How open worlds vary

 One hill too far.

The Open World game is one of the most complicated beasts in all of gaming if you ask me. At it's heart, the very concept is indicative of the modern prototypical assumption of what a game even is, as informed by the supremacy of 3D era Grand Theft Auto games and the deluge of copycats that streamed after it. We're long past the days when gaming was chiefly represented by the Goomba stomping platforming antics of Mario, and maybe rubbing onto an age where online deathmatch games will take the predominant spotlight. (or at least, more online centric style games) But for the time being there's a special sort of intrinsic familiarity we all feel when a Open World game is laid before us, even when we've no idea what it's about or the roads it will travel, because these sorts of games have been ironed into our very souls. They'll have an almost smothering amount of freedom, usually plenty of ways to kill time beyond just playing the main quest, typically follow a traditional narrative set-up and take anywhere upwards of 20 hours to beat. So if this image is so well ingrained, why aren't these games created equal?

Indeed, one may look upon an open game world and consider it's sprawling golden fields a bounty of exploration and untapped dynamic adventure, whilst that same person could look upon another and shudder at the magnitude before him and the chore of tasks that await behind just those mossy hills. The observer hasn't changed, the game has, but in ways that aren't exactly obvious to first impression. Heck, it might not even be clear to most developers either, given the way in which a sizeable number of these guys make their bread and butter churning out the latter type of open world whilst each time promising it's the former. So whereas we may sing our praises of Rockstar's Open Worlds, from GTA to Red Dead Redemption, we roll our eyes as the, sometimes bigger, play spaces of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed and Watch_Dogs, and I wanted to see if I could pinpoint the many reasons why.

I think a lot this starts with design intent, and the purpose of the world that is in the process of being made. Ubisoft and Rockstar have very different approaches when it comes to this most basic of step, and it lays the foundations for very different styles of games, despite their rather comparative visual quality to one another. With Ubisoft the purpose of the world being made is very functional, in that it's always created into chunks and regions that are separated by the rising tide of difficulty and the game's overall challenge, rather than the natural heart of what this virtual world would look or feel like. Rockstar are more into the idea of creating a believable play space, and so you'll usually notice that their worlds are specifically designed to feel lived in and genuine above all else. Of course some concessions are made to be more pleasing for the player to either navigate or look at, but verisimilitude never leaves the thought process for any significant amount of development time.

Another big component is the art of actually filling that world, known not-so-affectionally as 'side content' in gaming vernacular. Again, this links back to design intent, but is perhaps the most clear way that we can see what sort of open world we're dealing with. Rockstar, in recent years, has tended towards side content that is formed in minigames or meta tasks, or just something that is going to give the player reason to return to parts of the map repeatedly, perhaps even beyond the life of the core narrative. Even further points, in Rockstar's book, if it feels like a natural addendum to that part of the world and creates the sorts of activities that people within this world might enjoy in these locations. (Tennis minigame at the courts down by Venice Beach, for example) Ubisoft have an approach that has invited comparison to 'checklists', for the way that their 'side content' is almost always different types of collectibles. Chests, fathers, flags, pages, stuff shoved around the world with no care about why they might be there in-universe or even for enriching that area of the map for repeat visitors. They're just blips on the map that lure you over just to pick them up and then you'll likely never return for the rest of the game; contributing to the feeling that a lot of Ubisoft open world's feel supremely under-utilised and wasted.

 

The biggest use of the world in a game is, of course, to be a vehicle for the main narrative, which means right now I'm assessing its primary purpose. You'll hear different terms be thrown around which are mostly synonymous but have their own quirkish oddities to them. Sand Box, Open World, Hub space; that generally relate to how the game world exists for it's narrative. Games like Destroy All Humans and Red Faction Guerrilla (as well as Far Cry) have a sandbox world that exists for the player to mess around with and have fun in. The main narrative merely exists to direct people across this space in a linear fashion, directing them to steadily more dangerous areas as we discussed earlier. More open world games like GTA, Red Dead and Fallout either lack these 'linear scale of difficulty related to location' or hide it more subtly. They try to engage with actual world building and instilling purpose and justification to the various lands you visit. Those storylines might have you spending all of your time around one area of the map simply because this is where it feels natural for events to be happening, the skill comes in justifying way players should branch out to the more dour and less central corners of the play world as well.

And then there's the question of the non-essential addendums to our worlds. The things that aren't related to exploration or side activity, the visuals and mechanics that are merely in place to make the world feel alive. How can I believe that this world is breathing if I don't believe people actually live in it, and the way that developers handle this question is one of the most interesting to me. Having people wonder the streets and towns seems a given, but the way in which different games handle this simple factor varies wildly. In Ubisoft games they pride themselves on the diversity of the crowds and the cultural accuracy of their looks. (Or for Far Cry games, the accuracy of the dynamic wildlife) Rockstar games have gone to making the crowds act with unique animations or react in fun ways to the situations around them, and Elder Scrolls gives every single character a unique routine and a backstory. There's no recipe for success here, and that's why it's so fun to compare and contrast.

I have a special relationship with open world games, in that I have a tendency to love as many as possible whenever I can, even despite the weaknesses here and there. Rockstar worlds can sometimes forget to prioritise certain corners of their maps through their need to provide purpose to every waypoint. Far Cry games often don't spend enough time anywhere, or does such a poor job in being believe that nothing feels real to me and I end up caring little for it. Assassin's Creed games pile on worlds that are too big with ludicrously expansive collectibles or side quests chains so that it feels like a total chore to slog through. No one type of open world is perfect and for all of their flaws they all have their benefits too. Rockstar worlds are endlessly replayable, Ubisoft worlds are unerringly gorgeous, Bethesda worlds always feel brimming with living lore. They're all special in my book.

The study of open worlds is fascinating to me, and I could see myself coming back to this topic time after time in my life and finding a new shade to fawn over every single time. I just feel that of all the archetypes of games out there, of interactive art pieces, these are the one's that feel the least defined and yet the most explored. Nothing in art is ever straight forward and simple, of course, but that doesn't make the humble open world game anyless mysterious and wild to a simpleton like me. And maybe at some point there could be room on this blog for analysis of all those hundreds of games out there with open worlds that don't work on any level, and from there I might start to deduce that special recipe for invariable open world success. (It might be fun)

Cowboy Bebop

 I'm not normal

Blah blah, gaming blog whilst this has absolute no ties to gaming, blah blah, influenced certain genres of game, blah blah. Now that's out of the way, who watched the classic jazzy noir sci-fi anime Cowboy Bebop? Even if you haven't I betting that you've heard of it. It's like Akira or Fist of the North Star, just another classic Anime that world needs you to know about in order for you to exist on it for anytime whatsoever. I say this when, if I'm being honest, most of today's kid's first introduction to this world would have been through this simply stellar video by famed meme-poster voice actor 'Gianni Matragrano'. (To be clear, none of those lines are from the actual show. Spike is- he's not like that. I swear.) I've touched on the show a bit, even watched an episode or two, so imagine my surprise when I woke up one day to find a trailer for this show in the live action which both looked good but still confused me. I was conflicted.

Which isn't to say that I didn't know that this Netflix show was coming, it's just one of those things that you hear about but don't think anything substantial will come of it. Like the Dune movie which took thirty years but is now finally out, or that Uncharted movie which feels like is took just as long but is on it's way, or how about that Lord of Rings Reboot which is just around the corner. (Wow, a lot of these projects are finally get off the ground this year, this must be the promised time) Not even when I read the several reports I heard about the casting of Faye Valentine driving up some controversy for some reason or other, did I stop to actually acknowledge "Okay, this thing is definitely happening." Afterall, we saw leaked cast photos, read a terrible script, and got everything short of a release schedule for the CW Powerpuff Girls show, but now one of the main cast has dropped out so that's in the air. I thought, heck that could happen to Cowboy Bebop, no need to acknowledge this. But here we are.

So in typical Netflix fashion we've been treated to a trailer that will follow a speedy release window and alls left to ask from here is "Is the thing going to be any good"? 5 years ago that would have been a pretty definitive 'no', as a Sci-fi show is just too high budget to be anything less than a sweeping opera and trying to put a Noir world in that space would never secure enough studio budget to do the idea justice. But this is Netflix we're dealing with and they have a brand defined by putting down their money where others would just walk by for the sheer purpose of securing those rare break away success stories. You can always count on something cool coming out of the Netflix lineup, but then they'll throw something like 'Another Life' at you so that you get thrown off guard as it becomes clear that not everything they do is destined to be a knockout. And then there's inbetween shows like The Witcher. Where does Cowboy fall?

At a glance I have to say I'm feeling a show that seems closer to the Witcher in terms of quality for the moment, which makes sense given that the source material is littered with cool concepts and visuals that would either be too expensive or just straight confusing to translate 1-to-1. As a compromise we have a fairly decent looking Sci-Fi world when it comes to the Space ships and the overtly advanced tech, but anything on the ground feels almost oppressively ordinary and tied to this world. There's none of the vast space wild west vibe from the show maintained here, which I suppose keeps the vibe of the show open to new comers but it feels like a missed opportunity to make this show really stand out. Maybe they just needed a more ambitious cinematography team working on the project over here, who can really say for sure?

Speaking of jarring elements, I really wasn't expecting this show to be in English. I know that seems absolutely hair-brained when you consider that this is Netflix's latest big push project, and not just a show that they happen to host which accidentally became bigger than any expected. (Like Squid Game) Alongside the fact that the Dub of Cowboy Bebop is actually very widely known and loved, and Spike's English voice is iconic. Even with all that I just wasn't expecting an English show, which shows how out-of-touch I am with reality, I suppose. Going past that I can say that I think the cast seem to fit the show very well for the most part, Spike's hair isn't quite as glorious as I would have shot for, but that sort of physics denial isn't really possible in the real world so apart from that he seems fine. Jet Black seems perfect, the second I saw him I felt that character shining through. Only Faye Valentine confused me until I literally saw her in the outfit and put 2-and-2 together. (At least it's better sight-cast than Uncharted is.)

For me my hope with this series is that they both realise and play towards the strengths they have on deck, namely that they should play to style and character over action and, unfortunately, visuals. I don't think the visuals are going to stun for this show, they'll make decent backgrounds but they should keep there with any luck. And the action, although remember I'm judging this purely from the trailer, looks a tiny bit sluggish and disingenuously coordinated. Fight choreography probably isn't going to be going up for any rewards if this footage is indicative of the rest of the show. But that's just fine, because a Cowboy Bebop show doesn't need to hit perfection on either of those to capture the spirit of the original, style is it's most important commodity and the Netflix show at least hints towards that so far. What would help a lot more would be if they actually managed to snag some of the original soundtrack, but I guess that's an ask too far.

When looking at a show like this I can't help but shake the lingering questions of what this would all look like had they gone all in on a Jojo's Bizarre Adventure live action show, although in all honestly that'd probably never get a go-ahead at an English production studio for the simple translation problems. (What producer is going to read the word 'muda' several hundred times in a script without then setting it on fire?) And I think that if I were to be looking at a trailer for JoJo and it was of this comparative quality, I'd be very on the fence about it. Everything seems to teeter on the edge of effortless cool and hackneyed trite, which I suppose is the gamble you take whenever a Noir story is on the docket. I feel a little like Mister Blonde in declaring that this is either going to be a total disaster or a masterpiece, but the slightest bit of nuance comes for the assertion that I think this show is going to hit one extreme or the other. Right now I'm not expecting great things, but Netflix has surprised me before. (And disappointed me. You never know with these guys.)

At the very least if the Netflix guys stick to working with what they have in front of them and don't start trailing off on their own 'new adventures' or anything like that, I think they have a fighting chance of pulling all of this together into something watchable. If the team start getting it in their heads that they can write better than the source material, then we should probably start the exercises for completely forgetting the existence of this show as expediently as possible. As for whether I actually want this to succeed, as a piece of media I want to watch it so I hope that it's good, but then I know that success invites so many more imitators who will invariably screw up the franchises they try to adapt, so maybe it would be better for everyone if this does suck. (There, then this whole situation is a win-win in my head. I did it.)

 

Are Skyrim Mods Doomed?

As should have been said by Easy Pete when Bethesda asked for the Skyrim code: "Too dangerous. Gonna kill all yourselves if I let you touch it. Better to leave it buried - safer that way."

I'd say that the Bethesda company is on thin ice with it's community right now. In fact, I'd predict we're exactly one more Skyrim rerelease away from actively spitting in their faces in the same vein that the Grand Theft Auto 5 fanbase are currently doing to Rockstar. That's because we're still currently at the phase where things can still be added to Skyrim here and there in order to make things a tiny bit more fresh, (Or as fresh as you can make an 9 year-old corpse) either because of the upgradeability of the engine in use here or simply because of the ever thriving modding community. I mean, that's like an evergreen font of never ending content that can keep the average joe coming back for ever... right? The answer to that rhetorical is no. The font is not never ending. And we may have already crossed the line for how much the community can support Bethesda's game with the announcement of Anniversary Edition.

First of all it's important to establish what it is that Anniversary Edition is, because in typical Bethesda fashion the higher-ups have played things nauseatingly shy when talking about something we may, or may not, have to cough up money for. Call it Fallout 76 syndrome, only we hope the team have a slightly better understanding of what they're doing here than they did with 76. (No NPCs! Wait- I mean YES NPCs! Battle Royale- now Battle Royale gone!) As far we can tell, Skyrim Anniversary Edition will indeed be a paid for new version of Skyrim that comes alongside a plethora of graphical improvements, every small mod from the now-defunct creation club project and some new extras that have been pumped out in the meantime, and an improvement to the engine version that switches this game to a 64 bit program. It's that last one which is the issue.

You see, back when Special Edition launched for Skyrim it bought a similar evolution of engine which knocked the core systems that ran Skyrim just far enough ahead to make practically every substantial Legacy edition mod defunct. This is because the Skyrim Script Extender, an essential modding tool which opens up the range of custom scripting functions within Skyrim, needed to be entirely rewritten for this new version of the game. With that came a change to how Skyrim looked at modding files which meant that little tweaks had to be done to script-utilising mods in order for them to function on this new engine and with that new Script Extender, usually tweaks that had to be performed on the end of the original creator. (Script mods are essentially any mod that runs something through the engine such as to create an effect, run a custom event, load a custom menu or really do anything cool and new with the game.)

The problem this opened up was simple, the original Skyrim had come out so many years previously and people had grown up and/or moved on from their modding pasts. Many original Mod creators were no longer active in the community in order to touch up their old mods, and people were lucky that enough modders were still around to step in and adopt forgotten mods for these purposes. Such really is the unique collaborative spirit which erupts from a world like the modding community fosters, because were else, except for a community that lionises creation of high-quality gaming content for free, would you find people willing to treat the works of strangers purely for the enjoyment of themselves and others without charge? Truly, modding is an unexplainably strange phenomena in the gaming ecosystem which is never given the respect it deserves.

But those were the growing pains of the past surely this time there's not going to be- huh? Bethesda have been so crap at working around modding that, despite promising it wouldn't be the case, every update to Special Edition has broken that iteration of the script extender? And this jump to 64 bit is going to absolutely lead to the same problems, if not slightly worse problems, when it comes to conversions? And compare where the Skyrim modding community is right now compared to during Special Edition. Everyone has moved on completely to vastly different points in their lives, some people are on other games, some are on stupidly ambitious total conversion mods or new lands projects. A much more sizable number have moved on from modding altogether. (Hopefully into software jobs, because some of those mods were crazy good) Where does that leave Skyrim's modding scene?

And that doesn't even take into account the other problems that then modding community has been seeing over the years. Remember when Bethesda tried to partner with Steam to create paid mods, which lasted all of five minutes before the ickiness of the proposition shot itself in the foot? I mean at least that did transition to sites like Nexus encouraging donations, but somehow I feel like Bethesda and Valve were hoping for a sizable cut of those donations. Then there's the much more recent issue when Nexus, one of the biggest modding sites, tried to make it impossible for mod publishers to remove their mods, which led to a mass exodus from their site for a cause that absolutely wasn't worth fighting in the first place. (Seriously, what was Nexus thinking?) The community isn't exactly at it's strongest these days, and I can't see another effort to try and migrate the vast deluge of Skyrim content over to this new version of the game, so I guess the modding scene is just cold for now. 

Now luckily for us, the Special Edition jump did leave behind it a precedent for updating mods on the users' end that was actually rather straightforward to follow, it was just a bit precarious to perform for those who have no idea what they're doing. (See: most of us) I can only imagine the same will be true for Anniversary Edition, but then we've never had a jump this large and who's to say what it might effect? I mean, even with the Special Edition leap there were some script-heavy or strangely packaged mods that simply couldn't be updated without taking the thing apart and going into the nitty gritty, I doubt many mod users looking to spice up their game is willing to start learning code in order to get their mods together. It really is just a situation of wait and see, which really isn't what I want to be saying or doing. 

In conclusion, Skyrim Anniversary Edition isn't just a lazy way to sneak a few extra bucks off of your ten year old homework, it also has the potential of splintering the already stretched thin modding base anymore. And considering how this is arguably the peak of Bethesda modding, (New Vegas might have a few more mods to it's name, technically) isn't this just the most ignoble end to such a legacy? Stretched out to the point where most stopped caring and moved on, waiting to be summoned back by that blinding new Bethesda game which captures their old magic. (A game which probably is never coming, as much as it sucks to admit.) And did we need it? No. At the end of it all, Bethesda could just have unlocked all the creation club content for Special Edition people and got back to working on the projects people are actually hounding them for. Thanks Todd, I guess.

I Hate: Disengagement attacks

 You're not going anywhere!

It has been so very long since I've added another entry to this oft-ignored little series of mine, and that has come from a merciful lack of mechanics and routines from the world of gaming that I can blanket say that I hate. Which is a good thing. There's also the shade in all of this that I don't exactly like thinking of the negative when there's so much of it already mixed in with the positive, and so I usually go out of my way to talk about positive things that I like. That being said, sometime things can't be avoided and I end up coming back around here anyway, talking about another thing that I cannot stand with every screaming fibre in this decaying body. Disengagement attacks. And saying that right now, I'm betting that the most common reaction is: what the heck even is that? So unfortunately this has to come with an explanation too.

During my exploration into Classic RPGs over the course of this year, I've become very familiar with the ins and outs of the heart of role playing games, and seen the techniques that have come to define this genre and the differences between it's subcategories. And trust me when I say, those modern RPGs that Bioware put out every blue moon, which are copied by some other developers here and there, have nothing on the absolute brain melting insanity of the CRPGs. Learning the benefits of turn-based RPGs and real time action is just the beginning, and picking a preference becomes muddy when you happen upon games like Pathfinder and Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire; which offers both. (I typically go for real time for those games, for no other reason then the fact these games were built for huge ungainly encounters that would take actual hours in turnbased.) And that is how I've learned of things like Disengagement attacks.

This is a mechanic which exists more in real time then in turn based games, but that's because they have a very similar but slightly different mechanic known as 'attack of opportunity'. If you think about the way how in X-Com, to use a popular example, uses a mechanic known as 'overwatch' to put your character on alert so that they can take an automatic, low accuracy, shot on a target the second that they move on their turn, we're essentially looking at a mechanic like that. For turn based games you get an attack of opportunity every time an enemy walks past your engagement range and it mirrors a mechanic present in DnD tabletop. But to explain exactly what 'disengagement' is, I'm afraid I have to dig a little deeper into how live action games treat this thing called 'engagement'.

So 'Engagement' is the solution to the problem of 'how do you deal with who's attacking who when you're dealing with huge fights'? Live action combat typically has most of the team on the player's end operated by AI, simply because the player doesn't really have the desire to micromanage everything until the later stages of the games in question where that becomes absolutely necessary. And so Engagement pairs up attackers with defenders in the way that let's the AI know "This is who I'm attacking, so this is where my attention needs to be." From this it should be pretty clear what Disengagement attacks are. When someone who is paired up moves out of the range of attack, the attacker is granted a free attack upon them when their back is turned. Striking in the back like a coward would. Although some games, like Pathfinder, take that a little further and have disengagement hit on anyone who moves out of range, even if that person was positioned behind the reactor and moved whilst they were busy. (Those are some straight supernatural reflexes) 

Okay, is everyone caught up, we all know what today's lesson is about? Good. Now I hate disengagement attacks, and I'm talking with a burning fiery world ending passion do I hate these goddamn disengagement attacks. And this is a very weird one for me, because in a battered, twisted little way I squint my eyes and actually kind of see the rough justification for why this mechanic has to exist and the role they have to fulfil in the overall grand scheme of CRPGs, but I can't come around to liking them. Or even begrudgingly accepting them. They are the devil to me and my gorges froths at the very idea of co-existing in this plane of existence with them. Each and everytime I see that crimson red disengagement number stat number pop up I wince at the cheap shot, and a large part of that comes from the very real fact that I only ever see the attack used against me, and that establishes the 'unfair treatment' complex right there.

Because you see, disengagement is something that only ever hit you if the the victim moves away of their own accord, which funnily enough is something that the AI never does. Sure you can use some powerful magic to knock them out of range, but that won't trigger it, meaning it really is a rule for thee but not for me. Even when you charge ranged archers in these games, something which makes them practically unable to hit you unless they're fitted with somesort of point-blank perk, (Which practically no one ever takes because Archers aren't supposed to be in Melee range most of the time anyeway) they'll rather spend their last moments desperately trying to bring down one of your companions in the back row as you chop them to pieces rather than try to save themselves by retreating. I have never seen a disengagement hit against an AI opponent, and why would it when most AI have the job of 'Swarm the arse and that's our entire plan'.  

The idea is that with this mechanic, the player won't run circles around the enemy in a way they feasible could do without these systems. So it's basically a balancing tool to make sure you play fair, but when you're dealing with a game and spongey human DM logic gives away to the cold, hard, unthinking iron of machine decision making, it can't help but feel as though these are systems designed to box you in. Imagine you're a delicate rouge doing stealth damage to a giant Treant Owlbear whilst your much hardier team members, and several ranks of summons, distract the thing. A Human DM might think the giant mindless monster would attack the horde in front of it, but the AI says "Well, the easiest to kill opponent is the thief behind me so I'm just going to do a three sixty on the spot and get to town." You see the turn, but what can you do about it? If you try to move your rouge he'll get a full-power blow on you anyway, so you're just sort of incentivised to stand there and get pummelled because RNG says this isn't in the cards for you today.

It's a bizarre issue, and one that I don't think can be adequately explained unless you're familiar with these sorts of games and the way that they play for yourself. I mean I could moan about things like how Pathfinder has a feat specifically for escaping engagement safely, but because you only have limited feat options in a playthrough you'd have to be insane to take it over actual class benefiting choices; but would that really mean anything to a non CRPG player? And again, I feel bad for being incensed at all, given the fact that a lot of these games have systems in place for disengagement play, such as spells for combat movement and feats for sneaking out of engagement, but they seem like bandaids on a searing wound of a badly made system to me. Only turn based RPGs handle attacks of opportunity with any class, because encounters need to be designed to consider such systems and the way the player handles them. But given as how I'm almost definitely in the minority of this little grip of mine, I know that the next time I see an enemy one shot me with it's back turned, whilst attacking someone else, because of engagement, I'm going to be only one in the world huffing and rolling my eyes.

gHoST rEcOn FRonTLiNe

 How long until I just start copy and pasting these blogs?

Imagine that you've been handed the franchise rights to a series that is defined, from it's very roots, to American military tactical action, and not the politically charged espionage of Metal Gear Solid, but something borne of genuine blue-blooded patriotism. Now imagine, if you can, that you're not American, but someone has given you this series that touts the American military and flaunts the efficiency of it's operational power, the scope of their technological advancement and the intricacies of it's duties. Wouldn't that get a little nauseating after a while? Wouldn't you at some point find yourself wanting to poke fun at the whole thing and turn it on it's head? These are all genuine questions, because I'm beginning to think that those are the only sets of circumstances to explain the seeming hardcoded disdain that Ubisoft has displayed their Tom Clancy properties of late.

I already told you about the team deathmatch game they announced which was laughed into oblivion. Well guess what: apparently that game didn't even hit with a release date so we all can just wait around on pins and needles for that impending trainwreck to roll into the station pretty much any day now. (Or maybe even next year, who even knows?) But that doesn't mean that Ubisoft have allowed themselves a spare second free from the had work of grinding their USP driven franchises into fine identical-looking dust. I don't know who the investors are over at Ubisoft, but they must have literally negative trust in leadership, because the amount of risks this company has taken over the past half decade have been amazingly small. A company of this size, you'd have thought they'd take some by accident. (Not even taking to account that they're literally making art, which invites risk) What if I told you that their latest title takes what I just said and blows it to the extreme?

Well for that to be the case we'd have to be looking at a game which does nothing original, something which does nothing more than hijack an oversaturated popular trend that already makes money and- what else- attempts to make a soulless clone with nothing new to add to the genre. Have you guessed what it is yet? I'll give you a clue, that kneejerk reflex you just had, but dismissed because that would be way too obvious- it was that. You done guessing? The brand new title just announced is Ghost Recon Frontline and it is a bloody Battle Royale, I kid you not, someone just end me right now I can't live in this loop existence anymore time is becoming a facsimile every game is the same game isn't Skyrim releasing later again soon oh my god I can't even tell what year it is anymore. Woah. Sorry about that I just spaced out there for a little while. Where was I?

Ghost Recon. The series defined by realistic tactical squad based operations that, entry after entry, tried to push the boundaries of AI capability and grounded military action. That is a Battle Royale now. And you may be already manufacturing some plausible deniability on Ubisoft's behalf right now, by doing stuff like assuming there's some really cool twist to BR that Ubisoft are cooking up, but you'd be wrong. They're so creatively bankrupt over there, that Frontline is designed to be as close to Fortnite as humanely possible, to the point where you get ridiculous sights like call-in helicopters dropping prefab constructs out of the sky in order for players to set up in. It's not as snappy and quick as Fortnite's building mechanics, but it'll keep an end-of-match fight going on for several minutes too long, don't you worry.

 

Do you remember a time when people were looking at Ghost Recon Wildlands with a slant and wondering if Ubisoft had lost the plot with this franchise yet? People were affronted by the idea of a gangly open-world setting where tactics sort of took a back seat to mediocre third person gunfights with gormless AI. People were worried about that. Then there was the sequel, Breakpoint, which implemented a detestably pathetic gear levelling system and enemy levels, implemented so poorly it makes you wonder if the people in the design room have ever actually played a game before. A system so bad that the developers had to invent a mode which removed this very levelling system, but they couldn't just patch it out of the main game because, of course, their monetisation routines were tied to it. People hated that. Yet somehow, Ubisoft keeps raising the ante. Self destruction is addictive, I guess.

I actually liked Wildlands, which I know makes me a bit of an anomaly. And even more than that, I liked the online competitive modes in that game which never blew up in the way that they deserved to. I mean sure, they seemed specifically designed to try and emulate the class based tactical team-based games of Rainbow Six Siege, because if there's one word that all of Ubisoft have tattooed in their skulls it's 'homogenisation', but there are much worse games to draw inspiration from for your multiplayer modes. (Take 'Fortnite', for instance) But it was always like the player was struggle against the game itself in order to get an experience which fit the promise of the series. I had to restrict myself to stealthy actions, despite the fact that the game supplied me with enough firepower to gun down an entire country if I so chose to. I forced myself to endure the endlessly choppy AI tactical options. I even did all the side content and seasonal missions because I was genuinely invested in the idea of experiencing that 'true' Ghost Recon that the team always seemed to be teasing. And then they just go ahead and announce a game that missed the point of the franchise entirely.

I'm going to go ahead and say the most obvious point again; why don't you make your own bloody series, Ubisoft? And no, XDefiant doesn't count as an original because it recycles ideas and assets from existing Tom Clancy properties. Why doesn't Ubisoft create, you know, in the manner one would expect from a company of supposed artists? Could it perhaps be because the last time they did that very thing the result was 'Hyper Scape'. A game I literally had to look up because I couldn't remember the title. A game which, as of writing this, has a single channel on Twitch playing it, and considering the screen is currently black while they're complaining about a surprise 20gb update, I can only guess that they aren't a regular. A game which, over a year since launch, doesn't have the promised crossplay. That's what happens when Ubisoft try to create, and so they resort to copying and bastardising.

And can you blame them? Yes. Yes I can and very much do. As one of the biggest European gaming companies in existence, Ubisoft must be capable of putting together something new, something worthy of their capabilities and size! And if they aren't willing then surely it falls to the audience to make them. Even with the release of Far Cry 6 I'm seeing articles with titles like 'The Ubisoft Formula is starting to grow stale.' "Starting to"!? Where the heck have you been for Far Cry 4, 5 and New Dawn? For Assassin's Creed Unity, Syndicate, Rogue, Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla? For Watch Dogs 1, 2 and Legion? It's been stale, man, it went rank; now the formula is straight decomposing! Fans are going around themselves in circles of chiding Ubisoft, then buying their next game, then being surprised that they feel like it's the same game they bought last year. So do something about it! Stop buying. Then maybe Ubisoft higher ups will actually have reason to pause when hitting that Ctrl-C for the five hundreth time...

Baldur's Gate III finally spells it out

 Some of us are slow, okay!

Close to or just over a year into early access (these blogs have weird put-out times) Baldur's Gate III has managed to play things very close to the chest regarding what it's about and how that ties into the wider BG narrative. I myself have gone from someone with no idea what the original games were about but still with a decent interest in the game, to a huge fan of those originals and now someone fascinated in the narrative links. And why wouldn't I be? When Baldur's Gate 1, 2 and Throne of Bhaal weaved together a three-part narrative that perfectly wrapped itself up in a neat little bow, what can BG III really bring to that after all of this time? Couple with that the fact this game prominently features the machination of Mindflayers, such to the extent that they are embroiled in the logo on the box, and one has to wonder what's going on here. Mindflayers did appear in the first two games, but as total background challenges along with all the Lich,  Beholders and Dopplegangers; so where did they hit the mainstream?

Things were very shut down tight even with the briefest of looks into the main narrative thanks to the Early access content unveiled over this year, and that mystery remained for some until the reveal of the Sorcerer update not that long ago. Although, I bet if you've any sort of a foot in all of the extended universe stuff, you knew this was coming all the back from the in-universe tabletop tie-in adventure 'Baldur's Gate: Decent into Avernus'. But seeing as how that's just ancillary stuff right now, lets us first look at what comes with a sorcerer update to Baldur's Gate III and what exactly makes that such a lauded after class. How does that change things up from the Wizards and Warlocks that are already within the game and why BG just wouldn't be the same without them.

We'll start with the most obvious and important: what even is a Sorcerer? That seems like a given but if you're not into all this DnD basic stuff you might find yourself getting caught up on the minutiae between Wizards, Warlocks and Sorcerers. (You know, given how grammatically they are pretty much synonyms of one another.) It's actually rather classical; Wizards are beings who have trained heavily with their magical gift to be able to manifest and take advantage of it, Warlocks are people who have 'taken the easy path' so-to-speak and forged a pact with some sort of powerful god-like entity for their magical gifts. Sorcerers are the only avenue left to real magical power. They are those born with innate magical gifts directly due to a bloodline linked to some distant heavily magical ancestor. These can be angelic ancestors, demonic, or even draconic. Each type of ancestor defers unique benefits onto their modern day progeny which really makes the class customisation come to life in special little ways.

Now Sorcerers have no need to carry spellbooks nor hold the favor of some all-powerful demi-god, which is what makes them great choices for people who want to play as a spellcaster with melee potential like a Magus. (Literally one of my favourite classes; I adore Magi) Apparently, Sorcerers are also the place from the Mild Mage subclass comes from, which clashes with my own understanding of wild magic which I had learnt to be mages who weren't taught their abilities well enough, but I suppose this makes more sense. Wild magic, if you don't know, is magic that has the chance to randomly spiral off and become a super powerful spell variant, a super weak variant or another spell entirely. Which might mean a random spell hits off in the middle of a miniscule fight and you don't even think about it, only to try and buy something 4 hours and countless saves later just to find that your half-elf Wild mage wished away 75% of all your gold. (NEERA, YOU DAMN HARPY!) 

So all-in-all an eagerly awaited class to the Baldur's Gate lineup that brings us ever closer to a full roster except not even nearly because we still don't have Paladin yet, how? How do you make a DnD game and not figure Paladin as one of the first things you implement? The more you delay, the longer it's going to take to implement all the choices that might sever holy patronage and cause Fallen Paladin status, or the special little actions that might be undertaken in order to strengthen holy bondage. You're only making more work for yourselves later, Larian. At least fans can soothe that ever aching omission with a brand new wide area to explore in the underdark with a whole questline attached. The new area still isn't Baldur's Gate proper though. Yet again, the title city hasn't shown up in this game yet. (I just want to see if the team managed to make Baldur's Gate into a city that's big enough to be worthy of the title card for this series when it really hasn't been in the past.)

But now I want to zoom out to the wider meta and look out over all of Baldur's Gate for a moment, in an attempt to figure out where 3 fits in. Previously it's been a wonder, because >Spoiler alert< the story of the Bhaalspawn was wrapped up quite distinctly in the whole 'become a god or don't' choice at the end of 'Throne of Bhaal'. (I picked both, obviously, because Neutral Evil dictates every choice is a selfish one) This was the question buzzing around until the reveal, just before the sorcerer update dropped, of the entire intro cinematic from the starts of BGIII (What we'd seen before was a tease) and a tad of introductory lore which laid out the building pieces for us to play around with and construct the mostly likely candidate for this larger story. (Whilst still trying to figure out where Cthulu's spawn fit in. That I'm not settled on yet.) It all starts with a trip to the realms of hell.

Well, 'trip' sounds a little reductive here; more like 'your Squid kidnappers teleport to hell in order to escape hot pursuit by a hit-squad of dragon-riding Githyanki.' There the intro is now revealed to end with three floating thunderheads in the shape of the roman numerical three, (HAH! 'cause that's the game! I get it!) as well as a swarm of demons engaging in the mythical blood war. The primordial blood war is something that has never really taken the front stage in a DnD story with the exception of 'Decent into Avernus' because that's the book it was created in. (in a meta sense) It tells of a two way war between chaotic demons, who seek to destroy all, and Lawful Devils, who want to rule over all. So it's pretty clear this is going to be the main conflict that our heroes for BGIII get drawn into, however there's also another connection to draw on here.

Since the concept is pretty new, there's not a great deal of infomation on who is really involved in the Blood War, how it started or if anyone other than red-skinned monsters are involved. But if we think of ways in which this Blood war ties into lore that is already established in, and is very important to, the Baldur's Gate mythos, then something of a likely suspect for the scenario of this game begins to materialise. I mean, of course, the tale of The Dead Three; the main impetus for the entirety of the Baldur's Gate trilogy up until now. The legend goes thus: Three folk strode up to claim the throne of death and found it waiting for them and therefore they had to decide how to split the throne between all three of them. He who would become Bane took the mantle of the God of Tyranny, ruling over malevolent, callous, despotism. He who would become Myrkul chose to be the God of Death, granting him dominion over the deceased. Future Bhaal was in a bit of a pickle after that, because his brothers had taken all the good spots, but in a stroke of genius the man decided to instil himself as the Lord of Murder, figuring that he could deny either brother of their supplicants at a will thus making him the strongest. (Although, realistically, he could only ever cut off one at the benefit of the other, so he more just shoe-horned himself into a political balancing act; but the guy wasn't really known for being a genius tactician, let him have his hollow victory.)

As we sit now, maybe still a whole year from full launch, it's impossible to say for certain what the story is going to follow, but I think that if we mix the tale of dead three with the blood war there are some interesting parallels. Dominion over death or Tyranny mixes well with demons who want destruction against devils who want to rule, and given how Myrkul and Bane are currently dead at the hands of Cyric, the god of lies, wouldn't it make sense to assume that he, and the duality (possible tri-ality depending on the conclusion of Throne of Bhaal) of his office forms the conflict of BG III? Maybe just as Bhaal once did, the lingering influence of Myrkul and Bane have established stakes in the Blood war in some ephemeral sense in order to wrestle back their physical forms and resurrect themselves? The little details are yet indistinct, but the larger connection seems too juicy to just write off because everything doesn't quite slide together yet, wouldn't you say? Or maybe I'm just misinformed and delusional and you'll tell me just such in the comment right now, feel free because I love to speculate and want to hear opinions. Let me know and together we can continue to write an entire narrative for BGIII months before it ever comes out.

Fifa and EA: the messy breakup

 Heartbreaking! The worst people you know just broke up.

Everyone knows my extensive thoughts of EA and their machinations are very negative; in that I think the company are a bunch of moustache twirling evil doers with who would simply delight in tying their player base to railroad tracks. On the otherhand you have the total moral-less ghouls over at FIFA, full to the brim with corruption and heavy skirting around human-rights laws and more little things, like the way they've teamed up with modern day slavers in order to bring around next year's World cup. (I'm not even exaggerating with that one like I usually do; FIFA are actually actively and happily in bed with well known Qatarian slave owners) That these two piles of assorted filth wrapped up and paraded around like real human beings, should be wed in unholy matrimony seems almost fitting. Or totally fitting actually. These scumbags deserve each other.

But in that most perfect of pairings one has to sit down and honestly ask; what happens when two terrible people end up together? Or rather, how long before they start being terrible to one another? I mean it just stands to reason, doesn't it? Who you are isn't going to just 'switch off' because you went and found your soul mate. And indeed it did not for FIFA when just this month past we had the news dropped upon us, like children at the aftermath of their parent's last shouting match, that the papers have been filed and the official divorce proceedings are due any day now. If by 'any day' you mean in exactly one year, because I think the contract is still valid for at least another singular FIFA game entry. But what went wrong? Who got greedy? And even though we all know the answer is 'both parties', who is really more to blame for this utter breakdown?

Well first we must go to the beginning, ah those much more innocent times when FIFA was actually making games that required effort and weren't put together by a bunch of clueless hacks barely able to switch an ico file. (Yeah, I'm done pretending that ground floor developers are 'great tortured artists doomed to struggle against unyielding upper management'. At this point they know what they've signed up for and thus are worthy of at least a dismissive ire.) In the many years since EA first negotiated their exclusivity deal with FIFA to be the only people worthy of carrying those proud real Football club names into their game, the face of what the FIFA games actually represent has changed significantly. What was once a video game created to entertain people is a finally tuned legal loophole that utilises casino-approved hooks and metal tricks to try and drain as much money from possible out of their users. And if you know anything about FIFA, you're going to know that's something they'll want in on.

FIFA Ultimate Team alone is the most profitable venture for EA and one of the biggest income generators in the entire industry right now. When the total profitability of the games market first crossed the billion dollar mark, Ultimate team was hanging the shadows of that particular 'achievement'. It's a mode that just recently we heard an executive try to justify as (to paraphrase) 'brining an authentic managerial experience involving tactical taxing choices.' Very much showcasing EA leaning on FIFA as their excuse for poor behaviour, so it only makes sense then, that FIFA would want some kickback money for accepting that insanely poor misdirection attempt aimed their way. Maybe something to the tune of- 1 billion dollars. (Insert Mr evil with pinkie in his mouth)

"Ahem, what?", was what I can only assume EA's reaction was to such a stark demand. Actually the figure in question was closer to 250 million a year resulting in a 1 billion check every four years, which is entirely affordable by a company who makes over a billion a year and spends most of that on kick backs to management, but do you really expect EA higherups to give up their free meal ticket like that? Honestly, did anyone really think it through and honestly assume that Electronic Arts had even the slightest possibility of paying this deal? I'd imagine that FIFA just thought they had a bigger bargaining position then they did and tried to exploit it, which on it's face is probably the sort of action that EA could respect, but that doesn't mean it was something they were going to just stand for.

I mean the threat is obvious, either you pay us our blackmail-level amount of money or you can't use our names that we happen to own anymore. "We're not actually contributing anything of value to the development of your game, but then neither are you so we're pretty much equal in development effort right now and thus deserve equal splits of the profits." Unfortunately for FIFA, reports seem to suggest that EA have enough backchannels laid out, likely in anticipation of this very situation, (Remember, the scumminess of these two companies is renowned and well-known by all) that EA doesn't need to start doing an old-school PES set-up and create a whole bunch of faux-teams with faux-players that decent enough football fans can figure out if they squint enough. ("Oh, this team is 'North-London FC', let's see if I can't deduce this one down...")

So then it would seem that EA have already decided to spit in the face of FIFA and they're set to go their separate ways, yet if that should happen there's at least one loose thread to this story that needs to be answered: What happens to the FIFA name? I mean, that name has become synonymous with the yearly Football game release that mindless football fans flock to without anything resembling self respect. Well, and remember that this all comes down to leaks and thus could be subject to change on the drop of a dime, apparently EA have already planned to completely rename the series after next year's entry to- prepare yourself-  'EA Sports FC'. Okay, that leak actually comes from a blocked trademark people noticed, so it's not as concrete as internal leaks, and that is an awful name for a football game, it sort of implies that your company is the Football club, but I choose to believe in it's legitimacy. It would suit the tackiness of the studio behind it.

So what a beautiful tragedy to play out behind the scenes of the industry without a sliver of a word from EA themselves. (as if, what; they're going to change their minds? Hell no.) I laud those that managed to wrangle out this story for themselves now that they've given us a little bit of hope for the future that EA is going to loose their powerful brand and maybe even slip some of that staying power too. Afterall these Sports fans are largely intellectually incapable of making sound purchasing decisions as it is, how are they going to figure it out when the series undergoes a name change? They may just enter a comatose state right in the games store. And it's just as good news that the FIFA organisers are losing one of their biggest brand ambassadors to the rest of the world so that their fake face will have a harder time obscuring the worm ridden corpse beneath. All in all: this couldn't have happened to more deserving people. 

Rockstar and Grand Theft Auto

 Here's to the future.

Well wouldn't you know it, I have a retrospective on Grand Theft Auto and Rockstar due out for today and then suddenly Rockstar drops some honest-to-goodness gameplay of the Definitive Trilogy collection and it's all the air. Almost as though they knew I was coming and preplanned the release of this in order to distract the world from cutting critique, how else would they time this so ludicrously well? Is it mere coincidence? I THINK- yes, actually. We were running out of room in the year for Rockstar to get this game out before December and not even they have the gall to try and release a game in current year without coughing up a bit of raw gameplay first. Even after the last time they did that very thing (with GTA V expanded and enhanced) and it bit them squarely in the arse. (Maybe they should have actually put together a worthwhile product, hmm.)

So I've seen the footage, and my honest thoughts. It looks good, it genuinely does. I mean it's not one of those mindblowing remasters that have come out these past few years, which completely rebuild a game from the ground up and make it look brand spanking new. (And I did say that I knew it wasn't going to be.) What they've done instead is a little above my expectations, which was just a default1080p upscale patch and a pat on their backs for the hard work; no Rockstar actually got together and retooled the very engines at play here to create games that keeps the artstyle of the original games but with glossier textures, improved draw distance, reflecting surfaces and some great looking rain. I'm really excited about that last part because I simply love rain in video games and San Andreas repeatedly let me down on that front, maybe they went the extra distance and fixed the 'rain falling through roofs' problem! (Okay, now I know I'm asking too much.)

Some will undoubtedly be disappointed about the scope of these remasters, expecting their very own Demon Souls quality changing things up, but the entire point was to keep the spirit of the original games alive and well and I think the team managed that admirably. What Rockstar performed much worse on, adversely, was all their PR decisions in the lead up to this. Why did they attack their own modding community for high resolution patches and graphic tweak mods that for one, were no where near as extensive as these remasters and thus were due to become obsolete anyway and two, would have been for games that Rockstar have decided not to sell anymore? That's right, these remasters are going to be replacing the old games and all store fronts, so what's the bloody point of killing off modders who were working on entirely depreciated build of your game? Is it a power trip thing, trying to make sure they don't even think of touching the remasters with their filthy peasants hands? I'm feeling like that might it.

But people who have no knowledge, or stake, within the Modding world can rest easily in the knowledge that Rockstar hasn't forgotten saving a backdoor method for screwing you too. Because how much do you think this collection costs? It's exactly what you're thinking. £60, the remasters of twenty year old games. Ones that they're going to try and force onto the market over games that we already own. Does this mean that us who already own all three of these games are due a free copy? Hell no. We're just going to get a mean mugging from Rockstar until we end up kowtowing to their financial savviness. And whatsmore, there hasn't even been any word of this collection coming to PC at all. Steam didn't even get a logo in the trailer, which could portend a simple 1 week delay like with Red Dead Redemption II, but I can't be the only person thinking we probably aren't going to be so lucky this time.

None of this excuses, or even praises, the state of GTA V in the here and now, because a game which almost 10 years ago was considered one of Rockstar's best and now is a laughing stock. The tail end of the excitement behind this reveal is caught up in the sourness left behind from the fact that Rockstar has abandoned Grand Theft Auto as a series practically dead for what's nearing a decade now. (Just a couple more years to go) Fans are seeing this trailer and going "Here we go, that's their next excuse for not working on the next GTA", and it's hard to argue with that. The latest rerelease effort for GTA V brings so little to the table, most of which are garbage empty promises anyway, that it's starting to feel like Rockstar will use any excuse not to work on Grand Theft Auto Six, almost like they're afraid, or financially incentivised, to linger in perpetuity.

And that may have something to do with Grand Theft Auto Online. That Online addendum has blown up into Rockstar's biggest money generator and it's overtaken the rationality of every single official in the company. You ask them what's next for the company and they won't be able to respond to you for their eyes will have been taken over by actual money signs. Insult rubs with injury when you actually go into Online itself and realise "Oh wait, this is a pile of crap too". What began life as an online space which tried to bring petty crime to an online audience has balloned so far out of control that the game doesn't even feel like a GTA title anymore. Which is a weird thing to think when you're talking about a series as wide and diverse as GTA, but when you're flying around rocket powered bikes between your soviet-era submarine and underground secret agent orbital-cannon operation base, as you plan your next daring mission to foil super hackers attempting to destroy the world; you have to realise that car theft fell out of the formula somewhere.

But the worst thing of all when it comes to thinking about GTA's future. How this will inevitably reflect upon Grand Theft Auto VI. (Because you know that it will) Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead after it have both been dropped of significant content support immediately after their release in favour of online content, and Rockstar haven't developed a single piece of downloadable content for either franchise. (Undead nightmare was a whole new purchasable game, and allowing pre-order specifics to be bought now doesn't count) When GTA VI comes out, I wouldn't be surprised if things haven't fallen away even further to the point where the entire game just ends up being a poorly disguised attempt to point players to GTA Online 2. In fact, we can probably expect more and more development time shifted from the game people want to the one which makes Rockstar money, and it could end up meaning that the Grand Theft Auto Six we're waiting for ends up even weaker against expectation than we all likely just assume.

So where does all of this leave us? With a bad taste in our mouths, waiting for a studio that seems to be steadily teeing themselves for a Bethesda or CD Projekt Red style fall from grace. In fact, it really does seem like they're several years overdue for one, as the signs things are falling to the wayside (important departures, internal focus shift away from things that makes the games good, etc.) aren't usually this well known and acknowledged this much by the community. (Typically we have to wait for the investigative retrospection articles.) Maybe it won't be with this remaster release (it does look pretty good) or even with Rockstar's next big game, but eventually the bottom will fall out when the direction their heading severs them from the fanbase who sing their praises so much. It sucks how much of an inevitability that fact is in the gaming world.

Bloodlines 2 ain't dead yet!

 But maybe it should be.

It's been a while since I've had the chance to discuss anything Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 Electric Boogaloo here and for good reason. The last update anyone heard was the recent news that key management had been ejector seated from the company due to extreme disagreements with Publisher Paradox and as a result of that, not even accounting for the terrible year for productivity that 2020 was, and the subsequent drop of the development studio Hardsuit Labs, the game which already had a release window was delayed into obscurity. The way they all painted it made things seem like a game with a development outline was just totally jettisoned out the window and the remaining developers (whomever they may be) have since started from scratch, and I haven't heard a great deal since to dissuade me of that assumption. But at the very least, for whatever it's worth, I can say that right now, for the exact present moment, Bloodlines 2 isn't dead. Yet.

I talked a disastrous game last time about how certain I was this game wouldn't see the light of day, and have I completely shaken that perception? No. In fact a decent part of me feels that the game we saw advertised in that trailer that we loved is going to seem incredibly out of date if we ever do see the game, but Paradox want's everyone to know that the 'delay hammer' hasn't been switched for the 'cancel hammer'. But what that infomation is even worth when we're talking about a project that went from "Expect it around about this time" to "Expect it at some point- I dunno", is questionable. Does anyone have a handle on this project? Is there a person in charge? Do we have enough ancillary Vampire the Masquerade projects to keep the writhing masses sedated for this belated game of 'pass the buck'? All unanswerable queries, for the moment.

Legendary developer Chris Avellone was one of the names that was laid off from the project at the worst of the news cycle, but there's enough evidence to say that since then the entire development studio was essentially 'laid off'. (As in the project was nabbed from them, I don't think the studio has folded or anything) Not too long ago he himself was asking what the hell was happening with this game, as every avenue he had to development had been rooted out of Paradox too leaving him just in the know as the general public. That is to say, we haven't heard jack since the character reveal of Damsel. (Which was mid 2020, by-the-way) Chris seems to think that none of the work he done on the project is being kept, Brain Mitsoda (Lead narrative) left at around the same time so maybe none of his work is being preserved either. Now baring in mind that the game as we know was revealed when both of them were still doing their contributions, what even is this game anymore?

For all we know, Paradox could turn around and throw an isometric CRPG at us and call it Vampire The Masquerade. Now would I be totally opposed to that? Maybe not entirely, depending on what they would do with such a gameplay set-up, but the point I'm trying to establish is that this silence has been utterly perplexing from a fan's perspective. (Although I'm warming up to an Original Sin style turned based RPG) Unless we're expecting some sort of huge gate-crash reveal during the game awards, and I'm not, we're about to cross an entire year and a half without updates on this project. (Sans departures) But through it all the Vegas strip has remained open for business and Bloodlines 2 is miraculously free from the chopping block. Again, that fact amazes me. Although that doesn't mean it's always been immune.

During a recent interview we actually heard a bit about the higher level management decisions that were being made on this project, curtsey of a Mr. Direkt through Avanza. (They're not some bold newcomer to the game journalism field, they're a stockbroker firm from Sweden. So this update on the game wasn't even meant for us: Paradox sure have a strange relationship with marketing) Apparently after they pulled the premature foetus-of-a-game from it's incubation, they toyed with the power of life and death they wielded in that very moment, drunk on the godlike control over eternity. That would have been the end for our little undead abomination, if it weren't for the plucky intervention of some unknown saviour who swooped in with an apparently tantalising pitch. This mysterious benefactor then wisped the babe away to the tall towers of Candlekeep, to start many years of tuition in hopes that the child's destiny may never come back to darken it.

Hmm? Sorry, I just started playing Baldur's Gate 3, I got a little confused for a time there. What was I on about? Ah, that's right: The mysterious guys who snatched Vampire's development. Some incredible-how they've managed to remain anonymous, but by the way this interview sounded it was almost as if Paradox themselves were approached on the matter, so one can assume it's a company they've worked with or are trusting of. Whatsmore, our little tattletail executive bigged up this pitch in saying that it sounded like it would live up to the 'expectations of fans', namely the expectations that they provided fans with the concerted marketing efforts before they decided they didn't like it anymore. So I guess that means I can abandon my dreams of a topdown CRPG for now, this game will at least attempt to imitate what we've seen thusfar. 

Which could mean anything, to be honest, because Paradox's whims and wants are apparently so unknowable that Hardsuit Labs managed to make this game to freakin' E3 gameplay demo level of developed before the publishers realised they didn't like the direction. Heck, we don't even know if the original narrative, which I think it's fairly obvious was going to make big moves in exploring the coming apocalypse 'Gehenna' destined to descend upon the World of Darkness, it going to be kept at all. Certainly that demo has been scrapped. A lot of characters and world elements are gone. Maybe even the small cast we already know to be in the game aren't there anymore. Damsel might be totally up in smoke.

All of this leaves me in the peculiar position where I'm not entirely sure if I'm excited for this game anymore. Back when I first heard about the sequel to Bloodlines, my gut reaction was of fear that a flawed strange little RPG would be sullied by a crappy sequel. That trepidation didn't really leave until that trailer which made me fall in love, but know I'm right back to that awkward stage of club-footed flirting just before the first date. By refusing to impart any knowledge to their fans, Paradox are wantonly obfuscating the fact that this game has most likely undergone a total reimaging and revisioning behind the scenes, which I find to be quiet disingenuous and exploitative, truth be told. Still, at least we've got Bloodlines 2 still in the pipe-line, whatever that even means anymore.

Steam Next: The Good Life

 Well I'll be.

And now onto the game that I was excited about. Here's one title that I didn't browse by in a list and didn't hear somebody blurt out over the internet, no, this was a game that I knew was coming, already had wishlisted and was just waiting for the drop date. In fact, the only thing I didn't know was that it would be getting a demo on the Steam Next fest. That was a surprise to me, and a rather pleasant one as it turns out because I got to play the thing which sporadically caught my fancy for a split second and confirm my suspicions about it. (And blossom whole new expectations as I went) So this finale to the Steam Next saga doesn't quite end on 'exploration' like it started, but on 'affirmation'. Something I already hoped and wanted to be good turned to be good, who'd a thunk it? Oh, and this blog is totally redundant because the game has already been out for a week now, but considering the demo is pretty much just the first few chapters anyway, consider this my early thoughts on the game. (I'm probably mid playing the full game when this drops anyway)

This is a game that I've latched onto purely because it is my personal recompense for the death of a game I wanted to come out years ago. That's right, Hidetaka "Swery" Suehiro owes me for never bringing me the latter half of the murder mystery game that swept my attention and imagination all those years ago: Dark Dreams Don't Die. (Or D4) I wish I had time to explain to you why D4 was so insane, and needed to have more to it, but unfortunately that would take up an entire blog. (And require me to replay the thing which I'm not entirely sure I have the mental fortitude to endure) Most people know this legendary writer (who seems to always write murder mysteries) for his work on Deadly Premonition, but I'm the outlier, I guess. I want more D4, and The Good Life is going to have to do.

It makes for a decent replacement, given that The Good Life is a game set in my very own backyard for the sleepy English village backdrop that Swery chose. Whatsmore, this game promises to be a charming semi life-simulator game that mixes up the very closely tied concepts of 'big city girl (New York) comes to small town', 'Murder mystery' (obviously) and 'the town's inhabitants anthropomorphise into cats and dogs at night and it's happening to me too'.  (What what?) Yeah, Suehiro is known for his, quite frankly, insane ideas for games and concepts that fuels his creativity and is probably the reason why there are no less than two pictures of him wearing a fake handlebar moustache with an owl on his arm. (That's... that is true. Look it up.)

But what grabbed me about this game was just how English it is, and proved to be. You get your 'anywhere, America' settings all the time in oddball games, Deadly Premonition, Alan Wake, Dead Rising 2's prequel game, but the only 'anywhere, UK' game I can think of is literally just 'Everyone's gone to the rapture'. And that game's boring. This is a title made for me, with all of the questionable affectations which makes us Brits just wince in- appreciation? Let's go with appreciation. And it works so well because, as anyone who lives down here can attest, all our villages do, in fact, look identical to one another, and Swery's studio has done a great job in nailing that eerie uniformity down to a tee. (If I wasn't playing a game, I'd be looking for the nearest flatbed ride out of this obviously haunted town in a jiffy.)

As it stands, the game follows a journalist coming to discover the secret of this sleepy nowhere town whilst simultaneously doing some freelance instagram work to help pay off her- hang on, I can't be reading this right. It says here "£30 million debt". That's correct? What did she do- get caught selling a weapon of mass destruction to a foreign super power? And she expects to pay that off with Instagram money? Is she high? Regardless, here are your driving motivations for the game and seeing as they morph into the paranormal in no time flat, Swery is on his usual crazy A game for this title. Thus the game really set's itself up as a journey of existing in a town full of colourful, sometimes oddly stereotyped, characters (the barkeep seems a bit old to be dressing up like a 90's punk girl) and going on a photography massacre across the pretty bubbly scenery. Bliss.

For me the whole 'routine' aspect of the game actually reminds me vaguely of Persona and a lot more directly of Stardew Valley. Don't get me wrong, there is a central story that the game wants you to attack, but it's built so that you'll remember to wash in the morning, plant something in your garden on your way out the door, wander about for a bit to see a perfect picture waiting to be taken, get a drink at the local pub at some point, kick the local child in the face, (just me?) basically just live your life inbetween the murder investigations. When the main quest does rear it's head, however, it typically comes alongside pressing time constraints that shatter the sleepy atmosphere of the rest of the game quite sharply. (Also, the one's I've seen so far all seem to be basic fetch quests. I assume the main game has a bit more variety. Hopefully.)

And then there's the whole 'animal transformation' part of the game which looks to be pretty significant but I can't for the life of me see how it fits into everything else. I mean, the game itself offers tutorials on stuff like 'some people are more cat people and others are more dog people' and how picking a side will effect relationships or something- all of which feels like it would be main game focusing stuff, but Swery wants it as an addition. Truly this man is on some different stuff. But with all of these moving cogs working in the machine, the effect is a game that feels deep in the most surprising of places and almost endearingly uneven in others.

Of course, these are again just initial impressions from some time playing a demo and the full experience is sure to have a few more surprises up it's sleeve, but when at the whims of a creative mind like Suehiro's it's important to know that on some basic level you're onboard with the mindbending trip you're about to embark on and for this premise I am. That's something you're going to have to come to terms with yourself too before even considering this game, because otherwise you're signing up to a game with a director who has a Yakuza-style tattoo of a monkey on his back. I'm talking whole-back, real Yakuza stuff, must have hurt like hell. Also, given that this game is the first being made by his new indie studio, I suppose we can expect a lot more weird ideas like this coming from the man over the years, like maybe he'll be able to try and make that one game idea that publishers told him he couldn't do because it was too perverted. How bad could it be? Hmm? It was about a high school detective girl who tries to solve a murder my utilising the imagination-power fuelled by her masturbation? I take it back. Swery needs to be stopped.

Steam Next: Starship Troopers Terran Command

Snap back to reality

Finally I've managed to worm my way around all of this content talking about the Steam Next fest to land on one of only two games that I didn't download on a mad roulette-wheel whim. This is game that I saw recommended by an influencer I respect and specifically kept my eye out for in order to pick up, not for his sake, but because it spoke to a property that was important to my own childhood as well. I loved Starship Troopers back in the day, as I should for any film released on the year of my birth, and whilst the years have really not been too kind on the movie on a special effect's stage; to be honest the effects weren't ever really that hot to begin with, so that doesn't kill the experience at all. I'm just surprised that there haven't been more Starship Trooper games throughout the years, but I'm glad the one that was demoed during the fest looks to be a quality one.

Actually, there were quite a number of these titles throughout the years, but the reason you've not heard of them is because they're the exact type of bargain bin filler that you might have expected them to be. The most recent of which was actually a mobile tie-in to that weird animated movie they did with some highly questionable plot points in it. The only game that looks sort of cool, and I'm basing this on screenshots because apparently no one has ever captured footage of the thing, is the 2005 first person shooter by Strangelite limited. It got middling to average reviews but I bet I would have liked it. Oh, and fun fact; The very first Starship Troopers game was actually 1982's 'Klendathu', and that's because that game is based on the book, bizarrely. (And if you're curious, from what I can tell the book seems entirely devoid of the over-the-top sardonic military-fascism from the movie to the point where it almost feels like the film is a direct mocking condemnation on the book's overt pro-military bias'. Verhoeven sure knows how to pick 'em, don't he?)

Terran Command promises to be a game made for the fan of the old-school movie, before sequels that no one has ever seen started rearing their ugly, unprofitable heads. (I hate the fact that there are three of those movies, why did you have to take something fun and ruin it? Why?) And whatsmore, it promises to do so in a real time strategy environment, which is a kick in the butt for me because I haven't played an RTS in nigh on 10 years now. (Ouch, that one hurt to admit.) Yes, despite owning Warhammer Dawn of War, I was never able to get into it and the last title I truly gave the time of day from this style of genre would have been Army Men RTS. A title which sort of functions as a 'my first RTS' sort of title, but one that I vehemently loved. Oh wait, I did play a bit of 'Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2' at some point in the intervening years, but you can see just how much of an effect that left on me now that's stuck on as an afterthought. (I should get around to finishing that, but it's on the Origin Launcher. So I won't.)

In this game, you take command of units of Space Marines on the various mining colonies fraught with bug infestations across the colonies, and are tasked with being the last living thing standing, and maybe save the odd civilian as an absolute side-objective task. There's no great goal to be achieved, no true evil to overcome, you're just required to squash the ever loving heck out of every single multilegged organism on the planet, just like a true Terran commando should. And, true to the movie, all the action seems to be taking place on various red-rock Mars-like planets, despite the fact this is a title set in the colonies and it wouldn't kill anyone to try and be a bit more diverse. But when you're trying to nail the feel of a classic that badly; I suppose it helps to stick to the utmost basics.

RTS games mostly play out the same as one another, which is something the tutorial of this game itself points out as it teaches you. The player moves various units into positions wherein they can shoot at their enemy and must deal with positioning, unit composition and taking strategic points. Really involved RTS' can even involve total base building mechanics, but I get the feeling that Terran Command either doesn't want to go that involved or isn't ready to show that side off yet. What makes this RTS formula slightly different is the inclusion of line-of-sight, and this really is quite the game changer. Basically, Line-of-sight means that even if a horrible deadly insect creature is within shooting range, a unit won't fire at the thing unless it has a clear shot to do so. Obstacles can be anything from rocks, barrels, or crucially, other units. That's right, you need to position the teams so that they take up the space available to them effectively whilst not being in each other's way. A unique challenge, and a welcome edition to the genre in my eyes.

Bugs too make for quite different foes on the RTS scene, for the way that they are just as deadly as they are in the film, therefore it's not so much about trading shots with groups, but finding the best way to keep these murderous killing machines away from your units for as long as possible. The second they touch in melee range, people are dying, and to make things worse there are a collection of other types of bugs pulled into the game that do a bit of ranged damage too. The only problem with this being that, when mixed with the stringent lines of fire that require you to go the extra distance of telling your soldier's which way to face when you command them, micromanaging becomes a must. It's not really all that feasible to design a strike squad, deploy them to one corner of the map, and get working on something else whilst that distraction is going, because people need to be told explicitly where to stand else 90% of your people don't shoot, and that can get frustrating.

In scenes like the third map from this demo, where your fending off regular hordes of wall climbing bugs, this can be really invigorating. But when you're just trying to move through a valley and a bug ambush costs you half your unit because everyone was too busy scrambling over where to stand, that's not exactly the greatest feeling in the world. This is mitigated a little with elevation, which overalls lines of fire, but the frustration is still present everytime you need to reposition. Were I making the design choices, I'd have rigged it so that a blocked line of fire merely debuffs a unit's full damage potential, but they can still at least shoot. Because otherwise you have strange edge cases like the engineer units who come in packs of two and are wielding flame throwers. Instinct says you want to keep them protected with a ranged party to take potential damage, but then they can't fire, so how are you supposed to make the best of them?  There are fundamental balance questions that need a little working here.

But when it comes to an RTS game, all you have to do is give me that push and pull struggle that makes me feel like a bit of genius on the otherside and I'm happy; and after pushing through that tough-as-nails third mission that was exactly how I felt. This game also has that great quality of RTS' where you can make a huge mistake and still manage to salvage it with enough time and effort, unlike many other tactical games of the genre which are pretty much one swing and you're out. I really enjoyed my time with this demo, even though I question it's presence during an event that's supposed to be dedicated to indie titles. (seems a bit unfair to pair up some professional quality work against theirs) Needs some balancing work, but I'm already sold; give me that 1990's action movie goodness!