Oh, video games! You continue to be the sole ray of light in my dark and depressing life! Wait, that didn't come out right.

Oh, video games! You continue to be the sole ray of darkness in my happy and wonderful life! Well, that one's just straight up false. How about I just skip the preamble and start ambling? (More like rambling! Zing! (Did I just zing myself?))

Anyway, I started playing Dark Souls II last week. Now, normally I like to finish games before I write about them, but this is Dark Souls. II. If ever a game could warrant multiple blog writings, it's this one. I'm not even sure where to begin. How about I start with the things I like first. That seems good.

I still absolutely love the core of this type of game. The combat, the general design, the thrill of defeating a boss after multiple attempts, all while my heart is pounding because even the slightest mistake could lead to instant death! It was that last thing, during the game's first boss (at least along the "main path," I don't know how much freedom there is in this game with regards to the order to beat bosses in, at least that early on); that was the moment when this game really clicked for me. Until then, I was starting to doubt myself. Doubt that I had actually enjoyed Dark Souls the first. Had it all been a dream? Is this new game just not for me? HAVE I LOST MY MIND?

Aside from that last one, I can confirm now that those aren't true. But I was still struggling, because of one of the "new" features that I don't like. Namely, the fact that max health ticks down every time you die, until it gets to half. I never played Demon's Souls, but I doubt I wouldn't have liked it there, and I definitely didn't like it here. But I eventually found a ring that made it min out at about three quarters instead of half, and since then I haven't been having a ton of trouble with the game.

I have other problems though, but they're mostly minor ones. I really don't like having to warp back to town to level up. I get that was a thing in Demon's Souls, but it's bad game design. I get not being able to level anywhere like most other games, but having to go through two loading screens just to level up (that's one to load the town, and then one to load back to where I was) is just obnoxious. It's a waste of my time, especially when the level up lady says the same thing every single time I talk to her (unless I have an Estus shard), and then sometimes the game takes longer than it should to load the level up menu after I try to button through her dialog.

But that's just an annoyance. My biggest complaint with this game, and granted, this is something that I can't say with 100% authority until after I've finished the game. But, I feel like the world of Dark Souls II (Drangleic) isn't as connected as Dark Souls I's world (Lordran) was. In Dark Souls I, it felt like every new area was built around the last one. The way I like to describe it is that every road led to Undeadburg. Some of my favorite moments in Dark Souls I were when I realized that this bizarre new area I was in was really just thirty feet away from some other area I had been in hours ago. It felt like tons and tons of time had been spent making this whole world connect in dozens of different ways.

I'm not getting any of that from Dark Souls II. It feels more like it's a bunch of levels that are connected together, and in the case of the Lost Bastille, it's literally separated by a loading screen. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the Undead Asylum and the end game area were the only two parts of Dark Souls I connected by loading screens. Technically you had to take a cut-scene into Anor Londo, but it was so short that I think it was still using the game's regular level streaming stuff.

In one way, it's not a huge deal. I mean, in the moment to moment of Dark Souls I, the level design wasn't anything so astoundingly amazing that it blew everything else out of the water. But, it did lead to a lot of situations where you would be opening up shortcuts to previous bonfires. Dark Souls II isn't built that way, and instead there are WAY more bonfires than there were in the first game, and I'd say it's to the point where there are too many bonfires. At least thus far, I feel like I'm not going nearly as long as I often did in Dark Souls I without running into another bonfire. Granted, that could all change later in the game. I have my doubts, but it could.

I think that's all that I want to say about this game for now. I haven't really played it as much in the last few days as I had before. Why? Well, I think you know...

You know, I had actually prepared a screenshot from my PS4, but for whatever reason I'm having trouble getting it into this blog, so I just took one from the Ground Zeroes page.

Either way, it's finally here. Ground Zeroes has finally become a thing that people can play. I wish I could say that I'm 100% behind it and absolutely love it, but that would be a lie! I have one substantial issue with this game, and it's something I never thought I would say about a Metal Gear game.

There's not enough story.

When I finished the main mission (which took me two and a half hours, largely because I was trying to stretch it out, and also I got really lost once), I was rather stunned. Not at the darkness of some of the goings on (more on that later), but rather at the abruptness. The game has a ten or eleven minute cut-scene at the very start, a couple of short cut-scenes during the mission (about a minute for one, less than a minute for the other, give or take), and then eight or nine minutes of cutscenes at the end. Not counting the credits, which did have a little bit of dialog over them, and a little more after the credits finished.

But that's it. I was expecting something closer to thirty or forty minutes of cut-scenes. I was expecting some lengthy-ass discussions about things, and bit of a clearer idea as to what was happening than what is actually in the game. I mean, I already knew most of the main arc of this game because of the stuff in the trailers, but there's stuff in those trailers that isn't really even in this game. I mean, I figured this game was going to end with (I guess here it's spoilers if you haven't seen the trailers, but come on) Big Boss in a coma, and then some dialog from Kaz about that or something.

Instead, (now this is a legit spoiler for things that happen in GZ, so I'll white it out) it ends with an explosion near the helicopter that Big Boss, Kaz, and Chico are in, and then it goes to a black screen with some text. What? And then, after some more black screens with text and the credits (which is more black with text), there is a straight up trailer for The Phantom Pain, including some of the footage of Big Boss and someone that looks like Miller (but had a different voice in that trailer (so I'm still thinking there are two Millers)) in the hospital. But way less footage (and also no intelligible audio from that guy that looks like Miller but was voiced by someone else in that trailer). And then it ends with a logo for The Phantom Pain.

I thought all that was pretty lame. Which is a shame, because I like most of the other story type stuff going on in Ground Zeroes. I know some people have complained about the voice acting (Jeff was doing it during the Quick Look after a lengthy bit from Kaz during a mission), but I still like the voice acting. Robin Atkin-Downes (Kazuhira Miller) and Christopher Randolph (Huey "Papa Otacon" Emmerich (I made up that nickname)) are still doing what they do, and I like their voice acting. Aside from being a sadistic and horrible person (more on that soon), I like Skull Face's voice acting. And, most importantly, I really like Kiefer Sutherland as Big Boss.

But there's not even much of him in the game. And I'd say that at least half of his lines are hidden in audio tapes that can be easily avoided without even realizing that they're there. It's a real shame, because like I said, I really like him as Big Boss. I'm sure there will be plenty of him talking in Phantom Pain proper, but for now it kinda feels like it's the absolute bare minimum, almost like they only had him in for a short time and could only do a few lines.

But I know that's not the case. I mean, they did all that facial capture stuff, there's obviously the next game coming, and there's lines that he did for the Deja Vu mission on the PlayStation versions of the game. They had him re-record a handful of "classic" MGS1 lines like "LIQUID!" No, seriously, they had Kiefer Sutherland re-record a bunch of goofy-ass lines from MGS1 for a bonus mission that only appears in half of the versions of the game. I think that's absolutely hilarious.

And speaking of goofiness, I might as well cover the part of Ground Zeroes that is dark. I don't mean the lighting (but the lighting is fantastic). I mean the, well, by now you probably heard that there's some messed up stuff in this game. Specifically, there's a cut-scene that is not for the queasy (or people with intestinal health issues), and there's some audio tapes with some...stuff on them. I won't spoil them, you can find the thread on GB about that stuff to see what it is. I will say that it got the game the second "Sexual Violence" descriptor in the ESRB's history, and I'd say it's deserved.

It's dark, it's disturbing, and I'm surprised that Kojima would put something like that into a game. But that's clearly the point, it's in there to make the players understand that messed up stuff is happening, and to show how much of a freak Skull Face really is. And I'm a also surprised at that part, because MGS villains are usually the sort of villains that you, well, not quite root for, but can at least sympathize with a little. I mean, what MGS fans out there don't like characters like Ocelot, Liquid, or Solidus? Hell, despite being an antagonist in MGS3, The Boss is basically portrayed as being the most heroic character in that game.

Skull Face though? Nope. There's nothing heroic about what he's doing. It's a different approach for MGS villains, and I'm interested in how it'll be handled in The Phantom Pain.

Yeah, this guy. He's the worst. Also, the guy that did his voice was in a couple episodes of Star Trek TNG and Deep Space 9. I know that because I've watched a lot of those shows lately. I'm almost done with Deep Space 9, and that makes me sad. I don't want it to end.

And speaking of things I don't want to end, boy the game play... Okay, I'm sorry, that was a terrible segue. Anyway, while there isn't nearly enough story in Ground Zeroes, I couldn't be happier with the game play. Not to say that it's perfect, but I do think it's fantastic. I'd go so far to say that in terms of pure mechanics, it's the best video game stealthing I've ever played. I can't honestly call it the best stealth game ever, when there is so little of it relative to other, larger, and full priced games. But the potential for The Phantom Pain? MAN.

Basically what they've done is further modernize the controls, add a button dedicated to diving, and put it in a big wide open area. Kojima likes to call it open world, and it certainly is compared to the previous games, but it's not the giant open areas that are supposed to be coming in The Phantom Pain. Even as big as it is, and as fun as it is to explore and mess around with things, I only wish it was bigger. I want big open spaces to drive those trucks around it. I want to use those binoculars from across vast distances to scope out an entire base before I even set foot in it.

It's not perfect, mind you. I found a generator in one part of the base that I could turn off, and cut power to nearby lights and security cameras. But, then the commanding officer of the base sent someone to turn it back on. So, I figured, I'd set some C4 and blow it up permanently. Sadly, that didn't work. And I don't really see any reason as to why that shouldn't have worked. Hopefully there won't be issues with things like that in The Phantom Pain, but I still think it was worth mentioning.

The AI is good, but not so good that it makes the game unfun. At least on normal, I haven't really played too much on hard yet. It's also not perfect though. One time I left an APC in the middle of the road, and after doing some stuff, I came back to see that it was still there, and there was a truck nearby that someone had parked while he went to go do guard type things. But then he got back into the truck, and proceeded to sit there in the road, not driving anywhere because the APC was blocking the way. I didn't stay to see what happened next (as I had places to do and things to be), but that seemed like something only a video game person would do.

But aside from stuff like that, my only other complaints are nitpicking type stuff. Things like the clipping. I admire that the game has a more realistic inventory system, and that Big Boss keeps a rifle dangling on his side like it's attached to something. But, the end result is that the gun is almost constantly clipping through the ammo bags on him. Even worse is that when he CQCs someone, or picks up a body, the gun just disappears. What's even the point of showing the weapon(s) on him if the only solution to clipping is to make it disappear? I mean, this is the year 2014. There shouldn't be awful clipping like that in games any more. It's ugly, and it detracts from a game that otherwise looks fantastic.

But it's nitpicking. In the heat of the moment, I don't notice most of that stuff. That said, if those same things happen in The Phantom Pain, I'm going to be really disappointed. You can figure this out Kojima. The PS4 and Xbox One can handle guns that don't clip. You guys can figure it out.

While I have finished the main mission (twice) and all the side missions (some of those twice too), I have no plans to stop playing this game. I still had audio tapes to find (even if I don't really want to listen to them because damn are some of them unpleasant (intentionally so), and it's fun. Besides, I'm a Metal Gear Addict. This is what I do.

Here's to you, Big Boss. Hopefully that robot arm and motorcycle treat you well in The Phantom Pain.

So, what else has been going on? Well, I'm at the point with my Crohn's Disease that I'm taking a long term treatment, and the doctor's think I'm doing well enough to not have another appointment for the next six months. Hopefully nothing will go horribly wrong on that front.

Speaking of things going horribly wrong, Space Cops 5000 is still an electronic book that you can buy, read, and then tell your friends to buy and read it! I may be a decent author, but I'm not a good salesman, if these sales (or the lack thereof) are any indication. I'm not surprised, this is exactly what happened last time, with my first book, but it doesn't stop it from being demoralizing. I'm already prone to being depressed-ish as it is without lack of sales reminding me that quality work doesn't mean a damn thing if you aren't in a position where large numbers of people do what you tell them to. And I'm not going to try to claim that it's some masterful work of fiction that will be remembered throughout all time, but I'd bet every cent I own that it's better than a lot of best sellers out there.

Here's some links, should you change your mind and want to buy it. US, UK. Or search for "Space Cops 5000" on Amazon. Or search for "The Allegiance of Justice," which was my first book.

I know I usually try to keep my internet stuff positive, and I don't want to turn this blog into me just whining and moaning about my life, but... Sometimes I get really depressed, and I just thought I'd put that out there. I'm not an optimist, and between my lack of a job, lack of prospects for getting a job, incurable medical condition that is just bad enough to be unpleasant (now with the added bonus of my treatment making my immune system really weak), and the part of my brain that will never let me forget all the stupid mistakes I've made and things I've missed out on...

Well, let's just say I'm glad that I have video games to take my mind of things, and weirdos on the internet that at least take the time to read the nonsense I write. Well, the free nonsense that I write, at least.

But enough talk, I think this has gone on far too long as it is! And, now that the (fiscal) Year of Luigi is finally over, I present to you... Uh... Hm... Well... I, er...

Ah, good. A skull based villain that isn't a complete psychopath.