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.

TOMORROW'S MAN'S SKY

Got a promo e-mail from GOG.com this morning informing me that No Man's Sky is now available for pre-order at $60 -- a North American release date of June 21 has been announced, which has me vibrating with hype all by itself. But the announcement page doesn't come without its share of disappointing quirks and understated, yet crucial, details.

If you're here reading, you've surely heard about No Man's Sky, the upcoming first-of-its-kind galaxy-sized space exploration game. The LITERALLY GALAXY-SIZED game-world is populated by planets & lifeforms that are randomly generated to according to complex math, and of which there are so many that the design team programmed tiny surveillance robots to fly through the galaxy on their behalf and report on unaccounted-for aesthetic oddities. Players can quickly transition from underwater tunnel network exploration, to surface-level biopsy, to interstellar piracy, with naming rights to everything that they are the first to discover. Plus, the game's endorsed as having awesome VR support; perhaps one of the first wide commercial releases to do so with confidence. This Frankenstein project is broiling over with hype and hesitation in equal measure. Getting a release date confirms that it is really happening.

The catch is, this isn't just a release announcement: it's merch-hyping. And while I'm happy to ride this hype-train full-Steam ahead, something about the PC spaceship toy box set, the PS4 special edition art books, and the in-game powerup reward for pre-ordering feels a bit puffed up to me. Grandiose pre-order and Special Edition packages make sense for games which already have established mythologies and fanbases. But in No Man's Sky, we see the marketing indulge, perhaps too deeply, in just the excitable popular speculation about its product. Having a model of a classic X-Wing on your desk is neat; having a somewhat generic-looking, "nostalgic" spaceship is kind of random.

Is this how the singleplayer space-explorer will feel?

But what bugs me most is the offhand claim that, "Perhaps you will see the results of [other players'] actions as well as your own...". Perhaps it was naive for me to think that I'd be able to meet up with friends, however far-flung they may be, in a game that was never explicitly announced to be an online experience, but the prospect of overlapping star-maps with my brother and sinking dozens of hours into a massive interstellar journey to meet up with him was just too exciting to suppress. The blurb above cements the title's solitary gameplay, if in a rather sneaky and indirect way.

So, yeah. I think the hype got to me. I am gonna wait this purchase out.

SLAPDASH - 60 MINUTES WITH DEVIL DAGGERS

Personally, I enjoy the aesthetic of the upcoming Doom game, set to release May.13.2016, and yes that's a Friday the 13th. Good one id Software, a bit campy but what else would you expect? The impression that the latest trailer left me with is that id Software is upholding the core values from the dawn of the Doom series. The original games, Doom, and Doom 2 focused on frantic circle strafing run and gun action in big open hell-scapes teaming with heaps of demons, big fuck off guns, flaming skulls and color coated key cards. As opposed to the bland corridor heavy space station shooter they gave us in Doom 3. The one constant being the oppressive atmosphere. In our current age of gaming, the Doom reboot looks like it could be a welcome change from the heavily scripted 'on rails' set piece shooters that clog the digital landscape and dominate much of the market. That being said, I cant help but wonder how it will be received by today’s gamers who grew up on COD and Battlefield. Simply put, developers aren't really making those shooters anymore. The FPS market has been dripping with carefully constructed blockbuster movie-esque titles for so long, the current generation of FPS players could very well balk at the simplistic, over the top style of game play that Doom is traditionally famous for. If only there were some way for the new breed of gamers to test the waters without having to dive in headfirst….

Enter Devil Daggers.

Devils daggers is a $5, “endless” first person shooter, set in a what is assumed to be a small infinite pitch black plane of someones own personal hell. I put quotation marks around 'endless' because no one has survived much past the 8 minute mark. It could have an ending, though I sincerely doubt it. And it doesn't really matter, as the goal is to stay alive as long as possible, and the average player (myself included) usually peaks at about 45-60 seconds for the first hour or two. Why so difficult? Well, the foes are as agitated as they are lethal, and much like a bad burrito from Chipotle, they can seal your fate quickly, with just one erroneous decision.

This shit was cutting edge in 1994!

Devil Daggers' core mechanic is circle-strafing fast paced first person shooting, and it feels incredibly fluid. This is due partly to the fact that the games engine and art design is very old school and strikingly similar to a higher resolution version of the original quake, albeit with slightly more complex visuals. This allows most PC's to easily run the game at 60+ frames per second, which is key, as everyone on the leader boards is theoretically on the same playing field regardless of the rig they have. Devil Daggers' descent into madness starts in a dark room with a lone dagger floating in front of you. Once you take hold of your basic weapon it multiplies, streams of red daggers spew from your hand, immediately plunging the user into dubious peril. The daggers can either be shot in short bursts, like a pump-action shotgun or can be spit out in a steady, viscous stream like shooting the Devils' sandblaster.

Evade Gismo's Kevin McKenzie demos Devil Daggers

As you begin to acclimate yourself to the oppresive surroundings, it becomes obvious you are walking on a small plane of stone or concrete, with a sudden drop-off around the edge that will send you plunging into dark nothingness with one misstep. Then, suddenly you hear a sound, it's coming from behind you – a gurgling, sinister spawning noise that could only mean that terrible is on its way. Abruptly, as you try to focus on the area the sound came from, a spire forms out of nowhere and releases a series of skulls and demon heads into the dark, and will continue to do so, until you erase it from existence by shooting at its rotating weak spot. Then another will form, and another and so on and so on. As time goes on things get more and more hectic with different enemies spawning in random locations at preset timestamps. The key to survival seems to be in directing your focus on the spawning spires, while at the same time managing the wave of floating skulls and demon heads chasing you down, but that knowledge itself will only get you so far. The game play feels as fluid as it looks, and you are always just a quick tap of the R key away from an instant retry, which really supports the “just one more game” feeling you are left with after any given run.

Certain enemies drop gems that power up your weapon when killed, allowing you to spit thicker, faster and more powerful streams of magical daggers as the frenzied action carries on. These power ups are very important not only to your progression past that elusive 60 second mark, but to your confidence as well. They will help you to dispose of the waves of enemies with greater ease, allowing you to free your focus to deal with more pertinent demonic apparitions. Like, say, the giant evil spider that sucks up your treasured power gems before you can get to them, or perhaps the twisted, flying Ogopogo-like entities that swoop through the air with equal parts grace and death lust... all while the super spires keep launching skulls for you to fend off … Yeah, she's a bitch, but its that kind of addictive action that keeps me in front of the screen for much longer than I originally intended to be. 

This game will have you seeing red.... often... 

If the early sales performance of Devil Daggers is any indication, the millennial crowd might just be interested in the style of game play after all. In its first 5 days, Devil Daggers has over 12,000 copies “sold” on steam through world of mouth alone. That's a strong start, especially in this day in age. Though difficult, this game is immensely rewarding in the same way that arcade shooters have been since the inception of the genre, with shooters like Robotron 2000 and Smash TV, with a wonderful first person twist. I can confidently say that Devil daggers is the love child of Doom, Quake and Geometry wars in the best possible way (video game relationships are complicated, okay?). And if that intrigues you, I suggest you pick it up.

Go to hell, have fun.

Devil daggers is out now on steam. 

Once you beat this score (you will) your better than me

----------------------------------------THIS JUST IN: TRISTAN BREAKS KEVINS SCORE!--------------------------------------------------

Sorry pal, i gotta say this game jacks my heart rate to an unhealthy level and i love it! It is as you said: very Intense and rewarding.

I guess i am better than Kevin...

Oh sheeit son! i did it again!

----------AND AGAIN! I'm not sure I can do that again though. So intense; had to calm down after this one. Hands were shaking a bit heh.  

I CAN QUIT WHENEVER I WANT !

Though Goesen's WOW addiction ran a few fathoms deeper than my Dota addiction, I felt pangs of recognition as he recounted those days, back on GISMOS_07. Friends will recall that Dota 2 was a huge part of my life. I'd look forward to weekends, where I could blast out 4-6 hour-long matches in one sitting, while waking up early, going to bed late, and literally skipping meals in order to fit that crucial hour of daily Dota into my schedule durign the working week. It sat comfortably among my top 3 priorities in life for a solid year and a half, so naturally, it demanded large and frequent chunks of my precious time.

And, in spite of the havoc wreaked on the rest of my life, this obsession is a success story, because every game designer's livelihood depends on the glory of the timeslot.

We talk a lot about VALUE here at Evade Gismo; of limited time, of money, in a market overflowing with opportunity. It's like our lives as gamers have become TV channels, and video games compete like soap operas for the coveted primetime spot, when attention is focused and favour is curried. Our very attention spans have been commodified -- just look at Hitbox Team unpacking their post-release patch decisions on Dustforce a few years back. Everything is motivated by extending the average "play-span": some equation of the frequency, duration, and consistency with which people are having enough fun playing the game to continue putting time (and increasingly, money) into it. This creates a competitive atmosphere among games developers, as gamers seem to become wiser & wiser to the cheapest tricks of the trade. There's Pay2Win, where IRL economic stimulus packages can broker virtual-world advancement; Leveling Up seems designed to turn a linear story into an epic chain of obstacles that overlap with a considerable span of a player's life; fetch quests and mini-games are broadly derided as "length padding" mechanics, like a feature film that crams in redundant scenes just to meet the standardized two-hour runtime. Even when it cannot directly be monetized, as in the aforementioned Dustforce, player commitment seems to be a game developer's ultimate fulfilment. Yet stories like Goesen's and mine, among countless other more damaging cases, describe a serious issue in the advancement of the gaming medium. It seems that a passion for music, lit, or film doesn't invite toxic obsession in the way that a video-game does. While art forms tend to want to be wholly appreciated (or repeatedly misinterpreted), games just demand a much larger audience investment to reach the same level of comprehension. And as the industry becomes populated with cleverer & more skilled designers and promoters, the best games are becoming harder and harder to put down.

This brings me to Darkest Dungeon, the recently fully-released Lovecraftian team-mismanagement simulator from Red Hook Studios. Darkest Dungeon has got all the trappings of an addictive timesink - a polished aesthetic; fast & frequent feedback on your choices; mandatory Ironman mode; and steadily rising numeric indicators of progress & success - and yet it seems intentionally designed NOT to draw you into a hypnotic vortex. You can step away from Darkest Dungeon at any point, and it will be waiting exactly where you left it. There's no forced commitment to finish the current level or battle, or slog your way back to a distant savepoint, or just leave it on the pause menu and hope the cat doesn't head-nudge the power switch. All the characteristic torture and madness is internalized in the game, not extended out to the player. For a game so inspired by the inertia towards death and decay common to all living things, this game respects your time and freedom outside of the game to an extent that's almost revolutionary. You are provided a continuous exit point (of the kind described in the Extra Credits clip below) and that's why all I've been playing for the last few days has been DD.

THE VENT: NINTENDO NX 900P? EXCUSE ME?

The VENT is a special place. It will allow us to spew negative mental annotations off the record with no regard for any ones feelings. A huge portion of criticisms tend to be unconsciously edited; trading off a negative trait for a positive one. Here it's more of an unapologetic rant.  Sometimes ranting is good for the soul; issues you may have difficulty shedding can sometimes be shrugged to the floor with a proper vent. So that you may then focus and articulate your creative energy in a more constructive manner.

 What follows is a passionate gamers untamed perspective on some recent Nintendo NX news. Lets welcome Kevin McKenzie to the EG conversation!

 Buck up, stud.

Anyone following gaming blogs on the regular have heard this by now. For all you weekend warrior gamers with any mild curiosity; what I'm about to say shouldn't surprise you. That being said be advised and brace yourself: some speculative news about Nintendo NX has come to light, and to my complete lack of surprise, some of it is rubbing members of the video gaming world the wrong way. Much like the reaction you would expect by petting your cat from tail to head,  The Nintendo community is currently fidgety and wide-eyed with their claws out, quite uncertain as to what to do next.

 Perhaps a brief back story is in order; Nintendo has had a pretty lackluster couple of years financially. The Wii U is all but considered a failure, selling less than 12 million units worldwide since launching in 2012.  While perhaps this isn't a 'Virtual Boy' level travesty,  I cant imagine that Nintendo is passing out cigars every time the sales reports come in.  The 3ds, while certainly no slouch in sales figures, also failed to achieve the targets put in place by predecessors such as the Nintendo DS, GBA and the beloved original dot matrix wonder, the Game Boy. The current 'Nintendo Network' used for connecting players on both consoles draws the ire of gamers for not being user friendly or stable. Software releases for both systems have been few and far between, and with the exception of Super Mario Maker, the titles being released recently have not lived up to the level of quality that a longtime Nintendo fan would and should expect. With the future game release lineup looking as lean as a skinless chicken breast for both the Wii U and the 3ds, Nintendo is understandably starting to look towards the future.

But there's one big problem with that, we are still smack dab in the middle of the Wii U life cycle... aren't we?

Perhaps, as some have speculated, we are closer to the end of the Wii U's life cycle than most of us had hoped. It seems that Nintendo has sent out a survey with some information about their next generation console (codenamed NX) to a number of clients. One such client decided he was going to out the big N and post some delicate information contained in the survey on social media, which was then picked up by Geek.com and a number of game news outlets. This information should be taken with a spoonful of salt as all rumor should, at this time no actual official announcements have been made about the configuration or specs of the NX console.  However, there are a few very interesting details contained within.

                            Nintendo has been doing some flip-flopping as of late...

The leak states some obvious information: games like Mario, Zelda & the Donkey Kong franchises will continue to exist(!!!), but it also includes some juicy morsels of news for the internet to feast upon and regurgitate or digest as desired.  One of the major takeaways,  it would appear, is that they are sticking with a similar set up to the Wii U, as “gameplay flows between Nintendo NX console and Nintendo NX hand held device." Previously patent information had leaked suggesting this kind of streaming, but utilizing a newer,  fully portable hand held device extending the streaming range, perhaps over WIFI or 4g. Much like a JJ Abrams reboot, the news is somewhat expected, definitely intriguing,  but not all together earth shattering.

Then there is a section of the survey detailing 'what comes in the box'; contained within is a Nintendo NX console, Game controller, HDMI cable and sensor bar.  First it's interesting to note that the “NX handheld device” is presumably not included in the box, unless they are referring to it as the 'game controller' which is unlikely.  Perhaps we are looking at a segmented purchase for those consumers who wish to take their NX gaming on the go, and if that's so, that could be a big gamble for those of us who expect a complete experience from a new console without having to make additional purchases.  After all, this is a video game console, not an ever expanding set of Lego.   The other interesting part of this section of the survey, was the sensor bar being included in the box. Like waggle gaming? GOOD! Because there is so much more of it heading your way! This does stick out to me as a potential red herring however; why on gods green earth would they need to include a sensor bar with the console? Playstation 4 and Smart Tvs have been utilizing motion controls without the need for external sensor bars of any kind, and they work very well.  I am by no means against motion controls in gaming, but it concerns me that Nintendo may not be willing to take some of the technological leaps to improve user experience that have become common place with their competitors.

 Those who have been following Nintendo over the course of the last 10 years may see a trend, and even start to wonder if Nintendo is purposely under powering their consoles to make a profit off of the machine itself at launch time, rather than recouping minimal console profits through software and long term usage, as is the industry standard.  

On that note, enough of the appetizers, on to the main course of this leak: “Gameplay graphics at 900p / 60fps”. 

"Excuse me?..."

"Pardon?..."

I like 60 fps but what was that first part again?

 Ohhhh. 900p. I see.

While I do applaud the decision to enforce a 60fps frame rate on titles, giving the impression that the new box will not support full 1080p gaming could be the most telling thing about the whole show.  Are they perhaps under powering the console so that the portable unit will be able to play all the games while not connected to the base unit?  Or is it a case of “HD doesn't matter” as it was with the Wii? Could simply be a fundamental misunderstanding of just how many HD television sets are in households today? What do people in Japan use to watch all those wacky game shows????

Things were looking SO positive for nintendo just 5 short years ago.... whats Next?

Noticing a pattern here!?

What I speculatively take away from this is that Nintendo is putting out a system of equal or lesser power to its current competitors, 2 years into their life cycles. 2 YEARS!  This can even be seen as a downgrade from the Wii U, which offers game play in full 1080p.  How will this new console fare 3 years from now when its competitors are gearing up for their next generation? Will Nintendo be announcing the successor to the NX in 2019 because its not able to keep up with the competitors? Will Nintendo have to restructure into a software based company and abandon all of us who grew up on the NES much like Sega did in the early 2000's???? QUICK, LETS ALL PANIC!!! (Ok, deep breaths Kevin, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.)

Graphic capability isn't everything – but as we've all seen with Nintendos recent track record – powering your system appropriately ties in directly with the potential for console longevity.  There are many other questions to be answered, such as how they are going to get 3rd party developers interested in creating for their platforms again, what the price point will be, and does Nintendo have a legacy plan for those who purchased a Wii U to make up for the systems abnormally short life cycle?

The leak in full . The user cropped the picture as to not reveal any personal information.... Likely the doings of Gannondorf,  Wario or perhaps even the king of the koopas himself, lord Bowzer?? Ill shut up.

 We are just going to have to wait and see. There is one positive I take out of this; The console is likely not yet finalized as they are still asking for consumer opinion on it.  This is the perfect time to tell Nintendo exactly what you want- or don't want from their next generation of hardware. Tweet them, write them, post on Reddit, text Reggie or snapchat with Miyamoto san, do whatever you have to do and make sure your opinion is voiced.  If this project turns out to be a misstep, it could be their last.

Even the greatest visionary can require guidance.

I believe in you Nintendo. Just not at 900p.

 - Kevin McKenzie