I raved about the original Life Is Strange. Though it wasn't without its flaws, overall Dontnod created a fantastic modern adventure game. It was sort of like the stuff that Telltale had done, but felt very grounded, even when delving into superpowers and so on. The world of Arcadia Bay felt very real, and very special to me. So I felt I owed it to myself to play the prequel, Life Is Strange: Before The Storm.
Now I must say, part of the charm of the original game was that I really liked the character of Max. And though I grew to like Chloe as well, I'd rather be playing as Max. Of course, the Chloe I knew was pretty different from the Chloe in this game. And thus, that might be the perfect hook for me. This is pretty much the story of Chloe's downward spiral. It feels neat to go back to Arcadia Bay, though. I remembered Chloe's house quite well. I remembered the school. It's like diving into the next season of a TV show that you really like. It's a cool feeling. The time period is cool to me, too. This game takes place in 2010, which in 2023 feels like a lifetime ago. It doesn't seem like a long time ago in numbers, but it's weird that I'd be feeling so nostalgic for 2010. The music, the fashion. It's funny to me to think back and remember that whatever wi-fi we had in our little apartment was a little device with three little antennae. It seems quaint in retrospect. The opening scene of the game sets the stage well enough. Chloe has snuck out in the night to see a band play at an underground bar. Having played the original game, I already know that this is after her father's death, and while Max is away and incommunicado. Chloe is meant to be wayward. Getting into the bar involves getting past the bouncer. And it's here that we discover her "power." Unlike Max who can slow down time, Chloe's shtick is basically using snark to get through conversations. It's a bit like the insult-fights in Monkey Island games. It's also less interesting than Max's power. But the scene is cool enough. There's a band performance, and the reintroduction of Frank (the drug-dealer from the original game who's mostly a scumbag but seems protective of Chloe, nevertheless). There's also a run-in with some local punks, and we get to see how Chloe and Rachel start hanging out, which sets up a lot of the unseen drama from the original game. EPISODE I: AWAKE It's cool to be back in Chloe's house. I feel like I know it well from that first game. Glancing at her journal right away we're greeted with a deep-cut mention of Blade Runner that I loved. I mean, it was an important movie in the first game, so I'm glad they kept with that theme. But also, I love Blade Runner so much myself. And Pris is awesome. So there's that. There is one thing that makes a prequel to a narrative-driven game difficult. See, I already know what's supposed to happen after this game. I already know how Chloe is supposed to act. So in some ways, it feels like I'm being pushed in that direction. Like, Chloe hates David. So even though I have a choice to be nice to him, it makes it feel like I'm going against the established story by doing so. But I guess that's a minor complaint. The storytelling in this episode is pretty great, though. There's just a good grounded vibe to the whole thing. The first really wow moment for me was the D&D game. There's a part where you can choose to play a game of Dungeons & Dragons with two other classmates. Instantly, it turned into this whole little game within a game. And I kind of loved it. Like, I felt like I was playing along to a real campaign - as brief as it was. After running into Rachel again, the story takes a turn. Chloe and Rachel skip school together and hop on a train. This whole section is great. It's really banal. Just Chloe and Rachel talking, getting to know each other. But it's almost visual novel territory yet works well. Then things spin out of control. Rachel sees her dad cheating on her mom. The two of you steal some wine, get drunk, get in a huge fight at a junkyard... Rachel storms off and Chloe has a devastating breakdown upon seeing the same car in the junkyard that her dad died in. It's pretty heavy gut-punch stuff. After a brief Twin Peaks-ish dream section, Chloe and Rachel reunite and make up. There's an admission of romantic feelings and then things really ramp up as Rachel burns a picture of her dad, causing a forest fire. In the Pacific Northwest. It's a pretty explosive way to end the episode, but it doesn't really go over my head that the fire is a pretty obvious tangible symbol of Rachel's rage. Fire walk with me. ... Episode 2 starts with Chloe getting expelled. It's a weird scene because it seems to give you every chance to get out of it, and I tried like hell, but she still got expelled. This scene really made me question how much control the player truly has over the story. And then, that was kind of it for me. It's weird. I finished up Episode 1 just as I started summer vacation. My wife, daughter and I went someplace every day - swimming and a zoo and an aquarium and a cat cafe. I figured at night I'd plow right through the remaining episodes. And yet, I just lost all motivation. I don't know if I was just too tired from the heat or whatever. But I just wasn't so captured by the story that I wanted to proceed. Before The Storm has some grounded writing and some excellent voice acting. But it's also a weirdly subdued step back from the first game. This sequel keeps the same tone and writing style and all, but the big difference is the whole Butterfly Effect. To me, that first game was elevated by the time-shifting mechanic. And without that here, Before The Storm feels like a slightly less interesting game. Or rather, it's still an interesting game but feels more like a story. If anything, it feels like an Americanized visual novel rather than a "game" with game-like mechanics. I compared the original Life Is Strange to a cross between Veronica Mars and Donnie Darko. Before The Storm feels more like just a teen drama. And there's nothing wrong with that. We've binged and loved everything from Dawson's Creek to One Tree Hill and The OC and anything similar you can think of. It's just, it's not what I thought I was signing up for with this game. I expected more of the original game. And this feels like a bait-and-switch to me. It's not bad. I didn't have any real complaints about it. It just wasn't enough for me. By the end of the first episode of the original game some crazy stuff had already happened. Here, we ended on finding out a parent was cheating and a student getting expelled. I guess it almost felt too banal to me. Maybe I was expecting too much, but I don't want to be anything other than what I've been trying to be lately.
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Over the past few years Firaxis has managed to do the unthinkable. First they rebooted a beloved strategy series with a deep cult following and managed to make it great. I mean against all odds they were able to breathe fresh life into X-COM (now just XCOM) and turn it into something that was easy to play on a console. And it was good. Really, really good. So good in fact that there's maybe an argument to be made that if we put nostalgia aside, these new games may very well be better than the original X-COM series. As much as I loved Terror From The Deep as a kid, I'd personally rather play the new games now than go back to the old. But this isn't the unthinkable thing that I'm talking about that Firaxis did. I'm talking about the fact that they've now made two full games and two full expansions in this new series - and while the first game, 2012's Enemy Unknown was excellent - they've somehow managed to make each new entry even better than the last. While Enemy Unknown came out feeling fresh and confident and well... perfect at the time, it now feels quaint to my memory having spent many hours with each subsequent release. XCOM's first major expansion was Enemy Within which added things like mech-suits and telepathic abilities for soldiers. The "Within" part of the title sort of alludes to the fact that you get to mess around with the alien tech in this one. Enemy Within wasn't just a fresh coat of paint, it was some drastically new colors. But the core of XCOM remained the same. When XCOM 2 finally hit in 2016 it was a really big deal for me. It was easily one of my most anticipated games in a very long time. And it managed to do everything better than the first game(s). Well, everything other than loading screens. And once again I felt like the game had been perfected. How could they possibly improve upon this? But War Of The Chosen is incredible. I can tell you this with total confidence given that a horrible crash actually deleted my Ironman save file thirteen hours into the campaign and y'know what I did? I just started right back over again. Losing thirteen hours of progress would have probably killed my interest in any other game, but in War Of The Chosen... eh, whatever. Perhaps the biggest addition to this iteration are the titular Chosen. These are three aliens who will spend their time hunting you on the map. They can randomly appear (one at a time) in various missions and totally ruin your day. Each one has specific powers and downfalls. It's totally interesting stuff. Anyway, as part of the new campaign you'll want to turn the tables and hunt each down yourself, thus saving you a much bigger blowout later in the game. I will say that once I had killed the three Chosen the game started to feel slightly less novel as a lot of the later mandatory missions basically made me feel like I was playing through the vanilla XCOM 2 again. But I'm probably just nitpicking since there's so much new content here. For instance there's The Lost which is a swarm of alien zombie things. There's also new classes to align with for your own troops. Oh and there are soldier bonds that add even more depth to leveling up your team. Basically anything you can think of from base facilities to weapons to enemies and so on - everything has gotten a fairly major upgrade here. So yeah, this is now the fourth time that I'm citing an XCOM game as the new perfect example of such a thing. I look forward to calling XCOM 3 a perfect game. I've never been a golfer in real life. Mini-golf? Sure. But real golf just requires way too much practice and long days for my taste. When I was in high school my dad decided we should join the local country club. It was short lived. Me and my dad and my friend Garrett all played a few rounds and none of us were very good. The long uphill battle of gaining skill seemed apparent. Though that country club did have a pretty nice pool and a decent turkey club. I remember that much.
But golf video games? Well, I like golf video games. I always have. It all started with some DOS game in the early 90s. I honestly can't seem to pin it down, and my memory just isn't good enough. All I know is that you could play Pebble Beach, which makes me think it was probably one of the Links games. All I know is that it was this early DOS game which taught me the basics of video golf, and I really enjoyed it. You aimed your shot, took account of the wind, chose your club and it was all about physics. It's no secret that I really love turn based games. When you add in the sort of strategy that comes with golf, well it's kind of a zen-like experience for me. I've played plenty of other golf games over the years. When I was a kid, I really enjoyed Lee Travino's Fighting Golf, which was an SNK game on NES. I also liked NES Open Golf as well as the aptly titled Golf on Game Boy. There were Mario Golf games as well. But it wasn't until 2009 or so that I picked up Pangya: Fantasy Golf on PSP and got completely hooked. That's a true sleeper game right there, and if hard pressed, I'd say it's at the upper part of my top ten PSP games of all time. I picked up other golf games of that generation (namely, the We Love Golf games that Capcom put out), but none came close to Pangya. All of that has changed now that I've played Everybody's Golf. This is of course the latest entry in the Hot Shots Golf series, now donning its original Japanese title. And it takes everything I love about golf games - be it cartoony arcade style games or straight up sims - and condenses it into a perfect game. Yes, I think when it comes to arcade style golf games, Everybody's Golf will officially be my new go to. Everything just oozes cute here. There's tons of charm. You make your little character and get rewarded with new fashion unlocks. So I made a little anime redhead. And yeah, I make her as cute as possible. In many ways, it has that gacha feel with the constant unlocks. But luckily, it doesn't feel like it's making you spend money like a mobile game. Instead, you just play well and unlock new fun things. I'm currently cruising around in a Final Fantasy themed golf cart for instance. Of course everything is an RPG now. So there's constant upgrading of stats and equipment. But it feels good. It feels like playing well means progress. There's a hub world, which is kind of pointless, especially years later as the servers are now down. There's even rivals to take down. There's a sumo guy who swings like he's Happy Gilmore. Again, the game is full of charm. But the gameplay itself is super relaxing. The classic three-click golf swings? I love them. The incredible ambience of the nature sounds and the club hitting the ball? Love it. The bright green grass and the bright blue sky? Yes, please. Before long, running through a tournament feels like a zen-like zone out for me. And of course the gameplay is the most important part of a game like this. I can safely say that it holds the insanely addictive "just one more round before bed" thing up. Everybody's Golf is the sort of game that will take up space on my hard drive for a long time. The kind of game I'll play a few rounds of between other games for months or years to come. Madden NFL 17 was the first Madden I had played since 08. So you'd think I wouldn't really need a new Madden game already, right? Well there were a lot of selling points for 18. The most superficial was that they put Brady on the cover. I'm a Pats fan. It's tough for me to not buy a Madden game that has a Patriots player on the cover. But there was more than just that, like the fact that Madden 18 would be the first game in the series to actually feature a single player story mode. And then there's the fact that the game would utilize the new Frostbite engine meaning it was the first game in the series to actually be properly "next gen."
The first thing I did once Madden 18 was finished installing was to fire up this new story mode. Entitled "Long Shot," this could easily be called Football: The Telltale Series. That should just about tell you whether or not you'll care for it. Y'know it's mostly a choose-your-own-adventure game with some quick time events and mini-games thrown in for good measure. I liked it a lot actually. For the most part it felt better written than I had anticipated. Long Shot tells the story of a draft hopeful, Devon Wade. But what makes it a pleasant surprise is that it isn't just a simple rise from high school ball on up, but rather tells a twisting tale that touches upon death and fear and redemption. It goes to some odd places at times such as reality television and even a military base. But the story does have a lot of heart and I commend it for that. Unfortunately Long Shot is rather brief. I believe I finished it in just three hours. But a story mode is just icing on the cake, right? Nobody's buying a Madden game for a story mode. So how does the base game play? Well... it's excellent. I mean even in comparing the game to last year's iteration - which should feel like just a continuation - Madden 18 is amazing. The new Frostbite engine really is incredible. And this kind of jump can always go two ways: either the devs aren't ready to make the transition and we get an undercooked game, or they are and we get something this great. Everything here is exceptional. The visuals are top notch, whether we're talking about players' likenesses or single blades of grass on the field. Even the way the players move between plays is insane to watch. It goes a long way to selling realism when there's a scuffle between two players after a hard hit. And the commentary is just mind-blowing. I raved about this with last year's game as well, but it's impressive just how on-point a lot of what they say really is. They're not just talking about the current game, but also the previous game; the whole season leading up to it really. After playing through Long Shot I started up my season proper. I'm a believer in letting things happen the way they happen. So sadly I was starting the season without Edelman. The AI here is commendable. Early on I had to be reminded that if you're careless, a ball will be intercepted. There's a tendency to start to feel cocky and treat the game too arcade-like. The AI is more than happy to remind you that this is a sim first and foremost. In my own season I watched carelessness turn to tragedy as more and more of my starting lineup went out for injury. Gronk and Amendola happened early on. Then eventually Brady. Hogan would follow, and so on. So let's just say that even making it into the playoffs as a wild card was impressive this year. But sadly I couldn't hang on to the win. And so now my season is officially over. Madden 18 proudly wears the "if it's in the game, it's in the game" motto on its sleeve. I'm not talking about playbooks or cheerleaders here. I'm talking about the drama. An hour-long game can easily cycle through celebration and agony. There's a flow to these games: four-act plays with plots and tension and lessons to be learned. I've spent nearly thirty hours with the game and I'm still contemplating advancing the calendar and starting up my next season, because it kills me to walk away from the game without even seeing the Super Bowl. This is also the first Madden game I've actually bothered playing online. I've convinced a friend of mine to pick it up and we've been playing some games against each other which has been great. But then there's this My Ultimate Team stuff which involves playing games online competitively and sort of drafting a unique team to do so. It's interesting and really just more playtime I can eek out of this game. All in all, it feels like money well spent. |
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