Jotun, ᛋᛅᚴᛅ ᚬᚠ ᚦᚬᚱᛅ

[Introduction]

Jotun is an action-adventure game developed by Thunder Lotus Games, although it might be more appropriately described as an action-exploration game. It's largely a mix of puzzles, exploration and occasional combat. Add to that a heavy emphasis on telling the (really rather simple) story of Thora and a detailed environment featuring a plethora of elements from Norse mythology and you have a solid recipe for a cool little game.
If only it were that simple.

[First Impressions]

I actually still have my original reaction back in 2018:
I like the idea of Jotun a lot more than I like the game itself.

It looks cool. It sounds cool. It's very engaging and it's brimming with references to Norse Mythology, both overt (HOLY SHIT IT'S NIDHOGGR) and more subtle (two ravens that do nothing and serve no purpose).

I really want to recommend Jotun, but it does more for me as art than as a game, and that really sucks.

Check out some gameplay videos on it. You might like it, but I mostly just found it frustrating.
May come back to it and give it another chance, but as of now, this is a no-go for me.

And I did.

[Development]

The game was partially crowdfunded; CA$ 64,265 was raised from 2299 backers on Kickstarter, with additional funding from the Canadian Media Fund and the Montreal Inc Foundation. Technically, this means that both the Canadian government and the Quebec government provided some cash flow for Jotun, which is pretty cool.

They also reached out to the r/Iceland subreddit for voice actors, which doesn't really matter all that much, but I thought it was a neat little detail.

Although announced at PAX in 2015 and released that same year, the Kickstarter dates back to 2014. All things considered, the development cycle was pretty short.

There are also certain elements that appear to have been cut during development, the most prominent being the "vast and mysterious randomly-generated world" touted on the Kickstarter page. The game is also not as "filled with different areas to explore and environmental puzzles to solve" as one might be lead to believe.

[Game Mechanics]

Exploration and occasional combat is the order of the day.
Every now and then, you'll run into rudimentary puzzles or challenges (i.e. push rocks into lava to form a bridge or avoid poison gas by standing near blooming flowers), but mostly you'll be running around in very large environments that often only have one path of progression.

That's not to say that the path of progression is the only one available, however. Almost every area will have side paths, hidden locations and shrines to the gods which will grant you an associated power. Even the very few areas that have no hidden paths will still have some kind of upgrade shrine, so to speak.

Now, you won't be moving very fast. You're just a human, albeit a badass one, and you're travelling through places that are home to the jötnar, which are quite a bit larger than yourself. Unfortunately, barring a limited-use boon from Freyja giving you a temporary speed boost, the game has no sprinting mechanic, and it's not unlikely that you'll end up backtracking or running through an area again.

Adding to this, even though it's a central mechanic crucial to completing the game and most areas, combat is absolutely terrible. It's also rudimentary, but that's not the problem. You have a light attack, a heavy attack and a dodge roll. There's no issue there, that's been a recipe for success in the past. The real problem is that it's clunky.

The light attack is supposed to come with a 2-3 hit combo, but this almost never triggers correctly. The heavy attack takes a very long time to wind up. The dodge roll doesn't go very far and tends to leave you standing still for a split second after rolling, which isn't great when you're trying to evade something and don't really have a split second to spare. The range on your attacks (barring boosts from god powers) is positively abysmal to boot. Considering the incredible reach of every boss in the game, what with them being many, many times your own size, fights sometimes become waiting games.

The sheer scale of the bosses can also become an issue, because it can be difficult to keep track of yourself when you're essentially reduced to a speck.

You attack, retreat, wait for a boss to be in a vulnerable state, then attack again. Rinse and repeat. Trading blows is almost always inadvisable due to the high damage potential of bosses. Aggressive strategies are punished more often than not.You're not so much working with the boss' moveset as you are avoiding it. It's not a dance, it's more like a wall-fly at a prom trying to dodge dance partners while also trying to kill them when they're looking away.

I really don't know how else to explain it. I don't want to compare Jotun to something like Dark Souls, seeing how they're vastly different games. All I'm saying is that Dark Souls boss fights are a whole lot more satisfying than the ones in Jotun. There is a good game in here, but the combat drags it down by a significant margin.

As a final note on the gameplay: the map is in desperate need of a "YOU ARE HERE" indicator.

[Graphics]

Jotun is a beautiful game.

Everything is hand-drawn and there are some extraordinarily well-animated sequences. The game is rife with various references to Norse mythology, both hidden and obvious, with the latter being much more numerous. There's really nothing to criticise in this regard, because it's clear to me that this has been a labor of love for the developers.

If you have any interest in the mythology at all, Jotun is a real treat. Even if you have no prior knowledge of it, the game does an outstanding job of explaining itself and the various mythical elements on display.

And even though I criticise the combat, partially due to the scale being what it is, I will also say that you really do get the sense of being in a world of gods and giants.

[Story]

You are Thora, a fierce viking warrior who dies at sea. Despite your brave deeds and skill in battle, you are taken by Rán, the Norse goddess of the sea. Ordinarily, anyone who drowns is caught in her web and taken to her domain of seaweed and bones, but not Thora.

Due to her courage and spirit, Thora is instead offered a chance to avoid this inglorious fate; if she can impress the gods, she will be granted passage to Valhalla, the hall of the slain.

This can only be accomplished by traversing the realms of Jotunheim, Nidavellir, Nifhlheim, Ginnungagap and Muspelheim and defeating the jötnar who inhabit them.

After the defeat of every jotun, Thora reveals more of her story and how she came to the end that she did, and during her travels she will offer exposition on the different areas and the things she encounters therein.

It should be noted that the game of course takes some creative liberties with its source material. Most significantly, the jötnar bosses don't actually exist in Norse mythology, and their names are derived from various runes.

[SPOILERS]

I won't tell you Thora's story, as I feel there ought to be some mystery left in case you decide to play Jotun. I will, however, share with you the twist in the ending:

Defeating the jötnar wasn't really your test. That's not how you were going to impress the gods. Killing the bosses only grants you an audience. With who?

With Odin, the motherfucking Allfather himself. And he's your real test.

To show you're worthy of feasting in Grimnir's hall, you have to fight him first.

And in the end, you don't kill him or even really beat him. All you accomplish is injuring him, a wound he instantly heals, but that's sufficient for the gods to be impressed. Having managed to harm the one-eyed, even briefly, Thora is approached by the valkyries and brought to Valhalla.

[Pros]

- Gorgeous art style

- Norse Mythology is really fucking cool

- While bosses follow a template (i.e. absurdly large enemy who telegraph very hard-hitting attacks in some way), they all feel different enough that it's not just the same fight over and over

[Cons]

- Although you move fairly quickly for a human, enemies and areas are frequently so large that your movement feels very slow

- Combat is generally pretty clunky and frustrating, which is a shame, because it's a central mechanic

[Conclusion]

3 years later, my feelings back in 2018 are largely the same, except this time I actually beat the game.
I very much like the idea of Jotun. It's a borderline cinematic experience, but it is unfortunately hamstrung by the clunky combat. I want to love this game, and I do love parts of it. My blood is screaming that I should praise it, and I will praise what can be praised, but I can't bring myself to recommend it.
Impress the gods. Moral compass optional.

[Score]

6/10

/DUX

BattleTech, the turn-based mech game I didn't know I wanted

[Introduction]

BattleTech is a squad-focused, turn-based strategy game akin to XCOM.
Set in the eponymous BattleTech universe, it largely focuses on missions where a lance (team of 4) consisting of MechWarriors and their respective BattleMechs are sent on missions. More specifically, it focuses on the endeavors of a mercenary company lead by the player.

[First Impressions]

It's XCOM, but with mechs.
Seriously, you have the squad of soldiers, except they're piloting 'Mechs. You have the steady upgrade progression and associated looting mechanics. You have the budget balancing. You have the individual character progression. You have the grid-based movement system. You have the wildly inconsistent hit chances that piss players off to no end to the point of achieving meme status.
All that's missing are the aliens, because there are no aliens in BattleTech.
Or, well, technically there are, but we don't talk about Far Country.

[Development]

Development of BattleTech by HareBrained Schemes began in 2015. The original released was scheduled for 2017, but the actual release was pushed back to 2018. Significantly, the team included none other than Jordan Weisman, one of the minds behind the original creation of the BattleTech franchise. However, it was also backed by a Kickstarter campaign, which makes it slightly cursed.

The original goal was some $250,000, which is a relatively small amount of money when it comes to developing a game. Naturally, the campaign included stretch goals which, when combined with the cult following of the franchise, resulted in the goal being met pretty quickly, and then exceeded 11 times over. The campaign was a massive success with $2,785,537 being pledged, and another $772,000 from late backers.

The stretch goals included pretty much everything that makes the game what it currently is. Apparently, the base game would have been pretty simple if not for the 41,733 people willing to throw money at the project. Vehicle units, environments, voice acting, cinematics, customisable base, multiplayer, post-campaign free play; these are all stretch goals, and that's not even an exhaustive list.

It's good to be sceptical when it comes to Kickstarter campaigns and other crowdfunding platforms, particularly when they're ambitious. There have been a great deal of campaigns that never went anywhere or delivered a mediocre or subpar product at best. With that in mind, BattleTech was a success. Sure, its release was delayed, but by most accounts, this seems to have been with the support of the backers who funded the development.

It should be noted that the game was delayed so the developers could "give the game the time and attention they need to create a turn-based game worthy of the name." While the extra time spent definitely helped, there's no doubt that there are still optimisation issues. Some might chalk this up to the game running on the Unity engine (and that may play a part!) but I think there's more to it. BattleTech wasn't rushed, but it probably also didn't get all the ironing out it should have gotten.

[Game Mechanics]

It's pretty simple when it comes down to it.
You pick a character portrait, select pronouns (if that's important to you), choose a couple character origin and background elements and then you're in-game. Unless you opted to not skip the tutorial, then you have to do that first, and it might be more challenging than one might expect. It's certainly longer than I thought it'd be.

Anyway, once in-game, you can customise your mercenary outfit if you so desire. Three colors, a logo and a name is all you get in this regard, but it's possible to add custom logos to the game, so at least you have all the options in the world in that regard. You can also select what particular pattern the colors should be applied in, from a list of presets.

Once satisfied with the appearance of your murder machines and the name of your mercenary company, you can start taking contracts and completing missions for various bidders in the Periphery. If you're playing the campaign and not free-play, then you're initially quite limited in the operational theater available to you. This will expand to a sizeable chunk of the Rimward Periphery after a certain point in the story.

Each mission has to be negotiated with your prospective employer. There are three things to take into consideration when negotiating: payment, salvage and reputation. These are mutually exclusive. You will always get some of each, but you can lower some to get more of the other. For example, you may forfeit a higher paycheck in order to get better salvage rights. Contrarywise, you may also ditch most of the salvage in favor of more C-Bills. Or, if you wanna kiss up to the boss, you can say no to a portion of both salvage and payment in order to increase your reputation with the faction hiring you.

This is worth considering, because you're not running a charity operation, nor are you a member of a standing army or enjoying permanent employment. You're a mercenary company operating on contractual basis, and each contract typically only involves your deployment for a single mission. You need all three of these resources. As you upgrade your base and your 'Mechs, your expenses increase, so you need more money. To earn more money, you need to take higher risk contracts. To survive high risk contracts, you need better equipment. To get better equipment, you either need more money or better salvage rights, the latter of which is particularly important if you're on high risk missions where better equipped enemies will yield better loot.

This sounds real fancy, of course, but it's actually not as engaging as one might imagine. It's not particularly hard to make ends meet at the end of the day, and while I'm okay with it being relatively easy, others might not get that particular itch scratched. You know, the "I want to be run a mercenary company in financial turmoil" itch.

As for the missions themselves, they usually take the form of retrieval missions, escort missions, base defense, base destruction or just straight up fights with an enemy force. Your objective is usually only tangentially relevant, because in most cases, it'll be most practical for you to destroy the opposition instead of leaving once your primary objective has been completed anyway. 

Every enemy you kill provides more salvage, and salvage is king if you want better gear. Similarly, optional objectives are optional only in the sense that they're not strictly speaking necessary to complete the mission. However, most are fairly easy and there's usually no real reason not to do them. Often, you'll end up doing them regardless of whether you deliberately intended to or not.

Combat can be quite rough initially, but it becomes more fair pretty quickly and eventually gets skewed in your favor. Once you get better 'Mechs, the competition seems less overwhelming, and once your Lance consists of heavily customised killing machines with rare and powerful equipment, it almost turns into a cakewalk. Of course, you might get unlucky and have your head blown off, but frankly that's an unlikely happenstance at most.

Just remember: every weapon has an optimal range in which it operates most efficiently. For example, LRMs (long range missiles) can hit targets on the far end of the map, but are far less accurate in close quarters. Similarly, SRMs (short range missiles) are useless beyond short to medium range. These limitations also count for your enemies, so being aware of the loadouts of opposing forces can make all the difference in the world.

This combines well with the fact that positioning is crucial to your survival, especially if outnumbered. The direction your 'Mech is facing, the terrain between you and your enemy, the terrain both you and your enemy are currently occupying and staying mobile are all factors that should be taken into account.

Mobility is important as well, because a moving target is harder to hit. Movement speed and distance are directly tied to your 'Mech, with heavier 'Mechs generally being slower than lighter ones. This means that something like a 100-ton Atlas assault 'Mech won't be dodging a whole lot of attacks and will likely rely more on sheer survivability through heavy armor than avoiding attacks. This can be off-set with jump-jets, at least to an extent, but an Atlas will never outrun a Commando.

This probably sounds like a lot to take into account, but it's really not all that complex once you get the hang of it. It's very easy to get into, but it absolutely pays off to learn and understand the various mechanics involved in BattleTech combat.

As for the customisation aspect, it's a lot of good fun. Chances are you'll spend a substantial amount of time trying to find a good balance for your 'Mech's loadout. Every piece of equipment adds weight and takes up space. Each section of your 'Mech only has so much space, and the chassis can only hold so much weight. Most weapons need ammo, and all weapons need heat sinks. Every weapon also takes up an assigned hardpoint, of which there are limited amounts, and each 'Mech chassis and variant have different hardpoints.

Now, nothing stops you from filling out every weapon hard point and providing enough ammo and heat sinks for the whole arsenal to keep firing from now until the heat death of the universe, but you should always take into account that whatever you're shooting at will likely shoot back, and you should never gamble that you can take out every threat in one turn. What I'm saying is that your 'Mech needs armor, and armor adds weight.

Frankly, I think I've had more fun with coming up with various 'Mech loadouts than anything else in the game.

Oh, and stomping on vehicles is tremendously satisfying. Yeah, there's melee combat. Some 'Mechs are even designed for the express purpose of literally brawling enemies, with at least one straight up having a big fuckoff axe in its arm. You can actually outfit your 'Mechs with equipment that vastly improves their melee capabilities, which can lead to some scary scenes where your pilots just run in a straight line to the nearest enemy and start beating them up like they're an MMA fighter piloting a mech.

[Graphics]

They'e all right.
The vast majority of 'Mech models are identical to the ones from MechWarrior Online and stay true to the BattleTech aesthetic of industrialised, squarish and practical looking machines. Most animations have appropriate weight to them, although seeing a King Crab using jump jets will probably always look a little off to me. But then, canonically 'Mechs can perform somersaults and do handstands when operated by sufficiently skilled MechWarriors, so who am I to argue?

The environments are mostly well put together, but it goes without saying that the handcrafted ones are better than the procedurally generated ones. There's no real clipping issues or anything similar on any of the maps, at least not as far as I've noticed, so the map generator does its job as well as can be expected.

Occasionally, you'll get 'Mechs running through eachother, but that's little more than a visual quick due to the grid-based movement system and the engine occasionally deciding that beelining the pathing is more important than walking around obstacles in the form of other units.

But for the most part, there's nothing wrong with the graphics at all. The explosions are satisfying and I like watching enemy 'Mechs topple. It's pretty solid.

Also, it bears mentioning that, throughout the game, there's gonna be quite a few cutscenes (roughly 21 minutes' worth) which feature some pretty darn good purpose-made BattleTech art.

[Story]

Regardless of your character's origin and background, you always start out as a member of the Aurigan Royal Guard. You prepare for a ceremonial event, shit hits the fan and you're smack dab in the middle of it all. It culminates in a situation so dire that you're forced to eject from your 'Mech, after which you're rescued by a mercenary company who happened to be in the area.

Following this, you inadvertently become the leader of the mercenaries, and the company rather incidentally gets involved in the aftermath of the aforementioned shitstorm, which in and of itself turns into an even larger shitstorm.

The story is decent, but it pretends that your choices are going to have any impact. The only thing that changes based on dialogue choices is an occasional change in response. The only thing that changes based on your chosen origin and background is an occasional change in available dialogue choices. If you expect to have any real impact on how events unfold, I'm sorry to say that you really don't. The only thing that ever changes is your motivation.

What I'm saying is that it's all fluff. It's not bad fluff, it's actually quite nice fluff. Very soft, very comfortable. You're just along for the ride, and events always play out the same, even though it occasionally seems like you might have a chance to influence the outcome of a situation.

I don't really have any major complaints with it though. Your mileage may vary, which is also true for the voice acting. There's nothing wrong with the voice acting either, not principally, but there are bits and pieces and certain performances that I'm less fond of than others.

There are some discrepancies with the lore, such as the fact that you can conceivably collect as many King Crabs as you want, despite there canonically only being "a mere handful" in active service among the Great Houses in the Inner Sphere by the time this game's story takes place. And we're not even in the Inner Sphere, we're in the Periphery, where technology is generally a little shittier and less accessible.

That's not the only one, of course. There's other stuff, like no one actually wearing proper neurohelmets or cooling vests, but it really doesn't matter. It's perfectly okay that some minor lore aspects are set aside in the interest of fun gameplay and maintaining the rule of cool in the artwork and character designs. Besides, I'm pretty sure that you could deploy more than 5 King Crabs in the tabletop game as well, so it's not like that's a new problem.

[SPOILERS]

The shitstorm described above is a coup d'état carried out by a disgruntled noble by the name of Santiago Espinosa. He and his niece, Kamea Arano, had some disagreements over how to run a government.

Lord Espinosa ousts his niece and turns the Aurigan Coalition into the Aurigan Directorate, essentially transforming it from a pseudo-feudalist nation state to an authoritarian dictatorship. He also goes full Stalin and initiates massive industrialisation efforts at the cost of abject human misery, labor camps and all.

Over the course of the campaign, the player's mercenary company takes part in several key missions that eventually culminate in the defeat of the Directorate and the restoration of the Coalition under now-High Lady Kamea Arano.

It's not terribly unusual as stories go, but there's some neat character development with Kamea in particular going from something of a brat who believed the right to rule was inherent to understanding that leading a nation is more than just sitting on a fancy chair and calling it a throne. In the end, she even admits that it wasn't heroism or a noble cause that won her the throne.

But hiring a mercenary who kicked enough ass and took enough names to tip the scales.

[Pros]

- 'Mechs are highly customisable

- Gameplay is, for the most part, very straight-forward and enjoyable

- The BattleTech setting is cool as hell

- There are some decent mods out there

- Story missions occasionally change things up

- Story, writing and voice acting can be hit or miss

[Cons]

- Buggy and poorly optimised

- The whole "running a mercenary company" feature is mostly relegated to the sidelines

- Difficulty indicator is broken and can't be trusted

- Environments can feel quite samey outside story missions

- Story, writing and voice acting can be hit or miss

[Conclusion]

At the end of the day, despite all its flaws, I like BattleTech a lot.
I love the setting, and I'm a sucker for mechs designed to look like they might be feasible to actually build and operate. It sometimes runs poorly and stutters in performance aren't all that uncommon. Loading screens can be annoyingly long at times, but none of these issues sufficiently impact my enjoyment of the game enough that I won't recommend it.
Am I a hero? Did I sacrifice too much at the altar of victory? Moral compass optional.

[Score]

7/10

/DUX

Fallout 4: Find Your Son Simulator

[Introduction]

Would you believe me if I told you that Fallout 4, like Fallout 3 and New Vegas before it, is an open world ARPG? Probably, because there's something of a pattern emerging at this point. It also takes place in Boston and its surrounding suburbs after the whole place contracted a mild case of armageddon. As it happens, much like the real Boston, Fallout 4 is pretty inoffensive. This is a statement I'm confident in, because the name Boston applies to like two dozen places in the real world, and Fallout 4 is perfectly serviceable, if also perfectly mediocre.

[First Impressions]

Your usual fare. You're in a vault, something happens, you leave the vault.
Except not really. Offering a change of perspective from every other Fallout game out there, you actually start out as a citizen of the US of A, eating sugar bombs, drinking coffee, reading Grognak the Barbarian and delegating childcare to a robot armed with a flamethrower and a buzzsaw.
Anyway, you leave the vault and 5-10 minutes later you're wearing power armor and shooting a deathclaw with a minigun.
Initial pacing is... weird.

[Development]

Fallout 4 became a thing at least partially because Todd Howard was "excited about showing the world before the bombs fell." It's hard to overstate how much potential was wasted in that regard, because we spend all of 5 minutes in the world before the bombs fell and promptly get sent right back to the post-apocalyptic setting.

In lieu of going back in time, I want to do the same thing. Let's go back to 1997. Numerical Design Limited creates the NetImmerse engine after years of involvement in the games industry. Among the games developed using this new engine is The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind in 2002.
The engine eventually evolves into the Gamebryo engine around 2003. Among the games developed using it is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in 2006. It's also used for Fallout 3 and New Vegas.
Gamebryo, in turn, is used as the foundation in the development of the Creation Engine in 2011. Among the games it was used to develop are The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and, of course, Fallout 4.

Long story short, there's an argument to be made that this game runs on a 24 year old engine which has just been patched up to still sorta hold together on modern systems. I don't know if this explains the notoriously buggy nature of Bethesda games, but it's food for thought.

On a positive note, the game was intended to be mod friendly from the get go. Presumably Bethesda saw what happened with all their other games and accepted the inevitability that people would mod the hell out of this one too. They went an extra mile, actually, because PC mods can be applied to Xbox One copies of the game as well.

On a blander note, considerable effort went into creating a mobile app which effectively gives players the option to use their phones as Pip-Boys. This appears to have been little more than a gimmick.

On a downright negative note, Bethesda also finally monetized mods for Fallout 4 through the Creation Club in 2017. They can deny it all they want, but the content available for purchase in the Club are paid mods in all but name.

[Game Mechanics]

If you've played Fallout 3 or New Vegas, there's gonna be a lot of familiar elements.
You explore, you kill enemies, you complete side quests and, optionally, complete main quests. You have your Pip-Boy inventory/stat/map system which works as handily as ever, with the added functionality of being able to sort by item weight and value and such. You level up, select perks, rinse and repeat. During your wasteland hijinks, you'll acquire an assortment of lethal weapons and a variety of armor to help you kill and not get killed respectively.

In lieu of the overall similarities, there's not much sense in repeating myself beyond those basics. Instead, let's focus on what's changed. Perhaps the most immediately impactful change is that your weapons no longer deteriorate, so there's no need to haul an arsenal of spare assault rifles to repair your best one. Another change you'll notice very early on is that you level a lot faster, likely because the level cap has been raised from 30 (Fallout 3) and 50 (New Vegas) to... 65,535. Chances are you'll never reach the cap though, because you need 161,062,092,626 exp to get there.

The perk system has also been changed, and arguably for the better, at least in the sense that it's easier to read now. I guess a better description is that it has been streamlined, not so much improved. There's certainly some contention about it, but personally, I rather like it. It's immediately visible to the player which perks are tied to which stat and how many points in a given stat you need in order to unlock access - similarly, it's also easy to tell what the level requirements for the perks are.

Another big change is crafting. Now, crafting has been around since Fallout 3, but it was rudimentary at best. New Vegas expanded on the concept significantly, and now Fallout 4 has gone all-in. Crafting is a central mechanic now, to the point that junk items aren't really junk, but resources. You're gonna be picking up a lot of desk fans, alarm clocks, aluminum cans and duct tape when you explore the Commonwealth. On the one hand, it adds worth to otherwise worthless items and allows the player to actually improve their own equipment in a meaningful way; on the other hand, there's a slippery slope that leads to grinding, and this is the closest we've gotten in the franchise so far.

Armor has changed as well. For example, combat armor used to be an item that represented the whole suit of armor. Not anymore! Now combat armor is a modular set that you have to acquire, equip and upgrade piecemeal. However, certain outfits still represent whole suits of armor and don't allow players to equip additional armor on top of that.

And speaking of armor:
Power armor is now proper power armor.
It's no longer something you equip from your inventory. Now it's an exoskeleton you mount modular armor elements onto. You're not wearing it; you're piloting it. It has weight, it has momentum, it feels powerful and properly communicates the notion that it's more of a one-man infantry fighting vehicle than a suit of armor. Its importance and raw awesome factor is diminished by the fact that you acquire it before you even get your hands on a weapon that doesn't look home-made, but I can barely muster the energy to care about that because it's just so cool. I'm 100% biased, and I don't care. It barely even matters to me that power armor now requires a fusion core to fuel it for some reason. It makes no sense, because it was previously established that the fuel cell lasts literally hundreds of years, but now it burns out in less than a day. This discrepancy is never explained, but don't sweat it: you'll find tons of cores.

There's also an actual weather system now. It's largely cosmetic and doesn't really warrant much attention, but do be aware that there are radiation storms now. They're very scenic and very radioactive.

Oh, and the game features a settlement construction system.
It's almost entirely pointless and very finnicky, but it's there if you feel the need to play The Sims while you're playing Fallout 4.

[Graphics]

The graphics are fine. They do the job.
That said, there were more than a few people who were unhappy with the appearance of Fallout 4. A common criticism was that it was too colorful, too cartoony, too cheerful or some variation or combination thereof. It's true that the game is markedly less grim looking than its predecessors. A notable exception to this is during the aforementioned radiation storms. While those are hitting your general area, it starts feeling more like you're playing a Tiberian Sun ARPG. The same is true for the southernmost reaches of the map, down in the Glowing Sea. It's aptly named.

Other than that, my main issue with the visuals is the faces. Some are worse than others (looking at you, Mama Murphy), but as a rule of thumb, you'll want to get used to people looking like they're visiting Boston from the uncanny valley. Lip sync is notoriously bad, which really shouldn't be much of a problem to sort out in a game this new from a company this well-known with a budget this big.

[Story]

It's fine.
It's not fine, no matter how hard I've tried to convince myself. The story is bad.
Remember how Caesar, Mr. House and the NCR all had their own motivations in New Vegas?
Remember how the Brotherhood and the Enclave were in an ideological struggle in Fallout 3?
Yeah, there's none of that in Fallout 4. Not really. The factions are largely bland, including the Brotherhood of Steel. I'm a huge Brotherhood fanboy, but there's no bias strong enough to ignore the reality of the shitty writing in this game.

The Brotherhood has one goal: destroy the Institute. That's it.
The Railroad has one goal: free synths.
The Minutemen are a bit more nebulous: defend the Commonwealth, whatever that entails.
And then there's the institute. We don't even know what their goals are or what motivations might be behind them, because we're never told. In fact, you can ask, but the response basically amounts to something along the lines of "you wouldn't get it."

Remember how Caesar's Legion did horrible, horrible things? Slavery, forced sexual segregation, cultural genocide, actual genocide, the list goes on. But if you approached Caesar, he'd tell you exactly why he believed all of those things were necessary for the betterment of humanity and the survival of the species in a horrible post-apocalyptic world, even how it would prevent another apocalypse.

The Institute does horrible things too. Involuntary human experimentation, murder, kidnapping, not to mention replacing people with synth infiltrators and releasing so many super mutants into the Commonwealth that they're a sizeable faction unto themselves. You can even throw slavery in there, depending on your views on synth rights. We're operating on Saturday morning cartoon villain levels here, and none of it is ever explained or justified.

On the contrary, the Institute actually sometimes seems to be oblivious that it's doing anything wrong. If you tell them that the Commonwealth could use their help, you get this response:
"Oh, we've tried that. Surprised? The Institute once tried to help create a stabilized Commonwealth government. It ended in bickering, infighting... it was a disaster. No, we look after our own now. Ultimately the Commonwealth has nothing to fear from us. Whatever you've seen or heard, I know I can convince you of that. Just... give me time. I know there's more for us to discuss, but..."

This response ultimately omits the tiny detail that the project to form a Commonwealth government was forcibly terminated by the Institute when they sent a synth to kill everyone involved, at which the synth succeeded. And yet they continue standing by this baffling notion that they don't understand the hostility from the Commonwealth, because the Commonwealth has nothing to fear from the Institute. I know I've already said this, but just to reiterate: this is never explained.

Anyway, that tirade aside, the story is simple. Mediocre, really.
You are DAD or MOM together, you have SON (Shaun). When the bombs hit, you go to the local vault and get frozen for a few years. SON gets stolen, your spouse gets killed and you get frozen again. You eventually get unfrozen for good, briefly mourn your significant other, and then set off to find SON.

In your effort to find SON, you make your way across post-apocalyptic Boston, where you occasionally get a chance to act like a fish out of water, but largely get some unsatisfying dialogue with various NPCs where every conversation gives you 4 options. These are mostly No, Yes, No (Yes) and Maybe. Every now and then you have access to sarcastic responses, which, while funny, only serve as temporary distractions from the fact that the dialogue options in Fallout 4 almost all suck.

There are a few good encounters and some solid characters. Danse and Hancock are both pretty funny, but speaking of Hancock, here's another gripe:
Hancock is a ghoul.
The Brotherhood hates ghouls and advocate killing them on sight.
If you bring Hancock to the Brotherhood, the worst you get is a few snide remarks from some of the NPCs there, and that's about it. Sometimes Hancock talks back, which is met with passive aggressiveness at most. The same is true if you bring any other companion around who the Brotherhood ought to try to kill on sight.

Not to beat a dead horse here, but remember how bringing certain companions into certain areas or performing certain actions with them tagging along would have consequences? None of that in Fallout 4. Now it's just "your companion liked that" or "your companion disliked that" and nothing else. Sometimes they REALLY liked or disliked something you did, but it doesn't matter.

None of this matters. I'm almost inclined to argue that you should just ignore the story altogether and focus on the gameplay, but it's not quite that bad. It's close though. There are some saving graces.

[SPOILERS]

You find SON. He's actually the leader of the Institute. He has nothing memorable or really significant to say about the fact that the Institute kidnapped him, killed one of his parents and kept the other on ice for a few decades. He does nothing of note except eventually contract a terminal illness and die. This might simultaneously be the single worst NPC and the greatest waste of potential in a narrative in any Fallout game ever conceived.

If you side with the Brotherhood, you blow up the Institute and the Railroad.
If you side with the Railroad, you blow up the Institute and the Brotherhood.
If you side with the Minutemen, you blow up the Institute and maybe the Brotherhood.
If you side with the Institute, you blow up the Railroad and the Brotherhood.

Here are some cool bits you might come across:

There's a modified protectron that got turned into a mobile brewery. His name his Drinking Buddy and I love him.

There's an occult museum which features a tense encounter with a deathclaw in close quarters. Depending on how you end the associated quest, you might get a deathclaw buddy.

You can encounter a robot which will try to determine whether you're a communist spy. If you tell it to go fuck itself, it'll conclude that you're 99.7% likely to be an American citizen.

You might find a guy brewing something at a still. Keep your distance though; it explodes.

Two guys arguing over what constitutes a sandwich.

If you find a mob of named feral ghouls, don't worry: those are your old neighbors.

There's an entire questline dedicated to helping a crew of robots in various states of madness and disrepair. Helping how? Helping them to get their ship flying, of course. It's presently stuck in a building. The reward is a cannon, more specifically one of the 24-pounder guns on the USS Constitution.

Another questline is centered around the Cabot family and figuring out how they've lived for over 200 years without being ghouls.

And finally there's a suspiciously idyllic community where nothing unusual is happening at all. It's just a nice place for nice people to live nice lives.

Naturally, this is not an exhaustive list.

[Pros]

- Power armor in Fallout 4 is the best in the franchise, and certainly among the best in any game

- Gameplay is perfectly serviceable

- Outstanding mod support

- Genuine attempts at improving upon the Fallout formula

[Cons]

- The story is mostly bland; it's okay at best, straight up awful at worst

- Side quests are largely less interesting than in previous titles

- Environment is smaller and less interesting than in previous titles

- Facial animations are uncanny valley material and sometimes out of sync with dialogue

- While genuine, attempts to improve sometimes fall flat

- Buggy

[Conclusion]

I won't lie: the score is only as high as 6 because I love the power armor in Fallout 4. I love it a lot, so much so that it's pretty much the central reason that I enjoy playing the game at all. It could have been so much better if Bethesda had drawn more from the experience of Fallout 3 and New Vegas, but they instead opted for a vast decrease in writing quality. There is so much potential here, and I really think it could have been the best Fallout game ever made. It just... isn't.
I've still put over 300 hours into the game though, so maybe I'm just bitter.
Another settlement needs your help. Moral compass optional.

[Score]

6/10

/DUX

Crusader Kings 2, 100% Historically Accurate Grand Strategy

[Introduction]

Crusader Kings 2 is a meme about medieval rulers and their courtiers doing crazy shit while painting a map of Europe and parts of Asia in different colors.
Crusader Kings 2 is a grand strategy game developed by Paradox Interactive. It's predominantly centered on Europe but features a map that extends as far east as India.
It's also a sequel to Crusader Kings, a game no one played.

[First Impressions]

I actually remember my first impression!
It went something like "what the hell am I looking at and what the hell am I supposed to be doing?"
When I say it took a long, long time for me to figure out how to play this game, it's no exaggeration. It took me something like a year of playing Stellaris before that game became a gateway for me to get into Crusader Kings 2. Now, that's not to say everyone will have the same initial experience that I did, but fair warning: the learning curve can be pretty steep.

[Development]

Finding details regarding development was surprisingly difficult, not least of all because most of the developer diaries for CK2 seem to be focused more on explaining game mechanics, rather than the work that went into said mechanics or the general development history of the game. I did find one that took a step further and actually showed examples of modding, however! The game, incidentally, is very mod friendly, but more on that later. I also managed to find screenshots of early alpha builds:

The interface was clearly streamlined quite a bit since that stage of development, and widescreen support was added as well. It might come as no surprise that these early builds had a lot in common with CK1.

Other general additions between CK1 and CK2 include proper empire titles, expanded de jure mechanics, actual control over imprisonment and ransom, control over education and a new war system. Really, it's a flat improvement all around, from the engine being upgraded to Clausewitz to the UI to the complexity allowing greater variety in how the game world evolves.

Also, unlike its predecessor, CK2 allows you to play a much wider assortment of cultures, religions and governments... provided you have the necessary DLC. This is, after all, the game that really made Paradox infamous for having an inordinate amount of downloadable content. That's not to say that previous title had no DLC, but never before had so much content been locked behind a price tag. We're not just talking unit models or music here, but actual game mechanics.

Even with the base game being free, you have to pay $182.85 to get the full experience, although purchasing the bundle will give you a 10% discount, and you get a further price cut if you already own some of the DLC. If you want the whole shebang with unit models, extra music and all the bells and whistles, it's a staggering $317.35. You can get 17% off if you purchase that bundle, but that's still a lot of money.

[Game Mechanics]

Start the game, pick a date, choose a ruler, cross your fingers.
On the base level, down at the very bedrock, you have only have one goal: your dynasty must survive. Your only state of GAME OVER is if your dynasty has no heir and your line ends. Everything around that is secondary, regardless of your culture, religion, rank, hopes and dreams.

There's a sizeable toolbox available to you in your perpetual mission to persevere. You can wage war and expand your territory, acquire new vassals to provide taxes and levies, you can leverage your economy to influence others, you can plot to kill your rivals, fabricate claims to their lands to give you a valid reason to invade, all sorts of things - and that's just scratching the surface.

Whether it's for altruistic purposes or to further your own agenda, you can also invest to improve in your lands, both technologically, defensively, aggressively and economically, but the latter three all require investment in the former. Build castle walls, establish new settlements, construct training grounds for your militia, the works.

All of this is centered around your character, of course. Even if you decide to be generous and invest in the lands of your vassals, it ultimately comes back to you: you decided to do that, likely because you felt the investment was worthwhile. Maybe you wanted your vassal to be able to provide you with more levies, maybe you wanted to help get his new settlement rolling so you'd get more taxes out of the place sooner rather than later. Maybe you just wanted to improve relations so the guy doesn't revolt.

The education of your children is also important, even the education of your extended family. As the big poobah of your dynasty, you often get a say in who fosters what child, and the guardian of your choosing will seek to instil their own traits in their new charge. For example, a character who's brave will encourage the child to be brave as well, while a character who's craven will do the same. It's easy to stop caring, particularly when your family grows particularly large, but it's a good idea to stay involved to ensure the future of your dynasty is in good hands.

Another aspect of education, namely that of your people, also comes into play, particularly if you start out as a tribal leader. The spread of technology enables growth and prosperity in your lands, but the transition from a tribal society to, for example, a feudal one can be a game changer.

Similarly, religion (and religious disagreements) can make the difference between a stable realm and open rebellion. There's a myriad of religions, religious branches and even heresies that are available to the player, and all form a crucial aspect to how characters get along with one another. For example, a Muslim might outright refuse to have anything to do with a Norse Pagan.

Culture, too, is important, and plays a similar role to religion, albeit less complex. Characters can adopt different cultures, but it's impossible to reform a culture. Cultures also decide whether certain actions are available; blind Greeks can't inherit and Norse cultures can raise runestones. It also determines certain naming conventions, both of characters and kingdoms.

You have to manage all of these things while everyone around you simultaneously does the same thing. And let me tell you: player or AI, they can be difficult to predict. Because they all follow their own agenda, just like you, and are trying to ensure the survival of their dynasty, often at the expense of other dynasties. Just like you.

On top of that, there's an endless cavalcade of random events constantly playing out across the world, frequently involving you. You might get sick. Your daughter might get sick. Your spymaster might try to kill your spymaster, whereupon your spymaster informs you that your spymaster tried to have your spymaster killed so he wouldn't tell you that your spymaster was gonna kill your spymaster... as you might imagine, there are some bugs, but they're mostly pretty funny.

There are no guarantees in Crusader Kings 2, other than that the game eventually ends. Usually it's either because your dynasty died out, you made it to the final year or because you simply stop playing after achieving all your goals.

And you really ought to set goals for yourself. Whether it's uniting Ireland, taking back Jerusalem as the Jews or transforming Europe into a subject of a nomadic steppe culture, half the fun comes from setting increasingly absurd goals for yourself. For example, I know a guy who decided to get an Umayyad character in charge of Tibet. Didn't even take him that long to pull it off.

And then there's the options of questionable historical authenticity. You see, the game is highly customisable. With the Holy Fury DLC, it's possible to have randomised worlds, or even what's called "shattered" worlds. You can change literally anything short of the map itself. You can turn the entire world into individual duchies ruled by nomadic horselords whose culture demands that only teenage girls can inherit if you so desire, but the customisation doesn't end there.

The game is extremely mod friendly and even has Steam Workshop support.
Wanna play Crusadercraft 2? There's a mod for that. Wanna conquer the post-apocalyptic United States? There's a mod for that. Wanna facilitate an Argonian takeover of Tamriel? There's a mod for that. Want every death to be accompanied with the coffin dance? You bet your ass there's a mod for that.

[Graphics]

It's fine.
There's not much to say, it's pretty much just a big ol map of the "known world" as seen from a European perspective at the time. Borders are (for the most part) clearly distinguishable and that's what matters.

The UI is serviceable once you get used to it, although chances are you may have to dig around a bit to find information on county terrain. Still, there are usually very few clicks between you and the information you want to access, which is Interface 101.

At the end of the day, you're probably never going to be awed or amazed when looking at CK2, at least not because the graphics are anything to write home about.

[Story]

The story is simultaneously simple in premise and complex in execution.
By default, the game starts at a date determined by the player as early as 1066. With DLC, this can go further back, all the way to 769. The map is divided by historical borders and individual realms are ruled by as many historical rulers as we're aware of, although some are made up due to necessity and plain lack of information.

Once started, the game plays out until either the player's dynasty ends or it survives until 1452. Everything between the beginning and the end, however, is entirely fluid. Literally anything can happen, nothing is set in stone, and that's the real story of CK2. More importantly, you can change it to a staggering degree if you manage to gather enough land and build up sufficient influence.

This is the primary allure to most people: the ability to change the course of history while other players or AI rulers do the same. Every playthrough will have a different story and different events will unfold. There are certainly some things that tend to be similar, such as Christians ousting Pagans from the British Isles in some way, but there are never any guarantees.

[SPOILERS that one time I turned Siberia into a merchant republic]

There's not really anything to spoil, so instead, here's a recap of my most recent playthrough.

I decided to play as Zavarot. For reference, this is a tiny tribal start in the ass end of Siberia that starts with 2 shitty duchies. It didn't occur to me at the time, but in hindsight, this was obviously a bad idea. It's a frozen hellscape of ice and bears which barely supports life, much less a substantial human presence.

Somehow, I manage to subjugate some neighbors, enabling me to subjugate some more. I'm 90% sure I got lucky with these initial wars, but soon enough, I controlled a substantial enough territory that I could call vassals to help me fight other tribes and get the ball rolling.

At this point, a goal started forming: form a kingdom. I was on the verge of getting multiple High Chief titles, and due to gavelkind succession being what it is, my titles would be split between my children, and my realm would be split.

So I started getting aggressive whenever I could, with the sparse amount of soldiers at my disposal. Raising an army was hardly economical (it's hardly a surprise that my income was abysmal) so I relied entirely on my retinue, which only cost prestige to maintain. It was also around this time that I noticed the Norse Pagans were winning the battle for Britain. Somehow.

And then King Wanko, the Polish king of Denmark, converted his people to a Catholic heresy:

Eventually I conquer enough land to form the Kingdom of Nenetsia.

Incidentally, this is around the time I check in on Britain again, only to find that the Pagan Norse have largely united under the banner of Ireland.

I'm sure it'll be fine. They're far away, so I conquer more land for the glory of my shitty realm where nothing grows. I eventually get a hold of two titular kingdoms, but because I'm tribal, I can't destroy one of them, which once again means my kingdom is going to split. Spoiler: it does multiple times, but I manage to rein it in again each time. At some point during all this, I'm notified that a gentleman by the name of THOR THE BONE-SQUEEZER has converted his people to Christianity. He wears a wolf on his head and has killed several people, including family members.

He seems like a peaceful fellow though, so I ignore that. I have a new goal: form an empire so my realm stops splitting in half every time my ruler dies and two successors take over. In the meantime, I forge a legendary bloodline, becoming a legend simply by fighting so many people (and bears) that it ends up becoming a feat noteworthy enough for the history books.

What an absolute lad.
But things are going well enough for me. I'm sorta struggling to fight anyone around be, but I slowly make incremental gains. Not so much because of my substantial military. More because any counter-invasions have to somehow get enough troops through my lands to besiege my tribal holdings, but my lands are literally made of ice and bears, so most invaders find it challenging. Turns out winter is harsh in Siberia. Anyway, I decide to check on the situation in Britain, and...

Well, the pagans have taken it all over and are now starting to colonise the mainland.
That'll probably never be relevant to me. Sounds like a them problem.
Fast forward a few decades and my ruler gets bashed over the head while fighting in a battle. He gets permanent brain damage, but somehow doesn't die in a matter of months. No, the bastard clings to life as an infirm vegetable for almost 10 years and eventually dies in a coma at the age of 64. This is despite at least two assassination attempts, which he fought off despite being a brain damaged invalid.

What a guy.
Anyway, I somehow consolidate enough land that the impossible starts getting within arm's reach: the holy places of the Suomenusko faith are so close to me now that it seems possible that I might be able to reform the faith. This becomes my goal, alongside the more practical matter of forming an empire to ensure stability. And wouldn't you know it, a mere 12 years later, I pull it off!

And only 2 decades after that, an empire is born.

At this point, I'm pretty much the only tribal society left on the map, with the sole exceptions being a couple counties somewhere in the eastern steppes. I also have the worst economy in the world, and so I stood at an impasse. Two goals were left for me:
Do I forever remain tribal and fight back against the "civilised" peoples?
Or do I try to turn the frozen north into a thriving economic state?
To be clear: both are mad endeavors, but the tribal path seems substantially more doable than squeezing monetary gain out of a tundra that primarily exports bears, violence, reduced lifespans, bears and tribal warriors. So of course I opt for economy. I become determined to consolidate the tribes into a merchant republic. I also check on the pagans real quick.

Well, they seem to be doing okay.
And only 40 years later, the empire of Volga-Ural under the leadership of House Tobyid from Zavarot has transitioned from a loose coalition of tribes to a merchant republic.

What a ride. It was only afterwards I learned that some people consider Zavarot to be one of the most difficult starting locations in the game, due to the unforgiving climate, the powerful neighbors, limited potential for expansion, lack of valuable raiding targets, total absence of ports to build ships and having no vassals from the get go. It also doesn't help that even if you do build ships, you're not Norse, so you don't get a cultural 90% discount on upkeep.

Let this server as an example of the stories you can create for yourself. I didn't really touch much on building a gilded statue of one of my rulers or the struggle to reacquire familial artifacts after a weird succession crisis, but you get the idea.

[Pros]

- Base game is free and perfectly serviceable by itself

- Some truly ridiculous scenarios can unfold

- Achieving goals and seeing plans come to fruition is very satisfying

- Exceptional mod support

[Cons]

- Base game is somewhat lacklustre

- Paradox's DLC policy (all expansions combined cost $182.85; aesthetic DLC adds to that price tag)

- You really do have to set your own goals to get any real enjoyment out of the game

- Can be hard to get into; learning curve is steep if you're unfamiliar with grand strategy games

[Conclusion]

While I'm very critical of the absurd DLC policy Paradox has become infamous for, I still love Crusader Kings 2 and the developers behind it. When a friend of mine told me the company had been bought by Activision, I was genuinely distraught, but fortunately that turned out to be an April Fool's joke. Crusader Kings 2 is an outstanding game and provides an entertaining experience. It can be a wild ride, and that's precisely what I'm here for.
Time to execute my 40-something prisoners and cause my realm to dissolve in a civil war as my popularity plummets. Shoulda paid the ransom. Moral compass optional.

[Score]

7/10

/DUX