Gaming Diary: 24th-30th May 2019

Friday 24th May 2019

I’ve been trying (and, to my credit, largely succeeding) to cut down on my impulse buying of games and books recently. But yesterday I found out that most of Telltale’s games are disappearing from digital stores - GOG is having a clear-out on Bank Holiday Monday - and so I may have slightly panic-bought. I recently got Batman: Season One for the Switch, but that left me still with Batman: The Enemy Within and Guardians of the Galaxy missing from my collection (assuming The Walking Dead: The Final Season will still be available down the line from a different publisher, which I’m sort of relying on right now). After comparing prices and availability for both the titles needing my urgent attention, I ended up buying them both on Steam, which was the platform I first started playing Telltale games on back in 2016. My reasoning was that, while physical copies for the PS4 or XB1 (or Switch, if they weren’t like gold dust) might seem preferable, given the circumstances, said disc-based releases only actually guarantee access to the first episode in most cases, with the ability to access the digital-only episodes still doubtful once they’re removed from sale. Steam may seem like an insecure purchasing choice, but in fact there’s never been a known instance of Steam removing a game from a player’s library once they’ve purchased it - even if they’ve uninstalled it, or accessed their library from a new machine. While I generally agree with the school of thought that prefers physical to digital ownership, on the fairly solid basis that digitally “owned” media is more like a long-term rental licence than an irrevocable possession, Steam’s history of being cool about this sort of thing is encouragingly strong, even if they are basically just operating on the honour system. (And if a certain vintage Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption game guide fell into my shopping basket while I was on this little spree, well… it’s been a stressful couple of days, I deserved a treat.)

Speaking of V:TM, I finished reading Clan Novel - Toreador today. The two-time English graduate in me wants to pick it apart, as it’s clearly been written and published by someone more comfortable producing manuals than novels: the proofreading was appalling, with missing vocabulary words being the main offender; the author had an unchecked habit of repeating the same word or phrase within the space of a single short sentence; and, as a result of the last two in combination, at least one sentence was just unreadably garbled. But the other big part of me, the genre fiction geek who just wants to read about some really deep vampire lore, actually really freaking enjoyed this book. I don’t know how accessible it would be to someone who hadn’t spent at least 20% of their time over the past fifteen years thinking about Vampire: The Masquerade, but as someone who does absolutely live like that, it was great to take a deep dive into the un-life of one particular clan. I’m largely self-taught in the World of Darkness - other than playing V:TM-B several times, I’ve largely relied on Wiki articles accessed whenever I wanted to get into a specific bit of information - so to attack the world-building and lore more methodically through the clan novels has already proved to be a real treat. This first novel primarily follows two members of Clan Toreador over the space of a long weekend in Atlanta in the summer of 1999. But despite its brevity and micro-focus on a small group of characters, it managed to give a good sense of the characteristics of the Toreador more generally, as well as setting up some (presumably recurring) story-lines with a number of other clans whose characters intersect with the protagonists at various points throughout the story. I haven’t got an entirely accurate sense of just how many of these clan novels I’ll be reading yet - thirteen from the original series, plus a short story anthology, plus three clan novel trilogies (a.k.a. nine more books on top of that), plus the Gehenna novel, possibly plus the other two novels in the Time of Judgement trilogy that accompany Gehenna… this is clearly going to be quite an undertaking. Luckily, I’ve got to the end of Book 1 still thoroughly enthused for the project, which has got to be an optimistic start.

Bank Holiday Weekend (Saturday 25th - Monday 27th May 2019)

The three day weekend is upon us, and I’ve known for weeks exactly what I’m going to be reading! I’ve had the trade paperbacks of Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Comic Book and Life is Strange, Vol. 1: Dust pre-ordered since shortly after Christmas. They were finally published on May 14th and May 21st, respectively, so I’ve cleared my reading schedule to make appropriate time for my newfound interest in queer-oriented comic books based on equally queer-oriented video games, which is quite a specific niche but one that I hope I can keep growing into a proper collection.

Saturday and Monday were both primarily spent doing non-video game related stuff (shocking, I know), but gaming was basically all we did do on Sunday. As a matter of fact, gaming on Sunday was an important bit of r&r for my partner and myself: we went to Alton Towers on Saturday for the first time in a dozen years and discovered that although we both still love theme parks, we’re too old to run around like kids all day and not pay for it in the morning (or, indeed, by 9:30pm the same day, which is the geriatric time we went to bed on Saturday night). So on Sunday we set ourselves a mild bit of gaming admin, which was way more interesting than it sounded. I was just three-ish trophies each away from platinuming LEGO Marvel Super Heroes and Life is Strange: Before the Storm, so I decided to work my way through the last few things I needed to do in order to get them. My partner, not wanting to be left out, remembered that he was similarly close to completing LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes. (Because I’m not actually all that competitive I in fact helped him with his, as the trophy for playing a level in co-op was one of the few he didn’t have yet. But he did the same for me on Marvel a few months back, so we’re even.) We ended the day with an overall platinum count of 8-6 in his favour; but since I only got my first platinum early in 2018, I think it’s fair to say I’m catching up with him…

Not wanting to spend all day revisiting games we’d effectively finished ages ago, we put a little more time into Heaven’s Vault in the evening. While technically my partner’s play-through, this is a game that’s very easy to effectively co-op, especially as the language-based puzzle elements are of the pen-and-paper style that it can be helpful to talk through with someone as you go. As well as a unique take on a deeply involving puzzle game (for comparison, my partner recently finished playing The Witness on his own, and Heaven’s Vault seems to have filled the void it left in his gaming life quite nicely), Heaven’s Vault is one of the most compelling narratives I’ve played through in a while. That’s not to say that I’m not enjoying the various other games with good stories that I’ve currently got on the go or have recently finished, but it’s been a while since I was so compelled by a combination of world-building and plot. There’s something about Heaven’s Vault that reminds me of playing BioShock for the first time, back in the misty and rose-tinted days of 2013, when I would rush home from uni and my partner would rush home from work and we’d boot up the PlayStation while eating Chinese takeaway over the controls because we were so eager to discover what was coming next. Being older and wiser these days (i.e. both going out to work, and more concerned about eating semi-healthily) means that we’re not quite that avidly dedicated to Heaven’s Vault, but the feeling is definitely reminiscent. A few other games have pulled me in like that since BioShock - Life is Strange was definitely one, and Heavy Rain to an extent, as well as a handful of others - but this is definitely the first time in 2019 I’ve felt invested to this level in the here-and-now of a game world. So, in short, exciting stuff!

Our plans for Monday had initially included finishing our latest play-through of Until Dawn: one that we began with my parents in September 2017 and have been dipping in and out of ever since (limited by the fact that we can only play it either when they visit us rather than the other way around, or when we’re visiting them for long enough to make the transport of the PS4 worth the hassle). Last time we played, which was at Christmas, we reached the beginning of Chapter 10, which is the final chapter of the game, about an hour to an hour-and-a-half from the end. Unfortunately in the event we were too tired out from a full day of being nerdy about other things together (second hand books, stately homes and local history) to finally finish it; but I’m trying to talk my parents into a repeat visit in a couple of weeks with a slightly less packed schedule to allow time for gaming.

Tuesday 28th May 2019

I’m trying to get back into the habit of gaming after work, so I took an easy option with LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 when I got home this evening. I seem to have really hit my stride with it, as I’m now playing a couple of levels in an hour in story mode without feeling like I’m missing too many collectibles (though of course I’ll revisit the whole thing in free play mode at some point). Despite the fact that there seem to be a few pathfinding glitches compared to older entries in the series (leading, for example, the Hulk to transform back into Bruce Banner at really inconvenient time-sensitive moments during boss battles, presumably so that he can more easily navigate around obstacles in the arena), I remain impressed by how improved the flying mechanics are this time around. In particular, I actually had a childish moment of awe when visiting the underwater city of Lemuria during this session: my character was flying towards the map marker, dove down into the water and continued swimming with no transition between the two states, and the whole thing felt totally intuitive. The late ’90s/early ’00s gamer kid in me is also just amazed that this doesn’t require a loading screen or a scene transition of any kind: the air, land, and underwater sections of the map are all seamlessly connected to each other. It’s nice to occasionally remember that I am truly living in the future.

Wednesday 29th May 2019

I finished reading Life is Strange, Vol. 1: Dust today, and I have to admit, I loved it. I also have to admit that I am totally biased as to its actual quality, because it basically read like fan-service aimed directly at me. Even though Life is Strange is one of my favourite games, there were a few plot points that I disliked, especially in both endings; and the first run of the comics deals with them, for the most part, exactly how I would want to see them dealt with. I’m reluctant to say too much more for fear of giving major spoilers (I wrote a spoiler-filled review on Goodreads here if you want a proper recap); but I thought it was great, although I imagine it has the potential to alienate fans of the game who didn’t have the exact same views as I did on the ending(s) and on Before the Storm. I’m also cautiously optimistic about the second run which, as it turns out, started today by weird coincidence (I didn’t even realise it existed until I got the trade paperback and noticed the “Volume 1” marker down the side): I thought Dust was a beautiful final send-off for Max and Chloe, to be honest, but I’m fangirl enough to stick with this and see where it goes, even if it’s almost bound to undo my preferred ending again at some point down the line.

Yesterday was the release date for Layers of Fear 2, so today I went online shopping! And… yeah, I didn’t buy Layers of Fear 2, because I am too much my father’s daughter to every buy anything at full price that I don’t intend to start using straight away. I did, however, buy Observer, the game by Layers of Fear developers Bloober Team that was released between the two entries into the Layers of Fear franchise. Observer was being given a heavy (70%) discount on the PlayStation Store, likely because of the increased attention people will be paying to Bloober Team’s back catalogue over the next couple of weeks. I’ve had my eye on Observer for ages and furthermore actually need to play it soon as research for a feature I’m writing - so I bit. There I go, breaking my “no impulse buying” rule for the second time in a week. I might still check out Layers of Fear 2 on the weekend, if I decide I have enough time to make paying week-of-release prices worth my while.

I continued watching Pokémon: Indigo League at lunchtime. Six episodes in now, and Brock has finally turned up, which is good because I remembered him forming a very typical cartoon kid trio with Ash and Misty, and was starting to worry that my memory was playing tricks on me with regards to his prominence in the series. Speaking of memory playing tricks: I had no memory of Gary Oak as a character when I started re-watching this anime, even though he’s (theoretically at least) as much an antagonist as Team Rocket, at least this early on. Maybe it’s because he’s mostly taunting Ash from off-screen, but to be honest I already can’t remember what he looks like, and I only watched him in the pilot episode two weeks ago. In conclusion: Brock and Gary Oak, both a thing in this show. Also, Koffing might be my favourite Pokémon right now, if only because his VA is just an adult man saying “Koffiiiiing” in a completely undisguised voice and it cracks me up every time.

After finishing my work for the day I was in the mood to play something short before making dinner, so I picked The Beast Inside demo. The demo is the basis for what is possibly my favourite episode of Scary Game Squad (possibly my favourite web series), but I hadn’t yet got around to playing it for myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a great experience: there was a bug (reported by a few other Steam users too) like an invisible barrier which prevented the mouse from going into the bottom quarter of the screen; luckily gameplay is mostly keyboard-controlled and the reticle’s aim wasn’t affected when moving around, but it made the menu almost impossible to interact with, which made starting and exiting the game quite difficult. Also unfortunately, while playing this demo I experienced motion sickness for only the second time in my life as a gamer: in addition to the mouse sensitivity being a bit too high and rendering the movement speed quite jarring (and, of course, due to the mouse glitch I wasn’t able to get into the options to tone it down), there was something off about how my computer was displaying the graphics. The Beast Inside is a photo-realistic game and I’m playing it on a high-end gaming laptop that’s less than a year old, but there’s a weird grainy “fizzing” effect on a lot of the in-game assets (scenery was generally OK, but it was really noticeable on the car, some of the furniture, etc.) that looks unpleasantly like what I sometimes experience at the onset of a migraine. In the end I actually had to stop playing less than halfway through the demo, which was a real shame as I’m very hyped for this game; unfortunately, now I’m reluctant to buy it upon release until I can be sure that I’ll actually be able to play it without my computer and/or brain freaking out. I want to support the creators of course, but sadly this might be one I have to watch the Scary Game Squad play, at least to start with.

To make matters worse, while I was napping off the after-effects of the motion sickness, my partner loaded up LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham and got another platinum trophy! I didn’t even know he was so close on that one, but the score now stands at 9-6 to him in the Platinum Wars, and my efforts to close the gap over the bank holiday weekend are already being undone. Dark times indeed.

Thursday 30th May 2019

This morning I finished reading Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Comic Book. Unlike the Life is Strange comics, the Dream Daddy run consisted of five unconnected and not particularly canonical short stories (the Dadsona had a different appearance every issue, for example), but are light and cute explorations into the backstories and relationships between some of the game’s characters. I enjoyed it immensely, but it didn’t make quite the same impression on me as the Life is Strange comics - though to be fair, the laser-targeted fan-service bar was set pretty high there: maybe if it had just been five issues of Damien being lovely I would have been more hooked. The Dream Daddy comics also left me feeling regretful that I’m not more well-versed in the visual arts, since I think the artwork was very much the point here, perhaps more than the plots of the stories. I have an unfortunate habit of reading sequential art like regular stories with added pictures, instead of taking the time to properly appreciate the visual aspect. It’s a habit which I seem unable to break despite my best efforts; even though I am patting myself on the back for picking up a small visual pun in the Brian vs. Joseph comic (which, incidentally, I enjoyed far more than I expected to - featuring as it does my two least favourite love interests from the game - since it gave a nice amount of focus to Daisy, Joseph's twins, Amanda, and most of the other children). Still, I would definitely check out another run of these fun one-shots; counterintuitively, I think I’d actually rather see more comics from Dream Daddy than from Life is Strange at this point.

This evening after work I played more LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2, and was surprised by the amount of focus the Inhumans characters are receiving in story mode. I suppose that the game was developed when the higher-ups at Marvel were still hoping to push the Inhumans mini-series as hard as possible, but considering that the Defenders and the Agents of SHIELD have only been minor side-characters if they’ve appeared at all, having two whole main levels featuring the Inhumans cast feels weird. As the only person I know who made it all the way through the mini-series, I find it laughable how much they’ve had to cut from nearly all of the characterisations to make Maximus look sufficiently like a one-dimensional villain to work in a LEGO game. (I’m not alone in contending that he’s basically in the right for wanting to overthrow Black Bolt and cast out Medusa and Crystal in the TV show, even if he’s a bit of a dick with it.) Also - even though the Game of Thrones pun, presumably referring to Iwan Rheon’s roles in both Inhumans and GoT, was a bit of fun - it’s starting to jar with me how every villain in this game has a British accent. This is especially galling since Iwan Rheon puts on an American accent in the show. (Sure, it’s not the best one ever, but since he doesn’t voice Maximus in this game I don’t see why that matters.) Peter Serafinowicz and Sacha Dhawan voicing villains I get: one’s got an iconic voice, and the other’s the only MCU actor to reprise his role in this game (random, right?!), but why everyone else? I thought American pop culture had finally left Brit = Evil long behind: I’m not one to get on my high horse about national pride, but this seems like a trope a good two decades past its sell-by date. Well, whatever the case, there’s one thing everyone seems to be able to agree on, and it’s that Lockjaw is the best character from Inhumans; the same remains true in this game, with the adorable doggo being by far the most fun and rewarding character to play as. Then he takes a little snooze when you switch to someone else. Awwwwww.