He lives

 In a pineapple under the Sea

I'm trapped in a supposedly lovable hamlet known as 'The Pineapple Under the sea', with my worn-down mouse clicker and underdeveloped child-brain. I'm desperately commanding a weirdly 3D yellow Sponge around a flat world reminiscent of one of my favourite TV shows. Nothing seems to add up, every item elicits the same lazy responses. I can't leave the house. All I want to do is get outside and start living that 'adventure' which the game box promised. What was on that box again? Something like a Krabby-wagon flying out of an explosion. Where were either of those two elements? I'd never quite grow into the biggest lover of point and click adventures, but our relationship together is never quite as frayed as it is now. With the haze of more than twice my life span of perspective, it feels like I struggled for weeks, and being a stupid kid I just might have, but the result was me putting down the game with a huff and never buying a SpongeBob game again. So what I'm trying to say is that me and gaming Spongebob ain't exactly the tightest knit pair.

But switch that up for the TV show baring the same name, and man I am a Sponge freak. (Or rather I was. I stopped watching long enough ago not to remember and yet not long enough ago to still retain any respectability) Steven Hillenburg's cartoon was one of those few shows out there which was fun and silly enough to appeal to me at pretty much any age, and never really slipped and make itself feel dated. And that's despite one of the very first, and most enduring, jokes it tells being based around a famous French marine researcher who wouldn't have been familiar to children when the show started and is still only mildly familiar to me now as a trivia note. But Spongebob didn't care about relevancy or slipping right into the exact scene which was popular to the kids at that age; the show just wanted to tell jokes they thought would be funny. (As it turns out, that is the most evergreen approach to a kid's show. Who'd have thought?)

When Steve Hillenburg died, it was the quite the gut-punch even for people who, by that point, had moved on from the show in their lives, just because the sheer proliferation of the image of Spongebob as an immutable totem of childhoods everywhere had become rigidly implanted. It became a real litmus test, if that were ever even needed, for what generation one was on for how they reacted to the news, those who cared really felt it, those who didn't seemed utterly perplexed why the death of some cartoonist was news. (But then would act aghast and demand reaction when one of their celebrities died. Sorry, I'm not trying to go 'us versus them' on this.) The ultimate culmination of this, to me, being the request from fans to honour Hillenburg through a skit during the Superbowl halftime show, for there was actually a Spongbob song entitled 'Sweet Victory' which depicted the show's own version of the Superbowl halftime. A simply insane suggestion to any of the stodgy jackets who actually ran the Superbowl, but supremely sensible and a well hearted gesture to fans. So do you know what they did? They kicked of the Halftime show with a half second from the beginning of 'Sweet Victory', and then switched to Travis Scott, a more profitable choice, a move which was both supremely disrespectful and largely insulting.  

The reason that I mentioned and went into great detail spelling out that history for you, is because I want you to know (or if you already knew, then to remember and keep readily to mind) the significance of that song. Because it takes some real confidence, for a couple of reasons, for a brand new Spongebob game to crawl out of the wilderness and hit us squarely with that particular song throughout the length of the footage. It adopts the lofty assumption that this is the respectful game to honour Hillenburg's series in the very way that mainstream NBA laughed and scoffed at, alongside just being a song declaring 'victory' before the game has even received a release date. (Premature, sure, but confidant.) All of which has called out of me a more critical eye then I perhaps might have held for a new Spongebob game, as this is something which now has to stand and deliver; for it's own good.

'Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake' is looking to position itself as the long awaited (at least by me) spiritual successor to 'Battle for Bikini Bottom', a game just recently remastered by THQ Nordic. In a move proving that THQ aren't jealously hoarding all of these old IPs just for remastering purposes, they've dedicated themselves a new 3d platformer, in a age so desperately spare on those games, which will take us all over the series' world and confused history. You've seen the trailer, (of if you haven't then you should, it's worth a look) and therefore you've seen how just about every single significant costume-change episode the show has ever pulled has been teased with references or Easter eggs. Already you can tell that this is going to be a game which tries to cover everything a Spongebob fan could want to see, and despite my instinctual trepidation for companies around THQ's size, I'm a little bit buzzed reading about all of it. Not going to lie.

Some of my personal fondest moments in youth were from playing Battle for Bikini Bottom, and it was actually in the wake of falling in love with that game where I first tried to design my own game. Albeit, that was a Boardgame that I was planning out on Microsoft excel and the thing was terrible because I was an idiot kid, but I guess the idea must have stuck because I'm still trying to make games nearing on twenty years later. (Oof, that hurt to write. Almost twenty years. Jeez) And though the Spongebob movie game (referenced at the head of this blog) inexplicably remains the first thing my mind goes to whenever I think 'Spongebob game', my brain is more and ready for that subconscious spot to be supplanted by a sleek modern follow-up which completely shakes up the scene. (So no pressure there, THQ Nordic, you're just working to save my subconscious from itself.)

We've already got something of an event synopsis to base our expectations on: some fortune teller gives Spongebob a wish granting device and sends him off to explore 7 distinct wishworlds in search of, adventure I guess, who cares. It's a nice traditional set-up for a 3d action platformer like this and it lays plenty of opportunity for stark design choices that can make each level stick out with flavour and flair, should potential be reached. In my most charitable estimation, I could see something like this achieving the fun-factor of the Kingdom Hearts 1 world set-ups, where you're jumping into wholly new environments, and even modes of play, between locations. (At the very least I think it would be amazing if THQ could copy Kingdom's Hearts' shifting HUD which changes to match the setting of the area) What has been unmentioned so far in this feature list, which I hope is only absent because it's so obvious that it hardly bares mentioning, are collectibles. We have those right? If this is a Battle for Bikini Bottom successor, there has to be collectibles. (I won't belabour the point, I'm sure THQ know that)

So I'm an optimist, clearly, when it comes to this title despite being given the whole 'no gameplay in the trailer' trick, because I'm just caught up in the whirlwind that promises to be another solid Sponge outing to slowly wash the bad taste of that movie game from my mouth. (Oh and for defenders of the movie game, try and remember that I'm talking about the awful PC version. It can't even be called a port, it's so starkly different.) Between this, the slow revival of the Destroy All Humans series and the upcoming brand new DLC for the Kingdoms of Amalur Remaster, THQ Nordic are really starting to pay off all of these licences that they went around acquiring and it's beautiful to see. All I want now, and this is a desperate plea, do something with that Timesplitters IP you've got in there, come on guys...

Biomutant. A sleeper destined for greatness?

 I see so much potential in you...

I try to be openminded. No really, I do. Whenever I see a an expression of a movie, show or game that's far out of my traditional wheelhouse I absolutely try to give it a chance to disappoint me first before deciding that I don't like it. (Afterall, that's only fair.) Yet even with the huge allowances I permit, there'll be those odd games that I see and just cannot be bothered, you know? The sorts of titles that the second I see them I just know that my noggin won't even go the distance of committing it to memory. It'll be gone the second I blink. And so it was with Biomutant. I literally just saw the old 'cute animals with weapons' and suddenly transposed the memory with one regarding how much I was excited for Beyond Good and Evil 2. (Because this game first entered my radar so long ago that game still wasn't shaping up to be elaborate vaporware. Seriously, what's happening with that, Ubisoft?) But only now, in the year of our lord 2021, am I learning that I was actually a big doofus and completely missed a potential gem.

In my defence, the event of Biomutant's announcement had preceded this trailer with a least two desperate "Please make this an esport so it blows up" style games; including one which had the gall to show off a mock-match with 'Live commentators'. Yes, that happened in the middle of an E3 press conference. (Someone needs to go into these marketing boardrooms and slap half the staff to get the stupid out.) So it's safe to say that I was pretty freakin' emotionally spent by the time Biomutant shoved it's vague/sparse trailer in front of me. I mean, I ignored the game but even then I distinctly remember thinking "What. This another tournament game? Skip." Which, whilst that's partially on the studio and their meh trailer, it's also on the organisers for grouping these trailers together. I mean was someone trying to stitch this game up or what?

Accusations can be serious, but I make them anyway because I seriously hear next to no-one talk about this title ever, and yet every other month some MMO channel publishes a 50 minute case study on why Amazon's upcoming 'New World' is going to tie me shoelaces, make me breakfast and shake for me after I'm done in the toilet. (For the record: I'm highly dubious of anything out of Amazon's Lumberyard. I mean that both literally and metaphorically) So I can only assume that many people made the same assumption I did, thus let me try and set the record straight; Biomutant is not an online tournament shooter, or battle royale or anything like that. In fact, it's a brand new single player action RPG published by THQ Nordic with a weirdly ambitious streak to it. I mean- am I crazy or does that sound right up my alley? Yours too, perhaps?

Described as, and I quote, "an open world, post apocalyptic Kung-Fu fable RPG", Biomutant stands to do that which I've wanted for the longest time and bring martial arts combat back to Role playing games. (I thought Jade Empire's legacy would be but dust.) As far as I can tell, this game takes place in a world, that might not even be our own, but which has been ravaged with, what I can only assume is, nuclear devastation. But even if that is a correction assumption, it happened in the long distant past because in the setting of this game, all we have are the vestiges of that world completely grown over with nature taking her rightful place as leader of all things. And whatsmore, the land is now filled with mutated anthropomorphic animals that look right out of a new Pixar-universe title. And I know I've been saying that quite a bit with animated-styled games of late but this generation has just been a winner in design concept, man, what can I say?

So we have a game that wants to marry science fiction, with mysticism in a cuddly, but not too cuddly, looking society that favours both guns and martial arts. That doesn't sound like a nothing game that isn't worth some attention, does it? There's talk of exploration based on gear and equipment, which sounds like some vaguely Metroidvania philosophies thrown in the mix, a glider system which borrows a concept from Breath of the Wild but at least looks distinct and a tantalisingly unique levelling system which encourages the genetic restructuring of the player in order to give them new abilities. That means, to borrow from the examples the team themselves provide, growing a barbed tail or getting telekinetic abilities. They even got a little cheeky and mentioned the ability to grow Mantis Claws. (Huh, that reminds me of something...) So we're talking about a gear-improvement system that is transferred onto the character themselves and changes their physical appearance? These guys better watch out with all their ambition, it tends to get ol' Brutus angsty. (Is that the second terrible reference this year? Somebody stop me.)

What makes this all the more interesting is the fact that the studio involved, Experiment 101, has literally only worked on this game since founding in 2015. (Or at least, that's what it says on their socials. They may have done some support work on other THQ projects, I'm not discounting that.) And yet, when you look at the gameplay trailer which is out it looks insanely high-quality. Which might raise a few alarms bells, especially after last December's little gaming catastrophe, but the team is made up some old school talent, so you can rest easy there. (Including an executive from Avalanche Studios!) Now that doesn't mean the game is destined to be everything that it looks to be, I'll likely never trust a studio to deliver what they promise again, but I get the feeling that whatever this ends up being it won't be an unmitigated mess like some might presume.

But then, why isn't this game doing the rounds? Especially as it's slated for a 2021 release. (Baring any changes) Well that is because the game has been keeping an abnormally tight lid on things, to the point where we've been practically radio silent for nearly an entire year. And why did they come out in that last interview? Well mostly to let people know that the game wasn't cancelled and was still being worked on. I understand people's concerns, just look at 'Beyond Good and Evil 2'; that's a game which stirred everyone up for a while only to go radio silent and end up being cancelled years later. Now that very game is back with the same name and a completely different concept, and history seems to be repeating itself. (The cancellation word hasn't come down yet but I'm certainly not optimistic right now.) When we aren't hearing things it makes us nervous as gamers, but I'm starting to come around to the idea that silence can be good.

Being quiet doesn't necessarily mean that development is stalling, or even that problems are arising. In fact, it could very much just mean that everything is going so well that there's no real time to take out a month to put together a trailer or a vertical slice. Although THQ could, and should, probably start ramping up on the marketing, honestly I'd prefer to get a game which is as good as it appears to be, rather than be hyped up about a pipe dream which doesn't go all the way when it should have. Besides, the basic details about the game really is enough to sell me hook-line-and-sinker. I will play this game, provided I'm still alive after it launches, that's how much I love the premise; I don't need to see anything more. So perhaps I speak for myself, but pimp on Experiment 101, and above all make yourselves proud, because I'm starting to come around to the old Nintendo ideal that a contented Developer makes better games.