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sazorak · 4 years ago

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Every Game I Played in 2020, Ranked

2020. Boy, what a garbo year huh? Didn't actually play that many games this year all-in-all. Happens! My backlog is getting pretty big, but I just find it hard to focus on games when I could be working on something. Or put off working on something, as it may happen to be at times.

My arbitrary decision from years ago to only attach a numbered ranking to same-year releases is getting increasingly silly, especially given my propensity to wait on playing games until I’m in the right mood, but whatever. That order matters than the dumb numerical numbering anyway.

2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019

Later Alligator – 2019 – Steam – ★★

The style of this game is very cute, and the jokes are funny enough. But… ok, look, I’m not one to be precious about what is or isn’t a game. But this really isn’t a game. It’s a series of disconnected, unrelated challenges clipped from Atari Free Mini Game Collection 100, wrapped in a very non-interactive adventure-game. It’s cute, it’s kind of sweet, but it’s dull. Dull dull dull. There’s a pointless, mandatory sliding block puzzle early on that infuriated me by its mere existence. Them giving the ability to skip it because “wow you’re bad at this huh”, which, while accurate, also just sold the whole point meaningless of the “““interactive experience”””.

Also: when a huge part of your game is WOW WE ANIMATED EVERYONE REALLY GOOD, text boxes that reveal word-by-word, far away from the animations that occur when said characters talk? Kind of stinks!

8. Carrion – 2020 – Steam – ★★

What Carrion does well— the whole “You’re controlling The Thing and just rippin’ people apart!” shtick— is really neat. They made that bootleg The Thing animate real-ass good.

The actual game as a whole though? Kind of garbage. Imagine a Metroidvania with zero actual exploration, where every opportunity you have to venture off the path instead results in immediate railroading with constant, utterly inexplicable one-way pipes. It’s not that it’s linear, it’s that it actively slaps you when you attempt to explore. It’s very frustrating! Add the fact that the tentacle-monster-shtick makes challenging to actually, y’know, move around and control all your bits… the only reason I finished the game was due to foreknowledge of its extreme brevity.

I think if the game were more open and less obsessed with constantly handing out upgrades, as well as having less of a focus on pure combat, I think I’d have enjoyed it more.

SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays – 2019 – Steam – ★★

It is well documented at this point that I am both an active Gundam fan, and as well as an on-again-off-again tactical RPG aficionado. A SD Gundam game appearing on Steam with a good English translation and localization is… exciting, to say the least. That said, I have never had much context for this game series beyond the basic facts that the combat tended to be pretty well animated CG, and that it’s vaguely similar to Super Robot Wars. Turns out… it’s really different from SRW? I dunno how the rest of the series fairs, but Cross Rays is weird as hell.

For one, there’s zero tutorialization at all. None. Almost all of what I’m going to explain here is me figuring stuff out by trial and error, or by reading junk online. Gundam is insanely popular, you’d think they’d be interested in explaining how it all works, but… nope. Even Super Robot Wars has multi-level introductory bits for new folks to show them the rope these days.

So: Cross Rays is a tactical RPG where you can playthrough the storyline of various Gundam AUs. You can play through them in any order. These playthroughs are fairly literal translations of the stories. You take control of the lead mecha from those series, fight enemy mobile suits that show up in SRW-like tactical RPG combat, until all reinforcements cease. Pretty straight forward. There are occasionally mission variants like “prevent enemies from reaching X” or “prevent enemies from destroying Y”, but even those can be just reduced to “kill everything very quickly please.”

But here’s the thing: while there is a story progression, the characters in the story itself actually have no character progression. These characters and mecha are actually considered guests, despite it being ostensibly their story. Instead, you are able to field “permanent” mecha and pilots of your own choosing, which do have progressions. There is no plot justification for this or anything like it. The game does not recognize that it’s weird that during Iron-Blooded Orphans intro where nobody knows what a Gundam even is, you can have 25 Gundams show up at once and just fire lasers at everything. That’s because this game is actually about repeatedly grinding the same set of missions over and over.

Pilots are recruited by completing certain in-mission requirements. Mecha are acquired by either by getting enough kills with the progression-less “guest” mecha, combining mecha you already have gashopon-style, completing certain quests, or by leveling up mecha and then “evolving them”. This is the actual core of the game.

SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays is basically Disgaea, it turns out? You’re grinding story missions at various difficulty levels in order to complete missions, try to recruit specific pilots, equip them with stats and levels to make them stronger, and then hitting mecha together in a sort of quasi-SMT fusion system until you get all the powerful mobile suits you desire.

The combat itself is kind of… bland? There’s a lot of systems, but they mostly seem in service of making an already easy game easier, or burning through tedium. There are four different difficulty modes, because there’s not actually that many different missions you can play through. The expectation is you’ll just work your way through every story beat while ramping the difficulty up over time to where the “guest” mecha would not be able to handle on their own. In fact, letting the story mecha act out the story beats is actually bad after a point, unless you’re still trying to get those lead mobile suits, or if you’re trying to complete some mission requirement in order to recruit Named Wing Grunt Pilot #246.

There is something to the notion of “I want to get N and N and N and N on a team, piloting weird but powerful mobile suits, and just solo every Gundam AU in a row,” but the whole premise seems kind of against purpose. Why bother recreating story beats at all, then? It’s not like the game even acknowledges any of that going on.

If the point is that I’m supposed to be, like in other grind-heavy tactical RPGs, breaking the systems to my own end in order to proceed… why not make the missions you play challenges focused towards that? The story progression literally only exists to facilitate the mission-based unlock conditions, which makes all the energy put into making them JUST LIKE THE ANIME really damn pointless.

I like tactical RPGs, I like breaking RPG systems so as to beat hard challenges (I beat all the insanely hard extra bosses in FFXII for crying out loud), I looooove Gundam. I should like this. But I don’t really have the “god, I NEED TO FILL THIS LIST” gene that some folks have… except as an excuse to continue to engage in gameplay I enjoy. The gameplay here seems in service of the collection, rather than the way around.

7. Pokemon Sword: The Isle of Armor – 2020 – ★★★

Pokemon’s first foray into actually doing DLC is… a mixed bag. As a positive, they’ve improved the Wild Area concept I liked from the main game, and even brought back buddy Pokemon walking behind you. That’s neat. On the other hand: the actual progression in it is completable in like an hour, it doesn’t scale with you, so you’re bound to be over leveled for it, and all the raid stuff, while still conceptually neat, is just as flawed as in the base game. And so, you’re just left with even more new Pokemon to RNG grind on to continue to catch-them-all. Nah, I’m good.

Astral Chain – 2019 – Switch – ★★★

Platinum knows how to make good character action games. They’ve made a bunch of them. Bayonetta, Nier: Automata, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. They also know how to make some kind of mediocre character action games. Transformers: Devastation, Wonderful 101, their various shovelware character action games like Korra. Astral Chain falls somewhere in the middle, I guess?

Astral Chain has all the production of their good games. It has some stylish, cool action. It has a neat core mechanical idea, in that it’s essentially a two-character action game where you control both characters at once. It has a lot of the old mechanics from some of their best games brought in; witch-time last second dodging from Bayonetta, Nier’s shooting-and-slashing combination, the Zandatsu mechanic from Metal Gear Rising, even Wonderful 101’s multi-unit shenanigans. The setting is different, and there’s some neat world flavor all in all.

But, of all games I’ve played over the past few years, Astral Chain made me more vividly angry than any other. It’s not that it’s too hard— far from it, really, I found its combat incredibly mashy. No, the problem is that it has so many shitty mechanics slathered on that it become a chore to get to the “good bits”.

Why would you put forced stealth sequences in your character action game, especially when your movement controls are not suited for it?

Why the HELL would you put platforming sections in your character action game, constantly, especially when your stupid ghost buddy can accidentally yank you off the edge, your auto-combos can just throw you off the edge, or literally anything can knock you off the edge and make you lose life?

Why would you put so many constant excuses into the world to force me use the digital sensor in the game, that also makes it miserable to walk around while using it?

WHO THE LIVING FUCK THINKS THESE SHITTY BOX BALANCING MINI-GAMES ARE FUN???

These games are supposed to encourage me to perfect everything, right? Why keep putting fucking fights you need to complete in order to get an S rank behind backtracking, or Legions I don’t have yet? That isn’t adding replayability, that’s just wasting my time. There are even in-level missions that have fail conditions that you never even know about. Surprise!!! A lot of them involve chasing after guys and catching them with your chain, which is really obnoxious to do!!!! SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The story is just Bad Evangelion, straight up. Every story beat from Evangelion is here, executed worse. They also make your character have a twin just so they can have a character who can talk and feel emotions, because your boring-ass protagonist is stuck being an emotionless audience cipher. Cool!!!

Tetris Effect – 2018 – Origin – ★★★

It’s drugs Tetris. I personally don’t use, or have synesthesia for that matter. I imagine this game is better if you do. It’s an enjoyable enough experience but it feels incredibly slight for what I was expecting from it, or even compared to something like Lumines, which has tons of replayability by way of its difficulty. Tetris just isn’t that hard, unless you’re forcing yourself to do weird shit to get points. I WILL NEVER LEARN HOW TO T-SPIN. Never.

Castlevania Anniversary Collection – 2019 – Steam – ★★★

Kind of an unremarkable Castlevania collection. Neat that it has an official translation of Kid Dracula in there, but also… look, I prefer Metroidvania Castlevanias, OK?

6. Spelunky 2 – 2020 – Steam – ★★★

I’m not entirely sure why this doesn’t click for me where Spelunky 1 did. More annoying intro levels? Too many fiddly requirements for different ending-progression? Gameplay additions that just make things more annoying? Spelunky 1 was hard, but there was a kind straight-forwardness to it, even with its weird secrets, that made it much easier to grok and continue banging your head against. I’m just not having as much fun with this. Difficulty should be challenging, not a hassle.

5. Stellaris: Federations – 2020 – Steam – ★★★

This is the year that Stellaris just broke for me.

Federations itself is a good DLC; it adds some really interesting mechanics tied to various types of multi-national unions (the titular federations, as well as the Space UN), as well as the addition of unique “origins” that allow you to further specialize your gameplay. The origins in particular are a great addition that allows more specialization and roleplay.

I’m just tired of the sheer amount of busywork Stellaris forces you to do. Every DLC adds more junk you need to keep an eye on, and the fact that the AI doesn’t even bother with it (compensating with copious economy boosts in order to keep up) makes the whole thing frustrating. It’s like playing fetch with yourself; you just get tired of chasing after your own ball after a point.

I have to wonder if they’re pivoting towards a notional Stellaris 2 at this point? Might not be a bad idea for them, though it is weird with all they talked up adding more origins when Federations came out.

4. GranBlue Fantasy Versus – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★

This is probably the fighting game I got most into over the past few years. There’s just this nice, almost Street Fighter-esque ease of execution to the controls, and that Arc Systems Works 3D-as-2D style continues to just do work. I don’t give a single shit about GranBlue Fantasy (frankly, I think I’d enjoy this game more if it wasn’t attached to a property) but the characters are fun enough to play and look at.

The big problem here is two things: no crossplay, and no rollback netcode. In the span of a month, this game became a total ghost town on PC, and it doesn’t sound like PS4 faired that much better.

Ring Fit Adventure – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

I’ve fallen on-and-off this game all year. At its heart: it works, it’s a fun exercise game. I don’t think it really feels like a “game” (in the sense that I’m not really coming to it for riveting gameplay or anything) as much as just a guided exercise experience, but… that’s fine? The in-game story is kind of flat, but funny in the fact of it existing at all. Buff Nicol Bolas and all.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen – 2017 – Steam – ★★★★

XCOM2: War of the Chosen is a great answer to what XCOM2 struggled with. As I discussed back in 2016 (Jesus Christ), XCOM2 tried to push against player’s worst instincts by incentivizing them to keep being aggressive through a whole bunch of timers— which, kind of just weren’t fun given how much accidentally walking into an ambush could “ruin” dozens of hours of play. War of the Chosen dials that back in some intelligent ways, by instead making the encounter designs themselves, as well as much more grab-and-bail mission types, encourage players to push ahead instead. Smart!

The addition of the Chosen makes the game feel more alive, and they really do make missions harder— particularly early on. But they’ve somehow accidentally fell into the hole, where XCOM just… isn’t that hard? Early on it’s challenging, particularly with the resource restrictions and all. But they keep giving you more and more options (that aren’t especially meaningful choices) that make your team more and more powerful, without increasing the strength of the enemy as time goes on. By the five-hour mark, you basically know if you’re going to steam roll the game or not.

The amount of additional character and variety in the gameplay is great, I just wish it had a more challenging difficulty curve. Maybe make the meta-layer of when enemies show up more targeted to where players are at. If a player is doing well, ramp up the difficulty, if they’re struggling, pull it back a bit. I should always feel like I’m just barely keeping ahead with XCOM, not like I’m bored. And by the end of War of the Chosen, I was kind of getting bored, really. Oh well.

3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 2020 – Switch – ★★★★

This is probably the video game that I spent the most time with hours-wise this year. I’m not entirely sure why? It’s a nice evolution of New Leaf, in that the crafting, environment shaping, and general quality-of-life improvements made are quite nice. There’s clearly been some thought on how people play these games, and ways to make the experience less frustrating.

… and yet, they kept so much tedium in the game. Like yes, the schedule stretching is the point, I get it. As someone who for some reason decided not to play with the clock, I only just recently finished the fish, fossils, and insects for the museum. But there’s just so many weird, little things that just make it hard to keep coming back to it. It’s like… to what end? When I’ve unlocked everything, and basically seen the entirety of the item list at this point, and the holiday events all being the game meaningless collectathons…. Why? I’m not going to try completing the collection; the museum stuff is about my limit, really (and even the paintings I can probably pass on).

I guess even an idealized, digital representation of a quasi-domestic life has the spiritual emptiness of consumerism-for-consumerism sake. Thanks???

Hypnospace Outlaw – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★

I grew up on the internet of the early 00s. I had an AngelFire website, mostly consisting of shitty sprite webcomics and hosted Gundam pics. I remember when Google wasn’t really a thing and you would heavily rely on website compilation sites like the Anime Web Turnpike in order to find anything of value online. It was weird, it was wild. It was exciting!

The internet seemed so different back then. There was a ton of garbage online, but also, like… there was a sense of optimism to it. Folks were shitty, there was plenty of bad stuff online, but it felt so disconnected from the fabric of the physicality of real-life that it was at the same time a perfect escape.

I was young when I first got “online”, something like 12. I remember having this notion that the internet was going to be this great equalizer, that it had infinite potential to change how people behave and interact. Boy, huh.

Hypnospace Outlaw is essentially a splendid alternate universe GeoCities recreation, where you’re a volunteer moderator of a grouping of websites on HypnOS, an internet-analog you access while you are sleep. At the surface level, it’s mostly about poking around the weird alternate-historical version of the internet they created, full of kids feuding, bizarre historical divergences, and plenty of amazing bespoke weirdness. All of this is great; there’s an incredible amount of content that’s just great to poke at, listen to, and explore.

Below the surface, there’s also a rolling plotline about the ethics of this industry-owned platform, those who run it, and the way corporations handle new technology, new platforms, and emerging digital societies. There’s a late game turn that’s pretty damn affecting. And as someone who has moderator his share of internet forums in his time, trying to balance ‘do it for the community’ and what your ostensible ‘bosses’ require of you, it was kind of a weird throwback in more ways than one.

Minecraft – 2011 – PC – ★★★★★

Turns out, Minecraft is really as good still who knew??? Started playing a bunch more of it this year due to Giant Bomb deciding to do so, and yeah: still good!

2. Hades – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★★

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again— Supergiant makes damn good games. I’d been holding off on checking out Hades until its full release due to my tendency to burn out on games easily, and I’m glad I waited. Hades is a fantastic rogue-lite experience. The way it makes narrative progression part of the reiterative, randomized rogue-lite structure is just perfect.

It’s got all the usual Supergiant bullet points. Great characters, voice acting, narration, and music. In terms of gameplay, it’s probably their least ambitious game— playing something like a cousin to their original game, Bastion— but it’s also been polished to a mirror sheen. It just feels really damn good to play, over and over and over.

That being said, the second (final?) ending feels kind of…. Tacked on? It’s fine as a goal to go for while continuing to do the game’s relationship mechanics for additional story bits, but it ends up feeling kind of unfulfilling compared to the payoff of the first one.

1. Crusader Kings III – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★★

I never could get into Crusader Kings II. Despite my interest, the sheer mechanical heft and unintuitive interface made the game a wall that I just couldn’t get over. I’m sure if I’d dedicated myself I probably could have learned it, but… ehhhhhh.

Crusader Kings III, on the other hand, has a good tutorial, a cleaned-up UI, and a very helpful highlight and tooltip system that make it much easier to understand how to actually play the game through resources inside the game itself. And, as it turns out: I rather love this game.

I mean, conceptually it’s an easy sell, isn’t it? Historical politics is something I enjoy broadly. I liked Stellaris but wish it had more narrative, roleplaying elements. They outright say that “winning” isn’t really the point of the game. Instead, it’s more about emergent storytelling and playing with the different systems and seeing what you can do with it.

My current game has had me taking the Haesteinn dynasty from its Viking origins into England, forming a London-seated Northern Sea Empire that encompasses all of Britannia, Iceland, Holland, Norway, and Denmark. I am currently working on hegemonizing Norse religious control over enough Asatru holy sites to finally reform the religion, such that more unified feudalization can occur. To that end, my current ruler’s predecessor invaded West Francia and conquered the whole of its territory, substantially reducing the foothold of Catholicism in mainland Europe… which seems to have kicked the hornet’s nest, given the Crusade I’m going to need to contend with next time I boot up the game.

Of course, a complicating matter is that my current ruler— the Emperor of the North Sea, King of Ireland and the Danelaw, liege of the King of Denmark, was elected from the extended Haesteinn family via Thing, the Scandinavian council of his erstwhile vassals. Where the previous emperor, the one who manufactured the invasion of Francia, was quite religious and beloved for his adherence to the old ways, I discovered as I took over as his successor that he really, really is into just boning down across Europe. We’re talking constantly attempting to seduce neighboring Queens and Princesses. His vassals are not thrilled with this. They also don’t care for his propensity for torturing people to death, constantly.

I had no real say in this; attempting to stay on top of a dynasty is kind of like riding a bucking-bronco, so many things are only tenuously under your control that some weird shit can happen. This is especially true when you use the systems that make it easier to maintain the coherency of your domain. The Norse religion encouraging concubinage results in you having a lot of kids, which means there’s a lot of domain partition going on (someday, primogeniture, someday). Naturally, using Thing election reduces that, but also makes you sometimes end up having to play Emperor Stabbo-Fucko because they thought he was the best candidate at the time. Hell, I thought he was the best candidate at the time until I discovered just how many people he’d be laying with on the low. But you just have to roll with it.

The way the game forces you to play ball with character traits is great. Doing things that match with the character’s traits makes them lose stress. Doing things against their character increases stress. Too much stress can force you to make the character take up vices (which can make them suffer health or opinion maluses, as well as altering their aptitudes), or even die outright. And sometimes those vices and attitudes can be boons, given they open up opportunities for different character interactions.

Emperor Stab-and-Fuck-Kingdom is perhaps the most relaxed person alive, it turns out, because his sadism makes him really enjoy sacrificing infidels, which makes the gods happy. It also freaks the fuck out of all of his vassals, so they’re a good supplicant mix of both appreciative of my religious sentiments and also utterly terrified of my skull piles. Some especially brave vassals occasionally try to assassinate me, but my lovers keep jumping in front of the knife and saving my life mid-coitus. Iiiiiit happens! :D

The game can be incredibly fun to just watch, as it becomes emergently weird. Georgia right now is incredibly Jewish in game. I’m not sure how that happened; I guess someone made a random Jewish guy into a vassal, who somehow moved up enough in the world to make it a movement? The Byzantine princes elected a Coptic as Emperor, which over the course of the decade resulted in very accelerated balkanization as Byzantium just lost its shit. The Middle East and notional HRE haven’t really unified in a meaningful way, so I’m curious how things are going to go if/when the Mongols unify and roll-on in.

It’s one of those “Just one more thing” games that can completely devour time. I have more than a few times checked the clock mid-game to see that it’s 4AM and that I’ve totally ruined my sleep schedule in the process of play. Oooooops.

I highly recommend checking it out if you’re curious; the introductory, pre-release video series Paradox put out showing off the game does a pretty good job of showing the core gameplay loop and also how weird it can get.

#GAME OF THE YEAR #GOTY #nonfiction #thinkpiece #2020 #Crusader Kings 3 #Hades #SD Gundam #Animal Crossing

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angelic-guardienne · 5 years ago

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Gladio + s/o with thick hair hc

I’m black. I have thick hair. I love Gladio. I’ve been meaning to write these headcanons for a good while, but never felt... qualified enough, in a weird way. I’ve had my hair natural for about a year now (I can’t believe it’s been that long, wow) and I still don’t feel like I’m knowledgeable enough to write these, because there’s still so much for me to learn.

Still. Even if I’m certainly still learning the hows and whys of my hair, I wanted to write these. Took a solid month of time, and it definitely didn’t cover everything about the Experience (TM), but that’s mostly because I haven’t experienced it myself. Namely, anything with heat because heat damage was the reason I chopped off my hair and went natural, haha.

Buuuut that’s enough from me. I want to get this posted before I have to start getting ready for work, so. Without further ado, here are the headcanons!

Tagging: @blindedstarlight @crazykruemel @ponkita @tales-of-a-fallen-star @valkyrieofardyn @insomniacapples @kawaiinekorose @glacian-apocalypse @honey-your-bee-puns-sting @neo-queen-alinity @singergurl91 @jaysfandomcorner @commitmentroses @linxsa99 @sakuraangel1 @tiniestofqueens @bestchocobois @magictactic200

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Gladio absolutely adores your natural hair. Whether it’s curlier or wavier (or both if you’re like me and have mixed curl patterns rip), he adores it

He’s always kinda sad when you put it up or straighten it, he loves it more when you just wear it down and out and b i g

(though that being said, it’s not that he doesn’t love the other hairstyles, he just loves it more when your hair is out. that’s his favorite style, he loves seeing you embrace your natural self)

He wishes his hair could do the things that yours can do

(he jokingly says he might get a perm and you have to shut that down in an instant cause lord knows that man has zero impulse control)

On those days where your hair just won’t cooperate, he’s defo there to lend a helping hand (once he learns how to handle your hair, of course. as soon as he’s trusted with it, he loves loves loves helping you with it)

If you’re anything like me you’ve got an army of hair products and Gladio just l o v e s the way they all smell

Sometimes you’ll catch him in your products and you’re like “what do you need curl defining cream for, huh?” and he’s just like “it smells like you” and you can get mad at him but can you really when he says stuff like that

Speaking of, he steals all of your leave-in conditioner, all the time

If you let him play in your hair, his favorite thing to do is pull on a little curl and let it go and watch it bounce back into place

It makes him giggle like a child

One time he tried running his fingers through your hair and he was actually stuck (it’d been a while since you detangled it)

Speaking of “detangling,” he tries his best to learn all the terminology

One time he falls asleep with a book about different hair types and their care routines open in his hands. it was the cutest image ever. you took a picture and made it your lockscreen

He will eagerly sit down and watch hair tutorials with you. In case you can’t do your own hair (or don’t want to) he wants to be able to help. Besides, it’s genuinely interesting to him that you can do so many different styles with your hair

(Again, he wants to try it on his own hair but it just doesn’t hold the same)

But yeah so he can’t run his fingers through your hair and at first he was a little sad about it but once he got used to the idea, he was just like “I can’t run my fingers through it but have you felt how soft it is?”

He's… obsessed with how soft your hair can get

he's obsessed with you (and your hair!) in general but yanno

It took him a minute to really truly understand the concept of shrinkage, so if your hair was straight when you met him, when he sees it natural he's like "oh man did you cut your hair? looks nice" and you have to explain it to him

Sometimes when he wants to surprise you, he'll pick up some hair products that you'd been longingly staring at (you couldn't get them yourself since they were outside of your price range at the time)

Whenever you decide to get some stuff to try a hair mask or do some deep conditioning, you bet he’s right there beside you wanting to try it as well. You’ll have to make twice as much cause he’s a little heavy handed

Speaking of him being heavy-handed, you have to tell him to chill out when he’s doing your hair because even though he sometimes buys your products for you, they’re still not cheap and you’d like them to last a little longer

If y’all are showering together and you’re washing your hair, when you’re doing something a certain way he’ll ask why and then he gets a mini-lesson in the shower (if you’re up for it, that is)

Like, detangling from the ends to the roots, sectioning the hair for ease, wide-toothed combs, making sure you put in the leave-in conditioner while still in the shower, cowashes, etc etc

If you let him wash your hair for you, good lord this man’s scalp massages are to die for

Eventually, curiosity gets the better of him and he starts using some of your advice for his own hair, and then he just? never shuts up about how much better his hair feels? he wants to tell everyone about it and he does, starting with Iris

He’s very much so the type to brag on his s/o and no one is excepted from hearing him wax poetic about them, he’s such a proud boi

(Iris just shakes her head fondly and is like “if you watched hair tutorials with me back when we were younger you would have been here already, but go off I guess”)

Whenever you wash your hair, right after you get out of the shower and are dressed again (and sometimes before that) he’s just “What are you gonna do with your hair?”

Sometimes he’ll pull up some hairstyles he found on the interwebs and show them to you, and you’ve actually done some of them but sometimes it’s way out of your league (or it’s something you would rather go to a salon to get done). Tell him, and eventually he’ll find that sweet sweet boundary between impossible and doable for suggested styles.

Once you told him you were gonna twist your hair and he had the most adorable look on his face when he asked what a twist was

You were a little shocked that he’d never heard of it before but you showed him and he was just stoked to see your hair in a bunch of twists after that (and boyo, don’t get me started on the twist-out. This man is lovestruck)

When it’s a styling day (because sometimes it takes a whole day), Gladio will sit with you and just hang out with you while you do your hair. He’ll cook for you, too, because he knows having your arms above your head for hours on end is exhausting.

Styling days are also movie days, if he can stay home! (usually you plan your styling days with his days off so you really can spend the day with him) Y’all just chill out and watch movies together and once you’re finished, you guys cuddle

The first time he used a shower cap he was literally amazed. Like he’d never really given them more than a passing thought, but like…. a cap. to protect your hair from getting wet in the shower. It’s ingenious. If he didn’t wanna get it wet he tried to put it up in a bun and hopped on the struggle bus

Suffice to say, he loves shower caps

If you have a hooded dryer at home, well. He’s not a fan of constant loud noises (or loud noises in general tbh) but he thinks it’s really cool that you can have a little piece of the salon with you at home, that you can still do certain things without having to drop the money

Speaking of the salon though.

Your stylist loves and hates him because he’s super charming and they can tell just how in love you two are and they can tell how well he treats you and all of that, but good lord when the two of you talk you move your head a lot and that’s veeeery frustrating

As soon as Gladio notices he gives you a little kiss and goes over to the waiting area but it’s really not much longer before he’s trying to text you or trying to get your attention from across the room or something like that.

If you’re due to be bound to the stylist’s chair for a long while, he’s at your beck and call and will do anything you need while you’re stuck. Snacks? You got it. Thirsty? A drink, fit with a straw so you don’t have to bend your head anymore. Entertainment? He’ll ask if you want a book or a video game. Your phone is dying? He’s got a portable battery, babey

He always checks the weather and lets you know when it’s supposed to be humid, because humid days are your worst enemy. (He hates them too, but since he started dating you he’s become more aware of their frequency)

He’s bad about the bonnet. He really is. He really tries not to say it but it’s kind of like a mushroom top. He’s so bad about it.

If you use a satin pillowcase, you’ll have to get another one because he wants to steal your pillow. He loves the way it feels against his face when he sleeps and he wants to feel it allllllll the time

But yes, all in all, as I said in the beginning, Gladio adores your natural hair and everything that comes with it and he embraces it and loves when you do the same.

#gladio #gladiolus amicitia #final fantasy xv #ffxv #writing #headcanons #thick hair s/o #i have no idea what else to tag this as so. uh. shrug emoji lmao #the awaited gladio headcanons have arrived #it's been a solid minute since i posted anything so i'm glad to post this #gotta get ready for work now oof #anyways hope y'all enjoy!!!#i was admittedly reluctant to post for a hot sec because i thought these seemed too much like prompto #but with the help of a friend i got past that #so yes. enjoy!!!

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thelongestdamnreviews · 6 years ago

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Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together

HAHAHA YES I DID IT I FINALLY BEAT THE GAME THE CURSE IS BR--

Uh.

I finally finished the game this time, clocking in a time of just over 58 hours for Neutral route cleared and not really many sidequests done. While I played this run with a mod (if you’ve played the game, you’ll notice in the pictures some differences), I'll talk about that another time. I should note that I've given this game at least five prior attempts each clocking in at over 20 hours over the several years I've owned it, so this is a pretty significant victory in my eyes.

The Valerian Isles have been in turmoil ever since the untimely death of her king, Dorgalua. He passed with no heir, and a regent installed himself into rule, although his influence only really extended through the northern part of the isles. The Hierophant Balbatos has enacted a regime of ethnic cleansing in the south against the Walister, your people, and your leader has already been captured. Worse, the knights who torched your town years ago are headed your way and the only help you have are your sister and best friend...

Five versus three against your favor, and they’re all veterans versus you all never having taken the field. What’s the worst that can happen?

I'll be making a few comparisons to Tactics Ogre's sibling series, Final Fantasy Tactics, during this review and I apologize for making so many. Tactics Ogre originally was a Super Famicom game and it was ported to the PlayStation 1 and Sega Saturn before getting remade on the PSP quite a while later. I've never played any of the old versions prior so this is mostly new experiences for me.

Tactics Ogre is a turn-based tactics RPG. Field a small team of characters in a variety of classes and fight it out through a number of battles as you clear a swath through everyone standing in your way. Warriors use big swords, Archers snipe with bows, Clerics heal, Canopus wins entire maps, Wizards damage and rebuff with spells, and so on. Objectives vary between "kill all enemies" and "kill the enemy leader" with very few deviations. Instead of the almost constant limit of five troops that Final Fantasy Tactics imposes on you, you can field a maximum of 12, but the limit increases or decreases based on the map, and even maps near the end of the game won't let you take everyone along. Enemy troops will almost always outnumber yours, but you have the advantage of human intellect, grinding, and the ability to revive your troops to counter them.

I’m apparently really bad at taking screenshots of actual gameplay, but the anti-aliasing on the text broke on the enemy’s numbers for some reason, thus the picture.

Though this is a modern-day remake, the game still uses sprites for characters and the battlegrounds, but instead of having the ability to freely rotate the map, you can instead tilt the map overhead for a bird's eye view to plan your next move. And in the process, it looks like the maps actually are 3D models textured to look like sprites. One of the final maps in the story is a translucent bridge situated over a glowing pit, and you can actually adjust the camera to look into the pit for no reason other than it looks cool. Spells also have been given a visual overhaul as have the weather effects in battle.

It might be a little jarring to have such advanced effects shown alongside sprites and pixel artwork, but they at least put the PSP’s hardware to work with these.

The biggest difference this version has to its prior incarnations or its siblings is how different the class system is. Instead of individual characters having their own character level and class level, the classes themselves level up and characters no longer have a personal level. If you have Warrior at 22 and change Denam from a level 5 Wizard to one, his level jumps to 22. More characters of one class fielded at the same time level faster, as do people of a lower level than the average.

It's an interesting system on paper, but it's got more than a few issues. While you can take a new character and stuff them into a leveled class to use immediately, you'll have to babysit anyone who switches to a new class since they'll be stuck using weaker gear until they get back up to speed, due to everything having a minimum level to use. Classes don't unlock too often so you'll have to decide if what new things the class can bring to the group are worth the trouble of grinding the characters back to effectiveness. EXP and SP are rewarded once the battle is won and it doesn't seem to matter what anyone on your side does to affect the final number, so you're not penalized for someone being dead weight. Battles where you have to kill the enemy leader can be useful for quick EXP/SP, but random battles never have these conditions.

Characters have personal reserves of SP used to unlock new skills and up to ten slots to stick into them. Skills either boost stats, like boosting defense or max HP or boosting ranged evasion, or they grant passive bonuses like weapon skills or racial skills boosting the damage done with said weapon/against said race, or they enable the use of certain spells like Fire Magic or Dark Magic, or they give your unit class-specific actions like Fearful Impact or Speedstar. New skills unlock slowly as that class levels, but not all of them can be transferred to other classes.

Some skills slowly rank up as you use them and weapon skills are no different. You’re encouraged to get at least one weapon skill up to 2 for every character to unlock heavily-damaging Finishers, so you can burst down tanky targets or other dangerous foes.

Unlike in FFT where you can reasonably allow your characters to access the skills of prior jobs so you could have a Knight with Black Magick abilities, here skills and spells and equipment is a lot more rigid. A Knight and a Cleric can both use Divine Magic to heal allies, but only the Cleric can use resurrection magic. A Knight can use Axes and 1H Swords, while the Cleric can't. They both can use Hammers, but only female Clerics get the sole Hammer the class can use. You kinda need to plan out your characters to minimize wasted SP. While it's not in short supply, it can be frustrating to want to try something new with an old character and then have several of their skills not apply to the new class. There is one special class that can use almost everything any other one class can use, but only one character can use it and it comes at a heavy cost, as well as said class learning nothing naturally. Think Freelancer or Onion Knight from Final Fantasy proper.

Combat is speed-based like in FFT. Each class has a base Recovery Time as well as how much RT is added per panel of move. Then this is all factored against the weight of the equipment you have on and the RT of the weapon. Unique characters (either fully unique or named generics) almost always have lower base RT than generics, on top of some having unique classes and dialog opportunities in some battles. Every class has HP for living and TP to fuel special abilities and weapon finishers that unlock once the related weapon skill is at least rank 2, but some have MP which start at 0 to prevent anyone from using their strongest spells on turn one, the same way FFTA2 does it. You're given a turn order on the bottom of the screen so you can try to manipulate the battlefield to your advantage, such as seeing if a character might be within range to kill a healer before they can act.

But if things wind up not going your way, another new feature to the game is the Chariot Tarot, an in-game turn rewinding feature. This unlocks in your first non-tutorial battle and allows you to rewind up to 50 turns backwards, and it even saves the 'alternate timelines' you created in that battle so if your original plan turned out better, you can jump back to it. The game records your use of this but you can do a same-turn Chariot free of charge, to perhaps try to aim a projectile spell another way or if an attack you needed to hit got dodged. The game points out that repeating the same actions the same way will only bear the same results, so if an Archer is having trouble landing an arrow for example, it might be worth it to same-turn Chariot by firing from every different tile in range until you make your mark.

I didn’t test to see how many alternate timelines you could make, but having the ability to rewind at all is pretty handy.

There are three story routes across four chapters, but they branch off instead of being three full stories from beginning to end. There is one Chapter 1, there are two Chapter 2s, three Chapter 3s, and one Chapter 4 where they all converge again. Law route has no branches, but Chaos can branch into Neutral at the end of Chapter 2. Each branch has its own story sequences, but the roles characters play in them might change. Someone who is an ally on one route might be an enemy on another, someone may live or die or even be recruitable depending on how you go.

Once you finish the game, you gain access to the World Tarot, which allows you to travel time forward and backward, jumping to Anchor Points while you keep your gear and roster. There are several Anchor Points sprinkled through each route's chapters, but you can't merely jump to a specific story battle at-will. Don't go back to the start of the game and expect to zero-effort everyone you find though, as enemies will now scale to your level and their gear will too. The World Tarot gives you an opportunity to replay story battles or to tackle another route too. Beating the game also unlocks the CODA section of the game, four short but new chapters made originally as DLC for this version of the game, baked into the release we got here. Progress through CODA requires certain characters to be considered alive by the timeline used to access it, so you may need to replay a good portion of the game to make the new timeline 'canon'.

You still experience the routes as if you were playing them the first time, so Denam won’t try to change history even further. Though one chapter in CODA does meddle with history to save a friend...

When not fighting on the battlefield, you can buy new wares in shops, recruit new people in shops, or craft new items if you have the recipes and materials. Crafting can make very powerful equipment even early on, but the biggest caveat is that the process is very tedious. You need to make advanced versions of materials one step at a time, and it's entirely possible that something will fail and you'll lose the materials in the process. I believe one piece of Wootz Steel takes over 30 steps and again, there's the failure risk to consider. You will be save-scumming quite a bit when it comes to crafting.

You can also auction off recruited monsters for money that you can then turn around and use to buy the meat and other items processed from their bodies! Somehow it’s even worse than FFT’s Poach/Secret Hunt because you’re doing this to members of your own team...

The last option accessed on the map is the Warren Report. This is like the Brave Story of FFT, but it allows you to replay cutscenes as well as see an overall timeline of when events happen, and it has bios of damn near everyone you meet and fight and kill. And they're not one-liners either--some enemies are nth generation knights or one pirate is actually pregnant (and you killed her, you monster), and so on. The Warren Report also holds all of the Titles you earn naturally by playing or by doing specific side goals (so Achievements basically), as well as tracking the number of battles fought, Chariot Tarot uses, number of escapes, number of allied KOs, number of allied deaths, and how many people you've killed as well as to which clan they were affiliated. And finally, it functions as a music player.

War is hell. All of those people you kill aren’t just faceless goons. Just...the ones with names are the only people who show up here as opposed to every generic person having a bio.

The music in this version has been given a full orchestral overhaul, given the 70-some names used in the credits for all the instruments, and several songs have been lengthened and given new parts. The Warren Report also lists composer notes about the tracks, saying what kind of mood they were going for or talking about how difficult it was to get specific instruments to meld together. The game has a percentage unlocked stat for the songs and I want to believe that most of them unlock by hearing them and winning the battles where they play, but at least one is unlocked by the Titles you earn.

Okay, so that's Tactics Ogre. Move your troops around the battlefield killing people until you win, then move onto the next map. Buy or make new gear and spells and buy skills to keep your team in top shape, and experience the story across three different routes.

It’s been a while since I last went through FFT, but it didn’t show you dead civilians a few times, did it?

What's good? There's a lot of content here. You can be sated with a one-and-done like I've done, but if you want to do everything in this game, you might want to set aside a couple hundred hours. There's a bunch of side quests and extra dungeons, and one of them is even 115 battles long. And you need to do that one in one go or you have to start over, but at least you can save between the fights this time. And to get the most out of it, you need to do it more than once. Yeah. There is a lot to do here, to the point where I'd say that no other FFT can come close. I hope you like grid-based turn-based RPG tactical goodness because this game is full of it.

And variety too. There are a bunch of different weapons for each type, a bunch of spells for each element, a bunch of skills for each class, and a bunch of classes for each race. Even monsters have classes! Though Golems and Dragons really only get to change, but demihumans like Reptiles and Orcs get access to some classes Humans can use, while they also get classes only they can use too. And then you have Hawkmen who scoff at terrain differences and can fly everywhere, but they can only use a handful of classes.

I'm a fan of the music. I now wake to the Warren Report theme as opposed to E.S. Battle from Xenosaga Episode II like I have for the past forever. And speaking of sound, the death cries are pretty lacking, especially compared to the PS1 FFT's anguished screams, but that can be ignored...even if you hear them quite a bit.

If you're into customizing your troops, then this game will definitely scratch that itch, even with the restrictions on the skills I mentioned above. There is actually a strategy revolving around recruiting enemies off the field in order to get their gear and to get their skills. When enemies die in this game, they leave either a bag of loot containing some of their gear or valuable coins, or they leave a tarot card that increases stats of whoever picks it up and said card becomes a usable item in combat. Instead of crystals you pick up to learn skills, you instead intentionally kill these recruits and then Scavenge their skills onto someone compatible. And this doesn't get into the ridiculousness of Snapdragons or Cursed Weapons either, of which I didn't touch at all.

There is some good scriptwork here too, though it has the same quasi semi-Elizabethan/Medieval bent the way War of the Lions did.

What's bad? Strangely, I felt like at least Chapter 4 dragged on a little too long, and that doesn't even count the multi-stage final dungeon. This wasn't the first time my interest flagged since at least two other runs have gotten to the final dungeon and I just...stopped. I imagine part of it was due to me somewhat rushing through the game (at a snail's pace?) and just wanting to finally be done with it this time, but I kinda dreaded the final part of the game since I knew it'd take a while--but I was wrong there.

There are several fights where you're unable to leave, sort of like Riovanes in FFT. You assault the castle's gates, then you enter the courtyard, then you break into the throne room, etc. You can always save into another slot in case things go south, but then you have nothing to show for your efforts other than a little bit of knowledge for the next try and a need to get levels/gear/skills up to snuff. The final dungeon is also set up this way, with maybe 12 fights if you don't take any shortcuts, and that many more you have to plow through if your team can't take on the last enemies. At least it's a nice touch that there are sometimes alternate routes to the same goal, and yes the Warren Report tracks each of these different approaches if you’re a completionist.

I mentioned crafting's tediousness, but that's at least optional. A major gripe I had with the shop was the inability to compare the stats between the gear my people had on with what the store was offering. So I'd save, buy a few things, go to the Party menu, compare, maybe reload the save and buy less or different things... I get that it's a remake, but a Fitting Room option really would not have hurt this game one bit. Because each tier of gear gives boosts to different stats, it's hard to tell how effective something would be until it's in your hands, and I found money tight enough that I couldn't just keep a copy of every weapon and armor on hand just for this reason. You can use the page feature to see if whichever class is leveled enough to use the item in question, but there's no stat comparison and stats are kind of important here.

It would have been amusing for people you kicked out to get revenge, but this never happens.

I didn’t like how you still couldn’t see your starting position and the enemy before you commit to battle, the same way that FFT did it but not either FFTA. Being able to change your gear or classes or skills or so on this way would’ve been a nice quality of life change, if to just make things a little less tedious. Like knowing if you should keep your regular gear on or swap to Baldur while diving into the Palace of the Dead, to exploit Baldur doing heavy damage to the undead.

So yeah. Tactics Ogre is pretty good. I think I still prefer the FFTs more but this isn't bad. It still plays like its sibling games, just the differences can trip you up a bit if you don't adjust to how TO works its classes and all. I think FFT and all are more accessible and more flexible, but if you've interest in other games like them, then Tactics Ogre is definitely worth a try. It'll keep you busy for a while, especially if you decide to dive into all of the content here.

Final stats.

#playstation portable #recommended

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cyberhai · 3 years ago

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1. When did you first get into tf2?

I randomly remembered one of my eighth grade classmates recommending it to me, so I downloaded it last November to see what it was all about.

2. What class do you main?

MEDIC!!!! I play a lot of Heavy too, and my Demo skills are slowly getting less sucky.

3. Favorite character ?

Medic, Heavy, and Engie. Which is ironic, seeing as I have literally zero hours as Engie.

4. Least favorite weapon?

Bonesaw is lame. All hail the Ubersaw.

5. Casual or competitive ?

Casual, I’m waaaaay too green to touch competitive atm.

6. PvP or PvE?

Depends on your teammates.

7. How did you get into tf2?

Like I said earlier, remembered one of my old classmates telling me it was fun, so I decided to try and download it on my school laptop. But it was super laggy, I didn’t have a mouse, and I LITERALLY had never touched a FPS game before (except for the two rounds of fortnite I tried to play with my cousins back in 2019) so I had no idea what was going on. “Played” for maybe ten minutes then quit. Returned my school laptop at the end of the semester. Then I started actually “researching” the game. Watched the “meet the team” shorts, watched player tutorials, read the wiki, etc. I quickly fell in love with the characters and the storyline and became determined to play again. By the time I bought my own laptop, in January, I was rarin’ to go.

8. What’s your favorite comic?

#6 babyyyyy

9. How many hours do you have?

Unfortunately only 51 so far. I’d play a lot more if it wasn’t for school and work and the great outdoors, also staring at a computer for longer than like two hours gives me headaches.

10. Do you have a favorite map?

Upward!

11. What’s your favorite cosmetic?

B̵̥̪̐̌͜͠U̴̗̲͔̩̤͓̟̞̝͑̿̚R̴̢̻̘̝̟̓́̑͊L̸̨̧̤̰̘͙̐̍͑͆̍͘̚͘Y̴̧̤̏͆͊͌̋̉͒̋ ̵̢̱̰̤̖̙͍͓̭̑̐̆̈́̾͝͝B̷͍̦̮̥̣̌͝E̵̛̦͋À̶̩͔̀͒̄͠S̷̡̥̼̞̜͂͆͆́̅T̷̠́̋̓̎̔. And Your Worst Nightmare.

12. Have you ever been vote kicked?

Not yet. I’m programming a meme soundboard rn though, so we’ll see.

13. Which is better Halloween or Smissmass?

I have yet to experience an ingame Halloween. But Halloween is my favorite holiday irl.

14. Favorite community servers?

I haven’t tried one yet (someone please send me server recs)

15. Favorite Sfm? (official or fan made)

Story of a Sentry makes me cry. I watch Meet the Medic every day to hype myself up. Pootis Engage: Extreme is the most gorgeously animated weeb trash shitpost I have ever seen. A Bloody Australian Christmas makes me laugh my ass off. Requiem for a Pizza 2, Burning Through Space 2 and Spy’s Disguise are probably my absolute favorites.

16. Least favorite character?

I hate on Scout for the memes, but I can’t pick a least favorite. I love them all to death.

17. What’s your most played class?

MMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDIIIIIIIIIIICCCCCCCCC

18. Funniest thing you’ve done in game?

Will revisit this question once I’ve gotten my phone fixed and played with a meme soundboard. I’ve started some serverwide dance parties, but that’s about it. Also got in a joking argument on text chat over whether or not I was a bottom.

19. Worst match you’ve ever played?

One of the first ones I ever played when I actually got into the game in January. It was like my second time ever playing as Medic and this one scout on my team would not stop cussing me out and calling me a retard and shit for not being able to heal him wherever he was on the map. So the next time he ran up to me, burning to death and hitting the E key like it was his wife, I simply stood there and watched while he lost his shit. No nice, no heals.

20. What your dream loadout?

I have already achieved my dream loadout for Medic. I call it “The Sex Police.”

21. Have you ever played team fortress classic?

Not yet, but I wanna.

22. Favorite voiceline?

“Russian tooth fairy is here for all your TEEEEEEEEEEEEEETH!!!!!”

23. Have you ever quit tf2 for a while?

Please see question seven

24. Any unpopular opinions abt the game/fandom?

I personally don’t ship Heavy and Medic. Is it a good ship? Hell yeah! They’ve got the chemistry, they’re an epic duo, the fanart is adorable(and occasionally traumatizing) and I respect the hell outta the ship. They’re just personally my brOTP.

25. Are you more into the fandom or the game itself?

Yes.

26. Favorite clip? (of yourself or someone else)

https://youtu.be/QsKZEh_ButI?list=PLUBJ7CTt-NK5O1CDpkFhU8bEQFaa_7Rpv

27. Favorite thing about tf2 in general?

I love the mercs so, so, so so much. They’re like my batshit found family. I love the goofy ass fandom, the characters you run into in the game, the story, the soundtrack, the everything. TF2 is powering me through 2022.

EDIT: BEFORE ANYONE COMES AT ME FOR USING THE R WORD ON #19 I’VE GOT AUTISM I’M NOT A 12 YEAR OLD EDGELORD I SWEAR

Fuck it tf2 ask game!

1. When did you first get into tf2?

2. What class do you main?

3. Favorite character ?

4. Least favorite weapon?

5. Casual or competitive ?

6. PvP or PvE?

7. How did you get into tf2?

8. What’s your favorite comic?

9. How many hours do you have?

10. Do you have a favorite map?

11. What’s your favorite cosmetic?

12. Have you ever been vote kicked?

13. Which is better Halloween or Smissmass?

14. Favorite community servers?

15. Favorite Sfm? (official or fan made)

16. Least favorite character?

17. What's your most played class?

18. Funniest thing you've done in game?

19. Worst match you've ever played?

20. What your dream loadout?

21. Have you ever played team fortress classic?

22. Favorite voiceline?

23. Have you ever quit tf2 for a while?

24. Any unpopular opinions abt the game/fandom?

25. Are you more into the fandom or the game itself?

26. Favorite clip? (of yourself or someone else)

27. Favorite thing about tf2 in general?

#tf2 #veteran players hmu #team fortress 2

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waynekelton · 6 years ago

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Review: Silent Abyss: Fate of Heroes

Mobile card games are a dime a dozen. When the genre is plagued with so many different versions of what equates to the same game, it becomes difficult to tell why you'd want to pick up one of the newcomers that seem to spring up every day on the App Store and Google Play Store.

The same can be said of Silent Abyss: Fate of Heroes. Why would anyone want to spend a buck or so on yet another action-oriented card game with zero discernible story to speak of? That's easy: Despite its shortcomings, it's actually an extremely fun and gripping game that puts up an addictive challenge. It may be rough around the edges, but it certainly scratches that itch that games like Slay the Spire inspire.

It's easy to assume that, when starting up Silent Abyss, you've wasted your cash on a game that didn't even bother correcting its numerous English spelling mistakes or offer meaningful tutorial levels, just throwing you in and tossing you to the wolves. And while you'd be right on one level, as its production values are quite low in this regard, you'd be ill-advised to simply write it off. Silent Abyss has a lot to offer, but you've got to be willing to work for it.

We mean that – there is no hand-holding beyond brief explanations in the heat of battle. You’d better make full use of the tutorial screens, because they disappear shortly after, leaving you to try and work out what’s going on and accidentally winning a round by playing similarly to other card games you know and play.

Starting a new game will find you tasked with choosing two heroes from pre-set options at the beginning of the game: a Mage, Knight, or Warrior, each with their own decks of cards and unique stats, including HP. You choose two, as you’ll play with two different hands per turn. This can be jarring at first, but you get used to it quickly since it means double the moves and getting bored far less often. Each turn consists of dragging a card from your decks to the enemies or your heroes, buffing and debuffing with spells and abilities as necessary, setting traps for the next turn, or dealing devastating damage so you can emerge victorious. That’s the goal, after all.

One interesting aspect of this particular title, however, is that instead of being relegated to being able to play only one offensive or defensive card, you can continue playing additional attack cards, abilities, and defense cards until you run out of mana. That means if you want to play five or six cards among your two characters, that’s sometimes entirely possible. It does make matches go by quickly but can also be quite confusing if you’re used to more rigid and traditional rules of play.

As you continue on throughout the game, there are additional heroes to unlock, including the Warlock, Assassin, and Archer. Each come packing their own unique skillsets, but they’re all mostly the same until you start earning additional cards and better ways to customize them. You’ll begin to learn which cards work for you and which don’t make as much sense in your deck as you become acquainted with your playstyle.

Each new game is split into a series of short levels. As you make your way through each level, you'll branch off into different paths. Some include treasure in the form of new cards, runes, or gold. You can imbue certain cards with runes, which can add additional effects such as the Burning status effect, or even something that siphons health with a successful attack. You'll also nab the reward at the end of the path. You can opt to go the easier route for an easier chance at spoils, but you'll have to deal with tougher enemies, and you may be looking at starting over again because of it, because you’ll have died. Again and again, sometimes, until you really get the hang of things.

Dying isn't a problem, though. When you die and have to start over, you earn all that experience that levels up you team. This will unlock additional starting cards and accessories beyond pre-sets so you can truly customize each character's role beyond their starting point. It's all quite simplistic, and there isn't a lot to explore here that you probably haven't seen before already in other, bigger games with more ambition, It's addictive to keep playing and see how you end up doing, but there's no real pull toward the end beyond the simple desire to just play.

In fact, that’s Silent Abyss's biggest problem: there's no real reason to keep playing beyond personal satisfaction. It's mostly bereft of story and relies on the player's desire to become stronger to reinforce the gameplay loop. This may work for some people, but we found it a bit lacklustre and indicative of the game's lower quality than other titles in the genre. It could use some overall polish, resolving broken English here and there, adding more flavor text, and even more cards to liven things up.

As it stands, Silent Abyss is a fun, simple card battler with roguelike elements for a buck. Sure, it's cheap, a little rough, and devoid of some of the niceties of other games in the genre. But if you're looking for something nice and easy to keep you occupied when you've got a few minutes at a time, Silent Abyss is a choice it's not difficult to recommend. Should it receive a healthy dose of TLC from its developer in the future, it could become a great contender for the heavy-hitters in card battlers on mobile devices.

At the time of writing, despite being a premium game Silent Abyss comes with two IAPs:

Unlock Hero - Warlock ($0.99)

Unlock Hero - Archer ($0.99)

These are shortcuts to two of the unlock-able classes.

Review: Silent Abyss: Fate of Heroes published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

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isearchgoood · 6 years ago

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November 03, 2018 at 10:01PM - The Complete Mobile App & Game Development Kit (88% discount) Ashraf

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matthoerig · 7 years ago

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Game of the Year 2017: What it is? And what isn't it?

2017 was an amazing year for games. My numbered list couldn't be cut down below 16 in good conscience, and I felt like with that number I might as well shout out a couple of trends or themes I appreciated, and that swelled the list to 18, but with about 8 more games listed among those two new entries. It will make more sense when I publish my list. But what is my list?

My Game of the Year list is largely inconsequential. It's a way for me to reflect and collect my thoughts on the games I played in the prior year. It's heavily focused on games that were released in the year in question, but 2017 has really put that to the test. Prior years saw me keep a spot open for Hearthstone because I've continued to play it almost daily since its release in 2014 (and before given its time in closed and open beta). The same goes for iOS title Marvel Puzzle Quest, and both of those games have been the tip of the spear for games that are released and supported continuously with new content and changes to gameplay. PlayerUnknown's BattleGrounds started down that path from Steam's Early Access in 2017 before even being officially released. While it's scheduled to exit Early Access in December, would I not include it on my list because of an arbitrary version number given that it dominated the gaming conversation for a huge chunk of the year and I played a lot of it AND had a ton of fun with it?

While my game of the year list is focused on titles from 2017, it's ultimately MY game of the year list – a reflection on games that were available to be played and that made some kind of a positive impression on me in this year.

What my Game of the Year list isn't in 2017 is comprised of any of the following games. These are games I played some of, but not enough to make a final ranked decision about. This doesn't mean I've finished everything on my GotY list, but I feel like I've played enough to have an informed opinion about it. So here's my partially annotated, unranked list of games that didn't make the cut.

What Remains of Edith Finch

Torment: Tides of Numenera

Cosmic Star Heroine

Prey

Resident Evil 7

These are all single player titles with play times ranging from a few hours to dozens and dozens of hours. I either didn't have time to start them despite wanting to (Edith Finch, Prey) or started and played just the barest minimum before getting distracted by something even more awesome (Torment, Cosmic Star), or just wimped out because I was too scared to keep playing (RE7)

Splatoon 2

Mario Kart 8

Puyo Puyo Tetris

Three fun Switch games that I just didn't play as much as three other games that did make the list. Fun and nothing at all wrong with them.

Halo Wars 2

Ghost Recon Wildlands

Tactical military shooter and console-ified real times trategy title that I had a lot of fun with for literally an hour or so each. I suspect Wildlands will get mentioned elsewhere in anotehr contect but wanted to shout it out here too.

LA Noire Remastered

Final Fantasy XII – The Zodiac Age

Two remasters, one of a PS2 game I never finished and one of an Xbox 360-era title I finished the main story, every side quest, and found like 85% of all dumb collectibles. They both look much better in HD (4k and HDR for LA Noire), but FFXII gets a bit more credit for making some improvements to the older gameplay elements. La Noire is just a visually enhanced version of the previously released game.

Gwent

Elder Scrolls Legends

Collectible card games in the vein of Heathstone that have both held my attention for periods of time, but never captured my attention the same way. ESL is still installed on my iPad, and both are on my PC (there's no mobile version of Gwent yet).

Nier: Automata

I'll be honest, I have zero interest in playing Nier: Automata even though people who I greatly respect have said laudatory things about the themes it explores and the impact it has had on them, but I don't like the look of the action and playing through it seems like a slog. If it ever comes to Playstation Plus or Xbox Games with Gold, MAYBE I'll download it for when I've played through every other game I own.

West of Loathing

Assassin's Creed: Origins

I lied that this list was unranked. These two are my favorite of the games that didn't make my too big final list, but I haven't played enough of them to, in good faith, put them both anywhere on the list. West of Loathing is a traditional RPG by the people who made the text-heavy Kingdom of Loathing web based multiplayer game. It's quirky, charming, and legitimately funny which is not common in games. The problem is I'm so paranoid about missing something funny or interesting, that I've played for almost 80 minutes and not left the starting tutorial area. I'm reasonably sure the developers would claim there's not an hour's worth of stuff to do or see in the opening area. I just can't get past my own weird hangup and leave.

Assassin's Creed: Origins suffered a bit from a similar problem, plus it was released on the same day as two other games that fared pretty well on my ranked list. The pull of those games plus the knowledge that Origins was a huge game and had 4k and HDR upgrades for the Xbox One X made it easy to set aside until that system launched in mid-November. I've since gone back and played 8-9 hours of the game, but I'm having so much fun exploring the world and doing side quests that I've seen almost nothing of the main story. The year away for the franchise has done it good – the climbing is more puzzle-focused than in recent prior iterations and the addition of an RPG-like loot system freshened up combat for me. I adore what I've played so far but realize I've barely scratched the surface.

Game of the Year 2017

As always – spoilers ahead.

18. Sports Games I Enjoyed (Madden NFL 18, MLB The Show 17, and Fire Pro World Wrestling)

I play sports games every year, and Madden 18 and MLB The Show 17 stand out for making their card collection-based modes not just palatable, but actually engaging for someone who plays primarily single player games. Both made the expected forward progress in terms of visual fidelity and gameplay improvements. Madden 18's Madden Ultimate Team has slowly evolved into THE reason I play the game, collecting players from card packs to earn in-game currency to buy more card packs to get better players and on and on into infinity. The number and types of quests (called "Challenges") is greatly improved, and ranges from single play quests to completing one drive to playing a full game. It's the perfect way to kill a few minutes or an hour and feel in either case like you're making progress and improving. MLB The Show 17 comes almost as far with its Diamond Dynasty mode, improving on the "Conquest" mode and having more ways to collect and improve on the players in your binder.

Also on my annual play list are the WWE games from 2k. These are bad games – they play poorly, don't look good, and haven't improved in at least 7 years. Fire Pro World Wrestling, a Japanese-developed game in Early Access on Steam, eschews any professional wrestling league licensing to focus on 16-bit style gameplay and customization. The inclusion of Steam Workshop support means a dedicated community has already sprung up around the game to fill the gap from not having any license to create literally thousands of custom characters that not only look like their real-world counterparts, but behave as them too thanks to deep move set and logic customization.

17. Live Games (Hearthstone/Elder Scrolls Online/Marvel Puzzle Quest/Typeshift/Hitman/The Division)

The way we play games has changed phenomenally in the past few years, and there may be no more vicious fight coming than the fight for player retention by making your game "sticky." I have played Hearthstone almost every day since it was in beta, and the just-launched Kobolds and Catacombs expansion introduces a new single player mode that has me playing even more often than I anticipated it would. I have played Marvel Puzzle Quest every day for over 960 days. Elder Scrolls Online launched a few years ago and took some time to find its footing, but multiple content updates and refinements made it a game I played for several months and have every intention of playing more of for the foreseeable future. The same goes for The Division. Typeshift is another mobile game like MPQ, with daily challenges and multiple post-launch updates. Hitman launched last year and was damn near my Game of the Year, and got another mini-campaign late in this year after the developer, IO Interactive, worked out ownership of the IP after a split from their publisher and former owner, Square Enix. Season 2 is slated for 2018 and I couldn't be more excited. As long as game makers and publishers find a way to provide meaningful updates, both free and paid, there's no reason to write off games released in prior years as meaningless in the current conversation.

16. Horizon: Zero Dawn

Guerrilla Games, makers of the PlayStation exclusive first-person shooter series Killzone, made an open world game. I was never a big fan of Killzone, and the thought of the same people used to making a corridor shooter set on futuristic alien worlds making a third-person open world game set in a more natural, "futuristic native" setting with bows and arrows and spears and robot dinosaurs...I was not sure this would be up my alley. Not only does the game run well and look gorgeous, but the story of Aloy and her society and how the world they inhabit became what it is (with robot dinosaurs!) is pretty great. There's a bit here that seems to familiar, like stealth in tall grass being overpowered. I also found the combat to be rote, repetitive, and challenging more in its pacing than its design, but the characterization of Aloy and the people in her world is fantastic.

15. Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle

Ubisoft created the Rabbids to be the Minions, those ubiquitous, irritating yellow creatures, before the Minions were an afterthought in a bad kids' movie. Mixing them up in a world with Nintendo's beloved characters from the Mushroom Kingdom seemed like a weird decision for Nintendo...and it seemed even weirded when it was revealed to be an XCOM-style turn based tactical strategy game where Mario gets a blaster and Luigi gets a sniper rifle. Again, it shouldn't work, but "Mario in a simplified XCOM game" is pretty great. The turn-based challenges mix mobility options with those XCOM tactics in a simplified manner to be more of a puzzle game, where there's a right answer to how to complete the scenario with your tools the "right" way. Exploring the overworld and finding alternate paths and collectibles is fun, but the whole game sticks around just a biiiiiiiit too long to be considered exceptional.

14. Injustice 2

Injustice 2 is a better Justice League story than the Justice League movie. NetherRealm, makers of Mortal Kombat and the series' previous entry, Injustice: Gods Among Us, goes back to the well of DC characters split along the lines of totalitarian prick Superman and brutal, anything goes resistance leader Batman again, plus they added collectible loot with cosmetic changes and stat bonuses that can push you to trying a new style or enhance the way you already play. As some who is terrible at fighting games, the story was fun and the rotating challenge towers gave me enough reasons to keep coming bac k for a while, earning more loot to spec out my Batman, Robin, Harley Quinn, Robin, or Supergirl the way I wanted.

Superman is still a prick.

13. Golf Story

It's been a long time since we had a good golf game – EA's golf series was in decline before Tiger Woods's...troubles...and has never really recovered. The Golf Club and its sequel have tried to be the realistic golf replacement people are looking for. But what if we didn't really want realistic golf, but old school three click meters in a 16-bit style reminiscent of JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Earthbound? The golfing is passable, the story is a little cliché for a 16-bit style RPG, and the characters and quests are nothing special. Altogether, it all combines to be more than the sum of its parts. This may be due to the initial dearth of games on the Switch, but I enjoyed my time with it nonetheless.

12. Hidden Folks

This mobile gem is the result of someone who grew up on Where's Waldo taking advantage of the technology available today and making a deviously difficult version of that game that uses the interactivity of modern touchscreens. I feel like this is one game where the less said the better, except to say that you should fight the urge to move on from one area until you've found everything in one place. It's the most rewarding mobile experience I had this year.

11. Pyre

Supergiant Games has made three games, and I've loved each one more than the last. Bastion's story was fantastic with lauded twin stick shooter gameplay that didn't connect with me. Transistor moved more towards tactical gameplay and retained the writing I loved from Bastion. Pyre finally mixes an engaging, moving, meaningful story about relationships and redemption with gameplay that works beyond its elevator pitch of "Blitzball from Final Fantasy VII with three characters." Each character you recruit brings new tactical options, opens up the story, and challenges you to find new ways to maximize your team's abilities. Pyre not making my top 10 games of the year is a testament to how amazing 2017 was that a game I loved this much has an eleven next to its name.

10. Persona 5

Persona 5 might be the game I've played the most, with over 100 hours logged in one playthrough. There's a part of me that wants to go back and see sidequests I missed, take different paths with party member affinity, and just spend more time in this world. The problems are there are too many good games, and the story is split between meaningful allegory for free-thinking and control and what can be generously called "complete anime bullshit." This isn't a surprise – it's exactly what you sign up for when starting a Persona game. The game does have an undeniably sense of style in its look and sound, meaning I'm sure I'll come back to it someday.

9. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

If I was surprised that Persona 5 and Pyre were so low on my Game of the Year list, I'm honestly stunned The Legend of Zelda isn't my Game of the Year. It's an incredible game, breaking conventions that have been part of the series since it debuted in the 80s. Nintendo, for all their failures to adopt modern conventions in online account structures and old game sales and cross generation purchase support, have made what may be the first true next generation open world game. Systems layer upon systems in a way that interact smartly and naturally and encourage exploration and experimentation. Shrines dotted throughout the world provide for bite sized chunks of gameplay and also invite hours of exploration to keep finding more. The gripe that sticks with me, and it's an intensely personal one, is that I HATE weapon durability, which is implemented here in a way that encourages weapon experimentation. Despite the best possible use of this type of system, I still hate it.

8. Tacoma

The game studio that made Gone Home is back with their sophomore effort and made another game similar to Gone Home. As opposed to Gone Home's early 90s Pacific Northwest setting, Tacoma is set on space station Tacoma, allowing for a slightly less linear experience. You play as a contractor sent by the Venturis Corporation to retrieve AI data the physical core of the station's AI after some kind of accident. During your time on the station, you can use your own AR interface to relive the last days of the station crew and piece together what happened before they went missing. These AR scenes play out across constrained spaces, but with different crew members interacting at the same time in different areas; the station engineer and botanist may be having a conversation in the rec room while the administrator dictates a letter back to Venturis in her office and three others are planning the evening's dinner. You're free to pause, rewind, and fast forward these conversations and move about with the participants as you see fit. Not only do you pick up bits and pieces of the main mystery, but your freedom allows you to rifle through these people's lives and find out who was in love with whom, who missed a long deceased sister, and who was working every connection he had left to find another job – any other job – away from the station. It was one of these "optional" areas where I turned on a character's radio and heard the song "Driving" by Floating Room which may end up as my favorite song of 2017. It's a wonderful song on its own, and also perfectly placed by the folks at Fullbright in this place and this moment. It was these quiet moments I enjoyed the most, although the strong cyberpunk narrative spoke to me as well. Tacoma didn't have the same personal level impact as Gone Home, but I think its overall message hits harder and shows a novel approach to storytelling in games.

7. XCOM 2: War of the Chosen

A brief history lesson – X-COM was a 90s PC game that I played for hours with my friend Kyle. It had a turn-based strategy layer where you tried to guide a squad of soldiers in repelling an alien invasion. IT was hard. X-COM 2: Terror from the Deep was that game's sequel, set underwater. In 2012, Firaxis, the people behind the Civilization games, resurrected the franchise as XCOM: Enemy Unknown and it was very well received. The released an expansion pack named XCOM: Enemy Within which was good and added missions and maps and some new enemy types and new solider types for your squad, a new enemy faction, and new story missions. It was generally well received too. XCOM 2 was released in February of 2016 and made some more incremental upgrades – new soldier and enemy types, a brand-new campaign story where humans lost the first XCOM war and you are now overseeing a human resistance, and some new mechanics around squad concealment and mission/campaign timers. It was, again, generally well received but my impression of it and its reception was along the lines of "This feels like another expansion pack." That's a bit unfair, as a lot changed, but it didn't have the feel of drastic change.

This year's XCOM 2 expansion, War of the Chosen, feels revolutionary. I hopped back in after not having played much (at all, maybe?) since the winter of 2016. War of the Chosen doesn't just add new factions and soldier types for both you and your opponents, but deep stories around them and systems upon systems upon systems that govern how you and your soldiers interact with the world, prioritize missions, and generally think about and play the game. I was enjoying myself with it but feeling a little overwhelmed, so I did a quick Google search for expansion-specific info and tips. I found one key video from Eurogamer.com that spelled out 112 new things from this expansion. War of the Chosen launches as its own executable. For my money, War of the Chosen is XCOM 3 and may be the game on this list I come back to the most often from this list. Enabling that is the ability to create a character pool, ensuring my new recruits are named after friends, family, and people I follow in the gaming industry. There's a certain satisfaction above and beyond just finishing a mission when you're able to bring home your best friend, cigarette and all, and his clutch grenade landed the final blow on the final enemy, or destroyed that alien's cover to allow someone else to take a better shot.

6. Destiny 2

Destiny 2 occupies a weird place, where it will probably have a place on this list for many years as one of those "live games" I mentioned all the way back in item #17, like 2,100 words ago. For many players, the original Destiny launched to great hype, disappointed, and rallied thanks to post-launch support from developer Bungie. I had a different experience, being excited at the launch as many but quickly realizing my own worsening chronic health condition made playing a game where you are always online and can't pause in the middle of a battle a non-starter. To be fair, this is also a problem for other groups of people like "parents" and "non-crazy people," but it forced me to reevaluate what kinds of games I could play and what experiences like this, which seemed to becoming more normalized, meant for me.

Destiny 2 launched almost a year after I underwent surgery to correct that health problem. What Destiny 2 really is, when viewed with a harsh critical eye, is a mediocre story with a loot grinding treadmill enabled through various types of events that can be done solo or with groups designed to keep that treadmill moving, all supported by some beautiful graphics and tight first-person shooting combat. With the game's first expansion just launched, there's still some unrest in the community about high-level post-game content, but for someone like me who wants to play for a few hours a week, get my few high level guaranteed gear drops, and check in after the weekly reset – it's fine. The fact that I can put in hours grinding for an exotic gun or armor piece means more to me than the frustration of never finding it, or finding it a day before everyone can just buy it from the weekend exotic item vendor. What elevates this for me over games I LOVED like Tacoma and XCOM: WotC is what Destiny 2 represents in terms of the ability to experience a game like this without fear or anxiety beyond my control.

5. Heat Signature

Heat Signature has a simple but effective elevator pitch: Hotline Miami's top down look and combat, but in space in the future and with the ability to pause at any moment to get your bearings and plot your kick-ass next move. This is all enabled by standard weapons of combat like wrenches, swords, and various guns, but also with items that let you teleport (yourself or enemies) or hack electronic systems and turrets or even turn shielded enemies' weapons against them by making sure those shields reflect bullets fired from inside them instead of out. There's a satisfying story and strategy layer that sits above all of this, but the draw is really figuring out if you can stealth your way through a ship, get the cargo you came to steal or hostage you came to rescue, and then escape unseen...or knock out every bastard in your way including the ship's captain and fly his own vessel back to your home. There's even a set of tactical considerations in planning your mission loadout – do you take a grenade launcher to deal with armored enemies you know will be on the ship you're infiltrating, or do you go for the bonus objective of not killing any enemies? Or maybe you don't care about the no killing bonus but don't have a grenade launcher to deal with those armored enemies, so you take a teleporter who can launch enemies into space, and a shotgun that can't pierce their armor but sure as hell can blow up explosive canisters, sending them and you into space where they'll suffocate but you can maneuver your transport pod to pick you up, return you to the enemy ship, and carry on with your mission. I feel like Heat Signature is a game I can play for years and never begin to scratch the surface of what it allows with systems and weapons interaction because I’m just not that creative.

4. Night in the Woods

Night in the Woods can best be described, in terms of gameplay, as a combination 2d walking simulator and adventure game with some slight branching paths. I realize this might not be everyone's bag, but this speaks to me. It also has anthropomorphic animals as its characters in a really unique animation style that makes looking at it for 10-12 hours pleasant. There are some light puzzle elements that were frustrating because I tried to play them on a new, improperly calibrated tv, so the truth is that's on me. These sections also involved finding ghostly musicians who ended up playing a more chill Golgo Bordello-style track in each segment that made it all worth it. All these elements would add up to a game that probably struggled to crack my top 10 this year.

Where Night in the Woods becomes something special is in its treatment of the three main characters, its environment, and the secondary characters. Set in a dying rust belt town, Night in the Woods tells a story centered on Mae – a recent college dropout returned home – and her friends Greg – a loveable burnout – and Bea – an ambitious woman pushed into the family-owned retail business by financial realities. How these three interact in this dying town makes up the core of the game, and I found it all too easy to see myself or parts of myself or alternative versions of myself in each of these main characters, especially having grown up in a dying rust belt town. Even the secondary characters interactions have some weight behind them, from the genuine love and warmth I felt from Mae's mother that was tinged with some serious conflict at time to the two...let's say "yokels" who stand outside a bar and trade empty platitudes about the local sports (I assumed football? I don't recall know if it was ever spelled out) team. Even those two characters, who do nothing else, have a bit of an arc between them.

I think it's unfair to say Night in the Woods has "a message," and more accurate to say it has multiple messages. You may click with some and not others, all of them, or absolutely none of them. For me, a LOT of Night in the Woods hit home. I don't know if I'll ever pick it up and play it again to see paths I didn't take, but what I did see is going to stick with me if I never launch it again.

3. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds

It's hard to ignore a game that's sold 24 million copies and dethroned DOTA 2 as Steam's most concurrently played game. Those two facts would have probably placed PUBG on my Game of the Year list alone, but the fact that I had a blast playing and watching PUBG meant that I couldn't justify it being any lower than 3 on this year's list. And I have such strong feelings about my numbers 1 and 2 games that I can't see anything else having been released that would have topped this.

By now, if you follow games, you know PUBG is a Battle Royale/Hunger Games inspired multiplayer game where 100 players are thrown onto a plane, parachute out over an island, and then scavenge for weapons, armor, and other helpful equipment in an attempt to be the last man or woman standing. In addition to other humans, there are occasional bomb zones that can kill you, and a creeping blue wall of electricity pushing the action towards a more and more constrained circle. I'm terrible at multiplayer shooters, but something about PUBG hooked me. There's never been a multiplayer game like this where I both went into each round expecting to die quickly but walked out of every round, regardless of how I did, tense. I wanted to do well, didn't expect to, but the uncertainty of every encounter just ratcheted the adrenaline up a notch. This is also one of a few games I've enjoyed watching as much as playing, thanks largely to Giant Bomb's regular Murder Island feature. It's a game where watching people play well is as rewarding as watching a squad bumble around on the outskirts of the map, struggle to find weapons or vehicles, and then die due the blue wall. Some of that probably has to do with the squads I was watching, but I still had a hell of a time with PUBG in 2017. And for the record: Solo 5th with one kill once, 5th with 0 kills once, and I doubt I'll ever top either of those rounds. Although it won't be for trying.

2. Super Mario Odyssey and 1. Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus

I have a hard time thinking of these games separately because of how complementary they are in broad strokes. It also doesn't hurt that they were released on the same day (October 27th) and were so good and felt so essential that I felt like I couldn't even think about Assassin's Creed: Origins until I had finished both of these games, and I've loved a lot of Assassin's Creed games.

Super Mario Odyssey is a 3d platformer where our titular hero terrorizes multiple worlds by asking its inhabitants to consider what it means to be "alive" or "conscious" by invading their bodies with the aid of magic hat. Kidding, of course, it's a lighthearted game where Mario's new power is using Cappy, the aforementioned sentient hat, to possess other things in the world (living and not) in order to use those things' means of travel or tools to solve puzzles and reach areas he couldn't have before. This is all done to find Power Moons, some of which are hidden and some of which are out in the open and only hidden behind what creature you need to use to reach them. This is all being done in service of powering up Mario's new ship, the Odyssey, so he can fly after the kidnapped Princess Peach and Bowser to prevent the former's forced marriage to the later. The less said about the story the better, not because it reinforces tired damsel in distress tropes (it does, even if Peach gets a pretty cool "liberated woman who don't need no man" post-credits life), but because it's old and boring. Mario has saved Peach in a million games and will continue to do so as long as Nintendo makes games. Where Odyssey excels is in creating fun worlds to explore where the payer is rewarded for asking "What if I jump here?" Or "Can I use this to get to that and then to here?" The power moons serve as a minor gate to moving from world to world through the story, with seemingly every bit of investigation and exploration resulting in another moon for the player. Odyssey is perfect to fire up for 15 minutes to find a moon or two, or to keep playing for hours because you want o know what's over that hill, or figure out how to get to that rooftop, or find the secret area in this 2d homage to the original Super Mario.

Where Mario's story feels like a tacked-on afterthought to a brilliantly controlling and joyous game, Wolfenstein's story is THE reason to play it. Mechanically, I felt like Wolfenstein 2 was poor to passible, with bad systems for player feedback in its first-person combat, shooting that was okay but unrewarding thanks to bullet sponge enemies, and stealth sections or options that were terribly designed and implemented to the point of being detrimental from the game as a whole. I realize none of this sounds like a Game of the Year write-up, but my god the story this game tells and world it builds screams "Game of the Year 2017" to me.

Where Mario was a lighthearted romp, the lighthearted moments in Wolfenstein come from a gallows humor where the world is in tatters. Picking up directly where Wolfenstein: The New Order left off, the Nazis won Word War II and we're in the 1960s where their control has spread to include the United States. The opening twenty minutes or so show a wheelchair bound BJ Blaskowicz fighting Nazis on his formerly secure commandeered U-Boat home, experiencing flashbacks to his childhood with a racist, wife-beating, anti-Semitic, abusive father, and witnessing the execution of a dear friend at the hands of an equally cartoonish Nazi villain. The rest of the game's combat that I denigrated earlier is absolutely worth enduring, even if on the lowest difficulty, to experience the world and character building Machine Games put into The New Colossus. Major and minor characters have conversations in the halls of your U-Boat, the Eva's Hammer, that flesh out their world and experiences under Nazi occupation. Encountering Grace and Horton are more impactful moments for what they say about building resistance movements and the importance of the act of fighting than more bombastic cutscenes that get more attention, like a jail break gone wrong or a rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, or even a scene somewhere unexpected with THAT Nazi leader and a surprising cameo from a terribly overrated actor. What's even more impressive is not that the unsettling part of Wolfenstein 2 is not asking the question "What if Nazis took over the US" but is in the subtle answer it provides to the question "How can this happen?" The presumed ease with which occupiers are met is shockingly relevant in how the roots of the video game's hypothetical spring from the unpleasant, unreckoned with roots of America's history with white supremacy and the supposition, too easily supported by facts, that oppression of others but comfortable for a ruling white class would go unchecked. Wolfenstein 2's 1960s America is not a funhouse mirror reflecting our current political climate back to us through a distorted lens, it is a microscope examining parts of our history and present that ruling classes try to minimize and gloss over or sweep under the rug.

2017 has been an amazing year in games and, for many, an absolute trash fire in reality where we have to fight the rising tide of global fascism with marches and calls to elected officials whose loyalty to big money donors over constituent wishes is all too clear. Wolfenstein taps into this moment with biting satire – the profile of a "dapper Nazi" and two jackbooted thugs decrying political violence are just two examples where many exist – and a cathartic message that "Things may suck, but you can always find a reason to keep fighting." That's what I'm choosing to take from 2017, and Wolfenstein is the game for its time.

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