Words That Kill

Game of the Year 2023 (REAL)

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 13:37:00 +0000

like V and the relic, I have risen from the dust to write another cringe list no one will read

Hello to all of the random internet bots that somehow make it to this website as well as the two or three actual people who probably make it here on accident. I used to write about video games before any and all passion I had for writing had been sucked out of my body and spirit. But today is different. Not because my passion is back, no, that's still gone. But instead I'm going to write anyway. I'm going to write about my favorite games this year among all of the many many great games I've played.

Let's start with games I absolutely adored this year. Let's start with the remakes.

Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 Remake

Excellent games from start to finish. I quite enjoyed both of them thoroughly. RE4 is one of my favorite games of all time and one I've replayed many times in the past. Dead Space was a game I didn't get to play too much of eventually because it was stuck on the PS3 and never had a PS4 port, but still one I thoroughly enjoyed when it first came out.

To me, it's amazing how they both ended up coming out so close to one another. Dead Space was a game that was heavely inspired by Resident Evil 4, and yet the remake comes out just two months before RE4 remake. It's amazing to see how they have both adapted, with Dead Space still feeling like Dead Space with some fun new additions, like the space walking feature originally featured in Dead Space 2. And Resident Evil 4 Remake has great new combat mechanics like parrying and such, making combat feel even more viceral and violent than ever before.

There's been a lot of opinions on how remakes should be treated with awards, and I'm of the side that they absolutely deserve them. If they were only remasters, it would probably be a different opinion, but the sheer amount of detail and effort put into both of these games is actually kind of inspiring. In an era where video games still release completely busted, these two games are rock solid and offer a lot to sink your teeth into, even if you've played the originals.

Aliens: Dark Descent

This game is something so special and unique, I can honestly say I haven't played anything like it before. Before I even get to deep into the topic, I will say that the story was "ok" and not the best thing I've ever seen, but I wouldn't call it bad either. I do love Alien and the entire aesthetic of Colonial Marines with their big, thick Pulse Rifles spraying all over some degenerate aliens, and in this game, you get that and more.

Everyone I've ever heard talk about the game has said the same thing: It's like a "real time X-COM". I was always confused by that, thinking what the hell does that even mean? So when I got my hands on it, I was pleasantly surprised.

It's a real time strategy game where you play as your entire squad all at once, being able to switch between them to issue specific commands for them to do things, like use a cool weapon or unique ability, but you are always controlling the whole squad at once.

The way the game handles stress and traumas actually makes the need for taking care of them physically and mentally across what can end up being hour+ long missions. I liked to take my time and try to get as many supplies and objectives done all in one go so my missions tend to drag on and take a while.

But the game throws a neat wrench into that by increasing the difficulty over time. Aliens are triggered by sound, like gunfire, so they can become alerted to your presence if you get into a fight or try to blow something up, for example. And this difficulty increases over time into three stages, green, which is pretty safe, yellow, which means proceed with caution, and red, which is extreme danger. Once you progress through the game somewhat, they introduce new Xenomorphs and so the higher danger levels could mean one of those big bad fellas will be spawned somewhere on the map, and now you have one hell of a challenge creeping around in the dark... waiting.

This game is "AA", in that it's not some small indie game, but it's also not a massive budgeted blockbuster. It fills the game between the two by being competent at what it does, though still a little bit janky. I ended up encountering a few bugs in my playthrough that made things pretty annoying, but damn, this game is incredible and I loved every second of it. I can not recommend this enough.

Robocop: Rogue City

A Robocop game! Of all things. Made by the same developer who made my personal favorite game, Terminator: Resistance, Robocop: Rogue City is a true to life attempt to make a Robocop game that feels like it can fit right along next to the movies.

In the game you play as Alex Murphy, the human turned metal police officer. The story is a pretty simple premise that is basically "Hey Robocop, go stop that guy", with some subtle storytelling of a severely brain damaged cyborg zombie who is desperately trying to retain their humanity even though they are legally considered property of OCP, the corporation that turned him from a dead guy to a semi-dead Robot.

The game is quite good. It's an RPG similar to their Terminator game where you can occasionally make dialog options and alter the story in small ways, as well as featuring skills that you can level up which grant you different abilities or features, like more XP gained per collectable item found.

They got Peter Weller to return as the voice of Robocop which is an incredible feat in and of itself. He does a great job at the role and that makes the entire thing feel so much more authentic. There's so many references to the movies, including characters modeled after the other actors from the film, collectables you can find that are direct references to the movies, and more. I had so much fun running around looking for all kinds of cool references and secrets and ended up spending about 18 hours playing the game from beginning to end.

If I had one criticism, it'd be that it's a tad bit long and I personally feel that it's repetitive. Whereas their Terminator: Resistance game was a stealth action RPG, it gave you lots of options to play around with tools and sneak by the unstoppable Terminators, so there was a lot to do. But with Robocop, the entire power fantasy of playing Robocop is that YOU are the indestructible badass with an Auto-9 service pistol that has as much ammo as Murphy has fucks to give, which is, *none*.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Pain

I love Cyberpunk. I was so sad when the base game first came out because, surprise, I really only bought it because I was excited to see what their huge online game mode was going to have. I wanted Grand Theft Auto Online, but cyberpunk. And I almost got it, but as we all know, the game had so many issues on launch that they had to start canceling future expansions and ended up shuttering the entirety of the multiplayer game mode.

I was always a bit sour about that, but in time I actually found Cyberpunk to be a breathe of fresh air. Sure, it was broken as shit and had so many issues it started to feel like a Bethesda game on crack, or in this case Black Lace, but I am such a massive fan of the cyberpunk genre as well, and here I am, in this big huge cyberpunk open world where I can walk around the dark dingy ally's, stand at the bottom of massive skyscrapers, and watch as the world moves 24/7 and feels alive.

this dumb adorable little truck is my favorite vehicle of all time

I was in awe and ended up doing two playthroughs of the base game, one ended up being a year before the new 2.0 update that did a massive overhaul to the entire game. And also introduced the one and only expansion, Phantom Liberty.

To put it bluntly, Phantom Liberty is the best part of Cyberpunk 2077. The game always had this part of it that just felt like it was missing something. Like there was just a huge piece missing. And with the addition of Dogtown, and all the new gameplay enhancements and complete overhauls they do, that void, at least to me, feels filled.

The espionage filled story, the constant cloak and dagger, the feeling that you're just some street merc that gets caught up into something much bigger than you, and much, much more dangerous. The tone of the entire DLC is so much different than the base game, or even the side quests of the base game. It stands out so much more... strongly? I'm not sure how to word it exactly, but once you walk into Dogtown, you feel like you're in a completely different world. One locked off to the police, even other corporations.

the game is still stunning in almost every way

The new gameplay elements introduced with 2.0 and Phantom Liberty are mouthwatering. The sheer amount of amazing new vehicles and clothing options makes customizing your V such a delight. I always had an issue with the system in the base game because my character always ended up looking like someone pressed "random" on their clothing options a whole bunch of times. But now, I've got a great character and one I can feel a lot more confident about because they just. look. so. damn. good.

I've only completed Phantom Liberty once so far, but absolutely plan on doing another playthrough to see the other side of the story that my choices didn't bring me to. Cyberpunk's Phantom Liberty DLC is an incredible addition to the game and I love every second I spent playing it.

And now my personal favorite game of the entire year, and then some.

ARMORED CORE VI FIRES OF RUBICON

I came to fuck bitches

This was the real dark horse surprise reveal of the entire year. I knew I'd like Robocop, Phantom Liberty, Resident Evil 4 Remake. Those games were so up my ally that they would have had to be absolutely horrible for me to not enjoy them. But Armored Core? I've never played one of these games before, and... my god. It's the best.

I had no idea what to even expect from this game. I knew Fromsoft made it, and that it wasn't going to be anything like Dark Ring or Elden Souls, but that's about it. In the next few hours, and next few days, I would become addicted to this game.

I spent hours looking through every map, testing different weapons, customizing my Armored Core, looking up user made decals for them and testing new designs out. I'd spend forever trying to get it to look perfect before deciding, eh, I don't like it anymore, and not even bothering to save the changes.

The game is just so good. The music is incredible, the story is mysterious and exciting. There's so much going on at any one time and I just want to keep playing it even now.

You play as a catatonic cyberwarrior pilot named 621, who never actually talks or seems to really respond to characters in the game even though they do seem to mention 621 speaking to them off-screen. You don't see your pilot, or the pilot of anyone, for that matter. Everything that happens is either in a voice over or through exposition you find in collectable lore documents. It's an interesting take on storytelling because the characters are so expressive and emotive with only their voice. They do so much to make you connect, relate, and even sympathize with them, all without ever seeing a face. All without seeing the human being behind the Armored Core.

before he became a gatling gun tanky boy... he was just a tanky boy without gatling guns

The game has 3 endings, each of which I absolutely needed to see. And each one was amazing and dark and kinda sad and fucked up as the last one. I truthfully can't tell you I understand the final ending of the game, but I can tell you I enjoyed it. Whatever the hell it was.

I love mechs. I love Metal Gears. I love Gundams. I love Armored Cores now too. This game has so much personality crammed into each and every pixel, from the antagonists, the allies, all of the crazy twist and turns, the way you can customize your mech in so much incredible detail. Once I started this game it was honestly hard to put down, which is why it's easily my most favorite game of the year.

What's next?

I wasn't so sure I was going to write anything here again, or at least not entirely sure. I'm still going to play video games and hope for the best. I'm really excited for Death Stranding 2 and can't wait to see what kind of shenanigan's that game is going to be about.

Other than that, I have no idea what the future has in store for me. But I hope you all have a wonderful end of the year and I hope everything goes well in the next one as well.

Metro Exodus Review - Русский симулятор Waifu

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 07:04:00 +0000

Anna is best waifu

This review contains minor spoilers.

Metro is a series of books created by Dmitry Glukhovsky. They were later adapted into video games by 4A Games. I don't have much experience with the books but I have played at least two of the three video games, with the first I experienced being Metro: Last Light and the most recent, the topic of this review, Metro Exodus.

In this series, the world was essentially destroyed after a devastating nuclear war, and some people managed to make it into their underground Metro tunnels. Everyone else died or were turned into awful mutants. The outside world is heavily irradiated and almost completely destroyed, and any ventures into that outside world are extremely dangerous for various reasons. On the surface, individuals have to contend with said radiation and mutant creatures of all kinds. In the Metros, the differing factions and political landscape can cause wars to spike up amongst the Metros.

It is not an easy world to live in.

A once beautiful world decayed by war and left to scavengers and killers. No matter how far away from home you get, some things never change.

The Controls

Right away a big issue becomes apparent. This is a PC game through and through, and the developers don't quite know how to nail the dual stick controls of playing this game with a controller. So, just like my experience with Metro: Last Light, I ended up having to spend the first 20-30 minutes of the game playing, adjusting the way the controls work, playing, readjusting the controls, etc etc. In the end I never quite found a "perfect" configuration of stick sensitivity so it always felt like I was either under-aiming or over-aiming.

Everything else was fine and enjoyable, but the rest of the game was a bit of a struggle. One does have to wonder, with as much criticisms the other two Metro games got for having the exact same problem, why they never put any time into figuring out how to smooth over these issues?

Everyone else is ugly so there's not many options.

Janky Intro

The story starts out well enough, with the main character of Artyom exploring the dead and decayed surface of Moscow, before descending into the tunnels and getting attacked by a bunch of mutants, almost dying, and then being rescued by his friends.

It does what Metro does best. Sets the pacing and tone and how you're really never safe. But unfortunately after this the opening becomes kind of... poorly developed I suppose I'd say. Artyom has this dream for finding life outside of Moscow, as everyone is essentially trapped there and unable to leave due to the inherent dangers of the outside world.

Everyone calls Artyom crazy saying things like "No Artyom! There could never be life outside! The world was destroyed by the bombs!" but then like 20 minutes later you're out exploring the world with your wife Anna and get kidnapped due to a case of mistaken identity. A motorized scout detachment that apparently drives around and monitors the outside world picks up Anna and Artyom, and right when they think they've been rescued by friendlies, the two are knocked out and captured.

It's in this vehicle that Artyom notices two other individuals. They claim that they aren't from Moscow but a village far away. Anna's all like "wow Artyom you weren't crazy after all!" and then they are taken to an execution field near a train yard where the two individuals are executed, and Artyom fights back to avoid getting shot but it doesn't quite work out. The bullet catches some instrument or other he was wearing and thus he survives.

This is about the sum of the intro that I wasn't a fan of. I think it rushes straight into it when it should have taken some time to analyze the approach. If they spent more time on this "Artyom thinks there's life outside" before finding out he was correct, then I feel like it would have been better paced. But as it is the level opens up with Artyom and his wife scouting Moscow for evidence of life outside, Anna, like everyone else has, doubting Atrytom, but then immediately discovering that he's been right the whole time. Fortunately though, that's the end of it and the game picks up into much better storytelling and pacing and never stops.

The jig is up.

The Aurora and Beyond

After that the game really kicks off. You find out that the world is not only still kicking, but in fact the reason Moscow wasn't recieving any transmissions is because there was a communications jammer running. It's a massive conspiracy that Artyom quite literally falls into after being almost killed. He sneaks into this facility and finds a train conductor named Yermak, and from there rescues his wife Anna, and in the process gets this communication jammer shot up and destroyed, which is what reveals this whole conspiracy. Suddenly communciations start flooding in from all over the world and you can see many nations in the world are still very much alive and communicating. They manage to steal a train and get away. They are chased by someone else in their orders command and in order to actually get away, Artyom jumps from one train to another and disables the rival train before hopping back onto this new train. They then escape Moscow in Exodus, hence the title of the game.

The crew names the train as the Aurora and they venture forth to discover what the world has hidden away, and what civilizations they will find.

From here the game becomes somewhat of a sandbox as you are sent to one massive location to another. Each one with a unique theme and unique hook. You get to complete side missions which alter the story slightly and get to, for the first real time, explore beyond Moscow.

I didn't follow the game at all so I found it all very unexpected. The Metro games are usually very linear action adventure game set in, well, the eponymous Metro tunnel systems. But here you're outside with a full day and night system, seemingly dynamic weather and a constant threat of danger as you must avoid radiation spots as well as roaming hordes of mutants.

But there are other challenges to contend with, such as enemy bases which house several fully armed and equipped human enemies which can make your life very difficult unless you deal with them. Fortunately though the facilities usually contain a upgrade to your gear which will help alleviate the tension as you acquire better tools for your suit. So it's usually worth taking the risk and going in.

The game still retains its signature stealth game core so sneaky tactics and silent take downs are at your disposal, or else you risk putting yourself in great danger with a full on assault by the enemy forces.

The photomode in this game let's you take great pictures.

Immersion and Atmosphere

I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how good the Metro series is, the thing it excels at is the atmosphere. It really makes you feel fully immersed in the world by building everything from your tools and equipment, and weapons, around the world.

The map system in this game isn't some menu you access by pausing the game, it's attached to the clipboard which you can open and look at yourself. Illuminated by a small light to make sure you can see even in darkness, this kind of immersiveness is key to the game experience.

You have a flash light to illuminate the darkness, but doing so makes you easier to see. Not only that, but the game has a stealth indicator attached to Artyom's left wrist which lights up when you are exposed, and turns off when you are fully hidden. This fully in-world design does an incredibly job at getting you away from menus and splashy graphics to take you out of the experience. When you have to actually look at Artyom's watch to see how much time you have left in your gas mask filters before you have to change, it makes everything feel so much more realistic.

Not only that, but the levels throughout the game are all varied and teeming with adventure that you can only find in the Russian post-apocalypse.

Bandits in their camp sites just waiting for unfortunate people to come in and get robbed and killed, giant bats called Demons that fly around and terrorize you throughout the world. Roaming packs of mutant animals that hunt you down and spring fights when you least expect them. Latent radiation zones which make you put on a gas mask and hope for the best.

But it's not just the danger of the world, and not everything is a problem that requires a bullet to solve. You'll find little areas where you have to use your head and figure out relatively basic problems, like restoring power to a small shack which houses supplies and a special weapon or suit upgrade if you can figure out where all the gas cans are.

You also find diaries and notes scattered throughout, and can read about the troubles of the people who lived in this world before, during, and after, the bombs dropped and everything got far more complicated than typical daily life would allow. This story helps paint a picture of a world that used to be ours, but was overtaken by radiation and violence. You spend so long in the Metro wishing for a life outside in the sun, beyond radiation and monsters, but the further you go, you learn the harsh reality that it wasn't just the Metro plunged into madness.

This is an aspect of the game I truly loved. The areas you explore all have their own unique hooks which set them apart from the others completely. The look, feel, threats, vehicles. All unique to their location, so it feels like you're always doing something different.

The first major area you go to is flooded, so you will be utilizing these small paddle boats to get around the world. But that's not without danger as there are giant enemy crawfish monsters that can forcefully board your vessel and ambush you, as well as pelting you with a spit projectile.

In another level, you acquire a van which you can drive around the desert in relative safety. These differing modes of travel really go a long way to spice the game up and give you something else to do instead of building a familiar design that gets repetitive in the end. The game always feels fresh and always has stuff for you to do.

The Quiet Moments

This is probably by far my favorite part of the game, above all else. The Metro Series has excellent writing when it comes to their characters and this game is no exception. Typically the way this game works is, you go to a level, spend several hours doing things. You get to interact with all of your fellow Spartans including your wife Anna, and get to really feel the weight of these friendships and relationships, but once the level is complete you go back to your train. I call it the "quiet moments" because it focuses on the characters themselves and this game does an incredibly job emphasizing each unique personality, especially with Anna, your wife, who you have a lot of really cute and emotional moments with.

Anna is very photogenic.

It feels organic, and it feels real. In a world with giant bats and mutant creatures, that's no small task. And yet, they excel at it.

While on the Aurora especially you have some of the best "quiet moments" in the game, which is a trend that continues until the very end of the game. You will be able to spend quiet time with your wife, and hear her tell stories and monologue about the life she can't wait to have in the free open world once they find a spot worth settling down in, and the mechanics reinforce this by being able to interact with her in small loving embraces, share cigarettes(Don't smoke, kids. Shit's bad) and even drinks with her.

You can spend time in your personal cabin by adjusting the radio and listening to music stations as well as radio transmissions from individuals you either have already interacted with in the previous level, or will interact with in the next. You can hear their personal conversations, arguments, and more. It actually does a lot to build the world. Once again this game spares nothing in the way of immersion. It hits you with the realist shit every time.

But once you leave your cabin, you may explore the train and watch full scenes of conversations play out with your crew, as they joke and laugh and tell stories. As they talk about what they expect of the future, as they reminisce about their days in the Metro and how they'd like to go back and liberate all of their people from the cold hard tunnels. Except, that's no so easy, because remember, they are in exile for disrupting the big "conspiracy" to disable all radio communications in Moscow, a massive gas lighting operation left over from the Russian High Command.

So they laugh, drink, smoke, and enjoy each other's company. Usually once these big scenes are done you can interact with each member of your unit personally by standing near them. I was actually really concerned that if this stuff wasn't up to snuff, it could get boring easily, since these train segments can easily go on for about 20-30 minutes. Well, I can confirm right now that it was never the case, and I actually found myself completely enraptured by the crew and their camaraderie. In a bleak, dangerous world, it was a well needed boost in between adventures.

Additional Comments

This is probably the best game I've played all year. The mix of stealth action, atmosphere, character depth, world building. It combines so much of everything I look for in a game and executes on the concepts perfectly.

The control situation is pretty unfortunate. I did get used to it, but it was still never satisfying. Always overaiming or underaiming and it just never had a good feeling to it. Thankfully due to the fact that everything else is excellent, it's easy to over look such an issue.

The game is a great package from beginning to end and definitely a memorable experience. I do love stealth games and the unique, full depth world building. As far as I'm aware, this is the end of the Metro series since the books ended and this game also comes to a conclusive end, though it does leave it open for a new entry if need be. I sure hope we get to spend more time in the Metro universe later on, but it has to be earned. I don't want to see none of those cheap cash in mobile games. But I think with the degree of quality we've seen from 4A Games so far, I don't think I have any reason to worry.

I give Metro Exodus...

Days Gone Review - The Last of Us and Far Cry had a baby who grew up on welfare

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Thu, 23 May 2019 14:36:00 +0000

Boy, I wonder what he's looking at? I bet it's a new and inventive way to add a review score to this page?

Days Gone was a game that wasn't given a chance by anyone. From the second it was announced at E3 some years ago by Playstation, people across the internet had condemned it to be "just another zombie game". It never looked interesting, it wasn't going to be very good, it never wowed anyone, etc, etc. Press, commenters, anyone, it seems that no one truly had anything positive to say about this game.

It always rubbed me the wrong way because naturally I have a wait-and-see mentality and, sure, I thought it looked a little lacking as well and questioned why Sony decided to release another Zombie-inspired game when they already have The Last of Us, but they clearly must have believed in Bend Studios, so I was willing to give it a shot when it came out.

Well, the time came, the press reacted with a not-so-warm reception, and I finally got my hands on it to see for myself. And I have to say, I'm surprised. Surprised by the press reactions, because this game is fantastic.

The short sell. What is it?

Days Gone is exactly what the title says. The Last of Us and Far Cry had a baby. It's an open world stealth action title in which you fight huge waves of infected, groups of human enemies who utilize firearms ranging from sniper rifles, pistols, machine guns, to melee weapons, animals like wolves(and infected wolves!), as well as special infected who are a lot tougher and faster. You complete fetch quests like "go here, kill person", sometimes you have to catch people by engaging in bike chases, you have to clear out so-called "ambush camps" in which there is a certain number of enemies that you must clear out which upon completion grants you a fast travel point you can use in the future, etc, etc.

It's a lot like a Far Cry game mixed with The Last of Us mechanics. You earn experience points that you can utilize on skill points across three categories, Survival, Ranged, and Melee skills. Survival skills allow you to increase the distance of your Detective Vision, pick up more crafting materials/plants/meat from the appropriate areas and the like. Ranged skills affect firearms and increasing their viability, and do things like increase ammo capacity, decrease reload time and the like as well as numerous other things. Melee skills increase melee damage, allow you to repair your crafted melee weapons, and allow you to stealth kill heavy enemies, and so much more.

You will spend the majority of the game riding around on a bike, which you will spend the entire game upgrading. It has things like a gas tank(Which WILL run out, so be careful), speed, traction, nitrous, and defense. You can purchase new parts for your bike by earning Trust at allied camps around the map, which you gain by completing missions for them(Go here, kill enemy, chase this guy on your bike, clear out this enemy camp, etc etc). There are three trust levels between each camp, but in order to get trust level 3 you must complete Hordes and that usually forces you to wait until most of the way through the game as they are quite difficult and require you to be highly equipped for such a task.

The story. It's not good. It's not bad?

You play as Deacon St. John. A biker. Two or three years after the apocalypse from a mysterious virus or something that turns people into monsters called Freakerz, yes, with a Z. Everyone is in agreement about this for some reason. You and your traveling companion called Boozer, or more often than not, just Boozeman, get into some trouble with a gang of Freaker worshippers called The Rippers and Boozer ends up injured, prompting Deacon to try and have to take care of his friend so he doesn't die. This the inciting incident of the game and sends everything off.

Deacon St. John is a biker man who lost his wife Sarah the night the virus went viral and he's been mourning her. Boozer encourages Deacon to let her go because she's dead and it's time to move on, but Deacon's a sad sap and protests.

Deacon takes jobs from other camps because that's pretty much the only civilization left. The big cities all went dead and now it's just these small camps left over. You've got Copeland's camp run by a "Black helicopters, don't take my guns, don't tread on me" anti-government type. The next camp you go to is the Hotsprings Camp which is actually a slave camp where you only eat if you work so going there was actually really uncomfortable. You see guards beating up workers for standing around all the time and it seems to be a really oppressive environment even though the people who run the place like you, because, you know, you don't live there and you do good work for them.

I don't want to dig too deep into the story because I'm going to be addressing some of it in my next topic, but the headline speaks for itself, the story isn't bad, but it sure as shit ain't good.

Disjointed Cutscenes

My biggest problem with this game is the cutscenes. They can only be described by what I can call "cutscene now". You walk up to an area, loading screen, cutscene plays, and loading screen out of them. There's no natural build up or natural progression of them, and a lot of them seem to just happen in such a way where they don't feel natural at all. It's really difficult to talk about without getting into spoilers, but there is a cutscene at the end of the game, right before the very last mission. You know what it is, it's the "YOU READY FOR THIS?" cutscene. The game is getting you hyped up for the end. But the thing is... there's this really "dramatic"(Yes, in quotations) thing that they try to do that falls on its face because of how the cutscenes are formatted in the game.

So you go to start the final mission, it's like "yo this is it, you're going to beat the game now, are you sure you're ready for this?" and then you're like "fuck yeah let's go man". But then it cuts to that familiar blackness of the loading screen. Then, immediately, with no build up, foreshadowing or anything, it immediately hits you with this bullshit "OH YEAH HERE'S A VERY QUICK DRAMATIC MOMENT THAT WE'RE GOING TO SPRING ON YOU". I'm pretty sure the only people who come to my website are bots from Indonesian medicinal scam sites, as per my google analytics data, but if you are real, you know that if I really really care about a game, I try hard not to spoil anything, which is why I'm doing my damndest not to spoil anything right now. I'd really like to say what the scene is, but because I like this game quite a bit, I can't. But I will say, the cutscenes like to come out of nowhere, and are stupid most of the time.

The most egregious being the scene I just described here at the end of the game, and the one at the beginning of the game where they do a flashback to when the virus first started spreading and Sarah, Deacon's wife gets stabbed and it's laughably bad. The narrative in this game isn't very good, to begin with, but the cutscenes, in particular, aren't handled very well.

spoopu

The gameplay is incredible.

People were fucking wrong about this game. When I picked it up for myself I kept asking myself "So when does this game get bad? This shit is gnarly!". Now, there are issues. A lot of issues. The frame rate is complete dog shit at the weirdest times. The game will handle the largest hordes completely fine, but cannot handle you driving through an empty forest without lagging. I don't know why. I'm playing on a base PS4 but still, it happens even on the Pro.

There are some issues as well with the reticles in this game. Some reticles make it fucking impossible to shoot people in the head like the pistol reticle is complete shit. You'd aim right on their head from 3 feet away, not moving, and fire and the bullet will just whiff and miss somehow. It would be completely infuriating. I thought the shooting in the game was completely broken but then I picked up a gun with a different reticle and then I literally never missed. Eventually, I found a machine pistol and I kept making headshots even when I was sure that I missed, so that was great.

I played the game on hard mode, which was an incredibly rewarding way to play the game. It makes the power curve so much more of a struggle to manage, and so earning better firearms and melee weapon upgrades make you really feel like you're climbing a ladder. I remember struggling to manage a handful of Freakerz(Gotta remember that Z, cuz them Z's gonna remember you boiiiii), but eventually I was riding around tackling hordes with relative ease. In fact, there was a period of time at the very end of the game where I had managed to keep the very same melee weapon with me for about the last 30 hours of gameplay. I just kept repairing it, and never lost it. Which made me feel more badass.

The upgrades overall are fantastic in this game. You get better, do more, get better, do more. It truly is a ladder, but once you climb it the things below you become significantly easier. Again, I once had trouble with a handful of Freakerz, but at some point could take on a full Horde with just my Machinegun. Due to my upgrades and the powerful Machinegun, I didn't even need to rely on Napalm or pipebombs to fight, I could just stand and deliver.

Hordes. Bugs. Hordes again.

Yeah, so hordes are amazing. So amazing that I was left awe-inspired by them. The first time you see a Horde will not be in a mission. They aren't scripted. Out of all of the poor narrative design in this game when it comes to the story or the cutscenes, the hordes are probably the best design this game has ever seen. Because they were put exactly where they needed to be: Left for the player to discover on their own. That's the magic of the horde. The very first time you see one, it's going to probably be a different horde than the one another player saw, and not to mention the different circumstances of where and how you saw it, was it during the day? The night? Did you see them from afar? Did they ambush you? Did you get away?

First time I ever saw a horde it was amazing. There were so many of them. The game eases you into it too. You deal with Freakerz here, human enemies there. Handfuls at a time, no more no less. Then, holy fuck my nuggets WHAT IS THAT OVER THERE? A heaping mass of undulating screams, weaving and waving across the streets as they make their way to god knows fucking where, and there you are, almost out of fucking gas, and it's 11:37 PM. Way to go, Deek.

I came across a Horde next to a NERO camp. So I had to infiltrate this NERO camp all the while there were 500 fucking thousand undead motherfuckers waxing and waning around me and I had no idea what to do if they caught me. I had never even seen a Horde before. It was exhilarating. I got in, got one of my upgrades from the NERO Camp, unfortunately, I wasn't able to disable one of the speakers before I turned on the power, but it was far away so it actually drew the Horde away from me, and I was able to Fuel up my bike and I escaped. I loved every minute of this. It was so memorable and incredible. What an experience!

Unfortunately, though Hordes seem to be bugged out quite a bit. Every time I tried to fight a Horde it would stop recording my progress on them. See, a Horde has a certain number of Freakerz associated with them. You have to KILL ALL OF THEM to clear the Horde. It sounds easy enough. But, sometimes what will happen is the number will stop COUNTING down. So you'll actually kill the whole horde, but it will decide to stop counting after you get to the final 20% of them. And there's nothing you can really do but hope they respawn all of a sudden, or just leave and wait for the Horde to spawn again later.

This happened to me several times throughout the game. I cleared every single Horde in the game and I'd say, since I forgot how many hordes there actually are, just as an example, it happened 8 out of 10 times.

It was very frustrating. I really loved the Hordes in this game but this buggy shit made actually FIGHTING THEM annoying.

Final Thoughts

This game has infected kids. You can run around bashing infected kids to death with a baseball bat and that makes me so fucking happy you have no idea. Every other game is so afraid of infected children and they run away from that idea. Afraid of backlash, the online "mob", I don't know. Days Gone got criticism for it too because people are stupid. But this game lets you actually fucking run around bashing in infected kids' head in with a baseball bat and I respect Bend Studios so much for actually having the heart to show that their fucking virus actually affects children holy shit thank you so much.

This game is flawed but incredible. I hope this game gets a sequel because I look on this game a lot like I looked on a game like The Saboteur. A sequel would have ironed out so many issues and showed to everyone just how much of a fucking awesome experience this is, but instead, so many people are circlejerking each other over what the fuck a Metacritic score says, instead of actually seeing for themselves... even though this game has more positive scores than anything, but the internet is going to internet I guess. I just sure hope we get that sequel. I'd love to see a Days Gone sequel with slicker narrative direction and more ironed out mechanics and fewer bugs, maybe on PS5. Bend Studios outdid themselves with this game and they deserve all the best. I love this game and even though it is certainly not flawless, it is certainly a diamond in the rough.

Oh would you look at that, it is a new inventive way to add a review score! Boy ain't I genius. GOOD THING NO ONE FUCKING NOTICES.

Devil May Cry V - The time finally came and so have I

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Sat, 13 Apr 2019 08:48:00 +0000

The time has come...

Oh boy Devil May Cry V. I never really thought it would be here after all of these years but it is and I've got the game completion progress to prove it.

My love for DMC goes all the way back to the release of DMC4, or, rather, right before it came out. Everyone was talking about how excited they were for 4, and I had never played any of the other ones aside from the first one years ago, so I made sure to get the DMC Collection on PS2. I had already completed the first one with my uncle when it first came out, so I was cool skipping that, and everyone told me that DMC2 was hot garbage and to avoid that too, so I did. So I dove right into DMC3 and fell in love right away.

It's campy, it's got rocking tunes, and the gameplay is so far over the top it's a little hard to comprehend at times. But I quite enjoyed my time with DMC3. And not long after I finished it and became an official fan of the franchise, DMC4 was about to release.

I still remember going into a Gamestop about 20 miles away from my house because no one else had the Collector's Edition. I show up, it turns out it's a used copy, but that's okay because the person who owned it previously had only played it for a few hours and immediately returned it. So I walked out of the store with an essentially brand new copy of DMC4 and all of the Collector's Edition content still in the box for about $50, which not only was cheaper than the price they were selling the Collector's Edition but was even cheaper than the standard edition. So, I was happy.

And then I got home and booted up the PS3, waited 12 million hours for the game to install because that's what life was like back in the old days, and booted it up. They pulled a fucking MGS2 on me and I had to play as this Nero kid when I wanted to play as good old uncle Dante, but you know what, the Devil Bringer is actually pretty fucking awesome so I didn't end up minding as much.

I liked Nero, I liked seeing Dante again. There was intrigue, mystery, and so many questions. Is Nero related to Vergil? What does his arm have to do with anything? Us fans were so excited to see where the franchise would go and what kind of answers we would get. And, wow, look at that, DMC4 sold very strongly, so that's good news for us. Oh, wait, 4 million sales was considered a disappointment by Capcom? They didn't think it sold enough? They think a niche title like DMC is going to sell like Call of Duty? A reboot? What are you talking about? We're about to get the answers we've been waiting for, wait what the fuck is DmC: Devil May Cry. Why are they antagonizing the fanbase? Why does Dante look like the game's director? Squrriel semen? Unreal Engine!? Is that supposed to be Bill O'Reilly!? What the fuck is going on!?

11 fucking years - the death of my father - severe depression - one failed reboot of the series - and two seasons of FX's hit show Legion later which you can watch right now on Hulu Prime, we finally got those fucking answers.

And it was worth the wait.

These demon trees have simply got to go.

STORY

I think? I played the whole game and paid attention to it but these things just sorta run together and become incomprehensible. So the story is that our boy Dante has accepted a job to go kill this really powerful demon because he's growing all these fucking trees everywhere and the Home Owner's Association have declared that shit bull.

Simple premise and easy to understand. It only gets complicated a bit later on but I'll go into that, but before I do, spoiler warning.

i wish dande was my unkle

There are three main characters of the game that you play as, Nero, Dante, and series newcomer V, or as I like to call him, "The Devil May Cry equivalent to the Arkham Knight" because this shit is not surprising. Seriously, they announced three main characters and everyone was like "Oh I bet one is Vergil!" and then they name this guy fucking V of all thing and they're all like "LOL NOPE IT'S A NEW GUY" but it's not, it's just Human Vergil because apparently, you can do that if you fill a half-demon's dark soul with liiiiiight.

I want to be clear here this is exactly the kind of shit I come to Devil May Cry for. It's a series that takes itself seriously in that it presents a story, conflict, drama, tension, etc, etc, and plays on that to build a fantastic climax. But it's all just fucking chaos and great.

So Dante and Nero are trying to fight this big fuck-off demon and I won't lie it's kind of an annoying fight because you have to do it like 6 times in the game. And I don't just mean that you fight the same boss, I mean it's the same boss battle. You play it from the Dante perspective, you play it from the Nero perspective, and then you do it again and again later on.

Everyone is like "Hey yo this guy is too strong we have to leave" and Dante's like "lol I'm the protagonist wut r u talkin about?????" and tries to wax on this dude but he gets put into a fucking 2-month long coma apparently.

Eventually Dante is found, but his sword, Rebellion, is broken, so he has to figure out something new, which involves him filling his dark soul with swooooord and forging Rebellion into a new kind of sword, the Devil Sword Dante which is sick as fuck and mega cool and it's even named after Dante so you know it'll get some pussy. V ends up having a heart-to-heart with Trish and explains that he's really the human side of Vergil and the devil side is a huge asshole, and Trish quite literally tells him to get gud and fucking leaves. Also V is slowly dying due to being separated from his devil form for so long, so he's running out of time and has to work on some kind of plan to not die, meanwhile no one even really knows who this sandal wearing, poetry reading lunatic even is, and they keep asking "CAN WE TRUST HIM?" to each other instead of just talking to the guy, which I found strange but who cares Dante's going to go fuck shit up now.

So Vergil is fighting this same fucking Urzien boss fight again and he's about to die before Dante comes in in Super Devil Mode and fucking bitchslaps Urzien and is like "no don't kill him he's my friend" and saves Nero.

They all regroup and some other shit happens and Lady and Trish are naked at one point but Sony's a fucking idiot and they censored my one shot at seeing bare ass because I don't have the internet to look that shit up in my own free time. Thanks, Sony. I was almost a sinner. Back to endlessly slaughtering demons in pools of blood and guts!

The trees that this Urzien demon guy is growing are killing people and sucking their blood and condensing it into a super fruit that, once eaten, will make you super powerful or something. But then he eats it and it was one of the easiest boss battles in the game. Like it wasn't even hard.

Then V shows up and is all like "let me talk to this big demon guy don't worry about it" and they decide to not worry about it, but then V is like "being a human sucks and even in your full demon form you can't do anything right so let's just fuse back together" and so they fuse back together and go full Vergil... and you never go full Vergil.

So we've got our cast of characters again. Dante, Nero, Vergil. It's only at the end of the game that any real plot happens because the majority of the game is just grinding through levels and fucking shit up. This isn't exactly a problem, but with the 11 years in between seeing these guys again, I felt nostalgic to see more edgelord drama between them all.

So Vergil's back and goes to the top of this super big tower and Dante goes off to fight him, to finish this "once and for all" because their mom died before she could teach them to not be emotionally stunted manchildren, but before Dante can race after Vergil, he shares the news with Nero that Vergil is really his dad, which he figured out due to Nero's reaction to being around Yamato, and also the fact that it was his arm for, like, a long time.

Smoking killed my dad don't do that shit

Dante beats Vergil, they keep referring to each other as "older brother" and "younger brother" but they used to be twins so I'm not sure if this is a retcon or not. But it doesn't really matter. Dante is about to kill Vergil but Nero finally put on song lyrics and realized he could bang bang bang pull his Devil Trigger. Then he shows up and is like nah fuck that this Vergil guy is my dad and that makes you my uncle and this family relationship is so fucked up" and Nero has a new super Devil Trigger which is fucking insane and he beats the shit out of his dad and then tells him that he needs to be a good guy now.

Vergil agrees and everyone immediately forgets that it was Vergil who destroyed this city, killed thousands of people, and feasted off of their blood to become super powerful. So he's not a bad guy anymore and he and Dante are like "okay bro let's go finish all of these rampant demons in the city" and so they end up going to hell, and leave behind Nero so that he can protect the world above while Dante and Vergil are down in hell trying to chop down this super demon tree that Vergil planted but apparently doesn't know the fucking way to remove because this guy really is an idiot.

And then it cuts to a scene where Dante and Vergil are in hell fighting each other for fun before demons break it up and they have playful banter back and forth because everyone really did just forget that Vergil is an evil murderous prick. Oh and Dante finally says Jackpot.

Credits.

All in all the plot wasn't that interesting until the end of the game because that's pretty much the only time it starts to pick up and go somewhere. I found it very interesting that they retconned the original order of the series as well. It used to be DMC3-1-4-2, but 2 ended with Dante in hell and everyone wondering what would happen when he got out, but everyone hated that game so they made the right call in retconning the new series order to e DMC4-1-2-4, that way we can immediately just jump back in with the characters we know and love and leave 2 behind where it belongs, in hell.

But, that's not why it's interesting. See, DMCV ends with Dante in hell once again, so even though we thought that DMCV was going to be a sequel to 2 and we'd get to see what happened when Dante came back, they retconned that out but in a sense we're still waiting for that followup because as of DMCV both Vergil and Dante are fighting demons and chopping down a huge ass demon tree in hell.

I'm pretty sure I saw a video that started like this once...

Gameplay

I'm not good at these games. I'll just admit that. I love them so much but I suck really bad. My instinct is to button mash and I'm not built to not do that. I remember being really good at DMC4, but that was 11 years ago and my old man brain could be misremembering things.

Each character plays differently to one another which is quite awesome. Nero plays just like Nero did in 4, with the small exception(Depending on who you are, personally I thought it was quite big) that at the beginning of the game, Vergil cuts off Nero's arm so he doesn't have the Devil Bringer anymore, instead he uses a prosthetic replacement created by an inventor friend of his named Nico. The thing about these arms though, is that they are expendable. They explode after too much use so even though they provide unique functions, use them too much and they explode, leaving you to have to find some throughout the level or just spend your Red Orbs to purchase more.

The Red Queen is back and oh boy revving that thing up is still just as fun back in the day as it is today. It's actually quite impeccable that DMCV managed to feel so much like Devil May Cry even after all of these years. Especially after that fucked up failed reboot. But nothing was compromised here. Unlike my issues where RE2 remake just felt like it didn't go far enough, DMCV felt in every possible way I could have imagined like "The Complete Package" that I waited 11 years for.

Dante is the jack of all trades and has a series of weapons he uses, including various firearms as well. Dante was probably one of my favorite characters to play as because of his different fighting styles and weapons. I'm still not great at this game, but I managed to get a couple of SSS's so I felt good about it. The biggest problem I faced with this game was seeing just how far you could take your skills, and how far away from that I was.

My biggest misconception about the game was thinking that you have to know it all. I thought in order to get good as Dante you have to know how to use every weapon, every firearm, every skill. But that's not true. You can reliably get SSS with just one weapon and firearm, it's all about using the different fighting styles to your advantage, since Dante can switch between Tricker for more maneuverability, Royal Guard to block attacks and deliver powerful counterattacks, Gunslinger to perform more powerful gun attacks, and Swordmaster which opens up your melee arsenal quite a bit.

Even though I wasn't the best at this game, using Dante and racking up the combos was incredible. I loved it.

he cool

Then there's V, who is fun to play as but quite simple. He's a weak human but he has the power to summon familiars, one being chicken who can fly around and shoot projectiles, and another one which is a panther who delivers your melee attacks. But they can't kill the targets, so V has to finish them off himself.

V has a Devil Trigger ability that summons a giant monster called Nightmare and he comes in breaking down walls, revealing secret areas, and fucking shit up. He's really fun to use, but the problem I had with V is that he's too easy. Nero and Dante make you work for your combos, but you can literally just spam the triangle button to get easy SSS's consistently. I was never sure if I was utilizing V correctly because it didn't "feel" right, but I wasn't getting hit, I was killing everything in my way, and I was achieving high combos. So I guess it if ain't broke...?

The gameplay in this game is stellar. The videos people make of incredible combos and their perfect gameplay, killing bosses like it's nothing even on the higher difficulties, this game has a high skill ceiling and with enough practice, you can break through it and show off your own incredible combos.

After 11 years they managed to bring back Devil May Cry and as a fan of this franchise who had to suffer through the dark times of no DMC for a long, long time, seeing it come back with such a vengeance, with Reuben Langdon, Johnny Yong Bosch, and Danny Southworth all back together again, well it brings a goddamn smile to my face to be sure.

I give Devil May Cry 5...

...and so have I

Resident Evil 2 Remake - Video Review

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 14:18:00 +0000

Resident Evil 2 Remake - Words That Kill Video Review

Resident Evil 2. A game people are probably going to end up talking about when discussing some of the best survival horror games of all time. Easily one of the best video games of all time as well.

Originally released back on PS1 way back in Janurary of 1998, when this game came out I was only four years old.

My earliest memory of Resident Evil 2 is actually about getting the game. My family went to this flea market kind of thing, but it was in this big building. Kind of like a mall, but it was definitely some kind of vendor type deal where people were able to set up their own stalls and sell their own products.

It had like three floors though and was very big. I was very young around this time, RE2 had probably been out for a year or so, so we'll say maybe five years old.

I'm with my mom and I notice this guy selling video games. And I notice Resident Evil 2. And boy look at that cover art. Even to this day I find it eye catching. It just pulls you in, I mean what even is that supposed to be? A zombie peeking out from behind a wall? The stylized font, especially that two.

I was young but one thing was sure, I wanted it, so I asked my mom if she would buy it for me. But the guy behind the counter pointed out the ESRB sticker on the front indicating that this was a "Mature" game not intended for children, so he would not sell it to my mom if she intended to purchase it for me.

So my mom shoo'd me off, sending me over to my uncle and dad doing something or other and tried to say something or other that, even though I, the child, was the one who pointed it out to buy, she was buying it for the whole family since we all play games. But the guy said no, I know what you're doing, so I'm not letting you buy this game for your child.

We ended up leaving there without a copy of Resident Evil 2, which was disappointing, but I think we made our way to a Funcoland near our house later on that night and bought a copy anyway, and those people certainly didn't care about selling this to kids.

But I was surprised to find that actually, as interested in getting the game as I was, and as dedicated in getting it for me as my family was as well, when I actually got a chance to play the game, my young as shit five year old self was in for a rude awakening.

Over the years my experience with original Resident Evil would be a tumultuous. Of me playing the game, not getting very far before getting absolutely terrified and then shutting it off.

In fact an early memory I have of playing this game is me in the living room playing this game in broad daylight, all of our windows open, my mom doing stuff around the house and my dad sitting on the couch watching me play the game.

Literally the least scary environment you can imagine this game played in, and I made it all of the way to one of the rooms of RPD(Very early in the game mind you) where there's a bunch of police officer zombies walking around.

Except I didn't know that. Instead, I walked into the room, the camera angle is pointing at the wall which is covered in blood, and all I hear is "euueueghghghghgh" coming from like 6 zombies.

I immediately turned around and got the fuck out of that room as fast as my little hands could maneuver that controller and my dad lost his shit.

I had a habit of doing this when playing the game. I would make it only far enough to experience a new scary thing, then freak out and stop, only for my dad to laugh and then comment on how I'm never going to finish it if I just turn around and refuse to progress in any meaningful way. It's a game about zombies, of course there's going to be zombies. Jesus.

But unfortunately with the way I was put together, I had a low tolerance for horror and it just wasn't meant to be. That is, until now.

Resident Evil 2 Remake is interesting. It manages to perfectly capture the feeling of the atmosphere that I have always wanted, I have always craved so desperately in a zombie game for just about my whole life.

The feeling of walking down a dark and dingy hallway that's completely covered in viscera and there they shamble, the hoard of undead, moaning their horrible undead moan as the pain of undeath fills them with rage.

I actually really like how when you start the game for the first time it opens with a setting to adjust the maximum brightness and minimum darkness. This setting is missing in a lot of horror games and so it's either too dark or not dark enough, but with RE2 I was able to perfectly calibrate exactly the look I wanted, where the darkness was just about pitch black. If it wasn't, I couldn't notice.

The feeling of unease you experience as you walk through RPD is actually kind of incredible the first time through the game.

They really nail the atmosphere. It feels right, it's perfect. When you walk by a window and hear a zombie start beating on it, moaning something horrible, it can actually be quite startling.

I think I should reveal here that I didn't find the game to be all that scary. I was having too much fun to be scared, though that does not mean I didn't feel an intense anxiety as I crept around the game, because I absolutely felt the tension of the game, they did an incredibly job setting that up. But gone are the days of me walking into a room, seeing blood on the wall and freaking out. I'm prepared for that life now.

I will say that if there's anything this remake did perfectly it's the atmosphere, the graphical beauty of this game has allowed the developers to truly capture the feeling they was going for. The atmosphere and tone of this game is incredible.

All of the characters get a new interpretation in this game, some of which I think works well and some of which I'm not a fan of.

Mostly I think it boils down to the writing, which is not very good. Interestingly I find the relationship between Leon and Ada to be very interesting and fun.

Ada, as franchise fans will know, will go on to have somewhat of a rivalry with Leon, helping him and challenging him and he's never quite sure if she's there to help him or hurt him.

In this new imagining of their character Ada Wong is playing it up as an FBI Agent there to bust The Umbrella Corporation for their role in the viral outbreak, but she needs Leon's help to do so.

His willingness to help, as both a police officer and someone who is clearly *interested* in Ada is a really fun character trait.

Whenever Leon starts really questioning anything Ada plays up the "Leon I need you" and starts batting those eyelashes at him and suddenly he's dedicated to the cause once again.

Claire Redfield and Leon's relationship however is a bit strange. Claire begins flirting with Leon just about as soon as they come into contact with one another, even though it is literally the worst context imaginable for flirting quite possibly ever.

*DO COMMENTARY ABOUT THAT CLAIRE AND LEON SCENE BECAUSE IT'S STUPID*

This brings up another issue I have with the game, the lack of character interaction. In the original game, Leon and Claire had met up with each other a couple of times throughout the game and it was pretty cool.

You actually got to see the other character and it felt kind of dynamic. Especially since, if you actually PLAY that other character in the B scenario, you get to basically see what they were up to before you meet up with them. But in this game Leon and Claire meet up only once or twice in the near beginning of the game and after that it's just notes being left for each other or communicating through some sort of monitor. Even though the character in the A Scenario has a radio on them, they never play with that at all.

But unfortunately my praise of the game begins to run out and the issues of the remake begin to show through a lot more because of things like this.

This game has one of the weirdest problems I've ever seen with a video game. Like the original Resident Evil 2, the remake features an A scenario, which can be played with either Claire or Leon, and then a subsequent B scenario, which can be played with the other character. In my playthrough, I played Leon A, and then followed that with Claire B.

In the original RE2, this means that there were two scenarios in the game. Each character got to do something unique compared to the other one.

So instead of just "play this game as Leon, then play through the same game again as Claire", you had similarities but it diverged at some point and became their own unique adventures.

And, as pointed out above, by playing both the A and B scenario, you got the larger picture of what really happened during the events of the game. So you saw what Leon was up to, and you saw what Claire was up to.

The problem with the remake is, it got really really really lazy with that approach. You know how I just mentioned that by doing the A and B approach you would get two separate adventures and not have to just play the same game as two characters? Well with the remake that's exactly what happens.

This is where everything gets complicated. This is where my reverence for the remake began to break down as I played it. I got about halfway through the Claire B playthrough before I started to really, really notice something wrong.

Each of the scenarios rewrite the previous stories to fit the current scenario, and ignore the fact that another scenario previously took place. So, what this means, is that I played through the entire game as Leon first. I completed every puzzle, I found just about every item, I did just about everything I could, and I finished the game, got to the credits and everything.

And then I started another playthrough, the "2nd Run" with Claire. This is your opportunity to see what Claire was up to while you were playing as Leon. The second half of the story.

Whereas Leon had to actually get to the police station, Claire basically teleported there, which all 2nd Run characters do. So I felt a little deprived of more Raccoon CITY adventures. But whatever that's not as big of a deal, I guess.

After this, nothing really changes. You will literally find notes written by Leon in areas that he's already completed saying things like "Hey I've already been through here, shit's fucked, hope you're not dead, byeeee" but you get to the puzzle location and it's not even solved.

Like, you have to do the whole fucking thing. Did Leon scramble this before he left? What happened? It makes no sense that this happens and at the very least, there should have been two sets of puzzles so that you can see that "Oh yeah, Leon solved the chess piece key puzzle and this door is open, but now Claire has to solve the cookie monster number guessing game but with bombs" puzzle or something.

But it gets so much worse. Characters that Leon will encounter and experiences cutscenes of, Claire will see the exact same cutscenes of. The cutscenes will not always happen in the exact same way, though they end to end in the same way.

Sometimes they diverge slightly as each character obviously have their own animations and dialog. But that's still a big problem. Leon came through here, fought William Berkin, and saw Annette Berkin die. But Claire came through here, also fought William Berkin, saw the exact same cutscene, but Annette Berkin died somewhere completely different.

And no, it's not possible that they're both "canon", because she assuredly died for real for real in both cutscenes. So the scenario you're playing is actively rewriting the story as if the previous run didn't even matter, which completely nullifies the idea of a 2nd Run entirely, in my opinion.

Claire gets the antiviral agent for Sherry, fights Birkin on the way back to her, and watches Annette die before the NEST self destruct sequence begins. But why does that happen? Because Leon retrieves the G Virus sample... and then fights the very same Birkin battle, and watches Annette die.

But during the timeline of the game, Claire has already watched Annette die because the base is already starting to fall apart. It's just... oh boy.

The only game this actively reminded me of was Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, where if you actually listen to the post game cassette tapes you can listen to all of the plotholes as each cassette contains conflicting information about how Zero got sick, how Skull Face found Zero, etc etc. Except I'm not listening to it, I'm watching it happen, and it's so unbelievably lazy that I have legitimately no idea what to think here.

I wanted to play a 2nd Run, or B scenario because I wanted to see what Claire got up to after Leon finished his awful first day on the job. But Claire literally just played through everything Leon did, with very few exceptions in enemy placement, Mr. X getting killed off halfway through the game, item placement, and weapon difference.

It was very lazy and quite honestly it deeply impacted my enjoyment of the game. It's my gods honest opinion that if they didn't have either the time or the budget or time to do two divergent scenarios like the original, they should have just done one long scenario where you switch between Leon and Claire at occasional points in the story. Because that active plot hole generator of a 2nd Run is just a mess.

One of the things that shocked me right away when I first started the game was the opening.

While I could never bring myself to beat the original resident evil 2 because I was so scared of it in my young age, I could always get through the initial opening and make my way to RPD.

It was then that I got too scared and had to put the game down. And later on I didn't have those games to play anymore.

At some point I just moved on and longed for the days of a remake or something.

And so when the remake got here I salivated at the idea of Raccoon City.

I love urban zombies. I love the idea of you being out on this big city, surrounded by tall buildings and long wide roads, yet you're so isolated and boxed in.

That's that craving I was talking about earlier. The original opening of RE2 sated that craving for me. Even as a kid.

The way that the game just throws the controls to you, with the mangled car and semi truck burning in the background, everything's on fire, everything's destroyed, there are zombies everywhere, it's amazing.

You have to figure out how to play the game and maneuver around these zombies and you have to do it fast.

Eventually you get to Robert Kendo, and it's a brief break in the tension as you're with another human being. But that tension is broken up almost immediately by zombies crashing through the window and Kendo is endo and now you must begindo againdo.

It sets up this incredible sense of the unpredictable and makes you feel like you really can't let your guard down.

But in the remake it's... it's kind of toothless. Every time you are out and about in the actual city itself, there's barely any zombies.

I'm going to wager on this being because the zombies have a double lunge mechanic as well as a magnetic grab that they can grab you from very far away now which means they have to lessen the amount of zombies compared to the original.

Which in my opinion hurts the atmosphere of the game. And let's not forget that zombies can take up to 9 headshots to kill in the remake.

The second you get control of the A Scenario character in the Remake there's not really much of a threat.

And the intro sequence is much, MUCH shorter now too. In the original you actually had quite an adventure to get to the police station, and had to avoid quite a few zombies.

There's actually a really fun encounter in the A scenario near the basketball court where you get cornered by a small group of zombies in a tight corridor and have to fight your way out.

Every single thing you do in the beginning of the original game is building tension and letting you know that these zombies mean business.

In the remake you just... run into an alley, down some stairs, up some stairs, and there's the police station.

There's not very many zombie, some of them are basically set dressing that don't actually do anything, and it doesn't take very long at all.

In fact, there's such a lack of urgency in this new remake, you can literally just stand around almost as soon as you run a few feet away from the initial zombies.

Since zombies have some sort of "binding" keeping them to their "zones", as soon as you walk a few feet away they immediately turn around and stop following you.

It immediately takes all of the tension out of the opening. All of this fire and carnage, the moaning howls of the horde of undead, and it lacks any teeth.

They are just window dressing. "Look how spooky we are", the game tells you. "You sure are in danger".

In fact the only time the zombies managed to grab me is when I, the person who was supposed to be running for their life, went back towards the zombies who had decided to stop chasing me, and bumped into one and got bit.

It was incredibly disappointing. In the original game opening you are hunted from the second you get control of the character, but here the zombies don't seem to really care much about you.

The only thing I can think to compare this to is, imagine if Konami stopped fucking things up with their gaming divison and made a Metal Gear Solid remake.

I'm talking full on FOX Engine beautiful recreation in a similar vein of The RE2 Remake.

Imagine seeing Shadow Moses in the stunning new graphics of whatever new consoles are out.

In this hypothetical future it would probably be next gen, so definitely Playstation 5 and Xbox Woke or whatever the fuck.

Imagine playing as Snake as he steps out into the near blizzard conditions as the cold cuts through him, and as he makes his way towards the nuclear disposal facility, a Gnome soldier somewhere in the blizzard exclaims "WHOSE FOOTPRINTS ARE THOSE? Eh, who cares. Not my job." and nothing happens.

As a lifelong Metal Gear Solid fan that's kind of the same gutpunch I'm feeling with the introduction of RE2 remake. Something so iconic and stunning, but remade without any of its teeth.

I was watching a video on youtube fairly recently about Alien Isolation that felt so relevant to me while playing RE2 that I couldn't help but want to talk about some of it while I discuss one of my biggest issues with the game. Mr. X.

In a video by A.I. In Games, Tommy Thompson says that the developers of Alien Isolation built the game around a simple premise:

"survive an encounter with Ridley Scott's original Alien. Such a feat is pretty difficult to balance, given that you need a strong story to carry the player through but also to establish pacing as such that the tension varies throughout your gameplay". - A.I. in games.

Which may very well be where my problem with Mr. X lies. It may also be an unfair comparison as Resident Evil 2 Remake is no Alien Isolation, it seems wild to me that the Xenomorph fits the bill of what Mr. X is trying to do in Resident Evil 2 better than Mr. X.

He stalks, he chases, he harasses. He cannot be killed. Unlike the Xenomorph though you can easily run from Mr. X and hide from him. Just run to the safe room

Or stay out of his range long enough and go through any series of doors, and he'll eventually lose track of you and you can begin trying to complete whatever you were doing, again.

It's hard to imagine what must have been going through the minds of Umbrella has they were designing him. I mean, he's big, can bust through walls, capable of crushing people to death with one hand... but cannot run. Just a brisk jog, which is actually fast enough to catch the player, but once he reaches them he just... continues his slow walk.

At most all Mr. X does is scare you the first couple of times you encounter him, but then he falls into the role of "Guy that pisses you off while you're trying to do this puzzle".

Really though I guess one of the biggest reasons I wanted to compare the Alien to Mr. X is that Alien Isolation is designed to give the player room to breathe when tensions rise too high. Mr. X on the other hand can be led in circles around the main hall for 25 minutes if you're really bored.

Imagine toying with the Alien like that. It would completely neutralize the tension and horror of such a creature.

Mr. X, while a stubborn inconvenience, is more or less an artificial lengthening to your playtime as you have to run around the police station to get to where you're going, he just comes across as inconsequential more often than not.

Going back to A.I. In Games, which at this point is basically cheating, they reference a presentation from a neucli.ai conference on Alien Isolation. I have looked for this myself but could not find it, so I'll just quote what is said in the A.I. In Games video.

"As explained by Andy Bray at his talk in the 2016 Nucli.Ai Conference: The Player can't be scared shitless all the time. Otherwise they'll just give up. The tension had to vary. But also had to maintain an air of unpredictability in the Xenomorph itself." A.I. In Games - Andy Bray - Michael Scott.

This quote in my own personal opinion sums up my issues with Mr. X just about perfectly. Andry Bray is talking about Alien Isolation with this quote, and explaining what the developers' thought process was behind their design of the Xenomorph.

And so the final product gave us the ultimate hunter, a predator who was fucking terrifying, literally had eyes in the back of its head, was designed with two different systems so that one always knew where the p[ayer was but the Alien didn't, and how that was able to be utilized to mess with the player, and how it also used systems to track when the player was too stressed out and so it would take away the Alien for a while.

Mr. X has no such design philosophy. His A.I. just stomp stomp stomps and follows you and if you get too close, he punches you. There are certain enemies in the game that will one hit kill you, and yet not even Mr. X. can do that. He does a lot of damage, but he can't kill you.

I think that, due to the fact that he follows you constantly (until the story takes him away from time to time), they decided away from any sort of insta-kill abilities, which may very well be a good thing. Though I can't help but wonder if something was lost in the process.

Here I am getting my brains eaten out all at once by plant zombies, but the actual Tyrant himself can only give me a gentle haymaker that, at the very least, makes me rethink my life decisions.

I cannot help but feel my heart racing when I hear him stomping through RPD and I don't know exactly where he is. Is he behind that door? Is he on the floor below me? Above me? Am I about to run into him? And that's when he shines. Mr. X is at his best when you don't know where he is. Or when you see him out of the corner of your eye across the darkness. "Shit, how did I not hear him? Fuck!"

But the magic goes away when he's chasing you down the hallway. Because in the words of Battlestar Galactica, all of this has happened before, and will happen again. It's not very interesting. It's not very exciting. Mr. X does not adapt, he does not evolve. That quote from A.I. in games about varying the tension? Not with Mr. X.

He's a one stomp wonder. If only for one part of the game he ran, or did something new, or learned some kind of new trick, or maybe even threw his hat at Leon or Claire like fucking Oddojob from Goldeneye, that would have been interesting.

In fact, and I apologize for the fan fiction, but I have a theory on where Mr. X could have been best utilized for the ultimate jump scare.

Later on in the game, when you are in the sewers, and have moved on from the Police Station, you actually find a film roll that you can develop. There is an elavator that takes you right back to RPD so it's not very far at all. At this point in the game Mr. X is not chasing you, so there's nothing to worry about.

As the player makes their way all the way across what would in this fanfiction concept now be a mostly empty RPD, they reflect on their journey and the sacrifices they've made, Snake Eater is probably playing somewhere just off-screen.

Maybe Claire or Leon say something poetic like "Man shit is so fucked", but then they finally make it to the dark room. They put the film reel in, develop the film, get the Hiding Places picture so they can go do their awesome new picture hunt side quest thing and find some weapon upgrades, and as they walk into the save room, BAM, Mr. X bursts through the wall with no forewarning and is just **there now**. This plays on a lot of interesting tropes for the game.

One, you're in the save room, that's completely off-limits from baddies, not anymore! Two, you thought Mr. X was gone! But he was only pretending. Three, you thought you knew all of Mr. X's tricks, but it turns out he was just waiting to change the game.

The ultimate benefit here to to really shock the player and catch them offguard in their most private moment, in the safe room, with something they thought was probably stale or boring. By doing so players must now always be cautious because they never truly know when Mr. X is going to burst through that wall. And also, since the players are about to move onto NEST and the final portion of the game, the fact that this safe room has a gaping hole in the wall is not a big deal. They probably won't be coming back here anyway.

Now Mr. X is a threat again because he's unpredictable. The tension has varied. You can never be sure... at least until speedrunners figure out that, nope this is a one time thing you guys are fine in all of the other safe rooms, but yeah there's nothing you can do about that.

Ultimately as I finish up my thoughts on Mr. X in this section, I will say that I was disappointed by him. He's the Tyrant. Sure, he's not Nemesis. Nemesis could run, dude had a Minigun AND a Rocket Launcher. He even said STARS... all menacingly... and was an actual nightmare to deal with. But as far as nightmarishly powerful B.O.W's go, Mr. X. is pretty low on the list for me.

It seems that Capcom is at least trying with Resident Evil again, after 7 and now this it's a step in the right direction.They are back to understanding survival horror after so many years. I mean HUNK and Tofu? Free DLC? Classic Skins which are also free? My god who are these people anymore?

It's my honest to goodness belief that this was a lower budgeted experiment to see how well it would do, which explains the lack of a true B scenario, the rush to get players to the police station, the lack of Raccoon City sequences.

It's satisfying to blow open a zombie's head. It feels right. It's satisfying sneaking through RPD and evading them. It feels good creeping through and hearing their moans and screams coming from the darkness.

They nailed how it should look and feel and I'm completely surprised by that. Unfortunately it's kind of rough around the edges, and unlike a lot of the other critics I'm not sure I'd call this game a "masterpiece".

I think right around the time the 2nd run started invalidating the first run the "masterpiece" qualification went out the window, at least for me, because I still have never seen a game retcon itself in the span of a second playthrough.

They've also said they will look into a RE3make if the fans want it enough. I think considering how well the remake has done that's a given. I just hope to god that they don't treat Nemesis like Mr. X, and boy I sure hope they actually polish the hell out of the game and not retcon the story as it plays out.

It's not a bad game. It does so well in so many ways, but so poorly in so many others. I think that people should definitely buy it and play it, but my goodness does it have a lot of weird issues. It is certainly not a faithful remake of RE2, that is for certain. It's more of a re-imagining than a remake.

I quite enjoyed playing through this game, the gameplay is great. If you can overlook the issues with the storytelling and lack of faithful recreation of the original, this game is fantastic. Unfortunately for me the story changing itself was a big issue for me and that really took me out of the game quite a bit.

To make up for all of the awkward flirting, and constant story retcons between scenarios, you have to wonder why the game started playing the idea of an unreliable narrator. What was the point? The original is 20 years old by now and has spawned a legacy so much so that the remake has been a subject on the lips of fans for a decade, if not longer.

But if you think about the strange inconsistencies, the awkward flirting between Claire and Leon in the Leon A scenario, or the heroic Claire action shot in Claire A, or the fact that Annette dies in two different ways, or how Mr. X dies in two different ways, I actually think there could have been a really fun way to end the remake.

Instead of just pulling some unreliable narrator shit out of its ass for no reason other than to seem like they were lazily trying to pad out the play time for RE 2 remake, how about when Leon, Sherry and Claire are walking off into the sunset during the ending of the game, they drift off and off and off into the horizon and then the camera pans back and there's three people standing back where the other three used to be standing.

As the camera draws close, you can see that it's adult Sherry, an older Claire and Leon. "Oh really, I was "just surviving"?"

"Oh yeah, leaning on the gate and everything. Real casual.". Leon would joke. It'd turn out the awkward and ill-timed flirting on behalf of Claire was actually that of Leon's ego tugging his memory in a different direction which explains the difference between Claire A and Leon A.

"Can't believe it's already been 20 years. All those people. Mom and dad..." Sherry would say, before getting a pat on the shoulder by Leon and Claire.

The remake would be an opportunity to revisit the older characters once again and see what they're up to after seeing the classic story through their eyes. Maybe even a comment about remembering there being more to the story, but that might draw to much attention to the lackluster B scenario in the game.

After returning to the location where their old lives ended and their new lives began, they'd reminisce about old times. Pour one out for Marvin, making Umbrella pay, etc etc.

Then Sherry would say "And I never got my parrot!" BAM. CREDITS.

You've taken the issues of an inconsistent story and instead of reworking a B scenario, all you've done is utilized a tiny bit of fanfiction to iron over any inconsistencies by bringing in the older characters and their faulty memory. A lifetime of fighting B.O.W.'s would do that to you.

Honestly though, I don't think this would make it *better*, but you've got to keep in mind the story is in this state regardless, introducing my dumb fanfiction is just the only way I can see to make light of that.

The Resident Evil series characters age in real time along with the rest of us, so getting to see them again in our modern time as well as a memorial to Raccoon City would be a great deal of fanservice and also story progression.

Because who the fuck knows when we'll actually see these characters again. Seriously, they're almost in their 50's. Come on Capcom. Let's do it already.

references https://events.nucl.ai/

A.I. In Games https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt1XmiDwxhY

I could not include references to other games mentioned in this video because I either do not have them anymore, or cannot record on my very outdated 8 year old laptop. All of this was recorded on Sharefactory on a standard PS4, and took over a month and a half. It was delayed a while because I got sick pretty bad for almost an entire month which set be back quite considerably,.

Apologies to any audio "popping", and uneven audio editing. I am new to this whole thing and used a guide to make my audio sound as good as possible and even though I followed the steps to the letter for each segment in my review, it produced completely different results sometimes. This is my very first video review and I hope that does not deter you.

Thank you so much.

Game of the Year 2018

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Sun, 30 Dec 2018 11:28:00 +0000

Oh boy look at me splitting up my work into two separate posts like some kind of blogger. Kotaku's going to snatch me up any day now, you guys. You're going to be seeing me in the big time, making one post every 7 months as my usual schedule pertains. But enough of the bullshit. My week free trial of HBO Go has HBO Gone and season 2 of Westworld sucked a lot of ass. In fact it reminded me a lot of that TV show about viruses and time skips and that brother from Wings was there, but we'll talk about that later. It's time for Words That Kill's annual "who the fuck even knows about this website" Game of the Year Awards, in which case I played all of the wrong games and make a choice that makes everyone mad. So let's get into it. Oh and this time there are pictures because I know how to treat my babies.

5 - Shadow of the Colossus

It's just... so gorgeous.

This game was kind of frustrating and honestly not as good as it probably was back in the day, but, well, honestly it was fascinating taking a look into one of gaming's "legacies" for the first time, and in a super beautiful graphical overhaul. I played Shadow of the Colossus when it was HDified back on the PS3 along with Ico, but I never got very far into the game. I just couldn't get used to it. Quite honestly I didn't like it so I never played it, and because of this I never gave Ico a chance either. So here comes the actual, from the ground up remake which is so, actually beautiful that it's hard to describe.

I mean the game is interesting enough, right? You fight these giant, or, well, colossal creatures and you really feel their weight as they slam around the world, but the world itself is so beautiful I spent hours just walking around and exploring it with photo mode. I am so glad this game had a photo mode. I'm a bit of a sad sap sometimes, but looking around the world of SOTC I was just depressed that I couldn't go there. Like, man, this place is fucking beautiful. I'd love to just get away from all this crazy bullshit of the real world and hang out in these gorgeous hillsides and whatever remains of these ruins. But the internet doesn't exist so I'd probably just lose my fucking mind and get killed by a snake or something so that's probably not a great idea.

4 - Red Dead Redemption 2

Arthur Morgan

"But Ryan, didn't you shit on this game in your last post?"

First of, who are you and how did you get into my house? Secondly, yes.

I think this game is a MESS. Technically, directionally. I think this is what happens when you develop a game across several years without perhaps having a strong vision of what you want out of the actual playing it to look like, as opposed to putting a lot of effort into the narrative and making sure your actors are real fucking good at their jobs. Because while I think actually getting your hands on this game and playing it can be a nightmare, a lot of what is in this package is good. Namely the story and the music. Also I think some of it is interesting, like having to manually cock your weapons before you can fire them. I'll be honest I actually like THAT aspect, but having to balance a diet, brush my horse, take a fucking bath, and do any number of various other management aspects just got to be too tedious.

The first two Red Dead games are to this day some of my favorites. Revolver goes all the way back to my childhood on the original Xbox, and Redemption those 8 years ago on PS3. And none of them had this fucking core management bullshit because they weren't SIMULATORS. They were games in which you picked up guns and shot motherfuckers and did cool shit. You do cool shit in RDR2 as well, and there's a lot of cool shit to do, and that's why I'm denoting the game with this post here. Just like I often talked about MGSV being both my most disappointing game of the year it came out as well as my favorite game of the year, RDR2 shares a similar fate as being a fucking mess to play in so many ways while also having some interesting tidbits in there to experience... although I can't help but notice that those tidbits, the music and the story, could be something someone could just watch through on the youtubes and not have to worry about eating a goddamn can of beans or cleaning your weapons or smoking a cigar or... well, you get the picture.

3 - Yakuza Kiwami 2

As you can see, Yakuza Kiwami 2 is still a Yakuza game.

I'm just going to come out and say it, as much as I love these games, I think they are getting worse with each new release. Yakuza 0 was the fucking best so far and honestly still one of the best games I've played of the last few years, but it had the curse of being a prequel that had been developed years after most other entries, so it had a chance to really delve deep into the characters and what makes them tick and distill them into their purest forms before we get to actually know them in the very first entry and beyond. But, not just in terms of story, but in terms of gameplay as well. Being able to switch between different fighting styles in 0 was a thing of beauty. But in Kiwami 2 you just have the one and can be quite repetitive. Which is an ironic criticism for a beat'em up like Yakuza. But 0 had 3 fighting styles to choose from and an unlockable 4th to really shake things up and so it was NEVER boring.

But aside from the gameplay, or at least, fighting style gameplay, Kiwami 2 uses the Dragon Engine for the first time in the Remastered series. Which means it's the engine used in Yakuza 6. It's streamlined and very robust and opens up the game to a modern sensibility. For example, in old Yakuza games, when entering a store you had to go through a loading screen. But now? Oh baby, all stores are just open and available in the open world. You just walk on in and they are ready for you. Which also means you can get into fights there and destroy the place.

Returning from Yakuza 0 is the Cabaret Club Management game which now places Kiryu (and not Majima as it was previously) in the position of running a Cabaret club in Sotenbori. It was fun to hop back in and see some familiar faces but it was basically the same old minigame with no real differences aside from an oil baron button mashing prompt which can allow you to edge out the competition by gaining the bonus that the oil baron provides. In fact that's how I ended up winning the hardest tournament in the Cabaret subquest storyline that I had previously failed once before. This time I managed to just get enough money to win thanks to the money provided by the baron.

Anyway this is turning into a review, and since I didn't review it properly, I'll say: It's unfortunate that Kiryu is still kind of a boring white bread character because Majima has so much depth and intrigue to him that I'd still just rather play as him. It's so tragic to see a guy who puts on his "crazy guy" persona because that's how he has to deal with the bullshit world around him, when deep down inside he's still just like you or me. You do get to see a resolution of his storyline from Yakuza 0 which I thought was nice... and again a reminder that, damnit, I'd honestly just rather play as this guy.

The charm is still here. The substories still go all the way to crazy town and back and are filled with so many hilarious characters and messages of love and forgiveness and hope and friendship in the most incredible and hilarious ways. Kiwami 2 actually features a substory quest that references the poor reviews of Yakuza 3 and that ended up being a goddamn amazing experience to behold for myself. I still love these games but I'd give this game a 3 "Goro Majima may only have one eye but even he can see why kids love the taste of Kiryu Toast Crunch" out of 5. The story on this one got a little... fucking crazy. Even for me. Even for me. Suspension of disbelief is powerful and I can suspend it quite far, but some of the shit that happens in this story is just a little much outside the realm of "oh come the fuck on what the fuck".

2 - Valkyria Chronicles 4

Valkyria Chronicles 4 wastes time calling itself out... unfortunately though it falls back on itself afterwards.

Valkyria Chronicles oh boy how glad I am to be back here once again. After rekindling my love for the first game after playing the remastered version on PS4 and discovering how I loved mechanical racism in video games. This game is no different, although it is more refined and... maybe a little easier?

This game is so fucking good I wasn't sure if this would be my game of the year or not. I guess my rule of thumb for these kinds of things is that, if I have to think about it, the answer is probably no. After all I can't really remember thinking too hard about the other games, for example I knew immediately that The Evil Within and Dragon Quest Builders would both be my personal game of the year in their respective years of release. But this game is really good.

So the thing about Valkyria Chronicles is that VC1 came out and... kinda nobody bought it. It didn't do super great, so they took the series to PSP afterwards. VC2 came out on PSP and would be the last Valkyria Chronicles game to be localized in the west for a bit. I bought it and played it and remembered enjoying it for a time but don't recall beating it. After the poor sales in the west, the third Valkyria Chronicles game was released in Japan only. After that, they released some fucking awful Final Fantasy looking shit that almost killed the franchise and I can only seem to recall everyone hating. Then, by some miracle(Also known as "them releasing Valkyria Chronicles 1 on PC and it selling like fucking hotcakes, thus revitalizing the franchise as a whole") Valkyria Chronicles 4 was born. And am I glad it was.

Set during the time period of the first Valkyria Chronicles, you play as Squad E, a ragtag squad animes just trying to survive a crazy war that only gets crazier as time goes on. It's pure Valkyria Chronicles and I can't get enough of it. I really felt so impressed with myself when playing this game because when I played the first VC I had to save scum a lot because I was really bad at it, but I would play these really crazy missions with dynamic goals in VC4 and be able to complete them without anyone dying, or losing any serious progress, etc. It felt awesome to take control of the battlefield and play the game and not be a scared bitch like I used to be.

Still really grindy though. They unfortunately did not learn a goddamn thing in all of their VC games and so it has made literally no progress in terms of it no longer being a grindy mess, because it's still a grindy mess. So that sucks, and it really kinda held the game back to me. It also takes a weird stance on war as a whole which is kind of weird because the analogues to WWII are as obvious as a slap to the face and, I don't know how to describe it. You kill a lot of people in that game and then all of the sudden it gets really grand-standy about how war is bad and killing is bad and don't be bad and it's like... the fuck?

Anyway this is a shitty review I have no idea why I didn't plan this out better.

1- God of War

oh BOY

Oh boy look at me I'm so original God of War is my game of the year. Honestly I had a really bad year and kinda forgot this even came out this year, as I forgot just about any game came out this year. But quite honestly God of War was such a fucking masterpiece of a game that it's embarrassing that I could forget about it in the first place. Cory Barlog and his team did such an incredible job with this game, I never thought I would be so blown away by a fucking GOD OF WAR game. Like, what the hell.

The Leviathan Axe, the way the story unfolds, the way it's all so lowkey and unlike a typical God of War game, but slowly builds up and you can clearly see where all of the seeds are being planted for the future, it was masterful. And quite frankly I've never felt something so satisfying as being able to just throw that fucking axe as far away into the face of whatever creature I'm fighting and then recalling it and smacking it into the back of the head of another creature on the way back to me. It was satisfying in every conceivable way. It had puzzles, it had a gripping story. The, uh.. the bosses left a lot to be desired. I'm not even going to trip here the bosses straight up were just like the same fucking troll over and over again. I really have to dock points there.

On that topic actually I find it strange that God of War's original schtick was that each boss was basically a god and that the fights were these big overly dramatic things and that each fight was gory and visceral and just, well, fucked, but in the new God of War you just fight like the same troll a lot. Except sometimes it's got fire on it. Anyway, playing Old Man Kratos was a fucking joy, and Christopher Judge really killed it as Kratos. I absolutely loved every second of this awkward old demigod trying and failing to be a good father to his son and I could not imagine any other actor trying to pull that off convincingly. The stories he would tell while riding the boat, the way he would try to connect with his son before realizing he just isn't that kind of person(at least in the beginning anyway) and watching them bond as the journey progressed was just magical.

I really didn't expect some of the stuff that happened in the story, and I was truly blown away by what happened when it did. I really can't wait for the future of God of War because I know it's going to be fucking TIGHT.

Honorable Mentions

If you're on this list, it means you lost, but with style. Which doesn't actually mean anything but I try to keep my website alive and people excited and the more words you read the longer you're going to be here I guess.

Detroit Two Souls Become Human

Personally I think people are fucking crazy wrong about this game. For all of the shit David Cage gets, some rightfully, some not-so-rightfully, I feel like Detroit was the one where he actually figured it all out. I remember playing Beyond: Two Souls and Heavy Rain. I actually liked Heavy Rain but there were times where I fucking hit the buttons and did what what asked of me and it bonked me like I made a mistake. Some of that shit could get complicated and I resented it for that. But with Detroit the controls are actually quite simple and easy to do and I never felt like I missed something or messed up because the game was stupid. If I fucked up, I fucked up.

And sure, while the story can absolutely be cheesy, I thought it was really fun. I liked all of the characters, thought the actors did a fantastic job at their roles and fucking CLANCY BROWN IS IN THIS GAME ARE YOU KIDDING ME HOW IS THIS NOT THE GAME OF THE YEAR?

Spider-Man

This game... was unfortunate, I think. It's a fantastic game as well, a real top shelf experience. It brought back Spider-Man(respect the hyphen) and made web slinging something I no longer had to salivate at the mouth while daydreaming about. I could just hop in and get going around New York City once again. But as a story it was pretty obvious, and the gameplay wasn't very complex. It didn't leave me wanting more. I see this game more of a popcorn movie kinda deal. You watch it, eat your popcorn, and when its done you go on with your life.

Aside from some minor nitpicks about the webslinging(Spoiler alert I don't think it's as good as Spider-Man 2 by a long shot), the story had been spoiled by the E3 trailer. I'm not sure who at Insomniac thought it would be a good idea to put the mid-game escalation as a part of the E3 demo but there it was, so full of splendor. I thought FOR SURE that this was a fakeout and there'd be something else in the game, but no, they just straight up revealed that, yo, you already fucking know that the Sinister Six form and fuck you up so get excited for that as you play through most of the game.

Oh yeah and before I move on, how the fuck did they get through an entire Arkham styled game without learning from Batman? Or even the old Spider-Man games? All of the side content is mostly the same. You just go beat people up over and over and over again or chase cars, or defuse bombs and it's just the same shit. There's very litle verity and it became quite frustrating. I was longing for the days when I had to catch people midair and deliver them to hospitals or some shit, or do anything else than the stuff the game asks you to do. Because as it is the side content in the game is not very good, and unfortunately there's a lot of it. Or at least it seems like there is due to how repetitive it can get. So that's unfortunate.

And last but not least,

Hitman 2

I loved the first Hitman, or, at least, the one released in 2016. It was highly replayable and addictive. It gave you so many tools and options to assassinating your targets and it made you feel like you could do anything. The episodic model hurt the game severely and it didn't end up selling very well and so the future of the series was put in jeopardy. Strangely, I was addicted to not just the gameplay, but the story as well.

See, Hitman was stylish. Too stylish for its own good. It gave me goosebumps to play through the first mission and see the intro video and the intimidating monologue from the Shadow Client and the kinda "previously on Hitman" montage video of Agent 47 assassinating various individuals to fucking kickass music. I was hooked instantly.

Cut to Hitman 2 and the budget is lowered. It's a new publisher now. Square Enix let IO Interactive keep the Hitman IP which is almost unheard of in this day and age, but IOI managed to secure a publisher in Warner Brothers and so Hitman 2 exists now. But with a lower budget of some kind as the cutscenes lack facial animations so they aren't, like, animated but rather... frame by frame storyboards? I'm not sure how to describe it but it's just a single frame of animation of someone standing there, then it cuts to them aiming a gun, then it shows them standing side by side, like a slideshow I guess.

The style is gone. The thing I wanted most, is gone. And worse yet, the story took a dive too. Suddenly the intimidating Shadow Client is like Agent 47's fucking Cousin 47 or some shit and it's like ehhhhhhhhhhh. Due to how this game also sold very poorly I don't think we're going to get a Hitman 3, but alas. People say that this game is a masterpiece. That it's incredible. I have put a lot of time into Hitman 2 but it's mostly been into the older maps, since if you've purchased the original Hitman 2016 you can play the original maps but in the new remastered mechanics of Hitman 2(Which is fucking genius and has injected new life into something I've already poured countless hours into).

I'm not sure if Hitman 2 is the masterpiece everyone says it is, but I've played so much of the original maps in Hitman 2 by now that it must be doing something right, right? I can't speak much to the Hitman 2 maps other than I like them, they just don't stand out to me as much. Maybe I haven't given them as much of a chance yet, who knows. But when it came to the first Hitman game I was gripped instantly, but Hitman 2's original maps haven't really grabbed me much in the same way. I'll keep playing and maybe I'll report back if everything goes well and we all survive new years.

That's it for Words That Kill for 2018. I can't believe it's been another year. Certainly not as good as 2017 let me tell you, but let's hope 2019 can stand and deliver... Come on Death Stranding. Gonna need some of that Norman Fetus real soon.

Peace and love everyone, happy new years.

The NOT Game of the Year Awards 2018

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Wed, 26 Dec 2018 06:53:00 +0000

Hello everyone what a wonderful year. I'm suffering in an incredible amount of pain and I'm just as surprised as you that I still haven't killed myself yet. I've got like 3 or 4 days left on my HBO GO free trial and I've just finished season 1 of Westworld so let's get this post out of the way because I've got PLACES TO BE.

This year was a roller coaster for me pretty much immediately. Smashed up my laptop so the screen is completely destroyed. Now I have to use my TV as a monitor which means I can't use my PS4 and computer at the same time, which has cut my multitasking down considerably. One of the reasons for less posts on this website in fact. I really liked writing on my laptop while there was something on in the background, but now that's just not an option, and things just started to seem like a chore and it just kinda got to me. Then there was the crippling pain that developed in my head around May that no one still can explain to me which has hurt every day of my life since May.

Honestly, if you asked me, I'd tell you: I really feel like I'm dying. I am suffering every day of my life though the MRI and CT scan came back perfectly fine, so I don't know. But that's not even the worst thing that happened to me this year. The worst thing that happened to me this year is the VIDEO GAMES. So let's talk about the bad games of the year.

Fallout 69

was basically released in a brown paper bag, and once entered into the homes of anyone ignorant enough to fall for Bethesda's tricks, began heating up the proverbial heroin spoon of microtransactions and other analogies for whatever the fuck bad game this is. Yes, I've literally given up making fun of this game for being so bad because it's just so... well, I'm over it now.

In all honesty, this game was just sad. I expected, at the very least, Fallout 4. In the end, I got kinda-not-really Fallout 4 that had, at best, been kicked in the head several times while no one was looking. The base building was bad, the character models still looked like they were a few lightbulbs short of a kitchen sink, and oh yeah the game is still disgustingly ugly. I think I saw a video review on the game that talked about how gorgeous it was and while they reviewed it on PC and had access to the super high resolution assets, I mean... have you looked at it? Still can't tell if they were joking or not. Anyway, Bethesda are liars and thieves and this game was and will forever be a colossal waste of time.

Car Fry 5

Holy fuck this fucking game sucked. I'm not even going to pretend. I gave it a shot, I really did, but I just can't handle Far Cry anymore. I remember back when Far Cry 3 came out and the character of Vaas showed up and he did these really intimidating monologues about the meaning of insanity and, well, it was more of a "this actor is really fucking good" kind of thing than anything because his monologues never really went anywhere. I mean, spoilers and all, but you never even really fight Vaas. He does his "meaning of insanity" bullshit to you twice, then you get high on drugs, kill him while hallucinating, then fuck his sister. Meanwhile the entire video games industry was creaming their pants about how he was the best villain ever and I'm just sitting there like "uhhhhhh"

Well anyway, that's actually kind of what Far Cry is anymore. The villains portrayed in these games are like a group of old out of touch french men sat down on a warm sunday morning and compiled market research on what edgy hipsters think is intimidating. Or, they threw a dart at a board and hoped for the best.

Monologues. That's it. That's all these fucking villains do. That's all Far Cry knows. These villains will tell you they want to kill you, they will send wave after wave of mooks with veeeery expensive guns and cars to make it seem very convincing, but when they finally get their hands on you they, well, they... "God. The creator of all things. Happy, sad. Love, pain. You see, son, in a sense I'm like god too. I can bring happiness, sadness, love... especially pain. The bible I write is a bible of choice. When you serve god you don't really get a choice, you're forced to serve mindlessly. Free will is the enemy of religion. Ironic, isn't it? Free thinking is the enemy of the very religion that serves the god who gave us the ability to think for ourselves. But my bible gives us all a choice. A choice to think for yourself. A chance to choose your own happiness, or sadness. A choice of love, or pain. Because I am god, a creator of all things. And I give my children a a choice."

Okay now imagine that camera angle with weird trippy colors, strange Sigur Ros-like ethereal music playing from nowhere and dutch angles and bam you've got yourself a Far Cry villain. Oh, and one more thing, imagine listening to that speech 55 more times. Because in Far Cry 5 you get kidnapped throughout the story once you hit certain "milestones" and you're forced to watch these stupid bullshit idiot cutscenes of stupid goddamn motherfucking villains who want you dead so bad they capture you, drug you up so bad you're unconscious for several hours, tie you up, pull out their guns... then tell their minions to do it and LEAVE. Oh yeah and you reach these milestones by leveling up and shit, so you can be in the middle of doing side missions and get kidnapped. I actually stopped playing the game before I beat it because it kept interrupting me from doing the side missions and I just couldn't take the garbage story and its insistence that I shouldn't play the side content anymore. So this game fucking sucks.

Impromptu review this game gets 1 "incoherent speeches written by old men still too intimidated to walk by the American Eagle section of the mall" out of 5.

Ni No More Studio Ghibli II: Revenant Kingdom

Right out of the gate I'm not sure I could call this a bad game, but it's certainly a disappointing one. The first Ni No Kuni was such a beautiful and cute little game that was heartwarming and charming in just about every way. I'm still not exactly sure of the full extent of the Studio Ghibli influence that game had, was it just the fully animated cutscenes that would play on occasion or was it more? I can't say. But it was a great game and I'm fairly certain it was my game of the year the year it came out.

Ni No Kuni II, on the other hand, is a facsimile of the first. The story is so weak and boilerplate anime overbearing "love will conquer all", the characters are weak, and I originally played the game when it came out so that was before they added any difficulty options, so it was incredibly easy. It was so strange. It lost its entire identity in the span of a single sequel. The overland travel map was... realistic and not hyper stylized like the first game, and it looked "graphically unimpressive" if we're going to remain diplomatic about it. The party members were interesting at first. The game literally opens up with you, the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITE STATES OF AMERICA, GETTING NUKED. Then through anime bullshit you get warped to this crazy weird fantasy world and also de-aged 30 years.

This game lacks any decent story telling and is by the numbers as you can expect. The gimmick behind this one is that it has a kingdom builder mechanic but it's not very good. It's all simple "acquire the ship builder and you can build the docks and then build upgrades for your boat" but then you get an airship not too long after you get the boat so it's like what the fuck do you need the boat for anyway. So that's kind of a waste of time. I stuck with the game until the end, I owed it that much but it didn't really give me much in return. The ending is kind of a head scratcher that springs some strange plot development on you that made me ask "what was the point of this?" when they could have just not introduced your weird mind crime mutant son from the future at the very actual end of the game, but whatever.

I will say that it's not all doom and gloom. I'm being kind of hard on the game because the first one actually went somewhere interesting and this game goes NOWHERE interesting, but the world building is kind of interesting, even giving us an equivalent to Silicon Valley and even Facebook (Called Leafbook). Ultimately this game left me very disappointed and the "love will save us all" anime trope makes my skin crawl, especially the way it was employed here, so I will say that it's not a bad game, but it's certainly not my game of the year... and if we're being totally honest I wouldn't have remembered I played this game in 2018 if my trophies didn't timestamp them as this year, because I almost completely forgot about this game.

Reddy Deddle Demption 2

THIS GAME IS A MESS. YOU FUCKING PEOPLE LIED TO ME AND I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY. Everything up to this game coming out was how it was the best game ever made and not one review made mention of the complete ASS controls and how it doesn't even feel like THE PEOPLE WHO MADE MAX PAYNE 3 knew how to design a fucking THIRD PERSON SHOOTER. Everything is sluggish and slow and hard to aim and it relies on auto aim to such a degree that once you turn that off, the game completely breaks down.

You people think you can just play "MAY I.... STAND UNSHAKEN..." and that makes it okay when you take away my weapons, or change my ammo types? This game is fucking wild sometimes. The story is sooooo good and that's IT. The gameplay is rough around so many edges. The game direction is all over the place. I've never been more frustrated when playing a game in my fucking life. You've got to manage your health, stamina, dead eye cores, you've got to ensure you're eating food or else Arthur is going to start losing weight(Which in turn negatively impacts his cores also) and I also have to watch what clothes he wears because that could also affect his cores? Did anyone tell Rockstar that this shit isn't a SIMULATION? I remember when I first realized how the hunting system worked in this game I almost busted a gut. You have to track the animal, you have to study the animal to see what kind of weapon you have to kill it with and to see the quality of its pelt, then you have to kill it all in a single shot.

There are so many systems in this game that I looked at once and was like "yeah, no" and just played the game without paying attention to them. Did I want a better satchel throughout the later portions of the game? Absolutely. Was I willing to suffer through the absolute bullshit hunting system to get them? Not for a second. I just wanted a, I don't know, Red Dead Redemption game again and instead there's all this stuff on there that I absolutely did not need that just gets in the way. What's this about boons and charms that I can craft? You mean there's MORE shit that I have to learn about? Ehhhh whatever I don't need it.

There's a lot of bad in this game. The story is phenomenal. The acting is otherworldly. I truly loved the characters and felt the brotherhood of Arthur and John, and have never hated a character like Micha in quite a long time. But for fucks sake the bullshit I had to go through to just enjoy it, was almost not worth it. It's so apropos that this game starts with an intro video of Rockstar loading a double barreled shotgun, because when it comes to this game's direction they really went with a scattershot approach to it all, and it shows. And that's why this game is absolutely not my game of the year, no matter how good the story may be, and how much I may love the characters.

So what about the good games? Well thankfully there was a good game or two that came out that I can talk about. But this list is getting pretty long as it is, and I'm creatively bankrupt, so let's pad my KD ratio here and I'll save that post for another day. LOOK FORWARD TO WWW.WORDSTHATKILL.COM'S GAME OF THE YEAR 2018 LIST COMING UP SOON CLICKBAIT.

MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL. Oh shit I missed Christmas... uhhhhh, shit, well, there's always next year.

Introducing Resident Evil Genesys - A homebrew supplement for the Genesys Roleplaying System

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 14:09:00 +0000

If you are just here for the Resident Evil, skip this section for the next bold line.

Boys and girls, hoooooooh boy. It's been a very long time since I've been here. I've been battling all sorts of demons, some real and some not. For the first time in my life, starting from a couple of months ago, I could actually "feel" my depression. People always talked about depression being this dark miasma that just kinda covers them and keeps them down, but I've never been quite like that. I've never had trouble getting out of bed, for instance. But with the year I've had, the highs weren't that high, but the lows were some of the lowest they've been.

It's been a real struggle for me lately. Over one year ago now, just a couple of months over a year ago now actually, I began working on a homebrew supplement for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition involving Resident Evil. I worked on it quite a bit and made a lot of progress on it. I even had this concept for a playable organization. Like your players(assuming you are a GM) could have a part in managing a corporation of various sizes and there'd be different mechanics and rules for dealing with that. Something to bring you into the world of Resident Evil where you see these villains manage massive organizations and develop viruses and such, I wanted to give that to players.

Well, reality sunk in that I just wasn't very good at this kind of thing and trying to adapt it to Dungeons and Dragons just wasn't working out. So I stopped the whole thing. Eventually I gave up entirely, no more long hours working on something that I just couldn't figure out. I just moved on to other things, and even opened up my own D&D server on Discord, which I managed for 10 months before having to move on due to my aforementioned personal issues with depression.

But then I mosey'd on over to this thing called Star Wars The Roleplaying Game. I never actually managed to play it but I love Star Wars so playing my own Star Wars character was exciting to me. I also loved the system, it was built on the Narrative Dice System, which gives you so many options in playing a character that I just couldn't get in something rigid like D&D.

Then this crazy thing happened where this OTHER system showed up called "Genesys". It was the exact same system from Star Wars, made by the same people (Fantasy Flight Games), except this one was setting agnostic. It wasn't Star Wars, it wasn't anything but rules and concepts for setting up your own unique setting. It provides examples and even gives weapons and enemies to fight for that specific setting. It has everything from Modern Day to Fantasy, Sci-Fi and even more specifics like Space Opera and Steampunk.

I then checked out the community for the system and was surprised to find so many "setting conversions" like Fallout, Final Fantasy(This link opens a google drive to the PDF), even a fucking incredible Alien setting. Seriously, it's so crisp I love it. And that's when it hit me, I've got a fucking Resident Evil bun in the oven! and I pulled up my old documents and then not only began re-converting them to a new system entirely, but also building so much more.

A lot of the settings I've seen have been fairly light reading. They don't have large documents with hundreds of pages of shit. Instead, they are very succinct. With Resident Evil, and what I want out of it, I couldn't exactly have one of those. Resident Evil has some real gonzo shit in it that I as a player would want to see represented. And as the guy making this stuff I knew what I had to do. So I began working. And working. And working.

It was so exciting working on some of this stuff. It was so frustrating working on others. To this day I look at some of the things within this document that I know people will yell at me about for being so stupid. Which I sure do hope isn't the case but I'm expecting the worse. I mean I will be opening myself up to criticisms with something I've been deeply attached and emotionally invested in for over a year now, which to date is the longest I think I've ever worked on anything and actually completed... Usually shit just gets abandoned and forgotten about. But not this. Not this.

So without further ado, here it is.

Introducing Resident Evil Genesys, a homebrew supplement for the Genesys Roleplaying System. (This is the part you should have skipped to)

Link to the PDF

Introducing an addon, based on Resident Evil Village! Link to that PDF

Resident Evil Genesys is meant to give players and Game Masters the tools they need to create a whole world of Bioterror and Fighting Bioterror.

New Character Options

New careers, talents, an archetype alongside weapons and new vehicles. Ever wanted to be a Progenitor Human who moonlights as a Bioweapon Designer in their sick new Stealth Bomber with their awesome gauntlets? Well NOW YOU CAN!

Random Monster Creation Tables

A ton of tables for you to choose from, or roll on to generate your own B.O.W.'s if you want to spice your game up with more than what's in the Monster Database.

Speaking of that

Monster Database

Featuring several iconic monsters from the Resident Evil series from the Tyrant to the Super Tyrant and just about everything in between.

Protagonists

Featuring most of the Protagonists of the franchise fully statted so a Game Master can throw them at their players and murder them. All the way from Leon S. Kennedy to Parker Luciani are awaiting you in this document.

Antagonists!

Featuring most of the Antagonists of the franchise fully statted so a Game Master can throw them at their players and murder them. HUNK, Albert Wesker, Jack Krauser, the gang's all here!

Plot Hooks

Good Guy plothooks! Bad Guy plothooks! I couldn't just throw people into the world without something to work with, so I've created 6(I think it was 6) plothooks that put characters into unique situations, some of which involve franchise characters!

LORE

So much lore, you'll say "WHY IS THERE SO MUCH LORE!?"

BOOKMARKS

This PDF is fully bookmarked out, including a working table of contents that take you where you want to go! Just download the document(Which is only 13MB by the way!) and check it out!

I'm not sure I can sell people on a free PDF anymore than I already have. The document (good or bad) speaks for itself. If you are interested in once again entering the world of survival horror, then hop on in and take a look around. I may have to reupload the document to make any changes so you should bookmark this page here if you are interested in Resident Evil Genesys, I don't want people to miss out on something because I deleted an old document.

Things To Come

Add stagger immunity to one of the various custom B.O.W. tables, and maybe look into more resistances and immunities as I may have definitely looked over that.

Obtain more feedback

I have decided to work on an adventure module for this setting to help give context to some of the concepts and themes that individuals unfamiliar with Resident Evil may have trouble wrapping their heads around or conceptualizing. I am by no means a Game Master, and this may be some time off still, but I am going to give it a shot and hopefully create an entertaining adventure for both player and GM.

Resident Evil Genesys V1.7.4 - Changelog

Accurate as of 05/21/2019(US)

Added a change log.

Gave the Hydra Shotgun the linked 2 weapon quality that is only available when spending the allotted Advantage.

Gave everyone their correct Samurai Edge statblocks.

Set the AMG's damage to +2 instead of +3, and increased the critical rating by one. Added a clause that the Concussive quality is only available after "charging" the weapon up by using the aim maneuver.

Added in some text to the weapon splash page explaining the rarity and intended methods for players to obtain the new weapons and equipment.

Removed the difficulty of using and combining herbs.

Added a section detailing some of the combinations of the herbs.

Fixed a couple of incorrect statblocks with the Blast weapon quality having ranks in it, when that's not exactly how that works.

Continued to fix my mistake of referring to "short range" as "close range". There is no close range, and yet I cannot ever remember that.

Replaced Claire's handgun with a stronger handgun.

Updated the t-Virus zombie's statblock and changed its Wound Threshold from 8 to 4.

Also updated the Zombie's statblock to clarify that a player must spend two maneuvers to move away from the Zombie once grappled.

Corrected an error stating three blue herbs restore 6 wounds and not strain.

Added Sheva Alomar information and statblock.

Added Piers Nivans information and statblock.

Added the changelog to the bottom of this page as Things To Come may be more immediately pressing for people looking back on this page.

Updated Ada Wong's text entry as well as her images.

Updated Jake's text entry to fix a typo.

Added Inaccurate 1 to Josh Stone's Auto-Shotgun.

Removed a crazy duplicate "contracting a virus" ruleset that somehow made its way into the document. I have no idea how that got there. I only ever had one version of the document so how there was a second one, I have no idea.

Fixed some of the Table of Contents which were originally not included, like HUNK, Wesker, Organizations, etc etc.

Fixed some typos that were embarrassingly obvious and yet I missed them.

Made some changes to how the Herb system worked. I wasn't a fan of blanket healing for wounds and strain so I decided to at least try and make it a little more interesting.

Finally updated both versions of Wesker and Barry's Samurai Edge to bring the damage lower because they were too high from before. In a previous version I only made a change to the Samurai Edge in Wesker's statblock, ignoring the one in the Weapon's tab. That has now been fixed, as well as Barry's.

Added a new Tier 4 talent, Secret Weapon Time.

Updated wording on infection rules.

Removed a weapon quality and specified one is only for monsters.

Clarified quite a bit on how Primary and Secondary Infections work, as well as the main differences between them.

Changed the mechanics of how infecting players work slightly. Changed gaining an ability to require two triumphs as the goal of these viruses are, ideally, to make players stronger, so gaining an extra ability should not be easy.

Started adding decimals to the version numbers because eventually, we're going to hit 2.0 and people are going to probably think it's a huge milestone, which it should be, so let's slow that down a bit before we get ahead of ourselves.

Fixed monster stat blocks so that all of their attacks are now included in them and formatted them correctly so they are no longer stupid.

Also fixed some inconsistencies within the stat blocks including a lack of appropriate symbols as well as poorly integrated abilities. Everything should flow much better now.

D&D West Marches 001 V2 - This Plan Will Fail

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Mon, 14 May 2018 01:34:00 +0000

Never trust a bitch with a knife. Especially when that knife is a sword.

This adventure has us following our newest protagonist, that of one Githyanki Barbarian that goes by the name Danzig. Danzig came to Sigil to hide away from a past mistake that will no doubt haunt him until he decides enough is enough and he must face it. Until then though, he's poor as fuck and needs some more power.

Zaerith Danzig. Zealot Barbarian.
Orpheus. Fiend Bardlock.
Ji Shinoba. Kensai Monk.
Sengo. Horizon Walker.
Sam. Bardlock.

The adventure started out as many would, with someone lying about their intentions to get a group of relatively experienced murderers to go somewhere and murder someone. This time the intentions come in the form of someone trying to clean up the Hive Ward of Sigil, which everyone knows to be a monumentally meaningless task as the Hive has been around for as long as Sigil, and no effort has ever gone beyond getting stabbed in the ribs and dying. But more on that later.

The group decided to independently do some leg-work when researching this criminal organization, the something something Horizon something who operate out of a tavern in the Hive Ward. Several individuals managed to find key information which would allow them entry into the location. One being where they hide their back door key, one where they found that the gang offered refuge to those from a now-dead plane of existence, and saying the name of the plane at the front door would allow those safe entry.

So the group gets to the location and are excited to bust some heads, but the individual in charge of this particular operation has specified that they intend to do this with no bloodshed. The thorough elimination of a rival gang and their headquarters is to be done with no bloodshed. So, everyone basically said that, yeah, this isn't going to fucking work the way you expect it to. So a couple of them start scouting around the back door of the place while the rest stood in front and just kinda did stuff I guess.

Eventually the two came from scouting in the back and ultimately the plan was put into motion to try and trick their way by mentioning the dead plane. It didn't take much but Orpheus managed to convince the stupid guards to let them in, much to the dismay of Sam, who was very upset about not being able to be the one to do the convincing. But regardless, Danzig was very sure when he said to everyone that "This Plan Will Fail". Though, honestly, people weren't that convinced that it wouldn't.

So they arrive into the tavern. It's shitty. Run down. Everyone seems bored. The guards are stupid. They never ask for our weapons. No on looks like they've ever done any amount of criminal underworlding ever. Orpheus speaks to a bartender and informs him that there is a plan for those to come in and cleanse the Hive and so they need to all ally themselves together or something. So in a way they already technically abandoned the plan so that didn't really last very long.

The bartender mentioned the boss was busy, so they could talk to the second in command. So they agreed. For some reason Danzig could tell this second in command was a total bitch from the way his two bitch nips looked. But anyway. He immediately offers the group an opportunity to murder the boss and that the second in command will help him. Literally everyone in the world questioned the validity of someone being so forthcoming but decided, eh, fuck it, let's go with it anyway.

They were given free reign to explore the place and then immediately found a secret door that led to a lot of barking. Danzig wanted to check it out but the half-naked-crazy one decided to explore around and see what was up with this place, and so the group meandered. They walked by a door that had a rancid smell behind it, and after the others walked away Danzig decided to look in and found a man surrounded by freshly dead bodies, looting them. After wishing him good luck, Danzig shut the door and moved on.

What he moved on to was that of a sparring session between two of the half-orc guards who invited Ji to join in the fun. Before long, however, the sparring had broken down catastrophically and Ji was on the ground fearing for her life, some Tiefling with a crossbow showed up looking to shoot a bitch, and we had like a half an hour to wait for lunch which was when they were to go murder the bossman.

It was a total clusterfuck that led to really nothing productive and in the end made Ji look stupid. But apparently it was lunch time and the boss was waiting for us to suspiciously murder him in a plot that he definitely doesn't know about. Everyone is lead to the room, they all stand around looking suspicious except for Orpheus and Danzig who are apparently like "eh whatever let's fucking chill". The conversations get started between Orpheus, the one who definitely doesn't want a lot of bloodshed, who definitely likes the shedding of blood. Communications broke down a little bit when Sengo decided to light the boss man up with a couple of arrows to the heart. He was still alive, and so the second in command decided to try and help out by stabbing the bossman, thus activating the trap. However, he also turned around and stabbed Danzig, who was seated right next to, which was the first and last mistake second in command would make.

See, Danzig was a Barbarian. Danzig carries a big sword. A sword so big it could cut a man in half. This will be relevant later.

People start pouring through the doors and attacking poor Sam and Sengo and filling them with various leads and steels and irons and making their life in general a mess. Danzig is getting his shit pushed in by a second in command that doesn't want to fucking die, and Ji is failing at doing her Ji thing just as much as she is succeeding. Thankfully she was kind enough to leave Danzig a healing potion to counter the fact that he's about to die, which he takes advantage of in just a few moments.

The fight carries on and people are starting to look rough. Danzig is tearing away at this guy and he's just not dying, until Danzig finally reckless attacks hard enough to cut him straight in fucking half, thus putting an end to his let-me-stab-you-three-fucking-times-holy-shit-fuck-off-i'm-fucking-dying-god-shit-fuck.

The others start to push off their current foes too. A crazy hoe with a crossbow shows up and nearly kills Sam, but quickly runs away when she realizes the tide has turned against her. Cue Ji running after to put an end to her crossbowing ass just in the nick of time. And after that, the fighting had ended. The group managed to go through the rest of the facility and search through the place, finding a sum of gold that was split between the party, and some neat magic items that they would definitely find use for in the near future when Ji forgets she has a potion of poison in the heat of battle.

Also they found some slaves or whatever in the basement that may or may not have been converted to indentured servants by the "new management" which made Danzig feel pretty confident that he'd just have to come back and murder all of the new people since they have effectively replaced one gang with a different gang.

All in all it was his first venture into making some actual money and putting his skills to the challenge. He's probably not going to assist in the act of creating any new gangs from this point forward, but as for his future, who knows what he'll get up to.

Murder. He'll get up to murder.

D&D West Marches Part One Finale - The Ballad of Bridges Rhinestone Jr.

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Sun, 29 Apr 2018 01:05:00 +0000

Jia, Bridges, Ozzy, Firion(RIP), Sky, Amber Moon, Gautier, Ven. Salad Force.

Building Bridges

Bridges Rhinestone Jr. Bard. Friend. Denier of critical hits. Counterspell Phantom. Voted least effective uses of Vicious Mockery by the Sandheim Bard College For Pretty Mouthed Boys.

A man who created his persona after a run-in with a Beholder who found him out and about in a forest one day. The Beholder spoke his Beholder Speak directly into his mind and asked him his name. Being too afraid to answer truthfully because holy fuck what even is this thing, he scoured his surroundings, and saw a paid if bridges across a shallow pond, and responded "Bridges..." looking down and seeing the rhinestones on his favorite pair of Rhinestone Encrusted Pants™, he responded again "...Rhinestone..." and finally spotting near that pond a son and father fishing together, to which he finally responded "...Jr.".

The Beholder, seemingly satisfied with his answer, floated the fuck away because he ain't got legs, it's not like he's going to walk away. Swearing to never fucking holy shit ever get caught near one of those sick fucking monsters ever again god fuck they're so scary. He left his home, accepted his newfound identity of Bridges Rhinestone Jr, and through the next few years began an intensive regime of tapping into the raw power of magic, and harnessing it in ways that even the must studious has trouble truly grasping.

While proficient in musical instruments, Bridges found his power less in playing them and more in, well, just holding them as a spellcasting focus while he used his inspirational speech to help his friends and give them power. He was always typecast as the one who played music by those unfamiliar with him, but his abilities were best used as a raw force of personality.

The school could only teach so much, and Bridges decided that if he wanted to truly tap into the power of his Magical Secrets, he needed to go elsewhere and get better by experience. He heard tale of a town far, far away in an unexplored continent in desperate need of those willing to help explore this continent and uncover whatever secrets lay in wait to help progress the budding civilization there. He figured, hey, if we're going to ever get better at this Bard thing then we need to get our hands dirty. He said goodbye to his family, secured passage to Farwater, and began his journey to becoming more than he already was.

The Journey

Much of Bridges' journey has already been well documented. He arrived in Farwater, found it to be quite rundown and rustic. Began immersion therapy by battling undead during his first day there. Having never seen the undead in person, being punched in the face by a massive Flesh Golem was an incredible learning experience. As was learning just how useless his Knock spell really was. "But it can open any door!" unfortunately just wasn't good enough with any number of thuggish ruggish Rogue's around.

(Read more about this adventure here)

He was kidnapped and sent to a magical dream world demi-plane bed and breakfast and casino along with a few other people in Farwater and had all kinds of fun there like watching a child and adult play tic-tac-toe for way too fucking long, taking part in games of knowledge and skill, like trivia and target shooting, and even watched a Wizard try to cheat at a magic... uhhh, "my magic is better than your magic" exhibit? The cherry on top was a properly untested and unbalanced chicken race that lasted roughly 4 hours and resulted in the death of several innocent chickens. Also they fought a Dragon and Bridges made it fall down the stairs thanks to Dissonant Whispers.

(Read more about this adventure here)

He had a fateful run in with a Cambion that charmed him and made him remember the hard days of being a young pretty boy in the big city just looking to make some money. So much so that he spent the better part of his time in Farwater looking for That. Damn. Cambion. He never found him. Found some other devils but apparently not all devils know each other. Psh whatever.

(Read more about this adventure here)

A fateful encounter changed his views of what so called "monsters" could be, as he encountered an old spirit who guarded a tomb so old that it was still ancient a thousand years ago. The Spirit's name was Cynvard and he warned the group to stay away from the temple, as it contained a great evil which should never be unearthed. A fellow party member by the name of FINWIN DIMGAR, however, had other plans and viciously assaulted the guardian, and ended up killing him while Bridges pleaded for the fighting to stop, but it did not. Bridges managed to convince the guardian to lay down his arms and not attack, but however he could not convince the Gnome whose only defining trait was acting out his greedy violent fantasies.

(Read more about this massacre here)

After being dragged into an adventure he had no business being in, Bridges watched one of the most ignorant displays of stupidity that the world has ever seen as his party, for some fucking reason decide that, after being ambushed by vampires at Midnight and being invited to a clearly fucked up walking house with hulk hands, they would fucking go to the house, not let the rest of the party take any amount of a rest to get spell slots and inspiration back, just so they wouldn't "keep their dinner host waiting because that would be rude". Once inside of the house, the rest of the party refused to pay any amount of attention to anywhere they were walking, constantly setting off simple fucking traps to detect and literally almost killing one of the people there just from traps alone.

Bridges, being quite literally the most unperceptive person in the group, SOMEHOW had to be the one to look for traps, and actually found one, saving someone from walking into it and probably actually dying. Unfortunately though the stupidity returned in full force as the heavily armored Cleric rushed into the next room and starting fucking with everything she could get her hands on, setting off another trap and taking a whole bunch of damage. You know what, this is infuriating after all this time.

(Read more about this shit-show here)

Because so much in Farwater resolved around portals opening up in front of Bridges and taking him somewhere he didn't understand, he wasn't surprised when that happened and sent him directly to a strange plane he had dreamed about prior to this. See, he had dreamed that he came from another realm where he was friends with someone named Tony, and also President Wesley Snipes. Something about a vampire rock band that he was the manager of, a deal gone bad, drugs, lots of drugs, and a nuclear missile strike ordered by President Wesley Snipes that definitely destroyed most of California in an effort to eliminate an evil record company. Anyway, he arrived in a world so similar to this but instead of people looking about what people did everywhere else, they were all small balding men who looked exactly the same. After trying to figure out where the hell they were, being ambushed by a gang of arcane powered machine gun wielding men, the party leads an assault on a sorcerer DeVito who was actually probably doing the right thing, but was ultimately a victim of circumstance. Regardless, the party made their way back with some magical cocaine and all was right with the world.

(Read more about this adventure here)

After dealing with that first vampire bitch, Bridges was back on the case and this time with a party that understands the concept of traps. Returning to the scene of the walking house, the gang discovers, the hard way mind you, that those hulk hands weren't for show. Watching several of his party almost be murdered by said hulk hands provided quite a challenge for Bridges, one that he was confident he could overcome. Fortunately for him, he had spells that could get him the fuck out of there if need be so it didn't really matter one way or the other. While fighting the house, and several other vampires in broad daylight that for some reason didn't affect them, a loud voice was calling out of some kind of crazy arcane loud speaker and talking shit the entire way. With the house defeated, the party went inside and fought quite a slog with a powerful vampire, but thanks to Bridges and his handy Heat Metal spell, he negated quite a few nasty attacks.

(Read more about this adventure here)

A call to arms was posted for an adventure on the high seas! Bridges signed up along with some of his friends and not-friends. It was put on by an individual who seemed... touched, mentally. He had some issues communicating, was a little naive, and was definitely Borat. After dealing with an actual hour+ of people fighting about birds before the adventure could even begin, and a case of definite sexual assault as the Wild Magic Sorcerer Mass Suggested that all of the sailors be gay, they set sail. On the way across the oceans, they were attacked by pirates! But not just pirates, magical pirates! The attack signal was clearly broadcast but Bridges decided to let off an attack of his own before they could board, and Lightning Bolted one of the ships, destroying its mast all in one go. But then, teleportations abound as an entire brigade of pirates suddenly arrive in force. Bridges, utilizing his newly learned Polymorph spell, let loose on them in the form of a ~~Oozaru~~ Giant Ape. The pirate leader, Marcus DuCunt, arrived with his dual-wielding crossbows and almost did enough damage to put the ~~Oozaru~~ Giant Ape down, but with the help of Tides of Chaos from the Wild Magic Sorcerer, held on to the form just long enough to incapacitate the pirate leader. In a strange twist of fate, however, Bridges and Marcus hit it off and hung out for the entire duration of the sail. Bridges even Polymorphed Marcus into his own ~~Oozaru~~ Giant Ape to let him see how fun it is. He even cast Invisibility on Marcus to help him evade going to prison when they arrived at their destination.

(Read more about this adventure here)

The Vampire threat loomed on. Bridges and Co. were back in action to put a stop to it once and hopefully for all. Unfortunately for Bridges he was being assaulted by Timewave Alteration Signals™ and sorta kinda missed out on most of the early adventure. But by the end of it he he embraced the final battle by utilizing his powerful magical boots to help him remain stealthy while he cast Greater Invisibility on himself and counterspelled the powerful anti-bard vampire asshole to support his friends. After that battle he had earned himself the nickname "Counterspell Phantom", since the Vampire he was counterspelling had no idea he was even there while he wagged his magic fingers and dispelled the magic right in front of her face.

(Read more about this adventure here)

Salad Force, and the Future

Bridges Rhinestone Jr and his friends formed one of Farwater's mightiest guilds in the entire realm, Salad Force. Comprised of some of the most powerful arcane minds in town, and some of the mightiest warriors the land has ever seen, Salad was a Force to be reckoned with. There was nary a challenge that could phase them, and they had seen and done quite a bit. Using the power of their Sorcerer Supreme, Ven, they lived inside of a Mighty Fortress just 10 minutes from town. Eventually, in their travels, the group had acquired a Bag of Beans and sprouted a Pyramid, directly next door to their Fortress, guarded by a powerful Mummy Lord, but the Mummy Lord was reasonable and let the group use the Pyramid as a cool bar and hang out spot. They had 16 copies of Blade on Blu-Ray with Danny DeVito in every role, as well as a legitimate copy of Blade on Blu-Ray.

Bridges, tapping into his magical secrets thanks to the experience gathered over his time here, acquired the Ultimate Party Pegasus, and named him Cynvard in honor of someone he had hoped to be friends with. After pulling a job from Javid, and actually managing to cure him of his mysterious magical curse that made him the Borat he was, Bridges scored a Daern's Instant Fortress and as much Salad Force merch as he could possibly carry, with hopes of expanding his group across countries, the world, and maybe even the planes. So he let his friends from Farwater behind and set out for another grand adventure. Just him and Cynvard.

Finwin Dimgar disappeared from Farwater one day, probably moving on to the next great ~~murder~~ search of knowledge.

Bridges never found the Cambion that charmed him, though he still wants to.

Bridges fully intends to find a way to bring the spirit guardian Cynvard back to life, and is excited to introduce him to his Pegasus.

He rolled a natural one on his final level up hitpoints.

The final character sheet for Bridges Rhinestone Jr.

The Ultimate Party Pegasus in the flesh.

Special Thanks

Thanks to everyone at Colvillian West Marches for allowing me to play this character and make some good friends along the way. Shoutouts to Gisela, the greatest Firion, Anax, Orgnok, Raiden, Finwin Dimgar you motherfucker, Aev, Sky, Soleir, C-Swag, President Wesley Snipes, everyone else I forgot to mention but ended up being a part of Bridges and I's journey, and YOU!

"Hello everyone. My name is Bridges Rhinestone Jr. I've seen a lot in my travels and I've done a lot too. Made some good friends and killed some bitter enemies. I'm like super rich now and I've got all kinds of cool magic items, but I never forgot where I come from or who I am. In the end, life is what you make of it, which is why I've got a sick fucking Pegasus. You may forget a lot of things in your life, but when it comes to me, baby, I'm Bridges Rhinestone Jr. Remember The Name."

A Way Out - Finding a way IN, to my heart that is. Also fuck the Oscars.

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Tue, 03 Apr 2018 15:53:00 +0000

A Way Out is a two player split-screen co-op game where the players take control of one of two characters, each with their own viewpoints. The basis for the game are that these two characters, Leo and Vincent, meet up and decide to help each other break out of prison to get revenge on someone who has wronged both of them individually.

The game takes place over several unique scenes, each with its own sense of style and tone, that take you into all different kinds of challenges.

The game, really, reminds me more of a David Cage game but... not insurmountably janky. The voice acting is spotty, but the story and overall scope of the game is actually quite fun.

Each player acts as the main character, with their own role to play during each scene of the game. Sometimes the game takes you to two different areas with you acting on your own for a little slice of time. But due to the split-screen nature of the game you are always aware of what your partner is going through.

The most fun in this game comes from the several different activities you can get into. One scene had the two characters in a farm that had a small area for horseshoes and so me and my co-op partner spent probably 25 minutes trying to get the high score. Another area had a Connect 4 board game to play. Another one, basketball, etc etc. It was a nice change of pace that lets you take a slight break from the severity of the story while also appreciating the "quiet moments", and boy does this game take advantage of that.

For example, when the game starts to open up in the very beginning, there is a part where you can work out in several different ways. Pushups, crunches, lifting weights. We spent roughly 20+ minutes trying to get higher scores than each other and in the end our actual real life hands were hurting quite a bit, and even had to resort to using the pen trick to try and win quickly.

While one player tries to get the plot going, the other gets some sick gains.

The game really takes advantage of the co-op nature of the game to a surprising degree, allowing players to really dig in and help the other, letting one take the lead in something, or working together in different areas to achieve some goal. But sometimes it's not easy. Sometimes you're in a row-boat going down a running river and your co-op partner(me in this case) wouldn't stop fucking up and rowing on the wrong side of the boat, causing us to crash and almost die a hundred different times. In the end it felt like we were fighting against each other as much as we were helping.

For example, there's one section of the game that left quite an impression on me with fishing, one that could only be possible in co-op. There's nothing quite like listening to your friend struggle and get mad at you for easily catching any and all fishes that he simply cannot.

There was another section in the game relatively early on that I found incredibly fun. The character's each have a jail cell right next to each other. So eventually they begin preparations for their "Way Out" and have to dig out and unscrew their cell toilets. One person has to be on the look out to make sure their partner can do so without getting caught. The grand joy of this part of the game, as with many other aspects of this game, is that while the characters are currently employed in the task of looking out for each other, the drama created is entirely by the people playing. For example, when guards are coming the characters don't yell "OH NO LEO THE GUARD IS ON HIS WAY", it's up to YOU to warn your friend and convey the message. Because, while the game is splitscreen, they are better off paying attention to the prompts on their screen to make it go by faster.

This kind of experience permeates the entire game and brings a certain level of joy and excitement that is hard to explain fully. It empowers both the players and the characters and deepens the connection between the two facets of fact and fiction, real and fake, by giving the players the power to both notice and respond to what is happen to their partner and vice versa.

It's a unique experience that really goes all out, I feel, in providing this heavily narrative driven game. For example, one unique aspect of it is: I didn't even pay for it. My friend bought it, and those who own the game can invite their friends to play it, completely free of charge. You don't get trophies or anything, but it works. All you have to do is download the demo and the "invite" acts as the licence and let's you play for free. All the way through the entire game.

I give A Way Out...

Star Wars Battlefront II Version 1 - The video game form of a thousand voices crying out in terror

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Fri, 23 Mar 2018 03:02:00 +0000

Battlefront II is such an interesting conundrum. Of the heels of Battlefront, a reboot of the Battlefront franchise from the video game generations of long past. The reboot got a lot of flack for doing a lot of weird stuff and when I did hear about the game, it wasn't positive. People seem to like it now, but I don't quite remember it being that way originally.

Battlefront II however is a mission to correct those mistakes. To right the wrongs of the past, to be a New Hope to all fans of the series which still somehow doesn't let you do as much as you could back in the PS2 days. But, well, I don't have to tell you about why it all blew up in their face. But what I can tell you about is what I thought about the game.

Campaign

The campaign is what clued me in that I probably shouldn't take this thing seriously. It starts out and you are Iden Versio, because cutting random letters off of words can make Star Wars names, and you're a real bad bitch Green Beret adjacent Imperial Soldier. You are all about being a bad guy and being evil and doing bad guy stuff to the good guys. You've worked for the Empire for years and you are totally way invested on the bad guy stuff.

But then the Bad Guy Man tells Iden to do a Bad Guy Thing and suddenly she's like fuck that, I've never been into this shit anyway time to join the Rebels. Which, all jokes aside, is honestly the stupidest fucking thing I've seen in a video game in a long time. You want to sell me on the idea of playing as a bad guy? Okay, I'm down. I love the Empire and all those dumbass, near sighted, Stormtroopers. But how can anyone take the story seriously when it opens up with "REBELLIONS ARE BORN ON HATE" or whatever that stupid line is, and then immediately have your character switch sides without much thought?

Like, I want to be clear here, the character and her squad, Inferno Squad, were sent in to rescue a VIP from a planet that the Empire was currently fucking up with satellites that control the weather and making life unlivable there. But suddenly, after spending her whole life giving the Rebels, like, space cancer and feeding them from the wrong side of a gun, she's faced with the idea that people are going to die, so this is the breaking point? I bet those fucking Rebels we murdered in cold blood at the beginning of the game are questioning why they weren't given this treatment.

Anyway, you've got some cameos from OT(Original trilogy) characters and even play as them occasionally. One neat level was playing as Kylo Ren as he used his mind reading powers to read someone's mind. Would have been neat to see that kind of shit in the movies a little bit but whatever.

The story spans into the new movie franchise thanks to some free DLC, you get to see why there's a Star Destroyer on Jakku as well.

Unfortunately I think the story was very weak. It didn't accomplish much and it did not do a great job making me care about anyone. The bait-and-switch of letting you play as a super OP Empire Badass and then immediately have them turn to Good Guy Man is just frustrating. It's like they can't help but beating us over the head with some moralistic bullshit about good always prevailing. But I find it hamfisted and... ephemeral. "Good guys r kool c u l8r m8" and that's the entire story.

Multiplayer

I got into the game a little after they adjusted the credit cost to purchase certain heroes(Darth Vader used to be 40k, then changed to 15k). This was also the release of their The Last Jedi DLC where Finn and Captain Phasma were added as playable characters. During this time I played around with the classes quite a bit to find what I was interested in. Eventually, after a long affair with the Assault class, I found my niche in the Officer, who can enable your team's health regeneration sooner, effectively making them somewhat of a healer. Only somewhat. It's passive and requires you to be within a close proximity with them.

So it was off to the races. I had to find my way through which heroes I'd like, which maps were good and which were bad, and all of the above. Over time I found myself in love with Bossk, then later Darth Vader for the villains side of things, and as for the heroes I danced between Leia, Yoda, and Chewbacca. Though I was really only good at Leia and Chewbacca.

As I rose through the rankings and got better at the game, a growing frustration came from the horrible progression system. If you wanted to unlock abilities, you had to play enough games to earn Credits which you could then use to purchase Lootboxes. And what you would get from these lootboxes was, as you may have guessed, random. Which meant I couldn't just get what I wanted from them.

Crate after crate of getting nothing new meant they become a chore than entertainment.

There were three lootboxes. Trooper Crate, which gave away "cards", as they are called, centered around the Trooper classes(Assault, Heavy, Officer, Specialist). There are many cards you can acquire(though you can only equip 3 at a time) and customize your own special little loadout. Finding what synergises with your playstyle and honing in on that can make all the difference.

There were crates for the Starfighters as well as Heroes that did pretty much the same thing. The only thing that mad it all so unbearable was the amount of time it took to upgrade skills. See, a specific character's level was determined by the total value amount of star cards they had. Each card has 4 ranks to them, each adding more and more benefit. So if you had three level one cards, your level would be 3. And so on. So you had to acquire a decent number of cards before you could 1, equip more, and 2, level them up.

Because another way to level up your cards was by spending Crafting Parts. You get Crafting Parts from crates that you buy with credits you earn in matches. So you see where the loop is headed. Play matches - get credits - spend credits - get like 30 crafting parts - need 480 to upgrade a skill - grind for hours to buy more crates, etc etc. It was really frustrating. Because one, you needed to make sure you were upgrading the right skills because they are very expensive and it takes a LOT of time to get those kinds of points.

So it wouldn't be very fun to say, upgrade one specific hero that you just unlocked, then realize that unless you do some serious shit, you might not even be able to play as them, and that those points could have been used to upgrade something more immediately worthwhile. And that's not the kind of fun challenges I look to a game for. If just acquiring skills and abilities and even the currency to buy them is busted, then what the hell.

Glitches, and brokenness

One the most annoying aspects of playing this game was the fact that a patch would come in to resolve one issue, and create a much worse one. Or that time that Palpatine was the most overpowered character in the game because his fucking lightning hands could shoot through walls and easily get 130+ killstreaks by just camping spawn areas and then shooting through said walls. It made overcoming him feel like an actual challenge, but that's not my pride and accomplishment talking, that's just knowing how good it feels to steal all of that power away from some cheating asshole player.

But then they eventually fixed that, and in came the Exploding Shot glitch. Exploding Shot is an attachment for one of the heavy weapons in the game for the Heavy class, which allows you to add AOE explosiveness to your shots, allowing you to clean up on hoards of enemies. But the thing was, it made your weapon overheat much faster so using it meant you had more power, but had less time to use it. If that makes sense. Well, the glitch that was created meant that this gun built up no additional heat as a result of Exploding Shot, allowing people to spam this overpowered bullshit with no recourse.

This meant that playing as many heroes was now almost impossible as a souped up, maxed out Darth Vader could be taken down by a single heavy before they have time to even turn around. I know that I unlocked Darth Vader back when his ability to Force Choke you also enabled him to lift you off of the ground and move you around. So you could drop people off of the map to their doom, it was very strategic and incredible. Literally the NEXT DAY they removed this. After I worked my ass off to collect 15k points to purchase him. It was very frustrating to then have to play a incredibly fun, powerhouse of a character who couldn't do what he used to, and also now be killed in seconds. And you can't even block those shots either because of the AOE damage. So you're just fucked if you run into one and can't run away.

But, probably one of the worst things about the game is... just how fun it is. Aside from the microtransaction blunder, the fact that everything becomes broken sometimes for no reason, the fact that we still don't have any information on Season 2, the game has this really fun addictive quality. Chase those battlepoints, become the hero, mow down waves of the enemy, and hopefully complete the objective. It encourages you to push the objective and to fight hard. There were times on Takodana and Crait where it turned into such a meatgrinder that you would have 30k battlepoints(Heroes of that era only cost 6k battlepoints, and heroes outside of the era cost 8k, and for one person, that's a lotta points!) before the mission was anywhere near done.

The amount of stressful matches where we'd technically lost but still maintained contest of an objective(In this context, contesting an objective means that your team and the enemy team are both currently within the objective space and are fighting it out to capture it. This also means that both teams are very close to each other, and the fighting gets intense. In Galactic Assault, if your team runs out of tickets but is still contesting an objective, there's still a chance to actually capture the objective and win. BUT, if there are no team members in the objective at the time, the "Overtime" bar will deplete and the game will end in failure for you) for 20+ minutes.

Those kinds of memories are the ones I hold closest to my heart. The feeling of mowing down the entire enemy team with Bossk's grenade launcher is second to none. Unfortunately, you just had to go through so much bullshit to get there that the fun was almost hollow. The team at DICE are taking steps to change this for the better, and I've already played some of this Battlefront 2.0, and I've got to say, I like it. But as for 1.0, well...

Shadow of the Colossus - It's like getting to know an old friend. Then killing them and their family.

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 01:13:00 +0000

Shadow of the Colossus, oh boy, what a game. Such an interesting story behind it coming out right as the PS3 did, or near enough anyway. A game I've always heard of as one of the best games of all time. The only question was why the hell haven't I played it yet?

Well it's unfortunately not as mysterious as I'd like. I just never really had any interest in it. And also by this point I didn't have a PS2 so playing it was actually not possible for me. So the years went on and I desperately avoided being spoiled. That's when they announced the Team Ico Collection, with Ico and Shadow of the Colossus remastered for PS3. I thought, oh boy, this is my chance, I have no excuses now, and I bought it.

Well unfortunately the low amount of interest in playing it meant that I played it for about an hour and then sold it about 6 months later. Sadly I just never built up the interest into actually seeing what all the hubbub was about. I had fun with what I played, and I didn't think it was bad or anything, I just wasn't as excited for it as other people were. Such a shame, I guess I'm destined to never play this game.

This was my favorite location in the game. It was pretty small and way out of the way but it's just so beautiful.

CUE: Shadow of the Colossus REMAKE for PS4. Seemed like it was announced and out for release in no time flat, though it was actually about 8 months in between.

I could finally play this game in probably the best environment I ever could have. It looked amazing, it sounded incredible, it had such incredible atmosphere. It's time to finally play this game! And so I did. And I still had little interest in it.

I found myself playing for about 30 or so minutes at a time, taking in the beautiful world, fighting a Colossi, then quitting for days at a time. Interestingly, I had a total blast whenever I played, but once I was done there was no innate desire to continue playing. The curse that had followed me all the way from the beginning has indeed continued to follow me here to the end.

But I wasn't going to be dominated by this weird curse. I wasn't going to wait around for this game to get remastered again, or remade, I was going to beat this. And so I did. After about a month, or close enough to it, I put in the 7 hours necessary to finally complete this wonderful adventure.

My first impressions were strong. As I mention above, the game is strikingly beautiful and the world is so big to explore. Sure, it's empty. It's a game about fighting bosses so doing much else isn't going to net much enjoyment, but just the sheer beauty and scale of the game kept me having fun even after I'd been lost on the way to the next battle.

I found this beautiful location after getting lost on the way to a Colossi. What a beautiful place to get lost.

The controls were simple and tight. I found the grip gauge to be a tense mechanic where I had to be both careful and confident in my ability to know when to hold 'em and to quite literally when to climb up a massive beast and "recharge" for a little while. There are these lizards around certain areas like shrines with glowing crystal like tails. If you can shoot them in their tail in just the right way you can then eat the tail which causes your grip gauge to increase. There's some all over, but there's always one at each of the save shrines out in the world, meaning if you see one, definitely go check it out and increase your grip gauge.

Just like you can increase your grip, you can also increase your maximum health by shooting down fruit found on trees. It's not all of them, but if you're near enough a big ol' tree you should stop and see if it has any fruit because while the Colossi hit hard, every bit of health counts. I played the game on Hard difficulty and I'm not sure what that got me other than atoning for a false sense of penance for not having played this game to completion for all of these years.

The story seemed interesting to me because after all of the aforementioned years I had yet to be spoiled. So I had no idea what was waiting for me. It seemed the boy was interested in saving the girl in white and had come to this "cursed land" in order to grant his wish. I'm not sure what any of it meant but with each slayed Colossus I was on the trail to finding that out.

The atmosphere is second to none. Thanks to photomode allowing me to capture this beautiful shot.

Without getting too much into the story, I can say I had a lot of fun fighting the Colossi in the game. I found some to be incredibly annoying and frustrating but in a way that was "realistic", I guess. These creatures fought with tooth and nail and kept me shaking time after time after time. It wouldn't have been as memorable if they had simply stood there and let me kill them.

The most frustrating by far were the ones that had "stages" to fighting them, which was interesting and very annoying because now finding out where to stab them and how to get to a position to stab them wasn't the way to figure it out. Now I had to stab them and then get knocked off, or fall off, or just otherwise leave the Colossi and wait for the next stage to come around so I can do that all over again. There were a few Colossi I had gotten down to one sliver of health before running into one of those stages where I just couldn't get the final hit in and had to wait for another cycle.

It definitely all added up to an "experience" that I was very appreciative of, even the story which started to go somewhere near the end of the game. It certainly took me long enough to play and finish the game, and I'm glad to have done so. Some of those Colossi were as easy as going through the motions, but some really made you work for it, and no matter how frustrating that could be sometimes, landing that killing blow at the last possible second before your grip gauge runs out and seeing that time and effort pay off was something special.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus - This game was like watching a bad cartoon of history

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 04:50:00 +0000

I'll get right out there: The first game was incredible. Wolfenstein: The New Order was the perfect storm of gameplay, direction, acting, music. It had so much style and substance that I was surprised by just about everything it did. It gave an interesting perspective on an alternate history world war II that paid great respect to the events that happened. It was gritty, funny, emotional. Over the top in all of the best ways.

The sequel on the other hand... Nope.

The game starts out where the first one ends. It turns a bittersweet finale into a slightly hopeful upswing for a character that's defeated death countless times, except this time he's been severely injured and he's running out of time. Nazi's attack, people are on the back foot, and he has to navigate a naval vessel while in a wheelchair, gunning down anyone who gets in his way.

It's an interesting and very cool opening that really meshes the difference between narrative and gameplay in a way that's quite refreshing. You get to feel the weakness and frustration of not being able to do something as simple as walking around. But that doesn't mean you're out of the fight, because you've still got hands and can still put down a Nazi.

After the opening, B.J. Blazkowicz acquires a power suit which allows him to get back into the swing of things as a super powerful Nazi killing machine for the resistance. To convey the fact that Blazko is severely ill, his health caps at 50 instead of the normal 100 and so he's always very weak. But he has the benefit of being well armored to offset this.

Unfortunately a big issue I had with the game is that it never reached the heights of the first one. It never got me emotional, the gameplay never made me feel like a murder machine. So many things kept getting in the way and it became clear that the developers just didn't have the right mindset to tell these stories with the tact they deserve.

Superbunnyhop does a much better job at addressing this in his review of the game, but to summarize: He speculates that the European developers had a better sense of the European side of the story from the first game because they lived it. They had the best account of history because there are people still alive who saw it first hand, and the numerous accounts detailing them. But being from the side of the world where racial segregation, the KKK and other such stereotypes in The New Colossus took place, they didn't have a solid grasp on how to portray them well.

It was a bit of a hard decision to come to on my part, because usually I'm good at accepting things that are big and dumb and fun. But seeing how much craft and care went into the first game, and not seeing any of that here, made it kind of a slog.

The pacing is all over the place too. Which I think is a bigger indicator of the lack of quality than even the story. The levels always felt like a drag to me because I played on the normal difficulty which apparently was made a lot harder than usual. Whereas the first game made you feel like a machine of death, this game makes you feel like a weakling. You die VERY FAST here. I felt like I never had time to do anything before I was instantly killed from behind, and I never really had a chance to react to it.

I had great memories from the first game where I felt like a badass but this game doesn't reach those heights. With the narrative issues and the fact that the second game's ending comes out of nowhere and feels like a limp noodle, the game is largely a disappointment for me. I like to look at what unique qualities a game provides instead of just looking at the previous games in the franchise, but this game doesn't really go anywhere interesting often enough, and when it does it's over and done with.

This game dives into Blazko's personal life in a big way. The first boss you fight in this game is his dad. You learn more about his father, mother, childhood friend, and home life. I think that stuff was all really interesting and well done, because a lot of the small moments in this game is 10/10. There just isn't enough of them.

For example, a big part of what I liked about the first game were the internal monologues by Blazko. He's a big beefy murder man killing Nazi's, but within his mind he ponders the meaning to it all, life, love, peace, war, what any of that means. It's usually very sobering and somber, which is fantastic considering the fucked up shit he does in the war against the Nazi's. The second game, The New Colossus has this in spades as well. Which makes it that much worse when you see aspects of that original great game before it gets betrayed by some horrible cartoonish shit that feels out of place.

I mean look, I loved Saints Row The Third. I think that game is a masterclass in just about everything it does. The humor is usually the tipping point for a lot of people, personally I loved it, but that's the point: As I mention above, I can accept things that are big and stupid very easily. But this game wants to be this really mournful post-mortem of "the good old days of American civilization, back when the world was good" but then starts off some over the top bullshit that contradicts it entirely.

I mean a game where the Nazi's take over, there's a sect of Jewish super inventors who make things that are borderline paranormal, AND the KKK takes over the American South? It's very fictional, but it has the potential to portray a unique and fascinating world. I'm a big fan of Metal Gear Solid, it's my favorite franchise of all time for example, and one thing that it excels at is meshing real world politics and issues with a science fiction and paranormal backdrop. The New Order managed this incredibly well. The New Colossus does not.

I kept waiting for the game to get "good". I kept waiting for it to click with me and fall in love with it. But a disjointed story that didn't know if it wanted to be serious or comedic, gameplay that was pretty sure you didn't want to "feel" cool, pacing that was all over the place, and an ending that takes a shit on the first game in a major way, all resulted in a game that was a big "miss" for me.

Maybe they'll do a threequel and it'll be amazing, but as of the right now, this game is a bust.

D&D West Marches 018 - KILL THE DWARF

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 01:03:00 +0000

Aw fuck it's that time again.

Because the Dwarf was not KILL

Bridges Rhinestone Jr. Lore Bard.
Gisela Tank. Big Bowl of Metal.
Seleir. Suicidal Stab Man.
Amber Moon. Suicidal Punch Man.
Zephran. Not Firion.
Ra'Gu. Not Spaghetti Sauce.

Javid, the ultimate friend to Bridges Rhinestone Jr. In the last adventure with Javid Bridges discovered that Javid was cursed, and also Borat. So Bridges decided he wants to help Javid out and get him uncursed and unBoratted.

But many months passed(Read: Like 2) before that time was to come. But it did come as Javid's dad, uh, Javid's Dad sent out a call for arms as a cure was potentially in sight. Upon arriving, the group of miscreants, and Bridges, heard of a powerful wizard man who was very powerful and also a wizard man. They were told to simply talk to the individual in hopes of regaining Javid's Javidness to return him to his former glory.

This was all it took for Bridges to accept the quest. Gisela was also on the first quest so there was some familiar territory to tread, except they would soon realize that shit was fucked and this wasn't anything like the fun pirate adventure of the last adventure.

Zephran and Amber Moon spent most of the adventure eye fucking each other which was probably supposed to be conveyed as some sort of antagonistic tension between the two but Bridges is pretty sure they just need to fuck.

There's a cave they need to go into where the wizard man is staying, and the party is just supposed to talk to him but they are pretty sure deep down inside they will end up fighting him. But before they can get there they must be teleported by some mages who are so powerful it's a wonder why they didn't go fight him.

But anyway they head in and Bridges is riding his ultimate party pegasus, Cynvard. Suddenly a whole hoard of the undead animate and attack, but Bridges is just the best at everything and manages to stifle them all with a well placed Hypnotic Pattern. The party then easily meanders to them and cleans them up, though they appeared quite hardy and sturdier than the usual fare. But they were dealt with all the same.

Bridges decided to leave behind his ultimate party pegasus because even though it could fit with some effort, Bridges didn't want to waste a perfectly good Cynvard. Moving beyond the first room, the party discovers a hallway that leads around to what appears to be a well placed pit trap that is easily discovered by Suicidal Stab Man Seleir. The trap seems to be a false floor that collapses away when stood on to reveal a very, very, very deep hole.

They were told to avoid the trap and had an all too convenient carpet of flying to help them cross the gap. Amber Moon, on the other hand, decided to use his catlike abilities to venture down the hole. He makes his way down after taking some kind of crazy teleporting device from Seleir. Upon reaching a far distance down, about 169 skeleton archers animate from the bottom of the pit and immediately begin pelting him with arrows. He managed to catch one with his latent monk abilities and was then promptly pelted with about 100 additional arrows, almost dying, and then retreating back up the hole. Proving once and for all that curiosity really does kill the cat. Or try to, at least.

Once he rejoined the still living, the party proceeded into an adjacent hallway where Seleir steps on a pressure plate and triggers a burst of flame from a wall that didn't seem to do much. After attempting a bit more caution, the party saddled on up towards a nearby door before unlocking it and moving into the next area. Bridges was a bit anxious so he cast See Invisibility from his cool goggles some time before this.

Upon entering the next room, Bridges' See Invisibility Senses began to tingle and saw the ghostly image of some kind of crazy scary looking bitch as well as a bunch more skeletons, this time being much larger and wielding massive weapons. Bridges was able to recognize them as Minotaur Skeletons, something he faced in his very first adventure in Farwater.

He warned the party that there was some crazy shit going down in that room, they all went in anyway, Gisela took up a defensive position in front of Bridges which he was thankful for because fuck that room and all of the bad stuff in there.

The Banshee activated, went aggro, and down several party members went. It was a rough site to see, prompting Bridges to jump into action and run into the room, Dissonant Whispering the banshee into hell where she belongs, and then stepping the fuck back into the hallway because fuck that.

Eventually some of the party was being brought back up from healing and they easily took down the remaining undead. Banshee's are pretty scary looking at first but it turns out they aren't very impressive when you have people punching and stabbing them in the face.

The party was no severely injured thanks to the Banshee, and so Bridges took a quick moment to Cat Nap three a couple of people as well as himself to restore some of their abilities and allow their bodies to heal unnaturally yet naturally fast.

After the ten minutes were up, Bridges and his valiant adventurers head downward into another decrepit lair. Upon arriving, they find three individuals, two of which are familiar to Bridges. Another of which was supposed to be familiar to Bridges but he's pretty sure this guy was making it up because he really doesn't remember him.

Ryll and Bird Brain, now known as Vesh and also now a Dwarf. Two former traveling companions of Bridges. Bridges immediately regretted coming here now that he has to face off against Bird Brain, the ultimate duel master and salt collector of Farwater. Brides immediately exclaimed "KILL THE DWARF", a warning which was immediately disregarded by literally everyone there as everyone took on different targets and for some fucking reason seemed to leave Vesh almost completely alone aside from maybe one attack or two.

So that completely fucked lots of things up and caused a huge magical blackhole in the fight since the fucking fuck could fucking counterspell your fucking shit whenever the fuck they wanted. So fucking THANKS GUYS FOR LETTING THE ONE SPELLCASTER HERE GO COMPLETELY OPPOSED.

The fight raged on. Some other evil Warlock bitch was in the area and managed to lock down Amber Moon and make him regret many life decisions with a simple attack. She was also quite good at giving to Gisela as Gisela was to receiving. Ultimately the Warlock lady was shut down and murdered.

The big bad guy who started the whole thing by stealing Javid's Javidness made his surprise reveal by revealing himself to be some guy. Bridges had no idea who he was though so the effect was kind of wasted. Definitely could have made a bigger impact by being someone Bridges knew, but alas that did not happen.

Seleir started the entire thing by running up to that guy and trying to stab him in the face a bunch. The guy did not like this and dominated Seleir and told him to go kill the other 3 people and leave him alone, which was much kinder than he had any right to be. But still no one heeded the call to Kill The Dwarf and avoided Bird Brain as much as they could to focus on the other two who, only one of which was even a threat.

Over time the fight started to wind down. Bridges got counterspelled once which made him want to turn inside out and explode with the force of a thousand suns, so he got around that the next time by going back up the stairs they came down from and then cast Greater Invisibility on himself so that he couldn't be countered. He then moved into position and said his famous lead up: "You motherfuckers ready to see some shit?" and cast Steel Wind Strike. And then this happened:

OOOH BABY A CRIPPLE

Doing so immediately killed and cut the head off of Ryll, and severely impacted the man who had his surprise ruined with how no one remembered him. He hit Bird Brain as well, since he was adamant in killing the dwarf, but alas it was no crit.

Eventually shit started to go a little sideways. Amber Moon was getting pushed in, Seleir went down, Zephran's sickly constitution got the better of him as he went down also. Bridges had a lot left in the tank with his spell slots but unfortunately not in his hit points and so he went down as well in the prime of his greater invisibility.

The big bad guy no one cared about told the party to let him go or he would kill them all. Eventually they decided that was the right call because they didn't want to die and this guy barely had a scratch on him. So he dragged his warlock girlfriend out of there and teleported away.

Bird Brain utilized this opportunity to flee from battle by Dimension Door'ing out of there and escaping. But he didn't get far as Cynvard was left at the beginning of the dungeon, and at some point during the time when shit was getting real, Bridges ordered Cynvard to leave the dungeon and circle overhead. So Cynvard was on cruise control when he spotted the fleeing Bird Brain and moving in for the kill. He passed his stealth check, avoided being paralyzed once, and even landed a pretty good hit on Bird Brain, but was unfortunately slain by the evil now blue dwarf who made his escape and will goddamn surely be around somewhere else mother FUCK.

The party did what the party does and looted the corpse left behind and got some nice magical items. They also retrieved Javid's Javidness since the big bad guy no one remembered didn't want anything to do with it. Bridges picked it up and the party made their way back to the mages who teleported them there. The party then pondered why these lame ass mages let Bird Brain get away because he HAD to have traveled by them on the way out, but there was no time for blame so they just went back to Javid.

Brides took his Javidness and planted it firmly into his hands and so Javid's dad, uh, Javid's Dad decided that it was time to go fix his Boratted son and offered each and every member of the party a favor to pay to them. Simply gold, magical items, or another favor they could think of. Let him know and they will take care of that since they are the most powerful merchant organization in the world.

Bridges asked for a Dern's Instant Fortress and enough Salad Force apparel and heraldry to staff an army since he intends for Salad Force to be something larger than it is right now.

And then they went on their way home. Bridges eventually got around to recasting Cynvard, and they probably lived happily ever after.

Game Of The Year 2017

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Wed, 27 Dec 2017 21:50:00 +0000

Oh boy it's that time of the year again. I just got done writing up how bullshit Middle Earth: Shadow of War was and now it's time to get into the games that are actually not shit. And there's quite a few of them. 2017 was fucking awesome.

Resident Evil 7

Jack Baker, welcoming us into his family for a solid year running. Thanks Jack. We could all use a little help sometimes.

Because apparently I'm the only one who remembers Resident Evil 7 at the end of the year. I'm not sure why the damn thing is getting passed over or otherwise not mentioned at all, but Capcom was on the fast track to dogshit(Some would say they were already there, and I would agree, personally) and everything was looking really bad for them for a while. They just kept making shitty games and not doing anything about it. Eventually they got around to releasing Resident Evil: Revelations 2 which was an interesting concept, though not unique. It still earned a place in my heart because the game itself had heart, and that makes up for a lot of jank.

Speaking of jank, RE7 put the series back on the map with a cocksure attitude for classic survival horror with a new spin on the almost 20 year old franchise by showing us the series through fresh eyes, letting us creep back down into the feeling of vulnerability and not, you know, punching boulders. ALTHOUGH, I have not played the DLC because by all accounts it's not very good, but the boulder punching does return, apparently.

I have faulted Capcom for a long long. So long I'm actually choosing to talk about them more than the game I'm summarizing my love for right now. But, to cut it short, I'm a scared bitch and can't stand horror, so I thought my chances with this game was limited. But it was just so damn good that I couldn't put it down and fell in love with it. Didn't play it in VR because I don't want to fucking heart attack to death, but by all accounts the "base game" experience was good enough for me. Love ya', RE7. Sorry about your cunt brother, RE6 though.

Persona 5

She uses a revolver and rides a motorcycle and doesn't afraid of anything.

I've never played a Persona game before. Saw most of a let's play of 4 once upon a time and I was sorta way into that, but I just never stumbled into playing a Persona of my own. That all changed with Persona 5 and I was able to get my hands on it and immerse myself in the insanity that is held within.

It was a very fascinating game. The story explores some interesting and exciting concepts, and doesn't shy away from dark subject matter. The soundtrack is pretty fucking sick and kept me hooked the entire way through. Not a bad song on that entire thing. The Persona fusion mechanic kept me capturing Persona wherever I could in hopes of fusing some fucking awesome shit.

And then there's my waifu, Makoto Niijima. Who I can't actually post images of here because it looks like a lot of the porno. And also I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post images of Persona 5 or Atlus will come to my fucking house and murder me.

Ultimately, it's kinda funny actually, it seems like I don't have a lot to say on Persona 5. It's hard to put into words but it's just an overall great game and was a fucking blast to play through. It was my first experience with a Persona game and it was incredible from start to finish.

Nioh

Still a beautiful game after all this time.

A perfect storm of everything I've ever wanted but didn't quite know I wanted it. Dark Souls, Diablo, Onimusha, Tenchu, all wrapped up into one complete bundle that proves you don't have to reinvent the wheel to have a fucking 100 hour long masterpiece on your hands.

One of the things that made me fall in love with the game was the reliance on native Japanese voice actors alongside an English speaking protagonist. I've always loved seeing things like this and I love the idea that, well, these people don't speak English, that's just the hard truth. So if they would have spoken English it would have ruined the illusion of this fish out of water with the character of William. Likewise him speaking Japanese would have done the same.

I loved the customization abilities in how you not just spec your character, but what abilities to choose, what weapons to focus on, what spirit animal to take with you, etc etc. It gives you enough to do with it what you will so you can create an intensely personalized character, but, oh yeah, that's not even the half of it. It's a LOOT GAME also. So the loot you find can also enhance your character and make their build more than just a loose concept. And if that's not good enough, the fashion in this game is impeccable. AND IF THAT ISN'T ENOUGH, you can, as the children say, "fashion souls it up" because you can change the appearance of one piece of armor to look like that of another, so if you have a really awesome chest piece that looks sick, but it doesn't have the stats you are interested in, you can eventually put that shit on another piece of armor all together to make it look awesome.

Oh yeah, and before I forget, the ending of the game was probably way better than it had any right to be. I know that sounds maybe a little insulting, but you gotta see it for yourself to understand it. It goes from "I bet we fight another fucking boss" to "WHOA THAT SHIT JUST GOT TURNT UP TO 11" and, boy howdy, it really does. I fell in love with this game the very first time I played it and I know anyone else would as well if they just gave it a chance.

Yakuza 0

Family. Against the odds.

I guess you could say Yakuza was a franchise that I had 0 interest in ever playing. Heh. Heuh. Huhhuh. Get it? GET THE JOKE? Well moving on. I had played Yakuza 3 at one point after being told it was the most fucking incredible fighting game to ever exist, and so I was like aw fuck yeah son sign me up. But unfortunately I wasn't in the state of mind to truly appreciate that game and was severely put off by the orphanage section of the story where Kiryu raises several children who live at an orphanage he owns. From what I remember, and this was a while ago, it was a pretty big focus on the story for a while and I never made it past that. So I always had an idea in my head that the franchise was like that as a whole and never had any interest in playing beyond that.

I got Yakuza 0, on the other hand, because I saw the game being played on the internet and people were speaking so highly of it I just knew there had to be something special about this game. So I was bored one day and decided to get it and fucking hell oh boy. It was love at first sight. I could not believe the sheer amount of personality and charm that they crammed into every single pixel in that game. The world, the characters, the story, the side quests, the minigames. You can fucking build your own tiny racing car and spend 30 hours just practicing and getting better equipment. You could spend 30 hours buying and managing real estate, or managing a cabaret club which requires a ton of fucking effort but is super awesome in the end.

I mean, it's so hard to pick one thing in particular about this game that makes it so special. The story was all kinds of incredible as you play through the dual protagonists of Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima. The differing paths these two take as they both get embroiled into some larger scheme that neither of them can see the end of, and as a result get taken on a wild ride that tests their loyalty and commitment to those the closest to them. It's fucking epic. I think about this game from time to time and just, I don't know... appreciate it? Sounds a bit silly, maybe, but the game was just everything I could have ever wanted. I was an instant fan of the Yakuza franchise and I desperately hope the rest of the games are remastered ala Kiwami and Kiwami 2, so I can go back in and play them at their best.

Nier Automata - GOTY

I meeeeeeeeeean...

This game is like the fucking mecca. I can't even put it into words how much I loved this game and how well it resonated with me. Yoko Taro is a goddamn motherfucking genius who managed to really encapsulate why video gaming can be the best medium to tell a story the world has ever seen. In so many other games, in just about every other game, as a matter of fact. Nier: Automata is using the medium of video games to tell a story that only it really can. It utilizes just about every aspect of what it is to really drive home the intense emotional messages within the game.

Now I'll be the first to admit if I actually had to explain what those messages were, I'd be fucking stumped. Because I'm an idiot. But the game had this impact on me. It took the emotional war that rages on inside myself where I'm just fucking unhappy and miserable and it turned that into a video game. I got to acknowledge inner turmoil in an organic way. The way characters speak, their reactions, the way they do things, the soundtrack, the emotional climaxes that are peppered out through the game come together in this creeping resonance that strikes a chord through my entire body.

I've seen this. I've felt this before. This sense of hopelessness and dread. A weariness that drives into the pit of your being, but playable.

It's an emotional story from start to finish. It kept me hanging onto the edge of my seat, and playing further, beyond the endings and seeing how the game changes, and how it keeps going in ways that really only a video game could, was incredible. Yako Taro is a fucking savant. The way the soundtrack changes with the gameplay to create these really interesting versions of songs you've already heard before, the way the ending comes together so that if you're having difficulty, you could ask for help and someone's save file would be deleted as they take the hits for you. Knowing that you have sacrificed, maybe even wasted, the time and effort of another human being, just for your ease of use, only to see their prewritten messages of encouragement cheering you on from what such other side of existence there must be. It's a lot to take in and makes me feel like a pussy bitch sometimes for having cried during that.

There's a sense of triumph. A sense of choosing what beliefs to hold, what to die over, and when to let go. The story goes through a whole series of concepts and all of them are incredibly heavy. It's almost MGS-like in the concepts it explores, which was another reason I was so into from the beginning.

This game is special. It's unique in ways I've not seen video games before. And it's my game of the year. Easy.

Honorable mentions:

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

The Lost Legacy was sort of a weird game. I criticized Uncharted 4 for seeming so deathly serious and losing a little bit of that exciting, rip roaring adventurous tone of the first 3. This time the colors were a little muted, the stakes were dire, and everything had to be fucking emotional. It felt like a different game in a way.

The Lost Legacy takes care of this by jumping right back into the spirit of Uncharted. High stakes, deadly bad guys, and some up-top-down-low-too-slow wit to back up the humorous aspects. It really felt like it was a game more in the vein of Uncharted 2 than it did anything related to Uncharted 4 because of this.

I was initially worried about the subject matter because, I mean, Nadine and Chloe? Chloe is cool but is Nadine that dumb butt who backed the wrong horse in Uncharted 4 and then fucked off? Well, turns out my fears were misplaced because the buddy-cop relationship between straight laced Nadine and off-the-wall never-know-what-shes-gonna-do-next Chloe never stops being interesting. And also a surprising cameo appearance by Sam Drake puts the cherry on top to make an interesting dynamic, especially since Nadine imprisoned and tried to have Sam murdered in the previous game.

Kudos to Naughty Dog, they really nailed it.

The Sexy Brutale

It was a cute game from the start, and a little bit dour and depressing near the end, but I really loved this game. I was hooked from the moment I saw it but had to wait for my chance to purchase it. I managed to nab it while on sale one day and almost couldn't put it down.

Sure, I'm not sure how to vocalize my opinion on the ending because I feel like it maybe got too weird in a direction that made me uncomfortable, but that's the thing: It doesn't have to care what I wanted. Games can make you uncomfortable. I look back on my past and feel very, very bad about things, and that makes sense. I have deep regrets. So what must someone with such intensely deep regrets think about? How must his mind analyze his wrong doings? How must he deal with moving on with his life, knowing what he did, knowing who he hurt?

I guess in a roundabout way I do understand how I feel about the ending. To a less extreme degree, it makes me deeply uncomfortable because I sympathize with it so much. The kind of sympathy that involves listening to Pink Floyd at 3 in the morning and crying. I've got a lot of regrets, things I wish I could do over, things I wish I never would have done. Unfortunately there's no going back, and seeing that play out in front of me makes me feel, well, feelings that are tough to deal with.

So, fucking great job guys. Your awesome little indie game made me existential.

Horizon Zero Dawn

I spent the entire game trying to unlock that cool sci-fi armor you find earlier on in the game and once I finally unlocked it, it turned out to just be some bullshit weave you apply to your existing armors and you don't get to look like a badass, just be invulnerable. I felt incredibly cheated. But what I did not feel cheated by was the breath taking open world stealth gameplay about a fucking world ravaged by robot dinosaurs. Turns out reliving my Metal Gear REX bossfight fetishes sparked something even deeper inside.

By all accounts Horizon Zero Dawn is a fantastic game and I was quite enraptured by its maybe-not-so-original story, but I thought it was well done and interesting enough to stand out. The world building in this game is incredible. Unfortunately I've yet to play the DLC but I hear it's also incredible.

I did think Aloy was a bit whitebread from time to time, often seeming more akin to a generic "do gooder" protagonist and the sometimes holier-than-thou attitude she exhibited was kind of frustrating sometimes. But aside from that I was fully on board with the game from the very beginning because, as it turns out, it's pretty fucking easy to sell me on the idea of giant robot dinosaurs. Still kinda pissed you can't ride a Thunderjaw though. It would have been number 1 if so.

Here's to next year!

Oh god I hope next year doesn't suck. This year has been such a great year for video games. I don't know what I'd do if they all started sucking again.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War - This game ruined my fucking Christmas

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Wed, 27 Dec 2017 18:47:00 +0000

Shadow Of Mordor was a dope ass fucking game. Let's get that out of the way now. I didn't even have a PS4 when it came out so I was afraid I'd have to play the busted PS3 version. Thankfully though Gamefly didn't even have it in on PS3 for like 4 months for some reason, so I missed my opportunity. But that was okay because I was gifted a PS4 by my dear friend out of the kindness of his heart. And then I was able to tackle the game in all of its glory. And fucking boy howdy was it glorious.

Shadow of War is kind of similar in that regard. The things you liked about the first game are back, but somehow even better. The things you didn't like about the first game are as gone as I can remember, because most of the game works well with itself. With some exceptions.

See, in the first Shadow Of game, you were all about killing the Warchiefs. The Nemesis System as it was called was a progressive series of events spread out around several different in-game enemies for you to fight. A majority of them were Captains. You could kill them and gain power. But if you yourself were killed by them, it was they who gained the power. They would level up, gain new abilities, perhaps even followers, and they'd remember you. They would actually shit-talk you when you came back around to fight them. It was amazing. The mechanic behind Talion(the main character) able to actually be killed, but come back from the dead, was front and center with enemies able to kill you and then boast that fact to everyone. Awesome.

Shadow of War has that in spades. See, in the first game you only had two big zones to go through, with a unique Nemesis System for each. In Shadow of War, there are multiple stages with unique Nemesis Systems and challenges to overcome. Like, fortresses.

See, in the first game(Since this is how I'm going to begin every paragraph apparently), you could eventually "dominate" captains and even Warchiefs. This allows you to make them work for you. So you could stroll into fights with other Warchiefs in tow and really feel like you're building a war party. In Shadow Of War, that idea has been amplified with the concept of you building an army. And so you can attack fortresses and kill, capture or replace Warchiefs with your own dominated Orcs and begin sabotaging these fortresses which allow your big battle scenes to be easy or harder depending on how far you are willing to go.

Me being me, of course, I was willing to go all the way. I wanted to build my army. I wanted to feel the power that this Sauron assdick does. So I began working my way through the Warchiefs, building my power, acquiring their services or killing them if they were simply too high level to recruit(You can only recruit up to Talion's level). I would then make them "infiltrate" the fortress to serve as my spy. Personally, I think this is one of the identity issues the game has. First off, if he was already a Warchief and I dominated him, why does he stop being a Warchief? Why do I have to reinstall him into a power he never lost? When I dominate captains they don't stop being captains.

But that's where one of the worst parts of the games kick in: Pit Fights. What if I told you one of the most impossibly boring mechanics in video games is something that you will be spending a lot of time partaking in if you wanted to proceed in a manner that makes the most sense? What if I told you that the fantastic fighting system that Shadow of War relies upon is completely relinquished, instead forcing you to watch the most fucking ungodly boringly stupid battles between two A.I. characters that you cannot influence in any capacity?

That's right! Pit Fights! You want to have someone infiltrate a Warchief and pretend to be his loyal guard when in reality they are your spy? Gotta go into the pits and watch a two minute long "fight" between two A.I's who look like they've never actually fought before because all they fucking do is dodge around all the fucking time and never attack each other. Whenever the player fights a Captain, they go super aggro and attack with everything they've fucking got, and they've got a fucking lot. But with the A.I. fights, you don't get that ferocity. You get a middling, boring, meandering mistake of a concept. Because in a game that's all about fighting and dominating people, making players watch something that equates to being barely a cutscene is definitely the way to win them over.

I mean fuck why not let these fights be controllable? Why not allow the players to take control over their Orc and get a taste of what it's like to be these guys? That way you get your pit fights but at least allow some sort of engagement instead of just "okay, I've got two minutes, let's bump that spotify shit" and then entering a state of angry existence.

After that, you've got yourself a spy. But wait a second, there's a lot of Warchiefs. So that means for every Warchief you try to have infiltrate, you have to do another one of these pit fights? Yep. You're going to be spending a lot of the game here. Honestly it wasn't so bad in the beginning. But over time I became so bored and angry of this mechanic. "Surely there was a better way?" I kept asking myself. But the game kept responding to me with a simple, but effective, "fuck'n get rekt m8" Or maybe that's what my subconscious projected the game to be saying since it became entirely clear after a certain point that this game had no fucking respect for me or my time.

After you do your 300 pit fights to get your Warchiefs in place to sabotage the fort, you can begin your assault. But before I forget, the reason to even sabotage the fort in the first place is that each Warchief represents a different ability that the fort has which makes assaulting it difficult. For example, the fort might have Metal Walls, which means it's much more difficult to break through. It also may have fire streaming out of the side of the walls, making it impossible for your units to climb over. Or maybe it has archers that can shoot you from very, very far away. Defeating a Warchief will disable these abilities, and there are abilities for each slot on the fort, which is filled by a Warchief. Once you defeat them all, you'll have a relatively easier time getting in.

If you've managed to install your very own Warchiefs to act as spies to sabotage the fort in the first place, things will get even easier. I'm not science man but I'm pretty sure the front gates are rigged to blow for you to allow your forces easier access. Once inside, you have to capture a series of "zones" which act as a defensible platform for your soldiers to hold while you invade. Once you capture a zone, one of the warchiefs will show up to fight. If it's your own Warchief, he will make things even easier for you by joining the fight and pushing on to the next zone.

Once you've captured all of the zones, the siege is pretty much over, and now it's time to confront the Overlord. The big man in charge of the entire fort, which is engaged in a sort-of-boss-battle that can get fairly hairy if you aren't prepared. Once the overlord is defeated, you take control over the fort and can promote one of your orcs to be the Overlord. Once you have done this, you can customize your own Fort defenses like the fire streams, far ranged archers and so on, to prevent others from easily capturing your forts in turn.

If you die during the overlord battle, the game does something a lot kinder than it has any right to, and allows you to immediately start the siege again, but from the boss battle. I guess it figures, hey, you've gotten here before, why make you go through all of that again? But this mechanic is not indicative of what's to come. Oh god no. Oh god it gets so much worse. Oh fuck. Please no.

SHADOW WARS

So, I'll be glossing over a lot of the game from here on out. The story is bad. The characterizations are bad. The motivations and wishy washy actions of Talion which make no fucking sense and leave me scratching my head most of the time, to the fact that I had a hard time following the events that transpired because I was so bored and disinterested in anything when it came to the narrative. I mean fucking hell it felt like they didn't even try. Things just happen around you, and that's honestly the long and short of it.

Instead, the game enters a whole new world of bullshit. A world so fucking contrived and bullshit it will honestly make you question why this game even exists in the first place.

So once you've effectively beaten the game and have done most of the narrative shit there is to do, the game does something so epic it made me want to throw myself from a mountain. It HIDES THE FUCKING ENDING OF THE GAME BEHIND GRINDY BULLSHIT THAT ENCOURAGES YOU TO PURCHASE MICROTRANSACTIONS TO SPEED UP THE GRIND.

I glossed over quite a bit of the game because I feel like honestly that stuff wasn't important. And I mean that from my perspective. I don't care about that other shit. This game takes Troy Baker and Laura Bailey and makes them boring fucking messes, that should tell you all you need to know(Assuming you know who those two are. They are voice actors and quite good. This game misuses them horrendously).

See, you've got those forts I talked about before. Except there are 4 or 5 of them(I'm frazzled, I can't remember the number exactly). Once you've beaten the game, it's time to "defend" your forts against the forces of the Dark Lord(Sauron). He sends attack after attack against your forts, causing you to defend them, then pop out to the next fort, defend that, then the next one, then the next one, then the next one. It's a war of attrition that isn't satisfying nor is it exciting. It's a fucking disaster if I've ever seen one.

I've talked pretty negatively about the rest of the game, story, voice acting, etc etc. But honestly it wasn't a bad game at all. I was thoroughly enjoying my time with it. Honestly. But once this shit kicked into high gear and it kept throwing higher and higher waves of enemies at me, and the only way to improve upon that was to grind and grind and grind out better orcs OR BUY SOME MICROTRANSACTIONS WHICH COME WITH ORCS NEAR OR EQUAL TO YOUR LEVEL, I was so fucking done. But please understand, it's not just the difficulty of the missions, it's the frequency of them. It constantly spins. Round and round the world. Go from level to level and defend your forts, and when you're done, go to the next area and do the same, and then go to the next area and do the same.

Shadow Wars has 10 stages in total, each one requiring you to defend your forts a number of times per stage. And it just. Keeps. Going. Pitting your orcs against each other so they can level up in the pit fights, going to the next level with equally underleveled orcs, putting them in the pit fights to level up, going to the next level. It's a nightmare that doesn't end. The grind was so much that I honestly expected Ahston Kutcher to pop out of my closet and be like "hahaha this game is shit that's the prank haah we pranked you you're so pranked check out my hot wife" and give me a real copy of the game.

The fun part, of course, comes from when you fail a siege. Upon failing this defense mission, your fort is instantly captured, new Warchiefs are installed and you must START CAPTURING WARCHIEFS AND GOING BACK INTO THE FIGHT PITS AND BASICALLY STARTING ALL OVER FROM THE BEGINNING, EASILY KILLING SEVERAL HOURS OF PROGRESS IN ONE FELL SWOOP.

Now, the funny thing, these defenses aren't so difficult in the beginning. But the combat has this feature where you can, if you purchase a specific skill from the skill tree, have a second chance in combat. Or, rather, another second chance. So if you get killed, you have one more opportunity to make good on killing them instead. But some captains have this really awesome feature called "no chance" where, if they land the killing blow on you, you just don't get a save from it. You die instantly. And this is how I failed several of these defenses. Got clipped by a certain arrow, or someone hits you with some powerful attack as you dodge away. Get knocked down, but before you can get up again, they fucking assassinate you and cause you to lose your progress.

So, safe to fucking say, I hate this fucking game.

Instead it just goes on until you wish for death. And then... oh god, could it be? Could it actually be? It fucking ends? Oh wow! I've done it! I've done it you guys! I've succeeded! Yes friends, it's true. I finally went through all of the grinding, all of that fucking mess of a system to finally see the ending of the game and! And!! And... it's like a 20 second clip where it says, essentially "Shit was fucked up for a while but it's cool because here's your fucking happy ending".

It... was... not... worth. I spent my entire Christmas playing this because there was something deep down inside of me that did not want to play this anymore, but I knew I was so close, so I had to burn my way through to see the actual ending of the game and be done with it once and for all. I could not go to sleep one more night with this thing potentially there to fuck me up once more. So I beat it, I was done it with it, and it's fucking dead to me now.

But hey, at least the photomode is pretty cool huh!?

I give Shadow of War...

The Sexy Brutale - It's Sexy, It's Brutal, It's Video GAEMZ

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 10:31:00 +0000

I guess this lo-fi look is something I'm going for now?

Guess that's one way to spoil a review, huh? Just right there in the headline. Why even bother reading if you already know I liked it? Interesting thought experiments aside, let's dive into this neat little indie game.

I had seen gameplay of The Sexy Brutale several months ago and I was instantly hooked on it. The only problem at the time was being dirt poor(Story of my life). So eventually I acquired some funds, and also the game went on sale so I bought it.

I actually end up missing out on some of these games due to them only being available digitally. I use gamefly for all of my gaming shit since I've been far too poor for far too long, and will probably continue being poor. So being able to rent games means I'm definitely able to get my hands on the big triple-a games, but miss out on a lot of very interesting smaller titles, like this one. More on the game below.

The game is a time-traveling murder mystery in which you play a priest who has been chosen by a woman covered entirely in blood. She says there's mystery afoot, and the house staff tonight have been infiltrated and replaced by bloodthirsty thugs and it's up to you(the player) to save them from being horribly murdered.

You have been given the power over time itself by using a cool magical pocketwatch which allows you to turn back the clock to the start of the day. And from here, you must travel through the mansion and save the guests from certain death. See, all of the guests and even the house staff, and you as well, are all wearing these interesting masks to obscure their identities. Kind of like the parties my parents used to go to when I was a kid. Except once you save a guest, you acquire a special power which allows you to enhance your abilities and even give you neat little tricks.

The game takes place in a large mansion with many intertwining and connecting passage ways which makes navigating a challenge. There's also a time mechanic, since it is a time traveling game and all. Let a guest die and you'll have to restart from the beginning of the day. You must take what you've learned from how they are killed to figure out the numerous puzzles found within the world and figuring out which items work in which ways.

Unfortunately I'm a complete fucking idiot so I ended up making the game much harder for myself by not understanding that you can choose which grandfather clock to start the day from. See, there are these big grandfather clocks spread out all over the mansion, and you find these wind-up, uh, things, which can wind up the grandfather clocks. Essentially "activating" them so you can then say "When I restart the clock, I want to start the day here". Except I did not know how to do that even after the game tells you how.

So I made things pretty needlessly hard for myself by literally running all over the goddamn mansion trying to save guests from their doom. So a large part of the frustration that this game gave me was actually just my own damn fault. Learn from my mistakes.

The thing that's so fascinating about the game is the presentation and the writing, and the music, and the story, and, well, it's all pretty great. They were going for that glitzy ballroom dance masquerade up beat jazzy swing house band approach to the visual design of the game and the soundtrack as well. It's a refreshing approach that takes you right into a good ol' time of trying to solve some murders and also get frustrated when you walk into a room and the soundtrack changes from something rad to something atmospheric.

I'm an idiot, which I'm pretty sure we've determined by now. And so I'm usually bad at puzzle games to a degree in which I just generally avoid them all together, but when it comes to The Sexy Brutale I just couldn't resist. It's so charming in the writing and the story, and, well, you don't get to spend a whole lot of time with the characters you save, but they manage to cram pack so much character and personality into them. Especially some of the evil house guests. They usually don't have a lot to say, but it comes off very effective when they do say something particularly evil.

There's actually one issue I have with the game, and it's the ending. I want everyone to play this so I'll be light on the spoilers, but it was something I struggled with after beating the game and ultimately I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending. I either hated it or I loved it. It's very divisive and polarizing so it makes me feel... feelings, I suppose.

Everything else is great though. I quite enjoyed the time-crunch when racing against the clock hoping to god I can figure out the puzzle before I have to watch some nice people be viciously murdered. Actually, that's something that I think is very effective in this game. The death dialog, and it's all text based, no voice acting to be had, is almost kind of realistic in the ways that these people often beg for their life. Or so I've heard. And by "so I've heard" I mean I've heard other people talking about, because, you know, I'm not a serial killer.

It's extremely sobering and very sad to have to see people die and beg for their lives and say goodbye to their friends(Where available). It made me feel very uncomfortable and in turn fuel my desire to help and save people from actually certain death.

There's no combat in the game. You use keyholes to peek inside of rooms and even have the ability to "listen" out to a certain range, which allows you to pick up on where people are or are moving to. Because, and this is one of the big mechanics of the game, you cannot be in the same room as one of the guests or bad guys. So you have to figure out these puzzles while also being mindful of the schedules that these entities have. They move around, talk to one another, and will even interact with certain items throughout the world. It's an interesting balancing act that comes together very tightly when you navigate around completing these puzzles. At least until you forget to pull a slot machine handle and ruin a good run like an asshole. BUT WHO WOULD MAKE THAT MISTAKE?

If you are caught in a room with another entity, their mask will float upwards into the air and then make a b-line for you which will I guess slowly kill you. So you must leave the room as soon as possible. You are also not allowed to interact with anything save for a door or exit so it's not possible to cheese anything.

Since time travel is a big emphasis on the game, anything you pick up and have not used will be reset once you travel back in time. So you have to manage your items and other such things you pick up if you plan on going back any time soon, or else you'll just have to pick them back up. It wasn't too much of a burden in my playthrough of the game so it never bothered me. It just added more layers to the strategy by forcing you to actually remember shit, which I am bad at.

All in all I quite enjoyed the game. It has a fantastic presentation and even if the ending left me a little iffy, or, rather, unsure of my feelings, I recommend this beautiful game to anyone who would have it.

I give it a score of...

D&D West Marches 017 - The Elemental Plane of Indifference

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Sat, 16 Dec 2017 04:04:00 +0000

Or "D&D New Jersey", take your pick. Regardless it wasn't fucking nice and we'll hopefully never go back. Also, can YOU spot this week's easter egg?

Bridges Rhinestone Jr. Lore Bard.
Amber Moon. Drunko Munko.
Firion Mithrin. Literally a fucking corpse you have no idea.
Virro. Life Cleric.
Gal. Also Life Cleric.
Akra. Barbarian/Fighter.

Our adventure begins the same way it always fucking does, with people standing around and doing fuck all before some magical shit starts to happen and suddenly we're whisked away to a world of magical... whatever this was.

But before the magical whisking away some guy shows up and starts talking about being invited to a planar arena fight. Everyone in the party were all like "yo that sounds crazy" but then the guy mentioned that we could win prizes and, best of all, they were completely unable to die. So they were free to fight as hard as they liked and had no actual risk of death. Although there were some ground rules.

Such as: You are not allowed to run away. In fact, moving away from a creature in any capacity will cause an actual fucking orbital cannon to fire down upon you and annihilate everything you stand for. Although you'll not actually be killed, it will remove you from the fight. And also, somewhat importantly, fight to the death. Since you can't die, you are required to finish off any target you take down before proceeding.

The gang got together and discussed some thing and ultimately decided, hey, this guy could be lying to us and we could be easily killed with out stupidity... but also, money. So let's do it. And so they did it.

They were then magically whisked away to the most fucked up plane of total indifference anyone has ever seen, especially Bridges. It is as if the gods themselves were like "Yeah we'll get around to making this place less shitty ehhhhhhhhhh nevermind".

So immediately upon entering an inn which would be housing them for their tournament, they immediately noticed some poor enslaved person being bullied by two goliaths. But instead of doing anything or possibly risking being thrown into planar prison, they just sort of antagonized the two brutes by convincing them the person was actually a rabbit. Because fuck it why wouldn't you.

Ultimately that went nowhere and the two brutes left to undoubtedly beat a poor innocent man to a death he will never experience on this plane. But anyway the rest of the party went to go about actually renting their rooms and was immediately aware of the fact that their guide is a cheapskate and forgot to hand over any money for the rooms they'll be sleeping in. But the innkeeper got that sorted out and it was only downhill from there.

They were given a choice of rooms by different type of key. Blue key, red key, black key. Blue key gave you some cool magical shit, red key did something that Bridges didn't get to experience, and the black room was determined to be a fucking death trap in some way so Amber Moon accepted that room and then slept in the hallway. Wise.

So they wake up in the morning and are told they have to fight a group of spellcasters or whatever. They were taken to a very large area and spread out amongst their friends, interceded by another team they would have to fight. Bridges was having a bit of a mental meltdown because they were told explicitly not to move away from a creature, but by the sheer simple mathematical and logical series of deduction, by having more than one creature, spread out far away from each other, by moving in any direction you are moving closer to one, yes, but further away from the others. And so he was getting fucking crunked thinking about potentially being murdered.

But it turned out to not be a big deal. The first fight was easy anyway, with each of these widdle babby spellcaster people turning out to be a total pushover, except one who got fucking schwifty by turning invisible and playing on our inability to find him to get us to move away from him, thus triggering the orbital cannon. Although the party was pretty fucking sure he was cheating because he explicitly moved away from someone at least once. But it was clear from this point on that the rules seemed a lot looser than the party had imagined.

First fight clear. They had defeated the pushovers with a few close calls from the orbital cannon because of that cheating wizard bastard getting them all confused. They were to turn in for the night, but tomorrow they would have two fights: One against a group of creatures, and one against the man who brought them there. But Bridges doesn't remember his name because fuck that guy.

So as they turn in they were offered even more rooms, the standard far or blue, red, or this time green. Bridges does not appreciate the color green, but the blue room was pretty awesome so the green room must be as well. So they celebrated their victories and headed off to bed. And then everything started to fucking suck even more.

While Bridges was sleeping apparently this fucking room has a fun little feature in it. See, most rooms would go for a water bed, maybe one of those bathroom stalls with the hole in the wall so you can keep your weapon at the ready, or a cool chair or something. But not here. Not this fucking plane. Nope. While Bridges was sleeping he was dosed with poison. Him and his Pegasus, Cynvard The Ultimate Party Pegasus, were dosed with poison as soon as the shit-sun rose on this plane.

Bridges was, expectedly, not happy. And so he gave this stoner asshole warrior bitch a piece of his mind about what the hell is going on here. Surprisingly, he was told that these kinds of rooms are often requested because of the challenges that they present for the battles. Which Bridges thought was fucking stupid so fuck that.

Anyway they had another battle today, but not just one. Their first engagement would be against a group of monsters, followed up by the dickhead. Virro kindly healed Bridges for the damage he had taken, and then they went into battle.

It was a group of giant fucking things Bridges had never seen before, but he was ready. Initiative was rolled, battle had commenced and Bridges was immediately rushed down by one of the larger foes. In his defense, he cast Hypnotic Pattern and completely locked down one of them for the entire duration of that fight. While the others heroically fought with every ounce of their strength, Bridges just sorta hung out on his Pegasus because he 1: Can't move away from this creature to help them, and 2: Doesn't have a lot to offer while concentrating on his spell.

So he had to kinda twiddle his thumbs a bit and wait for the others to be done with their thing. Someone Bridges had never met before, an individual named Akra, turned out to be quite a bloodthirsty beast and fucked the ever loving shit out of several of the creatures, almost completely unable to "calm the fuck down" while in battle. Which was nice.

Once the others were done with their conquests they casually strode up on whatever creature Bridges had locked down and systematically destroyed it. From then on, there were able to proceed with the second round of combat which would be against a single individual, and that of the one who brought them there and tried to be a cheater but he made one mistake: He fucking told the party how he was going to do it. And Bridges had the ability to cast See Invisibility, so his plan was null and void for at least one person.

The party had prepared themselves, Bridges had his See Invisibility on, and Firion was still dead. Roll Initiative once more. Immediately the plan was obvious: Be a cheater cheater chicken eater, but with the tight coordination of the party, they were able to move in and attempt to show him - HOLY SHIT HE HAS A RAILGUN.

This guy was able to charge his fucking railgun and prepare to fire it on them all, but Amber Moon moved in and saved the day by stunning him with his furry fists of fury. They were safe just long enough to beat him with their combined might, but the railgun still ended up going off prematurely, which is something that happens to all railguns, and ended up shooting someone with the force of a thousand suns.

Ultimately the fight had ended without a sizable amount of damage. They had taken him down and now it was time to rest up for the last fight tomorrow which is supposed to be super hard but whatever they've killed hotter shit. Moving on.

They picked rooms that weren't entirely deadly or detrimental and got some rest. Some actual rest. No fucking poison to the face shit. Like they actually went to sleep and had sweet dreams and fucking woke up the next day. Fuck.

They all gathered amongst themselves in the arena this time supposedly in for less of a challenge than the guy from yesterday, though he was a bit of a pushover aside from his actual railgun. She was some kind of spellcaster. Druid? Sorcerer? Bridges couldn't remember. It all starts to run together. But this was to be the final fight for the party and they'd be able to collect their loot and go the fuck home.

So they chose their starting locations. Bridges once again turned on his See Invisibility which only works once a day. Amber Moon was ready to continue stunning. Firion was still dead. Some individuals had actually headed home after the second day, so now the group was actually a little smaller.

Initiative Rolled for the final night. For the final fight. And pretty much the expected happens. A single spellcaster against a whole hoard of people who don't very much care what they think. A constant barrage of beat down after beat down, a trading of veritable blows as Amber Moon stuns and slashes with his claws. Firion, managing to trick the lady into thinking he was a corpse, (jokes on her he actually is a corpse) blasted her with magical spells and Bridges also did cool shit too.

It wasn't so much of a stressful fight, it was more or less a slog to take them down before the party was taken down, and not too much interesting happened. Bridges couldn't stop thinking about two things: 1: This place sucks. 2: Bridges wants a railgun.

Before long the fight was over, and the lady fell down. Defeated by the bravery and heroism of Bridges Rhinestone Jr and that Bigby's Hand he summoned only to be immediately killed. After the fight they went for their rewards and discovered that this place actually has a fucked up kind of currency that is somewhat equal to platinum but is all weird and shit and is probably not actually accepted anywhere else. Alternatively the group was told that if they wanted rooms that didn't suck literal dick to ask for the gold rooms, since those were good and not bad. Bridges inquired why in the fucking fuck they didn't volunteer this information beforehand, but everyone there sucked so much he wasn't worried about it.

Bridges did offer to help their PR department by actually doing some advertising for the plane and fixing everything that fucking sucks about it to attract more than just masochist asshole underachieving stoners, but it was clear the guy was far too high to understand anything he was saying. So, cool.

They took their money, went home, and wrote the most passive aggresive Air BNB review they will ever write.

"Be warned, all ye who enter here, the Elemental Plane of Indifference sucks super dick".

D&D West Marches 016 - That Fucking Colossus

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 02:58:00 +0000

No witty taglines for this write up because like any good cliche, Bridges forgot to leave a note!

Bridges Rhinestone Jr. Lore Bard.
Firion Mithrin (RIP). Illusionist Wizard/Lore Bard/Force Ghost.
Amber Moon. Way of the Drunken Master Monk.
Gautier. Alcoholic.
Qolan Denine. Some kind of fucked up Warlock.

Bridges and the whole of Salad Force found themselves doing one thing or another that is of no consequence entirely when a crazy Seleir busted through the door of whatever vague establishment they found themselves in, ranting and raving about some crazy cult. IT SEEMS this cult worships big things.

So obviously the gang had to go out and fucking kill them all. BUT THAT WASN'T IT. It seems there was a great need for two groups of individuals. One group to find and defeat this great beast, and one group to prevent it from being summoned elsewhere. So Salad Force all signed up to go and give this large beast what-for, while the other group would go and prevent a ritual from summoning it somewhere else.

It's been a while and Bridges can't quite remember how exactly they arrived to where they did, but apparently they rode up on a keep of some kind being patrolled by all kinds of creatures. Trolls, orcs, goblins. Even giants. Party A, the most important party, watched from afar while discussing their plan of action. Eventually the party somehow stumbled across the idea of having Bridges polymorph himself into a T-Rex. This cult supposedly worships big creatures, but would a T-Rex be enough? So Firion decided to utilize his illusory magic to summon an illusion of an even bigger T-Rex over the actual T-Rex, and Qolan would provide the voice for the T-Rex to help during social(?) encounters.

This fucking baller ass plan was sealed in, Bridges became a 3x T-Rex and to the keep they went. At the door was some giant or other and at first wanted to attack, but Qolan made a good effort to influence their desire to worship big things, and after a minute or two conversation, was invited into the Order of Big, or something along those lines.

Inside, the 3x T-Rex party was invited to eat amongst the trolls, orcs, giants and goblins, but Bridges decided that a show of force would go a lot further than any pleasantries, so he forcibly devoured a goblin who was presumably 2 weeks from retirement and flourished him around in a magnificent display of power. The illusion of the dinosaur was actually bigger than the actual creature, so Firion had to maintain control over his illusion so that the effect would appear seamless against the actual dinosaur actually murdering a goblin. And because he's Firion(RIP) he managed to do so with ease.

Eventually they were sent on their way to a giant portal which was covered up by some sort of clamshell mountain encasement which could be opened or closed by a giant and an oni who pulled on the chains. The party proceeded inward, their fucked up masquerade a success, and ended up walking through the portal and into the elemental plane of Earth.

Easily the craziest thing Bridges has done so far, but the night was still young, and the party could spot trouble a far, far way away in the visage of a vaguely humanoid figure, except as tall as a mountain, and also it pretty much was a mountain. And inwards they went.

The party could only imagine the horrors that the B team were facing at this harrowing moment in their journey, and they could only hope for their safety right now.

Upon getting closer to this, uh, big thing, the party were scouting around and thinking of the ways best to approach this. Somehow Bridges knew that the ol' 3x Dinosaur trick wasn't going to cut it, so he had to get crafty. There were 3 or 4 orcs standing on platforms surrounding this actual fucking colossal figure's chest, and the question at the moment was: Deal with them or ignore them? First, this several hundred feet tall figure had to be clambered onto.

Qolan, making what would go on to be one of the best decisions of the night, decided to cast Fly on pretty much everyone. Except Firion(POUR ONE OUT FOR HIM) because of his flying broom. This would assist the party greatly as they would be able to maintain their hold on the creature in case something got shaky.

Bridges cast invisibility on everyone but himself, and then cast Dimension Door, taking Amber Moon along for the ride. Bridges managed to maintain stealth on himself due to his fucking awesome boots, but Amber Moon wasn't so lucky. And so the Colossus activated and fucking holy fucking fuck this thing was a fucking fucker.

Roll initiative. Bridges was pulling one for the homies by pretty consistently going first during some pretty important turns. He spent a majority of the fight by hiding between the creatures eyes, since it was so big he could do so easily. Qolan, concentrating on Fly for everyone, did the smart move by keeping out of range and pelting it with Eldritch Blast after Eldritch Blast. Firion and Gautier moved in, Firion by air, and Gautier by land as they attempted to put the pressure on and have at this fucking thing. Amber Moon did his monk thing and went after the trolls. Or were they orcs? Shit it's not important. Long story short he fucking killed them all.

Bridges remembered his super awesome ring and utilized it to great affect as he was able to cast Bigby's Hand from it, and he continually punched the fucking Colossus in his eyes. But the party was soon about to learn, this fucking Colossus wasn't finished with us yet.

He swung slow, but he swung hard. He needed an entire actual turn to set up a swing before bringing down his massive earthen sword, but honestly it was so large it was probably more accurate to call it a tectonic plate. And it fucking hurts. With an average damage output of about 127 points of damage across an area of effect, whenever it hit anyone it fucking nearly killed them.

The play by play becomes fuzzy for Bridges as he was honestly unable to see a lot of what was happening around him, due to being lodged between the eyes of this Colossus, but Gautier, Amber Moon and Firion were continually putting on the smackdown. With a creature this size, it almost felt like it was a waste of time to attack it. Because how could a mortal creature possibly harm a mountain with mere weapons? Spells could make an argument, but claws? The heat of the moment was drawing out for the party, some feeling like they weren't even doing anything because of that lack of certainty. But then, a glowing spot appeared on the Colossus in what would be the abdominal section of a humanoid, and this was our moment to strike.

Bridges was at the time unaware of this as he was too far away to see it and his companions weren't in a talkative mood when they would rather be trying to kill this fucker. But the glowing spot disappeared soon after. Unfortunately, by the time the next glowing spot arrived, the party were in the midst of recuperating and missed their chances entirely to utilize the temporary weaknesses.

The glowing spot was apparently tied to the other adventurers, as this was a dual quest between a large group but split into two. Bridges was told later that while his party was actually dying, the other party was determining on whether they should even enter the dungeon that would lead them to the ritual site or not. And due to their lackadaisical nature in destroying 3 magical crystals which would weaken the colossus for Salad Force(And Qolan), it took a fucking long ass time to see that second or third one. And in the process of waiting, Team A were almost killed numerous times.

Just being around the creature was difficult, as the shifting mass was able to bounce anyone off of it. Bridges only maintained his position due to his ability to fly. Amber Moon was not so lucky, and neither was Gautier as they both kept getting bucked off.

The force ghost of Firion was having a rough time as well as he was being battered and beaten from the heavy swings of this actual mountain with a sword. Except he was sort of an island of his own due to the flying broom, making it kind of difficult to lend a helping hand when needed. For example, in the entirety of the battle, Bridges didn't expend a single usage of his bardic inspiration because the sheer size of the creature kept his allies quite far away.

The creature was eventually visibly wounded. The gang were making headway into the defeat of the colossus, but in turn were dying and horribly injured themselves. Bridges made the call that if they wanted to get out of here alive, they had to leave. Qolan was batted away so far, because apparently he turns into an ice ball when defeated or some shit I don't even know what was going on, and so instead of being murdered was sent flying off into the sky. Firion would eventually suffer the same fate of being knocked quite far away. Bridges had yet to take a single point of damage so he wasn't going anywhere right now. But that's when the alarm was signaled: Back up had arrived.

The B Team, finally back from their tea and nap adventure in a dungeon, had arrived to assist their Salad Brothers, and also Qolan. Ven, co-founder of Salad Force along with Bridges, had learned of some trouble befalling his brothers, and teleported backup to where they were needed most, and then immediately passed out. But the war horn was stifled a bit too early as two of the backing team had been literally instantly killed under the heel of this actual mountain and a couple of the other biggest hitters in the entire town, were instantly knocked unconscious as well. So fucking much for back up.

Bridges, upon seeing the arrival of the other group, decided to utilize his last Dimension Door and bamf over to Firion who was fucking almost literally dead(RIP THOUGH CUZ HE'S REALLY DEAD NOW FOR REAL AND EVER) to slow his rapid descent since Bridges was still flying thanks to Qolan. But once Firion was safely on the ground and not dead, he fucking saw the other faction get obliterated and had to rejoin the fray. Smashing and dashing with his flight and Bigby's Hand, Bridges came so very close to laying this massive creature low. But thankfully Vymphala, one of the arriving-and-then-immediately-put-into-timeout backup adventurers, was healed and then proceeded to walk up to and smite the ever loving fuck out of the titan.

It was dead. So were those other two adventurers. Bridges and his best friend Bigby had managed to wallop on a mountain and make it think twice about forgetting the name, or the name of all of his friends at Salad Force, once more.

The other dead adventurers were eventually brought back to life just too late to see the glory of Bridges Rhinestone Jr, but then there's always next time. There was no discernible loot to be had, no monetary reward laying amongst the rubble, and no hot babes, but Bridges felt like he learned quite a lot about fucking with mountains, and that sometimes punching them in the dick is always the best solution.

Boss Fight Leaderboards (click me)

D&D West Marches 015 - Haunted House

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Mon, 04 Dec 2017 20:02:00 +0000

Aw fuck it's that time again. Bridges Rhinestone Jr. and co went on an adventure to kill a massive jerkface vampire and in the process discovered that the internet was inside of them all along.

Bridges Rhinestone Jr. Lore Bard.
Gisela Fade. Eldritch Clamshell.
Vymphala Hotai. Devotion Paladin.
J-Swaggums. Big stick mommy.
Vanamo. Trapfinder Cleric.
Adina. Raven Queen Patron Warlock.

The adventure started off pretty bad because Bridges and co. were getting hit with mysterious timewave alteration signals(I.E: Discord went down, roll20 was having issues, and Bridges' computer was lagging to holy fucking hell) and as a result Bridges missed pretty much the entire first portion of the adventure.

But what Bridges did know was: They were sent to defeat the final member of the Order of Osteoporosis: Vampire Division. Bridges was there for the destruction of most of the members(Barring one) of the vampire division and was gifted a badass ring by that cool god Raven Queen lady person, which enabled him to do a lot more with his bardic abilities. He was also told that his ring would increase in power if he was there to assist with the destruction of Orion, the final remaining vampire. And he's all about that sick fucking loot so sign him right the fuck up. And so he did.

When we rejoined our intrepid heroes, Bridges was unconscious on the ground in some alcove and there were enemy creatures everywhere or something but being unconscious makes things fuzzy. Someone woke him up and informed him that there's fucking crazy shit happening all over the place, but he wanted to conserve his energy so he just used his Vicious Mockery, and somehow managed to actually get a kill with it, which was the first one, so that was nice.

He wasn't quite sure of the scenario that got him here or what was actually going on beyond just his surroundings, but due to the mysterious timewave alteration signals(I.E: lag) that was to be expected. Eventually those circumstances were over and the party were up and ready to get things moving and Bridges was ready to get filled in on some things.

Unfortunately the distortions were not resolved quite yet and all Bridges could really hear were bits and pieces of some sort of magical portal puzzle which apparently used some sort of color combination system to lead intruders into potentially trapped places while directing those who can successfully figure it out in the direction of the lair.

Eventually the only way to actually get in on this adventure was to attempt to control the timewave alteration signals(I.E: Close literally everything but the discord client in hopes that his computer doesn't fucking explode), which resulted in a success and he was able to maintain himself with assured stability.

With Bridges successfully cognizant, he was able to bone down with the rest of the party as they make their way into the final area and confront Orion. Which they did, because she wasn't too far away. But Bridges had a plan for this person. She was apparently powerful, so he was going to use his power to cast greater invisibility on himself and then spend the encounter moving close enough to counterspell the vampire and lock her down. Being a Lore Bard he had higher chances of doing so successfully and he was fucking ready.

They get ready to walk in, Bridges casts See Invisibility from his super powered Goggles of Night, and they arrived. Orion stood high and mighty in her weirdly open and empty big ass room, but she came prepared and had a whole host of mooks to back her up. Bridges seized the opportunity and made himself invisible, thankfully going unnoticed doing so, and then moved inwards to attempt the razzling dazzling.

There was a man there, a follower of Orion who appeared to not be a vampire, but wielded a powerful glaive. Among him in the mooksquad were a couple of not-so-powerful mages which would only provide to be a minor annoyance.

Combat began, everyone roll initiative. J-Swaggums does the unthinkable and sneaks her way around to behind Orion, far far away from the rest of the party. Bridges continues his trek to counterspell city, Gisela and Vymphala move in to confront Glaivie McGlavieface. Adina did Adina things because Bridges wasn't paying attention to her. Sorry not sorry.

It was a flurry of blows coming in from all sides as Bridges continually counterspelled every dramatic and deadly spell Orion could throw, maintaining his stealth by suddenly being aware that the only components counterspell requires are somatic, which means he just shakes his hands and magic goes away, allowing him to blend into the unknown for a little longer. J-Swiggity wasn't as fortunate as her tiny gnome body was riddled with dirty vampire attacks a Orion tried desperately not to let her go.

The others in the party tried to wrestle down the now hasted Glaiveman, but his raw damage output was enough to keep them guessing and on the back foot, but that wasn't good enough to put them down, and so they kept kicking ass.

The battle continued as the mages were eventually being finished off, and the Glaiveman was near defeated, but timewave distortion signals eliminated Vymphala from the fight, so she took a nap right in the middle of it. Boy it would have been fucking awkward if the party all died except for the napping dragonborn. But it did not come to that.

Eventually Orion, now revealed to be a bard herself(And a shitty one too), started looking pretty rough, and began to change into a much larger form, and also grew giant wings and shit. She kept the pressure high on J-Swooty and continually lashed out at her until she was nearly fucking dead. Bridges' existence was now apparent to the giant bat, and so counterspell duty was over and it was time to bring the fucking pain, which he did by using his bread and butter Dissonant Whispers, managing to actually roll max damage on it, which was pretty sick, and sent her flying away, allowing his teammates to use their opportunity attacks and dig into her.

It was looking scary for J-Hashtagblessed for a while there, but eventually the killing blow was landed on Orion and she was sent to whatever hell vampires believe in, and the fight was over. Everyone went around and getting their proper healing done, looked for loot and got ready to bunk down for the night. They were pretty happy to have not died, and Bridges managed to learn quite a lot of about flying winged bitches. But their fun was short lived as suddenly a fucking woman appeared out of nowhere and instantly brought Gisela fade to near death, whispered sweet nothings into her ear, and then vanished. So what the fuck.

And they all lived happily ever after...?

Yes. They did.

D&D West Marches 014: Miniquest - Death Tyrant

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Fri, 17 Nov 2017 17:33:00 +0000

This one is going to be a small one since I was literally dragged into something I had no prior knowledge of and the entire thing was resolved pretty quickly. And also I need inspiration for a death fight happening tomorrow.

Bridges Rhinestone Jr. Lore Bard.
Lady Scarlett. Lore Bardlock.
REDACTED. Assassin Rogue.
Firion "Ride Together Die Together Bad Boys For Life". Illusionist Wizard.
J-Swaggums. Gun.
Vesh(Previously known as Bird Brain). Wild Magic Sexual Harasser.

The story picks off exactly where it should: The beginning. And in the beginning the party finds themselves in some ol' dingy dungeon or cave or some shit. There's apparently a Death Tyrant inside. And that's good enough. Bridges doesn't know what the fuck a Death Tyrant really is or what they can do, but he came along anyway because money isn't going to make itself.

So the party sits around for a little while and discusses amongst themselves about how to be stealthy and ambush the Death Tyrant. This thing is supposedly sealed in this tomb or wherever we are so Bridges is pretty sure once any door opens anywhere the creature will immediately spring into action but doesn't say anything because that's kind of the only plan anyone has right now. Though that's sorta kinda exactly what happens.

REDACTED, being a rogue needs as much advantage as he can get, so Bridges waited for a doorway to be made in the wall by a stoneshape or similar spell, and cast Greater Invisibility on REDACTED, allowing him to enter and be able to attack while invisible, taking advantage of his stealthy traits. Bridges thought that everyone else would rush in and attack the Death Tyrant, but it turns out, at least at first, everyone had the same idea as him: Stay the fuck away from that thing until it's dead.

So Bridges is in his hidey hole surrounded by other hidey holers and hoping to whatever god he believes in this Death Tyrant can't cast, like, Super Fireball or something and kill everyone at once. But thankfully that didn't happen, because soon into the battle people started leaving the hole and moving in to kill the shit out of this thing.

Bridges is a utility mage so he has quite a bit of things he can do, but most of them require concentration so he decided to support his party by keeping REDACTED invisible and not doing too much in the way of damage. Turns out, that wasn't a big deal at all because Jaquelanne runs in all piss and gnomish-vinegar with her Feyzer and starts gunning down this Death Tyrant and taking huge chunks out of it with each shot. Combined with everything else that's going on, this Death Tyrant is starting to look less "battled" and more "bullied". It was almost sad, if it's possible to feel sad for a large undead floating skull whose entire purpose is to kill things.

Eventually, the Death Tyrant was dead... again? For real? But that wasn't it for the battle, no, no no, because two vampire assholes(Seriously, why is it ALWAYS VAMPIRES!?) come shambling out of the darkness casting their goddamn magic at us like we care. They were talking something about "killing their god", or savoir, or other generic terms that cultists like to use to justify their meaningless lives.

Bridges takes this opportunity to leave his hidey hole and join the fray for real, while also keeping REDACTED invisible. Jaquelane immediately starts shooting at them and ruining their day. Bridges, not aware that Vesh(Previously known as Bird Brain) is actually in the way of his Lightning Bolt because he's covered by the darkness spell, so he does it anyway and blasts a Vampire in the face. Doesn't seem to do a lot because these asshole vampires are all the same.

This dumb asshole vampire kept talking shit, and when he was responded to would always reply the same way "No no no..." and follow it up with some shit, which was infuriatingly pretentious. Which isn't really out of the question when it comes to vampires to be fair but the party wasn't having it, so they kept on their assault, "no no no"ing included, until eventually the vampire... teleported everyone back to town, with all the loot they were interested in acquiring, a huge sum of gold, and a giant Death Tyrant Skull.

Some individuals in the party were not happy about the vampires somehow instantly swooshing them back home, so they went out in search for the vampires, spending three additional days traveling back to where they originally were to find them. Instead of finding the vampires they found a spooky house that the more you walk towards it the further away it appears.

Ultimately the group determined that they should probably go back to town to regroup since spending three days immediately rushing back here was probably a bad idea, and they took their collective loot and back home they went. They aren't really sure if there are any plans to return to that place, but they'll probably figure out something eventually.

The Evil Within 2 - Talk about an identity crisis

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Sat, 11 Nov 2017 10:55:00 +0000

The Evil Within, one of my favorite games in the year it came out. Still one of my favorite games today. It was this kinda super-Japanese horror game which somehow wasn't scary that combined a feeling of Resident Evil 4 with this backdrop of sharing someone else' mental breakdown. It was janky, the story was convoluted, and the voice acting was mostly bad. But it had heart.

I'm not the kind of person who looks past a janky video game just because I happen to like it. I can see the flaws while also enjoying the game. I mean, after all, what a concept right? Psychological Stealth Based Survival Horror Action Shooter. It might not be the first of its kind, it might not be original at all in fact, but it was certainly new to me.

It was a game filled with mystery. Sure, the story was super convoluted when you encounter the collectables and see that, okay, so there's a cult, there's the Illuminati secret New World Order running experiments across the globe, there's a super-powered serial killer on the loose, and, oh yeah, we're all stuck inside of his head. Then you take into account Sebastian's backstory and his missing wife and dead child and see that he's been headed down a dark path, even though that aspect never makes its way into the main story, only the backdrop of collectables. But it was so interesting. I was enamored and I couldn't put it down.

I consider myself quite the critic(I mean look! I have my own website! I'm credible now dad!), but sometimes I have difficulty playing a game more than once. But with The Evil Within, there was no issue jumping back in to tackle New Game+, or to go after all of the collectables - mainly because I wanted to read them and fully absorb the narrative, and just to have fun playing the game again. It was great.

But the game didn't get great reviews so I thought, shit, this will probably never get the sequel it deserves, right? What are the chances? I mean the DLC was fucking awesome and easily the best part of the game since they flipped the script and doubled down on it being a SURVIVAL HORROR game, of which the first game somewhat lacked since it 1, wasn't scary, and 2, ammo was plentiful(At least on normal difficulty. Sue me).

But then, lo and behold, they announced The Evil Within 2. Not directed by Shinji Mikami anymore, but that's okay because he didn't even direct the DLC of the first game and those were amazing. Not only was the game announced, it was coming out IN JUST A FEW SHORT MONTHS! No waiting for years to get my hands on it. I could have it in no time at all.

And I did get my hands on it. And, well, this is my story...

The Evil Within 2.

Introduction.

The game starts up with Sebastian in a bar. He's drinking himself silly because, oh boy, what a few years he's had. After the events of the first game, it seems he's a mostly discredited former detective at the Krimson City Police Department, because, well, lots of people died and his only explanation was "a super powered psycho-killer installed by the New World Order did it!" which, it turns out, was not a Number One answer. Sorry Steve Harvey.

Sebastian, falling back into his old ways.

In walks Juli Kidman, former junior detective that worked under Sebastian before and during the events of the first game. She was a plant by Mobius, the shadow organization behind the events of the first game, sent to watch Sebastian closely because his wife went looking into the murder of their daughter, got too deep, and ended up missing. Kidman was there to keep an eye on Sebastian that he didn't start digging up old graves. So there's bad blood right away.

Sebastian was not pleased to see her, as he blames her for just about everything that happened. Juli assures him that she does care about him, but her organization must protect themselves and remain in the shadows lest the world learns of their existence, and that she has an offer for him. It turns out, Mobius was behind the murder of Sebastian's daughter, Lily. Except, it wasn't a murder. It was a kidnapping covered up with a house fire. She's still alive, but she's inside of STEM, the shared mind collective that connects people's mind to that of a host brain, or, a core, that allows them to live in a subconscious virtual reality of Mobius design.

They need Sebastian to come in and save his daughter, because if you die in the game, you die in real life, for real this time. He's essentially drugged and kidnapped because he wants to murder Mobius for being super dicks, which is reasonable, and is delivered to Mobius HQ, where you see some familiar faces from The Assignment and The Consequence DLC's from the first game.

Speaking on that note, Sebastian was, for whatever reason, redesigned for this game. No one else was. Juli Kidman remains the same, and any other cameo appearance remains unchanged. For some reason only Sebastian was made to look kinda goofy compared to his cool smooth badass looking self from the first game. I'm not a fan.

Sebastian isn't happy about it, but his daughter is still alive, and he's gotta do what a dad's gotta do and so he agrees to once again go back into STEM, this time STEM 2.0, a much refined and supposedly better version of the first STEM, and finish this once and for all.

He's put in his milk tub, jacked into the machine, says his goodbyes and is submerged into a world very much like our own, but as he will learn very shortly, twisted and shaped by a sadistic mind.

And that is where the game opens.

Getting into the meat and potatoes of the review, I will start with this introduction sequence. And I will start by saying, I didn't like it. It wasn't as snappy as the first game's fast paced what the fuck is going on followed by an excellent intro sequence created by Gary Numan. It was, indeed, a Long Way Down from the first game in that The Evil Within opens with confusion and only builds from there. It plays up the idea that you don't know if what's happening is real or not. Instead, the sequel starts out by basically confirming "Everything you are about to see is the product of a neurological link to a sadistic psychopathic murderer, compounded by bleeding edge technology which manifests these subconscious desires into a fully realized 3D world where, this might be a simulation, but if you die here you die for real, so be careful".

Suddenly all of the mystery is gone. And it was gone for me. I was confused by the first several hours of the game because Sebastian will see something crazy and go "No way, this can't be real" and I'm like "SEBASTIAN THEY JUST FUCKING TOLD YOU THIS WASN'T REAL, YOU KNOW YOU'RE IN STEM, WHAT THE FUCK".

But before any of that happened, once you get out of the flashback intro sequence, you are plunged into this new world. And my god, it's beautiful.

Ordinary World.

Say what you will about what you don't like about this game, the graphics are beautiful. You wake up inside of an old rickety house and figure out your bearings before you head out into the world, and once you walk out the front door you're hit by the overwhelming sense of atmosphere. Fun fact, I am a huge sucker for lighting in video games. I don't care what graphic style your game has, hyper realistic, 8bit, whatever, it doesn't matter. The quickest way into my heart is through lighting. And oh boy what a fantastic lighting system this game has.

The mood of the moment washes over you with this atmospheric gloom in the air, a deep blue aura emanating from around you, the darkness of the day slowly coming to a close. The surrounding areas and their overgrown and unkempt bushes and trees pouring out into the street creating this sense of a civilization long gone. A lonely stretch of road laid out before you, leading you to some surely terrifying unknown.

It reminds me quite a bit of The Last Of Us.

That's when you make first contact. You see a woman wildly running from across a street into a nearby house. She's erratic, so naturally you follow her and walk into the house. As you make your way inside and approach the sounds of, well, violence coming from within, you see the woman trying to feed someone who still appears to be of able mind and body, but tied to a kitchen chair. But he's resisting because what the fuck and she goes berserk and murders him. Why Sebastian didn't try to hop in and stop it, I don't know. But anyway, the woman comes out all piss and vinegar and tries to kill Sebastian, which he is having absolutely none of, and so you shoot her until she stops being alive.

Even though Sebastian was given a mostly vague but still kind of informative situation report on what's happening inside of this new STEM, he seems to confirm that these events are just like the ones at Beacon Mental Hospital, of which the first game took place in. He calls Juli to tell her this and she's like, uh, duh, you motherfucker, we already told you shit was bad, and he's all, well shit, this script must have been rewritten because I still say completely fucking obvious shit which makes no sense. Then they metaphorically fist-bump and you are allowed to explore around.

In the distance is the town of Union, a virtual representation of some sort of highly condensed generified American town based on the Illuminati's research. As you make your way out, you see a lot of movement up ahead. It seems there's a whole bunch of creatures roaming around the streets. The game opens up some here to allow you to try out your stealth skills, as the sequel retains the central stealth mechanic from the first.

Taking out some of the creatures and moving forward, you see a cutscene of a man and his bodyguard running into a nearby facility for protection. The bodyguard gets ganked and the man flees. You can use this opportunity to sneak by or stealth kill your way to the door. I stealth killed everyone because I gotta get my green gel on and get my upgrades.

Making your way inside you meet this individual in a dramatic cutscene stand-off where you eventually introduce yourselves. Sebastian has had a bit of a personality change and sounds like someone trying really hard to be the "hard boiled police detective" and so he's constantly antagonizing people. Honestly speaking it's kind of off-putting. His character is pretty annoying for most of the early game. And since his voice actor was replaced he's now the most super-Canadian accented person in the world, which, to be fair, we don't know where Krimson City was, but I'm pretty sure it was America. All in all not too big of a deal, but still worth noting.

Open World RPG?

Speaking of which, after the cutscene ends this game goes into a... DIALOG system. That's right, this game has some sort of dialog system in place where you can ask people questions about things if you really really wanted to know stuff. It doesn't sound so bad at first, but the game from here on out opens up into it's true form, which is that of an open world RPG. And thus begins a lot of the game's problems.

The mystery of the world slowly fades with each and every discovery as you are able to talk to people in a decent amount of length about their mission, what this place is, what happened, etc, etc. I'm sure ultimately I'm just nitpicking at problems but coming out of the first game with a grand sense of mystery and going into this game of "Yep, here's about everything", it's a bit jolting.

Especially since for the next several chapters and potentially 20+ hours of the game, you're going to be wandering around several large playable open world segments. They are filled with collectables, side missions, lots of loot and resources, and monsters a plenty.

The issue comes from the fact that this game has a lot of good going for it, but it has so much baggage as well. Quite frankly, I'll summarize this by saying this game did not need to be open world. Easy some of the worst parts of this game come from the directionless wandering around and managing a stamina gauge that you can't upgrade very far at the beginning. Not to mention Sebastian's stealth crouch is agonizingly slow without upgrades.

A proud dad and his son Warden together after years apart.

I will say once more, this game is beautiful. The environments you explode in Union are really brought to life with the graphics and amazing ambient lighting system in this game. So it's strange for me to say that it's the worst part, but, quite frankly, it is. You're world can look as beautiful as possible, but if there's nothing to do in it, well, it's going to get boring quickly.

The game operates on the idea of "safe houses". Mobius built these structures in Union to act as a safe haven for their operatives for when shit hits the fan. They come equipped with a crafting table(Because yes, it has crafting), a coffee pot that fills your health to max before going on a cool-down, or rather heat-up timer (which I actually thought was pretty cute), and a mirror which you can utilize to go back to your K.C.P.D office and do things like analyze slides, which are collectables you find every once in a while that allow you to see a single image of something from Sebastian's past and reminisce with Kidman about it. While you're here, you can also upgrade your abilities just like in the last game by sitting in the hospital chair and being teleported to the plane of Nurse Tatiana, who is back for this game as well.

Nurse Tatiana was vulnerable to a Voice Actor change as well and as a result the impact is lessened. The new actress is fine but I miss the old Tatiana and her incredible deadpan delivery. You can talk to her and sometimes instead of saying one-offs here or there, she'll actually have full on discussions with Sebastian about the current events of the game. Who she even is is a mystery even in this game, but she always seems to imply she knows just what's going on. She's like Sebastian's subconscious come to life to offer impeccable words of wisdom, or warning. Or maybe she's just a piece of whatever remained of whatever the real Tatiana was inside of the first stem, and she became attached to Sebastian and remains with him after all of this time. We never find out, so we'll probably never know. What we do know however, is that she's still bae and that's all that matters.

Creature Discomforts

Unfortunately, unlike the first game, the creatures in this game lack any real interesting design. Upon first starting the game you are introduced to a recurring boss-type monster which has probably the raddest fucking design I've seen, and I fell in love with it immediately. However this game failed to understand that you don't start with a showstopper and the hype was lost after that, since very few enemies seemed to be anything more than "people, but spooky looking". That's not to say the creatures in this game looked bad or anything, but after your 400th "wax monster" it starts to get samey.

Scagdead WHO!?

Some notable monsters are the singing lady, whose name I'm not quite familiar with but she appears at random spots all around the open world singing a chilling lullaby and haunts Sebastian throughout most of the game. She can teleport him back to Beacon Mental Hospital and while you never see any familiar locations from the first game, you instead go through a small series of puzzles in order to escape once again and go back to "sub" reality.

Another monster include a gaseous creature of disturbing design who makes these horrible noises that are quite disturbing to be around. I have some family members who are prone to seizures and whenever they begin to seize out they make similar noises. So it was pretty fucking disturbing to be anywhere around those things. If they catch you they let out a siren scream which slowly drains your stamina until depleted which makes running away a bitch, and they themselves are quite agile and can catch your quickly.

Unfortunately, since the first game was centered around Ruben Victoriano(Ruvik) and his deep psychological fear of fire to do being horrible burned all over after some villagers tried to murder the fuck out of him as a child, you lose out on the ability to use matches to burn your foes to death. In the first Evil Within there was this fun mechanic where enemies would "hide" by pretending to be dead bodies, but you could throw a mach on them to instantly kill them, since they are all vulnerable to fire. This allows you to use such strategies as letting enemies group up into a large mass, shoot one in the knee to knock it down, and while it's surrounded, drop a match and ignite the entire group. It was quite fun and added a bit of a strategy to an otherwise simple game of "kill them before they kill you". But this is a new psychopath and he's not quite as afraid of fire as Ruvik, so that's not an option this time.

Stefano, artist, murderer, bad villain

Unfortunately another thing this game doesn't get as good as the first one is its villain. While I'm sure many people would argue with me that Ruvik was a good villain, I will make that statement anyway. He was a cliche in the sense that he was a psychopath who wants to murder people, but it was different because, while he did murder the fuck out of people in the real world, now that he's locked inside of STEM he's going so far beyond just "death" and that makes it a lot more sinister. People are locked away inside of STEM, endlessly tortured by Ruvik's subconscious tendencies simply come to life. You learn about how he was a genius from a very young age who used his talents to hurt and kill people, and how he teamed up with a scientist who helped him create STEM, and how that same scientist betrayed him by siding with Mobius and locking Ruvik into STEM as only a brain in a jar.

He bided his time and used his machine against them in an act of revenge while also attempting to escape into the body of a young man named Leslie Withers.

Not-Ruvik

That's a lot going on right there. But Stefano... well, he's an artist. He's got a camera that allows him to create a time bubble around people he kills so that their death replays over and over and over again. His character amounts to "I want to escape STEM by stealing the power of the Core(Sebastian's daughter Lily) so that I can control it and have dominion over all who reside here". And that's all he ever amounts to. His character never has time to grow or adapt. You spend the entirety of The Evil Within reading about Ruvik, listening to his personal audio logs, hearing about his experiments and his plans for the world. Stefano on the other hand is just currrazzy.

And for the record, I'm not just comparing Stefano to Ruvik as a means of saying "no no no, THIS is why he's a bad villain" I'm merely using that as an example. Stefano isn't memorable in any way, and as a result doesn't really do much for me. Which brings us to our next point.

Multiple Antagonists, Linear Progression

The first game had one antagonist throughout. This game has multiple. Once they start dropping it's just one after the other until the game is over. Which I don't hate or anything, but the strange thing is, once Stefano is dealt with the game quickly starts feeling more like The Evil Within. The game takes a turn somewhere around the half-way mark where you begin this long trek down a linear path for hours and hours, no longer being thrown into a large but empty open world level. You go to all kinds of crazy locals and environments that aren't just "Smalltown U.S.A." and they really feel incredible.

The game begins to take advantage of the fact that it's all a virtual procession of a psycho killer and leaves a lot of the realm of reality or realistic looking familiarity and goes into bizarre locations that feel just as fucking daunting as they should have always been. And it's a wild ride from here throughout.

The End Begins

Somewhere near this linear change the game becomes awesome. Like I said earlier in the review, the worst parts of the game have to do with the open world and Stefano, and they seem to both disappear at the same time. Suddenly this is the game I was interested in playing and every second of my time is rewarded for doing so.

You find out quite a lot from the narrative, namely being that Moira was alive the whole time, and didn't exactly go missing, but rather learned the true nature of Lily's disappearance, and decided that if she'll never be able to go back to a normal life knowing the full truth, she joins up with Mobius so that at the very least she'll be able to be around her daughter. Furthermore, you are introduced to a new character, Esmeralda Torres, but you don't have much time to talk because you wake up in a shack being assaulted by creatures, and you and her must work together to fend them off.

Out of the frying pan, into the WHOA FUCK

The segment is easily one of my favorites as it harkens back to the segment from the first Evil Within where Sebastian and Joseph are attacked by waves and waves of enemies. And also the section at the beginning of Resident Evil 4 in the jungle where you must survive for a certain amount of time. It was very fun and surprising to see, especially since you spend the next little while hanging out with this new character who actually kind of seems like some sort of Evil Within version of Jill Valentine.

You two must work together to sneak by or clear out an area filled with a new type of monsters, chitinous, armored-up individuals who burst into flame every 10 or so seconds, so try to stealth kill them carefully or else you'll be repelled and look like an idiot. After doing so you make your way to her hideout where she has a box filled to the brim with C4 plastic explosives which she's going to use to blow some shit sky high later on.

Once you reach this base of hers it's back to business as usual as Sebastian sets out on his own to hunt down some of the other Mobius agents he's been helping out at the various Safe Houses around the various environments.

The End

This game has quite possibly one of my favorite thrill-ride ending stretches of all time. And if not, it's definitely up there. Once shit starts hitting the fan, and oh boy does it start hitting the fan, it's one big thing after another. I didn't expect to see about half of the things I did during the ending and so I was always kept guessing on what's going to happen next.

In a game like this the big set pieces can be make or break but in the end I thought they were awesome. It's hard to talk about without going into explicit spoilers, so I'll leave it on the note that, so many games, in my personal opinion, have really shitty endings, so it's nice to see one that goes out there and really does something with theirs.

In a game that probably could have had its first 6 chapters removed for the lack of any real personality or memorability, the rest of the game certainly makes up for it.

In Closing

I had a rough go at the game in the early parts because it was so unnecessary having an open world with literally nothing to do, plainly explained story, lack of mystery, lack of any strong villains for the first half-ish of the game. But that does in fact all go away pretty much all at the same time. I replayed through most of the game again in NG+ and was able to confirm that, yeah, once you ignore all of the open world bullshit and just go straight into the missions and getting the story done, it's not as much of a chore. But the irony is, it being a lot more of an RPG than the last game, by not exploring the open world you're missing out on valuable resources. And that's a big problem.

The game certainly has an identity crises, but it's not the one you would expect to find. But it's quite good once you get past some of its initial pacing issues, doesn't have as much jank as the first game did, and leaves you with one hell of an ending.

I give The Evil Within 2...

Sorry, Hit House.

D&D West Marches 012 - Feel The Madness

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Sat, 04 Nov 2017 05:30:00 +0000

THIS WRITE UP BROUGHT TO YOU BY: PEER PRESSURE. TRY IT OUT, OR ARE YOU A COWARD BITCH!?

Bridges Rhinestone Jr.
Adina.
Willow.
Gisela.
Bird Brain.
Yllgrim.

BOY WHAT AN ADVENTURE. Because like always portals just seem to open up in front of Bridges and suck him in for whatever reason that he should probably find an exorcist to figure out, he and several other cohorts are pulled into a plane similar to one he had already been in, except this plane was not like the one which housed the small troll-like balding man called "DeVito" and his extraplicates. Instead, it as recognized by Bridges as being close to the one from his initial dream, the one where he was "awakened" to the alter-planes and their contents, and President Blade.

This one, however, contained a giant fucking wrestling ring where a man going OOOOOH YEAH DIG IT challenged everyone, who was also there for some reason that should probably be investigated but was instead mostly summarily ignored, to a wrestling match. So sure why the fuck NOT.

Bridges, being the intelligent LORE BARD he is, knew that wrestling is a fairly complex battle of the bodies' unique dexterous ability to splash undulating muscles against each other in what, to the layman, appears to be contests of strength and battle, but is actually a highly coordinated series of intensely practiced acrobatic displays portraying that of a battle between two foes played by individuals who often have a high level of respect and admiration for one another despite the origins and happenstances of the characters portrayed by them. So naturally he Lightning Bolted Macho Man Randy Savage.

And the combat kicks off in full swing. Someone casts a huge thing of fog so no one can goddamn see what's happening, and Macho Man is not giving in. His assaults consistently hurt anyone unlucky enough to be caught by them and so the spellcasters try their best to stay back, but that doesn't last very long as Macho Man gets pissed at Willow who keeps blasting the ever loving shit out of him, so he takes the fight to her and actively beats her within an inch of her life turn after turn.

When the heat got turned up so did Macho Man, letting Gisela feel the madness with a steel chair out of nowhere which was thrown at such a force as to probably easily go into low orbit. The pain was quite severe. The impenetrable one was quite penetrated by the Macho Man on this night, and the crowd was loving it. But even more so the crowd popped for Bridges casting Polymorph on himself and becoming a Giant Ape which is never not fucking awesome.

Everyone was getting their licks in and getting quite licked themselves when all of a sudden here comes Oozaru Bridges beating the hell out of Macho Man in a series of blow-for-blow trading that brought the crowd to their feet probably if Bridges thought to pay attention instead of "fuck yeah I'm a giant ape" like he tends to do in this form. Except this time it ended early due to a failed concentration check to maintain the polymorph and all of a sudden Bridges was back to being his own allegedly-non-oozaru form. Sad day.

The fight was winding down and Macho Man was playing the part of a severely injured man because of the sport, and not because he was legitimately beaten within an inch of his life(for all they knew). Yllgrim went down not too long before the battle ended, once again due to something Bridges did, but for the greater good, and had to be helped back up into the fray. The rest were still holding their own, or at least trying to.

Macho Man would not go down without a fight, or at least a heart attack while driving at high speeds, and he gave Willow one last walloping and knocked her down. Gisela decided to do what needed to be done, and took the steel chair from the Macho Man(who gave it to her willingly) and "struck" him down, ending the fight. Everyone celebrated their victory, thinking they had won, but thankfully Bridges and Yllgrim both knew that in order to win a wrestling match you have to "pin" your opponent, which Yllgrim did in a snap judgement call and laid him low for the 1, 2, 3, sealing their victory.

Unfortunately somehow the rest of the adventure turned into an awkward mess of people ganging up and bullying Bird Brain, which, you'd think people would choose to be the better person when they could, but not these people it would seem.

After that train-wreck came to a close, the party had a bit of a meet 'n greet with the Macho Man where they were given some merch as a reward. Later they would travel to a shopping mall and purchase some oddities like what Bridges can only assume is the actual copy of Blade on Blu-Ray, which is different form his 16(or 15 now) copies of Blade with Danny DeVito in the role of every character. Willow acquired a TV, Blu-Ray Player and an assortment of 20 Blu-Rays to play in the tavern.

And after everyone else went away, diving back into the portal home, Bridges pulled out the cellphone he acquired in the Dannyplane, and dialed Vinny once more. And again, he answered, and again, he knew "Tony", whoever or whatever he is. The two of them had a brief conversation, like two old friends reconvening for the first time even though that may not be true. Bridges was satisfied that he seems to be getting closer to whatever the vision he first saw might end up being. His home? His friends? Who knows. Maybe one day Bridges may find a way to the vision he first saw. Only time will tell.

D&D West Marches 011 - I'ma Javid

ryanaxelson101@gmail.com (Ryan Axelson) — Sun, 22 Oct 2017 14:42:00 +0000

This session takes our fresh boy Bridges Rhinestone Jr. on a trip across the open seas meeting new friends and challenges and dubious sexual assault all at once. Truly one for the ages.

Bridges Rhinestone Jr. Lore Bard.
Adina Liadon. Patron of the Raven Queen Warlock.
Gislea Fade. Impenetrable Eldritch Knight.
Bird Brain. Sexual Harassment Sorcerer.

The party was brought together quite quickly for an adventure that sprang up suddenly. A ship was in the docks of Farwater carrying a merchant who needed added protection since he was in possession of supposed magical artifacts. "Good enough for us" so the group thought, yet due to a series of random and completely unnecessary setbacks that actually took 45 minutes in real game time, the party somehow found their way to the ship where the shenanigans didn't quite end.

Upon arriving to the ship, the party was introduced to Javid. Son of one of the most powerful merchant family's in the world. He had set out to procure some very expensive and very powerful magic items, and now needed help shipping them back home. He was also Borat.

So, upon hearing of the concept of hunky pirate men, Bird Brain went in and cast a spell on them to turn them all gay, which resulted in slightly gay hysteria as the suddenly confused and sexually conflicted pirates both professed and ignored their new feelings. But Bird Brain is a sorcerer, and due to a wild magic surge or some shit became a goat or something.

Upon hearing the commotion onboard, Gisela penetrated the defenseless ship and stormed up only to find a series of sexually conflicted individuals and a goat. Doing what Gisela does, she suplexes the goat from the top deck to the deck below, and follows it up with an elbow drop. Why Javid didn't immediately order them off of his ship there, I don't know. Or, technically, I guess Bridges wasn't even on the ship at this point because he was busy identifying the ship and learning about the cool spell stored within.

Brain was told specifically not to do that again, which prompted him to feign ignorance like they don't know psh and was ordered to sleep in a cell, though he wasn't technically arrested or under arrest, because this quest was still totally happening after all of that. Gisela and Adina shared their quarters but since Brain was sleeping in a jail, Bridges got a room all to himself, which is nice.

Bridges was interested in having a talk with Javid after conferring with the others about the magic items on board, one of which had 1/3 of a Gate spell stored inside of it, the other could produce a Tome of Understanding if you stood by it long enough, which the party would determine in the next few days.

He talked with Javid about the items, his story and such, and through the course of such was able to identify Javid and find out that he's actually slightly cursed, which means that Borat is probably not his default setting. Bridges also recalled history of the Glenroy family name, knowing that yes, they are incredibly wealthy and successful in their businesses, though Javid is a bit of the darkhorse in the family in that he's a bit... touched in the head, and was given the opportunity to prove his success to his father by going on this adventure, which was mostly a success for him since he managed to acquire the items. It was just up to the party to deliver him and the items safely.

Bridges, being linked telepathically with the others, relayed the information to the rest of the party. They then hung out around the ship, waiting. Bridges headed up to watch the ocean for a while and also keep an eye out for trouble. Adina went up to the Crow's Nest to also keep an eye out for trouble. It's a good thing she did because she saw a ship heading directly for them, and also arming their cannons.

Bridges, being at the right place at the right time like always, was within range and launched a preemptive Lighting Bolt at their cannons, causing some shit to explode, but it wasn't quite enough to stop the immediate threat of teleporting genasi's showing up en masse. But unfortunately for them they made the mistake of pretty much all lining up, so at the start of the initiative, Bridges was able to do another Lightning Bolt, this time impacting around 8 or 9 individuals at once, which was pretty fucking awesome.

Adina throws dark as Eldritch Blast after Eldritch Blast shoot off into the distance while Gisela fade is getting surprisingly fucked up while making an attempt to not get fucked up. Bridges is about to feel the wrath of an enemy Lightning Bolt while they say something along the lines of "Oh so you think you're then only one who can do that?" but was efficiently counter spelled by Bridges, who responded with a simple "yes", and that was that.

He did get hurt a little bit, and with the few seconds he had to really take a good look around, decided that it was probably best to go behind a shipping crate which was large enough to cover him from any dubious counter spellers out there, and he polymorphed himself into a Giant Ape, because fuck yeah.

It was just in time for the boss man himself to appear, as another pirate made their dramatic entrance onto the ship, this one filled with piss and crossbows. Bird Brain had summoned a Water Elemental by this point and was wrecking shit near the Captain of the ship.

Oozaru Bridges took this opportunity to rush down the apparent leader of the pirates, doing quite a pretty bit of damage on the individual, but the pirate was holding strong, so he took this opportunity to shoot the ever loving fuck out of Bridges and force him to make roughly three million constitution saving throws in order to maintain concentration on the form, which he was able to do a majority of the time, but by the time he rolled a 9 which would break the form, Bird Brain used one of his fancy features to add a d4 to the roll, resulting in a success since all Bridges needed was a 10 to maintain the form.

With the pirate captain all but done for and now hanging by a thread off of the side of the ship, Oozaru Bridges used his strength to grab the pirate and squeeze him (non-lethally of course) so the man could be interrogated. By this point the battle was pretty much over. Gisela was fading due to the severe blood-loss of being actually hit for a change.

Oozaru Bridges placed down the pirate man and began throwing all of the dead pirates back at the ship across the way, scattering them across the hull and fucking their shit up real bad. The rest of the party interrogated the man who identified himself as Marcus DeCunt, pirate man.

He explained that he was very charming, which Bridges agreed with, and was interested in doing pirate things, which is why he attacked the ship. He didn't really know what was on the ship, only that it was a cool looking ship so he thought hey, I'm a pirate, why not.

So Bridges took him under his wing and polymorphed him into a Giant Ape the next day to let him see how cool it is to be a huge strength monster. He seemed to enjoy it very much. They had lots of fun playing on the deck and possibly terrifying the already quite harassed crew.

Meanwhile though the goal of the hour was to figure out what these magic items do. Since the party saved the ship they were given pretty much free reign to go wherever they wanted, so they used that opportunity to spend some time with the items Javid had found. The party figured out that one produces Tomes of Understanding, but has to be charged up by placing magic items inside of it. So they spend the next couple of hours putting magic items in that they didn't want, but found that while it does charge the item, it does so very little. So in the end they decided eh, fuck it, let's just let Javid sell them.

They arrived at their destination, decided to help Marcus break out of prison by casting Invisibility on him and then hoping he made it out okay, got paid for a job well done, got given some pretty nifty items as a reward, and set out to return home. Bridges ended the adventure one step closer to growing in power, and also has a pirate friend to call upon if the time ever comes that his services would be required.