Been playing Journey, a game loved by players and critics alike. The short version is this: I rather enjoyed the experience. Can’t say I really love it, but it’s a beautiful flowing little gem, unique and somewhat memorable, and it’s short enough to finish in one sitting which is a good thing. 

It’s got a compelling visual art style, a simple but refined game mechanics, and not really any story except what it might inspire you to imagine with its evocative world. It’s a game but it’s downplaying the usual elements of reward and punishment and challenge, though it does have some of that, including some minor puzzels and some platforming, and even a few enemies of sorts. 

Mostly it’s a journey through a series of landscapes, varied enough — especially visually — to keep the game interesting despite the lack of a tangible story and the simple game mechanics. 

The perhaps most compelling aspect of all is the unusual multiplayer, where you sort of just run into players that are neither enemies nor collaboratiors in any real practical sense, nor can you communicate save for your movements or through generating musical tones. It’s seemingly included solely to give a sense of shared journey and to provide perfectly attuned feels. It’s an interesting concept and it works really well, and at the end of the game you’ll see a list of the players you met during the game. 

What about negatives? Nothing really stands out. It would be easy for me to name games I like more and that can hold my attention far longer, but it would be hard for a developer to make a game that’s “like Journey but better”, simply because it’s doing its thing really well.

In writing this post I started wondering a bit about the world you’re traveling through, which seems to be a lost civilization, and also about who you are exactly and why you travel and whether your ancestors belonged to that fallen world. But I can’t say it occurred to me to ask any of this while playing. It’s just not the kind of game that makes you ask questions or spurs you to think. It’s more about providing an immersive almost meditative feeling, and that’s fine. 

It’s not quite the masterpiece as some would have it, but it’s a terrific and highly polished little game none the less, just about short enough to finish in one not too long sitting and end on a high note. 

Another post on No Man’s Sky, possibly the last. 

Just some suggestions on how to improve the game. Not nitpicks or bug fixes or time-consuming complete overhauls, but impactful meaningful medium-sized updates with a good benefit-cost ratio.

First off, companions. The loneliness of the world really gets to you after a while, and it would help a lot to have an NPC as a trusted always-by-your-side companion. The optimum would be a human companion with some degree of personality and some lines of dialog and to whom you could give instructions (like having the him/her do some mining while you explore), but befriending and keeping animals as pets would be enough for starters. 

On a similar theme, making the planet buildings and space stations seem less dead, boring and lonely. That single alien just sitting there in that sterile lifeless environment is a depressing sight indeed. Compare that with taking a walk in the Citadel in Mass Effect, or visiting a settlement (even a small one) in Fallout, to get an idea of what I mean. Not that I’m suggesting they should aim for anything nearly that ambitious, just do something, anything, to breath a feeling a life into the world. 

And then there’s the spaceship, a really vital part of the experience. Think of Firefly. Make it a little easier to find a basic model you like, and then make it (more) customizable both in terms of looks and functionality. And make it possible to name. 

Create more lore and make it have some real substance rather than all that cryptic stuff that amounts to little more than trying to say “this is deep shit man” to the player. It was pretty interesting to follow the Atlas path while it lasted because the game managed to create some real expectations, but in the end those were not really met at all and instead, again, we got something that amounted to nearly nothing. 

And for the love of god, make it more meaningful and rewarding to reach the center(s). (Actually the whole model of having a bunch of different galaxies you unidirectionally travel through is flawed imo, but that’s a story for another day.)

Having played this game for tens of hours I’ve now grown pretty tired of it, at least for now, especially after learning what happens when you reach the center. Had a hunch it wouldn’t be great.

There are phases to playing this game. At first it’s really fun, exploring and solving the problems required to leave the planet you start on, and likewise exploring the first star system, visiting those first few new planets and doing the next few jumps to different star systems.    

Then at a certain point comes a feeling of tedium and chaos. Find and gather resources, making sense of resources and the various possible recipes and upgrades, struggle with the limited inventory, ending up on too many dead stony planets, seeing the same buildings and nearly same space stations, many nearly interchangable interactions with aliens, and so on.

But interspersed with all that are some beautiful vistas and sense of exploration and discovery, sense of wonder even. Planets can occasionally look and behave quite different from one another, and star systems as well. Just drifting in space looking around can be a harmonic and meditative experience, especially with that great soundtrack. At one point, really tired and unable to take any decisive action, it became almost hypnotic and dreamlike. I totally get why some people might play this game while high. 

Eventually you get a bigger inventory while also learning a lot about the various resources, what you need and how to get it, as well as getting useful recipes for upgrading your gear and ship (e.g. mining faster, warping longer), and with that increased efficiency and control the tedium and sense of chaos diminishes somewhat, less grind and uncertainty, more enjoyment.  

For a little while. 

But after finishing the Atlas path (alongside some random exploration) and getting a good idea of what you can expect from the game — e.g. what kind of variation you can expect from planet to planet and star system to star system — a new kind of tedium sets in. This one is related not so much to any particular phase of the game but to the game itself, no matter how you play it (it seems). Everything repeats itself as you fly alone and aimlessly through the universe. 

I still got those tens of hours out of the game and I’ve not done yet, so I can’t say it was wasted money, and in fact I suspect I will keep playing this game now and then for some time, in small doses, especially if they release an interesting update. But I have to admit I’m still disappointed. The moment to moment enjoyment is no where near that of playing a solidly good game, let alone a great one. And yet… at its best, a few short moments early on, it creates a magnificent sense of wonder and feels unlike any other game I’ve played. Clearly they’re on to something with this concept, and I’m looking forward to what the future might bring in terms of updates, sequels and other games in this genre, whatever it will be.

This game was barely on my radar until a few days before release, so you could say it caught me off guard. I’ve since played for a good while, but my final judgement will have to wait. Let’s just say there’s both good and bad, and that it’s an interesting experiment.

I’ll assume basic familiarity of the game. 

I started out on a boring planet that wasn’t exactly a feast for the eyes, but I didn’t mind. Everything seemed mysterious, didn’t know what to do or how to do it or how to interpret anything I saw. That’s a pretty great starting point if you ask me, being dropped off in the middle of nowhere (actually, at the edge of the universe) and told to survive, and even thrive. There was a ship and it seemed broken, smoke coming from it, clearly my ticket out of there, if I could only repair it…

The game doesn’t provide all that much by way of elucidation, it’s something you have to figure out and pick up gradually, learning the world and its laws, the instruments and the resources needed and where to find them. It basically starts out as a survival game. Took several hours to leave the planet, partly because of one needed resource that was damn hard to find (or so I though, not knowing where to look.) 

That whole part of the game, just getting the ship to work and leaving the planet, was like its own little game unlike the rest. 

It was exciting, I even enjoyed the ugliness of the planet knowing it’ll make the escape so much sweeter. And indeed, finally being able to take off and venture into space was an amazing moment.  

Leaving that initial planet is basically just the prolog. Stay tuned for more on this game. 

So I’ve been playing Fallout 4 lately. I actually got it at launch in November, and I did play it for a while back then, but life happened and I didn’t continue until recently. Now I’ve finished the main quest and many of the side quests. A few spoilers ahead, probably.

I finished as Brotherhood of Steel, terminating the Institute and the Railroad. Would have preferred to save the Railroad but that’s not how the Brotherhood rolls, so what can you do (but I hear it’s possible to save both the Brotherhood and the Railroad if you side with the Minutemen and play your cards right.)

I wanted to like the Institute. There’s where my son is and it’s pro science and I do like the whole secretive illuminati vide, and they also did a good job of creating expectations starting long before actually entering the Institute, but unfortunately the game doesn’t really do a good job of describing what they’re about, explaining and justifying their actions, their ideology and strategy and plan for their own and everyone else’s future and so on. I had basic and obvious questions I couldn’t ask and objections I couldn’t make. What is it you stand for, again? There was a quest specifically to learn about them, except that you only really got to know a few details about their science projects, which is not what I had in mind. Compare this to New Vegas where each of the factions where explained and showed expertly, both abstractly and on a gut-level.

(As an aside, and perhaps a topic for another post, they also failed to make me really care for my adult son, there should have been a deeper connection of some sort (or maybe a noticeable and painful lack of connection– just something rather than business as usual) so when I at a seminal moment finally put an end to the Institute it wasn’t the heart-rending experience that it ought to have been.)

They made a big deal out of their synths but explanations were lacking in that department as well. One doctor were talking to a synth about its feelings, so they clearly recognize that they have sentience and feelings, so why aren’t they allowed the status of personhood? I’m not saying they should or shouldn’t; I’m saying the Institute should have addressed the question more. If the synths don’t have free will, why do they keep escaping, contrary to their programming? Perfect opportunity to infuse some philosophy of sentience, personhood and free will and so on into the game, a very relevant topic these days with AI on the rise, but no, they settled for surface-level assertions, if at all.

I just wanted to know more. To be fair I got a better feel for the other factions though, especially the Brotherhood, but still not at the level of New Vegas. Not sure if the Railroad should have been considered a major faction at all, it’s a minor group with a specific narrow goal, not a faction like the others. Heck, it’s basically smaller than several of the non-main factions in New Vegas, such as the Brotherhood or the Boomers. The player can view them as a minor faction in his own mind, but they’re clearly written into the story as a major faction, which if chosen precludes the others.

I feel the Brotherhood was the faction they )id the best (even making them somewhat more true to their roots than they did in Fallout 3) but I’m guessing that’s because they didn’t actually create that faction themselves, they inherited it and so they needn’t be concerned with creation, only portrayal and adjustment into current circumstances.

The choice for me was between the BoS and the Minutemen, glad neither had to be eliminated.

You wouldn’t guess it from this post, but it is in many ways still an enjoyable and even great game, but that’s another topic for another day.

After years of wanting to and after finally getting a gaming PC, I started up my first game of Europa Universalis 4 recently. And what an awesome game it is.

In my first try I played as Castile, apparently one of the easier countries to play. Easier but still rather overwhelming for a complete beginner, and I guess it didn’t help that I didn’t feel like using any kind of tutorial — I just threw myself into the thick of it, pedal to the metal style. All that data, all those resources and possible actions, all those ways to display the map, all that diplomacy and those other countries and their relations to you and each other, and so on. It’s a lot even in a single frozen moment of the game, but even more as time is flowing and events unfold simultaneously around the map, most of which you aren’t even aware of because it’s way too much to keep track of. But it’s there and it’s happening and you may or may not notice the developments later (as, say, a nation that earlier was a minor power turns out to now be a serious threat and at your doorstep — someone’s been growing while you didn’t look), unlike games like Skyrim where there actually are no events going on in the background though it’s trying to give you an illusion of otherwise. 

So I was exploring the game trying to make sense of it all. After some time I performed the reconquista and later my ally Portugal got into a war with the much weaker Morocco, so I got to play around a bit more with war against a relatively safe and easy enemy. 

I kept getting reports about the risk of getting into a civil war but I didn’t care too much as I didn’t really know what it would mean or how I could prevent it, I suppose I was thinking I should take it as it comes and deal with it if or when it actually happens. Well, it did happen and it was lot tougher than I thought it would be. The enemy army was far bigger than mine even after training several new armies using multiple loans. I kept reloading to try out new things but kept losing. 

Eventually I stopped playing the game for a few weeks, but as I got back into it with a few new ideas to try I could no longer (without risk) open the save game because I had updated to a later version of EU4. Whoops. Probably a solvable problem, but I wasn’t too invested in that particular game anyway so I opted to start a new game as instead, this time as Portugal.

That didn’t go too well at first, I was allied with England who got into (or was already into) a war with France and Austria, who both sent big armies to my homeland and kept attacking until I couldn’t resist any longer, and then France gave me a peace offer it would have been most unwise to refuse. That whole ordeal really set me back, I probably should have surrendered early (if that was possible), instead I kept taking loans to build new armies (did someone say deja vu) that was just getting slaughtered anyway. And that damn England didn’t send a single unit to my aid. I’m willing to forgive England and even Austria (the lesser aggressor), but I will exact revenge on France later on, just he wait.

Eventually I got back on my feet and became powerful in areas such as colonization and trade (much like Portugal in real life at the time, and in fact the game provides certain bonuses if you play in accordance with history, which is an interesting design idea), but that’s a story for another day.

So I got Europa Universalis IV recently, at last, and shortly thereafter I got Crusader Kings II. And then I discovered that it wasn’t an accident they were so cheap; it was the end-of-year sale at Steam, with sales all around. So why stop there, I got three other grand strategy games from Paradox Interactive: Victorica 2 (complete), Darkest Hour (an critically acclaimed huge mod based on Hearts of Iron 2) and Hearts of Iron 3 (complete?) Also got a nearly complete dlc bundle for CK2, but so far I haven’t started gettings dlcs for EU4 with a couple of small exceptions.

I’ve started playing EU4 and I love it. Getting back to that. 

This is shaping up to become a year a gaming for me. I recently got a Playstation 4 in order to play Fallout 4, but I also got my first gaming PC in a long time, and in particular in order to play PC-exclusive strategy games such as Europa Universalis 4 and Crusader Kings 2. In fact, I’ve already bought and downloaded those two! But I also finally able to play those kickstarter games I’ve backed in the past. 

But it’s not just about the situation in my life, there are interesting things in the world of gaming going on too. 2016 is the year when serious virtual reality devices enter the market. It may or may not be a huge success right from the start (I think they’ll sell reasonably well), but it certainly will over time. It’s a game changer, the biggest in a long time. 

It’s insane how long video gaming has come in the last few decades, both in terms of technology and cultural penetration, and we’re still just getting started. Gaming and reality is blending and will continue to do so, and virtual reality is an important part of that process.

It’ll be a great year! 

Replayed this game recently and enjoyed it this time as well, and indeed more than Dishonored, as I thought I would. Especially the setting is more compelling to me, as I really like cyberpunk and futurism and the themes and questions and aestheics that naturally emerge from those. The sneaking is also better, esp the fluid system to cover behind things and move seamlessly between covers or around corners. I like Dishonored too, but while I’m sure I’ll play the upcoming sequel to Deus Ex I’ll see about playing the upcoming Dishonored 2.

Unlike last time I went all in on sneaking, and man that really improved the game. It’s a lot more fun sneaking and getting the related augmentations, and not killing anyone. It’s also more challenging. Nothing is easier than killing the guards one by one from a distance and with a character (partly) optimized for that. Sneaking past them is harder, and if you make them unconcious (rather than killing them) they will be awoken again if found by other guards, so you often can’t just pick them off from a distance or leave them laying around. I went for a “no kill” run and was disappointed when I didn’t get the “pacifist” trophy. Must have killed someone by accident without noticing.

Got to say though that I still enjoy open world games such as the Fallouts and Elder Scrolls a lot more than Deus Ex: HR. The sense of freedom, discovery, non-linearity and massive amount of interesting content and options on all levels in those games are just spectacular, as well as the rich and deep game worlds, whether the main story holds up or not.

By comparison Deus Ex feels more like a classical game while they feel like stepping into a different world. But Deus Ex shouldn’t feel bad about that; it’s better than most games and its tight and tactical sneaking is something you can’t get in New Vegas, however much I love that game. I want to play a variety of games and that includes games that are great but aren’t my absolue favorites, as long as they offer something those favorites don’t.

So yeah. Great game: nice aestehtics, interesting and thought-provoking themes, exciting and fun sneaking, fun augmentations to play around with. Looking forward to the sequel coming early next year.

(Quick note: currently playing and midway through the first Mass Effect, and I really enjoy it! Otoh I stopped playing Icewind Dale, though not by conscious choice and I might continue.)

I’ve started playing Icewind Dale (enhanced version) some time ago and I can’t wait to start writing about that one, but first a post on Red Faction: Guerrilla.

I’ve had this game on my backlog for literally years. Finally got around to play and finish it and it turned out to be pretty enjoyable and entertaining but not very meaningful.

The best part is the destruction. Everything is destructable and it’s apparently calculated in real time. Things go broke in different ways and to different degrees depending on how you destroy it. Destroying buildings is great fun and there are many ways to do it, various weapons to use or you could simply drive a vehicle through it. Aside from being cool and satisfying I’d also say that the destruction added to the immersion, the sense that it’s a real world with real buildings, not just indestructable facades like most games, or even buildings that are destroyable but in a limited scripted way, though it’s practically the only immersive aspect of the game, or maybe the real-time missions would qualify too, optional missions that start without warning or choice, as if it’s really happening in the world.

The world Itself is kind of boring, ugly and not very interesting or evocative, and the characters are forgettable and the story is mediocre at best even though I do appreciate that it has a simple unifying theme (free mars from earth control), which means you don’t really need to keep track of every detail in the story itself, the missions are mostly still going to make sense just by knowing the theme. The story does serve the purpose of giving some kind of sense of progression among all that destruction, although that mostly probably comes from the “RPG” aspects of the game, getting better gear, plus you get access to new areas as time goes on and you finish various missions.

Not much to say about the FPS aspects or the weapons, not an expert but to me nothing really stands out except maybe the gun that melts molecular structures which is kind of cool.

The game does have a jet-pack which is fun and not that common.

If I were to compare this game to any others I’d say… Just Cause 2 for the destruction (which is better in RF though I enjoyed JC2 overall more) and hmm maybe Borderlands for the world, a open and somewhat empty settler-ish world with off-road driving that’s kind of similar.

All in all I enjoyed playing this game, some moments a great deal even, but it still far from a game that truly hits home. It’s not evocative or thoughtful or beautiful or atmospheric or compelling, and doesn’t inspire or immerse; in short it doesn’t do any of things that I really enjoy in a game. At the end of the day Red Faction is just a mediocre FPS that happens to have really cool destruction (and a jet-pack) though that alone makes it worth trying out.