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Disagreement! Debate! Discussion! Is Horizon: Zero Dawn actually a great game or merely good-ish? Steve and Chris argue such polarizing conclusions in the latest podcast!
A quick look into two separate entries of Boss Fight Books.
One of my goals of 2018 had begun as a Christmas wishlist in 2017. I wanted to begin reading more books focused on video games and their criticism. It is one thing to read interviews and articles online, but there’s a real difference between absorbing my own info and sitting down with a solid book in hand. A book is often more carefully considered, forced to go through more editors and more time. A lot of research has already been done for you as well, collecting a lot of data into a single work. It’s about time I stop hearing people tell me about what was in Masters of Doom and read the book for myself.
This quest started with Boss Fight Books Presents: EarthBound and Final Fantasy V. I don’t know why these precise books caught my attention. Perhaps because a variety of beloved titles had been written about by the various authors? Regardless, I decided to begin with these two titles, each of which proved to be a rather swift read.
Now that most of the fervor and debate has concluded, Chris and Steve finally weigh in on Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Hopes and goals for the year 2018
The SNES Classic has nothing to do with the contents of this post. I just needed an image to start things off.
I suppose I should begin with the fact that I got blind-sided this year with an e-mail from a reader I have never met before. They had asked me a few questions based on my thoughts in Idol Fantasy and similar discussions on Japan and Otaku culture.
It blind-sided me because I assume the only people that read this are personal friends or maybe – maybe – some folks from GamersWithJobs. Otherwise I figure this is mostly self-indulgent. Reading the analytics I’m driven to assume only bots check this thing out. Were it not for the (albeit small) number of downloads I’d assume no one is listening to the podcast, either.
Even small numbers can be intimidating, though.
A lesson that nothing can bring me down as long as I keep positive about it.
Chris and Steve look back and reflect on the games released in 2017 and some of those that they've played.
In an odd twist, Chris and Steve both enjoy Sonic Forces even though the Internet has declared it an affront to mankind.
Being a remake of Return of Samus keeps this from being the strongest 2D entry in the franchise.
When I played through AM2R – abbreviated title for Another Metroid II Remake – it came off as a product lacking in Nintendo’s more friendly accessibility. It was very much a game made by Metroid fans for fans of Metroid. Do you like sequence breaking? There’s plenty of that. Wall-jumps can be used to climb high walls, the bomb jump has been polished for easy timing, and mastering the speed booster’s shinespark is damn near a requirement to progress.
While AM2R had a degree of polish surpassing even many professionally developed imitators to Metroid, it always felt like it was not the Metroid Nintendo would make.
Well, I was right and wrong! Nintendo allowed European developer MercurySteam the opportunity to remake Metroid II: Return of Samus themselves – hence the DMCA takedown of AM2R. My expectations of the game to be easier than AM2R were dashed, as I don’t think I’ve died so often on a Metroid title since gravity-based monster Nightmare in Metroid: Fusion.
Chris and Steve discuss the closing of Visceral and why they believe single player is not dead.
It's not as bad as you think! ...I mean, it's still probably not good, but at least it's not as bad.
Sometimes you just gotta eat some trash food like McDonald’s. You know it’s not well-prepared and you know it’s not good for your health. But there’s just something about it that will sate a specific appetite that other meals will not.
Video games can be the same.
I do not recommend Akiba’s Trip to anyone but folks that like quirky and experimental Japanese RPG’s. The narrative isn’t particularly impressive or ambitious, nor are the mechanics in any way polished. They are distinctly lacking in polish. In fact, I’m pretty sure they aren’t painted, let alone polished. They’ve just got the primer on them.
Despite this, I cannot condemn the game, either. While many in my circle dismissed Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed as a game for undersexed man children stripping the clothing off of underage girls, I decided to see for myself just what sort of title this was.
Also, a College buddy of mine asked me to write about it years ago when I tried doing “Stretch Goals” for my Extra Life streams. The immense delay is pretty much why I don’t do those anymore.
Chris and Steve spill their incredibly verbose thoughts on Destiny 2.
A smaller team and budget doesn't correlate with the degree of polish or scale of ambition.
When I think of a thirty dollar budget game, Earth Defense Force 2017 tends to come to mind. A completely unpolished and bizarre project whose absurdity and unique nature is often the source of its incredible fun. The B-Movie of video games, it’s lack of budget and cheap production is as much the charm and fun as it is in Bruce Campbell vs. the Army of Darkness.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a budget title, but it is not a video game equivalent to the cheap grindhouse shlock that would later inspire creatives like Robert Rodriguez, Guillermo Del Toro and Peter Jackson. It is much more comparable to a film like Reservoir Dogs. Clearly lower in budget and independently developed, but with greater technique and polish than its contemporaries. It may have its flaws, but its smaller scope – narratively and mechanically – do not keep it from standing alongside the more expensive and flashy AAA production content.
To understand what makes Hellblade work, it is first important to understand the real experiment developer Ninja Theory performed. Like many other action games, it is assumed that the bulk of the mechanics are found in the combat. Puzzles and labyrinths merely serve to break up and pace the action so as to not exhaust the player. Hellblade seems to follow just such a design throughout its first two zones, with puzzles and combat interchanging until the player must confront a boss.
Immediately following these zones the game takes away Senua’s weapon and spends a considerable amount of time without a single fight at all.
Chris and Steve finally get back to the mic and talk Destiny 2, Metroid: Samus Returns, Sonic the Hedgehog, SteamWorld Dig 2, and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.
A simple innovation manages to compensate for some otherwise poorly designed challenges, saving this game from being an endless grind of frustration.
As a wannabe games critic I often find myself conflicted with being late to a series. I missed that initial cultural splash, that purity of form that comes with an initial idea. This means what I experience could communicate a very different idea of what a property is than what those fans from the beginning saw as the series identity. I wrote something about this recently on GamersWithJobs in the article The Spirit of Things. What I latch onto in a particular iteration may be met with displeasure by others.
If you’ll recall, I was absolutely smitten with Fire Emblem: Awakening’s pairing mechanics. It would seem, however, that this very feature and its importance is divisive. Many fans of the older games are not so taken by the “waifu simulator” – and given my own discomfort with how far Fire Emblem Fates took it, I can somewhat see why. As such, Fire Emblem Echoes seems much more favorably met by many older fans.
What is there to defend in The Order 1886? Unfortunately, not much.
When I first read Ed Smith’s Speak up, The Order: 1886, I expected to come to his aid in defending the game. In fact, part of me wants to defend the experience. It wasn’t without its merits, and at this point I cannot even recall any of the original criticisms laid at its feet beyond how “short” the campaign was – a rather perfect length that allowed me the time to give it a play at all.
I am instead confounded by the merits he claims critics had given it and the “originality” he claims it to contain. Creative weaponry? I suppose the presence of automatic rifles in 1886 would be creative to some. Most would simply call it historically inaccurate. I fail to see how Nikola Tesla’s invention of weaponry would result in such an advancement ahead of its time, either. Instead, Nikolas Tesla is merely an excuse for a bog standard gun that gamers – including myself – would be comfortable with.
In fact, I was actually rather startled when a trophy popped up informing me that I had slain with each weapon once. My eyebrow curls once again upon Ed’s claims of originality, not only for the lack of inventive weaponry but for the commonplace “achievement” that nearly every shooter comes digitally packaged with.
