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.

GISMOS_08 - WORKIN'MAN

Since were not in the industry as working game pros we can only speak for our experiences as adult gamers. From our perspective were the 'workin'mans gamer- experts in our own rights, which we're not exactly proud of - but content with the understanding that it's an unavoidable pass time for us. Working man is a title which affords us the right to comment and criticize other peoples hard work (as custodians of our own opinions) with a great approximate knowledge of many  things within the video game realm.

This week Kevin tests the waters of video game piracy - whether or not Black Beard is rolling (or swimming) in his grave or raising his glass to the 'lifestyle' is yet to be determined. Pete asks if the term RPG  is relevant anymore, and i wonder if there are too many video games these days. 

What do you lovely people think? Comments and questions please!

REVIEW: RISE OF THE TOMB RAIDER

Some serious sight seeing in this game – it's a beauty.  If you have a PC, I recommend picking up that version.

The Tomb Raider series has had a bit of a turbulent past – some high peaks, and very low valleys over its 20+ year history.  The original game was a stand out when it was released on the O.G. Playstation system in 1996. Bringing to life a buxom, globe trotting female equivalent of Indiana Jones traversing through fully realized 3d dungeons full of traps, puzzles, lurking beasts, and of course plenty of booty (Another word for treasure, you adolescent rubes.)

In the following years, the series fell into a bit of a lull with mundane repeated yearly releases (*cough* Ubisoft, EA ) crafted to satiate the demand of a public who were ravenous for more adventures starring the impossibly proportioned Ms. Croft.  Even though these sequels were not up to the standard of the original, success breeds repetition, especially in the entertainment business. Sales of the series and the popularity of Lara herself,  in the mid to late 1990's indicated that a powerful new mainstay franchise had been born – films, action figures, comics and spinoff video games for everyone, and for better or worse ‘Tomb Raider’ would become a household name.

The films came and went, and a deluge of game releases for a myriad of gaming systems produced sequels of varying quality, quickly over saturating the market. By the early 2000's the public began to lose interest, as the team at Core design were never able to re-capture the magic and innovation of the original game.  Sales and mainstream popularity declined until gamers began to associate Lara with other antiquated video game mascots, so desperately trying to rekindle public interest and resurrect their glory days (Bubsy 3-d anyone?). Like so many before her, Lara's time in the spotlight began to fade.  It was time to re-think the Tomb Raider franchise, and in 2008 development for an untitled reboot for next generation consoles was underway.  Down but not out, the Tomb Raider brand was a sleeping giant, laying dormant and biding its time until it was given the opportunity to ‘rise’ to prominence once more.
 

This lady can climb like the dickens.

And Rise it did.  2013's reboot; simply titled 'Tomb Raider' was a critical and commercial success, plucking Lara out of the hall of the forgotten and once-loved video game characters,  and placing her firmly back in the limelight in front of a new generation of gamers. Crystal Dynamics (who had been developing the series since 2006's “Tomb Raider: Legend”) had found the blueprint they were looking for to re-introduce Lara Croft to the next generation of gamers, a game in the style of the popular 'Uncharted' series. Uncharted, developed by Naughty Dog, was famous for its exciting action sequences, jet setting exotic locales and for modernizing much of the original model and theme used for Tomb Raider in the early 90s.  The team succeeded; the reboot was unanimously praised for its stunning visuals, intuitive traversal, lavish set pieces, film quality writing, as well as a grittier, more believable narrative. And then there was Lara herself, swapping her 1960's Barbie-esque figure and millionaire-playmate persona for a properly proportioned human females body and the ability to learn, grow and mature as a real character throughout the course events in the game. It was a proven recipe for success executed to a T, and the team remained committed to delivering a strong experience for the sequel, which was announced shortly after the originals release.

That brings us to the main course: how was the follow up?  Were they able to continue the character growth we saw taking place in the last game without loading up on melodrama? Did they listen to the fans pleading for more actual tombs to raid and less bullet sponge enemies to soak up digital ammunition?  Does Lara still take a gruesome spear through the throat every time she takes a wrong turn?

The answer to all three of those questions is a resounding yes.  Now that doesn't mean the game is perfect or that I didn't have issues during my 20 hours with Rise of the Tomb Raider, but overall it is a wonderful follow up to the original, both in spirit and execution.  Nathan Drake should be proud.

I don't mean to give the impression that Rise of the Tomb Raider is a second tier Uncharted, quite the opposite in fact.  The visuals and sound are outstanding, even with the Xbox one struggling to maintain the 30fps frame rate at 1080p (it dipped below 20fps multiple times during key scenes.) Every game mechanic in ROTTR is improved; Laras pick axe crunches satisfyingly as it digs into the ice that she frequently scales on her journey, erupting clouds of snow and ice particles into the frosty air as she goes. Jumping, swinging and climbing all feel tight, fluid, intuitive and fair, if not exactly original.  The newly expanded inventory system makes use of gathering items found in the environment to craft needed tools, weapons and skills. It is reminiscent of the crafting system used in The Last of Us and feels fleshed out in a way that encourages world exploration without making it feel like a chore. Lara is able to create arrows, special ammunition for firearms, bandages and explosives out of items she finds hidden in the environment. Adding an element of time management and strategy, Lara cannot carry infinite ammunition – and as such often has to craft needed ammunition on the go or in the middle a fight. The system the game uses to employ this feels second nature and never interfered with my enjoyment, in fact, I often felt like an action hero ducked down out of enemy sights, fumbling to reload the ammunition I so desperately need. You can also explore areas to find items that mark hidden destinations on your map, upgrade your weapons, learn new languages to reveal secrets as well as retrograding your equipment to reach new areas as the game progresses.

If there's one area of the game to improve upon, it's the combat.  Lara starts with a bow and arrow, and over the course of the game finds a pistol, an automatic rifle and, surprise, a shotgun.  While the selection of weapons is not terribly original, they all feel suited to different situations and perform well enough.  Cover shooting is the name of the game here, and the automatic 'stick to cover' system works, but just barely as it’s far too easy to accidentally leave the safety of cover in the middle of a firefight without meaning to.  Red Dead this is not.  The hand to hand combat, though serviceable, feels loose and janky, and often gives the impression that Lara is aimlessly swinging at random enemies with her pick axe rather than targeting one enemy and focusing on them. Once you master the dodge and dodge kill skills in your ability tree things become a bit more refined, but there are no tutorials or visual prompts to explain how this system works, at least not that I found.  I assume Lara uses her pick axe as her main hand to hand combat weapon because the developers felt that having her fist fight a bunch of armed guards may come off as a bit silly, and in theory I agree.  But why not start the game off with a cut scene of her training?  Or competing in any kind of martial arts tournament? It would serve to push that story forward and give players a sense of power and prowess when engaged in unarmed combat.  So then just steal the batman combat and chuck it in there, right?!   Ok, so that might be an overly simplistic solution, but you get the drift, it seems like something could be done to improve the fluidity of the hand to hand combat system, and I hope that's a focus for the next title in the series.

 The action sequences in general are very chaotic, and during scenes where multiple waves of enemies attack it has a tendency to become a game of “roll away from the enemy until you get to a clearing, then turn, shoot, and resume rolling”.  This was especially frustrating in some of the closed off areas where there were cliffs and drop offs that could easily be rolled into, sending Lara to an untimely death. Luckily the game saves every time you pick up an item, so very little progress is lost.  Overall the combat needs some work, but it’s still fun, just not up to the polish of the other areas of the game.

Not being able to pick up enemies weapons is a bit of a bummer, but she still holds her own

The story is pretty much what you would expect for a big budget movie style title, there is a strong foundation, a couple of memorable characters and one or two prerequisite plot twists. The script does rely heavily upon coincidence and the ability of the player to ignore some inconsistencies, but overall does what it needs to.  The voice acting is well delivered and never took me out of the experience, even if some of the dialogue is a bit corny.  One interesting way the story progresses is through the various camps that Lara finds in her adventure. At any one of the 30+ camps in the game you can craft large amounts of ammunition quickly, upgrade weapons, items and abilities, as well as fast travel to any other previously discovered camp.  What struck a chord with me is that each time you find a new camp and utilize it, Lara sits down and starts to narrate, essentially reflecting on the events that have transpired in the time since her last rest at a camp. Executed flawlessly, this is a strong way to emphasize both the personal growth that Lara is experiencing, as well as the scope of events taking place over the course of the game, without forcing it all down your throat via cut scenes. Other games could learn a lot from this style of supplemental narrative, i found it added a lot of depth to Lara's development and additional motivation to progress through my adventure, without seeming overly contrived.

Lara’s attire is fairly reasonable for the climate, don't go expecting crop top shirts or string bikinis in Siberia. Perverts may want to opt for the modifiable PC version... or hold their breath for a nude code.

The things that truly make ROTTR stand out are in the details.  Once Lara finds the combat knife (mostly used for stealth kills) she pulls it out automatically when you get within stealth kill range, indicated by the sharp, satisfying sound of a blade slipping free of its sheath. I loved it every single time. Another mechanic that I feel this game executes better than any before it, are the escape sequences wherein the surrounding environment is caving in and crashing down as you frantically attempt to escape your doom.  It does tend to feel coincidental that EVERY ancient city Lara steps foot in is one loose stone away from crumbling down around her, but if you don't stop to think about them too hard they make for some incredibly intense sequences that will astound those watching and leave the player in awe, feeling like they just got the fuck out of dodge in the nick of time. 

The exploration is my favorite part of the game, and is handled very competently.  Similar to the last game, the map is all connected through a series of passages, caves and open areas.  The difference in the sequel is that these open areas have been fleshed out and expanded, feeling more like sectioned portions of an open world map one might expect to find in a Farcry title. There are secret caves and passages to find, animals to hunt, hidden items and secondary quests to take, and a total of 9 hidden tombs that each play out as a complex puzzle to solve, with the player receiving a stat-altering artifact at the end of each one. I never personally found these puzzles too challenging, but they are satisfying and rewarding to find and complete. The promise of these hidden ancient areas kept me searching the world throughout my adventure, and will no doubt keep me coming back to find the last 2 I have not uncovered.  On the note of re playability, Square Enix clearly spent time polishing this game nicely and although there is no multiplayer mode included, there is a replay mode where extra challenges and items can be added to levels to be uncovered for points, a time trial mode where best times can be improved upon, and a few other small surprises.  This game, like most, has a seasons pass available for $39.99 CAD.  Personally, I think its a poor value as it includes a few outfits, a survival play mode and one chunk of story DLC – Baba Yaga (John Wick anyone)- the temple of the Witch.  That’s not a lot of value. Luckily, you can purchase the Baba Yaga and survival gameplay modes separately for $10 each, which is the route I recommend taking.

Stay frosty, Lara

 Overall, this game is suited to those who love the action/adventure genre, and especially to those who were fans of 2013's Tomb Raider or any of the Uncharted games.  As coined by Jordan Mowat, this is definitely a “do the thing” game – as the course of action is heavily predetermined, and you as the player must guide Lara through it.  If that turns you off then look elsewhere for your thrills, but if your still with me, then this is one adventure you will not want to miss.  I spent 20 wonderful hours with Rise of the Tomb Raider, and I expect to spend another 4-5 exploring as of yet uncovered optional tombs and the Baba Yaga DLC.   The game is out now for Xbox one, Xbox 360, PC and is coming to PS4 Q4 2016.

RISE OF THE TOMB RAIDER - "AN ADVENTURE YOU WON'T WANT TO MISS"

XBOX ONE, XBOX 360, PC

20 WONDERFUL HOURS

REVIEW: FIREWATCH

TITLE Firewatch

PLATFORM PC/Mac/PS4

EVADE GISMO RATING *INTERACTIVE MOVIE* 2-4.5 hour playthrough / Story progression / Light decision trees

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Everyone who's played it knows that the funnest part of Dungeons & Dragons (or should I say Wizards and Wyverns?) is character creation. Filling in the crucial details, like the number of serrations in your flaming bastard sword, and ignoring the unimportant ones, like your childhood pets and criminal record, is the foundation of a reflexive gameplay experience. It answers the question, Who do I wanna be for this next little while? Who am I willing to be stuck with? Firewatch doesn't reach for pie-in-the-sky thematics or hard moral lessons. Instead, it commits its brief duration to deeply developing the relationship between Henry and Delilah, two fire lookouts on the run from their own lives in the scenic Yellowstone Park wilderness of 1988.

The game even starts with a character creation screen, of a sort. But instead of tallying up Pickpocket and Garroting skills from some monolithic pool of abstract values, it's more like digesting regrets. We're given unnarrated text summarizing Henry's life and marriage leading up to the events of the game, and you fill in gaps in the story with your own choices, effecting dialogue and relationship options later on in the game. The text is broken up with brief segments of footage and gameplay of Henry as he treks into the park for the first time, as if he himself is reflecting on how he came to be here, just we are are making decisions about it. It sounds dry but plays out like the most heart-wrenching Mad Lib of all time. Then he (We? I?) get to the lookout tower... and meet the delightful, devious, and disembodied Deliliah. Ohh, Delilah.

These photos aren't really screenshots; I took them all on a Fun-saver found by Henry in-game.

Many games take character relationships for granted, allowing conversation to merely act as a vessel for exposition, comedy, or other bullet-point character moments. The president's daughter follows the hardened cop around like a stray animal, or the local survivor gives orders to the wayward explorer through a one-way radio only. In such games, character relationships behave more like incidental by-products of that bolted-on mess we refer to as "the story". It is hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of a game's "story" being separable from all its other elements, because as players we experience only the whole. Yet nowadays it's often obvious that narrative, exposition, and other "fluff" has been developed by a completely separate department than the rest of the game. How many booklets have we all flipped through, how many wildlife info-tags, how many abruptly-ending handwritten letters skimmed for a quest marker and ignored? More often than not, the relationship between your loosely-defined, semi-player-determined character, and everyone else, feels more like an obstacle (oh so much skipped dialogue) to the real game - the riding, sniping, plundering, profiting - than something that makes you more part of it.

A relationship is what results from two characters deliberately interacting. It is a meaningfully interactive experience, but one perhaps too delicate to compete with the antic violence that typifies video-games. Firewatch thrives on the little nuances of getting to know a stranger, and getting to be known by them. The awkward pauses, white lies, and collaborations. The unexpected commonalities. The stupid jokes. Most of the game is keeping banter up with Delilah, talking and listening as you photograph the landscape, huck empty beer cans around, follow mysterious clues. But Delilah will frequently chime in with a quip or question on the radio, and every time she does, a HUD timer starts ticking down the time left to respond. I thought of this as the "window of relevance" and I can kinda see it in the corner of my eye when talking to people in real-life, too. At times I'd get distracted gazing at the landscape or reading pulp mystery synopses, and miss my chance to respond to Delilah on the walkie-talkie, or just ignore what she said completely. Other times, she'd ask me something difficult and I'd either scramble for one of three all-too-revealing replies, or stammer the L-Shift key until it was too late.  Firewatch was sage enough to let those dropped threads of conversation just... trail off, and the way these silences form a space between the principal characters is engaging.

In fact, there's really very little to do. The gameworld is a cluster of objective locations, obstacle-littered corridors, and photo-ops. You can walk, climb, rappel, inspect, and talk to Delilah. You can check your map & compass - and I mean literally check your map - your character's hands reach down for it, and you must hold it up in front of yourself and figure out where you're going and how to get there. Like a normal person and not some weird, abstract, information-compressing navigational robot. The clever twist of Firewatch is that it legitimately manages to make these sparse interactive processes tense through simple obscurity. As much as you come to like (or loathe) Delilah, your interactions are restricted to two-way radio and there is no one else to talk to. Meeting new people can be nerve-wracking at best, but roll that up with professional responsibility, mysterious assaults, and natural disaster, and the tension is palpable. Henry and Delilah's relationship could be implanted into, say, downtown Vancouver and the characters would be just as likeable -- and yet the remoteness and interdependence of the relationship would lose its significance, as they'd be living in a sea of people, of relationships. The story's entrenched solitude works as a subtle nod to who the player is in relation to the game: ultimately, a lone escapist. Like Henry, I think we all come "out here" to forget the very real problems we struggle with, preferring to sit back and watch the fires rather than really fight them. Firewatch knows it is a brief respite from the bigger problems in its players' lives, and respects that boundary between what ultimately matters: Real Life, and what doesn't: Video-games.  It doesn't exhaust you with a shopping-list of facetious so-called "Achievements"; the branching dialogue, ultimately, tends to loop back to the conversation trailhead; and it doesn't suffocate you with opportunities and growing numbers and the flux of other mechanics that turn engrossing games into toxic addictions. Firewatch keeps its trajectory linear in order to convey something to each player about how people yearn to connect and to confess. While it's refreshing that the game is so bare, the environments really lack in some areas. Glancing from my map to landscape and back again often had me mired in a tangle of invisible walls, clipping shrubbery, and awkward reticule targeting. While this may have, to a degree, been part of the Henry-is-a-noob experience prescribed by the game, it also telegraphs a design weakness in Firewatch. You can get stuck, but you can't truly get lost, because there are so few places to go.

I am sure people will balk at the price/duration ratio, but you can't fault Firewatch for being nothing it didn't aspire to be. It's not an open-world adventure; it's not a wilderness survival simulator; it's not a smarmy non-game, either. It breaks new ground in what games can be about. It tickles and teases and convinces you, briefly, that you are somebody else, and cleverly throws everyone's identity into doubt. If nothing else, Firewatch is the best, most dynamic voice-acted character development you'll ever hear for $20. Check below for spoilers regarding my response to the game's climax, twist, and ending.

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P.S. - If you enjoyed Firewatch, I strongly recommend Gods Will Be Watching: a blockier, gamier take on persona, decision, and intelligent, light-handed meta-narrative.

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SPOILERS !!

As the story progresses, mysterious events suggest you and Delilah are being targeted by somebody in the wilderness. Your tower gets raided, the phone line is cut, and once you find a written transcript of your recent, private radio conversations with Delilah, you get  knocked out by an unseen assailant, steal an axe, and Rambo into a suspicious, fenced-off research station. You discover notes among elaborate monitoring equipment suggesting that you, Delilah, and others are the unwilling subjects in a sophisticated social experiment, and everyone is a suspect. This second act of the game is where it really shines; late afternoon dips down to dusk just as you break through the fence, and every step is fraught with uncertainty. Henry goes from stir-crazy to paranoid out of fear for his life, plastering the windows of his lookout with notes, questions, and clues, and questioning his very sanity.

However, Firewatch takes a bit of a Scooby-Doo twist, deflating all of the tension with a "The Old Groundskeeper Did It!" that feels clammy and abrupt. Delilah never called it inwhen a 'Nam vet and his son working your same lookout tower went missing years ago. It turns out they retreated into the wilderness to live, the boy died in a cave, and old Ned Goodwin went bonkers and fabricated all of the tension in order to signal-jam the observations of Henry & Delilah, and scare them off from his life of lonesome guilt.

My first reaction was confusion and disappointment; if you've played the game, you'll know what I mean. Firewatch pulls no punches in casually terrifying Henry. With every turn, the problem seems more and more elaborate. I think we all expected to find a UFO or a sprawling underground base, or a Truman Show-esque ceiling-tile-sky reveal. What's delivered may seem a little pedestrian; but I think that's the point. I think the buildup was all about what was going on in Henry and Delilah's minds; they wanted to believe there was an elaborate conspiracy against them, a problem so great that it would not only bring the two of them together, but eclipse the woes of the outside world entirely. We, too, were just as eager as the characters to believe that there was more to this story than meets the eye; and we were just as disappointed to be met with plain, smooth, old reality.

One thing did relieve me about the ending, though: I think if I'd actually seen an awkwardly rendered, physical Delilah in front of me, I would have killed myself. Good move, Campo Santo. Good move.

GISMOS_07 - WOWAHOLICS

This week we invited a good friend of ours to the show to share some personal historical struggles with World of Warcraft. Tyler Goesen. Jordan takes a break from flipping burgers and re-joins the Gismo crew. Overwatch beta is back and the Goose is all over it. Jordan gets real personal and Tristan attempts to hold it all together and not choke on his coffee. 

Were working the new 'format' into the show this time with as few hiccups as possible. Listen, enjoy, leave comments and don't be shy, it wont get you very far.

Games covered this week:

Overwatch, Helldivers, Witcher 3, The Witness, Year Walk, WoW,