So every game is a TV show now. How's that going to pan out?

 It's not the end of the world. But you can see it from here.

Halo, Fallout, League of Legends, Assassin's Creed- Elden Ring? Okay, so I may have read the Elden Ring one just hypothesised by a journalist with a much more active imagination than I, but I now I can't get the possibility out of my head. Gaming shows upon gaming shows, descending on our hobby with contracts and contempt to rip away our stories in order to bastardise them on the world stage. And no, The Witcher isn't a game-tied show, it's based solely on the books. We've seen the Halo show neatly demonstrate that the problem with these shows isn't the budget or the ability to drag out the visual prowess of the gaming art teams, and we've seen from Arcane that a show doesn't even need to pull from the narrative of a story heavy game in order to be spectacular; so with examples from either end of the spectrum, can we take a guess as to what the future will hold for all of us who love our games and want them treated with respect in the coming TV adaptation apocalypse?

I've talked enough about the Halo show, and Arcane has enough praising press on it to turn anyone green with envy; so instead I want to take a look at what one might expect from the unreleased. Take the Fallout show which has apparently not disappeared into development hell and is actually being made with actors, scripts and everything! I've mentioned before how I'm actually somewhat hopeful for a series like this because of the way that the material holds just enough unique charm to it in order to appeal to a mass audience; although I do wonder if a series about the aftermath of a nuclear war is going to land so well in this particular political climate. I see potential here, but we're receiving a first hand lesson right now how 'potential' does not automatically equal 'success', from Paramount. There's still an uphill battle that these adaptations need to face and I think a big part of it comes down to respect.

There's a prevailing assumption whenever it comes to video games in the mainstream, one that was drummed up in the puritanical panic of the eighties, nurtured in the anti-gaming mob of the nineties, and still seems to have vague vestiges in the places of import today. It's the assumption that games are beneath other mediums of entertainment. For an industry that has grown so much, evolved nearly ceaselessly, and redefined itself decade after decade; it's obviously reductive to view gaming through the same lens as forty years ago, but some absolutely still do. And they tend to be the one's in power. To them, video games are some trite and stupid medium without soul or artistic merit behind it and it's stories; where the height of their evolution has been in disguising their trivial nature with fancier graphics and louder ad campaigns. These people still think all video games have 'points counters' in the top part of the screen that all players compete over. 

And this perception is what will poison these adaptations time and time again, as people come to these properties with the narcissistic belief that they are elevating them by freeing them from the chains of being a game. What was it that the Halo Showrunner said? "I never felt limited by it being a game."? What exactly is limiting about that? The way that games offer control and direction to the audience? The malleable nature of the product and how it's very experience shifts with each play? What are the limitations that are being overcome by making a TV show that totally disregards the game-related portion of this property? It becomes almost funny to compare these words against the finished product once it releases and people start to understand why this thing worked better at a game. Such as the Assassin's Creed movie wherein the movie makers tried to juggle two storylines like the laymen narrative heads at Ubisoft do every other year, only to realise that the time constraints of a feature-length movie really requires a much more skilled head in the directors chair. Otherwise you end off with a lukewarm prison movie intercut with disparate and fleeting action sequences fuelled with a vague purpose that no one remembers. Fundamentally, Assassin's Creed proved that even the series' narrative works better as a game. Do you think that's a concession that any of these upcoming show runners have ever even dreamed of accepting?

"No, we are the kings of narrative!" They insist. "The directions we take and the decisions we make mark the height of the visual storytelling artform, all else is just childish, artless, grasping. By our hand it is decided that Master Chief's indistinct face is immaterial, we'll take off his helmet. Under our direction do we ensure that Agent 47, through both of his movie adaptations, is no longer the carefully planning perfectionist assassin, but a bumbling action hero with super-powered shooting skills. And should we so decide, Uncharted will waste half of it's running time prowling around the very-charted streets of Barcelona." Just imagine this breed of 'creative' getting their hands on adapting something as traditionally transcendent as Dark Souls for an adaptation! There would be flashbacks every other scene, Gwyn Lord of Cinder would have an entire monologue before the end, Billie Eilish would make the theme tune- it'd be perfect; I can't wait.

None of which is to totally write off all adaptations before they're made, as disgruntled as I sound, because Arcane proved that it can be done right. I think the point of contention comes from the fact that so many of these adaptations are helmed by creatives who think it their right and duty to supplant the inferiority of the source material with their talents. They believe themselves to know better than the developers who nursed this franchise because those guys were all just clueless code monkeys throwing anything that sticks at the wall whilst they are the true artists. Whereas treat a game adaptation as one would a book adaptation, where the intention is be supplementary and respectful, and suddenly we have a much healthier relationship to start building these shows and movies off of. But in order to reach that harmony, there needs to be a concession of superiority else we're not going to get anywhere.

The Fallout show is one that I have my eyes firmly set-on, because given the amount of rapid attention that Bethesda pays it's two flagship franchises, I can't see them settling for being mere creative consultants on the Fallout set. I can see Bethesda really getting their hands dirty in the production of this show in order to make sure it's done right, because they themselves know first hand the sort of ire the public will drum up if you start insisting that Ghouls don't need to eat to survive, or that Jet is a pre-war pick-me-up. I think the example that show will set holds the ability to reverberate in all future projects, especially if it manages to do as well as I think it might. Maybe then, similar as we did after Game of Thrones, a slew of high quality adaptations will enter production simultaneously in order to capture that lightning before the bottle breaks. (I just hope the Fallout series doesn't go the way of later Game of Thrones.)

Sonic the Hedgehog, Detective Pikachu and even that Mortal Kombat film to some extent, all show the promise of this collaboration between traditional media and gaming. There is a space for successful crossover, and I know that for a fact. I think that is why I find it so hard to just write off this movement entirely, to throw away any new show that gets announced; because I know it can be done right. We don't need Marvel movie levels of representation over here (despite what Nintendo are trying to cook up with their Mario extended movie-verse) but a bit of love on their end can lead to wonders for all invested parties, I know it can. So how is the future going to pan out for game adaptations? Rocky, with a lot of pitfalls and some utterly terrible adaptations on our horizon, but somewhere, in the distance, there is that glimmer of hope. And that's what keeps me enduring the crap with a grimace and a promise. Good god, I hope this Halo series doesn't get a season 2. Hmm? That's already been confirmed? Crap.

To Transmogrify or not to Transmogrify

 That, apparently, is the question

When I first heard of transmogrification within the context of gaming, it was immediately clear to me that I was already very late to the party. I remember discovering it when learning about DC Universe Online, one of the first MMOs I toyed around with back when I was still being suckered into the whole 'this game is free!' grift. One of the flag ship selling points in my eyes was that ability to take an item with powerful stats and disguise it (or 'transmogrify' it) to look like another piece of equipment you liked the look of better. It seemed like an essential part of the visual formula for that game, given how that title was invested in making you feel like a unique and powerful wielder of superpowers with their own distinct style and unique superhero outfit. I remember thinking it was such a clever concept, to the extent that it wasn't really anything I expected to see elsewhere in the industry. WOW released their own Transmog system back in 2011, so I was absolutely late to this little feature, and I didn't realise back then how prevalent of a topic it was to become.

In this age of looter games and looter RPGs and looter shooters and MMOs out the rafters- the discussion of whether or not to implant transmogrification systems as an industry standard is becoming more commonplace, as people are starting to recognise the importance of personalisation over focused stat manipulation when it comes to enjoying long-form games. I think a great example for demonstrating this would be to look at the movement known as 'Fashion Souls'. The Soulsborne series of games is renowned as being some of the toughest, yet still fair and rewarding, in the AAA industry, so you'd be forgiving in thinking that these are the sorts of games that demand its player base learn and take advantage of every errant system and minuscule boost that they can in order to get a leg up on the threats of the world. You'd have to be forgiven, for such an assumption would be wrong. 

For many reasons that don't warrant getting into for this particular blog, Souls games are actually pretty relaxed on what systems you choose to master and which you don't; and in fact, someone who min-maxes in such games will find themselves breezing through those games without any struggle whatsoever. Seriously, just invest in magic and everything crumbles in front of you. (Until you come across Gwyn and realise that he has a dodge mechanic built in specifically so that he can jump around your slow-casting magic attacks. The total arse.) So when it comes to armour and the miniscule defence percentage it offers the player, most levelled Souls players just ignore the stats altogether and instead seek out the armour which looks the coolest to them, that which completes their visual style the best, recognising that the real stats of impact are contained within the levelling stat sheet. Thus is born 'Fashion Souls', and the basis for why transmogrification has become a topic of relevance.

Really the point at which I heard this conversations flaring up around the more mainstream elements of the industry was once we started hearing talk regrading the later Assassin's Creed games, which might not make the most sense if you gave up on the franchise when it started to lose it's steam like I pretty much did, but does track better once you realise that these games are rent-price RPG looters now; for some reason. Odyssey had a transmog system so that fashionistas could parse Ubisoft's garishly bloated gear system and Valhalla had it's own transmog evolution wherein there came a price tag attached to visual manipulation that rubbed some people the wrong way. It just didn't make sense to people why a casual RPG like Assassin's Creed would try and prime its systems like some sort of hardcore gear grinder game or MMO and charge for the privilege of style switching. But then Valhalla was the harbinger of many anti-consumer practices, so one more spit in the face of the customers was hardly unexpected.

And so I've bought myself here to ask the obvious question: where does transmog belong and where does it not? Cyberpunk fans demand a transmog system to make their ugly but powerful clothing more bearable to deal with. (Even though that's literally a first person game and one has to wonder how much value such a system would even generate.) Should we be looking at  a transmog system coming with Elder Scrolls 6 too? What are the games for which this idea works and where does it not; or are there even any limits at all and should every game become a free-for-all of visual and functional mismatch? I'd argue that we don't need to take things quite that far, but there are indeed a few concessions to make. Places where such an idea fits, and places where I think it has no place, and figuring out which is which can help to establish expectations and responsibilities.

Firstly where do Transmog systems belong? Well I've bought up looter games for a reason, I think that the sorts of games that dump hoards of untailored randomly assigned, miniscule stat shifted, armour and weaponry on the player are the most direly in need of systems like this. Your Assassin's Creeds, your Destinys, your Niohs, your Diablos. These are the games where sweating the tiny boost to attack speed is the whole crux of the equipment system, and you'll be grinding day after day to earn that perfect randomly generated keyword spread. But when you hit that apex, get those numbers that you want, there's no reason why you should then be limited to look like Frankenstein's swift-shop reject. Transmog only adds value to systems like these because the items themselves are relevant for their abilities alone, not their visual appeal. Changing up the style takes nothing away from these systems and thus transmog system slide in perfectly.

Where do they not? Well, I'd argue this is the case for the more traditional RPGs with that shy away from random stat combinations and keyword kinder surprise. Skyrim, is the example that most readily comes to mind, depicts a world with various styles of armours, all made from different materials and offering differing weight values. Here's an example where the styles and the stats are important, they match up because they are designed to. Dragonplate armour is heavy and bulky, whilst Elven plate is sharp and thinner, adding a transmog system would dig in a little into the illusion built by that artistic intent. And similar games that champion consistent and contextual design also risk a softening of the immersive bonds that form the package.

We're probably at a point where we should be bringing these sorts of systems into most games that deserve them without question, although for the time being there are still a few archaic holdout's keeping us up with such ingenious plans as 'lets charge people money for this stuff and call it a privilege.' Yeah, there's some growing pains to work out. But for the most part I see the concept of transmogrification mechanics as a win for personalisation in customisation and keeping game avatars looking distinct from one another. MMO's realised this potential problem an age ago, so let's not let every high level endgame for big titles end up looking like a Runescape raid where every player is clones of each other in the same type of armour. (No shade at Runescape, I just think that game offers much better examples for the industry than it's visual customisation appeal.)

Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords Review

 What is it you think you have done?

Having played Knights of the Old Republic through nigh on 5 times, it seems like a given that I'd have played KOTOR 2 in between those playthroughs; although for one reason or another I never did get around to completing that which existed of the KOTOR saga. (I don't consider The Old Republic a canonical continuation, on purely personal bias) So I've really left a hole of my knowledge on the Old Republic until today. One previous playthrough ended the second I came across a game breaking bug, which is notorious from a game that was infamously rushed to launch, but this time I was determined. I pretty much power-gamed my way through the campaign whilst completing as much as I could to get the best all around picture of the experience and picking up 'The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod' which is said to clean up the majority of the bugs. (I still had to completely reinstall the whole game in order to finish it because of unforeseen installation woes and the same gamebreaking bug coming back, but I finally managed to hit those credits.) So how about we touch on my thoughts on the game and see where exactly we can go from there? Of course this is going to be a review, but I'm going to refrain on specific story spoilers in case this is a game you want to experience for yourself, but I will proceed assuming that you know the story events of KOTOR 1 at the very least.

Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords (Which I'll refer to as 'The Sith Lords', henceforth.) was released a little more than a year after the first in December 2004. And as you can imagine, a turn around that quick would have been impossible from the Bioware team considering the many other projects they were juggling during that time, thus development was turned over to another legendary studio. Obsidian Games bought their talents to work on 'The Sith Lords', and to my amazement you can genuinely see the vast differences in how both companies approach RPGs nakedly on the face of two games built on roughly the same framework. Unfortunately, 'The Sith Lords' was rushed to launch meaning that a good deal of content and plans had to be stripped out or reworked in order to hit the December release date, which is also very clear to see for anyone playing the game. The Restored Content Mod does it's best at piecing together what was left over, but that just does a good job in showing you why some of this content was left out. (Unfinished half-baked ideas are resplendent.)

Gameplay differs little from the round-based real-time action of KOTOR 1, however one can see how Obsidian weren't quiet as married to the whole 'D&D in Star Wars' idea that Bioware was originally shooting for. (Which is surprising considering these companies' polar opposite stance of that design philosophy would completely switch in how they make their games today.) There are several reworked feats and a lot of cool new force powers, but Level 20 is no longer the level cap so all of that serves less as 'build variety' and more as 'over powered tools to tack onto your arsenal as you become helplessly godlike in the late game'. Still, there's an improvement in choice and variety which makes The Sith Lords a better base gameplay experience than it's predecessor, and yet there are caveats there I want to dive into later. Though just as with a lot of this game, my feelings on this approach to gameplay remained turbulent and murky until those final minutes of the credits screen.

Picking up 5 years after the events of KOTOR, The Sith Lords follows a new character called 'The Exile' coming back into Republic space after a long time in seclusion, only to find themselves as the last remaining Jedi in the Galaxy. That title is questionable and thrown about several times despite blinding obvious evidence to the contrary, but it drives at the heart of the threat: The Jedi are being hunted and assassinated by a mysterious threat of Sith Lords that are strikingly more interesting in design and premise than practically every other Sith in Star Wars history to date. Even now. The Triumvirate stand as some of the most distinct and unsettling antagonists I can think of within the Star Wars universe, and it's a shame that these weirdoes aren't better known by the community. They're practically JOJO villains for how wacky and wild they and what they do is. (I think all 3 of them carry tons more weight than 'angry-apprentice' Darth Malak ever did.)

In this brave new, Jedi devoid, galaxy, the Republic is teetering on the verge of collapse thanks to the collateral damage caused by the Jedi Civil war, and it's uncertain fate looms heavily over the narrative from start to finish. (Spoilers) Revan has fled known space to face some unknown dark force from his past and the spectre of his passing hangs over the entire breadth of the story too, as a dangling question mark that was never answered. (As long as we block out the existence of The Old Republic, that is. Really wish Bioware had kept those plotlines to themselves.) It is up to the player to decide both the fate of the Jedi Order and that of the Republic as they try to discover why the Sith are pursuing them whilst unravelling a mystery about their own past.

There is a lot that this game has to juggle from a narrative perspective, which is why it's so surprising how great a lot of the story turns out even when large swathes of it had to be cut out of the game, and I think it a testament to Obsidian's incredible writing prowess. It's something you can see from just about every dialogue snippet in the game, from the esoteric yet buzzing with intent rhetoric of Kreia, to the sternly passionate exposition-weaved argument between the Exile and Atris at the tail-end of the first act. There's a stunning command of character writing talent that shines through this burnished gem of a narrative so that each individual character jumps out and lives in front of you. Which is a blessing, because one of the casualties of the rushed development is companion storylines. Yep, you'll recruit an impressive team of personalities, talk with them, but there's no optional character-building adventure to deepen your connection and fundamentally change who that character is. Without the talent in Obsidian's writing room, these characters and this narrative could have fallen off a cliff so fast!

I do, however, mark the rushed development as responsible for the structure of the gameplay, which is a lot less consistent both with the example that KOTOR set, and within itself. The first world of The Sith Lords is a genuine slog to go through, a linear trek through an excruciatingly drawn out prologue packed with robots, a snail-pace mystery and a tiny bit of genuine suspense on the tail end of the 5-6 hours it'll take just to get onto the second world. Only to discover that the second world is also a railroad! It took me nearly 9 hours to finally get out onto the Galaxy map with some control over my destiny, all because of a first act in desperate need of a editor's hand swiping down to cut some of the fat. Especially considering how most of those initial 9 hours are spent wandering around gun-metal grey corridors and Telos' bland vision of a metropolis. At least KOTOR 1 gave us the fields of Dantooine to keep things fresh.

Even once out into the gameplay loop of visiting worlds to track down the Jedi, you'll encounter worlds with vastly differing levels of fleshed out quest lines. Onderon and Dantooine are straight forward and wrap up neatly, Nar Shaddaa is a gangly branching thing lacking in initial direction and resplendent with annoying heavily orchestrated set-piece moments which rob the player of agency and grate for their trying length and frequency. And then Korriban is a total after-thought. It's just a complete mismatch of development ideas and efforts indicative of a game not really near that harmonisation point which the development process longs for. Don't even get me started on the finale, which switches about fast enough to give you whiplash before giving up and throwing you in a facility brimming with enemies mindlessly standing around and staring at walls until the protagonist gives purpose to their lives by killing them. By every account this game should be an unplayable mess, and it a testament to the herculean talent of the Obsidian team that is all just about sticks together, even if it's rough.

In the absence of a consistent story to entice repeat playthroughs, The Sith Lords features a randomised loot system that keeps the things you pick up as totally random each time you play- and I hate it. Dictated by the level you are and filling nearly every source of loot from trader inventory to corpse looting, the random loot table takes all the fun out of exploration beyond quest completion, because no secret corner of the world is going to hold anything tailor-made which gives it value. You'll find Dark Jedi robes lying on the bodies of bounty hunters in Nar Shaddaa, several clones of Exur Kun's battle armour stuffed in a locker on a random star ship and apparently Darth Malak's armour is capable of randomly spawning, but I was never lucky to see it spat out of a slain Cannock or somewhere equally as undignified. By the late game I was just ignoring all lockers and corpses, because none of them would contain useful drops ever. It felt like a badly constructed looter-shooter drop system, weightless and ultimately inconsequential. Needless to say, I won't be drawn into a second playthrough just in hopes of getting another three random 'circlet of +5 wisdom' drops. 

But did I have fun? The most important question of them all. To which I think the answer is actually 'yes'. Despite the frustrations with the mission layouts, the random loot and the distinct lack of Sith enemies throughout the games. (Yeah, there were hardly any force users at all in the whole campaign until the last hour) I did manage to squeak out some fun from the content that is there as well as from the strength of the story. The direction that Obsidian takes the narrative is fraught with mysterious intrigue that seizes the imagination and even sets the pulse racing in some of the later moments. Kreia's back-and-forth with the player, and her key moments, are endlessly fascinating and I could have spent several more hours just listening to her corrupted teachings about the nature of the universe. And the relationship between the player and the main antagonist results in one of the most gut-wrenching and intriguing conflicts I've seen in Star Wars. And I know I keep comparing this narrative with wider Star Wars but it bears the comparison well, because at times this narrative is in an absolute league of it's own.

The shortcomings in development does effect the wider story too, however, and some lingering snippets of the narrative remain confusing, under explained or out-right ignored by the time the credits role. Including, most frustratingly, the force bond which serves as the impetus for the entire adventure to being with! That was one of the reasons why the finale was building up to be so tricky, only for it to be forgotten altogether by the credits! At least the team found a way to wrap a 'where are they now' section into the game before the credits, unlike in the first KOTOR, with a creepy, yet totally apt, twist of divination baked in there. But the real tragedy has to be the way in which the final 3 hours dedicate themselves to building up the Galaxy-threatening return of Revan in KOTOR 3, only for that game never to be made and the potential of it to be killed off thanks to The Old Republic MMO which squandered the idea, squandered the Galaxy and, eventually, squandered Revan. In my head and heart the cliff hanger of The Sith Lords stands to this day, unanswered and full with the same tantalising mysteries last left floating in the vacuum about the rocks and ruins of the massive space-rock once known as Malachor V.

'Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords' is a clearly troubled game that wears the scars of truncated development which tarnish a game otherwise set to be a powerhouse, and if you squint your eyes you can almost make out that masterpiece in all of the mess. However even with years of fan efforts trying to piece the vision that was, KOTOR 2 just ends up feeling like a game that bit off more than it can chew and barely managed to square up as a good game despite of it's ambitious rather than because of them. There was something special here, and I think the writing still holds some of that magic, but maybe we'll have to wait until the KOTOR 2 remake to feel that finally realised in the way it was always meant to. With all this in mind, I would award Knights of the Old Republic with a C+ Grade, so earned for it's fumblings as much as it's triumphs. In another world I could absolutely see a reality where this game is every bit KOTOR 1's superior, but circumstances tripped it up invoking those old iconic Miyamoto words. "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad." And a promising game which crumbles under the weight of it's own ambitions is perpetually and deeply frustrating.

Adaptations: Respecting the Source material

 Paramount hurt itself in it's confusion

By the time this is posted we'll have seen the first episode of the promised adaptation of the Halo TV show, and then we'll know right quick how much of a botch job the whole thing is. Early impressions are lukewarm to bad, so I'm not expecting great things any which way, but even by the modest feelings already established towards how the show, this team is looking to breed an atmosphere of unease and animosity between the show and fans of the franchise, and I just can't not talk about that! Because for the way that the show runners are planning to drum up excitement for the show, it almost seems like they're either severely incompetent, or actively trying to either cut themselves off from the existing fanbase altogether, or maybe they just establish and justify a layer of contempt from over videogame fans. And this, in broad terms, is exactly why I keep braying on about how video game adaptations are doomed to crash and burn; because the people running them never respect the source material.

When engaging in adaption it's so very important to recognise all the relevant avenues to the project that you're working with for so many obvious reasons. For one you want to make something that isn't stepping on the shoes of what has been before, else your project will feel trite and unoriginal. You want to take advantage of the unique subtleties of the introduced medium, whilst still keeping the recognisable strengths of the medium you're adapting from. And you want to make sure that the established audience for the property you're adapting, the inbuilt fan base who are the entire reason you are adapting this thing in the first place, will be able to see the value in the adaptation. It's just the very base level of one's responsibility to recognise the basic level of what they're working with. This isn't even some great secret I'm imparting right now, this is simple. This is one-oh-one. You'd have to be totally delusional to not only refuse to do this, but then parade around boasting about it as though that's some great boon of your approach to directing.

"We didn't look at the game." touts Steven Kane, Halo Showrunner, in the lead-up to the release of his Halo-themed TV show during an interview with Variety. Not even an ambush interview, no, he offered up this self assassination of his own accord. "We didn't look at the game. We didn't talk about the game. We talked about the characters and the world. So I never felt limited by it being a game." A little betrayal of our Showrunners attitude when it comes to the source material, is it not? Whether or not he meant to voice it, Steven has essentially just said that the books and supplementary world materials helped inform the series he is making, which is good because the series' tie to it's gaming routes are a weakness. The fact that he has kept himself clean of that, is a boon to the show. This, is what is known as 'disrespecting the source material'.

And it doesn't take a lot to familiarise himself with this world from it's gaming routes either. Last December I'd never played a Halo game save for Reach in my life; by mid way through January I'd blasted through the Master Chief Collection and now currently have more familiarity with the series than this show runner! If that isn't a problem, you tell me what level of franchise disconnect would be considered a problem. Does our show runner here even know what the Flood sound like? Has he heard the shrill wails of the choir mount as The Arbiter slips deeper into the heard of a Precursor ruin? Does he know what it feels like to be picked apart by swarms of dangerous bug mutants in a messy jungle assault? Has he felt the sacrificial nobility of the team that fell for Reach? Does he recognise any of what makes this franchise beloved to so many out there?

Because as much as I like to point out the vast differences between the games and TV industry, they share many similarities to. For one there's a large visual element to both mediums and they often lean on similar cinematic techniques to heighten the experience. Musical suites, set-piece moments, camera angles, scene timings, recorded performances: There's a lot of fundamental cross-over here. So as a show runner, would it not make sense to at the very least observe the techniques that the game has employed over the years? Just so that you know what this world looks like? Heck, maybe it will keep you from making a weird mistake like forgetting to make Cortana blue or making the Chief take his helmet off. At the very least, ignoring the games makes you totally unware of the significance of Master Chief's helmet and why removing it, before the games have even dared to, is a spit in the face to the franchise as a whole. It's saying "We are better than you and so don't have to abide by your most sacred traditions." It's hubristic.

And of course then there are the big lingering questions one must confront when recognising that the Halo we love isn't going to be addressed here; such as 'Which Halo are you even adapting here?' Because we all know that the Halo franchise hasn't been sunshine and rainbows when it comes to writing quality, and there's a clear distinction between era's of Halo storytelling that just isn't going to be apparent for people who only consume the books. Halo 1-3 is the golden age, where the characters and stories were most universally loved, even if they largely were not perfect, and 4-5 was the 'reimaging age' where new heads took over and tried everything they could in order to make the series into something it really wasn't cut-out to be. Halo: Infinite is the drastic course correction to bring things back to the heyday. Which Halo is this show taking it's inspiration from? Does our Showrunner and his team even know the difference?

On the other side of the spectrum there are numerous examples of games who adapt from other properties and go to great lengths to be respectful and provide something that fans of those media can recognise and love. Just recently there is the Hogwarts Legacy game that painfully recreates the sets of the movies and expands them into an uncanny world space. There's a clearly apparent reverence for the source material there, propagated by a love for those movies and books by a staff who consulted both frequently in order to hit the nail on the head as often as possible. There are the years of Star Wars games that warped themselves to fit around the ever increasing expanded Star Wars universe, before Disney stepped in and shrunk everything down. There's the beloved Ghostbusters video game which served as a third movie which was never made, thanks to the work they went to in order to bring back the cast and write in an adventure that fit neatly within the films that existed. For the most part there's a decent amount of source material respect on our end, (if we don't count those years of god-awful low budget movie games that studios used to commission) is it too much to request the same both ways?

Right now the general consensus seems to be that the Halo TV show is an alright space show that squanders it's budget and doesn't seem to really take advantage of the material it's dealing with; and can we really be surprised? A fan might know when to take into account the small stuff, like the role of marines in key events, the rigid stoicism of Chief that keeps him to-the-letter until Halo 4 shakes that up a little, the major difference between how Chief is described in all the media against how he actually is in combat, heck, even the shape of the reverence around chief himself. What we're getting instead in a story set in it's own canon, which is fine, but which parades about with a superiority complex that existing franchise fans are going to find nauseating. So for their sake they better work fast on drumming up that normie audience; else this show is going to go the same way as the Forward Unto Dawn.

Another Square title= another disappointment

They came for our Chocobos!

Over the past month we've had no less than two full Final Fantasy spin-off games pop out of the Square Enix factory from seemingly nowhere, and increadibly, despite the beloved and storied mainline franchise they both spawn from; they are both bad. Okay, that's not being entirely fair; Stranger of Paradise is more heavily flawed, especially when compared against previous games made by these very same developers hardly a few years earlier. It's more of a resounding disappointment of a game rather than an objectively bad one; and yet that still reflected poorly on early sales. Chocobo GP, on the otherhand, is a title that came out of nowhere with the express goal in life to be a mistake upon man. And so we readily welcome the new material to poke at with the same exuberance it would demand being a travesty forged of a game that I, and presumably everyone else on the planet, had no idea even existed. A Chocobo racing game? 'Mkay, Square, you know best...

Of course the concept of Chocobo racing goes back far in the the Final Fantasy lore, with the earliest example I can think of being the racing minigame stuck onto the frame of the original Final Fantasy 7 (Although I'm sure it goes back further) to be just one of the many side activities for you to get lost in when you should be focused on saving the world from irreparable ecological devastation. The only caveat being that it's less of actual racing that you do in that minigame, and more of betting on who you believe will win whilst spamming buttons that might be helping things but it's hard to say. There were actually some pretty cool rewards that were on offer from that minigame but I just couldn't bring myself to wait around for 3-5 minutes at a time for every race to wrap itself up. (I know I'm someday going to learn about a 'skip-race' button that I missed.)

This Grand Prix, however, is more exactly what you think of you hear 'cutesy novelty racing game'. "Hey, is that a child of the Mario Kart genre?" It certainly is! It features several characters from the Final Fantasy and Chocobo series' (Wait? Chocobo is a series of it's own? That... makes no sense whatsoever) and has they go around Kart tracks and casting magical spells at one another and just that good old fashioned friendship destroying fun that multiplayer Nintendo games are known for. In fact, this game is a long awaited (is 'awaited' the right word?) sequel to Chocobo racing from all the back in 1999. And amazingly it didn't just launch as a really bad mobile HD port with predatory mobile monetisation antics imprinted over the once buy-to-play game. You know, like Mario Kart GP is. It's a model that has seeped into other titles and ruined them, such as that Crash Team racing remake. Oh wait, I spoke too soon... it's here as well.

Yes, even the sweet and adorable hybrid abominations known as Chocobo's are not exempt from greedily goring for your wallet. Square Enix couldn't go one week without incurring significant outrage regarding the in-the-box pricing strategies of this full price Switch racing game. How significant were these complaints? I heard about them and I didn't know about this game's existence beforehand; talk about a bad first impression. Mark this in just another long line of surprising gaffes from Square Enix, which is turning their company into something of the clowns of the 2020's so far. Marvel's Avengers, Stranger of Paradise, Babylon's Fall, the horrible $70 pricing on the PC version of FF7R; thank god for outliers like Guardian's of the Galaxy and long-term troopers like Final Fantasy XIV otherwise it would really feel like this massive entity is verging on dropping off entirely.

Right away we're seeing our usual tactics. Special unique characters are on offer to be purchased using the ingame premium currency Mythril which is offered to players once they first play the game in a small 800 bundle and then never again unless they shell out their real-world credit cards. We're looking at Cloud and Squall as characters for season 1. (which makes you wonder where exactly the team can go from there. I mean they're the two most popular FF protagonists; so who else can you offer? Maybe Leon from Kingdom Hearts? Change things up a little...) That Mythril can't be used on the character though, of course not. You have to use that to buy the season pass (which is exactly 800 Mythril, funny that) and then play for an inordinate amount of time to max out that season pass and unlock him. Or, alternatively, you can decide you don't like the offering in this pass and wait for the next season, only to discover that in 5 months all your Mythril becomes invalid, because Square is learning from Nintendo with their currency management policies apparently.

Seriously; there is no justifiable reason why ingame premium currency should expire. It is absolutely grotesque that these childish kids games fully and openly encourage a system where they hope you'll forget about excess credits on your account so that you can buy them again at a later date. Offer big bundle deals with awkward Mythril thresholds fully in the knowledge that the excess is due to disappear into the ether before the next big season of the game. It's policies like these that should get a management board fired, I have trouble enduring a firm which operates with grifts like that in order to bleed money out of a children's game. I mean come on! Why don't you just mug kids coming out of the corner store after school, seems like a lot less set-up for the same overall goal. (Yeah, I think the decision makers here are actual scum.)

These mobile levels of monetisation haven't come and gone without incident and unlucky early adopters are warding off any curious purchasers like brave mine canaries, sacrificing themselves so that others may live rip-off free. Naturally this has made Square go into full-on defence mode, and concessions have been dripping out of their studio ever since to try and trick the buying public back to their side. Maybe a little bit more Mythril will get thrown in over here, maybe they'll throw some in the season pass to keep you grinding. Pretty much everything they're offering are empty platitudes that don't so much as tickle the heart of the problems, demonstrating a distinct lack to make any meaningful changes. Sure you get more Mythril, but less than the price it takes to buy another Season pass, and it will still evaporate half-way through that second season. You'll earn some premium currency during the season, but who wants to bet it'll be just enough to be able to afford next season's pass? It's as if they already knew the sort of backlash this was going to cause and had backup schemes ready to go in order to make it look like they're listening and responding to their fans. But that's crazy talk, right...

What you'll often hear from studios like this, who make these blatantly anti-consumer decisions, is that they had no idea that the public wouldn't lap it all up and thus have made a huge totally unintentional and unforseeable, mistake; but not to worry- because now they're listening to the players and will be better next time around. All of which I typically find to be a load of hogwash. Do you know how you can easily tell if your monetisation sucks? Put yourself in the shoes of the player and ask if you'd rather scoop out your eyes with a tablespoon than endure this egregiously drawn out season pass grind. It's not rocket science! The only way these mistakes could be genuine and good faith, would be if the development team, or at least the one's making decisions for them, have grown totally out of touch with the public they provide for. Which sounds pretty likely the more I think about it, doesn't it? That's another sore mark against Square, and let's hope it's the last flub for a good long while, eh; else that Forspoken is going to more than just boring.

Wtf is The Walking Dead Empires?

 A scam, probably. I'm guessing a scam.

I try to steer away from topics that I think I'm covering too much so that neither I, nor you, get overly familiar, and thus bored, with the same old thing. I mean of course I'm going to talk about games, but if I veer off on a tangent of the topic and stick rigidly to that then I'm just going to end up one-day missing the forest for this one particularly unique-looking tree with these really cool branches that cast sick grasping shadows in the moonlight. But then I see a trailer for The Walking Dead Empires, pick up pretty quickly, without being explicitly told because upfront and transparent marketing is for wimps, that this is an NFT project- then I can't just simply not talk about that! It's using the Walking Dead branding, which means that either this is an officially licenced AMC NFT game, which is just a hilarious proposition, or it's an unofficial NFT cash grab like that Squid Game NFT which made headlines a while back. And I think that's just as funny. So join me as I dip my toes into yet another non-fungible disaster, with 'TWD Empires!'

So the second you see a trailer full of funko-pop looking chibi versions of Walking Dead characters, you know something screwy is going on. Even when I have to admit that these all seem to be custom made quality assets, all things you absolutely can not take for granted when we're talking about NFT projects, that doesn't mean I'm not going to have a huge critical eye toward the validity of what I'm looking at as a package. In fact, I'd argue that the best chibi assets in the world would fit poorly within the world of The Walking Dead, due to the inherent mismatch of that visual aesthetic and the tone of the TWD universe. But this game had me even more critical than I would have been at first glance after I followed the link, scoured the page, and discovered that these artist have no less than three utterly distinct art-styles they're working with. Which I would say is a dead give-away of stolen art assets... but then this is branded by AMC themselves, so I guess I can give the team the benefit of the doubt and assume they just locked their artists inside of three totally different basements so that their work had no possible chance of matching up.

But what about the game that these assets are made for? Well, hilariously enough, The Walking Dead Empires is pitching itself as a blockchain-powered (Whatever that means) zombie survival MMORPG with NFTs haphazardly shoved in there. That's a lot of hats to wear, especially for a game that, judging from the trailers and screenshots, is a top-down tilt-cam action title similar to 'How To Survive'. I'm not saying that those sorts of games can't be MMOs or anything, just look at Lost Ark. I'm more just trying to highlight the absolute ambition radiating from what this game wants to be, when compared to the conceptual restraints it's operating within, the hairbrained ideas it's working with, and the pedigree of the team who are working on it. Their name is Ember Entertainment, and they've made only Mobile games. And from the two I looked at, it seems they are one of the millions of other small development teams out on the mobile space who love their 'city builder' paint-by-numbers games. You know, the type of game which is so generic that you can literally buy a pre-made archetype for it off the internet for pennies? Something with actual effort and, you know, a game inside of it isn't just out of their comfort zone, it's like throwing a Penguin into the middle of the Arctic and expecting it to be finished with an Igloo city within the year.

As one might expect from a totally legitimate project like this one, their official landing page is painfully short of actionable details. I know they expect this game to facilitate scavenging for supplies, base building and some sort of NFT-based land ownership system. (Because that always goes so well. Just ask ArcheAge.) There's not a single 'read more' prompt on the page, but about 4 paragraphs that end with a 'buy now' prompt which sends you to a page to buy their NFTs. So yeah, this definitely doesn't smell like a incredibly suspicious scam project at all. (Except it does. It does smell like that.) But apparently this is a legitimate thing, according to everything I can dig up. This game was supposedly even revealed at something called 'GoGalaGames' which is an absolute honey pot for garbage crypto game failure stories. I could start an entire dumpster-diving series based on their recommendations alone. Let anyone talented enough not to be featured on their platform count their many fortunes.

But what about the NFT side of all this? Because you know that 'buy' button has to lead somewhere, right? Well again, this is hardly touched on because this site is apparently allergic to providing genuine information, but as far as I can tell we've got an NFT crafting station that you have to own in order to create, quote, "A particular type of ingame item" that you can then sell on to friends or use yourself. Essentially creating an entirely player backed ingame economy, on the bones of real economy in order to make the damn items in the first place. Sounds legit. And then there's the land rush, because we can't be an NFT game project without a stupid land-rush strapped on top everything. Here we're looking at what seems to be cards of differing rarities that people can buy in order to own a piece of a yet-to-be revealed map so that can build their base ontop of it? Because I guess that's where 'Empire' comes into the title? One would have to ask what concerted base building has to do with a post apocalyptic setting, but then I hardly think these project creators have the mental acuity to comprehend what words like 'thematic consistency' mean.

So of course I'm going to get bored and look at the NFT storefront, because the landrush hasn't started yet so I can't get sad about all the pathetic saps that have spent thousands on digital land for a game that won't ever be released. Right now there are only 8 types of NFTs to buy and they're all crafting stations, 4 being Forges and the other 4 being Labs. Forges allow for weapons to be built who's tier is dependent on the rarity of forge that you own and Labs allow medical supplies to be made within the same metrics. So a pretty skin-deep crafting system so far. Oh, did I mention that these are all pre-sale NFTs because the game isn't finished and doesn't even have a release date or gameplay footage yet? (I felt that was implied.) Now if I can believe what the store front is telling me about how many of these NFTs were made, minted and sold (And trust me: I do not believe this site as far as I can throw it) than these have sold depressingly well. However they haven't sold out, which is curious. In fact, since I checked it first the other day and as I checked it now, all depleted inventory numbers have remained stunningly stagnant. Makes you think, doesn't it?

Now the only question is; how do I buy these NFTs? Because clearly I hate my money and want to give it to some spotty talentless hack running scams out of his attic, so what do I need to get in on the action? Well, these NFTs can only be bought with Gala coin- which, considering we're looking at coin prices in the tens of thousands, either makes these the most expensive NFTs on the market, or tells of a ludicrously valueless coin. And... Gala is hovering around 0.25 of USD as of writing this, so there's your answer. So the cheapest NFT is the 'Uncommon Lab'. (Huh, I just noticed that the lowest rarity of NFT is the 'Uncommon Lab'. Meaning there's no 'Common Lab'. It hasn't been sold out either, the common designation just doesn't exist. Truly some evolutionary rejects are helming this project.) But lets get to the maths. So that Lab costs 2,402 Gala, making the average price of this NFT about $600 USD. That kind of hurts, but it could be worse. Let's look at the most expensive, the Ancient Forge, which is 258,249 Gala. That's $64, 562.25 USD. And according to the site, those had 25 in stock and have sold 23. I wouldn't weep for humanity yet, though; because numbers that silly pretty much confirms that this market is either an obvious fake designed to drum up FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) or they're trading to some particular parties. (I won't accuse anyone of doing anything that could be legally liable. But I will just put a hyper-link here for the Google definition of Wash Trading for no particular reason.)

It was around about this point that my head was spinning and I decided to take a gander at those screen shots in order to claw some hope for the future of a project that is proudly sporting the AMC brand. (These aren't just some nobodies screwing around with a pathetically crappy game plan, afterall. These guys are apparently backed by a real world entertainment brand! Allegedly.) That's when I noticed the differing art styles. The game looks significantly different to the reveal trailer showcasing their cartoon-version of Michonne cutting down walkers and exactly 0 seconds of actual gameplay. The game is top down,  moody and, provided these are real screenshots and not just mock-ups, actually doesn't look terrible. I've played similar games that look significantly worse than this game is pretending that it does. But then I glimpsed their character concept art and I came away with some questions. 

Firstly, these artists seems to have stuck 2 of their OC-don't-steals into these shots, and both of these OCs look genuinely trash. You have a heavy-looking guy with a square-box head and a cartoon M60 looking thing in one hand, and another girl who looks like a Fortnite character. She's wearing a schoolgirl blazer, skirt and akimbo pistols; someone on the team has a bit of an introduction-to-fetish phase they are going through and hasn't yet figured out how to keep it out of their work. (No shame from me, I'm just saying "Does this fit in The Walking Dead?" And I think the answer is pretty apparent.) And then there's Glenn. Good old Glenn. Only, hold on; this Glenn looks good. Not cartoonishly out-of-proportion like the OCs, and not freakishly inhuman like the Michonne from the trailers! What's up with that then, team? I mean, I don't want to accuse them of anything else, beyond what they're nakedly guilty of, but I can't help think there might be a little something untoward coming out in these artistic depictions. Schoolgirl fetishists and potentially unconscious racism- phew, not exactly a 'recipe for success', now is it?

So there you have 'The Walking Dead Empires', an apparently officially backed Walking Dead branded pre-sale monetised, NFT MMORPG which, even if it were real, would be destined to be brushed over and written off in a matter of minutes after launch. Games as polished and flashy as 'New Worlds' and 'Halo: Infinite' are struggling for attention against the grain of the industry, and then don't even charge over $50,000 real-world dollars for their best gear, so what hope does this pre-bloated corpse of a project hold? Still, at least Robert Kirkman can rest easy at night in the knowledge that selling the rights of his franchise to AMC has gone so far out of control that literal officially-sanctioned scams are sporting it's name. Ain't is just the dream to be so successful you can let your work be used for whatever kind of scummy grift imaginable and not care? That man's living the life...

Hogwarts Legacy Looks Increadible

 We finally got the letter!

Though the PlayStation 'State of Play' had been announced plenty of time in advance, I'll admit to having forsaken the event in favour of literally anything else because it always stings to see the latest promising title which is going to have it's full potential stunted in order to fit Sony's exclusivity dominion. If 'Horizon: Forbidden West' wants to know why its place in pop culture was so soundly stolen by Elden Ring, they should note not only Elden Ring's conceptual superiority, but also that game's access to literally three-times as many members of the general public. But then I saw 'Hogwarts Legacy' was due for a proper reveal, leading off the much-beloved Harry Potter licence that everyone my age in helpless indebted to, and I decided to put my prejudice behind me, before then learning that this game isn't, in fact, a console exclusive. So more celebrations all around; we can all go to Hogwarts!

This was a title which titillated and excited even with that sleight, gameplay free, reveal from the previous year, thus it was a stressful moment to rock upon a, old-school Ubisoft-style, gameplay showcase over 10 minutes long and showing only gameplay. One would have to ask themselves the serious questions- is Warner Bros. Games truly ready for this or has the clock just run out for how long they can delay? And given the general legacy (pun intended) of reveal events like these, sometimes even the level of polish we're shown turns out to be an abject lie and the game will really arrive significantly downgraded. But assuming we can, in fact, trust what we're seeing and that Hogwarts Legacy is every bit as big and beautiful as this gameplay event insists; then this might truly be the Harry Potter game that the fandom, affectionately and rarely known as 'Pot Heads', has been waiting decades for.

Taking place in the 1800's, Hogwarts Legacy isn't beholden to the tightly woven, and increasingly strenuous, narrative of the mainline books and movies (Which are set from 1991 to 1998). Nor does it need to saddle up alongside the other Harry Potter timeline which is, unfortunately, canonical: Hogwarts Mystery's 1984. We don't even have to be contemporaries of the contemptibly bland Newt Scamander and endure lead-ins to 'Fantastic Beasts and how to prolong a paper thin premise in a disinterested cash grab prequel franchise'. This game is set in a version of the wizarding world that is made for us, specifically to do with as we wish. That means totally new teachers, new students, and a totally fresh look at the world which, whilst clearly inspired by the feel of the movie series, retains it's own storybook fairy-tale flair. Maybe we won't be getting any flying cars, but the cosy warmth of antiquated Hogsmeade more than makes up for that.

Rather fittingly given the target audience for a game like this, Hogwarts Legacy will feature a custom made player character who is a late-comer fifth year to the School; so unfortunately we won't have a seven-year epic narrative told throughout the growth of our player, as cool as that would have been. That doesn't mean, however, that we're free from our duties to have to attend classes. No, Hogwarts Legacy will feed into the dreams of the fandom and allow us to live the Hogwarts school experience, taking questionably dangerous magical courses, taking shot-gun assignments in order to catch up to the rest of our classmates and taking the lessons learned into the wider world with practical application in life-or-death bouts. All between exploring a simply stunning recreation of the Hogwarts school that seems endlessly faithful to the visual look of the films.  

But this isn't just a school simulator. We're getting genuine wizard combat in the game and it honestly looks like the most robust magic fighting system we've had out of any of the Harry Potter games to date, but then I guess that is pretty much to be expected when we're talking about a game created by the same team behind 'Shadow of War'. (Imagine brutal combat like that in a Harry Potter game. We're likely never getting those sorts of beheadings, but its pedigree no doubt had a real influence here.) What we have here is a visual flair that is decidedly based on the action from the movies, wherein little wisps of multi-coloured magic daggers shoot back and forth. I'll be honest, I always felt that looked flimsy and insubstantial for when it came to spellcasting duels, and I still think it looks that way today, but I'll accept how it looks if the thing plays well. And right now I cannot be sure how it plays. The combat looks strangely clunky, with characters standing in the open and taking these rigid waving wand movements that look like the world's slowest Paso, but if the voice over is to be believed then we have all the ingredients for this combat to be great: combos, elemental weakness, a shield button, it just all looks a bit weird in practice. I guess I'm just not used to seeing it, I'll reserve ultimate judgement. 

Of the game's many systems that are in the works, and perhaps the one which confuses me most right now, is that of companions. Because that's a thing they're doing, for whatever reason. My suspicion is that these characters are really just friends that you'll meet and get to know throughout your school year, rather than party members who will quest and fight alongside you. Although there was mention of building your relationship with them which really does sound like a more evolved system with companion quests and the like. I just hope there's really a wide range of personalities to meet that'll come from all of the four houses, otherwise it might feel a little railroad-y if we have our regular school acquaintances decided by the all master hand of the game designers.

Now how about we get weird? Talk about the things that no one was really looking for from their Harry Potter game but are kind of okay with considering it's one of the standards of modern game design. The Room of Requirement, normal Harry Potter world snippet, is now an upgrade room with seemingly casual time gates for growing and harvesting and potion brewing. That's an... odd addition. I know there has to be crafting otherwise that one games industry investor who demands it from every AAA studio will flip his lid and crash his Lamborghini off a cliff or something, but that still doesn't quiet square with the multi-minute timer for watching ingredients grow. In fact, that particular timer sort of feels like what you'd expect from an MMO or a mobile game, but there doesn't appear to be any microtransactions here at all so one must wonder where the reasoning for this mode comes in. At least there's a special house building minigame in there too, give us something to do whilst waiting for the mandrake seeds to set.

At the end of the day the draw is the exploration, and I have to say that from the snippets we've seen the team have utterly succeeded in making a world that looks cool enough for me to want to explore it. Seeing the caves and mines in the mountains and the hills, riding across the skies on a broomstick or on the back of a hippogriff, and even just walking the shifting staircases of Hogwarts. Even if the whole rest of the game game turns out to be a total waste of time, which I'm really starting to feel like won't be the case based on everything we've seen, then this will still serve as the prettiest picture book exploration into the Harry Potter world we've ever had. Acknowledge well the fact that you have a rapid non-sensical fan spouting all this excitement at you, but then hear that he has indeed played every Harry Potter game in existence. (Save for the Deathly Hallow 'shoot-'em ups', because who cares about the franchise without the school.) God, all this makes me so irrationally excited I almost want to go and play Hogwarts Mysteries just to- woah, actually, I'm not that far gone down the insane rabbit hole yet. Maybe give me a little time.

Do believe I told you so-

Now it's all out and you know! 'cause I wanted to.

I never claimed to be a wise man. Nor did I claim to be the future-struck child of destiny, imbued with the indomitable sight-of-the-future. I own not the counsel of an army of Bene Gesserit, and I am not the Kwisatz Haderach- and yet on the very day that the both the game 'Perfect Dark', and it's developer 'The Initiative' was announced, I could see the future. The cloudy grey broke and one single knife of sunlight cut down from the heavens to elucidate the point: This was going to be a mess. Even as the war drums of excitement started to beat and nostalgia bells for the revived franchise clanged, I could see the wasted land of scorned potential laying just a hair beyond the rainbow. And now, in the damnable year of our earth 2022, it seems that which was foreseen has come to pass, as it always must. But can anyone, even the initially hopeful, really look themselves dead in the reflection of the black-eyed mirror and say this was a surprise? Truly?

Because at the end of the day, what even is 'The Initiative' supposed to be? A parade of red flags mailed their expresses invitation to 'bad idea day-spa' directly to my door when the phrase 'AAAA Developer' was first put to digital type. That alone rang with the hollow reverberance of some stodgy fish-faced grey-tied stock bro, looking at the steadily rising graphs for the Games Industries profit margins and concluding "Do you know how I could make this line even steeper? By flushing more money into the projects!" To venerate a 'AAAA developer' with an 'unlimited budget', you first have to conclude that the AAA landscape has largely failed gamers, which it has, but then somehow reach a warped consensus that this is due to a lack of resources, rather than a failure to establish strong, effective teams with flexible leadership and a bright shining vision. Maybe that's because those other factors all read slightly ephemeral,  all so 'wishy washy' and qualitative. The world becomes much more simpler once you whittle down everything, even the production of art, into a numbers game; the higher the number in the input, the higher the number on the output: criminally oversimplified economics 101.

Yet still it sounds enticing, doesn't it? A development studio with it's hands on technologies that so far exceed the studios of today that they are worthy of having their own level of tiered designation. It teases the confines of our imagination and tickles our hope to dream. And whilst we're busy lost in our abstract land of imagined perfection, we fail to ask ourselves the logical and grounded questions, like: If you're being given the resources to make something never before seen in the industry, why is your first project a remake of a Golden-Eye successor game? It just feels like I'm struggling with a couple of annoying mismatched pieces whilst trying to construct the puzzling image of this sales pitch, at least from where I'm standing. But perhaps my own confessed reservations were poisoning my perception, I conceded, and as such it would prove much more prudent to hold back on judgement, see where the chips fell for this 'Initiative'. And fall they certainly have.

Brows started furrowing again not so long ago, once after what felt like an eternity of utter silence regarding the Perfect Dark Remake, reports came out that this game wasn't being solely developed by this 'Initiative' like we had been led to believe. Rather, the prototypes and ideas would be conjured in the think-tank that is 'The Initiative', whilst Crystal Dynamics would jump at the chance to make the thing as long as it took them far away from the sinking ship that is their 'Marvel's Avengers'. So 'The Initiative's blank check is going towards prototype building and subcontracting? That seems- a little bit like a let down. But hey, at least we were seeing big name developers collaborating to bring a game to life that fans seemed genuinely excited for. Perhaps these are just the baby steps for 'The Initiative' as it slowly builds up its in-team rapport and grows large enough rewrite the very concept of this thing we call 'gaming' altogether! (Oh god; that probably would have led to the development of the world's first mainstream, and by this rate also the only 'real', NFT game. Maybe what happened instead is much for the better, then.)

I'm sure you've heard the news; for it seems one curious journalist decided to peak through the windows of 'The Initiative' to see exactly what has kept them so quiet over all this time, and what they found was a company with half of its seats vacated. That's right, since it's inception and before the public has received so much as a gameplay demo walkthrough video, let alone a single game, the company appears to have lost a huge chunk of 36 people from their work force, bringing their rooster down to just under 50. That strikes me, and others with the powers of basic deduction, as more than a little odd. I mean sure, you're going to get some people who aren't down for the struggles of putting out that first game, I get it, but when you're losing over 30 in your first twelve months, with many of the departed once occupying key company positions, the question has to be asked whether or not you're doing something extremely wrong. Lead designers, Lead Artists, Lead writers have all called it quits; telling the silent story of a game eyeing up a troubled development.

In fact, at this point it's safe to say that the creative mind fuelling Perfect Dark, and indeed this company as a whole, has fundamentally changed, and that could mean any number of dubious circumstances for this burgeoning studio. Perhaps this is a leen-ing of the design team, a sensible exorcism of the fat that is causing friction within the development process and making progress difficult. (Yeah, maybe all 36 of them are just bad at working in a team.) Or maybe at least some of those 36 are slightly disillusioned at working within a team with an unlimited budget, ostensible lack of producer oversight, and yet still a crippling hitching to boring facts of the industry like 'remakes', 'conventional design paradigms' and 'forsaking the truly groundbreaking in a destructive search for massive mass appeal'. Right now we can offer naught but conjecture, this is just how I'm making sense of what we're seeing right now.

To it's credit, Microsoft aren't playing the impatient landlords according to most reports, so at the very least we can expect the Initiative to have a chance to finish whatever this game they're making now is shaping up as. Whatever mess this brave new evolution of the game design team is currently making for itself, Microsoft is currently more than happy to watch them flounder and cheer them on with gentle encouragement, which is probably for the best right now because this 'Initiative' has some serious issues with itself to work out. Key point of contention? Well hold on to your seat so that you're not knocked out of it- but apparently employees are frustrated with a development process that is going "Painfully slow." Wha- well I never could have seen that coming! It's almost as though you need more than a room full of programmers pulled from every which corner of the industry and drowning in development dollars to complete a full game. Who'd a thunk?

So if you were getting all excited for Perfect Dark and assumed this silence meant the team were getting really ingrained in the heavy development process; yeah, this is going to be some bad news. The game has probably entirely rebooted it's development, and there's a clear vacuum in leadership right now which is going to hound this game for as long as it takes for a confident head to take charge over the operations. Games like this typically end up coming out in a state that can charitably be called 'confused' as well, so don't go taking off days from work to see this 'world changing' release as unfortunate, unwitting rubes did for Cyberpunk 2077. My foreshadowing powers saw disaster before, and it's seeing it again more clearly today. The ominously named 'The Initiative' has 'doomed' written all over it. 

I hate: Tusken Raiders

 I hope they don't come back. Screw their numbers.

No, this isn't a backwards stab at one of the most lamentable lingering plot-threads in the recently ended and decently bloated 'The Book of Boba Fett' series, although why I'm at it: those guys really did drag the show, didn't they? I mean sure, they were supposed to serve some sort of role in teaching Boba how to work in a tribe, in turn showing us how the big bad Fett lion became a mewling house cat for the latter length of our season. But lacking any sort of baseline for the person who Boba Fett was, the transformation felt entirely and utterly devoid of consequence, making these walking carpet salesmen feel like catalysts to pointlessness and mediocrity. But that isn't why I gripe myself with their entire race, much as it must seem like that case. No, my indignations run deeper and fouler, because I hate video game Tusken Raiders.

That must seem pretty general to you. 'Video Game' Tuskens? Which ones? They've been adapted any number of countless times in so many different games it's wont to make your head spin; surely I can't mean to make a statement as meaninglessly sweeping as to declare them all the worst of the worst! Except I can, and I do, very much so. I hate all Tusken Raiders in every game they're in. And I admit that it's unfair. There's no rot so deep that it touches each and every iteration of them- that would be impossible. What I'm about to discuss, for example, has no bearing on their Lego Star Wars incarnation. (At least, not exactly, but they do show up quite frequently in the level they star for.) But it's an issue of such frequency that their presence now imbues me with the expectation that they are soon to wrong me. And what is my great cause for concern? Simple: They're OP as heck!

I know that Star Wars has always found itself infatuated with the idea of the weak prevailing over the powerful, from rebellions to teddy bears, so it shouldn't be too surprising to see that a race of tribalistic sand-people that largely shun the technological bars that dictate the entire rest of the Star Wars universe tend to be unrealistically savvy battle opponents. That's a given for a George Lucas species. But these Tusken's, in most every one of their games, are just demons. They shatter the difficulty curve whenever they show up, rewrite the combat standard, bring home the sweaty palms and distressed brows. Tusken Raiders absolutely wreck shop, and I cannot stand them. Why should nomad tribals be able to haunt me across Star Wars games like this? When will it stop!

Perhaps the first time I really noticed it was during the original Star Wars Battlefront, where their people hold the unique position of being one of the only non-combatant factions who simply inhabit a certain map and are allowed to capture and hold territory completely for their own. They terrorise the Dune Sea map and their weapon holds the dubious honour of being one the highest damage output rifles in the game, capable of one-shotting you on the highest difficulty. They spawn endlessly, forcing the real conflict to try and continue around them, they hold enough prowess to take the entire map if only their programming would allow them to leave the areas around the Sarlacc pit, and they turned my defence position into rubble countless times with sheer indomitable force. I'm not ashamed to say that they ran me out of that area of the game for life, I've never tried to capture their Command Posts in the years since I was a child playing their poxxy levels. Thus was the first time I realised that these tribal were more than just troublesome.

Next I vividly recall that feeling of an injustice being made upon my person during my first time playing the classic: Jedi Knight Academy. As every Star Wars property must do at least once, there is a mission where you visit Tatooine. Because for a backwater, no-where planet with nothing of consequence on it whatsoever, it doesn't half seem to attract the fate of every significant player in the Star Wars Galaxy, does it? I can't remember why you have to go there, I don't remember much of what the mission held. All I remember is the hell that was trying to clear the parts of the level invested with Tuskens, for their sheer damage output rivalled that of the many full-blow, card carrying, Crimson saber wielding, Sith your go up against throughout the game. This time it was their Gaffi sticks that I feared, for they seemed to possess the power to pass through my invincible light blade and gut me like a fresh-hung fish in the Butchers. There was none of the intense, back and forth duelling which characterised the other power melee duels that Jedi Academy seemed to excel at. None of the dangerous dance of death, ducking and diving around deadly daggers. It was just boom: you're dead. You meet a Tusken, it kills you. (Best keep your distance!) For a game that seemed to fuel the power fantasy of being an incredibly versatile Jedi, this single mission turned that dial to the exact opposite end, where I was feeling as green and gangly as a fresh spat-out Undead in the waking hours of my Dark Souls playthrough.

Of course, there's no way I could talk about overpowered overlords without bringing up the single greatest Star Wars game ever made. That's right, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic features it's own share of Raiders, and they're just as bad as ever. Populating, where-else, the Tatooine level; these cretins prove to be the single most consistently troublesome threats in every playthrough I do. Key reasons: they're resilient, hit hard, come in packs- oh, and they ambush the living daylights out of you the second you touch the sands. It's almost laughable for the fools at Arrakis to be afraid of their petty Sand worms, when the true reapers of the sands wear baggy curtains. I cannot, for the life of me, spec a Tusken-proof team, and I've tried repeatedly. Once again, these inexplicably invincible insurrectionists dominate the day. More the fool, I.

I think for me it comes down to the ignominy of the matter. In Battlefront I'm a trained solider, battle-hardened on the blood-stained sands of countless worlds, and effortlessly bushwacked by rug ruffians. In Jedi Knight Academy I'm an aspiring Jedi knight who's downed battalions of Stormtroopers, and who is coming to grips with slaying Dark Jedi themselves! Only I can't handle the ragtag raiders from down in the Dune Sea. And in KOTOR I'm a deity of ability, effortless mowing down rooms of Sith, putting down Dark Malak himself with but a few hits- but Tusken Raiders are harder to hit? Am I interpreting that right? Sand People make for more competent duellists than the erstwhile Dark Lord of the Sith? Some part of that is undeniably hilarious, but the rest is achingly sad. And frustrating. Good thing these guys are stuck to their sand Tipis, they'd be worse than the Mandalorian menace if we let them loose in the stars!

Who can say when it was that every single disparate Star Wars game developer sat down and collectively decided that this particular enemy archetype was going to the bane of this franchise from every corner, but I lament that day with a passion! I can only assume that this curse extends further than the game within my ken too. Masters of Teras Kasi? I'll bet that Hoar can wreck the player with a hand tied behind his back. (Wait, no, the Tusken Raider from the game is called 'Hoar'. That's literally his name, I'm not calling him-) New Lego Star Wars? I bet the raiders swarm and demolish you in freeplay like biblical locusts. And Jedi Fallen Order 2? You heard it here first, but I'm betting Cal's greatest yet-to-be-fought nemesis wears a tatty cowl and caws like a hog in an orgy.