Skyrim Anniversary Edition? Really?

 When there's no more space in your back catalogue; the Skyrims will walk the earth.

Okay, I'm not entirely sure how I'm supposed to get past this. I mean as a society, as someone who prides themselves in championing progression in the human race, I cannot fathom a world in which Skyrim will receive another rerelease. I don't know who's worse; is it Rockstar Games or Bethesda? Both have tried to fleece their fans for nearly ten years using the same base software, both are showing no signs of stopping. At least Bethesda pretended that they were working on something else to fill the void, even though at this point I'm convinced that The Elder Scrolls Six is little more than an animated wallpaper for Todd Howard's Macbook. But then in some ways doesn't that make this worse? An even bigger betrayal of trust. They promised their next TES game would be a new one, and they freakin' lied! Bethesda lied, because unbeknownst to us, and spitting in the face of all we hold dear, Skyrim Anniversary Edition is barrelling towards us for a 2021 release. (Good god, no.)

Now let me start by saying that I like Skyrim. Heck, I'll go so far as to say I even love the damn thing. It numbers in my top 10 favourite games of all time, (or at least it did; this announcement might cause quite the shake up) I still consider it the gold standard for open world fantasy games and there's few other titles out there that trigger my full 'roleplaying mode' switch like Skyrim does. When I sit down to play that game, I become a Nord in the frigid northern climates of the reaches. I endure the harsh realities of survival mode, descend into the pantheon against hardy snowy creatures, and persist the heavy debugging process of fixing my 100 mod playthrough. (Actually, 100 mods is a light playthrough for me, I'm usually around 150.) So when I say, nay scream with the fury of Star Platinum's Ora when he threw that one tower in the OVA, (you know the one) that I am sick to death of Skyrim; know it's from a place of utmost authority.

I know Skyrim. Heck, I have it's burlap map on my wall from 10 years ago, I can just about make it out from the dark of a room lit only by my computer screen; because despite learning of this new edition at 2:00 AM I knew I had to get my thoughts down when they were as raw as possible. This is the kind of game I'll think back on in my death bed, whether that be a year away or twenty, because it's impact on my life has been that significant. The way a lot of folk out there think about Baldur's Gate- that's Skyrim for me; a game which defined what it was to Roleplay. And I've finished it. I've finished it countless times. I've finished it with mods. I've finished it vanilla. I've finished it on console. I've finished it on PC. I've finished it Legacy edition and I've finished it in Special Edition. I can't do it anymore. I just can't. For the love of god, Bethesda; GIVE ME SOMETHING NEW TO PLAY! I'm begging you guys, scratching up my knees, wearing down my prayer beads, desperately praying for SOMETHING NEW! ANYTHING! Wait- no I take that back. Not anything- NOT ANYTH-

So the reason that this Anniversary Edition is coming our way is not, as some might have assumed, in order to stick a new engine in it and prolong it's appeal to the new age. Because if Bethesda did that then they'd have to give it to people who already own it for free again, and they ain't skipping out on profits like that again. No, this time Bethesda are giving us what I can only assume is a repackaged version of Special Edition only reloaded with 500 pieces of Creation Club content, and good lord I don't even know how there is that many Creation Club pieces. There was absolutely not that many entries in the store when they retired the system in the wake of the Pandemic. (and not because of the widespread bad press it was constantly generating, warranted or otherwise)

My only guess is that Bethesda are counting each individual item in the various Creation Club mods as their own piece of content, which is technically true, if misleading. Or heck, maybe they've been busy during the year-long hiatus, hiring more contractors to make Creation Club content which they then... didn't sell... for some reason... (I'm sticking with my first explanation for now, it makes more sense) Whatever the case, this is going to be Bethesda's big ploy for justifying selling this Anniversary Edition to people who've already bought the damn game enough to cover Todd Howard's car insurance for the year, like I have. And yes, it's not yet confirmed that this is the case, but I pull up evidence A: This is modern Bethesda we're talking about, that's obviously what they're going to do.

Hmm? That's not true? It's free? No hidden costs? I don't believe you. I don't believe anyone. Moreover, I can't believe you, because if I did than I'd have to accept that there's no good reason on this earth why I shouldn't play it. Even if they slapped a £2 price point on the thing and shoved it at me, that'd be my excuse, but if it's genuinely going to show up in my download list without me having to lift a finger; then that's another Winter of mine sacrificed to Skyrim. You can't do this to me, Bethesda, it isn't right; it's cruel. Moreover, it doesn't even make sense. Isn't the plan to port Skyrim to everything from Last gen to Switch to VR to Alexa? Well, why not phones? Don't tell me that your average phone can't run Legacy Edition of Skyrim because I will insist that you're wrong. Or are Bethesda waiting until next year for Skyrim Mobile Edition? Spreading their growth portfolio out, are they?

To think that currently we're looking at two remasters from the industries most prolific homework copiers, and if rumours are to be believed (and I'm thinking that they are) then Rockstar are actually the guys who have a more interesting offering on their plate. Churning spittings off the rumour-mill are saying that Rockstar are looking to remaster their 3D era of games (III, Vice City, San Andreas) for the new generation, and that sounds genuinely interesting and like it could herald something really special. Meanwhile what can we expect from Anniversary Skyrim? A new update to the graphics to slather onto this aging engine? (I swear to god if my computer can't run the new Skyrim that just might be it for me, I don't think I'll be able to take that humiliation. I might just off myself.) Oh, wait; no they're adding a fishing module into the game... Which I actually want to play... dammit.

I can just see Todd Howard right now, pacing around in his black and white jumpsuit, swirling his cape as he plots. "Oh Anniversary Edition is real all right. Real enough to drag pathetic fans like you back into our active player figures! And we bought you back without ever having to resort to 'making a new game' or 'promising an impending sequel'. You're not getting Elder Scrolls VI, you're not getting Starfield; I'll give you Skyrim. And not just that, I'll give you most spectacular Skyrim you've ever seen, on every device you can access! And when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell the code for porting Skyrim; so that everyone else can keep porting Skyrim to new systems! Every new Bethesda game will be Skyrim. And when every game's Skyrim..."

"No game will be."

My first time with Skyrim

 Fond memories by the campfire

In the months that lead up to that day, there were certain times where I thought I couldn't breath from the anticipation. Torn up inside by the possibilities of what could, and should, be; I would jump up and down in my seat gripped by the chaos of the excitable and touched with the madness known as hype. Oh, I was a fool back then; hopeless and hopeful, driven by imaginary, conjured desires; all stemming from happenstance for a type of game I wouldn't have blinked twice at just a couple of years previously. How could it be that I had fallen so spectacularly for the promise of fantasy? Sure, I was a fan of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, but I wouldn't march onto Trafalgar Square, dressed as an Uruk-Hai in order to spy the latest movie, but if it were a Skyrim event... I don't know. Perhaps that date had something to do with it; '11/11/11', something almost ordained from poetry, how could you not fall for the whispered magic of a promise like that? Then, on the day of release, I got a detention.

You don't understand how ridiculous that is, at least for someone like me. I never had detentions or the sorts of problems that would lead me to have to spend any longer than was absolutely necessary within the premises of school; but on that day, the day of destiny I had waited so long for, a day where I had pre-ordered for the first time in my life, I had to wait behind. There was almost something sickly appropriate about the whole thing, especially as the issue was ultimately just some wayward homework that had fallen aside in the hustle of the everyday. But I couldn't have asked for a better catalyst to really stew the pot of anticipation and set me off into hot sweats. Obviously I couldn't tell you the work I was tasked to do in order to be released home, because regardless of whatever my hands were doing, by eyes were drowning in a pixel world of imagination. By that point I had watched the E3 gameplay footage to an unhealthy degree, you see, and could quite literally replay the whole thing in my mind and in front of me, so that was what I spent that final hour between me and Skyrim doing. Daydreaming.

Now nine out of ten times you would probably likely see that I'm setting myself up for absolute disaster here. "Dreaming about a game that hasn't hit the market yet? Future Cyberpunk fans would like to have a word with you about 'sanity'". But Skyrim wasn't just any old game. Back when Bethesda was at that sweetspot of small enough to still care and big enough to make the big projects, Skyrim would come to be their Magnum Opus. 'Though the years to follow would be fraught with 'die hards' analysing the minute details and claiming 'Oblivion did this better' and 'Morrowind did that better', at that time it was undeniable that on it's own Skyrim was a beast with the power to rewrite the very standards of the industry. What a fantasy game could be before Skyrim and what it had to become after Skyrim is a vast chasm apart from one another, and I personally think Skyrim lit that ever so gentle RPG spark over the general public, introducing that scourge I call 'light RPG mechanics' across the industry. But what was my experience like? 

Well, rather embarrassingly for someone who let themselves be swept away by the promise of an 'endless world' RPG space with possibilities galore; I ended up playing the exact same way I had seen in all the trailers, footage and gameplay walkthroughs up until then. Yes, I was lured in by the promise of playing however and wherever I wanted to, but in truth I wanted what I had seen already. Sure I could be a mage, a sneaky rogue, any combination of that I could dream up thanks to the adaptive class system, but I didn't want any of that. I saw what I wanted. Which is actually, if I'm being honest, a grand mess-up when it comes to how one should be viewing RPGs. I mean, who's role are you playing? The developers? Where's your personal stakes, the heart of your character, of your adventure? The hook that makes the game last with you far off the screen itself? By all accounts I should have disillusioned myself with the roleplaying world entirely from that misfire experience. Obviously that didn't happen.

If there's thing I remember feeling from those first few moments loading up and playing through 'Skyrim', it was this sense of contentedness, a feeling that my expectations had been met and this was everybit the game I was waiting for. A simple wild perspective given how long and how dearly I had pined for the game, but an advantageous position I suppose when everything was said and done, much better than being disappointed. I remembering playing all the way from Helgen to the first Nordic ruins in the hills above Riverwood, stopping just after the introductions to the traps-system. (I couldn't tell you how giddy I was watching the fire shoot across oil in something approximating realistic spread.) My first experience was, thus, strewn with the giddiness of a schoolboy, because that's all I pretty much was, not the jaded cynic of today. (Ah, the innocence of ignorance.)

In many ways, Skyrim was a watershed moment for myself as a lover of the gaming world as much as it was for the industry and 'open world gaming'. I didn't realise how rare something like Skyrim was, how unnatural it would be for a game of that magnitude to be that untarnished by the whims of corporate decision-making. (Heck, given the many re-releases and extras Bethesda has thrown atop of Skyrim; that's a perspective I haven't even been able to keep either) All I knew was that at that time I learnt that games could create an entire world for you to just inhabit, and I wanted every bit of that. I wanted to explore new worlds from the ground up and live within that, any world and every world. That's probably what spawned my willingness to try almost any genre of game too, I wouldn't want to miss out on some immersive experience that someone else was having. Some in someway, I'm directly blaming Skyrim for my current obsession with CRPGs. (All the pain I suffered during 'Throne of Bhaal' is blood directly on your hands, Todd Howard!)

The proceeding however-many hours which would make up my initial playthrough in Skyrim (obviously nowhere near my last playthrough) resembled the fervour of a hungry kid at a buffet table, because I sampled everything. Sure, that's the way I would come to play every game I ended up loving down the line, but nowdays I make some sort of justification in my head. Why is the Harbinger of the Companions going to join the wizards over at Winterhold as a novice? Well it's actually a mission of faction relations, he 'joined up' with the college merely as a measure of politeness. Why would a soldier of the Empire become an Assassin for the Brotherhood? Well perhaps after finishing the war he became disillusioned with the aimlessness of it all when the real enemy is sitting in the imperial throne consorting with the Dominion. We make these sorts of excuses and reaches of logic for the games that we love. By the end of my playthrough, I had tried everything that Bethesda had to offer. (Which I could find. Surprisingly I missed all of the Aedra quests in my first playthrough.)

We all have those big moments, or products, that influence the way we see things for perhaps the rest of our lives. Maybe it's a book which evolves your perception of written literature, a movie that breaks down the very tenets of the three-act structure before your very eyes, a TV show which deftly crafts the a world more grand than the boldest movies, or a game which makes you forget the world around you completely and utterly. When it comes to gaming I of course have several different moments like that, with different games of different genres, in fact I think I've had an 'eye open' moment with a least one game of every genre I love today. But Skyrim was, and will remain, one of the most special to me. Alongside the first time I discovered Metal Gear or when I finally understood the world of Dark Souls and what it was saying. Alls of which is to say: I should really get around to a proper review of that game one day with all the subjectivity of my jaded modern self, see the ways in which it still stands up and the ways it falls short. Stay tuned.

Starmancer Early access

 It's a start, certainly.

Up there amidst the endless black, around blinking quasars and drooping nebulae, drifts a single lone entity, a derelict space station; inhabits being a single lonely AI and an Ark full of human DNA to clone and do with as it pleases. There, in the simpliest nutshell imaginable, is my explanation for what Starmancer promises to the player, and probably what drew me in those past two years ago when I happened across it. Seems I have an eye for these Star-based products that are spawned in early access with wild dreams and a song in their hearts. I remember another story I came across was that of Starbound, a side-scrolling building adventure game set in space that seemed to be trying to be the 'next step up' from Terraria, but never quite seemed to nail the execution. When last I played it, Starbound was slowly receiving new modes and systems that didn't really effect the core experience all that much, and then the team just went silent. (Presumably to move on to bigger and better things) So I'll coming into the early access field I am a little cautious, I haven't be burned as bad as some others (Starbound's final version is still a great game I've spent 100 of hours with) but now I know that even success-bound projects can have their final ultimate drawbacks.

Thus Starmancer would have had to do something really special to get my attention, no? Well, they let me play the thing, and that actually helped a great deal in deciding if this was worth my time. Yes, back when Steam did their 'Summer of play demos for upcoming games', Starmancer was one of the games that went for the bait, and even with the hour-or-so I had with the game I could tell it was the sort of thing I'd love. Born from the genre of games that bought us Dwarf Fortress and Dungeon Keeper, Starmancer is the sort of game about managing clones of humans to build and sustain a space station whilst dealing with the basics like making sure the oxygen is running, wiring up and then keeping power systems connected, ensuring that rooms don't freeze their occupants to death, and maybe fending off the odd Space zombie that winds up on your station. It was pure sandbox, very intuitive, and sported a totally gorgeous flat pixel aesthetic that rotated perfectly to always face the camera. How could I not fall in love?

From there I did learn that the game was made by only 2 people, which came with it's own share of optimism and worries. On the most obvious half of things, it's only two people: How can you expect the best outcome from that? Most sandbox games take entire dedicated teams of people who live and breathe their game to come together in a coherent way, but Starmancer expects to sail by on a tiny team like that? But then I find myself thinking to Stardew Valley, a fantastic and great game, which was born from but one person. Kenshi, a labour of love from a single man. Don't Starve, Bastion, Super Meat Boy, Cuphead; sometimes it just takes someone who really cares about the genre they're working with in order to nail the execution on a game. Give them the time and enough materials and they will build that game they promise, they're passion driven. Of course, such projects need the right two people working on them, but confidence is an apt shield to hide behind when I ponder how anyone could start a project with this much passion and not be dedicated? (Blind optimism? You betcha!)

In the time since then I've been trying to keep uncharacteristically out of the affairs of the game itself so that I might gauge the game fresh when it arrives, whenever that may be. I kept an ear out, but turned my attentions elsewhere, hoping onto the Steam page every few months and so to make sure there wasn't any 'surprise announcement' that I would have missed out on simply by having my attentions elsewhere. But as it just so happens I needn't have bothered. A game that was revealed during an E3 event was hardly going to miss dropping that release date outside of E3, and I whooped in giddily surprise when I saw that title make it's surprise drop-by with that news I was waiting for. Finally I would have the chance to see the game that blossomed out of that promising demo. And so needless to say, I picked up Starmancer Day 1, something I hadn't done since Persona 4 Golden on PC. But have I fallen quite so hardly in love as I did with Persona?

Not yet, truth be told. Not even nearly. Whilst the game did live up to everything I saw in that first demo and a little bit more, it hasn't really ballooned into a game with a solid direction to it yet, and that's something you feel right from the get-go. Yes, there's a threadbare story that acts like a tutorial, but when it comes to the main gameplay loop of building your base, there's no endgame state to shoot for. Which makes sense how everything wouldn't be laid out yet, of course, this game released in early access; but I'm just having trouble seeing the vision I'm supposed to be excited for. As it is I've played less than 10 hours and am having trouble really seeing what to keep coming back to the game for. I mean I love the art, and building up by station with the necessary systems and trip breakers so that one mistake doesn't cripple the whole base is pretty fun; but where's my draw? I'm waiting for that to be answered with bated breath, and a little bit of crossed fingers too. 

Aside from the basic, yet functional nature of the game, is a lot of non-functionality as well; meaning bugs, bugs, bugs galore. Or at least that's what I'm told, as a vast majority of the horrific issues that have been crippling people's ability to enjoy this game on even the most basic level have totally flown past me. I guess I'm just lucky. Reports have come out of the game crashing all over the place, AI falling apart, leaving the airlock without putting on a spacesuit. (I actually did spot that happening once. But it wasn't as funny as that sounds, the guy just went about his business as though he was equipped) I've seen, at worst, a bug where a power-draining insect couldn't be engaged by my crew, and so it kept draining power for days without being touched until I literally just re-routed the system around the damn thing. My issues are more fundamental, such as how the ice-mining system is supposed to work beyond just dumping ice on the ground and waiting for it to dethaw, or how specific jobs are meant to be assigned beyond just setting 'priorities' and praying the game picks up what you want them to do.

What concerns me right now isn't the idea that this game will need to improve, that much is obvious and I have the patience to wait and see this flower blossom, it's more what future a game like this could shoot for, because I'm not overly familiar with the genre in question. The roadmap has some details upon it such as adding factions and tools of defence, will will certainly work towards fleshing out the world and adding purpose to building in defending from the outside, but I feel like these sorts of games benefit from having internal goals too, not to keep things complicated but to motivate the player beyond "I need to keep living because if I don't then I won't be alive anymore." I was personally thinking of something that leaned into the 'evil AI' concept a bit more, like perhaps some advanced shady research you could trick your crew into working towards, like advanced genetic research to grow up some abominations. Just real messed-up stuff like that to keep the players invested in something other than constant expansion and defence. (But I'm talking literal end-of-development, 1.0, stuff here, for now we could use something just basic and simpler for the health of the game)

As with any Early Access title, jumping on right now is starting on the road to a finished product and not buying one outright, so going in expecting a totally fleshed-out experience is really just setting oneself up for disaster. For a sandbox, however, I would envision just a little more in the realms of replayability at this stage, and lacking that does encourage an eyebrow raised, if not genuine concern being seeded. But a smaller, indie game, that doesn't even cost a whole lot; I'm willing to give a lot of wiggle room and jump back on the game from time to time to see if I can't make my own fun with messing around and punking my space crew, the way that any self-respecting AI would. But would I recommend jumping into Starmancer at this stage? Not especially, unless you'll happy to support a small team and want to see the best out of them, because the product in question might not be worth the price of admission alone, at least not yet. I will be keeping myself, and maybe even this blog, updated however; I'm sticking till the end with this one.

Physical Kojima and the Digital future

A new challenger approaches.

I don't think it's too takes to long see, when reading any of this blog, that I'm a fellow with a lot of neuroses, capable of winding themselves up into a tizzy over the smallest little infraction and stewing over it for the foreseeable future. It's just who I am, and yet it's a part of me that I try to struggle with when it comes to my turn to give criticism, or my fair appraisal of a situation and/or product, and that's because I'm always questioning whether I'm being equitable and talking sense or if the phantoms in my brain are playing tricks on me, conjuring up enemies where there are none. It's the reason why I bring up the expression "shouting at windmills" or a variation of that here and there on the blog, which is a variation of an old phrase "Tilting at Windmills", which is defined as "to attack invisible enemies". I don't know if the issues I bring up are recognised by any others out there, and sometimes I feel that even if they aren't that doesn't mean I shouldn't talk about them. Still, all the winding-up put perfectly aside, I'm so very glad when someone in the wild world of things shares my view. And honestly shocked when that person is Hideo Kojima.

Kojima is a fixture of the Twitter space and likes to use that as his platform out to the world in order to voice whatever random thoughts strike the labyrinth madhouse that lies behind those iconic glasses. To which I immediately have to say, 'Hey, nobodies perfect. At least he's not one of those weirdos who still uses Facebook! No offence if that's you'. It's not really a place I go often to drink from the font of one of my favourite living artists, as most of the time he just spends the day tweeting something innocuous about a movie that's coming out or a book he's reading. But now and then we see something interesting, and given just his station as an industry icon that can easily spark into a conversation, and I think it's a conversation that needs to be had before the opportunity passes us by. (Something which I feel is steadily and readily happening all the time.) Kojima shared his thoughts on our digital future.

Or at least, that's what I'm mostly sure he was talking about, as the English version of his Twitter account can be a little slippery on finer details at times, but I think we can count on our man Kojima to be on the level about this one. I say this because Kojima tweeted about how "Eventually, even digital data will no longer be owned by individuals on their own initiative.", which assuming he's talking about the gaming market, he should probably know that software isn't 'owned' by the buyer now, it's only licenced. (Maybe he was casting a wider net and talking about 'data' in general) He then proposes, as I have a few times, that for whatever reason and by whatever party has the power to do it, access to that data (which we ostensibly own) could be "cut off". And again, he's right. It wasn't that long ago that I brought up the story of that Origin player who had his entire library of games, games that he had purchased, wiped from his account due to a spat with EA. Don't look at a situation like that as a one off thing that will never happen again, look at it as a warning of what might and will happen in the future.

Kojima further worries that people might be separated from media that they love, and clarifies that what he's talking about "Is not greed." (Honestly, I'm not even sure what he meant at the end there. I guessing that was lost in translation a little) This comes down to a conversation about the rights of the consumer and the distribution of art, something which hasn't really had any significant steps forward even as the digital age has come barrelling towards and past us at blinding speeds. Kojima is a lover of physical media, and I don't need to tell you how that sort of hobby is becoming endangered in the entertainment world as it is today. There's a special sort of love imbued in a physical thing, which is why I've never read a book or comic on a screen, I just can't connect in the same way. Plus, physical media is immune from all of this 'digital rights' conundrum which I can feel bumbling away unchecked.

I'm a bit more of a pessimist than Kojima, I see the approaching end of the physical age and I begrudgingly accept it with the understanding that somethings, once put in motion, can never be walked back or even compromised with. Yet even with that acceptance I can't help but think back fondly. I've always been a fan of buying the discs and cases of everything from games to movies, for practical reasons as well as sentimental. Practically it just makes sense that I can load up whatever I want to and play it without having to worry about if there's enough space on my hard-drive to fit it. (Of course, even that's no longer feasible with the way things are) There's also the transportation of games, sharing them, buying second hand, all things that fall to the wayside in the digital world. And for the sentimental, I like stacking my games up for my own aesthetic, having that bookshelf full of games was my thing. But that's the past now.

It's not as though I don't realise the benefits of the digital world, of course I do. Not having to worry about whether or not I've scratched a disc is a godsend, as well as being able to buy literally anygame you want to without having to worry about availability, (unless we're dealing with Nintendo, but's lets not talk about the headcases in their strategies department right now) and I think that once more stable Internet becomes a tad more widespread, game streaming is going to split open the marketplace like never before. Netflix and Amazon Luna both want to bring gaming to casual content streamers and if you think that gaming is more mainstream now than it was ten years ago, you just wait until that particular conundrum is cracked, the entertainment industry is going to completely turn on it's head. All this and more awaits a grand switch to digital, but what do we leave behind?

Gaming shops for one, as I chronicled in my recent eulogy blog, which might be seen as a necessary sacrifice on the road firmly out of niche-hood, as hobby stores become totally irrelevant, but I have some nice memories I'd like to hold onto. Nothing heartbreaking mind you, I know there's others out there who will lose a part of themselves when they lose their local gaming store, but I'm still left a tad crestfallen. We'll lose the certainty of a having a physical copy from which we will always be able to load and play our content. (Provided scratches aren't an issue.) We'll lose the space-filling of a collection, a way of personalising the real world so that a part of your hobby can touch your daily life. We'll also lose out on retro gaming, as online games libraries are retired and old gems start to fade from existence until the only way you can play them is to beg the licence holder for some overpriced rerelease. Do the benefits of a full digital future out-weigh those complications? Who knows.

Just like as some big Purple dude from Titan with a penchant for hardheaded stoicism, I preach balance in all things. I envision a world where developers still make room for disc drives and boxed versions of their games, not because it's perhaps the most profitable option, but simply because it maintains the artform is some tangible manner. But even as I say that I realise how hollow of a platitude that is, 'physical games' are just keys to unlock online versions nowdays and Microsoft didn't even bother to stick a disc hole in their Series S version, a pretty final way of letting everybody know where their interests lie. (Or rather: where they don't.) But at least now I know that when the physical side of this industrial drifts into dust whilst begging not to go, Hideo Kojima will be staring on in shocked horror right next to me. Not sure if that's a comforting thought, really. But its a thought.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean

Let me have my fandom, 'kay?

Okay so I'm gonna level with you, I have absolutely no excuse for making this entry on a blog that is supposed to be about gaming. No tangential links, no segue ways, no clever weaved deeper inner meaning hiding between the lines and betraying a simply effortless critique and summation of the struggle between ballooning development costs and reduced development time across the industry. (Although there is a blog there somewhere) No, this here is deeply personal. Because you see, I'm a lonely fellow down here in the middle of nowhere, so when I want to go crazy about a topic I really like, there's not really any outlets for that. I can maintain a prolonged multifaceted conversation about the topic with myself, but after years of doing just that I've been informed by those that have walked in on me that this often comes off as 'creepy' or 'unhealthy'. (Philistines!) So this is a blog about an Anime that I can't get out of head because I'm so excited for it. No, I won't be making a habit out of this, this blog needs to about be something focused and the font of the games industry seeps endless, but I need a release. So here I am, releasing about that badass trailer for 'Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean' that just dropped.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, you heard of it? I go on about it here often enough. It's a series that I only really got into recently (As in, hardly more than a year ago) and thus I'm very belayed in coming to terms with the various ways in which the franchise has influenced Japanese pop culture and touched many of the brands I would come to love without even realising it. Imagine my shock when in The Golden Wind Bruno led Giorno into his favourite café, only to introduce him to- Sephiroth? No, that's Abbacchio, but it's obvious who the designers over at Square Enix were sending up to when they showed off their grey-haired antagonist back in 1997, right in the middle of The Golden Wind's manga run. I would also come to find the odd vague reference in Pokemon, and perhaps less surprisingly, in Persona. (Although I will say I was totally thrown for a loop when out of nowhere, during the Yakuza 0 secret boss, Majima literally named the series with no provocation whatsoever.) With time and effort I've come to know the series, and have even started reading the manga at by own slow pace.

What I'm trying to convey is that I am along for the Jojo ride as it releases in David Productions adaptation of it; and all my knowledge of the franchise is centralised around that series. I've watched other related stuff like OVA of Stardust Crusaders, Thus Spoke Koshibe Rohan, (The animated and live action versions) and I've dipped my toes into further reading. But I don't go beyond where the Anime has reached upto, even though through pure merit of me being so invested with this series, I know a fair bit about Parts 6-8 without having dived into the stories themselves. In fact, I'm sad to say that I know both who the main Villain is of Stone Ocean and the name of their Stand, something which I hope isn't going to ruin some great reveal for me at the end of the series like The Boss was meant to be from Golden Wind. Incidentally, through arses on the Internet, I also know the single biggest spoiler it's possible to know about the events of Stone Ocean. And I'm sure those familiar both know exactly what I mean and can sympathise with my frustration over that fact. Regardless of having said all that; I'm still hyped as heck for the new series.

Jojo is so much fun to me, effortlessly dancing between humour and tragedy like some doom-bidden 17th Century playwright. Araki's sense of humor never fails to worm under my usually pretty stoic armour, and his creativity can make even the most mundane of encounters into some wildly overdramatic duel of the fates. Who remembers when Koshibe Rohan went up against a kid who's power was that he liked playing Janken? (Rock, Paper, Scissors) What started as a harmless kids game, which was endlessly annoying to Rohan, ballooned into a grand overly-dramatic standoff between wills and fate, as both dared the other to ever more dangerous... RPS moves. It was literally just an arc about a kids' game, but Araki's world, and David Production's animation, managed to elevate that concept and refine it into a brilliantly ludicrous episode that is unforgettable. (Then again, almost all of Diamond is Unbreakable is memorable to me, as it's currently my favourite Part) This is the magic I'm hoping for out of the newly unveiled Stone Ocean.

Set in Florida 2011, Part 6 of Jojo, coined Stone Ocean, is set to follow Jolyne Cujoh, the only female Jojo protagonist so far, as she struggles from within prison to prove her innocence and get back at whoever framed her. A simple enough set up, but I'm sure that when thrown into the world of Stands, Spirits and metaphysical discussions about the reaches of fate; this series is going to springboard into that ever-inciting crazy territory real quick. I, for one, am very interested in how Stone Free is going to play out in the series, as I've taken great care to ensure that I know literally nothing about it's abilities so that I might have that same moment of utter surprise I had when I saw Josuke and Giorno's Stands. To the eye of the uninformed layman, It looks like the Stand is actually made up of Jolyne herself, which is quite interesting, and it unravels from her body in order to materialise itself. (At least that's what I thought I saw from the trailer) I wonder how having a Stand literally connected to yourself, that needs to unwind rather than materialise, could make the user vulnerable, if that is something which will be explored at all.

I'm also very pumped to see this supporting cast, as people who are more familiar with the material than me seem to have some very strong opinions about some of these Jobros. (If 'JoBros' even applies this time around given the setting of a woman's penitentiary) I've heard such heavy-hearted opinions such as "utterly stupid" and "nonsensical" dropped here and there, so I just need to see what has people so worked up over this cast in particular. And, of course, I'm always happy to see our Ocean-man Jotaro Kujo actually showing up to see his daughter. The same daughter who would have been a small child by the events of 'Diamond Is Unbreakable', but Jotaro still went off to Japan for several months in order to look at Starfish. Yeah, I'm sure he looked up the whole 'inheritance' thing to justify the trip to the wife, but we all know he was there for the marine life. (What else could he have been busy with for half the series?)

But how could I even mention Stone Ocean without brining up the theme. That theme! The music which Yugo Kanno composes for the series, as well as the various opening themes which get made from other artists and Western ending themes which are picked by Araki, are nothing short of legendary. One theme in particular, Il Vento D'oro (otherwise known as Giorno's Theme) quite literally surpasses the anime itself in popularity. As such, hopefuls were hopping like maniacs in anticipation of Joylne's Theme, and I think that most of us expected having to wait until the premiere of the show. The gods smile on us, however, because for a brief snippet at the end of the trailer we actually got a chance to hear a cut-out of the song itself and the Jojo fans of the Internet went wild. I can't count the amount of reaction memes I've seen to the Jolyne theme after less than three days, people are stoked for it. (Either that or they're sick of the two years of Giorno's Theme being played everywhere, they need a new king to take the throne.)

One comparison which I've seen bought up a couple of times is that the Theme is similar to Wonder Woman's modern DCEU Theme in choice of instrument and a few of the chords. I see the resemblance, however I was never a fan of the WW theme and so I can't say I think it's a rip-off per-se. (I actually like this one, afterall) The theme actually surprised me in that it wasn't a retread of Stardust Crusaders (Jotaro's Theme) like a lot of people immediately assumed it would be, although in hindsight I can't imagine Yugo Kanno wanting to directly court accusations of him copying himself. (And I'm sure there'll be the old Jotaro riff thrown in there for prosperities' sake. Josuke got a snippet of that riff in his theme, afterall.) I do appreciate the leaning into Giorno's Theme's use of voices in the song, as it elevates the scene it's played in by making events feel bigger, like there's a chorus cheering on the hero at the most grand moments; and I just love hearing the name of the part be used. (There's no other opportunity in which we'll get to hear that.)

So this December comes with it's very own bounties for us in Jojo's Stone Ocean at it lands on Netflix, probably not over on this side of the world however, because Netflix hates everyone who doesn't own a VPN. (I know I need to get one, get off my back already!) Everything I've seen, heard or felt so far has been really exciting and I'm just happy to accept Jolyne into the Joestar Pantheon as it's been waiting patiently for so long. Also, I do know that those familiar with the entire franchise seem to almost ubiquitously agree that Part 7, Steel Ball Run, is the best that Jojo currently has to offer; and so a morbid part of me is waiting for Stone Ocean to be done and out of the way so I can start waiting on what many are hoping will be the Magnum Opus of this Anime run. But the rest of is me just as excited for Jolyne in the now, and wants to see her story firsthand. (Johnny, and his great franchise reboot, can wait) That's about the extent of my feelings, I thank you for sticking with my extended geek-out and hope you can appreciate how excited I am to experience what, in a way, is the finale to a nearly 10 year old series. (There will be more stories, but they won't be in the world and with the characters I've come to love) Okay, Weeb officially exorcised, now the gaming degenerate can reassume control.

RPG Class systems: Old Versus New

 Gemini Classes 

The world of Role Playing Games is so very simple when you first approach them; it's all about just jumping into a game where you pretend to be someone else. Heck, with a view on the genre that simple one might call any game an RPG. But then you realise that it more has to do with 'making' the person you're playing as, whether that be from the ground-up as a character or merely through selecting the way they evolve as the story progresses. Then you start to learn that RPG-fans really care about levelling trees, and having unlockable skills and abilities. Oh, they also like the game to have some heft to them, and not be your prototypical 5 hours and done fest. You'll also see that they really care about story choices, multiple endings and replayability. Then there's the various different types of RPGs, from modern, to classic, to Sandbox, to action adventure, to squad based. And then somewhere along the line it stops being fun and becomes intimidating again when you realise that there are decidedly too many types of RPGs out there in the world. That's why I like to sanitize everything down into small digestible nuggets for myself, and thus why today I want to talk about RPG classes.

Or rather, I want to talk about the contrast between typical RPG classes and these adaptive-type classes that once were ubiquitous, but are slightly waning in popularity as Classic RPGs slowly become the rage again. This conversation is one sparked by the recently unveiled The Wayward Realms, which I was quite hopeful for whilst simultaneously being decidedly critical against, and one of the points of contention that I merely touched on back there was the class system. It goes a little like this, The Wayward Realms hails from the creators of TES 1 and 2, and therefore they played into their own lineage by touting how 'Classic RPGs' were at the heart of this project. So they say out of the shadows, it would seem, because when push comes to shove it's clear that their game is leaning towards having no class systems, at least not in the traditional sense. Now classes are some of the most fundamental building blocks of Classic role playing games, thus I gawked a little when I saw this, and it got me thinking about the drawback and drawtos of classes in general.

But first, let me explain the difference between the class systems that I mentioned. Traditional RPGs have a 'fixed' class system whereupon when you start the game you get to choose the 'class' of the character you play as, typically variations upon the core three of: Mage, Warrior and Rogue. Choosing this class informs the way you play the game, what weapons you wield what armour you don, and how you approach each and every encounter. A Warrior might consider martial ways to lock down a room full of enemies, whilst a rogue might see which shadows they can exploit to sneak around. A mage might try to use wide-range spells to slowdown a room of enemies at once, whilst a warrior might try to find a way to funnel them so he doesn't have to deal with too many at once. It's a system typically hand-in-hand with hard rules, (I.E. certain gear and tools you simply can't use if you're not the correct class) but the benefit comes in the fact that it feeds beautifully into replayability as when these classes are handled well it can feel like you're playing a completely different game.

What I've chosen to coin as 'adaptive' class systems are something of a modern invention and a direct rejection of the 'ruleset' of old. These are systems where you aren't asked to pick a class, because your character will fall into the role best suited for them as the game goes on. It's more natural, encourages the character to experiment more and tells the player 'no' as little as possible. You could be a warrior who decides they need to pick up a wand and cast some spells for a specific mission, there are no barriers to hold you back. The big draw is that skills and abilities might be made with a certain class in mind, but they're available to be learnt by anyone, theoretically making it possible for a player to 'make their own class', as these games are fond of marketing.

Obviously, for casual players and early game in general this sort of class system is perfect as it's nowhere near as punishing to mistakes. However, the big problem is that by the endgame most every single character is playing roughly the same, because by the very nature of making all abilities available to every class, you're usually not making these abilities transformative enough to change the way the game plays. So a full powered hero rogue is pretty much on the same playing field as a wizard would be. (Usually wearing the heavy armour and wielding the most powerful sword, because nothing is telling you to wear those robes or pick up that shortsword) There are exceptions of course, games that handle the balance exceptionally well, as well as players who just buy into the roleplay enough to hardlimit themselves. But such games just don't usually lend themselves as naturally into that desire for replayability, which in some people's eyes is the most important draw to RPGs as a genre.

So then why was it ever decided that the old Class system needed to be replaced anyway? (Aside from just to change things up for varieties sake, I mean.) Well the key reason would seem to be because the perception that specific classes limit roleplaying, due to the way that they give you confines within which you must operate rather than allow you to be as wacky as you want to. Defenders will say that levelling systems live off of their min maxing anyway, thus there's no need for restrictions that only muddy the waters. And isn't there a sort of purity in a world where the ultimate hero always ends up with the same capabilities?  These sorts of systems have worked fine in the Elder Scrolls, Deus Ex , The Witcher and the countless other 'freeform' RPGs out there, so what's the problem?

A response which I understand, yet will push back on anyway. Because as with many aspects of art, I don't see 'limitations', I see 'guidelines' in the traditional class systems. Of course there are many ways to screw it up so that classes are boring and uninteresting to level up, at the end of the day it all comes down to the skills of the designers afterall; but for the vast majority of the RPGs I've played, I find the experience of mastering a class a lot more interesting than just maxing out all the skill trees for my Fallout character. That's because within a class is inbuilt a role, and mastering that role in gameplay means coming to terms with, and understanding, the tools at your disposal and working with them. Being a top rogue doesn't have to mean you can hide really well, it can mean you're a master of locking down a battlefield with traps, or isolating enemies and hitting them with punishing sneak attacks, or perhaps you're just a poison fiend. Operating within the guidelines forces you to use the limitations within your hands and sometimes get creative, rather than just to default for the strongest weapon you can find which kills things the fastest. Sure, that tactic is what the Warrior class will go for anyway, but the very fact that other classes have different goals epitomises the class variety that I don't feel from free-form adaptive classes. 

So there is a compromise to be made somewhere along the line, this much is obvious, because hard-line class systems really belong more with Classic RPGs and free-form systems belong with modern RPGs. (Until Avowed comes along and changes that power dynamic entirely.) I like to think there's space for specific class systems that allows for equipment, at the very least, to be worn by all classes, because in that there's a lot of 'Adaptive' potential without sacrificing the uniqueness of class abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Let the specific disadvantages of wearing a heavy piece of armour have an effect (beyond just cancelling out spells altogether) in order to allow players to come up with their solutions and draw their own lines in the sand. Maybe heavy armour increases spell cast time, but if someone wants to play as a heavy battle mage this suits them just fine. I just maintain that old school classes have yet to run their course and we'd be foolish to leave them behind completely; and The Wayward Realms needs to get on board with actual real classes. (At least that's my two cents on the issue)

Abandon All Hope

 Ye who buy into this nonsense

Time, work, and that all important, ever limited, creative passion has been sunk in droves towards bringing to life your greatest project yet, something which has taken years of off your life and turned the very heads of an entire industry of fans who have never even noticed your existence before. You blush under their new-found glare, embarrassed that after all this time the attention you've longed for has fallen your way. You don't know how to act. You should probably be humble, but who doesn't love it when you put on a little bit of a show? Tease the crowds a little, let them dream about a grander world and their imagination can do all the marketing you could wish for. Yes, just feed them snippets and it'll work wonders down the line! A little screenshot here, a little flirtatious tweet there. Oh, you know! You can tease the name of the game in question, because the title 'Abandoned' was just a placeholder anyway. That would go great along with the trailer of a camera wandering through the woods. Hmm, yes you'll tease 'First letter S, last letter L' what could possibly go- huh? Now everybody thinks you're Hideo Kojima and the game you're making is Silent Hill? Well crap.

If you're Hasan Kahraman from Dutch Studio Blue Box Games, I can only imagine your experience over the past year has been something like that. Burgeoning promise waylaid by being dragged into the imagination of the Internet over an illusionary ARG that everybody has fooled themselves into being a part of, your reward for wanting to play the marketing game with a hand close to your chest. I've touched on this situation briefly, and aside from the fact that Hideo Kojima himself still refuses to weigh in and put all of this to rest, (Maybe he just enjoys watching the torture from the sidelines) I've yet to see a single sliver of compelling evidence telling us that this Hasan man is Kojima or that Blue Box is secretly a fake company working on Silent Hill. I mean sure, Hideo Kojima did kind of do something similar with the whole 'Moby Dick Games' thing and 'The Phantom Pain', but people forget how obviously on-the-nose that was. Though we might not have know it was Kojima the whole time, it was clear that something was up the second the lead developer started doing interviews with a face entirely wrapped in bandages. 

But that hasn't stopped this crazy conspiracy from spreading. People have even turned to the almighty god-king of the internet, Google Translate, to see the irrefutable evidence that Kahraman translates directly into Hideo should you try it out! Of course, that could be because both names translate to 'hero', a rather common etymological route for names to come out of, but when you're in 'conspiracy mode' the logical explanation can fly out of the window a little bit. Maybe the only actual bit of this that had any traction, however, was the unique App experience which was launching before this Abandoned game and would hopefully clear up some misconceptions about what the game was. Upon learning of this, folk immediately starting asking how it was that an indie game studio could cook up an App-companion for a game that made it onto the Sony Store. And that's- actually a good question. That's by no means common, Sony is notoriously rough to indie studios, maybe they know something that we don't.

Of course, logical reasoning might say that this could easily be the results of some out-of-box marketing, but I think the conspiracy train has rolled far beyond such sensible conclusions at this point; it's conspiracy or death. And so this App became the beating heart, pushing past all the naysayers and fuelling every part of this nonsense, even becoming the central talking point of an entire subreddit dedicated to this perceived 'mystery'. Everything would immediately become clear upon looking at this App fully released, and all those that scoffed would feel silly when they realised how all of the wood-like imagery, ponderous shots and desolation matched up perfectly with the Silent Hill franchise. Blue Box themselves seemed very happy for attention to shift away from their legitimacy as a real games company, posting a teaser riling everybody up despite it featuring nothing but some floorboards and a man walking across them in a such a weird angle that you can see practically nothing of worth. But forget that, the launch of the App is here.

And so are the technical troubles, of course, isn't that just the way? You plan this out for months, grow a larger traction than you ever expected, and then technical difficulties come out of nowhere to kick you in the nether regions. It took some behind the scenes work, some apologetic tweets, but after a little bit of time, but eventually the App was back online with a small teaser introducing people to what the thing would hold in the months to come. And in that very moment the spell over the Internet was broken, although probably not in the way that Blue Box intended. For you see, the teaser I just mentioned, was exactly the Twitter video they had tweeted out just before, and the App itself had nothing else on it but placeholders for future content. Which is to say, this App had nothing of value to anyone, and I suppose people finally realised that not even Hideo Kojima would string people along that much.

It's actually quite astounding to see the tide of opinion shift so heavily over the course of a single night, as though all hopes were riding on some impossible reveal moment where the perfect Silent Hill game would materialise in front of you and all would be right with the world once again. Hideo Kojima and Konami, the two who left on such bad terms that Konami tried to literally scrub his name from the boxes of all their games, would just shake hands and partner-up like nothing had ever gone wrong. It was a pipe dream, and one which these theorists had fed themselves for months without any good reason to do so. Blue Box tried to insist that they had nothing to do with Kojima or Silent Hill, Hasan tried to convince the world that he was a real person, but people needed to have their highest hopes built up and knocked down like a jenga tower before the cold realisation could dawn on them. They had wasted their time.

It's almost with vindictive glee that the same parties who bought into this in the first place are now ripping into Blue Box's past to now tear it all apart. Previously those who wanted to point out how insane all of this was, would simply point towards the history of smaller scale Horror games that Blue Box had already debuted, pointing out that Hideo Kojima would have to have been cooking this twist-surprise up since one year after the initial Silent Hills reveal all those years back. Which would be surprising given that since then he'd been ejected from the company and created a whole new studio and IP. Now people have dug into the history of Blue Box as a developer and pointed out certain projects of thiers that have disappeared or been sold off, trying to paint this picture of Blue Box being an unreliable company with big promises and nothing to back it up. (Which certainly does seem to line up with evidence a little more, but I can't help but shake the bad taste in my mouth of people ganging up to punch down on an Indie Studio they themselves put on a pedestal.)

And so this, in the mind of me, ends the sage of Abandoned, because I think it's pretty clear that this isn't the grand Kojima prank which the world so desperately wanted it to be. I gave this topic a wide berth at first, not interested in the harassment of a small indie dev, but now we've gone through the length of the saga and they've benefitted from a boost to marketing that no-one could have predicted, I feel more comfortable summarising this wild journey. And for those that are still holding on, clinging to vague 'evidences' and pointing to the fact that images and shots of this game match up with the weird woods around Silent Hill in the lore, I posit thus; "Most horror games of the day look identical to one-another". And that's just a fact. I hope Blue Box aren't going to let this dying of momentum kill their game, and can salvage some of the lingering attention into a semi-successful marketing campaign, and that maybe Silent Hill fans will be able to fine themselves some contentment out of the chaos. Until the next stupidity to strike the gaming world, I guess.

Hogwarts Legacy: Persona Edition?

 Bro, you got everything; but you don't know anything!

Oh what's that? We've gone all of fifteen minutes without getting any solid news and/or confirmations regarding the feature-set of Hogwarts Legacy? Time for rampant speculation! Afterall, it is the express job of the Internet and myself to tell the hardworking developers exactly how to do their jobs. Well, actually not how to do their jobs, but rather what to do with it; they can figure out the how in their own time. Because that's the great conceit of being a backseat developer, you can waffle on all day about how the game should be, but most people haven't the faintest idea what goes into the things they're advocating or even if it will be the right fit for the game they're talking about. I recently watched someone so aghast with the fact that their favourite brand was recently inducted into Fortnite, a game where people use guns, that they suggest their character (who does not use guns in canon) should be singularly built their very own weaponless moveset with abilities tied to each individual weapon and buff they pick up, perfectly balanced so as to provide no unfair advantage one way or the other and perfectly updates with each new version Fortnite releases. And that was from a supposed Industry semi-professional. So you see what I'm saying right, sometimes consumers be dumb.

Yet having said all of that, and dumped all that copious shade all-over the place, let me turn around and say that without a doubt, and in this excessively specific instance, the mobs have got the right side of things. (Or maybe I've just lowered my standards and become one of their grunting number, it's a toss-up really.) This I say for the unfounded expectation, nay undeserved demand, that the upcoming Potter-Universe game 'Hogwarts Legacy' should be a social simulator, or at least covet social simulator elements. Yes please, without a doubt, this needs to happen. I don't care if the guys tapping away over at Avalanche Software have just finished the final page of the script and are ready to start sending it off to the coding team- blare the horns, stop the presses, halt the very heavens themselves, this things needs a rewrite. Because in this single demand people have cracked the code of how to turn this new game from a good idea into the single dream game for every single Potter fan over the world. No joke.

But first let's be clear, what exactly is a 'social simulator' game? Well I can answer that with one single word, because we're lucky enough to have the genre exemplified by one iconic example: Persona. Although I realise that not everyone out there has played Persona (To absolute shame, all of you; Persona is a legend) so let me elucidate. Persona is a game that splits up the time you're not battling RPG monsters between the daily activities which the player decides on in order to 'simulate' their ordinary life. You choose the jobs they want to do, the people they meet up with, the talents they train at night before bed, you essentially enter into the shoes of their lives. And as you dictate these activities, the effect they have on the character works to 'improve' specific attributes or companions attributes, emulating the way in which our social lives can make us better people. (Or at least that's what I'm told. I have absolutely no social life whatsoever and I turned out perfe- ooh, wait they may actually have a point.)

So do you see it? The blinding nugget of unrefined potential glinting out from the bottom of this coal mine? Hogwarts Legacy, with social elements, can be the remedy to all those kids from around my age who read Harry Potter as a child and waited patiently for their owl and proceeding invitation to Hogwarts. (Hey, don't make fun! Most of us knew it wasn't real, we just wanted to believe) We wanted to be part of the Hogwarts world in a manner that wasn't satiated with following the adventures of 'The boy who lived' or reading Newt Scamander's various notes into why his books would make for the most boring movie adaptations this franchise could muster. (Oh, his books weren't about that? I haven't read them, I just assumed) We wanted to be the Witches and Wizards studying the arcane arts, We wanted to decend into the bitter tribalism encouraged by school houses, (Actually, I did have that in my school days, much as I loathe to remember) and we wanted to be charmed, tortured, misled and nearly killed by a revolving door of worse and worse Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers. (Hmm, maybe not that last one. Ah who am I kidding? That last one too.)

We already know that the game is going to feature some form of 'create a wizard' built into the game, so that we may play whomever we choose to be, but making the jump from a creator system to a full RPG simulator which allows us to live the world of a Hogwarts student is not necessarily the logical conclusion. A game like this could very easily devolve into simple fetch-quests across the world as you journey around in a story ostensibly your own, but really the developers. Of course, whatever we end up with is going to be a story crafted by developers, but present it in the correct way and that's a river we Potter-heads could easily be swept away with. I'm sure there's some great quest bubbling away in 18th century Hogwarts, with Dark Wizards and scary monsters and schoolboy Dumbledore, but give enough slack on the leash and those can be just the guidelines for the ultimate Harry Potter universe game. Imagine thus-

You wake up in the morning at the dorm of your house of choice, spending those first few hours at the dorms with the circle of friends important to this narrative. The cutscene time between the dorms and schoolrooms could be a time, just like in Persona 4, for the group to discuss plot relevant information, go over plans and struggles they have to pursue, let the main story seep naturally into the everyday. The afternoon could be a time free to the player, to pursue further studies, catch-up with friends, or shoot to further the ultimate quest. The choice would be up to them with the kicker being that they can only choose one, and so the management of time becomes a significant factor to consider each and everyday. I outlined just the basic idea for a social simulator, but starting with that as a base, Hogwarts Legacy could evolve it into so much more, with character skill systems, companion events, special holiday dates, world events; there's so much you can do, all it takes is for the developers to put themselves in the position where they can take those paths.

There's a world of opportunity waiting in front of a game like Hogwarts Legacy, married to an established franchise but split from it's frigid canon. You could compare it to such classics as Knights of the Old Republic, a game which rewrote how a lot of people looked at Star Wars and even took some choice folks for a ride with it's narrative. (As such KOTOR remains a beloved part of that franchise) I've seen some suggest that, owning to the RPG influences, there might even be space for a morality system of some type in Hogwarts Legacy, wherein the player could actively choose to become a 'dark wizard' who trains in some of the forbidden arts. What a cool concept! The darker side of the wizarding world is actually something woefully underexplored in the Harry Potter world aside from the literal worst of the worst, (I'm talking actual Wizard Hitler) and so a more nuanced look at some of the nefarious angles of magical ability would work wonders for opening up the world of the franchise. (But, to be honest, I suspect WB would fight tooth and nail against a game where children have the opportunity to become power-hungry melomanics.)

We're at that golden stage of wonderment, wherein we know literally nothing about the structure of the game and can make all the wild unsubstantiated wishes that our little heads can conjure up. Will this ultimately end up in the steady crafting of an unmatchable idealisation of the game? Undoubtedly so. But maybe in all this grandstanding the developers and licence holders can get an idea for the sort of game that people want and steer development to a rough approximation of that dream. That might be a sliver hope, but we've survived over a decade of Harry Potter games, and so far the only really decent ones have been the Lego games, and that's just a given, those guys over at TT could make Lego 'No Country for Old Men' and it would still be fun and engaging for kids. We're past due that one knockout which blows everyone away and truly makes use of the potential of this franchise, maybe something that can even breathe some life back into the wizarding world where these recent movies have fallen short. So yeah, not to put the entire weight of Harry Potter's future on your shoulders, Avalanche Software, but that's pretty much where we're at right now. (So do the right thing and make 'Persona: Hogwarts Edition'! You know it makes sense.)

Retail is dead

 Long live Retail

When I went out this morning past I saw a peculiar sight. As I travelled on my normal journey towards the bustling heart of the town I live near, cloaked by the torrential downpour that somehow always seems to come out for my singular benefit each and every day, I spied upon the highstreet. Ever the busy port of call no matter what time of day, week or year it is, fit to bursting with so much more people then, I'd bet, the modern health guidelines would recommended. And yet no where near as many from years past, and I don't just say that with rose-tinted glasses. In memory I recall a suffocating crowd, the kind of which you'd have to haughtily fight your way through to have any hope of reaching your store, umbrellas and walking sticks became batons and spiked bats in that arena of bodies, and no quarter was spared for either women or children. 'Twas a bloody ordeal, for which boys were made men. Yet that was no more in this relatively barren, yet still uncomfortably full, highstreet of today. Of course, that was but the salve pre-applied around the wound I was about to receive when I turned the corner and saw, to my dismay, the empty spot where once was my local Gamestop store.

Now I know I've not exactly been kind to Gamestop in past, though I endeavour to affirm that they absolutely deserved every inch of my scathing chagrin. Theirs was a business model built around "We're the best and we'll always be around, do your best to keep all Online endeavours as surface level as possible, deals as skewered as possible and general customer experience just south of spitting on them." If I had alternatives, I'd never have gone to Gamestop. But I didn't, and there's the key. Retail stores have been dying off left right and centre and for my town I'd reached the point where the only serious retail gaming shop was Gamestop, which is now no more. Sure there are a smattering of understocked second-hand stores, but all of those are small chain stores anyway, nothing with character left in the area. But what is the real reason I lament the loss of my Gamestop? The Hardware.

Good lord, if there's one thing we all lose out on with this new age of online marketplaces it's access to easy hardware. Well, that and a lot of esoteric and societal issues are raised such as security of jobs, homogenisation and monopolisation all atop of a general erosion of local economy, but none of those real topics really have much of a place here so I'm sticking to the Hardware talk. Do you have any idea how hard it still is to get ahold of the next gen consoles? Of course you do, because it's still nigh-on impossible and relying on the respective developer store fronts is unreliable because- oh yeah, they decided not to bother with them this generation. The physical stores were my last hope to get a next gen console without having to do battle with an Entire Yakuza sub-division's worth of scalpers, but now I guess I need to start stocking up on Staminan X and practising ripping off my shirt with one hand. (How many shirts do the Yakuza cast go through in the series do ya think? And what about the cost; they always dress designer, afterall, yikes...)

But perhaps most depressingly of all is that loss of sense of community that you had the chance to interact with. As a gamer, there's not really a lot of others out there who are involved enough with the genre to entertain the odd casual chat about the titles you're looking forward to and the ones you're working through right now. Unless you're crazy enough to try and find someone to talk to on the Internet, but man; they're all crazies on that thing, I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole if I were you... There's not really another place you can look at other players in the face and know that someone out there does play games too, for someone like me who really doesn't have anyone to talk to or interact with, all of that meant- something at the very least. It made me feel, at all. Which is more than what I can say about most things in my day-to-day. I felt.

And now that's gone. Or at least around my neck of the woods. And I'm solemn in that realisation. This time I can say that I'm not just bemoaning things changing, as it's often quite easy to get lost between the act of witnessing change and just seeing something die. I think we're watching physical retail die, and the Online space just isn't built to take over wholesale for it. At least not today. It's like a members-only club where the majority of key services are either run by a regional bully or split between two or three. You want a meal delivery service, pick from the three. You want a job search site, pick from the three. You want to order something that isn't food or specific tech; it's pretty much just Amazon. Just bite the bullet and pay Jeff his blood money so he can fuel his next trip to space, everybody; don't worry, he'll thank us at the next press interview! (Dick.)

This was an inevitability, however. No one can stare around in confusion and wonder how we got here because we all saw this coming from a mile away. (All except the executives at Gamestop, that is.) Reggie from Nintendo was hired to be part of the board of directors a while ago, as I covered in a creative little blog that I liked at least even if no one else did, but little has come of that. The man may be a legend but he's no miracle worker, and I bet even the Messiah would have his work cut out for him at this point. The Gamestop stock debacle from earlier this year was fun and it redistributed some wealth in a net positive direction, but it's just drop in bucket against the tsunami that is the changing times. There's nothing to be done to save retail, perhaps there never was, the new age is upon us and it has been for a while now. Part of me knew I was clinging to the safety net of having a nearby store from an entity that didn't realise it was dead yet, but that doesn't make the cold shock of seeing it's corpse sting any less.

So with this new age really should come some consumer rights. Yeah, I'm turning this right around into a complaints blog, because online ain't perfect by a long shot. Why are there still no revisions to purchasing laws so that buying software is actually, you know, buying the software? We're 'licencing' under the good graces of our penny pinching overlords, hoping that they'll always be benevolent down upon us because they have kind-of been up until now. We know that these developers and storefront owners have full control over our library of games, and there's already a least one documented case of a company, EA in this instance, nuking someone's entire library of games that he had purchased. Now did he deserve it? Sure. But that sort of power isn't really ethical for EA, or anyone, to be holding anyway. When we buy a game, we should own that game, and trade laws need to be updated to support that most basic of consumer rights. Don't wait for that loophole to screw us all, fix it now!

Unfortunately little can be done for the Hardware situation many find themselves in, but we're working with baby steps as we try to make Online storefronts more sensible and hospitable. Until 3D printing technology improves to the point where we can scan and copy new hardware into our homes, something which I'd like to think can't be too far off in the grand scheme of technological advancement, we're stuck with Amazon. Personally, I'm already waging up the further afield Gamestop stores for the time being, seeing which are worth the trek to get the new consoles at the very least. But such is a limited-time endeavour and I can't imagine it'll be long before official gaming hardware accessories will go 'order only'. And on such a dark day I can only hope that manufactures learn to respect us enough to at least provide the product themselves. (Wouldn't that be nice?)

God Games

The rules of everything

You are God. The sun rises because you placed it, the seas rear because you made it, and the people live their daily lives of ambient sandboxing because you allow it. Don't get me wrong, you're not the 'brimstone and fire, all must obey my dictatorial wrath' sort of god. (Unless you want to be but that's typically a lot more trouble to pull off than it's worth) You're the kind of handy-man god who travels around fixing problems, which is rather active of you for a deity now you think about it. But you're not doing any of this because you particularly want to, maybe you're the altruistic type and all that but everyone has their limits, no this is more of a duty. Because helping the people makes society run smoother which then allows it to expand and the grander life is the more you get to play with- except with a larger populace comes more problems to solve. Eventually you'll notice that you're not really having as much wild untamed fun and you expected to be having, rather just stolen moments here and there, you're really spending most of your time fixing relationships, or clearing bypasses or managing species, and then it hits you; you're not a god at all, you're just a glorified busybody. That is my experience with the God games genre.

I've had the inkling to talk about God games after the recent early access release of a game I've waited a long time for which, whilst it doesn't fit perfectly into the margins of a 'God Game', it certainly does run many pertinent parallels. That game is Starmancer, and it's actually more of a management build-a-base game in the vein of something-like Dwarf fortress, but when you really break it down to the essence that isn't a million miles away from what God games are. God games throw the player into the shoes of show sort of administrative entity that presumes to have control over the lives of all they observe. This entity manages, constructs, problem solves and works as some otherworldly foreman in a lot of these games, with the whole 'god' aspect only really becoming apparent due to the layer of separation between the player and the character's within the world. Wherein lies the confusion, at least for me, about what constitutes a 'God game'.

 For example, in Stellaris you theoretically take control of the leader of a civilisation and control every aspect of that intergalactic societies growth, diplomacy, economy and combat. You are the supreme leader. Except, this civilisation has an elected leader, one who will undoubtedly (through the course of your game) die and be replaced with another leader. You remain in power regardless. In fact, it's totally possible to have no idea that elections are even happening despite the fact that's supposed to be your position which is drastically changing. So are you 'god' in that game? Does that count as a God game? I think that, frustratingly, we're looking at a 'yes' and 'no' situation here, where less 4X managerial oversights hanging over the player is preferable. But then, in Tropico things on that front are handled pretty casually, but you're still very distinctly identified as El Presidente and can even be killed off by rebels if you do a bad enough job. So is Tropico a God game series? In truth, I haven't the foggiest; but you know who would know? 

Peter Molyneux, the man, myth and game developing legend himself. Black and White, his first foray into this sort of game, is easily one of the most influential of the genre and pioneered so much of what makes God Games what they are in today's world. And you know what, I've never played it or it's sequels. That's right, I'm a heathen and I present myself for the custom summary execution accordingly. Before I do I should talk about what exactly it is Black and White gave to the player, you know, for prosperities sake. That was a game which literally put you into the shoes of a god as they ruled over various tribes who, curiously, actually judged your actions to try and figure out your moral alignment. It's curious, as many God games purposefully place you outside of the magic box and thus free of direct judgement, but I suppose the appeal of being worshipped or feared was strong enough to erase such contention because Black and White is widely love to this day.

My first God game, that I can remember, was actually a more stylistic one which caught my eye called From Dust. That was a game where you weren't so much a 'god' as you were an elemental force of- okay, you were totally a god. Basically you played this floating invisible ball that could manipulate the elements to help out a tribe of peoples with their fight for survival. Usually by moving water to put out lava and stuff like that. What drew me to the game was the sandbox premise of screwing around with elements, but obviously that's not what these games are about and I found myself a little disillusioned by that fact. Since when does God have responsibilities? Tasks? Hard lines to which he is forced to abide? Maybe Black and White would have been more up my alley, but I suspect that this might be a genre founded on a false reputation of total, unerring, freedom rather than a true 'god like' experience. Which sucks for me, but I suppose is what the audience has been trained to want now. 

Struggling to grasp what was actually a God game and what wasn't, I resorted to the ever-unreliable Steam store page to help elucidate me, when I realised that I had Spore: the highest rated God game on the platform. Now there's a game with a lot of freedom, as you raise a civilisation from being a cell on an asteroid to a space-faring race of war like gorilla people; if that's what you're looking for. (I always was) Spore leaned a lot in creativity, with having you design so much from the clothes and spaceships to the very bone structure of your civilisation, and it did so in a fairly intuitive and fun way. But it wasn't a sandbox, there were rules and you were never in that position of 'screw around with everything' that the genre might imply. At this point I think it's pretty clear what the actual barrier is between the promise and reality is, isn't it? It's the medium. These are games, and thus that demands some conflict for the player to tackle. Games can't really let the players do everything they want, else they risk losing their attention too early as the breadth of the possibilities get explored too quickly. Therefore challenges are crafted, Gameplay loops are installed and suddenly your godlike abilities aren't feeling too godlike anymore.

The only exception to this rule, as far as I understand it, would be the Sims; or rather how the majority of people say that they play the Sims. I'm a masochist so I'll just go ahead and say it, I don't cheat when playing the Sims. (At least not the later ones, the early ones forced my hand by being the slowest things imaginable.) This is pretty much the purest example of a 'do anything game', because they readily give you the tools to create humans, craft houses, sometimes even decide the shape of an entire city. (at least they did in Sims 3. 4 is, naturally, less creative) In my eyes, playing around with the lives of the virtual Sims represents the only example of the God game genre that totally lives up to the promise of it's name, as you become the amoral god of these doomed people, toying with their lives and removing the ladder out of the pool whenever you see fit. A true all-powerful despot for the ages!

So as you can likely tell; I'm not actually a big fan of the God game genre. I think it's an interesting dichotomy of concept vs execution wherein if the original premise where ever actually achieved you'd have a game which isn't very interesting at all. Even with the Sims, when you start installing cheats and doing whatever you want it gets boring pretty quick and I know I'm usually onto to the next game pretty fast; so does this make this a genre built on lies? I don't think so. More one built on a general shared understanding between the game developers and the players that not everything needs to be ridden to the letter. Some see this as exciting and freeing, I see this as a genre that will never achieve it's truest potential. I suppose ultimately it just lands on a matter of taste.

Mechwarrior 5: Eager and willing to buy souls

Oh no you didn't

So it has been a good long while since E3 has come and gone, as such now I feel a little more in-the-clear to air some grievances with those conferences that I don't feel quite so comfortable ragging on, like the PC gamer show. Gearbox are big boys, they can take all the criticism we can feed them just fine and gorge on it for all we care, Ubisoft are just as happy to self sabotage their own reputation by simply consisting of just plain being horrible people; but the PC gamer show is something of a sacred spot. That's because it's the only real place for the gems of the PC indie market to get their chance on the big stage, without selling their freedom away to one of the big studios at least. It's either this show or get published by Devolver Digital, but not everyone can get published by DD. So kicking these guys sort of feels like kicking down on the defenceless little kid at the play park, no matter how annoying his sketches and product placement is. But now we've the space of a few months, I feel a bit better asking; what the heck was that game the PC gamer Awards sold their soul to?

MechWarrior 5. Pretty self explanatory as far as names go, and also a bit elucidating because to be totally honest with you, I was entirely unaware of the apparently prestigious MechWarrior family of games up until now. I feel like a newbie rocking up to Final Fantasy XVI feeling overwhelmed only to quickly learn that the number XVI doesn't even cover a third of the amount of games under the umbrella of that franchise. Am I about to learn that MechWarrior is one of the most influential pieces of content made since Machiavelli's 'Il Principe'? Am I to learn that Jesus, just after the last supper, popped on a quick match of the original MechWarrior before sulking off to meet his fate? Was the war between the Titans and Olympians originally waged over who would get to pick their team first from the iconic MechWarrior roster? I can only assume the truth of all of that and much more with the sheer nauseating reverence that was shoved wholesale down my gullet during that conference.

"Oh hey, that game was great but you wanna know what's really great? MechWarrior 5", "Now we're done showcasing those games, lets move onto the real show; a twitter poll about MechWarrior 5", "You know what will make this conference pop off? An extended series of skits about MechWarrior 5 and a mascot, complete with bad acting and cringe jokes-" Why do we have press conference presenters again? No, I'm being serious- they have the exact opposite job of presenters from other branches of media: Other presenters keep the show moving whilst these guys bog it down. Oftentimes they showcase a distinct lack of an ability to keep the audience's attention, they're never as funny or likeable as they think they are and if you give them too much rope (I.E. screentime) they hang themselves with it. Invariably, every freakin' time. Nintendo has their modern press conferences just be a string of games with a disembodied voice either providing commentary or just introductions. It's professional, never keeps off the games for too long and doesn't try to become our best friends with misplaced jokes that never land. I never thought I'd say something like this to the wider gaming industry, but in this hyper specific singular instance: Learn from Nintendo.

But you might be wondering what exactly is this game that these hosts were left simping for, and I mean apart from the favoured pastime of the gods and clearly the entity to which the PC gaming conference sold it's soul. Well it's a name that actually does hail from a beloved series of machine-based war games that go all the way back to the tabletop fields under the label of 'BattleTech'. (It always goes back to the tabletops, doesn't it? Plus 3 to initiative) To this avail the excitement over the series does a make a little more sense to the uninitiated like me, because MechWarrior 5 marks the very first mainline entry into the series since 2002, so I can forgive a little bit of splurging on their part. Except, wait a minute, Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries came out in 2019. Yeah, I thought I recognised that name and some of the gameplay, so what gives? 

Well as it just so happens, the game originally came out as an Epic exclusive. (Wow, way to mark your 'grand return to the masses'. Coming right out of the gate and saying; "Who will pay me the most for my dignity?") Then they turned around and bought the game to Xbox Game Pass a year later, demonstrating quite soundly how possible it is to have your cake and eat it all in the same motion. This year's E3 marked the very next step of the series onwards to Steam, Series X, GOG and everywhere else apart from Playstation because I guess someone still wants to get those exclusivity dollars. But wait, the game came to Game Pass PC before coming to Xbox? Is that a thing that games do nowadays? Seems a little backwards if you ask me. And that's not even taking into account the fact that we had an entire gaming conferenced funded by and dedicated to a re-release. How gauche. (Thank god Rockstar swore off of E3 more than a decade ago, else we'd be looking at a GTA V conference anyday now.)

As for the game itself, MechWarrior is exactly what you think it is; it's a wargame where you romp around in giant mech machines and stomp on military forces before their number can overwhelm you. It's characterised by the feeling of being like a Kaiju crashing through the smaller than you, and as such there's a big focus on destructibility and the visualisation of general devastation. MechWarriors does take this a little further to a satisfying extent by having some decent damage mapping on the mechs that you use, because it's always fun to see the chaos wrought on yourself in the aftermath of gruelling duels, more games should focus on player damage mapping. I just can't shake the perception personally that it's a bit of an oldschool and small-scale approach to mech-combat which is honestly likely by design but still not really for me.

Whilst I've never stepped into this genre of game myself, my recent CRPG foray should show that I'm always open to plunging myself wholesale into new genres in order to see what makes them tick. But when I look at Mech combat games these types of games just don't really excite me. They seem so small in comparison to, and I'm going to do the cliché here, the offerings that the Japanese side of the industry have. I mean, compare the typical military scenarios of  MechWarrior to the insane bombastic lunacy of Zone of Enders. Maybe that's coming from my Metal Gear fandom, as ZOE was always sort of a companion title to those games, but it's still the latter example which sparks my imagination and has me wondering what the heck could be in store for me. I've seen what MechWarrior has to offer. I've seen Armoured Core and Steel Battalion. I'd prefer this Evangelion-esque, alien melodrama. (I presume the ZOE series is full of melodrama, Hideo Kojima was one of the designers afterall.)

None of which is to denigrate MechWarrior 5 and the obvious appeal it has for the military mech fighter genre, because there are clearly those out there who simply love this game. For what I've seen it appears to look very approachable too, lacking the ludicrous control panel of the more 'simulator' style of this genre like Steel battalion; so if this sort of game has ever appealed to you than this is likely the ideal place to start. I think that the visual presentation leaves a little to be desired, even for a game that released back in 2019, but it accomplishes the task well enough and not every game on god's green earth needs to dabble with subsurface skin refractions and realistic volumetric particle dispersal, sometimes you just need solid explosions, and MechWarrior has solid explosions. I just think, at the end of the day, that if you want me to think favourably of your game and consider actually purchasing it; the best approach might not be hijacking a gaming conference and doing so many self-inserts that I dread to hear your name. Trust me when I say this, especially in this day and age: all publicity is not good publicity.