Rooting around in a coffee table basket, looking for a notepad, I unearthed this list. I’d forgotten having written it down a little over a month ago. Upon seeing it I remembered, ‘oh, this is that list I wrote down of my 17 favourite PS4 games.’
So…That’s what this is, then.
(Sorry, early adopters. There are no PS VR games here.)
These are not necessarily first party games, or even games that are native to only the PS4. They’re just games that are available on the system, and that’s where I played them. Which has been most of what I’ve played on over the past two and-a-half years, with a lot of Vita sprinkled in, but there’s no Vita stuff on this list, kinda obviously from the explanation I just gave. Anyway, for your judgment and mocking, this list:
17 — Bloodborne
Bloodborne would be number one on this list if Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls didn’t exist. But, ya know. That’s the kind of number 17 game this is: it’s simply the fourth iteration of a brilliant, complex-but-solid vision for a video game. It’s totally worthy of a number one ranking, it’s just that we’ve had a bunch of similar adventures before.
16 — Life Is Strange
I think Life Is Strange could have had some form of more satisfying ending. And it might have been clunky in a few places. Mechanically and story wise. But for the most part it was a fun and often emotional roller-coaster. The adventure gameplay is different enough with a few quirks of its own as well. The characters grew on me by the middle of the series (season?). It seems like a pretty good number 16.
15 — Party Hard
I saw this game played on YouTube and decided I had to have it. The types of people who like to say certain games are “rough around the edges” would love to call Party Hard rough around the edges. Sure, whatever. If a game entertains me it can look like whateverthefuck. This is a stupid looking, buggy, quirky-as-hell, sometimes not working as intended video game. But it’s stupid, ridiculous fun. This game is my Hotline Miami. Some people want the run-in-guns-blazing adrenaline rush that game provides. While I don’t particularly like it, I can easily see why it’s admired. It’s tight and efficient. That’s kind of what Party Hard isn’t; and yet I’d much rather play Party Hard. For all its flaws, the game can be so satisfying – whether methodically stalking people at a house party, or trying to cause as much chaos as possible by inciting a panic and then watching that panic snowball into insanity. Party Hard can be super fun played either way, especially to types like me who enjoy a methodical mass-murder strategy game, even if it’s sort of sloppy all around. To me, it just works somehow.
14 — No Man’s Sky
I can imagine a future in which there are hordes of documentaries about the pain this game caused to people. It was supposed to be everything!, they’ll shout-cry into the camera. The outrage over No Man’s Sky should have easily been avoided. Expectations ran amok. It amounts to this: 1. Stop pre-ordering games. 2. Read a few reviews and wait an extra day or two.
Did Hello Games mislead the public? I dunno, maybe. For argument’s sake, sure. Yes.
Was there anything unethical about the way they marketed/presented their game? Maybe. Businesses are constantly doing unethical shit. That’s why some people have jobs where they act as a middle-person to tell consumers what they’re in for. If everyone who cried their eyes out about this goddamn game would have just waited to read some reviews– which they could have done on the day it came out! It’s not like they had to wait– they might have learned that the game wasn’t what they hoped it was.
To all the people who pre-ordered No Man’s Sky – you made Hello Games rich. You did this. I know, I saw the same trailers that you did. The game looked like it had really cool potential to be a lot of things. But we all know better by now, do we not? Be the change you want to see – don’t pre-order games. Ever. There’s no reason. I’ve done it twice in my life– in the physical media era, mind you–, the first time for BioShock, which was known to be a game-changer a week before it released, and Dark Souls II, which if you know me I don’t need to explain.
For the vast majority of humans with good internet, the days of pre-orders are over. You don’t need that special bonus hyper edition skin or coat or axe or hat.
Personally, I don’t agree with the way Hello Games has handled NMS post-release, what with their complete silence on the matter. But they’re a business, and they sold the shit out of that game. They did their jobs, and they probably have a bright future. Despite being called out by Shuhei Yoshida himself, I’m sure Sony is quite pleased with how much money NMS raked in.
Anyway, uh…Yeah, I like the game for what it is.
Oh, I’d also like to correct a common misconception about the game. I’ve heard a lot of people say that, despite them thinking the game must have had a bit of extra development help from outside and this and that, they were amazed to see that the credits are “just one page of about 15 names or so.” So, yeah, I don’t know if Hello Games made weird credits on purpose, but if you sit on that “one credits page” for about 15-20 seconds it will fade into a second page of credits, with many more names. And then it does that a bunch more times. I watched the full credits to the game and that took about 10 minutes. It obviously credits a lot of Sony people and other non- Hello Games people.
So yeah, if you hear people talking about how crazy it is that No Man’s Sky is just one static page of credits, that is 100% factually incorrect. If you don’t believe me I’m sure there are easy ways to verify what I’m saying.
13 — The Order: 1886
I must seem like the world’s greatest apologist of games people hate, right? I still stand by my comments from last year that The Order: 1886 is a fine game. Instead of marketing it poorly (Sony seems to employ this strategy often, don’t they?) it should have been sold as a $30 game rather than $60, and marketed as a unique, six-hours-long highly polished cinematic action game. I’m confident that such a strategy would have entirely changed the conversation around the game.
The game must be less than $20 these days. If you read all I’ve written about it and go in with the mindset that I recommend, it probably won’t disappoint you. The Order has some cool-as-shit moments, and there’s a good chance the sequel will be much improved, so you should get a head start on that.
12 — Oxenfree
I’ll happily play more games like Oxenfree. I’ll take a bit more of the conversation/adventure/mystery aspects and a bit less of the horror cliches. The game would have been just as good with fewer or no exploding light bulbs. The developers could also work out a few kinks with the conversation system (characters talking over one another). Largely, however, Oxenfree was an enjoyable experience. I played through the game three times, the permutations were just interesting enough (and the game short enough) to warrant that.
I feel strongly that there either needs to be an Oxenfree 2, or simply another game in its style. Thumbs up to Oxenfree.
11 — Wolfenstein: The New Order
We all know about the resurgence of id’s properties. Doom 2016 surprised some people. Two years earlier Wolfenstein was a good game, with an actual story and fine characters. All around a sorta great game. Where would we be without id’s contributions? Well let’s see. id made Quake. Half-Life was written based on Quake’s engine. And without Half-Life everything would be dramatically different today. Sooo…Basically without id, gaming as a whole would have called it quits in about ’01. They may still have made FIFA ’02 and Madden ’02 but that would have been the end. Yep, cement this theory.
Thanks, id. You guys are alright. Oh, and Machine Games too; the people who made this game!
10 — Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
I stayed as spoiler-free as one could before the release of Uncharted 4; I had only heard some comments about slow pacing, less combat, and overall very positive thoughts. That led to me being slightly disappointed by the insane amount of combat in Uncharted 4.
When people said Uncharted 4 had the least combat of the Uncharted games (I don’t believe this, actually) I took it a bit too much to heart. It’s like someone in casual conversation saying “Oh, Bronson? No, he’s hardly a mass murderer. Pompadou, now there’s a mass murderer.” And then this person points to evidence that Pompadou has murdered 114 people, while Bronson has murdered “only” 89 people.
Bronson is still a very serious mass murderer.
And so it is with Uncharted 4, Nathan Drake is still a mass murderer of proportions that this planet has rarely seen. Nathan Drake shouldn’t be able to sleep at night. Apparently a normal night in the Drake/Fisher home includes chatting about work over dinner and maybe some video games after. They don’t at all talk about the hundreds of human beings that the two of them have murdered in their real lives. It’s kinda crazy.
Naughty Dog even put a trophy in the game called “Ludonarrative Dissonance.” I like Naughty Dog, but that’s kinda lame. You’re just acknowledging that someone at your company is capable of reading stuff on the internet. It’s like me walking around wearing a shirt that says “Privileged” because I’m white. Yeah, ok, sure, I’m acknowledging that. I’m not really doing anything though. I’m not helping in any way. See what I mean?
I’ll criticize Naughty Dog all day for this because I think they make such excellent games.
I need to talk for a bit, k? Here is the world of games according to Max.
What year did Dear Esther come out? I think it was 2012. I’m 90% sure of that, so I’m going with 2012. No time to look it up. What does that tell me? Dear Esther was just ever so slightly ahead of the times as far as trends that should be happening. There is now a genre we refer to as either FPX (First Person Experience) or walking simulator. I like FPX because it’s more accurate in every case. Anyway, why does this genre exist? It exists because people want games like this. Developers are making games like this.
I very wisely said, once upon a time, that people should start making non-violent first-person perspective games. BioShock Infinite could have started something. It could have been more legendary than the original BioShock. Instead, it was a flaming trash heap of shit, and the team that made it was scuttled. Ken Levine fucked up big time. He’s a smart man and in the past has been a visionary figure in the gaming industry. But ya done fucked up on BioShock Infinite, Kenny.
All they had to do, yes, all they had to do, was make BioShock Infinite a First Person Experience game. No combat. They were in a better position than anyone ever had been to do this. I’m being completely serious. Think about how much they could have changed the course of games if the sequel to BioShock had no combat in it.
When anyone who will listen hears my theory on this (I beg you, listen) I describe it as something like: Why the fuck won’t anyone just reach for the Legendary Cup of Legendary-ness? It’s just sitting there. Even as of this second, any developer who wants to be Legendary can do it. The Legendary Cup of Legendary-ness is available to everyone. You need one of two things to reach for it. You need either a development studio that is allowed to entirely control the influence of their game without publisher meddling; or, you need an influential figure leading your team who can assure a publisher that what they’re doing is the right thing. An influential figure like, say, Ken Levine.
If you have those ingredients here is how you acquire the Cup: 1) Be the development team that is making a sequel to a game where the player murders a lot of things. 2) Make the sequel so that the player doesn’t murder a lot of things.
It’s that simple.
It could have been BioShock Infinite. But it wasn’t. They missed their chance, and that team is forever a bunch of fuckups. No, that’s too mean. Just the people running the show. That’s you, Kenny. Ya done fucked up.
I don’t know how many times I can say that I’m being completely serious, but: I’m being completely serious. Nothing has ever been more obvious to me. Sure, you’ll piss off a few bros and your sales might be worse off (might be, but they might not!) but you will acquire the Legendary Cup of Legendary-ness.
I could probably ramble about this for a few hundred thousand words, so I’ll just cut myself off.
Uncharted 4 is obviously not as disappointing as Infinite. It’s not even remotely disappointing. But I can still want more. Naughty Dog did introduce actually-good stealth into this game that makes for several fun encounters of tall grass stalking. But the big shoot-outs are still there. There’s still a ton of them. This is, after all, easily the longest Uncharted game, which I think is not a good thing, since every single Uncharted game has had at least a few terrible chapters that needed to be cut.
It’s easy to forget the game is super long because it has a great ending (after a shitty final boss fight, mind you). But it is super long. And there are so many goddamn gun fights. I don’t think there’s fewer than any other Uncharted game. You can get Naughty Dog to correct me there, but I won’t believe it. Play it yourself and tell me you disagree.
And that’s why this hurts. The non-combat moments of Uncharted 4 are so much fun. The conversations between characters we’ve grown to love. Even a new character who I guess is well written. Every second of Uncharted 4 that I wasn’t shooting things or blowing things up, I was having a great time. And then the old Uncharted combat would start up again, and I just wanted it to be over. The stealth sections where you could avoid combat were definitely a plus, I don’t have much bad to say about those except they probably used this trick two or three too many times.
After all this, I still pick Uncharted 4 as the best game in the series, closely edging out Uncharted 3. Though it comes nowhere near the dizzying heights of glory that The Last of Us brought.
There you have it. Uncharted 4: there’s still too much combat in this game, and it hurts that Naughty Dog, for some reason, didn’t read my mind and make an Uncharted game that was pure adventure and character exploration without the violence. But it was still a great game that I’ll remember fondly for the most part. It just had a chance to be something more.
9 — Three Fourths Home
I wrote a few sentences about Three Fourths Home in my 2015 games of the year piece. I have nothing new to report, so read that if you want to know why this makes the list.
8 — Valiant Hearts: The Great War
Do you like stories of love, pain, tragedy and dogs? Do you like crying? Then Valiant Hearts is a game for you!
Seriously, everyone should play Valiant Hearts. It’s completely worth your time, and buying it sends a message to a very powerful developer/publisher in Ubisoft, that you support non-traditional games like this one.
7 — Mortal Kombat X
After MK2 I didn’t care a whole lot about MK. After MK3 I one-hundred percent stopped caring about Mortal Kombat. I never thought my love of this series would be rekindled, but MK X did the trick. Is it “ten” or “eks”? I still don’t know. I call it “eks.”
Don’t play it online, that shit is awful. But play the goofy campaign and then just play with friends or against the computer on a modest difficulty setting. MK X has a lot of fun in store.
6 — Tales from the Borderlands
I’m not ready to give the Telltale crown to TftB, I might be one day, but for now that still belongs to the first season of The Walking Dead. However, Tales is far and away my second favourite Telltale game, and I think most of the world agrees with me.
It’s a genuinely funny video game. We don’t have a lot of those. Buy this game and enjoy the hell out of it.
5 — Until Dawn
Woot woot, Until Dawn! I’ll say the same thing I said about Oxenfree: More please! If you own a PS4, Until Dawn is one of the first games you should play. It’s better than every game from 6 to 17 on this list. I’m right most of the time, so you can just take my word for it.
Until Dawn is the Arizona Cardinals of video games: It hasn’t necessarily won anything or claimed the title of “champion” in any regard, but it’s solid and is well respected. (Well, not this season.)
[Note: I recently played Playdead’s new game Inside, and if I had written this list after having played it, it probably would have been placed right around here. It’s really good.]
4 — Overwatch
Blizzard exec: “I’m bored, Bronsonheimer.”
Bronsonheimer: “Hmm. Sir, do you want to make the best type of game in existence in the genre of online team-based shooter?”
Blizzard exec: “Yeah. Yeah, I want to do that, Bronsonheimer.”
Bronsonheimer: “Okay sir. Just hang on a sec.”
[Three days or whatever goes by]Bronsonheimer: “Hey sir, we took some assets from that game we canceled and we utilized them in making the best type of game in existence in the genre of online team-based shooter.”
Blizzard exec: “Super.”
And Blizzard said, “Let there be Overwatch.” And it was so.
3 — Diablo III: Reaper of Souls
In the PC version of Diablo III you can’t roll. In the PS4 version of Diablo III you can roll. Rolling changed everything.
Blizzard made some games, and then one day they made Warcraft. And that was good. And then they made Diablo and Warcraft 2 and people were like “shit, look out, here comes Blizzard, whoever they are!” So then Blizzard made Starcraft and everyone was like “well, that’s a game-changer.” Then they made Warcraft 3 and that was pretty good and then they made World of Warcraft and everyone was like “hmm, another game-changer.”
Then they made Diablo III on the PC and it was probably the first disappointing Blizzard game. Then everyone at Blizzard was like “lol, oops, did someone hiccup?” And then Bronsonheimer was like “yeah that was me, lol, sorry, won’t happen again.”
And then they made fucking Diablo III on the PS4 and it’s better than the PC version. Let me get this straight: One of the most prolific developers of PC games ever– I’d argue top two or three, only obviously behind Valve– had this tiny hiccup, and then they were just like “oh we’ll just fucking make this game even better on this console that we’ve never developed shit on” and they did it. Diablo III on console is incredibly good.
AND THEN THEY MADE OVERWATCH!!!!!!!! Not to mention they have a very popular tablet game that everyone apparently loves in Hearthstone.
WHAT?!? HOW?!!?
Folks, you’ve already changed gaming at least twice, and arguably four times. You can take a vacation now.
Seriously.
2 — Rocket League
There’s really nothing left to say. Rocket League. And, as amazing as the game is to play, Rocket League is also an excellent lesson in giving games good names. Rocket League is a great game, this is one of the most agreed upon things of all time, I have to imagine. Though I think we might not give enough credit to that name. While SARPBC (I don’t wanna) is a goofy and attention grabbing name, it’s also clunky and stupid. This is a lesson to all games. Even popular games. Do you hear me, Killzone Shadow Fall? What?? Those are just words glued together that are nonsense.
Man #1: “How’s it going, Johnson?
Johnson: “Killzone Shadow Fall.”
Man #1: “God no, Johnson’s gone mad. He’s talking gobbledygook. It’s all over.”
True story.
What about Persona 4: The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena. Really? Fuck off.
Man #1: “Hey man, how’s Persona 4: Arena?”
Despicable asshole: “Do you mean Persona 4: The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena?”
Man #1: “I fucking hate you.”
Rocket League: It’s a great game with a great name.
1 — Fez
Fez is my favourite game this side of 2010 that isn’t called Dark Souls. Fez brings the feels like nothing else does. To someone wired as I am, it’s therapeutic. First of all, there are no bad guys. There’s no jumping on some sad little thing’s head; no “game over.” It’s just little Mr. Fez-wearer (Gomez), go-at-your-own-pace environmental puzzle solving, and a complex and twisting map of many mysteries, all wrapped in the strange but cozy blanket that is Disasterpeace’s soundtrack.
Listen to “Beacon,” “Legend,” “Compass,” or “Majesty” and tell me you’re not a little moved. It may be known as a particularly odd game, shrouded in mystery, what with all the hidden clues throughout to decipher the game’s language. I still finished the game without referring to any guides at all, and I’m not the greatest at puzzle-y games. So it’s fine. I have not, however, uncovered all of its secrets – they are a challenge let me tell you. Again, I haven’t referred to the internet for this game, ever. I think it makes it a lot more satisfying. I’m okay if I never decipher the full mysteries – it gave me enough.
Please try Fez if you haven’t before. I don’t know how a game like Fez exists, but it makes me happy. It feels, to me, like seeing magic.
Is this the worst list you’ve ever read? Let me know!
Email some fool at xtal@Tap-Repeatedly.com.
Conspicuous lack of Dark Souls III here. Now I’m more interested in what your bottom 17 list is. Anyway, having recently and finally finished Bloodborne, I agree that it is great. The gameplay just feels so satisfying.
Also really like Uncharted 4. The glut of gunplay didn’t bother me as much, and I don’t wish for a shooter-free Uncharted, but they definitely could have toned it down some. I don’t fault Nathan Drake for shooting tons of dudes who totally deserved it any more than similar protags.
I may have to try Until Dawn, The Order, and Inside (which I saw you playing the other day and which I had forgotten about until then). I continue to be pleased with my PS4 purchase; more so as time goes on. But I see no point in these incremental hardware upgrades and Sony seems uninterested in convincing me.
The PS4 Pro seems like a pointless piece of hardware. But Sony and Microsoft both obviously want in on the Apple model of having people buy a new “thing” every two or three years. The problem is there’s no phone carrier to subsidize your console purchase.
I guess I left Dark Souls 3 off the list because Bloodborne was on it. I enjoyed it at least as much as Dark Souls 2, which is to say quite a bit.
Definitely try Inside. Really, I’d recommend everything I put on this list.
I’m sure some people Drake has killed in his many travels deserved it. I know it’s not necessarily fair to expect more from an Uncharted game, but it kinda is, to me. I think the least believable aspect of Uncharted 4 was the group of mercenaries, AKA the “private army” hired by Nadine. Shoreline was it? There’s no way those people were being paid well enough to act as fiercely loyal as they did.
The best part of Uncharted 4’s story was that it was the first and only Uncharted game with a non-supernatural ending. The sword fight with what’s his face wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t as bad as Lazarovich (sp?), whatever happened in UC1, and the hallucination crap at the end of UC3. Yay for non-supernatural endings!
Supernatural endings can be done well (see: Indiana Jones). I just think Naughty Dog dropped the ball every time they tried it in Uncharted.
I’m still pretty early in Uncharted 4 so I sort of skimmed that entry. The rest, though, had my full attention and agreement. Not having played several of the games you list here, it mostly stands to remind me that the PS4 is a pretty vibrant platform with a lot of stuff worth trying out. PS+ continues to be one of the better uses of $70 a year, and certainly all the AAA games I’ve made a point to get for PS4 have been worth the investment. This is not a console I regret owning. Maybe I don’t lurv it as much as I lurved the PS3, but then again… maybe it just needs more time.
No Man’s Sky fell victim to the Expectation Game; Sony and Hello both ill-advisedly fed into the problem. But even so, it doesn’t deserve the backlash it’s been getting, and — as you point out — the guilty ones here really are the people who bought it sight unseen and then saw fit to complain, not the people who made the game. The people who made the game are guilty, maybe, of over-stating their ambitions and intentions; but frankly I see this as Molyneux-like enthusiasm rather than criminal wrongdoing. I played on the PC and plan to set it aside (having put in 30 hours or so), wait for a bunch of content patches, and start again. Which is not meant as an indictment of what’s there, just as a recognition that there could be more to come.
Keep looking for shit if you’re cleaning out rooms! There’s often great stuff scrawled on the backs of napkins, at least if you’re anything like me. And YOU KNOW you want to be something like me, I mean come on man.
Molyneux is the perfect comparison, Steerpike. The promise of No Man’s Sky seems similar to the fell-short-of promise of the Fable games, or Black & White.
Black & White was one of those games that, after playing for 2-3 hours, I thought would be a masterpiece. The possibilities seemed endless. In those days though there might have been 20 major outlets reviewing video games. Not the hundreds that there are today; not to mention YouTube. Unless it’s some Amazon Prime 50% off deal, pre-ordering is pointless.
Botch, since you asked, I’ll conjure up my bottom list of PS4 games, in no particular order:
1. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
2. The Unfinished Swan
3. Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
4. Call of the Duty Ghosts
5. Race the Sun
6. Helldivers
7. Ether One
8. Killzone Shadow Fall
9. Alienation
10. Destiny
Those are the only PS4 games I’ve played that I would skew mostly negative on. Of those I’d say Destiny is the one I like most, and tied for liked least would be Killzone, AC4, and The Call of The Duty Ghosts. I heard some good things about KZ, and in general it seems the game was received well, or at least okay. It was a painful trudge through boredom for me. AC4, everyone knows how much I despise that game. And the Duty Ghosts … it sucked, for sure. Worst Calla-Dewts I’ve played since Dewts 3.
Right, Shoreline. I completely agree with your point about those knuckleheads. Not only were their motivations questionable, but their numbers were completely ridiculous. I really only mentioned less shooting in the context of pacing and balancing.
The argument about the seeming discrepancy between Drake’s character and the considerable body count holds no interest for me. But I am fascinated with why it’s Nathan Drake in particular who always seems to be singled out in these discussions. Is it because he is so well-drawn in other respects? Is he the victim of his own success as a realistic (ish) character?
If that’s it, then I call B.S. He’s no more realistic in his superhuman scamperings around cliff faces and faithful leaps to centuries-old wooden beams. So is there more to it than that?
I remember back during No Man’s Sky’s development, the question of what do you actually do in this game kept coming up. The lack of a clear answer left me to fill in the blanks for myself: nothing interesting or worth doing, and with crappy mechanics to boot. Even if I had been eagerly awaiting it (I wasn’t and I’m not) that would have put me off.
There is no lack of blame going around. Sorting it all out and distributing it properly is another thing that doesn’t interest me. Hello Games certainly deserves some. The bigger question is what has this done to their future and why would anyone ever trust them again? People certainly kept buying Molyneux’s crap though. You can’t fix stupid. Speaking of stupid, I don’t think gamers deserve blame, but they do deserve whatever harsh lesson this mess can teach.
Your “bottom list” consists of games I am barely aware of and would never consider spending my money on. So, cool! I did try the Destiny demo. I thought it was absolutely gorgeous, but otherwise shallow.
Holy crap, Botch, that’s exactly what I was going to say about it. I’ve never really understood why Nathan Drake in particular is always the one singled out. Aidan Generic from Watch Dogs is, strictly speaking, a “normal” fellow like Drake, and he kills a zillion people, people who aren’t even shooting at him. They’re just strolling along and suddenly the ATM or something explodes (because that’s what hackers do is blow up ATMs) and they’re consumed in fiery shrapnel.
Maybe it’s because Uncharted has so much comedy. Maybe because Nathan Drake is the way he is — sort of an everydoofus — maybe we feel his actions more keenly. Most people are more Nathan Drake than Max Payne, I guess.
Drake resorts to violence when his options are limited, but he’s never seemed to get any particular satisfaction from it. Still for some reason he’s always the one who gets trotted out as the Great Mass Murderer of Videogameland. The curbstomping, brick-waving fights in The Last of Us were a lot more visceral and in-yo-face; Lara Croft goes to town on mercenaries with little more than a stick and a string but I don’t recall her getting in trouble for it. The only obvious difference is Uncharted is self-aware and silly and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Is that the only reason?
Zombies don’t count, but I killed a zombie with a sponge in Dead Rising 3. That’s way worse than anything Nathan Drake has ever done! A sponge!
I don’t have a PS4, but, of all the games here that I’ve played on PC or Xbox One, I like them a lot. So I declare this a Good List. A caveat – I did not play No Man’s Sky. I have no interest in it.
We gotta Overwatch together some time too.
I say Ludonarrative Dissonance doesn’t actually make a game worse, really. It’s just a thing you can point out, or not. It’s a nice surprise if a game doesn’t have it, I guess! I highly recommend the 2-part podcast on Idle Thumbs (https://www.idlethumbs.net/) with Amy Hennig, where they totally ask her the “Nathan Drake Mass Murderer” question and I won’t spoil the answer. And Amy Hennig is brilliant in general.
I don’t own a PS4 either but I loved reading this. Always a pleasure Max.
“If a game entertains me it can look like whateverthefuck.” Quoted for truth, and because it was funny.
Molyneux is exactly the right example here with regards to NMS and Sean Murray. I wrote this in an email a long time ago:
“Peter Molyneux is an excitable person, a dreamer (for better or worse), who wants to talk about his hopes with whatever he’s working on. He’s always been openly giddy about his games and that’s been infectious (for better or worse). He’s ambitious and visionary and I’d take more people like him who fail to deliver on their lofty goals (which isn’t the same as lying) than any number of developers who don’t aim that high in the first place. Game development is a monumentally complex thing that even industry veterans can’t reliably cost and put a time frame on. It’s just the nature of any creative medium. Even with graphic design, some seemingly complex jobs can take only a few hours while the seemingly simple jobs can take days — I can’t predict this and I’ve been doing it for years. Now imagine that on a considerably larger scale with so many more moving parts being handled by all sorts of different people. And the more ambitious you are, the more likely you are to run into issues. Carving your own path isn’t as easy as treading existing ones.
Ultimately though the bottom line is this:
He’s been over-promising for most of his career. Everyone knows this. Kickstarter is all about promising and the hope of delivering. Everyone knows this too. So when you put those two things together, honestly, what do you fucking expect? Are you that optimistic? So on that basis the entire interview [with John Walker on RPS] is about calling someone out on something that WE ALL KNOW ALREADY, including Molyneux himself, and for what? In what way was the interview illuminating? And to who exactly? THAT’S why he’s a soft target and THAT’S why I think it’s more cynical and destructive than it is constructive. Whether anyone has called him out on all this in the past is a moot point because his reputation already precedes him and yet he still managed to secure over £500,000 in funds. KS is a dreamland and Molyneux is a dreamer and everything that’s happening now is a result of people doing the same as him: believing that these dreams can come true. Ironically, Molyneux is like a god in Black & White: his continued existence is based entirely on how much people believe in him, and clearly, plenty still do.”
I see a lot of parallels with this and NMS/Sean Murray. It was only ever going to end in tears.
Hoping to play Oxenfree over the coming weeks, looks great!
The New Order I enjoyed a lot more than expected but it kind of lost its way for me towards the end. I think it was just a bit too long. That final boss was a pain in the arse too.
Back when Bioshock Infinite was released and we were all chatting about it in that gigantic email thread, I remember saying “shooting people in the face for 20 hours probably isn’t the best fit for a story driven game focused on big concepts, characters and world building”, so I absolutely agree with your point.
I think one of the reasons Nathan Drake gets so much shit over the mass murdering is that, when he’s not killing the heck out of people, he seems a really nice guy. The game’s focus too is on adventuring, platforming, treasure hunting and thwarting a ragtag bunch of bad guys unlike, say, The New Order or even The Last of Us with its post-apocalyptic survival bent. We don’t see Indiana Jones directly killing many people with firearms because there simply aren’t that many people to kill and still, he’s up against the Nazis, cults and ancient guardians. I remember a sequence in Drake’s Fortune when you’re shooting Jeeps from the back of a Jeep while hurtling through the jungle. The number of Jeeps you destroy is insane, by any standard.
Tales from the Borderlands, noted. I recall you not being a fan of the original Borderlands as well, which is good to hear because I wasn’t either. Oh hey, Tales of the Borderlands is what you get when you take a shooting game and… make it not about the shooting!
Until Dawn is the one of the few games I’d like a PS4 for. Looks really fun and one I think my girlfriend would enjoy too after the two of us played through Heavy Rain.
I’ve only played the PS3 demo of Diablo III but I hear that you can’t play the PC version with those controls (or on pad, full stop), which sucks because they make the game playable and so much more enjoyable to me. I hate that ARPG mousing control scheme on PC. It’s horrible but seems to be the standard.
Rocket League, amen. I haven’t played it in a while but, to be honest, that’s probably a good thing because it sucks up evenings.
I still need to play Fez.
Hey Max, did you ever see the movie It Follows? Disasterpeace did the soundtrack to it after the director played Fez. It’s one of the film’s strong points!
Oh and yeah, I wasn’t wild about The Unfinished Swan either. The best thing about it for me was realising what a great voice Terry Gilliam has.
I haven’t heard of It Follows, Gregg, but I’ll look it up! Thanks for that.
Your email is great, it’s very well put. I do like to think about it the way you put it in that one line, about rather having these dreamers than not having them. Maybe No Man’s Sky is a failure, but it’s not like we’d be better off if it had never existed. I think we’re better off. We need new things, and if they fail that’s part of the process.
I’ve heard over the last few days that Titanfall 2 sales have fallen way, way short of what the first game did, on a fraction of the install base. That’s a bummer, because it probably means that the franchise– created by some people who were largely responsible for Modern Warfare, one of the all time great shooter games– is dead.
I don’t want to be seeing new properties fail because for every one that does it means we’re more likely to just get more of the old. And the old is okay! But we gotta have a healthy mix of both.
As for the point you all commented on about Mr. Drake, I can’t tell you why every other person who has brought it up did so. I can tell you only why I do; there’s a couple reasons. One, I think all the Uncharted games would be way more enjoyable with less combat. Two, I care about the Uncharted games so I’m more likely to lob criticisms at them. It’s as simple as my second point. The main focus of Uncharted is endearing us to Nate, Elena, Sully et al. and their adventures. That’s not the focus of the Halos, the Dewts, the BioShocks, or many others.
Joel in The Last of Us kills violently and often. It feels weighty when you kill people (or former people) in that game. It suits the context well, I believe.
***UNCHARTED 4 ENDING SPOILERS***
If one day Nate and Elena were to sit down their daughter and tell her the truth about all their exploits (yes, this is a ridiculous hypothetical scenario), one detail that would be absolutely worth mentioning is that Nate has killed a lot of people. He has definitely killed hundreds of people by shooting them with guns, blowing them up with grenades, running over them in cars, and other means I’m surely forgetting. He’s maybe killed thousands. (Yes I know it’s a video game, oh god people like me are ruining the world with my hippie liberal agenda! Oh no! I must be destroyed!)
***SPOILERS OVER***
I could pick other games to use this line of criticism, but why would I? If I was to lament the state of rock music in 2016, I wouldn’t pick on the failings of some jam band from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, would I? No, I’d say U2 is a shit band and have been for a good long time. (Sorry to any U2 fans, I’m a jerk. I like their first five albums or so!)
If there was a poll to choose the crown jewel of games from the 360/PS3 era, I’m putting my money on Uncharted 2. Maybe GTA IV would get picked but you get the point. I don’t see value in criticizing the cat gun or the act of peeing on people in the Postal franchise, because nobody cares about Postal. People do care about Uncharted though. A lot of people. I think I’ve made my point, as usual with too many ramblings.
Sorry to those who got this far. Don’t worry, I am filled with self-hatred in case you were wondering!