Review: Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall

I write for Save/Continue now. Be a rad dude and read my stuff there so I can become a superhero.

http://www.savecontinue.com/2013/07/review-dishonored-the-knife-of-dunwall/

That is the greatest review ever written ladies and gentlemen.

Is Linearity Really a Sin? || A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Novel

Call of Duty is terrible. Call of Duty‘s design is exclusively aimed at brain-dead dudebros and your little cousin’s shitty friends who call you a “tryhard faggot” between Monster Energy swigs. Call of Duty represents the greatest threat to gaming since ET.

If you Agree, advance to section 5E. If you Disagree, advance to section 3C.

—1A—

The strength of your conviction is admirable, if not regretfully misplaced.

Call of Duty is not a bad series by even the most elitist stretch of the imagination; I genuinely wish more FPS developers would ape the controls and weapon handling that CoD has nearly perfected (we can talk recoil later). But do not mistake certain mechanical competencies as an endorsement of quality.

That is, however, another talk for another time. You do not buy into the prevailing notion that hyper-linearity is bad bad very bad and no good at all. For that, you have my thanks.

GAME OVER – PARIAH END

—2B—

Is Resident Evil 4 a bad game?

If you say Yes, advance to section —4D—. If you say No, advance to section —6F—.

—3C—

Congratulations, the gaming community zeitgeist has not yet robbed you of the ability to think for yourself! Round of applause. But let’s be honest, Mr. or Mrs. Heroic Contrarian, is this really the hill you want to die on? Do you truly wish to be the Edward John Smith of the RMS Cauwdudy?

If you truly wish to be the Edward John Smith of the RMS Cauwdudy, advance to section —1A—. Otherwise, advance to section —5E—.

—4D—

There is really nothing left to say — no more sharp quips, no more condescending interrogation. Yours is a lost vessel, floating listlessly though the infinite, foggy sea of gaming purgatory. May God have mercy on your soul.

GAME OVER –  YOU’RE SMALL TIME END

—5E—

Hardly a day goes by where someone, somewhere, doesn’t rain down furious indignation on the popularity and perceived industry influence of the Call of Duty series, indignation that is almost uniformly devoid of salient points or any degree of critical thought. Amidst the spittle and sneering, the same tired point is dragged up again and again like some sort of gaming keel haul:

“It’s hyper-linear garbage!”

How incisive, full marks!

But is that all there is? Has linearity in gaming reached the point where it should be considered an inherent evil?

If you say Yes, advance to section —2B—. If you say No, advance to section —6F—.

—6F—

Good, because it damn well isn’t.

Non-linearity is not some magic wand that turns every game it touches into a pretty dress and sparkling stilettos. It is a deliberate design decision that comes with some nice benefits and serious shortcomings. It feels almost condescending to write such a thing but, well, apparently some people have a hard time grasping why Skyrim catches so much heat these days.

In a nutshell, the primary give-and-take is between pacing and agency. It is a zero-sum game — the more agency you grant the player, the less control you as a developer will have over the pacing, and vice versa. Imagine for a moment an open-world Half-Life, or a hyper-linear Morrowind. These thoughts should trigger an unpleasant gastrointestinal response. Half-Life is great in no small part due to some of the tightest pacing in gaming, while Morrowind unfurls a massive and unique before you and says “Go”. They couldn’t work, as constituted, any other way.

Putting a leash around the player’s neck allows the designers to guide them along as desired. When poorly executed — often the case — the player will feel bored and constricted as they would when watching a bad movie or riding a child’s breezer at the local fair. And this is where I believe the misguided notion of non-linear superiority is borne from; it is a hell of a lot easier to let the player make their own fun than to craft a sustained, one-track experience that remains fun for the duration.

Think of it like this: Everyone agrees Morrowind‘s combat is dross, yet it is widely regarded as a gaming classic. Do you think Resident Evil 4 could get away with that?

So let us collectively refocus our sights as gamers. The failures of the modern Call of Duty series are legion: Shitty pacing, shitty story, and quattroshitty encounter design. But to reduce those criticisms down to linearity alone not only fails to be instructive, it can be downright dangerous.

Unless of course you wish for an exclusively open-world future, in which case advance to section  –4D–.

Dark Souls is Not Obtuse, Though You May Be Incompetent

Some spiteful bastard decided to tear the bandaid off a deep and painful wound of mine by linking me to this article written earlier in the month over at Venturebeat; though the title had me doubling over in waves of nausea, I felt obligated to press on. While I suggest you give it a once over, if only to satisfy my own sadistic need to pass along the pain, allow me to summarize: Super Metroid is apparently difficult to the point where the author believed his game to be bugged, and these difficulties arose on an hourly basis. Dark Souls is similarly obtuse, requiring some degree of clairvoyance to tackle the apparent labyrinth of systems. Call of Duty is praised for its linearity, while The Legend of Zelda serves as a shining beacon for how to tutorialize properly. Though each of these points stand upon tenuous logic at best, I would like to focus in on this ridiculous — and unfortunately prevalent — notion that Dark Souls is some sort of inscrutable enigma of a game.

Disclaimer: The following piece assumes you know how to play a video game.

Control is first granted to the player in the locked prison cell of the Northern Undead Asylum, with a white wisp hovering above the corpse a few feet ahead. Running over the body will cause a “Pillage corpse” button prompt to appear, while pressing the displayed button will trigger an animation and grant you the Dungeon Cell Key. I’ll be keeping a running tally:

Things Dark Souls Teaches You

1. White wisps represent item pickups
2. Pressing the X button will pick up dropped items

The cell key will open the previously locked door, opening the way to a long narrow hallway filled with orange messages on the ground. Pressing the prompted key over these messages will deliver control tutorials to the player; in this case, we are informed that the right stick operates the camera, R1 swings that sharp stick of yours, R2 performs a heavy attack, while holding the circle button in conjunction with the left stick will dash. Also, pressing R3 will target-lock enemies, allowing you to circle-strafe. They are even kind enough to give you some dummy foes to practice with. Woah! Hope that wasn’t too much to handle! Let’s update the list.

Things Dark Souls Teaches You

1. White wisps represent item pickups
2. Pressing the X button will pick up dropped items
3. Right Stick controls the camera
4. Press R1 to attack
5. Press R2 to perform a heavy attack
6. Hold the circle button while moving to dash
7. R3 target-locks enemies

Up the ladder is our first bonfire. Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking. “Help! What is a bonfire!” No worries mate! The game plants another of those nifty messages at your feet, informing our befuddled friend that resting at bonfires will recover HP. Great to know, right? There’s much more to bonfires, as the detractors would loudly remind us; all in good time. Let’s update the list.

Things Dark Souls Teaches You

1. White wisps represent item pickups
2. Pressing the X button will pick up dropped items
3. Right Stick controls the camera
4. Press R1 to attack
5. Press R2 to perform a heavy attack
6. Hold the circle button while moving to dash
7. R3 target-locks enemies
8. Resting at bonfires recovers HP

Now, I could assume that the initiate will find themselves flattened by the upcoming Asylum Demon, but your message-reading conditioning will likely keep even the slowest of players out of trouble. However, we are met with yet another bonfire immediately after our harrowing escape. Why would there be two bonfires so close together, directly before and after a big ugly boss monster? To inform the player of the bonfires’ role as checkpoints. Let’s update the list.

Things Dark Souls Teaches You

1. White wisps represent item pickups
2. Pressing the X button will pick up dropped items
3. Right Stick controls the camera
4. Press R1 to attack
5. Press R2 to perform a heavy attack
6. Hold the circle button while moving to dash
7. R3 target-locks enemies
8. Resting at bonfires recovers HP
9. Bonfires serve as checkpoints

Another narrow hallway greets up, preceded with a message instructing the player to “Get Your Shield!”, giving due emphasis to the fact that yes, your shield is a good thing to have.

Even more messages are strewn about, as well as an annoying arrowing-slinging hollow. Open the menu with Start, and equip the damn shield by navigating to the Arms tab. Holding L1 will keep those arrows out of your beautiful body. Further on down the hallway, the game tells you how to quickly switch between those weapons and items you just saw in the Arms window. How kind! Let’s update the list.

Things Dark Souls Teaches You

1. White wisps represent item pickups
2. Pressing the X button will pick up dropped items
3. Right Stick controls the camera
4. Press R1 to attack
5. Press R2 to perform a heavy attack
6. Hold the circle button while moving to dash
7. R3 target-locks enemies
8. Resting at bonfires recovers HP
9. Bonfires serve as checkpoints
10. Open the main menu with the start button
11. Equip weapons and items in the Arms tab
12. Hold L1 to block with a shield equipped
13. Use the Dpad to quickswitch weapons and items

Want to execute silly acrobatic maneuvers to impress your friends and mystify your foes? Yet another nifty orange message informs you that pressing the circle button will cause you to backstep, and tapping it while running will perform a terrifying roll!

Speaking of rolling, the carefully-layed trap just ahead reveal a secret room, where the player receives their first Estus Flasks. Gah, a flask! People don’t even use those anymore! ****OBTUSE ALERT****

Worry not, child, Dark Souls is here with more explanations! Press X to use items! Replenish Estus Flasks by resting at bonfires! Keep your eyes open for shortcuts! Press triangle to wield a weapon with two hands! Left stick + R1 to kick! Left-stick + R2 to do a jumping attack! Resting at bonfires causes enemies to respawn! Pressing R1 while falling will execute a plunging attack — quite useful on that nasty boss monster! Attacking while behind an enemy causes a critical hit! L2 parries! Attack immediately after to riposte! Don’t know what that means? Try it out on these two mooks we put in the same room! The game is giving you so much goddamn information that it’s becoming a pain to catalog! Let’s update the list.

Things Dark Souls Teaches You

1. White wisps represent item pickups
2. Pressing the X button will pick up dropped items
3. Right Stick controls the camera
4. Press R1 to attack
5. Press R2 to perform a heavy attack
6. Hold the circle button while moving to dash
7. R3 target-locks enemies
8. Resting at bonfires recovers HP
9. Bonfires serve as checkpoints
10. Open the main menu with the start button
11. Equip weapons and items in the Arms tab
12. Hold L1 to block with a shield equipped
13. Use the Dpad to quickswitch weapons and items
14. Press circle to backstep
15. Press circle while running to roll
16. Estus Flasks restore HP
17. Press X to use items
18. Replenish Estus Flasks by resting at bonfires
19. Keep your eyes open for shortcuts back to bonfires
20. Press triangle to wield you right-hand weapon with both hands
21. Resting at a bonfire causes enemies to respawn
22. Pressing R1 while falling will execute a plunging attack
23. Attacking while behind an enemy triggers a critical hit
24. Press L2 to parry
25. Attack immediately after a successful parry to riposte

And if all that wasn’t enough for your modern gaming-baby ass, the game even rewards you for defeating the boss with something you may find more familiar: A message that reads, “Good job. Go straight ahead.”

Let that one stew for a bit. There are people out there who bitch and moan about the complexity and mechanical obfuscation of a game that tells you “Good job. Go straight ahead.” Let’s update the list.

Things Dark Souls Teaches You

1. White wisps represent item pickups
2. Pressing the X button will pick up dropped items
3. Right Stick controls the camera
4. Press R1 to attack
5. Press R2 to perform a heavy attack
6. Hold the circle button while moving to dash
7. R3 target-locks enemies
8. Resting at bonfires recovers HP
9. Bonfires serve as checkpoints
10. Open the main menu with the start button
11. Equip weapons and items in the Arms tab
12. Hold L1 to block with a shield equipped
13. Use the Dpad to quickswitch weapons and items
14. Press circle to backstep
15. Press circle while running to roll
16. Estus Flasks restore HP
17. Press X to use items
18. Replenish Estus Flasks by resting at bonfires
19. Keep your eyes open for shortcuts back to bonfires
20. Press triangle to wield you right-hand weapon with both hands
21. Resting at a bonfire causes enemies to respawn
22. Pressing R1 while falling will execute a plunging attack
23. Attacking while behind an enemy triggers a critical hit
24. Press L2 to parry
25. Attack immediately after a successful parry to riposte
26. Good job. Go straight ahead.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully made it to Lordran proper without crying to the internet about how unfair Dark Souls is. But we’re not done yet! The first thing you see after regaining control is an on-screen message that states the following: “In Lordran, level up and kindle at bonfires.”

Well would you look at that, a bonfire right there in front of your face. Some luck, that. I suspect most players would mosey on over and give that whole “levelin’ up” thing a spin. Eugh! Numbers! Stow the panic and hit the select button for a description of your character’s attributes. It’s hard to imagine the bellyaching that we’d be saved if people read the damn instructions.

Everyone knows about leveling up — it’s a basic system used in hundreds on games over the years. But kindling? That’s a new one. Try it out and you’ll be informed that you “cannot kindle while Hollowed.” No, this doesn’t make a lick of sense. Neither does “no humanity,” which appears when you select the final bonfire option, Reverse Hollowing. Let’s break down what you were just taught.

To kindle the fire, you must NOT be Hollowed. To reverse the Hollowing — which is implied to be your present state — you need humanity. So not knowing what any of these things are, we can deduce the following: Find humanity, to reverse hollowing, so that you may kindle the fire (and you really should have figured out what Hollowing is at this point). Let’s update the list.

Things Dark Souls Teaches You

1. White wisps represent item pickups
2. Pressing the X button will pick up dropped items
3. Right Stick controls the camera
4. Press R1 to attack
5. Press R2 to perform a heavy attack
6. Hold the circle button while moving to dash
7. R3 target-locks enemies
8. Resting at bonfires recovers HP
9. Bonfires serve as checkpoints
10. Open the main menu with the start button
11. Equip weapons and items in the Arms tab
12. Hold L1 to block with a shield equipped
13. Use the Dpad to quickswitch weapons and items
14. Press circle to backstep
15. Press circle while running to roll
16. Estus Flasks restore HP
17. Press X to use items
18. Replenish Estus Flasks by resting at bonfires
19. Keep your eyes open for shortcuts back to bonfires
20. Press triangle to wield you right-hand weapon with both hands
21. Resting at a bonfire causes enemies to respawn
22. Pressing R1 while falling will execute a plunging attack
23. Attacking while behind an enemy triggers a critical hit
24. Press L2 to parry
25. Attack immediately after a successful parry to riposte
26. Good job. Go straight ahead.
27. Level up and kindle at bonfires
    
28. Press Select in the level up screen to display attribute descriptions
29. Cannot kindle the bonfire while Hollowed
30. Need humanity to reverse hollowing

This is where most people break down into a wallowing fit of confusion and anger, a pitiful state easily avoided by turning around. Ah-ha, another misty bit by that well! Through careful consultation of our trusty guide, #1 and #2 will have us picking up that item in no time flat. As luck would have it, that misty bit is the humanity we’ve been hearing so much about! Three humanity, right to the inventory. Mmm.

In fairness, I don’t believe the game tells you explicitly how to access your inventory. Strike one, Obtuse Souls!

Things Dark Souls DOES NOT Teach You

1. How to access your inventory

This really shouldn’t be a problem provided you don’t have someone following you around wiping the drool from your chin.

Back to this whole humanity business. Accessing the inventory screen tells you that humanity items acts as a consumable, increasing your player humanity by one when used — note the counter in the top left. As a result, we uncover the very important distinction between consumable humanity items and personal passive humanity.

With the humanity items converted to passive, the player returns to the bonfire, eager to give that kindling bit a whirl. Using one humanity will reverse hollowing and restore your character to human form, confirming what you should have already figured about Hollowing.  The comforting plumpness of our newly-meated bodies will allow us to kindle the bonfire for one additional humanity. Doing so will grant us five additional Estus Flasks. Terrific! But how would you know that? First thing’s first. Let’s update the list.

Things Dark Souls Teaches You

1. White wisps represent item pickups
2. Pressing the X button will pick up dropped items
3. Right Stick controls the camera
4. Press R1 to attack
5. Press R2 to perform a heavy attack
6. Hold the circle button while moving to dash
7. R3 target-locks enemies
8. Resting at bonfires recovers HP
9. Bonfires serve as checkpoints
10. Open the main menu with the start button
11. Equip weapons and items in the Arms tab
12. Hold L1 to block with a shield equipped
13. Use the Dpad to quickswitch weapons and items
14. Press circle to backstep
15. Press circle while running to roll
16. Estus Flasks restore HP
17. Press X to use items
18. Replenish Estus Flasks by resting at bonfires
19. Keep your eyes open for shortcuts back to bonfires
20. Press triangle to wield you right-hand weapon with both hands
21. Resting at a bonfire causes enemies to respawn
22. Pressing R1 while falling will execute a plunging attack
23. Attacking while behind an enemy triggers a critical hit
24. Press L2 to parry
25. Attack immediately after a successful parry to riposte
26. Good job. Go straight ahead.
27. Level up and kindle at bonfires
28. Press Select in the level up screen to display attribute descriptions
29. Cannot kindle the bonfire while Hollowed
30. Need humanity to reverse hollowing
31. Humanity items are consumables, adding to the pool of passive player humanity
32. Kindling bonfires grant you five additional flasks

Not so fast!

Things Dark Souls DOES NOT Teach You

1. How to access your inventory
2. How to look at the UI with your eyeballs

With all that business out of the way, indulge your social side and talk to the dour-looking bloke over on that rock. I suspect most players, whose NPC interactions generally begin and end with “FOLLOW ME RAMIREZ,” will pass this fella over. Talk him up to discover the following:

Things Dark Souls Teaches You

1. White wisps represent item pickups
2. Pressing the X button will pick up dropped items
3. Right Stick controls the camera
4. Press R1 to attack
5. Press R2 to perform a heavy attack
6. Hold the circle button while moving to dash
7. R3 target-locks enemies
8. Resting at bonfires recovers HP
9. Bonfires serve as checkpoints
10. Open the main menu with the start button
11. Equip weapons and items in the Arms tab
12. Hold L1 to block with a shield equipped
13. Use the Dpad to quickswitch weapons and items
14. Press circle to backstep
15. Press circle while running to roll
16. Estus Flasks restore HP
17. Press X to use items
18. Replenish Estus Flasks by resting at bonfires
19. Keep your eyes open for shortcuts back to bonfires
20. Press triangle to wield you right-hand weapon with both hands
21. Resting at a bonfire causes enemies to respawn
22. Pressing R1 while falling will execute a plunging attack
23. Attacking while behind an enemy triggers a critical hit
24. Press L2 to parry
25. Attack immediately after a successful parry to riposte
26. Good job. Go straight ahead.
27. Level up and kindle at bonfires
28. Press Select in the level up screen to display attribute descriptions
29. Cannot kindle the bonfire while Hollowed
30. Need humanity to reverse hollowing
31. Humanity items are consumables, adding to the pool of passive player humanity
32. Kindling bonfires grant you five additional flasks
33. There are two Bells of Awakening to ring; one above in the Undead Church, and one below in Blighttown
34. You can acquire humanity by collecting it from corpses, being summoned, or by killing a healthy Undead
35. Climb the stairs and seek the Undead Church past the waterway
36. The man would rather die than return to Blighttown

And with that, every mewling idiot who banged their heads against the graveyard skeletons, or found themselves diced to bits by the New Londo ghosts, is silenced.

A quick about-face will reveal the highly-conspicuous waterway, and the stairs that lead to them.  You’re on your way.

So in review, Dark Souls teaches you every single possible player input — save jumping, I believe — while acclimating you to the bonfire system and giving you an solid primer on kindling, hollowing, and humanity, all without sacrificing the game’s pacing in a tedious tutorial sequence. Veteran players can blaze through everything I described here in less than ten minutes.

While there are other systems introduced later on, they are always sufficiently explained during the natural game flow. Souls, shards, embers and flask reinforcing are all clearly explained when you find the right people (merchants, smiths, smiths, and fire keepers, respectively).

So next time someone comes crawling to your leg, tears streaming down their faces, screaming, “DARK SOULS IS SO OBTUSE AND DIFFICULT AND OFFENSIVE TO MY BABY GAMER SENSIBILITIES,” you can look down with a smug smirk and whisper, “Get good,” then walk away like Robert Patrick in Terminator 2.

Review Notebook: Animal Crossing: New Leaf

Not every keen observation or incisive critique can make the final review cut. Review Notebook brings to you my sometimes inane, occasionally pedantic, but always entertaining raw playthrough scribblings to fill in the critical picture. Choice bits — those that didn’t make their way into the review — are bolded.

• Blathers identifies fossils, saving you the Faraway Museum’s overnight wait
• Circle pad works well for movement, and separating the run and use buttons is a welcome change
• Save anywhere is nice
• The villagers are much more present in the smaller town, staying in the same areas for extended periods of time and coming to and fro in the various shops
• Tom Nook is a lazy son of a bitch
• Neat that the villagers can come up with a nickname for you; neater still that it can spread to others
• The game does a great job keeping a carrot dangled in front of the player
• Gardening gets addictive damn quick
• A museum map would have been appreciated for the now multi-sectioned wings
• The exhibits themselves are much improved, with donation dates and individual descriptions – impressive for such a robust bestiary
• Just had Sally the chipmunk visit my house for a bit. She complimented my aloe. This game does a phenomenal job connecting you with the villagers
• Portia came to the flea market and bought my hammock
• Dpad item quickswitching is lovely
• I do miss the donation-induced blathering of Blathers; they had more personality than the exhibit descriptions
• Villagers display items you give them in their houses
• 13 hours played before I could even begin public works projects or enact ordinances
• Lyle’s HHA actually makes me give a damn about my score
• 180-space dressers make me rock-hard
• I think the music changes into a different arrangement when it rains
• Placing public works projects is a real pain in the ass. Why not make it grid-based with the option to rotate? It’s damn near impossible to put stuff where you want, made all the more frustrating by the games ridiculous proximity limitations. I wanted a streetlight at the end of the bridge; I ended up building it 10 feet away.
• There really ought to be more than four ordinances, that’s very disappointing
• The game could use some more Cyrus-like wait times, where something will take 30 minutes to a couple of hours to complete. It’s a bit cheap how everything takes one day to finish.
• I wish villagers were more interactive. They never catch fish or bugs, they never come up and talk to you (though the “surprise approach” is a fair solution), they never use benches, and their daily schedule seems to consist solely of milling about near the bridge. It’s an improvement over AC GCN, but it could be much better.

Review: Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS)

Hans has to go.

It’s not enough that he’s one dopey looking son of a bitch, nor that he intruded on the pristine landscape of my cliff-side abode, the peaceful spray of the waterfall now settling unceremoniously on his vomit-inducing charcoal roof. No, that’s not enough for Hans here. His was a far more odious crime.

GET OUT

Two or three days into my dictatorial lifetime term as mayor, the lovable doggy secretary Isabelle gifted me three pears as reward for some menial task — my first foreign fruit! Excited to begin a lucrative life as a orchard-tender, I planted the three pears in front of my house, organized in a square formation separated by one space each. As luck would have it, those dimensions match exactly with those of the villagers houses.

I trust you can figure out what happened.

Hans chose to use my fledgling pear trees as a foundation.

Imagine my fury when I discovered the carefully-laid arrangement shattered by the framework for some Die Hard-dipshit’s muscle palace. As the ape pumped iron and struggled to maintain the base level of sentience required to breathe, I plotted his exit in dark corners, clutching tightly the net that would bring about his downfall, and amassing a horde of pitfalls to make him question every step he took in my town.

But before I could take my first swing, something happened.

I realized, reluctantly perhaps, that I was starting to like the guy.

He destroyed my only pear trees and ruined my picturesque environment and yes, he is still as ugly as a coelacanth…but he did give me a hi-fi stereo for free. And I did once catch him watering flowers at 2 o’clock in the morning. And he even gave me an apple as penance; that it was because he was too full to eat a thirteenth was immaterial. And most of all, a new evil had infested our fair village. A half-monkey, half-penguin sin hybrid known only as “Shari”…

Swimming is a neat addition, though lightning fast lobsters will do their best to convince you otherwise.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf is something of a life simulator, provided you spend your real-world days digging up historic archeological finds and watering other people’s flowers. “People” in this case consisting of a wide assortment of deformed humanoid animals who, in their infinite generosity, will often gift you practical items like pipe organs and deer scares in exchange for making drug deliveries. So long as Bubbles continue to accidentally purchase two sewing machines at a time, the cartel holds. We’ve got a system.

In this, we see the first big improvement over the original Animal Crossing: Villager interactivity. No longer is task dispensement relegated to it’s own separate dialogue option; every exchange runs through the “chat” selection. I don’t know about you, but once I cast off the ragged regalia of Nook’s Cranny, you had to go get you own damn Game Boy back. Now the only way to avoid playing fetch is to avoid all communication entirely. Some may find it an annoyance, but hell, you can always say no — you’ll never be penalized for doing so.

More commendable is how the game utilizes greater interactivity to engender more genuine connections with the villagers. When Sally came over to my house and complimented my aloe, she became my fast favorite. When Shari refused to purchase my reasonably-priced folding chair at Re-Tail, her fate was sealed. When Buck began to call me “M-star”, I thought it was neat. When the nickname spread to everyone in the village, I starting packing a blackjack.

I don’t know how to grow those bushes, but they seem illicit.

Villagers are also much more accessible than before; partly a function of the smaller map size, and partly due to their new-found ability to enter buildings. The bridge in the middle of Dogville seems to play host to at least three villagers during every daylight hour, meaning you’ll pass them by nearly every time you head out. The rest can be found prancing about in the various retail stores around town, touring the museum, or standing awkwardly on Main Street. Even in the wee hours of the morning I can count on the loveable stubble bearing man-about-town Limberg to be pacing philosophically down on the beach, or leering through Portia’s windows — I don’t begrudge a man his perversions. It all comes together to create a sense of communal togetherness that didn’t really exist in Animal Crossing.

That’s not to say it’s without it’s problems. I wish villagers were more interactive; I wish they actually caught fish or bugs instead of pretending to, or actually came up and talked to you once in a while, or actually used the damn public works projects they didn’t help fund, or actually followed some sort of daily schedule beyond milling about aimlessly next to the bridge. Like fans fake-catching balls in MLB 13: The Show, it’s a series of neat-but-empty touches that quickly give way to laughter as, for example, Al fruitlessly stalks a common butterfly, net cocked and ready, without ever having a swing. I understand the frustration that could arise from having a rare insect stolen from you at the last second, or for your least favorite villager to strike up a conversation at an inopportune time, but I feel that would all add to the character of the community. What’s here is an improvement to be sure, but it could — and should!– be so much better.

The same could be said of the newfangled, and shamefully mangled, public works projects, an addition that is fabulous and suck-ass in equal measure. Let me break it down for you:

The Good

1. You can build a wide variety of structures through the public works system, giving your town a much needed personal touch
2. The funding of these projects dangles yet another monetary carrot in front of the player, in addition to home improvement and licking stalk market wounds so painfully inflicted.
3. Many of the projects have an impact beyond just making pretty; the campsite, for example, will play host to prospective villagers for you to woo, while the Dream Suite allows you visit a copy version of other players’ towns.

The Bad

1. You choose where to place many of these projects by walking to the desired spot and talking to Isabelle over and over and over until you are the requisite 200 feet away from anything that could possible impede on the precious personal space of your yellow bench. I wanted to build my light post right next to the bridge; thought it’d look cool. Instead, the closest I was allowed to build it was ten paces away, and it looks like shit.
2. You can’t rotate objects. I’m serious, and I’m not joking.

Almost entirely suck-ass is the game’s ordinance system, another new addition that feels like it was cooked up by a particularly talented intern at the 13th hour of development. The player is given the option, for a 20,000 bell fee, to enact one of four town ordinances, changing certain parameters village-wide. The Beautiful Town ordinance is for the budding gardeners out there, increasing flower hybridization chances and stamping out weeds and cockroaches. Avaricious sorts will find the Bell Boom ordinance to their liking, increasing Re-Tail selling and buying prices and adding an additional premium item to flip for big bucks. Finally, the Night Owl and Early Bird ordinances will keep stores and villagers wide awake deep into the night, or up at the crack of dawn, respectively. Do note these time-based ordinances have no effect on Limberg, as he seems to operate outside of established temporal parameters.

Yes, that’s right — I said finally. Shockingly, those four ordinances are all you’ll ever get. How about one that doubles the number of fish or bugs present at once in the village? Or one that raises the chance of a big turnip price spike? Or one that prevents villagers from moving out? Perhaps an ordinance to make home improvements immediate, or take an entire week at half cost?  Or makes your gullible villagers that much more loose with their hard-earned bells at the flea market? Or causes an increase in rainy conditions? I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to enacting an ordinance that grants me additional storage space. Half of those ideas are probably terrible, but the point stands.

It’s a system with so much potential for village customization that it’s positively baffling to me why Nintendo didn’t push the feature further. Tremendously disappointing.

This guy scares the shit out of me.

Luckily, New Leaf incentivizes daily play so forcefully and so effectively that the half-baked mayoral systems serve only as slightly damaged cogs in an otherwise well-oiled machine. There is so much to do in your earlier days that it can be overwhelming in the best possible way; home loans need re-payed, a developmental permit needs to be acquired, wildlife need to be caught and cataloged, the museum needs to be filled, Nookling Junction requires expansion, and so on and so on. In fact, only now, 35 hours in, do I feel myself settling into that old hour-a-day Animal Crossing routine, and even that may be attributed to my lack of funds, halting project development in it’s tracks. This is a game you could spend months, even years tinkering with; I haven’t even begun any serious city planning, what with the fancy ground tiles and hybrid flower fields. Not to mention the endless rejiggering of furniture and interior design. I’m man enough to admit my house remains a bit of a dumping ground, where I squeeze in every bit of nonsensical decor my oh-so-kind neighbors hoist upon me. I think I’ll put the pipe organ next to the robo-TV. I sleep next to a pepper grinder.

Animal Crossing was a special game, eating up countless happy hours of my adolescence as a sort of escape from the tribulations of the asocial gamer’s middle school existence. I approached New Leaf with no small amount of trepidation, worried that the well had been long since tapped dry; my notably short stint with Wild World only deepened my concern (though that could mainly be attributed to the sickening framerate).

It turns out that my fears were mostly unfounded — Animal Crossing: New Leaf injects a much needed shot of life into the franchise, and they did it just how I like it — by cramming in as many new and interesting features as they could. Some of them work wonderfully, others could have used more time in the oven. Regardless, the end product is one that will suck up hours by the dozens if you permit it’s colorful hooks to sink in. I suggest that you do.

And with that, I bid you adieu. My net has a date with Sheri’s skull.

I DRAW FIRST BLOOD

E3 2013: Here Are Some Very Important Sony Opinions (Mine)

E3 2013 is in the bag, the curtain lifted on the 8th generation of gaming.  The press conferences have come and gone, leaving us to hem and haw over the fresh new product from now until November. But the question paramount in your mind is indubitably this: What are Jacob Ross’s thoughts? Fret not, dear reader, for I am here to enchant you with incisive observations and whip-sharp criticism that you’ll find nowhere else. Nowhere!

For Microsoft, it was a dark cloud looming overhead. For Sony, it was a question mark.

Vita! Vita! Guys, fellas, check it out! V-V-Vita!

I suppose Sony can’t just abandon it’s troubled handheld completely, Dreamcast style, but Vita’s presence was very much of the “get it out of the way” variety, with little to be excited about. Tearaway has a fresh look to it, but what I’ve seen of the gameplay has me a bit bored, to be honest, almost reminiscent of my regrettable time spent with the underwhelming Super Paper Mario. Final Fantasy X | X-2 HD appears to have received a loving treatment — having played neither game, I’m particularly excited to pick this one up. On my PS3.

And let’s not forget some hot new content from The Walking Dead, the 117th best game I played this gen (out of 117). One shudders to think how this pile will perform on the Vita. If it wipes your data, I’ll consider that a strength.

Fool me once, you sons of bitches…

Vita is quietly shuffled off the stage as one final trailer is queued up for The Last of Us. Though I trust it’s a sharp improvement over the wholly unremarkable Uncharted series, if only through design focus alone, I can think of few games I want to play less. As with Bioshock Infinite, Simcity, The Walking Dead, Diablo 3, Mass Effect 3, Journey, Xenoblade, Borderlands 2, Batman: Arkham City, Skyrim, Portal 2, Mass Effect 2, Skyward Sword, Uncharted 3, LittleBigPlanet 2, Gears of War 3, Limbo, L.A. Noire, Battlefield 3, Red Dead Redemption, Uncharted 2, Braid, Grand Theft Auto IV, LittleBigPlanet, Bioshock, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Halo 3, Oblivion, Portal, and Gears of War, I trust that video game critics have once again completely and utterly failed to apply the basic critical fervor that is at the heart of the entire fucking profession.

But I digress.

Puppeteer seems to manage what Tearaway could not, blending solid platforming with a seriously eye-popping visual flair, recalling The Thousand-Year Door in its lavish stage-production presentation. I’ll take that over Super Paper Mario any day of the week.

Please don’t suck. Please?

I hate three things in life, chiefly. Egotistical pricks, green bean casserole, and artegaming. Rain looks like artegaming to me. Next.

Beyond: Two Souls, on the other hand, is a game I would love to see turn out well commercially; if this industry is going to shine a spotlight on gaming narrative, then it would be to everyone’s benefit if these visual novel-esque games gained in popularity. Not that I trust David Cage to create anything remotely palatable — the Middle Eastern psy ops angle is about the stupidest direction this game could have gone — but he can serve a useful purpose. I don’t necessarily expect games like Virtue’s Last Reward or the Ace Attorney series to ever break through on a mainstream level, but I’ll be goddamned if I don’t want to move the needle in that direction, even if it takes the continued evangelization of one shitty French storyteller.

Quickly, we are whisked away to a game with, in all likelihood, a superior script. I’m talking of course about the next installment in the illustrious Gran Turismo series. Like the rest of the world, I too will be waiting with bated breath for the announcement of a PS4 version, because there’s no way in hell I’m spending another second behind the wheel with a DualShock 3.

Now with concave sticks! — My dreams

Hey guys, whoa, no Rocksteady huh? Alright. Well, see you later!

PS4 time. It’s…a rhombus. Or a parallelogram? Geometry was never my strong suit. Regardless, it’s a good looking piece of console — small, sleek, and futuristic, with enough of an edge to avoid the 90’s VCR chic Microsoft opted for. For my money, it’s the best looking system since PS2, coincidentally the last console to look sexy in a vertical orientation.

this is the playstaiton 4 vidio device by sony company. hello new consloe

Some guy I don’t know appears to talk teeveesports and transmedia contentplanning and a bunch of other shit no one cares about. I respect the tried-and-true tactic of frontloading a conference with all the useless junk. They rifle though it, and we’re on our way to game land.

Everyone loves new IP, and early in a generation is the time to launch one if you want to establish a foothold, then proceed to shit all over it Assassin’s Creed style. With this in mind (the launching part, that is(I hope)) we are treated to the first original offering from Ready At Dawn: The Order 1886. It’s hard to glean much from the cinematic, in-engine-my-ass trailer other than an appealing Victorian art style and menacing creatures of the night. If it winds up a co-op monster shooter, I’ll be upending some motherfucking tables.  Consider yourselves warned.

The exact moment I bellowed “GODDAMNIT”.

Alright, it has to be said — Killzone: Shadow Fall looks kinda good. C’mon, you can admit it. Yes, it does seem to be just another shabang FPS that we all gleefully rail against year after year, but this is shaping up to be one of the shabangingest. Toss that baby into your lexicon.

I’ve never played an Infamous title, and I’m not entirely sure I ever want to. So I can’t quite say I’m quivering with anticipation for Second Son, as fancy as the particle effects may look. Let me tell you, particle effects are going to be this gen’s Crisco n’ bloom, vomited carelessly all over the gaming landscape for the next couple of years as the lazy designer’s hot new visual shorthand. When Killer Instinct is leading the charge, you should ask yourself if it’s wise to follow. Also, there was a wheely-drivey type game. It wasn’t GT6. Huh.

Elevating the “huh” levels a bit, we have Knack. Damn I wish Knack looked better, I really do. Perhaps the PS2 spoiled the industry with great 3D platformers, but it was a downer regardless to see how few of them popped up last gen. Upon its reveal, I had Knack pegged as a return to that style of game — the colorful, imaginative, franchisable type. Unfortunately, what we saw of Knack at E3 points more towards a dull, hyperlinear beat-em-up cut from the cloth of Lego. Let’s hope it isn’t wholly representative of the final product.

Reverse that for Quantic Dream’s tech demo The Dark Sorcerer. Watching in real time had me convinced that this was another of those pre-gen power demonstrations that would never be matched in the products. However, after checking out Quantic Dream’s PS3 demo, The Casting, and giving the eerily David Carradine-esque conjurer another look, I’m rather convinced that visuals like this are achievable next-gen, and that’s exciting stuff.

Something something bated breath.

E3 man of the hour Adam Boyes steps onto the stage like an outlaw steps into a saloon — head high, eyes clear, and six-shooter loading with indie lead. Transistor! Don’t Starve! Mercenary Kings! Game of the Show Octodad: Dadliest Catch! Secret Ponchos! Ray’s Dead! Outlast! Oddworld: New n‘ Tasty! Galak-Z! If not for the forthcoming smackdown, this would have been the highlight of the conference.

A close second would most certainly be the re-reveal of the newly-christened Final Fantasy XV, showing the rest of the gaming world how it’s done. You want your spiffy, multi-million dollar CG trailer? Great! Splice in gameplay footage and you’ve got yourself a stew. I was left with a big question mark regarding the game’s combat system, however. Having never experienced the Kingdom Hearts series, which apparently served as inspiration, I’m wondering how it will all play out. Final Fantasy XIII set a high bar in that department as far as I’m concerned, so we’ll have to wait and see if the action approach preserves the tactical latitude necessary for solid RPG combat.

This is roughly how it looked on my stream.

One must wonder if Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is as painful to play as it was to watch.

Abiding the pithiness, Watch_Dogs continues to look like one seriously sweet-ass autogame. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it once more: Wake me when it’s in stores; I’m done with these scripted demos, as they do nothing to dispel my very real doubts about the agency this game is willing to afford the player.

Pop quiz — What was worse: LeBron’s criminally awkward chat with his digital replica, or The Elder Scrolls Online? Trick question; I’ve already offed myself.

In all seriousness, the answer is Fallout 4–oh hold on. IT’S MAD MAX. FROM AVALANCHE STUDIOS. If this news came as a disappointment to you, consider picking up another hobby. Please.

So here it is, the shot heard round the world (and most certainly in Microsoft’s den of evil):

The first time a Zelda-like meltdown was appropriate. Perhaps the last.

Microsoft had apparently assumed that Sony was going to happily follow them into their toxic infernoland of corporate gaming control, the place where game ownership goes to die. They assumed Sony would just as readily turn game discs into license dispensers, little more than the physical equivalent of a Steam code to be used and discarded. They assumed Sony would also apply an online check system, requiring you to connect every 24 hours lest have a $499 oversized paperweight on your hands.

Well they were dead fucking wrong, and thank God for that.

Sony, in rejecting those draconian policies, threw the most damaging haymaker in E3 history, forcing Microsoft to completely abandon their calamitous vision of the future, if only for a few years.  You can almost picture the stuffed suits scrambling around like headless chickens to put things in reverse. It feels good.

Not good is the fact that they’re still being undercut by a hundred bucks, all thanks to the piece of festering garbage known as Kinect. You want to see what “hardcore Kinect” games look like? Try Ryse, it began life as one. While I would suggest flipping the device, it is still required for the console to operate, as far as I know. Good luck getting anyone to buy it anyway.

Oh, and the dopes who suggested the no DRM hashtag campaign was pointless? Well, they were dead fucking wrong too.

Take a seat for this one: He never responded.

Closing the presser was Bungie, who brought along a meaty gameplay demo (!!!) of their ambitious new em em oh eff pee ess, Destiny. Hackneyed banter aside — seriously guys, stop doing this to yourselves — what was shown looked solid enough, if a bit too Borderlands for my liking. It’s hard to get a good read on how the game will play in the moment to moment, but Bungie has certainly earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to delivering a great shooter.

In conclusion: Sony beat the shit out of everyone. Thank you and goodnight.

E3 2013: Here Are Some Very Important Microsoft Opinions (Mine)

E3 2013 is in the bag, the curtain lifted on the 8th generation of gaming.  The press conferences have come and gone, leaving us to hem and haw over the fresh new product from now until November. But the question paramount in your mind is indubitably this: What are Jacob Ross’s thoughts? Fret not, dear reader, for I am here to enchant you with incisive observations and whip-sharp criticism that you’ll find nowhere else. Nowhere!

We start with Microsoft, and we start with the whip.

Aren’t you so excited!

Microsoft walked into LA with an inky black cloud hovering ominously overhead, their abominable DRM policies at the front of everyone’s mind. Given the context, I suppose Microsoft never had a chance. Make no mistake, theirs was a solid conference. “Games, games, games” was the mantra for weeks leading up, and they delivered exactly what they had promised, to their credit. Not a Kinect in sight, and thank God for that.

Kicking off a show with a showstopper is always a questionable move, but that’s exactly what Microsoft chose to do, opening cold with a stunning new trailer for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. My personal game of the show, MGSV is an absolutely tremendous looking title, seemingly pulling the best aspects of MGS3 and blowing them up to open-world scale. The concept of free-form Metal Gear gameplay has me thinking this will be in the game of the gen conversation for many years to come.

I refuse to believe it was the current gen version that was shown. How much better can it get?

Next up was the rumored World of Tanks Xbox 360 Edition, proving once again exactly why we need more enthusiastic Eastern Europeans on stage at E3. As for the game, I don’t see any reason to get excited. I’ve never played World of Tanks, but if I ever chose to do so, it would be on PC. Why? Number one: It’s PC. Number two: “Free to play with Gold” isn’t fucking free to play. Piss off.

Annnd cah-mendyour tenk!

Dark Souls II makes a welcome appearance with a freshly minted trailer featuring a delightfully ill-fitting musical selection. Regardless, it’s Dark Souls II, and it will be in the running for GoTY 2014, despite what all the Chicken Littles out there would have you believe. If there’s a Dark Souls you should really be worried about, it’s Dark Souls III. We’ll cross that bridge when it comes.

Ah good, Phil Spencer is here, exuding as much overbearing smugness as ever.

A face carved from PR granite

Ever catch yourself wondering what a full-on industry self-parody would look like? Well congratulations, because with Ryse: Son of Rome, your question has been answered. This stack of garbage has it all: Call of Duty‘s trademark protagonist knockout with the tired shell-shock recovery, bang-wow spectacle cutscenes tearing control away at every turn, hyper-linear level progression, and some of THE worst QTE-infested combat I’ve ever seen in a videogame — representing the nadir of the medium and appealing to the lowest common denominator imaginable. It was an absolute embarrassment for this junk to be shown on the big stage, and I can only hope that everyone was laughing out loud along with me. Oh how Crytek have fallen.

Do not buy this game. Please, do not buy this fucking game.

As Crytek bossman Cevat Yerli makes his exit from the stage as well as my gaming life, we are introduced to a new Killer Instinct. I don’t know who asked for this, but it sure as hell wasn’t me.

Ted Price, having just arrived in LA after destroying all evidence of Fuse‘s existence, brings with him one of my personal favorites: A CG trailer. It was rather interesting, I suppose, but it’s hard to be exited for something that tells us precisely dick about the actual product.

Time for Forza. Time for a laugh.

Dan Greenawalt verbally masturbating the McLaren P1 while ejaculating such nonsensical PR blather as “the near-limitless power of cloud processing” and “the end of AI” was a fitting metaphor for the sad direction of the Forza Motorsport line, now focused more on meaningless bulletpoint features and empty hype than actually trying to craft a better racing experience. Dan picked up the controller and pretended to play the game, saying, “Watch the opponents in this race. They don’t drive like AI. They drive like people,” as the orange car veers violently to the right, jackknifing his opponent in a fashion that would see you suspended in any real racing league. Oh, it’s what I’ve always wanted! Online first turns transposed to singleplayer in all their destructive glory! I’ll continue to stick with NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, perhaps the last game to present a proper fucking career mode. Expect your crushingly monotonous event list grind-gauntlet to land this fall, only on Xbox One.

“Your naked body can literally feel the heat exuding from the raw skin of these saucy Goodyears. I, too, will need a rubber.”

Minecraft is here as well, continuing its quest to become the next Dragon’s Lair. Everyone should have played this already, and nobody should still be doing so.

Another doctored-up trailer is waiting for us on the other side of the block game, this time for Remedy’s Quantum Break Origins: Retribution Unleashed or something of that sort. There was nothing to see so there’s really nothing to say. I’m not one of those who pummel relentlessly games like Heavy Rain as not being games at all, so I’ll give this new kid a shot. Or not, seeing as it’s Xbox One exclusive. Oh well. That goes for D4, too. Shame.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before Xbox got their own version of Little Big Planet, but Project Spark did look genuinely promising; it’s easy to see how community content creators could really craft some nifty things with their logic systems. Do please clean up the framerate, though. And cut the fucking banter, for the love of god.

Smartglass bullshit and more Killer Instinct up next, great time to take a piss break. And cut the fucking banter, for the love of god.

Fuck you

I will give Microsoft props for dropping MS points, though in the same way I would give Obama props for dropping wiretaps — it’s hard to celebrate moving away from a policy that should have never existed in the first place.

Crimson Dragon sounds great (ehehe).

We now reach a truly magical moment in this E3 press conference: The first extended live game demo (Ryse, failing to qualify as a game, does not count). I’ve always been interested in playing Dead Rising, so I did find myself entertained by what was shown, despite the fatiguing environment. Cutting your way through the zombie hoards with all manner of improvised Home Depot weapons seems like quite a bit of fuwaitaminute is he seriously calling in a SMARTPHONE AIRSTRIKE? Praise revoked; fuck this game.

The Witcher 3 now with a fancy lookin’ trailer and mermaid tits to boot. I could never really dig into the first Witcher, but it’s getting to the point where I may have no choice but to force myself through; this series seems to be holding a steep upward trajectory.

Before you fire the technical guys, let’s talk Battlefield 4. There are few games I’m less interested in, but the announcement of 60 FPS on consoles indicates a firm understanding of what makes Call of Duty so popular, and signifies a bolstered next-gen commitment to usurping the manshoot king’s throne. Personally I’d like to see them both crash and burn as they deserve, but we can’t always get what we want, can we?

My idea, don’t steal: +25 XP popup every time you take a step. That’s next-gen positive reinforcement.

Wonder if 343 will find their balls with Halo 5? Find out in 17 short months.

Microsoft realized that yes, they did have to announce that price at some point. And what a price it is! Five hundred United States greenbacks will get you the online-checkin’, used-game blockin’ machine of your dreams! Who among us isn’t going to be lining up in droves to pay a $100+ premium for the next generation of Kinect?

In all seriousness, it’s a disastrous price point, made all the worse by Sony’s hundred-dollar undercut later that day.  Microsoft will be launching at a premium price with the weaker console, one saddled with core-toxic DRM that will keep all but the most faithful at arms reach. I honestly don’t know who they think is going to buy the Xbox One at launch, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned about Microsoft’s next-generation strategy, it’s that they aren’t hurting for hubris.

To close, we received our first look at Respawn’s first creation, Titanfall. If Call of Duty had the luxury of a healthy series progression instead of being pressed into yearly service, I’d imagine Titanfall is roughly where they would have ended up. I have very little interest in yet another multiplayer shooter — I’ve had quite enough of those — but I can’t deny that it looked a marked step up from the competition. I do find it a bit comical how they’ve managed to squeeze the trademark cinematic flourish into the multiplayer realm, with NPCs barking in your ear and a lavish pre-round hotdrop. Inevitable, I suppose.

Yyyyyup, it’s from the CoD guys

So that’s Microsoft. Everyone can agree they had some really solid content, everyone can agree they had some serious duds, and surely everyone can agree that nothing they showed could take even a rat’s whiff of the stink off their all-in-one shitbox. Nice show boys, see you never.

Review Notebook: Bioshock Infinite

Not every keen observation or incisive critique can make the final review cut. Review Notebook brings to you my sometimes inane but occasionally entertaining raw playthrough scribblings to fill in the critical picture. Choice bits in bold.

• Cipher system is terrible. Requires 3-5 minutes of backtracking for a unrewarding cache
• In-game chatter nearly mutes the voxophones, requiring you to open the gameplay tab to repeat it
• Gear system is, much like the ciphers, completely half-baked
• Elizabeth, according to the loading note, feels for the people of Shantytown, yet…
• Elizabeth doesn’t respond at all to my slaughter of the unarmed Vox
• Plaza of Zeal gunfight: why can’t I use the Skyhook?
• The pacing is just awful ex: Find Lin -> he’s not at his shop -> Find Lin -> he’s dead -> Find Lin in otherworld -> he’s back at his shop -> Find Lin’s tools (really?) -> we’re now in another timeline, the vox have already risen in rebellion
• Two weapon limit is absurd and restrictive
• Skylines are a wasted opportunity, far too scarce
• Combat mechanics and weapon feedback are miles better than Bioshock
• “Inventory” and item systems are jokes
• Why can’t I kill kids? Seems a bit silly to allow the player to slaughter everyone in Shantytown save for that one unresponsive kid by the fire
• The food tear was a great moment, maybe the game’s best yet
• The Preston Downs grizzly trap voxophone is found in a combat arena. As he spoke of the child’s injuries, I was shooting rockets at a turret. Unbelievable.
• Voxophones don’t work in the world of Bioshock Infinite. They worked in System Shock 2 because calamity had already befallen the Von Braun. It was also a quieter and more methodically paced game. You had to allocate time for menus and submenus, inventory and research and skills and so on. Plenty of down time away from combat and free from a chatty companion. Bioshock Infinite is fast, with no inventory to manage; you’re constantly zipping around, rummaging though bins or desks. It’s easy to interrupt the voxophone; rummage noises, gunfire, and someone talking will drop the voxophone audio dramatically, forcing you to open up the gameplay tab to replay it.
• Combat can be quite enjoyable when it isn’t arena-based
• The guns for Fitzroy are in exchange for the First Lady
• So the entire Chen Lin plotline was a complete waste of time. As expected.
• All the timeline hopping really robs the player of any sense of accomplishment
• The elevator exposition is getting tiring
• “You just complicate the narrative” Oh my god
• Fink looking through tears to Rapture to inspire Songbird and the vigors is comically meta
• I stood for a good minute waiting for Fitzroy to shoot the kid. Can’t kill kids, that’s immoral!
• “Comfort Elizabeth” UGH
• Elizabeth’s plot point character growth haircut is entirely too sudden
• Why did that one lock take 10 times as long to pick? To deliver exposition, that’s right. How appropriately lazy.
• Infusions and voxophones are all the game has for special loot. Really kills any satisfaction from exploration.
• The Vox Lincoln Patriots are a nice touch
• For fuck’s sake, why on earth can’t I manual save? Inexcusable.
• Should we do the legwork to properly place ammo throughout the levels to keep the players stocked? How about we just make Elizabeth a walking dispenser instead?
• 15 minute stretch where I wanted to quit, but had to wait for a checkpoint. Absolutely unacceptable.
• Songbird never feels like a threat, only appearing in scripted cutscenes and apparently unable to see Booker peeking over a counter.
• Handymen are entirely too aggressive and mobile, never giving you a chance to do anything but run, then shoot for a brief moment. No strategy, no variance, no possibility for entrapment. A big, agile bulletsponge.
• I don’t understand why ammo types were removed, and I’m also disappointed that upgrades no longer have a visual impact
• Mechanized Patriots can actually be fun to fight — a slow heavy with a critical health rush and a weak point that rewards good positioning. Certainly better than the Handyman.
• 90% of gear is useless junk.
• The Lady Comstock boss fight is terrible. Terrible.
• Good sound effects: Sinking airship, Lady Comstock
• The quest for the tears is dull as bricks
• Why the hell do I fight Lady Comstock twice? What, they didn’t think I had enough fun the first time? What a piece of shit.
• At least I could keep my distance in the third [Lady] Comstock fight
• Columbia attacking 1984 New York. Right.
• These fucking bulletsponge enemies, ugh.
• “Pull Comstock off Elizabeth” Hahahaha, these QTEs are something else.
• Well, that’s one way to end a game.

Review: Bioshock Infinite (PC)

A wonderful world wasted

[This review contains moderate spoilers. You have been tepidly warned.]

Descending into the rancid depths of Shantytown — the dank quarter of Columbia that serves as home for the city’s impoverished labor — the game notes rather tritely during a loading screen how greatly your much-ballyhooed companion Elizabeth “feels for the people” of this inhospitable pit. As such, it came as quite the surprise to me that, after systemically slaughtering Shantytown’s entire interactive populace (sans children, of course!) with all manner of bullet, flame and crow in a fashion most gruesome, my altruistic ally jaunted around the corpse-riddled masonry as if nothing had ever happened, joining me in song in the basement of a rundown bar, offering up an orange to a frightened child who I had in all probability just orphaned. It’s one of the most ludicrous things I’ve ever experienced in a game, made all the more dizzying by the apparent focus on crafting Elizabeth as a quantum leap in video game companionship. Bioshock Infinite, in this and many other aspects, fails spectacularly.

A quantum leap in compassion

Quality is a scarce commodity in Bioshock Infinite, so just as you consume the appetizer before the main course, I too will save the juicy bits for later.

I’ve said before quite definitively that the original Bioshock features the most astoundingly terrible combat mechanics to cross my path in 15-plus years of gaming. It was criminally bad in truth: ugly weapons making ugly sounds, audio often cutting in and out, with enemies taking entirely too much punishment before crumbling to the floor with a physics engine that seemed to run at 10 FPS. Crafting combat this awful requires serious effort.

Irrational learned their lesson with Infinite, though regrettably not their lesson. Combat draws inspiration from the Call of Duty series, featuring hit markers, quick sighting and easy recoil management. Enemies, at least for the first half of the game, go down with satisfying ease, a fleeting delight considering it’s predecessor’s love for bullet-chewing supermen. And the woefully underutilized Skylines are an absolute treat in combat, capturing the excitement of a good roller coaster and granting the player a fantastic level of maneuverability. Weapons sound good, look good, and in shocking defiance of my expectations, feel good. That’s all fine and dandy — weapon handling and feedback is one of the few things Call of Duty excels at — but it’s a shame Irrational didn’t look closer to home.

The high point for Bioshock Infinite’s combat: Raffle Square, one hour in

No nostalgia goggles here: System Shock 2, a game I completed for the first time earlier this year, is a tremendous title, the high water mark that Irrational continues to regress from in some misguided play for a more mainstream audience.

Combat in System Shock 2 is great for one reason and one reason only.  It rewards intelligent play with immediacy. As an assault rifle-toting marine I was able, with targeted upgrades and proper ammunition usage, to drop damn near every adversary in the game with two to three shots. Menacing Rumbler hard charging down the corridor? Load in anti-personnel rounds and make short work of him. Rocket spewing murderbot primed to dismember you? Armor-piercing rounds will turn it to scrap before you can say “nah”.

Who needs armor-piercing rounds?

Bioshock, to its credit, kept this ammo selection system in place nearly as it was. Your foes were still entirely too spongy, but at least it gave the player a sense of reward for using a system to your advantage.

For reasons beyond my comprehension, Bioshock Infinite has done away with this feature entirely.

Why? Why on earth would you remove something that could have added some much-needed tactical depth to the game? What is the trade-off? And on the subject of removal, it is baffling that weapon upgrades no longer have a visual impact on the weapon model. It gives your Bioshock arsenal a real sense of progression when, for example, the lowly revolver becomes by the game’s end a monstrous contraption of slipshod steel with a comically large cylinder.

The reason for this removal is due to the two weapon limitation imposed on the player. I suppose when you draw inspiration from Call of Duty, you take the good with the bad. And this is as bad as it gets.

What incentive is there for me to upgrade my weapons when I have no guarantee that particular weapon will have ammunition in healthy supply or even be strategically advantageous for the next hour of gameplay? There were times where I would drop a favored weapon, dry of ammunition or in lieu of a more immediately relevant gun, only to wish for its return with the discovery of an ammo cache or a change in the landscape. The intention seems to be forcing a give-and-take choice onto the player, but the awkward and restrictive implementation presents more problems than virtues.

Not pictured: The massive, open air arena where I grabbed this rifle 5 minutes ago

Speaking of awkward implementation, let’s take a moment to examine the voxophone system, ripped straight from Shocks past with all the care of a gorilla.

Audio logs worked well in System Shock 2 and Bioshock for two reasons primarily. First, they offered a window into the game world prior to, during and immediately after a cataclysmic event, conveying context to the player’s present environment. Second, both games offered ample downtime, both audio and otherwise, giving you an opportunity to listen to the log in full. System Shock 2 in particular is a quieter and more methodically paced game. The player had to allocate time for menus and sub-menus, skills and research. There was plenty of space away from combat and free from the presence of a chatty companion.

Listening to Bioshock Infinite‘s audio logs is an exercise in frustration, presenting you with 20-plus second sound clips that effectively force you to stand still and listen, lest you venture past a trigger point for some sort of in-game exposition, drowning out the log audio and forcing you into the gameplay tab to replay the bit. It’s a fast game with no inventory to manage; you’re constantly zipping around tearing into trash cans and throwing fire at people. Aural congestion is the name of the game here.

That’s right, good friend, Bioshock‘s rummaging system is back as well, and as dreadful as ever. Yes, it’s a rummaging system, and don’t try to tell me otherwise. Much of your time not spent shooting bad dudes in the face is with head cocked 45 degrees downward, sprinting around the gorgeous environs of Columbia like an addict looking for his next trash can fix, smashing the use key against anything that remotely looks like it could house chocolates or a pack of cigs (or both). It is the ultimate casualization, a disgusting streamlining of a great game system.

Booker’s latest dumpster diving haul

It’s a crying shame too, because Columbia in its finer moments is one of the most visually stunning settings I’ve seen in a game. Nearly every moment packs the screen with splendor, none more jaw-dropping than the post-baptism plaza near the beginning; I spent a good deal of time just taking it all in, the faint bell-ringing in the distance serving as the artistic icing on top.

As the game goes on, I do feel that Columbia loses its mojo significantly. Perhaps this can be attributed to the intentional lack of environmental oppression as we experienced on the Von Braun or in Rapture, but I found myself wishing the game was more in-your-face with the mile-high setting; too often I found myself forgetting how fantastical the locale was, a product of one too many rote interior segments, perhaps. Again, the Skylines should have played a much more prominent role to really trade effectively on the skyward environment.

Bioshock Infinite‘s plot has been combed over to hell and back by this point, and I’m not about to stick my head out into the debate. The ending was nonsensical upon first viewing, and becomes merely palatable after sussing out the details. Compared to what came before, it is easily the narrative high point of the game.

Really hard-hitting moral dilemma, fellas

Pacing is something I value quite highly in a game; Resident Evil 4 is the best game I’ve ever played due in no small part to the unrivaled pacing; don’t expect another constantly engaging 20 hour action title any time soon. Bioshock Infinite falls on the other end of that spectrum entirely, forcing me to trudge through a game that marks off in legendarily bad fashion.

Take for example the mid-game quest to supply the Vox Populi with armaments from the ever-elusive gunsmith Chen Lin. I’ll let my notes do the talking:

The pacing is just awful ex: Find Lin -> he’s not at his shop -> Find Lin -> he’s dead -> Find Lin in otherworld -> he’s back at his shop -> Find Lin’s tools (really?) -> we’re now in another timeline, the vox have already risen in rebellion

So the entire Chen Lin plotline was a complete waste of time. As expected.

What I just described constitutes roughly 1/5 of the game. An entire fifth of the game is essentially a narrative wild goose chase in pursuit of an ultimately irrelevant bit character. When this plot thread closed, I dropped the game for three days. Stunning stuff.

The rest of the narrative fares little better. Infinite loves to toss you through wormholes, bouncing around through different timelines; the unfortunate side effect being that any sense of player accomplishment is robbed when the game can whisk you around as befits the plot at any given time — it represents the worst of modern, railroaded storytelling.

The game is packed to the brim with these little moments of incompetence.

The most emotionally engaging voxophone of the game, chronicling audio-only NPC Preston Downs’s experience catching a small child in his bear trap, is found in the middle of a combat arena. As ridiculous as it sounds, you must believe me: as Preston’s voice buckled speaking of the child’s gruesome injuries, at that very moment, I was engaged in a rocket duel with an RPG-spewing turret.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME

Fink, the moustache-twirling captain of industry who invented vigors and created the Songbird, is revealed to have been inspired, in comically meta fashion, by peering through a tear at Rapture’s plasmids and Big Daddies.

Songbird, what we all assumed to be Infinite‘s Big Daddy analogue, never actually engages the player in interactive combat, completely diminishing any potential threat or tension it could have presented.

Handymen, the massive mechanical menaces that actually serve as the title’s Big Daddies, are entirely too aggressive and mobile, never giving you a chance to do anything but run run run, then shoot for a brief moment. No strategy, no variance, no possibility for entrapment. A big, agile bulletsponge.

There is a boss in the game whose attack pattern consists solely of floating around an arena, raising legions of mooks to toss your way as you chip futilely at their king-sized health bar, often running out of ammo in the process (thanks, two weapon limit!) You are forced to fight this boss, with no gameplay deviation or discernible difference, THREE TIMES.

Irrational chose not to impose a time limit on plot related QTEs, so imagine my endless mirth when, as Comstock grappled with Elizabeth near the end, I went to take a piss. Upon returning, there they were, sure enough, still locked in an endless, fruitless struggle. I watched for another minute or two, increasingly amused at the absurdity of the situation. One of the few times I was genuinely entertained by Bioshock Infinite.

Quite a lovely water fixture, I must say!

And so we return to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is a redundancy. A living, breathing, beautifully animated and relentlessly emotive redundancy. For all the pre-release smoke and mirrors painting a grandiose picture of the AI companion forever changed, Elizabeth serves only as an uninspired developer’s mechanical catch-all, a disappointing amalgamation of well-worn and entirely expected gameplay aspects thrown haphazardly together in an equally haphazard attempt to create a bond between player and character.

Obscured: A poor’s head exploding. At left: Elizabeth feeling for the citizens of Shantytown

Ask yourself, what purpose does Elizabeth serve? To call in from the void chunks of cover, crates of supplies and the ubiquitous freight hooks that all seem suspiciously like parts of the original landscape tagged for other-worldliness? It truly does feel like bits of the geography were cut out into separate pieces only that they could be brought back in at the press of a key; they call this a “feature”.

And why go through the bother of hand-placing health, salts and ammunition intelligently throughout the level — rewarding the player who keeps on the move — when we can have Elizabeth toss any needed consumables at the player whenever they run low? It will create an emotional connection! I too tend to gravitate towards people who constantly throw money at my face.

Oh, but don’t you worry your pretty little head about protecting her! You see, real mechanical evolution happens when you completely sidestep the most difficult and stifling problems!

Bioshock Infinite‘s ultimate answer to the AI companion question is an invincible, chatty item launcher with an affection for elevator exposition and a moral compass stuck on “he probably didn’t just eviscerate that civilian, have some more rockets”. Not only does it fail to push us forward, it is, like so much of this game, a sobering regression. A reminder that all the gloss and glitter and gold, all the talk and hype and Metacritic-massaging in the world can’t overcome another AAA parade of incompetence.

Bioshock was a bad game because of its combat. Incredibly, Bioshock Infinite is a bad game in spite of it.

The Ross 117 – Day 15

Two weeks I managed. Two weeks before the gaming tsunami overwhelmed me back to old habits. Not a bad start.

In the interim, I completed Dishonored and Cry of Fear, put 20 hours into Fire Emblem Awakening, 15 hours into Deadly Premonition, and 10 hours into XCOM Enemy Unknown, with a touch of MLB 13, a pinch of Forza 4, and a dash of Skate 3. I wrapped up Pyscho Pass, and fell in love with Attack on Titan. I’m back into my biking regimen, and eagerly awaiting Animal Crossing: New Leaf, hoping to recapture the adolescent joy of my time in Dogville all those years ago.

It’s been a productive spell.

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75. Mass Effect [PC, 2007]

Grant Bioware this much and no more: the combat of Mass Effect 2 is a galactic leap ahead of the dreck on display here. And regretfully, that’s really the only thing keeping Mass Effect so low on this list, for I can think of few games that manage to construct such a rich and compelling fictional universe in a freshman effort (and squander it so spectacularly in subsequent entries, but that’s for another time).

Who wasn’t stunned by the magnificent Citadel reveal, spellbound by the fantastic electronic ambiance of the Wards, or genuinely torn over the decision on Virmire? The world building is second to none, and the core narrative, while certainly not gaming’s finest, serves the universe well.

More’s the shame that the combat is so clumsy and lethargic, what with it’s pincushion foes and 60 second power cooldowns. It’s a festering mess that does its damnedest to ruin an otherwise generation-defining title, an accolade that we see Bioware, arm outstretched, reaching so desperately for, but as the slow motion kicks in, they slip away quietly into the void. It’s then you realize — this is as close as they would ever get.

74. Ys: The Oath in Felghana [PC, 2012]

As my first Ys title, I did what any sensible person would do and dialed that son of a bitch up to hard. I like a good challenge, and Ys: The Oath in Felghana gives me a good challenge. There are plots and fleshy talk-units and various other things of middling importance, but we’re here to cut things up nice like — the blistering pace and intensity of combat leaves little time and even less desire for all those ancillary bits.

Also, this game shreds.

73. Half-Life 2: Episode One [PC, 2006]

“Blah bloo it’s the best game ever made wow” bleat the ever-enchanted experience gamers whenever one so much as whispers the name Half-Life 2, an opinion so ubiquitous and culturally ingrained that any and all to the contrary are scoffed at and shuffled out. Half-Life 2, truth be told, is not all it’s cracked up to be, and not nearly as favored by Father Time as it’s decidedly superior predecessor. Episode One is the worst of it.

Let’s cut it quick: Alyx is not, has never been, and will never be, a good companion.

She isn’t particularly endearing like Bioshock Infinite‘s Elizabeth, she doesn’t present gameplay relevance like Resident Evil 4‘s Ashley, and she certainly can’t stack up to the adventurous splendor of Timesplitter‘s perennial favourite (like the Brits) Captain Ash.

So you spend the short duration slogging through, with one underground exception, some dreadfully boring environments, accompanied by an AI of little importance or impact, longing for another pulse-pounding engagement with Half-Life‘s menacing Marines as you *pock* *pock* another inept metrocop.