I recommend: Heat Signature

 Bet you thought I forgot

At the end of the month I got in there! That's right, I didn't forget; there was just so many other things going on that I kept pushing it back, but I still want to do my little 'recommendation' series for the sorts of games that perhaps don't warrant a review. Of course, that being said the last game I recommended was 'Tyranny' which then got a review, but I didn't realise how much I was going to love that game. (quite a lot, as it turns out, Tyranny really ruled) But the game I have today is most certainly not going to provide enough material for a full blown review that takes into account Story, characters, gameplay and all that nonsense, because this is a title that's all about Gameplay. The Story? It's there to serve an end and nothing of consequence really happens in it anyway; we're all about the moment to moment and how the simple can get complex if you just frame it a certain way. I'm talking about Heat Signature.

Now first of all, yes Heat Signature is by no means a new game. In fact, rather like Tyranny, this is actually quite an old title that had it's heyday and is just bouncing around the ecosystem right now, but I remembered it. Back in the days when it was popular, I remember seeing people play it and thinking 'Well this looks fun', so I just slapped it on the back of the ol' Steam Wishlist and forgot about it. Well, fast forward all these years and I ended up picking up in a desperate attempt to keep that list out of the three digit threshold. (Of course, then I just found more games to go up there and I'm currently looking at 96. Someone help) So was the game quite as good as I remember? Living up in terms of content and delivery? It's hard to say because the game came out so long ago that I don't actually remember what I thought of it. But seeing as how I'm recommending it to you right now, there must be something right, no?

Heat Signature is essentially a game that forms itself around the premise of endless randomly generated heists. That's about as simple as I can put it. Heists in randomly generated layouts with randomly generated enemies where you have to acquire randomly generated loot in order to pull things off. Now, that isn't to say that the game is strictly stealthy, but at least for beginners stealth is recommended because going loud requires great amounts of strategic planning and heavy understanding of the systems and tools you can manipulate to your advantage. Oh, but there's a little something about the premise that I forgot to explain; like how it all takes place in freakin' space. Yes, the heists you're pulling off take place on spaceships travelling across the cosmos, meaning that one slip up can end with you getting shot and tossed off into the vacuums of space. So the stakes are pretty high.

As you can likely make out from looking at a little gameplay, Heat Signature is presented in this topdown hand-drawn presentation which just about conveys what the premise is, but isn't quite the best of it's kind that I've seen. (In particular, some of the more messy environments tend to hide important objects) But I'd still argue that the style holds certain charm to it.  Although, if you're looking at it and thinking 'this looks like a really simple game' then allow me to assure you; the simplicity is just the barebones illusion that gets you through the door. Like all great games, Heat Signature gives you a very simple setup with dynamically evolves into a much more involved and, at times, even complex gameplay experience the more you become familiar with it. Though never, I'm happy to say, do things get too overwhelming, at least from a systems perspective.

In the game you star as a Mercenary, set off to do jobs against three warring factions for profit and glory. (I'm not sure if this explains why you're so much more capable than the people on these ships, but there it is.) Essentially this means you'll be manning a pod through space and locking onto airlocks before sweeping room-to-room through randomly generated, but still conceptually similar, hallways in order to wipe out guards, collect keys, and rescue the hostage, or steal the prototype, or hijack the ship or assassinate the target. (As I said, very simple) Where things get really interesting is with the gameplay because, through some trick of reflex, the entire world will freeze, but still be interactable, whenever the player enters their inventory menu allowing for strategy to be made up on the spot and allowing for crazy moments of on-the-spot badassery.

 For example; You might walk into a room with 4 guards who all notice you. Well Metal Gear logic dictates that they need a couple of slow-mo seconds to really process and attack you, during which you can pause time and strategize. Attacks have a cooldown, so in those split seconds you can stab one man and then shoot another. As Gaz once told Soap "It's quicker to switch your weapon than it is to reload" so you can then pull a backup gun to shoot another guard. But then you're stuck, with but a handful more milliseconds until this turns loud. So you use your forever-on-person item teleporter to warp the firearm of someone you just killed to your hand in order to finish off the last guy. All that might have taken 30 seconds to play out, but thanks to pausing and the way the world works, it was just under 2 seconds of ingame time; and now you're starting to see the simplest point from which this game builds itself.

Because, you see, as you progress further you'll meet ever more complications and receive ever more cool tools to play around with. Enemies will start wearing bodyarmour, which traditionally requires an armor piercing weapon to take down, (Which can be rare) some may have heat sensors around their vicinity preventing them from being snuck up upon, other's have emergency shields which deflect all damage and activate quicker than it takes them to process danger. Other's have shields that are always on. All these complications are what give the game this appeal and justifies the innumerable gadgets at your disposal. And this is where I started to fall in love with the game, because all these items have such a robust function that their utility becomes dynamic in that manner that we seek after in our video games. The Crashbeam, for example, shuts down enemies shields allowing them to be killed, but it also shuts down all electronics in general. This means that you can turn off turrets, disable heat sensors and, should you find a room too daunting, even be used to bypass a locked door. Then there's the Subverter which allows you to turn turrets against their owner, or to invert shields so that when a enemy spots you and shoots they just off themselves. There's also the Swapper which switches the player for anyone within the vicinity, allowing you to jump through walls and bypass security checkpoints, or to swap with a character currently shooting at you so that they get hit with their own bullet. The possibilities are endless!

And what makes this all so 'pick up and go' is the rouglelite element to it all. You see, characters for Heat Signature are all randomly generated too and come with incredibly fragile bodies, in that they go down to a single hit and will die if injured too often. (Non lethal guns don't wound, fortunately) This makes all the split-second strategizing and off-the-cuff trickery just all that more intense, knowing that you might be a second away from death at any moment. This also allows you to have different 'builds' with different characters. (Because tools are so versatile that even keeping two different from another character can completely change up how you play the game with both of characters.) The only weakness of this aspect, in my eyes, is the trait system which echoes what you might expect out of 'Rogue Legacy' or something. Only, even the most substantial traits don't feel as involved and subversive as random traits might in other games of this style, and so you'll mostly be creating your own stories for characters in your roster. 

Ingenuity doesn't just spark in the way you use your tools, however, it works it's way into the core design of the gameworld. The developer (Because as far I can tell this was made by one guy) put in just enough robust systems for you to get really creative with the way that you handle situations and it can make dynamic moments feel euphoric. There are windows which can be shot out to in order to suck everything into space for that split second before the emergency airlock kicks in. (Great for a quick getaways, given that you also remotely control your escape pod to pick you up in the seconds before you choke to death.) Certain floor tiles have fuel lines which, if shot with a lethal weapon, will destroy that entire room of the ship. (Destroy the right rooms in the right places and you might even manage to blow a ship in half, a great strategy if you're being hunted by special units that you just aren't equipped to deal with.) There's even special conditions to certain missions, such as one wherein the ship is travelling through a warzone and will get shot to pieces as you progress, really stretching extent of your abilities to improvise as you work your way to figuring routes and adapt to rising adversity.

As you can likely tell from the fervour with which I attacked these aspects, there's just so many clever little systems in this game all shaking hands that it's difficult to cover everything. A lot is just what you can figure out with the tools you have at hand, and making opportunity from adversity. (Like the time I accidentally started an assassination mission where the target had a shield and I had no crash tech. Luckily the void of space isn't so forgiving, so I could lure them to a window and blast them out it.) There's no end to the amount of incidental stories you can make up from playing this game and it's gotten to the point where Heat Signature has literally become my 'pass the time' title for when I'm otherwise occupied, which is quite the honoured position in my library. So I absolutely recommend you pick up Heat Signature, especially given how inexpensive the title is being a little indie game. A worthy reminder that sometimes you don't need complex branching narratives and wide open worlds, sometimes a game just need to be a game for magic to happen.

Mathmatical Moron tries to understand the Stock Market

 Help

'Outside my wheelhouse' doesn't even begin to describe what I see presented in front of me here. I ain't no Stock trader, trading analyst or anything of the sort. I posses none of the perquisites to get involved in such, not least of all basic knowledge and/or interest. So when it comes to what the going-ons at Wall Street mean, I have no earthly idea and they might as well all be talking moon language to me, however, this is showing up on my blog anyway and there must be a reason for that, no? Well that's because this whole situation does have a tangential link towards the world of gaming, and given that it's one of the most important stories to come out of this sort of thing in forever, I find that irresistible. Wall Street is mildly fascinating as this sort of overarching entity that seems to indirectly and confusingly influence the way we live our lives, and when that entity gets challenged, by Memers no less, how could I not talk about it?

Now I should probably continue but first I should mention, I have no idea if we can really trace this all the way back to Memers. By now a lot of people who really have an axe to grind have entered the discussion and for all I know it was them that got the ball rolling in the first place, but all I know is that I became aware of the situation through the Memeing angle. All I heard was a bunch of people talking about Gamestop Stock and thought, "Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time". The last I heard, and I thought I'd ever hear, from Gamestop was in relation to Reggie coming over to try and work his magic, but I didn't except anything to actually come of that. And as far as I can tell nothing really has. That is, unless, Reggie managed to sprinkle his fairy dust over Wallstreetbets and set this whole thing in motion. (But that would be magical market manipulation, so I'm going to assume he didn't.)

So although I'm sure you all either already know the situation or are capable of getting a much more indepth explanation elsewhere, (which I highly encourage) I apparently have a fetish for introductions, so here we go. As far as I can tell, the situation started when someone noticed how pitifully low the Gamestop stock was, in relation to how it's a brick and mortar retail store in a world that's heading increasingly digital by the minute. Now at this point I don't know if it was public knowledge about the hedge funds and their short selling operations, but I do know there was a push of the Reddit page 'Wallstreetbets' in order to flood the stocks for Gamestop. Now when I first heard it explained to me there was the meme angle of this, the company was obviously heading off a cliff but if enough momentum was thrown their direction then it might encourage normal investors to spot the trend and assume something big was coming without doing any basic research themselves. (Which, as far as I can tell, happened.)

 

And so, in the way of miracles; Gamestop became one of the most heavily traded stocks of the week and managed to shoot up, I'm told, 1000% percent. Which is just a stupid amount to climb. Now does this mean that the business itself is any less screwed? I don't know. Again, stocks and their relation to the real world is some sort of eldritch Arcanum that I struggle to untangle, but it certainly made enemies quite quickly. I heard of one 'old establishment' source who scoffed at the idea and offered to hold a live stream teaching these 'kiddies' about the basics of portfolio assessment, only for the Gamestop momentum to barrel into hyperspace and send those guys retreating with their tail between their legs. This was just normal people, operating through easy-access commission free traders such as 'Robinhood', who were sticking it to the stuffy coats who've sneered at them for what feels like decades. (But especially the last 13 years, if you're picking up what I'm putting down.)

However, there is a much more impactful, and hilarious, angle to all this and that is the Hedge fund guys. Oh lord this is where the story gets interesting. Again, total moron to all these financial terms so I've had them explained and reexplained to me through several sources, so I think it goes something like this. These guys are ultra rich scumbags who have a scheme, known as 'Short Selling', wherein they borrow stocks and sell them off, betting on the stock to lose value so that they can then buy it back and return that stock with a profit. It's a scummy system which forms a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, because not only does it rely on the failings of a company but it encourages anyone who recognises it happening to stay away from that stock, because richer people than you want that stock to go down. And it's these people that really caught the bad end of this whole situation.

Because, you see, when they borrow the stocks they are legally obligated to return them, thus if some sort of shenanigans happen in between the selling and rebuying of them, such as a surprise 1000% increase in value, well- let's just say there's going to be a lot of very unhappy billionaires by the end of the day. (And isn't that all anybody wants for Christmas; unhappy billionaires?) These are the sorts of people that relish in the financial death of entire companies, so you can imagine how much everyone started to pile on once it was realised that Gamestop was once such stock undergoing Short selling. I'm talking about even guys like Elon Musk throwing their weight behind the matter, because these are the parasites that literally have no one's best interest to mind except for themselves. These would also be the same folk that you see going on the news in order to demonise the grassroutes rebellion against them by claiming everything from how these people are uninformed morons, (Which, given the volume of people involved, is statically likely to be true for some folk, not entirely sure how that helps their situation though. You got duped by morons; what does that make you?) and even entirely baseless accusations of market manipulation.

That last one is ironic. Especially given that on the tailend of this whole back and forth, which has turned some of the Wallstreetsbets folk into millionaires off the back of these Wall street goons, (Good on them) there has occurred a little situation which some folk, though not myself for legal reasons, have described as overwhelming textbook market manipulation. Now full disclosure, I don't know the letter of the law in this matter and given I'm in no way involved it doesn't really matter all that much to me, all I know is that it's incredibly revealing how things played out. Yes, by now you likely know; one key commission-less broker that a lot of the Wallstreetbets people were using, Robinhood, ended up cancelling the ability to buy Gamestop Stock (As well as other classically bad-bet stocks which had started to gain attention in this wave of retail rebellion) so that it can only be sold now. Thus forcing the stock to go down. Hmm... I wonder why they did that? Could it be because of 'system overload' like they claim, or maybe because of their own financial ties to the Hedge funds involved in the scheme? Your guess is as good as mine...

So yes, at the end of the day we've got a potential meme that started as 'Huh, I wonder what happens if we drive Gamestop stocks up', which has turned into a spitting match against the traditional dragons of finance and I can't help but applaud from the side-lines. As an uninvolved and entirely confused observer, I find all of this has the air of something incredibly important to it, and I wonder what real life actual movement might be inspired by, at least somewhere along the way, a bunch of gamers. (Just more evidence that gamers are some of the least passive consumers out there and I love it) Heck, even famed 'Among Us' streamer AOC is getting involved on the side of the underdogs, who knows where this momentum will lead us? And, of course, the US stock exchange effects us across the pond, and I'm sure those across the world, so this could be the start of something... I don't want to say magical... but at least new. Or maybe it'll all amount to nothing and just be more evidence, as if we needed anyway after the timeless philosophy by Lemar, that 'There ain't no justice in the world'.

So Atomic Heart still looks amazing

Is anyone really surprised?

So you might remember a number of months back I came across this strange looking Russian game out of this indie studio called Mundfish that I just absolutely raved about. It was gorgeous, imaginative, contained so much promise and positively sang for me to pay attention. And it was called Atomic Heart. Since then I've actually noticed the game was more widely known about then I originally thought, and it's been creeping back into the gaming conversation gradually until the team went ahead and uploaded a whole new trailer to show off their graphical prowess. Seriously, I always love to hear about the goings ons in the Indie scene, and celebrate with their victories, but what I'm seeing out of Atomic Heart stretches beyond that. Heck, this game is currently looking better than actual other AAA titles out there, and that does slightly worry given the history of 'Too good to be true' projects lately, but we are where we are.

For those who never looked it up, Atomic Heart is an alternate history science fiction story which looks to bring the wonder of that first playthrough of Bioshock back to life. Basically, this is a game that jumps upon fringe science, beautifully surreal imagery and exploration in order to make it's bread, and from what we've seen it has been doing wonders with that diet. I mean, when Bioshock was announced to have a revival I remember worrying about what that game represented and if another title in that world could possibly live up to that example or if it was doomed to fall victim to 'been there, done that', but along comes Mundfish to remind us that there is always room in the genre for more, you just need to get creative. I cannot do the visual style of this game any justice, you have to look it up yourself, it's sublime.

Recently we received a graphically mouth-watering trailer for the raytracing in the game, and obviously it all makes the game look more tangible than you'd ever thought possible. But then again, that's really just an example of how this game will look for the lucky few with the sort of capital to run that sort of setting on the prohibitively expensive hardware. (Heck, maybe that sorta tech will be more accessible y release, who knows?) I will say that I was decently impressed with how all that super cutting-edge stuff is panning out, but it's really the substance of the game which has my heart caught, and that is demonstrated much better in the extended gameplay footage they released 5 months ago. And yes, I know we're talking about 2020 footage in 2021, but can I help it if there's so much going on that I sometimes let things slip me by? I mean, what's really the harm in looking back a ways, right?

So for that footage we got to get all up-close and personal with the retro-futurist art-deco facility where the reveal gameplay left things, and once more I have to gush, the place is just fantastic. Building a world is as much about what you don't say as it is about what you do, laying out a scene that tells it's story without several text boxes is the cornerstone of the artform. But what the Atomic Heart team have created goes beyond that, and makes me rethink the very way I look at environmental storytelling. (Of course, that's also just a symptom of me getting older and changing my views, but I'd like to call this visual treat a catalyst anyway.) More than just lay out the building blocks of a story and rely on the player to put them together, Atomic Heart's world is borne in this delectable sense of tangibility, where this larger-than-life world looks and feels like somewhere you could be, somewhere you could touch. The story is written in the bricks themselves, not needing anything so arbitrary and contrived as a corpse next to a smoking gun. It feels so much more natural and dynamic, and by extension; so much more real. But this bizarre space is just so fantastical that it could not exist, and so that conflict between that which feels real but could not be just sets my heart aflame.

Now of course, Mundfish are by no means the first to ever reach such a level of world design, I'd argue that Bioshock got there, Monster Hunter always felt that way to me, Obsidian games often achieve that through sheer writing brilliance most times and even Cyberpunk 2077 cannot be robbed of it's artistic excellence. But the difference between those games and this one is that Atomic Heart is, again I remind you, an Indie product! All those games are heavily funded games, backed with storied creators with experience behind them, whereas Mundfish is this comparatively new studio with but one other, now cancelled, VR game to their name. (And honestly, that game sort of just looks like a prototype for this one.) I'm always thinking about the potential of indie storytellers and game makers but, call me cynic, I never in my most generous estimations predicted a title that seems this fresh, interesting and just spectacular looking. By design alone we're looking at real mastery of their craft.

And I said that all without mentioning the enemy design; oh the enemy design! This trailer bought us all up close and personal with these organic plant creatures that float and have these flowing leaves, it's so strange and unlike what I've seen out of gaming before. In fact, the closet thing I've seen design-wise is probably some of the animals in the 2D space exploration game, Starbound. But that's just the tip of it. I also loved this very traditional android-enemy who seemed reminiscent of the Androids out of Alien Isolation through it's very blank and robotic expressions and the 'relentless pursuit' angle of how they are animated. But of course the highlight was the tendril shadow miniboss, The Plyush, which honestly looks like one of the Phantoms out of Prey. I'm naming all of these influences here, but Atomic Heart, wherever in knowledge of the same monsters as me or not, takes every single one of them and breathes individuality into, they make the creatures their own. And cool monster design is so important in a game like this, nailing that is evidence that these people know exactly what they're making and how to pull it off.

But perhaps the biggest surprise in the footage for me was the soundtrack. Because these guys managed to book the one-and-only Mick Gordon as a composer, how freakin' cool is that? Mr Gordon, by the by, is the man responsible for Wolfenstien, DOOM and Prey; the man's a legend. I'm talking about the creative mind behind BFG Division track from 2016's DOOM. You know, the track that literally screams to you like the demonic cries from hell itself; he did that. Knowing that talent is aboard, and lending that irreplaceable charisma to the job, just excites me even more. There's another angle of this game covered by sheer excellence, how can you not get a least a little excited for Atomic Heart knowing that?

Now, of course, comes the cold water; the game looks too good. Yes, I know; who am I to say that a game which looks unendingly great can't be exactly what it looks like, but I'm just being cautious, I'm not boarding the hype train for this one. Even as I look on their official Youtube I can see comments of folk imploring the team to take their time and ensure it's ready, pretty much mirroring my sentiments for what I can only presume is the exact same reason. In my heart I want to support the underdog as much as humanely possible, but I'll retain my distance. Atomic Heart looks like it could be the new Bioshock, and that sort of potential is terrifying. (The fact that I'm not the only saying that, I'd imagine, weighs greatly on the staff over at Mundfish) So I'm going to wait on this one, but I'll absolutely have the candle in the window. Perhaps so that next time I actually see the footage on time instead of half a year later. (Stupid, stupid...)

Five Nights movie?

 He's not stuck in there with them...

I feel like everyday I'm asking 'have I mentioned this before' but given that I've literally been writing these blogs for over a year straight, you can forgive me if it feels like every thought I've ever had has somehow made it's way onto these Internet pages. Due to sheer volume of content, I cannot personally confirm for certain wherever or not that's the case  (too much material to go over) and thus I inquire; have I mentioned my interest in the Five Nights franchise yet? I feel like I must have, afterall there was recently a new game announcement at the PS5 reveal event that I covered, but I don't know if I adequately impressed on you how much this franchise both irks and inspires me. That may sound a little over-dramatic, but let me explain.

Five Nights at Freddy's represents the last hail-mary attempt for an artist, Scott Cawthon, to bring some success out of his work. He achieved it by taking a failed former venture and switching it's greatest failing into the selling point of his new game. That being the way in which the terrifyingly dead-looking humanoid animals work so much better in a horror setting than... whatever the heck his old game was. (I've never seen a single human who's actually played it.) And from that one new game came runaway success, fame, endless sequels, incomprehensive storytelling and a movie deal. This one indie dev managed to turn his entire life around pretty much by accident and I love how that's a story we can tell in the gaming industry. Scott himself seems like a decent enough guy too, so I don't feel gross talking about his good fortunes. But it's that movie deal which concerns me today.

You see, that is an incredible step up from nothing, for a game to become a phenomenon that a studio actually wants to make a movie of!(Albeit, several years after the crescendo of the game's hype) You could hardly dream of such a turn around. And what's more, the concept actually sort of works! We're talking about a story covering a haunted pizzeria wherein the animatronic hosts come to life at night and hunt down any who remain there. It's a story about an innocent location loved by children turned into a horrific nightmarish survival battleground; what a perfect premise for a horror movie! It's not like the oncoming Uncharted movie which proposes to literally turn a franchise born from a homage to a legendary film, back into a film. Or even the Metal Gear Solid movie which is going to bring a 2 hour time limit to a concept that revolves around Stealth and discussions that can go up to thirty minutes in themselves. (Both horrible ideas) If Five Nights takes only the concept and nothing else, there's plenty of room for a genuinely great horror experience to be born here. (If not exactly fresh)

Maybe that's why next month Screen Media is very much attempting to beat that movie to the punch with a shameless 'inspired by' take on the concept starring Nicholas Cage. Yes, that Nicholas Cage. (Is there any other?) To be fair, the actual Five Nights movie has been hit with so many false starts that I wouldn't be surprised if the thing never makes it to theatres, (Or streaming, whatever) especially as Scott Cawthon seems to jump back and forth about how much he wants these little bits of media to crossover with one another, so someone else swooping in to steal the idea feels appropriate. (Or rather 'inevitable', if not exactly 'appropriate') Because you know what they say; Power hates a vacuum and all that baloney. So without further ado let me introduce you all to shameless rip- I mean 'Willy's Wonderland'.

Yes, there is a trailer and I recommend that you watch it. (I surmise that it'll be about as enjoyable as the movie itself. If not a little more.) Right away there's a big question that one will be struck with entering this premise, and that's how the heck anyone is supposed to believe in and immerse themselves in this story with Nicholas Cage in a starring role. Not to denigrate the man or his acting talent, but Cage is just such a force in every single movie he's ever been a part of, his presence simply overwrites any sort of tension that they'll attempt to set up. And the solution is thus; they seemed to have drained horror out of the DNA of the film (or at least 'sheer' horror; it looks like some slapstick horror might stick around) and they have instead deemed to make the film about Cage's character. Clever move, if simultaneously heavily questionable.

Even as we see the restaurant (Which actually seems to share more in common with Chuck E Cheese than Freddy Fazbear) and see the animatronics come to life, there's no question that ol' Nicky, playing the janitor, is the star of the show. Think about that, you have giant walking animatronics that come to life and try to kill you, yet the janitor is the one who steals the show. Props too, for the creative team to actually step away from the slightly more important 'security guard' roll which almost every protagonist in the original games occupied, just to highlight the absurdity of the position by making our hero a janitor instead. (Not 'ingenious' writing by any stretch of the imagination, but appreciative shrug worthy.) I'm honestly somewhat okay with this approach as is does set on a tone of slapstick over seriousness which may just differentiate it from the real Freddy movie which, as far as we know, is still taking itself seriously.

I did note that the trailer seemed curiously devoid of gore, which seems odd for a modern horror movie, and it feels like Cage hasn't got the chance to be as crazy as he wants to. And I am making that statement despite the fact the trailer shows him beating an Ostrich over the head with a broken broomstick. (Maybe I'm just having trouble shaking the memory of Mandy from my head. In that continuity he would have just gouged the thing.) Also, it must be said, Willy looks dumb. He's the orange weasel that we don't see a great deal of in the trailer, but that which we do see makes him just look like the least intimidating animatronic ever. I think it's the excess of fur in his design which makes him look cuddly, or maybe just the long neck. (Long necks don't work on scary monster designs, just ask the original Predator.) Freddy and his gang stand out due to their emotionless and unapproachable statuesque look, and I don't feel an inch of that for these guys. (But then I am biased.)

At the end of the day I cannot rail against the movie without granting it one applause; the movie is actually real. (As opposed to the official product which is feeling ever more like vapourware) Were this my project I would have certainly turned it into an unbashed bloodbath and sought out the most stomach turning death scenes imaginable, but it seems I'm in the minority because this movie looks practically PG. (Okay, there are some moments with gratuitous amounts of that incredibly black-looking blood that horror movies like so much, but that never hits the same, you know?) Maybe, against all odds, this might turn out as a half decent flick and prove my significant doubts completely wrong, but if it does; I think we already know it'll be because of the man, myth and legend on the posters.

What's the deal with the Chinese and Genshin?

And when's the punchline?

I'd say that at this point it's no secret that I'm something of a fan of Genshin Impact. I know, it should be everything that I despise, being a mobile game based on Gacha elements, but everytime I give her a chance I'm never disappointed. The Gacha systems have always treated me surprisingly fair, the game runs so well on PC I often completely forget it doubles on phones too, and at the end of the day the game is just fun to play. Whatsmore, I feel like MiHoYo is made up of developers who seem to genuinely listen to and work upon feedback, as I rarely see an issue that isn't neatly cleaned up in a decent amount of time. Now of course the game isn't at all perfect. The combat can be a little repetitive due to there being only a couple new enemies added since launch, the world is presented just past the threshold of denseness to be slightly unapproachable and the mainstory seems predominately directionless for 90% of the playtime. But somehow the charm outweighs the negatives for me.

And it would seem that I'm not alone given how the game has become something of an International sensation, to the point where they even got themselves nominated for a GOTY award. They didn't win it, unfortunately, (And not because Last of Us Part 2 was up for one in the same category. 'Cause then they'd have no chance.) but it's still indicative of a game that that forced it's way into the big leagues. Think on this; this game was up for a multiplayer award but Avengers, a Square Enix title with the biggest brand in the world attached to it, was completely absent. It has a decent playerbase of dedicated fans, pop culture has already integrated surface level knowledge of the game into popular memes and the free-to-play game made a veritable fortune in it's opening months alone. So if all that's the case, why is this game so hated in China?

I ask because, lest we all forget, MiHoYo is actually a Shanghai-based video game company despite all the ways in which they try to make us forget that. You know, like how the game is advertised with a translation of it's Japanese name rather than it's Chinese one, which leads to the rather nonsense title of 'Genshin Impact' rather than 'Yuan shen'. (Which refers to the Primordial spirit or 'true god' which forms the underlying narrative of the game.) So this here is a Chinese game that does it's utmost to hide that fact and is, anyway, vastly disliked in all of China? We can see this from the general public disinterest shown during events, to the grand display of one Chinese fan who rather embarrassingly broke their PS4 at an expo for the game. There's even outright hostility towards the game on Social Media, and at this point you might be wondering what exactly is the cause of all this. 

Well to be entirely frank there could be any number of inciting factors with anything from random cultural differences to wide spread dogpiling, although I think this may actually date back to the first reception this game ever received. Weirdly, I actually stumbled upon this game months before launch when it existed as only trailers, and as you can see from my blog at the time, I was less than impressed. I thought that it was blatantly obvious how this game was a cheap rip on Breath of the Wild, and that was apparent for anyone to see. The art style looked the same, the movement systems were identical, visual indicators were nicked, the evidence was damning. But then the game came out... and it was actually pretty good. Suddenly the narrative changed, this was no longer a copycat, by an 'inspired by' story. These guys had just seen what Nintendo had done so well and learnt from them, disregarding all the systems which literally ripped their functionality from the Zelda masterpiece. (Heck, they're still doing it. Don't think I didn't notice that recent cold system!) But that image never left in China.

Yep, while the rest of the world turned around and pulled out the 'we forgive you' card, China merely dug in their heels and rallied ever harder against the MiHoYo developers, and it doesn't look like they'll be coming around to everyone else's way of thinking anytime soon. And if you're wondering why this may be, I heard one rather sensible theory relate this to the perception of copy cats within the general Chinese psyche, because quite simply... the Chinese hate them. Yeah, the lax copyright laws in China may allow the place to be the land of infringement, but with that comes an unshakeable and disfavourable reputation that no one wants to foster. Around the world we tend to instinctively think 'China' whenever the idea of foreign knockoffs is discussed, and that's embarrassing, the people don't want to have that label. Whatsmore, it tends to rub off onto the actual quality products actually made in China, making China an easy target for ridicule.

Though we may look at Genshin with the eyes of "we'll make an exception this time" and "Lets look at how you're different rather than how you're the same", to the Chinese gaming audience it's merely another display of blatant creative bankruptcy that reflects badly on China. What makes it worse, now the game is global sensation, so their shame is being broadcast to the world! MiHoYo even knew this was likely, hence them trying to actively hide their original name as I mentioned earlier. Although this may not be a disaster on the level of those cheap movie rip-offs or foreign remakes you see all over the place, the quality of the product does not matter. This is a question of originality, and when you approach it from that angle, Genshin does look pretty guilty.

I find it oh-so fascinating to think about, because I'm on two minds for the issue myself. On one hand it's hard to deny; without Breath of the Wild Genshin would have never existed. Sometimes it feels like you could trip over the set in Teyvat and stumble into Hyrule, they're that similar to one another. But on the otherhand I fiercely defend the right for inspiration and reiteration as long as enough work is put in to sufficiently differentiate the final product. In my opinion MiHoYo put in more than enough effort to cross the freshold into originality again, but I don't have years of insult and disgrace wearing down my patience to the point where I'm fed-up like the Chinese people do. 

It's a shame, for this could have been the sort of game to really bring together the world of gamers that feel so very separate at times. (Due to excessive regulation which often means China is playing completely different versions of our games) And yet an inexplicable clash of cultures has wedged itself between that plan seemingly out of nowhere, it's almost comical in it's irony. Perhaps given time to get used to it, the Chinese gamers will gradually come around on Genshin and maybe join in on the fun the rest of us are having, but somehow I doubt it. (Heck, MiHoYo probably aren't even advertising in their homeland anymore at this point. It's that much of a lost cause.) Seems a strange fate for a game who's very world is designed to celebrate various world wide cultures. But thems the breaks, I suppose.

The Cyberpunk Expose

We knew this day was coming

Bloomberg has developed something of a reputation ever since they hired the one journalist in the entire Gaming news industry. They're like the vultures who circle around carcasses picked clean in the court of public opinion. The second you see that 'Reach out to me' Tweet from Mr Schreier, it's pretty much brown trouser and alibi time for every single executive who so much as forgot to refill the break room kettle, thus when something the scale of Cyberpunk 2077 happened; well, the expose was coming. We're talking about the sort of exposé articles that detailed the Fallout 4 debacle, the Anthem disaster, Black Ops 4's upheaval, the Naughty Dog... thing. (Still not sure what that one was about) All those skeletons are piled up at this one man's desk so you can bet this was inevitable and likely to bring out every single dirty detail to light. And it... kinda did. I guess. I don't know, I guess this whole mess just wasn't as juicy as some of his others, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't enough fuel there to light a fire. I mean, one could argue that this didn't so much light a fire as pour several jugs of gasoline ontop of one, but either way the Cyberpunk dumpster fire is, once again, alight and thus I want to talk about it again. What can I say, I'm like a rabbit. The dancing lights and pitchforks entrance me.

First of all we've been hit with cold facts; development for Cyberpunk 2077 started after the release of The Witcher 3 rather than when the game was announced several years beforehand. What a revelation... except we knew this. From another Schreier expose in fact. The team put out a recruitment call for Cyberpunk 2077 but when The Witcher 3 underwent a few development issues, such as a full engine jump, everyone had to be reshuffled to that project. There were stories of developers who signed on for Cyberpunk, got burned out in the death march for Witcher and then left without getting to ever touch the Cyberpunk project. So I guess we already knew that the game wouldn't enter development until all that was behind the team, but with new news we actually learn that there was actually a big project restart around this time. (Feel like the exposé covered that too, but I can't quite remember.)

Now this isn't exactly the smoking gun some might be claiming, but it does put a correction down on those who stood gobsmacked at the quality of Cyberpunk saying things like "this took them seven years?" Actually it was more like four, which is actually still a little more than a lot of AAA games get nowadays, but not nearly as much as the game obviously needed. We also heard about other factors to impede development, such as communication breakdowns as the team swelled in size. New teams were bought together without the closeness that is enjoyed by veterans and some issues, which can probably be traced back to mismanagement, led to doubled workloads. One of my favourite stupid examples of this, although not mentioned by the exposé in question, is the way how modders discovered unused voice lines for a romance between Male V and Judy in the game, despite the fact that Judy is canonically lesbian. The official response from the team (Which they really didn't need to give, by-the-by) claimed that this was because the team were afraid of missing out gender specific lines so they just recorded everyline for both genders. This was done in fear of missing something and having to go back and redo it. Which means that they intentionally doubled their workload in this regard in order to avoid accidentally doubling their workload? Yeah, no. That was clearly just some poor planning and messy execution. (Hey, at least the VAs got paid.)

Of course, with this truncated development time the question on a lot of rational minds might be something along the lines of; well what did you expect? In fact, the report even follows one person who directly asked something along the lines of 'how can we make a game that's technologically more demanding than The Witcher 3 in the same amount of time.' And their answer? The grand smack down to all the non-believers out there? Well allegedly it was; "We'll figure it out."(KO, haters, how will we ever stand up to such sound logic?) Now I've heard some people compare this to the whole 'Bioware magic' insulating device which was utilised whenever concerns were bought-up regarding Anthem, but I still maintain distance to criticizing  a term which seems like an inside joke. I mean sure, from the outside that sounds like a damning case of sticking one's head in the sand and hoping everything works out, but without working in Bioware, it's hard to say if that's just a throwaway expression. What you can't argue with, however, are the results. Anthem was a mess, and Cyberpunk is a shadow of what it could have been. Huh, guess logical challenges do have a place on the development floor, huh?

The rest of the report was largely made up of reiterations on things we either already knew or could have inferred simply from... you know... what we ended up getting. The focus on Johnny Silverhand over the development of the protagonist was made after Keanu Reeves joined the project, (That's alleged) when the claim was made that the game ran "Surprisingly well" on current gen consoles that was a barefaced lie aimed at luring customers into a false sense of security. (that is not alleged) The early release was fuelled by the external factors of the newly releasing consoles, quite contrary to the trite we were fed at the time. And that embarrassing Police system where cops literally spawn behind you the second you get a wanted level; was cobbled together as the game was getting pushed out the door. Showing you clearly how much effort was put into creating the 'open world' in this 'open world game', in case the actually brain-dead civilian AI didn't manage that for you already.

But, of course, there was one revelation from this whole affair that really took the Internet by storm. One reveal which had people taking off their hats in mourning, for their heroes had died with that announcement. That was the 'shocking' reveal that the gameplay video which first shocked the world, and incidentally was the place where I began obsessed with the project (albeit, that was from a recount of the video rather than when the video itself launched) was fake. But what do we mean by 'fake'? Well, apparently it was a demo that was put together against the wishes of some of the team who believed it took several months away that could have been used in development. So that makes it 'fake', apparently. I mean the thing was made, it did function; this wasn't just a cobbled together VFX rig. But I think some people were under the assumption that this was a vertical slice taken out of the full game which, I'll be honest, I don't think was ever said.

Now if you've been around here long enough you'll know that I'm never the apologist standing up for these companies when they screw us, but I think the reaction to this news is a little bit of the public's own consequence, because I certainly knew exactly what the trailer was at the time. It was a proof-in-concept, a vision of what they wanted the final product to look like and they were excessively clear about that. That was why everyone was telling them 'Go and make that game. That standard we saw; that's what we want you to hit!' Which is something they ultimately failed to pull off. I mean sure, the final game looks a lot better, but pretty much every single described or implied system was either downgraded or non-existent. That doesn't change the fact that the trailer wasn't a lie, or even sold as one; the public just choose to see it as more than it was, and if we're being really honest with ourselves; isn't that a little stupid? I mean come on; if the general game looked that polished in 2018, why the hell do you think they'd spend another two years in development? What do you think they would be developing? What, does it take two years to wrap up the story quests? Of course not, that was the time they spent building the spine behind what they teased, and that spine ended up mostly crooked.

Enough with the grandstanding though, people feel like they've been lied to and in most respects they have been. I mean, if nothing else we were absolutely sold the lie that this was 'the most believable open world ever' when the final product is really an example of all the worst open world traits. Beautiful and gleaming but shallow as a puddle. And all the rebuttals that have since come out toward the exposé (all from a company who curiously refused to comment on the exact same exposé when formally asked. Very bad form.) ring hollow. Even the apology doesn't hit it. Because at the end of the day all the higher-ups want to talk about are the bugs, because they can be fixed, when the truth is that the rot runs deeper and closer to the heart of the very game itself. They billed this as the new Deus Ex, but what we got was a slightly better Ubisoft game. (Okay, to be fair people say the story is good, which automatically makes it the best Ubisoft-style game.) 

F.I.S.T

 Why am I having New Vegas flashbacks?

It's not- hey, it's not what it looks like, I swear. This is a game. A game called Fist. I don't know why I'm talking about it, it just caught my eye. And that's not Fist like... it's F.I.S.T; as in 'Forged in Shadow Torch'? Oh god, that's a horrible title. No wonder they went with the acronym. Actually, they didn't even use the Acronym right, you're not supposed to use two-letter throwaways in those. I mean you can, but it's just unseemly. Then again, when you've decided to market your game as 'F.I.S.T', I suppose you've already gone far past being 'seemly'. So is it safe to say that I just jumped on this game the second I saw the title without seeing a second of actual gameplay? Declaring 'this is going in the blog' without even the slightest of periphery research? Kinda, yeah. So let's rectify that with a little google and... Bunny in a mech suit? Maybe this is worth talking about...

Aside from that agonisingly terrible title, F.I.S.T is actually a rather curiously good looking title coming out of the team at- are you serious? WHO'S NAMING THINGS AROUND HERE? Okay, give me a second. They're called: 'Shanghi TiGames Network Technology Limited', apparently. Yes, as you can tell I've never heard of this 'studio' before and am having a little trouble looking them up on anything not strictly tied to this game, which either means the Internet is lying to me or this is their first game. And in their defence, judging by the gameplay presentation I watched, the official twitter account for the game and just the name of the company itself, I don't think English is anyone's first language over there. Which still doesn't change the obscenely long, or just plain obscene, names that I'm seeing here. Heck, I have half a mind to tune this game out altogether; that was, until I actually saw it for myself and went. "Oooh. 'kay I'll shut up now." 

That's because this is a game that features an uncomfortably realistic bunny fighting through a semi-steampunk Metroidvania; and I just love me a good 'ol Metroidvania. For context's sake, my history with Metroidvania's isn't quite as storied as many of the vets you might find out there. I didn't rock up playing Metroid 2 in my T-16 back home just after a long evening of bullseyeing womp rats. Rather I only got around to Metroid literally last year, and 'Castlevania: Symphony of the Night' in 2020 too, for that matter. But I can credit this genre as my very first foray into the last console generation, strangely, so they still hold a special place in my heart. And I generally just have a lot of respect for tight, clever level design formed around ingenuity and player progression; wherein 'getting good' is matter of becoming a better player alongside getting newer tools to wind into that playstyle. Thus, even hearing that F.I.S.T is going to be pairing itself alongside those sorts of games, has me interested.

What seals the deal is the gameplay itself, which seems to lean into a rather unique 'style' of Metroidvania that I really respond to. As much as there are enemies to slay, and natural obstacles to evade, there appears to be this natural budding union between puzzle gameplay and fighting that I'm really hoping makes it the way until marriage, because that's what I want out of my 'Vanias. Apart from just straight puzzle rooms and, I'd imagine, the odd brick wall you'll need to figure out, tough enemies appear to have this delightful puzzle-element imbued into them through the very nature of the combat systems, which do a Sekiro and rely entirely on split-second parries and evasions to make them interesting.

One moment from the gameplay which really highlighted the potential here was this (I assume boss) fight against an enemy that would chuck it's huge circular saw arms around the screen. What preceded was a little spot-and-dodge scene where the protagonist almost felt like they were in a Mega Man level. Without the ability to reliably block, this becomes a tense standoff that demands the players attention, similar to how in Hades limited healing system heightens tension. (See how I avoided the classic game's journalist trap of saying the 'DS' word there? Masterful!) Or another transitory scene where the player has to make use of a Drill power up in order to float up wind torrents whilst avoiding electrical coils, showing off tools that double as weapons and mobility enablers; the cornerstone of Castlevania's which prove these developers know what they're doing.

But right now I think the most standout thing we're seeing about the game is the art style, which is really a little unlike what we're used to in this genre. What I find interesting about this is the way in which it isn't your traditional furry style, where animals are heavily anthropomorphised in a manner that makes them cartoony, but rather there's a realistic edge to the art that I find arresting. Of course, the fact that the rabbit has a robot arm on his back breaks that illusion rather succinctly, but the fact that the model itself is strictly realistically proportioned does stand apart from a lot of the other animal-based games I've seen recently. Even stranger, due to the side-scrolling perspective of the gameplay and the busy-backgrounds, it's not even all that easy to make out the character anyway, so that work on making him look so good is a little redundant. (Unless there's some substantial cutscene-content coming in the full game)

The only aspect of this game that I found myself seriously challenging is that of the combat system itself. And I'm talking about the meat behind that 'parry-centric' base. The narrator from the gameplay assures that there's a wide range of combo potential there, but it seems this is one of those games where that's a fact that's hard to demonstrate. From what we have seen there's some appealing 'give' to the enemies, in that you seem able to smack them around a fair bit (take note; Avengers) but whether or not that'll make for an engaging back and forth throughout the entire game is really dependant on enemy composition, progression and just plain game length. All of which you can't really show off until launch, so I guess we'll just have to roll the die.

Diving into random games you find online can always be a little bit of a mixed bag, but every now and then a little gem you never could have predicted shows up and those are the moments I live for. It helps to step back from the noise of big budgets and focus on smaller niche titles like this F.I.S.T, that doesn't try to be everything all at once but looks to do what it does well. Forged in Shadow Touch might just be that special little something that's exactly what you were looking for. (God knows it been a while since a good Metroidvania has hit the streets.) As for me, I'm interested enough to keep an eye out, I have a good inkling about this one. 

WTF Microsoft?

Someone looking to start a revolution?

When watching Netflix for any extended period of time, there's this little system built in the backend to make sure you haven't walked off and left the show. (Or, as is more likely, fallen asleep) It could be argued as a symptom of the jealous way in which Netflix demands as much active attention as possible, or maybe just a tactic for shaving off some of their server load. Either way, the 'Are you still there' prompt remains the pain of long-form bingers like myself to this very day. I mean, if I want to turn the show off, I'll turn it off. But if I want something on in the background whilst otherwise occupied, I don't think that's a problem either. Companies need to learn how to trust their consumers more. And if you're wondering what this has to do with anything, it's just my strange analogue for the 'are you still there?' that Mircosoft pulled the other day when they slyly teased a price hike to their Xbox Live gold service. (Excuse me?)

So perhaps those in the enlightened PC worldspace aren't familiar, but down here in the peasant console land we are forced to pay a tax in order to go online. It's called the 'online service'. Here's a system where we pay in order to have our trusty console manufactures secure an online ecosystem that is usually fraught with all sorts of nonsense and stupid issues and can be subject to the odd global shutdown ever year or so. (It's always whenever I'm online, too.) So for our bloodmoney, the Sonys and Microsofts of the world get to maintain their revenue stream and stay as rich as they want, it is what it is, I think we're past fundamental arguments at this point. And yet, as begrudging as this situation is and how we just have to accept the meal we're given; that don't mean eyebrows won't be raised at a spontaneous 100% price increase. I mean; who the heck do you exactly think you are, Xbox?

It's not as though they're the leaders of the console gaming pack by any stretch of the imagination. Strides have certainly been made and I'd say that right now we're sitting in a position where, through initiatives like Game Pass and certain upcoming exclusives and the technical superiority of the Series X (in some fields), Microsoft might be in a position to be a real competitor again at some point in the discernible future. But they aren't there yet, and Playstation still rules this day. Playstation has all the exciting exclusivities, all the relationships with the powerful studios and enough gall to pull Cyberpunk off their shelves entirely when that development studio started given them sass. Microsoft don't have that sort of swagger, because they can't. The Xbox One console generation, led with the Kinect mess, threw Microsoft too far in the back, it swapped the power dynamic entirely. So in what world do they think they have the sort of reputational capital to make a foot-in-mouth move like that?

It was just so 'matter of fact' and cold. They just spat out a document neatly calculating the new prices in various major worldwide currencies as though to say; "you expected this, this makes sense." They even had the gall to throw in some nonsense about "Our prices haven't changed for 10 years so now it's reasonable that we..." That's because your prices are already too much, morons! We're locked in this stalemate because both Microsoft and Sony are subtly gouging console players for lackluster services and hoping they don't get wise to the grift, the absolute last course of action to take in such a predicament is to up the ante. You really want to draw attention to the crappy value proposition of your online service, Microsoft? You really want to do that?

And I may be throwing a 'how could this happen' sort of vibe about, but let me tell you exactly what happened, shall I? Microsoft just turned around and looked at the way Netflix and all those other streaming services have been slowly turning up their prices now that their consumer base is locked in. Those executives turned around to each other, rubbed the brimstone out of their ears and went "Look at how much money they're making! Heck, we've had a captive audience for decades; why ain't we taking advantage like that?" And the response should have been; 'Because that would literally be like opening Pandora's box', or something to that effect. (But no one ever jumps in to point out the obvious. Thus we, the customers, have to remind them the basic of common sense.)

What really gets me about this, and I mean that which just has me scratching my scalp to the bone, is the timing of all this. Did they really not stop to think about the timing? We're in the middle of an ongoing pandemic, lockdowns are getting renewed, budgets are as tight as they've ever been, and Microsoft are just sitting there with their wallets open waiting for their due? And before you start thinking "Oh, maybe times are tough on their end too"- Nope. Gaming has been doing just fine with the lockdown mandates, the steady transition to digital only bought doom to the third-party retailers, Xbox ain't got nothing to be complaining about. Not matter which way you look at this, this here was just another example of "Why have most of the money when you can have all of the money?"

One thought I had, though I admit it borders on conspiratorial, was that this was an attempt to divert traffic onto the Gamepass service, because that would actually make some grim sense, wouldn't it? Whilst the 'Xbox live' value proposition equation is all skewered, Gamepass actually overdelivers on it's value and then some, and I've been feeling like Gamepass is destined to be the Xbox live replacement for a while now. It secures a audience coming back for the high-quality 'free' games on a roatation, earns a slightly higher monthly cost through sheer virtue of the service and is easily the best deal in the entire industry right now, so there's a headline earner. I just thought that the transition would come as a steady abolishment of the Xbox Live charge system in favour of steady rising Gamepass prices, rather than a bad-faith attempt to outprice us to the new service. (Shame on you, Xbox, that was dirty.)

Of course, I'm not the only one who was bewildered and enraged about this story, and by the time the journalists had managed to wrangle an article together, Xbox had already completely turned tail and withdrew the expansionism plans. No price hike, and I presume no plan to make 'Free to play' online games totally free either. (Because that was apparently the toss-up that we were supposed to be swallowing the hike for. No thanks.) I'm not sure if this was meant as a sort of 'all news is good news' way to get the brand name in the headlines, but someone needs to really tell the folk over at Xbox that sometimes, when you know there's a 90% chance that the audience is going to hang you for what you're about to do, some basic instinctual foresight and sensible judgement can do wonders.

25 years of Resident Evil

 Village of the damned?

You know, for a while there I was starting to feel as though Resident Evil had silently rebooted itself without telling anyone. Ever since Resident Evil 7 Biohazard came back into the fold (or, if you will, Biohazard 7 Resident Evil) it felt as those the modern team working on these games were interested in making a horror game, but not necessarily one locked to the Resident Evil canon. I mean just look at the RE7 game, it's entirely first person instead of the over-the-shoulder third Person cam that Capcom themselves helped pioneer with RE4, there are literally no traditional zombies in the game and the only returning member of the classic alumni was the one man with a season-ticket to his plastic surgeon. In many ways the game was unrecognisable from what Resident Evil had to offer, and yet it bore that name and, presumably, the same team, so I let it slide. Yet as more RE games have come to be remade it has served to really highlight the disparity against these two halves of the franchise and make me really wonder if they'd ever come together. Well, for VIII it would appear that they have.

In celebration of 25 mostly active years in the gaming world, Resident Evil greeted fans with a rather meaty reveal of every single upcoming project they have for us to sink our teeth into. (Except for Resident Evil 4 remake, there's some stuff happening with that. I'll talk about that another time.) All of that was mostly fluff to the Internet, however, because what we wanted was that gameplay for the brand new Resident Evil and I'm happy to note; that's exactly what we got. Oh, that and a brand new meme revolving around a "big" character to chew on. Only this time instead of the man-brink chonkers Chris to set our hearts aflame, it's this just unreasonably tall powdered vampire lady called Lady Dimitrescu. (Guess we've got Hachishakusama in our Resident Evil now...) She's ah... she's really caught the Internet's attention alright. Her and her entire clan of 'daughters' (see: coven of murderous vampire girls who seem to turn into bats but other than that are sensibly scaled.) Yes, there's certainly some domme fantasists who are getting exactly what they want right now, providing what they want is to be munched down on by a bunch of messy eater vampire girls. (They could at least wipe their mouths, the blood is getting all over their garments. Gosh.)

So, yes. We are absolutely looking at vampires in a Resident Evil game, alongside the werewolf which, as I noticed during the event, appears to be superimposed over Chris. (Whatever that foreshadows. I say, pretending that it's not a clear indicator we're getting another 'stalker' character this game to join the ranks of Mr X and Nemesis) It's the height of surreal, for me, to see these traditional monsters thrown into my favourite zombie franchise that I can't help but wonder if it's yet more evidence of Resident Evil drifting away from what it once was. But given the chance to see the rest of the footage (In which it seems we are getting zombie-like enemies) I'm starting to come around to it. (Plus, just logically, RE6 literally showed off a fledgling zombie apocalypse, I'd imagine the creatures must have lost their 'bite', so to speak, within the modern RE world.)

As for the gameplay itself, do you even need me to tell you that it looks as fine as Italian wine? That RE engine has never failed to disappoint. (except for in relation to the gore in Resident Evil 3 remake, but it seems I'm the only one who noticed how much that was tuned down.) Every time I see the inside of that castle I yelp like a schoolboy at all the finery, the light sources, the chandelier, the pure soul of 'ornate' which oozes out of it; the whole place looks gorgeous and it's the power of the RE engine that brings all of that to life. I'm honestly so very impressed with the versatility of this engine, and I salivate everytime I see another glimpse of her talents in action. The general internet may be infatuated with the tall vampire lady, but I'm all about that engine, and that ain't no lie.

Combat was also shown off in the footage, wherein we learnt that living through life and death against some of the most terrifying monster imaginable has really rubbed off on old Ethan Winters. That's right, baby, this time our boy has really stepped up his game and bought the ability to thrown up his hands in front of his face and limply push back against people. (Huh.) Although that will really help out against the new crowds of enemies that we see in this game that appear to take a leaf out of Resident Evil 3 Remake's book. There's even some of those universal exploding red barrels, which says to me that RE8 is committing to a more action-orientated gameplay direction as opposed to the relatively slow-burn pace or RE7. (Although maybe not as breakneck paced as RE3R was. I think people want their game to last longer than 8 hours afterall. Well, unless you're a reviewer, but who really cares about their pathetic whingeing anyway?)

What really stood out to me, however, was the way in which the inventory system has been remodelled in order to resemble an attaché case, similar to Leon Kennedy's inventory system in RE4. (Which they invoked by name, by-the-by) This means that new items and guns will be represented as a certain size in your inventory, requiring the player to reorganise or reshuffle things in order to fit the new stuff in. Or, in the worst case scenarios, end up leaving something behind. That alone is an example of how this game, even when it feels as little like Resident Evil as possible, brings it back and returns to the experience I love. We have the inventory system, the glorious residence that I'm sure will be dripping with puzzles and, of course, the return of the weapon merchant! Only, rather than a dubious trenchcoat wearing man who chooses to know us only by the moniker of 'Stranger', this here's an absurdly large gentleman known as The Duke. (What is it with this game and skewered dimensions, is that going to be a theme or something?)

Throw all of that atop of the new destructible environmental objects (full of treasures, Zelda style) and the collectibles we'll see around the map, and Resident Evil VIII is looking to be the RE4 of it's line. That is: a weird and wonderful entry that just somehow seems to get mostly everything right. (Except Ashley. Screw Ashley.) I know that seems like a premature diagnosis, we've only seen a sliver of gameplay and they seem to be wanting to take things mostly seriously, but I'm just picking up this whiff of silliness from the whole affair. I mean, the impetus of the plot appears to be Chris just breaking into your home and nicking your baby daughter; ain't that just the slightest bit whacky? (Makes me wonder if the team had seen all those memes about "continuing the Redfield line". Maybe Chris got fed up and decided to steal himself a heir.)

Of course, this all comes with a little bit of a grimace because this is a modern AAA videogame so of course it does. And I'm not just referring to the utterly gross and tone deaf way in which the presenter told us all to get ready for preorders. (I've already clicked on your 15 minute ad, thank you very much, I don't need you bending me over a barrel too.) Those special editions, my god. Why does every big budget game feel the need to throw 20 versions of their game at us? What do they get out the deal, more purchases? Are there folk out there seriously buying two copies because they missed out on the unique weapon attachment in another bundle? (I hope not) And also, it kinda looked like the hardest difficulty setting was locked off to one of those bundles. I hope I'm seeing that wrong because I do not play Resident Evil on anything short of nightmare and you better not be trying to pull one over on me, Capcom. I will be very upset if that's the case.

But aside from that slight unpleasantness, I'm practically abuzz with Resident Evil 8 and am currently so glad that this side project got promoted to a numbered entry. I've really come around to this expansion of the Resident Evil mythos and appreciate the directions we're going in now. From here, literally anything can be on the table and that's exciting! Are we going to get a Cthulu virus out of the franchise? Probably not because the Lovecraft estate famously has terrible taste, but the possibility is still there. From here I hope that future Resident Evil games might reunite us with some of our heroes we haven't seen a great deal of, (What is Rebecca up too? Seriously?) but I suppose that's what the remakes are for, huh?

Persona come back

 Patience isn't my strong suit

Okay, so I inherently know that I'm going to sound a little whiney saying this; but when's the next game, ATLUS? I'm dying out here! Recently you may have remembered that long tradition broke when ATLUS, kings upon kings, decided to do the unthinkable and put a JPRG on computer. (What madness it this!) Yes, a game genre that typically demand hours of one's time pouring over incremental stat increases, strategizing over exact move orderings and combos, all whilst juggling packs worth of regenerative items. Why should that experience ever make it the PC? Of course, I'm being an ass; JRPGs were made for the PC audience and it's crazy to think how long it's taken things to actually catch on. When Persona 4 Golden finally made the jump, however, there was none of that early stigma of 'Will this work out', 'ain't this more of a Playstation thing', it was all just "Please god, let me have Persona I've waited for so very long." (Or at least that was me, I imagine others were a bit more muted.)

And it worked out! Heck, I couldn't have made Persona 4's PC launch a success on my lonesome, so that's proof there's an audience on PC that's dying to have more of this world! Just recently it was surmised that Persona 4 was one of the top games of the year to be played on Steam with a controller, which seems a little odd given that it is a turnbased game, but I was actually one of that number so I guess I can't really talk, can I? So we're talking about a game that smashed sales, challenged some records, and had folk literally begging for more. So are we actually getting that more? I feel like this is something that we need to know because... well... I hate this annoying limbo of never knowing enough! Capcom are kind enough to let us know what we can expect out of Yakuza's PC ports, and that's ten times more kind to us than letting fans longue around all year and wither. I remember several times seeing that glimmer of home in a trailer and jerking upright, only to see that it's just Persona Strikers, or an AFK arena crossover. (AFK Arena? Seriously!)

I suppose the reason this really digs at me goes back to the very first moment I heard of Persona, because I can actually pinpoint that. It was during the lead-up to 'Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain', and I had been scouring Youtube for videos in any language that would tell me more about the game. Now I cannot say if watching all those Japanese videos had a hand in influencing my slice of the recommendation algorithm, but that certainly doesn't seem completely out the realms of possibility, does it? Either way, I found myself with the announcement trailer for Persona 5 in my feed and just ended up clicking on it. I kid you not, by the end of that trailer alone I was sold. It looked vibrant, exciting, kinda crazy, brimming with personality and just a hint of these great anime cutscenes; I was hooked. From that moment I've been constantly looking for a way to get my hands on the game, but it's always been just out of my reach. First it was because the game was destined to be a Playstation exclusive, and then because- no wait, every bit of my waiting has been because this game is a Playstation exclusive. Damn it Sony, why won't you share the love?

Now don't get me wrong, I understand why the Xbox hasn't exactly seen it's share of Japanese titles. Sony is a Japanese company with ties to all studios from that side of the world, so when it comes to exclusivity talks you can't really blame these devs for going with what they know. But what's the excuse for PC? Ya'll making these games on personal computers, are you not? Why can't they be for them? Yes, I'm getting to the point where my arguments are as simple as that, because do they really need to be any more complicated? How often is it necessary for a game to be made for consoles and then ported to PC; does that ever make more sense than the inverse? I doubt it. And if Sony are worried about losing market ground, that's fine, but what the heck do PC players have to do with that argument; we don't care about this whole 'company loyalty' nonsense, we just want to buy the games! Let us buy the games, Sony, you avaricious gold-hoarding flying lizards. (Yes, this rant is slightly inflamed by Final Fantasy XVI too, can you blame me?)

So why am I writing this blog? Because now that I've actually had the chance to sit down and play the heck out of Persona 4, I'm hopelessly in love with this franchise. I mean, head over heels, can't live without it, need more in my system, addicted to the thrill, lost in the beat, addicted to the pain, insert analogy here, kind of fascination with these games, and I need more. Seriously, I've played a great many RPGs in my time of all different shapes and sizes, including a recent spat of old school western isometric-style games, and I've never seen one that so frankly nails the juggling of life and combat. Even fully blown open world RPGs like Skyrim and Fallout, that literally make you play ever waking second of your character's life, don't make me feel like I've inhabited the mundanity and humanity of the character in question. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say, I feel less an avatar in a new world and more a person from that world in Persona.

Yes, I know it sounds weird to say; but I adore all of those times when I'm just interacting with the inhabitants of the game world and getting to know the regulars and finding out what makes everyone tick. It's a perfectly natural way of establishing personal attachment to the personalities of the game world and I haven't seen anyone pull it off as neatly as the Persona franchise does. Which isn't to say the combat isn't great, because the very act of getting to know people actually contributes, even in those little ways, to the combat experience, and that's another layer of ingenuity in the formula. I knew from the start that Persona would be a game right up my alley, but I had no idea how much it would end up rubbing off on me and now I need my next fix, gosh darn it! When are ATLUS going to get to it?

Right now I'm at an impasse; I've reached the point where I want to experience the whole series, from the beginning if I have to. (Well, maybe not 1 and 2, I don't know what they're like, but certainly 3 onwards.) And this isn't a case of wanting to see the whole story, like many other Japanese RPG titles each entry is independent of the last one, I just love the premise so much that I want to experience it as much as possible. It's the same sort of addiction that struck the world after Metroidvania became a thing, or Souls-likes, I'm not calling Persona's playstyle it's own genre by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm hooked to them as though it were. I'm sure that a few years down the line I'll be picking two-bit demos on Steam that so much as resemble what these games do. But the more content ATLUS provide me, the longer I can stave off that dark eventuality; so hit a brother up, guys!

Were I to make a wild prediction into the future, I would predict that 'Persona 5 Royal' will hit us in April, as a surprise. (Of course, I can't say whether that's April 2021 or 2025) April, May or June, I say, because that's around about the start date for each Persona game and that would make a nice bookend. ATLUS have, for their part, commented on wanting to port more of their games over after the success of Persona 4 Golden, but I'm slightly worried it's going to end up being Shin Megami Tensei. (I'm sure that series is great too, but it's not what I want, ya know?) So thank you for coming to my TED talk where I whined about wanting to play more Persona; I know, I'm bored too.