Game Events

One Quarter

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Birthdays are always a weird time for me, because they seem like they should be these important occasions in your life… but in reality it is just another Thursday. Traditionally I take today off, and as a result you don’t get a post because I go into “vacation mode”. However with the whole Covid 19 situation and the fact that I am still working remotely, combined with some stuff going on at work that I don’t feel like I can miss.. you are getting me in the flesh today. I had a subtle realization this morning and I thought I would share it with you, my friends and readers.

I have been writing to you through this blog for a quarter of my life. Back in April Tales of the Aggronaut turned 11, and as of this morning I myself turn 44. It is weird when numbers line up like that, but in truth I am not sure if I could have found a better group of companions to listen to me as I ramble on about nonsense. Thanks for being there on this journey, even if it has been in passive lurker mode. I do appreciate however each time someone comments about something going on in my life because I feel significantly less alone in the world.

Once upon a time I was one of those kids who made zines, and I was especially prolific during the fighting game heyday. I would print them up at home and then go pass them out at the various arcades I visited, because they also sorta served as a general guide for new players when something like Mortal Kombat II was booming. Admittedly there was a lot of rumor filtered in with the truth, but for the most part they were a guide to how to do all of those things like Friendships and Babalities, allowing new players to stop getting dunked on with a simple guide to all of the abilities. Writing my blog post each morning is sorta like trying to hand you a zine, and even the folks who didn’t want to take it… I appreciated them not throwing it away while I was still watching.

There are still several events happening in the winding down of what would have normally been E3 week. Today at 6 pm my time I should be able to tune in and watch the EA Play Live show, at which point I am hoping EA continues its path towards being a less horrible company. I mean to be truthful we have some pretty solid evidence that something has changed there recently. For starters instead of nuking it into oblivion, they are rebuilding Anthem and going to give it a second chance. A few weeks ago they put all of their games back on Steam, and even though they still require the presence of Origin… that is a start. Lastly we have the evidence of Jedi Fallen Order being a phenomenal game that exists without any micro transactions in spite of EA’s once stance of cramming them into every game. I am willing to give the company an olive branch, and also I am wondering if it is only Americans that personify companies like this.

Last night I played some Destiny, and I admit I am feeling a little rudderless. I am not exactly sure what I want to be doing or how I should be doing it. In theory I should be focusing the various avenues to get powerful or pinnacle gear, but this season doesn’t really seem to have a clear path forward. At the very least I am not exactly sure what I should be doing to level up the magical engram box for the Drifter. The acquisition of that level up currency seems significantly slower than any of the other similar seasonal mechanics. I feel like we are missing something like the Vex event to pour our energy into, because the planetary events are just painful to try and get started. I think right now everyone is focused on the next easiest way to get engrams… grinding Nightmare Hunts.

I’m also still playing a significant amount of Phantasy Star Online 2, but I gotta admit things have slowed to a crawl there as well. I’m level 68 and about halfway through it, and in truth what I really need to find is a group to grind advance quests with. The challenge there is that my natural play group that is associated with AggroChat podcast is time shifted from me. Kodra, Tam and Thalen are all getting on about the same time that I am logging out for the night. Ash is an option but I think he is back engaged with Guild Wars 2, and Grace never really attached to PSO2. In theory I should be running with Pizzamaid and friends but I am not exactly sure if those times line up either. Essentially it leaves me in a state of limbo where I spend most of my time soloing.

I realize this post turned weird all the sudden. I guess birthdays become a time for introspection. I hope the day goes smoothly, because there are significant landmines in front of me to cross. The day could go south really fast if a few things go the wrong way. Regardless thanks for hanging out with me all of these years and listening while I talk some nonsense. I write like I am talking to myself, but as I have said many times before I do greatly appreciate knowing there are real people out there reading what I write.

The Bounty of Not-E3 2020

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PC Gaming Show with Day Nine and apparently Teddy

This time of year is normally a magical time for gamers. It is during June that we traditionally get a bunch of announcements surrounding E3 that ultimately set the expectations for what we should be anxiously watching for the remainder of the current year and most of the next. However there have been a few forces at work that have changed this dynamic significantly since the heady days of the early 2010s. Firstly a number of companies have broken out from the show and started doing their own thing on a more regular basis. Secondly we have a global event like Covid 19 that is causing pretty much everything to be cancelled.

As a result there is a void to be filled and it seems as though we have a wealth of options to fill it. Instead of getting a few big shows from various publishers or console manufacturers, we get an entire summer filled with smaller shows that really started reaching a fever pitch this week. Traditionally I have done coverage of each of the big shows, but quite honestly there is too much to cover at this point and not enough desire to do so. One of the interesting things I have noticed this year is how the various show options have more or less democratized access to smaller studios. As a result we are seeing a lot of A and AA studios punching well above their weight limit and going toe to toe with AAA announcements.

However before I get into specific games I feel like it is important to lay out the landscape. Here is a list of the shows that I am aware of, each of which filling the same sort of niche that the traditional E3 shows have. I have links to videos/vods if available currently and links to what information I do have for everything else.

Schedule of Shows that I am Aware of

There are a handful of events that IGN talks about on this schedule, but they don’t seem to be “named” like the Expo days so I have slipped those in separate from the IGN Expo block. The short of this is that we have a massive block of shows available if we so wish to partake. For those of us who never actually attended E3, but were instead limited to the pre-game that happens with the publisher shows… this is effectively like getting three different E3 periods. It is making me wonder if we are going to see a similar burst of shows around the time that GamesCom and PAX West would have normally been happening.

On With the Games

As I said before there were way too many games being announced to really talk about them all, so instead I am going to talk about a handful of games that stood out for one reason or another. I’ve not managed to make my way through ALL of the content to this point, and now have mostly just been focused on watching individual trailers since some of the shows have way more “couch chat” element than I care to partake of.

Godsfall PC Trailer

First up in the list of things that I want to talk about is Godsfall, which up until the PC Gaming Show I had only actually seen information surrounding it related to the PlayStation 5 release. The PC demo reel showed off significantly more of the world which is good, because I was getting to the point where I was a bit afraid that it might be an arena game. From the look and sound of it, this game is essentially Destiny but with melee combat. I am significantly more interested in it knowing that it is coming out on the PC, given that I tend to prefer this sort of game on that platform. Still very much looks like a higher resolution SkyForge.

Alex Kidd in Miracle World

This game only means something if you were either a Sega Master System kid, or were friends with a Sega Master System kid. There once was a department store chain called Montgomery Ward, and in it they sold Sega an TurboGrafx systems… and I spend so much time while my mom shopped hanging out and playing Alex Kidd. Years later I eventually owned a Sega Master System and the Master Gear Adapter for my Game Gear and these games are criminally underappreciated. Looking forward to playing this in a prettier form and hoping it holds up as well as my memories of it.

Werewolf: the Apocalypse – Earthblood

I feel like I know next to nothing about this game. I’ve done a bit of digging and it seems that this is going to be a third person single player action roleplaying game, but all of the trailers I have seen to date mostly just focus on cinematics of the World of Darkness setting. I am very interested because Werewolf: The Apocalypse was without a doubt my favorite of the World of Darkness settings, so with Bloodlines 2 coming out soon I am super down to see this setting get its due. I guess we will have to wait until July 7th when Nacon is set to show off some footage.

Mafia Trilogy Definitive Edition

I’ve never played one of the Mafia games, but I have to admit this trailer for the reworked first game really interested me. I always assumed incorrectly that the Mafia series was more Grand Theft Auto than story driven tale, and because of that I had more or less ignored it. With the first game getting a remaster treatment, and the second game having already gotten this… I feel like it might be a good time for me to sit down and play through the entire thing.

Torchlight III – Early Access Release

I’ve been in the alpha process for Torchlight III, previously Torchlight Frontiers for quite some time. The thing is however it was NDA bound and as a result I have not been able to talk about it much. During the PC Gaming Show, they shadow dropped the early access release and… what can I say… it is VERY early access. If you are interested in this game I would suggest maybe giving it a few weeks to stabilize before diving in. I spent most of Saturday getting disconnected or not being able to log in generally, and I spent a good part of yesterday afternoon getting disconnected after every quest. Its a good game, but very raw still and I question if they are maybe rushing it out the door a bit since there appears to still be the same infrastructure issues I experiences when a new version released and everyone flocked to test again.

Haven

This is a quirky game that appears to be everywhere right now and has appeared on multiple shows. I vaguely remember Ash talking about this briefly when we did the Pax South 2020 coverage show as it was apparently one of the Indie Megabooth titles. The idea is that you have a couple versus a hostile planet, and the game appears to move back and forth between ARPG type segments and more traditional menu driven JRPG style combat. There are also sequences that were shown that reminds me of a more Bioware style dialog choice story driven gameplay, so honestly right now I am a bit confused as to how the entire thing performs. That said it has made me interested enough to start watching what comes out about it. I dig the art style, and I did the concept of a romantic couple setting out on their own against a harsh environment.

New World

While in the case of Godsfall new information made me significantly more interested, I have to say the New World trailer has made me significantly less interested. I did not see a lot of game-play that actually looked interesting to me. What I did see instead was a bunch of siege game-play that reminded me of the big battles from Shadowbane, a game I was decidedly not into. I am hoping that this is not a PVP siege game that they just added PVE players in place of player characters, because the sizzle reel definitely looks like that. Public testing however will begin in just a few weeks, so I guess I will be able to see better footage of how the moment to moment feels at that point. For now I am super cautious about this maybe not being a game I am going to care about.

A Whole Lot of Games

Those were a few of the games that interested me. However as I said before there is a giant insurmountable wall of new games to talk about and as a result I only covered a small handful. Did you get to watch any of the shows over the weekend? If so what were some of the games that you were interested in that I didn’t cover? Drop me a line below with some of your favorites.

Games of the Decade: 2015

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Fallout 4 – PC

Continuing the series we dive into some of the games that were important to me in 2015. There were a bunch of games that made the early version of this list, but in many cases I didn’t feel like I had a lot to talk about any of them. I’ve been trying to avoid expansions/dlc on the list, and as a result that knocked out Heavensward which took up a significant portion of my year. Similarly this knocks out Destiny Taken King which also was super important. The final list was whittled down to just four games but I feel like there is something special with each of them.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The Witcher 3 – PC

For years I had heard wonderful things about the Witcher series, but I found them somewhat obtuse and difficult to get into. Maybe if I had played the original when it first was released it might have made a difference, but trying to make it with modern expectations was a nonstarter. I found the interface to be deeply cludgy and confusing. When The Witcher 3 released I was not expecting much from it based on my past experience with the earlier two titles, but I got a free copy with a new video card and gave it a shot. What I found was a deep and rich world that I really enjoyed exploring. I’ve not gotten anywhere close to actually beating the game, but it is on that list of titles that I keep meaning to restart from scratch and play through again. The recent release of the Netflix series is re-igniting that desire so maybe I will spend some time over the coming days giving it another shot.

Dying Light

Dying Light – PC

Dying Light is one of those games that is almost impossible to explain without actually experiencing it. At its core it is a game about surviving the zombie apocalypse, but it is much more than that given that there are rich systems where you gain favor with various factions of survivors. The other aspect that is hard to explain is how important movement is to this game. It is a game that takes parkour to the next level as you try and find a path to run on that is safe from the endless hordes of the undead in the world below. There is always this tentative balance between staying in safety and dropping down into the places where you need to scavenge materials from. The total package is wildly enjoyable and now that the game has been out for quite some time you can pick it up on the cheap. If you missed it the first time, well worth grabbing especially since there is a sequel in the works for 2020 release.

Victor Vran

Victor Vran – PC

If you have read this blog for very long you will know of my deep affinity for “diablo-likes” and ARPGs in general. One of these that sorta slipped under almost everyone’s radar is a game called Victor Vran, where you take the controls of a Van Helsing like character that hunts demons and monsters. What makes this game interesting to me is that it has really good WASD controls and extremely interesting level design that works in old fashioned Wolf 3D era “secrets” that can be unlocked to find both new paths and troves of loot. The combination makes for a compelling action RPG that in some ways reminds me of early Isometric shooters like Crusader: No Remorse. You have a wide variety of attacks and special abilities and the levels are hand crafted instead of procedurally generated. This leads to a more structured game-play experience but also somewhat harms the replay value. This is now out on even more platforms including the switch, so well worth checking out if you too are a fan of ARPGs.

Fallout 4

Fallout 4 – PC

I love the Fallout series and have since I first played the original back in 1997. The Fallout community tends to have two distinct branches… those who hold up Fallout 3 as the best title and those who hold up Fallout New Vegas in highest regard. I like aspects of both but tend to fall into the New Vegas camp. Fallout 4 was not exactly the game that either of those factions wanted and as a result it tends to be a fairly divisive title. For me… the aspect that I love about it is Base Building, which is the nail in the coffin for other games. I love feeling like I get to have an effect on the world by linking together disparate groups of refuges into a larger community. When I play this game I more or less ignore the story-line that is forced upon you, and the constantly limiting choice paths… and instead play a game where I am rebuilding the wasteland. I am pretty great at making up my own story when I find the current options distasteful.

Where Bel Was Mentally in 2015

2015 was the year that I went to my first video game convention in the form of Pax South in San Antonio. I got to hang out with my friends Ashgar and Rae and explore all of the nonsense that makes up a Pax while also doing various press meetings. I managed to abuse those connections to sneak them into a gameplay session for Gigantic which was probably the game of the show that year. If you start on the right side, the faces that are pointed towards the camera at the screens are me, Ashgar, Rae and then hovering above Rae and explaining the abilities is Lonrem. It was a pretty good year, that started with a bang. I greatly miss going to Pax South each year, but the timing just hasn’t worked out since 2018.

Lowered Pitchfork

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BlizzCon was this weekend, and I admit that I stayed home on Friday to watch what was about to happen. I was not sure if it would be a weekend full of protests, or a weekend where Blizzard finally quelled the rising storm. The truth is… it seemingly was a little of column A and a little of column B. They opened the show with a statement by Blizzard President J. Allen Brack or JAB as people have taken to calling him. During the comment he said a lot of words that sounded pretty close to apologizing without actually ever apologizing. It was effectively the corporate version of reflexively saying you are sorry when you don’t quite know what you just did.

A real apology includes three components. First admitting that you realize what you did and being able to explain it. Second giving a heartfelt apology that relays an understanding of the harm that was caused. Third an explanation of how you are going to make the changes necessary to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The statement did none of the above, however it is likely the closest we are ever going to get on this situation. I give them credit for making an attempt however and for now I am going to lower my pitchfork, because quite frankly I am tired of having to be upset at Blizzard. I stand by my statement that in the Video Game and Entertainment industry, no one has clean hands and the only way to do so is to simply stop doing business with China in any form.

We are addicted to Chinese products, be it the cheap phone charger that you picked up to have a spare, the clothing that we wear, or literally every inch of your mobile phone. Blizzard is attempting to walk the line between our Western sensibilities and the Great Firewall that will lock them out completely from competing in the single largest market on the planet. There is a long list that Mashable compiled of companies that have bowed to the whims of China, and Blizzard is right up there with all of them. What I did see that I found interesting however were a bunch of subtle moments during the stream. There were times that the cameras focused in on “Free Hong Kong” t-shirts or the extremely long time that one focused on a shirt that read “Fire Bobby Kotick”. What I saw was a company trying to walk a very delicate path and coming off super awkward and frustrating in the process.

So I left a big thread about my feelings in regards to BlizzCon 2019. Something felt off the entire weekend and I think I realized what it was on Sunday. Because of the events leading up to the show I found myself in a state where I wasn’t quite willing to surrender myself to what I have called the “BlizzCon” spirit. In past years I let the hype flow over me and allowed myself to fall into the loving embrace of the big blue community. This year… I saw the imperfections and the seams. I saw the people straining under the yoke of not quite knowing how any comment was going to be received. I mean there was good reason for this because of the “Don’t You Have Phones” comment from last year and the controversy surrounding Blizzard this year. It was a show filled with anxiety and folks who looked tangibly like their jobs were on the line. However I could wallow in this awkwardness all morning long but lets get into some of the things that were announced.

Diablo IV

The big one for me of course is Diablo IV, aka the announcement I had been waiting years for. Now that I have it… I am not entirely certain what I think of it. It feels like they are leaning heavily into what is traditionally the Path of Exile space in an attempt to win back some of those former fans. It is going to be a juggling act to try and entice the “Diablo II” stalwarts while not losing any of the newer “Diablo III” fans. When we were still doing the Game Club, we picked Diablo II at one point and none of us actually managed to make it through the campaign. It was a sloppy mess from a bygone era and in part thanks to that I have realized just how amazing Diablo III was and still is.

If they can however somehow thread that needle of adding the complexity and depth that was Diablo II without giving up the fast paced gameplay of Diablo III it will be a phenomenal game. I’ve been in a position of “I will wait for it to release” for awhile thanks to a lot of half baked alpha programs… but I really would love to be in this testing program. I would love to help shape this game on the forums with comments and feedback, because I have a feeling if they manage to pull it off this is going to be my main Blizzard game going forward. I would love to transplant our Friday night seasonal starts over to a fresh new game. I have hope but I also have concerns… because again you have to split down the middle of two vastly different demographics. The leaning heavily on the darkness aspect makes me deeply concerned that they are going to make too big of a play for the Path of Exile crowd and leave me out in the cold.

Diablo Immortal

Not surprisingly they shadow dropped this Friday night. To the best of my recollection there was no mention of Diablo Immortal at any point during the Diablo streams. I get why given the extremely negative reaction last year, but I do still think this is going to be an interesting game. I will likely either play it from a Mobile Emulator on my gaming PC or from my Samsung S4 tablet. This feels like the true successor to the Diablo III lineage and I still hope that maybe just maybe it gets some sort of a PC release. This would also potentially be an excellent new Switch game.

World of Warcraft Shadowlands

Several months ago there was a leak floating around the internet that seemed a little far fetched at the time… but turned out to be exactly what the set up for the new expansion has been. Sylvannas was in fact trying to lead both the Horde and Alliance down a path to destruction, in order to create more souls to be trapped and used for some army in the Shadowlands by her master. We don’t quite know who that master is at the moment, but you as the player are going to venture forth into the lands of the dead as some sort of a planeswalker that can freely move between worlds. There you will join with one of four covenents that will shape your experience based on which you choose.

I like that they are leaning into class fantasy again, like they did in Legion. I also like that they are setting up to maybe bring a story that doesn’t rely entirely on the big dumb red versus blue storyline. Unfortunately it doesn’t go far enough for me. I want them to abolish the Horde and the Alliance and create a new tapestry of personal faction choices that ultimately dictate where you can go in the world. I want the faction wall to fall. No better time to make it happen than in an expansion where we are quite literally leaving Azeroth and going to the lands of the dead. The world is fractured enough as it is without adding a painfully artificial choice into the mix.

Overwatch 2

I like the world, setting and characters of Overwatch, but I gotta admit that the game itself is not really my Jam. I never really wanted a Team Fortress 3, but that is seemingly what we got. I would have loved to have seen what they could have done with this setting as an MMORPG, and while I realize there are good reasons Project Titan never got off the ground… I can still pine for what might have been. Overwatch 2 is bringing in the PVE game to the original Overwatch PVP focused game and I am going to largely take a wait and see approach on this. It isn’t a Destiny style game and instead seems to be something more akin to what Marvel Avengers appears to be shaping up to be. If they can give me an experience that feels similar to a Destiny Strike, I might be interested.

Hearthstone

Hearthstone announced another set. If this game is your jam then I assume you are excited, but it is probably hard to garner much excitement given the rapid release cadence of this game. I admit this was my signal to go use the bathroom during the opening ceremony. It isn’t so much that I dislike Hearthstone, it is more of a case that it was a methadone to my Magic the Gathering addiction. I played it for awhile because it gave me the best digital card game fix I had available to me. Then Magic the Gathering Arena released and I have never logged into Hearthstone after that point. If I could somehow gift my cards to someone I probably would. I hate to see them going to waste on an account that doesn’t care about them anymore.

All in all there was a lot of good stuff, but like I said before. Something felt off about all of it. I am going to just assume it was thanks to my mental state going into the event and not because they didn’t actually show off a bunch of interesting things. Like the topic states… for now I am lowering my pitchfork and moving on with my life. Being angry about something exhausts me when all I really want to do is try and find some way of bringing enjoyment into my often frustrating and maddening real life. I play games as an escape to the rigors of reality and when that relief valve is jammed shut… I find myself way less reasonable. Warcraft is back on the menu it seems, but even then I found it super hard to get back into Classic or Retail and will probably still mostly be playing Destiny 2.