Sonic's Busy Year

Give the little guy a break, why don't ya?

It seems to never be a quiet year for the blue blur. Ever since his debut in 1991 (or earlier, with unofficial sprite cameos being what they are) Sonic the Hedgehog has been an indelible aspect of the wider Sega brand year in and year out. Whether or not those have been good or bad years remain up to one's interpretation of events, but the too-cool-for-school radical Hedgie has at least existed during all of that time. For what little existence can be worth. It seems almost laughable, after all that time, to insist that the year past us, 2022, has been the biggest Year that Sonic has had yet, but then I thought about it and honestly I might not be so sure in my derision anymore. It was the franchise producer who made that claim, afterall, and he ought to know a thing or two about the franchise that is helping his rear his grandchildren on gold-leafed stake. So I sat down and thought about it.

In terms of public sentiment I think the Sonic franchise is in a bit of a holding pattern. The public has seen the utter depths this franchise has been willing to sink in terms of quality (There's yet to be a mainline entry seemed in microtransaction hell, so far.) and that paints the slight raised eyebrow that the series' name earns. And yet... there's an optimism in the air. It's something of a dusty optimism, gathered up from the same misused and decrepit basement that nineties kids store the rest of their disabused childhood dreams within; but it's an optimism nonetheless. People still want and kind of expect Sonic to hit the levels of some of the franchises' around it, even if Sonic Team have thrown up their hands and admitted they have no clue where to take the games or wider series in order to appeal to all the fans. Still, they are trying; and this year's slate goes some way to prove that.

Afterall, 2022 saw the premiere of Sonic Prime, the animated series which deftly fired the entire working Sonic cast in order to cast an entire slate of voice actors tasked with sounding exactly like the outgoing actors. (Except for Knuckles. They went a different direction with him and I find it disconcerting.) The show has pretty good, if a bit safe, animation to it and the writing is about on par with what you would expect from a modern children's show. That is, a modern network children's show; I recognise some of the streaming service children's shows of the modern age get really creative and personally driven; Prime doesn't even try to be that. But then, it doesn't need to. It's a completely fine show, I have to admit; with a bit more of a purpose than the slightly sitcom-like stylings of the last Sonic show, Boom. (Can't believe that show dragged itself on for three years.) So yeah, TV Sonic had a solid year in 2022.

 

This year also saw the drop of Sonic Origins; which was decidedly more... contentious. Sonic Origins borrows the same formula that a lot of long-running franchises are cashing in on for a cheap public goodwill bump; but because Sonic Team are run by actual backwards people: they decided to turn it into a PR nightmare instead. Remastering your original games and slapping them in a big package should be a cause for celebration! Callously scouring the internet in order to remove all cheaper alternative ways to play the original Sonics is certainly a less celebratory action. Especially for a collection that released buggy and even after those bugs are fixed lacks the iconic Sonic 3 Michael Jackson tracks because Sega doesn't want to seek a new licencing agreement. (Can you really blame them? Tiny start-up like Sega; who could possibly expect them to front such a bill?)

But Sonic had a strong presence outside of gaming this year. Afterall, we had the Sonic The Hedgehog 2 movie which also released in 2022! God, it really has been a packed year, hasn't it! Another branch of the franchise that slightly reimagines the world of Sonic so it could fit into a 'real person hanging out with animated characters' tropey plot. The second movie wore off some of the novelty of a video game adaptation that perhaps didn't really nail the appeal of the franchise, but found an enjoyable enough middle ground on it's own; but for those that liked the first movie for it's merits as well as the novelty; I'm told that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was actually a pretty good movie! I know it really left the door open to expand the franchise further and even with the unfortunately loss of Jim Carrey's Eggman (He's not dead, he's retiring) this might just end up being a Fast and Furious style chain of movies that carries on into the distant future. Or at least until the Mario movie sets off and demands a crossover which proves successful enough for Illumination to purchase the rights to the Sonic film franchise so that they can unite these brands together, only to slap more and more properties into these collab movies until the screentime of favoured characters starts to get diluted by more niche films starring nobodies like Alex Kidd and Tingle. Eventually this style of animated movie will become helplessly oversatured to the point where they draw less and less of a crowd and the entire bubble bursts on animated video game adaptations, and given that Illumination dropped most of it's independent franchises to dedicate more fully to Nintendo and Co adaptation, the shock loss of revenue sends the company into a system shock. They scramble to get out a Minions sequel in order to bring back the masses, and it works for the first one. People are draw to the mindless curiosity of it all. But it proves to be little more than an IV drip on a terminal company, bleeding out more in costs than they are taking in. And so Illumination perishes, and is buried to an empty service in an unmarked grave under a wilting apple tree by an orchard in Santa Monica. Huh? Sorry I blacked out for a few minutes there, what were we talking about?

Oh yeah, Sonic Frontiers released. Despite being absolutely snubbed by literally every possible award at the game awards; Sonic Frontiers released to decent reviews from the general world of Sonic fans who had gotten so used to games that literally play themselves, any form of gameplay was like tasting freshly heated and seasoned food for the first time in years. Frontiers did everything it needed to in order to be a passable open world game by modern standards; and that was amazing to see from a franchise that seemed to lose touch with what it even meant to be a game a few years back. (Sonic Forces was seriously, conceptually, bad. I cannot stress that enough.) It wasn't the slam dunk that put Sonic back on the AAA map; but it was a stumble towards success and that is enough for most long suffering and dog-tired Sonic fans that just wanted a fine game. They got a fine game. Which alone would make 2022 a fine Sonic year.

But it wasn't alone. All those Sega Sonic projects coalesced together in the same year to create an almost consistent string of Sonic content throughout the entire year in a manner that I'm sure most didn't even actively realise. From a marketing standpoint it's an actual dream to be able to maintain that level of output, putting out something for literally every sector of the franchise fanbase to flock to whilst gaining enough capital to do even more still. I'm sure the Sonic comic series was still ongoing inbetween all of that but I don't know because I can't find a single person who reads any comic, let alone Sonic comics. (How is the comic industry still trucking along these days? I will never know.) It really does feel like the stars have aligned for Sonic Team, that even when they make slightly strange steps with the franchise there's something new around the corner to smother that mistake with blind franchise fanaticism. It's actually somewhat brilliant!

Which brings us, I suppose to the future and the potential thereon. We already know that Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is tipped to miss next year, so if the franchise wants to top itself like the producer insists it will, they are going to need to subsidise that missed experience somehow. There's literally no word on any upcoming Sonic game to fill next year, but Frontiers was announced the same year as launch so they could be cooking up something. And besides; Sonic Frontiers itself has some potential for DLC support is Sonic Team are willing to go that route. I'm frankly unconvinced that Sonic is going to ride his potential back into the limelight throughout 2023, but the Producer has promised us so I guess we have a person to blame if 2023 falls short of expectations. At the very least we can say this; Sonic is on his way to perhaps regaining some of his industry dignity by his mid thirties; were it we could all be so lucky. 

The Adaptation apocaylpse

Too many movies; take 'em back!

I think that as a gaming community we really missed our moment to push back on the Hollywood vultures as they desended down on our industry with their fingers on adapting everything that moves. Not that I could tell you exactly when that moment was... sometime after the lethargy inducing Assassin's Creed movie and before the 'largely missed the point' Uncharted film. Perhaps Sonic and it's actual success was the tipping point, or something else even more seemingly insignificant worked it's way in there. I believed there was still a chance, that the utter rejection of the awful Halo and Resident Evil series, (shows that exist purely to parade around the façade of better constructed franchises) would have some sort of effect on the coming slate of Hollywood. But it was a pipedream. There is no alternative hope at this point. The Adaptation Apocalypse is coming for gaming. 

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, this is the trend of movies at large. The creative powerhouses of yesteryear who knew how to come up with a great story and direct it are mostly dead or gone crazy; making practically every film an adaptation of some movie, book or historical event nowadays. And the adaptation slate of movies had hit their stride with Superhero adaptations, but given that there's only two major superhero comic monopolies, that well was going to be finite too. Now we've got a generation of talentless hacks being funded by spineless desperate looking for anything with a pre-established audience for them to leech off like insects. And what better is there for leeching than the one Entertainment medium which is eclipse theirs in revenue earned- but gaming?

Of course, if these guys were smart they'd go for where the real money is and figure out some way to adapt Candy Crush Saga; but I think we've already established that Hollywood at large is lazy, not creative. Instead we're being threatened with more crappy adaptations than we can shake a stick at, and of course the game companies are happy to sell of the rights to these people because it's free money for doing literally nothing; games companies love easy money. (Just ask the state of our monetisation ecosystems.) We're looking at a long in-the-works adaptation of Metal Gear that is apparently still on the slate, a God of War movie because we never learnt the 'Uncharted' lesson, a Mario Cinematic universe, The Last of Us series which is coming very soon, and then there's the Fallout series. Those are just the one's we're hearing about now, imagine how many series the really desperate companies like Square Enix or Konami are juggling!

And I think we all know that the majority of them are going to be trash. They're going to ignore what made the game likeable and replace it with a lacklustre factory-made script which the 'Hollywood' factor spat out, because that's just what pretentious showrunners do. I've said it before and I believe it; these writers and producers don't look at video game creators as real storytellers. They consider them talentless hacks that cater for an audience of gormless clapping monkies that are impressed by a little fireworks show. They think actual narrative storytelling is an aberration of the video game world. Look no further than the showrunners  of The Last of Us, remarking about how they're telling 'The best story story ever told in video game history'. Really? No competition, huh? What do these people think other games even are? Candy Crush with cutscenes? It's insulting. 

I often repeat this, but video games tell their narratives in a plethora of ways. Some lack stories, to be sure; others attempt to do what films and the rest of the visual media does, but with interaction. Comparisons are invited there, and I enjoy making them myself. Video games also find ways to tell narratives in ways which films and Television can't. Which even books can't. Not just because they're long, but for the very immersive nature of what a video game is. The environmental storytelling of Souls games wring players dry as they try to deduce ever significant detail based on something as miniscule as a missing statue that would have sat on a, now empty, plinth. Stories told through other stories that coalescence into one total story. Like an anthology but driven by a natural and immersive purpose.

Those layers of narrative complexity, in any of the manners of video game storytelling, are not idle or simple vectors. They may require different rules to what television and movie script writers work with, but that makes them no less valid. Writers for video games can be some of the most imaginative and talented creative minds working in entertainment, and you can look no further than Hideo Kojima for that. A man who could have very easily been making movies if he took a right instead of a left at some point in his life. Kojima is an independent superstar who is currently on his rock-star arc of making utterly bizarre, but compelling and interesting, video games that both embrace the interactive nature of the medium and tell a great sweeping narrative which touches on everything from cosmology to evolutionary myth making. His work is sublime. And it's better than half the crap which get smooshed all over the TV today!

I suppose what I'm trying to say is, if we can't stop this tidal wave of adaptations which are going to be headed our way, the least we can do is twist the arms of the adapters to try and treat the material with some respect. Although, we passed the concept of 'source material respect', now haven't we? Projects which were once fronted by reverent super fans who worshipped the original content have now been replaced with money making ventures fronted by showrunners who see the source material as an obstacle that needs to be fixed in order to secure the most amount of revenue. Why agonise over the order to present the Lord of the Rings chapters in order to stay true to the heart of the books whilst condensing the narrative into a trilogy when you can instead umm and ahh about how few messy love triangles that Sauron goes on, and then seek to rectifying that with eye-watering fanfiction level revisionism. That is what 'adaption respect' gets you nowadays.

As far as I'm concerned, the only games that should getting adaptations are those that could potential have something different to present in a film form. I am happy that the Fallout isn't going to just adapt the shows and am utterly galled there's people out there who called that 'A shame'. (Although to be fair, those 'people' were Games Journalists; which really speaks for itself.) I think that, even if it were to adapt the events of a game or two, a TV adaptation of Yakuza would be incredible. There's so many different gags and overly dramatic techniques that could be employed to really nail the 'Like a Dragon' sweetspot and I'd love to see that adaptation come to the big screens. But alas we're getting the big names. We're getting Resident Evil, Halo, Mario; and so far we've got 2/3 of these adaptations sucking the life out of the franchise they borrowed from. Which I guess just goes to show you the priorities of these adaptors, now doesn't it?

The moment that Kingmaker struck me

 When you realise where the real game is at!

Classic role playing games are an off-shoot of my most favourite overall gaming genre, but an off-shoot that I'm still only starting to get to grips with comprehending and understanding what I like and what I don't. My time with Solasta proved to me that whilst the style of gameplay these sorts of games engender always strikes the same rhythm as my heart, I don't fall in love with all these sorts of games. (I might be more inclined to if Solasta wasn't so damned buggy.) But one CRPG that I did pick up on a whim quite some time back and fell fully and wholly in love with was Owlcat Games' Pathfinder Kingmaker, which is a fact that would surprise no one with how feverishly I talk about Owlcat and literally everything that they're working on. I can't help it, the company got it's grip on me, and it all started the moment that the Kingmaker arrow slipped past my armour and struck me through the heart for a double-damage critical.

I'm no newcomer to the RPG genre, of course. I've been playing them ever since Mass Effect. In fact, I've played so many RPGs that their tropes and design flairs have become beats of my heart that tick along fanatically. Anytime an RPG defies those rules, my heart skips in kind. I don't think I've had so many undue palpitations regarding the role playing game structure as I did when I started playing CRPGs. Genuine winding choice and consequence that stretched so far as to enrich the character creation with it's scope? Look no further than Obsidian's 'Tyranny'! A true progression system so robust and stalwart that the game doesn't need to conjure some fake reason why the protagonist 'lost their power' between subsequent titles, because that character literally carries on in the next game right where they left off? The Original 'Baldur's Gate trilogy' nailed it. And an RPG that slaps you in the face, wrings your neck and makes you struggle for every scrap of air? Well... we'll get to that...

Kingmaker first caught my attention as yet another entry in a Youtube list of 'CRPGs you should look out for', when I was first reeling from my time playing Baldur's Gate and found myself hungering for more. It carried a premise I had heard before, and from RPG games in fact; a premise I had many times previosuly discarded as idle hogwash. Becoming King? Sounds like becoming 'Leader of the Inquisition' in Dragon Age Inquisition. And how did that ultimately shape up, again? With the player serving as the forward scout of the Inquisition who occasionally gets dragged over to make arbitrary judgement calls that ultimately effect little of nothing. I'd fallen for the 'become the leader' trope before, and the comfortable babying of RPGs from the past mollified me to this new promise. Still, the title of the game sounded okay and I wanted to try out another CRPG. I looked up some screenshots, liked what I saw and eventually bought the thing.

Right away Pathfinder demanded my attention with how the game really put the weight of it's character creator in front of you. Kingmaker doesn't simplify it's UI and menus to ease people through the creation process, because they don't want you ignoring this essential element of playing the game. If the walls of text and busy choices wards people off, then that's just fine; those aren't the sorts of people who'd be able to enjoy a game like this. Of course, I didn't understand that at first, I just believed this to be a somewhat full-on character creator that made me curious of the fuller game. I curiously wondered at exactly how important all these character classes and level-up choices would really be in the grand scheme of things, would Pathfinder's gameplay prove worthy of the breadth of it's creator? I took the complexity as a challenge; I should have taken it as a warning.

The first act of Pathfinder does not give you a Kingdom, it doesn't even give you your initial land. You need to earn that. The prologue of Pathfinder is structured like a tutorial would be structured, only the finale path leading out of that tutorial is a tough as nails battle against the bandit camp which owns the land you want. I think that was the first time the game made me aware of the fact that it was not messing around, and in fact was very willing to make you work hard for the very simplest of breaks. That very first boss battle was already having me thinking about tactical positioning and maximising movement potential, which highlighted this game as one of two styles to me. Either this was going to be one of those titles where the first levels are the hardest and everything soothes over once you become more versatile, or it was a title with a high skill ceiling and poor balancing. Then I played the first chapter.

When you get into it, Pathfinder Kingmaker has a very robust kingdom building metagame which places success and failure very much in the hands of the player at all times. You very much are the key force creating this kingdom, alongside being the most competent adventurer patrolling it's lands for dangers. Become too comfortable in one role, and you'll inevitably fall prey to the other when your back is turned. Learning this was how Kingmaker really struck me as a CRPG unlike many others, specifically for the Chapter 1 threat which you face. A simple hive of trolls that threaten your roads turns into so much more once you've endured the absolute slog-match which is the chapter 1 finale dungeon. Room after room of dangerous trolls that can only be killed under the purview of exacting specifications, all tricking you into a sense of feeling powerful so you believe that the final troll threat is manageable to your spongy arms. It is not; the game is fooling you.

The final Troll boss of chapter 1 is honestly more tough than the final boss of many entire CRPGs I've played before and since. I hoard all of my items in RPG games and love when their challenge can make me use them in the final fight; for Kingmaker I used everything I had just to beat this bloody Troll. Enlarge, Haste, Displacement, Shield of Faith; any and anything I had was sunk into fighting an enemy who could one shot pretty much anyone in my party. Honestly it was more a roll of luck, to see if my team could tank enough missed hits to burst this demon of a monster down, and it took all my effort and resources to beat. When I won I found myself spent. Emotionally and mentally. But oh-so exuberant. That was when Kingmaker made me acknowledge how much fun it can be to break through the unbreakable.

Every chapter in Kingmaker throws a new challenge at you, and depending on your composition those challenges might end up just making you feel like a badass or, quite often, will have you sweating just as much as that first troll boss. The moment the game made me split my party in the Fey Realm I felt the genuine looming doom of the possibility that I might not actually be able to do this, given that only one person in my party could reliably kill the biggest Fey monsters. But everytime that I did overcome the daunting proposition of a solid brick wall, that utmost relief made all the stress worth it on the other end. Kingmaker is a demon of a game that really wishes pain and discomfort upon you as much as possible; but when you master how to work with it, you'll feel like you mastered all the worst fantasy monsters the Pathfinder world has to offer. And any Dark Souls fans can appreciate a dawning like that.

Square Enix need a reality check...

 Who do you think you are?

I don't know what planet it is that Square Enix currently lives on, but I don't want to go anywhere near there. If anyone were to look at the company known as Square Enix with an unlearned and amateur eye, they might come to the decently sensible conclusion that the company is spiralling off into insane fancy with each new dalliance. Selling off their foreign contingents, sinking their resources and reputation inside obviously doomed ventures and slowly pushing their prices up in a global market that is becoming increasingly strapped for cash. Do- do Square Enix think they sell perishable essentials? I'm sorry, Square; I don't think you can faithfully argue that the soaring world wide oil prices are forcing you to sell Final Fantasy 7 Remake at beyond the market cap; unless Tetsuya Nomura really wants to sell the environmentalism message even stronger this time around!

Because I don't care who you are, there has to be a point at which you make a right decision as a company. Even EA was still funding their Originals program even at the height of their infamy, Ubisoft put out the Mario and Rabbids: Kingdom Battle games even whilst all their franchises fell off a cliff into mediocrity; and Satan managed to get dressed up as a really slick looking snake before he doomed all of humanity by tricking Eve. But Square are desperate to prove that they are the Meta of the gaming world, only without the billions to spend on doing literally nothing. If you were to swap the CEO's of Facebook and Square Enix for an entire month, I'd bet both companies would still be on the spiral trajectory they're currently on; that's about as damning of an insult as I can muster. And why do I care? Why do you think- because their franchises are damn good! (Why do all the crazy companies have to hoard all the coolest toys?)

But I think that even for the most delusionally addled Square Enix executive out there today, it had to take an additional several week bender on every hallucinogen on and off the market to reach the bizarre parallel universe where their current plans for 'Celebrating' Final Fantasy's birthday made any sort of sense. Oh that's right; Square's most important franchise is due for another anniversary in the very near future and it's going to be one that gets the treatment of a dedicated game release in order to remind fans of the games that they love. Similar to what Sega did with Sonic Origins. Only, Sonic Origins was slightly tainted by Sega's impulsively self-defeating desire to eradicate all non-origins versions of their Sonic games in order to force people into buying remasters they might not have even wanted. What if you like the original Sonic 3 soundtrack? Too bad, loser; buy the remaster! What could Square possibly do to top that?

Hmm, how about offer a collection of every Final Fantasy game up to the sixth instalment? Yes, that's right; Final Fantasy I-VI, remastered and remade with a 'modernised UI' and sharper colours and probably something eye-wateringly bad on the design front because we know how Square Enix are with FF remasters. It's either them screwing with the pixel art philosophy of backgrounds in service to some nebulous ideal of 'more defined colours equals better', new text that doesn't fit inside of the boxes they're meant for or a totally butchered soundscape that murders the iconic Final Fantasy OST. Whatever the problems, it is nice to have these games brought back into a playable state even if only a few of them are actually 'full games' by today's standards. Heck, Final Fantasy 1 is only a tad less rudimentary than the original Dragon Quest. So what's the problem with this 35th anniversary collection anyway? Hmm? It's how much?

Just let me fondle about with my brain for a second as I try to wrap my head around this. Because try as I might, I'm really not stumbling into the valid justification for a Final Fantasy collection costing £245. I'm really drawing blanks here! In my head the only sensible case would be if this collection is treating each and every game like it's a £50 brand new title, but that can't be right as buying each of them on Steam only comes up to about £55. (And, you know; the fact that such a consideration would be absolutely ridiculous. That too.) No, we've got to look at some of the extra goodies to confer our value here. Somehow there's £190 worth of non digital stuff here and we're going to find it if it kills us dead! Which looking as these price tags might just alone.

Okay, so first of all each game comes in a physical case, which is highly unnecessary but appreciated. That's worth about 5 bucks if we're being polite. There's an artbook showcasing character pixel art, which is probably worth about £20-30 depending on what you value in life. Pixel 'figurines' which look a bit like badges from the preview image but they do use the word 'figurine' for some reason... £3 at most. Oh and then there's the... vinyl record set of the soundtrack? But why... screw it- your average LP goes for £40, given this is a licenced OST we could probably knock another £10 ontop of that. So what does that leave us with? Less than £80 worth of value. I suppose the extra £110 is racked up under service costs? Or maybe those figures are really cool. I mean, cooler than anything ever constructed by man!

Square, in their infinite insanity, have lauded this collection as their way of celebrating the launch of these games to a whole new generation. A generation who are willing to spend the price of a brand new game on a collection where only about three of the entries meet the basic standard of content most expect out of their fully launched games. Now, to be fair; Final Fantasy is one of the biggest and most influential JRPGs of all time and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least interested in playing through the franchise origins. I already tried to endure the origins of Dragon Quest before discovering that series was literally never interesting to my sensibilities; maybe FF would stand up firmer for me. But I'm also not enough of a fanatic not to spot it clear as day when my love and fandom is being exploited by opportunists, like it very much readily is.

I love the games that Square Enix's many teams make, but for the life of me I cannot comprehend what is going on in those upper offices. It's like someone introduced the upper management to meth and they've spent the majority of the past two years destroying all semblance of competency in their slow spiral into becoming extras from a scene of Better Call Saul. I don't want to live in a future where Square slowly raises the base prices of all it's products and attempts to gaslight the world into believing this is what they're worth. I don't want to live in a world where Square subsidies it's already profitable videogame ventures with pathetic WEB3 grifts and schemes. And I want to live in a world where I can look at a Square Enix pricetag without having to immediately gauge whether I'd make more money from selling my kidney off to the NHS or on the black market.

The problems at Meta

 Meta-tastophe!

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, we lived in the reign of the mega-empire known as the 'Facebook' supremacy. A time where all lived under the purview and 'grace' of our poorly-masked cybernetic overlord Mark Zuckerberg, whom harvested the data of his citizens for capital sustenance. His was a total and unending reign, entwined like a spiderweb around every online service in all the Internet. You want to interact with the news- 'Share to Facebook' would present itself as a pop-up. Show off a funny video- whilst you share it to Facebook. Maybe even skip the arduous process of making another damned website password, for why bother when you can send that login token to your Facebook account? I'm sure Overlord Zuckerberg would treat that data fairly... but as with all those driven by hubris; a fall would inevitably come. But whereas Rome fell to destructive whimsy of a spoilt and cruel Emperor Commodus, albeit through the bleeding of several proceeding regimes, Facebook died to the machinations of the same man who rose it. Perhaps an even greater betrayal, in the grand scheme of things.

You see, Mark Zuckerberg had an idea. Not really. Mark Zuckerberg stole an idea and proved to be better at selling it than it's original creators, both of which are so monumentally dense that they were key cheerleaders to the NFT boom of 2021. But the problem with Facebook, was that it became too big to stay ontop of the game. Like the mile-long ship that takes a week to turn, Facebook found it's next generation of potential users stolen away by fresher and differently attuned social media apps. Platforms that always seemed one step ahead of Facebook, and whenever Zuck tried to steal their ideas, suddenly that feature became pastiche or 'uncool'. That was how Facebook slid behind in the culture war; all it's other failures were purely of it's own construction. The failures in moderation, lack of foreign language development, facilitation of a real world genocide in Myanmar, and the whole widely exposed data selling side gig that Facebook was living off all tainted the seemingly unfellable monolith.

Because whilst not a single one of these issues could have single-handily defeated the cultural phenom that is Facebook; all of them mixed together could certainly chip enough away at the impenetrable armour to do much worse than kill. They could chip deep enough to cause doubt. And doubt is a weed. It's digs and it entwines and when it's stuck in deep and sturdy enough that weed will grow, feasting on your healthy thoughts and dreams like a leech. Those who ignore it, will some day become a slave to it. And those who try to blindly fight it, may just end up becoming it's fool. I believe Zuckerberg to be a reformed victim of the former, now entrapped by the latter; and his billion dollar unsinkable ship has been brought along for that ride, aware but unresponsive to the iceberg of their own creation the monolith is deftly sailing towards. 

And to what do we owe this sinking of fortunes? A simple change in direction. When the 'endless growth' model of Facebook prime began to taper off, Mark did the thing that truly desperate 'visionaries' do; he snatched ahold of a wisp out of the air and declared that if he threw enough money and attention to it, then that wisp would one day become the life raft which saves him from his predicament. That wisp was VR, and his life raft was called the Metaverse. And the reeds and bamboo sticks bashed together to try and keep his rickety dreams afloat are the hard works of the Oculus team which he bought to build off, and the engineers he has haply ignored in the many years since. All those billions sunk are slowly becoming little more than bobbing refuse drifting apart from Zuck's ramshackle life raft and the billionaire cyborg has no one else to blame other than his own misfiring sub-routines. 

In this mess and chaos it becomes easy to forget that Palmer Lucky is not the only significant tech-space fellow who slipped into the Facebook vortex before being spat out. So was John Carmack, lead programmer of some of Id Software's most influential and iconic titles. (I'm talking Wolfenstein and DOOM) Apparently the man was a genuine believer in VR and it's applications and really wanted to make something transformative and bettering through his time as head of the VR department. Of course, one might ask why someone with an ostensibly moral outlook on his life goals would work for a company who facilitated a genocide; but we all have our dichotomies we must wrestle with in life, now don't we? Sometimes we work with monsters for the good of everyone.

But it hasn't been good, has it? Facebook have changed it's name, it's focus, but never the colour of it's own muddy. blood-splattered stripes. How could it ever? Meta is just a front to extract even more intrusive data packets out of users for a better market cap to keep the tech-giant solvent for the next decade. All the talk about making life easier and revolutionising the way that the world interacts with one another fails to live up to the slightest of scrutiny. And for those like me who stood about aghast wondering how it is that no one within the company could see the utter gibberish their CEO was spewing; turns out there were! John Carmack was the little voice inside the machine trying to fix the particulars of a flawed construction. He even claimed to have been ignored by Mark himself, although it's hard to know whether he's conflating upper management with Mark or if he literally had meetings that went nowhere with the metal man.

From Carmack's accounts, sent in an internal memo that he later published on Twitter after fearing that the leaks to the news weren't providing the right context; Meta is an absolute money dump. A garishly huge organisation that wastes money and manpower on ineffectual policies and bad-faith ideas that end up going nowhere. Not least of all the Metaverse avatar controversy, which shook the company into a state of self consciousness that has them promising simply impossible fidelity for the platform they seek to make. It sounds as if the key decisions are being made purely by people who have literally no idea how the nitty gritty of actually coding and building the product actually works; which leads to an impassable gorge between expectation and reality which, through the magic of marketing, is starting to seep into the public too. Mark is the architect of his own mockery.

Meta's 'Horizon Worlds' metaverse is something of a disaster. The common man can't afford to interact with it thanks to the prohibitive software and hardware price, the tech hobbyists know about better competing products they'd rather spend their time enjoying and the tech curious are finding empty worlds that fail to hold their attention for more than a month. Yes, Horizon worlds has an average turn-over rate of one month. For the apparent future of social interaction; that isn't exactly great. Now Carmack has had enough and fled for greener pastures, and Palmer Lucky is still busy trying to actively break international morality conventions by designing a VR headset that can kill you- (Yes, he's a weeb for the single worst popular Anime ever; SA:O) there really is no more superstar VR cheerleaders left for Mark to alienate. Which leaves the metal man alone to drag what's left of his reputation into the dirt with more bad decisions piled atop more failed ideas. There's something to be said about commitment and dedication, but knowing when to quit is it's own strength too. Maybe someone should program that life lesson into the Zuck.

Character Six

What do the numbers mean, Mason?

What do you think of the number six? It's just a number right- same as any other? Wrong! Six is regal, it's ascendant! Six is the number of heroes and protagonists! Or at least, that's what I've been led to believe by a very particular trend amidst entirely unrelated games that I may just be purely imagining. Am I the only one who's noticed this? The fact that whenever you're presented with a vague protagonist who's designation is a single number, the go-to pick appears to be Six? Why? It's one below the most common picked number in the world, I suppose; and calling a player 'Number one' would be too obvious, I guess. But still- Six? Is it the curve of the loop? Half an ouroboros, simulating the cyclical nature of gameplay systems designed to keep the player in a cycle of dopamine hits and craving periods? Am I conjuring a conspiracy out of nothing? No I am not- and let me prove it to you.

Do you remember the Aliens Vs Predator game? No- the one on the Xbox 360! I can only assume most people don't given the fact that it's often totally ignored in lists of prominent Alien-franchise games despite it easily being my favourite. (I haven't played very many, but I'm decently sold on my game's quality anyway.) It was a game consisting of three campaigns, one as a Marine, one as a Predator and one as an Alien. All featured wildly differing playstyles of which my favourite was the Alien playthrough. Not just for the hide-and-seek style of gameplay and the ability to climb up walls, but also for the curious insight into what it was like to see the world through the carapace of a Xenomorph. Of course, the problem with making a protagonist out of an Alien is that they're all designed to look the same so your character would be lost in group settings. Unless... unless the story begins with your Alien being birthed in a test facility wherein you're designated a test number which is burned into your skull for life!

Yes, as you've likely guess that number is Six and for the Alien gameplay campaign you play as 'Alien Six'. There's nothing especially unique or special about Six apart from the fact he's controlled by the player; the game hardly bothers to pay any lip service to the fact he was born in captivity. In fact, when it's all said and done; there's nothing personally unique about Six apart from his number on his head. We could have been placed in the skin of a totally different Alien for every mission and nothing of value would have been lost from the narrative. So why bother? Because we like to think there's narrative consistency, and that we're following one scrappy lad on his journey from captivity to bringing the Weyland-Yutani corporation to it's knees! And for some reason that hero can only be entwined with the player if he has a big Six on his head... apparently...

A much more famous example of this sort of trend that I'm sure most people are familiar with, is the very last all around good Halo game made before the franchise was sold off to it's slow assassins. 'Halo: Reach' is the game that slapped the action out of the hands of Master Chief as he floated through space and brought us instead to before the events of 'Combat Evolved' to the legendary fall of Reach to the Covenant. New locations meant a new protagonist, and this one would be placed in such a position as to be the avatar of the player character rather than another player in this Sci-fi universe. That Spartan would be inducted into Noble Team at the beginning of the story, and thus inherit the recently 'vacated' moniker of Noble Six.

Six has a very special place in the hearts of the community, probably because he or she was designed to quite literally be the player. Whereas Master Chief has a history and a cool voice and personal relationships (or 'relationship' to be more accurate.) Six was a purposefully designed enigma with a secretive past, very few voices lines, and now relationships outside the one's you form in battle throughout the course of the narrative. He or she was a blank puppet for the audiences hand to slip inside of, and thus that character became synonymous to them. And again, he or she just happened to be assigned the 'Six' call-sign. Now not just emblematic of a hero, but emblematic of a character who literally represents the player and community! How illuminating!

And finally there's my favourite example of this inexplicable 'Six' trope. The legendary protagonist of the greatest Fallout game ever made; Fallout New Vegas. This game follows the exploits of a courier working in the Mojave Wasteland, who found themselves tangled up in affairs above their station and being shot in the head and left for dead. Now an uninitiated player might go through the entire game and never connect the significance between the number 'Six' and the player character, but anyone even slightly ingratiated into the community would know that of the many couriers sent on the job that ended up getting you buried, the player was the Sixth. Thus they are forever known within the community with the immutable title; Courier Six.

Imagine having your name and identity totally supplanted by a job you used to do and the designation you just happen to have had assigned during your most traumatic on-the-job injury! And all because the Fallout creators constantly want to make the player character known as 'The Vault Dweller', despite that being the moniker of the original Fallout protagonist, leaving it up the community to decide their new name. Fallout 3 was 'The Lone Wanderer', New Vegas is 'Courier Six', 4 is 'The Sole Survivor'. Of course, Six's name goes a step further. Every single mod on the Nexus seems to have been brought so readily into the community name that in many mods the player is literally just referred to as 'Six'; over their chosen name. (Because some of these mods are voiced and that's a pithy away around addressing the player without using their name.) This time a 'Six' title dangled before, and widely adopted by an entire loving community.

Six is just a simple number, but to video game creatives it is so much more. It is the everything number, used to denote the most important commodity any entertainment venture can gain: it's audience. Whatever it is that is so special about Six, it is clear that the number resonates on a deeper intrinsic level with all who witness it, to the point many are proud to wear it on their chests and back as a symbol of pride and power! Six is a statement. A primalist cry into the unforgiving void that we are real and we exist, and that Six is our creed, Six is our designation and Six is our future. Inside of Six lies all of humanity, condensed into the point of a needle and spun into a whirling pool of dreams. Or this is all a coincidence and I'm crazy.

So this is Christmas

 And what have I done?

Another year over... and I can't remember the rest of the lyrics so I'm just going to stop that right now. 'Felix Navidad'. everybody, and all that good fine stuff that we pretend to be all happy and excited about. But don't worry, it is so very easy to turn the perception of excitement into the real tangible thing if you just squeeze tightly and devote yourself to the heart of the cards! Ops, am I being a debbie downer again? This time of year does that to me. Gnawing at the receptors in my brain and tipping my humours all over the place. Dark in the afternoon, cold in the mid-day, terrible music out of every store; I've always found this time of year felt more like a dirge mourning the year so very close to passing; after which you're just unceremoniously dropped in the next moment, briars twisting up from inside your gut as you realise that vacation you settled into is all but used up. It's January now; reckoning time!

Of what of my reckoning? What is due for me in the new year? Well, for the first time in a long time I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. One of the few humps in the largely downwards coaster that is my outlook on this life. Not because of what I've already done with this blog, mind you, but because of what I think might be possible with it, and it's achievements, in the months to come. Which is my way of saying, I'm not entirely sure if I'll even be able to keep up the one-a-day pace I've maintained on this page for so very long that I honestly don't won't to look it up so it won't make me feel totally depressed. The vast spectrum of utility this blog serves for my personal well being, up in this headspace of mine, does not extend so far as to cure my acute Chronophobia, unfortunately. 

Although speaking of things that I have done; would you believe I've actually finished my first entire fictional story? It is nothing special, only a short story covering 5 chapters and the concept slides adjacent to what one might consider Fan Fiction, though I loathe all the embarrassing connotations such a label summons. I shun those hallmarks of the genre (self inserts, drifting narrative focus, paper thin characters) quite vehemently whenever I write, but it doesn't matter what you say; you make a piece of work based on an established lore and it's over for you, buddy! Self respect goes 'bye bye'! If only I had any modicum of personal confidence or self belief, I might be scared to actually ever try to make something I might consider decent which is also a Fan Fiction. And I sure as heck wouldn't talk about it on this publicly accessible blog, regardless of how few people actually read it. But I do lack all of those things, and I have no respect. I could shrivel up and fry under the mid-day sun and the Earth would scarcely know that I was gone. Although... now I've got a full piece of written work under my belt, so that's something at least.

Maybe in a way I see it as my only personal rebellion cry out to the cold vacuum of the world: "I exist and I can write mediocre fiction, world!" Maybe it's the idea of actually being alongside with something from inception to adulthood, simulating my latent paternal desires which will surely wither and dry up as I do down here in this pit of existence we've labelled 'Croydon'. (Urgh, a more dull and dire pit of hell I cannot even begin to envision.) And maybe my fan fiction is just a way of giving back to a story I quite like. Nothing more complex or intricate than that. But I'm delaying, what was my Fan Fiction about? Quite a popular franchise actually. One I've spoken of here quite a bit and one which is actually on it's way to try and break into the mainstream with a TV series. That kind of makes my Fallout fan fiction seem even smaller in the grand scheme of things, honestly.

Yes, Fallout. Universe of the apocalypse mixed with fifties futurism and stirred up into a darkly twisted comedy franchise which is slowly getting worse as the game go on but we forgive them because we remember how good it was in the middle there. I was spurred to tell a story of the Fallout world not so long after I finished my heavily modded New Vegas Playthrough. Despite saving 'The Frontier' until the end (urg, what a bizarre finale mod...) I simply adored what I consider to be my most interesting playthrough of a game I've enjoyed for over a decade now. I loved my time so much, in fact, that I didn't want it to end. Or at least, I didn't want it to end without the right send-off. In a way that was what this story was, a character send-off for the Courier that I lived with. (Even if he is never referred to as 'The Courier' throughout all 5 of my chapters because I'm sadistically hostile to my own creative function, apparently.)

By the standards of the usual things I write and abandon, I consider the narrative to be complete and the story to be told. I do sort of flip a narrative concept on it's head and end the story 'in medias res' whilst giving the beginning a very flat and traditional introduction, but that's not to 'leave the audience wanting more' so to speak. It's more to highlight the significance of what the story is actually about and not the actual physical events themselves which serve as the vehicle of- why am I explaining this here? You don't want to hear about my limp narrative techniques! At the very least I should do that in a dedicated blog. You want me to wish happy new years upon you and send you on you way; of which I will do... in a bit, just let me rattle on a bit more!

Because you see, I'm at a crossroads. This story I have exists on my hard-drive and my email, and is floating about in a few other places. I haven't posted it online yet. After I get an external look through for editing, it is my intention to just slap it up somewhere. Maybe Fanfiction.net maybe the other one. Maybe both. But what about here? Would that be weird? I mean- we don't have a concerted topic of conversation that we never deviate from under any circumstance around here or anything- but we also don't really dive into original fiction stories either. But I just feel like it's right, in a way. I started this blog for many reason, one of which being that I've tried several times to start a diary and just can't find interesting enough things about myself to jot down there. So I talk about stuff I do find interesting, be it pop culture or significant world events or current events analysis or arbitrary reviews. But would putting my own fiction on here be a step to far?

So much of myself it already present on this blog, but the barrier of the man I portray when I write is like the only vestige of pyjamas I maintain between myself on my posting. Genuine fiction shatters that thin fabric and leaves me bared, open to judgement. I'm afraid what I'd be sharing about myself, even if it is in a silly little fan-fiction story about a man who wanders without a destination. I don't know why I'm airing my doubts. No one will respond. But it feels good to write. Like I said, this is my diary. Just a public facing diary I speak out loud in the middle of a public park whilst people walk past and pointedly ignore me. I think I will probably upload it here, but in January. Give myself a five day break for all my hard work writing the thing. You'd let me have that, wouldn't you? Whatever- Felix Navidad. You can go now.

Chocobo Down!

 Won't somebody think about the chickens?

You know, it wasn't all that long ago that I was writing a blog about Square Enix which led me to make the lamentable challenge to Square Enix that even though they've shut down two failed live services in this year alone, there was still a few weeks left in the year to make it three. That was supposed to be a harmless joke aimed at the utter cluelessness of the Square Enix brand and their inability to stand behind a concept they drop the second it doesn't hit the market audience that was never there to begin with. And then news dropped that Square pulled on Chocobo GP just before the end of the year. Right before Christmas, they just had to throw a little coal in their own stockings; although give an early gift to me who was running out of stuff to talk about.

It really is like I'm destined to stare quizzically at the bizzarity of Square Enix's modern trajectory, because I appear to be the only one struck by how flailing and desperate it all is. Sure, official outlets and gaming pundits will point a snicker at the Square Enix flop-ups, but none seem to be adding them up and coming to the trouble conclusions that I am. The conclusion that Square Enix don't seem able to sell... pretty much anything! And I know the obvious retort would be to point me towards the Final Fantasy series and it's undeniable success, but my point stands. I said Square can't sell their own games, it's lightning-in-a-bottle visionaries that are slapping up and selling the only Square games worth a damn these days, and the thing about creatives like that- they can get fickle. They're relentless, and if they jump ship to do their own project with someone else, they ain't coming back. Square needs to have the backbone to support themselves without being held up by the talents of a few industry legends who are wielding dedicated teams; and I just don't know if Square has that anymore.

And before you roll your eyes and dismiss me, just look at the evidence! They're hilariously ill-timed and dead on arrival Battle Royale fizzled up before a year was out. The Final Fantasy 7 themed online multiplayer game was an obvious ill-fit for Tetsuya Nomura's grand plan to retell the most famous Final Fantasy story of all time, and fans just didn't flock to it. But pulling away from ruining great franchises, Square even tried to publish a whole new IP launched by Platinum games, the co-op slash-em-up game called... it's name is... hang on, it's on the tip of my... Babylon's Fall! There it is! Can you believe that game came out this year? Looking at it, I wouldn't be surprised if you called me a liar for claiming that. Babylon's Fall was a legendary flop, raking in single digit player counts within a month of launch. It too was killed off. These were both projects that fit in Square's online vision for their business model, and they both died inglorious deaths.

But doesn't that fit Square's own misgivings? Afterall, the way they jettisoned all of their Western studios earlier this year was supposed to represent a rejection of all the detritus of Western game studios who regularly made games that Square just didn't know how to sell. What they preferred were those fancy low-cost Nintendo Switch RPG games that they can publish without any real work and the odd Remaster that already has an established audience and thus is low risk. The Dio-field Chronicles, Chrono Cross Remaster, Harvestella, Life is Strange Remastered, Triangle Strategy. None of these are fresh big budget titles that take chances and risks, just remasters peppered with smaller studios that Square is pumping money into.

Now of course, Square are putting their money and hopes behind the big budget success of Final Fantasy XVI, which is why they can be quiet with personal efforts for a year, but it hardly speaks to their competency as a functioning developer if so many of their pumped out online games fall flat on their face in less than a year. You can establish an audience for pretty much anything on the Internet if yo put enough effort into it. Ubisoft still has a fan base, and people will vehemently defend the soulless card collecting sports game models; so it's not as though none of these crappy Square games could find their own niche; Square just can't be bothered to help that happen. Who knew Chocobo GP even existed apart from me? Where was the marketing? The fanfare? The advertisements? Nah, they'd rather spend money on marketing the big FF that isn't even out for a year!

This means, as we can see, that a precious little game about racing around Chocobos is getting the axe for it's poor reception. And yes, I know it's a dogs dinner of a racing game, we all do. Mario Kart clones started to grow old about ten years ago, now it's just sad to see any 'legitimate' game developer push them out on dusty tires; but Crash Team Racing got itself a player base, didn't it? There are people out there who idolise Chocobos to a frankly unhealthy degree, who actually farmed the Chocobo racing minigame from FF7 because they loved the mutant Chicken horses that much! Why can't they have their Mario Kart clone to obsess over in the dark corners of their bedrooms at night, in one of their few moments of reprieve from the gruelling daily work of conducting horrifical and completely unethical gene-splicing operations on various breeds of hens to birth their own real-life Chocobo?

What's more, Chocobo GP is a mobile game! (It's also been ported to the Switch, but the game was obviously started to thrive on mobile.) For all their talk of impenetrable and complicated Western Markets, you'd have thought Square could figure their way around a mobile game, given those are the styles of games best loved in the East! A mobile game based on a largely Japanese franchise which failed in the east and west? Huh, makes you wonder if Square has any clue how to sell games to... well... anyone. Unless their plan is to focus on the utterly untouched Southern and Northern markets! I'm sure the denizens of Santa's Workshop and Antarctica are just itching for the next mediocre Square Enix game launch!

So there is Square Enix with yet another hard boiled egg to the face. The kind that doesn't splat and leave a comical yellow splatter, but which connects hard with the forehead, bounces off and causes a nasty purple welt to swell. Square cannot, without a shadow of a doubt, keep an online game alive for the life of them. They're like one of those people who just can't own plants for one week without killing them, only for other people's livelihoods. The only Live Service of the past few years that they started which is still, inexplicably, going is the much derided 'Marvel's Avengers'. But then, they sold that off with the studio when they abandoned the west earlier this year, so I guess we can't really consider that one of theirs anymore, now can we? Maybe it's time that the heads of Square Enix are wheeled off to that retirement home they've been fighting for ten odd years now, the senility is starting to leak out into their business decisions.

The Multiplayer Cyberpunk never recieved

 I dare to dream.

Back when Cyberpunk 2077 was first announced with a Bladerunner inspired music video cinematic that lives on in the hearts of dreamers everywhere, it was with a very ambitious foundation backing it up. CDPR knew from the word 'go' that Cyberpunk 2077 was going to be the biggest project they would ever embark on, and not just in that optimistic sense of "Always growing" like some other games companies like to convince themselves. I'm sure Activision and Ubisoft slightly tick up the amount of revenue that goes into the development of each subsequent sequel on their endless march to blot out the sun with their unending franchises, but it takes the real ambitious studios to try and 'reinvent the wheel' as they like to say. Of course, hindsight being what it is- we now know that Cyberpunk was far too ambitious for the team at hand, and said-team was quite happy to let us all discover that on the day.

But putting aside launch day woes or vapid world simulation systems for a second will allow us look at the really significant branches of development that were entirely paired back. There was the optional 3rd person mode that was supposed to feature, but the reason for that being cut was as much stylistic as it was systematic; Cyberpunk became more and more about immersion within the world of Night City and the first person perspective better sold that dream. (Also cutting third person was a relief on some of the development work, so there was that too.) But I'm thinking of something even bigger and more foundational to the substance of this game that even the perspective of gameplay. And beating around the bush is pretty much redundant given that I literally named it in the title of this blog: I'm talking about the Multiplayer mode that was originally planned.

Do you remember that? Teased in job listings and whispers throughout the many years of development, CPDR were ready to break their virginal seal when it came to online experiences in an increadibly ambitious 'integrated' online mode that sounded like the developer's own take on the ludicrously successful Grand Theft Auto online model. An intuitively accessible MMO-lite ecosystem where players could take their custom-made cyberpunk into an online world to partake in team gigs or deathmatches, races, and whatever else a cyberpunk would do among the company of others. (Blow each other up all day? Probably.) And CDPR were serious about this mode too, serious enough to receive grants from their government to help make this specific system... which I guess they had to give back when it was scrapped? I don't know how creative grants work, I'm throwing darts in the dark here.

If this had seen the light of day it would be likely that Cyberpunk 2077 would have been as synonymous for it's ongoing multiplayer world as for it's singleplayer content, and what was a single entry with one DLC would have likely been a background project supported by a dedicated sub studio for at least the next ten years. This would have been CDPR's GTA Online; only with more creative freedom immune from the backlash that Rockstar receives everytime they throw in a flying bike and a plot to stop some international supervillain. Cyberpunk could have made that work! If only they had the time, personnel and resources. What do you imagine such a new face for Cyberpunk would have looked like? How would that have shaped CDPR?

In such a fantastical world I can envision a content cycle for this 'Cyberpunk online' that is fashioned in packages of campaigns, narrative and theme driven, in a style similar to table top module campaigns. That way each 'release' would be tied in a manner that has a beginning-middle and end which tells an entire contained narrative; somewhat similar to how TESO does it with their year-long content spreads. This would also mean ideas could be based off of past Cyberpunk modules, so fans could have an idea of the sort of stories that CDPR are aiming towards and the cyclical synergistic marketing will funnel extra fans to the board game materials as they wait for each new campaign to drop. That would create the live service model proposition that is similar enough to consistency and dedication of MMO add-ons to feel worthwhile and drag people back into the product year after year.

Perhaps Cyberpunk 2077 mutliplayer would even encourage a competitive scene through one of it's different branches of activities. Perhaps the fire-fights or racing or some other activity would prove strong enough to build seasonal ranked modes off of, dragging in the sweaty crowd. Or maybe if the open world proved robust enough and the development of progression content was handled in a manner that isn't staunchly horizontal and stacked, like I can only assume was the dream of this mode; maybe the mode itself would become the competitive sport. For Runescape the race of becoming the best in a certain skill, or on a certain server, is enough to draw a crowd and competitive scene, such that the developers even encourage and incentivise this sort of play.

And don't forget this was all supposed to be an 'integrated' online mode, meaning we might have been subject to systems like the Dark Souls or Watch_Dogs' raiding system where other players can join and harass you at points throughout the world. Perhaps the world would be littered with dynamic events and situations that might be too much for a single fixer, like a high-level train heist or a guarded fortress, and integrated online systems would pair you up with others in the same activity automatically; or set you against potential rivals to fight for the reward. Honestly, this does sound a little too hectic for me, which is kind of like how the Watch_Dogs games play, but that is the future I envision with this online mode that was never meant to be.

Ultimately the development of Cyberpunk 2077 proved so meddling that the idea was scrapped and the team decided to try and make a functional base game for starters. (Which they largely failed at for a good majority of consumers.) If an online mode had launched, however, and it was successful; we would be at an entirely different CDPR right now. The Witcher 4, with it's character created protagonist, would absolutely be the next game to join their series of 'Integrated Online' games, and CDPR would inevitably start moving their business model to including recurrent online modes just as much as high quality story modes. Maybe, given time, they'd start to lose heart in the quality stories, as that doesn't even really make them the money anymore, and then these online games would start to fall prey to stale shock content and tired uncreative tropes that the community laps up readily because they're so starved of real content. The CDPR that people fell in love with would vanish beneath a cold-faced amalgamation monster that breaths only in 'recurrent player bases' and the franchises we loved would be swallowed in their maw. And one of the greatest single player RPG creators of all time would be lost in a cautionary decent into the basement of their own hubris. Or maybe that wouldn't happen. I guess it would be a toin-coss, really.

The one good maketing idea

Okyakusama wa kamisama.

There's a rule whenever a property is being translated from the Eastern world to the western one; that someone with absolutely no clue what they're doing is going to rock up with their 'can do' attitude and totally cock-up the adaptation in some significantly horrible way. It is an inevitability of life. Typically a marketing executive. And you can understand why in a tortured and beaten way. When you're a western marketing executive who's thinking of the next way to sell a product to an audience you think you know, and someone throws a box on your desk that is written in another language; I can only imagine your brain totally haywires and shuts off. At least, that's the only excuse I can think of for why a living human being would conceive of replacing the gorgeous Japanese bot art for classic masterpiece 'Ico' with a 3D model picture from Blender's worst nightmares.

I don't know why it's so very hard, aside from rank incompetence, for marketing executives to really ask themselves the core questions "Why does this appeal to the Japanese audience" followed by "How can I translate that for a Western audience." Many would say "Just don't change a thing" and whilst in many cases that is absolutely the right question, that's not a permanent done deal. Some things just don't work as well in English as they do in Japanese and if your job is to match the success from the home country out in the wild west of America, then liberties have to be taken. But do not misconstrue my devil's advocate talk for an endorsement of the marketing profession. I am well aware that most marketing decisions made on a monthly basis are born solely out of some upstarts desperation to validate their own job to their superiors. The minimalist brand logo trend didn't start out of nothing!

Still, sometimes even the best intentions don't pan out quite as you'd like. I can't pretend to know the machinations of why the Biohazard franchise was renamed to 'Resident Evil' when it came to the western territories, but I certainly don't feel anything cynical or inherently superfluous there. I can see the thought-process: "Horror game set in a mansion, Biohazard sounds a bit too vague and bland on the store shelves" it makes sense to me. Still the series creator despises the Resident Evil name, and today it doesn't really reflect the franchise anymore, does it? The game abandoned it's 'residence' in the second entry to explore whole cities, other continents, a couple of European villages and pretty much the entirety of America in one entry. Overall, Biohazard stood the test of time better.

And then there's the odd marketing decision that, whilst not exactly an inspired idea, looks genius next to whatever the home team were thinking. 'Sonic Unleashed' is not a great name for a video game, it's pastiche and unoriginal with a central focus on a mechanic that inherently missed the point of what Sonic was about. It's a game about speed; why would you focus on the Werehog segments; they weren't even all that good anyway. Still, I have to admit that Sonic's American redone title sounds loads better than the original. 'Sonic World Adventure', are you serious? Not only does that shamelessly rip the naming convention from 'Sonic Adventure' despite sharing nothing in common with those games and their wide cast of playable characters, the box art tries to desperately balance the Werehog central figure infront of a mismatch of location screenshots below a cracked planet; it looks honestly amateurish. I feel like 'World Adventure' should be the bad American translation of Japan's 'Unleashed'. (That's a topsy turvy situation right there.)  

But there is one instance of an American re-mixing of a franchise that I not only whole-heartly agree with, I think it was the exact right choice to make. Even though it took some while to blossom, and the franchise is currently undergoing the process of totally reversing it; I think that for the time, whatever the marketing executive who made the decision was, it did the franchise a service for it's western discoverability. I whole-heartedly agree with the choice to rename the Ryu Ga Gotoku franchise to 'Yakuza' in the west. I think that someone that day had their head on straight, they read the room, and upon learning that the literal Japanese translation of Ryu Ga Gotoku was 'Like a Dragon' they made the wise move for the game's future prospects.

Not that I dislike the name 'Like a Dragon', at all. I think it's both a great title and better fits the breadth of a franchise that, whilst it surrounds the Yakuza, is more interested in the themes of that lifestyle than the criminality itself. Still, 'Yakuza' is a stark and straightforward title, isn't it? It's blunt and abrasive, confronting the audience with a recognisable name that carries it's own daunting connotations already. A western audience hearing the name 'Yakuza' for the first time thinks they know exactly what they're looking at, and for a market that was already in love with crime drama titles set all over America, the title of 'Yakuza' promised something fresh and new. A different face of a genre the western market was hopeless addicted to thanks to the sustained success of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Even to this day, the glamorisation of criminal life is a piquant siren call to the game buyers market, if only anyone could make a title to match what Rockstar put out these days.

But what about 'Like a Dragon'? How would a franchise named 'Like a Dragon' fare in the western world? Well to be quite honest, I don't think it would have stood out in the pack. It sounds mythical and fantastical but unspecific, inherently. The title 'Like a Dragon' would draw the eye of fantasy fans, but the front cover of snappily-dressed men with short haircuts would confuse and likely lose a lot of the interested. 'Like a Dragon', on it's own, too easily melts into the deluge of other fantasy game titles that were booming in the early 2000's; and even Japanese game fans would end up subconsciously associating such a game with the dime-a-dozen JRPGs that littered game shelves all the world over. Chrono Trigger, Xenoblade, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Grandia, Like a Dragon: it just slots in there doesn't it? But 'Yakuza'? No, that's a franchise which has no place among those others. A Japanese title that deserves to stand apart, and go it's own path. (That's what you call a 'pun' see; because the Japanese word for a Yakuza member, Gokudo; has been adopted to mean 'the extreme way' or 'going your own way'. That's a... that's how my pun worked...)

Nowadays the Yakuza franchise in the west is a few months away from it's period entry 'Like a Dragon: Ishin' marking the official point where this franchise will finally have a unified naming convention across the world, and I support it. I think 'Like a Dragon' sounds cool, and now that the franchise has fully cemented itself in pop culture thanks to the runaway success of 0 and the mainstream appeal of Yakuza 7; the franchise doesn't need to use tricks of naming to stand out from the crowd. The Yakuza name has served it's purpose well and fully, and now it's time for the franchise to retire it for good. Except, for prosperities sake I'd appreciate it if we didn't just drop the name from history. I think it would do us good to remember the franchise as it was named when it struggled and eventually rose in western markets; and wear that title, the only good marketing idea ever conceived, with pride. Besides, if we apply 'Like a Dragon' retroactively, then Yakuza 7 becomes "Like a Dragon 7: Like a Dragon" and I'm just not ready for that, let alone the world!

Smash smashed: The results

Season unending. 

The heart of the community is a powerful and influential commodity whenever you are in the entertainment industry. When your starting out, the community around your products might be the only lifeblood still keeping you waking up to the gruelling tasks of the job at hand, when you're growing, the community will tell you with informed passion where their excitement wants to see you evolve next, and when you've made it, the community remains to humble you. A powerful community is steadfast and self-renewing, and the Super Smash Bros. community ontop of that has the tenacity of a cockroach. So whereas recent events make it look very much like the competitive Smash scene is on it's last legs, that couldn't be further from the truth. Smash has been squabbling in the dirt and having the time of it's life for decades now, recently it seemed that papa Nintendo had a reverse of opinion and was reaching down to help them out the gutter, but it was an illusionary truce from which they've dropped the community back where they started. But Smash will go on, no matter what Nintendo does.

When I last touched on everything that was happening with competitive Smash, it was all a veritable mess of information. The CEO of Panda was facing accusations of strong-arming tournament organisers to his own dubious ends, Smash World Tour had just been issued an ultimatum by Nintendo implying the obliteration of grass-routes tournament circuits, and just about every party involved was waggling it's finger saying that 'the widely shared narrative is incorrect, let us tell you the truth in a hot second!' Now with some time everyone has had the chance to share their truth and the largest take-away I currently have is thus: Ain't nobody was lying as definitively as some are saying. Dr Allen was throwing about meat with nothing to back it up, and The Smash World Tour might have fell on it's own sword a little bit to make a larger point. Which I think is hardly a surprise, to be honest. That's about what I figured.

Firstly, the cancellation of Smash World Tour; the very popular finale to a year of circuit events run by independent tournaments all over the place, pulled it's plug after Nintendo, having themselves signed a partnership deal with the Smash Panda cup, contacted the team directly on the eve of thankgiving. SWT weren't just callously tempting fate with this one, their Nintendo contact had informed the team that Nintendo would allow the Smash World Tour to be hosted alongside the Nintendo sponsored Panda cup, they were just waiting to receive their own official licence before the grim correspondence that led to the cancellation. Now, however, it's becoming clear that SWT were not told to close, at least not explicitly. They were denied a licence after months of deliberation based on some vague health and safety guidelines, which feel like a little bit a straw man excuse once you hear that Nintendo also pre-rejected their 2023 application before it was even issued; because, I guess, Nintendo looked into the future with their crystal ball and found next year's events to be equally as 'unsafe'. SWT also said they were told in a follow-up conversation that 'grass-routes' tournaments would be 'a thing of the the past'; which certainly gave off the impression of a crackdown, but not in explicit terms.

As it just so happens, Nintendo actually wanted the event to go forward because they knew what a terrible inconvenience this would cause to everyone; at least that's what they're claiming. Which sort of clashes with their other thoughts about the abolition of all non-licenced Nintendo tournament events, but what can you expect from a multimillion dollar international video game company? Consistency? Perish the thought! Still, this does paint the impression that SWT did play the fainting possum for publicities sake, perhaps to illustrate the attempted assassination of the Smash grass-routes competitive scene with an actual sacrifice, rather than allowing it to be quietly smothered over the next year. They threw themselves on the blade and died loudly, letting the community know of the dagger hovering over all of them. Whether that is noble or pretentious really falls to your own use of interpretation.

Former CEO of Panda, Dr Allen, certainly has very obvious views on the matter. Disclosed in a twitlonger, Dr Allen announced both his stepping down from the Panda Esports company, mid it's collapse that he sparked, and went off on a full blown slap back at all who he perceived as 'wronging' him. He targets were wide, mostly at Smash World Tour for which he constructed a wide conspiracy theory wherein SWT deftly finagled themselves a win-win situation for public relations. A position where they pushed Nintendo's strict limits with planning their unlicensed event despite being told to wait until Nintendo's go ahead and either got away with it and launched their show or suffered the ban-hammer and consequently received a rush community support, goodwill and, most importantly, clout for their next venture. My man might have been playing a few too many Yakuza games, however, because SWT had both their current and future events pulled. They have no backup to funnel the recent community outpouring of support towards. For a conspiracy, this seems to have been a pretty lazy and ill-thought out one. Or maybe SWT are instead playing the multi-year long-con... which would also be weak as these situations only really flare up for a couple of weeks at the most. If they were going to capitalize, they already would have.

Dr Allen also slightly contradicts his own perceived narrative of events by implying that SWT never intended to host the planned live event in the first place. Because his 'inside sources' relayed onto him that the apparent hosting venue had no slot booked for the supposed event! Oh, that is scandalous! Except Allen might want to check his sources, it took less than five minutes for people to track down the defunct landing page for the venue slot literally entitled 'Smash World Tour: contestants and family'. So... that's just plain incorrect. Allen also made the very inspired move to attack the one organiser who outright confirmed that the doctor had tried to strongarm him into exclusive broadcasting rights for the Panda Cup despite their pre-existing history with Smash World tour, by calling his contact an extremely unpleasant individual who shouted him off the phone. How could he know that his target just happened to be a beloved stable of the community, renowned for his calm manner, who was loved by everyone?

All in all; Doctor Allen tried to go out swinging with the sorts of 'mic drop' statement that Mick Gordon put out to clear his name not so long ago. Unfortunately Allen came out without any relevant receipts, (Proving he contacted and held conversations with some organisers actually proves none of his points) half-baked conspiracies and outright incorrect accusations that fizzled before his very eyes. For an apparent Doctor, he really didn't put in much of the diligence to dot his I's and cross his T's. But at the very least, in the height of his infamy, Alan let the mask drop and revealed the method behind his madness. Every competitive video game scene has outright support and involvement to some degree with the publishers and right's holders; except for Smash Bros. When Nintendo finally came to shut down the people playing their game without permission, Allen wanted to make sure someone who 'cared' about the Smash team was guiding their hand and preventing them from crushing everything the community was in their stupid zealotry. He wanted to be the saviour of the Smash scene. He was the Handsome Jack of this story. 

Of course, that assumes that Nintendo have the power to crush the Smash scene. In truth, Nintendo hates people taking their games competitively and actually always have, but somehow the N has never managed to stamp out grass route Smash competitions entirely, despite their best efforts. People have been playing Smash in tournaments for decades and they are determined to keep enjoying Nintendo's games no matter what the big N has to say on the topic. Regardless of draconian policy, the Smash scene is just that cockroach that will never be burned into nothing or wither and die. So yes, in Allen's fatalistic perception of the future of the community, he is the hero that the Smash scene needs right now; but in the reality that Smash resides, he is the deluded tyrant strangling the very life out of the thing he claimed to love. So next time you see a formulaic Anime with the 'I was the hero in my head' villain; you can tap your nose and say, "that ain't so contrived and unrealistic afterall!"

Days Gone nuts

 Not again...

Art is tough. Painful, even. Some have compared the act of creating a piece of art to show to the rest of the world like cutting off a piece of your flesh and serving it up, whilst others consider it like killing your own child. If you're wondering why these comparisons and allusions are always so maudlin and fatalist, remember these are the musings of artists. As such, one can only imagine the pain of publishing a piece of work that doesn't receive the reverence of it's peers, in fact; a game that can seen as something of a black sheep among certain circles. It must sting. But such is the brunt of what artists bear, it's the risk with bearing yourself like that, and what you need to learn from such circumstances is how to learn and grow from criticism. What doesn't help, literally anyone, is going on a massive spree of blaming literally everyone else in the world but the product itself. It's the fans- no, it's the critics, no- it's the little green men who live in my head and call me rude names in their unspeakable language!

Believe it or not the director of Days Gone, Sony's lukewarm zombie survival game, has actually managed to make himself look a little silly with his ravings once before; although that time it was aimed at fans. If you remember, the director screamed about how fans who don't buy games on the first week, totally blind, at full price, without waiting for reviews or second opinions, are the poison to modern games. He argued that those who don't contribute to week one sales just are letting down the games companies and those who seek out sales before making their purchasing decisions are the reasons why games they like don't get sequels. Now to be fair to the man, he was working in the higher echelons of AAA where competition is extremely tough and every little last ounce of success you can squeeze out benefits your chances of remaining near the top. And at such a point, sure; I'd imagine your fans do start becoming nothing more than numbers on a spreadsheet.

That being said, blaming 'lazy fans' for Days Gone not being a smash hit, thus scuppering the chances of Sony ordering a sequel, is a bit reductive; isn't it? When I introduced 'Days Gone' as 'Lukewarm', that wasn't just a perception I pulled out of my head, that was the general consensus by critics and audiences. Which isn't to say there aren't people that really loved its style, of course there were; but no one seems to have been really blown away, by what Days Gone had to offer. Now that shouldn't have really been a problem but again; Sony are particularly demanding pay masters. They demand excellence and success at every turn and if you can't deliver that for them, they'll start trimming fat. And Days Gone was somewhat formulaic, it was rough around the edges, the loop started to drag around about the mid-point of the game, the narrative was fine and not particularly satisfying; it was a good zombie game, but it wasn't a Sony platinum.

And when you really address these common complaints and seek out the root cause of them, well at some point you're going to have to come back to the process of making the game. Now no one outside of the development studio can tell you what happened in there, if conceptual ideas weren't particularly strong or if technology just couldn't keep up with their grand ideas; all we have is the final, 7/10, product. A responsible and self-confident game director would likely own the difficulties and problems of such a scenario and not let that define them or their team. A great game director would take on all of those issues as areas from which to improve to ensure that the next project, however big or small it may be, is the slam dunk you wished that last one to be. What neither of those theoretical would do, however, is whine about how it's still everyone else's fault.

The reason why a director wouldn't do that, is because it fosters a kind of uncomfortable environment where those sorts of sentiments trickle down and take route, ultimately creating an unpleasant work space to be a part of. (I've been inside such a crappy unit myself once.) Point in case with another big member of the Days Gone team who recently went on a little Twitter rant about the unfair treatment of Days Gone in the review circuit; a title which even I will admit was overshadowed perhaps a bit more than it should have been; but it was a zombie game at a time when that genre was squeezed all but dry, so that might have something to do with it. This key development member responded to how the PC port scored better than the console version, subtly hinting that the better scores were due to bad code of the original being cleaned up. Passing the buck again, this time onto his former colleagues. (Very professional...)

He also went the truly humorous route of blaming the lack of 'household name' status for the game on reviewers who couldn't be bothered to play the game, or that were too 'woke' to take a 'badass biker who stares at his girlfriend's ass'! So if you're finished choking to death on the lethal levels of cringe in that sentence, let's dissect. Our man seems utterly oblivious to the fact that people could have played his game and found the gameplay loop to be repetitive and tedious; I can say for myself I've seen people play the thing and make that observation live with no contributing stimuli, but I guess in his head that's a false criticism conjured up by a coordinated class of reviewer who couldn't push themselves through a zombie survival game. If these same outlets managed to endure Watch Dogs Legion, I'll bet they had a blast rocking through Days Gone.

As for the 'wokeness' allegations; come on. Honestly, the take away that I found most had to the whole romance subplot was that it felt emotionally stoic and unmoving. People didn't really care about the girlfriend character or where she was, and seeing as how that was supposed to be the emotional backbone of the main character, players failed to get fully invested in the stakes of the plot. At least in 'Dead Space' the fate of Nicole was shrouded in intrigue and semi-cosmic mystery. But sure, I guess it makes him happy to think that everyone was just so utterly upset by how much of a 'manly man' mr generic protagonist was that they got their woke liberal agendas twisted up in the prissy 'my-little-kitty' panties; because that is what everything in life whittles down to, doesn't it? The imaginary clashing war of moralities that exists entirely within the heads of emotionally stunted weirdoes. Ah, to be an abject moron; what oblivious bliss that must be!

To his small credit, this developer did turn around in a later statement and declare that he didn't mean to throw his fellow programmers under the bus. He was merely highlighting that the Days Gone project was far above their weight class and the team did an admirable, if messy, job in meeting their ambitions; to which I would agree. Technologically; Days Gone's systems work fine. If only the ideas forming those systems were more interesting. Then he did what all tough Twitter folk do, and privated his account for the backlash he got on that public forum he entered. (If you can't take the criticism; why post it on Twitter?) Such is the quite surprising backlash from a decent Sony exclusive that I honestly thought would have done a mint, but which has unravelled more in the years since than it's spotty launch had done. Maybe let the art speak for itself next time, maybe that way your legacy would be a bit less muddy.