The Casual Delirium Of Video Games: Tuesday Edition

In the game that is life, I feel as if I’m perpetually stuck on the character creation screen


Shouting Waaaaaaaaaaah at the top of my lungs
furiously pressing *lengthen nose button* repeatedly
fueled by a pure sense of frustrated hysteria

I keep foolishly thinking I’m going to have an exorbitant amount of free time to play video games during my weekends, which alas, has been a totally fucking wrong deduction on my part. I’m also unfortunately feeling the need to view gaming through the lens of productivity in some respects, to get through as much as possible just in general, but also so I have a constant stream of content to write about. I tend to only commit to small blurbs every day on some months, I’m failing to recall how I kept this up when I was running a commercial gaming website, or even how streamers do this shit for more than half the day all the time.


Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s
crushing societal standards to succeed
under insane pressure all the time

To both my last point and my cold open, I was attempting to squeeze in the idea of starting a new title, in spite of a pack daily schedule when I was reminded Avowed just launched, this after reading some interesting feedback about the title in the recent Edge magazine, only to have stupidly misunderstood the assignment of what a “quick” play would entail. In the regard of not having much time at the moment, and by forgetting the game was not entirely dissimilar to an Elder Scrolls game, and to that point, having a massive god damn character creator to get through. With only a good hour to spare on the clock, I just shook my head thinking”definitely playing this…another time it looks like.” Good character creators are usually so intense, they represent a meta-game in and of themselves, and I’m nearly surprised someone hasn’t made some quirky parody spin off mobile game where that and only that is the entirety of the game.


In the reality where Anime Armpit games exist,
anything is terrifyingly possible

I guess to tie this post to some kind of recent gaming news, I recently read that Todd Howard, in being interviewed as hype for the upcoming 21st BAFTA Game Awards, mentioned he thought Tetris and Pac-Man were two of the most important games of our time, but that Mario and Doom were two of the most influential titles, more so suggesting the former two as important for their cultural impact on the zeitgeist, and the latter two in terms of design. Hard to argue his perspective, as I’ve even come to bat with the grandeur that is Tetris more than a decade ago during the genesis of my long running series Encyclopedia Muranica. I haven’t discussed much in the way of Pac-Man, but Ms.Pac-Man stands as one of my fav arcade cabinets of all time, and it’s nature of being one of the first massive commercial hits while simultaneously being a romhack helped move the needle for game development moving forward. Not much that can be said about Mario that wouldn’t represent the metaphorical equivalent of a beaten horse corpse at this point, and I gush about the awesomeness that is Doom on a regular basis, so I’d tend to agree.


Poetry in motion, and unrivaled performance art, truly

I had more of an overall point I was planning on expounding upon, but I’ve become distracted in my musings, and I suppose a meaningful takeaway isn’t always needed when you’ve spent just a couple of minutes having fun.

~Pashford

The Milks Gone Bad: Horse Armor Edition

“…find him, and close shut the jaws…of Oblivion.”


Holy shit, Patrick Stewart.

Did we give that man a fucking Oscar for best narration of a video game trailer?! Those lines still live rent free in my head to this day because of the gravitas Stewart can deliver with. God damn, I say! Dude could sell jet-skis to peeps living in the Sahara. Unbelievable. I yearn for trailers of that prestige in this day and age, something was definitely flowing in the water in the aughts for video game prerelease hype, that’s for sure. In any case, as amazingly fun as it would be to do a look back at Oblivion, I merely brought that old gem to the forefront, as it ended up popping into my head when I this article from Kotaku involving the hearty chuckle that was horse armor.


So young, much naive. Such armor. Wow.

The irony of article can’t be overstated, though I do take this moment to posit the notion this isn’t even like, new news. I swear I’ve read about these statistics before, maybe even from Kotaku as well. Not to knock their journalistic integrity or anything: sometimes one has to wheel out a golden oldie to remind folks of what was. To wit; horse armor selling well should surprise absolutely no one, as Oblivion was a massive game, DLC was basically a new concept, in many ways, horse armor kind of being the first attempt of even doing it on consoles (I know you could buy additional content online before this, hush), and it was soon after a massive launch and was dirt cheap. I know a lot of people can point their fingers and blame devs for abusing what they see as mercenary like practices for DLC, but it was ultimately gamers that used their wallets to set the standard. Reminds me of two interesting legacy articles I wrote about more than a decade ago on similarly related matters. Mad, innit?


Mad, innit?

Speaking of mad, IGN delivered some insanity with a new trailer and some screenshots involving an upcoming FPS entitled Bad Cheese, which looks to be some kind of psycho-horror romp based on the trauma of surviving an abusive household through the perspective of a mouse young-in who is attempting to survive a weekend with a dysfunctional guardian while the mom is away.


I will be shocked if hiding doesn’t play
a key element in surviving unscathed

The game has a hand drawn art style, and is animated like an old classic 16mm style cartoon film; almost like a mashup of the horror elements of the Binding of Issac, and the visual stylization of Cuphead. The screenshots and trailer available through IGN look to be positively ghoulish, so go give it a look. Though there is very little info on the title, the game is already of a worthy sort on my radar, and is the kind of game I wake up for in the morning, as the entire experience looks to be dripping with atmosphere and oozing with character. Definitely keep this one in your sights.


Speaking of hamfisted segways…

News about a new Bond game has me reeling, and mostly in a good way. The new title(s), code named “Project 007”, was first announced back in 2020 by IO interactive, the same developers that delivered upon us the stellar Hitman titles. IO CEO Hakan Abrak sounded confident in what the team was going to be able to deliver:

“What’s exciting about that project is that we actually got to do an original story,” said Abrak. “So it’s not a gamification of a movie. It’s completely beginning and becoming a story, hopefully for a big trilogy out there in the future. And equally important and exciting, it’s a new Bond. It’s a Bond we built from ground up for gamers. It’s extremely exciting with all the tradition and all the history there is there together to work on this together with the family of creating a young Bond for gamers; a Bond that the gamers can call their own and grow with.”

Honestly, it would be super easy to be all gloom and doom about a new Bond game, with any title in that series perpetually living in the potential shadow of the quality of Goldeneye to compete with, but I actually have a good feeling about this one. If for no other reason that the project is in the extraordinarily competent hands of IO Interactive, who went above and beyond proving themselves with the Hitman series, I think we’re all in for a treat when this one finally hits store shelves, and if we’re all crazy lucky, maybe the game will even rock hard enough to spawn a new franchise for us to be blown away by.

…

Look at that, I even finished without making a shitty Bond pun.


You said it 007

~Pashford

How The Sausage Is Made

It’s fun getting into trouble!


It’s obvious no one at Milton Fucking Bradley ever played the
Outlast series, which I can assure you, is an example of a time it
is not fun getting into trouble…

Keeping up with my ridiculous self-imposed challenge of writing everyday has certainly been an endeavor, to say the least. The irony of writing about games that I’ve found was true in the past and remains true now is that the more time you dedicate to the practice of writing about games, the less time you have in actually playing any of them, which is such an obtuse thought it becomes itself dizzying in it’s very nature and rapidly more nauseating as one continues to process the idea. I take this moment now to point out the obvious truth that it isn’t a 1:1 process: I can’t just put an hour into playing a video game and out pops an hour of equivalently interesting writing ideas mind you, as if that were the case, I could write blog posts rivaling the girth and depth of The Silmarillion on the regz.


Fairly surprised this was the first image that came up when I
googled “Silmarillion Girth” just for shits and giggles

That’s where the creativity comes in, of course, and boy one is always crossing their fingers that juice will be worth the squeeze on any given day. I think there is something to be said of thinking about the machinations and context of the games themselves, rather than maybe just the idea of discussing the distilled elements of gameplay, as it comes off to me as the difference of gawking at a muscle car passing by vs discussing what’s under the hood. Stroking one’s metaphorical willy about the aesthetics of a souped up beef machine have their time and place, but you wouldn’t even have had a chance to wag your absurdist pickle at the beast on wheels had it not the power of what’s pumping under the hood to get it there.


Some engines more impressive than others

I’ve realized I should clarify: this is more of an exposition about how the sausage is made, not really a complaint about the meat at hand (really gotta get off this phallic word play roll). I do attempt to deliver beyond regurgitating headlines, mind you, though the real world enjoys trying to intervene in the creative process with things like “jobs” and “sleeping” which really fuck up my whole ebb and flow on the matter. To the point of just throwing headlines out all willy nilly just for the sake of it, I had no idea that Netflix was trying to get an inside horse into the world of gaming so bad, even going as far as to announce several new video game based adaptations they announced at one of their own events in the past day. I am completely indifferent to this news however, so trying to get myself into a creative tizzy about this revelation, or the one where Netflix offers dozens of games you can play on mobile devices if subscribed, leaves me utterly muted in response.


Far out, Netflix

And that’s the thing, I don’t mind going on about headlines when I’m really lit up with energy or feel incredibly impassioned about a particular piece I see making the rounds in gaming circles, but I am merely mortal, not everything is super enthralling or life changing news. I am always thrilled when the perfect storm coalesces, and both interesting idea meets a fervent mind to deliver on an awesome idea, but no one bats a thousand.


The face of a man who is familiar with what a poor batting
average looks like

I remember once recently when I wanted to come up with some kind of article idea involving playing a game, I tried booting up Pokémon Scarlet, and was reminded of why I never forced myself through the title, and that’s because the game is fucking rough to play. I know Game Freak wanted to go all Breath of the Wild on us, but Pokémon really didn’t need to do that, and it reflects poorly on the whole experience as a result. But obviously, I’m not going to want to play a game that is like that, which means I am not going to want to gather any more ideas on the title, and ultimately that entire piece was just surmised into a single sentence in this very paragraph, so so much for that fucking idea.


Truly the Dunsparce of gaming article ideas

I’m enjoying The Plucky Squire, which I was proud to get a preview up for on launch day, but as I had foreseen already as a problem I was going to run into by not getting the product early enough to play through, as this isn’t an official operation as you may have noticed, people already have reviews out. Playing through the whole game would take a hot minute anyways, so how much motivation or interest would be left for the final article seems non-existent

I throw my horns to you, Plucky Squire, even if I am unable
to afford you all of my time

I’m not done writing about Castlevania, mind you, as it regularly holds a firm grasp upon my spirit as an ephemeral source of interest for me, but as the more clever readers have already deduced, it is just another piece of collateral in my war against time, and fighting in the trenches of my everyday to do my best to combat it. I think it’s fitting this post follows me last one, which was all about discussing expectations involving the eventual launch of The Elder Scrolls VI, and how Bethesda should find comfort in the fact that the game will just have to go back to basics, and just be the most Elder Scrolls like it can be to end up making people happy. In essence: it’s success will lie within it being itself.

I think this write up is very much in the same spirit.

~Pashford

Avoiding the Fallout of an Arrow to the Knee

My last post had made mention of this past week feeling mighty (possibly in relation to Gamescom news), which must have been a more astute observation than I had originally considered, as when my work week had finally concluded at the end of “yesterday”, my body just gave out entirely.


What Elder Scrolls players look like in my mind
waiting for news on the sixth major installment

Which realistically-sleeping: big fan. Love getting in a little death here and there to get some gas back in the tank. However, the downside to that was missing out on most of today as the Odin Sleep was long indeed, which means I’m nearly out of time for my self-imposed Midnight deadline to get some new writing out into the world. That aim in getting out some new writing represents more or less a mini-challenge of sorts and not a regular happening mind you, as the details involving the long-term stability of such a schedule is highly tenuous at best with even a cursory investigation as to the practicality of such insanely based machinations on a regular basis highly suspect.


We’re talking like Wonka’s HR department kinds of suspect

With all of that said, and keeping my time constraints in mind, you’re basically getting a super short quickie and you’re going to like it. I’m not sure why this piece of gaming news popped up on my feed again, or why I didn’t mention it the first time around, but it was recently reported that a special 1,000g achievement that was made exclusively for Bethesda head honcho Todd Howard was making some noise, as it had only been hearsay since its creation way back in 2016. The achievement was called “Lifetime”, and the description read: “Reflects on the amazing craft of Todd Howard and his team in making worlds as real as any on Earth.” Which is a lovely sentiment, and definitely an accolade Howard is deserving in.


One arrow to the knee I’m glad didn’t stop the might in their tracks

Not sure if a failed gaming launch counts as a mulligan a few decades into a career, but I feel as if I’m beating a dead horse at this point. In a fairness, that was now awhile ago, and after a slew of highly praised successes, so you do have to take the good with the bad. The launch of 76′ in mind, it does fall adjacent to me recently taking the piss out of Peter Molyneux for the absolute load of bollocks he has perpetuated over the years when hyping up his own games. In both regards, it’s easy (and valid) to take creators and their teams to task when they miss the mark and commit to a mistake, as the role is public, and to be the captain while steering such a massive ship, you’ve got to take responsibility for the rough sailing when it occurs.

The converse of that is celebrating their accomplishments, and giving them praise for helping to affect our lives positively for the better. The number of hours I’ve lost in reference to the Elder Scrolls series alone is just mind-boggling, and if you then consider that number applied to tens of millions of people collectively? The enormity of the impact Todd Howard and his teams have had over the years on gamers and the gaming landscape can’t be understated, and puts into perspective how a little effort can go a long way. So three cheers to Todd Howard and his team for all of their hard work in making our world a better place. Gaming would not be the same without you.

~Pashford