No More Room in Hell 2

The dead will walk the earth

I think perhaps the most plentiful type of game in the entire universe is the humble zombies game. Ever since it became apparent that developing functional AI was becoming more difficult to do and zombies would significantly lighten that burden. Although to be fair I guess that was never a fact that needed to be unearthed, huh? As the popular weave of entertainment culture bleeds from one medium to another, it's only fair that the spate of zombie movies that effect the world start to lead to more zombie games after a while. Although I certainly think at this point the zombie game craze has started to put even the movies to shame. Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising, World War Z, The Walking Dead, Dying Light, Project Zomboid, State of Decay, Days Gone, The Last of Us, Day Z, 7 Days to Die, Dead Island, Unturned, Resident Evil, believe or not the list does go on. Which is why it's with some surprise that it was only until literally last year that I heard of the free-to-play Steam zombie 'legend': No More Room in Hell.

Now if you're part of the big Steam community, the kind that dived into the Garry's Mod legends, then there's a very good chance you have heard of this game and are currently wondering how I can be such a square. You have to remember what a separate world PC only games are to the rest of the industry, not only do console players never hear about the cool stuff that happens in the world of PC, but console game developers don't want to swoop in and start getting involved with introducing that world through ports or compatible software apps, because a lot of the cool stuff that the PC community develops is utterly unmonetizable. That's why the very fact that No More Room in Hell started development in 2004 as a Half Life 2 mod pretty much cemented it's life and legacy as a niche product no matter how much acclaim it ended up receiving. 

The game was officially 'released' under Steam green light in 2011 and had a follow up beta release a couple of years later; which gives Yandere Dev some hope that he could be on the verge of ever actually releasing his game; he's riding up on about 8 years of development now. The game as it currently exists today, and you can go ahead and look the thing up if you want to, looks nothing like the Half Life 2 that spawned it. In fact, it looks and feels like its very own zombie game with a frightening amount of robustness for a free-to-play community developed game. For I suppose given all that time of development and the several years of sporadic free updates that the game has received, and continues to receive, to this day it would be a surprise if the game didn't feel like it's own thing in the modern age.

Of course, there's no comparison to the way this game plays up against the big AAA titles with their millions into development, but as far as paper budget indie zombie games go, there's actually a fair number of games that No More Room in Hell performs better than. Personally I've only had the chance to play the objective based mode and only by myself despite the fact the game feels like it was built for groups, so I've experienced a lot of the jank that the solo experience offers; but even then there's a solid control scheme, a decent amount of guns, and a totally serviceable palette to make this the solid baseline of zombie playing experiences. If any paid-for game out there can't match that level of play, it isn't worth your money.

It makes for a foundation. One which holds considerable potential to be built upon with a, from scratch, sequel just like the one which is rapidly approaching an early access release window later this very year. Developed and published by Lever Games, No More Room in Hell 2 is a considerably more slick co-op zombie survival game with elements of procedural generation and randomisation strewn into the gameplay formula to make a basis for extreme replayability. According to the previews, you won't just be finding different gear in the same containers; you'll be trying to find your way around small American towns were entire lootable buildings are swapped around, making the very layout of levels unreliable and shifting. Visually the game has had a severe improvement; not to any degree that gives really anything from this generation a run for it's money, but enough to hold it's own as a polished indie project over the original which, admittedly, feels very rough to play nowadays.

There are a lot of cool cues that the devs of this game have taken from their various contemporaries over the years; demonstrating that the decade of development hasn't left them totally out-of-touch with the trends of the day. Dynamic map shifting is already a big step in the modernisation angle, but I also noticed an in-game weapon modding action which looks like something out of 'Escape from Tarkov' (or BF2042; but I guess no one really cares for that comparison, eh.) There is said to be beheading and dismemberment at least considered within the newer engine, and a general greater emphasise on 'survival' through crafting menus. Not that I'm really a fan of every game having a bloody crafting menu but I can't deny the topic appears to be popular for whatever reason.

As with the original game, No More Room in Hell 2 will be looking to release in Early Access as it builds itself to be worthy of a full release and gain all the necessities that the studio believe the game still needs. (As well as perfect the move to Unreal Engine 5 that the game has been in the process of) Although the starting three maps are built to have replayability in them (to different degrees and in different fashions) the team want to build and release more before the end of early access, as well as a progression system and character customisation. All of which makes for a pretty darn ambitious indie project here, but then these aren't no 'first time' 'no experience' devs either; so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here.

Strangely enough, this is the sort of zombie game that would be more my pace than 'Back 4 Blood', with the slower zombies, more deadly atmosphere and greater strain on making every bullet count. I'm a sucker for the Project Zomboid style 'watch the walls slowly fall apart around you' style of play. Of course, all of these improvements over the original are necessities given that this sequel is going to be it's own, priced product. But given that the team manage the product they're promising, I don't see any reason why No More Room in Hell 2 won't be worth it's asking price.

"Lets do what Cyberpunk couldn't!"

Let's not.

We are looking at a new dawn for Eidos Montreal now that they've escaped the clutches of the big bad Square Enix, and though I have my considerable misgivings about where they currently reside, big names from Eidos antiquity seem to be adamant that the company is in better hands right now and that the mismanagement of Square is what led them to rough shores initially. Now I don't know about all that, I just know that 'The Embracer Group' sounds like a paramilitary group of post-apocalyptic nut jobs who prescribe the virtues of togetherness by a very literal and violent take on their adopted mantra: "Kill 'em with kindness". But choosing to believe against my gut I guess we can turn our minds off and look at this coming dawn as a new potential start for Dues Ex. And Legacy of Kain. I've never played Legacy of Kain, but so people seem to be excited about that too so I guess I'll be excited for them. Woo.

But this isn't just idle speculation on the many avenues that a free Eidos could go down without Square's boot on their neck, crushing their tracheas. In fact, the only man with a clue in the game's journalism sphere, Paul Tassi, seems to believe there's enough water in this well to parrot what was otherwise idle talk during a podcast about the early days of a new Deus Ex project. Now I know how that sounds, some guy reports on a rumour that some other guy said on a podcast; but Tassi ain't no chump, he does his homework. I trust his reporting a who lot more than I trust anyone else's. So when I see his name in a byline of an article talking about the ambition of a new blossoming Deus Ex game, I'm in the mood take that with a grain of salt and a celebratory cheer. Which I will because my god; it's been far too long since the last Deus Ex game graced us.

Deus Ex is often referred to as one of the greatest PC games ever made, and having played it myself more than two decades after it's release I can attest to the robustness it exhibits even in the modern day. Personally, however, it was Eidos Montreal's 'Human Revolution' that sold me over to the franchise. An incredible Stealth Immersive Sim with huge branching levels, an engaging globe-trotting conspiracy narrative that unfolded across a futuristic-but-grounded sci-fi setting, great script great cast, fun gameplay, timeless set pieces; it was everything to me at the time. It quickly became one of my favourite games of all time. Mankind Divided did so much right, but got so much wrong in the same breath as a sequel. By pure merit of the design direction it felt like a distinctly smaller game so that even though it's length was actually decently comparable to Revolution, it felt like the first act of a three part narrative. (Which is what it was supposed to be.)

Square Enix screwed over the game by assuming it would be enough of a success, whilst defanged, to lure players into sticking around for a three part franchise, even when that style hurt the body of a story in a game series that always delivered fantastic stories. Adam Jensen's narrative was teased heavily to swoop into the original Deus Ex cannon in two huge ways, but we never got to see that play out because Mankind Divided didn't sell well and Square immediately shoved the planned sequels on ice. Another step on their road to throwing in the towel and just going "Welp, we don't know how to make money from these franchises. They must be broken." I don't exactly know where a new Deus Ex would go, but I would hope that Eidos don't abandon Adam Jensen's story in spite of how Square screwed them. (Even if I'm pretty sure I already knew where that narrative was going, who he was going to end up crippling as the final boss and who he maybe ended up being related to from the original game.)

As the apparent rumour goes, Deus Ex are currently looking at their next project to achieve what Cyberpunk couldn't. On it's own that's a pretty decent sentiment, as Paul Tassi himself says it's a pretty confidant goal to shoot for, emulating the runaway success of Cyberpunk only with a landing that doesn't cost the company 75% of it's stock price in the proceeding years; that seems like a win-win all round! But, of course, there's just as many raised eyebrows as there are raised expectations. Such as the question of: what exactly is it that Cyberpunk couldn't do? Except for 'release when it's done', which to be clear would have been no great achievement if it had, that's the bare minimum we hope for. Is it the failure to be the branching RPG epic that people wanted? The failure to create that open-world Cyberpunk immersion that the trailers teased? Failure to provide a meaningful character customisation process that had consequence down the line? Or maybe just failure to stay in people's heads for the right reasons. Because I have to be honest; Deus Ex isn't really primed to tackle a lot of those.

Deus Ex is a single player RPG series with great stories and some choice and consequence, it isn't typically open world or character customisation heavy. In fact, character customisation tipped games usually don't have very well fleshed out leading characters, which would be a stark contrast to Deus Ex's Adam Jensen who's shoes fans have quite enjoyed stepping into over the course of the past two entries, even if Mankind Divided felt more like we were doing side-steps rather than any proud strides in those loafers. There are no fully realised open cities with dynamic crime and punishment systems, both angles that Cyberpunk attempted and failed on (to differing degrees) nor are there tons of meaningful side missions, which Cyberpunk... actually they didn't utterly screw up that department; they just forgot to bring side content that was more than just 'do this fight'. But then, Deus Ex isn't known for it's engaging and encapsulating side content either. In a nutshell; a Deus Ex that does what Cyberpunk doesn't, wouldn't actually cover any of the expectations Deus Ex fans have for a game like that. It would be something totally new altogether. 

So now we've followed Eidos into their lofty dreams, let's confront the practicality because it is stark. A big issue with what CDPR's dreams were, was that they believed themselves to be creating the next tier of open world game in order to steal that throne from Rockstar. Despite the fact that Rockstar have decades of experience making games like that, and a curated team of developers who specialise in those fields. CDPR didn't have the numbers to challenge that. Eidos don't have the numbers to meet CDPR's numbers, let alone to take over from that dream; especially not after they were just sold to a megacorp. Dreaming big is a part of equation and I'm glad that the next generation of minds attacking the Deus Ex franchise aren't doing so without ambition in their step; but letting that ambition slip into blind optimism can be dangerous; and it seems like they're starting right slap bang in that danger zone if their reported planning sentiment holds any real merit.

At the end of the day, Deus Ex doesn't need to be Cyberpunk in order to make all of it's fans happy; that's not what we come back to that series for. Even in the heights of Cyberpunk 2077 hype, people were happy for this game to serve as a companion to the Deus Ex games, not a replacement; and trying to leap frog the trainwreck to start your own steam train seems like a recipe for disaster. I don't want the Cyberpunk genre to become a synonym for 'cursed genre' after two well known Sci-fi franchises live and die at it's door. As much as Kotaku articles want to kill it off; Cyberpunk is still an incredibly cool and fruitful aesthetic and I'd miss it if it were gone. Deus Ex is coming back, and that's the good news I want to take away from this and thus I am going to; all the while hoping that the hopped up lunatic talk dies down by the time development kicks up.

I'm in one of those moods; lets talk Yakuza

 Yep, it's one of those blogs

Recently I been feeling a little bit hopeless, you know? That feeling that I assume we all get, but I wouldn't know because I'm just a disembodied pair of typing hands across the internet with no interaction with the outside world and thus have no measurement for comparison. And when I get to feeling this overwhelming loneliness and despair, I like to think about my favourite snippets of escapism that paint a kinder, more sensible world. No, I don't turn to classic examples of kids TV with their timeless lessons and great character role models, nor to highbudget TV shows of the day, nor to the countless smooth paced relaxation games like Stardew Valley. (Hah! I just lied and implied Stardew wasn't stressful, when it absolutely is.) No I turn to the one game that really unwinds the knots in my neck and fools me into state of faux contentment; Yakuza. The drama game series about a Japanese gangster who single handily beats up the entire country at least once a game.

I suppose some of that comes from the very specific feeling of 'otherness' that I, as a foreigner to the culture of Japan, experience when I play a game so heavily balanced on Japanese pop culture. Feeling like a stranger to everything around you that should be your various worldly lifelines feels like a total malfunction of being human, but being a stranger to a county and culture I live nowhere near and know very little about is how I'm supposed to feel, I'm not supposed to feel like the world view I have fits in over there; and so experiencing this hyper inflated version of Japan as a backdrop for the Yakuza games feels more natural for me than the waking world does, if that makes any sense. And that's before getting into all of the impeccably silly over-inflated action sequences and dramatic narrative events mixed with silliness and an odd sprinkle of pathos here and there. (Maybe a little bit too much pathos at times.)

Another part of my obsession undoubtedly comes from my love of crime drama and romance. Two repeated sources of fuel for Yakuza storylines in their constant desire to call back to old-school low budget TV crime movies and inexplicably elevate those narratives through bombast and scale. There's a great balancing act between the genuine human drama that lies at the motivations of some of our favourite Yakuza plotlines, such as Tachibana's search for his long lost and long suffering Sister, or Nishiki's scramble to mark out a sense of control in a world that constantly seems to abandon and discard him, that tugs at the heart of everyone. And then, when you're most vulnerable, the game will throw a big crazy set-piece at you where a giant Castle lifts into the sky to reveal an inner castle, or Kiryu Tiger Drops a literal tiger, or you get to double drop kick that slimy character who no one likes out of a restroom window on the fifth floor. (I am amazed he actually comes back later in the narrative only to be killed by a single grand slam that the player doesn't even get to perform.)

As for romantic element; I more referring to the classic sense of romance, When you look at the way that Yakuza characterises the act of being a Gokudo, (I'm using that term to differentiate the actual role from the name of the franchise) it's portrayed as this very noble profession of modern day warriors who often times end up protecting the disenfranchised or 'civilians' from the bad Gokudo or criminals who might prey on them. Very much in keeping with the dreamy imagination of being a gangster that those old Japanese Yakuza movies propagated, and the propagandistic meaning behind the title of Gokudo itself! It means 'going your own way' or something like that, implying some noble self-sacrificing art of defying a broken system so that you can carve out your own sense of good. And of course it's all a load of bollocks. The Yakuza are just thugs, they were born out of a merchant class who teamed up to harass anybody they could and they evolved through the years into an organised mafia. (I used to be very economical about how I talk about the Yakuza, but I can't be bothered anymore.)

All of these are just the elements that make Yakuza the style of game that I would be interested in, what keeps me coming back day after day is the quality of the games themselves. Now of course, I'm not a diehard original fan who has been with the series since the early days of Yakuza 1's terribly dubbed port wherein Mark Hamill played Majima. (Which even to this day sounds like an absolute lie, but is 100% truthful) But Yakuza 0 was a game I pretty much had my eyes on the second I saw it announced. I don't what it is, I just have an eye for these franchises that I spot for a fraction of a second and go "Yeah, that's the one for me." It was the same case with Persona that is was for Yakuza, and then all these years later I finally get around to playing the damn things and my inkling is always supremely underplayed, the games end up slapping harder than I could have imagined.

Although that isn't to say the other Yakuza games don't have their charms too. I think that Yakuza Kiwami had some great gameplay with it's fully realised styles system, and was only really held back by the fact that the entire game took place in one city which got tired quick. Kiwami 2 looked gorgeous, and that visual appeal really did help sooth the fact that the combat was largely gutted and toned down from it's Kiwami 1 highs. (Also Kiwami 2 story was tons better than 1's) Yakuza 3 is still the beast I'm currently butting my head against because the combat is literally the worst in the franchise. (Yes, I've seen the defenders and the heavy copium they operate on. Let's be frank, the fact that the combat is designed to reward one singular style of reactionary combat is not a 'complex evolution of the combat depth'; it's boring.) But I still love Kiryu and his journey enough to put up with all the sore points.

Because Yakuza is just one of those special franchises that even at it's worst is still the sort of experience that you can't really get anywhere else. Grand Theft Auto has it's influential ties to what this series is trying to do, but Yakuza 'goes it's own way' with a lot of the particulars and ends up with a regularly successful product; sometimes more than GTA is successful with some it's particulars. I have absolutely no reservations about declaring Yakuza 0's narrative as superior to any Grand Theft Auto games, in complexity, emotional stakes, character and pathos. (I would have a harder time saying that about Red Dead. Those stories are really strong.) Few games manage the perfect balance of open world minigame goodness that Yakuza does. And even Saints Row 2's balance of humour and drama is pitiful in the light of Yakuza on it's best day. (Literally every one of Kiwami 2's side missions is an exercise in utter weird in the best possible way)

So that is why when the chips are down and I'm struggling to find reasons to get out of bed in the morning it's titles like Yakuza that make me smile enough not to walk headfirst into incoming traffic. Which is perhaps one of the reasons why I find the burgeoning schism between western and eastern game studios as increadibly disturbing. There's so much great content on both sides of the world that an interconnected community allows everyone to enjoy, and it's worms like Square Enix upper management that put that relationship in danger. I hope that Capcom at least can maintain their ostensibly neutral stance on the issue that they've maintained thusfar, because if the Yakuza franchise just suddenly stopped getting English ports, that would be a genuine tragedy.

Flintlock: Siege of Dawn

Here's my double take

I'm not always a fan of everygame that flops out in front of me during press conferences which is why I tend to only ever really pick up on a choice few. However now and then I do end up passing by something which really should have appealed to me more, given the names behind the project. Which opens up dual lines on inquiry, namely in what exactly it is was I missed from the reveal, and how that reveal might have been lacking from a marketing perspective. But whichever lines I open, the result is that I end up paying the game a lot more attention. So allow me to go back on myself and take a real look at 'Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn', the action game that might not have swooned me when I first saw it, but did make me take that second look once I saw that the creator's of Ashen were backing in. Ashen being that great stylised action adventure game set across a dream-like dreary world with faceless dollish characters. It really sticks in the brain.

Whereas Flintlock absolutely slipped out of it, which speaks volumes about the power of an artstyle. Ashen is intentionally geometric in it's visuals, from the world to the shape of it's people, it's palette is washed out, it's theme nomadic; yet all of that blurs into a presentation that stands out amongst its peers and becomes that game's recognisable identity. What Flintlock has presented is no doubt visually superior to Ashen in terms of fidelity and rendering, likely as consequence of all the funds and growth the studio has enjoyed thanks to the modest success of their last game, but that has lost some of that unique visual style. And the visual uniqueness is a big deal; it's the key initial identifier when anyone looks at the game and thus makes the difference between an engaged watcher and someone who's just skimming the visuals for that 'wow' moment, like I was when I first saw this game.

But coming back to look at this game and forcing myself to care, I can see there are some elements from the trailer worth talking about. Namely the fluidity of the animations which seem, go figure, to grow upon what Ashen was doing; and is a very important component to making this style of game work. (I've said it before, action slasher games live and die on the responsiveness of combat) Also it would be remiss not to mention that the there's a real sense of depth to the palette we're seeing that seems to belie the scale of the open world available to us. Whether that's a trick to the particle volume filling the air equally with smog and specks of light, I really do feel like there's innumerable explorable nooks and crannies to plunder, likely brimming with monsters to slay, speaking of.

There's some pleasing variety to the denizens of this world, all pouring from some form of hell if I've read the description accurately enough. As the style of the game seems to be this mix between romanticised colonialism-era architecture and fantasy, the enemy creatures seem an intriguing mix between Conquistador skeletons and magical Armor-donning mystic knights. Of course, such variety and the one-on-one presentation of the bigger battles is going to draw some well-earned Soulslike comparisons, and considering the gameplay of Ashen I can only assume that those comparisons are very welcome. In fact, I do get this vague scratching feeling at the back of my neck that this is an action adventure reimagining of Greedfall in a way, making these two games peas in a pod for a very specific style of thematic genre. 

Flintlock seems to be leaning itself towards the mixing of styles of combat in order to make something that feels fluid and popping to the eye. As such there will be the heavy weight of a hammer's swing alongside the flare of magical arts, the range advantage of a gun and the stylish elemental flailing's of the companion rodent who flanks the hero. All of which feed into the flashiness of the power fantasy which makes this game's most stark departure from the Souls-like comparison I can find. Those games want you to feel the oppressive boot of weakness ever treading on you, whereas Flintlock owns the more traditional approach of letting the player be the whirlwind of death that they dream about being in their nighties. Although not so much that you don't feel the robustness of facing a deadly boss, of course. There must always be the balance.

Ashen was a game of few words, to say the least; meaning that by the very merit of adding a voiced protagonist, Flintlock is breaking new grounds. Now I'm not expecting some grand adventure of pathos and learning to unfurl before our character like a rich tapestry of consequence and growth, but I wouldn't be upset if that did happen. To be honest, I know very well how a definitive character can get between a player and their craft especially in games like these. Whoever the protagonist of 'Lords of the Fallen' was, I couldn't care less for their story, and William from Nioh bugged me no end with his utterly incomprehensive personal drives. (Seriously; why did he do literally anything in that entire narrative; It never made sense to me. And no, getting back his Irish fairy waifu does not cover the entire war he fights and wins.) Our Nor Vanek, aside from reminding me of Nara from Chorus, does not strike me as the type to hijack the players journey; so I can only pray we either get everything or nothing; not a nauseating half-job like this genre has suffered before.

Aside from that I feel the need to emphaise that this game looks fine. I know I've already complemented the thematic styling of the world, but visually I'm really getting that thirst to explore this city as I did for the cool vistas of Egypt in Assassin's Creed Origins. There's some traces of that DNA in some of the pale stone and tropical climate, only without the utterly enjoying elements that made that world a chore to navigate. (Seeing enemy patrols ever other street made me want to gouge out my eyes.) The open world aspect holds certain promises, and I wonder if an urban sprawl will prove the right step up from Ashen's nature-ruled plains and caves, or if the team will struggle as CDPR did in their jump from The Witcher to Cyberpunk. (Hopefully they won't struggle that much, even if they do. That would be a real shame.)

So upon second viewing Flintlock really does have a lot of unique charms to it, even if it's not the showstopping head turner that one might usually expect at a video game trade's show. This developer has proven themselves a talent in the past, however; which is why I'm willing to give this one the benefit of the doubt when it does finally arrive. It could be this is another big up and comer that the mainstream is sleeping on just like Spiders. Only with a much less spine-tingling name to recite so I don't have to clarify whenever I mention it that I'm not encouraging people to buy pictures of arachnids off Steam. Although that being said, at least I don't need to keep looking up a Spiders name on google to remember who they are. A44, not exactly a tongue roller, that one.

The Witcher 4 question

 42

Welp, we have an irrefutable example to hold up to the rest of the gaming industry that deciding to rush a game to launch in order to capitalize off the hype from today in hopes that the momentary rush of bedazzled early adopters will offset the backlash of a broken product is a risky venture no matter how big the game in question is. Unless, of course, you happen to be running a studio producing sports games, because Sports fans are straight sadomasochists when it comes to getting screwed out of their money for belittling value games. (Which is why the Sports game industry is dead in innovation, funnily enough.) Even after a whirlwind amount of sales for Cyberpunk, interest and respect for the game quickly fell off once people realised that only the prologue vaguely resembled the game that CDPR sold it as and how the actual game was riddled with bugs and/or totally unplayable depending on your system. Now, nearly two years after the fact, CDPR has lost roughly 75% of their company value and has surrender their spot as most valuable games company in Europe and most valuable company in Poland. (Somehow Techland have earnt that spot. Weirdly.)

So the mountains have wobbled and toppled over themselves and everyone is crying blue murder about the unannounced changes that are coming to the Cyberpunk 2077 post game support. It's becoming increasingly apparent that the promised 2 DLCs, with the first one testing the waters and the second being the game changing kick to the nuts in the vein of The Witcher 3's 'Blood and Wine' has been reduced to one small DLC. So where does CDPR expect to go next once they've finished airing out all those Cyberpunk plans that were in development too long to just scrap? (Like the 'Edgerunners' Anime that looks okay) Well they've actually already let us into that little secret thanks to a teaser screen shot of something we all very much know; a Witcher Medallion buried in snow. Oh yeah, they're doing the Witcher 4.

What makes this interesting is not only the fact that the storytellers fell over themselves at the end of Blood and Wine to let us know that this is the end of the story and we need to let Geralt rest, but that thanks to that retirement wherever we pick up the Witcher next is likely to have absolutely no connective tissue with The Witcher books thanks to the jettisoning of the last canon characters. Of course, The Witcher games always set themselves as occurring after the canon of the books, and are now a separate canon altogether thanks to another book being released since they started making the games. But Geralt was always very much The Witcher, and the games tended to bring themselves back into the path of characters from his long history. Triss Merigold, Yennifer, Ciri; so where we go next from here is pretty much uncharted grounds for the franchise.

And let me just be the first to express my disappointment that we won't be following Ciri through this game. I mean I suppose it was always going to be that way due to the exponential power of Ciri's abilities that would make any attempt to create a balanced gameplay experience antithetical to her canon power level, (you could just throw up a hand wavey power-draining excuse though. Every game does it!) as well as the multiple endings of the Witcher 3 that could very well end with Ciri locked in a stuffy dress for the rest of her life or even dead! (Although let's be honest with each other. We all know that only one of those endings for Ciri is canon. Ain't nobody patting themselves on the back and pimping on with a thoroughly dead Ciri.) I just assumed the reason why the CDPR team were so deadset against bringing Ciri into Cyberpunk 2077 was because they had plans for her in The Witcher 4, but it seems not. The director was just super self-conscious of their game not being seen as a cross-over property like Kingdom Hearts or Smash Bros. (Did he make that Smash Bros comparison himself? I think he did; and if he did that is more than a little asinine.)

All we currently have to go on for what will be covered in The Witcher 3 is the animal pedant in the snow which has been revealed to be of the Witcher School of the Lynx. A school that doesn't exist in the books or games, meaning that we essentially know nothing. However we do know that around the time of The Witcher 3 the Witcher profession was exceedingly rare with the School of the Wolf being perhaps the only place left with the know-how left to create and train new Witchers. Geralt was a famous figure, a long lived Witcher who's reputation made him a go-to problem solver all over the unnammed realm of The Witcher, and presuming this new game follows a successor or contemporary that inherently means we're stepping into the shoes of someone considerably less famous. Of course, that's not taking into account the possibility that this could be a prequel game. (Not traditionally a 'prequel' in the sense of 'story that leads into the original story' but rather just in the 'set before' sense.)

What has me equally curious and worried is the prospect of expanding the border of a nameless world, because the world of the Witcher, whilst expansive, is designed to be very functional. Every wild tangent of lore and world building has it's relevant place within the narrative, even if only slightly, because the pace of the narrative is set to tell a story. Thus there aren't really huge patches of untapped potential waiting for the CDPR team unless they go into making their own narrative by scratch, which in a way they have already been doing all this time but never quite without the heavy spine of pre-set context propping them up. This is a frontier that I'm not sure they've come up against before. The Witcher springboarded off a popular book series in Poland, Cyberpunk off an established boardgame with help from the creator, primarily following an established legacy character from that pre-written fiction. The Witcher 4 will be uniquely CDPRs, making this a endeavour that could make or break their creative spine. 

I also worry about the difficulties that CDPR might have living up to what The Witcher 4 needs to be in the wake of Cyberpunk 2077. It's no secret that Cyberpunk was the culmination of all that studios successes up to that point; for every game they threw their entire weight into squeezing every inch of productivity out of their employees, often times regardless of how their work life balance. The great dichotomy of this industry is now that they fell face first with Cyberpunk, people are going to want The Witcher 4 to earn back the accolades of the study by being some massive product, maybe as big as what they pretended Cyberpunk was going to be; but the studio has suffered so much reputational damage, value shrinkage and general hardship that one has to wonder if that would even be feasible. Right now, CDPR is a studio with the reputation for burning it's staff to cinders without the offsetting prestige of being the industry golden boy. They might end up not attracting the level of talent they once did.

The Witcher 4 question I purpose is thus: Can The Witcher 4 restore faith in CDPR to the point it was at after The Witcher 3; and I think no. It might make some significant ground to that end, but The Witcher 3 was the culmination of an 8 year long franchise with a running narrative. (A loosely running narrative, but it was running along nonetheless) Mix that with the time when The Witcher 3 came out and the relatively lukewarm open world games that were growing stale, the pleasant surprise it ended up being for everyone involved; and much of what made that the hit it was turns out to be irreproducible. In some ways The Witcher 4 is looking like a big reset button for CDPR bringing them back to something resembling square one. Of course, that's 'square one' in comparison to the heights of Cyberpunk pre-release, and thus is still miles better than they were when they actually started out. So to break my two year long train of pessimism, I'm going to say that CDPR might claw their way back out of the doghouse for the industry, but its' going to be slow going.

Noble 6: Ghost of Reach

A stone overtunred

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I only really started playing Halo at the beginning of this year. In fact, it was specifically so I could do a quick review series on the entirety of the Master Chief Collection, the first of such reviews you can find here. However, though I like to big-up the whole 'I had never played Halo before that moment' the truth is only partially right there. Because whilst I had never played any of Master Chief's journey before, I had actually played one Halo game. That game was 'Halo: Reach' and I loved it. That attachment that so many old Halo fans have towards John-117 is how I feel about the secretive 'Nobel 6' from the defence force that were overwhelmed during the Fall of Reach, and even having played the rest of the story I still think that Reach offered some of the most poignant and cinematic moments of the franchise in it's best moments. As such, as far as my nostalgia is concerned; Reach is my Halo game.

I set this as an establishment to the issue of how important this game is to me, such that when I tell you how curiously I approach a fan animated project to tell the story of Nobel 6 after the events of Reach I get a bit curious. Now that's for a few reasons. Firstly, we are currently in a golden age of technology where fans are totally within their capabilities to animated high quality video footage if they have the know how, and I'm always excited to see the results of all that. Secondly, I am personally invested in a couple of my own 'fan fiction' sort of projects, they're not to the scale of highly produced animatics, but I'm familiar with the balance between respect and imagination you want to juggle in that situation. And thirdly, and arguably most importantly; what after Reach? Didn't Noble 6, you know, freakin' die on Reach? Isn't that sort of the point of his entire narrative and story? Well I have to see what sort of project has the gall to stop on something as significant as a sacrifice plotline.

Right now what we have is a teaser trailer that looks exceptionally well animated given the tools at the team's disposal, conveying the bare basic premise as well as giving us a look at the armour of Nobel 6 and a brief snippet of some of the voice work going behind bringing this story to life. (Oh, and it sounds like the team are reusing some of Reach's incredible soundtrack. Can hardly ride them for doing that, can I?) As I understand things, this narrative is set to follow Nobel 6 embarking on several completely lone wolf guerrilla campaigns against the occupying Covent force on Reach after surviving his final encounter with them after the Pillar of Autumn's evacuation. Actually, from the look of things it might be more accurate to say that the epilogue mission never even happened at all by these guy's reckoning; as they depict Nobel wearing his full armour without a broken visor like what happens at the end of Reach. (You know, that perfect Bookend moment which brings the narrative finale back round to meet the intro? They just scrubbed that.)

The presentation appears to be a story told in reverse after Nobel 6 has been bought back by ONI to answer for his, presumably several, years AWOL in the middle of a Convent/Human war. (Master Chief could have certainly used another badass one-man-army helping him out during the campaign against the Covenant.) So in that way somewhat similar to that other fan-verse Star Trek story that was shut down all that time ago, Axanar. A style of narrative presentation I inherently dislike due to the way it divorces the tension of possibility from the followed events as we know the speaking character gets through it all unscathed; they're the one telling the story. Although I suppose in this particular case, it would be a bit weird for the team to resurrect Nobel 6 just to kill him off again, huh?

Now although the animation looks eye-catchingly good, the voice work gives away the amateur nature of production. There's a bit too much unnatural 'gruff' going on behind the ONI commander's words (Which I've noticed becoming very popular in indie games recently. I don't know why non-actors don't just play it straight and allow their script to do the heavy lifting) and some questionable mic quality. There was also the decision made to give Nobel 6 a new voice which was... unnecessary. But I can kind of see why they went that direction. Of course, all we're currently looking at is a teaser trailer and the team are actively reworking elements of the final product at all times, so what we see will not be representative of whatever ends up happening. The newly chatty protagonist, however? That's a given, that ain't changing; so let me go into my thoughts on this matter.

Obviously they want this story to be narrated by Nobel 6, he needs to speak; and I've got some personal experience in trying to give a voice to a character who was originally conceived as a voiceless avatar for the player. It's hard and the transition is always going to be rocky. I'm not in love with the voice they chose to give Noble 6, nor that cliché of an opening line, but I'm willing to give some ground because I know this can be done right. Again, I cite Cloud from the FF7 Remake where the team knew to characterise his taciturn depiction as a quirk of character that defines who he is. That is a way to bring this to life, and writing is as much about learning what fits as following the rules; I just hope the team have taken into account that the process of adaptation needs to be formative for the character they're writing if they went this depiction of Noble 6 to have chance of sidling up alongside the vanilla man. Oh, he's canonically a man now. Not sure if that was done in any side novels. They're obviously disadvantaged by the fact that Nobel 6 actually had a voice in the game, meaning there are comparisons to be made, but if the characterisation feels on point the mind's eye will overlook that.

Those are all the barriers to entry, as for the potential; well that's wide open for this team to come along and tell their own Master Chief-style narrative deep within the heart of enemy lines. From the little snippets we got it looks like the action is going to be a core pillar of narrative rather than following the emotional breakdown of a stranded deep behind enemy lines of a war that, from his limited perspective, humanity has already lost. Were it that I didn't know any better, I might even suspect this whole set-up of a 'disobedience trial' as a metaphorical mental construct with which Nobel 6 tries himself over his failure to save Reach in a sort-of 'Jacob's ladder' style projection flashing through his failing mind as his body flatlines on the scorched sands of a planet mid-glassing. That would be ridiculous though. Nobel 6 was ultimately killed by an Energy Sword through the chest if I remember correctly, that's gotta be a pretty instant way to be taken out. Not much space for self reflection there.

I love fan projects and really wish there were more space for them to exist across the industry. Heck, KOTOR would already have its remake if the world were more open to fan works, but by that same merit we'd have even more Fifty Shades of Grey copycats; so it's a real give and take equation here. Of all the animated projects of this vein, and there are a couple milling about (including a retelling of KOTOR with similarly dubious voice acting) the very idea of spitting in the face of a perfect conclusion is so ballsy that I can't help but tilt up my chin to meet the challenge. Of course, my biggest hand goes out to the team that had the guts to step out on this road to begin with, whether out of love for Halo or bitterness (the fanbase is often driven by equal parts of both) the more reimaginations we see the absolute better.

GTA Metaverse!

Crimes on the blockchain 

Grand Theft Auto is the biggest franchise in gaming. Probably. I'm willing to bet it's at least up there, although depending on how you choose to independently measure scale and size I'll willing to bet you could land on just about any game being the biggest. GTA has the biggest recognition value by market trends, in that whatever strives it makes will quickly become industry standard. COD probably makes the most sales due to how often it comes out. Earth 2 has the most loyal numbskulls who desperately sink their life savings in the hopes that Earth 2 is going to be a game that anyone even knows about when it drops. So I'm happy suggesting that Rockstar have quite some pull in whatever it is they want to do with the direction of their game and the grounds they want to cross. Heck, you could say that GTA: Online has single handed changed the trajectory of the Ubisoft games as all of them have attempted to copy what that game did since 'Black Flag'. (To hardly comparable success)

As such it makes sense that if you're a scrappy up and comer with the 'new way of doing things' that you want to become the standard across the industry, it makes total sense that you'd be ecstatic that Rockstar's seminal crime franchise was supporting it too. Ecstatic enough to distend and distort the news in front of you into reading whatever fashion best supports the ideals that you support. I mean we've all been there haven't we? When the words in front of us say one thing to us and something else to the person next to us? It's common human nature to try and bring everything into line with our world view, which is the reason why I don't necessarily blame the crypto bros for reading the recent GTA 6 supposed leaks (Which I do not take for gospel, mind; I still find their timing suspect) regarding the rewards of some missions and thinking they've finally found their golden boy in GTA.

But first, what is it that Cryptobros have to do with gaming? Well for some reason, presumably because of the size of gaming as an entertainment model, dozens of crypto products get their start nowadays by promising to revolutionise gaming by introducing blockchain integration into their new game which is going to revolutionise the world. Whether that's through some sort of vapid NFT marketplace, or Play-to-Earn economy or just another stupid bloody 'landsale'. It's the corruption of the art of gaming into some sort of vaguely disguised investment model where the little people stumble over themselves believing there's some sort of path to financial success and the early adopters and creators make the big bucks off their sweat and tears. It's cynical and largely antithetical to a lot of the current drives of gaming, not least in the way it ties real-world economics into the fake world of games. But where does GTA 6 fit into all of this?

Well one of the leaks that followed the recent 'blowout', aside from the female protagonist and the Bonny and Clyde style antics, was a bit about the economy of the game. Somehow, without being able to detail the narrative or any actual missions, our leaker was able to provide details on the reward of some missions, (one of the reasons I'm calling all of these leaks suspect) namely that some would reward the character with Cryptocurrency. Of course, that set off a spark in the eyes of the Moonbros reading such an article, and I can only assume they immediately clicked off the covering article they were reading the second they finished reading those words, as that's the only way they could miss the qualifying statement that most articles have directly following that: how it's referring to an 'in-game' cryptocurrency, not a real world one.

Which makes sense, doesn't it? Grand Theft Auto has always based itself in a facsimile of the real world that emulates the fads and trends of the day to turn them into jokes because that's always been the beating heart of the GTA franchise; one of a big joke. The amount of articles I've seen recently of people who clearly have no idea what they're talking about claiming 'GTA needs to grow up' boggles the mind. I figure they must have just played Red Dead, fallen for the epic tale of a family of robbers falling apart and gone "Huh, you know if GTA didn't have all those jokes then it would be just as emotional as this" No it wouldn't. Because that isn't GTA's mission statement. It's a funhouse mirror placed up to whatever generation they're aiming at in order to make fun of hyper inflated versions of today's issues; and I wouldn't be surprised if this whole 'GTA needs to grow up' diatribe doesn't end up in the spotlights.

Crypto currency and their many financial woes is big news for the much struggling investors desperate for it to take off so that their financial investments can mean something. That's a joke that's already writing itself, of course Rockstar are going to jump on that bandwagon to get their own shots in! GTA V had the heavily underutilised Stock Market feature which allowed you to day trade, I can imagine Crypto will function within the game much the same as that, only probably with at least one mission where your exchange gets hacked and you lose a big chunk of the crypto you had saved up, were I to speculate. Those believing that GTA 6 was going to become a metaverse haven for them and theirs were straight dreaming, there's no money for Rockstar in alienating most of their fans with a scheme that most of them don't understand and those that do are actively hostile towards. Which is the problem with WEB3 in a nutshell; they're always trying to land the plane before the airport has started construction, and end up crashing into a fiery mess because of it.

However that doesn't mean that this representation isn't going to good for the Crypto space, because it absolutely will be. (providing the leaks are true, which I don't believe that they are but this concept seems plausible enough to probably end up in the next GTA anyway.) Even if Rockstar throws in Cryptocurrencies literally just to make fun of them and what they represent, their very inclusion in a video game of that magnitude will invariably do wonders to legitimise crypto and introduce it to some people who don't care enough to research on their own. Reputation might take a hit, but those are foundations to build upon. Do I find that encouraging? Not particularly; I can't see a single benefit from Crypto in the modern age and when the platform becomes bigger I can only see it being defanged into nothing more than a pumped up version of normal finance; similar to how Streaming services are steadily becoming traditional TV.

So no, sorry to disappoint all the Cryptoheads out there, GTA 6 won't be the amazing posterboy of Metaverse madness that all of you want it so desperately to be. You'll just have to clash your brains together to make your own terrible crypto game with pay-to-win garbage leaking out of the rafters and a nonsensical gameplay loop that sounds mindnumbingly boring to anyone who isn't profiteering directly off of it. In fact, I'd argue that Moonbros should probably just hit up Peter Molyneux and ask him to make their DeFi game; he tends to be pretty experienced in putting together scams for his audience. (Ever since he got that 'lifetime acheivements' reward and suffered a midlife crisis, it's just been downhill ever since.) Oh wait, he's already on his own NFT grift. Better luck next time.

The endgame of Mobile games

 Suffering from success

So 'Diablo Immortal' is a pretty obvious smokescreen as far as shady gaming schemes go. A game designed to be a total social pariah, ruin the respectability of every face involved with it, be the reviled monster poisoning the industry specifically so that Diablo 4 can drop doing considerably less scummy things than it, and look like a grand resurgence for the companies quality standards. Hell, they'll probably still make it a pay-to-win cesspit, but it just won't be as pay-to-win as Diablo Immortal was, which is an improvement, I guess. But inbetween now and then, we have to deal with this ugly exercise into the absolute extremes of video game greed and the societal excrement who support and reward Blizzard for going around mugging their consumer base and calling it a solid marketing move. One such extreme from this development became frightening clear; the whale amongst whales.

Whale is a term used to describe the sorts of individuals who spend their exorbitant wads of money into Free-to-Play games in order to jump ahead of everyone else. They are referred as whales, because the size of their purchases pretty much cements them as single sources of heavy revenue that makes them more valuable players than others the petty 'plankton' who drop a dollar or two once a month. So essentially paying money makes you a player that the developers want to cater their content more towards in order to curry more favour and attention. Just like real life, the richer you are, the more bottom-feeders you ascertain; in this instance it's the developers. Games like Diablo Immortal thrive off the existence of Whales by creating heavy money sinks that players can drop their money into in a play against the odds to get the best stats. Pay-to-Win, as it's most commonly known. (Although pay-to-not-play, is a common refrain; considering most of this stuff revolves around paying to skip the process of earning the accolades.)

Of course, when you invest heavily in pay-to-win it's going to upset the balance of the game as players with larger wallets can invest more money to surpass the efforts of players who can't afford to spend hundreds of dollars rolling a virtual die. They push far above the free-to-play players, and then you get into a virtual arms-race of who can spend the most money to get atop those other spenders in what should ideally be a never ending cycle of idiots falling for the most obvious cash-grab scheme in the world. But this has usually been where interest from the common audience drops off, because no one really cares who ultimately tops the pile. But as curiosity would be served, recently we've had an account of exactly that scenario presented by a content creator who managed to push themselves to that precipice and had their game time suffer because of it.  

Yes, we're talking about a man who, by his own words, spent around about $100,000 all on trying to get the optimal character in Diablo immortal so that his clan could rule the meta game as the 'Immortals' of his server. It's a pretty old-school method of content creation where the draw of the creator is their skill rather than their Charisma; but listening to this man speak for any amount of time will demonstrate that he has a lack of both, which is probably why he likes pay-to-win games so much. (I'm being deliberately venomous. I'm sure the guy has some skill with these sorts of games to be able to utilise the spending as he has. Does that make him a good person? No. A smart one. No. But one worthy of even the slightest modicum of respect? Still no.) But reaching the top of the pile inexplicably ended up putting his current favourite pastime in jeopardy.

You see, putting himself in the Pay-To-Win category allowed him to play the PVP battlegrounds modes for Diablo Immortal over and over again to rack up over 300 straight wins and less than 10 losses. He could just steamroll over everyone with less powerful gear than him. He could be the big fish in the tiny pond, soaking up all the water and making sure the stats of his character outshone anyone else in the world. Until it got to the point where the game's matchmaker realised that this player is too good for even the best players in the game and bracketed him off in a custom made pool of players which seems to consist of only him. Meaning that our man couldn't que for more Battlegrounds because the game couldn't find enough players of a equal win/loss ratio to pit him against. Cutting him off from what he himself considers his 'favourite activity' in the game. Bummer.

Even worse than that, a bug within the structure of the gameplay made him unable to que his clan into a contest to defend their position, or maybe they were already queued? The system was really unclear on that matter, and that's kind of the problem. Being the biggest clan on their server, not knowing what they're doing to defend their position is kind of emasculating for a breed of player which is obviously driven by the vapid desire to enforce their archaic concepts of masculine supremacy on others. Basically, I'm saying that Blizzard's distinct lack of comprehensive design decisions (because they were too busy hyper-focusing on running the gem market) wasn't serving their most important customers; the numbskulls with more money than brain wrinkles. Which is just typical, isn't it? Blizzard are such a mess of a company that they can't serve their established fanbase or the rich rubes they're trying to replace them with. Just a trainwreck of customer support.

Of course, the person we're talking about here did put over a hundred thousand into the game, meaning that when he made a big stink about it online, Blizzard did get around to promising him a personalised fix in the next few days; but that was only after passing him around fang-less customer support reps for weeks on end. Turn out all the money in the world only translates into respect when you make a public statement which might ward off other whales. Of course, Blizzard could give less of a crap if you aren't a wealthy player, that makes you less than scum to wipe off their shoes. Because that's who Blizzard are nowadays. Nakedly and unabashedly twisted to serve the biggest potential returners and step on all those desperate to support a company they used to trust years ago. Big Blizzard are, no surprise, not your friend. 

But this has really laid out the very extremes of Mobile Gaming that we never really think of. How does the service have to mould to cater to the top of the pile? The king of the kings; the Immortal of this ecosystem? And what does it mean to win in a pay-to-win environment? Is it being better than everyone else? Because our guy here apparently is driven by a desire to just crush people poorer than him all day, without any real challenge or danger to his own position due to the exorbitant amounts of money that he's spent, which might spell out more regarding his own personality than I think even he has considered. If the endgame is supposed to be a mad crawl to the top that is feasibly never supposed to end; how do you reconcile devising a social interaction game where the chief goal it to isolate yourself from your peers atop a pile of money? And how is a studio supposed to work to benefit the king's experience alongside trying to encourage their just as wealthy opponents to forever topple them? Are you the protagonist at that point, or the antagonist in the grand tapestry of this online world? And at the end of the day, is there any difference?

History was broken

 But, you know: Gaming History

Some points in time are unshakable, unchangeable moments that stand straighter than the mountains and more frozen than the ice caps. Unbreaking truths that cannot be revised no matter how strongly we rage against the very substance of their claims. Gravity pulls us ever to the centre of our floating space rock, the burning skyball will always blind us for half of the day and Halo 2 will never be completed deathless LASO. For what being could possibly task themselves with attending the impossible task of completing the hardest Halo game on Legendary difficulty with all skulls on (except Envy) because that is what LASO stands for if you didn't know. 'Legendary All Skulls On'. Which does not mean that the challenge has never be attempted; oh it's been a trial ever since the launch of Halo 2 and the discovery of the easter egg skulls in each level that each drastically altered the state of the game. But... no one actually completed the thing, because that was impossible. Literally.

You have to remember that straight away, HALO 2 on Legendary is a tough game where a single concentrated barrage of fire will kill you straight away. Then throw in the Skulls and you'll find that each one makes the game significantly harder. Like the one that makes all enemies permanently cloaked (You can still see their shimmering outline, Predator style, but that slight second of confusion will be more than enough to get you if you're unprepared. Or somewhere dark.) Or the skull that makes enemies shoot faster, which is about as bad as it sounds. Then there's the skull which disables the auto regen on your shields so that you can only get them back by meleeing enemies. And the one which disables all HUD so you can't tell your health or ammo without listening to the audio cues. (And the audio cues only kick in when either you shields are dead or your ammo is gone.) AI enemies drop half  the ammo they usually do. You're only allowed to board vehicles they enemy AI is driving. (I have no idea how the heck you're meant to do the Tank mission at the beginning of Halo 2.) And the only skull you're not allowed to use is Envy; which replaces your flashlight with an camo cloak, literally the only skull which is beneficial.

Playing each level with these stipulations is pretty much legal torture, and to ask someone to endure the whole campaign with those rules and not die is just about the only thing worse than a war crime. And yet that is exactly the challenge issued by MoistCritikal just a few weeks ago, who upon learning that literally no one over the years had completed the challenge with proof reasoned that the only obstacle to success was a lack of proper incentive. As such Charlie offered up a $5000 bounty which he then upped to a $20,000 dollar bounty, all in the hopes of seeing one of gaming's greatest challenges finally wrapped up. That last pimple on the arse-end of history popped out of existence; all at his personal behest. Making him yet another in a long line of men happy to send others to their damnation whilst they watch from the sidelines. (Okay, he did give a few tiny attempts himself but he stopped before the experience could scar him too heavily.)

Some of the big problems for entry are the fact that a lot of people didn't even have the tools to attempt this challenge, given that the remake version of the game in the Master Chief collection makes this challenge impossible. Not only do enemies fire even faster due to the refresh rate but a few of the level skip options are patched out. So players have to rely on the originals, which are hard to get ahold of, and they have to finagle their way around the annoying skull collection system which unloads all collected skulls the second you turn off the console. Meaning that those serious about the challenge need to traverse every level and create save profiles as close they could to each skull so they could do a quick collection run before starting each proper LASO run. Wonderful. At least the impossible version of this challenge on the remade version of Halo 2 completely nullified that issue with skulls in the options menu and a playlist with all of them pre-turned on. But even that is a bit weird when you think about it. 343 just offers up a mission playlist of a near-impossible to complete challenge for the average player to accidently stumble upon? Talk about a landmine.

But note how I said 'near impossible', because lo-and-behold, just this past week history was shattered and reality scarred, when a Twitch streamer who had himself a few priors in attempting this hell put his mental stability on the line once again in pursuit of cold hard cash. As one of the very few applicants who actually managed to make it past the opening level, Jervalin managed to push himself through some of the hardest Halo levels ever created to become the first person in history to complete a deathless LASO run. And it was not a trial that came without errors, without heartache, without suffering; but the man was always one of the favourites to win and just like a hero from a Shonen Anime he just kept up bashing his bleeding head against the brick wall until the material caved in.

To call his victory miraculous is to do the art of the craft a misjustice. Because this achievement was cold hard tactical precision mastered over the course of years and distilled into a few concentrated weeks of runs. By Charlie's own words, Jervalin dedicated 40 days straight of runs to getting this challenge down, racking up countless deaths and countless killed runs in that time frame. Of course, it was all just a set-up for the inevitable moment of victory when he finally managed to convince Johnson's AI to shoot down Tartarus' shield so that he could finish that brute, and this run, for good. I can only imagine that also marks the very last time Jervalin will ever load up Halo 2, because who in their right mind would want to be reminded of all that chaos and pain?

And if you think you're 'pretty good' as Halo, I recommend you look up his record of the VOD on Youtube and have humility served straight to your eyeballs from the simply god-like gameplay Jervalin demonstrated in this challenge. It is no exaggeration to say that Jervalin probably knows the ins and outs of every aspect of that game better than the developers do at this point, and has mastered them more than any of those artists could ever dream to do. He one-lifed an impossible challenge and proved that 343's LASO playlist isn't an impossible feat served directly up to players. Except I just lied, he didn't do that; because 343's LASO playlist is only on the Master Chief Collection with the remake of Halo 2 wherein many of the strats and gameplay that Jervalin used wouldn't have worked or been enough. Yes, even perfection can't overcome every problem.

Still this is a time for celebration as one of the biggest seals of gaming challenge has been snapped and we're one step further to the awakening of the Dreamer and the dissolution of reality to his tentacled embrace. Because that's how big of an accomplishment this is; reality threatening! All of the runners who pushed themselves past the first level all proved themselves to be shining symbols of Halo players too, and I can only imagine what sort of hijinks this community will get up to now that they've all discovered their fellow demi-gods from such a challenge. It's like Charlie was the Nick Fury assembling the Avengers of challenge runs; they should form a international collective of challenge gamers and go around breaking records across the industry. And you know what; that's the head-canon I'm going to maintain about the legacy of this beaten Halo run. Drink well this sensation, reader; for you're taking in the end of an era. Isn't it beautiful?

The game's not made for everyone

 Made for someone

Given that the development of video games are such a huge and expensive production, it's both beneficial to the growth of a genre and the potential profitability of each product that every game be designed to be 'made for everybody'. It's a wonderful sentiment, encouraging interconnectivity and propagation of one's loves towards the masses, as well as the corporate desire to permeate absolutely everywhere but in the effort of positivity I'm going to choose to ignore that angle to all this. Games are meant to be celebrated and shared which it's why it's great for them to become as inclusive as possible with all of the accessibility options which are slowly becoming more commonplace. (Very slowly, mind, but some progress is better than none.) Because entertainment should be laid out as everyone's feet for them to enjoy and all that smiles and happiness talk which we all love so very much. Now here's the counter.

Not every game is made for everyone. Obviously. Or the concept of genres wouldn't exist. But even more specifically than that, sometimes games aren't made for new comers and genre experts to enjoy in equal measure, largely because such a balance always comes with drawbacks. You can't make such a game too in-depth and systems heavy for fear of alienating new comers (Trust me, I've been trying, and failing, to force myself into learning Homeworld for more than a year at this point) and you can't make it too basic and bare bones for risk of being boring to genre fans. The in-the-middle balance is typically recognised as the ideal game balance; but not every game is suited to fit that. Sometimes you'll have games that strive off in the direction of alienation driven to explore one extreme or the other, and I wanted to consider a collection of games that I believe, in some sense, were designed specifically not to foster genre new comers. (Or at least; games that significantly leaned towards the learned and experienced.)

Pathfinder: Kingmaker was perhaps one of the biggest wake-up slaps in the face I had leaning towards this realisation. Because any CRPG fan can enjoy the plethora of great genre titles out there in this impromptu resurgence of this unique game style, but not everyone can role up to Pathfinder: Kingmaker with that same carefree attitude. Just as how Baldur's Gate 2 is fundamentally designed not to be played out of order with 1, even if you ignore the story, the gameplay is set-up to be literally next step in terms of difficulty; Pathfinder wants you to know exactly how to play this style of game from the get-go. You are encouraged to build effectively, to the point where the game itself will actually take over the levelling unless you know exactly what sort of character you want to be at endgame. No, this isn't the blind autolevelling system you can expect out of Mass Effect or those sorts of RPGs; Pathfinder picks your life path for you.

And it is for good reason. Pathfinder: Kingmaker adapts a module designed to see players through an entire campaign, and wants you to bitterly earn every scrap of progress you make in fire and blood. Even from the early game you're facing the sorts of bosses that will drain every last spare item you have to take them down, and end game mega-bosses who will simply eat you up and spit you out. At normal difficulty levels (I always play in levels that most accurately match the scaling of the table-tops) Kingmaker is easily one of the most difficult CRPGs on the market right now, but by that same merit also one of the most exhilarating. In the same way that Dark Souls (Yes, forgive the reference, it's pertinent.) forces players to climb a mountain so they feel the weight of their trials on the otherside; Kingmaker drags you through hell so that you earn your kingdom and every moment of peace. That sort of challenge just isn't possible to present in a game designed to coddle newcomers and can only really be presented from a title that expects you to be familiar and will punish you raw anyway.

Another game I want to highlight is 'Stellaris', although to be fair to this assessment could broaden out to most every single 4x game on the market. Most of them. Because 4X as a genre has gotten to the point where those who love it recognise it, and those you don't can't really be persuaded into it. Some games like Stellaris, therefore, tend to lean towards the more intensive crowd with systems and interfaces piled ontop of one another and only really offers a perfunctory sort of tutorial to explain it all. It's hard when looking at these sorts of game to differentiate between titles that genuinely don't try to bridge the gap beteeen newbies and experienced genre lovers, and games that just have a really vapid and weak tutorial (like I would say Kenshi does. And yes, I think Kenshi just about counts as a 4X/RTS/ survival hybrid game) but I think Stellaris and similar games can recognise the divide and choose to go the other way.

Which does not mean that every game of this genre does, however; and though they are the rare exception I do recall some 4X strategy titles that are built specifically to cater for new crowds. I think Civilisation as a series has always kept itself accessible enough for just about anyone to find it's charms if they want to, and Humankind is said to be welcoming. I consider this to be the ideal balance; great games to introduce people to the genre, just as good games for them to enjoy once they're inducted into the fold. The best of both worlds. Although I'm sure there's got to be some game I don't know about from this genre which pushes even that to it's pure elitist extremes. (No, I'm not claiming that game to be Homeworld; I wish I could withstand it long enough to be able to make that determination.)

Which brings me to the general state of platformers and how they currently are; because pretty much no platformer made today is taking into account a newcomer to the genre. One might argue that there is no feasible reason for them to, given that Platformers are so intrinsically tied to gaming that they are somewhat second nature to any gamer, but that is a wad of hand-wavey logic when you break it down. Modern platformers can actually be pretty challenging to people who aren't intuned with that style of play which can result in them being a little hard to penetrate. Hollow Knight, for example, requires tough reaction times, pinpoint dodges and complex movements. (Although HK is kind enough to introduce these elements carefully as the game progresses.) I think that it's actually difficult to make a newcomer's platformer without it feeling hopelessly outdated or simplistic; which is why we just let Platformers carry on their evolution to become more specialised and tough.

So not every game is made for everybody, and is that a good thing? I'd argue; yes. Some of my favourite games out there are the one's designed to batter you down and destroy every once of confidence you believed you had, so that you can slowly build it back up in a pantheon of challenge and strife. To me that is a fun time. And does that make me a weirdo? Yes, to a good number of people out there who like totally different experiences. Just as we all hold different thresholds for entertainment, does it make sense for there to be differently catering entertainment products. Some made for the consumption of everybody, and some made for the consumption of the genre lovers. That's how you nail into a niche, afterall.

Indonesia Steam ban

Circling the drain

Who would have thought that as the modern age rolls around free and equitable access to video games would become less and less spread across the countries of the world? Like a backwards progression of availability as all of humanity slowly reverts into it's base most form, first China pulls back on the gaming market so hard that Steam might as well not exist in that country, than Russia is heavily restricted for reasons that should be fairly obvious, and now Indonesia has followed suit for reasons not quite nearly as obvious. One might feel warranted in donning the hat of speculation and wondering where exactly all this is going to stop! In this age of conflict and strife, how cruel does one have to be to try and deprive enjoyment from their few citizens who have the time to game? At least China has a, intellectually bankrupt, reason for their banning's; but considering China kinda has a history for making sweeping polices that are utterly uniformed and obviously disastrous, maybe that isn't the model you want to be emulating.

But indeed, over the past week we've seen bans rather suddenly descend upon the likes of Steam, Epic Games, Paypal, Battle.Net, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Origin and Yahoo. (Oh god; not Yahoo! Who will I consult for answers now? I jest, of course; that service is long dead...) At least, it was all rather sudden for the consumers who had no real warning to start backing up their games, or... honestly I don't really know what you do about losing Paypal. (That's more than a kick to the balls, that's a knife to the testes.) For the Indonesian Government this was probably a very drawn out and frustrating affair with a clear deadline laid out ages ago that a big portion of huge online companies just simply ignored. And the companies themselves, well they must have had some inkling that services would be revoked and yet refrained to tell their consumers until the date was upon them. What I'm saying is that this was a communal week of bad choices all around.

As gaming sites are reporting it (I'm referring to PCgamer for their succinct summary of the situation) this comes as the consequence of a law passed two years ago that requires online platforms to summit user data to the government and comply with Indonesian take down requests for unlawful content. Which seems... utterly misguided and shortsighted but at least their heart is in the right pl- oh wait, and content that "disturbs public order"? Yeah, that's some straight dystopian talk right there, no wonder people didn't want to comply. This actually reminds me of a certain law that passed down here in England at one of the many heights of public distress against our government, when an overnight law was passed to prevent 'loud protest' outside the House of Commons. 'Disturbing public order' so easily leads into 'silencing dissenters' that the mere performative action of referring to it as such is a sheer insult. I don't care how 'well intentioned' and 'morally strong' someone claims these orders to be, if the current administration doesn't exploit it, a following one will. It's a game of when, not if; and the only way to win is to not give them the playing pieces.

And this is absolutely a hill worth dying on, when it comes to discourse, at least. (This should never have gone as far as outright bans. Paypal was banned so abruptly that the government had to temporarily unban it to let people get their money out. Clear evidence how horrible of an idea this is.) If there's one thing that co-existing with the terminally greedy has taught me, it's that if you give an inch you'll lose the country side. The second that Indonesia gets away with juggling user data at will and banning 'objectionable content', everyone is going to want in on that band wagon. Which is to say nothing about the very idea of handing out User Data, which is not only a huge personal violation, but also just not in the best sound interests of the companies who manage them.

I have to be honest, I know nothing about Indonesia and how they run their government, nor would I make any suppositions even if I did; this isn't a blog for that sort of stuff; but I know a fair bit about optics, albeit through the eyes of the entertainment industry, and this ain't good. The Indonesian public are already taking to Twitter to voice their utmost displeasure, as so they should having so many liberties wrest from them in a cynical power move by government officials. But the disgrace spreads even further. To the outside world looking in, this sounds like the beginnings of a twist towards nanny state regulating; and being from England trust me when I say we know all about over regulation. It's a constant struggle to defang overzealous regulators most of the time over here.

But whereas you might think this was some sort of grand standing kick-back statement by these companies, a conclusion I even tried to lead you towards with my own carefully placed rhetoric. (What do you mean I misunderstand the definition of 'careful'? Why I oughta...) I have some sobering news for everyone. Much as I suspected when I first read the details behind this, in truth the problem is that none of the companies got the memo that this was happening, not that they objected to the increadibly questionable stance of these laws and the provisions they force upon website providers. I can say this with confidence because Steam, not too long after their ban, turned around and signed up for the program without kicking up a fuss. As did Paypal and, thank god, Yahoo.

You see, when it's all said and done none of these companies wants to accept any more responsibility than they absolutely have to; and if that means ratifying and justifying increadibly suspect terms just so that they continue business they'll bite each other's arms off for that opportunity. Yes, there's no such thing as moral upstanding; unless you literally declare war because that's just plain bad for business. Fiduciary duties cut above all else. It's just funny to acknowledge the fact that Indonesia published this little questionable snippet into their law books and it would have gone pretty much entirely unnoticed by most people if it hadn't been for this abrupt kerfuffle. One might even suppose that maybe some of these companies intentionally bungled the dates they had to sign up to this law in order to draw attention to it's contents. That's bunk, though; they were just lazy.

There's no such thing as mister good guy business who's there for you and has your back, and there's no shades of grey in this morality tale. It's all muddy brown for the faeces stains the represent all the crap we have passed off onto us because everyone with the wealth and size to do something and make a stand don't give a damn to. Steam is back and functional, which means that will be the end of this conversation in the eyes of the many, and Steam will pretend it never had anything concerning grace their desks and reap all the free publicity. Just like when they 'banned' NFT games but really just banned integration with their API; not caring even slightly for Steam games that use NFTs outside of their API. No one's on your side, that's just the truth of it.

The day ROBLOX Died

 The king is dead

Even those of us who have abstained from the Internet's favourite passtime has heard the stories of the ROBLOX supremacy. A online infrastructure that appears to have existed forever and, indeed, even surpasses Minecraft in it's legacy. I think it's fair to say that no one really knows where the game came from, but practically all have heard of it today, as the defacto raising tool for most children to teach them that the world is full of opportunities for their hard work to be exploited by lazier and smarter adults. I can't even say I recall the time in history when ROBLOX levelled up from being a game and into an empire, it slipped under my nose before I could even see it happening, one day it just became a fact of life that we all just laughed about and pretended we always knew it was there. And I, amazingly, never actually played the thing myself when I was a kid. I didn't know it existed. Thank god too; with the amount of 'free game' scouring I did all over the Internet back in my youth, ROBLOX would have swallowed me up and spit away the key.

ROBLOX began life all the way back in 2006, or 2005 for the beta, or 2004 for the founding of the company. It began with the name DYNABLOX, probably in reverence to the 'dynamic game engine' that the game was philosophically founded upon. And, to my utmost surprise, the original beta for the game looked utterly primitive compared to the game today. I mean visually. Yes, that visual palette which looks like it originated from the early 2000's is actually an updated look for the game over the years as it became what it is today! I know many long-running games get visual overhauls, but usually they endeavour to improve the palette of the game to make it more modern or chic, but I guess ROBLOX always valued it's ability to run on every chunk of hardware more than how it looked, and even in it's later years they never wanted to lose that avid ZX Spectrum fanbase. The game changed many development hands, got picked up by a few visionary corporations who sought a monopoly over the kids market and the rest is history.

Which is to say, the rest has been a history of fraught and questionable relationships between ROBLOX proper and the child labour it relies on to make it's user base happy. Because ROBLOX is very much an engine for minigame creation using their proprietary interactive game engine. Hop on the ingame tools and you can build anything into a game for others to form a community around. I would say "Anything within reason", but due to the utterly non-existent moderation by the ROBLOX owners, as well as the questionability of letting kids make anything without oversight, most of ROBLOX is decidedly unreasonable. I knew this all the way back in 2013 when my investigations uncovered an entire community dedicated to roleplaying key positions within British Parliament in their own facsimile of central London. Why? I can't say. But it was real. And, of course, if you searched deep enough there were less wholesome games too.

I can't pretend to know enough about ROBLOX to know the details about their seedier elements, all I can recount are anecdotal tales I've heard of NSFW themed games, which boggles the mind knowing the palate that creatives are working with on ROBLOX; but I guess that's the power of imagination, right? (Who am I kidding; there's some increadibly popular NSFW games nowadays that are totally text based browser games; I shouldn't be shocked.) These have caused some scandal over the years and even a few PR disasters when the ROBLOX main office have turned blind eyes to the sorts of environments frequented almost entirely by children. Seems they wanted the audience without the responsibilities. But no scandal has stuck with them enough to hurt the giant. But if there is one slap across the face that not even ROBLOX will withstand, it's the murder of their most iconic element; The 'Oof' sound.

Arguably even more famous than ROBLOX itself, the 'Oof' sound affect holds it's origins in the genesis of mankind. Ashurbanipal, king of the Neo-Assyrian empire in the 660's BC is recounted as having delivered the first Oof when locked in mortal hand-to-hand combat with a deathly lion. Of course, Ashurbanipal is also noticed as one of the very first recorded sources of propaganda, so it's very possible that such an 'Oof' may in reality have been uttered by someone else entirely, or mayhaps even the lion itself. Certain translations of the ancient Hebrew texts that make up the commonly recognised 'old testament' accredit such a sound, or something similar, being spoken by a dying Abel as Cain bashed his melon in with a rock. But studying the work of Milton's Paradise Lost has presented a recanonisation of the sound to an even earlier mythical event, as the sound made by Satan when he hit the ground after getting yeeted out of heaven. Perhaps the true origins will forever remain mysterious.

If you ask the plebs around the 'normal spheres' you'll be told that the noise actually originates from a former composer for the game, Tommy Tallarico, and that ROBLOX has run into issues with Tommy for years over the use of that sound byte. Apparently there was a kerfuffle quite some years back which rendered the sound a premium commodity that ROBLOX creators had to pay a little fee in order to licence use in their games. Such a fee was only a temporary solution, it would seem, because after all this time ROBLOX proper have come and pulled the plug entirely on that classic noise in order to replace it with the sound of a man sneezing caught on laughable bad audio equipment. At least that's my best guess on this replacement, it's almost terrible enough to become iconic all on it's own, to be honest.

And to think that this all happened because the ludicrously profitable people over at ROBLOX simply refused to pay the fee to buy the sounds rights; which were reportedly no more than $10,000. That's- criminally underpriced given how famous the sound byte in question is; and it really speaks to how desperately petty the ROBLOX team is that they didn't want to part from literally pocket change over this issue. They'd rather take the substantial hit to public perception than settle an infinitesimal amount over this. At this point it's pretty clear that it wouldn't matter to them if this was $1000, or $100, or 10 cents; they just didn't want to give anyone else the satisfaction of winning; because when you make a children's game for so very long I suppose the target demographic can start to rub off on you.

Oof is hardly the most serious scandal that ROBLOX has faced over the years. Afterall, they're well known for exploiting the talents of their children player base for profit and totally wiping their hands of the safe guarding jobs required to keep that player base safe from dubious and harmful entitles. They just can't be bothered to trouble themselves with literally anything that makes them look like a somewhat standup company; but they've been doing this for so long that they could literally be sacrificing their children audience to the devil and still be making a mint doing it. In the world of Ubisoft's and Call of Duty's; ROBLOX is the one demon titan even bigger than all that to be utterly scandal proof; except, of course, for the elimination of their very soul, just recently, when Oof died. They may carry on, and probably will; but the beating heart of the franchise is gone; and it's only a matter of time before the body starts to fester and rot. Poor sad, ROBLOX; doomed to moult and wither all alone in the world. Do not cry for them. DO NOT CRY!

Square Enix thinks we're idiots

 Lie me a river

So we all remember the day of absolute apocalypse where Square thought it totally within their rights to turn around and just kill off all of their Western Studios in a mad bid to 'purify' their company of any studio that was non-Japanese. A contingent that took the studio decades to amass, shed in a single transfer for a tragically undervalued price to an organisation that sounds like the mad anti-humanist cult trying to get everyone to look up at SCP 001 (When Day Breaks) so that we may all be 'embraced' for eternity. Embracer Group has talked big about their plans since then, in vague and non committal terms. Deus Ex is being worked on, it might be coming back! There's a new Tomb Raider where Lara has a female love interest (I swear to GOD if it isn't Sam I'm going to riot.) All these new studios will be perfectly balanced against the dozens that are already held under Embracer's banner; although looking at the amount of the studios under the Embracer banner I can't help but wonder if this isn't just going to be exactly the same as being independently owned in terms of support, only with the requirement of kick back a sizable chunk of income to publishing management.

I'm just saying; I don't think Deus Ex is coming back. Not least of all because the latest thing in the news is a desire from the active team that they want to: "Do what Cyberpunk 2077 couldn't!" Excuse me? CDPR couldn't do what they promised because it was bigger than their team could possibly create, and they were a bigger studio than Eidos has ever been. (Why can't Deus Ex just stick to what it's good at!) So we're looking at a long nuclear winter of hubristic failures probably heading our way, and whom do we have to thank for this holocaust? Square. The lunatics at Square. What could possibly have been going through their heads to cut so many loose like that? I can't imagine what calculations must have been firing through the think tank neurons in order to conclude that the future was isolationism for Enix, and I'm bugged that this is the direction they choose to go in. Can we get some clarification?

Oh we can? Great, thank you, Investor call; what is the word from Square proper on this situation, then? Well for one they let it be know that they are looking to sell their Stakes in the remaining studios that survived the sudden purge being put very much on the market to be pawned off. But when it came to explanation time of the big sale, Square has turned around and informed the world that their reasoning is that they believed their Western studios to be cannibalising the sales of their Japanese games; which feels like a dire simplification of a much varied issue, probably knowingly so because they didn't want to have to air the complexities of their issues, but lacking that in with the Square Enix management we have to take their word as gospel. Did Western games cannibalise Japanese games? Yes and no. Depending on how you look at it.

So the traditional definition of 'cannibalisation' within the industry refers to two games with the same target demographic being unceremoniously pitted against one another by the same careless publisher. Perhaps the most famous example of this being Titanfall 2 which was released hardly a week before the much bigger multiplayer shooter Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. That meant that despite the low that Titanfall had received as a franchise up until that point, the player base was sucked dry by the bigger title which left a game described as one of the best shooters ever made to fester into nothingness. Of course, such situations can also occur with games not published by the same studio, but we don't classify those as 'cannibalisation'. Such as when both Horizon games came out next to huge industry changing games that overshadowed them, or Mad Max went up against 'Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain'. But this isn't the sort of cannibalisation that Square means.

It wouldn't make sense even if it was. Because Square's various studios actually covered quite a diverse collection of franchises that not only tended to slot around each other come release time, but didn't always share the same target demographic. Obviously there's always going to be adaptive audience that shift from game to game regardless of genre and are drawn to love for the franchise or just a desire for the new big release, but the core groups of who loves JRPGs and those who love Deus Ex as an RPG is not a flat circle. (There's a Venn there for sure, but it's not a perfect cross-over) In fact, it wasn't until Square decided to elaborate on their plans for the future that we really got a light shone on what exactly was meant by the 'cannibalisation' comment.

Square Enix, in their infinite wisdom, are looking to shift their remaining western fiduciary duties so that the remaining of their funds can be dedicated to the development of Japanese games who they claim were suffering from the upkeep to their western studios. Rising development costs are becoming such a problem, they say, that it has become necessary to "diversify the studio capital structure" by way of killing off companion studios in a blaze of ignominy. A very corporate and jargon-filled answer no doubt, but one that does slightly run up against critical analysis. Because afterall, if their problem was a lack of disposal development resources, why not drop a single big studio instead of all of them? And if this is a money issue, then why sell them off for a fraction of their estimated value? And if this is going to touch on 'rising development costs' then back off before I pop off.

"Rising development costs" is the bogey man of the AAA world, gaming's own ManBearPig; only this inconvenient truth is a very convenient lie. Not a lie that development costs are rising, they sure are; but a lie that the revenue these games are making aren't rising to meet those costs. Because hello; all of these triple A project now come packed with some sort of extra grift to funnel hundreds of millions from their consumers. If we're to believe Square that development costs is the big bad in this situation, offset by the expulsion of the west; then wouldn't it be fair to assume that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is going to release for $60 instead of $70? Afterall, they solved the development cost problem, so that painful price hike doesn't need to be passed onto the consumer anymore, right? That was their initial excuse, afterall? Heck, guess there's no need to push Live Services anymore too, right? And the NFT train they've being desperate to kick out the station; guess that's on it's way to be decommissioned; isn't it? Because the development cost leeches have been banished, the books are balanced, the valley of profits is saved! Right? But that isn't going to happen, is it? Because these games still make a stinking amount of profit, and the 'rising development costs' angle is a glaring red herring.

The actual reason is the exact same thing that was being said when the sale happened, the real reason that Square have been trying to smother over with their 'cannibalisation' smoke screen. They at Square have failed time and time again to push the right projects that resonate with the target audience and so are just retreating to the Japanese audience they're better in-tune with. Years of pushing Live Services fell flat for them and because Square Management are too dense to learn from their mistakes they preferred to just throw away their toes and start from scratch; and now they're too embarrassed to admit their rank incompetence and are hiding behind flimsy paper-thin excuses. We see you, Square; everyone does. No amount of false mirrors and shifted blame is going to cover up what you really at the tailend of all these deceptions; quitters