The week is the 19th of February 2018 and it has mostly been pretty dour. President Trump tried to alleviate my ongoing mid-life crisis by taking me back to my youth in the 90s with the assertion that real world violence is influenced by digital violence in games. Relating to this are the discussions suggesting taxing violent games like one would tax alcohol, cigarettes and other things bad for your health. History of course remembers how Grand Theft Auto directly inspired the torture methods of the inquisition and how those patriotic early Americans burned women at the stake after extended playing of Outlast.
Speaking of historical sins, Dynasty Warriors 9 came out to about as much enthusiasm as shown by its own AI. Apparently taking a regular Warriors map and spreading it so thinly across a massive open world then removing iconic weapons from characters doesn’t go down particularly well, even in a fanbase that has seen more copy and pasted games released baring PS2 era graphics than there are twelve year olds on Xbox live who have slept with your mother. It is easy to say that despite the already stale yet fresh in the eyes of Tecmo Koei addition of an open world, the gaming community seems completely burned out on the franchise.
Speaking of Burnout, Burnout 3 isn’t being remastered but Paradise is. The fact that the series is still somehow twitching is a good sign but then it is still owned by EA so maybe a swift rock to the head would be the greatest mercy.
Something else that could use the mercy of being put out of it’s existential misery is the hopes of Half Life fans. After the twin disappointments of Valves card game, Artifact, and the Portal spinoff, Bridge Constructor Portal, another nail in the coffin of Valve fan’s dreams come with the preorder bonus of Gordan Freeman ‘s outfit in the PC edition of Final Fantasy XV. Not content with culturally appropriating the clothes of Middle-Eastern Assassins, Noctus can now don the iconic clothes of a mute scientist with a crowbar. The behemoths won’t know what hit them. To be fair though, a launch price of £34.99 is a great show of good will and does a lot to alleviate the pain of the endless Half Life 3 taunts.
Something that’s pain only seems to be growing is the Metal Gear franchise. Metal Gear Survive released and ironically signals the death of the series. Industry Satan Konami had access to the Fox engine and all of the things that made Metal Gear great aside from the obvious gaping blackhole that is Hideo Kojima yet only managed to churn out a generic zombie survival game that’s only unique feature was to give said zombies shiny unicorn horns because reasons. Fans who hoped to see Metal Gear live on post Kojima were not given a confidence boost by this uninspired effort. Fingers crossed for Metal Gear pachinko, eh?
To round off this round up, reviews have started to roll in for medieval life simulator, Kingdom Come Deliverance. The reception has seemed overall positive aside from some glaring bugs, but then Bethesda has conditioned us to associate sword based rpgs with more bugs than Pixar’s Bug’s Life. The game has the potential to wrestle the coveted award for ‘Most janky rpg that people still love’ from Bethesda’s hands while they are too busy trying to port Skyrim to the Tamogochi. I joke but here I am replaying Dark Souls 3 in anticipation of Dark Souls remastered on the Switch. We all become that which we hate in the end.
Divinity Original Sin 2 is an excellent RPG filled with character, depth and charm. It is a new take on old school RPGs where variety is king and every little thing can be interacted with to fundamentally change each encounter. With this comes a snag though. That old school mentality holds true with the difficulty.
Pixel Fang Gaming 