No Punishment Is Boring

So recently I've been replaying Torchlight on PC, a hack and slash RPG on PC that plays basically the same as something like Diablo.  I quite enjoy this game but there's one thing that really irks me about the title is that the game is too easy.  It's not just Torchlight that's guilty of this but this is the one I've played most recently so I'll be using it as my example.

So Torchlight isn't by itself an easy game.  The game involves large amounts of enemies swarming you ALL the damn time and you have to utilize a decent amount of skills, planning and resource management if you want to make it through the dungeon.  However all of the challenge that the game poses is COMPLETELY pointless because death doesn't actually mean anything.  When you die you get to make a choice; come back where you fell for an exp/gold loss, start the floor over with a gold loss or go back to town for no penalty.  This sounds like a decent enough punishment but EXP is easy to accumulate, money rains down on you like a stripper in an expensive club and floors aren't actually all that big so even starting that over is more of a minor annoyance than anything else. Not only that but when you do come back everything that was dead stays dead, so even if you suck with some bone headed perseverance you can make it through any obstacle.

The game does feature some harder modes but these are all rendered pointless by the fact that the punishments for death don't actually matter and you can tell that the developers understand this with the inclusion of a hardcore mode.  Hardcore mode introduces perma-death to a character who dies but this is just jumping to the other side of the spectrum.  Perma-death is acceptable in a rougelike because you can, in a lot of them, clear the dungeon in one sitting.  Torchlight requires quite a few hours of play to get through so the idea of getting far and then losing all that progress  because you zoned out and didn't hit the heal fast enough sounds more annoying than anything else. 

Torchlight isn't the only game to do this, Bioshock being the other HUGE offender for this kind of thing.  You have this beautiful, atmospheric and immersive world and then you realize that none of it matters because you just INSTANTLY RESPAWN when you die and you lose a bit of money.  Again, money is so easy to get in that game that the penalty doesn't matter so it turns the big daddies from actual intimidating encounters to minor annoyance that needs dealing with.  Again you can turn off Vita Chambers if you do want more of a challenge but why can't the base game just be challenging rather than forcing me to turn on all these extra challenge modes if I don't want to be babied.

I don't dislike either of the games I've mentioned, I look at them quite fondly but this aspect of them is a frustrating blotch on what is otherwise a great gaming experience.  Going too far the OTHER way is also no good (Fuck you R-Type/Gradius) but that's another post for another time.  I'm not asking for every game to be Dark Souls but Jesus H give me SOME challenge.

Gaming Disorder Is Bullshit

Gaming Disorder is now officially a thing according to the World Health Organization and when I hear news like this I can't help but raise an eyebrow and let out a rather exasperated sigh.  Gaming Disorder is where a person just wants to plays games SO DAMN MUCH that they let other aspects of their life fall into disrepair or it starts to have impacts on their own health.

Now I'm not saying that some kind of addiction to a game or gaming at large isn't a thing AT ALL.  We may have experienced or have known someone who has played a certain game and been absolutely OBSESSED with it.  In my teenage years I was guilty of letting my studies slip a little in favor of playing World of Warcraft but to turn my momentary lack of self control into a full blown "disorder" is just insanity.

From what I can gather it's mostly based on how much you game and where you priorities lie but this is a stupid way to gauge it because one might be gaming not because of an addiction to the medium but because they don't want to do something else.  For example when I was younger I'd game an absolute shit ton because I was being bullied at school.  I didn't want to study because that would just remind me of all the shit I was going through and I didn't want to talk about it with family because doing that never fixed a damn thing so I resorted to escapism through gaming.  It wasn't addiction to games as much as it was just wanting to think about ANYTHING else.  Funnily enough, it was when some other people in that school reached out to me to play Counter Strike that things started improving so if anything gaming helped and I can't imagine just how miserable I would have been if on top of everything I started getting diagnosed with bullshit disorders.

The other thing that irks me is that most of the stories around this topic that I've seen are involving children.  I saw one article that talked about a 10 year old who was gaming so much that he refused to go to the bathroom, fucked up his bowls and had to get surgery.  Of course the article was like "AREN'T THESE ADDICTIVE GAMES SO AWFUL?!" when the question that should have been asked is "Where the fuck are the parents?".  If you're such a weak piece of shit that you can't get a 10 year old away from Fortnite for a few hours then you probably should have never had children in the first place.  Don't demonize my hobby just because you can't take charge of your shitty kid.

Millions of people play games and the vast majority of them are fine, well rounded people.  Trying to lump some fakey illness on those that like to do it a little more than others is pathetic and damaging to those who might have an ACTUAL problem with addiction.  Still, there's a number of experts that have come forward and criticized the listing so it just goes to show that not everyone discussing the topic is a moron.

 

The "Joys" Of Old PC Games

Last night I got a weird urge to replay Max Payne on PC again.  The first game was released in 2001 and gathered a lot of attention due to the fact it's one of the first titles to make use of bullet time.  I don't think I need to go into much detail about the game itself really, it's pretty iconic with 2 sequels and a god awful movie featuring Mark Wahlberg.

Now getting old games to run on newer systems used to be a MASSIVE problem, especially for the less computer savvy members of the gaming community but now thanks to services like Good Old Games and Steam this has become a lot less of an issue.  That said however, sometimes a title does like to be a bit of a pain in the neck and Max Payne was certainly one of those games.

I reinstall the game from my account and hit play and I wait a few moments for the title screen to pop up but nothing happens.  I click it again only to get the message "Max Payne is already running" which was a weird thing to read considering I'm looking into my desktop.  So I fire up task manager and sure as shit, there it is, but nothings actually happening on screen.  So I end the process and try again, same thing, nothing.

This is where I start to go on forums or hunt for patches and usually people are pretty good with this kind of thing, there's usually a fix somewhere to be found.  So I google my problem and get a few posts that mostly say the same thing.  "Put it in comparability mode for Windows 98/ME and run as administrator".  Seems like an obvious fix and I gave myself a little kick for not trying that first so I go ahead and do that but still the same result, nothing.  So then I start trying all sorts of weird shit like making .BAT files, renaming files and folders, sacrificing people to the sun God but none of it makes the game run.

Eventually I get it to work.  If you want to know what my fix was it's click on it lots and lots until it actually decides to show up.  I have no idea what I did or how I made it work, and I still don't but if I click on it enough times and restart Steam once or twice eventually it'll just be like "oh, go on then" and let me play.  Once in game it runs fine but with weird audio issues that I know there's a patch for but at this point I'm too lazy and I'm OK playing with gimped audio.

If anyone enjoys old games for PC I can guarantee they've had this happen AT LEAST once.  You just want to sit down and replay an old game that you remember fondly but the task of getting it run becomes a project that requires hours of research and tinkering that just eats your entire afternoon or evening.  Sometimes it can be enjoyable, like solving a puzzle but often it's just a pain in the butt because you just wanted to play a game without having to do a whole course on computer science.

Still, like I said, these problems are a lot less of a thing now we have Steam and Good Old Games giving us versions that just work from the get go.  There's also plenty of remakes kicking around nowadays which means you can play a version that's actually been made for modern systems, but where's the fun in that?

Torn About Resident Evil 2 Remake

So a remake of Resident Evil 2 got announced and when I first heard the news I was absolutely fucking stoked.  Resident Evil 2 is quite possibly my favorite Resident Evil game and the idea of having a version of it that's all in shiny next-gen-o-vision is a truly exciting idea.  However upon seeing some of the game play footage for it, I'm a little torn.  First let me start by showing you a video of the demo that someone has done that doesn't have any commentary on it so you can just see and process for yourself.

Like I said, on one hand I'm really excited because at the end of the day it's fuckin' Resident Evil 2.  It's the best game in the series made to look all pretty and have modern game play and whatnot but that's also half the problem.

I didn't WANT this.  When I first saw someone on my social media post about it I had visions of REMake but it's Resident Evil 2 instead of 1.  That's what I really wanted, just a nice shiny remake of the 2nd game for modern systems.  REMake had some extra content as well in the form of Lisa Trevor and all that stuff so maybe this dream RE2 remake I had in my head would have had some of that too.  Hell, I bet there's a lot of stuff from RE1.5 that could be implemented as bonus modes or as extra content to the main story.

But what we got was the RE6 looking thing that's stolen RE7s interface with all new shit going on.  Of course that isn't inherently a bad thing but I'm having trouble getting over the shock of it not being REMake 2.  I think that one things that long standing fans of survival horror have wanted for a long time is for games to go BACK to that old style because it helps to serve the horror.  I hate the fact that all modern "horror" games have just turned into 3rd person action games with jump scares and gore and that seems to be the direction that Resident Evil 2 Remaster is taking.

Still, I'm not going to completely shit on it just yet since a short game play video and a trailer aren't really enough to form a complete opinion on.  I've yet to see anything of Claire's campaign and I'm interested to see what they do with the plot since I've heard that they've done away with the whole A/B thing that the first one had.  Let's hope they do it justice.

One to Watch: My Friend Pedro

Usually when I'm flicking through Facebook videos and something gaming related comes up it's usually some kind of thing that I'll close out of pretty quickly.  Some kind of meme video, top 10 or people getting their jollies off whatever big AAA game du jour is. However when the trailer for this little unheard of title crossed my feed I felt compelled to watch it all the way through.

From what I can tell, My Friend Pedro is a game about a man who seems to enjoy cosplaying as Deadpool a little bit taking instructions from a sentient banana to go into buildings and kill a bunch of bad guys.  As far as the premise in concerned it's not going to win any awards for best writing but let's be honest, with a tagline like "blood, bullets and bananas" were you really here for the plot in the first place?

The game play on the other hand is where this game looks absolutely mental.  With the main character flying around the room blasting dudes like he thinks he's Dante from Devil May Cry or some shit.  There seems to be a big focus on environmental kills as well utilizing explosive thingies or having your bullets ricochet off certain surfaces to kill dudes from the safety of a nearby wall.  There's a part in the trailer (which I'll post at the end of this post) where he throws a frying pan in the air and has his bullets bounce off it to clear an upper room of guys.

The big reason that this game piques my interest is it has a very sort of Hotline Miami vibe to it but only now it's a side scroller rather than a top down game.  I get the feeling that while there is a lot of high octane action My Friend Pedro will probably, like Hotline, be more of a puzzle game with action elements rather than a straight up shoot-a-thon.  Lot's of strategizing and probably a lot of dying with quick restarts is what I envision for the first time player (just speculation) but either way it looks like the kind of game I will get very into very quickly.

Here is the trailer if you want to check it out for yourself, it's really fuckin' cool

 

[Arcade Quickie] Soul Reverse First Credit

Final Fantasy XR Ride at Universal Studios Japan

There's quite a few posts dotted around this blog now about stuff at Universal Studios Japan.  I'm not affiliated I swear, they just keep doing video game related stuff and therefore I'm compelled to go and check it out.

Usually I go to USJ for the Halloween events but this time I went out of season to go and check out a limited time Final Fantasy themed roller coaster they had.

The ride has, for now, replaced the Space Fantasy ride and the whole area has been COMPLETELY changed for the event.  As you come into the vicinity of the ride you can hear the series main theme played on the park speakers which does a pretty good job of hyping one up for the upcoming excitement. 

If you had never heard of Space Fantasy before there's almost no way you'd know it even existed in this space before they changed it for this ride, EVERYTHING has been made over. 

For example this used to be a big talking space face that would move around and all sorts of crazy shit and it's been COMPLETELY gutted to make space for this table with Moogles on it decorated with various iconic Final Fantasy weaponry. 

Once inside the ride itself its the usual Space Fantasy coaster but you are given a pair of "Crystal Goggles" so that you can navigate your way to Midgar and get back to an airship that's waiting for you.  Inside the VR you approach a crystal that has a little picture of Midgar on it and straight away some twat punches it and sends you to the Thunder Plains from FFX.  This happens a whole bunch of times and you fly through a bunch of areas from other Final Fantasy games until you land in Midgar and watch Cloud and Sephiroth have an Advent Children fight for a bit.  The ride ends with a bunch of Moogles telling you that you did a great job despite the fact that all you did was sit in a chair and get flung around a steel track.

All in all it was a pretty good experience.  Nothing out of this world but not bad for a bit of fanwank at a theme park.  I actually wanted to ride it a second time but the wait time became pretty massive in the afternoon so I had to skip it.  Also there was merchandise, I bought a water bottle with a chocobo on it that was pretty cool but they were expecting people to pay about £25 for a fucking ball pen which is just retarded.  Unfortunately it's not a permanent thing and Space Fantasy will make its return before too long but I'm sure once the ride is gone you'll be able to find some footage of it on YouTube or something.

Retro Game Snobbery

Snobbery is something I think anyone who is seriously into gaming is guilty of in at least some form.  If you really like a series or a specific title and you know a lot about it then it's impossible for it not to manifest at least a little bit.  People who enjoy retro games are no exception to this but for some reason it's this group of gamers where the levels of snobbery are the absolute worst.

I'm no angel myself really, if you start talking to me about Silent Hill or Shin Megami Tensei then I'm going to find it at least a little difficult to reel myself in on that topic.  Lord help you if you say something like "Homecoming was best Silent Hill" or "Persona is better than Nocturne" because I might pop the fuck off and bore you to death with series factoids and long drawn out plot explanations but that's about the worst of it.

I understand this kind of reaction though.  If you really like a thing and then you FINALLY meet someone who also likes a thing but they aren't quite as up on it as you think they should be, you want to sort of "educate" them.  It's not a case of belittling their opinions but it's a case of trying to help them appreciate the thing as much as you do.  A lot of the time however, it never really comes off that way and things get out of hand pretty often, it's why I don't like talking to "fans" of even things I enjoy doing.

But with people who enjoy retro games this is a completely different barrel of fish.  Now for the most part, people from the retro game community are actually extremely friendly and accepting.  A bunch of people who love sharing their love of old games from their youth or even accepting younger gamers who enjoy that retro style of game and want to learn more.  But when a retro game snob does rear their ugly head good lord the best bet is to run away.  For these people, retro gaming isn't so much a hobby as much as it is a competition and they just HAVE to let you know about it.

For example I saw a post on a retro gaming group that said "Some "so called" retro gamers didn't know you could put two NES advantages into the system at the same time" thus implying that if you weren't aware of this one fact then your entire love for the sub-hobby of retro gaming is now brought into question.  I never had an NES as a kid but I thought that plugging in two controllers would have been pretty simple.  The point is though that for a retro game snob, you cant just enjoy games from the past, you have to be constantly judged on what you play or even how you play it.  Forget controller knowledge, if you bring up the idea of playing on an emulator for convenience then you might as well be sent to the firing squad.

But that level of snobbery, while obnoxious, is sort of similar to what I said before. What really gets my back up is the CONSTANT one upmanship that these people also employ.  For example I met a guy once who, if you brought up a deal that you found for literally ANY retro game, he always had found one better.  You could say "Yo, I'm so happy today, I found X for Y price" and he would respond with "oh yeah? well I was on holiday and got it for Z price" where Z is always at LEAST half of whatever you said Y was.  I've seen other examples of this with people saying stuff like "oh well you can't REALLY call yourself a retro game fan if you haven't at least beaten Takeshi's Challenge on original hardware, can you?" completely straight faced and unironically.

Like I said, most retro game fans are fine people who are helpful and will be happy to suggest their favorite obscure gems to you so that you can discover some cool new games but if you encounter one of these special breeds of gaming snob run for the hills and sound the Silent Hill siren because no one needs that shit near them.