You’re probably wondering, “Why did Google lead me here!?” Those of you not wondering that are probably asking “Why is this so damn late!?”

Well, we forgot to record last week. Sam and I thought we had a backlog of episodes to go through. As it turns out, we did not. So, we got together on Monday (which is when this should have been posted), to record a new batch of episodes before we got too far down the hole.

I’m also not entirely sure what happened to my audio during this recording session.

Anyway, this episode has more filler missions.

Do you know how every Let’s Play series will inevitably have that one episode where nothing substantial happens, and as a result the commentary feels a lot like repeated what was previously said.

This was that episode.

What I want to talk about instead is the way that writing about games fundamentally alters the way people like Sam and I play them, since it came up in our discussion. Before I started doing stuff like this, I would just go through games and think “Oh, I liked that.” or “Oh, that was bad.” What changes when you start making this kind of content is that you instead beginning to think less about what emotions you feel as you play (which are easy to discern). Instead, the focus shifts to why the game elicits those reactions from you. That, to me, is what distinguishes a critic from a more, and I hate to use this word, “casual” consumer of video games.

Anyone can do it, it’s just a matter of actively trying to shift one’s mode of thinking. There’s nothing inherently special about people who criticize media beyond their willingness to just go out and do it, especially in this day and age.

The inFamous franchise has always been a popular one for owners of the PlayStation 3. Developed by Sucker Punch, the creators of the Sly Cooper franchise, inFamous used many common superhero tropes to create its own universe and world. Both of the games on the PS3 followed protagonist Cole McGrath, also known as “The Electric Man” and “The Demon of Empire City,” and his desire to grow and develop his powers in preparation to face “The Beast”. Those who played those games know that his story, in either of the second entry’s two possible endings, comes to a very definitive end. Of course, that did not stop the creation of a new entry in the franchise for Sony’s relatively new PS4. This sequel, inFamous: Second Son, is the subject for this week’s article.
InFamous: Second Son is an interesting game, because it is one of the exclusive games that came out extremely early in the new console generation. As a result, it occupies this unfortunate space between superhero-sandbox game and PS4 tech demo. It also presented a large change in direction for the series in terms of tone. Though the game still feels very distinctly like an inFamous game, it seems like many of the best elements of that franchise were diluted somewhat. This all combines to create a game that, while satisfactory, does not quite live up to its predecessors.
But before we get into that, it is important to discuss the story of the inFamous franchise as a whole. In the world of inFamous, certain people are born with abilities that may or may not awaken. Referred to as “conduits”, these people, if their latent talents manifest, have fast healing, enhanced physical prowess, and the power to channel a particular material. This material can be anything in particular, even man-made. At the end of inFamous, the protagonist, in the canonical Good Ending, sacrifices his life and the lives of all conduits in order to save all normal people from a terrible, and highly lethal, plague.
Second Son takes place after this event. As it turns out, not all conduits were killed, only most of them. After these random people began to manifest all sorts of strange and powerful new abilities, governments began to fear them. Later on, the United States government began to take steps to fight against these “bio-terrorists.” As a result, the Department of Unified Protection (DUP) is formed. Headed by a concrete-wielding conduit named Brooke Augustine, and armed with technology to detect and combat conduits, the DUP have absolute authority to imprison or eliminate anyone who possesses the conduit-gene.
This is a remarkable change in tone from previous inFamous games. The PS3 titles were very comic book-inspired. It was mostly about people with superpowers going up against other people with superpowers. Second Son, on the other hand, is extremely heavy-handed with its political commentary. Allegories to the modern-war War on Terror are overt, obvious, and all over the place. Furthermore, these concepts are linked together by imagery of the police state, like an Edward Snowden-inspired social commentary. While I am not against politics in video game, in fact I often encourage it, the game seems almost afraid that the player will not understand the message they are attempting to make. I strongly feel that it would have better for Sucker Punch to be more subtle with the way they introduce and comment on these issues. Social commentary is far more likely to make a lasting impact when it does not sound, to the audience, preach-y.
Of course, being an inFamous game, the karma system makes a return. As the game progresses, players are given good and/or evil karma based on how they play, what they do, and what decisions they make in the story. Starting at neutral, Delsin Rowe will shift, over time, towards either a Good or an Evil alignment as karma is accumulated. Though the plot will follow the same rough path regardless of these choices, events will be altered to reflect karmic alignment. Further, certain upgrades to the player’s powers will be either unlocked or blocked off depending on which side of the spectrum Delsin stands on. This is nothing new, and behaves much like it did back in the old inFamous games.
For a couple of years, I have been a major critic of this karma system. Back then, these choices were always between childishly-binary extremes. For example, in the original inFamous, one of the moral choices is to decide whether to inform someone that their wife died so that they will let allow the protagonist to advance, or to just kill them to get them out of the way. In the immortal words of Yahtzee Croshaw in his Bioshock review, back when these systems were more commonplace, “You can choose to be either Mother Teresa or a baby-eater, with no apparent middle ground.”
Some of the choices present in inFamous: Second Son still have this degree of cartoonish morality. On the other hand, many of the decisions that affect moral standing do not really seem to be all that different from each other. In a few scenes, Delsin comes into contact with other people that have powers. When his brother, who is a police officer, attempts to bring them into custody for crimes they have committed, the protagonist is given a choice. He can free the conduit, setting them on the path to redemption for good karma. Alternatively, he can free the conduit, allowing them to run-free on society and show the world how strong they are for evil karma. In either case, the player makes the exact same action. However, the only difference is in the logical reason behind the action.
Fortunately, the game plays well. Like the PS3 inFamous games, it is mostly an open-world sandbox where the player is free to use their powers as they see fit. The city contains many side quests, which players can undertake in order to wrest the city of Seattle, Washington, where the game takes places, from the DUP, much like the territory side-quests from old games in the franchise. However, there does not seem to be as much as there was in those entries. In fact, the game feels a lot shorter. It can be beaten, 100%, in a single weekend. Some franchise fans might be put off by that. However, with my busy schedule, and the various side projects that I have going on, I appreciated the fact that the game was a bit more succinct.
Unlike Cole McGrath, Delsin Rowe is not an electrical-conduit. In fact, he channels a very unique material. He channels others conduit powers, with the ability to absorb and use as many abilities as he can find. The first power he acquires is Smoke, followed by Neon, Video, and lastly Concrete.
Each power controls similarly, with different properties and upgrade paths keeping them apart. That seems like a missed opportunity, given that they could have made each power feel unique, and not just a small twist of familiar mechanics. The player can change these powers by absorbing the appropriate element, like smoke for smoke powers. I found myself more heavily relying on Neon, as that power allows one to run up walls and dash infinitely. Furthermore, neon signs are plentiful in the environment. Others may find more use from other powers, but I am willing to bet that most chose similarly, especially since Concrete does not become available until the game’s final boss fight.
As I said in the introduction, Second Son feels much like a tech demo. Specifically, the game makes used of the PS4 controller’s motion controls and touch pad in a way that strongly resembles the forced SIXAXIS integration seen in early PS3 games. Two large examples come to find. First and foremost is Delsin’s desire to tag walls with his spraypaint art. In a couple of optional missions, Delsin can find a suitable wall and make the choice to paint it with happy, blue art for good karma or angry, red art for evil karma. In either case, the player will have to tilt the control and move it around to paint the picture, using motion controls. I would personally rather just use the analog stick as this just felt cumbersome. I even experienced hand cramps from holding the controller sideways a few times.
The other example comes from the liberal use of the touch pad. Some of these uses are good. For example, context-sensitive actions are all mapped to pressing the touch-pad down as a button. This is simple, intuitive, and easy to understand. The more damning use fortunately only occurs one in the game. In order to pass through a DUP checkpoint, players will, early on in the game, need to use the touch pad to move their thumb into position so that a machine can take a blood sample and test Delsin for the conduit-gene. (Spoilers: He gets detected.) Again, it feels forced and does not really work as well as the designer intended. It took me a few minutes to figure out how the mechanic worked, and it only occurs exactly one time. Aside from that one time, players will never need to use it to get through any content, mandatory or otherwise. In these respects, it feels like a tech demo, despite being an otherwise solid game.

As a fan of the inFamous franchise, I cannot help but be disappointed by Second Son. Though developed by the same people, and in some respects improving upon the controls of the PS3 games, many parts of this game feel forced. The story heavy-handedly attaches social commentary to a setting that makes it seem weird and out-of-place. Portions of the gameplay are very gimmicky, strongly resembling that of a tech demo, and not a real interactive experience. Lastly, the game seems unsure of itself when reusing the moral choice system of its predecessors. Fortunately, it does enough right to justify playing it at a discounted price. It is not a bad game, it just does not live up to what I come to expect from Sucker Punch. It is a good game to get for someone who already has a PS4, but not worth getting a new console for.

In this episode, we dive headlong into a vat of terrible, terrible filler. Naturally, this makes us spend almost an entire episode talking about Final Fantasy.

I want to stress that there is nothing inherently wrong with these missions in terms of gameplay. They are actually very fun to playthrough. Everyone wants to be Indiana Jones, after all.

The problem is that they just do not fit into the story. So far, Jason has been established as being someone who is willing to kill or cripple anyone who gets in the way of his friends. Every time he acts out of line in this section, Buck (and I had to Google that name) calls up his cronies and asks them to torture our friend Keith. So, Jason would probably have shot Buck stupid and forced him to lead him to Keith. It’s hard to argue that Jason wouldn’t, since murderous rage is the entirety of his character arc.

It’s also difficult to justify how Buck didn’t get the dagger by now. He works for Hoyt, the soon to-be-revealed main bad guy. It should be simple to get his men, which he apparently has if he can call them up to torture Keith, to get this dagger for him. Barring that, Hoyt has an army of disposable pirates that are fully-capable of doing the job. Really, it just shows incompetence on Buck’s part.

Which is why this segment of the game feels so poorly justified. Not only does Jason not have a compelling enough reason to take this quest in lieu of more direct options, but Buck also doesn’t have a compelling reason to outsource this quest to Jason. Also, remember that we needed this dagger to get Citra to help us find our friends, which we will have once we finish this quest.

It’s a huge mess, probably better left cut out of the campaign.

This is the part where the game artificially pads itself out by adding missions to the main story that do nothing to advance the plot.

There really is no other reason to have Oliver’s rescue by a sniper section aside from the designers making it so. Honestly, what I suspect happened is that the designers had already created this segment, and the writers had to find some way to tie it into the rest of the plot. Sometimes, that style produces gems like Uncharted 2. More often than not, it creates segments like this.

It doesn’t help that the Sniper Rifle you get in this section is one of the worst weapons in the game. Even the basic sniper rifle is more accurate that the one you receive in this mission. I’m not sure why they did that either.

As for the topic of Jason Dilweed’s friends, it’s so sad that they have a lot of personality in their backstory, but that never comes up in the main plot. It’s such a wasted opportunity. The writers could have used those details to give us some attachment to them. Then, when Jason begins his descent into madness, they could contrast with Jason’s new personality, to further highlight how far down Jason stoops. That would’ve been so interesting, but they didn’t do that. That’s the problem with this game. The writers missed so many great opportunities.

Another week, another episode of The Texture Pop. Unfortunately, Garrett was unable to attend this week because he was having some technical difficulties on his end.

Also, we had no viewer questions. If you guys want to send us some questions, comments, or feedback, go to thetexturepop@gmail.com and send us an e-mail. We’ll be happy to indulge you.

Lastly, I deeply apologize for the terrible audio quality on this episode from both Chris and myself. We suspect it was due to my internet connection, but nothing concrete.

0:00:45 Gaming News
Microsoft Hololens Reveal
It has great potential, the story is accurate. However, the proof will be in the application.

EVO 2015 Lineup
Since Chris and Sam and more about fighting games than I, I’ll let their commentary stand. I do agree though, that it is weird for them to put games on the list that have yet to be released. Since it takes time and practice to get good at fighting games, you’d think recent releases would put all the contestants who play them at a handicap, making them a little less entertaining to both play and watch.

0:13:10 Sam finished Valiant Hearts
I hear a lot of criticisms about Valiant Hearts in the same vein as those that Sam is making. I still have yet to play the game, though I have little reason to doubt all of these people when they are being so consistent in the critiques.

0:16:32 Sam play The Walking Dead: Season 2
Season 2 is not, strictly speaking, bad. It is a fine story. There are just a number of problems with it.

  • At this point, we are already extremely familiar with Telltale’s brand of choices that feel like they should matter, but actually don’t in hindsight.
  • The characters in Season 2, while not bad, do not compare well to the characters in the first season.
  • The main conflicts in the story, logically, aren’t Clementine’s problems. She could easily just walk away and be no worse off as a result.
It also makes it clear that Telltale has basically ceased, for better or worse, trying to fit in puzzles. It’s more of a long-form interactive movie, where it takes every few moments to let the audience state their preferences. I can understand why fans of old-school adventure games are disappointed by it, but overall I think it lets them have stronger writing. The Wolf Among Us was a great example of this, but Season 2 just feel flat.
0:34:10 Sam finished Saya No Uta
Sam went into heavy spoilers with us before the podcast. Let me say that there is a reason he is vague here. It was quite interesting to listen to.
It’s hard to convey why you like things like that without spoilers, so I sympathize with him.
0:39:50 Chris has finished Assassin’s Creed 3 (and the Tyranny of King Washington DLC)
This. This is the conversation I’ve been waiting weeks to have. I hate this game so much that it hurts. Here, we take half an hour to just complain about Assassin’s Creed 3’s endgame and the DLC. Nothing I write here could compare to the sheer joy I take in knowing that Chris suffered as much as I did. Just listen to this. Really, just listen to this. It’s that good.

1:04:10 I played a bit more Diablo 3 on PS4
I’m getting more and more convinced that loot fest games just really aren’t my style. I find that it just seems pointless to continually play the game just for loot. Every single element is just about acquiring loot. I need something more than that from games I play.
Even the fighting isn’t even that much of a challenge. On easy, enemies are pushovers. On hard, it’s just sitting there while waiting for numbers to go down. I cannot say I find it particularly fun. If not for my friend, I probably would’ve stopped by now.

1:11:00 I played inFamous: Second Son and inFamous: First Light
I plan to release an article later this week about it, but overall I did not like it as much as I did the other inFamous games. First Light was better, in my honest opinion.
And, as an aside, the reason I repeated a lot of stuff early on in this segment is to catch Chris up since he was in the bathroom.
What I was most surprised to hear is Chris’s complaining when I said that karma made a return. In previous discussions we’ve had over the years, Chris used to defend the system because it recreated the comic-book style super good or super evil. I guess something must have changed his mind in the years since our last discussion on this series.

1:40:00 Wrapping Up
Sam’s article is here.
Interactive Friction, the collaborative project between Sam and I, is here.
My Deadly Premonition article is here.

In this episode, we have an escort mission, because of course we do.

I make fun of the flamethrower mission, but it’s actually a really fun mission. There’s just something cathartic about setting flame to things. Of course, in real life, breathing in all the fumes from these drugs would result in the world’s best high, but I’m glad they didn’t go for that level of realism. Going this mission while dealing with Jason’s trip would be a extremely unfun.

Towards the middle of this episode, we talk about needing Tapir Hides for an extended loot rucksack. Before we started the recording session, we went out to collect hides and create an extra weapon holster and extended rucksack. However, we got mauled by a tiger after we created the sack. Since we didn’t save or reach a safehouse in that whole 30 minutes, we lost both upgrades. We weren’t even in a mission at the time. It’s strange because even by the point Far Cry 3 was released, designers knew that this kind of lost progress is unforgivable. There’s really no excuse.

As for the escort mission, you all already how bad those things are. I don’t need to detail what went wrong with this mission.

Missed Hoyt Assassination Opportunities: 1

This week, we bring you a mandatory stealth mission. Because of course we do.

Let us recap what is going on in the plot so far. First, the island our protagonist and his douchebag friends skydive over is run by a group of evil pirates. When we escape, we arrive at a camp where we are given a tattoo, and told that we are the Ultimate Warrior. Using this pretense, we are attempting to rescue our friends.

Then, we decide that it would be best to petition the natives to help. To that end, we talk to their leader, Citra. After spending a few minutes trading insults, see agrees to help after we take an acid trip, acquire a missing dagger, and truly become the Ultimate Warrior. When we look for the dagger, we discover that we need to get the help of a CIA agent to track down sources of information about the dagger. We go even further than that later, with a whole Indiana Jones-inspired expedition questline.

Shamus Young once wrote a piece about how games tend to do this, in response to Neverwinter Nights 2. In essence, what we are doing in order to, theoretically, make our end game easier is takes significantly more time and effort than it should realistically take to just complete our main objective. After all, our goal is to save our friends and get out. Instead of sticking to that, we are embroiling ourselves in a conflict which does not exactly further our self-interest. It’s not as bad as the example Shamus is talking about, but it is related and definitely the sign of filler content.

We also talk a lot about tailing mission at the tail end of this episode. As many players of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, also by Ubisoft, will know, tailing missions tend to be extremely poorly paced. More often then not, the tracked subject will take a super-convoluted path to their objective, ignoring a much more direct and simpler path. At the same time, the move at a snail’s pace, meaning that you have to as well. Even if we know where he will go, we fail the mission if we just head directly there.

I play games of all manner of strips. Platformers, shooters, RPGs, and many other genres. As a result, I have acquired many unique tastes. No game represents “unique tastes” any more than Deadly Premonition. Developed by Access Games, this title was, and is, the brain-child of Hidetaka Suehiro, more commonly known as SWERY. It embodies a style and tone all its own, distinct from almost every other game I have ever played. Though it still has flaws which cannot be overlooked, it is truly a gem of a game.
Taking place in the fictional town of Greenvale, Washington, Deadly Premonition follows the adventures of FBI Special Agent Francis York Morgan. He has put himself on the case of the murder of an 18-year-old waitress named Anna Graham. The reason is that it possesses an alarming amount of similarities to an unusual string of killings he has been investigating across the continental United States. Through many trials and tribulations, York must gather clues from various crime scenes to solve the mystery behind these deaths.
Like in Persona 4, I found the murder mystery hook worked extremely well for me. I love analyzing all of characters and clues to see if I can piece the puzzle together myself. This game has plenty of that. If the player pays careful attention to the story, characters, and clues, it is entirely possible to deduce the culprit early on. In that sense, the writing is extremely fair. The game does not cheat by holding back key elements of specific scenes until the last minute. Despite that, I did not completely figure everything out until the big reveal. I was personally quite impressed by the game’s writing.
Another aspect to the game I give it credit for is its cast. Though I have never watched the show, I have it on good authority that the cast of characters was heavily inspired by Twin Peaks. Every character in the game has their own unique quirks and traits. In their own way, every one of them is memorable. At the same time, and I am still unsure if this is intentional or not, they all have something “off” about them. Either in the way they speak, their personality, or in their animations, the entire cast each have some way to invoke the feeling of the Uncanny Valley. As a result, while the town is memorable, and players will begin to slowly feel more and more at home as they play the game, there is an inescapable “creepy” feeling. During my playthrough, I found it oddly compelling.
This is especially true of York himself, who might be the most quirky. After all, the player does not even truly play as York. Rather, they assume the role of Zach, the personality inside York’s head that gives him advice and helps to guide him in his cases. This persona helps by giving York someone to explain his thought process to, and a way to elicit response and interaction from the player. In a very real sense, Zach is a player cipher. Having said that, he has a history and background with York, that also gets explored through the course of the game. It is a very interesting tactic to bring players into the world, one I think could be applied to other games.
In terms of play, Deadly Premonition is very much like a life-simulator in many respects. As time marches on, Agent York grows more hungry and sleepy. The player is tasked with making sure that he eats and sleeps at regular intervals, to avoid exhaustion or starvation. Furthermore, story events only take place at specific times. For example, a character who needs to be interrogated will only appear at their location from 10:00 to 17:00 (the game uses military time for arbitrary reasons, just go with it). If the player does not arrive at the specified destination in time, they will have to try again the next day. Should they get there early, they will have to come back within the mandated timeframe. On the surface, it appears that this is to grant the player free time to explore the area. However, since I did not really have an interest in side content, I had my character pass the time in the menu. None of this is difficult, and food is pretty cheap, so it mostly serves as a way to become more invested into the town of Greenvale. To the game’s credit, this endeavor is largely successful.
The other aspect of gameplay seems wholly unnecessary. That is, whenever York enters a new crime scene in order to gather evidence, he is accosted by what appear seem like zombies. These scenarios are never difficult, as most of them will die in a few (easy to make) headshots. Furthermore, although these segments are easy, the controls feel very clunky. York cannot even move and attack at the same time unless he uses a melee weapon. Should the player take the melee route, they should know that weapons degrade as they are used. Fortunately, defeated zombies have chances to drop melee weapons and ammo for ranged weapons, and the default pistol has infinite ammo. It appears to try to invoke many common horror tropes. At the same time, the player never seems to feel like they are in any actual danger. Since these areas also seem to take place in some alternate world, York does not even get hungry or tired in these sections. They just seem very tacked on.
At the same time, they do offer one good element as well. As York collects the clues in an area, he will continually profile the events of the crime. Initially, the profile will be very fuzzy. However, for each clue, portions of the profile begin to fill in. Once all of the clues are gathered, York will then have a complete picture of what happened, which will further the investigation and reveal new leads to progress the story. These scenes help the player to better understand York’s deductive method, by observing the wheels turning in his mind. Though I do like this, this same level of immersion could be achieved better by removing the unnecessary combat.

Ultimately, Deadly Premonition is not a game for everyone. It has some minor flaws, but they are not what makes the game so difficult to recommend. What does make it difficult is the fact that it is so unique that it has the potential to off-put people looking for a more traditional experience. That said, some people, like those who appreciate Telltale’s brand of storytelling, will feel right at home with Deadly Premonition. Others who enjoy a good murder-mystery inspired by Twin Peaks will also enjoy their time. So give it a try, but be warned that it may not necessarily be to your liking.

At long last, the crew is all together again. As a result, we’re all rearing and ready to go with our usual shenanigans.

0:02:02 Viewer Questions
“What do you guys think of Project Steam?”
I wish at least one of us took a more serious look into it. Unfortunately, this was a very disappointing answer to the viewer question.

“What do you guys think of Splatoon?”
This was a much better answer. Not much more to add aside from what was said. I need to see more before I can comment further.

0:08:55 Gaming News
Transformers Universe shutting down
We do talk a bit about MOBAs and microtransactions in this segment, which is an interesting conversation. Mostly because it shows our groups various levels of tolerance with regards to microtransactions. For example, Garrett and Sam don’t really question paying $10-$15 for a skin. I, however, could not possibly justify spending that much on something purely cosmetic in a video game. There’s just no way.

Evolve DLC/Special Edition Convolution
This reminds me so much of the Watch_Dogs special edition chart. It’s so silly that it hurts.
Watch_Dogs is a single-player game, so as annoying as it was, it is not a big deal. Evolve, however, is a multiplayer game. This is a base-breaker, in much the way that map packs are in Call of Duty.

Shadowrun: Hong Kong Kickstarter
If you love Computer RPGs, you should definitely get in on this. I can’t stress how good these guys at Harebrained Schemes are.

Uncharted 4 won’t have 60 FPS if it “impacts the player experience”
The great frame-rate discussion continues.
This is a pretty big topic, because it hits to the core of what many criticize about AAA gaming. That is, the push for higher graphical fidelity over smooth play. That topic is one I cannot hope to do justice to in the annotations of a podcast, so I will let the conversation stand.

Publishers wanted male protagonist in Life is Strange
This conversation is where we got the title for this episode. I just find it odd that no other publisher was willing to let Dontnod have a female lead. You think they would learn by now.

0:48:10 Garrett has been playing Evolve
It pretty much confirmed what I was most afraid of. This is a game, a lot like Left 4 Dead. If you don’t play it with a group, you should not be playing it at all. That’s just not worth $60 to me. I don’t find enough value in that.

0:49:09 Garrett goes on a movie binge.
Y’know. Movies. That’s more Chris and Garrett’s expertise, not mine.

1:09:00 I played Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep HD Final Mix (via the 2.5 ReMIX)
And that is it for the 2.5 ReMIX.

1:10:00 I played Deadly Premonition: Director’s Cut.
Hearing about how the combat is thrown in because publishers really brings sense to the whole game. Now that I know that, it makes so much more sense.
It does make me want to watch Twin Peaks, as an aside.

1:17:40 We detour to discuss Hotline Miami 2 banning in Australia.
I actually took the time to do research on this after the fact. As it turns out, the Adult rating in video games only allows for more violence. Sex and sexual content is still just as taboo.

1:19:25 I played Diablo 3 on the PS4.
Items and number, my friends. Items and numbers.
And no auction house.

1:25:25 I played Assassin’s Creed: Unity: Dead Kings
It’s not a bad DLC, but it’s not particularly brilliant. It’s pretty average. Still, the story does more in that one DLC than the main game did for Arno’s character, giving his arc a bit more closure. If you’ve got Unity already, it’s free so you might as well try it. However, it’s not worth getting the game to play this DLC.

1:38:10 Chris has been playing Assassin’s Creed 3!
That game is awful!
One of the things we hit on in this conversation is the optional objectives in Assassin’s Creed games. I personally think that those perfect synchronization objectives are totally antithetical to what I want from an Assassin’s Creed game. I want to be able to choose my own path where doing missions. Those objectives are the opposite of that, because it makes players conform to one strategy. This was worsened by the excessive linearity of the missions as well.
The collectibles were also really pointless, because they were mostly for trophies without much of anything in terms of in-game rewards.
Overall, the game sucks. Don’t play it, watch it.

2:01:35 Sam watched some anime.
Like how Chris and Garrett are the movie guys, Sam is the anime guy. I’ll leave that to him.

2:16:50 Sam and I record some Interactive Friction
And we talk about it. You, on the other hand, should go watch it.

2:20:20 Wrapping Up
You can check out my Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep article here.
Sam’s site is also here now. Remember to update your bookmark.

In this episode, we actually make some very piercing commentary on this game. This is probably our most insightful episode yet, and it’s definitely one of the best.

I actually really like the idea of Liza’s character. She’s by far the most grounded of all the characters in the game. She understands more than anyone else the sheer gravity of the situation at hand.

The problem is that we aren’t in a real world scenario. We are playing a video game. As a result, there is some dissonance between her being a real person, and Jason being a goddamn video game hero. This could have been really interesting if the game acknowledged a bit more, but it almost feels like an accident.

The ultimate problem with Far Cry 3’s story is that the premise could have been used to write any number of excellent plots. However, the game takes almost none of these opportunities. Liza and Vaas both take turns pointing out that Jason is ostensibly a rich, white boy pretending to be an action hero (in their own way), but this becomes less and less of a plot element the more the game goes on.

The conversation Sam and I have in this episode really doesn’t need me to tell you this. It stands out on its own. If there is only one episode of Interactive Friction that you watch, it should really be this one.
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