Boltgun Initial Thoughts

Good Morning Friends! It was in June of 2022 that I first saw the teaser trailer for a new Warhammer game called Boltgun, and I could already tell that I was probably on board with its particular brand of nonsense. Very rarely is a video game so directly targeted at my soul. In the mid-90s when I was obsessing over making levels for Doom 2, I was also obsessed with assembling plastic “beakie” Space Marines with my friend Jason and waging epic battles on his ping pong table semi-permanently converted into a battleground full of scratch-built terrain. That Proto-Bel would have been all over this game… in fact I kept trying to pretend that the EA-released Space Hulk PC game was actually a Doom clone at the time.

About a week ago the Boltgun trailers started to make their way into my feed and I remembered how much I wanted to play this game. Yesterday it officially released and I picked it up over on Steam, but it appears to pretty much be available for all platforms. Having spent part of my evening playing through the first half dozen levels or so… it very much feels like more of an actual spiritual successor to Doom and Doom 2 than the extremely excellent 2016 Doom release. As someone who cut my teeth on Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Blake Stone, Rise of the Triad, and of course Duke Nukem 3D… this FEELS like you remember those games feeling. Modern audiences probably won’t really appreciate this fact, but even the sprite work in this game FEELS like it is 2.5D in the way that the transition of the model animations is ever so slightly abrupt.

You start off with just your chain sword and a little way into the first level you pick up your holy Bolter seated on top of an altar… with the reverence one would expect a holy instrument of imperial might. The chain sword takes some getting used to because effectively it throws you into a sort of bullet time as you line up your attack. You charge your sword, which pauses the game and then your character leaps forward and attacks with the blade. Essentially low-level minions will be finished off in a single hit… for higher-level minions, you will need to wait until they only have a sliver of life before it becomes a really effective attack. Essentially it can also be used as a movement ability of a sort where you charge forward and can sort of do a mid-air charge if you time it just right.

While the game lovingly replicates the feel of “random doodads all over the place for you to pick up” that was common for this era of shooter, it also has a lot of modern messaging. For example, the Chaos Cultists have lovingly painted platforms with yellow paint so you can know where you should be leaping to in order to kill them more efficiently. The game also features a “ledge pull-up” parkour system so if you leap across a gap, you can catch on the lip and pull yourself over onto the next platform. This isn’t over the top but feels pretty natural even within the framework of a “retro-inspired” shooter. There will be no blinking arrow telling you where to go… but I feel like a game like this doesn’t really need it. In some of the larger maps, there will be a bit of fumbling around and looking for the exit, but that also comes with this era of the genre.

What is so pure about this game is the fact that you get an endgame summary screen just like you did in Doom. The only thing that I feel a little iffy about is what it seems to count as secrets are not what I would have called secrets back in the day. Generally speaking, so far it is finding your way to a hidden powerup or something that is just off the beaten path… and less opening up new chambers and finding new areas of the map. I guess gone are the days of “humping” the wall while spamming your open key looking for a hidden door… and instead, it is just efficiently clearing every corner of every level. I admittedly missed several secrets on each level so maybe there were hidden doors that I just didn’t find.

The story is a bit on the light side, but really… did we care about the story in Doom? The story was largely an excuse for us to kill more demons, and the story in Boltgun is the story of EVERY Space Marine game… PURGE! There is a lovingly crafted number of chaos mobs that you will end up fighting along the way from mere cultists to Chaos Marines… to Chaos Terminators… to even Chaos Daemons like the Great Unclean One. Basically don’t expect high art here… this is a game with just enough story to keep it from falling on its face… as it should be for any 90s-era shooter. If you are also of this era then you will probably love it. If you were NOT from this era… I have no clue what you will think about this game. It’s a relatively fast-paced retro shooter with weapons that feel powerful and combat that feels visceral. For me personally… it really hit the spot.

Overwatch and Losing Hope for Blizzard

Hey Folks! I am doing one of my fairly rare Saturday posts in part because I made something resembling a legitimate YouTube video. Also, the situation has changed slightly since I made that video and I wanted to talk through some of it. I am not exactly going to rehash my thoughts from the video, because I figure if you are curious it is only like 5 minutes and you can just watch the damned thing.

Essentially this is all spun from the announcement earlier this week that Overwatch 2 would be canceling its PVE-focused Hero Mode. This somewhat started my thoughts percolating because I had largely been waiting to pay attention to Overwatch when this fully fleshed-out PVE mode was released. When Loading Ready Run… admittedly one of my favorite YouTube channels… released a segment on Checkpoint adding their own thoughts, this essentially caused my feelings to tip over and the above YouTube video is the result. Essentially my feelings are that Overwatch 2 was relaunched in large part because the first game was not monetized anywhere near as much as ActiBlizz in their current configuration would have liked. Relaunching the game under the guise of improvements gave them the opportunity to add a bunch of new hooks to drain the coffers of their player base.

So yesterday the game director Aaron Keller released a public blog post explaining the reasons why they cancelled Hero Mode. There is also a fair bit of gaslighting going on that “no really everything is going as planned, we are just removing this level-up system”. This admittedly made me wonder if I simply misremembered what was originally pitched at BlizzCon in 2019. That year… seems simultaneously “last year” and “a decade ago” at the same time. So much has changed over the last four years… so that caused me to go digging for the original announcement. Thankfully there are channels out there that rip every announcement and upload it under their own banner. So I only had to go as far as GameSpot to find a full rip of the entire 22-minute-plus presentation from 2019.

So I spent a chunk of this morning watching the video, and specifically paying attention to the wording. Admittedly this was a simpler time when it comes to Blizzard and our feelings about them as a company. This is before the bulk of the sexual assault allegations came out in the media, before the public failure of Warcraft III Reforged, before the failed state of World of Warcraft, and before the absolute depravity that is Diablo Immortal monetization. There is an interesting article from 2021 on PC Gamer tracking how Blizzard’s reputation has collapsed that covers sixteen different topics… and fails to include anything that happened in most of the last three years. Suffice it to say in 2019 we viewed Blizzard significantly differently than we do today… or at least I know I did. That said even going back and watching this video… stirred up feelings I had for this franchise that had gone dormant.

Watching through the video and the subsequent talk from Jeff Kaplan, I feel pretty certain that no… I did not misremember things. In this chat after the moving cinematic that still managed to invoke some tear-jerking all these years later… Kaplan does what he always did best and chats with the audience. During this speech he promised a “complete story experience” and that Hero Mode would be the equivalent of “Adventure Mode from Diablo” but for Overwatch. Specifically that they were doing this because the audience had been asking for a PVE Overwatch game and that they would be delivering “A Ton of PVE Content”. When Overwatch 2 launched without any of the PVE-focused Story Mode of the game, a lot of players like myself adopted a “wait and see” stance. Even after reading through the carefully shaped statement… I still feel like there just isn’t any reason for me to pay attention to Overwatch 2 from this point forward. They dropped the parts of the 2019 Vision for the game, that I cared about.

I chose this picture of Mei for my final image in the video I released yesterday morning, and it feels fitting to end this blog post with it as well. She is a precious cinnamon roll that we do not deserve. Anyways this is also probably the end of my talking about Overwatch given that it is clear that the trajectory for the game is going in a direction that I just don’t care about. Admittedly a large part of why I bought the first version of the game was to get Mercy’s Wings for my Diablo III characters. Honestly… I consider that money well spent because I have used the heck out of them. As far as the game… I still really like the characters and the universe it is set in, but have no interest in whatever is going on with that franchise at this point.

As far as Blizzard as a company, I feel like I have been laboring under the false assumption that maybe just maybe Microsoft could ride in and set things right for that company. The debacle that has happened with Redfall however makes me deeply question if that is ever going to be the case. Also in reading up on ALL of this today before sitting down to write this blog post… I was presented with just how far Blizzard has fallen over the last four years. Looking at BlizzCon from 2019… it feels like it was this happier time when I was ignorant of what was going to play out both in the world and more specifically in that company. I never thought I would feel nostalgic about 2019… but god I do at this point. I would love to go back to feeling positive about most things, and the future of Blizzard entertainment and a lot of these characters and franchises that I’ve loved over the years.

However, we are here now, and understand the reality of the situation, and as much as it pains me… I am just not sure if there is any hope for the company at this point. I say that knowing there are many friends who still work for the company, I really wanted to keep that torch of hope burning. However, at the moment I am feeling pretty damned snuffed out.

Waiting for Aloy

Good morning friends. I think for the moment I am going to be bouncing my way out of Wolfenstein: Youngblood. It isn’t a bad game but it is not the game I wanted it to be. The other Wolfenstein titles from Machine Games were very much narrative driven, and this is more of a hub based choose your own adventure title. I mean on some level it makes sense given that this was created by Arkane and I am guessing more specifically some of the folks that worked on Dishonored II given how much the setting FEELS like that did. I would not have enjoyed that game anywhere near as much however if it did not have the powerful driving storyline, and so far Youngblood has just not grabbed me. I really think this game was designed for two people and playing it solo is not really giving it a full chance. I might return to it at some point in the future but for now I am bailing.

In truth pretty much everything that I do this week is just biding time before I can play Horizon Forbidden West. I am trying my best not to hype it up in my mind, but I have to say I miss the adventures of Aloy. She is easily among my favorite video game characters and I am looking forward to learning more about the world she lives in. If you never played Horizon Zero Dawn, absolutely stop whatever you are doing now and go play it. I played it initially on the PS4 and then later again on the PC when it released there and I loved both experiences. I have the game installed and readyish to go… given that I am certain there will be a zero day patch required to actually play it. I freaking love digital distribution. I grew up in a tiny town without access to anything other than a Walmart… and eventually even that closed up its doors. Digital distribution would have been a life saver… pending of course I could have actually gotten a reasonable internet connection. My parents got the fastest that they had available recently… and it is 10 mb down and 5 mb up… which is a far cry from my 300 mb down 50 mb up.

One of the games that I have been spending time with is something that my friend Grace found. I thought I had tried almost all of the diablo-likes on Steam, but apparently missed one. Chronicon does not look like much, because it absolutely suffers from the feeling of being “programmer art”, but where it does shine is in its systems and game-play. It has been a long time since I have seen a game nail what it feels to play a proper Diablo style game as much as this one has. On some level I would love to see this team and the Wolcen team join forces, because one game is gorgeous and the other game understands the systems of what is required to make an ARPG feel fluid and enjoyable. I really wish this game were available for the Switch. In theory since this is a GameMaker Studio game, it might be possible at some point for them to port the game.

I spent the majority of last night however playing some Ghost of Tsushima… getting hassled by my Uncle about my recent behavior. It’s not a phase dammit! I love this game but the fact it is on the console has lead me to play it far less than it deserves. My hope is with me dragging my consoles downstairs, that it might actually get my attention considerably more often. I’ve been working remotely for going on three years, and as a result when the work day is over the last thing I want to be is up in my office… which I largely associate with work. Since my consoles were stranded up there, it meant also that I never really played them. Last night I chilled on the sofa with a cat in my lap and killed some bad men… and apparently I am a source of disappointment for picking and choosing my battles. You’re not even my real dad!

I actually moved the story along a bit. For awhile I had been booting up the game, discovering a few points of interest and then logging right back out. I finished the last two story bits leading up to the storming of Kaneda castle. I am terribly disappointed that there were zero futuristic motor bikes available for me to ride. I’ve opened up the world a bit and met a really cool warrior monk that I want to be friends with. He has seen some shit but also seems to mostly remain a genuinely good person in spite of everything. I have to say I feel like this game is going to make me choose between Fake Dad and Murder Mommy at some point, and I am probably going to choose Murder Mommy. She just genuinely seems cooler and I genuinely want to help her people and get her and her brother off the island.

It is such a gorgeous game, but I have to say because I have old eyes… I wish the text was a bit bigger. I went into accessibility settings and turned on the zoom functionality on the console so if there is absolutely something I need to read but can’t, I can at least use my old man magnifying lens. This cracked me up because I remember growing up, my grandfather always had a magnifying lens out on the kitchen table… and now I completely understand why. I remember my friend Nimgimli complaining about consoles and text sizes and now that I am actually playing a console like most normal humans do… I absolutely feel these feels. I am sorry Tsushima but your salvation will ultimately have to wait when Friday rolls around because it will then be time to fight robot dinosaurs once again.

The Family Blazkowicz

It was an interesting weekend from a gaming standpoint and a real world standpoint as well. I played a mix of games in part because in my current exploration of all things single player… I aimlessly found myself searching for the next game a few times. Friday I wrapped things up with Quantum Break pretty early, and I feel like I have already shared most of what I want to say about the game. It absolutely stuck the landing and if you find yourself with roughly eight hours of time and this game on sale… I highly suggest checking it out. There is no doubt in my mind that the standout performance by Courtney Hope is ultimately what ended up with her as the protagonist for Control. I really enjoyed this game and its setting and I hope we see elements of it in future Remedy games.

In the realm or real world stuff… I did in fact set my mind to configuring everything downstairs in preparation for Horizon Forbidden West coming out next Friday. This was a bit more tricky than just dragging the console downstairs and connecting it up. It involved adding a new powerstrip, rearranging the base unit for our security system, and also hooking up a small 4k60 HDMI switch that I had been originally planning on installing upstairs at some point. Essentially I was out of HDMI ports on the television and now my consoles are sharing a port. At some point I would like to relocate my Nintendo Switch to downstairs in prep for maybe some Switch Sports and Ring Fit shenanigans. Ultimately I got everything fit into the small area I was working and my controller charger in a manageable state. However I think it goes without saying that the PS5 is always bigger than you expect it to be in your mental math.

From there I was looking for the next game to explore and ultimately I decided to reinstall the 2017 version of Prey by Arkane Studios. I had bounced off this game a few times in the past, but after six hours… I am deciding that this is just not my jam. It is a mechanically interesting world and I dig the whole art deco appearance of the space station you are roaming around. However there just isn’t enough character to drive it forward. It reminds me a lot of a Bioshock game or more directly System Shock… but those games had a much more interesting mythology as well as way more interesting characters to keep you moving forward. This station feels dead and most of your story is delivered in the form of audio diaries you find laying around or emails that you can read off open terminals. There are three voices talking in my ear trying to get me to do what they want, but also… I don’t really have any attachment to any of them.

So ultimately I chucked Prey back in the bin and reinstalled Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. I am not exactly sure why I stopped playing this, but if I am remembering correctly there was some technical issue that I had encountered with a save file. As a result when I returned this weekend I rolled back a half dozen saves or so and gave myself a bit of an on-ramp to get caught up to where we were in the game. This is honestly not a bad practice because I remembered the general shape of the story, and backing up a few missions helped to ease me into remembering what was going on. I loved the first game and I have to say that the second game continues introducing us to interesting characters as we take the fight to America.

All told it was a much shorter game than I was expecting, and I think that the intent was to have players spent more time running around and retracing their steps hunting the commanders in various areas you had already visited. I did some of this but nowhere near all of it, because really… at the end of the day on this current play through I was there to see the rest of the story… not be a completionist. There are definitely some really interesting moments, and some others… that I am not sure what the heck was going on. There is one particular moment at the very end, or really close to it… that made almost no sense but whatever. Up until that point I was fully on board with this game, and honestly continued to be on board in part because Debra Wilson is a great actor and Grace Walker is a deeply enjoyable character.

After finishing up Wolfenstein II… my initial thought was to roll straight into Youngblood. So far… I am not really enjoying it as much as I would have hoped. It is very clear that this game was designed to be a co-op experience first… and as a result the single player experience suffers greatly. What you have is a series of big open zones that feel very much like Dishonored 2, where you can roam around freely… but this is also a game where stealth is either perfect or not at all in the form of a stealth suit. So as such skulking around is way less interesting than it was in Dishonored, and it also means you are going loud pretty much from the moment you enter the zone. I can already see the shape of this game and it is going to involve me retreading the same set-pieces over and over as I knock out smaller missions until I finally take on the big boss towers that are seemingly the final area. I want to see the story… but so far I am not really feeling the game.

So apart from some errand running, that was pretty much my weekend. I finished Quantum Break and Wolfenstein II: New Colossus and bounced off Prey and am on the border of bouncing off Youngblood.