The last few games you beat and rate them IV

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Ceremony

blahem
Jun 8, 2012
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The Last Guardian (PS4, 2016)


When I review games I usually try to judge them on their own merits, with as few comparisons to other games as possible. Whether it's by genre or series, unless there's something egregious that I feel needs to measured against an existing title I try to judge a game itself. It's fair. Especially in the case of standalone titles that aren't part of a series and don't have sequels, a game has to be considered in isolation. That's what you play, that's what you judge.

It's a bit difficult to decide which category The Last Guardian falls into. Here is a unique, self-contained story with no possibility of a sequel. Here is a game released a full ten years after the same team's last effort. Here also is a game with obvious stylistic and thematic holdovers from that team's last two works. It invites it upon itself, even if the basis of gameplay is mechanically completely different. So then, how is The Last Guardian? And how many times will I compare it to Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, despite it being a (mostly) completely different game?

You play as... Boy. I don't think the boy has a name, come to think of it. Through flashbacks we learn that the boy is at a camp somewhere in a forest, in a location where the humans present possess vaguely Japanese features and voices. This camp is poorly situated however, as it's prone to creatures coming and stealing children in the night. The creatures in question are about the size of a double decker bus, have wings, are covered in feathers, are built like a cross between a cat and a dog, and are covered in armour. The people in the camp are prepared for this, because when one of them comes to take Boy all the adults gather round with spears and torches to try and ward it off, and one of them hits a gong to raise the alarm. They all just stand about watching as it reaches in a window, grabs the boy and swallows him, and flies off.

Sadly the beast is hit by lightning as it's flying to its destination and instead of landing on a tower at the top of a huge, deep crater in the ground it falls to the bottom of something which is clearly hundreds of feet deep. Once he's landed a bunch of suits of armour with glowing eyes gather round him and put him on a stretcher. They take him to a small cave and chain him to the ground, where he spits out Boy and our game begins.
The actual purpose of this game is never really explained. You free the beast from his chains and then have a look around. After leaving the cave you start in you just sort of progress forward through a linear route. The assumption is that you're in the Nest - something that Boy was told about by the adults who failed to protect him - and it's obvious you want out, but this is never explicit. I realise it doesn't sound as if it has to be, but the game ultimately is more of a character development exercise than a purposeful story.

What then of the other character? The Beast is actually called Trico. I don't know how the boy decides on this name. It's not a name he gives to that specific creature, because we later discover other creatures that boy calls "other Tricos." Trico is just as weird as I describe. During the loading screen when you start the game you see some of the inspiration for Trico. The game shows an assortment of old-fashioned field drawings of different animals and their Latin names, like something from a biology textbook from the 1800s. Here you can see the inspiration for Trico and how he moves, as there are pictures of everything from fish to snakes to ibex to griffins and almost everything else you could think of, real and mythical. For the most part it's fairly easy to see a lot of care and attention went into Trico's animations and sounds. It does look and react like a real animal, and you're quick to grow attached to it in the way you would a real pet. Mostly.

(Side-note: I decided Trico was a he, but I don't know why. As far as I can tell it's completely asexual.)
I say mostly because this is largely a third person platforming game in an environment which dwarfs your playable character, so you're reliant on this other, larger creature to get you through it. Which means you have to give it commands. It's here I have to admit the inescapable truth which I've realised after four full playthroughs of the game. Despite it being in development for a decade, it's broken. Or at the very least, it's the most poorly optimised game I've ever played. I get that Trico is an animal, that he's unpredictable, but this game doesn't get any better no matter how much you play it. The inconsistency is maddening.

I could genuinely sit here for hours describing how bad it is, but I'll give you one example. At one point in the game you have to stand on Trico's back as he dives underwater and swims through a tunnel. You can "command" him by standing on his back and holding R1 while pressing one of the face buttons, which apparently vaguely correspond to your controls for the boy. On my first playthrough I was at this section for at least half an hour, trying every button possible. Trico would just get out of the water without diving. One time he started diving, reached the opening he was supposed to go through, then came back up. On my second playthrough, I did this first time. The game is filled with moments like that. These utterly kill any pacing the game has. There are genuine moments of tenderness and real emotion as the bond between the two of them grows, but it's so often let down by knowing that as soon as they're over you'll be back to swearing at it endlessly trying to get it to jump to the only ledge it can possibly go to to advance, only to go in the opposite direction entirely.

You can really tell the controls for Trico aren't finished in other locations, where movement just isn't possible the way it should be. You can command him to go somewhere, the only possible way forward, and he won't. Or he'll jump to it then jump back. Or go in completely the opposite direction. Then there are the times where the game gets all fiddly and needs something to be perfect or it won't happen. Trico eats barrels filled with a fluorescent blue substance which attracts butterflies. Occasionally throughout the game you have to feed him these to progress. You can sit the barrel down in front of him, he'll reach out and grab it, and eat it. Only sometimes the barrel won't quite catch in his beak and it'll roll away. Or maybe he's standing up and the barrel isn't quite in the place where his mouth can reach, and he'll just stand pawing at it. These moments are unbelievably frustrating, and you really start to resent the game when they build up.

On a similar note, the controls. The camera. Holy f***. Throughout the game there are numerous small ledges you need to shimmy along or hang from, as well as jumps you need to make over large drops. The controls feel as if they're for a different kind of game. There's no finesse at all. The slightest movement of the stick in any direction has the boy lunging off into an uncontrolled run. You can sort of get the hang of this eventually, but it's still amazingly awkward and doesn't get any less stressful. Plus, like Trico, there are times when your input doesn't match what the boy does. I don't get it at all. The camera has a mind of its own, and is often fond of clipping inside of Trico and going completely black.

The actual control scheme itself doesn't make any sense either. Triangle is jump. X is hang/climb down. Great idea, make an awkward game even harder by not using the most common button layout. Then you've got several wasted buttons. I'll give you an example. At certain parts of the game the boy has a mirror he can shine on things so Trico can fire lightning bolts out his arse. To do this, you press circle. But sometimes you'll be doing this while on Trico's back. Pressing circle while on Trico makes you start petting him. Meanwhile L1, L2 and R2 all sit vacant. This is basic stuff that I noticed after playing for about ten minutes, how could a team of dozens of people make this game and not notice?

So then, why the spiel at the beginning about comparisons with other games, specifically Ico and Shadow of the Colossus? The game is made by the same people and is similar in a lot of ways, especially aesthetically. As I've written here before I really like the design of both of those games, and the world design of The Last Guardian is very similar. A ruined, clearly once-great civilisation is here for you to explore, all the while feeling as if your burgeoning control over your character pales into insignificance to your surroundings.
The ultimate problem is that there's a purpose and a clearly defined story to those games. The local village sacrifices boys to an evil queen in a twisted Snow White rip-off. A boy wants his dead girlfriend brought back to life and travels to a forbidden land for help, only to find an evil demon was imprisoned there. What's The Last Guardian about? A big hole in the ground populated by empty suits of armour and big flying dogs is commanded by a big glowing ball in a tower. The tower occasionally sends the flying dogs out to capture the local children, bringing them back to the hole in the ground and being fed barrels in return.

I get, I think that the game is a character study above all else but that doesn't change the fact that the premise is very, very weak, at best. The problem with the growing relationship between the boy and Trico is the impending sense of a payoff, and there just isn't one. It's clear that what Trico did was bad. It's clear that as he shakes off the various control methods used by the big glowing ball that his bond with the boy is greater than anything he had done previously. Even the ending when they escape and the boy is returned to his camp ties this off neatly, but there's never even an attempt at an explanation for what was going on. The boy tells the story through voiceover segments throughout the game and he just says there's a Nest, and they're taught to be scared of it. The nest was clearly once more populated than it is, but there's just no explanation for any of it, and the game suffers.

Here's where the comparison comes in. In Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, a sense of isolation and bewilderment was a necessary part of the experience. You were exploring an unfamiliar land, and you had to be made to feel small and uncertain. Here, you travel with a resident of the land. You get a dreadful payoff, and you get a completely killed sense of pacing because of how bad the controls are. As much as I've tried to view The Last Guardian on its own terms the amount it has in common with similar, better games just left me empty throughout.

I was getting a bit ahead of myself when I said the Nest was unpopulated. I mentioned empty suits of armour, and they're the game's main enemy. The pop up occasionally and stagger towards you, picking you up and taking you through a blue door with light beaming out of it if they get too close. Trico is usually always on hand to bat them out of the way though. Every time you do this Trico gets angry and needs to be calmed down by jumping on his back and petting him on the back of the neck. This also kills the pacing of the game, because you know every time you face an enemy there's no threat, and you'll have to struggle up Trico's back for a few minutes afterwards.

It's actually worth repeating that there's no threat. The suits are easy enough to avoid in most cases. They can throw spears at Trico but Trico is virtually indestructible. He never gets injured to the point of reduced mobility. On the few setpiece occasions where he does you quickly revive him with some barrels, so there's never any sense of stakes or peril to engender any care for him. While this isn't so bad because there are other opportunities for the relationship to develop, this is a video game. There is presumably supposed to be some challenge with consequences, but I suppose it's all in the awkward platforming. Even the suits themselves aren't that threatening. They have their own music cue, but it's this weird French horn tune that sounds more like it should be accompanying a scene change in an episode of the Pink Panther. It's really ridiculous and ill-fitting, and just serves to further delegitimise these sections as any sort of threat.

The final aspect of the enemies I'll complain about tie in with the sense of repetition and unexplained nature of enemy encounters. Throughout the world there are strange eye-shaped glyphs made of glass which Trico is afraid of. They stop him from moving, and you have to destroy them to continue. These turn up in the strangest places, with no possible explanation for their location or purpose. They're obviously some means of control of the creatures, because the suits of armour carry them around, but why then are some hanging suspended hundreds of feet in the air from a giant mobile? Why are there two on the narrow bridge leading to the final tower, on small bits of rail to the side which don't go anywhere, and are easily pushed off? Why does Trico overcome his fear on this one occasion when the boy is taken away, but is still catatonic afterwards?

The comparisons to other Team Ico games at this point become fair because although in those you enter half-destroyed worlds of what were once clearly purposeful locations, there are too many aspects of The Last Guardian which seem to have been added for stylistic purposes rather than thematic ones. A sense of wonder only works when it's predominately awe on the part of the player, seeing something grand yet long-eroded and now unexplainable. The Nest itself fulfils this role, but everything in it seems to have been added later. The architecture is fantastic, the content is as grand and imposing as you'd expect, but the player interaction with it undermines it a lot.

I honestly don't know what I expected when I played this. As much as I enjoyed Ico and adored Shadow of the Colossus (the PS3 versions) it's not like I went in to this expecting something similar. I know it was in development hell for a long time and there are times where you can see that it suffers for this, but it honestly feels like a game centred around an idea/relationship with nothing else to fill the space. Seeing the bond develop between Trico and the boy is fine, and for the most part it is engaging, but there's too much fiddly bullshit surrounding it to really think the game is great. Both the gameplay and the content itself seems ill-suited for the central theme of the game, and what should be a unique experience ends up overpowered and spoiled.
 

Frankie Spankie

Registered User
Feb 22, 2009
12,351
389
Dorchester, MA
Valfaris - 6.5/10

Hardcore metal theme action platformer. Gameplay is pretty average. The boss battles are pretty fun and the soundtrack and metal theme is really cool. That's about the only good parts of the game in an otherwise average experience. I'm a big fan of metal myself though and even as metal as the game was, I still don't really recommend it. If you get it as part of some bundle down the line, I'd say give it a playthrough but I definitely can't recommend it at its current price.
 

Osprey

Registered User
Feb 18, 2005
27,093
9,355
Valfaris - 6.5/10

Hardcore metal theme action platformer. Gameplay is pretty average. The boss battles are pretty fun and the soundtrack and metal theme is really cool. That's about the only good parts of the game in an otherwise average experience. I'm a big fan of metal myself though and even as metal as the game was, I still don't really recommend it. If you get it as part of some bundle down the line, I'd say give it a playthrough but I definitely can't recommend it at its current price.

Your description and assessment sounds much like Slain: Back From Hell, which I played a little of last month. It has a hardcore theme and a metal soundtrack, and both are pretty awesome, but the controls and gameplay are not that great. For the first level or two, you think "this is awesome," but then it gets harder and you realize that you can't make your character do what you want and you die repeatedly. It feels like it tries to be the Dark Souls of platformers. I don't mind hard difficulty, but it's just frustrating when much of it comes from controls and mechanics that are hard to get the hang of and require precision timing. I eventually gave up on it and can't really recommend it, but fans of metal-inspired games who think that they have more patience than me might care to check it out.
 

Frankie Spankie

Registered User
Feb 22, 2009
12,351
389
Dorchester, MA
It's actually made by the same person. I had the same experience with Slain. The nicer thing about Valfaris is that there's a lot of ranged weapons so it makes it a bit less frustrating.
 

Osprey

Registered User
Feb 18, 2005
27,093
9,355
It's actually made by the same person. I had the same experience with Slain. The nicer thing about Valfaris is that there's a lot of ranged weapons so it makes it a bit less frustrating.

Oh! It's Valfaris that's been called "Slain with guns," then. I forgot its name. I read about it a few months ago, when it was released, learned about Slain that way and decided to check out Slain first. It's too bad that it sounds like the same kinds of issues that plagued the guy's first game also plague his second. I really respect that he makes them mostly by himself, but cool theming, graphics and music aren't enough if the gameplay is frustrating.
 

guinness

Not Ingrid for now
Mar 11, 2002
14,521
301
Missoula, Montana
www.missoulian.com
The Outer Worlds - 7/10.

Fallout done with a good engine, good voice acting, but Fallout 4 spoiled me on crafting, and the gun/armor mods all sort of ended up being samey. Also, the game pretty much prevents stealth play, which basically leads to going in guns blazing or talking your way out.

I don't get the love on Reddit over the story, but I think it's mostly boiling down to Bethesda bad, Obsidian good dur dur dur.
 

Chaels Arms

Formerly Lias Andersson
Aug 26, 2010
7,297
6,875
New York City
The Outer Worlds - 7/10.

Fallout done with a good engine, good voice acting, but Fallout 4 spoiled me on crafting, and the gun/armor mods all sort of ended up being samey. Also, the game pretty much prevents stealth play, which basically leads to going in guns blazing or talking your way out.

I don't get the love on Reddit over the story, but I think it's mostly boiling down to Bethesda bad, Obsidian good dur dur dur.

I'm with you, I don't think the story is that great either. I'm completely uninterested in all the companions also. It seems like the internet is gushing over the story as a means of sending a message to Bethesda. Some of the review videos I've watched make it seem like it's an epic Mass Effect level type of narrative and it's just not even close.
 
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Frankie Spankie

Registered User
Feb 22, 2009
12,351
389
Dorchester, MA
*Puts on tinfoil hat*

Reddit is really weird with new games is the problem. I actually have the impression that Reddit is mostly bots and used as a marketing platform rather than a place of discussion. It's the same thing every time a decent game is released. Everybody praises it to the moon, then after a month, people start posting "unpopular opinion but..." threads that seem to be gaining steam and a couple months later everybody is like "Ya, that game is overrated." There are people who criticize things early but they just get downvoted while people (possibly bots) are like "I don't mind that, it's not a big deal! The game's so fun!" Then after a couple months, when the publishers marketing funds run out, the bots stop and you start seeing people's true opinion of games. This is all the more reason to be part of r/patientgamers where you can get games that are fixed with more content for cheap after it's already a known product. :laugh:

The Outer Wilds already is reaching that "unpopular but this game has some serious flaws" phase.
 

guinness

Not Ingrid for now
Mar 11, 2002
14,521
301
Missoula, Montana
www.missoulian.com
*Puts on tinfoil hat*

Reddit is really weird with new games is the problem. I actually have the impression that Reddit is mostly bots and used as a marketing platform rather than a place of discussion. It's the same thing every time a decent game is released. Everybody praises it to the moon, then after a month, people start posting "unpopular opinion but..." threads that seem to be gaining steam and a couple months later everybody is like "Ya, that game is overrated." There are people who criticize things early but they just get downvoted while people (possibly bots) are like "I don't mind that, it's not a big deal! The game's so fun!" Then after a couple months, when the publishers marketing funds run out, the bots stop and you start seeing people's true opinion of games. This is all the more reason to be part of r/patientgamers where you can get games that are fixed with more content for cheap after it's already a known product. :laugh:

The Outer Wilds already is reaching that "unpopular but this game has some serious flaws" phase.

Oh, astroturfing is a very real thing, and I've also noticed that with other products too, like phones. It's a reason I don't trust reviews by popular Youtubers.

Almost as organic as AMA's from actors when their new movie is about to come out.
 

Frankie Blueberries

Allergic to draft picks
Jan 27, 2016
9,099
10,546
*Puts on tinfoil hat*

Reddit is really weird with new games is the problem. I actually have the impression that Reddit is mostly bots and used as a marketing platform rather than a place of discussion. It's the same thing every time a decent game is released. Everybody praises it to the moon, then after a month, people start posting "unpopular opinion but..." threads that seem to be gaining steam and a couple months later everybody is like "Ya, that game is overrated." There are people who criticize things early but they just get downvoted while people (possibly bots) are like "I don't mind that, it's not a big deal! The game's so fun!" Then after a couple months, when the publishers marketing funds run out, the bots stop and you start seeing people's true opinion of games. This is all the more reason to be part of r/patientgamers where you can get games that are fixed with more content for cheap after it's already a known product. :laugh:

The Outer Wilds already is reaching that "unpopular but this game has some serious flaws" phase.

Yep - I've noticed this the most whenever Disney/Netflix content is released. It gets an insane, overwhelmingly positive reception on Reddit for the majority of the most upvoted comments. This includes the reception for their crappy shows that aren't even good.

I think EA was also accused of making fake accounts to boost the user scores for their games on Metacritic.
 

Ceremony

blahem
Jun 8, 2012
113,012
15,084
DfvxgCc.jpg

Bully/Canis Canem Edit (PS4, 2016 - originally PS2, 2006)


Since I live in a country where Bully was forcibly renamed to Canis Canem Edit before it was ever released, I suppose I had some pre-conceived notions about what it would be like. That isn't to say I would ever have legitimised the media panic by thinking it in any way justified, but expectations without knowledge aren't always going to be accurate. It's made by the same people who make (well, publish) Grand Theft Auto games. You play as a teenager in a school. It's called Bully. You can carry out acts which would fit any usual description of bullying in schools.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this game certainly wouldn't have turned me into a delinquent and I doubt it would have served as much inspiration for anyone else of a similar age to its protagonist. You are Jimmy Hopkins, apparently troubled child who is shipped off to a boarding school in the town of Bullworth. Over the course of the school year you do everything a 15 year old does in such a situation. You go to classes, you wedgie boys, you kiss girls, you play off against the complex politics of each social group in the school and surrounding town while trying to maintain neutrality and a fair approach, that sort of thing.

I really enjoyed playing this game. It reminded me of the things I played when I was younger which were GTA clones even though I never realised it. The Simpsons Hit & Run and Jak II spring to mind. Being able to run around the school and town on foot, skateboard, bike and go-kart is just plain fun, even if the controls can be a bit clunky and dated. By the time you unlock weapons like the spud gun and bottle rocket launcher, or have eggs and stink bombs to throw at people, it's a familiar yet different experience. Despite the less mature premise, the game never feels childish or like a watered down version of something else.

It's not without its faults, and not all of them can be explained by age. The controls and the camera are poor. The camera in particular is dreadful. You know how in third person games you often move your character and the camera independently of one another to get a better view of your surroundings while you move? If you do that here and move the camera too far Jimmy will turn sharply and start moving in the direction of the camera. Beyond annoying. The skateboard and other transport objects I mentioned might be speedy but they're often fiddly and difficult to control, and of course hitboxes are all over the place so if you graze something you'll probably end up on the floor. This often happens when you're being chased by the police of the school prefects (who all want to be police), and it's not something that you can really improve with experience.

Whether it's constrained by the setting or the characters I'm not sure, but the story isn't the strongest either. The game's split up into five main chapters where you largely side with one clique against another. This is fine and it helps the game serve and send up some classic American high school tropes, but from chapter to chapter there seems little to connect your actions. The ending in particular appears suddenly and with an antagonist who was largely absent for the middle 50% of the game. It also doesn't help that every time you're at war with one clique their members will start chasing you and trying to fight every time you see one on campus or in town.

Aside from missions where you have to do things for your delinquent teachers or go to various places around town, a lot of the gameplay is mini-games. I appreciate there's not much you can do with academic subjects in this sort of context, but there are times when the game feels like a vehicle to take you from one button pressing exercise to another. It's at times like this you feel the game is a really good concept which was made as well as it could be, but still has a few things holding it back.

There's not much to say beyond what I have already. The game's main faults are its age. The controls I mentioned and a few other technical issues can make it feel really dated. The map design also leaves something to be desired, and the pacing of the story is strange. Beyond all that though the game is what an enjoyable sandbox should be. Something realistic but a bit exaggerated, where there's always something to do and never anything you can get stuck on for so long you end up resenting playing it. The subject matter is more tasteful and tactful than I was expecting, and I really think this could and should have a follow-up game made with more resources and content.

Like a lot of games I missed out on in my early teens, I'm glad I got to play this one. I think I would have really enjoyed it back then, but I still had fun with it now.
 
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Do Make Say Think

& Yet & Yet
Jun 26, 2007
51,157
9,904
*Puts on tinfoil hat*

Reddit is really weird with new games is the problem. I actually have the impression that Reddit is mostly bots and used as a marketing platform rather than a place of discussion. It's the same thing every time a decent game is released. Everybody praises it to the moon, then after a month, people start posting "unpopular opinion but..." threads that seem to be gaining steam and a couple months later everybody is like "Ya, that game is overrated." There are people who criticize things early but they just get downvoted while people (possibly bots) are like "I don't mind that, it's not a big deal! The game's so fun!" Then after a couple months, when the publishers marketing funds run out, the bots stop and you start seeing people's true opinion of games. This is all the more reason to be part of r/patientgamers where you can get games that are fixed with more content for cheap after it's already a known product. :laugh:

The Outer Wilds already is reaching that "unpopular but this game has some serious flaws" phase.

It is a product of hype culture. Games get hyped, people on message boards write about it for weeks on end, the game comes out and everybody is excited to share how right they were to be excited for all this time and eventually reality sets in.

Just like a rookie getting called-up: lots of them have a good first couple of games. The hard part is playing well for 50 games.
 

syz

[1, 5, 6, 14]
Jul 13, 2007
28,864
12,263
People are just happy enough seeing Fallout's anti-capitalist roots be restored in Outer Worlds, especially in an era where Bethesda is using the Vault Boy to unironically sell you a subscription service to F76.
 
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Osprey

Registered User
Feb 18, 2005
27,093
9,355
People are just happy enough seeing Fallout's anti-capitalist roots be restored in Outer Worlds, especially in an era where Bethesda is using the Vault Boy to unironically sell you a subscription service to F76.

I remember paying good money for Fallout 1 and 2. The fact that a game doesn't have subscriptions, microtransactions or DLC doesn't make it "anti-capitalist." The Outer Worlds is as much an example of capitalism as Fallout 76.
 

syz

[1, 5, 6, 14]
Jul 13, 2007
28,864
12,263
I remember paying good money for Fallout 1 and 2. The fact that a game doesn't have subscriptions, microtransactions or DLC doesn't make it "anti-capitalist." The Outer Worlds is as much an example of capitalism as Fallout 76.

You're misunderstanding the concept in the same way that Bethesda has since commandeering the license. Has nothing to do with what you do with your money or the fact that they're all games being made for sale in a capitalist market.

Early Fallout was a critique on consumerism, something that lead to a resource war and a subsequent nuclear apocalypse. Something like Vault Boy in particular was created entirely as satire; he's a subversion of 50s advertising--an infomercial-like ghost of capitalism that still manages to haunt the world even post-apocalypse who's only there to advertise a bunch of stupid shit. Now Bethesda unironically uses him to promote a subscription service (while also using nuclear bombs as a marketing point even though the entire franchise is based on "NUKES ARE BAD").

Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of the writing in Outer Worlds appears to be "corporations are bad." Only one example, but Outer Worlds seems to "get" Fallout more than Fallout does, and it seems some people can appreciate that much, at least.

tl;dr
EHoj7COUEAACuH0
 

Osprey

Registered User
Feb 18, 2005
27,093
9,355
You're misunderstanding the concept in the same way that Bethesda has since commandeering the license. Has nothing to do with what you do with your money or the fact that they're all games being made for sale in a capitalist market.

Early Fallout was a critique on consumerism, something that lead to a resource war and a subsequent nuclear apocalypse. Something like Vault Boy in particular was created entirely as satire; he's a subversion of 50s advertising--an infomercial-like ghost of capitalism that still manages to haunt the world even post-apocalypse who's only there to advertise a bunch of stupid ****. Now Bethesda unironically uses him to promote a subscription service (while also using nuclear bombs as a marketing point even though the entire franchise is based on "NUKES ARE BAD").

Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of the writing in Outer Worlds appears to be "corporations are bad." Only one example, but Outer Worlds seems to "get" Fallout more than Fallout does, and it seems some people can appreciate that much, at least.

Ok, I misunderstood what you were getting at. I still disagree with it, though, and think that you're reading way too much into it. I don't think that Fallout is a critique of consumerism or capitalism. For one, the Great War was triggered by communist China invading the US. Secondly, wouldn't it have been hypocritical to criticize the very systems that they were hoping to profit from, not to mention using Vault Boy to help them market the game? I've also looked through the original Fallout manual and the massive Fallout Bible for any indication of subtext and found nothing. I imagine that the developers simply needed a reason for the armageddon, and the Gulf War had recently been fought partly because of oil, so they picked that, and they needed to illustrate the perks somehow and mimicking Monopoly cards was the perfect way to do it. I think that it's easy to project your own beliefs onto a dystopian future like Fallout because it's appealing and affirming to believe that what you stand against leads to destruction and misery. Sometimes, a setting is just a setting and not a statement.
 
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syz

[1, 5, 6, 14]
Jul 13, 2007
28,864
12,263
Ok, I misunderstood what you were getting at. I still disagree with it, though, and think that you're reading way too much into it. I don't think that Fallout is a critique of consumerism or capitalism. For one, the Great War was triggered by communist China invading the US. I've also looked through the original Fallout manual and the massive Fallout Bible for any indication of subtext and found nothing. I imagine that the developers simply needed a reason for the armageddon, and the Gulf War had recently been fought partly because of oil, so they picked that, and they needed to illustrate the perks somehow and mimicking Monopoly cards was the perfect way to do it. I think that it's far too easy to project your own beliefs onto something like Fallout because it's affirmation that what you stand against is destructive and could lead to armageddon.

For some reason I remain unwilling to agree that it's a coincidence that the mascot of Fallout's evil Umbrella-esque ass corporation was designed to be evocative of the mascot of a game literally called "Monopoly", wherein the objective of the game is to acquire all the money of the other players.

Also consider that China's invasion was a retaliatory response to America stealing the oil they'd found... because the world was dependent on oil, and countries that didn't have it were going bankrupt... at a time when the US military was also occupying Canada... who they eventually annexed... and shot the civilians of... because they wanted more oil. Am I projecting or is there maybe some commentary there?
 

Frankie Spankie

Registered User
Feb 22, 2009
12,351
389
Dorchester, MA
Alien: Isolation - 7.5/10

I personally thought this game was overrated but it was still good. The game runs well outside of a bug that cutscenes seem to be limited to 30fps but the cutscenes don't actually just drop to 30, it's like the whole game slows down to be 30fps as far as animations go. The audio is normal but you move at super slow motion. I played this with a 2080Ti and it felt like it was going 20% speed dropping from 144+ FPS to 30. It wasn't just 30fps, the whole game slowed down to scale while the video was still smooth, it was really strange. Some of the longer scenes made it feel like an eternity before I can control my character like normal. Other than that really annoying bug, everything else ran flawlessly. The game does look great and framerate was never an issue outside of cutscenes.

Gameplay was fun, it felt like too much hide and seek early but when you get the flame thrower you can start to speed up a bit. The alien gets scared from the flame thrower so if it spots you, just burst a quick flame at it and it runs. The fun part was using the alien to kill other humans, although you don't get the opportunity too often. I also thought the ending was great.

Overall, I don't think it was as good as people made it out to be. Maybe it's because it's a good movie themed game. It's still a fun game for what it is though. I'd recommend it on a sale if you're looking for something new but I wouldn't say go rush and play it now.
 

tealhockey

@overtheboards
Jun 2, 2012
1,197
854
www.tealhockey.net
For some reason I remain unwilling to agree that it's a coincidence that the mascot of Fallout's evil Umbrella-esque ass corporation was designed to be evocative of the mascot of a game literally called "Monopoly", wherein the objective of the game is to acquire all the money of the other players.

Also consider that China's invasion was a retaliatory response to America stealing the oil they'd found... because the world was dependent on oil, and countries that didn't have it were going bankrupt... at a time when the US military was also occupying Canada... who they eventually annexed... and shot the civilians of... because they wanted more oil. Am I projecting or is there maybe some commentary there?
Whether or not the game is a 'statement' against capitalism, I definitely think Todd and the gang have lost the plot quite literally with regard to using nukes as a major advertisement point. I don't hate the series or where it has gone necessarily but it seems like it is bankrupt in a lot of ways at this point, just another franchise being milked to oblivion. And I didn't hate FO4 fwiw
 

Osprey

Registered User
Feb 18, 2005
27,093
9,355
For some reason I remain unwilling to agree that it's a coincidence that the mascot of Fallout's evil Umbrella-esque ass corporation was designed to be evocative of the mascot of a game literally called "Monopoly", wherein the objective of the game is to acquire all the money of the other players.

That "evil Umbrella-esque corporation" that you're describing is actually the U.S. government. Vault-Tec was just a military contractor that sold directly to them. In other words, it didn't have much to do with consumerism or capitalism and it's the U.S. government that built the vaults and wanted them to be defective in order to run experiments on people. In other words, you might as well argue that a theme of Fallout is "government is bad," not "corporations are bad."

Also consider that China's invasion was a retaliatory response to America stealing the oil they'd found... because the world was dependent on oil, and countries that didn't have it were going bankrupt... at a time when the US military was also occupying Canada... who they eventually annexed... and shot the civilians of... because they wanted more oil. Am I projecting or is there maybe some commentary there?

Wanting resources and conquering one another to get them has nothing to do with consumerism or capitalism. Nations and empires were doing that long before those came around. What you seem to be describing and what Fallout may be commenting on is warmongering. If you were to argue that, I might not disagree. I just think that extrapolating from that to make it out as a critique of consumerism and capitalism is a reach.

Regardless, all of this just backstory. It doesn't really matter if the themes don't carry into the post-apocalyptic setting and story and I don't think that they do, especially not in the early games, which have very simple plots (go out into the world, find something and bring it back to the vault).
 
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GlassesJacketShirt

Registered User
Aug 4, 2010
11,398
4,133
Sherbrooke
The Outer Worlds (PC, PS4, Switch [eventually], Xbox One)
by Obsidian

the_outer_worlds_morality.jpg


So I originally wasn't planning on even finishing this one, mostly due to indifference, but then I discovered I was pretty darn close to the game's conclusion and figured I might as well see it through to the end. At around 16 hours of playtime, I was able to finish the main quest along with about 90% of the side quests.

Before I get to the heart of the matter, two positives need to be pointed out:

1. The game ran great throughout its duration, no awful bugs to speak of.
2. Its visual style is a treat and will surely age well over time.

So now, my thoughts in a nutshell: thank god it was only 16 hours.

Most western RPGs run out of steam halfway through their content (with exceptions such as The Witcher III, the Mass Effect trilogy and a few others), and The Outer Worlds shares this distinction: the issue is that most of its ilk are 40-100 hour experiences. It does not take long after exploring your second hub to realize how limited the game is in scope..........which is perfectly fine, and could have been a strength of the game had the gameplay and storytelling not maxed themselves out 40 minutes in. For such a contained experience, The Outer Worlds still managed to feel unfinished and uninspired. Vicar Max and Parvati are the only two characters with interesting personalities/quirks (and also happen to be the first two companions you get, hmmmm.....), the game's outlook on corporate politics struggles to bring anything new to the table, and the gunplay is perfectly fine without being good enough to support the game's overall lack of depth. It's disappointing in almost every way.

The last western RPG I played, Dragon Age III, may have felt long in the tooth with a ton of cheap content plugged in, and even that had its positive ebbs and flows. If I were to grade this game using a graph of time and enjoyment, the slope would only head in one direction.

Rating: 4/10
 

Do Make Say Think

& Yet & Yet
Jun 26, 2007
51,157
9,904
I binged the crap out of Star Wars - Fallen Order over the weekend.

The game is basically Metroid Prime so I was in heaven until the last third of the game where it becomes on rails and that was most unfortunate. Combat never reaches the heights it aims for but it works fine. The story and characters were legitimately bad however, that was a real shame but I have stopped expecting or hoping for Star Wars to have a good story or characters so not a major let down. Production values were impressive, the game looks incredible and really nails the Star Wars atmosphere.

A very solid 7/10. The potential is there for a very strong sequel if Respawn can make combat tighter and improve the flow of the story. Also maybe less cosmetics and have more of the things you find have an effect on gameplay (about 75% of items you find in the game are cosmetics)
 

Frankie Spankie

Registered User
Feb 22, 2009
12,351
389
Dorchester, MA
I watched a couple streamers play bits and pieces of Star Wars. I'm not sure if it was just the streamers I was watching or it's the way the game is designed, but it seemed like practical use of the force in combat was pretty limited. Is that really the case? I would have expected a lot of environmental traps you can toss enemies into to kill them off quick, similar to how Bulletstorm did it but it seemed really limited in that regard.
 

Ceremony

blahem
Jun 8, 2012
113,012
15,084

Outlast (PS4, 2014)


Outlast is a first person horror game in which you control Miles Upshur, a journalist (who has a laminated badge saying PRESS hanging from his jeep's rear view mirror, so you know he's legit) who receives an anonymous tip about nasty events happening at the Mount Massive Asylum in Colorado. After lying empty for years it was suddenly bought and re-opened by the Murkoff Corporation. Miles turns up and goes digging, only to find that... well, it's not the sort of place you'd like to go if you had mental health issues. Or indeed, at all.

It's worth mentioning that immediately after having to climb in through a window Miles finds rooms with the furniture thrown about the floor and blood everywhere. After climbing through an air vent he gets to the library and finds the books replaced on the shelves with heads, and a guy in combat armour hanging from the ceiling by his neck. The guy tells him to go, but Miles decides to not run away immediately. Really, his commitment to journalism needs to be commended.

I'm not someone who's ever really played horror games. I played the Amnesia collection earlier this year and really enjoyed it. More than I thought I would. Maybe I set my standards too high with that, but Outlast consistently failed to live up to any of them. The gameplay is solid enough. You have a camcorder you can use to record what's going on, and use night vision to get through the many areas with no light, hoping you'll find enough batteries lying around to keep doing this. Even on the hardest difficulty, you won't have a problem keeping it powered though. The night vision gimmick is effective, as the assortment of enemies can move perfectly in the dark so you have to plan your moves and manage your battery life carefully.

The biggest problem I had with this game is that any sense of fear I might have had evaporated quickly and was replaced with annoyance. The darkness thing works, but levels are confusing and difficult to navigate even if you know where you're going. You can also run faster than every enemy you face. This means you can be trying to sneak past someone, get caught, and start running indefinitely to avoid them while you grope around trying to figure out where you should go. I appreciate that Miles wouldn't know where he's going, I appreciate he might want to explore and get some more footage, but the various parts of the asylum you go through seem to have been designed to be as obtuse and confusing as possible. The game isn't particularly long, but I quickly gave up on trying to be stealthy, or worrying about being scared.

The biggest strength of Amnesia (I've just realised I'm only talking about The Dark Descent here, that was good, the other two weren't) was the atmosphere. It wasn't scary solely because of things that happened, but the overall atmosphere of the setting, coupled with the information you found as you progressed along with the possibility of things happening. Outlast relies much more on jump scares, which feel cheap. There's also a problem with the people in the asylum. Some are enemies, some aren't. The music cues are consistent (and repetitive) enough to make this clear, but when you start the game it's hard to tell. Again, you could argue this is realistic as someone newly in that situation wouldn't know, but it's still annoying.

On the enemies themselves, or how they got there, woof. The Murkoff Corporation does some bad experiments on people. Fair enough. Monsters, evil, previously-human monsters are a staple of video games. Here's a brief synopsis of how the residents of Mount Massive ended up the way they did:

A Nazi scientist was taken in by the US government after the war because he had done experiments in mind control which they wanted help with, and he took part in the various CIA experiments in that area in the 50s and 60s. Along the way this progressed to controlling people's dreams, in turn people controlling nanobots as part of one collective consciousness. This eventually manifested itself as something called the Walrider, a black ghost-like thing that floats around killing people. Oh and it's thrown in at the end that the Nazi scientist was gay and had some sort of relationship with Alan Turing.

I got most of the story on my first playthrough before filling out the collectibles later. As I realised what was going on, it lost me quite quickly. I'm all for the evils of human experimentation, but this was just silly. There are some enemies that you might generously call boss encounters, and they have distinctive traits and some back stories, but these don't seem connected to the main premise of the story as you discover it. They seem almost gratuitous, thrown in purely to be scary with little relevance to the things you discover about the asylum. This, coupled with the gameplay issues I mentioned, make it a frustratingly disengaging experience.

There's DLC for the game where you play as the person who tipped Miles off. He gets caught as he sends the e-mail and gets taken for experimentation, right around the time everything goes wrong and the lunatics start running the asylum. Pretty much every complaint I had about the main game is present here too, although the episode isn't as long. It also seems much more reliant on shock value for scares, as there's some pretty gruesome stuff here with very little connection to the premise of the main game. Even the major enemies you deal with seem to have little connection to Mount Massive as you understand it. If the controls and building weren't the same, I'd struggle to tell you they were the from the same game.

On that note, what writing there is in the game is awful. Both protagonists have a camera and if you record certain things you get a note in your inventory. Reading them made me want to leave both of them there. I don't expect high literature in these situations, but every boring cliche you can imagine is churned out by the. It doesn't help that the characters are silent, so the notes as their only reaction to what's going on don't feel very involved with what you're experiencing on their behalf.

Actually, there's something else. You can also find documents scattered around which serve the same purpose. When you read them the page appears on screen, and if there's more than one page you can press a button to turn the page. On probably a majority of them, there's one word on the other side. Did nobody playtest this and realise how annoying that was?

I suppose if you want a short experience and some cheap scares, Outlast will do. If you want some gratuitous gore with no reasonable explanation for it being there, it will definitely do. Personally I found it much more irritating than scary, and if a game like this has you indifferent as to whether your protagonists live or die, I don't think it's very successful.
 
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GlassesJacketShirt

Registered User
Aug 4, 2010
11,398
4,133
Sherbrooke
Nioh: Complete Edition (PC, PS4)
by Team Ninja
Released in 2017

upload_2019-11-25_2-4-50.png


It needs no introduction, so I'll just go over what I liked/didn't like in bulletpoint form:

-The combat system is terrific. It does remind me of Souls and Bloodborne, but I would argue there's an even better base here than any of From Software's works. Feels like a marriage between the aforementioned titles and the Dynasty Warrior series.

-As an extension to point 1, the lack of weapon variety is offset by the three combat stances available to each class. Love it.

-Worth noting that Nioh is far more of an RPG than initially anticipated, and some grinding will be required. Levels can be replayed to help out.

-The story setting and setup are great, but the narrative being told is often confusing. I get William's goal, and I understand what the overall plot is going for, but caring about any of these characters is not walk in the park and likely requires historical knowledge to fully appreciate (which is no replacement for good storytelling). Waifus galore at least?

-Visuals were pretty last-gen if I'm being honest, but Dark Souls weren't about visuals either. Good artistry and excellent demon design help the experience greatly.

-Speaking of demons, or yokai in this instance, I thought they were pretty fun to fight...….and god knows, you will fight the same yokai over and over again. Perhaps From Software spoiled me, but enemy repetition in Nioh started to feel egregious by the end.

-I'll give props to Team Ninja for including a lot of sub-missions in between the story levels; I will criticize them for their re-using assets for these missions.

-Level design in general is mostly average, sometimes slightly above and other times below the threshold.

-Bosses vary drastically in quality: Yuki-onna, Saika Magoichi and The Ogress, while most Samurai fights made me yearn for Sekiro. Also, re-use of boss music is INSANE.

Had a good time with this one. If they could have minimized the repetitive content it could have been terrific, but I'll still award a very solid 7 for the combat system alone.

Score: 7/10
 
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