Saturday, January 25, 2020
Jedi Fallen Order
By: Patrick "TheLaw" Morris
A long time ago in
what seems like a galaxy far far away video game audiences were inundated with
games that explored and expanded on the Star Wars universe in a meaningful and
at the time canonical way. But as we have learned time and time again: all good
things must end. And end it did when Disney bought Lucasfilm, and relegated the
once revered LucasArts to nothing but a mobile developer. The house of mouse
signed a ten year deal with Electronic Arts but the single player story driven
saber filled adventure everyone was expecting was still nearly six years away.
EA's handling of the Star Wars license since 2013 has left a lot to be desired,
but despite it's many, MANY flaws Jedi: Fallen Order is a big step in the right
direction even if that step forward is largely reliant on the past.
Welcome welcome
welcome everyone welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm
TheLawMorris and this is the video essay series in which I get to talk about
the games I've been playing and what I think of the medium as a whole. I played
through Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order late last year and while it was good I
feel like a lot of people are overly excited about a new Star Wars game that is
anything but disappointing at launch and are reviewing it a bit to favorably.
So this week I bring you my managed thoughts on the game that some people are
already calling the best game of the generation, let's talk about Fallen Order.
This video may
contain spoilers.
Gameplay is the real
temptation of a Star Wars game. We all see Jedi use the force and wield their
lightsabers, bounty hunters jetpacking through cities, podracers racing at life
and death speeds, and droids…being built, and we wanna do those things! We all
want a taste of what's it's like to use the force, carry a light saber, and win
a podrace. And that desire is what naturally leads Star Wars to video games.
The gameplay of Fallen Order is the reason I finished the game. It provides a
level of polish that is expected of a much more experienced development studio
and utilizes and weaves together sophisticated mechanics with a level of
precision that I feel comfortable calling nearly best in class.
Combat feels punchy
and satisfying, moving quickly but not sacrificing its weightiness for that
sense of speed. Combat is really only bogged down by some incomprehensible
difficulty spikes like Oggdo Bogdo and the bounty hunter gauntlet. Exploration
is enthralling, reminiscent of the Metroid prime games allowing the player to
canvas each planet at their leisure and unlocking additional areas through new
force abilities as the player progresses. The only hindrance to the
exportability of the planets of Fallen Order is the map with which the player
is supposed to navigate those planets. I legitimately would have preferred to
not have any map at all, it caused nothing but confusion. While both the combat and exploration can be
frustrating they make up for those moments (or sometimes hours) of difficulty
with even more hours of pure unadulterated excellence.
Like I said, the
gameplay is the reason I finished the game, I certainly didn’t finish it for
the story, and the characters were very hit and miss. I don’t like to be this
reductionist but the story of Fallen Order is just stupid. The plot revolves
around a macguffin device that is said to contain a list of force sensitive
children that will help to rebuild the Jedi Order, that Cal and Cere only
realize the true potential of after they’ve spent the entire game pursuing it.
The cast of characters hop from planet to planet in pursuit of this plot device
of an object only to destroy it once they’ve finally gotten their hands on it.
The reasoning for their destroying the Jedi Holocron is sound, but it was
already stored in a clearly very safe place that took them weeks of searching
and planet hopping to unlock. I was left thinking that if only Cal and Cere had
had their revelation that maybe pursuing a list of children that were prime
candidates to be inducted into a child militia wasn’t the most ethical quest in
history prior to their starting said quest they could have been saved a lot of
trouble.
Almost in spite of
it's stupid story Fallen Order manages to deliver some of the best and worst
Star Wars characters of the Disney era. Cal Kestas is a bland and generic
feeling protagonist that feels as though went through a sort of creative tug of
war between being a blank slate for the player to project themselves onto and a
unique character for the new canon of Star Wars lore. What results of this
creative struggle is a character that is neither. Cal looks to distinct and has
to much personality that prevented me from ever envisioning myself as him but
all his emotions and reactions felt toned down in a way that he was never
compelling me to become invested in him or anything around him…he's just meh.
Jedi master Cere on the other hand in my opinion fell victim to the same money
motivated political plot armor that so many other Disney characters have in
recent years. I don’t want to get to political on this show but I am absolutely
interested in seeing new compelling characters added to the Star Wars universe
and I don’t give two shits about their gender, race, sexual orientation, or any
other arbitrary differences. Those things aren't what makes up the fiber or a
person and they certainly aren't what makes a character in a story deep or
engaging. Cere is a character whose story showed potential but then that
potential was squashed by her being impervious to having any major flaws or
personal struggles to overcome.
Then there's Trilla.
Trilla is exactly what Cere, and Rey, and Captain Marvel, and every other
character who seems to be shielded from any sense of imperfection so as not to
cast certain demographics in a less than perfect light is not. Trilla is a well
thought out character with a genuinely interesting personal conflict that we
see unfold and change who she is and how she behaves throughout the course of
the game. Her character design is ominous and slowly devolves into a look of
unhinged madness making her appear even more physically imposing but in a
different more psychotic way. Her voice acting is excellent, and her physical
prowess is obviously a threat without being flawless. Trilla is an amazing
villain and in my opinion the best female character of the Disney era of Star
Wars because the writers treated her as a character that just so happened to be
a woman.
And finally at the
end of the game we get a short cameo from Darth Vader. Vader appears on the
scene and immediately his overwhelming power is felt and demonstrated. Where
Cal and the player have been training over the course of the entire game Vader
shows up and teaches the player that no matter how good you are at the game
sometimes it’s the midi-chlorian count that really matters in a fight. When
considering his appearance in comics, Rebels, Rogue One, and now this Vader has
been treated with the reverence and honor that the entire series should have
been given. Vader is the one part of Star Wars that Disney has yet to miss on.
From a visual and
performance perspective the game fairs about as well as it does in the story
department. To put it simply: there is no excuse for this game to look the way
it does. Over the course of my play through on a PS4 pro I was constantly
seeing dropped frames, texture pop in, and in some cases even textures refusing
to load altogether. When I picked up the Kyber crystal and held it in my hand
the textures just didn’t load resulting in something that looked more akin to
an early PS2 game. I am amazed that Respawn was able to pressure EA into
letting them develop using a graphics engine that wasn’t frostbite then opted
to use unreal when they have three games worth of experience developing in
source! It is honestly a shame that the game plays so incredibly well yet looks
so…not good.
Despite my
complaining my overall experience with Jedi: Fallen Order was a good one. The
game relies heavily on the nostalgia of early 2000's Star Wars games. It runs
the same play that so many games from the prequel era did: take a good game and
slap a Star Wars skin on it. In this case that good game was Dark Souls.
Respawn tried their hand at making their own Dark Souls game, cranked the
difficulty way down, then put it in the context of Star Wars. And I don’t mean
to sound like I think any of this is bad, in fact these are all good things!
The formula of replicating a successful game then putting it in the Star Wars
universe was a good one fifteen to twenty years ago and it's still a good one
today. Personally I hope EA or whoever handles the Star Wars license after the
EA deal is up keeps doing what Respawn has done with Jedi: Fallen Order,
because it made for a pretty good game and a huge step in the right direction
for Star Wars games as a whole.
What were your
thoughts on Fallen Order and why am I wrong and you're unsubbing right now? Let
me know in the comments down below! Don’t forget to check out everything we do
all in one spot over ColdNorthPro.com and that includes both of our podcasts!
Ill be back next week talking about something else entirely so until then just
go play some games.
Goose Game
By: Patrick "TheLaw" Morris
Independent
developers make up one of the fastest growing groups pushing out some of the
most creative ideas in all of gaming. For the most part indie games are
unpolished, not great to look at, and lacking of the more clear understanding
of how to execute on what drives a good experience with a game. But that’s all
perfectly okay because the indie scene serves two purposes. First it functions
as a place for aspiring developers to cut their teeth and learn the ropes
before taking their ideas up to the big leagues. And Second the inherently
smaller audience that comes with the indie scene allows for developers to
pursue the types of games they want to make as opposed to whatever flavor of
the week the publisher overlords are pursuing on any given day. But on the
rarest of occasions we get an indie game that hits both the indie level of
creativity and the triple A level of polish and completeness making for some
seriously memorable experiences. Untitled Goose Game is a shockingly unique
experience with the uncanny ability to appeal to and be loved by almost anyone,
the game is a breath of fresh air that
can only come from an indie studio and easily a new contender for the unspoken
title "King of the Indies."
Welcome welcome
welcome everyone welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm
TheLawMorris and this is the video essay series in which I get to talk about
the games I've been playing and what I think of the medium as a whole. Several
weeks ago I couldn’t help but succumb to the temptation of the Honk so I bought
and played Untitled Goose Game, let's talk about it.
For the uninitiated
Untitled Goose Game is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It's a game
where you play as a goose and it doesn’t have a title. The premise of the game
is simple, if you’ve ever had an interaction with a goose you will know that geese
are real jerks and are basically always out trying to cause the most amount of
mischief possible while still being seen in a positive light by the general
public. Geese are jerks and this game is a jerk simulator. Untitled Goose Game
puts the player in the role of a goose causing trouble in a sleepy English
village while trying to steal yet another bell for it's stash. The goose is a
thief and not a good person and it should be treated as such.
Alright alright on
the surface goose game is a game about being a goose but what that really is is
an extremely clever disguise for a puzzle game. The Developer House House uses
this setting and anti-hero to string together a series of puzzles that are easily
believable as those that might trouble a real goose throughout his daily life.
Just like real life the gooses goals range from the simple like "get the
groundskeeper wet" to the more complex like "steal a pint glass and
drop it in the canal" but the beauty of all of these objectives is that
they are each their own individual puzzle to be solved using the environment
around the goose.
Goose game is really
good, like really really good. But what is it that makes the game so good and
deserving of not only my but so many other peoples praise? Well it's actually a
combination of a few different things. The game functions as a master class in
curving the difficulty of gameplay. At the outset of the game the player and
the goose possess all the abilities they will have throughout, the game will
get no more complex or intricate through new abilities making the goose's
development be purely based on the players understanding of the puzzles
presented to them. In the first area of the game the player is given menial
tasks like "Get into the garden" or the infamous "rake in the
lake." These tasks are simple enough and fairly uninvolved when it comes
to interpreting and figuring out what the game wants before carrying that out.
But as the game progresses so does the complexity of the tasks perfectly
matching the pace at which the players understand of the games intricacies develop
until eventually the player is doing things like "drop a bucket on the
burly man's head" and "be awarded a flower" with as much
understanding and efficiency as the earlier tasks.
And not only is the
difficulty curve masterfully crafted and well pace but the actual content of
the puzzles is incredibly well done as well. Not only is the player never
spending to long doing any one particular thing but just before any area starts
to feel worn out or overused the game shuffles the player along into the next
area leaving me at least with nothing but good memories of every area. Geese
have a lot of mischief to make and a lot of places to make it.
And that mischief is
the final ingredient in the recipe of what makes goose game so enjoyable. The
game is just straight up funny and that funniness is constant. The humor
doesn’t come and go in waves but is consistently giving its audience a reason
to grin or chuckle slightly. While there's really only one big laugh in the
game that comes as the end of a well tuned crescendo the entire game is funny
to the point that looking back on how often I was doing something I thought was
funny its easy to consider the game hilarious.
I don’t consider
this a perfect game and based on reviews I don’t think many other people do.
But what seems to be the biggest complaint held against it by many reviewers is
the length. Critics and audiences alike seem to be saying that the game is to
short which is understandable as it's only natural to want more of a good
thing. But I don’t agree with this sentiment, I don’t think the game's length
is something to be held against it, in fact I think that the short length of
the game is indicative of House House being a developer that knows when to say
stop. The main to do list takes just a couple of hours and the to do as well
list adds another couple hours onto that but at just 4-6 hours of gameplay this
is a game that is ripe for some DLC adventures. The introduction of a few new
puzzle areas with the inclusion possibly a cooperative mode with a Canadian
goose friend is something I would pay more for than House House asked for the
base game. Length is a difficult thing to get just right and while I don’t
think goose game is the perfect length I do think it's always smarter to leave
your audience hungry for more than it is to overstay ones welcome.
In a word goose game
is fantastic. It is easily one of the most charming and enjoyable gaming
experience I've had this year. Coming from a studio of just four people House
House was able to make goose game the game they wanted it to be and what
resulted was an indie title on par with the likes of Super Meat Boy, Hotline
Miami, Journey, and Owlboy.
What do you guys
think of the possibility of a goose game sequel and what would you want to see
from it? Let me know in the comments down below. And while youre down there
don’t forget to subscribe and click that bell icon for notifications to be sent
to you whenever we post a new video. You can see everything we do including
both of our podcasts all in one spot over at ColdNorthPro.com, Ill be back next
week talking about the often forgot Crash Bandicoot game so until then just go
play some games.
Personal Top 5
By: Patrick "TheLaw" Morris
We made it! We have
all take another trip around the sun and on that journey we got some really
awesome new video games! Some games are fantastic some are disappointing and
every year when we reach roughly this point in space where we were one year and
one trip around the sun ago a bunch of people on youtube talk about what were
the best games that came out this year. I think that’s a valuable conversation
to have an we will absolutely be discussing that on HardReset sometime soon but
this week we will be getting a little more personal, a bit more in depth in
what I played this year.
Welcome welcome
welcome everyone welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm
TheLawMorris and this is the video essay series in which I get to talk about
the games I've been playing and what I think of the medium as a whole. You can
see everything we do all in one spot over at ColdNorthPro.com. This week
instead of doing the regular old best games of 2019 list I figured I would put
a personal spin on it, so lets talk about the best games I played in 2019.
This list may
contain spoilers.
#5:
I love Zelda and
there are very few Zelda games I haven't played all the way through but this
year I got the opportunity to tackle one of those small handful head on. Now I
know you're all thinking Link's Awakening because that one came out just a few
months ago and is an amazing game but that’s not the fifth best game I played
this year.
The Legend of Zelda
The Minish Cap is an absolutely stunning 2D Zelda adventure and one that
somehow slipped past me when it was first released. Just like most Zelda games
it has its own unique mechanic that makes for some incredibly interesting
puzzles and does a lot to build on the lore of Hyrule. Not only is it one of
the best games I played this year but I think this one might even be one of my
favorite Zelda games period. And it wasn’t even developed by Nintendo. I really
hadnt heard much about Minish Cap so as a result I wasn’t sure what to expect
and what I got blew me away.
#4
This past summer my
wife went to visit her family and I took some PTO while she was gone. The
combination of these two things resulted in my having a few days with nothing
to do. I texted a friend of mine and asked if he would be interested in playing
a co-op game together. We wound up playing through the entire Gears of War
series over the course of several months and after all was said and done Gears
of War 3 is the best.
Gears 3 is the
pinnacle of the Gears of War franchise. The excellent combat and gameplay feels
refined from the first two entries and combine that with a great story and the
best visual aesthetic the games have had to date and what you're left with is
Gears 3. Epic took all the good of the first two games and seemed to leave out
all the bad then even added in four player co-op on top of it all. If you have
to pick one Gears game to play make it Gears 3.
#3
The first Resident
Evil game I ever finished was RE7 on PSVR and that was enough to make me
significantly more interested in the series. While I had dabled with a few of
the previous games they all had something that was holding me back. Static
cameras, tank controls, and in the case of RE6 just simply being a bad game
stood in the way of those games winning me over. But Resident Evil 2 remake
changed that.
RE2 remake is
obviously exactly what Resident Evil was always supposed to be. Not only did
Capcom finally achieve what they have been trying for since the late ninties
but they completely changed what it means to be a remake forcing me for the
first time ever to consider a remake in my game of the year contenders. RE2
remake features excellent controls, fantastic exploration, and most importantly
gets the series back to the horror tone set in the first three games. THIS is
the future of Resident Evil.
#2
Video games are a
medium in which anything new inherently comes with a huge amount of
uncertainty. So for a developer and publisher to take a risk on a new IP and
knock it out of the park is a rare sight. Earlier this year Remedy and 505
released Control a twilight zone/x-files type narrative adventure into the
unknown.
Control sees the
player control the main character through an atmosphere the likes of which have
never been seen in any game previously. Gameplay is incredibly fun while at the
same time being somewhat traditional and approachable. The story revolves around
a federal beureau tasked with investigating and cataloging the paranormal
keeping players guessing around every turn. Control is a game that I cant wait
for more of and with it's arguably best of all time fourth wall break is easily
my game of the year.
Now before we get to
the best game I played this year I want to acknowledge the most disappointing
game I played this year.
To change a proven
formula is a monumental risk and is one that is almost never taken all at once
for fear of losing an audience. While I applaud this sort of risk taking it
doesn’t always work out. Like I said before I spent the whole summer playing
through all the Gears of War games and in early September I couldn’t have been
more excited to start Gears 5.
My excitement lasted
through the first chapter of the second act then was quickly put out as the
game came to a screeching halt when I entered the first open world area.
Everything about the open areas of the second and third acts was so easy to
hate. It was slow, empty, and felt utterly pointless to the story. And to top
it all off as soon as the game got back to being a more traditional Gears
experience the player is forced to make a story changing decision that sticks
out like a sore thumb in a franchise that has never done this before. Gears 5
took some big risks that didn’t pay off and sadly could potentially have some
dire consequences for future games in the series.
#1
Sometimes we just
aren't in the right mindset when approaching something for the first time. The
reason I play games is to have fun and if I'm not having fun in some way then I
don’t see it as a problem to put a game down and simply acknowledge that nothing
will catch everyone's attention. This happened to me in October of 2018. One of
the most anticipated games of all time was released and after putting about 10
hours into it I just wasn’t having fun. But months later I came back to Red
Dead Redemption 2.
Throughout the game
Rockstar tells a very slow story of a gang of outlaws who are for the most part
good people doing bad things. But after the death of a moral counterweight
their leader Dutch goes spiraling out of control. Red Redemption 2 is just as much
about Dutch's fall into the pits of being a bad man as it is about Arthur's
redemption to becoming a good man. Even knowing what happened in the end I was
still incredibly invested in the story because at its core RDR2 is a character
piece. In no other piece of media be it a book, movie, game, show, whatever
have I ever burst into tears the way I did when Arthur went to ride back to
camp to confront Dutch after giving everyone the opportunity to escape the
gang. Not only do I regret not making Red Dead Redemption 2 my game of the year
2018 but it is definitely a contender for game of the generation.
So what do you think
of my list? What are some of the best games you played this year and what are
some games from years past I should play in 2020? Let me know in the comments
down below. Don’t forget to check out everything we do all in one spot over at
ColdNorthPro.com. I'll be back next week talking about something else entirely
so until then just go play some games!
Manfeld Farm
By: Patrick "TheLaw" Morris
Over the past decade
or so the accessibility to development tools for people to make their own small
scale indie games has completely exploded. Where building a video game used to
require an out of this world expensive development PC, a pricey software license,
and a devkit to test on now it seems as though the biggest barrier to entry is
the will. As the horsepower of consumer grade electronics has closed the gap
between themselves and their "Pro" grade counterparts, devs have
revamped their business models, and the audience has become larger allowing for
more product to flourish in the market the indie development scene has grown.
But we have finally reached what many see as a critical mass and game
development itself has been gamified. Manfeld farm is an outstanding
atmospheric horror experience that was even able to scare a horror veteral like
myself, but whats even more impressive is the community of fledgling developers
being cultivated by Dreams, from which the next Amy Hennig, Shigeru Miyamoto,
or even Hideo Kojima could emerge.
Welcome welcome
welcome everyone welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm
TheLawMorris and this is the video essay series in which I get to talk about
the games I've been playing and what I think of the medium as a whole. Don’t
forget to check out our website ColdNorthPro.com to see everything we do all in
one spot. I played an indie game this week that both scared and impressed me in
what can be created in just a matter of days. It was a new breed of indie game,
one that I expect we will be seeing quite a bit of next generation. It was a
game made entirely in Dreams. Lets talk about Manfeld Farm.
Full disclosure:
Manfeld Farm was made by a friend of mine named Nathan Crumrine who is
incredibly talented in so many ways. The game is a work in progress so if you
decide to play it yourself your experience may differ from mine. I haven't been
paid to make this video (believe me I tried) and all the thoughts and opinions
I express are my own.
Manfeld Farm is an
atmospheric thriller game with some jump scares peppered in. The story sees the
player character Max arrive at his grandparents farmhouse late one night only
to discover that they are no where to be found and he is to let himself inside
as he will be spending the night here alone. The game's premise is explained
almost immediately and all subsequent events and queues are explained via notes
left around the farm by Max's grandfather for either himself or Max. While
story telling and sheparding the player down the golden path is simple the rate
at which vital information is doled out to the player shows to be an excellent
tool in maintaining a sense of tension throughout the games 45 minute run time.
As Max gets more and more information it seems as though the farm comes alive.
Max's grandmother has made a hobby out of collecting dolls in her retirement
and in his infinite wisdom Max's grandfather bought her six mannequins for a
birthday present. As the player progresses through the game the mannequins come
alive and begin to stalk Max in the horrifyingly empty way that only a
mannequin possibly could. Story is simple and vague but that feels intentional
as it contributes in an excellent way to the feeling of fear and loneliness the
player is meant to experience.
Gameplay is equally
simple but intentionally so. Movement feels like a very basic variation on how
we have come to expect to move throughout a three dimensional space in a game
over the last few decades and in no way
looks to be reinventing the wheel. Mechanically the game revolves around using
context clues left around the farm and some that appear as the player
progresses. A note left on the fridge directs the player to a drawer in the
kitchen where they can find the garage door opener allowing them to unlock new
areas within the map to furhter unravel what is happening on the farm. Simple
but effective. When the mannequins come alive they move at a rate at which they
can easily be outrun allowing the player to ease into a false sense of security
that is quickly shattered by some careful placement of mannequins as well as a
limiting and disorienting field of view making traveling through certain parts
of the farm feel claustrophobic and almost never ending. The developers choice
to not give the player any means of fighting back adds to the sense of
helplessness and desperation making the game feel more urgent and foreboding.
One of the stand out
features of Manfeld Farm is the farm itself. Not only does it make logical
sense being a farm and actually showing the player what is farmed there but it
also plays into the story by being an interesting setting with a wide variety of
opportunity to weave the story in and out of. While it may have felt a bit
baron and empty the fact that there were separate buildings for the house,
garage, shed, and barn did a lot to counteract the more styleized graphics
dilluting the sense of fear. And the limited draw distance never letting the
player see to far ahead of themselves expertly emulates the feeling of being
outside in the country completely removed from the light pollution of any city
and how horrifying that situation can be.
But just like
anything else Manfeld farm is in no way perfect. While the setting was expertly
crafted and everything made logical sense the antagonists did not. A group of
mannequins are simply out of their element on a farm. As soon as I read the
word mannequins on a note Max's grandfather left him I knew that those
mannequins would be what would be scaring me throughout the game. As excellent
as the setting was it would have better served a sequel in which the mannequins
had already been established as the "villains" and this first outing
would have played out better in a department store or something of the sort.
While there were undoubtedly clues moving the player along from one step to the
next there were multiple times when those clues simply didn’t make any sense.
To be a bit more on the nose with pushing the player along would run the risk
of breaking immersion but would, in my opinion, lead to significantly less
frustrated walking around not knowing what to do next. And finally the controls.
Like I had mentioned before the controls are so incredibly standard that when I
wound up in the pond I didn’t even think to press a button to submerge and
assumed that I couldn’t. A very simple on screen prompt to notify the player
that they can swim underwater would help a lot in that part of the game. All of
these changes are fairly simple to make and I hope could be incorporated into a
sequel that I would be very interested to play…Manfeld Mall perhaps?
But this is all a
part of a larger narrative revolving around Dreams as a whole right now. Before
Dreams Nathan had absolutely zero experience in game development and now he has
made a whole game and helped to collaborate on another. As we approach the next
generation of consoles there needs to be a larger push from both Sony and Media
Molecule to secure the future of Dreams as a development tool. The game needs
to get a PS5 release with additional features and tools and it also needs a mac
and PC release for those Dreamers that are wanting to take their creating to
the next level. Ultimately Dreams is a gateway drug into larger and more
respected development tools and it makes game development more accessible to
the masses. Manfeld Farm is one of dozens if not hundreds of games from
developers that show real promise whom we would have never heard of if it
weren't for dreams.
So what are your
thoughts on Dreams and where do you think Media Molecule will take it after the
february 2020 release? Let me know in the comments down below. Don’t forget to
check out our website ColdNorthPro.com to see everything we do all in one spot.
And if you want to play Manfeld Farm or the other game Nathan has made you can
find links to those in the description down below. I will be back next week
talking about something else entirely so until then just go play some games.
Nintendo Switch Lite
By: Patrick "TheLaw" Morris
In 1983 the video
game industry crashed. In 1985 Nintnedo was practically giving the NES to
retailers. In order to get customers to even consider buying the NES it was
marketed not as a video game console but as a toy. As a result of this
marketing the widely accepted perception was that while yes video games were
making a bit of a comeback they were really only for kids. As the story goes in
1979 Gunpei Yokoi saw a businessman on a train playing with an LCD calculator
to pass the time, this observation birthed the game and watch series of
products. In 1989 the natural evolution of the game and watch came to fruition:
the Gameboy, a handheld portable console with the capability to play
interchangeable cartridges. Suddenly video games were still for kids but with
more and more adults from all walks of life playing they were more for the kid
within us all. The Switch Lite iterates on and better realizes Nintendo's
concept of a home console on the go than its predecessor, despite its reduced
feature set the Switch Lite offers up a handheld experience that is so far
superior to its larger counterpart that it has me and I'm sure thousands of
other people experiencing that reconnection with yesteryear in a way not seen
since 1989.
Welcome welcome
welcome everyone welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm
TheLawMorris and this is the video essay series in which I get to talk about
the games I've been playing and what I think of the medium as a whole. Earlier
this year I got what is the most Gameboy like successor to the Gameboy that
there has been since the original Gameboy Advance and in a way that I was
absolutely not expecting it's so much better than I ever could have hoped. So
lets talk about the Nintendo Switch Lite.
In the mid aughts
companies that were making personal electronics made a huge leap in industrial
design turning those products we remember as gigantic hunks of plastic into the
sleek aesthetically pleasing handhelds we know today. Granted the transition from
something like the Gamegear to the Galaxy Note 10 didn’t happen over night. The
two products that I personally credit as being the catalyst for the shift in
design are the iPod and the Gameboy Advance SP. These two products changed
portable devices from toys into consumer electronics. The sleek form factor,
high quality build materials, and muted more mature colors proved to be trend
setters that still dictate design choices in the products we use most today.
The Gameboy Advance SP served as a precursor to the DS and more importantly the
DS Lite which is the era in which Nintendo handheld's started to feel more
grown up and adult, a stark contrast to the bright colors and child like wonder
brought on by the software they ran.
In a way the DS
serves as the point of separation for Nintendo handhelds. Design emphasis'
shifted from fun and exciting to focused and refined. To be clear Neither of
these are a bad choice just radically different. Gone were the default fun and
wild colors and in their stead was the standard silver, black, and white. Gone
was the slab design proudly displaying the pinkish buttons and the words
"Nintendo Game Boy" below the screen for everyone to see, Nintendo
instead opting for a sleek clamshell design with a subtle DS logo made up of
two rectangles being the only visible branding when closed. Our world was more
on the move than ever with new technologies allowing people to be constantly
working from anywhere they chose. Times had changed and Nintendo was changing
with them.
So for the last 14
years we've dealt with business Nintendo. The GBA SP and original DS were both
introduced to the world in silver, the standard DS Lite was a bright white very
reminiscent of apple, and since then there have been different more varied colors
presented as the default but nothing even close to the days of the atomic
purple Gameboy Color, Indigo Gameboy Advance, and Spice Orange Gamecube. While
there was a hint of those bright colors at the launch of the original switch
with the neon joycon they were still attached to the drab black system. The
Switch Lite harkens back to the Gameboy in so many ways. A slab design with
controls on either side of the screen reminiscent of the Gameboy Advance,
unapologetically in your face color options like those of the Gameboy Color,
and contrasting bright white buttons and control sticks all make the Switch
Lite almost more of a successor to the original GBA than it is to the Switch.
For a long time now
personal electronics have been about getting work done and have been designed
in a way that communicates that. For an even longer time Nintendo has been a
company focused on making games and creating fun but with the acceleration of mobile
work being done I think they felt pressure to disguise their gaming devices as
something that at a glance could be some sort of productivity tool. Well I am
happy to say the Switch Lite took that design mentality and threw it out the
window. The Switch Lite is shamelessly a toy. It comes it two bright colors and
one more muted boring one, the rugged plastic features a nice matte finish that
is resistant to scratches and scuffs but when it does get them wears them like
a badge of honor rather than a blemish to be hidden away. The Switch Lite is
tough, where I would always put my standard Switch in a case when leaving the
house I didn’t even bother to buy a case for my Switch Lite. And doing away
with the hinge from the DS family makes it feel less sophisticated and
infinitely less delicate than any of those except of course the 2DS.
Hardware wise the
Switch Lite is almost identical to its older brother to a fault. Internally
you'll find the exact silicon, and a similar battery but unfortunately the same
joystick module as the joycon which has already led to reports of joycon drift
in a device without detachable joycon's. You'll also be hard pressed to find
the hardware used to output the image from the Swtich to a TV via a standard
docking unit making this particular iteration of the Switch a handheld only
device. I'm still holding out hope for some sort of pro dock that implements
the docking hardware for the Lite and some sort of upscaler or anti aliasing
hardware for all switch models that can be sold in lieu of a switch pro. So in
handheld mode the Switch lite performs admirably. Actual game performance is
indistinguishable from that of the standard switch and battery life is slightly
better than in the original switch, surely a result of the smaller screen).
Overall the Switch Lite feels so good to play on and is so much more of an
appropriate size for a handheld game system it just makes the form factor of
the standard Switch both look and feel like a prototype that should have never
come to market whereas the Lite feels like a finished product.
For years Nintendo
has had both home console and handheld offerings. In 2017 Nintendo released the
Switch and pitched it as the successor to the Wii U saying they would continue
to support the 3DS. Two years later the 3DS is all but dead and being replaced
by a handheld only Switch. The Switch was never the successor to the Wii U it
was just Nintendo finally achieving what they have been working towards for
literally decades: having a handheld offering with the capability to play it on
the TV.
Since the
introduction of the PlayStation in 1994 Nintendo has struggled with the home
console market. With the exception of the Wii they haven't been able to come
out on top of a home console generation since the SNES but while they've
struggled in the living room they've been the undisputed champ of handhelds. So
it's only natural that Nintendo tries to prune the branches of their business
that are struggling and focus on the one that has always been dominant. First
there was the Super Gameboy, then a similar product for the N64, during the
GameCube era they sold the Gameboy player to wild success, and the Wii U was
arguably a proof of concept for the Switch. Nintendo has slowly been working
towards merging the two branches of their business into one and finally
achieved it with the Switch. But after the introduction of the Switch the
question remained on everyone's mind: is this the start of the ninth generation
of consoles nearly four years early or is it the next generation of handheld?
In my mind the Switch Lite answers that question.
I have always played
my Switch almost exclusively in handheld mode but the complete exclusion of the
docked mode from the Switch Lite says to me that Nintendo thinks of the Switch
first and foremost as a handheld device. Which makes much more sense if you
think about it contextually with regard to the timing of everything else. The
3DS was a massive success selling more than 75 million units worldwide making
it a prime candidate for a successor and being released in 2011 was due for
one. The Wii U was introduced one year earlier than the Xbox One and the PS4
yet was being replaced four years earlier than those? And for two full console
generations now Nintendo has seemed unconcerned with competing in the same way
that Sony and Microsoft do. The transition to being a handheld only company has
been a long time coming and the Switch Lite solidifies that being one of their
best handheld offerings to date.
Switch brought
Nintendo back into everyone's mindshare by offering a handheld secondary gaming
experience that was marketed at adults as opposed to children. Switch Lite
takes the work done by the Switch one step further and not only solidifies
Nintendo's existence as a handheld gaming company but also takes cues from the
Gameboy family and isn't afraid to present itself as what it is: a toy.
Throughout the eighties and nineties and even into the early aughts Nintendo
built a reputation as a whimsical toy company on par with Disney, but as they
moved along with trends they seemed to, at least on a the hardware side, lose
their sense of identity. The Switch Lite is Nintendo in full force embracing
their roots and owning who they are: the best god damn toy company in the
world.
Did you buy a Switch
Lite? If you did let me know what color you chose and why in the comments down
below. If you didn’t I'd like to know what's holding you back. If you liked
what you heard don’t forget to subscribe while you're down there so you don’t miss
any of our video essays or podcasts every week. You can see everything we do
including both of our podcasts all in one spot over at ColdNorthPro.com. I'll
be back next week talking about the Goose that has taken the gaming world by
storm so until then just go play some games.
PSnow
By: Patrick "TheLaw" Morris
The major hardware
developers are constantly looking to push the envelope and fundamentally change
the way we play games. Microsoft did it when they built the Xbox 360 from the
ground up to be an online centered experience, Sony did it when they crammed what
was nearly the power of the PlayStation 2 into your pocket just four years
after the launch of the original PS2, and Nintendo is constantly reinventing
the wheel with varying degrees of success. But one innovation that seems to be
an almost certainty at this point is game streaming. Microsoft is focusing on
streaming with project Xcloud, and Google has even entered the industry relying
on a fully streaming offering. But the player that has had the capability to
stream games directly to your living room longer than anyone else has been
Sony. As we hurdle toward a game streaming future Sony has taken a different
approach entirely by offering a complimentary service to the traditional gaming
experience as opposed to trying to replace what is already functioning almost
perfectly.
Welcome welcome
welcome everyone welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm
TheLawMorris and this is the video essay series in which I get to talk about
the games I've been playing and what I think of the medium as a whole. Sony
finally convinced me to sub to their game streaming service PlayStation now and
after about a month of having it available to me on my PlayStation I've got
some thoughts, so lets talk about PSnow.
Quick disclaimer
here: I may sound like I'm bashing one service or another but if you start to
think that just know that I love Gamepass and think it is an amazing service
that has absolutely disrupted the industry in an incredible way over the last
two years. Competition is king because that’s whats best for all of us so I
will cheer on any company that forces the others to compete and that’s what
this video is about.
Before we get into
the meat and potatoes of this week's topic lets just bring everyone who may not
know the specifics of PSnow up to speed. In the middle of 2012 Sony acquired
Gaikai a forward thinking games streaming service for the cool price of $380m.
As the seventh generation of consoles was coming to a close at the time of this
acquisition it was obvious that this was an acquisition to be utilized in
Sony's upcoming console that was at the time presumably called the PlayStation
4. In late 2014 the public finally got their hands on PSnow and the reception
was lackluster to say the least. I remember very clearly hearing about the
concept and saying to my roommate at the time that this was just going to end
up being another subscription bill that I see as a must have similar to
Netflix. I was a big believer in PSnow from the start but the monetization
model at launch made it less of the "Netflix of gaming" and more just
a pitiful substitute for true backwards compatibility.
When the service
officially launched in late 2014 it wasn’t a single monthly fee for all you can
play like I had naively imagined it would be, it was more of a rental service
in which you paid a few dollars to rent the right to stream the game for a limited
amount of time. Thankfully this didn’t last long and they moved to a slightly
less insane but still overpriced model that did fulfill the all you can play
dream but at a price that was abhorrently high for the games the service had to
offer. After settling into this prohibitive pricing structure the service would
remain there for years looking as though it had fallen into the no mans land of
forgotten Sony projects of which the PSvita is the mayor. But recently the
service has had some new life breathed into it. In September of 2018 Sony
announced that they were bringing the capability to download the PS2 and PS4
games offered on the service to the console drastically improving the overall
experience for those titles. And then in early October in what Sony themselves
said was a direct response to their
competition they cut the price significantly.
As it stands now
PSnow is an all you can play service that offers nearly 900 games spanning
three generations of PlayStation. Players can stream PS2, PS3, and PS4 games
and have the option to download PS2 and PS4 games. PSnow can be used on a PS4
and a PC both requiring the use of DualShock 4 but both platforms having
wireless options for connectivity available to them. And all this can be done
for one low monthly price. Man that last paragraph has me thinking I should
really consider a career as an infomercial guy.
But anyway this is
all great in theory but one of the main reasons that PSnow didn’t catch on when
it first launched and one of the main reasons people are still hesitant to
adopt streaming platforms is because it's a much less reliable technology than
just running the game locally. If the technology doesn’t provide a passable
experience for the premium then there is no sense in paying. When Sony first
moved the service into the monthly subscription model I used a free seven day
trial to see how it worked and while my internet conditions weren't ideal they
were better than a lot of the PS4 userbase has available to them and back then
in 2015 the service was down right unusable. It was slow to connect, low res,
choppy, and the latency was something I found myself actively correcting for.
The technology was clearly not ready for prime time. But years later Sony wiped
the slate clean and gave everyone another free seven day trial and to my
surprise the service has come a long way. It's still not something I would wan
to use as my primary means of playing games but its certainly passable.
Resolution is still capped at 720p which in the age of 4K might as well be SD,
the framerates are still a bit slower than I would like but overall games were
playable and after my second seven day free trial I was ready to jump on board,
that is until I saw the price.
The lowest rate
being $100 per year that came out to $8.33 per month it was still to much to
ask for what the service had to offer. But that was all back in September. On
October 1st Sony slashed the price of PSnow across the board. The month to
month price was cut from $20 to $10 (not coincidentally right in line with
Microsoft's Gamepass), the three month price was reduce from $45 to $25, and
the annual price went from $100 to just $60, the price of just one game per
year. Suddenly what was a service that was struggling to compete on the
downloading front with Gamepass and is somehow already seen as a runner up in
the streaming space to a product that hasn’t even launched yet is offering an
incredible value for literally the price of a Starbucks coffee once per month.
But like I mentioned
earlier Sony isn't the only one looking toward either a streaming or a
subscription service future for the games industry. Both Microsoft and Google
are making a play at capturing that segment of the market that has been priced
out of the hobby. Microsoft's Gamepass is a subscription service with more than
200 games ALL available for download with one pricing option available for $10
on Xbox or $5 on PC. Google is taking a different approach, they’ve employed a
two part tariff in which the user pays $10 month for the ability to stream
games through Stadia and then requires the player to buy games at full retail
price. While Google does offer an option that removes the monthly cost entirely
it comes at the price of frame rate and resolution and still requires users to
buy the right to stream games for full retail cost.
In my mind Sony has
made two key moves that have turned PSnow from a obligatory service they keep
alive to keep up the appearance of competing in this space to something that is
truly a must have and the imaginative different approach to streaming that has
gotten me on board. They're offering something that is the answer to both
Stadia and Gamepass rolled into one and they're doing it for half the cost of
one of those services. Sony's move to a $5 per month paid annually price point
was without a doubt a deliberate move to adjust the expectations of what the
service will deliver. Suddenly its gone from feeling the need to get my $20
worth every to one of those things that I don’t even think about because of how
cheap it is and I just like having it there.
There are plenty of
movies that aren't amongst the best movies I've ever seen but were enjoyable
none the less. Movies that I would have never had enough interest in to seek
out and spend money on but when I watched them they became one that I could
easily suggest for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Movies that I would have never seen
without my perpetual Netflix subscription, and that’s exactly what PSnow is
becoming. PSnow has almost 900 games most of which I would never go out of my
way to play or spend money on but by removing almost all barriers to entry
leads to me experimenting with a ton of games I would have never tried before.
I never played Ratchet and Clank until the 2016 remake and I loved it but by
that time the PS3 was so far in the rear view mirror that I wasn’t about to
dust it off and find a used copy of A Crack in Time just to play some more
Ratchet and Clank. I have fond memories of playing the demo of Motorstorm in
Wal-Mart when the PS3 launched but I couldn’t be bothered to spend my money on
the game. And God of War is a narrative driven adventure that after playing the
PS4 game I was interested in learning more about the older games but it was
just to much of a hassle. These are all games that I would have never played
had it not been for PSnow. They're not the best games of all time but they're
fun enough experiences that at $5 per
month they make PSnow a complete no brainer.
Sony has taken major
strides towards turning PSnow into the complimentary streaming service that
could become a huge part of the PlayStation ecosystem moving forward but there
is still work to be done. Sony's number one priority when it comes to new features
for PSnow needs to be mobile. With iOS13
finally supporting the DualShock 4 and Xbox one controller natively the
prospect of nearly 900 games streaming directly to my phone is incredibly
exciting. Sony did a great job by whittling down the number of supported
devices in an effort to focus on the core experience but the mobile space is a
major sticking point for Stadia and if Sony could beat Stadia to iPhones and
most Androids that could be hugely beneficial. Speaking of Stadia there is one
thing that Google thought of that their competitors didn’t: Wi-Fi in the
controller. As we move into the future of streaming latency is going to be
public enemy number one and the controller skipping a step and connecting directly
to the server rather than the device and then the server is a stroke of genius.
When Microsoft
announced Gamepass it was a revolutionary new way to deliver games to players.
When Google announced Stadia they immediately had my interest and while the
graveyard of abandoned Google services will most likely prevent me from ever
buying a game on Stadia I will be interested to see how well it handles. Just a
few months ago Sony was a distant third in the race to bring a subscription and
or streaming service to relevance but with the two pronged approach of making
it a secondary more complimentary add on rather than a replacement for the
traditional experience and pricing so competitively you would think Sony is
going under I think Sony has leap frogged their two biggest competitors and
become the first subscription service that I'm willing to pay for. Now I just
need a PSnow app to live on the home screen of my phone and I'll be happy.
Have you tried
PSnow? What are your thoughts on it and which of these three services do you
think will be the one to really break through all the apprehension and be
adopted mainstream? Let me know in the comments down below. And while you're
down there don’t forget to hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. Go
check out everything we do all in one spot over at ColdNorthPro.com, I'll be
back next week talking about something else I haven't really decided yet so
until then just go play some games!
Death Stranding
By: Patrick "TheLaw" Morris
Some of the most
innovative games of all time are also some of the most polarizing. Games that
have the courage to push the boundaries of what we have come to expect of a
game and do so in a way that moves the medium forward into the great unknown.
While this doesn’t always turn out well (Wii Music) there are times when even
the most divisive games like Fortnite have moved the industry forward. Hideo
Kojima is one of if not THE auteur of video games and while the story of the
Metal Gear franchise on paper is laughable when consumed as a series of games
it is one of the best multipart stories ever told proving that Kojima has the
chops to get a big job done. Death Stranding is a wholly unique and enchanting
game, for those it doesn’t click with it comes off as a pretentious fart
sniffing walking simulator. But for those who interest is piqued it's a
mesmerizing cathartic piece of art that can go on for hours.
Welcome welcome
welcome everyone welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm
TheLawMorris and this is the video essay series in which I get to talk about
the games I've been playing and what I think of the medium as a whole. Metal
Gear is one of my favorite video game franchises ever so when Kojima's latest
game was released I was going to play it no matter what the critics said. So
lets get started with talking about Death Stranding.
Just so everyone
knows this video wont contain any spoilers and is in no way meant to be a
review. I haven't finished the game yet so I wont be referencing anything that
cant be found in the marketing material and trailers. Also in an attempt to
keep this video as friendly to those that haven't played the game yet as
possible all of the capture you'll see here will be from the opening hours of
the game in the first area so even if you consider that spoilerish don’t worry
its just the very beginning of the game.
From the moment the
game was announced Death Stranding was shrouded in mystery. And that was what
the whole marketing campaign was based around. The games story is more than
convoluted enough to confuse even someone playing the game. But for someone not
actually playing through it all the trailers might as well have been tone
pieces because even if they spelled the story out to us in those trailers,
which it turns out they kind of did, it's still so confusing and difficult to
put together that without knowing what we were being told it all felt
disconnected. Now I understand that what I'm describing right now sounds like
just a poorly made trailer but that confusion was engineered to entice the
audience and entice us it did. We wanted to know what was happening with that
baby we kept seeing in the trailers and the speculation around the major things
like timefall and what exactly is the Death Stranding to the smallest details
like what the main characters name was
is the mystery that built a community before the game was even released.
And that mystery
wasn’t immediately or entirely answered after the games release. Just like most
Kojima game Death Stranding has a hell of a story to tell and while some people
will call it dumb and to crazy from what I've seen thus far I feel like once again
he has hit that perfect level of wackiness that it just feels cool. With
regards to the actual plot that occurs during the game it's definitely slow and
intentionally so. There seems to be so much story to tell and so much going on
all at once that without Red Dead 2 speed pacing the game would feel like a
blur and nobody would understand what literally happened much less the
inevitable subtext that comes with all Kojima games. Both the story and the
exposition must be parceled out to the audience piece by piece and remembered
clearly in order to make it digestible. Because of the complexity of the story
it must be unfolded slowly and deliberately, similar to the difference between
smashing a lego set and taking it apart piece by piece; one ends in a well
plotted and organized manner while the other ends in complete disarray.
One thing that all
stories have in common is a setting. Everything has to happen somewhere and the
care that is put into creating that somewhere is almost always directly
correlated with the care that is put into the story being told there. It's an
easy comparison to make but think of it as the difference between Tolkien and
Rowling. While both series are fantastic in their own way Rowling clearly wrote
about a character and built a world around that character and molded that world
to fit her needs as they came up whereas Tolkien created a world and then told
a story within that world forcing the characters in the story to abide by the
preestablished rules of the world. Death Stranding is leans heavily in the
direction of Tolkien; Kojima imagined and created a world with systems
structure and rules then proceeded to tell a story within that world. The
United States of Death Stranding is a wholly realized world with a huge amount
of lore to understand.
But all the story,
mystery, and world building in the universe doesn’t mean anything if a game
isn't fun and this is where Death Stranding seems to lose so much of its
audience. The primary gameplay loop of Death Stranding consists of picking up
packages and carrying them their destinations. It's a simple grind but one that
is extremely easy to fall into a sort of trance with. Everything unfolds so
naturally all in the course of picking up and delivering packages that I often
find myself promising just one more package and end up playing for another two
or three hours.
What makes that
seemingly boring loop so endlessly entertaining though is movement. Over the
last 30+ years we have come to expect movement in games to be fairly simple and
straight forward (no pun intended). Movement has become to streamlined in video
games, the assassins creed games have a parkour button that allows the player
to simply hold the button and run up a 10 story building for Christ sake. But when I first started Death Stranding I
tried to run forward just like I would in any other game and immediately lost
my balance and fell after tripping on a rock. It was then that the game pointed
out to me that by pressing the R1 button I had the ability to scan the terrain
and see in great detail what terrain would be more or less difficult to walk
on. This balance mechanic makes movement something that the player has to
cognitively keep in the back of their minds at all times. Where almost all
other games make the player a superhero through their radical abilities Death
Stranding leaves the player with a sense of accomplishment after traversing a
patch of boulders or keeping their cargo dry by using a ladder as a bridge to
cross a small stream. Death Stranding is fun for the same reason Mario 64 or
Spider-Man PS4 is fun because the simple act of moving around the world is fun.
So it's easy to see
why Death Stranding is such a love it or hate type of game. I understand why
some people don’t like it but honestly I kinda love it. I took a break from
Death Stranding to play Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order just a week after Death
Stranding was released and while Fallen Order is in no way a bad game after
just a few hours with it I couldn’t help but think about how primitive it feels
in comparison to Death Stranding. Kojima's latest truly does feel like a
generational leap forward for video games and while ripping off that band aid
is difficult and not appropriate for all genres I'm definitely looking forward
to seeing what ramifications it will have on the medium moving forward.
Are you someone that
loved Death Stranding or someone that hates it? Let me know which you are and
why in the comments down below. Don’t forget to check out everything we do
including our movies podcast NoRefunds the podcast that watches bad movies so
you don’t have to all in one spot over at ColdNorthPro.com. Ill be back next
week talking about something else entirely so until then just go play some
games!
Gears 5
By: Patrick "TheLaw" Morris
So here we are,
we've finally made it to Gears 5. If you'll remember in my E3 reaction video I
briefly mentioned that I might play through the Gears games in preparation for
Gears 5 and low and behold it turned out to be the series I spent my summer
playing. I fell in love with Gears this summer, I learned to love the
characters, got to enjoy some of the best cover based shooting in the industry,
experienced some of the most ridiculous over the top macho stories video games
have to offer, and even became so accustomed to the active reload system that I
find myself hitting my right bumper in almost every game now purely out of
habit. But after playing through Gears 5 I'm sad to say that I fear the best of
the series may be behind us. In my opinion Gears 5 was a big swing and a miss,
the coalition took a huge risk in changing the entire format of the series and
while I personally didn’t enjoy it I applaud them for trying and hope to see
other development studios follow suit.
Welcome welcome
welcome everyone welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm
TheLawMorris and this is the video essay series in which I get to talk about
the games I've been playing and what I think of the medium as a whole. I played
Gears 5 at launch but didn’t get around to writing a video about it until a
couple weeks ago and to say that I have a less than favorable opinion on the
game would be generous. It's been a long time coming so without any further ado
let's talk about Gears 5.
Spoiler alert: in
this video I will discuss some major plot points of Gears 5 and inherently
Gears 3 and 4 as well. So if you haven't played those games and you want to you
should probably stop watching this video now.
Gears 5 is the game
that finally made me pull the trigger on the entire series and jump in from the
beginning. I had been teetering on the edge of becoming a Gear since late 2016
with the release of Gears 4 but the build up to Gears 5 was for whatever reason
the thing that got me to sit down and give them the old college try. And I'm
extremely happy I did. At the core of Gears lies two thing: gameplay and
characters.
Gears 5 takes that
Gears gameplay that has been so well crafted and refined across five previous
entries and delivers more of it. Moment to moment gameplay isn't any better or
worse than that of Gears 4 or even Gears 3 just equal to it. For almost any other
series this would be seen as a bad thing as part of the purpose of a sequel is
to evolve and polish the formula but in the case of Gears that gameplay
experience already has a mirror sheen to it and polishing any further could
potentially be detrimental. For the most part the player finds themselves in
similar combat scenarios fighting similar enemies with similar weapons and if I
sound like I'm being negative please know that I in no way mean this as an
insult. There really isn't much growth left to be done for the series in that
respect. The Coalition expands on some elements by bringing some new weapons
into play the stand outs being the Lancer GL and the melee weapons, and the
revival of the hammer of dawn is incredibly fun but for the most part gameplay
in Gears 5 is just more of what makes Gears good…for the most part that is.
Gears 5 does
introduce one new element that can be considered a major game changer
though…Jack. Jack is Kate's flying robot companion that accompanies her
throughout the entire campaign (to be clear this is not the same flying robot
companion that worked as the ultimate plot convenience for Delta squad
throughout the first three games) and depending on how you play the game he can
either introduce an almost entirely superfluous RPG like skill tree mechanic or
he can be an entirely different way to play the game altogether. In single
player Jack acts as a gadget to apply temporary buffs, health, or interact with
the environment in ways to move the plot forward all while adding a completely
unnecessary skill tree to the game and giving the player a reason to search for
components. These mechanics almost to environmental for the series and come
across as the developers adding a trendy mechanic to the game despite it not
feeling at home there. But in multiplayer Jack makes for the ultimate support
character. Any player that enjoys playing support will have an absolute blast
playing as Jack and likely will refuse to give him for the more traditional
Gears experience. Allowing the player that plays Jack full control over the
skill tree and what abilities to unlock and when to unlock them gives that
player freedom. The player evolves from initially being the kid holding the
flashlight for dad while he works on the car to becoming the ultimate Bond
gadget with the powers of a demigod. I've always played Gears with friends so
we got to laugh together as we hunted down every single upgrade and scoured the
game for components to make that player's experience more enjoyable. But
playing solo Jack is something that I not only don’t want to handle or use but
a process that I found myself wishing could be entirely automated by the end of
the opening act.
And Jack isn't where
The Coalition stopped taking risks. After an extremely straight forward act 1
in which I was surprised to be playing as JD but found enjoyable none the less
the player is thrust forward in time and the main cast of characters that were
so well established in Gears 4 have become estranged. Kate and Del have gone
north in search for answers to Kate's past while JD has continued to move up
the ranks in the COG. Act 2 chapter 1 starts as a fairly boring and thankfully
brief exploration of the mountain village that Kate's uncle Oscar retreated to
after the events of Gears 4. After a brief encounter with Oscar the Swarm
invades and the player is left to do typical Gears stuff which is awesome. At
the end of this encounter the player even takes over some individual Swarm
through Kate's neural link to the hivemind. This particular encounter is made
even sweeter when played in co-op as your partners have no way of knowing that
you've taken over the Swarm or which Swarm you are which led to a really
awesome shouting exchange as I yelled at my partners to stop shooting me. But
after this chapter the train jumps the tracks and goes careening into a land
that I like to call "every game needs to have an open world for some
reason…ville."
After the first
chapter of Act 2 the player is given the open world traversal vehicle called
the skiff and Kate, Del, and Jack load up to head out on their own adventure.
Suddenly a series that's spent five games ushering the player down a golden
path of narrow hallways and somewhat open playing fields for enemy encounters
finds itself in a vast frozen wasteland that is just as beautiful as it is
empty. Moving from one objective marker on the map to another the player
encounters small groups of Swarm to fight off at each marker and nothing in
between. And when I say nothing I really mean nothing. No packs of enemies
making a camp for the night, no sign of human survivors holed up in any nearby
caves or shelters, not even any significant terrain to interest the player.
Just multiple hours of go here shoot 10 swarm press a button, go there shoot
another 10 swarm press another button. And when it's finally all over and the
game gets back to the classic Gears experience it lasts for all of about an
hour and a half with some really awesome story telling and character
development before thrusting you into an even less interesting, even more
empty, and even worse desert open environment.
Where the open world
areas went wrong is in how they brought the pace of the game to a nearly
complete stand still. Two major portions of the game left me feeling as though
nothing of any significance was happening and after all was said and done they
came across as though they were just filler content to pad out an unnaturally
short run time. The tundra in the second act could have been forgiven had the
writers capitalized on the naturally solitudinous atmosphere created and given
Del and Kate some moments in which they exposed themselves to one another and
became temporarily emotionally vulnerable. Honestly when no one but Del
accompanied Kate I fully expected that to be the direction in which they were
headed but it never came. And when it came time for the second open area in the
desert and JD and Fahz tagged along not only were the developers facing all the
same challenges from the second act but they had done away with any potential
for redemption of what was in my opinion a truly horrible design choice.
Like I mentioned
last week the story in Gears 4 was well measured and displayed a shocking
amount of restraint but the second chapter of a trilogy is when that restraint
can be put aside and the story can be ramped up so as to head into the
conclusion on a major high. Gears 5's story felt as though they were completely
unconcerned with moving the story forward in any significant way until the
fourth act when the Swarm kraken invaded the city and really elevated the
stakes of what was happening. Throughout the vast majority of the game the
characters are working towards bringing the hammer of dawn back online despite
all Baird's warnings that no good can come from this action. And as that story
progresses it becomes apparent that the hammer of dawn story is really just a
charade to let the player explore deeper into Kate and her dealing with her
heritage. Which is extremely interesting don’t get me wrong, Kate is without a
doubt the best character of this new generation of Gears but after playing
Gears 5 it feels as though the balance between Kate's personal story and the
human Swarm conflict story skews a bit to far in favor of Kate.
After spending the
entire game with Del and getting next to no redeeming action from JD the game
presents the player with a choice. At the end of the game the player chooses if
Del dies and JD lives or if Del lives and JD dies. Like I mentioned before I have
just spent the entirety of both Gears 4 and 5 with Del at my side. And not only
that but at the end of the first act JD goes from the extra vanilla high school
quarter back template that he somehow reverted to after the end of Gears 4 to a
war mongering asshole for which I have no sympathy and am given almost no
reason to forgive. I'm not sure what choice The Coalition intended for me to
choose but this was the single easiest choice I have ever made in a video game.
JD died and I didn’t have to think twice about it.
But what concerns me
about this choice that players make at the end is the ramifications it will
undoubtedly have on the future of the franchise. The Coalition is going to have
to choose one choice to be canon and despite my liking Gears 5 the least of all
of the games thus far I'm still invested in my choosing Del and watching
Marcus' heart break when he realized his son was dead. To me the fourth act of
Gears 5 was the most enjoyable because not only was it back to classic Gears
style gameplay but it was also an exciting finale that I have come to expect
from games in this series. Had that choice been written for me and I wasn’t
left to worry about whether or not The Coalition would be honoring the choice I
made Gears 5 could have ended on a similar high note to the one it began on.
But that choice lingers over the fourth act like an office chair full of old
farts that puff out whenever anyone sits down.
Overall in all my
Gears of War excitement this summer it ended with a whimper. I completely
respect The Coalition for taking an established IP and attempting to inject
some new life into and modernize it in a way but almost everything they did
fell flat and left me yearning for the Gear of old. If you have gamepass then
sure go ahead and play Gears 5, if you're a massive Gears of War fan and you
just cant get enough, well then you’ve probably already played Gears 5, but if
you’ve never played Gears before and you're looking to get into the series,
well…look somewhere else because this aint it chief.
So now that this
script has gotten way out of hand and is way longer than I was intending it to
be why don’t you tell me what you thought of Gears 5 in the comments down
below. Don’t forget to see everything we do all in one spot over at
ColdNorthPro.com. I'll be back next week talking about Luigi's Mansion 3 if
I've finished it by then so until then just go play some games.
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