Author Archives: thebonusworld

Blog: Days So Long – 05/01/19

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.

Blog: Katana-na-na Zero -04/24/19

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Have you ever wanted to play a game about being a drugged up, cyber ninja with the power to slow time and also there’s some conversational options that seem to impact the story? Well first, that’s oddly specific, but second, you should check out Katana Zero.

I’m not super deep into the game, but it’s definitely scratching an itch that I didn’t know I had. The action is super fast and unforgiving, but not like in a Dark Souls way, where you question if you ever even liked video games at all, but more in a Hotline Miami way, where you’re honing your skills and plotting your path through a level until you get it down perfectly.

It’s this cycle of entering a level, killing everyone, dying to some dude who showed up late to the party, and repeating the whole process till you’re the only one left standing. It feels a lot like the Trials games, except instead of riding motorcycles real good, you’re stabbing people in half and slowing down time to deflect bullets back at them.

So far I’m really enjoying the dichotomy between the frantic action and the story beats. I have no clue what’s happening in the story, but I do enjoy how my dialogue options have in game ramifications. For instance, one of the early levels has you going into a hotel to kill a dude. The receptionist asks you why you’re dressed like a samurai, and while there are the standard, “cause I’m a cool murder guy” answers, I picked the one that alleged I was doing cosplay. The receptionist bought it, let me in with my sword, and covered for me when I tried to leave later on when a cop asked me why I was slathered in blood. It was this cool little moment that highlighted the important of my choices, something I did not expect to get from this game.

I’m still very early on in Katana Zero, but I’m pretty excited to keep going and see how it plays out. So far it’s managed to strike a a good balance between action and story, which has been a great motivation to keep going from level to level. Maybe it all falls apart in the end, who knows? But so far, I’m way into Katana Zero.

The Borderlands Conundrum

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The announcement of Borderlands 3 and the details that were revealed about it left me feeling pretty indifferent about it. I’ve always had a weird relationship with Borderlands as a franchise and Borderlands 3 seems to continuing that tradition.

Before I get down on the franchise and the Borderlands 3 announcement, I figure I should mention that there are things that I really like about it. For one, the art style has always been appealing to me. The cel-shaded graphics gave the franchise a unique identity and personality that it lacked when Borderlands 1 was initially announced. It was a smart decision that enabled the series to age visually age more gracefully than other games of its time. Borderlands is and will continue to be a very impressive and memorable game based on visuals alone.

Along with the visuals, some of the mechanics of the series were impressive for their time. Borderlands made multiplayer a fairly painless process that made it easy for people to drop-in and drop-out without much of a hassle, which is something some games still struggle with today. The randomly generated, infinite guns thing is also cool in concept, but in my experience I rarely found any of the really cool or interesting ones that I’ve heard people talk about. The talking guns, or the guns that fire other guns never really dropped for me, which is a shame. Ideally I’d like for Borderlands 3 to not only add more interesting gun types, but also make it so I can see some of that stuff at lower levels.

But as with anything I write, there are aspects of Borderlands that I really don’t like. For instance, the writing always been a contentious issue for me – particularly the humor. It just always felt like your dad sent you a meme from 5 years ago that they just discovered. “Yeah dad, I guess that cat does want to ‘haz’ cheeseburger” doesn’t feel too different from, “Yeah Claptrap, that is a cool dab you just did.”

Perhaps maybe my least favorite aspect of the Borderlands game is the lack of customization. Borderlands 3 doesn’t seem to be changing this in any meaningful way from what they’ve shown thus far, but it just seems crazy to me that in a world where games like The Division 2 and Destiny exist, you can’t create your own character. Sure those games have pretty limited customization options, but you’re still making a character.

Instead, Borderlands 3 seems to be continuing the tradition of picking one of four characters and going from there. Which wouldn’t be so bad if they included a lot of customization for them, which in all fairness they could do. But based on their past outings, you’ll probably get a couple of color swaps, and one or two that give your character a beard or a hat or something.

It just feels like Borderlands 3 could benefit from having a robust character creation system. Sure some of their existing characters were neat, like Zer0 and such, but I think it’d be cooler if I could just make my own weird cyber ninja, or robot summoner instead of having to pick from four premade options.

But Borderlands 3 does seem to be fixing one of my least favorite parts about the series, which is the world design. I’ve always found the post-apocalyptic style of the world of Pandora to be incredibly dull. But that’s a personal preference of mine, I just never found the post-apocalypse to be that interesting, whether it be in Borderlands or Fallout. In Borderlands 3, you’ll be traveling to more diverse planets which will be a great change of pace and a much needed shot in the arm for the franchise.

There’s so little information about Borderlands 3 at this point that all of this is just speculation, but I’m just not confident that Gearbox will take too many chances and try to change up what’s worked for them in the past. Considering their last few games didn’t exactly set the world on fire, particularly Battleborn, Aliens: Colonial Marines, and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel to name a few, I just think Gearbox is apt to play it tremendously safe. Then when you add in some of the scandals and allegations surrounding the company and its CEO Randy Pitchford, Gearbox really needs to change the discourse around themselves.

I don’t envy the position they’re in, and I really hope that Borderlands 3 is the game that they need it to. Hell, I want that game to be good so my friends and I can have something we can play together, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Blog: Uncooperation – 04/17/19

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I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s a real pain trying to find a game to play with my friends. It’s difficult for a multitude of reasons, chief among them being our tastes, but platform differences and scheduling conflicts make it even harder. I’m not surprised though, as we’ve all gotten older, gaming has kind of faded to the background for a lot of people, as it probably should.

This isn’t me renouncing my love of games or anything, but as we get older, our priorities change. We all have such limited time to actually play anything together, and that’s probably the sign of a healthier lifestyle on all our parts. For me, it’s been tough to even write the blog some weeks because I’m just not playing new games as frequently as I used to. Once again, not an indication of me cancelling the only feature on this site that regularly updates.

But more to the point, the few friends I still do have that I talk to online all have vastly different tastes in games. We tried all sorts of things on both extremes of our preferences. I tried Divinity: Original Sin II, a game in which my friends love, but one that bores me to tears. We all tried Battlefield together, but that game did nothing but frustrate everyone involved. Hell, I even bought The Division 2 thinking that it would be a good middle ground for us, but alas, it wasn’t.

But that’s alright. The more I think about it, the more insular I’ve become in my gaming habits. I can’t recall the last time I’ve hopped into a multiplayer match of any game by myself. People talk about playing a couple of rounds of Apex or Overwatch or whatever, and I just don’t know how they bring themselves to do it. It just seems exhausting to compete with others after a day of work. What my friends and I seem to crave these days is more of a cooperative experience over a competitive one.

I don’t know, the more I type this, the more I think I’ve written this same exact blog before. But it’s one of those things that remains constant in my life and stands to become a bigger part of it as time goes on. Maybe Borderlands 3 will be that game, maybe that World War Z game will do it, or maybe we’ll spend the rest of our lives trying to find the perfect game for us.

Blog: TABS – 04/10/19

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For a while now, I’ve been looking for a very realistic, buttoned-up battle simulator so I could practice honing my tactical prowess. Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, or TABS for short, is precisely the game I was looking for.

What I think I like the most about TABS is how every aspect of the game is a perfect recreation of historical battle units from various eras of history. For instance, I set up a battle between two prehistoric forces made up of a few melee club-men, some shield boys, and a few spear launchers. The very robust AI simulation algorithms of TABS made a genuine recreation to the point where I had to look away because of how visceral it was.

The game offers a lot of challenges to complete, requiring you to pick the right unit and formations to conquer your foes. There’s a lot of them, and since TABS is in early access, there’s more to come in the future.

I personally enjoyed the sandbox mode more though, cause it allowed me to answer some eternal questions that I’ve had about the history of combat. Things like, what if some peasants faced off against the legendary Crow Thrower units? You all know about the Crow Throwers of ancient Mesopotamia? They had wings and would float off the ground a summon their flock of murderous crows. Everyone knows that, they teach that stuff in like, second grade. Needless to say the Crow Throwers won, obviously.

I think the saddest thing about TABS is just how devoid of charm it really is. Sure the art style is cartoony an whimsical, but the action is just so realistic it kind of drains any fun the art injects into the game. The game adheres so stringently to history, even something exciting like that one time Zeus electrocuted a bunch of peasants, less interesting than it actually was.

Do you remember the ancient Romans and how they historically used snakes as arrows to launch at their enemies? Well I put a bunch of those guys up against that very real historical creature, the Minotaur, and it was just underwhelming. Like, yeah, the snakes ate the Minotaur dick first, just like they were trained to back in the day.

TABS is a slave to realism and historical accuracy, and on that front, it succeeds. But for being fun and allowing you to do wacky shit, it misses the mark so bad. TABS is in early access right now, and maybe they’ll get around to making it fun, but for now, it’s mostly a simulation tool that historians could take the best advantage of.

All joking aside, I really like Totally Accurate Battle Simulator and think that it’s an absolute joy to play.

Blog: The Punch Wizard – 04/03/19

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I’ve never been a fan of the Bethesda styled RPG. They always felt cumbersome and clunky in a way that I just couldn’t get into. Despite having known this for over a decade, I still do a thing every year that defies my internal logic in an attempt to have fun. I started playing Skyrim once more. But this time, I’ve done something different.

See, there’s this video series that I very much enjoy called Monster Factory. It’s the brainchild of the McElroy brothers, known for their various podcasts and work at Polygon.com. They take character creators in games and make the most horrific being that they can using the tools at their disposal. I really like it, but that’s not why it’s important to my latest Skyrim endeavors.

In an episode of The Monster Factory, they take on Skyrim and do their dark magic to the avatar they’re creating. But once they finished making their monster, they played in the world as it. They abused the console commands to give them incredible speed, unfathomable power, and the ability to punch people so hard that anyone near them dies as well. It was the first time I’d seen Skyrim being played that made me want to do the same.

At first I thought this would sound weird, and while maybe it does, I also did this exact same thing in The Witcher 3 and had a fantastic time because of it. So, being the adult I am, I set out to emulate a thing that I saw on the internet. And you know what? I’m having a fucking blast. All it took was me breaking the game to enjoy it; who would’ve guessed?

After this photo was taken, I sent this fool to the moon.

Contrary to how I felt about The Witcher 3, I don’t give two shits about the story in Skyrim. Thalmor? Don’t give a shit. Dragons? That sucks. Dragonborn? Nah, I got console commands. And harnessing the awesome power of the console commands has allowed me to give birth to the unstoppable Punch Wizard.

You see, the Punch Wizard has the ability to launch giants into orbit with a single punch, bring down a dragon with a single shout, and cast a spell that literally kills everyone around me for 15 minutes. Learned a lesson about that last one in the worst possible way. My apologies to the people of Whiterun.

The Punch Wizard is an agent of chaos who not only wields the power to destroy life, but can bring the fallen back to life by typing the word, “resurrect” into the console. He is truly an ambivalent god among mortals, never casting judgement, only spells. And that is why I write this blog, to honor my lord and savior, the Punch Wizard.

We love you Punch Wizard.

Blog: The Modern Arcade – 03/27/19

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You guys know video games right? Like how you can play them in your own home at your leisure and stuff? Well it wasn’t always like that. There used to be games that were exclusive to these places called ‘arcades’. You had to go to this building with a bunch of other people and wait your turn to play these ‘video games’. I thought all of those places had disappeared long ago, but they’ve had this weird resurgence in the form of bar-cades and other alcohol infused gaming venues. I went to one of these places, and boy howdy was it interesting.

The first thing that really caught my eye was what the arcade was putting front and center. When I walked in I was greeted by the row of Mario Kart Arcade machines that was in constant use, which wasn’t surprising considering Mario is a pretty big deal. But surrounding those were a large number of Japanese developed rhythm games. From DJ booths, to Dance Dance Revolution, and even some Drum Mania-esque machines with full drum kits weren’t far from the main entrance. Even better, they were all getting played pretty regularly, and people were pumped for it.

As you pushed past those machines, I saw some of those basketball games, skee-ball lanes, and a shit-ton of claw machines with very anime prizes in them. One of them even had these Goku statues in them that I genuinely considered trying to win.

I think what really caught me off guard was how the basic premise of the arcade has changed so drastically in order to survive. For instance, back in the day I was able to go to the arcade and play stuff like Galaga, Defender, X-Men, The Simpsons, and countless fighting games. I remember seeing these cabinets line the walls and create snaking aisles for people to navigate through. Now, it’s literally these digital poker styled tables with an LCD screen and computer in them, running some sort of emulator, probably MAME. It all played fine, but it was just so jarring when compared to my memory of how arcades used to be.

Change happens though, and I understand that if these places are to survive, it’s through cost cutting methods like these. Arcade machine maintenance is expensive and more specialized than ever. I just wished that if they’re going to use emulated games, at least let me select what I want to play instead of pretending that these are bespoke machines that can only play one game.

But easily the most bizarre stuff were the amount of mobile game ports that were on display. We’ve all probably seen those giant Fruit Ninja and Pac Man 256 games, but there was also a Tomb Raider rail shooter alongside a giant Injustice arcade machine, that only had 3 buttons per player that corresponded to the three kinds of actions you could do on the cell phone version. I remember it being a big deal when a game claimed to have an “arcade perfect” home version, and now we’ve circled back to having cell phone games enlarged and stuffed into a cabinet with buttons. Hell, even the Wii Nunchuck and Xbox Kinect were integrated into some games.

I went with a friend of mine and had a wonderful time despite the culture shock I experienced throughout my visit. So much has changed in the gaming landscape since I first started playing in the early nineties, and the arcades might be the most extreme example of that. But even for how different things are now, arcades these days still manage to provide gaming experiences that are unique to the arcade itself, and in that way things actually felt kind of familiar.

Who is Stadia For?

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Recently, Google went ahead and unveiled their new gaming initiative in the form of a streaming platform called Stadia. Stadia aims to deliver high quality, low latency gaming experiences to various smart devices including televisions and smartphones. It all sounds very impressive to say the least, but I still have many questions about the specifics of the platform, among them being, who is it for?

Don’t get me wrong, I think the technology behind the Stadia is fascinating and worth developing; especially if you’re a platform holder like Valve or Microsoft. For those companies, you have players who might want to play their games away from their devices, and an effective streaming solution could essentially make any platform a mobile platform. But with Google leaving more questions on the table than answers, it leaves me wondering what role Stadia is meant to play in the gaming industry.

The first and most obvious answer is that it’s for people who want to play games anywhere on any device. Stadia seems like a great opportunity for people with a passing interest in games to try them out in a simple and straightforward way. In that regard, I could definitely see Stadia being a great way to play games without a major investment. But considering Google didn’t divulge the pricing model for Stadia, we’re left to speculate and fill in the blanks ourselves.

The two obvious routes are either, buying games through a Google storefront and streaming them to your device, or paying a subscription fee to play from a library of games. Both options are still cheaper than buying a console or computer as well as a game. For someone with a casual interest in games, this could be very enticing, but that well can only be so deep. At some point Google has to convince the people who play games more regularly to get on board with Stadia.

The pitch of playing a game running at 4K and 60 frames per second without relying on hardware limitations sounds great, but if I already owned an Xbox One X or a PC capable of running 4K60, what’s the selling point for me? In that instance, I already own the hardware, I’m not reliant on my internet connection to provide me with a low latency and high quality experience, and if I bought a physical copy of a game, I own it outright. As long as I have electricity, I can still play my games in most cases.

Gamers at this point have already willing put on blinders to the fact that their digital purchases are more licensing agreements than an actual bill of sale, so the mass adoption of Stadia isn’t completely out of the question. But in this case, the player essentially is relinquishing all ownership claims to Google. It isn’t your hardware, it isn’t your software, and I’m willing to bet that whatever EULA that will be included with Stadia that no one will read, will expressly outline your lack of ownership. Which isn’t out of the norm when you look at video streaming services like Netflix or Hulu. There is absolutely a precedent for this business model.

But that isn’t what I think gamers will really be apprehensive about. What I believe will be the biggest obstacle is how Google plans to entice existing players on other platforms to introduce more potential points of failure into their gaming experiences. There are a ton of well worn arguments, that despite how many times they’re raised, continue to be valid. Google and their track record with abandoning projects that don’t hit big, quickly enough, along with the sorry state of internet bandwidth and cap limits in the United States, are among the biggest obstacles that stand in the way of user migration.

Those alone are some of the biggest obstacles that Google has to navigate through, but when you drill down even further, you have to consider that there are games that require the lowest input latency possible, like fighting games and shooters. The technology would have to be incredibly impressive to make those games work at any competitive level, professional or not. And even if Stadia could make latency free game streaming a reality, the user is still beholden to their internet provider and the reliability of the connection.

I don’t think I would be as skeptical of this entire initiative if it was Sony or Microsoft doing it, not because I trust them more than Google, but because it could be a supplemental service that I could use to play the games I already own. If I could pay for an extra tier of PlayStation Plus with game streaming included in it, that would be a nice bonus feature to have.

Google seems to be trying to position Stadia as the next biggest competitor in the gaming market, and I just don’t see that as a possibility, at least not when we know so little about it. The whole situation just feels a lot like the Xbox One reveal back in 2013. Microsoft made this big, all digital push in a direction that the industry was already heading in, and tried to prematurely force it into existence, resulting in a disastrous launch that they’re still paying for. But 6 years later, digital purchasing is so prominent that companies like GameStop are having trouble sustaining themselves.

I’m optimistic about the technology behind Stadia and what it means for the industry at large, but I’m just not sold on it at the moment. Maybe when Google reveals more details later this year I’ll change my mind, but at this juncture, it just feels like little more than a novelty. The whole industry seems to be heading down the road to an all streaming future, but I don’t know that Google is going to be the car we all ride in.

Animal Crossing is Still Incredible

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Every morning I pack my bag with a water bottle, maybe a lunch, a charger, and my Nintendo Switch. I usually have some free time at my office, and like having the option to play games while I’m there. However, lately I’ve been bringing another, older hunk of plastic with me that has two screens and doesn’t fold. Of course, I’m talking about the Nintendo 2DS that I bought on a deep discount.

You might be asking yourself, “Ari, why would you bring that hideous blue monstrosity anywhere in public with you?” Now, while I agree that the 2DS is a garish nightmare-brick, the reason it’s been accompanying me to work is because it has Animal Crossing: New Leaf on it.

There are two main reasons why this matte-blue doorstop of a portable console has been my platform of choice lately. As I mentioned before, Animal Crossing, but also because I never really owned a 3DS or portable console before. I grew up with a Gameboy and stuff, but I missed out on almost two decades of mobile gaming hardware since then for reasons that aren’t entirely clear.

The last time I played an Animal Crossing game was the one on the original DS. A DS that an ex-girlfriend loaned me until our relationship collapsed under its own weight. So I never really got much time in the DS ecosystem. But that game left an incredible impression on me that didn’t make its impact known until I played New Leaf.

I have a problem with incremental games in general. For instance, I’ve been playing Wiz Khalifa’s Weed Farm on my phone for almost two years now because it’s a mindless checklist for me to engage with and clear daily, and also because I like seeing the numbers get bigger. Animal Crossing now occupies that space for me, and the best part is that it isn’t hitting me up to spend twenty dollars on “weed bucks” or whatever.

It’s a mindless, pleasant chore list, that’s so peaceful and chill. Maybe this penguin wants to trade me a dartboard for some pants, or maybe some shifty art dealer is trying to peddle some bullshit in my town. Whatever it is, it’s relaxing and non confrontational in a way that I am super into these days.I just boot this hunk of azure plastic up and get to go fishing with some cool animal friends, buy stuff from some awesome raccoons, or help the world’s worst museum curator in the world. I would way rather get my incremental, idle game fix from Animal Crossing: New Leaf than I would from anything I can get on my phone, including Animal Crossing Pocket Camp.

What I think I appreciate the most about Animal Crossing: New Leaf, is that it’s deceptively in-depth. You can look at promotional materials and just assume it’s a slight experience, offering nothing of substance. And if you asked me to describe what I do daily in the game, it can sound pretty boring. But there’s a ton of secret, under explained, or purposefully obfuscated mechanics hiding under the surface of the game.

The game never told me that I had to buy more stuff from the shops for them to expand and grow, but that sure as hell makes sense. I didn’t know that you could wish upon a shooting star and get magic furniture delivered to you the next day, but here we are. It’s just a bunch of little hidden systems like those, that add so much depth and variety to this game.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of things about Animal Crossing that drive me up a wall, like inventory management, and how much people like to talk to me about scanning Amiibo figures in for stuff. That and the fact that even though six creatures live in the town, and I’m one of them, and the only human, and also the mayor, every shop owner treats me like it’s the first time I’ve been there. I’m the mayor, remember my very unique and non-animalian face for once in your lives. But those are nitpicky concerns at best.

All of this was spurred on by the announcement of a new Animal Crossing game coming to the Switch this year. I can’t wait to sink my teeth into that game and explore whatever weirdness Nintendo injects into it. The saddest part about it is, whenever it does finally release, all of my citizens in Animal Crossing: New Leaf will die from loneliness because I’m never going to pick up that ugly-ass Nintendo 2DS again.

Blog: New Super Mario Woes – 03/20/19

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Everyone knows about that Super Mario fella and his classic leaping adventures he’s had over the years, but his latest adventure, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, not only is a poorly named game, but a surprisingly lifeless Mario experience in general.

I haven’t played any of the New Super Mario games till this latest entry, so maybe this sentiment is well-worn territory, but New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe just feels like the most color-by-numbers Mario product one could make. That isn’t to say it’s a bad game by any stretch, but it hasn’t left any meaningful impression on me the way you’d think a Mario game would.

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe has all the staples of a classic Mario game, but lacks any sort of staying power. You’ve got your jumps and fire flowers and various types of mushrooms of course, but somehow it never feels cohesive in the Mario way.

It’s so hard to quantify the things that make a charming impact, and I know I’ve done a terrible job of that up to this point. But when look at the big Mario releases over the years, things like Super Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, Super Mario Odyssey, hell, even look at the bad one, Super Mario Sunshine, and all of those games have a charm and personality to them that endears you to the world you’re jumping around in.

It’s in that regard that New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe fails. It feels like there’s a button you can press somewhere in Nintendo that will generate a new Mario side scrolling game, and this popped out. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an incredibly solid game that feels good to play, but it isn’t a game I’m excited about.

That isn’t to say that I’m not having a good time playing it though. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe does what it sets out to do, and delivers a competent and fun side scrolling Mario game. It just doesn’t leave any lasting impression on me, whatsoever.