Steamy Racism

We JUST stopped talking about Anita Sarkeesian.

In any given group of people... some are going to have a pretty cruel view of society. I'm done calling people "racist." I find "cruel bastard" far more appropriate. I also find there are entirely too many steam users with their panties in a bunch over the Watchdogs 2 protagonist being an African American. But hey, this'll sell 2 million easy and these f**kers will shut up. Because marketers have already figured out that they don't financially matter. As much as I commend Ubisoft for doing this, it had to have taken a mess of market research to prove this decision wouldn't hurt them. Then the bastards will internalize their impotence and we'll all go back to quietly ignoring the fact that too many gamers use this medium as a way to reinforce their sh**y world view.

Soon they'll have nowhere to hide.

Battleborn Review: This is Spartan.

I know what you think about Battleborn, but baby... lemmie try to change your mind.

I don't get much time to blog these days, usually I have to "need" to blog. I either loved or hated or felt deep concern about any given article I've written. I've seen three times as many shows as I've talked about. So with Battleborn, I feel concern. Everything said about it is true. It's too little too late. Overwatch has already decimated the player base and essentially won over the press and fans.

As my blogger buddy Chance devastatingly pointed out to me a few weeks ago on the podcast... "nobodies talking about it." I barely talked about it myself, but I just couldn't stay away. I don't have it in me to play something for 60 hours just to make a point. I genuinely can't stay away from it. Allow me to explain.

Gearbox curates a gameplay loop that they've been slowly refining since the first Borderlands. For some reason, no one else quite has "it" and it's really hard to explain. I think it may all be about their head shots. In games like the last couple Tomb Raiders, the aim assist is so intense I can regularly get head shots by accident. For some reason, no matter my load out and no matter my weapon, in gearbox's games I always have to do the right amount of work. It's not too hard or too simple. It's a delicate alchemy tailor made. It's also perfectly captured in Battleborn.

I think it's funny when people say Gearbox isn't funny.

What is unfortunately true is that this puppy was rushed out the door. The two PVP modes only have 2 maps each and the campaign is a paltry 8 missions. It feels like there should be 12-15. Maybe this was all designed. Too many missions or modes and the player base gets divided. That's just it, you can reason away everything wrong with this game in the name of balance. How can you make a game that is essentially for everyone at any time?

Only good at FPS? Oscar Mike plays exactly like every single Shooter McCspace-marine you can remember. He even has a couple fun twists to pique your curiosity. I know I wanna play Halo with lava grenades and "sick ass space lasers." What about Elder Scrolls? There's an otherworldly sword and board gladiator with your name on it. My point is, every character is genuinely fun to play. I haven't exactly tried every one of the 25 "Battleborn." But I've gotten pretty far with more than half and only 3 have actively disappointed. I don't even know where to begin to pick a favorite...

If I'm in a rogue mood, I'm Reyna. A pirate queen with a laser cannon, magnum pistol, and a dead eye. I tend to go off by myself to find loot and she can hold her own to a point. Her real job is buffing the team's shields and eventually putting up bullet walls. As soon as I see my team going down I Errol Flynn like a motherf**er. Shielding friendly's from death, taking down enemy captains, and generally saving the whole goddamn day. She's amazing.

Or Mellka the chick with a jade claw for one arm and a machine pistol that launches grenades when you reload. She's crowd control and DPS in one snazzy package, plus her faction (of space elves and stuff) regenerates health so if you have loot that gives her a shield... I've gone too inside baseball haven't I? My point is that even though there is a dearth of content, each new character could honestly hold their own if they were the star of a 12 hour single player game. No. I'm serious.

Picture a Saturday morning cartoon that knows exactly when to curse.

Battleborn is almost a new game every time you dive into a different character. I never would have thought I'd enjoy being a healer until I had two pieces of legendary healer loot foisted upon me. I've been having a blast with my ninja mushroom medic ever since. And it should be noted that Miko, unlocked from the start, changes back and forth from a male voice over to a female voice over. Because he/she/them is a colony of spores! It may be a step removed from a real issue, but gamers can be a depressingly prejudiced and sensitive bunch. They did not have to go that direction and they certainly didn't need to make that character a cornerstone of the posters and marketing. Kudos, Gearbox.

In the end, a multiplayer game lives and dies by it's player base. And in that case... death is near. We peaked at 10,000 and are now stuck around 2,000 on PC. It won't be long until it's free to play and it won't be much longer after that when the content support dries up. It's a shame. Though the folks that are left make the most of it. Not a single person has been rude to me or anyone else.

 If I played as someone like Reyna in a Call of Duty player base at least ONE little f**k is going to say something stupid about her full figure. Not here, we're all just happy folks are still out there. No one, as long as nobody has run ahead and screwed the whole team, is going to say anything nasty. And I've played public while miked with a friend who happens to be a woman. Nobody did anything weird and she has only the nicest things to say about her time with the game personally. Isn't great she only feels comfortable in games with a DOA player base?  Sigh... one topic at a time, McCracken.

It may not be a great game, but I've had a great time with it. Strong characters, a decent but brief campaign, a delightful community, and a fine loot/leveling system make it a memorable experience. Sometimes in spite of itself. If I had a 10 year old brother back when I was in high school I'd be playing this with him every. single. day.

I think you've confused Reyna with someone who takes sh*t.

Well... damn.

Allison Road, the great dark hope of the horror gaming community, is now cancelled. We will have to look for our photo-realistic first person supernatural survival horror fix elsewhere. Damn.

The Nice Guys Review: What about the birds, man?

I love almost everything Shane Black has done. Including Iron Man 3 and especially Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. The latter is the single greatest movie of all time. I have sources! Key and Peele think so. I can't find the clip, but trust me on this. He has a simultaneous love and disdain for masculinity and you never know if he's going to glorify or kick it in the balls. But mostly he kicks it in the balls with a style all his own. 

After one of my favorite opening shots ever (of the decrepit the 70's Hollywood sign) we might as well be in a foreign country. That decade was gaudy, drug addled, and hideous. Only a hard boiled PI story could do it justice. Audio snippets of the sickly sweet ads for "The Waltons" clashes wonderfully with the pastel colored hellscape that is 1970's Los Angeles. And indeed, the set design almost makes the whole movie. I won't say the city was also a character, because that's hack... but I'd be fine if you made the comparison.

Crowe plays a lonesome old body guard who just wants to do what he's best at and get a little respect out of the bargain. He dreams about becoming a PI so he can finally go legit. But Gosling pops into his life to turn all that into a nightmare.

Gosling (a PI single father) crosses paths with Crowe while on the hunt for a missing woman (who Gosling knows is dead but takes his fee anyway). One thing leads to another and soon they're both pulled into a circus of murder and arson surrounding a single unreleased pornogr- uhhh... art film. The story's just a goof. It's solid but don't peek behind the curtain too hard. It actually makes a lot more sense if you've seen "Who Killed the Electric Car?" but I digress. The film is entirely character driven and all the better for it.

Crowe is the soft spoken straight man to Gosling's panicky lout of a PI. He has an arc over whether or not he can be both a killer and a "good" guy. But this is the Ryan Gosling show and he mostly stays out of his way. I don't care what you thought of Ryan Gosling before this. I don't care if you hated Drive, this is a comedic performance that's once in a generation. This is a Gene Wilder level mastery of humor and pathos. Holland March is an all time comic drunk. A man who lost half of everything he had and knows he will never get any of it back.

There's real sadness behind his eyes in every scene and it's honestly what makes it so funny. He has real talent for investigation but can't shake the drunken monkey on his back. The highest comedy beats of the film all stem from him coming so agonizingly close to cracking the case and then failing masterfully. He's somehow the most lovable deadbeat dad possible.

In Shane Black-land... it's Christmas every day.

His daughter, in a career maker performance by Angourie Rice, is an emotionally scarred Nancy Drew stuck in a Lethal Weapon mystery. Hi-jinks. Ensue. It's rare you see a young actor this frikkin' natural and even rarer to have a story that gives her so much to do. She's kinda her dad's chauffeur seeing as he's a step away from blacking out at any given moment. Every time you think she's going to bring the buddy cop vibe down, she only grounds it. Because seriously, how many noir detective stories pretend kids don't exist? 

Amidst all the family drama, gun fights, pithy rejoinders, and all the gory visual details of Carter era California; this movie transcends being just another buddy cop joint. It's the rare flick that's smarter than it wants you to think it is. I personally had to be shushed by the couple next to us. That's how much it got to me. It's not the best movie I've seen this year (I sincerely hope Zootopia gets a best picture nod) but there just ain't nothing like a Shane Black picture. They may have finished last at the box office but there's no better time at the movies right now. Go. GO! 

The hell are you still doing here?!

Jon Stewart! Where have you been?!

It's been a dog's age, sir! Hope you don't mind I fast forwarded through Lisa Simpson, there. I'm sure she's really nice...

Bethesda-riasis

It's got me bad. When they said Far Harbor was their biggest dlc to date... they weren't foolin'

Game of Thrones finally made me cry.

Every once in a while, a piece of entertainment moves me to tears. I can count on one hand the number of times it's happened, it can't be more than 4. I won't go into detail for obvious spoiler reasons but damn... Thrones is now just as good as The Iron Giant! If that makes any sense.

The international trailer for Ghostbusters is too hot to handle.

And yet, paradoxically, also too cold to hold.

Watch the new international #Ghostbusters trailer now, and see it at Cinemas July 11.https://t.co/Ee6yZxs0Vi

— Sony Pictures UK (@SonyPicturesUK) May 20, 2016

If I don't post anything for a while...

 

Then I've come down with a case of bethesda-dlc-riasis. It's very serious. It can take one or even two days to get over.

Duskers, anyone?

I kind of hate the way it looks, but that is some rip roaring intrigue shooting out of that trailer. I'm genuinely impressed with the writing from what I've seen but... a whole game in night vision? I don't know if the writing alone is  enough to make my debit card hand slip. We'll see. $20 seems a little steep, I'd really need a demo first. I don't want another experience like The Long Dark. A really good idea with half the budget it needs.

When you're right, you're right.

 

If any of you have gotten around to listening to the new Chamberlain and Chance, Chance has a few things to say about Doom. Mostly that it's awesome and I'm inclined to agree. We've spent almost a decade stuck popping out from behind cover... it's high time that changed.

The moment to moment gameplay is just as you remember it. Less this:




And more:

 

It's manic but there's strategy to the mania. Headshots don't matter as much, bullets go 60 miles an hour, and I've had to forget 7 years of FPS rules. Not to mention there's a power up that essentially turns you into pac man and all the demons into blue ghosts. This game is FUN at all costs. I'll drink to that. 

Dammit Chance! Is this what you want?!

Wow, a bonus! I should prudently invest this into my savings acou-  Hey look! Doom's waving at me from across the street.

...I'm gonna go see what he wants.

Dark Souls 3 Review: We didn't start the fire.

Here we are, the end of an era. I can't believe we haven't just seen a new Souls game almost every year since 2011 but they've all been uniformly spectacular. From Software has pretty much pitched a no hitter for 5 years. That's insane. All good things must come to an end and Dark Souls 3, or better or worse, is at least a perfect way to end things.  They made a game so radically different and memorizing they have their own genre. "Souls" is a genre now, like it or not. But even the best ware thin after a while, even if From is responsible for almost every game.

While I loved DS3 it is regrettably one I have loved the least. It may be because this is the most straight forward of the series. You won't still be finding humongous secret areas even after your 4th play through; and a third of the bosses are just a touch too easy or derivative of whats come before. That being said, this series has been semi annual for 3 years now. That's some serious crunch. Dark Souls 3 is still a masterpiece, but it's a far more modest one than the first. Or even the second.

Livin' up to my full potential!

Because while I kept getting the sense From Software was running out of ideas, it was obvious they still had a bunch. The welcome cosmic-horror vacation in Bloodborne was a test. Could we speed up Dark Souls and still keep players hooked? Yes. Yes they could. DS3 is lighting fast and all the better for it. No more slow plodding strikes from the opening skeletons and zombies. Expect furious rush attacks that tear your guard down in seconds. If you decide to play as an unmovable object, you're gonna have your work cut out for you. But unlike Bloodborne you are no longer actively punished.

Don't know about you, but I want a Persian rug scarf and kilt.

The world of Lothric should be very familiar to veterans. Perhaps too familiar to those who played the first. Though the shout out to the oft forgotten 2 are plentiful, which is generous considering Miyazaki sat that one out. I always admired the otherworldly look to the "giants" and I'm glad he agreed with me.

When 3 is on it's ON. Three of the greatest bosses in the series are in this game. Two of my favorite video game enemies ever are in this game. When DS3 shines it blots out the sun, but repetitive environments, hastily re-used assets from Bloodborne, and a scant offering of secrets bring it low.

This is the perfect time to end it. DS3 won me over in the end, but just barely. There's only so much one studio can do to define a genre. They have thankfully put this franchise on the shelf and are dutifully passing the torch. And it's fitful it's the Souls series that manages to go out on it's own diabolically uncompromising terms. In the annuls of gaming history they will all live on in rapturous infamy.

I should probably see Civil War or something...

Seems like everyone else in the world already has. Burn on you BVS. Burn on you.

I kinda like Battleborn. No wait... I really like Battleborn.

 

But I'm a special case. The only online multi-player anything I've ever really sunk any time into was  Mass Effect 3. So... if that helped you lick your narrative scarred wounds like me I think you'll really dig Battleborn.

Folks are giving it a half-hearted thumbs down and I can't blame anyone for feeling that way. I've got a really specific taste. This is a game that's as easy or hard as you wanna make it. Are you looking to waste some time till you sober up enough to go to bed (not autobiographical at all), then there's a character for you!

He punches stuff, racks up a combo, then punches stuff harder. He's perfect.

You can seriously have a great time just healing tanks and setting up defenses as I discovered trying to hunt a non aggression achievement. Turns out I read it wrong and didn't have to avoid doing any damage, but there's a lot to do if you just hate shooters... that's kind of amazing. But I was still leaning towards the 7.5 to 6 the critics were telling me about. Then I found my favorite character:

She's the frikkin' best. She can buff friendly shields, steal enemy shields, she can get head shots like it's nothing... there's a wrist mounted shotgun laser, oh! and the glowing eye patch. Love that thing. I could see myself spending at least another 15 hours with the game just with her healer/rogue hybrid awesomeness. After my first match it felt like Gearbox had made a character just for me. I love headshots, de-buffs, and healin'.  If I find just one more character like her that's worth $40 to me right there.

But again guys, I haven't played a multiplayer game in years. Take my enthusiasm with a grain of salt if that's your wheel house.

I need to talk about Gearbox.

I've never gotten into mobas or even any multiplayer shooters and I've always wanted to break out of my single player shell but I'll be damned if ANY multiplayer games really appeal to me. Gearbox may turn me around, even though I hardly ever played Borderlands co op.

So I am going to pick up Battleborn. Maybe this'll be something I can really sink into, or I end up helping BL3 off the ground. Either situation works out for me.

I just trust these guys, wait dammit, hear me out! So what if Randy Pitchford is a bit of a snake oil salesman? He made Borderlands, that carries a lot of weight for me as BL2 is in my top 3 of all time. I honestly don't care he siphoned funds off of colonial marines to pay for it. He gamed the system to make a great game. The Alien license would be fine, in fact, we never would have gotten Isolation if CM hadn't bombed so hard. Think about it.

And hey, we all seem to forget that Drukmann pushed Amy Henning out of Naughty Dog because he didn't want another strong creative voice drawing focus. I just pulled that out of my ass but that story has the air of a creative spat that put a hard working female voice out of an industry starved for it. Her work on Uncharted 4, 8 f**king months worth, couldn't have been that bad. But Naughty Dog makes great games... so we forgive and forget. I lean toward the guy who (allegedly) stole money from a huge corporation then the guy who was threatened by a woman.

I'm not saying Pitchford isn't a snake oil salesman. But I'm also saying he's an easy target who does give a damn about games. Only his games... but his games are fun, inclusive, and rich. As far as industry evils go I'd say he's one of the lesser.

Victory achieved +2

And the Lord of Cinder goes down for the second time. Woo! I beat a souls game on plus! Does this mean that 3 really is the easiest in the series?  ...Probably. Oh well.

GLOWSTICK DANCE!!!!!

You have no idea how long I've waited for the perfect time to use this gif.

I haven't laughed this hard in years.

Larry Wilmore killed in the toughest room in the world the other night. He gave a set like it was the last thing anyone would ever get to say about the President. By Christ he made it count.

Muffaletta Story.

 Just picked up a muffaletta  and on the bag the lady wrote "Muff." While that sure is what I wish I was having for dinner... this'll do.



This'll do.

Crackpot Confession: I've never beat a Souls game twice.

So. Sad.

I love the Souls games. They've never made me all that angry and I've never truly hit a brick wall with any game in the series. Until I beat them and then I get to play "new game +"which basically means I get to start a new game with all my money and my stuff, the catch being that it's much harder. I've made it halfway in NG+ and gave out every time. EVERY TIME!

The first game's NG+ was enough of a bastard but no one is talking about how downright diabolical first sin's mode is. Seriously, the biggest challenge in the entire franchise is in that game, red headed step child though it may be. It took the hardest encounters, turned them up, and then it can throw multiple phantoms at you at the same time. If you want an evil fan mod in your Dark Souls you should seriously check that out. I love DS2...

But yeah, I'm about at the right time in 3. The halfway point. Where my maxed out equipment and stats can't help me anymore. I've hit the ceiling and now have to rely on my own raw skill. Let's see if it works this time.

Goose CAM!!!!!

....goose cam.

The Invitation Review: Cheap Wine. Fancy Bottle.

!! Quick thing, this review spoils the reveal and I hack it's framework to pieces. If you want to see it, don't read anything about it. It's much better that way. !!

"All right, who the F**K ate the last crab cake?!"

They say they don't make movies for adults anymore. The highest grossing films of the year used to be war epics, romantic comedies, and lethal weapons. No more. It's all superheros and CGI animated fare. Not that I have a problem with that. In fact, I'll even go to the mat for Age of Ultron. But it does seem like people are starved for an old fashioned thriller. So much so that I find myself in the rare position of wanting to rain on someone else's good word of mouth.

Because I don't think The Invitation didn't live up to it's hype. I'm shocked it has any real hype at all!  For the first time in a long time, I'm looking at a 89% on rotten tomatoes completely mystified. Or rather, I don't think I saw the movie everyone else did. Reading the comment sections at Birth Movies Death, you'd think we have a new Hitchcock on our hands. Jesus Lord is that not the case.

"Remember me? I replaced that one guy in Game of Thrones and I'm really good on Orphan Black?"

If you are at ALL familiar with what I choose to call the "ulterior motive dinner party" sub genre, you're gonna see every clue and red herring coming miles away. Like the wine. Every time a character gets their wine refilled they check it in the script. "More... WINE?" I seem to remember a character asking another. It's sloppy. So sloppy. If the wine pouring was something that happened while the characters were speaking dialogue worth hearing, maybe a fun anecdote or a small amount of character development, that would be fine. But a lot of the conversations with anyone outside of the main cast never evolves from "Hey! We were friends remember? Been a long time... yes I would like some wine." This tells us that the wine is either poison or will be poison and nothing else. Guess what? It's one of those two things.

That brings me to my single biggest problem. That nothing happens for what feels like hours and the shit that does happen was exactly what I expected. It tries it's hardest to drum up paranoia by suggesting Will (the main character) may be too obsessed over the tragedy preceding his divorce to see his ex's new life clearly. What kills me is that the red herring explanation would have been a vastly superior movie. If you're gunning for crazy in a thriller... make sure the logical explanation isn't more interesting than cult activity.

Sooooo bored.

Yeesh. I'm a bit testy today. This is a decent movie, don't get me wrong. Flat friend characters aside, the cast is peppered by a few great performances. John Carrol Lynch in particular has a monologue halfway through that's as eerie as all hell and Lindsay Burdge does a great job with a girl who lives in the house that's kinda... feral. It could have easily been overdone and I appreciate her restraint for most of the film.

But yeah, 15 minutes in I called crazy murder cult. It took 40 more to prove me right.What followed was luke-warm slasher material at best. If you spend an hour and a half building up a murder cult you better bring it. It doesn't.

 I'm normally not the guy to poke holes but The Invitation is so in love with it's admittedly scrumptious cinematography that it never gave it's corny script at least one of the multiple rewrites it desperately needed.

It's a smart movie. Just not as smart as it thinks it is.

Victory Achieved.

Dark Souls 3 end game spoilers in

3.




2.





1....

I win.

 

Amilia St. John has a lot to say about her father.

Alex St. John is a guy from Microsoft who shored up a team that created Direct X. Who also burned out, lost his family, and recently gave a ranty power point presentation on how 80 hour work weeks are fine because coding isn't really work. You see, apparently if you aren't reaping wheat or mining coal you don't actually have a job. According to Alex St. John, if your job is sedentary you should thank your boss for the privilege of receiving his or her free money. Also a grotesque section where he claims all female coders have fragile egos. Yeah. It's fun stuff.

I've had a good chuckle at him, but his daughter Amilia had stronger words to use. Harsh words for her father and stunningly realized ones for the business world's patriarchy. It's an hell of an essay well worth your time. It feels like something she's been writing her entire life.

Crackpot Theory: Jeff Goldblum talks to people like he's having a hard time hearing them over the phone.

Uhhhh.... What? Yes? Yes?!. Uh huh. Yeah...

F***ing take THAT Ammo-conda!.

It's always the run you least expect that take you further into rogue-likes than you ever hoped they would. Often when you need to be somewhere in 40 minutes and you naturally expected to die after 30.

Coming back to Gungeon after a lost weekend with DS III went smoothly. TOO smoothly. I made it to the third (second to last) stage! I got a power up that gave me health (rare as balls) I gave up that bit of good luck to be able to do more damage (by accident) and I still effing held my own against gun-mushrooms and gun-totem poles.

See each time you kill one part of the totem another guy with a different gun drops down and... you get the idea. This is just as good as Binding of Isaac. Definitely not as emotionally unsettling, at least. No miscarried fetuses as power ups in this rogue-like.

No sir.

Potato Salad for Breakfast.

My new restaurant job is a double edged sword. For one, thanks to it's massive staircase and 2 pound plates, I'm in the best shape of my life. But for two, I'm too exhausted after to run little errands. Little errands for things like food... gas... laundry.

That being said, potato salad is right up there with cold pizza as far as f**k it breakfasts go. For me anyway.

Fallout 4 Review: The Great American Experiment.

I spoil the ending in this review... such as it is.

10 hours into Fallout 4 I happened across a trash filled, partially drained, pond. The morning sun came in over the leafless trees giving it a sort of pink-hued and solemn dignity to what would otherwise be a complete dump. There's a building on top of the hill and I investigate. It's a barely furnished cabin with a table, chair, hearth, and an empty bed frame. No ammo, medicine, weapons, or bottle caps to be found.

A waste of time.

But then I see what looks like a bird house just outside the cabin. Bird houses don't typically have glowing red buttons on them so naturally I have to press it. A voice begins an audio tour of Walden Pond, the two year residence of Henry David Thoreau. A mainstream video game with sales into the stratosphere has begun lecturing me on transcendentalism. After a few minutes of harping on Thoreau's rejection of society and distraction it then directs me to the Walden Pond gift shop. Where I could find Walden Pond postcards, coffee mugs, and inspirational T-shirts. 

If this game had a mouth I'd kiss it.

Yay, references!

But that feeling would dim over the coming weeks. Then those weeks turned to months. Then I just couldn't muster the passion to review the damn thing. Moments like Walden Pond are Bethesda's specialty, the big picture never is. Which is a shame because 4 had to come out years after New Vegas, the gold standard of long form interactive story telling... and my most favorite-est game ever. I expected the wrong sorts of things. Bethesda games are kinda like roommates. You spend so much time with them you can't help but pick out the flaws. Does the good handily outweigh the bad? (Fallout 3) Or did the then-revolutionary graphics paper over hours upon hours of tedium? (Oblivion... god I couldn't stand Oblivion). 

The covers of the magazines are their own reward.

I have serious qualms with Fallout 4, but it doesn't change the fact it's their best game. It's just a rotten shame it's not the best Fallout game. I can't deny they spent a long time staring at the fan treatise of what 4 absolutely had to be. I gotta say, they killed that list dead. Wonky facial animation? Vastly improved. Shaky, borderline unplayable, shooting? Perfected. Companions feeling like a weekend jam mod instead of what should have been the richest characters in the game? You get the idea. In fact all the greatest hits from the 3 and New Vegas modding community were made critical to 4. A brilliant and cavalier move... though I'm beginning to suspect that their idea well may be running dry. 

Every single gun can be modded barrel to grip. Rifles can become AK-47s, Pistols can become sub-machine guns, and everything in between. If you haven't found the right weapon for you, you probably have to make it yourself. I love it to bloody pieces. It's become my favorite crafting system in gaming, full stop. 

Not to mention the embarrassing amount of hours I spent building my gas station settlement's supply lines to my other allied settlements. These are some of the finest nuts and bolts I've ever seen prop up an RPG. So why did it all have to go so wrong?

This review's about to get, like, super bitchy.

I've struggled to put this into words for some time now, but F4 has the worst main story in the entire franchise. F3's ending was certainly disappointing, but at least it made sense and never lost sight of it's main thrust. What has made this such an exemplary series is the fact that all of it's convoluted conflicts are always based around the simplest things. 

Water. Electricity. Security. All dirt simple and relatable utilities you'd kill for in a post-apocalypse. Fallout 4 just wants to be Blade Runner. It's ridiculous. It hangs it's hat on something that's never really mattered in Fallout before and treats it like it's something it always had been leading up to. The weight and gravitas given to line reads about whether Synths (robots so human it's impossible to tell they're not) can be citizens makes it feel like heavy handed fan service. As if we were waiting 8 years on the edge of our seat to see how that "Replicated Man" quest from F3 finished. Not so much, guys.

Some day... someone will make a great "power under-armor" joke.

They had a great anti-villian in The Institute and completely squandered it. The idea that a literally underground society had advanced in the 200+ years after the great war and had decided to use Boston as it's own personal testing facility was bursting with potential. But again... all roads lead to sad robots who just want to be loved. I just don't understand why that was so important. We could have had an interactive equivalent to High Rise. Instead we got f***ing Chappie. 

I could have let all of this go if this was leading to an ending worth seeing. Every finale, no matter which of the 3 factions you chose involves hunting down and killing the other 2. Not in a well written way. In a "sh*t, we're out of time and we need 3 different finales!" kind of way. 

You go to 2 of the other bases and just... kill everyone. Everyone. It's disgusting in it's soullessness. There's no grand political surrender of the New California Republic to Mr. House's oligarchy. There's no weight to killing a trusted companion who doesn't recognize you after what you've decided to become. A switch gets flipped and now all your old friends are robotic cannon fodder. It is in my top 3 worst endings I have ever played.

Fallout... I just can't stay mad at you.

Whew! Still here? Good, because this is still the BEST game Bethesda has ever made. Outside of the main story, there is still an entire city filled with worthwhile stories, well paced dungeons, fun weapons, and breathtaking atmosphere. Also Nick Valentine, everyone's favorite companion, is perhaps the best character in the series. Which is why I'm so frustrated! I've been hard on F4 because Bethesda has come so far. I mean, Skyrim also had great gameplay and atmosphere but I was still violently allergic to it's lore and characters.

With F4 they finally had dialogue and characters worth getting excited about. With even a passable story I would have never brought any of this up. Even if you run a flawless marathon, if you trip over your shoe laces right before the finish line... that's all anyone is going to bother to remember. But flawed greatness is still greatness. And I love Fallout 4 in spite of how angry it makes me. And maybe I love it because it makes me angry sometimes. That can be the mark of true friendship. Though perhaps... not a healthy one.

And awaaaaaaaaaaay we go...

Please lord, forgive me for all the bullsh*t sick calls I am going to make this week.