What I played on my Christmas break (Patreon)

Hello everybody. Happy New Year - here’s to a brilliant 2018!

So, I took two weeks off work at the end of last year to recharge my batteries. But I made the most of it by working through my backlog, and finishing up a bunch of games I’ve been meaning to finish or play. 

In this quick post I want to offer some muddled thoughts about what I played, and how they’ll be used in future episodes of the show.

Dark Souls (2011)

I’ve played every Souls game, besides Demon’s Souls, to some level of completion, but the one I’ve always been meaning to finish was the first Dark Souls, because of its completely interconnected, Metroidvania-style world design. 

And, yeah, it is very cool! The other Souls games and Bloodborne play with interconnectivity, shortcuts, backtracking, and all that jazz, but there’s something special about the way Lordran snaps together, with disparate areas all hooking up.

And it leads to all sorts of interesting experiences, like needing something from the blacksmith over in Undead Parish and figuring out the best route to get there. Or feeling lost and isolated down in Brighttown, only to feel relieved when you discover a hidden route back to Darkroot Basin. 

I do agree with the general criticism that Dark Souls sags in its second half - and I think I might blame both the introduction of fast travel, and the fact that you can do the four Lord Soul bosses out of order which screws with the game’s finely tuned difficulty curve. 

But I’ve got much more to say about all this stuff, as I will be doing a video about Dark Souls’ interconnected world. I’m thinking of doing it as a Boss Keys special after I wrap up Zelda, so look out for that. 

World design aside, I definitely enjoyed the combat and bosses of Dark Souls (though I used a few summons to get past the more tricky foes. Git gud Mark, etc). I also loved how every area felt so different, both visually and gameplay wise (like traps in Sen’s Fortress, a labyrinth in The Depths, darkness in Tomb of the Giants, etc).

Overall: Dark Souls is a good video game. Who saw that coming?

Pyre (2017)

I played a little bit of Pyre when it came out, but I soon learned that I didn’t play enough to see the most interesting stuff in the game’s design. 

So this is an RPG, but instead of turn-based battles you’ve got this bonkers real-time basketball game with all sorts of special moves and funky techniques. It’s a lot of fun, if a bit manic. 

One of the things that’s most interesting about the game - and will be a big part of my first video of 2018 - is how the game’s story and goal is all about giving up your best characters. 

The point of the game is to level up your heroes - giving them better stats and special abilities - and then let them leave the endless basketball hell of the Downside (I think that’s what it’s called) and let them return to the good place. Not the one with Kristen Bell. 

This has an interesting effect of really forcing you to use every member of your party, because - from my experience - towards the end of the game you’ll be doing the hardest stuff with your weakest and least liked characters, which ensures the game always offers a tricky challenge where similar games (like XCOM and Fire Emblem) can see you stomping through late game challenges with your overpowered heroes.

So, yeah, pretty good game. Supergiant really loves their world building, and packed Pyre with worlds, places, clans, culture, and all sorts of other stuff I didn’t care about. But the writing’s good, and the way the game constantly warps around your choices and actions is good. 

Definitely one for design fans to check out. 

Yakuza 2 (2008) and Yakuza 3 (2010)

I just love the Yakuza games. They are ever-so entertaining soap opera crime dramas, with a sprinkling of goofball comedy, and topped off with a genuinely great combat system that will have you wincing every time Kazuma pummels a dude’s head into a concrete pole. 

They are also virtual tourism at its finest. These are lavish reconstructions of Tokyo (and Osaka and Okinawa), with shops and arcades and side alleys and brand-name vending machines that all come together to paint a vivid image of these cities. 

A funny thing is: Yakuza is kinda infamous these days for being these wacky comedy games but that wasn’t always the case. Sure, Yakuza 1 and 2 had humour (including a memorable sidequest where you wreck havoc in a freaky sex club where yakuza heavies dress up as babies) but they were mostly straight-faced crime sagas.

Yakuza 3 seems to be the turning point, with the silliness seeping into the main missions (chasing dogs, doing faux wrestling matches, breaking down doors in love hotels, etc), and ramping up the goofiness of the combat system (with more outlandish weapons like fish and giant cones, and silly finishing moves including some you can only pull off if Kazuma is drunk). 

I’m really looking forward to seeing where it goes from here - and if I can catch up with games 4, 5, and 0 before Yakuza 6 is out in March. Then we’ll see about videos. 

Gorogoa (2017)

This is a really intriguing puzzle game. And almost impossible to describe in words, but let’s give it a go. 

The game’s got these four comic book panels, with different events happening in each square. And you can take bits from one panel - like a doorway, a window, a ladder, a picture frame - and apply them to another to change the world and solve puzzles.

That sounds too simple. Because the game quickly starts playing with space and dimensions to create impossible brain-bending shifts in perspective that you really have to see for yourself. Just know that it will make you say “wow” and “woowee” and “what the heeeeell”.

The game’s got a mix of puzzles you really think through and solve with a level of intentionality (a video topic I will hit soon), and some other puzzles where you just noodle around, poke at stuff, fiddle about, and see what happens. It’s a nice mix. 

Gorogoa‘s hilariously short at around 90 minutes. But, hey, I thought it was worth the experience. Especially on iPad where it’s only a fiver - less than half the cost of the exact same game on Switch and Steam. 

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004)

I bounced off this game immediately, when I first started playing. 

While I was drawn in by the opening cutscenes and codec calls - which promised a fun Bond-esque spy thriller, and a more straightforward MGS story - the controls just seemed impossible to get to grips with. 

And - I mean, they are pretty bad. Just firing a gun has you holding down all sorts of different buttons. Snake can’t crouch walk. Changing camouflage means a trip into the menu. And so on. This was before every shooter settled into a more universal control scheme. 

And I sadly never did fully grasp these controls, which meant I didn’t feel all that confident in my ability to pull off the more outlandish, systemic, AI-driven hi-jinx of dropping Playboy magazines and whatnot. Just using the tranq gun and CQC was tricky enough.

Luckily, I enjoyed the story. It’s an entertaining romp with all the twists and turns and double crossing you’d expect from such a story, and features all sorts of goofy characters. But it also has a real backbone with interesting thoughts on patriotism and war and betrayal. It’s still got the depth of an MGS story, without the bonkers spaghetti plot. 

Oh, and I gotta give a shoutout to the boss battle with The End - which, for those who haven’t played it - is a tense stealth showdown against a camouflaged sniper that spirals out across a sizeable battlefield. Following footprints, using thermal goggles, and so on - makes for a stressful battle. 

And of course there’s all the secrets. Turn your console off and come back in a week and The End will have died of old age. Spin Snake around in the menu to make him sick. Tranq dart a cobra and then throw it at a guard to poison him. All the usual Kojimaisms. 

Overall, a good game. But - sorry boys and girls - I wouldn’t turn my nose up at a remake with MGS V’s stellar gameplay.

Thimbleweed Park (2017)

Thimbleweed Park is one of these games, like Yooka Laylee and Bloodstained, where some seasoned devs used Kickstarter to get the opportunity to make a new game in their old style. This time, it’s the turn of Maniac Mansion creator Ron Gilbert. 

So this is a point and click adventure, with bobbleheaded characters in an off-kilter world. And unlike most PnCs, you get to control multiple heroes at once, flicking between, say, a potty mouth clown, a ghost, and an FBI agent with a touch of a button. 

This does make for some interesting puzzles, where you’ll use one character to cause a distraction so the other can steal, break, or mess with something. But juggling multiple inventories full of items is way less fun. Just wait till you get to a tree and then realise that a completely different person is holding the chainsaw. Argh!

I really liked the flashbacks though. You’ll be talking about some Thimbleweed citizen during a dialogue tree, only to see the screen warp as you’re transported back in time and into the shoes of that citizen. Now you’ll play as them for a while, with fresh areas, puzzles, and items. 

Overall, the puzzles are genuinely well telegraphed, giving you a handy push while never giving away the solution. Ron Gilbert has always been thoughtful about puzzle design, and he’s done - largely - a good job here. The main times I struggled was when I just missed picking up an item. It’s not quite pixel hunting, but it’s close at times. 

The world and story is pretty good with some funny moments, but also some clunky jokes and annoying characters. And the ending is - experimental. I guess I liked it? Who knows. 

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Well. That was more rambling and pointless than I expected but here we are. I also played some other games that I haven’t finished yet, including the outstanding Mark of the Ninja and the overly generous Picross 3D Round 2. And I’ve got a big list of stuff to play throughout 2018. 

Cheers!

Mark