Holla atcha thing. Tis I, the sentient fleshy water balloon with an unspeakable -l u s t- for giraffes.

I last blogged at the end of 2020 promising a follow-up to my PlayStation 5 impressions. As is on brand for me I neglected to write anything else for almost half a year. If I'm anything at all I'm consistent, I guess.

So here the hell we are. The hell we are here. Like a crypto price tracker we swing hard, up and down, with every seeming bit of progress met with another setback... Though at least things seem to be finally trending upwards? Maybe?

I have been recalled to work finally after a full year of being furloughed and hopefully we can start to actually get some things done around here that don't result in another massive statewide lockdown. I'm looking at you, Becky. You know what you did.

So with some semblance of "The way my day to day used to play... Hooray" coming back into existence it has forced me to step back, take some inventory, and plan to live my life again the way it once was. The halcyon days where I would wake up at the same time every day, make the same commute, and do the same thing over and over again for 160 hours a month! That means the PS5 I use as an iPad charger and my recently completely renovated gaming PC rotate around to "Maybe I'll use you on the weekend" and my Switch becomes the device I constantly think about playing on the bus but don't because why not just watch YouTube on your phone?

How depressing!

Speaking of which...

How About That PS5 Tho?

Hoo boy. I'm not even mad OR disappointed. I get it. I knew what I was getting into. And if I hadn't decided to take the opportunity to rebuild my PC I'm sure I'd be using my PS5 a ton more. I should be grateful that I even got one... At launch, even. At MSRP even even. But I really, honestly, turn it on every day so I can charge my phone and tablet, since for some reason my PC's USB-C port doesn't provide enough juice to charge an iPad pro. And, again, I get it. The PS5 is a tough sell all around. I imagine developers aren't putting resources towards it because it's not like anyone can get one anyway, right? They have been doing some cool stuff on it, don't get me wrong. Astro's Playroom is still the coolest thing on the system and Demon's Souls is a very nice showcase for the speed and fidelity of the box. Even the little updates for Days Gone, God of War, and now Ratchet & Clank are pretty compelling. But as of right now my PS5 is a USB hub until Rift Apart comes out and when I'm done with that it'll probably gather dust until Horizon comes out.

The PlayStation since 2006 has kinda always been a "I use this for the Sony exclusives" box but my poor history with crappy PC components definitely cemented me as a console first type of gamer for quite a while. Things have changed though. I've changed. And I just... Don't use the thing. And yet I still see people going absolutely mental to get one and I legitimately don't know what they are so hungry for. It reminds me a bit of the story Jeff told once about people eagerly waiting in line to get what I think was the PS3? And they were so jazzed because they needed to play Madden when, in fact, it was and had already been playable on the Xbox 360 for a while. Sure if you want to play the Demon's Souls remake or Astro you need a PS5 in your home... But I somehow imagine the people raging online and pulling teeth over securing a console since November probably don't care that much about a remake of a game that one Ryan Davis said he had "never heard of" and that it "just sucks".

On a funny side note I actually, briefly, considered selling my PS5 on eBay. I figured "Well I'm not really using it at all and the demand is so high, maybe I can sell it for a profit and buy it back when the demand has evened out and there are, you know, games I want to play on it." I had nothing but trouble. I attempted to sell it twice and "succeeded" only to be stiffed by buyers both times. I get it. It's a hot ticket item. You're gonna find scammers. I just somehow imagined if I told the internet "I have a PS5 for sale" I'd have a thousand eager parents kicking down my door.

Speaking of sucky games nobody has heard of though...

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Monster Hunter is upon us. A series I deeply respect and have played a bit off and on since Freedom Unite. It's a legit phenomenon in a territory I have never been to and is a game that, as far as I can tell, keeps getting released in the US despite literally nobody giving a damn... And good for them. I can only hope that the math panned out enough times to make it worthwhile. I mean... Somehow World became their best-selling product ever and I'm still not entirely sure how *that* happened.

Still tho, Deviljo and her fluffy compatriots have re-entered the public consciousness with the latest entry: Monster Hunter Rise and... Hoo boy. I've seen some takes. I try my best to not ever come off as gatekeepy or elitist but some of the stuff being shouted about Rise are a little painful to watch. I get it, man. World was a big deal. Everybody that plays video games played Monster Hunter for some reason over the past few years. And if they continue to run World as a parallel series like they have been with Stories then cool. I'm on board. But I guess I was a weirdo that thought Monster Hunter World, while definitely an important success, seemed unusual. It looked different. It had a very unusual (for them) release structure. They made the mission progression just... What... And Astera was... I mean, sure. You've got big-boy graphics. Make it look big and impressive. You need to take a bus to get from the smithy to the canteen, you guys.

And yes. Duh. I'm nitpicking on World. It was a cool game. I should be grateful to anything that gets a game I feel never got it's due into the hands of more people. But Rise is all like "Yo, that MonHun you like is coming back into style" and people seem to be very upset that this japanese game made famous on handheld gaming consoles in Japan has been released with a Japanese setting on a handheld gaming console.

And for what it's worth I think it looks better than World. I loaded up MHW just yesterday on my cool, powerful PC and it just looked desaturated and blurry. What even is the style of Monster Hunter World, y'all? It's not quite Presto Studios presents Gundam 0079 the FMV game but man. World looks weird.

Anyway Rise is out and I've been playing a fair bit of it and it's very enjoyable. Everything is back as it once was, too, with the community spotlight highlighting the unofficial Giant Bomb Friend Code thread for the game twice... Which contains zero friend codes and a handful of complaints. Nobody wants to play or talk about Monster Hunter again so the die-hards can rest easy knowing that the old game you love is back in classic form.

Future Abandoned Project #34

With the aforementioned return to work and the other aforementioned Nintendo Switch Gaming Device Platform I will be re-entering the world of The Gamer Who Really Only Has Time To Play Games While Their Driver Ferries Them From Home To Work And Back Every Day. As a card carrying GWROHTTPGWTDFTFHTWABED I have thought many times about doing something (anything, really) with my latent creative desires that incorporates my nomadic game consumption lifestyle with some sort of blog. But you know me... I can barely commit to a set of pronouns let alone a regular writing project.

Maybe this time will be different, though! The world has changed and I have changed with it.

So I ask you this: If one were to write a "Gamer On The Go" series of articles about playing video games while commuting what would you like to hear about? My primary school of thought was to focus on elements of certain games that lend themselves to good for 20-30 minute sessions of sitting around doing nothing.

Was just a thought.

Train of thought has run out of steam. Brain sleepy now.

Bye.

Greetings, friends. Happy PS5day. Today is the exciting day when the PlayStation 5 console releases to consumers and some of the people that bought one even got one!

I was fortunate enough to be among the chosen elite that got an invite from PlayStation Direct or whatever Sony calls it, assuring me a hassle-free preorder with free launch day shipping... And by golly they came through. By about 1pm this afternoon I had the thing out of the box and installed it at my desk. I thought it would be fun to share my early impressions of setup, gameplay, and interface stuff from someone who spent most of her contemporary video gaming on a PS4.

It's Smaller When You See It Coming

The reaction I saw most commonly from pre-release coverage was how damn big the PS5 is, and don't get me wrong she *is* a tall drink of water. Taking it out of the packaging today it didn't boggle the mind as much as I expected it too. Part of it might just be that I've seen a *lot* of heckin videos of this thing being unpacked already. Part of it might be that I got the Digital Edition so it doesn't feature the BD drive hump. Either way when I got it in my hands it seemed tall, but thinner than I was expecting and wasn't difficult at all to install in my particular desk-where-I-play-my-games setup. Now granted, my setup involves an old computer desk where the PS5 sits where a PC tower might once go but... Eh... Whatever. If anything the base takes up the largest footprint in my particular use case.

I did have a few issues installing this thing off the bat, however. The power cable on the PS4 Pro seemed absurdly short for some reason. I never had issues plugging in any consoles at my desk in the decade or more I've lived in my current arrangement. The PS4 Pro power cable barely reached from the nearest power strip to where the consoles go. It was so tight I basically had to plug everything in while the console was already pushed pretty far back into it's hutch. The PS5 cable is somehow worse. I'll take no external power brick any day but in this case I could have used the extra six or so inches it would have provided. As it stands now by pushing it fairly far back in it's shelf and moving stuff around so it can plug into the closest possible socket on my power strip it reaches just enough to avoid pulling one end or the other onto the floor. Why are your power cords so short, Sony? Good grief.

The other issue is more of a petty gripe and I honestly only have myself to blame for getting my hopes up. Ever since the Xbox One S showed us a game console chassis that could perfectly rest a controller on top of itself I thought we might see a new era of paddles what do be dockable on the box itself. But no. As far as I'm aware that was the only model of any modern video game console to have that sort of accommodation. It was rad. The PS5, with it's curvy width and shape... Well I got it in my head that maybe, just maybe, I could charge the controller while resting it snugly atop the console. Maybe it would be a cool hidden feature.

I tried. It didn't take.

I slid it up and down that popped collar, hoping to find a sweet spot but the only way the DualSense found a level enough, narrow enough part of the chassis was way, way towards the back where any odd nudge would topple the input device off the ass end and probably shear off your ethernet cable on the way down. LAME.

I'm Deaf. My Monitor Is Dumb.

When I finally powered the thing on for the first time I plugged my headset directly into the controller. I usually plug my cans into a switcher that lets me ruin my already miserable ability to hear by cranking it up nice and loud on whatever device my display is currently switched to. The Dunk wanted that 3-D Audio though... At least as good as my ears could manage it, I suppose. I wanted the next gen in my withered ear holes.

As the thing booted up for the first time and I realized most of the way through the "you'll only see this the first time you turn this box on ever" animation that I was set to the wrong input I found myself unable to hear anything. Like... Nothing at all. I figured "Okay. It's initial setup. Maybe I need to toggle something to get audio through the controller. That's kinda lame but whatever. I'm already here."

I chose my Wi-Fi just out of curiosity to see if it would be significantly faster than I remember the PS4 wi-fi being. As it pulled down the console update I concluded that, no... It didn't seem much better. It took about 15 minutes I think for the full console update. Also there was still no audio. Eventually the update finished. I loaded into the home screen. Still no aud--- Wait. I heard a faint notification chime.

I had the volume on my headphones turned down. Go me.

So yes, I cannot actually confirm whether or not you'll get audio through the controller on initial setup but I was probably just being a doofus and forgot to turn up my volume. Hooray.

But then another problem came up. As I was exploring the system settings I came to realize the PS5 was all "Naw dog. I can only output 1080p to this display. No 4K, HDR, or 60 FPS for you." This sent a chill down my spine. My PS4 pro ran 4K with HDR on this monitor for ages. I was using the included cable! Oh god was I going to have to buy a new monitor? In a panic I checked for another console update. I was fully up to date. Oh no.

The only thing I could think to do was switch my two HDMI inputs and reboot the console. Miraculously when I did that the handshaking succeeded and it automatically configured itself for 4K HDR. God that was almost a heartbreaker.

OH MY GOD IT'S SO JUICY!

Dang this thing feels so fast. In much of the same way one feels like a time wizard when you switch from playing a game at 30 to a locked 60, just using the interface on the PS5 is such a breath of fresh air compared to the PS4. The store doesn't take 2 full minutes to load and another 45 seconds to BEGIN populating. It's not constantly hitching as you try to scroll from thing to thing. The interface doesn't stop responding completely when several downloads are queued, only to suddenly remember the last full minute of frantic inputs and cram them all into few seconds of off-the-rails frustration. It's just smooth and responsive always.

For now.

It's Like Braille For Environmental Geometry/Ow Ow It's Like A Thousand Tiny Hammers

That DualSense is no joke. When folks reported on it prior to launch and said 'you won't believe how this feels' they were absolutely right. It wasn't exactly how I imagined it to be but it's certainly different and has a much wider spectrum of sensations to offer than the old method of "Motor spins fast & lots" vs "Motor spins slow & a little". Playing Astro's Playroom it felt incredibly weird off the bat because it did, indeed, provide many distinct haptic textures. As someone who is hard of hearing I could see this as being a pretty amazing and clever way to enrich or offset gamers' ability to hear subtle sounds by translating them into haptics on the controller. I haven't tried playing Astro with absolutely no audio yet but I might, just out of curiosity.

The only things about the controller I found personally kinda bleh were that the default vibration level felt like kind of a lot sometimes. Granted I might have soft baby hands (I had to turn off the rumble in Avengers completely because it was making my goddamn hands ticklish before they just went numb) and part of the power of the haptics' variation might lie in having a wider range of intensities to play with (the harder it can shake the more subtle the softer taps will feel, etc. It's HDR for your hands!) but it was a higher intensity than I was expecting. All that said I did play Astro for a good couple of hours and got used to it so maybe there's just an adjustment period because it just does FEEL SO WEIRDLY DIFFERENT GAH. You can also adjust the intensity of the haptics at the system level on what I believe to be a 4 or 5 level scale, which is rad.

Speaking of feeling weird those triggers. They are cool and they work as advertised. Sometimes you pull on that trigger and it feels like something's obstructing it, forcing you to pull it just a bit harder to complete the pull. Sometimes it's just a little tight all the way through to make it easier to make smaller adjustments in pressure. It's really very cool and very much actually works. The problem is that on day one, having never touched a DualSense, it does feel just... WRONG. It feels like your controller is dirty or broken. It feels like theres some debris jammed up in there that if you shake it around you might rattle it loose, granting you a few more weeks before you have to consider buying a new one. Perhaps I've had one too many broken controllers but there's something about the feeling of pulling L2 and having it stop partway, feeling it grinding against something (just a little though, thankfully) before giving way that makes my brain think "Shit. I can't believe it's already messed up."

As someone that can sometimes be a little overly sensitive to unpleasant touch like gritty grindy something-against-something I was worried the adaptive triggers would feel like getting sand in your teeth and it does, just a tiny bit at first, but I slowly started getting used to it. Truth be told, however, it seems like it gives you the full extremes of resistance in Astro so I don't expect to be feeling that crunchy grind too terribly often. And if that does become an actual problem, again, you can turn it down or just turn it off.

I can't speak to the controller's speaker or microphone because I haven't and likely won't use them. Maybe as a lark here and there, as they suggest the speaker combined with the haptics really paint the whole picture, but I need my headphones if I'm gonna hear shit in game so... Probably not high on my priorities.

I Will Return Tomorrow With More Impressions...

I have bad eyes and worse fingers and this blog post is already longer and more rambly than I expected. I will return tomorrow with more thoughts after I spend a little more time with the OS and some more games. If folks have any questions feel free to comment and I can do my best to find you answers.

<3 <3 <3

Hi there. A lot has been happening with my health and I don't write as much as I should so let's use this stupid platform that I've donated money to for the past... 11 years!?

Oh. Oh no.

What even is time?

Uh... Aaaanyway... So I should journal or blog or whatever more. Why not do it here? People seem to read these things I guess.

Page 01: My Head Is Broken

As I sit here in darkness, my body trying to decide if last night was plenty of or not enough sleep, I cannot help but be occasionally reminded of the war raging within my left ear. A classic, though minor, ear infection battles on causing me mild dizziness, occasional pain, and a minor level of crankiness. It's not the worst I've ever had, but it is my first real illness incurred since the pandemic began so it still kinda caught me off guard. It also comes trailing on the end of a small health realization that, in retrospect, should have been an obvious one but... Eh... What're you gonna do?

So for the past several years I've noticed many changes about my life and health. I was crushed by a drunk driver some odd seven years ago and suffered some pretty serious bodily harm as a result, as you'd imagine. The obvious stuff followed: PTSD, nerve damage, pins and rods knitting bones together, etc. It was my new life. I got through it. It changed me but I got through it and would like to think I came out okay on the other end. But I also experienced lots of other smaller things over time. Stuff that is tricky to put your own finger on, like seeing something just out of the corner of your eye. New flavors of depression and anxiety would crop up, delusions and unusual ambitions, difficulty sleeping, increased levels of nightmare activity, an intermittent inability to read or conjure mental imagery, and other weird stuff like my tastes and tolerances for certain types of games changing.

None of these individually were things I felt like could be attributed to anything other than "Gosh. I've become a real fuck up since the accident. Why can't I do anything right anymore?" And, sadly, others around me didn't see the big picture either. It wasn't until a random google search brought me to an article. You see I was just lying in bed on my tablet kinda scooting around through gaming news and stuff that was just running through my head. I ended up googling something about the PS5 I think and it brought me to PSNation.com, a site that I did not frequent but a name that rang a bell. At the time the top article there was about video games and addiction. I was mostly just curious about what the author had written about and I made it a few paragraphs in until he mentioned something he had discussed in a previous entry: His TBI or Traumatic Brain Injury and how it had greatly changed many aspects of his life, including taste in video games.

There was a needle scratch moment and any interest in that first article was lost. Poof. Bye-bye. What's this other article? Clicky-clicky.

So yeah. Turned out after reading the associated original article, this gentleman experienced head trauma that damaged his brain and since then has experienced a laundry list of long term effects. And as he's listing them off I'm also checking off the same boxes. Holy shit. These things weren't all necessarily unrelated. It was an eye opener. In a weird way it kinda gave me this new hope. It rejuvenated this dying flame. A flame that said "Hey, you're not a completely lost cause. There are ways to keep on living."

So I sent him an email and now I've turned this page in the book of self-understanding. Mere weeks ago I was in a pit of despair, mulling over how six months of Hey There 2020 was just piling up on my already struggling psyche and that I was rapidly approaching 40 and feeling like less of a man than I was at 25. Good lord I could barely read a book anymore. The hell was wrong with me? Now I had potential answers. Now I had new directions to pursue for treatment and therapy.

So the suck part of brain damage is there isn't exactly a cure. This is all more or less a forever thing. BUT the good news is that piecing all these symptoms together and focusing on getting my head scanned here and there and doing specific tests and treatments will potentially improve my way of life more that just... not knowing what was going on. And even if this doesn't lead to, I dunno... Better anti-depressant application or whatever... There's something about me just knowing that some of this Effed Up Ess that I've been trying to figure out over the past seven years wasn't just me failing myself as a person. It was the fact that some asshole cracked my skull open with his car on Christmas Eve.

And as we have learned, knowing is half the battle.

Page 02: Let's Talk About Cartoon Marsupials Now

I have never played Crash Bandicoot before. Not one of them. I wasn't much of a PlayStation user until partway through the PS2's lifespan and even then I think I bounced between that and GameCube and Xbox and PC so much during that era that playing any of the Crash games of the time (which I have come to understand are not to be looked directly in the eye) was so far off my radar. Even with the PS2 dominating the world at the time I don't think I became anywhere close to a PlayStation fan until most of the way through the PS3's lifespan. This is all a waste of words to remind you, again, I've never played Crash Bandicoot.

Yet something about promotions for Crash 4 caught my eye. Piqued my interest. Grabbed my attention. What could it be...

Oh right. I'm a gross horny furry.

That explains a lot.

So yeah. Crash 4 got my attention. I was all "Hey I've never played these games before. Seems like as good a time to try them as any, right?" and thus I polled my BFF, himself also a gross horny furry, and after a DAT BOOTY THO came to learn he was actually a HUGE classic Crash fan who completed all three original PS1 games and was excited for me to discover the series myself.

Last night around 6pm it became available for me to play and so I did. Since then I have played through the short opening world, the first full game world, and most of the second. Here's what I think so far:

This game is harder than I expected it to be. It's not frustratingly hard. I'm not playing through it struggling to even complete a stage then breaking my controller over my knee. Not yet, anyway. It does definitely make it's difficulty apparent and certainly lets you choose the form of your destroyer through optional objectives. Are you cool with just coming to terms with the obstacles placed in front of you? Platforming and battling your way through a colorful and creatively designed stage to get to the end of the game? There's plenty of challenge in that, sure... But what if you also collected X number of thingies? What if you also had to destroy a certain number of objects, some of which are hidden? What if you also had to do all this without dying more than three times? What if you did it without dying at all? Did you find the secret hidden item in the stage? Did you do the time trial? Did you get the highest rank in the time trial?

It's one of those games that says "Sure, you can play me and beat me. But come on. Be a real gamer and actually play me and actually beat me. I dare you." and I think that's... Actually kind of cool. It's like an alternate timeline where games spawned off of Donkey Kong Country instead of Mario 64.

Very early on I realized I had to do my best to avoid perfection right off the bat or I would drive myself insane. I attempted 100% on the very first stage and after about 20 tries I got everything except one objective complete. Once I reached the second world I told my aforementioned best friend "I don't think I'm going to 100% this game." After beating the boss of that world (which was an amazing surprise) I smiled to myself and said "Oh... Maybe I'll go back and work on completion after I see the credits."

The one thing in particular that jumps out at me and the thing that I always love to see in games is the really lively cartoon art style. All the world art is carefully detailed, placed, and shaded just right to give it a look that is both elaborate and simple looking. The characters have a ton of visual personality with a lot of springy movement and squash-n-stretch animations. And as a spongy fluid sack who grew up in the late 80's enshrouded in funny animal cartoons I always love seeing animal characters with a lot of energy having so much effort put in to them.

So yeah, Crash 4 good. I'm looking forward to playing more and seeing how fast it'll be before I regret agreeing to go back to 100% it later. I mean... I just recently got completed all of Spyro 1 for the first time. How bad could this be?

Page 03: Electronic Arts And The Curious Case Of The Deliberately Attractive Price Point

Something strange happened this week. I know, right? What are the odds of that happening in this perfectly normal year we're all having, right? But really, this was weird. EA released a game... A Star Wars game, mind you... At 30% cheaper than it's contemporaries, did not include any way to make supplementary purchases in-game, and did all this with a public explanation that they felt this was a smaller, more focused gaming experience and as such decided it should be at a lower MSRP.

This game is Star Wars Squadrons, a title that feels reminiscent of the MS-DOS series of Star Wars flight games (X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and... Uh... X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter) and it's... Kind of awesome? It's a very enjoyable game, it's made with a lot of care and polish, and it's only enhanced further in appeal because it's only $40.00.

I'm not really going to get too much into any sort of "review" territory on this game. There are reviews out there if you want to know more about the game itself. I'm still trying to recover from the pricing model on this thing. Now granted I get it. This seems like a good thing. This seems like something we should have been doing all along... And it was something we certainly *were* doing last generation. I guess the thing that gets me is that this seems, for lack of a better term, extremely consumer friendly. This thing is priced to appeal to the buyer. It was marketed with humility and there's no gotcha buried inside (and no gacha either). It's exactly what it says on the tin. It's a single player story and two multiplayer modes. It's basically For Honor with space planes and no way to buy more character skins with dollarbucks.

It's rad and I would love to see more stuff like this from EA or other publishers where they say "We don't think this game will do any better for us if we charge upwards of $100 for it plus microtransactions so let's just sell it at a value price and see if that gives us a big initial revenue push." Hopefully this game will sell well enough to encourage variable retail pricing going forward... But hopefully not well enough for them to start shoehorning in loot boxes.

---

Whew. That was more writing than I'm used to doing. Hope y'all that read enjoyed the twisting nether train that is my thought process. Tonight is our weekly Giant Bomb community night with Avengers on PS4. So if you want to participate in our Saturday Assembly just look for Squad Fulla Hulks on PSN Communities and join us! Elite Hives came out recently and we're all preparing for the upcoming raid, so bring a character you're working on leveling and find a dance partner tonight at 7PM PT!

Til next time <3

Greetings, fellow gamers. I have been playing that new game everyone is talking about.

So, yeah. Avengers is out for folks what payed the early access tax. I just recently got my house in Final Fantasy XIV after playing for close to a decade and in my delirious, dehydrated euphoria I found myself buying it after reading that it was basically going to be Destiny-esque. That's kinda it. This was not a particularly anticipated release for me. I was not onboard the hype train. I had heard of it, of course, from simply following industry news, but I am just going to assume there are and were people way more passionate and informed about this game than me.

So that being said this game has also been under some shroud of mystery for a while. That much even I knew. Well into last year this was a real Firewatch situation. Turns out it's an online mmo-lite like your Divisions and Destinys and the like. Once that information came to light all the other questions were then unlocked to be asked. How did you play it? What was the progression? Was there item level? Will there be raids? Are there mechanics? Etc. Some of those questions were answered or teased in developer blogs but a lot of stuff has been left for folks to wait and see. This is something that I'm sure would confuse and anger folks. For someone like me it more or less just made me interested to open up the box and see what was inside.

So... Perspective reveal time. A little bit about my personal interactive media tastes to help you decide how much you're willing to respect my opinions.

Long before "Games As A Service" and "Live Service Games" were the hot new game design trend gamers loved to hate I was one of the fools who pinned my flag to that train. For a little over 20 years now (oh god why is time?) I've been one of those people that you might know better as "the consumers ruining gaming for everyone else". The MMO player. The persistent online multiplayer gamer. I've got what the game doctors call "The Sickness".

I just... I like the long slow grind. I like the endless (until the game is shut down forever) progression and updates. It's just something I like. I could probably spend a lot of time trying to piece together why I would rather run the same dungeons over and over again for two years until the next expansion adds a whopping 8 more and then keep on doing that for a decade or more... Do I play other games? Sure I do. I do love me some of those video games. Do I put a lot of time into these "other" games? ...Uh... Usually not if I'm being honest. Sometimes I finish them if they're really compelling... But usually I just end up focusing my time on whatever MMO I'm playing that year.

So let that give you an idea of the kind of person I am and the things that I personally like in games before I end up talking about my early interactions with Avengers.

Straight up off the bat I'm just going to say this. If you are not a person like me who knows they enjoy this type of gaming experience... The fact that this is Marvel probably won't change your mind about it. I'm not telling you not to try if if you've never played an online multiplayer loot grind and raid boss battler game... But go into this knowing that this is basically designed in the MMO style. It is a game that is designed to have new story and gear and quests added over the course of several years.

Now, let's get my incomprehensible train of thought to leave the station...

Sorry... I wasn't paying attention before. What kind of game is Marvel's Avengers, again?

It's basically Destiny or The Division. It's like those kinds of games. Online and co-operative focused with xp levels, gear with random stats of increasing power as your character grows, repeatable missions across varied locations, enemies and bosses with telegraphs and mechanics to learn and react to... Etc. Etc. The main difference being that this game is more of a melee focused brawler. Think Diablo but in a third person, over the shoulder context.

Oh. Well if it's one of those games how is it structured?

In the six or seven hours I've played so far the game seems to work like this: There is a story focused single-player (mostly) campaign that tells the primary story of the game in it's current state. Once you've completed that campaign you roll into what is called The Avengers Initiative which is basically the endgame content/everything else. If you're familiar with Final Fantasy XIV by any chance I would say the "Reassemble" campaign is basically the MSQ and "Avengers Initiative" is what you do once the MSQ is done and you're at level cap.

The story campaign is highly cinematic and emphasizes exploration and drama while also including "the game" where you punch things, level up, and get loot. Character progression between the two "modes" isn't separate. They're not particularly separate game modes despite how they're laid out in the menu. All it basically does is give folks the option to skip the story and jump straight into Engaging With The Treadmill.

I've not done it yet myself because they warn of spoilers by doing so but since they let you jump into it immediately I imagine the content scales to your level if you skip the story and that the high level endgame content will essentially just be locked behind a gear score at that point.

Anyway... Basically it seems like you pick a mission, choose whether or not to partner with human players or use AI partners, then go to a place. In that place you punch and shoot things, collect loot, find treasure chests, and engage with damage sponge bosses that do things that you have to recognize and react to so you can win the game. Some missions are short and in enclosed spaces. Some are long and are in bigger open exterior locations. I've done mixes and matches of all those types so far. When you complete a mission you usually get a completion reward in the form of gear you can equip to make the numbers go higher.

There are also other specialty types of play that I have read about but have not done like a single player gauntlet tower where you have to use all of the heroes you have to try and beat it. Once a character dies you switch to another and you see how far you can get. (This by the way is kind of a cool idea and I look forward to trying it). They also announced today something that they did not call a raid but it totally is a raid.

Well if it's like Destiny what's with the characters? Don't you usually just build a single character and have alts?

So funny enough Destiny was likened to Diablo with guns when it hit the scene. In a lot of ways I feel like Avengers kinda brings things full circle back closer to Diablo, in that you don't make a single character. There are premade characters with defined abilities and personalities. If anything I would describe the heroes in Avengers like different character classes. I only have access to Hulk and Ms. Marvel at my point in the progression and I did a hologram training dealie as Iron Man. Hulk seems to trend towards being a self-healing tank, Ms. Marvel being a sort of evasion DPS, and Iron Man has a higher number of ranged attacks and can fly. Each of these characters levels up independently and has their own gear drops. Loot does not appear to be shared between the characters as far as I can tell, though there is a loot locker of some sort that I haven't fiddled with yet. This might change in the endgame. The characters also have talent trees a la World of Warcraft, with points you can spend as you level up. These give you new abilities and passives and the like. There are quite a few of them from what I can see.

The catch with this particular game though, and something that may be The Rub for folks, is that you cant have a team full of Spiders Man. Now I've only done a single mission that had a multiplayer partner and there were only two options for characters, but since he picked Ms. Marvel I had to be Hulk. This might irritate people. It's just how it is. This is why I'm writing this for y'all. So you know these things going in.

So you mentioned boss mechanics. I like the dance of death in my mmo raids. Does this game actually do that?

So again, grain of salt, I've only really fought two encounters that I would describe as MMO style bosses so far but yeah, from what I can tell. One of them, the first one, was kind of just a damage sponge that had a frontal cone flamethrower while adds spawned in to get you. It was mostly just about not being in front of the dragon and managing the adds. The second encounter was a group of five various enemies with different ranges of attack. At one point a group of enemies that self destruct when killed spawned, so you wanted to be careful burning them down to avoid just blowing up by ulting them all at once.

Is there some sort of in-combat resource management to do with your character?

Actually yeah. There is a meter that is kind of like MP for an ability that does specific things. It builds when you attack the enemy and drains when you use the associated skill. For Hulk it increases his defense and regenerates HP on attack, for Ms. Marvel it gives her perfect evasion and increases her damage. These sort of work as active mitigation and buff states that you want to manage so you maximize their usefulness. Think of them as personal cooldowns. There are also skills that literally have a timer cooldown on them that do various things like self-heal, taunt, and nuke. The game also has active dodging, aoe markers to avoid and a dodge/counterattack mechanic based on timing and telegraphs.

So what's the deal with this monetization I've been hearing about, then?

Okay. This part is going to be mostly just math. I'm gonna just lay out the numbers and let you decide how you feel about them. I know this is a hot button issue but it's something that I'm far more tolerant of. Since Everquest I've been accustomed to spending something approximating $40 for each expansion on top of $15 every month in addition to any other fun extras on the side I felt like having. Extra item purchases outside of these things have been a bit of a more recent phenomenon, but are also not unfamiliar to me. Final Fantasy XIV has offered $18 costumes in it's cash shop for some time now so... That's the place I'm coming from. Again... I'll just put the math on the table and let you decide.

So.

The game is a $60+ buy in like most modern console/pc games of it's ilk. You buy the base game or you buy the fancy editions that come with extra stuff. Do you want the collector's statue? You know how this goes. Of particular note in this regard is the Playstation Exclusive Digital Edition or whatever it's called that costs an extra ten dollars, comes with some pre-order goodies, and also ten dollars in cash shop currency. If this sort of thing is important to you, that seems like the one to get... If you're on PlayStation which... Well let's just say platform exclusive content still sucks and still is a thing. *defeated shrug*

Beyond the buy in there is the Other Stuff. Future game content has been declared to be Free For All, meaning new expansion content and characters will be available for everyone when they are patched in. Part of me still expects to see paid expansions like your Shadowlands', Shadowbringerses, and Shadowkeeps but we'll see. This means that the monetization is focused on cosmetics. This manifests in two ways: The Marketplace and character specific Challenge Cards.

The Marketplace is what it sounds like. It's a store that sells cosmetic items for cash money. You're looking at stuff like $7 to $14 for character skins, profile banners for a buck, and emotes for $2.50 to $10.00, give or take. I just kind of took a quick sampling of what is currently available. It appears that there is a front page of the Marketplace and a page with character specific collections. The front page has a timer, implying that things will rotate in and out. The character specific page does not, so I'm not sure if that stuff will rotate or not. It it worth noting that these are not straight cash purchases, they are purchased with a currency you buy *with* cash. I make this distinction because I have played some gacha games that, if you'll pardon my editorialization, are bullshit, which have a currency you buy with cash and bonus currency you earn with purchase... But then items that you cant use the bonus currency on, only the paid currency... And items that you can't use either on but have to just buy as a direct purchase.

That shit sucks. That's the kind of thing that bugs me, truth be told. All real money purchases in Avengers are bought with one currency that also isn't some weird moon math. 1 currency = 1 penny. It's simple as that. And this is important because...

Of the Challenge Cards. You may know them under a different name though... The Battle Pass (!!!)

Okay. So this seems to be the thing generating the most heat recently. I looked at what is currently in the game and what has been declared for the future and I've done the math for the curious. I'm so sorry.

Every hero in the game has a challenge card which works a lot like a battle pass as seen in other games. You earn points by doing daily and weekly tasks and as you earn points you gain levels and each level gives a reward. The rewards available are not time limited so unlike Fortnite they won't disappear in a few months. As the game is at launch there are no paid Challenge Cards. All six characters that come with the base game have their cards already available. Future characters will have their reward cards available for 1000 Credits ($10.00) each. So the character does not require a purchase, the Challenge Card does.

So what comes in the Challenge Card? I have looked at Hulk and Ms. Marvel and their cards seem to offer the same types of rewards at the same levels so they are directly equivalent. Just... You know... Hulk doesn't get a pretty dress, sadly.

Each Challenge Card, when completed, contains:

• 8 Profile Banners
• 1 Finishing Move Animation
• 7 Character Skins (Which do not as of yet appear to be available in the Marketplace)
• 6 Emotes
• 7 Packs of Upgrade Materials for Gear (The same materials you get in game as loot from chests and whatnot)
• 1,500 of the in-game vendor currency (I haven't unlocked any of these vendors so I don't actually know how much that's worth or how much you usually get during play)
• 1,300 of the paid currency (Which is equivalent to $13.00)

They have also said in a blog post when you complete a Challenge Card you will earn 1000 Credits of the paid currency but nothing in the game seems to say that as far as I can tell. Maybe this will only be the case for future characters. I guess I'll find out when I fill out these initial characters.

In terms of how fast you can complete them it seems like you can earn 6 points doing daily challenges and 22 points for the weekly challenges. This means you can complete a Challenge Card in a little under a month.

So that's the Challenge Card system peeled all the way apart. Them's the guts of it.

And that's about all the major things I thought to hit in this enormous brain barf of a post. Before I close out I wanted to at least make a few remarks about some less... Mechanical things.

• The presentation is surprisingly good. The attention to detail in the environments was unexpected. As I told my husband this game was clearly touched by artists. From the Disneyland-esque vendor booths at Avengers Day to the (unnecessarily legible) fanfiction on Kamala's corkboard, this thing was touched by creatives who have heart. On that note...
• The acting is way better than I expected. The facial expressions, body language, and subtle vocal ticks that surround the usual character talking to another character stuff is very good. Everyone comes off as incredibly human
• The screen shake was not as bad as I thought it would be (though it can be adjusted in the options). I remember seeing a streamer complain about the camera shaking to accentuate the action on screen and, as a viewer, it did look pretty intense. Playing the game though... Didn't bother me at all even without turning it down. Maybe they adjusted the top end from the beta feedback? I dunno. Wasn't that bad.
• What was and is bad though is the rumble. Good grief. Maybe I've developed baby hands but the rumble on PS4 for this game was TOO MUCH. My hands were practically numb by the end of the tutorial. Sadly that option does not have a slider. It is binary. I would love an intensity setting for this, please. Playing without rumble is a little weird but the default is just too intense for my brittle bones.
• The framerate isn't as chunk as I've heard. Granted I'm playing on PS4 pro in 4k, which pretty much locks the framerate at 30ish give or take a few. I guess I expected a late gen PS4 game to be more of a "Whew... Man... We're making these things work beyond their means" kind of game.
• So far I've only encountered one major bug but I seemed to figure out what triggered it and was able to get around it. Besides that I've had no other major issues. Smooth launch so far.

I guess that's all for now. Again... Sorry if this was an eyebleed mess. I felt compelled to share my experience since I've seen a lot of confusion out there as to what is contained within this game and I hope that this might help clear things up for folks on the fence or curious.

Thus far I'd say if you liked Destiny or The Division and want to see that from a different perspective and action style, this might be up your alley. As with those games, however, only time will tell. I'll be sure to check in as I progress further and see if this ends up being a "Wait... This is all there is?" sort of situation like we've seen in the past. Thus far, however, I haven't seen the seams that I saw at launch for those other games. This one feels different somehow, and I'm hopeful. I'd like this to be A Good One of Those at launch for a change. What a novel concept that would be.

Also I suppose if folks have any other questions they're welcome to ask them in the comments and I'll see what I can do to answer them. I'm already in the coal mine, anyway. May as well use that canary.

Also also I've started a PSN Community thing called Squad Fulla Hulks so if you're playing and want an easy-to-access friends list of Giant Bomb adjacent Avengers players on PS4, look it up on the console and join in!

This is a blog? I should post something here at some point probably.