Sekiro and Difficult Games

I was gonna make a twitter comment about this when I saw a Kotaku article about how an easy mode have never ruined a game but after noticing that a twitter post wouldn't be enough to properly express my take I decided to put down my thoughts in a blog post. To be clear I've never been a fan of super difficult games like the Dark Souls series and I have no intention to buy Sekiro due to the difficulty, but I still wanna defend games that don't include an easy mode. 

I suppose that the heart of the debate whether or not games should have an easy mode boils down to if you consider yourself a casual or hardcore gamer. It's really kind of a childish argument at face value but after giving it some thought I don't think you can really boil it down to just saying that the game is meant to be challenging or that an easy mode wouldn't be hard to implement and would just help casuals to play the game. That a game is hard doesn't say much, you really need to look at what makes a game hard to really start thinking about if different difficulty modes make sense.

As an example I see a lot of people talking about how gaming was so much better back in the days because they were so challenging and getting through them was a real accomplishment. To that I say, yes and no. Nostalgia is big these days and since I don't find a lot of modern gaming in the form of "games as a service" all that attractive I've spent some time going back to older games and you know what I've noticed? They sure are hard, not because they offer some brilliant challenge that only the best can handle, no, most of the time they're hard because they're just poorly designed. That might be the wrong way to put it, like they were hard because movement didn't feel good, aiming wasn't as smooth, AI wasn't as complex and so on. Like of course games are going to feel easier today when you're not struggling with movement and the camera/aiming and AI are allowed to vary in behavior. I played one of the old Medal of Honor games and it was difficult because movement was sluggish, aiming was even worse and the enemies came at me in hordes and were always aware of where I was and had pinpoint accuracy from the other side of the map to name an example. That's not difficult because of a well balanced and thought out challenge. Take a more modern example, The Last of Us which I'm currently playing you have enemies that don't operate like a hive mind, movement is smooth enough and aiming is actually made difficult on purpose because you're not meant to have that but that also reflects in the enemies. I mean to me it still feels good and it is satisfying to hit a headshot but they've made it sluggish so you don't run and gun like in Uncharted. See, the difficulty these days are much easier to base on deliberate choices, not just technological shortcomings.

I'm ranting a bit here but like if we mention Uncharted a bit more, there the difficulty scaling comes from the amount of enemies, how much damage they take and how much you can take before you go down. It's a pretty simple game and scaling that difficulty isn't hard, or I imagine it's not. Here's the point that I'm trying to make here, games aren't all like Uncharted, games like Dark Souls don't rely on just turning enemies into bullet sponges or giving you less health to make it hard. Games like that rely on very specific gameplay mechanics about precise movement and attacks and the whole point of those games are to be tough but fair. It's hard to put that type of challenge into words, especially for someone who don't have any real experience with those games, but like to balance that challenge out in a way you have to do way more than just up the damage and health stats. It's not impossible, of course not, but really if a developer have a very specific vision in mind and want to spend their time on balancing out that experience as well as possible who have the right to tell them they need to split up their time to also make sure there are easier and harder modes that offer the same type of balance that the game is based on? Like again, games today are able to have more depth in terms of moment to moment gameplay that if a game comes along that tries to take advantage of that no one should stand there and say you also need to make this accessible for people from other walks of life. Just consider the vast amount of factors that go into this, frame rate, visual clues, precise input, a plethora of moves, so much that a simple difficulty scaling system is just not viable. I mean in the same way hardcore gamers shouldn't go around demanding tough combat out of something designed to be a walking simulator.

I know this blog post was pretty much an incoherent rant that I'm not really qualified to give any real takes on and was most about my distaste for people with nostalgia goggles on praising the difficulty of older games because they were fighting the mechanics as much as the games. If someone did read this I hope my point came across on some level. I'm not interested in Sekiro, and I'm ok with that, I'm not exactly a casual player but I'm not really a hardcore player either. I'm just a gamer who knows not every game is made for me personally.

Fallout 76, Who is this game for?

Finally there has been meatier gameplay videos for Bethesda's next game, Fallout 76. However I'm not any less puzzled about who this game is for, it doesn't seem built to attract regular Fallout fans, certainly not the old school ones. Suppose one might as well take a closer look at Bethesda's first dabble with multiplayer. 

Fallout 76 is the name of the game

So what type of game even is Fallout 76? Well, according to their own statement; "Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of Skyrim and Fallout 4, welcome you to Fallout 76, the online prequel where every surviving human is a real person. Work together, or not, to survive. Under the threat of nuclear annihilation, you’ll experience the largest, most dynamic world ever created in the legendary Fallout universe." So judging from that it's a survival game, where you work with other players, or not, to rebuild, or not. I don't know.

Anyway, as I mentioned there has been longer gameplay videos out now and it does seem pretty straightforward if they're accurately depicting the game. You create a character who can only communicate with emojis since there are no real NPC's to interact with, only other players, and you seem to follow in the steps of the Vault 76 overseer who has left tapes for you to listen to. Riveting main quest I know. You also seem to get objectives like killing a certain amount of ghouls in a location. You know like those procedurally generated quests in Fallout 4 that you hated. Apart from the sorry excuse for quests you also build stuff, crafting seems like a central part. You craft your camp, weapons and armor. Overall it seems like you'll be looting a lot to craft better gear so you can loot more dangerous locations.

I think I'm starting to understand what sort of game it is, problem is, if I understand it correctly it's not really doing a lot to stand out in the genre. You know, the one Minecraft dominates. That really seems to be the foundational gameplay loop they're going for, which to be frank I don't think is going to be enough. Not only is the building and crafting mechanics much more restricted than other games in the genre the gameplay is just not good enough for combat and looting to be the only real mechanics. Like we've for a long time been having arguments about how Bethesda needs to update their engine (preferably make an entirely new one) because their animations, graphics and combat are painfully outdated. Thing is, in the past with games like Skyrim and Fallout... Lets say Fallout 3, yes the gameplay was nothing to write home about but they had deep worlds filled with interesting quests, characters, decisions that had consequences in the world and not to mention actual RPG mechanics. That's why Bethesda has always been excused for lagging behind in the gameplay, graphics and animation department. Now they've stripped it all away, and I do wonder if co-op is going to be enough to make fans happy. Not that I know what fans want this, as mentioned earlier, it doesn't seem like it's for Fallout fans since it lacks everything that was good about Fallout. Fallout isn't just about a huge world with lots of potential for crafting. When people ask for co-op in Bethesda games is this really what they want?

To get a bit petty about the lore involved I have a few things to day with the disclaimer that I'm not a huge Fallout scholar so I might be a bit off but... How does the concept make sense? Like no people around? At all? In every other game we meet ghouls who survived the initial blasts, not to mention entire communities who didn't turn into ghouls but instead just survived generation after generation. So why is this world so empty? Would make sense if it was in the middle of a blast crater but the world is green, buildings barely scorched, yet the only humanoid creatures around are the scorched ghouls. I just don't understand why this was done, would it really have been that hard to add human NPC's in the game? Just Raiders? Like I've read that they want human players to make up raider factions you usually see in Fallout games, problem is that there aren't enough players to make up those kinds of raider factions and with them taking steps to avoid griefing it's not even a viable role to play in the first place. Though fine, it's a spin-off, non-canon, I can dig the lore being off (if that's truly the case, I'm not so sure that it is).

In conclusion, it seems like this game is trying to do things that have already been done and better, not pleasing fans of their old games and not being able to compete with fans of similar games. I'm curious to see how this game will end up doing, might be a huge success (which would surprise me) or it might end up being a huge flop. Either way it's going to be interesting to see the consequences from how this game ends up performing. Bethesda at least seems confident considering they've gone on record saying they intend to support this game "forever".

Post E3 2018 Thoughts and Highlights

So E3 2018 is done, games have been shown, interviews have been done, articles have been written, so much info out there for coming games many look forward to and so little time to pay attention to everything. As I'm not paid to do just that I will just share my thoughts on the stuff that stood out to me and that which I care about. I will cover as much as I can but don't expect this to be a full review for everything. 

EA started off E3 with their conference, and what can I really say about it. Not much to be honest, it's one of the few conferences I didn't watch live, in fact I didn't watch much of it at all. I skipped over the boring parts so I think I ended up watching maybe 5-10 minutes of it. I saw some Battlefield V, not a lot of footage but the Nordic looking map that was shown off was thrilling as I like seeing environments that remind me of where I actually live. Same reason I liked Alan Wake as the forests reminded me of the forests back home when I didn't live in an urban environment. It's oddly satisfying to me. As far as Anthem goes, the gameplay that was shown didn't do much for me, looks like another sci-fi shooter revolving around multiplayer and I just can't be bothered with that.

After EA Microsoft was up, and oh boy, I'm no MS fan, in fact I've never owned an Xbox and likely never will, but this was the best conference of E3 to me. It was entertaining, had a good flow, and most importantly, they showed off both Dying Light 2 and Cyberpunk 2077. Now I didn't get too excited for Cyberpunk 2077 since it was once again just a trailer showing off the world, sure it was nice looking but that's about it. Still want to see actual gameplay but everyone who has seen it has had their mind blown so it does sound interesting. Dying Light 2 was the real highlight for me as it has Chris Avellone behind it and that's all I need to know. I loved the gameplay in the first game, if that gets improved and gets a high quality story with impactful decisions then you can count me in.

Bethesda was next with their showing, now they probably had the cringiest conference during E3 and to be honest, I wasn't particularly wowed. Rage 2 looks fine if not a bit stale, not sure about it yet but I liked the first game (believe it or not) so I'm keeping an eye on it. There were a bunch of announcements I don't really care much about, I mean there were vague teasers for Doom Eternal and I think a Wolfenstein expansion but I don't have any particular opinions on them except "okay". The big thing was Fallout 76, an always online game with no NPC's centered around.. Something. I don't get what that game is about, is it about combat and crafting? I mean who asked for this game? Who have ever said that their favorite part of the Bethesda Fallout games were shooting and crafting? Sure, I get that many people wanted to play Fallout with a friend, but do they even want this? Is it really a Fallout game without a well told story, heavy decisions and a world populated with interesting intrigue? I don't know, because Bethesda have been frustratingly vague when describing it. Todd Howard and Pete Hines are annoyingly good at giving non-answers. Though enough of that, they also announced Starfield as a next gen game and Elder Scrolls VI, interesting they would do that when they're so far off but I agree with the people who have been saying they did it to soothe over the worries that they're going online focused with Fallout 76.

Then I watched Devolver Digital and Square Enix back to back. Now to be honest I didn't watch the Devolver conference for the games but for the crazy show they put on. I just loved how they made fun of casual gamers who spend crazy money on silly microtransactions. Just a lovely show with a few games that honestly do look kinda fun. Don't remember any of their names though. As far as Square Enix goes I liked the Shadow of the Tomb Raider gameplay, looks really interesting but after that my attention went elsewhere and I missed most of it. I didn't even look away for long it was just that their showing was really short. Oh well.

Moving on to Ubisoft next, their conference was decent but out of all the things they showed what stood out most to me was the games they didn't show. I was hoping to see a new Splinter Cell game and Watch Dogs 3 but they were nowhere to be seen. Suppose Assassin's Creed: Odyssey looked fine and all but I am yet to play Origins so I have some catching up to do on that front. Still miss Aisha Tyler, she was a real highlight of Ubisoft's past  conferences but it seems like she's not returning. Which makes me sad.

What about the PC Gaming show then? Well, I didn't watch it. Don't care.

Now the final conference I watched was Sony, no I didn't watch Nintendo, their style of games just don't appeal to me so I'll only be talking about Sony from here on. Their conference or show, whatever they wanna call it, was poorly structured and boring, but man were the games they showed off impressive. We finally saw gameplay for several of their titles for the first time, The Last of Us: Part II being the first on the line. Truly impressive stuff, the animation was top notch, so much so that a Tomb Raider lead called it fake, but the gameplay was improved upon as well. I really look forward to playing this bad boy in whatever distant year they please to release it. Of course, there was some controversy about the kiss between Ellie and Dina. As far as silly controversies go this is a silly one, not only should people have expected it as Ellie and Riley kissed in the Left Behind DLC but ND, and Druckmann specifically, have openly said that Ellie is indeed gay. The only thing I could think about when watching it, seeing Ellie so warm and happy, is that Dina is super dead. Like she has to die, and I can't wait to see the Youtube reactions when they play that part. It's gonna be spicy stuff, my dudes and dudettes.

I believe Ghost of Tsushima was up next, now this game looked absolutely stunning. The visuals are to die for. Not only that, the gameplay looked really nice, I'm not a fan of over the top hack and slash games so seeing a more slower paced and grounded combat system was pure joy for me. One thing that kinda put me off was the very American sounding female ally that shows up during the demo so I'm glad to see there will be the option for Japanese voice overs. Overall, I liked everything I saw from it. There were other games shown off as well, but I wasn't really impressed, not really into Spider Man and as far as Kingdom Hearts go both the more realistic graphics for the Pirates of the Caribbean characters go and the weird choice to mute all sound but the voices in the trailers to highlight the music was jarring to me. Death Stranding looked neat though, gave off some walking simulator vibes but I don't care, I want this game and I want it ASAP. It looks delightfully weird and I'm very much into it.

Final words, I wasn't blown away by E3 this year but one or two games did make me squeal from delight which is really all you can hope for. I think this year's event was really... Safe in some regards. It upheld the status quo of EA being disappointing, Bethesda getting all sorts of attention, Ubisoft being Ubisoft with all the cringe that goes with it, Devolver being memes incarnate, Sony making weird decisions but ultimately leaving people satisfied, Microsoft flexing their wallet, PC Gaming and Square making little noise. Not the best E3 but certainly not the worst.

So I finally finished The Witcher 3...

So I bought The Witcher 3 back when it released, hyped about it, then I played it for like an hour max and I just couldn't get into it. Then I played it again some a year afterwards for a few hours that I liked more but still didn't get me hooked and it was still very early game. Finally, a week or two back I once again started playing it determined to finish it, and boy did I really get hooked this time. Playing hours on end, every day. 

The start was slow but once it got interesting it really got interesting. There's so much depth to the story and gameplay that I just haven't seen in any game before. Yes yes the combat itself is a bit on the simple side but it was surrounded by so much more than that like preparing yourself for fighting witcher contracts. Figuring out which potions, oils and signs to focus on before a fight made it so much more interesting than just walking in hacking away which at times works for sure but other times it will be an easy way to die without doing any damage at all to the monster. 

Story was also beautifully told, the main story was decent but the main draw to me was the side stories. They were so interesting, well written and more often than not had a twist that went somewhere you couldn't have predicted. While you could argue that if it always has a twist that it's no longer surprising but it's very appreciated that they did play with expectations to keep it interesting. While I was a bit disappointed that the consequences weren't quite as fleshed out as I was led to believe, it did leave a strong impression when I had made a choice that resulted in an entire village being wiped out becoming a ghost town. 

Now the things that they did really well that I would like to see more companies do is humor, deeper relationships and enemy variety. Witcher 3 is a mature game for sure, blood and guts, sex, tragedy, but it also knows to relax every now and then. Geralt's sarcasm always brought out a chuckle and partying with your Witcher friends was so much fun and a welcome break from the action, I wish more devs figured out to do this so it's not always just hours and hours of action and angry grunting. Now I know this is the third entry in the franchise but it was a breath of fresh air to see Geralt managing a current relationship, which is of course something you can choose to engage in or not but when I played it he and Yen were like an old married couple which is in stark contrast to say, Bioware games where a romance is a quick end game "reward" or Bethesda where it's basically a background perk. 

As for the enemy variety goes it was one of the best things about the game. Really puts to shame everyone else doing similar kinds of games that just doesn't put in the effort that a small Polish developer managed to pull of. When going to hunt a monster you never really knew what it was, thanks to the variety of types and the fact that many enemies are more rare made sure hunting something unknown could be tense even late in the game. Not to mention the awesome monster designs. Contrast this with Bethesda as an example who use a very limited amount of enemy types that you fight often it's never tense or surprising when finding yet another Draugr lord, dragon, ghoul or deathclaw. 

There's so much more I could praise like the beautiful world they built but I wanted to mention bugs as a closer. I did have a few annoying ones like sound being messed up, music would disappear and voices wouldn't be heard. Not to mention Roach who when not glitched would get stuck on a tiny piece of terrain sticking up. Wasn't ever anything that ruined the game, though I reckon it used to be in a worse condition around release. 

TL:DR, I finally finished Witcher 3, loved it, can definitely see now why it got so much praise. 10/10 best game this gen so far. Though I remain open for something like RDR2 or TLoU2 to dethrone it. 

Red Dead Redemption 2 - Second Trailer Reactions

So the second trailer for Red Dead Redemption 2 dropped today, I'll leave a link at the end for those interested but for now I wanted to give my first reactions on it in words. I know it's a novel concept to write about it instead of making a whole video on it but lets get to it.

Mr. Arthur Morgan

First off, we find out that the protagonist is one Arthur Morgan, a dude who sure looks the part of a capable outlaw. Now I do wanna note that he does in every way appear to be an outlaw unlike the protagonist of the first game, John Marston. He is indeed quite the contrast to Mr. Marston, not only does he seem to enjoy being bad more but he's also a different figure, that is he's more physically intimidating. I do look forward to seeing him interact with the world as he doesn't really seem like the kind of guy to be pushed around easily.

I do think there's a reason for such a seemingly dark character, I wouldn't be surprised if he at some point was a more redeemable character but the changed up a bit after the release of Gta V. What I mean with that is that with Gta V Trevor Phillips was introduced and his psychotic persona became extremely popular so I wouldn't be surprised if this fact influenced Morgan of RDR2. Now I don't think he'll be going full psycho but I do think Trevor did encourage Rockstar to make a meaner character than they'd normally do. Personally, I like him, I've seen some negative comments towards him but I'm excited to see more of his persona. I suspect he's not all around bad but perhaps put on a tougher persona when in "outlaw mode".

Outside of Morgan, we didn't really see that much as it was a short trailer. I mean we did see glimpses of hunting (with a bow no less), horse taming and heists. Though the heists did look quite cinematic so I hope you can still rob stuff outside of main missions. We did see one big thing though, Dutch van der Linde, which with other released info has confirmed that it is indeed a prequel that is centered around Dutch's gang. I was skeptical there would be a lot to explore but it does seem to be so far back with plenty of colorful characters to make it interesting.

Not sure there's that much more to comment on story speculations. I do however want to comment on the types of comments I've read in the comment sections on Youtube, Twitter and so on. Fun conspiracy theories that I will hastily debunk. Lots of comments about Abigail being the mysterious blonde woman, to that I say, Abigail had black hair and wasn't a badass gunslinger. Next, lots of people are thinking the boy Morgan threatens in the trailer is a young Marston, first off John's mother died at childbirth and he was found by Dutch while in an orphanage so no dice. I've also seen comments linking Morgan to MacFarlane, that he would be related but as his name is Morgan it's also quite unlikely and reaching to make a connection. As are all the comments calling anyone with a beard Uncle (the drunk hanging around at Marston's farm towards the end of RDR).

That would be all, if you haven't already check out the trailer and get back to me perhaps if you see something interesting. Here's the trailer for those interested;
RDR2 Trailer 2

Murder and Killing in Video Games

Neil Druckmann of Naughty Dog recently interviewed Hermen Hulst of Guerrilla Games about Horizon Zero Dawn and a comment from Druckmann made me think about a certain aspect of video games. That aspect being murder, now that might sound dark but I would like to remind you that I will be discussing the killing of pixels only.

Big, evil and terrifying pixels.

The comment that got me thinking was when Druckmann and Hulst was discussing how people claim to be unable to relate to characters that isn't their gender and Druckmann retorted with "...But you're okay with playing a murderer?", interesting comment. Now I understand that it was a simplification and not a 100% accurate depiction of protagonists in violent games but it still got me thinking, do we as gamers relate to murderers when we play games about killing people?

In some regards we do, but I would say it's more often than not highly justifiable. Gaming is by all means a very childish medium and often paints conflict in a very black and white manner. You, the player, often play as an underdog oppressed by some pure evil force and is often forced into the conflict through self defense or to protect loved ones. Some would say it's murder regardless of the reason but our medium goes to extreme lengths to make it seem like the right thing to do, because if a game made you feel like an actual murderer I'd argue that not many would actually enjoy playing that game.

That said, there are games that more or less intentionally play around with this. Games like Spec Ops: The Line with more on the nose commentary on killing heaps of people and others more subtly. The example I'd like to bring up is Fallout 4 for a very specific area with very specific enemies. I'm referring to the raiders at the FMS Northern Star wreck who unlike other raiders speak Norwegian. Now the other raiders you meet in the game have few redeeming qualities and often speak about horrible stuff they've done or are going to do, but the Norwegians don't. They will say things like "Leave us Alone!" and "Get off our ship!" when attacked, simply put, they're not bloodthirsty raiders but a stranded crew who simply didn't speak the language and couldn't communicate with the locals and ended up having to fight for what was theirs in a cruel world.

What got to me was how this detail would likely be lost on a vast majority of people who played Fallout 4 as most don't understand Norwegian. However as someone who do understand the basics I was rather mortified about learning that they just want to be left alone and that I am in fact the villain who attack them. This wasn't me defending myself from an evil, faceless entity but me going into someone's makeshift home and actually murdering the inhabitants. Naturally I felt horrible and avoid going there unless I have to, and I think that's an important thing to highlight.

Gamers as a whole will try to do good, and that is why it's dishonest to say we identify with murderers. There's a lot of data that will back this up, games that offer gamers the choice of good versus bad a majority will choose to do good. Not only that, but study from University of Buffalo suggests that doing anything immoral in games will lead to guilt and in a sense make us more morally sensitive. Such a study would hardly suggest that gamers get into a killer mindset even after killing thousands if not millions of pixelated enemies. I've personally been killing virtual bad guys for over a decade and I still felt horrible after killing the previously mentioned Norwegian raiders, as a personal experience to back it up.

Not that it can't be interesting when games do turn the tables, anyone who has played Spec Ops: The Line will know that a morally gray game will also be very entertaining. It was advertised as a standard military shooter so when it turned out to be a "Heart of Darkness"-inspired adventure that really tested the moral fibers of gamers. It's quite welcome to actually question if we should feel so indifferent to killing so many and I'd like to see more games where we strike down our fellow man to not be so careless about it. If we want our medium to mature we should ask for games that aren't just mindless shooting galleries, games that encourage other approaches that perhaps doesn't involve shooting the enemy in the face.

It could be even more beneficial for us if games reminded us that it isn't always so black and white, perhaps have the enemies chat about how they're doing bad things for a justifiable reason themselves. Then give us the option to avoid conflict either through dialogue options or stealth. Life imitates art, as they say, and today more empathy couldn't hurt. Considering that such a large part of the modern population play games it could be a very effective way to inspire more care to tell encouraging stories instead of the same old ones where you are the absolute hero and the enemy is an absolute evil.

To mention another game that kind of dabbles in moral gray areas but not really, The Last of Us is a game that put the player in control of a very brutal man, named Joel. Joel is a man who has survived in a cruel world for many years and as a result has become a very cold killer. If it wasn't for his companion, Ellie, someone who hasn't seen as much violence and in turn give Joel a reason to care again, he would probably be the villain in someone else's story. Would overall be hard to relate to considering how cold he is if it wasn't for even more horrifying bad guys in the game. Would've been nice to hear them talk about anything but how they basically enjoy kicking puppies in their free time. It can be fun playing a anti-hero but as a result the enemies often become so absurdly evil to make it justifiable to kill them without feeling too guilty. Breaks the immersion to some extent.

I understand that devs don't want us to feel too uncomfortable playing their games but I do believe that gamers are more mature than they give us credit for. If they want to depict a very morally gray world then don't be afraid to depict it properly, the previously mentioned The Last of Us would be a good opportunity to show us that the enemies aren't necessarily outright evil and that you might prefer to avoid conflict instead of depicting them as monsters that the world wouldn't miss. You could say it's weird how they instead encourage killing your fellow man because he's an irredeemable monster.

Not that I want mindless shooting galleries to disappear, but like I said our medium is still in a very infantile place as a whole when it comes to how it handles killing. Some games that depict a more realistic take on conflict could be good, games where killing does make you feel uncomfortable. Solving conflicts more creatively could be interesting and could be the next step for gaming to take if we want it to mature as a medium.

As a conclusion, it's a false oversimplification to claim that gamers are put into the role of murderers when playing violent games and call them murder simulators. However, it could be interesting to push boundaries by putting the player in a position where killing could be considered "murder" while giving the choice to simply avoid conflict through more creative means.

Naughty Dog and Gender Diversity

I've discussed this subject before, more or less, can't remember if it was in both blog and vlog form or just a vlog. Regardless, the subject I intend to talk about is gender diversity in games and how it can be handled better by even those who see themselves as shining beacons of hope for those wanting to see more lead women, as an example. 

A recent video interview where Neil Druckmann of Naughty Dog interviewed Hermen Hulst of Guerrilla Games is what sparked this topic. They were discussing female protagonists in a segment of the interview where Druckmann took a jab at people unable to relate to a female protagonist but can relate to murderers. Now there's a lot to discuss in this so lets get started.

First off, I wanted to address the fact that anyone who thinks you can't relate to a character simply because of different gender or race is ignorant. Not completely wrong but still ignorant if that's a deal breaker for them. A character is made up of many different things, among those things is gender and race, those being different than your own can set up a barrier for sure but it's something you quickly get over once you give them a chance. It's just how we're wired in the end, we get along better and quicker with others like us while getting along with different people takes more of an effort. That said, as a straight man I get how it can be weird to play as a woman and in the game have male characters hit on you, the player.

Aloy, relatable despite being a woman.

Moving on, I wanted to touch upon the subject of relating to a murderer. I want to touch more upon that another time but I did wanna point out that it's not really a thing that games do these days. Most often the enemy is a purely evil entity, either zombies, aliens or mercenaries with one goal and that goal is to be as evil as possible. They're faceless, and they go out of their way to show that whatever emotions they have it's about how they enjoy torturing puppies. Putting those kinds of enemies in your path, most often putting you in the seat that you have no choice but to kill them in self defense, isn't putting the player in the boots of a murderer. As an example, Aloy from Horizon is a killer, but no murderer. She doesn't kill innocent people and the enemies are overly barbaric with no redeemable qualities. You're not going to feel bad about killing monsters in self defense, but you might feel uncomfortable when every single character in the game seem to have the hots for you. Understandably so.

I'll have to get around to the murder-mindset and games later on as it's an interesting topic to me, but alas it's time to get to my main point. The reason I put Naughty Dog in the title. As a disclaimer, I have no problems with female protagonists, in fact they often turn out really badass because devs seem to make more of an effort when writing them and badass women are great. For that matter I'm not going to sit here and say we need less women in games, no I'm here to say, we need more.

What I mean with that.. Let me ask you a question, how many badass females can you remember from recent games? Really give it some thought, I can remember Ellie, Tess and Marlene (TLoU), Elena, Chloe and Nadine (Uncharted), Lara Croft (Tomb Raider), Aloy (Horizon) just to name a few. Now try and mention any female villains. Can you mention three without looking anything up, even one? Better yet, how many games have women among the cannon fodder that the player slaughters en masse?

That's the real point, games today seem to have a real hard time painting women as villains, especially as low level grunts. I think this is a very important part of equality, not to hold women to some ideal standard where they're always the good guys but show that they can be just as bad as men. Now I've mentioned Nadine here, she counts, right? Well first off, she was a Mary Sue, she wasn't that interesting and both times you fought her you didn't stand a chance against this terminator. She's also one only villain that hasn't died in Uncharted, even villains who ended up redeeming themselves in the past died as they did. Nadine just buggers off to return as a protagonist in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Not to mention she's the only female mercenary in all of the Uncharted games. How odd.

The Last of Us is another example of a game which Naughty Dog, gaming media and Druckmann himself uses to show off how badass women can be. It's true that Ellie and Tess are both really badass and good characters but where are the female villains? Even Marlene who, not to spoil anything important, stands in your way at one point isn't portrayed as a bad character. Also where are all the female Fireflies and survivors? Is Naughty Dog telling me that only men are strong enough to do all the savage things you need to do to survive in a post-apocalyptic world? Or have what it takes to be a mercenary in the Uncharted franchise?

Now, I do of course understand why this is a thing. It is of course because we're still uneasy about harming women. We've played games and seen movies where men have been slaughtered without discretion for decades, centuries, maybe more? It's funny how everyone calls for more women in gaming but as soon as they can be harmed all hell breaks loose. I think the first time I noticed female cannon fodder was in MGS4 were Kojima had made the FROG unit to kinda experiment and see if gamers would be more hesitant to kill female enemies.

FROG:s, all female special forces.

What I ask is simple, add female baddies among the waves of enemies you throw against me in games. I didn't think about it until I played more games with female protagonists, how my character was the only female combatant in sight. Why is it okay to slaughter my own gender exclusively while we hesitate to even add female enemies that end up dying before the end of the game? As a man, I'm fine with female protagonists, but I'd like my own gender to not be the only one portrayed as evil as well. As long as this is a thing we won't have gender equality.

I'd also like to mention the recent Star Wars: Battlefront 2 announcement. Apparently we're going to play as a female protagonist in it. Fine, I say, but a female Imperial soldier? Where has all the female storm troopers been before, I ask? Is it maybe that we don't mind the idea of millions of male baddies being killed throughout the Star Wars franchise so we don't really see female baddies until it's time to play the "bad side"? Seems awfully fishy to me, don't get me wrong Star Wars is full of badass women but I've never heard of women among the Imperial Grunts before Phasma in Star Wars Episode 7 who wasn't even a grunt but a fancy commander. Doesn't seem consistent, and consistency is vital for making a believable and immersive world.

Ellie, doesn't hit women because they're too fragile. 

Naturally I do wanna give a shout-out to developers who do support real gender equality in games like Bethesda and Ubisoft who have both badass female protagonists and female antagonists and cannon fodder. Bethesda in particular has been doing it for a long time, first time I saw female raiders in Fallout 3 (which as my first Bethesda game) was quite refreshing to me. They also do it without proclaiming how progressive they are at every step, really I'd say Bethesda is currently a shining beacon of how it's done as far as identity politics is concerned. I really hope Naughty Dog takes note and adds a few female enemies in their next game. Female protagonists is good and I enjoy playing them but it makes it all the more weird when all enemies are exclusively male.

Introduce some real diversity and equality, please.

Oh and here's the interview that caused this topic to begin with; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzomI_VXFLs

Good Girl (Short Story)

[First short story I've ever written, at least that I've felt like sharing. I wanna write more and get better, I understand I'm not going to be some master writer from the get-go but hopefully I get an ounce of feedback and learn to improve. Anyway, it's not a happy story so be warned about that.]

In a small hospital, a man wakes up with an aching head. Slowly he opens his eyes and observes the room, it was bright and he didn't quite see. Suddenly he sees movement, someone in white saw him looking and moving around in his bed and ran off. Likely a nurse he thought. Then he noticed he was cuffed to the bed, someone didn't want him to go anywhere but he didn't really remember why that would be. His vision returned as he now saw the figure in white return, this time she was clearly a nurse, she brought with her a police officer, a doctor and a man in a suit. Hopefully they would have answers would help the man understand what he was doing there in the first place.

The man in the suit approached the man, and sat down on a chair next to the bed.
"Good morning, my name is Hill, detective Hill. How are you feeling?"
"I'm... I'm feeling a bit dizzy, confused.."
"Sir, can you tell me your name? Just for the record."
"Sure, my name is Robert Moore, what is this about?"
The detective looked at the man, then at the doctor, then down on his notes.
"Thomas Moore, is it? Alright, do you have any idea about why you're here?"
The man was a bit confused, but things started coming back to him.
"Uhm, yeah, I was in a struggle... At a house, my neighbor."
"I see, you're.. So you're the neighbor, Mr. Moore, we're not fully aware of the situation, mind filling us in? From the start if you don't mind."
Thomas Moore, as he had identified himself as, started thinking back to how it all had started. The story started coming to him as his mind cleared up.
"Of course, let me think, I've been their neighbor... Oh For a long time, as long as I can remember in fact."
"What was the name of your neighbor, can you account for the family members I mean?"
"Sure, let me think, it was the Payne family, the mother Anne, father Edgar and daughter Sophie."
"Okay, right, continue with the story."
"So I always knew there was something bad going on there, like it was one of those things you just know, the dad was a drinker, the daughter played alone in the backyard all the time. The mother often wore sunglasses and long sleeved clothing to hide bruises but you could always tell when the man, Edgar, had been rough with his family. Horrible man."
"Why didn't you intervene then, if it was so obvious why not call the police?"
"I... I don't know, I didn't feel it was my business, besides, the cops had been there and done nothing. That's just how these things go."
"Right, so you did nothing."
"I know, I'm ashamed, but what could I do? Well, at least that's what I asked myself every day until..."
Moore paused, thinking...
"...Until? Mr. Moore, are you alright to talk right now? We could come back later when you feel better?"
"No that's alright, I can talk right now. What pushed me to action was an encounter I had with the daughter a few days before the... Incident."
"Really now? So what happened?"
"Well, I was walking home, minding my own business, I'm kind of a loner that way..."
"The story, Mr. Moore.."
"..So I was walking and the daughter, Sophie, was playing in the front yard. Hadn't really seen her much as she was hidden away most of the time."
"So it was really that unusual for her to be around, close to other people than her family I mean?"
"Oh yes, they never brought her along when going out, she was often left alone in the house when Edgar and Anne went out for whatever reason."
"I see, so how was the encounter?"
"Well a ball came rolling out in my path and she came running close behind it. She grabbed it and stood in front of me, just looking at me. I got down on my knees and asked how she was doing, if her parents was around. She was quiet for awhile before saying that her mother wasn't around and that her dad was acting strange. Her face was emotionless, it broke my heart. Then I looked at the house and I saw the curtain move, the dad had woken up I figured. Not sure if he was still drunk I just told her to be safe when playing by the street. Then I went home and..."
"..Sorry to interrupt you, I have to go over a few notes with the doctor and such, I'll be right back."

Detective Hill got up and went over to the doctor and the officer, they talked among each other with muffled voices. There was even a bit of head scratching involved. After the doctor had talked exclusively for awhile the detective shrugged his shoulders and walked back over to the bed and sat down on his chair and sighed.
"Mr. Moore, we want the full picture of this... Situation, so please continue your story. What happened next?"
"Well, as I was saying, I went home and thought little of it. Still, it was in the back of my head as I went on. Every day from that on Sophie was playing in the front of the house, it was also eerily quiet compared to earlier. I started noticing that the mother wasn't around anymore."
"Did you suspect that foul play was the reason for her absence at this time?"
"Not really, I mean it was a broken home so it wasn't unusual for her to run off from time to time. The girl playing in the front by the street was overall the weirdest thing about it."
"Right, go on, Mr. Moore."
"It was not until... I'm sorry the exact day escapes me, I'm still a bit out of it, but it was late. I was going for a walk, I hadn't been to work that day so I wanted to do something besides just sitting around the house all day. Then as I got out I noticed something by the Payne household, a freshly dug hole in the backyard, I got chills down my spine thinking that Edgar had at some point killed his wife during a drunken stupor and now was burying  her in the backyard. It made sense to me, that's why the daughter was playing in the front to he would be able to bury Anne without disturbance."
"With this realization, what did you do?"
"Well I felt I had to go over to investigate of course, I ran over to the house and started knocking on the door to confront Edgar."
"And was Mr. Payne and the daughter Sophie both home at this time?"
"Yes, in fact as Anne wasn't around Edgar was taking out his drunken rage on the girl. I felt mad with rage myself, witnessing this monster attacking a small child."
"Sounds horrible, so how did you respond to this?"
"I broke down the door, of course, I had to stop it."
"How did that go? I need exact details of what happened next."
"I'll describe it as accurately as I can.. I rushed in after I had forced the door open and attacked Edgar. During the struggle I pushed away Sophie and telling her to run and that she did. I kept fighting with Edgar, he was strong and had fought a lot during his life so he was tough to keep up with. Even when drunk."
"Right, go on Mr. Moore."
"Well, after a long struggle, I managed to knock him down. I stood over him, catching my breath. My heart was racing, I had just fought this man, I didn't know what to do now. Then I heard a voice behind me, 'Stop!', it said. It was little Sophie, she was holding a gun, barely, it was so heavy for her. I was shocked and lowered my posture and started to talk her down, I told her it wasn't a toy and that she might hurt someone. Didn't even notice how Edgar had risen up behind me and hit me in the head with a hard object, a bottle perhaps, and I went down. Before I passed out completely I heard a gunshot and saw him go down as well, shot in the head. Good girl, I thought, before losing my consciousness."
The detective sat and thought about Moore's story for awhile. Then leaned in.
"So this is your story, Mr. Moore? You, a lone neighbor, noticed the wrongs in a broken household and rose to the occasion, became a hero and defended the little girl from the monster?"
"Not quite how I'd put it, but my story is true."
"Alright, I'll be right back, do give it some more thought."

Hill got up and left the room with the others. Thomas Moore couldn't do anything but sit there, thinking over the events, why was the detective so snarky about his description of the events? Did he miss something? Was he a suspect? Moore wanted answers, and right now he still had more questions than before. Perhaps he'd find out more now, as the detective returned with a briefcase and sat back down beside him. He opened the briefcase and took a few folders in his lap.
"So, Mr. Moore, are you sticking to the story?"
"Yes, I am. Why do you ask?"
"Well, the doctors assure me that you might be telling a story you really think is correct. So now I have a few questions to clear things up. Describe Mr. Edgar Payne to me, would you, Mr. Thomas Moore?"
"Uhm, sure, he's a tall man, strong, somewhat round around his guy, beard and messy hair most of the time. Unkempt I guess you could describe him."
"You are correct, here's a family photo, in fits with that description."
Detective Hill handed Moore the photo to observe.
"What is this about, Detective?"
"Describe your own appearance."
"Clean cut hair, quite light brown, average height, quite lean, I don't know, why are you asking this?"
"Mr. Moore, take a look at this mirror."
Hill handed Moore a mirror and he couldn't believe what he was looking at, that was the face of Edgar Payne, a shaggy looking man with a rough face.
"I... I don't understand, is this some sort of trick?"
"Mr. Moore, I assure you that the man you see in that mirror is yourself, you are Edgar Payne, there never was a 'Thomas Moore' to begin with. At least not in your neighborhood. We found your wife dead in your backyard, Sophie, your daughter, won't talk but we found a bottle that appears to be the weapon that bashed her head in. What exactly happened that night isn't exactly clear but what we do know is that you were intoxicated and that Sophie had shot you in the head. It was not fatal but your mind appear heavily scrambled, she was bruised so we figured it was self defense. Your story does make some sense but this 'Moore' persona you made up to make yourself feel better is a lie."
"What are you telling me? Of course I'm Thomas Moore, I've... I've been their neighbor for as long as I can remember, I told you...! I TOLD YOU THE STORY! I DIDN'T KILL MY WIFE YOU SON OF A...!!"
"It might be hard for you to accept, but you need to let this persona go, you made him up, Mr. Payne. The doctors will look at you and determine exactly just how damaged you are. See if that head of yours is truly that broken or if this is just an act."
"AN ACT!? This whole thing was just an act! That photo is manipulated, you're just looking for someone to send in jail! EDGAR PAYNE IS DEAD!"
"We can only hope he is, but unfortunately that's for the doctors to decide.. Goodbye, Mr. Payne."

Detective Hill got up as he walked out of the room, leaving Thomas Moore, or more accurately, Edgar Payne, to shout and cry out in pain and confusion. Apparently, truth doesn't always set you free.

Death Stranding, Silent Hills? Theory!

I just saw the second trailer for Kojima's next game, "Death Stranding", that featured among others Mads Mikkelsen with a confirmed part and Guillermo del Toro. You can see the trailer here;

Now watching the trailer lead to a theory, that being that the game takes place in purgatory. The last trailer gave few clues about the game but this one had much more going on. It took place in a battlefield with del Toro running around with a small box, later revealed to contain a baby. I figure that the baby is symbolic, maybe for rebirth or something? Innocence perhaps, my religious knowledge isn't really that great but isn't the point of purgatory to cleanse the spirit?

Regardless, the other imagery in the trailer lead me to the purgatory thing, undead looking soldiers with that tank thingy that all look very WW2, then Mads' character shows up looking much more modern with goggles of sorts. Leads me to believe that people from different era's is trapped in this world. Now to refer to the first trailer with Norman Reedus, in it we see him crying with a dead baby, maybe it's all related to why he ended up in purgatory? He lost his innocence or more bluntly caused the death of a child? Makes sense to me.

Moving on, if we assume this is all more or less accurate, maybe Kojima is making his Silent Hills game with a different coat of paint. Considering both Reedus and del Toro are now associated with the project and the fact that Silent Hill share similarities with purgatory it makes some sense. I can imagine that Kojima doesn't let go of an idea that easily, so if he did have grand ideas for Silent Hills maybe he now wanna use them, a second chance kind of thing.

Even if he's not rebooting his Silent Hills idea I still figure that the game taking place in purgatory is a solid theory. I mean it fits with the name, Death Stranding, stranded in death between heaven and hell, no?

Essential NPC's Rant (Fo4)

Talking about the immortal NPC's that Bethesda insists on filling their worlds with. I get that NPC's in such a huge and dynamic world are forever in danger and that it would suck for them to die randomly but there's better solutions than making them 100% unkillable.

Can Online be Fun Without XP? [VLOG]

A vlog about how the Uncharted 4 multiplayer lacks a traditional leveling system and if it will be addictive enough to keep a living multiplayer community in the long run;

Fallout 4: Settlements Rant [VLOG]

A rant regarding the settlement building in Fallout 4. Don't worry, it's not too negative, if you were a nice person you could even call it constructive criticism;

Final Fantasy XV Platinum Demo Thoughts

I have to be perfectly honest, I haven't even tried a Final Fantasy game since FF8 (might have played a bit of FF9, not sure). What I mean to say is that I haven't really kept up to date with the series for a long time so when I went into this demo I didn't really know what to expect as I haven't even followed FFXV that closely. Nonetheless, here's my thoughts on it and I will be keeping it short.

It should be said that this was a tech demo and not actually an accurate representation of the actual game. In that regard I can't give it a lot of praise, sure the visuals and atmosphere are charming to say the least but the actual performance was a bit questionable. Felt pretty "choppy", like the game couldn't quite keep up with me as I moved through the world. Quite disappointing considering that this was built specifically to show off the visuals in a controlled environment so it does have me worried how the full game will handle the bigger environments with more stuff going on.

As far as the gameplay goes it did feel okay to play. The reason I haven't really been a big fan in the past is that the previous games haven't exactly been user friendly. This however felt pretty easy to get into, don't get me wrong when I say that because you did get a taste of an actual fight at the end and it didn't feel easy to me. Once I got a hang of it I did manage somewhat but my first impression is that it's relatively easy to get into but will take effort to master. However that's based on this demo alone so I might be completely wrong.

Personally I must say that the demo did catch my attention and did make me more interested in the game. Like I previously mentioned I haven't really been an avid follower but this may have changed it, as someone a bit fed up with the same old shooters this might actually be a breath of fresh air I can actually get into. Now I've seen feedback from others and it would seem I'm not in a majority of that particular viewpoint but I guess I wanted to express that I do see potential in the game. I'd still want to see reviews before buying but I am more likely to buy the game now than I was before playing the demo.

Finally, for those interested, here's my playthrough for the demo;

Deadpool (2016) Thoughts

I recently watched Deadpool, figured I'd give my two cents on it. Not gonna be long or very spoilery except for one detail which is a personality trait for the main villain that don't make any sense. With that said lets do this.

It's a good and fun movie, nothing more and nothing less. Pretty impressive considering the "suits" apparently had little faith in it and it didn't get that much of a budget (compared to other big superhero movies). Was more violent and had more sexual humor than I had anticipated, which I enjoyed because I've become so used to watching movies with neither these days. Good to be surprised every once in awhile in a very non-surprising world is all I'm saying.

As far as the actors go I can't really complain, Ryan Reynolds did a superb job as Deadpool and everyone else was more or less alright. Really hated TJ Miller's character though, well maybe not the character as much as Miller himself. Perhaps it was the way he talked or his overall behavior but I hated every moment he was featured. Hopefully this character dies violently in the sequel, no it's not gonna be enough to just have him not be there I wanna see him get brutally murdered at this point.

While I'm not gonna go too deep into the plot I will say that I enjoyed it for its simplicity, there weren't a lot of characters to keep track of and it was all kept pretty straightforward and personal. Something superhero movies these days have a hard time doing. Hopefully they manage to keep the next movie somewhat simple so it doesn't get too crazy, yes more plot wouldn't hurt but don't overdo it.

Speaking about the plot I was a bit surprised that the Wolverine movie didn't come into play at all. I had guessed that the ending battle from that movie would be skimmed over after Wade agreed to the program and that he'd wake up in the ruins of wherever that last battle took place. Doesn't really matter in the end, I guess it was for the best to ignore that part as he had abilities and all that wasn't really Deadpool anyway.

However what was a part of this movie was the villain, and I'd like to discuss him a tiny bit. First of all here's the only spoiler in this blog entry, he didn't feel anything. Like any physical pain or emotions, would've been interesting except that he does seem to do just that. Otherwise he wouldn't get so upset or personal with Deadpool to the degree that he does in the movie. And he did end up being a bit boring in the end, why do the bad guys in these movies always turn out to be so... Gray?

Finally I'd just like to say that I'm just very glad that this movie happened. Deadpool deserved a proper movie adaptation. Unfortunately movie producers will likely learn the wrong lessons from it, watch and see if needless raunchy jokes or violence gets forced where it doesn't belong just because it worked in Deadpool. Just Watched. But yes, I liked this movie, I'd recommend it.

Fallout 4: Thoughts and Criticism

I've just finished my very first playthrough of Fallout 4 and I'd like to share my thoughts on the whole thing. Not a review as I'm a bit late to the party and overall I'll keep it pretty simple and personal. Also don't worry, I don't intend to drop any spoilers. 

Also, if you don't feel like reading, feel free to watch my video version of this "review":

It may sound weird that I finished the story of Fallout 4 just now, I mean it's been out a long time and all. The thing is for once I enjoyed it so much I didn't want it to end, in the past I've never been the biggest Bethesda fan so I've never dragged their games out any longer than I've had to. Let me elaborate, in Bethesda's previous games like Skyrim and Fallout 3 I've felt the writing and gameplay was rather poor.

Sure they were very open and all that but I need the game to be enjoyable to play if I'm going to enjoy everything else it has to offer. I just couldn't get into their previous games because they felt so stiff in every way, the worlds felt like amusement parks where I interacted with robots and so on. Fallout 4 however did elevate itself to such a level it no longer felt weird, for once the writing was pretty solid and the gameplay was highly enjoyable. I've spent a lot of time just exploring the world without a real objective which I've just never done before in a Bethesda game.

In many ways to me Fallout 4 is a promise of a bright future where I too will be able to get into their games. I say that because it's obviously not perfect, yes I enjoyed it a lot but lets talk about the things I want improved or added. Speaking of additions, settlement building was added to Fallout 4 this time around and it was an aspect I really enjoyed and put many hours into. It's fun but again not perfect, some settlements where just too small to really matter and there were just too many of them.

Fallout 4 effectively welcomed me into the Bethesda fanclub

The way I'd like to see this aspect handled in the future is fewer player controlled settlements but deeper mechanics. I'd like for them to matter more, if I basically own the wasteland I want it to mean something. Would be fun to have some politics involved in this, think of Fallout New Vegas where you could choose to take everything over yourself, this is something I would've liked to see here. Yes I know that's what the Minutemen storyline is all about but they're not really yours to control. What I guess I'm getting is that I want to see a Gta style rise to power where you reach a point where you're a big deal, a point where caravan guards no longer treat you like some ragtag wastelander peasant.

I know Bethesda makes big games and I know you can do insane amounts of things in them, but if there's one thing they've yet to master it's to make the world respond to you in a way that you feel like you matter. Fallout New Vegas (again) did this pretty well, you were given feedback to your actions, if you killed members of Ceasar's Legion at first sight then you'd reach a point where you're vilified in their eyes, you could also become idolized by different factions and communities. In short it felt like your presence was acknowledged.

Moving on, to again bring up the Minutemen aspect, if you want you can pretty quickly in the game become the Minutemen General. A nice title, yet it feels hollow that even after having literally every settlement available under your control you still need to take care of everything yourself. It feels like the next step for Bethesda is to look into micro management, wouldn't be too far fetched considering they've added a big new mechanic such as settlement building. Let me send troops to defend settlements, to take over settlements, to sabotage the enemy or clear out raider camps. Just let me feel like the leader I've worked so hard to be.

Now to bring up something completely different, vehicles. I know there's both negative and positive opinions on this but I really feel vehicles could be a good addition to Fallout. Now I don't think they'd work well in Fallout 4 in particular but they could be added to improve future installments. How, you may ask? Well Fallout 4 felt very dense, not really a bad thing in most cases but this is Fallout, you're supposed to feel like you're in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, yet it feels too "alive". You walk two feet and you stumble upon yet another settlement or otherwise inhabited location. Some breathing room between points of interests would go a long way to capture the feel of the original games and a vehicle would be more useful.

Of course I also bring up vehicles for another reason, in a near future a patch will be released that overhauls the survival mode, one way it does this is by removing fast travel. One point against vehicles I always hear is that you miss out the sense of exploration, that you'd just race past everything interesting. Now my counter point is that fast traveling does this to a much higher degree, at some point the world gets very small as there's no reason to actually wander around anymore. You're just going from loading screen to loading screen. My solution would be to completely remove fast travel, apart from maybe certain locations like Witcher 3, but instead introduce vehicles that allows you to travel faster between locations while exploring the wasteland in between.

Could work a bit like the power armor does in Fallout 4, speaking of which, the power armor in Fallout 4 was both a hit and a miss. First, I do like that this time around it felt like a big, powerful piece of armor. Secondly, not a fan of the Fusion Core system, I get that they wanna limit it somehow to make sure you don't abuse such a valuable asset. I mean it's really against the lore that their batteries only last 30 minutes, it's just wrong in that regard. What I'd suggest is reduce their level of protection so they're not quite as overpowered and don't sprinkle them around the wasteland like they've done here. I'm fairly certain that it can be balanced without messing up the lore much.

There's two more points I'd like to address in this already lengthy piece, the dialogue and choices. Now let it be know that I actually liked having a voiced protagonist, if I spend an hour creating my character I like to see him interact with those around him. What I don't like is that I suddenly can't interact with anyone after having done their quest. What I refer to is that I've literally completed every quest in the game and there's no one I can talk to anymore except traders and those who give radiant quests. Oh and by the way a small thing about that I'd like to see someone but faction characters give out these quests, as an example that chem salesman in Diamond City could always have more ingredients for the player to collect.

Fallout 4 can be pretty lonely

As far as choices go, and this will be my final issue, I would've liked to see a more open story. Now I do feel this was the most well written and interesting story ever to be in a Bethesda game but because it was about searching for your son you're automatically written to be a good character. Even the companions reflect this, there's not a single companion that's outright evil, even Fallout 3 had this so it baffles me that this time around being good (more or less) is your only option. Not that it had to be that way, I could easily see how instead of being a force for good the events in the game would lead the protagonist on a more violent and evil path. Though as I don't wanna spoil much I won't go deeper into that, I would however like to see in the future that you don't define my character this much from the start. Like the voice actor even sounds so kind it's hard to be an evil bastard even if you try.

There you have it, my thoughts on Fallout 4 and where they can go from here. I am very excited for it as I did enjoy playing it a lot. I had spent about 200 hours on my first playthrough and I want more, to me that's a testament to how good the game is.

The Revenant Thoughts

So I went to see The Revenant recently that stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy (among others) and is directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. Powerful acting and visuals made the whole thing a fairly pleasing experience and I'd shortly like to share a few thoughts on it all.

The first thing I noticed right away is that the acting is really solid all around, at no point was I put off or taken out of the experience by bad acting. Very rarely do you see a movie where everything is this "tight", which made it all the more impressive. DiCaprio is of course the main attraction in this movie and the man sure delivers an unforgettable performance to be remembered for a mighty long time. Truly remarkable.

Beautiful shots and visuals were also offered, while it's a brutal movie it's never afraid to show of the beauty of the natural world. I don't care who you are but when you watch this, regardless of the brutal conditions, part of you will consider leaving civilized life for untouched wilderness because of what you'll see here, of only for a moment. Overall outstanding visuals that you don't really see in other more mainstream movies.

Now I don't only have praise for this movie, there was a subplot with the Indians that were hunting for the chief's daughter that wasn't that well developed or interesting. I guess it motivated them to hunt for the "heroes" and so on but they felt uneven as they at times were hellbent on killing everything and at times appeared rather peaceful. Really the one aspect I don't feel was well done for this movie.

Furthermore, I'm not really sure it's a movie that you need to watch more than one time. Yes I'm happy I went to see it, like I'd recommend watching this piece of art at least once in your life, but I can't really do more than that. Reckon it's hard to make one man's journey that interesting but once you've seen it there's not really enough to keep you going back. Guess not everyone really likes to watch movies more than once anyway but I do and if you're like me you might not wanna invest in owning this movie later on.

Still, I liked it for what it was and I'm happy it exists and that I got to see it. Movies like this doesn't come around very often so do go see it, especially if you're tired of the usual Hollywood take on "true events".

Crazy's 2016 Gaming Predictions [VLOG]

Just naming a few more or less crazy predictions for the coming year in gaming..

STAR WARS: Battlefront III - Beta Impressions [VLOG]

Sharing both my positive and negative thoughts on the open beta for STAR WARS: Battlefront III. I'm a bit late to this party I know but the game isn't released yet so here goes. 

Rainbow Six: Siege - Beta Impressions [VLOG]

As the title says, a video detailing my impressions of the closed beta for Rainbow Six: Siege;

Objectification in Games [VLOG]

Now I probably wouldn't have made this video to begin with if it wasn't for the fact that when I've asked feminists why they don't look at these issues from a male perspective they've been quick to answer "well it's not a female issue, you fight for it you... You... MAN!". So, where we are.

And I can't stress enough that I don't claim to preach some objective truth, I'm open for discussion. I know I've made mistakes, yeah this video isn't perfect either, only arrogant fools claim to be perfect, please understand.

You can also find me on twitter @crazycat690

Sources for some of the things I talk about in the video:
http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Raiden
http://www.metalgearinformer.com/?p=9178
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10880647/Topless-women-campaign-to-Free-The-Nipple-why-on-earth-do-women-want-to-walk-around-topless-in-public.html