Pyre: Another SuperGiant star in the sky

I just completed Pyre and want to talk at length why this just might be my favorite game of 2017. There are minimal story spoilers coming, and there is a ton of things to experience about this game.

Some of your competition aren't bad guys.

You, the Reader, start out in the Downside, a dimensional prison that criminals are sent to for their transgressions in the Commonwealth. As you meet other friendly and less-friendly exiles, you learn that you can earn freedom through Rites, which is where teams of exiles try and extinguish each others' pyre flames. You start to learn that there is a bit of unfairness in how your party was banished from the Commonwealth, and that this world above is quite corrupt. As more of your party is freed from the Downside into the Commonwealth, they make plans to execute a revolution. As the matches continue on, you realize that the amount of chances to transcend are limited, and learn that your competition also has legitimate reasons to pass onto the land above and take their part in the other society. 

Here's where the game really starts to shine: the story progresses whether you win or lose any of the Rites, and the amount of story options and paths opens greatly. In my experience, every other non-linear game I've played has Game Over screens, or progress is otherwise halted if you can't get past a certain point. While I only continued through defeat a few times, I'm pretty sure you can complete the story without winning anything. There's also an incentive to lose every chance to escape because your group makes meaningful connections to one another, and sending them over means you break up friendships.

Always count on ol Bertrude for sentimentality.

Even the Slugmarket is delightfully weird.

Supergiant games always deliver audiovisual masterpieces that set you in worlds with unique characters and engaging gameplay. The bright visuals and art are augmented by a quality musical score that is pretty organic. Occasionally, the guitar or percussion will be muted when a character says something important, and the tracks each have a spontaneous finish when a particular scene or piece of dialogue is over.

This becomes especially apparent at the end of the game, where you read a bio about everyone you've encountered. You're accompanied by a bard, who has a unique role of keeping morale, knowing the rules of Rites, and has a special relationship with the Gatekeeper that hosts the Liberation Rites. These two end up singing a duo at the key battles of Pyre, and impressively sing about each character's epilogue in the game's final song. Based on my choices, I think the lyrics can change, having at least 2 possibilities, and that is something I've never seen before. I'll confirm this on my next playthrough, but details like this kept me covered in goosebumps during many parts of the story.

Ultimately, Pyre is unlike anything I've ever played, though it keeps Supergiant's signature features of games: great color palette, interesting characters, an eccentric narrator, an emotional soundtrack worthy of listening to separately, and well-tested, bug-free gameplay. Play it now!

And this game has passed my test, as being awesome.

August ventures in Controllerville

Between now and my last game-related post, I have gone to Korea, suffered 90-degree summer weeks, and started about 10 games. Summer is my least favorite season by a long shot. Spring brings enough warmth and a reason to go outside, but has these things called wind and rain to cool stuff down. Summer is just a miserable 3 months, and considering I've been in Asia for almost half the summers in my life, I know miserable weather intimately. That said, a couple fans and cold drinks kept me in the chair, gaming on.

First up is Until Dawn, one of PS+'s free July games, and a playable movie in the slasher horror style. The game is exciting enough, and the writing is pretty average; your 8 characters have a few good lines, some bad jokes, and some questionable relationships. The worst part about this game, and the horror genre in general is two particular tropes; jump scares and illogical eyesight. The game takes place in snow-covered forest, and I've jumped out of my chair half a dozen times from crows and caribou - two things that I am absolutely not afraid of. Also, like movies of the genre, there are parts where a character is scared because they can't see what the camera can't see, as if they have no peripheral vision. I think these two features undermine the genre and cheapen the experience. If you want a good movie within the genre, you'll just have to watch Get Out, by my man Jordan Peele. Also, this game has one constantly-overwritten save file, meaning your consequences are permanent. This is a neat feature that would be neater if I weren't trying to get trophies with minimal playthroughs.

Shovel Knight is a 16-bit style platformer that was developed by Yacht Games, who is clearly a fan of the genre. The rockin 8-bit soundtrack that is among the greatest OSTs out there, the gorgeous 2d sprites and the legit challenges via enemy AI and tightly controlled and timed jumps make this game one of the best in its genre. My only issue is that to get all the trophies, you have to beat the game a total of 7 times, with 3 of those times being without dying. However, you can restart the entire level and try again if you do die, so it's not sadistic, just a bother.

Died? Rewind!

Mm...that's one Doomed space marine!

Duke Nukem 3d: World Tour is exactly what you'd expect: a bawdy, wise-cracking smartass hero who knows he's the man. This game translated very well from the PC to the controller, and you can even use cheat codes and still get trophies. However, that's not even necessary, as there is only one difficulty-based trophy.

Can't tell if that's the monster's nads or its heart.

It's a great example of a trophy list where the devs just want you to enjoy and finish the game. Duke Nukem still holds up because the weapons are fun: you'll pretty much use the chaingun and shotgun the whole time because anything with explosives will kill you, and the other novelty weapons like the freeze and shrink rays have limited effectiveness. This was the only game I platinumed outright.





Xenoraid was on sale for $2. I had such a great time with Xeodrifter that I figured games that start with X must be badass. It's true! This game is a top-down shooter with the gimmick that you have up to 4 different ships that have upgrades. There are a few hard trophies such as killing X amount of enemies in survival, but it's an enjoyable game overall with no major flaws.

Pyre has SuperGiant's usual glorious art. This locale is part of the overworld, which is basically purgatory.

Last, but very far from least is Pyre, by one of my favorite indie developers SuperGiant Games. I blindly preordered this game because I enjoyed Bastion and Transistor so much. Pyre is quite unique, but carries the dev team's signature beautiful graphics and amazing soundtrack.

The actual gameplay is split between a choose-your-own path and...street soccer. Pyre's setting is that you're stuck in some kind of spiritual prison, and the way out is to perform Rites before other wandering groups of people. A Rite is where your triumvirate (group of 3) use a celestial orb to extinguish the enemy team's pyre. Yep. I was pretty surprised to discover this gameplay, expecting it to be the isometric beat-em-up with leveling abilities that the last two games were, but am quite happy to have something as cleverly put together as this.

This 2017 administration is a giant mound of trash

2018 will be the first year will I will not hand over my income tax willingly. I think of the benefits I got from a public education, hospitals. More recently: the ease of voting and well-maintained roads. At the same time, between the local police being worthless and my 2 calls to our inept city hall to try and tackle my apartment's water issue, I have come to really resent paying both local and federal tax.

The events in Charlottesville over the August 12-13 weekend were a tear in American fabric. The President had an easy pitch to hit a home run and simply condemn the troublemakers and denounce the obvious evil at work. Instead, he screwed it up, as he screwed up his major platform promises of building a wall, restructuring healthcare, and making America great again.

Republicans and traditionalists like to look to the past for inspiration, usually while failing to handle the present and of course ignoring the future. Building a wall along the border of Mexico ignores the recent slowdown in immigration because their economy and quality of living are improving quickly. Repealing a past change that a nontraditional president (Obama) made, not giving a shit about the tens of millions who would lose their coverage. And obviously, Republican/nationalist/traditionalist slogans like "Make America Great Again," and "Take XYZ back," are calls that current conditions suck and going back in time will solve today's and tomorrow's problems.

You know what else was back in time? Blatant racism, sexism, homophobia, and religious elitism. Obviously, the majority supporters of this won't come out and say they want this, and instead are building a backwards path that is super vague about the future. Under the elephant party's fetishism of the old days, they ignored the fact that a ton of corporations didn't really share their tax breaks with employees, and people were independently allowed to fall on their asses and spent generations trying to crawl out of the muck.

What I'm saying here is nothing new, but it obviously still works. The 2016 election was split pretty close down the middle, despite the vile collection of candidates that ultimately chose the "most successful" of them all to represent the party. But if that's the case, what the hell does success mean? #45 inherited wealth built on denying minority tenants, not paying people back, and lying out of his ass. He sure made a ton of money doing it, though.

And now a huge amount of tax-payers are hoping against hope that he gets nothing done, as his agendas are all crap. The alternative? If #45 gets impeached, we have to deal with a real Republican who will get worse things done. This. Really. Sucks.

While America holds its breath and keeps politicians busy countering the administration's terrible business and political ideas, we're completely blocked from progress. Every 6 months, these cockroaches try and slide in a business proposal that ultimately undermines internet - the sixth human sense - functionality. The Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is burning up resources for how people get into school, rather than focusing on making it worth going to school. The EPA is just a castrated, gutted, ineffective mess. The Department of State is being replaced by inexperienced yes-men, as the existing employees are cut off from advising Rex Tillerson. The list of crimes-against-Americans goes on and will keep coming. Just wait half a day and you'll find an article about who isn't doing their job, but still making more annually than what the average citizen makes in a decade.

#45 appointments have been highly successful at minimizing the government - the heads are all pretty much the antithesis of their departments. As a result, I don't want to pay taxes towards these government bodies that are just dismantling their ideals. These people do not deserve to be paid, and they are not working for the public's interests. Ultimately, I don't want to go to jail, so I will pay my goddamn taxes, but I will stretch that shit to the legal limit, so the money will have a chance to devalue and inflate. I'd love to pay with pennies, but that would have to be mailed, and postage would cost a grip.