Let’s “discuss” Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (Part 3).

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.”
--Jeremiah 29:11-12

All right.  One for the road.

Don’t worry.  We’ll get through the campaign together.  Or...part of it at least.  So let's go ahead and get bloppy one last time.

Let’s “discuss” Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (Part 1).

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

--Romans 3:23-26

*sigh*

Shit.

On the Ninja Turtles and High Voltage

You know what?  I’ve never talked about Twilight at length on this blog, have I?

Okay, then.  Let’s go ahead and start with that.

Watch Dogs (feat. Kamen Rider W)

Let me say this to start: this post is, at a bare minimum, eight months old.

Like, I’d written pretty much everything a while back.  But for one reason or another, other posts took priority.  I’d blame a single game for it, but I think for now I’ll just take the high ground and point fingers at the better part of reality itself.  So at some point I just decided to have it go up on a certain date.

“Hey, you know what?” I asked myself.  “You’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of your very first post on Watch Dogs, AKA the game you consider the worst western-developed game you’ve ever played.  Why not celebrate sheer mediocrity and unacceptably-poor design by offsetting it with your not-at-all-secret Kamen Rider propagandist agenda?”

So here we are.  And here we shall be, until the world knows just how miserable of a game Watch Dogs is -- and that we must never forget what Ubisoft hath wrought.  But on the plus side?  Guys in big dumb monster suits.  And armored suits.  Just suits all over the damn place.

Let's discuss Beyond: Two Souls.

Beyond: Two Souls is not a good game.  You should know that going into this post.

It’s not a good game.  It’s not a good movie.  It’s not a good story.  It’s not a good anything.  The nicest thing you could say about it -- like a lot of games these days -- is “at least it looks nice”.  And to what end?  I’d say it’s at the cost of everything else, but this game is largely the brainchild of Quantic Dream and David Cage.  He knew what he was doing.  So did his cadre.  Compromises had to be made, sure, but this is a game that at least tries, and likely tries hard, to stick to a creative vision.  That’s respectable, but the final product is proof that sometimes that isn’t always for the best.

At this stage, I’d bet that anyone who cares about the game already knows if they like it or not.  Enough words were spared via release window reviews.  The Best Friends Zaibatsu’s LP is practically a PSA on avoiding it.  Even I’ve gone on about it on more than one occasion.  So the assumption is that there’s nothing left to say.

Except there is.  Because what this game implies -- what it practically expects of us -- paints a pretty bleak picture of the gaming culture.

A Blithering Post on Power and Respect

So if you’re reading this, I’m going to assume that you’ve been using the internet long enough to have heard the phrase “strong female character” -- and if you’ve been on even longer than that, then you’ll have seen rebuttals of the phrase so biting that you’d think they were straight outta Ace Attorney.  You’d think that given those arguments, the rest of this post would be about how video games need more strong female characters.    And you’re half-right.  All things considered, is there ever a time when we SHOULDN’T be asking for that?  Besides, you know, when it consistently happens in fiction?

But let me step back a bit.  Yes, women need better representation in fiction, including -- if not especially in -- video games.  It’d help if they appeared more often, but at this stage I’d take quality over quantity if it came down to it.  But you know what?  Male characters need better representation, too.  No matter the gender, any given hero or heroine could stand to get a boost in quality.  It’s more obvious with the ladies, yes, but I don’t think my demands are unreasonable.

Well, usually.  Maybe.  Possibly?  Well, that’s neither here nor there.

On the Pursuit of Next Gen -- ACT II

Have I mentioned that I don’t understand the games industry anymore?  I have?  Well, have I done it recently?  I haven’t?  All right, then.

I don’t understand this industry anymore.

Revenge is Boring

Yep.  Taking a hard stance on this one -- because I’m convinced that contrary to popular belief, it’s not a dish best served cold.  Or at all.  But let me back up a little.

My friend and I both gave my brother trouble over Middle-Earth: Shadows of Mordor because it just looked like a knockoff Assassin’s Creed.  Licensed game garbage, and little else.  But considering the majority of the reviews and reactions, it looks like the two of us were wrong -- and if nothing else, my bro’s been having a hell of a time with it.  So yeah, I guess I can’t help but offer up my blessing to those that enjoy it, and the game itself.  To an extent.

I’ll concede that the gameplay and the Nemesis system are (apparently) amazing, but there’s more to it than that.  The question that was on my mind for a while was “All right, so how’s the story?”  And the answer I’ve gotten, more or less, is “awful”.  You play as some guy whose wife and child get killed, and he strikes out with newfound ghost powers to exact his revenge on those that wronged him, leaving a trail of bodies in hizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

Are Video Games Actually Hurting Us?

So I started watching Kamen Rider Gaim.

I said as much on Twitter, but it bears repeating: Gaim strikes me as what happens when a man watches the movie version of West Side Story, and takes it WAY too seriously -- and upon realizing that the streets of New York aren’t filled with gang battles won via elaborate dance moves, proceeded to have a nervous breakdown. 

The show starts in one place, and becomes something completely different barely a quarter of the way in.  Without giving away any spoilers, let’s just say that head writer Gen Urobuchi has evidently been playing a lot of Devil Survivor…and unfortunately, happened to watch huge swaths of the abysmal anime adaption.

That -- much like the majority of this post -- is pretty depressing.  So you might want to have your favorite comedic video or song uploaded.  

(Should your search fail, Gaim will provide.)  

On the Ninja Turtles and Nostalgia

I never really liked Scooby-Doo.

There was a time when I sat down for a marathon of episodes -- my first exposure to the show as a wee little Voltech.  Believe it or not, I was excited for them.  And then I actually sat down and watched them, and I pretty much went “Ehhhhhhhhhhh…this is kinda garbage.”  I guess I just didn’t have the artistic sensibilities for it yet. 

But those sensibilities never did develop.  Even with the myriad spinoffs and alternate versions -- there was one about catching thirteen ghosts, which gave the series a built-in END button -- I never found myself treating the franchise as anything more than a diversion.  Just some background noise to play, or a last-ditch effort to find something on TV.  Still, Scooby-Doo has long since found both its legs and its audience, and it doesn’t matter if I’m not a member of it -- although, as it turns out, I actually think the recent Mysteries Incorporated show is pretty good.  I’ve only seen bits and pieces of it, but I could see myself watching that more than anything else.

The reason I bring up Scooby-Doo is because it’s proof of an obvious truth: the past is not sacrosanct.  Just because it’s from yesteryear doesn’t automatically make it flawless and worthy of some slot in the hall of fame.  It can qualify, sure, but there’s no reason why the old should get a seat on a golden throne just because it has a familiar name.

Which brings us to…well, you read the title, didn’t you?

Is It Possible to Ruin a Medium?

There’s a new Transformers movie out.  Joy of joys.

I really don’t want to talk about it for very long, much less see it.  If you’ve poked around this blog before, then you may be aware that one viewing of Dark of the Moon pretty much shaved thirty years off my life.  I’m not in the mood to lose any more, whether it’s by way of seeing Age of Extinction on TV years after release, or by plopping down in a theater to subject myself to the torture.  In all fairness, though, I’ve heard from a few people -- MovieBob, surprisingly -- that the latest is the best yet.  That’s not saying much, and even his review seemed to make the praise relative to complaints, but I guess it’s something.

The Tuesday after MovieBob’s review, a video went up where he suggested that we need to (as per the title) “Leave Michael Bay Alone”.  That’s…actually pretty fair.  He’s a person who’s very easy to rage at, obviously, but setting aside the fact that he didn’t make the Transformers movies alone -- let alone turn them into a runaway hit -- hating what he’s put out and hating the man itself skirts a very thin line.  And people just might play double-dutch with that line thanks to the fodder provided by the trilogy.  Er…quadrilogy.

But talking about Bay and the Transformers movies is as good a point to start as any.  See, there’s something I think might be worth talking about -- which you might have guessed if you read the title.  If you didn’t, then don’t go back and read it.  You’ll spoil the surprise.

The Problem with Watch Dogs (Part 3 -- FINALE)

So.  Have you seen the new Godzilla movie?

I haven’t.  Plans were being made at one point, but they fell through when time ran out (i.e. we would rather play video games).  Just as well, though; I wasn’t in any rush to see it, because it would have meant I’d have to take time out to do at least one post on it…not to mention that I’d have to sit through it.  And the MovieBob review -- among others -- told me pretty much everything I dreaded would happen: 1) Godzilla is almost (not quite, but almost) marginalized in his own movie, 2) Bryan Cranston isn’t in it as much as trailers and promos would suggest, and 3) the story follows some generic soldier with a generic story instead of anyone interesting.  Like Ken Watanabe’s character, for one.

Maybe I would have cared about the movie more if I hadn’t seen the trailer -- or had thought it was “amazing”, since that was apparently enough to get plenty of people hyped.  But I guess that trailer, and the movie at large, offered more than enough.  It must have, seeing as how it’s become a runaway hit, and there are already mumblings of a sequel.  So if people are happy, then maybe that’s good enough. 

But maybe it isn’t.

Which brings me back to Watch Dogs.