Tag: Gaming

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Video Games

Bashing My Head Against Kenshi’s Difficulty

I don’t exactly remember how this happened, but during my recent quarantine I discovered some videos about Kenshi. The game looked intriguing enough to me that the discounted price tag during the Steam summer sale caught my attention. I bought the game and proceeded to play nothing but it for roughly a week, maybe a little more.

During this time I came to appreciate the difficulty of Kenshi. I started to have a serious love/hate relationship with the game; as soon as I thought I was making decent progress Kenshi would knock me down a couple of pegs to make sure that I wasn’t getting too confident. Every time I gained a couple of strength levels on my characters and thought, “oh boy maybe I can go fight stuff now!” Kenshi would slap me with the hard truth that I wasn’t prepared yet. It was a hard lesson to learn, and one that I had to keep learning because of my own hubris.

Obviously, that’s one of the biggest draws of Kenshi. The idea that you start out as nobody special, and if you want anything in this world you have to work hard for it. When I first started my play through, I discovered that mining copper was a pretty good way to start making money. As I continued to mine, I eventually used my meager savings to recruit a couple of party members to my cause. This basically amounted to extra hands that could help me mine copper and iron. Pretty soon I moved to the nearest town in the Shek kingdom and repeated the process.

It was at this point that my overconfidence truly began, however. I’d built up a small group of 6 adventurers; a couple of them even had decent fighting skills. I thought that I was ready to go into the world and start fighting the Hungry Bandits and Dust Bandits. Boy was I wrong about that. Even the lowly Hungry Bandits could take my group of unskilled fighters down with ease due to their sheer numbers.

It was here that I realized that Kenshi was really going to make me work for it, and I was ready to dive headfirst into that challenge. I started going out and picking fights with every group of hungry boys I could find, and slowly raising my characters stats to the point that they could take a beating. In between doing this I continued mining and sending my characters running across town with a full backpack of items to raise their strength stat.

That’s actually one of my favorite things about Kenshi; using a skill trains it in a similar vein to the Elder Scrolls series. That’s always a system that I can appreciate because it makes a lot of sense; the only negative is that it can become tedious after a while. I can see Kenshi being tedious for some, but thankfully I haven’t hit that wall yet. I am only 30 hours in on a restarted play through however, so that could still change.

Speaking of my first play through, it ended in disaster. I attempted to build a base way before I was able to handle it, and that was the harshest lesson Kenshi taught me. Even though I’d researched walls and other basics for a settlement, I was completely defenseless the moment some ninjas decided to swing by and take the place for themselves. After watching my group get slaughtered horrifically and everything that I loved in the game get burned to the ground, I decided to restart to my current play through. Now I’m armed with some more knowledge about the game, so I have high hopes for my success in this one.

Losing my settlement and characters in my first save taught me just how cruel Kenshi is. But that cruelty came more from my own ignorance about the game, not any malice from it. That’s why I both love and hate Kenshi; the game requires me to have the skill and knowledge to succeed, but I don’t have either of those yet. With any luck, this play through will be more successful than my last and I can take out the Holy Nation.

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Video Games

It’s Time to Move on From P.T.

I play a lot of different games, like many other people who are invested in this hobby. One of my favorite genres is the horror game. I played the original Silent Hill by complete accident when I was entirely too young to be playing it, and had nightmares for a week as a result. I only managed to make it to the diner before I gave up on the game because I was too scared, and that’s an experience I won’t forget any time soon.

My next major experience with a horror game was the original F.E.A.R. While I still wasn’t very old when I played it, I was old enough to get through the entire game without giving up. That game is still a shining example of great gunplay and horrifying atmosphere to this day. My most vivid memory of the game is seeing Alma Wade crawling into the ground just outside of my flashlights peripheral vision. I’m not gonna lie; I totally screamed when that happened. It got me good, and that scare helped cement my love for horror games. But we were entering the dark ages of horror games; Silent Hills releases weren’t being well received, Dead Space moves to an action co-op game, and Resident Evil continued its trend towards action blockbuster titles.

In these dark years, Outlast was a shining example of a novel idea done well. Running from crazy humans in an insane asylum in a found-footage style was revolutionary for horror games at the time. We felt helpless again, like we all did in the original survival horror games. While the sequel to Outlast would ultimately be disappointing in my opinion, it paved the way for horror games to get back on track.

Then it happened; P.T. was released and it took everybody by surprise. The looping hallway mechanic was done disturbingly well; every subsequent loop unnerved you. The atmosphere of the game was excellent, instead of simply relying on jump scares. Instead of fighting Lisa we were on the edge of our seats, completely terrified of when our next run-in with her would be. The game was unique, and it breathed life into the stagnating horror genre. Since then, many games have attempted to replicate what P.T. did, with varying degrees of success.

In 2017, Resident Evil 7 was released and brought that series back to its roots. Much like P.T. did, RE7 brought Triple-A horror games back into the limelight. However, P.T. had the most influence on indie horror developers. So many of them were trying to replicate what P.T. had done without really realizing what it was about the game that made it work. It wasn’t about looping through a hallway with spooky stuff happening; it was about looping in a hallway with subtle changes and following the small trail of breadcrumbs the game left for you to try and figure out what was going on. The game had scares, but they were never the focus; like all the best horror movie monsters, P.T. made you scared of what could be awaiting you rather than what you saw ahead of you.

It’s a delicate balance to strike, and one that not everyone can manage. That’s perfectly fine; I don’t want to stifle genuine attempts at creativity. But I think it’s long past time for the smaller horror game studios who keep trying to replicate it to realize that P.T. came out six years ago, and it’s time for them to do their own thing. I love survival horror like Resident Evil, but we need more Alien:Isolations and Outlasts out there as well. The only way that style of game is going to move on is if more indie developers forget about P.T. and try to change the genre up again.

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Video Games

Death Stranding Review

Death Stranding Review

Disclaimer: I originally played Death Stranding when it released on PS4. I’m also a huge fan of Metal Gear Solid and Hideo Kojima in general, so if you feel like that sways my opinion on this game, that’s fine. The PC release felt like a good opportunity to talk about it, and I can say the game runs beautifully.

Death Stranding is a unique game, I’m sure you’ve heard that in tons of other places. Along with that comes a unique experience that you can’t really get from any other AAA game on the market right now. Usually I don’t like it if a game takes me 10 plus hours to get into, but Death Stranding broke that trend. It starts out as an extremely slow game, but after the first few hours I found myself enjoying it more and more.

A big part of this is the presentation. The world that Kojima Productions has created is absolutely beautiful. In what is essentially a post-apocalyptic world, they’ve kept a vibrant scenery alive. Most games that take place in a similar setting use a lot of brown and dull colors. Death Stranding is a beautiful game. Even the few ruined city scapes you explore look good; lots of destitute buildings gives off a haunting feeling, and it’s hard not to stop and admire the scenery on the way.

It’s very easy to stop and take in the sights since you’re mostly going to be walking. While the deliveries start out fairly mundane at first, they get more interesting as time goes on. Once MULEs and BTs get thrown into the mix a lot of deliveries you’ll have to do go from walks in the park to outrunning or outgunning an enemy. BTs in particular are very well done; the combination of not being able to see them while moving and needing to rely on your BB can make those early encounters with them extremely tense. You do acquire the means to fight them later on in the game, making you less afraid of them. But they never lose that alien and otherworldly feeling.

Should you stay and fight, the controls are solid. The shooting feels responsive, and Sam’s movements in general are very well done. The amount of cargo you’re carrying can affect your movement, so going into a fight with a lot of items can work against you at first. You also don’t want to use lethal weapons on the MULEs, otherwise you’re going to be making a trip to an incinerator to dump the body and avoid a void out. It’s an interesting way to bring the lore of the world into the forefront as a very real consequence for killing, and one that works very well to disincentivize you from doing so.

The most confusing part about Death Stranding is it’s story. If you remember watching the first confusing trailer back in 2016 then don’t worry; you’re very well prepared for what the story is like. It took me until around halfway through the game to start getting a handle on what was going on in the story, but even then I wasn’t completely sure. Hell, I can’t even say I’m completely sure after having beaten the game. That’s probably the biggest negative I have with the game; the plot feels like it goes all over the place and you’re a kid who’s terrified of roller coasters. You’re along for the ride, but you’re hanging on for dear life and hoping that it’ll all make sense in the end.

I’m not a huge fan of numbered scores, particularly because they can be interpreted in so many different ways. My 10/10 probably isn’t yours, and so on. So I’m just going to say whether I think a game is worth playing or not. I believe that Death Stranding is worth playing because of how unique it is. It’s going to stand as one of the most unique video games released for a long time. However I realize that it’s not for everyone, so I want to help you decide. Does playing a game that’s mostly about walking around and delivering packages while occasionally fighting enemies or bosses sound fun to you? If it does, give Death Stranding a shot or watch some gameplay before deciding. You’re in for one hell of an experience if you do play it.

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Video Games

The Sad State of Stealth Action Games

Another year, another Ubisoft conference without a new Splinter Cell game announcement. Sadly, I keep doing it to myself. Every year I tell myself that I shouldn’t get excited, but then I watch their conference and get myself hyped anyway. All I want is to see those iconic goggles fire up and make the noise, but it still hasn’t happened!

If you can’t tell by now, I’m a huge fan of tactical stealth games. Metal Gear Solid is my favorite game series of all time, and Splinter Cell is pretty high up on that list. I’m also a fan of Silent Hill, in case you were wondering how sad this was going to get. You see my problem now, however. Two of the biggest game series in a fairly niche genre have gone under, with no sign of resurfacing in sight. At least Hitman is doing well, though it isn’t the same style of stealth game as Splinter Cell or Metal Gear.

Ghost Recon is also going strong, though opinions are pretty clearly divided on its newest entry, Breakpoint. Still, those games are the only place that I can live out my Fourth Echelon fantasies. While I personally enjoy the game, it still hurts to see Sam Fisher guest starring in a game by Ubisoft instead of getting his moment in the limelight back. Splinter Cell Chaos Theory is one of the best stealth games ever made, and it’s a shame that the last entry was in 2013 with Blacklist. It was a game that I enjoyed, and I remember looking forward to what the series would bring us next. But I’m still waiting 7 years later.

Metal Gear is the one that really hits close to home for me. I remember being a kid and running around in the original Metal Gear Solid just replaying the game over and over because I loved it so much. It was the first game that had a really strong impact on me because of its storytelling. Before that I’d played stuff like the 2D Final Fantasy games, so 3D cutscenes blew my mind. I spent hours just running around and messing with guards. Stealth camouflage was endlessly entertaining to my young mind, even if it was just making guards follow footprints and then punch them while they couldn’t see me. I was easily entertained at the time. From there I became more and more intrigued in the story, culminating in Metal Gear Solid 5 in 2015. Another game that I loved, even if the story was extremely disappointing.  

At this point, Metal Gear Solid isn’t much better off than Splinter Cell. With Kojima’a departure from Konami, it’s unclear whether they’re going to continue the series in any way. Even if they do, it’s inevitable that they’re going to get backlash from the fans. I’m willing to see how it goes if it does happen, especially if it just ends up being a remake of 1, 2, or 3.

Like I said, stealth action games are already a niche genre. But over the years we’ve gotten a lot of memorable characters from them, and it’s held fast as one of my favorite game genres. So if you’re reading this Ubisoft, just do me a favor and announce a new Splinter Cell game already. I’m even going to play Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad just to see Sam Fisher in action again.

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