Thinking about: Fallout 4

A new segment I thought I’d add here at Looking At, completely stream-of-conscious musing on things I’ve previously talked about. 

Fall out with me

It’s been a week since Fallout 4 came out, and while I can’t really stop playing it, I equally can’t stop thinking about it. Public opinion is divided, more then any other AAA game I’ve seen this year, including the always divisive yearly releases of COD and AssCreed. Accusations are flying on both sides, with some gamers saying Bethesda released a shoddy, unpolished, backwards thinking piece of trash, and others saying the first group are incapable of having fun and were always going to hate Fallout 4. I’ve seen threads trashing Fallout 4 because the NPC’s didn’t have ear holes in the character models, and equally I’ve seen a thread where people claimed devs from The Witcher 3 were leaving bad reviews for Fallout out of fear of not claiming game of the year.

Like every other debate I’ve found myself part of, everyone on both sides is annoying, stupid, and loud. Worst of all, like always, both sides are sort of right.

Fallout 4 is a mess, and it’s an absolute embarasment that this game was released, not only in 2015, but at the tail end of the year to boot. Bethesda, or more specifically, supreme overlord Todd Howard, has claimed that Fallout 4 has been in development since Fallout 3 released it’s final DLC six years ago. While I don’t doubt that Fallout 4 was put into pre-production back in 2009, given that Fallout 3 was, and still is, one of the best received games of the PS3/Xb360 generation, I seriously doubt the game was ever in production that long. Skyrim released in November of 2011, and if you told me the team actually started on production of Fallout 4 in January of 2012, I’d maybe believe that.

The fact is, Fallout 4 just doesn’t do anything new or interesting. It’s best features are things either fixed from previous installments, or ripped right from other games. In so many, many ways this literally is Skyrim with guns, and that’s not a good thing. People defend Fallout 4, and Bethesda RPGs in general because they’re the only games on the market that do the things they do, and to their credit, Fallout 4 doesn’t feel like any other game I played this year. But this idea that “only Bethesda RPGs can offer immersive, dynamic gameplay” just isn’t true anymore, since The Witcher 3 did storytelling and gameplay better, and I have more memorable stories from my time in MGS5 then I do from Fallout 4.

All of this is avoiding the giant, glitchy, elephant in the room, but Fallout 4 is a technical masterpiece at doing things wrong. As I mentioned in my review, the game is stable, and I’ve still only had it crash once, confusingly, while playing the game. But that shouldn’t be a high standard, since MGS5 and The Witcher 3 rarely, if ever, crashed on me to. This should be the standard that we expect from every game, not just a pleasant surprise.

Engine stability aside, Fallout 4 just isn’t indicative of a modern game, and frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if people figured out a way to backwards engineer the game to work on Xbox 360 consoles or PS3s, since to be honest, the game doesn’t look that much better then late gen games for those two. On the PC, Fallout 4 is a complete embarrassment for Bethesda, requiring higher PC specs while delivering graphics barely above Skyrim, and there are many reports coming in that even those requirements are off. I’ve seen people with GTX980’s complaining that the game runs like ass, and people with GTX660’s saying it runs perfectly.

Let’s talk about the framerate of the game too. Ok, yes, on PC, you can run the game at 60fps, twice as much as consoles, and usually the high watermark for a smooth experience. But, there’s a price to pay for this. First, you need to disable the framelock in the game’s INI file, and while editing an INI file is something of a past-time for Bethesda fans, this is a feature that’s actually been added to the graphics menu of other games. Second, if your framerate gets to high, the physics of the game start to suffer and distort, meaning that through 3rd party means you need to re-lock the FPS at 60 so you don’t break the game. Even after all of this, there’s still the constant danger of glitches because of a higher framerate, and while it’s not happened to me yet, the Terminal Glitch (where your character becomes fused to a terminal after hacking) has rendered the game unplayable for some.

I’ve seen Fallout 4 compared unfavorably to Arkham Knight’s launch, but I disagree with that sentiment, and it’s something I’ve seen others say as well. Arkham Knight was, and still is broken to the point where they’re offering no questions asked refunds on the game. But Fallout 4 isn’t broken, and with some rare exceptions, it isn’t unplayable either. Bethesda has a lot of patching to do, sure, but given the patch history of Skyrim, that’s kind of a good thing to look forward to, since these patches often added content along with fixing problems.

Then there’s the argument that mods can fix everything, and even then I have my hesitations. Bethesda was the company that wanted to create a paid mod economy, charging people for previously free content that the company didn’t have a hand in making. At the E3 event, the service Bethsoft was also announced, along with the idea that consoles would get access to mods as well as PC. To me, this sounds like Bethesda trying to monopolize mods, muscling out services like Nexus, or individual mods sites, by making them all go through one service, controlled by Bethesda themselves. It wouldn’t be that much of a stretch, then, to believe that Bethesda would then use this service to try and revive the paid mods scheme, and Bethesda have expressed an interest in trying again.

But none of this addresses the fact that this argument, that mods can fix a game, is a terrible idea to have. You don’t buy a printer from HP expecting that it’s going to suck, but hopeful that you can kick it and smack it to make it work. You don’t buy a car from VW, knowing it’s a piece of shit, but that by replacing half the parts it can work. This mentality is simply dumb, and worse, damaging, since it makes companies think they can release half-finished games because the community will finish it for them.

Releasing a dev kit for a game is great, and does wonders for the game’s longevity. We’ve seen it from ARMA 3, Divinity Original Sin, and the Shadowrun games in the past few years, and yes, Bethesda has a long history of encouraging modding through their creation kits. But releasing your game as a barely working pile of code and saying “you fuckers fix it” isn’t a good idea, and while I don’t think that’s what Bethesda intended, or at least I certainly hope not, that may be exactly what happened. At the very least, I am excited to see what the community can do, and there’s already a small but growing number of mods popping up on Fallout 4 Nexus.

Charting my experiences with Fallout

At the end of the day, I am having fun with Fallout 4, and I don’t regret my purchase of it at all. But it’s putting me in a weird state where it’s great while I’m playing it, but the second I put it down I realize how bad it really is. In time, maybe it’ll get better, but I hope this delivers a message to Bethesda, and they improve because of it. Fallout 4 isn’t a classic, and it’s probably my least favorite cannon Fallout game, but it is a fun game that I look forward to pumping dozens of hours into.

 

 

Listening to: Physical Graffiti

Physical Graffiti

Let’s face it: the ‘70s marked the point of no return for rock n’ roll. Its primal roar ripped apart the end of the ‘60s thanks to a who’s-who of rock’s soon-to-be monarchs.  It broke down the door of the new decade and never looked back . By the time 1975 rolled around, the Stones  were still a prominent arena fixture, Pink Floyd re-defined the cosmic soundscape with Dark Side of the Moon, and Black Sabbath ushered in a dark side  all their own. From a consumer’s perspective, the sounds of the times couldn’t have gotten any better, but they had no idea what was about to come next.

For Led Zeppelin, they’d already proved everything they needed to. Their legendary fourth studio album was like a flag proudly planted atop Everest; they came, saw and conquered. Houses of the Holy more than stood its ground as a worthy successor to IV, but alas, there was a missing element; something needed to complete the sonic cycle .

And so, after some much needed R&R from touring and the threat of bass player John Paul Jones leaving the band, the group settled into a familiar setting: Headley Grange in South East England  to start laying the groundwork for their sixth studio effort, Physical Graffiti.

The renowned tour-de-force starts off where Houses ended: heavy, hard-hitting and sensational. The first rumblings of “Custard Pie” greets the ear with a familiar rhythm that every Zeppelin fan still can’t get enough of. The classic rock sound, mixed in with shades of funk , almost transforms it into a dance number but generously keeps its blue suede shoes locked up and stays within the realm of rock and roll. Like a wide-open palm across the face, you find yourself alerted to and yet eventually almost hypnotized by “The Rover”. With the early sounds of heavy metal laced into “When the Levee Breaks”, guitarist Jimmy Page felt comfortable enough to incorporate those same sounds and grungy pace into the album’s second track . A catchy guitar riff matched with a solid and yet never swinging drum line. The double LP’s first side ends with a cover of Blind Willie Johnson’s 1928 single “In My Time of Dying”. At 11:06, it’s the longest track on the album  but it leaves very little to the imagination. Page’s uniquely even hardcore take on slide guitar,  coupled with John Bonham’s stellar drum line  show Zeppelin doing what they do best: jamming.

Side two kicks off with an outtake from the band’s previous record. Aptly named “Houses of the Holy”, it’s a modern take on the sweet gospel sounds that filled churches and revival tents everywhere. A solid groove that keeps you  on your feet all the way through. That funkiness that appeared on side one reappears in “Trampled Under Foot”. This track, helmed by John Paul Jones  shows him flexing his musical muscles with an awe-inspiring clavinet jam that sets the tone for the rest of the band. In a Rolling Stone interview in February 2015, Jimmy Page said “Kashmir” was “meant to be something pretty epic and substantial.” Thanks to some early scripting by Page as well as Jones’ string and brass arrangement, the nearly nine-minute song was exactly that, a true epic. With this rounding-off the first of two records, one would be left asking “what’s next?”

The eerie “In the Light”  opens up the album’s third side and maintains the dark tones that “Kashmir” brought fourth at side two’s conclusion.  Jones continues to command, harnessing early compression tools to unravel the opening number . In an interview given to Cameron Crowe for the liner notes of 1993’s Complete Studio Recordings, lead singer Robert Plant classed it one of Zeppelin’s “finest moments”.  Switch from one set of strings to the next. Jimmy Page provides a sweet and intimate instrumental named in honour of the hallowed Welsh cottage “Bron-Yr-Aur”. The softness sticks around for the country-inspired “Down by the Seaside”, a quiet, slow-paced ballad that occasionally speeds up to keep you interested. Side three closes with, unfortunately, Graffiti’s last good track. “Ten Years Gone” brings all four elements of Zeppelin to the forefront and reminds you that, in their hands, soft and loud could co-exist like oil and water.

Like all good things, they must come to an end. Side four, sadly, doesn’t live up to the preceding three. None of its five songs stand with any of the album’s preceding 10. Boogie With Stu and Sick Again are all that stand out. Stu is by many regards a hat-tip to Ritchie Valens (of “La Bamba” fame), with rhythmic elements of ‘50s rock. The raw “Sick Again” closes the album as a neat reminder of the early days of Zeppelin and the youthfulness the band once had.

In that same 2015 Rolling Stone interview, Page described Graffiti’s recording process, saying “It was like a voyage of discovery, a topographical adventure.”  The album is revered for its use of all the sonic shades made available by the ever-evolving rock and funk landscapes. The heaviness of “The Rover” to the quiet touches of “Bron-Yr-Aur” prove that Zeppelin were masters of their craft; like painters using a canvas knowing when and where to use the dark and light colors. Forty years on unchallenged in the gallery of rock’s double albums, Physical Graffiti is ultimately Zeppelin’s finest work.

Guest article by [Daryn Bolland]

looking at: fallout 4

Hype Train

Fallout 4 lets you experience life just before the end.

Fallout is my favourite IP of all time. Barring the terrible PS2/XB game I’ve played and beaten every Fallout game, including the released tech-demo of Van Buren, the cancelled Black Isle Fallout 3. Obviously, then I would be excited when Bethesda announced Fallout 4 earlier this year, and I was so excited I used the last vacation day I had at work to take November 10th off for the launch.

Does Fallout 4 live up to the hype, or the name of it’s predecessors? Can it surpass Fallout 3, New Vegas, or even Skyrim as grand open world RPG’s? And was it worth the wait? Stick with me here, because we’re going to get nuclear on this one.

Frozen Dinner

the new character creator lets you make whatever monster you want.

Fallout 4 begins by showing life prior to the Great War, the nuclear apocalypse that serves as the backdrop for the series. You start the game with a quick introduction talking about how the world is gearing up for war, only to be tossed in front of a mirror to create your family of playable characters, that is, mother or father.

The facial scultpting in Fallout 4 is, hands down, one of the best new features. In contrast to previous Bethesda games, you no long assign pre-made facial features, rather your characters are blocks of clay that you can poke, prod, push and pull into what you want, be that John Cena and Taylor Swift, or just two mutated freaks that found love.

The rest of the intro is pretty boring, and mostly involves waiting till predetermined triggers fire off, including you getting accepted into a local vault, the start of World War 3, and being sealed in the vault. You’re then frozen in a cryo-chamber, only to be woken up by the sound of your son Shuan being kidnapped. Some time later you escape the vault and set off on a quest all over the Commonwealth surrounding the ruins of Boston to find Shuan and uncover the mysterious Institute.

Mutated Beast

Many gameplay mechanics come straight from Skyrim, for better or worse.

Right off the bat, Fallout 4 is a mess. Like The Witcher 3, there’s been much talk about the graphical fidelity of the game, but unlike Witcher 3, Fallout 4 looks like shit. Ok, yes, the graphics don’t necessarily make or break a game most of the time, but Fallout 4 wouldn’t have passed the bar in 2011, let alone 2015 with these graphics. I know it’s strange for me to talk about graphics right off the bat, but it paints a grim picture of everything wrong with Fallout 4, insofar as it’s a much older game trying desperately to pass itself off as a new title. For all intents and purposes, Fallout 4 really is a re-skinned Skyrim, and that’s not really a good thing. The lighting, character models, and animations have all been improved, sure, but they still pale in comparison to Witcher 3, MGS5, or Alien: Isolation and like I said probably wouldn’t have even cut it if Fallout 4 released alongside Skyrim.

Facial animations are hilariously bad, often looking like someone draped ham over a desk fan, then cut a small hole in it to act as a mouth. I don’t think the lip sync was ever on point, and more often enough just looked creepy. Animations are stiff and wooden, and there’s a visible pause as an NPC actor queues from one animation to another. First person animations are ok, for the most part, although I did notice at least four different weapons using each reload animation, making the guns feel less diverse, to the point where I actually confused two weapons for looking so similar.

The Power Armour offers you a great weapon for smashing foes, provided you can power it.

Like I said, lighting is improved quite a bit over Skyrim, and to their credit the shadows and mood lighting in Fallout 4 were really well done, especially dynamic lights from moving sources like mining helmets or security lights. Texture work, though, is downright embarrassing, with murky textures that harken back to PS2 era games sometimes. Here’s hoping that, like Skyrim, we see a free hi-rez texture pack soon, but as it stands Fallout 4 is one of the ugliest looking games of this year.

The new crafting system offers dozens of ways to reuse each weapon.

At least the game was stable. In my 20 hours of play it only crashed once, and that wasn’t even the games fault, but rather some recording software I had running. But for a game built on ancient technology, with parts of the code dating back to 2003’s Morrowind, it’s an incredibly poorly optimized game. I was lucky enough to be playing the PC version, and while I managed to get a pretty good framerate most of the time, there were noticeable drops, sometimes for no reason. I’ve seen reports saying that the X1 and PS4 versions are even worse, with the X1 version dipping to 0fps, effectively freezing for a moment. Skyrim barely got a pass for it’s visuals in 2011, with people calling the engine dated then, and I have my doubts that Fallout 4 is going to get the same reception. If Bethesda wants to continue making game like this, Fallout 4 must be their last title on this engine, period.

Born for Apocalypse

Weather effects add a nice dynamic to the Commonwealth

Alright, so graphics don’t make a game, it should be all about the gameplay. I mean, that’s Nintendo’s philosophy most of time and it works for them. So is the gameplay of Fallout 4 a saving grace? Yes… and a lot no.

Shooting is the biggest improvement, not only over Fallout 3 and New Vegas, but even Skyrim and other FPS games. Borrowing heavily from the likes of Destiny or Borderlands 2, guns feel responsive and aiming is a breeze. Best of all, weapons feel punchy as hell, with even the low end 10mm pistol giving off a great report when fired. Firefights are an excited cacophony of sounds and it all feels like a really solid shooter, complete with a half decent dynamic cover system.

God rays improve lighting, but at the cost of a decent framerate at times.

If you’re looking to avoid firefights, stealth is also greatly improved, with proper enemy line of sight mechanics, meaning that you can properly sneak around and even disengage from a fight that you think you might loose. Enemy AI in general are somewhat improved, with tactics like using cover and throwing grenades, but path-finding seemed insufficient and I lost count of how many times I saw AI walk into walls or, during one long range encounter, walk right off a cliff. It can be exploitable, but that’s not always a bad thing, and there were times where breaking the enemy AI made me feel like I just completed a personal challenge and outsmarted the game.

Movement can feel iffy at times, especially in 3rd person, where there’s a noticeable delay between input and execution, but for the most part it handled pretty well and I rarely had any problems moving around. Like Skyrim, I felt actually anchored to earth below me, and there was none of the floaty-ness of Fallout 3 or New Vegas.

Casualty of War

Still in place: the series’ penchant for violence.

The RPG system is different, in that there’s no more skills to level up. At all. Instead you get your SPECIAL stats to assign points to, and every level you earn a point to use, either increasing these stats or unlocking one of the dozens of perks under each stat. While there’s a lot of room to mess around with this system, and it’s a massive improvement over Witcher 3’s confusing and underwhelming leveling system, it all felt so soulless, like Fallout 4 didn’t even want to be a proper RPG. I honestly found myself missing assigning points to different abilities, and Fallout 4’s levelling system made it harder for me to create a character I was proud of, even if it did let me create a character fit for surviving the waste.

Another new system I enjoyed was the crafting system. Skyrim introduced the idea of crafting and upgrading weapons and armor, but Fallout 4 takes it to a completely new level. Every weapon has dozens of different upgrade paths, depending on what you want out of it. Want a lightweight sniper rifle for picking off weaker guards from a distance, or would you rather a loud and proud anti-material rifle for destroying armored foes? Both of those weapons come from the same base, and the freedom is truly impressive.

More then just weapons and armor though, this time around there’s a Sims-esque settlement management game. The idea is, after helping out a settlement, or clearing a monster nest, you’ll be allowed to set up shop, literally, and craft buildings and resources to attract followers to your cause. You can even set up supply chains between these settlements, meaning you can spec on location for water and have that place send it’s resources over to a different settlement. All of this can be ignored, of course, but it really is one of the best features of Fallout 4.

the new dialogue system means even great characters like Piper feel stunted

Ok, let’s talk about the new conversation system. Fallout 4 borrowed the “conversation wheel” from Mass Effect, in that every conversation gives you a few predetermined responses to choose from, delivered by your now voiced protagonist. There’s several issues with this, and I’ll go through them point by point below:

1. Having a voiced protagonist makes me feel less like I’m playing the adventures of myself in another world, and it’s more like I’m watching the adventures of some guy and I’m just choosing what he does. This worked in Witcher 3, because Geralt of Rivia is a predetermined character, complete with back story, but Fallout 4 is supposed to be my story of my character, and I didn’t get that sense.
2. There’s only ever exactly four responses. I often found that what I wanted to say or do wasn’t represented, and while the four responses almost always branched into four different responses, I felt like the conversations were all scripted to only go one way.
3.  Compounding this issue is that the responses are represented by short phrases, so instead of accurate representation of your views, you’re just given things like “Hate Newspaper” or “Institute?” leaving you to guess at what the hell you were actually going to say. There’s also rarely a “no” or “fuck off” option, although there’s the confusing and completely useless  “sarcastic” option almost every goddamn conversation.

Not helping any of this, but the writing of Fallout 4 is all over the place. The main plot goes back and forth between brilliant and insanely stupid, sometimes within the same quest. For every great story or memorable character, there’s a dozen or so copy-and-pasted fetch-quests and nameless vendors. It all just lacks to charm and character of Fallout New Vegas and comes across as bland and generic most of the time.

World’s End

there’s a great variety of companions to find, and they all have stories to tell of their own.

Fallout 4 is a game that’s so damn hard to love, and yet I think I actually do like it. I just don’t know if I can recommend it, or even respect it, since in so many ways it represents everything wrong with the AAA gaming industry in 2015. It’s an industry so creatively bankrupt and afraid of innovation that a major studio would actually release a game this backwards and stripped down. I hate the fact that I liked Fallout 4, and I can’t tell if that’s because it’s such a mess from so many angles, or it’s because it’s a mess using the Fallout  name.

Everything good about Fallout has something wrong with it:

The new shooting mechanics are great, but enemy AI is downright insanely bad most of the time.

The wasteland is full of interesting places to explore, but the game is so ugly and load times can be so long that exploration is barely worth it.

The power armor you receive is fun to play around with it, but you receive it within the first hour, and use it to kill a Deathclaw, meaning there’s no immersive character development to earn it.

The way conversations are handled is way more natural, especially if you turn off the terrible dialogue camera, but the dialogue system itself is infuriatingly bad and conversations are buggy, often ending to early or skipping for no reason.

The voice acting is mostly great, and probably the biggest and most diverse cast Bethesda has ever hired, but the writing and animations that accompany it are so weird that it pulls you out of the moment.

The new crafting system is amazing, and there’s so much variety to help you build your character, but the UI is a goddamn disgrace on PC, and it’s so bad I doubt console players enjoy it.

Maybe down the road Fallout 4 will be a classic, once the expansion packs and modding community get to it, but as it stands Fallout 4 is something of a disappointment. It’s not a bad game, and it’s not even a bad Fallout game, but it stands as an ugly monument to everything wrong with gaming in 2015, and it’s hard to forgive that, even as I plow forward for dozens of hours. 

Looking at: Red Sands

Better Dead then Red

J.K. Simmons, being completely under used

I haven’t done a movie review in some time, and in January I said I’d only do reviews of bad movies. That should give you an early indication about my feelings on Red Sand, from director Alex Turner. In truth, I only watched this film because it was mentioned by one of my favourite channels on Youtube Ross Scott’s Accursed Farm, specifically his review of The Secret World.

Scott was discussing how it’s nearly impossible to make a good horror set in the desert, and used Red Sands as a quick example of desert horror done right. For my money the best horror set in the desert is H.P. Lovecraft’s Imprisoned with the Pharaohs about Harry Houdini escaping from a bunch of undead mummies under the great Pyramid. However, I was intrigued by the idea of a horror set against the backdrop of the war in Afghanistan, so I decided to check out Red Sands for myself.

Sandstorm

our hero, being all military and stuff

Red Sands starts with Specialist Jeff Keller of the US military receiving a debriefing after returning from a mission out in the desert. His whole squad was wiped out and Keller was the only survivor to make it back following a Taliban assault. For some reason J.K. Simmons is in this scene, and only this scene, probably because he costs real money, even back in 2009.

We then jump back in time two weeks to what happened. Keller, along with his overly diverse squad, are sent out into the middle of the desert to a remote location to provide over watch on an Afghani highway. Along the way they stop by a weird idol, learn that the Djinn once ruled Afghanistan but they were imprisoned in idols like the one the soldiers found, then they shoot the idol for no good reason and walk away. If your first thought is “well, now they’re going to die because they shot that ancient idol” you are correct, and also horribly aware at how dumb this movie is.

The squad arrives at a bombed out Afghani home and set up base. All is well, save the occasional nightmare, until a sandstorm brings a mysterious Afghani woman into the house. The squad detains her, entertains the idea of raping her (yes, really) and carries on watching a highway that doesn’t really exist. Slowly but surely things start going weird, like garbled communications and the squad’s truck being destroyed, and before long the squad is turning on itself, culminating with the Staff Sargent going insane and declaring war on the others.

Improvised Suck-splosion Device

horror is black puddles in the desert

Right off the bat my biggest issue with Red Sands is it’s colour correction. It’s awful. The whole movie looks like it was run through a Sepia filter, rendered, then run through the filter a second time. The colour pallet was brown and brown alone, with some scenes literally appearing monochrome. All the more frustrating is that, every once and a while, there would be a scene where they remove the filter and it looked really good. There’s some clever use of lighting occasionally, and these serve as the best scenes in the film, particularly in the final act where there’s a fight illuminated by a bright red flare. But these were few and far between and the majority of the film looks like it was exposed to light before processing.

Not helping this at all is the camera work. Red Sands employs that always lovely tactic of using only shaky cam for the entire movie and it gave me motion sickness. Even worse, whether by an inexperienced camera team, or really bad design choice, nearly every motion shot drifts in and out of focus constantly, giving me a bad headache. This movie mad me sick to watch it, and that’s never a good thing.

The CG isn’t even as good as what I saw people do in film school

The audio work is serviceable. There’s a host of adequate early 2000’s songs by bands you’ve never heard of, as well as desert instrumentals to punctuate most of the film. Dialogue is clear, even when it’s not in English, and I didn’t have much of a problem following what people were saying. There were some obvious stock sound effects, like the radio chatter and gunshots, but it’s a budget title so I let it slide.

What’s unforgivable is the CGI. For most of the film, they did their damndest to hid any use of CG, but my god is it ever bad. I imagine this was the first film for these poor animators outside of film school, and in fact this might have been a film school project for them. When the monster is revealed in it’s true form I found myself laughing so hard I had to pause the film, never mind the terribly cliché explosion used kill it. Even some helicopters at the beginning of the film failed to look realistic in any way, and the whole thing reminded me of an Asylum film, you know, the people that used a Sega Genesis to do their graphics.

AWOL

The good scenes are so few and far between that the movie suffers more then it should

The acting isn’t horrible, but all of the characters are such broad stereotypes that it’d be hard not to act the part properly. There’s the brooding hero with a girl back home, the inbred racist hill-billy, the tough staff sarge that looses his cool, the black guy, the mexican(?) grease monkey, and a nerd. Honestly, the best actor in the film, aside from J.K. Simmons whenever he’s around, is the woman that plays the mysterious Afghani girl, and she doesn’t even say or really do anything.

The plot is complete garbage, but it’s garbage that could’ve been at least serviceable.  On paper, it’s a standard horror set-up: a group of people in a stranded location being attacked by a supernatural force. It’s a story so cliché the movie Cabin in the Woods used it to de-construct the horror genre. The twist here is that the group of college kids is a squad of US soldiers, and their cabin is.. well still a cabin, but in Taliban controlled Afghanistan.

Yes, it has a “cool guys don’t look at explosions” scene

Of course, that leaves the monster, and while I think a movie about a group of US soldiers being slowly tortured by an elite Taliban hit-squad would be an amazing mental mind-fuck of a film, our monster here is an ancient Djinn, awoken, presumably, when the soldiers destroyed that idol. The Djinn actually barely makes his, or rather, her presence known throughout the film, and this is actually where the film earns some credit. Most of the horror perpetrated on our heroes is actually committed by themselves, slowly loosing their minds to the endless nothingness of the desert. The biggest evil in the movie isn’t the Djinn, but a crazed staff sergeant hell-bent on keeping order by eliminating any dissent. It’s one of the “Mankind is actually the worst monster of all” type deals, only not delivered with any of the style like, say, most of the Crossed Comics or even The Walking Dead in all it’s forms.

Red Sands could have been a better horror film, maybe, but it would need to have been rebuilt pretty much from the ground up. When the best compliment I can pay a movie is “it could have been better if it was completely different”  then the movie isn’t very good. Still, I’ve spent 90 minutes doing worse things, so if you just want to kill some time and maybe have a good laugh, then Red Sands… probably still isn’t worth your time.

Looking at: Warhammer Endtimes: Vermintide

Beginning of the End

The city of Ubersriek, where you’ll fight the rat hordes

The Warhammer franchise is one of the longest running and expansive franchises in the gaming world, with the original tabletop game coming out in the early 80’s. It’s created a culture of it’s own, easily rivaling the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons and other P&P or Tabletop games. Despite this, the Warhammer universe has only been represented a handful of times in gaming, usually differing to it’s futuristic offspring Warhammer 40k. Vermintide, and the upcoming Total: War game seek to change this, with the former offering an interesting, if familiar multiplayer experience.

Let’s get this out of the way now, for all intents and purposes Vermintide is a re-skin of Left 4 Dead 2. That’s not idle speculation either, as I actually reached out to the developers, FatShark, on twitter for their take on it:

With that in mind, I’ll be comparing the two games quite a bit throughout the rest of this review.

Left for Almost Dead

your intrepid heroes, preparing for battle

There’s no real plot to Vermintide, only a quick back-story to tie everything together. The world is coming to an end, foretold by a meteor, and the rat-like Skaven have decided to rise up and overrun the world of man. The city of Ubersriek is under siege, and it’s up to you to stop it, one mission at a time.

There’s no way around it, Vermintide really does play like a mod for L4D2. It’s a great mod, sure, but in almost every way the gameplay is the same. To whit, you play as one of the heroes on offer through the thirteen different campaigns in an effort to slow down the destruction of Ubersreik. This is one of the few areas where Vermintide differs from L4D, as there are subtle differences between the heroes. For most of them, it’s a difference of what weapons they use, however, and the only interesting character is the Fire Mage, who can go super-nova and explode if she uses here magic to much. Other then that, there’s an elven ranger that favours bows and daggers, a dwarf that uses shotguns and blunt objects, a human soldier that uses swords, shields, and muskets, and a witch hunter that uses pistols and claymores. Regardless of which on you choose, they’re all great for killing vermin, and character only determines what weapons you can use.

That’s the other difference, is that behind the scenes in Vermintide, there’s a loot system. After each campaign you roll die to determine what weapons will be granted on you. get lucky and you can waltz into battle with a legendary sword, slaying vermin left and right. Of course, there’s more than a few low quality weapons, and even these find use in the smelter, being re-forged inter better arms. Magical weapons even have upgrades you can unlock, giving them powerful properties. It’s an effective skinner-box and offers a more tangible reason to replay campaigns over and over.

Dungeon master

The inn provides a moment’s respite and a place to upgrade your equipment

Like L4D, during a campaign the AI is controlled by an off-screen director. The director may decide to grant you a boon and drop off supplies, ammo, or special weapons, or may decide that you haven’t slain enough rats and it’ll spring an ambush on you. No two playthroughs are the same, and where you once found a healing potion may next time hide an enemy waiting to pounce.

The AI is also improved and behaves differently from L4D. Skaven aren’t zombies, and they certainly aren’t brainless. Individual rats will cower in fear at you, but as the swarm grows so too does they’re confidence. They’re climb over walls, open doors, and sprint after you, ensuring that no where is truly safe.

Supporting the main force is Skaven special units, insidious and devastating. The insane rattling gunner spits lead at you, decimating armor and mowing down anyone and anything in it’s way. The globadier hurls poison gas at you, blocking off passageways, and explodes upon death. The assasin rat pounces on a target, pinning them down and shredding them to bits, while the pack-master captures heroes to parade them around for other Skaven to get in their licks. Then there’s the storm rat, appearing as part of a crowd, or as an armored patrol, requiring a precise shot to the head to bring them down. Finally there’s the ogre, a titan of brutal strength that requires herculean effort to bring down, assuming he doesn’t crush you first.

If any or all of those sound familiar, that’s because, like everything else, they’re just re-skins of L4D. Regardless, they’re random injection into a game can shake things up, and add an extra layer to the already impressive replayability.

Hammer Time

Weapons become more and more covered in blood as you battle the horde

Graphically, I had some issues with Vermintide. The game runs great, keeping well over 60fps even with hundreds rats on screen and blood and gore spraying left and right. The problem is that the graphics just look dated, with muddy textures and moody lighting that failed to deliver. If you told me that Vermintide was a mid-life PS3 game, I’d probably believe you.

However, like I said, it runs fantastically well, and when it comes to slaughtering Skaven the game does a great job. Skaven are well detailed and there’s plenty of variety in each rat, so it doesn’t seem like you’re fighting the same three or four rats over and over again. More impressive is the detail on the special enemies, with great design and terrifying sound work to make them standout from the horde and extra menacing.

Thankfully, the gameplay is so great in Vermintide that more often then not I completely forgot about my complaints about graphics. Controls handle well, at least on mouse and keyboard, and aren’t overly complicated. I did notice some weirdness with the hitboxes, where swings I thought would hit didn’t and when I thought I was dodging I was actually still in the line of fire. Dodging in general seems to be completely useless, and more often then not I forgot I could. You can also block enemy attacks, but this seems like a better idea on paper then in practice, since trying to block 20 Skaven spears at once rarely worked.

The audio design is great overall, with moody music mixing styles from gothic Europe to Louisiana bayou twangs together, along with proper swells when the action gets going proper. Each character has a unique speaking voice, and while some of them I found grating, none of them were terrible and it was great to hear the inter-character banter as they overcame their differences in the face of survival. The Skaven sound exactly like they should, and each special Skaven has a unique identifier, be it the whir or the rattling gun, the whispers of the assassin, or the Darth Vader-esque  wheeze of the globadier.

End Times

After each campaign you’ll have the chance to win prizes

Vermintide might just be a re-skin of L4D, but is that really such a bad thing? Left 4 Dead 2 was released six years ago, and while the occasional community mod pumps a bit of life back in it, there’s little reason to go back and play it nowadays. Vermintide is a wonderful return to, and homage to the top-notch co-op gameplay that Valve pioneered, and in some ways surpasses the Zombie horde simulation that lay it’s own groundwork.

If you’re looking for a great way to bring together a group of friends and battle for survival, then Vermintide is the new king in town. It’s co-op gameplay is unmatched, replayability is at an all-time high, and with the promise of both paid and free DLC already being discussed, it’s a game that’s sure to thrive for a long time. Grab some friends, grab a sword, and cut up some Skaven scum.

Looking at: Metal Gear Solid V

Long Road

Tactical buddies, like D-Dog, offer support in the field.

There’s no easy way to approach Metal Gear Solid 5. Telling people it’s a stealth game seems disingenuous to it’s action packed shoot-outs. Telling people it’s an open world adventure makes it seem like another Skyrim or GTA rather then the tightly controlled mission-based structure that it adheres to. Hell, even telling people it’s like the other MGS games doesn’t work, since MGS5 is a beast of it’s own. There’s no easy way to categorize MGS5, save for one:

One of the best games of 2015, and quite possibly of the decade.

Dogs of War

The insane Man on Fire, one of the few bosses in the game.

MGS5 takes place nine years after the events of Peace Walker and Ground Zero. Once again you assume the identity of Big Boss, also known as Naked Snake, the father to Solid Snake and the patriarch of the entire franchise.

Big Boss awakes in a hospital, only to find out someone is trying to kill him almost immediately. He survives, thanks to the help of a mysterious watcher, and escapes with the help of Revolver Ocelot, now acting as an agent for Big Boss. Together along with a noticeably angrier and crippled Kaz Miller, the three form Diamond Dogs, a private mercenary company, and set out to find out who tried to kill Boss and how to combat the mysterious Cypher organization.

To be honest, if you haven’t played at least MGS3, Peace Walker, and Ground Zero, none of this makes sense to you. Hell, despite playing the entire series now, there were still things I had to clarify or fact-check in the MGS Wiki. This is a story meant for MGS fans, complete with twists and turns that make very little logical sense. That’s not idle speculation either, as I have two friends that independently bought the game without prior experience with the series, and both have reported they were very confused by what was happening.

The story goes to dark places, when it goes anywhere at all.

That is, when the story decided to show up. This is instantly telling of how different MGS5 is from it’s predecessors, is that for most of the game the scripted story takes something of a back seat. Many missions have little to do with the plot and exist solely to be awesome for awesome sake. There are moments of plot development, and these often meet or exceed the series standard for story telling, but they’re few and far between for most of the game.

What plot is on display is pretty great. Once again, sticking to the past forces the plot to remain grounded, as there’s only so much weirdness you can pack into 1984. The story is set against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, as well as the on-going conflict of the Angolan Civil war in Central Africa. Neither conflict is explored that much in gaming, so it’s an interesting departure from other games. Add to the fact that both conflicts are mired in secrecy that we still don’t fully understand, and political meandering that would create a base layer for politics today, and both conflicts fit perfectly with the game.

Africa and Afghanistan are huge, and open to explore

The plot does do the MGS standard of being weirdly obsessed with bizzare subject matter, this time (not kidding) the importance of linguistics. It goes to interesting places with that, but it also touches on some other subjects like the moral and legal grey areas of hiring private military forces, the East and West’s effects on conflicts of the Cold War, and even the use of child soldiers in conflict zones. Despite the series’ penchant for the goofy, all of these subjects are approached carefully and the game raises some interesting questions about the topics at hand.

I do have one complaint about the story, and this may seem weird, but there really is a lack of good female characters in MGS5. Normally I wouldn’t notice it, but the series has a history of great female characters like The Boss, Sniper Wolf, EVA, or even Paz from Peace Walker. Here, all we get is the nearly naked sniper Quiet, and she’s not exactly bursting with personality. It’s unfortunate, but doesn’t really detract from the overall story in any meaningful way.

Overall, once again MGS5 proves why I prefer the series’ use of Big Boss and sticking to the past. The plot is better when it’s planted in reality, and the writing does a better job of moving the plot along, if at a snails pace sometimes.

War Stories

The insidious Skull Unit, as annoying as they are devastating.

The most interesting thing about MGS5, compared to the prior games in the series, is it’s almost under-reliance on cut-scenes. There are cut-scenes, sure, but they don’t last nearly as long as old games, and MGS5 is much more focused on the gameplay this time around. That’s good, because some of the stories I created myself are more memorable then plot arcs written in the game.

It’s easy to get lost creating your own silly war stories, thanks to the deep and insanely detailed gameplay of MGS5. Everything has a physicality to it that you can exploit, be it throwing an enemy into another enemy, attaching C4 to a jeep, shooting it into the air, and using it as a mid-air IED to take out a helicopter, or even calling in a supply drop on your enemies head to knock them out. Nothing is scripted to just be, because of reason, instead everything exists like you’d expect and even better, the game reacts to how you play with.

Mother Bass and the base building mechanic return from Peace Walker

For instance, there’s a mission later on where you are tasked with eliminating a commander before he leaves a base. He leaves via helicopter, and the game gives you a few minutes to infiltrate the base, find the commander, and eliminate him before he gets on the copter. Or, you can find the copter, blow it up, blow up the base, and blow up the commander who all of a sudden has nowhere to run from you. It’s that sort of reactivity and odd realism that makes MGS5 so great.

It also helps that MGS5 controls great. I played using mouse and keyboard, something of a first for the series, and it handled very smoothly. Moving Snake feels good, and it’s rare that I’d get him stuck in something. Moreover, there’s a huge range of moves you can pull off, and the game once again seems reactive to this behaviour, thanks to some great animation work.

The gameplay can best be summed up with “if you think you can do it, you can probably do it”. Throw on a cardboard box and sled down a hill into an unsuspecting guard? Yes. attach C4 to a goat and wait for it to go in front of a supply truck? Yes. Shooting down a helicopter to destroy an enemy watch tower? You bet. My favourite moments from MGS5 were coming up with a really stupid idea, then delighting as the game allowed me to carry that idea out.

In the Shadows

Scoping out enemy positions is imperative for victory

The Sniper Quiet

Graphically, MGS5 is impressive to say the least, and continues the series standards of insane amounts of detail packed into every polygon. As mentioned I played the PC version, which despite what IGN reported is the best looking version, and outshines most other games this year. Even better is how well optimized the game is, with friends with less powerful PCs reporting smooth 50-60FPS gameplay on modest rigs. I have noticed slight frame dips every once and a while, strangely usually during cut-scenes, and the game crashed once when my plan was to, and I quote, “blow every fucking thing I can see sky-high in as little time as possible”.These issues are few and far between, and for the most part the game ran smoothly with no problems at all.

MGS5 lets you play as soldiers under Snake’s command, including women.

I mentioned before that the controls were smooth and responsive, and I just wanted to restate that again. This is hands down, one of the best third person shooters I’ve played since Max Payne 3, even though it doesn’t feel like a traditional TPS at times. Stealthing has never been easier in the series, and it felt like MGS5 was more concerned with just being a fun game to play, rather then a vehicle for it’s insane story.

On the audio side of things, the game is amazing. Voice acting is the series standard of high quality and insanely over the top, with special mention to James Horan as the insidious Skull Face. Rounding out the cast is Troy Baker as the latest incarnation of Revolver Ocelot, Robert Atkin Downes returns as Miller, and Christopher Randolph as the cowardly Emerich.

Ok, let’s talk about Kiefer Sutherland as Snake. Rather then series regular David Hayter, this time around Snake is voiced by the 24 star and notable alcoholic pirate Canadian. For what it’s worth, Kiefer does a decent job, even if his lines sound like they were recorded in a separate room then everyone else. I don’t know if it’s because Sutherland cost more then Hayter, or if it was a plot decision, but Snake doesn’t talk all that much in this game. He has more dialogue in the recorded tapes you collect then any cut-scene, and most of the game’s dialogue is handled by either Ocelot or Miller instead. If the intended effect was to make each line of dialogue from the Boss more meaningful, it sort of worked, but I did find myself missing Hayter’s over the top portrayal of Boss.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the soundtrack. There’s plenty of great orchestral pieces, all of which you can play at any time using your iDroid smartphone thing, but the true star is the licensed music. MGS5 uses period appropriate music like David Bowie, Kim Wilde, Billy Idol, A-Ha, or the Cure. There’s just something magical about running across the plains of Afghanistan listening to “You Spin Me Right Round”, or calling in a support helicopter only to have it blasting Rebel Yell at top volume.

Legacy

the terrifying Skull Face

MGS5 does the series proud, not only continuing the ground work laid out in Peace Walker and MGS3, but raising the game to new heights of gameplay possibilities. This is the most approachable the series has ever been, and even people not familiar with Kojima’s insanity can get behind the systems upon systems at work behind the scenes.

If this is to be the last MGS game, a distinct possibility since Kojima left Konami, then it’s a good one. While not as story focused as previous MGS titiles, the sheer amount of things to keep you busy, and the possibilities for dynamic and interesting encounters and stories more then makes up for this. This is Metal Gear Solid for the player, and it’s all the better for it.

That’s it for my look at the Metal Gear Solid games. Check in soon for my review of the series as a whole.

Looking at: Prison Architect

Lock down

Proper planning takes time, but a well made prison is effective and profitable

Trying to make an approachable version of the hardest game ever created is not something a lot of people would set out to do, and yet that’s exactly what Introversion Software (previously of Darwinia fame) have done with Prison Architect. Why would anyone want to run a prison? Probably because it’s one of the best management games in years, that’s why.

At it’s core, PA is Dwarf Fortress, insofar as you issue orders and AI go about completing them. In a lot of ways, PA is also similar to Darwinia, since that game had a similar idea of letting AIs figure out how to comprehend what you told them to do. The biggest difference between all these games is that in PA, every AI hates your guts.

Sentencing 

Despite your best efforts, prisoners will always be unruly.

As the name implies, PA places you in the chair of an architect tasked with running a prison. You’ll need to design the layout, hire staff, and micromanage the prisoners, all while earning a profit and increasing your prison’s value. There is a campaign mode, but this is mostly just an extended tutorial to teach you about running the prison, for the most part PA’s story is whatever you make of it.

Designing the prison itself hearkens back to management games of old, like Roller-Coaster Tycoon, or the aforementioned Dwarf Fortress. You’ll place walls, floors, and objects on the grid based map, and ensure that everything works together, letting the prisoners and staff get to where they need to be. You’ll also need to design security features, place utilities, run power cables and water pipes, and make sure you’re prison is inescapable. All the while contending with dozens, perhaps hundreds of people that hate your guts and will do anything to make your life hell.

That’s the most interesting idea PA offers, the fact that despite all your work everyone hates you. Gamer’s are used to games placing them in the position of an omnipotent god that everyone adores, but here you’re little more then a a blue collar city manager trying to keep criminals off the street. That’s about the most political PA ever gets however, and the game makes it very clear that it’s not trying to present anything about prison life, or the legal system, simply that making and running a prison probably isn’t that great.

Toilet Wine

This is considered a small prison in the face of some fan creations.

Despite it’s subject matter, PA is an incredibly fun game, at least as long as you find management sims fun to begin with. A lot of the game is looking at menus, micromanaging things, and a tonne of planning and placing walls and objects. It’s certainly not a game for everyone, and at times it seemed like there wasn’t anything to do but sit back and watch. PA is a lot of hurry-up and wait, as there are busts of activity followed by periods of nothingness. There’s also only the vague notion of objectives in the form of government grants you can attempt to earn, but these are optional and I found myself only using them for small bursts of cash when I needed it.

That might be the biggest issue with PA, is that there’s no real goal or end-game. You can sell your prison to start a new game with extra cash, but all that does is create a cycle of building bigger prisons, and selling that for more cash to build even bigger prisons, and so on and so forth. Sure, bigger prisons means more prisoners to deal with, but all that means is double the size of everything and you’re set. Not that PA isn’t challenging, but it’s systems are easy to figure out, and even easier to exploit.

Graphically PA isn’t anything special. Like it’s predecessors, this is a game meant to convey information, not look pretty. Everything looks flat and dismal, although it’s sort of supposed to. Character models are 2D sprites with little variation to set them apart. Not that individual characters matter, since in a game like PA they’re just numbers that complain to much.

Audio wise, PA is also pretty bare-bones. There’s little in the way of music and no voice acting whatsoever, even in the rare phone calls you receive to warn you of riots or fires. I usually found myself putting on my own music instead. Sound effects are well done though, with construction noises, angry murmurs, police sirens and appropriate sound effects for various objects.

Life without Parole

Added in 1.0 is the Escape mode. Test you will against your own prison.

I do have a few complains about PA, and given that the game recently hit it’s 1.0 status I can now voice these instead of leaving it up to “oh it’s still in beta”. My biggest complaint is that objects are annoyingly hard to place, with some objects only rotating in certain ways, and way to many objects offering no indication of which way they are rotated. This may sound like nit-picking, but imagine The Sims if you weren’t able to rotate your TVs or couches. It makes certain rooms harder then they should be to properly manage, and in some cases can really fuck over designs. CCTV Cameras in particular were a pain to figure out, and thankfully there’s a mod on the Steam Workshop that adds arrows to allow you to properly place these.

There’s other things too, like the occasional issue with path finding that would prevent any work from getting done or causing 120 prisoners to attempt to go through one door because they didn’t realize there was a massive gate 20m to their left. Physics seems to come-and-go as it pleases as workers pass through walls and objects as if they were ghosts.

All told, however, PA is one of the better titles to come out of early access. It’s delivered on all of it’s promises, and provides a huge canvas to test your creativity on. The systems in place all work and with just a little time they’re easy to master. It might not be as deep as Dwarf Fortress, but what it lacks in depth it more then makes up for in pure managerial fun.

Looking at: Denny’s Blog

Caught in the Interweb

Occasionally I take a break from doing game reviews to discuss other things, be it an ill fated election campaign, terrible, horrible ideas, expensive lies, or just weird magazine covers. I do have a review of the recently 1.0’d Prison Architect that I’ll be posting real soon, but in the mean time I received a message on Facebook that sent me down a weird, weird path:

When I get a message like this I need to investigate. Aside from playing/reviewing games, my greatest joy in life is uncovering the worst things mankind hase ever created, be it bad movies, books, or yes, even games. Bad things make me happier because:

1) I believe we can learn more from the bad things then the good; and

2) my life sucks, so seeing shittier things then my life makes me feel good, even for a moment

With that in mind, I clicked the link, wondering to myself “Why would Denny’s, home of the Grand Slam and overall mediocre breakfast food need a blog?”. That question was soon replaced with so, so many more. 

The Madness begins

the very first thing you see. It goes only downhill from here.

The first thing you see when you load up Denny’s blog is a wall of incomprehensible madness. Denny’s has opted to use Tumblr to host their blog. There’s only two things I know about Tumblr, first is that it’s fucking full of moronic feminists and Social Justice Warriors that hate white, straight men. The second thing I know about Tumblr is that it’s layout is a fucking affront to the eyes and completely non-sensical. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, it’s just a random mash of images puked out in a vague grid.

average

Not that the content on offer does anything to help. Denny’s blog seems to be a mishmash of vague and confusing memes, nonsensical images, and bizarre references Denny’s menu items, mostly french fries for some reason.

Fucking explain any of this, I dare you

Give in to the darkness

I stared for 20 minutes, and I still don’t get it.

I’m using screenshots here in the hope that one day someone at Denny’s realizes what a fuck-awful idea this blog was and deletes it. The downside to using screenshots is that it doesn’t convey the absolute fucking madness of all the .gifs on offer. Milkshakes sliding down throats, women applying make-up with french fries, Let’s check in with my friend that initially reported the site to me:

Looking good!

Some of the images on offer were oddly sexual. I’ve had Denny’s before, there’s nothing sexy about their food. The most emotion I’ve ever gleamed from a meal was bursting into tears eating authentic Amish steak on my father’s birthday, nothing near orgasm from sub-par breakfast sausages and syrup-soaked flapjacks.

Some of the images reached Tim and Eric levels of confusing, but where Tim and Eric have mastered surreal humour and made it an art form, Denny’s seems to just be throwing shit, or rather spaghetti, at the wall and hoping it sticks. I honestly can’t tell what was an actual attempt at humour, and what was just nonsensical shitposting.

The memes become to dank, my will to live stripped away

A recent trend in marketing and PR is attempting to subvert youth culture on the internet and use it to sell a product. There are a few issues with this tactic, listed below:

1) It never fucking works, not once.
2) Your company becomes a laughing stock, since most of the internet doesn’t take itself that seriously
3) The people running these campaigns are so completely out of touch, and internet culture moves at a million miles a minute that any campaign is out-of-date the second it begins anyway.

Ignoring all these facts. Denny’s went ahead with their dankest home cooked memes, trying so hard to become relevant.

This image might be their worst idea. The Pepe frog meme has exploded in pop-culture lately, really for no reason other then it’s simple and mailable to fit your needs. Pepe the frog is the bastardization of a comic book character and the unofficial mascot of 4Chan’s Robot 9000 board, an autism awareness board (?). Considering that R9K and Pepe have both been connected to a recent string of school shootings as part of a perceived “beta uprising”, the use of the Pepe imagery comes off as somewhat insensitive. 

God I hope that’s the weirdest paragraph I ever write. 

Denny’s use of word play is approximately on par with my five year old niece. They take a word, make minor changes to it, then say it’s a joke. The difference is my niece is a five year old, and Denny’s is a multi-billion(?) dollar company that, presumably, has an entire PR department making these jokes. The picture above isn’t even wordplay, it’s Senpai, the Japanese word for someone you look up to, but they spelled it like pie the food. You know what? fuck you, because the fucking caption explains that, meaning that they killed their own joke. 

Fuck. 

When not misusing wordplay, there’s stupid jokes about things the internet loves, such as skeletons and, while not pictured, you better believe bacon. This is the saddest attempt at PR I’ve ever seen, the only thing that could be worse is Denny’s asking people to send in funny pictures of themselves at Denny’s

FUCK.

As I give in, I begin to embrace eternity beyond

Fry shadow. Gross.

Denny’s unfortunately isn’t the first company to attempt this type of viral marketing, and they won’t be the last. I’ve only seen this shit work once, and even then it’s arguable, but the strange case of the official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter PR account seems to fly in the face of all logic, but let’s face it, Sonic’s PR couldn’t get any worse then it already was. 

I guess, to their credit, Denny’s attempt at marketing sort of worked, insofar as it got me to look at their content, and I hate them for it. It probably won’t go very far, in fact if I hadn’t been told about it, the whole thing would’ve flown under my radar. But it’s there, and it’s real, and it’s awful.

Looking at: Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Hot Cold War

Ashley Wood;s artwork looks amazing, even in motion.

Ok, full disclosure here: I haven’t beaten PW at the time of this writing. The reason I’m jumping ahead is twofold:
1) Peace Walker is an insane god-beast of a game that never ends, and I just found out I need to do like four hours of grinding to beat the second last boss, never mind proceeding to the final boss; and
2) MGS5 was on sale for 33% and is currently sitting in my Steam library.

I do plan on finishing PW, likely on my Vita so I can take more time and enjoy the side missions, but the fact is I’m tired of playing it in straight sittings, and thanks to MGS5 and Ground Zeros I sort of know how it all ends anyway. Regardless, here’s my review based on the twenty or so hours I did put into the game.

Small Scale Conflict

Despite the PSP’s limitations, detail has been pumped into every facet of the game.

The story of PW returns once again to the cold-war setting that MGS3 had, albeit ten years later in 1974. Naked Snake, now called Big Boss, has formed his own pseudo-nation of mercenaries called the Militaire Sans Frontieres (Soldiers without Borders) and makes a living solving problems for people in need. One such person is a professor of peace from Nicaragua and his student Paz. Paz and the professor implore Snake and his men to save their country from a rouge CIA unit that seeks to destabilize the entirety of Central America, believing that Central America is the key to winning the cold war. Snake agrees, mostly because there are echoes that his former mentor The Boss may be involved.

What follows is one of Metal Gear Solid’s more normal plots, a breath of fresh air after the downright insanity of MGS4, and a return to the simpler form of MGS3. There’s no big ideas at play here, no pan-global conspiracies with different parties, just the good guys, the bad guys, and a nuclear missile.

In a lot of ways, like MGS3, it plays like a misinterpretation of a James Bond film, with infiltrations, damsels in distress, and the occasional full on fire-fight. But it all remains relatively grounded in reality, as long as you can believe that a team of super-scientists could create fully functioning AI weapons in 1974. If you’ve played the rest of the series like I have, that won’t even phase you.

There are some concessions to be made in PW’s story telling, however. The PSP wasn’t capable of the grand, expansive cut-scenes of actual consoles, so instead the story is told through somewhat interactive comic-style movies. The art in these scenes is amazing, thanks to Australian artist Ashley Wood and series artist Yoji Shinkawa’s work. I’ve always admired the use of art in the MGS series, and here it’s presented front and center like an underground comic from the 80’s. There were times that these scenes got annoying, especially any of the QTE’s presented, and two later in the game that damn near broke my poor gamepad’s triangle button, but for the most part they’re great to look at and do a perfect job of telling the story.

Portable Operation

Aiming, like MGS4, is more natural and closer to a traditional third person shooter.

There’s no way I can discuss the gameplay, or graphics, of PW without making one thing abundantly clear: this was not a game meant for it’s original system. The fact is the PSP just wasn’t that great of a console, and in terms of both gameplay and graphics PW is pushing it well beyond it’s limitations. It’s worth noting that I played PW on both the PSP Vita and PS3, the latter of the two being an “HD” version.

On the Vita, at least, the controls were… strange. the original PSP only had one joystick, so the face buttons are used to control the camera. It’s as awkward as you’d expect, even worse then MGS3’s camera. Lining up precision shots became a chore, and it’s only slightly remedied in the PS3 version, which makes use of both joysticks. Other than that controls are kept to a minimum, mirroring MGS1 in many ways. There’s aim, shoot, and interact, and that’s about it. You can’t crawl this time, but crouch-walking is available for extra sneakiness.

The actual gameplay is serviceable, making subtle improvements over MGS3 and learning from MGS4. There’s a camouflage system again, which I promptly ignored since enemy line of sight is hilariously small, once again thanks to the PSP. Sneaking is reasonably easy and I found it no challenge to remain stealthy through most of the missions, removing threats as needed either with a well placed shot or through the easy to use CQC close quarters combat system.

The big change is that this time around there’s a tangible benefit to remaining silent and, more importantly, utilizing a non-lethal weapon. You’re scored after each mission, with higher ranks granting rewards, but that’s not the best part. There’s now a base building meta-game around maintaining Snake’s private army. Incapacitated enemies and captured prisoners can be removed from the fight using a Fulton recovery system, where they’re extracted to your base and put to work, developing new weapons, researching enemy forces, or even fighting battles for cash and weapons. It enhances the game without being too distracting, and it’s all very simple to command through a series of easy to use menus.

Compounding this is a massive laundry list of side objectives, playable either as Snake or or one of your soldiers. There are dozens upon dozens of missions to partake in, miniature bit-size offerings to test your skills and give you cash to upgrade weapons and items back at base. None of them are particularly special, except maybe going on one of video-gaming’s worst dates of all times. These are best enjoyed in short bursts, and reinforce the idea that PW is, all told, a mobile game, meant to be played on a bus trip, or in the back seat of a car.

Graphically PW is… well it’s a PSP game. On the Vita it looks like a PSP game, and on PS3 it looks like a PSP game that someone tried to fix in MSpaint. For the PSP, it’s a great looking game, filled with detail everywhere. But the fact is, it only barely looks better then the original PS1 game, and nowhere near as good as either PS2 game. It’s blocky, awkward, and levels are absolutely tiny. It’s a game straining against it’s own confines, and very easily could have been an absolutely amazing console game.

Last Walk

The Fulton Recovery System, or “attach a balloon to fucking everything”

Peace Walker is a game that, in many ways, shouldn’t have existed. The PSP wasn’t capable of handling it, and some would say didn’t even deserve it. It’s some of Kojima’s best writing, crammed into some of his most awkward gameplay.

Despite all of this, Peace Walker does exist, and in it’s moments that work it feels like a perfectly fine entry into the series. Moreover it does a great job of carrying on Big Boss’ story arc, creating a memorable character and a sympathetic villain for the later games. It’s a great game to play, best enjoyed in short bursts and over a long, long stretch of time.

It’s worth noting here, I just found out there’s a MGS game I missed, called Portable Ops for the PSP, preceding PW both in terms of plot and release. I’ll probably play Portable Ops at some point, but the entire plot was outlined in MGS4, so it won’t be part of my series reviews.

Next up: the latest and greatest game in the series, and one of the greatest games of all time? (I haven’t played it yet, I really don’t know)

images sourced from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAi7xd4YPuY

Looking at: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

End of an Age

Age doesn’t slow Snake down a bit, and he’s still in fighting form.

Jesus fucking christ was that a long game to sit through.

I say “sit through” because the truth of it is, that despite being clocked at about 20 hours long, most of my time with MGS4 was spent in cut scenes, occasionally begging the game to let me play it again. Good god.

Regardless, MGS4 is the last of the Metal Gear games, chronically speaking, and serves as a way to tie up every loose end in the series. Does it succeed, or is this an OP not worth getting prepared for?

Endless War

Snake will routinely fight with companions against Liquid’s insurrection.

MGS4 opens in a world that’s been ravaged by almost constant war, to the point where war is no longer an isolated incident, but the driving force behind the global economy. Private Military Companies now employ millions of personal (the opening scene of the game reveals one company has more men then the combined population of Canada and Mexico) and battles are fought everywhere over anything. All of this is run by a complex system of AI that controls nano-machines in man and machine, making average soldiers super-powered and locking firearms to people’s DNA.

Solid Snake returns to battle, now an old man, much older then he should be. As it turns out, while the FOXDIE virus he was infected with in MGS didn’t kill him, it did accelerate his ageing ten-fold, and despite it only being ten years since the first game Snake now appears in his late seventies.

What follows is an incredibly intense and emotional journey as Snake hunts down Liquid Ocelot, a combination of Liquid Snake and Revolver Ocelot.

Ok, I’ll be honest with you here, this game is fucking insane with it’s story telling and script. Like, clinically insane. Probably best described as bi-polar, or even full on schizophrenic. It’s like MGS4 is trying to be serious, much more serious then the previous games, and at times it goes to some really dark places, particularly Snake dealing with his age, or the various boss’ back-stories. But there’s still a sense of levity everywhere, constantly cracking jokes or doing dumb things. It’s jarring to say the least.

In the end though, this is the most mature story I’ve seen in the series. It’s a story completely and 100% aware of every moving part, even as it introduces new story elements. It wraps up everything, not only from itself, but MGS and MGS2 as well, and leaves nothing untouched. It’s a dark story, dealing with the old VS the new, but it is a story worth listening to, as long as you have the patience.

Electronic Old Men

Drebin and his monkey, providing Snake what he needs, when he needs it.

MGS4’s biggest strength is it’s interesting wheelhouse of characters. Snake himself is probably the most interesting part, and this is the most interesting Snake we’ve ever seen. Not only is he dealing with his failing body, fighting against time, but it serves as a greater metaphor for Snake as a character. He’s an old soldier fighting in a new soldier’s war, and living in a world completely passing him by. It’s an interesting deconstruction of the character, and it makes Snake actually interesting to pay attention to.

Not to say that any of the side characters are less interesting. Most of the cast is returning from the older games, like Meryl, Colonel Campbell, or Otocon. The new characters it introduces are great too, particularly Drebin, your personal gun launderer. All the guns in MGS4 are DNA locked to users, and Drebin can remove this lock, for a fee. More interestingly, he can sell you guns and ammo in the middle of a fight, reducing the need to scavange. Some people will find this distasteful, as it removes most of the need to avoid a fight, but his prices keep everything balanced, and you’ll forget any misgivings when you order the silencer you need just in time.

MGS4 also carries on the series’ tradition of character interaction, jilted and strange though it may be at times. Character talk to each other, and feel like real people with flaws. The relationship between the various characters is the most interesting it’s ever been in the series, be it Snake and Otocon with their adopted daughter Sunny (don’t ask), Meryl finding true love in the middle of a gunfight, or especially Snake and Liquid’s strained and bizarre relationship the reaches a crescendo during the game’s intense finale.

Grab the Popcorn

There is one major complaint I have above everything else in MGS4:

SIX FUCKING HOURS OF CUT SCENES.

True story, MGS4 broke and still holds a record for this, including two specific records: The longest continuous scene at 29 minutes, which itself is part of the longest sequence ever at 79 minutes long.
Simply put, MGS4 is not a game for the impatient, and admittedly I lost my patience with it during the overly long finale.

Most of the scenes are, however, not boring, which is a great far cry from MGS2’s insane Codec conversations. There’s things happening on screen that make watching it worth my time. The 79 minute sequence I talked about above features a great fight scene, and a scene that all but explains the entire game in a way that was interesting. Suffice to say, watching a man destroy an entire battalion of soldiers with his fingers is engaging to see. Even the finale, or at least the first part of it, features one of the most brutal hand-to-hand fights I’ve ever seen in a video game.

But it’s not all great, and there were times where I stopped paying attention just because I wasn’t engaged any more. When you’re sitting there, not doing anything at all for forty minutes it can be hard to remember that MGS4 is classified as a video game for a video game console, something that people usually play.

Sneaking Mission

That’s to bad, because the gameplay in MGS4 is the most refined it’s ever been in the series. First and foremost is the camera. While MGS3 introduced a full 3d camera, that was added later, and it showed. MGS4, however, was built with the ground up, and its smooth and easy to use. Moving snake around too, is better then previous games, including the ability to crouch walk for added sneaking. There’s no more dedicated sneaking controls like MGS3, but the PS3’s controls handle better then the PS2, so it’s not much of a problem.

The other major improvement is shooting. No more using a face button for firing your weapon, rather MGS4 plays like a more traditional shooter, and while the control change was jarring coming from MGS3 it quickly became a pleasant way to play. Aiming and firing a weapon felt good, especially with proper iron sights or scopes on all weapons, and it made combat engaging and fun.

Of course, combat is only necessary if you get caught, and thankfully stealth in MGS4 is at it’s best too. There’s a slew of tools you can use to remain stealthy, from an active camo-suit that changes dynamically to blend into the environment, to various items you can use to distract or knock out guards. All of it controls naturally and feels great to use.

Fading Sun

One of the Beauty and Beast boss battles.

MGS4 came out in 2008, but there’s no doubt that it looks as good, if not better, then later PS3 releases. This is an amazing looking game, pushing the PS3 to it’s absolute limits, and there were times where I forgot that it was animated.

Character models are stunningly good and detailed, from Snake’s aging body, to Raiden’s robotic ninja. Face animation is nearly perfect, making every character expressive and interesting. There’s a million little details in everything, be it the environment, weapons, or characters, and it all looks great. The only problem is that the PS3 can’t seem to keep up with everything all the time, and the framerate was as inconsistent as the story’s tone. It never got to bad, but one scene looked like a slideshow, and another scene would be blazing fast.

Audio, however, never suffers, and it’s the best it’s ever been in the series. The music is amazing and matches every scene  perfectly, creating the perfect mood. There’s even an in-game IPod (as well as a Mac Book. I guess Kojima likes Apple) to allow you to listen to music from the entire series.

Voice acting, and there’s a lot, is great too. The cast is mostly returning from the old games, and they all give a stand out performance. Once again, top spot goes to David Hayer, doing his best work as Old Snake, and I have to imagine he was all but exhausted after all the recording he must have done. All the voice work is great, and the characters all come to life perfectly thanks to it.

Black Out

Liquid Ocelot, a clone of one of the greatest soldiers, in the body of another.

In the end, I did like MGS4. When I got to play it, the gameplay was amazing, and by far the best in the series. Despite the onslaught of cut scenes, more of them were interesting then those that weren’t. And most importantly, it does tie up most, if not all, of the story threads weaved throughout the games. It’s a mature and emotional journey through the past and future that demands patience to get through. I doubt I’ll play it again, but I’m glad I played it through.

Next up: One more challenge from one of hand-held gaming’s best, and a return to the past.

all images sourced from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmNpzP1JKvI