Random, flipping, aside, only cause Hubski is kind of slow today, the news is just a continuous cycle of awful, and I'm practically unemployed and bored out of my mind at this point. Apocalyptic and post apocalyptic stories, (with the rare exception of a few gems like Mad Max, The Rover, Windup Girl, and Fallout 1, 2, and NV,) really aren't all that fun. But right now? Earth Abides seems like something to read again. As far as post apocalyptic literature is concerned, it's simple and arguably bucolic in its presentation, and that seems kind of nice right now. I think I'll tackle it this weekend, see how far I get.The last time we had a global pandemic?
Ugh. Dude. And so many video games depend on post-apocalyptic tropes. Just trying to find something to play it's like "how 'bout Fallout? 'how bout a shitty Fallout ripoff? How 'bout Japanese Fallout?" Earth Abides is fundamentally a hopeful book. That helps. Almost no post-apocalyptic stories are. Zelazny's Damnation Alley actually ends up being hopeful and it's a lot shorter than Earth Abides. The movie is... Jan Michael Vincent and George Pappard and carnivorous ants at a mall in Nebraska. Not the same. I finished Horizon:Zero Dawn in April. That one is post-apocalyptic, but it's also really hopeful. It's also really beautiful. And it's largely about people getting on with their lives. Meanwhile I've imprinted hard on Surviving Mars, probably because it's Sim City where simply making things livable is its own reward.
If Horizon: Zero Dawn is available for X-Box, I'll have to look into it. I could use a hopeful game. I know it's kind of funny that I said The Rover is good Post-Apocalyptic fiction, because it's very, very bleak and very uncomfortable at points, but it has a slow and minimalistic approach that makes it feel, well, something. If we're talking about games that don't leave you hopeful, I really can't stress enough that Wasteland 2 is not the game for you. I love tactic games and am okay with RPGs, and game mechanic wise, it's a treat. But the actual story, is bleak, like Fallout 1 & 2 without any of the humor to carry you through. What makes it worse though is, you're constantly failing. Very early in the game for example, you have to choose to rescue one of two settlements who are both giving a distress call at the same time. Rescue one, and you cause the whole region to starve, rescue the other, and the whole region will go without water. It's like that over, and over, and over in the game, where you progress, but very rarely do you ever win anything. I got as far as L.A. in that game before I finally gave it up, because I just felt so lost and I realized after a day or two that I didn't feel lost because I didn't think I could figure out what to do next in the game, but because story wise, I didn't see the point. No matter what I did, I was gonna fail somehow and things would continue to be bleak. I mean, it was like playing that game felt like it was actively causing my soul to whither. Oh, it was horrible.
HZD was a Playstation exclusive. Horizon: Forbidden West is a Playstation exclusive. I dunno. It's lonely being a playstation guy up here in the Land of Microsoft but since the XBox first came out, Playstation games have always been prettier to me. They've always been less focused on murder. I played maybe 50 hours of Fallout 4. It made me hate Fallout and all games derived from Fallout. Outer Worlds was maybe okay but I had the good luck of playing it before Fallout, so instead of "huh, this is a vaguely uplifting port of Fallout" it was "why is this combat system so weird? Why are all the colors so ugly? Why are all the NPCs so static? Why do none of your choices matter in the end?" And the mechanics are so dumb. "What's that? You'd like to line up a shot with your sniper rifle? well if you just pull the trigger we'll shrink the hitbox but if you use our stupid SCMODS system you get to digitally roll a 1d20!" "Need to survive a massive and violent gorefest against an army of robots? Just walk behind the NPC who gets wiped out and resurrected again!" But hey. Don't listen to me. I've discovered I hate everything Naughty Dog has ever put out.
Fallout 1 & 2 could possibly be worth your trying, because instead of shooters they're strategy RPGs. They definitely have the better story. In my opinion, games like Fallout 3, 4, The Outer Worlds, Skyrim, etc. are best viewed as "walking simulators with combat haphazardly slapped on." The story and exploration is the reason for being there, the combat systems exist because people crave violence, but no three things are actually done that great. Want a really good story? Read a good book or watch a good movie. Want to do some exploration? Parks, road trips, museums, etc. are what you should really do. Want some challenging combat that's tough but fair and competently put together? Halo, Call of Duty, etc. is where you should be focusing your attention. Don't get me wrong, Fallout etc. is still fun and there are some great moments playing those kinds of games, but you're absolutely right in that there are compromises in how they're put together. Edit: X-Box also seems to have gotten the short end of the stick in quality games this generation. I think it says something that most of my time on the system is spent playing vintage game compilations and indy titles.
Yeah there doesn't have to be, though. I would say the combat system in Destiny kicks the crap out of the combat system in Fallout. And you're right - I noped out of Skyrim maybe ten hours into it. Same with Monster Hunter. I much prefer the Japanese obsession with fishing to the American obsession of "we're going to turn this thing into a dice throw". And there's definitely a place for "I want adventure, sights and sounds but I don't want to leave the couch." My video gaming is entirely limited to "thing that I do on the couch next to my wife who is reviewing charts." So many video games are "learn best how to cheat our shitty mechanics." That's Skyrim in a nutshell. There's also a real tendency to "figure out how best to advance your character to beat this thing you can't get past that you won't know about for another 30 hours of gameplay" (Persona 5, Destiny's last DLC, Witcher). I read somewhere that Bungie's theory was that any game should be playable within 10 seconds of picking up the controller. Certainly how I got hooked on Destiny. HZD is similar; Guerilla definitely learned a lot from what made people stop playing Killzone:Shadow Fall. Just because "real life" will always be more interesting than "video game" doesn't mean that the video game shouldn't strive to be interesting. And that's the problem, really - the walk isn't worth the haphazard combat. I once spent 20 minutes walking to a weird ass corner of the HZD map because there were alligators there.but you're absolutely right in that there are compromises in how they're put together.
In my opinion, games like Fallout 3, 4, The Outer Worlds, Skyrim, etc. are best viewed as "walking simulators with combat haphazardly slapped on."
have you ever tried out the dark souls series? it's very skillbased as opposed to dicerolls the community is pretty bad but that's normal for video games it seems
I'd second Dark Souls, though I've only played the third one. People say it's "NES Hard," but it's not. "NES Hard" implies that you can only get ahead if you do things near perfectly. Dark Souls is tough, but fair, leaves room for error, and once you really get a feel for how you have your character setup and how enemies operate, it actually becomes quite easy. . . . the bosses on the other hand are an exercise in patience, trial and error, and perseverance.