Apex Legends came out a few weeks ago to immediate acclaim and success. It was more or less a surprise release that seemed to refine the battle royale genre of games, and produce something that positively builds on formula we’ve seen up till now. Despite the heaping helping of praise that’s been dumped upon Apex Legends, I don’t know that I’m entirely jazzed to play it.
For context, I’ve played an hour or two of Apex, so I’m basically the leading authority on the topic. What I played definitely led credence to a lot of the claims I had heard too. Being a Respawn game, it just feels phenomenal to play. It shakes the jankiness of PUBG and doesn’t require me to build anything à la Fortnite. Instead it most closely resembles the Blackout mode from 2018’s Call of Duty Black Ops IIII, which for context, is a very good thing, but they differ in two very key ways.
The first and most obvious difference is price point. Apex is free to play, which for reference, is cheaper than the $60 Black Ops IIII is. Free to play while not only making a game more accessible to play, also seems like the only real way a standalone battle royale game can really survive these days. It’s a smart play, and works even better when you have the potential for good cosmetics for people to buy. Which leads us into the second main difference from the genre.
Apex is charming. Both in map and character design, Apex Legends has a lot going for it. People appear to really be resonating with the characters in a way I haven’t seen since Overwatch happened. So I guess that means there’s probably a lot of porn of Apex out there, huh? But considering the characters are already pretty beloved, that opens potentially profitable avenue for skin and taunt sales. Which I’m pretty sure they’re already doing, but my point still stands. A game that combines the potential profitability of Fortnite with the characterization of Overwatch can be a dangerously profitable concoction.
I just wish that I knew what I was doing in Apex. I haven’t spent enough time with it to know the layout of the map, or what guns do what, or when to use character abilities or even just general practices I should be aware of. I want to play more of Apex, but the concept of having to adapt to a new one of these kinds of games just seems exhausting from the outside looking in. Luckily, I’ve got some friends to help motivate me and carry me through those early hurdles, but I don’t know that I’ll ever feel the battle royale fever again like I did when PUBG was released.
All things considered, I welcome our new battle royale overlord with open arms. I don’t ever see Apex Legends ever being released on phones, but who knows? I thought the same thing about PUBG, yet here we are.
So here’s the thing, I didn’t really prepare much of anything to write about this week and I don’t quite feel like phoning it in more than I already am. But there is a reason for all of this, something I’m sure I’ve spoken about before. I just haven’t really played anything of note since last week.
Well, that isn’t entirely true. I did play some Call of Duty Black Ops IIII which was a lot of fun for the few hours I spent with it, but it didn’t leave me wanting to return to it in a meaningful way. Like, it’s fun in the way that Call of Duty always has been, but it didn’t manage to grab me the way the older games did. I know exactly why that is too.
The simple answer is that I don’t have the time or the desire to really get into Black Ops IIII. It’s a really fun experience that I wouldn’t mind dipping into from time to time, but the military shooter genre itself isn’t really doing it for me the way it did ten years ago. I have plenty of good memories of playing these types of games from the past, but these days I find myself wanting a more insular and solitary experience.
It’s why games like Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Fallout 76 are doing absolutely nothing for me. It’s because I just want to play a game by myself, and experience it at my own pace. I almost made the mistake of buying the latest Jackbox Party Pack because I wanted to play the game where you make robots rap battle, but then I remembered that I’d never get the chance to actually play it.
More to the point though, I think the real reason I haven’t played anything this week is because of what is arguably the biggest release of the year being so close to being out. With Red Dead Redemption 2 mere days away, I’ve found it hard to want to play anything but that. It’s one of the first times in a long while that I’ve felt this “hype” for a game that’s demolished my will to touch anything else. I’m sure by next week I’ll post something about Red Dead Redemption 2 and title it in a ridiculous fashion. Something like, “Yeehalloween” or some shit.
Hideo Kojima presents: The Sony 2018 E3 Press Briefing.
The Last of Us II
We open on the composer of The Last of Us sitting in the corner of the stage and playing some very somber tunes on his banjo. Without any gameplay happening. Just him playing the banjo. In this very small church themed venue.
Once he finishes, the lights fade and the footage begins. We open on some people having a party in the exact same venue the conference is happening in, which is weird but cool. We get some context to our main character, Ellie as she’s slow dancing with another woman and eventually kisses her. Then we get a fade to black and reemerge on her slitting a dudes fucking throat in the woods. Very romantic.
It’s all gameplay from here as we see Ellie creeping through the jungle and sneaking around enemy encampments. We come to a scene of some people simultaneously hanging and stabbing another dude which is insanely brutal and inefficient. Through a combination of using a bow and arrow as well as a hammer, she’s taking down her enemies. She eventually is shot at by a gunman which understandably, makes her start running away. She manages to get far enough away and hide under a truck, but eventually is found.
Here we get to see some of the more frantic gunplay and action. Everything seems incredibly dynamic in the way she seamlessly switches from firing a gun to picking up and throwing a brick at a dude to taking a human shield. She eventually ducks into a shop where the stealth elements make their return. While hiding, she crafts an explosive arrow which shes uses exactly how you’d expect. She finishes the last bad guy off and we get a wonderful transition back into the party where this all started.
It’s here I want to emphasize that all of this looks amazing. The animations, the art, all of it is fantastic. It blends from cutscene to gameplay and back and it does it flawlessly. I still don’t know much of anything about the story, but this segment has done enough to pique my interest.
Intermission
Yeah, so it’s here that I realized that they’re moving the audience of the venue into the main theater where the rest of the conference will take place. During this time we have a round table discussion about the current state of Sony and how it’s more recent successes are effecting new games and future decisions. Here they confirmed a new game plus mode for God of War.
They appear to be using this transitional moment to also showcase some trailers for other games. One of these was an ad for classic Black Ops maps available in the upcoming Black Ops IIII. We also learn that as of tonight, Call of Duty Black Ops III will be free for Playstation Plus members.
Ghosts of Tsushima
Here is a man playing an instrument I cannot name, but he blows into it and cool music comes out of the other end. The music stops and the footage starts rolling.
We see a Japanese warrior of some sort walking through a pretty fucked up battlefield with some mourning people crouched up and down the side of the road. He walks up to the top of a hill so we can admire the beauty of the world Sucker Punch has built. He calls for his horse, climbs aboard and sets off through the field and into the forest. Eventually we reach a clearing where some bad guys are executing another man. I’d say we were hacking and slashing through these dudes, but it’s way more deliberate and way more brutal.
We meet up with a companion of ours and run up to an enemy occupied temple. It looks like we’ve entered to stealth portion of this game. Our character climbs onto a roof and makes his way to an opening in the temple. He jumps down into the room and slow-mo murders 3 enemies before stabbing a guy through a door who attempts to sound the alarm.
Upon exiting the temple, our companion tries to pull some shit and challenges us in battle. It basically turns into a Soul Calibur/Bushido Blade game and it looks fucking mind blowing. Suddenly someone shoots fire arrows into the fray the entire field starts burning around them. Our companion and us stop fighting to team up against the incoming horde where it cuts to black and we see the logo.
I am in love with this game.
Control
What if Psy-Ops met Quantum Break? You’d get the latest Remedy game. A woman used psychic powers and guns to fuck people up in this Escher-ass looking game. It looks like a game that is aiming to mess with your mind and the trailer does a good job at establishing that. It’s slated for 2019, and I am onboard.
Death Stranding
So here we are, a Hideo Kojima game is being “shown” at E3. I’m surprised this isn’t just a big slide that just says “FUCK KONAMI.” We see gameplay of Norman Reedus and another guy trudging through various terrains while carrying cargo on their backs. Then, instead of carrying just cargo, we see a guy carrying what looks like a mummy around. At this point I think this is a weird moving and/or hiking simulator, until a guy pulls out a gun.
It’s right here that I realize that I’m trying to describe a Hideo Kojima trailer and I probably just sound like I’ve lost my mind. Invisible hand-footed monsters roam the land and Norman Reedus can’t be bothered to wear a shirt. I still have no idea what this game is about or how it plays but I didn’t expect that I’d find out tonight.
My guess he’s carrying a clone of himself around with him in the form of a baby in a jar. Then he did a sneaking bit past some floating ghost demons or something. I genuinely have no clue what I’m looking at. But Reedus gets swallowed up by the ground and we cut to a woman eating something followed by a cut to another woman standing on a beach dramatically.
I do not know what it is I just watched, nor do I know how I feel about it. Death Stranding ostensibly is a game that one day you might be able to buy.
We open with a crashing helicopter in which Spiderman, does Spiderman things with his spider webs to avoid any injuries. After the crash we get to see some awesome looking combat that reminds me of the Arkham games, but even faster and with some neat special moves sprinkled in.
The Sinister Six are on the loose and they’re all trying to fuck Spiderman up. They all go ahead and leave so Spiderman can fight some goons, which looks just as fun as it did a few seconds ago. After dispatching them, Electro taunts Spidey and starts fleeing. We get to see some real good looking web swinging which ends in Spiderman running up what looks like a massive elevator shaft so he can meet Electro and the gang on the roof.
At this point it’s just a cutscene where several baddies all team up on Spiderman and beat the living shit out of him. It ends with a cliffhanger of Spiderman on the ground in pain, looking up and saying something to the effect of “you?!” Then a quick fade to black and that’s it.
The show is now over and we cut back to the place where the intermission took place. Cool.
Overall, this was a bizarre conference that didn’t really surprise me that much outside of seeing some of that Ghosts of Tsushima.
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The Bonus World 