Looking Forward To It Mad Max (2015) PC

Holy dammit Christmas, I hope that Avalanche has resolved the control issues that kept driving me away from Just Cause 2, because this Mad Max feature reel looks like exactly the video game I need in my life.

Playing A Game Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell PC

For being a self-admitted standalone expansion, Gat Out of Hell does a surprising amount of experimentation with the formulae set up by the Saints Row franchise. Not all of it works, but - contrary to my initial fears about the series being put on autopilot - Volition's willingness to mix things up here is encouraging for the future of Saints Row.

Gat Out of Hell starts with some cutscene-driven storytelling, which feels alternately over-ambitious and under-developed. The story is pretty simple: the leader of the Saints gets kidnapped by The Devil, and Gat and Kinzie go after him, teaming up with a few big names in Hell along the way. But the introductory setup is overwrought and dull, with way, way too much spoken narration; and, due to what I can only assume was a mismanaged content budget, the aforementioned "big names in Hell" are hardly more than footnotes. Optional collectibles reveal some compelling backstory for these characters, almost all of which is absent from the core story sequences. Whatever the cause, the end result is that Gat Out of Hell assembles a fine cast of characters, then ignores them in a distressingly large amount of its exposition.

Relatedly, one of the game's grand experiments is tossing the customizable protagonist and replacing it with the pre-designed Gat and Kinzie characters. Previous Saints Row games built some charming personalities for Gat and Kinzie (along with the rest of the Saints), and when cutscenes allow them to, these two lovable sociopaths shine just as well here as they ever have. But during normal gameplay, there aren't enough opportunities - whether narrative or mechanical - for them to differentiate themselves from a customized avatar, or even from each other. What is the point of "playing as" these characters, when it's not meaningfully different from a player-customized character that could just as easily look or act like them? It's not as if The Boss is lacking in personality, since that character, too, was very well-scripted in SR3 and SR4. Discarding body- and voice- and clothing- and etc-customization options just feels like a loss, with no real gain for subbing in these other characters instead.

The game's biggest gambit, independent of its story, is how that story is revealed. Whereas previous Saints Rows just slightly meddled with the straightforward approach of story missions - mixing some side activities into said missions' objectives - Gat Out of Hell has invented a story meter. A bar in the upper-left shows Gat's and Kinzie's progress through the game's main storyline, with the inevitable Satan Showdown at the end, and a couple of major story beats inbetween. The bar is pushed forward by essentially playing the game: doing activities, collecting pickups, or even just causing open-world mayhem will gradually fill the bar to completion. This seems like a really clever and admirable innovation -- allowing any kind of gameplay, devoid of all linearity, to move the story along.

However, there are a couple of execution issues that keep the story meter from working to its full potential. For one thing, it moves too fast; I'd barely scratched the game's surface by the time it opened up the final mission, somewhere around two or three hours in. And for another thing, there are still narrative missions - keeping up with allies in Hell - that aren't linked to the meter, which results in them being easily missed and disposable. If the meter were longer, and had more than just two beats between its beginning and end, I think that it could drive a full-length game very effectively.

As for the rest of Gat Out of Hell's content, it's mostly in line with the framework set up by Saints Row IV. Matrix powers and magic get replaced by demon powers and ... demon magic. Cyberspace orbs are replaced with soul orbs. Flying is wing-based, rather than just gliding, now; it takes a bit to get used to, but the ability to climb upward makes it much more satisfying. There is a new Salvation activity, wherein our heroes fly around a map to save souls -- the rest of the activites are slight riffs on previous ones (Hellblazing is Blazing with wings; Torment Fraud is Insurance Fraud with more fire; Mayhem is, uh, Mayhem). And as always, the Saints bring some incredible weaponry with them, from shotguns and crossbows to fire swords and frog launchers.

Far from "playing it safe" in the way that Volition tends to do DLC, Gat Out of Hell tries enough new things to allay concerns about Saints Row growing stale. It's a shame that they don't work better than they do, and I think it's a fair bet that Gat Out of Hell's overall potential was limited most by its relatively-small production scope.

But the silver lining is that, even despite its brevity and shortcomings, it nails the silly, over-the-top fun that "Saints Row" has become defined by. Plus, the game map is still chock-full of diversions and collectibles. Just as I did with The Third and IV, I'll certainly be spending plenty more time checking off the arbitrary, stupid, and awesome challenges in this game.

Better than: Saints Row IV: How the Saints Save Christmas, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare
Not as good as: Saints Row: The Third, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony
Not the biggest deal, but: the radio is gone, replaced by an ambient soundtrack that's low-key or silent most of the time. Where my EDM at, Volition?

Progress: 97%

Rating: Good
Playing A Game Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell PC

So it's smaller and shorter than a full Saints Row excursion. So the architecture is still reminiscent of Saints Row IV (and even The Third). So the story is ham-handed and awkward. So Jay Mohr phoned in his voice work.

So what? It's more open-world exploration, more wacky-weapon mayhem, and more absurd humor. It's more Saints Row. I'm okay with that.

Progress: 38%

Rating: Good
Playing A Game Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker WiiU

As a gameplay experience, Captain Toad is on the lukewarm side, rarely presenting a challenge of timing or reflexes. For the most part the goal is to take some time, survey the landscape, and methodically "solve" it; collecting coins and gems while exploring the way to the level goal. It's about as low-action as a Mario spinoff can get.

But in terms of clever stages and cool world design, Captain Toad delivers wholeheartedly. Super Mario 3D World's aesthetics and level layouts were top-notch, and this is basically more of the same of that. Toad has picked up some new skills, too, when compared to the 3D World minigame incarnation -- including many of Mario's tricks from that game, such as platforms that move when touched, and the Double Cherry.

The amount of content seems to be pretty solid, although the game is a bit misleading about this: each storybook-like episode has a relatively small number of stages, and I didn't even know there was more than one episode until finishing the first and unlocking the second. There are three, apparently. So 50-or-60-ish stages sounds like a pretty good amount to me.

One complaint I have so far is that there's no way to turn off the gyroscope camera controls. It makes the game more difficult to play on the TV screen, since I'm never paying attention to where my hands are when watching the TV. Luckily this is a lot less noticeable when playing just on the game pad screen.

Progress: Finished episode 1, collected 54 gems

Rating: Good
Playing A Game Super Smash Bros. for Wii U WiiU

I've got plenty of challenges left, and I think they are going to stay that way. I don't have enough interest left in them to bang my head against the Cruel Smash challenges ... or to suffer through more games of Smash Tour. Though I'm sure this will be a couch co-op staple for months to come, my solo exploits in Smash 4 are probably over.

Progress: 76/140 challenges complete, 228 trophies, finished all Solo Events on Normal.

Rating: Good
Playing A Game The Typing of the Dead: Overkill PC

First, the bad news:

  • There's no local co-op.
  • It still looks like a Wii game (the only graphics options are resolution and antialiasing on/off).

But the good news is:

  • This is the same hilariously-outlandish story from The House of the Dead: Overkill, but with, uh, typing.
  • There's practically no penalty for death, with infinite continues that just lower the score a little bit.
  • And the original (shooting) game is included as an extra mode. (I haven't tried it out with a Wii-remote Bluetooth hookup yet, but it should work?)

Typing out vulgar words and phrases while the game's characters bicker with one another is at least as fun as the original rail-shooter was. And as an accomplished typist, I was actually given a pretty good run for my money on the game's default difficulty level.

This game will almost certainly reappear at some drunken gatherings in my future.

Progress: Finished on Agent difficulty.

Rating: Good
Playing A Game Radiant Historia NDS

Unfortunately, Radiant Historia deteriorates in quality in its second half. More absurdly-annoying enemies and enemy abilities start to show up, including the super-fun "chance of instant death" ability. Most party members continue to get shuffled randomly around -- including one ridiculous event which has party members spontaneously reappear and fight, not even yielding a chance to update their equipment. A few story sequences require irritating re-treading of the world map, and the last couple dungeons become labyrinthine and thoroughly tiresome. And the story itself goes a little off the rails in its final chapters, losing some political intrigue and character drama in favor of familiar JRPG magical-planet-destiny stuff. It's written well, and not "bad" really, but not as enthralling as the game's earlier material.

I found myself getting bored of dungeons and combat as the game wore on - really, I think it is just a bit too lengthy - which was no help when I realized that I had become under-leveled. This can be mostly overcome with some strict equipment choices (fitting the whole party with defense-boosting accessories to keep them from being murdered instantly), but the game is fond of throwing out bosses and mid-bosses that just trample over stats that aren't quite up to snuff. What stings the most about Radiant Historia's level curve is that it comes to ruin the game's inherent non-linearity: although there are many instances where either the Standard or Alternate timelines have content to pursue, one of them might require a much higher level to proceed -- that is, it's scaled on the assumption that the other timeline is tackled first.

And as for party makeup, even if out-of-party members gained experience at the same rate (and were more regularly leveled-up when the story makes them go missing), there are still fundamental issues with how skills are distributed among them. Marco, the closest thing to a healer archetype that there is, lacks a few critical healing skills that other, more offensive characters happen to have. Raynie learns the best offensive magic spells, but isn't able to equip good magic-boosting items. Stocke is still the only character who can push enemies leftward and rightward. Aht's and Eruca's magic libraries are so ridiculously situation-specific that they just aren't worth keeping around.

Still, despite these wacky design decisions, I was able to make my way through the game without any explicit level-grinding. I had fun uncovering the game's plot, and the battle system - when it wasn't filled with completely stupid enemies - was generally enjoyable. Radiant Historia was a fresh and entertaining experience, and I'm overall pleased with it in spite of its flaws.

Better than: Avalon Code, Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
Not as good as: Final Fantasy VI
Per the "events" count, I skipped a ton of sidequests: but I've had my fill of the game just getting to the ending.

Progress: History complete, level 59, 175/236 events

Rating: Good
Site News

A running theme for games in 2014 was that of disappointment, from "mild" all the way to "crushing." Watch Dogs was formulaic (and literally lackluster), Assassin's Creed Unity released as hot garbage, Civilization: Beyond Earth's "beyond" was questionable, the mobile remake of Final Fantasy VI looked godawful -- and outside my own sphere of interest, there's word on the street about Titanfall's lacking content, Destiny's unexpected grind, Halo: The Master Chief Collection's broken internets, and Driveclub's fucked-upedness. Batman: Arkham Knight got delayed, The Witness got silently delayed, Grand Theft Auto V on PC still isn't out, the follow-up to Sleeping Dogs seems totally stupid, and Rise of the Tomb Raider appears to induce executive mouth-diarrhea. Double Fine just stopped trying. Sonic Boom (Wii U/3DS) was way worse than anyone could have expected, some-crazy-how. And then there's The Last Guardian, which just ... come on, guys.

But I would recommend forgetting all that. Neglecting those shortfalls and faceplants, 2014 had a lot of good in it. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor launched with only a minor hitch. Diablo III became legitimately fun. The BioShock saga came satisfyingly full-circle. Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney wasn't a disaster. The Wii U finally has a library worth crowing about, with 2013's Super Mario 3D World complemented by Mario Kart 8, Hyrule Warriors, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and of course Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. And The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D is coming, I mean, it was always coming, but it's imminent now. That moon could crash down at any moment.

Being a gamer is as good as it's ever been. Even if I'm still waiting on practically all of my Kickstarter games.

Posts in 2014: 145

Games Played: 112 (96 + 11 DLC/expansion/patch + 5 demo)

The prestigious "Everything Went Better Than Expected" awards go to:

The equally-prestigious "Everything Went Great, Just As Expected" awards:

The un-prestigious "Everything Went Less-Well Than Expected" awards:

The anti-prestigious "... Much Worse Than Expected" awards:

The confusingly-commendable "I'm Not Totally Sure What's Going On, But I Like It" awards:

The awkward-but-agreeable "It's A Little Out-There But, You Know What, You Made It Work" awards:

The frustratingly non-commendable "I Guess I Just Don't Get It" awards:

The anticipatory "You Had My Curiousity, But Now You Have My Attention" awards:

The relieving "Thank Gunpei It's Finally Over" awards:

The anxiety-ruffling "Oh Gunpei, When Will This Finally Be Over" awards:

And winding down to the most satisfying games I played this year...

The penultimate "Space Is So Fucking Awesome" runner-up:

The equivalently-penultimate "But Pirates Are Pretty Rad, Too" runner-up:

And finally, the winningest "Not Perfect, But Damned Refreshing and Fun" award goes to:

With the losingest "Not Sure Why They Bothered Finishing It" anti-award to:

Playing A Game Radiant Historia NDS

Radiant Historia is impressive, imperfect, fun, and awe-inspiringly ambitious. It's the kind of game that reminds me of how creative the seemingly-rote turn-based RPG genre can be.

In its prologue chapter, the game does a fine job of establishing its setting, main cast, and primary gameplay gimmicks. The protagonist Stocke is a talented special-forces agent in a country at war with its neighbor, while the world around them is increasingly being transformed into barren desert. It doesn't take long for some god-like entities to introduce themselves to Stocke, who then clarify that this desertification is an imminent threat, and that he is the chosen one only one who can stop it. To do this, he'll need to use the White Chronicle, a book that catalogues history and allows its owner to drift through time itself.

This initial explanation of the chronicle is a little misleading; Radiant Historia isn't some souped-up, "open-timeline" game. Breaking through the facade of lore and exposition, it would be more clear to say that the game's script - independent of character stats, inventory, treasure chests, and what have you - can be explored like a video seek bar, wiping the play-head of current time back and forth. The catches are that the White Chronicle can't see "the future" (though it can rewind events that have happened once), and that only "important" junctures can be traveled to. Although many events get recorded in the game's Story screen, only a few key ones are valid time-travel destinations.

Where it starts to get really interesting is that, as the prologue chapter ends, a key decision given to Stocke causes two distinct timelines to develop. One choice leads to a "Standard History," while the other creates an "Alternate History;" Stocke can travel between key points in both histories at will. And this becomes necessary to the plot in a really creative way, as obstacles in one timeline can sometimes only be overcome with a skill, or some knowledge, attained in the other timeline.

Just don't worry too much about the fact that it doesn't make logical sense. Effectively, this means that two distinct stories - with the same cast of characters - play out in alternating shifts. And while most characters in the story are unaware that such a power might exist, Stocke can take control of time to his full advantage in both stories.

On top of the creative (if slightly confusing) time-travel premise, what really sells Radiant Historia's story is its excellent character writing. Stocke is a well-characterized, stoic semi-hero -- neither innately righteous, nor overwhelming with personality. His story is an easily-relatable one, like the blank-slate archetypes of a Zelda or Elder Scrolls game, while also having enough of a character to play a part in scripted dialogs and events.

Meanwhile, other main characters have stronger personalities, but aren't wacky or exaggerated as is so common in story-driven games; almost every named character behaves in a believable, smart way. Not only does this make the cast admirable and impressive, but it's also a vehicle for keeping the plot sane -- rarely does some event go sideways because of a retarded character choice or some un-questioned deus ex machina. Characters analyze their situations, come to rational conclusions, and intelligently plan ahead. For my money, these characters do a better job of stringing story events together than BioWare's tend to.

So, that's the story. Radiant Historia's combat and RPG mechanics are a whole other topic, and an interesting one in its own right. For starters, the game's battlefield resembles Mega Man Battle Network's grid-based encounters: in battle, enemies dot a three-by-three map, and will both deal and receive more damage as they're positioned closer to the friendly party. There aren't very many row- or column-oriented attacks as there are in MMBN -- however, what Radiant Historia brings to the table is the idea of temporarily stacking enemies for concurrent damage.

The earliest and most basic example is a "push" move. When an enemy is in the front row, a party member can use a "push" skill to both attack that enemy, and move it into the back row. This has the side-effect of reducing that enemy's damage-dealing (and -receiving) capabilities, until and unless the enemy moves itself back to the front.

Now -- if there is another enemy positioned directly behind that enemy, the "pushed" enemy will collide with it. Until the end of the party's turns, both enemies will occupy the same space. Attacks which target either the pushed enemy, or the collided enemy, will hit both. Once party member turns are interrupted by an enemy turn, colliding enemies will be separated into adjacent empty squares; so it's vital that party members take their turns while enemies are bunched together.

And to that, the final wrinkle is a "Change" ability, which allows a party member to swap turns with an ally or enemy. Why would a party member swap turns with an enemy? Well, to get a turn in sequence with other allies' turns, of course. If an enemy has a turn inbetween two party members, swapping the earlier party member's turn with that enemy's will allow the party to act in direct sequence, taking advantage of those aforementioned enemy-collision mechanics.

This effectively encourages strategic use of Changes to risk enemy turns against the party's, and sequences of pushes - of which there are also leftward and rightward skills, as well as a couple of "pull" skills - to pile enemies together and strike them all with optimal efficiency. It's a very cool risk-versus-reward mechanic, and pulling off a massive pile-up and simultaneous strike is immensely satisfying.

There are, however, a few unfortunate quirks to the game's battles. The first is that there are some enemies who ... can't be moved. While it can be an interesting tactical twist to try and move enemies on top of an immobile one, having multiple immovable enemies at the same time just sort of sucks.

Status effects also don't feel correctly-executed. Most enemies can't do them at all, and most of them miss more often than they hit, but their effectiveness seems too unbalanced. Poison effects deal really significant damage. Paralyze and Sleep effects need to be cured with an item or skill from another party member, effectively reducing the three-person party to 1/3 strength. And when an enemy uses an attack- or defense-boost on itself, it becomes unreasonably dangerous or effectively invincible, respectively.

And there are some enemies that are just way too fucking annoying. In the last chapter I kept encountering a mushroom enemy with a "Summon" skill that would just drop another mushroom into the battle. Leaving even one mushroom alive meant that it could multiply at a rate just about on par with my ability to continue killing them. Summoned enemies don't yield any bonus experience points, either, so I would just end up wasting minutes of whittling them down for no meaningful reward.

Like status effects, Radiant Historia's equipment and skill selections feel under-developed. At first, each character seems to fit an easily-understandable archetype -- that is, a clear point on the spectrum of physical attacks or magic support. But as characters level-up and new skills are unlocked, these points become very blurry. Stocke has most of the best push moves, but lacks a forward pull; while allies with pulls lack left- and right-pushes. One of Stocke's allies starts with most of the best healing moves, ... but Stocke gets Recovery (clears status ailments) and Greater Heal much earlier than he does. Another ally has some of the best physical attacks, but also the most powerful magic attacks. This one, especially, becomes a problem when selecting equipment, since weapons usually favor either of physical or magic attacks; not both.

Party instability is also a slight problem. So far the vast majority of my game has been played with three characters (Stocke, and two others who are introduced early on). Rarely, an additional character will join the crew, allowing me to slot them into the three-person battle party; but why would I?, when that character is a lower level than the others I've built up, and their equipment isn't as up-to-date as the others'. These additional characters almost always leave within a handful of story events, so investing effort and money in them never seems wise.

Except in one circumstance when my regular party was gone, and their replacements were a new under-leveled character, plus one returning ally who - due to my previous neglect - was even lower-leveled. And building on my skill-unlock complaints above, it's not like each of these characters feels unique enough to invest time and attention into -- for the most part, equivalently-leveled characters are interchangeable.

But I'm mostly just digressing and nit-picking. While it's regrettable that the lack of clear "classes" makes characters largely homogenous in battle, and some specific enemy types have annoying abilities, combat is refreshing and fun on the whole. It's a nice way to split up text-heavy story sequences, which are themselves full of intrigue and suspense.

Oh -- and the soundtrack is excellent. Thank you, Yoko Shimomura, for being such a consistently-incredible composer.

Progress: Standard History chapter 3, Alternate History chapter 3, 79/236 events

Rating: Good
Playing A Game Teslagrad PC

I was doing pretty well with Teslagrad right up until the final boss fight.

Teslagrad has considerable good going for it. Beneath its thin facade of Metroidvania lies a fun and tightly-crafted puzzle-platformer, with magnetism mechanics (more correct than Magrunner's) and a sort-of post-steampunk electric aesthetic. The art style is cool, with some legit-sweet 3D perspective tricks on its 2D plane of gameplay, and its puzzle rooms are really great at exercising the brain.

But there is a darkness lurking in Teslagrad, one which becomes more evident as the game plods along. The first boss fight makes the game's intentions clear: to punish the player, without mercy or remorse, with one-hit kills, sparse checkpoints, and pseudo-random events (in this boss's case, the placement and timing of crate obstacles). Later puzzles and boss fights amplify these, with more instant-death threats, more-precise timing and positioning requirements, and longer, more-involved encounters. It handily measures up to Super Meat Boy in terms of demanding and unforgiving platforming.

Teslagrad has that Mega Man style of unfairness that I really hate -- where death can come instantly and without warning, forcing the player to re-tread content just for the sake of learning where a single obstacle might come from. It's some troll-level memorization bullshit, like if Guitar Hero required a perfect rating before unlocking the next song. Despite its open-looking map, Teslagrad is actually quite linear, so getting stuck on some challenge means replaying it, over and over and over, until finally getting it just right.

The majority of my time with Teslagrad was actually quite fun, and I would have been happy to "finish" it; but every time I re-attempted the final boss, I got that much closer to just loathing the whole production. It doesn't feel fair, that the margin of error on the dash is so low, and that the cooldown time isn't visually indicated, and that a minutes-long boss encounter can be ruined with a single misstep. I'm thankful for what the game does well, but have no patience left for this shit.

Better than: Chronology
Not as good as: 1000 Amps
For some vicarious frustration: check this part out, it is ri-goddamn-diculous.

Progress: Got to the last boss, 15 scrolls collected.

Rating: Meh