The spooky times are upon us once more, and there’s no better time for a big frighten than now. Supermassive Games, creators of both Until Dawn and last year’s The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan have taken it upon themselves to release a new chapter in their ongoing series. The Curator has returned with a new story that we are to conduct.

Welcome to Little Hope. Joining me as he did in our last outing at the Man of Medan is my old friend Acharky. The Dark Duo is back, and this time it appears that the mystery is not as cut and dry our seafaring adventure prior.

While Little Hope plays largely the same as Man of Medan did, they are definitely areas of improvement in the way the game presents itself. The one that immediately comes to mind for me is that prompts overtly signal when they lead to progress, so that players know what to avoid doing if they want to take the time to explore the area for secrets or extra dialogue, solving the problem where we would painstakingly try to guess with choice is the “right one” so we could put it off for last before missing out on something we wanted to see.

Another noticeable UI change is that there’s a visual indicator before we’re expected to perform a QTE like tossing a rock or navigating down a precarious path, or keeping quiet. It’s a nice touch to avoid blindsiding players who are otherwise engrossed in the story, buying them that extra second to scramble for the controls before they’re asked to use them. There is the odd side effect of me failing pretty much every “keep quiet” scene because I’m so used to immediately having to react, but this is an impulse that can be unlearned in time, after enough exposure.

There’s also the changes to character stats. In contrast to Man of Medan, where there was a single bar denoting how two character mutually feel about each other, each character’s opinion of the others are tracked separately in Little Hope. Just because John has a favorable opinion of Taylor does not mean that the reverse is true. And with certain personality traits being locked, the cast is more strongly defined on a mechanic level than that of Man of Medan, and even Until Dawn. While the writing has always been good, this allows the calculations under the hood to better keep up with it. All of these are small changes, but together they significantly refine the formula Supermassive has been working with for all of these games.

Perhaps the biggest compliment I can give Little Hope is that I barely even noticed the time ticking by as Chris and I played it together. And in the first two hours, it made us go from completely hating several of the character based on first impressions, to being solidly in their camp. And that, above all else, is the sign of a good video game.

What can I say? This game has been on my mind a lot lately, and my Wednesday stream seemed to be the perfect excuse to go for another run.

Prince Zagreus is ever eager to break out of his lord father’s domain, and I’m ever eager to aid with on the way.

(A warning: As I had beaten the game prior to playing this session, there may be spoilers.)

Watching so many people come into the game, playing for the first time now that it’s fully released, the thing I can’t help but notice is how approachable it is compared to contemporaries in it’s genre. People I know who ordinarily don’t get into roguelikes are having fun with Hades in a way they just haven’t before.

I’m hardly the first to remark upon this, and I doubt I will be the last, but there are many common pressure points that are inherent to the genre, and Supergiant intelligent worked to alleviate many, if not all, of them to make the experience less painful.

• Death is not something to be feared. Though players will lose all of their boons and be sent to the start, they’ll always gain something permanent from their trouble. Whether that’s some Darkness to upgrade Zagreus, knowledge of the enemy that killed them, they made some progress. Additionally, returning to the House means they have an opportunity to see what the rest of the cast has to say (and they always have something interesting on their minds).

• God Mode gives those who normally struggle to come to grips with roguelikes another tool to onboard themselves. It doesn’t make the game easier at first, but it grants them bonuses every time them die, a cushion that otherwise wouldn’t be there to help catch them when the fall.

• The game is not anywhere near as randomized as one may suspect at first glance. In truth, an expert player has the capability to control for their luck through the choices they make in a run. While it is certainly possible to have a poor seed, it’s unlikely given all of the following:

• The trinkets, companions, and the choice of weapon combine to give players a static load out upon which they build on and around, rather than starting purely from scratch each time they make an escape attempt. Even without getting any boons or hammers, they have that baseline ability to carve out a play style before entering Tartarus.

• There are many branching paths on the way to the surface, and while all of them eventually reach the top, Supergiant politely informs the player what rewards they will get if they go along a specific path. This allows them to make an informed choice about which path they take and which boons, upgrades, or benefits they want to go for in order to improve the odds that they’ll make it to the end.

• When they obtain a god’s blessing, players have a choice over which benefit they extract from it, giving them another method with which that can make choices over how they want Zagreus to play.

• No matter what, the very first area will always start players off with either a god’s boon or a Daedalus Hammer, so there is never a run that will be completely devoid of any power ups.
  

While many of these choices are hard to parse out at first, overtime most players, consciously or not, will start to pick up on what decisions lead to easier runs and naturally improve over their experience with Hades. This is especially true later on, when players unlock the ability to re-roll either chamber rewards or boon choices, given them an even finer degree of control over the preceding.

It’s a truly impressive feat that Supergiant performed in the development of Hades, making one of the most accessible games of its ilk. I can only hope more roguelikes start to learn from its example.

And then we get to escape scene in the Warthog, which is everything wrong with early 2000s vehicle sections distilled into a single stage. Terrible controls, combined with unwieldy terrain and floaty physics generate a breeding ground for frustration and contempt. Even worse, there isn’t a single checkpoint at any point in the section. I’ll take the blame for some of my deaths, but a lot of them were the result of physics-related mishaps I had next to no control over. To have the game invalidate six whole minutes of my time because their collision detection randomly decided to kill me is not a way to engender good feelings. I was surprised when stream chat called this an iconic moment, because I would never want this to be the thing people thought of when they think of a game I’m fond of.

I’m just glad the rest of the game more than makes up for it, because if this was my first impression I’m not sure I would’ve gone on to finish the Halo: Combat Evolved as I have.

We continue our fight against the Covenant alongside the Master Chief. As it turns out, Halo isn’t a superweapon that we can use to wipe them out. Rather, it appears to be the prison for a race of parasitic monsters known as The Flood.

Military Commanders… Always leaping before they look.

Now we’ve got to clean up their mess.

Thumbnail, as always, provided by Sam Callahan.

But perhaps it’s best to find a way to fix this whole situation without doing a genocide of world-ending proportions. Everyone please ignore the fact that I hit the “extinguish all life” button because it looked shiny.

While this game has a bare bones story, something I appreciate about it is that it avoids bogging itself down in unnecessarily complex jargon. The faction of fanatical aliens are simply called “the Covenant”, to emphasize the religious undertones of the organization. Parasitic swarms without end go by “The Flood,” to underscore their numerous and aggressive nature. Even out faceless protagonist is referred to as “The Master Chief,” their military rank being their most notable character trait. Using those types of Proper Nouns reduces the cognitive load on the player, allowing them to quickly and easily memorize the high level concepts they need to know to understand the overall plot.

On top of that, I like the choice to have the player walk back through the earlier levels and see how they’ve changed in response to the Flood. It shows us through gameplay how the Covenant and the world around us is dealing with the ongoing threat. There’s also the thematic aspect of going backwards, and losing the progress that we fought for in the beginning because we now need to deal with The Flood.

Next time, it appears that we’ll be wrapping up our campaign through the first Halo game. Hopefully, we can avoid ending all of existence along the way.

The plot thickens on our first mission with the Master Chief. Where we saw a simple weapon with the potential to terrify and/or eliminate the Covenant, the truth was so much more sinister. Our military leaders, such is their wont in their endless hubris, unleashed and awakened sinister forces that threaten all life.

Thankfully, we’re here to see if we can clean up the mess and stop The Flood from spiraling out of control.

And as always, thanks go to Sam Callahan for the thumbnail.

One of the things I can always appreciate in a game is a huge shakeup in the pacing and flow, and this is a pretty good example of that. At the end of the day, Halo is a power fantasy where the player inhabits the role of an unstoppable badass, so this section never really crosses over into true horror. Nonetheless, I did have moments of being unsettled when The Flood was first introduced, until I understood that I was supposed to fight, rather than flee.

And at the risk of repeating myself from the last time, it is honestly shocking how much the new lighting detracts from the experience. The original game conveyed a darker, both literally and metaphorically, atmosphere which helps sell the cosmic horror of The Flood all the more. Yet they translated this brooding palate into this bright, almost vibrant and varied color scheme that betrays the tone the old style establishes. It’s genuinely shocking to me.

My other real criticism stems from the game itself. Maybe it’s just me and the way I consume video games in 2020, but I cannot help but feel that several of the levels in this game overstay their welcome by about 15-20 minutes. By the time the introduction to The Flood was over, I had more had my fill of fighting them off, and I was ready to most onto the next set piece.

While that feeling was particularly noticeable here, I felt similarly in earlier stages as well. There’s an odd pacing to this game that didn’t survive the test of time the way the rest of it did, and that’s understandable since it’s almost 20 years old at this point. I must remember that this is the game that codified how one can make first-person shooters, and make them well, on controllers and game consoles. It is inevitable that it wouldn’t be perfect, as this was something of an experiment.

Minor gripes aside, the experiment was largely successful. I’m still having a mostly good time playing it, even all of these years later and without the benefit of nostalgia beyond my nostalgia for the genre as a whole. It’s impressive in its own right.

So here I am, doin’ everythin’ I can.
Holdin’ onto what I am.
Pretendin’ I’mma Superman.

That’s right. We’re going back to a old classic. Pretty much every person in my age bracket grew up with the Tony Hawk Pro Skater games, and I am no exception. That franchise almost single-handedly created a boom for the skateboarding community, and it’s easy to see why that would be the case.

What this stream impressed upon me most was just how important the soundtrack was to the overall tone and experience of playing these games. Without it, some of the levels are a little eerie and unsettling, especially in their emptiness. If I wasn’t afraid of getting copyright strikes, I would gladly turn the music on, but sadly practicality wins out this day.

That aside, I’m impressed by how great this remaster is. It feels so good to play a Tony Hawk game that isn’t awful again. My skills have rusted over completely in the time since, but even then it plays exactly as I remember. I look forward to doing the rest, though it will be on my own time.

With the closure of one series, it’s time to start another. And just like before, this one harkens back to a by-gone age in video game history. Though I have no experience with the Halo campaigns, I’ve obviously played my fair share of their multiplayer modes at the houses of various friends from my childhood. Additionally, I’ve played many console shooters, all of whom trace their DNA, in some way, back to Halo.

This is a series that’s been on my list for a long-time now, and I can think of no better way to run these games than on stream for everyone to watch. Naturally, since I’m running this campaign for the first time, I’m going so blind.

Join me on the new adventure with the Master Chef.

Thumbnail by Sam Callahan.

I want to preface this by saying that 343 did an incredible job with this remaster. Early technical issues aside, the game runs extremely well, and it felt good in my hands. Credit is also due to both them and  Bungie for the sound design, music, and the remaster work. And the ability to switch between old and new graphics on the fly is such a cool feature than must have taken ages to implement.

That said, I have two major critiques about the HD release overall, particularly the new graphical style. Firstly, the new style is difficult to read in comparison to the original. The Elites are what brought this into focus for me. In the old style, their shields light up in response to gunfire, so I knew when I was connecting. This wasn’t the case in the HD version, where their model was so busy that I had to focus to perceive their shields responding to my gunfire. When in a tense fire fight, it is difficult to summon that level of attention to detail, making the theater of combat difficult to read.

On top of that, there is a noticeable brightness to the HD treatment, one that I found unpleasant to my eyes. The most obvious example is early on in the stream, where a dark corridor in the original style turns into a dimly, but visibly lit corridor in the up-res. In other locations, I noticed that there was a slight, but noticeable strain on my eyeballs when I switched to the updated look. No matter how beautiful a game is, there’s no excuse for that kind of discomfort.

With regards to the game itself, my only real complaint thus far is that I find myself getting lost a lot, since it doesn’t do a very good job signaling where we’re supposed to go to proceed. At many times, I found myself either wandering aimlessly, or petitioning my stream chat for aid in figuring out what I was supposed to do.

But such complaints are ultimately minor, and this promises to be a fun series for the rest of our experience.

Welcome back to the lands of Runeterra, where it’s time to conduct another experiment in The Lab. This one is unique, in that it is an entirely single player experience. Two of our newest champions, Leona and Diana, are looking to reach the peak of Targon to face Aurelion Sol. Along the way, they’ll each face obstacles and enemies barring their path.

Let us help these champions complete their journey.

I like the decision to use both Leona and Diana as the champions for this event, because they are complete opposites from a mechanical perspective, doubly so when their special abilities for this event are factored in.

Leona has an aggressive play pattern. She wants to play about one, maybe two units per turn and use their powerful Daybreak triggers to gain the advantage. Because her units are powerful, but only if they’re the first one played each round, she folds if her opponent is allowed the chance to recover. Therefore, her objective is to quickly close the game so that her enemies can’t out-value her in the long game. Her ability to give the weakest unit on her board a power boost and a barrier also allows her to more safely attack into strong board states.

Diana, meanwhile, favors a more deliberate style. Unlike Leona, she can gain multiple Nightfall triggers in a single turn, many of which allow her to either create or draw additional cards. The net effect is that her hand is constantly filled with tools that her can use to get out of any bind and accrue value over the long game. And if she is out, her combination of Challenger and Quick Attack should allow her to take out any foe in her way, clearing the path for her other forces to finish off her adversaries.

Of course, we had no trouble either way because it’s still a single-player mini-campaign against Runeterra’s AI. No matter what abilities or cheats they bring to bear, they’re still easy to manipulate. That said, I hope they produce more of these because it’s a good way to just relax for an hour or so and play a low-stakes card game.

I can even feel good about it because Runeterra doesn’t utilize predatory business practices to keep the profits flowing. This is much unlike a certain magical card game that I’ve played a lot of on here, but I suppose it’s weird of me to point that out here.

For the fourth time, our adventures with the blunder from down under have come to an end. Although the odds are that we’ll eventually return to the series once the new Crash game comes out, and It’s About Time, for now we can close the book on the bandicoot.

And of course, there are no drivers more fitting to end this series than the titular protagonist. Since we’re on the PS4, we also have access to the old-school, retro version of him. Truly, there is no better way to go back to where it all began. My co-host Acharky even agrees with me.

The gem cups are probably some of my favorite challenges in the entire game. They’ll be instantly familiar to anyone who has played Mario Kart, because they’re similar to many of the circuit challenges in that series.

Basically, each on is a four race marathon. At the end of each race, the contestants are given point values corresponding to the position they placed. Once all four races have concluded, the one with the highest overall score is the winner of the whole cup. Of course, if we want the gem, that winner needs to be us.

In that way, the point is that a single stroke of (mis)fortune won’t make or break one’s final rating. Rather, the key is consistently be in the top standings so that we can as many points as possible. It’s okay to do poorly in one race so long as we excel in the others or otherwise knock out the ones with more points than us.

And then after that, we beat Oxide once and for all to save our planet. Be sure to join us next week, as I begin a blind playthrough of the next Halo game.

It’s been quite some time since our last foray through the Greek Underworld with the handsome and kind Prince Zagreus. Back then, the game was still incomplete, even if all of the stages, including the final boss, were ready and waiting for anyone who could brave through a full run.

And yet, much has been tweak, added, or adjusted between then and now. Additionally, the game has a proper ending for players to experience when they finally succeed. Join us, as we take this opportunity to take a few Quick Runs through what has become one of my favorite rougelikes from the past few years, and possibly my favorite game from Supergiant to date.

It has been a ton of fun watching how this game has progressed since it started out in Early Access nearly two years ago. Even back then, Hades felt like a polished, if not fully complete experience out of the box, that still gave other roguelikes a run for their money. Even if Lernie, the Stygian Hydra was as far as one could go, that was still fairly substantial at the time.

And that only grew more and more true as the updates rolled out, adding features that people entering now would struggle to envision the game without, like the House Contractor or the many aspects of each of the Infernal Arms. Further, each update always felt substantial, bringing in big changes and improvements to the game that made running it again feel different than it did before.

As someone who has “beaten” the game over sixty times now, the joy I feel at seeing how far the game has come is compounded further by my own excitement at finally seeing the true ending for it. That they even thought of a clever solution to the problem of still needing to give the player an excuse to go on additional runs only makes the artistic all the more apparent.

Having lived on-and-off with this cast of characters for all this time, it’s also been heartwarming to see the memes, fan art, and fandom practically reemerge in the wake of the 1.0 release. I have friends who are making their first escape attempts and I can’t help but smile because they’re having the same amount of fun, if not more, than I did starting out. They get to share in my excitement, and I theirs.

It’s a wonderful feeling.