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Blog: Housekeeping – 05/15/19

Early Impressions: Dauntless

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blog: On The Hunt – 05/08/19

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Adventures of Bepis Man

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

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

Let’s begin, shall we?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bepis Man likes what he sees.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blog: Days So Long – 05/01/19

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.