A List of Games Attempted: Feburary 2021
Herein is a list of games I tried or am trying, and had thoughts upon, despite not beating them - if they can be beaten at all.
Hitman 3 (PS4)
Ah, Hitman. Since 2016, IO Interactive has been expanding their WORLD OF ASSASSINATION, a stupid name for a magical platform for levels, leveling up, and being a bald ass goofball who is also an apex predator of the murder world. I've played every Hitman in bits and bobs since its first release in the, what, late 90s? I recall a conversation with a friend who liked the game (but a friend who would not be a friend for much longer as puberty's demands for popularity rather than, uh, talking about PC games) despite its flaws, and how PC Gamer gave it a C, which is good! It's a good score! It tried to do what it did, and sorta did it.
Looking back, nooooo it didn't. I think there was some moral outcry about the game, since it is about murder, but also they then went on to make 2, Contracts, Blood Money, and Absolution. I have fond memories of cheating my way through Contracts and Blood Money, and vague memories of Absolution being kinda bad.
But this game isn't bad. It's great. It controls like a dream and with the expansion of leveling and giving you tools/costumes to better cheat the game, they finally found the sweet spot. See, it's not really a game about assassination. It's about coming up with a plan about how to navigate through a digital clock, where little AI idiots move along their paths according to their code (which it always was). But now, it's so smooth to navigate and make it work...gosh, I love it. You can knock a man out with a banana, stuff him in a locker, take his outfit, then walk up to the target and blammo with a knife to the head. Or you can use that banana to make the target slip in front of the emergency parachutes to jump from the skyscraper, killing him instantly. Or you can do a million other bizarre and fun things, all of which are permitted if you can manage it, and some of which are straight up described or hinted by the game.
Hitman wants you to have fun, to succeed. It feels great.
And since this is the end of this series (for the moment), I am savoring this, by maxing out each level before moving forward. Right now, I'm on Berlin, at level mastery level 13/20? It'll be a bit, but I am LOVING this, and taking my sweet time, doing a run to complete some challenge when I need to feel extremely skilled at food poisoning bikers to gain entry to a warehouse. I'd like some more.
Apex Legends (PS4)
I have missed a regular shooter. In a past life, I would always have a shooter on standby, something I popped into for 30 minutes or an hour here and there, leveling some metagame, but mostly just doing a few cool shots, or getting destroyed by a try-hard, and then putting it away.
Apex filled this role for quite some time over the last two years, and with the new season, I popped back in, and fell hard for it all over again! Much has been written about this, probably the best and most respectful free-to-play game and probably the best battle royale game, but what I love about it is particular. Yes, I love the writing, the character designs and quips, the writing! in a BR game!, and I love the feel of the gameplay, how snappy it feels all the time, and I love the ping system, which is so goddamned intuitive it should be taught as a master class in UI interactivity design. Those are great things about this game that others have taken note of, and continued along with.
But what I love most about Apex is that it respects your time. It loads quickly to the main menu, pops you into a game quickly, and the game M O V E S! In a match, you can get rocked quickly, but if you exercise even a modicum of intelligence, you can start right, play a 20-30 minute match, and get all the highs and lows of looting, shooting, and running the hell away. You can trick another player into a trap, or fall into one yourself. You can suddenly find yourself in the final 3 squads, then crush it for a surprise win, or sweat your way to the final ring and lose over a small blotch of terrain protecting an enemy from a final killing bullet.
Apex is a game that, win or lose, I enjoy it, and with the least loading, waiting, and blerghing. It is a wonderful thing, and I'd like some more, although it has taken a second seat to the uh juggernaut mentioned below. Also, it'll be on Switch soon! Will it be good? Maybe! We'll see!
Bravely Second: End Layer (3DS)
Well, turns out, it is up to snuff, but then, it also isn't! Mechanically, it is more of the BD formula: the job system of FF games, expanded and made wild, with Brave/Default in combat, allowing you to defense & save extra turns, or burn many extra turns at once. And with the options to increase your difficulty by chaining battles, it is a please to grind and max out a job or two (I will have much more to say about grind in Rising Order of Operations, that series I'm workin' on).
Story-wise? It's uh. Sorta bad. I didn't love the first BD (though Clemps' video on the story of BD reminded me that, oh yeah, it is sorta special both in itself and as a meta-commentary on the game, but also as a sorta anime mess), and this picks up after. Which it didn't need to do! Everyone's stories were wrapped up, but now, we're seeing them again (minus Ringabel (RIP Ringabel, or rather, See you in the next Dimension, Ringabel)). Tiz is a fuzzy-headed whatever, and Agnes is a pope? Edea is cool as hell, and now there's a lady from the moon, who speaks French sometimes. And the protagonist is kinda alright - a kid knight who is also a coward and also a nobleman, and also is immediately betrayed by his comrades, kicking off the story.
Anyways, I made it a good way through, enjoying the combat, but groaning at the repeated pleasure the writers took in repeating "Ba'al Busters." Yes, that's funny once. But, is this the tone you want for confronting cosmic evil, known as Ba'als? A CBT joke? There's also the side-/meta-quest of rebuilding the moon, but that relies on the 3DS' Streetpass functions. Which don't work anymore. Because nobody has a 3DS, and nobody is walking around, and nobody is walking around with a 3DS. So I have 1 guy doing idle stuff that takes dozens of real-time hours, and I'd do some hacky things to make it work by populating it with internet people Streetpasses, but. Eh.
There's stupid romance, and dumb anime stuff, and I dunno. I love the mechanics, am bored by the story, but I felt the same way about BD! But also, as I write this, I have BD 2 in my hands, and it is good, and its story is also sorta bad. Perhaps I'll return in the future, so this is saved for later.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (PS4)
Call of Duty: Warzone (PS4)
Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War (PS4)
In 2018, I came home from work on a Thursday night, had two beers, and bought Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Even thought it didn't have a story mode, I wanted that feeling of an RPG that is also a shooter that is also fast. And I liked it, but then sorta didn't. There was something about it nickel and diming you, about the in-game advertising that suggests, hey you should get this cool looking gun and it is $15 sir, that turned me off. Even the BR mode - Blackout - didn't pull me in all the way. How could it with Apex Legends being right there, not too far after COD's release?
I felt burned, in a particular way. This was tangled up in feelings of another friendship falling apart, in the sense that these games are so thoroughly devoid of meaning, that they are a bottomless pit for your time, and for what? The joy of quick time-to-death from the guns of try-hards on a team, while I wait to respawn over and over, all night long. So, I made a note to myself - DO NOT BUY THE NEXT CALL OF DUTY - in my calendar, in several instances with different wordings, and it worked! I did not buy Call of Duty in 2019, nor in 2020. I mean, why would I, when Apex fills that FPS short-time game role, with more respect for me as a player and as a consumer (ew).
But then, I came home on Thursday night last month, in the thinning COVID days, and I had a great deal of time to myself, with my partner not due home til after her late shift, and an awful thing happened: 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was on sale. They never go on sale. And this one, the first one I had skipped in the series (aside from the recent WWII ones), had been whispered in my ear by podcasts, and social media, people kept saying, This is the best one in recent memory, This one I want to keep playing for longer, This one revitalizes the series. I wanted to hear the stupid guitar riff and see that my number was more. So I got it.
And then I got 2020's Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War. And then I got the Battle Pass. And then I got into it, hard.
I have much more to say about these two games, which house a grand total of 7 almost wholly different modes of play - Co-Op, Zombies, the BR mode Warzone, competitive MP in BLOPS that is arcadey and snappy, competitive MP in MW that is tactical and methodical (and also snappy), and then two campaigns. I have much more to say about these games, because each one is like its own restaurant, its own stage show, its own escape room, its own coin-op arcade, all of which are installed in a casino that hollers at you constantly to buy more. But hey - you have this Battle Pass, which sorta works like a pass in a casino or other cash-sucking institution, where this pass levels up across all your activities! It's super cool! And also profoundly insidious!
I hate these games, and I love them. It is confusing, but I'm far from done. I have more to say, later. Does anyone want to do some Warzone in the meantime? They might destroy the current map. It's cool, and also reflective of how disposable each game is, with a specific expiration date? I hate this? I love this? Ah!
Moonlighter (Switch)
The premise is not unique, as other games like Recettear and Stardew Valley have done this before. In short, you run a shop in a little town next to some lil' dungeons. Your family ran it, and there's some story, but forget all that - go get some loot from the dungeon. Use this bad sword. Fill up your bag, and make sure everything fits! Then teleport back home, put that loot on sale, gauging the price based on customer reactions, and make some bank. Take that bank, and invest it - in better weapons and equipment, in upgrades to your shop, in new businesses for the town.
There are 3 screens outside the dungeons - your shop (which expands bit by cash money bit), the town, and the entrances to the dungeon. That's it. The dungeons have a Zelda-style layout, in a grid, which is randomized (of course), since you're going to be running them over and over, the same level on repeat until you can do the whole dungeon on repeat. There are four dungeons, each with three levels. I don't know what happens when you unlock the door, which is sealed by four keys. Keys which come from the dungeon bosses.
As I plug away at the fourth dungeon and max our my weapons, I wonder what's next. There's some DLC included, which adds stuff, but I'm honestly not sure if it's already in there, or if it's all post-game content. And I don't want to know until I get there!
The combat is entirely passable - you can roll, have a main attack, and then a sub-ability depending on your weapon (block with shield, or charge up swing with huge sword, or prepare a Link-like charge with the lance). The enemies are varied, requiring a degree of finesses, but I've found that some stuff just cannot be dodged, and you have to buy better equipment constantly, then upgrade that gear, to become a semi-tank. So I just roll through damage, have lots of potions, and that's what I do! You can have a monster companion, but why pick anything other than the slime who gives you stun? It's a stun!!
But the game shines in the shop! You set up your goods, check the prices, trying to raise your profits without repelling your customers. You can catch shoplifters (or miss then as you check out customers, and goddammit, why are you robbing from your community, asshole!!), or a loose bird, and take requests for specific items, or answer questions customers have about esoteric items. It's surprisingly compelling, but as I near the end of the game, that compulsion begins to fade, as what will I do with all this cash? And when I think on it, the number getting bigger doesn't please me as wholly as it did at the beginning. As is the way with things (like drugs).
But on we go! I'm close to it now, and will tank my way through tons of damage as I delve into this fourth dungeon, and whatever lies beyond. The visuals, the pixel-smooth animations, and charming music make this a nicer package than its genre predecessors, but still - it lacks a certain something ultra-special, that would put this into a pantheon. Like, I feel like a shopkeeper game with a bit more meat could be an all-timer. Anyways, I'd like some more until I won't.
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