Book of Demons

I had never heard of Book of Demons prior to the 66% off coupon appearing in my Steam inventory, but I’ve been in a bit of a drought recently with no games managing to satisfy so I figured I’d bite and take the plunge into yet another indie dungeon crawling rogue-like thing.

Unfortunately, the only word I realistically have to describe this one is ‘meh’, and I don’t know whether that’s necessarily the game’s fault or whether I’m simply beyond hope of ever being excited again. Book of Demons is by no means bad, and it’s evident that a lot of work went into its development, but aside from a unique pop-up book aesthetic, it rather ironically fails to stand out. Gameplay consists of wandering dungeons, collecting loot and clicking the approaching enemies until they fall down, repeating either until you reach the end or you get bored and go do something else. So far I’ve only really made use of the fighter and the archer, but with every level being as samey as they are, the mage would need to have some pretty damn special mechanics if I’m going to invest any more into him than this sentence right here.

The town’s full of walking stereotypes, I say let Diablo have it

I think my main issue is just how linear it is for a dungeon crawler; your character explores all these floors, but will only ever walk along the path that was laid out for them in the middle of the room. Monsters have free reign to go where they please, but often times just sort of amble towards you in a semi-threatening manner so that you have just enough time to either back-peddle or tear chunks out of them. It does get pretty dicey every now and then when you’re cornered but a lot of the time a fight either feels too easy or too overwhelming, and not having the ability to move around freely really highlights this. On top of that treasure is unmissable, which really feels like a strange decision. At the top of the screen is a checklist of all the points of interest that litter the floor, and twinkles taken straight out of the original Spyro will lead you to any coins you’ve missed. This isn’t exploration, this is filling in paperwork and having pop-up skeletal archers spring towards me doesn’t make it any less monotonous.

Weapons and armour show up in the form of cards that are equipped to your hotbar for easy access; red cards represent one time use items, such as potions; blue ones are spells that can be used repeatedly, but consume mana; and green cards are artifacts which grant special bonuses at the cost of reducing your mana pool. I really like this system, as it allows me to play in the way that feels most natural for me. With my warrior, I want to focus on being able to devastate with my basic attacks (usually because I have a cup of tea in my other hand), so any mana I decide to level into goes towards filling out my inventory with the unique tools of murder I’ve been discovering. My archer feels a little more fragile, so many of my card slots are devoted to getting me out of trouble at the cost of that sweet blue liquid. The system itself is fantastic so I’m hoping that at some point it’ll be repurposed for something less… on rails. Character customisation is absent, and although I’m still disappointed I can’t fault the developers for it: they are an indie company after all, and as they stated in a forum post, focusing on small customizables would eat up a whole lot of resources. What I would have liked to see, is a little more emphasis on who my characters are. Either let me make my heroes or give me a reason to care about yours, because otherwise I’m just playing with a cardboard cut-out.

Some faces you just can’t kiss for fear of paper cuts

This is one of those tragedies that really feels undeserved. The developers clearly put a lot of time and effort into Book of Demons, but love isn’t enough to generate a compelling experience. The linearity of every level quickly gives way to a monotony that does nothing but aggravate my already overwhelming despondency for gaming, and although I might play for a little bit more to see what artifacts and builds are available, I’m unlikely to stick around unless there are some major updates to make this thing interesting. With that said, Book of Demons is supposed to be one of seven titles making up the ‘Paperverse’, with this particular game being a love letter to the hack ‘n’ slash dungeon crawling family Diablo hails from. Presumably, there are six more games on the way each representing a different genre from a bygone age, and I’m willing to bet there will be just as much affection poured into each one. If the developers can listen to criticisms and take opinions on board, I reckon they’ll do a stellar job.

Book of Demons is a good attempt at approaching a well-defined genre from a new angle, but falls almost as flat as the character models. I probably wouldn’t recommend picking this one up as it stands, but updates have been promised even coming out of early access, so maybe keep this one on your radar.

The N.Sane and Reignited Trilogies

Spyro the Dragon was the very first game I ever played – true, Crash Bandicoot soon after became the favourite, but I nonetheless hold the purple dragon pretty dearly in my heart. I want to talk about both the Reignited and N.Sane trilogies here, because playing Spyro 2 last night lead me to realise exactly what set apart these two commonly connected titles.

The remakes are fine, but that’s about it. They serve the purpose of bringing old games into the modern day, meaning that we can at last tell exactly what is going on through the haze of jagged polygons. Spyro did at least get some environmental flavour that was lacking in the originals along with some more dramatic character design shifts, but otherwise I may as well be playing the originals on my Playstation, for better or worse. Spyro 1 as a game works fantastically; when I walk into a level, there’s both a feeling of anticipation and an understanding of what is required of me. Every portal leads to a whole new world with often dramatically disparate themes, but I know I have to find the dragons and the gems, maybe kill a thief or two. Insomniac prevented this kind of gameplay from getting stale by introducing new mechanics in every level, with new enemies and abilities to defeat them with. By Ripto’s Rage, there were no more fundamental gameplay elements to add aside from swimming and ability gates: the developers decided that the solution to this problem was to add minigames to every single level, some of which were timed and some of which that were insanely tedious or difficult to the point where it was no longer fun. The issue was over complication of what was initially a very good formula; small levels with lots of room for backtracking, treasure locked behind tests of skill, and environments that felt at once hostile and perfect for a dragon to explore. It’s a platformer; don’t you dare ask me to protect the goat from getting clubbed because that isn’t what I signed up for.

Crash featured riding and flying levels yes, but for the most part the entire series was consistent. You run, and you keep running until you reach the end of the level; although the mechanics themselves were pretty bland, Crash maintains the player’s attention through constantly ramping up the difficulty, adding new obstacles or enemies sparingly, and providing rewards to players who are willing to play through those same levels using different paths or rules. Warped is probably the best in the series because it makes the most of this formula; one of the Egyptian levels, for instance, introduces rising and falling water that the player needs to deal with on top of everything else those levels have taught them up to that point. Defeating a boss grants you a new power, so now you can go back and make that impossible jump from the previous warp room, or explore a completely different path with a gem you recently acquired. Crash had a simplicity to it that resonated with people, and it has the added virtue of being easy enough to start playing again even after all these years. Realistically, Vicarious Visions had a pretty easy job on their hands as long as they stuck close enough to the source material that fans would likely complain about.

But as I said, for the most part the remakes are just fine. I’m playing an update to my favourite games from childhood, so why would I complain? The loading screens, for one – the addition of tips for Crash Bandicoot put me off at first, but they are genuinely a good idea considering how obscure some of the secrets could be in those games. Why, though, have you plastered them over something I could create in Flash in about half an hour? When the rest of the game looks and feels so good, the transitions between each level can’t feel this jarringly half-arsed, because it leaves a bitter aftertaste. Spyro performed better here, but he’s far from full marks; the transition between portal and skybox isn’t fluid like it was in the originals, and my gems don’t all fly in and out of the chest as they’re being counted. These are small changes but they really stuck out, and I have no idea why they couldn’t just keep what was already there. It feels more like laziness than a lack of capability and although I’m not surprised, I’m supremely disappointed. Unfortunately, that highlights precisely my issue with these remakes – the meat of the matter is perfect, but the trim is subpar at best. Potentially, we could blame release schedules and pushy publishers, but I’m getting pretty sick of that excuse considering how often titles still get delayed. Releasing a game later than expected isn’t going to hurt the chances of me buying it, it’s going to increase my anticipation of a well designed product.

Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon remain to be some of the best games I have played in spite, or maybe because of, their overall simplicity. If you no longer have a copy, your Playstation decided to die or if you just want to see your memories with the same glamour you imagined them with, go ahead and buy the remakes. Functionally, these titles are what you’d expect, and gameplay wise they will feel exactly as you remember them. Fair warning though, they lack soul, and although they definitely seem perfect, something was lost somewhere down the line that will no doubt alert you to the wrongness of what you’re playing.

Consumer versus Creator

I sat down with the intention of writing about a trip I went on recently, but that can wait because Blizzard done messed up.

In essence, the newest Diablo game in the series (and the canon) will be strictly mobile for the foreseeable future, with the developer also making the announcement that some of their best team members will be moving on to other mobile projects. The reaction, well, it was difficult to sit through – either go watch it yourself, or imagine an excited teen showing his latest passion project to his peers, only to be shut down with snide comments and awkward silences. Suitably cringing? Depending on your affiliation with Blizzard, that scene might even just make you angry, and it makes sense: it’s a room full of ‘hardcore gamers’ who paid through the nose to essentially watch a series of adverts. Just think how well that crowd are gonna take then being sold what looks like a half-arsed clone of a five year old game that will control like a rat on a skating rink (because all mobile games do).

But that being the case, we have to ask why Blizzard was ‘so excited’ to show off this project. If we’re being jaded, it’s because they looked at other well performing microtransaction-lousy mobile titles and decided they wanted in, but that just isn’t the vibe I got. Nowadays, everyone has a mobile device, some have more than one, and many households at this point have a tablet too. This technology is everywhere, and is being used all the time, so you ask yourself what the absolute best platform to release a game on would be, to reach the widest audience, to allow for the easiest access for those who want it? You can create a game for a console that doesn’t yet exist and for desktops that’ll put NASA to shame, or you make an inclusive game on a simpler engine for everyone, and God knows which one seems more attractive to me.

Mobile exclusive though? This does not sound like the decision made by a passionate gamer/developer, but some high ranking CEO who cares only for the numbers that the titles bring in. Mobile’s popular this generation, so just ram that ship all the way in there, giving no thought to the rest of the iceberg that dictates why that is. When I think of a mobile game, it isn’t quality content – it’s Super Mario Run, it’s Crossy Road or that God awful one with the flying fish. Mobile games notify me every twenty minutes to tell me that my energy has recharged or that they miss me dearly and have a present to show for it, so I can understand completely when Diablo fans were pissed. This doesn’t feel to me like the intentional stab in the back people are making it out to be, but rather a disconnect between what people want, what developers believe they want, and what higher ups decide to do anyway because loot boxes. It feels like a similar thing is happening with this Witcher series; here, although I haven’t really been following any of the news stories, I am a very big fan of The Witcher books and games, and the way it’s all being handled leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

The controversy here for a long time was related to race, social justice and that whole can of worms I tend not to touch without a full hazmat suit, but the short and sharp of it is that the writers want to create something that, if left unchallenged, will be a dramatic departure from the source material. I was called a fascist on a night out with some friends when some guy recognised my necklace, came over and started mouthing off about it being fine for Ciri to be black and that all Witcher fans were neo-Nazis. It’s been way too long since I read all the character descriptions, so I’m not going to pretend to be able to prove or disprove what colour skin people are ‘allowed’ to have. The issue here is that it just feels like a departure from character visuals for diversity sake alone and when dealing with something as monumental as The Witcher, you include the books and the games because fans will want to see the characters they love in the way they know. I want to see a gnarled up mess of a Geralt for instance, and a mature and aloof Yennefer who’s so goddamn sexy I have to cry myself to sleep for a week.

Is that me being entitled? Childish, or churlish because I don’t think they’ll do a good job without it lining up with my expectations? Does it matter? With this, and with Diablo Immortal, we have to remember that the finished article isn’t a law that’s crammed unwillingly down our necks. They’re developing a commercial item that the consumer needs to go out of their way to purchase, and if they decide they don’t want to make an attractive product, it more than likely won’t sell. I also personally object to the recent politicising of every piece of media that comes out nowadays and the requirement to send a message convergent with modern views: just treat people the same, and stop telling me what you believe I should be thinking, because that’s the quickest way to stop me from thinking anything at all. That said, at the end of the day, they will write what they like, and they one hundred percent have the right to do as they please because they’re the people taking time out to do it. They have my blessing on the understanding that I won’t be renewing my Netflix subscription if Triss ain’t ginger.

People seem to forget that they are individuals, and I’m not saying that in a pompous ‘I’m better than you way’, but I look around and see all the pitchforks and wonder why we can’t just leave each other alone. If you don’t like the idea of a mobile Diablo, don’t buy the damn thing. Voice your opinions, call out what you think is bullshit, and if nothing changes just walk away, because at that point it’s the most effective thing you can do. Same goes for Netflix, politics or even friends. You aren’t bound to anything or anyone, and if your interests change, if you decide that someone’s doing a bad job, either do a better one yourself or move on –  don’t worry, I know how hard that can be.

 

Oh, and if you’re reading this and you are a creator, read your audience, because when they’re gone you’re back to being just like everyone else.

League of Legends

A little while ago I reviewed Paragon, a relatively new MOBA that was unfortunately cancelled not long after I started playing. That was my second experience of the genre, with League of Legends being my first. I feel it’s about time I actually collect my experiences with the game, though it is neither new nor finished.

League of Legends released all the way back in 2009, yet is still widely known as one of the most played videogames around the world. That’s a pretty impressive feat, especially considering what a MOBA actually is. You take two teams, with each player choosing a different character/ champion/ hero and essentially going to war. Your objective is to coordinate with your team, exploiting certain character weaknesses and strengths to destroy the base on the other side of the map (while protecting your own). That’s it. You may as well be playing football, because every game is more or less identical, the pitch, the rules, the equipment: when you go into a game of League, the most surprising thing you are likely to encounter is that god awful support character wiping the floor with your mates because they decided to buy items that definitely do not help them support well. In order to keep people coming back to this otherwise stale experience, the developers release patches every two weeks. Sometimes good characters or items will fall out of favour and have their stats decreased; other times completely new legends will be added whose only purpose in life is to make every thirty minute game living agony.

Admittedly, this is a very good system that clearly works. League is completely free after all (if we ignore skin sales), so managing to keep players returning even after five or six years just goes to show that flashy DLC and in-depth campaigns aren’t always a requirement to maintain player attention. It isn’t perfect, however; as characters get older, players call for reworks to visuals and gameplay, and the developers have managed to keep up with those demands pretty efficiently. The problem is that you can’t please everyone. Around this time last year, one of my favourite characters got a new face, backstory and abilities that better suited the game in a healthy way, but also in a fashion that completely put me off. If you change that character that so many people have come to love and identify with, you risk losing a chunk of your playerbase. It’s an interesting balancing act that you just don’t see in some other genres, and something that couldn’t exist back before the days of post-release patching. Without it, though, League of Legends would have died in popularity long ago.

Artistically, I have never seen anything like it. The game itself is fine, not really my cup of tea, but I sort of like playing. It’s the characters, the story, the music and this complex and beautiful world Riot Games has built that keeps me coming back. New characters and events always come with the promise of short stories, or a high quality login screen featuring some of the best music I have heard in gaming. To me (and I’m sure to many others), this universe is a real place in the imagination filled with complexity and compelling narratives. I can’t even imagine how many works of fanfiction are out there; how many cosplay artists dedicate their time to recreating these characters; how many pieces of art have been produced either being inspired or directly referencing this one, repetitive, notorious game. Sure you can chalk it up to the large player base, but with so many interesting and unique characters you can actually play and identify with, it makes sense to me that League would resonate on a far deeper level with players than the likes of, say, Mario.

And so I want to talk about the darker side of the community, because anyone deciding to go into this one deserves full warning. League harbours one of the worst communities I have come across, and which isn’t always only confined to within individual matches. If you play a certain character in a suboptimal way, if you end up being outplayed one to many times by a genuinely skilled opponent, even if you do not yet know how to play, prepare for the constant and bitter assault of “noob”, “feeder”, and the relentless calls to either step away from your keyboard or go and end your life. I want desperately to be told I am overstating the issue, or that these players are in the minority, but I personally experienced harassment within my first twenty games and still get it to this day. Ironically, it’s a detriment to basically everyone involved; this is a team game, and abusing your jungler to the point where he just doesn’t want to play anymore is going to lose you the game so much faster than if you gave him some moral support. For all the skill and knowledge involved, League also has a psychological component that many players seem to either forget or ignore. I could comfortably take up hostage negotiation after two years of play, because the amount of times I’ve had to convince a player either to calm down and have fun, or stop someone from pointing out every ruddy mistake someone makes is astounding. It saps the fun out of what is, at the end of the day, a computer program designed to let the user have fun. There are good sides too, of course; sometimes you’ll really hit it off with an ally and produce an actual friendship, or be able to laugh with your team both during clear victories and clear defeats. Let’s face it, if the bad really did outweigh the good so heavily, why would I or countless other people continue to play?

League of Legends is an experience like no other, and has something for just about anyone. Storytellers will relish the lore; hardcore gamers will love theorycrafting, experimenting and trouncing their foes; and those people who just want to have fun with friends or strangers will no doubt find joy in making an utter tit of yourself in a game that will be forgotten by everyone sometimes just an hour later. Would I recommend it to everyone? Yeah, probably: a free game with so much simultaneous simplicity and depth is at least worth one taste. League’s not showing any signs of dying just yet though, so you’ve probably got another year or two to make up your mind.

Git Gud at Surviving Uni

Sure, Uni is a time for study, bettering yourself and reaching those lofty ambitions you so confidently set before writing up a personal statement. I’d argue it’s also about rediscovering yourself, having fun with a myriad of fascinating individuals and devoting time towards the hobbies that are close to your heart – so either you’re lost, or those hobbies happen to include videogames.

Contrary to popular belief, videogames are not a horrific waste of time, nor the enticing temptress who seeks only to devour your life. Now more than ever, the medium is accepted as an art form and sometimes even a sport (I won’t tell them the truth if you don’t), so for as long as you can keep your finger twitching habits under control, you can reason that those three hours playing Cuphead were for a good cause. The key word, take note, is control; much like smoking, drinking and exercise, booting up your PlayStation is kind of habit forming, and could set you up for a colossal failure come the revision period. It really does come down to who you are, and knowing your limits. An intense six hour session definitely isn’t wise, but if you’re the kind of person that is still able to keep up with your studies and revise like a dog, I see no harm in it. Learning to balance your work and play will not only benefit your grades, but your mental well being – you have time to relax, unwind and stay involved in the things that keep you being you. Maybe go outside once in a while too though – Vitamin D is also important.

So we come to the second hurdle – you may not have noticed, but gaming got bloody expensive and, no offence, but you’re a filthy student living on pasta and overdrafts. Finding equipment to satisfy the hardcore gamer within is going to cost at least a kidney unless you play it smart. Rather than going all in for that twenty kilo desktop that looks like a spaceship and sounds like an aircraft, look into laptops that have adequate specs and can reasonably run your guilty pleasures alongside your SPSSs and Powerpoints. If you’re slumming it with your accommodation, I’m sure you can settle for thirty frames and trashy textures; having a machine to act as your all-in-one also takes up less desk space, so crack out that textbook and at least pretend you’re learning through process of diffusion. If that still doesn’t satisfy, swallow your pride and procure a console, new or old. Unlike a PC, a console is designed specifically to run the game you shove in it to the best of its ability – you don’t need to download unofficial patches, nor spend an hour browsing forums to find out why “graphics driver was not detected – process terminated”.

You got your timetable, you got your hardware, but holy sh*t they’re charging upwards of fifty quid for a copy of FIFA. I’d be the last person to advocate you splashing on that regardless, but there are so many more affordable games out there for you to enjoy either with friends or as a solo experience without the insulting price tag. The indie crowd in particular is full of great ideas and down to earth solutions to the AAA developer’s convoluted and occasionally mediocre content. They also tend to come with cheerfully low hardware requirements and playtimes that can range from an afternoon to every spare moment you have. Steam and GOG are your go-to platforms for variety and value for money. If you’re looking for suggestions, Darkest Dungeon, Undertale and OneShot (as well as all the other games I’ve mentioned in previous articles) are all great standalone titles that can provoke deep emotions and last you at least twenty hours each, depending on how dedicated you are. Not to leave anyone out, I’ll let you in on a little secret, console gamers: buy hard copies from retailers like Amazon instead of getting digital downloads, as it will end up being a lot cheaper in most cases.

Be controlled, be smart, and be a little less proud. Dedicating yourself to studying should not ever mean abandoning the things that you care about, but it shouldn’t be taken lightly either. Walk this tightrope carefully with my advice in mind, and you’ll be just fine – I have faith in you.

Paragon Review

I started playing League of Legends just under a year ago more as a joke than anything else. MOBA is, as we all know, a dirty word, and playing with other people is a hassle at the best of times. I was more surprised than anyone when Skyrim started taking the back seat for this crude looking, beautiful genre. Paragon is League, but I didn’t actually know that when I booted it up on my PlayStation: I saw a dark eyed femme fatale and the words ‘play for free’ and I thought ‘why the hell not?’ Note going into this that Paragon is still in beta, meaning the game could go through many changes and improvements by its full release.

Mechanically, it’s a gem, with phenomenal visuals to boot. Every character I’ve played so far has had some pretty flashy abilities that feel good to use, the characters themselves meanwhile looking damn good using them. The Countess and The Revenant in particular drew my eye, as they simultaneously appear wrong in this sci-fi universe while slotting into the roster seamlessly. The environments are detailed, exciting to explore and no less that I would expect from a company like Epic Games, while many characters manage to pop out against this backdrop in a way that feels so right. Maybe it’s just me that still gets excited about the use of physics on clothes and hair, but in Paragon I still get that twitch in my heart when I see my coat flap open dynamically as I run. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable experience, and exactly what I would expect if League was developed by a company with a bigger budget.

Yeah, I kinda hoped it was Bloodrayne 3 as well

On the other side of the coin, Paragon seemingly neglects sound as being particularly relevant to player experience. All the time you’re browsing menus on the homescreen, the music feels powerful and exciting, which is exactly what you would want from this calibre of game. This does not follow through into matches though – I think I might have heard one or two notes, but aside from that all we have is silence. There is the argument that in such a competitive genre, sound effects and the information that they can convey is far more important to players, but it also means the game feels lifeless. This goes for characters as well: characters in League of Legends feel vibrant, unique and alive, in no small part to the lore and character relations that Riot has built up, but also because of characters quotes and dialogue. Aside from bright colours and pretty physics effects, characters in Paragon struggle to stand out as being unique personalities, and it’s a real shame when there are some great character ideas in there. Serath in particular has this expressionless way about her that could definitely be mitigated by just that tiniest injection of personality.

The game also does a really poor job of explaining to new players the rules. There is a brief tutorial covering basic gameplay mechanics, don’t get me wrong; I’m talking more about what’s expected of me once I get in-game with nine other people. MOBAs are renowned for the toxicity of their playerbase, so if getting called ‘noob’ or ‘feeder’ isn’t something you can be bothered to deal with, I’d definitely give this one a miss. I’d played pretty poorly during my fifth match – I didn’t know where my character was supposed to go and no one had any intention of helping me. Every time I died, one player in particular would ping me a ‘Good Job!’, and told me to enjoy my inevitable ban. This only happened twice that I can remember, but the community has a huge impact on how a player can experience this kind of game. As difficult as it might be in an ever changing landscape of character balancing and gameplay metas, I feel many new players would appreciate a more in-depth walkthrough of what will be expected of them by more veteran players.

An honest mistake? I think you misspelled ‘died on purpose to throw the game’

As a free to play game, if you’re able to run it then I’d definitely recommend giving it a go. Paragon manages to give players that MOBA experience in a format closer to that of, say, Call of Duty or Skyrim, with the variety in character capabilities meaning the game never feels restrained to either of those games’ genres. With a little bit of audio design and a tighter focus on making the game more accessible to new players, this one could really turn out to be a masterpiece.

We WILL Charge for Mods

Bethesda’s paid mods scheme was not a success back in 2015, so their attempt to milk gamers for more money they don’t deserve with their Creation Club would almost be comic were it not so insulting.

Modding has often been viewed as something of a legal grey area; you have a game that people have potentially spent years working on, and then you have the loveable, unpaid modder who took that game and turned Alduin the World-Eater into Macho Man Randy Savage. Mods come in all shapes and sizes, from overhauls to total conversions, simple re-skins to script-altering masterpieces that deliver unique experiences before melting your CPU. Once you see the fine work done by the modding community, and come to appreciate just how influential some ideas have been on big companies and subsequent titles, it seems to become a no brainer when asked if modders should get paid.

You pissed off the people that manipulate Skyrim itself – of course they were going to build a wall

Bethesda in particular has been very sensitive to modding in the past, releasing Creation Kits that mean even someone like you or me can add to or edit aspects of their games. All those years ago, the paid mods scheme felt like a wholesome idea executed poorly – modders would only be compensated with 25% of the profits from their files, and there was always a fear that your work could be stolen by someone else and slapped behind a paywall (like I said, the topic of modder’s rights is very uncertain ground). The bug fixes and unofficial patches that are almost necessary for Bethesda games to run could potentially also end up being something you need to buy separately, and that definitely leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. It comes as no surprise that satirical mods, such as Give her money for no reason and Immersive Paywall, would spring up in a passive aggressive form of protest.

Fast forward to the present day and we have Bethesda seemingly shedding their partner in crime Valve and introducing their own Creation Club. Again, this appears to be in good faith, with the promise of high-quality content and modders being almost ‘hired’, but what it boils down to a lot of the time is recycling content and asking consumers to pay through the nose for something they can get for free. The Chinese Stealth Suit in particular has become a subject of much contention, as a better looking version with many more features was available on the Nexus before Bethesda shipped their port from previous games. Content is sparse and, from what I can see, no where near the kind of quality that people have come to expect from some of the higher profile modders that carry out their work as passion projects instead of careers. Likewise, the baffling decision to implement yet another overpriced Horse Armour as (let’s face it) DLC feels like Bethesda walking that fine line between mocking themselves and mocking their fan-base.

And so a meme was born

So what’s my final verdict? To be honest, it’s really hard. In the past, modders have managed to add content of such high quality, not only to Bethesda games, but to videogames in general, that I really would like these saints to be paid for their work. Unfortunately, every time the subject comes up, people panic, and it threatens to permanently damage a technically harmless and beautiful pass time. Maybe I’m speaking from a position of greed – if I needed to pay for my airships and vampire overhauls, would I have? Likewise, if I had spent a couple of pounds on a new adventure, only to find out the scripts contained would corrupt every subsequent save, would I be compensated? It’s an underground hobby – no rules, no regulations – that Bethesda is trying to either embrace or absorb depending on your standpoint; you tell me whether or not something like that should be taken over.

 

– Originally written for the University of Kent’s InQuire

Sundered Review

Rule one of writing a critical review (no, it’s not honesty silly) is to never read anyone else’s before you’re done. There’s always a fear that their opinions will bleed into your own and end up tainting what could be an original insight into a game. The second fear is that you will be a dissenting voice in a sea of adoration, and in those instances ignorance is most certainly bliss.

Sundered peddles itself as a sort of nonlinear Metroidvania Roguelike type thing; I’d try and break that down for you if you’re confused, but so am I. And so is the game, actually – we’re all confused and no one’s happy about it. The core problem is the uninspired, repetitive gameplay that see-saws roughly every two minutes between adequate 2D platforming and straight up button mashing. Enemies, like the levels themselves, are random in a sense, but if you count down from twenty after polishing off a wave, you can probably predict when the next one’s inbound. Collision doesn’t apply to the vast majority of Sundered’s enemies, meaning that intelligently kiting and picking off your foes isn’t even an option. Having these waves of obnoxious health-sappers perpetually breathing down your neck doesn’t fill you with dread though, and that’s yet another failure I’ll get to later. No, it feels more like frustration; making any progress whatsoever means opening the map to try and make sense of the caverns, and then proceeding to overcome the same jumping puzzles over and over again to reach the next area. Of course, the map doesn’t pause the game (thank you Dark Souls) and the endless dredge of monstrosities make it their personal goal to throw you around the room like a really tiny ping pong ball. Losing sight of your character is ridiculously easy, especially during some of those boss fights, so you’re gonna be fighting the game as well as your foes.

Find the player character. It’s okay – I’ll wait.

Sundered appears to draw on Lovecraftian themes, with ancient elders, eldritch horrors and tentacle monsters abound. The trailers featured screams of soldiers and the protagonist as the madness of their prison devoured their very sanity, so where was all this in-game? Spawning enemies on top of the player’s location could have been used to really inject some fear into the whole experience. The knowledge that you are being hunted is scary, but when there’s no risk, and when enemies are mainly just an inconvenience, the process becomes exhausting. When I die, I expect at the very least a slap on the wrist, or the partial extraction of my mortal soul – Sundered lets me restart with all my money, for Christ sake!

Even as a piece of art, the game has it’s ups and downs. Possibly the greatest achievement here is that of the animation. Sundered’s smooth, hand-drawn visuals really manage to inspire awe if you have the time to stop and take it all in (spoilers – you don’t). The player and enemies are also afforded a very crisp appearance, and the way each animation transitions into the next is both unnatural and hypnotic. The praise stops there: as much as I do love these visuals, having fifteen or so of the same sprite dogpile me not only makes it difficult to appreciate the skill that went into creating it, but conjures the sense that I have already seen what this creature has to offer a hundred times before. Likewise the soundtrack, although very good at generating atmosphere, lacks any distinguishing features and is mostly forgettable.

Sir! I just want a moment of your time to talk about Cthulhu!

I need to address these damn levels: the world appears to be split into three regions, each with their own basic layout, ability shrines, bosses, et cetera. Now, that’s all well and good, it’s Metroidvania, and Metroidvanias are fun. What Sundered chose to do, however, is inject it with a healthy dose of Rogue, as is the modern indie developer’s way. The caverns rework themselves upon every death (explaining, but not justifying the tedious load times), meaning limitless potential for exploration. At least, in theory; anyone who’s really fell in love with a procedurally generated game knows that after a while, patterns begin to emerge, rooms begin to look the same and you quickly realise you’re walking a labyrinth and not a maze. It means less development time and less intelligent design – heck, when it came to enemy placement, Sundered just screamed NO. It’s a real shame, because the tutorial had me thinking that perhaps I’d be navigating devious puzzles and outsmarting enemies.

Maybe I’m being too harsh, but Sundered doesn’t attempt to offer anything new, and hints at a great deal more than it delivers upon. Thematically, it’s a failure, and I groan every time I die not because of lost progress, but because it means more play time. The whole Harry Potter maze deal is kinda clichéd at this point, and sure I get the desire to pad out a game to give your audience more to do, but what ever happened to the sheer quality that handmade levels provide? You can still find that – Hollow Knight wouldn’t be a bad place to start; it’s a damn better performance than this.

And about those glowing reviews? Yeah, I don’t understand them either; maybe there’s a different Sundered I should have bought.

 

– Originally written for the University of Kent’s InQuire

Crushin’ Crates N. Chewin’ Wumpa

The success of Activision’s N. Sane Trilogy was a surprise to everyone but gamers. Crash Bandicoot’s dramatic entrance to the industry on the original PlayStation offered a viable and entertaining alternative to Mario that truly resonated with fans. Unfortunately, the winning mix of loveable characters, tight gameplay and stellar soundtrack ended with Naughty Dog’s contract. Crash underwent many less than fantastic iterations under numerous developers, and the franchise had been long considered deceased by those who enjoyed the original three titles.

That lightning has once again been caught in the bottle: aside from a few bugs (and a Dingodile fight that I refuse to acknowledge exists), these remakes are genuinely good, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. In a recent statement, Activision – chuffed to bits with their ‘insight’ – has said that they want remakes to be a large part of their new business model. It’s all too easy to get excited by the prospect of being regularly delivered raw nostalgia, especially for those who have been playing videogames since childhood, but I’m very weary about just how far this might go.

After all, these aren’t dynamic reimaginings in the vein of id Software’s DOOM; the initial excitement of seeing that boulder chase you or getting to ride a motorcycle isn’t there because it’s rehashed content, and although the opportunity to relive your childhood is comforting, it’s a very real path to stagnation. I would be supremely surprised if we didn’t see Spyro the Dragon be given the same treatment in the next few years. Like Crash, it’s another franchise close to my heart, and although I’m desperately afraid of Skylanders being my favourite dragon’s last resting point, is the process of being recycled really any better?

In the end, it doesn’t matter what’s best for the franchise – Crash recently featured in Imaginators and the code for the Spyro the Dragon demo from way back when deactivated the cursor on the N. Sane Trilogy homescreen. The games go together like Morcombe and Wise with fur and scales, meaning that one can’t realistically be given a second chance without the other. You can bet your wumpa it’ll be just as much of a success too: I’ll probably end up begrudgingly loving it, and it will prove once again that nostalgia and familiarity are a more comfortable investment than a quirky new IP. Truth be told, if they can fix that awful camera and just straight up drain all of those water levels, I’ll preorder the damn thing.

The decision to implement Stormy Ascent as free DLC also opens up for some potentially interesting (if not particularly desirable) avenues. The level was cut from the original game due to a difficulty that went above and beyond the rest of the already hard as nails title. Naughty Dog cut very little from the other two games; however, the post Crash Bash period is lousy with cut concepts, characters and even entire adventures, the most notorious example being Crash Twinsanity. Due to rushed development and an overbearing publisher, the game was left half-arsed and broken beyond belief (not like Bethesda RPG broken, but still pretty bad). There are several self-depreciating jokes throughout, and Cortex mentions that an entire dimension was cut due to time constraints. If the franchise really will be milked until it’s inevitable and final death, Twinsanity, made properly and with the respect it probably should have been gifted in the first place, is what I want to see.
The final (and least stable) option that Activision has is to make a completely new instalment for the franchise that has clearly retained adoration for such a long time. It would bring a tear to my eye to see Crash flourish in new adventures that closely followed the themes and style implemented by the trilogy and Twinsanity. New levels, new storylines featuring the best cast of characters in gaming (no debate), and possibly even new or reimagined mechanics could all contribute to an interesting game that exploits recent passions and technical capabilities. I’ll put cynicism aside for a moment – this is an exciting time for videogames, where old titles could very well rise from the grave and entertain us once more. Providing developers continue to create original content alongside the indulgent nostalgia trips, there is a great deal of potential. The gaming world is watching Activision – don’t screw this up again.

 

– Originally written for the University of Kent’s InQuire

Dark Souls 3 Review

Oh, I know – everyone and their mother has put out a review for the latest entry in the Dark Souls franchise. The game released a little while back in the UK, with it being the first game for me to ever pre-order, and since the official reviews had all been taken on by other writers over on GameGrin, I was able to play at my leisure. Saying that, I’ve clocked several hundred hours into the title already, and it’s about time The Iguanapus made his feelings known.

Dark Souls 3 was disappointing in a lot of ways for me, mainly because of the comparison that inevitably had to be made between it and the other games in From Software’s library (except Dark Souls 2 – it still beats that one). Dark Souls has been given a huge amount of praise since its release because of the way it functioned; level design was intuitive and interesting; narrative was surreptitiously implemented, but evocative enough to cause high levels of emotion once it was discovered; and, of course, gameplay was hard but fair. The original was a gem, and many reviews have said that the latest helping just doesn’t live up to it – I, on the other hand, believe that this is just what everyone expected to think. Dark Souls 3 definitely doesn’t match its predecessor when talking about narrative or level design, but it absolutely trumps it in every other aspect that I can think of, even if just by a little bit. Let’s take combat: in the original, players were restricted to a four-directional dodge while locked on, severely limiting their mobility and almost necessitating the use of a shield (I say almost – if you can parry, dodging stops being your only evasive manoeuvre). Hiding behind a massive shield and waiting for the right moment to strike grinds gameplay right down to a speed that only grazes what I would call exciting. None of my playthroughs of Dark Souls 3 have used a shield, and I didn’t particularly feel that I was penalised for that choice in the same way I was in the original. In the same way, a lot of the music really felt far more alive than it did in either of its predecessors – go ahead and compare something like “The Centipede Demon” to “The Old Demon King” and see just how more involving the soundtrack is.

As I mentioned, though, it isn’t all sunshine and roses; Dark Souls 3 is a game that wallows in its history. I’ve said in the past that I like a game that isn’t afraid to try something different, and perhaps even try to reinvent itself along the way. Seeing places like Anor Londo and meeting the latest onion knight was fun at first, but when considered a little more deeply, it comes across as being a symptom of the failing imagination (possibly why Miyazaki has ruled out his involvement in future titles). This game is an end cap, and it feels like it – I saw this most strongly in the final boss. Gwyn’s theme booted up after half an hour of fighting that thing, and it hit me all at once that this was a celebration of four or five great years of gaming (even then, it manages to come across as masturbatory). There were obviously good ideas that went into this title, but they’re bogged down in its obsession with cycles and repeating patterns; the narrative here isn’t as dire, because it is outright stated that whatever happens, all of this will happen again anyway. In trying something clever, they lessened the impact of what they were trying to achieve, and may have even harmed what Dark Souls had going for it in terms of its ambiguity.

Overall, however, gameplay pushes this one above the other two owing in main to the inclusion of weapon arts. My first build consisted of a longsword in the right hand, with a light crossbow and pyromancy in the left. The sheer variety of moves and techniques that I was able to try, such as the shield breaker, made every fight feel that much more alive; my faithful crossbow had been upgraded from other variants so that I chose when to reload; then we have things such as faster slow rolls and directional dodges to make the game feel so much more nimble. If someone asked me to go and play the original again, I’d feel inclined to tell them to sod off, because the new one just feels so much better to play.

That’s it – comparison over, the verdict has been made. But, around October time, I published a review of another From Software game that puts this one to shame. Bloodborne is a superior game as far as I am concerned. Dark Souls 3 did a great job of bridging the gap between its progenitor and its viscera-obsessed cousin, but it does seem to take a step back in many areas. Visually, Bloodborne was astounding – my characters look far prettier than the monstrocities I was able to craft with the latest character creator, and the blood spatters actually looked like blood rather than dirty water. Some of the environments were far more interesting to walk around as well – take something like Hemwick Charnel Lane, and tell me it doesn’t look more authentically horrific than the Undead Settlement. Again, Dark Souls 3 attempted to take from its best moments, and placed some really out of place flowers in the final boss arena that looked much more comfortable under Gehman’s cultivation.

Despite having fewer weapons, Bloodborne’s combat was more versatile, including separate animations for things such as backstep strong attacks, or the difference between a gunshot coming out of a quickstep and a gunshot coming out of a roll. This was on top of transformed weapon attack animations, different animations for pistols and rifles, all while maintaining the speed that that game required – yeah, there wasn’t any poise in this game either, but it was all handled a little better and in a way that felt planned from the very beginning unlike Dark Souls 3. A lot of “Souls Veterans” have denounced the blood gems and chalice dungeons, but they were the closest we will likely ever come to a Souls series roguelike, and they were pretty fun if you wanted something to do while listening to a podcast. The first thing that immediately disappointed me about Dark Souls 3 even before its launch was a regression to the composer who worked on the series before, rather than keeping on the ones from Bloodborne. “The Cleric Beast” or even “The First Hunter” themes are so evocative and so enthralling that they just went above and beyond everything I had heard from From Software before. I suppose I should probably say that I’m a sucker for the Gothic as well as Lovecraftian horror, so that’s definitely tinted my vision – but even then, Bloodborne just looked, sounded and handled so much better.

The past few years have been exciting for From, and now I think they deserve a well-deserved nap. I know that most of the Dark Souls community would jump down my throat for saying that anything was better than the original, but Dark Souls 3 just is when taken on its own level. In terms of looks, soundtrack and gameplay (which is always the most important element for me), this one is vastly superior, so it’s such a shame that they took a step backwards from Bloodborne. How can an earlier game look so much better than a later one? – no, I still won’t acknowledge Dark Souls 2. With the promise of two shiny new content packs on the way, this one still has a lot to give; in the meantime, however, I’ve still got dungeons to explore.The sweet blood – it sings to me. It’s enough to make a man sick.