As someone who normally balances college, a part-time job, and a hobby as a game critic, it has become more and more difficult to dedicate large chunks of time to long, hundred-hour epics. Time is a precious commodity, so signing onto lengthy campaigns can be a lot to ask for. When Dragon Age: Inquisition touted a playtime of over 100 hours, I was not too happy to hear it. After buying, playing, and beating the game, my opinion more mixed than I was expecting. It makes an interesting series of design choices, demonstrating a new philosophy for Bioware; one that I am still unsure what I think of.
One of these choices was to utilize mechanics typically associated with free-to-play, microtransaction laden game, without actually including said microtransactions. As the head of an organization dedicated to restoring peace and order, the player character has several advisors. Each member of this war counsel has their own specialties: They consist of the chief ambassador, the spymaster, and commander of the army. At the war table, each one can be assigned a mission to undertake in the player’s stead, which they will accomplish in a given period of time. The trick is that these missions do not take game time, instead relying on real-world time. Many of them take only an hour or less to complete, which fits perfectly into what should be a standard session. Others take several hours, even a day to two in the most extreme case. Assigning these operations fits neatly into the average person’s schedule, subtly encouraging the player to take a break and/or do something else for a time.
On top of that, quest design has been noticeably simplified. Previous entries in the franchise had fairly involved missions, with their own more personal tales from ordinary people. While some of them could be quick, many could take an hour or more. This is not the case in Inquisition. Eschewing the questing philosophy of the other Dragon Age games, Inquisition aims for conciseness more than anything else. Any one side-mission is designed to be completely quickly, within the span of about 30 minutes or less.
Even the dungeons in Inquisition seem to be made with this shorter running time in mind. Dragon Age: Origins included old temples and ruins that would take several hours to explore, up to 6 or 7 in the most extreme cases like The Fade or The Deep Roads. Although these places took a long time to explore, so much of that time is padded out with long corridors and endless fighting, without much in the way of meaningful content, making it difficult to keep the player’s interest. Often, it would take several play sessions to complete one of them, whereas Inquisition’s various old manors, ancient sanctuaries, et cetera, were compact in their layouts. Taking no longer than 30 minutes to fully explore any one of them, the locations were just big enough to have something interesting occur, but not enough to spend large chunks of time.
Another appreciable change that occurred in the making of Dragon Age: Inquisition is the new “open-world” structure. Unlike games like Skyrim and Grand Theft Auto, Inquisition does not have one large, complete and dynamic area to explore. Instead, there are almost a dozen distinct, yet massive, zones of operation in which players can explore to their hearts content. Populated with the dungeons and quests mentioned above, along with a myriad of collectibles, these fields of play offer tons of things to do. Though it takes a lot time to complete everything in an area, one can quickly enter an area, find something to do, and complete it.
Lastly, character progression is not as fast as that of previous Dragon Age games. Unlike previous entries, Inquisition grants only a minor amount of experience when dispatching normal enemies. For example, at level 19, with a required 50000 XP to level up, a single soldier will only offer about 10 XP. Significant experience boosts, of 1000 XP or greater, will only be awarded when defeated strong monsters or completing quests. As a logical consequence, players advance more slowly than they ever have before in this series.
In a rush to play catch-up with everyone else, I binged for several days on Inquisition. However, as I sat on my notes and reflected upon the choices Bioware made for the game, I realized something: Bioware did not want me to squeeze 95 hours of play into my week off. In the context of the war table’s subtle nudging to stop playing, bite-sized quests and dungeons, open-world design, and slow progression, it became clear that I was supposed to only play for an hour or so per day, over the span of months. In theory, I should be okay with this, since time is so hard to come by for many people who, like me, keep playing games as they start to mature into adulthood. To the game’s credit, it largely succeeds at what it sets out to do. However, there were consequences to using this methodology, and I am not sure that Bioware’s games are equipped to handle them.
Because of the focus on many faster, more compact quests, very few of them have the chance to leave an impression upon the player. Missions in Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2 all told stories about the people and places involved in them. Even if they did not tie-in to the main story, each one says something, however minor, about what life is like in the world of Thedas. It is only because Bioware decided to give each quest enough time to develop, no matter how long that way be, that this was possible.
Inquisition changes this dynamic. With the more streamlined quests, there does not exist enough time to fully develop any one in particular. The result is that there is a lot of surface-level content, tasks meant only to serve as a minor distraction. This lack of deeper content, which tells its own story and connects with the player, makes it much less likely for one to become invested into the world and the plot. I barely connected to the people I was meeting when roaming through these large areas. Like a Diablo game, they did little more than give me an opportunity to find more loot and crafting materials. Rather than people, they felt more to me like bulletin boards telling me where I can go get a new shiny sword and/or what I can find in order to make them give me a new shiny sword.
Bioware also failed to realize that style also ruins the pacing of the main campaign. Many people report spending significant amounts of time, typically around 10 to 15 hours, in the Hinterlands before moving on with the story. In fact, these anecdotes are so widespread that leaving the area as soon as possible is one of the mostcommonPSAs to new players. It is very likely that players will end up working on completing places like The Hinterlands nearly to the exclusion of the main quest. Since many other such locations open up once the main plot gets underway, this temptation is always looming over the player. For my playthrough, I went over 20 hours without advancing the campaign by even a single quest, and this happened to me on two different occasions after my experience in the Hinterlands. My old completionist instincts, honed after years of gaming, worked against me. Even though I was fully aware that these quests were unimportant, and that I was beginning to grow disinterested, I kept plowing through the optional content. Sadly, my experience is far from unique.

I once wrote that Dragon Age: Origins did not respect my time, especially given the context of Dragon Age 2. Inquisition makes a different mistake. Although it clearly acknowledges that I have other things to do with my life, it does so without addressing the issue of undue focus on raw game length. Because of this error, the content is on display here is purely surface-level, lacking the depth that Bioware was known for even at their worst. Despite my Inquisition playthrough lasting nearly twice as long as my nearly complete journey through Origins, it was not anywhere near what one could consider to be comprehensive. I cannot claim that I was “burnt out,” but nor can I say that much of the what I experienced was particularly interesting outside of the decidedly few main missions. Inquisition is not Bioware’s worst game, but nor is it memorable.

In this episode, we fight a video game boss battle. Also, a bad guy has a katana.

Since the subject came up in the episode, I think it’d be fun to talk a little bit about katanas. As I said, katanas aren’t nearly as effective as fiction seems to think that they are. They’re actually pretty bad compared to most other swords. (Disclaimer: I’m not a historian, or even a weapons expert. This is just knowledge gleamed from the internet and my own independent research.)

The myth of the katana originates, of course, from Japan. In that country, katanas were seen as status symbols. Forged from fairly low-grade iron, it took the work of a very skilled blacksmith to make a katana that would be viable in a combat situation. As a result, owning one meant that you were a person of well-enough repute to either afford one or have a wealthy noble pay to have one made. Either way, it marked you as a member of the upper-class.

But this is not the only reason the weapon achieved such a mythical status. In order to properly use a katana without subjecting it to the kind of undue wear and tear that could easily damage it, one needed to be highly trained in its use. No ordinary schmuck could wield a katana for long. Even a master-crafted one would need to well-maintained to sustain viability as a combat tool. For this reason, being trusted with a katana meant that you were not only a member of the upper-class, but also skilled enough to wield such a weapon. In a isolated country, such as Japan back in those times, this meant a great deal. When they eventually began trading with the west, it was only natural for such myths be traded as well.

Western swords are different. Not to say that the process of making a weapon is easy. If you look online, you’ll see that there is a lot of work in making a sword. But because the materials available in western regions were better, it is easier by comparison for a blacksmith of any skill level to make a weapon that can do its job. Anyone could become an apprentice smith and gradually pick up the art. This comparatively lower barrier of entry meant that we didn’t see swords as inherently mythical.

And because these weapons were easier to make, they were also easier to maintain. Again, it is mcuh easier to learn how to wield a western sword without damaging it than an eastern sword. Even should damage incur, it was not too difficult to pay a smith to replace the sword. Weapons in the west only became legendary because of what their wielders did with them, not because of any inherent properties or training of the wielders themselves. That’s why even though western swords tended to be better weapons, Japanese swords are the ones seen as superior in fiction. Not a useful fact, but an interesting one.

Anyway, we were playing Tomb Raider.

I really appreciate the scene in the ship, where we call back to the intro of the game. It is a good way to bring into focus just how much Lara has had to change without overly saying it. The symbolism is perhaps a little too overt, but it is nonetheless a nice touch.

And Alex, how can we forget about Alex. We said as much in the last episode, but it feels weird for him to exist in this game, because Lara completely negates his character arc. They both start out as average people from an average life, but while Lara grows up and teaches herself how to survive in this situation, Alex becomes a victim. He tried to help, but fails to do anything more than get himself killed.

I suppose it is a nice touch that the woman isn’t the victim in this game, but it just doesn’t work for me. The other strange aspect is that his only contribution to the plot is to give Lara a secret admirer. In most stories, Alex would be the damsel-in-distress, the woman that the main male protagonist would be trying to save. In Tomb Raider, it’s the reverse. Despite being the exact same thing, it feels so patronizing here, especially since we already have a damsel-in-distress (ie, Sam).

In this episode, we go through the dumbest segment in the entire game.

The number of factors that have to align just right in order for this ship in the mist to exist on the island is great. Mathis’s men need to first get motivated enough to want to build a ship. There are two big problems that would get in the way. First, they would need to spend most of their time finding food for their legion. Should that hurdle be passed, then the other problem is that nobody would see the point, since every ship that enters and leaves this island gets wreaked.

Assuming that we solve those problems and get enough motivated people to join the effort, how do they get enough materials in order to construct it? We barely gather enough scrap in our time here to build all of our weapon attachments. There are also dangers in gathering all of these materials from other crashed vessels.

On top of those problems, we also have the logistical problem of building that of high off the ground. What purpose does that serve? What factors would lead to the decision to make it so much further up than you’d ever need the ship to be?

And if all of THAT gets taken care of, and they managed to build the ship, why are they so eager to shoot it up in an effort to kill you? Is Lara that important that all of this clear effort can so casually be discarded? Are the people here that crazy that they’d abandon such a large project?

It doesn’t make any sense. Not that it’s a bad segment, but it just doesn’t follow any stream of logic.

Some of you might have already noticed that I have been doing some work on the site. The “Thing You Might Like” have been updated, a new page has been added for all of my Let’s Plays, and ads have been enabled once more. Despite all of this, there has always been one area that this site struggles with.

Viewers have frequently told me that the comment system is terrible on this site. The system which Blogger uses by default is just not very good. I’ve lost count of the number of comments that have been forever lost to this site because someone forgot to add their e-mail to the comment before submitting it. Because of this, people stopped attempting to share their opinion, which goes against the whole purpose of this blog.

For the longest time, I didn’t do anything about this. Since I had already had so much content on Blogger, switching to another service was impractical. Further, I had figured that it would eventually be addressed by the powers that be. Now, I have done something that will hopefully improve the state of affairs.

As of this moment, Press Start to Discuss will be using Disqus as the new comment management system. It solves the problem of Blogger “eating up” comments, and should hopefully be easy to manage. On top of that, it comes with it’s own authentication system to thwart spammers in a non-intrusive manner.

For those who have commented on previous posts, worry not. All of the old comments have been imported into Disqus, so nothing was lost. In time, I hope these steps help fuel discussion on this blog, as I have always intended. For now, take care everyone.

In this episode, we are relevant and topical for the first 5 minutes.

Many of the comments we make in this episode form the groundwork for suggestions and observations made in following episodes. Aside from that, most of it stand pretty well on it’s own, and does not need to be elaborated on in the post.

It’s inevitable that a Let’s Play series will have an episode like this. It can’t really be helped. Fortunately, with Sam’s editing, we should keep this kind of commentary-lite to a minimum,

No matter what I seem to play from Ubisoft, whether I like it or hate it, there is always somethingworth talking about. With Valiant Hearts, the problem is not so much about quality. Though a good game, there exists an internal conflict regarding what messages players are supposed to take away from it. Some sections are clearly aiming for the tone of a pulpy adventure in the vein of a Micheal Bay movie or old propaganda films. A distinctly introspective, more melancholy tone is expressed in other areas of the game. This week, I want to detail how the game elicits these two opposing tones, and how they come into conflict with each other.
Released in June of 2014, Valiant Hearts: The Great Warset out with the goal of delivering a tale about the First World War in a relatively unused way. Instead of relying on first/third-person shooting mechanics, the developers opted to utilize the in-house UbiArt engine, used to build 2D games like Rayman Origins and Child of Light, to make the 2D puzzle game out of it. Following the exploits of fictional people whose lives were directly impacted by the conflict, Valiant Hearts aimed to be more mature about its tale.
In many areas, they succeeded in this mission. Segments in the plot, particularly those surrounding Emile, an old man drafted into the French army, and Karl, his German son-in-law conscripted to fight into his national army, do their absolute best to explore how taxing World War I was on the families involved. While the two of them are off fighting in a war neither one has any true interest in, Emile’s daughter and her child routinely send messages to the two of them telling them of her struggles on the homefront. There is even a more subtle emotional thread born from the knowledge that the two of them are being forced to fight against one another even though they have no real incentive to do so. This forms the central conflict of their arcs, as both men seek nothing more but to quit the war and return to their family.
Valiant Hearts also reinforces this more sorrowful line of reasoning through other means. As the player explores different locations over the course of the game, the pause menu builds up a collection of facts and pictures from the actual, real life war. The images depict great hardship, with the noticeably miserable faces of soldiers in very uncomfortable positions and conditions. From the muddy trenches, to the amputees, these help teach people about the circumstances that contextualize the game. Though it of course serves as a strong jumping off point for people without a strong grasp of history to learn more, this information also helps convey just how much the people who fought in World War I must have despised the conflict. Combined with the somber music that plays in the pause menu, Valiant Hearts does much to sell the message of “War is Hell.”
Yet, the writers of the game also follow a second, completely separate thread as the story progresses. Where Emile and Karl’s tales depict the awfulness of World War I, the other subplots give off a more adventurous feeling. The first follows the American-born Freddie, whose moved to France in order to marry his lover, who was murdered by German soldiers on the say of their wedding. His is a standard-revenge story, with all of the usual trappings. Finally, we get to the story of Anna. A Belgian nurse attending school in France, she joins the war effort as a medic when she learns that her dad has been kidnapped by German soldiers, forced to create diabolical weapons for them. Her efforts to both provide medical care for injured soldiers and to find her lost father take center stage during her segments.
What unites these two threads is that both Freddie and Anna’s problems can be traced to the same person. The one who both killed Freddie’s lover and abducted Anna’s parent is, and I swear this is true, the evil Baron Von Dorf. From the Saturday-morning cartoons most of us grew up on, the Baron represents a bad guy so absurd that no person could reasonably support him. This gives Freddie and Anna, and later Emile and Karl when the characters begin to interact with each other, a clear opponent to fight against in the context of a world-wide war. Whenever he appears, the game makes an abrupt and clear shift to the likeness of a Looney Toons short.
Furthermore, Anna in particular gets another dose of pulp in some areas. As the only playable character who uses a vehicle, Anna’s driving segments often consist of her dodging obstacles on the road in perfect synchronization with classic songs like Night on Bald Mountain, Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies, among others. These segments are bizarre in how overwhelmingly energetic and cheery they are compared to most of the game. Even once Anna becomes aware of how bad things are, these segments make her seem absolutely eager to jump straight into the fray. Given what happens to both her and the other characters in the game, this is disturbing at worst and confusing at best.
These two separate tones, one of melancholy and one of adventure, are extremely difficult to reconcile with on another. Valiant Hearts makes the attempt, but never truly follows through. As a result, the game’s underlying message is hard to piece together. Am I, as the player, supposed to be saddened by this chapter in human history? Am I supposed to think that war is a great thing that helps the good guys deal with the bad guys in an acceptable manner? Neither one of these questions is really answered by the game, and the writers do not appear to know which side they stand on either way for most of the duration.
Even a lot of the puzzles seem unsure of where they stand on this dichotomy. For example, at one point in the game, the player is tasked with clearing the chlorine gas out of an area so that allied soldiers can advance. To do this, they sneak into the bottom level of a German base. Seeing the large machine pumping out the gas, it is necessary to use the levers to move the pipes dispersing the gas into a position where they can build up pressure, overloading and exploding the system. Chlorine gas is was a serious issue in The Great War, to the point where chemical weapons were banned in future conflicts. Despite that gravity, the game presents uses a Pipe Dream-esque puzzle to present it. The topic lends itself to a serious exploration, yet the segment is one of the lighter ones in terms of tone. This disconnect left me feeling slightly uncomfortable, in a way that I am not sure the designer intended.
That said, no guilt was wrought. After all, nobody died as a result of me solving that pipe dream puzzle. In fact, until the very last part of the game, the playable cast does not have a single kill that can be directly traced to any one of them. Combined with the hand-drawn, exaggerated art style and a fairly vibrant color palette, Valiant Hearts invokes the impression of a children’s show. This clashes with the bleakness of the source material. Even in this sense, the game seems unsure about where it wants to go.

Most of Valiant Hearts is spent in this pit of confusion over what message it is trying to convey. Not to say that the game is bad, as it does have many genuinely good moments scattered throughout, but rather that it is noticeably disjointed. Still, there is no denying that it is ambitious in its own way. There is relatively little difficulty in turning World War I into a first-person shooter. In comparison, significantly more challenge exists in building a small 2D puzzle game out of the subject. Rather than take the path of least resistance, they opted to do something unique. The final product is reflective of that, despite not fully succeeding.

This is the point where Tomb Raider starts to utilize more of the tropes from standard Hollywood action movies.

The game has an interesting, yet appropriate and subtle, tone shift either at around this point or slightly before it. In the very beginning, Tomb Raider takes queues from classic survival stories. We see how this heroine and her ragtag bunch of misfits learn to use the environment they find themselves in to stay alive. Inspiration is drawn from shows like Lost (the first season), and other media of that ilk.

Then, in the middle of the game, the tone shifts somewhat. The more “comfortable” (for lack of a better word) Lara grows with killing the people coming after her and doing what she has to in order to survive, the writers stop relying on those kind of survival stories for inspiration. Because we’ve already seen how Lara can survive, we no longer need any further evidence of it.

For that reason, Tomb Raider is now free, in this last half of the game, to go the route of more pulpy, adventurous stories in the vein of Uncharted and the Indiana Jones films that they are clearly dedicated to. These stories rely much more on spectacle and flare. Details can be left unexplained if they are not relevant to the broader arc, and action takes the day.

I stand by what I said in the episode about the shift being a little abrupt, but I understand what they were trying to do. This was always marketed as an origin story to take a relatively normal girl and transform her into something resembling the Lara Croft we knew from the other Tomb Raider series. Simply put, no one could possibly becomes that hardened without under great ordeals, so this second half is meant to give Lara the ability to overcome adversity. She’s already a survivor, but now she can turn herself into a hero. It’s not a bad idea, it just needed some slight changes to get right.

The whole group is together again in the effort to make this podcast more succinct. We will keep working at this, so feel free to let us know how we do. You may be confused about the title, but Sam lovingly

Remember, if you would like to send us a question or comment to be read on the air, you may do so at thetexturepop@gmail.com. Even if you don’t want it read out loud, feel free to drop us a line if you want to communicate with us.

0:02:05 Gaming News
Deadpool movie costume finally revealed:
Chris, as our comic book guy, seems rather optimistic about the production. After seeing this picture, I can understand why.

X-Files reboot is actually happened:
Sam does bring up a point about “Why does this need to exist?” Most fans of the show agree that the show went out on a whimper after its last two seasons, so a reboot may not be advised. However, it could be interesting to see how they work within the context of the modern world and more contemporary conspiracy theories. For an aliens-themed show, The X-Files aged well, but aliens are still out of favor. I’m interested in what they do with these six new episodes.
Also, David Duchovny did an interview after we record the podcast on David Letterman, talking a bit more about it.

0:14:05 I played a bit of Hitman: Blood Money.
Hitman has been a weird franchise. Even though it’s never really been a big seller, it is almost always brought up as an example of good stealth game design. If you haven’t played Blood Money, it’s worth checking out. The previous games are okay, but never play the first (Codename 47). It’s awful.

0:18:01 I played Final Fantasy III
I like the pacing of a lot of the NES/SNES JRPGs, because they are not meant to take up a lot of time. Considering how much games seek to give tons of content, without much depth or variety, it was nice to play a game that didn’t try to be much longer than it had too.

0:22:30 I played Dragon Age: Inquisition
Despite how irritating it is for me to have to make so many different video game accounts, I am having a blast with Inquisition.
The Hinterlands criticism isn’t exactly new, but it is worth reiterating. It’s a massive trap that designers should have known players would fall for. Somehow, that slipped the net. The rest of the game has been pretty good, but the Hinterlands is a terrible starting area.

0:31:10 Garrett discovers that a rare Beetles CD is stolen.
He didn’t do the stealing. Someone stole it before he could buy it.
Sam had a similar story, coincidentally.

0:37:30 Garrett took his friends through Second Life.
I know what you’re all thinking: “Second Life is still around?” Yes, it is. I don’t go on it, but there are people who still do.
Personally, I’m waiting on Third Life.

0:41:00 Garrett talks about the rest of his week.

0:42:30 Chris talks about Chrono Cross
Note: He did not actually play the game. Yet the conversation we had was worth it.
For reference: The Chrono Cross opening theme.

0:57:19 Sam played Drakengard with a PS2 emulator.
Though it is not a very fun game to play, I remember playing Drakengard just for how darkly compelling it was at the time. You need to play through a lot of mediocre game to get to those interesting bits, but dear god they make it worth it.
I’m also glad Sam used the phrase “,,.how much of a [weeaboo] he is, like me….” He’s become self-aware.

1:06:35 Sam played Bloodborne.
I think Sam’s thoughts on it are interesting. As someone who never played a Souls games, I can’t comment on it with any authority. However, I appreciate that they exist and I am weirdly interesting in listening to people talk about them.

1:23:20 Wrapping Up.
Garrett is starting up a Twitch channel.
My Dragon Age pacing article is here.
Sam’s Bloodborne article is here.
Interactive Friction is here.

In this episode, we begin to talk a bit more about the side characters in the game.

This is also our first experiment with doing some slight editing of the footage. Mostly, we cut segments of combat, or of loading screens, where nothing interesting was happening in the game and we weren’t making any observations or commentary. Without Sam’s editing, this episode would have been a half-hour long, as is evidenced by the fact that “We’re 14 minutes in,” when you’ve only seen 7 minutes worth of show.

Watching both the uncut and cut versions back to back, it’s obvious that the cut version is noticeably better. In the future, we hope to further improve our craft, resulting in better videos from here on out. Feel free to let us know your thoughts in the comments, as all feedback is appreciated.

In this episode, Sam and I talk about some of the more uncomfortable parts of the game.

As I said in the episode, Tomb Raider (2013) makes most of Lara’s deaths look much more brutal than we’re used to seeing in video games. The ones we show off in this episode are the most gruesome, but they are not the only such fatalities on display.

I believe that the reason the deaths in these games are so uncomfortable because of the way the game lingers on them. In most games, the developers would be in a hurry to fade to black before we see the character start to suffer, and begin to start at the last checkpoint (or save game). Though resets are pretty quick in Tomb Raider, we also see, in vivid detail, just how much Lara suffers as she slowly dies. The death isn’t immediate, and that suffering is uncomfortable to watch.

The way theses scenes cause discomfort in the player is clearly intentional. Not only does it provide an even stronger disincentive to fool around in these scenes (more than usual), but it also helps to sell the feeling that the island is a giant hazard, just doing its best to kill Lara. It is a very interesting way to make the mechanics reinforce the story.

The voice acting, animation, and shot composition are also top-notch in both the deaths and the cauterization scene. Though that scene isn’t a death, it’s another fantastic scene how Lara is beginning to change her way of thinking in order to survive on the island.
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