The Old World: Alterac Mountains.

Welcome to what I hope will get my game writing creative juices flowing, two subjects that are hard to go wrong for me: environment design, and World of Warcraft. To put it simply, in this (Hopefully) series of posts, I want to take a look back at some of the more notable zones in WoW Classic. Zones that changed heavily with Cataclysm, and thus no longer have the same feel, or design, as they once did, but are now preserved inside WoW classic, hopefully forever!

To kick things off, I thought I’d start with a zone that has long fascinated me as a player. All the way back to when I first started playing World of Warcraft: Alterac Mountains. If you’ve only played World of Warcraft in the post Cataclysm Era, you may well be thinking “That isn’t a zone”, but here’s the neat part, it never really was! Oh sure, Alterac Mountains had it’s own map, and it’s own set of neat things to find, but beyond five or six quests, that didn’t even start in the zone itself, there really wasn’t much to find there. That said, that’s what made it so fascinating to me the whole time!

Of course Alterac has it’s place in Warcraft Lore, home of the kingdom that betrayed The Alliance and was destroyed for it. Home to the original location of Dalaran (Still there, as of The Burning Crusade), and an important area of the kingdom of Lordaeron all the same. So somehow with all of that to work with, how is it that there’s so little to actually do in the zone? It has a snowy mountain core, and some hilly grasslands, but not a whole lot to find in either place.

There really aren’t that many quests that have much to do with Alterac. You’ll be sent to kill a few wizards, silence a few turncoat Forsaken, asked to steal some syndicate plans, but nothing with any kind of story through line, just scattered tasks. That lack of cohesion is, to me, what made this such a fascinating place to explore. It’s like there was this whole grand zone, with so much to find, just left to rot on live servers with no real plan, or idea of what it’s supposed to be.

The Lordamere Internment Camp is a fun example of everything WoW needing to be scaled down as an open world. I’ll be honest, thousands of orcs probably didn’t fit in those two buildings.

Going there yourself reveals so many interesting sights even beyond the big points I’ve already touched. The claw like mountains overlooking Hillsbrad offer the best view a 2007 level of distance fog could handle. The southern shore of Lordamere Lake’s long easy curve as it makes contact with the land, is a small little piece of natural beauty still left in a land that had been so thoroughly ravaged by the army’s of the scourge. The farmstead in the northeastern corner of the zone that seems, against all odds, to actually be a functioning settlement so close to the Undercity. There’s much to see, and more to find, even if nobody actually points you in it’s direction.

During Cataclysm, when the map was being changed, altered, and in some cases condensed: Alterac Mountains ceased to be. Obviously, it was still there, it never actually left the game, and many of the same sights I brought up in this post are still there for you to find. In reality, all that happened was the zone became combined with Hillsbrad Foothills. And frankly, it wasn’t the worst idea. The two zones flow into each so naturally it’s actually a bit a odd they weren’t always just one place. After all, for a zone with the word “Hill” in it twice, it was always sort of odd that going uphill in any real way in Hillsbrad would invariably bring you to a different zone.

Alterac Mountains is an odd place. A full zone by name, the location of one a battleground entrance even, but still a little forgotten piece of one of the, at the time, biggest games around. I’ve imagined many more things that could have been done with Alterac, but of course, it’s far from the most important place in the game. Until we get that Lordaeron revamp expansion of course, I’ll just be over counting the days down to that theoretical beauty. Well that, and continuing to love Azeroth and everything in it.

Bread’s Game Journal 05/15/22: I Figured Out The Problem With Cyberpunk 2077, There’s No Geralt.

So, I’ve been playing Cyberpunk 2077 again, this time making a lot more progress than the last time I tried to get into it. For the most part I’ve been enjoying myself quite a bit! Far from the disaster the game was when it launched, now it’s a really solid open world action adventure game, with some excellent details around the edges of it’s crazy future city. One thing’s been bothering me though, and I just tonight really came to grips with what it is: Geralt isn’t in this game.

I don’t mean that as some kind of gag statement, or ironic diss, either. Witcher 3, I would argue, shared a lot of the same flaws and jank as Cyberpunk 2077, so I wondered for awhile why it got by so much easier. Having played for about ten hours now, I really do feel like the answer was just Geralt the entire time. Cyberpunk is a deeply cynical game, in a lot of ways, and even though Geralt was an often cynical character, his presence went a long way to lightening up the similarly dour Witcher 3.

Ithink the writers of Cyberpunk thought they had a Geralt, in the form of Keanu Reeve’s Johnny Silverhand, but I’d argue against that as well. Johnny is one of the most powerfully nihilistic characters I’ve ever seen in a video game, and importantly, I don’t think Keanu ever really got a handle on that all that well. I think his cynical attitude and harsh view of everything and everyone was supposed to be made endearing through the Keanu Reeves performance, but it never really shines through.

Meanwhile, Doug Cockles performance as Geralt went a very long way in making him as endearing as he was. Geralt was a cynical old man, sure, but he wasn’t just doing it because he hated everyone. Geralt was ultimately just someone’s exasperated dad, being forced day in and day out to deal with a veritable murderers row of people he didn’t much care for, and it never stopped being charming. Largely because no matter how much bunk he had to put up with, Geralt just pushed through it anyway and made the best of whatever bad situation. Johnny just complains, and to be fair, all Johnny cando is complain, due to the nature of the way he exists at all within the story.

To be clear, I’m enjoying the game. I’m also enjoying hearing Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand whenever he shows up to voice his opinion (which is a lot!). There was just something bothering me about the game since the start, and here I finally figured it out. Well at least I wrote about it a bit, I think, maybe I haven’t figured out anything. What do you think Johnny?

Yeah I guess that’s about right.

Bread’s Game Journal 04/30/22: Zero Build Reveals The Awful Truth, I’m Bad At Fortnite.

Well, either that, or the fact that I primarily play the game while on an exercise bike as a way to keep my mind half focused on something that isn’t pain. Probably that first thing, though. It’s been almost two years now since I’ve actively gotten into Fortnite, which seems like an insane thing to say. When I first stared “seriously” playing, it was largely just because my best friend was newly obsessed with the game because of the Marvel season, but then I bought that Battle Pass and now I’ve never recovered.

Zero Build is easily the largest change to the game since I started playing. What started out as a plot twist that de-activated the ability to build any structures is now a permanent option. It’s largely the same game, with a couple new movement features and a lack the aforementioned structure building. Even so, it’s a big change in the way the game flows. You don’t have to worry about people building some kind of insane structure you’ll never break through, but you also don’t have the ability to create your own cover anymore either!

Instead the game now has this very basic, down to brass tacks style battle royale charm that it always felt like it had just under the building surface. It’s a far more approachable experience, without the endless complications that came from every player other than you being some kind of super fast nightmare person throwing up a castle in under 2 seconds. Now I’m free to do what I do best in multiplayer games, not pay attention to sounds and get sniped in one shot because I was paying more attention to a podcast than I was to the game.

Unless you’re reading this, Raven, in which case I’m still better at the game than you, and I have more Peely’s.

Bread’s Game Journal 04/29/22: Congratulations Vampire Survivors, You Play Yourself.

Vampire Survivors has been out for awhile, it costs $3, multiple people I know have told me I would really like it, and I only just got around to buying and playing it. I’m the fool in this situation, because this game rips.

If you haven’t heard of Vampire Survivors before, I’ll lay it out simply: Imagine Castlevania, but in a big open level, the game does all the attacks for you in a constant cycle, then add in ten thousand skeletons who all want to whip you to death. It’s honestly hard to get down to a concise description, because it’s a supremely odd game, one that wouldn’t even really be out of place on Newgrounds in 2002. It’s a game out of time, and it rules.

As I said before, all of the attacks are done for you. All your job as the player is, grab the experience point gems as quickly and safely as you can, as thousands of monsters descend on you. It sounds imposing and difficult, but the key thing about those aforementioned attacks: they’re all insanely powerful. Axes carve through multiple enemies in an arc, Garlic radiates an aura that constantly damages any enemy that gets too close, the whip lashes out to your left and right at regular intervals, and there’s even a bird friend who drops bombs on enemies in a random pattern.

Even with the ever increasing power you work with, though, the hordes of enemies only get bigger and stronger. It’s a constant arms race to stay ahead of the monsters, making your own auto attacks even more powerful and wide reaching all the time. By the end of one round today, I had an aura of garlic so powerful I could basically stand still for a few minutes before any monster actually got close enough to damage me without disintegrating.

But that power is all too easy to lull you into slowing down, because no matter how strong you get, your enemies are increasing in power as well. Bats become skeletons, skeletons become ghosts, ghosts become werewolves, and so on and so forth. All more dangerous than the last, making what was once a hyper overpowered build simply not enough. Keeping you on the move and making the need for more XP an ever growing concern.

Honestly I’ve written so much about this game but all I really need to say is this: This is on Steam, it will run on basically any computer, and it costs $3. It would be a steal at 15, and it’s about the cost of a bag of chips. I would urge anyone looking for something silly, simple, and fun to spend time with, to check this game out right away. Don’t wait like three months like me, who, again, is a fool.

Bread’s Game Journal 04/28/22: Boy, That Scott Pilgrim Game Has Aged Weird.

The year is 2010, I am still a teenager working at the local amusement park. I am not paid a lot, but I bought and read every volume of Scott Pilgrim, the movie is coming out, and I couldn’t be more amped! I even bought and played the fantastic tie in game, with excellent music and impressive sprite work to spare, I have a great time with it all. Years later, it’s delisted, and quickly the Scott Pilgrim movie tie in game becomes a holy grail for a lot of people.

The year is 2022, I just finished playing Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World with a friend of mine on my Nintendo Switch, and it’s…..not great. I am no longer having all that good of a time! So yeah, my revisit of the Scott Pilgrim game didn’t exactly go as I had hoped it would. Somewhere along the line my brain must have simply forgotten the cheaper aspects of this game, and boy are there a lot of them.

To lead off with something positive, what I said about the music and sprite work holds true. As a piece of visual and musical art, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World holds up beautifully! The problems arise when you get down to actually playing the thing. Most notably, this game is brutally difficult, and explains itself very poorly! I guess we all must have forgotten this, because I can tell you that I sure did. What looks outwardly like a classic Beat ‘Em Up game is in fact this awkward pseudo action RPG, that has very little chill.

Me and a friend went through the game on a pretty direct path, and even though I remembered that you’re supposed to spend the money you pick up on food for extra XP, by the last few levels we were severely outpowered by even the basic enemies. Making matters worse is the enemies tendency to exploit the fact that this game inexplicably doesn’t have any kind of grace period after being attacked, unlike many other in the Beat Em Up genre, we would get combo’d down pretty fast by random mooks and be dead before we even really had a chance to respond to what was happening, it made for a lot of frustrating moments in a game I really remember being a lot more fun than this!

This post doesn’t really have anywhere to go, other than voicing some frustration with a game that’s aged a little worse than I think a lot of us assumed it had. It’s compounded by the fact that it’s become this kind of holy grail after it’s initial de-listing. I guess after all this time, I was hoping for something to bring me back to that fun time. Instead this just reminds me that we omit some things from some of the classics we like.

Except the things I like, of course. Those are flawless.

Bread’s Game Journal 04/26/22: Survival Hunter’s Hidden Class Fantasy, The Wandering Warrior.

Survival Hunter has a bit of a weird reputation, and it’s hard not to understand why. It’s no secret that Blizzard has never really known what to do with Hunter’s, one of the most played DPS classes in World of Warcraft, third talent tree spec. I always think back to the days when it was largely focused on Hunters in Vanilla through Wrath of The Lich King using Melee weapons and traps, two things most players could easily agreed on being a terrible idea in most situations. It wasn’t even until Legion that Survival Hunter became the fully up close melee class it is now, but to me, it became something way cooler: The Wandering Warrior.

It’s a ridiculous name for me to call it, I know, considering there’s already a whole other class called that. Even that said, there’s a distinct fantasy I get playing Survival Hunter, and it’s the best way I have to describe it. Rather than just the red-headed step child of the Hunter’s would be Talent Tree’s, I tend to view Survival Hunter as it’s distinct own class and experience.

To me, Survival is a Warrior who’s learned not to fight alone, always accompanied by their cadre of animals friends who fight the same way you do: up close and personal. Obviously, their reliance on Pole Arms as a sole form of usable weapon makes them seem less like a traditionally sword or axe wielding Warrior, but that’s where Transmog picks up the slack! Their move set, as well, screams specialized thing, but I always view it as “Warrior who has picked up a few tricks.”. Underhanded crossbow use, synced attacks with your pet tiger, poisons, hell a lot of these skills sound like a Rogue if you want to look at it that way!

All the time I play Survival, I like to view myself as a lone wanderer type. Not just because people probably can’t stand the smell of whatever kind of rotting seaweed my Forsaken reeks of, but because they’ve long since left the idea of the pure warrior behind, and adapted to new types of attack since they met whatever canon animal friend you love on your Hunter characters (For me, always got to be a tiger! Rep to Rosie, the real one.). I always thought it was a fun way to look at a largely ignored class, and class fantasy is always something that it’s important for me to enjoy when I pick out a class to play in RPG’s.

I know Survival isn’t a very popular class in general, but maybe this can help people feel a bit cooler when giving it a try! I think it should be way more popular than it tends to be! Plus, none of y'all have lived until you’ve gotten good at using that reverse Scorpion spear throw charge move. That thing’s worth the playtime by itself.

Bread’s Game Journal 04/25/22: I’ve Beaten Sifu Six Times And I Can’t Stop.

Sifu is an obsession with me, at this point. What started out as a game I was immediately interested in from the reviews, has turned into a game that stands no chance of losing the top spot in my personal GOTY rankings this year. There’s so many things to talk about it in regards to why I feel this way, but the number one reason is always just going to come down to how much of a joy it is just to play.

Maybe I shouldn’t even really be surprised by that, when I think about it. The game is built around the concept of playing levels over and over again until you can get through them without a flaw, after all. I guess I just didn’t expect for it to get it’s hooks in me quite as deep as it actually did! I can reliably beat the first three bosses without taking any deaths, and the thugs they employ between me and them don’t even stand a chance! It all feels fantastic to play.

For so long I’ve wanted a game like this, and before now I got versions of it that we’re halfway there, but never quite what I needed. The Batman Arkham games, are good examples, the free flow of those games combat was always the best feeling Kung-Fu style gameplay in the business. Sleeping Dogs, as well, deserves a mention here, for the way it blended more brawler style gameplay in with the type of flowing combat found in Batman, but again, doesn’t match what Sifu now brings to the table.

I know Sloclap has made combat focused games before, but I desperately hope the keep up this level of quality in the future of their dev. A bright future, I might predict. Every fiber of my being hopes they release some kind of expansion, or a level randomizer, or anything. Just something to give me an excuse to keep playing Sifu! Not that I really need one right now anyway! Playthrough number seven is already underway, and none of you can stop me.

Alliance Players for two expansions: Burning Teldrassil is unforgivable, the Horde has passed the event horizon, I can never play them again.

Me playing my Forsaken Warlock main:

Bread’s Game Journal 04/19/22: Grizzly Hills 2: Grizzlier Hills.

Hell yeah, a new WoW expansion was revealed today! More content for my all time favorite game is always a good thing, and from the looks of things, Dragonflight is off to a great start! New race, new class, new continent (See you in hell separate zones only accessible by flight path!), Dragon Riding, revamped professions, it’s all really exciting!

That said, I’m hyper fixated on one thing they showed today and I know that I’m gonna be until I get there in my playthrough: the Azure Span. Blizzard directly name dropped Grizzly Hills as an inspiration for this zone today, and if you know anything about me, you know I love that place. Hell, I have that place set as my Steam VR home so I can load into it whenever I play VR games, I would live in it if it was real.

From what little we’ve seen it’s obviously taking after Grizzly Hills, but more so, I think it might just be taking after Northrend in general? It has snow, towering red-woods, orange tundra, furbolgs etc etc. Hell, it even has Tuskarr! With great new models! Did we ever think we were going to see those guys again!? Cause I sure didn’t. There’s a lot to look forward to in Dragonflight, but I already know where the bulk of my hype is centered!

The best ending to Bethesda style open world games is always as follows:

“I’m gonna fight you!”

“(Speech 100) No you aren’t.”

“Shit, yeah, you’re right.”

*Slideshow ending*

Bread’s Game Journal 03/20/22: Okay, Horizon Forbidden West’s Plot Is Insane, And I Adore It.

*Spoilers for Horizon Forbidden West*

You know, I thought I had a pretty good idea as to where the plot of the sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn was going to go, but I was wrong. The first game left a large amount of things open, of course, like any good beginning chapter does. Who activated HADES? What was Sylens planning to do with the rogue A.I now that he has it contained. Will GAIA ever managed to make it back?

Forbidden West looks to the stars for answers, literally! Not only was “A SpaceX style cult descending from the stars to terraform earth a second time.” not the answer I expected to get, I sure as hell didn’t see “By the way, these space people are over a thousand years old, from the old world, and have become techno human slash immortal god hybrids.” coming. And that’s not even the only wild thing in this plot either. At one point there’s an implied eldritch horror just off screen while a crazy guy rants that he’s the reincarnation of the idiot who destroyed the old world in the first place (and then naturally, turned into an unseen eldritch horror)!

Horizon is an unabashedly science fiction franchise. Even still, I’m not sure I expected space goddess Carrie Anne Moss, draped in gold and white space clothing and a powered energy shield, to have breakfast with me in the ruins of San Francisco. This games story rules.

Me wandering into some random ruin and seeing a Stake Of Marika:

Bread’s Game Journal 03/05/22: Oh No I’m Playing Elden Ring.

You know, I really shouldn’t have bought Elden Ring before I finished Horizon Forbidden West. It’s not like I’m about to drop Horizon or anything, but I do know that, as of right now, I have too much on my plate. But does that really matter, because frankly, both of these games rule.

I’ve only played Elden Ring for a little over four hours at this point but damn if I’m not enthralled! I haven’t felt this way about a big open world like this since Breath of the Wild, which of course this game shares a lot of it’s DNA with. I mean I’m not even really out of the starting zone and I already have some wild stories to tell. A dragon keeps trying to kill me, a treasure chest tricked me and teleported me into some terrible mine somewhere far away, I fought a big group of goblins in a pitch black cave!

The game, thus far anyway, is both easier and more difficult than any Souls game before it. Easier in the larger variety of options and places to see and explore if you just don’t want to fight any big bosses or anything. Harder, that when you do stop to go fight those big bosses….they’re bigger than ever. Some of the enemies in this game are absolutely brutal, too. In just four hours I can no longer count on only two hands the amount of time some horrible creature has just annihilated me before I could get a good handle on how I need to deal with them!

I’m sure I gonna have a lot more fun the further I get into the game, meanwhile playing both Horizon Forbidden West and my old Standby, WoW, so that I don’t completely lose my mind of course. And hey, if I could beat Sifu, I can beat this….I think.

Bread’s Game Journal 03/01/22: What Garners An Emotional Response In Horizon Forbidden West, Stays In Vegas.

*Mid Game Spoilers for Horizon Forbidden West*

Horizon Zero Dawn is a game I had a complicated path to enjoyment in. Mostly just in that, for whatever reason, it took me like four separate tries to get into the game, with each start and stop increasingly more random in ways that never really made sense. Happily, I haven’t had that problem with Horizon Forbidden West. Something about this game has clicked fairly quickly, and I’m finding a ton to appreciate every time I play it.

I wanted to write, tonight, about one part of the game in particular, the ruins of Las Vegas, and the surprising emotional payoff it brought with it. Horizon is good at mining meaning and pathos out of things that, we as the players, understand mean little or nothing. Most locations in the game world aren’t even ever referred to by their actual past names, even if it’s clear to the player what those names are, but interestingly, Vegas is spelled out to the player from the start.

The basic plot of the section is simple, Aloy needs the Poseidon Program, which has entrenched itself in some kind of dome underneath the ruins of Las Vegas, and there’s a team of salvagers already there when you arrive, this is of course, where things get interesting. The salvagers aren’t rough and tumble types looking for riches, they’re looking for “Embers”. It isn’t immediately clear what an ember is, but the first real thing you learn is that the leader of this group has a deep emotional attachment to them, and you fully buy into his need to get them out of the watery grave they find themselves in.

In the kind of ironic twist these types of stories love, it turns out “Embers” are little more than cheap holograms used to advertise casinos. Importantly though, that doesn’t change anything. There’s no reveal that crushes the salvagers spirt, he’s fascinated by these things in an incredibly genuine way. He speaks of seeing a hologram of a buxom woman directing him towards a buffet as a child, and describes it as high art that changed his life without even a drip of ironic humor. The best part is that the voice over performance is so well done, and so well directed, that you really do believe everything he says.

And it’s not just the salvagers either, throughout the quest you find brief but enlightening data points filling in a little bit of the backstory of this zone in fantastic ways. The story makes it clear that, long before the world died, Vegas was abandoned. Unable to sustain itself in the middle of a climate change ravaged desert, everyone left, which devastated one man who truly loved the city. Without getting too much into the details of the story, the important thing is, that when Vegas was truly lost, that man made the decision to simply leave Vegas “On”, so to speak.

Even knowing that it was all hacky lights and tricks, he believed in Las Vegas. In simply leaving all the machinery on in standby mode, he hoped that someday it would mean something to someone else again. He was right, of course, as I said before, Morlund, the salvager thinks of Las Vegas a paradise of wonder on this earth, and he’s keeping the dream of this long ago mogul alive.

All of this is really a long way of saying: Horizon Forbidden west specializes in finding pathos and genuine emotion in areas that could otherwise be filled with cheap jokes and other played out tropes. It can spend an entire main story quest set in the now underwater ruins of Las Vegas hammering home how important this shackle of ruins is to two people in this world, and it never feels out of place. Those two characters have such a genuine love, that you might find yourself like me in the big payoff at the end. Tearing up a bit because someone, somewhere, just made the choice to leave the lights on, and influenced more than they could have possibly known.

Bread’s Game Journal 02/22/22: In Sifu, Mercy is The Coolest Feeling In The World.

*Spoilers for Sifu*

There’s something truly unique about the way Sifu handles the idea of a New Game Plus that leads to a secret ending. Unlike a lot of other games that go with this setup, it doesn’t take all that long. Nor is achieving the proverbial “True” ending actually all that difficult. A statement that sounds bizarre when you consider how difficult the game itself has been up to this point, but then, that’s just the thing.

As a reminder, the only way to get the true ending in Sifu is to understand that vengeance won’t solve anything, and exploit the hidden mercy mechanic in each of the boss fights. Essentially via letting all the bosses know that you can easily kill them, but are choosing not to, by breaking their structure meter twice in one fight. Doing so sounds like it’s going to be a hassle, some of these bosses are a huge pain to beat at all, let alone beating in a specific way that requires you to be actively careful not to kill them.

The thing is though, it isn’t. By the point in the game that you’re going back to fight all these bosses again, if you’re anything like me, they don’t stand a chance. Fajar becomes utterly predictable and can be beaten flawlessly before he even really has a chance to gain the upper hand. Shaun, a total nightmare when you first fight him, has become a big predictable lug who will fall victim to your kidney punch stuns over and over until the battle is over. Even Kuriko, who’s extreme speed and difficult to predict patterns can’t stand up to you after you’ve fought her a dozen times trying to get your age down for the next run during your first playthrough.

This new lack of difficulty from a previously brutally difficult game makes you, the player, feel just as you should in these mercy giving situations. In the story of the game, the lead character wants these kung-fu masters to know that he’s easily beaten them, and that they have to live with that knowledge. A feeling that translates perfectly to the player when you just trounced a boss that used to kick your ass up and down the room.

I’ll be real, there’s a not insignificant chance that Sifu is my game of the year. Still too early to completely tell, but I doubt I’m going to feel the same things I felt playing this game again. I urge anyone who likes action games to give it a try.

Bread’s Game Journal 02/12/22: The Key To Winning In Sifu Is Disrespect.

Sifu is a difficult game, for a number of reasons. It’s difficult to pinpoint why I love it so much, when normally I bounce off these ultra hard action games. It’s difficult to get a grip on what the game actually expects of you a lot of the time. Hell, even the aging mechanic is difficult to wrap your mind around at the first, with the game actually telling you very little about it or how it works.

One thing that hasn’t been all that hard to figure out though, is how to get ahead, and that’s disrespect. I refer to it this way because a lot of this game expects you to treat it with some level of respect, but it’s all a ruse to make you perform worse. An enemy wants an honorable duel? Throw a bottle in their face while they’re talking and get a few free hits in to shift the battle your way. Go directly for any weak link you see. Use dirty tricks and crotch shots to throw your enemies off guard. In a lot of other games, the things you need to do in this game to get ahead would probably be considered cheesing.

But all of that is what makes this such an interesting game to play. The combat system is damn near flawlessly designed. Certainly the best hand to hand system since the Batman games, it flows better than anyone could have imagined. The levels are so well designed that replaying them over and over doesn’t get old. Even the boss fights, as frustrating as they can get, all present a very interesting challenge.

I’m not even close to done with Sifu, but I know I have to keep with it. It’s just a joy to play. Just, you know, once again, don’t treat any of your opponents very well.

Bread’s Game Journal: 01/23/2022: Roiland Voices The Universe

You know, I’m not actually too big a fan of the most well known Justin Roiland thing. Even so, the guy has a hell of a voice for comedy, and can really mine some good jokes out some breathless long takes. I’ve not played a ton of Trover Saves The Universe yet, so this post is light on a lot of info, but from what I have played I can gather one thing. This game is pretty much just endless Roiland improvisation that was worked into some kind of bizarre sci-fi VR game, and it works so far.

In what felt like ten minutes I found out I’m a chair dwelling alien known as a “Chairopian”, some kind of giant beaked monster stole my dogs and called me a dick, and a purple man gave me one of his eye babies so I could control his actions because he was tired. This isn’t even getting into the racist old man who I maybe sort of beat up? Or the inter universe teleportation pod I found myself stuck in on a quest to get Trover his space cash.

Basically, in thirty minutes of playing this game, a LOT has happened. I’m looking forward to seeing what else it throws at me….I think? I’m expecting some wild stuff to go down, more or less. Also expecting to laugh.

Bread’s Game Journal 01/21/22: VResident VRevil VRfour.

I finished Resident Evil 4 VR today, and overall, it was a fantastic time. I wrote about this last week already so this post will be brief, but I really have to reiterate how fantastic of a job Capcom and Armature did with this new port of such a classic game. Parts of the game that I was sure would be worked around or presented in some kind of strange third person fashion were routinely fully re-worked to be VR experiences through and through.

Resident Evil 4 drags a little bit near the end, this is something we all know, but I have to say, the VR element really revitalizes a lot of the parts of the final third of the game that grind on re-play. The fight with Krauser, for example, is a bit of an annoying cat and mouse game in the original version, but here, simply by the way you’re seeing the world, it becomes far more thrilling. The Regenaradors were always creepy, but never really that much of a threat once you figured out how to deal with them. Now though? Try turning a corner and seeing one of the Iron Maiden’s directly in your face, complete with that ragged breathing filling your ears with 3D audio, it’s intense!

Even that big Jet Ski escape has more work put into it than you’d ever expect! Hell, I would have forgiven them for skipping over that one, I can’t imagine any game dev would want to design a full VR seadoo section for the twenty seconds it’s active, but they did it! They went above and beyond with this version of the game, and now when I go back to play RE4 as I tend to do once a year, this version is going to be in hot contention with the original as the preferred experience, that’s for sure!

Oh, but they did remove the part where Ashley awkwardly comes onto Leon at the end, only for him to brutally reject her , so maybe actually this is the worst version of the game?

Bread’s Game Journal 01/18/21: Microsoft Is Buying Activision-Blizzard And I Am Very Happy.

To come out in front of this, let me just say, yes Monopolies are bad for any creative industry in which they’re present. That said, I not only have no qualms with Microsoft buying Activision-Blizzard for near 70 billion dollars, I am in fact completely ecstatic that it’s happened. Let’s not beat around the bush here, Activision-Blizzard has had a rough year, or so, in the news. Widespread abuse revelations, constant delays, Booby Kotick in general, it was pretty much one long downhill slope. Now though? Now I have some hope, and let me explain why.

Activision in general holds, arguably, about 80% of the IP’s that are important to me as someone who loves video games. A few years ago they actually started doing something with some of the bigger ones they held. Crash and Spyro got fantastic remakes, Crash got a new game, even Tony Hawk came back for a brief, but fantastic remake of the first two games. Then none of those games made a billion dollars, and Activision threw them all in the hottest pile of trash you’ve ever seen without a second thought.

Activision is one of the most brutally stupid companies to ever exist. They’re so obsessed with sure thing bets, that they’ve taken almost every studio they own, all of whom have shown great talent in the past, and place them all on one franchise, instead of growing any kind of diversity of output. But now, we might actually be free. You know what company of late has shown a fantastic willingness to use their IP to explore new and different genres? Microsoft. You know what company wants and needs smaller budget content that doesn’t necessarily need to make a trillion dollars? Microsoft. And they’re the ones who bought Activision! You see where I’m going with this?!

None of this is even to mention the possibilities laid now in front of existing games. Could you imagine some kind of World of Warcraft subscription being added to PC Gamepass? It wouldn’t just save some of us a lot of money, but could cause a large new base of people to discover the game! Overwatch could see an influx of players. Even just adding the back catalog of games from the Activision-Blizzard lineup could drive Game Pass numbers for a long time. Imagine a day when Call of Duty games, which are notorious for stubbornly keeping their full price even years after they’re irrelevant, are all added to Game Pass for players to easily access whenever they wanted.

Again, I know it’s isn’t super thrilling to see the makings of a monopoly form, but you know what? Right now I truly don’t care. For me, this is indisputable good news. I truly cannot wait for this deal to go all the way through, and to finally feel excited about the future of these IP again. Because boy, do I gotta say, I’m sick as hell of just sort of shrugging and thinking “Well, at lest WoW still makes enough money for them to keep making more of it.”.

Me logging into Fortnite today.