By now, everyone knows what The Last of Us is. It is a post-apocalyptic third person survival-horror action game. It is the most critically acclaimed game of 2013. It is one of the most notable games of the last console generation. According to some it's even a contender for the best game of all time. All this from the well loved folks at Naughty Dog who also brought us Crash Bandicoot, Jak and Daxter, and Uncharted as well. It is for these reasons that I decided to give the game a whirl, knowing full well that this type of game is not at all my cup of tea. And so here I am today, giving you my impressions of a game that I played primarily because of the hype.
One of the things that gets talked about most is probably the game's narrative, so let's start there. In a lot of ways the tale that The Last of Us weaves is actually very unoriginal. It's hardly the first work of fiction to explore the the lows and highs of a post-apocalyptic society, and what actually happens is rarely unexpected. What the game does do very well however is weave narrative into the gameplay. You learn just as much about Joel from his actions then you do from his words. What's more, these are really your actions. All of his most brutal moments come at your command, and watching Joel beat a man to death with a brick at your behest can feel legitimately disturbing. And that's the point. Joel is a bad person, and unlike a lot of games where the anti-hero is glorified as some badass, there is no pretending that Joel is doing anything more than what he thinks he needs to in order to survive.
Now, one of the things that this narrative helps accomplish, is a very strong atmosphere. Together with some very well built environments and a well written script, it's easy to get sucked into this dreary world. It looks good, but it also feels good, and believable to boot. Said world is, unsurprisingly, mostly empty (which is in itself a form of worldbuilding), and yet it seems like there is always something interesting to look at or for the characters to discuss. The environments feel very organic, and so do the actors' performances. Together between the games' narrative and atmosphere it feels like it is constantly taking you feel a ride, and I found it pretty common to experience genuine shock or relief or terror when it was appropriate. However it's interesting to note, these moments were always as a result of gameplay. There are some moments which essentially become glorified walking simulators, but they still make you feel the weight of the games' situations far more than the cutscenes do.
The game manages to provide a fair variety in these situations, too. As the game goes on it introduces new things to worry about at a fair pace. Not a great one, but a fair one. Some sections drag on longer than I would like, but in general it feels like things are paced such that they never get overly tired. After playing for a while however, things can start to feel pretty formulaic (forage > infected > forage > thugs). Where The Last of Us does this better than say, the Uncharted games, is that things like puzzle solving and platforming feel like they blend into the foraging section of the game much more organically. Or perhaps the other way around. Because you are always looking for resources, and you aren't spending your time climbing up giant statues and solving ancient puzzles, it feels like you are really just navigating the environment rather than playing "the platforming segment". The Last of Us does have much less variance in puzzles and platforming than the Uncharted games however, and so with lass variance in things to do, the formula can get old quicker in my experience.
Foraging in itself however, is actually pretty grand, too. I think I can honestly say that it is my favorite part of the gameplay. It feels like hunting about the environment for materials is a legitimately very important part of the game, which helps sell the survival aspect of this broken world very well. Whereas in other games exploration tends to be a way to get bonuses that give you prestige or extra power, The Last of Us makes exploration feel like a necessity. Exploring isn't a way to become more overpowered than you would otherwise be. If you don't find enough ammo or bits to make the med packs you need, you will die. Or at the least you will make things very hard for yourself in the coming sections. It also helps that the environments are legitimately interesting to explore, for the reasons stated earlier. Unfortunately though, this is more or less where the gameplay and I stop seeing eye to eye.
Now I'm not saying that the gameplay is bad. If anything I've spoken pretty glowingly of it for the past several paragraphs. However I also mentioned how The Last of Us isn't really my type of game. Try as I might, I could never really find much love for the game's stealth-y horror-y elements, and they typically take precedence over the action-y survive-y bits. I do appreciate the narrative value that comes with the stealth-centric gameplay. However, any narrative gains from this is probably offset by how completely oblivious enemies are to your allies running all over the place and making a monolithic din. But honestly, I just felt like I just wanted to shoot things most of the time. This is in part because of my own impatience, but probably also in part because the game can be frustrating at times. It's checkpoints are not very forgiving, and it's not unheard of to die for stupid reasons like say, your partner physically blocking you from going where you need to go. All said I just found the combat to be generally frustrating and not really for me.
So where does all of this leave us? Well, we have a game that is spectacularly put together in just about every conceivable way. The Last of Us doesn't really innovate in any way, but it is a testament to the value of polish and attention to detail. To be honest, I'm still unsure of how much I actually like it, but I do believe that it deserves most of the accolades it has received, and that whatever my feelings are on the game, it's hard to deny that it is a fantastic piece of work. I think it's interesting that for a lot of the game I wished I could just experience it as a movie, and yet at the same time, a movie would not have had as strong a narrative without intermixing with the gameplay. Regardless of how much I might have enjoyed the game, it is a strong case for the strengths video games have over other forms of media, for this reason.
Here are some notes I took on the game.
About a week ago, I heard about this game by the name of Evoland, a really interesting little game spawned from a LudumDare creation. As a game that is both inspired by and a tribute to the like of The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy, I was instantly intrigued. It struck me as a very whimsical game that would be just up my alley, and so I picked it up as soon as it came out. I've now played the game to completion, and normally I wouldn't bother making a post about such a small game, but it was interesting enough that I think it's worth talking about.
So I already mentioned that Evoland is a sort of tribute to oldschool games, but in truth that's not entirely accurate. While the game is chockfull of references and clearly takes a lot of inspiration from old RPGs, it's more of a tribute to the evolution of games than any particular title or genre. True to it's name, Evoland's biggest claim to fame is the fact that it literally evolves as you progress. Think Upgrade Complete or DLC Quest, but finding your upgrades rather than buying them. When the game starts you are a simple 8-bit character with a Gameboy style black and green color palette. You can't even move left, but as you explore you uncover better colors, sound effects, higher resolutions, menus, and even 3D. As far as the gameplay itself, it begins as a typical top-down adventure style game a la Zelda, but you soon unlock turn based battles as well. One of the things I was most skeptical about going into this game was the fact that it features both this Zelda style adventure mode and the Final Fantasy style Turn Based mode.
Now I'm going to be kind of blunt. Evoland isn't a particularly good game. Gameplay wise, it's pretty mediocre and unsurprisingly suffers a lot from a lack of focus. As nifty as all the references are, it suffers a lot from trying to do too many things, and subsequently having most of them end up disappointing. What's more, I found that there was a very palpable dissonance between the game modes. It felt very strange to get through an adventure mode dungeon with only half a heart remaining, only to have full health upon getting into a random battle on the world map. What's more, the tools you can use in adventure mode have no bearing on turn based combat. Similarly, all the equipment and experience you gather for the turn based combat does nothing for adventure mode. It's especially noticeable because because the game is a mere 3-4 hours short, and so you never experience either mode for more than a couple areas. Stuff like your experience level just doesn't end up mattering at all.
Evoland's turn based combat is ultimately pretty bad. While pretty much every enemy is amusing, the battles are just boring and very shallow. There isn't a battle you can't win by having one character attack every turn and the other heal. It's not even a targeted heal, it just heals both characters. However on the flip side of things, the Zelda mode is actually pretty good. While it's combat isn't that great either, it's got some surprisingly clever puzzles. For example, early on you encounter an impassable block called a "Dimensional Tile". Later on when you return to the area in 3D mode, you realize it was just slightly raised, and 3D you can step right over it. This kind of thing becomes especially important when later areas actually contain crystals you can strike which will switch between 3D and 2D mode. This is unquestionably when the game is at it's best. Being able to experience a couple of areas in both 3D and 2D is pretty cool, and using that as a game mechanic is genius. Mechanically it's not that different than something like the crystal switches you might see in the Zelda series, but aesthetically it has a totally different feel to it.
Unfortunately though, Evoland is a game with nothing to offer but novelty. It's charm and uniqueness is such that the first couple hours are pretty easy to get through without even noticing the gameplay flaws. After the first hour and a half or so though, new things stop showing up and the game goes down hill pretty rapidly. Playing the game for gameplay's sake just isn't entertaining. The game becomes a bit of a chore to get through, and I found myself caring a lot less about completeness. Granted, "completeness" doesn't really seem to be rewarded particularly well. In the early game chests were exciting, as they usually meant some new feature being unlocked. By the end chests are just annoying. You go out of your way to get them, and are literally rewarded with a gold star. What function do they fill? As far as I can tell they are nothing more than a collectible to get because why not. Some chests contain playing cares, which can be used to play Double Twin, a clone of Final Fantasy VIII's fantastic Triple Triad mini game. Even that manages to be a poor imitation of the source material, though.
Which is ultimately what Evoland comes down to. It's an extremely unique game, it's overflowing with charm and fun references to games I love. Despite these things, it's a game that still struggles to be competent in it's own right. It deserves a lot of praise for doing such interesting things, I can't even begin to fathom how they did this (in Flash, no less). The experience of actually playing the game is just quite lacking, even down to frame rate issues, glaring bugs and lack of native controller support. I greatly enjoyed the references, and I think with more time the game could have been great even despite the splitting it's focus. As it stands though, I tend to think 2 hours of novelty and 2 hours of mediocrity is perhaps not worth the $10 price stamp. I'm glad it exists though.
Let me start by saying, shooters are not my thing. There have been a handful of shooters in the past that I quite enjoyed, but every one of them has some secondary function which does it for me. In Borderlands it's the RPG elements. In Uncharted it's the characters, the pacing and the polish. On the short list of shooters I have enjoyed, Bioshock sits right at the top. I didn't like it at first, but I kept going because it's reputation. Before I knew it I was enthralled in this astounding world with an amazing atmosphere and narrative that just wouldn't let go. With that said, I was still a little wary of picking up Bioshock Infinite right away. I didn't follow it's development too closely, and it's still a shooter. The thing is, atmosphere and narrative just aren't things you can really get a sense of unless you are playing the game yourself. However, Steam managed to trick me into buying the game, and so regardless I am here today, having beat the game, to give my impressions.
Once again, Bioshock Infinite proved to be a title that took a while to really get going. I had heard all about this companion Elizabeth, who was supposed to be at the very core of this game. Yet, it took me a good 3 hours to even meet her. That's 1/4 of my total play time. Of course I spent those 3 hours doing other things, and in many ways it made me yearn for the Bioshock of old. lMost of the same concepts return, but are noticeably streamlined. You have access to several abilities (now called vigors), but there isn't much by way of environmental uses for them, and in combat they are mostly just used to stun an enemy or set a trap. 98% of the time it's much easier to just shoot the guy anyways, unless it's one of the "heavy hitters". It's not like normal enemies can do much to you anyways, thanks to the new regenerating shield system.
Shooting in itself is dumbed down too, though. You no longer have access to all your guns, instead going for the groanworthy 2 gun system. You can still upgrade your weapons, but the upgrades seem less interesting and whimsical than the crazy pipes and tubes you tweak your arsenal with in previous games. Plus, what good is it to upgrade your Pistol if your enemies are all going to use shotguns and machine guns? You're kind of forced to also use those weapons. You can can customize your abilities a bit still, through the use of... clothing? Not only does the clothing seem to conspicuously lack a narrative explanation (not something you expect from Bioshock), but it's also kind of boring. With so few gameplay options remaining, the number of things clothing can augment is left pretty lacking. For some reason they seem to fixate a lot on skyline abilities, which I found aren't that plentiful, and even then aren't particularly useful. Ultimately it just seemed to me like the gameplay was purposefully downplayed. My assumption is this is done to keep things simple for the dudebros, and allow players who are looking for a little bit more to focus on everything else in the game.
Thankfully, that is where this game delivers, in spades no less. Immediately upon arriving in Columbia, I was struck by just how different it was from Rapture. Despite knowing it was a city in the sky instead of being underwater, I somehow expected it to feel the same, but I was very wrong. Rapture felt like a very secluded, lonely place. It was just you and the mutant splicers sitting at the bottom of the ocean. Columbia feels vibrant, alive and open. The city is very much intact, full of color, interesting people, and actual character interactions. Even just the feeling of looking out and seeing the clouds adds a much lighter tone to the game. I especially liked how lively the game felt. Columbia is chock full of people, and they all have an interesting story behind them, even if you have to infer it based on what you can see. It's kind of unfortunate that by the end, the scene changes so much. As the action picks up the people get less frequent, more of them want you dead, and the locales are more run down. I suppose it's necessary to create that contrast, to make the later parts of the game feel more dire. Early on Columbia felt like such a unique and fun place though, I can't help but wish I could have had more of that.
Thankfully though, random strangers strewn about the streets of Columbia aren't the only humans you have to interact with. In fact, your player character even has an actual personality now, too. At first I thought it was kind of odd, considering the game never shifts from first person perspective. It felt odd having this voice that was not my own emanating from my character. It didn't help that in the start, Booker DeWitt is basically just a bitter, cynical, emotionally scarred killing machine. He isn't especially interesting, but the way the game leaves out so much information makes you want to learn more, about your character, about this place, and about this girl you are supposed to be finding. Then you find her, and the entire game flips on it's head. Elizabeth is Bioshock Infinite. Booker becomes attached to her, the two characters have good chemistry, and the interaction between the two characters excuses any monotony the first few hours may have held. It's just so hard not to be enthralled by Elizabeth. She is beautifully realized, and easily the most human character I have ever seen in a video game. Her animations are lifelike, her voice is very well done, she is well written, and she's just really easy to like. She undergoes a surprising amount of growth, too. People are calling her a Disney Princess, and I think it's a pretty suiting moniker.
As for the game's actual plot itself, it's a really striking, memorable ordeal. As things start out, everything seems pretty mundane, and I actually thought it was kind of "meh". Columbia is an amazing place, but Zachary Comstock and his ideals are nowhere near as interesting as Andrew Ryan. What I will say though, is that Bioshock Infinite definitely made me think. It's big schtick is the fact that Columbia is an idealistic 1920s city of aristocrats, and as such is full of racists. There is a moment soon after finding Elizabeth that I found very poignant, wherein she innocently asks Booker why the blacks have to use a different bathroom, and he simply replies "that's just how it is". The game doesn't pull any punches in putting these injustices on display. It's shocking, but for the sake of clarity I wouldn't say the game is in itself racist, so much as portraying it's inhabitants as racist. The theme is pretty prevalent throughout the game, and at times actually felt kind of uncomfortable. I don't feel qualified to speak to the themes themselves, but if nothing else I think it's good that the game did such a good job of provoking thought and discussion on the issue.
Racist themes aside, Bioshock Infinite has a very strange plot. As I said, it starts off very mundane, though it ramps up pretty quickly once you find Elizabeth. For a time it actually feels things are going too fast. It seems like things are happening right and left, and yet you aren't actually learning anything new, stuff is just happening. I also felt like Booker's relationship with Elizabeth was kind of all over the place early on. She seems to rapidly go back in forth between trusting him implicitly and not at all. Everything kind of comes to a point after a dramatic scene on an airship. The action slows right down, you find yourself on what is essentially a drawn out fetch quest that overstays it's welcome. Then out of the blue the story takes a complete turn, the action is all uphill from there, but nothing makes any sense any more. Ever. Things get very strange very fast, and they don't go back. The adrenaline starts pumping, serious business time is a go, and it's a very intense sprint to the end, in more ways than one. There are some exceptionally emotional scenes that take place here.
Then comes the ending. On one hand, it's extremely bold, very abstract, and about as weird as everything leading up to it. Part of me wants to say it's amazing and excuses every slow moment, gameplay imperfections and plot oddities leading up to it. Part of me wants to say it's terrible and just way too strange to really be that enjoyable. Ultimately I think after a few days of thinking about it, I'm leaning more towards the first though. If nothing else, it's an ending that promotes a lot of thought and discussion. That on it's own is a major victory. Either way, it's a huge brain twister, and it deserves a ton of respect for tying the narrative of the game together so well, especially when parts of it seemed so spotty prior. I used the word memorable earlier and the ending is most definitely that. I would argue it's even more memorable than the famous Bioshock twist, even if it is way more abstract and confusing.
All in all, Bioshock Infinite is unquestionably an outstanding game. Granted it's gameplay is no great shakes, but in truth that's not what I play Bioshock for. I wanted atmosphere and I got it. It's not Rapture, but Columbia is an extremely interesting place in it's own right. If you are looking for a good mindless shooter, Infinite may not be for you. If you are looking for a thought provoking game with some intense social commentary and deeply emotional moments, then you owe it to yourself to play this game. In truth, I think Bioshock Infinite deserves a spot right next to it's older brother on the list of games every gamer should play. Elizabeth is the standard by which all characters will now be held to. This is her tale in more ways than one. I will truly miss spending time with her, which is strange to say about a digital character, but damn it man, the feels!
Assassin's Creed has been one of those series that I really enjoy, but not enough to buy at full price. I'm perfectly content to wait for the games to come down in price, and as such I'm a little behind the times. So over the holidays I decided I should start playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. So far I'm quite enjoying the game, more than I enjoyed Assassin's Creed II almost 2 years ago. However I can't help but notice some very glaring issues that cause me great frustration, and so I thought I would talk a bit about those issues here today. Specifically they all seem to revolve around the concept of restricting the player. In itself player restriction isn't necessarily an issue, but the way the game does so makes it one.
Before I begin in earnest, there are a couple of things that I want to point out. First of all, I can't claim that any of the things I will discuss today were not present in Assassin's Creed II. It was a while ago that I played it, and I payed less attention to design back then. It's not a matter that even really matters. "It was that way in the last game, too" doesn't invalidate an issue. On a similar note, I am going to be comparing Brotherhood to "other games" a lot in this post. To that end I just want to emphasize that a design decision is not correct simply because another game (particularly a successful one) does it. I reference other games because they made what I consider to be a better decision when faced with a similar problem.
Now that we have that out of the way, let's look at the first and probably biggest issue Brotherhood has. It restricts where the player can go. As I stated earlier, restricting the player isn't a big problem. Assassin's Creed is an open world game, and plenty of open world games restrict where the player can go, usually until some later point in the story. It's all a matter of perception on the player's part. Most the games have the sense to make these restrictions logical. Perhaps a bridge is up, or a barricade is in the way, or perhaps the player needs some form of upgrade to get there. There is a good reason you can't go there, it makes sense, and often times finally getting access to that area incorporates some amount of story or gameplay. Perhaps even more importantly, the player is usually never given the impression that they can get there. There won't be any icons on the map of that area, there won't be any temptation to get there other than pure curiosity. Finally when there is a restricted area, the division is pretty clear. The restricted area is usually a city, or an island, connected by bridge or some other such.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood does all of these things wrong. The player is not given any indication which areas they cannot go to until they are practically inside the area. At that point a large semi-transparent white wall appears. This isn't even a solid wall mind, you can walk right past it, you just die if you do. Who thought that was a good idea? The worst part is that it just feels like a very arbitrary division. The game explains that this area isn't available yet, and it makes sense in the game's plot, but it feels like a flimsy excuse. When you are standing there you see an area that is just outside your reach. You see NPCs walking in and out of it. You see icons on your map tempting you into this dead zone. Even despite the game's explanation of why you can't go in there, it doesn't make sense to your brain. This is clearly an area that should not be restricted, and yet the developers have decided that you cannot go there yet. Clearly the answer is to erect a giant invisible (but not impassable) wall all the way around this area! Yea, clearly the best idea is to put magical walls right where the player is not going to expect them, rather than at a logical division spot like a bridge or an actual wall.
Let me give you a specific example from my own experience with the game. I have this obsession with hitting up viewpoints. Viewpoints uncover more of the game map and allow you to see other icons, marking your other objectives. All the viewpoints are marked on the map from the very start. There is one in particular that I wanted to hit up in the north east of the map. However for about half the game it is just outside of your reach. You can run right up to it. You can see the tower, you just can't go there. So I would frequently check this area after completing story objectives to see if I could go there yet. Gradually the surrounding area became more available, but not the area I actually cared about. At one point I was even given a story mission that took place further to the east, past this inaccessible area. I thought surely this meant I could now use the viewpoint I had been waiting for. Not so much, though. No, instead the game made me run all the way around this area. I had to follow the taunting white wall all the way to the south and around it. I know now that, it's not even like the tower I wanted to climb was related to a story mission. For whatever reason the developers just decided they should taunt me with this tower, put it directly in my path, but not allow me to use it.
Area accessibility isn't even the game's only issue, in terms of restriction. See, the whole plot of Assassin's Creed is about reliving the actions of the protagonist's ancestors. So a lot of restrictions are put in place with the reasoning that "That didn't actually happen", and rather than dying the player simply de-synchronizes. It's a clever way to maintain narrative, but it really gets in the way. I mean what kind of open world won't let you kill annoying civilians (especially when they make a point of having civilians designed to annoy you). That's the least of the game's issues in this regard, though. The game is chock full of what I usually just call "BS death". I mean sure, it makes sense that you should aim to be stealth in a game called Assassin's Creed. Do the requirements really have to be so rigid thought?
Let's say that I have to Assassinate a target. The game will force you to remain undetected, and will kill you if you become discovered. Why does it have to kill you? Why can't he just call the guards and run away, forcing you to find him again? If I'm breaking into a castle and I get discovered, why do I have to immediately die? What if I kill the guard before he actually says anything? What could that guard have realistically done in the 1/2 second he noticed me? If I come upon a group of three guards, should I not have the chance to at least stop them from raising the alarm if I'm discovered? The point here is that, it seems like the only failure state the game has is death, and that's incredibly annoying, un-inventive, and yes restrictive. Honestly, I don't care about the narrative of how awesome my ancestors were. I don't care if Ezio would not have been discovered. I want a failure state that punishes me without forcing me to start everything all over again. Make it harder for me to proceed, but give me a chance to redeem myself.
All told, Assassins Creed Brotherhood is probably the least open world open world game I have ever played. For whatever reason the developers decided that they needed a stranglehold on where the player can go and what they can do. This is kind of strange considering how contrary it is to the spirit of an open world game. That's not to say it's a bad game, it's the best Assassin's Creed I've played so far. Looking at the design I really have to wonder why Ubisoft made the decisions they did, though.
I type these words mere minutes after completing an indie game by the name of Limbo. While you may or may not have heard of the developers, Playdead, you've likely heard of Limbo. You know, it's that game about the kid and the silhouettes and the giant spider. Coincidentally, tomorrow marks the game being out for two whole years, but I only just got around to playing it. Nevertheless, I thought I would post some thoughts on the game, because it is an interesting one indeed. It's not particularly long, taking about three hours to beat, but given the length of triple A titles these days, that's not so bad for an indie game. Of course I already said some things over on my Twitter, but surprisingly enough, it's kind of hard to ramble on the way I do in a mere 140 characters. So, read on for the long version!
