The Texture Pop: Episode 11: Jumping Achark

I could take this space to explain exactly how this picture and title were conceived for this episode. I could also explain why this post is out two days after the podcast was release and why no one posted that a new episode was released.

I could do that... but I won't.

Also, Nick joined us again as a guest. You remember Nick. His name starts with an N and ends with "ick".



0:00:00 Introduction
In which I take the time to make fun of Sam and his living in Georgia-ness.
I also remind Sam of the reason why he wasn't there last time, because he apparently forgot.
I'm pretty sure Garrett was drinking during the cast, but I'm honestly not sure.

0:06:14 Viewer Questions
Truthfully, we did not do these last week because we are all lazy. Please don't tell Sam that.

"Are you guys fans of the old school space sim games?"
Honestly, unless Star Fox counts, the answer is no. At least for me.
We take a brief detour to discuss Star Citizen again, for reasons.

"Have you guys ever played a game you found so complicated that you gave up?"
I'm sure fighting game players are displeased with my answer, but it's true for me. I'm fine at a couple of fighters like Soul Calibur, Injustice: Gods Among Us, or Persona 4 Arena, but most of them just take too much time in order for me to really get good at them. Street Fighter, Tekken, and others of their ilk escape me. I get the theory behind them, but I just cannot execute when push comes to shove. We didn't mention Tekken here, but it applies all the same to me.

My answer side-tracks the discussion and heavily derails it.

0:34:20 Nick has been playing Super Smash Bros. 3DS
Though I've never owned a Nintendo home console, I have to admit that I've always had an interest in Smash Bros. The mechanics are very solid, and it's perfect for large groups. At some point, I'm going to have to get it.

0:39:05 Nick has been playing Brave Frontier
F2P leaves a bit bad taste in my month after Marvel Puzzle Quest. It's unfair, but it's true.
We use this time, however, to discuss Bendgate. By the end, we completely forgot the original topic.

0:44:50 TITLE DROP!

0:45:30 Nick watched Dracula: Untold
Which leads to pun times, movie talk, and making theaters laugh.
Talking about bad movies gets us to start talking about The Room, and unintentionally funny movies.

0:55:56 Garrett released a review for Destiny.
And it's right here.
We continue to be the best Destiny podcast on the internet.

0:57:00 Garrett's Two Cents editorial are going to be a monthly feature.
His description is pretty comprehensive.

1:01:50 Garrett plays Game Dev Tycoon.
I wish actual game development was this easy. The game is a nice little excursion, but it's incredibly easy make tons of money in-game.

1:04:20 Garrett talks real life.

1:05:00 Comic talk with Garrett and Chris.
And we discuss how Status Quo is God and nobody ever stays dead, unless they get cancelled.

1:11:03 We briefly disconnect while Garrett was talking
Because Sam's setup makes no sense.
His motherboard is probably cursed.

1:12:41 Garrett talks about his developer class.
And his partner sounds like a moron.

1:16:55 Garrett talks League of Legends.
You know how it is.

1:17:30 I played Persona 4 Ultimax.
You can hear more about my thoughts on the game here. Part 2 should be out in a few days.

1:21:30 I watched a Heavy Rain LP.
This LP, to be precise.

I remember liking Heavy Rain at one point, but honestly the game is really bad. I'm legitimately surprised at how much badness was crammed into a single game. The voice acting is awful, the story is terrible, and the choices are meaningless.
And David Cage somehow got worse in Beyond: Two Souls.

1:26:14 I watched Two Best Friends play The Walking Dead: Season 1.
You probably don't need a link, but it's here just in case.
It's actually pretty amazing at how easy it is to dislike most of the cast. The entire weight of the plot seems to come from the relationship between Lee and Clementine. The rest of the cast is either take it or leave it, but without those two characters, very few of the rest of the people who join the group serve to just cause problems.
As for Kenny, fuck that guy.

1:31:15 Nick talks about The Walking Dead: The TV Series.
The TV show and the comics are interesting in how quickly they make you hate the characters. I have never read the comics, but I watched one episode of the TV show and decided that if the next episode was "Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies", that would be better than anything else.
Hearing Chris talk about how Meryl and Darryl (I couldn't care any less if spelled their names wrong) were added in to make the cast more relatable is infinitely fascinating. We then discuss other comic to movie adaptation.

And I talk more about the game after that during this discussion.

1:37:50 I yell at Sam for his hosting abilities.

1:38:41 I mention that Naruto is coming to an end.
BELIEVE IT!
We then talk about manga franchises that have lasted entirely too long, of which there are many. Bleach is mentioned. Though we never bring it up, I feel that One Piece belongs on this list.

And Chris talks about why he quit Spawn on a related note, following up with more comic talk. Bottom line, comics are bullshit.

1:51:50 Chris has played Mario Kart.
And I have nothing to add to this conversation.

1:59:25 Sam is reading a love series which I didn't get the name of.
It's anime/manga.

2:02:45 Sam bought some movies while out on holiday.

2:03:05 Sam saw Austin City Limits in Texas.
YEE HAW!
And we discuss musical politics. Like musical chairs, but much less fun.

2:08:20 Sam bought a loud keyboard.
A Razer BLACKWIDOW to be precise. I love Corporate Cool names.

2:11:50 Sam played Shadows of Mordor.
And I'm super jealous because I really, really want to play it. I don't care about Lord of the Rings, but the game just looks awesome.
We then briefly discuss other Lord of the Rings games.

2:20:20 Sam beat all the Dead Rising 3 DLC
And doesn't care about it.

2:21:10 Sam beat Neverending Nightmare
And Garrett wants it to be good, and I'm tired.
It still sounds pretty gruesome, even when it's trying to be a game.
I assume that without spoilers, this is a hard game to talk about.

2:25:20 Sam bought Assassin's Creed: Liberation and Freedom Cry
And he finds their portrayal of slavery weird.

2:26:30 Sam bought Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition on the PC.
Not much to say, aside from what was said during the cast.

2:27:55 Sam watches anime with one of my friends.
It's Japan, and therefore weird.

2:29:50 We start to wrap things up.
None of us can apparently not play games during a podcast.
I'm so, so sorry for this cast.

At the same time, we randomly give our one fan a happy day.

#67: To Heavy Rain and Beyond: David Cage's Problems

(Spoiler Alert for Beyond: Two Souls. I wanted to keep this post spoiler-free. However, as I was typing it I realized that my points are stronger in the presence of clear examples from the game.)

As those of you who follow me on Twitter know, I purchased and played through Beyond: Two Souls: Starring Ellen Page and Willam Dafoe, developed by David Cage and Quantic Dream, when it came out a while back. Despite the similarities between Beyond and Quantic Dream's previous opus, Heavy Rain, Beyond has been much more negatively received than its predecessor. On Metacritic, for example, Two Souls received a 71 on Metacritic, whereas Heavy Rain received an 87. That is a grand total of a 16 point difference between the games, which is fairly significant. What is it about Beyond that makes people dislike it so much more? This week, I propose a possible answer.

One of the biggest reasons I feel that Beyond received a more lukewarm reception was that, unlike Heavy Rain, came out amongst stiff competition in the space of the “interactive fiction” genre. At the time of Heavy Rain's release, Quantic Dream was the only company who made games of that type. Aside from Heavy Rain, the only notable “interactive fiction” game was Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit, also developed by the same company. Fast forward to the time of Beyond: Two Soul's release, and this is now no longer the case. Now, there are quite a few competitors in this space. Chief among them is Telltale Games, famous for both the spectacular release of The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us. To The Moon is another great example, developed by Firebird Games in the indie space. Though these games lack the budget of the works of Quantic Dream, they command very strong followings in their own right.

Fans of the genre previously had only one place to go to get their fix. As a direct result, they were less likely to criticize games from David Cage. Since there are more points of comparison for “interactive fiction” than there were even 5 years ago, we see more of the flaws in games of that genre than we used to. Cage no longer has the defense of being the only developer in the field. He needs to do much more to impress audiences. Beyond really does not do much to move the goal post at all. In fact, it is much worse in many respects. Therefore, it is natural to expect it to have a lower score than its predecessors.

Another reason that Beyond might not have been as well received as well as other Quantic Dream games is that the control scheme is a much more ambiguous than in those games. Presumably in order to to avoid the common criticism that David Cage's games are nothing more than a series of Quick Time Events, the systems used during action sequences have been revised. Instead of displaying the button prompts on screen, the game uses a new mechanic. All action sequences are handled using the right analog stick. When the action goes into slow-motion, players are supposed to move the stick in the same direction Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes is whatever action she is performing in. The problem with this is twofold. First, many movements can be ambiguous with regards to which direction they are going towards. Since the game expects players to perform them with relative haste, this leads to unnecessary failures. The other issue is that the game has an annoying tendency to have action sequences in dimly or poorly lit areas.

As a result, it is often hard to see exactly what Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes is doing, let alone which direction she is doing it in. Compared to the discreet button prompts present in Heavy Rain, Beyond makes it much more difficult to correctly input the proper commands. As an example, there is a scene that takes place “early on” in the game (I'll explain later) where Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes is on the run from the CIA. She is on a train and seen by police officers, creating a chase scene. When she makes it off the train, she has to jump over and/or duck under tree branches as she is running into a forest in order to avoid capture. As Ellen Page approaches a branch, the game slows-down, indicating that it is time to move the right stick. Unfortunately, it is very hard to make out if Ellen Page is ducking or preparing to jump in the darkness of the night. This gives players a 50/50 chance of guessing whether to move the right stick up or down. It results in confusion, irritation, and anger on the player's part, which are not the emotions David Cage wants to instill in audiences.

The final problem that Beyond: Two Souls had was its completely disjointed narrative. For the unaware, the game's story is not told in chronological order. Instead, the game flashes forward and backward in time. One moment, players can be playing as child Jodie. Then, the very next scene can involve Jodie as a homeless, young adult. This happens up until the last 2-3 scenes, where the finale suddenly presents itself in a linear fashion. The effect is that otherwise tense or dramatic scenes are undermined by either a lack of narrative context or knowledge of what occurs in scenes that chronologically take place later on.

A case of the first can be easily demonstrated by a sequence of two scenes from the middle of the game. In the first scene, Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes is drafted into the CIA by high-level government officials, thanks to her powers. The man who takes her is extremely cold and unfeeling towards her, and she leaves in tears. The very next scene has her in an apartment, preparing for a date with the very same man, which she has apparently fallen in love with. It is up to the player to prepare food, get washed and dressed, and clean up the apartment in time for the date. All the while, the player has no idea what happened in the time between these two scenes to so radically change the relationship between Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes and CIA Jerkwad. While it is plausible that they have grown close in the time between, the relationship feels like a hallow one without the prerequisite context. Any emotional connections the scene could invoke is undermined by that.

However, the reverse of this phenomenon is also true. Sometimes, knowledge of what goes on in Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes's future undermines all the tension a given scene has in the present. For example, one scene in the game involves Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes escaping a burning building, rescuing her fellow homeless friends along the way. There are a few different ways this scene can play out, but all of them end with her on the ground, unconscious and possibly bleeding out. In most works of fiction, this would be a tense moment where we do not know if the protagonist survives. However, Beyond: Two Souls has the problem where players know that Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes survives because they just finished playing scene which chronologically takes place after the current one. Since we know Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes is alive in a future scene, she cannot die in the scene the player is watching, making the tense buildup utterly pointless. Ultimately, the story's structure undermines the vast majority of it in very similar ways.

On some level, I respect David Cage and Quantic Dream. Those guys are doing something truly unique in the video game industry. Few developers do make games like the ones he makes. However, in light of what we see from other developers and obvious flaws in his own design, Cage is not good enough to justify all the copious resources and talent put his games. His largest problem seems to be that no one is willing to tell him when his scripts need work. Though he clearly subscribes to auteur theory, he is not skilled enough of a writer to be a auteur. Maybe in future projects, Cage will find an editor to improve the overall product. However, I wonder in Quantic Dream might start to crack after another few releases. It will be interesting to watch either way.