I Am Already Not Excited For The Next Console Cycle

It has been four years since the release of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series. I’ve been console gaming since my early youth, starting with the original PlayStation. By the time of the PlayStation 2, I had learned to expect consoles to iterate and evolve, and that the next horizon would happen sometime later on.

However, I wouldn’t ever think about the following console. I loved my PlayStation 3 and knew a PlayStation 4 would follow, but it was never more than a reality I did not think about.

Yet, during this console cycle, at only four short years in, I am noticing and thinking of the next cycle. And I am constantly dreading the reality.

I suppose it was Astro Bot that helped my eyes crack open. Celebrating everything Sony has accomplished through the PlayStation brand (with the noticeable exception of Square Enix properties) truly reminded me how much these cycles have given us. I enjoyed Astro Bot, although admittedly not to the GOTY sentiment I see from other fans and publications, but remembering the previous PlayStations' lives did show me how much the PlayStation 5 has not had much of a life after all.

There has been a focus on remastering classics from the PlayStation 3, and pointless remasters of PlayStation 4 games which occasionally are barely five years old. The live-service games came and went, leaving no lasting impressions or sometimes even a first impression, such as Foamstars of the disastrous launch of Concord.

To shift gears and discuss Microsoft and the Xbox Series of consoles, we are still waiting on the promised games such as the Perfect Dark reboot and the next chapter for Halo. The rut has yet to end, and the console has become little else but a “Game Pass machine”.

I was content with the PlayStation 1, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, and every Nintendo handheld I’ve ever owned. While I did know to expect a horizon, I was still able to love living in the moment. I can’t do that with the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox Series, as even though I do find them stronger versions of their previous console interactions, that is all they feel like. I turn on my PS5 or my Series X and feel like I’m still playing my PS4 or Xbox One but with better user interfaces.

There have been console exclusives I’ve loved, as I heavily enjoyed Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. But when it comes to console exclusives I truly only think of the ones from Nintendo as of late. And with their next console already teased, I actually do see myself excited as long as it’s little more than a more impressive Nintendo Switch.

Which is a funny contrast, and there is instead a growing fear from me for both Sony and Microsoft in how their consoles don’t feel like anything but an upgrade. Xbox’s limbo for the past decade has made things feel like they are moving sideways instead of forward, their momentum is completely stagnant. I can’t be excited anymore as I stopped expecting a comeback, and I even stopped subbing to Gamepass. I’d rather just play my back catalog instead of pretending I’m hyped.

For PlayStation, it’s the growing discomfort in their comfort zone. I may enjoy Spider-Man 2 more than Astro Bot, but the refreshing genre contrast of Astro Bot is still what I would prefer to see more of. PlayStation has enough third-person sandbox story games, as good as they may be. I feel this is a major reason for the disgust I and many others had for the announcement of the PlayStation 5 Pro. When all the games look the same anyway, due to playing the same anyway, what’s the selling point that they will now be a few pixels sharper? Variety is a better spice than 8K and 120 FPS.

I can think hard about the Nintendo Switch, but I lose my train of thought with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. They lack the identity that the Switch so easily earned, and after four years on the market with no drop in price, it’s hard not to worry.

Realistically, both companies have plenty of time to learn, but it’s more than fair to say I’ve waited long enough. If this console cycle feels stagnant and samey, it worries me this is a rut too hard to move out of.

I trust Nintendo to innovate even if the next console is little more than Nintendo Switch 2. I don’t currently trust the PlayStation 6 to be anything but a PlayStation 5 Pro. I worry that Xbox doesn’t even try to do anything besides revamp the Series until it sells or they give up.

There are great games right now, and plenty of places to play them. But I worry the next console cycle will feel like nothing. Not even an upgrade. Only time will tell.

Video Game Villains: Gruntilda "Grunty" Winkybunion

Rare’s masterpiece is usually considered to be Banjo-Kazooie. I feel I agree with this take, even if my personal favorite is the foul-mouthed Conker’s Bad Fur Day.

The platforming and jokes placed Banjo’s first adventure into player’s hearts, but an important Jiggy in the puzzle was the villain of the adventure; Gruntlida.

A typical witch at the end of it. A green-skinned horror who suddenly wishes to be the fairest of them all. Despite also being proud of her gross habits such as picking her nose in public and showering in cheese. Not a full personality truth-be-told, one that outright contradicts itself as she both wishes to be beautiful and considers ugliness to be better than beauty. Yet her jokes still landed and I found an honest-to-God charm in her always speaking in rhyme as if she escaped the pages of Dr. Seuss.

Now the opening video at the top shows her resurrection from Banjo-Tooie, and I picked that game as I feel this was where Gruntilda’s real personality was fully fleshed out. Completely forgetting the world of beauty, Grunty now loves the violence of destruction and is motivated purely by the joy of revenge. She’s even meaner this time and far more of an active threat.

Gleefully ruining the lives of NPCs and even casually outright killing an entire family of Jinjos with no remorse, the darker atmosphere of Banjo-Tooie shows itself with how much of a menace Grunty and her two sisters are. We now see the aftermath of her beating her loyal servant Klungo almost to death, and even her two sisters aren’t spared from her pointless cruelty as the two will eventually die before the final boss fight just because they lose too many points in the trivia game.

Speaking of the trivia game, I find this to relate to an aspect of Grunty’s character that each game kept intact: Her love of games. No, I’m serious, even in Banjo-Kazooie it’s clear she loves the boardgame that she makes Banjo play, she loves the trivia game in Tooie to the point she uses leftover questions in the final fight, and every encounter with her in Nuts N’ Bolts is her challenging you to a minigame with specific vehicle mechanics.

She’s also surprisingly fair in terms of losing. For a villain anyway. She throws a fit, but she doesn’t go back on her word. If she wagered a Jiggy, you win the Jiggy she wagered. Her final fight questions will make the fight easier if you answer correctly, just like she promises. And while killing her sisters is a much darker example, bear in mind that dying was the stated penalty for losing, so her own flesh and blood do not change her mind in sticking to what she states are the rules of a game. The closest she comes to breaking a rule is that she will throw a tantrum and cancel the game at the last second in Tooie, but even in that case, she doesn’t stoop to killing Banjo when she has the trap already aimed at him. She just runs off and prepares for another fight.

I found myself fascinated by this character trait as it truly does flesh out what would be a generic villain. She is a witch and later a skeleton, which is not exactly the most unique idea for a baddie. But a games master and rhyme master on top of that, well there we go!

A simple character whose execution leads to someone truly remarkable. And she only got better as time went on. She’s at her most generic in Banjo-Kazooie, then Tooie ups her threat level and gives her motives better weight, and finally, Nuts N’ Bolts just does the simple solution of keeping her constant menace and humor while allowing her to rhyme again. I can’t deny it, the rhyming is important to me. When she was forced to stop rhyming in Tooie I felt a part of her character was erased for a dumb joke, and I really do think giving that trait back to her was all Nuts N’ Bolts needed to create the best version of Gruntilda.

A classic bad guy. One of the all-time greats for platformers. Gruntilda is just as important to the series as the playable heroes it’s named after. Such an ugly face, yet an important one, and I think she would be just as proud of both those observations.

All images belong to: Rare, Microsoft, and Nintendo.

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What Was Special About Rare

I’ve been tackling my backlog this year, harder than usual. I planned it out back in January, but it’s been May and June when I really started crossing off game after game. The biggest reason for this is that I suddenly felt like going back to Rare Replay.

Jetpac Refueled is surprisingly pretty fun for how limited and arcadey it feels. Perfect Dark is incredibly fun to skate around blasting the enemies away, and honestly, I feel it’s disappointing sequel PD Zero is more mediocre than outright bad. I was stuck in Grabbed by the Ghoulies many years ago but somehow I picked it up again this year and managed to beat not just that level I was stuck on, but made it to the end that same night. A bit of an odd game but a gem that needed better sales. Kameo turned out to be fairly average, but still a fun enough game with interesting gameplay concepts.

I still need to jump back into Blast Corps, and Jet Force Gemini, but I somehow found time to play the ancient games like Gunfright and Jetpac original.

And okay, you likely just care what I think of Banjo-Kazooie. The original was beaten by me a long time ago and it’s pretty much Rare’s most competently made game. Not my personal favorite, but the one I think has the least issues. Can’t say the same for either sequel, but don’t get me wrong, I’m actually in the camp that finds Nuts & Bolts to be pretty good! The vehicles are fun and the open choice in how to win the puzzles is a great change-up to the formula even if hardly anything else feels like classic Banjo.

Of course, Tooie is also classic Banjo, and I’m sorry but I did not have a good time with it. I think every idea offered is a nice addition and I think the story and jokes are a step above the first game, but the ideas don’t gel with each other and instead just drag the gameplay down by a lot. It probably has Rare’s best final boss but honestly, that’s not saying as much as you might think.

Rare, or Rareware, (or Ultimate Play The Game if you wanna get really retro), really are one of my favorite developers for the classic games scene. Sure Insomniac offered great gems but Rare I did not grow up with and yet still find charm when I play their back catalog.

So if I could explain Rare games in just a few words, what are the phrases that come to mind?

Well for starters: Unfair difficulty!

Credits: Microsoft, Rare, Bandai Namco, Fromsoftware

Heed my advice on this, when you play any of Rare’s older games, either play a game where you have infinite lives by default, or open the options menu to give yourself infinite lives. And even then, good fucking luck my guy. I cannot for the life of me beat Snake, Rattle, and Roll. The bullshit final boss, (who’s just a hopping severed foot by the by, which is also a standard enemy type so hello there blatant recycling), is programmed to instantly fully heal back all health after a set time of not taking damage. That time frame seems to be a second or so. Rare Replay lets you rewind time and I still somehow magically miss or go just too slow and the damn foot goes back to full health. It’s asinine even for the NES, the kind of thing I’m positive a play tester told them was bad and got promptly ignored. If you can beat this thing without the cheat codes, I think you’re made of crack.

Don’t know how I would have beaten Gunfright if not for the rewind feature, either. You have to win twenty duels with AI that just moves around randomly and shoots whenever. And yes, it’s random, because when I would rewind they’d move to entirely different patterns than the last time. You just have to guess better than a fortune teller if you want to beat it “correctly”.

Banjo-Kazooie is a pleasant breeze, part of the reason I consider it Rare’s best-made game. I won’t ride on Tooie’s harsh difficulty too much as I already said I don’t like it, so let’s continue with pointlessly hard Rare games I do like.

Well, Nuts & Bolts does sometimes break its own rules and expect you to roll with it, such as how I only earned three Jiggies in Terrarium of Terror because I’d just had enough of that level’s BS. Ghoulies like I already said I was stuck on, but frankly that game’s just hard because there are a lot of rules you can suddenly have to obey, and the camera controls take a bit to get used to, not to say it’s the worst camera Rare ever made.

Allow me to share with you my favorite Rare games. I’d place Banjo-Kazooie in third place really, and Viva Pinata is such a blast (even with its problems) that I have to give it the silver medal. And maybe you’ve guessed it, but my all-time fav is Conker. And while it is in my personal top ten games, boy do I have a hard time recommending it to people because it’s also one of the hardest games I’ve ever beaten.

If you’ve never played Conker, but have heard of it, I’m sure there’s one of two thoughts going through your head. Either: “How is the funny squirrel game hard?” or “How is the allegedly funny squirrel game hard?” Conker’s humor has aged poorly for some, but not everyone. Same for its story, I have seen people criticize how slapdash and random the plot points are but I think that works as a parody of 3D platformers since, well, that’s also how it works in those games. You just jump from one completely different area to the next, the only reason this time it’s a joke is because Conker’s just a sociopath alcoholic trying to get home.

But fuck me the difficulty needed to calm the hell down. The zombies are practically impossible, the war sections demand perfect platforming despite the controls being honestly not perfect themselves, I remember my high school theatre teacher had played the game too and complained about the electric eel but frankly, somehow I had no issue there.

As for my worst moments: I died countless times to the spinning underwater saw blades. Ugh, and the final boss, Jesus, if you ever want to send me into a spiral just put on the most monotone British accent you can muster and go “Throw out the alien, and shut the bloody door.”

And on top of that, Conker has another boss who may be the hardest in all of gaming: Its own camera. I hear a lot about FromSoftware setting the scale for hard games, but not a single person calls the camera controls hard in those games, so there is unironically a good chance Conker is harder thanks to the game actively fighting back at plenty of times. There is nothing harder than a tough fight where you’re looking the entirely wrong way and can't do much of a thing about it.

I still love the game, and I still want to play it again soon despite how much it grinds my teeth into dust. All that said, I should probably give the Live & Reloaded cut a chance. Less swearing but if the camera actually works then that’s a fine trade-off.

I think if you ask most people, (well okay most YouTubers), Rare was this incredible developer who delivered fun-first gameplay styles, with wacky and well-realized characters who often stack up to what’s currently out there. The kind of games that inspired the competition generations later. Many think it’s a shame they do nothing but Sea of Thieves now, but frankly well you’re “stuck” in your best-selling game ever and raking in more money than you ever did before, that’s the kind of horrible fate I think I’d wish on myself most days.

But Rare’s insistence on difficulty is the bigger talking point, I feel. It’s Rare who thought Snake, Rattle, and Roll should have an invincible final boss. It’s Rare who felt Conker needed a bad camera. And hell, if you think I’m only guessing or being overly negative, go check out two things.

In Rare Replay, there are loads of behind-the-scenes videos, and in one of them, a developer openly states how much fun they had changing Battletoads Arcade just for the sake of making it harder and harder. Even had the gall to admit it was just to sucker more quarters out of arcade patrons.

If that’s not enough, Chris Seavor had a short-lived commentary series for Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Where he notably struggled with the gameplay, and yet found the time to state how they were forced to change the camera controls for Live & Reloaded because “players like having control over that these days”. He then stated that he preferred the stiff and unresponsive camera of the original.

That’s Rareware, everybody! One of the greatest game developers of all time, who happened to love making players pissed off way more than needed. Some of the best of the best, truly, but my popped blood vessels have their own opinion.

Image copyright belongs Rare, Nintendo, and Microsoft, most images pulled from Xbox store page.

Prediction: The PlayStation 5 Pro Is Doomed To Fail

As you may know, today (September 10th, 2024), Mark Cerny of Sony Playstation revealed the Pro line for the PS5 family of systems. At only around 10 minutes of video, this was a short but informative video on the enhancements promised by the system.

The big elephant in the room, and the likely talking point no matter how interested (or not) a potential customer may be, is the price point of $699.99. Making this a steep $200 increase from the base model. To cut to the point, whatever negatives I also have with the information provided, there was nothing the PS5 Pro could have done right to justify such a sharp asking price. Considering the wide range of taxes from state to state, this console could easily set you back around $1000, and I doubt taxes in other countries will be too different from this final price. It gets worse when considering that the vertical stand is not included with the Pro, despite how there is a stand included with the base PS5, and how collectors of physical disc games will need to shell out an additional $80 as the required disc tray is also not included.

This screams of corporate greed from a company assuming they can get away with it. Sony’s PlayStation brand earned a lot of goodwill in the past console cycle thanks to the underperformance of both their competitors (The Xbox One and the WiiU), and I fear this mask is starting to crack. A showing of ego, gained by a company deciding the general public now loves them to the point they can do no wrong. I can only imagine, and even assume, that between this and the shutdown of Concord, more than a few PlayStation fans are asking a few questions about their brand loyalty.

But let’s forget speculation, and discuss my other problems with the PS5 Pro. For starters, as profound as it may have sounded from Cerny that developers wish to show how great their games truly look while keeping the framerate the way players want, I feel this also shows a hand. Gamers have started to push back on games going for graphics over writing and/or gameplay, and to openly admit that gamers want FPS over graphics in a professional video from Sony feels like a statement they should have proofread.

I cannot speak for developers, but I honestly doubt the statement is even entirely true. I’m sure developers want their games to be good, absolutely, but graphical fidelity has always been a talking point from publishers and CEOs instead of anything I earnestly heard from a developer. A small issue, true, but a statement that pricked my ears regardless.

As for that fidelity, let’s be frank and say YouTube is the wrong place to do side-by-side comparisons. As an uploader to the platform myself, YouTube’s bitrate compresses image quality so much that true 4K does not exist on the site. Vimeo would have showcased the details far better, but YouTube is the platform more people watch, and I don’t blame Sony for YouTube’s poor render qualities. That said, the side-by-sides looked no different to me.

I have gamed on both a 4K TV and a non-4K TV with my PS5, and I can tell the difference. Even with YouTube’s compression, the only difference I saw was that the Pro version tended to be zoomed in slightly more, which is an odd choice to do for a true side-by-side. As for the framerate discussion, sadly, both videos still looked the same to me. If there is a difference, it’s in the single digits, something I’m sure I would feel but not see.

This type of console is more the more tech-savvy individual, something I somewhat am, as evident by the fact I’m an owner of Sony’s PS VR2, an expensive headset I enjoy so much I have worked it into my exercise regiment. I understand that with high-end tech, feeling can be far more important than seeing

But frankly, even before I knew the price, I was not impressed. These looked like the same old games the PS5 ran very well already. I understood the need for a PS4 pro, as the PS4 was underutilized in terms of slow load times and abysmal download speeds, but I’ve owned a PS5 for a year and have had no issues of the sort. There is no need for the Pro version of the PS5, and at 700 dollars, I only see a flop.

Video Game Villains: Eddie "Killbane" Pryor

There was a lot of internal debate on when I tackled a Saints Row villain. The franchise is near-and-dear to its fanbase in ways so hard to explain, it’s a series far more than just “GTA clone” and manages to capture so many moments that put thousands of other game series to shame. Part of me wanted to savor, but ultimately, it’s fitting to have episode the third feature a villain from Saints Row: The Third.

Especially since I always knew Killbane would be the first SR villain I’d tackle. The Third was my entry to the series and remains my favorite, and Killbane is one-half of the final villain as he is either succeeded by Cyrus Temple or just fully ignored in favor of Kia, depending on your final story choice.

Killbane is the least popular main antagonist in Saints Row, and I’ve always felt that’s unfair to him. The contest itself isn’t fair as Alderman Richard Hughes is a background character until his only scene, Dane Vogel very much the same despite his larger screen presence. Plus, while Killbane shares main villain status, Zinyak was allowed to be the only main antagonist of SR 4 and therefore constantly got to be intimidating while having several moments to flesh out his personality.

Killbane’s personality tends to be overlooked as many just think he’s shallow and showy. Never as tough as he nor Angel claim he is. He’s also considered far less interesting than Loren, Matt Decker, the DeWynter sisters, and STAG in terms of personality and appearance. While I can understand where these criticisms are coming from, I think most if not all of this is a misunderstanding of the character. Killbane to me works well as a dark shadow of both The Boss but also as a retooling of previous SR villain Maero.

I only played Saints Row 2 for the first time a few years back, but Maero stuck in my mind as probably the best-realized villain, at least on a personal level. Each SR 2 gang has its moments, but Maero comes out swinging from the first moment. He’s a wall, an arrogant giant who will not budge regardless of whether the specific playthrough’s Boss is just starting up or has already killed the other faction leaders. Maero is brutal and strong on top of this, while still caring for some of his colleagues even if not all of them.

All of these nearly describe Killbane, but Maero proved a bit more interesting for the fanbase but also surprisingly softer than Killbane when analyzed. While Maero truly cared about his girlfriend Jessica Parish and deeply trusted other members of his gang, Killbane is an egotistical nightmare who only believes in his own abilities and cunning. Killbane’s love is wholly conditional, even an accidental remark is enough to trigger a murderous rage he will not feel sorry for.

I’ve seen fans online dislike Killbane for uprooting the main villain seat from Loren, but the funny thing about that criticism is that the game itself agrees with this! When Loren is killed early on, Killbane points out that a vote for leader is required and then instantly steals the position despite every other member of The Syndicate objecting to the notion. They allow his insurrection out of personal threat, but even then, both DeWynter sisters mostly just brush the threat off as they seemingly can’t be bothered to seek the leader role that Matt Decker had just claimed is rightfully theirs.

This is where he ends up contrasting with The Boss, both in terms of SR 2 and SR The Third. In SR 2, The Boss is personally rescued by The Saints as they are picked to lead the gang into new victory after Julius vanished, while Killbane is an unwanted leader forcing himself into the role at the first chance. The Boss uses their granted confidence to bring The Saints into total victory by erasing the rival gangs and even the multi-million Ultor, while Killbane’s assumed confidence sees him down the path of complete failure for the Syndicate.

Killbane personally kills Kiki DeWynter out of petty anger, which results in Viola betraying him, and later snowballs into Matt being so afraid of him that he quits organized crime for good. Killbane never feels remorse for these actions and only sees a reality where he stays on top of the world, only to get humiliated in the ring and either killed or forced into hiding. The Boss understands the qualities of a great leader, while Killbane sees the lavish power fantasy.

Killbane’s threat level is a bit stranger, not in a way I dislike, just in a way where he is and isn’t as tough as he claims. Killbane brags about being undefeated in the ring and a true unstoppable force. Meanwhile, Angel and Kinzie will talk about how he is tough as steel but mostly underhanded above anything else. Angel lost to Killbane once before but assumes there was cheating, warning The Boss several times that you just can’t beat Killbane in the slightest.

But Angel is proven completely wrong. When Angel finally gets that rematch, Killbane does send in help but said help really only bugs The Boss. Once the backup is done with, Killbane still instantly and easily defeats Angel. The talk of him cheating to win is a bunk from a failure. The reality was that Killbane is a tough nut to crack and Angel was never good enough to beat him.

But, then there’s The Boss. The Boss starts the feud with Killbane assured that Kinzie and Angel are hyping up Killbane too much and that he’d not last long in a true fight. This point is nearly proved early on by an assassination attempt, thwarted only at the last minute by Matt. When this easy solution is mentioned again after Matt skips town, Angel just claims that somehow shooting Killbane in the head wouldn’t work. The same man who thinks he’d beat Killbane also thinks Killbane is bullet-proof, it’s almost as if this is more about ego between them than anything else…..

So when The Boss is forced into the ring, we get to see exactly how strong he is. Try to punch him and he doesn’t even have to shrug it off. However, slap him around for a few seconds with something stronger, and suddenly a few quick-time-events are all that’s needed. This is repeated should you go after him in the finale instead of saving Shaundi, only this time his plane exploding replaces the need for slapping him with a toilet. Killbane ultimately does have an iron hide, but The Boss is completely right with their guess that they’ve dealt with tougher foes before as Killbane is easily defeated. Even Matt put up a better fight all things considered.

All of these things explain his unpopularity with fans. Killbane isn’t as smart nor as strong as he thinks, being easily outshined by the other villains even from personality alone. But that’s the thing, I like him as a villain for that! A villain being an arrogant hypocrite does not make them a bad villain. After all, they need to be a force you need to stop, and Killbane still is that. While not invincible, he is still a threat. His unstable nature makes him all the worse as it only means his ego is easily bruised, and once it is, he will respond in a way that destroys whatever he feels is in his path.

Cyrus Temple is the true main villain of Saints Row: The Third, full stop. He’s scarier and much harder to defeat. However, Killbane is the villain who pushes the plot forward more than anyone else, and that’s all by his design of a flawed masterplan. The Saints had already killed Loren and likely would have just moved back to Stillwater, but Killbane is the one who pulls them right back in. Killbane’s overstepping convinces the senate to approve STAG and therefore forces Cyrus into his position. There is no Saints Row: The Third without Killbane.

A classic villain is supposed to share the same flaws as the hero, yet darker. Killbane does that far more than most SR villains if not all of them. There’s a reason even his detractors still like his final monologue I linked at the top. He realizes The Boss is a sell-out because they both are. Sell-outs who got high on violence and always got to be on top. Of course, by Saints Row: The Third, The Boss was starting to turn more anti-hero. Killbane may just be the villain The Boss was going to be if The Third didn’t soften them up. A loud wash-up who demanded the world, even when they weren’t worthy of it. From a loving leader who never did anything worse than ribbing their teammates to a monster who chose to selectively love the useful subordinates and unflinching kill the others when even the slightest bit angry.

I’ve replayed this game so many times, and it is still a highlight when I pull that sweaty mask off his face and reveal his hairline to the crowd. Killbane is not a charming villain like Loren or a mastermind villain like Matt and Cyrus, but I wouldn’t have him any other way.

Image credits: Volition, Deep Silver

Gamescom's 2024 Opener Felt Surprisingly Dull

Before we start this discussion, I’d like to just give a quick apology for the likelihood of spelling errors or inconsistencies this go around. I am on my own here but strive for professionalism, which means I typically reread these blog posts multiple times before I finish them, but I need to be timely today so the chance of spelling goofs is much higher than normal. I will also be speaking off the cuff for many of the game trailers, as one does, so expect an easy breezy attitude.

Gamescom happens every year, hosted by none other than Geoff Keighley, an industry man so well known that spellcheck was able to correctly identify his surname. For what it’s worth, I’ve liked Geoff for a while now. I noted back at my tenure freelancing for DualShockers that he is capable of being too commercial-focused, but, his love for video games is genuine and he can let it shine brightly.

Gamescom’s 2024 opener didn’t feel too commercial thankfully, it more so just happened to showcase games I overwhelmingly didn’t find myself caring about.

Let’s just get one thing out of the way; I’ve already stated my worries about Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, so I won’t replay that record this evening for you. We can also start with positives just for the sake of argument:

I’m excited for the Mafia series to come back, but then again, the trailer was nothing more than a teaser, and I have become far too cynical to be fully excited when that happens. I also think it’s great that Genshin Impact is coming to Xbox platforms, as while my time with Honkai Star Rail has still been short, I can tell there’s fun and quality from Hoyoverse, so allowing even more players to try their games out is welcome. It’s fun to hear about Secret Level, assuming it does live up to the hype of a full series that looks exactly like a modern video game cutscene.

There were too many games that looked technically fine but were elbow-deep into a franchise I am not familiar with and seemed very comfortable marketing off that familiarity. That is no fault of theirs, but it left me cold. I was also briefly intrigued by the above Call Of Duty, but entirely for the secret agent aspects. I found myself uninterested once it became a shootout and motorcycle chase, but I can still say I understand why fans would be pumped. It still looked more interesting to me than the last decade of the franchise, and it’s likely something I’ll play around with when I resubscribe to Game Pass, which is more than I have said about Call Of Duty in a long while.

But I’m sorry to say the event itself started off sour for me. The Borderland 4 announcement is a victim of terrible timing due to the movie being a massive critical and commercial flop, but it can also be slammed for featuring no gameplay or even as much as a character reveal!

The trailer for Goat Simulator Remastered is quite funny until the title drops. There is no reason to remaster a game that looks like crap on purpose and runs perfectly well on modern hardware. Polishing the turd would ruin the joke, and anyone who wants to play Goat Simulator can already do so. Putting it on stage for a large crowd only made it feel shallow.

What on God’s green Earth was Masters Of Albion? Directed by Fable creator and Lionhead founder Peter Molyneux, this game is an apparent return caused by an alleged yearning to come back to the console space after developing for mobile. I’m nothing short of worried that the mobile phone game market tainted Molyneux’s design, however, as Masters Of Albion reeks of mobile phone gaming down to even having a hand as a cursor to drag the objects of characters. It lacked any wit or charm to keep my interest. Molyneux has enough spite against him on the web, so I see no need to begrudge him just because of the internet’s beef, but I do wonder why this game was allowed on the show floor. Perhaps it’s secretly a masterpiece, but time will have to tell us that, as my eyes sure didn’t seem to think it is.

I’m outright confused about what there is left to talk in-depth about. As I said in the positives, many trailers felt like I was left out of the loop, and sadly that’s just as much a negative. Many new IPs and franchise staples had trailers leaving me puzzled and empty. I don’t wish to attack these games without knowing anything about them, all I would like to say is how I was left knowing nothing about them. I was just as empty from Little Nightmares 3 and I was Reanimal. As empty from the Zenless Zone Zero update trailer as I was from Marvel Rivals’s and Warhammer’s. I’d go as far as to guess these may very well all be good games, but the marketing was so underwhelming, especially as I have been intrigued by previous Little Nightmare game trailers and Zenless update trailers.

For everything E3 did wrong, it was rare to be so bored by an E3 conference, yet this year’s Gamescom has started as dull as a rusted nail. The tempo is off drastically, and I hope the following days are of more interest to those in attendance. I do if this is the case, as I could not help by notice that the oversized crowd made hardly a peep during the show. Unless they were not properly miked, they were as disinterested as I was.

Video Game Villains: The Bosses Of Spyro The Dragon

I can thank the original Spyro the Dragon for showing my younger self what a video game can do. I’d played educational games on the PC, and Spyro wasn’t even my first PlayStation title, but it was the one that directly told me about breaking boundaries. Just to see what was on the other side. I hadn’t ever wondered what lay beyond the overworld before, I hadn’t realized I should be curious, that I should look for every advantage I may find. I just knew how to click on an object or how to jump.

Something Spyro also showed me was how, sometimes, a bad guy is just there to be an obstacle to overcome. I feel like I knew that even at the time, not that I could articulate this fact. Spyro The Dragon has some very minimalistic bosses who serve no purpose nor character other than being a guy Spyro beats up to get gems.

Youtuber Caddicarus went as far as to say they are some of the worst bosses in video game history. He was likely being hyperbolic for the sake of his style of video, but in my personal opinion, I have fought so many worse video game villains. I beat Immortals of Aveum if you want proof I’ve slugged through pointless bosses. I can’t help but agree with him for one character though, which would be the main villain of Spyro the Dragon; Gnasty Gnorc.

His introduction was the opener of this episode, and the reason I showcase a cutscene at the start of these blog posts is to try and condense the core reason I picked said villain in the first place. Maybe not their greatest moment, but certainly the moment it stuck with me how said character worked as a villain. Gnasty Gnorc’s intro isn’t an exception, but that’s only because, outside of the opening, there are zero cutscenes featuring him. And zero is also the number of cutscenes featuring any of the other bosses.

Gnasty comes in to state the reason Spyro has to run around and free the other dragons. That’s it. Literally it. He’s not deep and was never meant to be, he’s an object given a name. Heck, his backstory doesn’t technically exist, the dragons call him ugly, and “that tears is”, which means we’re only told there’s personal beef between Gnasty and the dragons but not even a shred of what the beef is. They do say in the interview that Gnasty learned a type of magic that turns gems into minions, so sure, that explains the beef; Gnasty steals the dragon’s gems and uses them to create an army of minions. The why is never answered, he could just be some punk-ass thief who thinks he’s bigger than that, and the dragons brushing him off could be evidence of the theory.

I’ve been snarky but haven’t explained why I agree with Caddicarrus for just Gnasty Gnorc. That’s because his fight sucks. It’s really bad, even as a kid I was surprised at how lackluster it is. He just stands up top shooting energy at you, then Spyro kills some bandits carrying keys, uses those keys to get to Gnasty’s level, then Gnasty runs away in this big loop until you attack him once, then runs through a chamber of lava where just one more hit kills him. On my first ever go around, I died quite a few times to misjudging the platforms at the end, but not to Gnasty himself. When I finally landed the last blow, kid me was surprised it was over. I had fully expected another phase.

Spyro bosses have three hit points, each and every one, until suddenly they don’t. That was a mind-screw as a kid, being smart enough to realize that if Doctor Shemp and Toasty needed three hits, I should expect Blowhard to also need three fire breaths. But then, Metalhead only had two cycles, followed by Jacques and then Gnasty as well. The bosses get weaker as you go along, such a strange concept when you say it out loud.

To be fair to the second half of the bosses, they reside in levels much harder to navigate. It’s the level Jacques resides that’s the real boss, with him just being the pushover you kill without thinking much about it. Yeah, just like Gnasty, he wasn’t a threat as a kid, but his stupid ass level gave me a headache! Still not a fan of it to this day.

So what are these bosses anyway? Well, Gnasty Gnorc is the leader of the Gnorcs, some invented fantasy creature for the Spyro universe that phonetically is a mishmash of Gnome and Orc. Toasty is a sheep on stilts wearing a brown coat and wielding a scythe with a jack-o-lantern for a head, which tells you just how hard some of the creature design goes in Spyro 1 (Toasty’s probably more iconic than Gnasty if I’m being real, maybe he should have been in Hero's Tale instead).

Back on track; Doctor Shemp is a large yellow/orange Gnorc wearing a metal apron and waving around a shaman stick. Not sure why he’s named after one of the stooges. Blowhard is a traditional long-bearded wizard but instead of a torso, he’s a tornado. Metalhead is a giant robot Gnorc and the only gimmick fight of the game; you have to destroy his little antennas instead of attacking him directly. You can even trick him into throwing minions into the antennas, it’s honestly my favorite boss, no competition. Jacques is just a jack-in-the-box come loose. Sure he’s got a creepy green face, sort of, but yeah weakest design and a low spot for the game overall.

There are no motives for these bosses, and heck, you don’t even have to fight them! Spyro The Dragon is a collectathon, and collectibles are required to go to further hub worlds, but it’s pretty easy to get the required amount of collectibles without stepping foot in every level from a world. A boss in Spyro 1 is nothing more than a special level, something where you step in and expect a challenge from a slightly harder foe than normal, and the level itself will even have other gems and dragons to collect that have nothing to do with the boss, even though all of the boss levels are named after the boss! The designs are too good to call them afterthoughts, work was clearly put into them and I find most of them to be fun enough for what they are, but to pretend these are traditional villains is a massive step.

And you know what? These kinds of bosses are rare in games now. Video games have evolved in the story department, heck even the following Spyro games had their stories directly explain the bosses and give them a greater purpose. I love well-written villains and games with great stories, but as I said earlier; Spyro the Dragon is the game that showed me what a video game can really be.

Spyro the Dragon is a fun-first type of game. A classic game that gives you a good enough excuse to run around and collect the collectibles. You have a bad guy you need to take down, and know just enough about him to understand why you should take him down. It doesn’t need a backstory for Toasty, or an epic cutscene where Metalhead breaks down the door and monologues about his desire for evil or revenge or what have you.

All Spyro the dragon needed was a Gnorc who doesn’t like being insulted, and 5 other bosses you can fight before him should you wish to. They’re simple, they’re no threat, and besides, they are ugly. But at the end of it, I love that I’ve fought them so many times. An obstacle with a face, never anything more, and I still cherish them to this day for wearing that concept like a badge of honor.

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*Credit for featured image: All images used property of Sony Interactive, Universal, and Insomniac Games.

The Games Industry Needs To Stop Being Jealous Of Movies

Well here’s a topic I think nearly everybody’s shaken a stick at. But it’s a topic that seems evergreen, so sometimes you just have to add to the pile.

But before we move on to our showcase, let’s have Timothee Chalamee and Margot Robbie take the floor to talk about this next game! Later on, we’ll have Dolly Parton and Arnold Schwarzenegger discuss this cute open-world quadruple-A instant masterpiece with zero percent gameplay; guaranteed!

This little song and dance has been going on for over a decade, both parts of the song and dance honestly. The less subtle dig being this sad fear you see at modern games showcases, where they simply must bring up some celeb who doesn’t give a frog about games, stand there like a deer in headlights, and try and remember what their handler told them to say. Else the whole affair goes to shambles! “But Wyatt, Timothee Chalamee used to mod Xbox 360 controllers!” Whoa, that definitely means he should be on stage instead of an actor who was actually in one of the games getting an award.

If anything though, saying that gaming showcases have no positives to gain by mimicking the Oscars is a separate discussion. Believe it or not, my second dig at the industry’s trends is the meat of this entry.

I am tired of games relying on just their cut scenes to prove they’re good. It’s not 2004 anymore, I’m not that same preteen with no money watching long plays online for my only experience with a game I heard about. I’ve matured, and my pockets even sometimes have money in them! I see video games as video GAMES now, that video part sure is nice and all but I need me some game to continue being interested. And I ain’t alone here you know, the industry even secretly agrees considering how much it’s also still chasing Fortnite, a game that doesn’t come across like a movie you pretend to play. (Although the movie industry may be jealous of Fortnight given the premiere of feature films on the platform).

I’m missing my own points, I think, I’m just a little too mad this is still going on to think straight. Let’s stick to my points by just focusing on one game, a game that currently isn’t out: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

It’s amazing how much they’ve perfectly captured the feeling of an Indiana Jones movie, and I say this as someone who thinks Last Crusade suffers from feeling like watered-down Raiders, completely forgetting it’s a love letter to film serials in the process, so it takes a lot to impress me with this franchise.

And as for the gameplay; by this point dawg I’m not even sure it exists. That bit where Indy chucks a sledgehammer right at an enemy’s heart got my attention, but frog me there’s so little else. I want to be fair to Machine Games in that I’ve heard so many other people state they know it will be fun because of how great the Wolfenstein games are, and I still haven’t gotten around to those, so perhaps I’d be less worried if I was familiar with the game feel Machine Games has. However, it’s a weak argument that I shouldn’t be worried about the gameplay of Great Circle just because Wolfenstein was good. I still say I should have seen a deeper gameplay dive by this point, when all we’ve gotten so far is corporate slideshows that briefly discuss different puzzle elements.

They use the word gameplay in the title but it’s a collection of animations. I want a pure gameplay trailer, and the longer I don’t get one, the more I’m genuinely concerned that The Great Circle will be style over substance.

And yes, I do think this came from jealousy. Jealousy of the film industry. See, way back when the PlayStation 3 was still struggling, Naughty Dog did the unthinkable and created Uncharted. Ultimately not much more than a love letter to, well funny enough, Indiana Jones and the film serials that inspired it. Uncharted had pretty simple combat and overall gameplay, nothing terrible mind you, just more serviceable than anything else, but also put a big emphasis on capturing the swooping cameras and lighting of blockbuster films. It set the gaming world on fire.

Which is fine in and of itself. There’s a video inside of me that wants to discuss why Uncharted doesn’t strike me with remotely the same fervor it did everyone else, but I certainly don’t hate Uncharted for existing, nor do I blame it for what happened next.

More games started copying those camera angle choices and jumped into having bigger and better cutscenes. We also have both Uncharted 2 and Red Dead Redemption 1 to point to the moments when gaming suddenly had story writing most people considered good. There were good stories before those two, but the common opinion was that no games had real storytelling, with RDR and Uncharted 2 being the first to truly challenge that notion.

Red Dead Redemption I do hold the same fervor as everyone else did, but that doesn’t mean I love how many games these days now shoot for story over gameplay. RDR at least balanced gameplay and writing to be equally important, something its own prequel doesn’t even try (I love RDR 2 but there’s little defending many aspects of the gameplay as those are very much style over substance).

I’m sure some of you are hoping I trash The Last Of Us next, but hey, since I didn’t gell with Uncharted I never gave LOU a playthrough, so I don’t have opinions on how it treats story over gameplay. I can say I remember people loving the gameplay and especially the multiplayer of the original, and never hear anyone talk about the sequel’s gameplay unless it’s in a trailer for one of their endless remasters.

If we want to use hard evidence all of this stems from a jealousy of films, instead of just innovating the existing styles; we have no evidence harder than the fact cutscenes are now called cinematics. When and how did we let that change happen? Cinematics, pffp, yeah because when I play Conker I wish I was in a cinema. The Great Mighty Poo needs to be experienced in 4K UHD surround sound while my shoes are stuck to the floor from a cola stain older than I am. Wouldn’t be immersed without it.

The sad thing is this scenario has already started to happen. When the HBO Last Of Us came out (side note; it may have been for the already-forgotten Uncharted movie), Sony got famous YouTubers to go to A CINEMA to not just watch the first episode but ALSO USED THE SPACE TO PLAY UNCHARTED! I’m sorry, but you didn’t convince me Uncharted is a masterpiece, you accidentally claimed your game is just a movie.

Every medium has its own strengths and weaknesses, and while there is overlap, that doesn’t mean you can copy one-to-one. Hell, I’m the kind of person who for years has been saying a great game is a closer experience to the immersion and personal-attachment that a good book can give you. Visuals be damned! That doesn’t mean I want games to be just like books, not even Visual Novels, because even those should focus on the gameplay aspect that only video games provide.

It’s why LEGO games can be still charming with only minor changes to their formula every few entries. People like to rag on Pokemon when the stories are mid, but the original game has the midest story of the bunch and still remains the best seller, almost as if the selling point is how good it feels to catch the monsters.

Stories don’t make games. Graphics do not guarantee a game. There’s been some good cash by chasing movies, but rose-colored glasses tend to fade. I’m sure Uncharted, Last of Us, Horizon, new God of War, Red Dead 2, et all., will continue having lifelong fans who adore their stories. But, those exact fans also love the gameplay loops. People keep saying a games crash is coming, and frankly, it’s not. Not to the extent people seem to think anyway. But we are very likely on the cusp of a massive industry shift. And if there’s anything worth losing in this shift, it’s big-budget games sniffing the asses of blockbuster movies.

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Featured Image Credits: Microsoft, Machine Games, Sony Interactive, Naughty Dog, The Game Awards

The Villains Of Video Games: Xemnas (Kingdom Hearts)

Kingdom Hearts had something to prove when it came to the original characters. Sora, Riku, and Kairi led the series a great foot forward, but that still left original villains needing to prove themselves. Now, Riku fell to the dark side of course, and Chain of Memories showed a section of Organization XIII. But, as Riku found redemption and many players jumped into Kingdom Hearts II without knowing Chain of Memories would be important, the only original villain to leave their impression was left with Ansem the Seeker of Darkness.

A fine villain for what he was, a subject for his entry, but ultimately a plot-twist villain that is nearly spelled out should you look for the signs (i.e. reading the Ansem Reports). I’m a Kingdom Hearts 1 fan, yet it’s not a twist of my arm to say that game doesn’t have the best villain of the series. That villain is the main antagonist of Kingdom Hearts II; the Nobody Xemnas.

Xemnas led Organization XIII, a shadowy Organization even if you did play Chain of Memories on the GBA (Something I still haven’t). The threat of the Organization was left a mystery until the halfway point of KHII, leaving them to feel around as enigmatic as Yen Sid describes them. In a flash, we get their true motives and the backstory of specifically Xemnas, something that back during release was honestly a bit infamous.

To tell players that the man they defeated, was not, in fact, ever a man named Ansem. That Ansem the Wise was someone else, only the teacher of the man who would steal his name and attempt the throw the universe to darkness on a lark. Xehanort was the man you killed, his Heartless side, whom also created the Nobody Xemnas. This smug slow-talker who can’t even step out of the shadows as long as he still has Nobodies to throw at you.

And as I said, over the years I’ve grown to love Xemnas. I’ve played all the games released on console (aside from Melody of Memory), and I know Kingdom Hearts loves feeling like it’s pushing bigger punches than it really is in the writing department. KH1 and Re: Chain Of Memories have great writing, but starting in KHII, we instead saw mediocre stories that would somehow manage to have great moments anyway.

The Organization and the Nobodies are sort of this, see, the game focuses so much on telling the players that Nobodies are emotionless and non-existent beings. The authority figures of the game outright hate the Nobodies, and this hate gets passed on to Sora, Donald, and Goofy. Even when I was younger I felt this was a bit mean; why should I be forced to believe people unfortunate enough to stop existing must be evil by default? Likely why this backstory would later be retconned. As for KHII itself, Xemnas’s ultimate plan was to awaken Kingdom Hearts and force the entity to grant Hearts, therefore existence, unto every surviving Member of the Organization. Genocide is the means to his end, sending Heartless to swallow the Hearts of countless, and then have those Hearts be unleashed through a Keyblade. Only done so when the Heartless in question is killed.

It’s dark when thought about, darker than it already sounds, and yet still Xemnas feels this is his only option. He doesn’t feel bad about these atrocities, as, he can’t. He’s emotionless, and not even a real being anymore. He isn’t capable of caring, and unlike his subordinates, never really tries to ape his forgotten emotions either. Xaldin mimics the psychology of a domestic manipulator, Saix loses his cool after perfectly maintaining it for dozens of gaming hours, Demyx is panicky and seems to understand fear on a real level, and going back in time with Chain of Memories shows us Larxene’s sadistic streak. But, Xemnas barely raises his voice and only speaks in terms of incorrect facts. Things he completely misunderstands, to the point where I now get the impression that Xemnas straight-up doesn’t remember what emotions were like, despite how other members ranging from Axel to Saix openly brag that they remember what emotions were like, hence the ability to copy them.

The motion Xemnas is going through though are barely one-track, even when he tries to manipulate the heroes he just points at them and tells them to gather more Hearts, lacking all the wordplay and mind games of Saix, Luxord, or Xigbar. Even when Kingdom Hearts is shattered, and he knows his dream is gone, he speaks with the exact same cadence he did when he cheered his victory. I remember him being smug when I was younger, but as an adult, he now just sounds matter-of-fact, with the facts in question being half-lies and other things he isn’t capable of understanding. Out of every Organization member, it is Xemnas who feels like someone not allowed to cry out in pain. Xemnas is unforgivable but quite understandable.

I’ve danced around it, but what exactly happens with the retcon is only a shame for Xemnas. Just think for a moment, taking in everything Xemnas is; how should a villain like Xemnas react to hearing everything he did was completely pointless, as he was growing a Heart again anyway? The retcon makes sense, as while it may spit in the fact of Yen Sid and Ansem the Wise, neither truly comes across as all-knowing (especially the latter). It’s a fact that feels right, and something that paints over every previous feeling with almost the same coat of paint anyway. You still feel bad you killed Demyx, and are less surprised Larxene was such a cretin.

Xemnas however, underwent a complete re-write that was a slap in the face to his character. Xemnas was not Xehanort nor The Seeker of Darkness, he was his own self, a bit of themselves with his own goals and needs. But Dream Drop Distance instead ushered in one of the least-liked Kingdom Hearts story ideas, especially in my book, that every game must in fact be building to the next one whether you like it or not, and especially whether it fits or not. Xemnas became nothing but another Xehanort, despite how obvious it is that there were other ways to have him react to the retcon.

Like many other Organization members, he could have just been simply horrified at the news. Stunned that he did unthinkable acts for well and truly no reason. Of course, as Xemnas was recycled as a villain for Dream Drop and KHIII, there’s even another option: just make him succumb to the sunk-cost fallacies. Xemnas spoke in incorrect facts he believed in, I see no reason he wouldn’t have heard about the retcon and simply ignored the epiphany. Just a calculated response; he had no idea it was unnecessary so he shouldn’t be held responsible. That if he felt like he needed to do it, why is everyone judging him at he did it? An obvious lie that men like Xemnas tell themselves every day. It’s why Dream Drop Xemnas is such a let-down, because it feels like nothing was done to justify fighting him again. Hey everybody, remember Xemnas? Because he’s back again and about a seventh as interesting. Another Kingdom Hearts staple.

I will say these complaints were heard, in what I think was my favorite bit of KHIII. Look, I’m not on the boat ride claiming it was actually a good game this whole time. It’s bloated and somehow just as rushed as it is padded, but as I said before, ever since KHII this series managed to stick mediocre scripts with stellar sections. And Xemnas’s death is maybe its most stellar.

Sora politely asks his foe how he really feels. Puts it together that someone who put his co-workers into the slaughter only because he wasn’t allowed to process the emotional discourse, is very likely suddenly full of guilt now that emotions have come back to them. And Xemnas, admits it. His lackluster cadence manages to shrivel, making something, sorrowful. KHIII’s main villains, all of whom overstayed their welcome, range from patting Sora on the back for killing them or just gloating that they will always be evil anyway. Xemnas is the one who comes to realize just how much of a monster he is, just how much blood is on his hands just because he did not think to stop. While the other villains see Sora as an annoyance or as an equal when he defeats them, it’s Xemnas who fully understands why Sora is the better man. His call out that having feelings and embracing them must make you unfathomably strong, sounds so perfect as a closure to everything about his character.

A villain like Xemnas only comes when a writing team truly believes they are saying something. I think that’s why he’s one of the many highlights of KHII, and one of the few highlights of KHIII. When he’s the epitome of Nothingness, how seeking for existence without a care who gets hurt, he’s a stand-out villain you both enjoy defeating and wish you could talk down. He’s not a good Xehanort, but why did he ever need to be? Nothingness and yet layered after all.

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