#i will be replaying the dark souls trilogy at some point in the not too distant future but

[knightofleo]

Congrats on becoming the real Royal Rat Authority, its been a real fun time watching your escapades!!! DLC time perchance?

[myth-blossom]

I love and appreciate your reasonings for each of the levels you mentioned! Here are my picks for favorite and least favorite levels in the WOA trilogy (and there were some tough choices!):

Hitman (2016)

Favorite: Sapienza

Sapienza really made an impression on me when I first played it, so much so that I kept confusing it as the first level instead of Paris. I loved the variety of the level’s areas as you mentioned, plus the bonus missions (oh Landslide, the sunset and music there just make the town extra special <3).

Least Favorite: Colorado

This map is tricky for me. On one hand, I really appreciate the difficulty it brings not only to the story (four targets in a super hostile territory), but also when playing any special missions and/or Freelancer contracts. On the other, it is honestly quite a pain in the ass—there’s not a lot of room for fun and improvising when the whole place is a spark away from being a bonfire.

Hitman 2

(funny enough, we traded!)

Favorite: Isle of Sgàil

Isle of Sgàil is a map I’ve come to appreciate the more I play it. It is so over-the-top ridiculous in terms of rich people bullshit (in the best “let’s go ham” way), plus it’s amazing with its Dark-Souls-esque aesthetic (spot on, Mike Channel). It gave me more of a challenge like Colorado did in the first game, only this was more fun with the many chances to improvise and the random castle & cult stuff you can find. Plus, I love the presence (however brief) of Grey in the mission objective, and the kidnapping of Arthur Edwards made things extra interesting for plot progression.

Least Favorite: Santa Fortuna

I remember this map feeling SO big when I first played it, big enough to the point that I felt bad for all the cardio exercise I was causing 47. Initially, that was a negative for me because it felt more like a hassle running everywhere than a challenge. The “Embrace Of the Serpent” mission sounded cool, too, but I was disappointed because it seemed like there was so much more that could have been done with the map but ultimately wasn’t. My opinion has changed over time and I do enjoy playing the map now, but it still isn’t a map I would easily gravitate towards.

Hitman 3

(SO. DIFFICULT. TO CHOOSE!)

Favorite: Berlin/Mendoza

Honestly, I love all maps in Hitman 3 (and Carpathian Mountains was interesting, even if it was hella short and a direct line of progression). But Berlin and Mendoza are truly a tie for my favorite levels in the game. Nothing will compare to playing Berlin for the first time at 3 in the morning, emotional AF about Grey and 47, loading into a silent map with nothing but a drive to find Olivia and survive. The club is amazing and the music growing louder as you descend with the threat of ICA agents everywhere is just so, so good.

But also, nothing will compare to loading into Mendoza and seeing Diana there, waiting for 47 at the overlook as a proper femme fatale, her true intentions a mystery as she speaks with him, dances with him, and later betrays him in the olive grove. The whole place is beautiful and I will forever be grateful for that tango. And I do appreciate the different opportunities presented and having an ally be stuck with a target, with their unique dialogue being fun to follow as well as Diana’s willingness to assist 47 in taking them down.

Least Favorite: Dartmoor

I chose this as my least favorite *only* because it is very, very easy for me to know this map inside and out. The murder mystery and Detective 47 were an absolute delight to play, and I really do like the secret passageways and the bonus missions (such as the Garden Show variant). But at the end of the day, it doesn’t seem to offer a lot of variety for replaying that other levels can, and I will always be happy to see it in Freelancer because I can knock it out in no time.

Location ranking of each Hitman WoA Game

All locations from the three WoA games of Hitman have their very own charm. But some levels have inspired me more than others over the years, so here is my ranking of my favourite and least favourite Hitman locations from all three games!

Hitman 2016

Favourite Location: Sapienza

Sapienza has a very special place in my heart. Although Paris was the first level, it was Sapienza that totally grabbed me. The small town, the café, the beach, the villa, the laboratory. Everything about Sapienza is beautiful! There is one small deduction, namely that the two targets are almost exclusively in the villa and the rest of the town was hardly used. But fortunately this was made up for a little with "Landslide" and "The Icon".

Least favourite Location: Bangkok

Even though the Himmapan Hotel itself looks beautiful, it's my least favourite level in Hitman 2016. For one thing, it hardly feels like a hotel, due to the lack of areas that I consider a hotel, such as a pool or spa area. This worked far better in Haven or Hokkaido. Secondly, I find the routes of the two targets very limited, which makes the already very compact level seem even smaller.

Hitman 2

Favourite Location: Santa Fortuna

It was very hard to pick a favourite level in Hitman 2, as this is my favourite game of the whole trilogy. But if I have to choose, I'll go for Colombia. Santa Fortuna is not only nice and big, it also has the most unique and fun challenges in my opinion. The only small consolation: again, it's a shame that the three targets have a fairly limited route and don't come together. This had more potential.

Least Favourite Location: Sgail

Sgail is really beautiful. I like the look of the castle and also the outdoor area. But it just didn't captivate me enough. I also find it quite difficult and I find it annoying that you have to wear certain robes for certain areas (I found that annoying in Hokkaido too).

Hitman 3

Note: I have excluded the Carpathian Mountains from my rating, as for me this is more of an epilogue than a real level. I also excluded Ambrose Island because, although it was released with Hitman 3, it technically takes place before the events of Hitman 3.

Favourite Location: Berlin

I love Berlin! I love the vibe of the club because it also reminds me of my clubbing days (yes, in my early 20s I used to visit clubs. Hard to imagine for me today, haha). The feeling when you enter Club Hölle is so realistic that I get goosebumps every time. I like that the music gets louder the further down you go, I like the outdoor area and the NPCs dancing and chilling. I also think it's cool that there are ten different targets to choose from, giving you lots of options and challenges.

Least favourite Location: Chongqing

I really like Chongqing, especially the outdoor area, the flats and the restaurant. With all the neon lights, it has a Blade Runner feel to it. But what I don't like about Chongqing is the ICA headquarters, which I personally find too futuristic and, in contrast to the outdoor area, too lame. And a big point deduction: the targets. In my opinion, Hush and Royce are the most boring targets in all three Hitman games. They are totally uninteresting to me. There was potential, for example regarding Hush and Olivia's past, but it wasn't utilised. Too bad!

What are your favourite and least favourite Locations in the three Hitman games?

[pip-n-flinx]

yup, it all goes below the cut

So I’ve been seeing a resurgence of ME content following the trailers for ME4 and MELE, which makes sense. But I’m a salty m-fer and I honestly am sick and tired of Mass Effect getting shit on for things that other game studies (looking at you fromsoftware) get praised for. So we’re going to unload a little.

The underpinnings of the mass effect universe is this huge extinction cycle, designed and perpetuated by the Reapers. As sufficiently advanced civilizations reach a tipping point, not unlike the great filter theory of space travel, these AI come in and wipe anyone out. This sort of cyclical storytelling, with pieces of the previous cycles being dribbled in throughout the trilogy, seems pretty similar to progression of Dark Souls. At the end of the Mass Effect Trilogy, many fans were upset by the ending choices: Destroy, Control, and Synthesis.

What are your choices in Dark Souls? At the end of the first game, the cycle ends and you, the player, get to choose how the world enters the next era. Does they cycle of undeath continue, or do you shatter the world and hope something new rises from the ashes?

How, pray tell, is that really any different a decision? And why is it when fromsoftware does this its groundbreaking storytelling, but when bioware does it we decide collectively its ‘just a shitty recolor of the same ending?’

I agree, there are some flaws in how they chose to animate the climactic moments of ME3. For one, the fleet assembly and space combat with the reapers above Earth doesn’t change much no matter how many/which allies you bring to the final fight. And of course, the ‘garbage recolor’ ending. And I agree with the premise that more than the color should have changed. We should not have had to wait for the still flawed Extended Cut ending to be released to see how Shepard’s final choice changes the end of the game.

We can also comment on what the crucible actually does. If it is some incredible power-source in need of direction - the citadel - it is a strange choice of weapon to design for your battle against the reapers. We could speculate endlessly on why the writing team chose this, but the real issue here is that there is very little in game context for how this comes about. We get a few lines from Hackett and Liara explaining the Crucible, but that’s about it. Surely there could have been more discoverable codex entries about it, perhaps on Eden Prime with Javik?

To be clear, I don’t actually have a problem with the end of the Trilogy. Sure, it has its plot holes, but I’m not actually too fussed about it. It felt like a fitting end to the series to me. Graphically a little disappointing, to be fair, but otherwise a fine capstone to the story.

I’ve actually read some comments and posts explaining that they ‘won’t buy the legendary edition because they won’t fix the ending’ and I.... Do you even know what a remaster is? I’m not buying the remaster because I think many of the new lighting choices detract from the story, and a reskin won’t ensure the graphics stand the test of time any better than the old ones. I’m perfectly happy replaying the original trilogy without a fancy graphics package that adds nothing to the artistic vision nor sets out any distinctive art style. A few years will see even these HD 4k graphics obsolete/dated, and I’ve spent enough money on Mass Effect as it is.

Moreover, I really hate what speculation and rumor I’ve heard about Mass Effect 4. First, I hate that it will be a ME4 and not an MEA2. This will take some explaining so bear with me.

I’ve seen videos of the original graphics and animations that caught so much flak for Mass Effect Andromea. Unpopular opinion: I don’t think they were bad, and I certainly don’t think they were bad in the context of Mass Effect. None of the games prior had flawless rotoscoping or anchoring. Even watching stock sheploo in the original trilogy is painful if you’re hoping for realism. If y’all want to play this game we can start sharing clips but suffice to say I’m personally convinced we can go tit-for-tat on awkward animations.

Moreover, I think Mass Effect Andromeda is the best Mass Effect game. Best gameplay, by far. It has all the hallmarks of a great sci-fi: new aliens, new planets, new villains. And while I understand some people felt the switch from overcompetent supersoldier Shepard to young-kid-with-daddy-issues-and-more-than-a-few-bad-bosses Ryder was jarring, I absolutely loved playing a plucky hero who lost their mentor before they’d even properly started training. It gave the game an urgency I loved, and to me Ryder felt like a much more relatable protagonist than Shepard.

The story itself is a fucking masterstroke. Hear me out:

So in Mass Effect, the twin plot drivers are infighting with council/alliance/cerberus ‘allies’ while facing down the threat of and advanced AI wiping out all organic life to preserve diversity and make way for the next ascendant race. In Andromeda, we’re met by the same bickering and infighting amongst our own faction, and the Kett. The Kett, for whom nothing is cyclical. Everyone must assimilate. Who shun technology and seek to eliminate biodiversity by ensuring all civilizations end with Kett. And instead of a well trained military commander and a ship of soldiers, mercenaries, and specialists in the sciences who grow to be respected players on the galactic stage, we get Ryder. Ryder and their crew of misfit nostalgia-driven rock-licking rule-breaking cereal-smuggling culture-vulture heart-broken multiple-amputee nervous-doctor neophiles who meet one alien and have to save all their races from genocide by a rogue Kett Archon. And the Jaardan? the long gone artificial life-forms who had the technological capability to be reaper analogs? They’re the life-givers, the gods of the Andromeda galaxy, seeding species and hope into the galaxy for the player to find.

It’s such a perfect inversion of the original trilogy while still preserving the genre and the universe they had already built. It’s fucking brilliant. And I’ll never forgive them for abandoning it, nor will I forgive the fans whose vitriol stopped the project in its tracks, and killed any hope of a second trilogy.

Honestly, I don’t care if you agree about MEA, or the ME3 ending. I know this isn’t a common take among bioware fans. I just... I’m so fucking done with this franchise and this fandom. I’d like to think my mutuals and the other blogs I follow have level headed positions on this stuff (possibly more level headed than my own salty takes these days) but I honestly wonder why I’m even on this platform some days. It doesn’t spark much joy anymore. I hope no one takes this personally, I certainly don’t mean this as an attack or criticism of any of my followers but damn, I’ve got a lot of feelings tonight and almost all of them are negative...

[vroenis]

Uncharted 4: An Era’s End

It’s recently come to light that game developer Naughty Dog has been subjecting its employees to crunch; the practice of overworking and underpaying staff in order to meet deadlines. This is not unique to Naughty Dog, nor to their current project pending release later this year, The Last Of US 2. Reports suggest that crunch has been endemic in the working culture of Naughty Dog for some time and this is now no surprise to us as such reports continue to surface about studio after studio, most in the corporately structured, premium funded and managed space we call “triple A” or AAA, but many smaller studios and independent spaces also. Several senior and long-tenured creatives have left Naughty Dog quite recently, and some may have been leaving earlier than those that have been reported during what’s turning out to be a turbulent development cycle for The Last Of Us 2.

Each month, as part of the paid subscription to the Playstation Plus online service, Sony offers a small selection of games. For April, one of them was Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, from which I derived my title. Not only am I here to suggest the studio’s troubles may have begun during the development of this game, first released back in 2016, but the title may have been one of the first significant indications that the book was closing on AAA development as we know it. I appreciate there have been many good voices shouting from the rooftops about the how unsustainable it’s been from before then, but the Naughty Dog for a long time seemed like a light in the dark, signalling that a big studio could still produce good product under strong leadership.

I feel that Uncharted 4 rather than The Last Of Us 2 is the real light, and instead of a light-house, it turned out to be a signal-fire warning that even then the composure of Naughty Dog was an illusion.

This piece is going to contain significant spoilers for Uncharted 4. It’s also not investigative - I just played it for the first time, completed it and I have some thoughts about it; these are my thoughts.

I didn’t like the third game at all. I took nothing away from it. I’ll never play it again as there’s nothing I want to relive from it, so I’d better look up the wiki on what happened in it... well that didn’t help at all as I don’t remember playing any of that, it was so unmemorable. I remember the wandering around in the desert bit and then some shooting in the desert which was all pointless. There were also some puzzles with shadow puppets that were almost good but so short and pointless, those two things sum up my feelings about the third game entirely.

What a way to start.

I’ve replayed the first and second games once each, so I’ve played those each twice thru and have decided that the first game is overlong and poorly paced, and the second game is the best and probably two-thirds good. Honestly, Elena should drop the Drakes in the ocean, run-off with Chloe and keep in touch with Sully because those are the only three characters with any depth and meaning. Let’s roll-back a bit.

I get that Nathan’s supposed to be a charming, happy-go-lucky character and for the most part, it works. Maybe I’m just getting too old for it or it’s wearing too thin. I really think the third game was completely unnecessary. When I review my notes on the fourth game, I think about the emotional quandary it attempts to set up i.e., ultimately that Nathan should be more honest with Elena - spoiler; he isn’t, but don’t worry it all works out *SPIT* - this was already a problem I was ready to face at the end of the second game. Given my feelings on the third game, I’d have much preferred a simple trilogy and conclusion that faced that emotional brunt to wrap things up. Naturally of-course, that’s not how money-spinners work.

If Uncharted 4 doesn’t spend time on Elena, who does it spend time on? Nathan has a brother! To be fair, I love Troy Baker as a voice actor and if there’s one thing that is consistent in Naughty Dog games, it’s excellent voice acting. I don’t know if I’m now biased after seeing so much of Nolan North and Troy Baker on YouTube outside of their VO talent work, but they’re wonderful people and their professional work is always great. The supporting cast is always great, too - so too the villains even if the narrative arcs are always completely absurd. I know these are always a bit of a lark, you can’t take them too seriously so I can’t hold Uncharted up to Kentucky Route Zero (got my mention in) and shake them comparatively, that’s not fair. It’s OK to have an excuse for a romp even if it does wear on a bit over time.

The problems I have with Uncharted 4 specifically are things like the level and environmental design. I’ve never gotten lost in this franchise up until now when it happened in almost every level... several times. I simply didn’t know where to go. There would be absolutely no clear indication of where to go and no assists, no subtle environmental guide and no camera nudges to help. There is a timer that eventually tells the player where to go and at times, this is tied to deaths so at one point I just threw Nathan off cliffs repeatedly to respawn until the hint appeared. This is unquestionably stupid design. I began to wonder if this was due to criticism that previous games had too much hand-holding, but when the UI assist was finally given and I made my way to the next check-point, I would *never* have found it under normal exploratory gameplay.

This remained true during several moments of scripted action sequences, some including during combat which brings up something else I now remember about the third game. I still couldn’t tell you when it was other than I didn’t know where to go and it was stupid, so there you have it. Maybe the third game was the real signal fire in my metaphor, who knows. In any case, constantly reverting to check-points and having to repeat, not understanding why you’re failing when the game isn’t telegraphing what you need for a success state in a scripted sequence is an exercise in frustration I’m not willing to ever repeat. While I’m not a souls-like player, I completely appreciate the admiration and respect for those games because they have rules that are clear to parse. Video games are *all about* providing feedback to the player. I’m not saying it’s easy, it is an incredibly difficult thing to achieve but it is literally the job you set out to do, it is the only vehicle you have to convey the lofty emotions you want to communicate to your audience.

And then there’s the driving. Naughty Dog. Do not put driving in your games. This is something you’re not able to do.

I don’t want to bash the driving so hard because at this point I feel like it may have been bolted on without time to make it stick correctly. This is the first game in the title where the hot-zones for interactions weren’t quite right. Where I bugged out of animations and had check-points or re-spawns instanced or loaded. Where I glitched out and fell off things, where I had to walk back and forth in-front of things to make buttons appear. The edges of that Naughty Dog polish were fraying. I’d attempt to do a thing and it just wouldn’t work, I’d fall to my death. I’d attempt to do the same thing the same way and it would work. Again this is dredging up more nondescript memories of the third game so I’m beginning to have my suspicions about the working environment there and when in the timeline things started getting bad - but cameras and jumping distances got really difficult to judge. One gap at one time would be fine to jump, then another would have you plunge to your death, and they’d be inconsistent to read or judge. These were not frequent, as with the third game, almost as if the artists and level designers were given time to adjust lighting and camera geometry tracking and control mapping as much as possible but just couldn’t get to them all. But throughout the games, it creeps in more and more.

I’d talk about combat - it’s functional, but it’s not interesting. These games don’t add anything interesting to the genre or video games in general. I play the games on easy because I don’t need to prolong the experience, I don’t actually have the physical time - if I could play the games without combat, I would. There are other games to play if I want dexterity challenges which I do engage in, Uncharted isn’t one of them. Even in 2016 I’m not entirely sure this would have turned heads. I realise I’m playing this a full four years later, but it’s hard to think of the sum-total of this game’s parts and see it as relevant...

But you know what? Uncharted 4 visually looks immaculate. Outside of the voice-acting and sound design, without question, the highest priority has been given to the visual fidelity of this game inclusive of the animations. So much has been invested in how the tech works, to the abandonment of everything else, I’d say the for example, the driving suffered the most, level design next, then interaction scripting. The attention to detail in the environments is stupendous...

...yet it’s all hollow. You know what? I don’t care about pirates and adventures anymore. Whatever. By the fourth game, I don’t care. I totally get that the game’s not for me but I played it and I’m writing how I feel about it. You’re telling me a story about a guy who met the person of his dreams and marries, then his brother turns up and he can’t be honest to his wife? Meow meow meow it’s all for the sake of drama so we skip over all the details but the contrivance is too much. You want me to accept these things on face value, then on face value, I say Nathan and his brother can go get fucked.

I took particular issue with the comically brief relationship discussion Elena and Nathan have after she saves him and they set off together in which she concludes she’s with him “for better or for worse”, which from memory the game chapter is titled after. Now either the character genuinely believes she owes him under the sanctity of nuptial obligation or she’s using it as a justification of such. This is a wholly unsatisfying discussion for me was when I finally checked out of this game - sure I should have done so hours before but this was the last straw and the indication that I am definitely too old for this shit - but this is a horrifying and stupid message to be spouting. Elena don’t owe anyone shit. Married or not, she’s free to save Nathan if she wants to, for any reason, but she’s certainly not obliged to. I despise this massive chunk of traditionalist patriarchy smashed into her character and the narrative, even if it is “well it’s just about her character” yea great, so that just re-enforces her as a loyal dog-trophy for the main character in the on-going male power-fantasy shenanigans shit-train. Nathan’s behaviour isn’t exactly selfish but it’s certainly not adult or considerate. He behaves like a child not taking on an appropriate level of responsibility. Others around him, being Elena and Sully, continuously bail him out - literally saving his life while endangering their own, and he continues to behave like a manchild that neither acknowledges their physical and emotional labour nor does he grow and evolve as an individual. What a fucker. Does he ever sort his shit out, ask Elena what she wants to do for a career and support whatever the fuck she wants to do with her life? Of-course the fuck he doesn’t. Know why? Because he’s a literal man-baby. And his brother is too. But that’s OK cos  he’s a fucken jock-hero and a funny guy so as long as we can all laugh about it and the narrative says-so and it all works out in the end and he gets the girl and she ends-up supporting his career anyway, it’s aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall fine.

Nathan should have died and Elena shouldn’t have given a fuck.

I know I know, it’s not that serious. Look I’ve been thru some shit, alright? I can see it both ways. Sometimes you don’t think about stupid shit that deep and sometimes you do. Most of the time, I do, and most of the time, I take it to the nth degree, so yea, shit like that gets to me. I call it bad writing, so no, I don’t like the story. At all. Nathan’s supposed to be flawed but nothing ever costs him. When people make mistakes in life, those mistakes cost. The unfortunately thing is the cost is most often paid by the others around them, and sometimes they themselves never realise it. I don’t like stories where there’s a fuckhead at the centre but everyone still stays happy. Nathan seems to have been given a lesson, but I don’t think he earned it. This is why y’all watch Game of Thrones and are surprised when characters die because you keep consuming narratives with no stakes, and GoT is *still* only middling stuff.

Anyway.

How could Elena’s character have been given more attention? Uncharted 4 isn’t all bad. The most valuable thing Naughty Dog achieved was the recreation of real domestic spaces; the Drake households. Twice, we’re given time and space and encouraged to explore them without being funnelled by level design, events, NPC shepherding or audio cues. Rooms and the objects that fill them are meticulously and beautifully created, and they're given life and purpose in a way that has meaning far beyond all the pirate nonsense that while almost as equally beautiful, is completely vacuous.

Putting on Elena’s vinyl record as her daughter Cassie was the only time I enjoyed the music in the game, and it was a great call-back to Nathan having done the same thing in their house much earlier. Sure, there’s the Drake theme that repeats ad nauseam throughout the series but otherwise the soundtrack is bland and unremarkable adventuring fare. It contributes more to the feeling of this game being out of touch, contrasted to something like Control which certainly has a completely different setting, sure - but that’s part of it, so that affords the creative team room for more modular synths and drones and to have a distinct sound.

Walking thru those houses, first as Nathan but really as the player repositioning themselves from adventurer to ordinary life-living person in a domestic setting, and then as Cassie - daughter of these two amazing characters in an equalling urbane setting yet filled with wonderful objects, made up the most fascinating and enjoyable moments of the game for me. The mess of each room gave the houses the perfect lived-in feel to a degree that most other games struggle to achieve, probably due to how much effort it takes to get that much geometry mapped in - Giant Sparrow’s What Became of Edith Finch is probably one of the few games that has come close. The difference between the tropical islands, decaying pirate mansions and the domestic Drake residences is that the houses felt like everything in there felt like it meant something and was in there for a reason, like it had been part of something. I don’t mean that just for the objects that were intrinsically tied to implicit narrative beats like collectables or even items from countries where Uncharted 4 or prior games are set, but also things like towels, washing baskets, plates and dishes, books and picture frames, shampoo bottles, food - the detail in the fridges! That you can feed Cassie’s dog, Vicky is the most meaningful interaction of the game - by the way, the second most meaningful set of interactions is buying an apple in the market in Madagascar then playing with lemur and letting it take the apple.

Back to the houses, I’m disappointed we never got to walk through one of them as Elena. Now that the core of the franchise is wrapped, I’m left with the impression that she’s the most important character in the series and she’s left woefully under-served. This is a very me thing, and unsurprising. I doubt anyone else cares enough about writing and character to have thoughts like this. They’re into Uncharted for the adventuring and the shooting, but as soon as you present me the opportunity for character drama and you want to have a red-hot go at it, I’m here to set aside the rest of that guff and go for it. The running and jumping and shooting never changes, and I’m here to say that the puzzling could have stepped up orders of magnitude that Naughty Dog never committed to - Crystal Dynamics did far better with Rise Of The Romb Raider, and while the puzzling was never really difficult, the way I described it to a friend was to liken the puzzles to desk toys; not intended to be too challenging, but more satisfying in their tactile nature. I feel Fireproof’s The Room series for iOS and Android are great examples of providing similar sensations.

I don’t mind a game mostly about shenanigans, I just don’t want it centred around a character that won’t learn, or who gets off cheaply. Elena is infinitely more interesting to me - her concerns, her desires - Chloe too, for that matter, and I absolutely am not above making the joke about shipping them as I’m sure thousands have before me (no I won’t write a fanfic about them, I’m sure there are plenty around).

I didn’t play the first The Last of Us. There was a horrifically jarring moment when the game felt it was over-playing its sense of cinema to me, then had a sudden camera zoom transition onto I think the first combat gameplay and I checked out. The tone of that game is trying to telegraph TAKE ME SERIOUSLY and I feel all I’m going to do is read tonally similar things to what I have here but far worse. Also post-apocalypse is easy pickings for bad writing, especially by video games narrative writers, I just don’t have the patience. I’m pleased that there’s lesbian representation in the second game but I’m not sure it’ll be handled with sensitivity. While I’m in no way invested in the game as a product, I continue to be concerned for the welfare of the employees at Naughty Dog, and all game developers everywhere, as always. It is a hugely unregulated industry that is in the process of slow collapse, and now more than ever do we need reform and cultural change.

And in the midst of that, one day we’ll get a decent game that’s about domestic partnerships and wonderful emotional relationships with stunning visual fidelity; maybe it’ll have running and jumping and shooting and maybe it won’t. Maybe it’ll end sadly and maybe it’ll end happily but hopefully it’ll be well-written. 

Here’s to Elena.

[kindredsoulsoftimesofold]

Incoming TROS rant

yes, there will be spoilers as I will be breaking down everything I saw tonight. If I manage to type choking on my tears well after the movie finished.

----

FINAL WARNING IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS

Let’s start with a few opening words, this rant will indeed be a long one.

ALL THE LEAKS ARE TRUE. And I mean ALL of them. To a T. As soon as I saw the first half was exactly as I’d read, I was crushed. As I knew what was coming. On that note, i was probably the only person in the theatre who was crying like 15-20 minutes before we were supposed to, I’ll get to that in a bit. I’m saving the WORST for last. Let’s break this shit down.

1. The plot is a mess. An actual mess. I feel like every five minutes I was shaking my head and mumbling ‘what kind of nonsense is this’. The breaking of lore or COMMON SENSE really is substantial. But that is definitely not what I cared about, as I already KNEW this even without the leaks. When you can’t get your two directors to FUCKING WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE A COHESIVE STORYLINE it is bound to grasp for straws and make shit up. IT AIN’T NOTHING NEW.

2. Here’s the kicker. THE DIALOGUE WAS SO BAD, it makes Anakin’s AOTC speech seem like a hymn, or poetry or whatever. They CONSTANTLY say what they’re doing, they’re literally reciting the exposition to each other and it comes off as extremely annoying and makes you feel like a toddler. No hate against toddlers, but I’d rather not be one right now. It feels unnatural, forced and STUPID to the point where I would start WISHING for 3PO to come back on screen because Anthony Daniels somehow managed to snag some actually decent lines for once? I love the man, but the droid usually really annoys the crap outta me. He was literally the highlight of the film. Don’t get me started on the stupidity of all of Lando’s lines, poor Billy. Daisy has to stare angrily most of the time so I don’t really care to recall her lines. Adam, my dear Adam, he tries SO HARD to make do with what he was given but even his lines 90% of the time come off as stupid and out of place. Or the worst type in this movie, EXPOSITIONYY. Don’t get me started on Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford. Boys looked like they didn’t sign up for this shit and were literally force choked to be there. I feel you guys, I feel you. ALSO FOR THE LOVE OF THE FORCE THE TIMES THEY REPEATED WORD FOR WORD LINES FROM OTHER MOVIES I WANTED TO SCREAM. Once is too much, THIS MANY TIMES IT IS A FELONY. And it needs to be punished somehow.

3. Let’s get the positives out of the way because there were FEW. The two scenes I actually REALLY enjoyed watching, for different reasons were:

Ben and Palps meeting. The scene was much longer than the clip and SUPER badass. Sheev’s voice echoes, Ben looks fucking cool and the whole scene is GORGEOUS.

The other is when Ben fights as a Jedi in the end. I’ll get to Ben later BELIEVE ME but without overexplaining, he fights with Anakin’s lightsabre, he’s really speedy and is doing all the Jedi spins and whatnot. I fucking ATE THAT UP. Replay that scene forever please CAUSE I LOVED IT. But I was already crying here so we’ll touch more on that later.

To conclude this segment, the visuals were SUPERB, the sound was AMAZING and (some) of the fights were jaw droppingly cool. But that about concludes the positives!

4. I will comment, as I know a lot of people will care even if I don’t particularily. Finn, Poe, Rose and the merry gang aside from our Jedi are reduced to EH this movie. If you thought you’d never miss Rose boy were you wrong. They introduce new characters and expect you to care about them when they SIDELINED the ones they’d hoped you’d care about BEFORE. And it made me care about NO ONE. Not to mention that, sadly, they are ALWAYS reduced to the boring side plot that really isn’t interested or key to much of ANYTHING. Sure they roused the people and all but would’ve been TOAST if Rey didn’t go all Jesus on the fleet. So at the end of the day, you MAY find some enjoyment with the side characters but their lines were some of the worst, you WILL be force fed new people and you might not really enjoy your previous faves here because even I found myself being completely indifferent this time. (I actually really ENJOYED Finn since TFA. He had a compelling storyline and John Boyega was alright. Couldn’t give two wits about him in this movie. Not a single one. But again, I may not be the perfect person to ask if you really,really like any of these characters.

5. Finally, we have arrived to the main event. THE REYLO.

The backbone of this clusterfuck of a new trilogy. The last Skywalker and Palpatine, coming together instead of apart. The arguably BEST actors (legacies aside) Disney managed to get. Now, I will start this off that I didn’t HATE Rey before this movie. I loved her in TFA, enjoyed her less in TLJ but the novelization fixed that. I was BACK ON BOARD to be her number one stan. In this movie, I couldn’t STAND her. Her lines are basically the director walking you through things, her plotline was obviously made last minute so almost none of it makes sense,  I literally wanted to curl up and DIE from cringing so hard every time someone said ‘you’re a Palpatine’. I thought I was looking at a very expensive rendition of terrible fan fiction. (Not to diss fan fiction in any way, you guys will be my heroes after this catastrophe.) ‘Empress Palpatine’, COME THE FUCK ON AND GET OUT WITH THIS SHIT. Bring back crusty old Snoke for crying out loud! Or even HUX! Who got killed off in a second and had three lines of dialogue, not important I guess? Like a great many things I guess, JJ. But, EVEN Palpatine aside, it was great seeing him again and every scene he was in I got chills, who cares that it makes zero sense at this point. Back to reylo.

Ben. Ben Solo Organa Skywalker. The last hope. The final remnant of something I have loved FOREVER. I grew up with Star Wars, like many others just in a different, post prequel era and they are still my favourites. This might sound ridiculous but Star Wars was part of my heart, my happiness. It brought me joy to watch it, read it, fantasize about it and have it in my life when times were dark or miserable. It MEANT something to me, as I am sure many of you will agree. And Ben was part of that. He was part of something that MEANT something to all of us. He was the last line of the characters we all grew up with and loved. The GRANDSON of Anakin, my favourite character of all time. This was their chance to stop the trend that Loki’s death in IW and Daenerys’ death and turn and many others started and STOP killing people who did wrongs. PEOPLE can change, they can grow and they can learn. Hell, to not stray to far from this franchise REY has killed A LOT of people in this movie alone. She DECIMATES the room full of Palpatine’s followers and never blinks an eye. SHE NEARLY KILLS CHEWIE, DOES KILL BEN (for a minute) and SHE DOESN’T NEED TO DIE. Of course she doesn’t but BEN DOESN’T EITHER. After all that YOU JJ, YES YOU, show me that the LAST SKYWALKER has gone through, suffered, alone and frightened. I would’ve ENDED you if you’d suggested killing him off to me, EVER. He was your chance to do a reverse Vader, AS YOU CLAIMED YOU WOULD. To show a character can come back to the light and be worthy of it WITHOUT DYING. You even set it up as such, which is my next and CRUCIAL POINT.

I’ve been a reylo since 2015. Their dynamic has always been fascinating to me and beautiful. I LOVED all the moments in TLJ, LOVED THEM. In this one, every time they force bond (terrible dialogue aside, again) I was happy. I had a hope that she would bring him back from the darkness and he will keep her balanced. WELL, JJ, guess fuck me huh? And anyone with common sense and human decency. JUST WHEN you shove Ben’s turn in my face, you make him talk to Han, you make him strut in to fight alongside Rey in full Ben Solo Jedi mode, hair blown and casually dressed. It was when he runs onto Exegol that I started weeping. Because knowing that he dies as I did, it broke my heart how it was done. You give me the scene where he fights and you give me hope of what his future could’ve been if only you’d listened to reason and done what was supposed to be done. He is chucked into the pit, WHICH MIGHT I ADD WOULD’VE MADE ME MAD IF THAT WAS HIS END BUT WOULD’VE BEEN SOOOO MUCH BETTER THAN WHAT WE GOT, comes back. And now comes the scene that cemented this as the ABSOLUTE WORST insult to me as a fan, possible. Ben is heartbroken that Rey is dead, the moment is sad and he cradles her dead body and hugs her desperately. Which would’ve been a beautiful and GOOD DIFFERENT type of ending. Or rather not having her die at all and being NEAR her death and him saving her and both living happily ever after BUT NO. JJ AFTER THAT has her come back, smile happily when she sees it’s him, her love her hope and the other half of her SOUL literally (the diad or whatever it’s called is so rare that Palpatine was thrilled they’d formed such a bond, basically space soulmates), he has them kiss, then hold each other and smile at each other with genuine feeling of joy and belonging both of them had sought all their life AND THEN YANKS IT FROM UNDER YOU. The scene where Ben falls flat onto his back is quite comical and I couldn’t help but laugh in my misery and sobbing. Rey doesn’t even cry, we don’t even LINGER on his body or mourn him afterwards or even mention it or EVEN SEE her, THE PERSON WHO LITERALLY FOUND HER SOULMATE AND WAS SO HAPPY WHEN SHE KISSED HIM AND WAS LITERALLY SAVED BY HIM, but no guess that doesn’t require a scene, sure, fuck it LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE. The cheery music that plays up until the moment of his fall, YES THE FALL OF SKYWALKER MIND YOU NOT A FUCKING RISE, was an insult to every fan everyhwere, lifelong or recent or otherwise, it was a punch to the gut, a slap in the face and after this happened I no longer paid attention to the movie. I’d been crying for some time leading up to the moment, I knew what was coming and the execution only made it worse and a more desperate cry rather than only sad, I was hoping it wouldn’t happen somehow. I choked back tears until I finally got home and cried. One of the things which MEANT so much to me, was dead. I no longer have any doubts, that this was intentional. Look at Game of thrones, that was this year. It seemed intentional to make series stop, right? Everyone agrees. They wanted to finally bury the Skywalkers so they could make something unrelated? They kill off all the Skywalkers. Well guess what disney? YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO BRING THEM BACK IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU MONEY HUNGRY PIECE OF SHIT. No one would have minded a new trilogy, with new characters doing NEW things. Why even drag the Skywalkers and the leagies into this if YOU DON’T WANT THEM HERE? All you got was millions of lifelong fans of the old movies who have already felt or are only now beginning to feel BETRAYED. I swear it disney, I don’t want to feel this misery again. You won’t take Star Wars away from me and the joy it brought me. I will without a care in the world dismiss this new trilogy as something completely separate from canon. You’ve killed your own fanbase. You could’ve had us but you LOST us. You dangled something we wanted in front of us for our money and then you ripped it apart.

If you are anything like me, anything like me at all and have loved SW for however long. if it MEANS ANYTHING TO YOU, I beg you not to see this movie or at the very least, pay for it. You WILL feel betrayed, insulted, heartbroken, devastated and miserable, as I am feeling right now. I was supposed to go see this movie another two times but i cannot and will not spend another CENT on a company that chooses to alienate me. Fine, have it your way. I’m done.

This concludes my rant as I am tired and upset. If I missed out on anything and you are interested in anything else, please do DM me or leave a comment :) We’re all in this together now, the reylos the antis the new fans and the old. We’re all in the same heartbreaking boat, I love you all. And I will love Star Wars. The REAL Star Wars forever. I wasn’t even sad the ‘FRANCHISE’ was ending because it wasn’t. It had ended a long, long time ago.

[blessuswithblogs]

2018 Game of the Year Top Ten List I guess

2018 has been an interminable mire of exhausting miasma and quite frankly I feel like it has been longer than the entire stretch of 2010-2015 combined. I also didn't play many games released this year because, like last year, I'm still poor. I'll see what I can dig up.

10. Sunset Overdrive PC edition: It's a fun open world game by insomniac. The PC Port is actually balls but like. It's a good game with a unique emphasis on how you traverse the game world, where you can grind and bounce on just about anything and indeed to do so is the only way to not get totally chewed up by the hordes of mutants and scavengers and robots you have to fight. There's also some pretty fun and out there weapons to use, like a gun that shoots vinyl records or one that deploys little auto-turrets kept aloft with propellers or one that shoots out a bowling ball at terminal velocity. The base game didn't actually come out this year (I dont... think it did...?) but it was an XBone exclusive so I didn't play it then. It's got some weird problems with narrative tone and some kind of out of the blue racism but the M rated Nickolodeon toy commercial aesthetic is charming in a weird way. I guess.

9. The Forest: I think this got an official release this year? I don't know I can't fucking keep track. Speaking of a game with weird problems with racism, if you can look past the garbage "main quest" and really deeply uncomfortable racial politics where you murder and steal from cannibal mutants, The Forest is probably the best cool treefort building simulator I've ever played. This game has a love affair with lumber and I respect that. Shouldn't you be looking for Timmy, you ask me? Shouldn't you be shutting the fuck up before I put this airplane axe in your skullmeats? Gazebos are nice. I guess.

8. Spyro: reignited trilogy: haven't actually played this yet but let's be real the spyro games were fucking dope back in the day and giving them an HD coat of paint and packaging them all together is a real standup thing for insomniac to do in between slinging webs and making questionable pc ports. Also its like Dark Souls so it has to be good, right? Everything old is new again. I guess.

7. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: haven't played this one either but like. I know that I am a smash-enjoyer. I even liked Brawl. This is the biggest, smashiest one yet and it's also on the switch which means it could also be portable if I decided I never wanted to leave my bed again. I'm probably going to find some money to get it soon. Should be fun. I guess.

6. The Quiet Man: look no game that is THIS hysterical can be all bad alright? Didn't play it. Won't play it. It's awful. But it's so fucking funny like oh my god. Still better than Fallout 76. I guess.

5. Dark Souls Remastered: was this even a good remaster? I don't fucking know. It's Dark Souls. It's better than 90% of released games by default. I miss Solaire of Astora. I guess there's Shadows Die Twice to look forward to. I guess.

4. Subnautica: I wrote a lot about this actually. Subnautica is great. Just fantastic. A wonderful, visually stunning (mostly) (when it works) journey under an alien ocean to unravel an ancient mystery behind a deadly plague. Building seabases is so much fun (when it doesn't hard crash your computer) and the peaceful playstyle you adopt where you really only kill things for food until you can grow your own, much more efficient produce is a welcome change of pace from everything else. Leviathans are scary, especially now that your cyclops is mortal and not indestructible. This game actually Came Out this year so it deserves to be on the spot. I guess.

3. Dragon Ball Fighterz: Honestly I'm hell trash garbage at fighting games that aren't smash but this was a very well put together, visually impressive as all hell fast paced tag fighter where you can have 3 gokus on the same team fight 3 other gokus on the same team. Goku density alone makes this game worth recommending. The eSports scene that has popped up around it is fun too. I guess.

2. Dead Cells: Another game that gets to be on the list by virtue of it actually coming out this year. Wait, was this on last year's list? Let me check. Ok good it wasn't. Early access is a fucking trip. It's fun, stylish, challenging, has a great deal of variety in ways to play, might have erased my entire save because it became obsolete and I'm definitely not bitter, and it has that classic rogue-lite replay value to give you some bang for your buck. There was that one review plagiarism scandal. I guess.

1. Monster Hunter World: If you really want to know what I think of this game my previous piece on it is a good place to start. In addition to everything said there, MHW is just a fun game. The loop is satisfying and, later on, quite challenging. The combat system takes some genuine getting used to and some monsters like Nergigante actually literally cheat but for the most part the game's unique fighting style, spread across several unique weapon types, is rewarding to learn because it demands some effort be put into it and the dividends of fighting well are very cool, like just knocking a flying monster on its ass with a single mighty swing of the hammer. When a game is hard in any capacity games journalists get dollar signs in their eyes and start drooling uncontrollably because they can immediately declare that Farm Sim 2020 is the next Bloodborne because they somehow managed to roll their tractor into a ditch, but MHW is actually quite similar in style and execution to deliberate Souls combat, but the comparison is made in reverse. Dark Souls is quite similar to Monster Hunter, the first game of which was popular and a couple of years old before Demon's Souls was even a twinkle in Miyazaki's eye. There's a lot of parallels between fighting a big ol' rathalos in monhun and going for the toes against a dragon in Dark Souls, but I think MHW actually does that kind of fight better.  There are a lot of modern conveniences present in MHW that are a godsend to newer players, making the game pretty easy to get into if you're willing to try. It was my favorite game of the year that actually came out in 2018. I kind of wanted to put Warframe in this list but it's been out of early access for years now. I guess.

There were a lot of games this year that I wanted to play, but couldn't. I don't think 2018 was a weak year for video games. It wasn't as strong as 2017 but it had some hits, I just couldn't afford to play them all. Maybe next year I'll be able to give a better list. I think that the whole industry is in for some hard choices and major restructuring of how things get done and how they look at the end result. Stocks continue to trend downward - not just for Bethesda but for most mainstream, prominent AAA developers like EA and Take2. Given the well documented volatility of "The Shareholders", I imagine that they would be most displeased by downward trends even if they were still making a modest profit.

The situation has been likened to an economic bubble ripe for bursting. Games as a cultural institution have come a long way since the catastrophic days of Atari's warehouses of unsold copies of E.T., and I don't believe that we're in any danger of a complete collapse of the institution, but the fact absolutely remains That Something's Gotta Give. The increasingly predatory practices that game developers put in place as they pathologically attempt to Make Every Money Ever are intrinsically unsustainable. People are willing to forgive and overlook the now ubiquitous microtransaction if a game is good enough to overlook it, or if it's the game's only real way of actually making money. Warframe's microtransactions, for instance, are reasonably priced, platinum is often heavily discounted as a login bonus, and you can make large amounts of it without ever spending money thanks to the game's surprisingly robust trading economy. So. Yeah. They get a pass. Warframe is also good on its own merits, despite being free to play. They also listen to their community about pricing. Go check out Warframe. It's free. It's free!!! Warframe is my unofficial top spot.

Sorry I got a little bit distracted. So there's only really two instances where people will tolerate microtransactions and lootboxes in the contemporary sense: either a game is good enough and polished enough and the lootboxes are unobtrusive enough that you can just sort of shrug your shoulders and say "it sucks but what are you gonna do" or it genuinely relies on those microtransactions to support itself. When these tenets are violated, people WILL get mad. People raised absolute hell about Battlefront 2's scummy monetization schemes, enough to get EA to back off. Fallout 76 is getting lambasted in no small part due to its utterly overpriced "cosmetic" shop where you pay ten real dollars to get your power armor to look blue. You can buy fullfeatured, critically acclaimed games for half that price and you already dumped $60 on this lemon of a game. Destiny 2 got into hot water for being cagey about how its exp values were calculated and how the previously free and user-friendly shaders became one-time use items you could only get from rolling the dice. The public is getting positively irate about all of this nonsense, and if Fallout 76 (and evidently battlefield V?) is any indication, we are fast approaching a breaking point where shareholder demand for profit will outpace the consumer's ability to provide it and the developer's ability to skinner box it out of us.

Of course Nintendo continues to march on to the beat of its own drum seemingly unaffected by all of this garbage. Not out of any moral superiority, I imagine. More likely it's just a consequence of that company still being in the process of being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Maybe a few years down the line when everyboy else has abandoned microtransactions Nintendo will pick them up, put a cute Mario motif on it, and we'll be back to square one. Time will tell. We're in a volatile time for games and the timebomb keeps ticking. I just hope the explosion isn't too messy. I guess.

[killscreencinema]

God of War (PlayStation 4)

So I missed out on God of War. 

Back in 2005, when the first game was released by Santa Monica Studios for the Playstation 2, I was finishing up college.  I remember reading about the game’s development and being fascinated by the concept - a Spartan warrior who decides he wants to kill the Greek gods?  Cool.  I never got a chance to play it upon its initial release because I was a broke college student and had probably spent what little money I had on some other game.  I considered renting it, but no, no, this was a game I needed extensive time on and didn’t want to binge in order to get it back to the video store on time. 

Before I could get ahold of it either way, some college buddies of mine bought the game and so began playing the ever loving crap out of it.  Every time I came over to hang out, they were playing God of War, which bugged me because the whole game was being spoiled for me.  When my friends played a game, they had this sick compulsion to REPLAY it over and over and over (whereas I finish a game and move on, like a sane person).  This went on for at least 2-3 months before my desire to play the game myself was replaced with resentment for the entire series. 

I had always meant to play the trilogy at some point, but other games took precedence.  So when the 4th entry into the series, simply titled God of War, was released this year, and it was clear that the game was a kind of soft reboot/sequel (in the way that Resident Evil 4 was a soft reboot/sequel), it seemed like a perfect jumping on point for a newb like me. 

Now I want to say normally I’m very uncomfortable just jumping into the the middle of a series like this.  I don’t like to say things like, “I’m OCD”, because I feel it trivializes an potentially serious mental illness in order for people to make themselves sound less boring, but... I think I have mild OCD, especially in that I’m incredibly resistant to watching movies and TV shows out of order or playing video games out of order.  It’s not just a preference thing - I get physically out of sorts when someone insists I watch something like The Raid 2, but I haven’t seen the first one.  They might be like, “It’s an entirely new story with different characters, you don’t need to see the first one” to which I’m like, “No, you don’t understand, I NEED to see it.”  However, I don’t think I’m actually OCD because many times I’ll break down and just get over my weird fixation on watching/playing things in order.  My introduction to the Elder Scrolls series via starting with Oblivion and never looking back (Morrow-what?) is evidence enough to me that I am perfectly capable of skipping games in a series without feeling terribly bad about it.

The point of this dumb tangent is that I was dead set against playing this new God of War until I played through the first three, but it seemed to me like the developers went out of their way to make this game accessible to people who are new to the franchise, so I pulled an Elder Scrolls and blew caution to the (Morrow)wind.  I’m kind of glad I did too, for reasons I’ll explain further when I discuss the story. 

The game takes place years after the third, with the legendary “Ghost of Sparta”, Kratos, having retired into the mountains far away from his homeland of Greece.  When we meet Kratos, he is in the process of building a pyre with which to cremate the remains of his dead wife so that he and his son Atreus can take her ashes to the “highest peak in all the realms”, according to her final wishes.  At first Kratos is reluctant to bring Atreus on the journey, believing him to not be ready, but his hand is forced after a god named Baldur, brother of the Nordic god Thor, unexpectedly shows up to pick a fight with Kratos.  After barely surviving the encounter, Kratos realizes that he and Atreus both would be more safe on the move than staying in one place long enough for Baldur to show up for round two.  However, along the way, Kratos uses the journey as a opportunity to continue training his son to become a man, while Atreus is insatiably curious to learn more about his stoic badass of a father, but Kratos ain’t talking because he doesn’t want his son to know about his true godly nature.

So yes, the new God of War game is, at its core, a story about an estranged father and son bonding during a journey.  Cue “Cats in the Cradle”:

Kidding aside, I absolutely loved this aspect of the game and I enjoyed the back and forth between the characters throughout the story.  This was helped by excellent voice acting by Sunny Sulijic as Atreus and Christopher Judge (of Stargate SG-1 fame) as Kratos.  Evidently, Judge took over the role because the game developers needed someone who was physically closer in size to Kratos in the game for animation purposes.  While I’m sure this was regrettable for fans of Carson’s work with the character, Judge is no slouch, and does such a great job even diehard fans of the series have to give it up to him as worthy of the mantle.

Fans of the series may be quick to point out that I may not feel that way if I were more familiar with the series, and that’s fair.  Like I mentioned before, though, I’m glad that I’m coming in fresh, because not only does that make me a little more open to a different sounding Kratos, but not being as familiar with mythos of the series makes me just as eager as Atreus to hear more about his bloody past.  One might say it takes on a... mythical quality?

No, wait, please keep reading, I apologize!

The game plays like a brawler in the style of Bloodborne or Dark Souls, though certainly not as difficult as those games are infamous for being.  That being said, God of War ain’t a cake walk either!  The game has a respectable bite to it challenge wise, forcing the player to learn how to deal with individual enemy types beyond repetitive Dynasty Warriors style hack-n-slashery.  The optional boss fights with the Corrupted Valkyries is an absolute treat in which to test one’s skills, leading up to a hell of a brawl with the Valkyrie Queen (whom I couldn’t beat... dammit).  That being said, epic boss battles like that are way too sparse and the same enemies get overused a little too much. 

While Kratos eventually regains his iconic Chaos Blades from the previous games (spoilers), his main weapon is an axe called Leviathan and ohhh what a fun weapon it is too!  Similar to Thor’s hammer Mjolnir, Kratos can hurl the axe at enemies, and call it back at will.  This spices up battles a lot, allowing you to pull off awesome moves like throwing your axe at an enemy to freeze them with its ice powers, and beating another enemy with your bare fists, before calling your axe back to you, which slices up or trips enemies in its trajectory back to you.  Meanwhile, your son isn’t just sitting on the sidelines cheering you on (or warning you of attacks from behind, which is helpful) - Atreus jumps into the fray to help either by shooting baddies with his bow and arrow or he’ll often leap on their head and keep them prone long enough for you to deliver powerful, but slow, cleaving blows with your axe. 

And anyone with traumatic memories of GoldenEye 64 escort missions need not worry - Atreus cannot die!  Yay!

Besides the main story quest, the game offers a nice variety of side quests to keep you busy without being so overwhelming that you totally forget there even IS a main quest (which is something that often happens to me A LOT with games of this type).  Fortunately, besides killing all 50 of Odin’s ravens, the side quests are actually a lot of fun and don’t involve insipid fetch quests.  While some of them can be fairly time consuming, like the labyrinth in Niflheim, none of them ever felt tedious. 

If my ramblings haven’t made it clear, God of War is amazing game, which delivers a compelling “cinematic experience”, but without sacrificing substantive gameplay (a formula a lot of AAA developers named after badly behaved canines have trouble balancing).  However, you don’t have to take MY word for it...

[tomeandflickcorner]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Spoilers below the cut.

Tagging @revanmeetra87, as she was wondering what I thought.

Pros: 

Really interesting plotpoint with people being able to communicate telepathically through the Force.  I know it was kinda touched upon before in Empire Strikes Back, when Luke was able to reach out to Leia on Cloud City, but that was interesting how the telepathic link is strong enough to make it look like someone is actually standing there.

The Rey subplot was very enjoyable, with her trying to find the answers over what happened to her parents, and unlocking the truth behind what happened between Luke and Ben/Kylo.

I really liked Luke’s reunion with R2.  And while I didn’t cry, I did get struck in the feels when R2 replays Leia’s old holographic message from Episode 4, in an attempt to convince Luke to come back.

Speaking of Luke, I saw a comment Mark Hamill made about his reservations with Luke’s characterization in this movie.  Personally, I thought the characterization made sense, considering Luke was clearly blaming himself for his nephew’s fall to the Dark Side and therefore no longer felt it right to train another Jedi.  So it didn’t bother me. 

I loved the fauna in this movie.  And I’m not just talking about the Porgs, those little puffin mammals that have became such a big hit among the toyline. We also get crystal doggies, those sloth cow things (which answers the question as to where the blue milk everyone seems to drink in this universe comes from), and even those racehorse jackals from the casino planet.  (Was I the only one who was strongly reminded of Trico from the PS4 game, The Last Guardian, when I saw those guys?)

Speaking of the Porgs, there’s a scene when Chewie is trying to eat what I gather is a roasted porg he’d caught.  But every time he tries to take a bite, he notices a bunch of live porgs giving him this sad puppy dog look, as if they know that Chewie is about to eat one of their friends.  In the end, he just can’t bring himself to eat his dinner.  That scene was hilarious.  I laughed at that part hard.

Speaking of the well-timed comedy in this movie, there’s a mini running gag with Rey unintentionally getting on the bad side of these nun-like aliens.  First, she accidentally blasts a hole into one of the old houses when she first discovers her telepathic link to Kylo.  And then we get another scene when she splits a rock in two while doing some self-training with Anakin’s lightsaber,  The rock ends up destroying a wheelbarrow one of the nun aliens was pushing.  The nun alien’s reaction was something else that made me laugh.

The scene with Luke and Leia.  There’s nothing more to say.  If you didn’t feel anything watching that scene, you have no soul.

Another great moment was the scene when Luke is talking to Yoda’s Force Ghost.  And it’s not just because I adore the character of Yoda.

Poe had a really great character development moment in this one.  At the start, he’s very gung-ho, and is focused on taking down the enemy, right here and right now.  But by the end, he starts to develop a deeper appreciation of the ‘live today, fight tomorrow’ philosophy.  Character development is awesome!

Cons

The pace of this movie seemed a bit out of place to me.  I don’t mean that it felt rushed, or things were moving too slowly.  But with all the Star Wars films before this one, the events were a bit more spaced out, and it felt as if multiple days or weeks had passed between the opening text crawl and the end credits.  But in this movie, barely any time had passed by the time the movie ended.  All the action seemed to take place in the span of just two days.  That was kinda strange.

While the subplot with Rey was good, it wasn’t really the main focus of the movie. The main storyline seemed to be focused on the rebellion evacuating their old base and relocating themselves to safety.  Don’t get me wrong, I know it was important that the Rebellion managed to escape the First Order intact, and that it resulted in some pretty nice looking space battles, but...really?  That was the main plot?  And all the other subplots in the movie, with the exception of Rey trying to convince Luke to come back and her attempt to turn Kylo back to the Light, were tied to helping the Rebel Forces relocate and escape the pursuit of the First Order.  Like Finn and this new character called Rose manage to sneak off to this one planet that’s basically just one big casino and gambling joint simply because they’re looking for this master codebreaker that could help the fleet by hacking into the First Order’s lead ship and preventing them from tracking them through a Light Speed jump.  The fact that the whole movie was mainly focused on this elaborate evacuation thing was a pretty big con, as it made this movie seem to be more of one of the Star Wars anthology stories, and not one of the major Star Wars films.

This third con is something that particularly bugged me.  Pretty early on, we get a pretty important plot point that Leia is starting to feel the weight of how many people they’ve lost in the fight with the First Order.  Which is understandable, as she’s no doubt still grieving Han.  And the movie drives it home by showing Leia hovering over the computer readout that shows how many ships were destroyed in their evacuation.  But then, when she’s lying in a coma after getting injured when the First Order catches up to them after they followed the Rebellion through a Light Speed jump and that other lady assumes command, it comes out that the backup leader is planning to simply have everyone abandon ship inside these smaller transport ships.  And it’s that discovery that leads to Poe leading a mini revolt, which sets off a domino effect that ultimately leads to the codebreaker Finn and Rose recruited to help them escape selling the Rebellion out to the First Order, which results in even more deaths.  Because it turns out the true plan of the Interim Leader was to relocate to a nearby salt-covered planet that was apparently used by the Rebel Fleet during the time of the original trilogy.  And because Poe, Finn and Rose had gone off and done their things, the First Order was able to anticipate their plan.  And that results in most of the escape shuttles getting destroyed en route to the Salt Planet.  My question is this: why couldn’t the Interim Leader have just TOLD Poe and the others about what she was doing from the get go? Why did it have to be a secret?  The only reason why they staged a mini revolt is because they believed the Interim Leader was condemning everyone to be little more than sitting ducks that the First Order could pick off one-by-one.  If she’d actually explained what her plan was from the start, they wouldn’t have gone rouge, and maybe they could have pulled off the plan to escape to that salt planet without the First Order finding out.  So yeah, with the exception of the bombers that were lost at the start of the movie I’m pinning the full responsibility for the death toll in this movie on the Interim Leader, not Poe, Finn and Rose.

Extra stuff I noticed: So, all the ancient Jedi texts were apparently destroyed when Yoda’s Force Ghost set fire to the tree where they were kept, right?  But, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, when Finn is opening up a drawer in the Millennium Falcon to find a blanket for Rose, who was injured during the battle on the Salt Planet, it looks like all the ancient Jedi texts were also lying in the drawer.  Did Rey smuggle them into the Falcon without Luke and Yoda’s Force Ghost knowing?  Is that going to be important in the next movie?

[gaykarstaagforever]

Confessions of a Bad Nerd:

* I didn't know the difference between Marvel and DC Comics until late high school. And I didn't know the line-ups of either until college, when I actively researched it. * I read the Hobbit in junior high and loved it, but then I tried to read LotR and hated it and quit. I've tried twice more. I still haven't read it. All I know is the Peter Jackson movies and Silmarillion wiki entries. * I didn't see Star Wars trilogy until I was 14, and I thought they were boring and lame. But then when I was 17 I got sick and was off school for two days, and read some "Official Star Wars Tech Encyclopedia" my younger sister had. And in my fever I got really intrigued, and watched the original trilogy Special Edition on VHS my mom had. And it was my favorite thing ever for the next 6 months. * My first Elder Scrolls game was Oblivion. I didn't give a shit about the lore and didn't do 2/3rds of the quests. I only started to care about the lore after my second playthru of Skyrim, at which point I tried to play Morrowind. And it was too hard and I hated it and quit. Then they released that giant mod pack that HD'd it, and with that and every cheat code, I finally played it through and it grabbed me by my soul's dick. Then I went back and replayed Skyrim and Oblivion, and parts of the old DOS ones, as a total lore sponge. Then I got an app that has all the books and I read them there. That was only like 3 years ago. * I've never actually played D&D or World of Darkness. I just read the books in high school and college and after and absorbed the world creation. I have zero interest in DMs or dice. And FUCK other players: I'm a solo XP guy. * Everything I know about WoW was from 20 minutes of someone else's character I randomly played, in which I ruined a huge boss battle thing by not caring about the plan and dying 11 times. I thought it was hilarious. No one else did. I knew then that world was not for me. * ElfQuest and Star Trek and Bible stories and children's fairy tale books and a zillion history books and Batman (in myriad forms) are the heartlands of my nerddom. * I've only cared to seriously read any King Arthur books in like the last 10 years. Before then, all I knew were movies. And I prefer nonfiction books about the Arthur mythos way more than any actual fantasy fics about him. * I fucking HATED the one Game of Thrones book I read 6 pages of in high school. It wasn't until after the second season of the show that I started reading them and got totally sucked in. * I still haven't read more than the first 5 and last 5 chapters of Dracula. That book is unbearable otherwise. * Werewolves were my first love before vampires, and always will be. I want to be a werewolf. I side with the Lycans. Vampires are cool nerds, but they're still goddamn nerds.

[ladala99]

Spyro Reignited Countdown - Skylanders Swap Force (Console)

Vicarious Visions takes the reigns for a game, and at the same time, wins me over.

I honestly didn’t want this game at first, but eventually decided to try it with the bare minimum of figures a few months after release. To my surprise, I loved it, and there was soon enough a sale that let me get the rest of the Swap Force leg types at half price. I never really engaged much with the gimmick, but the game itself made me want to buy the rest, and that’s what a Skylanders game should do.

Gameplay

On the surface, it’s the same as the first two games. There’s one major difference, however: the presence of a jump button. Yeah, it doesn’t seem to do too much, but as someone who grew up on 3D platformers, being able to dodge attacks in three dimensions was so much easier than just using the two.

And there’s also some very minor platforming. Not enough to make it really a platformer, but enough to make platformer-starved me delighted. Seriously, the world before N-Sane Trilogy and Mario Odyssey was a dark place. Because for some reason I never thought to, you know, buy games for the PS1 and PS2 that I had previously missed out on.

Oh, and the Swap Force gimmick, where you can mix and match the different top and bottom halves of the Swap Force characters. I didn’t use it much (I think I was using only one of them on my official playthrough team), but it added some interesting variety as you figure out which attacks work best together.

The biggest thing, though, is the new combat balancing. Enemies now will be pushed over and back when you attack them powerfully enough. This makes combat so much more satisfying, and also makes melee characters usable in Nightmare Mode.

The Gates

It’s still early in the franchise, and thus everyone gets to be included.

We’ve got the original Elemental Gates. These are unchanged but are quite a bit less common.

We’ve got new Dual-Elemental Gates. These can be unlocked two ways: 1. You can make a Swap Force character with those two elements, or 2. You can enter 2-player mode and use two different elemental Skylanders to open the gate, then exit 2-player mode if you desire. This was a fun and fair way to do it, imo.

We’ve got Giant Chests, that only Giants can open. I don’t think these counted for percentage points and were just another way to get treasure.

And finally, the Swap Zones. These are minigames that require you to have a Swap Force Skylander with particular types of legs. These were fun. At least, doing all bonus stars were really fun. Plus, you know, they’re minigames, and I love gameplay variety.

Old Figures vs. New Figures

Vicarious Visions restatted all of the characters for this game, so everyone’s on approximately even ground. New characters, old characters, they all do around the same amount of damage, and they all use new mechanics well.

The characters made for this game do take advantage of the new combat styles better than older characters, and some of the older characters’ abilities are now completely phased out of usefulness when at least they could be used in Adventure Packs in Giants, but those are minor cases.

Old characters retain their value in that they continue to be able to open up Elemental Gates, and Giants have some use with the Giant Chests. Still, Giants are significantly less useful in this game than in their game, aside from Nightmare Mode because it is actually possible to use them here.

The Swap Force figures obviously have the most to do, but it doesn’t feel unfair when everyone else has something to do, too.

The Collectables

We’ve got a lot of returning stuff, being Treasure Chests, Hats, Winged Sapphires, Soul Gems, Legendary Treasures, and Story Scrolls.

Legendary Treasures now give stat bonuses. You can choose which ones to display after a certain point in the story and the ones on display give you bonuses, like the Luck-o-Tron Wheels in Giants.

There’s also random stuff that’s different every level. These contribute to level completion and are always hidden in the main part of the level that anyone can access.

Finally, there’s Bonus Mission Maps, which give you extra stuff to do in the Bonus Mission game mode. More variety!

The thing to mention, though, is that everything other than Treasure Chests and the level-specific collectables are found behind Elemental Gates and Swap Zones. This makes it much more frustrating figuring out whether you’re really missing something, or if it’s just a place you can’t go to because you don’t have the figure, and makes upgrade discounts locked behind additional figures.

Additional Game Modes

The game has a few different game modes, and they work a bit differently to other games in the series.

We’ve got the Adventure Mode, which is the main story.

There’s Bonus Missions, which are unlocked through Adventure Mode, are small tasks to perform, similar to Heroic Challenges but locked only behind standard gates rather than each individual character.

You can complete the Swap Zones in various difficulties and with various other tasks for stars.

There’s Arena Challenges, which were also present in Giants but the improved combat mechanics makes these much more fun.

Each Skylander also has individual quests that unlock more stats. The bigger your collection, the more replay value! Although a lot of them are pretty repetitive.

Bosses

I remember them being pretty fun. They have levels to themselves, now, so they have their own set of stars and sometimes those are pretty difficult to complete!

The fight with Kaos’ Mom is actually really interesting as well, using your portal as part of the battle. This series doesn’t do fourth-wall-breaking things nearly often enough when it comes to gameplay.

Levels

The only real issue is how long the levels are. Like: expect to take an hour or more exploring them. They’re so long they all have a mid-level checkpoint for sanity.

But I actually didn’t have much of a problem with that. Sure, there’s fewer levels than in the past games, but the gameplay you get out of them makes up for it.

Other than that, they’re fairly fun to go through and pretty well-designed with some hidden areas in the main level rather than all being gated. There are getting to be a lot of gates, though, and that can be a bit frustrating if you don’t have everything needed, and that is objectively more expensive than it ever has been before, given that at minimum you’ll need to have a Swap Force character of each leg type, and you can double-up and get each element at the same time. So minimum of 6 additional $15 figures assuming you got the Starter Pack.

Story

Kaos found this Evilizing volcano and is spreading darkness throughout the Cloudbreak Isles, trying to corrupt the Elementals. It’s up to you, our Portal Master, and your Skylanders to stop him!

Oh, and Kaos’ Mother’s actually one of the main villains. She is never referred to as anything but Kaos’ Mother.

If Kaos’ Mother actually had a name or any particular characterization, this game would be more interesting. As it is, it’s the standard save-the-world plot with a slight twist.

Kaossandra is a lot more interesting in the Skylanders Academy TV show.

Unique in the Series?

It’s the only game that actually tries to make previous gimmicks have a place. It’s the only game with quests for each individual Skylander to complete to get extra stats (I think?). The Swap Zones never return. The clay-like artstyle never returns.

Yeah, it is pretty unique. But it also builds up the series with new types of gameplay that will continue in the future. Starting with this game, the replay value goes up a lot in the series aside from just playing through with different characters. It made a lasting impression, even though it took some risks.

Conclusion

Swap Force is one of my favorite Skylanders games. It’s only behind the other Vicarious Visions Skylanders games, and that’s because this game plays it a lot safer than they do, and I like the way they experiment.

Swap Force is the reason I don’t hate Skylanders after Giants disappointed me. Not bad for the developers behind Spyro Orange.

[dillydallydance]

Let’s say I synced my year on the lunar calendar, which will give a kind of excuse for this year’s delay in publishing lists (an exercise that still tickles my rational/irrational relationship to music).

This year saw the beginning (and then a complete neglect) of dddance+microclimat office playlists. The year in music then revolved much more than usual on single songs, one-hit discoveries, music blogs, spotify+deezer recommendations, etc. A few numbers explanation: In a way the list could have been quite long, but here are the 100 most played/curious songs. Ranking mattered only for the first 75, so it starts in alphabetical order. This is a much different exercise than ranking albums: I focus on replays, songs I shared, songs that were contagious to others.

Here is the playlist in full:

via SPOTIFY

ALSO ON DEEZER HERE

Adult Jazz – Eggshell

Bess Atwell - Cobbled Streets

Cass McCombs - Opposite House

Drake - One Dance

Explosions in the Sky - Desintegration Anxiety

Flume - Smoke & Retribution (feat. Vince Staples & Kučka)

Francis and the Lights - Friends (feat. Bon Iver)

Griefjoy - Scream Structure

Her - Five Minutes

Honus Honus – Santa Monica

Justice - Safe and Sound

La Femme - Le Sphynx

Lady Gaga – Joanne

Mark Pritchard - Beautiful People (feat. Thom Yorke)

Masasolo - Really Thought She Loved Me

Midnight Faces - Heavenly Bodies

Miya Folick - I Got Drunk

Nicolas Jaar - Killing Time

Niki & the Dove - So Much it Hurts

Plants and Animals - No Worries Gonna Find Us

Two Door Cinema Club - Bad Decisions

We Are Wolves - Wicked Games

Wilco - If I Ever Was a Child

Wild Beasts - Get My Bang

Wild Nothing - Reich Pop

75. Adele - Send My Love (To Your New Lover)

Always start the list with a pretty good joke. I know this album is 2015, but this single is 2016, and I danced on that in the office, sang it in a Karaoke in Tokyo and here I am a single-only Adele fan !

74. Rihanna - Work (feat. Drake)

73. Leonard Cohen - You Want it Darker

72. Larry Gus - At Your Desk

71. Moby & The Void Pacific Choir - Are You Lost In The World Like Me

70. Childish Gambino - Redbone

69. Car Seat Headrest - Fill in the Blank

68. Suuns – Translate

67. Radiation City – Separate

66. Preoccupations – Anxiety

65. Massive Attack - Voodoo in My Blood (feat. Young Fathers)

64. Bat For Lashes - Sunday Love

63. Animal Collective - Golden Gal

62. Islands - The Joke

61. James Blake - I Hope My Life

60. Kendrick Lamar - untitled 06 | 06.30.2014

59. The Avalanches – If I Was a Folkstar

58. Yeasayer - Gerson's Whistle

57. Peter Bjorn and John - Breakin' Point

56. Palace Winter - Positron

55. Prism Tats - Death or Fame

54. Deakin - JUST AM

53. Funeral Suits - Tree Of Life 

52. Los Porcos - Do You Wanna Live?

51. Dinner - Turn Me On

50. Bibio – Petals

49. Local Natives - Past Lives

48. Izzy Bizu - Someone That Loves You

47. LUH – I&I

46. The Kills - Doing It To Death

45. Blood Orange - “Best to You” (ft. Empress Of)

44. Cullen Omori - Synthetic Romance

43. Metronomy - Back Together

42. Methyl Ethel - Idée Fixe

41. PJ Harvey - The Wheel

40. Father John Misty - Real Love Baby

39. Mind Enterprises – Girlfriend

38 Devendra Banhart - Middle Names

37. Money - You Look Like a Sad Painting on Both Sides of the Sky

36. James Supercave - Virtually a Girl

35. Christine and the Queens - It

34. Beyonce - Formation

33. Austra - Future Politics

32. The Palms - Push Off

31. Michael Kiwuanuka - Love & Hate

30. Porches - Be Apart

29. The Weeknd - Starboy (feat. Daft Punk)

28. Globelamp - Controversial/Confrontational

27.The 1975 - Somebody Else

26. The XX - On Hold

25. Yoko Ono - Soul Got Out of the Box (feat. Portugal. The Man)

24. Anohni - Drone Bomb Me

23. Kanye West – FML

22. Júníus Meyvant - Color Decay

21. Operators - Cold Light

20. David Bowie - Blackstar

19. Julien Doré - Le Lac

18. Rae Sremmurd - Black Beatles (feat. Gucci Mane)

17. Jarryd James - Do You Remember (feat. Raury)

16. Andrew Bird - Left Hand Shake (feat. Fiona Apple)

15. Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam - In a Black Out

14. Georgia - Move Systems

13. Empress Of - Woman Is a Word

12. Beck – Wow

11. The Last Shadow Puppets – Aviation

10. Glass Animals - Life Itself

Glass Animals discuss How to be a Human Being with sass and swag, tackling the ridicule of some scenes of “life itself”, with a sense of derision felt equally in lyrics, synths and guitars. You can bounce your ass off as he admits “I can't get a job so I live with my mum / I take her money but not quite enough / I make my own fun in grandmama's basement / Said I look mad, she said I look wasted”.

09. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Hot Coals

This band involves quite a bunch of people, but rarely do they connect as much as they do on "Hot Coals", a jazzy, expansive number that breezes through a tickled intro, sexy and lively arrangements, percussive transitions, a piano-horns climax and a quiet landing that revolves around one of Alex Ebert’s rare displays of seriousness and humility (he’s usually quite annoying). The line "Stay the fuck in my heart" is aggressive, while the massive build-up is softly supporting it. The song is in full possession of the band’s collective skills.

08. Damien Jurado - Exit 353

Visions Of Us On the Land marks the end of a prolific album trilogy. Jurado’s voice is unique: tearful and brittle on acoustic songs. It’s also interrogative and existential, when he tackles the grandeur of of a spiritual journey, as on “Exit 353”. “You were with me all along / I let go and you held strong” is a transcendent contrast to the final part of the song where he acknowledges, in a loop, “I was alone there / I was alone then”. His state of grace, on the land, in the country, or within himself, becomes ours in a true grasp of communal beauty.

07. Loney Dear – Hulls   +    SOHN – Rennen

I don’t know how to characterize Loney Dear’s music, especially as I discovered him with “Airport Surroundings”, a song quite at odd with the rest of his catalogue. But this guy can haunt with all sorts of minimalism (hear the early “Harm” and “Distant”). ‘Hulls’ does that in a ferocious way, disturbing with piercing pulses and sharp words about estrangement. It climaxes subtly, sharing in part the tortured violence of not being loved back.

“Rennen” from Sohn picks up the same mood as with his previous album, Tremors. It’s isolated (this time literally, as Christopher Taylor secluded himself in Northern California to record his new album). It’s icy, nocturnal and pretty damn soothing. As the rest of the album again shows him to be clumsy in motives and styles, his voice is self-assured of its beauty, and emerges as one of the most pristine foreground to the kind electronic anxieties he puts forward.

06. Radiohead Burn the Witch – Daydreaming - Decks Dark - Present Tense

I always use the stupid first-grade imagery of music that makes you float, but if a band truly has the power to challenge gravity’s configuration, Radiohead reshuffle again the palpable arrangements of upright rock/electronic music, with guitar, bass, synth and drum sounds all muddled to uplift Yorke’s newfound transparency. It’s not to say that the band settled on a desirable balance between clarity and ambiguity, but a few, scarce moments of contrast bring the most rewarding seconds on the album: as “Identikit” is set afloat by Ed’s back vocals (and that choir!), Jonny conflicts the tones up and down with one of his crudest electric solo (see also the final of “Decks Dark”, with raw bass and guitar lines framing an highlight on the album). It’s Jonny too that, bringing magnificent string orchestrations, makes the record sound pastoral and idyllic even in its gloomiest moments. The contrasts are truly atmospheric, and serve as a support to a clear theme of “lightness”, persistent in the lyrics (am I really writing about Radiohead and lightness?). “Present Tense” offers such mutation in the singer’s cynicism, in a way that one can actually believe him when he sings “Don’t get heavy / Keep it light and / Keep it moving”, backed with some of the loveliest and charming music ever penned by the band (choir vs. echoed vocals vs. old-fashioned continental fingerpicking). Such words ultimately make me the most liberated too, as if I’ve watched old cousin struggle for more than 20 years, reaching a point where he embraces enlightenment: “With my spirit light / Totally alive / Totally released”.

05. M83 – Solitude

The retro-looking music of M83 always toyed with a form of adolescent, dream-like purity. It’s lovely when it’s innocent and doesn’t make sense. The whole world discovered that it could also be exhilarating with 2011’s “Midnight City”, or saturated with immature happiness on Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. M83 gives the music for those who want to feel small and silly in a big world. But this year’s Junk also proved that the cool-irony gets clumsy when that vintage obsession is overblown. Yet, “Solitude” is all that: it’s excessive and immoderate. It’s superb, grandiose, melodramatic, and lavish. And to the credit of Gonzales, it’s also immensely skilled and savvy.      

04. The Tallest Man on Earth – Rivers

A sweeter voice, less Dylan, evermore Matsson. Fingerpicking magic. The song is delicate and poignant. The bareness of its first half is slowly lifted by soft horns and subtle piano notes. This guy is steadily good.  

03. Whitney - No Woman

At the moment when I feel that indie music has not many ways left to re-characterize itself (indie is a ‘character’, right?), two former Smith Westerns guys come out with the perfect indie-folk song, making that indie thing as relevant as ever. And they do so without reinventing a single ingredient: a vacillating falsetto, inexpensive Em-A-G chords known for bringing down cynicism in an instant, a mythic-american narrative of isolation and drifting the land looking for a sense of purpose. It’s solitude without pathos (thanks to those horns). It’s sad and beautiful. It’s humble and hopeful. It knocks you down in less than 4 minutes, simple, competent and candid. I shared this song the most this year, usually with the same immediate response: “yeah, I’m hooked too”.

02. Frank Ocean - Pink + White

The fact that I’m not so passionate about R&B or soul music kept me unreasonably distant from Frank Ocean. It trickles down also (shamefully) as an involuntary estrangement with some of the most relevant black voices elevating the contemporary cultural discourse. I mean, I can go to sleep to Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” and wake up to Kendrick’s “Alright”, but I missed out on the latest of D’Angelo, Miguel, and yes, Solange and Beyonce. “Channel Orange” is revered on every sides of the universe, but it surprisingly never gave me the thrills. I read of how much of a talented singer-songwriter he is, and can’t deny any of the praises thrown at his relevance and his voice. But a few blogposts from him also hinted at a profound humanity, which kept me curious to whatever he (seldom) chooses to sing about. And here I am in 2016, finally joining the collective applauses, abusing of his ineffable empathy, worshiping the true beauty of his sensibility. Compared to the previous album, the R&B tag isn’t that obvious, probably due to the album’s deliberate minimalism. He dissolves any need for labels, cuts instead his flesh open, and makes his bowels sing along some of the most creative melodies of the year. It’s raw yet meticulous, comforting yet secretive, avant-garde yet immediately rewarding. Blond ended up as one of the albums I replayed the most this year. The combination “White Ferrari” and “Seigfried” are so well crafted in introspection and intimacy, it’s like you can hear him bleed (also, thanks Jonny Greenwood). I’m guilty of choosing also the duo of “Ivy” and “Pink+White” in particular, especially as the latest is the most immediately likable song here. But damn, how willingly am I grooving along the pristine voice, breezing with the chill and sensuous summer melody. It’s 2016’s song for walk-grooving on bass and piano tempos, set adrift on dreamlike lyrics and imageries. This is smooth smooth smooth. I’m glad I’m now fully onboard with this Ocean guy.

01. Bon Iver - 33 "GOD"

What the fuck is this guy singing about? “Holocene” was arguably one of the prettiest songs of the last decade, but there is this line about “laying waste on Halloween” that makes it surprisingly mundane. The whole ‘mood’ of such songs aligns with the Divine, yet any attempt to dissect it (maybe no one should) shows rather a collection of references to everyday places and times. It is an undeniable signature of Justin Vernon that whichever mediums he works with (may it be the resonance of elementary guitar chords, the cold echoes of autotune, or stretched electronic pulses), human-scale alienations will dominate, and will be collected into a transcendent ‘mood’. And for me Vernon is exactly that: not much of a skilled musician, but a skilled collector, a curator. Fragments of sounds and words are built in such a universal and relatable image-space; vaporous lines draw contours of quotidian episodes; passages are momentarily crafted between memories and estrangements. He gives order to what are merely fleeting impressions of the world. In “33, ‘GOD’”, when Vernon juggles aptly from sacred allusions (“I could go forward in the light”) to everyday realisms (“Well I better fold my clothes”), his questions, struggles and uncertainties briefly take shape as an engaging and responsive ghost figure. The most enduring appeal of Vernon is to do so without veering into overconsciousness, without sounding like a self-professed guru of ‘crystal healing’ bullshit (or in the case of this song, “bird shit”). Like most, I breastfeed shamelessly on the allusive accessibility of the opening piano line, or the immediacy of words like “I’d be happy as hell if you stayed for tea”. But later these tangible trajectories quickly dissolve in foreground/background disorienting dialogues. Vernon’s vision traces a mythical path in such conflicting suggestions, a path that varies with each listening, and probably will vary with the next albums to come. His voice, as always, will remain the only trustable, guiding structure.

In only 10 years, Vernon positioned himself as that father figure, for me and the music industry. Has it been only 3 albums? He gave voice to many with his own festival in Eau Claire, and assured his presence through numerous collaborations of all scales (from Kanye to this year’s Francis and the Light). Bon Iver were once revered as an easy folk band, but it appears ‘logical’ and ‘in line’ with this ascension that “22, A Million” is their most experimental and obscure record. It’s quite claustrophobic in fact compared even to the cabin made “C Em Am Em” sing-along progressions. This voluntary opacity isn’t a surprise also for bands struggling with 2nd or 3rd albums, panicked with stardom (or grammys). The result is too often a naive form of conceptual obscurantism, a way to shout something like: “People give me credits, but I’m not obvious. I’m genuine. I’m fucked up. I’m a dark creator.” To be honest, it is slightly the case here: the album’s cryptic visuals and song titles are mysterious (or fucked-up) for about 2 minutes, but perdure as uninteresting, unnecessary packaging gimmicks. Still, the album, and “33, ‘GOD’” in particular, ranks on the good side of the catchy-experimental trend, as Vernon got us accustomed to use his pervasive vulnerability as the code-cracking tool to float over the opacity of his text. It is an intimate, subtle, relationship, and here again his trademark voice will succeed to draw you as close as always.

LISTEN TO THE COMPLETE PLAYLIST HERE

via SPOTIFY

ALSO ON DEEZER HERE

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