Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1956https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6665So this chapter I started the second chapter, which seemed to have more open ended objectives, with the first sidequests opening up. I've been having a real difficult time trying to do the dodging minigame that Kamoji introduces, and so far it's been very frustrating trying to get past it. I also started another quest helping a high school-age boy find out what is happening with his girlfriend, but haven't made any progress as I'm not yet familiar with the layout of Kamurocho. The thing that stuck me most during this play session is the freedom with which Kiryu can act now that he isn't a Yakuza. His overall goal at this point is still protecting Kamaza from Yakuza reprisal, but the way he just jumps in to help others even though he has no obligation to "protect his turf" or "show off" as a Yakuza member is striking. It sort of feeds into the idea that it doesn't necessarily matter what kind of position someone is in or what their status is, just what they are willing to act on and what they are willing to do to help others, which I find kinda endearing.Fri, 30 Mar 2018 00:17:35 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6665&iddiary=11819https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6665APOLOGIES FOR THE LATE ENTRY, FORGOT TO HIT ENTER Today I beat the first chapter of the game, after dying twice during the long enemy gauntlet because I was still trying to learn how to switch controls and forgot that upgrading abilities was a thing I could do. I did take down Kuze on my first try without healing though, so I am proud of that. Over the course of my play session I grew very fond of Kiryu and his devotion to Kazama, willing to sacrifice his position in the Yakuza and potentially his life just to protect him. It's perhaps a cliche of the genre for the protagonist of a crime drama to be the gangster with a heart of gold, but here it feels authentic. Something about his youth coupled with his eagerness and cluelessness at the deception and manipulation surrounding him makes it easy to sympathize with him. Looking forward to continuing with the story and finding out more about this mysterious Empty Plot, but also in getting better at the game and seeing what else it has to offer. I have a feeling that the side quests are gonna offer a ton in terms of interesting dilemmas to sink one's teeth into.Thu, 29 Mar 2018 01:31:44 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6665&iddiary=11799https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6665So I decided to do my next gamelog on Yakuza 0, a franchise that I've heard a ton about but am personally very unfamiliar with. Starting the game in the glitzy streets of 80's Japan gave me a real solid feel for the kind of tone this game would be going for, and I wasn't disappointed. Kiryu's demeanor struck me as oddly noble for someone supposed to be Yakuza, but I was already familiar enough with the series to know that this is a feature not a bug. Getting into the combat, it was really fun, even though this kind of beat-em-up style was unfamiliar to me and it took some getting used to. The language barrier was also not an issue, not just because of the presence of subtitles, but because the characters are animated enough and posses such distinct designs that they are all their own recognizable characters regardless of language. Oddly enough, despite the hilarious amount of over-the-top violence being inflicted, with people being beaten with bicycles and other random objects, it didn't feel as gratuitous or problematic as it did in Shadow of Mordor. Perhaps this is just because this game is upfront about the moral duplicity of its criminal protagonist, or maybe it's because it has a more lighthearted tone, but either way it doesn't get in the way as much as murdering your faithful followers on a whim like in Shadow of Mordor, despite that game's attempts at framing the protagonist as a hero and all Orcs as irredeemably evil.Wed, 28 Mar 2018 00:01:36 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6665&iddiary=11761https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6608So, today I ran into my first issue of cognitive dissonance with the game, and that was when my character decided to go along with Delilah in her plan to scare off the teenage girls suspected of vandalism and cutting the wire. Just...no. I thought it was a contrived course of action that I didn't want to go along with, but that I ended up having to go along with for the sake of the story. It's funny, because my casual interactions with Delilah outside of that encounter felt really natural and casual, like they were both real people who had their own issues and baggage to deal with. I felt like I was able to make the choices that I would make if I were in that exact scenario. Anyways, my main objectives outside of the story were the cache boxes left by the other lookouts and rangers. I find them fascinating, because they completely subvert expectations as to what a "loot drop" in a video game is supposed to be. Most of the time you don't get anything useful, they aren't much of a challenge to find, and the code for all of them is the same so there isn't really any point to looking for them all, and yet, in the words of Edmund Hillary, they were there. Perhaps that speaks to my own obsessive playstyle or the ingrained, or it's the learned nature of dozens of past gaming experiences wreaking havoc on me, but nevertheless it's an appreciated subversion in a game unlike many others I have played, including other story based games and "walking simulators". Definitely something I'm glad to have picked up.Fri, 16 Feb 2018 00:57:36 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6608&iddiary=11702https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6608So I decided to do something different again and start the game over to try and make different choices to see how the story would be affected. As I expected, there really wasn't much difference in terms of content, although admittedly there is the rest of the game to consider as well as possible unfolding narrative branches there. However, the most important thing that I saw happen and what I consider to be the mark of a good choice-based story game was that the way I perceived my character, what kind of person they were, changed dramatically. Instead of a tough-guy/inner softy that I ended up with the first time, I had the complete opposite in the form of a pushover/ball of rage. These are the kinds of differences choices make that I actually care about. Sure it would be nice for the sake of replay value to see new areas, dialogue, or encounters, but that gets old pretty fast. The true value is seeing how a character changes and grows differently each time, in subtle ways, and that comes in the relationship the player has with that character. I'll probably continue with my first set of decisions, just because I'm a guy who tends to stick with his first, gut instincts, but my little experiment just makes me more excited to play.Thu, 15 Feb 2018 00:54:28 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6608&iddiary=11667https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6608So, in a 180 from the Shadow of Mordor, I decided to play Firewatch for this week and I must say that I'm enjoying myself so far. The introduction was a great way to start the game and had me instantly hooked. As someone who has recently gotten into a relationship, the intro had me seriously considering what I would do if the person I cared about was in those situations. I had legitimate emotional anguish over deciding issues like whether of not I would let her move away, if we wanted to have kids, what to do if she was struck with sudden illness, etc. That stress probably fed back into my behavior with the other characters, where I chose more hostile answers as opposed to my more usual "goody two shoes" style of play. The mystery element is also compelling, but more than anything the one aspect that has me wanting to play more is the way you can navigate through the wilderness using solely a compass and map to guide you. In a gaming environment where every objective is highlighted for you, with arrows and minimaps guiding you along the way, it's refreshing to have a game designed with the option of navigating your own way through the wilderness. Firewatch has proven so far to be a game where the little touches end up making all the difference.Wed, 14 Feb 2018 00:49:02 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6608&iddiary=11631https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6557So I decided to go back and start a separate save file for Shadow of Mordor to remind my self about how the beginning of the game felt. I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly and naturally the game transitioned from exposition to tutorial to actual gameplay. It was also refreshing having to rely more on my intuition and reflexes as I played instead of just crushing all opposition thanks to my end-game wraith abilities. Funny enough, killing the one level 4 Orc captain at the very beginning was more satisfying than killing the Warchief in my last play session. The little amount of character building you and your soon-to-be-deceased family members get was sweet, if a bit "fridgy" in retrospect (in reference to comic book writer Gail Simone's term "Women in Refrigerators", wherein predominantly female characters are killed off to progress the predominantly male hero's story). One thing that did surprise me a little was how the orcs were immediately presented as fodder for you to kill and torture. Granted, they did just help kill all your friends and family, and maybe it's just the way the story quickly shifts into gameplay that this happens, but it's obvious from the framing here that we're not meant to think ethically about the orcs, what we do to them, or what happens to them, at least so far as my experience in the early game and the post game has let me know. I'm interested to see if this changes with the Ratbag sidequest (where you help a cowardly orc rise through Sauron's ranks to further your own agenda, which is its own ethical dilemma on its own), or if this is just one more element of the power fantasy, presenting you with an infinite number of guilt-free baddies to play with.Thu, 18 Jan 2018 10:14:49 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6557&iddiary=11543https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6557Today I quested for more trophies and found myself once again dealing with my own perfectionist tendencies as I tried to create the correct circumstances to kill specific monsters, execute a flaming berserker, and mind control the five bodyguards of a Warchief to turn on him at my command. As I pressed myself forward, ever closer to that elusive platinum I'm so frustratingly near to, I started to think more about the mechanics at play here, and how, fully powered up at the end of the game, I considered the orcs, the slaves, and even my own character less as persons and more like statistics that needed adjustment. This Warchief needs to be level 20 and be weak to fire so I can get the best chance for a level 25 rune setup, I need to find 30 slaves to rescue in 180 seconds while riding what was essentially a giant demon dog. I ask myself whether this behavior is just the logical endpoint of scouring every system and piece of content the game has to offer and it's just me being obsessive (which, to be fair, there is a good chance that's all it is) or whether this behavior is merely uncovering the artifice on top of what is essentially a series of numbers designed to trigger an emotional high when I get a big enough number. I suppose that would be an overly reductive way of putting it, you could say that about any game, just like you could say a movie is just people wearing costumes and reciting memorized lines, and a novel is just a series of letters stringed together in various patterns. Still, I have this nagging feeling that whatever my personal feelings are towards any old orc; their personality, their demeanor, etc. the only thing that really matters to me is if they are weak to fire or if they are invulnerable to ranged attacks. They all just sort of blend together after a certain point, and it's hard to feel as attached to them as one might be just starting out. Ah well, at the very least it's still fun to play. After all, it's just a game. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Wed, 17 Jan 2018 22:13:15.)Wed, 17 Jan 2018 22:12:33 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6557&iddiary=11509https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6557So, I decided to just jump in after not touching Shadow of Mordor for almost three years, and it was still fun to go back into and play around in, albeit after some frustration over relearning the controls. As a perfectionist and trophy hunter, the first thing I did was run over to an orc captain and poison him at his own feast. Naturally, this made me ponder the ethicality of my actions, as well as the actions I had perpetrated during my playthrough years earlier. Mind-control, murder, deception and coercion, torture, and the list goes on from there. This is all presented to the player as a form of power fantasy for them to indulge in, with little in the form of commentary or criticism. After all, these are orcs we're talking about here, and they're the stereotypical fantasy bad guys! I will say that I haven't played through the story in a long time, so I can't say for certain whether or not the game does in fact comment on this beyond "the end justifies the means, they're totally evil, go at it". It definitely proves to be fertile ground for personal reflection, as hopefully the previous paragraph demonstrates. Anyways, after poisoning said Captain I soothed my conscience by mindcontrolling a slave driver into releasing his slaves. I proceeded to kill a few more orcs, then avenge my brother's death at the hands of a captain undoubtedly years earlier. Revenge is fun!Wed, 17 Jan 2018 00:54:50 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6557&iddiary=11482