proximete
what a horrible piece of shit. you can apply all the resolution tweaks and game altering mods all you want--you're still bandaging a rough corpse of a video game, a shallow followup to some of stealth's finest. basic movement is fucked, every single action is clunky and awkward, guard AI interaction is ridiculous, and the simplified level design leaves an ugly taste in my mouth. a game not even worth finishing its first level.
2010
welcome, agent. you are america's most clandestine weapon, a secret kept even from the president because obama can't know all the crazy earth shattering work you're doing like bugging terrorist organizations or punching brown people. your mission is simple: shoot off a bunch of marvel movie one liners and spend hours crawling around in the same middle eastern environments every crouch high wall shooter was just obsessed with at the time. what, you thought a game about being a secret agent would be all tuxedos and dangling from the ceiling? well, if it is, none of that certainly happens in the game's first four hours (and believe me, there's a lot more sand world to go on my end). don't fret, though, because you want that james bond smooth talking, yeah? well there's definitely conversations--you get vague dialogue options set on a quick timer that make people like or dislike you based on your schizoid responses (if you play anything like me). you should have a good grasp of this by the way because you sit through, like, a twenty minute long lecture given by your boss who's concerned you haven't yet been briefed on what "talking" is.
well okay, so it's the desert. but is it fun to play? well, if you play stealth you get to face a threat that back and forth wavers between intellectually disabled and eagle eye replacement surgery, and any time you die (or get caught and don't want to spoil the ghost run), you have to load an arbitrary checkpoint (which happens before new dialogue, so you'll hear it every. single. time). and you'll get caught for an amazing amount of reasons--you'll use the cover system to hide behind a wall only for the wall to not actually fully shield you so you get spotted away. you'll walk on sand outside and a bad guy on the other side of an iron door will panic that the base is under attack. and sometimes the game will just decide they get to spawn in full alert, those bird eyes scanning right through walls with infrared.
well, what if you just roll with getting caught? yeah, ethan hunt's definitely killed a few, so you can too. and i say go for it and time how long before you realize you're just now playing a straightforward third person military shooter, 100% completely unchallenging. and let's run back to stealth for the topic of unchallenging because, again, that ai is just insanely stupid most of the time when they're not on alert. this is no doubt an accommodation for the game using a checkpoint system, given that really REALLY tough stealth would just be a nightmare with that. but this is a horrible trade off, what the hell? why not the opposite--smart ai and a manual save system? not like we don't have games like deus ex or thief out a decade earlier helping lay that sort of framework.
i like that the game's an rpg and has different areas to allot skill points and upgrade, even though most of the upgrades feel really, really useless to a morally acting agent. i like that the game has conversations, even though the commitment to having conversations realistically flow comes at the cost of saying really stupid, shitty things you never would've intended had you known what you're psycho of a character was actually going to say. i like... two of the hacking minigames, i guess. lockpicking one is total ass, but the other two are alright. i know--i'm scraping the bottom here trying to find anything positive to say, because it's clear that there are some interesting aspects to the game otherwise i wouldn't have bothered playing past the agonizingly boring first twenty minutes, but here we are.
if there is a better game hidden further in, i am very sorry they don't lead with it, and i am very sorry they hedge their bets on another fucking afghan sand-em-up aesthetic. apparently this game isn't even offered for sale on steam anymore, and you know what? consider sega doing you a favor.
well okay, so it's the desert. but is it fun to play? well, if you play stealth you get to face a threat that back and forth wavers between intellectually disabled and eagle eye replacement surgery, and any time you die (or get caught and don't want to spoil the ghost run), you have to load an arbitrary checkpoint (which happens before new dialogue, so you'll hear it every. single. time). and you'll get caught for an amazing amount of reasons--you'll use the cover system to hide behind a wall only for the wall to not actually fully shield you so you get spotted away. you'll walk on sand outside and a bad guy on the other side of an iron door will panic that the base is under attack. and sometimes the game will just decide they get to spawn in full alert, those bird eyes scanning right through walls with infrared.
well, what if you just roll with getting caught? yeah, ethan hunt's definitely killed a few, so you can too. and i say go for it and time how long before you realize you're just now playing a straightforward third person military shooter, 100% completely unchallenging. and let's run back to stealth for the topic of unchallenging because, again, that ai is just insanely stupid most of the time when they're not on alert. this is no doubt an accommodation for the game using a checkpoint system, given that really REALLY tough stealth would just be a nightmare with that. but this is a horrible trade off, what the hell? why not the opposite--smart ai and a manual save system? not like we don't have games like deus ex or thief out a decade earlier helping lay that sort of framework.
i like that the game's an rpg and has different areas to allot skill points and upgrade, even though most of the upgrades feel really, really useless to a morally acting agent. i like that the game has conversations, even though the commitment to having conversations realistically flow comes at the cost of saying really stupid, shitty things you never would've intended had you known what you're psycho of a character was actually going to say. i like... two of the hacking minigames, i guess. lockpicking one is total ass, but the other two are alright. i know--i'm scraping the bottom here trying to find anything positive to say, because it's clear that there are some interesting aspects to the game otherwise i wouldn't have bothered playing past the agonizingly boring first twenty minutes, but here we are.
if there is a better game hidden further in, i am very sorry they don't lead with it, and i am very sorry they hedge their bets on another fucking afghan sand-em-up aesthetic. apparently this game isn't even offered for sale on steam anymore, and you know what? consider sega doing you a favor.
2018
yeah this isn't doing anything for me. it's tedious, repetitive, frustrating--similar reasons why i'm not remotely interested in speedrunning. at first, i thought i was just really rusty at prey so i went back and played through the base game again, loved it to death, came back to this, and i hate it. it's not as if i have too much trouble staying alive, either--my runs usually end with around 30,000 arkane fun bucks, but good lord do i not want to keep repeating these same objectives in these same areas with these same enemies. actually scratch what i said about staying alive, because dealing with moonsharks is a ball busting experience, running around with a brain hemorrhage is aggravating considering i'm not keen on listening to an audio loop of porn moans, and the time limit is just completely antithetical to what immersive sims are all about: slow, methodical exploration.
props to arkane for a ballsy ass move in that this dlc isn't even the same fucking genre as the base game, but all mooncrash does is affirm how much i hate rougeanythings and how much i probably won't buy deathloop
props to arkane for a ballsy ass move in that this dlc isn't even the same fucking genre as the base game, but all mooncrash does is affirm how much i hate rougeanythings and how much i probably won't buy deathloop
2021
when it comes to failing in a video game and trying, trying again, it's easy for me to reach for the quickload key to avoid repeating already made progress. anything less feels like a head against the wall, a repetition so repetitive i'd rather repeat uninstalling the game. over-exaggerating obviously, but it's easy to crutch saves to keep the flow going, and this is a reason why rougelites and like--even prey's mooncrash--are so fearsome to me. this is also a reason why deathloop initially put me off, a full fledged project built off said prey dlc. no quicksaves, no quickloading, and you're going to see these levels a whole, whole lot...
and it works brilliant.
deathloop offers you four distinct playgrounds, each filled with npcs set to schedules and routines for you to observe and plan around. and when you disturb them? you can't go back on your word, so you either take a stand and empty some clips or bail and haul ass to the complete other side of the map. it can feel frustrating entering unfamiliar territory and constantly getting caught by surprise... just as much as it can feel rewarding to weave through learned territory to the degree it becomes colt's proving ground.
colt's the main character by the way, and he and primary antagonist julianna spend much of the game bickering across the radio and trying to kill or escape one another during gameplay. players can control julianna, by the way, in a form of dark souls-esque invasions less about dueling (and taking advantage of inexperienced players) and more about cat-and-mousing (and taking advantage of inexperienced players). the feeling is intoxicating for a well played arkane player. with the dishonoreds, thiefs, and deus exes under my belt, i take a lot of pride in the ways i stalk unsuspecting players, distracting them and rerouting them and waiting on them until suddenly my blade's in their back. i also take my fair slice of humble pie when a julianna invades my own world and drops every peg in my leg... three times, too.
right, you get three lives in a loop, and it allows for a fine sweet spot of allowing for experiments and punishing strings of one too many failed. and you'll want to experiment: colt's got a lot of tools ripped from arkane's previous work in addition to some fun new ones, and there's a lot of ways to traverse levels through combat, stealth, and somewhere inbetween. it's not perfect, though... ai is at a bizarre level of simple where you can get away with a lot more than you think just as much as you can suddenly have the entire half of the map zeroed in on your location because you stepped on a fucking rock wrong. and when you see enemies, you're going to want to mark them: this works half the time, and every mis-click or mis-mark will... get rid of the ones you actually got successfully marked. yeah, you'll want a sniper, and don't even try doing this shit through a fucking window for whatever reason.
but you'll keep fucking pushing through it, and not just because it's fun... you want to know what's going down with the fucking story. also, the fucking story sucks. deathloop features a cast of just 9 fucking characters and every single one of them fucking sucks. dialogue is fucking wretched. these characters fucking talk like they're trying to out-quip or out-annoy each fucking other, and the personalities themselves of the fucking targets could not be any fucking duller. i'm having a tough time caring about the fucking drugged out painter who slurs words or the fucking party owner who sounds like a prissy yuppie, and it's a fucking shame because it could be so much fucking cooler than it fucking is. also, i wish they fucking swore more if i'm fucking honest because i love when characters fucking swear over and over and over and fucking over and fucking over and fucking over like they're a fucking sixth grader let fucking loose onto the fucking internet with un-fucking-supervised fucking access. goddamn.
sorry had to get that out of my system--the dialogue really is wretched and the ending, in classic arkane fashion, won't deliver on anything either because of course it won't, it's a classic arkane game. these fools know how to create masterclasses in game design and generate incredible intrigue in their narratives only to fumble the fucking ball legitimately every single time. with how fast and done these games' endings always are, arkane's next project may as well have the player just walk up to a button that says "PRESS HERE TO END GAMEPLAY AND ROLL CREDITS".
and while all that's unfortunate on the writing end, it's not something i expect out of an arkane experience: i look for damned good imsim shenanigans and gameplay that rewards planning and experimentation. deathloop is damned good imsim shenanigans, and deathloop is gameplay that rewards planning, experimentation, trial and error and successes and failures and wins and losses and personal, weighty progress. it's not about the destination even if that certainly docks it a few points: deathloop is about tools and rules, and how you break them from loop to loop to loop. and it's damned fun. or fucking fun. fuck.
and it works brilliant.
deathloop offers you four distinct playgrounds, each filled with npcs set to schedules and routines for you to observe and plan around. and when you disturb them? you can't go back on your word, so you either take a stand and empty some clips or bail and haul ass to the complete other side of the map. it can feel frustrating entering unfamiliar territory and constantly getting caught by surprise... just as much as it can feel rewarding to weave through learned territory to the degree it becomes colt's proving ground.
colt's the main character by the way, and he and primary antagonist julianna spend much of the game bickering across the radio and trying to kill or escape one another during gameplay. players can control julianna, by the way, in a form of dark souls-esque invasions less about dueling (and taking advantage of inexperienced players) and more about cat-and-mousing (and taking advantage of inexperienced players). the feeling is intoxicating for a well played arkane player. with the dishonoreds, thiefs, and deus exes under my belt, i take a lot of pride in the ways i stalk unsuspecting players, distracting them and rerouting them and waiting on them until suddenly my blade's in their back. i also take my fair slice of humble pie when a julianna invades my own world and drops every peg in my leg... three times, too.
right, you get three lives in a loop, and it allows for a fine sweet spot of allowing for experiments and punishing strings of one too many failed. and you'll want to experiment: colt's got a lot of tools ripped from arkane's previous work in addition to some fun new ones, and there's a lot of ways to traverse levels through combat, stealth, and somewhere inbetween. it's not perfect, though... ai is at a bizarre level of simple where you can get away with a lot more than you think just as much as you can suddenly have the entire half of the map zeroed in on your location because you stepped on a fucking rock wrong. and when you see enemies, you're going to want to mark them: this works half the time, and every mis-click or mis-mark will... get rid of the ones you actually got successfully marked. yeah, you'll want a sniper, and don't even try doing this shit through a fucking window for whatever reason.
but you'll keep fucking pushing through it, and not just because it's fun... you want to know what's going down with the fucking story. also, the fucking story sucks. deathloop features a cast of just 9 fucking characters and every single one of them fucking sucks. dialogue is fucking wretched. these characters fucking talk like they're trying to out-quip or out-annoy each fucking other, and the personalities themselves of the fucking targets could not be any fucking duller. i'm having a tough time caring about the fucking drugged out painter who slurs words or the fucking party owner who sounds like a prissy yuppie, and it's a fucking shame because it could be so much fucking cooler than it fucking is. also, i wish they fucking swore more if i'm fucking honest because i love when characters fucking swear over and over and over and fucking over and fucking over and fucking over like they're a fucking sixth grader let fucking loose onto the fucking internet with un-fucking-supervised fucking access. goddamn.
sorry had to get that out of my system--the dialogue really is wretched and the ending, in classic arkane fashion, won't deliver on anything either because of course it won't, it's a classic arkane game. these fools know how to create masterclasses in game design and generate incredible intrigue in their narratives only to fumble the fucking ball legitimately every single time. with how fast and done these games' endings always are, arkane's next project may as well have the player just walk up to a button that says "PRESS HERE TO END GAMEPLAY AND ROLL CREDITS".
and while all that's unfortunate on the writing end, it's not something i expect out of an arkane experience: i look for damned good imsim shenanigans and gameplay that rewards planning and experimentation. deathloop is damned good imsim shenanigans, and deathloop is gameplay that rewards planning, experimentation, trial and error and successes and failures and wins and losses and personal, weighty progress. it's not about the destination even if that certainly docks it a few points: deathloop is about tools and rules, and how you break them from loop to loop to loop. and it's damned fun. or fucking fun. fuck.
2019
kind of boring. like, maybe aggressively boring. i'm not explicitly saying give me a gun and an enemy (actually, that'd be great) but having a majority of the obstacles appear to be 1) get good at flying (which i more or less mastered by the end of my four hours), 2) wait around for things to happen or unhappen (wow!), 3) walk around in mazes (exciting), or 4) dodge cacti (challenging) all sort of wears down on me and makes me want to do something else.
i guess to enjoy this game you have to have your eyes explode out of your head at the concept of spaceflight or be really uncomfortable about aiming virtual guns. outer wilds feels barely a step above walking simulators, something i don't outright dislike but would rather experience with the novelty of VR versus through a flat experience.
writing's fine but nothing really sucks me into the world like that one black hole sporadically eating other orbs. it's a reflection on myself, i'd say--i'm so tired of audio diary video games. i just don't fucking care.
honestly, the best way to put this is that i had more fun watching my friends play it than i did playing the game myself.
i guess to enjoy this game you have to have your eyes explode out of your head at the concept of spaceflight or be really uncomfortable about aiming virtual guns. outer wilds feels barely a step above walking simulators, something i don't outright dislike but would rather experience with the novelty of VR versus through a flat experience.
writing's fine but nothing really sucks me into the world like that one black hole sporadically eating other orbs. it's a reflection on myself, i'd say--i'm so tired of audio diary video games. i just don't fucking care.
honestly, the best way to put this is that i had more fun watching my friends play it than i did playing the game myself.
2017
play along with the ride and it all makes sense. try to go against it and your character will devolve into some sort of deranged schizophrenic who just does things arbitrarily. the illusion of choice couldn't be more annoying, but you know what's even worse? the complete absence of a fastforward/skip button. these scenes once is enough--twice and more and i'm done.
This review contains spoilers
what a charming, heartfelt, unique experience this is.
what a beyond rushed, artificially extended, transparent experience this is.
wind waker is the ultimate yin and yang for me, an opinion born from my two 100% runs played back to back within the past eight months. i have been exposed to absolutely every single piece of brilliance the game has to offer just as much as i've found myself facing cracks of all sorts of varied shapes and sizes--it's often with wind waker that those cracks may as well be gloryholes for their size... at least the stall door it's cut from's so lovingly rendered and lit.
the moment the title screen opens, wind waker hits you with a mini presentation of the gorgeous visuals and models awaiting your adventure: good.
as soon as you leave your home island, an agonizingly boring "stealth" section slams you in the chest: bad.
the pace continues to suffer as the story brings you to peaceful windfall and as peaceful as a predungeon gets with dragon roost island: also bad.
the game brightens up once again with its first dungeon, followed quickly by a second island and too its dungeon: good.
under duress of deadline, the game tricks you into finding your third destination in tatters, the hero too late: badass.
this does not eventually lead to a dungeon but, instead, a quick cutscene inside a rock: bad.
our collectathon quest culminates in a tower of challenges and a peek at something much, much larger: good
then we fuck ganon's fort up: badass.
then we get to ride in the great sea with medli and makar on the boat: adorable
but we're riding straight to dungeons, and hitting [a] on either has them slowly chastise you for not picking up the pace: excruciating
triforce hunt: sure
the peek at something much, much larger was actually just a fancy hallway: no
boss rush final dungeon: what
easiest final boss in zelda history after: what.
but the cracks go deeper--it's the barely there existence of forest haven, how there's very little to do or see beyond moving onto the dungeon and on your way out. it's the existence of stealth at all, complete with wall peaks and barrel hiding, being absolutely worthless and unused. it's this fucking boat who drags out his dialogue as molasses as possible nagging the piss out of your tunic for every single possible little thing. when that old asshole bit it at the end, i didn't bat an eye. were i given the choice to slide ganon's domer right out of his stone noggin, i would've had my next target not more than a couple feet away.
perhaps the biggest issue of the wind waker is its flat, generic story full of flat, generic characters existing in a completely unique, captivating world full of unique, well-crafted designs. i mean, EVERYTHING has a great fucking design. and the silhouettes are so goddamn impressive--character and island alike. turn a model pitch black and i could just about identify every single one of them from posture alone. and these islands are filled with mystery and intrigue: a thin island scraping the air with its needle... a land shaped around the ocean's deadliest, an assembly of green topped minecraft blocks... but there's just not fucking much done with them. you pop in, do one of three generic mini-dungeon designs, and you leave with either a piece of heart (if you're lucky) or another worthless helping of rupees in a game where they're handed out like candy, in a game where there isn't anything at all to spend them on. no seriously, what are you meant to do with these besides buy bait, pears, and the occasional blue gatorade? yeah you're gonna dump a load into tingle's pants with all those garbled charts begging to be ungarbled, but every triforce chest is surrounded by rupee showering pots in the first place, so what the fuck does it matter?
you know, it seems like i'm endlessly dumping onto this game with reckless abandon, and that's because i AM dumping onto this game with reckless abandon--i have spent eight long, long months scraping up against every single inch of the wind waker, attempting to view every possible possibility of dialogue npcs could offer, attempting to scrounge up all available rewards this great sea could conjure up for me. and i did it twice. issues are unavoidable in doing so, and staying silent on annoyances and problems is a disservice to anyone who spends that long playing a game. but it's clarifying the wind waker's cracks that makes it extra special because, here we are--me writing, you reading--in a 4.5 starred review.
in other words--this game freaks it, and it freaks it all over the place. and yet, its strengths are so strong, its ambition so contagious, that the wind waker navigates the currents and waves its haphazard development and hypocritically miyamoto induced crunch creates... and finds itself successfully sailing out from the storm and onto calm waters. the secret to the game's success is found in its simple execution of grand ideas, aforementioned sailing its highlight.
i adore sailing. i love the distance and scale between islands, rendering complaints about long "waiting" times too silly for me. the time passed is a part of the experience, the time spent with king charting courses through white and blue. the experience is spotting a watch tower and parking king to stab its occupants--if bombing the shit out of them from below isn't an option taken, of course. the experience is finding you've inadvertently come across a sea chart's x, treasure soon to be yours. the experience is passing by enemy ships and deciding whether to wage war or spare them (and your time). the experience is passing by beedle and deciding whether to wage war or buy bait (and remember: one can very well do both). it's being chased by sharks and deciding whether to take them on or hope to outrun them. it's fighting against the wind to navigate a reef and win against its occupants. it's circling an island's coast in search of cartographers. it's heading dead straight for a circling of seagulls while deciding whether it's time for bombs, boomerang, or the arrows for a change.
the experience is sleepily making your way back to outset island, the moon finally dipping below the horizon and lighting your boat in the first few glimpses of morning.
and on that note, it's actually downright criminal how incredible the main hubs of the wind waker can look in sunset/sunrise conditions. you don't know what that's like, do you? that's because i'm almost certain it's impossible to see such without exploiting the game in some way. but it's incredibly worth it to find windfall bathed in the last of the day's light, to see dragon roost's shore as the sun greets valoo. these sights are intoxicating, and this is just again one of the many ways to praise wind waker's extremely sharp use of lighting, its fantastic models, its brilliantly simple colors.
every screen is an art piece.
dungeons are cool, too. they're all pretty piss easy and about as braindead as any ocarina of time dungeon that isn't the forest or water temple, and that's disappointing, but they each carry such strong aesthetics on their backs as well as offering unique enemy variety and puzzles that it's hard to forget any of them. it's also doubly hard to forget the dungeons given there's only, what, five of them? christ, lol. so i suppose if a dev's going to be rushed and must make the work done count, it's good they opted for tightening what they had versus thinly spreading a meager plate before their players. i don't think anyone would've appreciated a wind waker with twice as many dungeons half as much if they featured... half as much. still, i really wish they were harder. this aspect can't even stem from my eight months of continuous playing--the wind waker was outright one of the first discs i ever pressed into my gamecube, and even the young asshole who played then snored his way through everything that wasn't the wind temple. well, okay, the earth temple scared me, so i was wide awake for that one. it was still easy, though. spooky... but easy.
have i mentioned link's eyes yet? i've been kind of vaguely praising models and all, but our protagonist for this zelda's just the best. see something interesting? so does he. see something spooky? so does he. get scared of your fucking mind? so. does he. link and i were certainly not alone in the earth temple (also literally, since the bird woman was there). also, wait, i put medli in parentheses, but she's a really interesting example of something wind waker sucks and excels at i for sure have mentioned already: great models, terrible writing. medli's cute. damn cute. i crushed on her as a kid, but it was all in the design, and i was reminded of that with every playthrough as i'd be repeatedly exposed to her flat characterization and how pathetic it whimpers: she exists for other men. that's her character. medli exists to serve link, serve valoo, and serve komali. she plays the harp, but only because another woman who served their dragon freeloader told her to. half her dialogue concerns prince komali--her fucking LAST LINE in the GAME is about komali. and i think this wraps back around to a particular point of failure with the wind waker that's reflected in another nintendo classic: chibi robo. both feature lovely music, lovely gameplay, lovely art... and flat, dead, bonedry writing.
guess that's why i always loved the thousand year door a little more than this as a kid. but believe me, i still loved them both.
and i still do love this game! i wouldn't have spent eight months playing it if i felt any less so. i wouldn't have invested so much time and energy into a passion project completely built off the skeleton of what these devs poured their souls into with what little time they had. and god fucking damn do i wish they'd been given more time, but i'm thankful the wind waker released at all, and i'm thankful it became a cornerstone of my childhood. i played the game to such depths and scourings that i would return to the great sea just to create my own stories and narratives--i'd be running from some evil dude who's tracking me island to island, or i'd be running mail deliveries for the rito, or--what i'm trying to express is THIS is the extent to which i adored this zelda's gameplay and sailing, its aesthetics and presentation.
and i still adore all these things, and the faults may be several golfball sizes too large, but let me re-emphasize: the wind waker is the best stall door i've ever pissed next to in my life. and... wait... there's something etched into it that i can just barely make out.
"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."
oh, fuck off, miyamoto.
what a beyond rushed, artificially extended, transparent experience this is.
wind waker is the ultimate yin and yang for me, an opinion born from my two 100% runs played back to back within the past eight months. i have been exposed to absolutely every single piece of brilliance the game has to offer just as much as i've found myself facing cracks of all sorts of varied shapes and sizes--it's often with wind waker that those cracks may as well be gloryholes for their size... at least the stall door it's cut from's so lovingly rendered and lit.
the moment the title screen opens, wind waker hits you with a mini presentation of the gorgeous visuals and models awaiting your adventure: good.
as soon as you leave your home island, an agonizingly boring "stealth" section slams you in the chest: bad.
the pace continues to suffer as the story brings you to peaceful windfall and as peaceful as a predungeon gets with dragon roost island: also bad.
the game brightens up once again with its first dungeon, followed quickly by a second island and too its dungeon: good.
under duress of deadline, the game tricks you into finding your third destination in tatters, the hero too late: badass.
this does not eventually lead to a dungeon but, instead, a quick cutscene inside a rock: bad.
our collectathon quest culminates in a tower of challenges and a peek at something much, much larger: good
then we fuck ganon's fort up: badass.
then we get to ride in the great sea with medli and makar on the boat: adorable
but we're riding straight to dungeons, and hitting [a] on either has them slowly chastise you for not picking up the pace: excruciating
triforce hunt: sure
the peek at something much, much larger was actually just a fancy hallway: no
boss rush final dungeon: what
easiest final boss in zelda history after: what.
but the cracks go deeper--it's the barely there existence of forest haven, how there's very little to do or see beyond moving onto the dungeon and on your way out. it's the existence of stealth at all, complete with wall peaks and barrel hiding, being absolutely worthless and unused. it's this fucking boat who drags out his dialogue as molasses as possible nagging the piss out of your tunic for every single possible little thing. when that old asshole bit it at the end, i didn't bat an eye. were i given the choice to slide ganon's domer right out of his stone noggin, i would've had my next target not more than a couple feet away.
perhaps the biggest issue of the wind waker is its flat, generic story full of flat, generic characters existing in a completely unique, captivating world full of unique, well-crafted designs. i mean, EVERYTHING has a great fucking design. and the silhouettes are so goddamn impressive--character and island alike. turn a model pitch black and i could just about identify every single one of them from posture alone. and these islands are filled with mystery and intrigue: a thin island scraping the air with its needle... a land shaped around the ocean's deadliest, an assembly of green topped minecraft blocks... but there's just not fucking much done with them. you pop in, do one of three generic mini-dungeon designs, and you leave with either a piece of heart (if you're lucky) or another worthless helping of rupees in a game where they're handed out like candy, in a game where there isn't anything at all to spend them on. no seriously, what are you meant to do with these besides buy bait, pears, and the occasional blue gatorade? yeah you're gonna dump a load into tingle's pants with all those garbled charts begging to be ungarbled, but every triforce chest is surrounded by rupee showering pots in the first place, so what the fuck does it matter?
you know, it seems like i'm endlessly dumping onto this game with reckless abandon, and that's because i AM dumping onto this game with reckless abandon--i have spent eight long, long months scraping up against every single inch of the wind waker, attempting to view every possible possibility of dialogue npcs could offer, attempting to scrounge up all available rewards this great sea could conjure up for me. and i did it twice. issues are unavoidable in doing so, and staying silent on annoyances and problems is a disservice to anyone who spends that long playing a game. but it's clarifying the wind waker's cracks that makes it extra special because, here we are--me writing, you reading--in a 4.5 starred review.
in other words--this game freaks it, and it freaks it all over the place. and yet, its strengths are so strong, its ambition so contagious, that the wind waker navigates the currents and waves its haphazard development and hypocritically miyamoto induced crunch creates... and finds itself successfully sailing out from the storm and onto calm waters. the secret to the game's success is found in its simple execution of grand ideas, aforementioned sailing its highlight.
i adore sailing. i love the distance and scale between islands, rendering complaints about long "waiting" times too silly for me. the time passed is a part of the experience, the time spent with king charting courses through white and blue. the experience is spotting a watch tower and parking king to stab its occupants--if bombing the shit out of them from below isn't an option taken, of course. the experience is finding you've inadvertently come across a sea chart's x, treasure soon to be yours. the experience is passing by enemy ships and deciding whether to wage war or spare them (and your time). the experience is passing by beedle and deciding whether to wage war or buy bait (and remember: one can very well do both). it's being chased by sharks and deciding whether to take them on or hope to outrun them. it's fighting against the wind to navigate a reef and win against its occupants. it's circling an island's coast in search of cartographers. it's heading dead straight for a circling of seagulls while deciding whether it's time for bombs, boomerang, or the arrows for a change.
the experience is sleepily making your way back to outset island, the moon finally dipping below the horizon and lighting your boat in the first few glimpses of morning.
and on that note, it's actually downright criminal how incredible the main hubs of the wind waker can look in sunset/sunrise conditions. you don't know what that's like, do you? that's because i'm almost certain it's impossible to see such without exploiting the game in some way. but it's incredibly worth it to find windfall bathed in the last of the day's light, to see dragon roost's shore as the sun greets valoo. these sights are intoxicating, and this is just again one of the many ways to praise wind waker's extremely sharp use of lighting, its fantastic models, its brilliantly simple colors.
every screen is an art piece.
dungeons are cool, too. they're all pretty piss easy and about as braindead as any ocarina of time dungeon that isn't the forest or water temple, and that's disappointing, but they each carry such strong aesthetics on their backs as well as offering unique enemy variety and puzzles that it's hard to forget any of them. it's also doubly hard to forget the dungeons given there's only, what, five of them? christ, lol. so i suppose if a dev's going to be rushed and must make the work done count, it's good they opted for tightening what they had versus thinly spreading a meager plate before their players. i don't think anyone would've appreciated a wind waker with twice as many dungeons half as much if they featured... half as much. still, i really wish they were harder. this aspect can't even stem from my eight months of continuous playing--the wind waker was outright one of the first discs i ever pressed into my gamecube, and even the young asshole who played then snored his way through everything that wasn't the wind temple. well, okay, the earth temple scared me, so i was wide awake for that one. it was still easy, though. spooky... but easy.
have i mentioned link's eyes yet? i've been kind of vaguely praising models and all, but our protagonist for this zelda's just the best. see something interesting? so does he. see something spooky? so does he. get scared of your fucking mind? so. does he. link and i were certainly not alone in the earth temple (also literally, since the bird woman was there). also, wait, i put medli in parentheses, but she's a really interesting example of something wind waker sucks and excels at i for sure have mentioned already: great models, terrible writing. medli's cute. damn cute. i crushed on her as a kid, but it was all in the design, and i was reminded of that with every playthrough as i'd be repeatedly exposed to her flat characterization and how pathetic it whimpers: she exists for other men. that's her character. medli exists to serve link, serve valoo, and serve komali. she plays the harp, but only because another woman who served their dragon freeloader told her to. half her dialogue concerns prince komali--her fucking LAST LINE in the GAME is about komali. and i think this wraps back around to a particular point of failure with the wind waker that's reflected in another nintendo classic: chibi robo. both feature lovely music, lovely gameplay, lovely art... and flat, dead, bonedry writing.
guess that's why i always loved the thousand year door a little more than this as a kid. but believe me, i still loved them both.
and i still do love this game! i wouldn't have spent eight months playing it if i felt any less so. i wouldn't have invested so much time and energy into a passion project completely built off the skeleton of what these devs poured their souls into with what little time they had. and god fucking damn do i wish they'd been given more time, but i'm thankful the wind waker released at all, and i'm thankful it became a cornerstone of my childhood. i played the game to such depths and scourings that i would return to the great sea just to create my own stories and narratives--i'd be running from some evil dude who's tracking me island to island, or i'd be running mail deliveries for the rito, or--what i'm trying to express is THIS is the extent to which i adored this zelda's gameplay and sailing, its aesthetics and presentation.
and i still adore all these things, and the faults may be several golfball sizes too large, but let me re-emphasize: the wind waker is the best stall door i've ever pissed next to in my life. and... wait... there's something etched into it that i can just barely make out.
"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."
oh, fuck off, miyamoto.
1998
it's got a wonderful art style and aesthetic, the music and sound design is superb, the voice acting is great, and the writing/dialogue/story are all pretty damn good (good, but not quite great). by all means, it's an evolution of what metal gear on the msx was.
it's just a shame that the gameplay is horrific. frustrating level design, annoying forced combat sections, boss fights that range from "hey, pretty cool!" to "jesus fuck this is nails in my hands" all culminate in an experience that's just not very fun to play through at all. there are moments of brilliance in its gameplay--there is a cat-and-mouse bossfight that utilizes enemy pathing, the radar, and the player's own explosive tools and it is easily the highlight of the game. there are certain parts where it feels quite slick to slide by enemies and dip in and out of cover. but this is overshadowed by ridiculousness in difficulty and repetition that plagues the whole experience.
it's not very long, and it is worth playing. but it'll be for its storytelling versus its gameplay.
it's just a shame that the gameplay is horrific. frustrating level design, annoying forced combat sections, boss fights that range from "hey, pretty cool!" to "jesus fuck this is nails in my hands" all culminate in an experience that's just not very fun to play through at all. there are moments of brilliance in its gameplay--there is a cat-and-mouse bossfight that utilizes enemy pathing, the radar, and the player's own explosive tools and it is easily the highlight of the game. there are certain parts where it feels quite slick to slide by enemies and dip in and out of cover. but this is overshadowed by ridiculousness in difficulty and repetition that plagues the whole experience.
it's not very long, and it is worth playing. but it'll be for its storytelling versus its gameplay.
what's more unbelievable: the fact that a thrice delayed darktide launches at full price in a near unplayable state where fps tanks, matches stutter, bottom halves of bodies disappear, and games continuously crash... or the fact that they have the nerve to jam a microtransaction store right into this mess?
trick question, neither is unbelievable because both seem to be the industry standard in what decays with every launch just like this one. but the worst bit is in how much fun darktide can be past all these issues. i went with an ogre named 'CHUSTY' and believe me, cutting through hordes of goons with clean shovel sweeps rarely fails to entertain. there's a great loop to swingan and shootan and stompan and killan to the point where you almost forget about the technical issues until youWE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE! OUR GOAL IS TO PREVENT CRASHES LIKE THIS FROM OCCURRING. PLEASE HELP US DIAGNOSE AND FIX THIS PROBLEM BY PROVIDING INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT WAS HAPPENING AT THE TIME OF THE CRASH.
the worst part about having the game crash on you is, should you bear a difficulty altering 'grimoire', that item is incredibly forfeit. for instance, just lastTHE GAME HAS CRASHED. A BUG REPORT HAS BEEN SENT TO THE DEVELOPER. IF THE PROBLEM PERSISTS SEND A BUG REPORT TO THE DEV TEAM.
but hey, if you want to spend forty dollars to bug test a game, be my SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. TO IDENTIFY THE CRASH WHEN COMMUNICATING WITH THE DEVELOPER PLEASE USE THE BUTTON 'COPY TO CLIPBOARD' AND PASTE IT INTO YOUR MESSAGE. ASSHOLE.
trick question, neither is unbelievable because both seem to be the industry standard in what decays with every launch just like this one. but the worst bit is in how much fun darktide can be past all these issues. i went with an ogre named 'CHUSTY' and believe me, cutting through hordes of goons with clean shovel sweeps rarely fails to entertain. there's a great loop to swingan and shootan and stompan and killan to the point where you almost forget about the technical issues until youWE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE! OUR GOAL IS TO PREVENT CRASHES LIKE THIS FROM OCCURRING. PLEASE HELP US DIAGNOSE AND FIX THIS PROBLEM BY PROVIDING INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT WAS HAPPENING AT THE TIME OF THE CRASH.
the worst part about having the game crash on you is, should you bear a difficulty altering 'grimoire', that item is incredibly forfeit. for instance, just lastTHE GAME HAS CRASHED. A BUG REPORT HAS BEEN SENT TO THE DEVELOPER. IF THE PROBLEM PERSISTS SEND A BUG REPORT TO THE DEV TEAM.
but hey, if you want to spend forty dollars to bug test a game, be my SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. TO IDENTIFY THE CRASH WHEN COMMUNICATING WITH THE DEVELOPER PLEASE USE THE BUTTON 'COPY TO CLIPBOARD' AND PASTE IT INTO YOUR MESSAGE. ASSHOLE.
i feel myself in a weird slump when it comes to this game. on one hand, the character writing is incredibly sharp and personal. on the other hand, i got bored of this on two separate occasions, meaning the game took me nearly a year to finish. on another hand, the gameplay feels pretty loose and tight at the same time, meaning taking out nazis is a bit of a smooth experience. on yet another hand, the stealth gameplay, unpolished as it is, demands to be at attention lest you feel like a dipshit fighting hordes of neverending enemies because you dared fire a gun in an FPS.
i don't know. what a weird game. it's not particularly long, either, but it feels like forever. playing it gives me the impression that no one on the team really wanted to make an FPS and just did their best, the story's certainly good, and i did admittedly look at it through the lens of someone annoyed with the ad campaign surrounding. it's definitely a good game. it's not really a great game, but it IS a good game, certainly. sure, play it.
i don't know. what a weird game. it's not particularly long, either, but it feels like forever. playing it gives me the impression that no one on the team really wanted to make an FPS and just did their best, the story's certainly good, and i did admittedly look at it through the lens of someone annoyed with the ad campaign surrounding. it's definitely a good game. it's not really a great game, but it IS a good game, certainly. sure, play it.
2006
a long time ago, i tried playing grand theft auto 3. this attempt didn't last very long considering the brutality of failing a mission: no checkpoints, no saves and, hell, no restarting--the game's decided you are an idiot (a stupid one) and you have to drag your dumb idiot ass all the way back over to the mission giver, skip their very intelligent cutscene, and try again.
suffice to say, i was that dumb idiot dipshit that rockstar thought me as, and i did not attempt to prove otherwise. or, in other words, i gave the fuck up. who has the time or patience?
years later, i played saints row. this one. it's kind of like... well, if inspiration could be seen on volition's sleeve, it'd just be a series of gta logos from shoulder to wrist. and of the many similarities saints row shared with grand theft auto, one was more brutal than the others: that exact same fucking lack of checkpoints and the basic ability to restart the damn mission. the game simply thinks your moron ass either better drag it all back to whoever gave you a cutscene or fuck off.
but unlike gta3, i didn't fuck off. why not?
because i played saints row 2 first, and saints row 2 is awesome. i'd go so far as to call it a near perfect game, and i, then, wanted to know the backstory of such a near perfect game, and said backstory could only be obtained by playing a game that's anything but. so i persevered, and it's now been years and years since then, and so i've persevered a second time through a medley of mission starts, mission failures, and mission driving-all-the-goddamn-way-to-the-starts.
in other words: i've played and beaten saints row twice. in more words: it's not really worth playing and beating twice--BUT! these two experiences have allowed me ample time to fully digest what volition presented to xbox 360 owners in 2006, and now i will relay to you, reader in 2022 or beyond, what i have learned, experienced, hated, and enjoyed.
first thing's first: this is one of the worst sandbox cities ever made. ever. history of ever, guaranteed. i've played just about every grand theft auto, certainly every saints row, and all sorts of gta/sr likes like the simpsons hit and run and mafia 2, and THIS is easily the worst designed of them all. it's bad enough that just about every neighborhood bolsters the same ugly shades of brown, red, and grey which makes quickly identifying areas around you based on appearance alone quite difficult, but the real problem lies in navigation. over and over and over, you'll find yourself hitting dead ends, pulling into parking lots with only one entrance and exit, speeding down alleys and into walls, and maddeningly smashing into obstacles your car should have been able to clear... but volition's city designers thought otherwise. but that's just a ground level problem. look to the air for the next: saints row's psychotic highway system. it makes NO fucking sense. none whatsoever. you'll look it over on the gps and be baffled on where exactly entrances and exits even are, and you'll be even further pressed to actually find that there are barely any exits/entrances at all! that's great for a fucking means of fast transportation that can't actually be accessed for a great majority of the map. god, words alone cannot quite describe just how miserable these highways are designed, and you'd be foolish to think saints row 2's kept things the same. no, in fact, saints row's highway and city layout are so indescribably terrible that volition came up with 'flooding' as a lore friendly excuse to gut the absolute miserable shit out of this absolutely miserable excuse for a sandbox layout in its sequel. fuck me, i'll never take well designed highways for granted again.
second thing's second: the mini game named activities suck. i mean, absolutely all of them do. want to protect a drug dealer? then you'll do it with the shitty guns your dealer wants you to use, and with a paltry amount of ammo to boot. want to ho? good luck getting the car bound whores without trouble--damaging a car without damaging your own car is HARD--and on that note, you best be careful when your vehicle's even remotely close to exploding. if a fire starts, you have genuine seconds to get out of the damn thing before it mission failures your ass back to square one. oh, the best activity actually is insurance fraud, surprisingly, because you can just steal a police car and rack up insane point combos by virtue of your vehicle being of the state. hell, you don't even have to hit anyone: slamming your car over and over into a wall is enough to pass each level of activity with flying colors. eight levels, by the way, and that goes for every single activity. and the rewards? well, sometimes, it's a homie. other times, it's a necklace. you have zero way of knowing this beforehand. oh, and don't rack up too many activity-rewarded respect points. in saints row 2, the meter would change to infinity upon reaching a theoretical 'max'. here in saints row 1? your game flips a coin every time you boot in, and every time it's heads, the console shuts off. dead fucking serious.
now, given these first and second major points, you might think saints row not worth playing and, in the age of youtube where anyone can just watch a stitched together cutscene compilation... yeah, yeah maybe it isn't worth the hassle. but then, it's not as if the whole experience is rotten. the general gameplay of pulling up on gangsters or police and icing them's fun. getting into highway warfare with three of your homies comprised of a soccer mom, zombie, and a baseball wielding chicken suited teenager... is pretty fun, too. the problem is it's just better in saints row 2. the writing's pretty solid, too, and i never offer such praise lightly--the dialogue plays with some silliness while still steering straight, though it's often not enough or not fleshed out as much as it should be. so, that's better in saints row 2, too. the activities i described are better in saints row 2, actually, and the city design is better in saints row 2, and, well...
you know, there's just SO much of this game that looks even shittier in comparison to its better fated sequel, and i guess that's not totally fair, but we don't exist in a vacuum and i can't help playing the game and thinking every thirty seconds "man, this detail sucks and is so much better in saints row 2". mission checkpoints? saints row 2. city free of dead ends? saints row 2. memorable locations based on visual identity alone? saints row 2. anything that saints row 1 does, 2 does better, and that leaves the experience pretty sour admittedly. but hey, there's at least one thing saints row has that its sequel doesn't: a bizarre loan shark that'll lend you, what, $1000, and failing to pay back such will sick a helicopter on you at all times of the day. so that's nice.
one last thing that's pretty cool: i selected 'xbox 360' as my platform, but the truth is i actually emulated the entire experience in 'xenia' right in the comfort of my pc. yeah, and saints row 2 runs well, too. how about that?
suffice to say, i was that dumb idiot dipshit that rockstar thought me as, and i did not attempt to prove otherwise. or, in other words, i gave the fuck up. who has the time or patience?
years later, i played saints row. this one. it's kind of like... well, if inspiration could be seen on volition's sleeve, it'd just be a series of gta logos from shoulder to wrist. and of the many similarities saints row shared with grand theft auto, one was more brutal than the others: that exact same fucking lack of checkpoints and the basic ability to restart the damn mission. the game simply thinks your moron ass either better drag it all back to whoever gave you a cutscene or fuck off.
but unlike gta3, i didn't fuck off. why not?
because i played saints row 2 first, and saints row 2 is awesome. i'd go so far as to call it a near perfect game, and i, then, wanted to know the backstory of such a near perfect game, and said backstory could only be obtained by playing a game that's anything but. so i persevered, and it's now been years and years since then, and so i've persevered a second time through a medley of mission starts, mission failures, and mission driving-all-the-goddamn-way-to-the-starts.
in other words: i've played and beaten saints row twice. in more words: it's not really worth playing and beating twice--BUT! these two experiences have allowed me ample time to fully digest what volition presented to xbox 360 owners in 2006, and now i will relay to you, reader in 2022 or beyond, what i have learned, experienced, hated, and enjoyed.
first thing's first: this is one of the worst sandbox cities ever made. ever. history of ever, guaranteed. i've played just about every grand theft auto, certainly every saints row, and all sorts of gta/sr likes like the simpsons hit and run and mafia 2, and THIS is easily the worst designed of them all. it's bad enough that just about every neighborhood bolsters the same ugly shades of brown, red, and grey which makes quickly identifying areas around you based on appearance alone quite difficult, but the real problem lies in navigation. over and over and over, you'll find yourself hitting dead ends, pulling into parking lots with only one entrance and exit, speeding down alleys and into walls, and maddeningly smashing into obstacles your car should have been able to clear... but volition's city designers thought otherwise. but that's just a ground level problem. look to the air for the next: saints row's psychotic highway system. it makes NO fucking sense. none whatsoever. you'll look it over on the gps and be baffled on where exactly entrances and exits even are, and you'll be even further pressed to actually find that there are barely any exits/entrances at all! that's great for a fucking means of fast transportation that can't actually be accessed for a great majority of the map. god, words alone cannot quite describe just how miserable these highways are designed, and you'd be foolish to think saints row 2's kept things the same. no, in fact, saints row's highway and city layout are so indescribably terrible that volition came up with 'flooding' as a lore friendly excuse to gut the absolute miserable shit out of this absolutely miserable excuse for a sandbox layout in its sequel. fuck me, i'll never take well designed highways for granted again.
second thing's second: the mini game named activities suck. i mean, absolutely all of them do. want to protect a drug dealer? then you'll do it with the shitty guns your dealer wants you to use, and with a paltry amount of ammo to boot. want to ho? good luck getting the car bound whores without trouble--damaging a car without damaging your own car is HARD--and on that note, you best be careful when your vehicle's even remotely close to exploding. if a fire starts, you have genuine seconds to get out of the damn thing before it mission failures your ass back to square one. oh, the best activity actually is insurance fraud, surprisingly, because you can just steal a police car and rack up insane point combos by virtue of your vehicle being of the state. hell, you don't even have to hit anyone: slamming your car over and over into a wall is enough to pass each level of activity with flying colors. eight levels, by the way, and that goes for every single activity. and the rewards? well, sometimes, it's a homie. other times, it's a necklace. you have zero way of knowing this beforehand. oh, and don't rack up too many activity-rewarded respect points. in saints row 2, the meter would change to infinity upon reaching a theoretical 'max'. here in saints row 1? your game flips a coin every time you boot in, and every time it's heads, the console shuts off. dead fucking serious.
now, given these first and second major points, you might think saints row not worth playing and, in the age of youtube where anyone can just watch a stitched together cutscene compilation... yeah, yeah maybe it isn't worth the hassle. but then, it's not as if the whole experience is rotten. the general gameplay of pulling up on gangsters or police and icing them's fun. getting into highway warfare with three of your homies comprised of a soccer mom, zombie, and a baseball wielding chicken suited teenager... is pretty fun, too. the problem is it's just better in saints row 2. the writing's pretty solid, too, and i never offer such praise lightly--the dialogue plays with some silliness while still steering straight, though it's often not enough or not fleshed out as much as it should be. so, that's better in saints row 2, too. the activities i described are better in saints row 2, actually, and the city design is better in saints row 2, and, well...
you know, there's just SO much of this game that looks even shittier in comparison to its better fated sequel, and i guess that's not totally fair, but we don't exist in a vacuum and i can't help playing the game and thinking every thirty seconds "man, this detail sucks and is so much better in saints row 2". mission checkpoints? saints row 2. city free of dead ends? saints row 2. memorable locations based on visual identity alone? saints row 2. anything that saints row 1 does, 2 does better, and that leaves the experience pretty sour admittedly. but hey, there's at least one thing saints row has that its sequel doesn't: a bizarre loan shark that'll lend you, what, $1000, and failing to pay back such will sick a helicopter on you at all times of the day. so that's nice.
one last thing that's pretty cool: i selected 'xbox 360' as my platform, but the truth is i actually emulated the entire experience in 'xenia' right in the comfort of my pc. yeah, and saints row 2 runs well, too. how about that?
2007
over a decade later and portal still endures as the single best example of a perfect game--not flawless, but perfect. a short length complements a novel concept, and rich ambience and dialogue elevates an arcadey game concept into artistry. not flawless in that bugs happen, in that the beginning is filled with a lot of waiting around, in that valve has attempted to murder their own mood by placing radios in every room, but portal regardless is larger than its weaknesses.
it's been so long that i can't really gush about the actual portal gameplay or the thick, sterile atmosphere because i gushed about 'em ten years ago, but there's other details i really enjoy this time around. i like that there's several puzzles with multiple solutions. i like that waiting around in certain rooms begets more interesting glados lines. i like the mechanical whirr all the cameras make as they reorient themselves and the dark ambient music creeping out of the background. what i like most is the game handing you a very normal cube with only a decal's difference and putting you in situations where it protects or aids you to get you attached to a box.
it's a shame the whole cake bit really went through the wash. chalk it up to an easily accessible and captivatingly memorable experience, i guess.
it's been so long that i can't really gush about the actual portal gameplay or the thick, sterile atmosphere because i gushed about 'em ten years ago, but there's other details i really enjoy this time around. i like that there's several puzzles with multiple solutions. i like that waiting around in certain rooms begets more interesting glados lines. i like the mechanical whirr all the cameras make as they reorient themselves and the dark ambient music creeping out of the background. what i like most is the game handing you a very normal cube with only a decal's difference and putting you in situations where it protects or aids you to get you attached to a box.
it's a shame the whole cake bit really went through the wash. chalk it up to an easily accessible and captivatingly memorable experience, i guess.
2021
stride is incredibly promising, and i think it can shape up to be a VR essential. it is, however, not quite there--and the distance across that gap is much further than a simple in-game leap.
here's the good: stride is a great concept. run, climb, and dash around like crazy in a concrete jungle theme park while occasionally drawing a gun to clumsily shoot at (and miss) enemies with tighter aim than you. climbing feels cool, sliding under things feels cool, wall running feels cool--these elements of stride's parkour are fantastic. its biggest issue, however, is momentum and, further, how the game philosophy fights itself. when you come up to an obstacle, you hoist yourself up over it with your two grips, and it feels natural. climbing from one structure to another feels natural. ducking your head feels natural. however, jumping is done with not just a waving of your hands upwards, but an A press. this is [b]unnatural[/b], and it really sucks. it's something you have to constantly remind yourself to do in one particular, repeating scenario: when you hoist yourself up onto something, you rise with such speed that you naturally "push" yourself off of it to then grab the next obstacle. this feels NATURAL. but momentum doesn't work like that and, instead, you're just going to clumsily fall to your death. you have to press that stupid A button--the most unnatural deal there.
one thing i haven't mentioned yet about the gameplay loop is the grappling hook. honestly, it's the best part of the game and the single most fun game mechanic here, and it kind of makes you wish you were just playing something based around specifically [i]that.[/i] maybe one day.
the other major issue i have with stride is its arcade style three-lives-and-you're-out. oh, it sucks. all this does is kill any momentum and fun you're having. can't express enough how many times i've been gleefully traveling all over the city snatching briefcases and zipping across grapples and--oh, i took two stray shots and missed a jump that looked absolutely do-able. now the game's over. wow, fun!
i'm harsh with my words here because i do genuinely think stride could end up becoming something amazing, and i'm certainly down to revisit it again in the future--but it needs a lot more work, and i wouldn't recommend buying it just yet.
here's the good: stride is a great concept. run, climb, and dash around like crazy in a concrete jungle theme park while occasionally drawing a gun to clumsily shoot at (and miss) enemies with tighter aim than you. climbing feels cool, sliding under things feels cool, wall running feels cool--these elements of stride's parkour are fantastic. its biggest issue, however, is momentum and, further, how the game philosophy fights itself. when you come up to an obstacle, you hoist yourself up over it with your two grips, and it feels natural. climbing from one structure to another feels natural. ducking your head feels natural. however, jumping is done with not just a waving of your hands upwards, but an A press. this is [b]unnatural[/b], and it really sucks. it's something you have to constantly remind yourself to do in one particular, repeating scenario: when you hoist yourself up onto something, you rise with such speed that you naturally "push" yourself off of it to then grab the next obstacle. this feels NATURAL. but momentum doesn't work like that and, instead, you're just going to clumsily fall to your death. you have to press that stupid A button--the most unnatural deal there.
one thing i haven't mentioned yet about the gameplay loop is the grappling hook. honestly, it's the best part of the game and the single most fun game mechanic here, and it kind of makes you wish you were just playing something based around specifically [i]that.[/i] maybe one day.
the other major issue i have with stride is its arcade style three-lives-and-you're-out. oh, it sucks. all this does is kill any momentum and fun you're having. can't express enough how many times i've been gleefully traveling all over the city snatching briefcases and zipping across grapples and--oh, i took two stray shots and missed a jump that looked absolutely do-able. now the game's over. wow, fun!
i'm harsh with my words here because i do genuinely think stride could end up becoming something amazing, and i'm certainly down to revisit it again in the future--but it needs a lot more work, and i wouldn't recommend buying it just yet.
i'm not really sure if the writers involved with this project--of which there are five of--even like or understand video games. and i say this in the sense that life is strange: true colors doesn't seem interested in the player nor their agency, nor their decision making, nor their interest or interpretations of characters. and i say all this because never before has there been a life is strange where your choices are a game of "well, what's the LEAST embarrassing of the two?", where your choices are "alex says something vapid and stupid" and "alex says something vapid and stupid but with a smile".
and alex, good lord, is the wet blanket protagonist of all wet blanket protagonists, a player stand-in that doesn't really even work considering how you may want her to act or speak doesn't matter because it doesn't align with how the five writers want her to speak. am i making sense, here? if the first life is strange player, for instance, did not like a character, that player was given the tools to express it. everyone is soft and spongy in true colors, speaking in mounds of references and absolutely terrible, bog standard romcom slurry. and what a cast this is--you know, there's nothing wrong with the slow paced slice of life approach that i keep seeing nowadays from western companies and studios, but it seems they all forget that these SOL attempts require a main ingredient: lovable, interesting casts. and who the hell am i supposed to latch onto when everyone spouts out that same aforementioned slurry, where every line is right on the edge of irony poisoning and extreme self awareness? how am i supposed to connect with generic indie rock loving hipster girl alex whose offered observations could not be any less boring, any more forgettable? i can't remember a single line she's offered about her environments save for the very, very dry references to REAL BAND here and REAL BAND there and REAL MOVIE here and... so forth, and so forth like a marvel convention equivalent of a mixer.
i made the claim that these writers don't like or understand video games, and it's based on all i've written thus far and just three more points. ONE: nearly everything feels set in stone, as if the game is a compromise to the writers to tell their otherwise straightforward forgettable young adult novel i had to suffer through many of in college. TWO: you're given a power to read the thoughts of others, but this is heavily limited to very, very, very few characters, the majority of NPCs seemingly unable to give you anything, as if they aren't there, as if the writers did not want to push themselves just a little bit more to add some flavor to this lifeless mess. and THREE: why the fuck can't you land in the minecart in that arcade game? come on, now.
i just can't find a single positive trait in this. the graphics are fine, the soundtrack may or may not even exist because i don't remember any of it. the voice acting is a medley of first takes. the actual "gameplay" sections impose without merit. the choices have never been more meaningless. the consequences have never been more toothless. the observation mechanic has no real development for what it is. the flavor text is lifeless. the characters are lifeless. the story is lifeless. the developers' ambitions are lifeless, and this game may as well not exist at all for all it isn't: no teeth, all gums.
and alex, good lord, is the wet blanket protagonist of all wet blanket protagonists, a player stand-in that doesn't really even work considering how you may want her to act or speak doesn't matter because it doesn't align with how the five writers want her to speak. am i making sense, here? if the first life is strange player, for instance, did not like a character, that player was given the tools to express it. everyone is soft and spongy in true colors, speaking in mounds of references and absolutely terrible, bog standard romcom slurry. and what a cast this is--you know, there's nothing wrong with the slow paced slice of life approach that i keep seeing nowadays from western companies and studios, but it seems they all forget that these SOL attempts require a main ingredient: lovable, interesting casts. and who the hell am i supposed to latch onto when everyone spouts out that same aforementioned slurry, where every line is right on the edge of irony poisoning and extreme self awareness? how am i supposed to connect with generic indie rock loving hipster girl alex whose offered observations could not be any less boring, any more forgettable? i can't remember a single line she's offered about her environments save for the very, very dry references to REAL BAND here and REAL BAND there and REAL MOVIE here and... so forth, and so forth like a marvel convention equivalent of a mixer.
i made the claim that these writers don't like or understand video games, and it's based on all i've written thus far and just three more points. ONE: nearly everything feels set in stone, as if the game is a compromise to the writers to tell their otherwise straightforward forgettable young adult novel i had to suffer through many of in college. TWO: you're given a power to read the thoughts of others, but this is heavily limited to very, very, very few characters, the majority of NPCs seemingly unable to give you anything, as if they aren't there, as if the writers did not want to push themselves just a little bit more to add some flavor to this lifeless mess. and THREE: why the fuck can't you land in the minecart in that arcade game? come on, now.
i just can't find a single positive trait in this. the graphics are fine, the soundtrack may or may not even exist because i don't remember any of it. the voice acting is a medley of first takes. the actual "gameplay" sections impose without merit. the choices have never been more meaningless. the consequences have never been more toothless. the observation mechanic has no real development for what it is. the flavor text is lifeless. the characters are lifeless. the story is lifeless. the developers' ambitions are lifeless, and this game may as well not exist at all for all it isn't: no teeth, all gums.
2019
little game--big thoughts, though! i really like witcheye, this reworking of kirby's skeleton to create something more challenging and addictive (in short bursts). instead of both copying abilities and floating around, you're the latter except weaponized, and obstacles lie in navigating stage hazards detrimental to floaters like you and enemies who vary in ways to defeat. all of this is wrapped up in a package of absolutely gorgeous pixel art and a heaping of sickeningly sweet 16 bit groove (so much midi bass).
it's pretty fun to figure out how to defeat new enemies as they appear, soon mastering the ability to just wipe 'em out the moment they appear on screen, your forward momentum undeterred. sometimes it can feel very sloppy and you'll somehow effortlessly glide through a level despite not really knowing what's happening, but you learn. a particular highlight is the kirby styled locked miniboss fights, many really inventive. there's also this whole deal about collecting gems, but it's honestly horseshit: many, many times a gem will clip through the ground and disappear, and i'm having fun, sure, but i'm really not that interested to replay a level just to grab more bing bing jewels.
you know, probably the worst and weirdest thing about this game is the design of the main character and her alter eye ego. exceptionally bland: why? all of the enemies are charming even if many are reskinned waddle dees and gordos. the bosses are pretty cool, too... so why does the main character look so nothing? her name's mabel syrup but how could you even know that when all she sports is a dumb purple frock and matching hairbun? and the eye is just... an eye. i'd really like to draw some fanart for witcheye, but good lord it won't be the main character.
0 Comm
it's pretty fun to figure out how to defeat new enemies as they appear, soon mastering the ability to just wipe 'em out the moment they appear on screen, your forward momentum undeterred. sometimes it can feel very sloppy and you'll somehow effortlessly glide through a level despite not really knowing what's happening, but you learn. a particular highlight is the kirby styled locked miniboss fights, many really inventive. there's also this whole deal about collecting gems, but it's honestly horseshit: many, many times a gem will clip through the ground and disappear, and i'm having fun, sure, but i'm really not that interested to replay a level just to grab more bing bing jewels.
you know, probably the worst and weirdest thing about this game is the design of the main character and her alter eye ego. exceptionally bland: why? all of the enemies are charming even if many are reskinned waddle dees and gordos. the bosses are pretty cool, too... so why does the main character look so nothing? her name's mabel syrup but how could you even know that when all she sports is a dumb purple frock and matching hairbun? and the eye is just... an eye. i'd really like to draw some fanart for witcheye, but good lord it won't be the main character.
0 Comm