A train wreck I desperately wanted to look away from

The Game Awards is the weirdest night in gaming. It's a bloated three and half hours full of stilted presentations, musical performances that are good but feel out of place, and of course, lots and lots of promo for new games. So much promo, in fact, that it feels more like a big excuse to show us new trailers than it is to honor the devs that worked so tireles?sly on the games we loved that year. Things need to change.

The Game Awards have kind of always been a mini version of E3 because of all the trailers and endless slew ??of "world premieres." The actual awards feel like an afterthought, which is a real shame because of how tirelessly game developers work on the projects they put out. The only real recognition we see for the development teams is a sweeping statement to the studios that win awards, or at most a game's director, main ac??tors, composers, etc. when they win the award that year.

Although the pacing has always felt rushed, in years past there have usually been some genuinely sweet moments in the midst of everything. But I could not believe my eyes last night when most of the awards were passed through as quickly as possible to get back to the trailers. For categories like Bes??t Role Playing Game, they didn't even read the nominees out loud. Speeches were cut to be egregiously short. There were tons of categories that got skipped over altogether. The time management was just disrespectful, in my opinion. 

In an ideal world, I'd love to see some of the fluff and filler from the show exchanged for profiles on some of the more unsung heroes of the games industry. We had a few of those last night, like for the drag queens Deere and Samira Close who stream games, or Black creator Kahlief Adams, who used his platform to discuss racial justice, which were great to see. But those were over so quickly, and there was nothing like that to feature any of the developers who made the games that? were nominated. 

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Games for Impact is a great award category, and has given us some of the most genuine moments of the show in the past. So when they stuck this award right at the beginning of ??the show with absolutely zero pomp and circumstance, I was more than disappointed. When giving their speech for winning the a??ccessibility award, the Forza team was told to "wrap it up" in the middle, after which Geoff said "what an important speech" promptly after. These are arguably two of the most important awards of the show, in my eyes, because they strictly focus on making games better for everyone, and to see them pushed to the side was a?? difficult pill to swallow.

I was also waiting to see how they were going to address the ongoing lawsuit and strikes at Blizzard. Right at the start of the show, Geoff gave what I assume is a purposefully vague speech before emphatically stating that they would not tolerate any harassment whatsoever, while then continuing on with trailers for studios that are known to mistreat their employees. Well done there.

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I just find it ironic that?? it's like "we're here to celebrate what we love most about gaming" and then it's all advertisements. Because that's everyone's favorite part of games, right? The part where they get you to buy stuff?

It's also funny that the show has tried so desperately to claim its stake as THE gaming awards ceremony. Sure, it's probably the biggest and most bombastic, but ??the British Academy Awards, also known as the BAFTAs, have been awarding those in the games industry since 2004 �a full decade before The Game Awards started. Plus, it's, you know, a real award show from a respected institution.

I'm not saying that The Game Awards needs to lose all of its jokes and silliness in lieu of a serious, sterile ceremony �if it were up to me, The Game Awards would take a big lesson from other awards shows and have comedians host. Easily one of the best parts of the show last night for me? was when Ben Schwartz, the voice of Sonic in the movie, came out to introduce the trailer for its sequel. He's relaxed, he's charismatic, and he's really funny and entertaining to watch. We got a little taste of what the show could be with a different host, and man d?id I want more.

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If you go on social media for more than two seconds today, you're likely to see how dissatisfied fans were with the show last night. The Game Awards have always been pandering, self-aggrandizing, and en??tirely too long, but we're experiencing a climate in the ?industry right now that is less willing to tolerate it. It begs the question: will they ever be willing to change? 

If we really want to celebrate games the right way, we need to get rid of the "hype" culture for a second, not give a platform to abusers, and focus on shining a spotlight on the people who don't get the recognition they deserve most of the time. Then, and only then, will I be? able to respect The Game Awards.

The post The Game Awards need to change appeared first on Destructoid.

I'm trying my best to slow down

I'm the kind of person who likes to go all-in on a game after ?dipping my toes.

If something is compelling enough to keep me engaged in the moment and ??wondering what's around the corner – a tense unresolved story beat, a curious destination to explore, or well-tuned stat progression – then I'm probably doomed. It doesn't matter what shows, movies, or games are calling my name or how much sleep I need to jettison to make it happen: I'm gonna marathon the sucker.

That's typically how it goes, anyway. That's how it went with Resident Evil 3, Nioh 2, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, Assassin's Creed Origins, Sekiro, Yakuza 0, and a few other games I played obsessively over the past year or so. They wormed their way into my thoughts and wouldn't leave until I ?exhaust?ed every last morsel. That was the only way to break free and move on.

Coming into Final Fantasy VII Remake – my first genuine attempt at playing Final Fantasy VII all the way thro??ugh in any form – I've tried to consciously slow down. I want to savor it as much as possible.

I know roughly how long it will take me to complete my first try-and-do-everything playthrough, and I know there's a ton of ground left for Square Enix to cover?? in follow-up entries. I also know I don't want it to end yet. I know it'll be a while before another game can capture and hold my attention like this.

Every day, I see more and more comments about people wrapping up their time with Final Fantasy VII Remake. I'm simultaneously jealous they've reached?? the end and relieved that I still have so far to go.

Last Friday, about 20 hours into my save file, I stopped in Chapter 13. I took the wh??ole weekend off.

Having breaks in between big story moments to digest, speculate, and dream has only benefited my experience as a first-time player. Final Fantasy VII is such a foundational game that I?? know random bit??s and pieces from years of secondhand exposure, but I don't have the full picture – and that's captivating.

A few observations from someone who's new to FFVII:

• I didn't expect to love Barret this much. I grin every time he's in a cutscene.
• I also didn't really expect to care about Cloud. I like when he calls out silly side-quests.
• My brain can't cope with Wedge's English VO and it never will.
• The Airbuster fight was amazing. The slow build-up, the expectation, and the musical cue – perfect. If there's one single scene or moment I can't shake, it's gotta be this.
• Combat, in general, is my main hook. It's just challenging enough to feel threatening but not so deadly that it becomes a slog. I leave every session excited to get into more battles and level-up my Materia. I hope we get even more VR Missions as DLC.
• It's fascinating to go back and compare pivotal moments after experiencing them in FFVII Remake – to see what Square was and wasn't able to convey on PS1.
• I'm finally at the point where I've learned to accept and live with slow corridor shuffling.

My normal routine is to go crazy on a game and think about it non-stop until it's over and "out of my system," literally and figuratively. This time, I'm savoring every session and trying to give the experience far more breathing room. I'm looking for ways to hang around longer, whether it's throwing darts (FFVII Remake is surprisingly Yakuza-esque), checking the map so I? can intentionally ??go the wrong way (I'm good on hidden potions, game!), or just listening to street-goers interrupt each other with gossip.

How has the remake been treating you? Did you ra??ce through it, or are you still chipping away like me? And for those of you facing Hard Mode, are you taking things any slower the second time through?

The post Did you ru??sh through Final Fantasy VII Remake or take your sweet ti??me? appeared first on Destructoid.

And I'll never skip the rooftop cutscene

The Resident Evil 3 remake has drawn criticism for being too short – for not making full use of its 1999 source material – and I get it. Especially through the lens of last year's brilliant Resident Evil 2 revival, the game isn't quite what som?e of us had built up in our minds over the past several months.

It's not a beat-for-beat remake. The scope isn't as ambitious. The pack-in – a lackluster asymmetrical multiplayer game – isn't what many fans asked for. Even knowing those caveats in advance, I was left feeling a little disappointed after the credits rolled on my first slow, steady, "??savor it" playthrough.

I've since come around in a big way. The more I run through Resident Evil 3, the more I like it.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it superior to Resident Evil 2 – that'll always be the better, more robust game of the two remakes, especially if you prefer survival to action – but as a companion piece, it's excellent. As something you can revisit again and again, it's worth celebrating. The 2020 remake of Resident Evil 3 is the video game equivalent of [that one VHS you rented an ungodly number of tim?es].

If you've stuck with RE3 beyond an introductor?y playthrough, I think you'll tend to agree. If you're holding off or just haven't been able to play yet, let me put my experience into perspe?ctive.

I've completed Resident Evil 3 seven or eight t?imes now – I can't even keep track anymore – and I've gotten all of the trophies. With know-how and a handful of?? cheeky unlockable items and weapons, I can finish a run in well under an hour-and-a-half. Here's the wild part: I've spent 24 hours in this game.

It doesn't feel like it! And even after earning the platinum, I find myself thinking of excuses to play again. Can I pull off an Inferno run without relying on ?the infinite-ammo we??apons? I kinda want to find out.

The magic of RE3 is that there's almost no fi??ller or downtime. Its pacin??g is its best asset.

Once you leave Jill's apartment, it's relentless. And the boss fights – a hit-or-miss aspect for many Resident Evil games – are a joy? to play. Before you know it, you're trudging through sewer muck. Then you're keeping your distance from Hunters in the hospital. You've got the fuse-grabbing warehouse maze memorized. NEST 2 just flies by, and it's over. You know how to fuck up Nemesis. Let's go again.

I appreciate how Capcom structured the five difficulty options and challenge-based shop rewards such that players will? naturally gravitate toward multiple playthroughs – even folks who wouldn't typically want to dea??l with S-rank constraints like limited saves, or go out of their way for overpowered unlocks.

I got enough of a feel for RE3 on my initial S?tandard difficulty run-through that I was immediately ready to jump back in for a Hardcore run. Then I took an extended breather on Assisted mode to grind out the rest of the weapon challenges, beat the game without touching the item box (I was terrified of botching the goal every time I s??tepped into a safe room), and play it all again without unnecessary healing items.

At that point, I felt sufficiently stocked and ready to face Nightmare. The enemy placements are different, there's more of 'em, and some of them are nasty gotchas that'?l?l make you yell. It's great!

Inferno mode is much the same, except way higher-stakes – even with a stupidly powerful rocket launcher backing you up. Basic zombies waste no time getting up in your face. (I died to the first enemy in the game!) Nemesis books it. The stab-happy infected undead can combo you. Everything – and I mean everything – feels faster and less forgiving. I won't lie: even the rolling ??statue head got me twice.

(If you're strugglin?g to outrun the statue, don't skip the preceding cutsc?ene – that did the trick for me.)

Inferno will be too much for some players – the final fight, in particular, is a wonky, unfun slog – but everything up to and including Nightmare? Absolutely. It's?? all worthwhile. I say that as someone who only expected to play a few times at most and, again, was a bit bummed after my first playthrough.

I know the amped-up Mr. X and RE2, in general, took the wind out of RE3's sails. We miss the puzzles, and we miss the Clock Tower. But I also think people will really warm up to Resident Evil 3 over time, and it will be fondly remembered. I like RE2 better, but RE3 is m??ore fun. It's the one I'll revisit year af??ter year.

If there's one thing Resident Evil 3 ha??s going for it abov?e all else, it's replayability. That'll be its legacy.

The post No matter how many times I beat Resident Evil 3, it just doesn’t get old appeared first on Destructoid.

Excuse me while I gush for a bit

After spending a literal 24 hours with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, I've come to the conclusion that it stands a very real ch?ance of being one of my favorite games of 2019. I honestly didn't expect it!

As much as I adore Iga's brand of Castlevania, I tried to approach everything surrounding Bloodstained with reasonable expectations. This was never going to topple Symphony of the Night for me. I accepted ?that notion early on, back when the Kickstarter was just ge??tting situated. The ensuing path to launch had its share of ups and downs. One week I'd be super into it; the next, cautious again. Each step of the way, I had to keep reminding myself that public-facing productions like this will always have bumps.

Ultimately, I had faith Bloodstained would get where it needed to be – that I'd play it at some point and likely dig the hell out of it – but I wasn't necessarily planning to grab the game around launch. I figured it could wait and I'd be better for it. That passiveness didn't stick. These past two weeks, Bloodstained has dominated my gaming schedule. Even now, long after I've reached the end cred?its, it's all I want to play?.

The more time I spend with Bloodstained, the more I seem to appreciate it.

A large part of that feeling stems from the ease with which you can swap shards in and out, the joy of dashing through the castle with the Accelerator (particularly in New Game+), and the sheer amount of stuff there is to accumulate. I want every single category to reach 100% completion. (Well, apart from techniques – I'll leave that to the die-hards.) As it stands, I just have the we?apons list left?. "Just."

Bloodstained is not the kind of game you play through once and never think about again. It has a way of creeping into your mind. You aren't free from its curse until you have the entire map committed to memory, and at that point, there's still a lot left to do. Combing the castle for ingredients, bolstering the best gear, cleaning up optional fights, and a finding a certain secret boss – it's been such a fun ride.

I'm stupidly over-leveled, and that means Bloodstained has morphed into a lower-key experience, one I can absentmindedly engage with while listening to a YouTube video or podcast. I've always cherished that palpable sense of progression in the Castlevania series.?? Revisiting old areas to shred once-fearsome enemies is a simple but appreciated ??pleasure. It somehow never stops feeling good.

The wild thing is, I haven't even touched the separate Boss Rush or Speedrun modes yet – and the developers have a dense schedule of post-launch updates planned. On the horizon, we've got modes like Boss Revenge, Roguelike, Chaos, Classic, Co-Op, Versus, and two extra playable characters.

I didn't expect Bloodstained to be a game-of-the-year contender, but that's kind of where I'm at right now. And while I doubt it'll reach the top, the fact that it's in the running is such a pleasan???t surprise.

The post I can’t get enough of Bloodstained’s soothing post-game grind appeared first on Destructoid.

Time well spent

[In the aftermath of yesterday's awful fire at the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, there are reports that the modeling from Assassin's Creed Unity might be used to help rebuild it. We interviewed Ubisoft's Caroline Miousse back in 2014 about her experiences recreating the Notre Dame for a video game. As unfortunate as the circumstances may be, the interview is acutely relevant again. This is the story of how the Notre Dame was built in Assassin's Creed Unity.] 

The Paris depicted in Assassin's Creed Unity is shaping up to be a juggernaut among videogame cities. Larger than all other Assassin's Creed locales to date and significantly more detailed, the development team is taking whatever steps are necessary to make Paris the true star of the game.

That might not be any more evident than in the case of senior level artist Caroline Miousse. Miousse had worked on titles with tremendous scale before, as she was a designer on the likes of Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed III. But, in the process of planning Unity, Ubisoft approached her with an interesting prospect -- create the Notre Dame, per?haps the most famous of all cathedrals in the world.

All along, the development team had big things pegged for Unity's take on the Notre Dame. When talking to the game's art director and ??world design director, they immediately pointed to the monument as the single best example ?of a landmark that got preferential treatment -- partially because of how breathtaking and iconic it is, partially because it's the perfect subject to benchmark development on new consoles. 

Miousse was honored to be put in charge of such an important individual aspect of Assassin's Creed Unity, but it didn't come without a bit of tr?epidation. "I was pleased to do that; it was very exciting," Miousse said with regard to Ubis?oft pitching the idea to her, "but there was a little stress at the beginning because you really need to be sure that you're recreating it as accurately as possible because it's so well known."

As if this undertaking wasn't overwhelming enough, Miousse was working with a disadvantage in one sense -- she hadn't actually visited the Notre Dame. To see pictures and?? vide??o of it is one thing; to actually stand in front of it, neck craned back as you stare at its impossible ornateness is altogether different.

Still, that stress began to slowly melt away as Miousse started the project. Working with a historian, she researched what every individual section of the cathedral looked like during the French Revolution and went about making it as faithfully as she possibly could. She likened it to building with Lego blocks, an?? activity that becomes easier as ??you progress.

Seeing that the Notre Dame was prioritized in the development of Unity, a main goal was to recreate it 1:1 to stay as ?true as possible. That means that Miousse was almost literally putting the cathedral together brick by brick. The size seems to have been a welcomed challenge that she reveled in. "I want the player to feel tiny when scaling it," Miousse stated.

This task alone is a lot to ask of one person, but some unique problems started popping up. Some of them were exclusive to videogames. For instance, new hardware allows for seamless transi??tion between interiors and exteriors, eliminating the ability to "cheat" and make them wholly separate. Another issue was that the Notre Dame wasn't built with the idea that it needs to be a gaming space in mind. So, some liberties had to be taken with item placement to create paths through it across many different levels.

Creative license was also taken with regard to much of the art??work inside the Notre Dame, but not by choice. Much of the art that adorns the cathedral (such as the stained-glass windows) is protected under copyright law. This gave Miousse the opportunity to put her own personal touch on her interpretation of the church. When asked if it felt odd to take liberties with a collection of decor that's so esteemed, Miousse eagerly denied it saying "No, it's very fun! We get to put a little bit of our own identity on an iconic monument."

And, that's how Miousse recently spent more than two years of her career -- recreating the Notre Dame with painstaking detail. After her work was complete, she finally got the opportunity to visit it in person. Upon seeing it for the first time, her? eyes lit up with glee, she bent slightly at the waist in disbelief, and she brought her hands to her mouth to partially cover her glowing smile. Two years of her life had been validated in an instant.

"It felt really good; it was an achievement," Miousse said of laying eyes on the Notre Dame. "It confirmed to me that what I made was right." She continued "Videogam??es are all about getting emotion out of the player. I think the experience that I had in mind for the player was the emotion that I was ??feeling at the time."

Miousse felt an immediate comfort in the Notre Dame. In a place she had never been before, she knew what every nook and cranny had in store. While Miousse relished the opportunity to explore the intricate details of a landmark she was already familiar with, that relaxed, relieved, and satisfied demeanor never left. She summed up the experience by simply saying ?"I felt like I was home."

The post One dev spent two years making the Notre Dame in Assassin’s Creed Unity appeared first on Destructoid.

Dedicated to turning the game around

Last month saw the launch of BioWare's big-budget sci-fi shooter Anthem. Unfortunately, after years of hype and no doubt a helluva lot of money, Anthem's initial release did not go down well with the general populace. Complaints ranging from hiccups from a design and technical standpoint to an overall lack of interest in Anthem's world, characters and gameplay.

BioWare lead Casey Hudson, producer of the fantastic Mass Effect trilogy, has taken to the official developer blog to address the fallout. Hudson, for his part, candidly admits to things looking pretty bad right now, but insists that the team will push forward, continuing to support Anthem in efforts to turn its fortunes around, ?assuring players ??that the best is yet to come.

"We were of course very disappointed about (the launch), as were many of you", says Hudson in the blog post. "I’ve been in there playing with you since those early days and it makes me sad to hear about any issues that would hold someone back from fully enjoying the game. I take that?? very personally, and it’s been our top priority to get improvements out to you in the fastest, ??safest way".

"We continue to listen to your feedback, with more improvements to endgame loot and progression, game flow, and stability and performance coming soon – so there’s a lot more work that we intend to do... But we understand there is skepticism out there.  We hear the criticisms and doubts.  But we’ll keep going anyway, working hard every day on Anthem ?– an ever-changing world, constantly improving and growing, and supported well into the future by our team of pass??ionate developers".

While I think Hudson is being genuine here, I think we live in a "one and done" era of video games. The consumer today moves faster than ever before, far faster than we did with gaming in the '90s. The chase for the next title is always on, with "the hunt" seemingly far more exciting a??nd important to a lot of?? modern players than the ultimate prize.

As such I really think - now more than ever before - the gaming industry runs on a "You got one chance, pal" motif, as there's always new titles either on the immediate horizon (such as Apex Legends) or just down the line. I'd love BioWare to turn Anthem around. Not because I personally care about it, but because we should all want everyone to have a great time with the games they choose to play. Better for the industry, better for all of ?us.

But I think the people today are swamped with big releases, not to mention the perpetually-chugging hype train glamourising "The Next Big Thing". I'm not convinced the majority of today's players have the motivation to "check back later and see how things are going". If BioWare can get Anthem fly??ing high, that'd be great, but they have a mammoth task in keeping eyes on the product while they do.

Anthem is available now on PS4, PC and Xbox One.

Anthem post launch update [Official]

The post BioWare ‘very disappointed’ in Anthem’s rough launch appeared first on Destructoid.

Because why discuss anything with your children?

Did you know that it is impossible for children today to do things outside of video games? They can't leave the house, or go to the park, or hang out with their friends, or eat dinner with their families. They literally cannot do any of these things, because they are? playing video games 24/7. Britain has even started closing all of its schools, because children never show up for lessons ??any more.

Or at least, that's the long-given impression of kids and video games, a tired media stereotype that has been prodding at adults from as far back as when I was a child, and that was a long time ago, folks. Still, if you are wholly unable to restrict your child's time with Fortnite, or... The Snorks or whatever the kids are into these days, then the UK division of?? supermarket Aldi - w?hich has nothing to do with the video game nor the parenting industry - has the answer.

"Teatime Takedown" is an upcoming promotion designed to get kids "back into the real world" and, best of all, it requires no responsibility to make it happen. Simply hand over your child's Gamertag to the grocery outlet and, between March 22 and March 31, Aldi may send a "squad of professional gamers" to hunt them down in-game and take them out, ostensibly sending them to the dinner table, where you can discuss why you've failed them on a social and disciplinary level. I'm not sure if anyone's clued Aldi in to the concept o??f respawns. I won't deny that I appreciate Aldi's prices, and that those prices help a lot of struggling families, but this promotion seems to be ill-advised, reaching somewhat outside of their comfort zone of low-priced food and into parental/child psychology.

Regardless, if you'd prefer your local grocer encouraging your child's familial growth, rather than yourself, then? you can register for Teatime Takedown right here. Here's hoping that the teatime you s??pend together will afford you the oppor??tunity to talk to your child about their hobbies, learn a little about why they find video games so exciting a past-time, and perhaps implement your own fair rules about restricting their usage, like a parent.

Is gaming getting in the way of dinner time? [Official]

The post If your parenting skills are terrible, supermarket Aldi’s ‘Teatime Takedown’ might be for you appeared first on Destructoid.

I'd sell my soul to Nook himself

If you could will one? video game into existence right this minute, what would it be?

My gut reaction is to say Death Stranding. I'm dying to know what the heck is going on, but then again... maybe I'm not? The bizarre trailers, the drip-fed clues, the imaginative fan theories and wild goose chases -- it's all so very captivating to watch unfurl from the sidelines. There's much we still don't know about Death Stranding. I like it that way. The bu??ild-up is all part of Kojima's mischievous charm.

There are countless other upcoming games I could point to instead, and I'm sure you have a not-so-short list of alluring 2019 releases buzzing in the back of your mind. But after coming off the winter break having played far too much Stardew Valley while half-watching Hallmark movies and other cheesy yet comforting holiday fodder, I've figured out what I need most: Animal Crossing for Nintendo Switch.

My interest in games, like all hobbies, waxes and wanes. Sometimes I want to play anything and everything. There aren't enough hours in the day to keep up. Other times, I'm in a particular mood for a particular type of experience and it becomes my sole obsession. Then there are the times when I just need a little break?. When I'd rather hear or watch how others are getting along than actively par?ticipate.

Right now, I'm in a breezy, low-impact, chill-out-with-games ??sort of headspace. It's fre??eing.

I'm not looking to stay competitive in an ever-changing online game or put my reflexes and resolve to the test in an absolute meat-grinder. At least, not at this moment. Instead, I want to take it easy. And I can't think of a single game I'd rather unwind with more than a shiny new Animal Crossing on Switch.

Most of what we know about the "mainline" Animal Crossing for Switch is found in this trailer, which features a sly bit with Tom Nook and a simple placeholder logo. Everything else is relegated to our daydreams and wish lists. There's almost certainly going to be fish to catch, rooms to embellish, and neighbors to meet and greet.?? The soundtrack is bound to slap. We'll probably have outlandish bills to pay, but we won't feel bogged down. We'll take it one laid-back day at a time, slowly but surely reaching our goals and finding more ambitious aspirations to fill their void. That sounds so pleasant.

The new Animal Crossing could be a notable next step for the series with fan-requested convenience features and a deeper, more vivid simulation. It could have out-there ideas that we're initially torn on but eventually come to cherish and fight for. Or it could be more of the same great game, albeit on a system many of us are utterly enamored with. That'd be fine too. Whatever form Animal Crossing ends up taking on Swi?tch in 2019, I desperately want it, and I can't picture that changing anytime ?soon.

Just try not to keep us waiting too long, Nintendo. A lot of us need this.

The post Animal Crossing for Switch can’t come soon enough appeared first on Destructoid.

Ryu peels the stickers off of his Gi

Capcom has removed the in-game advertising options from their flagship fighting title Street Fighter V. The controversial marketing tactic, which launched earlier this month, saw players earn very small amo??unts of in-game currency for allowing extra advertisements on stages, loading screens and character's outfits.

This removal isn't necessarily the death knell of the concept, however. The Capcom Cup 2018 took place last week and thus right now the Pro-Tour (the only thing being advertised in-game) is in something of an off-season. Producer Yoshinori Ono did make reference to the feedback received about the ads earlier?? this month, mentioning how the team would be looking at ways to ??"improve this new feature".

Regardless, this current removal of the in-game ad system is likely more of a respite, rather than the abandoning of the idea altogether. I still stand by it being not only a tacky concept, but a horrible portent of things to come, for all competitive games, should t?he ?people allow it to pass without a fight.

Street Fighter V is available now on PS4 and PC.

The post Street Fighter V’s hideous in-game ads removed for now appeared first on Destructoid.

You must defeat Ronald McDonald to stand a chance

Capcom has introduced the idea of "sponsored content" into Street Fighter V. Essentially, players have the option of allowing more adverts - either for DLC, or whatever product sponsor Capcom is working with at the time - to be displayed in-game. The supposed payoff being that players choosing to do so receive a small amount of SFV's in-game currency as, I dunno, a "reward"?

There are three types of ads available. Ads that appear on character's costumes - examples would be logos emblazoned on Akuma's Gi, or on G's hat and all over his suit. Ads that appear in the background - this only applies to the tournament-style stages such as the Rings of Destiny, Pride and Power. The final option in this unholy trinity is loading screen ads, which pop-up after you select your character, hoping to convince you to pick up DLC or, one would assume, whatever given product is sponsoring SFV at the time.

Playing online whilst sporting these ads will earn the player 4 Fight Money per ad type applied, thus 12 Fight Money per rumble if you have all three ad types enabled. For those unfamiliar with SFV's in-game currency, a costume costs around 40,000 FM and a character costs around 100,000 FM. Better?? get saving, pal. There will also be an upper-limit cap to the amount of Fight Mon?ey that can be earned via ads, lest people become fucking millionaires, I guess.

Of course, Street Fighter V isn't the first video game to feature crass in-game advertising, (remember when Col. Sanders showed up in WWE 2K18, or when the same title had Snickers-sponsored achievements?) and it for sure won't be the last. It's worth noting (once again, to appease apologists), that all these ads are optional. But who cares? Because even as a concept, this feels like a cheap and avaricious blight on Street Fighter's storied history, let al?one video games gene?rally.

I get it. In "real sports," advertising and product placement are abundant. No sooner has an MMA star choked out their latest opponent than they are drowned in caps, t-shirts, headphones, and flags, all bearing sponsor names, whilst standing on a canvas plastered in logos. Capcom sees Street Fighter V as a flag-bearer for a new wave of digital sport. As such it's very easy to see how this idea fits in fin??e with th??e suits, who would see no difference between the former and the latter.

Maybe I just sound old and jaded here, but it's too easy to remember a time when we wouldn't have even considered such a concept. Imagine, if you will, a hypothetical situation where, when Street Fighter Alpha 2 launched, we had been told we got more colours on our cartridge if we purchased a special edition where Sakura wore a Pepsi T-shirt. We would've laughed that shit out the building in 1996 and we should in 2018. Street Fighter V seems custom-designed to be a endless cash register, obsessed with draining coi?ns out of its dedicated community at every given turn.

Worst of all, these tactics set a dangerous precedent for others to follow. If Street Fighter V's optional ads prove successful, then it becomes a normalised scenario, going on to appear in more and more multiplayer titles, until we're all paying $60 for the opportunity to become advertisers within our own entertain??ment. Optional it may be now, but only because the waters are being tentatively tested. We all know what the next step is.

Ultimately, in-game advertising in a franchise such as Street Fighter is pretty insulting to the legacy of a series, its characters, environments, and the artists who work their asses off to design both,?? only to see them covered in ugly stickers. Let's not forget the players, who choose to spend their ti?me and cash on these games, only to receive the opportunity to become a walking billboard. It's gross, and all the Itchy & Scratchy money in the world isn't going to make it appear any less so.

Sponsored content now available in Street Fighter V [Capcom Unity / Event Hubs]

The post Optional or not, Street Fighter V’s new in-game ads are a tacky embarrassment appeared first on Destructoid.

You're TEARING ME APART, Ohya!

There's a seminal moment in cinematic history, in which a world-weary Ossie Davis tells a young Spike Lee, "always do the right thing". This unforgettable moment has stuck with me my whole life and is go-to advice whenever I make my dec?isions, be they political, moral, or edible.

Unfortunately, this adherence to my gleaming halo also intrudes my video gaming. Whether sticking with Paragon choices in Mass Effect or deciding the fate of the Little Sisters in BioShock, I'm forced to be a goody-two-shoes most? of the time, often finding, in gaming at least, reward tends to follow such sanctimonious high-horse riding.

But not this week, this week I did the right? thing and I was a durn ?fool I tells ya.

Persona 5 has its fair share of potential love interests, but while many players may pine after the cheerful, upbeat Lady Ann; the quiet, studious Makoto Niijima; or one of the many other cookie-cutter anime character tropes, I found myself inexplicably drawn to drunken, deadbeat Ichiko Ohya. She's found nightly propping up the Crossroads' bar, moaning about?? work, bitching about deadlines, how she "coulda been a contender", and is perpetually lonely. Let's face it, she's the video game "me".

I've always made time for the rambling go-nowhere journalist, who bangs on about not being big-time, despite getting hammered every single night and giving way too much of a shit about the internet fad that is The Phantom Thieves. Oh, and Ohya also gets all of her intel from one source: a teenager with a criminal record who follows her around the Red-Light District and merely claims to know what's up. I'm sure your invite to The New York ??Times is in the pos??t, sister.

But here's the twist, Ohya is actually awesome. Everyone in Persona 5 has issues, sure, but they're generally still popular, cool, and relatively successful characters with a ton of friends and a bright future. Ohya genuinely believes she's hit rock bottom, filled with regret that her best opportunities, experiences, and years are long behind her (because in the super-hip Persona universe, once you hit 21, the party's over, pal). Ohya seems so damn sad but still works her ass off to hit all her deadlines and be th?e very best she can be, striving for success -- and justice -- in a world that's fast accelerating ahead without her. Maybe it was depressingly relatable to me, 'cos yer boy Moyse was smitten.

So I beavered away at Ohya's "Confidant" meter, learning more about what got the jaded journo to her lowest ebb, which sees her alone, drinking, and wearing sunglasses at 11 pm, whilst also gifting you the most useless Confidant bonuses in the game. We became two peas in a pod, if the pod was?? a dive bar and one of the peas was wasted. Regardless, it would soon be time for me and her to ride off into the sunset, facing the rest of our lives together. Happiness at last.

Persona 5's narrative finally presented me with the golden question, an opportunity to date my favourite plastered paparazzi. And that's when my troublesome morals hit me like a fire-axe to the forehead. This ain't about me, this is about Jo?ker. And Joker's... fucking... 12 or som??ething.

I had reached the eve of declaring my undying love for the gal whose glass is always half-full (of whiskey) and sobriety kicked in with the mother of all hangovers. Joker's a kid, and Ohya's in her mid 20's at least. Ossie Davis' famous words had always been comf??orting, but now they just mocked ?me. With a sigh, I turned Ohya's invitation of eternal happiness down, lest she find herself on some FBI database.

Still, what becomes of the broken-hearted? Me and Ohy??a, in the real world, coulda really been something, man. But Joker and Ohya? I hear Chris Hansen would like a word. Regardless, this is a familiar regret to me, not experienced since 1996 when I crushed hard on a gal I couldn't ask out because I was a teen and she was, I dunno, 40 (Ok, maybe 25, but with that generational gap, she might as well have been 205).

Still, me and Ohya was a fun, poorly-written, badly-localised, and overly-padded ride while it lasted. Oh, also, it was a video game relationship and thus entirely fictional and within my own head. Here's to you, Ohya, may all your scoops be hot, your beers cool, and your haircuts soccer ball-shaped. Maybe I'll catch you later in? new game plus, when I'm older and wiser. That's how it works... right?

And hell, at least I wasn't trying to date my school-teacher. That shit's fucked up, Kawakami.

The post I turned down Persona 5’s Ichiko Ohya and now I’m filled with regret appeared first on Destructoid.

Still off track

In the year since its release, Gran Turismo Sport has seen quite a few substantial updates. A new career mode, more tracks, a crapton of cars and even microtransactions: Sport is a?? much heartier title than its 2017 incarnation. Even with those additions, thou?gh, the core of the game still feels off.

I booted up the game a week ago to see just how substantial all of these additions would be. In my review from last year, I ended up scoring Sony’s premier racing franchise a 6/10 and citing a lack of content as my chief complaint. While the content factor has definitely been increased, I think the real heart of my problems with GT Sport is just that it puts so many odd restricti?ons on the player.

Despite having what Polyphony Digital has deemed a career mode now, GT Sport still demands players have a persistent online connection. With more cars coming into the fray, players are still limited in the online “Sport” mode to which vehicles they can drive. Worse still, the “Safety Rating” system ha?s not seen any noticeable change, making for some seriously frustrating moments of tapping a rival and tanking your safety score.

In our modern era of post-launch updates and bug fixes, I figured stepping back into the world of GT Sport would yield something more. The game isn’t without its moments, but this is still a shallow shell of what the series’ past had on offer for players. For all the strid??es made with car customization and minute stat tracking, you still only get around seven cars per manufacturer and no dynamic/alternate time of day settings?? for tracks.

In all honesty, I feel like Polyphony Digital and Sony have failed to bring the racing series up to next-generation standards. The content on offer does match that of Gran Turismo 3, but that game came out 16 years ago. No amount of restarting development or focus on specific game modes should have come to the conclusion that axing series staples was appropriate for the series’ PS4 debut. Despite now boasting 233 cars and 48 courses (a number that is bloated by having alternate versions as different tracks), the game still feels like a tech demo for a proper Gran Turismo 7.

I definitely appreciate Polyphony taki?ng a fine-toothed comb to its car models and creating photo-realistic environm??ents. While the game doesn’t really hold my attention for long, I am still quite impressed with how excellent the visual design is, especially on PS4 Pro. You can tell nailing the look, sound, and feel of each vehicle was a labor of love from the design team. Everything comes off super accurate and captures the essence of what racing is all about. That being said, what does this offer for fans that have been there for every entry?

Certain concessions might need to happen to evolve a se??ries, sure, but to cut out basic genre options? Did FIA regulations really force the odd online restrictions, thus eliminating offline play? What reason was there to excise different classes in favor of focusing purely on sports cars? These are still que?stions I can’t quite figure out, though you can now drive a Volkswagen bus around tracks.

My only real conclusion is that online play was mandated so that microtransactions could come into play. For some wild reason, GT Sport now gives players the option to purchase indi??vidual cars for around one to three dollars apiece. This only really impacts the added “career” mode, since “Sport” mode has harsh restriction??s on which make, model, and year of vehicle you’ll be driving in. With a super convoluted menu system and some odd requirements the farther you get in, the whole system just seems like a way to strangle people out of cash.

The game doesn’t give you an option to buy the car needed for a career event from the career menu, so you’ll need to click an exclamation point, discover which models are allowed and then back all the way out to the main menu. After t?hat, you’ll navigate the “brands” feature to find the particular manufacturer and then buy whichever car you’ll need. On one occasion, I bought an entirely different car because I confused the model and I had to repeat the process.

Maybe allowing the quick purchase of a car was something that just couldn’t be done in GT Sport. Loading most menus brings up a full-scale model of the vehicle and there could be a possible reason doing that from within career mode wasn&??rsquo;t optimal. What I really think, though, is that the menu was purposely made tedious to trick? people into wasting credits on the wrong car for the job. Why else would microtransactions be added?

At least in the case of money, credits are given out so regularly that I can’t even envision a scenario where someone runs out of cash. Since career mode wasn’t even a thing for my review, I had a spare 1 million credits laying around for me to make mistaken purchases with. For people starting out, though, this could end up with scenarios where you’ll be ma?king some progress and then ge?t halted because the car you need is far too expensive. You could just slip a few singles over to Polyphony Digital, though, and get right back into the action.

That is mostly a nit-pick, however. In all honesty, the career mode is so forgettable and barebones that it might as well not exist. It is the bare minimum one would have to do to bring a feature into a game and it still acts mostly as a way to prepare you for online competition. That is the true focus of GT Sport and not much else has changed. The lobby system for custom races is still ridiculously dead and the “S?port” mode doesn’t fill up the way it used to.

Even with all of these additions to the core game, GT Sport is still just limp. Really and truly, I think Gran Turismo’s days are well behind it. It would take a radical re-invention of the series to bring it up to speed for whatever Sony’s next console ends up being. If GT Sport 2 is just this game but with more that really won’t be good enough. More content is nice, but an actual reason to interact with that content would be better. That is truly what is missing from GT Sport and always has been.

The post Has a year of updates finally made Gran Turis??mo Sport worth playing? appeared first on Destructoid.

Another fine credit to add to her collection

George Lucas may be the father of Star Wars, but Kathleen Kennedy is currently the captain of the franchise ship. THR reports that Kennedy, the current presi?dent of Lucasfilm, has extended her contract for another three years, through the year 2021.

Since taking charge of this absurdly popular franchise, the Star Wars universe under Kennedy's supervision has added new and memorable characters like Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron, and K??ylo Ren, all already making their way to recognition with the franchise's legacy characters. The films have made an obscene amount of money, breaking box office records left ?and right, with plenty more films and television projects on the way.

On the other hand, some of these films, particularly The Last Jedi, have raised significant ire, and the recent spin-off film Solo was the first such to receive lukewarm reception from critics and in the box office. As one can imagine, this news has raised passions in the historically outspoken Star Wars fanbase, with rampant complaining—much of it rooted in blatant sexism and other forms of intolerance, because hey, t??he internet sucks.

That aside, there are actually plenty of valid points to make when criticizing Kennedy's management of the? ??franchise—but first, let's discuss the positive.

Regardless of your opinion on the Star Wars prequels, that trilogy of films is largely considered a misfire and reduced the once-celebrated series into a punchline. With apparently no hope of the series coming back to theaters, it appeared as if Revenge of the Sith would be Star Wars' swan song, with?? only prequel me??mes and some subsequent hour-plus long YouTube reviews being the trilogy's primary legacy.

Enter Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm, a move that rightfully gained some skepticism. Quite possibly the larges??t entertainment corporation (with its own dubious business practices) in the universe was buying the production company behind a franchise that is quite possibly worshipped more? than any known deity, with plans to jumpstart the film series again being fast-tracked quicker than you can say "Yoda." With George Lucas out of the picture, taking control of this sudden task of reviving this franchise appeared to be an impossible feat.

But just take a quick look at Kathleen Kennedy's resume and filmography—it is evident that she was by far the most qualified person to take on the gargantuan burden. Her production work includes the Jurassic Park films and a bulk of Steven Spielberg's movies. With a few decades of experience and her Hollywood connections, it just made sense. From there, she became the new face of Star Wars. Watch any behind-the-scenes footage or group interviews with Kennedy present—it is evident just how hands-on she is with revitalizing Star Wars. Even if The Force Awakens isn't your cup of tea, that semi-reboot served as an injection of adrenaline that returned Star Wars from a joke t?o a pop culture forc?e to once again be reckoned with.

Kathleen Kennedy made Star Wars "cool" again.

At the same time, Star Wars also became too much. Critics and internet commentators have their hot takes on "Marvel fatigue" and whatnot, but at least all of those movies have different visual and storytelling flavors. With the inclusion of Star Wars "Stories" and anthology films, fans were receiving familiar tales recycling the same Rebels vs. Empire imagery repeatedly. Moreso than the array of superhero franchises, the singular Star Wars series is becoming distilled with a ?lack of new, bold ideas.

And that's a shame—I quite like the idea of anthology films. The Star Wars universe has the potential to be massive and diverse, but instead, it regurgitates the familiar from our nostalgia-drugged brains. With so many new planets to invent and set foot on and different time periods to explore, the Star Wars franchise could be host to new, crazy, wacky, and fun material. Instead, we're trapped in the "dark times" between Revenge of the Sith and the original Star Wars, forever?? treading water as the filmmakers ??fetishize TIE Fighters and X-Wings.

Not to mention the numerous trade stories about discord within Lucasfilm under Kennedy's supervision, with directors being fired on a regular basis—one has to wonder what her management style is to let go creatives after having the confidence to hire them in the first place and put out press releases expressing their excitement. Josh Trank was buried before we even knew what project he was doing, Rogue One's Gareth Edwards was side-lined in reshoots, Colin Trevorrow was taken off of Episode IX, and Solo's Chris Lord and Phil Miller were infamously booted mid-production. While every production has their share of creative differences, and Marvel Studios has its own?? sagas with the likes of Edgar Wright and Patty Jenkins, it is absurd that the majority of directors that Kennedy hired ended up leaving their projects.

To cap it all off, despite Kathleen Kennedy's apparent commitment to diversity, which itself raised a wave of hatred, boycotts, and overall puerile behavior, Kennedy has yet to hire a director or writer for Star Wars who isn't a white man. Representation may be important on-screen, but it's just as (perhaps more so) im?portant behind the camera.

Despite my gripes about the end results of Kennedy's management and her underwhelming action in regards to progressive identity politics in the industry,  I still welcome the news of her staying on as captain of the S.S. Star Wars. The new era of Star Wars may have been tumultuous thus far, but it hasn't been a total public disaster with regime changes every other week—take a look at DC Films and Warner Bros. if you want to see an example of truly awful production management. While the likes of DC and WB simply have no idea what they're doing, burning through directors and still announcing way too many projects, Lucasfilm under Kennedy tried out a strategy, with some parts working and some not, and are appropriately readjusting.

Not every blockbuster studio can be Marvel Studios with its streak of well-received movies under the watchful eye of one executive (Kevin Feige, in that case), but it's worth a try to emulate that model if you're trying to build your own mega-franchise. Even with missteps, I struggle to think of anyone else with the clout and experience to take Kathleen Kennedy's place. With several cases to learn from in the past three years since the release of The Force Awakens, there is much to learn to refine the direction that this franchise is taking. Maybe Rian Johnson's new trilogy will be wacky and weird, maybe Kennedy will fulfill J.J. Abrams's promise of including queer characters, and maybe we'll one day see women filmmakers and people of color take charge of projects—I am forever holding Kennedy's stated desire for a Taika Waititi-directed Star Wars film to her.

Of course, that's after accepting that Star Wars will stay as massive as it is. I miss the times when Star Wars movies would release three years in between, with plenty of supplemental material in between. It isn't a new take to say that the volume of Star Wars material coming out now is ridiculous to the point of every new release becoming background white noise. It's now a massive business operation that initially grew from an independent filmmaker defying conv??entions decades ago. While I have cautious optimism over Kennedy's leadership, I am a bit sad to end with a bit of cynicism, as the massive, stupid controversies and endless debates that have ignited within the fanbase has recently led me to question if this franchise that I loved during my?? childhood is even worth all of the fuss.

If Star Wars is to shamble on, the franchise is lucky to still have Kennedy in charge. Even after the fallout from all of the toxic discourse, it is my hope that the hits and misses of the new films will lead her to make some reevaluations, not only to add some stability to their filmmaking process but to create something new from the old. While my qualms about Star Wars in general remain, Kathleen Kennedy has a responsibility to younger generations, to inspire and spark imagination the same way the Star Wars films of yore did.

The post Kathleen Kennedy wil?l remain Lucasfilm president fo??r three more years, for better or worse appeared first on Destructoid.

Baka mitai

For nearly as long as I’ve been playing Yakuza games, I’ve always read comments from fans saying, “These games are like Shenmue”. At first glance, that definitely sounds accurate. I even remember making such a claim after playing the demo for Yakuza 3, which  reminded me a lot of what I had heard about Sega’s Dreamcast classic. It has taken me until now to see how wrong? that statement is.

For those unaware, I’ve never p?ersonally owned a Dreamcast. My friend had one and I’ve played games on it, but the consumer distrust that Sega bred after the release of the Saturn got to me even in my youth. I absolutely loathed Sega’s 32-bit system and I didn’t want anything else to do with their consoles for the foreseeable future. Maybe it was just my nine-year-old self being hyperbolic, but I wrote off the Dreamcast long before it was even announced as coming west.

While that may or may not be a tragedy, it was how I felt at the time. That decision ended up causing me to miss out on some crazy and memorable games from Sega’s final console, most notably Shenmue. I’ve never had a frame of reference for properly comparing Yu Suzuki’s magnum opus to Yakuza, but after reviewing the two games this past week, I can finally make a decla??rative st?atement.

Shenmue and Yakuza are really not that similar.

To an outsider, a cursory look might trick you into thinking both series are the same thing. Shenmue has you traveling around Japan and China in a semi open-world manner. You can talk to people, play mini-games, enter shops to buy items and even fight guys on the street. Yakuza is limited to Japan (with different cities), but everything else I mentioned above is accurate o?f Kiryu Kazuma’s journeys. The execution of these ideas is where the two series differ.

The main goal with Shenmue was to create an environment and atmosphere that could be mistaken as real. The famous concept behind Yu Suzuki’s epic is an acronym known as “FREE”. This stands for “Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment,” and it was a core philosophy that Suzuki and his team worked to embed in everything Shenmue had. If you wanted to talk to a random person, that should be possible at all times (and even ??fully voiced). If you wanted to chill out and play some arcade games, that should be possible whenever you felt the urge.

There was a story with main characters in Shenmue, but the real desire was to expand the possibilities of gaming by presenting entirely new dynamics not feasible on older hardware. This can be seen in how progressing through the main campaign of the first Shenmue puts more of an emphasis on mundane activities over bare-knuckle brawling with thugs. For a martial arts game, Shenmue features very little fighting and a weird focus on living out Ryo’s real life. It even culmi??nates in him getting a job to pay for a ticket to China, which is the kind of stuff kung-fu films gloss over.

Shenmue even presents different scenarios based on when you appear to specific locations or on what in-game day you’re finishing a main story sequence. T?here is a tremendous amount of missable cutscenes and content because real life has much the same thing. If you aren’t at a bar on Christmas Day, you might miss the chance to profess your undying love to your high school sweetheart.

For the Yakuza series, the main goal was to create a gaming experience geared more towards adults. At the time when Yakuza released in Japan, Sega was famously dealing with financial woes. The failure of the Dreamcast was still fresh (with Shenmue playing a huge role in that) and market trends were showing Sony and Nintendo making pushes towards teenag??ers. Microsoft had also jumped into the console market and it seemed like the medium was starting to “grow up”.

Instead of trying to create a game with mass appeal, Yakuza series producer Toshihiro Nagoshi wanted to make a game specifically for the Japanese market. Se?ga wasn’t doing well in any regard and Nagoshi figured honing in on something only they could provide would resonate with a home audience. After some extensive research (a.k.a. drinking at dive bars in Tokyo) and hiring a famed Japanese crime novelist, Nagoshi’s team set out to properly replicate the Japanese underworld and show that gaming could move past being simply high scores or quarter munching.

With that, the very opening of the first Yakuza should show you how different both teams approached game design. Yakuza sets up a clear story, has intense cinematic direction and incredible voice acting and? always guides the player through the journey to maintain proper pacing of its plotline. There are side distractions, sure, but you likely will never be without an idea of how to progress in Kiryu’s story.

The emphasis that Shenmue puts on fleshing out its setting of Yokosuka, Japan is not present in Yakuza’s fictionalized version of Tokyo. There is a layer of authenticity to how Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios’ created Kamurocho (Yakuza’s main setting), modeling it closely after Tokyo’s own Kabukicho district, but you never have the same level of interaction as present in Shenmue. Nagoshi’s team certainly wanted to create an environment you felt co??nnected to, but wisely stepped away from detailing too much of it and focused more on fleshing out other aspects of the ga??me.

Even the side activities in Yakuza don’t take center stage. You could make that same argument for Shenmue, but Yu Suzuki’s vision includes waiting around for multiple in-game hours while time passes and new events can occur. This necessitates doing something to kill time, which is where the arcade cabinets (or gacha dispensers) come in. In Yakuza, the only thing stopping you from progressing is walking to the next waypo??int.

Beyond that, even the pedestrians present in Yakuza bear little resemblance to Shenmue’s obscene level of detail. Since there isn’t much story purpose in talking with random bums or little children in Yakuza, the game doesn’t allow you to do so. Some NPCs might give a single line of dialogue, but that is it and you’re on your way. In Shenmue, you’ll be talking to seemingly everyone since the game demands you piece c??lues together on your own.

The action sequences, as well, play out with entirely different design methodologies. Shenmue uses an engine repurposed from Virtua Fighter (of which the game originated as a prequel to the fighting series) whereas Yakuza could be more closely linked to Streets of Rage. Shenmue wants you to practice your martial arts, focus on skills that you find useful and execute them like a true master of kung fu. Yakuza just lets you smack dudes in a visceral manner with simplified inputs and combo strings. You even get RPG-lite systems that see Kiryu level-up, where Shenmue is mostly ab??out your own journey with conquering its control scheme (though moves will get stronger as you use them).

What you prefer is entirely subjective, but each game feels nothing alike. I guess removing layers and layers of nuance will reveal the central idea of “Martial-arts action,” but the execution is key. Both games couldn’t feel less alike if Sega tried. Even the quick-time events play out differently, with Shenmue relegating entire sequences to them while Yakuza uses them to punctuate devas?tating finishers in combat.

Could one even say any aspect of the two series' is similar? For sure: there is definitely some crossover between the two series. In action, though, you really don’t get the same thing playing one ov??er the other. Both are targeted at a different audience and mindset and that is completely okay.

What drew me to falling in love with Yakuza was split between the writing of its characters and its mixture of old-school, arcade gameplay design with new technology. What I enjoyed from my time with Shenmue was how it made you feel organically connected to its game world and the respect it paid to martial arts philosophy. Any influence that is present is likely because Nagoshi worked as a supervisor to Suzuki while Shenmue was being made.

Really, though, just stop comparing the two series. Each does something totally different and it is really diminutive to try and say they are the same. If Yakuza is Shenmue, then Deadly Premonition is Shenmue. Resident Evil 4 is Shenmue. Heavy Rain is Shenmue. The impact of Sega’s legendary game can be felt in so many titles that you can see it in even the most far removed of genres. That doesn’t sudd??enly mean that these games are similar to Yu Suzuki’s.

The post Shenmue and Yakuza are really not that similar appeared first on Destructoid.

Seriously, stop it

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate looks to be the absolute king of video game crossovers. Just the sheer amount of content on offer is staggering, but how Nintendo is paying homage to multiple third-party series is utterly amazing. We have the likes of Street Fighter, Metal Gear Solid, and Castlevania all in a single game together. How the hell did we get ?here?

If you look to fan forums, though, the biggest discussion being had is, “Put Waluigi in Smash.” This has led not only to constant bitching from the peanut gallery but a bombardment of director Masahiro Sakurai’s Twitter feed and even a bomb threat to Nintendo NYC. Alongside that complaint train is the discussion of whether or not there are too many Fire Emblem characters.

Have we really reached a point where putting Solid Snake up against Ganondorf is worth nothing? Are these people’s lives so devoid of love that they can’t put their cynicism aside for just a moment and be appreciative of what Smash Ultimate has? What other crossover, in any medium, pays th?is much attention to detail on a cast that is likely to break 80 characters? What ?other fighting game lets you pit legendary icons of the medium against each other?

It doesn’t even take a deep dive into these threads to find. Zero (from Mega Man X) and Shovel Knight were shown off as assist trophies and people were immediately complaining they weren’t playable. Demands for characters that “should” be in the game can be found all over Twitter. People are nitpicking design choices like air-dashing because they don’t want them. There is even a thread about this week’s Smash Direct on the Nintendo subreddit begging people to be civil.

Stop it. Just stop this. Stop acting like overgrown children and accept that Smash Ultimate is the way it is. The fact that any of these extra characters are even in the game is a miracle of licensing, but the sheer dedication that Sakurai and his team have in bringing basically everything back should be commended. We shouldn’t start looking at Ultimate and saying, “Well, this level isn’t in,” or, “M??y favorite character didn’t make the cut.”

You need to understand that Sakurai is the director of this project and not you. Video games are a collaborative effort between multiple parties that result in decisions you may not agree with. Instead of focusing your effort on sending out death threats, why not spend that time figuring out how to enter the games industry? If tha??t isn’t your calling, then why not voice your opinion in a civil manner and provide constructive criticism instead.

I know I may get a bit heated about certain decisions made in the industry,? but I have never taken to social media and blasted a creator of a series I love. What I do, instead, is not buy? the damn game. Voting with your wallet is a much better way to express your disinterest than stalking a person online. That just makes you look like a psycho and will cause them to double down on their choice.

I just can't believe the sheer hatred that is coming from supposed Smash fans. I may not have dug Brawl’s random tripping or Smash for Wii U’s lack of single-pl??ayer modes, but I would never think to curse Sakurai and call him lazy. Th?e sheer audacity that some of these people have is beyond comprehension.

Why not take a look at all the positive aspects that Smash Ultimate has? My colleague Chris Hovermale is appreciative of all the work Nintendo and HAL Laboratories is putting into Smash and would? like to share with you just how immense that dedication goes. Hopefully, his words will inspire you to be better and to act in a more cordial manner.

Hey, Chris Hovermale speaking for the rest of this piece! So lemme be frank with ya’ll - none of the characters that were revealed this week’s Direct were characters I plan to play outside of a Classic mode run. The new modes??? did more to pique my interest. But I still got hyped as heck for the character reveals by sheer virtue of how many dreams came true, even if they weren’t my own. I can’t demand anything more. I want to enjoy what we’re already getting.

I’m not saying it's wrong to want more out of our games than what we get. If anything, I empathize with that. Wanting is the first step required for anything to improve, be it our own self-improvement or advo?cating for positive change in the markets we participate in. But wanting becomes pointless if you don’t?? appreciate what you already have. Otherwise, wanting becomes impossible to satisfy, perpetuating our own displeasure. I’m still crossing my fingers for a playable Bandana Dee, but this roster is already so packed with my favorite characters that I have no reason to be anything but happy with it regardless.

Even the assist trophies are looking better than ever, especially Shovel Knight. He’s been at the top of many of our dream lists, we all wanted him, and he was technically more likely to be added than any other indie, but did we have the confidence he actually would get in at all? It’s not a disa?ppointment that he’s an assist trophy instead of being playable, it’s? an amazing subversion of realistic expectations. Shovel Knight won a silver medal! People might be used to seeing a silver medal as a badge of shame, but it was designed as a badge of honor, and it’s always handed out with the intent of honoring its recipient. I’m freaking stoked that an indie character is receiving that honor!

And if Shovel Knight’s won silver, the gold is already going towards many underdogs. For years, the inclusions of Ridley, the Belmonts, and K. Rool were distant fantasies. Something many of us wanted, and which made sense in our heads, yet ultimately eluded us for generations. The same could be said about Sonic fighting Mario before Brawl, or Bayonetta sharing the screen with Pikachu before Smash 4’s fighter poll DLC. Things that once seemed literally impossible are becoming normal for Ultimate. Smash keeps raising its own standards, and that's arguably the most commendable and exci??ting thing about it.

These days, Smash no longer feels like it’s only a celebration of Nintendo. It feels like a celebration?? of gaming as a whole, hosted by one of the biggest icons in gaming history. It’s become the ridiculous crossover we’ve fantasized about since we were kids, the ones we’d write fanfics about or build in MUGEN. This is real. I can’t overstate how much I love that Mario, Cloud Strife, Solid Snake, Sonic, Simon Belmont, Bayonetta, Pac-Man, and Ryu can fight each other in a professionally developed game.

Waluigi may have his day in the future. Ridley and K. Rool were in similar situations until today. I don’t refuse to criticize Smash (I’m still very concerned about the netcode and online service), and it&rs?quo;s good to be skeptical about promises made before they are fulfilled. But when the most promising part of a game is simply who is in it, Sakurai has already delivered on mo?re promises than we could have expected. I commend him and his team for their hard work on these additions, and I look forward to seeing the fruits of their labor bloom.

Dibs on Ridley.

The post It’s time to stop complaining about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate appeared first on Destructoid.

The movies that made us the way we are

Flixist has been around since 2010, but for many regular Destructoid readers you're just getting to know us. We're glad you seem to like us for the most part, but... do you really know us? We've had a bunch of new writers ??(some drawn straigh??t from the community) come on board and share their own weird, bizarre sense of style and self with the internet. Long story short, there are a lot of new faces popping up, and we've decided to finally come out of our caves and share with you all a little about ourselves!

Waaaaaay back in 2010, our fearless leaders published a post about the 15 movies you need to see to understand Flixist. Essentially, that list took a hard look at what kind of? movies Matt and Tom thought were important and helped inform the site as a whole. It was a sort of "get to know you" kind of post. So we're going to bring that back with a twist. Each writer on staff has chosen one movie that really exemplifies why they write about movies. What they look for in a movie, a movie that fascinates them, a movie that might be flaming hot garbage but still holds a sentimental place in their heart, or just a god-awful movie that encouraged them to spread the word why no one should ever see that movie for their own safety. Bottom line, we have movies that made us want to write about movies, and we want to share them with you. 

Most of these movies are not our favorite movies. Hell, a few of the movies below might not even be good. But these are movies that we feel can communicate who we are as people and what we specifically bring to Flixist. If there's a movie on here that you hav??en't seen before, give it a watch. If you've seen all of these movies, then you completely und??erstand all of us and we can be best friends and hang out all the time and you'll never leave me! Congratulations?

La La Land (Jesse Lab)

Back in my Senior year of college, I was going around left and right telling people about just how good La La Land was. I was a theatre major at the time and wanted all of my theatre friends to watch it so we could all geek out over how good it was. But then after all of my close theatre friends saw it, they were actually against it and thought that it was trash. They thought that it was inferior to stage musicals and how people sang and danced live on stage every night, so the impact of the film was lessened. Also, one friend said that the white savior narrative was revolting and people of color needed more representation. This was also a friend who said that the characters in Whiplash were too selfish and that the lack of women made Whiplash a bad movie, but I digress. 

When I went back to watch La La Land, it was everything that I looked for in a movie musical. It had an excellent soundtrack, bright visuals, charming characters, some laughs, some tears, and an ending that hits you right in the soul. All of these are fine on their own, but together they make La La Land into a movie that just feels good to watch. Musicals are meant to tell a story through music or to convey a mood through lyrics, and La La Land excels at that. It directly engages with the dreamer in all of us and makes us wish for those big and grand stories that can only exist in movies. La La Land isn't just a love letter to classic 1950's movie musicals, but a love letter to movies in general. I thin?k it's an absolute blast, and essential to unders??tanding just how powerful movies can be. ;

The Holy Mountain (Hubert Vigilla)

Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain contains some of the strangest psychedelic/fever dream imagery I've ever seen. A group of fascists carry flayed lambs as vulgar crucifixes down the street as part of a military parade. A Christ-like figure screams while surrounded by dozens of paper mâch&eacu?te; facsimiles of the Messiah. A woman brings a robot to orgasm with a 4-foot dildo, resulting in the birth of a crying baby robot. An old man with half a beard forcefully lactates onto a su??????????????????????????pplicant; also, the old man's milk-gushing breast is the head of a jaguar. (The Aristocrats!)

Jodorowsky is a madman, maybe also a kind of cinematic conman, but he buys into his own alchemical hokum so much that I admire his brazenly absurd confidence as a filmmaker. (Not so much him as a person. I often wrestle with the way artists fall short of the feelings their art can engender.) Jodorowsky's classic films have such an odd power because of the bizarre imagination on display. While Santa Sangre is still my favorite of his movies and El Topo is his most famous, The Holy Mountain is Jodorowsky unbound.

The movies I love are ones that give me something I haven't seen before, or that make me feel something deeply. They might be midnight movies or cult films (e.g., Andrzej Zulawski's Possession), but they don't have to be. I love a bleak and soul-draining foreign arthouse drama (e.g., Bela Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies), or a comedy that does its own thing so well (e.g., Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap), or a documentary that reveals the beauty of the form (e.g., Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell), or an action movie with incredible set pieces (e.g., John Woo's Hard Boiled). I want movies to move me and stick with me, that leave me a little bit different having watched them. Not eve?ry movie can do that, and it's unrealistic to expect that all art and entertainment can be so life-changing. But gosh, what a joy when you encounter something that makes you feel stranger, more humane, ?and more alive.

Dumb and Dumber (Nick Hershey)

I know, I know. There are literally hundreds of movies with more artistic beauty and creative directorship that have left a meteoric impact in the cinematic landscape. However, in its own right, the Farrelly brothers created one of the great comedies of all time that starts because of a simple misunderstanding between two of the most dimwitted friends ever to grace the big screen. ?It’s the first PG-13 movie I can remember seeing, and though I didn’t understand all the nuanced jokes and one-liners at the time, the available slapstick humor certainly caught my eye. Not to mention the famous suits that still get play at some random high school proms every year.

As I got older the movie stayed with me. I’ve watched it uncountable times, gaining an understanding ??of the quips and references that come with repeate?d viewings and a wider base of knowledge. The incredibly quotable film was a gateway to a handful of friendships that took shape during those awkward middle school years (and high school years, and college years). Finding common ground in movies provides a sense of kinship and opens doors to other discussions and other commonalities. Regardless of the failed attempts at a prequel and sequel, the original remains a personal favorite because it has stuck with me in a way few other movies have, even two decades after its release.

The Greasy Strangler (Kyle Yadlosky)

I'm sure a lot of us are going to mention a movie feeling like it was made for us, but The Greasy Strangler is such a smorgasbord of disgust and discomfort that it feels like Jim Hosking drilled a hole through my skull, planted a hose in my brain, then gave the business end a suck before sticking it in hi?s ear, so that he could siphon all the septic waste I love best into his imagination. And ;god bless him for it.

We have disgusting bodies, vomit, blood, eyeballs popping out of heads, bright-red disco dick, gross? ??food, and so, so, so much grease. All of this is wrapped around bizarre performances, a barrage of quotable lines, and an absolutely dope soundtrack. It can be funny, shocking, and depressing all at once. There is certainly no other movie like it.

This movie? is why my dad drinks and hates?? me. I'm sure it can do the same for you.

In Bruges (Drew Stuart)

God I hate waiting, The slow pace of time slowly falling away kills me. But waiting for judgment? Knowing that you'll be crucified, yet dealing with the banal reality of now ??while keeping an eye on the clock? The dread of your mistakes tripping your feet and consuming you?

Fuck. That is the worst shit in the world. That is the premise of In Bruges. 

Two hitmen are spirited into hiding after one of them screws up a job. One of them is mature enough to make the best of their sordid reality. The other isn't. Their stay in bruges (heh) is laden with boredom, punctuated with pent-up anger, with just enough action to ?make it stick. We as the a??udience see them fleshed out completely and humanized by their coping mechanisms, and their existential dread of punishment from down on high. It's a marvelous thing how these two are developed.

But it's all hung on that central theme of dread. That gives this story some real weight. It's a film that explores every aspect of being human, humor, anger, philosophy, morality, and so much more. It's a brilliant film presented with a wink and a smile before rupturing its belly and spilling its crude, violent, distinctly human contents on your shoes. It's absolutely amazing. The excellent wit and humor that exists alongside?? the characters and the ostensibly serious tone are my jam; there's no better movie to watch if you want to?? know where I'm coming from.

No Country for Old Men (Anthony Marzano)

I went back and forth with my response to this question between No Country for Old Men and Synecdoche, New York. Both movies are excellent in their own right and truth be told saying that a movie that won the Academy A??ward for Best Picture is the movie that defines me goe??s against every hipster bone in my body but I really can't think of any other movie I'd want to represent me. It's just so perfectly made for me.

No Country for Old Men tells the tale of three men in a transitory time in West Texas, and the webs that run between them. Llewellyn Moss (John Brolin) is a lower class welder who comes across a satchel of money at a drug deal gone bad and takes it for himself, Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is the sheriff assigned to figure out what went wrong at the drug deal, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is the assassin sent to clean up every loose end tied to the deal gone bad. What fol?lows is a subdued cat and mouse game with quick flashes of violence that are reminiscent of the classic spaghetti westerns.

To say that the story is what defines me would be trite, it's the deeper? meaning to everything and the metaphysical elements that appear in real life that really push this ahead of any other movie for me. What little dialogue that is in the movie is reserved for philosophical conversations between characters about things such as fate, the endless flow of time, and the angst of being left behind by that same flow. The Coen's had been working these types of dialogue choices into their movies for years but now they are? given the words of the prophet McCarthy and they run with it perfectly.

It also helps that the movie actively spites and taunts the viewer through unanswered questions, shocking deaths, and overall a general denial of closure. I've always hated the notion that directors and writers should try to please the viewer. With so many movies that end on a happy note, we need more that end with a giant middle finger to the audience and No Country for Old Men does that perfectly.

Aesthetically the movie is also made just for me. Long wide camera angle shots of the West Texas landscape with all the colors you'd imagine that sky would hold are present throughout the entire movie. The score like everything else in the movie is subdued as well which to some people might seem bad but at times I've felt that scores can overtake a movie and hijack your emotions which yes that's what it is supposed to do but that doesn't mean I have to like it. No Country uses only an ambient score and therefore lets you sink into the horrors of the world presented before you, creating a deeply person??al and introspective experience.

What you get when you add all of these together is a portrait of me presented in film form. Was I morphed by my viewing of it to become the person I am today or was I always destined to find it because it's who I?? was all along? Does that really matter? Does this make me one of the titular Old Men? Probably, but my friends don't call me Old Manthony ?for no reason.

Battleship Potemkin (Matthew Razak)

Having been here since the beginning, and written the aforementioned "15 movies" post, and a "Movies That Changed Us" post on Evil Dead 2 I was in a bit of a pickle for generating some new content here so I'm going all out film student. If you've taken any film course ever you've probably seen Battleship Potemkin, the seminal (all his work is seminal, really) work from Soviet Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, who helped to invent montage, film editing, and pretty much modern filmmaking?? in general. For the time it was released it was an experiment??al propaganda film that stunned audiences with not only its violence but also its ability to create tension. 

Obviously, it's important to the history of film. Without Eisensteing we wouldn't have sports training montages, and where would our society be then? But for me, it was the first time I understood film as an evolving art form, not a static medium. The idea that montage had just not been a thing before this was striking for me. It made me look at movies from a new perspective beyond the obvious, and made me understand that the form is always changing. For me seeing Battleship Potemkin was a se?ismic shift in how to view movies, and not just art films and old classics. I started watching action movies for how their editing and direction had changed over the years -- e.g. the influx of Hong Kong kung fu films changing quick cuts in fight sequences (well, for good action directors). 

Just think about this: someone had to invent editing for impact. The idea that you could stitch separate scenes and shots together to skip time and build ideas visually was at one point a theory of film, not a fact. The stair scene is probably the most well-known example of this (recreated wonderfully in The Untouchables), but the part that always struck me was an edit of some statues of lions. The ?first shot is a statue of a lion and rest, then there are gunshots, and a cut to a statue of a lion statue alert. It's a super simple bit of montage, but it was revolutionary at the time. Film history comes alive.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Chris Compendio)

Listen, I ?loves me some Paul Thomas Anderson, I'm all over the Coen brothers, and I'd love to have Quentin Tarantino movies injected into my bloodstream—but sometimes, I just want to watch people beat the living shit out each other. And while there are plenty of these wonderful things that we call "moving pictures," there is something so tight, efficient and enjoyable about what Anthony and Joe Ru??sso do with their first Marvel Cinematic Universe contribution. 

Coming from a screenwriting background, and being an absolute nerd, The Winter Soldier feels like it was specifically engineered for me. The screenplay from Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely isn't particularly unique—a lot of plot elements and specific camera shots (not to mention the blatant casting of Robert Redford to pay homage to Three Days of the Condor) are in reference to politic??al thrillers of olden times—but it succeeds in the Russos' goal to make?? this movie "Honest Trailer-proof." It's a movie with a clear structure, character motivations and arcs, and themes.

Did I also mention that Cap beats the shit out of people? At this point in time, Joss Whedon turned Steve Rogers into a master gymnast, an underpowered underdog who never gives up and has a stupid-looking costume. From the film's first action sequence, we see that Steve Rogers is now a living human weapon, and perhaps the most formidable hand-to-hand fighter in the MCU. No CGI-heavy sequence can match the highway confrontation that ends the movie's second act. The first fight between Steve Rogers and a brainwashed Bucky Barnes is a good demonstration of fighting with purpose, and the film captures the action choreography in a way that makes each hi?t feel bru??tal. And did you see Bucky flip that knife? Fucking dope.

I've seen way too many movies in my relatively short life, but watching this movie in the theater is such a distinct memory to me, just for the pure, raw emotions that it provoked out of me. After mediocre fare like Thor: The Dark World, to see an MCU film that transformed an established character, that had a gritty feeling unlike its sci-fi World War II predecessor, and that took a risk by leveling the very-important S.H.I.E.L.D. organization, I finally watched something that made me feel.

It's movies like this that make me want to keep going back to the theater. Few films afterwards have replicated that same satisfaction, to be fairly honest. Inside Out brought me to a manic state, just from its sheer creativity. Mad Max: Fury Road latched on to me and let me go—to this day, if I ever watch a scene of this movie on cable TV or YouTube, I have to give in and watch the m?ovie in its entirety (the most recent occurrence of this was a mere four days ago).

It isn't the greatest movie in the world, and it probably isn't even my favorite. But for anyone who has the bravery to even attempt to understand who I am as a person, a viewing of Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a required ritual.

Army of Darkness (Rick Lash)

This is my boomstick. The chainsaw-handed man said, dropping his mic and taking hi??s? chin for a stroll.

In the vein of trilogy third movies that forgo the necessity of seeing earlier installments, Army of Darkness ranks high, near the top, right after Shark Attack 3. Perhaps the least well-known of the Evil Dead franchise, including The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead 2 (1987), Evil Dead (a 2013 remake), and Ash vs. Evil Dead, the Starz series that just concluded a three-season run. And yet, in my mind, it's the best. The originals and the remake are horror films, and the Starz series is an attempt to capture what made AOD so great, twenty-plus years after the fact. Mainly, this is Bruce Campbell's particular blend of character actor bravado that's nearly surreal in its delivery. AOD creative humor and storytelling is so inherently incongruous and slapstick (and campy horror) in its delivery that it's hard to believe, let alone understand. And when you see strangeness at age 15, after having been denied the ability to see a movie you found? cool based off the cover art alone, it leaves a mark on your psyche. 

Th??e hero of the film has time-traveled to medieval Somewhere (unclear where, though it looks more like California than Europe, you know, where you'd find knights). He's mistaken for a loser, but quickly proves himself a badass who can kill 'Deadites' with ease and style. Hail to the king, baby. Or, um, please save us Ash. There's some weird stuff in here, shot with terrible green screen technology that from one angle looks impressively realistic, and from another is so awfully fake it makes entire audiences cringe and collapse, dead.

Army of Darkness's one-liners will never die: it's a veritable treasure trove for the sort of self-serving humor that defines modern society. Spouted from the lips of an individual who's utterly obsessed with himself and doesn't really (des?pite appearances) care about anything other than himself, it's guaranteed to still bust my guts to this day.

Did this movie shape me? No. Is it my absolute favorite? No. But when I tried to think of a single film to help you better understand me and my highly disagreeable writing on film and television did it immediately and unassailably come to? mind? Yes.

The post How to understand the insanity that is the Flixist wri?ters appeared first on Destructoid.

Based on a true story

I don’t say this nearly enough, but my mom is the absolute best. She’s simply wonderful. She’s easy to shop for, she doesn’t have time for any of that emotional bullshit, and she always knows how t?o make her kids feel special. For my 18th birthday, she drove for more than an hour to get me an Arby’s roast be?ef sandwich paired with McDonald’s french fries because she knew that was my favorite meal. On a completely unrelated note, I’m now obese, pre-diabetic, and stuck eating broccoli five days a week.

What I love about her most is how she’s always been supportive of my hobbies. I’ve been a gamer since before I started school. For every birthday, Christmas, and occasional Easter, she would be there with a new video game for my brother a??nd me. When I was 15, she and my Dad surprised me with Dreamcast and my own television, breaking me free from the constraints of a shared console household. When I joined Destructoid, she was so excited after I told her what it was until she found out what it pays.

Through thick and thin, happy days and severe depression, she’s been there for me, supporting the crazy ideas I have that I’m far too lazy to actually take seriously. I know she would never, ever hurt me; except for that one time she tried to kill us all with Kirby’s Avalanche.

My mom used to tell us how much she enjoyed video games in her youth. She came of age in the 70s and 80s, and as a Southern California girl spent a fair share of time at the arcade. I remember her telling my brother and me that Ms. Pac-Man was her absolute favorite game. When we purchased our first console, an NES, it was mostly for us boys though my parents did enjoy taking turns in Duck Hunt. I don’t remember her gaming much beyond that, something that remained true when we upgraded to an SNES a few years later. Again, it was mostly for the kids, but there was a game that brought us together for family video game night: Kirby’s Avalanche.

If you haven’t played it, Avalanche is the American version of Super Puyo Puyo. Instead of Arle doing battle against Satan, we got Kirby answering a challenge from King Dedede. As with all Puyo Puyo games, the object of the puzzler is to chain together enough match-piece combos to overflow your opponent’s board in blocks. It’s the only Kirby game never to release in Japan.

So it’s 1995 and my whole family is sitting around the television taking turns in this game. My brother beats me, I beat my dad, my mom beat my brother; solid night all around. It’s getting late and my brother hands the controller over to our dad. It’s time to see which parent really wears the pants in this house. They start up and very quickly they’re sending blocks back and forth as they rack up those combos. You’d think they’d invented the game for how well they played. Back and forth and back and ??forth for several minutes until it becomes quite obvious mom is going to wipe the floor with dad. She has several groups of Puyo about to clear and the color piece she needs just popped into play. With a few adjustments, she drops it into the perfect spot, setting off a chain reaction that drowns dad in blocks. As that avalanche comes tumbling down on screen, an earthquake hits.

Now, I grew up in the state of Washington which I’m pretty sure is 99% fault lines. One of these days, Seattle is just going to fall into the sea. It’ll all be gone. The Space Needle, Experience Music Project, Frasier, Amazon, Starbucks, Pike Place Market where every tim??e the NFL goes to the city just has to show one of thos?e motherfuckers catching a fish; all of it will liquidate and sink into the ocean, transforming Washington into the red state those farmers in the east have always wanted it to be.

It had been some time since our last earthquake that night in 1995, so we shouldn’t have b??een shocked by it. When you sit atop multiple fault lines that stack up like lasagna, you get used to some sporadic shaking. But this was too perfect. The earthquake, a sizable one, hit at the exact moment my mom dropped that avalanc??he.

It’s pretty common knowledge that all moms everywhere have magic powers. How else do you explain their effortless ability to put up with our bullshit? Moms usually use this power for good; giving us a hug rig??ht when we need it, knowing how to make us feel like we’re the king of the world with just the right snack in our lunch, reading our first short story and not laughing in our face at how bad it is. This mom magic is legit and a powerful force for love. Who knew it could also shake the literal foundation of my world?

Make no mistake, this earthquake was 100% caused by my mother dropping that avalanche. It wasn’t the sudden shift in the tectonic plates like those know-nothing scientists on the news described it; no, th??is was my?? mother trying to send us a message. What that message is I don’t know. Did I not clean my room? Did my brother not take out the trash? Did one of us break her nose again? I can’t think of a reason why she’d do it, all I know is if we lived in Puritan times, she would have been tied to a ducking stool before the night was over.

My mother didn’t pick up another game after that until years later when I brought home my Wii. Like every other parent on the planet, she got heavy into Wii Sports Bowling. It’s something she still plays when she visits relatives. And though she clearly has the ?power to devastate the world with her magical video game-earthquake abilities, she’s chosen not to strike us down but instead spare her family with every frame she bowls. I love my mom, but because of the great power she demonstrated 23 years ago,?? I also fear her.

The post My mom is awesome except for that one time she tried to murder us all with Kirby’s Avalanche appeared first on Destructoid.

Bungie has woken the Hive

It's been a long, sordid affair for Destiny 2??, and developer Bungie has taken a lot of flak -- some of it well-deserved given the issues with the game.

But has it come to a point when a player's frustrations over the game take precedence over actually looking to help those who are playing it? I'm speaking of course with regards to the game's newest DLC, Warmind, which launched mere days ago. You can check out our review here.

It had many things players asked for in previous months such as secrets and collectables, and exotic quest grinds for the returning Sleeper Simulant, the Worldline Zero sword, and the G335 Anseris Overdrive sparrow. These items can be obtained by finding Sleeper Nodes and their respective override frequencies, and from locating all Lost Memory Fragments. These are scattered all over the map and required a collab?o??rative effort among players to find.

There's also a slew of yet-to-be-completely-discovered quest steps known as Catalysts. These are for exotic weapons in the game and are obtained through various means. For instance, one might require killing enemies with a sword, while another would have you defeating opponents in the Crucible's PVP arenas. Completing certain requirements will eventually lead to unlocking that specific weapon's Masterwork upgrade, conferring boosts to certain stats.

It also has a brand-new horde mode -- the Escalation Protocol. It's a challenging activity that requires half a dozen or so players meeting up in the game's new exploration area on Mars, the Hellas Basin, and taking out seven waves of high-level mobs and bosses. Bungie has detailed how the event unfolds and how it even melds into other activities in the area. And yes, it is fairly hectic, as you can se??e from this YouTube video after some top players managed to beat all seven waves.

Unfortunately, in less than a couple of days, players are once again up in arms - this time because of the short story campaign, or due to one strike being a PlayStation-exclusive, and a myriad other reasons. When I checked Destiny's main subreddit, I was immediately greeted by a ton of critiques, hot takes, and?? "Bungie Plz" suggestion posts. That topic with all the Memory?? Fragments?

That was in ninth place this past week. That one with all the Sleeper Nodes? Didn't even get as many upvotes as all the other opinion posts. Oh, and any info about Catalysts and Escalation Protocol tips? You'll want to search for these tips separately as they didn't even make it to the front page. The Bungie forums are no different with only one guide easily seen on? t?he first page.

I can definitely understand where some players are coming from. The sequel isn't perfect or as good as the original, and it will take at least four more months until the Comet expansion for major content additions, much like how The Taken King expansion in Destiny 1 completely revamped the landscape. A mini-DLC like Warmind won't provide all of these changes since it's been in production w??ell before most i?ssues were addressed.

But for players to suddenly be up in arms in less than two days, while a lot of the activities aren't getting that much attention --  that's mindboggling, to say the least. Someone even had to point out how peculiar the agitation over "lazy content" and "tiny garbage" DLCs can be by listing down every campaign section of all Destiny expansions so far.

As for me, I actually had to visit another Destiny subreddit in order to find all the necessary information that could help me while playing the game. A Reddit user compiled all the guide topics and videos posted so far for anyone who might be having trouble in Warmind.

Bottom line is, there's a? time and place for criticism, and I'm sure most players just want to provide that in order to help improve the game. However, the biggest issue I noticed is that it happens all too quickly and all too easily to the point that it shuts out potential discussions that can help thousands of players at the present. And the first few days of a game or expansion going live are extremely important in that regard due to the sheer number of players who are still learning new things.

These critical sentiments were not so glaringly manifested in the first few days of older expansions like The Dark Below or House of Wolves, and even less so with The Taken King and Rise of Iron (two secrets-heavy additions to Destiny 1). Unfortunately, it happens with such frequency nowadays, even in a secrets-laden DLC like Warmind, tha??t it becomes a detriment to those who are looking to di??scover more about the game.

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The rise of far-right tendencies in gaming is a problem, but the will of the player holds the power, not the games themselves

This week, a piece written by Alfie Bown, author of The PlayStation Dreamworld, was published in The Guardian. The core argument of the piece was that video games inherently, and particularly recently, project far-right tendencies onto players. Through playing the games, players are effectively given an interactive experience of right-wing ideologi??es, which acts to indoctrinate them and is feeding the swing towards a lack of compassion in the politics of young people nowadays. I'd advise you t??o read it in full, because while it is a bold argument that I don't really agree with, it makes for interesting reading.

So, as I've just said, the argument didn't quite gel with me. I have to start by sayi?ng that I absolutely believe there is a problem with right-wing, xenophobic, and misogynist tendencies in video games, as there is in many parts of society. Many people are living in a state of fear because the world as it stands is quite a hostile place, which only encourages "every man for himself" thoughts and a disgust for anything labelled as "other." Some people don't even need that existential fear to feel hatred for others. The thing is, I don't feel like it is video ga??mes stoking the fires of hostile politics. If anything, I feel like people with those politics project their feelings onto games.

The topic is way too large to cover in a single weekend editorial, but I want to give a few responses to specific points made in Bown's article. Some parts of it seemed to jump the gun a little or be too selective in its exa??mples. The points that stuck out for me as not quite right were the following:

• "Games are ideological constructions which push a set of values on the user."
• "Right-wing ideologies have been overrepresented and dominant throughout the history of video games."
• "Video games put the user to work on an instinctual level, making the gamer feel impulsive agreement with these ideologies."
• "The rationale of gaming is to unite pleasurable impulse with political ideology, a process which renders gamers susceptible to discourses that urge people to follow their instincts while also prescribing what those instincts ought to be."
• "...games can have a concrete ideological effect on us – and make us desire politically charged things on a personal level."

Right – ??let's get started on unpacking this.

"Games are ideo??logical constructions which pus??h a set of values on the user."

Games are indeed ideological in nature – not in the sense that games always portray?? a utopia (in fact, this is rare, or there would be no push for the protagonist to do anything), but in that they portray ?a certain view of the world that is to some extent or another detached from reality. Aside from documentary work and non-fiction, every form of media is portraying a version of the world that is different from the one we see surrounding us every morning when we wake up.

The idea that doesn't quite work is that games, by their very definition, push their values on the user. Some people might say a game is just a game, and only in very rare cases does it have anything coming close to values. I don't agree – I think every game has some sort of value structure in it, or the ideological world it has built up would collapse. Taking a game as simple as Angry Birds, the values here are "birds are good, pigs are bad, destroy their houses." The value structure gives the player a guideline as to what they are supposed to do and what they are not supposed?? to do: how to win the game, or how to be kicked to the Game Over screen after a few seconds, because they've disobeyed the game's very particular set of laws.

But do all games inherently push these values on the player? I don't think so. Increasingly as of late, games give players incentives to "break" them – to be anarchic and ignore the game's very own set of laws. This might be in pursuit of trophies or to create glitches, or just for the hell of it. An example of this is the genocide run in Undertale: if you go down that horrible path, NPCs will avoid you or implore you to stop what you're doing, but the player is allowed to continue down that murderous path if they wish. Sandbox games such as the Grand Theft Auto series leave the player entirely to their own devices, while incentivising them to behave a certain way only if they want to get to the end of the Story mode – which many people don't really care about as much a??s explo?ring the world they're in.

Even in traditional games, where the only way to get any enjoyment out of it is to obey its set of values to the letter, is it really "pushing" them onto the player? The player has a choice to set the controller down and not play the game. The player can follow the values, nod along, and declare to themselves at the end that the entire experience was bullshit. Most importantly to me, the player can see a set of values they disa??gree with, follow them for the sake of getting to the end, and then see it as an experiment in how they might not behave like themse??lves in a simulation, when under certain sources of pressure. There is actually real value in exploring different perspectives this way, and it is where games have the power to enrich people's levels of experience, not convert them to fascism.

"Right-wing ideologies have been overrepresented and dominant?? throughout the history of video games."

These ideologies have definitely been an unwelcome presen?ce throughout ga??mes, but have they dominated? I'm not too sure.

Some of the examples Bown gives of this dominance are actually quite baffling, if I'm honest. He lists expelling "aliens" (in the sense that US folk use that word to refer to illegal immigrants) as a right-wing tendency in Space Invaders and XCOM. There are certainly parallels between fear that another species could destroy yours, and fear of the differences between yourself and someone of another ethnicity, but that doesn't mean that a game about the former is automatically making a comment on the latter. The two fears are prompted by a common source, which is the drive to self-preserve and the fear of death. Games about impurities in a species, such as The Last of Us, have this same core. One of the mos??t powerful player instincts that games tap into is the wish not to die, whether there is a rational threat or not.

But again, it sticks in my craw to talk ab??out these ideologies being "overrepresented." I ??don't know if I would say the ideologies being overrepresented is dangerous – instead, it is an oversimplified endorsement of these ideologies that is the real danger.

Take Resident Evil. It addresses humanity's downfall due to impurities and mutations in ?the human species, which could be sa?id to lean too heavily on eugenics.

This only really becomes a problem when the player is jingoistically encouraged to flamethrower the living heck out of absolutely everything without a pause for breath. Instead, we see comrades die after making it through a tough spell in a previous game. We see people driven by greed finally get their comeuppance. We see people banding together to escape a decaying city. There are so many instances in the Resident Evil series where the people who are infected are humanised, and players are encouraged to empathise with the fallen (Lisa Trevor being the best example of all). Instead of pushing the ideology of "kill the impure" on the?? player, the games give the player room to explore their own feelings about humanity's downfall. If anything, wanting to avenge individual??????????????????????????s such as Lisa Trevor because they identify with their struggles gives the player even more motivation to take down Umbrella.

"Video games put the user to w?ork on an instinctual level, making the gamer feel impulsive agreement with these ideologies."

What Bown is talking about here, when he talks about acting off instinct, is how the player natur??ally goes about making their decisions in the game. This texture looks a bit odd? Bash it with a hammer, then. This baddie looks like he could cause us a few problems down the line? Shoot him. Shoot him now. By blending this thought process with unsavoury political principles, Bown says that it encourages players to automatically grasp for the right-wing way of?? thinking, which will then bleed into their everyday life.

Except, I think the ideologies that are portrayed very often don't travel outside of their own specific contexts. To discuss this, I'm going to choose a game that I've been fascinated with recently, which is Haunting Ground, where you play as a college student trapped inside her ancestral home. She has to escape from two bosses who are in rather bad taste during the game: one is a ?man with a le?arning disability who will hug her to death if he catches up with her, while the other is a "shrill harpy"-type character who is driven insane by her own infertility and cuts out the student's reproductive organs if she catches up with her. 

In the game, you have no choice but to run away from these characters. If you don't, it's Game Over, so you flee over and over again. Even though this is buying into the misconception that those with learning disabilities are likely to accidentally hurt you, or that women of a certain age who can't bear/haven't borne children are bound to have a screw loose, because of course they're lacking something that is integral to womanhood. But the vast majority of players will restrict that feeling to this very ??specific instance of having to run away from these characters or they will die. They will see it as a depiction of an extreme scenario on a screen, and it wo??n't affect their views of childless/childfree women or those with learning disabilities, because the game backed them into a corner.

I think this is where it's clear that players have more influence over their experience of games than the game itself. If you are impressionable enough to draw the conclusion that the characters in Haunting Ground are bad, therefore people with similar characteristics must be bad, then you're placing dots on a page that were never supposed to be there and then joining them up. Frankly, I have more faith in the average gamer that they can isolate e??xperiences to where they experienced them and not let it infect their daily life, and that their agency and the interactivity is precisely what gets them to stop and think about their own reac??tions to the game and about their subsequent behaviour.

"The rationale of gaming is to unite pleasurable impulse with political ideology, a process which renders gamers susceptible to discourses that urge people to follow their instincts while also prescribing what those instincts ought to be."

I don't think this is the rationale of gaming at all. The ration?ale of gaming is to create the pleasurable impulse, full-stop, unless we're talking about games that are legitimate propaganda. Depending on the game in question, political ideology is secondary but still important, or just window-dressing.

People play games to tick off things on a checklist, whether it is a checklist constructed from the game's own list of values, or the player's self-imposed list of values. Whether it's getting a higher score in Puyo Puyo Tetris, getting through Silent Hill 4 as fast as possible, or building a phallus-shaped rollercoaster in RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, we have something that motivates us to sit there and play a game – at least the vast majority of people do, since people tend to lean towards having reas??ons for doing something. The core ingredient of every game is the rewarding of effort.

More impressionable people will accept any kind of reward, but a lot of people want to feel they've done something really worthy and got a huge amount of recognition in return. This is where political ideology comes in. If the player finds the ideology of the game disgusting, they might ??not want to be rewarded by it, if they are in any way, shape, or form discerning about what they play.

What political ideology does is that?? it provides reasons for the impulse or prescribes it a level of urgency, and the pl?ayers, in exercising their agency, might find that the political ideology makes them not want to seek a reward from it anymore. It's a bit like getting a birthday cake from your enemy – you might be tempted to eat a great big slice if it looks delicious, but it's in the back of your mind that the enemy may have poisoned it.

So, combined with what I said above, the game itself doesn't necessarily prescribe the instincts, and the level of susceptibility to following game-prescribed instincts depends on each individual per??son. In the vast majority of cases, we have to give the player more credit and trust they won't sw??allow down every reward dangled before them.

"...games can have a concrete ideological effect on us – and make us desire politically charged ?things on ?a personal level."

What I want to talk about here is the "on a persona?l level" part. Do we always play as ourselves when we play a game? Or do we instead step into the shoes of the protag??onist, trying to understand their specific motivations and personality traits? I think it's more often the latter than some people think.

A good example for this is James Sunderland in Silent Hill 2. Sure, we might project onto James our own fee??lings about what we'd do if our spouse went missing in a twisted version of where we once went on holiday together. But mainly, we'd try to understand what James is going through and make James behave consistently with what we're being told about his own personal journey...or not, if we don't trust that the game developers have given us James' real story, instead going for a wander around the town to see what extra goodies we can find.

In a way, Bown seems to argue that p?laying as other characters with their own ideologies is what indoctrinates us into unhealthy ways of thinking. James' own ideas about what a real woman is are certainly not very flattering. But if we are playing as James, and not a version of ourselves that is called James and looks like James, then the player has to do some extra mental graft to transfer their experiences as James into their real life. By playing as the character on screen and not as a version of themselves, it opens the door for a level of detachment. Certainly as the game progresses and we see some truly dark sides to James, the player's gut instinct is? likely to be, "That's not me. This is the worst of humanity. I am not the worst of humanity."

People generally like to think of themselves as a force for good, unless they have a poor self-image, perhaps for mental health reasons or because of incidents in their past. So seeing a character do bad things on screen probably doesn't encourage most people to think that's a good idea in their real life, but instead to isolate those experiences to being about "other people." This in itself is dangerous, because restricting evil acts to "evil people" doesn't really get to the heart of why people are motivated to do ill. Just look at the Stanford prison experiment or Marina Abranović's "Rhythm 0" to see how average members of the general public can turn on each other given the right conditions. But it does throw a spanner in the ?works when it comes to Bown's argument that people make things that happen in games about them. It really, really depends both on the game itself and on the individual playing it.

***

In conclusion, Bown's article is a great jumping-off point to talk about the relationship between right-wing ideologies and games. Really, the topic needs a lot more space than either I or Bo?wn can give to it in a small editorial, but the interactions between people and games are much ??more complex than a process of simple indoctrination.

My conclusion is that players have agency, and use it constantly when they play a game. Their will determines whether they continue with it or put it down, how they play the game, and how they are influenced it. It can even reach beyond that and make people twist an innocuous game into something evil – I'm looking at you, RollerCoaster Tycoon hedge-maze person. Games are a literal playground, and give people the room to try different things out without influence on the outside world. I?n most cases, it's people who have control over games, not the other way around.

What is your reaction to Alfie Bown's article? What do you think about the co-existence of far-right tendencies and video games/other media? Let me know in the comments down below!

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Switch port when?

One year ago today, the Nintendo Switch graced store shelves worldwide and started a frenzy. We’re not talking 2006 Wii levels of crazy, but the Switch was pretty hard to find for a couple of months. Even with the console flying off shelves, Nintendo didn’t pack the launch with an abundance?? of titles. What Nint?endo lacked in day one software, it more than made up for with a constant stream of titles released over the past year.

Le??t’s take? a look back over the first year of the Switch and see what Nintendo did right, what it did wrong and how the future looks for its hybrid platform.

What Was Right?

Going into 2017, no one had any idea when the Switch was coming out. We had heard for months Nintendo’s new platform was going to release at some point and the development cycle of Zelda: Breath of the Wild seemed to be winding down, so a lot of speculation was on the game releasing with the system. January’s Switch pr?esentation confirmed that and even gave us a solid release date; March 3, 2017.

In a stroke of genius, Nintendo didn’t give people months to prepare for the upcoming launch. Much like how the music industry is springing surprise releases of albums, it basically finalized the design of the Switch and set the date for a mere month and a half later. Obviously, that is simplifying the situation, but there had to be some kind of market r?esearch into modern trends to come up with such a short hype window.

That close release date definitely worked on me, since I had been anticipating Breath of the Wild for quite some time. Seeing as how I travel to Florida every single March, having Zelda on the go was serendipity; now I didn’t have to wait a week and a half to get back into Hyrule and save the land. I could just take my Switch and fly wherever I needed to go with Zelda in tow.

While the design of the Joy-Con may be a little cramped, the ability to split them and have multiplayer ready at a moment’s notice is probably the best feature on the Switch. You no longer had to worry about lacking controllers or dealing with link cables or weakened Wi-Fi signals. The Switch streamlined the process and made it portable. Sitting in a restaurant waiting for food doesn’t feel like an eternity when Mario Kart can be ripped out to pass the time.

The cartridges are also another way in which the Switch trumps the competition. Now taking a couple?? of games on the go won’t require a CD carrier or even much in the way of protective means. Those tiny Switch carts are ultra-light, highly portable and pretty damn fast. Load times are quite spiffy on the Switch thanks to this, but the entire portable concept behind the Switch makes these cartridges the perfect medium to carry games (putting asi??de the Switch tax).

The staggered release schedule for games was a great way to get hype continuously flowing throughout the year. I won’t deny the launch was weak, but getting Zelda, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Splatoon 2 within four months is pretty great. There were also other oddities like ARMS and Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle that debuted in the first year, which came to a beautiful conclusion with the release of Bayonetta 2 a few weeks ago. Even if everything that Nintendo put out wasn’t 100% original, the sheer quality of the releases made up for it. These were all highly polished and incredibly fun titles that made Nintendo fans cheer with gle?e.

What Was Wrong?

The ?biggest lacking factor on Switch launch day was the absence of Virtual Console support. Not having a library of classic titles avai??lable from the get-go was a mistake for Nintendo. The company holds one of the most beloved back catalogs in all of gaming, yet it’s still relegated to past hardware. Nintendo made a huge push for preservation with the Wii, but that seems to have gone by the wayside now.

I also can’t ignore how lackluster the rest of the launch day line-up was. While I do prefer having a steadier stream of games over the year, Nintendo could have easily delayed the Switch a few months and started off with Zelda, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Splatoon 2 on day one. Thankfully the wait wasn’t horrible for those games (they were available within a few months of each other), but the Switch wasn’t o??ffering much on launch day.

The cost of Switch cartridges is something that led to quite a few overpriced and otherwise corner cutting releases in 2017. L.A. Noire for $50 on Switch is ludicrous, but NBA 2K18 having a 5gb save file and necessitating the purchase of an SDCard is ridiculous. It doesn’t help that even Nintendo seems to be doing the same, as Bayonetta 2 only includes the second game on cartridge with the first requiring a download. Cartridges are obviou??sly not cheap, but Nintendo should be eating the cost of them to get developers and publishers pushing games onto the platform, not passi??ng those costs onto the publishers and consumers.

While Nintendo brought the big guns for the first year of the Switch, I can’t say many other developers have. It certainly is great to see Bethesda embracing the Switch (and the port of DOOM is pretty remarkable from a tech??nical standpoint), but everyone else seemed to just port games over and be done with it. A lot of devs haven’t even bothered to jump on-board yet.

Ports aren’t bad, per se, but it does show that a lot of developers were not ready for what the Switch was offering. I suppose coming off of the Wii U, a lot of people expected Nintendo’s device to fail. That was a reasonable assumption, but porting over games doesn’t really give many gamers a reason to run out and buy the system. If yo??u already own a game, paying full price for a portable version wi?th downgraded quality doesn’t really set the heart aflutter.

The lack of concrete online plans is also something that still bothers me. We were given some kind of a plan for how Virtual Console might be launching with a paid online service, but that was then pushed back from its original Fall 2017 launch and is now? pushed bac??k another year. What else is coming with that online service, though, apart from a new fee?

What’s the future look like?

For the immediate future, it seems like the Switch is going to continue seeing ports of last gen games. Nintendo does have Kirby Star Allies, Mario Tennis Aces and the untitled Yoshi game on the schedule, but then Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition are rounding out what we know for 201?8 so far. The latter two are great games, but they don’t offer anything that isn’t already available somewhere else.

This is then compounded by things like Wolfenstein II and Dark Souls Remastered heading to the system. While Wolfenstein is sure to be another technological wonder, both of these titles are already available on other consoles (even if the current Dark Souls release is plagued with p??erformance issues). This isn’t the fault of third parties, but Nintendo reall??y needs to ease up on its cartridge costs.

As for other titles, Square Enix looks to have a certified classic on its hands with Project Octopath Traveler, but there still isn’t a release date. Nintendo is currently working on Bayonetta 3 and Metroid Prime 4, but I really doubt either of those games will see a 2018 release. Even Suda51’s cult series No More Heroes probably won&r?squo;t see its third installment release in the next 10 months.

Nintendo LABO looks really great for kids, but I’m still a little unsure of how cardboard is going to make for a sustainable product. Kids are rough with basically everything they get their hands on and without some way of b?uying additional cardboard without the cartridge, LABO could end up costing more than its quirky charm is worth.

At least Tecmo Koei and NIS have pledged support for the system moving forw??ard. The Switch is also becoming a sort of indie haven with a lot of smaller devs putting out quite a nice selection of retro throwbacks and quirky platformers. With Valve failing? to properly curate the releases that hit Steam, I definitely expect more indie games to pop-up on Switch going forward.

For as good of a job as Nintendo did to solidify the Switch a?s a necessary purchase in 2017, it doesn’t look like 2018 is going to be anywhere near as exciting. The year is already off to a decent enough start, but when Nintendo’s biggest product looks to be LABO, I don’t know that many older fans are going to get much out of the system this year.

Then again, 2017 started off kind of similar with a lack of titles and turned out t??o be excellent. Maybe I’m just worrying over nothing. When push comes to shove, Nintendo always pulls out the big guns, s??o I’m sure the Switch isn’t going to crumble overnight.

The post Nintendo Switch: A Year in Review appeared first on Destructoid.

There's only one person in the whole world that's like you, and that's you

I think it's fair for me to say that the world is filled with vitriol and animosity right now. Everywhere you look there are people angry about everything, politics, celeb?rities, social media, video games, a well made but somewhat fl??awed sequel to a science fiction classic, it's everywhere.

It may have always been like this but it wasn't as prevalent, I mostly blame the internet for giving anyone a platform to spread their hate to the far reaches of the globe but wi??thout it, I wouldn't be able to spread this news so I can't rightfully say it's inherently evil. Perhaps it is that we as a culture have become addicted to negativity. For years the man?tra of "if it bleeds, it leads" has been the norm when it comes to news reporting and with the advent of the 24-hour cable news cycle it's become a constant storm of negativity, and death that we see each day.

There aren't many sources of light and unbiased positivity in the world anymore, and because of that, there isn't much to counterbalance the rampant negativity. The only major current sources of enduring positivity that I can think of are Sesame Street, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, and Andrew W. K. What we need right now is someone lik??e?? Fred Rogers.

Fred Rogers was the host of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, a public access children's show that ran from 1968 to 2001. It wasn't flashy, or loud, or very sophisticated, eschewing those trends for a more subdued and personal experience. Each episode began with Mr. Rogers walking into his home, and taking off his coat and shoes and changing into sneakers and a cardigan while singing to the audience "Won't you be my neighbor." The episodes usually involved Mr. Rogers talking about general real-world problems that children would have to one day face, and the positive ways to go about t?hem.

It was odd at the time to see a children's show talk abo?ut such harsh to?pics such as death, war, and divorce, but where many people would have rather swept it under the rug for children, Fred Rogers was there to confront it head-on with a gentle smile and the reminder that it is o.k. to feel sad and scared sometimes, but the key to moving forward is finding the good in people.

Unfortunately, Fred Rogers died in 2003. Ever since then his presence in everyday life has been slowly eroding due to the fact that there is nothing new to show of him. Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood carries on his legacy currently on public access but it doesn't have the same feel as the original show. Twitch did a big service to his legacy last year when they aired every single episode of his in a row to promote their new positivity community, a group of streamers that went for calm and happy streams as opposed to aggressive and loud streams that tend to be popular. Still, Twitch is pretty insulated and doesn't have a wide-reaching audience, at least in the older generations. Thankfully though later this year, Focus Features will be releasing a documentary about Fred Rogers and his work on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

The documentary titled Won't You Be My Neighbor is getting its premiere at Sundance Film Festival this week and will go behind the scenes of the show to take a deeper look at the genius that was Fred Rogers. It will show how he helped inspire generations of children to be the person they are with hope, love, and creativity. This week we got our first look at the documenta?ry and even with such a short clip, I can tell that this documentary was handled the right way. Will the release of this documentary solve all the world's problems? Nope. But I cannot see any downside to bringing the light that is Fred Rogers into the mainstream again.

Won't You Be My Neighbor will receive a theatri??cal release on June ?8th, 2018.

The post A documentary about Mr. Rogers ??is coming j?ust when we need it appeared first on Destructoid.

Let the Past Die

Another year, another Star Wars film to over analyze and get all nitpicky about. While I found The Last Jedi to be a weaker film than The Force Awakens, I had a good time with it and was surprised at how many tropes the film subverted. Instead of going for the obvious, we got a Star Wars film that was unafraid of making new choices and taking the story in some interes?ting directions.

Obviously, this post is going to be loaded with spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the film yet,? please don’t continue on. I don’t want to be held liable for ruining any surprises for ??you and there is one moment, in particular, which made me incredibly happy. Anyway, this is your formal warning, so proceed with caution.

The biggest theme from The Last Jedi is one that I find very intriguing: “Let the Past Die.” As the franchise currently stands, Star Wars is all about trying to recreate that wonder of that original trilogy and playing up nostalgia for cheap thrills. As good as I found Force Awakens, the fact that it was a pseudo-remake of A New Hope is basically the opposite of what The Last Jedi is trying to tell you.

A bunch of moments in the new film are direct callbacks to The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but they don’t end up at the same conclusion. You have a master reluctant to teach a new pupil, said pupil questioning her master at every step, a confrontation with the supposed big bad guy and even the student entering a cave to seek out their lineage. All of these, though, are taken in bold new directions that call back to the t?heme I mentioned above.

When Rey arrives on Ahch-To and hands Luke his saber, he tosses it over his shoulder and tells her to leave. You’d be forgiven for assuming this would be a direct parallel of what Yoda did in Empire (dismissing Luke as too old to learn the ways of the Force), but the truth is that Luke is actually scared. He essentially created Kylo Ren (by attempting to assassinate ??him and backing down) and that fear nearly consumed him and led him down the path o??f the Dark Side.

His reason for staying secluded is because he is holding ont??o the past. Luke can’t come to terms with how he failed his sister, his best friend, his nephew, and his own legacy. He was the Jedi that br?ought order to the force and stopped the insidious Emperor Palpatine; how could his man fall so hard? How can he look into the eyes of his admirers and tell him he is the reason for their doom?

Rey is propelled through the plot not because she is courageous or even destined to help the world, but because she wants answers to her past. Rey might be skilled at a lo?t of things, but she holds a tremendous amount of anger at her parents for abandoning her. She has a propensity towards the Dark Side because of this, which is exactly what Luke fears the most.

Kylo Ren, on the other hand, is aggravated that people keep comparing him to his ancestors. Lord Snoke constantly reminds him of the death of his father, Han Solo, and berates him ??for not living up to the name of Darth Vader. Kylo also can’t get over his misinterpretation of Luke’s intentions on the fateful night that sent him spiraling out of control.

If you look to the past, you&rsquo??;d believe that Luke eventually sees the power in Rey, Rey ends up being a distant ancestor to Obi-Wan or Luke and that Kylo Ren would turn on his master and see the Light Side. Everything you think is going to happen doesn’t.

Luke, for instance, is reluctant to actually destroy the Jedi. Even though he? hates the order for causing a tremendous amount of grief in his life, it is the only thing he has known for 30 some odd years. Despite saying he wants the Jedi to die, he has trouble letting go and can’t give up that part of his life. It takes a surprise visit from Yoda’s spirit to change Luke’s tune.

Once Yoda comes and destroys the Jedi text against Luke’s will, ?he drops some great knowledge (“The greatest teacher, failure is”) and gets Luke to understand that the old ways are no longer relevant. Luke can only see the event that changed his life, but has failed to learn anything from it. In??stead of letting the past go, Luke has held on and caused more troubles.

He does eventually come to Rey’s aide, though. Luke overcomes his own weakness and uses the last of his power to give the resistan?ce a chanc??e. He appears at the end, confronts Kylo and distracts the First Order long enough for everyone to escape. With his past resolved and his embrace of the new complete, Luke fades away to join the Force as his master did before him.

Rey, on the other hand, has focused too much on w??hat her past might mean. While she possesses a lot of skill ?and has been a competent fighter, she is so fixated on who her parents are and what that could mean to really see that she is fine without the knowledge.

The truth is that Rey, unlike what you’d expect, is nobo??dy from nowhere and that doesn’t do a thing to change her present. If Rey was able to let go before discovering this, she could have better harnessed her powers and rejected all of the hatred in her heart. Even knowing she is nothing, she still believes in the good that Kylo has and tries to change him.

Once she tries and fails to actually get Kylo to change his mind, she knocks him unconscious and leaves to save her friends. If she can’t make Kylo see the past is holding him back, at least she can save the ones who will? change the galaxy. This then leads to her finally?? adapting to the power within her and harnessing that strength without fear.

Kylo, while having a good ideal, ultimately learns nothing. He does turn on Snoke and ends up killing him, but the reason is be??cause he is trying to ??erase his past. Instead of accepting his failures and moving on, Kylo wants them eradicated so that no one can remember them. He embodies the whole idea of “Letting the Past Die,” but with the wrong execution.

Kylo is right abo?ut starting?? new and allowing the next generation to flourish, but he still has all of the resentment of his past. He holds on to the moment he killed his father and how his uncle potentially wanted him dead. He can’t get over how far he has fallen and even admits he is a monster as if that will justify his choices.

This film doesn’t just follow the main characters, but a couple of the?? side ones. You have Captain Poe, a sort of Han Solo like rogue, becoming irate with Admiral Holdo because she isn’t General Organa. Poe is so used to looking at Leia’s past successes that he can’t a??ccept someone stepping in while she is incapacitated.

That eventually comes to a head when Poe leads the charge through the ??resistance’s final b??ase. They’ve discovered a way out while Luke is distracting the First Order and instead of anyone listening to his battle cry, they all look to Leia for confirmation. She simply rolls her eyes and says, “What are you looking at me for?” Even she understands that everything old isn’t automatically better.

Finn and Rose don’t really serve the overall narrative, but even their escapade echoes back to the main theme. They basically do everything the way Luke and Han did in A New Hope, but that fails?? spectacularly against the First Order. Finn and Rose don’t anticipate that reusing old tactics wouldn’t work against a new foe and that ultimately leads to them nearly dying.

Finn even assumes that??? sacrificing himself, kind of like Obi-Wan, would deal a crushing blow to the First Order, but Rose stops him and clues him into a different line of thinking. Don’t destroy that which you hate, but protect that which you love. While a cheesy statement, that new approach is a sentiment that hasn’t been tried up to this point.

All of these sacred images, phrases and scenarios from the past are thrown out to wipe the slate clean for Episode IX. The Last Jedi isn’t just a neat name to refer to Luke, but also a message to audiences that this will be the last Star Wars with direct parallels to older films. The main takeaway you sho?uld get is that while the old is good, w??e now need to make room for the new.

I’m actually convinced that this film is also a meta-critique on The Force Awakens and the general Star Wars fan base, as well. At this very moment, you can find a lot of fans crying foul about The Last Jedi because it doesn’t follow the tropes set up by the past. These are the same people that rip Force Awakens apart for being a remake of A New Hope. It is almost funny ??how? they seemingly missed the entire point of the movie.

While I won’t just ignore the faults that Last Jedi has, it more than lives up to the legacy of the franchise it is a part of. That the movie does something new and fresh with establishe??d ideas is also a real treat, since that is becoming increasingly rare in this current Hollywood era of cinematic universes and f?ranchise building.

Maybe I’m over analyzing things and putting meaning where it doesn’t belong, but I walked out of my showing of The Last Jedi with glee as the movie practices what it preaches. Now if only Disney gets the m??essage and stops with all these inter-quels and needless prequels.

The post How The?? Last Jedi challenges our notions of what Star Wars c??an be appeared first on Destructoid.

A whole Galaxy of things!

Super Mario Odyssey was certainly a grand adventure. While I didn’t expect anything less from Mario’s Switch debut, I still left thinking it was the best game I’ve played this year. While the different gameplay elements may not necessarily be new (everything is very reminiscent of Super Mario 64), the way in which eac??h kingdom brings totally unique challenges feels just like the classic games of Nintendo’s past.

Then you get to the ending of the game and a pretty big ripple can be felt. Nintendo has set up something that could possibly influence the rest of Mario going f?orward and it has gotten me curious about the implications.

Obviously, I’m going to spoil the ending of Super Mario Odyssey, so if you haven’t beaten it ye?t, be warned.

The entire plot of Odyssey revolves around Mario chasing down Bowser to thwart his marriage to Peach. Through your travels, you eventually end up going to the moon (where Mario, Peach and Bowser can somehow br??eathe) and barge right into the chapel where Bowser is waiting. After a pretty nifty boss battle in the core of the moon, shit hits the fan and everything starts to collapse. As a last ditch effort, Mario tosses Cappy at Bowser and the final challenge is basically an anime.

Yes, you control Bowser and a ridiculously awesome theme song plays with more music by the lovely Pauline. After this crazy experience, you’d think Peach would be ecstatic with Mario, but that doesn&rsquo?;t happen. When you finally return to the surface of the moon, Mario begins to slowly approach Peach, when Bowser suddenly jumps up and shoves a bouquet in her face.

Obviously Mario isn’t going to let that stand, so he shoves his own bouquet in her face. The two start to ?nudge and shove each other until Peach yells, “ENOUGH!” and walks away. I mean, holy shit! Did Peach just stand up to Bowser? If she had that kind of gumption, why didn’t she do this sooner?

I know the ending is supposed to be more hilarious than deep (Mario and Bowser both sort of embrace and cry as Peach walks away), but I mostly began to wonder what that action could mean for the future of the series. I would say the biggest let down with Odyssey is that the plot is bas??ically the same crap we’ve seen for the past 32 years of Mario’s existence. Peach is sti??ll a prize and it is kind of insane how Bowser didn’t try something different.

That isn’t to say Nintendo hasn’t mixed things up, because a few past games certainly have. Super Mario 3D World actually let you play as Peach alongside the brothers and even the U.S. edition of Super Mario Bros. 2 had Peach as a playable character, not to say anything of the various spin-off RPGs that have seen Mario work alongside his greatest foe. Even if Mario 2 was all a dream, at least Nintendo has shown that the??y ar?e willing to tinker with the formula.

I know Mario games live more on their level design and gameplay conceits rather than plot, but if we’re finally free of having Peach be a damsel in distress, does this mean we can get Mario games that focus on him being a hero to others instead of just his pseudo-girlfriend? Will we get Mario games that don’t rely on?? the Mushroom K?ingdom for their aesthetic design?

That last one is very possible. Odyssey is the first game in a while to not showcase all the various mushrooms, bricks, bright colors or ghost houses of the past. Nintendo didn’t go for a more realistic tone, though, they instead created exaggerated versions of our world (for the most part). The various kingdoms look familiar, not becaus??e we’ve been there 1,000 times before, but because they are in?terpretations of things we see in everyday life. Since there are semi-realistic forests and beautiful sun soaked beaches, we are put at ease while exploring something unknown.

That being said, where else can this series go? If Peach is no longer the final goal and the Mushroom Kingdom is old hat, what is left? Will we get a return to Galaxy or another tropical getaway like Sunshine? Will poor Luigi be captured, with Mario ;?ca?lled in to save his bro? What if we even get a job simulator with the brothers fixing pipes (granted, Mario isn’t a plumber anymore…)?

Better yet, what if we get a game starring Peach that isn’t based on outdated stereotypes of female emotions? While it would definitely be odd to have a game with Mario in the title not star the titular plumber, the possibilities are endless for where ??Nintendo can move forward. ?The simple act of Peach rejecting both Mario and Bowser kicks the door wide open.

I’m ready for Nintendo to explore some new ground with Super Mario. Odyssey was great in that it harkened back to an era of game design that was more focused on exploration and creativity instead of trekking down the more linear path that Galaxy started. Fo?r the next journey, I hope Nintendo can finally change the why instead of the how.

The post What does Super Mario Odyssey’s ending mean for the series? appeared first on Destructoid.

He watches it so you don't have to

Whenever you see a new action movie coming out that defies the laws of physics or sense you are alway??s told to "check your brain at the door." Now for most movies I can do this, I'll watch a giant green man who got his powers from exposure to radiation punch a Norse god in the face for two hours and happily chow down on the popcorn because hey whatever it's a comic book. But when it comes to something I've been educated and interested in for more than half my life, t??he door brain checking becomes a bit harder.

I was educated and currently work in the field of meteorology; it's been a lifelong passion of mine and a subject that I've always found fascinating. As Destructoid writer Mike Sounders likes to say I enjoy "sniffing clouds." So when movies dealing with weather come about I'm always going to look at it through a critical scientific lens as well as a more universal movie-going lens. Geostorm is a disaster no matter which ?lens you look at it?? through.

Natural disaster movies are always a hazard when you know how the things they are trying to portray work. Some are not so bad like Twister that uses a real-world experiment and glams it up a bit for Hollywood. The worst offender though is The Day After Tomorrow which not only spits in the face of science but tried to explain it. Geostorm mostly fails at its portrayal of physical science, but it does manage to get a few things right, so let's look ??at what they mostly got wrong wi??th a few nods of "almost had it"

Suffice to say, spoilers will follow from this point. But don't worry, y?ou've alr??eady seen this movie a hundred times.

The movie starts off with a description of a world ravaged by natural disasters, our world. They don't try to skirt ?around the climate change issue and instead face it head-on. It is in 2??019 when the bodies pile too high and action must be taken. There is a direct mention of two million people dying in one day because of a heat wave in Spain which is preposterous to me -- the highest number of heat wave deaths in recorded history only tops out around 70,000 and that is over the entire period, not one day.

In order to control the weather that is quickly becoming more and more extreme, a network of satellites is put together to control as the movie puts it "the three basic properties of weather. Temperature, pressure, and water." Here is one area where they actually get things kinda right, but only to an extent. Hypothetically if (and that's a gigantic if) you could control those three things you might be able to control the weather, but the problem is that the atmosphere is a chaotic sphere of ever-changing layers. Every little bit?? interacts and is influenced by all surrounding parts of the atmosphere. It wants to be in equilibrium so when a small anomaly such as a pocket of high-pressure forms, you would get a mass of air rushing out of the center. These winds would potentially be more damaging than the initial storm and would beg the question which is worse, a rainstorm or a massive downburst?

This would happen because in atmospheric thermodynamics there are two basic motions, rising and falling. The general rule of thumb is that rising promotes precipitation and storm growth because as a parcel rises it cools and therefore the water vapor condenses, with sinking motion though it generally meaning conditions are improving. Yes, most downward motion is caused by precipitation but the precipitation aides in making the weather more stable. To artificially manufacture "nice weather" would either require a strong burst of downward motion (which would war??m the surface significantly as it fell due to the adiabatic lapse rate which states that as air ??falls it warms) or the complete evaporation of all water molecules in the air which would also require a massive amount of warming, which is one of the leading issues of global climate change, right?

_{(Image source: Glendale Community College)}

So out of the gate, we are alread?y dealing with something that is completely farfetched and I should just stop, right? Nope. Let's look at some of the disasters that the movie puts f?orth.

The first disaster that is presented is a hig??hly localized ice storm in a remote Afghanistan village. The area is depicted as being flash frozen with the rest of the deser??t around it sweltering in 130 degree (freedom unit) heat. Nope. Even if you could cool an area through, as the movie puts it, "using sonic waves to slow movement, therefore, cooling the area" all that cool air would have to go somewhere. Remember the atmosphere wants to be in equilibrium and cold air is denser than warm air so a rush of cold air would have shot out in all directions from the village causing cooling and a massive dust storm. Seems like their miss in the accuracy department actually robbed them of a good action scene.

Next, there was a scene where the high heat caused a chain gas main explosion and widespread building collapse which is a bit more geology and civil engineering for my expertise but now it was all evident, things were headed t??owards a geostorm. A massive storm that would engulf the entire world and cause the doom of our kind.

Wait, what?

How can a storm be so massive that it cover??s the entire planet? Also, how can it just form in a few hours? Hurricanes only get to be the size that they are because they spin and churn over the warm ocean for almost two weeks before slamming into land, but I'm supposed to believe a sto?rm could envelop the entire world in a matter of hours? The concept of a geostorm is impossible even from a physical perspective. Eventually, storms just get too big to sustain themselves or they would begin to interfere with each other's growth and stability.

Take for example this year's Atlantic hurricane season. At one point Hurricane Irma was chugging along through the Antilles with Hurricane Jose following at a moderate distance behind. Once Irma made landfall and her movement west slowed down, it allowed Jose to close the distance between the two. As the winds of Irma lashed the eastern Gulf of Mexico region, those same winds began to eek into Jose's storm structure and eventually tore it apart because it created too much of an?? unfavorable wind to allow Jose to sustain. Jose weakened significantly until Irma was out of the way, but by then Jose was too far north to be in favorable waters and just petered out in the North Atlantic. You can see this interaction in the following video. Irma is the larger storm on the left and Jose is the smaller one on the right.

Other reasons why an all-encompassing superstorm would be impossible is because as mentioned earlier the two basic motions of the atmosphere ??come into play. A storm needs upward motion to both grow and sustain itself, and precipitation is a downward motion. So eventually the storm would start to rain itself out. You see this a lot in supercells that don't sustain growth properly and eventually begin to rain (remember, downward motion) into their updraft column (the part of a storm structure ??that allows growth) which quickly brings about the storm's death.

The movie then hit the brakes with the natural d?isasters until the final half hour where they just slap you across the face with every single one that you saw in the trailer. Seriously there were no surprises, you saw all of the disasters in the movie in the trailer. There's a case to be made that trailers give away too much of the movie they are promoting, but that's another article. So now let's rapid-fire through the disasters that popped up in the final third ??of the movie.

At one point there are hailstones the size of a bus falling. Nah. Hailstones form when frozen precipitation? in the upper levels of the atmosphere fall enough in the atmosphere to be above freezing, they then partially melt, and are shot back up into the freezing levels thanks to upward motion. The liquid that formed refreezes but takes on more mass because as water freezes it expands. This cycle continues until the hailstone is too large for the updraft to keep up in the air and it falls to the earth as hail. In order to keep a hailstone the size of a bus up in the air long enough to form into that size would require an immense amount of wind, not to mention time which the movie did not allow.

_{I know it's hard for me to watch this too}

The next disaster shown was a cold front racing on shore in Brazil flash freezing the ocean and everyone in its path. Assuming this is being caused by the satellite rushing cold air down from an offshore point, the temperature change that would be required to flash freeze the oceans would be somewhere around ??-60 degrees Fahrenheit/-35 degrees Celsius. Not saying it would be physically impossible, just that it wouldn't happen naturally. The whole flash freezing people and an airplane, well, that's another story entirely.

Another part of the movie that is not physically impossible but exceedingly rare is the multiple tornado cluster that approached a remote village near the end. Tornado research is still years away from being as advanced as other weather phenomena but?? there have been documented sightings of cluster tornadoes. There is also the belief that some larger tornadoes are just a cluster of mini tornadoes that have merged in one debris cloud but nothing ??concrete has ever been proven on this theory.

It should be noted though that even to this day the ability to predict where a tornado will form has only a short amount of ??lead time due to the fact that the actual precise conditions that go into a tor?nado's formation are still unknown. So the ability to create a tornado would require that knowledge, so good on this world for cracking that code.

The tidal wave that crashes into Dubai, while a bit exaggerated, is possible if perfect conditions existed. Personally I don't know how a weather satellite could produce a 100-foot tidal wave. The Persian Gulf does sit on a tectonic plate, but even with that added threat, a tidal wave that would reach as high as the one in the movie is highly imp??robable.

Finally we get to the?? climax, where a character literally tries to use the weather that he is controlling to kill off all that stand in his way for power. How does he want to do this? By blowing up a bu??ilding with lightning.

_{Gerard Butler looks on as what little sense this movie had disappears}

Even in a hyper-unbelievable scenario like th??e one the movie presents, lightning would not be able to produce the Michael Bay-level explosion that I witnessed at the climax of the movie. The only way lightning would cause such a large explosion is if the entire building was lined with explosives and used a lightning rod as the detonator pin. Never mind the fact that even the most active storm can't shoot off lightning like it is the lighting coordinator for an EDM concert as the movie portrayed. Also, with how much lightning was going off, you would think you wouldn't be able to hear the dialogue due to the fact that it would just be a cacophonous roar of thunder.

But of course, the hero sa?ves the day and all the storms immediately die o?ut. In reality, this wouldn't happen as quickly as portrayed in the movie, but because these anomaly storms' fuel was cut off, they would not be able to sustain and the storms would quickly burn themselves out. Just not in the matter of seconds.

So yeah, the movie got nearly everything wrong but they did manage to get some things physically right, even if they exaggerated it to unbelievable levels. Don't get me wrong though, even if they got the science right Geostorm would have rem?ained a boring, by-the-numbers disaster movie that isn't worth your time.

At least they didn'??t mention HAARP, though. Our secret control remains.

The post A meteorologist reviews Geostorm appeared first on Destructoid.

I sorted through the crap so you don't have to

At the tender age of 10, I was plopped down in my father's car on the way home from dinner. My brother's leg jutted into my right knee, and we pushed against each other as the car swerved around corners, and cradled us over bumps in the asphalt. We were eagerly awaiting our return home; after all, the evenings were dedicated towards Comedy Central, consuming shows like Mind of Mencia, The Chappelle Show, and more. I could see the ears on my dad perk up as we discussed who our favorite comedians were, and he prepared himself to shatter our expectation. Dad explained that sure, Mencia’s kind of funny, and Chappelle is the best comedian around today, but nothing he’d seen had come close to George Carlin’s stand up. The man was a virtuoso comedian, according to dad, and when we were older, he&rsqu??o;d show ??us some of Carlin’s records he had lying around. Then we rounded another corner, my brother forced an elbow into my ribs, and I punched him in the face.

Cut to present day, and much has changed. We now know that Mencia was a hack, that Dave Chappelle is one of the most legendary comedians of all time, and that yes indeed, George Carlin is a strong contender for ‘Best Comedian of all Time.’ The way we consume media has changed too. As a kid, I listened to comedy albums either on record, or saw stand-up on TV, but nowadays you can access any good comedy worth listening to through the World Wide Web. The problem is deciding what’s good, and what’s shit; lord knows there are scads of stand-up specials out there, and most of them pedestrian at best. Lucky for you, I’ve been watching stand-up for years. I’ve seen nearly every stand-up special on Netflix, and I’d like to extend to you?? a list of the best stand-up specials on Netflix today.

To trim up this list, I’m only allowing one special per comedian. Otherwise we’d have a bunch of specials from -REDACTED- and no room left for the other talented comedians on Net??flix. Cool? Cool.

15) Joe Rogan – Triggered

Rogan, known for his podcast, his commentary on wrestling events, and his time at Fear Factor, does a little bit of everything. He’s a curious man, and this has led him to all different kinds of places in life, including stand-up. His material started out brash and aggressive (See: Joe Rogan: Live) but has evolved to suit his multifaceted life. In Triggered, he riffs on everything from parenthood, to the Secret Service, to Caitlin Jenner. This is his strongest display of comedy? yet, and it earns its place on this list.

14)  Marc Maron – Thinky Pain

Maron is an interesting comedian. He’s an old, washed up hipster loser that knows it and makes his entire act a microcosm of his life. His whiny, meandering tone is reminiscent of a friend venting to you at the end of a long week. He’s got some strange bits that are well off the beaten path for your average stand-up special, and his character is one you both laugh with and at. Thinky Pain is the best example of his work I can think of, though his show is pretty alright as well.? This is t?he perfect special to have on in the background, until it slowly steals your interest and involves you in the weird stories of Maron’s life.

13) Jim Jefferies – Bare

Jim Jefferies. You probably saw his bit on Gun Control floating around on Facebook, YouTube, reddit, etc. and shared it around. Maybe your roommate showed it to you, doesn’t matter. That little bit of comedy comes to us courtesy of Bare, Jefferies' best, and most offens?ively entertaining special yet. Topics range from Gun control to Father’s Day to strip clubs. It sounds like your standard fare for a comedy special, but the path each joke follows is hidden behind raw motives and unspoken judgments. This is a great show, and I highly recommend it.

12) John Mulaney – New in Town

Similarly to Jim Jefferies, you’ve probably seen Mulaney’s bit circling around on social media. However, his approach to comedy is entirely different. Mulaney’s manner of talking is akin to a pastor telling jokes at Sunday School, and his clean shaven, spotless image betrays his seasoned comedic chops. He may look like a newbie, but his comedy is calculated to get a laugh out of anyone. New in Town was what made ??him big, and if you want some cleaner?(er) comedy, Mulaney’s the person for it.

11) Hannibal Buress – Live from Chicago

Buress is one of my favorite comedians, and for good reason. He consistently puts out new material (just look him up on Netflix) and his conversational style of comedy leaves the audience unprepared for once he decides to close in on a punchline. Buress is also relatable; not in a Friends kind of way, but in a down-and-out manner covering everything from cocaine-fueled sexual encounters to sneaking into comedy shows. Live from Chicago includes some of his best work to be sure, but I also strongly recommend Animal Furnace.  

10) Joan Rivers – Don’t Start with Me

Rapid-fire. That’s what comes into my head when I think of the late Joan Rivers. I’m not much into titles or anything, but If I had to adorn someone with the title ‘Queen of Comedy’ it’d be her. Rivers parses no words in her set-ups. She can barely lay down the foundation of her joke before she starts hammering out jokes, one after another, as is evident in her special Don’t Start with Me. She sets them up and knocks them down at a breakneck pace, and it’s a truly brilliant thing to watch. But that’s not to say her jokes are low-effort, not at all. Each joke has multiple elements to it, and she’s amazing at improving on stage a?s well. She’s one of my favorite comedians as well. Check this one out.

9) Doug Stanhope – Beerhall Putsch

Okay, let me be upfront about this one. Stanhope is a dark, diseased comedian. His brand of comedy isn’t for everyone, as it will often leave you feeling depressed. However, if that kind of biting, deflating comedy interests you, you’re in for one hell of a ride. Stanhope talk extensively about his problems with drinking, his thoughts on assisted suicide, and the homoerotic nature of NFL in Beerhall Putsch, and his stories are milked for every laugh and cringe that you? could possible extract. This is one of the most memorable bits of comedy on Netflix, and if you’re game, give it a watch.

8) Zach Galifianakis – Live at the Purple Onion

There’s a characteristic of Zach Galifianakis that never seems to pop up in any of his movies: his genuinely timid and human struggle. In movies like The Hangover, he’s called upon to say wacky things, and be an awkward imbecile when the writers clearly didn’t know how to craft a funny scenario. But he’s a completely different person when he’s pursuing projects where he has the most control. Most people have seen an episode or two of Between Two Ferns, but to me, his best work has been his comedy special Live at the Purple Onion. Galifianakis cuts ??between a comedy routine at the titular Purple Onion, and a series of skits with his twin brother, Seth, played by Galifianakis himself. The skits are funny to be sure, but the special shines when watching Zach cracks these brief, absurdist jokes while playing soft piano music at the Purple Onion. It’s a far cry from your standard comedy-special format, and it’s an excellent display of Galifianakis’ talents as a comedian.

7) Bo Burnham – what.

It’s hard to be a comedian. It’s even harder to be a musical-comedian. That subgenre of comedy is difficult to master; as the format of a song is limited, and comedy requires incredible set-up and timing already. However, if you’re Bo Burnham, you can make it look easy. Burnham started on the internet over 10 years ago, and today he releases stand-up specials, poetry books, and more. What makes him so riveting to watch is his stage persona. Both brash and sensitive, juvenile and mature, the whiplash of his comedy will get laughs out of anyone, and it’s all compounded by the excellent miming, timing, and rhyming displayed in his songwriting. what. is Burnham’s best special yet, and is full of songs, straight stand-up, short poems, and mimed musical performances. He’s a real treat to watch, and I thoroughly recommend giving what. a chance.

6) Norm Macdonald – Hitler’s Dog, Gossip & Trickery

It’s hard to describe what seeing Norm Macdonald’s stand-up is like. It doesn’t have a rhythm or a rhyme to it; it’s like a river that suddenly surges before collecting itself into swirling eddy’s and calm pools of iridescent water. Macdonald rambles on, and on, and on, and before you know it, he’s finished a joke he started telling six minutes ago that branched off into eight sub-jokes, all of which stand on their own. He isn’t the only comedian to do this, but I’m not convinced that anyone does it better than him. His singular Netflix special, Hitlers Dog, Gossip & Trickery is an excellent slice of his talents, and encased in his classic folksy, laid-back demeanor. He? covers a lot of material in an hour, so pay attention, or you’ll find yourself swept four miles downstream in no time at all.

5) Ali Wong – Baby Cobra

I had never heard of Ali Wong before this special, and that’s not unreasonable. Before Baby Cobra, she had a few gigs on television shows, and wrote for Fresh Off the Boat. Blink once, and you’d miss her. But thank ??god, my eyes were open when I caught?? a glimpse of her. This special will knock you on your ass. Right out of the gate, Wong’s jealous, spiteful persona takes control, and sends you on a damn hilarious journey. It will make you laugh. No, not a halfhearted chuckle, or some deep exhaling out of your nose; you’ll belly laugh listening to this depraved and even poignant performance. Seriously. Check it out. This is hidden treasure.

4) Bill Burr – Let it Go

God, I love Bill Burr. I’m a bona-fide fan of his; I watch the Monday Morning Podcast every week, I follow him on Twitter, everything. The reason I’m such a big fan is because back in high school, I watched this special. I had never heard anything quite like it; he sounds like your shady uncle who comments on conspiracy forums all day, and the spills his beer on your dog. In other words, he’s lovely. He’s the guy who just want you to ‘hear him out’ and 30 minutes later is talking about how the world’s population needs to be cut in half. This isn’t stuff I made up, this is Burr’s material, and he wraps in a fiery yet friendly package that gets under? your skin.

3) Dave Chappelle – Deep in the Heart of Texas

Did you miss Dave Chappelle? I certainly did. This magnificent comic has released two of what I consider to be the best specials of all time, Killing them Softly and For What It’s Worth. The Chappelle Show was my favorite thing on television growing up, and his absence in the comedy scene for over 10 years was heartbreaking to say the least. However, nowadays, things are looking up. Chappelle returned to showbusiness with not one, but two specials on Netflix. The first one is decent, if a little underwhelming, but his second release, Deep in the Heart of Texas,&n??bsp;is comedy gold. Not only is it a return to form for Chappelle, but it’s some of his best material. The man is back, and his work is something you should look into.

2) Richard Pryor – Live in Concert

I don&rs?quo;t know what happened to Netflix’s collection of old stand-up. As much as they excel at producing new stand-up material from renown comedians for their platform, they’ve let the rights to older material slide several. That’s why there’s no George Carlin on this list, no Chris Rock, no Eddie Mur??phy. It’s a sad change, and I wish they’d bring a lot of the classics back.

However, I can’t be too mad, because at least one of Richard Pryor’s best specials? is available to stream.

Pryor is a wild and sensitive, im?pulsive yet warm. He’s one of the most interesting people that has ever existed in comedy, up there with the likes of Lenny Bruce and Andy Kaufman. It’s hard for me to pen why Pryor is such a great comedian, but I think if you boil it down to one thing, it’s this: heart. Pryor’s comedic arsenal of jokes and observations serves as an extension of himself, and it shows because his performances have this nasty habit of sneaking into you, and surprising you with how deeply resonant his thoughts are. He’s a fantastic comic because he’s so human, and he astounds me to this day with his material.

1) Louis C.K. – Hilarious

Everyone knows Louis C.K. He’s inescapable. Yet it wasn’t that long ago when no one knew who he was, besides as that guy who was on The Late Show all the time. Then Chewed Up came out. It was so raw, and depressing, and true, that people started to peer into his world, checking out all his career moves. Two years after Chewed Up, there was more. A TV show called Louie, featuring solid writing, directing, and excellent scenarios for very grounded take on comedy. In addition, there was this little special that C.K. released called Hilarious, and, well, it’s my? favorit??e stand-up special. Ever.

This is Louis C.K. at the beginning of hi??s comedic prime. His jokes are like a wedding cake, with layers upon layers that you can dissect and think about fo?r days after the fact. But it’s not like you have to understand that complexity to enjoy it - his multifaceted jokes will hit you where it hurts on the base level, making you laugh and cry. His delivery seems so nonchalant, yet it’s all a part of his plan to trick the audience. He lures you in, and body slams your senses once you’re within striking distance. I have seen this special…20 times? More? I’ve lost track at this point.

One thing is for sure though. Hilarious is not only the best stand-up ??special on Netflix, it’s one of the best of all time.

 ...

Well, thanks for reading my list! I hope I’ve given you a guide of sorts for the next time you’re bored and don’t know what to watch. Until next time, I’l??l see you around. 

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It's a good time to look back on the legendary shooter

On September 25, 2007, the final installment of the Halo trilogy was unleashed upon gamers the world over. It was a gargantuan financial success; Halo 3 became the biggest entertainment launch in history, with over $170 million in sales within the first 24 hours, and $300 million in one measly week. It went on to sell 8.1 million copies by the end of the year, making it?? the bestselling game of 2007, and has sold a cumulative 12.15 million copies today.

Look, none of that really ma??tters to me. I was a pint-sized kiddo when Halo 3 came ??out.

I was in sixth grade, unwillingly biding my time until after school, when I could pester my Dad to drive me 20 minutes to the closest GameStop. It was an unbelievable feeling to have this game in my hands, finally, after months of waiting. Months spent reading previews in Game Informer, and OXM. I read and I salivated over still ph?otos of Master Chief, The Arbiter, ??the new weapons, and vehicles. I wanted the Assault Rifle back. I needed to get behind the wheel of a Brute Chopper. More than anything, I wanted to consume this game. I needed it to grind against the stones in my gut, digesting and breaking down until I was satiated.

But, despite my weird, fetis?histic need for this game to satisfy me, it somehow surpassed my sublime expectations. It was a damn good game, and once the disc was inserted, I lost my urge to consume. Instead, I decide?d to just enjoy.

The campaign was hyped, and once I started playing it was easy to see why. The Brutes were formidable foes that, while not as iconic as the Elites, were challenging as hell to fight. The Grunts, Jackals, Hunters, and Buggers all returned, as did The Flood. The emphasis on big sandbox-esque maps wasn’t new to the series, but it was certainly more pronounced. Levels like The Arc sprawled across the landscape, and were never boring to traverse. Each level was visually stimulating, and designed to lead the player from firefight to firefight, with each scenario te?sting the payer in different ways. This wasn’t lazily slapped together, like so many shooter campaigns of the modern day, this was thoughtfully constructed with the focus on fun. Sprinkle in some set-piece moments, excellent cutscenes, and a deeply satisfying story, and you have a winning recipe for a campaign to stick in the memory of players everywhere.

And I think the best thing about Halo 3 is that the campaign was just the beginning. The multiplayer was burgeoning with players new and old, players who were now able to contribute to the game itself with the new Forge mode. Forge provided console players with a basic map editor, allowi?ng players to modify several maps to their own liking. Think there should be a gravity lift here? Add it. Want to build a tower? Go ahead. Do you want to create a maze laced with trip-mines? You’re the boss. Sharing our creations online led to a frenzy of custom games play??ed on custom maps, allowing for some game types that have now become fan favorites, like Fat Kid, Ice-Cream Man, and Griffball.

The standard multiplayer is the best iteration of Halo multiplayer that has existed before or since. The balance of Halo’s slower combat working alongside the weapon placement and map design was impeccable, and is the reason that I didn’t stop playing Halo 3 multiplayer until well into 2011. I had the headset, my wireless controller, and I was absolutely obsessed. On weekends, I would disappear into the garage to play online with strangers, make friends in some games, and bitter enemies in others. My brothers and I would have friends over, and system link for an eight-player Halo 3 experience. We cursed, we fought, and we laughed with each other. We also drank copious a?mounts of that Mountain Dew garbage because it had Master Chief on it.

It was the best of times!

It wasn’t the hype or the sales that made Halo 3 what it is. It was the experience. People across the world were interacting, talking, and building new experiences for each other in the first major way on any console. It was revolutionary in i??ts time, it made you believe.

It’s been 10 years, and the memories of Halo 3 are firmly ingrained in my conscience. This game was culturally significant for a lot of gamers back then, and remains a golden moment in gaming for many. Happy Birthday, Halo 3!

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Inch by inch

I have always been unrepentant in my love for video game grinding. Give me a billion meaningless tasks to do and, if I like the game enough, I will check them off one by one. We're not talking about collecting all the heart containers in any given Zelda. We're talking more pointless. We're talking grabbing all the flags/feathers/treasure chests/etc. in an Assassin's Creed.

For years, I've ??just accepted that I'm a weirdo. When all my friends say "Hahaha nah, fuck t??hat," I'm the one who's willing to put in the time. I've always found it therapeutic to be able to inch my way toward an attainable goal. Percentage point by percentage point, I can see myself getting closer.

Now I have a more accurate term for this. Longtime MMO developer Laralyn McWilliams fired off a short tweet thread today that explains how whittling is the concept developers should aim for, not grinding. Here's the transcript of h??er tweets:

"It's worth distinguishing between two superficially s??imilar design concepts: grinding and whittling. They're different in form [and] practice. We can sense the difference in the terms themselves. Grinding has the unspoken UGH of mindless or even unpleasant repetition toward a goal. Whittling is a calm activity, mindless but relaxing??, inducing a flow state. You may end up with a carving, but the main focus is in the now.

When you create an activity for players to engage in repeatedly, working toward a long-term goal, strive for whittling rather than grinding. Ask yourself if there are little things you can add that make it peaceful or encourage a flow state. Bejeweled&nbs??p;is the classic example. Ask yourself: would I do this acti?vity if I didn't have a big reward at the end? Do I feel calm? If the answers are yes, it's whittling."

She's right! Video game grinding has a negative connotation because the term inherently assumes the player wants to be doing something else. When you're no?t ready to fight a boss in an RPG, you're forced to grind experience against weaker enemies in order to hit an appropriate level. All along, you just wanted to fight that boss, though.

Grind has that same association outside of video games. "On the grind" is used as a phrase that mostly reluctantly accepts that working is necessary in service of a better life outside of work. Athlete types use it as a motivator to get in shape and study the tape, knowing that it'll help them perform in competition. Grinding means that you have to put in the time or else nothing?? good will happen.

Whittling though, that is what I'm all about. Gating progress and forcing me to complete menial tasks is bad design. Suddenly it's a chore. Put those same menial tasks? in front of me with the shrugged shoulders attitude of "I don't know, maybe you'll want to do this" and chances are that I will eventually knock them out. Honestly, there probabl?y doesn't even need to be a flow state that McWilliams referenced; I'll find my own flow state by watching items slowly disappear from my tasks list.

Maybe it's just mental gymna??stics on my end, but a well-created game will coax me into those mental gymnastics without me ever really thinking about it. Whittle, don't grind.

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Something else is rotten

There's been a pretty big debate in film media around Rotten Tomatoes scores. Hollywood executives, including notable director of Rush Hour and several Mariah Carey videos Brett Ratner, have pointed their fingers at the review aggregator for one of the worst box office Summers of th??e past few years with Ratner even claiming it was "the destru?ction of [their] business."

Claiming low, or "Rotten," aggregate scores will push people away from the masterpieces like Baywatch, Transformers: The Last Knight, or The Emoji Movie, this point of view is arguably out of touch. Because, as many of my fellow critics and moviegoers alike will most li??kely agree, the answer to a better mo??vie Summer is simple: make better movies. 

But regard??less of how simple the answer is, the question of whom to blame is a bit more complicated. What e?xactly is to blame for the fall of the Summer blockbuster? Well, it's apathy. 

A study conducted by Yves Bergquist (as reported by Polygon), director of the Data & Analytics Project at USC’s Entertainment Technology Center, collected data from 150 films that made over $1 million at the box office this year. Comparing their performance to the critic and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes, Bergquist hoped to find out whether or not there was a correlation between lower scores and lower box office draw. But he found only a 12% parallel (and 7% during the Summer), between films with bad scores and bad box office performances. Most notably, he states "Rotten Tomatoes scores have never played a very big role in driving box office performance, either positively or negatively" and that critic and audience scores are starting to align more closely as general audiences smarten up ??to outdated Ho??llywood tactics. 

But why is any of this important? It's because some studios willingly trot out RT scores when its in their favor, often quoting it in trailers o??r slapping a big ole' "CERTIFIED FRESH" sticker right on the front of their home video releases. But when the opposite is true, they want something to blame. This isn't even factoring in some of the shadier RT practices which seek to inflate scores long before theatrical release. The most recent higher profile example of this being Annabelle: Creation, which currently sits at 68% fresh after spending no?? less than three weeks before its press screenings with an 85. The damage this does to film criticism as a whole is a discussion for another day, but this reliance on aggregates wheth??er positive or negative has a palpable effect on the entire system. 

With film budgets soaring higher than ever, studios have to place "safer" bets on what they produce. Not only has this led to the death of the mid-budget blockbuster (even darlings like John Wick have seen a great increase in budget with its sequel), but this mentality has bred the long brewing reboot boom which takes notable properties of old and remakes them wit?h varied successes. With so much repeating from the past, it's harder to create, or even gauge, someth?ing truly unique. This isn't helped by the lackadaisical advertising where studios will pull random tweets from fans of the film and put them in trailers, or proudly boast the RT score. This apathetic production cycle then sucks whatever potential excitement there is within similar looking projects, and just sucks all of the "big event" fun out of going to the movies in the Summer.

As we face economic, cultural, and political shifts, going to the theater just isn't important anymore. What was once a ritual of seeing big movies in the Summer to be part of a two-month long pop culture celebration now makes less sense as there are multiple contending mediums offering unique and exciting perspectives on storytelling. Blockbusters have become far less appealing than smaller, well told stories. I mean you can watch a heartbreaking story of depression about a cartoon horse on your phone, sit down Sunday at 10PM and watch a cartoon about a nihilistic scientist and his hapless grandson, or just re-watch Parks and Recreation for the billionth time. The cultural draw of the united the??atrical experience is gone as folks splinter off into their own bubbles, and only worsened by some theaters' desperate ploys to allow things like open cell phone use, or conversely, denying t altogether.?? 

The draw is gone. The unique thrill of seeing a new film with a room ful?l of others equally as excited as you is gone. Most importantly, the effort to try and stop this is gone. So, no, Rotten Tomatoes isn't why we had a bad movie Summer. It's another mass on top of a pile of a system steadily heading towards implosion for years. 

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One shall stand, one shall fall

My relationship with the car-jacking hooker-mugging series we all know as Grand Theft Auto began the way it does for a lot of people. Sometime when I was in middle school, a friend brought over a copy of Grand Theft Auto III. It was a weird moment for a twelve-year-old, to feel like you’re getting away with something by playing a video game, but Grand Theft Auto was taboo. It was in the media constantly at the time, the number-one game to shit on when it came to games “destr??oying ou?r youth.”

For those reasons, Grand Theft Auto will always hold a special place in my heart, but that isn’t what I’m here to talk about. No, I want to talk about the game that showed me the open world career criminal game could be done better. I’m of course talking about Saints Row 2.

The sequel to Saints Row was a game I picked up on a whim, after finding Grand Theft Auto IV to be lacking. I needed something to fill that open world itch that was willing to get silly in ways GTA no longer seemed willing to. At their most base level, GTA and Saints Row are one in the same. Drive around, shoot people, blow up police helicopters. Where Saints Row differs is that I can do all of that while dressed as the god ?damn Riddler.

Saints Row 2 hooked me with how absurdly silly it dared to be from the Septic Avenger missions where you’re scored for spraying housing developments with shit to a Japanese samurai themed gang, topped only by Saints Row: The Third’s gang of luchadors. In short, the downright fun and unapologetic stupidity of the Saints series made it hard for me to even go back to old GTA games, or be interested ??in playing the n??ew ones. 

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, for example, is still a fantastic game, but I’d pick a play session with Saints 2 over it every time. It’s down to personal preference at this point. I’m more than willing to admit that. While plenty of you were out enjoying Grand Theft Auto V, I found myself more concerned with Gunning through Saints Row IV for the third time.

There's been a weird amount of star power in Saints Row's voice acting over the years as well. From Neil Patrick Harris as DJ Veteran Child to Keith David a??nd Burt Reynolds as the?mselves.

The Saints also seemed to get progressively better and different while GTA kept feeling like more of the same but bigger. The Third saw a bigger map with a more insane story, hell, Saints Row IV won me over by being more Crackdown than Crackdown. Of course, a grounded mor?e serious story about criminals has its place, but not for me. I just wanna ?fight aliens and blow shit up.

It’s hard to enjoy the more grounded stories of GTA V after Saints Row IV has already made its protagonist the President of the United States and had said protagonist quote an exchange between Optimus Prime and Megatron from the '80s Transformers movie with an evil? alien Emperor. All set to Stan Bush's "The Touch," I might add.

Let's also not forget the ridiculous expansions that the fourth installment spawned, like How the Saints Saved Christmas and Gat Out of Hell. Having Johnny Gat rescue the boss after he is betrothed to S??atan's daughter is the right kind of weird.

With the recent Saints Row Humble Bundle, I ended up playing through Saints 2 over the weekend, and it still holds up pretty well. The PC version is filled with noticeable jank(I'm told the Gentleman of the Row mod can fix this), but it was still nice to sit down with the game while I gear up for the release of Agents of Mayhem later this month, a game that I assume is basically Saints Row V. 

It's probably worth noting that I never really gave the first Saints Row a fair chance. I played about an hour and something about the overly thug esthetic turned me off. The series as a whole is one of my favorites, and I give GTA credit for inspiring it, but can say in my opinion it doesn’t hold a candle to Saints, secret alien missions or no.

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Truckers in SPAAAAAACE

Elite Dangerous was released June 27, 2017 on the PlayStation 4 after enjoying a long run on the PC and Xbox One. Frontier has been working hard to keep providing updated contact for the massive, procedurally generated space trucking simulator with expansions adding planetary bases and exploration, transportation missions allowing players to play Crazy Taxi in space, us??er avatars, the horr?ifying and mysterious Thargoid alien presence, and a multi-crew ship mechanic encouraging multiplayer and co-operation in what is typically an extremely cut-throat online community.

I've been playing Elite Dangerous since before the Horizons expansion, and have put nearly a hundred hours into the game. I found out about it right around the time No Man's Sky l?et me down, and while initially intimidating and perplexing, I eventual?ly grew accustomed to the mechanics of the game and now find a kind of relaxed comfort in playing it. It's the true definition of a role-playing game; you choose exactly what sort of pilot you are going to be and run with it, with a bevy of customisation options allowing you to cater your ship to meet specific mission requirements. I am not great at combat so I tend to haul resources or information from system to system, typically playing for around an hour at a time. Despite a massive grocery list of finicky controls and toggles, the game does a good job of adapting itself to a controller scheme on both console and PC, and I'd imagine it would translate pretty well to a big-screen TV and a nice comfy couch.

The Elite series has been around since 1984, the first title (simply called Elite) emerging on the European BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers, and later ported to many other systems such as the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Apple II, and even the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was a marvel of programming at the time, written entirely in machine language and assembly (not uncommon for those machines since higher-level languages such as BASIC were too slow to do just about anything but calculate the number of teets on a cow) by two friends, David Braben and Ian Bell. Braben would later go on to to co-found the Raspberry Pi Foundation in 2012 because he accurately predicted that the NES Classic was going to sell out and wanted everyone on Twitter to brag about how much better emulating games on a Pi was anyways. Or because he wanted to make a cheap computer for educational purposes - whichever. Braben would continue working on the Elite series over the years, releasing the sequel Frontier: Elite II (my own introduction the the series) in 1993, and eventually successfully crowdfunding Elite Dangerous on Kickstarter in 2012.

For its time, the original Elite was quite an achievement. Today many people are quick to throw Elite Dangerous under the bus for feeling massive and hopelessly empty. There have been various exploration titles to come out over the years but Elite was one of the pioneers, offering eight galaxies in game with 256 planets each using an algorithm for procedural generation. Players could trade, explore, and fight to their hearts' content in this massive universe. Games like Starflight and Star Control 2 would later come that would offer a more distinct narrative and "lived in" feel, but the impressive wireframe 3D graphics offered a unique feeling of immersion at the time, even if the overall gameplay was a little shallow. There is a nifty little do??cumentary about the making of the game and the men behind it if you are into that sort of thing.

The first time I played Frontier: Elite II, I was flabbergasted. This was a time when games like Civilization and Oregon Trail and Encarta (the original PC encyclopedia) comprised th?e basic software package of most PCs, so it was absolutely jaw-dropping to see the polygonal graphics and be able to lift a ship off the surface of a planet and fly out o??f the atmosphere and into the stars beyond. I was pretty young; it was mostly incomprehensible mechanically, but I had a lot of fun just jumping from star to star, familiarising myself with the basic controls and observing the general scenery.

Make no mistake: Elite Dangerous is a game for geeks. Part of the pleasure it brings to many people really is the overall sense of scale. The ability to find our own solar system for example and simply fly around and see all of its familiar landmarks is like a wet dream for space exploration nuts. Some players have even taken it upon? themselves to reach and explore the outer edges of the known galaxy to see just how far they can make it. It offers a little something for everyone, but requires quite a bit of time and dedication to really grasp and understand its underlying systems. And the stakes are high; if you die in the game, you die in real life. Well not really, but you do lose your ship and your hard-earned equipment and have to make sure you have enough money to cover the insurance bill to get it all back, so it doesn't pay to get too greedy in Elite and put yourself in a posi?tion where you can't afford to lose your fancy-pants equipment.

If you've got a couple bucks to spare and are looking for a good, modern answer to the space exploration genre, give Elite Dangerous a try. It's now available on every relevant platform, with talk of their being eventu??al support for PSVR in the future. Just expect to lose a lot of free time if you end up getting hooked on it.

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