Game of the Year 2022 predictions

 Let me glance into my crystal ball...

It's about that special time of year. The temprature drops to nigh-on unbearable, every time I go out I come back crying with my fingers dropping off, and everyone in the game's industry gathers around for a game of "Nuh-uh! I deserve that award more!" A truly silly and reductive exercise when, if you think about, the real reward of making a great game is the substantial bonus you get for it being successful. At the end of the day, what else matters; you dig? I ain't going afford no down payment on my flat with your ugly little angel statue. What's that even made out of? Plastic? I can't melt down and flog no plastic! It's all meaningless pomp and grandeur for the sake of keeping up appearances for an outside world that couldn't care less about looking in. But it's funny, so we abide by it regardless. Now I'm going to be honest; I ain't played a single game that came out this year, so this is going to be an especially uninformed lightning round of predictions hence forth. 

Firstly is the big one, the knock-out punch, the daddy of them all; Ultimate Game of the Year. The line-up that features such titles as 'Plague Tale: Requiem', 'Elden Ring', 'Xenoblade Chronicles 3', (What a shocker!) 'Stray', (Really?) and even a novelty candidate like 'Horizon: Forbidden West'! Okay, I'm being mean for sure; but we all know Horizon doesn't have a chance in hell at the reward, not when it's own publishers are dead set in ensuring the games do as badly as they possibly can. I wouldn't be surprised if Horizon's publishers are actively bribing the game awards not to vote for them, just to cater to their own sick, self-destruction fetishes. And of course, then there's the game which is already going to get the award; God of War: Ragnarok. I'm more of an Elden Ring, FromSoft kind of guy, so they get my vote; but make no mistake, I know Ragnarok is going to win this one. It's just a too big to fail kind of game.

Game direction is a funny category, with unclear rules, and an even more unclear line up. We've got Horizon, Elden Ring, God of War, Stray and-  Immortality? What the hell is Immortality? Apparently it's this year's latest 'live action interactive story' game, which certainly triggers my fight or flight response just off rip. But assuming 'Best Game direction' counts for the most interesting concept, I'll go with 'Stray'. The cat game fits better here than it does for 'ultimate game' in my opinion. Best narrative is practically the same line-up except 'Stray' is replaced by Plague Tale. It's funny how incestuous all these top awards tend to get, isn't it? How far down the list do we have to go until something unique pops up? Now again, I ain't played a single one of these games so my guess is going to have to be random. I heard good things about Plague Tale and I know that's a largely narrative driven action game, so I'll pick the rat game.

Art Direction is where things get good and subjective, and when we get a new contender to pick through. Elden Ring, God of War, Stray, Horizon and- Scorn? Good lord, Scorn is up for a game award? At least it's in the only category that game could dream of winning. And you know what, I'm willing to actually give them this. The art direction is perfectly atmospheric, even if every thing else fails to carry a satisfying experience. Scorn gets the vote. Which brings us to the music round! Ohh, very interesting; Sonic didn't even make the line-up! Plague Tale, Elden Ring, God of War, Xenoblade and Metal: Hellsinger? Pretty cool; Metal: Hellsinger is actually a rythym action FPS title which delights in it's metal music roots, it would almost be an embarrassment if they didn't win! But lets go crazy; even though I haven't heard a single track; I'm picking Xenoblade. That's right, I'm a maverick; I can't be stopped!

On the same wavelength, we have 'best Audio design', for which the options are 'Modern Warfare 2' (A COD in the major awards? Who'd have thunk?), 'Elden Ring', 'God of War', 'Gran Turismo 7' and 'Horizon'. For which my only frame of reference is actually COD. So, shockingly to myself, I'm going to vote for COD. What is wrong with me? I don't know. Best Performance is a big one, but an easy one; lacking any eight-foot pale-skinned vampiress women, I have to go with the tall pale man instead. Kratos, Christopher Judge, final answer. Games for Impact is a bit funny this year, as not a single game featured caused enough of a splash to qualify for this award outside of the game reviewer scene. I'd only heard of 'As Dusk Falls' and 'Citizen Sleeper', which means I guess I have to flip a coin- Citizen Sleeper, sure, whatever.

Now for the funny categories. Best ongoing game? The same options as last year. But why, there's so many new Live services! You've got Babylon's Fall- oh that shut down... Final Fantasy VII: The First Solider'- oh that shut down... Umm... Avengers? Nah, I guess I'm just going to go the high road and say... uh... Fort- no. Gen- nah. Dest-Ap-fantasy? Crap... Final Fantasy, final answer. I have no clue. Now the indie game of the year is actually pretty competitive this year, we've got Stray, Cult of Lamb, Sifu, Tunic and Neon White; all big splash indie titles that hit the map hard. Personally, I have to give it to Sifu, but pretty much every entry here is worth an award; they're all great. And best mobile game has... wait what? Apex, Genshin, Marvel Snap (hmm), Tower of Fantasy (Ah, Sci-fi Genshin. Of course...) and... Diablo Immortal? Are you... Geoff is happy sharing the same stage as those literal vampire slugs? I don't... just wow. I pick Apex, but it is a crime for that game to share the same stage as Diablo...

Who is getting best community support? It all really depends on who is in what community and which game commands the most interaction, but I'm going to go the high road and pick FF. I have a bone to pick with the 'accessibility options' award. An RPG designed to be playable by the blind got snubbed in favour of a car game last year, and now I'm mad so I'm going to just say Monkey Island. I don't know what options it has, I'm just bitter. Bonelab's is the best VR game I've ever seen, so there's no real reason to even acknowledge the other games in the VR section; which will shovel onto the next big category; best action game. Very curious this one, for the range of options available. Bayonetta, Sifu, Neon White and Modern Warfare 2... (There's a Turtles game but that's not even really in the running anyway.) Neon White shouldn't even technically be applicable, it's puzzle platformer with shooting, COD is a shooter; so this really brings it down to Bayonetta and Sifu. I haven't actually heard anyone talk about Bayonetta 3, (beyond that controversy) so I'll just default to Sifu.

Best Action/Adventure game is where we get even more competitive! Plague Tale, God of War, Horizon... and Stray plus Tunic? Stray? Okay... whatever. As much as I'd love to put down Horizon, I really think it deserves a serious consideration here. Only a consideration, my money still goes towards God of War, but I want Horizon to know I'm thinking about her... Best Role Playing game is straight nasty with what I'm seeing. Elden Ring, Pokemon, (Arceus not Scarlett and Violet) Triangle Strategy, Xenoblade 3 and... Live a Live? Wait... isn't Live a Live a remaster? It is, that original came out in 1994? Was the award ceremony that hard up for RPG games? Seriously? Also, the spin off Pokemon gets a vote but the mainline gets snubbed? Yikes, that is some hard luck, buddy! Elden Ring gets my vote.

Best Fighting game actually has enough choices to exist this year! Isn't that nice? We can choose between DNF Duel (Never heard of it) Jojo's Bizzare Adventure: All Star Battle R, (Another remaster but I'll allow it) King of Fighters, Multiversus and Sifu. Okay, look. Sifu probably deserves this one. And Jojo doesn't have rollback Netcode. But I'm sorry, I don't have a choice. Fandom dictates I must nominate Jojo; there's no free will in this decision. I'm guided by higher Stand powers. Best Family game actually surprised me, because I never even knew a Kirby game came out this year. (Did you know that?) Splatoon, Lego Stars Wars, Mario and Rabbids plus Nintendo Switch Sports came up to face it... There's a Nintendo Switch Sports? And it only came out now? How much is it... £30?! Screw that- Mario gets my vote... damn...

Simulation Strategy is a broad and spacious topic, as evidenced from the fact we're picking from Dune Spice Wars (didn't know that came out already) Mario and Rabbids, Total War: Warhammer III, Two Point Campus and Victoria III. I think you'd be hard pressed convincing anyone knowledgeable that those are all the same genre game; but Warhammer is the only one there I've been personally interested in. (Not enough to actually go out and buy it but... hey-) Which brings us to the very verge of the abyss, the point at which all the topics become less and less interesting. What's the single best Sports game? How about Blood Bowl III? That isn't out yet? Okay than, Forza. That's not an option? Damn, you're really backing me up against a wall here... Olliolli world! I've never heard of it but... that's why I know every other game on that list is total trash. Oh, and Mulitversus has the best mutliplayer; that category isn't even worth an internal debate.

Content Creator of the year seems a bit bloody loaded, doesn't it? Ludwig and his girlfriend are seperate nominees, but Charlie is nowhere to be seen? Scandal! Shenanigans! Chicanery! I expect Lud to hand his award over to the Moist Supremacy the second after receiving his award! Best 'debut' indie kind of feels a bit reaching if you ask me. Neon White and Stray already got their run of the big leagues, I want to surrender this round to Tunic, Norco and Vampire Survivors. And though it was a flash-in-the-pan hit, I think the very rudimentary nature of Vampire Survivors makes it my vote. It's nice to see that even the simple games can run gambit of pop culture.

Ohhhh! Best Adaption? How tantalising... Uncharted is just, a laughable contender, get that movie out of here. Cuphead has it's fans, I'm not one of them. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 looked fine, didn't care for it. Arcane or Cyberpunk Edgerunners? Now that is a very tough line-up! Arcane is a visual masterpiece, but Edgerunners slips into it's anime skin so deftly. This is going to be subjective as heck, but the cultural wave of Edgerunners has effected me deeper than Arcane ever did. I know they're both top tier adaptations, but I can't just snub my main girl Rebecca. She might just climb out of the show and shoot me if I do, you know how she gets!

Most anticipated games is as loaded as an award can get; celebrating the thoughts mafia for a good marketing campaign. And any selection of games is going to leave someone feeling shunted! But out of Final Fantasy XVI, Resident Evil 4, Hogwarts Legacy, Starfield and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom; this really isn't as easy of a selection as it was last year. I guess I'd end up picking Zelda, but only because Tears of the Kingdom has been on my radar years before I knew it's name; I want to own all of these games at some point in the future.

Esports time! Esports time- lighting round- initiate! Who could be so callous as to ask what the best Esports game is when the answer is clearly the only Esports game responsible for finally ending Kony 2012, thank you, Valorant, for your service! (Overwatch 2 doesn't even get a nomination? Ouch.) Best Athlete is a tough one, because I'm 90% certain that Finn Anderson is just Oleksander Kostyliev with his chin-strap shaved off. But I gotta go with my man Lee 'Faker'; he's giving me a thumbs up! He knows he deserves my vote! I love me some 'best Esports team' choices, especially when FaZe clan seems to be listed twice, only their second nomination is under the name 'LA Thieves' for some reason... Well, FaZe is the only Esports team in this lineup to meet and collaborate with Batman in order to solve a crime, so it has to be them. (I'm not lying, look it up.) Esports Coaches are looking gruffer this year. I'm pretty sure Andrii would mug me if he ever saw me in real life and I think Robert Dahlstrom already has. Only Go Dong-bin had the good graces to submit himself a professional headshot with a fine night-sky tie. That is a man I'd be happy to give my wallet to as he held me at knife point! And Finally we have best Esports event- a meaningless competitor, as I always pick the competition with the most distinct colour scheme. All the others are close to blue on the colour scale, League of Legends was red. The LOL event was the best, empirically.

Which marks the end of my utterly informed and intelligent predictions for the next game awards, if any of my predictions end up going astray, it's reality which is wrong, not me. This year I am proud to say I haven't played a single game that I judged, (which released this year) and only the adaptations were made with full knowledge of what each product contained. If that isn't cause for pride, I don't know what is. I cannot wait, like of you, for the night of the event wherein we'll spend every moment complaining about the awards and waiting for the video game reveals between each award. I wonder what painful celeb cameo will disgrace our eyes this ye- oh wait, it's going to be Chris Pratt, isn't it? Yep, I already know. And he won't even be bothered to show up, he's going to give us a pre-recorded message. Urg; I'm going to start actually disliking this man by the time the Mario movie comes out, I just know it.

Smash has been smashed

 Decency has left the game!

I make no secret of the fact that I do not, in any way, follow E-sports. I find the games that thrive in teh scene rather dull to spectate with competitors typically employing the exact same high level strategies and counters again and again from one match to the next, unless we're talking about well-made fighting game competitions as those tournaments tend to be a bit more diverse and interesting. But after two years of joke-predicting the winners of the Game of the Year E-sports categories, I can report that my level of migration into that community has not changed or evolved in the slightest. What has changed, however, is the standing that E-sporting world currently has as a respected medium when very recently the biggest, and most loved, Super Smash Bros tournament got itself suddenly and abruptly cancelled out of the blue when big-bad Nintendo decided to get out of their way to murder it's impending big event and kill next year's one in the same statement. Although this wasn't just a Nintendo screw-up this time, as much as well all want it to be.

You see, Nintendo have well established for themselves the role of being the 'Disney of gaming' so much that they actively try to twist their own morals to be as evil of a company they can manage in shooting for that Disney benchmark. They've already got a bit of a headstart, manufacturing and distributing Hanafuda cards at a very specific point in Japan's legislative history in order to get around gambling laws for the benefit of the Yakuza is a pretty big tilt towards the red-side of the morality board right off-the-bat. But modern Nintendo absolutely love the idea of stepping on the spirit of their fans much more than funding organised crime, maybe even throwing out a few overzealous lawsuits if they're feeling spicy that morning. Basically, unless old man Nintendo has his fingers digging into the thorax of some poor starving artist who committed the crime of tracing over Mario to make his own artwork, the Big N just doesn't feel right with himself. Nintendo yearns to see it's fans in pain, it desires grief-stricken fans more than anything else in life. But, somehow, they did maintain something of a blindspot.

For years when it came to fans hosting tournaments for Nintendo games there was a balancing act of both sides knowing fully about each but just pretending each other doesn't exist. Nintendo has terminal 'slap a baby' syndrome so no one really wants to seek out their endorsement, and Nintendo knows organisers only stand to lose money hosting these events mostly for the fun of their game of choice and as Nintendo likes to see their fans suffer, it was in their best interest not to get involved. Anytime Nintendo did speak up, it was typically at the worst possible time for event organisers and a it was a decree to shut the whole thing down. But if Nintendo thinks you'll go destitute and homeless quicker by letting the event run, they'll do it. Perfect twisted harmony between the community of Nintendo lovers and the sadistic misanthropes who silently observe them. An unbreakable balance between predators stalking their nervous prey standing alone in a field. In many ways, it really was just a wait between how long grass-routes tournament runners could continue before the hammer swung down and the Nintendo Stormtroopers blitzed the villages looking for skulls to cracks. And today is that day.

The 'Smash World Tour' tournament, less than two weeks for ramping up, was bought the knock-out blow from Nintendo after the company affirmed that 'grass routes' competitions that don't sign up for the Nintendo approval process (A 'very expedient' service that run you anywhere from one week to six months depending on how heartless the big N is feeling on the day you submit) are a thing of the past. From now on it's Nintendo approved or nothing. And, of course; Nintendo approved means that those white gloves are going to be assuming ownership of these events, so the organisers running them have to be extra careful not to accidentally do anything that the eldritch list of unforgivable Nintendo sins outlaws, otherwise those gloves will move to snapping the spines of those entrepreneuring fans. Because that's what you really want from your fans; for them to feel threatened when interacting with you to a horrifying degree such that they can't enjoy the event for how deliberately they have to act lest they wake the braying dragon.

But again, this isn't all about Nintendo. This is also the story about a man named Alan, CEO of an Esports collective called Panda who are hosting their own Smash Bros tournament. Only the thing is with his event; Nintendo actually officially endorsed his efforts. Of course, Nintendo were also in contact with the Smash World Tour organisers, promising them that their event could co-exist with the Panda event; but there was someone who wasn't happy with the prospect of two big Smash events. Probably drawing from the fact that the World Tour has more of a draw and a bigger potential for viewership. That man was Alan, and he went about airing his grievances with Nintendo's laxness in a manner that neatly explains why it is that Nintendo saw their hosting partner in his hands. He, allegedly, committed in widescale strong-arming!

According to several different event organisers who were partnered with the World Tour, this Alan reached out to them in order to warn them that the World Tour was due to be shut down by Nintendo, and that they needed to sign up with the Panda event or else they'd by shut down too. Alan also wanted exclusivity deals with events, which he later rescinded after very few organisers were willing to stab someone they already had a partnership with in their metaphorical back. Alan flaunted his official endorsement by Nintendo to enforce his own dominance as the only person who should be allowed to run a Smash Tournament and when that failed to make the splash that he wanted, suddenly out of nowhere Nintendo decided to go back on verbal assurances they'd already made and shut down the Smash World Tour. It seems like there's a missing puzzle piece there, doesn't it? And maybe the sort of piece that only a guy called 'Alan' could fill in for us.

It has been a sad direction for the Esports relationship between Nintendo and it's fans to evolve; not least of all because the competitive Smash scene has been built entirely without any involvement or help from Nintendo ever since Melee released. Then, the very first time that Nintendo decides to partner with someone, not only does it turn out to be a guy who reminds them of their old Yakuza customer base, but it's then immediately used as a springboard through which Nintendo can police who gets to have fun playing their games. Literally a boot down on the concept of grass routes fandom that birthed a community around a set of games that Nintendo are profiting from. There is no reason, beyond overly protective brand practises, to start slapping down the fans like this.

Needless to say, as all this caused a schism to form amidst the Smash community. A lot of people aren't happy signing up to a tournament run by a bully, and considering Smash tournaments aren't exactly a huge consistent money maker for really anybody out there, they don't have a huge financial commitment to file away any moral compunctions. It's kind of like another sporting competition that has suffered huge controversy around it nowadays, only with far less stakes and no washed-up ex-footballer selling his soul to be the marketing arm of deeply troubling human rights violations. But that Nintendo have even managed to make themselves lightly comparable to the 2022 Football world cup is absolutely wild. Leave it to Nintendo to be their own worst PR rep.

What's the deal with menu screens?

 Press any button to start

Oh, is he going to write an entire blog just talking about Main menus? Yes, yes I am; because the art of the menu screen goes so often unsung and unloved in the grand tapestry of game creation. I mean, who even stops to think about what the menu that stands between you and the gameplay actually looks and feels like? Despite the fact it is most usually the first thing that you'll see everytime you load the game and it should be the last thing too, but I'm pretty sure there's not a living person on this planet that doesn't skip past the 'exit to menu' option whenever they're playing a game. When I want out, I'm getting out; ain't nobody getting in the way of me and the desktop! Oh, and I'm talking pure visuals here; not about the options provided within those menus. As cool as being able to edit all the graphical options I want is; I don't care that much.

I've actually had this topic bouncing around in my head ever since I played Prototype 2 back in the day. For anyone who has played that game, they'll probably know exactly why that game's menu stood out to me. The menu is actually very simple the first time you log in, just your bare basic options; it in the proceeding visits where the menu gets interesting. Whenever you log into the game the next time around, the background of the menu screen will be a shot of the ambient world going about relative to where you last were when you logged out. Which could mean you'll see citizens going about their day in the non-violent city, or maybe a war between infected monsters and military helicopters firing rockets in the war-torn part of the city, depending on where you quite out last time. The really interesting part, however, comes when you press 'continue'. Then that very same scene in the background pans back a little to reveal the player character, waiting there, and the game immediately starts. That's right, the menu screen loads you into the gameplay before you've even started; how cool is that? That always stuck with me and I think back about it's wizardry all these years later, even if my tastes in cool visuals and presentation have 'matured' in the time since.

On it's face, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has a very straightforward, if intensely atmospheric and cinematic, main menu. It's just Geralt of Rivia meditating in a field during the events directly before the game picks off, about to mount the search for Yennefer. It's direct, it bring you into the moment and world immediately and it allows us to see CDPR's lovingly rendered Geralt model, which deserves showing off. But when you get the DLC, the menu changes accordingly. Hearts of Stone has Geralt meditating just outside the grounds of the Von Everec estate, a location intensely linked to the narrative of that expansion. But my favourite, Blood and Wine, has Geralt meditating on the outskirts of Toussaint outside of a dilapidated farm-house within which a shadow of a woman can be seen fleeting in and out of view, softly singing 'Lullaby of woes'. A reference to the best Witcher 3 advertisement featuring the very same concept; hauntingly marvellous and memorable.

For such an evocative franchise, the various games of FromSoftware's Souls series menus are surprisingly tame and to-the-point. Typically they're formatted exactly the same to one another, with Bloodborne perhaps being the loudest, featuring the visage of 'The Hunter' in it's background. What I think stands out as memorable for the Souls games is actually the use of music employed in their, otherwise stark, menu displays. Any familiarity with the franchise will impart that music has something of an important storytelling role in this franchise, and the creators grew more synergistic with their music as another arm of the narrative as their craft evolved. Still, Dark Souls 1's main menu theme is perhaps my favourite in it's iconic peacefulness. Utilising everything from harmonising choirs to ringing bells and harps, it sounds like the relief-stricken notes you'd expect from Resident Evil's safe zones. It's almost deceptively peaceful given the relentless nature of the game it vanguards, but this is intentionally so as it represents the peace before the storm of enduring the depressive and decomposing world of Dark Souls once again. 

Spec Ops The Line is a famous example from a game that I haven't played myself, but have heard more than enough about over the years. The way that Spec Ops' menu works is simple, you'll overlook a sniper perched over the desert tomb of the game's setting and he'll be your stop-in point throughout the process of the game. As you return the Sniper will change his routine, maybe he'll go back in for the night, or take out his binoculars to go sight-seeing during the day, but you'll remain at the same vantage looking over the same land everytime you log in. Later on in the game you'll see the towers in the background start to catch aflame, matching the progression of the story and then, suddenly, you'll find the sniper's dead body being picked on by crows. The final shot is a washed out scene of the same perch, a fallen and tattered American flag and the desiccated husks of skyscrapers behind that. A mirror to the moral and emotional degradation of the game behind the menu screen.

Going back to something a bit more simple, the Main Menu for Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater is actually very straightforward but oddly featured, in a manner fitting Kojima's design style. On it's face it's just a silhouette of Naked Snake performing one of signature CQC takedown throwns on an enemy solider in slow motion as a camo print rolls like a filter over the scene. But for some utterly inane reason, the analog sticks on your controller can be fiddled around with in order to change the colour of the camo pattern or the type of camo being scrolled. It's an utterly bizarre functionality that absolutely didn't need to be considered and ultimately adds nothing to the core game itself, but that's just the way that the big man makes his games. He and his team pursue any odd fancy they think of and if they can make it, it typically stays in the final product! 

And finally, the game which made me revisit this idea I had so very long ago; there is the Persona 5 menu screen. (Yes, I've finally gotten my hands on the game after falling for it seven years ago. Thank you ATLUS for torturing me.) For a game dripping in style and passion, it only makes sense for the menu screen to be slick and jazzy, and of course it absolutely is. We see the Phantom Thieves dotted around the streets of Tokyo in their three-scale white, red and black colour schemes, all posing like this is a Jojo poster. As you flitter between options, you'll dart around to different perch's across the city square and the Thieves will relocate appropriately. It's dynamic as well, meaning that whichever option you approach a certain option from (above or below) the animation of the Thieves relocating dynamically changes; a simple switch of shoulder will become a full cartwheel. Now that is the definition of putting way too much effort into a aesthetic, but I love the overachieving all the same.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with going the bare basic route for a menu screen that really effects nothing of the game's overall experience; but at the same time, wouldn't you want to go that extra step to put the most amount of effort in everything you can? With all the work that goes into nailing the intricacies of gameplay design and visual flair, what's wrong with doing something a bit more interesting and pretty with your menu designs? Even if it's ultimately insignificant, people do come away thinking about the menus whether they expect to or not; and I consider menu reveals for new games to be their own kind of special. Isn't it that last special mark of a masterpiece to ensure that every last inch of the product sparkles to it's utmost? At least that's the way I look at menus, don't know how you see it...

Mobile Marketing

 Guess what guys?

My world of gaming and the world of mobile gaming almost never intersects if I can help it. I mean sure; sometimes I'll end up playing through 'Deus Ex: The Fall' whilst blindly pretending that the game is not just a sub-par port of a crappy mobile adaptation. Sometimes I'll buy a game that was lingering on my wishlist and frown a little once I realise it's control scheme is eerily similar to a mobile games'. (As far as I can tell, Tower of Time was never a mobile game; I guess their UI guy just had very specific tastes.) But when it comes to the trends of development that mobile games are going through, I'm totally unplugged from that world! Maybe that is to my detriment- I mean, I've got no way of proving otherwise! Let me just take a quick lookie at some of their ads... OH GOD, IT's ALL TERRIBLE!

I don't want to be the 'laugh at them because they're not me' kind of guy, but when you look at modern mobile games that are dominating the adverts all over Youtube, is there any other way to really react to them? It's not that they're rudimentary, or that their simple, that would be fine; it's that they're utterly and totally devoid of passion and life. We slam Ubisoft for turning AAA development into as stale of a process as they physically can, well at least they're not literally developing to a corporate written mandate. I'm talking city builder games plus 1. At the very least the big games of today aren't using that same Unity game framework I found for free a while back, but they are putting out the same insanely low quality ads for the small buff in retention rate they earn from viewers who stick around to mock them. And I'm going to be honest; these are the sorts of ads that make the entire industry look bad.

When I see swinging arguments from people who don't know better telling me how gaming is a merit-less and vapid pursuit not even worth being considered in the same breath as real art, I think about these ads and I can't really say much in response, now can I? People who assume that Grand Theft Auto is about running over prostitutes for 'points' feel validated by the barrage of awful mobile ads they skip past everyday online. Ads where we see people running through light gates with random 'rewards' in each gate that feel lifted off some Buzzfeed article about what life objects 'speak to the real you'. Ads where we see brain numbingly simple puzzles being screwed up whilst an awful TTS sounding voice bemoans their own stupidity. And of course, Ads where a cadre of simply manic and unhinged people tell me excitedly about how they've found "tHe ReAl PUll ThE PIn GaMe!'

Can I just say this here, right now, as a personal cleanse of my demons. I hope 'Evony: The King's Return' is thrown to the ghost corridor in Morioh with the grapping hands that rip apart your soul and send you to a purgatory wherein you're doomed to try and atone for unforgivable sins. I cannot accurately convey, without screaming (which doesn't come across very well in text) how sick I am of seeing the Evony ads! I can't be the only one who saw those original ads for the 'pull the pin game' and thought: Wow, this looks like hot trash. But to then, months later, be barraged by insane people telling me "Oh, it's okay! I've found the real game for you!" is just utterly maddening. I don't want to play your awful mindless trash game, I'd rather trap my testicles in a tumble dryer and set it for the hour-long spin. (Phew, got that out of my system.)

But as far as I can tell from the adverts I've seen; the two big mobile games currently dominating the marketing time of Youtube is State of Survival and Rise of Kingdoms; both using two different, yet eerily similar, advert styles. State of Survival used to go around with these very prototypical adverts where attractive female characters from the game would find themselves in sudden peril and have to fight for their lives in their tank tops through overly rushed animations that speed through events nearly quicker than you can process them. And those adverts, don't you know, have no reflection on the base game which is actually just a town builder with some very rudimentary tower defence gameplay slapped on for meat. Which is more than most town builder games do, to be sure, but not really anything to write home about.

I can only assume that their original campaign ended up earning the company a bit of money, because now State of Survival almost exclusively do these terrible live-action ads that portray different actresses (a term I'm using very loosely) acting as executives from the company going around and offering coupons in heavy eastern European accents with genuinely godawful performances.  They've also thrown up an apology ad or two, but only as a ploy to throw more sign-up coupons to desperately grab at new users, because another Mobile Game marketed their own false marketing apology and turned it into a marketing stunt. All of these games spend every last red cent into these marketing stunts, whilst underneath it all their base games are just utterly pathetic. State of Survival isn't worth more than an afternoon of play, and even for a 'free product' there are genuinely worlds better options out there for your time. 

And then there's Rise of Kingdoms, a mobile game so desperate to cement itself as the next 'Clash of Clans' but lacking any of the production talent to come close to where that game was in it's prime. All of Rise of Kingdom's adverts are based around the 'leader' characters of their game role-playing as players who flaunt their in-game successes as real world social currency in predictably banal displays. I've yet to see them hit the lowest common denominator and go for sex appeal, but I did see one advert in which the Jesus-looking character admonished a ratty Cleopatra by saying "I need a wife, not an apprentice" which felt like it was scratching at that door. Oh, and the meat of all these adverts is, again, clearly non-native English speakers badly reading scripts in which they desperately try to pretend their city builder game has the grand strategy depth of a Civilisation game. It doesn't. All they have is a supremely bland zoom-out map that you can have fights in. Other than that, it's exactly the same as every other trash city builder on the market.

Recently I've made the rather grim discovery that there are actually Youtubers who form communities around covering and supporting these digital dumpster fires. Including one man who seems to be a career Rise of Kingdoms player, which is about along the same lines as putting 'professional dumpster diver' as your legal occupation. All this means that within the apparent niche that gaming is still considered, there is a niche even under us of actually dedicated mobile games fans towards which these adverts are their entire gaming world; as utterly morbid as that sounds. But I suppose that is the way of life, the world turns and mobile ads are still, after all this time, utterly pathetic. I suppose it is true what they say, money can't buy taste. Or effort. Or talent. Or worth as artists.

Greedfall Review

Things are about to get dicey!

There was a time long ago where my entire world of RPG games was eclipsed and ruled by the catalogue of Bioware. Theirs were the very first 'in-depth' RPGs I'd ever played, with Mass Effect, and thus I held them to the top of the pack whenever it came to considering Role Playing Games as a genre. I always defaulted to the standard that Bioware set whenever I played mediocre 2010 games with their piddly 'RPG Lite' mechanics and sad 'choices without consequence' design model; because in my mind Bioware was the best at all those mechanics those games regularly disgraced. Of course, the years have not been to kind to the old king. Their staff has changed to be unrecognisable and the talent has not readily rubbed off onto the new team. It seems like Western RPGs have either moved entirely to the much more intricate, and intimidating, CRPG model, or surrendered entirely to the more creative and varied example of JRPGs. Only one Western company seems content bridging off the example of gold-era Bioware to bring high quality action RPG games to the western world.

Unfortunately, they have a name that I keep forgetting for how generic it sounds. Who would name their video game studio 'Spiders' and think it's a good memorable title? I mean, maybe I'm biased given my general loathing of the eight-legged cretins themselves, but I don't particularly think 'good' thoughts when I imagine Spiders, until I connect them with the game developer and then I can smile. Starting their life off as a solidly B-Game developer, I don't think anyone could have predicted their rise to the the upper tier of Western RPG developers like they're known for today. Back in their infancy they worked on some of those Sherlock Holmes games and a title about 'Faeries' or something. But then, in 2016, they made a game called 'Technomancer' which earned quite high praise amidst the action RPG faithful that actually managed to discover it. A typically fun and engaging RPG just like Bioware used to make, coming from a French studio who just seemed to get it.

Where I came to be interested in their work, however, was with the intriguingly oddball premise of 2019's Greedfall, for it's potential and scope being a fantastical world grounded in a fanciful depiction of European colonialism across a magically charged land. "How interesting" I remember thinking; "What a curious one-off smash together of topics perfect for a company that bills itself on these single-story worlds that wow you for an adventure and then drizzle off, completed." Of course, in 2019 Spider was also acquired by a company, which means that Greedfall is now a franchise with an upcoming sequel for whatever reason. (Ah, the predictable throes of the industry.) Still, I've always wanted to try the original Greedfall out for myself, and it was only very recently that such an opportunity opened up for me.

First off, I feel the need to say that Spiders isn't a particularly huge or big-budgeted studio; their talents lie in the substance of the games that they make, not the size or presentation. Several ways of me quite frankly saying that even though Greedfall is visually dated, particularly for a 2019 title, (a year which bought as Death Stranding and Resident Evil 2 in it's best moments) I don't believe the level of fidelity is a detriment to the game. Yes, the character models are all somewhat ugly and later on in the game faces start to blend together and you'll stop remembering who is who after the multitude of similar disquieting faces begin to overlap in your recollection; but even with those less-than-appealing character models, the art style of the world Greedfall presents always manages to stand out to the player on it's own special merits.

The pre-industrial revolutionary-France style architecture of Sérène stands out immediately as a visually memorable landmark, even within it's grim straits as a land on the verge of collapse thanks to the scourge of 'the Malichor' plague. You'll find the city of Sérène lost in narrow grimy streets and clumps of burning bodies, the ground level of a truly sprawling city that weeps of a lost splendour. It's all very well designed and portrayed, the art team sell the narrative beautifully. And, of course, the setting is rich from a narrative perspective as well, with Sérène balanced as a Merchant Congregation mediator betwixt the scientifically inspired 'Bridge Alliance' and the religiously devout 'Thélème'; both major faction players throughout the course of the narrative. They all carry strong visual distinctions, with the Bridge Alliance carrying an Ottoman Empire design trend and Thélème favouring a Spanish Reconquista motif. 

Where the game truly begun to shine in it's artistic delights for me, however, was when it came to the land of Teer Fradee and all which hails from there. Whilst on paper is sounds pretty by-the-books and cliché, a land of natives who revere a fantastical 'nature magic' which fuels their sacred land and abilities, the specifics through which Spiders went to realise that side of their world imbued an individuality into the concept that makes it their own. On it's face alone, Teer Fradee is a visual wonder, purposefully taking advantage of wide breathable vistas to stand in contrast to the claustrophobic Sérène prologue, and the overwhelming powerful might and scale of nature seems ever present, what with the endless massive yet gorgeous trees and that towering black volcano constantly dominating the continent skyline. Even the built up and colonised sections of Teer Fradee come alive with a tangible majesty. Hikmet particularly stretches across several rolling hills with an architectural style reminiscent of medieval Acre with those iconic cupola rooftops and thick stone sea-walls. Even New Sérène carries a similar architectural style to it's old world counterpart, but is covered in scaffolding and building material, conveying a newly budding promise rather than a slow decaying death.

And of course, that art powers through to the design of the Teer Fradee inhabitants too. The various animals and Nádaig 'Guardians' are designed as a conflux between the wild uninhabitable ferocity of untamed nature and magical nature-creativity that clearly borrows from mythical European legends like the Wendigo and the Banshee. That level of care carries on to the culture of the natives who worships that nature. The speak a language said to be derived from a variant of proto-Celtic created with the help of a linguist for authenticity; there's a real dedication to making the world of Greedfall feel more substantial than a list of written codices describing a wider and more interesting world. Bridging a disconnect I've even criticised masterpieces like 'Pillars of Eternity' for getting stuck behind. I simply adore the world of Greedfall, which helps me as the player retain that interest in it's wellbeing even as the narrative itself begins to drag and fray; which it ultimately, inevitably, does.

Another key pillar of any action-RPG is, of course, the combat, seeing as how that is typically a player's key-most method through which they interact with the game world. And for Greedfall the best way I can describe the systems at play here is 'fiddly' and at times even a bit 'janky'. It's quite basically a very rudimentary Witcher style set-up of stabs, parries and dodges, occasional spells shackled to a recharging mana bar and a plethora of bombs, traps, firearms and potions which all act as largely un-essential 'power ups' if ever the fairly straightforward combat becomes just that tad overwhelming. There isn't much challenge to figuring out how each enemy fights, especially not when you discover how forgiving the timing on the parry is. And the way that damage types come into the game is not overly important either. You have the option to spec your gear in counter to specific damage types, but there's never any need to actually do so. Which is fine, of course, I would rather play 'fashion show' with my gear anyway.

The jank really comes into play with engine limitations that feel excessively dated even by 2019 standards. One such being the 'combat arenas'. When you engage in a fight, there's an invisible radius around where that enemy was placed in which that enemy AI is active. If you should ever leave that radius, which you cannot actually see remember, then the enemy will immediately lose interest in you and regain all their health. I'm sure we're all familiar with such an old design philosophy but it just seems so antiquated and rigid that even encountering it in a somewhat modern game can make you do a bit of a double take. There's very little recoil to attacks, because that mechanic appears to be linked to some sort of invisible 'poise' system that isn't deep enough to really dive into, and the camera seems just rigid enough to cause problems in large crowds. Overall, it's not a very good combat system, but it's not terrible by any stretch of the imagination. I would call combat largely serviceable and even a little bit fun in specific circumstance when everything is shaking hands and you know exactly what you're doing. But still, certainly not the highlight draw of the game.

Much like other action RPGs, Greedfall has an RPG web of progression split between skill points, talents and attributes. Skill points effect combat with mostly incremental damage buffs between bigger 'technique power-ups' or spells if you work your way along a certain web far enough. Talents count towards contextual actions such as persuading a character in dialogue, picking locks or climbing up cliff faces. (Yes, being unable to take map shortcuts is the punishment for neglecting those stats) Attributes are largely 'requirement checks' for certain equipment. (Endurance 4 to wear this certain armour piece, etc.) Every point is spread out careful upon a traditional EXP based levelling scheme, and you'll be likely to have at least dabbled in most different styles of play before the final quest. There's not a whole breadth of build variety to try out here beyond actual playstyle shifting.

Crafting supports the progression with a surprisingly fun system wherein you gather materials from the world or at shops or from broken down pieces of gear and use them to create consumables or armour and weapon improvements. The surprising element for me came in the fact that those weapon and armour improvements actually visually represent on the character, meaning that you can design a set of armour to look how you want. The stat differences between different styles is largely negligible, so it's more just a fashion statement. And I really appreciate a single player RPG recognising how fun it can be to seek out the materials or talent points to get a piece of gear looking just right, even if it's just to show it off to ourselves. The team did not need to go to that extent but I'm certainly glad that they did.

As any open world RPG might, Greedfall features a plethora of Side Quests and Companion quests to bring us closer to the team we're lumped with throughout the play time. Every single one of these side quests I found to be narratively interesting, with some of them being genuinely cleverly placed for how they functioned alongside the narrative. The prologue, for example, features two side quests offered by ambassadors of the two major land factions, both of which function as their own short stories whilst contextually involving you in the tenants and ideals that those factions represent. Deft and smart world building. I quite often found that many quest started out as conceptually dull, only to blossom into intrigue and intricacy once you dug a little deeper into them. I can't pretend that every side quest is a homerun, and the general design choice of 'go back and speak to the faction leader' can drag, but largely I came away impressed that Spiders never went for the sub-standard boring side quest model of 'collect this for me' or 'kill this guy because he did a crime'. Every quest was designed to a standard of substance.

Of course, that standard of substance stretches to the core of the main narrative as well, which unfolds in such a narratively-driven fashion that I could not help shake the feeling that this game feels like a good fantasy book adaptation, which as far as I can tell it absolutely isn't. Perhaps that's just the sense I get from the obvious Dune parallels within the set-up. What with the Royal Merchant Congregation colonising a land of distrustful natives, wherein the protagonist clearly has deeper ties to that land than is readily apparent and so on. The story does go it's own direction, though; this isn't just an unofficial Dune adaptation by any stretch of the imagination. But I do not draw those parallels as an insult, by any stretch. I quite enjoyed a lot of the story presented.

What I did not so much enjoy, as much as it sucks to say, is the voice acting. For a vast majority of the cast, the voice acting largely lacks in presence and command of their scene. Several voices don't even seem to fit their character models at all, such as that of De Courcillion. Also, the main protagonist (note I played with a male protagonist, the female might be better) seems decidedly flat noted and lacking in character. Some of that is due to the writing lacking spice and personality, but the performances do not bridge any gaps. Of course that isn't the whole cast I'm deriding. In particular I thought Inquisitor Aloysius was great; I only wish that particular character had a greater role to play in the story. I think maybe a solid rewrite of dialogue to leave more character in the script would have served the general performance standard a little better. Or maybe I just need to play the game in French, I haven't tried that yet.

Mass Effect Andromeda has a curiously similar premise on it's face, but I find the way that Greedfall handles slowly uncovering a foreign culture through the lens of 'colonisation' to be more realistic and engaging, not least of all because Greedfall does a better job conveying the struggles and setbacks inevitable in this sort of story. I only bemoan that fact that the player's job as a diplomat between two warring nations on foreign soil to be a little too easy. Unlike a similar role in 'Tyranny', there's no 'give and take' to consider as you go about treading between the two nations also occupying Teer Fradee, despite the fact that they are supposed to be bitter enemies in the old world. In fact, after playing every side quests I found the player to have good relations with literally every faction on the island, which seems to draw back from the 'consequential actions and consequences' idea you'd expect not just from an RPG but specifically for a story about colonisation with these exact pressure points.

And that is not the only place where I found that the scope of Greedfall's narrative fell a bit short of expectations. The early story arcs of the game are fuelled by intrigue and investigation as you search for a cure to the terrible plague that ravages the old land in a world where 'anything is possible.' Quite a lot of the investigative paths of those early chapters seem to, in kind, lean towards deep secrets hidden in the past, curses and crimes of the ancestors all colliding in a conspiratorial cover-up the likes of which has the potential to rumble the foundations of the entire aristocratic class back home. At least that is the set up. Come the third act and all the wind is soundly popped from those sails when the budding mystery deflates into a simple, if pertinent, cause. And then, with the concept of a third act confrontation simply forfeit, the game slips a surprise final act villain who seems to come out of nowhere with twisted character drives so shaky that even the main cast themselves seem to have trouble explaining it to one another.

It's as though the script was written in such a way that necessitated a final act return to Sérène with a significate set-piece there only for the team to realise that there was no way they had the resources to create another new landmass just for the final few missions and so they defaulted to keeping events on Teer Fradee with a rushed third act surprise villain. Those last few missions contain all the hallmarks of 'rushed plan B finale'. Two repetitive 'kill the mini boss' quests that grind the progression of the story down to a snail's pace during what should have been the home stretch, followed by another pair of badly contextualised grind quests. And a finale showdown that feels largely suspense-free against a final boss that, crucially, is not the final foe themselves. It's just a lacky. There really is no way to slap these disparate elements together in a way that isn't disappointing, and if it was not for the strength of the story that bought the game up to it, I'd have found the ending to Greedfall hugely disappointing.

There is not much of any 'choice and consequence decisions' to be made throughout the course of the game, and all routes lead you on largely the same path. Luckily the richness of the narrative means that the only choices that are present, typically with individual stakes, still have some significance on a strictly personal level. I actually felt the desire to favour certain specific native tribes over others, a hallmark of a world built and laid out with genuine depth. Also, the optional romance subplots are almost hilariously stringent. Completing companion quests is only the requisite to open up the real test, as each potential companion romance lives and dies on a procession of three after-quest dialogues that all must be responded to exactly, else the relationship will be scuppered. I find something deeply funny about how much of a landmine that approach is, compared to the much more "show any interest whatsoever and you're in" idea that Bioware used to employ.

In summation, Greedfall bedazzles it's audience with a gorgeous and detailed game world ripe with enough intrigue to keep players interested and immersed, and backs that up with a serviceable, if somewhat janky, combat system supported by basic RPG mechanics. I would pair up Greedfall to the sorts of good and memorable RPG standalone titles that just manage to etch out a purpose for themselves based on their unique propositions alone, such as Jade Empire. There's a final layer of polish towards the script and narrative that feels missing from the game, and I think there's a distinct lack of replay value for a title that is ostensibly an RPG, but apart from those hang-ups we've got ourselves a solid and worthwhile Western RPG that kept me invested throughout it's span. As such, I simply have to recommend this game to Bioware lovers of yesteryear with a score of an arbitrary B grade to slot onto my list of meaningless review scores. It is simply a fun and worthwhile experience that I think Western RPG lovers have to find value in. Now whether or not that necessitates a prequel be made, we can only wait and see...

Callisto Protocol: A victim of marketing?

I really wanted it to be a masterpiece...

This week saw the release of the much anticipated, not least of all by me, spiritual successor to 'Dead Space': 'The Callisto Protocol'. Or is it a 'Direct Successor'? Hmm... I mean, it's more than just 'inspired by' considering it was fronted by the same director of Dead Space, and though it's not an actual 'sequel' you can definitely see the brain matter of Isaac Clarke splattered all over the cover of this game. And what even marks the difference between a direct and spiritual successor and why is that distinction important to Callisto Protocol? Quite simple; by my own definition, a Spiritual Successor is an attempt to capture the spirit and feeling of an influential game of yore, whilst a Direct Successor is a step up and forwards and whilst this type of game might  not perhaps by continuing the same story, it stillbuilds upon an expanding game concept and builds itself off that concept. By that expectation I expected Callisto Protocol to be a Direct Successor to the Dead Space franchise, and may have to instead settle for a temperamental spiritual successor.

It is the trap that can easily be fallen into as a fan, loving what came before and not really wanting to see anything that veers to much from that beloved and sacred vision in your mind. Whereas in the mind of the creator, the last thing you want to do is get stuck recreating the same game you did ten years ago; you want to challenge your abilities and creativity to bring something new to the table. Callisto Protocol doesn't really go for the same sort of gameplay style that Dead Space did, swapping a tense shooter survival game where keeping the horrific monsters as gun's reach was the goal; with an in-your-face melee focused horror game where the player is forever one slipped dodge away from getting mauled by a monstrosity. That's not really the game I was hoping for, even if many of the elements around the game are reminiscent of the horror game I once lauded. (Integrated HUD, heavy gore-focus, body horror enemy design etc.) Which is why I think it's so very important, when harkening to a specific fanbase with a successor title, to lay the groundworks and draw the boundaries of exactly what sort of game to expect and what not to expect.

Another such game which famously refused to lay these sorts of boundries was 'Back 4 Blood', a game which flooded it's marketing declaring how it was created by 'the team who made Left 4 Dead' and painting the picture of the threequel people had waited over a decade for. A direct successor which turned out of be a lie. Not only was the team who worked on Back 4 Blood only a small fraction of the same faces involved with Left 4 Dead, the follow-up game lacked the resources to even match the level of intricate detail that made the Left 4 Dead games so special; which is why the team knowingly tried to focus their efforts in other areas to make the game systematically different to Left 4 Dead, knowing that they couldn't compete in a one-to-one comparison. A galling switch-up considering the game relied on the 'Left 4 Dead' connection so much that they game literally borrows that franchises' naming convention for it's title.

Midnight Suns, however, is an example of a 'Direct Successor' to the Xcom franchise, even if it does take it's gameplay cues in a decidedly different direction to the game's it learnt from. Midnight Suns replaces the tactical placement of hit probabilities with a card-based 'powers' system which allows for a very different gameplay balance that still harkens to the tactical heart beating in the same development studio. It builds upon the frameworks and foundations that Xcom built, but is trying to evoke a wholly different sensation in the players where they aren't the underdogs constantly scrambling to get off the backfoot against the hoards of enemies stalking them, but are instead heroes that dominate the battlefield with flashy abilities that make the player feel powerful and audacious. 

Sonic Frontiers is actually another example of a 'Direct successor' in my opinion, because even though it sort of follows the same narrative of the franchise the only connective tissue is really the main character and the vague idea that 'Speed' is the main gimmick. Frontiers stands on the shoulders of Sonic Teams many many 3D failures to learn from every they did wrong and deliver something that feels like the Sonic we know and love but is actually a real game with a reason to exist. That may seem like small praise, but remember that the last Sonic Team game was Forces; a game that literally plays itself most of the time because the team had literally no idea what they were trying to make and ended up making nothing at all. In many ways, Frontiers is a successor to the '3D generation' of Sonic games into, what we might start calling, the 'Open generation' of Sonic. (If we're being optimistic.)

None of this is to knock the idea of spiritual successors, mind you. Callisto Protocol is said to be a decently fun game provided you play it on PS5 because the team just sort of gave up on optimising it elsewhere before their deadline. (Would delaying the PC version until you got it into working order really have been the end of the world?) And making a product that evokes the same emotion but goes in a different direction is not inherently bad. Some people really enjoy the unique style of repetitive play that Back 4 Blood's card system has to offer Left 4 Dead's comparatively linear presentation, and I already know that once the dust settles around it's rough launch there are going to be Callisto fans that think the more perilous 'in your face' action of Callisto has it's own special shine. I just wish that the marketing was more transparent about selling the inherently different type of experience, instead of complicit in the lie of 'more of the same.'

Dead Space was a horror game, at it's utmost core. Not only in the fact that it dealt with horrific monsters, but in the way it dealt with psychological elements and bone-chilling atmosphere. Ghosts of the lost are haunting you from the first scene, and the concept of The Marker allows for some vaguely cosmic-horror elements to wrap itself around the narrative as things start to get really crazy in the later half of the game. Callisto Protocol, from what I can tell, focuses more on being a suspenseful thriller, reinforced by that aforementioned combat system which forces you to get up close and familiar with the monsters of the game. It's hard to remain scared of a monster you've beaten to death with a baton, and there's no real added layer of fear when one manages to sneak up close to you before you know it, because you're fighting those buggers face-to-face throughout the whole game anyway!

I understand the desire to want to rely on what you've already spent years building and successfully establishing, but we've seen multiple times now how that can create a misleading precedent that scuppers the all-important initial reception. I was bought into the promise of Callisto Protocol solely due to the name lead designing it and not once was it ever even suggested that Callisto might be going it's own way and trying something significantly different. Is that my own fault for not figuring the obvious? Partially. But no one on their Marketing team was interested in disabusing the public of that perception when it was an assumption that could be profited off of. And where has that left Callisto? Squatting in overly-large shoes whilst the infinitely more funded and more staffed team over at EA Motive are moving to reclaim the Dead Space throne with a literal Remake. The moral of the story? Just be honest, ya'll. Damn... 

Watch_Dogs Legion Bloodlines Review

Round 2

So I had my issues with Watch_Dogs Legion. That much is pretty obvious. If you mosey on over to my main game review you'll see my very many colourful thoughts on the breadth of that game, everything they were trying to do and the many ways in which that game fell absolutely flat on it's face. But when I bought the Watch_Dogs Legion 'Gold edition', that package came complimentary with the game's own prequel DLC in the form of Bloodlines, and I thought it only fair to cover. It may strip all off the flagship 'play as anyone' features from the game, and instead focus on a fan-favourite pairing of previous game protagonists in a smash-cut of a narrative; but is there perhaps something salvageable in the absolute wreckage of a package that the Watch_Dogs game present? Is there anything good in the game's blood? Also, why is this DLC called Bloodlines? I can only think of one possible reason and it's a pretty weak one.

Bloodlines is a prequel to Watch_Dogs Legion, set before the fall of the original DedSec London and the eventual rise of it's successor. It follows, career-fixer and part-time vigilante, Aiden Pearce, the protagonist of the first game, as he finds himself travelling to London for a job that brings him careening back into the life of his nephew, Jackson Pearce. The very same nephew he fought to save all the way back in Watch_Dogs 1, now a full grown and fully voice acted adult, who he hasn't seen since sending him and his mother away in the twilight act of that very game. Throw in the middle of that awkward reunion a megalomaniacal tech mogul's son teetering on the edge of a breakdown of his own orchestration and a mid-game cameo from a suddenly deeply sad 'Wrench'; still dressing in the punk spike and mask garb he did in his twenties despite the fact this man is in his forties at this point; and you have perhaps the best snippet of content within the entire Legion package.

This entire game is pretty substantive, probably counting for eighty percent of the time I actually liked playing Legion during my eighty hour torture. It's set in the exact same play space as the main game, but their London lacks a lot of the really obtrusive world elements that get in the way of general exploration and environmental enjoyment. (No auto-spot patrols or missile-mounted roadblocks and an actual proper fast travel system using TFL) Several of the overly used restricted areas from the main game get reutilised again, which is annoying, but Bloodlines does throw in some variety to shake things up with a few brand new locations and even some slightly more interesting mission objectives beyond the archetypal two that the main game loved so much. You'll still be either sneaking into a place or holding off waves of enemies for the most part, but there's some optional time trials thrown into the mix, as well as a totally expansion-exclusive robotic enemy that has a unique manner of fighting. You have to overload it's system (best achieved with non-lethal electric weapons) and then smash the weak point once it exposes itself. (Gameplay variety? I would never have expected it in my Watch_Dogs Legion!)

Much of my nagging problems with the way that Legion plays is still very much present; the clunky shooting controls and general lack of animation fluidity can't really be helped in a single DLC; but there are few mitigating steps taken by the developers to salvage a smidge of enjoyment out of the raging dumpster fire that is the core game. For one, Wrench and Aiden are loaded with enough special abilities to make them play pretty distinctly, shaking up the gameplay diversity and making combat just that inch more dynamic feeling. Aiden specifcally has an ability where his gun damage buffs and stacks during reloads provided he taps reload again at a certain moment, similar to Gears of War, which mitigates the painfully annoying enemy health bars that the main game suffers from. Also, low and behold, this game provides special side mission rewards wherein you can unlock new weapons an equipment for your character! Genuine meaningful advancement so that the player character can feel like they're becoming more powerful and interesting to play? Wow guys, you almost made this close to the standard of a typical Watch_Dogs game!

The narrative delves into the very many inner conflicts that Aiden has lived with over his long decades as the Vigilante, up to the point where now, in his fifties, the man really has nothing ahead waiting for him in life until he can properly confront the demons of his past. It's a fluke that forces the man to reconnect with his Nephew, and the process of them getting to trust and rely on one another is done in a suitably natural and ingratiating manner. Jackson wasn't really much of a character in the first game, and more of a 'child in peril to up the narrative stakes', but here we see Jackson represent the promise of a new smarter generation primed to be better than their forbearers were, on which Aiden comes to rest the burden of his guilt for the life that he's lived and choices he made. Oh, but did I say: Confronting your guilt? But that can't be done subtly in a Ubisoft product, now can it? Not at all, no! Instead we've got to invent some dream hopping brain reader device for no other reason that to satisfy one of the most tired and over-used clichés of every modern Ubisoft game- the prolonged drugged dream sequence! (Oh god, how I did not miss you!)

As Legion had no central characters, their iteration of this dream sequence cliché was drab and largely forgettable, instead focusing on the life of one of the side villains, Skye Larson. In Bloodlines we get to dive directly into Aiden's head as Jackson (Yes, we play as Jackson randomly for this section. There's no real reason to control Jackson here; Ubisoft just really wanted this scene to happen.) and you walk through the Pearce childhood house as you explore and unpack Aiden's unaddressed trauma over the murder of Lena which kicked off this whole franchise so very long ago. Conceptually this is somewhat touching and interesting, if ham-fisted and strangely exclusionary. By which I mean, Lena appears to be the only thing in his life that he has regret over, besides his general murders which he kind of feels bad about too. (Not bad enough not to pick up killing again the second after the DLC is over.) There's no talk of anyone else he's hurt over the years like his sister Nikki, Jackson himself or, hell, what about Clara Lille? The girl who got herself killed before Aiden had the chance to forgive her for her part played in Lena's death? Or, I don't know, how about the thousands of people who's blackmail material he carelessly leaked to the whole world at the end of Watch_Dogs Legion in a move which that game, somewhat erroneously, portrayed as a triumphant win? Are we just pretending that any information we don't want hitting the public is immediately vilifiable? Because I have a problem with that characterisation! (But I have to point out: yes, I did immediately recognise the PT hallway during the dream sequence. Nice reference game there, Ubisoft. Half point.)

Wrench has himself something of a personal arc too, which is not something I thought I'd been saying about a mascot character who was more style than substance in Watch_Dogs 2. Legion's Wrench is a couple of decades older and has accumulated a ton of baggage in that time, to an extent that his characterisation here is surprisingly fleshed out and vibrant compared to his only very lightly explored pervious iteration. I found a really 'human' and identify character in this Wrench who bought a personable and involved element to the antagonist of this DLC where it was otherwise missing in the shoes of Aiden. I think his special abilities kind of sucked, relying too heavily on Legion's pair-backed hacks, but I enjoyed seeing his very human, and somewhat depressing, life splay itself out. Also, I did not know that Jordi Chin and Wrench would make such a fun double team; their dialogues were genuinely humorous, I was pleasantly surprised.

Overall, Watch_Dogs Legion is a much more traditional take on the Watch_Dogs formula in a narrative and gameplay that strips all the innovative tech that the main game relied on and instead focuses up a a narrow lens story with acts and arcs and character motivations. And it's the best content in Watch_Dogs Legion. Every the hammy boss fight as the end was at least fun to overcome, if not to actually fight. Still, the raw controls are just annoying to wrestle with and this DLC doesn't hold a candle, in terms of gameplay, to previous Watch_Dogs games, but if you were like me and endured the entirety of Legion until you found yourself spiritually scarred to the point you couldn't even remember why games are fun anymore; Bloodlines might just be the remedy to remind you what enjoyment feels like. Still, it's not worth the price of the Legion main game just to play through, even for the overall story revelations (of which there aren't very many) so I do not recommend it. And even on it's own merits as a standalone campaign, compared to the other Watch_Dogs it's still largely a disgrace to consider it a follow-up, so I will award this game no higher than a C- Grade in my arbitrary review score system, one third of a grade above failing. This still hasn't convinced me that Watch_Dogs needs to be continued as a franchise, but at least I can smile again.

Paradox metaverse meltdown

 All publicity- right?

If this blog is fifty percent about gaming, then the other fifty percent is laughing at the constant stumbles of crypto projects because they just make for such good stories. So good, in fact; that I'm not entirely convinced that some of them aren't literal bait conjured up to try and create the illusion of a real failed start-up doomed for failure. And in the case of Paradox Metaverse; you'd have thought the CEO's themselves were professional comedians for how effortlessly they've set up an entire minefield of rakes around their headquarters for them to 'accidently' step on each and every day. How do you go from an absolute unknown to the laughing stock of the Internet in less than a week? Follow the example of Amio Talio. He has a couple of accomplices that are also along for the ride, but Mr Talio has done an amazing job of detailing himself as the worst of the bunch.

But first of? Who is Amio and what is the Paradox Metaverse? Well, in typical Metaverse fashion the whole thing is a bit of an unknown entity outside of his specific head-space, and especially an unknown around the gaming industry, and yet Amio felt confident enough in his position that in March he confidentially declared that the 'Solana' Crypto platform would "leave Ethereum in the dust when it came to gaming this year." Which is kind of like a pair of ants starting the London Marathon and mocking each other's slow progress. Both your platforms weren't headed anywhere with their Crypto gaming ventures! For an industry rife with 'move fast and break things' apologists; Crypto gaming has been unforgivably lethargic when it comes to growth or tangible improvement!

The man would have stayed an unknown if he didn't shell enough ducats out of his 'bribery' bank account (That's a joke, I need to add. He sounds British and seems like the kind of creep who searches the ends of the Internet to look up his own name. I ain't getting sued over this moron's insecurity.) to buy the sponsored time of controversial ex-Twitch Streamer IShowSpeed. Now if you know Speed, you know he's the answer to question: How far can you push the: "you have to forgive me because I'm young" excuse when you act like an idiot in public. He keeps apologising and then making even more stupid mistakes, so I really do wonder how his long term future as an internet celeb is going to go considering he's seventeen so he's going to loose his biggest trump card very soon. Speed and Amio joined forces recently to handily sink the budding reputation of Paradox Metaverse in beautiful fashion.

As this involved a well-known Streamer, this sponsored stream had to catch the attention of commentator Charles White, connoisseur of cringe; but then he passed it on to famed financial scam critique Coffeezilla, which can only mean juicy details are afoot. For the cringe, we have the sponsored stream itself. Paradox Metaverse decided to market itself with a fake Ronaldo that they advertised as the real guy apparently (which is objectively just funny) and then struggled with Speed to weather a storm of 'L Speed' ridicule from the live chat as the literal teenager audience saw right through the thin veneer of another Metaverse embarrassment. Which is about the best that they could have expected from this event. What did they want? Speed's target audience aren't old enough to vote; it's not like they could have financially invested in the platform! And the scam? Well... that's more Coffeezilla's realm than mine.

The Paradox Metaverse program is multifaceted and muddled; and from a laymen's perspective it's all just too boring and convoluted to draw any real attention. (Which is probably how it's coasted along so well up until now.) But from Coffeezilla's video on the matter, which I recommend you look up if you want real details, it sounds like the team were basically setting up every single failsafe that is typically exploited by pump and dump rug pulls. Unrealistic returns promises, locked funds incentives, and the final prototypical "The founders are locked out of the money, even if they wanted to scam you, thet can't!" (Typically proceeded by a magical access of the money and a vanished founder.) It's all very prototypical; but where I got interested, was with the video game portion of the Paradox Metaverse.

Because yes there is a game; and yes, it looks like total trash. In a faceplam of marketing, it seems to literally just be called 'The Paradox Metaverse - Battle Royale' and in an entire minute long trailer we basically see what would happen if you tried to make Crackdown 3 using only stock store Unity assets. I can't hesitate in saying, it looks like one of the most soulless, unimaginative and frankly clunky, bargain bucket Steam trash games you'll ever lay your eyes on. But of course, in the eyes of Amio and he's cohorts; it's a triple-A quality indie diamond in the rough! A veritable jewel of the industry waiting to bring play-to-earn to the mainstream. Because of course, on top of looking terrible, it's supposed to be a play-to-earn game that replaces your real job. To their eyes, the game is on the road to being finished and is only a year out because "How long does it take your average game to be made? Two to three years, right?"

Now first off; no. It does not take 'two to three years' for the average game to be made. If a team knows exactly what they're doing, and is working with a set of development tools that they understand with assets they can manipulate and rework; like the COD teams, then they can get a two year cycle going. A developer who knows what they're doing but is trying something new, is looking at Four years. A team that kind-of knows what they're doing, might be looking at five. Any longer and you're staring development hell in the face; which is exactly where this Paradox Metaverse is destined for if these knuckleheads think they can emulate the quality of modern classics before their launch. A launch which I'm certain is coming at some point... sure...

But none of that is even the craziest part. Because the real insanity, is that despite volunteering for the town-clown role, Amio can't take criticism! Such became apparent once it was revealed that this 'genius' reached out to threaten a Tiktok creator who made fun of him, and then on his easily accessible discord publicly posted a bounty for that man's 'capture'; like he's some mob boss. His cohorts have tried to wave away his behaviour, but haven't disavowed him; which is just about the perfect way that one can strap themselves to a sinking ship and call it 'loyalty'. Those are the sorts of friends you need to get. The kind that will ride your burning venture to the ashes, destroying their own careers and reputations, all because you can't keep a lid on your anger management issues! Friends to the bitter, and abruptly premature, end.

All crypto metaverse projects are doomed to ignoble ends once they either ride along far enough to rugpull, or eat dirt themselves and lack the strength to stand up again. If Facebook can't manage to get the idea to work, no half-functioning moron who can barely conjure coherent sentences is going to leapfrog them. This year has seen the absolute crash of global crypto stock, the very public and explosive death of two 'absolutely safe' crypto pillars and a further breakdown of public sentiment from 'laughing at' to 'actively despising'. So let that be a lesson to all those tech-nerds thinking their path to the easy 'get rich quick' life is by shilling a crappy crypto project: Maybe stick to the crappy affiliate programs and online courses grifts. Those seem to have a higher hit rate.