Fun
Fact: C-3PO plays a role in The Force
Awakens! You probably didn’t recognize him because of the red arm.
But
the question remains: how the heck did he get that red arm? It’s never
explained in the movie, and by the end he’s got a golden one back. There’s
clearly a story behind it, so what’s going on there?
That
is the question Marvel set out to answer with their first ever one-shot comic: C-3PO: The Phantom Limb. Written by
James Robinson and illustrated by Tony Harris, for months this single comic was
a complete enigma. Originally intended to be released around the same time as Force Awakens in December 2015, the
issue suffered several delays and setbacks before finally launching in April
2016.
The
issue begins with C-3PO leading a mission with a ragtag team of protocol
droids. They’ve been sent on a mission to gain information on the whereabouts
of the captured Admiral Ackbar, managing to capture a First Order protocol
droid in the process. But of course things go awry, and the droids are left
stranded on an ominous planet.
The
first thing you’ll notice about this comic is how unique and awesome the
artwork looks. While I’m not familiar with Tony Harris’s past work, the style
he uses here is really unusual for Star
Wars. It’s hard to describe exactly how it looks, but it’s got a grungy
kind of feel, like something you’d see out of a motorcycle cartoon than a
sci-fi epic.
The
comic also has a lot of discussion on the merits of artificial intelligence.
The First Order droid, O-MR1, brings up the subject of how, as droids, they are
programmed to one simple function and must bend to the will of humans. He’s not
a fan of how the humans can wipe their memories at will, essentially restarting
them from scratch, forcing them to change from one side to the other at the
drop of a hat. As A.I. and robots with near-human intelligence are becoming
more and more plausible, some of the stuff this comic brings up are actually
pretty thought provoking for both the human and robot sides.
As
the story progresses the droid squad is reduced to just C-3PO and O-MR1, and
3PO loses his arm to a tentacle monster as well. We also learn the origins of
the red arm, but that’s a surprise that needs to be seen for yourself.
This comic is fairly
easy to read, being available in numerous places online, and is also included
in the Star Wars: Shattered Empire collection
(more on that miniseries another time). Aside from maybe the first Darth Vader comic, C-3PO: The Phantom Limb is the best thing Marvel has put out ever
since they got the Star Wars license
back. The art is beautiful, the story is incredibly thought-provoking, and the
origin of the red arm is extremely satisfying. Give it a read if you haven’t.
It’s hard to imagine a world these
days without the luxury of reviews for entertainment online. Sites like Rotten
Tomatoes and Metacritic have made it incredibly easy to look up individual reviews
and overall consensuses on movies, TV shows, games and more. Utilizing them,
it’s become easier than ever to decide whether or not a piece of entertainment
is worth a look or not.
This has, understandably,
sent the people who make money off said entertainment into a tizzy. Earlier
this month the folks over at The A.V. Club published an article called
“Hollywood is terrified of Rotten Tomatoes”. I’d highly recommend giving it a
read, but for those of you who don’t want to I’ll give a quick rundown. With
sites like Rotten Tomatoes at an all-time high, the greed-munchers running the
major movie studios aren’t exactly happy with how people can now avoid the bad
stuff they make.
A very recent comparison
we can make is between Wonder Woman and
The Mummy. On one hand, the
female-led superhero flick is raking in the cash, has earned itself thousands
of fans and has even given DC’s cinematic universe the potential to redeem
itself even after its double disappointments from 2016. Meanwhile, even Tom
Cruise couldn’t save The Mummy, which
looks to be on a fast track towards becoming one of 2017’s most notable box
office bombs, leaving plans for a shared universe between Universal’s classic
monsters like Frankenstein and Dracula up in the air.
And one of the big
reasons why this has happened is thanks to Rotten Tomatoes. Wonder Woman currently sits at a
monumental 92% fresh, one of the highest ratings a superhero movie has ever
received. Meanwhile, The Mummy has
earned itself a measly 15% fresh, and with only 43% of audiences saying they
enjoyed the movie. Which one would you rather spend valuable time and cash
going to see?
Because of this,
executives aren’t happy that bombs are becoming significantly more likely these
days. If the critics don’t like a movie, they’ll talk about it in their
reviews. If the reviews are considered Rotten, the Tomatometer for their movie
will go down. The further the Tomatometer goes down, the less people will be
interested in seeing the movie. The less people are interested in the movie, the
less money it makes for the shareholders. And at the end of the day, the
shareholders are who these companies are really trying to please.
And don’t worry, I
promise this is going to become about video games in a second, but we haven’t
even gotten to the juicy part yet!
So how do you solve this
problem? Well, the folks over at 20th Century Fox have a solution. According to
the article, Vanity Fair managed to get their hands on a study published within
the company in 2015, and some of the stuff in there isn’t exactly consumer friendly.
Let’s read my favourite part together, shall we?
“Consider not giving the critics a chance to slam you. While it’s never
a great feeling to withhold from critics, now it may help to at least preserve
your Friday.”
Ah, executives. Never
change.
Is withholding reviews
for anything a good idea? No,
absolutely not. Blocking reviews until the last minute for your product only
demonstrates little confidence in it and makes the consumer more wary than
anything else. Despite this, review embargos breaking the same day as something
is released is become scarily frequent, especially in the realm of video games.
Remember August 2016 when
Sony didn’t allow any reviews of the astronomically hyped No Man’s Sky out before the game was released? The game turned out
to not just fail to live up to the hype, but actually turned out to be a
legitimately terrible game that delivered less than 25% of what was promised in
the pre-release material, leading to one of the biggest backlashes in gaming
history.
Also infamous for
adopting this practice is Bethesda, who apparently has decided they don’t want
to be one of the few companies that still has some goodwill from fans anymore. (Don’t
worry, I’ll be giving them and their lousy Creation Club its own editorial
sooner than later) After the success of last year’s Doom, Bethesda decided they should bank their entire review policy
over the fact the embargo for that game broke the same day it launched. Since
then, games like Dishonored 2, Skyrim Special Edition and Prey have released with no reviews to
their name.
So why do companies do
this if it just creates caution? Well, not all consumers check reviews before
going to see a movie or buying a game, especially if the product is from a
series they enjoy or from a trusted developer or production company. As the old
saying goes, “no news is good news”, and if news hasn’t broke that the movie or
game isn’t worth spending time on, there will most definitely be people putting
down money on it on Day 1, only to be disappointed later on. I know that
happened to me when No Man’s Sky happened,
and I know many people who feel the same way.
The game industry can
seem unsalvageable at times with how much shady behaviour goes on behind the
scenes, and if I didn’t have such a love for the medium I think I would’ve
given up on it years ago. But if the movie industry wants to start employing
one of the dirtiest tricks game companies have up their sleeves, we’re in for a
problem.
And the funniest part
here is that there’s an easy solution for all this. Don’t want Rotten Tomatoes
stomping on your movie’s monetary returns? Just make a good movie. People loved
Wonder Woman and hated The Mummy for a reason, you slimy
executives. See if you can figure out why.
I’ll
admit it, I stared at this page for a good few minutes with no idea where to
start. This being the final episode of what’s very easily topped Erased as my favourite anime of all
time, there’s so much ground to cover that it’s hard to tell what I want to
talk about first.
I guess I should go over the plot.
Despite Croix realizing the error of her ways, her machinery is still
overloaded with negative energy. A missile has been launched, and it’s up to
Akko and friends to stop it. How is this accomplished? Why, by creating a giant
broom and using it to launch everyone up into the sky to save the day. It’s one
of the most Studio Trigger-esque solutions to a problem I’ve ever seen, and it’s
so crazy that it just plain works.
And just as I’d hoped, everyone gets a
moment in the spotlight here. While Akko and Diana are still the main focus,
Lotte, Sucy, Amanda’s crew and Chariot all help out in their own little way
throughout the episode. It’s so nice to see this fantastic supporting cast used
in such fantastic ways in the grand finale that it honestly makes me wonder why
we didn’t get more of them throughout the series. Constanze especially has a
fantastic moment towards the end of the episode, a small little detail that I missed
the first time that’s worth rewatching to notice it.
Each of them depart the broom one by
one, leaving just Akko and Diana to take down the missile. What follows is
perhaps one of the best final battle sequences in recent anime history.
Everything about it, from the animation to the use of the characters to the direction
is completely perfect. The final battle goes exactly how I hoped it would, and
ends in a completely satisfying way that will leave a smile on everyone’s face.
And if that crazy fight wasn’t enough,
Trigger decided to make us even happier with a delightful epilogue. Croix
leaves Luna Nova to search for a cure to Wagandea’s pollen (which seems like a
good excuse to make Season 2), Andrew finally returns Akko’s hat to her, and
perhaps best of all, it looks like Akko is finally learning how to fly. It’s a
delightful ending to a delightful anime.
So, final thoughts, let’s do this. I’ll
be the first to say that no, this anime wasn’t perfect. Lotte and Sucy were
kind of unfairly sidelined in the second cour, Croix wasn’t a great villain,
and Andrew’s story went absolutely nowhere. But honestly, these are flaws
easily forgiven when you look back at how much fun this series was. Never
before have I watched an anime that made me smile and laugh as much as Little Witch has. Every week I looked
forward to seeing what Akko and friends were up to, and they rarely
disappointed.
It’s also funny that this episode went
live on the same day as the 20th anniversary of the first Harry Potter book. I truly feel that Little Witch Academia is the spiritual successor to Potter we’ve been waiting all these
years for. If you’ve been trying to find something that makes you feel like a
kid reading Philosopher’s Stone for
the first time again, this is the anime for you.
I honestly kind of envy those who are
going to be watching this series all the way through for the first time when it
launches on Netflix this Friday. I really hope this series becomes one of the
first anime to really earn itself a worldwide audience, because it deserves it
so much.
This is an extremely hard game to
write about. RiME is the type of
experience that you’re clearly intended to have on your own, unspoiled by the internet.
This is really the type of game that wants you to sit down and just see it
through, without looking up walkthroughs or watching a Let’s Play first.
So let’s stick to the facts. RiME is an indie game developed by
Tequila Works as sort of an adventure-puzzle game with gorgeous graphics. It
bears some huge similarities to The Last
Guardian, so much so that despite enjoying that game, for the first half of
RiME I couldn’t help but think that
this game was exactly what I wanted Last
Guardian to be. Towards the second half of the game a few problems rear
their ugly head, but we’ll get to that.
You play as a nameless boy who’s washed
up on an island full of puzzles. Early on you meet a cute fox who acts as a
guide of sorts on your adventure as you climb a massive tower in hopes of
uncovering the mystery of what’s going on. The plot is about as thick as it
needs to be, but the way it wraps up is a tad underwhelming. Again, I’ll get to
that.
Easily the show-stealer is the
graphics. This game is drop-dead gorgeous at times, making excellent use of
Unreal Engine 4. The game looks legitimately like you’re playing through a
Disney movie or a 3D rendition of a Miyazaki movie. It’s just plain beautiful
to look at, and some of the environments actually made my jaw drop at times.
The downside to these graphics is a
very unfortunate amount of framerate drops throughout your adventure. The game
chugs with disappointing frequency on PS4, often reaching below 30 frames per
second. It’s not so bad that it makes the game unplayable, but it does become a
bit of a hindrance when you’re trying to enjoy marvelling at these beautiful
landscapes and the game is jumping around.
The atmosphere of the game also
deserves top marks. I can honestly say that the few enemies that are in this
game scared me significantly more than anything Prey threw at me. The developers use your surroundings to their
absolute maximum potential to achieve the mood they want you to feel, and a lot
of later scenes really hit hard thanks to this.
The gameplay consists of mostly very
simple but clever puzzles. Your main line of problem-solving is screaming at
things. No, I’m serious. Well, kind of. The boy can yell at certain glowing
blue objects to activate them and use them to help him solve puzzles. Some act
as switches, others move platforms, and some amplify his voice to activate
multiple at once. They use every trick in the book with this ability, and it’s
always fun to see what puzzle they’re going to throw at you next.
Honestly, the first half of the game
is near masterpiece quality, so it comes as a real disappointment once you
leave the second area and enter the third because the game takes a small but
significant tumble afterwards. While the graphics still marvel all the way to
and through the end credits, the third area of the game is mostly spent in a
frustrating escort quest as you pilot a companion through a ridiculous puzzle
that lasts for nearly the entire stage. And, after an honestly brilliantly
directed climactic segment, you get an ending that, while pretty darn
emotional, comes kind of out of the blue. While it’s not a bad conclusion to
the story by any means, to me it kind of feels like the developers played
something like That Dragon, Cancer while
making this game and shoehorned in this emotional moment towards the end. I don’t
know, maybe it makes more sense if you collected all the knickknacks hidden around,
but to me the ending could’ve used a bit more foreshadowing for it to really have
the emotional impact the devs clearly wanted.
Oh yeah, there are various
collectibles hidden around the world. I only managed to pick up a few of them
since I pretty much stuck to a story (this is a linear experience after all),
but from the looks of things they give you more background on the boy as well
as unlocking additional content to the ending if you got enough of them. The
ending doesn’t change at all, there’s just different items and stuff in the
final room of the game. I really didn’t find it worth my time to deviate from
the path just to find a little seashell, but there’s quite a few hidden goodies
here for completionists to uncover.
RiME
is a great game, but it still feels like something is holding it back. The
first few hours are monumentally done and really get you excited for what the
rest of it has in store, but the second half leaves a lot to be desired.
Despite this, it’s one of the best looking games with stylized graphics on
console right now, the puzzles are all extremely well-thought out and creative,
and the game is pretty darn short. If you really rush through it I can imagine
beating the whole thing in one sitting being actually pretty easy. If you’re
looking for a quiet adventure in similar vein to Journey or Last Guardian,
there’s something really special here waiting to be uncovered.
With how awesome the ending of the
first half of this anime was, it’s become difficult to remember all the
exposition we had to fight through to get to the good stuff. This episode
served as a way to remind us of a time before Re:Creators got good.
This episode basically takes place
entirely in a single room with a few deviations for a small B-plot involving
Alice coming to terms with her creator, and it can be summed up in one word:
boring. The first half is devoted to Sota finishing off his story from last
time (something that should’ve been accomplished over the course of a single
episode if you ask me), and the rest of it is all about the creators and
creations figuring out and then explaining how they’re going to defeat Altair.
The final scenes showing off how
Altair’s creator met her untimely demise were much better directed than the
flashbacks we saw last week at least. The scene where she finally called it
quits (yeah, that’s a humane way of putting it, I’m so good at this writing
thing) was easily one of the best we’ve seen from this show yet, using the long
drone of a train horn in ways I never thought it would be used.
Moving on, the rest of the episode was
spent doing what apparently is the showrunners favourite part of this anime:
listen to Meteora talk for really long periods of time. Ugh!
Don’t get me wrong, I like her as a
character, and her voice actress (Inori Minase of Re:Zero, School-Live and Magical Girl Raising Project fame among
many others) is awesome, but having one single character drone on and on about
what the master plan is doesn’t exactly make for intriguing discussion.
Here’s the gist of the plan as far as
I understand: the creators are going to make a massive crossover spinoff, write
all the creations into it, and use that to trap Altair and take her down for
good. There. That took me about a minute to write and you probably just a few
seconds to read. So why do we need ten minutes dedicated to talking about it!?
In all seriousness, this sounds like a
really fun way to wrap up this series, but it just begs the question. What if
the big crossover that’s going to end Re:Creators…is
Re:Creators?
Yeah, probably not, but how insane
would that be?
This episode had a lot of necessary
information in it, but didn’t deliver it in an especially great way. Having
Meteora talking for minutes on end didn’t quite get the message across, which
is especially frustrating when she’s trying to explain what the climax is
probably going to be. At least the Sota flashbacks were really well done, but I
still think we should’ve had an entire episode devoted to them instead of
splitting them between two.
Oh, and next week is apparently going
to be the most dreaded things in all of anime:
Hey guys! So summer is finally here,
and as the weather gets warmer and the water parks starts opening, things are
going to be changing a little bit on this blog, plus I’m going to be
introducing some new stuff that I really hope you’ll get excited about! So
let’s not waste any time and look over everything that’s happening this summer
here on CanadianYeti Reviews!
What’s staying the same?
Monday editorial: No need to worry, the game industry
keeps making messes for me to heckle them on regardless of what time of year it
is. Every Monday will have a brand new editorial as I talk about something
related to gaming throughout the summer like I always have. I can tease that
this Monday’s has already been finished, and revisits the topic of review
embargos, introducing sites like Rotten Tomatoes into the mix. I’m also working
on editorials about Star Wars Battlefront
II and Assassin’s Creed Origins,
so you can expect those sometime soon.
Game reviews: I’ve got plenty of games to play this
summer, so you can expect plenty of these over the next few months. If you
missed it, I put up a review of ARMS
yesterday, and you can check that out right here. The next game I’ll be talking
about will be RiME, and the review
for that one will be going live as soon as I write it.
Movie reviews: I don’t know how many of these I’ll
be doing this summer, since I don’t really go see movies unless they’re
something I know will be worth investing time in the theatre to see. But I can
guarantee that you’ll be getting a Spider-Man:
Homecoming review around when the movie comes out (most likely on July 7).
What’s changing?
Star Wars Saturday: This
was a tough decision to make, but considering how hard I work on this series I
felt it was a necessary one. While my bi-weekly Star Wars article series isn’t stopping anytime soon (I have topics
planned out through next January if you can believe that), scheduling of stuff
like anime and TV reviews are forcing a change of date.
When Inhumans launches this Fall, it will be on Friday nights instead of
the Tuesday slot S.H.I.E.L.D held for
years. This means that reviews for both those shows will go live on Saturday
morning. Similarly, a lot of the anime I’m planning on checking out this summer
air on Saturdays. So I had a choice to make: either stick to the original
weekday and risk the Star Wars content
competing with Marvel TV and anime reviews every week it goes live, or change
things up.
So I came to what I think is a
reasonable decision. As of today, Star
Wars Saturday and the Marvel TV reviews are officially swapping spots on my
blog’s schedule. With Inhumans reviews
going live on Saturday mornings starting in the Fall, Star Wars content will now be on Wednesday mornings. Next
Wednesday’s article will be the first ever Star Wars Wednesday, and I hope you
all look forward to this change.
TV Reviews
Timeless reviews: While
I’m extremely happy that my near endless pushes for this show to be renewed
ended in victory, from what I’ve heard we’re in for a bit of a wait before we
see the return of the Time Team. So until then, these reviews are going to be
on hiatus.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D reviews: Same
as Timeless, Coulson and crew are
going on an intergalactic vacation until January, and I can’t exactly review
something when there isn’t any content for me to write about. I’m looking
forward to watching and reviewing Inhumans
in the fall, but for now our Marvel TV reviews are taking a break.
Steven Universe reviews: I’ll
keep this one simple. Whenever this show decides it wants to come back, these
reviews will be back as well.
Anime Reviews
Little Witch Academia reviews: Unless
the fansubs are delayed, my review of the season finale and final thoughts on Little Witch Academia will be up bright
and early Monday morning. I’m also planning on doing a review guide of sorts
once the show goes live on Netflix, so if you’ve been waiting for official
release and want a quick and easy way to read along what I thought of each episode,
that’ll be a good way of doing it. I’m really going to miss this anime, but I
still hope we’ll see more of it someday.
Re:Creators reviews: These
aren’t going anywhere either, but I may be formatting them a little different
(as I’m going to explain in a second). Needless to say I’ve been enjoying this
anime a lot, and I’m absolutely going to see it through to the end.
Summer anime reviews: So here’s where things are getting a
bit tricky. I’ve picked out quite a few anime to review over the course of the
summer, but as always I’m probably going to drop a couple of them. Until then,
I don’t really have any plans set in stone for what I will and won’t be
reviewing.
The tricky part is that a lot of these
shows are airing on either Saturday or Sunday. The problem with this is that if
I do end up reviewing all the weekend shows, they might flood the blog. My
solution for this is the Weekly Anime
Review Roundup, where I review the episode of each show I watched one by
one in a single article each week. The Re:Creators
reviews will be included there from now on as well.
Like I said, I’m not 100% if I’ll be
going through with this plan yet as it all depends on which anime I decide to
watch and which I drop, but I’ll give an update in a few weeks on the
situation.
What’s new?
Salvation Reviews: So
this is a new show starting up in July I thought I’d check out. I know nothing
about it outside of the synopsis so I might just end up reviewing the pilot and
never watching the show again, but it’s worth a shot.
CanadianYeti Seasonal Specials: This is a project I’ve been thinking
about ever since I launched the bi-weekly Star
Wars content, and I’m finally ready to launch it!
Seasonal Specials is an entirely new
article series here, and it’s going to give me the freedom to write about more
unique topics instead of sticking to the usual reviews and occasional editorial
format I’ve been doing for over a year. How it’s going to work is every once in
a while I’ll pick a topic and do a few articles on it over the course of a few
weeks. It can be anything from extended top 10 lists to movies to games, as
long as it’s interesting and I have something to say about it.
The first Seasonal Special will start
sometime early on in July, and the theme is Summer of Stranger Things.
In preparation for the new season of Stranger
Things releasing later this year I’m finally going to watch the first
season and get all caught up. I’ll write an article about each of the 8
episodes over the course of 8 weeks, giving my thoughts on it and predictions
on where the story’s going to go.
So that’s my plans for the next few
months! As always thank you for reading, and I hope everyone has a great
summer!
I’ve never been a real fighting game
expert. I love me a round of Street
Fighter or Marvel vs. Capcom as
much as the next guy, but I’m most definitely not one of those people who can
master those extended combos and hold my own online.
So along comes ARMS, Nintendo’s first true foray into the classic 1v1 fighting
game genre. Being geared towards a younger audience, this game is much more
simplistic than others (no insane combos for one thing), but that doesn’t make
it any less fun than any other fighter.
ARMS
is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where the only thing humans find
enjoyment in anymore is beating the crap out of each other. They have now begun
experimenting with amputating their arms and tying slinky toys onto them
instead in an effort to find new and exciting ways to beat the crap out of each
other.
Okay, no, that’s not true. But the
explanation for how these characters got their stretchy arms is about as
ridiculous as that.
The gameplay of ARMS looks deceptively simple at first, but it’s hiding several
layers of strategy beneath its exterior. The absolute basics of it are
basically a glorified rock-paper-scissors. You have three tools in your
arsenal: punching, blocking, and grabbing. Punching counters grabbing, blocking
counters punching, and grabbing counters blocking. It’s a fairly simple concept…that
is immediately thrown into overdrive once you discover all the little
advantages you can give yourself just by playing smart.
Half of ARMS is the mind games you play with your opponent. One wrong move
can turn the entire tide of battle, so a lot of matches are spent circling your
opponent, trying to decide whether it’s smarter to try and get the jump on them
by making the first move, or waiting for them to throw a punch and try to
maneuver around behind them for a well-placed grab. It’s a strategy game as
much as it is a fighter, and a lot of high-level play online is all about
moving as fast as you can to position yourself in the right spot to take down
your opponent.
You also have plenty of different
characters and arm types to try out for a huge customization pool. Everyone’s
playstyle is represented here, whether you prefer to get up close and personal
or prefer fighting from a distance. Arms also have different elemental types,
such as fire, ice, slime, electricity and more that you can use to slow down
your foes in combat. Each of the characters also have unique abilities they can
use to their advantage. For example, Ribbon Girl has an extra jump she can use
to get the high ground, and Master Mummy heals himself while shielding. While
the characters various abilities don’t really come into play as often as the
various arm types, there are enough of them that it’s fun to experiment with
each until you find one that really clicks with you.
The overall presentation of the game
can only be described in one way: extremely Nintendo. The Big N’s influence is
all over this game, and in the best way. Each character is very distinct and
memorable, from the mech pilot Mechanica to the ramen noodle-inspired Min Min. Each
character has a very fun design, and you’ll quickly learn to recognize their
names and varying abilities over the course of gameplay. The music is also
great, despite being essentially the same song over and over again. The title
theme is one that especially never gets old even after playing for a while.
The game has two separate modes:
online and local. There is a single player mode in similar style to Classic
Mode from the Smash Bros games, but
it honestly feels like something tacked on at the last minute. You don’t get
any special reward for beating the mode (aside from a one-time unlock of online
Ranked Mode for completing it at a certain level), making it feel like
something you do once or twice to experiment with it and then never touch
again.
The real meat of the game is in the
online mode. There are two separate ways to play: Party Mode, which has a bunch
of crazy modes and extra stuff added in, and Ranked Mode, which is strictly 1v1
matches with no items.
Online is a lot of fun, but it does
have a few caveats. Firstly, Party Mode is more of a frustration than anything.
You are more often thrown into a wacky mode (2v2 with a rope attaching you with
a teammate, fighting a boss, and so on) than a real 1v1 fight, making it
annoying if all you want is to face off against another player. And secondly,
there is no ranking system in place in Party Mode, meaning that master ARMS champions and kids who just started
playing an hour ago can conceivably get matched together with none the wiser.
Unless you really want to play the admittedly fun sports minigames online, I’d
recommend spending the time in the singleplayer mode to unlock Ranked as
quickly as possible.
Ranked on the other hand is much more
fun, with only 1v1 matches allowed and a faster matchmaking system because of
it. You’re also only matched with players near your rank, so you are usually
put up against an opponent of similar skill to yours. When I play ARMS online from now on I think I’ll
only stick to Ranked mode if only because it’s my one shot at a fair fight.
There is one issue across the entire
online mode, unfortunately, and that’s what happens when you encounter a player
with poor connection. It’s very frequent that these players begin to lag,
which, in a bizarre twist of fate, gives them superpowers. Laggers will not
only gain speeds that would make Sonic the Hedgehog’s jaw drop, but also
invincibility to any and all attacks you throw at them. All punches will just
phase right through them as if they were a ghost, but unfortunately the same
cannot be said for you. Encountering a laggy player basically guarantees a loss
for you, because it’s not exactly a fair fight when you can’t even touch the
guy. I don’t know if this is just a problem for ARMS (because if the same situation happens again in Splatoon 2 I’d be really concerned for
this service we’re supposed to be paying for starting next year), but if it is
I really hope Nintendo fixes it sometime soon.
ARMS
is a lot of fun. The presentation is great, and I love the deceptively
simple gameplay that prioritizes quick thinking and strategy over mashing
buttons. Despite this, the singleplayer campaign is completely bare-bones and
the online multiplayer’s got a few kinks that need ironing out. I think if you’re
a fighting game fan this is an easy recommendation from me, if only because
there really isn’t anything else like it on the Switch right now.
My Top 10 Best
(and Top 5 Worst) Trailers from E3 2017
Well, another E3 has come and gone,
and with that it’s time to count down my favourite and least favourite trailers
from the conference. As always, my rules are that the trailers have to be
included in one of the six press conferences (so, for example, I can’t include Metroid: Samus Returns because it wasn’t
revealed until later). I also like to end the show on a high note, so we’ll be
going through the worst first.
(Disclaimer: Blogger won't let me put most of the actual trailers in this article, so I had to include links to them instead. I tried to include as many as possible, but for whatever reason I can't put most of the major ones in the article without using links. Sorry!)
Top 5 Worst
Trailers from E3 2017
5. The Crew 2
(Ubisoft)
As good as Ubisoft’s conference was
this year, they weren’t exactly squeaky-clean. This trailer served as a
reminder of sorts of the company’s past, and was one of the most overlong and
drawn out trailers of the conference.
I’ve never really been the type of guy
interested in realistic driving games. If I’m going to play a racing game, at
least give me one where I can use items to try to get ahead or play on wacky
and creative courses. I can see why they have an audience though.
The big problem with this trailer
compared to the Forza and Need for Speed trailers we saw at other
conferences is that it neither looked interesting nor showed any actual
gameplay. It’s mostly just glamour shots of various vehicles while an
uncomfortable silence lingers over the whole thing. Maybe there were Sony-esque
sound issues and the music was lost by accident? If so, whoops.
4. State of Decay
2 (Microsoft)
Now what we have here is a failure to
communicate.
Trailers are a great way to quickly
explain what sort of feel you’re aiming for with your new game. Is it going to
be silly or serious? Colorful or grim? Maybe a bit of both?
I think the developers of State of Decay 2 are aiming for the bit
of both, but this trailer was a complete mishmash of themes that it felt really
disjointed. On one hand you have this edgy voiceover talking about how the
zombie apocalypse is awful and how they can barely survive and the tough
decisions they have to make…accompanied by imagery of incredibly goofy looking
zombies that explode into green slime. Doesn’t exactly go together.
Couple that with the fact that I think
we as gamers are really past post-apocalypse zombie games. Unless one really
does something new with the formula (Days
Gone for example looks like it has potential), I personally am really tired
of wandering through these brown and barren wastelands.
Sony really dropped the ball this
year. After crowning themselves as the kings of E3 for several years now, they
made several mistakes with this conference that ultimately led to many viewers
feeling pretty darn unfulfilled.
One of the major problems they had
this year was that they slammed on the breaks right smack in the middle of the
conference to talk about what tech demos are coming to PlayStation VR next. I
was hoping that Sony was going to give the expensive peripheral a quiet and
dignified death now that the VR fad is coming to a close, but no! Instead we
got seven minutes straight of games nobody
is going to play.
That’s not to say that some of the
games shown here didn’t look somewhat interesting. Moss and Starchild both
look pretty unique. But those were compounded with stuff like yet another
first-person horror game, a Final Fantasy
fishing simulator, and even Skyrim VR,
telling me that Bethesda is still not ready to let that game die and make an Elder Scrolls VI even after six years.
The biggest problem with Sony’s
conference was that they didn’t really show us anything new or exciting outside
of the Horizon: Zero Dawn DLC and Monster Hunter World, and I think the
giant chunk of time lost to messing around with a peripheral people have
already lost interest in really hurt them more than it helped.
2. EA Sports…just,
like, all of it (EA)
Someone please tell EA to stop with
the sports. Every year they inject more and more of these games into their
conferences, and every year they become more and more unwatchable as a result.
This year saw half the conference lost
to sports, sports and more sports. I wouldn’t mind so much except that I know
these games will be identical to the ones that came out last year, and the year
before that, and the year before that. I know they have to be there for the
investors, but why do they need to take up half the conference!? Microsoft and
Ubisoft always do a good job at getting stuff like Forza and Just Dance out
of the way either early on or quickly, because they know that’s not really the
type of game people watching E3 are going to buy. Why does EA have to drown us
in sports every year?
With Ubisoft looking like there’s a
chance they might be following in Microsoft’s footprints and redeeming
themselves (either that or I’m just way too naïve), EA needs a new partner.
Someone to continue gaming’s most infamous Dastardly Duo with them. What
company would be perfect to take Ubi’s place at EA’s side…?
I suppose congratulations
are in order. Bethesda now holds the notorious record at being ranked #1 on
both my 2016 and 2017 versions of this list. Last year saw them at the top spot
for their laughably awful Elder Scrolls
Legends trailer. This year sees them winning the unwanted prize for
announcing one of the slimiest things E3’s seen since Activision got Jamie
Kennedy to host for them.
I don’t know why
Bethesda’s suddenly begun to fall down the slippery slope towards video game
infamy. It started last year when they introduced their offensively bad review
policy, and with the announcement of their Creation Club they’ve officially
joined companies like EA, Ubisoft, Konami and Activision at the absolute bottom
of the barrel.
If you missed it,
Creation Club is just another way Bethesda’s trying to get money out of your
wallet. Bethesda games are normally a modder’s paradise, allowing fans to add
everything from lightsabers to Thomas the Tank Engine into their games. Knowing
this, Bethesda has now decided to create a service where they can charge money
for stuff other people made and have all that green go to them instead of the
creators. If that sounds like a complete joke to you, you’re not wrong,
especially when mods are generally released for absolutely no cost basically
every day on the Steam Workshop.
Bethesda, who hurt you?
How did the respected developer of stuff like Skyrim and Fallout 3 end
up as yet another scum sucker? I said this to you last year, and I’ll say it
again. Shame on you, Bethesda.
Top 10 Best Trailers
from E3 2017
10. Metroid Prime 4
(Nintendo)
This trailer is just a logo floating
in space, but c’mon. It’s Metroid Prime 4.
I’m not even a Metroid fan and this
got my hyped.
This trailer existing
really shows that while at times Nintendo can be one of the most frustrating
companies to be a fan of, at the end of the day they truly listen to their
fans. This year marks a decade since the release of the last game in the Prime subseries (as well as many would
argue the last actually good Metroid game),
and fans have been begging for some new content from Samus and company. While I
think Nintendo should’ve delivered on that plea sooner, it’s nice to have Metroid fans finally been thrown a bone.
I’ve made my intense
dislike of 2015’s Star Wars Battlefront very
clear in the past. It opened quite a few doors I was not eager to see other
companies go through, including basically needing to buy the game twice just so
you could get 75% of the content. Needless to say as a huge Star Wars fan I was very unhappy with
the final product, and I am more than thankful past-me was smart enough not to
fall for the Season Pass trick.
While my better judgement
is telling me that I shouldn’t be interested in Battlefront II, the way EA presented it was just about the only
thing they did right at E3 this year. They’ve done nothing but apologize for
the stunts they pulled with the first game, and having them admit they listened
to all the criticism while making this game really makes me happy.
This trailer showed off
quite a bit of gameplay over the course of all the available eras in game, and
it looks to be a lot of fun, even though most of it looks to be CGI nonsense.
What I like significantly more is the promises coming with the game. Not only
will we be getting an actual singleplayer campaign, but they’ve also said that Battlefront II will be getting the Splatoon treatment, with all the
characters, weapons and maps will release absolutely free. So long as you have
the game, you get everything they make.
While my personal belief
is that this should be the industry standard, only time will tell if EA sticks
to this promise. Here’s hoping.
BioWare’s been put into an interesting situation, to say
the least. If rumours are to be believed, the failings of Mass Effect: Andromeda might’ve killed their golden goose franchise
for the time being, so when EA announced we’d be seeing what the legendary
sci-fi developer was up to next at Microsoft’s conference, I was both excited
and a little skeptical.
While this trailer didn’t
show too much, it was enough to really pique my interest. Flying around in a
jungle environment, shooting up monsters and robots, exploring and discovering
secrets, getting new gear and completing quests? Yes, please.
This trailer does lose
points for employing Ubisoft’s old trick of having voice actors talk over the
trailer pretending to be gamers, however. It worries me because Ubisoft so
often used that trick to try and make dull and lifeless games feel much more
alive. Remember how often we saw trailers for The Division with the fake mic chatter over them only to find the
game was far less exciting when we actually had it in our hands?
Despite that, this game
looks like a lot of fun. I really hope they don’t screw this one up.
I’ve never played the
first Beyond Good and Evil, so I’m
not nearly as excited for this game as most other people are. But I won’t deny
an awesome trailer its well-deserved spot on its list.
While the lack of
gameplay is a bit frustrating (and makes me feel like we’re not actually going
to get this game for another two years at least), this trailer is a lot of fun.
The characters are entertaining and the animations on them look great. If the
actual game looks like this, we’ll be in for a treat.
I do have to say that I’m
on the side of the people who find the swearing a little bit out of place and
even a bit juvenile. Like, it gets to the point where they drop enough f-bombs
that you wonder if a sixth-grader had a hand in writing the dialogue. It’s not
a huge problem, just something I’d like them to tone back on a bit, especially
since I’ve heard the first game wasn’t really that kind of game.
Despite that, I’m glad
that fans of the first game are finally getting the sequel they’ve been
promised for years now. Between this and Metroid,
this E3 had a lot of companies making good on old promises.
Another game from a franchise I’ve never touched (I’ve
gotta work on my backlog), we saw this new take on God of War for the first time last year. This trailer further
pushed the point that this is a whole new chapter in Kratos’ adventures.
Leaving his Greek past
behind and now venturing to fight Norse mythology, a lot of the game looks like
it’s going to be focused on Kratos’ relationship with his son, as they go on
many father/son bonding adventures, like watching dad rip frost giants apart
with his bare hands.
One thing I love about
this trailer is how much gameplay and combat it shows, while also showing off
cutscenes. So often nowadays we either get one or the other in a trailer, so
it’s nice seeing that these mixup trailers aren’t a thing of the past. Also,
having the trailer end with the two of them encountering Nidhogg the world
snake is just epic.
It’s weird to think that
after all these years there still isn’t really a definitive gaming pirate
experience. Yes, there’s Assassin’s
Creed: Black Flag, but I’ve personally always wanted a full-on pirate
adventure that stands alone, not being tied to another franchise.
Skull and Bones looks like it might be just the game I needed.
While we saw very little
of the game (it’s not due until fall of next year), I was very impressed by it.
The trailer is awesome, teasing epic multiplayer pirate ship showdowns not
dissimilar to the stuff you see in Guns
of Icarus. They also teased sea monsters will be in the game as well, and
it’s impossible to hate a game that involves the Kraken in some way.
How on Earth did an Assassin’s Creed game make the list!? I
thought these games were the same thing recycled year after year?
Well, they are, but even
if this game turns out to be just another brick in the Assassin’s Creed wall, Microsoft did a great job at showing it off.
Right off the bat you can see that this game looks to be a departure from the
series norm. Instead of being in a historical city, this game is set all the
way back in the time of pharaohs and sphinxes. There are animals like hippos
and hyenas all over the map. And, perhaps the coolest addition, the end of the
trailer sees our intrepid hero squaring off against a giant snake. Bosses will
supposedly feature heavily in this game, a first for the franchise.
The fact that this game
really interests me makes me feel that taking last year off was the right thing
for the franchise to do. Assassin’s Creed
has grown insanely exhausted as Ubisoft attempted to put out a game a year,
and now that it’s back after taking a break, I really think there’s a chance
for it to bounce back.
It’s weird to think that after all
these years there still isn’t really a definitive gaming pirate experience.
Yes, there’s Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag,
but I’ve personally always wanted a full-on pirate adventure that stands alone,
not being tied to another franchise.
Sea of Thieves looks like it might be just the game I needed.
Wait, hang on a second.
Yes, this is the other
pirate game we saw at E3 this year, and to be honest, as cool as Skull and Bones looks this one was more
appealing to me. Maybe it’s the more colourful art design or the apparent focus
on treasure hunting and exploration over ship combat (although they have some
of that too).
This trailer was a huge
improvement over the one we saw last year, which was so bad it actually made my
worst trailers list. This trailer had a lot of Rare’s trademark wit, utilized a
much more Pirates of the Caribbean inspired
take on piracy than we’re used to seeing in gaming. I think this game could be
a lot of fun either alone or with a group of friends, and Rare is a company
long overdue for a comeback.
As internationally
beloved Mario is, for me his 3D games haven’t been the best ever since the Galaxy games came to a close. 3D Land was a fun platforming adventure,
albeit an unmemorable one, and I found 3D
World extremely boring. I wanted more than anything for his next adventure
to be more like 64, Sunshine or the Galaxy games instead of just another rehash
of the 3D game formula.
Knowing this, I had high
hopes for Super Mario Odyssey, and
the first trailer really had my fingers crossed. This trailer really
exemplifies everything that made the 3D Mario
games of the past so great, while also showing off some new tricks I can’t
wait to try out.
From first glance I’d say
Mario Odyssey looks to be a successor
to Mario Sunshine above all else.
Similar to your F.L.U.D.D pack in Sunshine,
this game sees Mario’s hat become a tool he can use to complete levels and
gather collectibles. The coolest new ability Mario has in his arsenal is the
ability to take control of various enemies and objects, using their abilities
for himself. It’s awesome, yet at the same time unsettling. Does this mean
Mario’s very soul is tied to his hat?
This game looks like it’s
going to be yet another must-have for Nintendo Switch owners, and I can’t wait
to go on this odyssey with gaming’s number one man.
And, finally, my
favourite game of E3 2017 is…
1. Spider-Man (Sony)
I’ve wanted an awesome Spider-Man game not based off of any of
the movies for years now. The Arkham games
did a great job of creating a fantastic Batman experience, so much so that
basically that any combat system similar to the one it created is still called
“Arkham style” to this day. Why
couldn’t Marvel do the same for its most famous hero?
First teased last year,
I’ve wanted to see more of this game ever since that all-too-brief teaser
ended. And boy, did Sony ever deliver. This trailer basically single-handedly
took a mediocre conference and turned it into a good one.
This game seems to wear
its Arkham inspirations on its sleeve
in the combat, while still creating a perfect Spidey experience while swinging
through New York. The controls on Spider-Man look to be not too tight, but not
too lose either, allowing for a lot of awesome third-person parkour
possibilities. I also like that the developers seem to be taking inspiration
from newer Spidey material, utilizing lesser known characters and villains like
Miles Morales and Mr. Negative.
Honestly, the only thing
I didn’t like about this trailer is that I have to wait until 2018 to play the
game.
So another E3 under the
belt, and while this one was overall pretty even, it did a great job of getting
me excited for what’s to come next from the gaming industry. I’m already
looking forward to 2018!
