A merry quintet of "Uh"s for you all and welcome to what will hopefully not come off as a thousand-odd words of griping about Ubisoft's generally excellent Assassin's Creed series of stealthy cinematic stab-em-ups. Like I suspect a great many of you, at least those of you that weren't fixated on the two big FPS releases this month, I played a lot of the new Assassin's Creed 3 this week. To the exclusion of all else, as it turns out. I wasn't too impressed with the game as, again, I'm sure is the case for a lot of others. My extended thoughts on why that is can be found yonder, but today I wanted to discuss the series as a whole and my tumultuous relationship with it. Mostly so I can try to figure out why I let myself get so hyped for this new one, given its disappointing immediate precedent (that would be Revelations) and the already middling word-of-mouth by the time I got around to it. I suspect it has something to do with how much I tended to like the rest of the games, but it doesn't hurt to make sure with a little recollection. Probably.

Assassin's Creed

The first Assassin's Creed was a curious experiment with a strong pedigree and a lot of really smart ideas, somewhat hamstrung by its limited gameplay. It's kind of a shame that the first game is at times so inaccessible, largely because of how each game is so closely related and anyone with a strong interest in the overarching narrative would have to start at the series' nadir. Fortunately, Revelations does a good job providing Cliffs Notes on Altair's life and accomplishments, but in a lamentable twist that just means you have to play Revelations instead of Assassin's Creed 1, which is scarcely an improvement.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Assassin's Creed puts you in the shoes of modern-day hapless gadabout Desmond Miles after he is abducted from his bar-tending job by the shadowy, Templar-affiliated organization Abstergo. It's never good when the name of the evil company that has kidnapped you is based on a term to eliminate or to vanish something without a trace, though I suppose it's better than an evil company named after canopies. He is forced to relive the genetic memories of his ancestor Altair Ibn-La'Ahad, a particularly proficient killer and - as it would later turn out - the eventual originator of a huge clan of anti-Templar assassins that have continued to be a hidden blade in their side for nigh on a thousand years.

The problems with the first game have been well-documented, but essentially the game fools the player into a false sense of open-ended freedom by allowing them to run amok and explore a series of Crusade-era middle eastern cities to their heart's content. However, in order to move the plot forward, the player must gather clues about their next Templar target via a few mini-activities that involve eavesdropping on a conversation or tailing a suspicious character. An interesting approach to creating a mystery adventure game that relies on nothing but the player's reflexes and ability to stay hidden in order to proceed, but unfortunately scuppered by the fact that this was all there was to the game. After the first assassination, the approach might be perceived as an intriguing way to set-up the big set-piece mission at the end of it all, sort of how the oddly similar Sly 2: Band of Thieves would set up each of its heists with a prior series of (thankfully more diverse) "putting the pieces into place" low-stakes missions. After the fourth or fifth identical iteration of this set-up, however, the game is relying on the grace of God to have any players still invested enough to see it through. A microcosm of the series' major problem as a whole, it would later turn out.

Overall, though, I didn't hate the first game. Clearly not, as I was ready to give its sequel a chance even before I was hearing how good it was and how its stealthy gameplay had - hyperbolically, perhaps - become the apotheosis of the sub-genre. But yeah, when I hear about Brad and others deciding to take the haystack plunge into the Assassin's Creed series because of how superb its later entries are, I don't envy them taking those bumpy first few steps.

Assassin's Creed II

When Desmond jumps 300 years forward into the memories of Renaissance ladies' man Ezio Auditore da Firenze, it's a huge shift that's symbolically reflected in how far the gameplay's been evolved and improved. More emphasis is put into how Ezio came to be, both in the literal birth sense and his awakening as one of the most effective and important Assasssins in the order's long history. The second game is careful to mirror the first in its message and approach - find out more about the Templar targets and pick a moment when they're at their weakest and strike - but is also extremely aware of the shortcomings of its antecedent and works to fix every issue a player might've had (and had expressed) with it. What we receive is the very model of a modern video game sequel; a game that simultanteously stays true to its core appeal without feeling the need to drastically change itself to remain popular, like the earnest main character of so many high school makeover movies, while alleviating almost all of its shortcomings in the process. In short? It's pretty good, you guys.

While AC2 does spread itself out a bit in terms of what is needed for the story-essential missions, the game also gives players more incidental material to work with should they choose to faff around a while. Rather than the first game's limited side-quest philosophy of "you want something else to do? Here's some flags. Enjoy", its sequel offers so much of this secondary material that it's likely a player will be spending as much, if not more, time on its extracurricular activities. In this sense the game finally realizes the open-world aspect of its nature; why bother creating such elaborate recreations of famous ancient cities if so much of it is inconsequential to the game? Giving players reasons to explore more of it, beyond for the sake of collectibles, is a satisfying experience for both the players and the poor souls who have poured so much work into their verisimilitude. Even if, perhaps, the real thing didn't have quite so many handholds and hiding places.

AC2 had very much set the bar - when developing future entries, the developers would have their work cut out for them to improve upon it. For better or worse, they elected to simply stay the course by appropriating the same basic formula without rocking the boat too much. We'll be feeling the repercussions of that decision later.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

For many, Ezio's second outing is the zenith of the franchise; what is essentially a slight tweaking of the second game in a much more elaborately realized city with some welcome (and unwelcome) additions. It lacked the ambition of its two forebears, being as it was a mild improvement of its ancestor, but the series was still firing on all cylinders at this point.

An older Ezio has traveled to Rome to keep tabs on his nemesis Rodrigo Borgia, now Pope Alexander VI. However, a bigger problem arises in the Pope's ambitious nephew Cesar. Mixing in the chaos and debauchery of the extended Borgia clan, something that's worked for TV in the past, was a smart decision for AC2's sequel to follow, but the brightest spark was in using Ezio's middle-aged status as an excuse to prop him up as the new Assassin kingpin and give him his own cadre of junior assassins to order around. The subsequent side-activity of a globe-spanning organization of assassin contracts and missions really gives a sense of a much wider world, even if - conversely - the main action was relegated to a single city. It was also baller as fuck, to use the common vernacular of this site, to gesture in the air and have a bunch of trained killers drop in on your enemies at a convenient moment. It's a clever addition that adds much to the strategy and planning around each scenario, making things much easier while at the same time cunningly providing a crutch that players might rely on until the game happily kicks away from them at the least opportune moments.

What was less fun, though only because it could occasionally highlight the game's minor issues, was the full synchronization feature. Though entirely optional, the game held back the much-vaunted (by crazies) 100% accolade by putting players through the wringer with some occasionally deviously difficult bonus requirements, such as avoiding detection of any kind or only killing a limited number of guards. Intended to not only challenge players but also, in a clever narrative twist, emphasize the prowess of the assassin they were body-jacking, these requirements would drive you crazy if you let them. The better limitations definitely added something to the experience, however.

Assassin's Creed Revelations

For the sake of brevity, because this blog's long enough already, I'll say that Revelations did what Brotherhood did before it, just not well. Which is to say it built on AC2 with some new features that, rather than adding to the experience (like calling on one's running crew), detracted from it instead. Did we really need Tower Defense sequences? A climbing hook that changed nothing because every free-climbing sequence was modified to now require it? An antagonist that was only revealed an hour before the game's end? Constantinople looked nice though.

Assassin's Creed III

Which leads to this new one. I'll skip over the plot, since it's everywhere, but the game's generally at its peak with regards to its characters and not at all at its peak with regards to the story. It is many ways an unfortunate mess of new and mostly superfluous additions to the AC2 format but also a fairly refreshing change to a contemporary era in which we could continue wildly stabbing people we disagree with. Not that I disagreed with them. Kingdoms need taxes to pay for things, you guys. You can't just throw all our tea off a boat because we.. whatever, water under the bridge now.

What is probably most disappointing was the failure to live up to that expectation everyone had that AC 3 would've been to AC 2 as it was to AC 1: A huge step forward, a chance to shake off the aging system its persistent issues without compromising that violent, historically-suspect core which brought in its fans (especially the ones that stuck with it after the first game) and held their interest for four iterations. Instead, it appears Ubisoft was forced to make a leap forward while at the same time not being entirely content to abandon their lucrative system of releasing the same game with a new coat of paint on a yearly cycle. They knew they couldn't have a 65-year-old Ezio creaking around the ruins of ancient worlds that were as dilapidated as he was, but nor were they willing to take an extra year out to revamp the whole AC 2 format, lest they spend a whole year with nothing to show for it and end up with something worse in the subsequent twelve months. Something as potentially disastrous as the first Assassin's Creed, perhaps. That there is definite precedent for this whole stabbin'-'n-stealthin' formula to go pear-shaped must be a troubling proverbial sword of Damocles for its developers. Which is probably a cruelly germane metaphor, considering the whole franchise is predicated on bared blades waiting in the rafters. Rambling again, sorry, time to wind this shebang up:

So now we'll see just what happens to this series. Do they keep with the incrementally improved but increasingly dissatisfying AC2-derived iterations, unfairly testing the devotion of its fanbase? Or attempting the unenviable task of starting the whole thing from scratch once again, with a new approach that somehow doesn't compromise its core appeal? I have no idea, but I have just enough goodwill left to give them the benefit of the doubt for one more game at least.

Everything is permitted, Ubisoft. For now.

BONUS COMIC!

Assassin's Creed III

Hello fellow sticklers of stickpeople, to another MS Paint Comic Commish! Those unfamiliar with what the hell this is and what the hell my problem might be can look here for further clarification, but in short I'm making a trio of comics per month to thank @omghisam for kindly donating a year's supply of being able to watch membership videos and to the Giant Bomb staff for the production of same. Each feature three ideas for premium content that I hope are never taken seriously by anyone. Let's get to it:

Premium Content For Your Premium Contempt

Observed from Ryan's Twitter almost minutes after the news broke was his sheer apathy towards hearing about the damn thing, as it was no doubt being reiterated endlessly on his various newsfeeds. I just thought it'd be funny to gauge his reaction to every piece of news relating to the LucasFilm that passes through the office. I find a lot of people's suffering funny...

While our diligent newshound has found premium feature outlets for two of his passions - currently Spookin' With Scoops and a soon-to-be-named Jurassic Park game feature - I thought I'd offer our scraggly-haired scrivener a third indulgence with this feature, where he patiently explains what the heck is up with ABC's LOST now that it's been over for a few years. Very little to do with video games, of course, but surely someone would be interested in hearing more about that show. Surely.

No excuses for this one. When they outlaw puns, I hope to see it used as evidence in a courtroom one day.

I don't know what that title signifies, exactly. That this is a blog written by me? I think that's the only conclusion one could reliably draw.

As for what it's intended to signify, well, I want to look at the wider role of the Grim Reaper in video games and his malleable role as protagonist, antagonist, nebulous neutral party, agent of change, McGuffin and, perhaps most commonly, a sign that perhaps things aren't going too well. The idea of an anthropomorphised manifestation of the natural process of death is a persistent one, apparent in almost every major secular and religious culture on the planet. Presumably because the uncertainty of death and what follows, and how it'll come for all of us (hey, it's Halloween, it's the time for depressing thoughts), has made for some lengthy ratiocination on the matter. Making it a skinny dude with farming equipment, or regional equivalent, probably helps folk to process it easier.

I've presented a small sample of games below categorized by whatever role Mr G. Reaper might be assuming in that case, with an emphasis on those rare cases where is the main playable character. That so many designers find so many uses for the guy is tantamount to how enduring a concept it is.

Death as the Protagonist

A merciless skeleton with a badass scythe perhaps doesn't immediately strike one as a suitable protagonist, given the degree of sympathy and non-invulnerability players tend to expect from their heroes. Yet that is entirely the case with Darksiders II, a game I recently, eventually beat. The Death of Darksiders II isn't so much a permanent force of nature than a powerful nephilim (half-angel, half-demon, all-rider) that has gotten a rather dark reputation as the one responsible for much of his fellow nephilim's demise. The name of Death, in this case, is merely a symbolic acknowledgement of his genocidal but unfortunately necessary undertaking; a mark of kin-slaying shame that he is forever cursed to bear. That right there is how you make Death a sympathetic and vulnerable figure, though only relatively speaking in both regards.

What is a puzzlement, though, is how Darksiders II tries to have its cake and eat it. Death can, at times, assume a "Reaper-form", which is entirely the sort of indescribably powerful force of nature the original Grim Reaper is purported to be. The way it contemptuously cuts up monsters and Godlike entities alike during the game's many cinematic kills suggests that this is indeed the real Death, who just wanders around in a de-powered "casual" form to give his enemies a chance? I guess? It's a "Rule of Cool" conceit, to borrow an interpretation from TVTropes, where a massive Grim Reaper figure slicing through legions of creatures is sufficiently cool enough that no further clarification for the whys and hows behind it are necessary. Given the kind of audience Darksiders draws and indulges with its Spawn/Warhammer aesthetic, it's entirely explicable and thus acceptable.

As for other playable Reapers, I'd be remiss not to mention Manny Calavera, the star of Grim Fandango. He's just one of many reapers doing the day job in LucasArts' (now Disney's?) last great point-and-click before that whole genre deflated into an embarrassing, barely-interactive FMV mess.

Death as an Antagonist

A merciless skeleton with a badass scythe is precisely what strikes one as a suitable antagonist, given everything I just said about the scythe and him being a skeleton. That said, the most effective uses of Death as an antagonist is one where the protagonist is fighting a futile battle against his own irresistible fate and, by extension, the custodian thereof. Too many games just plop down a skeletal figure in a cowl to give you the willies without it being much more than an overly-aggrandized common bad guy, though there are just as many where he's an immortal enemy that can only be avoided rather than defeated.

Though not explicitly the Grim Reaper, the Dahaka of Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within fulfills the same general role, chasing down those who have cheated their own fates by changing it with time travel. He's an intimidating presence in the game and the goal of many acrobatic sequences is to stay one step ahead of him and his non-corporeal tendrils.

There's also Death of the Castlevania games, occasionally referred to as Dracula's "confidante"; which always puts in my head a mental picture of the two of them discussing relationships while Death's own affections go unrequited. While generally not given a huge role (no-one really does in Castlevania), he's often one of the strongest bosses the player will face and, in Symphony of the Night at least, is responsible for at least one hero's depowering shortly after the game begins. He's also afforded the final boss role in Lament of Innocence; as the Castlevania timeline was still in its pre-Dracula phase.

As for some non-narrative examples, which is to say non-story significant nigh unbeatable superbosses that you'd be best to run away from, we have the Reaper of the Persona games, who has a bit more of a guns and chains theme to it. There's also the early arcade Reapers of Paperboy and Gauntlet too. He's commonly a mechanic used by games to stop players from dallying too long in one area, a role he fills in Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land but in many others as well (though he will occasionally delegate this task to his best bud Baron von Blubba).

Death as a Force of Nature

Lastly, we have Death in a neutral role, where his presence can have positive or negative (usually negative) connotations to it. Should you spot Death in The Sims or Theme Hospital, say, that probably does not bode well, but he's a far more affable presence in games like Painkiller, Maximo or Gregory Horror Show, where he simply tasks the hero to look for lost souls in his stead, usually involving an agreement to spare the hero from his own untimely demise in return. In Shadowgate he simply shows up to see what dumb way you managed to kill yourself this time, a role that becomes even more explicitly comical for his appearances throughout the three Discworld games.

I've brought him up before, but the Strange Man of Red Dead Redemption is one of the more fascinating encounters John Marston can have as part of the "strangers" series of incidental side-missions, activated by bumping into the right person on the road. The Strange Man's origins and reasons for why he knows so much of Marston's backstory are unexplained, though various hints are given to his true supernatural nature, most of which point towards some sort of grand arbiter of life and death given how each of the three quests he gives John have both a moral and immoral solution. Whether God, Devil or Death, he raises more questions than he answers and vanishes in a puff of enigma, creating one of the more thoughtful narrative threads among the many found across the Great Plains.

Without further ado, I'll now move on to death of a different sort: The death of art itself, with...

BONUS COMIC!

Darksiders II

Hey fellow felons, this week I've been having fun directing the efforts of two fugitives as they fight towards noble goals and their own absolution. And by fight, I actually mean sneak around without getting spotted. Because both the games I played this week are very much of the stealthy sort, either by purposeful design or by player-led happenstance.

Which got me thinking: I don't like stealth games. At least, that's always been the stance I've taken with them. Yet I've enjoyed playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Dishonored this week and went so far as to put Deus Ex: Human Revolution high on my list of favorite games to come out in 2011. Has my position softened? Have I grown more patient and careful in my old age, aiding the deliberate gameplay that stealth games require? Have stealth games simply gotten better, as modern technology has lent all these attentive guards and shadowy environments a greater verisimilitude that makes it easier to ascertain whether or not I might be discovered? I don't suspect I'll be drawing any hard conclusions about how accurate any of these speculations might be, but I'm just going to wax poetic about some of the stealth games (or games with stealth elements, at any rate) I've played in the past regardless. Gotta write somethin'.

Rather than going game by game, because there's a few of them, I've put the ones I've played in three distinct categories. I suspect the way a game might approach stealth is a major part of how successful that stealth aspect turns out to be.

Stealth Sections

Stealth Sections include those games that will introduce an infrequent, often mercifully short sequence where the goal is to sneak past without raising any alarms. Usually, the rest of the game is decidedly not stealth-based, which makes the stealth sections all the more incongruous and awkward. These are, almost without exception, the worst application of stealth present in modern games.

Recall the sequence in Ocarina of Time when Link needs to sneak past Hyrule Castle's guardsmen in the gardens on his way to talk to Princess Zelda. It's a short sequence that's over relatively quickly, but really adds nothing but a persistent aggravating memory of loud whistles and Link's "urgh" noise as he lands outside the castle gates. It's busywork, pure and simple. A few other Zelda games have something similar too, such as Wind Waker's barrel-hiding shenanigans in the Forsaken Fortress or that sequence in Skyward Sword's volcano area where your gear is stolen and you need to sneak around to get it all back. Indigo Prophecy has a bit where there's a flashback to the protagonist Lucas as a child sneaking around an army base. Chrono Trigger has the whole bit onboard minor antagonist Dalton's flying ship. These are just recent examples I've played through (or in the case of Chrono Trigger, watched someone else deal with) but this sort of thing is unfortunately legion and is about as warmly received as an escort mission or a particularly long QTE sequence.

If these sorts of ordeals are the only regular exposure you get to stealth-based gameplay - as is often the case with me - then a strong hatred for that sort of experience is entirely explicable. It's really quite unfair on the type of game that will actually dedicate a bit of time and effort towards making their stealth sections click the right way, since it requires a deft hand from a developer that gives a shit that these throwaway "for fun" sequences don't generally receive.

Stealth Optional

So the Stealth Optional is for games like Deus Ex, and the many later games that take a leaf from its book, where there's always an option to sneak around enemies instead of engaging them if you've decided to spec your character as a sneaky pacifistic sort. These also include, to a lesser extent, Bethesda games such as Fallout 3 and Oblivion/Skyrim - where there's usually a few skills of that nature one can invest in - as well as other highly customizable RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights with their Rogue classes. Invariably, I find myself opting to try the stealthy approach every now and again just to shake things up a little and in the case of the party-based RPGs always ensuring I have at least one stealthy type to scope out a joint for traps and monster locations before barging through with the blundering warriors and all-too-vulnerable magic-users.

For the most part, the stealth aspects of these games range from adequately competent to quite fun. Allowing players to create stealthy characters means some amount of developer productivity had to go towards making such characters and that play style a viable option, which results in a game that can be stealthed through, even if that approach is not always the preferable one. I can't speak for the rest of you, but it always felt like I was crawling through the dungeons of Oblivion with a bow in my hand ghosting dudes before they figured out where I was. Though perhaps that says more about avoiding its mediocre hand-to-hand combat as much as humanly possible than anything else.

Taking one of my two games as an example: Dishonored is a game that will require a lot of hiding and being quiet, as part and parcel of its clever assassination set-ups. Setting off alarms and drawing the ire of every guard nearby is hardly conducive to a successful mission. However, the game gives you a lot of leeway in this regard, as it (rightfully) assumes that you'd rather cut your way through to the target with the array of magical powers and upgradeable weapons at your disposal. Though the game fully expects you to draw your sword and fight your way out of being discovered by the guards, there's more than a few achievements that task you with getting through the game without getting spotted or killing anyone. There's even one for skipping out on the magical powers as well. I've decided to take all three challenges on simultaneously. Madness, perhaps, but I did something similar with Deus Ex: Human Revolution when I played that and the added challenge really added to the experience. There's no denying the amount of frustration that comes with having to reload because a guard appeared out of nowhere or some unlucky sod slipped off their guardtower after getting sleep darted, but if you roll with the punches you can really get a deeper appreciation for finding alternate paths through each stage and exploiting blindspots to remain undetected.

On a more general level, Dishonored is a game I'm definitely having fun with, in spite of this hardline and occasionally overbearingly strict set of rules to which I've elected to adhere. Graphically and tonally, the game's closest relative is BioShock, especially with all the cartoonishly-proportioned NPCs occasionally at odds with its gritty, visually-busy environments full of telltale signs of the city's continuing dilapidation and its fascistic propaganda. Though whereas BioShock was Ayn Rand with bathyspheres, Dishonored is more Herman Melville with magical assassins. It's an interesting premise, not least of which because it means we finally get some more Thief-style steampunk going on. Given how close some of the weaponry resembles that of the recent Assassin's Creed games as well, I wonder if "Steampunk Stealth" isn't going to be a new sub-genre template we'll be seeing more of as these games succeed. I mean, that fourth Thief game is supposed to be on the way and it being in the hands of the Deus Ex: HR guys would suggest that it'll end up being pretty good. Serviceable remakes of decade-old PC franchises appears to be a forte of theirs, after all.

Stealth Focused

Finally, and perhaps most integrally, we have those games that are entirely dependent on their stealth aspect. Dishonored might fall into this camp, given how much stealthing you need to do even on a "kill everything" path, but with these games it's really a case of not being able to survive discovery that keeps you glued to the shadows. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as these games are absolutely focused on making the aspects that make up stealth games - predictable guard patrols, player's visibility, player's sound level, lines of sight, escaping notice and all that jazz - work as intended. I mean, the game's quality depends on ensuring the impeccable functionality of all those elements.

These would include your Thiefs, your Metal Gear Solids, your Splinter Cells and Hitmans. Hitmen. Whatever. These are franchises I've always been a little apprehensive in trying, because generally speaking I don't go for the stealthy approach. Except I totally and demonstrably do. So why don't they appeal? Maybe because there's always that option of just leaping out of concealment and throwing caution to the wind with the direct approach with the previous category of games, which is usually ill-advised or simply out of the question for pure stealth games like the above. The other game I played this week is very much of the latter.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent, perhaps the greatest western-made horror survival game in recent memory, puts the player in control of the titularly-impaired protagonist constantly chased by a nightmarish presence that only seems to make itself known through hallucinations and wibbly insanity effects. Despite this, the presence isn't so much the chief concern as the servants working for the villain of the piece, who are - unlike most of the horrors the player encounters - very real and quite deadly once they've determined your location. As Patrick recently discovered in a recent Spookin' With Scoops (I still say they should've gone with "Tricky or Treat") with SNES classic Clock Tower, the horror survival games that insist on a "no-engagement" policy are always more effective with their scares, though its the process of having to hide in a corner until the faceless horrors finally move on and hoping they don't discover you that is the deeper cut. I don't mind admitting I was scared out of my wits almost the entire time - it wouldn't be as memorable an experience otherwise.

Talking of things that are terrifying to behold, it's time for some...

BONUS COMICS!

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Dishonored

So hey, doing something slightly new with this feature, in that this Brief Jaunt is totally a blind run. Triumph Studios/Epic Games' Age of Wonders is a game I've never had the privilege to play until fairly recently, when magnanimous GB pal ArbitraryWater gifted it to me. As a big fan of Master of Magic, which is very much cut from the same cloth mechanically speaking, I had wondered (so to speak) how an equally well-acclaimed fantasy-themed 4X strategy game had inexplicably passed me by. I wasn't sure what to expect going in, but I guess you'll all be learning along with me. I mean, unless you've already played this. I guess. I never think these opening paragraphs through. But anyhoo, here goes:

Age of Wonders, Lisa? Or Age of Blunders?

Also I Was Told Not To Start LPs With Simpsons Quotes, So Here Is Title #2: Um, Hobbits?

So I'm still not sure how I feel about Age of Wonders. It's a neat composite of a lot of what made Master of Magic work (the combat magic, the customization, the tactical turn-based combat) and a few of the things I liked about the Heroes of Might and Magic series (uh, nice maps?), but... well, the thing is, I generally suck at the strategy games which are all about grabbing resources as quickly as possible and holding onto them. I like to take my time and soak in a new map, but that's rarely conducive to not getting Zerg rushed while I'm prancing around sniffing the flowers.

I forget how Master of Magic negates that aspect sufficiently to make it enjoyable for a strategy putz like myself - my cynical half suspects it's because the AI in that game kind of sucks - but I have more fun in MoM raiding the treasure troves of eerie dungeons while my Empire prospers with a minimal amount of supervision. Plus I always have the option to switch my focus back to my towns and armies and let the adventuring crew get a cushy job guarding some border town for a spell. With Age of Wonders it seems it's all about performing the next necessary task as quickly and efficiently as possible in order to stymie the progress of the opponent, otherwise they'll just walk all over you. "No time for love, Dr Jones", in other words. Hardly a valid complaint to make against a 4X strategy game, I'll grant you, but I think Master of Magic is a weird aberration of RPG and PC strategy game in that regard, and one that just so happens to fit my playing style perfectly. Given the success of the recent XCOM remake, I think it's not completely crazy to assume that there's a considerable number of people out there who don't generally have the head for these games but have found at least one that somehow agrees with them.

But still, this was a heartfelt gift and I owe it the chance to get more interesting with the sheer number of different units and scenarios it has yet to present. Shouldn't really judge a game by its hobbits, after all. So all that's left for me to do is thank @ArbitraryWater once again for his generosity and for opening my eyes to one of my favorite PC games' closest contemporaries, and to thank the rest of you for reading another one of these all-over-the-place mini-playthroughs. Farewell for now. *Plays blog off to sad Incredible Hulk theme*

Hey bombadiers, grenadiers and musketeers! As you may be aware, I was granted a year of premium membership by my good pal @omghisam last year, and in thanks I created a series of monthly comic commissions throughout 2011/12. You might've spotted a few and wondered why a bunch of shabby stickpeople were all over the Off-Topic forum. Well, for reasons unbeknownst to modern psychiatry, he's gone and done it again.

This time, I've been given carte blanche for the whole year, so I've decided that in order to thank the guy for allowing me to see all the upcoming subscriber videos (not to mention the GB guys themselves for producing them), I'm going to create a trio of Premium Content suggestions every month. While I don't expect any of these to become the real McCoy (it might lead to a casualty or two, for one thing), he'll hopefully feel like he got his money's worth. Though probably not even close. I mean, you can get a year's worth of PSN+ for that price. I know, right? It's gotta be dementia or something.

Premium Content For Your Premium Contempt

So the idea of this one is that every time a Bomb Crew birthday rolls around, the rest of the bunch put their heads together to get them something utterly ridiculous and stupid for their birthday present (any actual gift exchanges can happen off-camera, of course). Shot like the I Love Mondays or Mailbags, it ought to be fun times seeing people's reactions to being given stuff they are decidedly not interested in having anywhere near them.

Jeff bought a lot of dumb shit while in Japan on assignment while he was working for GameSpot. At least, from what we've been told. What would ensue if he raided the piles of inscrutable garbage that is no doubt gathering dust somewhere in the building? Hilarity? Maybe!

OK, so I guess I've been watching too much Top Gear of late. Don't mind this one, folks. I would honestly not want to put Brad through that.

So this week I'm actually covering a game that isn't perhaps the most engrossing thing to come from the D&D license, but I still kind of dig it. I guess. Birthright: The Gorgon's Alliance is (mostly) a war sim game where you control a fiefdom jostling for an empire while a giant rock monster prepares to take over the world in the midst of all the chaos. It's kind of like a 4X fantasy variant on a Koei sim, only instead of that ambitious scamp Nobunaga you're a half-elf duchess in a chainmail chemise. Which is pretty much in the same ballpark, really.

Birthright sets itself apart from all the many, many fantasy war sims that presumably exist but I can't quite seem to recall right now (hey @ArbitraryWater help me out here. Besides the two fantasy war sims you gifted me that I ought to be playing instead; I know about those) with two additional gameplay modes that really do more to distract from the core wargaming than enhance it. The first is a real-time strategic battle simulator where you can move troops around a grid field and out-maneuver the enemy's forces with Sun Tzu-esque cunning and a keen knowledge of.. well, all right, you can win any battle in the game with just archers. Not even a lot of archers either. I'll explain later. The other mode is a 3D first-person RPG that superficially resembles Doom and, inexplicably, features turn- and dice roll-based D&D combat. More on that later too. And boy howdy do I have a lot to say about that trainwreck. Talking of which, let's get this rolling:

Is It a War Sim? Is it an RPG? You're Birth Right!

And that's Birthright in a nutshell. Or a Brief Jaunt. Whichever works (I should've called this feature "In a Nutshell", dammit). It's not quite Crusader Kings or anything as in-depth as any of Paradox's other joints, but it's an interesting game with an interesting setting that perhaps spreads itself too thin with its entirely superfluous adventures and war combat. An ambitious yet flawed title, I think would be a fair way of putting it. Check it out if you get the chance, though its current placing on GOG's community wishlist would seem to suggest that GOG might get around to adding it sometime next century. Look for it then, my future cyborg brothers and sisters!

And with that, I'm off to fill more monsters with dwarven crossbow bolts. It's about time that race got some payback after the dwarficidal bloodbaths of Dwarf Fortress. Today, vengeance rides a tiny pony!

It's two-ten everyone (that uses the European system)! Which means it's time for me to do some two-ten of my own horn in another ambiguously named Mento Miscellany. Honestly, all I did this week was play more Borderlands 2. It's like the big blog drought I had around this time last year, when it was nothing but Skyrim for Talos knows how long. As is usual for MM, this is just a smattering of thoughts and observations about whatever piqued my interest for this week in the world of gaming. Like Borderlands 2. Let's start there, why not.

22 Short Observations About Borderlands 2

Going to do the whole parody of a Simpsons parody reference thing here. Seems fitting, given Borderland's main source of humor. Oh wait, talking of which:

1. Borderlands 2 likes its references. One could literally list where those things are and where they came from until they're dead or simply wish they were, so I'll cut to the chase and give you my three favorite. However, don't interpret this as a general approval of reference/shout-outs in lieu of actual jokes; it's akin to a Frankenstein's Monster in that you haven't so much created humor as created an amalgamation of hoary, half-rotten once-humorous elements that were stitched together and had several thousand volts pumped through it. That said! Best references:
2. "The Yellow Dart" (how many people outside of Telltale Games's employee lounge even knows about Homestar Runner any more?), "Rocko's Modern Strife" and I guess "Minecraft" if only because of how far they were willing to go with that dumb idea.
3. where is the chubby monster i need to kill a chubby monster it's not there again the chubby monster is not there the internet said it would be there the chubby monster i need it for the achievement and also for rare loot i need it chubby monster where is it where is it where is it*
4. Handsome Jack would be funnier if he were Cookie Masterson. I can only imagine what reasons that fellow would have for being on Pandora. Actually those two and Sterling Archer could form a triumvirate of oblivious vindictive idiots constantly living inside their own heads (or up their own asses). I couldn't tell you with any conviction why two of those work and the other does not, but I want to say Tom Gottlieb and H Jon Benjamin. Nah, that's not fair on Dameon Clark, who is an entirely competent voice actor. I'll go with the writing behind them instead.
5. I do appreciate the ways the game is able to expand the history and geography of Pandora a considerable degree. It's kind of surprising that they have so much material about the world left to reveal, given how many interminable side-quests there seemed to be in the first game on the same subject matter. I guess when it's next to impossible to wring a cohesive thought from the planet's only scientist, there's still plenty to discover.
6. I have seen exactly two orange guns since starting the game and now it's over. Luck of the draw, or is this a second playthrough sort of deal? It's just I kind of expected to see more, given there's an even rarer color category just after it. (ETA: I have since been reliably informed that this is not the case. Orange you glad that there isn't an even rarer color to go searching for?)
7. For the life of me I don't understand why the gambling is so compulsive. I so rarely win anything that isn't either a white gun, a pile of cash half the value of the one I just fed the damn thing or a live grenade that I never seem to escape from in time. I do occasionally find a superior weapon, but I tend to spend all my money doing so. My addiction to that glowy box is unfathomable, given how it likes to take my money and screw me over as a thank you all because I just want one more damned weapon that's better than... oh... OK, the symbolism just took me a moment.
8. Really could've used a late-game purpose for Eridium. Maybe Crazy Earl could sell a "mystery box" you can spend 10, 20, 30 Eridium on (for a guaranteed green/blue/purple item respectively, with a small chance of the next category up). Just an idea for DLC, or some later patch addition. I don't think the four I have to spend each time I want to get killed instantly by Terramorphous is necessarily going to put a dent in the maxed out 99 I'm sitting on.
9. Jeff mentioned a few times about how Hyperion weapons will force you to untrain your usual shooter logic of not straight dumping at all times to increase accuracy, but I feel it's more important to wean oneself off the impulse to reload with half a clip left while using Tediore weapons. Because that'll really screw you over in next to no time. Of course, you could just not buy Tediore weapons. There's a reason "Tediore" shares most of the same letters as "mediocre".
10. i am arguing about fictional weapon manufacturers on the internet goddamn you borderlands
11. The "Splinter Group" in the sewers of Bloodshot stronghold. Yeah, you know the one I mean. They actually emerge from their hiding places in the same order they appear in the theme song, which I thought was... something or other. On a related matter, this game certainly has a lot of pizza lying around and not just for that particular bodacious side mission. Maybe it's just a thing where you make one sprite for "desirable food item" and then say "screw it". All I know is that if this game was made by Giant Bomb fans, they'd all be replaced with hamburgers. Perhaps not an improvement, but then at least you'd probably get to see one of those Rat Thieves with a black and white striped shirt going "robble robble".
12. Wow, the Gunzerker is really short. Funny how I never noticed that until the credits' picture montage.
13. So happy those Vault Sign scavenger hunts aren't at all necessary for any reason, since there's no achievements attached to those stage-specific challenges and the amount of badass points you earn for them is minimal anyway. Kind of wonder what the point is, really. Maybe something pings once you find all of them? That's a sobering thought, if only because I'm the type of person who would track them all down if there was a decent reward behind it.
14. Seriously hoping that new Mechromancer teenage girl doesn't become Tiny Tina 2. I really wouldn't put it past Gearbox to pull a George Lucas and make a fan-abhorred character even more prominent.
15. That said, there was absolutely no sign of one Mr Nukem that I could ascertain. Maybe those guys just want to (wisely) forget that the whole thing ever happened. I mean, that's pretty much the stance 3D Realms took when they were supposed to be making the damn thing. (ETA: Apparently there is, but it's only as prominent as any other reference in the game. Explicable.)
16. Probably a bit late to wait until point 16 to say this, but I played through the game as the Gunzerker. Half the internet, including Game Informer's own inimitable Dan Ryckert, tells me that the best Gunzerker layout involves investing heavily in the Rampage tree and taking full advantage of his dual-wielding class action. Nuh-uh. I can't live without Money Shot and Down Not Out (both in the Gun Lust tree). It's a testament to this game's balance that I got so used to one tree that I found it hard to adjust to another, supposedly better one after the fact. Brawn just seems like a hot mess, though I can easily imagine that there'll be more than a few Gunzerker players that will attest to it as much as I attest to the Gun Lust tree.
17. A person could go insane chasing down all those customization mods. I've only found a handful of the head mods myself, though once I found one that closely resembled Lemmy Kilmister wearing shades I was pretty much done.
18. I really appreciate how two of the challenges needed for that "level 1 with all challenges" will only appear after hitting level 5 in two other particularly grindy challenges. There doesn't seem to be any reason for why this is, other than either coding incompetence or sheer malice. I really can't decide which is more plausible. I was going to add to this how I was inexplicably missing a fourth weapon slot for most of the game, but that's a co-op issue that redeemed itself when, after recently starting the game as the main player, it let me skip any story/side missions I already did as another player's second banana. Such a cool feature, as I'm now almost-instantaneously back at the end of the game with a random smattering of side-missions from all over the place that I wasn't around for originally.
19. While I'll complain about minutiae such as challenges, I don't really have a beef with how easy it is to accidentally spend the golden key. Honestly, I just got vendor trash that provided a modest boost to my funds when I accidentally opened it at level 5. Had I been 50, I imagine it still would've been much the same result.
20. The Bullymongs and their randomly spawning parodies, King Mong and Donkey Mong. Does "mong" not mean the same thing in the US as it does here? Hell, I'm willing to bet it does, given how sensitive the game is towards depicting the mentally challenged with those Goliath enemies. I know feeble-minded giants and manic small people have been a staple of the post-apocalyptic genre since a certain road warrior strolled into the Thunderdome, but I'm surprised Gearbox isn't getting into more trouble for this sort of thing. Maybe there aren't enough benign PG-rated sex scenes with omnisexual blue aliens for the Thompsonites to take notice.
21. Overall, I like Borderlands 2. It's been said enough times that it's chief problem is how iterative it feels, but that really isn't a problem for me. There'll always be things I can't stand about it (the humor and the bugs, mostly. And I ain't talkin' no varkids or spiderants neither) but it's one of the most effective games at sticking its hooks into you around. I've brought them up before, but any time a developer decides to take the true-and-tested endlessly compulsive dungeon crawling loot-em-up and combine it with another genre for shits and giggles, something good (Persona, Dark Cloud, Master of Magic, Recettear, Borderlands) nearly always seems to result.
22. * Feel free to replace every instance of "chubby monster" with "Jimmy Jenkins, the world's most unfairly elusive tiny robot since Chibi Robo 3" if you'd prefer.

From The Fiiiiiine Makers of Cult

I considered turning this into a bigger blog post, but that would mean doing research into sun cults and the Waco Siege and Xenu knows what else and that sounded like a hassle and a hoff. Instead, I'll present a truncated version here of video games and their use of cults:

In both the games I played this week (the other being Might and Magic VII), there was a protracted chain of quests that deals with playing nice with cultists until the time came when you could sic the whole insane lot of them. While Borderlands 2's Cult of the Firehawk missions didn't end with a poisonous Kool-Aid gun (though, let's face it, if it did it would've almost certainly been named the OH YEAH!), it does dwell a suspiciously long time on figuring out what those guys were into and helping them with their various pyromania-based pursuits before Lillith puts the kibosh on the whole thing after being sufficiently creeped out.

My immediate assumption for why this is is that cults are fun to write about, whether you're writing broad comedy like Borderlands 2 or you're a horror writer attempting something a bit more sinister and macabre. You can have a ball writing about the kind of messed-up shit a cult might be into doing and how those rituals relate to their weird beliefs and it creates not only a large population of enemy fodder for whom the game will patiently explain away with "you really don't have the time to individually deprogram and rehabilitate all these people and a shotgun to the chops is just as effective in a fraction of the time, if we're being truthful", but also a truly spiteful villain at the head of the whole shebang. There's also that idea that as much as we'd all like to think we're in full command of our mental faculties, the human mind is largely inscrutable and there's plenty of evidence, if possibly only anecdotal, that hypnotism and brainwashing are entirely things that are a thing, to paraphrase any number of advanced psychological dissertations on the subject. Though clearly a rare situation to be in unless you're a big fan of taking random street personality tests, it's possible to imagine oneself in the position of resisting a cult as much as one can and still failing to resist a particularly charismatic kingpin and the various methods they might have of bending you to their will (especially torture - lemme tell ya, I'd be singing the party line before they pull the first poker out of the brazier). But hey, I'm mostly guessing why this is an appealing subject for writers in video game development and why so many antagonists seem to be religious figureheads. Your own interpretations are welcome in the comments below.

Frankly, at the end of the day Borderlands 2 is the sort of game where you don't really need any excuse to incinerate a psychotic midget. Doing so because a cult told you to is as good a reason as any other.

(For everyone wondering where the comics are, the two of you will be happy to hear that there'll be a special sponsor comic blog some time later this week. I may even have another Brief Jaunt, since I can tell by the barest handful of comments those things receive that their readers are reduced to a dumbfounded state of quiet awe. Sh'yeah.)

Today I've decided to select a title that'll either alienate semantic sticklers or leave a lot of people utterly confused. Did I ever mention I suck at blog titles? Essentially, agoraphobia is a fear of crowds (or large spaces) and kymophobia is a fear of waves. Which ties in, sort of, with the topic I want to discuss today: How video games will, in order to save computing space or mete out their large enemy population in manageable chunks, insist on a wave-based format of enemy encounters rather than the traditional crowds to work one's way through.

I've been playing two games this week that typically contain encounters with large groups of enemies, and handle them in the two ways I've described above. I'm not going to go so far as to say which is better (or which of the two games are better, for that matter), but I'm happy to argue the cases for and against both systems for people to ponder or possibly add more to. I fear I might sound more positive about one than the other regardless of this imposed impartiality:

Crowds

Game: Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor

I recently did one of my little LP/Quick Look/tutorials for New World Computing's CRPG Might and Magic VII, a late entry into a venerable RPG franchise that actually exploits its old way of doing things to set up some insanely huge encounters. Because it's still using sprites in polygonal environments, a graphical system popularized by Doom and Wolfenstein 3D that was already feeling its age in when M&M7 was released in 1999, the game is free to throw as many of these 2D cut-outs at you as it wishes without worrying too much about slowdown on then-modern systems, even when these crowds start hitting several dozen in number. Subsequently, many of the (entirely deliberate) encounters of the game tend to play out as your party against a huge menagerie of monsters, and tactics tend to switch from the usual skirmish options in RPGs of setting everyone against the toughest monster and then working their way down the rest of the opponents and instead focusing on choke points and crowd control. A very common tactic is to kite a large crowd, or pull monsters away from their groups to take them on singularly. It's certainly a style of combat you're likely to see in a CRPG, especially MMOs, but M&M7 was an early proponent of this combat design and takes it to a level that stops just short of all out strategy wargaming or one of Koei's clamorous historical clusterfuck action games.

And I really like this way of doing things. It's easy to make judgement calls when you can see a massive crowd of tough monsters ahead (usually "run!") and tactically taking down a huge horde of enemies in a turn-based mode is, while perhaps a little slow-paced, ultimately quite satisfying. Especially at that moment when the battle is resolved and the player is free to reap all that loot.

Pros: Easier to make tactical decisions if you're able to see all the enemies before starting a fight; crowds look impressive - intimidating, even; if the game allows for area of effect weapons, such weapons will be much more effective with the whole enemy side spread out before you.

Cons: Unless they're all 2D sprites with a few frames of repeating animation, which is increasingly unlikely in this day and age, a massive crowd might do horrible things to one's RAM; can be quite difficult to juggle so many enemies and so many incoming attacks, even when turn-based (or especially, since they all get a turn for each of your team's turns); can occasionally look ridiculous.

Waves

Game: Borderlands 2

Like a considerable number of you, I'd imagine, I've been spending some time on Pandora looking for guns and loot and gun loot while incidentally foiling the plans of an obnoxious villain that never shuts up. You know, should foiling those plans ever coincide with the search for more loot. No, seriously, I only do story missions at this point because it levels up the items you get from Mad Moxxi's gambling machines. While I can't really denigrate Borderlands 2 for being more Borderlands, there's plenty new about it that I can't really get on board with (and just as many new things that I actually like, just to keep things in perspective): First and foremost is how the game gypped me out of the fourth weapon slot because of the messed up way co-op tends to work, which is far more aggrieving than accidentally spending my golden key like the rest of the Bomb Crew did; I also really can't stand those Lab Rat enemies that are able to kill you in one hit by throwing junk at your face. Finally, enemies respawn way too quickly; I'm really not sure why they can't make it so enemies only respawn once you leave the region and come back? Is that too much to ask? Sometimes I just want to cross the map and back again for a quest objective without the whole monster population popping back into existence in the meantime.

Honestly, while I can go on like this about minor issues that have soured my experience, they all tend to ring like "first world problems". The overall package is so engrossing and addictive that I'm almost scrabbling for reasons to dislike it, because I sort of resent how much it has its hooks into me. I don't suppose this is really the time and place to discuss whether I'm genuinely enjoying the game or am locked into it like some sort of Skinner Box loop of action -> reward. Like Skyrim or any MMO, it's one of those games that you'll long be done with before it'll be done with you; the question becomes how much time you're willing to invest before you burn out.

Instead, I should get back to what this blog was about: The game's tendency to introduce its enemies in waves. I suppose this is endemic to many modern shooters, but there's something very unfulfilling about having enemies constantly pouring out of doors or manholes or just thin air. I see a chamber with a handful of bandits walking around, the sort of number I would expect to find patrolling a few shacks and maybe a chest or two, but when the fighting starts that number quickly doubles, then triples, then quadruples and continues to increase at a higher rate than your capacity to decrease it. This is, of course, to make the encounters a bit more dynamic and exciting, and create a level of challenge that keeps the game interesting rather than quickly shredding through small packs of enemies and moving on. Even so, there's an aspect to wave-based combat that really doesn't fly outside the genres (FPS/TPS) where such a system is commonplace and thus anticipated. Dragon Age 2, as Hailinel discussed in his recent blog, is a case where the wave-based stuff just feels totally incongruous in what is ostensibly a thoughtful tactical RPG rather than a Serious Sam-esque mindless shooter. Hard for a battle to be thoughtful and tactical when enemies are literally dropping in from nowhere.

Pros: It's far easier on the computer (and the player) if there's, say, 50 enemies in an area but they only ever have to deal with 10 at once; pauses between waves allows for some ammo/health gathering reprieves; it's a system that has seen great returns in other genres, specifically shooters.

Cons: Feels kind of ridiculous outside of its gameplay context: Where exactly are all these enemies coming from? Why didn't they come out right away with their allies?; Having waves means the battles last a lot longer, as there's fewer opportunities to hurt many enemies at the same time; bemusement quickly gives way to frustration when it seems the enemy encounter will never god. damn. end.

Talking about things that just won't seem to end, it's time for...

BONUS COMICS!

Borderlands 2

Might and Magic VII

And so, dear readers, we revisit our team of anagramatic future ne'er-do-wells as they continue in their deadly quest to find a bunch of items on an island. Only complete badasses compete in video game scavenger hunts, everyone.

Part 2: This Is Probably How Luigi Won His Mansion Too

And so I feel I've given this game it's due, and hopefully @ArbitraryWater is sated for the time being. At least until I get around to playing those two big strategy games he was kind enough to gift me. Might and Magic VII really does a grand job balancing the idiosyncrases of the really old CRPG paragons like Wizardry, Ultima and, indeed, Might and Magic while still managing to be a modern-ish game that is relatively easy to figure out and fun to play. Really, while there's some odd rules that I've elaborated on here, there isn't nothing like the sort of byzantine barrier to entry that usually depreciates these older CRPGs. Just equip everyone with bows, enter turn-based mode whenever enemies are in sight and kite everything until you've gotten a grip on combat, and everything outside of combat can be picked up at one's own pace. For a paltry six dollars on GOG, it's an easy game to recommend.

Thanks for sticking around. I really ought to consider recording these things. I'm hearing video is the way of the future?