#some of the dialogue and side quests were less than stellar

[chicken-from-the-future]

I beat borderlands 3 today. Had a great time, honestly don't get why people made such a big deal over the writing. It was definitely weaker than 2, but it was perfectly serviceable. The villains were pretty fun, sort of obnoxious, but that was clearly the intent. The siren kid was also kind of obnoxious, but all 12 year olds tend to be obnoxious sometimes, so I give her a pass.

The gameplay fucking rocked, huge fan of how this one handled. Everything felt natural and kinetic and shit. Really good gunplay. Hell, really good guns just in general. They got weirder with it this time around, which is a good thing in my eyes. Secondary fire modes were super fun. I played Moze, because if you put a mecha pilot girl in front of me I'm gonna play as her. Had a good time with the robot customization, she's a fun character.

Probably gonna move on to Tiny Tina's Wonderlands after playing the wedding and western DLCs, but I'm defo gonna come back to BL3 later on, it's just very fun.

[sxvxrxssnape]

Snolidays/Snapemas: Day 2

Chestnuts & Christmas Cards // pre-PS/the years between. Minerva & Severus friendship aka Minerva McGonagall’s personal mission to make Sev love Christmas part 2. 

Yesterday’s snowfall had turned to ice overnight. It crunched underneath their boots, leaving behind a trail of sunken footfalls as they crossed the stone bridge and moved towards the tall, wrought iron gates that secured the ancient school. 

The wind wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but Severus still took a moment to adjust his hat, pulling it down over his ears to keep his hair from flitting about in his face. Beside him, Minerva had her hands tucked into the pockets of her woolen cloak and together they made their way towards the waiting carriage that would take them into Hogsmeade. 

Hogsmeade was a special little town that sat nestled between crashing ocean waves and giant boulders, an endless expanse of pine trees, and the outline of an antiquated castle perched high above the cliff sides. It was home to a quaint collection of little shops and taverns, and judging by its newly renovated state, a smattering of wizards who seemed to love Christmas just as much as the deputy headmistress standing beside him. 

“December literally just started.” Severus groaned, as he stepped out of the carriage and looked around the main street that stretched out before them. 

Bundles of garland and red ribbon decorated every light post and rows of twinkling lights and colorful baubles hung from all the nearby trees. Even the air smelled festive and Severus’ lips thinned as he made out the scent of warm cinnamon and ginger - out of contempt or poorly hidden delight, he would never confirm.

Minerva chuckled softly beside him as he eyed the snow-covered rooftops with their dripping icicles that couldn’t be intentional - it was the weather’s doing, for Merlin’s sake - but still seemed intentional against the decorated storefronts that it made him think of gingerbread.

“You don’t have to look so put out,” Minerva teased, leading the way further into what he was now seriously debating was even Hogsmeade at all, “If you want, we can start decorating the castle as soon as we return. I’m sure Albus won’t mind.” 

Severus glared at her in return,

“I’ve changed my mind,” he decided, as they passed the stone statue of the town’s founder confirming this to, in fact, be Hogsmeade and not an asinine Christmas village Minerva had secretly tricked him into going to, “I can just owl-order the things I need, from the safety of the castle.”

Regardless, he continued towards the waiting apothecary because he could not - would not - owl order potion ingredients. He couldn’t trust the shopkeeper (or the blasted school owls for that matter) to fully understand why it was so important for his bicorn horns to be the exact shade of pale yellow he needed or the fragility of bursting mushrooms. 

And contrary to his current attitude, Severus Snape didn’t hate Christmas. He could appreciate a finely decorated tree and he found himself looking forward, and dare he say, a little excited about the upcoming staff holiday party. He wasn’t the bitter, old man inside that Minerva seemed to think he was, all bah-humbug and scowls when it came to anything remotely festive, he just didn’t understand the point of overdoing it and turning the whole town into a fragrant - wonderful smelling - gingerbread village two days into December. 

For Merlin’s sake, he was only twenty-five. That wasn’t enough time for him to turn resentful of the holidays, even if almost every single year had been...less than stellar, by all accounts. It wasn’t like he had never tried to have a good Christmas either, but after so many spectacularly failed attempts, he had decided he was better off not celebrating it at all. 

In fact, he had been quite content the last four Christmases working at Hogwarts and only acknowledging the aforementioned holiday party and maybe the changes to the menu, because yeah, he might feel a little indifferent towards the holiday but he also wasn’t a heathen who didn’t gladly indulge in rum-spiked eggnog and fresh baked gingersnaps. 

Severus shook his head, trying to dislodge the sudden influx of thoughts. His inner dialogue was beginning to sound a little bitter, even to himself.

“Coffee?” he asked loudly, speaking over the first syllable of whatever Minerva had been about to say, no doubt inferring something too close to accurate about his innermost thoughts from the look on her face, and stopping in front of the smiling wizard standing behind a market stall. 

“Afternoon,” the portly man tipped his head at the two, gesturing towards a charmed menu that was currently rewriting itself with the daily special. “What can I get you two?”

They ordered the special at Minerva’s insistence, and handed over a pair of sickles each before continuing on their quest. The coffee was strong and hot, tasting of dark chocolate and peppermint and Severus grimaced at the realization that she had inadvertently (advertently?) found another thing for him to like about Christmas. 

Minerva one, Severus zero. 

He shook his head again; he wasn’t trying to hate Christmas. He didn’t hate Christmas! He was just stubborn to a fault and after Min’s declaration that she would make this year the best yet, a small part of his mind was determined to rebel against it. 

Their time inside the apothecary was quick. The shopkeeper was used to Severus’ particularities and kept to herself as he sifted through bins of precariously piled ingredients and filled his basket with perfectly selected bicorn, jobberknoll feathers, and no less than thirteen jars of things he definitely hadn’t come here for. 

After he paid - and thank Merlin he had secured a position that provided room and board - Minerva led them into the paper and quill shop next door. She had a Hogwarts-sized order of parchment and spare quills to put in, so Severus went to browse the new display that had been erected in front of the store window. Red fabric was spread over the round table laden with gaudy, ribbon-trimmed quills and pots of glitter-infused calligraphy ink. He reached for one of the plastic-wrapped bundles stacked in the center, adorned with all sorts of festive symbolism and sighed as he realized what they were. 

“You should purchase some,” Minerva suggested, coming up behind him and making him jump. He hated when people snuck up behind him. It had once meant certain death and while the threat of an evil, megalomaniacal wizard behind his shoulder was no longer tangible, the sharp tendrils of fear that spiked into his chest had yet to go away. 

He forced himself to relax. 

“Christmas is all about spreading cheer, you know.” Minerva continued, thankfully ignoring the way his breath had seized, but clearly not unaware of it given the way she took a step back and appraised him carefully. “By making others happy, you make yourself happy. Perhaps you’ll benefit from it.”

Severus raised an eyebrow. “Are you implying that all my traumatic childhood Christmases can be attributed to the fact that I’ve never sent out Christmas cards?” he asked dryly. 

“Yes.” Minerva deadpanned. 

He blinked, taken aback by her frankness before he noticed the glint in her eye that indicated she was mostly joking. He looked down at the packages of cards and selected one with a more wintery scene - painted snowflakes and white-dusted evergreens over the eclectic mix of colorful baubles - with a look of feigned resignation, “I guess I’m sending Christmas cards this year.”

“Excellent.” 

They left the stationary store after that and headed for the Three Broomsticks. It was a new part of their routine that Severus had found himself looking forward to - Hogsmeade trips used to be rather anxiety-inducing, lonely and quite dull affairs without anyone to quip with, but now they promised good company and a quiet meal away from the bustle of students. Part of it was due to the genuine friendship they were forming, but another part of it was self-serving - for both of them. 

They were both aware of it, they just elected not to mention their unique combination of post-war trauma and newly created grief that kept them confined to the safety of the castle and feeling more than a little discombobulated in the small town just outside of it. 

The Three Broomsticks was nestled in the midpoint of Hogsmeade, a cozy-looking tavern made from polished wood and frosted windows, that boasted a warm bed and a strong drink to any desiring witch or wizard. The inside was just as quaint and rustic looking, but now it displayed a cascade of twinkling lights and a modestly decorated tree next to the wiped down bar. 

“Afternoon, Rosmerta!” Minerva called out to the barmaid and landlady who was topping off a stein of butterbeer with a healthy splash of firewhiskey for a waiting gentleman. They took their seats at a small table in the corner that Severus had long since dubbed their table and shrugged out of their cloaks.

“Afternoon, you two.” Madam Rosmerta greeted them as she approached them. Her strawberry blonde curls were gathered at the top of her head in a loose bun pinned in place by her wand and Severus internalized a scowl at that. He had seen a few witches - and wizards - use their wand for a quick updo, but he had yet to figure out how it was done and he absolutely refused to ask for help. She was carrying two ceramic mugs filled to the brim with a deep burgundy drink.

“Mulled wine,” she announced, setting them down and Severus noted the orange slice and cinnamon stick steeping in the red wine. “Made it last night.” 

“I really do believe the drinks are the best part of the holiday season.” Severus mumbled, picking up the warm cup and taking a long sip. 

“Come now, they can’t be the best part.” Rosmerta scolded, summoning a menu from the bar and setting it down on the table. “There’s so much more to Christmas than just good wine!”

“Nothing worthwhile.” Severus said simply, picking up the menu and skimming it. He always ordered the same thing, found comfort in stability, but he also couldn’t resist holiday menus when the time arrived. 

Minerva looked apologetic as she ushered the barmaid away after a quick scan of the menu and turned to glare at the now scowling potions professor. “Severus!”

“So, do you have a list you’re working from?” Severus asked mildly, picking up his wine and focusing intently on the red-tinted pulp of the orange floating in his drink. “Or are you simply making things up on the spot?”

“Pardon?”

“Your mission to make this year the best Christmas ever.” he specified. “Are you working from a list? Is there a schedule we’re following and can I be made privy to it, so I can plan my potion brewing around it?” He picked up the package of cards. “Or are you just forcing me to take part in things as they come up?”

Minerva eyed him carefully, picking up her own cup. “A little bit of both.”

“Do I get to hear what you do have planned?”

“Some of the classic activities I suppose - decorating the tree, going to look at the lights, maybe visiting Christmastown, baking cookies, go caroling -”

“Caroling?!”

“- maybe decorate a gingerbread house.”

Madam Rosmerta returned before Severus could say anything else, guiding bowls of butternut squash soup and a plate of cheese toasties onto the table with her wand. “There you go, dears.” she smiled, setting down a smaller plate piled with iced gingersnaps. “These are on the house - first bake of the holiday season. Should help get those spirits up.” She sent Severus a pointed look that he deftly ignored and Minerva glared at him again.

“If you’re going to glower at me every time we go out this month, I might just stop going out with you.” he bristled, picking up a toastie and dipping the corner into his soup. 

“Maybe you should stop being so bitter then.” Minerva returned.

“What, because it’s Christmas?” he asked, pausing to take a bite. “Oh, such a joyous time of year! Look how absolutely delighted I am to share a room with wine-drunk wizards,” he gestured a hand towards the bar, where a pair of cherry-faced dwellers were singing the words to A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love, “and a goddamn tree!”

“Severus!” Minerva admonished again and this time, Severus hunched his shoulders at the tone. He had gone too far, he could tell from the way her face had smoothed out entirely, giving her a look of cold indifference. 

“I’m sorry.” he muttered, swirling his spoon through his soup. 

Minerva didn’t say anything and they ate their food in awkward silence. At one point, a pitcher floated over to their table and refilled their mugs before making its way back to the bar. When they were done, Severus eyed the gingersnaps and wondered if it would be considered poor etiquette to reach over and help himself. The mood at the table didn’t feel particularly deserving of cookies. 

Then again, he had once attended dinners at the Malfoy’s with The Dark Lord sitting at the forefront and the ambience of those days didn’t stop anyone from helping themselves to an extra piece of focaccia bread. He winced; it felt wrong to compare past - genuinely traumatic - dinner events to the silence before him. Minerva wasn’t an enemy, he was simply a bastard. 

“I don’t hate Christmas,” he finally broke the silence. “I just find myself wondering over the point when every Christmas I’ve tried to celebrate properly has ended in disaster. I’m perfectly content with not bothering over it anymore. The lights are pretty and the food is good, and I look forward to watching Rolanda drink everyone under the table later this month, but I’ve stopped putting merit in the holidays. It’s less disappointing that way.”

Minerva pushed the plate of cookies towards him, like some sort of reward for  opening up. Which, he supposed, it sort of was. She picked one up and took a bite and only then did he grab one too.

“I don’t get why you’re so determined to fix that.” he added, shrugging. 

He bit into the cookie, savouring the meld of flavors - ginger, molasses, warm vanilla. He couldn’t imagine a more perfect gingersnap and he found himself raising the cookie in a gesture of appreciation as he made eye contact with Rosmerta. 

“Elphinstone loved Christmas.” she said simply, taking another bite of her cookie and shrugging as if she hadn’t just dropped a bombshell of emotional manipulation by invoking the name of her dead husband over a plate of cookies on what had started as a pleasant Monday afternoon of running errands after class. 

“I-” Severus began, but then stopped. 

“We weren’t married for long, I know, but I knew him for 23 years.” she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. Her eyes seemed a little faraway now. “We would always make the most of his vacation days - see the lights, visit the Christmas market, decorate the tree, roast chestnuts and drink hot cocoa. He loved carolling, had a good voice for it.” 

Severus looked down at his cookie, scraping at the white icing with his thumbnail and effectively crumbling away the hand piped snowflake. 

“I’m not making you celebrate Christmas with me because I’m lonely.” she clarified, eyeing him sternly. “If you don’t want to do anything else on this list, I won’t make you. I just don’t want you going through life thinking it’s all bad and that good things can’t happen to you.”

“I don’t -” 

“Yes, you do.” Minerva scolded. “Don’t think I don’t see you wallowing every time you catch sight of yet another reminder that this is supposed to be the happiest time of the year. You don’t have to be the cheeriest person to ever walk the earth, for Merlin’s sake, Severus, but you’re letting bitterness take a hold of you and I won’t stand for it.” 

Severus tried to scowl back, but Minerva could see right through him. 

“Do you know why I accompany you to Hogsmeade?” she asked and Severus grimaced. They weren’t supposed to talk about it; this was one of those stones better left unturned things. 

“Don’t say it please.” he whispered, feeling dread curling in his stomach. He hated to think himself as weak and his inability to enter Hogsmeade alone - any bustling wizard town, at that - was only utter proof that he was. 

“Your paranoia is valid.” Minerva said quietly, saying as little as possible and yet too much at the same time. “Don’t be ashamed of having trauma, but don’t let it turn you into a bitter, shriveled up, old bastard either.”

“Are we still talking about Christmas?” he asked ruefully. 

“You know we aren’t.”

Their empty plates and half-filled mugs suddenly got up and floated away only to return as a pair of traveling paper cups topped with more wine and a splash of something stronger. They nodded their thanks at Rosmerta and shrugged back into their cloaks. They kept a tab at the Three Broomsticks, so paying wasn’t a concern as they exited the building and headed towards the castle in silent agreement to skip the carriage ride. 

“So, roasted chestnuts?” Severus brought up, as they crunched over the dirty ice that coated the path back home. “Like, in the song? That’s a thing?” 

Minerva nodded. 

“Can we do that, then?” he asked casually, trying to make amends. “I noticed the apothecary had a basket full of them. Perhaps we could return and pick some up.”

“Already taken care of.” Minerva replied, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small burlap sack bursting with its lumpy contents. “You were too busy holding jars of lacewing flies to the light you never even noticed.”

“Roasted chestnuts then.” Severus nodded, ignoring the jab towards his particularness. “And uh, thank you for accompanying me to Hogsmeade,” he added, trying to sound indifferent to it, like it wasn’t such a difficult thing to admit aloud. “I know it's hard for you too.” 

The witch smiled softly, as if being reminded of her - what, only three months now? - deceased husband and her old life living in the small town was a pleasant memory. And perhaps for her, it was. Perhaps he was letting grief turn him bitter. What did the deaths of his only friends and both his parents have to do with Christmas? Years had passed since both and yet the newly-created widow walking besides him was coping far better than he could ever hope to. 

“I think we should talk about Christmas present shopping.” 

“I was just going to -”

“And don’t say you were going to owl-order them.” Minerva interrupted, narrowing her eyes at him. “There’s nothing personal about circling a few things in a catalogue.”

“What do you propose then?”

“We’ll go gift shopping together. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Minerva confirmed, taking a sip of her drink. “It’s too early in the month for most people, so Diagon Alley won’t be crowded at all, let alone on a Tuesday. Shouldn’t make you too uncomfortable, yes?”

Severus offered a smile at the unexpected accommodation and nodded. He cradled his paper cup of mulled wine close to his chest, feeling a warmth that came from more than just the hot drink. 

--

a/n: oops maybe got carried away with this one? it would mean the world to me if you told me what you think of this bc im v proud of it. 

[popwasabi]

“Westworld III” takes several steps forward...and several steps back (REVIEW)

Created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy

Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, Jeffrey Wright, Aaron Paul, Ed Harris, Vincent Cassel, Tessa Thompson, Thandie Newton

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

Season three of HBO’s “Westworld” cleans up many of the issues season two had but ultimately falls short of season one’s loftier thematic ideas.

It’s cinematically sharper, it’s about as well paced and fun as the show has ever been and that on it’s own makes it worth watching and certainly worth continuing the series going forward but for fans hoping it might have something new to say in the vein of its hyper meta-textual and thematic commentary of the first season it may leave you disappointed.

Season three may have raised the stakes of the series with its pending (and frankly, all too timely) apocalyptic vibes going on in the story but it lowers the bar on its cerebral nature opting more for fast paced thrills over anything more profound or hadn’t said already.

That said, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it anyways for better…and worse.

“Westworld” season three picks up not too long after the events of season two as Dolores has infiltrated human society and begun working on her master plan to bring it all down. She has spared Bernard, who now spends his life as butcher outside the major cities but he often wonders where she is and when this apocalypse will begin. Meanwhile a veteran named Caleb spends his life doing the same mundane tasks and mercenary work everyday to make ends meet pondering his existence as he deals with his PTSD. He decides to break the cycle however when one day he finds Dolores shot in an alleyway and joins her on her quest to start a revolution.

“Westworld” is one of the few series that hooked me immediately with its first episode.

Where some series take their time to gain momentum before going into overdrive in their season finale, season one’s “The Original” grabbed my attention from the start with a combination of mystery, action, stellar acting, and the kind of cerebral humanist story-telling I expect and want from the cyberpunk genre.

As someone with a father who talked extensively about myth, theme, and got me to listen to old Joseph Campbell essays on CD  growing up, a series that explored story-telling on a meta level with a high octane LARP concept setting was everything someone like me could ask for in a science fiction series.

(Seriously, there was some compelling analytical story-telling dialogue in this series.)

So invested I was in this tale of synthetics gaining agency and humans exploring their own personal myth-making and what it said about themselves made me a huge fan early on, proudly proclaiming it to be the best show on HBO several years ago.

I was so certain this series was creatively the best thing on television at the time that I strongly considered getting a maze tattoo like that in the show to proclaim my brand-new fandom.

But knowing there was still more seasons on the horizon, I held off thinking I should probably see this through before doing anything that brash.

Well, a few years later I feel pretty good about that decision…

(Imagine how fans who named their newborns Daenerys or Khalessi feel right now...)

I remember thinking at the end of season one “Where can they possibly go from here still? Other LARP destinations in this cyberpunk world? A robot vs human war? How can the world expand?”

The problem is these thoughts did not really ask the most important question following that first season; “What more does it actually have to say?”

The first season is, in my opinion, a perfect season of television. It’s a brilliant take on the stories we tell ourselves, the choices we make that define us in our personal myths, and the exploration of our nature and how that relates to choice all while playing out this synthetic mystery plot. The entire first season pulls all these arcs and ideas together through characters like Bernard/Arnold, William/The Man in Black, and of course Dolores. They all, more or less, complete their arcs in that first season and there’s not really much needed to be said beyond that when you really think about it. If the series ended on Dolores murdering Ford and the Delos guests in the season finale that honestly would have been a perfect ambiguous ending to send the story off on.

(Kind of itss own meta commentary on the journey of a fan and an ever-increasingly cynical series...)

But because this is HBO, and “Game of Thrones” is no longer the driving force of premium TV, Westworld MUST continue because it’s the new cash cow for the channel. Whether or not writer/producers Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan really knew what they wanted to do following that first season is anybody’s guess but it’s hard not to see that they have struggled a bit since that point.

Season two is a mixed bag, where the characters literally feel like they’re going in circles. Plotlines get muddled, characters become hyper versions of themselves, and while certain ideas and episodes reached similar levels of brilliance that the first season had it still lacked the narrative sharpness of the first season and that has a lot to do with the characters having mostly no other driving force besides survival and simply getting to the next physical plot point.

It just didn’t have much more to say and frankly in a story about stories that’s pretty damn important.

(This episode from season 2 is still one of its best.)

To their credit, Joy and Nolan appear to rectify quite a few issues season two had with season three. Again, it’s faster, better paced, there’s a clearer destination at the end for its characters and not to mention a pretty compelling villain for this season’s plot in Serac played by the brilliant Vincent Cassell.

But it suffers ultimately the same problem; it has nothing truly new to say.

This is not to say the season is without any meaningful messages or metaphors. It’s quite critical of our hyper surveillance and information gathering state, might even be the best depiction to date on the broader implications and consequences of a world where we all have our personal information readily online to mined and plundered by big businesses and government. Caleb, played by the always great Aaron Paul, is a good avatar for the everyman who has grown jaded and disenfranchised by this system. Though he spends most of the season looking overly shocked and gape-jawed at just about everything, it’s hard not to feel empathy and a connection to this character as we are quite literally living in a bit of a cyberpunk hell as it is these days and treated just as much as expendable commodities right now.

(You fucking jackasses are arguing for the wrong things! You’re all being swindled and cheated for nothing! *photo “unrelated”*)

The season is generally best when the focus is on him, as the first episode delivers a strong start in the same way season one did.

Where the season begins to fall apart though is when quite literally the world “Westworld” inhabits begins to do so itself. Serac’s Rehobaum, which reminded me just a little too much of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s” Deep Thought, releasing all its data to the world and everyone discovering they’re basically all dangerous assholes is almost hilarious to me. 

Though the idea of hyper data controlling our every move is a good cyberpunk metaphor to jump off of, the way this bit is executed is a little over exaggerated and clumsy.

(Though it does deliver a pretty powerful scene regardless.)

This isn’t actually a tremendous problem with season three, but it doesn’t do much to add to what we already understand about the story; which is how narrative controls us and how important choices and free will is to that. All this is already told and expanded on in the first season through Dolores, all season three does it bring it to a macro level and put that onus on the humans instead of the hosts. The hosts were already a metaphor for humanity anyways so again the story in some ways hasn’t changed much since season one.

It's interesting to have the narrative of the hosts turned on the humans but thematically it feels redundant.

I’ll add that this isn’t the worst idea they could’ve gone with, it works in moving the physical aspect of the story forward for sure, and I wouldn’t even classify it as a bad one, but again the problem is the story has largely run out of new things to tell us.

We like stories because we want to learn some truth about ourselves, whether we want it to or not, and Anthony Hopkins’ Ford makes a great point of this in season one. This has been the purpose of myths and legends since the dawn of time and it’ll be no different even when the 37th Fast & Furious comes out in 40 years. You could argue that the message of Westworld deserves repeating or that it’s not important to the entertainment value it still provides, and you might be right. But for a series like this, that is so invested in what stories mean I don’t think it’s wrong to think there should be more to it than this.

(Maybe, I should’ve...)

Of course, there’s still plenty more to see out of “Westworld” for the foreseeable future as HBO won’t be canceling it anytime soon and certainly it’ll have its chance to still tackle more ideas and themes in the future but, at this point at least, it’s been less meaningful that its first season.

There are other problems too, namely Dolores constantly changing and unclear revolution plans and arcs resolved offscreen, certain side plots with other characters ultimately going nowhere, and a fairly predictable twist with Caleb, but this is the crux of the problem with the series as it stands now and the one worth mentioning the most.

(And Maeve, *sigh* oh Maeve...)

That said, season three really is a lot of fun despite my issues with the narrative. The pacing, as mentioned, is great from start to finish. I was never bored or disinterested during this season, despite its flaws, and the action bits are frankly better than they’ve ever been as the series goes full cyberpunk in parts with great robot on human and robot on robot action.

The cinematography is sharp and striking too as Jonathan Nolan shows he’s definitely Christopher’s brother with some beautiful, haunting shots of the future Los Angeles city Gotham-esque skyline set to Ramin Djawadi’s excellent cyberpunk score that gives the new season a more noire-ish feel that would make Vangelis and Hans Zimmer proud.

(In the future Los Angeles will be Singapore!)

The acting is still stellar of course. Though Jeffrey Wright’s Bernard is largely wasted in this season and his plot goes nowhere, his scene with Gina Torres in the finale is touching. Luke Hemsworth is dry as hell in a good way as Chief of Security turned personal buddy bodyguard to Bernard as Ashley Stubbs. Ed Harris is wicked and dastardly as always as William and of course Evan Rachel Wood is solid as the driving force of the series as Dolores.

(Out of context season 3 spoiler.)

The finale doesn’t leave much to say beyond a pending machine vs human war though which has been building up since the first season anyways. While I can see some possibilities for an interesting direction here, I can’t say I’m as intrigued as even the finale to season two left me.

In some ways, season one left me not too much unlike William going into season’s two and three; looking for additional meaning in something that wasn’t looking to tell me anything deeper, at least right now. Perhaps the maze just isn’t for me anymore but moving forward I’ll be lowering my expectations.

(Oh my God! Meta commentary on meta commentary! It’s meta-ception! I’m beginning to question the nature of my reality!!!)

“Westworld” remains a fun cyberpunk action series that can hold your attention span for an hour, and I think it’ll maintain that energy consistently going forward, but it might’ve been best left where it was when Dolores put a bullet in Ford’s brain.

I do hope it can regain some of its original spark at some point but until then…it doesn’t look like anything (deep) to me.

VERDICT:

3.5 out of 5

You said it, Marshawn...

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Absolute Carnage vs. Deadpool #1, Venom vol. 4 #17, Absolute Carnage: Lethal Protectors #1, Absolute Carnage: Miles Morales #1 Thoughts

I’m trying very hard to both cover Absolute Carnage in reading order and also not bog down said coverage of the tie ins, i’m hoping to give the main book and ASM tie-ins my full attention but for all the other ones handle them less comprehensively. Obviously that depends upon their respective content.

The Deadpool issue had great art, funny dialogue, a brisk pace, some clever moments and a refreshing acknowledgment that the Peter/Wade dynamic is stupid. 

Having Carnage acknowledge Deadpool as the motherload of codexes because of his bonding with the 4 Life Foundation symbiotes (a.k.a. also collectively referred to as the Hybrid symbiote) from Wade and Kasady’s last encounter was a great use of continuity. My hope is the lack of acknowledgement of his time with the Venom symbiote (see Deadpool’s Secret Secret War and Deadpool: Back in Black) confirms that those stories are not to be taken seriously as canon, at least as far as Spidey or Venom continuity is concerned.

The only real problem is that, whilst the start of the story technically precedes Absolute Carnage, when we get to the symbiote stuff it happens during Absolute Carnage #2 and thus really is best read after that comic as it does give a few minor spoilers for it.

Venom #17 was fantastic!

Now, as I said in my Absolute Carnage #2 post, the plotting is out of whack. Venom #17 should be read BEFORE Absolute Carnage #2!

The story itself, whilst basic, is effective. The Maker is as morally grey (or flexible if you like, get it!) as ever. Dylan is characterized well, believable as the son of Eddie Brock. Normie is underserved but this isn’t his story. Something that did bug me though is that the art depicts them as probably about the same age with Dylan dominating their dynamic. But really Dylan should be younger. Dylan was born between Venom Along Came a Spider (1996) and Anne Weying’s death in like 2000 or 2001. Normie meanwhile was born in the mid-1980s!

That’s a small complaint though and easily No. Prized.

Now as for the rest of the comic Cates pulls off a masterstroke in how he’s structured this event, at least in relation to the Venom book.

Absolute Carnage seems set to be the book where all the thrust of the story happens, that’s where you go to see Carnage and I suspect going forward where you will go to follow Brock/Venom. Meanwhile the actual Venom book is going to be following Dylan, who’s been adequately built up by this point. It helps make the Venom book relevant but not demand that you go other the same events twice or ping pong between it and Absolute Carnage to see the next part of the story, it’s happening adjacent  to the main events but it’s also not a meaningless side quest!

There is also a lot of great use of established continuity in this book. Venom himself might not be in it much, but his LEGACY is. Dylan is his son (and remember he’s as much the son of the symbiote as he is Anne and Eddie) and so are the Life Foundation symbiotes. The Sleeper symbiote also shows up.

I confess I’m only vaguely familiar with Sleeper because I didn’t read Venom: First Host but I believe he’s strongly connected to Venom’s past, I think he is maybe literally the first host of the Venom symbiote.

There is also an interesting angle in this story because the lead is Dylan, the sidekick if you will is Normie and the antagonists are the family from Separation Anxiety, 2 of which are also little kids. I hope this factors in somehow as it seems there is a theme of family underlying this corner of the event! You could even extend that to Normie as the theme of family, especially dysfunctional family, is very relevant to the Osborns and is obviously now relevant to Venom/Brock’s immediate ‘family’ as well as the Separation Anxiety nuclear family.

The ar is also stellar. It’s not Stegman good but it’s still beautiful eye candy and looks enough like Stegman that the change isn’t jarring. I’m very happy Coello did the War of the Realms tie-ins as a taster and ‘warm up’ for this in fact.

Just great, I’m loving this one!

Lethal Protectors #1 was one of the tests for me about the strength of this event.

See of all the tie-ins this was the one I was least interested in. I don’t hate Cloak, Dagger, Iron Fist or Morbius, but I’m also fairly indifferent to them. I only liked Morbius in the 1994 cartoon (though I hear his 90s stories were quite good) and to me Iron Fist is dull outside of when he’s hanging out with Luke Cage.

So I checked this out but only out of a desire to be a completist.

I was fully braced for this issue to be what derailed the event’s thus far strong batting average.

Nope.

Even this issue delivered.

Granted it also kind of DIDN’T deliver since the cover characters aren’t even mentioned at all. Instead the closest thing to a protagonist is Misty Knight. Now I have no hate for Misty Knight but to my recollection her connection to the symbiotes began only in the Web of Venom: Cult of Carnage issue that this continues off from. I suppose having a vibranium arm makes her an obvious combatant against symbiotes, but she’s got less connection to the lore. She seems more like the vehicle to introduce the above mentioned ‘lethal protectors’ into the story. And I guess that’s fine but either include her on the cover or feature the title characters in the issue.

That’s mostly a nitpick though, the rest of the issue is great. More fun violent horror stuff with a creepy romance added on for good measure in the form of Carnage and Shriek’s toxic relationship.

The reintroduction of Demo/Demagoblin was interesting. I knew it was coming and I knew it would be a new female version but the fact that it was Shriek took me by surprise, I was sure it was going to be Lily Hollister a.k.a. Menace. Truth be told I’m disappointed it wasn’t as that would’ve been an organic use of a pre-established character and wouldn’t have swapped out Shriek (who is also very interesting) for Demagoblin.

It’s not a BAD direction but I’d have preferred the Carnage family from Maximum Carnage be reassembled differently. But seeing Demagoblin and Carnage make out is delightful in how over the top nuts it is!

They mention reintroducing Carrion and I really, really hope that happens!

The art, whilst not being as good as in other tie-ins is still doing a solid job!

Much like the other tie-ins this series is opening up a new front in this event and exploring it quite well thus far, so I’d recommend this too!

And as a plus they remember to tell you when this happens in relation to the main event book.

Miles Morales sadly...was the first slip up in this event.

Now I’ve made my criticisms of Miles (in the comics) vocal before and I don’t want to sit here and tell you this issue sucked shit or it was bad because Miles was bland in it. To be honest MOST of the protagonists of Absolute Carnage are fairly bland. Miles for instance was a knotch more interesting than Misty Knight.

In fact I wouldn’t call this issue BAD at all.

There were just some things wrong with it.

The most noticeable of these was how the events depicted towards the end don’t quite jive with the end of Absolute Carnage #2. If you just wrote them down on paper they would seem to. Miles and Scorpion are fighting Carnage cultists, Carnage/Osborn is there in charge, Scorpion breaks away from the fray, Venom shows up, Miles stands alone but is overwhelmed, he is taken over by the symbiotes.

However when you compare the art and dialogue of the two comics there are a number of discrepancies which is annoying because up until now you could make everything fit together one way or another.

Among the discrepancies, and this is a nitpick, is that the Carnage cultists are wearing their Ravencroft uniforms, which IIRC they don’t do in any other appearance. A more contrived aspect to them though is Gargan recognizing the tattoo of one of them. How? They are all covered head to toe in symbiote their tattoo’s would be obscured!

I also didn’t like how the Carnage Cultists were treated as so disposable. My impression was they each have a bona fide symbiote bonded to them so would be on a similar power level to Venom at least, so Scorpion impaling them wouldn’t be a big deal, they could heal from that. But they come off more as just super strong zombies, and not even as strong as Venom at that.

Grant that’s an issue perhaps with the event as a whole but it was most noticeable here.

The other problem with this book is that half of it is little more than a standard superhero fights super villain yarn until halfway through when it abruptly becomes an Absolute Carnage tie-in. It even kind of does that at the very start of the issue where the recap page randomly interrupts the story in progress for no reason, putting it ahead of the first page wouldn’t have spoiled anything.

It seems like a waste especially since the cliffhanger is identical to the cliffhanger of Absolute Carnage #2, it doesn’t progress the story at all it simply provides some preamble and not particular plot relevant preamble at that. It’s not that difficult to deduce Miles was probably fighting Scorpion before they were attacked.

What’s even more annoying, but not a problem with this book per se, is that the comic discloses that this should be read after Absolute Carnage #2 but similar disclaimers weren’t made for other tie-in issues. I don’t even think reading this between AC #1 and #2 would make much difference. There aren’t any spoilers for AC #2 because it simply depicts the same events regarding Miles in greater detail.

My final problem with the issue is one that’s more a problem with Miles in general regarding his status in the 616 universe. Let’s put aside how it inherently undermines the character for a moment, the recap page alone shows you how problematic it is to have him migrate to Earth 616. The blurb summarizing Miles’ backstory has to be so ridiculously generalized and use dialogue implying he might be from another universe but could equally be taken as poetic hyperbole. I don’t blame Ahmed, I even sympathize that he kind of HAS to write it that way. It’s just stupid is all and undermines the emotional resonance of Ultimate Venom being associated with the death of Miles’ mother. But then again DID she even die now? See what a mess this is?

I don’t want this to sound like this issue was terrible, it wasn’t it was just okay at best though sans the art. Absolute Carnage has thus far had good to great art and this issue is no exception.

As a standard Spidey v. Scorpion rumble goes this was fine, it was fun and got the job done, standard superheroics so I can’t complain too much. The only contentious part was Miles’ ineffective Venom Blast.

It didn’t work because Scorpion’s suit was insulated.

This is a double edged sword when it comes to analysis.

On the one hand that is inconsistent with the Venom Blast’s established power. It can work against electrical powered foes like Electro AND extremely powerful demonic beings like Blackheart. But you telling me some rubber lining enables Scorpion to just shrug it off? Bullshit.

On the other hand though...Miles having a cheat code power like that has always been reductive to his character.

The final thing I have to say on the comic is that the editors weirdly hype up the issue. In other tie-ins they praise Ahmed for reinvigorating the Scorpion, for even making him scary and a straight up killer. Putting aside how he was a fucking cannibal in Thunderbolts and Dark Avengers, Ahmed honestly didn’t do anything like that.

Scorpion is a standard supervilalin who DGAF about innocent life or killing, he just wants to preserve his own life and make a payday. He lands some effective hits on Miles and is a threat but...there is nothing revolutionary or reinvigorating about it. It’s not tired and bad it’s just standard and effective that’s all.

[fridgewheatfield]

Fridgewheatfield 2019 GOTY Awards

Normally I would go through the TGA nominations and give my thoughts on who the winner of each was for me. But 2019 kinda sucked for games imo, and I didn’t play very many. So instead, I want to highlight 5 games I really loved this year and give them each their own award. So here they are:

Best AAA Game: God of War (2018)

This game really took me by surprise. I got it in the Summer for 50% off and hoped it would scratch an itch that I knew a 3rd BOTW playthrough wouldn’t quite scratch. I didn’t expect much from it except for maybe some fun gameplay, since I had never played another game in the series, but it won a lot of GOTY awards in 2018, so I figured it was worth a try for the discount.

This game floored me. I was enamored from start to finish. The environments, the story, the characters, and especially the gameplay had me glued to this game for 10 hours a day for almost a week. I have never felt such guilt from shafting irl responsibilities in order to play a game. The graphics are among the best of this generation. The world building and main quest line kept me interested and actually listening the entire time. The relationship between Kratos and Atreus was strangely relatable, but never had me siding with one character over the other for too long. And the combat is probably the most immersive, diverse, and fast-paced of any game I’ve played. I fought thousands of enemies and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were only a few enemies that I actually killed in the exact same ways. This game was a huge pleasant surprise for me, and the ending pushed its hypothetical sequel near the top of my list of most anticipated games. 10/10

Most Satisfying: A Hat in Time

A Hat in Time finally came to Switch this year after what felt like an eternity. I was waiting for this game to come to Nintendo since the Kickstarter was announced. Before we knew about Mario Odyssey or Yooka-Laylee, it was refreshing to see that anybody still had interest in reviving the genre of game I loved most as a kid.

This game is EXACTLY what I wanted it to be: A love letter to every Gamecube game I played ad nauseum. A Hat in Time masterfully blends the freeform movement of Mario Sunshine, an art style inspired by Wind Waker, and the charming dialogue of Thousand Year Door to create a game that starts at a 10 and never lets you down. There must have been 20 times during this game where I said to myself, “I hope this game [does this],” and the game followed through with shocking consistency. With customization, easter eggs, references, and humor stuffed into every mission, this game reminded me of everything I loved about the games I grew up with. But this game isn’t just bells and whistles, it also features some of the most engaging level design of any 3D platformer I’ve played. A train murder mystery, a free-roam around a cruise ship paradise run by uwu-speaking seals, and genuinely one of the scariest segments in any game I’ve played were some of the highlights. But none of this game’s 30+ main missions ever disappointed. While the graphical quality and technical performance were less than stellar, everything that the game WANTED to be more than made this game an easy 9/10.

Funniest Game: Untitled Goose Game

I never understood all the buzz about this game leading up to its release. You’re just a goose? What do you even do?

I was skeptical, but this game did not let me down. There was something strangely hilarious about stealing everyone’s stuff and annoying them for no reason other than to cross off a to-do list. Maybe it was imagining the humans’ perspective. Maybe it was the spastic piano score that only played when you did anything. But whatever it was, this game had me cracking up for its entire 2 hour duration. You can’t deny that the price is a bit steep for such a small game, but the amount of enjoyment I got from an afternoon with this game left me satisfied with my purchase. And with fun secret challenges to discover along the way and to struggle with after the credits, leaving me saying “Ohhh I didn’t think to do that!”, Goose Game is just enough of a game to justify everything that it has going on. 9/10

Most Fun Bad Game: Animal Crossing Pocket Camp

The OG followers will remember when this was a New Leaf blog, and you best believe it will be a New Horizons blog when the time comes. I hated this game when it came out in 2017. I thought it was a boring, empty waste of time that did nothing for fans of the series. But after numerous updates and quality of life changes that I totally missed the boat on, Pocket Camp actually became worth spending time on. I jumped back into this game following the post-E3 hype for New Horizons, and I’ve logged in every day since.

I won’t mince words, this game is bad. It’s nefarious, predatory mobile game practices at its most kawaii. But damn if I don’t love these new furniture sets they introduce every few weeks. I love piecing together the new items I get from each set or event to make a camp that I’d enjoy spending time in. I’ve spent more money than I care to admit on Pocket Camp’s take on loot boxes (not bank-breaking, but more than I’m proud of). But I honestly can’t say I regret any microtransaction I’ve made. I’ve had a lot of fun with this game in the past few months, and getting everyone I know back into it alongside me made it even better, just like previous Animal Crossing games. The crux of the enjoyment is still sharing your designs and collections with your friends, just like always. And that was Animal Crossing enough for me. Not giving this one a score because its still a scummy mobile game, but if you haven’t played this game since launch, redownload it and give it a look-through.

Best Game I Played in 2019: Banjo-Kazooie

Everyone knows how good this game is. I played it as a kid, and I’ve known my entire life that this game is great. I’ve reminisced with friends about this game, I’ve watched countless Let’s Plays, and I’ve sung its praises as the best 3D platformer there is.

But I hadn’t ever actually beaten it until this past Summer.

And it turns out that I didn’t even know how right I was all these years. Banjo-Kazooie is a perfect game. Every level is meticulously crafted to be unique, interesting, and just big enough to where they’re fun to explore, but small enough to where there is no empty space. Banjo (and especially Kazooie) control like a dream. The dialogue is the textbook example of charming video game dialogue. And the game is just long enough to feel full, but it never overstays its welcome by retreading old ground for the sake of making the game longer. And don’t even get me started on the soundtrack. There’s a reason Grant Kirkhope left the 2000s as the only household name that came out of Rare. This game could not be improved, and its stood the test of time against the other greats of the genre like Mario 64, A Hat in Time (imo), and Mario Odyssey, to maintain its spot as the game that every 3D platformer wants to be. It’s the best game of the genre, the best game I played this year, and it’s now among my top 5 favorite games of all time. An obvious 10/10.

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Thanks for reading this. Feel free to respond, send a message, or send an ask with any of your thoughts on these games, or even some of your games of the year. I’d love to read them. I’ll see you next year for my 10 page review on New Horizons, which will surely double as my GOTY post.

[stevencapobiancoworlds]

Fantastic Wonder is a series of Fantasy related posts where I discuss different aspects of the genre and the many tropes and plot lines associated with it. Today, I talk about the recent anime series, Persona 5 The Animation.

Fantastic Wonder: Thoughts on Persona 5 The Animation

I discussed a game called Persona 5 in the past. It’s a video game by Atlus where a group of teenagers discover a mysterious world where a human’s darkest desires are manifested into “palaces,” that reflect a person’s true personality. After seeing these humans hide their horrible misdeeds, the heroes form the Phantom Thieves, a group who seeks to change the hearts of evil criminals.

It’s an amazing game that has become one of the best JRPGs of all time. And after a full year, since the game released, an anime adaptation has come out. Atlus loves to make adaptations based on their titles along with many other developers (Danganronpa, a visual novel, is a famous example. In fact, visual novels tend to be adapted all the time). They’ve done it with Persona 4 and Devil Survivor 2, another Megami Tensei title.

So how does this series stand compared to the others? Let’s find out.

P5A Overview

If you’ve played Persona 5 at all, you know how the anime goes. The hero, Ren Amamiya is on parole after a run in during a domestic dispute and framed for a crime he didn’t commit. He’s forced to live with caretaker Sojiro Sakura, who runs Leblanc Cafe. From there, Ren attends school and meets Ryuji Sakamoto, who together discover the strange world known as the metaverse. There they discover their gym teacher’s distorted desires and vow to discover the truth behind this odd world.

It’s a faithful adaptation and worth it for those who either don’t intend to pick the game up one way or another (which comes down to either a) not having any interest in JRPGs or b) not having a PS4). The anime does a good job of capturing the character’s personalities. It’s also where Ren talks, whereas the only time he did in the game was in a few cutscenes or in battle.

The anime does follow the story, but they can’t cover everything. The anime omits dialogue during the dungeons and seem to breeze through certain palaces with ease. In game, this usually took days (in game, not in real life) to complete, but while they can’t pad out dungeons, I felt some instances they went through the palace too quickly. Most of the action happens outside of the world between all the characters. This happens in game as well, but the main action is within the palaces. Persona 4’s anime had moments inside of the alternate world, but I feel I’ve seen less of it in this one. Might just be me.

From the game

From the anime

Animation Quirks

One thing that bugs me is sometimes the animation can be a little wonky. Specifically how the characters are drawn. It’s especially glaring with Morgana, who’s a small, anthropomorphic cat. Comparing the animation from both the anime and the cutscenes in the game, it’s a noticeable difference.

The anime is produced by Studio Cloverworks. They’re an offshoot of A-1 Pictures, who’s best known for anime franchises such as Fairy Tail and Sword Art Online to name a few. They also did a Persona 5 Anime short called The Day Breakers. Most of their works have stellar animation and I’m a little disappointed their ability wasn’t carried over to this. I mean, they’re not a reputable studio such as Bones or Madhouse, who can put out one beautifully animated episode after another.

There are moments where the animation looks fine, but other than that, the animation and character design isn’t one of its strong suits.

How faithful is it to the game?

It’s very close to the game it’s based on. Chronologically, it’s almost exact. A few scenes were added to give it more detail. They even include all of the side quests such as the recent episode where they discover their homeroom teacher works as a housemaid on the side. It’s details like this that make it welcoming for anyone who isn’t able to play through it but wants to know the story.

Some sequences, specifically those in the palaces, are omitted, which granted, they can’t show everything. Otherwise, it’d take too long. This is likely going to be a 24-26 episode series, like the other Megami Tensei anime, but they do keep the important dialogue in place. Again, the palaces feel quick compared to the rest of the story. Persona 4’s anime was like that too.

Other Thoughts

Even watching it, I feel the game is far superior. This is a good option if you can’t play the game, but I feel the game should be given a try. I made a review of it describing it as everything I grew up with as an M rated title. It’s something I can enjoy while reminiscing about all the things I loved as a kid. I played a few M-rated titles when I was young, believe it or not, like Doom and Diablo II, but this probably would have been something I’d enjoy. Granted, most of the aforementioned games are PC titles, but I probably would have gotten away with it.

So I do like the series overall and I’d recommend it looking for an adaptation to one of the best JRPGs of all time. It might not be to everyone’s taste, but for those that enjoyed the game like I did, it’s fun to relive those moments all over again.

In the future, I think I might wait until the end of the season to review anime since many of them tend to be either 12 or 26 episodes each. I hope to feature more anime in the future.

That’s all for today. Take care, and remember, the inn is always open.

If you have any suggestions for future topics and reviews, hit me up on my social media channels and let me know your thoughts. I always read the feedback, even if I don’t respond. Your feedback is what keeps me going, so thank you for supporting me.

My Japanese Mythology-inspired short story, Do Not Stare Into The Eyes Of A Kitsune, is finally available. You can buy it on Amazon or wherever ebooks are sold. Help a debut author make his debut worth it.

I announced other works, including a kaiju-themed “mini-novel” (which you can learn about here) and a short story anthology in the near future. This is only the beginning for me and I have more to share.

Today, after a short delay, I talk about an anime adaptation to one of the best JRPGs of last year. It's time for #Persona5 The Animation #P5A #anime #JRPG Fantastic Wonder is a series of Fantasy related posts where I discuss different aspects of the genre and the many tropes and plot lines associated with it.

[chancelipscomb]

How to Win Back Andromeda

Wide-Open, New Worlds

With the canon of the Heleus Cluster being a ravaged wasteland, Bioware gave us an explorer’s playground with lots of space for expandable content. Critics argue that it was empty space, but it was an investment on future installments. We’ve settled into these decimated worlds and created a Milky-way friendly biome on them. To capitalize on it, simply do what settlers do: expand. DLC drop a new, post-game settlements. To facilitate a low-budget, fast paced schedule and reconcile fans of the series, I outlined a plan for modular DLC drops.  

1st DLC New Neighbors           $5-10

This one’s relatively cheap to produce. There’s not much new content and almost no new asset production, but it will give you an estimate of people willing to come back to your story.

Eos has its exile faction that wanted to mine the natural gas. If you helped them with the hammer, they’re underway. If you didn’t, they start stripping parts from the one you placed less than a kilometer away. Use pre-existing level assets, like Kadara & Elaaden’s caves, to build out a base for Ryder to explore. Drop a few hints with the exiles about the Benefactor’s assassin and leads to Kadara, for a bonus. Script out a peaceful and hostile solution for those settlers to build upon in future games. Key question: do they fold in with the Initiative, get blasted, or operate autonomously?

On Kadara, the assassin’s trail goes cold, but you learn that the Shadow Broker also has agents in Andromeda. They have new items to buy, and promises of quid pro quo. For the port itself, you simply see how your new power dynamic is playing out. Sloane or Reyes may have work hunting down the other faction, with Reyes having romance dialogue if courted. The Doc and bartenders may have some quests involving supply runs. Utilizing Vorn can tie Elaaden and the Nexus to the itinerary.

Not much has changed on the Nexus, H-047, or Elaaden, as newly awoken crew are funneled to settlements. The water crisis on Elaaden hasn’t changed yet, despite the vault and shipments from Voeld. New enemies in the Flophouse, and idle chatter over Okeer’s notes. Maybe spend some time reanimating Krogan fighting techniques.  

2nd DLC Voeld and Havarl       $15

As a two-for, this price point will be a little higher, but it has more content. With proper handling of the Eos pack and its nature, fans will be more eager.

Voeld and Havarl offer their own opportunity. Rather than new maps, focus on story expansion and lore here. The Angara have learned their origins and the truth about exaltation. In both places, they’re dealing with this. The Roekaar are leaderless, so address whether someone will fill the power gap or if they’ll be welcomed back by Evfra. Tie in the Glory Seekers here for added effect.

Use these stages to flesh out the body gestures for the existing dialogue system. This’ll draw attention away from stiff animations angst and give your developers better tools for future content, including DA:4 and other Frostbite titles. I haven’t seen your pipeline, but if this isn’t part of an art/animation workflow suite, you really need to hire me Bioware. I can make your life, and your fans, much happier.

On Havarl, expand upon the Mithrava lore and the ancient stellar maps we saved. Build some context around this new species. Crafty players now have access to shared scientific research thanks to the coop. That’s an opportunity for weapon/armor/item packs, not to mention ferry quests for flora to the Nexus and less fruitful planets. Use Jaal and his family to deepen our understanding as well. That’s a great place to flesh out angaran relationship culture. This’ll address fan feelings about the race and any animosity over Jaal’s romantic preferences.

For Voeld, pick up on the yevara poacher quest. These beasts will require modelling and animation, but your script made them a crucial bit of angaran history. We have evidence of living creatures on “The Lost Song” side quest. Since the Kett still have that huge fortress in the hills, prepare to drive them out for good. Organize the hunting party with the resistance. Now, get ready to drop the bomb: en route, you find a pair of Quarian escape pods. Since Voeld is now an ice planet, it makes sense they’d head there to limit foreign bacteria exposure. Thaw them out to reveal the fate of the Keelah Si’yah. Connect their audio log event to the assassin and Benefactor, implying their designs trace back to the Milky Way. It doesn’t have to be the core cause, but it’s important to keep that thread alive.

3rd DLC Quarian Ark    $5-10

Not going to lie, I want this to be free but it is content-heavy like DLC 2, so despite being an olive branch to fans, it’ll take money to make. The low cost still rewards fan loyalty.

Do not shortcut this one. Use the ME 2 assets to marry quarian style to the Initiative tech. Build the tertiary races like elcor, hanar, and drell… even if we only see them briefly. It’s both an investment in the franchise and rekindles that wonder and nostalgia from the original trilogy.

Not sure what the writers have in store, but based on the multiplayer additions, I’d say involve the Batarians and the Salarian pathfinder from the outset. With neither having a squad mate spot in Andromeda, there’s a huge opportunity here. Both have multiplayer and game models to source for single player inclusion.

If you followed up on DLC 2, let players pick the male or female Quarian escapee they want to party up with. The other will play a support role, like sibling Ryder. Vary their move-set if possible, but the story elements should be the focus of their addition. Build franchise characters like Tali so that their returns exceed development costs, and match accents with the original trilogy.

Now the rest depends on the plot direction scripted so far. If the Reaper-Geth or Reapers themselves followed the Initiative, there’s a much longer conversation I’d need to build this story. Open to chat, Bioware. I’ll even pitch it to EA for you. If the Benefactor, Kett, some malfunction, or Scourge are the culprit; tie up those loose ends here.

Kett: make it big and challenging. The Archon, like Corypheus, was a bust for a boss. Fighting the Architect in confinement was a nice touch, but if players tackled them already, it cheapened the experience. Craft an intense, unique battle that they’re eager to replay this DLC to repeat. The Primus is the perfect candidate, flouting that the Archon lost his way, and offering an ulterior motive to pulling their forces from the final battle. Since they aren’t present, even missing “Dissention in the Ranks” doesn’t upset the quest line. Finally, set up travel to Kett space or an invading armada for the true sequel.

Benefactor: Jien Garson’s body never turned up, and paired with Alec and SpecTRe agents seemingly littering the Initiative… they all point to the first-time game reveal of the Illusive Man’s identity, and his connection to Cora. You’ve laid out the dots connecting the Harpers and fans are clamoring for impact on their decisions. Make them wreathe. Does this shatter the pathfinder team’s core leadership, or will Ryder and gang be able to look past her heritage? Did she even have a relationship with her father? Could she be the assassin? That’d take some work to spin, but she was awake before Ryder and likely has special resources if so. In any case, it explores her character and the relationship to the crew. It ties two large settling points of the game plot together. Based on the outcome, you may even weave an enemy with very intimate knowledge of the crew into sequels. 

Scourge and Technical difficulties: The Quarians took on a lot to bring all those other races to Andromeda. For a sabotage angle, the original showed us that Reaper agents were embedded everywhere… even the Hanar, and by de facto, the Drell. Imagine fighting an indoctrinated version of Thane, or an enraged elcor. What if they were preventing the wake-up procedures? Have they evolved over the 600 year trip? What if the Volus simply seized the ship as an opportunity to create their own hierarchy, sick of their status in Council Space? Finally, as a technology based race, the Quarians face unique trials when it comes to the scourge, which wreaks havoc on any technology, even if it only actively seeks Rem-tech. This is pre-geth boosted immunity, but if the Krogan used their travel-time to adapt to the genophage, perhaps the Quarians did the same.

Overall, address what time their ark left the Milky Way and what that means for Mass Effect 3’s endings. Determine whether or not any more travelers are en route, friendly or otherwise. Even if these two aren’t enacted immediately, they’ll guide future scripts. And just for feels, let’s see some of Jill’s handiwork. Nothing says invested like newborn babes. If she and Gil had one, show him revealing to Kallo that they named it after one of the Tempest engineers. Show Cora tending sprouts in a garden, even if she’s now an enemy. Let Liam try an angaran sport on Aya. Show Vorn, Kesh, and Drack teaching Lexi Fire Breathing Thresher Maws of Doom in Vortex. Have Peebee, Jaal, and Suvi tinkering around the monoliths. Have Kallo and Lisana T’lesso, the ice runner from Voeld racing through the Scourge with new pilots.  

[yahooben]

'Mass Effect: Andromeda' review: A sprawling space drama that struggles to stay on target

‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’ invites you to strap in for another space opera.

“Space is big,” beloved author and interdimensional traveler Douglass Adams noted in his seminal towel-seller, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” “You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big,” he wrote, hammering home the point that when it comes to bigness, even our new president has nothing on the universe.

That size presents quite a challenge to game makers, but few have hacked away at the quandary with as much gusto as developer Bioware. The team behind the blockbuster “Mass Effect” trilogy managed to capture the epic scope of the big unknown while keeping our eyes trained on the intimate interactions between characters, a space opera in its truest — and, in terms of video games, among its best — form. So when they announced a return to their beautifully realized universe with “Mass Effect: Andromeda” ($60 for Xbox One, PS4, PC), we all got very excited indeed.

But a great deal has happened since 2012’s “Mass Effect 3” simultaneously wowed and enraged gamers; namely, “The Witcher 3,” “Fallout 4,” Bioware’s own “Dragon Age: Inquisition” and a host of other genre-blending RPGs (you could arguably toss recent greats “Horizon: Zero Dawn” and “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” into that mix, too). Big-budget role-playing games have blossomed in the past five years.

‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’ has the makings of a great game, but misses the mark with a number of missteps.

And unfortunately, “Mass Effect: Andromeda” picked up some unwelcome visitors on its long journey to your gaming machine. Though it has some stellar moments, “Andromeda” tries to cram too many ideas into one package, turning its obsession with the bigness of space into a crutch for uncharacteristically shoddy workmanship.

The (next) final frontier

To answer your most obvious question: no, you do not need to have played the prior “Mass Effect” games to understand what the hell is happening here. “Andromeda” tells a self-contained story featuring entirely new characters, planets and star systems, though references to elements from the original trilogy (the Citadel, the Geth, Spectre, etc.) do occasionally pop up.

The game is set roughly 600 years after the events of the original trilogy. Just as things were heating up in the Milky Way (around the “Mass Effect 2” timeframe), several giant Ark ships were launched towards the faraway heart of the Andromeda galaxy. Snuggled in cryo beds and dreaming of a new life, the adventurous souls aboard these vessels were hoping to discover habitable new worlds and plant some flags.

‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’ sees you exploring the Andromeda galaxy for a new home. But – spoiler alert – things go very wrong.

Naturally, things go sideways. You play as either Scott or Sara Ryder, a twin thrust into the role of ‘Pathfinder’ and tasked with guiding a ragtag group of aliens in a quest to find a new home. It’s all pretty standard sci-fi stuff — a bite of “Star Trek,” a nibble of “Battlestar” — but Bioware crafts a well-told tale that rises above its derivative vibe to keep you, um, engaged throughout.

Mostly, that’s done though a tweaked version of the branching narrative structure Bioware is known for. Conversation options have expanded beyond the binary Paragon/Renegade of prior games, adding flexibility and giving you a bit more agency over your particular Ryder. Despite some nasty bad guys and extremely high stakes, it’s also significantly more lighthearted than the trilogy’s dour doomsday scenario. Regardless of how you play Ryder, he (or she) is quick to joke and seems intent on keeping the joy of discovery intact.

The dialogue system isn’t as thrilling as it used to be, however. Other franchises have taken the cue and built branching narratives with greater emotional value. “The Witcher 3,” “Life is Strange” — heck, the entire Telltale Games catalog (whose Season 1 of “The Walking Dead” bested “Mass Effect 3” in most 2012 Game of the Year Awards) have pushed the envelope of branching narrative design, making each choice feel impactful. Though your tone changes based on your responses in “Andromeda,” Ryder’s playful, at time snarky attitude takes some of the gravitas out of the decision-making. You rarely break a sweat.

‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’s’ dialogue system lacks the kind of gravitas that makes games like ‘The Witcher 3’ so addictive and powerful.

Still, developing relationships, opening/closing paths, trying to get busy with a blue lady — it’s all here, and thanks to an interesting story, likable characters and great voicework by both male and female Ryders, “Andromeda” does a convincing job of turning you into Captain Kirk.

A downright uncanny job, you might say.

Valley of the Dolls

Unless you’ve been avoiding the internet for the last week, you’ve likely caught wind that gamers are, to put it mildly, displeased with the “Andromeda’s” animations, particularly its facial close-ups. And, well, yeah, the facial animations aren’t great. The game doesn’t just glide over the uncanny valley, it builds a big space house and moves right in.

I typically don’t put too much stock in this; plenty of outstanding games are kind of ugly up close (I’m looking into your lifeless eyes, “Fallout 4”). What makes it so rough here is the amount of time you spend staring at close-ups. A good third of the game is spent chatting with people and developing relationships, but when they look like broken robots, it breaks the spell. About halfway through the game, my Ryder inexplicably developed two wicked lazy eyes that lasted for a good 10 hours.

‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’s’ human characters look like dead-eyed androids.

Perhaps the increased power of modern consoles/PCs (I played on PS4) is the culprit — as the theory goes, the closer you get to reality, the deeper the valley. But as ugly as it gets for humankind, the power leads to some amazing aliens. The brutish, dinosaur-like Krogans have never looked better, and jittery eyes and smooth skin give the amphibious Salerians incredible life. I relished every chance to chat with non-humans, both to bask in Bioware’s great work and as a respite from the mannequin onslaught.

This sort of uneven delivery extends to the rest of the game’s graphics. The art design is triumphant – Issac Asimov would commend the look and feel of the game’s colorful terrain, sweeping interstellar views and massive starships – but technical glitches abound. Flickering textures are common, load times are excessive and occasional pop-in mars the stunning planetside vistas. These sorts of glitches aren’t game-breaking, but they speak to a project struggling to bear its own weight.

Humans might not look good in ‘Mass Effect: Andromeda,’ but the aliens are gorgeous.

Galaxy quest

And make no mistake: “Andromeda’s” scope is massive.

Much of the game takes place on explorable planets that are significantly bigger than the regions found in “Dragon Age: Inquisition.” You can spend hours scouring the nooks and crannies of each location from the comfort of your Nomad rover. And as you find ways to make life more hospitable, the areas open up even further.  

‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’s’ worlds are vast and beautiful.

A star map gives you free reign to explore the Heleus cluster of the Andromeda galaxy. You can only land on and explore a handful of planets, but you rarely feel hemmed in, and the desire to build outposts pushes you to approach Andromeda like a real pioneer. It’s a good hook.

But this goal is quickly buried beneath a ridiculous number of less essential Things to Do. Some are classic “Mass Effect” – your shipmates have needs, and if you want to unlock their highest-level abilities or get them into bed (perv), you’ll need to attend to those — but you pick up other, seemingly unwanted side quests with alarming ease.

Checking in on an outpost? Be careful who you talk to, because apparently every single life form in the galaxy is incapable of handling their own business. Even if they don’t have a gigantic exclamation point on their head, they’ll probably ask you to shuttle something somewhere or look into a mild, pointless drama. And you’ll feel pressed to track down every one, because you never know which insignificant-sounding rabbit hole will yield some legit XP or loot.

‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’ piles on the quests like every other RPG, but organizes them poorly.

This is fairly common to RPGs, but “Andromeda’s” flood of quests is compounded by terrible quest tracking. A Journal ostensibly keeps tabs on them, but inexplicably lists them based on where you picked them up rather than where they are located in the world. It’s a crazy way to organize quests; land on a planet and you’ll have to either scour dots on the map or rummage through your Journal to figure out what, if anything, you’re supposed to do there.  

This alone drove me nuts. I may be a real-world organizational disaster (I am a writer, after all) but this is definitely a trait I don’t want to carry into my sci-fi power fantasy.

Laser tag

On the other hand, I did get to carry lots of guns. And this is one area where “Andromeda” really fixes something.

The game does a fine job of improving and even amping up “Mass Effect’s” combat. Jump jets and a handy dash make you far more maneuverable, which is a boon since you contend with enemies in open-world locations. Skills and proficiencies can totally alter the way you play. Focus on Combat to be a Rambo, invest in Biotics to be a Jedi, stick with Tech to hurl fire and ice, or spread the wealth and be a bit of each. Deep but approachable, the system serves as a solid backend for the on-the-field action.

If there’s one thing Bioware improved for ‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’ it’s the game’s combat.

I forgot exactly how shooty “Mass Effect” was, and once you get used to the fact that you’re not playing a game quite as refined as the “Halos” and “Horizons” it attempts to ape, it falls into a pleasant rhythm. Nice touches abound, like jumping and pausing in the air for a few seconds while aiming down your sights. Experimenting with different abilities is also a snap thanks to a handy respec option, quelling the FOMO that rules most games that force to to stick with one class. It’s flexible and fun.  Bioware upped their game here, for sure.

But it isn’t perfect. The wide-open universe only yields a handful of enemy types, and none of them are particularly exciting. You have little control over your two fellow squadmates, and the weak enemy A.I. means you never need to think strategically when deciding which companions to bring into battle. I mostly stuck with the Krogan warrior because he looks cool. A baffling “auto” cover system claims that you just need to move close to an object with your gun drawn to hide behind it, but it doesn’t work very well. It just ends up getting you shot a lot, even when you think you’re safe.

You want jump jets? You’ve got jump jets.

Systems overload

“Andromeda” just doesn’t know when to quit, layering on screen after screen and system after system to make even the simplest task, like equipping a hot new weapon, painstaking.

Find a gun? You’ll need to head back up to your ship or find a “forward station” to switch your loadout, because, well, who knows. Tiny, uniform iconography turns inventory management into a slog. You know the thrill of finding and ogling a gorgeous, exciting new rifle in “Destiny?” That ain’t here.

Scanning planets for resources takes forever due to pretty but infuriatingly slow pans and zooms. Tracking down a specific resource to, for instance, craft a new helmet, is a total crapshoot. Bioware’s focus on the big picture has left a surprising number of holes in its basic RPG foundation.

They even tossed in co-op multiplayer, because it’s 2017 and I think that’s required by law now. “Mass Effect 3” toyed with this and it returns largely unchanged, as you and some pals clear out waves of increasingly stubborn baddies. It’s got its own progression system and offers a decent break from the RPG slog, though considering the core game could take a good 80 hours to complete, I’m not sure anyone needs it.

So do they need “Mass Effect: Andromeda” at all? That’s a tough call. A cool game is buried beneath “Andromeda’s” issues. When the guns are on point and you’ve exploded a Biotic combo, or when the ramifications of some difficult choice made hours ago comes back to haunt you, “Mass Effect: Andromeda” scratches that old space itch. But getting past the technical gaffes and unfriendly interface requires a great deal of patience. Space is big, indeed, but it’s supposed to be fun, too.

Platform reviewed: PS4

What’s hot: Cool story; outpost settling is a good hook; improved maneuverability; deep combat options

What’s not: Technical issues; aggravating interface; seriously uncanny valley; quest quantity over quality; dated feel

More games coverage:

‘Middle-earth: Shadow of War’ lets you lead orcish armies — and destroy them

Nintendo Switch launch games: The must-haves, the maybes and the probably nots

‘For Honor’ review: You’ll need skill to survive this online fighter

‘Horizon: Zero Dawn’ Review: Combat and storytelling shine in spectacular sci-fi epic

The $450 Analogue Nt mini brings new life to old-school NES games

‘Resident Evil 7’ review: It’s a screaming good time

Ben Silverman is on Twitter at ben_silverman.

[game-refraction]

Game Review: NieR - Automata (PS4)

I played very little of the original NieR back on the Xbox 360 some 7 years ago. The main protagonist just wasn’t that interesting and the world and gameplay were just nothing really to write home about. When it was announced that Platinum Games would take on the development chores for its long-awaited sequel, I was met with slight skepticism since Platinum Games track record has been less than stellar recently. NieR: Automata at first wasn’t the game I had hoped it to be, but after a solid 20-30 hours with the game, it started to get its hooks into me and frankly, I was glad to be along for the ride.

NieR: Automata tells a few stories from various points of view, swapping control to several characters during the 40+ hours I spent with the title. It’s also a game that is meant to be completed several times over, a concept I’ll touch upon shortly. The game attempts to fuse several different playstyles together to offer not just variety, but ways in which to keep you on your toes, and more or less this fusion of various bits of gameplay works well and gives NieR: Automata a unique voice among its genre.

There are 5 core endings that tell the entirety of the story in Automata, each being unlocked after completing the game over and over. Your first two playthroughs will be very similar to one another, with maybe an hour or two of different moments. The 3rd playthrough; however, was my favorite of the bunch and felt like an instant sequel to the game I had just finished twice over. There are 21 additional endings that are mostly jokes or abrupt endings that relate in some ways to moral issues or character motivations.

There are several characters in NieR: Automata, but only 3 of them that you’ll play a substantial amount of the game as; 2B, 9S, and A2. Yes, those are the names of each of the protagonists and not models of the latest iPhone. You play as a collective of androids, a group called YoRHa. These androids were created by humans to battle a group of invading machines that forced humanity to flee to the moon. YoRHa takes the fight back to earth to reclaim it from this alien machine threat.

You start the game as 2B, partnered up with 9S. 2B is calm, composed, and she is unwilling to let emotion get in the way of the mission. 9S is a scouting class of android, not designated for combat, but glad to have a partner as he usually is solo on his assignments. The two form a strong bond and together must defeat countless machines, both small and colossal in size. Once you complete 2B’s campaign, you’ll swap to the viewpoint of 9S, as this will allow you to see his side of the story during moments where 2B isn’t present. During this playthrough, you’ll see about a few hours or so of new content as well as the ability to wrap up any side quests you didn’t complete or missions that you did not discover. 9S also has a hacking mechanic that can lead to some interesting confrontations and gameplay moments.

Sometime into your initial playthrough, you’ll encounter A2 and it won’t be until much later that you discover who the character is and what they mean to your journey. A2 is also the star of the third playthrough and easily my favorite character in the game. While 2B has some good moments and character work present throughout the many completions of this game, she just wasn’t as interesting as A2. While there are moments where 9S was an engaging character, that second playthrough just hurt the character overall for me, as the repeated 10 hours of gameplay with very little to change it up, just didn’t do it for me. Hearing the same lines of dialogue, the same jokes and the fact that the amazing boss battles are pretty much skipped during his campaign, just made his chapter, and him, my least favorite thing about the game.

The supporting cast doesn’t favor much better, as there are only a small handful of characters who you will even remember their names. Pascal, the robot in the forest is about the only character that even came close to making me care about them. There are some story-focused characters in the main village, a few merchants, and some various toss away characters that peddle their wares near the desert, all of which are easily forgettable. You’ll visit dozens and dozens of NPC’s for various side quests but they all tend to offer variations on fetch quests and rarely anything substantial. Two characters that I really wanted to like were the twins, a pair of girls who you’ll encounter in the main base camp. While most of your interactions are with them in this camp, the moments in the late game where you’ll encounter them outside the camp just didn’t have the impact I wanted and the visual novel that follows that moment really slowed down the game when it really should have been ramping up to the finale.

Platinum Games is known for exciting and fast paced combat and NieR: Automata doesn’t disappoint. Battles are intense affairs that will have you learning enemy patterns to find an opening and knowing when to dodge and retreat to avoid taking heavy damage. Combat is downright brutal on hard and a bit more tolerable on normal. You’ll find katana’s, broadswords, spears, basic swords and a few more variations on weapons that can all be upgraded and set to easily swappable weapon sets to switch on the fly during battle.

Each character is outfitted with a robot companion called a Pod. These robotic helpers can be equipped with skills like lasers, hammers, gravity bombs, spears and more. Upon finding a second pod, I found a nice balance in the game having one set for lasers as the rapid shooting and charged shots to be really effective and during its cool down I would then swap to the second pod and attack with its spear as it handled crowd control rather well. Pods can be upgraded to boost their damage and trust me, it can be crucial to do so.

Swinging swords and dodging attacks are only part of the combat in NieR: Automata as you’ll often take to the skies in a transforming flying mech. These encounters often result in bullet-hell type encounters that will have you dodging energy blasts and small circles of death that will fill the screen constantly. These encounters happen in a variety of different playstyles and often will switch back and forth to keep you alert and entertained. These types of bullet-hell mechanics are not entirely exclusive to the mech portions of the game as many bosses and enemy types will attack you in this way while on foot, it just happens far more often during these flying missions.

2B, 9S, and A2 all share the same upgrades and items that you’ll encounter on your journey, and considering this game is meant to be completed over and over again, the systems of progression feel worth it and it can feel rewarding to put so much time and effort into unlocking new weapons and discovering new skills to see them show up again upon starting a continued new playthrough for each character.

Skills are used through a system called Chips. These Chips have a numeric amount of what can be equipped. If your Chip has a storage value of 40, then all skills must add up to 40. I upgraded my Chip to 120 and was able to kit out my characters with enough skills and passive abilities to my liking. These skills can range from earning more experience during battle, boosting defense or weapon damage, to allowing items to be auto-picked up instead of having to press X on each item drop I would encounter. There is a wealth of skills to learn and should you fuse skills together to make their effects more potent, then those skills will raise in their numeric value and take up more real estate in your Chip. You can setup and customize different Chips should you feel that certain encounters can benefit from a different Chip setup and therefore it can be a deep and rewarding system should you want to put the time into it.

Nearly all the forces against you are composed of various types of robots, some tiny and mostly cute looking, to large and colossal in nature. Most of the typical foes can be taken down pretty easily and without much effort, but larger and more complicated enemies will require some fast dodging and clever tactics. The game also features some incredible boss battles that are a real highlight of the game. My favorite, mostly due to the theatrics of its design is in the amusement park encounter as not only is the boss wonderfully designed, but the whole battle itself is just exciting. There is also a battle near the finale of the game that has you swapping back and forth to different characters battling two separate bosses that are pretty much identical to each other, yet the fights themselves are entirely different and boy is it fun.

While NieR: Automata isn’t a flat out gorgeous title, it still is a very good looking game. There are some sections of green here and there but the game does suffer from a very bland brown color scheme for much of its length. The main cast of characters have some pretty decent looking models but the NPC’s that fill up the game are just painful to look at, especially in a game of this console generation.

If I had to list my favorite element to NieR: Automata it would be its music. Composer Keiichi Okabe, who has worked alongside game director Yoko Taro for quite some time now, has delivered one of the best soundtracks ever created. There are so many songs here that I constantly hum when not playing the game or look forward to when I would jump back in for another playthrough. What I found refreshing about the soundtrack as well was the fact that the songs don’t loop as multiple tracks were created to transition from song to song and given the nature of battle or a change in environment, the song choices would change as well. The vocals of a few of the tracks are also stunning and feature some of the best singing I’ve heard in an original song created for a video game.

When not decimating tiny robot after tiny robot, I’d come across a few parts and mechanics to the game that I found lacking. I found the map system to be poorly designed as it can be hard to read and often I would be set on a path only for it to be a dead end or I would end up going in the wrong direction as there is no compass marker on the mini-map. Because of this, I would constantly have to check my map to make sure I was heading in the right direction and having to do this had become quite the chore. There is also no way to set an objective marker to be seen in the game world as it can only be seen via the mini-map. I also found the menu to be pretty bland and while it can be fairly easy to navigate, it felt almost like a placeholder for a menu system that they didn’t get around to making.

My last complaint comes due to the open-world nature of the game. I found that after the intense and exciting first hour or so of the game that the sudden drop into the open-world made the game’s pacing screech to a halt. I also found most areas in the game to be reused far too often, as several areas lose their charm after you’ve revisited them a dozen or so times. I found myself far more engaged in what was going on when it was focused on a pivotal part of the plot or during a boss encounter. I feel that if the game had been less open-world and more compact that I would have enjoyed myself far more as the large open-world is far too barren for its own good.

NieR: Automata is a game that needs to be beaten more than once and while that sounds like a huge effort of seeing the same content again and again, it more or less isn’t. Each playthrough will almost always leave you with more questions than answers even if you think you know what is going on. The open-world elements can drag the game’s pacing down a bit and the side quests themselves can feel like your typical open-world filler, but the main story beats and the engaging characters, especially A2 and her Pod, can give this game a new and refreshing feel, even after 20 or so hours in.

NieR: Automata was played on a PS4 Pro console with a retail copy and all screen shots were taken via the screen capture software built into the console via its twitter share system.

Game Review: NieR – Automata (PS4) was originally published on Game-Refraction

[scottsdumbgameshit]

Game of the Year 2016

There have been a whole lot of good games this year, and I feel like this is the year I finally try and write something about the games I liked the most. So here goes nothing:

HONORABLE MENTIONS

First off, here’s some games that didn’t make the list but were definitely in consideration.

Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright: Didn’t find this game as enjoyable as Awakening and I honestly got burned out while playing this one. That made me not want to continue on and play Fates: Conquest and Revelation. Still very much enjoyed the game though.

Watch Dogs 2: A significant step up from the first game, but still has the Ubisoft open world formula problem. I also haven’t played enough of it to put it on here.

Thumper: Really cool horror / rhythm game that makes me very anxious, and because of that I haven’t got to play much of it since one level (which takes about 20 mins) is all I play per session.

Killer Instinct [Windows 10]: The long awaited PC version of one of the best fighting games in recent memory. Can’t really include this since it’s from 2013, but the game is definitely good. Shout outs especially for the stellar port job and the amazing soundtrack by Mick Gordon.

Ratchet and Clank [2016]: Fantastic remake of a Ps2 classic, one of the best looking games of this generation, I haven’t included it here because of the fact that it is a remake but it is definitely worth playing.  

Top ten games of 2016.

10. MOTHER RUSSIA BLEEDS

As a huge fan of Beat Em’ Ups and the brutal, grimey, 80′s-esque aesthetic of games like Hotline Miami, Mother Russia Bleeds should be a game for me - and for the most part, it lands.

I had to keep it low down on the list because the PS4 release of this hadn’t arrived until very late in the year, and at the time of writing I have only played around 3 chapters of it. But in that time I found it to be one of the more enjoyable, refreshing and outright fun Beat Em’ Ups I’ve played since 2012′s Double Dragon Neon.

9. KIRBY PLANET ROBOBOT

Kirby - for the most part - has been one of the Nintendo series I’ve held dear to my heart. While not having actually played as many of the games as I would have liked to, Robobot is my first Kirby game since 2007′s Kirby Mouse Attack. While it’s easy to write off Kirby games as having little to no challenge and being generally samey, Planet Robobot has enough charm (which comes off especially well in the soundtrack) and nuance to cement it as one of the best games in the series.

Also, you can not deny Kirby in a Giant Mech Suit.

8. Rhythm Paradise Megamix

Being a huge fan of rhythm games, Rhythm Paradise (or Rhythm Heaven as it’s known in the States) is a series I have always admired from a distance. With this 3DS version being a “Greatest Hits” so to speak, I thought “what better time to jump in than now?”.

What I got was a collection of games with an amazing sense of humour, style and charm that kept me entertained throughout its 70 different minigames, and very much captures the same type of feeling I got from the Warioware series which holds a place very close to my heart.

7. SUPERHOT

Superhot has one of the coolest concepts for a shooting game, period - time only moving when you move - which leads to what amounts to you re-enacting several John Wick style action scenes.

It’s hard to talk about the plot elements of this game without giving important things away, but what I will say is the concepts shown in the storytelling are almost as interesting as the concepts shown in the gameplay which is quite the high bar.

To summarise: SUPERHOT is the most innovative shooter I’ve played in years!

6. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

Uncharted is a series I’ve had kind of a love/hate relationship with. The first game I found to be lacking, and the second and third were both really good games, but I have never been a fan of the core gameplay.

So when I first heard Naughty Dog were doing yet another Uncharted game, I groaned. However, Uncharted 4 proved my cynicism wrong, and ended up being not only the best game in the series but one of the best games of the year with the storytelling, the refined gameplay and the surprisingly great multiplayer. All of these come together in a fantastic way to finish off the Uncharted series with a fitting and cohesive ending.

I especially liked how the Indiana Jones quest for the Macguffin was basically a side plot in this game, and instead the focus was on the characters and relationships between Nathan and his wife, long lost brother and mentor - all of which produce some of the most lifelike and engaging dialogue in a videogame, period.

5. Street Fighter V

The obligatory ‘controversial’ game on my list comes in the form of Street Fighter V.

Street Fighter is a series that is very near and dear to my heart - definitely makes my top 3 franchises in videogame - but I’ve never been very good at it. Street Fighter V is the first SF game where the mechanics felt accessible, but deep enough so that the barrier of entry isn’t super high while also not so shallow that it doesn’t feel competitive or hard to master.

Not to mention one of the best rosters in a SF game to date. A lot of people have complained that there are less than in SFIV, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Fan favourites such as Birdie, Urien and Alex make long-awaited returns, while series standbys such like Ken, Akuma and Vega were reworked in such a way that almost makes them feel like different characters.

And yes, the game was clearly rushed out for the Pro tour, and is lacking in content (especially in the single player department). The DLC pricing is also a bit steep, but the core fighting of the game is where SFV shines brighter than most fighting games do, which is enough to land it a spot on this list. SFV is probably my second most played game this year after another game on this list and I plan on playing it long into 2017.

4. Titanfall 2

The first Titanfall game was in a very similar situation to Street Fighter V: lacking in single player content, bad DLC structure, but incredible gameplay nonetheless. Titanfall 2 remedies all of the problems Titanfall 1 has and improves on the original game exponentially.

The multiplayer of the game is still the incredible fast paced action that the first game had, with major improvements such as special abilities like the grappling hook or the stim boost, to the increased amount and variety of Titan classes on offer, new game modes like Bounty Hunt and Colosseum, all wrapped in an amazing multiplayer suite that rivals some of the best multiplayer shooters of all time.

And I haven’t even mentioned the Single Player yet.

The Campaign in Titanfall 2 is one of the best single player shooter campaigns in a long time, and rivals games like Halo, Call of Duty 4 and Timesplitters 2 in terms of sheer quality. A small, concise package full of amazing action, incredible set pieces and surprisingly great boss fights and characters - the banter between Cooper and BT being the highlight.

The campaign isn’t afraid to introduce mechanics that are exclusive to a level and not explored again, which does its bit to keep the game fresh while not overstaying its welcome.

This game was number one on my list at a point this year, so every game from here onwards is a must-play for everyone in my opinion.

3. Overwatch

Overwatch is bound to be the game mentioned the most this year in everyone’s GOTY discussions. The game is a phenomenon and blew up in ways I haven’t seen since the aforementioned Call of Duty 4. I’ve had so many good times this year playing with friends in this game. It’s so easy to just throw it on and shoot the shit while playing. It also made me a salt mine more times than I would like to admit.

The game also has one of the most phenomenal cast of characters in any video game (Reinhardt is the best character though, let’s be real here). There’s bound to be a character for every playstyle and preference: Soldier “Call of Duty Guy” 76, Jesse “I’m unironically a Cowboy” Mccree and Pharah “Did Somebody Say Quake” Amari.

Even from a visual standpoint, the characters are unique enough that everyone should have at least a few to fall in love with, from the Mad Max-inspired Roadhog and Junkrat, to Lucio - s rollerskating DJ with a dubstep gun and a whole load of optimism. The game is so full of character and charm, it’s hard to hate anyone.

As for negatives, I kind of fell off of the game in a bad way because of the summer event where I got burned by the random lottery loot box system in place for unlocks, and the game also lacks any single player content. But when it got down to it, there was no other multiplayer game I has as many good times with this year (it is also my most played game this year), which is enough to cement it into my top 3 of the year.

2. Hitman

Hitman is one of the biggest surprises in gaming for a long time. After the lacklustre Hitman: Absolution and the announcements that it would be an episodic game, expectations were very low coming into it.

And when I bought the intro pack when the game came out, those expectations were met. I found the game to be janky in the way the Hitman games have been, and especially after Metal Gear Solid V re-invented stealth gameplay, I walked away feeling burned and disappointed by Hitman.

Cut to later in the year when I started getting into Giant Bomb’s content, I had watched a few of their videos relating to Hitman, and as I was watching the amount of content and depth to Hitman was revealed to me. I reinstalled hoping that the spark would hit me, and it didn’t right away.

But at some point it clicked - the amount of ways to go about the missions and how to finish your missions are staggering in the same ways I felt about Metal Gear Solid V the year prior.

This game went from being one of the most disappointing games of the year for me to my second favourite game of the year.

The maps - Paris and Sapienza especially - are masterfully crafted to give you so many different ways to deal with your targets, and while some of the initial jank still persists (vision cones not being very clear, guards seeing you through walls, awkward controls sometimes) the game has managed to win me over in such a monumental way that it came very close to becoming my GOTY.

1. DOOM

Speaking of low expectations.

I’ve never been much of a fan of DOOM as a series and I don’t think anyone expected a DOOM game in 2016 to be any good especially after it was in development hell for so long (with versions of it apparently being a modern military shooter referred to as “Call of Demons”), the frankly bad multiplayer beta and Bethesda not sending review copies to gaming sites, things were not looking bright for DOOM.

Yet despite all that DOOM launched with one of the greatest shooter campaigns of all time.

The game begins with about five seconds of a voice talking to the player instructing him to “Rip and Tear” and then Doomguy smashes a demon’s head into the coffin he was sealed away in, from there you’re thrust straight into action, already a far cry from the 20 minutes of talking you get at the start of most shooter campaigns (including DOOM 3).

and the pace of the game never really falls from there, its just constant balls-to-the-wall action from beginning to end in its 10+ hour campaign, introducing new mechanics and weapons for your character along the way.

The game just has has a sense of self awareness so it doesn’t become generic cringe-inducing metalhead schlock, It has a sense of humour about how stupid the concept of a guy named “DoomGuy” being pissed off at all of the demons and wants nothing to do with anything else.

The sense of humour the game has also does wonders in characterising DoomGuy, from him throwing computer screens out the way because he doesn’t care about a characters exposition or kicking highly volatile hell energy canisters, much to the chagrin of Dr Samuel Hayden.

Samuel Hayden is effectively the only major character other than DoomGuy and the way he is portrayed as a scientist trying to harness hell energy to help humans sustain the planet vs DoomGuy’s lack of care for anything except killing demons has a certain Buddy-Cop film vibe that does wonders for the characterization of both of these characters.

This game even made Codex entries cool, by reading them it’s revealed that the Demons view DoomGuy as some sort of Angel of Death bringing nothing but death and destruction to all of Demon-kind.

I haven’t even mentioned the amazing soundtrack by Mick Gordon (Killer Instinct, Wolfenstein: The New Order) which when you look at the game you would assume would just be some generic metal tracks, but instead you get metal mixed with industrial and more electronic sounds to create a blend of styles that not only go perfectly with each other but with the game also. The soundtrack does wonders for the atmosphere of the game and keeps you pumped up through all of the amazing action the game throws your way.

Now DOOM does come with 2 other modes: Multiplayer and Snapmap. The Multiplayer is honestly kind of lacking, for one its loadout based instead of the classic fps style. There are also powerups that are doled out in certain points of the map which just encourages camping instead of people playing the game. It’s not terrible but you could honestly just ignore it.

Admittedly I have not played much of the Snap-Map mode but it seems like it has potential, from what I can tell it’s like Custom Games from Halo? Whenever I have went on I’ve seen some cool stuff like levels from the original game remade, but again Snap-map doesn’t really do much to increase or decrease the quality of the overall package in my opinion.

With all that being said I obviously highly recommend DOOM to anyone, especially if you are a FPS fan and a fan of games that are solely about action, we’re talking about the FPS equivalent of a Devil May Cry or Bayonetta in terms of speed, combat quality and just the frankly badass feeling you get while playing it. It’s been a fantastic year for games and a fantastic year for shooter and to me, DOOM is the best of the lot.