This is the question I was asked some time back. And my response probably appeared rather weak to the person who asked me. I think I replied with something along the lines of it's an open-world game and I'm not sure that's for me. Boy was I wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. I wasn't wrong about it being open-world, though. But I was wrong about it not being a game for me.
At the time I began considering Fallout 4 as an option, I had been enjoying more and more games with deep, well articulated stories. And a couple of those games were stories without words, without dialog, and without NPCs. Games like Journey and ABZÛ and Neverending Nightmares. Still others were full of dialog and NPCs and conversations. Dying Light, The Last of Us, and Life is Strange for example. And although Dying Light was open-world it had a narrow, and linear, focus. Not that those things took anything away from the game; it was a fantastic game. The Last of Us and Life is Strange are both great stories with excellent dialog, but they are quite focused in their purpose, providing limited interaction with the environments. Sure there were many opportunities to explore but in a tertiary role.
But Fallout 4 isn't like that. Fallout 4 is all about exploring. Truth be told, exploration is of utmost importance. But it's not just about finding new locations to scavenge or participate in battle or scrounge for ammunition, health items, and bottlecaps (the currency of the Wasteland). Oh no, the exploration is vital to the most important aspect of Fallout 4: the stories.
When I mention the stories, I'm not referring to the main story. It's rather predictable and not overly interesting. And I feel like this flaw in the game gives it a black eye. But thankfully the secondary and tertiary stories make up for the re-washed main story. These sad, gripping, and often gut-wrenching stories are what makes me ask the question, "Why aren't you playing Fallout 4?"
More than just the scripted encounters are the random encounters. And true enough many of these random encounters are battle focused or essential equipment such as ammo or health, but there will also be random opportunities to engage in a story. You may come across a settler in dire need of medications. Or you may find a funeral that you can only be a witness to as there isn't an option to engage with the mourners. Or you may find a man circling a refrigerator and thinking aloud on how to open it.
Even some of your available companions have deeply painful stories to tell such as MacCready or Old Longfellow. Maybe you've decided to solve the Eddie Winter quest with Nick Valentine, which you must to reach max affinity, and you learn about who Valentine used to be and why solving the Winter case is so important.
More importantly though—if you take the time that is—you'll complete the saddest, most heart breaking story in the quest of Arlen Glass, a man who cared so much about making children happy he forgot to take time for his own daughter. When I finished Arlen's quest I had to take a minute away from the game to clear my throat. Or, perhaps, you'll come across Phyllis Daily, and if you have high charisma, she'll tell you about her grandson. Or maybe the Suttons and the terrible fate of a mother and two children thanks to an abusive, lazy father.
Fallout 4 is filled with tough battles, complex battles, and fun, environmentally rich battles. But the greatest aspect of the game are the battles of the Commonwealth people. The war against total atomic annihilation, and the steps taken to keep families safe from a world no longer safe. What about the efforts of the Tournquist family to reunite, and of Jim to save his family within the confines of Big Jim's Salvage. And when you find Jim and his family take a moment to review what your eyes see, and then ask yourself: would you do the same?
When I first began playing Firewatch I wasn't sure it was going to keep my attention. The opening was filled with onscreen dialog similar to that of old soundless movies. And I nearly put the game away for a later date. And had it not been for its setting in the Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming I think I would've put it away. Boy am I glad I didn't. In fact the setting of a fictional area within Shoshone NF was what drew my interest to the game. Kinda like rooting for the home team even if you don't like the home team.
Firewatch is a first-person, story-driven mystery. It was developed by Campo Santo and published by Campo Santo and Panic. On February 9, 2016 is became available for Linux, Windows, OS X, and PS4. Later, in September 2016 Xbox One players were able to play.
You play as Henry, a man who is trying to avoid a difficult past relationship and start anew. Henry is a new fire lookout in a fictional setting in Wyoming. You engage in dialog with Delilah via radio. And it's in the dialog that the game shines. At times serious, mysterious, and sarcastic. But it is always engaging and easily holds the attention of the player. It's almost like a good mystery book in its depth of character and twists.
Fun Factor: Firewatch is certainly engaging enough as a story-driven game to keep the fun going. Even with limited gameplay the game is a wonderful getaway for several hours. FF is 8 of 10.
Replay Factor: Firewatch has plenty of dialog options to warrant a second or even third pass through. And a few secrets are hidden that I easily missed. The adoption of a turtle for example. Firewatch is almost completely devoid of wildlife, which is strange given its setting. RF is 7 of 10.
Story Factor: the story in Firewatch is wonderful, although a bit slow at the beginning. But this is attributed to the fashion of gameplay in the first ten minutes. Once beyond the long beginning reading the player must do the story is fascinating and enjoyable with fully relatable and well rounded characters. And the mystery itself has plenty of possibilities for gamer engagement. SF is 8 of 10.
Imagery Factor: now again I don't separate out the quality or even design of the imagery, rather I use the fully imagery immersion to make the determination in the score. Firewatch possess wonderful imagery, from the forest to shadows to darkness. IF is a 6 of 10.
Overall Factor: a summation of all the scores given against all the scores available. Firewatch scores a 29 of 40. Firewatch losses ground due to lack of forest sounds and minimal gameplay. With the addition of sounds and more complex puzzles, Firewatch could easily score a 35 of 40.
Firewatch is definitely a game to play. Even if you prefer high octane games like DOOM or Uncharted, the story in Firewatch is more than enough to keep you entertained for several hours on a rainy afternoon. It easily makes it into my top 5 games played this year.
(Firewatch gets 5 bonus points for mentioning actual towns and cities in Wyoming.)
I'm not even sure where to start with Dear Esther: Landmark Edition. Normally I would give a little background information followed by a breakdown of the game as I responded to it. The trouble with Dear Esther is it isn't much of a game in terms of gameplay. Quite honestly there isn't any gameplay—walk, zoom, and look is it. But there is one thing Dear Esther does well and I'll get to that in a moment.
Dear Esther was developed by The Chinese Room and published in 2008 as a free to play mod. Then republished in 2012 for PC and Mac and 2013 for Linux by The Chinese Room. And published by Curved Digital for PS4 and Xbox 1in 2016. It's a first-person, story-driven game. Sort of. At least in terms of story-driven.
Throughout the game a narrator appears and maps out the history of a killed spouse to the audience via letters written by the husband of the deceased. The letters loosely imply the character’s wife was killed in an auto accident, but it's soon muddled by some back story of other island inhabitants, and the drunk driver.
The story of the prior inhabitants and the death of the character’s wife soon becomes white noise, though. And I found it to have been disruptive more than inclusive, and the reason why is because of what the game does exceptionally.
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition is a visual orgasm. The images are so real and lifelike, and the environment so believable, I quickly found myself shivering with the gusts of wind, hunching my shoulders over against the sea spray, and the chill of the caves that are explored within the game. At one point you explore a wrecked and decayed ship. As you walk through you feel immersed in the ribs of the broken ship and the emptiness of its cavity.
Although the game had a completely immersive environment, I could easily see people putting the game down and never returning to it, and that's in spite of its incredibly short story (I finished the game in an hour and twenty minutes, which could've easily been an hour had I not stopped for screenshots).
I would be hard pressed to say the game has replay qualities. One time through is more than enough. So be sure to take all the screenshots the first time.
As many people are well aware of the complete mess that followed the release of No Man’s Sky, I am going to explain why it isn’t the worse game release this year. That dubious title belongs to NBA2K17. To be fair, I’m ONLY referring to the MyCareer game mode in 2K. I have no experience with online games with other users, but from what I’ve gathered from players who do play online with other humans the problems there are just as troublesome.
For those not fully aware of the situation with No Man’s Sky, I suggest you look up all the nastiness surrounding the game. For me, I didn’t find the game to be all that entertaining. There simply wasn’t enough accomplishment to justify all the grinding to reach accomplishments. A vicious cycle of bad, bad, bad. For many other gamers who had followed the extended timeline of NMS (all along their expectations growing exponentially with each video release) the game failed miserably to meet perceived promises. Many consumers of NMS railed endlessly about how they believed the game was falsely advertised. Again, I wasn’t aboard the hype-train so I can’t make a reasonable comment about the game being guilty of false advertisement. In addition to the “false advertisement” the game dropped with several glitches and bugs, some involved the pre-order goodies. And as the world bore down on NMS, the game developers went dark. This only fueled the fire and suddenly it seemed as though the purchasers of No Man’s Sky were on a witch-hunt. But...there is a game release that has been far worse.
I’ll share some of my gaming experience with the NBA2K franchise so you all can get a better feel, and ultimately decide if I have the qualifications to explain all that has been and is wrong with NBA2K17.
I started playing the NBA2K franchise with the NBA2K16 release. I picked up 2K16 a month or two before the release of 2K17 to get a feel for the game. The storyline in 2K16 was terrible but the gameplay seemed to be good. Buying the game late, I didn’t have to suffer with all the glitches and bugs that apparently hampered the game upon it’s release. Now, hold onto that statement as you are about to see a pattern develop. Anyway, I enjoyed 2K16 enough to download 2K17 Prelude, which was an enormous waste of time—thankfully it was free. And 2K17 had some significant changes over the previous year’s release. A new shot meter and new player archetypes, which I’ll discuss a bit later. Some new play-calling functions that aren’t even worth the effort to figure out. And a new storyline, which up to that point, was far better than the 2K16 release. So, overall a step forward. But then the other shoe drops.
And this is where shit gets real.
I’ll begin with the new player archetypes. Now again, this review relates to the MyCareer mode. When starting a new MyCareer you are prompted to pick a player position, point guard, small forward, center, whatever. Then you are forced to pick an archetype. And at first blush it seems like a good idea. I can pick a playmaker point guard or a slasher small forward. Maybe a post up power forward. But this initially great idea quickly turns into a player who ends up constrained to the archetype. I’ll use the slasher archetype as an example. According to 2K a slasher is a player who excels at making layups and dunks, can shoot off the dribble, and has some reasonable skill as a post player. A slasher can’t shoot threes, can’t make plays for others, and is only a marginal midrange shooter. Now, I’m not sure how they came up with the qualities for each archetype but they obviously never watched Michael Jordan or Scottie Pippen play. Yes, Jordan was a drive-the-lane first player, but he was excellent off the dribble and in the midrange. And he proved in the finals he could shoot the three by making ten in a game. And although Pippen wasn’t as consistent a scorer as Jordan, he was a great player with all of Jordan’s abilities plus a great playmaker. And the slasher archetype isn’t a top flight defender. Again, I refer to Jordan and Pippen. There are several archetypes available and I could easily find players who clearly fit the mold but are also excellent at the positions 2K believes they aren’t. Flaw number one, but only a minor annoyance.
The real trouble, and a major annoyance, is the game play. It’s supposedly smoother and allows for more user control, specifically for dribble moves. In previous versions the dribble moves were animations the game picked for you based on a series of circumstances. But I can assure you the gameplay, if it is indeed smoother, is bogged way down by animation locks. It constantly feels like the player is locked into an animation. And some of the animations don’t even look right. Often players appear to be “skating” to a spot or “skating” instead of dribbling. Skating as in on ice. But those are things you can get used to with a little gritting of the teeth. But the actual gameplay isn’t something that can be ignored…
Upon release the game default during transition offense was to rebound and give it to any player to start the break. This seldom happens in the NBA. You have a point guard for a reason. But that never mattered because the AI doesn’t know how to run transition offense. The basic premise of fastbreak offense is to get quick, easy baskets from high-percentage shots. How is this done? Start backward from the rim. It’s well documented that the closer to the basket you are the higher the chances of scoring points. But I’ll allow for leeway here and go with taking shots within the paint—twelve-foot shots or less. But at the launch of 2K17 all shooters not with the ball went straight to the corner three shooting area. This negates the high-percentage shot. It also prevents an outnumbered situation, which is also a major factor in transition offense. Easy buckets, high-percentage shots, outnumbered situations, and/or mismatches. So if you are on a 3 on 2 break and two guys set up at the three point line the fastbreak is squashed because it’s now a 2 on 1 transition defense situation. Sure you could dish it out and hope someone drains an open three but the odds are slim. And the longer the shot, the longer the rebound, and suddenly you went from a fastbreak to poor transition defense. Of course the thought is to put more threes in the the game because that’s the way the NBA game is shifting. And yes that’s true, but not in a fastbreak scenario. If there is an outnumbered situation in the painted area, that’s where the ball will go. If it’s a 2 on 2 in the paint and a trailer on the three point line you may see a kick out to the shooter. As a player, I wouldn’t have ever done that. Take your chances near the basket.
And there’s more. This game flaw pertains to both set offense and transition offense. The AI simply isn’t coded well enough to understand the player position on the court or mismatches. I can’t count how many times my big man is in perfect position at the rim, the defender under the basket, and upon receiving a pass for an easy score, the big man passes back out. This leads to the extremely flawed offensive three-second violation. Of course there is more going on within the painted area to cause a three-second violation. The AI is coded to prevent the player from traveling through the paint. This includes apparent holding from the defender. In one game I played during a baseline inbound play, the screener for the offense stayed inside the paint for 7 seconds. No call. A similar situation occurs during transition offense. It appears that the code is written in a way that once a certain amount of time has elapsed transition offense becomes set-offense, and this is accurate for the most part. When it isn’t accurate is during a wide open, uncontested shot being passed out. The AI simply doesn't take advantage of the opportunity. Instead it goes into set-offense mode, which can lead to a three-second call.
Still more. The shot-meter and Relentless Finisher bug. When the game was released it came with another bug or two. For some players the shot meter wouldn’t complete its cycle, forcing missed shots. The Relentless Finisher badge, which was designed to help boost the chances of making contested shots going to the basket, was also buggy. This badge was especially important to the slashers since layups and dunks were the main offensive attribute. See, the game grades you on you shot selection and shot timing. I’m sure you can deduce where this is going. If your shot meter doesn’t work, your shot timing will be off. The Relentless Finisher fuck-up would charge layups with poor shot choice. Poor shot selections impact your teammate score, which affects your game salary. At this point I’m certain that the game developers have never played basketball or watched basketball, or didn’t send the game to game testers who played or watched basketball.
Let’s go to the hot fixes. These were small patches designed to improve gameplay a little bit. Something they could download while you were playing the game. So, the braintrust at 2K decided that the best way to help players enjoy their fucked-up game was to apply a bandaid. Instead of actually fixing the shot meter issue, they made three-pointers easier. So somehow boosting three-point success percentage to the 80 plus-make mark was going to repair the disgruntled consumers. Of course it was two months later before they finally got around to fixing the Relentless Finisher badge. And when they did that they also “fixed” the fast break offense. Sure, they went from three pointers to no transition offense at all. And they practically patched the three pointer out of the game unless your player archetype is designed to shoot threes.
And these aren’t even all the problems. How about the magnetic defense or the player speed issue or the servers or the moving screen or that every patch and hot-fix isn’t an adjustment, it’s a complete one-eighty. I could go on and on but this post is already too long.
The most disturbing part of this is that developer Visual Concepts has been making this game for seventeen years. How the hell do these major game issues fall through the cracks? Visual Concepts and 2K Sports aren’t Hello Games. A person can expect an indie game to have flaws, but a big-time institution like 2K? Give me a break.
Welcome to LittleWatt Gameplay, a blog dedicated to gaming. Ranging from first impressions to game reviews and a bunch of stuff in between. I’ll be sharing my first impressions of Life is Strange for the Xbox One.
I was browsing in Best Buy when I first came across this game. It might have even been mentioned by a friend but I can't recall for sure. Anyway, I grabbed the box and read the little blurb on the back. A young girl with the ability to rewind time. She saves someone and then must face the consequences of her actions. And this is throughout the game as each decision can affect the way things play out.
After an hour or so of play, I find myself more and more drawn into the game. There's a girl missing and a bunch of people connected to the girl, which leads to a huge suspect list. The more I play the more clues come to the surface. And, as one might expect, some of the potential perpetrators are simply too obvious for me to take as a serious suspect in the disappearance of a young art student. And there's an equal amount of suspects who are not obvious choices as kidnappers (and potentially murderers, although I don't know if the missing girl is dead yet) who I must take a closer look at.
The story is full of typical teenage drama surrounded by a mysterious disappearance and the introduction of an FNG (fucking new girl) not unlike many stories available we’ve all read about or watched in movies or television or even been an active participant.
Keep an eye out for my gameplay videos on YouTube as I unravel the mystery.
Welcome to LittleWatt Gameplay. I'll be reviewing No Man’s Sky in this post. The review will be several categories with a 0-10 rating in each category. The numbers will be tallied up at the end for the overall rating.
My how my feelings have changed from my initial thoughts post to this review. But first a little about the game. No Man’s Sky was developed by Hello Games, a small indie group from the UK. It's a single player exploration and survival game based in a procedurally generated universe where our own solar system doesn't appear.
FunFactor: This is the hardest category for me to rate. I hate to say this game isn't fun. But at the same time I can't say this game is barrels of fun, either. No Man’s Sky is a game with a limited audience. That being said, I'm not convinced anyone but severely hardcore fans will find this game overly fun. Scored 3 of 10.
ReplayFactor: Once the game’s primary goal is completed, which is apparently reaching the center of the universe or galaxy (something that isn't quite clear even though the two aren't synonymous with each other), I would be hard pressed to say the game is replay-able. The mundane, and often arduous, tasks would forfeit any desire to start over and try it again. I would be surprised if even the hardcore fans would start again. Scored 1 of 10.
StoryFactor: Well there isn't much story. The game allows you to learn other languages but that isn't really what I would consider story. This game is completely about an individual exploring planets and moons and mining necessary consumables to survive. Even the alien interactions are solely for the purpose of reaching a goal. Scored 1 of 10.
Imagery Factor: Now this is where the game shines. Although much of the imagery in the game is the same, regardless of what planet you're on, the images never get too old. During my gameplay, I found the images amazing even though they were rather cartoonish. I found myself fascinated by the color schemes, the blues were amazing, the greens were lively, and the images of each planet’s atmospheres were inspiring. No matter how gloomy the planet was, if you found a cave filled with colors, you felt immediately warmed. Scored 6 of 10.
Overall Factor: The score here won't be great. That isn't to say the game is as bad as the score, though. I tried to base each score only on its respective merits, and in doing so, the cumulative result will mark the game much lower than it really is. I do believe there will be a special group of consumers who find the game breathtakingly amazing. And for those people this review will be blasphemy. But I'm not writing this review to please any one person or groups of people. Scored 2.75 of 10.
Last Minute Gripes: The game lacks any kind of real action. Sure there are moments you have to blast some predators or angry drones. And at times fighting off pirates is a must. Maybe even engaging in a full space battle is an option, but it's relatively limited. The opening to the game was incredibly long and drawn out, and this alone could have easily turned players off the game. That's not to say other games don't have long openings, but the opening to No Man’s Sky just felt excessive. Maybe it's because you are so alone, which is kinda the point. The game aims for you to feel small and insignificant, and for that it does a magnificent job. Unfortunately for me that vast emptiness was more than I could tolerate and I've shelved the game. But since it does make you feel small so well, I'm going to give the game rating two extra bonus points. Score it 4.75 of 10.
Welcome to LittleWatt Gameplay. Several weeks ago I was asked what game I had played that with the best story. I believe my response was something to similar to “I don’t know that I have ever played a game with a story or storyline. I mean where is the story in Madden Football or Gran Turismo? There isn’t one. And I suppose games like Metal Gear Solid and Tomb Raider 1, 2, 3, had some story to it but not much. And I’m certain Resistance: Fall of Man had a story but I wasn’t interested in doing anything in that game other than shoot the chimera and get to the end.
I recently finished DOOM (the 2016 release) and found it had a fairly decent story in it even if it was easily glossed over or dismissed altogether. The story had to be read, which easily slowed the game down from its balls-to-the-wall gameplay. Who wants to slow down to read anyway? It would be easy for me to argue DOOM had the best story in any game I’ve ever played.
But that isn’t true anymore. Although, I’ve put several hours into Dying Light, I’m still only fifteen percent finished with the game. Now I’m not certain if all the side missions are included in the game completion percentage, and if they aren’t, then the game will move along quickly as I’ve only done a few main story missions. Compare that to seven or eight side missions or quests. Hell, I’ve even done a scene for a movie with some film director whose camera I tracked down during a side mission. And I have to say splattering forty zombies with a double barrel shotgun in under two minutes (I think) was great fun (I had forty-four seconds remaining).
Even though all that zombie killing is great fun, and gets even better once the player levels up and the weapons can be modified into serious zombie destroying tools, the story behind the game is equally good. There are some real-life politics and stereotyping in the game. Some high drama and backstabbing. And the commentary of the main character is wonderfully clever and witty. And the thing is, all the quests or side-missions are key into unravelling the entire story.
Initially, I found the controls to be complicated and not well thought out. But I was also coming off hours and hours of DOOM where all the controls had become second nature, and they were also fairly standard controls. But now that I’ve put more hours into Dying Light the controls are easily to handle and don’t feel nearly as cumbersome. (And with the acquisition with the grappling hook everything thing has become just a bit easier—you’ll need to be survivor level twelve to receive the grappling hook.)
During the night missions, stealth plays a major factor in succeeding. Again with the grappling hook night missions will become far easier. During my first night mission, I was killed in short order but have successfully survived the night four times without even being noticed. Still, the stress level goes up quite a bit during the night, armed with the massively destructive double-barrel shotgun or not. (All those hours spent looting, accomplishing side missions, stealing airdrops from thieves, unlocking all the safe houses,and killing zombies will level you up quick enough to get specialty weapons. But you can craft one of the best weapons in the game right away—the Molotov cocktails. These bottles of flaming liquid will dispatch nearly all enemies, and multiple enemies, with little to no effort. One Molotov is good for a least six dead zombies all at once so long as they are grouped together. Nothing works as efficiently.
Dying Light is a must play game for anyone interested in first-person, zombie, horror, or survival games. And it has a wonderful story to boot.
