#not quite the same as assuming Mario's dead... but in a similar vein and with a shorter mourning period

[pianokantzart]

Yes. I love angst... you all know this... but I'm also a big ol' sucker for happy endings where everyone gets to talk it through and hug it out.

I think if something happened to Mario– if he was presumed dead, even for only a few moments– Luigi would take up the mantel.

He'd do it with quivering hands and tears in his eyes, but he'd do it determined to honor his brother's memory in every way possible, even it means pushing himself beyond his limitations.

[aurimeanswind]

VIDEO GAMES—Sunday Chats (10-29-17)

There are a lot of video games, and I haven’t done questions in a minute, so those too. Let’s get to it!

ExtraLife 2017

I wanted to throw a PSA in here that Irrational Passions, my “conglomerate” is throwing together our big special ExtraLife show for 2017 on November 11th, starting at 12pm Eastern Time, and we’ll be playing video games and live streaming them for 24 hours from then. It’ll be live over on twitch.tv/IrrationalPassions and myself and Roger Pokorny threw together a little announcement video, since a TON of guests will be there with us! You should check it out!

That’s really it for stuff I wanted to get out of the way, not games and questions!

What’s on Tap

Two things, that are not games, that I want to mention.

Stranger Things Season 2 is out now on Netflix and I have watched all nine episodes of it. It’s very excellent, and you should take the time to watch the series. It’s fun, and funny, and tense, and has a lot of great relationships between characters.

And actually, above all the amazing things to come out this week in the media world, my favorite, hands down is the new cover album from Ninja Sex Party, featuring Tupperware Remix Party (TWRP). It’s called Under the Covers Vol 2 and it’s legitimately incredible. Easily my album of the year, and I’m listening to it right now while writing this. Dan Avidan’s voice is perfect.

That is all on that front.

The Evil Within 2

So I finished The Evil Within 2! It’s great, very fun, very well made, very polished, and has some excellent mechanics.

I think the weakest aspect of the game really is the story, and specifically in that the performances of the characters. There is just not any one really well done character save for the two major villains of the game.

I actually rolled right into New Game Plus right after finishing it too, and that’s been fun since you just get so much extra points and parts to upgrade your guns and abilities, so you turn into a powerhouse pretty quickly. 

It reminds me a lot of Dead Space 2 weirdly enough, just not quite as excellent. Regardless, it’s still a really excellent game and worth a look, especially if you at all liked the first.

Super Mario Odyssey

Joy.

This game is just purely joyous, and unabashedly so. It just takes delight in its own mechanics and creativity.

It’s just a massive breath of fresh air, in a similar way to how Zelda was, but in a totally different way as well. 

Nintendo has laid out some stellar stuff this year, and Mario is no exception. While Mario has never held the same special place as Nintendo’s other properties for me, this one channels all the best parts of Mario and his lineage and brings that glee to light. It’s excellent, and I’m sure you didn’t need me to tell you that.

Questions!

Look for my Tweet with the hashtag #SundayChats that I shoot out Sunday afternoons. Respond with your question, and I’ll answer it here on Sunday Chats!

Okay, but I mean is this—

Um... Okay. Yeah dude. You do you. Glad you got a Switch and the Mario and stuff...

But really, a lot of playing Mario for me has been falling back in love with the Nintendo Switch as a platform. I’m curious what you think of it Logan! Glad you seem to be enjoying yourself!

No. For sure not. I also didn’t really love their E3 showing, so who knows. I think Sony is gonna have some cool stuff to show, but I think the “Second half of E3″, if that is gonna be anywhere outside of E3, is going to be at PSX, especially after The Last of Us 2 drop last year. With Uncharted fully done now, we know Naughty Dog is likely all hands on deck with Last of Us Part 2. I cannot wait, with that in mind, even though it’s likely still 2019. But I think PSX will see the reveal of Sucker Punch’s next game, so I don’t know what that leaves for Paris Games week.

This is a great question! It’s hard to pin down, and I’m honored to say some of my favorite things I’ve read this year have been on IrrationalPassions.com. But outside of that, I wanna give a shoutout to Jason Schreier’s unveil of what went on with EA and Visceral, from this very week.

It’ll be in the Checklist section, but it’s kind of the first of these big exposés I’ve sat down and read all the way through in one sitting, and it was phenomenal. It really opened my eyes to the different kinds of struggles that studios can run into that I had no perception of at all. It’s a fantastic read, and an even better story.

I mean, yes. And no.

Taking into account that I know you, and I know you don’t really like 3D games and games of that ilk, of course, yeah I get it. Taking those big ones out, games like SteamWorld Dig 2, Stardew Valley, HiveSwap, Shantae, and more can’t carry a year like the heavy hitters in the 3D space. But I think you have to take that step back and look at the wider "games” as a whole. 

To use me as an example, I don’t like Wolfenstein nor do I plan on playing the new one, or Battlefront 2, or Call of Duty World War 2, those are the big games that don’t click with me, but that doesn't mean those games can’t be incredible, and just because I don’t like them doesn’t mean they’re not great or incredible, but my appreciation of them will be different. But that’s my critic’s perspective.

I think that’s okay, but I’d encourage you to keep trying those games you typically don’t like and search for something in them that you can find and enjoy. I’ll try the betas for Battlefront 2 and CoDWW2 and try and try and look for something I like even if I can’t find it, because I’d rather waste my time looking for the good then take the easy road of assuming the bad.

But eh. That’s just me being a goody two shoes as always.

Yeah, it does! I would love to see that extend out to Bandai Namco! Getting games like Dark Souls, and the upcoming Code Vein on Switch would be excellent. But more over, I think they’d be shrewd, and quiet, like the Bethesda team up. Bandai Namco isn’t the biggest publisher, not even top three, but it covers another niche of games that Nintendo can draw to its platform. Those kinds of players maybe are to chopped on what system they play on, just how enjoyable that experience is. Going the obscure route has worked so well for them, and I think this could work to.

Plus I really want a Dark Souls remaster/re-release with some new features/better frame rate, and it being on Switch may be even better.

Princess Peach, Princess Zelda, and Samus Aran. 

We’d have tea and crumpets, and discuss cute color combinations and space ships, because I think all four of us would have some broad, sweeping opinions on all of the above.

Another good one, a bit more serious, is Nathan Drake, Marcus Fenix, and... Well, Samus Aran again.

Can I just have a date dinner with Samus Aran?

It’s been crazy weird dude. I wish the world wasn’t in as rough shape as it was :/

Uhg.

Fuck.

This is a great question Miranda, but god fuck all of this.

Okay.

A wolf.

And hear me out, because the wolf would probably kill me a lot slower.

But the same shit with Octopi that is with spiders, which I hate. Octopi got too many legs, and I just don’t wanna fuck with it. And it’d be all slimy. And I know both would ultimately kill me, because Octopi do NOT fuck around, but I can like, imagine the Wolf is a cute fucking doggo and be slightly less sad about it.

Also like, then I’d get to see a wolf, which I’ve always wanted to see, and I never want to see the sea-spider for as long as I live.

He is a v. v. handsome boy Cameron and you should be proud.

I’d say at least two customs, and one robo.

Because I know me.

I’m not selfish.

Save some Robot for the other kids.

I think it’s definitely up there. I love it for sure. I love that it’s doing something different on Netflix, and blending this weird nostalgia and referential material into a really cohesive and well made original thing with its own ideas and things to say.

And these latest season has a ton of Ghostbusters so I’m a fan.

This is so rad! For folks curious, here is the referenced article:

https://www.polygon.com/2017/10/28/16563612/destiny-2-deaf-clan-leviaithan-raid-calus

I just love this shit. I hadn’t seen it, but it shows the tenacity and ingenuity of players from all walks of life. What I’d really like to see, and it’d be hard to set up, but having all six players on six screens in the same room so the Shadow Realm folks  didn’t need to say anything, and the ones outside could just look and know. It’d be super rad, and we may be able to do this at ExtraLife, but we’ll see.

I love making new and original solutions to problems, and just like I said with the whole jargon-discussion when we played the raid, this is this team making their own jargon for the raid.

The Checklist

The Collapse of Visceral’s Ambitious Star Wars Game - Jason Schreier - Kotaku - https://kotaku.com/the-collapse-of-viscerals-ambitious-star-wars-game-1819916152

This is the first one of these I’ve actually really read, at least since Klepek’s last one I would have read. And it was fascinating. I have so many thoughts and feelings on this piece, and I know Schreier has a book out about them, and did one for Mass Effect earlier this year, but this is the first one I’ve ever really sat down and read. And it’s phenomenal. And eye opening.

Orc Slavery Made me Quit Shadow of War - Matthew Gault - Motherboard - https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjve9q/middle-earth-shadow-of-war-orc-slavery-lord-of-the-rings

This is so, so, sooooo good. I haven’t really read anything on Motherboard before, but being a close sibling to Waypoint, which has skyrocketed to my favorite video game site on the internet this week, I will tune in more after this. Shoutout to OK Beast Podcast episode 65 for bringing this up and reading an excerpt from this. It really hooked me.

Inside the Sexual Misconduct Allegations Rocking NEOGaf - Patrick Klepek - Waypoint - https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/qv384d/inside-the-sexual-misconduct-allegations-rocking-neogafs-last-48-hoursd

This is a weird story for sure. And I wish i could talk to Patrick about it. It’s invasive, but it’s also incredibly well reported, and I think clears up a lot of the misconceptions in the situation. There are no biases in Patrick’s writing. It’s really excellent, and help me get a grasp of what went on on Gaf. And I appreciate it.

Whew, good to get in the swing of things again. I’ll say, we are two weeks out from ExtraLife, and I am going to assume there will not be a Sunday Chats that day. Sorry in advance, but I will try to get my “Alex-Asks-A-Question” style Sunday Chats done like normal next week.

But it’s been a fucking crazy month, and I am so happy to see all the hard work I put in this month come to fruition, and the next big thing is that ExtraLife extravaganza. I hope to see you all watching.

But until then

keep it real.