Peace in Andromeda.

It's taken 2 years and the heat death of Bioware's talent pool for me to take a deep breath and say.... "Andromeda was a deep, rock solid, single player RPG with some script/story problems." If anyone else besides Bioware made that game I would have given it a 9. Though some of the bigger worlds reek of asset scuttling in that it's just a bunch of finished locations vomited out on a bland canvas. Had I never played Inquisition and appreciated how all those areas felt like real places I never would have been as harsh.

But there's the game's biggest issue: lack of imagination. It takes place in a whole new universe yet the most interesting aliens came with you. There's only 2 new talking species and about a 3rd of the way through you figure out... there is only one species. This game needed to get Weird with a capital W but settled for doing a good job keeping the original trilogy's lore in tact. Krogan are still prickly battle toads, Salarians are still overly polite, arrogant, geckos. While I like Jaal, the angaran ambassador, his race is just kinda there. I can't sum them up like I can everyone else. Their "thing" is hiding from the Kett. That's pretty much it. It's a humongous wasted opportunity.

But the story itself, your reason for questing, is pretty solid. Your people are starving and need a colony to work. That's your gig, use your shmancy AI powers to make a home. Sometimes for your people, sometimes not. For a game that's mostly about shooting things there's a refreshingly constructive bent to it's narrative. You may choose not to be in Andromeda to make friends... but you probably should be.

Movie night on the Tempest.

As for Ryder him/herself I got a big ol' "meh." Ryder doesn't hurt but he doesn't help. Coming off of Shepard, the greatest speaking RPG protagonist ever, this is a criticism that still holds. I've seen worse but that doesn't keep him from getting a solemn C-. Though I will give the male Ryder the edge because the Nolan North impression he's going for is SCARY good sometimes. But the rest of the crew? Pretty good! Your salarian pilot gives a lively performance. Drak is an endearingly sarcastic Krogan grandpa and almost edges out Wrex on the incidental dialogue front. Liam sucks but that's mostly because his actor can't read a script to save his life. Helping him move a 600 year old cryo sealed couch is a hell of a scene-let. Natalie Dormer knows she's slumming it as your medic but she's still such a pro shes a highlight.

But the planets themselves are hit and miss. What's more, the 2nd and 3rd are easily the worst. The late game picks up with a desert Krogan colony and a space pirate paradise but I wouldn't blame anyone for bailing out before then. It's a 10 hour sprint to those places including a plodding trip to the angaran hideout that walk-locks you for 12 minutes. I know running NPC's make no sense but neither do pop up windows or inventory screens. Let me run!

If there was just one more Kadara (space pirate) planet in the mix I could have called this a good game at the time. But I digress. This game was built by mass effect 3's multiplayer team and while they may not have the strongest sense of place They. Get. Combat. The gun play is sublime and the gear crafting almost more so. You can make any type of weapon at any time. You just need the right materials. If you want stronger versions of that gear you need to research stuff. You need to finish quests for that. To keep your favorite weapons on the bleeding edge you need to do a bit of everything. This makes it the single greatest in-game economy I've ever seen. I haven't tried the new game plus but you would need that kind of time to level up different weapons and that's a pretty good excuse to keep grinding.

In light of Anthem, AKA Bioware's funeral pyre, I'm ready to make nice with my laundry list of Andromeda based quibbles. This is a fine 8/10. They did a good job. As long as you have it running on a solid state drive the load times are minimal and the patch jobs they did since launch let me run the best textures at 60 frames. If this is to be their last classic Bioware game... well it's certainly a better place to leave it than ME3.

We'll always have pirate planet...

Dead Space 2 is absolutely perfect.

It's taken 9 years and god knows how many playthroughs but I'm calling it. The first was larger but plodding, the third had the highest peaks (spaaaaaace!) and the deepest valleys (the other 2/3's of it). But the second is survival horror polished to a mirror sheen. I'm not used to playing a 9 year old game and saying it's head and shoulders above one that came out a month ago.

To be fair, Resident Evil 2 is a remake of an even older game but they share almost the exact same gun play. Cutting off limbs is just much more interesting than shooting a zombie upwards of 6 times in the face. It's weird how much fun DS2 is even though I've practically memorized it. I am trying a slightly different approach. The store is littered in free dlc weapons and armor that I will resist the temptation to use on zealot. Ammo is scarce, health packs a fleeting memory, and a half second hesitation in the face of a charging leaper is certain death. Isaac dies some pretty great deaths, here!

The game play loop of strategic ammo consumption with frantic shooting that turns to sedate loot scrounging is flawless. I'm not sure how it stacks up to it's granddaddy Resident Evil 4 because LORD has it been a while since I've been down that road. It's got to be close. Photo finish close. So yeah, re-download this gem and give it a whirl.


Also, PC folks! remember to disable v-sync in game and force it in the nvidia pannel. You're welcome!

Civ VI Gathering Storm Review: Prince of Tides.

I have a tendency to hate games I’m bad at for obvious reasons. Could never get the hang of any fighting game. Couldn’t get into multiplayer shooters either.  Not even when my buddy chance gave me one of the best gaming compliments of my life in overwatch by calling me a “scary zen.” But I still suck at them to the point where I don’t have any real fun. Then there’s civilization. Where I can’t play any difficulty over prince. Which is medium, I guess. No one who plays civ anywhere near the amount that I do would deign to start a game under deity. Which is an experience akin to making a souffle while dodging mortar fire.

But I still love civ because I can never fully understand it. Every time a trusted friend steals 5 turns worth of gold from me I’m shocked. Every time I knock down a jumped up warmonger I cackle. Every decent game makes me lose hours at a time. Even when I have one foot out the door or my coffee has finished brewing I can lose 20 minutes setting up the perfect starting map. It's a great bedtime game too as long as you can put it down before the sun comes up. But all that was true about vanilla Civ VI what does your $40 get you this year? You get the UN and floods!

When you try to settle cities now you'll get fun new icons on tiles that can be affected by tsunamis, floods, and volcanoes. When those hit, your farms will be out of commission for at least 8 turns. That's no death sentence but it will scuttle your expansion plans for a good while. The up shot is flood plain and volcanic soil becomes more fertile after the fact. Permanently. There's other stuff like drought and tornadoes that are less constructive but add to the natural disaster motif. I mean, it'd be weird if they weren't there, you know?

Close your eyes and try spell it.

Then there's the world congress which starts in the Renaissance era because mechanically it needs to. You now have political capital points which you generate 2 or 3 per turn at the start. It's not much but you can use them to trade for stuff you actually need before the world congress begins. Other players will trade their points with you too. Often in lieu of anything else. But once you get a pot of 100 or more you can get some really neat stuff done. Sure you can host Olympic games and world fairs but you what really want to do is ban a rival's critical luxuries, hamstring their citizen's happiness, and start them down the path of revolt! In Civ V all banning luxuries did was slow people down but add rise and fall to the mix and you can start flipping cities to you!

It's just that much sharper than V's WC so it doesn't seem like a copy paste but the 2 year wait to get it back was a but much. I'm not sure why it couldn't have launched with a lesser version, honestly. Aside from that there are smaller improvements and that's where GS really shines for me. They are small but they are legion. Natural resources have been balanced in a clever way. In 2016 if you wanted iron to turn your clubs into swords and you weren't lucky enough to find some yourself you had to sell the family jewels to trade for it. Now each deposit gives you 2 iron points per turn. You only need to build a mine if you want to double it to 4 points. It's also much easier to trade for it now so you never need to worry about your military upgrades.

On the flip side powering your cities fuels climate change so the more oil you use the more danger your coastal tiles are in. I haven't played a game yet where climate change bothered me much; but I hear of some folks who consciously hunker down in land locked areas and belch fire to drown their coastal enemies. You also don't have to make a beeline for neighborhoods to fix your cramped cities anymore. Dams become available during the renaissance that give you more space while blocking the damage of floods. New upgrades are available for scouts and horsemen so you don't wait forever for their industrial variants.

Gathering Storm makes every game of civ 20% more interesting. That will be true 5 years from now. I can't say I'm over the moon about it but I can't imagine going back. It takes a couple games to help you appreciate all the little quality of life changes (I actually despise the new flash java-esque main menu if I'm being honest) but this is totally worth the price in the end. I haven't even tried the new Maori civ. they start in the ocean and gain bonuses based on how much they land they discover before settling. That pulls everyone's first 50 turn strategy inside out and I am all about that! As much as I would love to see more expansions in the future, Firaxis's history says this is the last. In my heart of hearts I say this is a damn good place to leave my favorite epoch of Civilization.

This is Kupe. He's the sh*t.

Cruel Calculus

At an earnings call last week Activision-Blizzard posted record profits and a round of historical layoffs. 800 people lost their jobs because one of the biggest entertainment companies on earth didn't plan growth properly. That's sh*ty and it won't stop until a video entertainment union worth a damn sprouts up out of nowhere. That could take years, maybe more. What worries me most is what happened during the rest of the earnings call.

COO Coddy Johnson drew a line between what he believes were two halves of the company. One half were artists and programmers (development)  the other marketing and customer support (non developers) This was mostly for investors but a message was sent loud and clear to the peanut gallery. "We just sent 800 of your colleges packing. Don't ask any questions about Bobby Kotick's stock options and get in your designated box."

A-B has chosen to rule by fear. There's nothing illegal about it. Not even investigation worthy. Everything that company did was above board. That's what bothers me. We live in a world where your boss can make you petrified about your job security and if that person can prove it boosted sales that person gets promoted. Or gets a bonus bigger than most earn in a lifetime.

I ask you, reader, shouldn't that be a crime?

My Cherry Valentine.

And I didn't get you guys anything...

Hollow Knight is a masterpiece and Team Cherry is the indie dev team to beat. Even kotaku's intrepid investigative reporter Jason Scheier agrees. These guys are goddamn magicians. The 3 of them and a genius composer spent the last year giving HK free DLC while toiling away in secret on a sequel. They said Hornet was going to get a stand alone chapter and I'm so jazzed they changed their minds over how big that "chapter" might be.

Behold:

Hornet looks to be more of an engineer than the knight's black mage loadout. I see her launching buzz saw traps and bombs. I also see huge intricately animated bosses that they couldn't afford the last go round. This looks amazing. I could totally wait another year for it but I hope it's only a few months out. It's good to know that Activision and EA could burn to the ground tomorrow and Team Cherry would still be merrily plugging away at what will most likely be my favorite game of the year. I mean ya'll... this sh*t looks finished.

Hell of a Game

Lemme set the mood:

I am constantly falling in and out of love with Civilization. I loved V and remain impressed by VI but Civ unlike any other piece of entertainment can absolutely wreck my day. There’s a feeling you get when you’re 4 hours into a game (about renaissance era) that you’re completely effed. Your army survived your protectorate war but was it worth blowing half your troops saving a city state that only nets you 17 gold? It wasn’t and now you can’t afford a settler to find oil and aluminum so you’re about to be shut out of the late game too. You put Civ down emotionally and intellectually defeated.

It sucks.

But then there’s the other side of the coin. When you out think and outplay everyone on earth. Civilization is the only game that can make me feel like an evil genius. Such a game was one I played last weekend with Gorgo. A military terror early on (love them hoplites) her greatest strength is her late game capacity for culture. Her theater squares become acropolises which can be built in half the time of everyone else. Thanks to one of the governors from the rise and fall expansion I can make it so I have a near monopoly of all great writers and artists.

This is how I can make pure diplomacy work. Usually when you make too many libraries and museums the less civil leaders tend to sniff around your weakest links and pounce out of nowhere. But if you can buy them off with a piece of literature or two and make them dependent on your spices and dyes you can come out on top with a profit. In this run I was trying to see how many alliances I could forge at one time. I managed to max them out, you can only have 5, and went on to have the most blissfully peaceful game of civilization I can remember. I was everybody's friend and if anyone picked on me or my buddies they were bombed into the stone age.

He shouldn't have laughed at me... he shouldn't have laughed!!!

I made a point to cross the sea before everyone else and cornered the market on aluminum. Which meant that I’m the only one with an air force worth a damn and since I’m everybody's “friend” no one thought to put up air defenses. The last kerfuffle with my cranky roman neighbor was as brief as it was hilarious.

Near the end the tension kind of went out of the game. I had built a massive empire over three continents making 700 gold a turn. Money was no object and I had everything lined up for a science victory. Two cities with two launchpads makes it so I’m 50-ish turns away. But then came the sabotage. My fair weather friends had been biding their time and making spies. Suddenly parking my own spies on launch pads and neighborhoods wasn’t enough to keep my victory projects from resetting and mini boss quality tanks (spy made partisans) from popping up in the middle of my capital.

If I was in any actual space race I would have lost… but the beauty of the culture victory is that I sometimes forget I’ve already got it made. Within 20 turns I was the tourist capital of the world and I posted my best score in Civ since 2014. Hell of a game. I don't get a whole lot of self respect out this hobby so when it does happen I need to document it!

Oh and does the gathering storm come out tomorrow? ...I hadn’t realized.

Russian Doll Review: Stop Hitting Yourself.

I’m jealous of groundhog day. I can’t be the only one who is. It's a unique concept executed perfectly. If you try to drink from the fountain of Bill Murray’s best movie (come at me) you best have a damn decent show in mind. Thankfully, Russian Doll does. It is both darker than it wants you to think it is as well as more complicated. Groundhog day was essentially a sardonic morality play. Boiling down to the message of “Hey! Don’t be an asshole.” Russian Doll has a bit more on its mind.

While at its core it remains a relationship drama it also sits a nifty science fiction puzzle in front of your nose and gives you 6 episodes to figure it out. I did not. For once I got a bit more than timey-wimey hand waving and was disappointed I didn’t piece together the rotting fruit bit earlier. That’s just one piece. You get your first real clue after the initial death. You’d have to pause a lot and take notes but you could do it.

That is how you get your cake and eat it too. Do you have a good relationship story? Maybe about how turning your terminal self loathing into a lifestyle is a sh*t idea? Then maybe sprinkle in some time travel shenanigans to prove that it would take divine intervention to get some people to notice. Basically it only uses time travel to tell a better relationship story and that’s what I respect most. You can be as story driven as you want but if your characters and their choices don’t make sense episode to episode (SHERLOCK) I’m not going to be happy enough with you to bother with a write up.

"Sweet birthday baby" is the new "Ned Ryerson"

I’m dancing around the story because I don’t want you to know anything going in. Are you a self loathing introvert or extrovert? This show is gonna say some things that might hit you in the gut. Stuff that’s quite a bit more heady than simply hating yourself is wrong. It’s also the rare netflix show feels exactly as long as it needs to be. The first few were so dense and delicious I wasn’t sure if they were 50 minutes or not. Not a second over 30 it turned out.

The best thing I can say about the writing is that every character has a point. Everyone. The jerks, the homeless, even a philandering jackhole has a point. Except the 3 minute scene where Nadia shows up to her programming day job. That was just a bad scene. A noticeably RARE bad scene, but there it is. It’s just nice to see a show about depression and self destruction where everybody's pain matters. Even the villain’s.

I can’t say you’re going to love Russian Doll. I sure as hell did, but it might get a bit dark for some and if you’ve never dealt seriously with depression it might be too navel gazy. But it’s got a good puzzle worth solving and if you start I’m confident you’ll finish it. You also may not like how it ends but again, I sure as hell did.