Sims, Or Something Like It.

Welcome back to the beginning of a new week and I'm here to talk to you all about sims.  No, I am not referring to The Sims, but to certain aspects and qualities of simulators and hoo-boy are there a lot of them (on Steam); I specifically refer to Steam as it's my gateway to AAA and indie PC gaming although I know (I'm sure there are; there have to be) other outlets for video gaming out there.  Right?

Last week when I was listening to The Patch (#75 I think), Gus Sorola brought up indie game developer Lucas Pope (Papers, Please) and how he frequently gets requests to make other "Gate-Sims" like Papers, Please but in different departments and how he has absolutely no desire to do another gate-simulator.  This led the cast to come up with other ridiculous gate-sims with Mr. Sorola finalizing that a Drive Through Sim would be great because of how complicated and specific an order could get, which then lead to Ms. Turney stating that there are people who are paid (horribly) for actually taking orders at a drive through.  Would they feel that the game trivializes the kinds of shit they have to put up with from customers?

Which brings me to video game simulators, or at least some games that are sims and one other in particular.

Now, I have a couple of sim-type-style games at my disposal: Papers, Please; The Sims 2 & 3; Civ. 5; Ace Combat X, Joint Assault, Assault Horizon Legacy and Assault Horizon Enhanced Edition; Day-Z; Reus; Goat Simulator. . . you get the idea.  Then there are a slough of games with "Simulator" in the title that I do not own nor have I played: Farming Simulator, Euro Truck Simulator, Ship Simulator Extremes, Digital Combat Simulator World (DCS World), Construction Truck Simulator, Surgeon Simulator. . . more ideas you are getting behind, yes?

Which then brings me to This War of Mine.  It's a game that came out last month (November 14th) that I first thought that I would really like to play.  To put this game into context, in This War of Mine, you play as normal everyday citizens in a war torn fictional country.  You are not playing as a super soldier armed with 184 lbs of guns, equipment and additional rounds of ammunition, but as people attempting to survive everything else around them.

Then I thought of the real life This War of Mine.  In Palestine. In Sarajevo.  In Baghdad.  In every city, town and country that has had some form of major military conflict take place within its borders.  People live their lives surrounded by what this game is apparently trying to represent.

A part of me thinks that I would and should feel guilty about playing a game about people who are living a life where they are afraid to go out at anytime, for any reason, because they could be attacked by either military force or by fellow citizens.  The simplist things in life become a hardship such as finding sufficient food to feed your family or find clean drinking water.  But the real question is why did 11 bit studios create this game?  Was it to glamorize the suffering of people who regularly live in such war-torn communities?  Somehow I doubt that those were their intentions.  

In an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun, senior writer for 11 bit studios Pawel Miechowski said that This War of Mine "is not a simulator of atrocities, it’s a take on how people struggle and what are their emotional challenges" and that "We want to raise awareness about how civilians suffer when war is breaking out. We want to show the other side."  If this game had come from, say, Sledgehammer Games (Call of Duty) or EA Digital Illusions (Battlefield), I might question their motives.

When I started this short article (seven paragraphs ago), I was on the fence about buying/playing this game.  Now, I feel that I need to not only play this game, but to experience.  This War of Mine was obviously created with a lot of thought and care to convey the right imagery, tone and sense of weight as opposed to another war simulator.  It's quite a powerful trailer too that 11 bit studios released a while back.

It's settled then.  I talked myself back into it.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
And When Jesus Comes He'll March On With The Winning Side

First Impressions: Unturned (PC)

Remember that article I wrote a couple of weeks back?  You know, the one where I talk about the number of Steam games on early access that fall under the "early access massive multiplayer online open world zombie apocalypse survival first person shooter" category?  There is a new game (new as of July 7th, 2014) that was released for free that popped up on the Steam front page a few days ago, and because I have almost no willpower and 640Gigs of spare hard drive space, I figured I could spare 200Mb.

Logo courtesy of the r/unturned sub-reddit

No, Unturned does not even have a "proper" logo.  Well, it does have a kind-of-logo that comes from the Steam store page, but it is not as interesting.

See.  I told you it was not at all interesting.  The game however is fairly interesting.  It reminds me of a mix between DayZ, Proteus and Minecraft; except that I have never played Minecraft (I know, I know), but I at least know what the game looks like so I feel somewhat educated enough to make that assumption.

But let us break down these comparisons.  DayZ:  In Unturned, you start out the game completely naked and depending on the difficulty setting, you either start out empty handed, or you start out with a juice box, candy and a flashlight.  In one playthrough (I died) I did manage to find some clothes at a laundromat, then I found a gun which I was able to use a couple of times before being mauled to death by a zombie.  Zombies also tend to congregate near objects of civilization be it a lighthouse, small towns, military installations or seemingly abandoned beach blankets and lounge chairs.  If the zombies do not kill you, over time, you become hungry and thirsty and I am assuming that you will starve to death or die from dehydration.  If you jump off from a high enough distance you can break your leg or if you step in a bear trap (that you just happen to recently set yourself) you will bleed out until you are dead.  See, a lot like DayZ.  The zombies are even attracted to the sound of gunfire, which is very annoying, although I guess somewhat realistic, depending on which zombie universe you are the most attached to.

Dying is something that I have become very good at in Unturned as well, regardless of the difficulty setting.  Even on "Easy" each hit from a single zombie does 10% damage, which does not seem like a lot unless you are being chased/mauled by a horde of zombies.  That is unless you happen to find a body of water to swim out into, in which case they will simply hang out in the shoulder deep water and follow your every move.  On an upnote, you are capable of swimming indefinitely, even with those stubby blocky arms.  

So how is the game like Proteus then?  Well, if the island in Proteus were populated with buildings and zombies, then I guess that comparison would make sense.  There is music in Unturned, albeit it is not interactive in the way that the music interacts with the environment or as peaceful or as calming.  But it is there and everything is all block-like.  So there is that.  Maybe I am just reaching for straws here, but that was what I briefly thought right before I was shown that I acted better as zombie food than a naked dude safely running around an island community.

So Unturned is still in alpha-release although the developer Nelson Sexton with Smartly Dressed Games does seem to update frequently and the game is free to download and play.  There is a pay option which could be seen as a way of helping to fund the game.  The $5 one time "Permanent Gold Upgrade" gets you your name in gold in chat, extra customizing options for your character (hair, skin, facial expressions), access to special servers [extra loot drops, double experience, suit and shades (clothing options)] and a sleeker UI; if that is your type of thing.

You know, for a game and article about zombies, I sure have done a great job not including many screen shots of zombies.  If that was something you have noticed, then I leave you with the following image of my last play/die through and encounter with a group/horde of zombies shortly before they mauled me to death.

I would be lying if I were to say that I have not become just a little frustrated with not being able to often survive long enough to pick up a weapon.  The last three games I played I was killed by no less than three zombies while trying to pick up Playthrough 1) Baseball bat, 2)Crowbar and 3) what turned out to be nails.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I am only playing a single player game, which might be because I have not figured out how to log into/host my own online game.  There is plenty of time to figure these things out of course, as long as I do not get eaten in the meantime.

Good day everybody!



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Touch My World With Your Fingertips

Book Review: Extinction Point

Extinction Point by Paul Antony Jones is where we will spend this Tuesday (because of work getting the better of my time yesterday).  What initially drew me to this book was that I was browsing what books I could borrow on my Kindle (product review to be coming later) using the "Kindle Lending Library" (more on that with the product review).  I believe that I have mentioned before that I am somewhat of a sucker for the apocalypse genre and when I read in the description that ". . .every living thing on earth succumbs to a swift bloody death.  Yet Emily Baxter, a young newspaper is mysteriously spared - and now she's all alone" I knew that I was hooked into checking this book out.  I knew that there was going to be more to the story than that portion of description as "alone in a post-apocalyptic world" is something that I have already read and would be damn near impossible to top.

On with the show!

Extinction Point follows mid-20-something journalist Emily Baxter, formally from small town Denison, Iowa and is currently living in New York.  She lives in New York and works at the New York Tribune (a fictional modern day newspaper that is somewhat based off of the real New York Tribune by name and probably the New York Times by proximity).  Emily Baxter lives in an apartment on the 17th floor in New York.  In case you were not paying attention, this story takes place in and around, but mostly in, New York City in the great state of New York.  I honestly felt that I was beaten over the head with the obvious stick a lot during the first quarter of the book.  The reader is told about how "the smells of New York City washed over her" followed by a "page" later by "an offer from the New York Tribune. . ." and four "pages," you are reminded that "she could see the daily bustle of life in New York City continuing as it had for countless years."  I felt that I did not need to be reminded every few pages that the story was taking place in New York City.  Maybe this goes back to the "show don't tell" thing.  

Keeping with Captain Obvious, especially in the first chapter, I felt that the author was using extra words where the were not needed.  Extra words like ". . .pulled out her smartphone" (we can assume that being a reporter she has a smartphone and unless the author wanted to say which specific smartphone, the "smart" is not necessary; ". . .an astonishingly good BLT sandwich" (I think it is safe to say the majority of people reading this book will know that a BLT is a sandwich); ". . .wireless Internet signal" (since in the same sentence it is stated that Emily is using her computer, I feel like the reader knows that in order to use the internet she will use the cafe's internet and not ask for their ethernet cable); ". . .clicked on her email client" (the author could have just said "opened her email").  I realize I am probably being nitpicky, but all of this was just in the first chapter and I was initially sad that I might have checked out a book that was going be this overly descriptive about obvious places and actions.

As it turned out, the book was progressively written better, although I occasionally still felt that I was being reminded where the story was taking place.  It takes place in New York, in case you skipped to this paragraph before reading everything else above.  There were a number of times that the character of Emily Baxter did things that I thought were dumb/stupid/ill-thought-out, but after I decided that that was part of the character's personality and the way that she thought about how to approach being alone in a city the size of New York (He said it again!)  While I may decide that I would go to a sporting good store for food that I would take on a bike trek instead of going to Whole Foods or taking a crossbow instead of a shotgun, that's just me being different than this 20-something girl who grew up in Iowa.

My last criticism is a bit of a spoiler, so I will not go into too much detail aside from that I felt that some descriptions could have been lifted straight out of Dead Space.  No, the book and story do not take place in space or in the future and it does not include necromorphs. . .sort of.  Okay I lied, so necromorph-like creatures happen in the book.

The thing had eight spider-like legs; each leg was articulated by four bulbous joints that gave the creature a lopsided, almost limping gait.  The end of each leg was tipped by a scimitar-shaped claw, tempered to a point, and made the creature look as though it were standing on tiptoes.  The top of each leg attached to another bulbous extrusion much like a human shoulder joint, and that joint was in turn attached to a long corkscrew-shaped body.

Extinction Point (Jones, Paul Antony) Location 2571

You get the idea.

In the end, I finished the book in just over a week.  For what it is worth, Extinction Point is a good summer book.  I was not looking to be intellectually stimulated or have my mind blown by a mind blowing epiphany.  I was looking to be entertained, and once I got through the first couple of chapters, I was able to enjoy the book without being annoyed by the character.  I was annoyed occasionally by her choices in survival tactics, but I feel that just means that I am invested in the character.  Maybe?

So would I recommend Extinction Point by Paul Antony Jones?  Sure.  If you have a Kindle and with Amazon's Prime service you can check it out for free.  If you have a library card and it is available at your local library, you can check it out there too.  The eBook price is also quite attractive.  I do not know if I would pay full paperback/hardback price for the book though and if I did, then I might feel let down.  If you did enjoy this book, then you will be ecstatic to know that there are two sequels titled Extinction Point: Exodus and just published in April of this year, Extinction Point: Revelations.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
In The Silence Of The Darkness

Emulator Hour preview: Resident Evil 2

Okay, so, I decided I had to play Resident Evil 2 again.  I guess it was when I was midway through watching 'night of the creeps' that I came to this conclusion.  Well, my playstation is only a memory now, drifting somewhere out in the world, so I decided to turn to the world of emulation.  With a bit of work, I've gotten it working, and I'm going to play Resident Evil 2.

But I haven't actually started yet.  I think I'm going to play as Claire, since the other time I played RE 2 I played as Leon.  I got to the end of the game, too, but I had six handgun bullets and a knife.  Suffice it to say, I didn't win.

The game is super-sweet though.  RE 2 was the first game in the series I played.  I missed RE 1, but I did play the game cube revision.  Because it was the first, I'll always have special affection for RE 2.  Something about a zombie infested police station that is a nice spin on the zombie infested theme.  Sort of like how Dawn of the Dead takes place in a shopping mall.  Actually, come to think of it, Dawn of the Dead might be my favorite Zombie movie.  Either one, take your pick.

In terms of it being a sequel, I'm not sure that RE2 really upgrades the game play in any significant way.  But in this case I don't really mind, again, because it was the first one I played.  Also, the gameplay of Resident Evil was so unprecedented, I was thrilled to have more than one.  It wasn't until RE3 that i started to think things were waning a bit.  Really those first three games are like clones of one another.  Awesome, terrifying clones.

I'll spare everyone and not talk about RE4 and beyond.  Even if it was the triumphant return of Leon.  Alright, well, this is sort of a non-post, but I'm excited to play Resident Evil 2!  Woot!

-D

This is just some examples of the dramatic camera angles from this game.  10 to 1 some fucking crows appeared on the way out of this room, and scared the bejeezus out of me even though I knew they were coming

Horror games and preview of the Chzo Mythos

is this mansion... spooky?

Happy Halloween everyone.  Or at least, Happy Halloween month.  Being October, the month of all Hallows eve.

I'd like to review a horror game for October, but unfortunately I am not able to review my game of choice,  due to some platforming restrictions combined with a lack of time, dedication, and computer competence.  But I'll talk about the game, or series of games, and maybe it will pique your interest and maybe you'll try them out for yourself.   In the meantime, I'll also direct you to a previous post about a survival horror game I gave impressions on:  Lone Survivor.

The series of games I would like to refer you to today are called the Chzo Mythos, by Ben "Yahtzee" Kreshaw.  Kreshaw is well known for his Zero Punctuation series of game reviews at The Escapist.  These videos tend to be hilarious, and exceedingly harsh.  I highly recommend them. I was delighted and intrigued to find out that he had tried his hand at game creating, and had produced a whole series of games in the psychological horror genre.  They seem to have received accolades of some kind. 

Ben Kreshaw put together the first game in the Chzo Mythos - 'Five Days a Stranger' - In 2003, long before he began his reviews for the Escapist.  I think it is noteworthy that Chzo Mythos makes use of the Slender Man mythos and imagery. I am very curious to see how these games will play, and even more so, knowing that such a harsh critic was the progenitor for this series of Psychological Horror - Adventure Games.

idunno, looks pretty sweet to me.

Psychological and Survival are definitely my two favorite subgenre's within the larger Horror genre of games.  I don't care much about blood and gore, or action.  What's more important is fear.  Terror.  Some third word I can't think of.  That is the draw to horror games for me.  These games can scare me even when I'm not playing them, like, when you reach a point where you just don't have the guts to go any further, and you turn the game off and despair.  Silent Hill did that for me.  I ran like a sissy and hid the game at the bottom of stack of heavy boxes.  Then I crossed myself and begged forgiveness for all of my sins.

But to create and maintain such a strong psychological response to a game takes real skill.  We've talked before on this site about losing immersion in a game.  Some games can lose immersion and it never really comes back.  Like when there's just too much ammo, and you don't fear running out anymore, or when you figure out the trick to a game is to just low kick everybody.  Or when the enemies die in only three different ways, and they bleed out the neck when you shoot them in the foot.  

A careful management of the known and unknown is important.  As the player adjusting to a new game, you can't know what you can get away with.  If you are susceptible, like me, this will lead to you moving very carefully and jumping at every shadow.   But eventually, you might get tired of being scared, and just get suicidal.  Running headlong into the night to see if there is, in fact, anything down that alley.  This can break immersion pretty heavily, if you find out that there really isn't anything to be scared of.

This is why the games flow is important.  At different points along the way, the designers will have to put the smack down on the cocky fucks who think they don't have to be scared anymore.  GIVE them something to be scared about.  Make it different from what has come before, and thus unpredictable.  The Unknown is where the fear comes from.   Exploit it!

Okay, I think that's all I have for right now.  On a separate note, I just watched Cabin in the Woods.  That movie was great fun.