It’s been quite some time since we last set foot in the lands of Runeterra, and in that time a new expansion has dropped. With it, new cards and new decks.

So let us give them a shot.

Decklists provided by Mobalytics:

• Zilean/Nasus: CMBQEAIFDUYQEBAFAMCAGBAHBUTS6BABAICQIAIEAUIAGBAHHNIWOBABAUARSKBQAEAQCBIT
• Azir/Irelia: CMCACAYCAUBACAQGFICAIBYDDIZV2BIEAICAKCILB4AQCBAHHEBACAQCBIAQIAQH
• Yasuo/Malphite: CIBQCAYJ3UAQGAICB4XDSAYEBEFA2DQEAEBAEBIBAMBBIAQEBECQQAYDBERVIVQDAECAEBYCAMEQSVICAQEQIBY

Out of the three decks I ran during this stream, the Irelia/Azir deck has been my most successful one. What we saw is indicative of what’s typical of a match using that deck. On its own, Blade Dance might not seem very powerful, only creating a couple of 1/1 blades to attack in for free. Naturally, we’re not using that effect on its own, we’re using it in concert with other effects that generate powerful synergies.

Our most valuable pieces are Sparring Student and Greenglade Duo, who get stronger with each creature summon during all of these free attacks. And with the Emperor’s Dai, or Azir himself, we create even more units per attack. It creates a scenario where we’re attacking multiple times in one turn in order to finish off with an incredible final flourish.

But the other fascinating deck was the one focusing on Yasuo and Malphite. At first, it seems like these two should have no synergy whatsoever, but once they’re both leveled up they turn into a powerhouse combination that can regularly sweep the enemy board to safely swing in for lethal. The real challenge is that the only card that levels up both of them at once is Eye of the Ra-Horak. For that reason, we need to make up the difference with Invoke cards to create the tool we need.

I’d talk a bit more about the Zilean/Nasus deck, but to be honest, it’s very similar to the Nasus deck you’ve seen from me already, just with a new partner. Our goal is to kill a ton of creatures to strengthen Nasus to level him up and swing in for huge damage.

If Irelia/Blade Dance got nerfed in some way soon, I would not be surprised. The deck feels uniquely powerful. That said, I’m excited to keep seeing how the meta shakes out.

At last, we complete not just Halo 4, but the entire Master Chief Collection. Every mainline Halo game’s campaign, except Halo 5, which has yet to come to PC as of the time of writing, is now solidly on my list of accomplishments. I’m only sad that it took so long.

Thumbnail by Sam Callahan.

As a said in the final thoughts, Halo 4 seems like a game one needs to suffer through in order to get to the gold gems that are hidden underneath a layer of padding and question plot/enemy design.

This game is at its strongest when it explores the nature of Master Chief and Cortana’s relationship, especially as Cortana begins to run rampant. Even without the weight of the history players have with both characters, there’s a real sense of deftness, subtlety, and nuance that permeates all of their interactions. Though the Chief speaks more here than he ever has before, there’s still more to read from what he doesn’t say than from what he does. That part still shines through.

While it is unbecoming of me to muse as candidly as I said on the state of mind of the writers for the game, my assumption that someone on the team was caring for an Alzheimer’s patient wasn’t too far off the mark. In this GDC postmortem of the game, franchise creative director Josh Holmes revealed that his mother was diagnosed with dementia early on in the process. When you see how the two characters interact as Cortana increasing starts to break down, barely recognized who she is and what she’s doing, you feel that care that comes from having personal experience with the subject matter. And much like real life, it’s not something that can be cured, no matter how hard one might try. Seeing the Chief realize he can’t save his friend, and struggle to come to terms with that is impactful, perhaps even more so because he’s a character that has otherwise never failed.

It is a shame then that the rest of the game around it does not live up to those lofty heights. That final push in particularly really highlighted how unfun the Prometheans are as enemies. Not only to they move in awkward ways that make them hard to hit, but they also swarm us to make it hard to catch our breath. Additionally, most of their weapons don’t have the impact that human and Covenant weapons do, impotent both in terms of damage output and in how it feels to fire them. It feels so much better to fight the Covenant then the Prometheans, and we rarely get to do so.

Even worse, the writing between Master Chief and Cortana is the B-plot. The A-plot deals with the Didact and the Librarian, and neither one of those characters is remotely interesting. There’s no meat to hook into as far as they or the human military are concerned. It’s part of why I began to loose focus and interest in the main story for most of my time playing the game. Both in this stream and the one before, I completely lost the plot, which is something that I’ve never got through with a Halo game before.

It’s such a shame, because there’s such strong writing in the B-plot that everything else comes off as a let down. I don’t envy 343 for the herculean task they were given, but nor can I say that I particularly enjoyed the final product of their efforts. To me, this is definitely one of, if not the, weakest games in the franchise.

When we last left off, we took out The Iconoclast swiftly. Not the most elegant of assassinations, but nor was it the messiest, and it got the job done. With our remaining time, we continued our descent in the Seven Deadly Sins with the Season of Pride.

Let’s finish what we started!

Thumbnail by Sam Callahan.

I was never one for the Escalation missions in the new Hitman games if I’m being honest. I always thought they would take too much time and tries to be worth doing them.

Honestly, that’s probably still true. However, now that the Seven Deadly Sins content has given me a reason to do them on stream, I have a reason to keep at them every now and then. In doing so, I’ve started to notice my skill improving. Round 3 of the Pride Escalation brought that into focus, as I felt myself reading the map to quickly figure out the intended route through the mission.

Though I’ve also noticed a marked improvement in my skill just over the course of playing Hitman 3 and going for Map Mastery, to the point where I’m a lot more comfortable going to Silent Assassin: Suit Only runs than I’ve ever been before. The maps in Hitman 3 do a much better job signposting how we can sneak around through back entrances, pipes, ledges, and forms of terrain. This has helped me when going back to older maps from the first two games because it showed up what to look for.

I wasn’t expected to be done so early, and that’s as good an indicator of success as anything.

The Didact has revealed himself. While we don’t know the full extent of his designs, we do know that he considers humanity a threat that must be purged from the universe.

Fortunately for us, we’ve finally found some allies on his hunk of rock that might be able to help us deal with this new problem. Or maybe they’ll do what every other human NPC in this franchise has ever done and get in my way.

It’s the latter, isn’t it?

Thumbnail by Sam Callahan.
Streamed on my Twitch.

There was a large portion of this session, early on, where I flat out forgot what was going on in the story for at least 30 minutes or so. It didn’t help that it felt like no meaningful progress was being made on any plot point, so I didn’t have an anchor to focus my attention on.

Then suddenly, one of the worst plot twists I have ever seen in a franchise just drops itself into my lap. One of the most interesting facets of Halo is how its flagship protagonist is a walking, talking dichotomy. He is the single most heroic figure in the human military forces, taking on and accomplishing the impossible in the face of overwhelming odds and in defiance of common sense. And yet, that is enable at the expense of his humanity, having been kidnapped as a young man and forced to undergo extremely intrusive and dangerous physical and mental augmentations while getting indoctrinated into the role of a police officer for a fascist state.

This inherent contradiction between who he is, the nature of what went into making him that way, and his intended purpose raise an important question: Was it worth it? And even if it was, should we overlook the original sins of his birth in service of the good he has wrought? My stance is that the ends do not, nor can they ever, justify the means in a scenario this depraved. And yet, I must grapple with the fact that humanity would almost certainly be crushed if not for him and his fellow Spartans.

But apparently none of that matters, because it was never really a choice to begin with. Some woman from an ancient civilization encoded into us the plan to turn ourselves into Spartans. We were genetically pre-determined to commit war crimes on ourselves, which makes it okay! It’s not our fault at all, and every interesting conversation regarding guilt, heroism, and consequences can just be upended by the roots.

Further worsening the mood is how inept our human allies are both in story and in gameplay. My misgivings about his origin aside, there is no denying that the Master Chief is a hero who has the power, skill, and knowledge to keep humanity safe as a sort-of messianic figure. There’s a argument to be made against entrusting any one man, even, maybe especially, a genetically enhanced and engineered one, but the game does not make it. If anything, Del Rio looks like a inept fool despite what his backstory would imply as he frantically orders his men to arrest one of the most legendary figures in the known universe.

All of these scenes lose the nuance, care, and attention that the franchise has put into its world up until now. As fun as the game is, I can see why fans weren’t entirely happy with it.

Where would an assassin be without new targets and new challenges to overcome? Bored and penniless, that’s where! Fortunately for us, IO Interactive has been keeping us rich in new content to play in Hitman 3.

And on queue, another Elusive Target makes themselves known as we continue our exploration of the Seven Deadly Sins with the Season of Pride.

Thumbnail by Sam Callahan.

Normally, I’m a calm and composed player who will take care to avoid getting detected. I plan ahead, take the tools I need, and make sure the job is done properly. And sometimes I just want to push a lady off a balcony.

Her back was right there. You can’t blame me for that!

As for the Pride escalation, I like the angle they took with it. You, as a player, have to chose to exhibit your pride by accepting nothing less than the most difficult path, trusting in your own ability to see it through. They did an excellent job with Greed in how the coins reward you will tools for the final level, and I’m curious if something similar to that with the finale here: A reward for our pride.

We’ll find out next week either way.

For us, it’s only been a mere two months since we last left off with the Master Chef. For him, it’s been nearly five years. In that time, the world has gone through many changes. And with those changes, new threats have emerged.

It’s a brave new frontier, but that risotto still needs to be cooked properly. Find out how our culinary expert manages to keep it from burning in Halo 4!

As I said on stream, I do not envy the position 343 Studios would themselves in when starting development on this project. Halo: Reach was such a high note to end Bungie’s contribution to the series on that following up that act was going to be nigh impossible. The fact that it wasn’t universally lambasted was a minor miracle in-and-of-itself.

Creating a new Halo game after that is such a tight, precise balancing act. On one hand, the dev team isn’t “allowed” to stray too far from the established blueprint left behind by their predecessors. If they do, they risk not making a “true Halo game” in the eyes of the fanbase. And yet, rigidly adhering to that same blueprints brings with it the risk that their product will be “too safe”, and grow stale in the eyes of the fans.

To some extent, the Prometheans, specifically their weapons, seem like a symptom of that problem. All of their guns feel like another variant of weapons we already have in the arsenal: Pistols, Assault Rifles, Shotguns, and Sniper Rifles. Unlike the Covenant weapons, they don’t do enough to distinguish themselves from regular human weapons. Not only do the Covenant weapons usually inflict a different type of damage (with hurts shields more than flesh), but with few exceptions aren’t capable of being reloaded. The Promethean weapons, in contrast, feel like palette swaps of human guns with worse audio design and unique animations.

Not to say they don’t play well. I’ve been having a blast with the time I’ve been using them. However, I can’t help but wonder if I would have had the same level on enjoyment from just wielding ordinary weaponry, or something more exotic.

It’s tough to tell.

At last, we have reached the final stretch of our journey. Though asking Gol and Maia for help is no longer on the table, we nonetheless press on. Our goals have changed from turning Daxter back into saving the world.

Y’know, that and collecting everything not nailed down to the floor.

Thumbnail by Sam Callahan.

One of the things I appreciate about Jak and Daxter is how they actually do a good job foreshadowing what the final boss is going to be well before we get to it. The idea of a powerful Precursor Robot is brought up multiple times in incidental dialogue, especially from Samos if we take the time to talk to him before setting off.

We even see it come up a few times in levels. One of the primary goals in Boggy Swamp is to prevent the excavation of a robot arm, which is why Gol and Maia have to make do with some personal modifications in their own machine. This same mech was seen earlier, as the lurkers were trying to pry it out of the Spider Caves.

In much the same way seeing other levels in the background helps sell the idea of a contiguous world, this too helps connect everything we’re doing. It’s by far one of the greatest strengths of the game, and something they don’t fully bring into the sequels.

Very few things make me smile more than evil, corrupt politicians getting their comeuppance. And today, Agent 47’s mission is to do just that. We’ve only got one shot, but after all the targets we’re taken care of I’m sure we can handle it… Right?

Afterward, our greed begins to overwhelm us once more as we finish what we started in Dubai.

Thumbnail by Sam Callahan.

I knew I had played this target before, and thankfully I still have a record of my old run. If anything, this shows how much better I’ve become at playing Hitman since then, probably through playing Hitman 3. I can’t say I’ve necessarily gotten more patient. If anything, what’s improved is my ability to read the map.

On the other hand, I like how the Greed escalation rewards us for hording our coins by letting us spend them in the final round on tools that dramatically reduce the difficulty of the assignment. That’s a nice touch that really embodies that cardinal sin.

It’s also fun for me to forgo my usual mercy and become as an angel of death, never seen yet leaving a trail of bodies, blood, and violence in my wake. Rarely in Hitman do I ever feel like I have license to carve a bloody path, and I must say it feels good to let loose every now and then.

All for those beautiful, valuable coins… >:)

Our journey north to meet the Gol, the Dark Eco Sage, has progressed to the Rock Village. However, we’ve encountered another stumbling block in the form of a boulder-hurling monster barring our path.

Fortunately for us, we have a solution to this problem. It just involves collecting a few more Power Cells.

Thumbnail provided by Sam Callahan.

Something that I miss from this era of platforming was the notion of temporary power-up effects. That’s not something we a whole lot of anymore. These days, most platformers grow the player’s kit as the game progresses, Zelda/Metroid-style, with new equipment and abilities.

It’s brave to have the entire move list available to the player at the start of the game, because often those new moves are used to not just evoke a sense of character progression. They serve the second purpose of adding variety, by giving players new activities and actions to perform over the course of regular gameplay.

Temporary power ups like the colored eco we have access to in Jak are a great middle ground to solve this problem. They allow the dev team to temporarily give us abilities we don’t normally have access to for a segment or set-piece where they would be useful, while allowing them to design other levels in the game without having to take them into account unless they want to.

Players get the variety they want, and the dev team gets to more tightly control the experience so that we see the best possible version of the game. It’s a good compromise that allows for the best of both worlds.

We’ve got a bit of an opening on the schedule, and Monster Train has just added a ton of brand new content through a DLC pack. For that reason, it seems like a good time to dive back in for another run.

I will say that the new faction I unlocked surprised me, but pleasantly. Considering how important units are to the structure of Monster Train, I didn’t expect there to be an entire faction that revolves around spells and spell damage.

For our first run with them, we even did well. Obviously, it wasn’t a perfect or successful run, but we managed to go far.

Additionally, I have to assume that the Rune Shard mechanic was added as part of the new expansion, because it wasn’t around the last time we played. I’m not entirely sure what I feel about it. In theory, players would be making interesting choices on what boons they take in exchange for a more difficult run down the road.

And yet, in order to achieve what the game has dubbed the “true ending”, we need to reach maximum difficulty before we get to the final boss of the run. In other words, we would need to stack up as much punishment as we can. This partially eliminates the choice aspect of it, because it incentivizes us to just take whatever benefits we can afford to take on at the moment we’re able to.

Something feels lost in the translation from game design document to final product, but that doesn’t stop the mechanic from being a fun addition to Monster Train.