The death of Xbox's future

A lot of crying wolf has fallen upon the space of game's journalism regarding the imminent demise of Xbox as a powerhouse within the top tier of the industry. They seem to be setting themselves up to abandon the console war entirely and become full time publishers for the rest of eternity. Whereas I loathe the idea of a Sony-Controlled industry, what else can you forsee in a world where Microsoft lose more and more marketshare every year, both from the successes of Sony and their constant depressing failures. The move to start shilling of exclusives was a nowhere road into the wall, the dragging out of long-term exclusives that end up scoring mid reviews is dressing, and now Xbox have finally gone the route of scaring off all small studios that might have had a future to grow up into something big. Truly the future is dead at Microsoft Game Studios.

You've probably heard the news. Arkane Austin are dead, killed for the crime of creation Redfall- a game that was, to be fair, absolute dog-crap from the ground up. But here's the thing- it was a game that they didn't even want to make, which only carried on to launch by Microsoft incompetence when it came to project management which the then-leader of Xbox accepted responsibility for. (I'll call Phil Spencer 'then leader' in the knowledge that once Microsoft falls into a holding pattern of publishing, they won't have need of a man with his talents anymore.) They were punished for being led to crap. How utterly twisted and diabolical for any god-fearing games company to do. It almost sounds as though their positive contributions were thrown away entirely.

Because yes, Arkane Austin were also responsible for putting together the beloved Prey reboot game which some have gone so far as to label the revitalisation of the Immersive Sim genre. And yes, Prey did underperform- and it also stole it's name from the original Prey property for absolutely no reason- they had no ties to that original game whatsoever- but the game was considered a classic. That is the kind of goodwill that, when correctly fostered, can eventually generate the kind of smash hit that moves consoles down the line. But I guess Xbox just couldn't be bothered to put in that effort so at the very first sign of weakness they decided to let Arkane A go. Whoops.

Now I know, as sick as it tastes to even consider, there is a sick logic to this. If from a monetary standpoint the company is looked on as a liability- a cold and emotion-deficient producer won't think twice about heading for layoffs. And Redfall wasn't just a disaster- it was a disaster that had already sold season passes promising buyers more content. Extra playable characters that had technically already been sold to a community that dried up within a couple of weeks, that promise was a liability hanging over the studio where they had to spend the development hours and money to create content that realistically no one could pay. Now that is the tiniest possible inconvenience for a multibillion dollar company- but how do you think they become multibillionaires? By being stingy.

But now I'm going to slap you in the mouth and tell you to dispense of that blasphemy you call 'Logic' because this next point defies that. Tango Gameworks has also been shut down. They were the developers of the two pretty decent Evil Within games that carried on the survival horror genre when everyone felt it was good and buried. Then just over a year ago they were the ones to inject something of a hope into the possibility of Xbox as a first party game developer with the surprising Hi-Fi Rush hit that came out the same day it was announced and knocked people's socks off. To this day that is the only first party Xbox game of this generation that seemed to have received straight universal praise, and Xbox fired it's developers.

That means if you develop under Xbox you need to be careful because one stinker from your studio is enough to put you on the chopping block, regardless of the circumstances around it and all your previous contributions to the craft. But you also need to be careful because if you develop a hit, you'll be on the chopping block, regardless on whether or not that hit is the spine upon which your rocky reputation is held up. The lesser know Alpha Dog and Roundhouse Studios, yet to make names for themselves, were also shut down- so be careful about not making a splash. Essentially- don't work for Xbox- because they cannot offer security to literally anyone. They are toxicity incarnate.

Everytime Xbox's long term strategies have been brought up it has been about 'building up studios' into the same sort of hitmakers that Sony has on their back bench. They rejected the toxic method of simply buying up everyone Sony could ever work with in favour of the long-play which would be healthier for the industry as a whole. But there's only so long you can say "Hold on, the real good games are all coming next year!" especially when all these middle weight makers are getting gutted and left to dry out because Xbox are too cheap to sell them on to new owners and potential keep a team of well-working professionals together. That was the very heart of the Xbox brand they just wantonly cut out- and now what's left?

A dead future and a public address that no one wants to make. At this point it's pretty much said and done. Starfield and Indiana Jones might as well get released on Playstation before the year is out so Microsoft can prepare to exit the console market, because there is no coming back from a torpedo like this. A total assassination of brand and self that ruins what little respect Xbox still had built up for itself. I only wish they had the good graces to throw in the towel years ago and save us this prolonged will-they won't they- which has contributed a grand total of barely anything to the art form and just ended up ruining a bunch of promising up and coming Studios. Phil Spencer has some answers to give, and if they aren't good enough- maybe that speech should come with his papers too.

'Lost Judgement' Review

 Why do we put so much value in truths if all they do is crush us?

The original Judgement felt like a breath of fresh air to the Yakuza franchise that I wasn't really aware that I needed until it arrived. Witty, thrilling, humanising, exciting- Tak's journey hit many of the notes that were no longer reachable with the immortal Kiryu, or Joryu, as the lead of this franchise- and playing on the, somewhat, right side of the law as a detective opened up a whole new bevy of gameplay opportunities as well as avenues for narrative exploration that RGG utilised to spectacular ends. But what would a sequel to that look like? Honestly, I found the satisfying personal journey of Tak to clear his own conscious for his past failings to be a gripping narrative hook that couldn't simply be recycled for a follow-up, and that worried me for wondering how I would come out my Lost Judgement experience.

From the outset Lost Judgement clearly focuses on smoothing out the seams between gameplay verticals. Tailing you target is no longer treated as a separate form of gameplay but a hidden style applied on the player that allows them to lean against cover or activate a limited 'be casual' button if you get spotted out in the open. (Which is a lifesaver on those long tails where you make that one mistake. Would have killed for something like that in the original!) There's even a new parkour mode which is applied similarly, and a stealth mode given just the same. It's a really smooth way of transitioning gameplay that speaks to the not-yet-latent ingenuity of RGG as developers. Even in the heights they haven't gotten lazy with success.

Along with these systemic improvement come gameplay ones. Crane is actually far more useable as class with faster combos and I think even an improved switching time. (Although switching times were never really a detriment to useability thanks to the slow-down effect they apply.) Dodge windows and perfect dodge effects are more impactful this time around, heightening the feedback of being that lithe ninja brawler- and the ability to literally fly for a full second before performing a gravity defying air strike literally never gets old. They turned Crane around from one of my least favourite styles to one I couldn't stop toying about with. And that isn't all the combat improvements.

Yagami now has three styles, four with DLC! The Snake Style is essentially Tanimura's misdirection style from Yakuza 4 but revised to be far more useable with powerful punishments. It also offers some of my favourite heat actions- the 'surrenders' wherein you threaten a frightened opponent with particularly close judo kicks until they literally feint out of fear. (Love it!) Then there's the boxer class which is pretty useless at the start, but once you start the boxing 'school story' quest line, which unlocks skills simultaneously with the combat style, you'll find it to be a surprisingly effective single target duel move-set with quick dodges and counters so effective they honestly outpace even Tiger style at their peak!

A new welcome edition to the combat is the 'Battle Rewards' system which provide Yagami with extra SP (level up points) if he meets certain milestones during each fight. Take out an opponent without getting hit, knock someone out with each style, use an EX action- stuff like that. Naturally these kind of incentives encourages players to change up how they play the game, find the strengths in all the different Styles and then be all the more equipped in the late game when you really do need to understand when to switch effectively. Those late game bosses really do put you through your paces in all the best ways! 

Lost Judgement begins at a much slower pace than the original, which you might recall practically threw the serial killer in your face from the word 'go'. Lost Judgement is more interested in weaving something of a web of mystery that pulls itself together with time, which results in a much different early game where, unlike in the original, I honestly had no clue what Yagami would be faced with on a character level. Some not small part of me even considered it to be a much weaker opening for that very reason, but in hindsight that same decision to dynamically pace the game as the story progresses proved very much to this story's benefit. Even if it does make this game feel twice as long as the original, at least to start with.

Bullying is actually the major hook to start with, as Tak is hired to investigate claims of harassment as an upper class prep school in Yokohama called Seiryro High. Couple that with a new gang of ex-Yakuza forming in Kamurocho and a seemingly impossible murder tucked in there for good measure and you'd be justified in wondering how all of this can come together in a sensible manner, let alone result in a conclusion as powerful as Yagami's return to lawyering at the climax of Judgement. But would you believe it, I think RGG do such an incredible job juggling all of these I might actually consider it better done than the Mole investigation, at least for how many plot points are juggled and how long the mysteries are allowed to unravel- as opposed to in Judgement where you kind of fell onto the core leads of the serial killing nearly immediately.

Outside of the investigation Lost Judgement of course presents a plethora of side activities, including a huge meta-game investigation known as 'School stories'. These are not just questlines, they all feature fully developed minigames for wildly different genres that have progression built into them and all bleed into something of a larger investigation for the MRC (Mystery Research Club) at Seiryo High. Yagami stumbles into the position of 'outside council' for the club and, through an investigation into the identity of the mysterious 'professor' who appears to be orchestrating the downfall of many Seiryo school mates, becomes embroiled in just about every club in the school! You'll go through about half-a-dozen fully developed minigames on this journey. And yeah, it's a lot!

Yakuza 5 was the last game in this franchise to leave me feeling seriously overwhelmed, but Lost Judgement has to take the cake- I honestly thought I would never finish this game for all the tasks this one side story dumps you with. I'm talking a rhythm-action dance minigame like Haruka for Yakuza 5's but much harder, a competitive biker-racing minigame, an entire boxing league, a robot-wars/ Splatoon hybrid- you spend so much time in this darn School you start forgetting that Yagami isn't actually a teacher. Although, with all the clubs he ends up juggling, and the genuinely heart-warming way he ends up guiding and uniting his wayward club charges, I honestly wonder if the future of this character is to enrol as an official teacher, at least part time. I would actually be interested to see how Yagami grows further in this otherwise side gig of his.

But would you believe that these huge school stories aren't the only large-scale side quest that Lost Judgement throws at you? You will also be expected to scour Yokohama and Kamaurcho hunting down Squirrel stencils that lead towards goodies tucked away in the open world requiring simple gadget utilisation in order to reach in a manner not a hundred miles away from Arkham Batman Riddler trophies. And then there is the extensive bugging questline that has you chasing after the 'Illegal detective agency' across town as their services infiltrate ever corner of daily life. Although School stories have the most cohesive narrative to them as well as quite possible the best laid out mystery in the entire Judgement series so far. I was genuinely impressed when I figured out who the culprit was for how naturally they managed to lay out all the clues over the course of the extended questline.

Covering all of this content is a lot less daunting with the new edition of the Skateboard, making travelling around the two maps a lot more feasible now you can ollie and jump kick through the streets! There's even an entire skateboarding metagame built into School stories! (Unfortunately it's one of weakest vectors of that questline.) The skateboard serves as a clever little edition to your travelling repertoire that makes the journeys not just fun but speedy- which is a life-saver in the huge Yokohama world space imported right of Yakuza 7. There's only so much Yen you spend hiring Taxi's day in and day out!

My initial worries regarding how the story would evolve upon Yagami proved to be wasted concerns, because whilst this may not be a personal narrative delving into Tak's past- what we get instead is an amazingly direct story that stab right at the heart of Tak's core convictions with his foil, an opponent with similar morals but contradictory convictions! It's the classic beautiful clash between exclusionary ideologies that bring erstwhile brothers to arms against one another, brought in this game under the banner of the nature of justice itself and, if I were to be so bold, of the role that the concept of 'Judgement' can play in the pursuit of absolution. I was totally gripped by the intensity of these debates as the lines between friend and foe constantly seemed smudged and the electrifying performances of the leads were dragged to the forefront to shine.

A narrative about school-age bullying had every right in the world to be fluffy and cringe-worthy after school special style trite: but RGG pull absolutely no punches bringing these matters to their absolute darkest extremes. Systemic abuse buried beneath conformist corruption, the utter extremes of self harm and even suicide, and the extents that ordinary people can be pushed to in extraordinary circumstances. This was a narrative I honestly found thrilling. Sure, perhaps the story does not pick up quite as quickly as Yakuza 0, what I consider to be the team at their writing best, but I wouldn't question the team's pacing choices for a moment in hindsight. Bringing children into the narrative as more than just bundles of sympathy points required care and consideration- which RGG brought in rare droves. (They didn't even have any school girls inappropriately crush after Tak like they absolutely would have done in literally any other Yakuza game. RGG were taking this one extremely seriously.)

When the fireworks start flying things truly shoot fully off the rails, thanks in no small part to what I'm going to executively call a fresh legendary villain for the Yakuza hall of fame- Soma. It is extremely difficult, at this point in the franchise, to give us a villain who is genuinely frightening- but the utterly cold Soma, with the way he calmy walks (walks!) into scenes and callously causes hell. He's not portrayed as some inhuman monster like Lao Gui, nor a braggadocious cartoon like Sadamoto. He is just efficient and empathy-free, quietly 'just' and subtly commanding. He is one of those villains with a bigger presence than his screen time, which makes the moments where he does show up all the more special. And don't get me started on that theme! I cannot get 'Viper' out of my head, it is simply supreme!

In the end the final fight is actually not all that consequential in the grand scheme of events like it typically is in an RGG game. There's no 'battle in front of a ticking time bomb' or 'duel to inherit the Dragon of Dojima'. That last battle, as excellently choregraphed and dynamic as it ultimately is, transcends the boundaries of 'winners' and 'losers'. Without slipping into pretentious babble let me just gush about how it is a fight of almost primal necessity, with either side representing utterly distinct shards of the conceptual that is 'Justice' clashing as their conflicting ideals must, in pursuit of a truth neither can confirm but both must believe in. It is art. Possibly my favourite finale in a RGG game. Sublime.

The Kaito Files DLC is more traditional RGG fair, only with a heavier player character in Kaito who seems to suddenly refer to himself as Gorilla all the time because the new translation team who took over for this DLC found that really funny for some concerning reason. That being said, it is by no means shoddy in it's execution. The files present what is something of a retelling of Yakuza 1 with a bit of Yakuza 5 mixed in there for good measure, as Kaito tracks down his lost love whilst accompanied by a child that he kind of extra-legally adopts. (Seriously, did Kiryu ever actually officially adopt Haruka? Could he have orchestrated the most successful kidnapping in history?)

Kaito is a supremely endearing side character for the Judgement games and these files prove he makes for a charming protagonist too, in that same sort of way that Ichiban is- a traditionally dense guy with the street smarts to make up for it. It's particularly cool to see Kaito stretch his detective muscles without Tak around and solve mysteries on his own, and though the mystery in question is rather obvious from the outset- (Particularly directly after experiencing the web that was Lost Judgement's main game.) I do take a bit of solace in the familiar. Sometimes you just want to pummel a completely unquestionably evil bad guy on a rooftop whilst flailing around with Kiryu's Beast style that the team have renamed to 'Tank' for some incomprehensible reason. (They wanted to call it 'Gorilla' style, didn't they?)

Last and extremely least, I might as well discuss RGG's continued attempt to make me lose my mind and commit a violence on myself. Lost Judgement's Amon is nowhere near as insane as Judgement's. He doesn't steal your phone, thank god! Do you know what he does do? The biggest crime any boss in any franchise can do. He heals. A lot. And he stun locks you so you cannot stop him from healing unless you stun lock him first. (Hint: two or three Warrior Onslaught's when he hits his second stage will get the dick.) Not impressed. And once more I scream unholy hatred at those who crossed every line of decency to bring that monster into this world. Thank you RGG, now get out of office.

Summary

I do think that Lost Judgement might cross the line in being too big just by a scant few mission chains. But if you are willing to overlook a bit of bloat (and as long as it's not Assassin's Creed Valhalla levels of bloat, I'm fine) then Lost Judgement might just be one of the best Like a Dragon series games ever made. Fantastic progression, balanced gameplay, a thrilling mystery, searingly contemplative core themes, a fantastic core cast, a series icon for a chief villain, ample amounts of side content and an entire Sega Master System emulator chucked in Yagami's office for the hell of it. And Sonic The Fighters in the arcade. They really did stuff this one full of everything. Of course this is a recommend, that pretty much comes standard with this entire franchise. (With the staunch exception of Yakuza 3.) And I'm willing to slap an A+ grade. Where it might have lost points for it's length, it won them back with the surprisingly worth-my-extra-time Kaito Files. And with that, the last seal is broken. Now my journey can finally begin- towards INFINITE WEALTH!

'Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name' Review

"You're the most gorilla-ass looking Mother----- I've ever seen"

Finally, with perseverance and many hours playing minigames, I am lapping at the heels of Like a Dragon's forefront. With this spin-off inbetween-quel, I would finally be up to date enough in the franchise to enjoy the wonders of their most recently released entry. After getting through the gigantic Lost Judgement, of course. But Like a Dragon Gaiden did hold some nugget of interested to a series veteran like me that I wasn't quite expecting. Given the consequence of Infinite Wealth, and how I already know some of the ways that game treats itself as a series flashback, I wasn't expecting Gaiden to hold so much in the way of fan-service regarding the many adventures that Kiryu Kazama has travelled down. But what I ended up getting was such a neat jaunt through the long history of Kiryu that I ended up actually 100%-ing the entire game- which is not quite the undertaking it sounds considering this is the smallest Like a Dragon game by about half a game.

'Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name' exists to fill a gap in the void of time between Kiryu's supposed death in Yakuza 6 and his abrupt resurrection in the final act of 'Yakuza: Like a Dragon'- given us the details in where he was and how he played a part in the biggest world upset this franchise has ever undergone- the dissolution of the Yakuza. As such, you might think there would be a deficit of genuine stakes and tension the narrative could dig at, given that we know where all the important characters end up, but just like Yakuza always does this game introduces a whole host of new characters who, I guess are just supposed to be hidden in the background during the representative 'Yakuza 7' moments; so we can enjoy a whole new cast of people we come to somewhat respect and then fear for the lives of as the situation becomes more dire. Yippie!

First of I would like to commend RGG for giving me the option of picking Japanese audio whilst loading into the game, which saved me from the annoyed panic-quit I've ended up doing in every game since Yakuza 7, as I start the game all excitedly only to recoil in disgust at the English tonation of the first spoken words. Why is English the default language choice in a franchise starting Japanese characters taking place exclusively in Japan? Gods, it frustrates me! Of course, I would also like to offer a curious head tilt RGG's way for their brand new studio trailer intro that mimics the stylings of Marvel Studios in a way I find both cheesy and slightly endearing. But certainly a lot more cheesy. Remember when the 'Dark Universe' tried that? It foretold grim tidings.

Like a Dragon: Gaiden gives us Kiryu some time on from his hospital visit by sweaty politician-man-who-fakes-deaths. Now he is a lacent agent for the Daidoji faction- a secretive political faction that seem to be a mix between gadget powered secret agents and surveillance-state extra-judicial enforcers. They have Kiryu is a curious position wherein knowledge of his continued existence needs to be withheld for the potential international security threatening knowledge he gained at the end of Yakuza 6, but the man is too useful to just kill off and so they hold him vaguely hostage- preventing Kiryu from visiting Haruka and Haruto or any of the other kids at the Morning Glory Orphanage. Which naturally has Kiryu existing in something of a malaise, lacking his reason to be whilst being employed as a blunt instrument for the, somehow more political ambitious, Japanese CIA.

Most significantly from a moment-to-moment perspective, this means that Kiryu- renamed to Joryu- is now the proud owner of a brand-new combat style to compliment his classic brawling antics. The 'Agent' style seems like a set of attacks designed specifically to show off the capabilities of the modern Dragon Engine through the use of flashy and physics challenging gadgets. You shoot out glowing 'Spider Wire' that wraps around enemies allowing Kiryu to chuck them whatever direction they so please, sending anything in their path flying like a wrecking ball. Summon swarms of drones that encircle you in a protective field, or charge down your targeted enemy to keep them distracted. Or just blast your way around the battlefield with rocket boots that knock back anything in your path. They mostly turn screen fodder into putty to be moulded and taken apart at the player's discretion- and that's what makes the Agent class so very fun to use!

RGG actually put a lot of emphasis behind not only making this new style of play visually interesting, but also narratively significant for the way Kiryu gradually refines his mastery of the style by growing closer to the man who invented all the tools. They've also managed to hit a surprising amount of on-screen enemies at once, allowing the player to really go to town with the way they throw about badguys and upset physics objects without a classic Dragon Engine freakout ruining the cohesion of the scene. (RIP to that meme but god is it fun to blast through twenty enemies in a huddle using the rocket boots!) Also this might be the very first game in the franchise where you'll be approached by a giant hoard of thugs in the cutscene and actually face that exact number of guys in the gameplay. (Parity at last!)

My only real gripe with this class is simple- the activation of most all these tools are awkward. They all require a hold-down button prompt in order to set off, which can all too easily be overridden by a punch or kick or dodge if you are too close to an enemy. It makes it difficult to activate these seemingly precise crowd control tools when you're in a precision moment to benefit- requiring some brute forcing to get the effect you want now and then. Also, this is an odd one, but there's a single Agent Action where Kiryu performs a few judo-style limb pops on his opponent, with each pop accompanied by a rather distracting screen flash effect. This is the only agent heat action to display such an effect, which leads me to believe this aesthetic was originally designed to permate the entire style but they scrapped it after not liking how obnoxious the screen flashes were and forgot to remove the first one. Not really a game breaking issue, but just a curiosity I noticed.

In narrative, 'Like a Dragon: Gaiden' takes us up to events coinciding with 'Yakuza 7', and as such you can expect to see 'the new Kamarucho' Yokohama make some appearances, as well as sly (and not so subtle) references to the background events going on in that game. For example, did you know that Kiryu had a giant fight against a crew right outside of the homeless camp where Ichiban was being treated by Nanba after being shot? Of course, you didn't. This whole story is very much written in the 'Oh yeah, all this crazy stuff was actually happening right off screen' manner which veers on the edge of cute and overbearing fan servicing. I sort of wobble on the fence about it. On one hand, stuff like that example does make me roll me eyes- but on the other end, the finale of this game, which matches up neatly to it's sister scene in Yakuza 7, is genuinely badass and gratifying to experience. 

I do think, however, that Gaiden takes significant liberties with it's narrative in order to create some sort of plot for our iconic spiky haired godling to tackle outside of the struggle to end the Yakuza. Kiryu works hard to keep evidence of his existence secretive, which would be simple in any other Yakuza game where the man could literally bump into another character who literally worships the ground he walks on and not get recognised. (No, I'm still not over the fact that Akiyama didn't immediately know who Kiryu was when they met in that sewer in Yakuza 4!) In this game, however, literally every thug in the street can spot the man at a glance. It gets to a point where Kiryu has to employ Clark Kent hypnosis sunglasses just to get about public- as though the only six-foot man in Japan can hide behind a pair of slightly darkened shades!

Not too long into the story it becomes very clear what the real purpose of Gaiden's story is, however: to give us an excuse to revisit much of Kiryu's greatest hits. The Castle, probably my new favourite 'underground red district' area in the entire franchise, hosts an arena that treats us to recreations of the most significant moments in Yakuza history- re-enacted as exhibition matches that Joryu, amusingly, steps into. My favourite out of these being the recreation of the Yakuza 1 finale fight, where Joryu has to fight some one dressed up as Kiryu wielding a sword and a gun (for some insane reason) and seemingly using moves plucked right out of Sakamoto Ryoma's 'Wild Dancer' moveset. The fan service cuts deep in this one! 

Speaking of- goodness knows I all but fell out of my chair when I saw how the new big bad introduced to loom over Joryu's new narrative was none over than Nishitani III- grandson of the psychotic SOB I think we all remember from Yakuza 0. Talk about a call back! Nishitani was famously the crazed model upon which Majima based his own brand of insanity after noticing how effective it was in making people underestimate what was, at heart, a principled and oodly dependable man. Nishitani the 3rd strangle inherits less from his grandfather than Majima did. (Which I guess makes sense, seeing as he never met him.) His is a pretty boy narcissist with a sharp eye and a seemingly rare intellect. I almost wonder if he could have made into being one of the great Yakuza villains if he wasn't relegated to this spin-off title.

When he's not risking his life to change the course of the criminal underworld, Joryu spends his time interacting with the world with perhaps the best free-roam encouragement this franchise has come up with to date- the Akane Network. Akane, a new red-haired crass-witted character, runs a kind of underground informant network that ties to everyone in Sotenbori, the open world map for this game. As such, pretty much everything you do contributes to the expansion of her network, opening up new lucrative missions and the ability to buy bonuses from her store such as increased item drop rates and cash multipliers. RGG know how much players like to see progress bars increase, so by tying literally every open world activity to an overarching completion bar, they're pretty much chummed up the waters for all us open world freaks out here.

And with this revolution of how they decided to present the open world comes a revision to one of Yakuza's time honoured traditions: The Hostess club. As much as I would happily jump onto the very next Hostess club running minigame, I doubt we'll get another anytime soon. (although they did make an explicitly mention of Kiryu's time at Club Four Shine, because the fan train is never out of service!) What we do get, however, is a hostess club featuring- oh my god it's FMV! There's something so disconcerting about watching a live action video of Kson flirting at a camera which makes my skin shrivel beneath my bones- I have no idea who thought this was a good idea but frankly- I would have preferred the 3D models. (I believe Kei returns as a 3D model in Infinite Wealth. Thank god.)

Alongside the Hostess clubs we also get a return of Toy car track races! And they're just as hopelessly prone to inexplicable physics engine screw ups as ever! And there's... character customisation? That's right, Kiryu can be customised to your heart's content at the boutique, and of course RGG gave as Kuroda-san's iconic hat so I figured it only made sense for famous Yakuza Kiryu Kazama to go through the game disguised as famous voice actor of Kiryu Kazama: Takaya Kuroda! (They won't suspect a thing!) And the creme of the crop of side activities has to be the genuinely brilliant arena side quests- they had me hooked!

The new Joryu-clan meta game has the player gathering tough allies across the game world that can be employed to take part in group death matches in the arena, which are offered alongside your typical one-on-one and one-on-many style match-ups. These fights level with experience, grow closer to Joryu to expand the duration of their special abilities- the typical level of depth you'd expect from an RGG game. What blew my mind, however, was the discovery that every hireable character was actually playable. That's right, you can select almost any of the fights, from the groups ones to the solo bouts, and play as your gun-toting support character, or (if you have the DLC) any of the legendary Yakuza members plucked from the series such as Majima or Daigo! They have their own move-sets and special abilities as well- which is a crazy amount of effort to put into a mostly hidden feature in an optional game mode!

And when you're not winding away the hours grinding against some of the genuinely tough arena challenges, you can delve into the dozens of side stories that take you done familiar routes. Such as searching for blonde stick-up artists all attempting to cosplay as Ryuji Goda for some reason- as though the man is going to come back from the dead and return to Sotenbori not having aged a day- (actually, if Kiryu can do it- why not his golden other half?) Also, much to my shock, Kaito makes a surprise appearance! And I only spoil that reveal because I think I'll explode if I don't mention the frankly insane amount of times Kaito and Kiryu are compared to 'Gorillas'. It's this weird quirk of the new localisation team that took over from 'The Kaito Files' DLC for Lost Judgement- they want Kaito to seem as animalistic as possible and literally call him a Gorilla every chance they get. Not gonna lie, it makes me a little uncomfortable. Not sure what they were trying to get at, truth be told.

Given the squashed length of Gaiden, being only 5 chapters long, the plot doesn't quite unfold with the same grace as some of the full RGG games, and some characters with simply incredible write-up blurbs you might expect to be epic series stable characters, such as Shishido, never really get their chance to blossom. I would even say the narrative starts to get a bit rushed during the middle chapters, with Joryu getting shoved into the colosseum for one chapter, then pulled out again and then shoved back there within the space of a single chapter- you kind of end up more following objective markers than trailing along the breadcrumbs of the story. I actually think there might have been a cleaner way to do this, perhaps if RGG had committed more to either the Agent storyline or the Castle storyline, but mashing them both together in a runtime these condensed was simply a recipe for... a little bit of a mess.

That being said, as far as 'doing all the hits' is concerned, the team did not miss. You even get to have a brawl in Cabaret Grand in a bid to draw out Nishitani- it's just an absolute crime that you didn't get to battle the man himself there, in the same building that his grandfather duelled Majima within all those decades previously! Perhaps RGG allowed that 'fan service' mind to overright their clean storytelling duties, because the Kaito files proves they should have no trouble pulling off satisfying smaller narratives when they put their mind to it. (Then again, the Kaito files didn't have to bridge a gap between two major entries, now did it? Maybe the scale of the task was just a tad too overwhelming.)

Of course when it comes down to it, those moments of sheer drama, Like a Dragon always delivers. I had expected a bit more in the way of peril, and thus expected one of my new favourite side characters, Akane, to be at least in mortal danger at some point, if not killed off entirely! (Maybe playing Lost Judgement at the same time coloured my expectations a little. Kept expecting Soma to literally melt out of the shadows and ice someone!) But I guess when you're dealing with the Dragon of Dojima, peril never really enters the conversation, does it? Especially with his Agent powers. I'd wager to call this iteration of Kiryu the most 'in his prime' since Kiwami- which naturally makes the man something of a physical embodiment of the coming, unstoppable, force of change. We already know the Yakuza are going to end, Yakuza 7 already played out that plotpoint, Kiryu is simply the hammer to ensure it is neatly smashed to dust.

I cannot withhold my critique of the finale boss, who shares almost the exact same problem as the Aizawa final boss in Yakuza 5. ("What are you doing here?" "I'm not so sure myself!" Those words are burned into my memory!) This boss kind of feels like a rehash of that one, both in general motives and even in build. Although Gaiden's boss is significantly better placed in the narrative to make his convictions blaze in opposition to Kiryu's iron will, making that final fight classical symbolic of the core theme- putting behind the 'undying spirit of rebellion', like the hippies floating into the rat race after the swinging sixties- if Kiryu was there to punch the Beatles into submission. (Oh! I've got a great idea for the next spin-off!)

The spectacle of the fight itself? Epic. One of the very few four stage fights in this franchise that drags us all over a famous, but underexplored, location in the franchise- (that isn't Millennium Tower!) gives us a brutal meat wall meets meat wall style duel with dynamic stage transitions and one of my actually favourite 'dispatching' scenes in the franchise. (I don't want to think about the state of those kneecaps. Ouch!) Plus, I'll always award extra points to the kind of finale that brings so many of the old school crew back together. Always good to see Majima and Saejima fighting side by side! They even found time to give us a direct lead in to Infinite Wealth with a call back to literally the very first thing the player is told to do in the very first Yakuza game. (after beating up the alley thug, of course.) A game for the fans.

But if I may be permitted one final gripe- I was aghast to find out that this game was more than 80gb in total size, more than Lost Judgement! Which turned into straight perplexment when I saw that Infinite Wealth was less than 60gb! And only after finishing the game do I think I understand why. Gaiden comes with a two hour special demo for Infinite Wealth installed with the game, it's dragging around the baggage of Like a Dragon 8 and my hard-drive is forced to suffer for it's sin! I can't believe they hard-coded an entire demo into the game, what where RGG thinking? Not about condensing their game files, that's for sure!

Summary

For a side game, Like a Dragon Gaiden overperforms it's role sensationally- overstuffing the game with so much to do you'll forget what you're playing is essentially a sawn-off RGG title. Unfortunately the snub-nosed campaign does hurt the scope of the typically epic tales that RGG tells and the genuinely promising new characters they place within this new playset. (I hope we get to see more of these characters in games to come.) The new gameplay editions may have been as much tech showcases as they were gameplay additives, but I never got bored breaking opponents to pieces using them so I won't complain. (Plus it feels so good having a nimble style of Kiryu once again, I've missed feeling agile!) This may be a side title in the Ryu Ga Gotoku franchise, but the team did enough right to make it a worthwhile diversion to the core games. Heck, you might even tear up at little during the ending scenes. (I almost did!) Of course, the game gets my recommendation. And as far as grades go, I'll give this a B+. Another solid outing for the franchise that never seems to fall off. Which brings me one step closer to the front lines!

Battlefield is back to it's crap

 

It was a long a troublesome road but over the course of many years Battlefield 2043 finally developed to a point of being considered serviceable by it's playerbase. (Some even called it good!) All it took was a total dissolution of player trust through an abominable support cycle that shed players with each misstep until only the already invested could stand to put up with it! Yeah, pretty sure for all their trials and tribulations that game didn't exactly end up 'growing the brand' at all, but at least the team conveyed their willingness to stick out through their mistakes and fix them. Just as they had already made clear with the whole Battlefront 2 debacle. Maybe at some point they can reach the point of not making the giant mistakes to begin with. That'd be some character development!

But by god, in order to learn the very first thing anyone must do is acknowledge where things went wrong and move on from there. So where exactly did 2043 go wrong? Well, launching unfinished wasn't exactly the greatest look in the world. Doubling down on the arcade-style flimsiness of progression, the surprise hero unit replacements to character classes that somewhat dissolved the identity of the otherwise grounded casual-simulator war game- the bugs, the lack of content. All really the symptoms present from the fact the game bought hard into the Live Service angle. Not that previous Battlefields didn't maintain support cycles before, but 2043 was the first to identify itself as a live service- and I think in pursuing that development cycle, things started falling apart.

The very concept of a Live Service is predicated around the idea that a development team can create a steady stream of revolving content that ties players to the evolving product over an extended period of time, during which they can slowly bleed the audience for all their worth through wear-down tactics. Strict Battle passes that demand constant attention, roadmaps that keep players expecting the next content drop, and regular blogposts all create the impression of a living community that players are involved with. It all sounds fine on paper but after years of this in action all I can see is the cynical and calculated nature of it all. Besides- we haven't yet confronted the logistics of how exactly one creates a content train in order to fuel these services.

You can't just make fresh content from scratch when the game is launched, the season model means you need the next polished batch of content within the first three months of launch else the antsy Live Service lovers will assume your entire development team was wiped out by an asteroid. So content that was original tipped to be in the finished game gets held back, and maybe plans are intentionally stretched out so what would have been a complete feeling full game now becomes a shell that is slowly stuffed over the course of the next year and a half. There is your prototypical Live Service life cycle and there, in a nutshell, is what happened with Battlefield 2043. And EA wants to do it all again.

Wants to. Remember that. It's not that they're just slipping down the same path to repeat it all again like a child revisiting their trauma unwittingly onto the world- they are proudly regurgitating their past mistakes on the belief that if they just do things the exact same way again- this time it will work! Pretty sure there's a quote about repeating the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome... that it's super smart! Professional fake human Andrew Wilson said as much in a bold headline that is doing the rounds. "Tremendous Live Service" were his exact words, as though the man were a malfunctioning mister handy robot who's corrupted language banks had erased the term 'pile of crap' and was forced to chuck in an alternative.

Actually- to be specific he said it would be "Another" tremendous live service, which I think is just the cherry on the top that too many are missing out in their coverage of this- because that says literally everything you could ever possibly need to know. They have learnt nothing from the past and consider the general disdain their last game still maintains, despite it's current well-enjoyed state, as a net win for the brand. As we've already established, learning from your mistakes requires acknowledging them, and I guess that must be a uniquely human trait considering that Wilson finds that concept utterly alien to him. How can anyone expect the next game to be better when this is the message they're putting out into the world?

It's also being called 'the largest Battlefield in history'. So get prepared for 3 maps at launch, all so ungainly huge that you can't hold a proper skirmish in any of them, and that being the sole justification for the comment. Gone are the days when you can expect a bevy of ultra detailed maps with giant level-loutions that would change the makeup of the map significantly if anyone took advantage of it- here are the days where Battlefield are lagging behind Warzone and wondering what they can do to get some of that sweet market share back. And don't even think about returning some of the complex and rewarding weapon mastery progression bars from the Battlefield 3 and 4 days- you'd be absolutely nuts to expect that to be considered 'growth' in this franchise.

All in all, EA seems to be in a race to try and win back their title as worst company in America, and although they have some stiff competition I'd say that with Andrew Wilson at the helm- anything is possible. (You go secure that sick L, Andy! You've earnt it, you little scamp, you!) And as for one of my favourite war franchises that can never catch a break? Well, I guess you had a good run for a few years there over a decade ago. That's probably why there are so many small scale indie games basing themselves off those years of the franchise and not the modern years. Funny how that is, isn't it? But who's shocked exactly? I sure ain't.

Ken V Den

Can I just start by saying- this should have never crossed my line of sight in one thousand years for all the circles that I travel. I am aware of hip-hop in the past tense, and even if Drake is the biggest pop star of the modern generation you best bet that don't mean I know his music. If you ever wondered about the songs I choose to pick out during reviews and consider them strange compared to some of the more recognisable bops in a game, that's because I'm drawn to music that I have a contextual relationship to. Music paints memories for me, and I colour my feelings about certain tunes with the shades of the feelings and journeys I was experiencing in those moments. That is to say- I am perhaps the most musically shuttered entertainment industry writer on this planet. Yet of course I knew who Kendrick Lamar and Drake are.

Not well enough to be able to decipher their ridiculous nicknames before someone literally spelled it out for me. KDot? BBL Drizzy? Seriously? These are grown men, right? But I would be a fool not to have heard Humble back when it blew up. I also really fell in love with A.D.H.D at some point for a reason I can't rightly explain. As for Drake? I guess I've heard the obvious songs. Hotline Bling, the one that people were dancing next to cars on TikTok to, probably some others. Can't say I cared too much. Both these artists were entities on a totally other plane of existence to me, leaking through general popular dissemination to my world in bits and pieces. I knew Drake was very successful for whatever reason, and found Kendrick to be very poignant with his lyricism. Now you know my baseline.

It was actually MoistCritical's coverage of this that put me onto the fact that one of the most consequential beefs in the Hip Hop was happening in real time and I have to say- I have been hooked. For nothing other than the sheer spectacle of two artists putting out so much content that one side dropped twice in one day. The latter of which, was literally recorded in less than a day after the Drake's diss and put out immediately. (You can tell because Kendrick literally name drops 'Meet the Family' in 'Not Like Us'. Unless this is all literally a in-joke the two of them are covertly playing on the entire world- Kendrick literally spat out 'Graham's together in less than half an hour. Absolutely beastly.) You never really get to see two men write aggressive poetry at one another in real time and it has been quite the blast to be a spectator of.

As for the raps themselves- well; this ain't the kind of rap beef I'm used to. From the past it always seemed to be about personal matters of one guy saying something about another guy that a third bystander reported to a forth otherwise uninvested party who then decides to turn it into a neighbourhood dispute that somehow ends up roping in the local gangs. But I guess those were the beefs of the old world and we're currently in the new one where people are throwing around actual jail-worthy accusations like they're drunkard in a pub trying to assassinate the bullseye target. And I'm just waiting anxiously to see who ends up with a wayward dart out the back of their head before this is all said and done. (Think I'm getting better at this 'analogy' business' or horrifically worse. Can't decide which.)

Now obviously I am no rap historian marking the various falling outs over the industry through the years, the best I can follow Drake and Kendrick seem to have had somewhat of a frayed relationship since Drake first introduced the man on a track in which Kendrick low-key broke down the entire veneer of 'industry success' as a venomous poison on his soul that would kill him dead if he pursued as Drake did. Then again, Drake and his writers did display an absolute lack of media literacy with their disastrously off-base interpretation of Kendrick's 'Mother I sober' in Drake's latest comeback track 'The Heart part 6', so maybe he literally didn't even understand that was what Kendrick was saying back in the day. Who knows. (Seriously though, I really want to get back to what it was Drake was apparently saying to his mother during that track. He never finishes his thought!)

But nowadays the conflict is a bit clearer. Drake is seen as a poser and Kendrick wants there to be absolute no doubts about which side of the conversation he personally falls on in that discussion. Question the 'blackness' of Drake throughout 'Euphoria', and then breaking down his circle of supposed sycophants in 'They not like us' that stoke the man's ego, telling him how to act the part he wants to be so very badly. Although unfortunately he didn't adopt that circle early enough in his career to be taught the correct way to say the N-word without the hard R. (Seriously, it's induces involuntary teeth grinding to watch the man do his work.) Over all of that heat, it's easy to miss the forest for the trees as the decidedly less cutting and more salacious accusations flying back and forth.

Drake's weird conduct around young women and girls isn't exactly a revelation upon the nature of the universe, but I guess it does take a spotlight to really highlight the problem. Conversely, however, Kendrick does blow that out to it's largest and loudest conclusion without, so far, any evidence- which one might call a little irresponsible if none ever materialises. Drake, on the otherhand, claims Kendrick to be a woman beater, alongside some other vague claims about cheating and illegitimate children ranging from far fetched to utterly inconsequential. These are the big headlines that people pop their head to, and shout out in the middle of the club- however off-colour some of this lines actually are. (Hearing a dancing crowd in the club scream "Certified Loverboy, Certified P*******" is an image that is going to stick with me.)  

At the end of the day, these are people from a whole different world throwing insults at each other through the form of dance-poetry, and is there anything more entertaining than that? It's simply the faces involved, and the talented lyricism, that turn it into a spectacle worth watching. And in becoming a spectacle, it in turn evolves into becoming an Art. Ain't it cool how that works? As long as, you know, this stays within the confines of verses and doesn't spill out into actual acts of violence, because no one wants that... except... Kendrick did make some worrying comments during Euphoria to that regard... but I assume the Christian in him doesn't stand by that. Right? Oh, someone was just shot outside one of Drake's houses- too late, I guess.

Fallout- in the right hands?

 

We've spoken before about the state of the Fallout franchise, the rival of Fallout's popularity following the series and all that has come of it- but now I want to talk directly about Fallout in a microcosm. Is the franchise in the right hands? Fallout began life as a spiritual successor to the Wasteland series under Black Isle Studios, wherein it developed a retro-futuristic 50's style unlike it's predecessor and would grow into the studio's flagship franchise. To scrub away the work that Fallout 3 did in popularising the franchise once Bethesda got hold of it, however, it to dig one's head in the sand like an ostrich. No matter what it is you think of the games that they made, the way they told their stories or the reigns they hold on the franchise- Fallout 3 totally redefined the franchise and turned it into the megahit it ended up becoming. Fallout would not be anywhere near as big as it is today had it remained an isometric RPG like the original.

But the question of whether or not Fallout belongs in the hands of the Bethesda does, in fact, start with Fallout 3 and their particular approach to handling the main narrative of that game. Rather bizarrely, Bethesda never seem to write their games in a manner inherit to most RPG game developers- who typically try to champion player choice in scenario development. Bethesda create strangely linear and boxy narratives in which they sometimes try to retroactively insert branching narrative consequence to small effect. I would go so far as to call that the biggest hurdle between their talent and the style of games they want to play- as starting out living the curated early years of Liam Neeson's child is a lot more limiting than waking up with a bullet in your head and a trail of revenge to track. And within that might be the biggest problem with Bethesda's Fallouts.

For a post-apocalyptic Role Playing franchise, Bethesda's Fallout games are increasingly difficult to actually role play within. At any given moment you'll have a surprisingly pressing core narrative which the game struggles to send you down which means any deviation off the beaten path comes at contradiction of your character's forcibly imposed core motivations. Enjoying the Capital Wasteland? Well, what about your dad, you lazy ass? Track him down! Enjoying Boston? Well, your son isn't going to track himself down, is he? It's a limiting framing device for an RPG that doesn't challenge Bethesda to create these more wide open narratives like the ones' featured in Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas which feel like they touch on more of a cohesive breathing world- as that is what is needed in order to sell personal investment and drive to the story.

New Vegas merely affixes you with a destination and allows the player to find their way there, ostensibly to get revenge on the man who shot you in the head but no real drives are inserted into your head- you can work at your own pace. Fallout 1 tells you to find a water chip, but apart from that you are free to do whatever. Fallout 2 is even looser- just figure out how to keep the tribe alive at some point while your having fun out there. Actually, even the one game not actually upkept by Bethesda proper has a more RPG traditional setting- Fallout 76. You are a Vault Dweller pushed out to restart society. You are given the breadcrumbs of tracking down what happened to your Overseer and that's it, when stakes do start to dawn on you- they're the classic 'everyone is in danger to an unreasonable threat including you, better deal with that' style affair which DnD groups have be relying on since time immemorial. 

But if there is one thing which best encapsulates modern Bethesda and the way they handle their products, I think it has to be Fallout 4's next gen update. That's right, we're moving out the nitty-gritty of the game itself and jumping into the wider mechanical function of the company itself. Why? Because Bethesda are responsible for the dropping of what might go down as the most head scratch-worthy game breaking update of all time. Yes, the game managed to update itself in order to work better on consoles- which is always good. But these games are PC games first, and breaking PC gaming across the board during the celebration period for the Fallout franchise is peak Bethesda in a way little else can properly quantify. All to add some bug fixes and... that's it. PC Fallout get's nothing worth writing home about. Aside from, maybe, the HD pack which breaks textures on 9/10 mods. Great. 

Todd Howard wants to put himself up for at least on more Fallout under his directorship, and that desire to be the one in charge seems to have been one of the key factors stifling the potential this franchise has had to grow. Obsidian have pitched several spin-offs to Bethesda over the years, in Elder Scrolls and Fallout, and all have been rejected. Superior RPG developers want to make the company money, for nothing more than a licensing fee, and Bethesda are keeping a lid on the franchise for no discernible  reason! New Vegas is crowned as the series' best for a genuine reason, keeping Obsidian out of the loop is only asinine!

And then there's the more insular complaints- that Bethesda seem to have some deep vendetta against basic narrative consistency. The Brotherhood of Steel are increasingly expanded in series-wide protagonists despite being a West Coast cult of weirdoes in the beginning- before 76 teleported them into the mid-east as well. Ghouls seem to be ever changing in whether they need food to survive or not. Jet has been shot back into being a pre-war drug despite being developed in Fallout 2. T-60 power armour seems to pop up all over the Wastes despite the fact they were never deployed until Fallout 4 literally invented them on the spot. And 76 creates brand new builds of power armour every other week. It's a mess.

Bethesda have the money and scope to keep Fallout going for the next thirty years at least. But do they have the skill and discerning eye to keep it improving and relevant throughout that period? Time and time again fans have remarked how the best of this franchise has been achieved outside of Bethesda's walls, and yet the very spine of the series is held up by Bethesda alone. So what is the way we reconcile these two divides? Licencing! Bethesda don't have the special sauce to make this work, that's fine because someone out there does. But that doesn't mean I think Bethesda should let the series go. Maybe they do best as holders of the IP- be the Disney of the gaming world for a little, see how it works out for them.

Starfield's first update

 

And with this the game is afoot! After months of unending nothing out of Bethesda regarding what it is they intend to do about their much maligned recent game- Starfield has finally got some details regarding their first update due out later May. With the main team already pivoting to hard work on the Elder Scrolls 6 there was some question about whether anything would be left over for Starfield's development, regarding the several years worth of 'support' that Bethesda apparently have planned for the thing. I can't exactly speak for the future but I can say this: we're at least getting competent responses to Starfield's issues. Now whether or not you call this an appropriate enough time frame for such issues to be addressed, why that's really up to you- now isn't it? 

Firstly and most significantly for me- we're going to get the ability to run Starfield at 60 frames per second on Xbox. Which is surprising given that the team made it very clear such was simply impossible for how much went into making Starfield work- but then that always seems to be the way of the technical team- isn't it? Such and such can't possibly work there, and then it can after a few months of working on it. Makes you wonder if perhaps the game was pushed out a little before it's time? Quality and performance modes don't really feel like they should be tough asks in the modern generation of gaming, but maybe that's my constructive inexperience talking and they're actually such substantial leaps in development that an entire extra half year was needed to figure them out for every product. However... I mean the PC version launched with graphics settings, right? (The bigger the company, the slower the developments, it would seem.)

Of course the 'biggest' addition, though we use that term liberally, is going to be the new maps that are coming to Starfield which I find... questionable. At a glance the 3D map generation, like a more zoomed in version of Skyrim's map, seems very appealing to look at- and I'm sure we'll get a lot out of our bird's eye glimpses of the world spaces we trudge around in- but does this really improve city navigation? I mean, giving us a 3D model that is cluttered with icons and locations isn't much better than a 2d map with the same issues, which is why I was expecting something more along the lines of a district-to-district style map like out of Skyrim. But hey- I've not had a chance to deal with the thing yet- maybe it solves the clutter issue more than I could imagine. We'll just have to see, won't we?

Additionally, Bethesda apparently want to work on making their over-the-top building mechanics somewhat useful. Settlements require so many blasted resources I would be amazed if anyone seriously managed to get around to dedicating themselves to that game mode, what with all the time spent travelling for basic building resources of the several hundred different types of materials- dealing with carry space- parsing the unfortunately convoluted storage systems- it was a giant mess. But now we'll be allow to put these talents to use within the actual ships we travel around in through inner ship customisation- and finally we're seeing sense prevail as this mode is put to task. I'm not overly excited about this mind, because I've already exhausted my fun with the builder system just decorating my apartments. I doubt this will make these systems suddenly more dynamic and interesting.

What we also got was a glimpse at the future of Starfield once they've actually reached the point of putting out real content. The first vehicle was teased, putting to bed all those rumours that Starfield actually couldn't handle land vehicles whilst raising the concern of why they were never shipped with the title from the get-go. I mean- surely they had to know their play areas were so sparse that there's literally no reason to go exploring on foot. Also, if they really wanted to improve exploration they would turn up the extreme angles of the world generation so we'd see more valleys and gorges over flat wetlands literally everywhere. That's what Minecraft did, it worked for them.

And beyond that we have the Shattered Space DLC which still remains as a mysterious object on the horizon of questionable value. Much to my chagrin the teaser image we were shown appears to be a slightly corrupted version of the monuments from the base game, arguably their least interesting content vertical- which likely means we're looking at a DLC that expands on the whole 'Starborn' aspect of the story instead of one that expands on the rather damp and boring world they've already built. I was really hoping this would delve into House Va'ruun and provide a little bit of ammunition to those who blindly declare it the game's most interesting faction despite the fact they have no presence in the main game whatsoever and are characterised by their lack of detail.

Seriously, if Bethesda could hire an actual writer to slap together an interesting character or two that would be fantastic. It would really wake up those people who call 'Andreja' one of the best companions Bethesda have ever written for merit of her eye-wateringly basic secret-agent narrative which touches practically nothing on her character growth whatsoever. Not that any of the other companions are any better but good god- if Andreja is your gold standard than for sake of everyone you need to pick up 'Like a Dragon' or 'Infinite Wealth' or 'Persona 3 Reload' or anything with real characters in it! There's a gulf of wasted potential just sitting on the sidelines!

I sit in hope, vain though it may be, that I end up being proven wrong and Shattered Space totally transforms the Starfield experience. I would actually love for that to be the case because I would supremely enjoy playing this game a hell of a lot more- but Bethesda have had a bit of a problem with even meeting expectations these days, let alone surpassing them. And my expectations aren't exactly through the roof as it is. Starfield will have had 12 months worth of feedback by the time of it's first expansion, and if their team is reactive enough to be able to address all of that, maybe we might get a No Man's Sky style comeback, rather than a 'Suicide Squad' style drowning.

Kingdom Comes Again

 

I wasn't exactly a fresh hopper on the Kingdom Come bandwagon when that game first launched. I watched from the sidelines appreciating what it brought but also figuring I would get little out of the thing. Afterall, everyone called it the Oblivion reimagining of their dreams, and I retain that Oblivion is the worst-aged Elder Scrolls game- so why would I enjoy a game that reminded everyone of that? Of course, even the stone faced like myself must wither and collapse eventually, and I would make my way around to Kingdom Come through way of it's definitive edition which I actually reviewed on this here blog. And what I found was a surprisingly engaging and well made medieval life simulator, with some wanting narrative hiccups and a horrendously poor implantation of their new DLC questline. (What were they thinking?) But overall I enjoyed it.

I think the best aspect I can remember of the game would be the melee combat which the team put so much time into feeling natural and true-to-the-period for how soldiers would be trained. Not only was it accurate, but gruelling. You would have to dedicate actual hours of real time training on the field time and time again just to get your stats high enough not to be gutted in your first open world encounter. It verged into the hardcore in away I can really respect in game that managed to break so far into the 'main stream' as Deliverance did. If only they had managed to get the group fights working a bit better. I understand the idea that 'fighting multiple combtants at once isn't supposed to be all that feasible, because realistically you would just die'; but that didn't really translate well to the game when in that everyone would just kind of glitch out and you'd end up slaying a conga line of idiots that can't properly swing because they're crammed too close together. (Or hell, maybe that is realistic to the period. I wasn't there, I can't say.)

Since the wrap up of Deliverance there had been precious little coming out of Warhorse studios regarding how they would follow it up. How the team was expanding, what lessons they were learning from the first game, or even how the blowing up of the original had affected their outlook on the franchise they were making. Hell, they went so quiet no one could even confirm whether or not a sequel was being actively worked on at all! But of course that has broken given we're talking about the game right now and bemoaning the fact that yes, it would seem marketing has won- the game is going to be called 'Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2'. What is even the point of the colon, then? Might as well make the base title of the franchise 'KCD'. (Missed opportunity...)

Now right away there is a receptive audience waiting for literally anything out of this studio given the first was such a genuinely unique proposition. Medieval simulator games tend to focus solely on either the large scale tactics aspect of the time period or the lamentable open world survival rabbit hole. And few are conceived with any level of genuine polish. Deliverance felt like a properly designed game with professional standards of quality that put you in the unflinching shoes of peasantry in a blossoming age of strife. Even more so than any fantasy game of it's genre, KCD was unique and I would honestly call it an experience worth having once for anyone with even a passing interest in this time period. Now 2 will bring us even more memoires worth sharing.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 promises to shown yet another angle of Medieval life- that of being a noble, albeit a bastard one, in a time of coming war- thus greatly shifting the viewing angle with which we approach this world. Henry will be lording it up over in Prague, the new map coming to this game which will be our first depiction of a medieval city, and thus present us with opportunities for urban sword combat which I pray they don't miss out on because come on- that's a lay up! Apparently this is also around about the time period that gunpowder was being introduced in the West, so we're going to get our hands on honest-to-goodness hand canons! Hand canons to roll up on people in the street? One can only hope...

Combat was actually a central focus of the original game to the extent that the team put in research man-hours to nailing the feel, look and functionality of the various weapons on display. Throwing in more this time around is only expanding the range of work they need to conduct, as well as the effort that I hope is going in to making group combat a bit less dopey considering with the coming warfare storylines- big fights are only going to become more common. The highlight of the original game was a one-on-one duel midday through the campaign- I'm hoping for a similarly climatic showdown in this one perhaps at the heart of the narrative and featuring a large scope climatic showdown like I yearned for all throughout the second half of Deliverance. I mean: the first Deliverance. (Should have changed the name, dammit!)

Personally I thought one of the places where the original game was lacking, at least on a fundamental 'RPG level' was in consequential decision making. The original treated choices more like a Immersive Sims do- where you take different paths to reach the same determined outcome. Perfectly fine avenues of development, don't get me wrong- but I would prefer if actual branches could be made on Henry's journey to really shift the flow of the narrative, maybe give a bit more agency behind Henry's actions rather than this rather doe-footed revenge plot he's supposed to have been on since day one, but to which he made largely no progress throughout the entire original.

That being said, Kingdom Come doesn't need to really change up the way they handled the gameplay of the original to draw a crowd. The team has grown considerably since that original so I expect a larger scope, but that very unique approach we talked about earlier works to the game's advantage in that the audience are not yet sick of this style of grounded and dirty medieval historical fiction- nothing needs to 'evolve' on a fundamental level. (This ain't Assassin's Creed or anything.) So long as the generally accepted issues with the original are ironed out, such as the crazy level balancing that made Henry actually invincible at late game, we're probably up for another banger later this year.

Pathtracing and the graphical ceiling

 

The graphical chase is one of the most virulent races in all the games industry, as one of the very few tangible marks of progression across an otherwise largely esoteric art form. How do you really measure how fun a game is compared to how games of that genre type used to be ten years ago? How do you gauge success as a measurement of skill within a world governed largely by luck? How do you know that the industry is improving it's craft at just a glance? Why, you can look at the graphics, of course! The graphical fidelity of the best in our industry is a tale-tail hint at just how much horse power is kicking within the engines of some of our most beloved games and I'm sure I am not the first to scroll by a particularly slick looking product page and was drawn by the spectacle of it all. It's an easy selling pitch, provided you can crank out such graphics to begin with.

In the relative few years that the technology has been around, fidelity has soared in it's mastery to points beyond what most through possible only a scant few console generations ago. I used to collect hobbyist gaming magazines that dreamed, misty eyed, about the heights of the industry- and the kinds of fidelity they were touting were about as advanced as Detroit Become Human achieved. Nowadays I think there are games which surpass even that, and actually have gameplay/ challenging narratives to boot! (No offense David Cage. You just could've tried a bit more.) Nowhere is this more apparent than with the path tracing technology which has, for the first time ever, given us the ability to render static material in a matter utterly indistinguishable from life.

Humans- not so much- but textures? Oh yeah! Metals, stone, masonry, pavement, puddles, wood- the secret to nailing them all this time was realistic light that catches and bounces and refracts and enriches- pathtracing is that final step to photorealism that games have been chasing for the past five years now. And it's tech beyond our means. Or rather, it's tech beyond current means. When it first launched as preview technology for Cyberpunk 2077, the thing was out of playable range for even the most advanced of hardware. I tried it out at 1080p, figuring my set-up had no problem running Ultra Cyberpunk at it's base- needless to say I almost had to turn off my whole computer in order to force the program to close- your average player isn't going to be enjoying the benefits of Pathtracing for the next few years at least.

But that doesn't mean the technology is in any danger of slowing down. Dragon's Dogma 2 recently launched with dormant and unfinished Pathtracing inside of the shipped game- not quite ready for public consumption by there within the hidden settings. Showing that developers are thinking about the tech, they're maybe even considering future proofing games by prepping it's implementation maybe as soon as a single console generation down the line. But here's a question I think bears asking in situations like these, where we're on the plinth just before that impossible zenith. The question that everybody hates to ask for how it seemingly undermines us all in our greatest moments- what then?

The race towards fidelity is a linear path- games can only strive towards the path of growing more true to life, and those that try to be 'realistic but stylised' are often noted for their 'quirky art direction' but never taken seriously as true avenues for future expression. Always Call of Duty wants to know how they can make their war torn streets feel more real, GTA wants to push the boundaries of booty-out car riding Floridians, Cyberpunk wants to figure out exactly how many surfaces they can bounce light off before their player's computers turn into actual explosives and detonate. What happens when we reach that graphical ceiling?

Graphics have already grown into something of a compounding problem in game development, with the development of assets taking up more and more of standard budgeting, reducing the creative scope of some of the most visionary ideas out there- and the general trend towards 'realism' does somewhat limit how wild modern developed games can really get. On the absolute other end of the spectrum, you'll find many indie games like to ride the coat-tail of nice looking, but decidedly 'antiquated' art styles that are much more manageable to develop within. Even Baldur's Gate, a gorgeous as the game looks, doesn't step on the toes of the industry at it's top most- and that is the higher tier of the indie space as it is. What about the others?

What about Blasphemous and it's 16 Bit call back visuals, within which a vast otherworldly psycho-religious twisted scape is formed? That game veered in another direction entirely! Or the recent Zelda games with the cell shaded majesty so light-weight that they can run deftly on a Nintendo Switch? Are any of these games graphical disappointments? Of course not, they're expressive, they're alternative, they are 'honestly' more visually memorable than the top most graphical 'masterpieces'. What is better remembered? The cutting edge fidelity of Modern Warfare 2 (new version), or the shadowy majesty of the impeccably crafted Hallownest from Hollow Knight? And which will continue to date whilst the other grows more beloved?

The next time the talking point is raised about how expensive it is to develop games, perhaps an eye might be cast to what exactly time and money is being spent upon. And if a significant chunk of those resources are being fed into 4-8k textures that the team aren't even going to bother compressing before launch, then maybe there's something of a buffer to cut back on before you start chopping down the employee roster like usual. Maybe great games don't need to blur the edge between reality and fiction in order to be great. Maybe visuals have become something of a crutch for great game design. And maybe Ubisoft should be criminally sanctioned for the brain-rot they've inspired in the open world development space. Valid points all, I say!

Don't wake the sleeping Nintendo

 

Do you remember that game from Mario Party where you have to tiptoe around the sleeping Wiggler as it snoozes to what very much sounds like the insect's funeral barge? Wiggler snoozes in a fragile dream land as bumbling Mario Party players try their best to work avoid the sure carnage that will erupt if this freak of nature is unleashed upon the land until the inevitable moment where one fat-fingered relative makes the wrong move and the last thing everyone sees is the red-hot steaming maw of Wiggler's last condemnation? Yeah, I'm starting to think that might have been a self-report on Nintendo's part pertaining to their own habits and peculiarities- or at least that is the sense I get looking at the way the big N conducts themselves whenever not trying to play the player-friendly façade during showcases- which is 99% of the year, for context.

All of us mortals try to sneak about carefully, trying not to step on the long roots of the Nintendo tree, but when one of us does- apocalyptic ruin upon us and our families as Nintendo deploys the sleeping drones to hunt us down in our sleep! See Nintendo won't just kill you- on no that's amateur hour! What they prefer to do is the 'catch and release' model. They identify the target and let them think they are safe and secure for as long as it takes to rope in as many like minded faces as possible. Oh are you forming a community? A community of people who love Nintendo games and want to share that passion? Oh, how adorable! Yes, Nintendo will be smiling today as they send their men knocking on your doors. Their agents will come down upon you with the wrath of god to slap you with the kind of legal destruction that will leave you begging for an assassin's blade. Death would be a mercy for the kinds of people that Nintendo lock into Findom for the rest of their natural lives.

And why am I bringing all this up? This deep Nintendo lore that everyone already knows? Because Nintendo are back on their bull once again, of course! This time they've targeted one of the oldest communities known to gaming man- Garry's Mod. That's right, the Half Life 2 mod that likely introduced you to the concept of what mods even were? The clay from which countless hundreds of thousands of user generated assets have been formed and shared for no fee? Out of the spirit of creative freedom and sharing stuff you think is cool with other people who might also think it's cool? You know, that commune of expression and socializing that poses no threat to anyone anywhere? Yeah, that's Nintendo's target today. Because Nintendo seem eager to model themselves after the Gestapo. (Allegedly.)

As you'll find on any site that allows UGC- some of the stuff available to screw about with on Garry's Mod are characters from Nintendo games like Mario, Samus and Kirby. Assets that can be loaded in to replace player character models at your discretion. Or maybe you'll have a custom map that looks like the Mushroom Kingdom. These are free little constructions by fans, no more consequential than fan art, slapped together in an engine for the simple hell of it. Apparently Nintendo consider this an big enough threat to their continued profitability that they have slapped dozens upon hundreds of takedown requests on Garry's Mods servers to erase literal decades worth of content they had never touched before now. Which is just swell, ain't it?

So ludicrous of a proposition this was, that Nintendo would seriously sink this low, that people genuinely created a conspiracy theory that this was actually false DMCA claims issues by some down dirty vermin looking to use Nintendo's 'Good reputation' as a spittoon. How could it be that Nintendo seriously see a threat in a decades old game like that- right? Well as it turns out the threat appears to be very real. Garry's Mod team have pretty much verified the takedown requests, parroting the contentious point that 'it's their content and they have a right to take it down'. You know, as though people were going around and recreating Mario games using rip-off Mario characters. These are the sorts of situations where Copyright as an institution serves not as a shield, but a mallet for bashing out at others. One that Nintendo are all too giddy to use, given their track record with consumers.

Fans have responded in the manner that they usually do- flocking to try and preserve the content that Nintendo are trying to destroy in docs that the big N bloodhounds will no doubt pursue next. Archives like theses are fast turning into the only means by which a lot of gaming content exists, including some of Nintendo's own hosted games. Fans are footing the bill trying to keep classic titles entrusted to Nintendo alive in some form on the Internet, meanwhile the company themselves spend their money and time hunting down inconsequential fan content across the web- what does that say for the sorts of priorities across the industry right now? And how little respect people have for the big N when their next games starts leaking across the industry?

Nintendo aren't the only one's cracking down on supposed piracy. Denuvo, creators of the most maligned anti-piracy software on the market, have announced new invisible watermarks that can stamped onto pre-release builds of games and are unique to each version, making it easier to track down leaked footage to exact leakers. Another startling leap forward in accessibility for publishers to hunt down their consumers in order to get their oppressive 'lawsuit' fix. I no big fan of leakers either, although I do wonder about the use of such technology given that all the worst leaks, the really terrible ones, are typically done by outside hackers who announced their bounty readily, rather than developers slipping a little something to press. This is just an excuse to crack down on the little man and pretend that solves the wider genuine development-affecting breeches in security. It's a band-aid over the wrong wound!

The future that Nintendo want is one wherein all the world follows their beck and call to the utmost letter, precluding all creativity and ingenuity their products could spark. Most would say that art is a vehicle through which to inspire and encourage and to get to dream, but Nintendo loathe the idea of independent expression and thought- and seem to actively work against the fans who find inspiration from their projects. They craft a world of fear where art, in their lens, is a vehicle through which to generate brand value, and the esoteric and beautiful parts of creation of unwanted by products of an unwanted passion. So thanks Nintendo, for being the worst yet again. 

Has Helldivers gone too far?

 

A wise philosopher once said "They found you amusing for a while, the people of this industry. But the one thing they love more than a hero, is to see a hero fall, fail, die trying. In spite of everything you've done for them, eventually they will hate you." Whilst another coined the slightly more pithier quote "You either die the hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Both poignant and iconic glimpses into the world of public regard and the constant popularity contest. The heights it soars you to and the cliffs it tries to push you off of. And today it would see it is the Internet's darlings turn to be put up to sacrifice. Just as Baldur's Gate 3 was bullied for a week because of one glitch that destroyed items which was up for a bit, Helldivers is hitting it's wall when it comes to the most frustrating aspect of any online-primary game: convenience and access.

If there's one thing you never want to stick in a post if you want it to be received in any way well and not as some sort of punishment- it is the phrase "The grace period is up." And yet that is how Helldivers chose to introduce the now mandatory requirement that everyone who plays their game has to log on to an active Sony account in order to play. And by everyone- I mean the extensive PC player base. People who might not even own Sony accounts, are now going to be forced to make one in order to play this popular online game that everyone has been raving about. Now this was always a requirement listed on the Steam page, but thanks to the plethora of launch issues that brought the Helldivers team into a bitter struggle with server infrastructure in order to handle the vast hoards of players rushing to their game- that extra requirement was suspended until further notice. Well, welcome to 'further notice' everybody!

Essentially this means another layer of periphery between players and the games they pay for, which we already know that PC players deeply dislike thanks to the ever popular hatred of all game launchers and even more so for alternative store websites that try to secure their dominance with exclusivity deals. (I swear if FF7 Rebirth goes first to Epic again I'm going to spit!) Not to mention this periphery is the Sony ecosystem which has a frightening reputation for being leakier than the Titanic submersible. (Too soon?) So hope you're happy with your details being smeared across the dark net a couple months after creating your account because that's the pipeline of those sign up forms! No one likes password management and no one likes another check and balance which, as proven by the several months we've gone without, genuinely isn't necessary for the game to run.

Now it should be noted that there is a coherent reason for all this. The original way that Helldivers was designed to run it's service was by the monitoring of PlayStation accounts which would allow the team to swiftly deliver ban actions against problematic players without going through the hoops of IP banning they are saddled with otherwise. So for the team it's a convenience feature. I'm just as pessimistic as your most staunch anti-corpo out there, but I have to put my foot down and insist there is no evidence this is some ploy from Sony to force new products down players throats. There's not even a way for Sony to push deals in your face except for maybe direct emails? If anyone reads those!

But here's the thing. For me this is just a frank inconvenience. I'm being asked to make a new account, share my email and details, to a place that I don't want to. It's a pain in the neck that I don't want to deal with. But I have that option. But for some out there, the situation is not so clean. For some, the option to sit down and make a PlayStation account actually is not there at all- because Steam has a wider reach than the Playstation infrastructure does. There are players who actually will be locked out of playing Helldivers thanks to this decision, and those are the hardline and unavoidable concessions that such a policy is forcing on it's own consumer base for the small victory of being able to ban some people a bit more efficiently. Does that sound equitable?

Helldivers community managers took the typical 'hostile community manager' approach to all this when it blew up- mocking people's outrage over this small imposition and encouraging the aggrieved to up and leave like they were proposing to. You know, typical 'I've been hired to crisis manage by shouting louder than everyone else' conduct. (I seriously do not know what Community Managers do besides stoke fires.) But that somewhat turned when people voiced the much more real blocking off of players that this shift was doing. That was when the community started encouraging... people to continue downvoting the game on Steam and getting riled up? (Uhh... yeah, sometimes you have to wonder why these people are employed.)

In actuality there is method to this madness. Because the Helldivers team seem, curiously, to actually be on the player's side here- but it would seem the decision is out of their hands. As the Manager explained, Sony don't care about Discord outrage, but dropping metrics on Steam reviews are unavoidable and provide tangible evidence of community distaste that can be used as ammunition in negotiations. Maybe if people keep annoyed for long enough, Sony will be forced to see the strain their odd mandates are causing for this game, their most popular in a while, and lean off of the unnecessary ruling. Then we can all get back to the harmless community of genocidal democracy-freaks that this game was built to facilitate and foster!

And all this goes to show the frank discontent in the relationship between developers, publishers and consumers in what is ostensibly a 'service community'. When the right limb doesn't even know how what it does effects the left limb, you get situations of unintentional self sabotage where entire forest fires need to be lit and allowed to ravage the country side before solutions can be even so much as considered! You might fall for the lie that these are intelligent decisions made by the well researched and discerning, who know the breadth of their rulings before they play out- but needs merely pay attention to the floundering common in the highest echelon of the industry to know how untrue that is. These people live on a different stratosphere to those they siphoning a living off of. But hey, at least there's hope for Helldivers 2 if only their loyal fans scream loud enough.