Cyberpunk 2077, Completed
Finally finished Cyberpunk 2077 over the weekend. Total playtime was a combined 148 hours.
Years ago, my initial playthrough was as a female V, romancing Judy. Progressed up to the Parade mission, realized that things were probably going to go down, so I took an off-ramp into… literally everything else. Completed every single side-quest, and sucked the very marrow from the progression system. After that, I lost interest in going the final mile, never completing the game.
The second playthrough came as a result of the Phantom Liberty DLC release. Actually, a second playthrough would never have happened without the corresponding 2.0 overhaul of the Talent/Perk system. That overhaul really did turn everything around, making it a more cohesive, interesting experience. It didn’t hurt that Phantom Liberty was actually an extremely well-built DLC. In any case, I decided to start a fresh character using the “skip to Act 2” option to check out things as a male V, romancing Panam. And yeah, it was a “I studied the blade” playthrough (until I realized that sucked).
Ironically, I almost bailed at the exact same place as last time. Technically, in fact, I did: stopped playing in November after about 68 hours, right in front of the parade quest, having completely consumed all of Dogtown and thinking of what I had to do to unlock the various ending options. Already surpassed the old level cap, maximized gear, no progression of any kind to look forward to. Why bother slogging through to the end of this Civilization Conquest victory? I put the game away for a few months.
The main impetus of getting me over the finish line? My 2TB gaming SSD was getting too full. Yep.
Now, my reticence over finishing may sound as an indictment of the game overall, but that is not the case. Cyberpunk 2077 is an amazing achievement, featuring one of the most cohesive, believable gaming cities ever designed. The streets feel lived-in, puked on, bled over, and cyberpunked.
The commitment to immersive first-person perspective is bone-deep, but what sells it the most is the level of humanity present in the movement of NPCs. A decade ago, characters winking in Mass Effect elevated the entire medium for me. And while I am fortunate enough to have experienced the vicarious joy of the devs when it came to Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Cyberpunk 2077’s contributions are on the next tier higher. Being able to walk around characters as they are talking, seeing them casually step over chairs, or light a cigarette, or any of the general actions that, while scripted, never feel overally scripted sets a bar unlikely to be topped for years. Granted, most of this comes from extensive (and expensive) mo-capping, putting it firmly out of reach for the majority of developers out there. But once you leave Cyberpunk and try any other supposedly AAA game (cough Starfield), you feel the difference.
Having said all that, I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about finishing the game.
Actually, hold up. Let me find that… here it is.
I’m not going to go into the nitty-gritty details of the ending(s), but you’ll be able to infer some things.
…buffering…
I found the overall narrative unsatisfying. To a degree, this is likely by design. Night City is a corpo-dystopia, poverty is rampant, gang violence is routine, and attempts to do the right thing usually end in worse outcomes for everyone involved. The primary motivation of the main character, established early on, is to become a famous mercenary and get rich. And while you do have the option to be a bit more, ahem, mercenary in a few quests, the language of action throughout is always centered on killing and/or stealing and/or sabotaging for cash, regardless of whether your heart is gold or lead.
From a gameplay perspective, that is perfectly fine – I relished every opportunity to cyber-ninja around Night City. But at some point there came a severe narrative dissonance in how much time I was spending killing random gang members as opposed to the corporations that were responsible for the dystopia itself. Maybe that is “too big” of a goal to accomplish, assuming I could even work towards that end with a ticking time bomb in my head. Maybe the point of the story is to demonstrate the corporations always win and the best you can do is disconnect and drive away into the desert.
You know, the ole’ Wargames “the only winning move is not to play” end. Which is second only to “it was all a dream” in terms of dissatisfying plot.
For most of the game, I also actively hated the Johnny Silverhand character. While there were some later quests that softened the rougher edges, for the most part, Silverhand just reminded me of one of those overly-dramatic friends whom the world is always out to get – defensively cantankerous, never realizing that if everything smells like shit, maybe you should check the bottom of your shoe. However, that thought led me to imagine a Cyberpunk where Silverhand wasn’t in your head. And… I don’t think it works. Not so much because Silverhand’s relentless cynicism enhances the narrative, but rather that it is structural crutch to an otherwise unsupported plot.
Like, imagine that you still have the Relic malfunctions and blackouts, and thus still have motivation to seek a cure. What else changes? Well, a shit-ton of dialog goes missing. And that was when I realized: Silverhand is the embodiment of a failure to “Show, Don’t Tell.” He’s the player’s digital conscience, ever critical of actions that contribute towards the preservation of the Corpo status quo… which is all of them. But the insufferable needling is necessary because the game otherwise doesn’t Show any of it. Arasaka and the other corps are right bastards in the lore, but aside from a few assassination attempts, they may as well not exist. The game should have been called The Gangs of Night City for how much gameplay ultimately revolves around Maelstrom and Tyger Claws.
Again, I get it, having players just fight corps is probably a hard game to make. Plus, part of the “point” of the setting is that these corps are all but unassailable outside of a few acts of targeted sabotage. Even ultimately bringing down Arasaka doesn’t do shit within Night City – Militec immediately fills in the vacuum and the status is quo’d once more. This is the cyberpunk genre 101.
But… I dunno. I’ve played grimdark games before, I’ve played Far Cry 2 where by the end I as a player wanted my character to sacrifice themselves. I actually have a high regard to games that embody the Starfish Parable in the face of inevitability elsewhere. And yet, Cyberpunk 2077 somehow feels bleaker than even that. If that is the vibe the devs were going for, well… congratulations. You won, I lost.
Perhaps it is thus in a moment of supreme irony that I still recommend you play the game.
Not because of the “friends you made along the way,” or any sort of deep philosophical insight, or because of a game-inducing sensation of nihilism. Rather, you should play Cyberpunk 2077 because it’s a technological marvel. You can mod it into virtual photorealism rather easily, but even without mods the fidelity is on a level beyond all peer. Crysis was a gaming benchmark for decades, and I can see Cyberpunk 2077 occupying a similar niche for years to come.
But what really ties it together is the Immersion impact. Some Call of Duty sequel or whatever may end up being prettier, but what can you actually do in the game? Skyrim might technically be more immersive in terms of interacting with the environment, and Grand Theft Auto 5 also has a lot of activity. But I cannot stress enough: Night City feels real. You are in an environment. From now on, if I cannot jostle NPCs out of the way while moving through a crowd, that game is crap.
So, yeah. Cyberpunk 2077.
Buy it, play it, live it, and then end the game on your terms. Preferably before the parade mission.
Nintenwon’t Sue
The meteoric rise of Palworld is a song for the ages. Two weeks ago, it was sitting in 5th place for all-time concurrent Steam numbers. Today, the throne is forever etched with it sitting at #2. Or #1 if you add the 3 million concurrent Xbox/Game Pass players to the Steam total. Overall, there have been 19 million players shooting adorable animals in the face and/or enslaving them in little balls.
Unfortunately, Palworld may have finally gotten to close to the sun. Or has it?
It always seemed a question of “when” rather than “if” Nintendo would sue Palworld over copyright infringement for what the media (and everyone) describes as “Pokemon with Guns.” In the latest Nintendo investor call, someone brought up Palworld and this is what the Nintendo president, Shuntaro Furukawa, said:
We will take appropriate action against those that infringe on our intellectual property rights.
Let’s just take a moment and appreciate the craftmanship of that sentence. It says so much without saying anything at all, which in turn says so much.
Nintendo has never been shy about suing anyone and anything into oblivion for copyright infringement, so the fact that Palworld made it into Early Access at all is indicative that any hypothetical lawsuit was risky. That it continued to make headlines and break records unimpeded further indicates hesitation. And this legalese statement essentially confirms that if Nintendo ever does get around to business, the lawsuit will be from an oblique angle, at best.
The Palworld devs aren’t worried. As they noted back in January:
Pocketpair isn’t concerned with the similarities, though. Speaking to Japanese gaming news outlet Automation, company CEO and lead developer Takuro Mizobe said that Palworld has passed all the necessary legal hurdles to clear it of copyright infringement. He also noted that there haven’t been any legal actions taken against Pocketpair for its overt comparisons to Pokémon—at least not yet, anyway.
“We make our games very seriously,” Mizobe said. “And we have absolutely no intention of infringing upon the intellectual property of other companies.”
Is it hubris? Actually, probably not.
We can say “Palworld is a rip-off of Pokemon,” but that is A) not all that accurate, and B) at best a moral statement. Game mechanics cannot be copyrighted. Attacking cute animals in tall grass and then capturing them with spheres is not protected expression. And three cheers for that! Can you imagine if Hit Points, Experience Points, talents, aiming down sights, side-scrolling, or any of the myriad of common mechanics were the exclusive domain of whomever first came up with them?
What about patents though? You may have heard about how Richard Garfield and Wizards of the Coast patented the “tapping” mechanic in Magic: the Gathering back in 1995, e.g. turning a card sideways to indicate its use. And over the intervening years, WotC has successfully sued at least two companies – ironically the Pokemon Company, but also the makers of Hex – into at least settling out of court. When it came to Hex though, they deserved it.
However, there is every indication that WotC’s gambit would not be successful anymore. This article touches on it, but basically a Supreme Court ruling in 2014 (Alice v CLS Bank) and subsequent 2018 Federal Court ruling all but closed the door on abstract game rules being patentable. Nevermind that the patent expired years ago anyway. Tap to your heart’s content! (This is not legal advice)
So, yeah. The Palworld mod that literally put Pokemon into the game? DMCA’d. Regular ole’ Palworld? Completely fine. And, honestly, kind of a perfect example of why none of this sort of thing should be locked down as the exclusive right of one corporation. Are the individual mechanics completely unique? Nope. But rather than the copy & paste shovelware you see in app stores, Pocket Pair is at least trying to take all the fun stuff from the games they like and mash it together and see if the result is just as fun. As armchair devs, we all like to say “I wish I could play X with the mechanic from Y.” Well, here is someone doing exactly that and it’s working. I saw that energy in Craftopia and I see that here in Palworld. We could do with more of that, not less, IMO.
Book Review: Three-Body Problem
I have just completed reading all three novels of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past series, e.g. the Three-Body Problem trilogy. This was an eventual (albeit unlikely) goal I espoused a few weeks ago, but I surprised myself by plowing through all of them in about 7 days. That had not been the plan.
Personally, I blame Bhagpuss. In the comments, he noted:
I got maybe 30 or 40 pages into The Three Body problem before I gave up. Very dull, pedestrian prose, possibly the translation, and a not very interesting storyline.
For triangulation, I read more than one book a week on average and have done pretty consistently since I first learned to read. Of the books I start, I probably fail to finish no more than two or three a year. They have to be *very* dull before I give up on them. This one was that dull.
And with the petulance of (comparative) teenagers everywhere, I thought: How bad could it be?
Insert LarryDavid.gif
To Bhagpuss’ credit, he is correct on all points. I’m not a literature expert, but the books definitely felt like they had discovered a third state of writing: poetry, prose, and then this. I kept at it though, because part of me was trying to figure out why it felt so dull – not in a “where are the good bits” sense, but trying to identify the gap in myself that was not connecting. A big part, undoubtedly, is in the fact the series was written by a Chinese author in the Chinese language for a Chinese audience. Translating works into another language is obviously possible, and although there is some loss thereby, I have read plenty of, say, Camus and Nietzsche (of course) and been deeply appreciative of the subtleties of both the philosophies and the prose itself. Same with the, admittedly fewer, classical Japanese novels I read through in college. Then again, I was specifically taking courses on Japanese literature at the time, so perhaps I was more primed to recognize the stylizations and themes of the text.
Whatever. This was not intended to be a book report for credit, so let me be more direct.
The value of this series exists entirely in the concepts and philosophies that it presents. In the Three-Body Problem, a significant amount of time is spent setting up history and background for completely unlikeable characters. Once the stage is set, the book – and series overall – functionally reads a lot like Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series insofar that it is a mystery/thriller novel with hard sci-fi elements. Unfortunately, the author takes great pains in presenting an impossible scenario, spending a lot of time explaining how there is no hope, and then revealing a miraculous solution with zero foreshadowing. That last bit is the key: the solution didn’t exist until it appeared. In a traditional murder mystery, there may be plenty of red herrings, but once revealed, you experience the same “a-ha!” moment of the detective as you trace the threads back to the start. Here, there is no such satisfaction.
Aside from the poor dialog, characterization, overall story structure though? Really good.
To be clear, the 2nd book (The Dark Forest) literally coined a term for a possible solution of the Fermi Paradox. Most of the hard sci-fi elements were extremely intriguing and novel. And even though the “mysteries” were not especially well-structured from a reader point of view, the concepts therein got the juices flowing. It’s a pretty good sign that when I set the final book down, I felt like it was obvious that we shouldn’t be attempting communications with aliens, and also that someone inevitably would try anyway, resulting in our extinction. The philosophical axioms presented seem pretty hard to beat.
I just wish the whole thing was written a bit better. For example, this passage:
Cheng Xin thought she saw exhaustion and laziness in those eyes, but there was also something deeper, something sharp that made her uncomfortable. A smile appeared on Wade’s face, like water seeping out of a crack in the frozen surface of a river; there was no real warmth, and it didn’t relax her.
And this line:
The stories turned into empty baskets capable of carrying any goods.
Those were good! And… those were the only lines I found, coming only in the third book. Compare that to Malazan where I basically filled up a Notepad file full of them with every novel. Again, perhaps something was lost in translation, but with how the books are structured, I kinda doubt it. If you have ever wondered if the “Show, Don’t Tell” principle can be failed in the written word, this series is exhibit A-to-C on how. That works when describing four-dimensional space or the power of strong-attraction weapon technology, but no so much the human drama bits.
Ultimately, while it holds zero-dimensional candles to classics like Dune, I do feel like the Three-Body Problem series is Important sci-fi, with an uppercase I. Whatever you think about, say, Ringworld (1970), it is undeniable that the concepts explored (megastructures) imparted a kind of gravity wave that is still rocking pencils 50+ years later. It remains to be seen how big the ripple Three-Body Problem extends, but I know that I personally will be looking askance at every other sci-fi book if they do not address the “dark forest” inevitability. Just wish the hike to said forest was a bit more entertaining.
P.S. Netflix is releasing a Three-Body Problem show next month, headed up by the Game of Thrones directors (David Benioff and D.B. Weiss). You can watch the trailer here. While what D&D did in Season 8 of Game of Thrones was criminal, at least here the source material is already completed. Indeed, provided the overall concepts explored in the Three-Body Problem remain the same, even a clumsy adaptation would be a huge improvement over the original.
Dead Island 2, Completed
I have completed Dead Island 2 and the Haus DLC after roughly 32 hours.
In my first impressions post, I was concerned about the map being cramped, the existence of skull-level enemies that further discouraged what little exploration was possible, and how the emphasis on environmental hazards combined with the first two points led me to focus on carrying around car batteries (etc) instead of weapons. Over time and after gaining levels, the 2nd and 3rd points evaporated on their own. “Hell-A” as a general area though, remained very restricted for the entirety of the game.
What did improve was a rather hilarious (to me) and overpowered strategy to zombie combat: maiming. In most zombie games, attacks to the head are the only way to kill them. That works here too, but the problem is that different zombies walk/run with different gaits, making precise targeting difficult. Missing a Heavy Attack with a spear leaves you very vulnerable to attacks from other zombies, or even the one you’re trying to kill; I’ve been reduced to 25% HP from the flailing of even the most basic of Shamblers, after missing several times in a row. Nevermind the fact that Runner zombies actually can dodge your Heavy Attacks.
What is considerably easier than landing a head shot is a leg shot. With, say, a Claymore or Katana. With the right Perk Cards and weapon mods selected, limb hits become automatic critical hits that grant buffs to further enhance damage. Some level of which becomes unnecessary as you straight-up chop zombie legs right off with one hit. What happens then? Slowly crawling zombie. At that point, you could cut off one of their arms to instantly kill them – zombies with no arms or no legs will keep attacking, but apparently the coders couldn’t handle half-n-half – or kick them and follow-up with a head stomp for an instant kill that way. Regardless, facing a huge arena full of running undeath and reducing it to a pathetic pile of flopping undeath never stopped being funny to me.
Apex zombies, as you can imagine, didn’t lose their legs as quickly. (Un)fortunately, most of them have attack moves that leave their heads in a static position, making headshots with a hunting rifle quite easy. I’m not sure whether the devs intended you to delete the Apex ones with 2 shots from a rifle and render everything else inert with leg-chopping, but that’s what I did the whole way through.
That’s about all the good things I can say about Dead Island 2.
Yeah, that was good stuff. Everything else was extremely dumb or half-assed, at best.
The Perk Card system has to be one of the worst character progression mechanics I have seen in any game. The premise is that you can mix and match different abilities (cards) based on your play style, but you literally never know what any of the cards are until you unlock (or find!) one, so it’s all just something that… happens. Nothing to look forward to, nothing to build towards, it may as well not have existed. This isn’t even getting into the fact that most of them are incredibly weak or so hyper-focused as to be useless. Literally who gives any shits about making zombies explode in specific ways when you kill them during your “ultimate” mode? Every zombie dies at the same speed by holding down left-click in said mode.
The “economy” of the game and general gear progression is similarly disappointing. I started typing up a long explanation of the mechanics, but it’s irrelevant. Suffice it to say, there is an immense bottleneck for basic crafting components that only gets more and more ridiculous as time goes on. Like, you originally might not be able to add Electric damage to a knife because you don’t have enough Electronics. That’s cool. But when you are in the endgame and can’t mod shit because everything takes 10 Scrap, that’s dumb. Vendors will sell literally 1-2 pieces of Scrap and that’s it. What the fuck is the point? “Disassemble the weapons you pick up instead of selling them.” Let me disassemble this epic worth $7,000 and… oh cool, 6 Scrap. All this encourages is for you to settle on 3-4 weapons and upgrade them (using cash) to match your level, rendering all other drops as vendor trash you don’t bother even trying out because you can’t afford to mod them to see if they are any good.
And don’t get me started on the sidequests. Ran my ass around three different maps reconstructing the dude-bro antics of a thieving pool boy and a goddamn generic-ass blue sword popped out of the chest at the end. I understand that I completed this sidequest later than “immediately once it was available” but after I looked at the Wiki for the others, they were similarly dumb. It’s Dead Island not Fallout, I know, but if you’re designing a Looter Slasher, you might want to actually ensure there’s a reason to do all the chores you set up.
The overall story is also dumb. Again, it’s Dead Island, I’m not expecting some treatise on the human condition. But I don’t know what’s worse: how blatantly they are setting up story resolution in a future DLC (Haus did fuck-all), or that they’re pushing it off into a Dead Island 3. They didn’t leave a story thread dangling, it’s the whole goddamn shirt. This is one of those games where you’re not even sure you did anything at the end.
So… that’s that. Unless you were a super-fan of the original Dead Island, or even if you were, Dead Island 2 is not something I would particularly recommend.
#JustPalworldThings
Courtesy of our friend Bhagpuss:
My hope was that I’d be able to get Pal fluid more peaceably, perhaps by extracting it painlessly from one of the creatures in my care, although now I say it out loud, I’m not sure that sounds any less disturbing. Sadly, it appears you can’t milk Pengullets or Teafants for their juices, so I had to jog down the path and club one to death for the final fluid I needed.
It’s not Rimworld, but it feels in the same galaxy.
P.S. Some interesting unlocks coming on my next level-up:
P.P.S. Did I mention Pal Spheres work on human opponents too?
P.P.P.S. Yes. The answer is yes.
Blizzard Decimation
It’s been rough going in the game development world, and it’s getting rougher: Microsoft has laid off 1,900 Activision Blizzard staff. Layoffs are an expected reality after corporate mergers, and certainly the industry trend is towards cutting staff this past year. But this… also cuts a bit deeper.
The changes announced today reflect a focus on products and strategies that hold the most promise for Blizzard’s future growth, as well as identified areas of overlap across Blizzard and Microsoft Gaming. Today’s actions affect multiple teams within Blizzard, including development teams, shared service organizations and corporate functions. As part of this focus, Blizzard is ending development on its survival game project and will be shifting some of the people working on it to one of several promising new projects Blizzard has in the early stages of development.
There’s some irony in Blizzard’s abandonment of the survival game project just as Palworld is eating the genre’s lunch – copying existing games and making them slightly better was Blizzard’s whole M.O! No doubt the layoffs were planned months ago, but part of me wonders whether the calculus would have changed had they known of Palworld’s viral success. Then again, if Blizzard released something to less acclaim, then that would be pretty embarrassing.
I’m actually low-key devastated that we won’t see Blizzard’s take on the genre. It may seem like there are a lot of options available – and there are – but it’s quite rare to see AAA development in this space. Right now, it’s like… Fallout 76 and maybe Grounded. No Man’s Sky might count? Just imagine your character running around with the detail of Overwatch rigs. Blizzard already has experience building giant, seamless worlds too. Although… hmm. If you squint hard and ignore the questing, I guess WoW itself really might feel like a survival game already. Maybe that slight overlap was the problem.
In any case, another unfortunate outcome of the axed survival game is the fact that the devs working on it were pulled from other areas months ago, only to be laid off. From a Hearthstone Reddit thread:
—FORMER Hearthstone Devs that were on cancelled Survival Game have been laid off!:
-Matt London – Designed Book of Mercenaries (solo adventures/stories/characters), Twist, and Caverns of Time Expansion
-Ates Bayrak – Designed Duels
—Current Hearthstone Team members laid off:
Cynthia Park – Hearthstone PR Manager
On second thought: oof. Book of Mercenaries was not good content, Twist has been an epic disappointment, and Caverns of Time was an insane cash-grab that’s especially egregious considering they “paused” Twist for months. Meanwhile, Duels is was… cut from the same cloth, let’s say. I don’t want to kick anyone while they’re down or anything, but I’m starting to wonder if Blizzard was really assembling an A-Team for the survival project. Maybe these devs were the ones most willing to take risks to see what works. And perhaps the monetization strategy wasn’t their idea. Who knows?
Oh well. Pour one out for the game that was not to be.
eBooks
I’m not much of a reader. I actually enjoy books quite a bit and have read a lot of them, but I have found that it takes a specific set of circumstances for it to occur. Back when I was stuck in an office doing menial data entry tasks 15 years ago? Conducive. If I’m sitting in my gaming chair in front of my $2500 gaming PC setup? Not conducive. I’m also allergic to cluttering up my house further with physical one-and-done objects; the subtle guilt that arises from even thinking of disposing of books is also something I can live without. So, the rise of eBooks and eReaders has helped the situation somewhat.
…aside from the friction that comes from buying a PDF of words. Who does that?
I have heard a lot of good things about the Three-Body Problem series. I’m a fan of sci-fi and philosophical musings – I really enjoyed the entire Foundation series, Ender’s Game series, and so on. If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time though, you understand the problem: parsimony as fuck. So, it looks like the trilogy is $28.78 at basically every online vendor, including Amazon. However, Amazon is selling the first book for $11.99 and the 2nd and 3rd for $5.99 apiece. Shit like that really starts to make you question the subjective value of particular arrangement of words.
So, I then start looking up local libraries in my area. As it turns out, a lot of libraries will loan you eBooks for free, and you can even sign up for a library card without stepping foot in the physical space. Top-tier Millennial innovations, let me tell you. Of course, predictably, this means that the two electronic versions of the books are already checked out and behind a 200+ waitlist of people who probably subsequently went directly to Pirate Bay.
That actually was my Go-To move in past, but I’ve been out of the skull-and-crossbones game too long and the scene moved on without me. I mean, I can figure out VPNs and Plex servers and Usenet groups… but I just don’t want to. No longer do I have near-infinite time with near-zero responsibility. Clearly, all that time is better spent doing an absurd amount of shopping to save a number dollars no longer enough to purchase lunch.
The end result was this: nothing. I gave up and read nothing.
Great story, right? If you could Paypal me $11.99, I’ll be right on my way.
Actually, what will probably occur is that I go to Google Play and spend the $10ish and change I have earned doing random surveys to purchase the first book, then buy the two $6 sequels from Amazon, and then hope they all work on my Kindle Paperwhite. Where they will likely stay dormant until/unless I find myself away from the house and any parental or driving responsibility for a substantial amount of time. Then, I might actually get to reading something again.
It’s a tough life I lead, I know, full of adversity.
[Fake Edit] Don’t worry, after browsing some older folders, I apparently already “acquired” the Three-Body Problem series back in 2021. Now, to read them. Some day.
Impressions: Palworld
In case you haven’t heard the news, Palworld is doing gangbusters: 2 million copies sold in the first 24 hours. And now 4 million within three days. It even hit a peak concurrent player rate of 1.2 million players on Steam, which leapfrogged it past Cyberpunk 2077 and into the top 5 of all time.
That is insanely impressive considering it’s also on Game Pass and Epic Game Store, so that’s just a fraction of its total reach.
Palworld’s tagline is “Pokemon with guns,” which is basically just S-Tier marketing and nothing else. The reality is that it’s “ARK with Pokemon”… like completely. Each time you level up, you get Engram Technology points which you spend to unlock specific recipes on specific tiers. You also get Attribute points to level up one of your base stats like carry weight, attack damage, Stamina, etc. Even the building mechanism via the menu wheel feels identical. Which isn’t to say it’s all bad, just that “Pokemon with guns” is exploiting an information gap in the promotional materials that becomes apparent right away in the gameplay.
Having said that, Palworld does indeed make some good innovations in the general ARK formula. The biggest thing you notice right away is that Pals can be set to work in your camp. The work that Pals can complete differs based on their type – Lamballs hang around Ranches to self-groom their wool, Cattivas will work in your Quarries – but most of them can do basic stuff like wandering around and moving supplies to chests. The fact that they do anything at all beyond staying stock-still waiting for an mistaken Follow-All whistle makes Pals miles better than the dinosaurs of ARK.
Unfortunately, I cannot comment much further impression-wise because Palworld started to crash to desktop in 5-minute increments for me. Some Early Access releases are basically soft-launches of fully playable games (Against the Storm, etc), but Palworld is very Early Access in… let’s say, the more traditional sense. It’s been a while since I played something that lacked the ability to Exit the game. Like, you literally have to Alt-F4 to turn the game off.
…unless you are playing the Steam (or non-Game Pass) version. There has already been a patch v0.1.2 release to address various bugs, including some that cause crashes and also a bug that causes ambient sounds to not play. Which is a big deal, as the silence when running around is a bit conspicuous. Also, Steam players get an Exit button on the menu. For the Game Pass plebs like myself, such a patch has to go through Microsoft’s certification process, and who knows when that will go live. For how much Microsoft pays to have Day 1 releases on Game Pass, it’s a pretty big limiting factor for these Early Access titles.
Honestly, it almost makes me want to just buy the game on Steam. Almost.
As it stands, I’m pretty conflicted about playing Palworld further at the moment. The crashes to desktop notwithstanding, there are other elements to the game that are very early Early Access. Your base can be raided by AI, for example, but the two times I got the notification, the enemies spawned down a hill and never moved even when I started attacking them. One of the v0.1.2 patch notes mentions how the arrows recipe went from 1:1 to 3:1, which is significant reduction in terms of resources you have to grind – I have not yet found a Pal that cuts trees, so I’m still manually doing that. While the EA dilemma is something you always have to consider, it’s been a while since I had to weigh it against really basic functionality like this.
Of course, the fact that the scales had to come out at all is indicative that Palworld is on to something. Is it ground-breaking innovation? Nope. I described it as “ARK with Pokemon” before and it still really feels that way. But ARK peaked at less than 250k concurrent players on Steam, ever. Sometimes the derivatives end up being better than the original. Or maybe devs should be selling their games for $30.
Impressions: Dead Island 2
Sometimes I use “Impressions” posts as a sort of “review of a game I stopped playing halfway,” but this one is legit just some first impressions. I’m still playing! For now.
To start, I loved the original Dead Island. Some people were tired of the zombie genre, even 12 years (!!!) ago, but I don’t mind it. What’s the actual difference between the hundreds of mobs you kill being zombies, mutants, nightmares, animals, dinosaurs, or other people? I guess zombie tropes can make some of the experience kind of rote, but at the end of the day what matters is if the gameplay loop is fun for you.
So, Dead Island 2. Thus far, I’m kind of… concerned?
It’s been a while since the first game, but everything in DI2 feels cramped. The location is Bel-Air, so that may be accurate, but this definitely feels a lot more like a corridor shooter minus the guns. There are very specific routes you have to take to get around the map, and most of them run through the same houses and yards each time. Not sure if the later game opens up or not, but I have my doubts.
I also hate the environmental improvisations. Specifically, there are water jugs, cans of gasoline, car batteries, and other similar items strewn about everywhere. You can use these items to engineer environmental traps, such as dumping water in a big puddle, throwing a zombie-attracting item in it, and then starting a generator to electrocute them all. OK, cool.
The problem is that Dead Island 2 takes after the original in that zombies scale to your level such that even a few standard zombies can kill you if you’re not careful. The cramped areas in which you encounter zombies also makes it difficult (or outright dangerous) to run away if you get in over your head, especially once the special zombies start showing up. The end result is that I am thus incentivized to start lugging around car batteries or gas cans wherever I go, so as to have the materials for environmental shenanigans at the ready. There very well may be such items available in each area, but it’s hard to find them while getting swarmed.
So, yeah, instead of focusing on the one thing the series is excellent at – the meaty and satisfying melee game – I am running around one-shotting zombies by throwing car batteries at them. If the devs wanted to lean into traps-based combat ala Horizon: Zero Dawn, then do that. Preferably under a different title.
Another thing that is really irking me is how punished you are for what limited exploration is available. You will find locked shit all over the place, but you will never really know if its even possible to retrieve the key yet. See, keys are held by special zombies, and specific special zombies only start spawning after you encounter the “first” one, typically via Story quest. Before the first boss, for example, no Crusher zombies will spawn; that means the locked military chest you found at the beginning of the zone cannot be unlocked, because the key-holder is a Crusher zombie. But you won’t know that ahead of time, so you might be combing every room for a hidden key that doesn’t exist.
Plus, inexplicably, the devs allows for “skull-level” zombies to roam about. Want to head down an alleyway and explore there instead of following a quest marker? Too bad! Zombies above your level will eat your face off within two hits. I honestly do not ever remember that being a thing in the original game. In principle, I can understand the game sort of “organically” directing players via deadly foes – this happens in Fallout: New Vegas and Dark Souls and many places inbetween – but it just feels bad here. And, of course, contributes to the claustrophobia of an already-limited map.
Also, it’s funny how much the FLESH system was hyped. For the uninitiated:
“This cutting-edge technology has been designed to deliver the most gruesome zombie experience ever seen in a video game. Anatomically correct layers of skin fat and muscle can be ripped away with machete point accuracy to reveal breakable bones and internal organs that are individually destructible,” Dead Island 2’s developers said during the introductory presentation.
“Blunt weapons allow players to shatter skulls, detach eyeballs and even punch holes through the undead. Sharp weapons can dismember heads or limbs at any point and slice torsos clean in half, utilising advanced fluid and soft body physics,” they continued.
(source)
Is the game gory AF? Yep. Does it matter even a little bit? Nope. The specific problem is that there are so many zombies attacking you at any given time that you are unlikely to appreciate the fact that their eyeball is swinging outside its socket in a realistic fashion or whatever. There’s no mechanical benefit either, as even a zombie bereft of both arms will still try to headbutt/bite you. Dead Space this ain’t. I suppose this does contribute to the weight behind melee attacks and how satisfying it feels, but honestly, I would trade all of it in a heartbeat for more ragdoll-esque physics instead. Zombies tripping over each other, falling on couches, bumping into walls, etc, is infinitely more immersive to me than their jaw hanging half off or ribs flying everywhere. I saw that in Fallout 3 death animations in 2008.
If it sounds like I’m pretty down on Dead Island 2 so far, well, you’re not wrong. The game is absolutely gorgeous running at max settings, and there are insane details in every throw-away room that you manage to find. But I’m kinda concerned that perhaps the level of detail added was exactly the cause for how closed up the game is. If I wanted to kill zombies in corridors, I would play Dead Space or Resident Evil or Silent Hill or practically any of the other games in this whole genre. What made the original Dead Island stand out was the open-world nature of the map, at least in the first two Acts. Thus far, the sequel seems to me leaning more into the Dead Rising goofiness minus its openness, which isn’t all that great of a trade.
Here’s to hoping that things improve.
In An Age 
The Unknown
Feb 23
Posted by Azuriel
It’s a cliche, but I was thinking about “there’s nothing scarier than the unknown.” I find this to be literally true, although I haven’t asked whether its the case for people with, e.g. arachnophobia or similar.
In thinking about it though, “the unknown” isn’t exactly what I’m afraid of. Rather, the unknown is simply a placeholder for existing or imaginary fears. And since its a placeholder, it becomes dynamic and mutable based on whomever is experiencing it. This is handy in games, movies, etc.
What brought this up initially was my playing through Dead Island 2’s DLC content, Haus. The base game has plenty of jump scares – sometimes frustratingly unintentional, when zombies materialize from thin air – but Haus leaned into the whole creepy psychological nightmare house schtick. Which is fine, whatever. But I had a moment, in a particularly creepy room, where I thought “Oh, I bet they’re going to do X!” In this case, X is an overly-elaborate amalgamation of scenes from Silent Hill, Dead Space, and similar, that I won’t be getting into; solve for your own damn X.
Thing is, the devs couldn’t do it. The language of action necessary to do X wasn’t in the game. This isn’t Dead Space where an air duct could burst open and a giant tentacle kill you instantly if you fail the Quick Time Event. There are just… zombies, who attack you in predictable ways. Do the zombies crawl out of small sewer grates and other unexpected places? Sure. But zombies are zombies in Dead Island 2. I can panic when a Burster appears in close proximity, but that is a known hazard.
When you don’t know what the game can do, that’s when it’s scariest.
I’m reminded of when I first played Valheim, so long ago. The game was Early Access (still is), made by a small group of people (still is), and they were trying different things. For example, I don’t know of any other survival game in which chopping down trees requires my complete attention, lest I be crushed.
So, there I was, setting sail for the first time in search of… whatever. Vaguely, I knew about the existence of Serpents from Reddit posts, but not necessarily what they looked like, what their attack patterns were, or whether you could see them coming, outrun them, etc. And after a while of sailing, I started to think maybe they weren’t in the game at all.
Somehow, that actually made the situation worse. I started feeling uneasy any time I came across darker water, or other anomalous phenomenon (real or imagined). Wouldn’t it be just the worst if you were sailing along, oblivious, and then a dark shadow beneath your boat yawned, teeth the size of spears sprouting from the waves, while you and your boat disappear in an agonizing instant? Just me?
Anyway, as you can imagine, it was fun times when I encountered my first Leviathan and it sunk beneath the waves after my incessant barnacle trimming. This is it, I’m going to be eaten! It wasn’t. But for that first moment, it could have been, and Valheim got me.
Then lost me when I searched seven mountain ranges for a single goddamn silver node. Not bitter.
Posted in Commentary
1 Comment
Tags: Dead Island 2, Dead Space, Jump Scares, Language of Action, The Unknown, Valheim