April game showers

Finished up Bioshock Infinite DLC, which was a pleasure. 2 of the 3 episodes delve deeper into Rapture (Bioshock 1) and Columbia (Bioshock Infinite) and flush out some of the character details.

Dat's priddy.

Next on the list was Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, which was a pretty sweet short game, taking 5 hours or so to go through the main story and mop up. Gameplay is some pretty simple puzzles, and you control each brother with a different analog stick, providing some neat coordination. The story itself has an emotional doozy that sets it apart from other titles, but that's something to be expected with indie games.

A quick note is that I topped off Gems of War, which came out with a few more trophies along with its February overhaul.

I sat down to try Disc Jam, February's free title on PS+. It's a frisbee game that is all about timing, and my online record is 1W 20L, and I only started playing a week after it came out. It's hard not to let a horrible record like this color my opinion of the game, but it was free, so it had that going for it.

I also got to try Smite, a free-to-play MOBA that I'd been curious about for a while, and like it quite a bit. The problem is that Overwatch's April event, Uprising, is just so damned cool and taking a lot of my game time. While I'm talking about Uprising, Overwatch would be great except the players. As with every other mode, you really need to work at a team, and selfish players are rampant, trying to get as many kills as they can, forgetting about team composition and support. This is such an integral part of the game and leads to such frustration that I set much shorter match limits and game session time before I move on to other titles for the day. Fucking Overwatch.

I am Death in Reaper form...pretty cool.

Which leaves me with the last title that I have put 50 hours into, and have mixed feelings about. Darksiders 2 is an action adventure game with limited exploring, dungeons and fast-paced fighting reminiscent of God of War. I'd say it's a mixture of combat like GoW, exploration and puzzles like Zelda, and loot with stats like Diablo. It's violent, the watercolor graphics work well with the demonic tone, and the campaign is quite long and varied. So far, so good. However, the game has three things that piss me off to high hell.

Where the hell are the wrath potions? I'm at the end of the
story and there's just no
reason for this other than piss-poor game design

The first is that your character can hold 5 health potions and wrath (think MP) potions, but for some REALLY stupid reason, the vendors sell limited amounts of potions. Some jackass actually decided this was a feature of this game. So, occasionally, you'll want to top out your potions before a mission (or in the middle, you can actually fast travel in and out of dungeon rooms), and the vendor will only provide you 3 out of 5 potions, so you have to travel to yet another one to fill up your stock. Add in loading time, and the fact that some of the fast travel points are still a short walk away from the vendors and this is incredibly annoying. Especially, the Crucible. This is a 100 wave survival fest, where you have the option to take an item every 5 waves, and there are checkpoints every 25. However, there's no vendor in the Crucible, and if you die, the game saves your potion use, despite giving you nothing else. This so unnecessarily interrupts the gameplay that it's both stupid, and shows the developers don't respect their gamers. There's also a bug where you trade in this limited currency (boatmen coins) you find around the map, but if your inventory is full, or your reload to try again, you lose the weapon you traded this finite resource for. That frustration is a little less than the granddaddy of them all.

Didn't bother to load or render the floor...I shortly
fell through and the game crashed after this.

This game crashes. All the time. I keep getting to 1 or 2 Crucible battles from the next wave checkpoint and the game will crash. This is not as bad during the main campaign, as dungeons have checkpoints every 5 minutes or so. However, between the potion thing, since the game takes the perverse chance to save your potion use and then crash, you are left with a huge waste of time. I absolutely can't stand games that are made to this poor level of standard, but am so close to the platinum that I will slog on. In doing the 100 waves of Crucible, the game has crashed 10 times in the span of about 6 hours of playing. That 6 hours would probably be 5 if not for crashing, and 2 if I didn't have to leave the area, loading screen, teleport to the potion vendor, loading screen, and then walk to the vendor, and teleport back, loading screen.

At least there are cool boss fights.

Darksiders 2 is what you get when designers and programmers don't attend the same meetings, and it's even more frustrating when a game is so good in other aspects but one. That spoils the milk, and I'm glad I'm renting this and didn't pay full price for it. It's truly hard to recommend unless you have the patience of a Zen monk or played the first title and it blew your hair backwards. Otherwise, play Zelda, God of War or Diablo, which are games that were actually playtested.

Next up: Odin Sphere, a 2d J-Action-RPG!

Take that Viking Robotnik!

In March 2017

March: Zelda, Defense Grid 2, Ratchet and Clank, Overwatch, Far Cry: Primal, Super Stardust Ultra, Gems of War.

After some initial doubt about whether or not I could get Breath of the Wild, I finally nabbed it off Amazon a few days after release (for that sweet $48.)

However, I have sinned, readers. I played Zelda: Breath of the Wild for about 4 hours and put down the controller. However, let me redeem myself, cause this was just a case of bad timing.

I joined Gamefly this month, and they have a promotion for 2 games at once for 2 months for $20 total. My first rental was Far Cry: Primal: a sandbox game with hunting, stalking and crafting. Also recently released and on my list is Horizon: Zero Dawn, which has hunting and stalking. Zelda: Breath of the Wild also has a great deal of...hunting, stalking and crafting. So, I will hold off on journeying through Zelda until I put some space between other games that are so similar, to give Zelda the proper attention and respect. That said, let's get on with the latest game pursuits.

Far Cry: Primal was a super-enjoyable easy platinum that was just long enough. I'm not a big fan of sandbox games because they're usually too big. The nonlinear story was probably 5 hours, with plenty of distracting side missions and collectibles. Luckily, you only need to collect slightly more than half of all them, plus they give you XP to help you level. If any developers are reading this: do what Far Cry did and make your collectible items tied into the gameplay, and you get a permanent thumbs up from me: art galleries for finding 100 items are so anti-climactic.

Whatup, Sayla?

Also, the game is gorgeous. The terrain is very uneven, there are plenty of ways to get from A to B, but as large as the world is, there are very little obstructions: an unscalable cliff usually only takes 30 seconds to sprint around, which I feel encourages you to explore. Most other games would require a key, item or vehicle to let you access things like that. You can also slide down walls for most steep descents, which is another way to keep travel going smoothly. Finally, the game has almost no loading time, which is crazy considering how big the world is. It's hard to imagine that all sandbox games are this tightly constructed in that you don't need 200 hours to fully explore every nook and cranny to get dat platinum. Also, bonus: hot cavewomen.

Sweet, sweet graphics!

Next up is a rental I completed in 3 fun-filled days: Ratchet and Clank. These adventure platform games are always a win, with quality voice acting and funny scenes that aren't too intrusive to the gameplay. The levels have lots of enemies, explosions, and creative weapons that get stronger the more you use them. For example, instead of the freeze ray, the equivalent weapon pixellates enemies, turning them 2D. Instead of stopping, you throw a disco ball that pacifies enemies by making them dance, complete with music and all. These features, plus great graphics and sound design made my two playthroughs very very enjoyable.

Defense Grid 2 is a tower defense game and easy platinum that took a bit longer than I expected. There are 20 levels, but to get the trophies, you have to replay a lot of them under different conditions. However, the are many ways to win, so you can play pretty creatively. It took me about 15 hours, and I finished 1/3rd of a season of Star Trek, so the repetition was easily overcome!

Everyone needs a game that cuts to the action, and Super Stardust Ultra is it. No story or cutscenes, SSU is a twin-stick shooter with awesome graphics and bumpin electronic music. Sometimes you're caught at a rough part of your main game, or a part of an RPG is just dragon on (yeah, that's not autocorrect). SSU scratches the itch and breaks the monotony, and playing it loud and inebriated makes it that much better.

Side note that a long-locked trophy on Overwatch finally popped for me. Since OW is completely online PVP, the trophies were easier to get when it first came out and everyone sucked at the game. Now that it's been out 9 months, between skilled gamers and Blizzard trying to keep trophy boosters out by constant rotation and strict idling rules, you have to git gud 2 git trophies. I had actually done what was required in the first month of having the game, but Sony didn't recognize it. Well, Can't Touch This is mine, now!

Gems of War is still free to play, and got another update and trophy package. Get you some!

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February Game Buster

I used all 28 days in February to put in work on my Gaming Goals in 2017. First up: Axiom Verge. This game rules so hard. If you liked Super Metroid, you'll love this game. It's got a slick 16-bit look, complete with a fitting, atmospheric soundtrack, non-invasive storytelling and tight controls. My first play-through was on Hard, and I also wanted to collect all items, scattered throughout the map. There is no in-game indicator of hidden items, like Super Metroid/Castlevania's white map dot, or like Metroid Prime's item hum. Instead, you get a dot when you've collected all items in an area, which is really only handy when you're in the last parts of collection cleanup. All this took me 17 hours, and I was shocked that my subsequent play on a lower difficulty didn't feel much easier. The last thing I'll say is that the game is great in its own right, but the art, programming and music were all done by one talented Tom Happ. Bravo, mate!

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The second game went on sale for $5 (frugal fist-pump) the week after I wrote about wanting to play it: Life is Strange. This interactive story has very little action gameplay, as you primarily examine objects and talk to people. Whereas Mass Effect, Chrono Cross, and other choice-influenced narratives had a lot of gameplay and production value, this game has a much smaller scope, but is richly produced. For me, Mass Effect had scenes that fell flat because awkward voice acting, animation, or maybe I was just not in the right frame of mind. Plus, for all the choices to make, the handful of similar endings was infamously lackluster. Chrono Cross had 12 different endings which were vastly different, and may have been a better execution of an evolving story, but the 40 characters were too much to handle. Instead of saving the world or galaxy, Life is Strange wins significance for exploring a part of life that everyone can relate to: high school.

Rip it, Chloe!

This game is probably the most linguistically modern thing I've ever played. There is a lot of swearing, the collocations are alive and cracking, and the NPCs feel like real people. While you go through some pretty mundane experiences, like building friendship via friendly conversation choices, there is a hint of supernatural, and the end product is pretty compelling. It's definitely one of the easiest platinum trophies out there, but challenge wasn't the point of Life.

As a bonus, the last day of the month saw Defense Grid 2 go on sale for $1.50! This is another game from my 2017 list! (So, double-arm frugal fist-pump). Go-go-tower defense!

Lastly, one surprise is that I fired up the free-to-play MOBA Kill Strain for the first time in a while, just to get the 2 remaining silver trophies (and thus platinum) in one very lucky round! That brings a 6 month platinum path to a close.

Update: I made a video about Kill Strain!

My 1500 cents

Call me naive, call me a lunatic, but more businesses need to pay more than market minimum. Workers are more productive than ever. Think about that drive-thru employee is listening to your order while transacting with the person ahead of you. Now that that's in your head, do you remember what it's like to talk to two people at once about different things? Granted, you're not exactly discussing the merits of universal healthcare and basic income with the drive-thru associate, but multitasking in that way requires practice. Now, add money handling and some spot reading for entering these items into a console. Is that skill really only marginally valuable? Is that really what fast food workers did 20 years ago?

What about clerical work? It's true that certain types of knowledge are left to your supervisors and co-workers, like processes, policies, and management. However, so many questions can be Googled verbatim and avoid the labor of old school research. During my telephone customer service job at Zumiez, 15 of us (in shifts of 8-10 people) handled website issues, orders and store feedback for 600 stores across the nation. One phone call could have me using up to 8 different applications. This could not have been done at this level of efficiency 25 years ago, plain and simple.

Most of those store owners and CEOs didn't have to work at that capacity in that position in their time. I'm not saying they didn't have their challenges, but there needs to be a lot more empathy for raising the wage floor. The workforce asks a lot of their employees, and it's insulting to argue against raising minimum wage.

Obviously, opponents of raising minimum wage aren't against paying employees more. You'll hear reasoning that higher wages mean higher prices in general rising. Well, maintaining the status quo has screwed us over. Also, products aren't going to cost $6 per hour more. That is impossible. People might have a few years of tight wallets while the markets adjust, but I am positive about the outcome. Hopefully some opportunists will sock away their extra funds in this period of adjustment.

A restaurant in Seattle did away with tips after making the change in wages. So, while their menu prices have gone up, customers who are satisfied with their servers making a living wage won't be shelling out that much more to eat. Of course, frugal peeps like you and me say they should be cooking at home, and that this is a luxury anyway! However, I don't want that to detract from the case I'm building that the conscientious customer force is growing; there are lots of people who pay more because they know workers get more. This doesn't have to be just restaurants. Consider the consumers who make an effort to buy products made in America because the goods are likely produced under fair work conditions. Whole Foods and Costco don't show any signs of slouching on prices or employee pay. These businesses are certainly targeting those who have the money for it, and the $15 minimum would welcome some people into this group. That oughtta do some good, eh?

Then there are others who currently make under $15 and more than minimum wage, and fear they'll suddenly be out-earned. Are you kidding me? Do you really think your profession's unions and employees won't demand more once they see the world still standing after such a dramatic change? If not, quit your job and apply for the new minimum wage!

One last common argument against raising the minimum wage is that there will be less work to go around. Automation is coming anyway, and businesses have long been shafting employees of benefits by keeping them under full-time status. Also, I've stitched together 3 jobs to make a living before: this new minimum may mean people in that position only have to work 2.

So that's my 1500 cents on minimum wage. Cost of living is going up anyway, and we all work hard and so deserve it. If you are in Seattle, you're all set cause it's coming. Maybe we can next focus on the stingy bullshit 2 weeks annual vacation, or ridiculous heavy-handedness in giving managers bonuses that they don't pass on to their underlings next. Maybe we can abolish or limit exempt (overtime without pay) and keep the deserving managers a little happier.

Gaming Goals in 2017

Part of my frugality includes my 2 games beaten, 1 game bought policy. I didn't do very well last year, achieving 1.4 games beaten for each new one I spent money on in 2016. Well, why not make a plan this time? This list of games I want to play in 2017 is an attempt to balance newly-acquired games and ones that have been sitting around for longer. While I'm at it, I might as well talk about em!

1) Axiom Verge. I saw a preview video a year or so ago, and just got it now cause it was on sale.

2) Infamous 2: First Light. Really fun, if ridiculous, game, and a solid, quick platinum trophy package.

3) Funk of Titans. This looked like a neat platformer of which I only saw a snippet.

4) Defense Grid. I love tower defense games, and haven't seen anything I liked for the current generation of systems. Hopefully this scratches the itch!

I have no idea what this game is about...

5) Sideway. This street-art-style platformer has been sitting on my PS3 for years, and has a very easy trophy rating. The perspective reinforces that you are a 2d sprite sometimes, just like the 3ds Zelda game, so that's cool.

6) Danganronpa. I saw it as a recommendation for a fun-and-easy platinum list.

7) Oceanhorn. I bought it in January, and this top-view adventure game is going to be dope daddy dollars! There have been comparisons to Wind Waker, and that is a good thing.

8) I am Setsuna. I missed TWO sales on this classic JRPG with Chrono Trigger-style combat, with the rationale that I'd buy it after I did more damage to my backlog.

9) Any Final Fantasy titles because Final Fantasy rules.

10) Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild. Ditto for above.

I look forward to experiencing these titles, and will of course let you know the skinny on how these games treated me. First up: Axiom-Verge-a-go-go!

Games of 2017: January's Task

Happy New Year! 2017 has gone off to a good start: I'm back into Overwatch, and doing a pretty well, after a frustrating Fall. Mei is still overpowered, but some recent tweaks, such as making more loot chests, an extra map, and Mystery Heroes has revived my interest in the game. It's just too bad I still get shitty loot boxes. In related news, January 2017 was my most platinum-trophy-productive month ever! Added bonus: 3 out of 4 of these games were free via PS+.

select item, select action, figure it out!

In the first week of January, I'd already gotten two platinum trophies! Day of the Tentacle was this month's free PS+ download, and I did everything in one session. The actual game is an old-school LucasArts adventure game with tons of light-hearted comedy that totally fell flat on me. The puzzles and barriers in games like this are often obscure and require an extensive memory, so I usually use guides to blaze through. Luckily, kind souls out there write spoiler-free guides so that I can get both the experience and the goodies.

Zap da giant 'nukular' ants

The other game was recommended by my friend, Damon of Videogames and Sushi, and is called Deadly Tower of Monsters. This is a beat-em-up action game that's gimmick is that it's supposedly a cheesy low-budget 70s-style sci-fi flick. The obnoxious director narrates, and the game's setting gives it plenty of permission to be totally random. It was the perfect length at about 5 hours to platinum, start to finish. Luckily, only an hour of that was backtracking, so that's just icing on the cake!

Third on my January platinums list was my favorite game in a while: Stories: Path of Destinies. This game has a lot going for it, including a hilarious narrator that tells the whole story, twists, jokes and all. It's laid out like a book, and throughout the 45-minute game, you get to make 4-5 major choices in the story, resulting in some 25 different endings. In most of the endings, main characters end up dead, and there is pretty much only one happy ending, which you have to piece together the right choices. You'll end up playing the same linear levels, with slightly different goals, and there are parts where paths split, too. However, Reynardo the fox, your badass hero, is quite the menace to his enemies.

Take that, ravens!

The combat in this game flows like the Batman games in that you're surrounded by enemies and take them down, one move at a time. You level up and learn additional combat skills, and I would recommend this game to anyone!

This gun provided a...riveting experience

The caboose on my platinum trophy train was Bioshock 2 on the PS4, which was my first time playing the title. I thoroughly enjoyed this game. I think the warnings I'd gotten about the game were due to the PS3 version's multiplayer, which was cut from the remaster. The trophies are merciful in that you only need to get most of the collectibles, and as long as you stay on your toes, you won't die very often. Even on the highest difficulty, I found myself overloaded with ammo and money. My favorite part of the game was early on, you get to walk through a broken amusement park built by Andrew Ryan, with animated dioramas that show how "the parasite" (government) always steals from the common man's hard work and brilliant ideas. This series' world-building is the best in the biz, and you should definitely try it out, if you haven't!

There you have it, 4 platinum trophies in 31 days. What was your most productive month ?

Free PS+ Games

I started to write a post on recent awesome free games that I'd recommend trophy hunting, when I had a stab of guilt, followed by wonder:

What do developers get out of cheap or free games on PSN (or XBLA)?

Free game, ladies and germs!

My friend ventured a guess that the free title might be a company's chance at getting their name known. Ideally, they would follow up with a larger title after having established a fan base. Word of mouth is a huge force, and I would stake this blog on it! Marketing is expensive, and if you browse the Playstation Store, there are likely hundreds of titles you've never heard of. You'll also see quite a few indie games that don't even have videos or screenshots. Even worse, games that do have videos, but don't even show gameplay. This lacking piece in the marketing puzzle is a waste for everyone because it couldn't possibly be complicated to upload some in-game footage/screens to help sell unknown titles. While I believe in my friends' recommendations, I also say it would behoove The Big Three (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo) to make sure that any titles sold on their stores require previews, as pretty much only larger studios can get away with selling a title on sheer star power *cough NaughtyDog, I love you cough*

After that, I did a bit of research. Similarly to above method is the free to play model, where the devs give you all or most of the game, and the studio makes its money off microtransactions and/or expansions. Blizzard's MOBA, Heroes of the Storm is a perfect model of this, and is still releasing both free and paid content and updates 3 years later. A great example for PS4 is the puzzle game Gems of War. I played it for over half a year, so an added bonus is that I got to see it evolve with massive overhauls and updates, while the game remained free. I really like the idea of this scheme, but it gets abused too often. For example, the basic version of a particular game is extremely crippled to the point of being frustrating. Lots of mobile games follow this toxic pattern, where you can basically play 30 minutes per day, or you can only build your town to a certain size until you slowly gather resources or spend time to speed the process. Give me a fully-functional game, and I'll judge your programming prowess from there!

The last obvious case for some of these deals is that the games are old, and it's a last hurrah for revenue. Through minimal effort, Capcom can get another $5 for Resident Evil V, or the 2 remaining people on planet earth who haven't done so can nab Final Fantasy VII for dat $7.49 PSN flash sale.

Lookout for these bad boys

The PSN store's search method is abysmal, but there's also an overwhelming amount of content there. The final point I want to make about devs' benefits of releasing cheap or free games is that if you're like me and never want to pay full price, one of these sales will also call your attention to a selection, out of the thousands of games currently available to download. A drawback of this is that if too many cheapskates like me wait until a game is free, or heavily discounted, poor ol game makers aren't going to fare well. We have to step aside and let Baller Brians and Impatient Irenes fork over full price and get those developers their pay dirt at release!

However, just cause these games are free doesn't mean the hardworking devs don't get their duck's butter. Kris Graft at Gamasutra found that each game is negotiated with The Big Three and some devs actually get some cash for their efforts.

So, there we are. While you could all easily argue that the PS+ and XBLA games aren't truly free since you're paying for the subscription, I guess you could call me phony. Well, both Heroes of the Storm and Gems of War are Free without need to register anything, so getchu started on that, and let me know if you find some other awesome free titles out there! I'm itching to write about how productive my January was, but that will be in the next post, mein freunds!