Monthly Archives: May 2019

Blog: The Guessing Game of E3 2019 – 05/29/19

In less than two weeks time we’ll be waist deep in the bog that is E3 once again. There are plenty of conversations that we could have about the obsolescence of the conference itself, but for the time being, I just want to scrounge together a sort of wish list for the event. With several companies not attending, including Sony, and the knowledge of a new console generation right around the corner, this year is probably going to be fairly lite in terms of big announcements.

I could probably just write the word “games” over and over, but I just want to hit on like one or two things from each conference that I’d like to see.

MICROSOFT

Microsoft is kicking off E3 with their conference, in what I think could be the most interesting conference of the entire show. It’s no secret that the Xbox One didn’t set the world on fire and was easily overtaken by the PlayStation 4 in terms of market share. Since their rocky launch, they’ve tried to right the ship since then by taking a very pro-consumer stance with their ‘Play Anywhere’ initiative, which allows for Xbox exclusives to be playable on Windows, their push to make online games allow players on any console to play with each other, and my personal favorite, the Xbox Adaptive Controller, which brings accessibility to a whole new level.

I’m genuinely excited to see what the next generation looks like under this new era of Xbox, but till then, I’m gonna just list some stuff I would love to see out of them this year.

FABLE 4

For my money, if Fable 4 came out and incorporated a large world, devoid of loading screens, with the fun yet admittedly shallow combat from Fable 2, I’d be happy. The Fable franchise has always traded on cheeky humor and robust world building, but I think it would be nice if we could make good on some of those promises that Peter Molyneux made back before the first Fable came out, and include more of those clockwork systems that make the world feel more alive.

HALO INFINITE

Look, I don’t know what they’re planning with Halo Infinite, but regardless of if it’s the conclusion to the story we’ve all wanted or a big pile of garbage, I just want to know. Just let me play this game and move on with my life. It’s not like I’ve been waiting a terribly long time, but I think I’m just so exhausted with Halo, that I just want it to be over with. If it was good, that’d be great, but even if it isn’t, I just need to know.

NEW CONSOLE

I swear, if this next console isn’t just called the Xbox Two, I’m gonna lose my shit. Although in all fairness, it would be absolutely hilarious if they just called this thing like “XCUBE” or “ULTRABOX.” I don’t know that I’m ready for a new console generation, but I don’t really have a choice in the matter. Regardless, I’d like some functionality stuff to be talked about. Are we doing a disc drive? Do all the Xbox One games work? How about the accessories like controllers? How big of a deal is streaming? Just some cool bullet points would be great.

BETHESDA

Look, I don’t like Bethesda games that much. They’ve all felt janky to me in one way or another, and I never got into any of the settings they played around in. I’m not a big post-apocalypse guy, and even less of a high fantasy fella, so I’ve basically eliminated most of their modern lineup. That said…

STARFIELD

What I wouldn’t give for any information about this game. I know that this is behind Elder Scrolls IV in the queue, and almost certainly wont be on this current generation of consoles, but a man can dream.

I’m just looking for something that can vaguely fill that Mass Effect sized hole in my heart. While I hate that Bethesda stands the best chance at this moment, I have to stay hopeful that a good sci-fi action RPG that let’s me shoot aliens or bone down with them is somewhere on the horizon.

AN APOLOGY

Imagine it; Todd Howard walks on stage with his head hung low. He steps up to the lone microphone on the stage with a single house light shining upon it. Andrew W.K. is notably not there, or if he is, he’s singing a dramatic and somber version of one of his party songs. Todd clears his throat and speaks into the mic with tears in his eyes. “We fucked up, y’all. We really goobered it up on this one. Fallout 76? Yeah, we did a bad on that.” Then he eats a canvas bag that says Fallout 76 on it, and melts into a puddle.

UBISOFT

Man, I really like the turn that Ubisoft has had this generation. They’ve stuck with their games in a way that very few developers do, and cultivate these lively communities around their games. For Honor, Rainbow Six Siege, The Division 2, and Ghost Recon Wildlands just to name a few. I’m pretty stoked to see what they do this year.

SOME PATENTLY CRAZY CONFERENCE BULLSHIT

For those not in the loop, Ubisoft has the fucking most wild press conferences ever. Usually there’s people in costumes dancing, a game of laser tag in the auditorium, and Mr. Caffeine, the strangest man ever. Ubisoft, whether intentionally or not, has made their conference twice as exciting by just being themselves.

SPLINTER CELL

I will forever ask for another one of these. I love Splinter Cell, with Splinter Cell Chaos Theory being one of my favorite games of all time, it’s been upsetting to see Ubisoft shove Sam Fisher and his cool goggles into a closet. I want another one of these games. I thought Blacklist was cool, but it didn’t scratch the itch I needed it to. I’m ready to see Sam Fisher snap necks and hang from the ceiling like he did in the old days.

WATCH DOGS 3

If I can’t have Splinter Cell, give me this instead. The lack of an Assassin’s Creed this year along with a ton of rumors about the next Watch Dogs taking place in London, all lend credence to the almost inevitable announcement of Watch Dogs 3. The rumor of it being set in London makes me even happier, considering one of the biggest issues with Watch Dogs 2, was how flippantly your character went from graffiti enthusiast, to armed assassin. Setting the game in a place without guns adds to the likelihood that more focus will be put on the puzzle aspects of the game, rather than the shooty shooty killing part of it. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Watch Dogs 2, but I think they did themselves a disservice by letting you use shotguns and pistols.

THE OTHER STUFF

Ubisoft is really good about the, “one more thing” part of E3. They announce some big sequels, along with some really intriguing new franchises. I’d like a progress update on Beyond Good & Evil 2, maybe see what other Nintendo collaborations they have up their sleeves, or even see them tackle some more sports in a follow up to Steep. Ubisoft has my attention most of the time, except for that boat game they announced. I don’t give a damn about their pirate thing.

SQUARE ENIX

I… I don’t really know. I guess people really wanna see that Final Fantasy 7 remake, but I just could not give less of a shit. I genuinely do not know what to even ask for here. I’m looking at their Wikipedia page, and maybe like, 5 games are jumping out at me.

They probably aren’t doing another Tomb Raider just yet, Thief and Sleeping Dogs are basically dead at this point, and they just released Just Cause 4 last year. Aside from Life is Strange, they’ve really got nothing I want. Although according to their Wikipedia page, that untitled Avengers project is still a thing, and I haven’t played a good superhero game in a very long time.

Aside from that, I can’t really think of anything I want from them. Surprise me, Square Enix. Surprise me.

NINTENDO

Alright, here’s the situation: Nintendo already announced two games that I’m very excited for, and a bunch of others that mean relatively little to me. I have no doubt that something will catch my attention during their Nintendo Direct, but here’s what I’d like.

MARIO 2 STYLE IN MARIO MAKER 2

Like, just fucking do it Miyamoto. Do the thing we all want for once, and put the game in the other game. Mario Maker 2 looks fantastic, and seems to be fixing a lot of the shortcomings of it’s predecessor, so just fucking do the damn thing.

ANYTHING ABOUT ANIMAL CROSSING

Please?

MARIO RPG

I know I’ll never get a sequel to Super Mario RPG on the Super Nintendo, but how about another Paper Mario game? We’ve done enough of those Mario & Luigi games that were fine, but hit me with the big one. Give me another Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door or something. You did the Mario and Rabbids thing, and that surprisingly worked out pretty well. So just do this thing for me, okay?

CONTINUE TO NEVER GIVE WALUIGI ANYTHING

Fuck Waluigi.

That’s what I’ve got so far, maybe next week I’ll look into some of the companies that aren’t doing conferences, and grossly speculate about what they could make, if they had to listen to me.

Blog: The Yard Boy – 05/22/19

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Crap, they went ahead and did it you guys. The people who made that House Flipper game that took over my life a few months ago, released some DLC. Luckily, it’s all about gardening, something I have even less interest in doing than cleaning. Oddly enough though, I did 100% all the missions it had to offer in a few hours, so maybe I do like gardening.

No, that can’t be it. The reasons for my love of this and games like it is something I’ve covered plenty before and thus, don’t need to reiterate. But I still do have some thoughts on House Flipper, or more specifically its DLC, Garden Flipper.

You ever invert your hands to get better leverage on a shovel?

Garden Flipper follows the same structure of the base game, while adding in a handful of new tools and abilities. Obviously, you can plant stuff, which can be fun in the same tedious manner House Flipper is known for. More importantly though, the entire DLC involves surprisingly little flower planting, and more revolves around you making yards and parks into livable and presentable spaces.

One of the missions had me clean a trash filled vacant lot and transform it into an outdoor gym. I started by grabbing all the trash I could find, then shoveling out some of the larger portions of rubble on the ground. Then I followed that with power washing graffiti of the walls, which is funny cause you’re using a simple hose attachment you might use for washing your car to blast the paint off of the fences. From there, I bought a bunch of rolled up turf, unfurled it to cover the gaps in the grass, and proceeded to plant some trees and bushes to make it look pretty. Finally, I laid down some sand, put in the workout equipment and some benches, voila, a park was born.

I am the king of ferns.

It’s a fun, mindless way to kill some time which I appreciated, but the fun was constantly undercut by the crazy amount of bugs I encountered while playing it. I had consistent frame rate drops, regardless of what settings I fiddled with. Even worse, whenever I would go to pick up a trash pile on the ground, the game would freeze for a few seconds upon clicking the rubbish, then pick back up until I went to grab more. And just to clarify, there’s a lot of trash on these maps, so every time I did this, I prayed to the computer gods that the game wouldn’t crash and erase my progress.

Luckily, I never did experience a crash while playing, but I ran into a ton of camera issues that made it impossible for me to do the things I wanted to do, or decorate yards the way I wanted. For instance, I had to build a playground in someones backyard. You know the type, a big wooden thing with a slide and some shit to climb on it, typical backyard stuff. I decided to put it near the garage cause that’s where I had space to place it. I placed the object, but then I had to assemble it. When you assemble things in Garden Flipper, the camera spins around to focus on the object for you to interact with. Except, in this case, I just got a face full of garage wall and was unable to actually build the damn thing. So I had to move it and try again until the camera behaved.

Welcome to my tomb of doors that wont open.

That might seem benign, but in a game where decorating is the core conceit, it seems genuinely fucked that I can’t utilize all the space afforded to me because of a camera issue. Even worse, one time, while rolling out some turf on the front lawn of a house, the camera left the “unrolling turf animation” camera angle, in a position that clipped me inside of the house. Because the doors are not interactive in these missions, I was stranded in this featureless house for a while. Luckily, there’s a way to restart the mission without losing progress, but it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

Look, at the end of the day, I love House Flipper and all it has to offer. I appreciate that the new tools work in all of the existing maps in the base game, adding another layer of replayability. I still think the game doesn’t do a good job at displaying information, constantly making flip between menus so I can remember what exact item I need to buy. With multiple brand names, styles, plants, and plant heights to contend with, I would appreciate just a straight up shopping list I can click, “buy all” on and call it a day.

The animations in Garden Flipper leave something to be desired.

Garden Flipper is fun in the same ways that House Flipper is. It’s also just as rough around the edges from bugs to UI decisions. But, despite all of that, it’s still a good way to kill a few hours while still watching TV or something.

The Master of Disaster: Introduction – 01

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In the past, I’ve written once or twice about Dungeons & Dragons and how what once was something I’d never touch, has quickly become one of my favorite activities. All of that still holds true, it’s just that in the past few months, I’ve gone from just playing the game, to running it. It took a while to find the rhythm and understand my players, their needs and play styles, but I think I’ve got the hang of it… mostly.

Let me start by saying that I’m having a blast running a campaign for my friends. They’re receptive to my ideas, they challenge me both in game and conceptually, and the whole thing has become an excuse to write more, which I will never turn down. There have definitely been some stumbles and screw-ups along the way, but how else are you gonna learn unless you get messy?

I wont go into every aspect of what I’ve been doing, instead I’ll quickly touch upon my weekly routine. First, I’ll look over the notes I’ve taken from a previous session and see how their actions have impacted the story thus far. Turns out, you can write all the scripts you want, but your players can totally bypass any of it. I’ve had pages of written dialogue and plot development that were just trivialized and passed thanks to an enterprising player of mine. It isn’t a bad thing, it just taught me to loosen the grip on my story, and not get so precious about the details.

Then, I’ll write up a summary of the previous session to post for my players when they inevitably don’t remember a thing from the last session.

After that, I go into planning mode. I look at where the players are in the story, what main quest they can do as well as what side quests are open to them. If the players are in between quests, I have to think of a way to introduce them to the stuff that’s available to them.

Unfortunately, because of how I started our campaign, I’m kind of locked into some things from the adventure module that I don’t really like. For context, I started by using the module, Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, which was a little overwhelming for me as a first time DM. So after about three of four sessions of trying to pronounce names of NPCs and learning their history and motivations, all while trying to keep things moving briskly while being fun, I said “fuck it” and decided to go off book.

At this point, I’ve written about 200 pages worth of main and side stories, character bios, store inventories, and concepts that need to be fleshed out. Maybe in the grand scheme that isn’t a lot, but it feels hefty to me. More to the point though, because I used the Waterdeep book, now I’m stuck with the incomprehensibly poorly named gangs in the city, as well as a city map that’s way too gigantic and intimidating for my players.

After all of the writing and planning, now I have to do my least favorite part of making the maps. We use Roll20, a pretty awesome tool for people to play tabletop games online, but terrible for assholes like me who decide they want to craft bespoke maps for any and every interesting place my players might visit. But I do it, because it makes my players get a sense of place and scale while immersing them in my tapestry of words.

Lastly, on the day of the session, I panic all day, hoping that everything is in order and ready to go. I have to remember the voices of the NPCs they might see which is a fun vocal exercise, but in reality they all end up sounding vaguely the same anyway.

If I had my way, which I guess technically as DM I do, I’d level the entirety of Waterdeep and introduce them to a smaller, more well defined and manageable map to play in. I bit off more than I could chew at the beginning, and now I’m stuck with some of the bullshit from the book.

All things considered, I’m glad I went off book. Making my own characters and knowing them and their origins helps me have more valuable conversations with players. No longer do I have to worry if I gave something away or said something that character doesn’t really know. No longer do I have to feel bad for not knowing the long lineage of the Neverwinter family. Why? Cause they don’t fucking exist in my world anymore. They all died when a pack of gorillas rampaged through their home and ate them.

Going this route has been a lot of extra work, but it’s work that I love. I’ve never felt so creatively satisfied until I started writing and brainstorming for this campaign. I also get to play fast and loose with the rules that just makes the game more enjoyable for everyone. I’m not gonna make someone collect the core ingredients they need for a spell, cause that sounds super boring. I’m here to tell a tale of whimsy and adventure, not to orate a session of Rust.

Blog: Housekeeping – 05/15/19

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Guys, I’ll be real here and just say I don’t have anything ready for today. I’ve been focusing on school and work and general upkeep of my home and life a lot this week, and video games kind of fell by the wayside. As of writing this, I am looking forward to trying out Rage 2, but that’s only after I go food shopping, clean my place, pay some bills and do laundry.

While I haven’t really played any games, there are two things worth mentioning. On Friday, there’s going to be a new feature on the website that I’m pretty excited about. It’s a Dungeons & Dragons focused feature, so if you’re not into that, you probably won’t like this. But if you want to just read about some of my tactics as a DM, my writing process, or just some fun mishaps from game sessions, I think you’ll be into it. It’s called ‘The Master of Disaster,’ and it’ll be out this Friday.

The other thing that’s been looming over this site for some time now, is the video stuff. Videos are hard, guys. There’s some stuff that’s currently in pre-production as well as a few things that are currently in post, but nothing I’m willing to talk about more in-depth at the moment. But, if you’re one of the people wondering where the videos are, here’s your answer: Soon… probably.

But yeah, no weird introspective musings about games and friendship this week. Might try to write a piece about Rage 2 for next week should the game inspire me to do so, but you can check out my piece on Dauntless from earlier this week if you missed it.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by.

Early Impressions: Dauntless

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Let’s just get the obvious comparison out of the way from the jump; Dauntless is basically a more streamlined, more accessible, Monster Hunter game that strips out a lot of the complexity. Because of this more simplistic approach, I’ve found myself gravitating towards Dauntless in a way that I didn’t expect.

For the uninitiated, Dauntless is a cooperative monster hunting game, in which you and your party go out into the world in search of various creatures to slash, smash and blast apart in an effort to collect their parts, and fashion more efficient monster dispatching weapons and armor.

The core loop is pretty straightforward and fun, but it’s the stuff around the edges that really do the heavy lifting in terms of appeal in my eyes.

I hate to keep drudging up this comparison, but it’s something I feel that’s important to highlight. Dauntless and Monster Hunter and two sides of the same coin, offering up similar experiences for different kinds of players. Monster Hunter relishes in the details and sweats the details in a way that Dauntless does not.

From the complexity of the world, the abilities you have at your disposal, item management and more, Monster hunter offers a more robust and granular experience. Which is great for the people who are looking for that. But for people like myself, with more of a curiosity about Monster Hunter, Dauntless provides an easier ramp for players new to the monster hunting genre.

From the jump, Dauntless gave the impression of being too shallow due to the size of the maps, the limited amount of missions, and lack of weapon variety. Instead of letting me choose from every available weapon from the start, I was limited to melee based armaments. After a few missions though, Dauntless revealed that it has ranged combat in the form of guns. It was a little thing, but the gentle slope of exposing more of the mechanics worked for me in a way that didn’t feel like over tutorialization, but encouragement to step out of the comfort zone it had helped me establish.

I also really appreciate the first few levels of upgrades and craftable items. Dauntless obscures a lot of the more complex options and doles them out at a pretty good pace. Early in the game, Dauntless introduces you to the idea of tonics that when consumed on a hunt, can offer different effects. The first one they show you is one that makes you faster for a period of time. And for a while, that’s one of the only things you can craft.

Whereas Monster Hunter feels like diving into the deep end of the pool, Dauntless is you gently wading into it. I’m still early in my time with Dauntless and have found a lot to love thus far, but that isn’t to say it’s without any faults.

So far, I’ve found that there’s less actual hunting, and more walking into the clearing where you can see the only other animated creature in it. It wasn’t until a little later on that the zones got bigger and more complex, but even then, there isn’t anything else moving in the world aside from you and the monster. Although I did wander around a zone for a while only to see a monster climb out the ground to attack me. It was neat, but the game might as well have just shoved us into a closed arena instead of making me wander aimlessly to trigger the beast.

I also found that there isn’t a lot of complexity or variety in your move-set. Maybe that changes later on, but up front, you have 2 or 3 combos per weapon, and a special ability or two based on how you kit your character out. I wouldn’t say the combat is boring, but it is repetitive. I’m sure that changes as the monsters get more varied and have more attacks and phases, but as it stands now, most fights break down into a war of attrition.

All things considered, I really am enjoying Dauntless. I don’t find it to be overly aggressive with pushing micro-transactions or painfully grind heavy, but I’m still fairly early on in my time with it. It’s also free to play, which is a pretty attractive price in my mind.

Dauntless is currently in open beta and available for download through their website playdauntless.com and will release exclusively to the Epic Store on May 21st.

Blog: On The Hunt – 05/08/19

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It wasn’t but a few weeks ago that I wrote about how difficult it was to find a game my friends and I can all play. Since then, we’ve managed to add two games to our collective wheelhouses that has made playing games a lot less of a concept, and more a reality.

The first game we tried out was the recently released World War Z. The game itself is more or less a love letter to Left 4 Dead and it’s style of throwing endless amounts of zombies at people. I’ve never been the biggest fan of L4D and games of its ilk, primarily because of how one-note it always felt. Horde modes in general never really did anything for me, and L4D just felt like they decided to make an entire game of one of those modes. It isn’t bad, but that style of game just never left me wanting more.

Surprisingly though, World War Z feels like a more robust and fulfilling experience. On a base level, the game has a decent progression system where you unlock skills and perks for individual character classes. Things like, healers, melee, demolitions and so on, are some of the skill trees you end up dumping points into. You also gain proficiency with the weapons you end up using the most in a level, and level your weapons up just by using them, which is the kind of progression I typically enjoy.

It’s those extra systems that make me feel like I’m not just spinning my wheels constantly. It isn’t a lot, but it’s enough to keep me wanting to play more.

On the exact opposite end of the complexity scale though, is the other game we’ve been dumping some time into. That game is none other than the ever inscrutable Monster Hunter World.

Yeah, so Monster Hunter World is a game that on paper is super cool. You and your pals go around and hunt various monsters in an overly anime world, take their parts and make cooler stuff to help you kill bigger and badder beasts. The main issue I have with game however, is how cumbersome everything feels.

The game is menus and sub-menus all the way down. I routinely find myself drowning in pop up windows, tutorial messages and HUD elements, trying to make sense of everything. Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying playing the game and intend on sinking further into it, but if it wasn’t for my friends pulling me through, I probably would have already bounced off of it.

There’s just so much going on in that game that it’s hard to keep track of sometimes. Between equipping items, upgrading armor, navigating through the sea of missions, side missions and bounties, it’s just a lot to take in all at once.

That said, it’s a hell of a time, especially if you’ve got some friends working with you. But boy howdy is it a steep hill to climb. Even little things like syncing up with friends to do hunts is way more cumbersome than it needs to be. Why in the world can’t we all just watch a cut-scene together instead of not allowing people to join you till you’re done watching them. Why does my party disband after every mission? It lacks some modern accessibility options in favor of some unnecessarily clumsy alternatives.

Either way, both of these games are great for our purposes and are a great way for us to play something cooperative that we can all enjoy. These games may not be my exact cup of tea, but my friends are way into them, and that’s good enough for me.

The Adventures of Bepis Man

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As I was perusing the newest releases on the blighted wasteland that is the Steam store, I came across a free game called Burning Daylight. From its pictures, it looked like some sort of Inside or Limbo experience. An atmospheric puzzle-platformer if you will. As it turns out, Burning Daylight really wants to be like those other games, but doesn’t get anywhere close to their pedigree. But, the one thing it has going for itself, is that I’ve been introduced to my new favorite character and best friend for life, Bepis Man.

I want to take you on the journey of Bepis Man, and help you get to know him the way I did. Heads up, I am going to be spoiling the hell out of this game, so proceed with caution.

Let’s begin, shall we?

I was there when Bepis Man woke up. He seemed very confused and wasn’t doing his walking very good. But I guess the calming ominous lights in the background really motivated him to giddy up and go, although he didn’t control any better because of it.

I should mention, Bepis Man was totally nude. Just letting his deempus just kinda wave in the wind.

Bepis Man faced off against a treacherous door puzzle that involved pushing a button on a wall, and then opening a door. Bepis Man was very brave and did a great job.

While Bepis Man loved to show off his impressive member, the lack of clothes really seemed to grind his beans. He was shivering, and even though Bepis Man was my favorite pangus-warrior, I knew that he needed pants if he wanted to stay warm.

Unfortunately for Bepis Man, there just wasn’t a slick pair of JNCO jeans anywhere in sight, but there were these cool Air Jordans he could snatch off a dead man. Bepis Man being the nasty boy he is had no quibbles about slipping his meaty feet into those tasteful pumps.

Bepis Man, determined to warm his skin-pipe, found a hoodie. It kept his northern regions nice and toasty, but unfortunately his namesake was still exposed to the elements.

You know what Bepis Man values more than a bitchin’ pair of pants? Augmented Reality. Thanks to another fallen and equally nude person, Bepis Man was able to get his mitts on the latest in AR tech. The problem was, the batteries were all dried up. We needed to find him a USB-C cord, stat.

There’s a very strict pants law in the world Bepis Man is from, and he knew he was committing a capital offense. While he would’ve loved to get in the mix and do the electric slide with his pals, his bold new ways would just land him in pants-prison.

Bepis Man had reached his apartment, I think, and found a charging dock for his AR goggles. But more importantly, there was a sleek pair of track pants just chilling on the ground, waiting to cover his exposed dingle-dong.

Bepis Man has an app on his goggles that he relies on way too much. It’s called Pantslr, and it highlights the nearest set of pants. Now Bepis Man was able to conform to the closed-minded (clothes-minded) society he was reluctantly a part of.

Apparently, next to the naked bepis factory is the set from Blade Runner. Bepis Man was just as shocked as I was by this startling turn.

Bepis Man does not respect social norms, and will absolutely make it obvious that he is eavesdropping on your conversations. Bepis Man just doesn’t give a fuck.

Bepis Man finds a place in the world where his bold, bepis ways might be accepted, nay, even encouraged. Bepis Man is looking for love now that he found his pants. It’s just so hard finding someone to connect with.

Bepis Man likes what he sees.

There is a pretty harsh turn from dumpster love to religious cults. Bepis Man is confused and will be sneaking around this one. He just isn’t a big fan of religious institutions. Respects your beliefs though. He’s a good dude like that.

The quest for pants and romance kind of got out of hand, and now Bepis Man is using his goggles to jack into the mainframe or something. Bepis Man has become unto a God. All hail Bepis Man despite his distaste for religious institutions.

Bepis Man visits the set from Indiana Jones where they stored the Ark of The Covenant. He’s just a big fan of the original trilogy, and honestly, is kind of an apologist for the fourth one.

Turns out they were hiding more than just the Ark of The Covenant in this warehouse. They got trees up in here. Bepis Man has never seen such lush greenery, seeing as he was raised in Blade Runner-ville all his life. It really is beautiful, although Bepis Man is also discovering he’s got a wicked pollen allergy.

Bepis Man finds large swimming creatures and wonders how big their meat-sticks are. Is it the size of his? Much bigger? Is he the size of this creatures bepis? He had so many questions.

Bepis Man finds the room where the X-Men keep Cerebro. Is definitely curious to find more mutants like himself.

Gasp. Bepis Man has found where they’re incubating the ultimate bepis-fighters. His brethren are in those pods, begging to live a simple wing-wang based life. Bepis Man will help the only way he knows how: by touching every button he can find.

Turns out, the buttons just flush the pod boys down the drain. Bepis Man, you did a bad one there. Really boned it up on that one.

Bepis Man comes face to face with his creator. It’s another, older, Bepis Man who lives in a floating chair.

Wrinkly Bepis Man offers his Bepis son a choice: Become the Bepis-lord, or eat some apples.

Bepis Man loves apples though, and apparently eating an apple means you can’t then go sit in a chair. Which quite frankly is bullshit, because I’m sitting in a chair and eating and apple, and it totally is doable. Did you even try, Bepis Man?

Then I shit you not, the game just ends. That’s it. No bepis closure. No explanation about what the fuck I just endured. Nothing. Just a blank screen.

I can’t really complain though, the game was free and it only ate up a half-hour of my life. Which, considering I met my new best friend, Bepis Man while playing it, I’d say it was a net positive.

Burning Daylight is a game that wears its inspiration on it’s sleeve, and desperately tries to deliver a message about the dangers of gamification or something, and some weird jabs at vegans and religions, but I wouldn’t say it’s aggressively bad. It controls poorly and can’t hold a stable frame rate, but there are worse games you can spend a half-hour with. And besides, we got Bepis Man and his impressive penis journey out of it.

Thank you Bepis Man, and good luck, wherever you are.

Blog: Days So Long – 05/01/19

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2018 was kind of a banner year for PlayStation and their exclusive games. We got some truly impressive and exciting games, like Marvel’s Spider-Man, God Of War, and Yakuza 6 to name a few. These games weren’t perfect, but they were really damn good. This year however, PS4 players were treated to a game called Days Gone. And when I say treated, I’m definitely being genuine and not at all being sarcastic in any particular way.

Before I get into the parts of Days Gone that I didn’t like, I should probably establish what the game is. You’re biker named Deacon St. John, who for various reasons finds himself living in Oregon (I think) during the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse. Oh I’m sorry, not zombies, the game very clearly calls them freakers instead. There’s some other story stuff, but more importantly is the way you interact with the game, which is by riding around on your motorcycle, scavenging for resources, sneaking up on enemies, and shooting things. It sounds pretty fun on paper.

The reality is that you end up playing a game that tries to implement these various systems, but never does any of them quite right. Speaking broadly, the controls are a cumbersome challenge to overcome, the story is pretty laughable, inventory management is a joke and the performance of the game is poor to put it nicely. And from everything I’ve heard about the late game stuff, it doesn’t sound like it gets any better.

Look, I’m only a few hours into the game, but I genuinely have no idea if I’m ever going to play more of it. I just don’t have the desire or motivation to push through a game that I’m already not liking so far. It’s also excessively long from what I’ve heard, like in the sixty hour range.

But if you’re a fan of managing how much gas you have in your bike, dealing with item degradation, a story that seems laughably bad, middling controls, and of course zombies, then Days Gone just might be the game for you.