And here comes the finale of 0.2

At the time we recorded this video, the trailers that were release earlier this month had not yet come out. Nor was the announcement that the game’s release date would be formally revealed at E3 this year.

As much as those reveals did a lot to warm my heart to the idea of Kingdom Hearts 3 again, I still stand by my earlier statements that Kingdom Hearts 3’s hype train started to grow into a massive problem. Part of why the most recent reveals were so important was that they give off the impression that Kingdom Hearts 3 might actually be finished some time soon.

Sam and I also talked about the prospect of shorter, character-focused RPGs and how much we’d be willing to spend on them. I’d like to pose that question to you guys reading this as well:

  • Would you be interested in a shorter, 4-6 hour RPG?
  • How much would be willing to spend on it if you are?
Mostly, I want to know if you guys are as into that idea as Sam and I are.

(Credit to this artist for the font)
Ever since a friend(?) asked me to join him in campaigns across Dead Space 3, Resident Evil 5, and Resident Evil 6, I have tried to broaden my horizons and open up to the horror genre. Up until then, I had avoided them like the plague because I was (for lack of a better phrasing) afraid to be scared. With mixed results, I’ve dived into the previous Dead Space games, Amnesia, Outlast, and a couple of others. This is why Resident Evil 7: Biohazard caught my attention last year despite not caring too much for RE6. Game critics and personal friends of mine who played it sang its praises, raising more than a few eyebrows.

But instead of rushing out to buy it, I waited… I waited because Resident Evil 7 would serve as a flagship game for the virtual reality headset Sony had created for the PS4. This wasn’t just some mediocre extra mode that takes 5-10 minutes to play to stick some “VR Compatible” sticker on the box: The entire game was fully playable in VR from start to finish. Since I had already made plans to buy a PS VR headset, I decided to hold off on getting Resident Evil 7 until then. One Christmas and one playthrough later, and now I want to talk about the game, VR, and how they affected my opinions of each other.

Prior to Resident Evil 7, I had already begun using my VR headset on other games. I did not spend long with them: A few 20-minute sessions of Rez and an hour and a half with Thumper at most. Resident Evil 7 was just the first one I played that wasn’t deemed “VR Safe”, since those other two weren’t really known to induce motion sickness. Though I was aware of the possibility, it is one thing to hear about VR-induced motion sickness… and quite another to experience it first hand. After the first 20 minutes of playing with the headset on, I had an overwhelming nausea. Since I generally have a strong stomach, I thought it might have been something I ate, but it was growing increasingly clear that the game was the root cause. Thankfully, I wasn’t sick enough to induce vomiting. That said, the unpleasantness almost swore me off playing Resident Evil 7 in VR altogether.

A good night’s rest later, my stomach given enough time to settle, I resumed my run, only without the headset. After making some progress, I felt the urge to VR Mode another chance. “Maybe it was just a fluke,” I thought to myself. Admittedly, it took a little longer than the 20 minutes of the last session, and my symptoms weren’t as severe, but once again I found myself ejecting the headset off my face in the name of sweet relief and once again I found myself thinking I would never do this again, this time saying so on Twitter.

Fortunately in this case (and unfortunately in several others), I’m a stubborn fool when I want to be. Whether out of some misguided, macho notion that “I can’t possibly be so weak that a video game is making me ill”, a feeling that I couldn’t let the money spent on this VR headset go to waste, a sense that the third time might actually be the charm, or some combination of the three, I was compelled to make one last attempt to play this cursed game in VR. Only this time, nothing happened: I was no longer experiencing the ill effects of motion sickness. Those symptoms never came back for the duration of my playthrough, most of it with the headset on. I’m not saying that everyone will get magically cured of VR-sickness through sheer force of will, but it did take several play sessions before I was personally able to handle it.

After crossing that threshold, analyzing the other effects virtual reality had on my experience became a lot easier. The first thing that comes to mind is how the control and camera systems are modified for VR Mode. Obviously, the developers couldn’t map the control scheme in standard play to virtual reality without exacerbating the aforementioned motion sickness. Concessions needed to be made, and one such change is in the way the camera works. Since the headset can track cranial movement, players can simply move their head to look around the environment, crosshairs in the center of their view. To allow people (like me) to play while sitting, the camera can both be re-centered at anytime, or moved to the left or right in 30 degree increments by tilting the right analog stick.

When contrasted against the standard control scheme, this offers an intriguing trade-off. One can move their head to accurately hover the aiming reticle over a target, allowing for a level of precision that is simply not possible with a controller. In-game, this meant that while I was in VR, I was able to put off headshots consistently, rarely missing a shot except in dire circumstances. This doesn’t mean that I had too much difficulty aiming in normal play. But without the headset, there was a noticeable increase in wasted shots, where I either hit my enemies in less vulnerable body parts or missed altogether. Considering that Resident Evil 7 is a survival horror game where ammo is scarce and every shot counts, this made my life in the Baker house a lot safer.

Sadly, all boons come at some price, and where the headset improved my basic ability to point-and-shoot, it detracted from my ability to move about the space. As previously stated, in VR it is only possible to move the camera to the left or right in 30 degree increments. While roaming around a relatively safe area, this is hardly even noticeable and barely worth calling attention to. The drawbacks are more pronounced once players are thrown deeper into the action. In my run, this became clear early on during the confrontation with Jack Baker after the dinner scene. As you can see in this video, it’s a simple scene. The player merely needs to backtrack to the dining room, run passed Jack, grab the hatch key, and sneak under the house.

This exchange can be done easily in standard controls, but in VR this isn’t quite as straightforward. Notice in that short clip all of the times where the camera moves slightly to the left or right, orienting the player such that it’s easier to sprint around/passed Jack. These micro-movements aren’t as simple to perform in virtual reality. In this segment alone, I had to tilt both my head and the camera a great deal so that I could navigate this space without getting pummeled. Coincidentally, this was also where I got motion sick the 2nd time. I took off the headset to finish the scene and progress a little farther. It was remarkable how much easier it was without it. As the game granted me more weapons and options to fight back, this became less of an issue because I could fight back. Though the awkwardness never truly went away, it would be more accurate to say that I simply learned how to compensate for it.

What was most affecting about using the VR headset was the way in dramatically increased the sense of place. It’s a tired cliché, but the adage that the “immersiveness” of virtual reality is much easier to demonstrate than it will ever be to describe on paper is an apt one. Since I don’t have the resources to hand a headset and a copy of Resident Evil 7 to every single person reading, I will instead do as best a job I can explaining what it feels like.

In a mini-rant I wrote on Twitter, I described the helmet as a “sensory deprivation chamber”. While I’m not the first person to make that comparison, drowning out the outside world is as much as advantage as it is a hazard of VR. Lacking the ability to see or hear anything from outside the game brings sharp focus to the events occurring inside the game. I can’t speak for anyone else, but while I’m gaming I like to catch up on podcasts or watch a couple of videos from my YouTube queue. For horror games like Resident Evil 7, I try not to in order to preserve the game’s atmosphere, but I do occasionally slip into old habits while sorting through inventory or when I’m certain the game won’t be trying to unsettle me. When I’m stuck, I might even just go look for a walkthrough to figure out where I’m supposed to go. Needless to say, doing any of this is difficult with headphones piping the game’s sound directly into my ears and a headset streaming my character’s perspective directly into my eyes. With those barriers in place, it is impossible to perceive anything aside from the experience, drawing all of attention directly to the Baker House and the monsters within.

This focus created a bizarre intimacy with all the things that were trying to murder me. Being able to fully move my head and see with the eyes of Ethan, the protagonist, is certainly one aspect to what makes virtual reality so immersive, but another is simply the blurring of the fourth wall. I was still aware that I was just playing a game, especially since they was still a HUD and I could physically see that my “hands” were just free floating objects unbound to any form of in-game body. But in that space, there was no TV separating me from my in-game avatar. For all intent and purposes, it felt like I was transposed onto the main character. It wasn’t Ethan who was fighting for his life, it was me.

I could also tell that I was more affected by the oppressive sense of dread Resident Evil 7 was trying to evoke than I would have been without wearing that helmet. This is slightly embarrassing to admit, but when I play scary games, one of the ways I cope with the dread of what might try to attack me next is by trash talking. I can’t even begin to explain why, but insulting whatever monster or death trap I’m up against helps me not only to keep calm, but stay focused and figure out what I need to do. During my first playthrough of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, this is how I was able to face the infamous watermonster without losing my cool, and eventually figure out effective ways to outmaneuver it.

In the early game of Resident Evil 7, when the player is given limited means to fight back, much of what sustains the tension is that sense of dread. While I was playing normally, without the headset, my behavior was in line with what is described above. To “psyche myself up”, I hurled an untold number of insults and innuendos at the Baker family and the monsters they kept around their estate. I did not notice until I had taken the time to ponder my experiences, but while I was in virtual reality, that trash talk immediately ceased. It seems foolish to clam up because I was afraid that the immediate threat would hear me and come running. They are as artificial as any other monster from any other horror game, but the common sense to make that observation eluded me. Inside that headset, the illusion was great enough to pierce the veil of confidence I normally wear for games like this. Again, at no point was the fourth wall ever truly dissolved, but it blurred such that I no longer felt as “safe” as I would have when playing normally. That, more than anything, exemplifies how radical virtual reality can be.

While Resident Evil 7 definitely doesn’t require VR, it’s a great game to show off both what gives it its potential and what holds it back. After fighting through the motion sickness, and learning to adjust to the new control paradigm, I was able to get an amazing experience that I would have never been able to otherwise. VR probably won’t ever get more than a niche audience, but within that space there’s still a ton of potential. Having finished my trials at the Baker Estate, I’m more eager than ever to see what other applications, even outside of gaming, the technology has to offer.

Surprising everyone, we have a lot of good things to say about Kingdom Hearts in this episode.

At the end of this episode, we begin to talk about how A Fragmentary Passage is a solid, 2-4 character piece (that also shows off the technology that will be used in Kingdom Hearts 3). The fact that it is such a concise, yet mostly complete experience is a large part of what makes it so successful.

As much as I love RPGs, the commitment required to finish most of the games in that genre is a huge barrier, especially as I come into a part of my life where I generally don’t have to worry about being able to afford games. Persona 5 was one of my favorite games last year, but it’s not easy to recommend a 100+ hour game to somebody. And it’s especially not easy to dedicate the time to it.

Though it’s hardly a great example of the genre, stuff like this and Alpha Protocol shows that it is possible to make RPGs that players don’t have to spent months of their life playing. Undertale also did that only a few year ago. I’d love to see more RPGs so this route, if only for the selfish reason that it slides into my schedule more effortlessly.

Settle in, ladies and gentleman, because things are getting self-referential and existential.

It’s very ironic to talk about how people watch YouTube content podcast style when the footage for this “Let’s Play” got corrupted.

It feels strange to talk about YouTube and how to work around it’s many problems in the wake of all the recent controversies surrounding it. With the “adpocalypse”, the rise of YouTube criticism in video games, and the rest of the “YouTube culture”, it’s a subject that probably won’t go away anytime soon.

In a way, the whole reason I came up with the queue system in the first place was that the intended way to watch content on YouTube, to follow the recommended videos and keep watching through Autoplay, just didn’t fit into my schedule. I found myself annoyed at all of the great content I wanted to watch and missed out on. Thus, the queue was formed.

I know it’s weird, and I doubt many other people use systems like that, but it works for me.

Remember when I said we were done with the Kingdom Hearts and considered it closed?

Well, I lied….

It’s really painful to listen to how giddy we were to do a Let’s Play… knowing that the footage corrupted and we ended up doing a sudo-podcast anyway. After the incident with Watch Dogs, and the corrupted recording of our first Kingdom Hearts 1 Primer, we swore off ever re-recording something again. We also decided that we wouldn’t be able to recreate the magic that was this recording.

It’s also nice to not be as critical about this game as we have been to other Kingdom Hearts games. Without spoiling the upcoming episodes too much, we had a great time with this recording. We had some criticisms to be sure, but this was largely 2 hours of praise.

Lastly, kudos to Sam for taking the footage from Gamer’s Little Playground and meshing it with our audio to make a final piece that is still largely cohesive. This was quite an effort on his part, and I don’t want it to be overlooked.

So yeah, you asked for it, and we’ll deliver.

Ever since the advent of the internet, game designers have come up with a myriad of ways players can interact with and influence each other while in-game. From online shooters (both team-based and competitive), co-op campaigns, user-generated content, and even player messages ala Dark Souls, the network has become an increasingly valuable tool in the designer’s kit. Certain genres, like the MMO, would be impossible without such technology. That particular genre is I what want to focus on today, but not in a way you might expect.

What I mean by that is that I want to take a look at the MMORPG, through the lens of a franchise known as .hack (read: dot hack). For those of who aren’t aware, the .hack multimedia project first made its way to America in February 2003 with the animated series .hack//SIGN (read: dot hack sign), and a four part series of video games. This was later expanded on in 2006 with the .hack//GU trilogy and an accompanying anime called .hack//ROOTS, both taking place 7 years after the events of the quadrilogy. Taking place in an alternative universe where a computer virus destroyed all but one operating system and made hacking a capital offense worldwide, .hack details the adventures of various players of a fictional MMORPG called “The World”.

Most of the stories in this universe tend to focus on one character, and their circle of friends, as they investigate the mysterious circumstances wherein players are falling into a comatose state while in the middle of playing the game, with no reasonable medical explanation. While that’s the main focus, as a franchise set within an online game, it both implicitly and explicitly talks about the MMO genre and its evolution (since SIGN and the original four games take place in 2010, while GU and ROOTS take place in 2017). I want to examine these predictions and see how “correct” they were.


Let’s start with the backbone of any online game: interactions with other players. As many who who play MMOs and online games will often say, one of the biggest draws is the ability to meet and get to know people in an online space. More than anything else, these games are social spaces to either connect with new people or reunite with friends and family who have moved away or are otherwise difficult to stay in touch with. This obviously isn’t a universal truth, but it is a big factor in the genre’s popularity.

As someone who practically lives online, most of my social group fall into this category, where we play games (not necessarily MMOs, but the idea is the same) as a way to regularly keep in touch. We’re far from the only ones. Danny O’Dwyer on his video game documentary series NoClip, published a video in early December 2017 about “The Hillbillies of Grand Theft Auto Online”. Though it may not be the first thing that comes to mind when MMOs are brought up, the group this piece talks about was built almost entirely online. They’ve grown so close that they, and their families, gather together every year for an annual barbecue. The clan leader even went to the extraordinary lengths of buying a plane ticket for one member who was hesitant to drop that kind of money to meet a complete stranger they just met online.

In a real sense, .hack nails this perfectly in almost every sub-series. The storylines in .hack are strongly character-driven, focusing on the players much more than their actions within “The World”. This is partially why the anime .hack//SIGN received such mixed reception when it came out. Despite being set in a online world filled with warriors, wizards, and rogues adventuring together, much of the on-screen time is dedicated to players talking with each other, looking for answers as to why the character whose handle is “Tsukasa” is unable to log out of the game and pontificating as to how it must feel to be trapped inside the game. Even when the characters are shown to do more classically video game-y tasks like questing and level grinding, it serves more to give them a reason to hang out and chat with each other than as an action set-piece for the audience. While //ROOTS has more action than //SIGN did, it too was primarily centered around characters using “The World” as a meeting ground.

This focus on characters even translates to the video games as well. Although they are single-player RPGs, players of the .hack video games assume the role of players inside “The World”. Their party members are other users of this fictionalized MMORPG. While the plot in both the original four-part series and the GU trilogy is centrally focused on the main characters’ struggle to rescue personal friends who have been put into a coma while playing “The World”, they also give time for other, less critical adventures. In both games, it is fairly common to receive an email from someone in the protagonist’s online friend group to join them on a quest, just for fun. Most of the major character development occurs during these missions, as the cast takes the time to reflect on everything they’ve been through together. The way //GU protagonist Haseo talks to his friends Silabus and Gaspard during any random quest accurately captured how groups of my friends and I behave when we’re gaming together. While we’re all working towards complete the mission at hand, we mostly just talk about what’s been happening in all of our lives since the last play session. In both anime and games, .hack understands the value of the people one plays with.

On the other hand, one way I thought that .hack really missed the mark is how Player Versus Player interactions are handled. In almost every piece of .hack related media, “The World” has one of the most ill-conceived and ridiculous PvP systems I have ever heard of. While players are inside a town, they cannot be attacked by PKers (Player Killers). However, once outside of a town, it’s a complete free-for-all. Any player is allowed to initiate battle against any other player, regardless of whether or not the target agrees to the fight, and “PK” them.

This is understandable as a device in service to the story. It is far easier to instill a sense of drama in a scene if the character has upset another party and runs the risk of being ambushed while in the course of regular play. Further, fights can occur more organically if both parties don’t have to agree to one beforehand. Yet judging by how players act and react under this system, it is clearly a problem in “The World’s” fundamental design. The beginning of .hack//GU has protagonist Haseo get “PKed” on his very first day in the game, by two other players who pretended to want to teach him how to play.

This sets him up for an unhealthy attitude when engaging with “The World” in //ROOTS (which he also stars in), spending much of the early season afraid of getting PKed again if he ever lets his guard down, and in //GU, where he assassinates other PKers (becoming a PKKer, or Player Killer Killer), earning the title “Terror of Death”. Other, less traumatized players still feel the effects of this system through bullying and harassment in the vein of “Do as I say or you’ll get PKed” or “You’re friends with that guy, so I’ll PK you to upset him”. In universe, a PvP arena was created to curb these incidents, but the effect was minimal at best. Even if many moved to the arena for “honorable combat”, all the examples I listed above come from after the arena was established, so the issue persists.

I was eager to jump in and talk about how no designer would create a system like this, but as it turns out that’s not true. Doing some light research, it turns out that Ultima Online(UO), prior to the introduction of PvE servers in 2000, actually had the most logical extreme of this system. Nowhere was safe, and any rules were strictly enforced by the player base. As designer Raph Koster stated in a postmortem, the intent was to make heroism feel genuinely heroic by making villainy equally viable. In practice, it lead to… exactly what I describe from “The World” of .hack. Games like EVE Online and Star Citizen use similar mechanics, but in a sci-fi setting, and the stories from those games reflect that. In this sense, .hack can be said to model the very real effects that “open” PvP systems create.

But in lore, “The World” is a massively popular game that has “sold over 20 million copies worldwide”. All the games from our universe that have open PvP aren’t pulling those numbers. Obviously there will be inactive or unused accounts that factor into that “20 million copies” number (World of Warcraft reports to have over 100 million accounts, but a peak concurrent player base of about 12 million in Oct 2010), but it’s safe to assume that a good amount of those people are still playing by how there are in-game news stories about “The World”. By comparison, real MMOs with the open PvP policies depicted in .hack aren’t anywhere near that popular. As it turns out, while there is an appeal to this kind of system, it’s very niche.

So what do MMOs as wide-reaching as “The World” do with their PvP? First-off, many of them have set of minimum requirements that must be met before one can fight against other players. Final Fantasy XIV forces its users to achieve level 30 in at least one job class and complete a specific quest before they can engage. The level gating exists so that new users have to take the time to learn the basic mechanics of the game before fighting their peers, specifically negating the scenario where a high level player slaughters a newbie on their first session, like Haseo in .hack//GU.

In addition, most MMOs have separate servers dedicated to PvP, splitting the players who want to fight each other from the population who might not be as interested. While preventing abuse and harassment in an online population is an eternal struggle for game designers, separating the two populations is an obvious move that many popular MMOs use to curb the worst of it. In order to attack or be attacked by other players, one needs to opt into it, again preventing the aforementioned “newbie slaughter” and bullying problems depicted in .hack. Ultimately, while .hack technically has a PvP system similar to systems seen in real online games, is it unrealistic in the amount of players that would log into such a game. Were Haseo a real person playing a real MMO, there is a strong chance he would have canceled his account on the very first day.

The last point of comparison I want to make between real-world online gaming and “The World” of .hack is the use of real-world money to purchase virtual goods. Since the .hack// games were all single-player RPGs in the PS2-era, none of them ever broach this topic. Protagonists use the same in-game currency that the other characters use when buying, selling, and trading items, with no real-world money ever entering the equation. To get a feel for how the franchise thinks of using cold hard cash to buy virtual goods, we must turn to the anime .hack//ROOTS. In an episode titled “Violation”, a minor character whose handle is “Tohta” uncovers a ring of traders who have a near-monopoly on rare in-game items, using it to extort in-game merchants and players for real-world money to acquire these items, thus inflating their in-game cost. Tohta is able to acquire evidence of their wrongdoing, turning it over to CC Corp (the company that built the game), which permanently banned all of the real-world traders’ accounts.

This might not be all too illuminating in and of itself, but there are a number of conversations that take place in this episode that speak to the nature of applying real monetary value to items inside of an online game. Worth mentioning is that the character Tohta is role-playing as a merchant inside “The World”, and takes great pride in not only living up to his deals, but ensuring that the customer is treated fairly. Throughout the anime, he is depicted as a trustworthy individual, and the person to turn to when discussing matters of commerce. Before he hands over the evidence to authorities, he gives the traders the option to stop, stating that making trades with real money in an online game is “the same as being a drug dealer” because once they start spending real money to get the better gear, they’ll just keep coming back for more. Continuing with this, he claims that “obviously players will buy the best stuff with real money, and then get carried through the game without having any fun. [The traders] make them unhappy by selling them items.” In his view, if all a player is spending is in-game currency, at least they had to earn it by beating monsters or selling/trading to build up that resource, resulting in a sense of accomplishment finally being able to afford the item they really wanted.

While the subject of using real-world money in online games came into focus once more with the semi-recent controversies surrounding loot boxes, there has always been a market for it, regardless of whether or not it is officially supported. World of Warcraft(WoW)’s terms of service (last updated in 2012), expressly forbid the use of real-world currency to purchase any in-game items or help to clear a dungeon/raid. On the surface, it would seem that Blizzard holds this same stance regarding the integrity of the game.

At least, until one remembers that a few years ago they introduced the “WoW Token”. For $20, players can purchase WoW tokens, which can be redeemed for 30 days of free play without paying the subscription cost. Since a monthly subscription to WoW is $14.99, this sounds like a terrible deal. However, this token can be traded in-game for a price, essentially allowing players to trade a month’s subscription to the game for in-game gold. While Blizzard forbids the use of real-world currency in WoW for virtual goods and services, in-game gold is fair game. In practice, this means one can buy a WoW Token, sell it for gold, and use that in-game gold to pay for what they would have otherwise directly purchased. A quick look at the Battle.net store will reveal a number of items, from cosmetics to level boost and name changes, available for purchase as well. The attitude seems to be more one of “Don’t use real money to pay for WoW content, unless it’s through us.”

Blizzard is hardly alone in this. While WoW still uses a subscription fee passed a certain character level, most other MMOs, which have largely (but not completely) abandoned the subscription model of ages past, rely on similar purchases for extra revenue. Guild Wars 2 and Warframe both take advantage of this model to remain successful without asking for a monthly fee. I don’t fault .hack for not seeing this trend coming, since it’s from the early to mid 2000s, an era where MMOs were still getting off the ground. At the time, spending real money in virtual items was seen as a big deal: A sign that one was getting addicted to the game. Nowadays, it’s been largely legitimized, both for good and ill. The debate will rage on as to whether or not real-money traders are “the same as drug dealers” and ruin the experience, yet they aren’t met with the same scorn .hack seems to imply they do, so this is something the franchise gets wrong.

Where does that leave us? Well, the one thing .hack gets right, the way online games can connect people, is perhaps the most important aspect of MMOs. In that sense, the series is true to life. That said, the backdrop of “The World”, while somewhat reflecting the MMOs genre at the time, would have been more of a niche game. It would have a small dedicated audience, not the mass appeal seen in some of the more popular MMOs. Depending on the loyalty of the player base and the costs to keep the lights on, it could very well enjoy moderate success, but no more.

That doesn’t mean that the franchise is magically invalid for not duplicating popular genre contemporaries. The spirit of why people enjoy online gaming is captured beautifully in the stories told in this universe. Having recently gone through and experienced much of it again, many of these tales hold up well, even though they are over a decade old. There’s a timeless quality to “The World” and the players who inhabit it that one can’t quite shake off, and .hack will live on as one of my favorite franchises nobody has ever heard of.

Even in a year where so many good games came out, there will always be a fair share of games that didn’t “click”. Maybe they had a new idea that needed to be refined. Maybe there was a lack of polish or it didn’t stand out from its peers. For whatever reason, the games on this list left me wanting.

As a friendly reminder, this does not mean that the games here are bad. You might even like them. What this does mean is that I personally had some issues with it that hampered my enjoyment enough to notice. Without further ado, my disappointments of 2017 are:




Middle-Earth: Shadow of War
I was a big fan of Shadow of Mordor way back in 2014. Since I wasn’t a fan of Tolkien’s works, I could look past how it failed to capture the themes from The Lord of the Rings, looking instead to its mechanics. The Nemesis System felt fresh and exciting, and I (along with many others) couldn’t wait to see more games iterate of it.

While I beat Shadow of War, it never really captured my attention in quite the same way. Rather than iterate over and refine the mechanics of the system with the feedback from the first game, Shadow of War adds bloat. The two reasonably large regions in the first game have grown to 4 (possibly 5 depending on how it’s counted) regions, each with their own orc hierarchy. With all the different enemies I had been beaten by, shamed, enslaved, and executed, I don’t have a clear memory of any 1 of them. This is sharp contrast to the first game, where I recognized all 5 of the orcs that came back to fight me in the finale.

And even in the middle of combat, the world is crowded by so many nameless, faceless orcs that a single brawl gets tedious quickly. It was not fun to have floods of mooks continuously interrupt my attempt to add a new commander to my army. In the middle of the new sieges, where players take their makeshift army to attack and protect large fortress, this problem compounds. Whether the player is on offense or defense, sieges quickly devolve into a scattered mess. Even when focusing on defeating/protecting orc commanders, it’s easy to miss an enemy coming at the player.

With the loot box controversy factored in, this game is sad. It has such potential, but never comes together in the way I wanted it to.


Sonic Mania
Sonic Mania is a well made, expertly crafted call back to the 2D era of Sonic. It is everything that Sonic fans wanted it to be, and then some. So why does it sit on this list?

Bluntly, this is the game that forced me to finally admit that I don’t, and honestly never, liked Sonic games. I’ve always a fan of the Sonic “aesthetic” and attitude. I even genuinely like the character, but every time I go to play a Sonic game I’m left bored and disappointed. Despite being touted as the best Sonic game in over a decade, I could not bring myself to play much passed World 2. Even worse, if you were to ask why that is the case, I would not be able to give you an answer.

I’m willing to give Generations and a couple of the other “good” Sonic games just to be on the safe side, but Sonic Mania has made me question whether there’s even a chance I like this series. That’s not really a position I want to be in.

(Postscript: Coming off of Sonic Forces, there may be hope for me yet.)


LawBreakers
Technically speaking, I did not play LawBreakers. However, I did play the beta that was run shortly before its launch on the PS4. I would even go so far as to say that I had fun during that beta.

The problem that LawBreakers had was that the market it was trying to cater to was already eaten up by many other markets, such that it didn’t have a place in many people’s libraries. If I wanted to play a quirky hero shooter, I would rather play Overwatch. If I wanted to play a fast paced multiplayer shooter like the old Unreal Tournament, I would rather play Quake Champions or… Unreal Tournament.

Bluntly, there was nothing LawBreakers did that another game wasn’t already doing better. As I frequently told friends, “This is a game that I wouldn’t turn down, but don’t really need to play right now”. As it turns out, I am hardly alone in that opinion, which spelled the death knell for this good, but completely unremarkable shooter.


Friday the 13th: The Game
Full disclosure: I was one of the Kickstarter backers for this game.

In the ideal circumstances, Friday the 13th: The Game is a fantastic experience. Though my friend group and I didn’t play often, we had just as much fun running from Jason as we did hunting down camp counselors. I love the idea of asynchronous multiplayer, and this game is a good example of how effective that can be.

But this is a disappointments list, so why is it here if I like it? Well, those get times were had when I joined 6-7 other people that I personally knew in a Private Match. When 2-3 of us couldn’t convince the rest of my group to play, and we had to go into a Public Match to get enough people in for a viable game, we had a completely different experience. This was where the rough edges showed. From players that would quit the game if they weren’t Jason (and since there was no dedicated server, would end the match if they were hosting), to doors and buildings that simply didn’t load in, even though they still had collision. While it’s certainly possible that some of these issues were fixed, it made me reluctant to play public matches ever again. And to get the best experience for the game, you need 6-8 people who can coordinate a time to play together, which is no small feat.

I like Friday the 13th: The Game, but there’s no denying that it’s issues bring down the whole experience.


Hidden Agenda
I know what you’re thinking: “Dear writer, why is this here when you just wrote an entire article about what this game did right?”

Good question. Hidden Agenda disappoints me because, while I do think there is potential and some lessons to be learned from it, the game did its damndest to make sure anyone who could appreciate it had to go through so many hoops to do so. It’s like somebody wanted to make a murder-mystery with the same level of social play that the Jackbox Party Packs tend towards, while fundamentally misunderstanding what makes Jackbox work.

To play Hidden Agenda, you need 1-6 players who are all in the same room (so unlike Jackbox, don’t expect to stream this to your friends). Further, each player specifically needs a smartphone with the 121 MB mobile app installed (so unless you’ve got some good download speeds, don’t expect a group of people to spontaneously get a game going). This is material I touched on in the article. What I didn’t mention was that the app drains the battery on a phone like no tomorrow, so good luck if you don’t have a charger handy.

The game can be played single player, as I needed to because there’s no way I’d be able to get enough people together, but that removes the core “Hidden Agenda” gimmick the game is named after. A shame, because it does a good job at compressing the “interactive movie” experience into a well-paced 2 hour chunk. It may be a standard police-procedural, but it’s a good one of those.

I really wanted to like this game, but there’s too many hoops to go through for anyone to get the best experience out of it.


Gravity Rush 2
When I’m in the open world, falling up, down, and sideways, Gravity Rush 2 is amazing. There is something intrinsically entertaining about the movement mechanics.

The problem is that the game built around them fails to support them. Gravity Rush also failed in this way, but I had hoped the sequel would resolve those issues. While I can’t say I have idea for how to best tap into the inherent joy of flying around, the missions in Gravity Rush 2 aren’t designed around this mechanic. In all honestly, it often felt more that the mechanics were bent around the mission design.
When the protagonist has the ability to fall in any direction, it feels bizarre to have mandatory instant-fail stealth missions (disregarding the fact that instant-fail stealth in 2017 is atrocious in general). Just like the first game, combat required more precision than the mechanics can offer, which is frustrating when so much time is spent mid-combat.

It’s so rare that Gravity Rush 2 lets its core gameplay shine that the basic fetch quest becomes one of the highlights of my time playing it. At the very least, a fetch quest allows the player to move from A to B and back, letting them focus on just moving around.

I like the world of Gravity Rush, and the mechanics therein, but there’s so few chances for either of them to shine that the game suffers for it.


Kingdom Hearts 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue HD
While Dream Drop Distance and A Fragmentary Passage were both worth the price tag for Final Chapter Prologue HD, there’s a third item in the package. That third item is why I feel compelled to bring this collection up one more time, on the disappointments list.

Along with the above two, Kingdom Hearts X(chi) Back Cover was included. At first, I thought this was like the movie versions of 358 Days/2 and Re:Coded that were in the 1.5 and 2.5 ReMix, recapping the events of the game in the form of a movie. As it turns out, that is not the case. Though Back Cover takes place during the events of Kingdom Hearts X, it is actually a different story altogether. It is related to, but distinct from, the mobile game.

This is important because the story adds to the bloat that Kingdom Hearts already suffers from, as my friend Sam and I have covered in the now-finished Primer series. Even without that context, the movie itself, despite being a visual showcase for the new engine, is dreadfully dull. Only one character in the entire film has any discernible charisma, and he vanishes early on. The rest of the cast just can’t carry a scene, and I think it’s less the actor and more the material.

For all the questions, plot points, and characters added to the franchise in this 2 hour movie, I was bored through most of it. At this point, I need more from Kingdom Hearts.


For Honor
For Honor falls under the same category that Friday the 13th: The Game did earlier on this list. It is an excellent core mired by some question design decisions and the awful netcode endemic to uPlay.

I adore the stance-based combat system in For Honor. When it was just me and another opponent, the mind-games and tension generated kept me hooked. 1v1 and 2v2 are the definitive ways to play this game.

What drag this game down are the atrocious, poorly balanced 4v4 mode. No matter the skill and composition of each team, 4v4 basically comes down to huge gank squads cleaning up the map. Even today, the tactic will easily win games for even the most novice players. On top of that, gear and how it affects character stats breaks the balance of the game. Certain builds, particularly ones the improve the Revenge mechanic, tips the scales to an unreasonable degree, removing a layer of skill from the game.

On top of the lack of dedicated servers, and the sheer number of disconnects I witnessed in my time with For Honor, these issues combine to sully what could have been a phenomenal game. I hope Ubisoft can turn it around.

And with that, my disappointments of 2017 come to a close. Despite the harsh words I had for a lot of these games, most of them at least made a good effort to do something different, and they should be applauded for that. Not every risk pans out, but they need to be taken anyway. Hopefully in 2018 we’ll see this kind of risk-taking continue.

Another year has gone by, and another year’s worth of games have been released. Though the world seems to burning down around us in the year 2017, there is no denying that this has been one of the best years in gaming for a long time. So many high quality games of varying budgets and prices have been released that even the most obsessive gamers (like me) had a hard time keeping up. It seemed like every week there was something new and exciting to play.

As always, I present these games in an order decided by a random number generator. All of them are games I have personally enjoyed and could easily recommend. Just because a game is not on this list does not mean it’s bad. Rather, I either didn’t have much to add or didn’t play it. Without further ado, my highlights of 2017 are:


Super Mario Odyssey
This was the game that finally convinced me to break down and buy a Nintendo Switch for myself. Along with a few of the other games on this list, Odyssey highlights a return to form for the platforming genre many people had thought dying or dead for years. Personally, I was surprised at how much I has missed playing a classic Mario game despite not having played one in years, since my cousin let me play on his Nintendo 64.

Super Mario Odyssey was nothing less than a delight to play. From start to finish, I constantly had a smile on my face while exploring each kingdom for every single moon I could find. Even after I acquired enough moons to move onto the next kingdom, I always stuck around just to see what else I could find. Though Nintendo is often said to design video games in a vacuum, this is also clearly a more modern take on a Mario game, with many old game design principals getting kicked out (like lives) in favor of ideas more fitting for the game’s theme of adventure (like moderately-sized but densely packed and open level design).


Torment: Tides of Numenera
Out of all of the western, isometric RPGs I have ever played in my life, Planescape: Torment occupies a special place in my heart as one of the best. Though I missed the initial Kickstarter, I was more than eager to play it’s spiritual successor when it came out, and I was not disappointed.

Set in one the most bizarre, yet compelling settings I’ve seen in the post-apocalyptic Ninth World of Numenera, the new Torment builds on its predecessor thematically, using similar ideas without falling into the trap of repeating the same plot of the old game. It also made the bold, but ultimately correct choice to abandon the abysmal real time with pause combat system seen it the like of Baldur’s Gate in favor of purely turn-based “crisis resolution”. While the game does very nicely resolve, I would welcome another tale of this nature by InXile.


Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds
Do you actually need me to explain to you why Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds is worth mentioning in a yearly-retrospective? As a strong middle ground between the hyper-realistic military sims like ARMA and more casual multiplayer shooter fare, PUBG (pronounced puh-buh-guh) has appealed to so many people that it’s become an institution on its own. In my own friend group, it was pretty common for us to get together for an hour or two of PUBG at least once a week for several months. Even once I tapered off, I still found myself thinking about it from time to time, thinking if it was time to go another round.

It fixes many of the problems the plague the military sim genre with some very creative solutions. The ever-shrinking circle accelerates the games pace so that matches don’t last long, growing increasingly lethal until one contestant on Murder Island wins the coveted chicken dinner. There are also so many different ways one can enjoy a run of PUBG and have a good time, if not win. One can go in guns-blazing, find a relative safe place to hide and loot, or engage in some elaborate military-theme role playing. All are perfectly valid and welcome in the realm of PUBG, which is partially why it is so successful despite still being Early Access as of the time of writing.


Dishonored: Death of the Outsider
I have been in love with the Dishonored franchise ever since I saw the first trailer for the original game. I love the freedom the series has always provided to approach any given scenario in the way I want to. That said, I always “defaulted” to stealth/non-lethal, using not much more than the movement powers, since that’s really all one “needs”. While I would certainly play in other ways in subsequently playthrough, that was the one I always fell back on because of how much I disliked the “High Chaos” endings players would get for excessively killing enemies.

It wasn’t until Death of the Outsider that I realized how restrictively my playstyle was. Though protagonist Billie Lurk only has three powers (albeit three very good powers), the game abandons mana potions in favor of a quickly regenerating mana bar. This alone gave me a much stronger incentive to use my powers than any of the previous Dishonored games ever did, and I had a greater experience for it. On top of that, removing the “Chaos” system that previous entries used to judge player actions meant that I no longer kicked myself if someone has accidentally killed, or if I got caught and need to fight my out of a mess I had made.

Special mention also goes out to the bank heist mission, which serves to cement Dishonored’s place as Thief’s successor. That level alone contains so many possibilities and alternative routes that it’s easily one of my favorite video game levels this year.


Persona 5
My adoration for the Persona series is well documented on this blog, and this latest entry is no exception. Ignoring the fact that its central theme of rebelling against corrupt authority is… particularly poignant/relevant in 2017, the story and characters spoke to me in a very real way. Each of the main characters has a strong reason for “rebelling against society,” joining the Phantom Thieves. Together, I just couldn’t get enough.

Persona 5 also improves on the classic Persona formula in a lot of simple, but very smart ways. The UI improvements are slick, responsive, and make battles more fun to control. There were quality of life changes as well, like the assist feature that lets players auto-target weaknesses they’ve already uncovered. Atlus also improved the Social Links (now called Confidants) by giving each of them a passive benefit aside from its max rank rewards. Holding the distinction of being one of the few games I replayed this year (no small feat since the game is 100+ hours long), Persona 5 was definitely an excellent RPG.


The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
As of the time of writing, I have not yet finished my playthrough of Breath of the Wild. However, I have completed 2 of the games 4 Divine Beasts and feel comfortable enough in my opinion to make this judgement. Though my experience with the Zelda franchise is limited, Breath of the Wild is my favorite thus far. More than anything, it embodies a sense of exploration and discovery few games do.

I’ve had a blast just exploring the open world looking for shrines and korak seeds. More than that though, BotW also has one of the most interesting worlds and stories of the Zelda games I have played. I’ve found myself much more invested in this tale than I have in those of previous Zelda games. Even now, I look forward to finding the rest of the lost memories, and getting an many shrines and seeds as I can.


Uncharted: Lost Legacy
The Uncharted franchise has always been, for me, that old standby that I can trust to give me a good time. Over the years, I have grown fond of the cast of characters, always eager to join them on their next expedition. Lost Legacy provided me that kind of video game comfort food that I was in the mood for at the time it came out.

But even in that space, Lost Legacy did two things that help it stick out from other Uncharted games. First, it removed Nathan Drake from the equation, letting Chloe Frazer from Among Thieves and Nadine Ross from A Thief’s End take center stage. Watching their friendship grow over the course the game made a strong case for shorter, more distilled Uncharted games that focus on other supporting characters. That, and the open world section in Chapter 4, show that Naughty Dog is still willing to experiment with one of its flagship franchises, making Lost Legacy a stronger game for it.


Assassin’s Creed: Origins
That extra year off did wonders for the Assassin’s Creed series. Origins is a new, fresh take on a franchise many were afraid had grown stagnant. Now, I’ve always been a fan of Assassin’s Creed (except that one), but even I was starting to get tired of them.

Fortunately, Origins is a welcome breath of fresh air for the series. Eschewing a lot of the traditional Assassin’s Creed mechanics, Origins takes trappings from many games, including Witcher 3, Dark Souls, and Ubisoft’s own Far Cry franchise, to create unique, but still very Assassin’s Creed experience. While I was initially surprised that this was an RPG, I ended up liking a lot of the changes they made to combat and progression. Transitioning from the counter-focused combat to something more resembling Dark Souls gives it a weight that it never had before. In addition, the more Far Car-inspired base camps provided some of the best stealth I’ve played in Ubisoft-produced games.

Bayak and Aya, the two protagonists of the game, are also the best characters that the series has ever produced (better even than Ezio or Edward). I also appreciated the direction their relationship goes over the course of the game and how that ties into the meta-narrative of the franchise.


Cuphead
Cuphead is a game that I think more highly of now that I’ve had the benefit of hindsight. For quite a while, I had a strong love/hate relationship with this game. One boss in particular caused me a great deal of grief (which I’m told is pretty common for that boss). I also have a couple of issues with the way players can purchase upgrades.

But having pushed through all of that, Cuphead is a deliciously challenging game: One that I’m happy to have beaten. Though I never had the chance to play in co-op, Cuphead offers a great experience in solo play, harkening back to the run-and-gun shooters of yesteryear. With a decidedly retro art style and soundtrack, Cuphead is firm-but-fair in its execution.

I must also give it points for opening up some the most interesting conversations I have had this year regarding art style, difficulty, game design, and development costs. A lot of critics have come at this game from so many different angles. I wish I had jumped on that bandwagon while I still had fresh ideas to add, but I’m content knowing that Cuphead has elevated the critical discourse.


Nioh
Nioh made no bones about its Dark Souls inspiration. It had many of the hallmarks that Souls games are known for: A currency used to level up is lost on death and needs to be retrieved in subsequent runs, a persistent online that shows players where and how their peers were killed, and an heavy focus on stamina management mid-combat are chief examples of this.

But more than that, Nioh wasn’t afraid of taking those mechanics in a different direction. Where Dark Souls combat is more slow and deliberate, Nioh drastically hastens the tempo of combat, making most encounters decisive and highly-lethal. To go along with this, there are mechanics restore lost stamina mid-combo and press the offensive. And in lieu of the vast array of weapons common to Souls games, Nioh has 5 different weapon types and movelists that players gradually expand on and upgrade, much like a character-action game.

Other differences like abandoning the open-world in favor of a mission-based structure, the addition of a persistent currency players keep even after death, and the setting itself in 1600s Japan (albeit a more mystical rendition of it) give the game a feel all its own, distinct from, but clearly nodding to, the Souls games that it draws from.


Gwent: The Witcher Card Game
My closest friends will be completely unsurprised by this addition to my list. After try and failing to get back into Hearthstone, I was looking for a card game I could casually play without committing myself to. As someone who has enjoyed The Witcher books and games, Gwent entered open beta at just the right time to catch my interest.

As a collectible card game, Gwent is very unique in its core structure and mechanics. It makes it fairly difficult to talk about it in the context of other card games like Hearthstone and Magic, but that’s more a strength of the game than it is a weakness. You’d honestly have an easier time understanding it by playing it (it’s free) than you would from me explaining it. As someone with a strong dislike of Hearthstone’s randomness, Gwent’s focus on player decisions and strategy won me over so quickly than it deserves it’s spot on the list.


Tacoma
As a story by itself, Tacoma’s space-faring tale wouldn’t be all that special. If you’ve played Gone Home, none of the twists would be particularly surprising. Nothing there is bad, but it just doesn’t stand out.

What does set Tacoma apart is the way it presents it’s story. In video games, audio logs and other such documents are commonly used to explore the stories of characters who once inhabited a space, but no longer do. Rather than interact with that character, you hear and read recordings written from their perspective.

Tacoma shakes this up by instead showing players a 3D recording of everything that occured in a specific location on the space station they’re exploring at a specific interval of time. Instead of picking up diary entries, players fast forward, rewind, and observe a real time recreation of what happened in that area. They can even see what articles and e-mails the people there were written or viewing at the time.

There are a lot of smart ways the creators at Fullbright Studios played with these mechanics, like an early example where players can learn a door’s unlock code by watching the space station’s supervisor punch in the code in the recording. It’s a short game, but the mechanics inside it have potential to expand to many other games.


Hand of Fate 2
I was a big fan of the original Hand of Fate, a hybrid deck-building card and Dungeons and Dragons tabletop adventure with real-time combat, and this sequel improves on that template in very interesting ways. While the combat still feels like Arkham-lite, the addition of many more enemies and weapon types gave it much more flavor than I remember seeing in the first game. It feels much better to play.

In addition, the individual missions/challenges are much more diverse than they were in the original Hand of Fate, where each mission was just a dungeon crawl to the end boss. Having the mechanics recontextualized in so many different ways further encourages the player use a wide variety of cards depending on what they can expect to encounter. Where in the first game players could find one build and stick to it, Hand of Fate 2 presented me with many different playstyles that I needed to make use of.

While not perfect, and still lacking an Endless Mode, Hand of Fate 2 is a solid game that I could easily recommend.


Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
Hellblade is notable game for so many different reasons. For one, it was an experiment in how game developers could self-publish smaller, less expensive games (in terms of both development costs and retail price). Despite the $30 price tag, Hellblade boasts the level of production that one would expect from a dedicated game development studio. I hope it will serve to encourage other developers to go in this direction.

But even if that element is removed from the equation, Hellblade does a fantastic job of exploring psychosis from the viewpoint of a main character who has it. With the use of binaural audio to represent the voices in her head, Hellblade helped me empathize with the titular Senua more than I ever have with a video game protagonist. The attention they paid to medical professionals in the field of mental health and people who have this condition shows.

Even if you don’t normally go for these kinds of games, I would recommend that you at least play through Hellblade, then watch the behind-the-scenes video packed in. I found it to be an incredible experience.


Pyre
Even though I had enjoyed Supergiant’s other games, Bastion and Transistor, I was lukewarm about Pyre when I first heard about it. I was told that it was a sports game and almost instantly lost interest.

Then Pyre came out, and I was intrigued about what I was hearing. People who typically dislike sports game found themselves drawn into Pyre. For that reason, I decided to try my own hand, I was having a great time. While still ostensibly a magical, steampunk fantasy basketball game, Pyre’s mechanics and control are simple enough to beginners like me to understand. That said, there is still enough depth to them that players that enjoy the real-time strategic elements of sports games are right at home.

The world of Pyre, and its characters also held my interest through the course of the game. I was more than happy to get to know my fellow castaways and their backstories, and how they joined the tournament of the Rites. With a high degree of mutability, I could easily see myself playing this game again should the time arise.


Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus
This game came out at the exact right time for me. Without getting too far into it, the events of the past year have made me particularly receptive to a game about killing Nazis. The New Colossus gave me that opportunity in spades. While the game was a bit more lethal than I’d like in a Wolfenstein game, I had a blast running through the game’s campaign.

But more than that, Wolfenstein 2 has such a strong cast of characters that anyone should be able to find someone that they identify with. None of the resistance are perfect, and some of them are deeply flawed human beings, but they all have something that drives them forward.

And without spoiling it for those of you who haven’t played, the intro to Wolfenstein 2 is one of the strongest, and darkest, I’ve seen in a long while. However, it’s not dark just for the sake of being dark. Wolfenstein 2 probably didn’t intend to have a strong statement, but it came out in a time where it’s thematic content charged it with a very powerful message. This spoke to me in a period where I needed it, so for that reason alone it deserves mention on this list.


What Remains of Edith Finch
The strength of What Remains of Edith Finch is in its ability to use gameplay as a secondary storytelling device to help players delve into the headspaces of its characters. It’s difficult to talk about it without invoking major spoilers, so I can’t say much more here. However, the way the game blends story and gameplay together is still, even in 2017, unique to it. It’s another game I would easily recommend to just about anyone.


Horizon: Zero Dawn
In any other year, Horizon: Zero Dawn would probably have been showered with many awards from major gaming outlets. It’s a well-constructed, polished game that looks stunning. The premise of a decidedly low-tech society combating large, robotic dinosaur creatures was powerful, and they build on that premise in both story and gameplay.

It also did a great job at distilling the open-world bloat into a relatively small (for the time) map that was dense with activity. Taking queues from The Witcher, side quests were always more than just “go here and kill things”. They all had smaller stories attached to them, and Aloy (played by Ashley Birch) was a great central character for these stories to revolve around.


Tooth and Tail
As someone who usually dislikes Real-Time Strategy, I thought I was going to dislike Tooth and Tail. However, its mechanics are setup in such a way that people like me, who enjoy the strategic aspect but dislike how most RTS games control, have a lower barrier of entry. Turning the player’s cursor into a playable character that moves around the map and rallies other units was a smart choice that dramatically changes how the game works.

The other clever aspect of Tooth and Tail is that bases have a finite number of resources they can provide before they are spent. While you still lose if your bases are destroyed, you will also lose if you inadequately allot your resources and run out of income. This brings with it the kind of Aggro/Midrange/Control interplay that’s more common to card games. Do you invest your resources quickly and hope to overrun the opponent, or do you attempt to stall and starve out your adversary? Tooth and Tail enables both possibilities, which adds another layer of strategy to the game.

Tooth and Tail taught me that while I dislike most RTS, the genre itself isn’t necessarily the problem.


Night in the Woods
Despite the silly cartoon animals, Night in the Woods is the most realistic game I’ve played this year. As college-dropout Mae Borowski, players hang out with their friends and tackle spooky happenings in small town starving for jobs and resources. The game has a lot to say about how mundane hopelessness becomes for people who live in towns like this and don’t have the means, financially or otherwise, to pursue other opportunities. It hit me on a personal level that I just wasn’t expecting.

Something must also be said of Mae and how the game helps its players understand the kind of person she is. Mae is a good, but deeply flawed person, and the choices the game presents reflect her personality. The same can be said of her friends and the other characters met over the course of the game. I found all of these flaws made them relatable in a way that many of characters from other games just aren’t. I’ve met people like them, and in some games I am like them. Having that human element is valuable, and it’s something I’d like to see more of.


Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age
The original Final Fantasy XII was a game ahead of its time. Innovations like the gambit system, which weren’t very appreciated at the time, have come into a new light in recent years. With real-time combat inspired by MMOs, FF 12 has a wholly distinct feel that stands out even today among its more modern contemporaries.

It also deserves praise for the more politically focused and motivated storytelling unique to games that take place in the world of Ivalice. Though it doesn’t quite match the level of storytelling seen in Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy 12’s narrative holds its own as one of intrigue, alliance, and betrayal. It’s villains are some of the more relatable and compelling in the history of the Final Fantasy franchise. Even all these years later, I still found myself hooked in, eager to experience this tale.

This edition of the game also brings in the highly praised Zodiac Job System from the International Version that never made it to the United States. These changes drastically improve the progression system giving each of the 6 characters a distinct feel instead of carbon copies of each other. They also fixed problems like the legendarily difficult to obtain (without a guide) Zodiac Spear. In other words, it’s the definitive version of the game.


Kingdom Hearts 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue HD
Giving how… opinionated I’ve been over the past year about the Kingdom Hearts franchise, I’m sure a lot of you are surprised to find this on my highlights list.

Despite the tone I’ve taken, I’m still a massive fan of Kingdom Hearts, and this was a very strong collection. For all of it’s crazy storytelling nonsense, Dream Drop Distance is a fun game to play. Sora and Riku offer similar, yet distinct playstyles, adding some variety. While a bit of the overpowered side, the new Flowmotion system made travelling about each level an extraordinary kinetic experience.

There’s also something to be said for the infamously named “Kingdom Hearts 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue HD: 0.2: Birth by Sleep: A Fragmentary Passage”. The name is silly, but the game is not. Though it’s only about 4 hours, it was fun to play as Aqua from Birth by Sleep once more, especially in the new engine. As both a stand-alone and a preview for what we could expect from Kingdom Hearts 3, I was more than happy with this offering.

This was a strong package-deal that made me excited about Kingdom Hearts all over again.


Nier: Automata
Nier: Automata was my semi-regular reminder that Yoko Taro is the most delightfully insane game designer I will ever know of. Taking place 10,000 years after the original Nier, Automata tells a compelling narrative of humanity, self-determination, and self-worth that I find myself thinking back on even now, nearly 8 months down the line. To say any more would ruin the experience for people who have yet to play it. But if you haven’t, you owe it to yourself to try Nier: Automata if you are able to.

That said, story and writing on that level are exactly what fans of Yoko Taro have learned to expect. What we didn’t expect, and what set Automata apart from his other games, was the Platinum edge. Platinum Games, with their expertise in character-action, helped bring Yoko Taro out of gutter of mediocrity that his gameplay has been stuck in for a long time. This was a match made in heaven, and the end product shows that quite clearly. I can only hope that their relationship continues of offer games at this level of quality.


Echo
Echo’s primary gimmick is one of the most unique I’ve seen in a stealth game. As an intruder in an AI controller and operated palace, the player must sneak passed manufactured automatons during both a “lights on” and “lights off” phase. While the lights are on, the palace’s AI tracks every single movement the player makes, from performing sneak attacks on guards to walking through water. This recording stops once the lights turn off, and the system begins to reboot.

Once the system comes back online, the automaton-guards incorporate everything the player has done into their routine. If the player walked through water in the last lights on phase, the AI would now be able to do it on the current lights on phase. Fortunately, the system also forgets everything it learned before that, so anything the player did 2 or more cycles ago, but not in the current cycle, is forgotten.

This means that players need to manage their actions to prevent the guards from learning too much in a given phase. In one area, I remember deliberately avoiding vaulting over objects so that if I was caught in the next cycle, I would always have that escape route to get away from the guards. It was also shocking the first time I had the AIs sneak attack and instant kill me because I forgot I had “taught” them that. Though the mechanics takes a bit of a backseat towards the end, they do play with it in interesting ways.

For making me think about my situational awareness and method of approach more than most other games do, and for introducing an intriguing concept to the world of stealth games, Echo left a strong impression on me.


Prey
Created by Arkane, the team behind Dishonored, Prey does to System Shock what Dishonored does to Thief. That is, it takes the core aesthetic and gameplay ideas from its spiritual ancestor and bring them into the modern age, with the knowledge of game design acquired over the past almost 20 years.

Taking place during an alien infestation on the Talos 1 space-station, Prey has player’s take the role of Morgan Yu as they attempt to both stop the infestation from spreading to Earth and escape with their lives. Without spoiling the game too much for new players, the game’s intro is one the best I’ve seen. It sets the tone and stage for the game so well that it’s astonishing. I was eager and willing to scour Talos 1, learning about the people who inhabited and how they coped with the stresses of their situation.

In terms of play, Prey’s chief innovation would be the GLOO gun. As a weapon, the GLOO gun can be used to slow down and trap enemies by covering them in a sticky, adhesive gel. This leaves them open to critical attacks or buys the player more time to escape. But more than a weapon, the GLOO gun is a useful exploration tool. The adhesive can be used to put on fires as a kind of make-shift extinguisher, temporarily halt the flow of electricity so that players can safely cross hazards or hack object unharmed, or form platforms to traverse the environment with less difficulty. Just this single item has so many uses that it becomes a staple in the arsenal.

With a vast array of other weapons, skills, and tools, Prey rewards creative problem solving and experimentation in it’s mechanics more than most other games I’ve play this year, challenging my critical thinking. So few games do this that I have to give credit where credit is due.


Magic: The Gathering
It might not technically be a video game, nor a 2017 release, but this is my list and I can do what I want. I started learning how to play Magic last year, but it wasn’t until this year that I truly started to immerse myself in it. So many people talk about why Magic is a strong game that has endured for ages that adding my voice to that won’t accomplish much, but as someone for whom Yu-Gi-Oh has fallen out of favor, Magic filled a void for me.

My only wish is that I had a group I could reliably get together to play semi-regularly.


Absolver
I was almost completely blindsided by Absolver. Up until it’s release, I had never even heard of it. Once it made a name for itself, I figured it would be worth giving it a fair shot.

As a vaguely asian(?) monk training on a mountain, players must roam around and defeat 7 major bosses before they may earn the title of Absolver. While the story is nearly non-existent, the combat of Absolver is the real draw. Like Remember Me, players create their combos based on the moves they’ve learned before combat even begins. Using a four-way stance system, players decide which combo they will use based on what weapon they wield and what stance they are in.

They are several different character types as well, and each have their own method of countering or negating attacks. By performing these counter on incoming attacks, players can learn them, adding them to their own repertoire. It’s a very intricate system with a lot of moving parts, but one that can be mastered.

I still have fond memories of fighting against other players in Absolver, even though I only spend a single weekend with this game. The fact that it left such an impression on me is no small feat in the year 2017.


Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami
I have been told about the Yakuza franchise by close friends of mine for a long time. With the releases of Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami this year, I figured there would never be a better time to give the series.

Thankfully, my friends were all right. What Yakuza excels at more than any other game is managing its tone, knowing when it can be silly and fun, and when it has to get serious. Rare is it that a game comes where I can spend 30 minutes on a hilarious side quest and then transition into the more serious, dramatic flow of the the main story without feeling awkward.

Part of why both games manage this dance so well are the characters Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima. Both of them are just as comfortable in a street brawl as they are in an arcade, or going bowling, or racing Hot Wheels. One moment, one of them could be saving a beat-up civilian from a gang of street thugs and the next, they’ll be inspiring a lesbian at a local cabaret not to give up and keep looking for the woman of their dreams.

If I had to distill the essence of Yakuza into a single word, I would make that word “sincere”. I wasn’t expecting a game about organized crime in Japan to be such an emotionally sincere and forthright experience, but I’m more than happy it is.


Crash Bandicoot: N Sane Trilogy
I cannot deny that much of why I like the Crash trilogy does come down to nostalgia. As platformers from the PS1-era, you do need to have some tolerance for the game design tropes of that age to really enjoy these games. That’s not everyone, and I won’t fault anyone who dislikes these games.

For me though, I play Crash 2 and/or Crash 3 every single year, sometime in the summer. Those games, the Spyro games, and the Medievil franchise occupy special places in my heart that predispose me games of their ilk.

And that, more than anything, is why I can appreciate the work and attention to detail that was needed to translate these games into this new, high definition remaster. Though there is an issue with loading times, I was thrilled to see just how accurate all of these levels and mechanics were to their original PS1 counterparts.

It’s weird to end this list on a nostalgia pick, but I won’t argue with the random number generator.


And there you have it. This has been a marvelous year in gaming, and looking at what’s in the pipe for 2018, the trend looks to be continuing next year.


Recently, I have been hearing people in my gaming news feed, like Patrick Klepek at Waypoint, talk about a game called Hidden Agenda. It isn’t the first time the game fell onto my radar, coming up briefly in some of the presentations at E3 2017. As someone who has been casually looking out for news on it, I was surprised that it had been released without so much as a peep.

Hidden Agenda is the product of Supermassive Games, the same studio that brought us the surprise smash Halloween hit Until Dawn in 2015. Rather than continue Until Dawn’s loving homage to horror movies with another, similar game, Hidden Agenda applies that same sense of genre-awareness to the modern crime-drama. Taking the roles of ace detective Becky Marney and hard-hitting prosecutor Felicity Graves, players attempt to solve the case of the Trapper Killer, who booby-traps their victims’ bodies in order to kill responding officers. 

As part of PlayLink, Sony’s initiative to offer Jackbox-like social games to the PS4, multiple players could play either cooperatively or competitively in order to change the course of the story. These features only work if the mobile devices and the PS4 are all using the same wifi, meaning it is impossible to stream the game to a group of people and play across the internet. And since there’s no way I was going to try convincing my family, on Thanksgiving, to crowd around my PS4 and download the Hidden Agenda Mobile App to their phones in order to watch a crime-drama when they could be watching “The Game” instead, I played in solo mode.
So rather than focus on how playing it with multiple people impacts it, I am going to talk about Hidden Agenda’s place in the genre of “Adventure Games” codified by Telltale and Quantic Dream. Though I did not play with other people, the fact that Hidden Agenda is designed to be played in a social setting forced it to make several concessions in its design. With some exceptions, many of them worked to improve the game overall, and could be easily applied to its contemporaries.

As a game meant to be played in at a party, or with a small group of friends, a single playthrough of Hidden Agenda does not take long. My run of the game took slightly longer than 2 hours. While this is might be long for a police procedural, this is completely atypical of a video game storyline from a big budget studio. For Hidden Agenda, this proves to be a boon. I found that the game was significantly more focused than I’m used to for games in this genre. Almost every Telltale or David Cage game I can think of has at least one section where it feels like the game was padded out in order to meet some arbitrary length requirement. Telltale’s The Walking Dead Season 1: Episode 2 and Season 2: Episode 4, and the entire Navajo segment in Beyond: Two Souls all could have been abridged or cut out entirely without significant loss to the story of those games.
Hidden Agenda’s short length gives it a flow that these games don’t necessarily need to have. It is deliberate in how it paces itself, making sure to carefully administer new plot points when they would be most impactful to the story. I remained engaged with the game for the duration of my playthrough, looking forward to the next reveal. That said, Supermassive also remembered that not every scene can be tense or exciting without burning out the audience. They made sure that both the players and the two protagonists had room to breathe after tense or exciting events. Though there is not much in terms of character development, each member of the cast serves their purpose in the narrative, driving the plot forward. If nothing else, Hidden Agenda makes a strong case for the two hour, highly focused adventure game.

Story and writing aren’t the only way Hidden Agenda separates itself from its contemporaries. As part of the aforementioned PlayLink initiative at Sony, the game does not use a controller. Instead, players download and play the game exclusively through a smartphone application. Using the phone as a touchpad, players move their cursors in order to perform all of their in-game actions. Though this seems like a severe limitation at first glance, limitation is the mother of creativity. The PlayLink UI was leveraged in ways that made me rethink many conventions in the space of the “Adventure” game.
Without the use of a controller, specifically an analog stick, the options for how to move the protagonists are slim. Rather than attempt to answer how one could reasonably translate swipes on a smartphone screen to avatar movement, the developers opt to just remove that facet from the game entirely. At no point do the players ever have to ferry their character from place to place, the game handles that for them during cutscenes and story beats. This might sound like a bad thing, but it heavily contributes to the pacing I talked about earlier. The player does not need to worry about who they can talk to for more dialogue or where the designers want them to go to move on to the next segment. Instead, they can focus on the decision making that exists at the heart of the genre.

Another important part of being a game intended for social audiences acknowledging that the audience will not be paying attention to story events the whole time. The audience will likely be talking to each other, and may miss some crucial details as a result. I suspect this is why Supermassive Games included a logbook that keeps track of both what choices the players have made so far and what they have learned about each member of the cast. Since I played by myself, this feature wasn’t aimed at my style of play, but I did find myself flipping through it to make sure that my understanding of events made sense based on the available clues.
I don’t advocate that games in the genre start flooding the Apple App and Google Play storefronts with a ton of companion apps just to have a case tracker appended to them. That said, I do see value in having similar systems in other games. The concept is hardly novel: Assassin’s Creed is legendary for its use of the in-game database to tie real history in with the game, and many RPGs like Mass Effect and The Witcher have codices on their worlds and lores. When I think about similar mechanics in the Adventure Game space, the only ones that come to mind are Life is Strange and Until Dawn. That’’s disappointing when so many of these games can benefit from having these information storehouses available. 
I have a distinct recollection of my time with The Wolf Among Us, one of Telltale’s best games. Despite how much I enjoyed it, episodes were slow to come out: So slow that I had difficulty remembering a lot of the details, like who knew who and what their motivations were. As for David Cage’s offerings, I did not find it easy to follow the stories of Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, specifically when it came to characters and “why” they were doing what they were doing. Having a log of “the story so far” is no magic salve for David Cage’s writing, but it can help the player keep pace when trying to follow along.

With no marketing, Hidden Agenda is a game you’ve probably never heard about until you saw this article. And with all the barriers to entry, Hidden Agenda is a game you probably won’t ever play. It’s not perfect, but it serves as an interesting case study for lower-cost, more focused content in the video game space. Though it requires users to download a smartphone app and play together in the same room, PlayLink’s UI inspired Supermassive to build creative solutions to its limitations, which can be ported to other games in the genre. It’s a tragedy that Sony hung this little gem out to dry.

At least, we have completed the primer series. We’re done.

And that’s that. Sam and I stand by what we said at the end this. Despite the many trials and tribulations to get this series to you guys, we are glad to have done it and hope it was as fun to watch as it was for us to record.

However, I think it’s also worth going over some of the lessons we learned doing this series, so that the audience, should they choose to follow in our example and do long form video let’s plays on games, can learn from our mistakes.

  • Don’t get too attached to your original plan and adjust to changing circumstances: When we originally conceived this idea, it was intended to be an easy to produce mini-project. Instead, it dominated our production for over a year. Realistically, after first recording of original Kingdom Hearts, we probably should’ve scaled back to do smaller, more focused retrospectives (either as a podcast or in smaller episodes where we just took chunks of footage as B-roll). Learn from our mistakes and don’t be afraid to scale back when a project it bigger than you anticipated.
  • Make sure the game/series you talk about is “Let’s Playable”: In hindsight, the fact that it never even occurred to us to play through Kingdom Hearts for the channel should have been our first hint we were taking the wrong approach for a long-form video series. Even doing cutscenes only, there were large chunks of the Primer series where we didn’t have much to talk about. A lot of Let’s Players refuse to play RPGs like Dragon Age because of the way they’re paced is not conducive to keeping viewers entertained. Kingdom Hearts is in that vein, and we should have acknowledged that while we were planning the series.
  • Pace yourselves: This is something I think Sam and I did fairly well. With any project, especially once this long, it is important to keep a steady, but workable pace. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. When it gets finished is not as important as the fact that it did get finished. Since this is a passion project and not paid work, that’s even more important. Passion projects live or die by how willing the project owners are willing to put in the work. If you burn yourself out, that dream project you’ve always wanted to complete will never get off the ground.
And give credit where credit is due. As the person who writes these articles, I have more “presence” than Sam does, but he’s been the one diligently editing all of these videos together for your entertainment. A more even distribution of the workload, whenever we return from our long-deserved break, is a crucial element we’ll need to work on going forward. I’m not as good an editor as Sam is, but I can do it myself (as seen in my Hitman LP) and it’s not fair to him to have to do all of that.
Speaking of new video content, it may be quite some time before we get back into the swing of things. This was a tough project, and both Sam and I have jobs now. As a result, we need to have some serious talks before we can even think of continuing. Odds are we’ll be back eventually, and I’ve been thinking about getting more heavily into writing again, but for now Interactive Friction will go silent.
Farewell for now, and I hope to see you all soon. Kingdom Hearts has been quite the ride.
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