played the Ratchet & Clank remake cuz it was free on PS4 and it’s striking how the level and weapon and mission design are so close to Halo singleplayer AND Saints Row but our received categories of FPS/open world/platformer obscure that
got Kingdom Come, because apparently “3D open-world RPG Visegrad fantasy epic from the working man’s perspective with subtextual cultural conservatism” is a genre now and I liked The Witcher III
Paradox is putting some real money into advertising the new British-themed EUIV expansion, I’ve had ads following me around to places I wouldn’t expect for Steam DLC
continuing the theme of “AAA vidya is the new middlebrow deep”, the new Gallipoli maps for Battlefield One are all dry slopes and seasonal-river gulches
and I literally thought “this calls for Australians”
the differing trench and fence design – from linings of British raw-cut posts to German fully planked-up and wired for electricity to Russian woven twigs holding back frozen earth – is one of my favorite things about Battlefield One and I can tell people put work into it
yo the female Russian sniper in the WWI-themed Battlefield One is the most hilarious synechdoche of women in AAA wargaming 2017
because on the one hand she’s suuuuuch a tryhard stretch (mostly drawing on the later Soviet women’s charisma, unlike the actual brownskinned colonial troops used for classes on other sides)
and on the other the fire-burned pain callouts they used come out so female-marked as to sound orgasmic
After seeing the treatment of Eli/Liquid Snake/White Mamba in Phantom Pain, and thinking back on Gau in FFVI, I’m a little curious about the Japanese reception of Tarzan and the broader “white boy wild in the African backcountry” trope
me: well I've never played Heavy Rain or any of the walking simulators
also me: since like 7th Guest or Leisure Suit Larry
me: but that stuff is at least now in the spectrum of things I'm expected to and do recognize references to, which is more than I can say of any literary novel since maybe Infinite Jest at best
also me: even Sabbat
me: even Sabbat, I've never played that either
also me: but you have played Corruption of Champions
Your Hate Object Has Redeeming Qualities: The “Abstergo” Frame Story to Assassin’s Creed
• been pretty consistently about the coming neoliberal apocalypse from the start, before it was obvious that was the theme of our generation
• once the Dan Brown shit burned off that was the scaffolding, our modern world and all the decoration we associate with it is continuous with the rawest premodern power structures
• there was even that one where they got meta and Abstergo was a Montreal-based game developer making the pivot from single-player campaigns to online matchmaking
• where the vulnerability was the neoliberal contracting-out of the break room to an independent coffee stand in the lobby
• also Shaun can be a fun voice with a writer who understands that cynical front from inside
MGS Phantom Pain’s free on PS4 this month, so playing that. It’s striking how much “open world” is its own genre that’s quietly but TOTALLY indebted to MMORPGs, particularly WoW
you ride a mount
collecting plants and animals and minerals
around an open world full of enemies you see before you aggro
or sneak by
to collect treasure
for the townbuilding and crafting money sinks cause why not?
but sometimes you’re in a special enclosed space for a scripted run
i waved this off for a bit but it’s really getting to me now
how I’m pretty sure aggro radius scales with level, and how much they encourage you to play old content (missions/dungeons)
by way of bonus challenges for completionists and an even more streamlined way that it leads to the new gear you want
it’s like the abortive gear level/instancing of AC:French Revolution finally met… ohh, whatever point I was trying to make GTA Online made it already
but I haven’t even gotten to the stage where the game apparently becomes an online townbuild/attack/defend resource gatherer with a real-money currency to hurry things
which sounds so on the nose it might be a Kojima tease no matter how much the mechanics suggest it
the outlier as open world games go is Just Cause, which somehow took its physics energy seriously enough to invent a “physics” base to match Skyrim’s “RPG” and Destiny’s “FPS” and MGSV’s “Stealth” and Zelda’s whatever
Watching the Metal Gear Discourse from afar it was this mass of incomprehensible plot and references plus “haha, Kojima, ❤️”.
Playing Phantom Pain I can confirm that’s accurate. Like, the 6 Million Dollar Man sound effect every time you punch with Snake’s bionic arm? Haha, Kojima, ❤️.
MGS Phantom Pain’s free on PS4 this month, so playing that. It’s striking how much “open world” is its own genre that’s quietly but TOTALLY indebted to MMORPGs, particularly WoW
you ride a mount
collecting plants and animals and minerals
around an open world full of enemies you see before you aggro
or sneak by
to collect treasure
for the townbuilding and crafting money sinks cause why not?
but sometimes you’re in a special enclosed space for a scripted run
Prestige TV AND indie/walksim games are a distraction from the fact that AAA studio games (beautifully, accurately set in TIME_PERIOD) are the new Middlebrow Significant Movies
