YOU CAN'T WIN ME, I CAN'T BE BEAT

As video-games work their way into the collective psyche, they're increasingly referenced in pop music. Characterized as deeply addictive and weirdly spiritual, the ragtag discography of video-game odes ranges from The Who's megafamous Pinball Wizard, to Lana del Rey's dreary Video Games, to wherever the heck DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist found this obscure nugget of Atari-addled country music, Hooked on Atari.

But nothing hits all the nostalgic notes of the now-bygone era of the quarter-hungry video-game arcade like Lemon Demon's Cabinet Man, a synth-driven ballad about a man who seems to have been biomechanically integrated into one such cabinet machine... with sinister results. 

“Thank God for business, they let me take the floor
I stood so proudly, like I was going to war
Players soon appeared and I quickly was revered
This must be what love would have felt like
Such dedication, they came from miles away
With eyes so piercing, they’d wait their turn to play
In perfect patient lines because I was in their minds
I could do whatever I felt like”

GISMOS_11 - That's some mean shit right there.

Well, we've made it to the snake eyes version of the Gismos. Miraculous really, considering all the jobs our staff has recently procured. Due to my recent acquisition of the Bubonic Plague and my microphone somehow also getting sick and choosing not to work our intro will be absent this episode. At the very least i can transcribe what i would have said and it goes something like this:

Here we go again friends in this episode 11 of the Gismos.

The recently released "Tom Clancys The Division" has your character answering a 'call to arms.' The takeaway is that your a specialized citizen- a firefighter, ex marine, medic, doctor or technician of some sort who has been chosen to....essentially become a remorseless killer.

How much longer can this hypocrisy of the 'hero' video game character droll on for? Is it heroic to round a street corner and open fucking fire at anyone wearing a hood? Who shoots first is ultimately irrelevant as the outcome is always the same. you live they die. Your characters typical blaz'e reaction to the whole thing is almost as bad as the act itself.

But its all justified isn't it? Your sent by...someone, to find the cause of the virus outbreak and bring a stop to those responsible without any attempt at conversation- just the old buck-em and scram tactic. Its amazing that the games involving murder simply run the motions
with absolutely no regard for your characters actions withing the narrative. Cuz everybody's a killer, so why bother explaining it?

I've just recently become hyper aware of the contradiction facing many games today- whos the bad guy here really? I just can't ignore it anymore. Many would argue that its just a game and shooting things is good enougt for them. But i say why settle for bare bones mindlessness? its time for games to grow up with the players.

Gismos_11

Evade Gismo

CONFESSIONS OF A TERRIBLE GAMER: FILTHY CASUAL EDITION

I have a confession to make -- and no, it’s not that I’m a terrible gamer (I will never admit to that). It’s that... well, over the past week, I think I'm becoming a Blizzard fanboy. As someone who writes about a variety of games, I guess I thought I should give full disclosure.

Something about the design of Blizzard games has me gravitating toward them not strictly in and of themselves, but as preferable alternatives to similar titles. Over the past decade, each release seems intended to fill in successive slices of the genre pie: Real Time Strategy is what they’re known for, followed by Action RPG’s, but now they have a highly successful card-based puzzler in Hearthstone, a fun-for-all MOBA game in Super Smash Bros. Blizzard (Heroes of the Storm), and in June, Blizzard’s first Team Fortress 2-alike first-person shooter Overwatch comes out. I put Starcraft 2 down a long time ago - I found it literally too challenging to focus through a real-time, multi-battlefront resource management wargame - but these most recent 3 titles have become like safe injection sites for some of my most toxic gaming habits. Blizzard games are polished, generic, internally consistent, and low on time demand. A game of Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, or Overwatch comfortably fits into the 10-30 minutes slot. Compared to rival games in these genres, where a match tends to take upwards of forty minutes, this is a really attractive feature.

I don't want this to have melted by the time my game is over.

Take my 2200 hours of experience in Dota 2. I worked hard at that game; I invested hours and hours of research to improve, always seeking opportunities and advantages. But regardless, a painful loss can take 60 minutes. SIXTY. MINUTES. There is no surrender. You can Abandon the game, but you get punished for this by playing against other players who’ve also abandoned, which is even more unpleasant. Ask me today which game I’d rather play, and I would tell you Heroes of the Storm nine times out of ten. It’s a “lesser” game, certainly. It’s simpler, smoother, more forgiving. Finnicky annoyances like last-hitting enemies in order to get gold, or micromanaging the precious, gear-toting courier, are condensed in order to make the game faster and more fun. Small variances matter less in HOTS than Dota 2; what matters more is the overall movements and tactics of each team. And that’s why I’d rather play it. Also, that your name goes on fire when you get a killstreak.

Ever wanted to play as Pandora the Explorer... in a bugcatching costume? What's that? You don't? 

Or look at Hearthstone. I’ve been playing Magic: the Gathering on and off for probably 14 years. I LOVE Magic: the Gathering. Sometimes I can’t find a friend to play with so I will wiggle my shinies in the light for a few hours, just longing to play. A MTG friend of mine recommended HEX to me, a game so similar to Magic it was sued for plagiarism, and yet different enough that many experienced MTG players prefer it over Magic’s digital counterpart. The funnest way to play these CCG’s is in a format called Drafting, in which you buy a few randomized packs of cards, and build a deck from them. Win games against other players who have done the same, and you could win enough packs to Draft again (and then some)! The legendary self-sustaining one-time investment is attractive to the smugly clever folk who enjoy these games. So I dropped $7 and drafted a pretty good Blood/Diamond deck. I had to *shudder* “pass a rare” - sometimes when drafting, you will forego using a rare, valuable card in order to pick less cash-valuable, but more efficient, synergistic cards - in order to make a better deck. I smashed Round 1 of my first best of 3, lost the second match badly, and in the tiebreaker, it was tough to call the winner before my internet crashed. I couldn’t get it going again in the 5-minute permission window, so by the time I signed in again, I had nothing to show for my $7 investment but a bunch of common cards that accomplish almost nothing beyond the Draft. Betrayed by about 90 minutes of gameplay which amounted to nothing by a fluke, I immediately uninstalled HEX and downloaded Hearthstone.

I might be new to the game, but I cannot even IMAGINE how these numbers got onto the board.

Like Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone balms the wounds left by wasted time. Hearthstone’s Arena drafting costs either $2 or some in-game currency you can earn just by grinding, and lets you play one 5-15 minute match at a time, whenever you want. So even though there’s the same risk of disconnecting I experienced in HEX, it’s less costly, and less painful. There’s no pain in passing rares, because you don’t keep the deck you draft; instead, you use your rental draft to rack up wins (you can play as many matches with the deck as it takes to lose 3 times) which translate into card packs and game currency. And while there is a strong incentive to sink money into the game for cards, with no buyout, the free-to-play features give you access to all the same resources, should you boast the patience to grind.

All told, my near-exclusive Blizzard fixation of late hasn’t stifled, but brightened my view of games today. I’m happy to have a client outside of Steam that reliably offers up fast, fun, & fair match-based gameplay.

P / H : PARAGRAPH & HAIKU

                                                                                                                If I could turn back time...

Very few of us have the time to play every video game we start all the way through to completion. It's just a fact of life, and the sooner you accept it, the sooner you will be at peace. This doesn’t necessarily mean these games are bad, or not worth playing, it just isn't in the cards at the time. We at Evade Gizmo are not immune to this phenomena, and want you to know that it's OK, it happens to everyone, including us.  We do, however, want to recognize the games that we have sunk some time into, anywhere from 2-20 hours. Think of this column as our version of a quick look. And of course as one would obviously expect, the best way to objectively express our feelings about a game we haven't taken the time to complete, is through the use of ninth century Japanese poetry.

Yoshi's Woolly World
Wii U

Hours played : 10

                                                         goddamn is this game bright.... you may need sunglasses if you are hung over

Yoshi's Woolly World is a vibrant, charming and polished 2-D platformer released last fall for the Wii U console. The latest in the series is evocative of a personal favorite of mine, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, and tends to succeed in hitting most of the same notes that game hit back in 1996. The main issue i have is that this game came out in 2015, and if it weren't for the updated art style and visual fidelity, you might think you were actually playing a Super Nintendo title from 1996. Yoshi shoots eggs, flutter jumps, pops question clouds to reveal hidden paths, and tongue fucks everything and anything in his path. Indeed the whole routine is back, but now in yarn form! There are 5 worlds to explore, each with 8 stages and plenty of bells and whistles to unlock, but ultimately the whole package feels underwhelming as a full blown $70 title in today’s market. If you are really hungry for a great side scroller on the Wii U, pick up Shovel Knight or Super Mario Maker instead for unmatched value and incredible developer support.

Design recycled
Yoshi Plods through the motions
The wool looks super

                                                     “Remember Alf (Yoshi)? hes back, in pog (woll) form!”

Facry Primal
X1/Ps4/PC

Hours played: 6

                                                            I found myself kneeling to pet my steel-eyed wolf friend after every encounter

By now most everyone has heard all about Farcry Primal, as the game has been scrutinized to death in the media over the last few weeks. Much of the reason for the exhuberent amount of coverage can be blamed on the slower game release schedule in January and February, as well as the multi-million dollar marketing push by publisher Ubisoft. However, a lot of the attention the game is receiving seems to be over the speculation that Primal started its life as a Blood dragon-esque add on for Farcy 4, and somehow evolved into a full priced retail product, leaving gamers to question the value in purchasing Primal at full price. On that note, I have little new or groundbreaking to offer, instead, I echo many of the statements already made about the latest Ubi open world romp; it's a solid game for those who yearn for more Farcry. Its brutal, visceral and finds some truly unique ways around the old guns and helicopters model of the last couple games (the beast mastery is easily my favorite addition). There is very little story to speak of, you will be seeking out and killing other humans using spears, arrows, and plenty of melee combat, which can feel jerky, imprecise and unsatisfying at times. The increased focus on hunting, gathering and crafting makes Primal feel more like a survival-lite game than a true story based open world experience that we would come to expect from a full-blown $70 Farcry title. Proceed with caution, and if your on the fence, maybe pick it up used in a few months, as I would expect a short single player campaign with no multiplayer will translate into a plethora of used copies at your local game shop. 

Explore the wild
Tame your inner animal
charge less for this game

A parody of a David Attenborough narration over the latest Far Cry game - Far Cry Primal. Clips: Far Cry Primal, David Attenborough Credit to Game Spots for Far Cry Primal gameplay footage

Life Is Strange
X1/PS4/PC

hours played: 3

                                                              And suddenly a picturesque picnic on the train tracks turned into a nightmare.... 

Every now and then when I play a video game, I catch myself in the moment and stop to think; why am I enjoying this? What is it about this that is appealing to me? That happened to me a couple times in the opening hours of life is strange, the story about Max, a young, gifted photography student trying to fit in after getting accepted to a prestigious art academy in the eerily named Arcadia Bay. Max finds its hard enough to fit in, but when she discovers she has the ability to manipulate time, things get understandably more complicated. Early on in the first episode, there was a sequence where I had to persuade the local group of 'mean girls' to vacate the front steps of our shared dorm (they wouldn't let me in, the bitches). After exploring and observing the details of the area, I fiddled around with a nearby custodians paint can and a set of automatic sprinklers, I hid nearby making sure I had a good view of the area and used my ability to rewind time. Success! The sprinklers expectantly went off on the janitor, who dropped the paint can, which splashed onto the rude girls dress. Eureka! As the Zelda chime went off in my head I strolled up smugly and pretended to be concerned for her, earning some brownie points with the cool group to be cashed in at a later date. The satisfaction set in and I couldn't help but grin sheepishly. I sort of felt like Agent 47... if he were an awkward teenage girl with the ability to rewind time and a penchant for photography. Which brings me back to my original point… why the hell am I enjoying this so much? I'm not exactly sure what it says about me, but the combination of lovely visuals, ultra cheesy dialogue and a budding sci-fi mystery to explore is enough to keep me coming back, at least for now. The game is worth checking out for fans of adventure games, and you should be able to get all 5 episodes packaged together on sale, I picked it up on the PSN store for $10. 

Clouds toil about
We dance in the storm of time
Bitches get dealt with

Thats all for now! Stay tuned for more masterful poetry and ultra-poignant commentary!

EG.

LIFE IN THE AVENGERS' BARRACKS: A WEEKLY XCOM 2 FANFIC

If you didn't find the permadeath of beloved soldiers in sci-fi roguelike X-COM 2 heartwrenching enough already, then you need to check out Tom's Ironman logbook-turned-postmission character drama over at The Long and Short blog. The randomly generated and player-tuned sprites are rendered affectionately human -- while anyone who's played just KNOWS the favourites will die. Horribly.

Life in the Avengers' Barracks is 2 chapters in and I'm already shipping characters (Krause & Adams -- rookie lovers!!). Updates Sundays.

http://thelongandshortblog.com/2016/03/07/life-in-the-avengers-barracks-2/