Tag Archives: Second Son

February 15, 2025 · 06:10

Doubts on self

We all have them, yet after a few confirmations I had over the last few days I am hit with self-doubt. I think it is natural for me to have them. You see, to merely contemplate my thoughts, I tend to doubt everything, even my self. As I do that I redesign the ideas I have and further optimize them. This is how I roll. I always try to improve the ideas I see and have, there is always better. As I call whatever I create ‘good’, I know that there is always ‘better’, just out of reach. When you do not take that approach you will soften and others will pass you by with your IP. I think that is why I always try to improve all settings in gaming in my mind. Is there an exception? Yes, of course there is. I cannot vouch for every game to give it the ‘approved’ setting. As such I was too unimpressed with Infamous: Second Son. There are sides that unimpressed me towards a rating slightly less then good. Even though the storytelling in that game is nothing short of sublime. The setting and a lot of elements are exceptional, if it wasn’t for the linearity of the game. The game would have been an easy 90% game. So what is the exception of a game? Well I am not the ‘choice’ on that ruling, but I played a game again which I haven’t touched since its release in 2016, remade from the 2002 original. That game is as close as perfect as a game gets. And my joy feeling I had when replaying that game last week for almost 6 hours straight until I realized it was close to midnight. Insomniac Games really did a piece of fine work on that and it is clear that it deserved all the ratings that was between 80 and 90 percent. The game has layers of achievements and you need to replay levels more than once to get all the goodies. Do not forget that it was mostly OK (the 2002 version) and that was on the Playstation 2, a system that is three generations old. As such the game is pretty fantastic. 

Loss
This game also leaves me with a feeling of loss. Why aren’t more games with this feeling? It seems that most games are about the hip, the adrenaline. Not the joy of gaming. Even Sony has made this mistake in their games. Lets be clear there games are mostly awesome, yet the joy of gaming is leaving us. If I get the sentiment correctly Astro Bot (2024) is the one exception to this (I still haven’t played it). Personally for me Hogwarts Legacy (2023) was the last game where the joy of gaming was abundant. It might be me, but I think that whilst gaming firms are leaving it all to business majors, they forgot about the joy of gaming and that is making me sad. And in this the only exception is Nintendo. Not sure what their setting is, but as I see it joy is the larger component to anything they do and they do it well. 

So what brings this around. You see, in all my reengineering I often forget about joy, the joy of gaming. I see it and I recognize it, but I don’t follow that path myself. I cannot cater to joy, merely the exceptional need to make the better game. It is a failing in me and I see that. 

This also reflects on most things I do. Although I focus on the engineering side of things, I see that the joy part in anything we do is essential. It isn’t merely gaming, it is all we do that requires the joy of more and that is sad.

Reflection
That reflection also hits the Russian side of the Ukraine war. You see, we are made from sterner stuff, unlike the pussies in Washington DC stating “U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that NATO membership for Ukraine was unrealistic and suggested Kyiv should abandon hopes of winning all its territory back from Russia and instead prepare for a negotiated peace settlement to be backed up by international troops” (source: AP News). This is the response of a near bankrupt nation that seemingly puts the words of Wall Street as the go getter sentiment. All whilst 11 hours ago we are given “A senior U.S. official on Thursday said the United States had not ruled out potential NATO membership for Ukraine or a negotiated return to its pre-2014 borders, contradicting comments made this week by the U.S. defense secretary ahead of possible peace talks to end the Ukraine war.” (Source: Reuters) As I personally see it different people take a different look at Wall Street politicking their money views against what is right and Russia is a problem for everyone. If only DARPA had taken my word seriously. You see as I see it, the nuclear solution I had for Saudi Arabia, which would take Iran’s nuclear aspirations to their basement was based on Russian nuclear reactors. As such works for party B as easy as party A. And in my (perhaps incorrect view) when Russia gets a second meltdown Russia would need to divert too many resources to their own reactors and Russian armies come to a stand still. Yes Ukraine does plenty of damage, but until summer it is electricity Russia desperately needs and when 46 reactors (plus one on meltdown) are on lockdown their sense of freezing changes and that stops a lot of actions. Call me superstitious, but I believe that Russians prefer freezing over glowing in the dark. But that could just be me. You see, this reflects on the gaming sentiment over warfare as warfare is not about joy. Wall Street will reflect on the essential need of joy, which comes from victory. But Russia left that feeling behind by getting beat by the 20th largest army in the world. When you try to improve things you also gain the ability to make things a lot worse through the view of what was not found. The flaws of a system allows for certain improvements of a personal nature and what is more fun than seeing a Russian reactor melting down? So whilst politicians volley about what ends a war as it is said in Euro News as “The new US Secretary of Defence has categorically ruled out granting NATO membership to Ukraine as a security guarantee to end Russia’s war.” A statement he had to walk back a mere 11 hours ago. So how settled is this new American administration on claims? Their one win seems to be the Gulf of America. As far as I can tell the tariffs on Canada and Australia are being met with consideration and that is igniting the Commonwealth a lot stronger than ever before. 

So what do these two things have to do with one another?
That is a valid question and there is no clear answer. There are too many optional answers, but my take is that a game creator has no funds and it trying to make it work, America has little to no funds left and is trying to make that work too and in some funny way it is appeasing Russia to make their budgets work and in this it is laughable that the Republicans are appeasing towards Russia, a sight that they tend to blame Democrats for.

And now Canada is shelving American goods and I reckon Australia is merely one step away from that as well as setting the purchasing need on Canadian goods. America has merely made things harder for themselves (This could be my wrongly view on matters). 

So in the end we merely need to doubt self to some degree and see what we can do to make it better for us and I understand that America does what is best for Americans. In that same feeling Canadians and Australians need to do what is best for their nations as well as the Commonwealth. That is the uniting side of the matter. Will it bring joy? It is too early to tell, but appeasing Russia and President Putin will not bring any joy, of that you can be certain.

Have a great and peaceful day and try to make life a little better for yourself.

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February 11, 2025 · 04:32

There is always a script

It seems that we are decently obsessed with series and movies based on video games. And there is plenty to be seen. In 2024 we got the first setting of the serialification (this might not be a real word) of the game and now applauded series Fallout. And there is plenty to applaud on this series. You see, this first season got 12 wins & 73 nominations. As such it was recognised on a global scale. So Fallout has broken the mould on a few levels. We will soon see a second season of The last of us. And there are a few more coming. There are mentions of Beyond Two Souls, a game based on the exploits Ellen Page (now Elliot Page) and had contributions of Willem Dafoe, Kadeem Hardison and Eric Winter. The game was quite excellent and I look forward to seeing the result on TV. 

And what else?
That is what this blog is about. You see, there is a game that was released in 2014, the title was Infamous: Second Son. I rated the game as average. I still do. Yet it was gameplay that hindered the high score. Metacritic gave it 80% (I gave it 75%). The game starts really good, it is after the first fight into Seattle that the issue starts. The game is too linear for a game of this style, there was initial an issue with the side missions, something that was fixed, but the linearity and the fact that the second power was too strong that made me give the rating as low as I did.

Still, the game had amazing sides too. The story was amazing on nearly every level. The power that you receive in the beginning was awesome. The other powers are really good too, but neon (second power) was overly strong. I would have switched Neon and video around and adjust the story (more like tweaking) and it would shape into a massive hit for the Sony studios. The funny part was that when the game came out I had never heard of this person named Banksy, as such the graffiti could be a nice edge on the storyline. 

Is that it?
Well yes, it is the recognition that the game had amazing properties that could easily turn into a TV series. For the horror/terror fans there is the notion of Prototype where Alex Mercer (you) is the target and the goal is finding out what happened. I particularly liked the achievement to drive over 65536 infected people and that is quite the grind. The story is captivating and the presumed special effect could be next level. There are legions of other games that could glue people to the TV and as ‘Hollywood’ seems to be running out of ideas the gaming solutions could propel them further. And as Sony is also streaming programs to the people they might look into the games they have. As I see it, plenty of options there. And that is the golden ticket for some. These games are propelling the stages to TV for a lot of actors and actresses. A setting that seemingly have been overlooked. And me? I am still watching whether Shogun will come to Blu-ray to Australia. (And a few more). So we should expect a new level of interaction between TV and gaming. I wonder who will bring it and what they will bring.

Have a great day.

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January 28, 2025 · 03:17

No stopping the reengineer

Yup, It is as we see it. When you are able to reengineer there are a lot of issues that your brain is trying to work out. I started yesterday and in a few hours I thought through a new selfie stick. The one I have now is good, but it was meant for more, for the selfie filmer and as such it is a little too bulky for the noob selfie maker that I am. I reckon I have about a dozen selfies collected over the period of 3-4 years. Not much to write home about, yet I feel the a selfie stick is essential for nearly anyone, as such I came up with a new selfie stick. And in the gaming section I reengineered Infamous: Second Son. The game has issues and a few more seem to crop up on the PS5. I rated the game as average when it was released. Let me explain.

The game starts AWESOME. It hit all the right spots and the smoke power was pretty unique to say the least. It doesn’t show it’s tail until the second act comes into play and the laser power comes into play. That power was too strong and after that the game becomes too linear and slightly dreary. And it was a shame, the elements of the game are awesome, the storyline is good and the setting (Seattle) is also a strong setting (My introduction towards Seattle). The game has a great setting, it was the linearity that mostly got to me.

The second setting (a mere idea) was the switch of power 2 and three switching. So the TV power first and Laser third. When the larger fight starts (concrete) the game sizzles. The idea that the power is used to repair the city and make it like before the conduits (Bio-terrorists) came to Seattle. 

It requires some switching in the storyline but for the most the story lines could remain in the act the are meant for. The smaller issue is the linearity of the good and evil powers and to mix them up all over town. There would be a little more requirement for the game, but those were the heart-line of the matter. There is the additional setting that with the TV powers you would get a larger setting towards stealth and that was optionally missing in the game. The setting that after the first act you could subdue your opponents in stealth and there would also be the added tension that the enemies would be massively more powerful against the TV power and that could spell problems for the gamer if they rely on stealth too much. All small things but it would set the game from a 75% (I think that was how I rated it) to a solemn 92%. As ‘glitches’ go, the fact that the troops at tomes seem to merely run back and forth and not much action from there. The second thing I noticed (now) was that you see troops with blazing guns (when they are a little further from you) yet no bullets and no tracking (of ammunition), but this is a minor glitch. 

I think it pays to do this as the game is worthy of the update that comes and to get the rating that much higher would be worth it, it would also mean that it optionally gets a streaming update for the Amazon Luna and like kind systems. 

The Banksy part of the game is awesome and still fun after having completed the game at least three times (I only learned of Banksy after I had completed the game). I also ‘thought’ through a setting for a 4th Infamous which I blogged about a few years ago. There I also set a new premise to the powers. You see, I grew up with the teachings of Mendel and as such I thought that the game could be set to two phases, the first is that Delsin gets his powers (like you play), but now he get a girlfriend and he gets busy (as mentioned in the Incredibles) the setting is that he has the choice of 4-6 girlfriends (three good and three evil) and the child will be the 4th game and his or her power will be based on the powers of the parents and that gives us a whole new range of replay choices. And as the child selects good or evil will also set the powers the child has differently as well as the karma settings of the game. It was a thought that kept me awake for hours, but in the end I found the setting that would be a productive one. I also set the stage that the New Second son would also set the premise of the meet and ‘greet’ and the actual sequel would be in Vancouver (as It is close to Seattle) the game would be close to be playable but now we have a new goal as the child will have predestined powers and as such the game needs a second antagonist to make sure that certain game elements would remain possible and that takes a few cogs to work overtime so that the inherited powers are usable and an interaction with the second protagonist would still be a challenge. 

Just my skull making the candy for gaming. Well that is it for now have a great day.

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May 10, 2023 · 02:35

New IP on the fly

I got here a few hours ago. The setting starts with a rerun of Heroes season 1. I hadn’t seen it for a while, as such rewatching it was a good idea. Whilst watching it a few cogs started to turn. And for clarity this is all free for Sony and Amazon Luna developers (lets screw over Microsoft one more time). You see, in the beginning of the PS4 there was Infamous Second Son. 

I gave that good leaning towards average. Now, this needs explanation. The first is the start of the game which is amazing, the story is from beginning to end really good and Seattle was a great idea. The graphics were good leaning towards great, so why the score? There were a few issues. 

In the first the game is massively linear, you don’t realise it, but it takes steam out of a game that could have been great. In the second the linearity is numbing after a while. The third is the second part here you acquire the neon power is so powerful that you will rely on it until the end of the game. It was an awesome power, but the linearity of the game will allow you to maximise that power from the start. The side missions (the red and blue tasks) are in one area and it is the same repetition on every island. They didn’t take 3 (or 6) tasks on every area, no one per area. And the last part is the concrete power is never explored, it is merely there and when you get it, you have enough points to maximise it right of the bat and you never get to explore with that power new options in the city. It all makes or a bland end result. To add insult to injury, I did the Expert version in one go, something I normally never get to do, making it too easy overall. 

This nagged me when I was watching Heroes, the cogs starting to turn and this is what I came up with.

Infamous: Teams
Let the title not confuse you, it is a one player game, but I decided to take a twist in another direction, fuelling replay option again and again. In this version you control 6 people, but one at a time. We can set powers later and we could take a grasp at powers later, this is about the idea. You play one at the time and you only get to select the gender of the first character. There are three man and three women. The first one you select gender, but the system will assign one of the three to you in the first part. You learn the skill and you enhance the skill, but here is the kicker. There are a dozen places where you enter a place, or enter a location and you see on the screen something happen that involves a super powered being/mutant and that is the moment you switch to that next person. There is one setting, if you start with one gender, the next person will be the other gender (story related) and that drives us to to settings. The stories are separate but to some degree created by the system, as such we could play new games for a while and the story is unlikely the same story. The second is good and evil. You get a choice to once select that in the first character. The good will hug, or connect the heads, evil will push their fingers into the skull of the other and syphon the power killing the person. My version of Petrelli versus Sylar. It is then that the game changes. You create a sort of copy of THEIR powers whilst it also enhances YOUR powers. The good will deprive the powers leaving the person a normal, whilst the evil part kills the other making you more wanted. In case of the good there is a second setting, there is not always a choice, as such in one case a car (or elevator) pushes them together, on another case she gives him a passionate hug pushing her powers into him and so on and the nice part is that we can design a dozen ways and you will get different events per game. Linearity and expected thresholds are now avoided, something most games do not have. The idea is that as a team both get more powerful, as such there is no gain immediately grabbing the power of the other one. If we relate this to Second son, we would enhance smoke with video, not merely have two powers. In the beginning smoke will become faster and more powerful, yet after the merge with video, there would a static smoke and EMP smoke, but now in a setting with 6 new powers and that is when the mix becomes interesting. When power one becomes a second tier, the third power will be different again. Now you have a whole new range of issues and it will affect how you play the game. The video power allowed for invisibility, but in the game you seldom used it. I want to change that and with these 6 new powers It is the challenge to find a balance of stealth and full on clobbering (sorry thing). I have not decided on a location, but I feel driven to make it Amsterdam (I made at least one other game Amsterdam too). Because Amsterdam has its canals, there is a water element through the city (freeze, fish take your pick). 

With the power mix above I show how it works to some degree, the second adds green (blue and yellow) but the third is orange making brown (orange and green). This gives a new setting, you see the third influences the second and adds power, but in that random setting the game when a new game is played could play out a lot different. Especially when we add mental or passive powers. No game (as far as I can tell) has ever done this before. And whilst Amsterdam had my first preference, the location is not set in stone, I merely wanted a place that was not used before giving the international players a new place to explore.

The story of Second Son was pretty good, but we will need a new story, we actually need 6 new stories and that is the rub too, one of the 6 is the main character, but the others have their stories and they mix. A new challenge not seen before to this degree. And this is the 4th game I put online, whilst Microsoft spending billions currently has nothing to show for it, actually they do. According to Forbes, Redfall is in the top 15 worst reviewed games. So how many billions did they spend on that company? Evil laughter starts now and I will put more ideas here, good times for Amazon Luna and Sony, not that much for Microsoft, but that is how the cookie crumbles. 

Enjoy the day.

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February 10, 2022 · 11:15

Out with the old?

It is a saying and I have heard it many times. Out with the old, in with the new. Yet in the world of media as an aggregated whole, that saying does not make much sense. For a few reasons my attention came back to Infamous:Second son I gave it an 83% rating when it initially launched (and I stand by that). You see, the game has brilliant and spectacular moments. In all but one setting it is close to brilliant. The one setting is linearity and in a near open world it is worse than a death curse. Linearity makes everything too predicable and that was the short coming of that game. It starts brilliant, the brother setting, the awakening of being a conduit and the power of smoke. It was amazing and until the second power comes into play it is all great, after that the party sizzles and linearity sets in. But that first area in Seattle is just grand. Then I thought what to do and I do not need to do anything, but Sony might. Consider that the game has a good and a bad setting. What if Reggie didn’t had a brother, but twins Delsin Rowe and Darren Rowe. One goes good, the other bad and that becomes a much larger story, one for the TV or whatever streaming service Sony has. They already own the IP, so that would not stop them and the setting could be larger, not larger in the stage, but it could give Seattle more than Amazon and Frasier (to opt an idea). The setting in the game was great and the antagonist Augustine was better thought up than most other antagonists in TV world. They both get the stage to clean Seattle each in their own way and there we need to set the station where the good one wins the concrete powers (and cleans up the streets and heals the reservation victims), as well as open up a much larger conversation. Can we separate people who are different? You see, Augustine is seen as evil, but her motives were pretty pure (from her point of view) and even as the game never went into that, the TV series might just do that and to be honest, the powers we saw in that game were freakin awesome. 

I am a little surprised that no one had thought of that track with a game that was optionally much larger than we all thought it could be. Especially as studios are vying for streaming successes. Sony has a few IP’s in stock that they could alter in many ways and Infamous:Second Son is merely one of them.

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August 24, 2020 · 02:35

A day of rest

Yup, we all have them and to be honest, not because it is Sunday, but because I wanted to contemplate that I had finished my 1500th story on Saturday, to be honest, I never thought I would get that far. So today I relaxed and considered things, at some point I ate 2 dozen King Mackerels and I also at 3 dozen people (playing Man Eater on PS4), a game that was a lot more fun than I expected it to be, and lets be fair, who wouldn’t want to be a shark, I wanted to be one since June 20th 1975, I don’t think the Steven Spielberg had that in mind when he made the movie, but we all have triggers and the VIC-20 brought out a few dark sides in me too. The game is fin, I have put aside Jedi, Fallen order for a week at present, it is not a reflection on the Jedi game, because it looks good and I enjoy the game, it is to show just how much fun Man Eater is. There is a growing sense that games like JFO are losing ground. It is not their fault, they did nothing wrong. It seems that with the stronger systems the option growing in players that we are all seeking a more sandbox approach. Dying Light, Alien: Isolation, Gotham Knight, Shadow of War, all games that are doing better because of the open game approach, even if it merely seems to be the case. Now with the PS5 (and the Microsoft alternative) we see the drive to open gaming. Still, we need to be careful what we embrace, because it is a dangerous step. Even as some embrace Second Son, a Superpunch creation, the game lost out as it was too linear, a game that had the setting to be legendary, because slightly better than average, not because of the graphics, not because of the story, but the execution needed work, the fact that I was able to complete the game in a little over a day in hard mode is in support of that view. It gave me the idea to come up with Infamous: Adulthood, a game that continues on Second Son, sets it in a much larger stage of Seattle (as that was where the previous game was). I took a different avenue (because that is how I roll), I like deployability, a game is not something that you play once, but there must be a drive to do that, taking a page from another design, I set the game map to a 900% of the previous one, so if the map was 3 miles each side, it would not be 9 miles each side. From 3 by 3 to 9 by 9 is quite the change. But the map is merely the first part. The idea is to continue a generation later (because the game was nicely set), Delsin Rowe is now an older man, he met a girl Dyani and she was a conduit too, she had the same ability that Delsin had and ended up with different powers they settled and had a family. This is the first tier choice, you can choose boy or Girl, the boy will be named Reggie, the girl will be named Betty, yet the powers with which they get (only two) will be set to a stage, the first power will be one of one of 4 random the boy gets it from the father the girl from the mother, the second power is 75% from the gender parent 25% from the other one. So here is the first reason to replay the game, you get different and new powers. The story will set the stage where the player gets the other 2 powers. To this stage the story doesn’t change, yet how to go about it does. I wanted to add the stage that the other two powers will be depending on whether the person has a good or an evil karma, so the offensive power of fire is for Evil, the power of water will be for good (just a thought, fire is not evil, the flames told me so themselves), The second one is in the air, I wanted to set a larger stage again. To avoid the linearity of the game, I wanted change, so we still might want some linearity to make things easier, but I wanted to avoid that cleaning a region gives you enough power to upgrade to the max from the beginning. To this effect we see a new stage, the good cannot destroy CCTV, as such the police can be a much larger stage to deal with. The evil choice gets additional criminals attacking them, whilst the police attacks them too, The storyline will be a larger challenge, I needed to consider missions that can be adjusted for the powers available. An idea is that as the powered are free, some are criminals, some are not and others are living in silence hiding their abilities. As such missions for 4 additional powers needed to be created. (2 good, 2 evil), optionally one will be neutral, but that is the stage. I had the idea of creating a storyline that is slightly more dripped in ambiguity than previously considered. So when considering the powers, we need 4 for Dyani and 4 that are optionally gained. I came up with Fire, Water, Acid, Air, Paper, Glass (the last two were mentioned in Second Son), and beyond the elemental is time, telekineses and projection. There might be more, but there is no stage to set it yet. The danger is that in Second Son the first power was cool, it can across as creative and it had limitations, Laser (second power) was too strong, basically when I had it, I only used that one for most of the game, so I wanted to make sure that each power had a serious setback, making relying on one power a bad idea. There is the idea to add powers like Flight or teleportation, but the powers that were in the game and climbing to the top was not overly negative. Then there are the positive parts, the spray can option was awesome, it was original, and looked great, but I do not want repetition, I considered that both good and evil had options, so the idea of the paper power allows the player to set posters to illuminate issues, yet if the person does not get that power, we need an alternative in Smoke (charcoal image), Laser (Draw), Video (override transmission) and Concrete (sculpt). In addition there is the need to create passive abilities, even as we see the stage where we use one power, or the other power, we could be actively using one power, whilst the other power passively works too, it is a harder stage, but it feels more real for the player. For the same reason where we didn’t get to use the concrete power, I want to make sure that the stage of all powers is there and an application of practical use too. 

To set that stage we need to create a sort of infrastructure, just like a normal real city, we have regions, the police has a city and area setup, but so do criminals and they are not the same, in addition, we see the approach of others (not trying to give away too much) and they to have their own maps and infrastructure. Setting a city in such a stage makes a linear approach much harder and optionally not possible. A setting where a region can be ‘cleaned’ but not until all 4 powers are there, and in some way, the stage needs to be that some issues cannot be solved (not the right power) and as such, the only thing that the player can do is limit damage, a stage we often forget. Yes, we all understand that there is a line we walk on when we play a game, but what happens, when that line is intersecting and the player gets the option to turn left or right? Sandbox games tend to have a much better realisation to make that happen and I believe that in next generation systems a push towards sandbox approach will give the player a much better and more entertaining approach to solving the puzzle giving them. Even as we all push towards the a game like Prototype and the need to drive a tank over the masses to get the 65,536 kills, but long before you get to the 40K cadaver mark, the grinding set in and the fun diminishes. That is the other side of sandbox gaming. When a game stops being linear there are more issues to consider, more options for glitches and an optional bug or two, so there is more to consider and isolation in programming tends to be a non-option. Isolation has benefits, but there is a much larger stage of other issues hitting the environment, there is more to consider programming and that is where the rails tend to come off. This is not a good thing, but I focus on the creativity, not on the technical stag of the game, I can create, I suck at programming (beyond standard stations of it), as such the re is a stage where my idea of creation will surpass programming, but that is good, when you skate on the fringe of technology magic is created, Go back in time and see the games that truly broke the mould, they all surpassed what was imagined to be possible at the time (Minecraft with the obvious exception), we all see what is possible and a game will expand the mind when it is in a stage where it seems impossible. Guns of the Patriots and the Last of us are the examples that set the stage of the PlayStation 3,  MGS4: Guns of the patriot did so in the beginning of the console and set unparalleled borders with several critics giving the game a 100% rating, and the Last of Us repeating the same setting at the end of the PlayStation 3 lifecycle receiving even more 100% ratings. That was not because it was cool, it was because the game was as close to a game that should not even exist on that console, to surpass the boundaries of what was possible, soon we will get a similar setting on sandbox games, creating the near impossible making the player skate on the edge of what is possible in gaming and it is a hard sell, even as we see “Within seven days of its release, The Last of Us sold over 1.3 million units”, it ended up selling 17,000,000 units. There is a reason why Ubisoft is at present with the consideration of ‘At best unremarkable, at worst unplayable, Ghost Recon Breakpoint is 2019′s worst game’ (source: Washington Post), It all starts with creativity and imagination, then we get proper programming and testing, as I personally see it Ubisoft failed 4 times over, as such it is important to set the bar of creativity as high as possible, a stage too often underestimated. So whilst Ubisoft still seemingly hides behind “There are five AC Valhalla editions available”, with the optional extra “Each one of the Valhalla editions offers a different pack of bonuses and additional perks on top of the base game”. We need to remind the makers that we need one game and an optional collectors edition that could have art, noise (soundtrack) and doohickey (statue), I am not opposed to a season pass, yet in my personal view it is that some of the makers see this as an excuse to deliver a 85% game and charge additional for the 15%, whilst I see it that the season pass would be a setting to add to the game giving us 115% of gaming. In this I need to reflect on the Desperado 3 limited edition, it is awesome (I do not have it), I got the game when I could and I love it, but the collectors edition ($80 more) gives a music box, with the five playable figurines interchangeable, an art book, the soundtrack and postcards. It looked really cool. Some will love it, some will not care, and I get that, but in what universe should we diminish playing quality? I also get that some will give out skins as a premium for some preorder and I am fine with that, yet they should become available for all and games like Gotham Knight offered just that down the line as free downloads. It seems to me that these game marketeers are all about creating hypes aiming towards what they call “For the most loyal and fanatic fans of the franchise”, whilst they have no issue charging well above 300%, all whilst they are currently in a stage where they have not proven that they can deliver a game that is worth 100% of the charges of a normal game, Breakpoint took care of that rather nicely. Metacritic gives Ubisoft a present an average career score of 69%, and we do need to distinguish that AC Odyssey is set to a mere 60%, Breakpoint got a mere 58%, so am I wrong? I believe not, although Ubisoft could have avoided a lot of issues by properly testing the games before release. Different games, different ratings, but the stage is set with the creativity of the person thinking up the game. Getting another Second Son game is not the worst plan, but it needs to deal with linearity, it was the biggest drawback in the game. I think that overall that is not a bad setting to have, The game is said to have sold over a million copies which is good, yet when we set this against the two legendary games, one selling 17 million copies, I believe that there is room to wow the people, I am not underestimating the realm that MGS had already created, but the Last of Us was a totally new IP, I believe that a near perfection driven SuckerPunch has more to offer and I can’t wait to see what they come up with in the PS5 era, if Ghost of Tsushima is anything to go by, I say that we haven’t seen anything yet. So let the PS5 and the good times come. And in the mean time, I will focus my creativity a bit more.

There are limits to a day of rest, the walls at present look good enough to eat. 

 

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July 7, 2014 · 10:32

Story about a game!

This all started with a video blog. It can be found at Gamespot and it is given by Danny O’Dwyer in a segment called ‘the point’ (at http://www.gamespot.com/videos/the-point-is-marketing-killing-the-wonder-of-games/2300-6420070/).

He hit an interesting snare with the topic of over marketing and I agree. When I started to think this through, I also got to the point that it is not all about the marketing side of that caper, but another side to the ‘lack of wonder’ as he put it in gaming. He was talking to someone from an upcoming game called ‘No man’s sky‘, the man is a Minecraft fan, which pretty much had my attention from the very beginning.

You see, gaming has become too much about getting to the end of the track with an added need to get achievements. Too many games are a chase. Minecraft is all about just having fun. It is virtual LEGO at its very finest; this awakens the creators in us, which is always a great thing. The issue ‘missed’ (which might be the wrong term) is that one side in the lack of gaming wonder (as I see it) is an off-set between freedom and storyline. It is the combination that has always drawn me to gaming, which makes me a sucker for any decent RPG.

Minecraft does not have any story, but it counters this with an amazing amount of freedom and exploration. I am not stating that Minecraft needs a story, but as we get the freedom to explore, discover and do whatever we feel like, the impact of a story is less of a factor. As freedom moves away (like towards a Call of Duty or a Ghost Recon), the story becomes more and more important. Some get it right (the Mass Effect series and The Last of Us), where the story drives us, whilst we get a limited amount of freedom to do whatever we like, or we get added parameters (challenges), many get it decent (Far Cry & Tomb Raider) not to mention, Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriot, which is still one of the best games of its kind, even a whole console generation later. Some lose out a little as I personally see it (Call of Duty & Halo), but these games counter it with another extra, which I will get back to shortly. Against these games are the open games like Oblivion, Fallout, Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim, where there is a decent story, yet the additional openness of the game makes a massive impact.

There are a few that lose massive points, because they got the story kind of right, but then the game-play, linearity and the lack of insight suddenly made what could be a massive hit, but got to be no better than mediocre as I see it. In this category we see games like Thief and Second Son (Infamous3).

Second Son is the strongest in that regard, as I see it; the game was over-hyped and over marketed. The game starts really nice, then after a while the designer gets sloppy. The evidence as I see it? Consider that you cleaned the first Island and as your smoke powers grew, you got decently into the story, at some point you get the 3rd power (video), instead of reopening the first island, adding additional challenges and added missions, perhaps even adding more laser and speed missions (2nd power), maximising the power of video, you continue on the linear path to the conclusion of the game. In addition, instead of actually giving added powers to the concrete power by adding challenges for cleaning the city or removing the concrete power out of the soldiers, the game pretty much ends and the concrete power actually becomes kind of ‘lame’, the one power you coveted the most is the one power you can happily do without.

It is that lack that is also killing the wonder in games and gaming. It is a sloppy side.

I mentioned Halo and Call of Duty. These games survive on the challenge of multi-player and that is fine, but I think that these gamers could get a boost of gaming if the story was something you could get through, or even explore a little, instead of run through to the end. Perhaps that is not what they want, which is fair enough, but the reception that Far Cry 3 got (including from me), gives a little strength to the view I personally have. I admit that not all gamers will agree here. In addition, I will reopen the talks on multi-player. Most gamers who are into this side, love (and demand) a good multi-player side to the game. I have never been a Halo fan, but I hear good things about it, some games have a massive downturn in multi-player gaming. In that regard, it is Assassin’s Creed and Tomb Raider that are the worst of them. You see, I believe that things either are balanced or they get an edge, having neither is a bad thing. With these two games, I have tried several times and when you start as a level 1 person, getting stacked against level 50 people, only to get stuck in a bottle neck with opposing you mini guns, one shot killing bows and people with 2-3 bonus skills, you know that the makers missed out and soon thereafter most will have had enough. In opposition I would like to mention God of War, which had an amazing multi-player mode. I was really impressed. You go 4 against 4 and you might have a weapons edge, or not, the fact that it is about the group achievement, you still get some points and soon thereafter you become an equal and even an asset in the multi-player version. A game like that invites multi-player and entices players to get out and do it multi style, which is how it should be. The last one to mention here is Mass Effect 3, which I consider to be the greatest multi-player game of all time. You go in groups of four, you go against a decent AI (at times an overwhelming one) and you go into maps you might have already seen. The options to improve the skills of the characters, the weapons, and armour by playing and buying upgrades is just too much fun. It is the most addictive multi-player form I have ever experienced. I met some of the best players ever. At one point I reached the top 2% of the multi-players, considering that there are over 1.2 million Mass Effect 3 players is just an AWESOME feeling! In all that time, the multi-player remained true to the story (given is that it is just to kill enemies, how wrong can you go) and true to the atmosphere of the game. In Mass Effect 3, it was NEVER about the multi-player, which makes it all even better.

I feel that gaming could move up a notch, not because of the nextgen in consoles, but because the developers will pay better and more attention to the story they hand out.

Even though we all still enjoy a game of Galaga at times, a game that was never about the story and all about zapping the baddies.Most of us will always love to have at least one game like that. I got Scribble Shooter and it is great fun! It is about the other 24 games we buy and we must consider that the next 5-8 years of all franchises will be about the IP (Intellectual Property), making a better story part of the mix will only bind us stronger to the game of our choice, which is one thing the developer will love.

In the end we the gamer win and through this so will the developer!

 

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