Playlist (February 2019) (Patreon)

Hello you lovely lot. This is Playlist, a super special Patreon exclusive show where I talk about the games I’ve been playing in the past 30-odd days. I’ve got a script this time, so it should be way less rambly than last month’s video! 

Anyway. Let’s just jump right in.

Crackdown 3

Okay, so Crackdown 3. 

Now the original Crackdown was an absolute gem. It was a silly, over-the-top game about rampaging through a city with super powers, and taking out crime lords in any manner you saw fit.

What I really liked about the game was the structure. It got away from the GTA approach of set missions with cinematic cutscenes and the like. Instead: the game’s bosses were all roaming about the map and you just had to figure out how to kill ‘em.

Anyway. Crackdown 3 is very similar. Like, almost too similar. Like it could be an HD remaster of the original game. You’re still collecting orbs, building up your skills, and running rampant around a sorta cell-shaded city.

They kinda messed up the structure a bit, though. The bosses are now in hiding, and you have to do a certain number of side activities to make them appear for a show down. Unfortunately, those side missions can be super boring and very, very repetitive. There’s only so many times you can throw a rock into a hole before you start to question your life choices.

But in general, the game feels like it hasn’t moved on since 2007. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing - it’s good to take pause sometimes and reconsider the virtues of older ideas and conventions. But we’ve had bonkers power fantasy games since then, like Prototype and Saints Row and DOOM and Just Cause. And now Crackdown feels sluggish and simplistic by comparison. And the world feels bland and dead. And the explosions aren’t big enough anymore.

Now, there’s obviously some weird history with this game. When Microsoft first showed it off it was supposed to use the power of the cloud to have skyscrapers falling down when you blew up their supports. Then it was said that this would only be in the multiplayer modes. And in the final game, it’s nothing like what was first shown.

So this game definitely had some development problems. And, maybe scared of cancelling yet another troubled game - Microsoft let this one go out the door. And it was met, understandably, with pretty lacklustre reviews. Boo. 

Far Cry: New Dawn

Speaking of lacklustre, it’s the new Far Cry game, Far Cry New Dawn. I described this on the GMTK Discord as being like a game made by an AI. Ubisoft told an algorithm to make a post apocalyptic Far Cry game and this is what it made: the most predictable and obvious game imaginable.

So it’s another game about liberating camps in an open world, doing story missions, and eventually taking on a charismatic villain. Except there’s two of them now! This one also has crafting, because of course it does. And a home base for you to upgrade, because of course it does.

The absolute weirdest thing, though, is the numbers. Shoot dudes and now numbers fly out of their head. Far Cry has become an RPG, now, I guess. Guns have damage-per-second counts and enemies have levels. And while it didn’t affect me much in the short amount of time I played, it did remind me of another Ubi game…

That being Assassin’s Creed Origins. Which also added this stuff, and had outcomes like enemies who were two high-a-level to be stealth killed. And the ultimate outcome was that I had to grind through boring side missions for hours and hours just to be competitive with the over-powered enemies at the end of that game.

If that’s what Far Cry New Dawn is going to do, I think I’ll leave it there. This series needs a huge rethink, I think.

Apex Legends

Okay, here’s something more interesting - Apex Legends! This month, Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment did a surprise drop of their new game: and it’s a free-to-play battle royale game, set in the Titanfall universe, and using the series’ stellar controls and feel.

No titans, sadly. Or wall running. But one of the heroes has a grappling hook! So there’s that.

Ultimately, the game is a lot like Player Unknown’s: Fortnite Blackout. You and a bunch of other people drop onto an island, scavenge for guns, avoid an ever-shrinking circle, and then murder each other until one man’s left standing. 

But it has some fresh ideas. It’s got Overwatch-style heroes with unique abilities. You can respawn dead friends at a beacon. And in a bold move for the genre, it doesn’t look like crap, or play like crap! So it’s got that going for it.

But I have the same problems with this game that I do all BR games. There’s a great deal of nothing happening, tensions start to rise - and then I die. And it’s time to start again. And so if you’re not good at the game, you can play for hours without really doing anything.

And conventional wisdom would suggest that this would kill a genre. If all the newcomers are getting killed by the veterans, and then have to wait 20 minutes until they get killed again - you’d think the genre would struggle to find new players. But Fortnite’s still going strong and Apex just got 25 million players. So what do I know?

Tetris 99

Forget Apex Legends, though. The latest brand to get in on the battle royale craze is… Tetris, in Tetris 99! So the game has you playing Tetris alongside 99 other players, and you’ll be sending garbage blocks to each other’s screens as you clear lines.

It’s funny: the existence of all these other players doesn’t really have all that much impact on how you play the game. You’re still just playing Tetris and mostly focusing on your own screen. But having everyone else playing at the same time adds an intense amount of tension to proceedings.

Because here’s the thing - there’s so much more potential to battle royale than just shooting each other. We need to simplify the genre to simply “a huge number of people are playing at the same time, and going for the same goal”. There’s so much more to make if you’re not just trying to ape Fortnite, eh?

Wargroove

Okay, so speaking of copying stuff - Wargroove is unabashedly, unashamedly Advance Wars. And normally I’m a bit put off by such brazen copycats, but Nintendo hasn’t made a new AW game for over a decade so I’ll let this one slide.

If you’ve never played Advance Wars, then Wargroove is a turn-based tactics game where tiny armies face off on grid-based maps. As much as it’s about wiping out the enemy forces, it’s about taking over villages and buildings to save up money to buy more units so you can overwhelm your foes.

There’s a puzzle-like aspect to proceedings - like how every character has a critical attack that is only used when you have some sort of set-up like having identical units in adjacent tiles.

The game’s absolutely jam-packed with content, including multiplayer modes and make-your-own campaign stuff. And it’s even got a generous difficulty slider to play with.

Just take my advice and shut off the battle animations as soon as you can. This game can feel glacially slow at times, so while these pop-up fights are cute as heck, they’ve got to go to make the long matches bearable.

Hitman 2: Another Life

I’m keeping up with my goal to play one Hitman 2 level each month. And February’s level was the suburban calm of Another Life. It’s heavily based on the Blood Money level A New Life, but has its own ideas and charm.

So Whittleton Creek’s got two targets: a dweller called Janus and a roamer called Norman. You’ll know those terms if you saw my video about Miami. But you also have to find three pieces of evidence, which can make repeated playthroughs a bit annoying. Luckily, there are multiple versions of each piece, so you can mix it up.

The level is a bit tricky to navigate, simply because a bunch of houses all looks pretty similar. It’s easy to get turned around, and forget which house contains what. Which is the house that’s for sale, which one has the old lady cooking muffins, and so on. I had to use my map a lot for this. 

One of the stand out sections of the levels is that Norman’s house is rigged up with a fumigator and you can pour any of the three poisons - lethal, sleeping, or emetic - into the hatch to affect everyone inside. Make a whole house full of people start throwing up! It’s great.

Like with all of these levels, there’s a really nice progression. You start out by exploring and randomly trying stuff out. Then you try to get the silent assassin challenge done. And then you try to figure out how to do it without wearing any disguises. And then figure out sniper assassin. I really enjoyed doing the lot, and felt like an expert assassin by the end.

Next month it’s the Isle of Sigal, or something. I’ll find out soon.