Last Thursday Roger Craig Smith, the current and longest-serving voice actor for Sonic The Hedgehog announced he would be stepping down from the role after ten years. During Roger's tenure as the Blue Blur, the series tone shifted dramatically: 3D voice-acted Sonic games up until that point were typically drenched in stilted, poorly delivered dialogue dressing up overly melodramatic plots. This shift in tone focused the dialogue of the games more on jokes and goofs that didn't always land but at least were delivered more consistently (thanks to better voice acting and directing in general). The shift was thanks to the hiring of Ken Pontac and Warren Graff, who punched up the English localisations of the scripts to fit this new tone. Only now it seems as though, alongside the long-standing voice actors for Amy Rose and Tails, Pontac & Graff are moving on from the series too.

While it's impossible to tell exactly what direction Sonic will be heading in the future, I mentioned in my review of the entire series that it definitely felt as though Sonic Team were spinning their wheels with 2017's Sonic Forces, the latest game in the series and the fourth entry in what is considered the "Boost" era of Sonic The Hedgehog. After a brief detour in Sonic Lost World, Forces went back to the Boost formula that Unleashed/Colours/Generations had laid out and over the course of that games run-time it became evident why they had, if only for one game, moved away from that style of play: boring, uninspired levels showed a clear lack of interest on the part of the developers. Beyond just it's gameplay however: Sonic Forces storyline was indicative of a SEGA unsure of what to do with the Blue Blur: the dialogue still felt like the Pontac & Graff "Saturday-morning-cartoon" vibe, but the actual plot and story beats felt like it was chasing the shonen-vibe of the "Adventure" era and as a result the entire endeavor suffered.

Why chase the old era? Well, because it's what a very-vocal section of Sonic fans really really want. Social media posts from the official Sonic accounts become flooded with people demanding a return to that era of Sonic, either in small ways, or in large demands for a Sonic Adventure 3. While I mostly doubt that SEGA are interested in going back to that era of Sonic, Forces felt like it was trying to have it's cake and eat it too by trying to appeal to as many people in the fandom as possible.

As I said, the last time we got a major reshuffle of the cast and writing team like this was when Sonic Team shifted the focus of the series considerably with 2010's Sonic Colours (although the cast technically appeared in Sonic Free Riders a few months before). And the last time we got a shuffle before that? When the voice cast was replaced with the cast of the animated series Sonic X.

And I guess SEGA & Netflix just announced a new Sonic animated series will be launching in 2022.

So in 2003 SEGA recast all of Sonic's voice actors to bring the cast in line with (what they hoped would be) a popular animated series, to provide a sense of familiarity for people who were getting into the games because of that series. Then in 2010 SEGA recast all of the voice actors once again to provide a fresh slate as Sonic Team shifted the series entire tone in a new direction.

So there's a possibility here that SEGA are looking for a new cast for Sonic Prime, who can also double-up and provide the voices for future Sonic games which veer into a new direction; both gameplay wise and story wise. Perhaps they'll also take this opportunity to tie the two projects together? That'd certainly be a neat concept, even if it's a little far fetched. Perhaps Ben Schwartz, who voiced Sonic in that Sonic movie that did pretty well apparently, will be tapped as Sonic's voice actor across the whole franchise.

Sonic, as a series, has certainly had it's fair share of up's and down's, maybe some down's more than up's. But with the character riding high off that there film, I'm certainly hoping that in this, the year of Sonic's 30th Anniversary, SEGA can capitalize and deliver a fantastic experience to push Sonic into the future.

No pressure, though.

I love Beyond Good & Evil. It’s not “the best game ever made,” but I love it. The game is, at its heart, a decent action-adventure game in the style of, say, the Legend of Zelda, with a very light dose of Metal Gear Solid and Pokemon Snap for flavor. The world is wonderful, its characters are compelling. The voice acting can be a little clunky, but most of the characters are well realized. The story, to top the whole thing off, is excellent. It’s not “the best story in a video game,” but it juggles humor and drama well, while touching on some pretty heavy themes, like propaganda and the power of the press. And the game ends on a stunning cliffhanger,with a powerful note that made me say, “oh wow, what comes next?”

The answer is, of course, nothing.

I’ll admit that I was late to the party with Beyond Good & Evil. The game originally released in 2003 across all platforms, but I first played the game in 2011 when the HD version was released on Xbox 360. This meant that once I had finished the game, the first thing I discovered upon wanting to learn more was that the sequel had already been announced and forgotten about. In 2008 Ubisoft released a trailer for Beyond Good & Evil 2. Then, nothing was said about the game again. When the HD version of the original released in 2011, the only other thing we had for GB&E2 was some leaked gameplay.

It would be years before we heard about Beyond Good & Evil 2 again, but it wouldn’t quite be in the way we were expecting.

I remember sitting down to watch Ubisoft’s 2017 E3 press conference with a light ping of excitement in my heart. Michel Ancel, who was the creator and director of the original BG&E, had already been talking about the fact that work had started back up on the sequel. So we knew they were making it. BG&E2 was the final note of Ubisoft’s E3 conference that year, launching with a stunning CG trailer. And the trailer is stunning.

But it wasn’t really Beyond Good & Evil. Gone was the cartoony aesthetic of the original, replaced instead with a much more hyper-realistic look. The homely aesthetic of the planet Hillys had been dropped for a much more stylized cyberpunk, neon vibe. The fun quirky dialogue of the original instead replaced with… lots of awkward swearing. The most pressing thing, to me at least, was that none of the characters from the original game were present. No Jade, no Pey’j, no Double H.

None of these points are bad, per se, just a little surprising. Ancel had always talked about how he wanted the original to be set across multiple planets, but time and budget made that impossible. And times had changed since 2003, so a more realistic art-style was maybe to be expected.

Then in the days that followed E3, doubt began to pile on. The game was a prequel set years before Jade had even been born. The game was at “day zero” of its development, meaning it could be years before it even sees release. Ubisoft were on the verge of a hostile takeover as they went into E3, so many began to suspect that the games announcement was simply a PR stunt. The game was also teaming up with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s controversial hitRECORD group, farming out elements of the games development to the community, and offering a small amount of money in return.

Beyond that initial trailer, everything about Beyond Good & Evil 2 was filling me with doubt. Then, in 2018, Ubisoft released yet another trailer, highlighting more of the new characters. The most surprising thing about this trailer was the reappearance of Pey’j and Jade. This meant that in the year since the game had been initially shown off, the entire story had been reworked to include the characters everyone knew from the original. “This is great!” I thought to myself, “Maybe now they can actually resolve that cliffhanger!”

It really speaks to how early in development the game must have been that the entire story could be reworked in such a massive fashion without issue.

It’s been two years since then, and Ubisoft haven’t really spoken about BG&E2 much since. The games developers occasionally show off gameplay, but it should be noted that in the three years since the game was formally announced they’ve repeatedly shown off the same area of the game over and over again. Despite three years of engine dev, and three years of active development, Ubisoft Montpellier have very little to show for it. I know making video games is big, difficult, and complicated, but you’d think they would show even one other location from the supposed massive solar system the game is reportedly supposed to take place across.

My enthusiasm for BG&E2 waning, I decided earlier this year to replay the original game. I purchased the game on Steam, installed, and was greeted by an absolute mess of a video game. Frame rate issues caused the visuals and audio to de-sync, textures would flicker and disappear, there was no controller support to speak of. In my desperation, I installed Ubisoft’s own Uplay store and bought the game there, only to run into all of the same problems. After multiple attempts it dawned on me that this wasn’t even the HD version of the game; I guess in the nine years since it launched, Ubisoft have never bothered to port the HD version to PC.

This morning Ubisoft announced it was working on an adaptation of Beyond Good & Evil for Netflix. More than likely, this is being announced to get ahead of any potential leaks, like what just occurred with the leaked news of a Splinter Cell animated series. But thinking back to Ubisoft announcing BG&E2 as a PR stunt, one can’t help but wonder if Ubisoft are announcing this as a distraction from… well, all of the bad news currently leaking out of the company. Maybe that’s an overly cynical thought to have.

At this point I’m worried that Beyond Good & Evil 2 will once again fade into obscurity. Maybe Ubisoft Montpellier have been working on this game for so long that Ubisoft would have no choice but to release something. I'm worried that we'll have another No Man's Sky on our hands, the promise of a fully active and explorable solar system certainly draws easy comparisons of a developer reaching for the moon while sitting in a sailboat, and only showing off a single city within that solar system despite three years of dev time certainly doesn't inspire confidence.

Beyond Good & Evil might not be "the best game ever," but it's legacy now is having the cult status it struggled to attain wheeled out on stage to make it's fans happy, before being wheeled back into the closet to gather dust for another few years.

DOOM Eternal got delayed.

Oh well, leaves me more time to play through some fan-made Doom WADS.

Grabbing GZDoom to play through the original two Doom games turned out to be more of a blessing than I had originally realized. I’m useless with computers, and I also have an incredibly short attention span. When it comes to downloading mods for games, I tend to get frustrated too easily unless the process is relatively simple. The beauty of Doom and GZDoom is that the “process” of installing a mod isn’t even a process at all. You download the WAD, you drag and drop onto GZDoom, and you’re done.

So the first WAD I started with was Going Down.

Going Down kicked the shit out of me.

Going Down made me realize I wasn’t anywhere near as good at Doom as I thought I was.

So Classic Doom has five levels of difficulty. Now I’ve become a little more entrenched in the Doom fandom I’ve come to realize two things: One; Of those five difficulty levels, Ultra-Violence, the one below the highest difficulty, is considered the way to play. The second thing I realized was that Doom WADs are generally made as a way to push skilled players with incredibly difficult, intense maps.

When I previously played through Doom and Doom II, I had only been playing on the normal, standard difficulty. In other words: I was in no way prepared for how vigorously fan made Doom WADs were going to brutalize me. Even playing through Going Down on the normal difficulty was crushing me. When I got to around Level 21, a level in which they take all of your weapons away and then throw this at you, I realized I was in way over my head.

Thankfully I found with Doom that I was having an experience I’ve never really had with video games before. I typically only play through games on the “normal” difficulty. Rarely do I push through to the harder difficulty settings, not because I’m not interested in being challenged, but because I like to appreciate as much of the game as possible without the games difficulty getting in the way. As Going Down repeatedly kicked my ass, I found myself relishing the challenge. I don’t think there’s a better feeling in all of video games then running into a furiously difficult encounter in Doom, thinking there is no way you’ll be able to pass, then conquering it through sheer skill and determination.

I imagine this is how people who enjoy Dark Souls feel.

Anyway, I replayed Doom 1 and Doom 2 on Ultra-Violence so I could get really good, so I could understand the baseline with which these people were creating their challenging WADs.

After Going Down, I figured I should check out John Romero’s SIGIL, which was part of the reason why I wanted to get into classic Doom in the first place. I enjoyed Sigil, but it felt a little stale compared to what I had experienced in Going Down. The levels look astonishing, but I found myself getting a little tired of it pretty quickly. It’s difficult definitely felt frustrating an experience I wasn’t having with every other set of Doom levels.

After that, I pressed on into Eviternity, which might be one of my favourite gaming experiences of the year.

The beauty of Doom’s combat largely lies in the enemy variety combined with your available arsenal. All of the enemies fit together and fulfill specific roles in such a way that every encounter needs to be approached differently depending on what enemies your facing and what weapons you have at your disposal. The whole thing feels like puzzle pieces being fit together in slightly different ways but still providing a vivid picture. When they designed Doom 2016, they referred to the combat of Doom as “combat chess.”

Eviternity is made by a group of modders who understand this balance incredibly well. Not just this, but the game provides a few new enemy varieties (all based on existing enemies) which manage to complement the existing enemy group without feeling out of place or like it disrupts the delicate balance. The mod is also built using new texture maps, so the levels themselves have a wildly different atmosphere than the base Doom levels do. A good example of this is Level 15, a colossal castle in the middle of a snow-swept landscape. Astonishing stuff.

All-in-all my journey into the world of fan-made Doom WADs has only made me appreciate Doom even more, a feat I didn’t think was actually possible. Earlier in the year myself and a friend were talking about Tetris, a game we’ve become obsessed with since the release of Puyo Puyo Tetris on Switch, and then with the release of Tetris Effect and Tetris 99. As we were talking, I analogised our new found appreciation for Tetris as being like one day actually noticing a painting or photograph hanging in your childhood home and suddenly taking the time to appreciate how wonderful it is. Now, looking at my newfound appreciation for Doom feels the exact same way.

My list of Doom WADs to dive into next is long, but my next stop is No End In Sight, built by a team of modders trying to capture the feel of the original Doom’s level design.

My question for you guys this time: my experience with Doom’s difficulty felt rather unique for me, but has there ever been a game that you felt compelled to replay on higher difficulties? Did pushing through to that higher difficulty make you appreciate the game more? Let me know in the comments!

In the previous part I talked about my desire to go back and play through the older Doom games in my anticipation for Doom Eternal. Thanks to the efforts of the folks working on GZDoom, I was able to play phenomenal, slightly modernized versions of Doom and Doom II: Hell On Earth. I figured I should keep the ball rolling and make my way into Doom 64, a game I owned and discovered I had slightly more reverence for than I initially anticipated.

As with the previous Doom games, I started by wondering what the best way to play Doom 64 in 2019 was. I started out playing Doom 64 EX, a recreation of the game using the original Doom’s engine as a source. I found that version perfectly fine, but something about it just didn't click for me. Some further research led me to discover Doom 64 Retribution which actually ran in GZDoom. The idea of being able to play a significant chunk of the Doom games all in one place really appealed to me, and I found the game ran a little better than EX did. I had to jump through a couple extra hoops to get the original soundtrack running on that version but I’m a huge fan of the soundtrack so I felt it was worth it.

Doom 64 immediately stands out from the previous Doom games in look and atmosphere, which makes sense considering it’s created by a different studio, though thankfully it still feels like Doom. Purists may scoff at the idea of playing the game on mouse and keyboard, though I can hardly imagine what some of those later levels must have felt like on an N64 controller.

At times Doom 64 almost feels like a straight-up horror experience, the enemies look nastier and meaner, and the MIDI-Metal soundtrack is replaced by a lumbering, ominous ambient soundtrack.

Doom 64’s story, to my surprise, added a dimension I wasn’t quite expecting. The basic premise: years after Doomguy slaughtered his way through the demonic invasion of Mars, a strange force is now resurrecting the demons of Hell. Naturally, Doomguy is the only person who can stand against this demonic army, so he ventures back to take the fight to them once more. This simple yet strong story, combined with the nastier looking monsters and oppressive score, really painted the game with a strong sense of dread.

I will admit that the games slightly muted color scheme often resulted in me getting lost or being unable to find switches and keycards, a situation I found delightfully ironic considering my thoughts on the original game in the previous post. Overall I enjoyed Doom 64 though I did find the oppressive tone got a little stale as I drew closer to the end, though a strong (and insane) final boss encounter saved it for me in the closing moments.

From there I dove straight into Doom 3. I played through the Steam release of the original version of the game, not realizing that the BFG Edition had slightly improved graphics (I had incorrectly assumed that was simply a re-release with the DLC bundled in).

Right from the word go it becomes apparent that Doom 3 is the “odd one out” of the Doom franchise. A stronger focus on horror coupled with the mostly ambient soundtrack maybe don’t feel quite so out of place after Doom 64. However it’s the more involved storyline (with actual characters!), linear level design, and the almost-feels-actually-blasphemous idea of reloading in a Doom game that set it out from the pack.

Ultimately I think I enjoyed my time with Doom 3, even if there were moments where I felt frustrated. The few boss encounters the game has were mostly uninteresting. There are one or two moments where the game demands some tight platforming jumps that felt awful with the games mechanics. The over reliance on surprising you with enemies out of nowhere definitely overstayed its welcome.

Of course no Doom 3 discussion would feel right without discussion of the flashlight. At times the mechanic of switching between weapons and flashlight really worked for me, really helped the game ratchet up the tension. Other times it felt like a bothersome nuisance that just got in the way of the fun. Even when the game lead you into a hallway completely blanketed in darkness the flashlight would only illuminate a small chunk of the players view. It was no surprise when I discovered the devs changed the mechanic in the BFG Edition, as having the flashlight constantly on doesn’t seem like something that would throw the games design off-balance.

With all the major Doom games checked off my list, where do I go now? Initially I planned on sinking my teeth into Doom 2016, I game I’ve played before and know that I enjoy, hoping my new perspective would enrich the experience. Then it struck me that having access to GZDoom and using it to only play vanilla Doom would be a complete waste. So after some searching I found a handful of highly revered Doom WADS, like Valiant, Going Down, and Comatose.

I’ll share my experiences with the wonderful world of Doom mods in the next part (and maybe I'll check out the Doom 3 DLC while I'm at it). Do you guys have any thoughts on Doom 64 or Doom 3? What are some of your favourite Doom WADS or general Doom mods, which ones should I be checking out. Let me know!

With the release of Doom Eternal looming over the horizon, and with the release of new levels for the original Doom from one of the games original creators, I thought now would be the best time to go back and experience the old Doom games properly for the first time. I had played through and furiously enjoyed 2016’s Doom, so why not go back and truly experience where this legendary franchise had come from?

I’m not a complete stranger to Doom, of course. I had Doom 64 way back when, and I owned a copy of Doom for the Playstation around the same time. Just after the release of 2016’s Doom, I bought copies of all the other Doom titles on Steam. Despite this, I had never gone into the weeds and played classic Doom, outside of messing around in each games opening levels before nodding happily, turning the game off, and telling myself I’d get around to playing it properly some other time.

My journey through Classic Doom began with trying to figure out what the best way to play the original 1993 Doom now in 2019 was. I had all the games on Steam, so playing them wasn’t really a chore, but would that really be the best way?

It was an act of serendipity that lead me straight to one of the best ways to play Doom, thanks to one of the men behind the whole thing in the first place, John Romero himself. With Romero releasing his much-anticipated fifth episode for Doom (known as Sigil) I found myself wanting to assure that when the time came I could play through those levels too. From there I quickly discovered gzdoom, a fan-made enhanced port of the Doom engine for modern operating systems. Fantastic.

One of the first things that struck me about Doom was how wrong my old, initial impressions of it were. I always had the idea in my head that a typical session playing Doom would involve wandering around gigantic open ended levels aimlessly for several minutes looking for that one door or switch or keycard I had missed to advance. This ended up not being the case at all once I was playing it for myself. Doom levels can be quite open and sparse (for lack of a better word), but there’s usually always a clear objective or path communicated either through item or enemy placement, or (in some cases) with actual straight-up arrows pointing you in the right direction. Those moments did happen, on occasion, but they were few and far between compared to what I was expecting.

Another thing that struck me was just how fast it was. Maybe playing it on a modern PC had a little to do with it, but the game really doesn’t show it’s age at all when it comes to the fluidity and responsiveness in it’s controls. It’s level design is awe-inspiring and intuitive, and fun. It’s easy to see why and how Doom became the monolith that it is, and why so many chased after it’s throne as the king of first person shooters.

Doom II: Hell On Earth was equally as fun. In many ways, it felt like a victory lap. A decent chunk of the levels ooze the developers intent of building something enjoyably and challenging for the players. Many levels are built around specific gimmicks or ideas, but not in a way that feels hokey or gimmicky. My favourite example is the 7th level, “Dead Simple,” which flies in the face of other Doom levels where exploration is key; this map is just a big square with enemies flooding in to face you. I laughed at the entire tongue in cheek nature of it.

Over the years I’ve become slightly bored by modern FPS games. I think there’s still interesting things being done in that space, but a little bit of the spark has faded away for me. Revisiting Doom and Doom II really helped me remember how fun FPS games can be, has really revitalised my interest in the genre.

After finishing the first two Doom games, I thought: “Why stop there?” I decided I may as well go all the way and play through Doom 64 and Doom 3, and I’ll talk about my experience with those in the next part. But how about you guys? When did you first play Doom? Was it recently? Were you there at the start? Let me know down below.

I’ve always thought of SUPERHOT as being the ultimate John Wick game. A shooter wherein the gimmick is that “time only moves when you do” certainly helped many players live out their own action-movie fantasies, especially when the end of level replays filtered out the moments where time slowed down to play back a sleeker, faster-paced version of your actions.

So I was happily surprised to discover the newly announced John Wick Hex was a strategy game take on the idea of fast-paced gun-fu action sensibilities. Much like SUPERHOT’s time-slowing mechanic allowed for moments where you could more methodically plan out your actions in an FPS setting, a strategy game wherein every action needs to be carefully considered certainly taps into a similar vein.

I’m a huge John Wick fan, so I’m really curious to see how this shapes out. One can only imagine YouTube becoming filled with intense replays, especially if one were inclined to snip out the moments where the game pauses to let you choose your next action, much like SUPERHOT does automatically.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING WILL CONTAIN MINOR SPOILERS FOR WANDERSONG

As a devout Sonic the Hedgehog fanboy, I’m no stranger to having my favourite games be mostly absent from end of the year “best of” lists. This year, however, I was deeply saddened to see my favourite game of 2018, Wandersong, be completely left to the wayside in “game of the year” discussions. It’s not particularly surprising when you think about it. It’s been kind of an incredible year for games, and it’s not hard to see how this cute little indie game, only available on PC and Nintendo Switch, may have gotten lost in the shuffle of colossal AAA games and hard-hitting indie titles that 2018 has had to offer.

Wandersong is a game about music. But more importantly it's about a Bard and a Witch, and the end of the World. In the beginning, this world was sung into existence by a being called Eya, and the time has come for Eya to sing a new song, which will destroy the world and create a new one in its place. Not happy about this turn of events, the Bard and the Witch set off on an adventure to learn all the parts of the “Earth Song,” which will hopefully convince Eya to not destroy this world.

Wandersong is also about staying positive in the face of… well, the end of everything. I’m a big sucker for positivity and for things that are endlessly joyous and looking for good, but the game never lets its positivity overwhelm. Game director Greg Lobanov said in an interview: “If everything was happy all the time, it would be a really empty experience, I think. I’m interested in making something that’s positive, but positive in an honest way.”

One of the things that surprised me the most about Wandersong was how simple it’s mechanics are and how often those mechanics are used for differing things. Like any other traditional 2D game, the left stick controls the character and the face buttons interact with the world; but the right stick allows you to sing. It’s like the Ocarina from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but unlike the Ocarina, which only serves a small function in the overall game, the singing in Wandersong is an integral, constantly evolving part of the gameplay. The game is split into seven acts, and each of them finds some new small way to fit this mechanic into a different shape.

While Wandersong consistently surprised with its mechanics, it’s story completely blew me away too. Okay, so maybe not it’s story specifically, so much as its characters. The writing is funny and powerful and deeply, deeply human. A really strong sequence later in the game centers on the Witch who has been tasked with aiding the Bard on his quest. Though Miriam spends most of the game cold and aloof, the Bard eventually stumbles upon her dancing all her troubles away in the back of a nightclub, the two of them finally opening up to each other about how scared they both are and how much they’ve gone through. It felt very real and honest in a way that caught me off guard. In a game about celebrating our differences through the power of music, I wasn’t quite expecting to be confronted with some very real memories of going to clubs with my friends at whatever o’clock at night, the loud music heightening our emotions so we end up crying and dancing and laughing and promising to always be friends for the rest of our lives.

These human emotions are expounded upon when the game introduces Audrey. Just as the Bard is on a quest to gather all the pieces of the Earth Song, Audrey is introduced as the actual quote-unquote “hero” of the story, tasked with killing the very beings the Bard needs to learn the song from. Y’see, Eya needs to sing her song to end the world and create a new one, and Audrey is the hero chosen to help this terrible event come to pass. The writing for Audrey is outstanding, as she happily picks up her role as “the chosen one” without question, as both the Bard and Miriam try desperately to tell her that maybe there’s another way, and as the Bard slowly begins to realize that despite being given this quest by the same being ushering Audery through her quest, no one (except maybe Miriam) actually believes he will be able to do it.

All of this culminates in an up-roaring powerful finale. I will say that perhaps the ending is a tad predictable, I saw it coming from pretty much the beginning of the game, but the journey the game takes to get there and the way that ending is masterfully orchestrated and executed left me absolutely awe-struck. I've loved music my whole life. I carry with me perhaps an almost naive, sentimental view that music is the one thing that could save us all (who knows where I got that ridiculous idea from) and to have Wandersong be a game almost fully about that idea while exploring these very real human emotions struck a chord (hah) with me in a very profound way.

Wandersong is an adorable, wonderful little indie game that is incredibly fun, inventive, hopeful, scary, and absolutely oozing with joy. It's the most fun I had with a game this year, and I want so desperately for it to not be forgotten among the more-talked about games of 2018.