Payday 2: I like you guys too

Welcome to Payday 2

I've been playing this a shit ton over the last few months.  I've been playing with my good friend Kira, that's her mask... the amount of comments we get it rather absurd and I love it.

Payday 2 represents something absolutely wonderful in the gaming world, a good community.  I'm a recluse, I dislike people in a general sense and let's be really honest here, the multiplayer world of gaming is fucking god awful and I hate them.

The Payday 2 community is absolutely lovely.  I can't stand to play with pub scrubs in any other game, but I will go out of my way to boot up Payday 2 to meet new people.

I don't really know how to describe Payday 2.  Lot's of people have played some form of the 4 player coop game genre.  It may be Left 4 Dead, it may be Alien Swarm (please play this game,it's lonely right now), but you've never met these people.  Let me explain as simply as I can, even the hackers are nice.  Yep, they're awesome.

Smells like profit

Payday 2 is an inherently flawed game, there's no getting around it.  There's no denying that there are good builds and there are terrible game builds.  You can respec, so that's nice.  But it's so god damn endearing and engaging that the balance issues don't really bother me.

You get to spec two skill trees on your way to level 100, there's some good combos, there's some bad combos and there's a couple of skill trees that if you don't spec one specific skill people won't like you.

I'm not going to speak in all caps again but please infer the excitement I feel for this game.  It's horribly balanced, has really odd AI with some really odd reasoning behind they're actions but holy shit, I've rarely felt such a sense of achievement from a game.  Landing on Mun might be the closest I can get.

There is no feeling in the gaming world better than pulling off a Pro Job flawlessly with some of your new closet friends.  I started playing this game with 14 friends on my friends list, I now have 32 and I love them.  There's this massive bond of brotherhood you form with your fellow heisters as your chug your way through the missions.

There's moments in this game that define you, shape you, make you feel like a team player.  There will be a point in your heists where you will "Go loud", this means that you're going to take the bank or store by force.  This involves a series of extremely choreographed moves, you need someone or two people on guards to answer their pagers, you need someone on crowd control you need someone on pedestrians, you need the situation under control and if a single person fails it's all over.  And the absolutely amazing part is, this goes off well, frequently.

Those guards are down and taken care of, two flawless headshots in a move cycle.  The person on the crowd chimes in with "All good on the floor, How's outside?" Ready to ditch and run to assist.  The two on the guards VoIP with  "All set, who's got the drill?"

I'm serious, this is a normal regular game with public game randoms.  Even better is the feeling when it all goes to shit, which it does often and a stranger's voice over the the VoIP says, "Okay, we'll hold up here, get those medkits down, we're going to need ammo, watch for the specials and focus on getting everyone up."

The whole game goes to shit on a really regular basis and everyone just roles with it.  I've never met a better set of people in random games than Payday 2.  They're just so accepting of fuck ups.  Maybe you missed a pager because the guard slides down a set of stairs, it's happened to the best of us, maybe you didn't notice that pedestrian outside before they called the cops, this shit this happens, and people realize it happens, I've made a lot of my Steam friends through this scenarios

And the most wonderful part, is that a number of hours into the game you will become that person. I wish I could add this game to my CV as "Leadership Experience"  I have become the calm voice on the other end of the microphone.  "We can do this, we need medic kits and ammo dropped.  Who has the most powerful weapons?  Let us know if you're getting low, I have the perk for armor piecing on my pistol so get primary ammo first."

Get a bit of sun

Now, here's where I'm going to talk about the shit.  There's unfortunately a lot of it.  The game is good but not because of it's mechanics.  There's a ton to be frustrated about.  For the biggest example, you can't restart any heist at any point without mods.  So my friend Kira and I got really fucking good at suiciding to restart because as soon as everyone's down you can restart the day with no penalty.  If you install HoxHUD you can restart, but it's technically a hack,

And the hackers are abound.  They're actually rather nice, which is something very rare.  The Hackers with grant you a huge amount of money and allow you to complete super difficult heists with no challenge what so ever    They'll generally tell you that they're hackers and don't hold a grudge if you kick them.  I managed to get all my achievements via legit means by kicking hackers at their request (not to brag but I've done Pro Job Framing Frame on the hardest difficulty, #humblebrag)

But honestly there's not even close to enough flaws to not recommend this game.  It feels so good to play and win.  And as a huge salute to Overkill because when you download their DLC it just means you can "start" that new heist, but the ability to join that DLC heist in not restricted.   That means I can experience the new heist with my friend who bought the DLC with no restriction.  I can try out the new DLC before I buy it.  The weapon DLCs aren't so forgiving but there's enough people with them that it doesn't matter.

I won't ask you to buy this game, I'll ask you to join the community because it's amazing, it gives me hope for games in the future having at least half as good of a community, I love you guys.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengence: That's not a real word

I have a new job.  A real one, with health insurance and all that good shit.  The bad part is that holy shit have I been exhausted.  I really haven't been motivated to write much recently.  This has changed.  I played Metal Gear Rising: Revengence.  Yep.  Yeah. 


HOLY FUCKING SHIT HAVE YOU PLAYED THIS GAME!? 

Go, now, pay all the money for it, now.  Stop reading, right now, get the credit card out, tell the kids you're eating ramen for the next two weeks, go buy it.  Have you bought it? No? Go fucking buy it.

Okay now I'll tell you about the game. 

I love the Japanese Action genere, like way too much than is healthy.  Devil May Cry 4 is seriously in my top 10 games ever.  I know the story sucks, I know the characters suck, I love it so very, very much.  Action games are now being aware that they're satire and I love it.

So why should you actually play this game?  Well there's several reasons.  Reason 1, you like Metal Gear Solid.  If you've played them all the number of references will keep you going.  Reason 2, you were pissed about Raiden being the main character of Metal Gear Solid 2.  Reason 3, you like technical action games.  Reason 4, you enjoy a good spectical.

If you go into this game expecting a compelling storyline, deep characters, realism, character development, or realism, you're going to hate this game.  If you have the ability to shut your brain off and tap into your inner 10 year old then holy shit is this the game for you.

It seems like every time I get tired of gaming I'll find something that sucks me back in.  Let me paint you a picture.  A young Jack, that's me, the main character's name is not lost on me, was watching his older brother's friend grind out Metal Gear Solid one Sunday morning in 1999.  It blew my 10 year old mind.  Cut to two years later, I have acquired a windows copy of Metal Gear Solid (yes, they really did make a PC version) back when you could just copy CDs.  Blasting it out on my 266MHz Pentium II.  I played through it 20 times, minimum.  It was one of the key reasons for me buying a PS1 when I finally had the money.  My copy of Metal Gear Solid is still sitting 20 feet from me on a shelf.  Metal Gear Solid 2 was the reason I bought a PS2, that and Final Fantasy.  And honestly I didn't hate Raiden.  Hear me out now, his character development is way better than Solid Snake.  Snake's betrayer was real, but Raiden's was much more complete.  While I loved MGS 3 very much, it doesn't really apply, still amazing though.

So here we are, we have literally the worst setup ever.  Metal Gear game not 100% cannon, pass.  Raiden is the focus again, pass.  You basically play as Grey Fox in a world with guns, pass. 

So why would I pay money for this game, a game, I might add, that takes up 50 fucking gigs of hard drive space?  I heard it was good from people I respect and it was the right price. 

Warning:  the rest of the review is going to be in caps.  Because there's literally no other way to discuss this game.  You have been warned.

 

DO YOU SEE THIS SHIT!?  I'M RUNNING DOWN A FUCKING BUILDING CHOPPING MY WAY THROUGH SHIT WITH MY SUPER KATANA THAT CAN SLICE THROUGH ANYTHING.

ARE YOU READY TO COMMAND A SUPER CYBORG WITH THE BEST SWORD EVER!?   THERE'S A MODE IN THIS GAME THAT YOU CAN SLICE SHIT INTO AS MANY PIECES AS YOU CAN HANDLE.  THERE'S A FUCKING COUNTER TO FIND OUT HOW MANY PIECES YOUR SLICED THAT ASSHOLE INTO.

I LITERALLY RIPED A MINI METAL GEAR'S DICK OFF, SLID UNDER HIM AND SLICED HIM INTO 680 PIECES, I KNOW THIS BECAUSE THE GAME FUCKING COUNTS THAT SHIT!

YOU WANT DEPTH OF COMBAT!?  THE FUCKING PARRY SYSTEM WILL CAUSE YOU TO GROW A FUCKING BEARD IN SECONDS! YOU'LL BE A FUCKING MAN 30 SECONDS INTO THE GAME!  NAIL THAT PARRY SHIT AND TIME STOPS SO YOU CAN SLICE YOUR ENEMY OPEN AND RIP HIS FUCKING SPINE OUT TO REFILL YOUR ENERGY!  THE MAIN MECHANIC OF HEALTH AND POWER INT HE GAME IS RIPPING OUT CYBORG'S FUCKING SPINES OUT AND CRUSHING THEM IN YOUR ROBOT FIST!  YOU SEE THIS CHICK RIGHT HERE?

 

SHE HAS 12 FUCKING ARMS AND WHEN YOU BEAT HER, HER SEVERED HEAD TALKS TO YOU AND YOU PUT THOSE ARMS TOGETHER HOLDING SUPER KNIVES INTO A GIANT SPEAR MADE OF FUCKING CARBON FIBER ARMS! A SPEAR MADE OUT OF FUCKING ARMS!  AND IT FUCKING OWNS SO MUCH FUCKING ASS YOU'LL BLOW A LOAD!

YOU WANT FUCKING PRETTY!?  THIS GAME WILL BLOW YOU LIVER OUT YOUR ASS!  IT'S SO FUCKING PRETTY.

AND IT RUNS LIKE A FUCKING CHAMP!  FUCKING 60FPS WITHOUT SHAKING A FUCKING BUDGE!

I WAS SO FUCKING AMPED ABOUT THIS GAME THAT IT FINISHED DOWNLOADING AT 2 AM AND I WENT TO BED AT FUCKING NOON THE NEXT DAY BECAUSE I WAS SO FUCKING AMPED I COULDN'T BE BOTHERED TO SLEEP!  I HAD TO CHOP THOSE FUCKS INTO TWENTY BILLION PIECES, SO MANY PIECES THE FRAME RATE WOULD DROP ONCE I HIT OVER 2000 BECAUSE THERE'S SO MANY FUCKING PIECES TO RENDER!

BUY THIS GAME RIGHT THIS FUCKING SECOND AND BLAST ROCKETS AT MINI METAL GEARS AND THEN RIPE THEIR DICKS OFF AND CHOP THEM TO PIECES WITH YOUR PHYSICS DEFYING KATANA.

I'm going to stop the caps here because it's exhausting to type that way.  But the game is seriously amazing.  Turn your brain off, become 10 again and enjoy what you're playing.  It's frustrating in the best possible way, with a super high skill cap.  I played with a controller for the last bit but int he beginning I played on mouse and keyboard and it was just fine.  I'm actually rather impressed how well it controls with the keyboard.  The port is fine as far as I can tell.  It's such a nice departure in the action game genre.  It's not serious, the storyline is insanely contrived, the characters and interactions are terrible in the best way you can imagine.  But I have not have this much fun in a long time.  I
 was so excited to play it the whole way through.  And I was not disappointed.  If you're even remotely interested in Metal Gear Solid or the action genre in general you owe it to play this self-aware departure.  Play it now.

Wolfenstein: The New Order

I can't tell you how much I wanted to title "Wolfenstein: The New Order: I did 'Nazi' this coming", but then I thought I better not, but now I get to put it in anyways while still looking like I didn't, stuff they don't teach you in journalism school (not that I went to one).

This was a surprise.  I took the news of "There's going to be a new Wolfenstein game" pretty much with no reaction.  The last one that came out in 2009 simply called "Wolfenstein" presumably to make googling anything about the game damn near impossible, was not great.  It was a pretty meh shooter.  But then I heard Bethesda was making it, and I got a little more interested, then I heard that they finally sorted out the iD Tech 5 engine, then I heard there wouldn't be a separate release date for PC.  And when the game came out, and people whose opinions I respected said that it was good, then it came up on the steam summer sale and I said fuck it, I'll buy it.

And I'm very glad I did.  But first, the tech side of things.  As I've mentioned before, my computer is not insane.  I built it 6 years ago and didn't go all out on a graphics card then.  Its not a bad card and I have put it through more shit than it probably deserved.  As a result, I'm always a bit concerned that new games won't have a stable frame rate and because it's the iD Tech 5, notorious for bringing even the best cards to their knees.  When I start up a new game I usually just start it, watch the frame rate jump between 35-45 on the settings the game chose for me which are always wrong and then I lower the AA, turn down shadow resolution and it'll sit at 60 from then on.  But fuck me if the game didn't pick them right off the bat, this game ran amazingly.  It gets fast and heavy a lot but that framerate didn't budge a frame.  And I know this because FRAPS was running because I have grown weary of Steam's screen shot system, but for some unknown reason it insists on putting it's overlay in the screenshots.  I guess life's pretty good if my current biggest worry is the framerate being in my screenshots BUT THAT DOESN'T STOP IT FROM BEING ANNOYING!  So half the screenshots have them in there, try not to stare.

But that long ass story was basically to explain that this game is amazing visually and runs like a champ even on older hardware.

Yes, I know it says lower than 60fps, but screenshots tend to lag when to take them

And while my computer sounded like a jet engine reving up, it managed to not use 100% GPU the whole time, so that was nice.

Now I'm going to complain, but first I'm going to confused the hell out of you.  As I mentioned in previous posts, I play games on the hardest difficulty possible these days, and it's because I'm better than you.  In reality it's tough for me to care if there's not a real obstacle to get over.  So I played it on Uber.

And here's where it gets confusing, the game was still way too easy, but I say that after having died 95 times.  The difficulty is insanely inconsistent.  The combat is broken into two distinct ideas.  A building or area with somewhat confined movement with patrolling guards that you can stealth or just shoot your way through, and this is the bulk of the game and it's incredibly easy.  The guns feel really nice, but a single headshot from any gun will take out the standard nazi.  And even if you miss, it's somewhat trivially easy to just mow people down.  But the reason for my 95 deaths was the other type of combat.  Every now and then you get placed in a room and they send waves of enemies at you, some of which are much stronger and heavily armored than the ones previous.  There's not an easy way to take some of them out, even if you outsmart them.  So it turns into a grind where you just have to run through and memorize enemy spawn locations and get lucky.  A few times this demotivated me to such an extent that I would stop playing for a while.  This is not fun difficulty, this is the worst kind.  I never did turn down the difficulty though at times it was incredibly tempting.

I could do an entire post explaining my views of games from the slant of game theory, but it basically boils down like this.  Difficulty should be dependant on player skill + situational ease and should not be dependant on surprise or an arbitrary assumption of player skill.  Since I managed to put together a whole sentence that doesn't actually say anything, basically difficulty is good when it tests you over what you know and is bad when it tests you on what you don't.  For example, a boss fight in Dark Souls tests you on your ability to read attacks, dodge effectively and balance defense and offense, on the contrary TNO often tests how well you can pick a spot that won't have an enemy spawn behind you or how often the RNG on the enemy shotgun spray decides to screw you over.  The difficulty balance is all wonky in this game because there's often no chance of reading the situation and reacting accordingly because of arbitrary reasons.  The game's difficult to be sure, but in anti-fun ways.

And now come the accolades, and there's a lot.  Story sucks in most shooters, because it's not important, at least to most people.  Spec Ops: The Line and FarCry 3 are the exception amongst a sea of shit.  Shooters don't get popular because of their story and it's soul crushing to me because I've seen it done well.  Your trigger finger in shooters often feels too light, it's too easy when it doesn't carry weight.

Most of the people in my life would probably call me cold and stoic, maybe not in such harsh terms but for the most part it's true.  I'm not a crier and have been called "heartless" on more than once occasion.  TNO shook me.  It's not a happy game, it'll trick you, at times into thinking it is, but there's a time where the game just starts piling it on and it doesn't stop.  The characters are incredibly human and the writing is truly astounding.  I usually don't mind "terrible" voice acting too much but I fear that might be broken, it's impressive to see what truly good voice acting can do.  I'm not sure if it will effect people like it did me because I have somewhat of a history with some of the subject matter, but I actually had to stop playing for a bit because my screen was getting too blurry to shoot nazis.

Basically just play it.  It's not perfect, it's got a lot of problems, but this is important to the genre.  It has enough good ideas to really show what's possible.  A gruff, built as fuck alpha male with cheesy lines that's well written, the themes are cliche but the writing is astounding, the gameplay is generic but is just plain old fun, the story hurts but it's beautifully done.  It's a perfectly broken game and I was totally surprised.

Now for all the spoiler free screenshots I got, there's not a lot.

I'm sure this is a fallout reference

Star Wars Games: May the Pandering Be With You

I completely forgot that May 4th is some sort of fan-made holiday and honestly picked up these games because they were on sale.  Now, important to state, I actually own both the games as physical copies.  Jedi Outcast is still sitting in it's jewel case in my parent's basement and I swear Force Unleashed is around here somewhere, but I'm a sucker for digital copies. And Jedi Outcast is a fucking pain in the ass to get working on modern systems, so this is a big step up.  What I'm getting at is that these are second opinions, in Jedi Outcast's case, might be 15th opinion, I can't describe how much I played that game when it came out.  And in second addition, I played Jedi Outcast with a "mod", but in my opinion, which I will make adamantly clear, is that I feel, beyond any reason of doubt, that this "mod" is the way the game was meant to be played.

Enough delay, here's the post mortem.

For some incredibly strange reason, EVGA's on-screen FPS monitor shows up in my Jedi Outcast screen shots.  I have this thing running on every game I play, why it showed up in these and only these, I haven't a fucking clue.

For those of you who don't know this game, and I pity you, truly, the full extended title of this game would be Dark Forces 3: Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast.  Dark Forces started as a doom-esce fps based in the Star Wars Extended Universe and follows the life and times of a one Kyle Katarn, mercenary and all around badass.  They are incredibly well loved by their fan base and are generally regarded as the best Star Wars game series.

The Dark Forces series has always been, well, rather dark.  Quite a lot of the series exists post Return of the Jedi in the rebuilding of the republic.  In the second game, Mr. Kartarn finds a lightsaber belonging to his father and becomes a Jedi.  But, as is such in the Extended Universe and why this game and it's protagonist are so well received is it is such a vast departure from the structure and rules of Jedi past.  Kyle Katarn is not a Jedi, he's a mercenary with a lightsaber and force powers and  uses them to tear through imperials with reckless abandon for Jedi tenants.

But enough backstory, Jedi Outcast.  I mentioned I played with a "mod" and the reason I keep putting that in quotes is this "mod" is in the actual game files.  Some of you have guessed it, others haven't a clue, I played with lightsaber dismemberment on.

Remember in A New Hope when Obi-Wan slices off that... thing's arm off in the bar and then they somehow avoid how swords made out of pure energy would be able to effortlessly slice people in half for the rest of the trilogy?  Well typing in two console commands turns that on full-bore in Jedi Outcast.  This is all in the game, the severed heads, torsos, limbs are all textured properly and have proper physics.  I can only guess, but I'm damn near certain this was how the game was supposed to be, but the ESRB would have branded it M or, god fucking forbid, Ao and it would have ruined sales.  But turning it on changes more about the game than just a little extra gore.

I must have missed it when I was younger, but fucking hell is this game dark.  I won't spoil it because jesus go play this game already, but the entire motivation for Kyle is plain, pure, hateful revenge.  You turn on lightsaber dismemberment and you watch as Kyle coldly and without a second thought slices hundreds of people into pieces in the name of vengeance.

I feel one of the biggest reasons Kyle's character is so well received is because he seems to be the only "human" Jedi.  If you had a lightsaber, force powers and the same motivation, this is what you'd do.

The game holds up a lot better than I expected.  It looks dated, sure, and the most obvious part is level design, it shows it's era rather plainly.  But there's some modern options, and while I did have to change the resolution and FOV in the .config, it's still fairly impressive in a lot of aspects.  The character models are still rather nice, the lightsaber looks proper and glows nicely, and the weld marks on the walls still make me smile.

And while you don't have a lightsaber the whole game, the FPS sections are pretty well put together.  The guns remain useful even after the lightsaber is acquired and they're actually rather varied and fun to play with.  The game is also at least an order of magnitude harder than I thought/remembered it to be.  The hardest difficultly is actually hard.  Health is pretty scarce and while you do get the ability to heal yourself with the force, it carried a pretty steep penalty.  The gameplay has a wonderful flow to it.  The force powers are useful, but require some planning and restraint when using them so you don't burn through your force meter too quickly.  It's just polished to a mirror sheen.  The game just exudes quality in all aspects.  And while you can feel some of the limitations of the engine and the time, it shows real, concentrated effort to make it good.

Like I said, dark

But there's another game I played this week.  I was doing some looking and aside from a few niche indie titles I picked up in bundle sales, this next game has the lowest MetaCritic score of any AAA title in my library.  That is the infamous, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

I think it's criticism is without merit.  There I said it.

I honestly, truly, wholeheartedly, really like this game.  This gig is pretty easy most of the time.  Ratatouille said it in the most eloquent way I can think of.  The life of a critic is an easy one, people off up their hard work and pride as we sit in judgment.  In reality, our criticism is probably worth less than the paper it's printed on.  It only becomes a trying affair when we come in defense of the new.

So here is me, telling you a poorly received game is good, that a universally panned game is worth your time and money.

Admittedly, the Force Unleashed had a lot to live up to.  It's Euphoria engine for it's AI was a tech demo to put others to shame.  There was so much press surrounding it and a lot of people feel it failed to live up to those expectations.

A lot of people just wanted Jedi Knight 4, Jedi Knight 3 being Jedi Academy, a somewhat slump but overall solid game.  What they got, instead was Devil May Cry: Star Wars, and people hated it.  I actually love it.

God this game is pretty.  It came out in 2008 and still  manages to have graphics with such polish and variety that I was still excited to see it all again.  Now it does the DMC4 thing with having you repeat environments, but they're still different the second time around.  You're not backtracking through the exact same thing, the tileset is the same, but not the levels.

This is a console port, so grab your controller, I have no experience with the keyboard and mouse and maybe they work, but controller is good.  The controls are right and make sense.  The movement with force grip takes a level or two to get a hold of but it works just fine.

The quicktime events can be somewhat annoying but gamers kind of need to make a choice, either the finishers are really awesome to watch, or you get rid of quicktime events.  You can't really put a huge number of crazy controls in the game just for the sake of not having a quicktime event to slice a fucking AT-ST in half.

There's a rather amazing amount of collectables in the game that allow for some nice customization.  I can't describe how much time I spent customizing my saber color and crystals in KOTOR and it's sequel so having the opportunity to do so in another game is a big selling point.  And the colors, while familiar, have twists to them.  Compressed and unstable crystals change the blade texture in really interesting ways.  And holy mother of god is the black saber crystal awesome.

The collection is slightly annoying, but just pull up a holicron walkthrough and play the game normally aside from following that, it's not that intrusive.

But the combat, the setting and the story are really well done.  Not often do we get the dark side perspective on things and the way this one sits between episode three and four provides a really interesting perspective on the whole thing.

The game's save system also adds a bit to it's replayability.  Your powers, combos and stats carry over with the file, but at any point you can go back to any level with your stats saved and grab missed holicrons or just massacre people with your supped up character.  It's rare in star wars games to feel truly powerful and this game captures that rather well.  Costumes change every level, without fail and they're amazingly well done.  Every texture is thought out and has something to do with the setting you're in and the planet and it's climate.  When you're in the junkyard, you have protective gear and in the the hot jungle, you have light armor.  Characters in most games are lucky to get one change, let alone 10+.  And if you don't like it, you can change it.  Once it's unlocked, you can just switch it, just like your saber color and composition.

Without the hype and without it, in fan's eyes, attempting to take Jedi Knight's throne, I feel this game would have been very well received, but a perfect storm was brewing and it sits in the limbo of a 65 metacritic score, but with 100% completion in my steam library after one day of play, that I didn't stop, today was Force Unleashed day, and I loved every second.

Your Main Character Sucks

An all text post, you should be excited.

I stopped gaming for a little while as I mentioned in my previous post.  I felt like I was getting too far removed from why I wanted to write about video games in general.  The reason why I started writing was because I'm a jaded, old, asshole who knows better than you.  I grew up in an admittedly golden age of gaming.  I know this sounds like the start of a "only 90s kids" post, but that's a bit how this works.  I was just on the backend of the NES and right at the forefront of the SNES.  Admittedly there were some great games for the NES, but the SNES/Genesis game era is of note because of limitations.

The NES era was great despite it's limitations and the SNES era was great because of it's limitations.  Now don't get ahead of me now.  The NES brought the first well controlled games to the scene, but their design was limited.  If you're doubting me, go back and play the original Mario game.  The controls are as good as they ever will be, but the graphics and palate limitations are incredibly present.  This is what I mean "despite", MegaMan, Metroid, everything, you can feel the leash on them.  They're stellar games to be sure, but that "What if" is ever present.

This is where the SNES era shines.  16bit 2D graphics are astounding, truly.  So much so that people still create pixel art from the era.  The SNES games still had limitations, but the beauty was that this enhanced games.  You can't have graphics or multiplayer as a driver, so where do you go?  Story and polish.  Is there a single, non-knockoff/movie tie in, that isn't excellent?  At least in some way?  We're going to go case study on this, because the SNES library is vastly too large to tackle all at once.  And I'm talking about the SNES because I had one.  The Genesis was great in it's own right, but there's very few games that weren't superior on the SNES.

First case study, that of character, story and gameplay, is The Secret of Mana.  The main character, The Kid, is exactly as blank as he needs to be.  This is your adventure,  a blank slate works very well provided it's blank enough.  By all accounts, this game is excellent.  But it becomes rather tough to explain why.  Sure the controls are good, and the combat is different, but the extreme amount of polish and the truly blank slate of a character.  The story was something to be experienced and acted out by yourself.  This is a good RPG boiler plate to mold games after.

Second case study, that of predefined characters, motivation and character development falls onto the shoulders of Final Fantasy 6, or Final Fantasy 3 depending on who you are and where you live.

Is there really anything that needs to be introduced in this game?  There's people to this very day that claim this to be the end all be all of Final Fantasy and it's a downhill ride from here.  I disagree, but I can see the praise.  This is exactly what I'm talking about with limitations.  You have 16 bit sprites, but they all look distinct, different and just exude character.  You can't have the hardware carry you, so you make a set of incredibly vivid characters that blast away everything you've ever known about RPGs up until that point.  Have you played this game?  There is no amount of words that can convey the level of thought, care, and planning that went into this.  Everything is expertly crafted because it has to be.  It needs to standout among identical looking games, this is the shine of limitations.

Third case study, control, design, innovation, pacing, is Yoshi's Island

This is the greatest platformer ever made.  Shut it, I can already hear you saying, "But what about Donkey Kong Country X?" Don't care, this is it.  Tight does not do this game's control justice.  It's the gold standard and will probably remain so into the future.  There is not debate as far as I'm concerned.

But this is a product of upbringing.  This is innovation due to limitations.  You can't have flashy 3D platforming, this is the SNES.  Everything about this game is precisely what I'm trying to convey.  The graphics are astounding and timeless.  The controls could not be better and variety and letting the player learn is without match.  Every single level is different, with different enemies with different strategies and there is no game that does progression better.  This game is extremely difficult, but you'll never notice.  The skills that you naturally pick up matches up perfectly to the game.  Beat the game and start again if you don't believe me.  And the visuals, this is the end all be all of 16 bit graphics, it doesn't get any better.


Now why, why did I make you read all of this shit about limitations and what the fuck does that title have to do with anything?  Well, I've spent the last week playing Final Fantasy 12.  And I'm going to spend the next few paragraphs tearing this game a new asshole while praising it as a great game.  Shit's going to be fun.

Now, a quick aside, I played this time through on an emulator.  Before you get all up in arms about me pirating stuff, I played it on an emulator reading from my game disk, the game disk I bought on day 1 with the metal "Collector's Edition" case and everything.  I love the Final Fantasy series more than any other gaming series and the FFVII meteor logo is the only thing I've ever even considered tattooing on myself.  This is my favorite game series and I did it proper.  The reason I played it on an emulator is the only TV in my house is in my bedroom and my desk chair is comfy as hell and I can play it while my SO is sleeping this way.

FFXII might be the most hated in the series.  And the whole reason for this can be tracked down to a single, focal reason, Vaan.

Real talk, I fucking HATE Vaan-----'s character model.  Yep, that's it.  I hate his ingame model.  But here's the really, really, REALLY, unfortunate part, that's all that matters.

Take a step back, way back.  Look at the story of FFXII, look at the characters, look at the setting.  This is, truly, a fantastic game.  The story is dark beyond all reason.  It's filled with political corruption, occupied lands, refugees, corrupt officials, personal growth, dealing with grief, this shit is heavy.

The characters are scarily real.  A street rat with no family, killed before their time, an orphan, a seemingly selfish pirate, a mysterious  outlander, a disgraced military captain, a dead princess working with the rebels, a looser band of misfits I've never seen.  But not a single one seems as they appear.

The story, oh god, the story.  It's fantastic.  When I was younger it was honestly lost on me, but now, the threads run deeper than you'd imagine.  There's weapons of mass destruction, there's stakes, there's people.

But you want to know the sad fact?  Not a damn bit of this matters because Vaan's character model is so fucking horrendous.  People despise this game and I get it.  Here's how you fix this, in one go, with not but a single change to the story, you make Recks the main character.  The main character makes the game.  You can have an underdog as the main, but don't model him like Vaan.

The game, the engine and the platform allowed for incredible characters, which is demonstrated often, and they make Vaan, with is weird ass overly lined chest the main character.  You were given no limitations and you fucked it all up.  Do you honestly think Final Fantasy 6 would have been touted so highly if Vaan's character model was ported to a 16 bit sprite?  People got ahead of themselves and it's a damn shame.

If you can, by any means, play Final Fantasy 12, it's a seriously fantastic game, just try to ignore Vaan and you'll see what I'm talking about.  Just play as Balthier, dude's amazing

South Park: Stick of Truth: Subjective Doesn't Even Start To Say It

Yep, new game, but I love South Park so I was a bit obligated to get it.  Not only do I love South Park, I love turn-based RPGs, a subject I will talk about in great detail since it's something I'm actually fairly passionate about.  Why am I passionate about turn based RPGs?  Because I am secretly a neckbeard and think the last good games came out for PS2.  It's actually because I'm nostalgia blind from staring at Super Mario RPG too much when I was in 5th grade.  Those CRT TVs, fucking ticking time bombs or radiation...


This review is going to be a bit of a problem.  The Stick of Truth is not actually that good of a game, mechanically speaking.  The reason I'm stating this so plainly out of the gate is because I'm going to spend this entire review explaining why it is good.  I said it was going to be a problem.  But here's why this is happening, it's a tie-in game.  And since every single one of them is terrible without fail, there's not any expectations to compare it to.  They're basically just a punching bag of the industry and thus The Stick of Truth is the gold nugget buried in the shit.  But what's a relevant way to judge a shit covered nugget?  Well I haven't a clue, but here's a shot.

This is the single oddest game, in terms of graphical settings, that I've ever played.  There are no graphics options, the game is locked at 30fps and I need to learn to let sleeping dogs lie.  I figured that this was the symptoms of a shit console port.  Dark Souls screwed me from trusting devs and so once I saw Fraps ticking away at 30fps I immediately quit the game and went on an internet search.  I found a way, due to the engine it's made in, to unlock the fps and, the first time I can actually say this, that was a terrible fucking idea.  Do not, I repeat, DO NOT try to run this game over 30 fps.  And here's the reason.  If you go over 30fps, the game stops looking like South Park.  The animations are entirely too smooth and it's just so god damn weird to look at.

This is the first time I've ever seen the graphics options locked for a good reason.  If you play with the settings as is, the game looks identical to an actual South Park episode.  You are playing South Park, literally.

Me

The Stick of Truth, which is now on my clipboard because it's a pain in the ass to type, starts out with character creation.  which is fantastic.  That avatar you see there, aside from it's lack of facial hair, is a disturbingly accurate representation of what I look like.  I even wear grey, thin rimmed glasses in that exact shape.  I always wanted to be in a South Park episode, and now I have my chance.

The game is incredibly aware that it is a game.  Even outright telling you at points.  So being that it's self aware, it's hard to give it shit for following stupid gaming tropes as it quite often draws attention to them.

...yeah

A controller is a good idea for this one.  My poor keyboard has never forgiven me for attempting to play The Walking Dead on it, poor "q" key never stood a chance.  There's a lot of very precise timing in the combat and a controller makes it easier.

As a result, I must regretfully inform, I don't have a lot of screenshots of the combat.  Gaming with a controller puts me in a different posture than keyboard and mouse.  The problem here is that "screenshot" is still F12 and I have to reach up to hit it.  And aside from that, two things stop me from having more combat screenshots.  1. The combat, outside of special abilities really isn't much to look at and 2. the combat is slightly time based and requires a bit of focus so my mind was elsewhere at the time.

So that being said, you can just click away now knowing that I'm completely unprofessional and not worth your time.

Still here?  Really?  Well, all right.  Here's the write up on the mechanics.

The game has a class system.  I don't know why.

I played as a "Fighter" because I adhere to my baser instincts of hitting shit with other shit and swords are cool.  I'm not sure if the game changes enemies based on your class, but if they don't then Fighter is easy mode extreme.  I died twice, the whole game, and there is a ton of fighting here.  I was considering playing as the "Jew" class because it's fucking South Park, but swords.

The equipment you receive doesn't seem to have any restrictions or penalties.  So, from my experience, you could play the game as a claymore wielding, heavily armored mage with no problems, I don't think I like that.  It makes some sense to have restrictions, otherwise dominant strategy comes into play.  The mage confounds me the most because the way the "magic" works, you gain access to spells at specific points in the game because you use them out of combat, in the overworld, to solve puzzles and things of that nature.  The thief might be useful if you can steal things, but money really isn't an issue about 4 hours into the game.  It just doesn't seem balanced on the surface.  They very well might change the entire game to suit each class, but that seems like a ton of work for very little payoff.

The combat is okay, but incredibly easy once you get a hold of it's principles.  The whole thing works on timed hits, a thing Super Mario RPG did (oh, you thought I was making random references didn't you?) and while it makes the combat a little more interesting, it just gets kind of annoying near the end.
The turn based mechanics make sense, and there's a few updates to the system to make it less frustrating, but these same changes kind of make the game too easy.  You can use an item and attack in the same turn.  This also applies to certain skills.  Near the end it becomes trivial to either stun lock or wipe out all the enemies in one turn.  I don't know if this is intentional to speed up combat once you get sick of it, but it still seems odd.

There's a rather interesting mechanic where you can apply patches and "strap-ons" to your equipment to change it's affects.  It's a nicely done system that allows you to experiment without fear of permanent fuck ups.  You can remove augments from any equipment at anytime.  So if you get a new weapon, you can just transfer them over and the same applies for armor patches.  You can find the augments in the game and buy a few from the vendors which is nice.  Some augments are really good in the beginning but fall off later to make way from others that you have.  This system is good, there's not really "the one augment" that will see you through and synergy with your playstyle is important.  I never really liked the idea of permanent upgrades as it makes you save things until the very end and essentially removes the system from the game.  It's nice to see a more "Go ahead, fuck around" approach to this kind of thing.

But I've based the mechanics enough.  They're solid if a bit odd and unbalanced.  I actually enjoyed the combat, truly.  My girlfriend commented that every time a battle started I kind of perked up and leaned into my desk to make sure I hit all the buttons properly.

Now, we're moving on to the story.

The Stick of Truth

I loved it.  I went into it knowing I'd probably like it as it is written by Matt Stone and Trey Parker themselves, but I wasn't expecting what I got.  Old World Blues has been displaced as the funniest game/DLC that I've played.  I was constantly laughing.  You actually play as a "silent protagonist" which is pointed out constantly as being a weird thing.

The writing is phenomenal and the story gets more and more ridiculous as you move onwards.  And it plays out like South Park: The Movie 2.  The play on the silent protagonist is absolutely perfect.  Things just get more and more insane and you're just playing straight-man to the whole thing while being the focal point of the whole ordeal.  I was in a bit of a funk before I started playing The Stick of Truth.  I would finish working and just kind of stare at my Steam library for a while then go back to Reddit and hit refresh on the front page again.  But The Stick of Truth was 14 hours of game and I did it in two days.  I just wanted to see everything.  Even the bullshitty parts with you walking through town were fun.

But, here's the thing, you really have to like South Park.  If you haven't seen all of South Park you'll miss at least 80% of the references.  The game's going to seem stupid.  If you were thinking, "I don't really like South Park, maybe this will change my mind." It won't, at all, it's going to make you hate it more.  If you're looking for just a game, it's not for you.  If you're looking to get into South Park, not for you, if you want a revival of FFVI, it's 2014, it's not going to happen bro.  But if you like South Park and don't mind a slightly dumbed down combat system, pull the trigger.  It's really everything you want that you didn't know you wanted.

And now for all of the spoiler free screenshots, going to be tough.