Why I am not a Big Fan of Naughty Dog

 

Why I am not a Big Fan of Naughty Dog

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I have been bitching about Naughty Dog on my Twitter Page a lot lately or at least complaining them at a high volume rate, and these Tweets or anything anti Naughty Dog tend to attract a lot of non mutuals who tend to waste my time with their drivel so I am hopefully going to bury the hatchet here and really get into as to why I haven't been a fan of them as much as other people especially how Nakeyjakey's "critique" was a big time joke and all he did was complain while using that super misused term "ludonarrative dissonance".

Okay, now that's out of the way, one of Naughty Dog's most overpraised series is Uncharted and particularly Uncharted 2. And I will note that I am a fan of the Last of Us and respect that game a lot more than the Uncharted games while I don't think TLOU is super amazing, it at least does more with it's gameplay and story than the Uncharted series ever did so I won't bash it as much on this blog post. Plus Uncharted 2 is probably the most "critically immune" out of all of Naughty Dog's games. And I will also say that Navacanno's critique on Uncharted 1 and 2 is absolutely worth watching and should be watched by anyone who has an interest in games as medium. I may repeat stuff here that he already said too.

Alright, the first thing that tends to praised about the Uncharted games particularly 2 is the "story". The first thing I want to say is that it's not really the story that makes Uncharted's story "interesting" or at least why people flock to them, it's the witty dialogue and bantering. The story in Uncharted 2 doesn't break new ground at all, it's basically Indiana Jones set in the modern day and without the liberties of taking place in the past that makes Indy stories work. And to be really honest here, while not the same kind of game or story, it's pretty obvious at this point that Naughty Dog relies on the same tropes that made you get attached to the world and characters that Valve used in Half Life 2, which is funny to me considering Half Life 2 gets a lot of anti hype nowadays. They both have long sections of down time, they both have you interact with the characters by doing things in game, they both tend to use set pieces in between the quiet time, and both tend to throw in some random gimmicks inbetween shootouts. Where with Half Life, while not having a great story in own right at least feels more immersive and personal due to the first person perspective, and never cutting except load times, the story at least feels like it fits a game where with Uncharted, it uses cutscenes and cinematics like film while using the same tropes that HL2 uses and the result feels less impressive due it trying to be a game and while also being a film.

Now next and this might be the "meat" of the blog is two aspects of Uncharted's gameplay: shooting, and ugh "platforming".

The platforming in Uncharted has to be one of the most laughable and weakest implantations of the concept I have ever seen in the medium. Where with games like the Prince of Persia Sands Trilogy, and especially later games in the Sands Trilogy like Two Thrones while being a series of timing tests at least requires you to think and be aware of when to jump and when to movie out of the way. Two Thrones especially adds more to the platforming by adding jump boards, knife rest holds, columns in for the Prince to slide and rest on and moving columns to time your jumps. It also feels like a fast paced rhythm game where you are timing moves very quickly and carefully, and it all feels very good to pull off without dying or using the sand rewinds. Dark Prince sections adds more to platforming too where you have to watch health. But he gets his own set of moves like swinging, pulling columns, and hanging which adds more to the timing tests plus his sections have enemies to deal with.

Now what does Uncharted do? Leap. What do you do when you want to get to another part of the level? Leap. What you when you make to another side? Leap. Compare that to what I wrote about Prince of Persia to that of Uncharted. Uncharted's platforming isn't so much "platforming" as it is just going to a straight linear line disguised as a platforming course.

Hell, even the older God of Wars did a better job with this. You at least had combat during climbing sections and you could use light, heavy attacks and grab while movie around and you had to watch out for obstacles too.

I will say that Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy somewhat improved the platforming by adding the grapple hook but even then it's still the bare minimum to me. It's just pressing L1 randomly inbetween your usual linear romps disguised as "platforming".

Now I will get to shooting. Okay it'd be way too easy for me to unfavorably compare the shooting in these games to the shooting game powerhouses like iD Software and Monolith Productions. So instead I will compare them to 3 franchises, Ratchet and Clank, the newer Tomb Raider games and Halo.

Ratchet and Clank is a series in some ways like Uncharted, it also has pillars of gameplay that when compared in someways to full on games of their type might not compare as much. While Ratchet has basic platforming, it at least makes up for it with it's shooting. While Insomniac has been a bit too quantity over quality when it comes to their weapons, they at least got the act of combat down. In the Ratchet games, you aren't taking cover behind hitscan weapons waiting for health to regen instead you are jumping around avoiding projectile weapons while you also using projectile weapons. It was combing it's act of shooting and jumping long before Uncharted. In fact Ratchet in some ways feels like a "bullet ballet" to me due to how much of a rhythm there is to shooting and firing your weapons.

Now next is the newer Tomb Raider games, while they don't have great combat, I can at least give them credit for using FEAR's AI system known as "goal oriented action planning" where and I am putting it simply here is where each enemy AI character has a goal for them to do in the game world and for objects for them to interact with. Add the enemy variety and them throwing enemy "barks" at the player and it does lead for some engaging and interesting combat encounters than just sitting behind cover waiting for health to regen and then getting out at the occasional grenade throw. You have to more around and watch out what enemies do and be mindful of when you attack in the TR games. The TR games do at least more engaging things with their enemy encounters than "self adjusting difficulty" that the Naughty Dog fanboys seem to think is interesting.

Now finally, I will compare them to Halo. Now Halo especially the Bungie games might just be some of the most overpraised shooting games ever and their fanboys are basically just a bunch of whiny teenagers, I am not going to lie that the way Bungie managed to use aim assist in a way where the skill ceiling didn't lower is rather impressive and didn't need to resort to cover systems like Gears of War and especially Uncharted did. Halo for a console shooter managed to have some impressive AI, large environments, and quite a bit of gameplay decision making with melee attacks and grenades is something that I still find to impressive where Uncharted basically copied ideas that other games were doing at the time, and was one of the franchises that created the cover shooter "dark age" in the 7th gen.

I will mention Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy. While both games feature way better combat than the trilogy did. I still feel like regen health and hitscan weapons hold them back. And while the Uncharted fanboys bring up the whole Nathan Drake's "luck" bullshit when excusing the regen health I argue it ruins and lowers the skill ceiling that Uncharted 4 and LL's combat could have. I feel like a simple fix to this is to take a cue out of Resistance Fall of Man's playbook and have parts of your health that can regenerate and have enemies drop health packs when killed. That way it makes the games way less biased towards stealth and these games' stealth mechanics are way too simple to make stealth play ever satisfying.

In conclusion, I could go on about other aspects of Naughty Dog I don't like how the Jak games lost their identity after ripping off GTA, how Uncharted 3 tells the best story in the series despite the fandom constantly complaining about it, how ND's set pieces are Crash Bandicot boulder chases with more flash than substance, how the Druckmann era of Naughty Dog has an over reliance on down time. I feel like they could all make their own posts which I could do but I feel I wanted to rip apart Uncharted particularly 2 because I really can't stand that game.

 

Call of Duty's Shooting Mechanics

 

Call of Duty's Shooting Mechanics

Call of Duty whether you love it or hate it tends to be a big topic among the Gaming Community, it was a much bigger franchise back in the 7th gen and the series tends to reboot it's sub continuities a lot to rebuild interest among it's fans but one thing I never see discussed much about the series is the core shooting gameplay. People often insult the franchise but I have never seen that much discussion on why they hate the games so much, and it's often due to it being the face of "bro gaming" and I think writing off games like that is pointless and unfair. CoD4 tends to be ridiculed less among the "gamers" but I argue that game has some of the same issues the series has but often gets away from the scorn of the gaming community is because of how the story was told and how it was the less over the top "power fantasy" due to the restrain that game has, but I argue just because it and arguably World at War are the most restrained CoD games since it became mainstream that does not mean it ignores the core flaws in their shooting gameplay.

Okay, that was a long intro but now I will get more into the issues I have and offer feedback. Note this will be about CoD's single players all though some of this can apply to multiplayer as well.

Issues:

Well it was sort of big in some ways back in 2003 for an fps game to have iron sights and enemies that don't take a lot shots to die, I argue as the series as it went on it became less of a novelty and more of an issue that became more and more prevalent as the series progressed. First of all, the iron sights, while iron sights can make a game arguably more "realistic", I argue that iron sights well, not so much iron sights but the lack of giving the player hip fire options except for the shotgun really limits the options players have in terms of taking out enemies. It's often just relying on the aim assist to kill nearby enemies than it is to take out enemies yourself by looking for them in the battlefield or getting up close and personal unless if the games' level design specially allows for close quarters combat. Partner all this with hitscan weapons, and all shootouts in most CoD games consist of is ADS, shoot, get hit, take cover and rinse and repeat. People do point out CoD's reliance on set pieces and I argue CoD's set pieces exist is because this core shooting gameplay isn't enough to make an exciting enough 6 hour game out of. Some games in the series like CoD2 do let you hip fire more and let you be more aggressive at times, and relies on aim assist less due to being made for PC first but it still has some of the above mentioned issues and later games games have you reload your gun just as much as you are firing it. I really like an over reliance on ADS just gives the player less options in combat, I argue games like Resistance Fall of Man and 3 gives the player options to shoot far away enemies but gives the player enough leniency to use hip fire to make firefights feel fresh and have enough variety when it comes to enemy killing.

My next issue and this one is what really bugs me is enemies taking very little damage. I feel like this issue really annoys me when it comes to CoD. Since CoD has hitscan weapons and relies on cover heavily for it's shootouts, it often leads to enemies surrounding the player from all sides often having no idea where they are actually attacking you from, this often leads to deaths where you have no idea where you got shot from. And the funny thing is, the easy setting lets you take more hits and allows the player to be more aggressive which can to more moving around and less hiding behind cover and less cheap deaths. On the hardest setting, the player takes way less damage and enemies can hit harder, which leads to the player hiding behind cover more and more cheap deaths you couldn't see coming. Some games even have enemies grande spam in order to add more "difficulty". And the next issue this leads to is that weapons just feel samey for the most part. Of course there are weapons for long range encounters and shotguns for close range, but in CoD especially the modern ones, there are dozens upon dozens of machine guns that all serve the same function. Since enemies all take the same amount of damage to die, this allows for less genuine weapon variety. Since one machine gun is the same thing as the other machine guns since all you have to do is ADS, shoot and enemy dies. I'd rather they just have a smaller number of weapons and have enemies take more damage to give each weapon it's use. Add more enemy variety of enemies and less guns that I will never use. There is also "grenades" that CoD took from the Halo series but in CoD you can "cook" them. In all honesty, I have never used them in a CoD that much because enemies take little effort to actually kill. I argue Killzones 2 and 3 actually made me use a feature like that more since first of all, those games give you a visual indicator on when the grenade will explode and on top of that since Helghast AI move around a lot and they take way more damage than any CoD enemy, this feature actually has a use now. Cooking a grenade and killing 2-3 Helghast at once feels very satisfying to pull off where in CoD it doesn't require nearly the same amount of skill since enemies take little damage and machine guns can kill them in 2 hits. It also helps that Killzones 2 and 3 despite their flaws have very powerful feeling guns that eviscerate enemies whenever you shoot them and they have more enemy variety than any CoD game to boot.

Improvements:

I feel like as much of the hate the futuristic CoD games get, I argue Black Ops 3 has on paper has some of ideas on how to improve the shooting. BO3 has a of enemies like flying drones, enemies that sprint like Serious Sam enemies, mechs, and your usual foot soldiers among others. Some of these enemies take a number of bullets to kill partner that with the customization and you can get some core shooting with some genuine variety and dare I say it, "depth". I feel like there is a blueprint for something interesting here. Plus the Titanfall style movement and you could get a great core shooting system. I just wish the levels were more opening and they dropped the regen health or make the health pool smaller and focus on movement more. And less guns and more weighty animations and you could get a genuinely great shooter.

I guess another way is borrowing from Medal of Honor Allied Assault. That game does have typical missions were you are on foot with other soldiers and setpieces but that game does let you hold all your guns and give enemies more health before they are killed. I say do something like this, let the player hold all their guns and let enemies take more damage while giving the player large arenas and play spaces to play around along with the usual military soldier missions. CoD Advanced Warfare and Infinite Warfare does something like this, I say just do it with more options.

And there you go. My critique and thoughts on how to improve. I wanted to cover more stuff but I feel I got the core issues down.

How I would Write Spider-Man Homecoming

 

How I would Write Spider-Man Homecoming

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I have made it clear that I am not a fan of Spider-Man Homecoming or a fan of the MCU's take on Spider-Man in general. Instead of doing my usual complaining, I want to make a version of the movie that I think is more true to the characters while also being good movie in it's own right and being a bit in line with the plan of the MCU.

The first thing I would change right away would be the villain. I am not big on the Vulture in Homecoming and how his sole motivation is to get back at Tony Stark and shoehorning in his family at the last minute just felt like a cheap way to have Vulture and Spidey get a climatic showdown at the end.

My version will have 3 villains. The first being The Mandarin, the second being Norman Osborn and the third being Ezekiel Stane.

First, why Mandarin? Well, the Mandarin was built up since the first Iron Man movie and his organization was one of the reasons why Tony become Iron Man in the first place. A lot of people were upset over how he was treated in Iron Man 3. Now I think this movie is the time for the Real Mandarin to actually do something against Tony Stark. It's just strange as fuck how Mandarin was there since the first Iron Man and yet he never actually fought Tony in any capacity. He would mostly be planning and supplying Norman Osborn Stark tech but he would be acting through a proxy for this movie, and that proxy would be Ezekiel Stane.

Okay, now why him? Well here is the thing, Zeke Stane was supposed to make an appearance in the first Avengers movie because Joss Whedon thought Loki would not be enough of a threat but Kevin Fiege said no. I think Obadiah Stane having a son at all is pretty interesting and he would make an interesting foil to Peter. Zeke hates Tony for killing his father and robbing him of a future. And he knows about the Mandarin through past dealing with his father, and wants to get back at Tony Stark for ruining his life. Peter thinks while Tony is egotistical and pompous, he thinks there is a good side to him and he's just trying to make up for his wrong doings. His role in the movie would be him making a series of Terrorist bombings throughout New York with stolen Stark tech and framing Tony Stark for crimes he never did.

Now finally, this leaves Norman Osborn, I put Norman in the movie mainly because I felt his company Oscorp and as well as him in general as always been to me, Spidey's greatest foe. And I feel him teaming up with Iron Man's arch nemesis, The Mandarin would be an interesting team up. That and it helps give Spidey a villain to fight while not turning his rogues into glorified Iron Man villains. He's in the movie because he feels Spidey has been a great nuisance in taking over the crime underworld and Zeke Stane learns about how Oscorp is trying to get rid of Spidey, so Zeke gives the idea to the Mandarin to use his Stark tech to frame Tony. Norman's role is to give Zeke plans on how to use the tech to blow up parts of the city that would get the most attention because Norman knows New York inside and out. I probably wouldn't make the Green Goblin just yet. That'll be saved for future movies.

Now with the villains out of the way, I want to address Peter himself. I don't think Tony being a father figure is a super bad idea but like everything execution matters first, and I found the execution to be lacking.

I would make Peter in my movie conflicted about the idea of Tony being a possible mentor. Tony wants Peter to be taken under his wing, but Peter is unsure about it and still tends to think of Ben Parker a lot. Peter does respect Tony for his accomplishments and part of him thinks he is "cool" but he knows that Ben Parker will always be the father he never had. Tony thinks he can redeem himself by steering Peter down the right path.

Aunt May thinks Tony is a bad influence on Peter, and despite Tony being as nice as he can, like helping to pay bills, she still thinks he is ego maniac, and doesn't want to do anything with Peter. Aunt May just thinks all that Avengers stuff is dangerous and thinks the world could be ruled by them if they are unchecked and they leave a lot of collateral damage in their wake.

Now throughout the movie the terrorist attacks get worse and worse and eventually Aunt May refuses to see Tony anymore, Peter knows it's not him but everyone in the city is against him now. This also means you can't have the Avengers.

Then the finally track down Zeke Stane after the battle, Zeke goes to jail. And all though Tony is proven innocent by the end, people still don't trust him because after all his tech was used to kill thousands of people. Tony resorts to alcohol to deal with the stress but Peter eventually tells him to lay off and they will deal with the problems together.

And finally, no suits made by Tony in my version, screw that.

And in the sequel, Spidey goes to China and brings the fight to Mandarin to honor his mentor that he never truly had, Tony Stark. I have never seen Far From Home nor do I plan to in the near future.

 

Why I am bored of Resident Evil

 

Why I am bored of Resident Evil

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I recently just beat REmake 3 and the game is just okay to me. The Downtown section was by far the most open but after that it mostly becomes a linear trek which I didn't hate but at the same time I feel like the game is super confused.

It sort of has the open levels of old school RE while having more action stuff in the actionized REs. It throws lots of enemies at you and scripted sequences. You also get dodging and counterattacking. The Carlos Hospital level was basically the house hold off from RE4.

I'll just be get to the point and say it, I am BORED as fuck of Resident Evil. Or at least these "horror" oriented RE games. I would rather just have another balls to the walls action RE at this point.

The guns in both REmakes 2 and 3 both don't feel that great at all. I'll give REmake 3 some credit for improving the weapon feel to varying degrees but it has the same issues, but just to a less noticeable degree. You will still put in a lots pistol and shotgun rounds into the zombies and they will still get up after a lot of shots. I just don't get the point in having a Resident Evil game where the guns just feel don't feel that great to use. Also, the amount of times I got jumped by random zombies in REmakes 2 and 3 are so numerous it's not even funny. I always go like, "what" every time I get jumped from behind. Resident Evils of old at least gave you various audio cues is to when an enemy was near by but in these modern REmake games I have no idea when enemies are near by or when they are actually dead. When a zombie grabbed you on the ground in older REs at least they die after mashing a few buttons, in the modern REmakes you STILL have to shoot them and hope they actually go down.

I can at least forgive the weaker weapons in RE6 to varying degrees because you had to use the melee along with the guns. But these newer REmake games, it's even hard to run away from zombies due to the third person camera. In the fixed camera REs, whenever you got grabbed or punched the static camera at least gave you an idea of what position you were in but since a third person camera follows the player, getting grabbed or punched gives you a harder idea of where your last position was thus giving you a window to be attacked again. So now, the weapons are weaker, and the third person camera makes enemy evading harder than it needs to be.

And now this just leads into more next point, if Capcom wants to continue RE either they should mix up releases of Action and Horror RE games to avoid staleness. I really feel like with these newer REmake games that Capcom, deep down wants to make an action RE but the backlash that 6 just made them afraid of making another. These third person REmakes really, to me, in some ways feels like an awkward blend of action and horror. It has the third person camera of the later REs and the level design of classic but since the weapons feel terrible and the third person camera is better for action games, it feels like the games are in awkward frankensteined position.

Let's be honest here, Resident Evil 4 as much as you love it or hate at least when it came out, put the series in an interesting position. It was no longer a game that was inventory management and saving ammo when it counts but more about using a variety of weapons to kill enemies with the occasional backtracking. My point is, it at least brought genuine freshness to the series where these REmake games just feel like an awkward combination of fixed camera RE and 4. It just feels like the games aren't even making any major innovations anymore and is just frankensteining old school RE and action RE.

I mean you can feel Capcom wanting to make an action RE again when Jill literally lifts a railgun over half her size to kill Nemesis and the Carlos levels.

Either I want an action RE or make a new Dino Crisis or Lost Planet game because RE is just a a weird position now.

 

Why Deus Ex Human Revolution and Mankind Divided do not work as Prequels

 

Why Deus Ex Human Revolution and Mankind Divided do not work as Prequels

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I'll be honest and say that Human Revolution was my first introduction to the series and I didn't start PC gaming until late 2013. I didn't even play the first Deus Ex game until 2016 and it's sequel Invisible War until 2018. I'll admit that I did kind of like the story of Human Revolution when I first played, I thought Adam was an interesting character to some degree and I did kind of like the conspiracies it had in it's story or at least from what I remember. It came around a time where so many franchises had prequels and you couldn't go a year without there having at least one.

Now after playing Deus Ex 1 and IW, I have to say that as prequels, Human Revolution and Mankind Divided don't work at all. It adds in more retcons to the overarching narrative of it's series than the whole Big Boss saga of Metal Gear Solid. And none of these retcons are particularly compelling either.

For me while prequels tend to be hit or miss a lot of the time, I think 2 aspects of what makes one work are this: the first being that it should answer questions that the lore or the media property of that it's a prequel of has or it can recontextualize how you first saw see the said media property.

Does the Deus Ex prequels do either of these things? Well no. First of all, the character of Adam Jensen was never once mentioned in Deus Ex or IW. The closest thing to a possible mention is when Illumanted Saman mentions an "ideal individual" when talking to Alex D in IW and even then that is a vague detail at best. Is he clone of JC or Paul? Is he prototype for the augs that characters like Gunther Herman and Walton Simmons uses? Well I am not even sure. Then there is fact that his blood is supposed to be immune to the drug augmentations requires. If he has that why was this never mentioned in the other games? Why are the villains in HR or MD never mentioned in the games after? Or Janus? Or Sarif Industries? Okay yeah it has FEMA in it but the game never makes you think of them in a new light, they just a generic evil bad guy group to oppose the player. The only important details you get from these games are the scenes involving Bob Page and the Illumanti and even then they are short and brief and don't and a whole lot. Cliff Stephens is great in the role as he always is so I'll give Edios Montreal that they never recasted him. And the funny thing is, Bob Page is the only thing that really links these prequels to the original game(it's sequel was mostly ignored due to the hate it got). Also Megan Reed creating the Gray Death but once again the previous games never mention her either. Take out Bob Page, the Illumanti and to some degree Megan Reed and there's hardly anything that links HR and MD to the overarching series.

And then there is the overarching narrative of Adam trying to stop Bob Page and the Illumanti. Well, being spoiled is a topic that is much of for debate, I think playing Deus Ex 1 already makes the conflict of Adam trying to stop them already boring because if you beat that game, you know Bob Page and Majestic 12 were the ones to disband the Illumanti. Adam has nothing to do with it. So now Edios Montreal has put themselves in a weird situation, give an ending that everyone who played Deus Ex 1 sees coming and lacks dramatic force due to knowing how it's going to end or add further and more uninteresting retcons to the Deus Ex story just to create some degree of actual tension and to create actual consequences in these games but who knows now. Edios is too busy helping Crystal Dynamics making a cash in Avengers game.

Now I want to compare this to two game stories that I feel does the idea of the prequel correctly and also to much derided Star Wars prequels.

First I will compare this to Halo Reach, while Halo in it's games have never told an amazing story. I feel Reach does it's job as a prequel mostly well. It's mostly very consistent with the timeline of the Bungie games minus the armor powerups. First of all, let's start with how it's introduced(I know Halo the Fall of Reach book came out before the game but I am talking about how Reach is introduced into the series of games). In Halo 2, the Covenant are attacking earth and Commander Boone mentions that "this isn't even as big as half the force that wiped out Reach". With that line, it now steps up a possible prequel in the Halo universe dedicated to the Fall of Reach and how it happened and it's introduced organically into the lore. Then there is the greater implications of the game's events itself, while Halo Reach's story is far from amazing due to mostly dull characters outside of Jorge, the events of that game does make you view Halo CE in a new light. When you play Halo CE, it's basically just a crew of marines, an AI and supersolider finding a ring world that just so happens to be a doomsday weapon, and they have to stop it from being fired by the covenant and 343 Guilty Spark. It's a pretty basic step up. With Reach now added you know the sacrifices that were made to get Pillar of Autumn running into space and the amount of hardships that were done to make sure the Covenant does not wipe out humanity. How Noble Team and everyone on Reach sacrificed themselves to get the Cortana AI out and make sure there can be some warning to Earth. The whole game gives you the feel that Noble 6 is basically in a mission where they won't come out alive. And makes you view CE in a new light. This could be a lot more dramatic if the characters were more interestingly written but as a prequel it's surprisingly effective.

Now let's look at a game where it's consistent with it's a game and has good characters to boot, Call of Juarez in particular, Call of Juarez Bound in Blood. In the first game, there is a monologue by one of the playable characters, Ray McCall, on how he used to be a hard headed cowboy and how his rashness during a heated situation caused him to shoot one of his brothers while he bringing out a bible. This perfectly sets up the prequel that is Bound in Blood because it not only organically introduces an event that is established in the lore but also it makes you curious on what on earth could've gotten a man who is a preacher and shouts the name of god to do such a horrible thing. I played Bound in Blood first because I had a PS3 and when I played the first game afterwards, it made me appreciate that game greatly like a good prequel should.

Now, I am might get shit for this since back a decade ago, the Star Wars prequels were the most derided movies around. But a sub par movie trilogy and other questionable Star Wars media later, I think the prequels work as prequels quite well for the most part. I think it's mainly due to how George Lucas kept things intentionally vague in the original trilogy. Like for example, how did the jedi get wiped out? How did the Emperor get to power? How did Anakin fall to the dark side? What were the clones wars? How did the Emperor gain so much power to the point where he could dissolve the Imperial Senate? How did the Empire form? With all these questions in mind, saying the prequels were "pointless" is stupid because Lucas deliberately planned the idea of possibly making prequels as early as a New Hope. This isn't what Edios Montreal where they introduced retcons on and plot threads because they knew they appealing to an audience who don't PC game. Lucas at least knew he wanted to make prequels. And the thing with the prequels that I think really work if you just view the movies is that that all these questions get answered and there are no characters that get introduced that serve no purpose in the timeline later. Darth Maul(back in the Phantom Menace days), Count Dooku, General Grievous, and the rest of CIS are just pawns for the Emperor and nothing more. There's no character retcons like Adam Jensen and Megan Reed here. They are pawns to be disposed of and nothing more. There is one retcon of Boba Fett being a clone but I argue it made a character that is super overhyped more interesting but that is a topic for a different time.

All in all, I have rambled enough and I say this, Edios Montreal should've went with Crystal Dynamics' route with the Tomb Raider series because I tend to think of Deus Ex HR and MD as reboots in disguise more than prequels.

 

How Audience Plays a Role in Games in more than just Budget

 

How Audience Plays a Role in Games in more than just Budget

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This video has really got me thinking how much of a role an audience plays a role in the design of any game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc8hrXyG1xw&feature=emb_title

It's not just something to use to excuse why AAA gaming are being dummed down but it plays a role in how your game will be designed. Kingdom Hearts 2 has an interesting combat system but since the game is appealing to people who enjoy Disney, Final Fantasy players who might or might not actively play real time action games, people who like the shounen anime aesthetics and story and finally the people who want a good combat system and play it for the challenge. They have to design the game with all these things in mind so therefore all it's depth might not be found by all the players who play it.

Another example is the MGS series. There's different people who play MGS for different reasons, they like the story, the long cutscenes, the ficitional versus battle people to see how "tough" and "cool" the Snakes are against. With all these people Kojima has to appeal, not everyone is going to notice the gameplay details and crazy stuff and the "depth" the game has.

Compare to say Thief, Mark of the Ninja, and Splinter Cell, those games are primarily aimed at people who want an indepth stealth experience and when discussion with these games are involved, they tend to mostly mechanical, level design, overall gameplay focused. The less people to appeal to, the more people will notice everything a game has to offer and the devs will make design and put work around those design decisions.

People often bash Spidey PS4 and Batman Arkham for being "too easy", "too simplistic", and lacks the "depth of Devil May Cry", but the thing is, those games are licensed games and they also have to appeal to fans who like that license. People who purely read Batman and Spider-Man comics or view media with them and don't actively play games at all. I met up with someone recently who couldn't even beat the Arkham games on normal and had to play on easy. This is the trap licensed games will always fall into.

Then there is the CoD series. Yes, it constantly gets made fun of for recycling so much and barely having any innovation. But I'd argue one reason why the sps are so stale is because CoD has to appeal to two groups of people, ones who play it for the sp and the ones for the mp. Yes, the devs could easily overhaul the whole series' combat system and I really fucking wished they did but at the same time, would they really want to put in so much effort into a mode only a fraction of the player base will play? It's the trap CoD has been in for so long now.

Halo is an interesting one where it has multiple audiences but the series does in a way have discourse that is consistent. People will play the sp and mp but both seem to have consistent amount of effort put into both with the exception of 5. People who play Halo generally also play the sp, coop, mp and are really passionate for the story and lore too.

And yes, everyone is annoyed to death about the Sekiro "easy" mode debacle. The thing is, From's audience and the people they appeal want super challenging games and that's what they expect from them so From wants to make a game that they want. The easy mode to them shits all over everything they expect From Soft. It's just pointless adding an easy mode to a game where the design isn't even built around and to appeal to an audience that probably won't even play their game anyway.

"Audience" is not just something that be used to explain inflating budgets, but it plays a huge role in any game's design.

 

Why David Cage's "answer" to Game Overs don't Work and Comparison to Telltale

 

Why David Cage's "answer" to Game Overs don't Work and Comparison to Telltale

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Playing Detroit made me realize to some degree why Telltale's games are so scripted. Yes the latter should cut out the "this game is tailor made to how you play" crap. But with Detroit, the game just wastes your time for the first few chapters and then kills your character off in an anti climatic way just because you didn't have walkthrough in front of you during the "danger" sections. At least with Telltale games, a first time player can get the whole story on their first run while with Detroit, a section can catch you off guard and then you lose good chunk of story and then you got to do that section again and have a walkthrough this time. This isn't so much a "solution" to game overs as it is just wasting time and making you wish checkpoint restarts were in the game because removing the "gamey" elements makes the story a lot worse when compared to Telltale games and especially other mediums that David Cage is trying to emulate.

I have a lot of issues with the way Telltale does the "game" part of their "game" but at least they play to their strengths and have their stories be a universal experience and don't waste the player's time re doing sections with a walkthrough on hand.

Telltale games don't give you any reason to re visit and the first playthrough might as well be your last but David Cage's solution is to just have you replay sections and watch the same scenes until you stumble upon the best solution or just keep a guide with you at all times.

Then there is the fact that Detroit has an "easy mode" where characters can't die and you get the full experience no matter how much you fuck up. It's strange how what makes David Cage's game different from Telltale's games is that "choices do matter" but here, he is giving you the idea option to view the story. Now, if you fuck up, you won't get locked out of story sequences, and the story will play out as intended. So in a sense, David Cage is giving you the option to play it as a normal story without any of the pseudo game overs. So basically, all of this "flow chart" nonsense is basically just one big gimmick.