Idle Weekend June 24, 2016: 2016 Halftime Show

[Chris]

Idle Weekend June 24, 2016:



2016 Halftime Show
2016 is half over, so the Weekenders have chosen to review their favorite games (and non-The Americans TV series!) of the year so far. You know, so we don't forget about them in December. Elsewhere, they contend with movies depicting sad-but-true historic events of the 90s and remember that The Expanse is really, really good TV.

Discussed: Warhammer: Total War, Hearts of Iron 4, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, Uncharted 4, XCOM 2, The Witness, Wit.Nes, Superhot, Doom, Overwatch, Dark Souls III, Hyper Light Drifter, Throne of the Crescent Moon, American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, Foxcatcher, The Expanse

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[sclpls]

I don't have any interest in relitigating the arguments over XCOM 2, but I think Rob is misreading the situation that not a ton of people are still talking about XCOM 2 as a sign of vindication that maybe the game is not as good as people thought. XCOM:EU came out around the end of 2012, and I don't recall any other game coming out afterwards that distracted me from playing it. On the other hand XCOM 2 comes out early this year, and there have been a shit ton of games that have come out that I'm excited to play. So I see it as more of a timing thing. I still have XCOM 2 on my favorites list, and I keep thinking about clicking it and jumping back in, but then I think about how there's gonna be DLC coming out that adds a whole bunch of new stuff, and I think maybe I should wait for that stuff to come out first... But basically the amount of quality games coming out this year makes it hard for me to devote a ton of time to any game this year.

[Gormongous]

I don't have any interest in relitigating the arguments over XCOM 2, but I think Rob is misreading the situation that not a ton of people are still talking about XCOM 2 as a sign of vindication that maybe the game is not as good as people thought. XCOM:EU came out around the end of 2012, and I don't recall any other game coming out afterwards that distracted me from playing it. On the other hand XCOM 2 comes out early this year, and there have been a shit ton of games that have come out that I'm excited to play. So I see it as more of a timing thing. I still have XCOM 2 on my favorites list, and I keep thinking about clicking it and jumping back in, but then I think about how there's gonna be DLC coming out that adds a whole bunch of new stuff, and I think maybe I should wait for that stuff to come out first... But basically the amount of quality games coming out this year makes it hard for me to devote a ton of time to any game this year.

 

Yeah, I'm also waiting until the mid-summer DLC deploys, then I plan to see how the technical glitches have cleared up. I still think of it as one of the better strategy games of 2016, in a bounteous but rocky year.

[JalapeñoOverdrive]

Thinking about one of the reader mail questions you got, an experience I've had with using a video game to cope with real life was with Warframe, a free-to-play action game.

 

There was just one moment in my life a few years back when it seemed like fate really had a bone to pick with me; lost my job, a social circle of friends, and a place to live. Things were pretty bad already. But then I also got the news that my mother found a lump, had it tested, and sure enough it was cancer. I really felt like I needed some kind of big dumb violent action game to vent my frustrations on, and figured I'd give Warframe a try since it was free and came recommended from a few folks. One enemy faction in particular seemed to fit the bill all too perfectly, the infested; as you could likely imagine, they are very much based around an aesthetic of cancerous-looking tumors and just ripping those things to shreds with my sword felt so cathartic at the time. There wasn't much I could do to help my mother other than offer words of encouragement, and it was so frustrating not being able to do anything more to help, this game really did help me with venting that frustration.

 

It became my go-to game for about a year-and-a-half since I had a lot more free time to waste and I ended up getting a couple other folks into it. I talked about it a lot on a podcast that I was on, even. I guess it was something like my Farcry 2 or The Witness in that regard. I don't play it that much any more, but I do feel pretty thankful that I did have something like that at the time. Kinda sentimental for a game that is more or less just a hoard shooter/hack n' slash with micro-transactions.

[Danielle]

Thinking about one of the reader mail questions you got, an experience I've had with using a video game to cope with real life was with Warframe, a free-to-play action game.

 

There was just one moment in my life a few years back when it seemed like fate really had a bone to pick with me; lost my job, a social circle of friends, and a place to live. Things were pretty bad already. But then I also got the news that my mother found a lump, had it tested, and sure enough it was cancer. I really felt like I needed some kind of big dumb violent action game to vent my frustrations on, and figured I'd give Warframe a try since it was free and came recommended from a few folks. One enemy faction in particular seemed to fit the bill all too perfectly, the infested; as you could likely imagine, they are very much based around an aesthetic of cancerous-looking tumors and just ripping those things to shreds with my sword felt so cathartic at the time. There wasn't much I could do to help my mother other than offer words of encouragement, and it was so frustrating not being able to do anything more to help, this game really did help me with venting that frustration.

 

It became my go-to game for about a year-and-a-half since I had a lot more free time to waste and I ended up getting a couple other folks into it. I talked about it a lot on a podcast that I was on, even. I guess it was something like my Farcry 2 or The Witness in that regard. I don't play it that much any more, but I do feel pretty thankful that I did have something like that at the time. Kinda sentimental for a game that is more or less just a hoard shooter/hack n' slash with micro-transactions.

 

Welcome, Jalapeno! You can/should totally send this in to questions@idleweekend.net!

[Twig]

There was that discussion a few (or more?) episodes ago about instinctual anger directed at people hatin' on Faves.

 

This is me every time Danielle mentions The Witness!!!!

 

grumble grumble one of my favorite games in so many years grumble

 

[Gamebeast23456]

Regarding Firewatch, that game was a rare case of semi-spoilers making my experience much better. I just played through it last week, and I came in with the pre release context that this game was NOT going to be what I thought it was. Because of this knowledge, I was able to just enjoy everything as it went by, not getting too invested in what I detected to be, most likely, false flags and red herrings. I think, also, Henry is totally changed by the events of the story, or at least finds some meaning or understanding.

[SL128]

If you do plan on doing a strategy game stream, it would be awesome to see another Idle (not-quite Thumbs) Crusader Kings 2 stream, since I think Danielle would really like the roleplaying aspect and experiencing how quickly the game warps your mindset to be completely evil.  Finding out the right extent to which Rob gives directions might be difficult, though.

 

Also, when you were talking about how Super Hot was short and hasn't yet explored its full potential, that's largely because the story is a tutorial, and the core game is challenges and endless modes (the maps are amazingly designed, and you will never notice in story mode).  In addition to the raw value of each play type, playing through them will make you get good at the game (not in a brutal Dark Souls way).  To show what experienced-level play can look like, some of my best runs are here.  Since you'll probably only want to watch one or two, this one shows the train level in three seconds, and this one shows me managing to survive 2 minutes and 27 seconds (normal time) in an endless level.

[rharwick]

Firewatch's misdirections are brilliant. They are not there simply to mislead the player. They are a reflection of Henry's developing psychological state, after weeks of isolation, reading a steady diet of suspense and mystery novels. He even manages to suck unflappable Delilah into his paranoia. 

But what's great is that it's one of those rare, beautiful moments in games where the character you play reflects your player mindset; you come into a game expecting a conspiracy thriller, and the joke is on you, just as it's on Henry. As a game writer, this is the freakin' Holy Grail. And most games only glance at this level of alignment from afar. 

But then, my experience playing it was that it started as this lovely, grounded human story, and I was going to be really mad if there turned out to be supernatural elements/a secret government experiment/aliens. Because ALL THE GAMES are already about that. So, I was delighted when it became increasingly clear that this was a much more grounded thing. 

As to whether Henry changes, I don't know what kind of change you were expecting? He changes more than most game characters, who basically go from "I have a lot of people to shoot" to "I have shot a lot of people." Henry learns, like Danielle says, "the woods won't save you from life." Neither will the escapism of mystery novels. I think most people do come away from that game with a sense of this meaning, so I don't think it's unclear.

Further, though, I think there's a difference between saying a game doesn't wrap up with an Aesop's fable style proverb at the end that puts a cap on its meaning, and that there's no meaning or meaningful change in the experience. Firewatch has enough text and subtext in it that you can argue from what's actually in the game about whether Henry has changed and how much. (I think the answer is, that he has not made a huge change, otherwise that would undercut the key point "the woods can't save you." But that that knowledge could empower him to take control of a life that until that moment was spiralling out of his control.) That's not imposed meaning; that's learning to tease out what a piece of art is trying to say by looking closely at what it says, replaying it, picking over the hints, and discovering subtleties you missed the first time through.

But Henry isn't the only character who has an arc. Delilah also learns a thing or two. She's the one, in fact, who gets the last word on the meaning of the experience. In sum, it's "don't become me." Don't get stuck here, avoiding your problems, and failing to care about what matters. After all, while Henry was too paranoid, there was an actual mystery to solve, one which Delilah could have solved long before Henry ever arrived, if she had cared. So while Henry takes it over the top, Delilah is stuck in a rut.

[osmosisch]

But what's great is that it's one of those rare, beautiful moments in games where the character you play reflects your player mindset; you come into a game expecting a conspiracy thriller, and the joke is on you, just as it's on Henry. As a game writer, this is the freakin' Holy Grail. And most games only glance at this level of alignment from afar.

I had the exact opposite experience, where Henry and I had completely different interpretations of what was going on. Cool that it worked for you though.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I think the difficulty with Firewatch is that depending on how you play or read it, Henry doesn't really change. The ending conversation can definitely lead to ambiguous results, and I've heard someone had an ending without ever mentioning Henry's wife to Delilah.

 

My ending was not that Henry had learned something per se, but it did have a nice change where Henry was being made to confront what he had tried to escape. He had made no resolution or revelation, but what had changed was that he was now going to have to deal with his responsibilities, unlike at the start of the game.

[thepaulhoey]

I don't have any interest in relitigating the arguments over XCOM 2, but I think Rob is misreading the situation that not a ton of people are still talking about XCOM 2 as a sign of vindication that maybe the game is not as good as people thought. XCOM:EU came out around the end of 2012, and I don't recall any other game coming out afterwards that distracted me from playing it. On the other hand XCOM 2 comes out early this year, and there have been a shit ton of games that have come out that I'm excited to play. So I see it as more of a timing thing. I still have XCOM 2 on my favorites list, and I keep thinking about clicking it and jumping back in, but then I think about how there's gonna be DLC coming out that adds a whole bunch of new stuff, and I think maybe I should wait for that stuff to come out first... But basically the amount of quality games coming out this year makes it hard for me to devote a ton of time to any game this year.

 

I agree. It's easy to say people were talking about a game for the rest of the year and into next year when it was released in October, not only that it's late in the year but also that that's when best of the year discussions are going on. I know people who were talking about XCOM 2 a month after release and it had me hooked for 3 weeks straight and like you I plan on playing again when the DLC is released. I've already said a lot in the thread for that TMA podcast on XCOM 2 so I won't reiterate how completely wrong I thought they were about the game.

 

It's kind of weird to hear Rob being so petty about defending his stance on what is a really excellent game.