Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Review: “Meet the New Boss”

Back with a vengeance

(This review contains spoilers!)

          So after I really disliked last week’s premiere, I was hoping that S.H.I.E.L.D would do what it always does and bounce back with a crazy surprise of some description.

          While this episode wasn’t exactly up to the lofty standards the show’s set for itself in the past, it was a clear improvement on where we started, and left me looking forward to what’s coming next.

          The central focus of this episode was establishing the ghost storyline that began last week, as four of the spookums gathered to…do something. I guess they’re trying to get revenge on whoever turned them into ghosts, but it wasn’t made clear. Ultimately, they were the weakest part of the episode, with some pretty lackluster effects and acting. Fortunately, Ghost Rider returned as well, and he was just as awesome as last week.

          The other major focus was May, who’s been cursed by one of the ghosts and is slowly going insane. Her descent was excellently portrayed by Ming-Na Wen, who continues to be the show’s secret weapon. I really feel that May’s sort of been benched these past few seasons as characters like Daisy and Mack get more of the spotlight, so it’s nice to see her in a starring role again.

          Speaking of Daisy, I’m sorry, but I can’t take her seriously in that outfit. She looks like a 14 year old goth kid after a Hot Topic shopping spree, and acts the part too. With Hunter, Bobbi and Lincoln all gone, she’s easily my least favourite character on the main cast right now.

          While we didn’t see much of everyone else this week, we did get our first look at the new director, who goes by the extremely intimidating name of…Jeffrey.

          In all seriousness though, I found everything about the new director to be fantastic. I love that he can be charming and cool when he wants to be, but that there’s a definite darkness there. I love how he made the ultimate decision to send May away after her insanity peaks because he knew Coulson couldn’t do that himself. And I think the fact they’ve made him an Inhuman is a fantastic idea. One has to wonder if the Sokovia Accords have anything to do with him being appointed as director.

          This was a real return to form for S.H.I.E.L.D in my eyes. After the joyless premiere, this was an excellent way to come back with more of the things I love about the show. I’m still not sold on the ghosts (nor do I like the robot subplot, which was thankfully absent this week), but I’m interested in seeing where it goes. If we can get more episodes like this, this season just might be able to save itself from its clichéd plotlines.

FINAL SCORE

7/10

Good

Editorial: Memelight

Memelight

          It’s easy to give Valve a lot of grief these days. Not only have they all but abandoned game development (included the much anticipated Half-Life 3), while the Steam platform is still an excellent place to play PC games, Valve’s hands off approach to quality control is continuing to cause issues on the service.

          Some really weird stuff has gotten onto the storefront, from games based around memes, to games with less gameplay than cutscenes, to games that shamelessly flaunt around stolen assets, to games that are nothing but a stolen asset pack.

Now, normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. However, Steam’s main page and Steam Greenlight’s homepage operate on very “first come first serve” basis. Unless they’re a triple-A release, games have an extremely short time in the spotlight on the New Releases page.

Imagine you’re a struggling indie dev who’s just finished their first game. You’ve uploaded it to Greenlight, and your fingers are crossed that people will vote for it.

Unfortunately, your game got the unfortunate luck of being uploaded on the same day one of Greenlight’s resident sleazebags decided to dump 20 different asset-flips onto Greenlight at once. Like magic, your game has vanished from the store page, and now resides in the bowels of Greenlight.

It’s no surprise that people like Jim Sterling are trying to shine a spotlight on these poor unfortunate games. Because of how fast you have to be to catch something on the homepage, it’s easy for people to overlook your game in the flood of sheer garbage. I’ve even seen people give up on Greenlight entirely because of this, which is a shame, because there can be some really great stuff on there.

          This all came to a head last week, as longtime Greenlight presence Digital Homicide finally blew its load after asking Valve to give them the personal information of 100 users who dared to give their games bad reviews. If you’re unfamiliar with DigiHom, they’re two brothers notorious for attacking Steam with dozens of asset flips at a time, hiding behind fake company names so people won’t know it’s them, and their seemingly endless feud with previously mentioned critic and YouTuber Jim Sterling.

          Valve ultimately decided to give Digital Homicide the boot once and for all, but this shows me, clear as day, exactly what’s wrong with Steam. The fact that these brothers got as far as they did before Valve finally decided to manually remove them is frightening. They aren’t the only ones causing trouble on the site, either. There’s also Cobra Studios, BMC Studios, one very angry man who keeps reuploading the same game on Greenlight over and over again, hundreds of asset flippers, and even more that I’m sure are lurking on the site somewhere.

          And this is where Valve needs to step in. These people are trying to sell garbage that takes about an hour to make, and in doing so they’re shoving actual games with time and care put into them out of the spotlight, just so they can make an extra few bucks of some user that only buys their games for the Steam trading cards. I don’t know if this means that Steam needs its own policing service on Greenlight, but it would certainly help. While Digital Homicide is the most infamous of Greenlight developers, there are many just as bad as they are. Valve needs to cut the crap and start getting rid of these asset-flippers, because god knows there’s some poor indie game trapped down there that deserves to see the light of day.

The NX Roundup

          Welcome to the first ever NX Roundup, where we take a look at all this week’s news about the most frustrating console of all time! This is probably going to become a regular thing for the blog, as I feel it necessary to preserve all this nonsense so we can learn from it.

          While the system itself is still hidden away, according to The Pokémon Company representative Tsunekazu Ishihara, the rumours about it being a hybrid of a console and a handheld are true. He also clarified that there will be Pokémon games on NX, surprising no one.

          We also got some enigmatic statements from Ubisoft. Because if I’ve learned anything from my time covering the game industry, you can trust Ubisoft.

          But I digress. Ubisoft had a lot of nice things to say about the NX, including that it’s something new, but it’s still extremely “Nintendo”. I assume that means that if you say the words “Metroid fan game” around it, the NX will tear your lungs out.

          Ubisoft also said that Nintendo has “learned from the Wii U”, but whether that means that they learned from their mistakes or something entirely different is up to you.

          We’re no closer to learning what the NX is, so I assume that this feature will be continuing for a while. See you next week!

Song of the Week

          Reconstructing More Science from Portal 2. Given that Valve is the topic this week, I figured now would be a good time to feature a song from my favourite game of all time.

ReCore Review

Battlebots

(This review contains minor spoilers!)

          A small sidenote before we start: this review is based exclusively on the Windows 10 version of the game. From what I’ve heard, the game performs pretty differently on the two different platforms, so if you’re thinking of buying the Xbox One version of ReCore, this might not be the best review for you.

          I honestly had no idea what to think going into this one. A game mostly ignored by marketing (aside from a few really good E3 trailers) with a wide range of review scores ranging from 9/10 to 4/10, ReCore is an enigma in several ways.

          After playing it myself, I can clearly see where both ends of the score spectrum are coming from, but I feel like I have a solid grasp on what I think the game is. In all my time of playing, one consensus kept coming to me over and over again: ReCore is a great game that seems to be trying it’s hardest not to be.

          If anything, the game reminds me mostly of games from the Gamecube, specifically Super Mario Sunshine, as bizarre as that may sound. Everything about ReCore, from the graphics to the gameplay, feels like an homage to the sixth generation of video games. This isn’t a $70 AAA release, by the way. Instead, it’s a $40 release, which can be considered a budget price in the now frankly insane video game market. And by the time I got towards the end of the game, I really felt like I got all my money’s worth.

          At its core (pun very much intended) ReCore is a run-and-gun third person shooter with platforming and adventure game elements. It does all three of these extremely well, although not without a few issues. The exploration and adventuring in ReCore feels a lot like running around Hyrule Field in Twilight Princess, finding little secrets and trinkets hidden around the world and enjoying every minute of it.

          The overworld is pretty well designed, although I would’ve liked to see more variety than just desert and factory over and over again. There’s a lot of fun to be had just running around and hunting for buried treasure, especially in open terrain. Secrets and enemies are hidden all over the place, including secret dungeons. While it’s incredibly rewarding to find said hidden dungeons, however, sometimes they’re hidden a bit too well. In the second area, there’s a dungeon that I swear to god is inaccessible. I’ve looked at it from every possible angle, using every combination of robot and platforming technique I could think of, and I still can’t figure out how to get to it. Whether this is a case of bad map design or just the game outsmarting me is up to you, but I can’t figure out how to get there for the life of me.

          Speaking of the dungeons, let’s talk about those. They’re all very well designed, complete with puzzles, platforming challenges, and even bonus challenges if you’re a completionist, such as hitting a certain number of secret switches or beating it under a time limit. Accomplishing these nets you some hidden treasure, which is always fun. The dungeons were, without a doubt, the highlight of ReCore for me. I always felt excited going into them, regardless of the challenges I would face inside. Although I’m usually not one to redo things I’ve done before in games, I found myself going back into dungeons and replaying them to get some more of that sweet, sweet loot.

          The other major portion of the gameplay is the combat, which while fun, can be a little hit or miss, especially towards the end of the game. Sometimes it can feel either too easy or too unfair, with only some battles hitting that sweet spot right in between. Some enemies will just stand around while you walk backwards unloading your gun into their face. Others will one-hit kill you before you even have a chance to react. I’ve gotten pretty frustrated at how stacked against you some of the fights seem to be. I once defeated two enormous gorilla robots that could heal themselves and one-shot kill me after several deaths. My reward was the opportunity to fight the same apes again, except they were even stronger this time. Fortunately, these types of battles are usually optional, so you’re only risking missing out on some rare loot.

          Each enemy is represented by a certain colour: blue, red, or yellow, each with their own abilities. The quickest and easiest way to defeat them is to switch your gun to firing blasts of the same colour, which will deal extra damage. As the fight goes on, the enemies may switch colour, changing things up a bit. It’s an extremely simple system, but it works very well, especially thanks to the ease of pressing a button to change your gun’s colour. You can also perform a finisher by means of casting a rope into the enemy’s core and fishing it out, which always feels extremely satisfying.

          So what do you get by defeating enemies and running dungeons? Well, if you’re lucky, you’ll find prismatic cores. These serve basically the same purpose as jiggies in Banjo-Kazooie, in that once you have enough of them, they open up new areas to the game. There’s a lot of them hidden around, and some are definitely easier to find than others. However, without spoiling anything, I will say that the end of the game is especially guilty of using prismatic cores in the classic game trope of “you can’t progress until you get enough of these”, being frighteningly similar to the infamous Triforce Quest from The Wind Waker.

          The other things you find are spare parts and cores, which you use to power up your robot buddies. There are three major ones: Mack the dog, Seth the spider, and Duncan the ape. There are also separate forms you can use them in, but those are mostly used for locating hidden cores. Each of the bots have specific uses: Mack can dig to find hidden objects, Seth can grappling hook around on specific platforms, and Duncan can destroy large boulders. They’re all fun to use, but unfortunately Mack seems to have drawn the short straw, as I didn’t use him much after I’d recruited the other two companions.

          The friendly robots fight alongside you in combat as well, which is where the spare parts and cores come into play. You can use the spare parts to upgrade their appearance and stats, which is really cool, and you use the cores to slowly raise a meter that ups their stats, which…isn’t really cool. Aside from the obvious visual changes, I never really felt that my companions got any stronger as our adventure went on. Sure, they could handle bigger and badder enemies, but I never felt that they were growing stronger. It doesn’t help that you often lose sight of them during combat, so you never really get to see them in action.

          The best part of the corebots is undeniably their designs, and this is something the rest of the game really excels in: the art direction. The deserts of New Eden are both desolate and undeniably beautiful, if a bit cluttered at times. However, the designs of both the friendly and unfriendly corebots as well as main character Joule are fantastic and memorable. Joule herself is also a very enjoyable character. She doesn’t have much of a personality, but her cheery voice clips make her a fun character to spend time with. Props to whoever worked on character design for this game, because they really did a good job.

          The story, overall, is only just good enough to keep you engaged, and nothing really more. It follows the similar beats of a sci-fi post-apocalyptic story, with the familiar missing family member, big bad villain who wants to stop the hero because of his own machinations, token character of opposite gender of the main protagonist, the list goes on. It’s an enjoyable little story, but one I doubt you’d remember months after you finish playing.

          Unfortunately, the rest of the presentation is where ReCore really suffers. The music, while good, is nothing you’d write home about, and more often than not feels like just atmosphere, aside from the excellent Main Theme. Graphically, ReCore looks like a $40 game, nothing wrong with that. The real problem comes with the often choppy framerate, making it difficult to make precise jumps. There’s also a large amount of pop-in from great distances, as small bits of debris lying in the sand blinks into existence as you get closer. The cutscenes suffer the most, as here the jumpy character animations are given full spotlight, and you can really see just how unpolished they are. Mouths don’t sync up to the audio, and sometimes the framerate can slow to a crawl.

          There are also audio glitches abound too. Every once in a while, the sound cuts out briefly before reappearing with no explanation whatsoever. Another time, I was fighting a major boss battle with no music. I thought a silent boss battle was a weird idea, and I was right, because after dying and resummoning the boss no less than three times, the boss music finally decided to play.

          And then there’s the infamous ReCore loading times. In all honesty, they weren’t that bad for me, except when booting up the game. It took me two minutes total every single time, which is pretty annoying. The loading times ingame, while frequent, never went over fifteen seconds for me, which is a plus considering they were initially reported to all be the same as the startup time.

          However, despite all these glaring technical issues and occasional frustration with the gameplay, I still found ReCore to be a great experience. It really does feel like an old Gamecube game. The overworld and dungeons are excellently designed, and I think these characters really have the staying power to stick in people’s minds for a long time. Maybe if the developers had taken a little bit more time to fix the technical issues and iron out the bugs, I would’ve had fewer negative things to say about it. There’s very clearly a fantastic game trying to break free here, and while it clearly shines through in the gameplay, the glitches in the presentation really holds it back from reaching its full potential.

          If you think that this game looks interesting, please, please, give it a shot. I promise that you won’t be disappointed. If you’re like me in that you can look at games objectively, without being bothered by technical errors or presentation, there’s a lot to like in ReCore.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Review: “The Ghost”

Something something something classified

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Uh, did I see the same episode as everyone else? Because everywhere I’m looking, people are saying that this was fantastic and they loved it. I…er…didn’t.

          We pick up exactly where Season 3 left off, with Coulson and Mack chasing after a rogue Daisy (Quake? Skye? Jeez, she has too many names). Meanwhile, now with Hydra supposedly gone and buried, S.H.I.E.L.D has been re-established with a new director. The old team’s been shifted around to new positions, and everyone’s a real grumpy gus about it. While all this is happening, a serial killer that goes by the name of Ghost Rider is popping up and killing people, and Daisy’s made it her mission to track him down.

          So let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room: Ghost Rider himself. He’s easily the best part of the episode. Just by the cold open you can tell that he’s a legitimately threatening presence, but he’s also likeable enough that you want to see more. I’m also happy to say that the flaming skull effect looks excellent. If you remember what Hive/SquidWard looked like last season, it’s about on the same level as that. My only complaint was that there wasn’t enough of him, but I suppose we’ll be seeing a lot more in the coming weeks.

          Instead of more Ghost Rider, we got clichés. Lots and lots of clichés. Where do I even start?

          Well for one thing, the entire subplot of Radcliffe creating a life-model decoy takes a nosedive in seconds. Just from the first few minutes spent with the robot you can tell she’s going to turn on everyone in the end. Radcliffe maintains that she’s there to protect people, but as someone who’s seen more robots in movies than I can count, I know where this is going. Remind me of what happened the last time someone in this very same universe created a robot with the intention of protecting humanity? Oh yeah, that small incident that they bring up in literally the next scene.

          Secondly, the new director. Everyone’s maintaining that this guy’s horrible and making everyone suffer and it’s super bad. Well, where is he? I know that scheduling actors is a thing and it can be difficult for a show, but the crucial rule of storytelling is show, don’t tell. I don’t want to hear about how awful this new director is. I want to see it. If you can’t get him in the first episode, that’s fine. Just introduce the character later instead of doing a time skip.

          And then there’s my biggest pet peeve: we’ve got a liar revealed story brewing. Fitz is now keeping the secret of the life model decoy from Simmons, meaning that at one point she’s going to learn the truth, and she’s going to get mad at him, and they’re going to end the relationship, only to reconcile later on. Words cannot describe how much I hate this overused, overdone plot device, and to see this show doing it is beyond frustrating.

          I could go on about how joyless this episode was and about how there’s a ghost running around possessing people (speaking of that, how did the ghost get back inside the box? It was opened earlier to kill those other two guys, so why did it go back in to get rid of the rest of them?), but I don’t want to. I’m hoping that this was just a bad episode and not a sign of things to come. If you enjoyed it, more power to you, but I expected a little more.

FINAL SCORE

3/10

Bad

Amaama to Inazuma Episode 12 Review + Final Thoughts

Sayonara, Tsumugi

(This review contains spoilers!)

          I’m not sure what I expected with this episode, but it sure was a lot more than we really got. Overall, this just felt like a regular episode of Amaama to Inazuma, with very little to distinguish it as the season finale. Worst of all, it’s not even that good of a regular episode.

          The plot is one that we’ve seen before from this show. Tsumugi is upset because her father scolded her, but through the cooking segment, she cheers up. Honestly, last week’s would’ve made for a better finale. I guess because they’re following the manga, this was what came next, but it’s so clearly not meant to be a finale episode.

          The character interactions are as good as ever. Tsumugi’s relationship with her father is just as believable as ever, and I still really enjoy Shinobu and Kotori. I feel like I must object to Yagi again, however. He feels even more out of place than usual this episode. Kotori’s mother also returns after a lengthy absence, but they only give her a few lines to work with, making her pretty superfluous. Same thing goes with Shinobu and Yagi this week. For 75% of the episode, they’re in a different room, not interacting with the main trio. Why have them there at all?

          So, yeah, not a great way to end off the show for now. From what I’ve heard, Amaama to Inazuma has been a pretty big hit in Japan, so I suspect we’ll be seeing a Season 2 before too long.

          Overall, if I could describe Amaama to Inazuma, I’d use the same two words I opened up my first review with: sweet and harmless. At its best, the show can be really delightful to watch. Tsumugi and her father are fantastic characters that are fun to spend time with, and while the rest of the cast aren’t nearly as good, they all hold their own certain charm.

          The thing that makes it really hard to recommend this show is unfortunately just how uneven the quality of the episodes are. Some episodes knock it out of the park, yet others, like this finale, are pretty uninteresting. I really feel like you have to be a certain kind of person in a certain mood to really enjoy every episode. Even then, the extremely slow pace of certain episodes can make it hard to get through the whole thing. I myself even considered stopping at the halfway point.

          But still, I enjoyed my time with Tsumugi and company, and if that potential Season 2 ever rolls around, I’ll be sure to watch it.

          Now as I sign off, let’s listen to the shark song one more time.

FINAL SCORE (Episode 12)

4/10

Mediocre

FINAL SCORE (Overall)

6/10

Okay

Editorial: Pay no attention to the console behind the curtain

Pay no attention to the console behind the curtain

          I’ll be completely honest here: I didn’t expect to be writing about the NX this early. I’ve been planning on doing an editorial on it ever since I started doing these. The lead-up to release has been such a disasterpiece of epic proportions that I wanted to wait until there was enough to talk about to fill a whole editorial, but I also wanted to cover it before the official unveiling (because I have a “part 2” of sorts planned for after that).

          My original idea for this week’s editorial was to talk about the Windows 10 store and how awful my experience was in buying ReCore, but after watching the NX caravan of craziness unfolding even more over this week, I just had to write about it.

          So if you haven’t been keeping up with the insanity that’s been the Nintendo NX, I’ll recap for you. Since the Wii U was unfortunately a bit of a flop for Nintendo, the race was on to make their next console as quick as possible. There were rumblings that something new was on the way as early as Late 2014, only to be completely blown open in March 2015, when the brand new console was announced by Satoru Iwata, codenamed “NX”.

          Aside from a few brief namedrops at Nintendo Directs and various conferences ever since then, Nintendo has yet to officially announce anything aside from “yeah, this is a thing that’s coming!” Later on, Nintendo would also confirm that the projected release date is March 2017, but other than that, we know absolutely nothing about this console.

          Remember March 2017, because we’ll come back to that.

          Ever since then, the NX has been subjected to what can only be referred to as “The No Man’s Sky Effect”. Rumours and theories about exactly what this box would be able to do, what the controller would be like, what games it would have, and so on. People have been claiming we’ll see the return of cartridges on consoles, a new Smash Bros. game would be available at launch, and several false reports that we’d be seeing news tomorrow, next week, and so on and so forth.

          I mostly had this all running in the background, paying little attention to it. However, it all came to a head for me when this monstrosity started making the rounds on the internet.

          I still remember when I saw this, I literally said out loud “Oh god, please let this thing be fake.” As much as I like the Wii U and think it has an excellent library of exclusives, there’s no denying that one of the major reasons that it failed was because people didn’t like the gimmicky controller. Now that motion controls have finally been all but put out of their misery (aside from gyro controls, but those are still hit or miss), I think that gamers as a whole just want standard controllers back with no more fancy shapes or anything like that.

          Later on, this would be all but confirmed as yet another fake, and we’d later see this patent for detachable controllers that seems to have a bit more legitimacy behind it.

          I can’t say I’m super stoked about this one either, but I’m going to save judgement for when I see the thing for real.

          The latest in NX rumours came to us as a supposed leaked release date for the Zelda: Breath of the Wild amiibo. If this is to be believed, we’ll have both the NX and Zelda in our hands on March 4, 2017.

          And this is where the date from earlier comes back into play.

          So in 6 months, we’re going to have the next Nintendo console in our hands. A console we’ve only seen through suspicious “leaked” images and rumours, with only a handful of teasers for a few confirmed games, like the aforementioned Zelda. I sincerely doubt that this is going to come to pass.

          Why? Well, first off, because Nintendo needs to drum up hype. I remember that when the Wii U launched, it was conspicuous by its absence in marketing. If you weren’t a gamer, you’d have no idea that it was a thing. Conversely, when the Wii first launched, it was everywhere. Remember those “Wii would like to play” ads where those two Japanese men would go door to door hawking the Wii to random strangers? You couldn’t escape them back in 2006! As a result, the Wii became one of the highest selling consoles of all time, with it still being difficult to find one even 2 years later.

          If Nintendo has only 6 months to unveil the NX, show off what it and its games can do, and create an advertising campaign large enough to catch the attention of gamers and non-gamers alike, it’s probably going to go the same way as the Wii U. Nintendo’s really been struggling in the years since the Wii U failed, so I was thinking that they’d strike back with force next time.

          I can see 2 paths where this can go ahead. Either Nintendo launches the NX in March as expected and faces the music, or takes it’s time and we eventually see this thing sometime in the summer or holiday season. Honestly, I’d prefer option 2, just so we can have a better handle on what this thing’s going to be.

Although I’ve been extremely critical of Nintendo’s business strategies in recent years, they’re still one of my favourite game companies, and one I hold a great deal of respect and nostalgia towards. Just like every developer, I want to see them succeed. Although negative criticism is fun to write, there always comes a bit of disappointment when it comes to taking something from a favourite franchise or creator and tearing it to shreds. While it was extremely cathartic writing my review of Star Fox Zero earlier this year, I sincerely wanted that game to be good.

So until we see the NX for real, I’ll hold off any judgement. I’m not a businessman, so I’m sure there’s some strategy going on that I won’t understand in the slightest. For Nintendo’s sake, I just want them to bounce back.

Song of the Week

The theme from Mario Chase from Nintendo Land. This launch title for the Wii U is sincerely underrated in my opinion. If you gather a group of friends or family and play a round of one of the competitive games, it can be a lot of fun! It was the main attraction of my family get-togethers for a long time, and I’d like to play it again soon.

Steven Universe Review: “Onion Gang”

They flashed Suitcase Sam

(This review contains spoilers!)

          So it looks like we’re entering another Steven Universe hiatus as the Summer of Steven finally comes to a close with Onion Gang. Was it a fitting conclusion for this massive event?

          Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean it was necessarily a good episode.

          At times, Steven Universe honestly feels like two different shows. On one hand, you have the massive plot episodes and excellent character episodes, such as Bismuth, the four-part Season 3 ending arc, Mr. Greg, Mindful Education, and Last One Out of Beach City. On the other hand, you have stuff like The New Lars, Future Boy Zoltron, and yes, Onion Gang.

          The premise is that Onion takes Steven into the forest, and Steven meets a group of Onion’s friends, who are all as weird as he is, with equally as weird names. Together, they get up to all sorts of hijinks that’s in no way fun to watch.

          Huge props to Steven’s voice actor, Zach Calliston, though. He’s as good as ever here, even when he’s the only speaking role in the whole episode.

          What really went wrong here, however, is the focus of the episode itself. While one Onion is good for a few visual gags, four of them equal just pure annoyance. So much time is wasted just having them doing stupid stuff with no rhyme or reason, giving us, the viewers, no reason to care or feel for them.

          Fortunately, this episode does one thing better than Zoltron: it gives us a satisfying ending. I was fully expecting the end to be Steven to show up and forgive them for their weirdness and everything to go back to normal, but instead it’s revealed that the summer is ending, and Onion’s friends are leaving Beach City. Steven is left to comfort Onion, and it’s a really sweet scene.

          I really wish the episode had more of this, though. How about have the first half be Onion’s friends, and then Steven leaves at the middle point in the episode. Then it’s revealed that Onion’s friends left, and Steven has to try and make it up to Onion in the latter half of the episode. That would be so much more interesting than faking one of the kids dying and going around literally flashing people.

          I guess this is a fitting episode to end the Summer of Steven on, as it dealt with the end of summer vacation. But still, there were a lot of missed opportunities here, and even more bad choices made. Season 4 is already off to an extremely rough and rocky start, and episodes like this are doing it no favours.

          I can at least say it’s better than Future Boy Zoltron, though. So there’s that.

FINAL SCORE

3/10

Bad

Amaama to Inazuma Episode 11 Review

Holy crepe

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Overall, the (assumed) penultimate episode of Amaama to Inazuma really didn’t do that much different than the last few episodes. Tsumugi is having a problem, it’s solved by the cooking segment, and life goes on. The way it was handled this week was really good, however, even if the episode itself wasn’t very remarkable.

          Tsumugi’s class is having a play, and Tsumugi wants to be that fluffy pink pig that always seems to be everywhere. One of the other girls isn’t happy about this, because she thinks it’s going to clash with her part. A rift breaks between them, and it’s up to her father to patch things up.

          At the same time, Kotori has a small and overall pretty insignificant subplot about needing to come up with a creative crepe recipe in time for the school festival. It never really goes anywhere, aside from a fun conclusion. For what it is, it’s fine. I just wish they’d done a bit more with it.

          In fact, the ending overall is at both times heartwarming and hilarious. Tsumugi brings up a point early on in the episode that all her dad seems to be thinking about lately is food, and the way he proves that she’s more important to him is sure to bring a smile to everyone’s face. However, it’s what happens afterwards that’s easily the best part of the episode. I dare not spoil exactly what happens, I’ll just say that what Tsumugi’s father’s initial reaction to what happens during the play is priceless.

          It’s also nice to see Shinobu again. I’m really starting to be won over by her character, to the point where I actually think I prefer her to Kotori. Yagi, on the other hand, feels pretty out of place in the overall environment of the show. Towards the end, when Tsumugi’s dad is finally explaining how all he thinks about is Tsumugi, Yagi jumps in with a snide comment that really kicks the scene in the legs.

          Episode 11 isn’t really a standout episode in Amaama to Inazuma’s lineup, but it’s absolutely worth a watch. The overall conflict and resolution are both great, even if the cooking segment is a bit slow and one of the characters feels superfluous. If my source is correct, next week is the season finale, so hopefully they’ll go out on a high note.

FINAL SCORE

7/10

Good

Editorial: Should you pre-order that new game?

Should you pre-order that new game?

          We’ve all been there. A new game is coming out in about a week or so, and you just can’t wait. But as the days tick down, you ask yourself: to pre-order, or not to pre-order? That is the question.

          The dilemma that comes with the pre-order is one that’s been debated back and forth for years. Some say that pre-ordering only benefits the developers, and you shouldn’t do it ever. Others feel it beneficial to pre-order everything, because of the in-game bonuses it often nets you. Still others claim that pre-ordering is fine if it’s from a trusted game series or developer, but it shouldn’t be used with untested IPs. I personally fall into the third category.

          The thing is, game publishers have really latched on to the idea of pre-orders in recent years. Some of gaming’s most maligned companies, such as EA and Ubisoft, have fully bought into what we in the gaming scene call “pre-order culture”. Basically what this means is that, when you pre-order a game, they give you some sort of bonus alongside, be it some sort of cash bonus, a new weapon, or something else.

          In the past, I was pretty relaxed when it came to pre-orders. I didn’t mind putting them down, as I’d only felt burned a few times after playing a game I pre-ordered.

          The thing is, we now live in a world post-No Man’s Sky.

          Say what you want about Hello Games’ space survival game (I personally still stand by the 7/10 I gave it), it’s made a very prominent mark on the face of gaming. Ever since No Man’s Sky disappointed, I’ve noticed more and more people on the internet declaring themselves finished with pre-orders.

          For some, this is a victory. People like TotalBiscuit have said multiple times that pre-ordering video games is just putting money in publisher pockets before anyone can properly review the games. As a result, this might give them the idea that they can just put out a lackluster game, and their fans will still buy it before anyone can call them out on how poor the game is.

          I still say that it might be worth it if you trust the developers or specific series the game is from. I know I’m going to play Pokémon Sun/Moon regardless of what the reviews will say, so I’ll probably pre-order that. On the other hand, I’m definitely going to wait until reviews come in before I buy The Last Guardian. Pre-ordering has gone from ensuring a reserved copy for yourself to this bizarre tightrope walk of a purchase. Make one wrong step, and you’ve lost $70 on a crappy game you reserved without any idea it was going to be terrible.

          But still, unless everyone comes out and declares the game to be a broken disaster, I’m gonna be playing ReCore tomorrow. So there’s that to look forward to.

Song of the Week

          The official soundtrack for ReCore hasn’t been released yet, so I figured I’d go with the fantastic song from its E3 trailer. This is I’ll Take You by MSTR Rogers, a fantastic dubstep mix that holds the title of my current favourite song. I’m pretty sure it’s not gonna be in the actual game, but here it is regardless.

Steven Universe Review: Last One Out of Beach City

The Return (to form)

(This review contains spoilers!)

          After last week’s complete mess of an episode, there was nothing I wanted more than for Steven Universe to come back with a big episode reminding us why we watch the show.

          Thankfully, I got my wish and then some. Not only was this a huge bounce back, but this episode acted as a pseudo-sequel to Mr. Greg, arguably the best episode Steven Universe has ever done. While it didn’t quite live up to that episode (but really, what can?), Last One Out of Beach City is fun, exciting, perfectly paced, and downright hilarious.

          The story is that after Greg backs out of taking Amethyst to a concert, Pearl jumps in to prove that she can be cool. She attempts this by wearing a leather jacket and jeans and drinking apple juice, among other things. If that isn’t cool, I don’t know what is.

          But when a punk girl with hair similar to Rose arrives on the scene, Amethyst encourages Pearl to talk to her. What follows is a madcap adventure through the streets of Beach City as Pearl drives after this mystery woman, and all sorts of hijinks ensue.

          If anything, this episode shows off something I really wish we’d see more: the dynamic between Pearl and Amethyst. They’ve grown a lot since their endless squabbling back in Giant Woman. While their personalities contrast, they’ve struck up a clear friendship, and play off each other very well.

          The biggest highlight of this episode is, without a doubt, the humour. I’d go so far as to say Last One Out of Beach City is the funniest episode of Steven Universe since Too Short to Ride. Between the reason why Greg can’t take Amethyst to the concert, Pearl’s madcap driving, and most of the dialogue, I was laughing the whole way through this episode. It’s a complete joy to watch.

          As usual, the animation is top-notch. The driving scenes especially are just as good, if not better, than those in Beach City Drift. It was also fun to see Pearl dressed in the “cool” outfit, as well as the design of the mystery girl.

          All in all, Last One Out of Beach City is a blast. It really shows off the character interactions that Steven Universe is so good at, plus the fantastic humour that it’s capable of. While I really do hope it’s not much longer before we get back to the overarcing plot, this was a wonderful little detour.

FINAL SCORE

9/10

Amazing

Amaama to Inazuma Episode 10 Review

Gone fishin’

(This review contains spoilers!)

          This week, Amaama to Inazuma tried something a little different, in that the same plot thread from last week continued on, and we went right to the cooking segment with no setup at all. Right from the start, it’s clear Tsumugi hasn’t recovered from the end of last week’s episode yet, and there was really no need to repeat themselves with what happened, so I’m glad the showrunners decided to cut the crap and go straight to the cooking segment.

          I’ll be honest: at the start, I thought this was going to be a bad episode. I wasn’t sure if they could handle a full length cooking segment. Plus, with Tsumugi mostly taking a backseat and the return of Shinobu, who I’ve mostly found to be really hit or miss, I thought for sure this was going to stink.

          For once, I’m happy to be wrong. While Episode 10 doesn’t exactly reach the heights of some of the better episodes before it, it’s a stellar episode that builds upon what happened last week, while not exactly resolving it yet (I expect we’ll be following this plot thread up to the finale in two weeks).

          I’d be willing to say this is the funniest episode of Amaama to Inazuma we’ve seen yet. The scene where they’re trying to fillet the fish and everyone’s freaking out was hilarious. Both Tsumugi’s dad and Shinobu were at their best this episode as well, although I did find Kotori to be a little too over the top. When she was getting all squeaky-voiced listing the potential recipes of using the fish, it did get a little annoying and broke my immersion a bit.

          If anything, this episode really shows that even without Tsumugi (as she spends the majority of this episode silent), Amaama to Inazuma is fantastic at doing characters. They feel like real people, and aside from a few of Kotori’s excited outbursts, they’re all completely believable and relatable. The interactions between the main characters while cooking is easily the best part of the show, and it’s why I keep coming back week after week.

          With a post-credits sequence hinting that next week will be focused on making a dessert, I hope the showrunners continue with the current plot thread of Tsumugi coming to accept her mother’s death. They went to some really intriguing and exciting places this week, and they’d to well to continue building on that.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

Editorial: A Tale of Two Stories

A Tale of Two Stories

(This editorial contains spoilers for The Beginner’s Guide!)

          Last week, I purchased Humble Bundle’s latest indie package to find some new games to play over the weekend. There were a few fun ones, nothing super memorable though. However, upon finishing two of the major games in the bundle, I thought it would be fun to compare the different ways the two handle storytelling, and which one has a better narrative overall.

          I love stories. Be it in a book, a movie, a tv show, a video game, or anything else, I look listening to a good one. It’s why I want to be an author. Video games have always been a bit different from others mediums when it comes to storytelling. Sometimes your choices in the gameplay make out how the story goes, like in Undertale. Other times, you play through a movie-like story, playing as the protagonist in a narrative, like in a Zelda game.

          Today, we’ll be comparing the narratives of two different games that are almost entirely different from each other: The Beginner’s Guide and Octodad: Dadliest Catch. Now remember that this is all subjective, and entirely my opinion. However, I do feel strongly that one of these games stands superior to the other in storytelling, and it might surprise you why.

          In terms of the gameplay and overall tones, Beginner’s Guide and Octodad couldn’t be more different. Beginner’s Guide is a walk through somber, unfinished prototypes of games while a voice gives you context for everything. In stark contrast, Octodad is a colourful romp where you play as an octopus dressed as a human father on a trip to the aquarium, complete with wacky controls.

          At first glance, the story seems very different in both, and in most respects, you’d be right. Octodad features a silly story to match the gameplay, as the titular character tries to get through his day while hiding his true identity from his wife and children, and avoiding a maniac sushi chef who knows what he really is and wants to cook him into moderately priced sushi.

          As for The Beginner’s Guide, while it’s never explicitly stated in-game, you basically automatically assume that you’re being told a non-fictional story. The narrator, Davey Wren, takes you through what is assumed to be unfinished game prototypes by his friend “Coda”. As the game progresses, the prototypes get more and more gloomy and desperate, until finally it’s revealed that Davey was putting meaning where it doesn’t belong and Coda broke off their friendship after Davey shared his work without asking.

          So which of these stories got me more invested? Surprisingly, it was Octodad. While it was extremely goofy and even a little strange at times, I found myself really enjoying the characters and found the relationship between Octodad and his wife Scarlet to be completely believable and even surprisingly complex. As Scarlet vents her frustrations at how mysterious her supposedly normal husband is, you really feel that she’s going through a difficult time with her cephalopod husband, although they’re both trying to make it work.

          On the other hand, there’s The Beginner’s Guide. While at first it seems that it would be a poignant tale that would end with Davey urging people to support small developers or something like that (in fact, I was certain the game would end with Coda’s death or something like that), the ending of the game presents us with two options.

          One: Davey made the whole thing up, and tried to make it seem deeper than it actually was. Or two, and the more concerning option: you just paid $11 to play through stolen assets the original developer had no intention of ever being released to the public.

          The game ends with a message to Davey by Coda, and there were two messages that really caught my eye. One was that Coda called out Davey for adding lampposts to the game, something the game repeatedly told us was Coda’s signature of sorts. The other thing said is that Davey shouldn’t have projected meaning onto Coda’s games, and that he was feeling fine.

          A little bizarre to say that when your games include dialogue like “I can’t keep making these games” and “I don’t find this fun anymore”.

          This, coupled with the facts that the first moments of the game are Davey asking people to give him their interpretations, and that if Coda was a real person, handing out his unfinished prototypes for $11 a pop would be straight up illegal, makes me think that The Beginner’s Guide is full of crap.

          And that really makes me upset. I was really intrigued about where this game was going to go, but when you raise the curtain and find the tiny man running the huge machine, the game loses all its lustre. Given the fact that the story is the only thing the game has, without it that leaves an empty shell with nothing inside it.

          I know there are people who love and are deeply moved by The Beginner’s Guide, and more power to them for that. I just wanted to give my opinion out there that there are games that go unnoticed by people with far better stories. Some, like Octodad, hide excellent little tales underneath wacky gameplay. But to me, The Beginner’s Guide is nothing more than an attempt at modern art. It might mean something to somebody else, but to me it’s just another thing vying for my attention and cash.

Song of the Week

          The main theme from Octodad: Dadliest Catch. To me, this silly song is a fitting start for the game. I’m a real sucker for video game songs with lyrics, and although the lyrics themselves don’t really make a lot of sense, this one really matches the game it’s paired with.