Everything Is Fine

Category: Games

Posts about games: analog, digital, or other.

  • A Handful of New Shooter Games are Fine

    After finishing Expedition 33, I started Cyberpunk 2077 (because it’s in the Game Catalog on PlayStation Plus) and it seems fine. I’ll get back to it eventually because cyberpunk (with a small c) is cool and this particular instance has some fun vibes. However, this post is about a bunch of games I was looking forward to all coming out around the same time. One of them, I purchased and am playing. The others, I played demos or betas and might purchase, depending on… I don’t know.

    First, the one I actually bought and am playing is Borderlands 4. I’m maybe like a third of the way through it so far, and… [drum roll]
    … it’s fine. So far, I would put it as better than 3 (most people seem to not have liked 3 all that much, but I enjoyed it), but not as good as 2. Some parts of it are incredibly annoying (like the various “carry quests” that require toting around an item that uses a hand, so you can’t aim down sights or grapple or various other movements you’re very used to, or, to me, things like waves of enemies spawning in pretty much every time you go anywhere, but I’m aware it’s a shooter game with weird guns so enemies popping up everywhere to kill with your weird guns is kind of the point) but most of it ranges from “kind of entertaining” to “pretty fun.”

    The story is kind of dumb, but it’s Borderlands, and “kind of dumb” is basically what the franchise is all about. Because it’s doing the “open world” thing, the enemies and missions scale to your level, so you don’t really get to experience the “look how powerful you are now” bit because the enemies constantly get a little tankier or hit harder, which definitely takes away a lot of the allure, but also helps keep the random waves of fodder that pop up everywhere from being boring. It does keep them from being ignorable, too, though, which is a pain when you’re actually trying to go somewhere.

    It’s enjoyable enough. I’ll finish it in time.

    The next one to talk about is Battlefield 6. I have not purchased this one, but I did play an open beta, and I had a pretty good time. I’m part of an online community that used to play (among other things) a lot of Battlefield 4, and this pretty quickly brought back a lot of those vibes. I also have some “real-life friends” (wow, that’s weird to type) who play and they’re trying to get me into it, and… maybe. The game does have a single-player campaign, but I’m not terribly interested in it, and while the multiplayer isn’t bad and doesn’t really require any sort of grinding, I also don’t really see myself playing it all that much, and so I’m not sure that I want to spend 70 dollars on it. Maybe if it goes on sale or someone gives me a gift card or something. (Or my next trip to a casino is a win, but not a big enough win to do something like buy a new coat or furniture. Like maybe winning a hundred bucks on slots or something?)

    And the third one is sort of a sleeper hit to me, and that it’s a game that I’m not “supposed to” like, but I played the most recent tech demo and had a pretty good time. That game is Arc Raiders – an “extraction shooter” (in quotes because there are gaming bloggers and vloggers commenting that it’s not really an extraction shooter) which is a… genre? game mode? style? whatever… that I don’t really like. Or at least, I don’t like the idea of. I’ve never played Tarkov (god it looks so sweaty and toxic) but I was kind of looking forward to Marathon before the whole art fiasco and Riloe on YouTube has me intrigued about the game Beautiful Light (which doesn’t release for another year), so I’m not entirely against the idea of a “get in, get thing, and get out” game.

    Arc Raiders is very stylish. The sound and environments are very nice, and while it has the “stakes” of an extraction shooter (if you get killed, you lose whatever you were carrying), you can get a free loadout to jump in whenever, and unless you’re really going hard, most of the “loot” you get is gonna be junk like batteries and other scrap. Your best gear is going to be stuff you assemble in your base, and if you lose it, you’ll probably be able to build more. From what I’ve seen so far, the community is pretty chill, too, and yelling “hey, friendly!” on proximity chat seems to mostly get people to chill. The enemies (the PvE enemies, that is, not the other players) are really neat, too. They’re mostly things like aerial drones with realistic physics and stuff so you can send them careening off or crashing by disabling one rotor on a quadcopter. I’m thinking I’m going to buy this one, but mainly because it’s only $40, and I think I can get at least that much entertainment out of it.

    And that’s just shooter games. Europa Universalis V just released, and I kind of want to play that a bunch, too. I like(d) Stellaris and Victoria 3 is/was pretty interesting, too. I might just be getting hooked by YouTubers who are able to be entertaining while playing it.

    And that’s not even including the huge games that I’m not interested in, like Silksong, or… I don’t know, whatever else people are playing right now. (I was going to say Call of Duty, but I checked and the newest one isn’t out yet.)

    So yeah, find your self a game or two. It’ll be fine.

  • Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is fine

    Ok, here’s the post about E33. I finished (at least, the story and rolled credits) this last weekend, so here’s the deal.

    First of all, if I had to sum it up in one word, that word would probably be “beautiful.” The environments are varied and gorgeous, the characters are wonderfully depicted, and the music is absolutely perfect. (Although I’m told that if you know French, the soundtrack spoils the rest of the game while you play it. I can’t confirm that, because I don’t know French.)

    The story is wonderfully told (although I won’t spoil any of it here, because you either won’t get it, are still planning to play the game and don’t want to know yet, or already know) and every beat perfectly pulls you along to the next segment. I had been mildly spoiled on parts of it, but they still hit because of the way certain segments are delivered.

    HOWEVER

    As your characters level up, they gain stats, but the vast majority of their stats come from their equipped “Pictos”, various trinkets you find that boost one or two stats and give the character an extra ability to go with it. Then, after having a Picto equipped for four battles, you earn the “Lumina” that lets you have the ability even without the Picto equipped. You pay for “Lumina” with “Colors of Lumina” (actually, you pay with “Lumina Points” that you earn by spending Colors of Lumina, but I’m condensing somewhat) and each character gets their own pool of Lumina.

    You also find new weapons for your characters, and you find higher level weapons as you go, but you can also use “Chroma Catalysts” to increase the levels of weapons. The higher you’re trying to make the level, the more catalysts you need, and above certain level cutoffs, you need not just more, but an entirely different kind. (There are Chroma Catalysts (that only work up to level 3), then Polished Chroma Catalysts (that work up to level 9), Resplendent Chroma Catalysts (that work up to level 19), and Grandiose Chroma Catalysts (that work up to level 32). There are also Perfect Chroma Catalysts that you use specifically to go from 32 to 33, but you (I guess) only encounter those in the like post-post-game (or maybe in New Game+), since I got my weapons up to like level 23 (which is separate from the character levels which were just under 70) and that was plenty.)

    Then there are skill points! To be fair, any game with any sort of character progression has skill points and skill trees, so that’s whatever, but it’s not just like you spend your points and then you have skills. I mean, you can and do, but then you can only have 6 skills equipped, so you end up switching skills around as you unlock more, and then switching Pictos around because each character can only equip 3 at a time, all trying to make sure to synergize your weapon with your skills and Pictos and the enemies’ weaknesses… sometimes, it’s a bit much.

    And the combat is turn-based. That’s not really a knock against it, because JRPGs have turn-based combat and everyone loves those. (I mean, I don’t, but maybe I do? I really liked Super Mario RPG, but I never played any Final Fantasy games or Chrono Trigger.) I do know one person that doesn’t want to play E33 because of turn-based combat. I think that person should just get over it, but I get it. There’s only so much time to play games, so you gotta stick to the ones you think are fun.

    And this one was fun. It was gorgeous and transcendently scored. You really do feel powerful as you progress, and I legitimately felt emotions during some of the cutscenes. Trying to decide how to spec your characters is a bit of a chore, but eventually, it just becomes a big pile of options you don’t want/need and then a handful that speak to you. It’s kind of a pain, but it also means you can play however you want. There’s an incredibly high difficulty ceiling, but everything on the main path is pretty manageable.

    It’s beautiful, enthralling, emotional, tedious, aggravating, challenging, fun… It’s fine…

    …and it’s probably game of the year.

  • Magic: the Gathering – Final Fantasy is Fine

    Two weeks ago (three if you count the prerelease, which I guess you might as well), Wizards of the Coast released the latest Magic: the Gathering expansion set: Final Fantasy. These cards feature famous characters, places, and events from the history of the video game series (Or at least, I think so; I’ve never played any of them. Maybe there are games that aren’t represented.) and due to that, demand is through the roof. This is bigger than a few years ago with the Lord of the Rings set, which itself was way bigger than the crossovers with Warhammer, Doctor Who, Fallout, and whatever other ones have been done lately.

    In a lot of ways, it’s good. People who have never played Magic are being drawn to the game, which is usually great. (Not every person getting into the game is great, but in general, more Magic players is better, in my opinion.)

    And what is the Final Fantasy series? It’s a bunch of epic stories, featuring culturally iconic characters drawn beautifully that’s been around since 1987. It’s made for a trading card game. (Yes, there actually was a Final Fantasy trading card game. Wait, is a trading card game. It’s still around, and just had its own expansion release in March.)

    Anyway, as far as Magic settings go, it’s a good one. I like it a lot more than Aetherdrift (“Your favorite Magic characters driving cars”) and Outlaws at Thunder Junction (“Your favorite Magic characters wearing cowboy hats”). Having 16 mainline games to pick and choose from means only the most important stuff gets in. I played one prerelease and a few drafts on Arena, and I like the cards. The set is fun to play, which I guess would be the main objective of producing it.

    (Here’s me playing one of those drafts lately.)

    However, there’s more going on here than just a Magic expansion that has Cloud and Sephiroth in it. Magic also has years of characters, stories, and art. Right now, the most popular format that people play is Commander, which allows you to use (for the most part) any card from Magic’s history, and now, alongside all of that history of characters like Jace Beleren, Ajani Goldmane, Liliana Vess, and Chandra Nalaar (not to mention characters that haven’t been the face of the game, like Jaya Ballard, the Phyrexian praetors, and the leaders of the Ravnican Guilds), we’ve also got various Doctors Who, Gandalf, Aerith, and coming soon, Spider-Man and Avatar Aang.

    Basically, sitting at a table of Magic players is like watching a game of Fortnite. Oh shit, is that Doctor Octopus?! Attacking Gimli?! Wielding Excalibur?! (Yeah, there was an Assassins Creed set, too.)

    I mean, it’s still Magic. You tap lands to cast spells, and attack your opponent with creatures and try to reduce their life total to 0. These “Universes Beyond” sets as Wizards calls them, in that sense, aren’t that different from any other, especially if, like me, you play each set in a self-contained way in sealed or draft events. Mechanically, it doesn’t matter if the card has Spider-Man on it since the rules text and the character are independent of each other.

    Fun side note there – that’s actually a snag Wizards has with the upcoming Spider-Man set. They got the license from Marvel to print characters on trading cards, but they did not get the license from Marvel to put the characters in a digital card game, so the Spider-Man cards will not be “printed” into Magic Arena or Magic: the Gathering Online. Instead, a different set where all the cards are mechanically identical but “in universe” for Magic will be there.

    So then why aren’t they just doing that for every set? (Not “having different characters on the cards between paper and digital,” that’s stupid as hell. I mean just having Magic characters and setting on all the cards.) Why pay Square, Marvel, Games Workshop, or whoever owns the IP for Doctor Who (the BBC?) for licensing when Wizards could (and in at least one case, still has to) just use their own IP on the cards. (And they could even cross over with their own IP, like they did with Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate, or with Hasbro’s other properties like they did with Transformers.)

    And it’s not even just Magic being “Fortnite-ified”. Beavis and Butthead are being added to Call of Duty. Freddy and Jason were in Mortal Kombat. The Ninja Turtles were added to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Everything crosses over with everything. Hell, not only is every game like Fortnite by just jamming every celebrity or IP into it they can find, Magic specifically printed cards with Fortnite elements on them. (They were reprints reskinned as Fortnite stuff, so “Smuggler’s Copter” became “Battle Bus”; “Wrath of God” became “Shrinking Storm”; etc.)

    And that’s what’s wrong with M:tG FF – it’s an effort to sell Magic cards to people who wouldn’t want them. It’s an effort to sell Magic cards to people who likely won’t ever play Magic again six weeks from now when the next expansion comes out. It’s an effort to keep selling us IPs we’ve already seen and experienced instead of coming up new ones. And it’s only going to keep happening more.

    But man, the cards are fun. I’m gonna play some more.

    It’s fine.

  • All Board Games are Fine

    In the various texts around the site, I mention that one of the categories of things I frequently describe as “fine” is board games. There are a few reasons for that.

    The primary is that there are too many. Ones that truly delight are few and far between, and when they do, they’re board games. They’re good for a few hours of entertainment at a time. If you play them regularly, like I do, then hundreds, if not thousands of them stack up.

    Boardgamegeek.com gives the following guidance for their rating system:

    10 - Outstanding. Always want to play and expect this will never change. 9 - Excellent game. Always want to play it. 8 - Very good game. I like to play. Probably I'll suggest it and will never turn down a game. 7 - Good game, usually willing to play. 6 - Ok game, some fun or challenge at least, will play sporadically if in the right mood. 5 - Average game, slightly boring, take it or leave it. 4 - Not so good, it doesn't get me but could be talked into it on occasion. 3 - Likely won't play this again although could be convinced. Bad. 2 - Extremely annoying game, won't play this ever again. 1 - Defies description of a game. You won't catch me dead playing this. Clearly broken.

    Given that system, I don’t think I’ve ever played a 10. I’m not sure I could even call something a 9 on this scale. “Always want to play” is hard – there are thousands of games. I would be willing to play most of them, but moods change.

    Of the games I own, the “best” ones top out at 8. I like them. I’ll suggest them or ask if I should bring them, or if people ask me to bring them, I will do so. I would put John Company: Second Edition at 8, but it’s heavy. The weight isn’t for most crowds, and the subject matter definitely isn’t, either. More accessibly, I might call Kutna Hora an 8. That’s more likely to make it to the table because it’s lighter, and also, everyone I’ve played it with has liked it, too.

    7 and 6 are “most” games. Obviously not the actual majority of games, but of the “hobbyist” board games I’ve played and play regularly, “I would play this again” is usually my reaction. (I frequently don’t actually play again, though, because in a friend group that collectively owns thousands of games and continually acquires new ones, there’s always something I’ve never seen before that turns up.) All the classics are probably here; Catan, Carcassone, Power Grid, etc.

    Some fall to 5. In my personal ratings on BGG, things like Codaand Hex Hex are 5s. (Interestingly enough, the site-wide ratings for both are closer to 6.)

    Below that, games become “bad”. But take a look at the descriptions. 4 is “not good … but could be talked into it on occasion.” Now, I can be talked into a lot of games. I’d put the bad party games here, like Cards Against Humanity. I’d probably also put Munchkin (generally regarded as a very bad game) here, too. I’ll almost never “want” to play it, but if the right people ask (or I’m drunk enough), sure.

    3 is “likely won’t play” but “could be convinced” and then closed with just “Bad.” Given that descriptor, I’d probably put Monopoly here (assuming we’re playing rules as written, so it eventually does end). Everyone hates Monopoly. It’s bad. F-tier. But it still rates a 3 out of 10. (That’s not to say a 3 out of 10 is remotely good.)

    In my life, I have played exactly one game that I would actually say was “completely annoying” and that I “won’t play this ever again”. In fact, I like to tell people about it, because I had significantly higher expectations for it. It’s Firefly: the Game. We played it less than once. (We didn’t finish it.) And on BGG, the current site-wide rating is… SEVEN POINT FOUR?! The average gamer is usually willing to play this? I will just about always suggest against it. Often when it’s not even brought up.

    Anyway, rather than get into specific games, my main point is that, on that scale, where 10 is the platonic ideal of a game; one you always want to play and don’t think that will ever change (meaning you’ll never supersede it with newer, which is hard when dozens, if not hundreds of new games come out yearly), “good” goes down to 7, and “yeah, I guess I would play this sometimes” goes down to THREE.

    So yeah, there are too many games. A few are great. Many are good. Some are bad. They’re all fine.

  • Booking hotels for Gen Con is fine.

    Every year around this time, the Gen Con housing portal opens up. Some years ago, they changed the system so that instead of just first-come first-served at Noon on Sunday, every badgeholder is assigned a time somewhere between Noon and whenever all the times are done. The “best” rooms are still gone by 1, and the rest generally not much later than that, but that’s what happens at a convention of 70,000 attendees.

    I’ve been attending Gen Con since 2012, and while I’ve had several hotel rooms that were farther than I’d have liked, or booked under unusual arrangements, but I’ve always had one. It’s always possible to stay somewhere, and usually relatively close by. This year is no exception.

    Actually, this year I got what I generally consider my favorite hotel, where all my con friends hang out. The room will be a little cramped, but should be fine for crashing at night.

    Now, just to wait the 5 months until the con.