Xeno stuff to play in the meantime if whatever's next is Xenoblade 4.

My reaction to this game.

[glitchydyke]

silly q but what is my sims

ITS NOT SILLY DW!!! mysims is a series of games that were made for the wii and ds, and they r so so so important to me bc they were a huge part of my childhood <33 i even have ocs for each one bc they r everything to me. i’ll explain each one quickly under the cut :]

OKAY SO. there’s six games in total: the original is just called mysims, and then there’s mysims kingdom, agents, skyheroes, racing, and party <3

original mysims is an animal crossing kind of deal!! your character (customisable w both name and appearance) is what’s called an essence user - essentially someone who can use various elements around the world in order to build and create things. you’re called by mayor rosalyn to rebuild a town that was abandoned by its previous essence user and is now mostly deserted. the gameplay consists of moving sims in, and completing tasks for them where they ask you to build them things for their homes!! each sim belongs to a different interest group, like the personality groups in ac: there’s fun, cute, spooky, tasty, studious, and geeky. the type of sims you move in will affect what things they ask for (as in, cute sims will ask for things made with cute essences as opposed to spooky ones)

kingdom is similar to the original in that you’re completing tasks for people!! it’s a little more story based though: your character, a pig herder, is encouraged by your friends to apply to be the kingdom’s wandolier, which is pretty much the same concept as an essence user except this time you get a sick ass wand to go with it 💪 when you win the competition, you and your friends are asked by the king to go to island to island and improve morale around the kingdom, helping people with their problems and building things that they need. there’s also a few collection quests which i really like!! throughout the game you’re asked by various characters to collect figurines, flowers, fish, and pieces of armour! my second fave game of the series :]

AGENTS IS MY LOVE ITS MY COMFORT GAME OF ALL TIME. your character is a detective who longs for a real mystery to solve, and you get the chance when you’re hired as a special agent. one of the cases you get is from a woman named evelyn, whose house has been broken into. as you investigate and figure out what was taken, you realise it relates to a man from the first case you solved - when a man named morcubus attempted to steal a girl’s dog, and you proved the dog wasn’t his. through your cases you travel to various places (snowy mountains, industrial city, dinner party in a gothic mansion) and try to discover what morcubus is planning and how evelyn is connected to him. it’s my fave one of the series if you can’t tell 🫶

skyheroes is a piloting/shooter game where your character is found by a rebel group after crashing on a beach and developing amnesia! you join the group that saved you and learn they’re fighting a war against morcubus (he’s everywhere honestly) since he’s taken control of the skies and is now restricting people’s travel and trading. throughout the story you have to get other pilot groups to join your cause and rally against morcubus, while trying to find out who you were, what memories you lost, and how you came to be shot from the sky and crashed on the beach. i rlly love this one but i am yet to fully get through it bc despite enjoying it immensely i suck absolute dick at it

racing is. well. a racing game. it’s similar to simpsons hit and run in a way, with the missions being to drive around collecting things or racing against npcs. the plot is that your character is an aspiring racer, and is learning to properly race in a town called speedville (yeah) which is mostly abandoned since the previous star racer mysteriously left. you enter the championships and begin living your dream as a racer, but are soon met with morcubus (i’m telling you. everywhere) who’s trying to overtake speedville in order to use it for his own company and is attempting to stop you from winning any races so you can’t give speedville its glory back

party is kind of a mario party vibe!! it again begins with having to rebuild a rundown town, but this time you do it through entering festivals and winning at the minigames :] <- going to b real i do not have too much to say abt this one. there’s a character called mc emi who is my best friend ever tho

[loving-barnes]

RED, SUS! - BUCKY BARNES

(A/N): I mean, come on, I had to write one where the team is playing Among us.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x f!reader

Summary: Tony calls everyone to play the current video game trend - Among us.

Warning: language, a bit fluff at the end

Words: 2800+

FULL MASTERLIST

RED, SUS! - BUCKY BARNES 

The gaming world was absorbed by the new game. Everyone was streaming it, playing with friends. It was the perfect game to play during a pandemic. Unfortunately, the illness got into the Avengers compound too. Some of the agents and workers were in isolation due to the virus. Also, even though some people could be considered as Gods, this nuisance got them too. Clint remained isolated in his room, Natasha and Wanda were sick too. Their symptoms were mild, fortunately. 

Tony’s orders were strict: social distancing for at least 14 days; checking via FRIDAY if anyone was in the kitchen; no gatherings or work meetings; those not affected had to be prepared for urgent or unexpected missions; masks were necessary for the hallways and common rooms and many more.

Every day, between two and five in the afternoon, they had to remain in their rooms due to obligatory disinfection that was happening in common rooms, hallways and other rooms. 

They were in the middle of their two-week personal lockdown when Tony sent everyone a message to log onto their laptops. Y/N was reading a book, slowly falling asleep when it happened. She checked her phone: Conference call, urgent, now. 

Y/N knew Tony pretty well. These types of messages never meant discussing work or missions. It was something for his amusement - mostly. Unwillingly and without a choice, she turned on her laptop and joined the conference call. 

Natasha: Hey, YN, you joined!

Y/N waved with a hand and then scratched her neck. She looked like a mess - baggy jumper, hair in a bun and her face looked sad and tired. In conclusion, she didn’t care less. The team saw her in her worst already - drunk and almost dead. 

Sam: What happened to you, Y/N? You look terrible. 

Y/N: Shut it, Wilson. I am well. This is my pandemic outfit. 

Bucky chuckled. She knew it was him because she could recognize his voice and other sounds anywhere. 

Steve: Tony, what is the meaning behind all of this? 

Tony: I’m glad you asked. Now that you are all here, and as you can see, I wanted you to join me in an adventure like never before. 

Y/N: Tony, I will not drink with you while being on a conference call. 

Tony: Y/N, I am not a madman. I don’t believe in virtual drinking. No, this one does not involve alcohol. All you need is your brain and the ability to lie. 

Natasha: Sounds interesting, continue. 

Tony: There is this new video game called Among Us which is an online multiplayer game. This game is pretty simple, there are crewmates or impostors. Crewmates have to do tasks to win and Impostors have to sabotage, fake tasks and kill to win. The goal of the game is to identify impostors and vote them out - yes, there will be meetings where we have to vote out someone or skip. The meetings also happen when someone reports a body. 

Both Wanda and Y/N made a sound that reminded of howling. They were interested. 

Bucky: Come on, you really called us to play some stupid video game. 

Wanda: Hey! Shush! I want to play. I am so bored in my room. I need some distraction. 

Y/N: Yes, exactly. This sounds so good. Let’s play, everyone, please.

Steve: Honestly, I am bored so I will join. However, I need instructions. 

Tony: Not a problem, buddy. I have already installed the game and sent you everything necessary. Just to explain one last detail. We will be on a conference call while playing. But, once the round starts, everyone has to mute their mics. When a meeting is called, you have to unmute and we discuss who to vote out and why. Once you are dead, you have to stay muted until the end of the game. At the beginning of every round, you will see whether you are an imposter or a crewmate. Don’t forget, impostors have to lie. 

Y/N: Give us ten minutes to check the materials and to start the game, alright? We have some people that are not too good with this type of technology. 

Y/N mocked Steve and Bucky especially. They were friends and she occasionally had to tease them. And when Sam was getting on her nerves, she would treat him the same way, if not even worse. 

Clint: Oh, that is easy. 

Natasha: Finally, something that will keep me occupied for more than ten seconds. 

Bruce: Do I have to play? 

Tony: Yes. Ten people are needed for two impostors and for it to be fun. You are playing, Banner.

Y/N: Does everyone understand? 

The team simultaneously agreed, each person with a different tone. Y/N turned on the game, as well as the rest of the team did, putting on the code Tony had sent them. She spawned in a lobby, as a little lime figure. 

Tony: You can also customise colours and accessories by coming to the laptop and using it. 

Y/N quickly did as Tony informed them. She changed the colour to purple and put a golden crown on. It was adorable and it did represent her a little. When she was finished, the rest of the team was in the lobby. They also customised their figures to represent them. 

Y/N: Oh my god, this is already so much fun.

Tony: Just to clarify - the crewmate’s vision is lower than the imposters have. The kill cooldown is 30 seconds. Voting time is 120 seconds, etc. You can see it on your left. I am starting the game and don’t forget to mute your mics. 

Y/N muted her mic as the game started. She was a crewmate. They all were standing around a table. She started to move to the right. That was when she noticed a map on the screen. When she opened it, a blue map appeared with yellow exclamation marks. When she ran to the first room, she noticed a chair was illuminated with yellow colour. 

"Alright, asteroids," she mumbled and did the task. 

Other players passed her, or stayed near her, even Bucky’s character did. His figure was white. When she moved, he moved with her. “That’s sus,” she commented and moved down the map to find another task. Bucky was still with her until the lights went off. 

“Fuck,” she whisper-shouted when the light around her was just a tiny circle. Several figures were around her and a report button appeared. She quickly clicked it. 

A board with all the names showed. Wanda and Sam were dead. She quickly unmuted her mic to talk to the rest of the players. “What the fuck was that?”

Tony: Where is the body?

Y/N: Down in the O2 I believe. The lights went off and suddenly, so many people were around me. Just a report button appeared. 

Steve: Who was there except you? 

Y/N: I saw Bucky, who was following me - by the way, sus, Barnes. You did your asteroids way too quickly. 

Bucky: I didn’t have that task, I just wanted to stay with you. 

Tony: Sus!

Natasha: Steve and I were in the admin. That fucking card swipe. I failed it like ten times! 

Y/N: Anyway, I think I saw Sam, Bruce and Clint with us. Now, Sam is dead. 

Clint: What if it’s you?

Y/N: How dare you, Barton? 

The time was slowly coming to its end and it was time to vote. Y/N had no idea who did the kill. She quickly voted skip. 

Bruce: We can skip because there are still eight of us. 

Tony: Banner, sus. 

Everyone skipped except Tony, who voted Clint. No one was ejected and the game could continue. They reappeared in the cafeteria around the table. This time, Y/N went down, because her map showed her she had some task there. Again, Bucky followed her. He stayed at the very beginning of the room while she went in and did the card swipe task. She was lucky to finish it on her second try. Once she was finished, Bucky was nowhere to be seen. 

She moved to the wires task. She heard the door to the cafeteria close. When she cleared the task, Bucky was again with her. Maybe he was just protecting her. She had no idea. 

The reactor was called. It was time to fix it. Bucky and Y/N moved through storage, under the electrical where they were met with Natasha, Tony and Bruce. They all moved to the reactor where Vision was. Everyone stacked on the upper reactor while Y/N was down alone. The reactor was saved and a body was reported. Natasha and Steve were killed. 

Bucky: What the hell happened? Natasha is dead and there are like four of us. 

Y/N: Was that a double kill? 

Tony: No, it was only Nat. Captain was killed somewhere else, obviously. 

Bruce: Most of us were together except Y/N, Bucky and Clint. 

Bucky: Y/N and I were in admin, doing our tasks. 

Tony: What about you, Vision? 

Vision: I am afraid I was alone most of the time. I did see people on cameras where I spent most of the time this round. 

Y/N: Clint, what about you? 

Clint: I was in… I don’t know the name but I came from the upper side of the map. 

Tony: I saw Steve going the way where medbay is. 

Y/N: Barton, you killed Steve!

Clint: No, I didn’t. 

Tony: Barton, get out of here. 

The voting was quickly coming to its end and almost everyone voted. Clint was the last one. He refused. When the time was up, the gang voted for Clint and he was ejected. 

Bucky: That’s what you get.

Y/N: That’s sus.

The game continued and Y/N was almost done with her tasks. Bucky was most of the time with her, again. When the lights went out again, she had decided not to go into the electrical. She didn’t want to die. It had been a long time since something happened. No bodies were reported, the taskbar was almost full. Alone, she quickly ran to the cafeteria and pressed the report button. When the board appeared, Only Bruce, Bucky and her were alive. 

Y/N: What?!

Bruce: Bucky, how could you? 

Bucky: Honestly, Bruce, I saw you kill Tony. Don’t blame me for this. 

Y/N: Oh no.

Bruce: Y/N, please don’t believe him, please. I am not the impostor. I was about to report the body when you hit the emergency button. 

Bucky: Wow, you are such a good liar. 

Y/N: No, don’t do this to me. 

Both of the men voted for each other, leaving her to decide the fate of the game. Who should she vote out? Bucky was with her most of the time and she did not see Bruce a lot. It made sense it was Banner. However, Bucky could be very good at this, using tactics like being in a field. 

Bruce: Y/N, you have to vote - vote for him. I am a crewmate. I saw him kill Tony in the lower reactor. 

Y/N: I mean, to be honest, Bucky was with me almost the whole game. I don’t think he would be able to do this. 

Bruce: No, Y/N, don’t do this. He needed you as an alibi. 

Bucky: How the hell would I do that? I was by her side the whole time and did my tasks. 

Y/N quickly voted for who she believed was the killer. When the results had shown, she voted for Bruce. For her, it made a lot of sense. How else would Bucky be able to do it? The rest of the team unmuted, screaming her name, laughing and making scenes. After a few seconds, the revelation came - they lost. Bucky was, in fact, the second impostor. 

Y/N: I mean, fuck both of you. What the actual fuck. You fucking tricked me!

Tony: Kids calls it marinating. 

Bucky: I am sorry, doll. You were the perfect person to stick with. 

Y/N: Again, fuck you. 

Bucky: You wish.

Sam: Wow, can you feel the sexual tension? 

Natasha: Sam, why do you make such stupid comments. You are such an intelligent man. 

Y/N changed her colour to Red, taking Wanda’s colour. She didn’t mind because she changed it into yellow. The next few games were funny. Two rounds Tony was an impostor. First with Steve than with Bruce. Two hours later, it was Y/N’s turn and she was paired with Bucky. 

“Holy shit,” she mumbled and sighed. This was her moment and she wanted to win, fast. She created a strategy. Before she could play by it, her phone rang. Bucky’s name appeared on her screen. “Yes?” 

“Well, what a dream team,” he chuckled. “What is the plan?” 

“First two kills, at random. After the first report, we will make a graveyard,” she said. “Honestly, that is going to be quick and funny.” 

“Sounds good. Where are you now?” he asked. 

She looked at the game and then at a map. “I am in admin, pretending to fail card swipe. I will turn off the lights once someone enters and then vent.” 

“I see Sam!”

“Kill him,” she encouraged him and turned off the lights. Vision came into the admin alone. 

They both took their opportunity and killed both people. Y/N vented into the cafeteria and went to weapons and Bucky quickly went into the comms, pretending to do a task. A few moments later, Sam’s body was reported. 

Natasha: Where is the body?

Wanda: Between O2 and shields. I think that is shields. 

Steve: Any suspicions? 

Y/N: I was passing by the cafeteria from medbay. When the lights were off, no one was around me. 

Tony: Bruce and I were in the reactor, doing the Simon says a thing. And I will fucking kill you for the report because now I have to do it again. 

Clint: Barnes, where were you? 

Bucky: On my way to storage. Did my quick task in coms. 

Bruce: So, no one is suspicious? 

Natasha: Honestly, we can skip. There are still eight of us. 

They all agreed and skipped voting. No one was ejected. When Y/N muted her mic, she went back to the call she had with Bucky. They both were laughing about the situation. “It’s a graveyard time.” 

“Where should we do it?” Bucky asked. 

“Reactor. After the first two kills, we will call the O2. During it, someone will come, searching for a body.” 

They both ran together into the reactor. Wanda was following them. She was about to become their first victim. After they arrived at the reactor, Bruce was also there, working on his Simon says. Their kill cooldown was almost at the end. 

“Come on, Buck, now!” 

Simultaneously, they killed Bruce and Wanda. Y/N waited almost ten seconds and called the O2 as she mentioned. Bucky quickly closed the doors around them, to slow them down. Their kill cooldown took thirty seconds and they needed time. 

The O2 was called off. They noticed the door around them opening and Tony was the first one approaching them. He reached the reactor and Bucky killed him. “One more and we win.”

“We have to hope someone else will come, otherwise they will call the button,” she explained. 

They were lucky. Steve and Natasha were on their way. Y/N quickly approached them and killed Steve. With that kill, the game was over and the impostors, Y/N and Bucky, won. 

Clint: What the fuck?

Natasha: How did you do that? 

Tony: They did a graveyard! 

Sam: Fuck you, Barnes, for killing me.

Bucky: It was my pleasure. 

Y/N: Oh my god, this was hilarious. Oh, my favourite round of all we played today. 

Bucky: Same. 

Tony: Want another game? 

Y/N: No, I want to take a break and make something to eat. We have been playing for hours. Let’s play tomorrow. 

Natasha: You are right. I need to take a nap after this. 

Steve: It’s almost seven. 

Natasha: My nap will take until tomorrow morning. 

Y/N’s phone beeped. She looked at the screen again. There was a text from the other impostor. Can I come over and watch a movie with you? It made her smile. 

Only if it involves the good popcorn you make and some kisses - she replied. They had been dating for over a month and things were going great. The team had their suspicions but they had decided not to meddle in their private life. Steve was happy and Tony was overly protective of Y/N but didn’t say a word. 

Y/N: I have to go. I am going to watch a movie. 

Clint: Oh yeah? Can I join? 

Y/N: No, I would like to enjoy it alone. 

Nat: Huh, that’s sus. 

Y/N: What is sus about it? 

Nat: Watching a movie, alone. Why would you want to watch it alone? 

Y/N: Because no one is making stupid comments during the movie I want to watch. 

Tony: Red, sus. 

Y/N: Alright, bye-bye friends. 

She ended the call and put her laptop on the night table. Rolling her eyes, she made her bed and went to the bathroom. Bucky would come any minute and she wanted to set the place. 

Who would have known this game would bring the whole team together? 

[neokad]

Touhou VI: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil - or my first journey into a bullet hell game

Touhou is that one pew pew game series with cute anime gals, right?

Source: https://pixiv.kurocore.com/illust/54033795

Just like what I think are many people, that’s pretty much all I knew about the franchise as a whole! And to be honest, for a long long time, I was AFRAID of going any closer to anything Touhou-related! Because of them being bullet hecks, they seemed like the most frustrating and unfun games I could possibly be playing! But then... time passed... Fast forward to somewhere in 2020: I was watching the biyearly Games Done Quick event, and one of the first runs showcased during it was none other than Touhou Luna Nights! But while the speedrun itself was very impressive, the thing that really captivated me was well... everything else! Even though this was only a Metroidvania fangame, IT LOOKED LIKE SO MUCH FUN! The graphics, the special effects, the mechanics... everything just seemed like a dream!  In spite of that, I only picked the game up and played it about a year later, thanks to a Steam sale! And to keep things short, I ADORED it. It was a bit too short, but everything else was spot on, and even better than I thought it would be from what I saw at GDQ! But that’s sadly a review for another time :(  Because I literally fell in love in this game, well... I thought “screw it, I’ve been morbidly curious for years now, let’s actually try a freakin’ Touhou game!” 

And so, after some research I’ve learned that the sixth game - the first one released on Windows PCs! - was the one that served as inspiration for Luna Nights as a whole - its characters, music, stage aesthetics and more! It just seemed natural to settle with this one~

How did it go? What did I think about it? Well, that’s why we’re here: those are my thoughts about Touhou VI: the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

Now for a pointless history lesson: as I said earlier, Touhou 6 was the very first game published for Windows PCs, all the way back in 2002! The five previous games were actually exclusive to a Japan-only machine, the NEC PC-98, a line that prevailed strongly in Japan before Microsoft conquered the world. As such, it’s really the first game that’s still relatively accessible today, as PC-98 emulation is... not really a stable thing yet -_- So even though this wasn’t quite true, it’s as if I started my journey into Touhou with the original! And once I started playing, I was honestly surprised at one thing once I hit the title screen: this game actually has lots of options to make the experience easier or harder!

I know that being able to change your starting lives, starting bombs, choose your overall difficulty and such isn’t groundbreaking at all, but honestly? I didn’t expect things to be so customisable in a bullet heck game series - a genre that’s known for being merciless to players! I did decide to go on Normal to have the “intended” experience, but things aren’t as daunting as you may think!

This game also allows you to play as not only Reimu, the poster character of the franchise, but also Marisa! Both of these girls also boasts two different weapons each, with their own strengths, weaknesses and bomb attacks! Again, I genuinely did not expect so much breathing room even though looking back... I feel like I should have : P

Once I actually started playing the game itself, there’s yet another thing that surprised me: the difficulty curve... it’s... manageable??

Now granted, I’m a person that plays a *lot* of games, and on top of that, I play lots of action games as well, games that require quick reaction times, good pattern reading and so on so forth. So there’s a chance my judgement on the game’s difficulty might be wrong or biased... but to me? Embodiment of Scarlet Devil actually has a good difficulty curve! The first stage of the game has many enemies that can shoot many bullets, but they’re slow, predictable and relatively easy to avoid because you have lots of space to maneuver around! On that same train of thought, Rumia, the first stage’s boss, certainly doubles down on the number of bullets she can throw at you. But, their patterns are once again pretty slow and predictable, making things much more comfortable at the start of your adventure!

But hold on a minute here, how does this game actually plays? Well, this is where I need to let out a horrifying truth:

Touhou is actually really, REALLY fun.

At first it does seem like a pretty standard shooter: you shoot at things, dodge bullets, collect power ups to boost your weapon’s strength, and make sure you don’t die too much in order to reach the final boss in good shape. However, what I ended up loving about Touhou are its many, many mechanics that spice things up beautifully! The first one I wanna focus on is “Grazing” and it’s actually pretty simple: if you do your best to get close to a bullet or a laser without touching it with your (very small!) hitbox, you graze that bullet! Not only will a satisfying sound effect play out each time you graze something, you will also gain points each time you do this maneuver, making it essential for a high score, and especially, to gain extra lives faster!  Secondly, there’s bombing! I am totally repeating myself here, but while each character has a different kind of bomb to their disposal, they each function in relatively the same way: you get to launch a strong attack against your opponents, get invincibility frames, and on top of that, get rid of any bullets that are currently on the screen! I love bombs in this game because they create a great balance: you can totally use them for offensive purposes, buuuut they also serve as a great defensive clutch if you just find things too difficult at the moment.  Bombs even have two extra layers to them! When you will get hit and lose a life (and believe me, you will) your bombs will get refilled back to three, urging you to not hoard them too much even if you’d prefer to save them for a tougher part. Because if you die, you might just “waste” bombs in a way! However, here’s an advanced kicker: if you manage to hit the bomb button just as you are hit by a projectile (8 frames within death I think!) you not only are able to save yourself from losing a life, you also won’t lose a bomb at all, either! This is a very difficult trick, but a very cool and potentially important one if you plan things out in the heat of battle ^^

Then there’s a mechanic that, to my knowledge, got introduced in EOSD: the POC, as in Point Of Collection! Now, as you destroy the many enemies after Reimu or Marisa, they naturally drop many power ups and point icons, and because there’s many of these you’re bound to miss them. However, this is where the POC comes in: if you are at full weapon power, you will earn the ability to collect every icon on the screen! This makes sense and is actually very smart, because most players - myself included - tend to hug the bottom of the screen as bullets are more scarce and slower here. BUT reaching that POC close to the top of the screen is a great way to incentivise players to risk things in order to get a massive amount of points and gain extra lives way faster! And finally, as soon as you do reach that max power, the game will automatically wipe every single projectile off the screen, so it’s even possible to time when you’ll get your final power boost to make things easier on yourself!

All of those mechanics together make Touhou EOSD a pure joy to play! It’s simple on the surface but has such interesting mechanics and risk-reward elements that can push you out of your comfort zone, but never forces you to! And sure enough, I got addicted~

Even though I did say that the game had a good curve and started off not too difficult, it does not mean that your journey will be easy: even early game bosses such as Cirno and Meiling took me lots of practice to get consistent at, by studying their patterns and testing out which strategies worked the best for survival. And eventually, even Patchouli and Sayaka’s stages will test you out with lots of predictable-yet-deadly bullets to test out your screen reading skills and even reflexes.

Touhou may be more accessible than I thought, but do not be mistaken: on Normal, this game will still challenge you, and I absolutely love it for that <3 

Another thing that helps this game out is - please pretend to be surprised - the music. Touhou has always been known for bringing some very good tunes all around, but besides Luna Nights’s incredible soundtrack, I actually never got to listen to any of them besides Bad Apple and one fanime opening my bestie sent me one year ago. And well... it’s true!

The game uses some very artificial, even out-of-tune instruments for its music, but strangely enough, it REALLY works! It gives the music a very nostalgic, warm feeling that’s hard to describe, but it works so well at making those songs catchy as all heck! It also helps that the compositions themselves are pretty strong and surprisingly complex for its genre, too! I would pick a favourite theme to show off, but the soundtrack’s just really consistent and good all around!

Sadly, I mostly cannot say the same for the game’s presentation. This game is a PC app from 2002 and it sadly somewhat shows. I’ll even bring a special mention to the in-game portraits, which are hilariously HORRIBLE! Thankfully dedicated fans have made a patch to improve the game’s visuals so that they’re more in line with later titles, but at base it’s really not the prettiest gem visually...

...except for the spell cards, the bosses’s strongest attacks, which are genuinely gorgeous multicolored motives that will struck you in awe before you are inevitably destroyed by them, it’s great! My favourite is the one you get from Meiling’s mid stage encounter, pictured above!

Before wrapping up this long, long post, I do wanna add this: the game will unfortunately only give you the good ending only by playing on Normal and above, and only if you beat the game without using any continues. This is called a 1CC, or 1 Credit Clear. Even if I don’t think the bad ending’s actually that unsatisfactory, I did want to get better at the game! So I practiced for many hours a day for a couple of weeks, memorized each boss’s patterns, learned where to graze, when to optimally reach the POC to get as many points as possible... this game pushed me to get better with an incentive, a reward waiting at the end, on top of the satisfaction of simply cheesing what used to be so difficult at some point and... well, I think this is the proof of a well-crafted game right there. After many failed attempts, I finally managed to 1CC this game (pictures below!!) and it was, genuinely, one of the most satisfying moments in my gaming life <3 

So... yeah. I might be a Touhou fan now. Welp.

Touhou VI: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was such a pleasant surprise for me: I expected a game I’d find somewhat boring at best and frustrating at worst, but I ended up having a very, very good time, and honestly? It’s not as hard as you’d think it is! You can beat a Touhou game, so long as you are interested in practicing and getting better, and I promise it’ll feel rewarding in the best of ways <3

I just wanna say thank you to Luna Nights and Team Ladybug, because without them, I would have never been curious and then surprised by how cool this game is. Thank you <3 

And many thanks to you, the reading, for staying until the end! Thank you for reading!

[eggoreviews]

My Top 25 Games Advent Day 13 - Until Dawn (#13)

​​“You need to listen to me. I don’t care if you believe me or not. Doesn’t matter because you will. You need to go down to the mines. I’ve seen what’s down there and I’d give anything to unsee it.”​​

​​Something I may not have mentioned on this countdown yet is that I am a pretty big fan of horror, whether that be sci-fi, supernatural or, in this case, teenagers being eaten by Wendigos. As someone who has always enjoyed slashers (particularly those that are unique, interesting and comment on the genre like Cabin in the Woods), Until Dawn came as a very welcome announcement for me, as previously unknown studio Supermassive Games came forward with a horror game that mirrored a classic slasher exactly, except it was entirely affected by your own choices. And so, Until Dawn became my favourite decision based game of all time.​​

​​Let’s talk for a minute about how Until Dawn treats its genre. In essence, it is a dizzyingly heartfelt love letter to the horror genre it so reveres, with its liberal employing of many, many tropes seen throughout its history. A group of eight friends return to the cabin atop a snowy mountain where two of their friends disappeared the previous year for a bit of a remembrance bash. But of course, everything is not quite as it seems and not everyone in the group is bein entirely honest with each other, along with the added threat of cannibalistic cryptids. Until Dawn tests your knowledge of horror, as well as your ability to act under pressure, by providing you with difficult and genuinely harrowing decisions to make that may well mean life or death for certain characters. If you’re looking to escape the usual conventions of horror by doing your best to save the stereotypes of the jock or the sexually liberal girlfriend, you’re going to need to be on the ball and keep your wits about you. This is what I love so much about Until Dawn; the fact that everyone or no one can survive depending on how well you play the game. It really is your own customised horror experience. And believe it or not, this game has a hell of a lot of replayability, even after you’ve discovered the majority of the endings. There’s just something about replaying this through and seeing what fuckshit you can do that keeps me coming back. 

​​ ​​On top of that, the characters themselves, while being massive tropes, still feel unique enough that things don’t become boring and predictable. Every horror trope is here; the funny, hapless guy, the studious one, the jock, the girlfriend who talks about sex a whole bunch. But each and every one of them still have nuances. The studious Ashley seems fairly mellow on the surface, but there’s a layer of dark that seemingly lies under the surface that comes out in a few instances depending on her choices. Jess seems confident and overtly sexual on paper, but reveals herself to be a highly insecure individual later in the game, albeit in a scene with some incredibly ham-handed writing. And Matt, the ‘dumb jock’, who is very subtly being manipulated and abused by his cheating girlfriend. All of these add subtle nuances to these normally completely undeveloped characters, which engages you much more in the horror they’re being put through and honestly makes you want to save them. Alongside this, the standout and often underrated performances of Hayden Panettiere as Sam, Rami Malek as Josh and Peter Stormare as the mysterious, hallucinatory Dr. Hill are properly, properly good.​

​ ​​The horror in this game, as well as the characters within it, is excellently realised. Many different aspects come together to form a genuinely horrifying experience. The overall writing is stellar, specifically within the late game when the tension begins to boil over, and less so in the early game when the writers are trying to write realistic young people. For the most part, they seem like real humans, but every so often they’ll drop an odd phrase here and there that will remind you that both the actors and the writers are not teenagers, but it honestly isn’t that distracting and doesn’t detract from the overall horror at all. The visuals, of course, are dazzling as perfect motion capture was used to carry over the subtleties of the actors’ body language and facial expressions, as well as the highly detailed graphic style used for the setting is excellently immersive. The snowy cabin, the ancient and rusted fire tower, the snow flying in front of the camera when you’re traversing the mountain; it all adds up to create a wonderfully horrific experience. And last of all, the soundtrack, an all important part of any game for me, is consistently suspenseful, with the combination of the sounds of the heavy wind and the soundtrack that slowly builds from subtle instrumentation to shrieking violins and drums once the action kicks off. And while the opening cover of ‘O Death’ is a little on the nose, I honestly don’t hate it and I think it adds brilliantly to the atmosphere of ‘oh boy this is tropey horror’.​​

​​To wrap up, for horror to be effective for me, it needs to blend effective use of many different aspects, both in the background and the foreground, especially in an interactive medium. The story and characters, the visuals, the soundtrack and the threat itself all need to work together to create effective horror and I think Until Dawn manages this brilliantly, with the added challenge of making the horror immersive with its gameplay. Until Dawn is an excellent example of interactive horror meeting decision-based gameplay and I am really looking forward to the future of Supermassive Games.​​ ​​Standout Moment Award: The last quarter or so of the game, when the group finally realise the extent of the true threat and all that suspense pays off is endlessly satisfying to me. I’m love this game.​​

Standout Character Award: Sam. While I nearly gave this to my soft boi Matt, the strong and capable Sam is yet another love letter to the slasher horror genre of the 80s, as well as to the ‘final girl’ trope that still sticks around today. Even putting aside how well-placed she is thematically, she’s just a cool-ass character with a good sense of humour, visible flaws and tangible relationships with almost every character, as well as being played brilliantly by Hayden Panettiere.

​​Tomorrow: No. 12; A tragic tale of halting an arranged marriage and finding oneself through travel.

[the-desolated-quill]

Quill’s Swill - The Worst Of 2018

Congratulations dear reader. You survived 2018. And you know what that means. It’s time for another best of/worst of list. Welcome to Quill’s Swill 2018. A giant septic tank for the various shit the entertainment industry produced over the course of the year. The films, games, TV shows and various other media that got on my bad side. As always please bear in mind that this is only my subjective opinion (if you happen to like any of the things on this list, good for you. I’m glad someone did) and that obviously I haven’t seen everything 2018 has to offer for one reason or another. In other words, sorry that Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald isn’t on here. I’m sure it is as terrible as some have been suggesting. I just never got around to watching it.

Okay everyone. Grab your breathing masks and put on your rubber gloves. Let’s dive into this shit pile.

Hold The Sunset

The news that John Cleese would be returning to the world of BBC sitcoms was incredibly exciting, being a massive Fawlty Towers fan and all. Unfortunately Hold The Sunset was not quite what I had in mind. It’s one of those rare breed of situation comedies that chooses to offer no actual comedy. It’s not a sitcom. It’s a sit. Like Scrubs or The Big Bang Theory.

An elderly couple plan to elope abroad only for Alison Steadman’s son to barge in, having left his wife, and forcing them to put their plans on hold. Hence the title ‘Hold The Sunset.’ It’s like a cross between As Time Goes By and Sorry, but if all the humour and relatability were surgically removed by a deadpan mortician. The characters are weak, the plots are thin on the ground and the humour (hat little of it there is) feel incredibly dated. The middle aged mummy’s boy is something that hasn’t been funny since the 90s. It’s an utter waste of great talent and what hurts even more is that this tripe is actually getting a second series. I can only assume the people watching this are comatose. Either that or there’s an epidemic of people in Britain who have lost the remote.

Avengers: Infinity War

Yes this is one of the worst movies of 2018 and no I don’t regret saying that one little bit. Avengers: Infinity War was fucking terrible. Period. There were too many plots and characters going on, which made the film hard to follow (and what staggers me is that the so called ‘professional’ critics have condemned movies for having too many characters and plots before. Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Batman vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice and even Deadpool 2. But because this is an MCU movie, it gets a free pass. Fuck off). The characterisation was weak due to sheer number of characters they try to juggle, resulting in characters coming off as one dimensional caricatures of themselves and scenes where characters such as Iron Man, Doctor Strange and Star-Lord sound completely interchangeable. The villain, Thanos, is a stupidly and poorly written villain, but that’s hardly surprising considering what a shit job Marvel have done building him up over the course of these 20+ movies. And let’s not forget that pisstake ending. A bunch of prominent Marvel characters die and it’s all very, very sad... except all these characters just so happen to have sequels planned, which makes this ending fucking pointless and have less impact than a feather on a bouncy castle.

I don’t know which is more shocking. That Marvel and Disney think their audience are that stupid and gullible, or that their audience are actually validating their view. Fuck you Disney.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

I’ve always wanted a Harry Potter RPG, where you could customise your character, choose your house and actually live a full school life at Hogwarts. This year, Warner Bros and Jam City gave us just that.

That was a mistake.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is the epitome of everything that’s wrong with the mobile gaming market right now. The gameplay is boring and involving where you just tap images on a screen until a progress bar fills up. Wizard duels are little more than rock-paper-scissors challenges that require no kind of skill. Bonding with friends and caring for magical creatures just consist of pathetically simple pop quizzes and yet more boring tapping. Oh and of course you only get a certain amount of energy to complete these tedious tasks. If you run out of energy, you wait for it to fill up... or pay up for the privilege. So determined are they to extract your hard earned cash from your wallet, there’s actually a bit where Devil’s Snare strangles your eleven year old avatar and the game effectively tries to guilt trip you into paying micro-transactions to save them. It’s sleazy, gross and manipulative. Honestly, you’re better off just playing Candy Crush.

Agony

When the developers of this game said they wanted to give the player a trip through Hell, they had no idea how true that statement really was. Agony is dreadful on a number of levels. The design for Hell itself, while visually interesting at times, is often not very practical and gets quite dull and repetitive after a while. The stealth mechanics are a joke and the AI of your demonic enemies are pitiful. All of this alone would have been enough to put this game on the list, but then we also have the casual misogyny. Agony is a gorefest trying desperately to shock the player. We see men and woman get tortured, but it’s the women that often get the extreme end. The violence inflicted on them is often sexual in nature and the game seems to go out of its way to degrade and dehumanise women at every turn. The orgasmic cries of ‘pull it out’ quickly become a staple of the game’s experience as we see naked women raped, tortured and murdered, all for the purposes of ‘entertainment.���

I would call Agony sexist, but honestly that would be giving it too much credit. Agony is like a little child trying desperately to be all dark and edgy in a pathetic attempt to impress everyone around him, and we should treat it as such. Go to your room Agony. No ice cream for you.

Peter Rabbit

If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of Beatrix Potter rotating in her grave.

Yes we have yet another live action/CGI hybrid, but instead of something innocuous like the Smurfs or Alvin and the Chipmunks, Sony instead decides to adapt Peter Rabbit, with James Corden in the title role.

It’s about as bad as you’d expect.

Their attempts to modernise the story are painful to say the least with pop culture references, inappropriate adult humour and twerking rabbits. Plus rather than the gentle, but slightly mischievous character we got in the source material, here Peter is a sociopathic delinquent who seems to revel in making the farmer’s life a living hell. He’s unlikable and unwatchable as far as I’m concerned and the film doesn’t in anyway earn the emotional moments it tries so desperately to sell to the audience. And the worst part is it’s getting a sequel.

Wait. Do you hear that sound? That’s the sound of Beatrix Potter tearing out of the ground, ready to kill whatever idiot came up with this shit.

Fallout 76

I was excited for Fallout 76. A MMORPG where players band together to rebuild society after a nuclear apocalypse. Could have been great. Pity it wasn’t.

Fallout 76 is a dreadful game. Not only is it a buggy, glitchy mess that requires a constant online connection to play, which could result in you losing hours of progress if your WiFi went down, it’s also unbelievably tedious, and that’s because there’s nothing to do in the game. There’s no other characters to interact with, the various robots and computers you come across are really little more than quest givers, there’s no actual plot so to speak, and because of the sheer size of the world and the number of players allowed on a server, the chances of you actually meeting any actual players is remote. And let’s not forget all the behind the scenes drama. Bethesda falsely advertising Fallout themed canvas bags and players getting shitty nylon ones. Bethesda accidentally releasing the account information of various players trying to get a refund for said bag. Bethesda failing to program the year 2019 into the game code, meaning that the game’s nukes don’t work.

Maybe there’s a chance that Bethesda could pull a No Man’s Sky and fix everything over the coming years with various patches and DLCs, but the damage has already been done. It’s incredibly disappointing. The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to have be fucking incredible to win everyone back.

Mama Mia!: Here We Go Again

I can’t stand jukebox musicals anyway, but Mamma Mia was always one of the worst. Its boring, meandering story with its one note, obnoxious cast of characters screeching out ABBA songs like they’re at some drunken karaoke session at some poor sod’s hen party has always grated on my nerves. So imagine my delight when they announced we were getting a sequel. Ever wondered how Meryl Streep met her three lovers and founded her hotel? No? Well tough shit, we’re going to tell you anyway.

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again is basically just Mamma Mia again. The actors still can’t sing, the characters are still annoying and story is still boring and meandering, completely at the mercy of the chosen songs rather than the filmmakers using the songs to compliment the story (you know? Like proper musicals do?).

How can I resist you? Very easily as it turns out. Gimme, gimme, gimme a fucking gun so I can end my misery.

The Cloverfield Paradox

A lot of people were unhappy about the direction Cloverfield was going. They wanted a continuation of the found footage, kaiju movie from 2008, not an anthology series. I was personally all in favour. Partially because I thought the first Cloverfield was a tad overrated, but mostly because I thought it would be a great opportunity for more experimental film projects and could be a great launchpad for new writers and filmmakers. 10 Cloverfield Lane was a great start. Then The Cloverfield Paradox happened.

The Cloverfield Paradox is basically JJ Abrams trying to have his cake and eat it too. Maintaining the anthology format whilst connecting everything together in a ‘shared universe’ (yes, yet another shared universe). The result was a cliched, poorly edited and idiotic mess of a film that actually took away from the previous two films rather than added to them. Everyone hated it and, as a result, 2018′s Overlord, which was totes going to be part of the Cloververse, was made its own standalone film and Abrams double pinky promised to make a true sequel to the original Cloverfield. A complete and total disaster. No wonder it was a straight-to-Netflix film.

The Handmaid’s Tale - Season 2

This is probably going to be the most controversial entry on the list, but please hear me out because I’m not the only one who has a problem with this season.

I was reluctant to watch The Handmaid’s Tale simply because of how gruesome the original book was, but I forced myself to watch the first season and I thought it was pretty good. It remained faithful to the source material for the most part and included some nice additions that helped to expand the story and mythos. If it was just a one off mini-series, everything would have been fine. But then they made the same mistake as The Man In The High Castle and Under The Dome did where they commissioned another season and attempted to tell a story that goes beyond the book.

There’s a reason why the original story ended where it did. The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t meant to be an empowering story about women sticking it to the patriarchy. It’s a cautionary tale about how fragile our civil rights truly are and how easily they can be taken away from us. It’s designed to shock, not to satisfy. So seeing a handmaid blow herself up in a suicide bombing feels very incongruous and just a little bit silly. It would be like doing a TV adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 where the first season followed the source material and then the second season turned Winston Smith into this heroic freedom fighter trying to overthrow Big Brother. It would represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what the book was about in the first place.

And then of course there’s the increased level of violence in Season 2, which many have complained about. In Season 1 and the original source material, the violence was justified. In Season 2, the motivation behind the violence has gone from ‘how can we effectively demonstrate how easily a fascist patriarchy can happen in the West?’ to ‘what brutal act can we inflict upon Ofglen to shock the audience this week?’ It’s purely for shock and nothing more. And with the showrunner (who I feel I should mention is a man) announcing that he has planned ten seasons of this, it seems that The Handmaid’s Tale is going to go even further with this depravity until it effectively becomes the equivalent of a Saw film.

The Handmaid’s Tale exists as a way of shining light on and critiquing misogyny in its most extreme form. Season 2 however demonstrates that there is a serious risk of it becoming the very thing it’s criticising in the first place.

The Predator

I love the Predator franchise, but The Predator is the worst.

People thought that this would be good because director Shane Black had actually starred in the first Predator movie back in 1987. Instead we got this bloated, confusing, obnoxious and insulting mess of a film that seems to go out of its way to ruin everything that makes Predator so good. There’s no tension. No suspense. No intrigue. Just a bunch of gore, explosions and shitty one liners from annoying and lifeless characters. They essentially took this big alien game hunter from outer space and turned him into a generic monster from a bad summer blockbuster. It no longer hunts for sport. It wants to take over the world and splice our DNA with theirs. But don’t worry, a rogue Predator doesn’t want to kill humans (even though he himself kills a bunch of humans), so he gives us a Predator Iron Man suit to set up a sequel that will probably never happen because this movie was a box office bomb and it fucking SUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKEEEEEDDDD!!!

This film also has a very nasty streak towards those with disabilities. There’s a lot of jokes at the expense of a character with Tourette’s and it has an extremely ignorant and patronising view of autism, portraying the main character’s kid as being a super genius who can decipher the Predator language and even going so far as to say that he represents ‘the next stage of human evolution.’ Presumably the Predators want social communication difficulties because apparently it helps them hunt somehow.

What with Disney acquiring 20th Century Fox, the future of both the Alien and Predator franchises were very much in question. This film needed to be a success in order to make a case for Disney to keep making more of them. It wasn’t. Congratulations Shane Black. You might have just killed off this franchise for good. Thanks arsehole! :D

So those were my least favourite stories from 2018. Join me on Wednesday where we shall discuss something more positive. Yes, it’s awards season. Who shall win the coveted Quill Seal Of Approval? Watch this space...

Or don’t. It’s up to you. I don’t want to force you or anything. It’s a free country.

[warpswimming]

Defenders of Minds - Psykers of the Adeptus Astartes

Welcome traveler, steady your mind as we delve into the warp, this time looking at the most esoteric aspects of the Adeptus Astartes, the Librarius. The Codicier and Epistolaries of the Librarius function as the Chapters insight into the warp. Not only do they protect their brothers and the Imperium from the various energies and temptations of the warp, but they also utilise it to benefit the Imperium of Man harnessing it to use abilities beyond their brothers.

The librarius features a wide array of talents within its walls. There are those who communicate through the warp, those that dive into the various divergent time streams for possible futures (looking at you doctor strange). There are those that shield their brothers and those that blast their foes with powers considered sorcery by some. Once outlawed during the Horus Heresy at the Council of Nikea it swiftly became apparent that the Imperium needed this defense and the Librarius was reforged anew, though not all chapters tolerate their presence, notably the Black Templars.

On the table top, Librarians are your access to operating in the psychic phase, sandwiched between the movement and shooting. Some armies have no influence in this phase, such as the Tau, and some are very strong, such as the Thousand Sons but to fully operate most people could agree to some extent that a presence in each phase is integral. There are four non special character Librarians to choose from, and a plethora of special characters from various suppliments such as Mephiston, Ezekiel, Njal and even Librarian Dreadnoughts. Today though again in light of having no conclusive list of suppliments, ill focus on the stock choices, these are the Firstborn in power armour, Firstborn in terminator armour, Primaris, and Phobos. Straight off, you’re core abilities with these battle psykers. All your librarians sit at WS and BS skill 3, the stock for a space marine. They can all attempt to cast 2 powers and deny 1, knowing smite and 2 others from the librarius discipline for all but the Phobos, who knows his from the obfuscation discipline, (or their suppliments discipline at the moment). They all have psychic hood which enables them to add one to deny if they are within 12 inch, and their power weapons are all force weapons giving you a nice d3 damage, plus the recent weapon strength buffs and your force sword can be replaced with either an axe or staff. Showing my bias here though, they all have the DEATHWING keyword if taken in a Dark Angel (or their successors) detachment which does add some tactical flexibility, though sadly no INNER CIRCLE rule. I wont cover the psychic powers here, I’ll do a post each for the Librarius and the Obfuscation Disciplines but needless to say, with 12 stock powers across your librarians, and four distinctly different styles, there’s something for everyone.

Starting off then with your Firstborn in power armour choice. There are a lot of models for this guy, my favourite of which is the one portrayed above which came from the Dark Vengeance starter set for I believe 7th edition, and you can get a Librarian with any of its force weapons without the need for conversion if you’re happy to have some of the older models.  Like most of his Firstborn counterparts across the chapter command, his loadout is the most varied being able to take a boltgun, combi bolter or a variety of pistols (again including the chapter restricted ones). He also gains access to a jump pack, giving him the JUMP PACK and Death from Above rules and keyword. Like his other power armoured brothers he can mount in the old transports, the Drop Pod being my new favourite. If you want to drop in turn one and debuff, buff or just smite something, the Psychic phase comes straight after reinforcements so being able to pick where he goes is crucial. 

Your Terminator Librarian trades some of the transport ability for an extra wound and a 2+ 5+inv. He gains the Teleport strike ability, again good for key placement, and must take a combi weapon. He functions much the same as the basic Librarian but with slightly less customisation. GW have made enough of these models over the years, from an old metal one I have that I love, to recent plastics though if you’re from a few chapters converting them is a lot of fun. He fits in really well if you’re playing a terminator heavy list, which I’ve not seen in a while, but they could come back if ‘fingers crossed’ the Deathwing are a strong choice post Dark Angel suppliment.

Your basic Primaris Librarian takes another step up in power. Loosing the benefit of terminator armour and the customisation of the basic power armour Librarian he does gain an extra attack and has the same wounds as the Terminator Librarian. GW have a model for this guy and he’s cool but my librarians are often more of a support and psychic defense choice and the extra attack comes at the expense of ease of mobility. Being primaris he can only be transported in Repulsors or Impulsors and whilst the later allows you to disembark after moving and thus throw down your power, its a big investment and he will want bodyguards of which he’ll get 5 in his transport. It could be a good play and I’m willing to hear people out, but honestly I think I’ll drop pod in.

The final option is the Phobos Librarian. Disclaimer here, this is not my model, just a picture found on a search of the net, if its you’re awesome work. This guy is generally my go to. The advent of Phobos units in marine armies really has gripped me. He has a whole seperate discipline to choose from which works well with other phobos units, has the concealed deployment ability, allowing you to push the midfield early and gets +1 save in cover for some extra durability. He’s the perfect support unit for a phobos based army, so one that uses Incursors, Infiltrators, Reivers and the other Phobos command units and pairs really nice with Invictor warsuits and even scout elements. In a game based on objective grabbing being able to put yourself anywhere during deployment so long as its over 9inch from the enemy or their deployment zone give you a strong start, not to mention makes your board control larger to prevent units arriving from reserve where you may not want them. There’s only one model, the pose above, and honestly look at it, its beautiful. This guy is the least varied of his brothers, as you can only take him with the sword but that’s not a bad thing. He is the only psyker with access to Obfuscation, which specialises in buffs and debuffs, moving your phobos units around and even generating CP off enemy characters so whilst you’re trading offense you’re gaining utility, Compare him to the difference between Farseers and Warlocks, the former being the guiding force multiplier, the later the offensive jerk.

All your Librarian options can be upgraded to Chief Librarian for an investment in points and power. Doing so gives them the base ability to know an additional power from their chosen school, taking it to 3 powers plus smite, and deny a second power a turn, with the relic to extend the psychic hood to 24 inch, and the warlord trait for +1 to cast you can really capitalise on the utility by picking powers that are more varied for each situation, especially good in Crusade where your selections are locked, and that extra bubble means that if you’re in the middle of the table you cover a huge area with a +1 to deny

Tomorrow I’ll take a look at the Librarius discipline before moving on to the Obfuscation possibly in a second post but for now that’s it. Librarians let you play in ever phase and more importantly give you defense against people in the pyschic phase. 

"Knowledge is power. Guard it well."

[whenwewereoceans]

11 Questions

I was tagged by the sweetest @sarcasmfish to answer their questions, and ask some of my own!

1. What’s your favourite holiday? Why? My mom is very Christmas-crazy, so I would have to say Christmas. We grew up with a lot of traditions that turned Christmas into this month-long affair with lots of chocolate and baking and excitement. Even though our Christmas has changed much over the years (due to the death of my granddad, my brother moving away, and that we are all adults now) and it no longer has the magic it once had, I still really appreciate the time spent with my family as we hold true to the traditions we still have left.

2. How did you first come to play Dragon Age? How did you hear about it? Why did you decide to play it? I had saved up my tip money for like 10 months, and come Black Friday sales I got myself a PS4. It came with 2 games, 1 of which I’d already played 3 times (The Last of Us) and GTA V, which I had no desire to play. I looked up good games for my new toy, and came across Inquisition. I knew vaguely of the other 2 games, but had never played them. It sounded like all of my gaming dreams come true - character customisation, fantasy world, MULTIPLE ROMANTIC OPTIONS. I traded in my other game and bought the last copy of Inquistion the store had (much to the dismay of my younger brother the following day, who went to that very store to buy Inquisition himself. Oops). I then proceeded to sell my soul.

3. If you could return to any point in your life and start over, would you? I think I would. With the knowledge I have now, I would have made better financial decisions. And started working out earlier and maintaining my younger physique haha. But beyond that, I don’t think I would change much; I value the relationships I’ve made on the path I’ve taken and want to keep them.

4. If you could gain any single talent (drawing, singing, writing, etc) what would it be? Something musical, that’s for sure. I can neither sing nor play an instrument. But drawing would also be awesome, because then I could make graphic novels.

5. What part of the world that you’ve visited do you love the most? Why? I really adored Italy. I felt at home surrounded by such ancient places, and the countrysides are just bonkers beautiful.

6. What’s your favourite international food? I hate to say I’m not much of an adventurous eater; I have a super sensitive digestive system and its easily upset. However, we have some great Mongolian stir-fry places here, and they’re amazing.

7. Are you planning to play Mass Effect: Andromeda? Hell yeah, it looks beautiful!! But I might a little late to the party; Horizon Zero Dawn comes out like a month before and I’ve been peeing my pants over that game for a year, so I might still be in deep.

8. Out of all the Bioware characters you’ve created, who are you most alike to? Honestly, probably none, since Inquisition is my first Bioware game and I created Inquisitor’s not alike myself. Perhaps we’ll see about my Mass Effect character??

9. Would you become a Grey Warden, if given the chance (and possibly take the chance of dying during the Joining)? I don’t think so, I’m not quite that brave!

10. Which are more cute, puppies or babies? Don’t get me wrong, I like babies, but I’ve never cried about how cute a baby is whereas I do that with puppies like 3 times a day. 

11. Which Dragon Age companion do you feel you’d be best friends with in real life? From what I know about Hawke’s gang, I think I would fit in relatively well - but, ironically, I think Cassandra and I would be good friends. Fawning over books is a character trait you can’t help but bond over.

Whew!! Thanks for the ask, friend! Those were awesome questions. Now for my own:

1. How do you take your coffee?

2. What’s your favourite kind of weather?

3. If you could go back in time, where would you visit?

4. What’s the weirdest song in your music library?

5. If you could invent a national holiday, what would you celebrate?

6. What would you like to be famous for?

7. What is the thing you have loved the longest?

8. What would you name your pet dragon?

9. Is there a kind of food you can’t stand, but everyone else likes? Or vice versa?

10. What is your favourite literary genre?

11. What is your favourite thing about yourself?

I’d like to tag @m0th3rw4r, @zombolouge, @kmandergirl, @beragera, and @kiggidykev for their answers!

[goddamnmuses-a]

Dan’s Playstation 5 Reveal Analysis

Alright so first off, if I say something bad about a game you care about.. It’s just my opinion, although tbh they were all pretty decent games so.. yeah.. Just gonna give my thoughts on stuff, Idek if anyones interested I just feel like doing it. Maybe have some conversations with people about it. 

Okay let’s do this.. Under Cut cus long.

GTA V

It’s a ps3 game, cool that the online is free when it comes to PS5 but like..it does just feel like Rockstar paid to have this mentioned and they just shrugged and quickly shoved it at the front of the presentation to get it over and done with before starting for realsies. 

Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Now this isn’t their Spider-Man 2, this is a side game like Infamous First Light was a side game but I love the PS4 Spider-Man it’s one of my favourite games and I know I’ll love this one too so yeah, real solid start. Makes me realise I need more Miles Morales in my life. 

Gran Turismo 7

I played Gran Turismo back on like.. maybe the Playstation 1, honestly Car games just aren’t for me but in like my first initial reaction to the whole reveal I said that there’s games for basically everyone, if you like a specific type of game there is a game for you and car nerds have this. Looks visually stunning though. 

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

Looks stunning, so much happening and really good at showing the power of the Playstation with the travelling to different worlds instantly so quick. I grew up on Ratchet and Clank and I am down for more! I wish it had a dirtier name like Rift A Whole or something to go with the vibes of Up your Arsenal or Quest for Booty or Full Frontal assault.. but looks great! 

Project Athia

Games with the word Project in the title we don’t end up seeing for ageeees but visually it looks stunning, I’d like to know more about it but we’ll just have to wait and see. 

Stray

I have no idea if this is a linear story or a wide open world game or anything. The world looks amazing, robots and fun Grafiti art hinting at a really dark past but yeah Stray cat sim looks cool. I just wanna know more about it but it’s for sure on my to watch list. 

Returnal

Terrible name.. but the game’s story seems somewhat interesting, I thought it would be a first person horror space game with survival elements but then the gameplay seems like a third person bullet hell type thing, honestly it’s not for me but I’m sure there’s some people hyped for it. I’m also a coward so too spooky 4 me. 

Sackboy: A Big Adventure

I like Sackboy as a mascot, same with Ratchet and Clank actually, and I actually really enjoyed Little Big Planet, I never really messed around with the creation aspect of it, I’d like to know if that’s still in the game or if this is simply a platformer type game that you can also play with your friends, either way I might get it but with all the other games around, maybe not. Great if you’re a parent who wants to play something with your kids though!

Destruction Allstars

Honestly.. I haven’t played a Destruction Derby game since like the PS2 and I am so ready for one, I like the whole being able to get out of your vehicle aspect too, seems like a really new and fun idea and take and I’m down to play. I kind of hope it’s free to play with like paid customisation options, like Fortnite, because then I can Just play it for free and people can work out if it’s for them or not. 

Kena: Bridge of Spirits

OHMYGOD THEY ARE SO CUTE THEY KEPT MY BOLD ON! No but this game looks gorgeous and kind of like a Pixar film but in the best way. It’s like a mix of Pikmin, Horizon Zero Dawn and Zelda and I am sure it’ll be probably quite liniar maybe with puzzles but loooook atthe spirits omg they’re the cutest. The enviroments also look gorgeous so.. I’m down. 

Goodbye Volcano High

One of those like Teen growing up discovering the world but like.. they’re dinosaurs and I’m sure the game probably ends with the meteor wiping them out.. honestly not a game for me but people that love that feelsy teen drama type game might be loving whatever this is. 

Oddworld: SoulStorm

The first game creeped me the fuck out as a kid but fans of the series are gonna love this by the looks of it, personally it’s not for me, I’m terrible at these kind of side scrolling lemmings type things but.. I’m sure it’s someones game of the year when it comes out for sure. 

Ghostwire Tokyo

Again, I’m a coward. Game looks interesting, too spooky for me for sure but I’m sure some people will enjoy it’s aesthetic but yeeaaah just not for me.

Jett: The Far Shore

This game looks stunning and very interesting but I also have no idea wtf it even is, it’s like a space.. exploration game maybe? No idea. For sure a wait and see game. 

Godfall

This trailer is terrible for a game that I could enjoy. This is like supposed to be like Destiny from what I’ve heard where you play with your friends and you get better gear but this trailer feels like it’s from 2011. I’d like to see what the progression looks like because right now all the gear I’ve seen looks the same, I need to see what a starting character looks like, someone who’s in the middle of the game and then someone at the end, because the getting gear loop is only good if you actually want the loot.. but yeah looks interesting, i need more information and maybe a better trailer? 

Solar Ash

I never played Hyper Light Drifter but the fact the name rings a bell to me means it’s probably a great game, this gives me like weird Journey vibes which is a game I found really gorgeous and if you haven’t played Journey you should, it’s a basically the answer to “Are games art?” and the answer is yes. But Solar Ash.. I need more than these like 5 seconds so.. We’ll see. 

Hitman 3

Kill people the most creative way you can, now with better graphics. Idek if anyone is interested in the actual story of it anymore but I know a lot of people will be hyped to play it, it’s not for me because I’m terrible at it, but for sure going to see a lot of this on youtube probably. 

Astro’s Playroom

If you’re hating on this, you don’t understand it. Apparently, first off, it’s apparently free. So.. instantly you can’t hate it. Second off, it’s really just Playstation’s tech demo for the controller. I think it’s just going to show you how the controllers haptic feedback works and feels and maybe show some cool Playstation graphics but yeah, it’s a free way to see how cool the controller is now so.. fair enough. 

Little Devil Inside

This is the game I’m probably the most curious about. I love the art style of it, I don’t really know what the gameplay is of it, it seems like ti could be some sort of big open world monster hunter type thing then you bring your kill home to your Butler Jeeves, who knows. Looks really interesting. 

NBA 2K21

is basketball

Bugsnax

This is made by the people who made octodad so maybe it’ll be a big like youtuber or streamer game.. the ending of the trailer for it is.. like.. suddenly spooky and scary for some reason :P Honestly though, I’ve seen the trailer a few times now and that fucking song is stuck in my head even though the only word i know is ‘Bugsnax’.. again it looks like a game for kids and parents so like that’s nice!

Demon’s Souls

The daddy of all the souls type games is back and remastered. Honestly, I can’t play those games to save my life, i don’t enjoy them because I just get annoyed and stop playing forever, but this will be someones favourite game of all time. 

Deathloop

I have no idea what this game really is despite seeing gameplay, is it two player where one of the people has to kill the target and then the other has to kill them before they do? Or singleplayer? Or.. ???? either way I love the style of it and I like the death time loop mechanic so I am more than happy to give this one a go. 

Resident Evil VIllage

Very cool use of the VII to be quite honest, but I’m a coward so this looks to be a stunning game that a lot of people will love that I will never play :D 

Pragmata

No fucking clue. Your guess is as good as mine. *shrug* wtf? 

Horizon Forbidden West

I love Horizon Zero Dawn, I platinumed it.. So I am really fucking down for this sequel. I don’t even know what to say, it looks interesting, some new environments, new robot things to take down. I’m sold. 

The Actual Ps5 Console 

I think people will either hate the design or love it. I really like it and honestly the more I see it the more I like it. Idk about the digital edition, I kind of like owning disks but if it’s considerably cheaper then maybe it’ll be worth it seeing as I do tend to buy most of my games digitally now. Either way, looks cool, the tech is impressive and Yeah.. let’s face it, I’ll get one. Idk if it’ll be on release, but I will get one.

[terryblount]

Anthem Demo First Impressions

Bioware used to be a revered name when it comes to Western RPGs. But lately, they seemed a bit off. Mass Effect Andromeda was an unfortunate mess (though it has some strong points). Can Bioware’s latest IP, the 3rd-person looter shooter RPG Anthem, succeed?

I come from a perspective of someone disappointed in the state of the developers currently, and also someone who’s still scratching his head to understand the long appeal of these looter-shooters. I’m okay with Warframe and Borderlands, but Destiny and The Division just didn’t grab me as much despite spending a significant amount of hours into them.

I’ve played through the Anthem public demo, both on PC and PS4. Outside of some bugs and glitches, I can say that Anthem’s going to be an okay game, thank god.

Familiar Setup

The world of Anthem has a simple to explain setup. The world itself is in an unfinished state, where the ‘gods’, abandoning it. As a result, it’s unstable and filled with dangerous fauna. Remnants of the tech to create the world is still out there, including the titular Anthem Of Creation, but there’s also a faction of baddies that want to control it. You are a Freelancer, and you do tasks like exploring the world and protecting the remnants of humanity housed in Fort Tarsis.

It’s pretty cliche, honestly. Destiny is also doing the whole sci-fi but without nerdy jargons angle. And I have an inkling a lot of the plotline ticks the same boxes as Andromeda did.

Though story-wise, Anthem won’t be delivering the same hooks as Mass Effect or Dragon Age did. There’s no decision that matters (though you do make binary dialogue choices). But at least the banter and conversation between characters in the hub world feel geniune and believeable, so there’s still that Bioware touch.

Suit Up

You pilot Javelins, these Iron Man-esque exosuits that comes in four classes. The demo defaults you to the all-rounder Ranger but you can progress and unlock an additional suit for the demo.

Essentially these are your different classes with unique traits that make for different playstyles. Aside from the Ranger you get the big boy Colossus that acts as the tank. The Interceptor moves fast, has melee combos and made for hit-and-run playstyles while the Storm has elemental powers, floats and wears capes.

On that note, gear are not tied to cosmetics. And there’s a lot of freedom in painting your suits with the right colour on the right material. Yes, you could even pick the different texture of each part of the suit to make it shiner/grimier/rubbery. Anthem took pages from Warframe in this department and it shows, you can make some pretty cool or some godawful colour schemes for your robo-dolls.

As such, the gear you have is all about the numbers and the properties it has. The Ranger has the ability to shoot an assault launcher mounted on its arm. By default, it shoots a direct rocket out of his assault launcher. But you can have it spew flames, cryo rays or even shoot poison darts by equipping different gear.

Mass Effect With Iron Man Suits

As for the combat, it’s terrific. Though I might be biased because I liked Mass Effect Andromeda’s combat which was its saving grace. It’s a third-person shooter and you have jump jets to dodge and jump with. And you can also float mid-air. You can setup combos by pairing one ability to another complementing one for bigger damage.

Weapons feel weighty and punchy and the abilities are a feast of beautiful particle explosions. Enemies have either health bars (red), shields (blue), armour (yellow) or a combination of the two. Aside from the cover system being removed (because why would you be in cover when you wear a big, beautiful exosuit), all of the combat feels right out of Mass Effect Andromeda. And that’s a good thing.

Many of the combat area encourages you to use your mobility, but it’s definitely fine to drop down and just lay down bullets like a regular shooter game sometimes. But when the Ranger can deploy a bubble shield mid-air and will remain floating there, you are definitely encouraged to leave the ground. The enemy AI, however, is not that smart. Most of them are just fodders but they do have abilities designed to flush you out from sitting in one place.

It goes without saying that flying around in the Javelins is a sublime experience. The way the afterburners kick in when you hit sprint after a jump to go flying is super satisfying. On PC, it’s a bit finicky to control with the mouse though. But if you use a controller, it’s a joy traversing the fractured, but beautiful open world.

Also, it’s interesting to see Anthem incorporates elemental properties. You can get overheated for prolonged use of the flying jets, but skimming near water ( you know you get it when the elemental “cooled” is displayed on the top left), you can fly longer. Being set on fire will also stops you from flying so having enemies close to you is dangerous.

These are small details, but it’s intuitive and helps make the combat feel a bit different than the other looter-shooters.

Bugs, Loading, And Other Worrisome Points

Anthem has matchmaking for all the missions. In fact, if you want to do them on your own you will get a warning if you really want to do it all alone. Granted, I tried one of the missions solo and is completely doable. But playing with random folks, I have no issues bar one- the are transitions.

The open world has several areas in caves that you can traverse to that requires a lengthy loading screen to go through. It’s nice that if you are far off from the group you’ll be teleported to them. But those loading screens really took me out of the experience.

Oh, remember the cool part in the E3 reveal where you go to dive underwater? The underwater sections found in the demo were too dark and disorienting and I hated them.

The demo gave us a three mission arc as well as a Stronghold mission, which serves as the endgame. Each mission (expeditions) play out very similarly. Go here. Attack. Interact. Go there. Attack. There are some variations, like defend an area or collect items and place it somewhere else, but nothing too complicated. Nor is it interesting.

Folks who played the VIP demo a week before got the shorthand of the stick as the game had connection issues. While that is solved for the public demo, there are other known bugs that EA and Bioware already know and has fixed for the launch, but are left in this demo.

The sound design is terrific but many sound cues are missing or don’t work. Freeplay, a mode where you can just free roam the open world and join public events, has issues to get in. And it also has issues where you cannot exit Freeplay via the menu. I mashed buttons, including the options button, to find something to do when downed in a non-respawn zone and ended up HUD-less when revived until the end of the mission.

It’s a frustrating experience and I hope they really did fix these issues already.

Final Thoughts

Overall, given my low expectations to begin with, Anthem could be a decent looter shooter RPG. Maybe now EA gets their live service cash cow they needed. The core gameplay is great and the Javelin customisation is immense.

Though there the story isn’t as intriguing or interesting. The gameplay loop could wear down quick. And then there’s the lingering fear on how the servers hold up and how pricy the cosmetics will be. All are fair worrying points.

But at least, I can see that fans of the online RPG looter shooters will be happy. Now there’s another possibly decent game tackling the genre. Though I will stay clear of it on day one.

Anthem will be out for everyone to purchase normally on February 22nd for the PS4, PC (Origin) and Xbox One.

Anthem Demo First Impressions published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[rastagong-tearoom]

Serving of Tea #3: What’s an epistolary VN anyway?

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the tearoom again! Please enjoy today’s serving, I hope it will warm you up in this cold time!

This serving should have been offered several weeks ago already, but current real-life circumstances haven’t left me with much time to do VN related work.    (Well, in truth, I could have found the time somehow, but… Sometimes it’s wiser to actually relax during free time, instead of spending it on more side work.)

Anyway, here are the latest developments, even though they’re almost a month old now!

I’ve done a small share of scripting on Sylvan Disappearance. The end is not any near yet, but I would say it is in sight? And that’s very uplifting to me.

Though scripting is becoming easier and easier, I’m still trying to pace myself, and not to rush through the process. I'm paying more and more attention to the general atmosphere and coherence of the story, since I’ve got to a point where it all starts to come together. This mostly means that I constantly worry that no scene is any good in the end. It’s not the final editing pass yet, but I feel like the moment to start polishing the edges has come!

It is not on scripting that I spent most of my time, though, but rather on the UI and on the epistolary phase of the story!

I had put off working on both for a long, long while.

The user interface

The UI is usually held to be to be a key part of the presentation of a VN. It can easily set the mood from the very title screen. There’s only one problem: I’m not convinced by the utility of polishing the user interface.

I obviously appreciate beautiful and expressive interfaces as much as anyone, and certain key screens like the textbox, the game menu and the title screen do need to be expressive. However, I worry about the fact that highly polished UIs are becoming a minimum requirement for all visual novels, even free ones. More broadly, I think the increasingly high production values of indie VNs and the drive to “polish” can restrict the range of creative expression in the medium. (You may have seen me ranting about this on another social network. I think I’ll just write another blog post focused on this topic next time.)

But anyway, as of now, customising the UI of a VN matters a great deal, so I finally took some time to improve the UI, and I’m reasonably satisfied with the end result!

I particularly spent time on reworking the splashscreen (not pictured here), and I think you’ll like it!

The title screen and the game menu were already pretty much done, but I'm finally satisfied with them.

The epistolary component

The epistolary component of the story is, well, very much at the core of Sylvan Disappearance. “This is going to be an epistolary visual novel” was among the first things I thought of for this project. When I started to draft the story, I had probably conceived more details about the way the epistolary component would work than specific storyline developments.

As the synopsis explains, Sylvan Disappearance is in part an epistolary novel, because Mirabelle receives letters, and replies to them. A good half of the narrative is contained within those letters, though there are also segments external to them.

Usually, epistolary novels frame the narration as a succession of letters or documents presented linearly. You read the letters from a character to another (Goethe’s Werther), the entire correspondence between a few characters (Les liaisons dangereuses), or even a succession of loosely-related documents (Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Call of Cthulhu to a certain extent). When writers reuse this framing in interactive fiction and games, it becomes much more dynamic. Indeed, through interactivity, the player can virtually embody the narrator who explores a set of documents or letters within the setting.

There’s a loosely-defined subgenre of interactive fiction which relies on this framing, because it offers very interesting possibilities to present a narrative, especially mysteries. In the visual novel format, Christine Love's Hateful Days series relies on a virtual databases of letters, diary entries and logs from a futuristic society that the player explores to understand the reasons of its demise. Her work has been hugely influential on a number of other works, like A Normal Lost Phone, where the player navigates around the virtual interface of a lost mobile phone to find its owner, or Her Story, where the players watches hours of recorded interrogation by the police to solve a crime. (Other iterations of a slightly different kind, like Mystic Messenger or Bury Me my Love, put the framing of narrative documents in the present tense through instant messaging, making the player respond to messages in real time.)

All these stories present their set of documents, logs and letters with the same device, a virtual interactive screen, itself contained within the game. This device can be compared to the framing layer of epistolary novels, where the letters are themselves read by characters within the storyline. In the same way, these interactive works have the player explore documents through databases, computers and interfaces which are contained within the setting of the game.

Sylvan Disappearance uses a virtual screen too, but more artificially: the screen is a mere substitute for a more manual process, that of reading and replying to hand-written letters. The goal of this epistolary screen, as I call it, is to embody the process as seamlessly as possible, for the narrative to proceed smoothly.

I had already programmed a functional mockup before starting scripting, but it was not graphically polished yet, and offered no kind of explanation for the player.

I have taken some time to polish it, and it is finally complete! Without waiting any further, here are a few previews:

As you can see, letters are represented by coloured sheets of paper. The colour indicates the status: red letters are still unread, orange letters await a reply, blue letters have been read and replied to. In the end, it looks like a basic webmail interface…

As for the way it works: The story follows Mirabelle through snippets of her life in a seaside city, at work, with her friends, and so on. At the end of any such day, Mirabelle comes home, picks her mail and finds one or several new letters on her desk. This is the epistolary phase. She must then read the letters, and reply (replying being automatically done). It is possible to re-read any previous letter at any time, which will probably come useful at certain points.

I’m honestly very satisfied of the epistolary screen from a technical standpoint! It took…… a lot of time to get it right. Not so much for the screen itself, but rather to organise the way it works within the script in a clean, coherent and readable manner.

Here are a few of the challenges I encountered, if you do not mind technical discussion:

Organising letter data. Each letter has both immutable metadata, which never change, like “who sent it” and “when”, but also a number of status flags like “unread” or “awaiting a reply” which do change in the course of the story. They had to be cleanly separated so that the status flags would be saved by Ren’Py, while the metadata would just be available as constants at any given time. In the end, letters have their own custom class with attributes for the status flags, while metadata are represented by Python namedtuples generated at initialisation, and added as attributes as well.

Compartmenting the narration of each letter into independent Ren’Py labels so that any letter could be re-read. Replies also required independent labels. Smoothly transitioning from the epistolary screen to the narration of a letter and back, handling the status flags, the music… it all required a surprising amount of code.

I had to write a number of short tutorials to introduce certain features of the screen, and to script a hook which could trigger them at the right moment. Also, a help menu to replay the tutorials.

Dealing with rollback and saving during the epistolary phase was hell and I do not believe I could summarise the matter at all in less than 500 words. But now it works as smoothly as intended, phew.

It was not as bad as it sounds! I really enjoyed working on this whole system.

I won’t be writing more in-depth descriptions of it, but I do hope it can be useful to other VN devs. The code of the game will probably be open sourced at release, and I’ve tried to put comments everywhere in the code to make everything readable. I could also make a standalone tutorial detailing everything about the entire screen? Feel free to ask if you would be interested in such a thing!

Thanks for reading this long and technical update. I’m not sure of when I’ll be able to get back to VN dev properly… but the end is getting closer and closer. See you next time!

[the-desolated-quill]

Mass Effect - Video Game blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t played this video game yet and wish to remain spoiler free, stop reading now)

I have a PS3, which means I never actually got the chance to play the original Mass Effect when it came out. Mass Effect 2 was the first game in the series to be released on PS3 and it did a very good job introducing newcomers to the franchise. But thankfully the first Mass Effect was rereleased on the Playstation Store, which meant us Playstations users could finally experience the entire Mass Effect trilogy as a whole. And since Mass Effect Andromeda comes out at the end of the month, I thought I’d play through and blog about the entire trilogy.

Mass Effect is a sci-fi, action RPG series that allows you to customise the protagonist’s name, gender, background, combat style and appearance. I played as Commander Alice Shepard, a colonist and soldier who received many medals of valour for her heroic deeds during the Skyllian Blitz. Set in the 22nd century, humans are fighting for recognition among the numerous alien races on the Citadel (the hub of galactic civilisation). Shepard is appointed as the first human Spectre, a group of elite warriors who perform covert missions for the Council by any means they see fit. Your first mission? Track down a rogue Spectre called Saren before he and his geth army unleash upon the galaxy the Reapers. A race of sentient machines hellbent on destroying all life in the galaxy.

It’s going to be a bit hard to judge this game on its own merits due to the fact that Mass Effect 2 was my first proper introduction to the series. It’s hard to tell if any of my criticisms I have toward this game are merely because I’m used to how the sequel operates. I’ll try my best not to compare the two, but I will say this. I think Mass Effect 2 does a far better job introducing you to this universe than the first Mass Effect does. Mass Effect 2 managed to trickle out important information about the world and lore whilst telling an engaging narrative. Mass Effect 1 however does have a tendency to get bogged down in exposition a lot. Maybe it only feels slow and plodding to me just because I’m already familiar with the lore, but there are a number of occasions where you’re encouraged to talk to your teammates and they just provide you with massive info dumps as opposed to meaningful interactions.

But anyway, let’s start with the story because that’s the main selling point of the Mass Effect franchise. On the whole, I liked it a lot. Bioware really put in a lot of effort building this universe and its lore and all that hard work really pays off. All the alien races are really cool. I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for the turians personally because I just love their design and their methodical, militaristic nature, but the other races like the asari, krogan, salarians and quarians are all really interesting too. I love the relationships between the races and their histories. For example you have the quarians who actually created the geth centuries back only to lose their home world in a Terminator style revolution. All the stuff with krogan are interesting too. The salarians used them to defeat an insect race called the rachni only for the krogans to rise up and were eventually sterilised by the genophage. And then of course there’s all the stuff with the long extinct Protheans, whose technology (or so the characters initially think is Prothean technology) serves as the basis for the whole of galactic society and innovation.

In fact it’s the politics of it that I find to be the most interesting thing about Mass Effect. The Council races mistrust humans and frequently patronise them (the turians in particular have a lot of contempt in humanity due to the fact that the two races used to be at war due to a misunderstanding at first contact) and the non-council races view humanity with disdain, feeling they’re getting too many privileges and are dangerous. This plays into the game’s moral choice system and how you play the game. Do you try to appease the Council and improve galactic relations or do you dismiss diplomacy and charge in headfirst, risking further alienation? The game is ostensibly about humanity, through Shepard, carving a place for themselves in galactic society. Either peacefully or through force. This especially comes to a head near the end where you have to choose to either save the Council from annihilation at the hands of Sovereign or let them die, which would mean an all human council taking their place. Considering the headache the Council give you throughout the game, it would be severely tempting to let them die, but it could have dire consequences on galactic relations in the future. (I chose to save the Council by the way). Shepard is basically dealing with two conflicts. The A plot of stopping Saren and the B plot of finding the right balance between serving the alien Council and looking out for human interests.

The antagonists are really cool. The Reapers are an incredibly compelling threat and suitably mysterious. The conversation you have with Sovereign is definitely one of the highlights. He’s ancient, cold and intelligent. Utterly compelled to carry out the genocide of every sentient race in the galaxy and the scariest thing about him is that we don’t know why. He displays a high level of arrogance, claiming the motivation and purpose of the Reapers is beyond our comprehension. It certainly does raise a lot of interesting questions going forward. And then of course there’s Saren, who really makes the Reaper threat a lot more personal. Unknowingly indoctrinated by Sovereign, Saren believes that helping the Reapers is for the greater good, claiming that if he can prove to the Reapers that organic life forms can be useful, they’ll be spared. Saren is very much a tragic character. He’s ruthless and at times bloodthirsty, but he’s not evil. Not really. He honestly believes he’s doing the right thing and that he can somehow outsmart the Reapers’ machine logic, only to then get in way over his head and become an unwitting pawn. He makes for a great antagonist and part of the thrill of the conflict comes from trying to convince him that he’s been indoctrinated and trying to convince the Council that Saren is now a threat. (Although I’m surprised it took so much to convince the Council that Saren is working for the Reapers. I mean just look at him).

(Does he often wear sinister cyberpunk outfits to work?)

Gameplay is okay. I much prefer Mass Effect 2′s game design. Instead of ammo, your weapons can overheat and you have to wait for them to cool down, which can get a bit annoying. There are a number of side missions you can do, but they tend to get very repetitive due to the similarities of the maps. Every lab is the same, every spaceship is the same and every mine is the same. You can hack certain objects for collectibles by playing an incredibly repetitive and boring mini game where you just match the button prompt. And if you for some reason can’t press a simple button, don’t worry. You can use omni-gel, which you can get by recycling unwanted items, to bypass all of it. So if you’re in the habit of recycling a lot like I am, you’ll have so much omni-gel that the game actually starts to become disgustingly easy. Omni-gel can also be used to repair the Mako, which you’re required to drive around maps. Now a lot of people complain about the Mako saying it’s hard to control, and I honestly don’t know what they’re talking about. Granted it’s a bit of a pain when you want to reverse or make a sharp turn in the middle of a battle, but it’s not undriveable. It’s like one of those RC cars I had as a kid and it’s easy enough to control, so I don’t see what all the fuss is about. I was more bothered by the repetitive maps more than anything else.

You can’t customise your armour like you can in the sequels, but there is a large variety of armour and guns for you to choose from as well as mods that can be fitted for added benefits like heat absorption to prevent your gun from overheating or more powerful shields and so on. Unlike the sequels, you can also do the same for your squad mates, not that they’re much use. I swear the AI for them is fucked. There are instances where an enemy is hiding behind a crate and instead of doing something sensible like walking around the crate, they choose to fire at the crate. I’ll tell you something else that’s fucked too. The cover system. There are numerous instances where I’m standing right next to a wall and press the X button, and Shepard will just stand there like a blancmange. And whose idea was to make me crouch before going into certain types of cover? Crouching is usually reserved for stealth. The last thing I think about in a firefight is ‘Oh shit. I’d better crouch now.’

Finally let’s discuss the characters and the moral choice system. Throughout the game you get moral choices that earn you Paragon and Renegade points that can open up certain dialogue options provided you remember to upgrade your Charm and Intimidate skills in the Squad menu (yeah I’m glad they got rid of that in the sequels). Now the game boasts that all of your choices will change the story and have an impact, and that’s true in the sequels, but in this game and this game alone... really? Sure you see Shepard slowly change and evolve the further you go along the Paragon or Renegade paths, but I can’t really detect that much difference in the narrative. It seems to play out mostly the same to me. You’re also encouraged to talk with the other characters often in between missions to really bond with them, but as I said before, they have a tendency to speak almost entirely in exposition most of the time and (with the exception of Wrex where you share a pretty tense exchange on Virmire and how its resolved depends on how you’ve interacted with him previously) it never really seems to make much of a difference no matter how much you interact with them.

I suppose that’s really my biggest problem with this game. It does feel very much like setup. Mass Effect 2 (and Mass Effect 3 to a certain extent) does an excellent job introducing new players to the franchise whilst also continuing the overall narrative and telling its own self contained story. You could (and can) play Mass Effect 2 without having played the first one and still follow along. With the first Mass Effect, it very much sacrifices meaningful character interaction in favour of setting up a grander narrative. That’s not to say I hate the characters or that they’re underdeveloped. I really like them. I love the cynicism of Wrex and the skepticism of Ashley, Garrus and Tali are pretty cool, and Liara is just utterly adorable. I just never felt any real kind of bond with them like I did with the characters in Mass Effect 2. In Mass Effect 2 you had loyalty missions and meaningful dialogues and you feel like you’ve really gotten to know this group of people and formed a strong emotional connection with them. I just didn’t get that with this game, which unfortunately affects certain parts of the narrative. On Virmire for instance you have to choose whether to rescue Ashley or Kaiden, leaving the other to die for the cause. It should have been a very powerful and tragic moment, but I didn’t really feel anything because I felt like I hadn’t really bonded with the characters as much as I should have (also it wasn’t exactly a hard choice. Kaiden is by far the most boring character in the game, so naturally I was going to sacrifice him).

It also sadly affects the romance. In the game you can choose one of three characters to be your love interest. Ashley if you’re a man, Kaiden if you’re a woman and Liara for both. (I picked Liara, in case you’re wondering). Again, because I feel I haven’t bonded with the characters as much as I should, it’s hard to be invested in the romance, especially when nothing really comes of it other than a sex scene. It’s also all a bit forced. I remember in Mass Effect 2 that the game would give you the option to make the relationship with a character more flirtatious if you wanted, and thus open another a whole other level to the dynamic between both characters, but here it’s like the game wants you to start a romance to the point where it becomes kind of awkward. When I was talking to Liara, one minute we’re talking about why she chose to be an archaeologist and then suddenly she starts throwing herself at me saying she feels a bond between us. Like... Liara, I’ve literally only just met you. Calm down. And then there was one really awkward bit where Kaiden suddenly got pissy because he thought I was romancing himself and forced me to choose. I wasn’t even aware I was romancing Kaiden! I thought I was just being nice! (perhaps that was the intention. To show what women have to go through when a man misinterprets friendly gestures as romantic ones. I don’t know. I suspect I may be giving the developers too much credit on that one).

While Mass Effect is still an enjoyable game despite its faults, I’m very glad that Mass Effect 2 was my first proper introduction to the series as it is a far superior game and story to this one. Which, in fairness, is what a good sequel should do. Improve upon the original. I guess it shows that Bioware respond well to constructive criticism, and that’s always good :)