So I watched 'Uncharted'

 It was about what I expected.

There is an inordinate number of video game adaptations flying towards this industry of late, and it's getting to the point where I can't just put a pillow over my head and pretend it's all not happening. (In fact, I may just have a blog talking about it all either coming out or already out by the time this one drops.) And I think I've made my feelings on these adaptations in general pretty darn clear: I think they're largely all soulless and totally dismissive of the franchises they're lifting from. We've yet to get an adaptation born from someone who is truly a fan of what they're working with and it has shown time and time again. The Sonic movie, which I've still yet to watch, was at least made by someone who enjoyed Sonic as he used to be 25 years ago; but compare that against the Hitman movies, Assassin's Creed, The new Halo show, and you come with a string of 'not quite's and 'missed the point's. Headlining all of this new wave game adaptation nonsense was the big budget, big name, 'Uncharted' movie, bringing one of Sony's beloved console exclusives to the big screen. (Be glad Sony doesn't own a Cinema-chain, else you'd be dealing with viewing exclusivities there.)

And yeah, I actually watched the thing. Figured that I might as well take the bullet and put my money where my mouth is if these adaptations are going to start becoming more prevalent in the industry. Look at this as me setting my baseline for what live-action mainstream adaptations are so that we can watch them slowly improve over the years until we get something as stellar as that short live-action 'Paper's Please' film on Youtube. Do I actually expect an adaptation which perfectly nails the feel of the source material and elevates it with it's presentation like that fan project did? Of course not. Heck, there was a famade Uncharted short movie in 2018 starring perfect casting choices (Nathan Fillion as Nate, Stephen Lang as Sully) and a pitch-perfect comprehension of the world of Uncharted, who the character's that inhabit that world are and how to handle nods to the material that fans respect. (That camera angle trick was genius.) So this movie was going to be doomed to unfavourbale comparisons no matter how it ended up turning out.

But instead of getting that movie, we're getting this one; and right away I'm going to handle the biggest glaring issue hounding this flick since the very first trailer: the casting. It's not great. None of the actors, aside from Sophia Taylor Ali, looks a thing like their characters and, crossing slightly over into my thoughts on the writing, none of them, again aside from Ali's Chloe, feel like their character is supposed to either. Nate, in particular, looks stupidly young. I mean I know there was the joke about how Tom is 'young Drake', but we literally get a collage shot from fifteen year old childhood Drake to adulthood bar-tender Drake where it takes your brain a second to even realise that this is supposed to be an older version of the character. Because Tom Holland literally has the face of a fifteen year old boy. It absolutely fails to sell the illusion of the roguishly handsome, experienced but youthful, thief with a heart of gold, like Nathan Drake is supposed to be. Wahlberg has none of the aged washed-up wisdom to his look, but his performance does a little work to make up for that. When he doubles over wheezing complaining about how running across rooftops is a young man's game, I almost can ignore the absolutely apparent fact that Wahlberg is very much still young-looking and fit enough to be cast in the lead of a heavy action film by tomorrow. 

So the characters don't look how they're supposed to. How do they sound? Like the groggy half-recollections of someone who once had their roommate excitedly explain the Uncharted games to them in the mornings before college for a month straight. There is none of the charm and clever wit of the game's script in the writing for these films, which is galling when you remember that was one the core pillars of that series' heart. What we get instead is a different breed of charm, one tepid and recycled from a dozen other action films, totally lacking in originality or swashbuckling spirit. I kept waiting for that line which would strike me with the out-of-nowhere funnies, like the famous "You took a whore to church?" line. There's not a single joke even close to that offbeat, rapport building, zinger in this entire film, and I don't think writing team is capable of even emulating one on their best day. The best bit they've got is a reoccurring joke about how there's a Scottish thug after them. He's Scottish. That's the joke. He's not even aggressively Scottish, I mean I could understand him perfectly the whole movie and I'm only, like, a fifth Scottish myself. Sully is greedy, like he's meant to be, but he lacks that glint of humanity which keeps you caring about him even when you probably should be holding him to task. Of course, the movie thinks it still has that glint, which is why you get scenes of Tom buddying up to Sully even when every fibre of the movie is telling you they should be hitting each other in every shot.

The story is fine. A mismatch of a few iconic scenes from the game badly interjected into this movie's own narrative, (seriously, why was the bad guy exporting his personal car to a archaeological digsite?) half hearted reimaging's of great Uncharted locations, (I can just tell they were flirting with doing their own version of the Museum heist, but couldn't get the appropriate Istanbul filming rights) and one fresh set-piece which is fun, but which they already spoiled in the trailer. (I'm talking about the pirate ships dangling from the helicopters. That was perfectly in fitting with the tone of the games, I liked it.) But at the end of the day there was no point at which this movie elevated itself above being another low-effort action film in the vein of any one of Dwayne Johnson's movies. Except those movies have an inherently charming lead. (Most of the time. 'Skyscraper' was pretty dire.) Heck, for a good two thirds of this movie we aren't even in uninhabited lands; isn't that kind of the point of the name 'Uncharted'?

In terms of action the movie was generally decent, which is to say that I wasn't assaulted with gratuitous jumpcuts in every scene, although there were a couple headache inducing editing choices. I noticed that Tom Holland's Drake had a lot of mobility in him, in that his stunt double had this one vault-horse move that he liked to do a lot. I don't hate it, it's different and makes his movement stand out just that tiny bit from every other generic action protagonist, but it also really isn't Nathan Drake-like, either. Drake in the games moved with a weight and occasional clumsiness that betrayed the pugilistic stylings of a self-taught street-rat, not these overly choreographed gymnastic feats of athletic prowess. Nathan always moved like a believable human, whilst the fundamental physics of the world around him defied themselves to his benefit; but in this adaptation the man is one baby-blue leotard away from starring in his own adaptation of 'Gymkata'. 

And perhaps you've started to pick up my general feelings on the film. It's painfully average. In it's presentation, in it's story, in it's acting, in it's characters, in it's scale, and I hope in it's budget because otherwise this movie's production team was robbed. What's that? It took $120 Million? (Damn, this film crew made for better thieves than movie-Drake does.) You could go into this movie with totally no idea what Uncharted is about from even a fundamental level and come out not knowing the protagonist's name; it's that inoffensive and sterile, that the experience of watching it just washes over you. Still, from the brief travel time from the one ear in the inevitable route directly out of other, it proved fun enough. I was entertained enough to point and quiz the glaring plot holes and missed narrative opportunities between characters, rather than being so bored that I didn't care. The movie wasn't good, but it wasn't all terrible either.

So if you can call that a victory in any remote way, then I guess Uncharted succeeded in the near decade long journey to get one of Sony's best selling homegrown franchises on the silver screen. Was it worth the wait? Objectively 'no'. Having Nolan North pop in for a quick, if inelegant, cameo was a nice touch; but did sort of highlight the lack of the Nathan character anywhere within this movie's soul. Do I want to see another one? Actually, maybe a little. I know that sounds utterly nonsensical given everything I've said, but for turn-your-brain-off and don't-think-about-it popcorn fodder, I didn't hate the film. I think video game movies deserve so much better going forth, but absolute 'True Neutral', middle of the road, movies have a place in theatres too, I guess. Of course, I'll also not shed a tear if this entire supposed movie series get's canned tomorrow either. But then again, 'Venom' got a godawful sequel, I can't see why Sony wouldn't commission another 'Uncharted'...

GTA Trilogy and rewarding a failure

Thanks for the slap in the face: Here's my credit card

With the hindsight of the final product still glowering in our heads, it seems truly incomprehensible that the wider gaming public cheered on and perpetuated hype for a product so obviously destined for failure as the 'GTA Trilogy : Definitive Edition'. I mean the writing was all over the walls and floors, trailed down the hallway, out the window and tagged up the entire block. We saw the amount of 'care' and 'attention' that Rockstar afforded these games in the notoriously poor mobile ports which, among other things, broke vehicles in a primarily driving-focused series, failed at emulating appropriate physics such as drop gravity on submergible surfaces, and a lot of the times totally missed the small, but always fleshed out, little side mechanics which make the GTA games such a powerhouse of game design perfectionism. We also saw how 2K disliked the community keeping these games alive, what with their lawsuit-first approach to the mod developing side of the fandom. And we'd felt the icy grip of concern wrap about our throats when the original games were pulled off the storefronts in order to force players to purchase the expensive new versions. Expecting greatness after that lead-up feels nothing short of delusional. And yet I don't think even the most cynical fan out there imagined the state these games would arrive in.

I feel it's important to restate just how genuinely, pathetically, awful the definitive edition versions of the games were. The team who made it, who just so happened to be the very same geniuses behind those aforementioned mobile ports, somehow failed to extract the correct sound effects for menu selection, and so just recycled the sound effects from previous games and just hoped we wouldn't notice. The rain effect was so bad that the game became unplayable thanks to the blinding deluge of milk-white drops all over the viewers screen, and that rain refused to layer over static bodies of water for some reason. There were endless examples of signs and shop windows in which classic Rockstar puns had been entirely scrubbed out because whoever upscaled these textures (the community is fairly certain it was an AI) couldn't parse the most in-your-face word-play of the ages. Stability and performance was eye watering, character face models were hideous, physics bugs from the mobile port were still present, and they totally ballsed up the artistic design intent behind the fog in San Andreas. Although to be honest that last one didn't surprise me in the slightest, even when I had hope in this project weeks before launch I already assumed they would screw that up just because of remasters' tendencies to botch basic design intent when it comes to graphical improvements.

The games were a mess, and how were Rockstar punished for forcing (Yes 'forcing', remember they blocked us out of the originals, and if you want them back you have to do it through their prehistoric Rockstar Launcher) these rotten plates of pig's gruel down our throats? Up to 10 million in sales. That's well over half a billion dollars in incoming revenue, discount periods (if there were any) notwithstanding. Strauss Zelnick donned his death-grey suit to attend an investor's call and, I can only assume between hefty puffs of a garishly fat cigar, rave about how the collection has done "Great!" Oh yeah, the game "significantly exceeded" all of their expectations. Rockstar themselves took into account the disaster which was impending for the absolute dump they were preparing to take on their own community, only to poke out on the otherside and go; "Oh, they gave us the money anyway!"

Now in defence of the game, there have been a lot of patches and fixes that have swept the battered framework in order to benefit a potentially playable base experience. Those texture issues have been fixed, performance has been worked on, the rain is bearable, the fog... well, it looks honestly godawful coming from an ostensibly professional studio but at least it's there, some of the character faces who weren't a total lost-cause have been fixed, and the collection is now... a way to play the GTA series. Is it the definitive, like it's title would imply? Not even close, for several reasons, some of which they couldn't have helped even if this remaster was pitch perfect. (As long as Rockstar doesn't care to shell out in order to renew those music licences, these games just won't ever feel the same.) But it's no longer so bad it's laughable, and so the game can sit on Rockstar's shelf of achievements with absolutely no baggage behind it. (Right, that's how it works- No?)

So lets' discuss exactly what it means to reward a failure and how it both paints the community and paves the path for some incredibly bad-faith Rockstar moves going forwards. First of all; Good lord, why do people always buy first and think second? It was the same with Cyberpunk, games that fell far short on their promise but screamed loud enough to drown out any of the genuine misgivings. I'm sure that pre-orders play a small role in that, but the bulk of sales are still being made in-person after the game is released and impressions are out there. People just refuse to do their due diligence and that astounds me! I mean sure, if you're picking up a £10 movie from the store and aren't putting the effort into hearing how good or bad it is beforehand, that makes total sense. You're in it for the mystery and there's hardly anything on the line at all. But a £60 brand new game? That's a lot to blindly put on the line without any idea if the thing will be entertaining, or functional; I guess some people really do be balling out of control, huh.

Now don't think it happens in a vacuum whenever a company gets hundreds of millions of dollars despite a huge screw up, and it makes the gaming community come across as inattentive and easy to bedazzle. Especially in the wake of Cyberpunk, these companies are starting to see how when they've got a real stinker on their hands, their best bet is to blind the world with glitz and glamour, to feed into the power of the hype train and weather the snapback feedback after release in the knowledge that it's never as bad as it all looks. Now the general rule of thumb is that the community makes you pay for the next game that you release, so if this one was a pathetic rip-off then the next game is going to undersell, but when even the rip-off is netting half a billion in sales, that pretty much offsets the tiny contingent of the gaming community who are going to remember to boycott the next game. What is the next game again? GTA VI? Oh, they could throw burning puppies off the Burg Khalifa and still get a profit out of that game; so I guess these companies are indeed backlash immune.

So what does this say? Well to me it says that if a game is beyond repair and delaying is going to cost some profitable release window, it might be more financially viable to go in the other direction and rush a release in order to sacrifice the project for the short term income boost. I mean it's certainly not going to work for everyone nearly as well as it did for Cyberpunk, who spent decidedly too much on marketing, or GTA Trilogy, who piggybacked off the legacy of a legendary game studio; but if I were Ubisoft or EA or Activision, I'd been considering this a viable strategy for clearing games off the slate that prove more troublesome than the tried and tested rinse and repeat yearly jobs everyone seems to love so much. Why bother reinventing and sculpting the perfect wheel when that blocky, half-finished oblong pushes you far enough?

I've no tea leaves to read, no heavy-cover spy to converse with on the topic, but I'd suspect that Rockstar knew exactly the state of the definitive edition before release, knew how it was going to be received and hedged their bets. Which, as it turned out, worked out for them. Say the games were perfect at launch, would that have improved their sales anymore? Maybe a little, I would have bought them, but it's clear that polish ain't nothing but a word to most people out there. Maybe Cyberpunk's example is going to lead to more profitable letdowns like this in the future, and the trust between developer and consumer is going to gently split at the seams and fray in the same direction it always seems to. As the projects get bigger, the humanity grows ever more insignificant; until 'the human element' is nothing but a slider of profits that team leaders take gambles on. Am I playing into hyperbole? Only a little, sadly.  

Mod Review: KOTOR- 'Brotherhood of Shadow: Solomon's Revenge'

 There are worst fates than death.

It's been a very long time since I've sat down and spoken about my thoughts regarding a mod, but it's been so very long since I've played through a huge mod that wasn't another Bethesda title addendum. And that's obviously because Bethesda games naturally lend themselves to mod creation with their accommodating engine and easy-to-learn creation tools. Trying to match the scale of a big Skyrim mod on any other game is like an uphill struggle where the entire climb is a constant overhang- it just ain't happening. But then there are always those who will push themselves through the trials and tribulations, and the more beloved the initial property is, the more likely those people are going to be inspired to come out of the woodworks. And it doesn't get more beloved than Knights of the Old Republic.

I recently did a full playthrough of KOTOR in memorandum of the game that was before it's memory is entirely washed away by the action-adventure remake dangling on the horizon, and seeing as it might be one of the last go-arounds that I give it, I thought it only fair to play that highly rated huge quest mod which people always rave about; 'Brotherhood of Shadow: Solomon's Revenge'. And much of my attraction came from sheer amazement at the fact that yes, this is an entire meaty questline added into the framework of a 2003 aged game that really doesn't feel like it has the sort of versatility to accommodate for that. But coming out the otherside of a ten hour playthrough (yes, the mod took me ten hours- it's that substantial) it's hard to convey just how utterly impressed I was with the scale that Silveredge9 was able to accomplish. The mod took this creator 3 years to complete, by account of their own FAQ, and the results are humbling. On the mod page you can see it advertised as a KOTOR expansion pack, and it certainly has the heft to justify that title.

The entirety of this mod, which is technically two narratively connected mod questlines bought together, is designed to place itself during the final act of the game where all the big secrets have been revealed, so from this point onwards I'm going to proceed with a SPOILER warning so that I don't have to go all 'he who must not be named' going forward. In it's size it essentially acts as a bloat to the later half of the game allowing the player to really ingrain themselves in the identity of Revan as they explore the war he perpetrated and the lives he effected along the way. Even more crucially than that, however, the mod serves as a vehicle to tell the particularly long and draw-out storyline of this mod's OC, a pale Twi'Lek Dark Jedi called 'Shadow'. (Which is also why the mod needs to happen in the last act of the narrative. Shadow takes up Bastilla's spot in the party selection screen.)

The way that the first part of this mod, Brotherhood of Shadow, works is largely by reusing and changing existing maps from the base game and throwing in new textures, new NPCs and a few new models in order to create a new storyline. Conceptually simple but elegantly performed. You'll certainly noticed the reused areas, the appropriated sound tracks and how every NPC seems to shun Galactic basic, (so that the existing in-game alien speaking sounds can be used instead of having to go and find actors) but this mod manages to successfully remix them into the deck of a new ship called the Orion, and explore a intriguing and mysterious enemy who is visually and conceptually arresting, totally not like anything we'd seen before KOTOR and much more fitting in line with the lovingly created Sith Lord weridoes from Knights of the Old Republic 2. Choosing that ponderous slightly-unsettling void theme from the prison box area to be the theme of 'The Brotherhood' was a truly inspired choice too; it makes you feel like you've stepped into an alien world space, totally beholden to their laws and playing to their pace once they seize control of the narrative. In story alone, I think this first part of the mod is fantastic.

But then we get to the gameplay. Now I understand how it is; a mod creator is not a tried and tested game developer who has teams of feedback and second opinions to help them fine-tune the fiddlier bits of design such as balancing. We just have our ideas about what sounds cool and what we felt should have been in the original game. I imagine our Mod author here found KOTOR to be too easy, probably felt that KOTOR II's decidedly tougher edge fit better and wanted to bring that to the first game. But let's just say that in trying to make a 'challenging' experience, this mod crosses over into eye-brow raising difficult curve territory right fast. First off, the mod deprives you of your party. In a party-based RPG- they remove everyone else. Then the mod conjures situations that will make you question if this was even designed with the hardest difficulty (what I play with) in mind. Basic enemies with eerily high stat sheets, boss fights in narrow corridors with minimal prep time. And on the later end there are encounters that I can't even begin to defend and to me can only be the result of someone who lamented the fact that KOTOR is an RPG and not an action game. Putting the player in a circle of sword wielders to be cut to death expecting the PC to be built to the exact specifications you've designed your PC is a frankly amateur design faux-pas. (I'm lucky I invested in a least one CC, because that is absolutely not a given in a free-form RPG like KOTOR.)

Solomon's Revenge marks the second mod in the collection, and this is when the scale explodes into truly mind boggling territory. Practically all the naked limitations that were present in the first mod have been entirely leapfrogged. Not only is there voice acting, pretty good voice acting at that, but there are custom maps! I can't even comprehend how that was achieved- and a lot of them look great, a couple in particular look genuinely incredible! I think it was about now when I started to note the author's writing prowess which, apart from one early typo (wrong version of 'To', I do it myself all the time) was seriously good. It was confident and expressive, and whilst I could tell that KOTOR II's standard was sort of the aim, especially in some of the later 'weighty' dialogues, I think the quality doesn't quite reach that high. But that, in turn, brings it pretty neatly in line with KOTOR 1's standard anyway, so what I'm trying to say is that it fit. The character felt strong, the narrative grabbed my attention, and I pondered the story of the central companion, Shadow, for a while after the credits. If only it all wasn't so self indulgent.

Now again, trust me when I say that I absolutely understand where the 2009 author of this mod is coming from, but I'll bet even they, when looking back at this script, can cringe and concede: "Yeah this goes on about 50 pages too long." The basic idea was to tell this sweeping narrative that, occasionally through your eyes and sometimes through the eyes of a third party, would tell the story of events leading up to the Jedi civil war. Fair enough. But this game lingers to the point of having flashback scenes for every single significant event mentioned in the timeline, all of which are playthrough sections with that signature questionable difficulty balancing and a regular hijacking of your personal agency. In that way, this mod actually reminds me a lot of those beginning 8 hours of Knights of the Old Republic 2, in that everytime you think the game is going to open up and give you your freedom, it seizes the narrative for another highly orchestrated procession of scenes. Not that I expected some Bioware sized second game area out of this mod, just the freedom to play the character I'd built throughout the game would be nice. (The flashbacks regularly switch out the player character, which is very impressive technologically because I didn't even know KOTOR 1's engine could do that, but still rather annoying.) 

Shadow, or the other 5 names you're going to know her by at the end of this thing, is the protagonist of this tale, not really the player. And her story is surprisingly engaging given she's the only member of the main cast without a proper voice actor. (She's voiced totally through pre-packed alien grunts) However, self indulgence raises it's head as nearing the end of this story her scenes of personal revelation, specifically through flashbacks and back-and-forths with Solomon, drag heavily. Conversation and argument points are stated and restated until they're bleeding out of your ears, battles inexplicably reset themselves several times over, and the final monologue stabs at your patience as an ostensibly dying man embarks on a mile-long monologue to make Shakespeare blush. For the final hour and a half of play I was begging for it just to end, as the mod had entirely outstayed it's welcome. Yes, that might have coincided with the absolute flurry of enemy-spam boss fights hosted one-after-the-other with inane mechanics even worse than KOTOR's vanilla Malak fight, which was such a shame after the mod featured one truly fantastic finale-feeling boss fight at the head of this unsolicited boss royale.

All that being said, though the presentation was flawed and the plot far too lingering, what was actually accomplished was incredible. We get to see the Taris promenade turned into a battle zone, (with rather questionable tactical cohesion considering both armies are literally standing in front of the other and blasting) we get to face Mandalore in a one-on-one duel set in a strikingly epic bridge that looked to be a custom map, (Loved the design of Mandalore) and we even get a glimpse of the ancient conquests of the original Infinite Empire. All that is rather haphazardly wrapped around a decently written overarching plot with characters that I'd personally consider to be memorable. So would I recommend this Mod for a KOTOR lover? Absolutely, I think it's a total must play! But would I say the same for a newcomer trying out KOTOR for the first time? No, it's too unevenly constructed, and unforgivingly balanced for that. And would I play it again? Maybe... it depends what I would do with the mod on a second playthrough. I know there are two paths, good and evil, and I am curious as to what would change for the second path, but I also don't know if the frustration and bloat is worth enduring again just to see the other side of the narrative. Still, a very impressive mod overall and certainly worthy of it's legendary title in the Star Wars KOTOR modding community. Let's call it a B+ in my arbitrary, largely meaningless, rating system. Seems apt. Oh, and the 'plus' is because the mod does what Bioware failed to do and gives the player the chance to earn and wear Revan's robes. At least the author knew what the fans wanted there. 

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Review

 The force can do terrible things to a mind

Ever a creature given to totally inane and wanton flights of fancy, just last week I was enveloped by the inexplicable and singular desire once more to play through Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic in it's entirety; something I haven't done since before the inception of this blog. Only this time I wanted to do it with the finest that the community had to offer, dripping with the best of the best mods that the game could boast- until I found out that some of the big one's are totally incompatible with one another, so then I had to pick and choose. At it's core, however, I was still playing the KOTOR game which I fell in love with all those years ago and crowned highly on my list of favourite games ever. Do I stand by that designation, even today? Does the game still stand up enough to warrant the renewed interest around it in the light of the Knights of the Old Republic Remake, and have my recent gaming experiences at all reshaped how I look at KOTOR? Let's discuss.

'Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic' was a title from the Bioware golden age set within the Star Wars universe and coinciding with a series of Dark Horse comics set in an era of the Star Wars mythos still totally unexplored by Film or TV. If you've never had a chance to read the Knights of the Old Republic comic series, I would definitely recommend it, as even amidst the pretty decent quality Dark Horse Star Wars run, that collection in particular stands out as absolute gems. (I remember being helplessly hooked to the series back when I was a kid.) Released in 2003, KOTOR was a RPG that benefitted from Bioware's work with the exceptionally well-received Baldur's Gate games, as Bioware found a way to translate the Third Edition of D&D into a Star Wars game just as they had done with Baldur's Gate and Second Edition D&D. Of course, for your average Star Wars fan, the origin and basis of the mechanics was perfunctory, all we cared about was that this was a Star Wars RPG and it played good.

Using a D20 combat system linked with your typical attributes-stat-sheet set-up, KOTOR is built for real-time, round based, combat encounters with a limited number of feats and force abilities available at the player's discretion to add strategy and moment-to-moment decision making. The effectiveness of these powers, the likelihood of scoring hits, and the activation of crits, are all decided on behind-the-scenes dice rolls further influenced with bonuses granted from the stat sheet. When I first played this game I stumbled into it's systems having no idea what a D20 system was, and came away no more elucidated, yet incredibly I finished the title on the hardest difficulty with a character I can only assume was horribly sub-optimal; which is to say that the systems Bioware established here are decently complex if you want to get into them, but accommodating enough for an actual child to work them. I can attest to that from personal experience.

Coming back to the game after having learned of CRPGs and beaten the considerably more difficult Baldur's Gate games, I can appreciate the slight layers of complexity that allow for a decent amount of flexibility and distinct player builds. I won't lie to you and say there's a crazy amount of build variety on display here, even the six classes (three Jedi, three non-Jedi) are only really sliding scales from 'high mana user' to 'low mana user', or 'heavy weapons guy' to 'small arms man'. But that ankle-deep complexity works in the game's favour, as it gives you more time to focus on the act of playing the game rather than the interim moments of reading ability sheets and deciding how to approach each encounter. You won't have any truly taxing fights that challenge the limits of your creativity and resourcefulness, but you will spend a lot more time in the thick of combat and exploring the Star Wars Galaxy. 

Speaking of, KOTOR delivers us a version of the Star Wars universe that we had never before seen in any of the movies. An era set thousands of years before the prequels, wherein the Republic was not yet the de facto government of the universe, and crimson-saber wielding Dark Jedi could be expected in the hundreds as they spawned from a Dark Side fuelled Sith Empire. This is a Galaxy both familiar and unfamiliar, with technologies comparable to the Star Wars we love, but with a medieval twist that grants a more fantastical and mythical taste to the narrative. You have protocol and astromech droids looking decidedly more alien, newly designed fleets of Republic and Sith battle ships that adhere to the impractical-but-shapely philosophy of normal Star Wars starships and a more 'honorbound Knight' twist to how force wielders dress that I find instantly evocative and iconic. KOTOR looks the part of a Star Wars Era flawlessly, no doubt helped by the work Dark Horse did on shaping the world in their stellar comics. 

KOTOR tells the story of the return of the Sith Empire heralded by the legendary Jedi war hero Darth Revan and now succeeded by his traitorous former apprentice Darth Malak. You play a lowly Republic contractor inexplicably thrust into the middle of this conflict only to slowly discover that you might have more a role to play in this war than you'd ever of guessed. The narrative of this game is widely praised as one of it's greatest aspects, and it is for such good reason. Bioware's writers perfectly played off the beloved 'farmer to hero' trope that Star Wars lives and dies for and twisted it into grander, evolving beast with one of the greatest rugpulls in gaming. These writers took Star Wars, imbued it with another genre (swords and sorcery) and created a darkly majestic storyline that KOTOR fans still giddily discuss to this day; all over fifteen years before 'The Mandalorian' launched. If only this story could have served as the bar for narrative writing in the Star Wars universe going forth, we wouldn't still be having discussion about whether or not Star Wars has the depth for intelligent stories. (It does, and KOTOR is a masterful dip into the very crest of that lake.) 

One who has played any games from this studio before will likely be able to guess the structure of the game. After an introduction world you are set free on several planets, most of which are iconic in the source material, and you must engage complete questlines on each planet in order to serve the greater plot, which in this case is tracking the location of some mysterious powerful weapon called 'The Star Forge' which is giving the Sith Empire a domineering edge in the war for the galaxy. Each planet gives us a self-contained story delving into the state of the universe from this corner, one touches on a once cloistered ocean world now turned in a fulcrum point for the entire war thanks to it's exclusive production of the healing substance 'Kolto', another tells of the struggles of the tribal Wookies of Kashyyyk against slavery, all present the player with choices and consequences for how they want to shape the Galaxy they are saving. Now admittedly, these are choices in the very black and white 'Light Side', 'Dark Side' variety (for the most part. There are a couple of morality stunters packaged in there too.) but they still provided the freedom to be the Jedi that you want to be, a hallmark of great Bioware design.

As a Bioware RPG, you can expect a lionshare of the writing weight to be placed on characters and their interactions with the player, both as members of your party and people you meet in the frontiers, that is just the Bioware way. But even recognising that high Bioware standard, I have to admit that KOTOR in particular does a simply marvellous job characterising even the individuals you brush past for a single quest line over the whole story. Characterisation in the writing is so good that there are some standout characters you'd love to stick around more, and whom make me rue the fact that KOTOR is one of the only RPGs of it's type not to feature an end-slate 'where are they now' slideshow during the credits. Of course, this expands to most of the companions too, who are all classics for their contributions. (Even if I think that from a gameplay standpoint, there's a couple too many companions for them all to have unique talents and you're probably going to end up ignoring at least two for the entire game.)

I must say, however, that whilst many of the characters are personable and likeable, from the headstrong Jedi prodigy Bastila Shan to the scrappy Twi'lek rascal Mission Vao, (and the lovably blood-thirsty assassin-Driod HK-47, of course.) I don't think most of these characters boast incredible depth to them or anything. Which is fine, they serve the purpose that they need to well enough and aren't cardboard cutouts because Bioware simply would never write 2 dimensional characters like that, but in terms of character writing I don't think Bioware placed the bulk of their efforts in these people. Which unfortunately means that for the characters who aren't immediately ingratiating, such as the annoyingly testy Carth Onasi and the conceptually exciting but physically bland Canderous Ordo, it can be a chore to hang around them long enough to learn what their character growth journey shapes up as. (I know people out there like Canderous but I can't help it: I find his war stories incurably boring.) 

What I love about KOTOR is the way it takes a fresh period of Star Wars history and makes it yours, to explore, to redeem, to corrupt, to adventure within; and it does so in the familiar pattern that Star Wars fans love. We have our own team of ragtag adventures that smuggle across an iconic disc-like ship and who are thrust into an exciting journey to stop a galactic tyrant. It's like a full Star Wars film just for you, and I buzz for that sort of personal attention. Of course, I also adore the way it takes that step that not all RPGs do, and gives the player their own spot of purpose within the world so that events we're shaping feel like they have consequence to us! They were clever about it too, obfuscating the connection with typical 'nobody from nowhere' set-up that we come to expect from our RPGs nowadays, only to flip the script in the final act; I love watching the big scene where it gets revealed every- time!

In contrast, my griping points about KOTOR are few and utterly unrelated to the narrative which I think is actually one of the best that the Star Wars universe has ever enjoyed. I think that the force powers lack in choice, not that I'm wanting for a D&D sized spell book but there could be more goodies to look forward to in the last five levels of levelling beyond just upgrading some powers to auto-win CC variants. I dislike the lack of fast travel points outside of the ability to transit back to the Ebon Hawk, which in itself can only be done in certain arbitrary locations. Pazaak is fun, but about as deep as a pond once you realise it's a modified version of Blackjack with all the special features removed. And I despise the enemy spam in the final level, along with the tedious 'unique mechanic' of the final boss fight, but then I have an entire blog ranting about my thoughts on Bioware final level enemy spam, so I don't need to go into any more details on that here.

I think KOTOR shows us how an absolute icon, legend of a game can be a lean and tight experience with great ideas behind it, rather than being some bloated 100 hour adventure that's dripping with endless sidequests and extra routes and stupidly large dungeons. It actually surprised me several times how quick and sweet some of KOTOR's dungeon areas were and how much more I enjoyed them because of that, rather than having to endure a total slog through identical corridors like some more contemporary RPGs prefer. (I love you, 'Pathfinder: Kingmaker', but you have a problem.) When I finished KOTOR, I had a 42 hour save file; and that's only because of a huge 10 hour-long mod which I installed and played through on top of the base game; (Which is the reason for the robes I'm wearing in some of these screenshots) a thirty hour game can be a legend too.

None of which is too say that KOTOR is a totally polished experience, because beyond some levelling short-comings, this game has bugs, some of which are pretty bad. One I've seen consistently, as in every time I've ever played, is the bug in which character questlines (all of whom require a notoriously fiddly approach event to trigger) just don't start, or how Mission's entire plotline will break if you open an empty room in a key plot area before her quest is started. I have never managed to play every companion quest line in a single playthrough, and in fact only finished Juhani's, and thus did them all, in this most recent playthrough that I did for the review. Also, it took hours of fiddling to learn how to get this game working on 1080p, betraying the need for some sort of basic update patch that this game has been wanting for over a decade now. I don't know who the licence holder is for this game these days, but they've got to show this game some love. It's a classic!

In summary, Knights of the Old Republic is a revered and worthy gem of Bioware's glory days that excites and impresses today just as it did back in 2003. A classic that might show it's age on a technical front, but effortlessly holds its fun factor even against the titles of today. It's plot is iconic and involving in all of the best ways, and it's characters have just that right level of heart to latch onto yours quicker than you'd expect. It's gameplay systems are robust, if a little bare, and the size of the game is neat enough to be experienced in a a much more sensible timeframe than most modern RPGs demand. With all this taken to account, it hardly takes any deliberation at all to say that 'Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic' is worthy of an A Grade and an express recommendation because classics like this deserve to be played more. Whatsmore, you really should give this game the time of day before the PS5 Remake turns it into an action-based Souls-like in the near future. (They literally said 'God of War' and 'Nioh 2' are inspirations. What the heck does that even mean for a party-based Stat-sheet roleplayer?)

The sudden, yet probably deserved, death of Artesian Builds

 Requiescant in pace

It can be quite galling to learn just how fragile most of what we have in the world truly is. Like a delicate ice sculpture, ostensibly steadfast and immaculate, balanced on a graceful pin-prick, all but one errant shove away from shattering into a thousand tiny shards. Such is everything we own, in one way or another, but it certainly is a much warmer and comforting frame of mind to believe in one's own security and the illusion that is 'permanence'. Of course it never hurts to be aware of one's own mortality, it can be a humbling and straitening practise, reminding you never to become too complacent and never to trip into a trap of your own hubris. Because make no mistake, fooling yourself into believing you're invincible is a one-way-trip to falling right into your own hubristic web, tumbling over your manicured world and irreparably destroying all you've built for yourself and those about. Such are responsibilities of a world built around delicacy, for they tend to be... delicate. 

All of which is a flowery way of me saying that the blame for the sudden and total collapse of the 'Artesian Builds' PC building company lies solely at the feet of the man who built it, and his actions have soundly ruined what might be safely characterised as 'the perfect gig'. Theirs was a business model built around the creation and shipping of high model gaming PCs for big price points, and as any company with that uber specific audience in mind would strive for, they made the wise decision to target Twitch Streamers for their marketing push. It was a sound strategy, and it worked out well for that initial shot of notoriety. Partner with a Twitch Streamer in order to pimp out your gross gamer-themed energy drink and you might snag a few customers from that viewer base if you're lucky and the moon's are shining bright on you, but send a Streamer a custom built PC and those vectors between the target audience and the marketing audience will clash into beautiful profits. What better advertising could you possibly hope for than literally having a regular and arrested audience enjoying content that is being powered with your product? Demonstration and gratitude, wrapped up in a neat package.

Artesian managed to hit a stride faster than their competition by partnering with just about anybody on the platform with a pulse, which snagged them clients everywhere from small Streamers to huge Streamer networks like OTK. They team bolstered and swelled in kind to the influx of business until they were managing a small army of around 50 employees, probably just enough to keep up with the busy work of building and shipping PCs, managing the now-garishly big marketing effort, and ignoring their smaller creators. Yeah, Artesian sort of developed something of a reputation for allowing anyone to join the club, so to speak, but not really treating all of them equally. Big Streamers could expect regular contact, free gifts and that attention which influencers crave so desperately, whilst smaller Streamers earnt the right to advertise for them. And that's about it. There were a few tiny promises of kick-back profits that would correspond to the number of referral clickthrough's that resulted in purchases, but such deals are typically writhe with so many caveats and meticulously crafted clauses that they're hardly the brilliant deal they're always pitched as.

But how could it be that Artesian lost their interest in supporting the smaller creators? I mean, they seemed to be so homely and approachable what with their regular PC building live streams, more recently coupled with giveaway events for expensive hardware: what about any of that hints at a callous company? Well as it would turn out, it was through these very livestreams that we'd eventually get a spotlight presentation of exactly the sort of mindset that Artesian, or perhaps just their CEO, fostered behind the marketing faces. Which is another example, as though we need one, why your CEO should never be hanging around the front door of your company, speaking with the public and dragging the name of everyone behind them everytime they make a blunder. It really is irresponsible on everyone's part. And if he must make the appearance, for the love of god don't let the idiot wear his Starlord cosplay. Please.

In a livestreamed giveaway this CEO, now widely known as 'Discount Starlord', or as I like to call him 'Crapp Pratt', aired to the world exactly what kind of person he is, the standards his company operate under, and why most people really probably don't want to be associated with him or his team. The magic moment came when one small Streamer who was picked from a random onscreen raffle, won themselves an expensive PC giveaway. What should have been a moment of celebration took a wholly uncomfortable and weird turn when Crapp immediately launched into investigating their analytics live on stream to find all the ways that this small creator wasn't worthy of the giveaway prize they'd just won according to watch-time, click-through rates and the general size of their audience. Just to be clear, none of these specifications were announced before the giveaway, they were conjured on the spot. And if you think that Crapp here was tactful about the surprise rejection... he wasn't. Transcribing his words doesn't do a lick of justice for demonstration how he justified his actions, and even if I did regularly embed videos I wouldn't want his smarmy mug on my blog for a thousands miles. All I can say is that in England we have a word for people like him who speak in the way that he does, and it's starts with C.

This was a man who had offered out his hand to feed scraps to the community only to shut it when he didn't like the look of those who took up the offer. One creator was too small, another didn't have a click through in their fourth months of partnering, neither asked to be mocked and insulted on a Live Stream by the presumably well-off CEO of a multimillion dollar company. And as you can imagine, that did not go down well with the community. The Twitch community, moreso than most other content creator groups, tends to be very protective of their own and tuned into pretty much every potentially-viral word that is mentioned on or about their platform. So when word starts going around that Artesian Builds screws over smaller creators, does so in a callous and sing-song voice, and has a CEO with a face so punchable I can only assume he has to leave the house with a full face-mask for fear of coming home with a face like a walnut, those who are partnered are going to start rethinking their relationship.

Artesian sparked a wave of backlash, their CEO dragged himself in front of a camera to squeeze an apology out of his fisted glove and agree, under perceivable duress, that giveaways should be available to all creators, big or small. But as some might say, it would seem that Artesian's Doomsday clock hit midnight. They lost their partnerships, big and small, as everyone fled the apparently soulless company, (including OTK) competitors swooped in to snatch up the bereaved and score a quick swig of good publicity and, almost by clockwork, some shady tax filing dealings by Artesian were dragged into the light and the company had an even bigger enemy on the horizon. On the heels of a single livestream, they had lost their reputation, the lionshare of their biggest Twitch Partners, their lucrative sponsorships with Intel (Intel pulled out so quickly you'd have thought they were there watching the livestream themselves) and ended up under investigation by the Franchise Tax Board. Lock up your CEOs, everybody; they're a menace to society!

In the wake of this, rather understandably, Artesian Builds ceased production. That's probably mostly due to the last issue, pissing off the tax man is a pretty quick way to get your business licence revoked, but the immediate dissolution of their entire target market means that even if they manage to scrape their way out of this through that employee buy-out they're considering, there's no business waiting for Artesian on the otherside. In the space of a single week the world moved on and fifty people lost their jobs, all because of the machination of one crappy Starlord cosplayer who happened to be a CEO. And just like that, the ice sculpture slipped and a perfect iron grip on the streamer customer base shattered into a million irrecoverable pieces in the blink of an eye. Life is fragile everybody, always respect that.

Pixelmon

 From familiarity to ignominy. 

Many moons ago I remember a brief period when the name of 'Pixelmon' stood for promise. A smashing together of Pokemon and Minecraft in a fairly well-developed crossover mod that I can only assume was darting just our of sight from those notoriously litigious Nintendo lawyers, because it lasted for a very long time. But all good things must come to an end, controversy about malware hidden in the mod files started to come out and the project was drug through the mud. So total was the disgrace, that even with a successor Pixelmon Minecraft mod out today, there are still many, myself included, who can't bring themselves to take the risk of plunging in. Even when a Minecraft-Pokemon experience sounds like the coolest thing ever. But what does all of this have to do with the topic of today? Absolutely nothing. And that in itself is pretty interesting right off the bat considering I am, in fact, talking about 'Pixelmon'.

I can't say I would have been so bold as to abscond with the name of a publicly, and memorably, disgraced Minecraft mod so that I can use it to my own ends, but then I'm not Martin Blerk, aspiring Minecraft Twitch Streamer and founder of the multimillion dollar Pixelmon NFT project, all at the age of twenty. And yes, I said this was a story about NFTs, but stick around because this one has a surprise at the end of the rainbow, or rather at the end of the hatching. You see, Martin probably grew up watching the same sort of entertainment shows that I did, (I'm a bit older than him but we'd be considered part of the same generational divide) falling for Pokemon and then for Minecraft and tripping over himself over the idea of Pixelmon. The only difference is that Martin wanted to make something, but Pokemon had already been made, so he decided to just make it again; Nintendo lawsuit be damned! To be fair, he's not actually infringing on designs like the Minecraft mod continues to do to this day, but with the name similarities he could absolutely still be pursued by Nintendo if they were feeling particularly vindictive. 

In the vein of all NFT projects, Martin started off by promising entirely too much to be feasible by any sensible person, but then pitched it to the Crypto-bro audience and so naturally scored $70 million for his troubles. (What a terrible place this is that we call our world.) He wanted to create the biggest project that this space has ever seen, because that's literally what they all say, it was going to be an NFT based video game that played exactly like Pokemon except... except that the Pokemon are NFTs. Which, obviously, directly contrasts with the concept of Pokemon where you capture your own version of a type of Pokemon and train it in a specific fashion so that it may overcome others, even those of the same breed. But we already know that nobody in the NFT headset as a flying clue what on earth the NFT concept can do to further any of their wild ideas, but they shove it in anyway because that's how you attract the financial whales.

But Pixelmon was different over all the other promised crypto-scam 'game changer' projects for a couple of reasons. For one, Martin invoked the name and memory of an established and familiar franchise and said "That- but Crypto." which made for an easier to follow selling point than the typical whisy-washy nothing talk of: "We're going to build a social/economical/spiritual integration-platform/game/metaverse with liquidity/transcendence options baked into the main interface." Secondly, and this bit helps a lot for more traditional Kickstarter scams too, the thing had small gameplay demo. The demo in question featured no actual Pixelmon in it, and had since been accused of just being a copy and paste job of another little interactive project that our man copied without permission, but who has time for the little things like securing permissions when you're trying to revolutionise the crypto landscape!

Games are expensive to make, of course, and the purpose of Pixelmon was to make money, not waste it. As such our mastermind devised a plan, a way to turn the promise of a game in the distant future into profits today. Thus began the Pixelmon NFT eggs, each of which would cost the buyers anywhere around a neat $9000 to acquire, and each would contain a unique Pixelmon of a certain rarity. Of course, early investors would get all the best ones, and then they could sell it onwards to the latecomers for obscene profits once this project takes off and becomes the most valuable digital asset in the world. You might think I'm missing a step in that plan, but when you spend enough time dipped in the world of Crypto, every other scheme is founded and fuelled on the expectation of success and profit from the word go. It's part of the whole persona, giddy over confidence and callous hostility to any who dare raise even the slightest doubt. Their community have even devised dismissive vernacular within their little circles designed to ward off nay-sayers and bolster that cloistered herd mentality. Terms like 'To the Moon' (The stock price is going to rise so high it will figuratively reach the moon), 'Not Gonna Make it' (X is incapable of adapting to the imminent Web3 future and thus will soon be obsolete) and FUD. (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. Basically anyone who doesn't nod along to whatever you say like a good mindless puppy.)

These eggs were the only tangible part of this Pixelmon project, (even if they were, by-definition, digital, and thus intangible- you know what I mean.) and so their mystery and allure could be reasonably equated to the state of the soul of this entire brand. Martin swooped up tens of millions from this early egg initiative alone, and there was every reason to believe that once these eggs hatched, another event that was scheduled to predate the creation of this supposed game by several years, that rush in profits would seep into the early buyers. (Trickledown economics baby; when has that ever not worked out?) Heck, in their eyes 9k was just the floor, big profits were abound. (Because remember; talk as much as you want about big games and plans to revolutionise tech, at the end of the day all anybody is using this tech for is as another route to riches.) And then the eggs hatched, and pandemonium ensued. 

You see, the great conceit with NFT's, with Pixelmon being the poster child for this, is that everyone sees the huge amounts of money being thrown back and forth and just naturally assumes, as we are all hardwired to do, that this must be the work of a professional outfit. When so many of these NFT ideas are, in reality, just side projects from young programmers who don't really know what they're doing but can at least snap together a convincing presentation or two. You look at the scale of Pixelmon, and read the very pointed comments our Martin was making indicating how there was an established team of developers already hard at work on this game, and you expect an image of quality and professionalism. And then we see out first 'original' assets, being the Pixelmon themselves straight out of the egg hatching, and that mask was shattered to pieces for everybody.

That's because these Pixelmon looked bad. And not Bored Ape Yacht Club, intentionally ugly; I'm talking rudimentary, I slept through a 3D design class, you wouldn't even put these assets on a college portfolio, bad. Bug egged and garish, phallic and bulbous, utterly missing altogether; I tend to go here a lot, but I honestly mean it when I say that you could spend a couple of weeks training an AI to generate pixel models and you'd probably get better results. (They'd be unique, at least.) What was presented was... shocking. And all that confidence which Pixelmon had fostered, that spur of momentum, slipped into the abyss in a second. The market tanked, these $10 000 dollar NFTs became worthless and unsellable in the same swoop, and the dream that was Pixelmon popped out of existence before our very eyes.

It has been a hectic few days since that moment of destruction and everything has devolved so quickly. Our protagonist willingly doxxed himself, which is why we now know him to be a twenty-year old college kid with no experience doing anything to his name, it has come out how he did not have a team working on these NFTs and was just flipping assets from the Unity store or commissioning low-grade tweaks without disclosing their NFT purpose, and everyone who was led off a cliff has decided in one voice that the Pixelmon trend is over. That, in a messy nutshell, is the story of Pixelmon, which I arranged in as comprehensive of a cliff-notes summary as I could for people not as tuned into the NFT space as some others. I have a feeling that this will be a story with many updates, and given the game which is apparently still being made and with a real developer being hired on to make it, (after the NFT sales raised the funds to do so, obviously) I'm curious to follow up on whatever comes out of this PR massacre. Hopefully you'll be as curious as I am to hear about it.

Salty Rings

 You could hardly imagine the jelly

It ain't often that I feel the compunction to speak so much about a game I haven't even gotten the chance to play for myself, but Elden Ring is such a triumph it would feel like a waste not to natter a bit about it. I mean it's a Souls-Like Fromsoft game that has finally broken into the mainstream, shattered the landscape of open world games and reintroduced fantasy as a serious contender in the entertainment field. This game has become something special, achieved more than I ever thought this genre was capable of, and I could not be more happy for the FromSoftware team. They've always put in the work, taken their time, embraced their creativity and brushed fine strokes of art across this gaming canvass. And they've also managed to hit a goldmine of bad port companies, it truly is astounding how nearly every port they've ever done, save Demon Souls (which was probably arranged by Sony, if we're being honest) has been a bit of a mess. I guess every title, no matter how ostensibly flawless, needs it's great equaliser. For FromSoftware games it's the port, for Undertale it's the community.

But if there's one thing which is absolutely certain to occur whenever one singular game strikes gold with the vast majority of the industry, it's that all of this extreme positivity is due to attract extreme negative reactions in kind. It's that rubberband equaliser again, rearing it's head. And it's good to have dissenting opinions, to change up the pool of reactions and keep this world of creativity ever on-its-toes and never complacent. I mean, could you imagine what the industry would be like if no one ever challenged the norms and we resorted to hitting the same standards time and time again? Do you know what that would be like? It would be like having an entire industry that developed only Ubisoft games, and I don't know about you but I can't think of a single scenario which would kill all of my enthusiasm for games as an entertainment medium more. (>A foreshadow passes overhead.<)

Yet there is a difference between criticism and substanceless complaints and grumblings, in fact I'd say that pivot point would be the difference between a hot take and a bad one. Needless to say the internet is full of bad takes, with nothing constructive to them, it is the lifeblood of modern society, we all have the bad-take virus pumping through our fleshy veins; but every now and then you'll catch a glimpse of such a take from a source that still manages to shock you. Either because it's someone you thought was on the up-and-up, or the take was truly abysmal, or because they've failed to follow that most simple of rules in life: people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Which is one of many ways to say: try not to heavily admonish someone else for a something you yourself have problems with, because it just ends up badly for you. On that point, did you catch that twitter thread which was bouncing around?

Of course you did, I'm covering this more than a week late, but the reason is because, again, I haven't played the game so I didn't really feel like I had much of a horse in this race. So I've done a little bit of second hand research, absorbed a little infomation on both sides of the topic, and now feel a tad more qualified to cover this. Yet still I'll introduce it to you. Because, over the week a trio of established, and even senior, game developers attempted to insert their entire foots in their mouths in order to trash on the success of Elden Ring in some very specific ways. Let's inspect, and of course we're going to Twitter because that's where common sense goes to die. First, the protagonist of our story, states: "The fact that (Elden Ring) scored a 97 metacritic is proof that reviewers don't give a flaming poop about Game UX. My life is a lie." To which mambo-number-two replied "Nor PC Graphics, stability and performance, apparently", and the thread was topped off with a healthy "Nor quest design, really" by a third sacrificial lamb.

Now there are actual criticisms in these posts, they're general but they do raise topics of discussion; unfortunately they're presented in such a blatantly antagonistic way, that it's hard not to read these reactions as anything more than salty responses to the fact that Elden Ring scored higher than their respective games did. That first fellow seems to equate Elden Ring's success purely to an utter disregard of general acknowledgement for his job, implying that Elden Ring does so terribly at it's Game UX (Game User experience) that if it's merits were taken into account, Elden Ring would be recognised as far inferior than it's current perception and 'Mr Insecure' over here, could feel better about his job security. There's a genuine take in there, hidden away, but it's overpowered by the utter bitter scorn stuffed in the middle, which the other two commenters unwittingly (probably) assumed when they decided to reply. And whilst those later comments might have some plausible deniability in relation to their intended tonality, the first guy went on to drive in his bitterness with another tweet characterising Elden Ring's UX as so bad that he can only assume the team were 'smoking at their desks and working on CRT monitors'. Which is... strong. Basically saying that Elden Ring's systems are so shoddy that the entire team must be backwards Neanderthal/dinosaurs belonging to a bygone age of game design. Thems be straight fighting words.

And with a tone like that you just know that this has to be coming from a guy with some solid walls around him, so that he can safety toss those stones. I mean, you'd have to be crazy to make such a targeted and vindictive swipe against this one part of Elden Ring unless you've got the receipts to show that you do, indeed, know better. Either receipts or a more coherent criticism; either would be fine. Hmm? What's that? This guy is a UX Director at Ubisoft Stockholm? (Them walls looking mighty transparent right about now, buddy boy...) Ubisoft? Are you serious! Guys who make games so uninspired and formulaic that the entire team could be replaced by AI tomorrow and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Except the games would be completed faster and probably with less bugs so... yeah, why don't we just do that? The average Ubisoft employee has never coloured out of a dotted line in their entire lives, of course they're going to short-circuit and start spilling brain matter out their ears when they come across a title that takes any direction not explicitly laid out in design school. I haven't played Elden Ring, but I've played almost every Ubisoft game and they are vapid to the point of sleep-walking. The UX is streamlined to the same point that every aspect of those games are, so that you can breeze through everything quickly and absorb none of it. Do they display bad UX practices? No. (At least not nowadays.) But are they boring and uninventive? Absolutely.

Our second lady, well she quite rightly pokes at the bad PC performance for Elden Ring. However, because she attaches herself to this thread she has, whether or not she realises it, implied that reviewers have whole heartedly ignored PC performance in their impressions, which is an absolute lie. I don't think a single review I've read has failed to mention the issues on PC, they just haven't allowed that caveat to effect the score of their review of the game itself, for how it plays on consoles. If we're talking about a review on the PC version specifically, there have actually been a couple that have noticed and knocked off marks. But expecting everyone to just turn around and go "Well, the game is as near to perfection as anything, but the PC port is bad: 6/10" is kind of a reductive expectation. Different reviewers have different priorities; that's the reason we have multiple reviewers and not just one big amorphous conglomerate blob review monster that we christen 'The Meta Critic'. Also, one of her 'inspired' points is about something as vapid as 'graphics', which really lets you know where our lady is approaching game design from, huh? "Screw the stellar art direction, my character's skin doesn't have naturally refracting follicles!" Yep, she is a Graphics Programmer who has worked on PC versions of big, sometimes vacuous, titles; most recently 'Avengers'. Lesser jelly perhaps, but there's some lingering gelatin morsels on the plate. 

And the third of our terrible triplets; he has a problem with Quest Design and indirectly claims that it is no longer a factor of consideration in game reviewing. This time I am aware what he's digging at, and to be honest it's more of a UX consideration than raw Quest Design, but he was eager to get his little point there in the end so he could be part of the club. Elden Ring has no quest log or quest markers, it gives players a quest objective and trusts them to remember what they've agreed to, where they should deliver their quest to, and when it's appropriate to do so. Every Souls game operates like this, however with the size and open world nature of Elden Ring this free-form approach to giving players tasks stands out more. But does that make it bad, or different? Reviewers, again, do tend to mention this little design choice, and so likely factor it into their score decision process, but I think we're coming to grips with the fact that the people clearly didn't actually read any reviews before deciding to run their mouths on Twitter because again; that is where reason goes to die. This guy is, surprise surprise, Senior Quest Designer for 'Horizon: Forbidden West', and there's certainly a lot more genuine, and justifiable, salt here.

The original 'Horizon: Zero Dawn' was considered a very solid, if largely conventional, open world game with great graphics and a world we hadn't seen before, but it was robbed of the chance to make a significant impact on the gaming world when a month after it came out: 'Breath of the Wild' dropped. Suddenly all of those ardently polished conventional design choices got eclipsed by a game that seemed to lionise a much freer approach. No one is saying that BoTW pioneered these design choices, as some people like to claim, but they bought them into the spotlight with artistic flourish and dangerous intent, effectively stealing HZD's place in gaming history by taking all the air out of the room. Now 'Forbidden West' has landed, it gathers a lot of Steam, it's doing the rounds: Then a week later Elden Ring comes out and is an unexpected smash hit. It's the same story, all of those carefully manicured leap-frogs on conventional modern open world design traditions have been subverted entirely, and now people are moving their attentions exclusively to the new hotness. Horizon will make it's money, it's already sold strong, but once again that all-important place in history has been stolen and that sucks. The Team worked really hard and it shows. But is throwing shade on Twitter the best way to release that frustration? Maybe go watch a movie instead, might cause less of a PR disaster.

Since all of this has done the rounds, all three have privated their Twitter accounts, wisely noting that it was thoughtless blabbering on Social Media that got them into this mess and the same isn't likely to get them out of it, but their absence has left an interesting taste in the mouth. It feels as though that old affliction of 'old men waving their fist at new technology they don't understand' is taking hold on a lot more younger folks then you'd think. These people who study to make their games a certain way, and in all three cases probably do their job to the best standard they think they can, are being outperformed by someone who rethinks the practice altogether, and they're stuck in the mentality that: 'It's not the approach I would have taken, therefore it is wrong.' The reviewing public, along with the gaming public, seem to resonate with the full package as it is, 'but that just means they're insular and aren't respecting my sector of game development with their little monkey brains'. It's this failure to adapt one's viewpoint which all of humanity suffers from to some degree, I have mentioned the subjects I struggle with from time to time, but if you have the self introspection to be able to recognise that; you can directly and objectively address yourself and come away with greater insight, either to yourself or the subject in hand.

I don't really think that these three are suffering from terminal jealousy, even if it really does feel like that factor has played a part in these responses at least somewhat; but they definitely aren't evolved critics. Even I, a decidedly tepid and out-in-the-styx critic, see the overwhelming bias and lack of objectivity here. A lot of that stems from standing on the shoulders of that Ubisoft guy, he has the most issues with himself to work out here it would seem. Still, at the end of the day there were three genuine critical points here, all butchered in execution and thus rightly mocked, unfortunately burying the points they had under the fervour. Maybe in the future these people need to look into channelling their frustrations in a much more back-handed way; such as the way I dislike Toby Fox for being so multi-faceted and talented at different creative mediums that it makes me feel bad about being mediocre in my one chosen medium. God gave that man too many attribute points in character creation and it's upsetting the balance of my D&D game.