This… has been a long time in the making. I haven’t played a Hitman game on stream since July, over half a year ago. Although I had my reasons then, I can’t deny that I’ve been wanting to play this level ever since it came out in September.
Nonetheless, I’m back and ready to improvise my way into another assassination.
(Apologies for the audio balancing/syncing issues. It will be fixed if/when I stream Hitman again.)
For those of you curious why this took so long, the simplest answer was raw file size. That’s not a joke, either. I wanted to install Hitman 2 and play this mission way back in September, but I didn’t have the over 150 GB required to install the complete package. It was something I often cited when discussions of bloated file sizes came up in my friend group, largely because it was such a big block that I couldn’t overcome.
Two things changed in the time since, which make this run possible.
A friend of mine told me about WinDirStat, a free program that allows users to see what is taking up space on their hard drives so they can clear up files they might not even realize they have on their system.
More importantly, I discovered that Hitman is a ingeniously modular game that lets players install only the maps they want to play, and leave the ones they don’t uninstalled.
That second was more important, because it represents a solution to a problem that I see cropping up again and again in the sphere of AAA gaming. File sizes are growing difficult to justify, and I am nottheonlyperson arriving at that conclusion. Little steps like this, which will allow the Hitman 2 Client to scale no matter how many maps and missions are added, dramatically reduce that problem.
Pivoting over to the mission itself, this is exactly the kind of experience that the Improvisation Run rules exist for. Despite making several huge mistakes and high profile moves, the run went remarkably smoothly and we were able to really test how resilient the underlying systems are. It was a blast to pull this off in this manner, for everyone to see.
Hopefully, there will be more chances to see the chaos unfold in future missions.
Once again we find ourselves back in the Warp Room, obtaining the crystals in order to help Dr. Cortex save the world(?)… while also obtaining the gems so that Dr. N Brio can top him.
But enough about that. All you need to know is that in this episode, we meet Tiny Tiger, my first furry crush. The hero we both need and deserve, protecting us from our own naivete in trusting an evil scientist.
In all seriousness, it’s important to remember that in the first half of the game, we’re technically the bad guys. Even if he’s just an unwitting pawn, gathering the crystals for Cortex is a genuine danger to the people of Earth.
So when Ripper Roo, the Komodo Brothers, and Tiny Tiger fight us to keep them out of his hands, they’re doing so in order to protect the world. In other words, they’re heroes. We’ll forget about all of that as the series goes on (and even Brio goes back to being a villain), but it’s a fun little factoid that’s worth keeping in mind.
As far as the game itself is concerned, the levels in this episode perfectly summarize what I was referring to in the last episode, where all of the game’s difficult is reserved for the optional gem challenges. How else would you describe having to run through a death route, then backwards through the regular level because both halves contain boxes that need to be broken for the box gem?
It also highlights the contrast between Crash and Spyro in terms of their design philosophies. There’s simply no way that a Spyro player will rack up anywhere near as many deaths as a Crash player. Not only is Crash more fragile than Spyro, but his platforming demands a higher degree of precision than his purple dragon peer. A Spyro game focuses more on the broad picture, and timing is rarely a factor. And yet, timing is everything for Crash.
So if someone told me they couldn’t stand these old Crash games, I couldn’t say I blamed them. They can be absolutely frustrating.
Sometimes, it’s not enough to just control the board and wait for a power creature to end the game. One might not want to just ramp all day while locking the opponent out of card draw and instant speed spells, but nor do they wish to be aggressive.
And in a situation like that, there’s really only one thing left to do: Generate an absolutely enormous amount of mana and bump it all into a gigantic spell to instantly finish off the enemy.
Obviously, with the word reclamation in the name of the deck, our goal is to abuse Wilderness Reclamation to generate large amounts of mana that we can either dump into our win cons to close out the game, or otherwise keep mana open so we can react to our opponent’s plays without sacrificing tempo.
Our two ways to transform all of that excess mana into a win are both Hydroid Krasis and, more importantly, Expansion//Explosion. While we can’t take advantage of the extra mana from Reclamation with the Krasis directly, we can dump all of our mana into it and untap all our lands before our opponent goes so we can respond with our instant speed answers.
Expansion//Explosion, specifically the Explosion half, and be abused with Wilderness Reclamation. When the turn comes to an end, each instance of Reclamation on the battlefield places a trigger on the stack. Before any one of them resolves, we can tap all untapped lands, then tap them again for even more mana. Doing this between resolutions allows us to dump all of that basically free mana into a huge Explosion, if not for game than for a second wind to keep us going.
But aside from that, most the deck is wired to either churn through our deck or address major threats as they arise. In terms of removal, we have Scorching Dragonfire to exile a problematic creature or planeswalker, and Brazen Borrower to bounce back key tempo pieces to disrupt our opponent’s plans, the latter being a useful body we can flash in as needed. And for board clear, we have Storm’s Wrath, which only allows us to take care of enemy planeswalkers if they become an annoyance.
And nearly every other card in this deck is some form of deck thinning, mostly at instant speed. Opt, Omen of the Sea and Growth Spiral all allow us to draw cards with the former two letting us scry and the latter giving us ramp. While Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath isn’t instant speed, he too allows us to draw cards while ramping, with an additional life gain. If we ever manage to pay the escape cost (which is likely), we can start using him to either close the distance or the game.
Lastly, just like in our Azorius Control deck, Thassa’s Intervention allows us to counter big plays our opponents make, or spend a bunch of mana at the end of our turn to dig deeply through our deck for any two cards we need.
Overall, this has been one of my favorite decks to play. There’s something inherently fun about creating a ton of excess mana and then dumping it into huge effects. If you’re bored with whatever you’re currently running, this one’s worth a shot.
After our adventures in Avalar, Spyro is busy enjoying a much needed vacation over at Dragon Shores. While he’s enjoying the carnival games, soaking up sun-rays, and watching films at the theater, we have other allies to return to.
And so we find ourselves in the Australian Outback once more, as the marsupial we know unwittingly embarks on a new trial. This time, Dr. Cortex is an… ally?
Things may not be as they appear as we enter the Warp Room for Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back.
Crash Bandicoot 2 is my favorite game in the N Sane Trilogy, improving dramatically upon it’s predecessor without succumbing too strongly to the gimmicks that permeated the third game.
Along with the Jump and Spin moves that defined our list of verbs in the original game, Crash 2 introduced two new moves, one of which will prove a significant part of our repertoire from here on out: The slide and the belly flop.
Not only does sliding allow the designers to introduce new obstacles in the form on walls with small enough gaps, but gives us the ability to cross greater distances with slide jumps. This second function is used throughout the entire game, especially to increase overall movement speed.
In addition, you’ll notice a difference in the way levels are designed overall when compared to the first game. While the first game’s levels were extremely challenging on their own, before we even think about attempting to acquire the Gems, actually finishing the level with Crystal in hand isn’t much of an ask in Cortex Strikes Back.
Instead, any challenging platforming segments are reserved for the Gems and/or the boxes needed to acquire them. If you notice, it’s only when I’m going for a Gem that I start losing a lot of lives. And even then nothing has quite compared to some of the worst segments of the first game.
And if you’re curious about the exploit I was talking about with the jump combo, you should check out this speedrun here that demonstrates it.
Next time, we’ll encounter one of my earliest furry crushes. I hope you’re as excited as I am.
I have a confession to make. When it comes to Magic, I am a control player at heart. Nothing pleases me more than watching my opponent squirm as I strategically extract, counter, and destroy their key pieces long enough for me to overpower them in the late game.
And thanks to one special card, we’re able to execute that strategy.
If you’ll forgive the musical reference, Dream Trawler is just that kind of card. In most situations, seeing a Dream Trawler resolve signals the end of the game. The fact that it’s a 3/5 flying creature with lifelink allows us to recover enough life to bring us out of the danger zone and make up for an otherwise poor early game.
But that also would not necessary be worth the 6 mana this card costs. Whenever we swing it, it draws us a card, which powers it up a little bit until end-of-turn. And if someone ever targets it with a removal spell, we can discard a card to grant it hexproof to protect it. That last clause is one of the most important, because it becomes nearly impossible to get rid of Dream Trawler through conventional means.
Until we’re at a point where we can cast him though, we’ll need to keep our opponents check so they don’t overrun us. Fortunately, Azorius colors give us two of the best planeswalkers we could ever hope for in this field: Teferi, Time Raveler and Narset, Parter of Veils. Both of them deny our opponents tempo, Teferi by forcing them to work at sorcery speed and Narset by keep them from drawing more than one card per turn. Additionally, both of them can provide card advantage with their loyalty abilities.
But that’s not the only way we draw through our deck for the pieces we need. The Birth of Meletis secures our land drops by fetching Plains while providing a solid blocker and a pinch of life. For instant speed card advantage, Omen of the Sea and Thirst for Meaning can be played during our opponent’s turns.
And having those instant speed tricks is particularly important here, because we may need to save our mana for other forms of instant speed interactions like counter magic. Our 4 copies of Absorb can stop big plays in their tracks while also giving us that extra pinch of life to keep us in the game. Thassa’s Intervention serves a similar purpose, and if we don’t have use for its counterspell clause we can always use the other one to dig as deep as our current mana pool will allow.
Of course, no control deck would be complete without removal, and this deck packs a fair amount of it. Heliod’s Intervention can be used for mass artifact and enchantment removal. And for whatever else comes our way, Banishing Light and Elspeth Conquers Death are invaluable. The latter is a particularly powerful because we can use it to permanently exile a powerful permanent, then make it difficult for them to cast non-creatures before resurrecting one of our planeswalkers or a Dream Trawler that (somehow) hit the graveyard.
It’s a stack of powerful cards, and of course a that’ll lead to wins.
It was fun while it lasted, but sadly our Seasonal Vacation must come to an end. With the aid of our superflame, we make short work of our adversaries and tie up all of our pending loose ends.
And once all pending tasks have been cleared, we’ll be free to relax and soak up a few rays at Dragon Shores. Spyro’s been dying to go their since the start of the trip, and it’s about time we indulged our little dragon pal.
As I said on stream, I had been thinking about Ripto as a villain for this game, and specifically what he’s done. Obviously he’s a bad person and a massive jerk, but when I took a moment to look at the actual list of misdeeds to his name, I had to pause.
Because, at the end of the day, Ripto didn’t actually do a whole lot that warranted the response from Elora, Hunter, and the Professor that he got. His list of “crimes” include:
Squatting in three occupied castles
Stealing the power crystal
Retaliating after Elora and co, and Spyro, attacked him
Unlike the other two Spyro games, none of the local problems are caused by Ripto or his forces. He’s not even shown interacting much with the denizens of Avalar one way or the other. In other words, they are local problems that would have existed whether or not he came to Avalar in the first place.
I’m not saying this in some silly attempt to claim he’s not a villain. However, I will say that the game could have done a better job selling his villainy and what exactly he was doing to cause damage/trouble. This is even weirder when one considers that he’s become the “rival” villain for Spyro, with the most returning appearances with Enter the Dragonfly and the Crash Purple/Spyro Orange crossover games. Gnasty Gnorc probably deserves that distinction, and yet Ripto is the one people think about.
But I suppose that has more to do with the games than the characters. And on the subject of games, we’ll keep on the old PS1 platformer nostalgia train next week with Crash 2: Cortex Strikes Back.
As someone with next to no interest in League of Legends, and someone who has been following newsregardingRiot over the past few years, I was originally going to pass on Legends of Runeterra.
But as people I knew started playing it, and talking positively about it as a game, beyond being a good League of Legends tie-in, I grew intrigued. Now that I’ve tried the game myself, I’ve been having such a good time that I wanted to talk about it.
Overall, Legends of Runeterra feels like a healthy mix of the concepts of Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone, with a few unique twists thrown in to give it a flavor all its own. Like Hearthstone, there’s no need to play mana-generating land cards, players just receive a full refill of their mana each turn, increasing the maximum mana by 1, and capping at 10, completely preventing the problem Magic can often have where players can get “mana screwed/flooded” by having too many/few land cards to effectively play.
Hearthstone keeps this in check by forcing players to only use neutral cards and cards within the same class, forcing them to stick with a pre-allocated subset of cards within the pool of all available cards. To impose some restriction, while still allowing for flexible and creative deck building choices, Legends of Runeterra assigns each card to one of the game’s 6 nations, and players may use a combination of any 2 of those nations when building their deck. In addition, only 3 copies of a given card may exist in a deck, only 6 Champion cards maximum (representing characters from League of Legends), and 40 cards total, no more or less.
This is a smart compromise on their part, because it allows them to still impose the kind of restrictions on the card pool that are necessary in the absence of a colored mana system. However, those same limitations are loose enough that a high degree of customization and creative thinking can still occur within them. And though metas are always subject to change, I’m seeing a healthy mix of combinations of nations that Riot seems to have done a decent job giving each nation it’s own unique set of powerful tools.
And within the game, the flow is significantly different than I’m used to from all of my days playing card games, such that it’s very refreshing. Like all collectible card games, Runeterra has a concept of spell speed. Slow spells and creature cards can only be played by the person who has priority. Fast spells may be played in response to other cards, and to combat. And lastly, Burst spells can be played whenever a Fast spell can, except the opponent isn’t allowed to play anything in response.
However, priority works different in Runeterra than it does in pretty much any game I have ever played. The only difference between one player’s turn and other is who has the ability to declare attacks, indicated by whoever owns the Attack Coin, and who gets first priority. On priority, players may cast creatures, slow spells or attack if they possess the Attack Coin. The opponent then gets the chance to respond, and then whether they do or not priority passes so that they too can play a creature or a slow spell.
This means that there’s almost never a turn where players aren’t making proactive moves in order to advance their board state. In a traditional model, whenever it’s “not that player’s turn”, they can only play fast spells, but that isn’t the case here. While it’s still necessary to have fast and burst spells in the deck to respond to big threats, this approach allows for an overall faster pace to the game. It’s difficult to explain, but easy to understand once you’ve played/watched a few matches.
And that speed persists in Runeterra’s combat. It’s similar to Magic in that the attacking player declares their attacks, and then the defending player gets to assign blockers. However, not only is the Hearthstone concept of persistent damage in full effect here, but players are only allowed to assign a single blocker to each attacking creature. Both of these changes combined can make combat a much more interesting puzzle to solve and navigate, and that’s before fast and burst spells come in to start turning the tide.
The sum total of all of these differences between Runeterra and the games I’m used to playing give it a whole new flavor that I’m still both coming to grips with and appreciating for the breath of fresh air it’s injected into the genre.
On top of that, it’s financial model is also a lot less predatory than I am used to, which has garnered some respect from me for Riot despite all of the horror stories I hear from that studio. Unlike other games in the genre, it is impossible to directly purchase booster packs. They can be earned in game through regular play, but they cannot be bought with real money.
However, players are allowed to buy a certain number of wildcards per rarity each week, and those wildcards can be spent on cards of the same rarity level from any nation. Additionally, they may collect shards through obtain duplicates out of packs, or again through regular play, which may be used to craft cards they desire depending on card rarity. Not only do players not have the ability to spend tons of money rolling the booster pack roulette wheel, but there is a built-in limit on how much they can spend on cards. That said, Riot will let you spend as much as you want on cosmetics without limit, but that still means that players aren’t priced out of a strong deck, and nor will they either need to or be able to spend large amounts of money to stay competitive.
In it’s totally, this means that Runeterra is a direct response to better much everything that I active despise about my favorite genre, while keeping and perserving all of the aspects that drew me in. While I had no interest in League of Legends lore prior, and still don’t wish to play the game itself, I might start finding myself knee-deep in wikis reading up on the “story” of League at this rate.
Once more, we find ourselves venturing into Magic: Arena, this time with a deck I’ve fallen in love with for Theros standard. People who know me know that one of my favorite color combinations in Grixis, and we have a concoction that best shows off what it can do: Grixis Discard.
I can’t claim credit for the deck though. The idea came from Dev from Strictly Better MTG, whose deck tech you can check out here.
My formula for this list is only slightly different from his, but it’s still mostly the same deck. You can find my list here.
(I was today years old when I realized Dream Trawler has to tap to give itself hexproof.)
Our primary strategy is to take advantage of a synergy between Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger and Lazav, the Multifarious. Kroxa is a 2 mana 6/6 than forces our opponent to discard a card from their on either attack or ETB. However, if we cast him for his normal cost instead of his Escape cost, we must sacrifice him after he enters, dumping him into the graveyard to be escaped later….
…Or, once he’s there, we can play Lazav and use an additional 2 mana to turn him into a copy of Kroxa, which dodges the ETB trigger entirely, allowing us to swing in without having to escape our titan. And to further work with the shapeshifter, Thief of Sanity is another attack that, grants us additional card advantage in the form of our opponent’s cards if we connect with him, along with another transformation target if one of them every hits the graveyard (and they will).
Beyond that, we’re basically a control deck, with the aim to wear down our opponent’s resources, accumulate our own, and finish them off once they’re exhausted. And to that end, the deck packs a ton of removal to take care of threats as they appear, and most of it consists of cards we’re already familiar with from both Ravnica and Eldraine standards.
Thought Erasure is one of the cards we hope we draw into early, because we can use it to surgically extract important threats in our opponent’s hand. In addition, being able to look at their hand gives us valuable information on how we might be able to best play against them. And our spot removal consists of Angrath’s Rampage, Murderous Rider, and Bedevil. Tyrant’s Scorn exists not just as a removal piece, but also to potentially bounce one of our creatures if our opponent attempts to kill them with their own removal.
Disinformation Campaign allows us to take advantage of the Surveil abilities from both Thought Erasure and Lazav (which can additionally fuel a Kroxa escape attempt), and provide us additional card draw while further squeezing our opponent. And if our opponent wastes removal on it, all the better. Dev puts Atris, Oracle of Half-Truths in this slot, but I like the synergies with Disinformation Campaign a bit more. In addition, we run Ritual of Soot to act as board clears when going up against aggressive decks.
As for how we clear up, our big win cons once we’ve established control are Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God and Ashiok, Nightmare Muse. Both planeswalkers are extremely powerful, and by the time they touch down our foe should be running critically low of options. If Kroxa/Lazav swings don’t turn the tide, those two certainly will. Part of what attracted me to this deck was being able to play Nicol Bolas again. He’s a terrible villain, but his cards are usually really cool.
Thanks to Dev once more for building this incredible cool shell. It’s been my go-to deck in Arena for a while, and odds are I’ll still be jamming games with it until the next set.
Despite the serenity of the home world we now reside in, not all is well within the world of Avalar. Even discounting Ripto’s machinations, there’s plenty of trouble brewing between the local residents of each world. And we’re just the right shade of purple dragon to deal with their problems.
Or at least play them off each other enough to make a profit.
Something I mentioned in my first Spyro 2 stream, but didn’t mention in the post for it is that many of the levels have links between them. Some of them are less obvious, like the people of Colossus and Idol Springs being the same. Others are more overt, like the war between the residents of Breeze Harbor and Zephyr.
Before I say anything more, I want to point out that I was not involved in designing Spyro 2. Nor do I know anyone who has. I am speaking purely as a fan when I say that it feels like it seems like they were trying to do something my linking different worlds together. That said, I can’t be sure what that is.
These links do create a more coherent vision of the world in question here. The fact that people from one level will talk about and reference other areas goes a way towards strengthening the sense of cohesion.
Next time, we can get into some of the more interesting lore and design details of Ripto’s Rage, with an upcoming boss fight and journey into the cold Winter Tundra.
Theros: Beyond Death has finally arrive to Magic: Arena, and with it a whole host of new and returning cards and mechanics. One of those mechanics is Devotion, and no card is more representative of Devotion’s power than one of the MTG communities old favorites: Gary Asphodel.
And with Gary back in Standard, it’s only natural that mono-black devotion is one of the most commonly built decks in the new format. Like many others, I was also eager to hop onto the Gary train.
I took the decklist I was using from here, but it appears to have been modified in the time since.
At its core, the deck’s primary goal is to increase our devotion to black high enough to swing the game with single successful cast of Gary. It is difficult to overstate how powerful Gary is despite being only a 2/4 for 5-mana, largely due to his enter the battlefield trigger. I have had games where I have won simply by using it when my devotion to black was over 10, meaning my opponent lost that much life in a single shot, and I gained it all back.
To facilitate this, we will favor cards that have as many black symbols in their mana costs as possible. Thankfully, we don’t have to sacrifice any value for this. Mono-black has many strong tools at their disposal, the trick is to find the best ones for our job.
Yarok’s Fenlurker is a fine example of one of those tools. Both of it’s 2-mana cost are in the form of black symbols, meaning it adds 2 to our devotion just by being on board. But beyond that, it forces our opponent to exile a card from their hand. Even if it gets removed later on, it’s done its job just hitting the table.
Ayara, First of Locthwain is another strong card that contributes heavily to our devotion by costing specifically 3 black mana. She gives us extra value and life for every single creature we play, and if one of them is the target of a spell, or if we need the gas, we can use her to sacrifice a creature for some extra card draw.
Nightmare Shepherd and Erebos, Black-Hearted serve similar purposes, protecting our board from the threat of board wipes. The Nightmare does so by allowing us to turn them into 1/1 tokens, and Erebos by giving us the chance to draw cards off their demise, for the low price of 2 life per card.
Tymaret, Chosen from Death serves two purposes beyond boosting our devotion. The first is as a resilient blocker that can gum up the works when our opponents try to swing at us. More importantly, he’s a way to extract problem cards from their graveyards, like the dreaded Cat/Oven combo. Erebos’s Intervention fulfills that second task as well, while also acting as a removal piece if need be. Our other removal options are Eat to Extinction, which is valuable exile piece, and Murderous Rider, which can also be played as a creature to increase our devotion.
And while you’re likely familiar with pieces like Knight of the Ebon Legion, Order of Midnight and Cavalier of Night, you probably haven’t seen much of Bolas’s Citadel before. If it successfully resolves, the card advantage we’ll accrue off of it is more valuable than any amount of life we’ll spend. Combined with a good Gary, there’s little our opponent can do to stop us if we reach this point.
This specific version of the deck might not be that powerful, but I look forward to seeing how it develops as Theros Standard continues.
