Marvel's XCOM Suns

 Pick a card, any card

Woah boy, talk about a surprise gift out of nowhere! I full expected we'd rush by this Gamescon event with nothing but a reveal and limp speculation as to what Marvel's Midnight Suns would hold for us, but instead we've been gifted pretty much a total blowout topped with the sweet desert of a release date. Who could ask for more than that? It's really put some force behind the vague words that this is 'not like any Firaxis tactical game before it' whilst still leaving me utterly perplexed as to how this will actually play when push comes to shove. But come on, it's Firaxis. I literally preordered Chimera Squad and I never do that. I'm going to buy this game one way or another, getting to know my purchase before the fact is just a bonus. So I guess now I have a chance to totally disseminate the project standing between me and XCOM 3: Terror from the Deep. (It better be good!)

First I'd like to touch upon an expansion of something we already knew was coming to the game; the Character customisation. By the very nature of the story, the Marvel heroes will be digging up and reviving the wayward child of this game's big bad; Lilith. But if you got worried about that default-npc looking character who was leading the trailer, don't be; she's totally customisable. Option wise things seem mostly the same as any XCOM game, with four basic faces, but I'll imagine the slack will be made up through all the hair, helmet, armour and accessories that make these games typically shine in the imaginative character department. (As well as prove a hotbed for modding potential) Unfortunately we're only looking at one customisable character. (heroes will get outfits too, but I'm expecting that'll be more similar to 'Ultimate alliance' unlockable costumes rather than a modular affair.) Everyone else in the game will be another Iconic hero. Which means yes, we're getting yet another Firaxis tactical game without permadeath. (Should we begin interpreting this as a bad sign?) 

But what about the core gameplay? You know, the stuff that matters. Much ado was made about the fact that this would play nothing like XCOM before it, but considering they'd made slight variations to that formula over their three game tenure, that didn't really mean all that much. That being said, there does appear to be some vast new additions to the formula to change things up, with the biggest one to me being; randomness. Or, should that be more randomness? (Wait, what?) You see, combat isn't going to be throwing us into arenas with nothing but our strict toolset and our wits to out-chess the enemy and there doesn't even seem to be hit percentages at all. (What blasphemy is this?) Rather, players will be granted random cards to be chosen from that then dictate their actions, presumably picked from a pre-assigned deck that the player builds throughout the game, meaning that you'll never quite know what's in your handbag of tricks today. It's- different, that's for sure.

Something like this makes the game look much more like Slay the Spire or Guild of Dungeoneering; as they both utilised random card based deck-building strategy to great effect in their own ways. However both of those titles are rougelites, wherein having a terrible fight due to the random hand of luck isn't the greatest feeling in the world, but it's the nature of the game to fail and start from scratch the next time around. I'm not sure how that'll feel in a tactical campaign similar to XCOM, and this is what I mean about us being told a great deal about the system, but knowing nothing about how it'll play out until we get our hands on the thing. A huge positive I won't forget to commend, however, is that the level design appears to be leaning much more into environmental interactions. (such as explode-able barrels and precarious ledges) That's something I've literally begged out of all turn based tactical games, and I'm giddy to see it getting a due here.

Outside of combat, the way we wind down has also been fundamentally changed through the addition of the Abbey, a real-time break spot for the player and the various Marvel heroes of the team to partake in good-old-fashioned simulated social gameplay. (Start playing "Persona 4 'Specialist'") Yes, that means hanging out, building relationships and getting stronger with the likes of Wolverine, Magik, Doctor Strange, Tony Stark, Blade and others I've forgotten about already. But no romances! There's no way in hell Marvel would ever entertain a character in their licence being part of a romance sub-plot; so don't get your hopes up! These will be entirely platonic super-powered training sessions where you and Tony Stark spend all morning working out in the Gym right next to each other, becoming so humid and sweaty that his gym wear seems to stick to his strapping, pounding chest. That is, until he slowly peels the material off... That'll be the extent of it, you perverts! No Smooches for you!

Of course, the relationships you build will grant benefits in battle and I somewhat suspect it might be linked to those cool dual-moves we've seen advertised in the gameplay. Let's hope that these moves come in handy for the missions; speaking of which, why didn't we hear about the missions? XCom have always gone back and forth on whether or not they want to get creative with mission objectives (2) or simplify things down to very basic 'kill everyone' jobs. (1) I think that a company self-styling themselves as "Gaming's greatest strategy and tactics experts" should definitely branch into more styles of mission for this new venture of theirs. Wait sorry, what was that they called themselves again? I couldn't make it out through all the smacking-slurping sounds of the autofellatio. (I just watched 'Helluva Boss' and 'Hazbin Hotel' through for the first time, if you're wondering why I'm so crude through this blog)

If I can make one sleight plea, which at this point in development it's more like a hopeful prediction, it's that the actions of the player will have some bearing on the narrative. Just a little! We already know that the Hunter (that's the player character) will have access to Dark and Light powers, the former of which is said to 'take a toll' on the team, whatever that means. It's just that, Firaxis games of the past have always been about supplying the tools for players to craft their own storylines for themselves, and this game seems to be moving away from that; so just a little bit of narrative interaction like a good and evil meter would go a little way towards putting that control back in the player's hands. I'd still prefer telling my own journey fraught with the potential for superheroes to perish on the journey to stop the mother of demons, but I'll take that prototypical 'your actions will have consequences' tag at this point. Just feed me a bone!

So what are my thoughts on the game I'm going to own? I'll still buy it, although I'm not so blindly in love to preorder it, and I think we'll need an actual livestreamed playthrough of a level to show us how the moving parts fit together sometime between now and launch. (Which isn't actually out of the realms of possibility for Firaxis, so I hope they do) Pretty much none of the choices made for this game, save the social simulation elements, match what I would have chosen, and that's left me puzzled but not utterly repulsed too yet. I'm familiar with this team's work. They're talented. And if they tell me this game has every bit the care and love which is usually in a Firaxis game, I'll stick around long enough to hear them justify it. Consider my expectations firmly tempered, and the hype train slowed, but still moving. (I still kinda hope they knock it out the park again) Oh, the game comes March by-the-way. Which sucks.

Sea of Johnny Depp and entertainment idolisation

 Tangents ahoy!

Sometimes when I sit down to write topics there is the danger that they slightly flow away from the main branch of the blog a little. Well, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. And I don't always do the cleanest job of reigning everything in, most of the time intentionally because I think it's more fun. All that being said, this one here is something that I have a hard time condensing down into a small lane, because it's such a lofty topic that whenever I think about it I end up going literally everywhere with it. That will absolutely come out in what in this mess of diatribes and 'but what about this', yet hopefully I've laid something out for you at the end. Afterall, there's just so many different avenues of talk to tumble down whenever I bring up the utterly bizarre cross overevent which graced the Sea of Thieves world recently, the Pirates of the Caribbean event starring their rendition of Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow. I mean, who in the heck could have seen that coming? (Disney showing up with presents to a Rare game? What a twist.)

At the time of this announcement I remember making a note of this event, but I didn't really feel like I had too much perspective on it and so I left it on the back burner. Then I was reminded again when the event actually dropped, but I passed once more figuring I'd see a little more of what became of the event and how people received it. Now it's been a while, and everyone's had time to guffaw over Jared Butler's (not Gerard Butler) rendition of Johnny Depp, forged in a career peppered with Captain Jack impersonating roles, and I've sat back and watched it all. And now I have something to say! I don't like it. Not the performance, that was miles better than Kingdom Hearts II's Johnny Depp voice, I mean the very practice of Disney (and others like) throwing around the likeness' of celebrities in order to push their products ever further down our throats. I find it an ill branch of the entertainment art form.

And yes, I understand that Captain Jack is a Disney owned character who was just bought to life in live-action by Johnny Depp; but let's be honest, that was a character-role by Depp and when you bring that character back around you're bringing the actor us as well. Which essentially means that Disney's death march to infuse celebrities irrevocably with entertainment transcends pimping out their cadre of actors and becomes a strange sort of immortalisation of these celebrities by making them into the definitive characters and then selling that character around long after the actors aren't involved anymore. (And they really want the face and not the person for Captain Jack. Rumours are that they want to kill Jack Sparrow off screen for the next Pirates movie) I'm sure it made for a fun event, and Sea of Thieves is apparently looking very healthy in it's wake, but it feeds a growing trend that I feel is a misstep on the road to a better and more creatively free industry. (As well as one with ample opportunities for it's suitors) And it's a trend that doesn't just touch on gaming, but movies and television shows as well. A trend of characters being replaced by celebrities.

Prolific and celebrated actor Nolan North was interviewed once, not too long after the launch of 'Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare'. Now the game was only really bought up in passing, Nolan wasn't in it afterall, but I found his tongue-in-cheek response remarkably striking. You see, the big thing about Advanced Warfare was that it was staring Kevin Spacey (before all the bad things came out, obviously) and that was used as a springboard to ask Nolan, this savant of the gaming voice acting field, what he thought about celebrities getting involved in game voice acting. Mr North took a moment to ruminate, or perhaps just to let the room sit with the devious gleam in his eyes of practised jokester orator, before responding; "F**k 'em". He elaborated that those people had their own success' and these opportunities should be for someone else, namely him. And though Nolan said this all in a light-hearted way, with a smile on his face, irrelevant as he likes to be, the point is a solid one. Celebrities have made their mark, why do they need to take show in places they don't rightly belong too?

The blame doesn't lie totally on the celebs themselves, of course, but on the studios who seek them out for 'star power' and 'brand appeal'; rather than seeking out people to fill roles who would be best for them and who would bring the role to life. Recently HBO tried to make this really dumb Family Guy clone based on the Royal Family called 'The Prince'. The show itself was total uninspired boredom personified, but the majority of the bored enthused cast who manned this trainwreck; they were celebs. No reason for that, the show was animated, but it sure made headlines before release! That's a pattern you'll see shared across practically any animated movie, every big budget movie and most TV shows both traditional and new-wave streaming-site feed. (Guess it's not really 'new wave' anymore, is it. Just the status quo now.) Now of course, the obvious argument is that this is how Hollywood and showbizness works, the person with the biggest credits gets the biggest roles, which is whatever, but often times you have situations where people who have no business getting a role with the credits they have, end up there anyway. Why was Russel Crowe playing Javert in 'Les Misérables', despite not being a singer? Or putting effort into learning how to sing? Or being a somewhat decent singer? (Okay, he wasn't terrible. Most of the time.) See what I'm driving at?

You don't see celebrity roles being snatched up by celebrities too often in the gaming world yet, but it's cropped up now and then and when it does, it rarely feels like it was done for the health of the role and more cynically for the health of the marketing cycle. Take Natalie Dormer's role as Lexi in Mass Effect. She's the ship's medic, doesn't have much of a role, yet for some reason there was entire pre-release interview video talking about her involvement. Yes, Doctor Chakwas before her had a famous voice, Carolyn Seymour, but she was just there, and playing a role that fit with what she was good at as an actress. Not saying that Natalie Dormer was bad at all, she was completely fine, I just don't know what she bought to the role that no one else could have. (You know, except for the fact that she was also doing Game of Thrones at the time.) It almost feels like a hold over from the old age of entertainment, where roles were made to fit famous actors and those actors would go around pretty much playing themselves everywhere. ('Arnold Schwarzenegger is- John Matrix', etc.) But now that's giving way to a new age of idolisation where characters are now becoming larger than life and taking on a reality of their own: Like the Avengers cast. (Which is funny because Anthony Mackie has talked about something similar before) And I'm not sure either is healthy for the overall art.

Seeing the same faces pop up everywhere as the same character used to make total sense to me. (consistency is good, right?) But the more I've grown up, as an amateur artist and just as a viewer of content, the more I realise that this sort of stuff is just stagnancy for the artform. Tolkien, for example, used to be uncomfortable about attempts to illustrate his work because he apparently saw that as a breaking down of the creative potential of his work. Should any one interpretation become 'definitive', then that could rob the original source material of it's infinite evocative range as a written piece of fantasy. I personally like it when art transfer mediums, but I can see where he's coming from. This new Amazon version of Lord of Rings feels hollow to me before I've seen a single inch of it, simply because Gandalf, Frodo and the gang are already set in my head and attempts to recast them will just seem like bad cosplay to me. That's ridiculous, of course, there's no such thing as a 'definitive adaption' but it's a symptom of this idolisation syndrome.

So what does any of this have to do with Johnny Depp? I just find it a cynical and weird symptom of this whole affair for the literal face and features of an actor to be profited off without the actor's approval or involvement, and I'm trying to rationalise how we got here. I'm sure that Sea of Thieves treated the entire thing with respect and dignity, Rare seems to made up of decently folk afterall, but I'm still left disquiet. To play devil's advocate, I'd much rather actor's likenesses and performances be immortalised through their roles than the actor themselves being dragged around the industry for their 'star power' alone. Ideally, though, the art would come first. Larger than life celebrities sticking their heads everywhere without provocation, or simply for marketing, could do with some serious toning down. So there's my utterly unfocused rant out of the way, back to gaming talk tomorrow!

Assassin's Creed Sydicate is dumb

Consider yourself, a mess

Consider yourself, a catastrophe

These games have all gone, so wrong

It's clear, they're, screwing as all along

I was part of the Assassin's Creed cult for a very long chunk of my gaming life, to the point where I was picking practically every game up on launch day, consuming every single bit of juice out of each title as they launched, and happily diving into the various surrounding material each and every entry. I had totally bought into the lie that this was a 'grand and epic story' being told around history by some sort of 'master narrative craftsmen' over at Ubisoft, imaginary virtuosos that were slowly constructing their very own Marvel Cinematic Universe of gaming. If you've ever wondered why I go so hard on Ubisoft and their machinations whenever they appear in front of me, that is the exact reason why. I've been part of the grift and rode it for so long that it took a genuine shock to the system for me to look back and realise the games that I was playing were becoming more of a mess each entry. Or rather, it took several shocks to the system, because a slew of poor Assassin's Creed games straight really took me out of the loop and had me analyse the series I was dedicating so much time to, and without that introspection I might not have broken out of that rhythm and I'd be just another mindless Ubisoft drone defending these games to the death.

The first game which really shook me for how bad the overall quality of the series was would have been Assassin's Creed Liberation, but I don't know if there's enough time left on this green earth for me to succinctly break down my feelings on ACL, so I'll start with the last game and move backwards. The last Assassin's Creed I bought on launch day was one I really picked up on autopilot, because at that point my firm faith in the series had shaken and I was beginning to question my own hype. That game was Assassin's Creed Syndicate, and it would be the first game of the series to be set in my homeland. (Although, obviously, not the last) It's an uncontrollable hex on the gaming public: if a game takes place in somewhere you're familiar with and/or visit frequently, you're just that more inclined towards the game for no other reason than the morbid curiosity to see how badly they butchered your land. (Or got it right) That's the reason I'd pick up The Getaway, GTA London, and the reason I've been interested in Watch Dogs Legions, but previous disappointments such as Syndicate have helped me stay my hand.

But what was the problem with Syndicate? Really? (How long do you have?) To seek its root we'd have to trail back to the marketing and Ubisoft's insufferable ability to overpromise their own abilities to the point where everything they say now automatically becomes suspect. Remember that this game popped out just a few years after Unity, a game which was a buggy disaster, so fans were generally on edge for the franchise anyway. Then the marketing started coming out and it was... questionable. I remember most vividly talk about the new horse and carts that players were seen riding and having fights upon, making this seem like Grand Theft Auto but in the Industrial age. Imaginations raced of action-movie style fights at high speed across London, but then other questions started being asked such as: why was this just a screenshot? Why not show any of this stuff off in gameplay? Is it because it looks much better as a still and in gameplay it's really stilted, boring and underused? (spoilers: It's exactly because of that.) Eventually we'd actually get to see one of the three carriage fights in the game shown off in a gameplay trailer, and it didn't live up to the stylised, touched up, screens that we'd been sold. Another feature that was in the game, but not as we hoped it would be.

Then there was my favourite part; all the discourse about the dual protagonists: Evie and Jacob Frye, the twins from Croydon. Ubisoft were foaming from the mouths to tell us about how interesting and diverse these two were; Jacob the brawler and Evie the old-school Assassin. Each would inspire totally different styles of gameplay. A brand new stat system would ensure that playing as Jacob would be an action-fuelled romp across London whilst Evie would encourage shadow-hugging stealthy escapades. Which, as you can imagine, ended up just being a bunch of hot air because the twins both had exactly the same abilities as one another and their little 'stat boosts' were near entirely negligible. (Plus, both had some odd missions that specifically encouraged you to play in the other's style, as though trying to make sure you'd notice how they played almost identically to one another.) In the team's defence, however, they did at least make it so that the two characters had separate animations. (But then, they really had to after the marketing fubar around the last game, when the team claimed that they couldn't make a playable female protagonist because it would require new animations and the team were too lazy for that noise.)

Marketing venom would shoot all across this game's veins, with half truths and veiled lies slowly infecting every vestige of this game so that anything fans might look forward to, they'd end up disappointed by just when laid against the false expectations that Ubisoft built up by themselves. In fact, the only thing which played out exactly as the team suggested it would might have been the train-home of the twins which would move around the Circle line through gameplay, just as advertised. (I really did love that home. Great idea.) But what of the things that Ubisoft kept for the game itself? Such as the story? Ubisoft were very cagey about this, merely stating that both twins would play a big part and that the industrial age would serve as a true backdrop, as opposed to the last game where most of the time it felt like you were just hopping across the revolution doing your own thing whilst history was happening in the next room over. This even resulted in one unforgettable gameplay walkthrough for me, where Evie sneaks up on one of the main targets and kills them, only for the storyline censors to kick and change the dialogue so that it reads: Evie "Tell me where the >Mcguffin< is!" Bad guy "... No." Bad Guy then immediately dies. I'll admit, that was funny. Unintentionally so, but I'll take what I can get.

But how do the twin actually play out in the full game's storyline? Well, I guess spoilers ahead for those that haven't played, but if you haven't by now I can only assume you're pretty much uninterested at this point. Okay, so the funny thing about Assassin's Creed Syndicate is that it plays out as an ordinary Assassin's Creed game only with a curiously self-deprecating eye cast at itself that isn't there to provide broader prospective, but it merely there to be contrarian for the sake of meaningless conflict. Let me explain. So just like any game from this series, Assassin's Creed Syndicate proposes a society wherein all the key figures of the age are members of an illuminati-like secret organisation known as the Templars, who are working together from their separate spheres of influence to guide society in a direction better suited to mass control. Or at least, that's the mission statement, as the games have gone on these people have retained their influence but goals have shifted from the clever society-shaping goals to the esoteric "I'll use my resources to mind a magical space artefact that can do wizard stuff. Don't know why I had to be in charge of the steel factories in order to do that, but here we are."

This is the world that Assassin's Creed Syndicate situates itself in, thus as you can imagine the game mostly revolves around the Assassin's going around to these heads of industry and killing them before their vision can reach fruition. But with a twist. For you see, every time that Jacob Frye murders someone, Evie Frye turn around and admonishes him for acting brashly. You see, now after 6 mainline games, it's irresponsible to go around killing heads of industry without taking into account the effect that will have on the industry in question. "Kill the head of the train line? Well then people will lose their jobs and entire workhouses will be shut down." It's a point, I guess, but hang on; that's what we've been doing for the entire franchise! I mean, the idea always was that these people have to go, and that their deaths would serve the world better than leaving them around, no? So what's the solution? Placing their own Assassin-friendly replacements to take over? Because that sort of sounds like trading one subliminal dictatorship for another. I ask because Evie never provides an alternative, she just complains because that creates the perception that she's the thoughtful one and Jacob is the brash one. Except when she does the exact same thing herself in her missions near the end because... character growth? I guess you could argue that was meant to be her 'journey' (learning how to let go of responsibility?) but it comes across as entirely misjudged and antithetical to all the plots that came before.

You might think it strange that these compatibility issues between character and narrative were the thing which launched me out of Syndicate, but when tossed ontop of all the other elements that made the game, it was more like the final straw. It made Evie seem annoying and Jacob feel stupid all in the same swoop, so what was there to enjoy about my time with the game if I wasn't there for the characters, the gameplay wasn't what it could have been and the story was generic? Exploring the city? Sure, the world builders at Ubisoft are unmatched in their craft, but £60 is a lean price for a virtual tour game. Which isn't all to say that Syndicate was an abomination, in fact I think it was ultimately the best of it's engine generation, but it was still a disappointment, and that made me realise how that was the feeling I felt coming away from every Assassin's Creed at that point. Disappointment and frustration about games that never seemed to hit their fullest potential in any individual field, and an overall narrative that was moving along so slowly it might as well have been non-existent. And that, in my roundabout opinion, is why Assassin's Creed Syndicate is dumb. Jacob had cool sideburns though. I'll never knock the sideburns.

DokeV

 Why do I like it so much?

Have you ever stared head-long into the abyss of insanity and seen it peering back at through void black eyes? Pointing, judging and throwing it's own absurdity back in your face, writhe with accusation and blie? Telling you that you're the problem element in this equation, for the crime of not getting aboard the train and joining the chaos. Only by fully surrendering yourself to it's throes can you hope to coexist amidst it's hurricane reckoning. Has, uhh- has that ever happened to you? Now that I say it out loud I'm assuming not, at least not unless you happened to be tuned into the Gameson event when the game, which I've had to look up the name of five times now, DokeV, made it's debut. And to be clear, I'm no stranger to absurdity or weirdness. I'm a Jojo fan for goodness sake, that's half of the show. But DokeV managed to truly weird me out the level of my comfort zone and make me truly feel like I had no idea what I was looking at. And you know what? That makes it a rare and special game already. So I want to talk about it today.

A lot of Gamescon was boring, I'll be honest with you. Just little titbits I didn't care about for games I forgot the moment after I saw them. (This year really wasn't for me.) Cavalcades of faceless and nameless games blasting past me a mile a minute, gone from the ol' frontal cortex in 60 seconds flat. (Back off neurologists!) So far the only games which managed to stand out were those that I had been made previously aware off and so were actually waiting for. (Oh, and Elden Ring, I suppose. Which got gameplay, but us paupers aren't cool enough to see it) Yet in that storm there was one game which leaned into being as bizarre and context-less as humanely possible, that won the 'first impressions' war, such to the point where I'm eagerly watching and actively want to untangle this mysterious hidden game post-haste, slightly fuelled on my feeling that the secrets of the the universe hide therein.

But what exactly is it about the DokeV reveal trailer that is- built different? (I'm sorry.) Well from the get-go I was struck by distinct artistic dissonance that only grew as the trailer went on, but which I found myself resonating with; as much of an oxymoron as that is. I'm talking about the way you've got this highly detailed and gorgeously lighted rendering of a city and country side (that I'm told resembles South Korea) roamed around by these chibi-esque big head cartoon characters that looks like they belong over in Splatoon or something. It looks like modern Dragon Quest characters taken out of their game and slapped into a modern Final Fantasy game; and I like it? Perhaps it makes the characters stand out, almost in a garish fashion. Or perhaps I'm drawn in by the harmless friendly design of the characters, and bid to stay by the lusciously rendered world. A 'best of both worlds' situation, if you will.

"So what?", you might say "you've got a city rendered with cartoon characters in it, big whoop. What do they do. What is this game's purpose?" And to that I say- uhh, I don't know. I haven't the foggiest. I've watched this trailer several times and I still haven't come to terms with the apparent fact that is an MMO of some form. But to be honest with you, I don't really care about the overall purpose of this game because literally every individual snippet of game looked fun to some degree. Isn't that wild? Just watching the characters skate across a busy road and swoop around slanted streets looks enjoyable just for exploring this lovingly created space. (I cannot overstate how much I love the look of DokeV's environments.) But then robots and stuff start showing up and I once again lose track of what's going on.

I'm trying to break it all down though, bare with me. So with full honesty, this game could just be a colourful tour through South Korea and I'd be fine with it, just like how the Forza Horizon games are essentially just prolonged tours across some of the most beautiful landscapes of the entire world. (Megalomaniacal secret maybe-backstory notwithstanding) But that is not what this game is, at least not in it's entirety, because around about the mid-point the trailer evolves into these various showdowns against rocket spewing robots in the eye of a hurricane. (I'm not making this up) And the action is palpable. In looks, at least, this combat looks exciting! (That may come down to the hurricane) You have colourful bursts, glittering particle effects, a camera that knows to stay far enough away so that you can see the action. (>Take notes 'Godfall'<) I can't pretend to know what the things that are being fought are, but that seems almost beside the point in this avalanche of activity.

In a fashion suited to randomness (that is steadily becoming 'normal' for DokeV) the non-human creatures featured are either atypical or next to unidentifiable. I mean they did go the lazy route a bit and show off an alpaca because "Hah. Alpaca so random and funny!", (Yes, Fortnite has driven that same 'Joke' to death, thanks very much) but they make up for that in the enemy design which ranges from robots to Michelin-man looking things, giant plushtoy crocodiles and pulsing neon bodies of light. This stuff is wild. And not creatively diverse in the manner that you'd expect from your recent Souls-like game, with thematically fitting but still bizarre monstrosities, no, these things look like the star of your latest fever dream. And again, I love it.

Maybe I'm just bored with conventional feeling experiences offered to me as a distraction from a world that no longer makes sense, and so I gravitate more towards the relatability of the abstract. Or maybe I'm reading too deeply into a game that somehow clicks the right pieces together in order to make something that shouldn't work on paper, work in video form. The rest of the trailer is just a mismatch of giant hammers, rocket propelled fireworks, swooping giant birds, lots of hurricanes, literal flight being taken by the player character and a pop beat so jumpy and excitable that I wouldn't have been surprised if this entire game was created merely to be a music video for this song. That makes more sense than the 'this is an MMO' narrative, considering there's been little to no evidence of the MMO elements of this game on display for us. 

Yet those in doubt need merely look at those involved. It's made by Pearl Abyss, the guys behind the Desert series of MMOs; and is anyone else thinking that these guys have adopted decidedly too many projects on their plate right now? I mean they already have an MMO out right now, they want to make another one which looks similar enough that it'll likely siphon players from their first one and now they want this game which, to be fair, is different enough that it'll appeal to a whole new demographic. Only, now the team are saying that this isn't an MMO? Now it's an Open-World Action Adventure game, huh? Well good to know the team are just as clueless about the game they're making as the rest of us. I Still want to see more though. What a trip...

Lego Stars Wars: The Skywalker Saga

The legends said you would return, but I must confess: I never truly believed... 

There are few titles out there that are a guaranteed hardwire directly into my heart through the back-door artery labelled 'nostalgia'. Games that, from their very name alone, can perk my head up and have me all over them, drooling with anticipation and memories-to-be-made, with only so much as a small tease to keep me hooked. In fact, right now I'd say the only three game series' which could manage such a feat would be Metal Gear (which is so unbelievably dead right now that I can't imagine falling into that trap anytime soon), Persona (For the love of god give me Persona 5 on PC, ATLUS! I'll do anything!) and LEGO Star Wars. Yep. Not even if Knights of Old Republic turned around and slapped a surprise KOTOR 3 announcement, would I lend it such unchallenged reverence as I do to LEGO Star Wars. (Although that might be because EA holds the rights to KOTOR, and EA currently has no decent RPG developer within their stable.) And I might go so far as to extend that to maybe one other LEGO sub-division in LEGO Batman (especially given the fact that I've literally been replaying that game series over the past week) but it's the world of LEGO lightsabers, blue glowing build piles and increasingly more complicated Death Star levels that has me hooked.

My history with this series actually goes all the way back to the original on the PS2 days, back when I was still fresh in love with Star Wars. I would consume anything from that medium and it would trickle down towards me thanks to a Father who loved the series too. I would get Star Wars Bounter Hunter in this time, (I need to emulate that someday. Such a classic) LEGO Star Wars, and even a few of those legendarily weird Star Wars titles that people debate the existence of. That's right, I used to own Super Bombad Racing and Star Wars Demolition. (Those goes back into PS1 actually.) But LEGO Star Wars, alongside Star Wars Battlefront, were the gems of my collection in the days that I got them. Battlefront would become my dad's favourite game to play, LEGO Star Wars would become my favourite, and when I got Lego Star Wars 2 The Original Trilogy, that would be the middle ground we'd play together. As you can likely deduce; this series means a lot to me, emotionally.

But even divorcing that sleight context from the whole affair, Lego Star Wars was the first example for me of a 'forever game' before I even knew what that term meant. The sort of game I could come back to again and again in perpetuity, driven by an engine that seemed to say 'yes' to me as much as I wanted it to. Were there secrets and collectibles to return to levels looking for? Yes. Was there enough sprawl to your levels for me to go off and create my own fun, such as pretending to be a clone troop fighting across Federation trade ships? Yes. Could I even go so far as to design my very own Jedi and jump across these levels living the Star Wars power fantasy that every kid of that age has? Of course, go nuts. I think I might have rivalled my several thousands hours playing Skyrim with the amount of times I kept coming back to LEGO Star Wars and reliving my fantastic golden dream. No other LEGO game quite captured that exact charm for me, except Batman, (I never had the chance to play Lego Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, though. They might have been good) so I've yearned for that sprawling majesty ever since.

Thus when I heard that TT Games were moving on to covering the new trilogy I was beyond excited, although confused about why they were going one movie at a time. I mean, I loved more LEGO games, but I couldn't be focusing on one narrative like this was some petty story game, I wanted to jump around from Episode to Episode, crafting my own stupid events on the workbench in my imagination shack up in my noggin. And so I eventually figured that I was better off waiting until they finished the movies so that I could pick up the 'collection pack' or whatever they ended up doing. As you probably know, that ended up not happening. Whilst working on a Last Jedi pack, plans changed and the entire project was directed into creating Lego Star Wars The Skywalker Saga, a reworking of the entire Star Wars movie franchise in Lego form to create the largest game TT have ever made. So the disappointment from the cancellation news didn't last too long, at least not in this neck of the woods.

And since then it has been silence, crippling, aggravating, silence. Don't get me wrong, I understand what incredible feats of engineering these games are, what with their tactile level design, heavily destructible environments, near-endless replayability, I recognise that all takes time; but good god it felt like they announced the game the same day the project was greenlit, because we had been waiting a hot minute for anything resembling an update. But that doesn't mean the team didn't want to waste our time by announcing DLC. Yep. DLC for a game that doesn't even have a release date. Ya'll serious? Now we could stew in our lack of patience whilst ruminating on the fact that Rogue One, Solo, Mandalorian and Bad Batch would all be getting extra paid content at some point whenever this game launched, also 'at some point'. What a time to be a ravenous fan of this franchise, a time where we were being poked and prodded to see how much we could take without breaking and loosing our damn minds.

Yet I speak of the past, because the wait is oh-so-nearly over. Recently at Gamescon our frustrations were rewarded with an honest-to-goodness look at the meat of what this game is, this New Hope for the Lego Stars Wars Universe, Episodes 1-9. A complete trailer, gameplay and all, covering the breadth of the franchise, and from the very get-go my reaction was "Oh, they're remaking the originals". Yes, I know I might have been late to this particular revelation, but for some reason I just assumed this upcoming game was going to be a repackage of Lego Stars Wars 1 and 2 with a new 3rd era tacked on top for completion's sake. But I may have been feeding my own misconceptions there. Instead, the team have made Episode 1 and 9 from scratch with their modern design philosophies and I am... scared. Excited, but very scared.

What if they screw it up? What if the simple fun of those original games gets lost beneath cinematic sequences and gimmick new minigames that aren't as good as the developer thought they were? Granted, TT themselves have never given substantial fuel to feed these doubts, but isn't it just the pattern of modern storied game developers to screw everything up? Play things too safe or veering too far off the beaten course, and who knows what we'll be getting? Well, in their defence, what I've seen so far is more cool than worrying, but who can rightly say from but a single trailer? The graphics looks perfect, the animations are wonderful, the gameplay seems to have been touched up, the humour is... different, (I preferred when they didn't speak) and I have no idea what that galaxy-map stuff was all about but I want to find out! It just feels like everything is riding a pinprick's edge from tumbling into mediocrity, and currently I've no earthly idea whether or not it'll balance or fall.

One thing I do know, however, is that for this game to finally get a release date is a miracle worth celebrati- Spring? Spring 2022? All these years and you couldn't even hit December? Heck, Spring isn't even a date, making it seem like they still haven't finalised and it could be pushed back even further! Good god, what are they doing over there; genetically cloning a real living LEGO model of Rey to sell with every copy of the game? Wow. At least this means the final game is getting it's polish, and that when it does arrive, it'll be every bit that spotless LEGO experience we remember from our youths. (Except for LEGO Batman, which is unplayable without VSync) But then I did say this series would receive 'unchallenged' reverence, did I not? I didn't think trusting in this game would be as much of a gamble as it's turning out to be, but I'm throwing in the chips. I want to be excited, and from the little we've seen I think that excitement is warranted. Welcome back LEGO Star Wars, I've needed you in my life.

When Choices don't actually matter

 Your actions have consequences

I actually remember my first time booting up Telltale's The Walking Dead and seeing that ominous message fade onto the screen amid a wall of black. 'Your actions will have consequences' blinked into life and hung for a time, ensuring the message really squirmed into your gut and nestled in your psyche. I'll be honest, it unnerved me. I wasn't throwing my head up and shouting "Finally, a game where things matter!", instead I was glancing to-and-fro, trying to exactly pinpoint how I typically like to play games and what sort of mess that might land me in. Could I accidentally screw up the entire story by not taking it utterly serious from day one? Would the main character instantly explode if I failed to select the perfect rhythm of choices? How serious are the 'consequences' we're talking about? I saw it as a threat directly against the laid back, see how things go, way I used to play narrative based video games, and maybe that was a jolt I needed in order to pay more attention and care about these games.

Obviously it didn't take long for a bit of experience with these types of games, all of whom started with that exact same plodding flash card, for me to realise that my 'actions' would only actually have a very limited set of 'consequences' and usually at highly specific moments where the actions are blindingly obvious. "Will you help the annoying guy or the useless woman in the middle of the zombie attack? Bare in mind, the other probably ain't gonna make it." Titles like these talk a big game about how branching the plot is, or how every single butterfly trod on will cause a cataclysm one world over, but in truth they're limited by the plot and the writers. You can't make every choice lead to some unforeseen consequence, else people will be too terrified to make any choices for fear that they'll screw everything up! (Not to mention the sheer vast range of options and story twists that would take in order to nail down to the wall perfectly.) But some fans can find this to be a bit of a betrayal in that they very much expected for their every choice to become a new plot point. So I wanted to explore some games who flounder or succeed on that very promise.

Take Cyberpunk for instance, being a game that very much sold itself on being a heavily choice-driven experience, but which famously didn't live up to that nearly as much as fans wanted. One of the most commonly quoted points of contention is the 'origin' system, wherein players would get the chance to choose who their character was before the storyline and that would influence the way they would interact with the story. Similar to how a lot of the more hardcore RPGs function. However, that origin ended up influencing only the very beginning of the story and as the plot went on, people found themselves only really being given an influencing part in the main plot at very sparring moments. Most annoying for some, being the fact that some conversations would give you a chance to offer an alternative option (even requiring a skill check to be passed in order to raise the point to begin with) only for your opinion to be overturned in favour of where the game wants you to go. Presumably the option is just there for characterisation in showing how smart or capable the player is then? It mostly just frustrated instead.

Pillars of Eternity is a game that doesn't suffer nearly the same amount of narrative hatred, even though it does actually handle it's origin choices very similarly. In that when you select where you came from, what your species is, and what you do; oftentimes that comes up very rarely in conversation, and when it does it comes as mere flavour text that is then contributes nothing tangible to the actual scene or interaction. The sequel does a much better job of this, but in the first game the only point I can recall where something tangible can be done depending on what your character is, was in the very beginning of the game where you find some braziers which can only be lit if your character is a fire god-like. But even that doesn't make any sense because you actually find torches littered all over the place, why can't they light the braziers? Of course, the rest of the game has a lot of choices and branching quests independent of your character creation choices, so this is more a 'drop in the bucket' problem for Pillars, but Obsidian did take steps to rectify it for the next game so it was definitely a recognisable problem.

On the other side of the spectrum we have games like Deus Ex, where we are presented with a world where choices do matter. Now by it's very nature, Deus Ex is a series where player choice shapes the experience, as this is a stealth-based immersive sim, and so building your character to be better at hacking defences and turning them against the enemy is going to change how you approach pretty much every area of the game. But choices effect the story too in that you're given chances to effect the progression or ending of practically every single encounter and mission in these games. A lot of these are self contained instances, wherein the matter is opened and closed within this quest alone and the wider narrative carries on unabated, but the effect still rings true in that the player feels like an active architect in their own fate.  On the otherside of the adventure, this means all these games have huge branching finales that can mean drastically different things for the future of the world and the people who live therein, encouraging replayability as these sorts of systems are designed to do.

So we've seen examples of both successes and failures in this field, but what of a successful failure? Mass Effect and Fallout 4 both have shades of everything we've already talked about in them, however when it comes to choices and consequence there is a shared criticism that these games illicit more than any other; the misleading dialogue option. With the very nature of how dialogue is handled in these games, a preview for the player followed by a full response from their avatar, there comes a few situations where the player will pick an option only for the response to veer in tone drastically from what they expected. This isn't necessarily an example of the writing lacking the scope to change the story, but can still feel like choice being invalidated due to the game interpreting your choices in a way that you didn't intend for. My example for this would be during Mass Effect Andromeda, where if you're too friendly with a swashbuckling smuggler side character the game will automatically assume you are pursuing a serious scandalous relationship there, which leads to some very awkward 'surprise intimacy' moments down the line. (I didn't know it was that easy to lead a guy on...)

I've touched upon a bunch of different types of promised consequence met by disappointing payoff, and what I've landed on is that mostly successful payoff (like Deus Ex) relies heavily on choice that has a distinct effect rather than choice that merely adds flavour; but does that automatically mean flavour options are bad? Whenever I was playing the Pillars games and an option would pop up to indicate that the experiences I'd had or the options I'd selected in character creation, would give me a unique option, I'd pick it. Personally, I saw these not as new paths to through the narrative that needed to branch into new questlines, but just an expansion of who I was, providing a unique perspective that I wouldn't have otherwise gotten to experience. But I think the key is balance. Don't promise your game will be a choice-important romp if the majority of your choices merely add context that the other person would have shared anyway.

There are a lot more examples of choice versus consequence in the interactive story games out there, but I found a lot of those example to be much more situational and specific than what I was talking about here. Although I bet it would be fun to pick out some of those games and really go to town on the key choices of certain episodes, maybe I'll do that sometime. My view on things is that choices and consequences shouldn't ever really be the key selling point of your game, but merely some spice thrown in there to mix up the pot, provide some replay value. Because when you put the weight of the game on it, then you open yourself up to criticism about "But what about this moment where I couldn't choose?" or "Why didn't this choice mean as much as that one?" At the end of the day the tag is performative more than anything else, no one really wants to make a story where every element of it can be pulled apart my some scrappy player who thinks they know the best solution to every problem. It's the writer's story at the end of the day and is limited by the shades that they want to explore, maybe that's a reality that game's marketers need to be more cognizant to in the future if they want to avoid unnecessary disappointment. 

MLK and Fortnite

 Your worst enemy is the man in the mirror.

Yeah I- I saw it. I saw Rick Sanchez and the Xenomorph ascend the stairs of victory and stand there, truly absorbing Martin Luthor King's iconic 'I Have a Dream' speech, and I thought: "Truly, we are all lost." Someone call Charlie and tell her to make 7 billion reservations at the Hazbin, because we're all going to hell for letting this happen. 'Fortnite celebrates Martin Luthor King'- what where we thinking? The second anyone heard that the news should have shot right up the top of leadership so that the appropriate measures, the switching off of the world's internet, could be taken. But instead we all just sat back and let it happen, like the morbidly curious monsters we all are, as Fortnite butchered their way through a serious history lesson and turned the American civil right movement into a joke. Well done Epic Games. No seriously, way to screw up in a way few other companies even so much as put themselves in danger of; truly you guys are the burning dumpster role models.

So for those who have remained blissfully unawares up until now, Martin Luther King's big celebration teaching day dropped for Fortnite a few days ago, nearly half a year after the annually scheduled Martin Luther King Day. (Maybe if they waited until 2022, it would have given the team time to reflect and realise how stupid of an idea this was) Obviously, even the only moderately cynical could see this was yet another step on Epic's road to total proliferation of the Fortnite brand. If they could get the public to regard Fortnite as a platform, not just for entertainment but for serious events of historical significance, then they could use that as a springboard to further mainstream appeal and maybe even finally turning Fortnite into a virtual social media platform, like they want. It's a move towards what people are labelling 'the Metaverse'; a combination of social interaction platform and simulated living space which takes up so much of your daily interaction that you almost never need to leave it. (So the Oasis from Ready Player One, basically.)

The problem should be fairly clear; Fortnite just isn't that universal enough to touch everyone and everything; it's a video game for goodness sake! Fortnite is about shooting things, first zombies, but more famously each other until literally no one else is alive; no matter what sort of event you hold in that world, that background will hover over everything. Epic have been trying, very hard, to try and change Fortnite into something more, and they've made greater strides than I think they have any right to, but they aren't there just yet. Do I mean to imply that with time Fortnite could become the one-stop shop for everything? I- really don't know. Maybe. I've mentioned it elsewhere recently, but we're already getting popular artists hosting concerts on Fortnite, director(s) hosting big movie premiers, an American presidential candidate made a custom map to campaign in Fortnite, and there's the big crossover they did with the biggest entertainment franchise of the past 10 years, Marvel. So they've got entertainment twisted around their little finger right now. Yet as recent events have shown, that doesn't mean they've got everything in the bag.

The first big problem was the idea itself existing, the next was how to do it respectfully in the knowledge that all the world would be watching. The event would simply play out as a tour across a virtual museum that would display all the key accomplishments of the civil rights movement, which players would explore together before ending with watching a broadcast of the 'I have a dream' speech whilst standing in a virtual version of the place where it happened. On paper it sounds fine. Respectful almost. But 'on paper' never translates 1:1, as anyone should have known from the get-go. Putting people in this situation was just begging them to find ways of screwing everything up, and so Epic were fighting against the unquenchable human thirst to just be terrible for the sake of being terrible. They weren't going to win!

To start with they needed to axe emotes, given the fact that previous events of music festivals were often fraught with disruptive emotes such as throwing tomatoes. (That would be a bad look) And so they disabled a few emotes. Then they disabled practically all emotes after discovering that pretty much every animatic they'd ever designed was a bad look for this supposedly serious event. All apart from the 8 designed for the event, which the team left accessible through the emote wheel. Unfortunately, that left a really rather simple exploit open where people could overwrite the contents of the Emote wheel and do whatever they wanted anyway. (But it's the thought that counts, right?) Even more hilariously (in a deeply dark way) Epic had made a deal with DC to implement some superhero themed emotes a while back, and the terms of the deal mean that they couldn't be deactivated. A big shame, considering Catwoman's emote was literally just the player summoning and cracking a black whip, complete with sound effects. (You can't make this stuff up.)

Of course, then there's just the general fact that all of this feels icky. I'm not sure about you, but I don't feel the 'goodwill' and 'desire to teach' emanating from Fortnite as they cover this event; I sense more just the rubbing of hands by Epic execs convinced that this one was going to be idea to score them all the good press points. The exact opposite happened, however, because of course it did; what where they thinking? Now Fortnite has provided it's own fuel to the fire of why their Metaverse idea is bad; because when you try to be everything, tonal dissonance ensues. And that's not even to mention the fact that this was a transparent attempt to commodify Martin Luthor King's legacy in order to springboard themselves higher, and in doing Epic really shone a light on the rather messy split between the owners of MLK's estate, his children. So they also managed to expose more ways in which greed has ruined and corrupted the wider world. Wow, Epic actually ruined my day as well. (They are prolific!)

Now I'm going to surprise no one by saying; I ain't no big fan of this whole "Metaverse" idea. At it's heart the very thing represents a monopoly and those are bad for creativity, but the idea is just so all-consuming that those who pursue it just lose all their personality and heart along the way. Take this PR disaster, which would be enough to make any company with an ounce of humility still left in it's rafters stop to reflect on how stupid their recent path has been. A backlash like this should have been the last we heard of Fortnite in the newspace for at least a month, whilst the team work on how to be better and ensure they're not stepping on any rakes going forward. But not Fortnite, no, they're too big to slow down! And immediately following this they stepped into another controversy with their 'Imposter mode' announcement; a rip-off of Among Us (a game made by an indie studio) with nothing added to the formula and even a map that is functionally identical to the base Among Us Spaceship. (I'm not sure if Epic is just shameless or clueless at this point.)

The term 'too big to fail' is an interesting one. It implies a point at which you're so horrendously huge that even the worst blunder of all time can't stop your hulking victories for that's simply the wake of your step, whilst simultaneously invoking the image of a venture so bloated, with so many people counting on you, that you simply cannot fail, the consequence would be too dire. Total invulnerability and utter vulnerability, married to the same side of the coin. It Epic want Fortnite to be their unstoppable titan, they need to acknowledge that nothing comes with impunity and everything falls. I plain don't think they had an inkling of the infrastructure to establish themselves like they want to, and they'll need to totally devote themselves as a company to Fortnite, if they want to avoid clear embarrassments like this in the future. Either that, or settle with just being the world's most popular video game pastime. But why settle for most of the world, when you can choke to death trying to swallow all of it?

Marvel Midnight Suns

 Or is it 'Sons'?

Sometimes the best treats are those you don't expect, or to be more accurate, the ones you knew of but forgot about for some backwards reason, such as the fact that Firaxis have been working on a game up until now. Whilst we've all been waiting around and drumming our fingers impatiently for the next entry in the XCOM saga, they've been doing every little thing they can to subvert our expectations and throw up road blocks. But because it's Firaxis, those road blocks are turning into worthy distractions anyway. Chimera Squad was a ton of fun and remain my goto for recommending anyone who wants in on this franchise, and their next game sounded incredible, what with their partnership with Marvel comics. Well seems I totally forgot about that because I sat through that entire reveal trailer wondering how Marvel's Avengers was possibly going to transition to all this metal insanity before the studio logo dropped. ("Oh wait, this is a game to actually get excited about!") 

If only we actually saw some gameplay. I don't what it is about this Gamescon, maybe I've just turned into more a grump or maybe we're just encountering an age allergic to gameplay. And I am a lover of cool CG, I am, but when I desperately want to see the game in action and can only rely on vague non-specific buzzwords tossed out in interviews to inform my expectations, I just get a mite frustrated. However, that being said I at least had fun with this trailer, and who wouldn't; it follows a crossover Marvel event where the vibe is all metal rock, Lilith mother of demons shows up and they play a cover of Enter Sandman. (Kinda sad they couldn't get the Metallica version, we are talking about Disney money here, but I understand.) Also, I absolutely adore the redesigns of the cast to fit the mystical, metal, soldiers-of-the-damned aesthetic, great costuming job there.

But what exactly is 'Midnight Suns' and why are so many press outlets screwing up the name in their articles? Well, that might be because this game is based on a 90's Marvel comic run which just happens to be a favourite of Firaxis' creative director, Jake Solomon; a series known as Midnight Sons. So why the change of name? Well my first guess was because the original had all male members and this adaption has introduced more female characters, hence the switch from 'Sons' to 'Suns', but according to Wikipedia the original lineup actually featured one woman named Victoria, so I have no earthly clue why the mix-up is there. In fact, it almost feels like it exists just to confuse us all and spark debates about what the right title is. (I don't know why, but I desperately need an Interview where Solomon explains the name change, it's bugging me much more than anything like this rightly should.)

As for the actual context: The Midnight Suns are described as a group of characters that all have 'a touch of the damned' to them, hence Ghost Rider, Blade, Doctor Strange, Wolverine and- Iron man? Captain Marvel? (To be fair, I don't think those last two were in the original comic) They've delved heavily into the supernatural in their stories, as they duel the eldritch and arcane, and essentially do Marvel's version of a John Constantine. For this story the team have tapped into their original purpose, of coming together to stop Lilith, a character I had no idea was even in the Marvel universe at all, but am glad because a super-cool final boss only makes the journey more exciting. (Also, her design looks like a first draft of something from Diablo III. Thus is unfortunately completely outshined by Lilith from Diablo IV's appearance. Not their fault, I just found the comparison interesting.)

Now I'm sure you're thinking, as I still am, what does Firaxis bring to the table in order to make this a game worthy of their time? And I, again, have no idea. (it sucks having to say this so much about a game I'm dying to learn more about) They've come out and confirmed that this is a strategy game, so we can rest assured that the talents over there are going to get to shine like they should, but they've also said that the gameplay will be "nothing like" XCOM. Okay... so what does that mean? Telling me what the game isn't takes me no closer to knowing what it is; come on, marketing team! All we've been told for certain is that the main focus of the game isn't going to be any of the heroes themselves, but a brand new player created character known as The Hunter who will be the child of Lilith. (Baalspawn again, is it? >sigh<)

From gut reaction I'll admit I wasn't too happy about that. I don't really want to play a nobody surrounded by cool heroes, especially when this 'Hunter's power are going to be split between angelic and demonic extremes; and we're all just supposed to pretend that isn't exactly Dante's whole deal from DMC. But the team managed to hit the right notes when they revealed that this new perspective will serve as a perfect way to integrate something I never thought I'd see, but have literally just been asking for... (in a blog which hasn't come out just yet) Social simulation elements. That's right, slap on the radio, we're going Persona, baby! Solomon spoke about how this Abbey space you retreat to within missions serves as a Hub from which you can socialise with these various heroes and strike up friendships, thus fuelling your battle bonds within mission. That is exactly what Persona does! Good golly, social simulation is taking over the world and I'm here for it!

Unfortunately, this yet again highlights the fact that we know more about the inbetween parts that make up non-active gameplay than we do the meat and potatoes themselves! And of course downtime is important in the makeup of a game, I've argued for such myself endlessly, but when I'm still in the wide-eyed 'love at first sight' stage I need the real stuff in order to keep me attracted. The only reason I didn't cover this game first was because I was convinced it would come with gameplay, because why wouldn't you? How hard could it feasibly be to cut off a single level and show us just the bare minimum? Is this game still even turn based? I want to lose myself in rabid excitement but I just don't have enough rope to wrap around myself yet and that's deeply frustrating. (Don't toy with me, Firaxis-san!)

Black Myth Wukong time, peeps!

Thou shalt Kill, less feuds instill

Thou shalt Steal, as decreed by the freewill

Thou shalt commit adultery, for love thrives in debauchery

Thou shalt speak Untruth, to inspire and seduce

Oh it's that time of year again! Time for the imaginers over at Game Science (we still just calling them that? Nothing else? Okay.) to show just how much we've been missing out on whilst the Chinese side of the gaming world has itself preoccupied with the mobile world. If this is the calibre of product that we could have been receiving on the regular, than I bitterly curse the day Steve Jobs dreamed a computer in his pocket, because the gaming industry has suffered immeasurably for it. Although I suspect that even under alternative circumstances, it takes a special kind of development team to come together, as an Indie, and create fuel a project that looks as good, as consistently, as Black Myth Wukong does. That isn't just your everyday action adventure smash 'em up game, now this has something of a promise to it. And that's the reason that even in this post Cyberpunk world; where the illusion of 'hype culture' has been well and truly cracked upon for all to gawk at, I still get giddy everytime this project darkens my Youtube subscription box.

This video in particular is special, and that's because it's not just a quick stop in to let everyone know the game is very much still in development like last time. Oh no. This trailer serves to announce and show off something which many people could have likely assumed, but it's nice to see it all the same; that Black Myth Wukong will be making its way to the ever fancy new Unreal Engine 5 suite of game engines. Of course it is. This game wowed in terms of scale and graphical fidelity back when it launched, thus it behoves Game Science to stay well and truly ahead of the game Engine wherever possible. (In fact, given some of the logos we see thrown about in this trailer, I wouldn't be surprised if Game Science is currently rocking an unreleased build of UE5 to fiddle around with.) And before you start throwing up the shrugged shoulders and asking yourself why this new engine is worth bragging about; let me give you a few examples why UE5 is a gamechanger.

Firstly, it's important to say that I'm not a game developer. Or at least, not in the sense of heavy coding and certainly not when it comes to familiarity with Unreal Engine, thus I'm not able to wrap my head around every nook and cranny of this new engine. But I have heard all that I can from those that do know what they're talking about a bit more and that gives me a little wiggle room to pull this off methinks. Firstly, Unreal Engine 5 expands greatly on the level of detail which can be contained in a single scene by actual whole orders of magnitude, owning to the way that the engine itself handles loading and deloading textures. Bundles of quality of life features and program bridges allow for development times to be cut in half, and animators have greater freedoms then they ever had before. Or rather they will when the full suite is released, because there's still some elements which UE4 holds over 5. (Although most of the shortcomings can be worked around by porting anyway.) So long story short, Unreal Engine 5 will allow for unnecessary development time to be chaffed off, and for that excess spare time to be funnelled into the increased detail budget available. This is a net positive mood in just about every way.

And it shows. I've watched the trailer a few times now, just thumbing through and actually start to finish, and you can just tell all the ways in which the presentation is upfront and in-your-face for Black Myth. I'm already salivating with those close-up shots of the rocky mountain sides and ancient carved murals that just breath lore and life in their very stones. Some of this level of detail is only possible with the newer engine, and Game Science have shown time and time again that they know exactly how to make these systems sing for them. What hits double points for me, however, is the fact that the majority of this trailer takes place within the snow, and ya'll probably know well my love affair for the colder climates by now. We've only seen clear snow so far, so I can't judge how well they can impart the sense of snow's bitter touch, but they've spared no expense on snow imprints; the shortcut to any gamers heart. Seriously, show a gamer a beach that shows footsteps and you'll have won their undying loyalty and love. Black Myth went so far as to show the shockwave of a move cut a path through the snow. (These guys always got to go the extra step, huh?)

Never has Game Science been excused of leaving gamers wanting with their gameplay presentations, they always make sure to stick as much of everything they can into the margins so that we have plenty to day dream on in the months until the next trailer, but this time in particular it almost seems as though they're trying to overdoes us on content. Wall-to-wall fighting with various show-offs of strategy, monster types and environments, some of which flies by so fast you can only assume their building these walkthroughs specifically to cater to the "10 things you missed" with the yellow circles crowd. Not that I bemoan them, I love the slowly expanding image we're receiving of Game Science's vision, as we gradually close in on exactly what they've been working on all of this time. This time around, for example, we really got a chance to feel the 'answer-response' melee style of your typical souls game combat, feeding into the 'Sekiro' influence the team mentioned all those years past.

Speaking of Sekiro, and the work of FromSoftware in general, would you mind if I geeked out about those enemy designs? Because wow, if you asked me what a Chinese FromSoftware game would look like, I'd be dreaming up something mighty similar to the things we saw in this trailer. From the gangly monkey man to the headless musician and of course, my highlight, the silver Chinese dragon. A lot of these creatures are born from the mythology of Journey to the West as well as Chinese myth in general, that much is clear, but the skill and creativity to take those legends and visualise them in such striking and interesting ways is a testament purely to Game Science's team. And on a personal note, I just die everytime I see the fur textures for this game; that big black red-eyed bear- I just want to reach through the screen and cuddle his little murderous face.

Our Monkey King, Sun Wukong, is shaping up to be quite the protagonist even aside from the wonderous adventure he's going on and the wild monstrosities he's tackling. True to form, the developers have put a lot of work into making his moveset seem nimble and fluid, with the emphasis on stealth from the first trailer and the tricky agility displayed here. One fight in particular showed off a lot of a dodge move designed to be made right in the face of an attack, even to the point where it displays an afterimage of where he would be, which paints this idea of combat being a lot more hair-trigger than your typical Dark Souls. (I wouldn't be surprised if Move cancelling takes a significant presence in this move pool) I'm also excited to see Ruyi Bang get some love here, with the iconic staff-growing being an actual move. (Which reminds me when in Dragon Ball Goku stretched his staff to the Moon in order to dump some bad guys on it) Which leads me to the highlight of the trailer; that scene where Wukong climbs to a perch on Ruyi Bang and then slams it on the Dragon in an explosive finisher move just as the music swells. Was it an artificial moment? A little bit. But was it cool beyond measure? Absolutely!

It may be a bit of a cliché, especially in the wake of certain other games who ruled their pre-marketing cycle through overly impressive trailers, but I'm more than happy to just sit back and wait years until this game is every bit as good as we think it is. I have no problem with checking in every year on what they're doing, seeing everything going to plan and going "Great, see you next year." Because just like someone who's just learning how to love again, I can't have another giant fall on it's face in front of me again. Game Science talk the talk, the appear to walk the walk, now all we have to do is wait and feast on the banquet of beauty these trailer represents. And the offerings are vast. The years may be long, the wait may be torturous, but when the day finally comes for our Journey to the West; it will all be worth it.

What's a feature you wish was in more games?

 Can you remember, and humanize

One of the best and most enduring traits of the gaming medium is the way in which it has the potential to be just about anything to anyone through the sheer variety of genres, sub-genres, and new genre titles that some developers try to coin despite the fact their game neatly fits into genres that already exist. (>Cough< The Wayward Realms is just a sandbox RPG >Cough<) And with each of these divisions and sub-divisions we get new and interesting quirks and facets which stand out and make that sort of game special to it's fans. Whether it's the all-encompassing immersion of a role playing game, the social atmosphere of an MMO or the undying, break-neck, competition of a Battle Royale. They all glitter with appeal to someone out there, and sometimes even overlap with their little features and boons. Which got me to wondering... what types of features and shades to people's favourite game type do they sit around wish were more widely used across the wider spectrum of games? What would make you seek out a further selection of games if only this one bulletpoint was on the back of more boxes? And what does that say about your favourite dream game out there?

Through merit of simply writing this blog, it's likely that you can predict a few of my own already, but maybe there's a few surprises sprinkled in here that'll throw you off my scent. That being said, my first example is no great surprise to anyone, least of all myself, in that it's what I call 'Freeform Stealth', or to be more specific: objectives that have multiple stealthy approaches to them, including the option to just go in guns blazing if you want to. Typically seen in bigger immersive Sim games like Bioshock, Deus Ex and Dishonored; it's an emphasis on player freedom that leaves a feeling that you are almost never out of options or completely stuck. Perhaps the enemy of truly tough feeling games, then, because by it's very design you'll never be forced to morph yourself in order to approach this encounter in the 'right' way, but by another side of that coin, you are left with so much replay value in which you make each mission as hard or as easy as you want it to. It's by no means an easy approach to game design, requiring each level to be meticulously crafted with 3D awareness to everything you're doing, but when done right and consistently (>Cough< Cyberpunk >Cough<) I find it elevates the material around it and typically creates incredibly special games.

But that's more the lofty side of a topic like this, how about the more weird ones? Like the way I wish more games, regardless of their genre, found ways to wind in companions to the story? I know that sounds a little 'out-there' and/or 'non-sensical' but bare with me here; game narratives where you focus on the story of one person going through the world like a man-on-fire feel so limiting. Some of my favourite games features Companions, or Followers, or Confidants; just anyone else who can offer their own perspective and has their own goal. Perhaps I just like the formula of someone on their specific journey to self discovery that cannot cross the final finish-line without the player's intervention; it makes me feel valued. Were more games able to find companions in them, the fleshed out kind, I think it would really open up the potential to fall head over heels with more stories and enrich the overall play experience. Or maybe I'm just lonely. Probably the latter.

Oh, here's one I don't see so often: Safehouses. Coined as such because of their appearance in GTA III, Safehouses are places for the player to go to between missions, whether that be to save the game, change clothes or simply to relax; and not enough games have them. I feel like if you have any sort of explorable world, unless we're talking about a hyper-focused linear journey game, you need that base of operations merely to offset the feeling of adventure. I don't think this is so much a functional ask, as the role I'm expecting such places to fill is almost spiritual. A home to unwind within means so much in the art of contrast, and it's the reason why when we have games that half-ass safehouses it feels like there's a chunk missing from the formula of the game itself. (Like with Far Cry or Cyberpunk) I'm not sure if this reads even remotely logical to you, but trust me when I say that I'm deeply passionate about this one.

On the side of more recent features I've grown to love, this entry almost comes as an indignant demand; why aren't there more consistent creeping power levels between whole series? What I'm talking about is essentially the thing which the Baldur's Gate series did which made me love it so much, whereupon you reached the endgame of the first title and moved onto the next game at the exact same power level, so that the threat of the world increased with each entry. Baldur's Gate made their finales entire worlds away from each other, so that someone who completed 1 could feasibly find themselves utterly beside themselves in attempting to finish Throne of Baal. It made the series feel like one continuous story, much more than how most games do it by continuing the story but resetting the gameplay back to square-one again. I don't know how I'm going to go back to the way things used to be, and Pillars of Eternity II is already starting to grate because I've seen how good it could have been! This might be a case of 'you'd understand if you played it', but more games need to follow the example of this old master.

And talking of 'following the masters' how about more people getting aboard and really following the examples laid out for us by Dark Souls? And by that I mean proper environmental storytelling. I'm not just talking about 'Skeleton on the floor next to loaded gun equals murder and/or suicide maybe' (thanks Fallout) no, I'm talking narratives wherein the very world itself weeps the story. Games where a simple empty plinth next to a pantheon of statues can tell you wonders about who was meant to stand there and can spark speculation as to why they're not doing so anymore. Where the warping of the world is loosely stated, but explicitly shown. Where the visual medium of games remembers that it can just as easily show, instead of always telling. Leave it to the world a bit more, trust in your audience to figure it out. Or heck, let them debate endlessly about definition until they're blue in the face; either way when handled right it gives your narrative more tangibility.

But the last spot I have for this little list must go to perhaps the most conceited of these 'features' that I wish were in more games. In fact, this might not so much be a 'feature' and just a request that more games were exactly like this subgenre. I'm talking about Social simulation. (Persona, baby!) Stepping into the mundane and extraordinary at the same time is what defines Persona and makes it a game that is so instantly identifiable for so many out there. You could load up Persona 4 and fall for it's innocent, sleepy charm in no time flat, and the social simulation world is the engine that fuels that charm. So many game types could make use of just some simple social simulation elements. Imagine a Persona-Pokemon game; it just fits, doesn't it? If real friends are too hard to maintain, let us make virtual one's I say!

So that is just a few of the ideas I had off the top of my head, but when it comes to a topic like this there are obviously so much more that any and everyone can say for their own reasons. So I challenge you to ponder your favourite games and what it is that makes you resonate with them so; can that be transposed to other games types and would that ultimately make them better? Next time I want to try and devise an existing game and how it could neatly fit in some of my own suggestions up here, but I recommend you to share some your own ideas in the comments; get some creative juices flowing. Maybe somewhere along the line we'll end up coming up with the blueprints to the ever-elusive perfect game. (Or just a unique mess; either way it'll be fun.)