Evan Winter is selfish.

This is true. The game opens with a dispatch from the protagonist entitled, “Why Kill Yourself Today When You Could Masturbate Tomorrow?” That is a good question, Evan. Why destroy yourself when you can achieve a shining moment of orgasmic clarity, where the world makes sense and you are absolutely, genuinely right. This is Actual Sunlight’s opening salvo—the dispatch of a selfish man riding on the eddy of his eloquently spun aphorisms. Evoking a Holden Caulfield-esque kind of irreverence, Evan Winter lobs criticisms at pretty much everyone: the privileged, the corpo slaves, strangers on the street. Sometimes it’s bitterly funny, like when he squared off against the collective opinion of the Something Awful forum. A lot of times, his views are needlessly reproachful, like when he went off on a bender about the ulterior motives of friendly strangers. The messages and monologues cleverly hiding as item interactions show a well-spoken man raging against the artifice of the world.

Evan Winter is helpless.

As visible as his takedown of society, it is apparent that Evan Winter is a broken man. He slams himself as much as he chastises other people. He knows he’s a fat alcoholic because he lacks self-control. He lacks self-control because why bother? What is one more bag of fries? What is one more hangover when we’re all slouching towards end? But his is nihilism with meaning. And for him, the meaning of life is to shuffle bullshit around until we give this place the laugh.

The spaces Evan Winter inhabits confirm his worldview. He works in the corporate badlands; the minutiae and the managerial ruthlessness further alienating him from the world. Evan comments extensively on the stranglehold of his situation, taking potshots at corporate buzzwords and the futility of training seminars. With his cubicle as his soapbox, he will rant because he can do nothing else.

Evan Winter’s message-in-a-bottle item descriptions reveal that he is seeing (or saw) a therapist. At least he’s getting help, I sympathized. But the game then reveals the therapist doesn’t exist. He was not getting help. There’s no shining epiphany, no prescription for medication. He realizes the corner he has backed himself into. He realizes everything about himself. Of course he does. As his own therapist, every imperfection is pinpointed and amplified. His mind is a ticker repeating why and how he sucks. Evan is on his own and, tragically, he isn’t that much help to himself.

Evan Winter is lonely.

Nothing. That’s the whole idea, isn’t it? In the last few minutes, the motif of hollowness has infected every aspect of the game. The protagonist leaves behind an empty apartment, gutted during an alcohol-fueled fit. He quit his job because his attempts at workplace civility were perceived as sexual harassment. He sabotaged a possible romantic relationship because he saw that it was built on dependence—an idea he understands all too well. Transcripts of his writing class lecture, his therapist appointments, his TV interview were all revealed to be all in his head and had thus ceased to come up again. He has eliminated every single ugly thing in his life but why has nothing changed? Why is this terrible world still lurching on its axis? In a moment of quiet, grim clarity, he realizes he can do nothing else but opt out.

Evan Winter is hopeless.

This is a lie, but let me make it clear that he is not a hopeful man.  Actual Sunlight is about the hope Evan Winter fruitlessly cultivates. Despite his self-assurances and promises, he doesn’t change. His momentum is slow but implacable. The author, Will O’Neill, even states as much that, “It’s… pretty clear where all of this is headed.” And he follows through. The game does not condescend with a swerve towards a happy ending. When Evan rounded the final curve of his downward spiral, he holds one last conference with his imaginary therapist and decides to jump off the roof. It is the player’s choice to have him take the elevator, but it was not a choice at all. You are given no alternatives because Evan believes he has none. His hope has gone, and with it, all of his rationalization and anger. He has run out of windmills to charge at. He has stopped blaming others, society, and the media. He had dissected himself so thinly that he has nothing left.

The final sequence is a thing of immense melancholic beauty. If the statement “beauty in a breakdown” were irrevocably applicable, it would be then in that instance. With his self-preservation imploding, Evan Winter balls up his last shred of eloquence and bares his soul. We see a man so critical of himself: a man who has tried to fight irrelevance ten years too late. In the jagged cadence of Evan Winter’s existence, I saw my own. Maybe I just made different decisions or learned different things but there was something of me in him and him in me. It was hidden beneath the layers of social anxieties disguised as noise and wit—behind the unfulfilled expectations masked as brutal honesty. In another world, Evan Winter could easily have been me. But he is not me. I am fine. I got help. This is his game. I needed to remember that.

Evan Winter has a choice.

Yes and no. Did he jump? He didn’t. He did. It’s up to you. Evan Winter’s death wasn’t shown and for that, I am grateful. Even if it were absolutely illogical in the context of the narrative, I am relieved the fate of Evan Winter was left ambiguous. Because only then was I given a choice. The entirety of the game sets up a “diminishing sense of agency.” I can decide to sit next to someone on the bus, but Evan won’t. I  can decide not to buy another video game to fuel Evan’s addiction, but he will refuse to leave the store until he makes that purchase. I can decide not to go to the roof, but my, Evan’s, options are limited to >Yes and >Yes. There at the precipice is the only time I could decide what happens next. That was the whole point of it, I think. When your agency is hijacked by invisible phantoms, deep-seated fears, chemical imbalances, or the exhausting march towards perceived pointlessness, you get to make one last decision. Standing on the edge of staying and leaving, you get to choose which way to go.

Evan Winter is depressed.

This is true. This is important.

The Turn-based Strategy RPG is an old genre. Tempered and wrought by time, TBSes can be said to have been already perfected. The basic elements are few and simple: take a grid and press it flush against terrain. Huddle your squires and spellwrights on one corner of the map. Introduce strategic terms like turn order and height advantage and combine them with RPG mechanics. TBSes are a solid kind of game that appeal to a solid kind of mind. No twitch reflexes required. No need to memorize button combinations. All you need is the ability to manipulate outcomes and seize opportunities. What is required of you is to expand your intuition to encompass the entire battlefield, where the proudest can fall and weakest dare to ascend.

It’s no surprise that the turn-based SRPG features droves of titles under its belt. With the formula so easy to replicate, game designers need to tweak and tinker with the system to stand out from the throng. Flashy battle systems like rule restrictions, terrain penalties, and combination attacks all influence the game experience in a variety of ways. Other games see this challenge as a way to prioritize style (visual design and story) over substance (balance and gameplay). This is not automatically a bad thing. Final Fantasy Tactics was riddled with gamebreaking exploits, but a lot of people still agree that it’s one of the gold standards of SPRGs.

These kinds of games come and go, but every once in a while, an outlier will rise from the rabble. As if fulfilling an unwritten prophecy, this chosen one will come to define the genre for several years. In the early 90s, it was Fire Emblem. In the late 90s, it was stately Final Fantasy Tactics. The 2000s saw the wildly self-aware Disgaea series dress up the genre in wacky threads. This 2013, a new challenger has entered the fray with the thrumming of distant drums. Emerging from the swirling blizzard comes The Banner Saga: Factions.

The Banner Saga: Factions is an early, online multiplayer offering of Stoic Studio’s The Banner Saga. While the singleplayer game is still taking its sweet time in development limbo, Stoic Studio released TBS:F both to appease their Kickstarter backers until the game’s actual release later this year and to drum up further interest among the Steam regulars. TBS:F is then considered as tribute and advance guard—a shining spectacle of a product and a sneaky playtest. As a combat-only multiplayer experience, its time on the proving ground will stress-test its every facet. Despite the weight of its laurels, TBS:F seems to make good on a lot of its promises. It’s a worthy taste of what’s in store—something incredible, addictive, and maddeningly beautiful.

Shock and Awe

Look at him. Look at his beard. If you’re anything like me, you’re fighting against the compunction to touch that beard. If you’re nothing like me, then you are a child who knows nothing of the world. Upon starting The Banner Saga: Factions, Stoic Studio wastes no time in showing their work. With a cavalcade of giant men coming to the rescue of an exasperated jarl by cutting a swathe through a squad of his usurpers, The Banner Saga: Factions begins. Boasting of an art style inspired by the illustrious Evyvid Earle of The Sleeping Beauty fame, TBS:F paints a world where brows are perpetually, impeccably furrowed and each facial follicle evokes visual Lisztomania. Look back at that crackling virility hedge. Now imagine that subtly animated, a breeze rustling through the hair and nostrils flaring ever so slightly. Attempt to regain consciousness.

To say the art direction of TBS:F is striking is an understatement. Try something else. Try breathtaking. Dynamic. Throw out epic in there. It’s okay. It’s appropriate. You’re good for it. Stoic Studio infused each of the character units with so much personality that even their idle animations help construct the narrative canopy of their world. Archers do regular double-takes, wary that their perch might be compromised. Shieldbangers beat their weapons against their tower shields, daring the world to break through their line. The characters’ bravura is impressive, as are the throes of their death. The giants fall like warrior-kings, attempting to prop themselves up with their weapons before succumbing to their wounds. Backbiters whirl as they fall, willing themselves to die with their faces to Valhalla. Environments, while mostly static, thrive with life. Scroll over to the sides of the screen and you’ll see natives going about their normal lives, apathetic to the murderous rough-housing going on a few yards away. Bystanders ring around the battlefield, possibly lazily commenting on the proceedings while chugging their mead and chowing down on mutton. The jarl is bored rigid, his cheek in his hand. A guard is napping by the longboat’s shields. A pair of scrimshaws is gutting a narwhal to the side.

Since it’s still in the early stages, TBS:F’s music is spare but functional, meshing effectively with the robust gameplay. The music is reactive, scripted to seamlessly flow from one score to the next, tailored to the current gameplay situation. Your turn’s time limit dials down by way of a rapidly quickening drumbeat. Do you only have one team member left, defending him/herself from an axe-wielding cabal of Viking warriors? The music turns into a battle-spurred rhythm, foreboding either crushing defeat or glorious victory.

Stoic Studio promised a “mature, story-driven, turn-based strategy game steeped in Viking culture. [emphasis mine]” If The Banner Saga: Factions is a microcosmic representative of that promise, then it succeeded resoundingly. Although most ofTBS:F’s narrative is told via visuals and gameplay, what little writing it does have manages to further enrich the story’s scope and detail. The game doesn’t take the easy route by just doling out didactic unit descriptions, no. Instead, every unit features flavor text that extols their heroism and infamy. It was when I read the description of the Raider, one of the most basic units in the game, that I absolutely knew I was dealing with something outstanding:

“Stop crying. You’ll have to make the decision soon, boy. Become a farmer or fisher; hard, tedious labor for certain, but you’ll never go hungry. Become a trader, maybe live in wealth when you finally become a great liar. Become a builder or a smith, and make things that will bring others glory. Or carry this axe in your hand, and this shield in the other, and take what those lesser men have made for you.”

-A father to his son, overheard

Mutual Assured Destruction

Like any systematic game genre, TBSes live or die by their gameplay. Introduce a broken mechanic or shoddy balancing and a multiplayer SRPG will homogenize its players’ strategies until the game experience becomes nothing more than a repetitive slog. In TBS:F, they address this issue by structuring its combat philosophy around deviously simple and realistic core mechanics. Each combatant has a Strength stat which functions both as attack power and health counter. The lower your health, the less effective your attacks will be. Fatal wounds will gimp you until you’re basically just tickling Northeners’ mustaches with your giant axe. To mitigate damage done to your fleshy bits, each character also has an Armor stat. The more Armor you have, the less damage you’ll take. Literally every unit in the game can target either of the two components, leading to some very interesting mental exercises. Maim a unit now to reduce its overall effectiveness? Or should you whittle at its armor so it can be defeated with little difficulty later? From just two mechanics, players can generate a panoply of mind games.

Opposing units move after each other, eliminating the concept of initiative from the metagame. Like a game of chess played in the blistering tundra, a skirmish in The Banner Saga: Factions is won and lost by the forethought of the battling players. The turn order prominently marquees in the bottom section of the user interface, giving players a constant stream of tactical information. The player has literally everything s/he needs to think of their next moves. Mistakes unwittingly made hit hard, but premeditated battle decisions gone awry carry a heavier, more personal shame. The game punishes you for not thinking too far ahead. Leave your archers exposed and backbiters will blitz through a hole in your line to incapacitate them. Let your shieldbanger wander too far from your blitzkrieg and he will be sliced into so many Scandinavian flesh ribbons. Likewise, successfully calculated gambits lend you an immense burst of pride. Playing the slow game of carving chunks out of a combatant’s armor can pay off in dividends in the last few minutes. Spending extra Willpower to run through an obvious meatshield, in order to menace your opponent’s archers will dramatically decrease his/her effectiveness. In TBS:F, victories feel real and defeats feel deserved.

Balance of Terror

The balanced gameplay is largely tethered to Stoic Studio’s genius levelling-matchmaking system. Upon every enemy unit killed, your characters gain a trickle of Renown. Renown works as experience and currency in the world of TBS:F. It can be used to purchase palette swaps, join tournaments, or to bring more warriors into your fold. Characters also draw from it to level up or get “promoted” to become better, more specialized units. More renown is always good. If you have the dosh, you can purchase an automatic bonus that will add to your renown after every battle. Hang on. Before you decry the game as another one of those satanic “pay-to-win” multiplayer games, calm down. Promotion is easy to achieve, sure. But deciding to promote? That’s the part that’s tricky.

TBS:F’s matchmaking formula takes a player’s two statistics into account: Elo rating and Team Power. The Elo rating is essentially the relative skill level of the players, determined largely by their win-loss ratio. Team Power is the overall strength of your assembled Viking pillager posse. It works like this: the formula will deign to match your Team Power with opponents of the same level. Then it will factor in your Elo rating and choose the best match from that pool of players. More promoted units mean a tougher fight. Of course, if you’ve battled and parleyed with your giants and wildmen for as long as it took to promote them, you’ll still perform decently. However, if you shelled out the skrilla hoping for a straight shot to the top, a grizzled general of a player will fillet your ass and lovingly hand it back to you. Oh man. Oh lord. Let me just say, that on the semi-rare instance that this happens, committing tribal genocide on these would-be wallet warriors is incomparably gratifying. As of writing this, ten years have been knocked off my age. Crow’s feet have disappeared to be replaced by cosmetically-positioned battle scars. My singular chest hair has curled into a fist.

It’s not without its flaws, but the game tries its best to keep the scales level. If the game can’t find a suitable match for your rating, it could pair you up with someone of a marginally higher/lower rank; however, you will enjoy either reduced renown or an underdog bonus depending on how wide the skill disparity is between your opponent and you. A wider gaming audience will help moderate the frequency of this occurrence, and it’s a good thing that TBS:F’s overwhelming positives are making it enjoy a growing following.

The Banner Saga: Factions is a surprisingly accessible game with considerable tactical depth. For Stoic Studio to produce a competitive SPRG that is enthralling to behold, while still addressing major balance issues, should be commended. Despite being an early build, TBS:F features a staggeringly wide variety of teambuilding options and combat strategies. With Stoic’s promise of continual support for the multiplayer game even while the single-player game is still in development, things can only go up from here. Though I did not help Kickstart Stoic’s Nordic brainchild, this game has convinced me to definitely buy The Banner Saga when it gets released. But, you there, consider playing this game. Go on. Get on Steam and download it. It’s free. It’s simple. All you need is a keen blade and a keener mind. So sharpen your sword, oil your leathers, and gird your loins. We charge at the first horn.

I don’t know who Gelo is. Or where he came from. Who his damn parents are. But I’ve vowed to get him. The taunting way he skips backwards, just right out of my reach, before flashing me that stupid buck-toothed smile is nothing short of infuriating. He is my nemesis now, my foil– the twirling chaos to the order I impose. I will catch you, Gelo, I think as I spit on the chalk dust confining me to my station. I will catch you, you tricky sumbitch, and when I do, you will buy my team Sarsis. For an entire week.

I’m in too deep, man. The first time I booted up Patintero, I was completely blown away by the magnitude of its features. Local co-op? Who does that anymore? The Patintero devs apparently! Patintero’s charming use of retro mechanics signals a return to form– a temporal jaunt to halcyon days where all you needed to have a good time was a couple of buddies, a shady afternoon, and a good, fat wager. Christ on a crapstick, you are going down, Gelo. I will have your Sarsis AND your Yaya Jenny’s sugar-margarine sandwiches. They will be mine.

[This week, we review the greatest video games of all time.]

Like most games that use local co-op, Patintero falls through the usual pitfalls. Firstly, sweat. One of our linemen, JB, sweats so much. There’s literally no call for someone to house this much sweat. And you’ve always wondered how JB could play with you guys so often yet still be so chunky. Is it the hormones? The same hormones that produce the caustic waterfall cascading over his manboobs? Yeah, probably. The human contact required to play the game is excessive. For those who happen to like this feature, you are better, more secure men than I. But for the rest, maybe this much invasion of personal space isn’t quite your jam.

Who are these people even? WHO ARE YOU?!

The gameplay is quite sound, however. There’s something to be said of how the game’s sheer simplicity can contribute to its immersive qualities. If I had to construct a contrived analogy, think Pong meets Frogger meets Breakout. It’s a retro bonanza all up in this bidness! Two teams: one team acts as line guards; the other acts as passers. As passers, players have to risk life and limb to get from one end of the playing field to the next. Preventing them from this honestly dead-easy task are the line guards. Line guards act as deterrents to the passers, as they shunt themselves from point A to point B. Everything sounds simple enough, kind of like Team Tag, a game that I’m sure I’m not making up. However, the genius of Patintero lies in the limitations of the line guards. The playing field is divvied up into several vertical and horizontal lines. These are the lines the, well, line guards can move on. Step outside the line and you’re out. Shame and disgrace await you as you sit on the sidewalk, dust and debris caking the sweat-drenched seat of your shorts.

But as a line guard, the hand you’re dealt with isn’t that bad. The limitations ascribed to them allow the passers an easy cockiness that is delicious to exploit. So you’ve already passed one line guard and think that you’ve earned a breather before sprinting through the second one? Wrong. The guard you passed is RIGHT BEHIND YOU AND HE IS OUT FOR YOUR STUPID HEAD, GELO. The players run on a constant IV drip of adrenaline, always looking over the shoulder, never relaxing until the last passer has been tagged or the last line guard has been passed. The game evokes a visceral tension that never lets go until the last second tears itself from the clock. Hear that, Gelo? You will never be safe.

I will find you and you and your team will crawl through my legs.

Some folks have criticized Patintero for its weak story. While the criticism has some merit considering the aforementioned epic conflict’s lack of background, one could argue that the gameplay itself tells the story. Patintero is a prime example of emergent storytelling at work, where the player’s experiences make up for the barebones storyline. During beta, this reviewer manged to cultivate an uneasy rivalry with one of the AI opponents named “Gelo.” I made it an effort to always tag him first, repaying a kindness he showed me during my turn as passer. This rivalry evolved into a reactionary spitefiesta, with every slight paid and repaid in an escalating carnival of aggressive oneupmanship. Man, whoever programmed the AI should be given all the medals. I have never heard an AI insult my family upbringing that creatively before. The devs must’ve spent hours recording the dialogue required to parse out my mother’s questionable sexual dalliances.

The game’s simplicity can also be its downfall if we take replay value into consideration. The gameplay’s adherence to repetitive action may be a problem in future playthroughs. Some players might not mind, as every game can offer different experiences. Once all the plays have all been executed and all the matchups have been exhausted, the game holds nothing more than a chance for a bit of fun in the afternoon. For some, it may be enough. For others, the short length of the game won’t justify the effort it took for them to leave their rooms. So far, no DLC has been announced to help pad the unforgivingly short game. Whether this is a good or bad thing remains to be seen.

Patintero is a solid game. It’s a bit of a one trick pony, but it’s a good trick. What few flaws it does have are easily overlooked in the frenetic mashup of physical exercise, situational analysis, and, most importantly, fun. And for a lot of us, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Right, Gelo? The point isn’t that I tripped you that one time as revenge for stomping on my toes with your clumsy ogre feet. It’s not the fact that our elbows seem to be uncommonly attracted to each other’s chins. Right, you stupid piece of garbage? Fun is what matters.

Graphics: A closeup of JB’s undesirably damp neck dirt/10

Sound: Gelo’s parents arguing if he’s really theirs/10

Fun Factor: “It will blow you away.” -IGN.com

GODDAMMIT LET ME PASS THERE IS A KIDNEY IN THIS BOX JESUS CHRIST

With our hands on the dull metal post we call home, my teammates and I wait with bated breath for the enemies to make the first move. We don’t wait long, as one of them, Jake with his horned eyebrows perpetually mocking us, saunters to the center of the court radiating a swagger that screams “FUCK YOU, TAG ME”.

He crosses the imaginary boundary separating their turf from ours, puts his hands on his knees, and gives us that signature shit-eating grin. My teammates give sidelong glances to each other, as if urging on the other to try and catch one of the fastest runners in the game this early. Without saying a word, I break into a sprint heading straight for Jake, knowing full well I’m running into a trap.

I know the risk, but I believe in my bones that I can catch him and put the smug motherfucker in his place.

Agawan Base reminds me of the familiar concept of the good old game Capture the Flag wherein two opposing teams face off in a playing field with the objective of stealing the other’s prized possession. The key difference is that in Agawan Base, there’s no need to run back to your home base with a token to score a victory. All you need to do is get close enough to “tag” the base.

By not including this seemingly crucial phase in the gameplay, you’d think the fun you’d have would be cut in half. However, the lack of such a stage brings to the game a much higher sense of urgency, resulting in an interesting dynamic.

Because players don’t have to worry about having to escape enemy territory once they get there, the offensives are fast and brutal. This is aided by the gameplay aspect where tagged players don’t get kicked out of the game; they merely spend time on the opposing team’s base with their hands out hoping to get tagged by their teammates to save them from purgatory.

It’s not surprising then to see players go on kamikaze runs for a chance at making contact with either a teammate or the enemy base itself.

On the defensive end, players are forced to be extra careful in guarding the base. There is no making up for mistakes by catching the one who managed to sneak through your human fortification. You screw up once, you lose.

Adding complexity to the game is that tag priority is determined by the order in which the players touch and leave their home base. The first one to leave the home base is vulnerable to being captured by the rest of the opposition, but that player can then lure one of them out of their safe zone to get captured by a teammate fresh off of leaving the first player’s home base.

Considering the difficulty of penetrating a base fully guarded, the game more often than not becomes a concerted effort of feints and fake-outs to trap enemies with the intent of weeding out the competition. The less enemies darting in and out of their base, the easier it is to steal it.

Accomplishing any of these goals though ultimately requires one thing that certain players are just gifted wit – speed. Some players just have it, some don’t. If you have it, you’re golden. If you don’t, well, you better get used to sitting on either your home base or the enemies’.

Fortunately, there is an auto team balance feature that somehow  manages to even out both teams with a fair distribution of runners. And looking at how my last game resulted wherein I traded tags with that smug motherfucker Jake who everyone says is one fast motherfucker. 

Of course, teamwork is still essential to achieving victory considering the back and forth play between the teams’ offense and defense players necessary in actually scoring goals. Being able to develop a rivalry with any one of the opposition only serves to add to the game’s depth.

There are also multiple levels you can play in aside from the basic concrete schoolyard court map. There’s the outdoor grassy field where small pools of mud can slow you down. There’s the beach area where everybody plays barefoot and the sand starts heating up to the point that it actually hurts to run, cutting the game time short which then adds a sense of urgency.

All these different game elements coalesce for an experience like no other, except for maybe this game:

I want to be the very best.

The other kids have had a head start. They strut around the neighborhood with matchboxes in hand, looking for a challenge. I watched them in the sidelines, cheering and gasping as their champion spider fighters duked it out on the thin wooden stick that was the narrow battlefield. Some fights lasted minutes, others mere seconds. When one spider falls off the stick, the other is declared the winner.

Before Pokémon, way before the age of handheld gaming devices, this is what we played— Gagamba, or spider fighting. The kid who trained the best spider fighter was a local god for a solid weekend.

[Mix Villalon was away during the April Fools fun, but here she reviews a classic fighting game from her childhood.]

Spider fighting was a big deal in my old neighborhood. It was serious business. The adults who had nothing to do all day would sometimes bet on fights, lending a semi-sinister light on an otherwise casual pastime.

To get started, I had to go to kanto (literally “street corner”) and get me a prizefighter. There were many kinds of spiders to be found. They were categorized by their environment.

Spiders found in the house were gagambang bahay (“house spiders”) and were considered lame. They were sheltered and lazy, gorging themselves on houseflies, and barely moving from their corners. Not good fighters. Gagambang damo (“grass spiders”) were found in tall grass and would vary in size and agility. These were more common in rural neighborhoods. Gamambang puno (“tree spiders”) were long-legged and didn’t scare easily. Gagambang alambre (“wire spiders”) made their homes on electric cables and chicken wire. These were common in urban neighborhoods. They were a sturdy lot that clung to the stick like their lives depended on it. Gagambang talon (“jumping spiders”) were like the Magikarp of the lot because of their tendency to jump away when threatened. Not good in a game where the goal was to be the last spider on the stick.

The best of the best was the gagambang pitik (“flick spider”). They were small but packed a punch. In a heartbeat, they would fling their enemies away from them. If you found a pitik, you were as good as gold.

I found a spider but I didn’t know how good it would be in a fight. Off I went to see Ol’ Mang Kanor, the farthest thing from a professor, but a street philosopher all the same. He didn’t need to ask if I was a girl or a boy. With a leer and lascivious lip smacking, he told me I had a pitik in my hands. Time to put it to the test.

Fighting spiders were housed in empty matchboxes. If you had more than one spider, you could break off a matchstick and use it as a matchbox divider. I’ve seen kids with four spiders in a matchbox, kind of like a spider condominium. But a smaller space could weaken your spider as it wouldn’t be able to stretch its many legs. The best spider trainers would carry many matchboxes that house their spiders individually.

Outside the school grounds, there would be hustlers who sold spiders in matchboxes. They didn’t fight, they just caught spiders and sold them to kids. It cost 5 pesos for a common house spider, upwards of 20 pesos for larger tree spiders. The kids who bought their fighters get whispered about behind their backs. “He didn’t even catch that, he just bought it.”

Caring for your spider meant finding it food. We would comb the grassy areas of the neighborhood after school to look for ants and small grasshoppers. If you wanted a show, put the spider and the grasshopper under a glass cup and watch the carnage. Red ants would make the spider braver, or so I was told.

Before the fight, you could blow smoke in your spider’s face to make it angry (I grew up in a rough neighborhood where smoking started at eight years old). This made them tough and ready for a fight.

Every fight could potentially be a duel to the death. While the goal was to be the last spider on the stick, sometimes one spider would encase the other in webbing. This is super effective! When the other is completely incapacitated, the victor would sometimes eat its opponent.

There was no pansy passing out for these fighters. It’s always do or die. To the trainer who wins the round goes the pot of a handful of coins.

As of writing this, I have restarted Cart Life twice already.

Cart Life is Richard Hofmeier’s realistic tycoon game that doesn’t shy away from how tedious and ugly a realistic tycoon game can actually be. The lo-fi, grayscaled game offers itself as a mechanical approximation of retail life’s minutiae, reveling in all of its miserable motley. It’s a look into the silent and jumbled panic of individuals arresting control over lives not completely theirs.

There are two offshoots of my player character’s history floating out there. Two alternate realities that I’ve abandoned and overwritten. The ‘why’ of it all still escapes me.  Maybe it was just gamer frustration–the perfectionist in me running away from the Bad End. Or maybe I’m just refusing to confront certain things.

On the right–the sun

And the video game begins with a man on a train. This is Andrus Poder, emigrating from Ukraine with nothing but a couple of thousand dollars and his cat, Mr. Glembowski, in tow. Days pass. Andrus practices his English by translating Ukrainian poems–poems he has memorized and placed neatly into the hollows of his heart.

Already he is important to me.

He arrives and buys a newstand and its necessary permits for two thousand dollars, leaving him with a few hundred for food, lodging, and transportation. The profitability of this business venture disturbs me. 20 newspapers at .50 a copy will net him 10 dollars a day–this will take him 200 days to break even. The ex-proprietor informs him of carrying other sundries that will bump up his earnings. I’m unsure of his full acknowledgement of his station, but he agrees and sets off to work on that very day.

The banality of work is shown through the banality of gameplay. No requests for mouse flourishes, no rendered scissors or virtual hands. The player guides Andrus in cutting the string of the newspile and arranging the papers via sing-song sentences typed and retyped. It’s Mavis Beacon without the positive reinforcement, where your reward is starting your (over)working day just right.

I lead Andrus to the motel. Took the bus, naturally. Cabs are expensive. Walking is even cheaper, but Andrus has had one hell of a first day. He deserves this, I think. The motel is cheap and the landlord, salty. Andrus ignores the vehement warnings against pets in the compound, steel in his veins as he walks up the stairs with Mr. Glembowski’s carrier in hand. Andrus makes himself at home inside the cramped living space, a stranger in a strange land. At least, he has a job. He has a roof over his head. And he has a friend, of a sort, in the dapper Mr. Glembowski. He talks to the cat and realizes Mr. Glembowski needs to eat soon. The short animation marking Andrus’ own hunger reminds me that it’s not just a cat whose needs aren’t being met.

I flinch as Andrus steps into to the shower, his pixelized avatar usurped by the detailed folds and crags of his naked body. Numbers float and tally beside him–the profits of the day are summed and expenses subtracted. A newstand: $2,000. A week’s stay at the motel: $119. Bus fare: $0.75. The vaguest promise of a better way of life: priceless?

Today marks the first day of his American Dream.

The next day, I remember to buy catfood but not even a snack for Mr. Poder. It’s all right–there are cheap restaurants nearby the campus. Another busride. Another locked door. The sign says, “Matty’s Flying Pizzeria. Opens: 10 AM.” What time is it now? The game doesn’t indicate, rendering his fine Ukranian work ethic invalid. He needs to man his newsstand soon, I know that, but he also needs to eat. Hovering in front of the door, his hunger pangs becoming more urgent, my nerves start fraying. This is too much responsibility piled on too quickly. If I knew of the risks beforehand, I can do better! I decide to redo, to take another stab at a kind of life I know nothing of.

On the left–the moon

I solemnly swear to make things better.

Andrus ver. 2 boots up and I use up my first day to shop for essentials. The shopping center is a consumerist paradise, containing everything I need to get my shit together:

1 digital watch $7.88
3 cans of chili $5.64
1 bag of cat vittles $12.68
1 multitool $7.99

I take stock of my remaining funds and buy a pack of cigarettes ($5.69). Andrus has been a chainsmoker since he was a child. I’m not one to deprive him of the very thing that can unfurl the jangled snarls of stress in the coming days.

Andrus returns to his newsstand. In my head, routines are being drafted–Andrus will wake up at 5 AM. 6:00 AM, he will open his stall. My fingers acclimate to the tedium. Small talk, assist purchase, take money, open register (ding), supply change. Repeat until every copy has been sold. The register chime and the tinkle of coins turn Pavlovian as Andrus changes a 20 in record time. There’s a kind of pride there, in the cadence of menial labor, in that flawless execution of a sidewalk deal, of creasing a newsrag in just the right way. The same way it can be found in the patter of transcription or in tracing your path through a telemarketing dialogue tree.

Your customers are a mixed bag of warmth and apathy. Engage them with small talk and do a fast enough job and Andrus will get a sweet tip. An argument could be made of their civility being manufactured, but if I were in Andrus’ position, I would take in every ounce of human contact I could manage. Even the simple exchange of please and thank you is a pip on his tired, emphysemic chest.

But there’s social fatigue, too. A lot of it. There is an aptly named dude who asks for a cup of coffee despite Andrus not carrying it. He asks this literally every time he passes by. Andrus has no other choice but to crunch through the same lines of dialogue, to gently inform that no, we don’t sell coffee here. There is another regular who doesn’t even buy anything. He just asks to break a fiver, or flaunts his perceived superiority of television. These two are prickly examinations of humanity–they don’t completely treat you like trash, but their existence needles at you. They are That One Guy who does That One Thing. The Guy Who Clicks His Pen Way Too Much. The Girl Who Sneers When You Get In Trouble.

The problem is that they’re too tame. Where are the customers who would threaten to sue if you came up short on change? The assholes who dedicate their bored lives to pushing in your shit? The locals who make fun of your pronunciation of a language that isn’t even theirs?

These thoughts float towards the bottom of my mind as Andrus sells out of newspapers. Today was a Good Day.

On Friday, I pay off my newspaper subscription fee. I take the bus to the news office, go up to the 3rd floor, and hand the editor $35. I entertain the assumption that I can probably do this.

Then I remember I had to renew my $119 rent on Monday. Andrus had about $40 bundled up in his pockets.

Andrus sells papers like a man possessed. I jack up the prices, increasing and decreasing by increments to figure out a sweet spot. Wha–? People will pay $1.50 for the paper?! I’ve been selling them too low?! My fingers jitter as I switch from keyboard to mouse, going through the motions of newsstand prep and selling, of changing bills, of  chatting about the weather and of escapist dreams concocted in cubicles. Andrus sells out two days in a row but his income isn’t enough. I have him pawn everything that he could spare. The lighter he won in a game whose name I can’t pronounce. The knife he used to scale fish. Artifacts of a life he lived, belonging to a man he once was, exchanged for a few extra dollars.

By Monday, Andrus has a grand total of $74.19.

Looking back to my decisions, there was never a chance we would have made it.

Ahead… the stars

I will play the game for a third time when I finish writing this. And I’ll never stop until I see Andrus through. As trite as the gesture is, this Andrus will be my apology. To the Andrus I left starving on the sidewalk. To the Andrus waiting out his homelessness. I feel a responsibility to have this Andrus talk to his cat, to see him cheerily banter with his super’s wife, to crack open a frosty beer at the end of the day–instances where he allows himself a smile. This time around, Andrus Poder will be okay. I can do “okay”.

Cart Life describes itself as a “retail simulator for Windows.” This bit of text is the game in its most honest. I forget sometimes, but Andrus Poder is not real. The other playable characters I haven’t even mentioned, Vinny and Melanie, are not real. The situations and characters depicted in the work are fictitious. Where else can you meet people who left behind their families for the glint of success in the furthest places? Where caged housewives crave the slightest kindness in loveless marriages. Where food vendors stifle inadequacy and depression as they hand bagels over to former classmates who are now doctors and lawyers. Where working men and women are too damn tired all the damn time.

Can you even imagine living in a world like that?

You can download Cart Life for free here.

For $5, you can get an extra playable character, an extra mini-game, and the excellent, excellent soundtrack. $5, guys. A little over Php 200.00 for a good story, a good game, and a chance to support a good game developer. Buy it. It’s the capitalist thing to do.

This thing of ours

Welcome to Monaco. Heaven to some– God’s blind spot to others. It’s a place of endless opportunity and perpetual danger, where survival is a gamble and the stakes raised with every hitch of breath. In the land of milk and money, fortune favors those who don’t just take risks, but breaks them into tiny little pieces, into minute shards of calculation and laser guided instinct.

Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine is Pocketwatch Games’ top-down heist-em-up. The story: four convicts escape the walls of a minimum security prison. After the prologue, the plot fractures into several overlapping, self-contradicting storylines. Taking cues from The Usual Suspects, Monaco sketches out a post-mod Rashomon of  thieves and liars. The Locksmith’s is a cautionary tale of greed and obsession. The Pickpocket’s confession reveals a truth masquerading as a lie masquerading as the truth.

Try to pay attention to the story. It’s quite good. Don’t get distracted by the neon visuals, by the impeccably designed aesthetic. Try not to be charmed by the clever use of architectural blueprints in place of the fog of war. Monaco is your stylish and sharp interior design school friend who never quite went for the neo-bohemian hipster Kool-Aid. Monaco‘s world features polygons in the classical definition–clean lines forming perfect shapes. The characters are oversized pixels that scuttle and skitter with ripe tension and devil-may-care confidence. This is why pixel art direction exists–because of games like Monaco that use it as a means, not as an excuse.

Sound plays a huge part in games where stealth is key. Monaco‘s contextually tuned audio bytes are so spare and distinguished that hearing them becomes a Pavlovian exercise. Plug in earphones and let its perfectly formed soundwaves wrap around you. Pick a lock and be rewarded by genuinely satisfying clicks and rattles. Tamper with a generator to hear the appreciative metal groan heralding a temporary blackout. French expletives ring through hallways as the gendarme give chase. Learn to love and fear these sounds. When  you’re running blind for a good chunk of the game, hearing footsteps as you scrabble at a keyhole becomes more frightening than crack of gunshots.

Made men

Each character exercises a hold on their own patch of pixels. The Cleaner leaves a trail of sleeping bodies, the scent of formaldehyde wafting in the air. The Pickpocket and his monkey are smooth operators, able to rob the place blind. For the Locksmith, a locked door is nothing but a half-second wasted. In the safety of the dark, the Lookout sees all. Additionally, each character can equip one usable item. Grab anything from guns and wrenches to EMP grenades and cartoon dynamite. Ammo is limited, dictated by how much cash you’ve collected. You’re forced to think smart. But if you keep your cool and pay attention, the city is yours for the taking.

But the city is not an easy mark. It kicks and suspects and screams. Enemy guards see you skulking for a few seconds and they turn from unassuming to unrelenting. Trip a perimeter laser and double locks trap you inside an arena with few avenues for escape. Open the wrong door and prepare to dance to the tune of alarm klaxons. You do have a choice. You can choose not to step into the laser-festooned room. The guards in that post are sporting machine guns. You’d be insane to test their patience! But… damn. They’re guarding a safe.  You want that safe. You feel the need in your crime bones. As a debonair thief, you’re directed by this Pac-man obsession to leave no coin unpilfered and no threat disregarded.

Hit the mattresses

When things go right, your heist becomes a thing of art and beauty. Move behind corners and pillars to evade roving guards and marvel at the gambit’s thrill and ridiculous simplicity. Surrounded? Pop a smoke bomb and swandive into nearby topiary. Needlessly helpful civilian about to call the cops? Pacify him with a tranq dart. Hack into several outlets and computer terminals in one go, blackouts and surveillance malfunctions syncing with your steps.

But this is a heist after all. Like in any good crime flick, things rarely go right. In Monaco, expect them to turn sour. A lot. But keep your heart, three stacks. In fact, I advise that you enjoy it. After a long campaign of darting in and out of night guards’ cone of sight, hitting that “oh shi–” moment becomes oddly cathartic. You’re rewarded, in a way, by the ensuing chase. In the fever pitch of Austin Wintory’s rowdy piano chords, Monaco’s penalty for discovery is an almost completely different game. From Metal Gear to Hotline Miami. It’s still fun. Still engaging. Sprint out of your would-be captors’ line of sight. But before you do that, steal everything that isn’t nailed down. Dodge the law while tickling purses and cash registers. Shoot from the hip and improvise. When the music turns from meditative to madcap, that’s your signal to start living out your Lupin III dreams.

When things get lonely, take your talents at home invasion over on the Internet. Stay true to the heist movie trope and conspire with people of varying talents and ethnicities. Thing is, several extra people running around increase the liability of getting caught and bludgeoned with nightsticks. But man is it fun. Get used to teammates booking past you with a horde of security guards in tow, to almost flawless jobs botched at the last second. In this game, good plans rarely come together but you’ll love the mayhem all the same.

Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine is the best kind of thief–the one that steals narrative conventions and game mechanics from the finest sources. Nick a bit of Metal Gear here. Purloin a smidge of Oceans 11 there. The Coen Brothers’ Crimewave? Don’t mind if I do. Like a greased conman, it twists your arm to make you believe  everything works well together.  And it does. For some bizarre reason, it manages to run a scam that keeps you on the tips of your toes, at the edge of your seat. So get in on this action, friendo. You can’t pass this up. For the measly buy-in of $15, Monaco promises you the world.

I went into The Last of Us with very little knowledge about the game itself, having largely ignored the hype machine in full swing for the most part simply because I was not an owner of a PS3 until very recently. I have not seen any of its trailers, gameplay footage, interviews or any of the pre-release marketing that comes with any blockbuster AAA game. All I knew was that it was set in some post-apocalyptic future infested with zombie-like creatures, and that it was apparently “gaming’s Citizen Kane moment“.

As circumstances would have it, I had just enough money saved to buy a PS3 and a monitor at that time, and having been repeatedly frustrated in my attempt to save up for a gaming laptop, I decided right after seeing that picture to finally enter the 7th generation of consoles and see what all the fuss was about.

Unsurprisingly, that statement turned out to be just hype. The Last of Us isn’t gaming’s Citizen Kane moment. It doesn’t do anything revolutionary gameplay-wise, nor does it even take any bold steps into uncharted territory in terms of story-telling.

The premise is nothing the industry has yet to see, and the gameplay elements of stealth, shooting and melee combat aren’t particularly innovative.

And yet, I believe the game deserves all of the praise it has received, Empire magazine’s hyperbolic analogy aside.

Starting off with the presentation, this game is drop dead gorgeous. I think I’ve already spoiled myself graphically because the rest of the PS3 games I’ll be buying will look like monstrous Clickers compared to The Last of Us’ ruggedly handsome man’s man Joel.

i dare you to try and not get lost in those steely eyes

The lines on the aforementioned leading man’s face draw all the burdens he’s carried in his soul. Ellie, the girl who’ll save the world, exudes spunk in her bright eyes hardened by years growing up in the brink of humanity’s extinction. Light shafts piercing through lush green leaves of trees in summer speak of hope, and the blistering snowstorms of winter hail an ever darkening struggle.

Characters come alive with the superb animation (motion captured by some of the VAs themselves!) that only has the smallest of hiccups in tight situations in-game. Joel shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head at the thought of having to travel across states with a teenage girl, and I believe his frustration. Ellie shows all her doubts and dreams in her wide-eyed stares and the slight downward curve of her pursed mouth.

Without relying on bombastic gestures, the cast is rendered all the more human with subtle body language saying all that needs to be said. This nuanced display of emotion then makes their outbursts all the more powerful.

The infected also show how great a job the animators did; writhing, twitching, lumbering and running after the player in appropriately disturbing and manic fashion.

it’s a helluva lot scarier in motion

Much kudos should be given to the sound department as well. Every footstep is distinct depending on the ground covered. You can hear the crunching of broken plates just as panic sets in, having alerted an enemy because of your mistake. Voices are muffled in the distance and when behind obstacles, only getting clearer in open spaces and in close proximity.

Gunshots puncture the silence like a signal for the ensuing chaos, shiv stabbings rip through your ears, the gurgles of the strangled are suffocating, and the weepings of Runners and the clicking of Clickers will haunt you.

Academy Award winning composer Gustavo Santaolalla crafted a very understated soundtrack. Clean guitar picks awash in melancholy move the music forward, while the undercurrent ebbs and flows from sinister to hopeful, slowly rising to the surface with heavy strums and ominous percussion.

The voice acting certainly doesn’t let down. Troy Baker showcases impressive restraint in his work as Joel, balancing grit and gallantry in his Texan accent. There’s force in his bark, resignation in his sighs, and warmth in his reassurances to Ellie.

Ellie’s VA is no slouch either. Ashley Johnson sounds every bit like a playful yet determined teenage girl with a potty mouth. She is earnest in her anger as well as in her wonder.

hats off to Nolan North as well for another noteworthy Nolan North-esque performance

Of course, all this top caliber voice acting would’ve been for nothing had the dialogue been subpar.

It’s excellent, by the way. There are no grand pronouncements, just stating the hard facts; no forced one-liners or cheap comedy, just small moments of kindness and good-natured ribbing; no melodramatic cries of anguish, just panicked breaths and shocked silence.

The quality in writing extends to the fleshed out characters, the relationships they build, and how those bonds affect the plot. There is genuine growth in the main duo’s connection as well as in their own individual characters, especially in the case of Ellie who has become my favorite female character in video games.

who knew that a 14 year old girl who casually drops f-bombs and browses through gay porno mags would become a paragon of female empowerment

The people they meet along the way each have clear purposes and their own little quirks that make them memorable. Every choice they make is grounded on their beliefs, their hardships and their sacrifices.

And it all unravels in a measured pace, giving players time to soak in the development and the atmosphere in between frantic and heart-pounding set pieces.

The gameplay reflects this philosophy of self-control, never giving the player too much that it all becomes expected and a chore to go through.

Joel is tough but he’s no one-man army, and life 20 years after the end of the civilized world means very little resources. So instead of taking on enemies upfront, you’ll be mostly hiding behind overturned tables and empty vehicles. Pressing R2 brings up Listen Mode, acting as a radar of sorts that detects the locations of enemies based on the noise they make.

Pick up a brick or an empty beer bottle and throw them somewhere as a distraction, or right on the enemy’s head to stun him/her/it. Creep up behind so you can either go for a little noisy strangulation or silent throat stabbings if you have a shiv.

the only permanent cure to the disease

Scattered throughout the areas are a number of items which you can use to craft makeshift weaponry. Scissor blades, medicinal alcohol, and cloth rags combined turn into shivs, molotovs and medkits, making scavenging integral to survival.

Overlap between resources necessary for crafting different items and the limited amount you can bring make for more strategic thinking. The nail bomb you create now might not be as useful as a modified 2×4, and the rags and alcohol you used for a molotov could have been used to make a medkit to patch up your wounds with enemies approaching.

If you do get found out while sneaking around, you can choose to engage in open combat if you’ve got a melee weapon at hand or a gun with ammo to spare. You’re chances aren’t as good as silently taking down enemies one by one, especially with how scarce bullets are and that all melee weapons break after a number of hits. Ellie and whoever else is with you help out in the chaos, firing whatever guns they might have or jumping into the fray with a knife or a baseball bat while ducking under cover if possible.

Joel’s fists are his last resort, and he can dish out a lot of pain. This is most apparent when punching in closed environments, as the unarmed fights are context-sensitive, lending to brutal displays of violence where Joel slams people’s heads hard on desks and rams their bodies up against walls, choking them with his forearm on their necks. It’s ugly, but in a good way.

punches so hard they make these uglies even uglier

You can upgrade your projectile-based arsenal with the help of gathered tools and a workstation; increase clip capacity, improve range, hasten reload speed, etc. Collected prescription pills also allow you to enhance Joel in different ways such as amplifying Listen Mode’s range and giving Joel the ability to use shivs when Clickers grab him, which means instant death without those blades.

But again, you won’t be getting too many parts and pills that you’ll be maxing out all of the upgrades in one playthrough. You have to decide which areas you want to focus on to really get the most out of the weapons you’ll receive, and to survive the situations you’ll find yourself in.

And boy can those situations be intense. Armed hunters will head for cover, signal to others in the area, separate to flank you, pull back if you’re packing heat, and charge you if they know you’re out of ammo. Even the infected show some intelligence, as Runners and Stalkers swarm you if they see you, dashing to your last seen location while weaving in between obstacles so you’ll end up surrounded.

The most nerve-wracking of all though is when you’re navigating through a dark maze filled with those damned Clickers. Blind they may be, their heightened sense of hearing demands that you move ever so slowly. One hurried footfall can spell your doom, as they charge quickly and relentlessly, screaming to rip your throat out.

pictured: Ellie about to make her cross-country trek on her own

It wouldn’t be a modern Naughty Dog game without the cinematic sequences that will have you holding down L2 to sprint while deftly avoiding death through button-mashing the square button in moments of struggle. These segments are largely few and far between, and never do they overstay their welcome, making these tension points all the more effective in their economy.

When you’re not lurking in the shadows or running and gunning past enemy hordes, you get to explore the empty expansive environments with a little platforming involved for a sort of meditative journey. The silence only breaks in the short conversations between Joel, Ellie, and whoever might be tagging along at the time.

I’ve already mentioned the great dialogue, but it bears repeating, as even the optional ones where you talk with Ellie about the world that has come and gone before she was born are fascinating with how much they reveal about the characters.

Ellie delivering an INSTANT CLASSIC that encapsulates the brilliance of the game’s writing

Then there are the artifacts hidden away in every area, each one telling a story of the many people that tried to keep on living in a world that has forgotten how. They range from amusing to disturbing to heartbreaking. Coupled with the other collectibles that can be found throughout the game like comics and pendants, they all help build the fully realized world of The Last of Us.

The online multiplayer is a whole different post for another time, but in short, it’s just as intense and fun as the singleplayer campaign.

The Last of Us doesn’t set out to change the way video games are played, nor does it look to blow anyone’s mind with a wholly original plot full of twists and turns. It takes every factor in the gaming formula, refines each one to the point of perfection, and brings it all together to deliver a tight and compelling experience that simply asks us why we live.

Kentucky Route Zero is an enigma of roads leading to everywhere. It is a mystery of people appearing and disappearing. It is the secret of small towns located in the middles of nowhere. It is the riddle of a queerly-shaped tree at the bend of the road, of people lost in museums. It is a thriller that crawls instead of peaks. It could be all of these. It could be none of these. What matters, at the ending of things, Kentucky Route Zero is.

Jesus, I don’t know. I’ve just finished Act 1 and I don’t think I understand anything anymore.

Kentucky Route Zero is a point-and-click adventure game, a familiar niche genre in the video game hierarchy. But understand early that Kentucky Route Zero‘s a twisty sort, prone to flipping tropes and dropping conventions. Instead of knitting out a tightly-braided narrative thread, it prides itself on knotting together perfect, singular mysteries. Instead of pitting the player against diabolically conceived puzzles, the game’s story, its characters, and the spaces they inhabit present themselves as the most exacting elements to unlock.

What is it about? Kentucky Route Zero’s plot, surprisingly, can be condensed into a pitch: Kentucky Route Zero tells of the travels of Conway, a deliveryman searching for the Zero, a missing highway in the heart of rural America. That’s it. Simple and clean. But let me be the first to tell you that the objective is unimportant. The Zero is a place of mysticism and significance, spoken of in hushed and reverent tones. Like with purpose or joy or contentment or love, everyone knows what the Zero is but nobody knows where it can be found.

The places that surround it are as meaningful and awry as the destination. Kentucky Route Zero sketches a picture of small-town America and hangs it slightly askew. Your next locations are described to you as road directions to unfamiliar places–’take a second left’ and ‘go straight ahead’ replaced with ‘turn right at the prosthetic limb factory’. But don’t go there yet. Those plastic arms aren’t going anywhere. Drive around in the night and see the half-darkened sights Kentucky has to offer. Find the museum and watch the game change genres from point-and-click to text adventure. A house cuts away to reveal the interior. The interior cuts away to reveal its secrets. Secrets cut away to reveal a tapestry of questions flitting just out of the reach of understanding. Why does that dog have a hat? Why are these folks playing a boardgame underground? Where did they suddenly go? Who is Weaver? What is Weaver? Why is she so surly? Discover the little things for yourself, friend. Figure out where exactly you are.

Your main man is Conway, a deliveryman searching for the Zero. He’s a good, sturdy sort. Staid but not apathetic; talky but in a good-natured, muttery sort of way. Conway complicity accepts the series of hazy goings-on–as complicit as you are in crafting Conway’s backstory from weirdly normal encounters with the townsfolk. Nothing too strange. He could have either been driving  all day or driving all day to see the sunset. His is a strong, full-bodied kind of normal which is a small mystery in itself. Like us, Conway doesn’t directly influence the strange spaces of the game world. He can only comment on it, ruminate on the edges of answers, attempt to comprehend microscopic bits and angles. At the end of every muted encounter, he’d parley with his hat-wearing dog (Homer or Blue or something), his perceptions governed however you see fit. There are no wrong answers–your decisions won’t affect the game world in any way. They won’t even change Conway’s avatar or temperament. It’s a clever little idea, trivializing the protagonist’s backstory and its appraisal to the player. The only mutable elements are what you think important.

If you’re wondering why I’ve only been skirting the edges of the game, I’m sorry. A lot of what the game is is undefined, cryptic. As loopy as the game is, it cobbles together its own stage from novel mechanics and rounded, esoteric world-building. Every character is looking for something. Conway, the Zero. The boardgamers, their dice. Carrington, a place to call his stage. Shannon, ghosts.  On the world map, Conway is signified by a wireframe wheel trucking it all over the state. In game locations, motion is heralded by a horseshoe whirling round a stake. Every character is linked in their isolation. “There is no one here… who could go there with you,” says a Greek chorus singing bluegrass midway through the game. The entire game is a maze to navigate. And in mazes, there is always a search. In search, there is always travel. And in travel, there is always loneliness.

Act 1 doesn’t really end. It just hangs there, a flat line in the plot progression. Acts 2-5 will be required reading, supplying the necessary backward steps to view the larger picture. Still, Act 1 serves as good introduction into the whole Kentucky Route Zero experience because it never asks the right questions. It nudges you to ask them yourself. I don’t really like to use the word “meditative” to describe anything, but it works for Kentucky Route Zero.  It allows you to take what you’ve found, turn it over in your head, fiddle with the flappy bits, and just admire its novelty. Then it locks you in a room and politely requests that you begin wondering. 

Kentucky Route Zero: Act 1 ends with a nervous dive into the unknown. Then you realize that this is also how it began. And this is how it was for the last hour or so. And this is how it will be for the succeeding Acts. Kentucky Route Zero offer some advice. The straight shot to the exit isn’t always the best route. You don’t need to get there just yet. Cultivate wanderlust first. Not the frenetic, country-hopping kind. Nor that sabbatical for some sublime punctuation to existence. Get the kind you struggle with when 3 AM saunters by and you still can’t sleep. That bleary longing to leave the house, lock the door behind you, and meander.

Back when I made the hasty decision to get a PS3 for The Last of Us, I was preparing myself for one of the greatest single player experiences in my entire video game playing history. That’s exactly what I got, and I was fully satisfied having played it even for just that one time. I did pay full price for it, so I planned on replaying the game a couple more times to collect every item and experience the real struggles of the higher difficulty levels.

It’s been three months, and I’ve yet to touch the single player game since I first beat it. But I’ve logged in more than two week’s worth of hours in The Last of Us, and it’s all because of the one mode I didn’t even know existed for the game till I booted it up for the first time (and which I promptly ignored at the beginning).

Online gaming on consoles isn’t exactly a big thing over here in the Philippines despite the concept having been a thing in industrialized regions like the US, EU, and Japan for the past eight years. That’s because piracy is the big thing here, and as everyone knows, connecting online with a hacked gaming system is asking for trouble. Internet connection speeds here, while being mostly serviceable, also aren’t up to par with the standards of first world countries. There certainly are ISPs that offer faster-than-1mbps connections, but I’ve no access to those currently, unfortunately.

Then I was reminded that, one, I paid full price for The Last of Us; two, I’m actually living in the 21st century; three, that I actually know a couple of guys who play video games on the PS3 online; and four, that I paid full price for The Last of Us. I could at least try it out once, just for the experience (and to justify all those pesos I spent).

Surprise, surprise; the multiplayer is actually awesome. 

Taking It Slow

it’s just like playing the Arkham games but the enemies are twice as smart and there’s much more cursing

Although this game was my first time venturing into online MP in consoles, I’ve played my fair share of multiplayer shooters on the PC through LAN gaming. Most of them are all run-and-gun free-for-alls that favor the quickest and the sharpest (and the one carrying the biggest gun). One player can rack up the kills, soloing entire teams to victory. It’s chaos, which is enjoyable in its own right, but it can get tiring for me.

Factions, as the multiplayer is called, still requires great aiming and reaction times for high-level play, but the chances of one player taking out all four players in an enemy team just based on precision shooting are close to zero. Taking a couple of shots will have you crawling on the ground and bleeding to death, and you start out with very limited ammo in keeping with the game’s post-apocalypse setting so you can’t go in guns blazing. Rush into the enemy by yourself, and expect a bullet storm or a molotov to the face.

Your weapons also don’t come fully maximized to their abilities, making them slower to fire, longer to reload, and harder to aim. Such a gameplay structure then encourages a much more deliberate pace, with the maps providing lots of cover and hiding spots to really emphasize the sneaking dynamics. The shivs from the single player are in play here, and they allow for instant stealth kills so you always have to be aware of your surroundings if you want to avoid a rusty blade jammed into your throat.

There’s a barebones radar that tells you where your teammates are, but your enemies will only show up on it when they’re firing a weapon without a silencer, sprinting across the map, or when they’ve been marked by you or your teammate with the R3 button. You can go into Listen Mode which works just like in single player to detect jogging and crouch-walking foes nearby, but it’s limited to a couple of seconds and you’ll have to wait for its bar to slowly refill before you can use it again.

These foundational gameplay elements build up just as much tension as hiding from clickers and hunters, forcing you to be patient and paranoid, as one false move that alerts your adversaries can lead to a gruesome death.

Survival of the Fittest

the sugar helps the nails and gunpowder go down easier

Maintaining the “improvise to survive” aspect of the single player, the multiplayer also carries over the crafting system but with slightly modified requirements. Scraps for crafting are acquired from tool boxes spread around the maps in fixed locations, and the beginnings of matches usually spark first in these areas when both teams compete for those vital items.

All 7 multiplayer maps present unique situations with designs that capture the atmosphere of The Last of Us perfectly while maintaining a balance that’s fair to both teams. Each one is actually a modified version of areas in the single player, giving them a feeling of familiarity with enough tweaks to surprise. Checkpoint restricts players in abandoned stores and the quarantine area for intense close quarters combat; the wide open areas of Lakeside and its many high perches slightly favors snipers until a blizzard kicks in and everyone’s cloaked in white; and Downtown keeps players in the dark with its many hiding spots and winding alleys.

Chokepoints, rooftops, ravines and car-littered courtyards all make for great battlefields of back-stabbing, ambushes and firefights. Death can strike anywhere so you’re always on your toes.

Predator Essentials

that’s the light at the end of the tunnel

All the guns from the campaign are also in play with a couple of new additions exclusive to the mode. Each weapon handles differently, giving players a reason to try out everything from the fast-shooting but low power 9mm pistol to the one-two long-range punch of the hunting rifle.

I personally love the instant-down, room-clearing power of the shotgun, one of the six purchasable weapons that can only be used when you get enough parts to buy them during a match.

The inclusion of skills that give players all sorts of in-game abilities ranging from stealth perks such as becoming invisible to Listen Mode while crouch-walking to support powers such as creating gifts to give to other players further the strategizing into a complex system of varied builds and counterbuilds.

The three different game modes also demand full knowledge of which skills are best suited for the situation. Reviver 3 can be a game-changer for Survivors where there are no respawns until the whole team is wiped out. Strategist 3 lets you keep the pressure on the enemies guarding their safe as you keep respawning nearer and faster.

In the beginning though, players only have access to a few weapons and skills for customizing their characters unless they choose the preset classes that can’t be modified.

This is where the love-it-or-hate-it metagame comes in.

Staying Alive

BUM FIGHT

You start out the multiplayer with a choice to play as a Hunter or a Firefly. The only differences are aesthetic, as you have 12 weeks (with a match counting as one day) to keep your “clan” alive choosing either faction. During the course of the 12 weeks, you encounter a fixed number of missions that either add survivors to your clan or cut down a percentage of your population depending on how well you perform.

You actually get to choose what type of mission you do so you can prepare. The options vary from the offensive to the supportive such as downing a number of enemies with the semi-auto rifle or healing teammates a certain amount of times.

You start out with a handful that require a certain number of supplies to maintain. You get those supplies from the blue cans you pick up when you kill an enemy in a match as well as from the parts you earn by accomplishing particular actions like reviving teammates, marking enemies and crafting items.

If you get more than what’s required, your clan will grow but will then require even more supplies. If you get less than what your people need, some of them will get sick and eventually die if you keep playing badly and don’t get enough during matches. If they all die, you “lose” the mission, and you’ll have to start all over again.

It also serves the purpose of unlocking the rest of the weapons, skills and customization items such as hats, masks and emblems.

the face of a true playa for real

This system then encourages more competitive play, as sucking will lead to your clan dying and you not being able to use all the toys available.

There are downsides to it as well, as it has led to players quitting in the middle of matches to preserve their clans so that they can keep their clans alive and unlock hard-to-get items or keep their positions in the leaderboards.

It can also constrain your playstyle to a support role since you can easily get more supplies by healing, gifting, etc. Once I unlocked the admittedly badass Skull Mask which required 85 survivors in your clan by the end of the 12 weeks, I felt liberated as I finally had the freedom to screw around with all sorts of skills and weapons builds.

I’m A Monster

the purest form of death

Speaking of gruesome deaths, the brutality reaches a new level with the many (literally) smashmouth animations your multiplayer avatar dishes out and endures. As I mentioned earlier, players don’t die right away when their health is fully depleted. They go into a downed state wherein a meter drains out over a minute or so before they truly die, giving their teammates a chance to revive them and get them  back into the fray, or for the enemy to put them out of their misery with a hardcore execution.

Heads get caved in by 2x4s, faces get stomped on by unrelenting boots, and brain matter splatters everywhere with a point-blank shotty blast to the cranium. If a nail bomb were to explode nearby on a downed player, it’s a sure bet that one or two limbs will get severed in the blast radius.

The instant kills with the shivs, molotovs and flamethrower are equally raw. Victims gurgle as blood spurts out of their necks from getting shiv’d. They scream in agony when fire envelops their entire bodies, cooking them to a crisp in a matter of seconds as their screams die down, leaving a charred corpse for the victors to mercilessly teabag.

We’re All We’ve Got

to that hunter’s dismay, nobody is WATCHING HIS ASS

Communication with teammates is key to gaining the upper hand, whether it’s in setting up ambushes, flanking the enemy in the heat of combat, or covering retreating allies. A week into playing Factions, I had to get myself a headset to be able to talk to my friends for more efficient victories.

The satisfaction of pulling off those well-orchestrated attacks, counterattacks, and hail-mary comebacks through frenzied directing and howling cheerleading is what keeps me playing. I can’t count the times I’ve felt the rush of sneaking up on enemies for surprise shivs while my team distracted them, the sheer joy of raining simultaneous nail bombs on safe defenders then rushing in for the last minute unlock, and the so-absurd-it’s-hilarious scenarios of me and my teammates all getting burned alive by one molotov.

I’ve met so many new people, too. Most of which are cool and a really small minority being assholes, and all of whom have made my first experience playing online a memorable one.  From the smack-talking in the lobby before the match starts to the in-game taunting of the last player standing, it’s all been a blast.

And the best part is that Naughty Dog has long-term plans for the multiplayer with the promise of at least two DLC for Factions along with the one planned single player DLC. By the time this post is up, we might already have the full details thanks to Game Director Bruce Straley’s tweets:

Ok party people, more #TheLastofUs DLC info to be revealed THIS WEEK! Hang tight.—
Bruce Straley (@bruce_straley) September 23, 2013

Hug the person next to you. It's coming. #OutbreakDay—
Bruce Straley (@bruce_straley) September 25, 2013

If they announce a horde mode against the Infected, I’ll be playing till the cordyceps enslave the entire world.

Gaze upon the wild majesty of my dwelling for I am the badger queen. Dwelling. Is that what you call it? Burrow? Den?  Google reveals ‘sett’ and I decide I like the word. There are four badgerlings with me. Tiny things. When I bark, they bark back, our relationship akin to a cuddly drill sergeant commanding her rambunctious unit. My moves are economic, spurred by rough necessity. I can run! I can bark! I can pick up a, what is that? A radish? Some kind of root crop freely growing in the forest. I don’t fully understand vegetables.

THIS IS BADGER LIFE, SUCKA

This is Shelter, badger life sim and interactive allegory on parenthood. You play a mother badger surviving and navigating through a pastel, Wes Anderson forest. In tow are her five badger cubs and they are as small and vulnerable and adorable as you might imagine. As the nature-appointed guardian to the five, you enjoy the responsibilities of scrounging for crops, outsmarting skittery prey, and hiding them from implacable, omnipresent predators lurking in unknowable places.

In other words, parenthood! Shelter is the kind of slowburn fable that weaves a moral lesson that can’t be completely condensed into one pithy maxim, because parenthood is Beautiful and Complicated. It’s a utilitarian kind of motherhood, though. You have to take into consideration that you are animals roaming free in the wilderness. And one thing you have to know about the wilderness is that there is death everywhere! The lives of your cubs are in constant peril from starvation, being eaten, and disappearing in the dead of night.

It’s terribly easy to lose yourself in the world of Shelter with you and your badgerlings looking like brown and black smudges in a world of lighter-hued brown and green smudges. But they are beautiful smudges, you must understand. The vegetation is lush and unfettered, dipping from a complementary color palette subdued yet strong. Several shades of green intermingle with browns and yellows in a low-polygon love affair. Important flora and fauna are set off from the hypnotizing background by shocks of bright colors. Along with the very short tutorial, this color-based recognition system integrates itself into your intuition. This is how badgers do it in the hood, son! They see the electric orange of those slippery foxes and spring into action! The white-on-green of those crunchy vegetables are crusin’ for a chompin’! Think I can’t see you with my finely-honed badger senses, you sketchy mole? Think again OMNOMNOMNOM.

The music is aces. Shelter moves past the obvious candidates for nature romping music (either tribal drumbeats, contemplative piano plinking, or no music at all) and frames your badgerly adventures against an aural backdrop of strummy acoustic guitars and jazzy drum taps. It’s the indiest of all indie game soundtracks, befitting the tweeness of the whole experience.

With the reflective strumming and thumping of Shelter’s in-house band, you get to play this stylistic badger life simulator. Survival is functional and simple–but maybe a little too simple. Despite the grandiose presentation, gameplay is relegated to trundling from Point A to Point B while dealing with C. C being hunting and foraging and sneaking from shrub to shrub as birds of prey (signified by a silhouette of jagged lines) hover above. It’s not without flaws: the survival aspect is handled with mink-lined kid gloves. Vegetables are abundant and freely respawn, making food a non-issue. You won’t really feel the edge of scarcity pressing against your dumpy hide which defangs the experience quite a bit.

But what gameplay kicks it does offer, it does very well. There’s nothing quite like outsmarting foxes and escaping from swooping hawks. The rude awakening of midgame’s environmental hazards further fray your motherly nerves, as one misplaced step can spell the end of one of your cubs. Invisible wolves and rushing rivers and FIRE RAGING FIRE, are present hindrances, all conspiring to kill your kids.

Mother badgers are a hardy sort, cut from tree bark and loamy bedrock. This is why you are invincible. Hawks will not touch you, gouts of water will not move you, foxes flee at the sight of your bristly hide. Your kids, however, are not. They hunger and roll around to meet their grisly end in shadowy corners, much like any other unfortunate human child. Aside from nature’s casual cruelty, you have to contend with your cubs’ foremost basic need: food  Hunger is represented by the slow dulling of your cubs’ fur. You have to be keep checking on each of them individually, comparing their browness to the others. From the beginning, the game hammers in the importance of keeping your badgerlings healthy. You start off in your sett with 4 cubs rolying and polying. But what’s this? A grey little cub, prone and stationary? Dead? Already? Man, this game doesn’t mess around.

Less of a video game and more of an interactive storybook, Shelter’s gameplay impositions can be a bit questionable at times. Going back to the first few minutes of the game, you must figure out how to solve your dead cub problem before you go on your way. Callow youth that I was, I repeatedly tried to leave the dying cub, thinking 4 out of 5 ain’t bad at all. The game in its infinite wisdom and adherence to the long tradition of invisible walls wouldn’t let me. I’m going to be honest–that kind of peeved me out. It seems that you have to enter Shelter with that motherly mindset already calibrated. Otherwise, the game will force you to adopt it.

It’s a fine story, though, told visually and viscerally. The artistic choices lend the game a pop-up book aesthetic, setting the stage for your epic badger adventures. Each level has a defined color scheme, with backdrops ranging from the musty comfort of a burrow to the untamed freedom of a forest glade, from a brilliant starlit sky to an immediately threatening brushfire. With flash and substance, Shelter aims to keep your eyes glued to the screen as it tears your virtual family apart.

I named my cubs Zamboni, Dipstick (who almost died in the beginning), Solaire, Thom Yorke, and Bingo. You don’t need to name them, but as a mother, it was my right to do so. I have to say this though, as a shout-out to all the babymamas out there: managing five cubs is hard work all over. They’re all waahh wahh root crops waahh why do we have to fjord this river waahhh oh look what does this foreboding shadow do wahhh. They were a handful, but man, I loved them. Their cute barks. The way they pottled around in their stubby paws. They grow on you, these cubs. As the game goes on, you become aware of their coloring, of where they are. You foster this virtual sense of attachment, of believing that you are responsible for their lives.

Solaire died first, his death rattle punctuated by a lupine snarl.

This is the wilderness economy to Shelter’s badger-based gameplay. A fable of nature and nurture. You invest so much into keeping each individual cub alive that your first death will be this salty whirling orb of feels and choked sobs. Why oh why were you taught by morning British cartoons that badgers are lovable, absent-minded creatures and are not in fact Ottoman-sized, rabid fangbeasts? Why couldn’t it have been Dipstick instead? He’s the WORST. WHY GOD WHYYYY

However, you soon notice that fewer cubs allow you a greater stretch of time between feedings, less distractions, a tighter herd. Your cubs can survive more easily, thus perpetuating your superior badger bloodline in various parts of the woods like some mating-based Anschluss. You begin to entertain the idea that Solaire dying was the best thing that could have happened.

Then you stop and just think about that.

Shelter is an attempt to poke at that very human inclination towards care and protection, to somehow glorify the dreaded escort mission and turn it into something not awful. Other games have tried this before–ICO, The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite. Shelter is not unique in concept. But games are more than the sum of its parts. Shelter’s visuals, music, and gameplay manage to click together in this pocket landscape of cut-out Darwinism, of badger moms mewling uselessly at her cubs to run away as fast as they can.

It’s been two months since Rockstar’s ambitious launch of Grand Theft Auto Online, and now that most of the big technical issues have been fixed, it’s time that it gets the ranting/raving it deserves from little ol’ me.

Let me start off by saying GTAO has all the potential of being a glorious multiplayer masterpiece of chaotic fun. It maintains all the grade A polish of the story mode and allows players the same freedoms of exploring the beautiful and gigantic world of San Andreas and then some. Just about every single vehicle can be found or ordered online, every building can be scaled, and every mountain can be traversed. Character customization items can be bought in all clothing stores with generous catalogs. The city of Los Santos has a wide selection of apartments and garages which can be purchased to store cars and bikes and act as safehouses. All the weapons you used to carry out crimes and cause mayhem in the single player are available.

To give players a sort of goal for continued play and to keep a level playing field, most of these tools aren’t immediately available. There is a leveling system that locks content to particular ranks, and plenty of items don’t come cheap. Ranking up requires players to take part in activities of various levels of legality. You can race on land, sea, or air, play golf or tennis or darts, boost cars, compete in shooting galleries, rob convenience stores, fight other players in deathmatches, fend off increasingly tougher waves of enemy AI in survivals, and take missions from specific in-world characters both familiar and new.

it’s GTA’s version of laurel and hardy but with more coke and gangbanging

I’ve certainly had my fair share of fun doing most of these activities, but the systems in place are for the most part never so deep enough to keep me coming back to them after a couple of playthroughs. GTA as a series never really focuses in on a particular gameplay mechanic, opting instead to give players a lot of nifty little things to do which all add up to its epic scope. The only element it really cares to put some emphasis into is how the vehicles handle (as it should considering its name).

But I can only zip through the same city streets in a supercar, get drifted from behind, and then pitted by insane drivers to spin out and lose control. Racing has never been my thing, so I was quick to get over that offering. Unfortunately, it’s the only mission offering where you can expect a sense of competency, ambition, and the variety that comes with strangers playing together.

As for the rest of the activities, you will rarely find any people who care to play them, and I don’t blame them for the most part. Shooting has always been merely functional for the series, so deathmatches are perfunctory messes decided by who can hit the auto-aim button first (i can count on one hand the times i’ve actually played in a free aim session, ladies and gents).

get as many kills possible just hiding in a corner while looking as douchetastic as possible is the only way to play gta online’s deathmatch mode

Survivals can be fun and definitely feel rewarding when you finish them. Unfortunately, the mode is structured in a way that has you hunkering down in one spot once you reach the third or fourth wave when enemies can kill you in a second and they spawn right behind you. Get in cover, pop out, pop heads, get back in cover. Repeat ad nauseam.

Golf is surprisingly engaging, but get more than four people in and it slows down to a crawl. Nobody else wants to play it either besides a couple of my PSN buddies. As for the rest, their novelty wears off after the third time you do them.

I was expecting more from the actual missions story characters give you, but aside from a couple of exceptional ones, they all follow the same tired formula of go to this place and kill these guys and/or retrieve the drugs/vehicles, none of which coming even close to the awesome set pieces you go through in the single player.

who knew being a drug runner could be so utterly boring

The cash and the reputation points (XP, basically) you get from finishing these missions have all been progressively lowered since GTAO’s initial release, with all money rewards currently slashed by half after playing through them once. When these missions have you traveling halfway across the entire game’s map, killing dozens of enemies that can wipe your entire team out in seconds and taking as long as 15 minutes to finish, there’s really not much incentive to do them again.

To gain access to all the weapons, vehicles and customization options much faster, many players have resorted to farming a handful of missions. Updates that nerfed payouts and RP rewards have made things even worse, as glitches to sell certain cars repeatedly were unearthed and abused. I can’t be too angry at them when Rockstar has made it such a gigantic slog to earn money and RP legitimately. There’s also the ironic twist of having players of a crime simulator exploiting all sorts of loopholes to gain the upper hand and flip off the developers pushing for microtransactions.

So now it’s not at all unusual to see players either roaming around in free mode with tanks and attack helicopters blowing low level players away, or camping out in Los Santos Customs flipping expensive cars over and over again for hours to get the millions to afford tanks and attack helicopters. Sure, having all these vehicles of mass destruction around can be fun to watch, but not when their cannons are pointed at you. It’s also very easy to get caught in a death loop when you get killed because you don’t respawn very far from where you died. Griefers working in teams can be rather merciless.

fuck you -xXxDaRkSaIyAn420xXx-

You can’t even hit back relentlessly with explosives, as Rockstar had the misguided attempt to curb trollish behavior with it Bad Sport system. Blow up too many vehicles owned by a player, and you are forcibly put into sessions strictly for players who’ve committed the grave mistake of causing too much carnage in a GTA game. Your character also has to wear a dunce cap and is stuck in those sessions for three full real-time days. No joining friends or crew members. Never mind the glitch exploiters and the spawn campers who are breaking the system and ruining other people’s experiences!

Then again, it’s not like free mode itself is that much of a blast. That is, if you don’t have any friends with you to screw around with. It’s a shoot-first-and-keep-shooting-no-questions-asked kind of world. Try to roll up next to a stranger to hang out, and you’ll be riddled with bullets or be smeared against the pavement nine times out of ten. Rarely will you get that magic moment when randoms will actually not put you down the second you get within a hundred meters close.

this has happened a grand total of zero times in all of gta online’s run

So you call Lester to have your character’s icon disappear from the map for a minute to sneak up on unsuspecting players or to make clean getaways. There are plenty of other services you can avail of once you reach certain levels from some of the story characters and organizations, all of which add to the unpredictable fun of free mode. Set a bounty on a pesky troll and watch most of the players in the session hunt him/her throughout San Andreas. Call on a helicopter to pick you up if you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere without a car in sight. Sic a team of Merryweather mercenaries on that guy who stole your car. Get the cops off your back after attacking an armored van and stealing its money bags.

But like with most things in GTAO, you gotta spend some cash to access any of these.

Did I mention that you also lose money every time you die? And if you want to fool around in free mode, you will probably die a lot getting into random firefights, crashing jets, chasing bounties, running from the police, backstabbing friends and getting stabbed in the back in return. Not an hour in and you’ll have lost tens of thousands of dollars to hospital bills and calls to Lester and Merryweather just trying to have fun.

Want to get away from all that violence and just cruise around San Andreas? You’ll have to pay in-game money to enter Passive Mode, making you invulnerable to bullets and bombs while also keeping you from using your weapons. Unfortunately, that doesn’t keep you safe from players who want to run you over, and it doesn’t even work when you’re in a vehicle. You know, the thing you’ll be using 99% of the time to get around anywhere?

“now no one will ever kill me as i make my way across the desert and down the highway for a good 30 minutes to get back to my shitty apartment in los santos with no protection whatsoever from supercars going 200mph and fighter jets divebombing the roads”

What makes things even worse that applies to all these activities is the way Rockstar handles the things in between. Just about every activity has you going through loading screens before and after you play through them. When the bare minimum of players needed to start an activity is reached, a timer will count down till it starts automatically. If you’re the host, you can extend time but only by 30 seconds. You will have to do the trick of changing the matchmaking option to reset the clock, and it’s not something many people will just figure out.

There are multiple voting sessions once you finish an activity to rate it, to continue to the next screen, and to select whether or not you go straight to another activity or back into free mode. Because of the wonky cloud server issues, there’s always the chance of people getting split up when you choose to go straight to another activity. If you and your friends didn’t come from the same session when you started the activity, you will get split up into different sessions when you do choose free mode.

What turns these minor hassles into a desk-banging headache is the loading screens take forever, and you’re always going to be crossing your fingers in the hopes that the loading actually goes through. I can’t count the times I’ve failed to join a job, been put in my own activity hosting lobby separate from my friends, and even get kicked out of GTA: Online entirely and back into the single player.

nah i don’t think so

Rockstar’s reliance on its cloud servers have already burned many players in the past, with character progressions and purchases not being saved on numerous occasions and even entire characters being lost. I’ve only experienced having a couple hours of my progress going to waste once, and it was enough to turn me off playing for a full week. I can only imagine the rage and frustration of those who’ve lost weeks worth of time put into the game.

I can’t say I didn’t have fun playing GTAO. Killing 10 whole waves of angry rednecks, stealing a cargo plane from an airport only to have it crash in the landing strip, knocking off liquor stores in a crime spree, and hosing down random people with a firetruck among other shenanigans with my crew were all memorable experiences. However, I felt like I had all that fun in spite of the game’s best efforts of curtailing it with mostly uninspired missions, lousy rewards and hefty penalties to nudge me towards paying real cash, unstable server issues, and a community satisfied with the cheapest thrills and obsessed with leveling up and making money fast.

If you’re not one of the millions who bought Grand Theft Auto V and haven’t taken the plunge online yet, I can tell you with much certainty that you haven’t really missed out on anything. If you still wanna try it out anyway and be another guinea pig for Rockstar’s online beta, you better bring a friend along or join a crew if you plan on staying long in San Andreas unless you’re up for an early retirement from being a career criminal.

First person shooters have never been my jam, with a handful of exceptions that prove the rule. There are the narrative driven atmosphere heavy single player focused Half-Life and BioShock series, and the balls-to-the-wall cooperative multiplayer action of the Left 4 Dead games that have truly gripped me in the polarizing FPS genre.

So what exactly had me playing Bungie’s Destiny for almost an entire day that I had it on my PS3?

For those who missed it, Bungie closed down the public Beta for the always online sci-fi shooter Destiny on July 27, presumably having received all the data and feedback they needed to get it ready for its September 9 release on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and the XBONE. I only managed to get my hands on the Beta when they made it available for everyone with subscriptions to PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold on July 25, and I only had free time on Sunday to really sink my teeth into it.

Character creation was a simple process that had enough options for me to make my character stand out without bogging me down with hundreds of sliders modifying nose hair length or the type of belly button the avatar would have.

Instead, you get to waste time debating yourself as to whether or not a robot can be black, white, Asian, straight or gay.

I chose the Warlock class, as it had the most promise in giving me powerful abilities that would look super cool on screen. Like other games that give me the option to choose a class, I go for the one that lends to a more exciting approach in terms of combat and character progression.

Not that it would end up mattering too much for the limited scope of the beta, as I would soon find out.

Nevertheless, I also made the design choices for my character that would best fit the the more mystical aspects of the Warlock class to really commit to the role.

Kinda like this but instead of being beautiful black, she’s sickly pale and looks even more Xtreme.

Upon deciding on how my magical high elf… erm… magical space elf looked, I was greeted by a number of great-looking cinematics explaining in the plainest of ways the barest threads of what a high-schooler might call a “plot”. I could get into more detail, but I’d end up having to talk about “The Traveler” and “The Speaker” and “The Darkness” and more of the blatantly lazy stock figures Bungie seems to be using for its attempt at gravity in its world-building.

I’m not going to pick on the story too much, seeing as it’s still just the Beta, but what taste I was given did not really make me hunger for what’s to come if it’s going to be more archetypes and vague pronouncements of supposed significance.

And even with the effects layered onto Peter Dinklage’s voice acting work as your mechanical companion called the “Ghost”, it does very little to hide the complete apathy the renowned actor has for the lines given to him. Whether it’s really Dinklage just taking a big payday or the VA director not doing his/her job, it certainly turns the narration for the events that already sound hackneyed feel even flatter.

Peter Dinklage upon being told to improve his line deliveries for the video game Destiny, and his immediate reaction knowing he already got paid.

In spite of all the disappointment the story department in Destiny , it managed to hook me in anyway in just about every other area.

Knowing full well that the version I was going to play would be on the lower end of what Destiny could really look like, I was still very much impressed with the visuals the PS3 was able to pull off with its aging system.

On a technical level, it did as much as it could possibly do rendering sharp character models, enormous and detailed landscapes, scenic lighting, and a stable framerate amid hectic battles, faltering only on the horrible aliasing in the shadows cast by the players. I understand that the interplay between shadows and light are important in setting the mood for the game, but having these blocks of black appear on screen lessens the tension Destiny expertly ramps up in the dark interiors of Old Russia. I wouldn’t really mind if they just got rid of the dynamic shadows for the player characters in the full release of the PS3 version.

Making you jump in fear of your own shadow is an admirable goal in building tension, but this is the exact opposite way of accomplishing that.

The contrast of the sleek and futuristic and the dank and ruinous make for striking art design, managing to lift the promising parts of the greater narrative out of the muck the burdensome expository elements sunk them into. The rousing soundtrack of soaring horns and strings and breakneck industrial beats echo the clashing combinations of the visuals and the results are just as compelling. I guess if there was anything good to come out of the head composer being fired in April, it’s that he’d already done the necessary work to make the world of Destiny feel more riveting.

Speaking of sound, there’s also a distinct sense of power through the audio feedback in every weapon fired and every melee hit landed. The gunplay itself feels rewarding, but that’s no surprise coming from the studio that revolutionized FPS controls on consoles. Nothing particularly revolutionary about the type of guns you have, but there’s no denying the simple joy of popping enemy heads with precision shots from the semi-auto and sniper rifles with the mobility allowed in your character.

I could talk about how awesome the Sparrow (your hoverbike, basically) controls, but just watch this video to see all the crazy shit you could do with:

Considering the number of missions available in the beta, Bungie did a great job showcasing how the different terrains factor into your fireteam’s (the two other players that can join you in missions) engagement of the marauding alien forces. Wide open battlefields dotted with cover spots bring that sense of scale possible in the game, while the cavernous lairs of the enemy instill a feeling of dread in the narrower spaces where fewer advantageous positions exist. Even then, you can still find yourself constantly moving to survive the waves of enemies the game throws at you, injecting each encounter with much needed energy that kept me pushing through tough segments.

The RPG mechanics do play an important role in incentivizing you to keep going in these kinds of games, but it was pretty easy to get most of the content available in the Beta. The level cap is at 8 which I had no trouble reaching in about 4-5 hours of non-stop playing, and the loot drops were reasonable in missions’ pacing, although there were yet to be any standout armor or weapons that could be used in-game. Just checking the equipment only accessible by reaching level 20 in the “shops” does lend me hope for the latter parts of the game where kickass gear should be the norm.

Unlocking skills for my Warlock was a linear progression, but there were options in what type of a particular ability I could use, such as having a grenade that could do continuous damage to enemies stuck in its impact zone, or a grenade that has a bigger blast radius but only does damage once. You can still spec your character in that one class with the skill modifiers to a role that’s more tuned towards different kinds of play styles, but I couldn’t help but wish Bungie let us try the other subclass as well.

god bungie why tease us so with your level caps I WANT TO SING SUN

Not much variety was shown in the actual quests you could do, and that’s probably my biggest worry come September 9. With my experiences in the span of around 8 hours spread throughout the day, I still greatly enjoyed taking on swarms of enemies and defeating the higher ranked bosses with the aid of the different people I met throughout the game, both strangers and friends alike. The public events where everyone in the “overworld” section can join in on the fun of trying to defeat a super buffed up enemy were thrilling side activities, seeing up to 16 players all converging in one area to fight a bad guy before it can make its daring escape.

I’m not expecting dialogue-centric missions, as the game doesn’t even look like it supports that system, but strikes on bases and wave-based survival scenarios could wear thin halfway through if they intend to make this game as big as they claim it to be. My concerns could very well be addressed with the new planets to explore, the story sequences that could provide epic set pieces, and all the skills and weapons within my grasp for unique battle experiences.

There’s an entire competitive multiplayer arena to delve into, but playing that with randoms didn’t hold my interest for too long. I’ll definitely be checking it out some more when the full game does come out and I have more time.

The core gameplay by itself already sold me with how tight it controlled, how fluid it moved, and how gratifying successful team-ups felt. I try not to get sucked up into the hype, demanding that this be the Game of the Year material just based on what the astronomical marketing push for its 10 year plan is saying. As long as it has more meaningful content to keep me in the loop, I’ll be happy to give it more of my own precious time to shoot aliens in the face with my buddies.

That, and if my Internet connection holds out.

If you were to tell me that a game about one of the bloodiest and most horrifying atrocities that humanity has inflicted upon itself turns out to be such a memorable experience with only a handful of instances of cartoon violence caused by you as the player, I would have slapped you to wake you up from the fever dream that you would have been suffering from to even string together those concepts.

And then after playing said game, I would have apologized to you profusely for lacking faith in the ability of game developers under a AAA publisher to create something so confoundingly compelling within the backdrop of a freakin’ world war.

Perhaps Ubisoft Montpelier’s decision to set Valiant Hearts: The Great War during, well, The Great War (that’s World War I, for all of us ignoramuses) was enough of an initial push into new territory that helped ease me into taking the chance at the game. There have been countless titles, not just in video games but in TV and film as well, that explore all the dimensions of the second World War. So just having this quirky little gem shine some light onto the less glamorized major global conflict of our species’ sordid history gives me one reason to nod my head in approval.

What’s more immediately gripping though once you actually start the game is the visual style. It’s the UbiArt Framework engine put to good use in creating a charming hand-drawn comic book-like world with lovingly crafted caricatures for you to control and interact with.

Instead of trying and eventually failing to further describe the graphical splendor of Valiant Hearts, just look at it.

For a game that tackles such a serious subject matter, it’s quite the surprise to see an artistic direction used for the game most would associate with children’s storybooks. This decision proved to be a good one. Not only does it mark a distinct look for this puzzle adventure game, it also draws the player closer to the characters on a surface level with how visually appealing they are. It’s easier to get attached to them when they take on a more universal appearance, as Scott McCloud would argue in his seminal work Understanding Comics.

With the exception of narration and read out letters, there is a complete lack of comprehensible oral dialogue. The visual cues then become all the more vital to relating to each individual’s personal struggle in context with the larger conflict that has swallowed them.

As stirring as the original musical compositions are, the pieces that probably make the longest lasting impressions are those played in the car chase scenes. Whether you’re blazing past French soldiers in cabbies rushing to the frontlines or escaping the mad bombings of a German zeppelin, you’ll be weaving through obstacles to the tune of some classical music’s most popular pieces. It’s an oddly satisfying soundtrack that gives some urgency and light humor to the situations, and in one specific transition, leads up to a chilling punctuation.

The way Valiant Hearts plays with your expectations is done so well not just in its presentation but also through its mechanics juxtaposed with the overarching narrative. In the theater of war, it’s so easy to resort to placing a gun in your protagonist’s hands, and let him massacre his way to some moral victory. Here, you’re dragging out survivors stuck underneath piles of rubble and noxious mustard gas, making a daring escape to reunite with your family, and patching up soldiers on both sides of the conflict.

You still get your fair share of armed assault, and there must be a statement somewhere in having you actively engage with it as the burly no-nonsense American volunteer Freddie. His story also goes down the most traditional route, featuring a dead lover and a mustache-twirling vaudevillain. It could be said that these parts are the weakest in the game, as they fall victim to tired tropes. I agree with the criticism on most levels, but I can understand the developers wanting to include the real aspects of personal loss that leads to vengeance and the opportunistic cruelty of megalomaniacal leaders. It just veered off too much into trite territory that it was hard to get invested in that particular storyline.

Although I guess this one moment truly felt liberating.

Another stumbling block appears in the form of arbitrary puzzle segments that only seemed to pad the game’s length. The mechanics play out like classic adventure games where you need to fetch certain things for NPCs, and you do that by using other items in the area to solve basic puzzles, completing them in such an order to get past the area. With the exception of one or two puzzles, advancing throughout the game is fairly easy, so puzzles that require running back and forth and timing item usage can get tedious, especially when your efforts turn out to be for naught.

Softening the blunt impact of these minor problems are the hidden collectibles scattered throughout the story. These aren’t just your generic shards or audio logs, though. Instead of gating powerful abilities and items or important character motivations with stock items, each collectible in Valiant Hearts is unique in its form and narrative function. You’ll pick up a urine-soaked rag, a piece of German propaganda, letters from soldiers to their loved ones, and a host of other tokens from the time that inform you of the horrors that threatened to snuff out humanity and the hopes that kept it alive. They are stashed away in the most appropriate of circumstances, so discovering them leads to greater insight in the events currently taking place as you play. However, they are never so necessary that you would feel lost if you were to miss them.

And yet reading about genuine articles that tell of an officer’s grave concern about his family’s well being or a conscript admitting fear of dying alone in a foreign land is haunting, enough to make you want to scour each level to find every single one. Accompanying these items are history cards found in the pause menu. These tidbits of information that read with the collectibles paint a fuller picture of the tragic events of World War I, bringing more weight to the individual plots of the main characters. My only issue with this element is that it could have been integrated with the interactive experience, although I can imagine that would require an even defter hand considering the delicate balance the visual storytelling tries to maintain with as little text as possible.

Remembering that it’s the innocents who suffer the most in times of war.

Despite such faults, Valiant Hearts manages to deliver a 5 hour emotional tug of war and a heart-rending conclusion, thanks mostly in part to the strengths of the main cast, the way their relationships develop, and the refreshing modes of play more focused on saving lives than taking them. If only the earlier acts of aggression were entirely removed, the one final stroke of violence might have had more weight. Nevertheless, I was all choked up by the time the credits were rolling.

The saying “war is hell” is easy for your typical shooter to spout off, but to say it in earnest with no inkling of glorification demands more effort. Valiant Hearts struggles to accomplish this, but eventually earns the right to declare that statement.

After leaving me in a state of extreme emotional fragility for just about every single episode, I considered Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead: Season 1 as one of the most powerful works of fiction I’ve ever experienced and a testament to the intrinsic artistic value that video game medium possesses.

With such great expectations set by the first season, it’s incredibly hard for The Walking Dead: Season 2 to actually live up to them. If I were to measure this second installment strictly by those expectations, it fails for the most part.

[There will be spoilers for The Walking Dead: Season 1 here on out.]

There is nothing that’s mechanically groundbreaking about TWD: S2. Gameplay is still mostly interaction through a series of conversations and short quick-time events. For a majority of these segments, you have limited time to react accordingly. The chats are more open-ended in how they affect the story, but the QTEs usually result in restarting the section after meeting a gruesome death.

If there’s any difference worth noting in that aspect of the game, it’s that there seems to be far fewer moments where you’re given freedom to move around, talk to people and interact with the environment in a relaxed state. The puzzle-solving element in the first game has been discarded. The puzzles themselves were never really the point though, as they were never a challenge. They were simply a mechanism to let the game breathe for a few moments in between the drama, and to draw more connections with the characters during the downtime.

And I guess that highlights the problems that I have with The Walking Dead: Season 2.

As thrilling as the action sequences and the dynamic movement of the plot as it barreled towards its climaxes, they left me feeling a bit cold for what’s supposed to truly matter in this type of story: the characters.

I think it’s safe to say that the overall cast of S1 is stronger than S2’s. Kenny was a bro, positive and negative connotations included. Carley was charming and broke my heart. Larry was a memorable ass. Lilly was just as memorable for her strength and her weaknesses. Duck made me laugh and cry. And who could ever forget Ben? Even tertiary characters like Omid, Christa, Chuck, hell, even the cannibal family in the farm were remarkable in their own way.

I can count on one hand the number of characters I actually feel strongly about in S2.

Because of how things seem to move much faster in this series, I’m left with only an inkling as to who the majority of the cast really are. So when a character meets his/her doom, I find myself shrugging instead of mourning their loss. I’m not asking for more bombast, but even the death scenes in and of themselves weren’t very memorable compared to the (face) crushing fatalities in Season 1.

If there’s a positive side to all the comparisons being made to the spectacular first outing, it’s that this season did a good job building from what connections were left in the aftermath to forge an even stronger relationship between me and Clem. The decision to make her the main character without jumping forward in time to make her an adult or at least a teenager gave me plenty of doubt in the beginning. Although they are not so gracefully executed all the time, the circumstances that forced Clementine to be the one making important choices were believable enough for me to swallow. From playing the role of protector of Clementine to playing as her, the harrowing brushes with death feel all the more terrifying because of their greater sense of immediacy.

This transfer of agency applies more importantly to how every choice I make contributes to the growth of her character. I see her grow up with all the trying situations she finds herself in while struggling to maintain some semblance of innocence or humanity in a world where those values are growing scarce. Considering how I’ve always been more of a goody two-shoes in games that offer a level of freedom in how actions are taken and how dialogue is steered, there was little, if any, player-character identity separation in pursuing a more “humane” choice. There is a great surge of pride when she takes the initiative in a risky situation, or be more of an adult than the rest in quelling arguments.

Because of this bond with Clementine, the newly introduced characters that made a lasting impression on me were the ones that were given ample time to engage with Clem; namely Luke, the kind-hearted yet emotionally unsure de facto leader of the new group; Jane, the survivalist loner; Carver, the charismatic violent villain and Michael Madsen’s scariest performance since Mr. Blonde; and to a lesser extent, Sarah, alternate reality Clem had Lee coddled her too much.

Of the four, Carver deserves the most attention, as he fulfills a role that could have easily been seen as a reliance on bad guy tropes. The cannibal family in S1 were good stand-alone antagonists, but Carver brings a real fear with his presence and even plays a crucial role in the development of Clementine and a returning character. There’s no denying his singular importance that the Stranger in the first season couldn’t muster, especially for the many players that made the “right choice” in Starved for Help and felt no moral dilemma in No Time Left.

However, the most compelling relationship in this season happens to be one that’s with that returning character. It’s no slight at all given that S2 is a direct sequel so it only makes sense for it to enrich established friendships, and the way it’s handled throughout the season certainly make for a heartrending car crash plot line that you know won’t end well but can’t look away from.

However, it does end well for some players because Telltale made yet another bold decision in allowing multiple endings. Whether this is a direct response to complaints about choices not mattering in the previous game or not, having 4 vastly different outcomes has big implications on the future of the series. Telltale already confirmed that there will be a third season. With how radically different the endings play out, there’s a good chance Telltale jumps way further ahead in the timeline for the unique situations to no longer matter in case we still play as Clementine. Or we might play with a brand new set of characters removed from the events of the end of Season 2.

Whatever the future holds for Telltale’s The Walking Dead, my only wish is that the dev team brings back the care in crafting the supporting cast so that the stakes remain high for the entire season. They might not have the safety net of past relationships to fall back on, and the constant paranoia and tragedy starts to numb.

Thanks to our founder‘s funding, I got to play Destiny the day it came out. Common practice for reviewing games is finishing it ASAP, and pumping out the article days soon after its release to get the most out of the buzz that comes with a fresh title. With all the hype surrounding this particular game, all the more reason to get those scores up to capitalize on all the attention.

However, to do that with Destiny might not be the best way to tackle all of its offerings, despite the brevity of its “campaign” mode. Fortunately for us at Kambyero, we are not shackled by the business realities that don’t allow major gaming sites to give the game the proper time before passing judgement on it with the finality of a review.

So I spent the rest of September until the first few days of October taking in as much as I could of what the game was providing. I played through all the story missions and the strikes. I’ve taken on the daily and weekly activities such as bounties, the heroics, the nightfall challenges, and the Queen’s Wrath and Iron Banner events. I’ve patrolled Earth through Mars, and earned enough Gold Tier ratings in public events.

I’ve gone through the entire Vanguard Strike playlists and all the PVP modes to have access to every piece of gear almost every vendor has to offer. I’ve maxed out the two subclasses for my Warlock who is just two levels away from hitting the hard level cap of 30. I’ve a complete set of Legendary gear with a couple of Exotics. I’ve played with and against all the different classes and subclasses, gaining a good knowledge of how different they play based on teamwork and adversity.

I’ve finished the Vault of Glass, the game’s single available raid, and even participated once in shooting a solitary cave with a group of strangers.

I think it’s safe to say that I’ve seen all the game currently has.

and… it’s not a lot.

With that said, I can still say in full confidence that all of the major complaints about what’s wrong with Destiny hold true.

There is only an inkling of a plot in the game, and there is practically nothing to compel you to read what bits and pieces of narrative and world-building you can get from the Grimoire cards inexplicably hidden away in Bungie’s website.

There are no characters to care about despite the large cast, unless you count the abusive relationship most players had with the pre-patch Cryptarch.

There is no variation to the story and strike mission design save for one instance where you get to use a sword instead of your gun, and another where you fight multiple bosses instead of one big one.

There are only four worlds to explore, and you’ll be going through the same areas over and over even on different instances because of how you’re spawned in one location and one location only no matter the mission.

Farming materials to upgrade gear can be time-consuming and is certainly monotonous. Spicing it up with patrol assignments boils down to “kill x number of enemies”, “kill this specific enemy”,  or “stand in one place while your Dinklebot does something while spouting gobbledygook that it barely pretends to care about”.

“kill these 3 waves of enemies while i count these fat stacks of cash activision dumped on the courtyard of my larger than life estate modeled after casterly rock”

Attempting to accelerate the process of getting better gear also requires players to get more reputation to access gear and more marks to actually buy the gear.  It wouldn’t be such a drag if you didn’t have to go through the same uninspired content over and over again.

There is no matchmaking for the daily/weekly heroics, the nightfall, and the raid. Considering the challenge they can put up, some players just don’t ever get to see through all of them, and many are required to go through a third party service just for a chance to finish the content.

There is no easy way to communicate with players you meet in the lobby or in any of the other game worlds if you don’t have a microphone, limiting you to four simple gestures that hardly communicate any meaningful message besides “I notice you”.  Voice chat itself is limited in that you cannot talk with people on the same team as yours when in match-made strikes or even in the PVP team modes. You have to invite players into your fireteam and for them to accept it to be able to hear each other. Although the intention to prevent vocal abuse or grief from trolls and foul-mouthed individuals is nice, this also hinders what should be a selling point of the game – the potential to make human connections.

Even the simple concept of being part of a clan is limited, as you can only create and join a clan through Bungie’s site or the companion app, and they don’t serve any other purpose aside from unlocking a couple of trophies/achievements.

there’s no shortage of impromptu street dance competitions though

The only PVE mode that really shows ambition in design and fully realizes the importance of teamwork is the very last thing a dedicated enough player would tackle – the raid. It’s also locked off by high level requirements that require a great time investment to attain, and a bare bones social system that does not make it easy in any way to get a full party if you don’t have five friends who all have the game, play at the same time on the same console, and are fully equipped to take on the raid.

There is very little variety in weapon usage in PVP as well, given that it’s so much easier to do well when using either a full auto rifle or a shotgun. There are only two PVP modes that don’t have the primary goal of killing the opposing force, and one of the two is only available when Bungie decides to make it available.

The two special events that rolled out, the Queen’s Wrath and Iron Banner events, don’t offer any new experiences either. What gear they offer is functionally indistinguishable from what’s already available.

For the Queen’s Wrath event, we only have more difficult story missions with modifiers we’ve already seen in weekly strikes. When players started dismantling all the Legendary gear they were getting from the Kill Orders, Bungie was quick to patch that out despite the process being one of the standard methods of attaining the hard to earn Ascendant Shards.

For the Iron Banner, you are stuck to one PVP mode, and the promise of making gear levels actually matter doesn’t seem to be true at all. Bungie also had the great idea to make it so you don’t earn any reputation for the Iron Banner vendor when your team loses, creating the unfortunate scenario where players quit soon after they see their team falling behind. I don’t necessarily blame them, as why waste your time in a losing effort when you don’t have any incentive to keep playing? And when new players are connected to the same match into the losing team, it’s not long until they see the score and abandon the game as well. Winning even becomes hollow when you know you got the victory because the other team quit just a third of the time limit in.

At least they had the courtesy to offer slightly more challenging bounties for PVP and PVE that… seem to only have one or two rotations that you’ll be taking the same bounties for the majority of the time.

With all these faults, you’ve got to be asking yourself “How did this guy manage to keep playing this game for a month?”

BECAUSE OF MOMENTS LIKE THIS

The praise I gave the game in my Destiny Beta feature also still apply to the main game. It’s still a visual showpiece that utilizes all of the PS3’s power and marries it with a distinct artistic flair. The combat mechanics are still a joy with the energy you feel bounding across terrain and dishing out pain to alien scum, whether it’s with bullets, bombs or your flashy supers. It is immensely satisfying popping heads one after the other with a handcannon that delivers a hefty audible punch and force feedback on your controller, as the recently beheaded baddie’s body convulses in a tingling death rattle and sprays out glimmer and potential loot.

And there’s still something that’s innately enjoyable when you’ve got a friend or two with you to take on hordes of baddies and an ultra tough boss in the end, especially on the higher difficulty missions where some semblance of strategy is required. Clutch revives to prevent the entire team dying and losing progress, a stranger suddenly joining when you’re being overwhelmed on your own, or just a well coordinated attack that takes out a boss in an efficient manner are all exhilarating experiences that I’ve personally witnessed in the end game.

PVP is simple enough as it is, but the dynamism player mobility in Destiny brings always makes for frantic yet fun times when I need to go through it to up my Crucible rep through bounties and get marks to buy Legendary gear. It doesn’t hurt that I do pretty well despite my hesitance in the beginning because of its fast-paced run-and-gun style, especially coming from my… expertise in the methodical multiplayer mode of The Last of Us.

Exotic gear make up for the lack of imagination that’s apparent with most of the other lower rarity gear. You have a fusion rifle that can unleash a devastating torrent of insta-kill laser beams in full auto, an assault rifle that shoot enemy-penetrating bullets that ricochet all over the area, and a rocket launcher that spits out cluster missiles that track targets among other powerful weapons. The exotic armor are sights to behold, with gauntlets that flow and glow with solar energy, helmets made of an alien dragon skull or decked out with a mohawk, and chest pieces with intricate emblems and markings fitting for space knights.

The real highlight of the game is the Vault of Glass. With new sections to explore, and 8 wholly unique segments that demand an unprecedented level of tactical thinking and cooperation, it is by far the best thing Destiny has going for right now.

especially if you enjoy dying over and over again and risking friendships after screaming at that guy for the 10th time to stay at the goddamn sync plate pillar

All the players on the fireteam have to be on their A game, with leveled up gear and a full understanding of their specific class’ abilities to know how best to use them for their assigned roles. Constant communication is key to figuring out the patterns, knowing when and where to move and what to attack, and recuperating from emergency deaths that could easily lead to a team wipe.

Finishing it after having to swap out a majority of my fireteam three separate times really gave me an incredible sense of accomplishment. It also helped solidify a sense of camaraderie with complete strangers who also just beat it for the first time, and even a hint of personal pride that I managed to get through it when most of my original team members just couldn’t do it anymore.

It’s such a shame then that the content given the most creative effort in creating was put in the very end of the base game, sealed away behind a pathetic excuse for a story, and a dull, repetitive mission slogfest that will have you grinding away in unsatisfying reward loops.

There have been rumors that Destiny went through massive changes in late 2013 that surgically removed core parts of the game to fit a marketing scheme and a DLC-based business model. Despite the skepticism one might have for industry rumors, it’s easy to be cynical and side with the conspiracy theorists because of Bungie’s track record in creating fully fleshed out, realized video game worlds, and how bereft of content the game is in comparison.

I never followed the hype generated by Activision’s promotional tactics, but even without those gigantic expectations set by a multi-million dollar advertising campaign, and the time and effort I’ve put into playing through everything the base game currently has, I’m still let down by Destiny simply because of all the potential it has for greatness that it fails to reach.

I’ll just try to beat the raid on hard mode to get all my gear to level 30, and then I’ll promptly put this game down.

Until the expansion comes out oh god what has Activision have we done to AAA video games