What it's like playing Destiny

I think Ben Kuchera over at Polygon said it best. 

“A low score doesn’t mean the game has no value, and I’ve found myself excited about going in for another round or two every night, despite of the large number of ways the game fails to live up to its own basic potential. I can’t defend Destiny against its many critics, because they’re accurately describing the many, many ways the game falls on its face. That being said, I’m having a pretty decent time with this particular 6 out of 10.”

— Ben Kuchera, Polygon

I really like playing Destiny, despite it almost aggressively trying to be unlikable in the story department. For reasons I can't comprehend, everything important in the game is named with the exact same naming convention of "the Noun." I guess it's supposed to sound weighty and serious, but it mostly comes off sounding like Halo fan fiction, written by a 14 year old with an extremely limited vocabulary. Also, Peter Dinklage sounds like he'd rather have been anywhere else while recording lines for this game. 

And yet I want to cut this post short so I can get back to playing it. Because it's fun. Personally I'll take shooting aliens with laser guns over shooting virtual people with recreations of real life weaponry any day (that whole mixture of glorification of American gun culture and ooh-rah military bravado that Call of Duty and Battlefield traffic in really rubs me the wrong way, but that's a blog for another day). 

I don't think the reviews are too harsh. I'd give this game a 7 out of 10, but that's fine. A great story would have been fantastic, but just the sheer fun of shootin-n-lootin is doing it for me right now. I'm excited to see what the game becomes as both Bungie and Activision seem quite committed to it lasting a long time (and raking in a boatload of cash). Go play it!

Twenty Under Twenty (11-20)

Since the Steam sale is on in full force, I thought I'd put the rest of my Twenty Under Twenty list up, just in case you want to grab any of these on sale. Don't forget to check out 1-5 and 6-10.

11. Thomas Was Alone

This one technically came out in 2012, but didn’t reach more platforms till 2013. Thomas Was Alone is a puzzle platformer with an incredibly simple visual style—you literally play as a rectangle, square and other shapes. But it’s the narration, heartfelt story, and beautiful music that make it worth experiencing. The longer I played, the more I wanted to barrel through the puzzles to hear the next bit of story, which turned out to be an endearing sort of sci-fi tale. The wonderful piano and synth soundtrack is on regular rotation in my writing music playlist.

12. Antichamber

This trippy first person puzzle game will break your brain. The stark visuals and Escher-like room layouts force you to look at typical puzzles in new ways. It’s a confusing, confounding, brilliant game, that makes you feel incredibly smart, and shockingly stupid in equal measure. If you liked Portal, Portal 2, or Quantum Conundrum, you’ll love Antichamber.

13. Gunpoint

Gunpoint is a game with purpose. It introduces you to the mechanics, sets up a silly spy-for-hire story, and sets you about the business of breaking and entering. It wraps up in about three hours, not a minute longer than it needs to be, which is actually really refreshing. The witty, playful writing carries you between missions filled with hacking, super jumping and more than a bit of face punching. A surprisingly poignant and interesting ending made me want to immediately play the game over again.

14. Warframe

Warframe is technically under $20 because it’s free to play. I haven’t put any money in it, but I’d say it’s well worth a twenty. Take the co-op, objective-based multiplayer of Mass Effect 3, and mix it with cyber ninjas and item crafting, and you get WarFrame. It’s nice to see a free-to-play game that puts you on the same side as your fellow players. It eliminates the pay-to-win issues that plague competitive free-to-play games. The game has seen quite a few updates over the year, and with its launch on the Playstation 4, it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

15. Don’t Starve

Don’t Starve wears its objective in its name. Your goal is simply to stay alive in a harsh Tim Burton-esque world filled with randomly generated monsters, ghosts, and pig men. Like Minecraft, you can craft things from other things, while building and discovering ever-more elaborate recipes for items like brick walls, torches, lights, and mystic cursed relics. There’s a ton of stuff to discover and an endless amount of replay value, plus it runs in a browser (Chrome) if you want to play it on the go.

16. Rayman Fiesta Run

Yeah, I’m including a phone game, so what. Fiesta Run is even better than the previous game, Jungle Run, thanks to a better structure, cool power ups, and an extremely challenging end game. Rayman runs through stages on his own, it’s your job to jump, punch and glide around and through obstacles. It sounds simple, but requires precise timing and quick reflexes, especially if you want to collect all 100 lums in each level (necessary to unlock the final brutal stages). The absolutely gorgeous hand drawn visuals, the near perfect difficulty curve, and mobile-friendly level elevate Rayman Fiesta Run above “fun for a phone game” to just plain fun.

17. Stealth Bastard Deluxe

Technically another 2012 game, but it saw wider release on more platforms this year (it’s under Stealth Inc on the Playstation Network) with extra levels and features to boot. Stealth Bastard combines the precision platforming of a game like Super Meatboy, with the stealth and light puzzle solving of a 2D Metal Gear. This is a game with pixel art that doesn’t seem as if it’s trying to emulate an old pixel-based game, instead it draws inspiration from more modern games like Splinter Cell and (3D) Metal Gear, with moody lighting and clean lines.

18. Kentucky Route Zero

This episodic adventure game has a quirky sense of humor and a beautiful minimalist art style. The choose-your-own-adventure writing is interesting, though having only played a bit of episode one, I’m not sure how much impact it has on the rest of the game. I’m always a sucker for a cohesive and consistent art style.

19. Monaco

Monaco is one part heist game, one part stealth, and one part Pac-Man. You play as a group of thieves, each with a unique ability, as you navigate around guards, alarms and laser traps on your way to a huge payout. The top-down visuals are simple yet vividly expressive, and the way the darker parts of the map read like a blueprint is both clever and informative. Monaco is fun alone, but really shines with another two or three players. This isn’t a trial and error stealth game, things will go to hell, and it’s usually more fun than frustrating when they do.

20. Gone Home

Gone Home is a very personal tale with granular level of interaction rarely seen in games. Set in the early 90s, you play as a daughter who’s been away traveling and has come home to an empty house. As you search the house for clues—open drawers, peak under beds, sort through papers left on a desk—an interesting and heartfelt story unravels about your family. This game is capital I indie, and not for everyone, but if you’re up for an emotional, intriguing story, check it out. 

The Twenty under Twenty (6-10)

It took a month, but I'm back with more Twenty Under Twenty. Christmas is almost here, and so is the winter Steam sale (where you'll be able to find many of these games for far less, which is a great deal, because they're certainly all worth full price). Here are five more of my favorite twenty games under twenty dollars this year. See the first five here.

6. The Swapper

This puzzle game has a dark and dreary tone and atmosphere, and a beautiful Claymation inspired art style. You play an astronaut on a strange planet, who must use a strange device—the swapper—to navigate the puzzling environment. The swapper creates identical copies of the astronaut, that move in tandem with your own movements. You can switch the astronauts consciousness to the copies to progress through a stage. With clever puzzles, a slightly creepy tone, and some open ended questions on the nature of clones and self-identity, The Swapper is a game that sticks around in your brain.
 

7. Spelunky

Spelunky is an evil game, in a (mostly) good way. You play as a cave explorer with one goal—make it deeper and deeper into the caves. Each stage is randomly generated and filled to the brim with spike traps, explosives, spiders, snakes, skeletons and more. The best part about Spelunky is the feeling of discovery. The more you play, the more you learn about the environments, enemies and random items you can purchase or find. Yes, you get sent back to square one when you die, but you’re sent back with sweet, sweet knowledge. Maybe you’ll make it farther next time? This game is equal parts frustrating and rewarding, and as good as it is on PC, it’s even better on Vita—the perfect jump in/jump out mobile game.

8. Guacamelee

Another game that’s as great on Vita as it is PC. Guacamelee is a combat-platformer (in the Castlevania style) with a wonderful 2D art style and a great sense of humor. You play a farmer turned wrestler on a quest to rid the world of an evil wizard. This game oozes style, with a refreshingly bright color palette. I bought it for the art alone, and was pleased to find it’s a solid and enjoyable game too. If you play it on PC, you get a few extra challenges and the ability to download custom skins for characters.

9. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Everything about this game is ridiculous. Set in the far flung future of 2007, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon puts you in the boots of Rex Colt, cyber soldier and all around badass. If you played Far Cry 3, you’ll be up to speed in no time, as Blood Dragon is just a heavily stylized, faster progressing version of that game. The super neon colors, the goofy cyber lingo, and awesome weapons are great. The game breaks the fourth wall often, and the jokes are hit or miss, but the gameplay is solid. You’ll have many of the cool and convenient abilities you had to play hours to get in Far Cry 3 within a few minutes in Blood Dragon. That alone makes it more accessible and fun.

10. The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

This action RPG is surprisingly deep for a game under $20. You’ll find tons of great loot, an in-depth leveling and skill system, and an entertaining gothic-myth influenced story. The developers recently added controller support, ahead of a supposed console release, which is great if you’re not the type that enjoys click-a-thons. Coming off Diablo 3 on PS3, an absurdly polished  and likely endlessly play-tested game, I was pleasantly surprised with the level of polish in Van Helsing. If you’re in for a stylistic loot grind on PC, and you don’t direct control via gamepad, you can’t go wrong with this one. 

A friendly reminder about video game ratings

Fellow parents: Video games have ratings, just like movies. It's up to you to decide what's appropriate for your kid, but the Entertainment Software Rating Board has a few suggestions.

For example, Grand Theft Auto 5 comes out Tuesday. It's rated M for Mature. That means the content in the game is on par with what you'd see in a rated R movie. If you wouldn't let your 11 year-old watch Pulp Fiction or Scarface you probably shouldn't let them play that game, same goes for any game with an M rating (the rating looks like this). Grand Theft Auto 5 will include scenes of violence, drug use, crime and more (again, much like an R rated crime movie).

The video game industry is currently the whipping boy of the news media, just as violent films, death metal, and comic books were before it. So you might have heard that playing violent video games leads to violent behavior. Truth is, the jury's still out on that one. There aren't any firm, conclusive studies that say little Jason will become a criminal if he plays Grand Theft Auto too young. It probably doesn't help his mind to play that game, but that alone  might not wreck his brain.

So use your best judgement. If you think your kids can handle that stuff, go for it (this kid's parents thought so), but you'll have to buy the game for them--most retailers restrict the sale of M rated games to those under 17, you know, kinda like how most theaters won't let kids under 17 into an R rated movie. 

If you've followed me on any form of social media for longer than a week you can probably tell I'm super into video games. I love playing them, but I also love following the industry, watching it grow, keeping up with the issues it's currently grappling with and more. So if you have a question about a particular game and would like help deciding if it's right for your kids, please ask.  I wouldn't call myself an expert, but I've been paid to play and think critically about games before, so maybe that's worth something to you.

This concludes today's public service announcement. Hooray for responsible parenting!

Here's a quick aside I couldn't fit into my PSA: 

 When I was around 11 or 12 my brothers and I rented Resident Evil from Blockbuster. This was right when the ESRB started rating games, so few retailers enforced them. My mom walked in on a gruesome scene of a zombie devouring a person and immediately made us turn the game off and take it back to Blockbuster. We complained, because we were kids and moms just aren't fair. But now, I'm a parent, and see that was the right thing to do--not so much the action of making us return it, but being involved in what our brains were consuming. Sure, I just went to my friend's house and played it there later that night, but I had nightmares for several days. More importantly, I knew where my parents stood when it came to that sort of game.

These days there are a zillion more games to choose from--meaning I'll have an easier time directing my son away from Resident Evil 9 and toward something more age appropriate. Let me know if you ever need a suggestion.

Steam Summer Sale Aftermath

During the summer Steam sale I give myself 50 to 60 bucks to use on games. For the price of one new retail console game, I can usually scoop up at least a half dozen games (this is why if you don’t play games on your PC, you should). Most of what I’m after these days are indie games. All the real innovation happens there, where gigantic budgets and huge workforces don’t drive developers into risk averse blandness.

Here’s what I picked up this year:

Dishonored

I know, I just said I was after indie games, but this AAA blockbuster is a new IP and I found the exaggerated steam punk aesthetic appealing (and it was 10 bucks!). Also, Austin Grossman, writer of one of my favorite books, worked on the story. So that’s a plus. I’ve played two or three hours so far and it’s a lot of fun. It’s a little annoying that they give you so many weapons and powers to be a badass assassin, and then incentivize you to NOT use them by avoiding all conflict. Seems silly and very video gamey. When I play, I take out who I have to, like a real magical badass assassin would.

Dust: An Elysian Tail

Not sure how I feel about Dust. On one hand I love the attention to detail and the hand drawn art and smooth animation. I also appreciate that the entire game was made largely by one dude. On the other hand, the story is typical over-serious anime melodrama, the color palette is all over the place and the character designs are generic. They’re all anthropomorphic animals, but instead of leaning more towards animals, like the Sly Cooper series, they lean more towards human—to the point that some characters look like straight up dudes with triangle noses and cat ears. It’s weird. The unfunny screechy sidekick who constantly breaks the fourth wall to make a lame joke doesn’t help things either. I’ve played 2.5 hours of this one. The mechanics are solid, so I might come back later on, but it’s lower on the list.

Gunpoint

I heard great things about this game on the Idle Thumbs podcast. Unfortunately, despite being able to run Dishonored, a AAA game, on the highest settings, Gunpoint, with its simple retro graphics, cripples my computer. Maybe it’s poorly optimized or maybe I have something turned on I shouldn’t. I’ll load this game up on my laptop and see if I can run it there (this is the downside of PC gaming). Heard it has fun mechanics and snappy writing. Looking forward to playing it.

Rogue Legacy

Got this game on the last day of the Steam sale and after playing an hour, I’m kicking myself for not getting it earlier. Rogue Legacy is absurdly addicting. It’s like an endless runner/adventure game with loot and persistent leveling and quasi perma-death and retro graphics and cheeky writing. It’s stupid fun. If I were to recommend any one game from this list, it would be this one. Even at the non-sale price of $14.99, this game is a great deal.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

I haven’t played this one yet, and I don’t plan to for a while. I wanted a loot-driven adventure game (after having struck out with Lord of The Rings: War In The North—paid $4 to find out the PC version has no local co-op for me and my wife to play together) and this one looks fun. I’m holding off on playing it because the developers are going to patch in controller support in the coming months. I like Diablo-style games, but prefer direct control over constant clicking.

Get any games during the Steam sale? Let me know! I’m always on the lookout for fun new experiences.