Monthly Archives: November 2020

Gut Check: Fuser

Somewhere between my first and fiftieth Smash Mouth and Carly Rae Jepsen mashup, the comedic flair that initially attracted me to Fuser faded into the background and was replaced with a genuine desire to make a song that actually sounded good. While Fuser isn’t much of a “game,” it is a pretty powerful and accessible piece of software that’s capable of generating some genuine ear-worms of songs in an easy and accessible way.

Just like previous Harmonix titles such as the Rock Band series or the early Guitar Hero games, the fun doesn’t necessarily stem from making your way through the career modes, but rather in the simple act of playing the game is the real draw. Just like those games, Fuser has a story mode that grants you different unlocks as you progress, but in reality it’s more of a tutorial than anything else. During the course of a set you’ll get some requests for certain instruments and genres as well as some objectives that usually revolve around you utilizing a technique you just learned.

The idea is that you’re an amateur DJ who like anyone at this event, is just allowed to hop on stage and mix it up at what must be the weirdest music festival in the universe. There’s no logic to it, but there doesn’t really need to be considering that no one is actually coming to a music game for its story. The career is split into several sets of levels spread across a few different uniquely themed stages where you’ll be taught something new. The first stage is about the basics of timing, whereas later on you’re taught about soloing certain tracks, queuing up new sets, and adjusting tempos.

It’s incredibly helpful and provides you with a decent amount of cosmetic and song unlocks depending how well you score in a level, but Fuser isn’t really good about giving you feedback which isn’t great if you’re trying to improve. I rarely understood why I got three stars on a level versus four or five, because the game only seems to show you what you did right without offering anything in the way of criticism. It wouldn’t be such a bummer if it wasn’t for the fact that songs and song currency are usually unlocked when you reach a five star score.

But once you complete a few stages and learn some of the advanced techniques for mixing, I’d suggest you just leap into the freeplay mode and never look back. That’s what I’ve done, and I’m truly having a great time just mixing up songs for half hour sets at a time. Without the pressure of having to keep the crowd happy or worrying about the various objectives that might pop up during a set, freeplay is the actual mode you’ll be spending the majority of your time with .

You start any session by picking your crate of 30 songs to bring on stage with you. There are a lot of songs from different genres and eras, all of which have been broken into up to four tracks: vocals, bass, drums and guitar. Sometimes the guitar and bass will be synths, pianos or horns, but the idea is that you have four pieces of a song to play with. That means you can use Smash Mouth’s “All Star” vocals, with A-ha’s “Take on me” drums, and some other stuff that shouldn’t ever be in the same song, and make them be in the same song.

Fuser will force these songs to work together under any circumstance, even if that means ruining the very concept of music for you. This will manifest in the form of incredibly sad sounding pop songs that are in a minor key and played really slowly, or the exact opposite where “Linger” by The Cranberries suddenly becomes a high octane pop song. It’s wild and shouldn’t be capable of producing anything other than ear poison, but it all manages to hold together while producing decent sounding music

It probably took me a total of ten minutes in freeplay to create something I actually would listen to in my car. That realization was both comforting and horrifying because none of this should be working, but yet I still find myself nodding my head along to the music I create. I truly have loved my time with Fuser but I do fear that it might not have the legs that Rock Band did. It seems like a fun thing to show your friends that might ultimately not have the longest lasting appeal, but for a time it can be a genuinely good time.

Blog: A Big Bloated Blog – 11/25/20

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It’s almost Thanksgiving here in America, which traditionally meant that we all had an excuse to break any diets we were clinging to, were subject to horribly racist and misguided “conversation” with distant relatives, and would ultimately result with hiding in a bathroom to avoid your family. Luckily you don’t have to engage with any of that shit this year and that’s fucking great. Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved to have eaten a traditional Thanksgiving dinner this year but between the whole pandemic thing and the election thing, I’m super good with just staying home.

And you should be too, quite frankly. I don’t know if you’ve checked recently, but that COVID-19 thing that our nincompoop of a president and his deluge of moronic followers consistently bellow is a “hoax,” much to the surprise of nobody turned out to be real. But people are going to travel out of spite and ignorance regardless of how much that “liberal science” keeps pleading for them to stay home. So do yourself a favor and stay the fuck home if you can. I know that not everyone is in a situation where they can do that, but for those who can make that choice, pick the option where you don’t endanger the lives of everyone around you.

Yeah, stay home and distract yourselves by maybe watching some movies or reading a book. Definitely don’t refresh certain retailer websites in the hopes that a certain stupid looking console might suddenly become available. If everyone could just ignore the internet for a short period of time, that would be so ideal. I must have signed up for so many notifications for when the PlayStation 5 is back in stock that I’m certain my phone will explode when retailers make the console available again.

What else is going on? Oh, the president is still trying to undermine our democracy and erode the foundation that our country is built upon with frivolous and baseless lawsuits, but what else is new? It’s kind of like when you see a kid throw a tantrum in Target or something, it’s loud, annoying, and inescapable unless you just leave the store altogether. That’s basically what these past few weeks have been like, except it’s a grown man with a bad spray tan that’s doing it in front of the entire world. Hopefully this all comes to pass without too much more damage.

I don’t have a great segue to pivot off of that, so I’ll just say that I’ve been playing some Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and boy howdy is it unremarkable. On the plus side, it runs on my computer at a stable frame rate and looks gorgeous while doing it, unlike another Ubisoft release from a month ago. But on the flip side of that coin, it’s just kind of boring. Admittedly I haven’t played too much of it, but I haven’t found the story, characters or mechanics to be all that interesting. Honestly, it just seems kind of bland.

Remember when Assassin’s Creed started pumping out sequels that were basically the same game crammed into a new setting? That’s what Assassin’s Creed Valhalla feels like. It isn’t a bad game at all however, it’s just unremarkable. Not every game needs to be revolutionary or anything like that, but Assassin’s Creed Valhalla just kind of feels like another solid entry in the series and nothing more.

Also, I couldn’t play it for the first day because I kept running into an infinite loading screen that stopped me from actually ever starting the game. I tried a bunch of different options and tweaks to try and get on the other side of this blank void of a loading screen, but nothing sufficed. But for the first time in history, I have to say that a game streaming service saved the day.

I noticed an ad on Uplay+ that alluded to a glut of Ubisoft games, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, were currently available on Amazon Luna. Amazon Luna is Amazon’s (surprise, right?) game streaming service. It works fine, but is not the way I’d ever play these games. That is unless they offered cross-save functionality that would allow me to get through a busted loading screen and then take that new save back to the version I had installed on my computer. But what are the odds of tha… oh wait.

Yeah, for the first time in my life I’m thankful I had access to a game streaming service. Oh, and for those of you worried about my finances, I have no intention of keeping the service after the free trial is up. But hey, maybe before the trial is up I’ll try to whip up an article or something about it.

Also, with the holidays coming up and the end of the year approaching it’s time for me to start thinking about Game of the Year type stuff again. I’ve got some ideas and loose plans for things, but we’ll see if they pan out the way I want them to.

I think that’s about it for me this week. Hey, thanks for stopping in and reading this rambling mess. I appreciate your support. Be safe, be smart, and enjoy Thanksgiving if you can, and you’re an American. To everyone else, enjoy your week and ignore all retailer websites for a few days so I can get the funny looking console. Thanks!

Blog: Whoa-vember – 11/18/20

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I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but it’s gotten really weird and bad out there recently. Like, shit is so bizarre that it’s genuinely hard to keep track of anything anymore even when it isn’t whatever horrible thing is happening in the news. But let’s try and take a fun little sojourn in the opposite direction of the grimness of our world, and instead discuss some video games for a change. That should be fun, right?

Earlier this week I published my review of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, a game I truly loved despite it boasting some truly god awful technical performance. Aside from just being a mostly superb game, it also made that urge to upgrade to a PlayStation 5 feel more urgent and necessary than ever before. To be clear, I know that none of those things are true but I just really want one, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales just was that last push I needed to confirm that.

I know there aren’t any real games for it at the moment unless you’re into Demon’s Souls, which I am not, but I guess like a lot of people out there I’m captivated by the shiny new thing that’s on the market. I know that launch hardware is notoriously suspect and bound for a refresh that doesn’t make it look like a penguin with a popped collar, but it still doesn’t change the fact that I want the damn thing now.

I want to get my hands on that controller and see what it’s all about. I want to play the pre-installed Astro’s Playroom, a game that people have been championing since the console released. Yet none of this would be an issue if I could literally find anywhere that was selling one. You’d probably be reading articles on this very site about the PlayStation 5 and all the stuff it brings to the table. The reality is that I’ll eventually get a hold of one, I just would prefer it to be sooner rather than later.

Other than playing Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and pining for a new console, I dipped into a little bit of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and boy howdy is it just another one of those games. It isn’t bad or anything, it just doesn’t feel especially outstanding thus far. To its credit, it at least runs on my computer at a decent frame rate unlike the previous Ubisoft release, Watch Dogs Legion, so that’s a plus. I’m going to put more time into it though because I’ve had this desire to play a big action/adventure game recently and was really hoping that Assassin’s Creed Valhalla would do the trick.

I’ve been looking for a game to really sink my teeth into lately, and aside from Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, nothing has really done the trick. Even games I was really into like Baldur’s Gate III and Solasta: Crown of the Magister seemed like perfect candidates, but they’re both early enough that I ultimately decided to back away from them until they receive some more updates.

I don’t know, maybe all the shit going on in the world right now is eating away at my ability to truly engross myself in a game or something, but it’s been kind of underwhelming for me on the gaming front lately. I think more than anything I think I’m just tired. Everything is so fucking exhausting these days, and I just need it to stop for a bit. I feel like I’ve aged twenty years in the past 4, and these next few months might put me into an old folk’s home if the past few weeks have been any indication.

Review: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

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Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a game that not only builds on the incredible foundation that was Marvel’s Spider-Man with a new protagonist and mechanics, but cuts out a lot of the bloat that plagued its predecessor. The refinements overall result in a tremendously well-paced experience that every Spider-Man fan should check out as long as they aren’t using a launch PlayStation 4.

In Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, you play as the titular Miles Morales who has been tag-teaming New York City alongside his mentor and OG Spider-Man, Peter Parker. The main conceit of the story is that Peter and Mary Jane have gone on something of a working vacation in Europe, leaving Miles to be the sole protector of New York City for the next three weeks. Peter, having never been able to take a break from protecting the city gets a much needed respite from it, while Miles finally has his chance to prove that he’s just as legitimate a Spider-Man as Peter is.

That chance comes when Miles uncovers a new gang that’s risen from the ashes of the defeated criminal enterprises from 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man, along with a corporation doing unsurprisingly unscrupulous things. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales doesn’t waste much time before thrusting you into the heart of this ~10 hour experience, keeping the story and the intrigue moving at an enjoyable brisk pace. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales also cuts out all of those dreadful stealth missions where you played as “not-Spider-Man,” which is an overwhelmingly good decision.

What I love about Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is that not only in its storytelling does it respect your time, but the missions and side activities have been tuned in such a way to keep things fresh and engaging without bogging you down with an enormous activities checklist. To be clear, the game does have mildly repetitive challenges and side activities within it, but their volume has been greatly reduced. While random crimes are still recycled ad-nauseam, the bigger side missions are all unique in their structure. It’s one of the few times I’ve been able to look at a follow-up to a game and see a developer actually respond to the criticisms they’ve received.

When you start Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, you’re already way more capable than Peter Parker was in Marvel’s Spider-Man. Allowing you to have access to advanced swinging mechanics and combat abilities right from the jump makes the game much less of a grind, while also making narrative sense as well considering there would be no reason for Peter not to teach Miles all he’s learned in the course of his adventure.

From top to bottom, I had an excellent time with Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales both from a narrative standpoint and its new gameplay mechanics. Miles has access to electrically powered attacks, dubbed “venom strikes,” as well as an inherent cloaking ability that I probably didn’t use as much as I should have. Miles doesn’t have the same amount of gadgetry and tech that Peter had in his game, but these abilities more than make up for it. Besides, there was only like one or two suit modifications and gadgets worth using in Marvel’s Spider-Man.

My only real issue with Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales comes with its technical performance. Being that this is a cross-generation game appearing on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, the game felt half-baked on my launch PS4 in a way that Marvel’s Spider-Man did not. At the beginning of the game it both ran well and looked incredible, but as time went on, the cracks started to show. My running theory is that as time progresses in the game, the time of day and weather also change with it. When nightfall would hit or snow would fall, the game would run heinously in a way that I imagine newer hardware could handle with ease.

I experienced a ton of frame rate hitches and even had the game just lock up in certain places for a few seconds, but to its credit the game never crashed or made me lose progress. But it really made the best part about these games, which is to say the swinging around, feel like a chore. Having to battle the frame rate every time I dared to take to the skies truly detracted from an otherwise outstanding game. Even aside from that though, the version I played was plagued with other technical errors like dialogue just not playing in cut-scenes, cut-scenes just freezing completely, and my least favorite of all, the game playing two music tracks on top of each other. That last one was something that literally ended up giving me a headache until I rebooted both the game and console.

It’s a shame that the technical quality of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales wasn’t up to snuff, because the rest of the game was so good that it made me power through these issues just to see the end. Hell, I still want to hop back in and sweep up all the stuff I missed, but I’ll have to wait until I can get my hands on a PS5 before I attempt it. If you’ve got a system capable of running it properly as well as a love for Spider-Man as a concept, I cannot recommend Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales enough.

Blog: Unbelievable – 11/11/20

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It has been approximately 35 years since the 2020 American presidential election began, and despite the fact that Joe Biden won the damn thing, it sure doesn’t feel that way. But we all knew that this would happen. We all knew that the overgrown man-child in the White House wouldn’t concede any defeat regardless of how definitive the results might have been, but knowing that never filled me with any sort of comfort. See, I’m genuinely horrified for what the next few months have in store for my country, and as of now there doesn’t seem to be any reprieve from the stress.

There’s no need to recap what’s been happening in America, because I’m pretty sure everyone on planet Earth is aware of the elderly man and his latest bout of temper tantrums. It’s shameful to say the least, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from the spray-tanned hobgoblin that’s routinely eroded our democracy for his personal gain.

But he isn’t the only problem. It’s the people around him, his cabinet, his employees and his supporters that continue to enable and encourage his behavior that scare me the most. These people, regardless of if Trump is dragged out of the White House or not, will still be around and in some cases remain in power. His supporters, the 70+ million people who voted for him, will still be around and eager to do whatever the president might decree via his daily deluge of Twitter vomit. This schmuck basically has an army of trigger-happy sycophants who will jump the second he gives the word, and that alone is nightmare inducing.

I fear that one of these days I’m going to wake up to the news that a legal way to stay in power has been utilized, ultimately burying the last vestigial bits of our democracy. This repugnant shit-stain is going to kick and scream as loudly as he can, and no one is going to actually stop him.

See, a lot of folks view inauguration day (January 20th) as an end point to all of this madness, but I don’t see it that way. To me, that day looks to be the apex of this clusterfuck, where Donnie and his supporters stand with their many guns outside of the White House ready for war with whomever dares to try and enter. It sounds absolutely fucking insane that this is a legitimate fear you can have, and not just a plot from a bad action movie.

I don’t know what happens next. I’ve been reassured by friends that are more politically minded than myself that nothing will come of the big baby’s tantrums, but I genuinely don’t have faith in that. For the longest time Americans lived in a shared reality, where those pesky numbers and facts actually meant something. But here in 2020, there are two realities that exist that either political party subscribes to. The democrats, for the most part, are still here on Earth where facts and evidence exist, while a lot of the Republicans and conservatives live in a magical world where they can shape reality into whatever they want like some sort of shitty version of Thanos.

The worst part of it all is that there’s nothing anyone can do to merge these two realities, solely because one side refuses to believe anything that their president doesn’t agree with. I truly hate that I’ve had to dedicate yet another blog post to this absolute nightmare that is American politics, but it’s genuinely hard to focus on anything else. We’re watching our democracy vanish before our eyes because of this buffoon. We’re letting our country be destroyed by a sexist, morally bankrupt, racist, charity defrauding, philandering, pedophiliac, draft-dodging, pandemic-denying, tax-evading piece of shit named Donald Trump.

If you’re a big Trump person, kindly go fuck yourself because I genuinely don’t know how you an call yourself an American anymore. You openly endorse this piece of shit and condone his heinous acts claiming he speaks for the little guy. The only little guy Trump has ever and will ever care about is his fuzzy little cheese doodle of a dick and it’s quite frankly surprising that you haven’t caught on to that yet.

Anywho, thanks for letting me get that off of my chest. Now if someone could help me figure out where I can buy a goddamned PlayStation 5, that would be appreciated.

Gut Check: Watch Dogs Legion

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When I think about my time with 2016’s Watch Dogs 2, I’m reminded of its many ups and downs both in terms of gameplay and story, but at the end of the day it’s a game that had a lot of heart and charm that managed to make it a memorable and satisfying experience. Watch Dogs Legion however, lacks any of the joy and fun that its predecessor had, contains repetitive and frustrating missions, and also runs like hot garbage.

Watch Dogs Legion is a game that focuses more on the hacker organization DedSec instead of any single character by allowing you to effectively recruit and control any person you find on the street. The goal is to rebuild the organization with these recruits, each of which have randomly assigned traits to them that make them more or less viable candidates to add to your ranks. You might find a guy with a cool car, or a drone expert who knows how to hack more effectively, or even a lawyer who can bail your team out of jail faster if they happen to get arrested. It’s an interesting concept that rarely feels worth engaging in and unfortunately presents its own suite of complications to providing a cohesive gameplay experience.

The lack of any primary character to really focus on in the game wouldn’t be such an issue if Watch Dogs Legion wasn’t also trying to make you care about the narrative. The quick version of the story is that DedSec was framed for a terrorist attack on London that prompted a private military company (PMC) called Albion to turn London into an oppressive police state. While the story itself doesn’t do a great job of handling or presenting any of these topics with the care they require, the whole narrative falls flat because every character you play as just spouts the same bland responses to everything no matter what the context is.

For instance, there’s an early mission where you find what effectively is a prison camp set up by Albion that just exists in the middle of the city. You literally just stroll on in there to see the many, justifiably distraught people just kinda hanging out. Interestingly enough, they all have their cellphones on them which is a weird thing to let political prisoners have, but whatever. Yet after completing the mission in the camp and casually waltzing out the front door, the voice of your boss chimes in and remarks about how terrible the situation is. My character, a bland and procedurally generated ding-dong, proceeded to simply respond with, “I could get used to this DedSec thing,” or something to that effect. That kind of thing happens almost every single time you complete a mission, and it really robs Watch Dogs Legion of any real chance at telling a compelling story by having your blank slate of a character just spit out random one-liners in the hope that it makes any sense contextually.

On the topic of procedural generation and characters, Watch Dogs Legion tries to inflate the “uniqueness” of the citizens of London by pitch-shifting their voices to artificially expand the diversity of people you might encounter. As you might imagine, this leads to a lot of people with the same voice, just one happens to be unnaturally deeper, talking at each other as if you were listening to two robocalls try to scam each other.

Even the missions are bland and uninspired, regardless of whether they were procedurally generated for a recruitment mission or if they’re part of the main story line. These procedurally generated missions will often make you return to places you’ve already infiltrated for either story or region unlocking purposes, and the region specific missions are wildly dull and carry the stupidest implications with them. The main conceit of these region unlocking missions is that you do enough to inspire the people of a certain part of the city to enter a state of “defiance” and rise up against Albion. Even wilder is how Watch Dogs Legion considers putting up a cool DedSec banner over an Albion one to be just as important as uncovering an organ-harvesting operation. The level of cognitive dissonance that’s on display at any moment in Watch Dogs Legion, combined with the lack of any charm or character, really overshadow the few existing high points in the game.

Cognitive dissonance aside, the core gameplay loop of Watch Dogs Legion is still extremely solid despite the overall game feeling like a shell of its predecessor. Being able to take down outposts without ever stepping foot inside of them by utilizing cameras, drones, and traps littered throughout any given locale is still really satisfying. I’ve been able to play most of Watch Dogs Legion without ever firing a gun, with the exceptions being the missions where you’re thrust into combat scenarios against your will. There’s just something infinitely enjoyable about terrorizing a bunch of PMC dipshits without ever laying a finger on them.

But the same could have been said about Watch Dogs 2, hell, even the original Watch Dogs was good at making you feel like a hacking god. Whereas Watch Dogs 2 made its digital version of San Fransisco feel alive and packed with things to do, Watch Dogs Legion feels oddly empty. You can go buy a bunch of clothes, do package delivery missions, get drunk and play kick-up with a soccer ball, but that’s kind of it. For as big and dense Watch Dogs Legion‘s version of London is, it still feels surprisingly empty. It’s even more upsetting when you remember that Watch Dogs 2 gave you reasons to explore the city and hunt down famous landmarks in San Fransisco. Watch Dogs Legion could have really benefited from having something like this present, encouraging people to get to know London and its iconic locations.

But I could get past all of those issues if it weren’t for the miserable state of the PC version of this game. My computer isn’t new and I recognize that, but there is no reason that I should have to play Watch Dogs Legion on its lowest settings, and still be unable to have it run at a steady 30 frames per second. The game is so heinously optimized that moving around the world, getting into combat, or even turning your camera too fast turns the game into a slideshow. It’s all the more upsetting when you look at the console versions that look much better and run more stably despite being on hardware that was released in 2013.

Despite all of this however I kept playing Watch Dogs Legion because that core gameplay loop is still satisfying. The problem is, Watch Dogs Legion has a few missions that strip you of your ability to get creative, opting for a more linear experience. These crop up from time to time, but they were rarely anything that I couldn’t overcome with enough bashing my head against a wall.

However, after ~13 hours of playing I finally ran up against a quest that was so bad and so infuriating that I finally decided that my time with the game was over. Without spoiling anything specific, the mission in question is a forced stealth section where you are basically stripped of any tools you have and have to just kinda of worm your way around the threats. During this time, you’re forced to listen to a plot dump about the leader of Albion via what essentially boils down to an audio log, and then you can progress further. However, if you are spotted, the mission restarts and you have to do it all over again. I must have heard this stupid info-dump about 6 times before I decided that Watch Dogs Legion isn’t worth anymore of my precious time on this earth.

Watch Dogs Legion is a pale reflection of its predecessor, lacking any aspect of charm while failing to actually do anything interesting or insightful with its setting. Bad characters, bad missions, and terrible performance, all combined with Ubisoft’s pathetic attempts to tell an apolitical story about a post-Brexit, police state version of London results in a game that fails to deliver on any of the good will that Watch Dogs 2 built up. In short, Watch Dogs Legion is a colossal disappointment and I don’t think it’s worth your time.

Blog: Nothing – 11/04/20

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I don’t think I actually have a ton to say about anything right now, especially not video games. As an American, things haven been… challenging in the past 24 hours, and will continue to be that way for a while. I’ve gone through the whole range of emotions over the last day and I don’t even know what to think anymore. Things are still very much in the air right now because of how close this election is, but they shouldn’t have been. Especially not after everything that’s gone on over the past four years. That being said, this is kind of all I can muster for a blog today. Please take care of yourselves and be kind to each other.