HaroKid
2018
Not every level is a hit, but the ones that are offer a substantial and impressive upgrade over even the best from the previous title. The scale is upped only in the areas where it matters most, and each level is meticulously designed and packed with satisfyingly goofy stories while allowing even more sandbox opportunities. Killing rich people has never felt so good.
Over 10 years later, it's practically impossible to have a new take on Dark Souls, or to ignore the colossal reputation it has accumulated over the years, so I will not attempt to do either. Finally, after repeatedly telling myself I'd never touch it, here I am: 58.1 hours of game-time and 100 levels later, staring at the credits. My hesitancy to give this fan favorite has always been rooted in that unescapable element: The fans.
To many it can seem silly to have a "fans ruined it" mentality to just about anything, and I largely agree and personally place a high value on having your own experiences. But with Dark Souls, this is not just an impossible task thanks to the game's notoriety, but because of the very nature of the game itself.
Someone had to be the first person to play Dark Souls. Being a successor to the PS3's Demon's Souls, this was never 100% uncharted territory, but the unrelentingly obfuscated and fiercely punishing game world had to be discovered for the first time by its players. Duh, this is how brand new games work. But even in those first few virgin playthroughs in 2011, it's hard to imagine whatever the player-base looked like back then not collaborating at every corner, both within the game itself, and outside of it. Whether its players communicating through the in-game messages to aid or deceive fellow players, or literally being summoned into their game world to help them with a boss, or ruin their day with the questionably balanced Invasion PvP aspect of its multiplayer. This emphasis on collaboration and subterfuge combined with unfunny memes or difficulty slider discourse ad nauseam makes jumping into Dark Souls a deceptively herculean task for someone who can't be bothered to go out of their way to, uh, be bothered by other people. You could deal with the army of people that make this game their personality when you have any sort of question, comment, or criticism, or you can just avoid it altogether and touch grass instead.
The only way to win Dark Souls, is to not play Dark Souls!
Maybe this reputation is unfair, maybe it's alluring and part of the Secret Sauce. I don't care, you decide. Whatever makes you happy please do not leave comments on my post blahblahblahblahblah
Casting my mind back to ~2011-2012: I was in middle school and all the dorks I knew were into gaming, of course. I always avoided the Dark Souls kids for reasons that may be more correlation than causation, but I had stayed close enough to be able to get a surface level understanding of what their takes were. Buzzwords and phrases like "This game's combat is so much more realistic than Skyrim!" "This game is super hard like how video games used to be!" and "It's basically like Skyrim but harder." embedded themselves into my skull as the pop cultural consensus on Dark Souls. Astonishingly, these takes are all pretty much wrong for a number of reasons. I guess Skyrim was pretty new so that became the point of comparison for every middle schooler who had played maybe 2 RPGs before in their lifetime. But these dumb kids as it turned out, were simply parroting the never-ending waterfall of takes that have not once ceased to permeate online spaces. The most enduring of these is the point on Dark Soul's difficulty level.
If nothing else, Dark Soul's is a game known for being incredibly difficult. You could use all sorts of other descriptors for the same general idea, too. Frustrating. Punishing. Bullshit.
I'll put a little bit of my own weight behind each of these columns; I've definitely felt that those descriptors were apt at some point during my playthrough. But ultimately, none of these options are my word of choice.
Dark Souls is involved.
Especially when comparing the game's combat to other titles like Skyrim, Assassin's Creed, or Arkham Asylum, It's easy to see this particular game as a shock to the system offering something different, something harder. The game asks quite a bit of you when it comes to learning mechanics and the attack patterns of enemies without much in the way of tutorials or easing you into it. Layer the actual Souls mechanic that often will pump the breaks on your progression onto it, and the Dark Souls identity quickly emerges when it forces you to explore this mysterious and dangerous world without the greatest sense of what it is you're actually meant to be doing. Dark Souls greatest asset is its core combat and exploration loop. Because of how involved combat is, you always have to be engaged with the enemy on some point, until you become overpowered to a point where it becomes comical and satisfying to transition from feeling like a rat stuck in a maze to the protagonist of a Dynasty Warriors title; But because of the many secrets and traps littered throughout the environment, you can never quite rest on your laurels even-so. Repeating this cycle in the early game is when all the joys and frustrations of the difficulty of Dark Souls peaks. I have my favorite zones and my least favorite zones, but I can sort of pinpoint exactly when the game somehow makes a fundamental change, without really changing all that much. Post-Anor Londo, which sounds like a nonsense Star Wars phrase, the game begins to quite rapidly un-click with me.
Dark Souls is hard, until it isn't.
By the nature of being an RPG, it's maybe inevitable that despite being a skill-centric action game, Number Go Up trumps all. Overlevelling for a particular zone absolutely can happen, making quick work of would-be gauntlets, but to my surprise, this was not the Number Go Up that really mattered. The real Number Go Up that changed everything was how many Souls it takes to level up. As is common in just about every video game ever, Dark Souls' level up system is structured so that you need more souls to level up every time you do it, in order to dictate the pace of progress so that you don't break the balance of the game, or at least so you don't break the balance so easily. On paper, this is sensible. But the effect that you have with this system coupled with the idea that you can permanently lose this progress in-between gaining levels or spending it on items funnels the player into an inherently risk-averse playstyle. This is super intentional and forces the player to think, or plan ahead, or hone their skills as much as they can before being reckless. This would not be so bad to me, if the rest of the game facilitated this. Thanks to just how tight-lipped the game is about explaining pretty much any mechanic outside of your basic movelist is, oftentimes there's no real way to even know what to plan ahead for, or what skills to hone. The in-game message system works very basically on a micro-moment level, but is practically useless for any long-term or important strategy.
The game goes so far into being extremely risk-averse that it constricts player expression in a game world that is largely trial-and-error and obfuscated by mechanics it never tells you about. It pretty much never not makes sense to retreat to go level up or upgrade a piece of gear when you're in front of a boss door and you have a high number of souls. It pretty much never not makes sense to just look up a guide or a wiki on an area with some otherwise restricting gimmick like being in pitch-black darkness, or having enemies that are untouchable by normal weapons when the game doesn't offer up that information in its own interesting way. It pretty much never not makes sense to spend some time grinding away at high-souls/low-effort enemies in the forest every time the game has a boss that cheats you out of souls.
The game at its half-way point transitions from testing your patience on the micro-scale through its involved combat systems, and becomes more about testing how much patience you have with the medium of video games as a whole, and the numerous and asinine sins that Dark Souls specifically commits, but somehow gets a pass for in online discussion. It's maddening, and my brain becomes mush as I rapidly bounce from Lord Soul to Lord Soul, now having the power of fast travel and hindsight. Each new zone in the second half feels less interesting, and frankly less finished than the last, all while upping the goofiness in its approach to difficulty and losing the spark of real peril. I start to get sloppy with my moveset, as I've been using the same Halberd from the first act of the game, seldom finding any reason to swap out weapons or adjust my playstyle outside of accommodating gimmicky zones. The magic of the involved combat and the return on investment of exploration have plummeted, and are nowhere to be seen. I defeat the final boss to a nice piano track, but am ultimately left unfulfilled.
As the credits roll, the impact of Dark Soul's greatest flaws begin to click with me.
The Soul of Dark Souls is strictly in other players. Sure, Dark Souls is a massive RPG experience that not only can be played beginning-to-end offline and in singleplayer, but actively makes online Co-Op a complete chore to undertake. And yet, this often tumultuous, janky, and frustrating online element is what makes the whole damn thing tick for me. I have some nitty gritty nitpicks, such as how Invasions seem an utterly pointless balancing countermeasure with way too much variability in character power, online connection, and overall game knowledge to feel good half the time. But I've enjoyed the multiplayer mechanics of this game far more than I ever could have imagined. As I cast my mind back to my opening hours with the game and the first half of my Dark Souls journey, the mortifying realization that the game's co-op mode is what makes it worth playing at all hits me, and I've just spent a depressing number of hours forgoing these modes because the game was so oppressively funneling me into being risk-averse that the idea of dying to yet another janky invader that shows up at the worst possible time in the worst possible area, especially through the second half of the game, sounds like hell not worth spending the Humanity on. Ironically, I was left feeling utterly and completely hollow.
I do not find the boss fights of Dark Souls to be very exciting nor rewarding to fight. That's the crux of this whole game, isn't it? The reward that you earn for overcoming this difficult challenge. Maybe that's an in-game item, a high number of souls, or just the self-satisfaction of "I did it!". But just about every boss that I completed while solo, I felt none of this. I didn't feel the satisfaction of learning a difficult fight and mastering it, nor did I even really feel the satisfaction of breaking the game and cheesing any of the fights. I did not record any video of my boss fights very intentionally, save for the final 30 seconds of the final boss fight. In the clip, I'm sometimes just straight tanking damage while I brainlessly spam my attacks and eventually get the W. No parrying, no frantic rolling, nothing. Each fight with a black knight on the way to this boss room was more immediately dangerous. Maybe I was over-levelled and over-geared for the fight, but honestly, I was relieved after winning, and I don't think I would've been any happier if the fight was any more difficult. I didn't want a harder fight, I just wanted the fight, and frankly the rest of the game to be over.
Thinking about it, pretty much none of my favorite boss fights were particularly elegant or cinematic in nature; They were just as bumbling and uninteresting. But all of my favorite bosses are ones that I finished with the help of a player summon. In fact, all of my favorite moments were whenever I was partied up with at least one friend and one stranger. I can't remember the names of these anonymous online heroes nearly as well as the in-game bosses, and yet I can recall the unique one-time interactions way more than the boss fights that took multiple tries to pass. It's true that the moments of Dark Souls that were the most frustrating to me were related to player Invasions, and as upsetting as those moments are, those feel the most satisfying to move past, even if I die to the invaders and don't get a second chance to fight them. I'm not even advocating for this specific mechanic all that much, but the triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of the online component on the whole offer so many more emotionally charged moments that are so much more intensely potent than anything the game's world itself can offer, that it frustrates me to no end how much it seems like the game doesn't even want you to play in this way, given the limited-by-design implementation.
I wanted to write a super brief splash-page review for Dark Souls, but to its credit, Dark Souls is an experience that demands a little bit more. Is it a good game? I don't know. Having played a supposedly remastered version of it, I would have honestly no idea if you told me I was playing the 2011 release so that itself is maybe not great. For a lot of people, the boss fights will click and each difficult encounter will have that sense of reward. I can see what makes it tick for those people. I can see all the pieces just ready to be put into their place. They didn't for me.
All I know is that, the real Dark Souls was the friends we made along the way. And I'm so bummed it took me until the end credits to get that.
To many it can seem silly to have a "fans ruined it" mentality to just about anything, and I largely agree and personally place a high value on having your own experiences. But with Dark Souls, this is not just an impossible task thanks to the game's notoriety, but because of the very nature of the game itself.
Someone had to be the first person to play Dark Souls. Being a successor to the PS3's Demon's Souls, this was never 100% uncharted territory, but the unrelentingly obfuscated and fiercely punishing game world had to be discovered for the first time by its players. Duh, this is how brand new games work. But even in those first few virgin playthroughs in 2011, it's hard to imagine whatever the player-base looked like back then not collaborating at every corner, both within the game itself, and outside of it. Whether its players communicating through the in-game messages to aid or deceive fellow players, or literally being summoned into their game world to help them with a boss, or ruin their day with the questionably balanced Invasion PvP aspect of its multiplayer. This emphasis on collaboration and subterfuge combined with unfunny memes or difficulty slider discourse ad nauseam makes jumping into Dark Souls a deceptively herculean task for someone who can't be bothered to go out of their way to, uh, be bothered by other people. You could deal with the army of people that make this game their personality when you have any sort of question, comment, or criticism, or you can just avoid it altogether and touch grass instead.
The only way to win Dark Souls, is to not play Dark Souls!
Maybe this reputation is unfair, maybe it's alluring and part of the Secret Sauce. I don't care, you decide. Whatever makes you happy please do not leave comments on my post blahblahblahblahblah
Casting my mind back to ~2011-2012: I was in middle school and all the dorks I knew were into gaming, of course. I always avoided the Dark Souls kids for reasons that may be more correlation than causation, but I had stayed close enough to be able to get a surface level understanding of what their takes were. Buzzwords and phrases like "This game's combat is so much more realistic than Skyrim!" "This game is super hard like how video games used to be!" and "It's basically like Skyrim but harder." embedded themselves into my skull as the pop cultural consensus on Dark Souls. Astonishingly, these takes are all pretty much wrong for a number of reasons. I guess Skyrim was pretty new so that became the point of comparison for every middle schooler who had played maybe 2 RPGs before in their lifetime. But these dumb kids as it turned out, were simply parroting the never-ending waterfall of takes that have not once ceased to permeate online spaces. The most enduring of these is the point on Dark Soul's difficulty level.
If nothing else, Dark Soul's is a game known for being incredibly difficult. You could use all sorts of other descriptors for the same general idea, too. Frustrating. Punishing. Bullshit.
I'll put a little bit of my own weight behind each of these columns; I've definitely felt that those descriptors were apt at some point during my playthrough. But ultimately, none of these options are my word of choice.
Dark Souls is involved.
Especially when comparing the game's combat to other titles like Skyrim, Assassin's Creed, or Arkham Asylum, It's easy to see this particular game as a shock to the system offering something different, something harder. The game asks quite a bit of you when it comes to learning mechanics and the attack patterns of enemies without much in the way of tutorials or easing you into it. Layer the actual Souls mechanic that often will pump the breaks on your progression onto it, and the Dark Souls identity quickly emerges when it forces you to explore this mysterious and dangerous world without the greatest sense of what it is you're actually meant to be doing. Dark Souls greatest asset is its core combat and exploration loop. Because of how involved combat is, you always have to be engaged with the enemy on some point, until you become overpowered to a point where it becomes comical and satisfying to transition from feeling like a rat stuck in a maze to the protagonist of a Dynasty Warriors title; But because of the many secrets and traps littered throughout the environment, you can never quite rest on your laurels even-so. Repeating this cycle in the early game is when all the joys and frustrations of the difficulty of Dark Souls peaks. I have my favorite zones and my least favorite zones, but I can sort of pinpoint exactly when the game somehow makes a fundamental change, without really changing all that much. Post-Anor Londo, which sounds like a nonsense Star Wars phrase, the game begins to quite rapidly un-click with me.
Dark Souls is hard, until it isn't.
By the nature of being an RPG, it's maybe inevitable that despite being a skill-centric action game, Number Go Up trumps all. Overlevelling for a particular zone absolutely can happen, making quick work of would-be gauntlets, but to my surprise, this was not the Number Go Up that really mattered. The real Number Go Up that changed everything was how many Souls it takes to level up. As is common in just about every video game ever, Dark Souls' level up system is structured so that you need more souls to level up every time you do it, in order to dictate the pace of progress so that you don't break the balance of the game, or at least so you don't break the balance so easily. On paper, this is sensible. But the effect that you have with this system coupled with the idea that you can permanently lose this progress in-between gaining levels or spending it on items funnels the player into an inherently risk-averse playstyle. This is super intentional and forces the player to think, or plan ahead, or hone their skills as much as they can before being reckless. This would not be so bad to me, if the rest of the game facilitated this. Thanks to just how tight-lipped the game is about explaining pretty much any mechanic outside of your basic movelist is, oftentimes there's no real way to even know what to plan ahead for, or what skills to hone. The in-game message system works very basically on a micro-moment level, but is practically useless for any long-term or important strategy.
The game goes so far into being extremely risk-averse that it constricts player expression in a game world that is largely trial-and-error and obfuscated by mechanics it never tells you about. It pretty much never not makes sense to retreat to go level up or upgrade a piece of gear when you're in front of a boss door and you have a high number of souls. It pretty much never not makes sense to just look up a guide or a wiki on an area with some otherwise restricting gimmick like being in pitch-black darkness, or having enemies that are untouchable by normal weapons when the game doesn't offer up that information in its own interesting way. It pretty much never not makes sense to spend some time grinding away at high-souls/low-effort enemies in the forest every time the game has a boss that cheats you out of souls.
The game at its half-way point transitions from testing your patience on the micro-scale through its involved combat systems, and becomes more about testing how much patience you have with the medium of video games as a whole, and the numerous and asinine sins that Dark Souls specifically commits, but somehow gets a pass for in online discussion. It's maddening, and my brain becomes mush as I rapidly bounce from Lord Soul to Lord Soul, now having the power of fast travel and hindsight. Each new zone in the second half feels less interesting, and frankly less finished than the last, all while upping the goofiness in its approach to difficulty and losing the spark of real peril. I start to get sloppy with my moveset, as I've been using the same Halberd from the first act of the game, seldom finding any reason to swap out weapons or adjust my playstyle outside of accommodating gimmicky zones. The magic of the involved combat and the return on investment of exploration have plummeted, and are nowhere to be seen. I defeat the final boss to a nice piano track, but am ultimately left unfulfilled.
As the credits roll, the impact of Dark Soul's greatest flaws begin to click with me.
The Soul of Dark Souls is strictly in other players. Sure, Dark Souls is a massive RPG experience that not only can be played beginning-to-end offline and in singleplayer, but actively makes online Co-Op a complete chore to undertake. And yet, this often tumultuous, janky, and frustrating online element is what makes the whole damn thing tick for me. I have some nitty gritty nitpicks, such as how Invasions seem an utterly pointless balancing countermeasure with way too much variability in character power, online connection, and overall game knowledge to feel good half the time. But I've enjoyed the multiplayer mechanics of this game far more than I ever could have imagined. As I cast my mind back to my opening hours with the game and the first half of my Dark Souls journey, the mortifying realization that the game's co-op mode is what makes it worth playing at all hits me, and I've just spent a depressing number of hours forgoing these modes because the game was so oppressively funneling me into being risk-averse that the idea of dying to yet another janky invader that shows up at the worst possible time in the worst possible area, especially through the second half of the game, sounds like hell not worth spending the Humanity on. Ironically, I was left feeling utterly and completely hollow.
I do not find the boss fights of Dark Souls to be very exciting nor rewarding to fight. That's the crux of this whole game, isn't it? The reward that you earn for overcoming this difficult challenge. Maybe that's an in-game item, a high number of souls, or just the self-satisfaction of "I did it!". But just about every boss that I completed while solo, I felt none of this. I didn't feel the satisfaction of learning a difficult fight and mastering it, nor did I even really feel the satisfaction of breaking the game and cheesing any of the fights. I did not record any video of my boss fights very intentionally, save for the final 30 seconds of the final boss fight. In the clip, I'm sometimes just straight tanking damage while I brainlessly spam my attacks and eventually get the W. No parrying, no frantic rolling, nothing. Each fight with a black knight on the way to this boss room was more immediately dangerous. Maybe I was over-levelled and over-geared for the fight, but honestly, I was relieved after winning, and I don't think I would've been any happier if the fight was any more difficult. I didn't want a harder fight, I just wanted the fight, and frankly the rest of the game to be over.
Thinking about it, pretty much none of my favorite boss fights were particularly elegant or cinematic in nature; They were just as bumbling and uninteresting. But all of my favorite bosses are ones that I finished with the help of a player summon. In fact, all of my favorite moments were whenever I was partied up with at least one friend and one stranger. I can't remember the names of these anonymous online heroes nearly as well as the in-game bosses, and yet I can recall the unique one-time interactions way more than the boss fights that took multiple tries to pass. It's true that the moments of Dark Souls that were the most frustrating to me were related to player Invasions, and as upsetting as those moments are, those feel the most satisfying to move past, even if I die to the invaders and don't get a second chance to fight them. I'm not even advocating for this specific mechanic all that much, but the triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of the online component on the whole offer so many more emotionally charged moments that are so much more intensely potent than anything the game's world itself can offer, that it frustrates me to no end how much it seems like the game doesn't even want you to play in this way, given the limited-by-design implementation.
I wanted to write a super brief splash-page review for Dark Souls, but to its credit, Dark Souls is an experience that demands a little bit more. Is it a good game? I don't know. Having played a supposedly remastered version of it, I would have honestly no idea if you told me I was playing the 2011 release so that itself is maybe not great. For a lot of people, the boss fights will click and each difficult encounter will have that sense of reward. I can see what makes it tick for those people. I can see all the pieces just ready to be put into their place. They didn't for me.
All I know is that, the real Dark Souls was the friends we made along the way. And I'm so bummed it took me until the end credits to get that.
2017
Quake Champions is a game with a core that feels mostly solid by way of it being Quake, but also one that feels like all parties involved just sort of gave up on halfway through.
Gimmicky champions and guest characters flirt with tapping into the hero shooter trend of the late 2010's, but without offering compelling character design updates to chase that same demographic or a business model that enables each champion to really distinguish themselves in any meaningful way, and stylistic modernizations don't land half as effectively as the rest of id Software's 8th Gen retro-revivals.
No sense of on-boarding mechanically and the lack of an immediately generous character roster makes the attempted modernization of Quake here feel like a disingenuous half-step made out of obligation that doesn't feel particularly charged to appeal to either purists or newcomers; Unless you're a greater Bethesda super-fan or an invested advocate for classic style Arena FPS games on the whole, this is simply a barebones shooter with all the appeal of Cliff Blezinsky's LawBreakers, and I still can barely tell if this thing is in open beta or not.
Gimmicky champions and guest characters flirt with tapping into the hero shooter trend of the late 2010's, but without offering compelling character design updates to chase that same demographic or a business model that enables each champion to really distinguish themselves in any meaningful way, and stylistic modernizations don't land half as effectively as the rest of id Software's 8th Gen retro-revivals.
No sense of on-boarding mechanically and the lack of an immediately generous character roster makes the attempted modernization of Quake here feel like a disingenuous half-step made out of obligation that doesn't feel particularly charged to appeal to either purists or newcomers; Unless you're a greater Bethesda super-fan or an invested advocate for classic style Arena FPS games on the whole, this is simply a barebones shooter with all the appeal of Cliff Blezinsky's LawBreakers, and I still can barely tell if this thing is in open beta or not.
2022
Pentiment is somewhat of an anomaly of a game; being as educational as it is entertaining, as stylized as it is authentic, and as peculiarly niche as it is polished and high quality.
Animations are a delight, and the game's presentation on the whole is exceptional. Unexpectedly, the painstaking detail in everything from the mixture of 16th century art to each character speaking in different script depending on what societal role or class they represent serve to paint a mural of a world more intriguingly and convincingly than any other piece of entertainment I have experienced, historical or fictional alike.
The writing is also quite enjoyable and poignant, if not entirely even through the game's runtime. Being split into three distinct acts, not every act is as immediately gripping or charming as the rest, and I found the start of each new act to be an uphill battle in retaining my emotional investment. By the end of each of these acts and by the end of the game, a complete and satisfying story is told, though I can't help but feel that some fat could have been trimmed here.
Perhaps this feeling would be alleviated had Pentiment not have been seemingly so front-loaded with its game mechanics. Those expecting more of a proper adventure game or detective RPG may be left for wanting a little bit
more. Dialogue mechanics aren't used enough to feel consistently weighty, though this may be due to the game's text-only* nature that can often make reading the writers' intended tone hard to navigate. (*Even with the game's excellent accessibility features, the text-to-speech can only go so far without real human performances.) By the end of the game, it feels that much of Pentiment could have been written as a highly linear visual novel with how the scope of interactivity beyond dialogue choices narrows so much. While this may very well be a thematic point to the game, such shifts in gameplay expectations are always hard sells, no matter how bold.
The mechanic that I struggled the most with during my time with Pentiment was the game's inconsistent and not very well conveyed use of the passage of time. Working against a time limit serves to give the player a sense of urgency, though on more than one important occasion I had moments where activating certain game events seemed to have broken the sequence of things or would pass far more time than I had anticipated, serving to undercut my agency as a player and ultimately resulting in some unsatisfying outcomes. I'm still unsure if these were bugged out features, or if the game's writing failed to indicate the intended flow and pace for me to play at...
Still, it's difficult to deny the raw talent and intense passion present in Pentiment. I am not overly familiar with Josh Sawyer's work, but my interest in his abilities beyond being a tweeter or a GDC-talk giver are certainly piqued after having played this title.
Animations are a delight, and the game's presentation on the whole is exceptional. Unexpectedly, the painstaking detail in everything from the mixture of 16th century art to each character speaking in different script depending on what societal role or class they represent serve to paint a mural of a world more intriguingly and convincingly than any other piece of entertainment I have experienced, historical or fictional alike.
The writing is also quite enjoyable and poignant, if not entirely even through the game's runtime. Being split into three distinct acts, not every act is as immediately gripping or charming as the rest, and I found the start of each new act to be an uphill battle in retaining my emotional investment. By the end of each of these acts and by the end of the game, a complete and satisfying story is told, though I can't help but feel that some fat could have been trimmed here.
Perhaps this feeling would be alleviated had Pentiment not have been seemingly so front-loaded with its game mechanics. Those expecting more of a proper adventure game or detective RPG may be left for wanting a little bit
more. Dialogue mechanics aren't used enough to feel consistently weighty, though this may be due to the game's text-only* nature that can often make reading the writers' intended tone hard to navigate. (*Even with the game's excellent accessibility features, the text-to-speech can only go so far without real human performances.) By the end of the game, it feels that much of Pentiment could have been written as a highly linear visual novel with how the scope of interactivity beyond dialogue choices narrows so much. While this may very well be a thematic point to the game, such shifts in gameplay expectations are always hard sells, no matter how bold.
The mechanic that I struggled the most with during my time with Pentiment was the game's inconsistent and not very well conveyed use of the passage of time. Working against a time limit serves to give the player a sense of urgency, though on more than one important occasion I had moments where activating certain game events seemed to have broken the sequence of things or would pass far more time than I had anticipated, serving to undercut my agency as a player and ultimately resulting in some unsatisfying outcomes. I'm still unsure if these were bugged out features, or if the game's writing failed to indicate the intended flow and pace for me to play at...
Still, it's difficult to deny the raw talent and intense passion present in Pentiment. I am not overly familiar with Josh Sawyer's work, but my interest in his abilities beyond being a tweeter or a GDC-talk giver are certainly piqued after having played this title.
2021
I kept playing thinking this game was going to be more than what it sells itself as based on other impressions I had heard, but. No, it really just is that. Pretty solid presentation and the most polished types of these games that I've played, but pretty dull otherwise. I'd probably enjoy it more if it wasn't so picky and particular with the cleaning and jobs didn't take multiple hours, but then again, that might make for a worse simulator.
2021
I got my cowboy outfit and revolver hammer which were very cool, and i love to cook BBQ while out on a hunt. I don't really "get" the combat otherwise and don't get a whole lot of personal enjoyment over mashing two buttons over and over against HP sponges. Somehow feels like there's a ton of content and not a whole lot to do at the same time.
I don't think this is a bad video game, it's just not really for me. One of those games that starts to feel like you're only playing out of obligation to the holy progression bar and less out of the raw enjoyment of what it is you're doing from moment to moment. Fun enough for a little while with friends as long as it's on game pass. The highest praise I can give this is its truly excellent character creator that I wish more games would take from.
I don't think this is a bad video game, it's just not really for me. One of those games that starts to feel like you're only playing out of obligation to the holy progression bar and less out of the raw enjoyment of what it is you're doing from moment to moment. Fun enough for a little while with friends as long as it's on game pass. The highest praise I can give this is its truly excellent character creator that I wish more games would take from.
2018
Do you think they've explored eachother's bodies?
2023
There are like 2 things about this game that I didn't enjoy, and the rest of the things that I did enjoy I adored. Breaking down how very strongly I feel about every aspect of this game would be a lengthy endeavor that I know I would not be able to satisfyingly land with a real review, so for now, I won't. This game is truly excellent, end of story.
This game's greatest legacy is its ambitious approach to first person melee combat, and while it doesn't totally get there with everything it sets out to do, it's a shame no one else has really picked up the torch on this and ran with it.
The actual level design leaves quite a lot to be desired if i'm honest. Maybe it's the generic fantasy setting, but none of the environments really spoke to me in the same way I'd expect from Arkane's later titles.
In terms of narrative, Dark Messiah probably has the worst story in a video game i have ever played that I can remember. The plot is a nothing burger and the voice acting/dialogue is atrocious, and I hate every character every time they open their mouth.
The actual level design leaves quite a lot to be desired if i'm honest. Maybe it's the generic fantasy setting, but none of the environments really spoke to me in the same way I'd expect from Arkane's later titles.
In terms of narrative, Dark Messiah probably has the worst story in a video game i have ever played that I can remember. The plot is a nothing burger and the voice acting/dialogue is atrocious, and I hate every character every time they open their mouth.
2008
Truth be told, I was kind of astonished when the credits rolled. "That's it?"
Fallout 3 feels like an earnest attempt at the impossible task of not only revitalizing the Fallout franchise but doing so for a much bigger audience on console in the form of an FPS action game; It practically never sticks the landing, but there might be just enough charm and just enough excuses that it isn't the worst game in the world.
Is it janky? Sure. Is it buggy? Definitely. Is it ugly? It may be the ugliest game I've ever played. But, is Fallout 3 nonetheless a good video game?
Also, no.
Yet there's something I either admire or feel sympathetic about when it comes to Fallout 3. The game fails to propose any interesting ideas, maintain any convincing atmosphere for very long, or pose any riveting moral dilemmas, but the worst emotion that the game stirs within me is a meager "Oh ok I guess". There are enough novel moments and characters that while I'm not particularly emotionally invested in anything, I'm stimulated enough to just keep on going anyway. Call that the Bethesda magic, I guess.
Breaking out Fawkes, exploring all 12 square feet of the black-and-white CRT VR world, and yes, even the intro where you grow up in the vault all have a novelty factor where it feels like there is an effort to provide more cinematic storytelling in lieu of, well, having good writing or quest design. Often in conversations with NPCs I will have exhausted every dialogue option without ever managing to be allowed to ask the questions I as the player actually want or need to know - Annoying from the perspective of trying to become immersed in a roleplaying game, but also functionally a roadblock fairly frequently when the in-game quest log and map is so poor and scarce on anything useful.
I also appreciate Bethesda's efforts to translate some of the game mechanics into this new 3D space - Something they could have just as easily avoided altogether. VATs, like everything else in the game, suffers from a lack of polish, but is a cool addition both in its own right and as a way to bridge the gap between the Real-Time-With-Pause action points system of old with the rinky dink shooting of 2008 gamebryo Bethesda. While not every perk is created equal in power nor intrigue, I found myself always looking forward to which new ones I had access to while leveling up. Many returning in-universe brands and items from Fallout 1 and 2 and their 1950's americana McDonalds-ization also help with making this game world cohesive with those previous titles as well as offering a solid sense of visual identity in an otherwise hyper-muddy game, and is even helped along with new additions like the various oldies radio stations that really sell the setting.
All of this to say that the word I keep coming back to when thinking about all the things Fallout 3 does right is "Novelty". In 2008 for the journeyman cRPG fan, maybe there wasn't a whole lot of novelty to be found - There certainly is nothing to be found in Fallout 3 that the original game doesn't already do better after all - but Bethesda placed all of the correct bets as to which columns really mattered for a new Fallout game for a console audience coming off of Oblivion - Surface level aesthetics, dialogue writing that, let's face it, was being graded on the curve of "Xbox 360 Video Game in 2008", and an extremely narrowed story scope that doesn't ask or even want a whole lot from the player. Maybe it is piggy backing off of all the successes of Interplay's time with the franchise, and maybe the cost of this approach is an utterly unremarkable game when removed from the context of its own history.
So, yeah. That really was it. The sheer success of what feels like a product that could never truly find its footing or purpose for existing is a testament to the power of novelty. For Fallout 3? I can give it a pass. Frankly, I enjoyed this game more than I ever did Fallout 2, even as someone who became enamored with the first game. I think for the rest of Bethesda's tenure with the franchise, I am inclined to be far less forgiving of meandering about without purpose while parading around the corpse of a once excellent game.
Fallout 3 feels like an earnest attempt at the impossible task of not only revitalizing the Fallout franchise but doing so for a much bigger audience on console in the form of an FPS action game; It practically never sticks the landing, but there might be just enough charm and just enough excuses that it isn't the worst game in the world.
Is it janky? Sure. Is it buggy? Definitely. Is it ugly? It may be the ugliest game I've ever played. But, is Fallout 3 nonetheless a good video game?
Also, no.
Yet there's something I either admire or feel sympathetic about when it comes to Fallout 3. The game fails to propose any interesting ideas, maintain any convincing atmosphere for very long, or pose any riveting moral dilemmas, but the worst emotion that the game stirs within me is a meager "Oh ok I guess". There are enough novel moments and characters that while I'm not particularly emotionally invested in anything, I'm stimulated enough to just keep on going anyway. Call that the Bethesda magic, I guess.
Breaking out Fawkes, exploring all 12 square feet of the black-and-white CRT VR world, and yes, even the intro where you grow up in the vault all have a novelty factor where it feels like there is an effort to provide more cinematic storytelling in lieu of, well, having good writing or quest design. Often in conversations with NPCs I will have exhausted every dialogue option without ever managing to be allowed to ask the questions I as the player actually want or need to know - Annoying from the perspective of trying to become immersed in a roleplaying game, but also functionally a roadblock fairly frequently when the in-game quest log and map is so poor and scarce on anything useful.
I also appreciate Bethesda's efforts to translate some of the game mechanics into this new 3D space - Something they could have just as easily avoided altogether. VATs, like everything else in the game, suffers from a lack of polish, but is a cool addition both in its own right and as a way to bridge the gap between the Real-Time-With-Pause action points system of old with the rinky dink shooting of 2008 gamebryo Bethesda. While not every perk is created equal in power nor intrigue, I found myself always looking forward to which new ones I had access to while leveling up. Many returning in-universe brands and items from Fallout 1 and 2 and their 1950's americana McDonalds-ization also help with making this game world cohesive with those previous titles as well as offering a solid sense of visual identity in an otherwise hyper-muddy game, and is even helped along with new additions like the various oldies radio stations that really sell the setting.
All of this to say that the word I keep coming back to when thinking about all the things Fallout 3 does right is "Novelty". In 2008 for the journeyman cRPG fan, maybe there wasn't a whole lot of novelty to be found - There certainly is nothing to be found in Fallout 3 that the original game doesn't already do better after all - but Bethesda placed all of the correct bets as to which columns really mattered for a new Fallout game for a console audience coming off of Oblivion - Surface level aesthetics, dialogue writing that, let's face it, was being graded on the curve of "Xbox 360 Video Game in 2008", and an extremely narrowed story scope that doesn't ask or even want a whole lot from the player. Maybe it is piggy backing off of all the successes of Interplay's time with the franchise, and maybe the cost of this approach is an utterly unremarkable game when removed from the context of its own history.
So, yeah. That really was it. The sheer success of what feels like a product that could never truly find its footing or purpose for existing is a testament to the power of novelty. For Fallout 3? I can give it a pass. Frankly, I enjoyed this game more than I ever did Fallout 2, even as someone who became enamored with the first game. I think for the rest of Bethesda's tenure with the franchise, I am inclined to be far less forgiving of meandering about without purpose while parading around the corpse of a once excellent game.
2010
New Vegas is a much more well researched and considered take on Fallout thanks to Obsidian, but i find myself disappointed in the lack of true narrative freedom. Maybe it's enormous reputation set up some lofty unreachable goals, but I frequently felt frustrated at the lack of dynamism and interactivity when it came to decision-making and how my companions reacted to whatever it was I was doing.
It's a hell of a whole lot better than Fallout 3 and actually feels authentic to the original game, but it being a project rushed by Zenimax higher-ups and still being built off of Fallout 3 means many of those game's issues still persist while being even more unstable and crash-prone.
Sadly, I feel like I somehow missed all of the cool stuff. Enjoyable nonetheless, but entirely unfulfilling - By far my least favorite Obsidian title to date.
It's a hell of a whole lot better than Fallout 3 and actually feels authentic to the original game, but it being a project rushed by Zenimax higher-ups and still being built off of Fallout 3 means many of those game's issues still persist while being even more unstable and crash-prone.
Sadly, I feel like I somehow missed all of the cool stuff. Enjoyable nonetheless, but entirely unfulfilling - By far my least favorite Obsidian title to date.
2023
One of the stranger American English phrases I have noticed that seems to exclusive to a certain pocket of Gen-X'ers and Millenials is the rhetorical question, "Am I being Punk'd right now?"
I'm entirely certain the first time I heard this phrase used in this way was in the 2007 film Transformers, directed by Michael Bay. As a 9 year old at the time, even I thought that was a weird cultural reference to make. I had both seen Ashtons Kutcher’s Punk'd on TV before, and could most probably identify Ashton Kutcher in a lineup if you had asked me to at the time, and yet it still stood out to me like a sore thumb. I admit I have only seen Transformers twice - Once on a pirated-and-edited-for-my-mormon-neighbor DVD, and once again on a roadtrip on one of those headrest mounted displays in my mom’s SUV. I may be misremembering this gag, or even inventing it entirely. I think the joke was that referencing Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d , even in 2007, was a clumsy attempt at seeming cool, snappy, and in tune with the younger generation was inherently a goofy thing that only old people like Shia LeBouf’s white haired professor would do. This was my first recollection of the phrase “Am I being Punk’d right now?”/”Are you Punk’d-ing me right now?”/”I totally thought you were Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d-ing us”/etc.” being used outside of the context of an actual episode of Punk’d, and since then I have kept track of more or less every time someone else has invoked the cultural touchstone that is Mr. Kutcher’s incredibly famous and popular prank show. On 4 separate occasions, 2 of them being from my mom, someone has rhetorically asked me if there were hidden cameras recording them in exasperation over the absurdity of whatever was happening in that instant. All 4 of those times, it came from someone older than be by at least one generational label, if not two. All 4 of those times, I could not resist but be possessed by my inner mean spirit, and would poke fun at the use of such a reference.
But, perhaps, I am nothing if not my mom’s child.
“Am I Getting Punk’d Right Now?” an internal monologue rushed to the forefront of my conscience to shout, as the McDonald’s employee walked up to my car window literally less than 10 seconds from when I had pulled into the mobile order pickup parking spot and tapped “Here” in the McDonald’s app to confirm that I had arrived to The Grimace’s birthday celebration.
Stunned by the sheer speed at which the kind worker had thrust the intoxicatingly purple milkshake and neatly presented brown and red bag containing one medium order of fries and a big mac into my hands, I barely had the time to process the social transaction, nor can I recollect the event in any detail beyond this. I don’t remember what he said to me, or what I said back. Did I pull a classic rookie mistake and respond to an “Enjoy your meal” with “You Too”? I have no way of knowing. The drive home with my new meal in tow was equally as expedient, as I hit every green light on the way back, turning a 5 minute drive (if my sense of recollecting my previous McDonald’s experiences at this location is to be trusted) into a brisk 2 minute drive.
Not 10 minutes prior did I even conceive the notion that I would be celebrating a birthday that night. I wasn’t even aware there was a birthday to celebrate until I had seen the news on Twitter. But, a birthday only comes once a year, and I hadn’t yet eaten dinner. So it was decided that I needed the purple milkshake. This series of events resolved so rapidly that I had no sense to anticipate, guess, or ask what flavor such a milkshake could be. A Big Mac, some french fries - These were familiar to me. Practically staples of a broke teenage Me that did not always have the sense of security when it came to home cooked meals. I have no illusions over the McDonald’s corporation being a “friend” or anything, and if Ray Kroc got what he deserves he is rotting in hell at this very moment, but I think the countless trips to McDonalds throughout every stage of my life and my sensory nostalgia for the sickening stench of McDonald’s cheese, grimy Nintendo 64 and Playstation 2 controllers, and unholy Playplace plastics may have played some part in my ease of willingness to place an order for this meal on my phone. As if I had all of those memories and senses of memories unlocked by a now viral photograph of a young Grimace with missing teeth standing inside of a McDonald’s restaurant. Devilishly clever marketing from the McDonald’s corporate team.
But i’m rambling now - The purple milkshake. Subconsciously, I probably assumed it was a purple sweet potato flavor, like Taro or the Filipino favorite Ube. Before taking the dive into the shake tasting experience itself, I observed two qualities it possessed:
Observation 1.) This milkshake was notably runny. I don’t often order milkshakes with my food, particularly at McDonald’s, so I’m not sure if this was par for the course. Not that I’m complaining, but the image in my head of a milkshake is something thick, that you could almost turn upside down with little to no spillage, as the stylings of Dairy Queen’s Blizzard tend to boast. No, this shake was either shook too hard, was prepared well in advance of my arrival and melted, or the milkshake machine was experiencing some kind of issues. Fortunately, my milkshake was still cold and thick enough not to be a frosty soup, but it did not instill confidence in quality of the product.
Observation 2.) The milkshake was either underfilled, or they did not give me a standard helping of whipped cream. No doubt Grimace’s Birthday was a popular thing to celebrate, if my Twitter timeline as of right now is any indication, so I suppose I could see an impromptu shortening of the milkshake and whipped cream rationing. Disappointment is too strong of a word to describe how I felt seeing my milkshake filled well below the clearance provided by the domed lid even with the whipped cream on top, but it was once again an indicator to not expect this milkshake to be more than “Okay” at best. It was his birthday, so I suppose I can only ask for so much from Grimace.
As I pulled suction from the straw, the not-as-thick-as-i’d-have-expected milkshake flooded my mouth. The experience that played out there did so in multiple distinct stages. For a fraction of a section, surprise at the blue-berryish flavor, relinquished by an “Oh well obviously”, for a few fractions more. A whole second later, confusion, or even bafflement at the choice to flavor a dairy dessert with fruit - Something I associated more with frozen, icee-like treats, and then another mental concession once I had remembered that Strawberry Milkshakes are indeed very popular as well. Still, the creamy blueberry sensation was new to me, and I could not tell if I enjoyed it or not. Before I could come to a conclusion, the oral sensation had begun to shift.
The flavor of the milkshake migrated from a creamy and sweet berry flavor engulfing my cheeks and the flat of my tongue, to something a bit more acidic and sharp onto the vertical sides and tip of it, almost as if I was consuming real fruit. This formed a sort of feedback loop where that sourness, that hint of zing would begin to make my mouth water, which would in turn only make the zing that currently inhabited my tastebuds all the more potent, until the milkshake eventually found its way back to my throat and died down.
The opening act of the milkshake was nothing to write home about, boringly sweet and a little confusing. But the climax of this taste, as fleeting as it was, was the real deal. It was a high so potent that my initial apprehensiveness towards it quickly faded. And so I took another sip. Then another three more sips. Amazed at the novelty of the shake, I had to force myself to be reminded that if I did not eat the rest of my meal soon, it would become cold. If you have ever had cold fries from McDonald’s, you should know that in this context, cold food is basically inedible food. Perhaps not even really “food” anymore.
Crispy, salty french fries, a tangy big mac, and a new wondrous non-euclidean milkshake. What’s not to love about this gluttony of riches?
As it turns out, this was actually the achilles’ heel of the Grimace Birthday meal. The delight and novelty of the milkshake was fragile. It couldn’t even settle on what it was inside of my mouth when it had no competing consistencies, textures, or flavors. Against the wave of the monolithically consistent Big Mac and accompanying fries, the milkshake had stood no chance. All those years of eating McDonald’s had cemented these flavors into the brain of my tongue and had selfishly completely and utterly enveloped my tastebuds. Been there, done that. Is this really all there is? McDonald’s is what I would consider to be comfort food, in that a simple fulfillment and instant gratification of my craving for it can temporarily and superficially soothe some of my troubles at any given time, but at the cost of contributing very directly to some of my other troubles. I would go on to finish my meal, but I did not feel very comforted this time around, even discounting whatever the usual physical consequences I would be experiencing.
The purple Grimace Milkshake simply did not compliment the rest of the meal. Perhaps if I had ordered the McNugget version of this meal, things would be different. Perhaps if my single mother at the time could have afforded to pay for me to join my local football program as a child, things would be different.
But I did not join a football program, and I did not order the McNuggets.
I know better than to worry about the literally infinite what-if scenarios in my life, and yet, I still do. I suspect even the most carefree, adventurous individuals do the same; Left, instead of Right; Soup, instead of Salad; The risk of rejection outweighing the possibility of returns of boundless joy.
This is human nature. As humans, we are all bound to the nebulous construct of Time. If humans could experience infinite Time, it stands to reason to myself that each infinite what-if scenario involving them would transpire. But whether we are conscious of it or not, Time is something we are always losing. To generations older than me, perhaps Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d is on the same level of novelty as The Internet, Fidget Spinners, and self driving cars that explode. Even something as monotonous and unchanging as the McDonald’s menu is not immune to the forces of time, being unable to help but invoke and exploit the ghosts of times past, either by way of intentional propaganda or sensory happenstance from the individual, with endless gimmick promotion after gimmick promotion, of which their appeal is propped up entirely by the limited Time they are available for.
Time has the power to ambush us at our most vulnerable moments. I was blindsided by Grimace’s birthday arriving, just as I have become increasingly often blindsided by the birthdays of those around me, and most frighteningly blindsided by my very own birthday. I can still remember as if it were yesterday what those old McDonald’s restaurants in that photograph of young Grimace looked and smelled like. I’ve lived through at least 2 total brand aesthetic revitalization efforts from McDonald’s, and have seen the same location remodeled to fit this branding more than once, with each successive remodel less potent in my memory than the last. The effects of this McTime Dilation reach me even in as brief an interaction as pulling into a parking spot to pick up my food. References to Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d is something old people do. I… Am getting Old now.
Where did the time go?
The Grimace Birthday meal at McDonald’s is a grave reminder of my own mortality.
The meal itself is a limited time offer, as is the fleeting bliss of the sharpest notes of His milkshake on my tongue. The new sensations the human experience may offer me are always suppressed and truncated by Time’s Constant, just as the purple Grimace milkshake is suppressed and truncated by a Big Mac and Fries. It is an unavoidable tragedy, but one that either inspires or scares me to make the most out of the miniscule amount of Time I have left in the greater cosmic calendar. Should I get to experience the Grimace Birthday meal once again, I will savor it, unperturbed by the prospects of the main course.
I did not play this video game.
I'm entirely certain the first time I heard this phrase used in this way was in the 2007 film Transformers, directed by Michael Bay. As a 9 year old at the time, even I thought that was a weird cultural reference to make. I had both seen Ashtons Kutcher’s Punk'd on TV before, and could most probably identify Ashton Kutcher in a lineup if you had asked me to at the time, and yet it still stood out to me like a sore thumb. I admit I have only seen Transformers twice - Once on a pirated-and-edited-for-my-mormon-neighbor DVD, and once again on a roadtrip on one of those headrest mounted displays in my mom’s SUV. I may be misremembering this gag, or even inventing it entirely. I think the joke was that referencing Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d , even in 2007, was a clumsy attempt at seeming cool, snappy, and in tune with the younger generation was inherently a goofy thing that only old people like Shia LeBouf’s white haired professor would do. This was my first recollection of the phrase “Am I being Punk’d right now?”/”Are you Punk’d-ing me right now?”/”I totally thought you were Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d-ing us”/etc.” being used outside of the context of an actual episode of Punk’d, and since then I have kept track of more or less every time someone else has invoked the cultural touchstone that is Mr. Kutcher’s incredibly famous and popular prank show. On 4 separate occasions, 2 of them being from my mom, someone has rhetorically asked me if there were hidden cameras recording them in exasperation over the absurdity of whatever was happening in that instant. All 4 of those times, it came from someone older than be by at least one generational label, if not two. All 4 of those times, I could not resist but be possessed by my inner mean spirit, and would poke fun at the use of such a reference.
But, perhaps, I am nothing if not my mom’s child.
“Am I Getting Punk’d Right Now?” an internal monologue rushed to the forefront of my conscience to shout, as the McDonald’s employee walked up to my car window literally less than 10 seconds from when I had pulled into the mobile order pickup parking spot and tapped “Here” in the McDonald’s app to confirm that I had arrived to The Grimace’s birthday celebration.
Stunned by the sheer speed at which the kind worker had thrust the intoxicatingly purple milkshake and neatly presented brown and red bag containing one medium order of fries and a big mac into my hands, I barely had the time to process the social transaction, nor can I recollect the event in any detail beyond this. I don’t remember what he said to me, or what I said back. Did I pull a classic rookie mistake and respond to an “Enjoy your meal” with “You Too”? I have no way of knowing. The drive home with my new meal in tow was equally as expedient, as I hit every green light on the way back, turning a 5 minute drive (if my sense of recollecting my previous McDonald’s experiences at this location is to be trusted) into a brisk 2 minute drive.
Not 10 minutes prior did I even conceive the notion that I would be celebrating a birthday that night. I wasn’t even aware there was a birthday to celebrate until I had seen the news on Twitter. But, a birthday only comes once a year, and I hadn’t yet eaten dinner. So it was decided that I needed the purple milkshake. This series of events resolved so rapidly that I had no sense to anticipate, guess, or ask what flavor such a milkshake could be. A Big Mac, some french fries - These were familiar to me. Practically staples of a broke teenage Me that did not always have the sense of security when it came to home cooked meals. I have no illusions over the McDonald’s corporation being a “friend” or anything, and if Ray Kroc got what he deserves he is rotting in hell at this very moment, but I think the countless trips to McDonalds throughout every stage of my life and my sensory nostalgia for the sickening stench of McDonald’s cheese, grimy Nintendo 64 and Playstation 2 controllers, and unholy Playplace plastics may have played some part in my ease of willingness to place an order for this meal on my phone. As if I had all of those memories and senses of memories unlocked by a now viral photograph of a young Grimace with missing teeth standing inside of a McDonald’s restaurant. Devilishly clever marketing from the McDonald’s corporate team.
But i’m rambling now - The purple milkshake. Subconsciously, I probably assumed it was a purple sweet potato flavor, like Taro or the Filipino favorite Ube. Before taking the dive into the shake tasting experience itself, I observed two qualities it possessed:
Observation 1.) This milkshake was notably runny. I don’t often order milkshakes with my food, particularly at McDonald’s, so I’m not sure if this was par for the course. Not that I’m complaining, but the image in my head of a milkshake is something thick, that you could almost turn upside down with little to no spillage, as the stylings of Dairy Queen’s Blizzard tend to boast. No, this shake was either shook too hard, was prepared well in advance of my arrival and melted, or the milkshake machine was experiencing some kind of issues. Fortunately, my milkshake was still cold and thick enough not to be a frosty soup, but it did not instill confidence in quality of the product.
Observation 2.) The milkshake was either underfilled, or they did not give me a standard helping of whipped cream. No doubt Grimace’s Birthday was a popular thing to celebrate, if my Twitter timeline as of right now is any indication, so I suppose I could see an impromptu shortening of the milkshake and whipped cream rationing. Disappointment is too strong of a word to describe how I felt seeing my milkshake filled well below the clearance provided by the domed lid even with the whipped cream on top, but it was once again an indicator to not expect this milkshake to be more than “Okay” at best. It was his birthday, so I suppose I can only ask for so much from Grimace.
As I pulled suction from the straw, the not-as-thick-as-i’d-have-expected milkshake flooded my mouth. The experience that played out there did so in multiple distinct stages. For a fraction of a section, surprise at the blue-berryish flavor, relinquished by an “Oh well obviously”, for a few fractions more. A whole second later, confusion, or even bafflement at the choice to flavor a dairy dessert with fruit - Something I associated more with frozen, icee-like treats, and then another mental concession once I had remembered that Strawberry Milkshakes are indeed very popular as well. Still, the creamy blueberry sensation was new to me, and I could not tell if I enjoyed it or not. Before I could come to a conclusion, the oral sensation had begun to shift.
The flavor of the milkshake migrated from a creamy and sweet berry flavor engulfing my cheeks and the flat of my tongue, to something a bit more acidic and sharp onto the vertical sides and tip of it, almost as if I was consuming real fruit. This formed a sort of feedback loop where that sourness, that hint of zing would begin to make my mouth water, which would in turn only make the zing that currently inhabited my tastebuds all the more potent, until the milkshake eventually found its way back to my throat and died down.
The opening act of the milkshake was nothing to write home about, boringly sweet and a little confusing. But the climax of this taste, as fleeting as it was, was the real deal. It was a high so potent that my initial apprehensiveness towards it quickly faded. And so I took another sip. Then another three more sips. Amazed at the novelty of the shake, I had to force myself to be reminded that if I did not eat the rest of my meal soon, it would become cold. If you have ever had cold fries from McDonald’s, you should know that in this context, cold food is basically inedible food. Perhaps not even really “food” anymore.
Crispy, salty french fries, a tangy big mac, and a new wondrous non-euclidean milkshake. What’s not to love about this gluttony of riches?
As it turns out, this was actually the achilles’ heel of the Grimace Birthday meal. The delight and novelty of the milkshake was fragile. It couldn’t even settle on what it was inside of my mouth when it had no competing consistencies, textures, or flavors. Against the wave of the monolithically consistent Big Mac and accompanying fries, the milkshake had stood no chance. All those years of eating McDonald’s had cemented these flavors into the brain of my tongue and had selfishly completely and utterly enveloped my tastebuds. Been there, done that. Is this really all there is? McDonald’s is what I would consider to be comfort food, in that a simple fulfillment and instant gratification of my craving for it can temporarily and superficially soothe some of my troubles at any given time, but at the cost of contributing very directly to some of my other troubles. I would go on to finish my meal, but I did not feel very comforted this time around, even discounting whatever the usual physical consequences I would be experiencing.
The purple Grimace Milkshake simply did not compliment the rest of the meal. Perhaps if I had ordered the McNugget version of this meal, things would be different. Perhaps if my single mother at the time could have afforded to pay for me to join my local football program as a child, things would be different.
But I did not join a football program, and I did not order the McNuggets.
I know better than to worry about the literally infinite what-if scenarios in my life, and yet, I still do. I suspect even the most carefree, adventurous individuals do the same; Left, instead of Right; Soup, instead of Salad; The risk of rejection outweighing the possibility of returns of boundless joy.
This is human nature. As humans, we are all bound to the nebulous construct of Time. If humans could experience infinite Time, it stands to reason to myself that each infinite what-if scenario involving them would transpire. But whether we are conscious of it or not, Time is something we are always losing. To generations older than me, perhaps Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d is on the same level of novelty as The Internet, Fidget Spinners, and self driving cars that explode. Even something as monotonous and unchanging as the McDonald’s menu is not immune to the forces of time, being unable to help but invoke and exploit the ghosts of times past, either by way of intentional propaganda or sensory happenstance from the individual, with endless gimmick promotion after gimmick promotion, of which their appeal is propped up entirely by the limited Time they are available for.
Time has the power to ambush us at our most vulnerable moments. I was blindsided by Grimace’s birthday arriving, just as I have become increasingly often blindsided by the birthdays of those around me, and most frighteningly blindsided by my very own birthday. I can still remember as if it were yesterday what those old McDonald’s restaurants in that photograph of young Grimace looked and smelled like. I’ve lived through at least 2 total brand aesthetic revitalization efforts from McDonald’s, and have seen the same location remodeled to fit this branding more than once, with each successive remodel less potent in my memory than the last. The effects of this McTime Dilation reach me even in as brief an interaction as pulling into a parking spot to pick up my food. References to Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d is something old people do. I… Am getting Old now.
Where did the time go?
The Grimace Birthday meal at McDonald’s is a grave reminder of my own mortality.
The meal itself is a limited time offer, as is the fleeting bliss of the sharpest notes of His milkshake on my tongue. The new sensations the human experience may offer me are always suppressed and truncated by Time’s Constant, just as the purple Grimace milkshake is suppressed and truncated by a Big Mac and Fries. It is an unavoidable tragedy, but one that either inspires or scares me to make the most out of the miniscule amount of Time I have left in the greater cosmic calendar. Should I get to experience the Grimace Birthday meal once again, I will savor it, unperturbed by the prospects of the main course.
I did not play this video game.
The loudest thought in my head has consistently been that, regardless of how good Morrowind is or isn't, the idea that any of it's more talked about criticisms about being slow, clunky, or baffling in other ways is due to its age, or is a product of some kind of age of video game antiquity, simply holds absolutely no water.
You can split hairs about what it means for a game to "age", if it even does, but most of the time, that's a fruitless game of semantics. However, at the same time, I feel it does a disservice to Morrowind in particular to hand-wave away these criticisms in the name of “Well, 2002 was a different time”; In addition to somewhat undermining the game’s own positive achievements as being merely “Really good, for, y’know, back then.” this mentality I feel ignores the actual history and greater context of the genre, or even The Elder Scrolls franchise itself.
Movement is slow, which I’ve heard has to do with making the game world feel bigger. Yet, the game world isn’t even that small land-mass wise, certainly and especially in the context of 2002 video games. And in Morrowind’s own Daggerfall movement is just fine despite fast traveling to every point of interest literally being a requirement in that game. There are things like potions or spells or enchanted items that can aid with movement speed, but when it starts to feel like investment in those is necessary to
What does feel… Well, “Small” might not be the best word, but “Limited”, is the actual range of emotions the landscapes evoke. Morrowind’s excellent art direction shines and is arguably enhanced by the graphical capabilities of the platform(s) at the time, and yet so much of that feels lost in the tedious stretches between destinations. I’ve often heard praise of Morrowind’s unique and alienating setting, but so much of it in reality is simply dull. I take no issue with the idea of empty atmospheric expanses in games, but there are so many monotonous game mechanics or lack of engaging ones to make those few moments of immersive atmosphere last an entire play-through. Cliff-Racers live up to their internet reputation as the most annoying enemies to deal with in video games, period. Many of the incidental quests you may stumble upon on your journeys around Morrowind are equally inconsequential and un-fun. The most rewarding parts of exploration are simply when you finally reach somewhere that’s a slightly different shade of brown-grey until another unrelenting horde of Cliff-Racers spawn, or you’re forced to deal with endless Slaughterfish while swimming.
To compound all of this, the world of Morrowind is set to a looping soundtrack of just a handful of songs removed from any context or artful placement that I was able to pick up on outside of the battle theme. The theme from Morrowind has sort of gone on to become the theme tune for the franchise as a whole, but I couldn’t help throughout my entire playthrough thinking that the Daggerfall, and somewhat by extension even the Arena soundtracks easily did laps around Morrowind in their sleep.
I like to think that I have a propensity for being able to take in the moments and the environments around me in video games, and often my favorite environments are ones that feel isolating, hostile, and unfamiliar, so I can confidently say my lack of patience with Morrowind’s world likely stems from a number of other external factors at play. I think one of these factors is the strained player agency throughout the rest of the game. In the context of a Morrowind review, that’s probably an insane sentence to read if you’re enthusiastic about the game, but I truly felt more limited in what I could do or who I could be than in either its predecessor, Daggerfall, or its later 2 successors, Oblivion and Skyrim. Outside of the Elder Scrolls franchise and around the same time, I also felt my agency being more strained than in a game like Knights of The Old Republic, which, to me, seems to be the grand point of all of these games.
To clarify, Morrowind technically gives you a sandbox of tools to do crazy stuff like leap across the continent in a single bound, a feat none of these other entries boast. In place of being able to climb on walls, it seems crafting flight spells and being able to use them in a variety of creative ways in particular is one of the big “You can only do this in Morrowind type things I regularly came across in my playthrough . This is neat, but doesn’t really make up for the rest of what is ultimately a narrow experience - I have never before in any RPG failed to make a character that actually felt… decent to play as, as many times as I have with Morrowind. Upon character creation there are a small variety of skills and birth signs you can take to mold and influence how you will play the game, and yet the actual array of starting stats and skills that are actually viable for the first few levels is so small that it makes me question why the game lets me do this in the first place as opposed to offering a few preset arrays. This is such a problem with this game that there are no shortage of guides or forum posts out there that exist solely to seek or supply help for simply being able to play the game in the first place. I don’t remember exactly how many characters I had to make before I was able to reliably kill one or two of the starting area monsters without getting killed, but compared to the… One attempt in Daggerfall I made without a guide, it felt like a silly waste of my time. I think there is an art to being able to fuck up your character sheet, but it shouldn’t be easier to fuck it up so consistently than it is to make something not even great - Just baseline playable.
Some of this is amplified by the feedback of combat in general just being shit - How you reconcile tacking on dice rolls to a real-time action game without having robust animations or sound design is beyond me, but again, this is something that I didn’t really struggle with all that much in Daggerfall, going to show that this sort of thing isn’t “bad because it’s old”, it’s just… Bad. Up until this point, Bethesda had done better.
There are plenty of other sore areas or instances to be found in Morrowind, some of the most frustrating being losing hours of progress to Brown Rot, a mechanic the game hadn’t properly warned me about or prepared me for, or the layout of Vivec city being so pointlessly confusing that even the in-game NPCS comment on it, but these are just incidental dogshit moments that are more nitpicks that are amplified with bigger issues found in the game, or are only caused by said bigger issues to begin with.
Attempting to stay on track just a little bit with the idea of limited player agency is the near complete absence of any roleplaying. Sure, there’s no shortage of dialogue options with every NPC in the game, the world is populated with plenty of quests and factions to join up with, and the lore/setting are interesting, but none of the dialogue really allows you to approach situations in different ways, and the vast majority of NPC dialogue are generic lines that are seldom actually useful when you really want them to be, for as much as this game is about reading the information and acting on it instead of mindlessly following markers on your HUD. The quests and factions themselves are also very one note, repetitive, and involve very little in the way of story or narrative flair. While the world-building of the game makes for cool youtube videos to listen to on another tab while working, it unfortunately doesn’t seem to inform too much of what you can actually do in-game. I keep reading that entering family tombs and disturbing them is strictly forbidden by law in the region of Morrowind, and yet I still don’t know firsthand what the consequences of that really are. I’ve killed handfuls of slavers and have freed their captives, but I haven’t really faced any consequences for that, nor have I really been able to follow up on the liberated NPCs.
It’s as though in Morrowind there are so many different things you can technically do, and yet it rarely feels as though I’m doing something different, one moment to the next. There’s no reactivity or drama to really sell the agency that the game chooses to afford you. It all makes for a really underwhelming messiah story. I immediately played Starfield upon its release after my time with Morrowind, and while I have yet to write that particular review, I’m coming to realize that this idea of breadth over depth is not a new concept for Bethesda.
But perhaps Morrowind needn’t be all that deep. While less complex than Daggerfall, I don’t know that I would go so far as to say that Daggerfall is deeper. The story, quests, dialogue, and reactivity are basically at the same level as Morrowind’s, but I’m able to accept that as there are in general less gameplay annoyances, and its focus on being a medieval fantasy life simulator seems more clearly realized. I don’t really know what Morrowind is supposed to be good at; Its greatest strength is its art direction, but that hardly makes a great game.
Maybe the leap to a 3D modeled world from 2D sprites was too big of a technical challenge on a financially strained studio on the verge of closing? There are seeds planted in this game not present in Daggerfall that you can see blossom in later entries, and there are improvements from Daggerfall, with the vastly simplified dungeon layouts that, for the better, don’t feel ripped out of someone’s basement game of Dungeons & Dragons circa 1983 and go on forever.
The main quest does have a slight bit more going on mechanically every now and then compared to the many sidequests of the world, which also could not really be said of Daggerfall.
For the sake of evaluating this game on its own, and experiencing the game as it was intended to be experienced on release, I had originally set out to not yet play any of the DLC, and still have yet to really dive into any of it. However, I did manage to wander onto a DLC island and was treated to my favorite quest in the game - A sidequest where you have to promptly memorize lines to a play happening in a shopping center square, only for some slightly off-color political joke to go off the rails and incite being attacked by some extremist audience member. For Morrowind, this was a really inventive and tightly paced quest that felt cleverly written and utilized the game’s text-only dialogue system as a core mechanic that was fun to engage with. This was one of the few times I had a stupid grin on my face because of something that the game did. One of the others, also found on this DLC island, was being able to have a pet rat that doubled as a beast of burden.
This review of Morrowind probably contains the word “Daggerfall” way more than it should, but I think that if it's impossible to evaluate this game without some greater context, it should be in an actual context of its contemporaries and predecessors and not some vague “long time ago”, as if video games before the year 2007 are simply “too old” to be accessible by modern audiences. These contemporaries and predecessors, in addition to the faint whiffs of Morrowind’s own DLC to me show that a better game was absolutely within reach in 2002. Morrowind carries with it just enough charm to be a memorable experience that despite my nonstop whinging, I did in fact enjoy an OK amount. Its mountain of shortcomings were simply too much of a hindrance for me to love it, which is regrettable.
You can split hairs about what it means for a game to "age", if it even does, but most of the time, that's a fruitless game of semantics. However, at the same time, I feel it does a disservice to Morrowind in particular to hand-wave away these criticisms in the name of “Well, 2002 was a different time”; In addition to somewhat undermining the game’s own positive achievements as being merely “Really good, for, y’know, back then.” this mentality I feel ignores the actual history and greater context of the genre, or even The Elder Scrolls franchise itself.
Movement is slow, which I’ve heard has to do with making the game world feel bigger. Yet, the game world isn’t even that small land-mass wise, certainly and especially in the context of 2002 video games. And in Morrowind’s own Daggerfall movement is just fine despite fast traveling to every point of interest literally being a requirement in that game. There are things like potions or spells or enchanted items that can aid with movement speed, but when it starts to feel like investment in those is necessary to
What does feel… Well, “Small” might not be the best word, but “Limited”, is the actual range of emotions the landscapes evoke. Morrowind’s excellent art direction shines and is arguably enhanced by the graphical capabilities of the platform(s) at the time, and yet so much of that feels lost in the tedious stretches between destinations. I’ve often heard praise of Morrowind’s unique and alienating setting, but so much of it in reality is simply dull. I take no issue with the idea of empty atmospheric expanses in games, but there are so many monotonous game mechanics or lack of engaging ones to make those few moments of immersive atmosphere last an entire play-through. Cliff-Racers live up to their internet reputation as the most annoying enemies to deal with in video games, period. Many of the incidental quests you may stumble upon on your journeys around Morrowind are equally inconsequential and un-fun. The most rewarding parts of exploration are simply when you finally reach somewhere that’s a slightly different shade of brown-grey until another unrelenting horde of Cliff-Racers spawn, or you’re forced to deal with endless Slaughterfish while swimming.
To compound all of this, the world of Morrowind is set to a looping soundtrack of just a handful of songs removed from any context or artful placement that I was able to pick up on outside of the battle theme. The theme from Morrowind has sort of gone on to become the theme tune for the franchise as a whole, but I couldn’t help throughout my entire playthrough thinking that the Daggerfall, and somewhat by extension even the Arena soundtracks easily did laps around Morrowind in their sleep.
I like to think that I have a propensity for being able to take in the moments and the environments around me in video games, and often my favorite environments are ones that feel isolating, hostile, and unfamiliar, so I can confidently say my lack of patience with Morrowind’s world likely stems from a number of other external factors at play. I think one of these factors is the strained player agency throughout the rest of the game. In the context of a Morrowind review, that’s probably an insane sentence to read if you’re enthusiastic about the game, but I truly felt more limited in what I could do or who I could be than in either its predecessor, Daggerfall, or its later 2 successors, Oblivion and Skyrim. Outside of the Elder Scrolls franchise and around the same time, I also felt my agency being more strained than in a game like Knights of The Old Republic, which, to me, seems to be the grand point of all of these games.
To clarify, Morrowind technically gives you a sandbox of tools to do crazy stuff like leap across the continent in a single bound, a feat none of these other entries boast. In place of being able to climb on walls, it seems crafting flight spells and being able to use them in a variety of creative ways in particular is one of the big “You can only do this in Morrowind type things I regularly came across in my playthrough . This is neat, but doesn’t really make up for the rest of what is ultimately a narrow experience - I have never before in any RPG failed to make a character that actually felt… decent to play as, as many times as I have with Morrowind. Upon character creation there are a small variety of skills and birth signs you can take to mold and influence how you will play the game, and yet the actual array of starting stats and skills that are actually viable for the first few levels is so small that it makes me question why the game lets me do this in the first place as opposed to offering a few preset arrays. This is such a problem with this game that there are no shortage of guides or forum posts out there that exist solely to seek or supply help for simply being able to play the game in the first place. I don’t remember exactly how many characters I had to make before I was able to reliably kill one or two of the starting area monsters without getting killed, but compared to the… One attempt in Daggerfall I made without a guide, it felt like a silly waste of my time. I think there is an art to being able to fuck up your character sheet, but it shouldn’t be easier to fuck it up so consistently than it is to make something not even great - Just baseline playable.
Some of this is amplified by the feedback of combat in general just being shit - How you reconcile tacking on dice rolls to a real-time action game without having robust animations or sound design is beyond me, but again, this is something that I didn’t really struggle with all that much in Daggerfall, going to show that this sort of thing isn’t “bad because it’s old”, it’s just… Bad. Up until this point, Bethesda had done better.
There are plenty of other sore areas or instances to be found in Morrowind, some of the most frustrating being losing hours of progress to Brown Rot, a mechanic the game hadn’t properly warned me about or prepared me for, or the layout of Vivec city being so pointlessly confusing that even the in-game NPCS comment on it, but these are just incidental dogshit moments that are more nitpicks that are amplified with bigger issues found in the game, or are only caused by said bigger issues to begin with.
Attempting to stay on track just a little bit with the idea of limited player agency is the near complete absence of any roleplaying. Sure, there’s no shortage of dialogue options with every NPC in the game, the world is populated with plenty of quests and factions to join up with, and the lore/setting are interesting, but none of the dialogue really allows you to approach situations in different ways, and the vast majority of NPC dialogue are generic lines that are seldom actually useful when you really want them to be, for as much as this game is about reading the information and acting on it instead of mindlessly following markers on your HUD. The quests and factions themselves are also very one note, repetitive, and involve very little in the way of story or narrative flair. While the world-building of the game makes for cool youtube videos to listen to on another tab while working, it unfortunately doesn’t seem to inform too much of what you can actually do in-game. I keep reading that entering family tombs and disturbing them is strictly forbidden by law in the region of Morrowind, and yet I still don’t know firsthand what the consequences of that really are. I’ve killed handfuls of slavers and have freed their captives, but I haven’t really faced any consequences for that, nor have I really been able to follow up on the liberated NPCs.
It’s as though in Morrowind there are so many different things you can technically do, and yet it rarely feels as though I’m doing something different, one moment to the next. There’s no reactivity or drama to really sell the agency that the game chooses to afford you. It all makes for a really underwhelming messiah story. I immediately played Starfield upon its release after my time with Morrowind, and while I have yet to write that particular review, I’m coming to realize that this idea of breadth over depth is not a new concept for Bethesda.
But perhaps Morrowind needn’t be all that deep. While less complex than Daggerfall, I don’t know that I would go so far as to say that Daggerfall is deeper. The story, quests, dialogue, and reactivity are basically at the same level as Morrowind’s, but I’m able to accept that as there are in general less gameplay annoyances, and its focus on being a medieval fantasy life simulator seems more clearly realized. I don’t really know what Morrowind is supposed to be good at; Its greatest strength is its art direction, but that hardly makes a great game.
Maybe the leap to a 3D modeled world from 2D sprites was too big of a technical challenge on a financially strained studio on the verge of closing? There are seeds planted in this game not present in Daggerfall that you can see blossom in later entries, and there are improvements from Daggerfall, with the vastly simplified dungeon layouts that, for the better, don’t feel ripped out of someone’s basement game of Dungeons & Dragons circa 1983 and go on forever.
The main quest does have a slight bit more going on mechanically every now and then compared to the many sidequests of the world, which also could not really be said of Daggerfall.
For the sake of evaluating this game on its own, and experiencing the game as it was intended to be experienced on release, I had originally set out to not yet play any of the DLC, and still have yet to really dive into any of it. However, I did manage to wander onto a DLC island and was treated to my favorite quest in the game - A sidequest where you have to promptly memorize lines to a play happening in a shopping center square, only for some slightly off-color political joke to go off the rails and incite being attacked by some extremist audience member. For Morrowind, this was a really inventive and tightly paced quest that felt cleverly written and utilized the game’s text-only dialogue system as a core mechanic that was fun to engage with. This was one of the few times I had a stupid grin on my face because of something that the game did. One of the others, also found on this DLC island, was being able to have a pet rat that doubled as a beast of burden.
This review of Morrowind probably contains the word “Daggerfall” way more than it should, but I think that if it's impossible to evaluate this game without some greater context, it should be in an actual context of its contemporaries and predecessors and not some vague “long time ago”, as if video games before the year 2007 are simply “too old” to be accessible by modern audiences. These contemporaries and predecessors, in addition to the faint whiffs of Morrowind’s own DLC to me show that a better game was absolutely within reach in 2002. Morrowind carries with it just enough charm to be a memorable experience that despite my nonstop whinging, I did in fact enjoy an OK amount. Its mountain of shortcomings were simply too much of a hindrance for me to love it, which is regrettable.
2023
Like with most games of excessive scope and scale there are probably a number of things you could nitpick or criticize about Starfield, but none of those really matter, and it is a waste of time to ponder on them.
Would Starfield be better had there been 100, 50, or 10 planets instead of 1000+? No.
Would seamless loading screens masked by intra-atmospheric space travel make Starfield an instant 10 out of 10? I seriously doubt it.
The want for space aliens a la Mass Effect is uninspired and refusing to engage with the game on the same level as wishing for a burger at a Chinese restaurant, and while ground vehicles inspired by their implementation in something like Halo would be nice, like everything else that Starfield does competently, it would be squandered thanks to Bethesda's enduring ability to design a game that ultimately feels utterly pointless.
Paradoxically, Bethesda Game Studios has mastered the art of creating huge simulation sandbox playgrounds where you can do pretty much everything, but you can't do anything that matters.
Systems-wise, you are granted a fair amount of agency, I guess. Like, on a technical level. But despite the hundreds of characters and a volume of voice acted dialogue larger than the studio's last 2 major efforts combined, Starfield manages to be a roleplaying game in which you are not allowed to roleplay. There are rarely any big decisions to make, and when you do make a decision, rarely does it have big consequences.
Starfield pales in comparison in this department compared to the aforementioned Mass Effect, as well as The Outer Worlds, or even something like Arkane's Prey: There's no build up to looming forks in which you can shape the destiny of your player character or other NPCs, there's a drought of alternate quest win conditions or exclusive quests that lock you in to their paths, you can't deal with major NPCs by blasting the problem away and collecting a key item in their place, and aside from a generic type of fetch quest, there are no time gated decisions that ask the player to take some responsibility for themselves or the world around them.
No, even in this new dangerous frontier of space pioneers, the most common form of real moment to moment player agency is on occasion being able to pass dialogue checks with NPCs to persuade them instead of having to fight them - A system so frivolous and unincorporated with anything else happening in the game that you can cheese the system by constantly reloading a save until they decide they agree with you this time based off of a die roll - or choosing to sneak around an abandoned factory instead of charging in gung ho, guns blazing.
I feel like I'm not asking for a lot here; Or at least, what I am asking for at the bare minimum shouldn't be limited by the scope of the rest of the game. I don't believe that less planets or less polished gun mechanics or scrapping the base building would suddenly imbue this game with the personality and venue for player expression that it sorely needs.
If anything, customizing guns, having functionally endless planets to choose from to build a base on, and especially the ship customization feature are the things that allow for the most player expression in Starfield, with the last of those being my main motivation for progressing through the game, and remains my favorite aspect of it.
Something as basic as being locked out of factions for mingling with others, or some scale of "Good Guy Points/Bad Guy Points" would have gone a long way here. Giving the player multiple dialogue options with different tones and personalities even, would have gone a long way here. I wouldn't even ask that they always have different responses, so long as there's at least a convincing facade of enabling player expression at play.
Starfield is an unreasonably huge game that actually manages to pull off what it says on the tin. The gun fighting feels pretty good in a noticeable step-up from Fallout 4, the "NASApunk" visual language despite sounding antithetical to either NASA or punk is very cool and effective. You can fly ships, build a base, blah blah blah.
Although it could easily have been worse, there's no point in rewarding an accolade for surface level competency. And I really do mean surface level. None of these systems have that much depth or complexity to them, which is perfectly fine. Unfortunately, there is no real external motivation for engaging with these systems to make up for it.
There's just no reason to give a damn about Starfield.
Would Starfield be better had there been 100, 50, or 10 planets instead of 1000+? No.
Would seamless loading screens masked by intra-atmospheric space travel make Starfield an instant 10 out of 10? I seriously doubt it.
The want for space aliens a la Mass Effect is uninspired and refusing to engage with the game on the same level as wishing for a burger at a Chinese restaurant, and while ground vehicles inspired by their implementation in something like Halo would be nice, like everything else that Starfield does competently, it would be squandered thanks to Bethesda's enduring ability to design a game that ultimately feels utterly pointless.
Paradoxically, Bethesda Game Studios has mastered the art of creating huge simulation sandbox playgrounds where you can do pretty much everything, but you can't do anything that matters.
Systems-wise, you are granted a fair amount of agency, I guess. Like, on a technical level. But despite the hundreds of characters and a volume of voice acted dialogue larger than the studio's last 2 major efforts combined, Starfield manages to be a roleplaying game in which you are not allowed to roleplay. There are rarely any big decisions to make, and when you do make a decision, rarely does it have big consequences.
Starfield pales in comparison in this department compared to the aforementioned Mass Effect, as well as The Outer Worlds, or even something like Arkane's Prey: There's no build up to looming forks in which you can shape the destiny of your player character or other NPCs, there's a drought of alternate quest win conditions or exclusive quests that lock you in to their paths, you can't deal with major NPCs by blasting the problem away and collecting a key item in their place, and aside from a generic type of fetch quest, there are no time gated decisions that ask the player to take some responsibility for themselves or the world around them.
No, even in this new dangerous frontier of space pioneers, the most common form of real moment to moment player agency is on occasion being able to pass dialogue checks with NPCs to persuade them instead of having to fight them - A system so frivolous and unincorporated with anything else happening in the game that you can cheese the system by constantly reloading a save until they decide they agree with you this time based off of a die roll - or choosing to sneak around an abandoned factory instead of charging in gung ho, guns blazing.
I feel like I'm not asking for a lot here; Or at least, what I am asking for at the bare minimum shouldn't be limited by the scope of the rest of the game. I don't believe that less planets or less polished gun mechanics or scrapping the base building would suddenly imbue this game with the personality and venue for player expression that it sorely needs.
If anything, customizing guns, having functionally endless planets to choose from to build a base on, and especially the ship customization feature are the things that allow for the most player expression in Starfield, with the last of those being my main motivation for progressing through the game, and remains my favorite aspect of it.
Something as basic as being locked out of factions for mingling with others, or some scale of "Good Guy Points/Bad Guy Points" would have gone a long way here. Giving the player multiple dialogue options with different tones and personalities even, would have gone a long way here. I wouldn't even ask that they always have different responses, so long as there's at least a convincing facade of enabling player expression at play.
Starfield is an unreasonably huge game that actually manages to pull off what it says on the tin. The gun fighting feels pretty good in a noticeable step-up from Fallout 4, the "NASApunk" visual language despite sounding antithetical to either NASA or punk is very cool and effective. You can fly ships, build a base, blah blah blah.
Although it could easily have been worse, there's no point in rewarding an accolade for surface level competency. And I really do mean surface level. None of these systems have that much depth or complexity to them, which is perfectly fine. Unfortunately, there is no real external motivation for engaging with these systems to make up for it.
There's just no reason to give a damn about Starfield.
2023
Mechanically, Mortal Kombat 1 is the most satisfying feeling entry from Netherrealm Studios in some time. I lack the skill, experience, or vocabulary to really articulate it or fully appreciate it, but it just feels good. While playing the NRS titles, I've never really been privy to any of the animation issues that other seem to have, instead only being able to really understand the gripes people have when watching back footage. For most of the cast of characters, it's been even more difficult for me to spot the "jank" present in NRS's animation style - Except for Johnny Cage. Holy shit do Johnny Cage's animations look ridiculous.
But whatever, I don't really play these games for their refined combat. I've pretty much bought every NRS title since 2011's franchise reboot on day 1 for their substantial story modes. Going into Mortal Kombat 1, I was very excited at what seemed like a real refresh for the franchise in many of the characters' designs and origins. I was particularly stoked that for once in these games, all of these experts in various Asian martial arts were themselves depicted as Asian martial artists. I was also stoked at the lack of any of those military special forces guns, grenades, and drones bullshit.
The story mode starts off fairly promising with this return to form about being a game steeped in martial arts and mysticism film pastiches, but this quickly grinds to a screeching halt and devolves into modern day superhero movie junk. Despite being marketed as a fresh start, Mortal Kombat 1 seems intent on not being able to let go from the timeline fuckery story elements from Mortal Kombat 11. Not only does this game do it worse than 2019's entry, but it also serves to diminish any unique identity either game has.
I'm not asking for anything Shakespearean in quality here and fully expect Mortal Kombat to always essentially be about smashing ninja toys together, but it feels like the developers just lost focus or lost confidence in their own storytelling and resorted to essentially making a shitty Boss Logic caliber CG movie.
If I truly had my unreasonable, zero-dollar making way, a story revolving around the first Mortal Kombat tournament, Goro, and The Great Kung Lao in addition to a cast of mostly new faces would have been the most compelling path this latest time reset could have led us. Unrealistic, for sure, but man to swing so hard the other way was a big disappointment.
Oh well, here's hoping next time around is better.
But whatever, I don't really play these games for their refined combat. I've pretty much bought every NRS title since 2011's franchise reboot on day 1 for their substantial story modes. Going into Mortal Kombat 1, I was very excited at what seemed like a real refresh for the franchise in many of the characters' designs and origins. I was particularly stoked that for once in these games, all of these experts in various Asian martial arts were themselves depicted as Asian martial artists. I was also stoked at the lack of any of those military special forces guns, grenades, and drones bullshit.
The story mode starts off fairly promising with this return to form about being a game steeped in martial arts and mysticism film pastiches, but this quickly grinds to a screeching halt and devolves into modern day superhero movie junk. Despite being marketed as a fresh start, Mortal Kombat 1 seems intent on not being able to let go from the timeline fuckery story elements from Mortal Kombat 11. Not only does this game do it worse than 2019's entry, but it also serves to diminish any unique identity either game has.
I'm not asking for anything Shakespearean in quality here and fully expect Mortal Kombat to always essentially be about smashing ninja toys together, but it feels like the developers just lost focus or lost confidence in their own storytelling and resorted to essentially making a shitty Boss Logic caliber CG movie.
If I truly had my unreasonable, zero-dollar making way, a story revolving around the first Mortal Kombat tournament, Goro, and The Great Kung Lao in addition to a cast of mostly new faces would have been the most compelling path this latest time reset could have led us. Unrealistic, for sure, but man to swing so hard the other way was a big disappointment.
Oh well, here's hoping next time around is better.