Author Archives: thebonusworld

E3 2019: EA Play

Despite the fact that E3 technically doesn’t start for a few more days, we’re here to kick off the whole shebang with EA and their series of live streams. The beginning of this year for EA was met with promise and praise thanks to surprise hit, Apex Legends. Soon after though, their tent pole release Anthem, belly flopped onto the scene and continues to be a tumultuous game.

With that said though, this is some of the more interesting things that EA brought to the table this E3.

STAR WARS JEDI: FALLEN ORDER

EA kicked off the show with arguably, the most anticipated EA game this year, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Boasting 15 “uncut” minutes of gameplay footage. From the jump, I they showed off some wall running to meet up with Forrest Whitaker, presumably playing his Rouge One character. Some cool touches were things like seeing the character use his lightsaber and a light source in a dark area along with using force powers to clear platforming paths for yourself.

A lot of the combat encounters early in the demo looked like they were crafted specifically for presentation purposes, cause a lot of the basic storm troopers just kinda stood there, waiting to get stabbed.

Eventually though, a tougher enemy showed up, and there was this brief one-on-one moment that looked like something out of Dark Souls, which seems like a great way to represent and experience the gravitas of a lightsaber duel.

There was a lot of wall climbing and running, and frequent use of a time slowing power that I wasn’t aware Jedi had, but it looked cool.

Another neat thing was seeing the storm troopers face off against local wildlife. It doesn’t seem like something that will happen organically, but it was nice to know that these guys aren’t just solely waiting around for you to kill them.

There was a “high ground” joke made in the demo, so that was fun.

It seems to be implementing aspects from a lot of beloved Star Wars games, notably Force Unleashed and what little people saw of 1313. One of the cooler bits I saw was a storm trooper fired a laser bullet, the player slowed time, pulled the trooper closer to him, and put him in front of the bullet he fired moments ago.

What I didn’t get from the footage was a sense of scale in the game. The level they showed off seemed fairly linear, without much deviation from the critical path. I genuinely hope that isn’t the case and there’s something similar to how God of War handled it’s world.

The combat looked very interesting to me as well, also bringing up comparisons to God of War. Everything seemed deliberate and calculated, and the post reveal interview revealed that everything we saw was done on the fly. The example they used was when the player pulled an enemy close to them and drove his lightsaber through them, that wasn’t a canned animation, but rather the result of button inputs.

One of the more interesting aspects here is that there isn’t much in the way of variation of the story. Star Wars games typically lean into the light and dark dichotomy, but in Fallen Order, you’re playing a tailored story. That isn’t a negative or positive thing, I just find it interesting that a Star Wars game is foregoing that weird expectation this time around.

The game looks extremely satisfying to play. I hate to keep drumming up this comparison, but it looks like they took God of War 2018, and injected it with Star Wars. The game is set to release on November 15th, and I for one, am eager to get my hands on it.

APEX LEGENDS

People really like Apex Legends. In theory, I do too. But it just never got its hooks in me. So who better than I to talk about what they’ve announced for Apex Legends than myself?

They started by announcing a new event called, The Legendary Hunt which I guess is a ranked mode for those who want to be even more competitive in this battle royale game.

They also seem to be finally leaning into the cosmetic angles of a free to play game, by showing off what I assume are new skins.

Then they pivoted into their season 2 plans. It launches July 2nd and is called Battlecharge. Touting a new legend, a map event, a mode, a new battle pass and some balance tweaks.

For all the hype of a new weapon, it looks like an SMG that shoots lasers. I think it’s from Titanfall 2, but I can’t be sure. It seems to be very powerful and the interviewer seemed very excited for it, as is his job.

The battle pass is undergoing a lot of changes, making leveling easier and streamlining its usage. There’s also a competitive season ranked mode, in the vein of Overwatch ranked mode coming.

There’s some additional skins, but to honest, they all kind of looked lame. With the exception of the gun with a rhino head on the front of it.

And then they revealed a new character named Wattson. She’s apparently very smart and French, so that’s cool. She looks to be a defensive oriented character, capable of putting up laser fences and turrets. She looks like a tougher character to play because her powers are so interconnected to herself and her teammates.

Then they started saying some stuff that I couldn’t understand cause I don’t play Apex Legends. It’s hard for me to be excited for or properly report on what this stuff is about, cause I’m just not a huge fan of Apex Legends.

BATTLEFIELD V

In an attempt to drum up some hype for their fledgling release from last year, EA marched out a half hour of Battlefield V news. Once again, I’m not a huge fan of Battlefield these days, but here we go anyway.

They announced a new map that unsurprisingly looks beautiful and chaotic as hell and should be out sometime in July. Shortly after, they showed a sizzle reel of some other, equally pretty and chaotic maps that are due out in July.

It’s always really interesting to me that in these demos, they never show off the true gameplay loop of Battlefield. There’s always a lot of people mowing each other down in mid to close range combat, but in reality, the experience is more of you spawning in, and then immediately getting sniped.

This entire section of the presentation felt similar to the apology tour they did last year with Star Wars: Battlefront II. Not that they were apologizing, but they hammered the point home that they were responding to community feedback in crafting the new maps and modes.

It’s nice to see that EA isn’t straight up abandoning Battlefield V despite it under performing for them, but rather, supporting the community they have. It seems like a course correction in the public image issues EA has had for a while, where they appear to drop any unsuccessful game instead of supporting it. It’s a smart move, and I hope it’s indicative of a more permanent change as opposed to a temporary solution.

Anyway, this wasn’t what I’d call a super exciting portion of the presentation. It felt like they took a map pack announcement trailer, and spread it out over a half hour.

FIFA 20

Man, I don’t know. They’re doing some FIFA Street style mode which seems like it could be fun, but I really am not the target audience on this one. I mean, I enjoyed the “street” series of games they once made, but it isn’t enough to make me buy a FIFA game.

Also, I should mention, for the first half of the time slot for this presentation, they just talked about the concept of street football (soccer) instead of actually showing any gameplay. I get it, I do. There’s a massive cultural relevance for this product and mode, but it really felt like they didn’t have much in the way of additional announcements for the upcoming FIFA.

At this point I started to zone out and stare into the background of the shots. There were a lot of people with umbrella hats on, and I’m so thankful for that. They must’ve been selling them nearby, and even if they were free, they were too expensive. Also, a lot of people waving in the background and generally being a nuisance.

ANTHEM

Anthem showed up for a cool 3 minutes. Basically a short apology tour, saying things like “we’re responding to the community” and such. It was just standard stuff about how they’re fixing things and working hard.

MADDEN NFL 20

Welcome to football town folks, they have more umbrella hats here. This year in football town, there’s a career mode for your created player, new playbooks, challenges for ultimate team stuff, and something called “X-Factor abilities” which seem to be superstar specific buffs that you can unlock in-game by completing player specific challenges.

I think I went to the restroom while this segment was going on. I don’t know, it’s a shiny new Madden that I’m sure people will love.

THE SIMS 4

Rounding out the 3 hour event was The Sims 4. They started with an expansion pack called Island Living, which looks like exactly what you think it would be. Lots of beaches, jet-skis, sandcastles, and coral reefs. Cleaning up beach garbage and beach parties were also in the mix, as well as a mermaid.

You can have dolphin buddies, which seems pretty rad. And I’m pretty sure they just implied that mermaids and dolphins fuck. So thanks for that disturbing visual, EA.

Oh good, they decided to play a video from a YouTube content creator. An influencer if you will. But this person did announce that The Sims 4 was including gender neutral and LGBTQ pride items to the game, which is very cool.

And then they announced a magic themed pack that’s coming later in the year. So, Harry Potter fans, get pumped.

EA Play is a weird thing. It’s like EA is trying to do both the established E3 event thing, and the streaming to consumers thing. It isn’t a bad way to do a conference or event, but when there was so little to announce, it just felt lifeless.

I will say that I thought every host they had on the show, teetered between enthusiastic, and supremely annoying, but hey, that’s their job. Aside from that, the biggest news has to be at the very end when a man in an umbrella hat, holding a camera and an anime body pillow stood in the background and waved at the camera. Great job everyone.

The Master of Disaster: Puzzle Masters – 02

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Puzzles are hard. Or at least they can be. This is story of one particular puzzle that I made for my players that absolutely flummoxed them for way longer than it should have. It’s this experience that has led me to make sure that my puzzles going forward, are no harder than those children’s toys where you put the right shape in the right hole.

The party was on the trail of a werewolf that had been terrorizing the outskirts of the city, wreaking havoc on local farms as well as businesses in the city by destroying their shipments.

The party had some leads which led them to a local police force that was able to give them some information on a mostly uncharted area of the wilderness. With this information, the party headed to a clearing that led to the entrance of a collapsed mine. Above the mine was a large flat piece of land that they surmised might have an entrance to the cave below.

This is where things got tricky. See, there was a small cottage up there, something they were very hesitant to investigate. Inside of the cottage were a few things. In front of them was a series of 5 large levers jutting out from the wall, all in the bottom position. There was also, and I quote “a tall dresser, a bed, a coat rack, and a long coffee table in the room, but no sign of any life.” The “puzzle” as it were, was that from left to right, the position of the levers corresponded to the height of items in the room.

It took these fools 30 minutes to figure this out. One of my players basically checked out during it, admitting defeat to my very complex word games. It was astounding to me. Once they figured it out, the door locked and the floor opened up. They were now in the mine and ready to continue their pursuit of the werewolf.

What I came away with, is that even the simplest puzzle, can flabbergast anyone. So much for my next brilliant puzzle idea where one person tells the truth and the other always lies.

Blog: Calm Before the Storm – 06/05/19

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Next week the video game world goes bonkers with announcements and news that tantalize us with all the shiny new things to come in the near future. So before that happens, I wanted to just do one last games roundup before the storm hits and my motivation to continue playing these titles dries up.

THE OUTER WILDS

The Outer Wilds is a game I desperately want to put more time into. The basic premise is that you’re a creature whose people have figured out the most ramshackle way to explore their solar system. They’ve hobbled together spaceships out of wood and glue, and have conscripted you into their space program to have you explore the depths of space and learn about a mysterious race of technologically advanced aliens that have essentially vanished. Or at least that’s what I’m aware of so far.

The game is purely about exploring and learning as you follow the many weaving and winding story threads that bring you to every planet in your solar system. Each planet is hand crafted and has it’s fair share of hidden secrets and stories to uncover. There isn’t much in the realm of gameplay aside from steering your ship and trying not to fall in big holes or run out of oxygen, but the sense of tension this game is capable of instilling is unreal. That and the mystery gets really good after about the first thirty minutes of playing.

I am so excited to see where the game goes from here.

DAUNTLESS

I’ve written about Dauntless before, so my thoughts on the game as an early access product are pretty well documented. But, it did recently get a full release on PC, PS4 and Xbox One, which warrants a little bit of discussion.

Since it released, I’ve only been able to play it once. The servers have been getting hammered by the ridiculously high amount of people trying to play the game. That’s a good sign for the creators I bet, but less fun for me. But from the one session I did play, the game is still good, and something that I’ll be checking in with periodically.

X-MEN DESTINY

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I actively went to the mall the other day to buy this hunk of shit game from 2011. I remember it being bad, and surprise, it didn’t age like fine wine.

It sucks too, because X-Men Destiny has a cool concept, where you basically choose a new mutant to become an X-Man, and go on adventures with them. Unfortunately, everything else in the game sucks shit. The combat requires you to know just how to hit the X button over and over. The art is terrible and the game runs like garbage. Every ounce of “quest design” in the game is lifeless and uninspired. From tip to toe, this entire game is bad… but I still wanted to play it again.

That’s been my past week in video games. High highs, and low lows. But with E3 around the corner, who knows what I’ll be doing with my time outside of just writing things for this website along with the occasional snarky tweet.

THIS IS THE ONLY PICTURE I COULD FIND WITH DING DONGS IN IT!

Oh, and real quick, there’s a game on Steam that’s currently listed as a “top seller” called Bonecraft whose presence on Steam fascinates me. Not because I’m eager to play it, but just how awful it looks. The pictures are of Orcs and elves and stuff just boning down. And I just watched the Steam trailer and it’s worse than anything I’ve ever seen before. There’s penis monsters and people doing George W. Bush impressions, so I think this game is from like 2006 and is meant to parody World of Warcraft… but with dicks and stuff.

I don’t think I’m exited for E3 or even video games in general anymore. Maybe I’ll take up knitting.

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

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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.