Category: the first few hours

The First Few Hours: Assassin’s Creed Unity

Yeah, so.  I made it to Paris, did one side mission (which tasked me with – for real – finding 3 severed heads for Madame Tussaud), opened up a few trunks, and called it a night.   I am going to stick with it until Tuesday, when GTA V HD and Dragon Age Inquisition come out, and at that point I’ll either decide to stick with it or send it back.

Let’s leave aside the horrendous frame rate, the glitches, and the ridiculous story for the moment – these are all known issues, widely discussed and documented, and I couldn’t possibly claim to have seen enough of the game to comment with any sort of authority (even if I have run into some really bad frame rate issues and some amusing but non-game-breaking glitches).

For me, personally, of all the frustrating things about the AC franchise and Unity in particular, perhaps the most annoying is the UI.  I really wanted to take some screenshots last night, because when the framerate is stable and there aren’t NPCs randomly floating through a room (God, how I wish I’d taken video of that), the game can look quite stunning.

Except that there’s all this stupid bullshit cluttering the screen – maps, waypoint icons, mission reminders, currency counters, inventory numbers, eagle vision timers… I mean, I get it; I understand the point of the meta-story, where Ubisoft (er, Abstergo) is constantly trying to reinforce the idea that you’re in some sort of memory Matrix and that none of “the game” is real; but didn’t I already agree to that conceit when I sat down on my living room couch with a PS4 controller in my hand?  It’s impossible to be fully immersed in the world when there’s so much extraneous shit on the screen.

Of all the stuff I’ve read about Assassin’s Creed Unity thus far, I think it’s this Rock Paper Shotgun review that most closely resembles both my initial impressions about AssUnit and also about the franchise as a whole.  When these games are good, they’re really good (AC:Brotherhood, AC4); when they’re bad, they’re among the most frustrating things I’ve ever played (AC:Revelations, AC3).  It’s obviously too soon for me to know where Unity will lie on that scale, and yet I already feel overwhelmed by the extreme over-abundance of side activities, the crowded UI, and the game constantly reminding me at every opportunity that it’s a game.

I am hopeful that a patch can come out (soon) that will iron out some of the more glaring technical issues, but the problems with AC at this point – and with Ubisoft’s open-world philosophy as a whole, really – are much deeper than unstable frame rates.  Ubi’s big 3 – Watch Dogs, AC, and Far Cry – all feel very much alike, even as they aim towards different ends; and the homogeneity of their experiences coupled with their ubiquity starts to get suffocating after a while.  It’s already exhausting to go through a new AC every year, and Far Cry 3 was a handful in and of itself; I can’t do this same thing every 6 months.

Anyway.  I’ll have more to say about it after the weekend, I suppose, but it could very well be more of what you’ve already heard.

The First Few Hours (for real): Xbox One, Sunset Overdrive, Forza Horizon 2

1.  Before I get into the topic at hand, a confession:  I haven’t written for NaNo in 2 days.  Nor am I sure I’m going to pick up where I left off, if in fact I do decide to keep going; the subject matter is a bit more emotionally loaded and intense than I’d thought.  If I’m going to successfully fictionalize it, I need to understand it first, and boy oh boy am I not emotionally prepared to do that at this present moment in time.

2.  And in keeping with things that make me feel depressed, I can’t help but notice that my writing just sucks these days.  Even just emails to friends, FB status updates, and twitter replies – they all feel like they’re coming out wrong.  I’m feeling very much like Salieri; I have a tremendous passion for writing, but I feel that I lack the natural ability to do it as well as I’d like.  I may very well end up taking more classes.

This is all to say that trying to write a novel about super-intense emotional stuff when I’m feeling like I can’t even write a simple declarative sentence that’s enjoyable to read is discouraging, and depressing, and ugh.

3.  It’s November, which means that it’s time to start getting to work on year-end Top 10 lists.  To that end, I’ve been making it a priority to listen to all the 2014 albums I’ve saved on Spotify that I’ve never actually got around to listening to.  I’ll be putting out a playlist of my favorite songs soon enough; but there are also some albums that I’m loving the hell out of that don’t necessarily have one stand-out song.  Case in point:  Adult Jazz, “Gist Is”, which is (to me) a beautiful, melodic mixture of the avant-garde songwriting structures of Dirty Projectors and the latent melancholy that dwells within certain Vampire Weekend songs.  I can see why some listeners might find it incredibly pretentious and off-putting, but it’s been hitting me really deep of late.  Another case in point: the new Deerhoof album, “La Isla Bonita”, which might be the best (and most accessible) album they’ve put out since “The Runners Four.”  Likewise, Run The Jewels 2 and Flying Lotus’ “You’re Dead” are both utterly amazing headtrips, and near-impossible to pick just one or two tracks that stand out from the rest.

4.  So:  when I got home last night, both Sunset Overdrive and Forza Horizon 2 had finished downloading.  I’m enjoying both of them, but it’s also entirely possible that my current weird, depressive mind-state is making it difficult for me to fully engage with either game.

I appreciate Sunset Overdrive’s over-the-top lunacy, it’s vibrant color palette, and that it’s breaking the fourth wall at every possible opportunity, just to show you that it’s not taking itself too seriously.  To that end, it’s also possible that being self-aware of how un-self-aware you are is also a form of overt self-awareness, and so the more bananas it tries to be, the more silly and toy-like it becomes.   It reminds me a great deal of Crackdown – it’s similarly graphically vibrant, non-linear, and you basically jump and soar and fly and blow shit up, but I don’t feel like I’m moving as quickly as I’d like (I suppose that’s something I’ll be leveling up at some point); it also reminds me a great deal of Sony’s Infamous games (especially the grinding and other traversal maneuvers), except that the traversal in Sunset Overdrive feels a bit more convoluted and non-intuitive – two button presses to grind, plus shooting?  I get the hang of it, but I don’t feel like I’ve mastered the controls as quickly as I should.

I’ve only dabbled with one or two events in Forza Horizon 2.  It’s astonishingly gorgeous – far better-looking than I expected – and I’m also really happy with how the Xbox One controller feels while driving.  The rumble is pleasingly intense, the buttons are well-placed, the triggers feel responsive; unlike in Sunset, I felt in control the entire time.  I may end up spending more time with this one, which is fine with me; I loved the first game, and this one looks like a bigger and better model.

As for the Xbox One itself?  I like it.  I like the system.  The dashboard is overwhelming at first but it does make sense, and it’s fun to engage with in ways that the PS4 isn’t.  My wife and I got rid of cable and we have a Roku3, so I don’t think I’ll be using the TV functionality all that much, but that’s fine.  I will still more than likely continue to use the PS4 as my primary console (especially as long as multi-platform releases continue to perform better on it), but I’m glad to be back in Xbox land, and I kinda forgot how much I liked earning Achievements.  (Sorry, Sony – trophies just aren’t the same.)

The First (and Last?) Few Hours: Alien Isolation

[Before I begin, I’d like to bestow hearty congratulations to Davey Wreden, whose magnificent Stanley Parable has sold one million copies.]

I do not know if I will finish Alien: Isolation, but I’m not sure that I need to.  I’m probably 7-8 hours into it by this point, and a rather large percentage of that time has been spent hiding in lockers and under desks, and, I mean, I get it.

For all its flaws (and it has a bunch, of which I’ll get to in a second), A:I has triumphantly succeeded in a very specific and important way; instead of aping the frenetic shoot-em-up action of the sequel (which would really just make it your standard sci-fi shooter), it understands what makes the first movie so great, which is to say that it’s captured the feeling of helplessness and pure dread better than anything else I’ve played in recent memory.

You have to hide in this game, because you cannot fight.  This is not to say that you’re powerless – you do have weapons, and you can certainly use them to kill, if you must.  But firing a gun will almost always draw the attention of the Alien, and once the Alien spots you, it’s more or less “game over, man.”

And if you’re playing this game with a good set of stereo headphones, every single goddamned noise you hear will set you on edge, ducking for cover, holding your breath and quickly opening your motion tracker to figure out where the sound is coming from.  I’m not sure I’ve experienced ambient noise design this effectively creepy since the first Bioshock.

Unlike other “horror” games, it does not revel in grotesque imagery – indeed, while the game’s environments are graphically impressive, its humans are surprisingly weird-looking, and while there are plenty of dead bodies strewn about, they’re never disgusting or gross – if anything, they’re kinda just sad.  Nor is A:I’s horror mostly based in jump scares; I’m almost never startled.  I mean, I’m in a constant state of worry anyway, because of the sounds in the vents, or because my motion tracker will occasionally beep with alarm, or I’ll see the glowing, super-creepy eyes of the Working Joes off in the distance.  And if I am surprised, I am also then immediately flooded with more worry and anxiety, because the monster is right there, and if I can’t hide in time then not only will I die, violently, but I’ll also lose the last 20-30 minutes since my last save, and ugh.

Now, about those flaws I mentioned.

The save system has been frequently mentioned in reviews as a negative design flaw; there’s no checkpoint system, and because the Alien (almost) never appears in the same place twice, you can either lose 20 seconds or 20 minutes if you’re not careful.  I’ve been a victim of this problem, but I can’t really call it a design flaw; it seems like a deliberate choice, and it’s one of the few ways that a horror game can actually make you feel that there are stakes involved.   That said, it’s a system that can also be abused; if you find a save point, you can also just forge ahead loudly and un-stealthily and see what there is to see, knowing that if you die, you won’t have lost very much, and that you’ll know how to better achieve your objective when you try for real.

The objectives, though?  Those things that you have to do in order to progress?  Ugh.  So dumb.  So inelegant.  So basic, artless, arbitrary, forgettable, cliches that were tired a dozen years ago.   The reason why I don’t care if I see the end of this game is because I barely care about what I’m already doing.  I need to find medical supplies to aid my colleague; but they’re on another level of the ship, because of course they are.  I get to that level; I find a doctor.  The doctor agrees to help, but only if I help him first, and I’ve already forgotten what it is I need to do for him, and in any event I have to do everything myself because of reasons.  Meanwhile, the Alien is near, and while there are lots of people on the ship, the Alien seems mostly interested in chasing me.

Whatever – I find the medical supplies and return to my fallen comrade.  And the head of the ship’s security system is there, too!  How fortuitous!  Except he’s also sending me out on security missions, which is not my job.

It’s great that the player character, Ripley fille, is a tough, no-nonsense woman who holds her own as well as anyone else in the game.  She is nobody’s princess; nobody needs to rescue her.  It’s just a shame that the stuff she’s being asked to do is so mundane.

 

 

The First Few Hours: Shadow of Mordor

This is all true:  tomorrow morning we’re getting the heck outta Dodge for a few days, but my brain is already there.  I’m unplugging from the internet, Twitter, social media, gaming, Clicker Heroes, and just thinking about it is making me impatient.  I’m even debating keeping my phone in airplane mode (even though we’re driving).  The only technology I’m considering packing is my Kindle and maybe my iPad (and the latter is mostly for the kid’s sake).

I’m gonna try to write about Shadow of Mordor anyway.

The title of this post is misleading, I should say right off the bat – I’m probably only an hour into it at most.  Per the advice of reviews/Twitfriends, I’m sticking to the main story and maintaining a stealthy approach, so I’ve only done the first 3 missions and nothing on the side.  I’m glad I took that advice, because the game doesn’t really present itself as necessitating a stealth-first approach (regardless of the tutorial where you press [] to kiss your wife ).

SoM_Kiss

 

If anything, the game’s first impression immediately brings both Assassin’s Creed and the Batman: Arkham games to mind, where you want to dive into a group of orcs and lay waste (all while carefully pressing the counter button when prompted).  Doing so in the early going promptly gets you killed, though, and getting killed makes the orc who killed you more powerful, and at this point we’ve all heard about the Nemesis system.  I very quickly stopped jumping into the fray and started switching up my tactics, and the game is pleasant enough at handling that sort of recon/stealth action, and so once I realized how I was supposed to play it, I started relaxing a bit.

There’s a lot to focus on in the early going.  There’s the nemesis system; there’s the main story but also side quests; there’s hidden artifacts (which you have to be in elf-form to discover, which took me a while to figure out); there’s orcs you can brand to gain intel (I accidentally stealth killed one of them by mistake… oops); there’s a weapon upgrade system (which involves runes you only get from killing enemies) and an ability upgrade system; there’s also flower picking (?!) and various environmental quests that go along with the flower picking (!?); and by a certain point I was feeling overwhelmed with all the stuff I had to learn, all on top of each other.  It’s the sort of situation where I know I’ll understand all this stuff in a few more hours of playtime, when the tutorials slow down, but it feels rather hasty and almost clumsy in the early going.

That being said, I’m grateful for a number of things that I’d forgotten I’d missed after spending so many hours with Destiny:

  • the ability to pause at any given moment
  • the ability to keep playing if my internet (or if PSN) goes down
  • the ability to read game lore WITHOUT HAVING TO USE A GODDAMNED iPHONE APP OMGWTFBBQ

I’m looking forward to getting back to it; I just hope I haven’t forgotten everything by the time I get back online.

 

 

The Last Few Hours: Destiny

Current Status:  Story complete; level 21.

Destiny_BG

I finished Destiny‘s story and hit level 20 on Thursday night, and then sloooooooowly grinded my way up to level 21 by Sunday night.  Did a lot of strikes, co-op missions/patrols, a few rounds in the Crucible.   (I am terrible at the Crucible.)  I’ll even cop to spending 20-30 minutes shooting at the Cave of Loot (though I didn’t get all that much for my efforts).

I am more or less done with it, though, I think.  While it’s true that the next big game doesn’t come out until 9/30 (Shadow of Mordor), I’m not really feeling the pull to keep coming back.  Destiny’s endgame is similar to Diablo III in many respects – you’re basically just doing the exact same stuff over and over and over again, grinding away for better gear, BUT Diablo III has several big advantages over Destiny, even if it’s similarly tedious after a while:  there’s far more to do in Diablo right now, the loot is far more generous, and you can also hit the pause button if you need to take a bathroom break or if your kid is crying or if your aging TV decides to suddenly switch itself off.

Now, to be fair, the launch version of Diablo III on PC had a similarly lackluster endgame and barely resembles its current form.  And as Bungie has repeatedly said that they’re playing the long game with Destiny, I fully expect new content to roll out over the next few months, and I might even come back to check it out every once in a while (though I expect I’ll be woefully outclassed when I do).

But even as Destiny’s gameplay remains mechanically solid – and it is, there’s no question about it – there’s almost nothing else that’s compelling me to stick with it.  Leveling past 20 is arduous and arbitrary (as @LegendaryEngram is so cruelly brilliant in pointing out).  The Strike playlist consists of maybe 4 missions – maybe there’s more, but it certainly feels like there’s only 4 – and I’ve done them all to death.  I’m done with final bosses that sponge up 15 minutes’ worth of shooting, and I’m even more done with final bosses that are bullet sponges AND teleport, because teleporting is bullshit.  Few things feel as cheap as when you only get one grenade that takes minutes to recharge, and then the boss vanishes mid-throw.

I’ve said before that it can be a bit of a critical cop-out to compare one game to another, and so it would be hypocritical of me to compare Destiny to its most obvious influences and contemporary titles – Mass Effect, Borderlands, Diablo III, Halo.  But if I’m being honest with myself – and therefore with you – I have to admit that the game that Destiny most reminded me of is this year’s Watch Dogs.  Both games were hyped beyond all rational measure, and they both appeared to look like phenomenal games during their preview stretch.  And then they came out… and left so much to be desired.  Both games featured solidly designed mechanics and impressive-looking graphics, both games eventually grew somewhat tedious and tiresome and repetitive, and both were saddled with dreadfully poor writing and voice performances (though it should be noted that each game’s writing is bad for much different reasons).  I think there’s obviously still plenty of time for Destiny to right the ship, and as said above Bungie’s playing the long game here, but as of right now, these two games are battling for my Biggest Disappointment of 2014 award.

The Next Few Hours: Destiny

Current Status:  Hit level 17 last night after finishing the first mission on Mars and having a successful Crucible run with some new friends.

A week after its release, my feelings about Destiny have become rather complex.  On the one hand, the things that are bad about it continue to be bad – laughably, horribly, stupifyingly bad.

On the other hand, well; I’ve spent the last 11 hours of my all-too-brief free time feeling more and more drawn to it, discovering the harmony within its gameplay rhythms, enjoying the slow but steady pull of new weapons and armor, exploring what there is to explore of Venus and Mars, and even dipping my toes into the PvP.

There’s no kind way to say this, and if you’re playing it you undoubtedly know this to be true:  the missions are dumb.  Go to point X, run the gauntlet, deploy the Ghost, fight off wave after wave after wave until the Ghost is finished.  (Indeed, the only way the missions could be worse is if your Ghost took damage.)  The reasons for doing any of this stuff are never explained – and if your answer is “But it’s in the app!” or “But it’s on Bungie.net!”, then you’re missing the entire point.  You can’t expect me to remain immersed in your game’s world if I have to have my iPhone next to me while I’m playing it – and when the only time I can read it is when I’m not actually playing.  I’d rather the use of audiologs, frankly, than having to read about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it on my iPhone when I’m in the bathroom.

And the game is also weirdly slavish to classic fantasy RPG conventions, even right down to the names of your enemies.  Why are the Vex – a robotic race of enemies – named Goblins, Harpies and Minotaurs?  Why are the Hive – insectoid-looking things – named Knights, Acolytes, Ogres and Wizards?   This is supposedly a sci-fi space opera – why am I fighting dragons?

Speaking of the Vex, and speaking of the shitty writing, here’s a case in point:  the very first mission on Venus leads you to a library; as your Ghost is analyzing this weird white digital tree thing, it suddenly cries out “Oh no!  The Vex are here!  Take cover!”  Who are the Vex?  It is not explained.  The fight isn’t particularly difficult as compared to previous firefights, but it is unnecessarily long and frustrating, being that the Vex keep teleporting in from elsewhere.  Why do they present more of a threat than any of the other murderous alien beings I’ve been fighting for the last 10 hours or so?  That is not explained either, until after the fight is over; and even then, it’s not explained in a clear, unambiguous way.

Later, you are told to go to the Rift to seek out how to enter the Black Garden.  (I could be mistaken in those names, but honestly – they’re so generic.)  After some weird bluster by some dude doing his best Tom-Hiddleston-as-Loki routine, he says that he’ll grant you access if you bring back the head of a Vex captain.  Your response (and keep in mind this is one of the only lines of dialogue your character says in the entire game thus far) is:  “Why do you need a Vex head?”  And faux-Loki replies – and I’m paraphrasing, but this is more or less the gist – “Oh, we don’t.  But you’re going to do it anyway.”

As I continue to unlock planets, I feel myself wanting to explore and poke around in various nooks and crannies, but more often than not (and by that I mean 90% of the time) those nooks and crannies are literally empty, and usually cut-and-pasted from other, similarly empty locations.  Every once in a while I’ll find a chest or a dead Ghost, but the rewards for doing so are minimal.

I could go on, but after a while it feels both like nit-picking and kicking a fallen horse.  The writing is simply terrible; this has been evident since the alpha.  It’s unfortunate.  One could argue that at least it’s not racially tone-deaf or sexually insensitive the way dozens of other AAA games are, and I suppose that’s true, but that’s very faint praise.

I continue to come back, though, because despite the lack of any compelling context, the shooting is enormously fun.  I’ve become rather adept at the scout rifle, and pulling off a string of precision kills is incredibly satisfying.  (It’s a useless weapon in PvP, given that everything in the Crucible happens 100x faster than in the story, which is probably why I’m so terrible.)

And it goes without saying that doing this all with friends makes the overall experience infinitely more enjoyable.  Joking with buddies instead of slogging through P-Dink’s endless mono-drone is definitely my preferred soundtrack, and having a full fireteam makes the story’s missions far less tedious.

There is potential here, to be sure.  I certainly aim to finish the story, and I presume I’ll hit level 20 before I see the credits.  I’m not sure how much longer I’ll stick with it after that, given that Shadow of Mordor drops in less than 2 weeks, and the flood of fall releases ensues shortly thereafter, but for the time being I’m having a rather pleasant go of it, and maybe I am starting to feel like I’ve gotten my money’s worth after all.

(Shooter Of The Year still belongs to Wolfenstein, though.)

The First Few Hours: Destiny

Current Status: approximately 6-8 hours in, rolling a level 8 female Titan.  I’ve ventured beyond the content from the beta, and am currently stuck in the 2nd story mission on the Moon.

I know, I know – just a few days ago I said I probably wouldn’t end up writing one of these posts for Destiny.  But I was out sick yesterday, and ended up spending a bit more time with it than I’d anticipated.

Before I get started, I suppose it’s only fair to get my biases out of the way:  I have played and finished Halo 1-3 and Reach, but did not finish ODST.  (I didn’t finish Halo 4, either, but that’s a 343 Studios title.)  I have always found the Halo games – specifically the single-player campaigns – to be competent console shooters; fun in parts, frustrating in others, saddled with narratives that take themselves far too seriously.  Yes, Halo is important for making shooters viable and playable on consoles; but while the action is certainly capable, I’ve always found the stuff that surrounds it to be lacking.

I’ve dabbled in the multiplayer here and there, but I’m simply not good enough to compete in any meaningful way (at least with strangers), and so I don’t pay that much attention to it.

I didn’t play the Destiny alpha, but I did play the beta, and I thought the beta was pretty remarkable; it was gorgeous, the moment-to-moment action felt quite good, even if the missions weren’t terribly innovative; the narrative was a bit opaque, but I wasn’t necessarily paying attention to it, as that wasn’t what the beta was about.  Ultimately, while I’d already pre-ordered the game, the beta made me feel like I’d spent my money wisely.

“You can hear every penny that went into making this thing so oppressively shiny, but you can’t hear any of the force of passion that supposedly caused those songs to come into being in the first place.”

The above quote is taken from Stereogum’s Premature Evaluation of U2’s “Songs of Innocence”, the album that Apple gave away for free to every iTunes member just a few days ago.   It also happens to sum up my feelings about Destiny pretty accurately; Destiny is jaw-droppingly beautiful, and it’s clear that a tremendous amount of hard work went into making this thing a true AAA blockbuster, but it’s also utterly devoid of soul.

You will traverse through meticulously detailed environments which, for all their minute graphical touches, feel uncannily empty.  You will engage in missions that ultimately boil down to “kill this many enemies” or “kill enough enemies to pick up this many collectibles” or “kill enemies until a certain amount of time has passed” or “kill all the enemies, and then the boss.”

It’s a good thing that the shooting feels as good as it does, because it goes a very long way towards making this stuff feel less tedious than it ordinarily would.

Part of the tedium is due to the writing, which is bad and/or bland and/or lazy.  I reiterate my earlier comments about Peter Dinklage – yes, his performance is startlingly bad, but his dialogue is dreadful, and there’s only so much you can do with what ultimately boils down to badly written exposition.  Why would you hire an actor of Dinklage’s considerable talents to speak such boring drivel?  Why would you constrain him to such a limited range?   I noted this bad writing during the beta, but it also didn’t necessarily bother me all that much because I wasn’t really paying attention to it.  Here, though, in its final retail form, I have to pay attention to it because it gives me the context to do whatever it is I’m doing, and I simply don’t care.

The Darkness is the enemy.  But there’s also the Hive, and the Fallen, which may or may not be the same thing?  It’s not really explained.  I don’t know why I’m shooting these things other than that they generally shoot at me first.

Then again, who am I?  In Halo, I was Master Chief, a not-nearly-as-enigmatic-as-they-intended soldier with an iconic uniform and a purpose.  In Destiny, I am… a long-dead (but fully customizable) person who is resurrected at the beginning of the game (without any context) and who is tasked with being a Guardian to attempt to ward off the Darkness’ inevitable victory.  Yes – in the beginning of the game, you are told that the Darkness will win.  I will bet you one shiny nickel that at the end of the campaign, the Darkness will not have achieved victory.

Narrative incoherence aside, the game is just kinda weird.  It’s ostensibly a sci-fi shooter with RPG elements.  You’re not doing any role-playing, though – indeed, you hardly speak, even in cutscenes; and as far as loot goes, well, take it from a dude who just finished Diablo III for the second time – the loot is barely there.  You’ll pick up slightly better weapons and armor as you play, but you won’t necessarily notice any real difference.  (And yet there are all sorts of cosmetic changes you can make to your armor, even though this is a first-person shooter and you can’t actually see any of it.)

Perhaps my biggest pet peeve – and this is something that was highly relevant yesterday, when I was home, feeling dreadfully ill and frequently needing to get off the couch – is that you can’t pause gameplay.  If you need to stop playing for any reason, your only options are to either hide in a corner and hope that no enemies respawn near you, or to summon a menu that removes you from the playing field and puts you “in orbit”, which is essentially a pre-mission lobby.  If you’re in a story mission, you have to restart it from the beginning.  This is all because the game really wants you to play online, but unless you’re doing multiplayer stuff, why can’t you pause and enter some sort of safe, invisible place?  In single-player/coop, you can’t grief anybody (as far as I can tell), nor is there any friendly fire.   It doesn’t make any sense, and it can be incredibly inconvenient.

Ultimately, what we have here is a highly polished shooter without a heart or soul.  There is nothing controversial about it; it takes no risks.  You’re on a desperate mission to save Earth; but we’ve done this before, and the game’s fiction is barely explained.  Sure, you can create your own character, but “you” have no personality, you make no choices, you have no literal voice except for the grunting you do when you jump.  Your enemies are bland and generic in appearance, calling to mind enemy design in both Halo and Mass Effect (in the latter, I refer specifically to the Thrall, who are basically fast-moving Husks).  Your own weaponry is largely familiar (even in the future, you’re still firing bullets) – and the enemy arsenal is also familiar (especially as some of the enemies are essentially using Halo’s Needler).

What’s worrisome about Destiny is what it represents; this is the sort of mindless AAA blockbuster that #GamerGate purports to want, a game ostensibly free from gender and race politics, a game that you play instead of talk about.  As it happens, there’s very little about Destiny that warrants any discussion.

The First Few Hours (Again): Diablo 3 on PS4

Author’s Note:  What I really want to do is talk about #GamerGate and the attendant bullshit that surrounds it, but for reasons you’ll see below I hadn’t written anything in a week (until yesterday, when I decided to dip my toes into Twitter).  Basically, I’m super-rusty with words right now, and I’d rather talk about that stuff when I’ve regained some balance in my writing legs.  I mean, I’ve started and restarted this post about a dozen times since yesterday, and if you’re reading this at all it’s probably because of a coin flip.

I should also say that it’s also super-weird to be back in full-on internet mode.  It was kinda nice to be away from the constant distraction of social media, even if I was feeling like total shit.

Regarding #GamerGate, though:  I think it’s kind of amazing that I used the hashtag literally once and immediately got flooded with Twitter mentions and one person even telling me that I “was part of the problem.”  To be fair, I was curious to see if they’d come after me, and they did not disappoint.  Interestingly, I then went on a bit of a mini-rant and ended up writing what has turned out to be my most popular tweet:

So, then, what follows are some ramblings that I’ve pieced together over the last week (before getting sick, and after) on the PS4 version of Diablo 3.

OK, so:  I was going to put up a First Few Hours post about Diablo 3 last Monday.  For a number of reasons, that didn’t end up happening.  I was also feeling a bit under the weather, and took off Tuesday from work.  I went to the doctor on Wednesday, where I was diagnosed with pneumonia, and so I’ve been stuck at home ever since.  [Author’s note:  until today, that is.]

As it turns out, being home alone and feeling miserable is a perfect way to play Diablo 3; and so this will not be a First Few Hours post, because I ended up beating the game AND hitting the level cap and getting up to (at least) Paragon level 25 by the time this post goes up.

Considering that it took me at least a month or two to hit level 60 on the PC version – and that it took me less than a week to hit level 70 on the PS4 version (while starting from scratch), the short version of what I’m about to write boils down to this:  the PS4 version is so vastly superior that I might as well uninstall the PC version, as the PS4 version is the only version of Diablo 3 that I’ll play from this point forward, and I may very well end up continuing to play it a lot.  It will certainly be holding my attention until Destiny arrives, that’s for sure.

Let me back up, though.

I did not ever expect to be writing about Diablo 3 again.  Actually, let me rephrase that:  I did not expect that I’d want to write about Diablo 3 again.  I’d already played it to death on the PC, and only considered renting the PS4 version if the summer release calendar was slow enough; and even then, considering that I couldn’t transfer my PC characters over to the console, I wasn’t exactly excited to start over from scratch.  But my buddy Greg was about to start playing it for the first time, and the reviews started coming out saying that the PS4 version was, in fact, the best version of the game, and my curiosity got the better of me, and before I knew it I’d bought the digital version.

And now here I am, a week later, having blasted through the campaign, smashing through the level cap and still feeling compelled to come back.

level70

I’m hard-pressed to determine why my console experience has been so much better than my time with the PC version, though my time spent with the Reaper of Souls DLC earlier this year (on PC) was indicative that the game had changed significantly for the better since the last time I’d touched it, and the PS4 version incorporates those changes.  I debated changing classes for my PS4 campaign, but at the end of the day I really liked playing as a Monk; this time, though, I knew how to properly build and develop her, and I ended up finishing the game on Hard without really dying much at all.  Hell, I’m doing all the bounties now on Master difficulty, and I’m running into very little resistance.  Which is kind of awesome, I think; it means I built my PS4 Monk the right way, whereas during my PC campaign I had no idea what I was doing.

Maybe it’s just that playing with a controller feels better than mouse clicking, though.  Sure, I’m still pressing the attack button an awful lot, but it feels more visceral.  Pulling the R2 trigger and unleashing an electric column of pain on swarms of enemies feels infinitely more satisfying than hitting the 6 key.

Maybe it’s also that the endgame is better designed (or, really, designed at all).  When I beat the game on PC, my only real option was to play it again on a higher difficulty, and so on and so forth.  My keep/sell ratio of loot saw only marginal improvements during each playthrough, and most of my best gear was acquired through the Auction House.  On PS4, though, I’ve acquired great loot pretty much from the get-go, and it keeps getting better and better.

Maybe it’s simply that I was able to keep playing during that DDoS attack on Sony’s servers last weekend.  Considering that I could barely maintain a stable connection when the PC game launched (and for a few weeks afterward), this felt like a minor miracle.

The larger point of this post, though, is that the Diablo 3 “action RPG hack-and-slash” experience makes a tremendous amount of sense in a console context, and I’m at somewhat of a loss to figure out why there haven’t been more Diablo-esque console games.  Off the top of my head, I can think of only three that I’ve played and enjoyed:  Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, Marvel Ultimate Alliance (only the first one, b/c the second one was garbage), and Torchlight on XBLA.  In any event, the game feels a lot less monotonous when played on a controller as opposed to mouse/keyboard; Diablo 3’s controller layout is intelligent, thoughtfully designed, and (most importantly) feels more viscerally connected to the action on screen than the artless and endless left- and right-clicking.

Anyway, as noted above, I’m going to keep playing until Destiny is released, and I’ve yet to try any co-op.  If you’re online and on a PS4, hit me up:  JervoNYC.

 

The First Few Hours: Destiny beta

Status:  2 hours in, logged off after finishing the Level 4 story mission (which also got me to Level 5).

It turns out that all my bluster and panic about not receiving a Destiny beta activation code, even though I’d pre-ordered the game back in May, was all for naught.  After freaking out for hours, I finally went to the online version of the PSN Store and quickly discovered that the Beta was in my to-download queue, and so I simply hit the button and it downloaded to my sleeping PS4 while I was at work.  When I finally got home, it was ready and waiting.

So.  Let me say right up front that I didn’t play the alpha.  I figured the alpha was really more of a polished public demo meant to capitalize on the momentum following E3; but even if I had gotten access, I don’t think I would’ve had any time to really sit down and put it through its paces.  I’d watched enough YouTube clips to feel that Peter “Moon Wizard” Dinklage’s performance, while kinda shitty, wasn’t totally his fault, but that’s about the extent of what I knew.

First thing’s first, then:  the game makes a pretty astounding first impression from a technological standpoint.  Graphics are truly impressive in every facet, from the animation to the lighting engine to the art direction to the choice of color palette to the friggin’ fonts in the UI.  More importantly, the shooting feels great – I might even go so far as to say it feels better here than it ever did in Halo, which is saying something.

The best way to sum up my experience is that I sat down to play at around 7:45, and the next thing I knew it was 10:00, and all I wanted to do today was call in sick and keep playing.

As for the RPG elements and the loot… well, as far as the loot is concerned, this is definitely not Borderlands.  After 2 hours and 5 levels, I only found 2 guns – neither of which were a marked improvement over what I’d already equipped – and a similar number of useless armor pieces.  (After the first 2 hours of Borderlands, I’d probably have more guns than I had inventory space for.)  I received better weaponry and armor when I’d return to the Tower after each mission, so that was something, but even after finding a bunch of hidden chests, I never picked up anything particularly useful.  I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, necessarily, but it does make exploring an area after clearing it out of baddies feel a bit useless.

Also:  Peter Dinklage’s character actually uses the word “loot” to describe a chest.  This is akin to someone saying the word “zombie” in a zombie movie; it’s just not done.

Yeah, I suppose I should probably address the Dinklage VO at this point.  I still think the writing is kinda bad – and I’ll say more about that in a second – but even with the new robo-filter on his voice, he still sounds like he’s phoning it in.  (Actually, the filter now makes it sound like he’s literally phoning in a phoned-in performance.)  He sounds like he doesn’t understand what he’s talking about, and nobody bothered to explain to him what it meant, and because the dialogue is so silly and refers to things and people that we simply don’t know, he’s kinda just half-assing it in the vocal booth.  Maybe it’s just that Stephen Merchant’s performance as Wheatley in Portal 2 is the gold standard for floating orb robot helpers; whatever the case, Dinklage clearly doesn’t care.  So I apologize to Ben Kuchera – regardless of the quality of the script, he’s absolutely right.

But let’s get to the narrative, because that’s really my biggest concern.  It’s unclear if the beta’s beginning is the actual beginning of the final game, but let’s leave that aside; the beta’s beginning sure feels like the beginning of the final game.  In this introduction, you hear voiceover explaining the current situation; then you see Dinklage’s floating robot searching for something… then you see some enemies in the distance, closing in… then, suddenly, you’ve been resurrected from the dead?  And the first thing the robot wants you to do, after getting you under cover, is get you a gun?

I get it, that the beta wants to get you shooting bad guys as quickly as possible, but I can’t help but feel like something’s missing… like, namely, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON.  It’s not actually explained who you are until after the first series of missions, and even then I didn’t quite get it; it’s glossed over in light of the more pressing concern, which is that the ultimate forces of darkness are closing in.  Still, if I were suddenly resurrected from the dead, I’d at least like a glass of water and maybe a newspaper before being asked to kill things.

Maybe I’m nitpicking.

I still had a total blast with it, and I’m going to play as much of it as possible.  I’m currently rolling a female Titan (who looks a lot like my FemShep, actually); the Titan seems like the best class for people who want to solo.  I’d like to eventually try the other two classes, but those seem better fits for team-play; the Titan does everything well enough to not really need outside assistance.  So that’s something.

If you’re online, my PSN ID is JervoNYC; look me up!

The First Few Hours: Murdered Soul Suspect

Apologies for not writing all that much this week, though chances are pretty good that neither one of us would have been coming here for E3 discussion.  As it happens, I missed most of the main floor coverage, due to a combination of busy workdays, major Feedly outages, and two writing projects that have been stressing me out like crazy.

I’ve been playing a bit of Murdered: Soul Suspect this week, though, which I’m sort-of enjoying.  It got relatively fair reviews, but the people who liked it really liked it, and I figured it was worth checking out.  The game is mostly like a supernatural version of L.A. Noire; you’re a police detective who is murdered by a serial killer in the game’s opening moments, and you come back as a ghost, determined to solve the killer’s motive and identity.  So you’ll go to a location, examine clues, and try to solve that location’s central questions based on what you’ve seen.  Occasionally you’ll escort a living human through obstacles by manipulating objects (the game says to press R2 to “Poltergeist”, which is very amusing).  And it’s also, ultimately, somewhat easy; most of the questions have easy answers, and as far as I can tell you don’t get punished for guessing incorrectly.

It’s essentially the perfect rental game:  it’s janky and silly but not in an upsetting, unplayable way; it’s somewhat ambitious even if it’s also very familiar; and it’s the sort of game that can really only be played and enjoyed once.  It also throws out trophies and achievements every 5 minutes, which is apparently still an endorphin rush that I’d thought I’d moved past.  (For whatever it’s worth, I’m now at Trophy level 11 on PSN; I have no idea what that means.)

I think I’m towards the very end of the game (I’m in Judgment House, for those of you who’ve played it); I’d be surprised if there was much more left.  I have a pretty good idea who the killer is – or, rather, I have a pretty good idea of who I’m supposed to think the killer is, and I expect there’ll be a twist to that reveal.

The game is mostly a breath of fresh air; it’s the perfect palate cleanser to the ugliness I was feeling after finishing Watch Dogs.  There is no combat; well, every so often there’ll be demons, and you’ll either need to run past them or sneak up on them and dismantle them; it’s not that big a deal.

It’s also, as I said above, somewhat silly.  It’s published by Square Enix, and as such there are references to other SE titles all over the place; there’s a poster of Just Cause 2 in the police station, which is pretty blatant, but the computer monitors in the police station are also looking at the main menu for Deus Ex Human Revolution, which is cheeky indeed.  The main character, Ronan, has been smoking the same cigarette ever since he arose from the dead.

It’s a hard game to recommend, especially since I can’t see any reason to play it again, but it’s certainly worth a rental if you’ve got some free time.