#not the end all be all of video game combat but a good. unique approach that's nice to keep in mind if you're interested in that

[tarbuchyloewenthal]

i loved and hated dragon age: the veilguard???

apologies for the extended rant i'm about to go on.

i loved being back in thedas after 10 years, and i loved that final scene with solas. the emotional beats hit just right in that moment.

i loved to absolutely annihilate groups of enemies with arcane bomb popping off every five seconds.

i loved almost all of my companions' arcs. they had so many moments of genuine pathos.

yet all these barely made up for my growing frustration throughout the game at the dialogue and dialogue system, the repetitive quest design, and narrative focus.

this game shares pretty much all the features that i hated when i first played mass effect 3 all those years ago. from the opening of the game skipping everything except the most minimal story set up in favor of bombastic cinematics to the extensive use of auto dialogue taking away the feeling that i had control of my player character.

bioware has apparently gotten into the bad habit of thinking the set up at the beginning of a story is unimportant. i hated starting off with a bang in mass effect 3. i hated it in inquisition. and i hate it now in veilguard. to me it feels like narrative malpractice to forgo the most vital part of the story. only getting a slickly animated cutscene to set the scene in the story instead of any actual attempt to know rook and their relationships with varric, harding, and the world at large really put me off.

the large amounts of auto dialogue only exacerbated my frustration. mass effect 1 (and 2 to a slightly lesser extent) made the dialogue wheel and voiced protagonist feel like an actual evolution of their previous dialogue systems in kotor and jade empire (and origins even though that came out after). i felt like i had actual input. conversations flowed like rpg conversations had always flowed. but in veilguard conversations feel way too passive, only needing my input when the game wanted me to add a small dash of emotional flavor to the conversation or the ever present binary choice for major story moments.

that's not to say bioware didn't write in a lot of reactivity. there's an absurd amount of unique dialogue depending on lineage and faction choices, but i, as the player character, never felt like i was in the drivers seat for any of it.

it made my rook feel completely disconnected from the story they were ostensibly the protagonist of, like they manifested into existence mere seconds before showing up to the bar in minrathous.

and the quests, individually well paced, all mainly followed the same formula of walk down a path, grab loot from side paths, fight some enemies, and listen to your companions talk all the while. part of why i like rpgs is the feeling that i'm inhabiting a world that revolves around more than combat and puzzles for loot. even if that's mostly what video game rpgs boil down to at the end of the day, it's the illusion of that which sells me on the game world. when all your quests involve that same formula, it flattens the game world to nothing but a combat arena. which, to be fair, i felt was a problem all the way back in mass effect 2, as well.

i also didn't like how all the lore reveals flatten nearly all the setting's mysteries down to solas and the evanuris. they were really neat in isolation, but taken together they kind of hollowed out the world.

ok, so i'm tiring even myself out by now, so i'll just mention in passing the relentless and unnecessary expository dialogue, as if the writing team didn't trust the cinematics team to get across literally any information (i'm looking at you bellara on the approach to d'meta's crossing).

this rant gives off the impression that i didn't really enjoy veilguard, but i did. it's just that the things it does well are what you expect from bioware, and the things i find issue with have become a bit of an unfortunate pattern from the studio. the game was so good, but it could have been so much better.

[infinitebrians]

Favorite Games of 2023 Part 5: Dragon Warrior 1+2

I now after having played Dragon Warrior 1+2 (now commonly referred to as Dragon Quest 1 and 2) for the Gameboy Color completely understand why this series became the massive cultural juggernaut that it is now. I played these two games as a complete spur of the moment thing during the last two weeks of the year due to being totally surprised by how pretty the Gameboy Color remake of Dragon Quest 1 looked while watching a Gigaboots stream ( https://youtu.be/1ELg0p31zZI?feature=shared ) of it. I really could not get over how pretty the battle backgrounds looked and how many unique locations they had, it made a limitation of the game (battles only having one enemy per encounter) one of it’s strongest aspects to me. This is of course is in addition to the really fun character and enemy sprites all being distinct and memorable as well. I didn’t even approach this game expecting to want to finish it let alone finish both but the way the games felt like they were always moving forward (DQ1 more than 2 in that regard) kept me interested all the way to the end.

Dragon Quest 1’s combat is as simple as it always appeared to be, a game entirely consisting of one versus one matches of trying to out damage the other. It was a game of breaking new ground in terms of video game genre so it has an excuse at least and even then as with the GBC remake, it’s still decently fun. As a result though, jumping over to Dragon Quest 2 immediately afterwards with its introduction of party members for both you and your opponents felt world changing. Being ganged up on was scary and learning spells that hit multiple enemies felt like a massive upgrade in power. What made the battle systems in both games really click was just how snappy they felt. Random encounters were almost always over within a minute at maximum, attacks are quick, menuing feels immediate, and enemies are felled within one or two rounds. It’s a popcorn like approach to combat, small tasty satisfying bites, easily consumed and never distracting.

What made it more fun to me was trying to find the most optimal way to finish encounters in Dragon Quest 2 in the most efficient way possible (least rounds taken, without wasting unnecessary amounts of magic points). The enemies were all really easily identifiable as to what they’ll do in an encounter (be tanky, heavy hitters, poison appliers) and what made them interesting was the variety of ways they were grouped up with other enemies. Playing through these encounters in manner of quickly reading the situation and giving a fast response in turn eventually made me associate the game with that of Tetris. In both, you’re given the capability to read your current issue at hand and come to a best possible solution in split second timing. In both, you’re never made to feel like theres only ever one way to solve this problem but instead given the freedom to utilize improvisation. This fast, responsive setup to its gameplay always just clicked well with me in creating a flow state that gave a good feeling of thinking without having to think about it.

I totally played both of these with guides and with a good amount of use with the 3DS’s virtual console save state feature. In Dragon Quest 1 it was mainly just always having a map open the whole time so I could know where to go and what town/dungeon was where. In Dragon Quest 2, I don’t think I would have liked that game anywhere near as much as I do currently if I attempted to do it’s convoluted, worldwide search for trinkets that are only hinted at. A friend gave me a PDF of a scanned Prima strategy guide made for the games when they were originally released, it felt like the most appropriate, nostalgic way to play this sort of game. I even did what I always did as a kid and flipped through the whole thing looking for cool art of your characters, one of my favorite parts of my dad always buying the strategy guides for Zelda games or looking at my cousin’s Final Fantasy guides. I attempted to minimize the direct following of the guides and try to figure most things out on my own but after spending what felt like an appropriate amount of time with Dragon Quest 2’s fetch quests, I just did what the guide told me to the end. As for save states, I mainly just used them as a more modern means of saving the game AND a means of trapping any and every metal slime i found in a time loop hell until they gave me the tons of experience that I desired. As a result of that, I found grinding enjoyable and being powerful to just crush everyone afterwards satisfying.

Something I kept joking with my friends while playing through Dragon Quest 2 was the idea that ‘if I can finish Dragon Quest 2 before the end of 2023, then that announced remake of Dragon Quest 3 has to come out in 2024!’ Over the week of playing it the joke became more of a self imposed challenge. This resulted with spending all day December 31st finishing the game up (though partially that was because I just could not put the game down, I was just really enjoying the game at that point). So I accomplished my goal and now the curse of that Dragon Quest 3 remake is lifted and will absolutely come out this year and if it does it’s entirely because of me, you’re welcome. Now though my issue is I really want to play DQ3 right now and now I feel like I should wait out for that remake. I got the want for more Dragon Quest and now I gotta hold it off for the time being (or I can just play that GBC remake of 3, have you seen the enemy animations in that they’re incredible!)

[transathenacykes]

TOP TEN GAMES I BEAT THIS YEAR

In 2023, I completed 34 games, from Final Fantasy VII to Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion to PaRappa the Rapper. These are my ten favorite, in order, and a little writeup of each I had a LOT of fun doing. Enjoy!

10. DARK SOULS

It’s a game I had to want to like, and maybe more than any of the others on the list, I had to meet it halfway. I’m a fan of challenging games, and - stop me if you’ve heard this one before - Dark Souls is pretty hard. But it’s not bullshit. Mostly. I ran into some hard walls here and there, but those walls turned into my favorite fights in the game once I finally mastered them. The reason it’s so low on the list is because the back half is… Well, it’s not very good, folks. Of the four bosses you need to defeat to open the door to the final area, I could call two of them good fights, and I could only do one of those without hesitating. 

9. THE CASE OF THE GOLDEN IDOL

I love a detective game, and what makes Golden Idol really stand out is its incredible format and mechanics. Given a series of still* images, and the contents of a bunch of random people’s pockets, can you determine what happened? It feels cheap to compare games and not just speak about what I enjoyed of a game of its own merits, but I can’t talk about this game without talking about Return of the Obra Dinn, which had a similar sort of ‘fill in the blank’ approach to its mysteries. Golden Idol’s supernatural elements, twists and reveals, and charmingly off-putting art style lend themselves well to one of the most unique games I played this year.

8. SIFU

This is the best rhythm game I played this year. Finding the flow of Sifu’s combat felt like a dance, going from a steady beat to a frenetic scramble in the span of a single missed step. I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m a massive sucker for good movement in games, and Sifu’s jives extraordinarily well with its combat and environments. Really, the only problem I had with Sifu was that it felt a bit short - well, and it didn’t quite deliver the challenge I was looking for, but that’s the fault of whoever described it to me as a Soulslike first just because it has, like… a revival mechanic? Also, the first time it transitioned to a side view for a hallway fight, it basically secured a spot on this list.

7. GHOST TRICK

I tried to play through this game in high school, but got stalled out on some puzzle or another. I honestly don’t remember which, but I’m SO glad I came back to it. I’ve always loved Shu Takumi’s writing and character work in the Ace Attorney series; Ghost Trick is just as good, if not better than any individual AA game in that regard. Really, the characters feel like the ones in the AA spinoffs like Investigations, Great Ace Attorney, or the Layton crossover, which are some of the best characters in the series - but with none of the self-defeating energy of having to be largely unimportant to the mainline games. Also, Missile might be the greatest character in video games ever.

6. PARADISE KILLER

Some games make you fervently pitch their merits to friends, hoping that they’ll play it so you can chat with someone who gets it. This is the fate of many detective games, which live and die in the territory of spoilers. There are detective games that try to get around this by having procedurally generated cases or multiple endings with multiple ‘real’ culprits, which can often be antithetical to what makes a detective game truly sing. Paradise Killer’s answer is that not only is it never going to tell you what the truth is, but that ambiguity is the point. The clues never change, and the only objective is to find a truth that satisfies you. All that is made even better by the premise being steeped in synths and neon, with a vibrantly occult cast who are all just the absolute fucking worst.

5. TEARS OF THE KINGDOM

I mean, come on. It’s Tears of the Kingdom. While I’d really hoped for playable Zelda, what we did get of the character was far more moving than whatever her deal usually is. The chasm was an incredible surprise, and since Skyward Sword is one of my favorite Zelda games, I had a ton of fun with the skydive mechanics. There’s also the building system, which managed the near impossible feat of having things control basically how you’d expect them to once you slapped a steering wheel on them. It felt like there was just so much love for the previous games in the series, without being overly reliant on them. If I had to pick a favorite moment in the game, it would have to be during the Wind Temple’s boss fight, when the Dragon Roost Island theme from Wind Waker cut through the track and made me feel like I could have taken on Ganondorf with a tree branch in that moment.

4. PERSONA 5 ROYAL/PERSONA 5 STRIKERS/PERSONA Q2

Is this cheating? Yes. But hear me out. I knew Royal was going to be on the list, and then it turned out that I liked Strikers and Q2 as much, if not more than Royal. While Royal has higher highs, it also has much lower lows - Strikers and Q2 don’t engage in nearly as much of the weak parts of Royal. But they also don’t function even a little bit without it. Strikers dragged in the gameplay department a little bit, but I loved being able to play as every Phantom Thief - and Q2 was such a vast improvement over Q1 in pretty much every department. So my number four spot on my top ten games of the year is ‘every game I played this year that has Akira Kurusu in it.’ So, since I started Tactica, maybe that counts too… and if you want to be technical, I think I played a few rounds of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in June, so I guess that has the number four spot too.

3. ARMORED CORE 6

In 2023, I really and truly entered my mech era. I built Gunpla this year, I started playing in a really fun new Lancer campaign, and I played the shit out of Armored Core 6. I’d never played one before, but I was hooked from the tutorial boss alone. I beat the game once and, at the advice of a few friends, started a new game plus run - and before I knew it, I’d already beaten it again. I’ll do a third run too, at some point. Once I learned the all-consuming power of the pile bunker, I was out there decimating the arena foes like nothing else - and, once I figured out how to time out my missile strikes, I managed to slam through 75% of the final boss’ health in a single blow. That was the single most satisfying hit of this year across any game. Oh, and - keep an eye out, because I have a hankering to write some Maeterlinck-focused fic at some point. Because I sure do love me my one-off characters.

2. SCARLET NEXUS

Up until the final entry swung through and claimed the top spot, Scarlet Nexus seemed like a complete and total shoo-in for number one. Very few games have ever motivated me to complete them to the degree I did this one, including getting all Steam achievements and a ton of the optional content in game you don’t need for that. Kasane and Yuito are endearing protagonists with cool powers, genuine flaws, and vastly different outlooks. There were some plot threads from chapter one I thought had been dropped, but as it turns out they were only really dropped in Kasane’s story, and were far more focused on in Yuito’s, while he didn’t engage with most of her whole deal until the endgame. She spends most of her story dealing with causality and time travel, and he doesn’t even know time travel is a thing at all until there’s maybe 25% of the game left. And at the end, it still manages to feel complete coming from either side. The supporting cast is extremely strong, too, and the way powers flow together make the fights feel dynamic, fun, and tie to the themes of combining disparate people to make things better for everyone - to stop holding onto the past and strive for a better future, no matter how much work it takes.

1. 13 SENTINELS: AEGIS RIM

You should play this game. There’s no two ways about it. It’s a severely underrated title with incredible art, writing, gameplay, voice acting - 13 Sentinels fires on all cylinders. It’s half visual novel walkarounds with the occasional puzzle, exploring the individual stories of the thirteen protagonists across a variety of genres. One character is doing 80s high school movie hijinks with his exposition-loving best friend, while another is trying to solve the disappearance of her best friend. Said best friend is engaging in escapades with a small alien just like her favorite UFO movies, and a fourth guy entirely is doing Blade Runner shit. At one point, there’s a character who has appeared fairly infrequently and finally becomes available to play, and when he appears on the select screen, he’s standing in front of a sea of flames while the other characters typically appear in front of schoolrooms, city streets, their own homes. The emotional beat when you click through and hear him start talking about how he’s proud to be enlisting as a Japanese soldier in 1944 is one of the strongest in the game. Each story weaves around another and provides further depth to events you’ve already seen, while the entire chronological story is combined into a single timeline of events you’re free to look at whenever. But then, on the other side of the game from the character stories, you have the fights - or, rather, the fight. Because the combat side of things all takes place within  pretty much a single day - a grueling, nonstop battle where the characters must drive away wave after wave after wave of invaders without letting even a single one through. Each has their own mechs and certain special abilities that gear them for different scenarios, and if you want to experience everything, you have to bounce back and forth between the stories and the fighting, constantly unlocking aspects of the other. The biggest problem with the game is just choice paralysis - there’s so much to do, it’s hard to know where to start. But once you’re able to bite into it, chipping away at the Gordian plot rewards you with a deeply moving story about the plight of a generation thrust into a ceaseless strife, burdened by the heavy expectations of their predecessors to finally solve it and the even heavier feeling that there just are no answers to find in the first place. And also, there are sick as fuck giant mechs. I told you I was in my mech era this year.

[sevenmothz]

Finally finished The Veilguard! Probably would have gotten it done earlier, but with how things went with the election, safe to say I lost some drive to keep playing for a little bit haha.

Overall thoughts, good and bad, beneath the cut. Spoilers ahead if you haven't finished the game yet.

The Good:

Combat: Super fun! I might be tempted to try this game on higher difficulties. I never felt like I was getting bogged down by random fights like I have in past Dragon Age games (Origins is probably the worst offender of the four games, but Inquisition is up there too). Playing a mage was fantastic and I'm so glad they finally aren't just standing around waving their staffs around lmao.

Lore: DWARF LOOOORRRREEEE!!!! That's probably the part I got most hype about haha. Also thoroughly enjoyed playing a Watcher and learning more about the Necropolis through Rook and Emmrich. I don't think any of the other factions can top the Mourn Watch for me, tbh. The elf shit was engaging enough to continue on with the story, but I'm not a big Solas girly and the elven history of Dragon Age has never been something I've been super invested in. Definitely side-eyeing the little tidbit we got from finishing Taash's personal quests though! If Dragon Age survives to see another game, I'm super into finding out more about qunari and their origins.

Characters: Really enjoyed the companions and their stories overall, and I'm glad they involved so many one-on-one quests with (some) of them. Also really loved meeting so many characters I've seen in the books and comics over the years. Getting to take screenshots of my Inquisitor in a new graphic style was also a plus.

Art: I know a lot of people really dislike the style the game is in--hell, I was iffy on it too when all I had was to watch the promotional videos--but as soon as I started the game myself, I really loved it! I don't know if they updated some things since dropping promo videos or what, but it just looks so much better in person on my gaming system. I hope they'll take a similar stylistic approach for any future Dragon Age games they maybe might do since I'm pretty burnt out on hyper-realistic looking games.

Maps: Blessedly linear, but expansive enough to feel good with revisiting areas to check out spots that were blocked previously. It made me think a lot of God of War's reboot games as well as the Jedi games, which I also really enjoyed playing. Inquisition had vast wastelands with practically nothing but enemies populating their maps and it just made me want to get from point A to B as fast as possible. While I overused the fast travel in this first playthrough since I wanted to get through the whole story, I'll definitely be using them less in future playthroughs so I can enjoy not only banter, but also what NPCs are saying throughout the areas.

Armors: Ooooh gorl so many armors I liked in the game! For most of the game my Rook was wearing that white/purple get-up with the big cap and UNF! Loved it. Switched off to a rogue-looking armor set in the Shadow Dragon colors that looked pretty bitching too. That one unique set from the Crows with the golden arms too? AAAHHHH!

Bugs/Tech: Other than characters getting stuck once in a blue moon or Rook being goofy as shit while doing the ol' parkour, I didn't really encounter much on the bugginess side of things. Nothing that was noticeable anyway.

Animation: Bioware finally figured it out after all these decades haha. Love it when characters aren't standing around stiffly like dolls being played with or walking around like they got a giant popsicle stick stuck up their asses.

The endgame was pretty epic. So glad all our companions get roles in the final rush like in Origins and 2. Inquisition completely dropped the ball in that regard (both when you're going after Coryface at the end of the main game, as well as Solas in Trespasser).

Emmrich: Best boy. ALSO HE DATES STRIFE IF YOU DON'T ROMANCE HIM FJDKALFDJAL. GET IT, OLD MEN!

Solas: Still a dumb egg man. Wouldn't have him any other way. Glad he's gone lmao.

Dorian: Still serving cunt and outlasted Solas. Stay winning, King Archon.

The Bad:

Varric: What a complete waste of time lmao. I honestly wasn't super hype about him being in another DA game (outside of him serving DILF looks, which WOOF GOTDAMN), and what they wound up doing with his character was dumb as shit. It was the Hawke vs Warden decision all over again from Inquisition where the story is Telling me to give a shit about these characters, but not Showing me a reason for my Inquisitor to care much about who they pick to stay in the Fade. If we'd gotten to see Rook adventure with Varric more at the beginning of the game, this whole mentor dying routine would have hit harder. Writers shat the bed and rolled in it.

Romance: So I'm going to have to look up a video online of how the other romances play out, but the Lucanis one was...disappointing. Had a really good start with the almost kiss scene, but then there was no follow up for that. Why doesn't he want to kiss Rook in that moment? Why isn't he physically affectionate with them at all until near endgame?? Meta-wise, I can take a guess, but the point of a story is to...tell it. I've heard Kirby isn't big on writing romances, so...idk, did that have something to do with it? Was it not fully written before she was fired? It straight up feels incomplete! I've heard from looking online that he even keeps flirting with Neve even when you're locked into a romance with him. Like...HUH?

Cont'd: Even outside of romances, it seemed like he just didn't have much more going on outside of his main storyline. Davrin, Bellara, Taash, and Lace all invite you out multiple times for one-on-one time (even get to go to the garden in the Necropolis with Emmrich, which was super cool), but Lucanis just...doesn't have that. Neve also seemed to be lacking a little in that regard too. Is it simply because they have parts of their stories as part of the main questline or what?

Cont'd 2: Also hilarious that if you harden Lucanis, he refuses to get involved with Rook, even a Shadow Dragon one that has reason to save Minrathous over Treviso, but he's happy to get into a relationship with Neve, who was also not there to help at Treviso haha. RIP to y'all that made that mistake on your Lucanis runs.

Music: Forgettable. I think the only track I truly liked was the ambient music for the Hossberg Wetlands (goddamn does that shit set the tone for that area) and maybe some of the boss fight songs. Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe, you dun goofed. It's telling when the only times I perked up at the sound of the music was when it was an Inquisition track, which had an absolutely baller line-up of songs. I wish they'd have gotten Inon Zur or Trevor Morris to return for Veilguard. Or, I don't know, poked Zimmer with a cattle prod or something to wake him up, since I know that bitch can make some amazing music (no idea what Balfe is usually capable of).

Animation: When it's good, it's REALLY good, but then you randomly get scenes where the characters are just standing around looking at each other lmao. Like in one of the Lucanis romance-y scenes during their second coffee date, he just stands next to Rook and makes weird faces at them. Like damn dude, clearly someone didn't get paid to animate that day.

Davrin can die what the fuck. I'm guessing it's Lace if you pick her to lead the other group? UGH THE WORST! ASSAN EVEN GOES DOWN WITH HIM??? T A T At least his death felt worthy, unlike fucking Varric getting prison shanked by Solas within the first hour or two of playing.

Y'all really couldn't think of a better way to sell Varric being around and Rook not knowing? Good lawrd, embarrassing. Look what they did to my boy. I'm gonna be a salty bitch about Varric's treatment for years to come. Was really holding out for Inquisition!Varric being a fluke.

While I did like that the companions weren't at each other's throats in dumb ways, yeah, they probably could have used a bit more bite. Or like...have their problems with each other not be solved within one cutscene.

Taash's storyline is probably still my least favorite since the queer side of it is too formulaic and felt clunky now and then. Can see those story beats coming from a mile away. Was honestly more interested in their struggle with their qunari and rivaini backgrounds.

Lace also seemed to suffer a bit with a predictable storyline, but that may be because I'm also like her and struggle to accept needing help and not always being okay and putting on a front to not bother others bahaha.

Can't believe we only got to visit Kal-Sharok once jfdksalfda.

Casual clothes: Would have been nice to have more options. And also just to have them organized a bit better so it's easier to check through what will and will not cause clipping issues and whatnot haha.

Shadow Dragons: Hilarious that a group that's trying to be an underground rebel force all color code their outfits lmao.

The Kal-Sharok armor. GOD! It's so bad!

Can't believe I had to choose between Manfred and Lichdom. Ugh so rude. Hardest choice in the whole game.

Overall:

Even with my complaints, I still had a great time and definitely want to playthrough Veilguard more, and likely will once I've had a break from Dragon Age for a while. I got a fanfiction (not related) to finish writing, podcasts to catch up on, and doll stuff to get to. I also have that playthrough of DA2 to finish as well that I put on pause to get Inquisition done with before Veilguard released.

I do really hope Dragon Age will continue (considering the after-credits scene, it definitely seems like they're interested in continuing the series) since I still absolutely love this world Bioware has created and added to over the years, even if the stories don't always pan out how I'd hoped (sometimes due to EA and Bioware's management being dumb as bricks).

Honestly, me being "meh" about a Dragon Age main quest is pretty normal for me lmao. DA2 was the only game I enjoyed the story for from beginning to end, and I think a lot of that is because it isn't a story about gathering followers to fight against a big bad and save the world, but instead about a group of assholes out for themselves that find a family in each other and are just trying to live out their lives one day at a time.

Considering the after-credits scene, I imagine we won't be getting another story like DA2 anytime soon from Bioware, which is disappointing, but hardly surprising. Most people tend to want the big epics over the more zoomed in stories.

[jian-wei-uh]

Blog Post #1 : Not all who experience war are combatants: Analysing Narratives in This War of Mine

Figure 1: This War of Mine (2014) Poster

I enjoy playing games that are designed to evoke strong emotions in their players, particularly those that encourage deeper reflection on important topics. A prime example of this is the anti-war game This War of Mine, which effectively challenges players to reconsider their perspectives on morality and survival in the context of war.

This War of Mine takes a unique approach to combat pro-war stance by placing the player in civilian's point-of-view, rather than an unbeatable combatant which is the usual norm for most war themed games regardless of pro-war or anti-war. This video game was inspired by real-life events such as the Balkan War, the Syrian Civil War , the Siege of Grozny, and, The Second World War's Warsaw Uprising (Marszał, P., 2022) The player must manage a small group of ordinary people, helping them survive until the siege of the city is lifted. Each ordinary civilian has unique traits such as trained in combat, good cook, stealthy etc. During the day, players focus on upgrading their shelter using whatever resources they’ve gathered in their shelter or during night-time scavenging missions. However, the game presents situations that challenge the player’s morals, forcing difficult decisions in the midst of a brutal civil war (11 Bits Studio, 2014).

Both embedded and emergent narratives are important to tell the context or story of a video game to its players, in order to immerse the players and promote player agency. Video games often combine the both to create an memorable experience for its players. Such as environmental storytelling where the game developers would design the environment to indirectly tell the players of the existing game lore and encourage players to explore the world to get more information or discover hidden quest which could alter the final outcome of the game scenario (Jenkins, 2012). In This War of Mine, both narrative methods were utilised. For example, embedded narratives would be the war-torn environments that players scavenge to obtain resources to survive the civil war, reading letters left behind previous tenants, hearing informative broadcasts from the crafted radio, and listening to other survival's idle conversations etc. While for emergent narratives, such as randomisation of loots with each new start, different characters to play, and choices in events that will affect characters mental state and ending of the game etc.

To delve deeper into the choices presented to players, the decisions they make gradually shape specific types of endings. For example, if a player chooses cruelty, such as stealing from an elderly couple during a scavenging mission, the consequences become apparent over time. When revisiting the location, the player will find the couple no longer sitting in their armchairs, but dead in their bed, having run out of food and medicine. While it’s not explicitly stated that their deaths are caused by the player’s immoral actions, the elderly man had pleaded for the player to leave them alone, mentioning that his wife needed the supplies that were stolen. The character who commits theft or murder will experience negative emotional effects, which can, in turn, impact the overall morale of other survivors in the shelter. If their mental health is ignored and they persist in making immoral decisions, characters may spiral into depression or become mentally "broken," eventually refusing to follow player commands and possibly fleeing the shelter, which leads to their death. The autonomy displayed by these depressed characters can evoke feelings of empathy and guilt in the player, as their actions directly contribute to the characters’ emotional decline (Pergerson, 2021).

Figure 2: Information about Katia. (Kaptan, 2022)

At the beginning of the game, each playable character is introduced with only a brief one-line description. However, as the game progresses and the characters build trust with each other, more of their backstory is gradually revealed to the player. This creates a deeper emotional connection, making players feel invested in keeping the characters alive so they can find their families or fulfil personal promises. As a result, when a character dies, it can have a strong emotional impact on the player (Funk, 2022), as the character leaves the world with unfinished business.

However, in the harsh realities of war, it’s often a matter of survival, either you or others make it with the scarce resources available. This forces players to make morally questionable decisions to ensure their characters live another day.

Figure 3: Epilogue cutscene. (믐늠음름, 2014)

The mentioned game features contributes to form Aarseth's concept of 'ergodic' narrative (Aarseth, 1997) where the player's decision will decide the faith of the characters' survivability, the outcome of game events and the final game's ending during the epilogue (Refer to figure 2).

Often, these harsh consequences shown to players after committing immoral acts are intended to encourage them to reflect on their actions, become more compassionate, or realize the true horrors of war. However, some players still approach the game with a materialistic mindset, harming others for extra loot rather than considering the importance of humanity. To address this, several countermeasures could be implemented. For example, the game could provide stronger visual or audio cues that highlight the suffering caused by the player’s actions, such as the reactions of surviving family members or visible changes in the environment, like a desolate belongings of the deceased character. Another measure could be making it more difficult for the other character to carry out tasks after witnessing or participating in immoral acts, such as adding new specific animation or new direct text dialogue scripts. Additionally, implementing a narrative penalty, where key story elements are locked or character arcs are cut short due to inhumane actions, could further push players to think more carefully about their choices.

References

11 Bits Studio (2014) . This War of Mine [Video Game]. 11 Bits Studio.

믐늠음름 (2014). This War of Mine - Ending(Epilogue) 720P. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIENAF9FpiQ [Accessed 14 Oct. 2024]

Aarseth, E. J. (1997). Cybertext. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. [Accessed 13 Oct. 2024]

Funk, T. (2022). Video Game Art Reader. Amherst College Press eBooks. doi:https://doi.org/10.1353/book.101009. [Accessed 14 Oct. 2024]

Jenkins, H. (2003). GAME DESIGN AS NARRATIVE ARCHITECTURE. [online] Available at: https://paas.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/09.-Henry-Jenkins-Game-Design-As-Narrative-Architecture.pdf [Accessed 13 Oct. 2024].

Kaptan, D. (2022). This War Of Mine: Every Character, Ranked. [online] Available at: https://www.thegamer.com/this-war-of-mine-all-characters-best-ranked/ [Accessed 13 Oct. 2024].

Marszał, P. (2022). How Reality Shows That This War of Mine is More Than a Best-selling Game - Xbox Wire. [online] Xbox Wire. Available at: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/04/29/reality-shows-this-war-of-mine-more-than-a-best-selling-game/ [Accessed 12 Oct. 2024].

Pergerson, C. (2021). How This War of Mine Creates Empathy for Virtual Characters How This War of Mine Creates Empathy for Virtual Characters. [online] doi:https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-5071-8.ch002 [Accessed 13 Oct. 2024].

[thegaminggladiator]

What are the Minimum Specs for a Cyberpunk 2077 Gaming PC?

There's a wide variety of sci-fi games on the market as of late, such as Hell Divers 2 and Overwatch, and of course, Cyberpunk 2077. However, games like these require a reliable gaming PC in order to run smoothly and offer a sublime recreational experience.

In this blog, I'll explain what you need in order to have a reliable Cyberpunk 2077 gaming PC, as well as explain why Cyberpunk could be your next gaming adventure!

What is Cyberpunk 2077?

Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure role-playing video game developed and published by CD Projekt Red. Released on December 10, 2020, the game is set in the dystopian future of 2077 in a fictional city called Night City, which is located in the Free State of California.

What are the Notable Features of the Game?

Setting

The game takes place in Night City, a sprawling metropolis known for its advanced technology, towering skyscrapers, and deep-seated corruption. The city is divided into six regions, each with its unique atmosphere, inhabitants, and challenges.

Players assume the role of "V," a customizable mercenary with options for gender, appearance, and background. The main storyline follows V's quest to obtain a one-of-a-kind implant that grants immortality, all while navigating a complex web of alliances, betrayals, and corporate espionage. A significant plotline involves Johnny Silverhand, a rebellious rockstar played by Keanu Reeves, who exists as a digital ghost in V's mind.

Gameplay

Cyberpunk 2077 features a mix of first-person shooting, hacking, combat, and stealth mechanics. Players can engage in numerous side missions and activities, which can influence the main story and the game's ending. Character progression involves skill trees and upgrades across attributes like hacking, combat, and crafting.

Customization

Extensive customization options for V, including cybernetic enhancements, clothing, weapons, and vehicles.

Players can choose different approaches to missions, such as brute force, stealth, or hacking.

Graphics and Design

The game is noted for its highly detailed graphics, capturing the neon-lit, gritty atmosphere of a cyberpunk future. Night City is alive with NPCs, dynamic weather, and a day-night cycle.

Cyberpunk 2077 offers a richly detailed and immersive experience, blending deep storytelling with extensive customization and an expansive world.

What are the Minimum Specs Needed to Run Cyberpunk 2077?

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K, 4 Core, up to 3.8GHz or equivalent | AMD Ryzen FX-8310, 4 Core / 8 Threads, up to 4.2GHz or equivalent - RAM: 8GB - GPU: AMD Radeon RX 470 or equivalent | Nvidia Geforce GTX 970 or equivalent - DirectX: version 12

What are the Recommended Specs to Run Cyberpunk 2077?

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 4 Core/8 Threads up to 4GHz or equivalent | AMD Ryzen 3 3200G 4 Core/4 Threads up to 4GHz or equivalent - RAM: 12GB - GPU: AMD RX 590 or equivalent | Nvidia Geforce 1060 6GB / GTX 1660 Super 6GB or equivalent - DirectX: Version 12 - Additional Notes: SSD recommended

Is There Anywhere That Provides Good Cyberpunk 2077 Gaming PCs for Good Prices?

Yes! There are many reliable and trustworthy distributors of optimal gaming PCs that can help you play games with ultimate graphics such as Cyberpunk 2077. 3B Systems is an example of a provider that specialises in tailored gaming PCs that are designed to run this game. So, going with a company like them is your best bet!

I hope this helps anyone who wishes to play Cyberpunk 2077! I will be shortly explaining other popular games for PCs and what specs are needed to run them!

Stay tuned. I'll be back very soon!

[bainhardt]

Marchcember 2024 SPRING do - Part 2

I suppose it's fortunate this isn't a proper December To-Do, because next game off the list isn't even really backlog, although it is a similar enough scenario to Mega Serval which also got a post... We'll just say this one's more of a "March Playing a Video Game." I bought Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen earlier this month on sale and even finished it in time for this name scheme to still make sense! With my track record, it's practically a miracle this was done with such fast turnaround.

I had my feelings on the game already figured out during my playthrough at about exactly "half-fun." If I didnt like anything about it I wouldn't have bothered finishing, as should be pretty obvious. But there was no shortage of griping along the way. I'm already reminded of a couple other games, saying that...

I absolutely hated traveling. Dunno exactly why but the stamina running out on me all the time made it not fun in the least to explore. It was doubly cruel for the game to give infinite stamina inside Gran Soren, suggesting they did realize that idea had merit. Why not only have limited stamina during combat? The thought had me desperate for Elden Ring's design. At the same time, blaming this whole issue on stamina alone would feel wrong when I know I enjoyed similar games like Skyrim in their day.

I guess to hit on all my scattered thoughts on the subject - movement reminded me of Legends Arceus; the control didn't feel properly snappy and responsive and "fun." Clunky is the descriptor here. Also, the swarms of enemies in the wilderness are entirely pointless. This is maybe the only action game I remember playing that had random encounters. There wasn't much in the way of exp or loot to be gained from fighting my five-hundredth wolf or bandit, and it certainly wasn't fun to do for its own sake, so I employed the age-old technique from RPGs: I ran the fuck away constantly. And finally, the lack of any kind of quick travel was initially a huge turn-off for me, but as I progressed and discovered the portcrystals, I can give them, again, about half credit for this one. I think giving the player a limited number of warp points is a fairly unique compromise... but I would really prefer the warps themself be infinite. I can say with confidence that without the Dark Arisen infinite ferrystone, I wouldn't have played this one for very long.

As for the other side of our basic foundation mechanics, combat gets a "fine" from me. The third-person action approach is cool, but I feel it may have ended up a little too simple. This part reminded me, strangely, of Tactics Ogre (not a good sign); I never once felt like I had to change or reevaluate anything I was doing for the entire game. I learned three Thief skills right at the beginning and mashing the same buttons over and over always worked, so I had no reason to broaden my horizons. Trip enemy with rope, hit enemy with flurry attack. Dunno if that's typical because I haven't played many games like this. And I can imagine what you're thinking: you're supposed to branch out because you want to experience the other possibilities! ...Well, I think it's important to say I didn't really find combat so fun that I wanted to do it any more than necessary, or as said earlier, for its own sake.

Which establishes the main idea here: if the core gameplay loops the game spends most of its time asking you do to are not particularly fun for you, playing it can feel more like a chore. The proportion is so important, too. How much do you like and how much do you wish you could skip? It feels so stupid to talk about it like it's not obvious, but I think it's a huge underlying element of the games that lose me somewhere or other. I just want it to be all good.

So I'll take that as the turning point to talk about stuff that was good! I really love the Arisen/Pawn system of the game, both mechanically and narratively. It made for a fascinating world setting. I initially wanted to know the story because of this, though I don't know for sure I got all of it because I was averse to doing anything other than what was strictly necessary (sorry). The Pawn AI was also fairly reliable. They didn't always do what I'd hope, but they never did anything I actively preferred they wouldn't, either. As I've mentioned, I haven't played other games like Dragon Age or whatever, but this feels like it might be the ideal version of your pseudo-D&D RPG experience in a game. You get all the fun of a full party while only needing to fuss over two of the members' finer details. Actually, to that point, I think I would have enjoyed more details to fuss over. Getting to decide more out-of-combat things my Pawn and I should be good and bad at would make outfitting the party even more fun.

Another plus - one of my own making - is that my characters never stopped making me laugh when they were on screen. This game let me create any character I wanted and I was so unsure of what to do I ended up a hulking, dykey Bart Simpson in a Princess Zelda cosplay. But the true star of the show was Tom Scott, who served as my rock and guide throughout Gransys. I don't know what I'd have done without him.

Quest and dungeon design seemed pretty good overall. While perhaps not many, all of the quests I remember felt unique and had me tracking down more interesting objectives than your usual slay monsters X times bullshit (while also cleverly including that through the bulletins). But it warrants repeating that I avoided even considering certain quests because I knew they'd require I carve halfway across the map through mobs of dull enemies feeling no sense of reward or satisfaction, only to do one cool dungeon and then immediately turn around and drudge my way back. Where I did journey, that ferrystone was always pulling a lot of weight.

And to make an important distinction here about the combat: boss fights were great. I enjoyed every boss that I recall - even when these encounters occasionally slowed down to a bit of a slog, I still preferred their far grander-scale slog to trash mobs at their best. Bespoke monster fights should've been like, the only fights in the game... or maybe that would've crossed too far into Capcom's Monster Hunter (though it's still nice for it all to be building towards a conclusion). But yeah, climbing on guys was fun, learning their moves and options, having your Pawns caught in the crossfire and calling out advice and stuff. Loved all that. This is where the game's systems actually engage the player on a proper level. I was chuggin' through items, reading about the myriad status effects I was suffering, smacking my forehead as That Same Pawn went down for the umpteenth time at the least opportune moment. To return to my point about proportions from before, boss fights felt like the only reward the rest of the drudgery in the game kept me wanting after, and they're easily the best memories from it. I specifically chose to fight the dragon at the end because I wanted to beat ass one last time! Polish up the combat a little and give me further ways to customize my characters around unique challenges and threats posed by these monsters, and I'd be begging for more.

Damn this got longer than I intended. To conclude, I'm glad that I got this game done and relatively quickly, but I am definitely not begging for more. I didn't even buy it because I wanted to play DD2... I just thought the Monster Factory episode was funny.

[bahamutgames]

Bahamutgreen’s Favorite Games of 2022!

It’s that time again! Another Game of the Year list from your favorite video game enjoyer to round out the year! I honestly kind of feel like I didn’t play that much that was insanely earth shattering this year. While at the same time I literally played a game that reinstalled faith in the medium in my heart again. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that it was a little all of the place this year in terms of my thoughts and feelings on what I played. But I still want to take some time to highlight my favorites!

Just like last year, this will be divided into 2 lists: My favorite games I played this year that released BEFORE 2022, and my favorite games I played that released DURING 2022! So a favorite old games / new games list. Each has 5 entries and 5 runner ups. They’re not organized in any ranking between each list but each list does have a #1 winner!

TOP GAMES PLAYED IN 2022

Pupperazzi (PC)

If you don’t know, I LOVE photography games. I’m a huge fan of taking pictures of video game environments within video games. So whenever I see a game where that’s the goal, I’m a little drawn to it. And so when I saw Pupperazzi on Game Pass I just had to try it. And I cannot describe just how happy this game made me. It’s super cute, super simple, and super relaxing. It’s a great time and it’s one of the few photography games I’ve played where you get rewards for not just focusing on the subject matter, and branching out a bit (something I wish Pokemon Snap did, for example.) It’s got easy controls, super cute graphics, it’s easy to pick up and play, and it has such a good OST. I loved this game I tried speedrunning it the night I 100% completed it! If that means anything.

Breath of Death VII (PC)

Found myself played a good amount of Zeboyd Games’ catalogue this year. And I think I can safely say they’re easily one of my favorite indie devs out there at the moment! I love their RPGs, and it’s just nice to see traditional JRPG games get made at all nowadays (although we do seem to be in a BIG resurgence of them!) And this game was a total treat. It’s a very classic styled RPG, but it’s the Zeboyd Games touch that makes it worth playing nowadays. Small things and very unique approaches and ideas for combat that make it flow smoother and easier than typical old school RPGs. I’m also just VERY smitten with the world idea, a war torn post apocalypse where everyone is an undead/redead. This game has a ton of potential and I would LOVE to see a Breath of Death VIII come out eventually!

Sonic 3 & Knuckles (Sega Genesis)

I know what you’re thinking: “You’ve beaten Sonic 3 before, don’t mess with me.” And you’d be partially right! I’ve actually never beaten the & Knuckles part of the game prior to this year. When I was a teen playing through the whole series I got totally walled by Sandopolis Zone and had to give up. But after Sonic 2 ended up becoming my favorite movie of all time (before Sonic 3 comes out of course) I had a huge itch to replay all the classic sonic games. And my takeaway from that? Sonic 3 & Knuckles is not only one of my favorite games I played this year, but it is without question the BEST classic Sonic game out there. And maybe one of my new favorite Sonic games. It’s got pains in it like lives and being old and stuff like that. But coming back to this and seeing it through to Doomsday Zone was so eye opening. There was such a natural evolution from this game to Adventure. Multiple player characters, a bigger story, larger set pieces, and a crazy Super Sonic final boss. It’s amazing, and it’s so cool to see the parts I ADORE about Sonic (big stories and crazy melodrama and set pieces) got their start on the Genesis.

Kaze and the Wild Masks (PC)

Here’s a game that totally blindsided me! I had my eyes on it for a while, but I finally got to play it this year and MAN was this good! It looks great, feels great to play, has a great sound track, and is just a total treat through and through! I LOVED this game! If you haven’t played it yet, and you’re a fan of Donkey Kong Country, I cannot recommend it enough! You control Kaze and get to play through lots of really well made levels and sometimes even fool around with unique masks that have different abilities. This is another one I’d LOVE to see get a sequel of some kind in the future. I’m very close to 100% completing it (just need a few more achievements). And even though it was the first game I played this year, it hasn’t left my mind as one of the best.

And my favorite old game I played in 2022 was...

Kingdom Hearts 2 (Playstation 2)

Last year Kingdom Hearts 1 managed to get onto the runner ups. But this time, nah I gotta give it up. Kingdom Hearts 2 was AWESOME! I like KH1, but KH2 has really cemented that I am a brand new obsessed Kingdom Hearts fan. Since playing this one I cannot stop thinking about it and I CANNOT wait to dive into the rest of the series. At first I thought it was a little too easy and meat headed, but no, I actually think it’s perfect. For starters, god it should never be as hard as KH1 or annoying as CoM. But also I think that meatheaded mashingness of it makes the game so good. It allows them to make every single fight a spectacle with absolutely crazy reaction commands and the moss bonkers final boss I’ve ever seen in my life! Kingdom Hearts is such a unique series and I absolutely think 2 is and will probably stay as my favorite. AMAZING visuals (huge upgrade in the already pretty good animation), fantastic music, massively improved gameplay, and all around huge polish has made this easily my favorite old game I got to experience in 2022.

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THE RUNNER UPS

And here we go, these are 5 more games that I wasn’t necessarily completely changed by or anything, but I still thought were really solid games that I wanted to give a quick shout out to! As always, if you want you can check out my list of every game I played this year when it’s uploaded here.

-Final Fantasy 1 (PS1): This year I started my journey to play through the mainline games of 4 different RPG series (FF, Pokemon, DQ, and Tales). And surprisingly enough, I think FF1 was my favorite among the first entries. It’s rough, and has aged, even the PS port I played. But I loved it, another big win for the Final Fantasy series in my eyes.

-Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox): Ah now this one may be a surprise to some of you! Did you know I’m a bit of a Halo fan? I’ve been playing the multiplayer since I was a small child. But I had never beaten any campaigns until this year when me and my little sister tackled Halo Combat Evolved. I loved it! It was a VERY impressive game with beautiful visuals and some fantastic set pieces I’m still thinking about. And the music? So good for no reason.

-Jak 3 (PS2): Hard to believe I finished the original trilogies for Sly, Jak, and Ratchet all this year! But here we are! After all is said and done, I think Jak has come out on top as my favorite of the 3. Mystic stuff? Check. Technology? Tech? Lore and ancient mysteries? Check. Edgy as FUCK? Check check check! I had a rough time with Jak 2 but I think Jak 3 managed to polish up everything wrong with it while keeping what was so charming about it’s drastic tonal shift. A strong finale to a cool trilogy.

-What the Golf? (Switch): I don’t like golf. It’s the most boring sport and it’s a horrible waste of land. Thankfully, if you’re like me, there’s a game for people like us! What the Golf is a game I played at the start of the year when I was INCREDIBLY sick, and it helped me get over that real quick. It’s so chaotic and goofy, but also weirdly comforting. Great ost, easy to play, and TONS of content to go through. The gift that keeps on giving.

-Sludge Life (PC): Living life on a polluted island might sound awful. And it is, but man Sludge Life manages to take the environment and world and make it so fun and relaxing. I love walking sims like this where you just explore and have a good time. Sludge Life is simple, but does have a goal with cute payoffs and multiple endings. And you can pee! I bought a shirt from this game! It’s really good I 100% completed it in a day!

As always there’s a TON of games that got left off. Buck Up and Drive!, Viola the Heroines Melody, there’s always so many games I play each year and I can never give each of them the time they deserve. I’ll move on now but PLEASE check out everything here if any of it catches your eye!

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Top New Games from 2022:

Splatoon 3 (Nintendo Switch)

Hey, Splatoon’s back! As I’m sure a lot of you know, I’m a bit of a Splatoon fan. I’ve been a fan since the very first one, and yeah the second one disappointed me a lot, but Octo Expansion was great. I was very hesitant about Splatoon 3, but I finally beat it on my birthday and I can safely say it’s the best in the series, easily. The story mode is REAL this time and not just a rehash of Splatoon 1 again. It feels great to play, Small Fry is a fantastic addition to the single player roster, there’s TONS to do, fantastic music, and one of my favorite final bosses from 2022! What a cool game!

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope (Nintendo Switch)

Mario RPGs are back!? In 2022 we had a genuinely cool as hell Mario RPG with genuinely good combat??? And we have the Rabbids to thank for it!? If you told me all this during the Wii U days I probably would have slapped you. But no, it’s true. Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope is AWESOME! It’s not perfect, but it really does feel like the best brand new Mario RPG in years. Interesting combat, a cool villain, a brand new OC teammate (who is fucking awesome by the way), playable Peach and Bowser? It’s all SO good. And the game isn’t even done yet, I cannot wait for the DLC! I was utterly blown away by how much I enjoyed this one, it’s even better than the first by a wide margin in my opinion. Can’t wait to see what the rabbids bring us in the future!

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (Xbox One)

Now here’s a game... I was expecting this game to be kinda bad. I won’t lie. I’m not really a fan of Isekais so I just steered clear of it. But I was given it on my birthday, and considering I had just played FF1 for the first time. I had to try it. And I’m SO glad I gave it a fair shake. This game was AMAZING! Genuinely, I am not usually a fan of this kind of “souls-esc” gameplay. But I actually had a GREAT time with it here. I loved the graphics, music, characters, and the insanely over the top and edgy script. There were moments where I jumped out of my chair because they were saying so much cool shit! It was such an interesting take on the simple FF1 story as well. I had an absolute blast with this game, and I’m not joking when I tell you this may have single handedly restored my faith that AAA games can be good.

Spark the Electric Jester 3 (PC)

You all saw it coming. How could I NOT include Spark the Electric Jester 3, the most anticipated indie game of all time according to 5/5 Bahamutgreens? I LOVED the first two games, they’re easily some of my favorite indies of all time. And in my opinion, Spark 3 just continues to make the series better and better! This is a fantastic end to the trilogy. With amazing gameplay, multiple ways to go through each level, tons to find and unlock, and a great story that’s really wild and takes a really crazy and drastic turn. I’m not sure what will become of the Spark series after this, but I am absolutely looking forward to anything the team puts out next!

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And my Game of the Year for 2022 is...

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Sonic Frontiers (Xbox One)

You all knew it was gonna be my game of the year. Don’t lie. Let’s not pretend here. I’ve been really excited for this game for a while now. I was cautiously excited though, after Forces I was unsure how Frontiers would go. But man. Man oh man. Frontiers was AMAZING! This is EXACTLY what I was looking for in a new Sonic! Over the top visuals, cool gameplay, awesome lyrical music, and FOR SUPER SONIC TO BE INVOLVED FUCKING HELL STOP MAKING GAMES WITHOUT SUPER SONIC I’M SICK OF IT! The amazing boss battles, the fantastic open zone gameplay, the super cool animations for all the attacks, the crazy melodramatic story. It’s all here. It reminds me of why I fell in love with Sonic. It’s not perfect, but if we continue down this path of really caring about making Sonic cool. I think we’re on the road to a perfect game soon.

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THE RUNNER UPS

-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection (Xbox One): A collection of old games to start out the runner ups. I wasn’t going to include this originally but I felt the need to give it a shout out because it is a pretty amazing collection. 13 games, english and japanese versions of each, a handful of cheats built in for each, complete controller remapping for each one, and online play for some of them which is incredible. And on top of that the gallery comes with SO much junk like manuals, game boxes, design documents, it’s a BIG collection.

-Chocobo GP (Switch): This game, man... It had so much potential. By the end of its life (which is happening currently as I’m typing this) it was a genuinely solid and fun racing game. But when it launched, man. It was just not worth it. Microtransaction riddled mess. I admit I didn’t play it at the time, but it it what kept me from trying it out. It’s genuinely fun, has a lot of characters and customization, some good tracks, a cool ost. If it just hadn’t been a scam when it launched, and was released on multiple consoles (imagine making a scam and then only letting one user base take part in the scam lol) it could have been so much more. It’s sad.

-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge (Xbox One): When this game was announced, I was pretty convinced this was gonna be a soulless cash grab. But uh... Actually. It fucking rocks? It’s SUPER good! This is easily the best TMNT beat em up, imo. It’s REALLY fun, looks AMAZING, has a GREAT ost, has tons of moves and options for the player, lots of levels, sidequests to do, and multiple characters. I had an absolute blast playing this and now I honestly really wish the team would continue making TMNT beat em ups for the other shows. I would FLIP out if we got a TMNT 2003 inspired one next. That cover of the intro might suck, but the game itself is golden.

-Dadish 3 (PC): Another Dadish game. What can I say? I love these games. They’re all simple but fun. Dadish 3 is, hands down, the hardest of the trilogy. It’s the only one I haven’t 100% completed because of it. But damn it’s still SUCH a good time. I had a total blast playing through it and I loved The Dolphin The Dolphin. What do you think are the chances Dadish 4 will be a 3D collectathon? Regardless, I will probably buy any Dadish game day one for the rest of my life.

-This Way Madness Lies (PC)

TWO ZEBOYD GAMES TITLES ON ONE GOTY LIST!? It’s more likely than you’d think. This is the latest RPG by the team and it is a BLAST! I had a great time with this RPG. It’s smaller and more streamlined than other RPGs, but honestly that’s not a bad thing at all. It still has all the Zeboyd charm, their incredibly unique concepts for RPG gameplay. It has GREAT combat, fun characters, good music and visuals, an interesting story. And it’s without question, the best Magical Girl JRPG inspired by Shakespeare!

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And there you have it! That’s my selection of games from 2022! As always it’s a little difficult to play this many new games in a year. And it’s even more difficult to pick just a small selection of favorite games from the MASSIVE list of games I build up throughout a year. But there were a good few I played this year that I just KNEW had to be on the list. Kingdom Hearts 2, Stranger of Paradise, Sonic Frontiers, ect ect. In retrospect, it’s been a pretty good year for games. There’s been a lot of good stuff. And 2023 is only looking better. I cannot wait for the Fraymakers early access release in a few days!

And just like last year you can read a full list of everything I played right here! (x)

2022 was another rough year. Lots of stress from work, and because of that I had a little less money. But on top of that there was SO many games that were must plays for me this year. Which doesn’t usually happen. Overall I’d say it was a pretty good year for me in terms of games. Even if there were some disappointments, there were way more surprises and games that I absolutely fell in love with.

In addition to that I ended 2022 by finally taking some small steps to get my life back together after it was totaled by Covid. I’m walking more, trying to stress less, and I’m finally driving again. Which of course means I can drive to more stores to buy more video games!

I’m just being silly. But I do hope 2022 was good to you, both the year and games. And hopefully 2023 will be kinder to all of us and be filled with some AMAZING video game experiences for all of us to enjoy! Don’t let the first weeks or months of the year dictate how your whole year will go, you are in control of your life. Let’s make 2023 the best of the 2020′s so far!!

Joke for the twitter link. I GOT YOU! You thought it would actually be on the list because I didn’t use Power Stone 2 this time. I GOT YOU!!

[girlbob-boypants]

If you’re someone that’s interested in combat systems with customization, I actually do recommend checking out koar btw. Pirate it, but it, watch it, whatever you want, but the game uses a skill level up system with what’s basically a warrior tree, a rogue tree, and a mage tree. But you’re allowed to pick and choose what you level up in each one. With different bonuses depending on what you put your points in.

Which ties in nicely with the different weapons cause it means if you like things like poisons *and* magic, you can level up your dagger abilities and nab some spells. Or if you want to do a paladin type thing you can pick up defensive spells and strength weapon bonuses and go around with a magic shield and a greatsword

There aren’t a lot of skills but there’s 3 weapons per trait tree and enough combinations to try out that it’s expansive despite the limitations (which is what people like about it)

[zosonils-art]

Care woman?

care woman!! her infodump is, as per usual, under the cut

care woman is a mental health specialist, licensed as both a psychologist and a psychiatrist. she works mainly with clients who struggle to open up to human specialists for various reasons, such as trauma or neurodivergence, with the idea being that a robot might feel less threatening to communicate with. the idea behind her was very experimental, but she's seen a lot of success so far! being a robot master makes her uniquely suited to her job - as a computer, she can assess and diagnose possible mental health issues without any risk of forgetting crucial details, while her human-like personality and emotions make for a far more welcoming experience than just plugging symptoms into a database

her personality is slightly more engineered than those of most robot masters, all with the intention of making her more approachable. she's kind, soft-spoken, and patient, and always considers others' feelings before acting. while she usually defaults to being as calm and level-headed as she can, she has a good sense of humour and enthusiasm that she can play up or tone down depending on the needs of whoever she's talking to. she's also programmed with a particularly high level of empathy, making her especially good at navigating emotions at the cost of tending to stress out on others' behalf. she's prone to anxiety and overthinking any small mistake she makes, but recognises this problem as well as she would in anyone else, and has plenty of strategies to keep her mood up and her anxiety in check

she often tries connecting with her clients via their interests, which means reading a lot of books and watching a lot of movies, shows, and video game playthroughs in her spare time. this eventually led to a more personal interest in media, especially movies! combined with her inherent instinct to analyse everything from an emotional perspective, care is fascinated by the way movies put together a compelling story in just an hour or two, and is something of a buff for writing, animation, and cinematography tropes. she's generally most invested in emotionally driven stories, especially when they have happy endings, but she's open to just about any genres or themes that are recommended to her. the only genre she can't handle is horror, which just makes her worry too much about when the scary parts are coming to focus on anything else

since she works in a medical environment with particularly vulnerable people, care is hard-coded on every possible level not to harm humans, moreso than any robot before or since - not even dr. wily could remove this restriction from her, so even after being reprogrammed and instructed to take over the world, she refuses to do so in any way that endangers humans. she's otherwise fairly standard in terms of code and abilities, not outfitted with any fancy experimental tech. she does, however, have some built-in speakers in addition to the one that produces her voice, which she uses to play things like white noise or music for clients who find it relaxing without compromising her ability to talk. these secondary speakers were heavily modified to produce white noise at such a harsh frequency that it can damage computer components, giving rise to her weapon, psychic cry. aside from this, she doesn't have much in the way of combat capabilities, and relies mostly on using her intricate understanding of body language to predict and dodge an opponent's attacks if she's dragged into a fight

care's weaknesses are based on common fears, tying into her aversion to horror and association with emotions. she takes the most damage from eerie pulsar [fear of ghosts], with a secondary weakness to harpoon shot [fear of the deep ocean], and while it doesn't deal any extra damage to her she's vulnerable to the stunning effect of her own weapon [fear of sensory overload/being yelled at]. eerie pulsar also gives her trouble because its area-of-effect nature makes it impossible to dodge or meaningfully block, forcing her to take the entirety of an already powerful attack that she just isn't physically equipped to handle

once again showing my archie bias, she was built by dr. lalinde! while she isn't as deeply involved in the family dynamic as tempo and vesper woman are, given that she lives and works elsewhere, she still very much considers them both her sisters. originally about half of the roster were going to be lalinde's creations [initially i had the idea for a game where lalinde was the definitely not being forced to work for wily 'villain', but i've shelved the idea for now], but care is the only one who retained that connection. i took a lot of her design elements from tempo and vesper, most obviously the necklace-like decal and distinct earpiece shape they all share, but also tried to make her stand out with things like a different shape for her torso and limbs. aside from that, i mostly aimed for something simple and cute - her design isn't too fancy, but i think that works better for her than a really detailed or unconventional look would

that's it for the care infodump, and for this series of posts as a whole! thank you for asking about her, and thank you so much to everyone who's shown interest in my silly little mega man ocs! here's her unfiltered and transparent artwork, as always

[eurekq]

>be me >today i will make a height chart for my da protags and their love interests >okay maybe ill make it an outfit and color reference too >well i dont want it to be too boring to look at >draw this

so here we are with all my sweet little ladies and their lis :]!!! from left to right: cassie cousland, marian hawke and anders, aoife lavellan and cullen, rhiannon tabris and alistair, cecelia hawke and fenris, melly cadash and sera

LOTS of extra stuff under the cut!!!

lovely da protag templates are from marian churchland!

dear sweet cassie, partaker in the forbidden non-romantic alistair marriage that the game never knows how to acknowledge. very much the definition of gaslight gatekeep girlboss. and by that i mean a genuinely bad person in the sense that she tends to toy with peoples feelings. had an extremely public affair with anders during the events of awakening. It takes a good 5 years for her and alistairs marriage to be anything even approaching functional. extremely savvy, ambitious, and charismatic; a great politician and an extremely effective ruler. morrigan is her closest friend in the world (yes i know i never had her in my party. thats because im bad at video games and needed a healer.) and they’re like sisters.

my default hawke. 6′2, buff as shit, slept her way through half of her friends before finally settling with anders. she’s a blood mage and her first use of blood magic was during a particularly nasty fight where she got speared through the stomach. she carves herself up for mana; anders puts her back together. does things in anger and impulse and then regrets them (see: giving isabela to the arishok, never reconciling with carver after leandras death). mean if you dont know her, intensely protective if you do, but takes betrayal extremely poorly. constantly taking action, even if it doesn’t turn out very well; she is physically incapable of being a bystander. her and anders are my fave da couple ever... ask me about my post da2 hcs <3 theyre happy and have a daughter named bethany :] she punched cullen in the mouth at the end of da2 so hard that it left that scar.

literally is there anything like your first dai playthrough being an elf. aoife is... remarkably well realized in my brain for a character who’s life began as my friend chanting “goth elf! goth elf! goth elf!” over my shoulder while i was in character creator. very affable and friendly, but extremely politically adept with a capability for subterfuge that even she isn’t fully comfortable with. huge history buff. solas was like a big brother to her and her faith was extremely important to her so trespasser was crushing. very curious, especially about magic; definitely learned some blood magic from hawke after hearing dorian and solas talk about it. dorian is her closest platonic friend, but cullen is her rock. as in he is literally so normal compared to everything else that happens to her and she loves him for it. also her and hawke are friends and a scenario that lives rent free in my mind is them hanging out while anders and cullen attempt to kill each other in increasingly looney toons-esque ways in the background. she turned out remarkably pretty for an inquisitor... look at her

....and that’s it for my canon timeline. onto the secondary timeline!

DEAR SWEET RHIANNON. 4′8 powerhouse with a sword longer than she is tall. i first played rhiannon with a friend who was very new to rpgs and she picked all of the mean dialogue options because she thought they were funny, which led to me discovering that alistair reacts oddly and kind of hilariously well to being made fun of by a female warden pre-duncan dying. rhiannon is fun in that she literally gives no shits about conflict avoidance; if you start something with her, she’ll see it through. disliked alistair on principle and poked fun at him when they first met, but after the events at ostagar bonded to him extremely strongly. very close to him pretty much at the exclusion of all her other companions. extremely strong willed, laughs loud and smiles wide, no real concept of subterfuge except for when she’s hiding her own pain, generally goes in the path of least resistance if it gets to her goal faster. #1 arl eamon hater. she looks pretty different when i draw her compared to how she looked ingame but this screenshot of her doing the like. dead deer tinder profile pic pose is extremely powerful

cecelia is the truest tragic hawke that i’ve played (rip cecelia. you had the misfortune to exist in the warden alistair timeline). lost carver, lost bethany in the deep roads, lost her mother, believes that fenris has left her. act 2; a real rough ride for cecelia. aside from all the tragedy, she’s tough as nails, direct, and extremely blunt. very cautious in combat, even more so since she lost both carver and bethany. plans upon plans upon plans and prefers to strike unseen and unheard from the shadows. DEEPLY in love with fenris, best friends with isabela and merrill. aware of anders affection for her and keeps some distance for both their sakes; after the chantry explosion she helps him fake his own death on the condition that she never sees him again. when terrible things are not constantly happening she has a very dry wit, part of the reason her and fenris get along so well. too many bad things happen to her for someone with such nice thighs and such a stylish cape. her save file had some weird bugs with companion like.... staring???? in weird directions???

the absolute energy here. she also turned out very pretty in inquisition.

melly is easily my most powerful da oc. not in terms of in-universe power (although sword and board reaver is like. unkillable.) but in the sense that she is a catholic (read: andrastian) mid-40′s widowed mobster milf. she’s very close to cassandra and vivienne and consults them for advice before she goes to her actual advisors. even she was surprised by her relationship with sera; she finds sera’s unique sense of humor very charming and really likes pulling silly pranks with her as a reprieve from her everyday life. when she’s not with sera, she tends to be very pragmatic and logical when making decisions for the inquisition and has a very defined sense of purpose. she takes her role as both as the inquisitor and the herald of andraste very seriously. she’s very warm and soothing to be around during off hours and random inquisition members will often drift towards her for life advice. first draft of her and sera in this drawing had sera wearing this

[hallothere]

I broke down and wrote the essay. No, I did not and will not proofread it. I don’t waaaannaaaa

There’s Only One Winner For Isengard

In a perfect world, in a world with no meta requirements that could bend to the will of the player, we would roll up to Isengard level-capped, no debuffs, with one quest-marker on hand: Ruin Saruman’s day. But this is a pre-written sequence of events in which we are only along for the ride. We, the player, and a Ranger are shipped off to Isengard with only one conceivable goal: survive. On a meta level we know what Saruman is capable of. At level 70 or 80-something at best, even we are aware that we are no match for a wizard with a canon fate. Not to mention our Ranger companion! The Grey Company has been through enough (though we don’t know the half of it yet) and we are reasonably distraught at the possibilities.

This is why we, the player character, will lose the game of Isengard.

Beyond the meta rules of the game, where quest objectives are whatever the devs wanted them to be (looking at you, Mordrambor) the player character can not defeat Saruman in any way that’s meaningful. And (again on a meta level) in order for us to get to experience the action at Helm’s Deep and Rohan at large, we have to get out of Isengard. We’d get bored of waiting for Theoden and Co. We’d hurl insults or slap fish at Saruman and realistically incur wrath. Honestly, with the set of circumstances presented to us, who could survive imprisonment in Nan Curunir?

Only one of the Company ever could: Lothrandir of Suri Kyla. 

To begin with, none of the Rangers we have any real information on could have done it. Anyone who’s spent time in Angmar is at a disadvantage due to the prevailing dread (game mechanic or otherwise) that can be manipulated by Saruman. Any Ranger that has a major traumatic past is at a disadvantage (sorry Mincham) because if nothing else, Saruman has proven to be a master of illusion. Even Halbarad for all his leadership ability has a pretty exploitable weakness: eventually Saruman can crack the code with a vision of Aragorn’s demise, the one end Halbarad must fear above all others. Or what bond could more easily be exploited than that of a leader and his men? Lheu Brenin’s in the gang now after all. All Saruman would have to do was send for a few more incentives. 

But Lothrandir comes built with a few key advantages that make him the only Grey Company Ranger qualified to come out of this battle of wills on top. His specific strengths, mindset, and personality traits combined with the circumstances that the game sets up going into Isengard make him the clear choice of Rangers- if a Ranger you must have- to stay behind in Nan Curunir. 

Lothrandir wins because he changes the game. From ‘go’ our co-prisoner does something that either puzzles the player character or sends them into an anxious fit. Lothrandir declares himself fearless and sprints recklessly into the ring. Any way you figure it, this seems like a poorly calculated move. He doesn’t stop to survey the enemy. He doesn’t gather intel. Heck, he doesn’t even bide his time to see if he’ll be killed before he even reaches the dungeons. Lothrandir sprints right in without so much as a thought or a plan. Saruman doesn’t know it yet, but from that moment on Lothrandir has him on the back foot. 

Consider for a moment Saruman’s MO. He’s a wizard, and he uses a great deal of magic, sure, but time and time again we are reminded of the power of his voice and his words. He calls down a storm on Caradhras (in the movies for darn sure), he via-Wormtongue whispers poison into the ears of King Theoden. He doesn’t lead with any kind of grandiose display when trying to sway Gandalf. No, he leads with a persuasive argument. Later on, he nearly talks Theoden back around, after failing to wipe out all of Rohan. After killing the man’s son for goodness sakes. He nearly talks himself out of that one!

But Lothrandir has already changed this from a game of wits to a game of wills. There will be no vying for favor, or biding time, or compliance, or even giving Saruman a chance to ‘talk it over friendly’ first. He’s already spitting on the shoes of everyone he sees. The accomplishment in this is twofold, and it makes a major impact on the rest of his time in Nan Curunir. 

Firstly, by establishing a new game, Lothrandir sets Saruman up for a whole lot of assumptions. He does not display any signs of diplomatic ability, wisdom, or even common sense. He very intentionally projects an attitude of reckless disobedience. In the player’s own eyes, it seems as if he ‘doesn’t know any better’. This gives Saruman a clear path to take regarding Lothrandir. He assumes you can’t reason the typical way with someone who has shown zero inclination for listening. The player character demonstrates that the Grey Company (or least their associates) are capable of compliance. For all intents and purposes, this Lothrandir doesn’t appear to be. He’s contrary, fool-hardy, and evidently dumb enough to dive in headfirst and get himself killed. You beat that kind of guy into submission… don’t you?

But Lothrandir has changed the rules of the game. Saruman is no longer fighting with his best weapon, but with a tool to be found in any old villain’s arsenal. When he took the approach of reasoning with the player character and disregarding Lothrandir, he set the victor’s foundation on our snow-pilgrim’s greatest strength. 

Secondly, by establishing a new game, Lothrandir makes this a battle of physical endurance. Unbeknownst to Saruman, this is the one thing that makes him stand out from the rest of the Grey Company. He has walked through the frozen north lands and the fiery south lands and come out unscathed. He has mastered the unarmed combat style of the Lossoth by joining in mid-winter wrestling matches in a place that took down many Elves, Angmarim, and notably one King of Arthedain! Lothrandir has conceivably spent his entire life training for this matchup. Any endurance he has built up, any fighting he can do without access to a weapon, all are assets to the kind of game he just made Saruman play. Lothrandir is uniquely built to survive any physical torment Isengard can throw at him, or at least, better equipped than any of the others. 

To say Lothrandir is the best choice, we also have to rule out the others. Corunir was thwarted by the Rammas Deluon and for all he learned from that, it’s a weak spot in his proverbial armor. Golodir too, resisted a fair degree of torture (palantiri based, even!) in Carn Dum, but it won’t be hard for Saruman to suss that one out and make our old man’s life a living nightmare. Even Radanir, serious and seemingly unattached to any social bonds now that his good pal Elweleth has gone sailing, would be a poor choice. He is too serious, (for lack of a better term) too genre-savvy, and even if he is spitting blood and delivering a witty one-liner, that’s Saruman’s foot in the door! ‘I’ll never betray my friends and kin, you kaleidoscope hack’? You’ve just told him your weakness, Radanir! No, he can’t keep his mouth shut to save his (or Saerdan’s) life. Radanir is the wrong choice too.

We don’t know a significant amount about the others (except Ranger death would move Calenglad to tears, we can’t put him through this) in order to pinpoint their fatal flaws in the Isengard encounter. But, the game puts us in the incredible position of having seen Lothrandir’s Achilles’ heel and letting us take that disadvantage away. 

Lothrandir of Suri Kyla is uniquely equipped to survive any physical encounter that Saruman throws his way. Now, who’s to say the wizard won’t change his tune and go back to his old tricks? In an incredible twist of fate, we are. The game sets us, the player, up to play Saruman’s game from the get-go. We keep our pixelated head down, try and fly below the radar, and express just enough concern over the fate of our fool-hardy pal to get Saruman to cement his estimation of Lothrandir as a pawn in the game in stone. By making ourselves the better target for the words of a wily wizard, Saruman decides that the best way to deal with the spare prisoner is by playing right into his hands. As we all know, the player character escapes. While that might seem bad for someone who Saruman has earmarked for corporal punishment only, it covers Lothrandir’s one weakness. 

Aside from being the only significant unarmed fighter, Lothrandir is also never painted as a loner. He spends his time in Suri Kyla, hanging out with the Lossoth and sharing their campfires. In the new questline in Forochel, he jumps at the chance to make a new Dunedain friend and takes to King Arvedui like a duck to water. They’re instant best pals. It’s minutes before Lothrandir is telling him Aragorn’s life story and pledging to go with him on a buddy adventure to seek peace for a regretful shade. And if that’s not enough canon for you, Lothrandir bears the brunt of the Falcon clan aggression on the way to Isengard. He does it for you, his friend and companion in suffering. It’s a bit meta, but we have to assume in the internal universe he knows you a little. You’ve run your merry adventures to a degree where, were this not a video game, Lothrandir would at least consider you an ally if not a friend outright. 

He exposes his weakness unwittingly to the Falcon clan, but he leaves it at the gates of Isengard in an extremely well-timed move. By sprinting through the gates without a care as to what’s going on with you or anyone else, Lothrandir establishes an emotional distance between you both in the eyes of any onlookers. Whatever affection you have for him, it doesn’t seem reciprocated. This isn’t a major weakness for Saruman to exploit, then. You’re not one of his kinsmen. If he did want to pursue that line, he could always send to Tur Morva for one, right?

This is where the game comes back in to shift the tide in Lothrandir’s favor. We escape. We play the game, we nearly lose the game, and had we not been given an out the power scaling makes it difficult to conceive of an outcome where we the player can win Isengard. Sure, we’ve been released from prisons before (Delossad to name one) but this is the climax of Dunland. We make a daring escape, and move south towards the Gap of Rohan and all sorts of bad times. 

Back in Nan Curunir, Lothrandir is getting the daylights beat out of him, and taking a victory lap. He’s cemented his position as ‘the prisoner we’ll break with violence’. The uruks have seen him insubordinate and disorderly. In the Lothrandir interlude, there’s not only the canon (stated outright!) reality of past and present torture. There’s also zero hesitation in Lothrandir taking that one on the chin. There are no other objectives on his mind than making the next few minutes as miserable as possible for everyone around. He has no other goals. And he doesn’t need them. Nobody is surprised that Lothrandir is signing his death warrant within nanoseconds of being presented an offer to comply. He spits on the offer. He tips over the slop bucket. He beats bloody any orc (and gameplay purposes aside there are very few that dare come forward) that actually tries to kill him for it outright. 

He’s built up a non-rapport with Gun Ain. She talks about killing him and he doesn’t say anything. They’re all playing his game and he’s winning. In the conversation with Saruman, we’re not given the opportunity to watch Lothrandir ‘resist’ in the same fashion the player character did. We don’t need to. Saruman has bigger and better things to worry about- killing a prince, wiping out a nation- than one Ranger who he’s just going to order well-flayed again. By setting himself up as the punching bag, Lothrandir has managed to fly beneath Saruman’s priority threshold. He’s been relegated to the responsibility of Gun Ain, and still with somewhat protected status because they haven’t wormed anything useful out of him yet.

All of these moves have culminated to an impasse. Saruman is not winning points in the game like he expected. One ‘meathead Ranger’ has managed to resist all the torments of Isengard, and he’s gained nothing from this. The other prisoner escaped, word had doubtless reached him that the Tur Morva Thirty-Odd are free and raring to be a thorn in his side again. He has no external leverage to apply on Lothrandir and it’s become increasingly obvious that our Ranger friend is not engaging like the player did. But still, Saruman has his pride. It’s his downfall in the end, and it’s his downfall in his fight against the one Ranger who’s already beating him. Lothrandir can’t be killed outright because Saruman hasn’t won yet. And with that guarantee of protection, Lothrandir can coast all the way to the conquest of Isengard. 

He can keep playing the game and stalling for time. It’s morbid, but what better way to waste someone’s time and energy than convincing them slow, drawn-out torture is the way to go? A little extreme, Lothrandir, but it’s still his game to lose. He wastes Saruman’s time. If he is eventually rescued, total victory. If he’s killed in the end, he definitely didn’t give the wizard the satisfaction, so a less resounding victory but one in the win column nonetheless. 

With a little help from our usually Ranger-cidal devs, Lothrandir reprograms Saruman’s game of chess to a boxing match. He takes out all his disadvantages, gets Isengard to attack from a point of... if not weakness then at least neutral ability, and then devotes his every waking breath to violent disobedience.

Sure, you could have taken any of the Grey Company with you to Isengard. Lheu Brenin could have swapped out for Braigar or Amlan or Mithrendan or Culang- but only one of these guys has the brute strength, commitment, and sheer audacity to pull it off. 

You take Lothrandir to Orthanc. There’s a different prisoner of Nan Curunir when he leaves.

[self-loving-vampire]

Random Encounters

Random encounters are a common element in many RPGs and have been for a long time, but they are also increasingly controversial and it is worth examining why and how they could be implemented better (if at all).

History

As far as I can tell, random encounters were one of the many things that video games adapted from tabletop RPGs. Knowing this origin is important, as it sheds light on the design that these encounters were originally supposed to fit it.

In D&D, magic users typically had a very limited amount of spells per day and they often had to prepare these spells in advance as well. 

Absent random encounters, this limitation becomes relatively minor. The wizard can just go rest whenever they want and have functionally unlimited spells. There is little reason for them not to blow their entire arsenal on every encounter.

Random encounters are one of the things that are meant to mitigate this at least for some time by letting the DM take control of the pace of encounters and force the mages to hold something in reserve.

Random encounters were also more than just boring and repetitive speedbumps. With a good DM at the table, it is possible to generate far more interesting encounters, with unique contexts and traits beyond just throwing combat at the player. 

This means that random encounters did not necessarily feel the same as they do in video games either, and due to their potentially higher difficulty they also made the dungeon feel more dangerous rather than just being a boring source of gold and XP.

The Problem

In many games, including most JRPGs, random encounters are most often relatively minor fights with generic nameless enemies that serve little purpose besides slowing things down and giving the player something to grind on if needed.

The encounters are frequent enough that they can end up feeling like pointless filler content, and they are so easy that they don’t add to the sense of danger at all. In many games, random encounters form the bulk of what you do in terms of gameplay.

Changing either the frequency or the difficulty alone would not quite fix the issue either.

Solution 1 - Avoidable Encounters

Some games, like Chrono Trigger and Tales of Berseria, place visible monsters throughout their worlds that trigger battles if approached. These monsters can often be avoided and also respawn if the player leaves and re-enters an area.

What this means is that the player can grind if they wish, but they still have some control over whether or not they want to deal with random encounters. This is a simple and functional way to resolve the issue.

Solution 2 - Limited Encounters

Another option, seen in Fallout 1 and 2 (among others), is having random encounters only in the overworld. Most of the game is spent in distinct handcrafted locations (mostly towns), but the world outside of these few places is dangerous and unpredictable.

I think this approach works very well with the atmosphere of those games, and the random encounter tables are tied to specific parts of the map rather than being completely random. For instance, wandering around the Military Base in Fallout 1 is likely to result in encountering mutant patrols while the area around Necropolis is populated by ghouls.

There were also non-combat encounters, such as traders and other wanderers who could give you information.

Sometimes you even got interesting combination encounters where you could bump into one faction fighting another. For example, a city patrol or caravan fighting off raiders, or slavers attacking a tribe.

This way, random encounters don’t usually interrupt what you are doing too much and help to contribute to the game’s atmosphere and world. You also had the option of using the Outdoorsman skill to avoid these encounters (still getting tiny amounts of XP for doing so).

Solution 3 - Handcrafted Encounters Only

This is the most extreme solution, used by games like Divinity: Original Sin 2, Gothic, and Elex.

In these games, enemies don’t respawn at all. Every enemy is placed deliberately rather than randomly.

This has its own positives and negatives, and I’d say Gothic and Elex did it better than Divinity for reasons that will hopefully become clear soon.

First, the positives. Since the encounters are not random they can be made much more interesting and more precisely integrated into the context they are placed in.

Since there is no ability to grind out XP, this also means that progression throughout the game’s world can be very naturally controlled through enemy placement, which can help make certain areas feel genuinely dangerous (a feeling that would be undermined if you could just grind for an hour and take them).

The most obvious negative, however, is very significant for certain people. If the available XP and money in a game is finite, then it is possible to feel compelled to maximize those things to a point where it can become distracting. 

Maximizing XP gain can also be at odds with roleplaying in more direct ways. For instance, there are players who will slaughter everyone at Fort Joy before they leave the island during the first chapter of Divinity 2 because they want to maximize their XP gain.

I think Gothic 2 and Elex did this significantly better for a couple of reasons.

First, the stat scaling between levels in Divinity 2 was very intense. Unless you are already an expert at the game or something, it is relatively difficult to defeat enemies even a couple of levels above your own.

On top of this, each of the specific areas you can explore at any given point in Divinity 2 is more limited than the dense maps of games like Gothic 2.

Put together, these things create a much greater need to maximize XP and also result in a more linear experience where players are noticeably more limited in where they can go based on their level.

The design of Gothic 2 (the review for that one is coming soon, for real, sorry it’s taking so long) avoids many of these problems.

First of all, there is always enough doable content at every point of the game that you don’t really need to fish for it like that. You find a reasonably safe city to quest in very early on, can get help from NPCs during some of your trips outside, and the roads to the other settlements are relatively safe as well with more dangerous areas typically being further away from civilization (but there are still some dangerous ones closer than you might think to spice things up and build anticipation).

Another thing it has going for it is that the game is very skill-based. If you learn the combat system and have good timing, you can defeat enemies that out-stat you, even ones that could kill you in one or two hits. 

Because of the way the game works, it is also much easier to just avoid or escape encounters you may not be ready for. For example, it is possible to sneak into a sleeping shadowbeast’s lair at a very low level and loot all the valuables inside without having to fight the monster.

So I think this approach can actually work and even create a very immersive type of difficulty curve if done well.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I agree that the old approach to random encounters - having them just show up out of nowhere after a certain amount of steps in a dungeon - is far from ideal. 

However, I think there are good alternatives to just removing them entirely as some games have done. Which option to use is likely going to depend on the kind of game one is making and what the rest of the design looks like.

[annakie]

So I decided to squeeze in a ME3 (only) playthrough to finally do MShep and an Engineer in ME3.  I started this guy many years ago and never went very far with him, despite really loving the character design.  BTW, I captioned all the screenshots above if you wanna clickthrough. So (re)meet Aldis.  I tried to do his initial facial design off of Aldis Hodge, though I’m bad at creating/mimicking faces I think he still turned out as one of the most attractive mSheps I’ve ever seen, if I can say so mysellf without sounding too braggadocios. :) When I made him, there were a couple of goals I wanted to accomplish... Obviously, just finally do ME3 with a MShep.  I did ME1 and ME2 with one even longer ago, but I romanced Liara in those and I really wanted to see a MShenko romance, to see the more gradual “Hey let’s get together” in ME3 instead of the “let’s reaffirm our relationship” like with my FemShep.  I also wanted to do a more renegade playthrough, since it’s been many years since I did my Femshep Shakarian Renegade playthrough.  He is still the “I’m nice to my crew, and I’ll try a diplomatic approach but my tolerance for bullshit is near zero.”  And last, I’m just gonna wear a bunch of the dumb armors I almost never wear and just try and do things different in other ways than my main FemShep. Since the next time I do a full trilogy playthrough, it’ll be with my canon femshep in the Legacy and there may not be the possibility of mods then, I wanted a heavily modded run to see all the mods again, plus the improvements since my last ME3 playthrough about a year and a half ago.  So this time I’m playing with:

Lights Effect as the FX mod

Girl Plays Game Hair Mods as DLC (Maleshep’s ”Macho” is the specific hair mod.)

Project Variety, which, btw means no Thanemod or Backoff. because they’re incompatible.  Project Variety adds SO MUCH to the game, several of which are highlighed in the screenshots above.

Expanded Galaxy Mod (I have no idea how I can ever play without this mod again, gonna make the LE playthrough so hard and bland.)

Spectre Expansion Mod... also one I don’t ever want to live without in the future.

I have MEHEM installed because... yeah.  I still don’t feel like not having a happy ending.

So of course Citadel Epilogue Mod to close out the game.

ME3 Recalibrated to fix all the lore and errors that need fixing.

And Better Journal to make quest descriptions better.

Casual Outfits for MShep.  There’s also other new casual outfits installed for MShep and I don’t know where they came from, but I do love them. (See pics for more.)

Priority Earth Overhaul Mod to make the endgame even more epic.  The creator also made Immersive Thessia which is sadly incompatible with Project Variety so for now I’m not using this... maybe a future playthrough will swap out PJ for Immersive Thessia, ThaneMod and BackOff again.

Omega Hub for extra Omega content post Omega-DLC, really looking forward to seeing the improvements in this one.  It was just a fun 10-minute diversion last time I played through.

Ark Mod for extra missions that bridge the gap between ME3 and Andromeda.

Better Dreams for awesome and non-annoying dreaming... getting rid of The Kid as much as possible.

Alliance Warpack for more Companion outfits.

Citadel DLC Redone so most companions wear unique casual outfits during Citadel DLC

ME3 Opening Remaster to make those few seconds of the opening a little more epic.

Miranda Mod to have Miranda on the Normandy and give her cool stuff to do after Horizon.  Also if you’re a Miranda Romancer gives her a better ME3 romance.  Also better clothes.

Respawn - Mission Overhaul IDK why it’s hidden on the Nexus, but I had an old download I’m using.  Makes combat more difficult by giving the bad guys more varied powers.  A nice change of difficulty without making it crazy on normal.

Allers Redone to put Allers in a decent outfit.  Still don’t know if I’m going to bother talking to her, though I did put her on the ship.

A Lot Of Videos 4k - I’m a 4k gamer finally.... I want what I can make look good... look good.

I’m NOT using ALOT this time -- I didn’t want to not be able to easily fix things should some mod installation be wonky.  I figure the Legendary Edition is gonna be my big “Take ALL THE PRETTY SCREENSHOTS!!” time... this one is just for fun, and enjoying the mods and my pretty, pretty mShep.

Hey the new post editor SUCKS because I’ve run out of space for new paragraphs but I can add new bullet points.  Anyway, I’ll probably make a few more screenshot posts as I progress through the game.

[adastraperfortuna]

I Played Cyberpunk 2077

Ultimately, Cyberpunk 2077 is an excellent video game. It’s hard to talk about it without acknowledging the backlash that it received around its launch, but the backlash was directly proportional to the amount of marketing that it got. This happens to a lot of games – and frankly, a lot of my favorite games. If I were working at CD Projekt RED and I was responsible for the kind of marketing that resulted in the kind of expectations that they built for themselves, I’d have to take that sort of stuff into deep consideration. But, as someone who bought the game, enjoyed the game, and desperately wants to talk about the game, I’m not sure that it matters. So, to reiterate: Cyberpunk 2077 is good.

There’s so much game to Cyberpunk that it might be easier to start by talking about my favorite part of it that isn’t a game: the photo mode. I’ve joked before about my favorite gameplay loop in Star Citizen being “taking screenshots,” and that’s not my intent here, but some of my favorite games in recent memory have made it easy to look over the memories I made during their runtime. Interspersed within this review will be some of my favorite screenshots that I took – the inclusion of precise controls for things like depth of field, character posing/positioning, and stickers/frames helped to make my screenshot folder feel less like a collection of moments in a game and more like a scrapbook made during the wildest possible trip to the wildest possible city.

And what a city it is. Night City is my favorite setting in a video game in recent memory. It’s not incredibly difficult to make a large environment, but to make a meaningful environment where every location feels lived-in and the streets are dense with things to see and do? That’s a challenge that very few studios have managed to step up to. More than that, Night City feels unique in the landscape of video game cities – whereas a city like Grand Theft Auto V’s Los Santos is rooted in a reality we’re familiar with, Cyberpunk’s retro-futuristic architecture (and overall aesthetic) help lend it a sensibility that we’re unfamiliar with. It really feels like stepping into another world - fully fleshed-out, fully envisioned.

The environment is obviously beautiful and unique, but I was surprised by just how ornate it was. The thought and consideration that went into details as minor as the UIs you’ll encounter in and on everything from car dashboards to PCs and menus both diegetic and otherwise helps the entire world feel diverse, detailed, and cohesive. While everything feels of a kind and everything is working towards the same design goals, the sheer amount of variety was shocking.

The biggest thing that stuck out to me about Night City itself within just a few hours of playing was how vertically oriented it was. Not just in the “there are tall buildings” sense, though there certainly are tall buildings – I’m talking about the way that Cyberpunk uses verticality to tell stories. The first time that you end up high enough above the skyline to see rooftops will inevitably be during one of your first encounters with Night City’s elite. The hustle and bustle of street life fading away as an elevator climbs up the side of a building and you emerge into a world you aren’t familiar with was astounding. That claustrophobic feeling of being surrounded by monoliths isn’t only alleviated by attending to the rich, though – for similar reasons, my first journey out of the city limits and into the “badlands” will stick with me. Cyberpunk successfully manages its mood and tone by controlling the kind of environments you’ll find yourself in, and while that may seem like a simple, sensible, universal design decision, its consistent application helped ground the world for me in a way that made it feel more real than most of its contemporaries.

Something else that makes Night City feel real is how Cyberpunk implements its setpieces. In a decision that reverberates throughout the rest of the game, CD Projekt was clearly all-in on the notion of immersion and seamless transitions. While it was consistently surprising and exciting to find bombastic moments embedded in the world’s side content (one standout involves Night City’s equivalent of SWAT descending from the sky to stop a robbery in an otherwise non-descript shop downtown), it never took me out of the world. And, on the other end of the experience, the number of memorable, exciting story moments that were located in parts of the city that you had wandered by before helped make the world feel almost fractal, this idea that every building and every corner could house new adventures or heartbreaks.

One thing that did take me out of the experience, unfortunately, were a few of the celebrity (or “celebrity”) cameos. While I think that the core cast was well-cast, with Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand in particular being an inspired choice, the game, unfortunately, wasn’t immune to the tendency to include recognizable faces just because they were recognizable. Grimes plays a role in a forgettable side quest that felt dangerously like it only existed because she wanted to be in the game. There are also an almost concerning number of streamer cameos (“over 50 influencer and streamers from around the world,” according to CD Projekt), and while most of them completely went by me, the few that did hit for me only served to disrupt the world. The only perceived positive here is that most players won’t have any idea who these people are.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only thing that broke immersion in the game. Due to what I can only assume are particularly harsh memory restrictions imposed by the game’s release on last-generation hardware, the game has some of the most aggressive NPC culling that I’ve ever seen. While NPCs don’t strictly only exist in screen space, it often feels like they do, as simply spinning the camera around can result in an entirely new crowd existing in place of the old one. This is obviously rough when it comes to maintaining immersion in crowded spaces on-foot, but it gets worse when you’re driving. Driving on an empty road, rotating the camera, and finding that three seconds later there was an entire legion of cars waiting for your camera to discover them, far too close to slow down, was always a deadly surprise. It doesn’t help that your cars take a while to slow down.

Cyberpunk’s approach towards cars in general is interesting. While I certainly had trouble with them when I began playing, I eventually began to get into their groove. If you want to learn how to drive effectively in Cyberpunk, you have to learn how to drift. After the game’s latest substantial patch, the team at CD Projekt finally fixed my largest problem with the game’s driving – the minimap was simply too zoomed-in, making it difficult to begin to make the right decisions on when and how to turn when traveling at speed. Now that that's resolved, however, whipping and spinning through the streets is fun, and the cars feel appropriately weighty. I’ll still occasionally boot up the game just to cruise around its streets and listen to the radio.

Speaking of the radio, did I mention that Cyberpunk 2077 has one of the greatest game soundtracks that I’ve ever heard? The radio is filled with great original songs from some pretty great musicians, but that’s not where the soundtrack’s beauty starts and it certainly isn’t where it ends. The original soundtrack (composed by P.T. Adamczyk, Marcin Przybylowicz, and Paul Leonard-Morgan) was consistently beautiful, moving, and intense. The world feels gritty and grimy but ultimately beautiful and worth saving, and a great deal of that emotion comes from the soundtrack. While the heavy use of industrial synths could’ve lent itself towards music that existed to set tone instead of form lasting memories with memorable melodies, the sparkling backing tones and inspired instrumentation helped keep me humming some of its tracks for months after last hearing them in-game. I’m no musical critic, I don’t know how much I can say about this soundtrack, so I’ll just reiterate: it’s genuinely incredible.

It certainly helps that the encounters that so many of those tunes are backing up are exciting as well. I was expecting middling combat from the company that brought us The Witcher 3, and while the experience wasn’t perfect, it was competitive with (and, in many ways, better than) the closest games to it than I can point to, Eidos Montreal’s recent Deus Ex titles. Gunplay feels tight, shotguns feel explosive, and encounter spaces are diverse and full of alternate paths and interesting cover. My first playthrough was spent primarily as a stealth-focused gunslinger, using my silenced pistol to cover up the mistakes that my feet made when trying to avoid getting caught. Trying to sneak into, around, and through environments helped emphasize how complex the environments actually were. While it’d be easy to run into a wealth of the game’s content with your guns loaded and ready to fire, that may contribute to a perceived lack of depth in the game’s world design. I’m trying to write this without considering what other people have said about the game, but this particular point has been something of a sticking point for me – there are individual, completely optional buildings in Cyberpunk that have more interesting, considered level design than some entire video games, and the experience of evaluating and utilizing them was consistently mechanically engaging and exciting.

The sheer number of abilities that the player has can be almost overwhelming. While leveling does encourage the player to specialize into certain traits, especially when said traits can also serve as skill checks for the dialogue system and some traversal opportunities, every trait houses a bundle of skills that each house a sprawling leveling tree. Far from the kind of “three-path EXP dump” that you’ll find in a great number of AAA titles, Cyberpunk’s leveling experience can be legitimately intimidating. It’s difficult to plan the kind of character you want to play as when you’re trying to project eighty or a hundred hours forward for a character that will be constantly encountering new kinds of challenges. I certainly didn’t begin my playthrough by wanting to be a stealth-focused gunslinger – in fact, I was originally aiming for a melee-focused hacker build. While I was drawn to what I was drawn to, hearing stories from other players about the kind of builds that they ultimately considered to be overpowered made one thing exceedingly clear: Cyberpunk is a game that rewards every kind of play, possibly to its own detriment.

Cyberpunk’s main story is notably short. I wouldn’t consider this to be a problem, considering the sheer amount of engaging, exciting, heartfelt side content, but it might be the core of the difficulty scaling plateauing so early on. As you progress deeper into the game you’ll find that almost every build, as long as you are willing to commit to something, is more than viable. Look around long enough and you’ll find people saying that every single build is overpowered. For me, that fed into the central power fantasy in an exciting way. By the time that I rolled credits a hundred hours in I was more or less unstoppable, walking into rooms and popping every enemy almost instantly. For others, this was a problem – it can be frustrating to feel like all of your work to become stronger wasn’t met with an appropriate challenge when the time came to put it into practice. This is a difficult problem to solve, and I don’t have a solution. I’ll fondly remember my revolver-toting, enemy-obliterating V, though, so I can’t complain.

Regardless of the scaling, however, the content you play through to arrive at that pinnacle of power was consistently, surprisingly robust. While the differentiation between “gigs” and “side quests” is confusing (word for the wise: gigs are generally shorter and more gameplay-centric missions that are designed by CD Projekt’s “open world” team while the side quests are made by the same team that made the main quests and are generally longer and more narrative-centric), both kinds of side content are lovingly crafted and meaningful. Of the 86 gigs in the game, every single one of them takes place in a unique location with a hand-crafted backstory and (almost always) a wealth of different approaches. These don’t exist separately from the rest of the game’s design philosophy, even if they are made by a separate team, and you’ll often find that decisions made outside of gigs will reverberate into them (and, sometimes, the other way around). I’ve played a great deal of open world games, and never before has the “icon-clearing content” felt this lovingly-crafted and interesting. While the main quests will take you traveling across the map, the side content is what really makes it feel dense and real. You’ll be constantly meeting different kinds of people who are facing different kinds of problems – and, hey, occasionally you’ll be meeting someone who has no problem at all, someone who just wants to make your world a little bit brighter.

It’s surprising, then, that one of the most obvious ways to integrate that kind of content in Cyberpunk is so sparsely-utilized. “Braindances,” sensory playback devices used to replicate experiences as disparate as sex, meditation, and murder, play a critical role in some of the game’s larger quests, but they almost never show up in the side content. You would imagine that the ability to freely transport the player into any kind of situation in a lore-friendly way would’ve been a goldmine for side content, but its use is limited. This isn’t even a complaint, really, I’m just genuinely surprised – I wouldn’t be surprised if they used them more heavily in 2077’s expansions or sequels, because they feel like an untapped goldmine.

Another thing that the game surprisingly lacks is the inclusion of more granular subtitle options. While the game does let you choose the important stuff – whether or not you want CD Projekt’s trademark over-the-head subtitles for random NPCs, what language you want the subtitles to be in, what language you want the audio to be in – it doesn’t include something that I’ve grown to consider a standard: the ability to turn on subtitles for foreign languages only. As the kind of player who avoids subtitles when possible, I went through most of Cyberpunk with them off. Unfortunately, a tremendous number of important cutscenes in the game take place in languages other than English, and I didn’t know that I was supposed to understand what these characters were saying until I was embarrassingly far into one of the prologue’s most important scenes.

NOTE: I was pleasantly surprised to discover after replaying the ending of the game earlier today that they've fixed this issue in a patch. Nice!

I can only complain about the game’s language support so much, because there’s something important that lies between the player and the story they’re there to experience: a fucking incredible English localization. Ironically, it’s so good that I can’t help but imagine that most players won’t even think about it. It’s easy to notice and talk about an excellent localization when it’s from something like a JRPG, something with a clearly different style from what you’d expect from a work made in English, but never once in my entire playthrough did I even briefly consider the idea that it was natively written in anything other than English. I knew that CD Projekt was a Polish studio, but I just assumed that they wrote in English and localized it backwards. The language is constantly bright and surprising, the jokes land, the characters have memorable quirks, everything feels natural, and the voice acting is legitimately some of the best that I’ve ever heard in a video game. Both versions of the main character’s voice were damn-near instantly iconic for me, landing up there with Commander Shepard in the upper echelon of protagonist VO. I can’t praise it enough.

That said, even if the localization was incredible, it’d be hard to appreciate if the meat of the story wasn’t up-to-snuff. I was ecstatic to discover, then, that Cyberpunk 2077 has an incredible story. Every great story starts with a great cast of characters, and Cyberpunk hit it out of the park with that. The core cast of side characters are some of my favorite characters in years. Judy, Panam, River, and Kerry are all memorable, full, charming people. Kerry Eurodyne in particular is responsible for my favorite scene in a game since the finale of Final Fantasy XV. The quest “Boat Drinks,” the finale of Kerry’s quest line, is quietly emotional and intensely beautiful. He, and the other characters like him, are more than the setting they’re in, and the way that the game slowly chews away at the harsh and bitter exterior that the world has given them as it reaches to their emotional, empathetic core consistently astounds. Night City is a city full of noise, violence, destruction, and decay, but you don’t have to participate in it. You don’t have to make it worse. You can be different, and you can be better. You don’t get there alone, you can’t get there alone, and Cyberpunk is a game that revels in how beautiful the world can be if we are willing to find the light and excitement in the people around us.

Of course, Cyberpunk is a video game, it’s an RPG, and the story is more than a linear progression of memorable moments. Something that struck me while making my way through Cyberpunk’s story was how expertly and tastefully it implemented choice. I’m used to games that give you flashing notifications and blaring alarms whenever you're able to make a decision that matters, so I was initially confused by how Cyberpunk didn’t seem reactive to the things I said and did. The game would give me a few options in conversations, I’d select one of them, and then the story would progress naturally. However, as I continued, I began to notice small things. One character would remember me here, a specific thing I said twenty hours before would be brought up by someone there, an action that I didn’t even know I had the choice to not take was rewarded. The game slowly but surely established a credibility to its choices, a weight to your words, this sense that everything that you were saying, even beyond the tense setpiece moments that you’d expect to matter, would matter. It was only after going online after completing the game that I realized just how different my playthrough could’ve been. While nothing ever reached the level of the kind of divergent choices that The Witcher 2 allowed, there were still large chunks of the game that are entirely missable. Three of the game’s endings can only be unlocked through the completion of (and, in one case, specific actions in) specific quests, and multiple memorable quests were similarly locked behind considerate play. This isn’t really a game that will stop you from doing one thing because you chose to do something else, most of the choice-recognition is simply unlocking new options for the player to take, but it always feels natural and never feels like a game providing you an arbitrary fork in the road just for the sake of making it feel artificially replayable. CD Projekt has already said that they made the choices too subtle in Cyberpunk, but I deeply appreciate the game as it is now – more games should make choices feel more real.

It helps that the dialogue system backing up some of those choices is dynamic and the cutscene direction backing those scenes up is consistently thrilling. The decision to lock you in first-person for the entire game was an inspired one, and it resulted in a bevy of memorable scenes made possible by those interlocking systems. There are the obvious ones – being locked in a smoky car with a skeptical fixer, getting held at gunpoint by a mechanical gangster with his red eyes inches away from your own and a pistol’s barrel just barely visible as it presses against your forehead, having to choose between firing your weapon and talking down someone with a hostage when in a tense, escalating situation. There are also a million smaller ones, situations where the scale of the world becomes part of the magic. The first time that I sat down in a diner and talked with someone I had to meet or the first time that I rode along through the bustling downtown of Night City as a politician sized me up will stick with me because the perspective of the camera and the pacing of the real-time dialogue interface combine to make almost everything more powerful. There’s so much effort put into it – so many custom animations, so many small touches that you’d only see if you were staring intensely at every frame. All of that effort paid off, and the controversial decision to strip third-person out of the game was ultimately proven to be one of the smartest decisions that CD Projekt has ever made.

Another decision that helped power an exciting, engaging story was how the game freely manipulates the time and weather during key story moments. It’s a small touch, it’s one that you won’t notice unless you’re looking for it, but every once in a while you’ll walk into a place during a crystal-clear day and come out five minutes later to discover that it’s a cold, windy, rainy night and you have a city to burn. Along with the first-person limitation, this initially feels like something that could only harm immersion, but when it’s backed up by a story that motivating and scenes that thrilling you’d be hard-pressed to notice it outside of the flashes of telling yourself that this scene or that scene is the best that you’ve played in a long time. This also helps avoid a problem that games like the Grand Theft Auto series consistently face – instead of letting scenes happen at any time, compromising direction, or doing something like a timelapse, sacrificing immersion, Cyberpunk manages to always keep you in the action while also presenting the action in its most beautiful and appropriate form. There are moments where it truly feels like it’s meshing the kind of scene direction that’d be at home in a Naughty Dog game, the gameplay of Deus Ex, and the storytelling of the WRPG greats, and in those moments there is nothing else on the market that feels quite like it.

I sure have talked a lot about this game’s story, considering the fact that I have barely brought up its central hook. The early twist (unfortunately spoiled by the game’s marketing), the placement of a rockstar-turned-terrorist-turned-AI-construct firmly in your brain after a heist goes wrong and your best friend dies, helps establish a tone that the rest of the game commits to. Johnny Silverhand starts as an annoying, self-centered asshole with no real appreciation for how dire your situation is, but by the end of the game he had more than won me over. Reeves’s performance was really stellar, and the relationship between him and V is incredibly well-written. More than that, his introduction helps spur on a shift in the way that you engage with the world. The first act is full of hope, aspiration, the belief that you can get to the top if you hustle hard enough and believe. After you hold your dying friend in your arms and are forced to look your own death in the eyes, though, things begin to turn. Maybe the world is fucked up, maybe it’s fucked up beyond belief. But there Johnny is, telling you to fight. Why? Every time you fight, things get worse.

But the game continues to ruminate on this, it continues to put you in situations where fighting not only fails to fix the problem, but it makes it worse. Despite that, it’s positive. For me, at least, Cyberpunk’s worldview slowly came into alignment, and it’s one that I can’t help but love. Cyberpunk 2077 is a game about how important the fight is, how important believing in something is, even if you’re facing impossible odds, even if there’s no happy ending. It’s a story that posits that giving up is the worst ending of all, that your only responsibility is to what’s right and to the ideals that you and the people you love want to live up to. The game uses every story it can tell, every character it can introduce you to, and every encounter it can spin into a narrative to drive that home. And, when the ending comes, it was phenomenal. All of the endings were powerful, effective, and meaningful to me, but I’m more than happy that I went with what I did.

Cyberpunk 2077 is an excellent video game. It’s not flawless, but no game is, and at its core it's one of the most fun, beautiful, narratively engaging, and heart-filled games that I’ve ever played. I couldn’t recommend it highly enough, and I sincerely hope that everyone who has skipped out on it because of what they’ve heard is able to give it a shot someday. Maybe they’ll love it as much as I do. Wouldn’t that be something?

[studiopeachz]

Women Empowerment Research

What is women empowerment?

“Women's empowerment is the process of empowering women. It may be defined in several ways, including accepting women's viewpoints or making an effort to seek them, raising the status of women through education, awareness, literacy, and training” Empowering women is a part of a person’s well being to enable them to feel ‘powerful’ in their own way. Being powerful can mean a lot of things and can come from philosophy, wisdom, talents, work ethic, and so much more that helps build a person’s character.  

What is the history of Feminism and Women Empowerment in New Zealand?

https://theconversation.com/why-new-zealand-was-the-first-country-where-women-won-the-right-to-vote-103219 

125 years ago today Aotearoa New Zealand became the first country in the world to grant all women the right to vote. The event was part of an ongoing international movement for women to exit from an inferior position in society and to enjoy equal rights with men. Many supported universal male suffrage and a less rigid class structure, enlightened race relations and humanitarianism that also extended to improving women’s lives. These liberal aspirations towards societal equality contributed to the 1893 women’s suffrage victory.

At the end of the 19th century, feminists in New Zealand had a long list of demands. It included equal pay, prevention of violence against women, economic independence for women, old age pensions and reform of marriage, divorce, health and education – and peace and justice for all.

During the 1880s, depression and its accompanying poverty, sexual licence and drunken disorder further enhanced women’s value as settling maternal figures.

New Zealand gained much strength from an international feminist movement. Women were riding a first feminist wave that, most often grounded in their biological difference as life givers and carers, cast them as moral citizens. With hindsight, the feminist movement can be implicated as an agent of colonisation, but it did support votes for Māori women. Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia presented a motion to the newly formed Māori parliament to allow women to vote and sit in it.

What does women empowerment mean to Gen Z?

https://www.thinkhousehq.com/insights/bodies-blood-brilliance-gen-z-feminism 

“Everyone should be feminist, because it’s about equality. It’s not about telling women what they should or shouldn’t do, if someone wants to wear make up then they can, and if they don’t want to wear make up then they don’t have to. But there is an issue with many self-proclaimed feminist being gatekeepers. My friends and I think that TERFs, particularly, are a major issue. Feminism is also about helping men, helping them express their emotions and not have to be the breadwinners of a family and destroying toxic masculinity.” - Grace, 18

From actresses to survivors, artists to poets, and models to musicians, what Gen Z feminist icons all have in common is that they channel their creativity expertly to tell their stories, while adopting an unapologetic activist approach to opening conversation and fighting for justice, change and equality.

Representation in popular feminism today takes many forms. It’s about equal representation in society, with regard to industry, politics and policy making and equal representation in culture. Initiatives like Her Story aim to raise the profile of women’s stories, as a way to combat the global phenomenon of amnesia of women’s stories in history and more contemporary times.

Gen Z are talking more openly about vaginas, periods, miscarriages, body hair, the lot. This celebration is not only about the differences between women’s personal experiences, but also of the distinctive traits all women hold. The representation particular feminine traits and the unique brilliance of women comes to the fore in conversation here: 

“While equality is important, to me it’s more about valuing the traits that a woman has. Creating more feminine, comfortable environments could bring about a positive change in different ways.”- Alwyn, 25.

Ultimately, what these trends tell us about feminism today, is that young women today are radical about owning who they are and being recognized accurately by wider society. They are unashamedly channeling their intelligence, digital currency, agency and creative skill, with purpose, to shout louder and more powerfully as a group than ever before.

https://musebycl.io/7-ways-empowering-gen-z-girls-change-world 

These girls—especially those born from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s—have the ambition, confidence and desire to make a difference in the world. So much so that they've inspired me to take the leap from communicating to women to making a real cultural change.

Having other strong, supportive women to look up to will be a motivator to these girls when they enter the workforce. With initiatives like the #SeeHer movement, the advertising industry is already making an effort to accurately portray women in media, and hopefully strong women will continue to take the spotlight.

Individuality is important to Gen Z, so encouraging them to pursue their passions is vital. Recognizing that their lives are multifaceted and giving them the tools to explore and grow will help inspire them both at work and beyond.

https://psmag.com/ideas/why-generation-z-is-embracing-feminism 

In many cultural contexts, Generation Z appears to be embracing feminism as a positive thing, demonstrating confidence in the power of activism, particularly via social media.

Malala Yousafzai, or 18-year-old Emma González, who's at the heart of the #NeverAgain movement protesting gun violence in the U.S.,

Online feminist campaigns such as #everydaysexism, #MeToo, and #TimesUp all draw energy from the new consciousness among this generation.

How is women empowerment done/displayed in a Gen Z way? - consider what inspired you to do a women empowerment campaign.

“HOT GIRL SUMMER”

https://time.com/5632924/hot-girl-summer-meme-explained/ 

If you’ve logged onto Twitter or swiped through your Instagram at any point this summer, you’ve definitely seen a post declaring it’s a hot girl summer. The now-ubiquitous phrase, a call to live your most confident and unapologetic life, was coined in the early months of the season by Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion, whose colorful monikers for herself also include “the H-Town Hottie” and “Hot Girl Meg.”

Contrary to what one might assume when hearing “hot girl,” the lifestyle is not focused on aspiring towards conventional beauty or influencer clout. Instead, it’s an embrace of confidence at its most essential: loving who you are and doing what you want, without caring what others think.

hot girl summer is for “women — and men — having a good-a– time, hyping up your friends, doing you and not giving a damn what anybody has to say about it.”

(the hashtag #hotgirlsummer has been used over 170k times on Instagram, while the hot girl summer has been used on Twitter a whopping 2 million times over the past month) distills an affinity, exhibited by many women in 2019, towards body positivity and self-affirmation. Hot girl summer, a hip-hop feminist manifesto, taps into these movements from many angles, championing confidence, sensuality and fun.

Tacho explained why she embraced hot girl summer to TIME thusly: “It’s a positive movement! Having a Hot Girl Summer is all about being the best version of yourself and doing what you want to do. It’s all about having fun.”

And as with most things on the Internet, it’s attracted its fair share of controversy. Although Megan clearly stated that hot girl summer is gender neutral, some trolls on the Internet were determined to make hot girl summer a battle of the sexes, pitting it against a “hot boy summer” or a “city boy summer,” the latter being a play on the rap group the City Girls (the duo is known for their fierce, take-no-prisoners approach to love and sex in their music).

“I CAN’T TALK RIGHT NOW, I’M DOING HOT GIRL SH*T”

https://www.buzzfeed.com/andriamoore/doing-hot-girl-sht-tiktok-trend 

Megan Thee Stallion gifted us the slogan of a lifetime when she broke onto the music scene and coined the phrase, "real hot girl sh*t."

If you don't know, the phrase has basically become a battle cry for female empowerment.

But the latest TikTok trend is putting a hilarious twist on that sense of empowerment. People are uploading videos of themselves doing... well, things that aren't typically in the realm of "hot girl sh*t"— like shaving your stomach.

If anything, this trend has only further increased the purpose of the hot girl anthem: feeling proud and confident with who you are already.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3v873/hot-girl-shit-meme-megan-thee-stallion-tiktok 

Over the past couple of months, “hot girl shit” has swept through social media like a heat wave. These videos feature people, mostly those who identify as women, embracing their most everyday, banal moments—shaving their upper lips, putting on face packs, savouring the last few puffs of a joint, involved in an intense gaming sesh or simply taking their 23rd nap in the day—under the guise of doing something that could be considered hot, a term that generally refers to the sexual attractiveness of a person.

But what they may lack in logical reasoning, they make up for in deeper meaning: letting the world know that being “hot” isn’t just equated to someone’s physical appearance anymore. That being hot is a mentality, a mindset that involves extra dollops of extreme self-confidence, and something to be found inherently within us rather than something you’re blessed at birth with or what your cosmetic surgeon helped you achieve.

TikToking and Reels-ing our way to chipping away centuries of female objectification and sexism, prompted by the male-dominated industry ideal of how women should look and behave to “qualify” as hot.

“This trend proves that ‘hot girl shit’ lies on a spectrum, and is ultimately just about feeling confident,” Uchenna, the first known creator of this meme format, who goes by her screen moniker @makeupbychelseax, told VICE. The young creator sees the trend as a way to reclaim the identity of what a “hot” girl should be, after centuries of the concept hanging on the hinges of the male gaze.

Mulvey theorises that essentially the male gaze hypersexualises women, reducing them to objects of attraction for the male lead. The male gaze, which has been dominant throughout the history of pop culture, ultimately drives the perception of what the ideal woman should look like.

Over decades of women being seen through a stereotypical lens in pop culture and art, mostly crafted by heterosexual men, the male gaze has also conditioned many young women who consume this content to strive to achieve the same standards of the perfect on-screen female lead.

“The stereotypical idea of the ‘hot girl’ would be a tall, skinny, fair girl with big boobs,” Shreemi Verma, a film critic and marketing professional told VICE.

“hot” girl is a socially conditioned prototype, a fantasy fuelled by the lack of female filmmakers and critics in the mainstream industry. so many of us connected with this meme trend is because of how real it was.

Verma stressed that by showing the raw reality behind what can be considered hot, this trend became a relatable way for women to challenge the on-screen stereotype. the idea of “hot” continues to evolve into a more empathetic, all-encompassing ideal. Supriya Banerjee, a 24-year-old social researcher based in the Netherlands, told VICE. It normalizes simple things like art, dance or cooking meals for children as things a hot girl does.” For Banerjee, the trend has a simple underlying message: that everything women do can be considered hot girl shit.

What does Gen Z women empowerment suggest?

Feminism and female empowerment within Generation Z shares the idea of positive cultural change in female stereotypes through technology and social media which can be easily flowed into the mainstream of society and news. Gen Z is all about individuality, authenticity, and diversity and is always up to challenge  stereotypes and break the norms unapologetically in order to be truly happy because Gen Z is passionate about wellbeing and mental health. Gen Z sets out trends on social media to spread messages and ideas that influence other social media users. Overall, Gen Z’s way of breaking female stereotypes is through trends, social media, music, and many more types of media just to get the word out.