LISA

Women are dead, perverts abound, and drugs are turning people into monsters in LISA: The Painful RPG, a side scrolling RPG developed and published by indie studio Dingaling Productions. Initially released back in December 2015 for the Windows platform, the game has also seen a OS X and Linux debut. Prepare to wander through a gritty post-apocalyptic world filled with curious odds-and-ends.

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD BE CAREFUL NEAR CLIFFS OR YOU WILL HATE YOURSELF"

I hadn't heard of LISA until about a month ago when I saw it pop up during the autumn Steam sales. What drew me in at the time was the seemingly straightforward pixel graphics and plain backgrounds in the preview screenshots (which indicated to me a low-budget work) combined with the overwhelming amount of praise found in the Steam reviews section. Normally, the Steam reviews on a game rarely affect my decision in making a purchase, but after reading some of the reviews and how emotionally charged they were in praising the game for its narrative and style, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to take a closer look. So does LISA hit hard "right in the feels," as one reviewer would have it?

Drenched in black comedy, LISA introduces players to Brad Armstrong, a broken man in a broken world. As a child, Brad had to deal with schoolyard bullies and an abusive father. Now a grown man, Brad carries his life experiences with great burden and difficulty, resorting to a drug called Joy in order to numb his mind and body. The world Brad lives in experienced an event simply called "The Flash" in which all women died, rendering repopulation impossible and effectively dooming the human race (similar in style to Children of Men, in which infertility is the cause of the apocalyptic backdrop). Brad lives his life in a dirt hovel with some childhood friends until he discovers an abandoned baby girl in the middle of nowhere. Seeing the child as a second chance to redeem himself from the shadow of his father, Brad takes it upon himself to raise the girl, christened Buddy, and to protect her. Several years pass and Buddy grows up and one day the secret is out; raiders come and take Buddy away and Brad places responsibility upon himself to rescue the girl.

"my dads [sic] in this game"

Inspired by Earthbound, LISA presents a return of older RPG conventions in its game mechanics. However, by emulating something of an NES experience, the game suffers a great deal when it comes to technical use. Equipping and managing party members quickly becomes a chore and the general lack of a streamlined user interface had me wondering why I couldn't just use my mouse instead of having to go through multiple motions in order to bring up one screen. Such a design decision may create a more authentic RPG experience for some gamers, but there is a reason why outdated conventions are outdated. The lack of a quick save feature outside of fights creates irritating moments where a player may be forced to load from a checkpoint multiple times, making the trek back to a fight, all while praying to the RNG for good rolls in order to defeat a boss. Combined with the infamous cliffs that result in instant death placed in strategic locations, there will be a great deal of revisiting the same areas over and over again, ultimately cumulating into a frustrating gaming experience.

The game suffer's from a general lack of feedback, an important aspect to indicate to players what works and what doesn't. There are two culprits in this case: navigation and combat. Navigation doesn't suffer as badly as the combat; the backgrounds are plain and the paucity of landmarks boils getting from point A to point B to memory as passages and doorways look similar. The ultimate villain is the combat system where so much information is hidden from players. Certain status effects such as burning, poison, bleed, stun, and tripped are self-explanatory, but others are more vague in their function. Crying, weary, stink, and weird are some of the more enigmatic status effects that may take some time to understand; even then it may just be better to consult a guide. Moreover, something as simple as enemy health isn't displayed, leaving players to wonder how far into a fight they must plan for. Some enemies harbor resistances to various effects in varying degrees and there doesn't seem to be any logic conveyed to players as to what kind of tactics are working, often resulting in the aforementioned prayers to RNG. You may never find out an enemy has 40% resistance to stunning attacks and simply think you're getting bad rolls when attempting to stun the enemy. This lack of information leads to a deficit in the player's tool belt when trying to solve a problem and reduces some areas of the game to brute force trial and error.

"Cons: fucking snakes"

There is a large emphasis on "ruthless choices that that permanently effect [sic] towns, characters, life" as stated by the game's Steam page. I cannot express how untrue this is. The choices to be made are ruthless, I'll give it that, but they aren't emotionally motivated or impactful as most of the decision making prompts are there to simply fuck with the player in a gameplay sense, not a narrative one. For example, one fork forces Brad to choose between the lives of his party members or all of his hard earned items. But here's the major problem: for all the weird, quirky, and cooky characters there are, none of them are characterized beyond one or two traits that make them eclectic. Ultimately, any value you attach to your party members is going to be motivated by how much utility they present in a fight. Your party members are essentially walking bags of numbers and you'll feel sad and angry that your bag with the biggest numbers died in order for the game to up the emotional ante. Any kind of backstory or exploration of motive from all the unique characters is essentially nonexistent and any kind of investment into the characters is impersonal; I truly wish the party members were more fleshed out in their relationship to Brad. 

Technical gripes aside, LISA offers a bold exploration of depression, domestic abuse, drug addiction, and gender roles to name just a few themes. A Mad Max-esque vision of the darkness in human hearts is complimented by the carefully limited color palette and dirge-like music and in other sections contrasted by the bright colors and strange rave-like music as some celebrate to the end as they lose inhibition and control of themselves. An intriguing exploration of Brad's past, his mental image of his father, and motives for saving Buddy is examined, but the weak pacing of the game places all the interesting story elements in the far back as the first two-thirds of the story is narrative cannon fodder that focuses more on the environment and its inhabitants rather than Brad. I feel that the storytelling could've been more homogenous rather than having a stark break between sections as it would streamline the storytelling process and prevent elements of the plot from being forgotten or becoming stale.

"All I got from this game is that humans are trash, life sucks, and anything good that comes to you is taken away"

Ultimately, LISA is a clear example of an intriguing narrative executed poorly as frustrating mechanics and a lack of technical polish tarnishes the game's victories. Suffering is another theme conveyed in the game, but the game seems to feel that frustration and suffering are the same thing. Brad's suffering mechanically translates to a series of difficulty spikes in-game but the game backs itself into a corner when the game has neither the complexity nor the depth required to create a smooth spectrum of difficulty. Instead, what we have instead is essentially a numbers game that artificially increases the game's difficulty. This effect is exponentially made worse when you simply can't care enough for your companions to really make a meaningful choice when, for example, choosing which companions should live and which should die.

LISA is certainly a dash of the strange. It's eclectic style and oftentimes clunky revivals of old technical tropes found in older RPGs makes for one peculiar game. I have to praise the game's humble beginnings as a Kickstarter project and the subsequent follow through to see the game onto Steam, completed and even expanded upon with an additional DLC storyline which builds upon the original game's plot. Still, I hesitate in recommending the game. I don't think LISA is for everyone; the game isn't broadly appealing but the game does have a strong cult following within the gaming community. If you're looking for something close to home in terms of an RPG but strange and different in unsettling ways, LISA may be the game you're looking for.

Spec Ops: The Line

Spec Ops: The Line is a narrative-driven, third-person shooter developed by German indie studio Yager Development and published by 2K Games. Set to the themes of the horrors of war, this surprising title made its debut in June 2012 for Windows, PS3, and Xbox 360 platforms. Since then, Spec Ops: The Line has been released on OS X and Linux.

"Gentlemen, welcome to Dubai."

Spec Ops: The Line has been praised by critics and casual gamers alike for setting a different tone within the modern military shooter genre, a genre previously saturated with military hardware pornography and the wholesale destruction of any nation not speaking English. This game was a unique experience to me with respect to the previous military twitch-shooters I've played and one that defiantly rose up to take its place within the genre.

Enter an alternate timeline, one where Dubai, the glimmering diamond of the Middle East, has been ravaged by monstrous sandstorms large enough to engulf skyscrapers with winds hurling sand fast enough to strip paint off cars and flesh off bones. The 33rd Infantry Battalion of the United States Army, commanded by Colonel John Konrad (an homage to Joseph Conrad), volunteered to detour from returning home to aid in an evacuation effort of the city. The 33rd never returned. Players will take on the role of Captain Martin Walker, commander of a squad of Delta Force operatives tasked with investigating a radio broadcast that originates from Dubai six months after the city was declared a desert catacomb devoid of life.

"If you were a better person, you wouldn't be here"

In essence, Spec Ops: The Line can be considered to be an adaptation of Conrad's Heart of Darkness; the themes of the book are presented in a modern-military setting, much like the film Apocalypse Now. If you're familiar with either the book or the 1979 Coppola film, you may have a working sense of the plot and the imagery you'll witness as you play the game. A majority of the game's spirit comes from Walker's descent into madness and cognitive dissonance having witnessed the terror and suffering within the storm-wracked Dubai. What was supposed to be a simple reconnaissance mission suddenly spirals into a desperate attempt by Walker to seek answers in the hopes of vindicating what they have witnessed and done.

Having found a war zone within a supposedly dead city, squad mates Lugo and Adams try to convince Walker to call for evacuation and report their findings. As Walker becomes more and more obsessed with finding Colonel Konrad and finding out just what is going on, Lugo and Adams become ever more worried and doubtful of his leadership. Nightmarish images of mass executions, gruesome torture, and Hell-on-Earth use of white phosphorus take their toll on the squad: vigilant players will notice the squad member's speech patterns becoming more crude, execution finishers becoming more violent, and even loading screen messages turning from gameplay tips to more personal and attacking messages directed at the player as the game progresses. Talk between squad members transitions from light-hearted banter to hostile blame for the consequences of their action or inaction in a scenario. Walker becomes flooded with guilt and delusions as hallucination and other symptoms of trauma become apparent during gameplay.

"Do you feel like a hero yet?"

Gameplay elements in Spec Ops: The Line satirize modern-military shooters and their over-the-top action sequences. Shots to the head with any kind of weapon will cause the enemy's head to explode in a shower of gibs (even slowing down time for a brief moment for you to gawk at your marksmanship) and the proverbial turret sections present players the opportunity to mow down countless combatants in a way that would make Rambo proud, all set to tunes popular during the Vietnam War. The gameplay itself isn't anything spectacular for a third-person shooter and the game is aware of it: the shooter cliches are a disconcerting reminder that, in the end, it's just another video game. One of the loading messages in the game points to this in a frank manner, stating "to kill for yourself is murder. To kill for your government is heroic. To kill for entertainment is harmless." Additionally, the Radioman, an antagonist in the game, taunts Walker as the Delta Force assaults his holdings, asking "Where's all this violence coming from? Is it the video games? I bet it's the video games," referencing Walker and his men's learned brutality. The game seemingly asks players what their response might be, just how much of that response is guided by the fact that the events are unfolding in a world of fiction, and just how much that changes things, if at all.

"The US military does not condone the killing of unarmed combatants. But this isn't real, so why should you care?"

Spec Ops: The Line places players in high pressure situations where the stakes are immeasurable and the consequences are devastating no matter the action taken. So what is the game about, then? One of the key aspects of any medium is the audience's ability to take away however much they want; the audience can choose to make the experience as meaningful or as a thoughtless as they want. Spec Ops: The Line acknowledges this by showing two facets: yet another military shooter with little questions asked or a view into the savagery of man. Conrad, in Heart of Darkness, depicted how there is no difference between the uncivilized and the civilized and here in Spec Ops: The Line, the player can view Walker and the men of the 33rd as just faceless soldiers in a fictional conflict or a representation of what desperation can bring out of humanity.

But ya' know, it's just a video game, too. Right?

Attack on Titan

I’ve never been too interested in anime and for a long time the only title I’ve watched in its entirety is Gurren Lagann. When I was younger, Mega Man, Transformers, Doraemon, and the proverbial Myazaki films enthralled me, but I’ve never really caught up with more recent anime series and franchises until I began watching Attack on Titan about a month back. Since then I’ve also completed Legend of Korra (which I thoroughly enjoyed and can’t wait to write about), but I figured I should write about my thoughts and reactions regarding Attack on Titan before I forget details.

i'm sure you've heard this somewhere

Attack on Titan, or Shingeki no Kyojin (進撃の巨人), is an anime based on the manga series written by Hajime Isayama and first aired in 2013. I’m not too familiar with manga artists or anime production studios so I really didn’t have any baseline standard going into the series except for the hysteria generated by anime fans and community members. Attack on Titan has since exploded in popularity not just in Japan but abroad as well, spawning many enthusiastic fans of the franchise and even a live action film in the making (I wonder how that’ll go).

The series is set in an indeterminate time period featuring elements of medieval and steampunk technology in which humanity has been nearly wiped out by titans: giant humanoids whose seemingly sole purpose is to eat humans despite lacking a need to do so. Titans are big, stupid, and present a horrendous mock-up of humanity. Humans have lived alongside titans for over a century now and the remnants of human civilization shelter themselves within a nest of three ridiculously large walls which are about fifty meters tall and encircles a landmass equivalent of modern Germany (sure, why not). The walls create a social hierarchy where the less fortunate live in the outermost ring where it is more dangerous to live and work whereas those on the high road get to live in comfort and safety in the center. Between human-looking titans and the ability for humanity to still retain its problems despite a common enemy, can you spot the “humanity-is-its-own-enemy” setup?

kinda like the earth kingdom

If you’re asking yourself “Where did the walls come from—did people build them?” or “Who are the titans? Where did they come from?” I’d like to answer by telling you how the series runs on cliffhangers and unanswered questions, almost to an unhealthily expected degree. The Attack on Titan universe is dark, primal, and mysterious, tantalizing viewers to find out more about the world and its inhabitants with each episode, only to lure the views further with more questions than answers.

Enter our three protagonists, the paragon trio of archetypes: Eren Jaeger, his adoptive sister Mikasa Ackerman, and their friend Armin Arlert. Let’s keep this short: Eren is vengeful but inexperienced and learns to temper and trust himself and, more importantly, others; Mikasa is brooding yet sensible and is the female protagonist badass who excels at just about everything except her only exploitable weakness is her will to do anything to keep Eren safe; Armin is the nerdy wuss who is at first ready to give up on everything but is then inspired by his friends through their mutual suffering and perseverance despite the horrific genocide they live through.

armin, eren, and mikasa

Anyhow, the walls have never been breached for as long as anyone can remember and most humans have never seen a titan until one fateful day when the titans upped the ante of the human’s ridiculously high walls with a ridiculously high titan. This Colossus Titan is different: its actions and motions are filled with purpose and meaning, hinting at a higher level of intelligence. The Colossus wrecks the outermost wall and disappears, prompting a horrific attack on Eren’s hometown. The attack demonstrates to Eren just how powerless and weak humanity is compared to the titans. As a titan kills his family and destroys his home, a young Eren escapes with Mikasa and Armin, vowing to become stronger to enact vengeance on the titans by hunting them down, one-by-one.  

The series follows the three anti-stooges as they confront horrid reality and decide to take the fight to the titans by enlisting in the military. Joined by other people from around the walls that have heard about the attacks and people from their own devastated hometown, the three protagonists and a cast of red-shirts begin their training and learn how to combat the titans. What follows is a series of trials ranging from character relations and tensions to practical combat experience and the horrors of war. By the way, when I say that a cast of red shirts follows Eren, Mikasa, and Armin, I don’t mean disrespect by insinuating that the background cast isn’t fleshed out or interesting. The supporting cast members from various backgrounds with a variety of attitudes increases the scale and stake involved, showcasing that the battle isn’t just a regional issue, but one that all of humanity is involved in. However, when you do have that many characters in a dark fantasy setting, it’s hard to not see it coming.

Much like how fans of The Walking Dead might say that the show isn’t about the gory, tense action that comes from killing hordes of zombies, Attack on Titan is much the same. However, when it does become time to kill hordes of titans, Attack on Titan does it spectacularly and in a maximalist fashion. Although conventional weapons like muskets and cannons are utilized in the Attack on Titan universe, the primary method of fighting titans involves the use of Maneuver Gear that allows its user to fly through the air using a system of wires, pulleys, and gas propulsion in order to close in on a titan to deliver the killing blow. The resultant action sequences are vertigo inducing, physics defying acts of combat acrobatics with astonishing animation quality and direction that takes the audience along with the characters through the Maneuver Gear motions.   

it feels like they use a repeating tile set or something. but it's pretty cool!

Beyond its audio-visual presentation, the themes presented in Attack on Titan are striking and resonate within human history. The article “A beginner's guide to 'Attack onTitan,' the most intense anime of 2013” from The Daily Dot summarizes it pretty well: “the giants in Attack on Titan are allegorical, serving as the gruesome pallette [sic] for an exploration of war and human injustice.” Furthermore, the titans themselves were inspired by 19^th century Spanish artist Francisco Goya, who presented much of the same themes regarding the horrors of war through giant, terror-inducing beings. In the truly dog-eat-dog world of Attack on Titan, the hunter-prey relationship is made apparent enough and it’s hard not to cheer for our human counterparts to succeed in their quest for freedom from the reign of titans, and in doing so, perhaps finding a way out of the hunter-prey relationship.

goya's the colossus and isayama's titan

The military drama angle also added commentary on fascism within the series. Another hallmark theme of Attack on Titan is sacrificing oneself for the good of humanity. The parallels with nationalism and the walls representing a failed isolationist policy are significant; the ideas expressed in Attack on Titan feels like a call-to-arms that glorifies nationalism with appeal to the hip young kids the more I think about it. Here’s an interesting article from Twitch Film that discusses the nationalism aspect in greater detail (although I can’t agree with the stupid title it has). I don’t know if Isayama had a nationalist angle going into the creation of Attack on Titan, although the details that point to it are significant enough to warrant a brief mentioning. Whether or not the nationalist angle was one of the series utilities, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were one of the sources of appeal to its audiences, at least at a subconscious level.

Speculation and interpretation aside, that’s Attack on Titan: a dark, fantasy action anime series with an effective dose of war drama. The brooding tone of terror and the depiction of a cruel world may dishearten some, but the perseverance of the characters despite the circumstances and the sacrifices they make are inspiring. Mikasa couldn’t have said it any better when she states, “the world is cruel, but it’s also beautiful.” The conflict between the savagery of the titans and the humans depicts the worst of wartime atrocities from both sides, but at the same time sees the best of humanity coming through. Attack on Titan was inspiring and gut wrenching, if not terrifying in its messages and themes. 

Team Fortress 2: The Gun Mettle Update

Ever since the day that unusual hats were first summoned into our plane of existence through a money burning, tear harvesting ritual, an isolated cult has had their members waving their hands to and fro, hoping to appease the Lovecraftian entity that is the Team Fortress 2 development team, praying one day for an ability to finally lift their buckets of paint, incant some nether spells, and gorge their weapons in bright pink and lime green. Also the blood of their enemies. The unholy lights brought about by the unperfected and unstable versions of the above ritual has lead to many environmental and personal hazards. After many police hearings, the TF2 team decided to intervene, reasoning that demonic paint rituals were better handled by professionals, lest anymore people get hurt; enter the Gun Mettle Update!

wait what

The Gun Mettle Campaign: 

i.e. Collector's Canadian strange unusual kill-streak weapons

The update's primary focus is the introduction of a three month long contract system in TF2. Upon purchasing access to the Gun Mettle Campaign, players will be able to attempt two contracts each week. Upon completion, each contract will award players a decorated weapon with a skin system similar to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's. 

Liking the new skins or not aside (because we've lived through painted hats, kill-streak-fire-from-eyes, and Australium weapons), I think the new contracts are a lot of fun and remind me of daily reward systems from MMOs. The week long span for two skins limits the contract content, however; it would've been nice to see an unpaid contract system by which players could earn weekly item drops in a guaranteed fashion if they hadn't received their random drops yet.

several hundred million dollar paint jobs

New Maps:

i.e. Cactus Canyon and Asteroid are still in beta.

Three new community maps have been added to the official support list: Borneo, a single stage payload map; Suijin, a Japanese themed, rooftop fighting fetish, king of the hill map; Snowplow, a "well-that-wasn't-so-complex-after-all" control point map. To round the new maps off, the TF2 team has also created a map of their own: Powerhouse, the spiritual successor to Hydro.

Community mapmaking is a powerful asset to the TF2 community and it is always great to see continued love and support.

build on the roof

New Taunts:

i.e. the conga is now for peasants.

Gameplay Changes

i.e. still no one uses the Panic Attack

A full listing of the gameplay changes can be found at the bottom of the update page. 

Prior to this update, I was having a lot of difficulty pinning down what direction TF2 was headed in. Unfinished maps (Asteroid, Cactus Canyon) and beta game modes (Mannpower), to me at least, seemed like an experiment in trying to orient game updates to be driven more by players instead of developers by including players in the quality assurance step, en masse. Even after all the talks of a competitive matchmaking coming along, there weren't many signs of it coming along- until now.

In general, Spy and Heavy received buffs to make them more survivable in extended confrontations and Engineer's buildings deploy quicker; these changes all seem to gear them up for competitive gameplay where the firepower and mobility of Scouts, Soldiers, and Demomen seem to dominate. 

Additionally, weapons from fallen enemies can now be picked up if it is a weapon usable by your class. Your dreams of destroying your enemies and then taking their prized heirlooms away as a constant reminder to them "I HAVE KICKED YOUR ASS AT LEAST ONCE" are finally going to come true! If you can kick their ass at least once.

--

Source 2 is around the corner with Dota 2 Reborn having been announced. Perhaps the matchmaking update for Team Fortress 2 will occur after the Gun Mettle Campaign is over? Until then, we have a very nice and easy update to once again continue breathing fresh air into this eight year old game.

The Night of the Rabbit

The Night of the Rabbit is a point-and-click adventure game developed and published by Daedalic Entertainment, released in May of 2013. Originally created for Microsoft Windows, the game has since been met with an OS X release.

Daedalic have a knack for creating amiable and endearing works. The first game from Daedalic I played was another point-and-click adventure game titled Deponia, which went on to spawn a trilogy of games set in its universe. I enjoyed Deponia for its charming cast of characters, soundtrack, and its beautifully hand-drawn graphics which gave Deponia its signature. Needless to say, I went into The Night of the Rabbit with a certain set of expectations that derived from my experiences with Deponia and came out rather pleased, despite some of the games more critical flaws.

The game follows the adventures of Jerry Hazelnut, a young boy with only two days left of summer vacation. Spending his days outdoors in the forest, Jerry longs to be a renowned magician one day. His dreams have a chance to become reality as an enigmatic rabbit, the Marquis de Hoto, promises Jerry apprenticeship in the art of Treewalking, an ancient and magical tradition used to traverse different worlds to help others in need. Together with the Marquis (and promising Jerry he'll return to his family before dinner), Jerry enters the world of Mousewood, a small town that resides in the woods Jerry played in and is invisible to the ordinary human eye. Now with the the perspective of a mouse, Jerry travels and explores Mousewood and its surroundings, helping out its inhabitants and occasionally traveling to mysterious locations to learn the spells of the Treewalkers. However, it becomes apparent that the Marquis knows of an impending danger not only to Mousewood, but to all the worlds intertwined in the roots of the First Tree which acts as a bridge between worlds the Treewalkers use. Jerry Hazelnut's training is for an ultimate destiny, but the Marquis himself seems to harbor a pivotal secret.

how do the crows just not eat all of them

The Night of the Rabbit's premise clearly draws inspiration from Carroll's Alice in Wonderland while the game's visual style is reminiscent of a Miyazaki film; both sources lends the game its sense of fantastic wonder and charm. The ambience of the environment coupled with a fitting soundtrack effectively commands the tone of the game whether it is a jubilant party or a dark and sinister moment in Jerry's adventures. For older audiences, the game dips itself into issues regarding urban sprawl, environmentalism, and the pastoral genre, but its awkward narrative arc and pacing keeps those themes from being as effectively or fully developed as I hoped. However, such themes are present and while their full discussion is probably outside the scope of a first impression statement (perhaps in a future blog post), they are wrapped in a fairytale delivery that fits the narrative and setting without feeling tacked on. Better communicated themes such as friendship and courage against large odds (the mouse-sized perspective lends itself well) are more readily developed and accessible, important for a younger audience.

the last place i expected to be

Gameplay is what you'd expect from a point-and-click game and is actually well streamlined for simplicity, making the game more accessible to younger players. Some point-and-click titles had a multitude of actions you could perform with an object or character via a wheel of verbs; interactions in The Night of the Rabbit are one-click deals. Now, you might think that a simple interaction model may affect the depth or complexity of the puzzles involved, but the simple interactions aren't a factor in dumbing down puzzles. In Chaos on Deponia, a similar interaction system is involved but the puzzles involved were more creative and just as challenging because the fundamental design was different and there was a variety in its puzzle design. The puzzles in Chaos on Deponia involved more mini-games and self-contained puzzles where rules are more readily contained and consistent whereas the puzzles in The Night of the Rabbit consist mainly of environmental interactions and combining items together. This leads to some rather inconsistent and sometimes illogical solutions to puzzles. There is a hint system in game, but it is far from helpful and only serves as an audio playback feature of what the Marquis said to Jerry.

i'm willing to accept anything

The Night of the Rabbit's ultimate strength lies in its amazing audiovisual presentation. The game's introductory acts are drawn out and the ending is strangely rushed, but the game's narrative do have interesting twists and turns that did catch me off guard. A fair chunk of the game's universe is largely unexplained and can either be telling of a sequel or can be left to the player's imagination. After all, Jerry and the Marquis are in a day of summer vacation where anything is possible.

"but perhaps someone is going to step up?"

Why You Should Read: James Joyce’s Ulysses

A Turbulent Run Down Stream of Consciousness or: Yeah... We're Covering It.

Merry [belated] Bloomsday: the holiday most often abandoned within minutes of starting!  Go out for an extended morning walk, indulge in the sights and sounds of the town, and enjoy your kidney breakfa—wait…hold up…the title alone triggers sirens to blare, so let’s do some clean-up: James Joyce’s Ulysses is notorious for its difficulty, with its pages of experimental prose, allusions to the most esoteric literature, and most notably, stream-of-conscience writing style, so much so that its reputation as “unreadable” and “high-brow” has come to overshadow all other elements the work has to offer.  While, yes, Ulysses can be difficult and arcane, the collective view on Ulysses is rather unfair and not actually of Ulysses itself, but instead what people believe Ulysses is—a caricature of the actual novel where some of its most memorable, but not its only, traits come to be exaggerated to the point where they are not only the defining traits of the work, but the only traits of that work in the minds of others.  When people talk about Ulysses, it’s rarely the novel itself, but their idea of it.  (Chances are, that person hasn’t even read it all the way through!)  Basically, Ulysses’ reputation as impenetrable and high-minded is not exactly accurate and misses the finer points of the work, to the point where its reputation is an entirely separate entity from the text itself: Ulysses is boisterous, vulgar, silly, and largely accessible, not some holy codex written in languages reserved for the cultural elite.  (If you want to talk about impenetrable nonsense, try Finnegans Wake—it’s basically what people think Ulysses is.)

Pictured: A Major Sex Symbol Being Read By Marilyn Monroe

So far, this have been largely defensive and before we get into why Ulysses is worth reading, there is still that massive hurdle of reputation to get over, so here we are: “How Not to Read James Joyce’s Ulysses”.  We’ll get through this quick … 

• Don’t Fret Over Every Line:  You won’t understand every single reference, and that’s okay.  The vast majority of it doesn’t matter.
•  Ignore Allusions: Allusions to the Odyssey and other works are inconsequential to most readers.
• Don’t Give Up Within the First Three Chapters:  The main character, the shining star of the book, is not introduced until the fourth chapter, or Book II, roughly fifty pages in.  With his introduction, the narration really picks up and the stream-of-consciousness becomes less reliant on obscure (and at times, insufferable) intellectual references which are dominant in the first three chapters.  At Book II, the text actually becomes consistently fun.  (Ulysses…fun?!  Incredible, isn’t it?)

...and most important...

• Be Cognizant of Narratorial Changes:  Joyce employs stream-of-consciousness often, but not always, which will mean the narration will weave between third-person narration and a character’s inner monologue.  These transitions are never overtly labeled, often happening within the same paragraph with no textual indication of change.  The reader must look for tonal changes, or the easiest indication, first-person pronouns that are not part of dialogue.  The divide between character’s internal and external worlds is not always clear-cut.

This stream-of-conscience technique is the book’s greatest strength, though it is also the biggest hurdle for unsuspecting readers.  Unlike knowledge of the story beats in the Odyssey or the geographic layout of Dublin, being able to decipher what is internal and what is external is crucial to understanding, and enjoying, Ulysses.  For example, here is the first instance of a narratorial swap, which may go unnoticed by unsuspecting readers:

—Look at yourself, [Mulligan] said, you dreadful bard!
Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by a crooked crack. Hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this face for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too.

Catch it?  It should become apparent with “As he and other see me.”  No indication of a change, and this is one of the easiest ones to spot, it is an introduction after all, with its frequent use of the first-person pronoun “me”.  Okay, the disclaimer is over, here is why you should read Ulysses:

Sigh... That disclaimer was longer than Ulysses itself...

In its simplest form, Ulysses is the story of Leopold Bloom as he spends his day, a Thursday, June 16^th, 1904, which is not a remarkable day—just another day in Bloom’s life.  At least that is Ulysses from a story approach, what it is actually about is transporting yourself into the life of another human being, one Mr. Leopold Bloom, for a single day, with no details spared, in all its mundane glory.  Nothing grand happens in Ulysses, and it is all the better for that, and nothing too dull is cut out.  Nearly 800 hundred pages of someone else’s day, with every action, every thought that goes through Mr. Bloom’s head, revealed and cataloged.  (The reader also peaks into the minds of Stephan Dedalus, an arrogant intellectual from A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, who through seeing his inner-workings, the reader begins to sympathize with, and Molly Bloom, Leopold’s wife.)  Ulysses is an intimate look into the human condition, with all its glory and down-falls.  The brilliance of Ulysses is seeing life from another’s point of view, without all the glorious edits cutting out the “boring” parts seen in every other work of fiction, or even non-fiction.  All the random, meaningless thoughts a person has throughout the day don’t make it into other works, and for good reason, but Ulysses is a celebration of those elements.  Just about every character in any medium, this could even be expanded further into other people who aren’t you, are more than human because you, the reader or observer, never sees them at their worst and at their most boring the same way you see yourself.  People can put on a “Best of” reel for others, withholding all that isn’t to be shared.  You are with yourself twenty-four/seven, so all those thoughts you’d rather not share, all those sly little actions you’d never admit too, are hidden from everyone but yourself.  Ulysses is one of the few books that embraces those secrets aspects of human life.  The reader is with Bloom, inside his head, when he is at his highest points for that Thursday we spend with him…and the reader is also with Bloom as he sits on the toilet reading the morning paper.  The latter is not enjoyable to read, it is an aspect of being human that we’d prefer to overlook, but one that we can never escape, and for that reason, Ulysses is one of the most accurate portrayals of being human. 

James Joyce’s Ulysses is the transplant of the human mind, in all its grand, dull, sometimes gross, and scattered fashion, onto paper: its greatest power is its ability to do so accurately, allowing the reader to leave their own and venture into another, at least for a day, to prove that, no, the reader isn’t alone in that silly quirk, isn’t weird to have that reoccurring thought, and ultimately that we’re all flawed animals…that we’re all human.

Munin

From developers at Gojira, a Portuguese indie studio, and publishers at Daedalic Entertainment comes Munin, a puzzle adventure game set in the universe of Norse mythology. Munin is available for Microsoft Windows and OS X platforms.

i'm in if munin

If you've never heard of Gojira, they were the folks behind creating a virtual car commercial K-pop star experience in which players got to sing and dance alongside the lovely Kim "HyunA" Hyuna (I don't blame you). Aside from creating car endorsement products, Gojira are focused in natural language processing, interactive fiction, and of course, indie games. 

ios app if you're curious

Munin is a puzzle adventure game immersed in the world of Norse mythology. Players take on the role of Munin, one of the messengers and eyes of Odin. Munin has been transformed by the trickster god Loki into a flightless human girl and must traverse the nine worlds found within Norse cosmology to find her feathers to fly back to Asgard.

the backgrounds look amazing 

While basic in its platforming elements, the core gameplay of Munin arises in the ability to rotate and manipulate set portions of levels. Rotating a piece of the level can open up different passages and affects environmental objects that are key to collecting all the feathers in a level. The different sets of levels are stylized to fit one of the nine worlds of the Norse Yggdrasil and each hold their own unique variation on the rotational mechanic. Players will be able to figure out and toy with spirit orbs, geysers, and rolling stones, just to name a few variations. There are also smaller mechanical details that can be worked out. For example, rotating a piece actually removes the momentum of any object in that piece, allowing players to guide objects into specific areas.

spot the ladder

Although the game's mechanics are interesting and reminded me of Braid or The Bridge, the game's flaws are small but frustrating. Several of the earlier stages presents immediate flaws in art direction. The cave levels are atmospherically dark but when it becomes difficult to make out foreground and background elements, it becomes a problem. There aren't any gamma options so the only thing you can really do is either lean in really close to the screen or adjust your monitor settings. Another quality-of-life issue I ran into was the ability to only rotate pieces clockwise. This means that if you miss your exit, you're going to have to click a piece three more times to get it aligned. The controls are typical of a platformer but can sometimes be stiff, especially when climbing ladders and jumping over terrain obstacles.

Munin's puzzles aren't overly complex but still encourages planning and experimentation. While not exactly a one-trick pony, the game's mechanical variations can run stale rather quickly. The variations can be fun and interesting but not all of them are successful or effectively game changing. Because the game requires you to beat all levels in a set before advancing to the next one, you can get stuck at a level and forced to drag yourself around to figure it out. There isn't an option to skip a level to come back to it, making the experience tedious. The lack of stage selection or stage skipping damages the game's pacing.

hello there

Despite its flaws, Munin is still a solid game with a firm foundation in its core mechanics; the game does seem a little too tenacious with what it offers, however. The game's unique aesthetics and the Norse mythology theme salvages aspects of the game that otherwise weigh it down. Although the game does have nine worlds and a plentiful number of levels, even puzzle game enthusiasts may find themselves bored after a rather repetitive set before they can enjoy another mechanic. I couldn't bring myself to sit down for more than thirty minutes at a time as the game's engagement wanes, but if you do find the game on sale and you liked games like Braid or The Bridge, do give Munin a try.

Hammerwatch

Hammerwatch is an arcade hack-and-slash created by Jochum Skoglund and Niklas Myberg with music by Two Feathers studio. Released in August 2013, the game is available on Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux platforms.

I remember first seeing Hammerwatch when it made its debut on Steam and being immediately drawn in by its scenes of hordes of monsters and its pixel aesthetics. Say what you will about pixel graphics, I still think they hold up a timeless charm. Speaking of timeless charm, the game was inspired by the 1980s Gauntlet series and also contains elements from Diablo as well. Hammerwatch offers several hours of co-op or single player dungeon crawling hack-and-slash as players scour the levels for loot and secrets accompanied by an energizing (at times a little repetitive) soundtrack.

The co-op experience offers its own server hosting and supports up to four players with six classic fantasy archetypes for players to play as: Paladin, Wizard, Ranger, Warlock, Thief, and Priest. Starting out with only two abilities, players will smash through lines of enemies together and picking up coins and various upgrades, which include new and powerful abilities, increased speed, more damage, etc. There are no skill trees or level ups for players to advance through; shops and vendors in the game sell upgrades to players in a Diablo fashion with several stores hidden away in secret rooms.

insert 1 coin = 600 life. microtransactions!

As your party weaves in and out of terrifying traps, hordes of monsters, locating keys and opening doors, you may come across several hidden switches or cryptic puzzles. Secrets are an essential component of Hammerwatch as they can provide a great gold boost or a means forward. False walls, hidden switches, and mysterious sequences dot the map for players to find. Despite its dungeon crawling genre and appearances, the game is not procedurally generated; map layouts are constant which leads to some great speed-running potential and appeal.

Although the game may feel slow-paced in the first few stages, challenging difficulty modifiers can be activated to amp up the game. Play with only one life among all four players, one-shot deaths, and my personal favorite that calls back to the Gauntlet series, negative health regeneration. If you are having trouble just getting around the levels and are feeling frustrated, you can also turn on various crutch modifiers to ease your game. The challenges and crutches settings allow for a customizable, but slightly rigid, gameplay experience.

if you're at a puzzle, just push buttons randomly

Hammerwatch's pixel graphics are accompanied by tone setting ambient lighting and exciting particle effects. Sooner or later, the game will become a bullet hell as you duck and dodge between projectiles that fill the screen. The controls are responsive and comfortable, but some of the default keybindings can be a little awkward and may need some adjustments before you begin. The user interface is simple and easy to handle. The map is intuitive as well but you aren't able to zoom out, making figuring out where you've been or haven't been a bit more difficult.

If you thought the primary campaign was short, you'll be happy to hear that a free expansion was released back in September 2014. Titled Temple of the Sun, it's available to anyone who purchased the base game and is essentially a whole new campaign for you and your friends to experience. There is also a survival mode and a tower defense styled mode to play as well. Hammerwatch also includes a level editor outside of the game so you can create your own levels and campaigns for your friends or enemies to enjoy or suffer through.

here's a great tutorial on how to use the level editor

For me, it's interesting and fun to see how the precursors of modern games have created lasting impressions on the genres we know and love today. Hammerwatch successfully captures the charm of older titles and presents it all in an easy to access but difficult to master package.

By the way, if you're curious, here's the 2014 release of Gauntlet.

Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together Beta

From the Canadian indie development team Klei Entertainment, Don't Starve Together is a standalone multiplayer extension of the Minecraft and Tim Burton inspired 2013 release, Don't Starve. Don't Starve Together made its debut on Steam in late 2014 and is available to Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms.

you and your friends have one job

Passing through the great survival game floodgate of 2013 and 2014, Don't Starve was all about teaching kids a great life axiom: do not plunge into hunger and die. The parent game was met with critical acclaim with lauding comments such as "You will die," "A game where poop is more important than gems," and "I WORE A MELON ON MY HEAD AND DIED OF STARVING. BEST GAME EVER." However, the greatest sanity-draining-melon-hat simulator on Steam did not have multiplayer, which many players found odd. A survival game with crafting but no multiplayer? What is this? So amidst the historical 2014 cries of "༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ VOLVO GIFF DIRETIDE", the team behind Don't Starve decided to tap the multiplayer potential of Don't Starve. 

First off, I want to express how glad I am that Don't Starve Together has its own server hosting. No need to tangle with port forwarding if you aren't familiar with it. Games like Terraria, Risk of Rain and, for the longest time, Hammerwatch simply did not have its own server hosting capabilities. Hosting and connecting is simple and quick in Don't Starve Together.

If you've read my first impression experience with Unturned, another survival game that came through the 2013-2014 game industry floodgate, you wouldn't be surprised if I told you that I didn't plunge into the multiplayer experience alone on a random server. I gathered up two other well-fed friends, Ben and Mark, who were willing to starve with me and together, we made a pact to not starve. Random servers have PvP settings and likely more griefing and hostility between players which I did not want to dabble in. Throwing ourselves into Maxwell's nightmare dimension that is the world of Don't Starve, we were confident that we would forge the great state of Camp Carlos for the Oncadorian nation.

the melon is a historical symbol of power

Backed by fantastic art direction, sound work, and an eclectic cast of player characters each with their own unique abilities and drawbacks, the gameplay is relatively simple and easy to pick up on. Survival consists of three aspects: Hunger, Sanity, and Life Points. The early days will be spent collecting basic resources and exploring the lay of the land and players will find themselves in a relatively cosy encampment. A variety of odd flora and fauna dot the different biomes you will come across. Resources can be crafted into tools which advance players towards better structures, tools, and equipment. But be wary: you will most likely die before you can starve as the trial-and-error process takes its toll. You'll soon learn that darkness is fatal, frogs are assholes, and that a lush farm of reeds conceals something terrible (HINT: It's your death).

Although exploration and experimentation are the keystones of what makes a survival game (aside from crafting and never leaving Early Access), a majority of quality of life information is hidden from players, specifically tool-tips for items. Axes are no good for combat and log suits actually block 80% of physical damage. You will most certainly be tied to the Don't Starve Wiki to figure out a vast majority of the intricate mechanics at work—which isn't a bad thing, it's just that newer players may find themselves frustratingly lost without much direction from the game. However, there is an abundance of content to uncover, from cave systems to an Adventure Mode, provided you don't starve in your journeys. 

let's poke it

You'll most likely not starve but instead die a painful death brought by some strange beast. Combat in Don't Starve Together is similar to its parent game's system heavily involving kiting and exploiting the environment. It's rather mechanically simple but not as intricate as other mechanics found in the game. Fights are rather lackluster and involves watching for animation cycles and striking at the right time; a spear and log suit are dire necessities in fights. Some encounters can also take a long time as you kite a single mob out of a horde as dealing with multiple enemies is suicidal as they will stun-lock you with their attacks. Ranged weapons are scarce and difficult to come by in the early game, resulting in a rather underdeveloped and dull set of combat mechanics. Later on, players will gain access to magical abilities to set enemies on fire or freeze them, but these abilities and items take quite a long time to obtain. 

Although straight brawling mechanics are dull, environmental solutions can be creative and interesting. Should enemies chase you, one option is to run into a small pig village where the hostile mobs may fight the pigs instead. Setting a forest on fire to reenact the Vietnam War can also get you out of a tight pinch. Piles of gunpowder can be strategically placed to blow up slower foes. A corridor of traps can also be created to halt advancing enemies before they reach the Alamo to eat you and your friends. However, don't be surprised if you find yourself out exploring and get quickly dispatched by some ridiculous nightmare being. Beware of being too cozy in your Alamo: larger boss monsters can often force players to relocate to another camp, ever increasing the sense of urgency and dread.

noot noot

Weather and seasonal effects are also present and affect gameplay. Days are divided into three portions: Day, Dusk, and Night. The length of daylight changes with seasons as do mob behaviors and properties. Learning about how mobs interact with the environment and player can be very handy in learning the ropes of the game. Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer all bring their own unique mechanics such as freezing and overheating that must be overcome if you are to continue to survive.

If you die, I hope you at least didn't die hungry. Don't worry, death in Don't Starve Together isn't permanent; the dead player will return as a ghost player, but its presence negatively affects everyone on the server through a global sanity drain. Ghost players can haunt anything in the world environment for a variety of effects both helpful and detrimental. There are numerous ways to bring back dead players and if you're playing on the more relaxed Endless game mode, players can resurrect at the spawn point for a minor health penalty.
--

"GOLD!" Mark cried out. "MORE GOLD! I WILL BUILD MY CITY ON A HILL WITH GOLD! NOTHING BUT GOLD! I AM WEARING A MELON ON MY HEAD." Ben and I both knew the melon was draining his sanity, but the promised Golden Age of Camp Carlos arrived with our combined efforts and we prospered together for awhile. 

i'm a robot slave and ben is a harem girl or something

Lead on by visions of melon hats and the beacon of the golden shovel, Camp Carlos slowly grew until illiteracy took Ben's life as he failed to recognize what the big zero hovering over his hunger meter meant. The quest to revive Ben was long and trying, but our Pyrrhic victory over our challenges left us weak and insane. Pecked apart by the world, at the very least we didn't starve together. We only horribly descended into insanity to be eaten by our own nightmares together.

Tropico 4

Tropico 4 is a city-building and political simulation game developed by Bulgarian developers Haemimont Games and published by Kalypso Media, based in Germany. Released back in 2011 for Microsoft Windows and the Xbox 360, Tropico 4 saw a Mac OS X release in 2013.

Summer has begun! It's officially time to plan your perfect island paradise getaway. But what if that perfect island doesn't exist? Sure, you could go to Hawaii, Jamaica, or even Cuba now, but will it be the island experience you've imagined it to be? Even so, maybe you'll finally realize that the rent and utility bills actually won't even make your plans possible. You're behind on your mortgage, you've lost your job, and the love of your life has left you for some snob with his own island. You might as well unpack everything and sit down and sulk, staring at the posters of far-off lands you've collected over your youth. Take that bucket list and throw it away- it won't happen! But the good news is, you can simulate everything that could've been with Tropico 4!

my son left for tropico: now he's a sugar farmer and only eats 1 meal a day

City building has a relaxing charm to it; it's fun to watch your city slowly progress through time, slowly sculpting itself into your vision from scratch. Tropico 4 has the player taking on the role of the customizable, illustrious and industrious "El Presidente" to guide the nation of Tropico to glory, whether it be a Communist utopia nightmare dimension or a Capitalist industrial nightmare dimension. Hey, at least the zoos and aqua parks offer your unyieldingly loyal Tropicans some respite!

healthcare is terrible and his friends are dead

Set to the tune of a handful of dazzling and energetic Caribbean soundtracks, the game offers a campaign storyline and a sandbox mode, both similar in gameplay. The backbone of Tropico 4's gameplay has the player developing a nascent island economy by harvesting and exporting raw materials such as ore, farm foods, salt, and logs. As time goes on, industry and service sectors become primary forms of income. However, this must all be done while juggling favor among Tropico's multiple factions. El Presidente, the Communists are raving for adequate housing and better healthcare again; the Environmentalists are demanding more gardens and a demolition of every lumber mill on the island; the Militarists just want more soldiers in their petition- the list goes on and on. It is up to the player as to which factions will hold priority, but beware: unhappy Tropicans are likely to protest, stalling production, and ultimately may end up as rebels!

The buildings and structures available in Tropico 4 are vibrant and demonstrate great attention to detail. The camera level can range from omniscient Tropican god to street level plebeian where you can watch your people go about their daily activities. Tropican lifestyle is ultimately dictated by the player, but a variety of life comforts must be available: food quality, job quality, religious satisfaction, entertainment, etc. Again, if these requirements are not met, Tropicans may defect and rebel. Perhaps you've created a religious police state where any heathen against the personality of El Presidente is arrested? Maybe a tourist paradise, juxtaposed with the poor and ragged toiling away in chemical and weapons factories just the next block over? Although the threat of rebellion from Tropicans demanding freedom of speech and increased liberty sounds pretty scary, the actual consequences of a rebellion are rather low.

there's no fire department; only 6 casinos and a zoo

In the event that the rebels do decide to launch an attack on one of your buildings, your army will be called in to deal with them. Even if the rebel threat isn't dealt with, the worst I've seen in 30 hours of gameplay is simply a single building destroyed. Although Tropico 4 is a kind of laid back, relaxing city builder, the sense of agency it attempts to create with its political system (for example, if relations with the US or USSR get too low, they may invade your island, ending the game) isn't quite all there. Foreign relations are relatively simple to juggle; completing two or three objectives lands you in a pretty spot with world powers. This leads to much of the game's more intricate features being somewhat wasted: options to interact with citizens or bribe faction leaders will mostly go unused. More often, I will find myself in an awkward position where my economy is shot down the pipes, leaving me unable to spend anymore capital as my treasure descends into the nether world where the debts pile up. My island would still run and there wouldn't be any serious repercussion; even being down tens of thousands of dollars did not lead to any losing condition.

Micromanagement of buildings can also be a hassle as the game's interface only allows for a single building to be selected at once. This leads to a problematic late-game scenario where you'll want to adjust wages for all of a certain type of building and then having to hunt them down, one-by-one. User interface issues are extended in the event of natural disasters: tsunamis, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, etc. can damage or destroy buildings, leaving a small indicator as to where the building is (or was). Again, if you've gotten far enough into the game and are managing a rather well-to-do island, it can be frustrating trying to find every little building that was destroyed in your urban sprawl.

tropico's top selling book: the naughty toucan

Despite suffering from a rather underdeveloped political game and annoying interface issues, being able to create your own story and vision for how your island develops is at the core of what makes Tropico 4 so addicting and rewarding. Strategy games often have that "Just one more turn!" feeling where even after you've won, you just want to keep going. City building sims also exude that satisfaction of a planned and elaborate cityscape. Even after you've beaten the campaign and its various challenges, player made levels are also available, tacking on more content for the player to explore and share. Tropico 4 also boasts a great sense of humor; it's characters and voice-acting satirize real world counterparts and archetypes, fleshing out the entire experience and adding a great sense of aesthetic pleasure.

Take that bucket list out of the trash- your dreams come true in Tropico! Now get off the game and find a job.