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Blog: A Serious Note About the Holidays – 12/05/18

We’ve entered the final stretch of 2018, and while the world continues to be a nightmare-zone, the games were pretty good. I haven’t finalized the Game of the Year plans yet, but I imagine it’ll be something similar to what I did last year. But that isn’t the point of this blog. Instead, I’d like to speak a little more seriously.

The holidays are an incredibly stressful time of year for me, and I imagine it’s like that for a lot of people. You might find yourself overwhelmed or frustrated a lot in December and believe me, I get it. In my case, I hate gift giving. I’m absolutely terrible at figuring out what people want, and even worse at trying to find gifts in my price range. And that might be small potatoes compared to what other people have going on, but it still manages to stress me out.

Whatever your reasons might be, I want to just encourage people to take some time to focus on themselves. The holidays are all about selflessness and togetherness, but that shouldn’t be at the expense of your sanity and personal wellbeing.

I bring this up because I’m already feeling the weight of the holidays bearing down on me. It’s a little different this time around, but it’s still there. This is the first year since I’ve been a teenager that I haven’t had to work during the holidays. Retail kind of conditioned me to dread this time of year, and it’s hard to shake that. Even over Thanksgiving I felt this lingering pressure as if I was about to be fired for not showing up on Black Friday.

I know this might not be an issue for everyone, or maybe some of you are in situations where you can’t really afford to sit back and take a moment, but at the very least try and catch your breath. I feel like my life is moving so fast and I rarely take a moment to enjoy it. So that’s what I’m trying to do right now, and savor the moment, and relax a little bit.

I know this whole post is a little more introspective and serious than I normally shoot for with the blogs, but this feeling weighs on me every year and I felt like sharing that. It’ll be back to jokes and goofs next week, but for now I’d like to say thank you for reading, and I hope your holidays treat you and yours well.

Blog: Horse Insurance – 11/28/18

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Red Dead Redemption 2 finally allowed some of its players to try the beta version of their online modes this week, and if you’ve tried GTA Online then you probably know exactly what it is. Admittedly, I haven’t had a lot of time to play much of the online stuff, but from the hour or so that I’ve put in, it’s basically GTA Online with horses. Although that might be a little harsh.

You start out by creating a character that looks vaguely human. The customization options are pretty good, giving you a sizeable amount of choices to make a unique looking character. As you can see below, I’ve created some sort of Wild West Luigi thanks to that powerful mustache of his.

What happened next had me wishing that this wasn’t an online mode, but just another campaign for me to play through. My character was an inmate at the Sisika Prison, and today he was selected for a work detail out in the desert. Big surprise, a mysterious benefactor has hired some men to bust him out of prison so he could help solve a murder or something. I might have not been paying the best attention.

From here I did some missions that involved me finding some people, shooting them, finding some treasure, keeping it, and stealing some horses with some random folks I was matched up with. It all worked surprisingly well and matchmaking was pretty painless. It wasn’t until the end of that horse theft mission though, that I was greeted with the most hilarious thing I’ve seen in a game. I had to buy Horse Insurance for my horse. I laughed about that for a while and eventually turned the game off.

I’ve heard that progress might not carry over to the full release of the online mode, which isn’t really shocking, but considering I was already tepid on the online to begin with, this makes me wonder if I’ll put anymore real time into it. RDR2 Online seems super interesting, but familiar. I really hope it isn’t just GTA Online in The West, but I’m getting the feeling that it is. I would prefer a more cooperative, laid back online mode personally, and hopefully I’ll get that should I continue with it.

Blog: Wake Me Up Cefore You Go-Go – 11/14/18

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What may seem like an unfortunate typo in the title of this blog, is actually some of the most clever wordplay ever used in the history of words. Don’t try and deny it. There’s this game that’s actually called Cefore that I’ve been dipping in and out of between sessions of Red Dead Redemption 2, and it’s been a real nice palette cleanser.

Cefore is a physics-based puzzle game that tasks you with harvesting these big blue blocks that are scattered across level. To move these blocks you’ll utilize your arsenal of tools to either directly impact the blocks or the obstacles around them. Is the blue block on top of a tall stone pillar? Well some dynamite will certainly send it tumbling to the ground. Is the block in a hole? Perhaps using a hot air balloon will solve that problem.

I haven’t played too much of Cefore yet, but from what little I have it seems like a neat little experience. The controls are a little weird and restarting a level isn’t as quick as I would like, but these are minor inconveniences at best. So far I’m enjoying my time with it as it provides a decent challenge while allowing me the freedom to solve things the way I like. I personally choose the most explosions.

Blog: The Bloated Assassin – 10/17/18

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For many years, I’ve heard people clamoring for the Assassin’s Creed franchise to take a break and find its footing once more. In 2016, Ubisoft decided it was finally time to pump the brakes and try to reinvigorate the tried and true formula they’d used for so long. The result was the critically acclaimed Assassin’s Creed Origins. Fast forward, and we’re face to face with the second game built on this new foundation, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

In another place, at another time, I could see myself getting really into Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and its massive world and wide variety of systems. There is seriously a ridiculous amount of things to do in this game, from taking down outposts, to hunting mercenaries in a stripped-down Shadow of Mordor fashion, to recruiting people to sail with you on your ship and sending them on missions. Those three things alone are concepts you could build full games off of, but in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, they’re optional missions.

That isn’t entirely true though. See, while these side activities didn’t seem particularly mandatory for me to engage with, it became apparent that I will have to spend time with them if I want to progress through the game. I recently got to a point where I was informed that the man I was to assassinate in the story, was about a level 12. This was an issue, cause I was a lowly level 9 assassin, incapable of stabbing through a loaf of bread, let alone a man. Then I realized what made Assassin’s Creed Odyssey such a lengthy experience. Aside from being genuinely huge, it also requires a certain amount of grinding to be able to progress, which for me is a bummer.

Just look at the estimated completion times in this thing!

On top of all of that bloat, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is just a little rough around the edges in general. There’s this weirdness with the combat in that it feels a little loose and unwieldy at times, from animations not lining up right, or the camera moving around in less than helpful ways when you’re trying to parry attacks. There was a moment where I was trying to hand in a quest, but the person who I was to talk to was fighting a wolf. Upon defeating the beast, he turned his aggression towards me and just attacked. So I retaliated in the only way I knew how, and kicked him off the side of a mountain. It was funny, but I could have used the experience instead.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is a dense game that’s going to take a long time for you to get through. Even though it’s bloated and slowly paced, and even though it’s clunky at times, I’m still having fun with it. There are times when you’re stalking your prey through a compound, and everything just works and flows in a way that makes you feel like a competent assassin.

Blog: Subscription Hell – 10/03/18

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Much like rearranging the furniture or throwing out a bunch of crap you’ve accumulated over the years, it felt nice to take stock of the subscriptions I had, and even better when I discarded the ones that I didn’t need anymore. But seeing how much money I was spending on services I barely used was a real eye opening experience.

For instance, I primarily play games on my PC, but up until about a month ago I was still paying for PlayStation Plus. I don’t think I’ve played any multiplayer games on my PS4 or even the “free” games you get, in a very long time. But every month, ten dollars would vanish from my bank account anyway.

Another one that I chopped off was my Humble Monthly subscription. In the past few months, the big flagship games that were promoted were all games that I already owned, and barely played as is. I’m also willing to bet that the October offerings are going to be of a significantly more spooky tone, and since I’m a wimp, I’m okay missing out on those too. Also, I already have too many games, I don’t need a service that’s going to just inundate me with more of them, as well as duplicates.

But it isn’t all bad, I still have various video streaming ones like Netflix and Hulu, but I use those way more often than anything I’ve listed thus far. I also have a portfolio site that I should probably cancel, because the amount of job offers I’ve received since making the damn thing has been zero. Oh, and let’s not forget the monthly blood money I pay to Adobe to use their suite of products.

This whole post kind of got away from me, but what I’m trying to impart upon you is that it feels good to take stock of your current situation. To step back and and really analyze where you are in this moment. It helped save me a couple of bucks and also gave me a little clarity, and I think we all could use a little more of both these days.

Blog: The Adventure Zone – 09/26/18

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Video games are great and all, but I’ve been in a kind of slump with them since I blasted through Marvel’s Spider-Man a few weeks back. Usually when I get into these kinds of ruts I’ll dive into a comfort food type of game, which for the past few months has been NBA 2k18. But for all the hours I’ve played of that game, not once have I had the in game audio turned up. Instead, I’ve been listening to what has quickly become my favorite podcast – The Adventure Zone.

The Adventure Zone is an actual play podcast where a group of individuals get together and play some sort of table-top game. In this case, The Adventure Zone‘s first campaign uses Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. While that may not sound like the most compelling sales pitch in history, The Adventure Zone stands head and shoulders above the other actual play podcasts I’ve listened to for a few reasons.

First of all, The Adventure Zone is a very personal show from its story, to its presentation, and even down to its hosts. The show stars the McElroy brothers, Griffin, Justin and Travis, as well as their father Clint. The McElroy brothers have an amazing back-and-forth that make for plenty of hilarious moments, while keeping the show moving at a brisk pace.

But it isn’t just the rapport between the actors that’s so engaging, the story itself quickly evolves from a basic D&D campaign, into one that goes in some truly ambitious directions. It isn’t just goblins and wizards with The Adventure Zone, it’s space stations, bank heists, and game show-esque nightmares that all play a part in weaving together the larger narrative that persists through the majority of a near 70 episode duration.

But the thing that really sealed the deal for me was the ambience and atmosphere that the DM, Griffin McElroy, was able to put into the show. As the show grew and the story progressed, Griffin started to produce unique soundtracks that he would layer into the show during pivotal moments that helped to underscore whatever was going on. It seems so small when you hear about it, but despite the fact that it added a unique personality to the show while putting great emphasis on pivotal moments, the music itself is really good.

The Adventure Zone plays fast and loose with the rules of D&D, focusing on telling a good story over fiendishly following the mechanics, which is something that greatly appealed to me. It was this loose style of gameplay, wonderful characters, and a truly engrossing story that fueled me to binge several episodes daily, eager to see what happened next in this phenomenal story.

I didn’t mean for this to be such a love-letter to The Adventure Zone, but it kind of turned into that didn’t it? I just wanted to express how much I enjoyed it and how much I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to hear a good story, regardless of their familiarity with D&D. The first few episodes are easily the weakest parts in the entire podcast (but still good in their own right), but once you’re through that it just keeps getting better. The Adventure Zone is the reason I got interested in Dungeons & Dragons as well as tabletop gaming in general, and I couldn’t be more thankful for that.

Blog: Shadow of a Doubt – 09/19/18

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Despite all of the trailers and marketing that surrounded Shadow of the Tomb Raider, it honestly surprised me when it was released last week. It kind of come out of nowhere for me. Having played the previous two entries, I was pretty excited to jump into Lara Croft’s newest adventure. Unfortunately, I was almost immediately put-off by the game in it’s opening hours.

The biggest thing that’s stuck with me from my few hours with Shadow of the Tomb Raider is just how unlikable Lara is this time around. The entirety of my play session was filled with moments of her being incredibly selfish and self-centered, putting her goals over the safety of her and those around her. Despite whether it’s true or not, she considers everything that happens a result of her actions and considers herself the only one who can stop the cataclysmic events taking place in the game.

In addition to her entire persona being weirdly off-putting, Shadow of the Tomb Raider just feels a little less polished all around. Some of the animations felt jagged and sometimes didn’t blend together well, leaving the action feeling a little stilted at times. There was also a surprising amount of audio desynchronization in almost every in-game cutscene. I even was hit with a pause while traversing between two parts of a level that said “WAIT FOR STREAMING,” which served as a stark reminder that I was playing on my launch PS4, and not a Pro.

None of these things on their own would be enough to deter me from playing more of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, but when combined, I just didn’t feel anywhere near the same level of motivation to continue that I had with other games this year. Shadow of the Tomb Raider isn’t a bad game by any stretch, but it just isn’t a game that I feel compelled to keep playing at the moment.

Blog: InterNintendo – 09/12/18

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We find ourselves once again on the eve of another Nintendo Direct, speculating on what announcements will be made. As with every Nintendo Direct, people are hoping for some Animal Crossing news or some new information about Metroid Prime 4. Theories aside, the one thing we can safely assume will be there is information detailing Nintendo’s online service which is set to launch on September 18th.

At the moment we have some information currently available to us provided by Nintendo themselves, but there are still a lot of questions left unanswered. Most people will want to know about the rotating library of classic games you’ll get access to as a member. Things like multiplayer features that will be added into certain games are confirmed, with Super Mario Bros. 3 being the first example of how it will work.

I also assume that the added online functionality will result in officially sanctioned Nintendo leaderboards for their classic titles, which if done well, could be Nintendo acknowledging and supporting the competitive scenes that have cropped up around their games which would be a really nice change of pace for them.

But aside from that, there’s very little else to look forward to here. Sure you’ll get access to cloud saves (which is absurdly behind a paywall and doesn’t support all games), but there seems to be very little else being offered here. On top of that, if one of the big draws is the library of retro games to play, I’m curious to see how Nintendo will handle that when you’re not connected to any internet source. They seem to be so terrified of piracy and the internet in general, that I’m not entirely certain they’ll allow you to play any of these games offline.

For only $20 for a year the service is surprisingly reasonable, but I’m just not confident in Nintendo’s ability to provide a compelling reason for me to participate. Personally, I have no interest in playing any of their current games online, and there are plenty of ways for someone to play Super Mario Bros. 3 without paying $20 a year for it.

Maybe tomorrow Nintendo will come out with some really interesting things that make me want to engage with their service. I really hope they nail this thing, because asking people to pay for a thing they were getting for free since the launch of the Switch is going to be a big ask, regardless of the price.

Blog: The Big Hitters – 09/05/18

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September is finally here, and with it comes the annual dump of video games that we all know and love. This isn’t a comprehensive list of releases by any means, rather it’s a list of the bigger games that I’m personally keeping an eye on.

Marvel’s Spider-Man [09/07/18]

Like a lot of people, my memory of Spider-Man games gets real blurry right after the 2004 release of Spider-Man 2 for the PS2 and Xbox. There are a lot of reasons people consider that one to be the most memorable, but all I really remember is that the web-swinging felt really good. All I know is that there’s a new Spider-Man game that looks like it’s combining the feeling of moving around as Spider-Man with Arkham Asylum-style combat, which seems like a match made in heaven for me.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider [09/14/18]

I’ve been really impressed with the rebooted Tomb Raider games we’ve gotten thus far, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider seems to be building upon the already solid foundation its predecessors have laid down. I may not know anything about what’s actually going on in the story of Lara Croft over the course of these games, but playing them has been an absolute blast, and I look forward to eventually getting to shoot arrows at dudes who wander too far into the woods.

Life is Strange 2 [09/28/18]

Set in the same universe as the first Life is Strange, the upcoming sequel is also angling to pinpoint my heart and viciously attack it until I feel like an angsty and confused teen once again. I haven’t been looking at any pre-release materials because I’d just like to experience it at my own pace, but from what I gather it revolves around two brothers and a murder. But even without knowing anything about the plot, I was so taken with the first game that I’m onboard for whatever they would do with a sequel.

Red Dead Redemption 2 [10/26/18]

Do I really need to write anything about why I’m excited for Red Dead Redemption 2? At the bare minimum I’ll say that I really enjoyed the tone of the original Red Dead Redemption and think the overall game was a triumph in game design. It’s refreshing to see Rockstar make a game that isn’t all about being satirical and lampooning some aspect of our society. Red Dead Redemption 2 looks like an incredibly ambitious game and I can’t wait to get to spend time with it.

Hitman 2 [11/13/18]

It seems surreal that a sequel to Hitman 2016 is right around the corner. That game was so damn good and I really don’t know how you’d make that experience better, but the folks over at IO apparently have found a way. My only reservation with Hitman 2 is the fact that they’re ditching the episodic model in favor of a traditional release. That’s totally valid, but I feel like some of the appeal to the 2016 release was the fact that because there were limited levels, you’d replay them over and over and try to exhaust every option available to you. But hey, I’ll take Hitman 2 any way it’s offered to me.

Fallout 76 [11/14/18]

I don’t like Bethesda RPGs, and I strongly doubt this game is going to convert me, but boy howdy am I curious to see what the reception to Fallout 76 is. From everything I’ve heard about the way it works, it seems iffy, but I’d love to be proven wrong on this.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate [12/07/18]

I mean, I really don’t care about Ultimate, but I’m a really big fan of how Nintendo went ahead and got every character from past entries as well as added some heavily requested ones, while making sure not to let Waluigi be a full character. Waluigi sucks.

Blog: A Pit Stop in Donut County – 08/29/18

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It’s the middle of the night and you’re 10 hours into your road trip, when up ahead you see a sign for the last rest stop for the next 50 miles. The sign tantalizes you with promises of a Starbucks and some sandwich shop you’ve never heard of. You’re dreaming of a bathtub full of espresso and a sandwich the size of a Prius. Upon entering however, the only thing that’s open is the Roy Rogers. Begrudgingly you eat it. You’re not mad, rather, you’re just disappointed cause it wasn’t what you expected. That’s been my experience with Donut County.

Donut County is a game where you play as a hole that’s sole purpose is to terrorize and devour an entire town and all of the people that inhabit it. That alone was enough of a selling point for me, but Donut County did their best infomercial impression and repeatedly said “But wait, there’s more!” by adding in things like an adorably charming graphical aesthetic, a super rad effects-driven folksy soundtrack, and mischievous raccoons. With all these great ingredients, how couldn’t I love Donut County?

For a game about being a hole, Donut County isn’t a very deep experience. I’m truly sorry for the bad wordplay, but it really is the best way to summarize my feelings on the game. The entire experience feels incredibly rigid and guided. There’s no room for any experimentation or improvisation to be had at all. The levels are segmented into usually 3 or 4 stages, and none of them are particularly big, nor dense with objects to consume.

There are some brief flashes of interesting puzzle solving mechanics, but they’re abandoned almost as quickly as they were introduced. Things like, using the hole as a soup bowl, or setting it on fire to ignite things that fall inside, are all neat ideas that never get any more complex as you progress. There isn’t any real puzzle solving in Donut County, which seems like a gigantic missed opportunity.

I really wish I liked Donut County more than I do. It isn’t a bad game, but it is a game that misses a lot of opportunities to do something more interesting than just have you be a hole that things fall into. Donut County is at its strongest when it’s taken as a narrative experience, but as a game, I found myself wanting more.