I finished up Far Cry 5 today and how can I put this… every Far Cry game I’ve played has been very dumb in a narrative sense with very dumb but occasionally memorable villains. Far Cry 5 was very dumb for much of the body of the story but at the very end may have accidentally taken a turn towards a better kind of dumb?
So the game is you in Montana having to take out a murderous religious cult that has overtaken a county by taking out the three family members who each rule a third of it before being able to take out the father, those three are all pretty much what you’d expect from a Far Cry game. Before I went on to the final little section for the endgame when wrapping some stuff up I noticed one of the random news reports that plays at times on the radio in the background near people who sell you guns/ammo had something about a terrorist explosion that killed a number of people in Afghanistan which is the first time I really picked up on anything that was said on those broadcasts for obvious topical reasons. I went to the final mission, defeated the leader of this doomsday cult and he starts reciting from the book of revelations about the world launched into shadows and ash while the game makes a point of showing the very blue skies with bird flying idyllically. The sheriff puts the cuffs on him and there is a blinding white flash followed by a mushroom cloud.
The cult guy starts singing Amazing Grace as what else would a Far Cry villain do as you all jump into a jeep and make a run to a fallout shelter you know of from earlier. While this is happening two more bombs explode, the land is engulfed in flame, flaming deer run by and you crash right before you get there. Before you pass out you see the other cop folks dead but are still carried out of the vehicle, waking up handcuffed in the shelter with the guy who owns it dead and the father preaching how his prophecy was proven true, how he should kill you for killing his family but you are all he has left. Credits run, very Far Cry… but.
I appreciate that people expect these games to be playable after the villain is defeated so you can finish lawnmowing the map, so literally nuking it is rather unexpected. More so when I loaded up the save before to take care of the one thing I wanted to wrap up I spawned by a radio that ended with something along the lines of “the joint chiefs of staff were unable to be reached”. It turns out these random news reports that were full of nothing for most of the game, that you will only hear diegetically while walking past people listening to the radio if you don’t take vehicles, are gradually getting more and more alarming yet everyone is so wrapped up with what is happening locally that nothing in the game ever even acknowledges them. I looked online and near the end it was mentioning stuff like the president being moved to an undisclosed location, explosions in Moscow expected to have killed millions and NYC, LA and DC all being in full lockdown and in the least Far Cry move imaginable it was confident enough to not grab you and shout “Look at this, this is important!”
Like it still has several holes if you think about it and I wouldn’t call it well written, but that part felt legitimately well done from the series I’d least expect that to happen in.
I think I am about 16 hours into SMT:Nocturne on Switch now and am enjoying it so far. Hasn’t been all that difficult so far, although I assume it starts to ramp up the further you go. Matador wiped me out pretty quick the first time, but I went back with lots of Force resistance and then kicked his arse no problem. I think Raidou and the monk were a bit touch and go for a few moments but I pulled through fine.
Weirdly the game this reminds me of most is Phantasy Star 2. I think it’s because that game’s weirdly laid back tone despite the heavy themes in the plot gives me vibes of wandering around abandoned shopping malls, and this game is basically a much more literal version of that. The first time in the Amala Network made me think of walking around the Elizabeth Shopping Centre circa 1990 during late night shopping as a kid, which always gave me that weird disorienting sleepy feeling.
Speaking of which, I was playing around midnight last night and starting to feel very tired and suddenly that boss music with the incoherent shouting reminded me very distinctly of that time when I was a kid, and was sitting on the top bunk of the bed and was so sleepy that I went into some kind of trance / dreaming while awake state. Suddenly there seemed to be all these monsters surrounding me, all mocking and shouting at me in voices that sounded something like the boss music, kinda slow and fast at the same time and unintelligible. There was some kind of beam of light, striped like a barber pole and I kept lunging out to try to break it, but it kept merging back together every time. Maybe I should have tried talking to the monsters instead to see if they would join me in exchange for some Macca.
i played a bunch of moto racer 2 and rage racer for ps1
moto racer 2 is excellent, though the framerate is pretty unstable and can get down pretty low (teens?) during busy sections. i’m playing on a slim ps2 so it is possible it actually runs even worse on a real ps1, but the game is still a lot of fun anyway
rage racer is also excellent. the soundtrack is phenomenal!
I’m playing Subnautica: Below Zero. I think this was originally going to be DLC and then became a standalone game? It does feel that way; the early game is extremely similar to the original Subnautica, right down to crafting most of the same technologies, upgrades, base parts, and vehicles. There are new technologies interspersed, and they feel like DLC features – a handheld scanner that helps you find specific minerals, a little ape-escape style remote control robopenguin that can go in small crevices, a jukebox you can collect records for, stuff like that.
The game does have its own full campaign though, and it hits an explore-scan-read-listen-craft rhythm similar to the first game. There’s more of a propulsive story to this one though, and objectives feel a bit more consistently directed. You’re an ex-employee of the dystopian corporation-state from the first game, and you’re investigating their cover-up of the death of your sister. There are actual characters in this game that you can exist in the same room as! Kind of shocking after the hardcore lonely-game vibe of the original. They’re still few and far between though, this ain’t Metroid Prime 3. Writing is decent, certainly a cut above the garbage in the other big game I’ve been playing, Horizon Zero Dawn. I’m still early but there’s been one interesting plot twist I’d like to learn more about.
The main innovations here are: a polar climate (with a temperature meter you have to maintain), and way more on-land traversal. The on-land stuff is fine, but not as engaging as the classic underwater exploration. At least not yet. But I’m about to build a motorcycle so that may change.
Anyway I guess I’m making this all sound a little underwhelming, but here’s the thing – Subnautica rules. It’s my favorite survival/crafting game by a long shot. This is basically just more Subnautica, and that is A-OK in my book. I’m having a blast with it.
Been devouring Sega Picross — by that I mean that I’ve finished all of the normal, color, and clip picross puzzles. All that remain are the Mega Picross puzzles, which tbqh I’m not too excited about (says the person who’s done a third of them already). The weird multi-row clues are very fun to work with, but I’m not exactly the biggest fan of all the puzzles being recycled from the normal picross mode.
Played Quake MP for the first time today. Saw someone spawn and immediately get gibbed by rockets flying in from multiple directions, it was hilarious.
My children were simultaneously bogarting the PC and the PS4 so I went down to the basement where the fat PS3 is chained to the wall. Haven’t got DQ7 yet so for lack of anything better to do and wanting a short experience before child-bedtime I fired up Journey.
I guess there has been a lot of reevaluation of this game in the past few years and a new reconsideration of it as a kind of empty middlebrow IGF award grab type of thing, but sorry, it’s still great. It still looks and sounds beautiful. The mechanics are simple, the guy controls very smoothly, and there are NO WORDS ANYWHERE, a great and easily overlooked mercy in this our modern age. The game that spawned a million indies but it’s still better than all of them imo. If you want to see the version of this game that actually sucks, check out Rime.
More Streets of Rage 4! This time four player local co-op. I had a bit of an impromptu party yesterday as I’m like the only person in my friendsgroup with electricity right now thanks to Ida. We wore masks. We played stupid card games. I gave a friend ten gallons of water because she has no water pressure at home.
Finally finished Dark Souls III + DLC, think it came out near the release of Bloodborne, so I was kind of exhausted by Souls at that point. It’s probably my favorite Souls in the series but I’d have to replay the others to be sure. I think there’s less emphasis on turtling in this one but it’s still also the best way to take-on most enemies.
Also still has the problem of not being incentivized to use 90% of the weapons/armor you find because they’re either underleveled or you’ve invested resources in other weapons and you might as well continue with what you have.
Which sucks, because the weapon arts are cool in this game but maybe geared more towards the pvp crowd.
I’ve sort of fallen off of Pokemon Sword. I was having a good time, then a few weeks passed where I didn’t really have time to sit and play for a few hours at a clip, and now… I’m not sure I want to keep playing. If I sit down and just play it maybe I’ll get back into it.
Finished Psychonauts 2 and the sense that they were inspired by Curse of Monkey Island becomes a lot more explicit at the end. The final level is a homage Monkey Island 3’s ending sequence.
Ultimately, I don’t regret playing the game purely because of the art direction. Start to finish the game is packed with creative design elements, everyone involved on the art side of this game went above and beyond.
It’s just such a shame there is very little creativity in the actual game part of this video game. This is not an adventure game, this is a visual novel crossed with a light platformer. The player is never challenged even in the late part of the game - the platforming is sedate, the action elements are tedious (especially once you realize pyro is ridiculously overpowered). It is 2021 and almost every level repeats the same N64 3D platformer structure of “linear intro to world, complete 3 spokes off hub to get mcguffins, then defeat large boss in a circular combat area by hitting them in the weak spot 3 times”. It’s particularly bizarre how overdesigned parts of the massive hubworld are in comparison to the underdesigned levels.
I imagine the art design came first and that drove the game design, as opposed to building levels around game mechanics. As I complained about earlier, their priorities were clearly telling a story and creating visuals. I can’t fault them for it (they succeed in 1 of the 2), but at that point they should recognize how weak the game elements are and cut them down to the minimum.
I am really enjoying Psychnauts 2 for the time being and seeing all this criticism against I fear it is turning me into an apologist. I guess I knew going in that Psychonauts wasn’t going to be a great platformer, but it probably would be a great theme park attraction to bounce around in while laughing at visual gags. And it has been like that for me in my time with it, while also being impressively more ambitious with its storytelling and with the treatment of its characters. I thought that the arc which started with Raz turning Hollis into a gambler with manipulative psychic powers resolved so nicely and was really quite funny. I don’t know. Monkey Island 3 is my favorite Monkey Island so I am just really enjoying myself and can’t seem to care that much about the fact that the combat is not refined or the platforming isn’t inspired like Super Mario 64.
It would have been interesting either way if Psychonauts (The First) were available on more than the PC and old consoles so that people could go back and check their impressions of it. That might have helped people sort out their nostalgia or their angle on approach to the sequel. It would be a revelation either way for some people if they could easily go back and see, Ah, Psychonauts Was Always Like This. And it’s just weird how it isn’t super available for people to play, like that would have been the thing to do in the run up to a sequel right?
Visual Novel Crossed with light platformer isn’t…bad though. That puts the focus on the writing, art direction, voice acting, and music and…all that is excellent.
The game does do some neat stuff with the interactive segments and how they tie in with the pacing and presentation of the narrative, too. The platforming sequences might not be groundbreaking or difficult, but they thoughtfully integrate with the narrative enough I really, really, didn’t mind it.
I guess I’m not sure why ‘visual novel with jumping’ is a bad thing anyway?
I can only speak to the original Psychonauts and other Double Fine games, but building a game on a set of genre mechanics and then purposefully not raising them above mediocre leaves a game incomplete. It might end up a pleasant game, and a good game, but will never be a great game if it’s using its core mechanics as…edible plates.
Is the platforming enriching the story, deepening the connection to the themes and meaning? Or is it just a tool to take up time and fingertips while art and writing streams past? I’m not satisfied with the latter.
I think a visual novel or classic adventure game template, on the other hand, can succeed without challenge because it has stripped away irrelevant game mechanics and left only what services the storytelling. And I think we judge the puzzles in classic point-and-click adventures by how they service the main themes; when they’re well-gauged they are an abstract way of putting the player in the protagonist’s shoes. When they’re poorly messaged and tuned, or the game uses them perfunctorily because it wants to get back to storytelling mode, they break away from the core values of the game and should have been removed.
It’s actually on Xbox One and PS4 in their backwards compat libraries. It’s actually on Gamepass too which is how I played it most recently in the few months before release.
