Review: Gone Home and The Stanley Parable - Indie Game Double-Header

I've found myself playing a lot more indie games recently. I'd hazard a guess that this is probably because most indie publishers place a higher value than Triple-A publishers do on things that FUCKING WORK AT LAUNCH.

So in the past weekend I worked my way through both The Stanley Parable and Gone Home, two excellent PC titles that have given me hope for the future of gaming.  The reason I'm reviewing them together is two-fold: 1) Their gameplay and mechanics are actually quite similar, despite them both having extremely different atmosphere, style and narrative, 2) since these will be spoiler-free reviews and both games are very story-intensive, they'd each be about half a post by themselves - hence the doubling-up.

We're Pulling a Capcom - What that Means, and Why

Things have been... well, stressful. After some behind the scenes talks, it has been decided that we're badly in need of a restructuring. An HD re-release or a disc-based update, if you will.

Accessibility - The Grand Cop-Out

Tonight's post is sponsored by Jagermeister, not because they're paying me, but because I needed to get faded enough to set free my actual anger on this subject.

These days, games are praised for being "accessible", which really just means "really fucking easy". It's an awful thing, and it is the biggest chink in the armor of the otherwise impenetrable games industry.  With developers chasing the next Call of Duty in terms of sales, and publishers chasing the next Angry Birds in terms of install base, games are getting easier and easier.

Impressions: Hearthstone - Hearth of the Cards

In case you haven't gotten yourself into the closed beta, been watching streams, reading forums and wikis, or have been living under a rock for the last couple of months, I'm going to be talking at you a bit about Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.  This is Blizzard's new timesuck for those that are already addicted to WoW, already addicted to card games, and/or are looking to get addicted to both.

First Impressions: Black Ops 2, One Year Later

As you may have noticed, we have a bit of a tendency to review older and/or niche titles, primarily due to the fact that we buy what we want to play, when we want to play it, and then create content from there. I've been running a little short on games that can hold my interest as of late, so one of my friends lent me his copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

I've haven't been a huge fan of the formulaic, grindy multiplayer originally introduced in the original Modern Warfare, and a lot of the campaigns have just fallen flat in recent years. However, I had heard good things about BlOps 2's campaign, and a lot of good things about the zombies mode, so I figured I'd give it a shot, though I've only played some of the campaign so far.

Pokemon X/Y - Talkin' Bout an Evolution

Last night I polished off the new Elite Four in the latest generation of Pokemon.  I clawed my way to the top fighting tooth and nail, and let me say that it was not easy.  Not nearly as easy as the Elite 5th (or Champion) or the magic bum that follows after that.  None the less, it's been an amazing journey and will continue to hold my attention with all its joyous post-game.

Let me be clear now.  This won't be a review because, by professional standards, I don't believe that I can be a fair judge.  I'm too saturated with childhood nostalgia and will inevitably overlook glaring flaws in favor of the glimmering new features.  This is going to be an editorial where I gush about how much I've loved every second of Pokemon Y.  Let's get down to it.

On HD Remakes and Collections

As the cost of developing competent games skyrockets, in part due to the required graphical fidelity to appease the people who give half a fuck about gameplay, and in part due to the number of people needed to work on a title to complete it in a timely manner, sometimes publishers need to make a quick cash grab to recoup some of their out-of-control budget costs.

The most obvious among these are the HD remakes and collections that have become quite popular this generation, making (formerly) popular game X or series Y available on the current systems for those too struck by nostalgia to get a new release, or those who've never experienced these titles before, and are interested in an upcoming sequel/reboot.

The Five Reasons YOU Should Be Playing Pokemon X/Y

5. Cast of Characters - Pokemon has been a pretty formulaic game.  10-year-old kid gets given their own personal monster to go battle 8 gym leaders and eventually conquer the Elite Four (Five, Six, whatever).  Along the way, your douchey rival who picked the pokemon yours was weakest to, tries to mess you up.

X and Y start you off as part of a team of 5 individuals selected by Professor Sycamore to fill up the Pokedex and uncover the mystery behind Mega Evolution (new game mechanic - think digivolution).  Your unique pals offer a slightly different story than the one we're all used to by now and add an interesting dynamic to the game.

4. Character Customization - For the first time, you can actually customize your character to an astounding degree.  Beyond the selection of male and female, you're also given the option of skin tone/hair color, and can eventually even purchase new clothes and outfits.  I think everyone's always wanted to model their pokemon trainer after themselves, and X and Y finally let you do it.

3. OG Starter - An hour into the game, you finally get to meet the Professor and after a brief duel with his Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle, you actually get to take one with you.  Now you've basically got two options: 1) grab the pokemon that covers your glaring weakness (eg. if you picked the grass-type starter, grabbing Squirtle would cover that giant fire-weakness you seem to have).  2) Alternatively, you could just grab which ever original starter you loved from the first generation and roll with that.  I grabbed Charmander, making him the 2nd fire-type on my team and was not disappointed in the slightest.

2. Running Shoes FROM THE GET GO - I really don't need to say more than this.  You start the game with your running shoes on.  No more bullshit walking around waiting for the right storyline moment when some jackass finally tells you how to run.  You also acquire roller skates early on, which gives you a nice middle-ground between running and bicycling.

1. Experience Adjustments (Catching and Sharing) - Another thing the pokemon series has been guilty of besides holding out on those running shoes is a rather tedious form of experience giving.  No longer is this an issue.  Again, in the early stages of X/Y, you're given the Exp Share item which can be turned on an off.  While on, it passes out half of the fight's experience to the rest of your team, helping them all grow at a rather consistent rate.  Almost as important as this change, when you capture a pokemon, you no longer lose the experience you would have otherwise gained from defeating it.  Instead, the game counts a catch the same as a KO, and awards your team experience all the same.  A significant change from all the grinding we used to have to do back in my day.

Now, granted I've been absent from the Poke-scene for about a generation (Black and White just weren't my thing), so a couple of these reasons might not be the most recent implements.  Regardless, these are 5 key reasons that Pokemon Y has become my new addiction, and why you should join me.

-Nik "Latency" Trumble

Nintendo - The OTHER Guy

There's a lot of focus on Sony and Microsoft here at Zero Tolerance.  This is predominantly because they've each got a new console coming out in a little over a month and we're still not sure how to react to Microsoft coming up with bullshit policies and then retracting them after they realized that shoving shit down our throats wasn't going to fly.

I'd like to put someone else under the microscope here for a second though.  Nintendo hasn't been doing or receiving as much press as the other two, but the more I think about it, they've been getting a lot of things right as of late.

• Top o' the list: BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY - going all the way back to the GameBoy Advance, Nintendo has shown a solid commitment to backwards compatibility with their consoles.  The GBA could play classic GameBoy titles, the Wii can play Gamecube titles, early DS consoles had a slot for GBA games, and even the new 3DS can play original DS games.  The WiiU regrettably can't play Gamecube discs, but will still run Wii games just fine.  Sony and Microsoft have thrown this vital part of the modern console market away.  Graphics aren't improving by the leaps and bounds we were used to as kids, and hardware designs that aren't capable of running older titles from the same storage media as their predecessors are just frustrating.
• Repeated visits to the Dead Horse Stables - Nintendo has this habit of spitting out a new Zelda or Mario game with slightly less frequency as Activision does Call of Duty.  However, these mainstays of the Nintendo brand are always well-received.  They haven't (and aren't) going the way of Guitar Hero, being beaten to death and reproduced long after gamers wanted more.  This brings me to another topic.
• Nostalgia Bombings - Repeats, rehashes, rereleases and new entries in classic franchises from the late 80s and early 90s are an interesting strategy.  Nintendo's ability to keep throwing new Mario, Zelda and Pokemon titles at us should be admired, considering the fact that we all still rush out to purchase them.  Part of this is because deeply ingrained in the older gamer are memories of times long since past playing our favorite childhood titles.  We want to relive these experiences on new hardware, with new graphics, new gameplay and new story.  This is why Pokemon X and Y sold 4 million copies on launch weekend (source: Nintendo).  This is why fanboys keep begging for more Zelda titles, and Nintendo keeps re-releasing the pinnacle titles of the series (Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask and Wind Waker).  Unfortunately, this is also why I keep buying each new Sonic the Hedgehog release, praying to god it's not as offensive as Sonic 06.
• At this point in the race, the WiiU is about a year ahead of Sony and Microsoft in terms of release schedule and that means one important thing - they've already had time to start building a library.  Both fortunate and unfortunate for Nintendo, this means a lot of really solid first-party titles, and a lot of third-party shit.  However, coupled with the console's backwards compatibility, its becoming an increasingly enticing addition to my living room.

Nintendo has always done some really wacky shit.  If you need proof, look no further than the VirtualBoy.  The Wii and WiiU control schemes might not be something I'd consider attractive, but even they realize this and offer alternatives.

Also, the damn thing is getting Bayonetta 2 as a console exclusive, and I'ma need to play the shit outta that.

-Nik "Latency" Trumble

Second Impressions: GTA Online

Grand Theft Auto Online is working now, and given how I lambasted Rockstar previously for their failed launch, I decided to take a peek in and see how it handles.

GTAV Review, Part 3 - The Finale

I had a hell of a time trying to get this piece together last week. Nothing was falling into place properly, and I put myself under the gun with Nik having the week off, but that ultimately bore nothing. I'm finally in a good spot to get the last of my thoughts on GTAV out, bullet point quick hit style.

First Impressions: Grand Theft Auto Online... Or Is It?

Grand Theft Auto Online "launched" Tuesday, and it was about as successful as the Challenger.

For one of the most highly anticipated features of the fastest selling video game of all time to fail so spectacularly might be seen as a minor setback, but for each day it's not working properly more and more people who have already completed the single player content are trading the title in at retailers.

Review: inFAMOUS - Blunder-struck

In 2009 we saw the birth of a new genre, thanks to 2 games: inFAMOUS and Prototype.  I can confidently say that without these two titles, Saints Row IV wouldn't have been as enjoyable as it was.  These two games effectively began the open-world "superhero" genre.  And, as the trend tends to be, this new genre was well-received, and a great deal of flaws were overlooked in favor of promoting a new concept.

Well allow me to shit on your parade.  Infamous is a gritty, dark, superhero origins story with a morality system that makes about as much sense as choosing to guzzle down 400 gallons of Pepsi or Coke.  Sure, there's the matter of personal taste, but in the end you're still going to wind up with diabetes.

GTAV Review, Pt. 2 - The Characters

This one's going to be a good deal shorter than the last, but I wanted it to be more focused. We're doing a timeshifted week because I got frustrated with what I had pre-written, and the piss-poor GTA Online launch, and had to take a break. We were going to do two posts tonight, but there's been a similar situation with Latency's inFamous review, so we resorted to this.

Now back to the review...(Some spoilers ahead...)

Review: Dragon's Crown - 2D Side-scrolling Action with a Lot of But(t)s...

Way back in the day, we had these things called "arcades" where gamers would go to spend "quarters" to play video games.  Among fighting titles like Street Fighter, racers like Cruisn', and those rigged-as-hell claw machines, you could often find the side-scroller - a game that featured up to 4 players who walked towards the right fighting various enemies along the way and eventually ended in a boss fight.  Then those players were dropped into a new locale to repeat the process until the designers had decided the game was over.  Many classic titles include Streets of Rage, Double Dragon, a handful of titles branded under the Dungeons & Dragons franchise, and, of course, The Simpsons Arcade Game.

In an attempt to breathe new life back into the genre that effectively went the same way as the "arcade" (and dinosaurs, etc.), Vanillaware (famous for Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade, 2D side-scrolling beat 'em ups with RPG elements) has given us Dragon's Crown, a 2D side-scrolling beat 'em up with RPG elements.  Quite frankly, they've succeeded, but is this generation ready to take on the task of perpetually walking to the right until you reach a boss fight?

Grand Theft Auto V Review, Part 1

Grand Theft Auto V was one of the most anticipated titles of this console generation, and near universally praised by "professional" critics. Often waving away its flaws(and there are many), and instead valuing the game on the amount of content, opposed to the quality thereof, many of the currently available reviews are a testament as to why the business of game journalism is often considered a mere shadow of the more traditional type(which over the past two decades has become even more soulless and manipulatory itself).

There will be none of that here. Grand Theft Auto V does have some high points(which won't be overlooked either), but they're often dragged down by the thoughtless content crammed in to fill the otherwise empty space around them. I've got an axe to grind, and Rockstar gave me a stone on which to do it. It's time to have a go at one of the most successful titles this year, both critically and commercially, with a jackhammer. I'm going to sort out which of the individual components aren't so shiny when looked at with an eye to detail, rather than being blinded by the total package.

Grand Theft Auto V, controversy, and rage... Let's fucking do this.

Follow (Not Quite) Friday

This post was originally planned for Friday to coincide with the whole #FF thing, but (surprisingly) the Dragon's Crown review is taking a little longer and a bit more brain-power than previously anticipated.  So in the interim I've decided to do a little something I've been considering for a bit.  Below is a list of people in the video game journalism/lifestyle community "thing" that have inspired me and eventually lead me to start up Zero Tolerance Games.  They're all awesome people that have great thoughts and insights to the gaming world and I highly suggest paying them some attention (on twitter or otherwise).

Jim Sterling (@JimSterling) - Introduced to me through his video series Jimquisition on The Escapist, Jim is also a journalist over at Destructoid, part of the weekly Podtoid group, and has his own Let's Play series called Now Bloody Playing on youtube.  While most Jimquisitions are focused on negative or could-be-improved aspects of the gaming industry, the man does give some very fair scores in his reviews and does a great job of seeing the best in everything.  He also waves around rubber sex toys on camera.

Grey Carter (@GreyTheTick) - Writer for the webcomic Critical Miss and freelance game journalist, Grey is a very cynical sarcastic individual who's humor I appreciate very much.  His tweets are occasionally funny and often rather insightful.  Most importantly, Grey is a harsh judge when it comes to gaming.  Games don't deserve an instant 7/10 for just existing and his grading scale starts at 0 and goes up, instead of starting at 10 and marking down.  Personally, I find harsh critiques to be the best, since it shows me the flaws in a game and allows me to ponder whether or not those particular flaws are things that I can overlook or embrace or if they're dealbreakers.

Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw (@YahtzeeCroshaw) - Famous for his Zero Punctuation series of audio/video reviews, Yahtzee is pretty much the singular reason I finally ended up getting Zero Tolerance off the ground.  I figured that if some angry Brit could rant about games on the internet, pointing out each individual flaw and mocking them for it, that I could start a blog doing roughly the same thing.  As my writing has developed, I've found that I've gotten a) a little less harsh and b) tend to play good games or games that I enjoy a lot more than shelling out money for crap that I can't stand just to blog about it.

Warren Ellis (@warrenellis) - British writer Warren Ellis is technically the other 50% of why I finally started Zero Tolerance.  His comic series Transmetropolitan follows rogue journalist Spider Jerusalem on a quest for truth in a nameless city in a dystopian future.  More absurd mockery and less gritty cyberpunk, Transmetropolitan also kick-started my desire to criticize the games industry as well as the games themselves.

With any luck, this piece has offered you some insight into the mind and origins of one of us driving forces here at Zero Tolerance Games.  We're not corporately funded, we don't have any backing or make any money doing this.  We do this for the love of gaming and the love of the industry, even when it's spending all its time and money fucking things up.  These people are just a couple that help inspire that passion.

-Nik "Latency" Trumble

Potatoes, Waifus, Dreams, Sandstorm, and Mexi-Everything

The Grand Theft Auto V review will go up Thursday; I just finished it last night, and need a little more time to gather my thoughts. No podcast again this week; life got in the way this time, hoping to get one up next week.

Today, I'd like to talk about the time vortex that is Salty Bet.

Food for Thought: Bayonetta and Feminism

Here's an idea: What if Bayonetta, the over-sexed action heroine from the game of the same name, was arguably one of the most feminist characters of our generation?

GTAV First Impressions And Miscellaneous Updates

No podcast this week. We had the full intention to record one, and were in the planning stages when we got distracted, primarily due to a lack of ideas at the time. Maybe next week, maybe another week down the road, when more is happening in the industry, and we actually have things to discuss. The source of our distraction will remain unnamed for now, as it's something either I or Nik will cover in the next two weeks.

Review: Saints Row IV – This is How We Do It

Shortly after I'd finished Saints Row: The Third, the 4^th installment had been announced. After the overload of comical violence, memorable characters, and gang-related mayhem I'd just been exposed to, I was left pondering one thing about the sequel. “How do you get bigger and more bombastic than Saints Row 3? Where do we go from here?”

Three Ideas, One Half-Assed Title

Tonight, since I was unable to really pick between the ideas I had come up with, you're going to get three bite-sized pieces for the price of one, which is, well, free. The first is a follow up to an earlier piece on what developers can do to interest me in next-gen. The second is a bit more in the epic saga of Microsoft trying to bury themselves with the upcoming console generation. The third is a bit on the Katamari franchise, the rise and fall thereof, and why it was so important.

The Closed Reality of Open World Games

As I was playing Saints Row The Third earlier, I was roaming around, unarmed, looking for collectibles. I walked down a little alley, with no notoriety, towards some sort of factory, and suddenly was taking fire from police. I found it odd, because nothing had been mentioned about restricted areas in the game, and, though I've gotten used to taking fire from rival gang members unprovoked, this was the first time the police had taken the initiative on such an occasion.

STOP THE PRESSES - EA to Release 6 - 8 New IPs

For a while now, I've considered Activision President and CEO Bobby Kotick to be the face of everything wrong with the video game industry.  The man who claimed that "if it was left to me, I'd raise prices even further" and coined the term annualizable, Kotick stood (and frankly still stands) for everything I've come to hate about major publishers.  Activision drove the Guitar Hero franchise into the GROUND, delivering sequel after sequel even long after fans had stopped caring.  They continue to bombard us with a new Call of Duty every fucking year, and they'll only pick up an IP that they feel can be "exploited every year on every platform".

So when Ubisoft's VP of Sales and Marketing, Tony Key, made a statement to near similar effect, I ran through the gauntlet of emotions.  First, I was outraged that yet another major publisher had joined the Annualizable Axis of Evil.  Then I was saddened by having to expect a Watch_Dogs 2 in 2014.  Ultimately, I was rather in awe of Key's courage for being vocal about exactly what every other major publisher was already doing: spamming us with yearly sequels guaranteed to make a quick buck.

Now imagine my surprise when I read this quote today from EA Games Executive Vice President Patrick Soderlund:

"We have six to eight completely new IPs in the works. The day we stop making new IP is when we go onto life support. We need to incubate new ideas and push creative boundaries."

 Wait... What?  EA is trying to push forward new IPs?  Can it really be true?  Well... sort of.  In the same interview with MCV, Soderlund also stated, "We are working on a new Mirror’s Edge game, and although that’s not a new IP, it is a revival done in a new way. We are developing Star Wars Battlefront, which to us is a new IP, even though it isn’t technically."

Assuming that Mirror's Edge and Battlefront are two of the IPs EA considers "new", that still leaves roughly four to six new ideas up in the air.  The real question that should be on everybody's mind is "are these new IPs already doomed to be beaten with the same annual stick as the rest of the corral?

Source: MCV

10 Titles, One Post: Quickie Reviews #1

A quick update before we begin: We have not forgotten, nor abandoned, our attempts at a podcast. It will be coming back, and soon. Current plan is for the week of September 16th, though that's not a hard deadline.

Tonight, I'm going to review some games I've played that just didn't conjure up enough in me to validate a full piece. Some are good, others are not, but all shall be judged.

Second Opinion: Divekick

Mike talked about quite a few changes or, more accurately, updates to the operation of Zero Tolerance.  Tonight, I plan to exemplify a couple of those.  Obviously, this will be the first "Second Opinion" piece done here.  Additionally, I'll be breaking Divekick down and commenting on some very particular areas, and giving it an overall letter grade at the end.  Let's begin.

From Here on Out

There's a learning curve involved with this kind of thing, and I'd like to think we've learned a lot over the past three months or so here at Zero Tolerance. With that said, there's going to be some changes coming down the pipeline. A little more structure is needed, and we think that maybe we've found a way to add it, without adding any extra bullshit.

3 Steps Forwards, 2 Steps Back - Nintendo Handhelds

When it comes to handheld platforms, Nintendo manages them about the same way that Capcom handles the Street Fighter franchise. About once a year they take what's already available, add a few new features, drop it in a fresh coat of paint, and rerelease it at full price.

However, the reason Capcom gets away with this bullshit is that, in order to continue playing the latest and greatest in Street Fighter, you need to go out and buy a new disc, or pay for more DLC to upgrade your existing package.  In order to play the latest and greatest in Nintendo handheld games, you need only continue doing exactly what you're doing and have absolutely no reason to go and buy a new cocking console.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm talking about the 2DS today, Nintendo's newest iteration of the dual-screened portable. I understand the marketing theory behind it. They're not trying to capture the audience they already have.  They're trying to engage those that haven't thought about the 3DS or haven't pulled the trigger on buying one yet and, frankly speaking, I feel that the 2DS is the closest they've come to actually pulling it off this time.

The 2DS is exactly what it sounds like.  It maintains all the functionality of the 3DS - WiFi, full compatibility with both DS and 3DS games, etc. - but with one key difference.  The console doesn't have a 3D option.  In addition, it also happens to be missing one other major functionality.

No clamshell.  The 2DS is not a folding console, unlike every other iteration of it's generation as well as the DS before it (and all the way back to the GameBoy Advance SP if you want to be technical).  Reggie Fils-Aime (President of Nintendo of America) describes the console as such: "Imagine a standard 3DS laid all the way flat, and with the depth slider all the way down."  Fantastic Reggie, but explain to me something.  Who the hell's pockets do you think this thing will fucking fit into?  One of the key features of a handheld console is portability.  If it doesn't fit in your average mens jeans pocket or ladies purse, then it's too fucking big.  While I'll admit that the PS Vita is pushing it, since the damn thing rears it's glossy-finished head every time I sit down, I do remember a simpler time when I owned a DS Lite and it fit comfortably in my pocket, folding to a size even smaller than previously owned GameBoys.

But it's obvious that they're not trying to market the 2DS to existing 3DS owners.  Of course not.  They've removed functionality, which is never a step towards upgrading.  In fact, Nintendo has a very specific demographic they're looking to market the 3DS to: Children under 7.

"With the Nintendo 3DS, we were clear to parents that, 'hey, we recommend that your children be seven and older to utilize this device.' So clearly that creates an opportunity for five-year-olds, six-year-olds, that first-time handheld gaming consumer," Said Reggie.

So that's their play.  Nintendo is trying to worm their way into the children's market currently dominated by LeapFrog products.  And what better way than to make their new handheld match the absurd size of one?  However, kids aren't the only ones being targeted by the 2DS.  The console launches in North America at $129.99 USD - about $40 cheaper than a brand new 3DS and a whopping $70 below the 3DS XL.  For those hemming and hawing over the price point of Nintendo's most recent portable, those savings could very easily be the difference between a sale won or lost.

So while it stands to reason that the 2DS is ridiculous - ridiculous in concept, ridiculous in size, and ridiculously lacking in features - it would appear that those of us along this line of thinking aren't the ones Nintendo is looking to sell to.  Nintendo is looking to broaden their market and, if they succeed, this can only mean more good things to come from them.

Until they start tanking again and have to pay a visit to the dead horse stables to flog a few more titles out of Shigeru Miyamoto IPs.

Quotes and Images Source: IGN

(Mostly) Why New IPs Are More Important Than Sequels

A few quick thoughts before we get rolling:

The 2DS is an incredibly stupid concept, and at this point, it seems like Nintendo is trying to make decisions so poor that they make Microsoft look good. It's almost working.

Game of the Year editions: Terrible idea. Punishes the early adopters who actually bought the DLC as well; scummy cash grab at best. Several titles with GOTY editions didn't recieve a GOTY nod from a source worth mentioning, used the moniker anyway... The whole thing is just fucking confusing. Just call it a Complete Edition, or a Bundle Edition, or a Season Pass Edition, or something else entirely.

Blast Corps: With the increased power of current(and upcoming) consoles, I'm surprised this IP hasn't been revisited yet. With engines like GeoMod around, and real-time destruction showing up everywhere, this cult-hit N64 title could make a huge splash in today's market.(That, and I'd like to see something besides a 3rd Perfect Dark and a 4th attempt at Goldeneye, if we revisit anything from the N64 from here out.)

Screen tearing: Lots of complaints about screen tearing lately, mostly in reviews, but sometimes on message boards and in other places. Screen tearing is (counter-intuitively) a good thing. We're nearing the end of a console generation, and we're pushing the GPUs in these systems to their limits(and sometimes beyond), which causes them to come as close to possible on time to render. Sometimes, there's too much going on, and the frame rolls over(and usually all this action won't be over in a single frame). This leaves two options, draw to screen when complete, usually causing a tear, or wait for vertical sync, which causes slowdown(in most engines, things are timed in frames as opposed to real-time). While, at times, screen tears can be horribly jarring, most of the time they're subtle enough to be concealed by the action taking place and drawing your focus. On the other hand, slow down of any kind outside of, for example, the Max Payne series, particularly unintentional(not game mechanics related) slowdowns, are far more jarring, and have a tendency to break focus and any sense of immersion. So, kudos to those willing to take a few points in the reviews and tear their screens, rather than sacrifice quality or speed. It's the right thing to do.

And now for something completely different:

Divekick: Review and Primer Part 2

I know I've talked a lot about Divekick lately, and I know that until you manage to play it for yourself, you'll be skeptical like I once was. So, keeping that in mind, I'm going to try to keep this review short. The remaining seven characters will be covered after the review, which will be just a bunch of bullet points and a score, cause that's how the pros do it, right?

State of the Union - United Saints of America

It's that time to go back to Saints Row!
Bringin' the gang back, it's all Saints go!
Boss is the leader, y'all Saints know?
Is they a man or a woman? Do they has a Saints fro?
Next up we got Shaundi, that little Saints ho
Bringin' heat and a big pair of Saints torpedoes
Then we got Pierce, he's the face of Saints Flow
Who's always got your back, he's a real Saints bro
Kinzie Kensington's back, she's the Saints techno
Computer wiz and mad kinkster, Saints whoa!

We got some new peep to add to the Saints show
First up is somebody from the last Saints Row
Matt Miller returns! Complete with Saints glow,
And a NyteBlayde fetish? Saints gross
He brings with him Asha, helpin' the Saints grow
This british chick with formidable wit
Sounds like Chloe from Uncharted so we call her Saints Clo'!
We comin' up on the end, with just a couple Saints mo'
Ben muthafuckin' King makin' all that Saints dough
He wrote a book, I took a look, and I thought Fo' Saints Sho!
Keith David comin' up to steal the Saints show
Vice President gonna take 'em to the Saints flo'

Last and not least, knockin' at the Saints do',
Johnny Gat?  Awe Saints no!
Back from the dead, we got your old Saints bro,
Back on the crew, he's ready to Saints roll
Now that you understand who's in on Saints Row
It's time to get y'all into the Saints know

Boss is the head muthafucka in charge
We moved into the White House - we livin' it large!
All of a sudden, the sky turns red
Chaos and mayhem and a lotta peeps dead
Aliens saucers? This is like Mars Attacks!
'Cept they're bigger and uglier and lead by Zinyak
But when shit goes down, you know the Saints fight back!

Wake up in a daze, can't remember yo name
Shit's like a 50's TV show - is this some fuckin' game?
Digital Steelport - like the Matrix 'n shit
Boss's got a plan, let's blow up this bitch!
Wreckin' shit in this computer sim
This is how we gonna take down the Zin!

That's the cast and crew and stakes ya know?
So gear it up now f' Saints Row Fo!

Divekick Primer, part 1

Full review is coming on Tuesday, for now, a primer for those of you just getting started in Divekick. I'll cover around half the cast today, and the rest on Tuesday.

First Impressions: Burnout Paradise – Maybe it's better to fade away

Little over a week ago, I ranted about how if EA could get their heads out of their asses and stop beating necrotic equine corpse of Need For Speed, we might see Criterion produce another title in the Burnout franchise. Well, perhaps they shouldn't.

On Divekick(It's out, go buy it.)

Divekick came out today, and I thought I'd just play a few matches, and throw up a review. It turns out that it's even deeper than I thought, and I'm not going to be able to do that tonight. Look for it Thursday. (It doesn't help that I'm on the east coast and PSN updates LATE over here.) Hit the jump for some game play footage(Top 64 play from Evo 2013).

Why We Need A Dreamcast 2

The stage is set for the next generation of consoles, and while the WiiU slowly starves to death in a corner, and the Xbox One continues to beat its head against the wall, it's starting to look a lot like a one-sided battle. While this might be great for Sony, and developers wondering which platform should be the lead development console for multi-plat games, this is invariably bad for the consumers. Any market without viable competitive alternatives tends to lend itself to price gouging and an overall drop in quality.

Coming Soon

The past couple of months have been mostly dead, as they tend to be every year, video game-wise.  Fortunately, all this is about to come to an end, as we begin to move into the holiday season.  For us here at Zero Tolerance, this means adding to the backlog.  However, there are a few things we're really looking forward to in the coming weeks, and you can look forward to our reviews on:

Dragon's Crown - Released earlier this month by Vanillaware (of Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade fame), this fantasy "epic" is set as a 2D, side-scrolling, beat 'em up.  Hey, if you're good at something, why stop?  Vanillaware continues doing what they do best, offering up a beautifully hand-painted world with mechanically sound gameplay.  Accommodating up to 4 players, Dragon's Crown is almost starting to look like the party game that the PS3 really needed.

Saints Row IV - Continuing the legacy of ridiculosity left by Saints Row: The Third, Saints Row IV is looking like it could just live up to its collector's edition title of "Game of the Generation".  The Boss is back, and this time the Third Street Saints are running the country.  When the US gets attacked by aliens, it's up to The Boss and our cast of familiar gangstas to take the extra-terrestrial threat head on.  Saints Row IV ups the ante with all new superpowers and absurd weapons like the "dubstep gun". A ridiculous take on the open-world action genre that this gamer is seriously looking forward to.

Killer is Dead - SUDA51 is back.  Back to doing the things I've loved about his work.  The cel-shading and the completely impossible to follow storyline(s), with the ridiculously awesome character design.  Following in the footsteps of Killer7 and No More Heroes, these are the SUDA51 roots that I really enjoy.  It's hard to know much about this game because so little has been revealed, as per the norm.  Picking it up launch day.

Divekick - The parody fighting game with surprising depth.  2 buttons.  Just 2.  Jump.  And kick.  How can a fighter so simple have so much depth?  Pick it up to find out.

Also worth a mention (and MAYBE a playthrough):
Painkiller: Hell and Damnation (August)
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (August)
Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate (September)
GTAV (September)
Beyond: Two Souls (October)
Disgaea D2 (October)
Batman: Arkham Origins (October)

And now for something NOT Coming Soon:

Xbox One to these eight countries: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Microsoft has gone and done it again.  Just when you think things couldn't get much worse for the Xbone, they've once again cut the short list of launch countries for the console.  Their reasoning?  "Ensuring our customers get the best Xbox One experience the first day it is available. To do that, and in order to meet demand, we have adjusted the number of markets that will receive Xbox One in November."

The aforementioned countries that have been cut from the list have been rescheduled to "as soon as possible in 2014".

So, contrary to popular belief, it would appear that Microsoft does NOT want your money.

Source: Xbox.com 

Re-Review: Hotline Miami

I've recently picked up Hotline Miami for PS3 and Vita, and it has quickly become one of the titles that has absorbed a lot of my free time. Set in the late 1980s, with the feel and soundtrack to match, this indie gem has all the difficulty of NES era games, and all the nuance and style of more modern titles. It's not without problems, but, for the most part, they are easily overlooked, and all combine into an incredibly enjoyable experience.

Whose **** do I have to **** to get another Burnout game?

After removing a large chunk of my middle finger last night using only glass bottle and an opener, I took the night off and vented my frustrations through Burnout: Revenge.  My high school nostalgia was at an all-time high as I tried to remember the twisting streets and proper intersection crash patterns.  This got me thinking: what happened to the Burnout franchise?  I know the 3rd installment received high ratings all around, as did Revenge.  While I wasn't a big fan of how Paradise brought the franchise into "open-world", it too was well received.  So what the hell?

Here's a recap on Burnout for those of you not in the know.  Burnout is a racing game.  An adrenaline-fueled, high-octane, violent and explosive racing game.  But it's more than that.  Burnout breaks all the rules.  Slamming into traffic and rival racers isn't just fun and strategic, it's fucking encouraged.  Ram into opposing vehicles enough and you can even get them to crash, getting credited for a "Takedown".  Takedowns add fuel to your boost meter, which can accelerate your vehicle well above 150 mph, in addition to making it longer.

Sure, Burnout has the traditional "be the first to cross the finish line" race mode, along with a few different time trials called "Burning Lap"s, but the fun really starts in it's unique Road Rage and Traffic Attack modes.  Road Rage isn't about reaching the end.  It's about slamming and shunting as many rival cars as possible to achieve a certain number of Takedowns.  Traffic Attack is all about taking out your gridlock frustrations in a digital world.  The streets are lined with rush hour traffic and it's your job to speed through and crush as many vehicles as possible.

In addition to the high-octane "racing styles", Burnout also instituted a "crash" mode, where players are given a larger, more destructive vehicle, an intersection, and instructions to cause several million dollars in damages.  This may sound simple.  It isn't.  Timing your starts, picking the right cars to hit to obstruct the most amount of traffic, and navigating your car's burnt husk around post-explosion is as challenging as it is fun.

So with all this excitement balled up into a single disk, I can't help but wonder what happened?  Why was the franchise practically left to die after Paradise in 2008?  Let's assume that despite it's high ratings, that the open-world concept never really caught on.  There's still a tried-and-true game to return to.  When you try something new in a series and it doesn't pan out, what do you do?  You fucking go back to the way things were when they worked.  Driver levels, pre-built crash zones, Traffic Attack, takedowns - these things are not only what made Burnout so wonderful, but so cathartic as well.  That asshole that cut you off in traffic on your way home from work?  Fire up Burnout and put him and everyone else into the wall!  20 minutes late because of traffic?  Cruise through the streets at 180 mph smashing everything in your way.

Now, sadly, I already know the answer to why.  Or at least part of it.  Instead of raking in money with the unique, destructive style of Burnout, EA has been too busy annualizing and farming up Need For Speed titles.  They've largely tasked developers Criterion and Black Box with spamming the market with a new NFS every year, which has lead to a disappointing LACK of more Burnout.  If NFS is to be EA's premier arcade-style racer, they can't have competition within their own line of games.

This means that, unfortunately, all I can do is sit back and cross my fingers that someday, Electronic Arts raises it's head up out of it's own asshole and realizes the financial potential in releasing another Burnout.

A Request for Feedback

I'm at a point where I'm feeling short of ideas, partly due to the slow summer season, and partly because I don't really know what our readers are looking for.

If you like the more editorial style writing, where I focus on problems I perceive in the industry, and have suggestions as to what you would like to see covered in future installments, feel free to leave me a comment here, or on twitter, @Tsaikotyk.

If you're more into the re-reviews of older/under-covered titles and/or DLC, my main problem right now is that I'm not really sure what game/genre you'd like me to go for. I have some ideas for upcoming ones, after the games in question release, but until then, here's a list of what I've got available, and any other suggestions will be considered for purchase and review.

Review: Borderlands 2

This weekend I finally completed the gunslinging grindfest Borderlands 2.  And no, it wasn't a mad dash straight through the story to the end boss.  Instead I spent over 30 hours ravaging the landscapes of Pandora on my quest for "epic loot".

Player Creativity and Choice

Sorry for being a bit late tonight, I was feeling unwell earlier in the evening and had to sleep it off.

Lately, I've found myself playing a lot of Hotline Miami, and while it is a fairly short experience, it's not a cut and dry, one-and-done game like a Medal of Honor or an Uncharted title. The number of options you have at any given point in a chapter is staggering, and there's always room for improvement upon your scores and tactics, which is what continually draws me back to it in my spare time.

In a lot of ways, this is what keeps games like the Devil May Cry series, the fighting game genre, and, for a non-video example, Magic: The Gathering, popular. The "only constrained by the rules of the game", of which some can be broken, style of freeform expression, be it through digital combat, crafting efficient, stylish, or hybridized combo attacks, or through your choice of deck archetype, and which cards fill which roles, allows the experience to remain fresh on subsequent plays. This is where player skill also comes into the mix, but the sheer openness of these systems, and the availability of meaningful player choices actually elevates the skill ceiling in such a way that rote optimization, such as remembering spawn locations on a map and having the best-in-slot equipment is not the dominating top-tier stratagem that it is in more finite, constrained titles.

The ability for player creativity to exist in a title is not as easily defined as certain other goals, and that's why I worry that as the development process becomes more rigidly defined under the dominant force of AAA publishers, it will continue to shrink, until it is finally focus tested into oblivion.

In most older titles, most indie games, and the occasional big budget title like Dark Souls and Metal Gear Solid, leaving room for player creativity felt like a key design goal. It was a large component as to why those games were so well received, and whether the lack of that in more recent titles is from modern control freak designers, or the simplicity inherent in the older games is why it is disappearing has yet to be seen.

I do find it interesting that a high percentage of titles that allow for meaningful choices, and player creativity, are often considered "difficult" games. With the rise of popularity of gaming in general, and the increase in "accessibility"(read: dumbing down) of AAA titles, this is an interesting correlation, and a possible clue to the cause of our evaporating options.

If that's what you're into, though, don't let me stop you. Go right ahead and turn your brain off, effortlessly walking through whatever title it is you choose. Until there's a game powered by brain waves that can only be completed in your sleep, however, I will keep demanding more options.

WINNERS - Latency's Steam Giveaway

Time's up!

The Facebook contest is over and all in all, I've learned some things.  But that's not important.  What's important is who won what.

I got fewer entries than I thought I would have, so prizing is going to change a bit.

FIRST - Everyone is getting something!  Hooray!  Games for everybody!

SECOND - With the notable exception of Bastion (because I feel that I should hand out as many copies of that game as possible), there will be only one copy of each other game awarded.  That means,

THIRD - A couple people are going to double up.  Consider yourselves the "grand prize winners". =)

And our winners are:

GodsendIV - Bastion
CupcakeTroll - Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams
DantelSBeltran - Bastion
MARIANOXDDX - Bastion
Comet - Bastion
OniGouki - Bastion
tehKaida - Bastion, Amnesia: The Dark Descent
fullmetal779 - Bastion, Hotline Miami
drizztfish - Mark of the Ninja
Namelock - Bastion

Friend requests have been sent out to those not previously on my list, so that I can send you your prize.  Afterwards, feel free to delete, remove, block me, etc.

Thanks to everyone for participating!

Latency's Steam Giveaway!

Steam Giveaway is now LIVE folks!  Here's the rundown:

The How:
I've uploaded a contest image to our Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroToleranceGames
- Like our page
- Share the image
- Comment on the image with your Steam ID (So I know who to send the prizes to)

Once all that's done, all you gotta do is wait. Monday night I'll be announcing winners here on the blog.

The What:
I've got 14 gifts that I'll be giving out over steam. All of them are titles from my Indie-pendence day special.

They are:
- 8 copies of Bastion
- 3 copies of Mark of the Ninja
- 1 copy each of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Hotline Miami and Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams

The When:
12:00 Midnight Friday Night/Saturday Morning Pacific time is when the pic will go up on Facebook. You've got until 6:00 PM Pacific before I close it down. And sometime between 9:00 and 10:00 PM is when I'll have randomly selected the winners and posted them up on the blog.

The Who:
Anybody can enter! This is as much a chance for me to give back to the readers as it is for you guys to spread the word about Zero Tolerance Games! Share it with your friends! All of your friends!

The Why:
There were some screaming deals during the Steam Summer Getaway Sale and I just felt like I had to spread some indie love. What better way than to give games away to complete strangers?!

Have a great weekend and best of luck!

On Leveling in Multiplayer Titles

Forcing players to grind for experience points to unlock things is one of the most overused of system mechanics right now, and it's driving me nuts. After spending about a month away from The Last of Us, I went into Factions mode, and found myself completely outclassed; less so in player skill, than in weapon and character skill availability. Call of Duty, while popular, is, in my opinion, the biggest offender here.

Fan Appreciation Time!

As I'm sure you're all aware, the Steam Summer Sale wrapped up last week.  As some of you are aware, thanks to Bastion hitting an all-time low of $2.25 per copy, I ended up with an extra 10 gift copies.

What do I plan on doing with these gift copies?  The same thing I plan on doing with my extra gift copies of Mark of the Ninja, Hotline Miami, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

These are for you guys.  Appreciation for the readership and a publicity stunt of sorts.  I'm currently working on a Facebook contest that I plan to have up by Friday.

For the contest and more details, check us out on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/ZeroToleranceGames

You can also follow the official Zero Tolerance twitter:
@ZT_Games

I'm sorry this isn't a real post, but as @Tsaikotyk stated, there's been very little going on in the industry as of late, and he's pretty much brought us up to speed on it all.  Now I need to work on some graphics and figure out how I want to divvy out these Steam gifts.

- Nik "Latency" Trumble

The Good, The Bad, and The Incredibly Stupid - July 2013

We've been fucking it up here a bit as of late, with our personal lives and such getting in the way a bit, so this will be a bit of a catch-all potluck of miscellaneous stories.

Rant: Open-World "versus" Linear gameplay

An issue I find with most of us "gamers" is that we find the overwhelming need to contrast things.  Sony VERSUS Microsoft, First-person VERSUS third-person, Marvel VERSUS Capcom, Sonic VERSUS Mario.  It's apparently not enough to just enjoy two different things for what they are.  We have to enjoy one more than the other.  More so, we have to put the other down for not being "as good" as our preferred.

Evo 2013: Divekick

While I was at Evo 2013, I had the chance to play a title called Divekick, and it quickly jumped to the top of my most anticipated list for this year.

Re-Review: Remember Me

Remember Me has an astoundingly fitting title, though not in the way Dontnod and Capcom would want. Instead, it's remembered for trying to do too much of what it thought was right, and failing miserably, falling behind only the Children's Crusade in this category of legendary failures. It attempts to prove its competence in multiple genres in the most painful of ways. Imagine attempting to prove your skill at walking by doing so on ice, through an oil slick, all while wearing treadless teflon-coated shoes.

The platforming aspect has an on-rails feel to it, with the ledges you can interact with highlighted by a yellow arrow, as if to say, "We shall allow you to continue here, and nowhere else," and normally, you have to be in fairly close proximity to even get these markers to appear. However, as the game progresses, there are times where, for no foreseeable reason, even though the marker appears, and Nilin is in position to make the jump, you will fail, leading to an ultimately unsatisfying death.

The combat is slow-paced and tedious, with nearly no room for the creativity as far as what attacks to use and when. There's no reel animation or hitstun, and every attack is incredibly delayed. If you try to transition between combos or hit multiple enemies, the guy you just dropkicked can punish you for it. It's problematic as hell. The oft-touted Combo Lab is way more convoluted than it should have been. I get that the interface was trying to be minimalist, but when I don't have enough information to figure out what I'm doing, then you're just wrong. It's even worse because it was meant to give you more freedom, but really just restricted you that much more. Each Pressen could only be used once across all combos, and each of the same button and category does THE EXACT SAME THING, with only the number of moves before it altering the outcome. They didn't explain that very well in the tutorial either. Dodging also feels incredibly delayed. While there is a way to dodge in the middle of a combo string, and continue it afterwards for maximum payoff, at times the game arbitrarily decides to make you start over, even when executed perfectly. About a third of the way into the game, you acquire a projectile weapon. It has incredibly low damage, and the controls for it are terrible. It has an energy bar instead of ammunition, though it drains around six times as fast as it refills. There's no manual aim, only auto-lock, and trying to get the proper target in the midst of combat is incredibly disorienting, as it makes the camera jump around in haphazard ways.

The stealth and non-remix(We'll get to those in a moment.) puzzle sections feel like they were quickly tacked on during crunch to make the game have more "substance". The stealth sections consist of avoiding patrolling droids, under penalty of insta-death. It's not fun, there's nothing clever about it, and it really takes away from the whole experience. The puzzle sections, on the other hand, involve doing one of two things with the projectile weapon. One involves locking on to a target and breaking it, to release a door, or something to that effect, and the other involves transporting power cores around, like the dark matter orbs from Half-Life 2. Neither of these really adds much to the game either.

The memory remixes, which are supposed to be major plot points, were a kind of cool feature, but the execution was flawed. Needing to grind out circles on my analog stick to rewind and fast forward through the sequence to see if I had found(and activated) the proper pieces to complete the puzzle took entirely too long and made me hate doing them. The pre-determined conclusions, as dictated to you by the game, were a little ridiculous as well. The first memory remix happens when a bounty hunter surprises you, and is about to kill you. To complete it, you need to convince her to join your side by altering her memory in such a way that a doctor kills her husband in treatment. It's way over the top, and for a secondary character that was just introduced, and acts as a glorified taxi in-between chapters, it's entirely too much.

Overall, I'd strongly recommend skipping this atrocious pile. I had wanted it to be good too, but it wasn't. I wanted it to be good so badly that I was willing to pay 60$ for it and not pick it up for 20$ in 6 months at -insert used games retailer of choice-.And I'm not just talking about the awkward controls, or the random bugs like the one that redwashed everything on screen for half of chapter 7, or the terrible combat, or the atrocious platforming, or the camera. I'm not even talking about the Aug Eye, which does nothing until you get a prompt(which is usually when you're lost) to point you towards your objective, even if it's on the other side of 16 walls. I'm not even talking about the underdeveloped setting, or unlikable characters, or the counter-intuitive(at best) boss fights. I'm not even talking about the story which ends so poorly, and I mean the entire final act, not just the ending, that M. Night Shymalan could do better after a frontal lobotomy and a bottle of Jagermeister. I'm talking about the entire package.  I didn't want to believe it either. I thought "It can't all be this bad," and yet, it somehow finds a way to keep disappointing. 

Pros - Game is short

Cons - NOT SHORT ENOUGH.

Rant: Sequel-itis - A Deadly Disease

Recently, I've come up with a whole list of topics I felt deserved a good rant. Things like open-world “versus” linear titles and the growing popularity of eSports as spectator sports. However, this article from Monday put me in an entirely different mood.

First Impressions: Dishonored - More like Disinterested

Now let me start this by saying that I'm not one for stealth games. Drop me in the middle of a guns-blazing firefight rather than a high-security facility any day. But with all the praise I've been hearing for Dishonored, I figured “what the hell, I'll give it a shot” (that and the cover art looks cool).

Now I went into this expecting some grizzly tale of revenge and bloodshed, as the back of the box would lead you to believe. Not so, I quickly discovered. Within the first 10 minutes of gameplay, you're assaulted by more cliches than a full season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (those who weren't raised in the 90's or aren't obsessive Joss Whedon fans have no idea what I'm talking about).

You play as Corvo, the Empress' trusted bodyguard and seeming father figure to her daughter *cough*. After returning from an assignment in which you were to seek aid from other city-island-states for the awful plague crippling your home *cough*, you meet with her majesty. Now why, in god's name, the Empress sent her personal guard on a diplomat's mission is beyond me, but we roll with it. Shortly after returning home, the Empress is attacked by masked assailants *cough* that fizzle into ashes as you kill them off. Eventually they overpower you, murder the Empress *cough*, and kidnap her daughter *cough*. With her majesty dying, and more importantly bleeding, in your arms, the captain of the guard and the spymaster general find you with a dead Empress and no princess.... empress... ess... whatever. So the two come to the logical conclusion that CORVO must have murdered the Empress! *coughcoughhackcroak* They imprison you and sentence you to death. The day of your execution, which the Spymaster and new Lord Regent make very clear must be public and painful, someone has decided to help you escape so you can join their resistance! *cough* Yes! For they know that you are innocent and that someone, perhaps the corrupt Spymaster or Lord Regent must be guilty! *coughcoughcoughcoughcough*

Apologies, I have a terrible cold. *ahem* Now all cliches and pathetically uninteresting story aside, these weren't Dishonored's only short-comings. The game employs an interesting “morality” system, in that, as an assassin, you have the option to kill, or merely knock out your enemies and targets. Now, as I felt Corvo might be a tad-bit bloodthirsty after his wrongful imprisonment and near execution, I decided to opt for the more violent route. I have to say that I'm not opposed to morality systems affecting my gameplay, however, this one's different. The city of Dunwall is dynamic in the way that it adjusts to your preferred method of dealing with hostiles. If you're a genuinely nice man, and wish to repent for all the things you haven't done wrong, you'll sneak about the town putting a lot of people in sleeper holds. But in my case, I did my best to sneak my way up behind every possible guard and introduce the pointy end of my switchblade to his jugular. Though, more often than not, I found myself involved in 3-on-1 sword fights and silently delivering a crossbow bolt to anyone who noticed me.

The way in which this affects Dunwall, is that the plague mentioned in the introductory paragraph expands. There are larger rat populations, which makes them significantly more aggressive, and the game starts infecting normal townsfolk and effectively turning them into zombies. Now, as per the advice offered in loading screens, it would appear that the city is a lot nicer when you're nicer to its people, but what I'm really not a fan of is the game punishing me for playing the way I like. Allow me to compare Dishonored's morality system to those of a few other games I've enjoyed.

Mass Effect: your actions affect the story and the story alone. There are virtually no gameplay changes that take place (unless you were a total dick and got your party killed off near the end of 2).

Prototype: So smashing in Military or Infected installations might not really be a morality meter, but the city did change according to whose house you wrecked. Though enemies were enemies none the less. It never got harder or easier, it was all just a matter of dealing with soldiers or zombies.

Infamous: You get different powers based on your alignment. S'bout it. The 2 different endings in the game boiled entirely down to a simple choice near the end. You could play evil all game and still select the heroic ending. Yeah that makes sense.

Dishonored: sneak around – game gets easier (so sayeth the load screens), slaughter everyone – game gets harder (so sayeth my experience).

The actual core gameplay is, in a nutshell, Bioshock. You have your melee weapon in one hand, and can use various magic spells and ranged weapons with your other. Honestly, after the first couple hours, I just found myself wishing I'd been playing Bioshock instead. Can't say anything bad about the graphics, it's up to par with your average console games of today. The sound can be a bit irritating, especially when you've managed to escape combat, but the music continues.

All things considered, I'd be willing to finish Dishonored... if it weren't my game. As it stands, the poor bastard gets to go back to GameStop and I'll never know what happens to little Emily. Oh well.

Review: Saints Row: The Third

It's been a while since I last did a review.  This is partially because of E3 and all the "fun" I had covering it, but it's also partially because so many developers seem so concerned with the amount of content that they have to ram down your throat.  Fair enough though, because I'm about to drop the hammer on one of the most enjoyable open-world experiences I've had the pleasure to playthrough.

Flying Solo

I'll be taking the helm this week as @Tsaikotyk is in Las Vegas for the Evolution Championship Series fighting game tournament(s).  You can find out more about Evo and how it's run by visiting their player guide. Team Sp00ky and iPlayWinner will be streaming the event live on TwitchTV this weekend here, here and here.  I, personally, will be following Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, with a lesser focus on Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Persona 4 Arena. 

I will still be posting my usual updates Wednesday and Friday, and Tsaikotyk will resume regular posts next week when he returns.  Sorry for the inconvenience folks and I hope you enjoy the show!

-Nik "Latency" Trumble

Latency's Indie-pendence Day Special

Alright, a day late and a gimmicky title.  If you're so brilliant, you think of something better. 

Yesterday, I awoke at 8:45 AM like I do every work day, with the exception that since this was a national holiday, I had the day off.  Unable to force myself back to sleep, I fired up my laptop and hopped on Steam to finish Bastion once more.  The gears in my head had barely started to shift and so I found it amusing that my first act on Independence day was to complete one of the most well-designed and highly praised indie games.  This got me thinking that, thematically, I should do a piece on indie titles for July 4th.  Well, Mike's scheduled for Thursdays, so I put mine off a day.

I could ramble about how I've watched the indie game scene grow thanks to hugely successful titles like Bastion, but I'd rather gush about a few games that I think everyone should give a try, if they haven't already.  In no particular order, here are my top 5 indie titles.

Bastion - The breakout hit from Supergiant Games who have another isometric beat-'em-up coming out in 2014 called Transistor.  The thing that was recently brought to my attention is that, gameplay-wise, Bastion didn't do anything new or different.  That's not what hooked me though.  What hooked me into the game were two things.  One, the "adaptive" narrator.  Having that deep, intriguing voice narrate everything I was doing AS I did it was something special.  Two, watching the ground form up from underneath you as you moved about in the world was different and exciting, especially considering the gorgeous art that formed this game's visuals.  That being said, the other points that rounded out this superb indie title were its beautiful art work, its wondrous and memorable soundtrack (that I still listen to on occasion), and it's very solid gameplay.  This is a title that I still revisit from time to time, partially due to nostalgia and partially due to its very strong construction.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent - No indie list would be complete without Amnesia.  Fractional Games is no stranger to survival horror and Amnesia seems to have taken all its lessons from their Penumbra series and a whole mess of Lovecraftian fiction.  Amnesia is still the only game I've seen that actually tells you to turn OFF all the lights in your room.  The game is so incredibly atmospheric that the developers tell you how to get the most from the experience, by making your room as dark as possible and using headphones, and to be honest, who doesn't do this when playing survival horror?  Games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill are best played under these conditions and Amnesia is no different.  What makes Amnesia's scare tactics so effective is the lack of combat.  The protagonist literally has no means of self-defense against the grotesque horrors that drive him mad at the mere sight of them.  This "realistic" interpretation of monsters only enhances the atmosphere of the game, and that's really all it is.  The story doesn't make any form of sense, and offers little to no background, but still we play Amnesia because it scares the piss out of us, like so few games can do these days.

Hotline Miami - Dennation Games' ultra-violent-retro-stealth-action-shooter is something everyone should experience.  This is the only painfully unforgiving game that I've thoroughly enjoyed, despite the absurd number of times I died each level.  Every single hit in this game is fatal, from bullets to bludgeons, for both yourself and the enemies.  Sure, shotguns are king of the ring, but with all the noise they make, you might just find another 3 armed mobsters kicking in the door each time you fire a shot.  The story is disjointed and confusing, but it doesn't muddle the gameplay at all, and is rather intriguing, all things considered.  Personally, I suggest playing this game on the PC.  While the mouse and keyboard controls feel awkward at first, they feel tighter and more controlled than when I used an Xbox 360 controller for the same game.

Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams - So I might never have heard of this game if I didn't religiously follow the band Machinae Supremacy, but that doesn't mean it's subpar in the slightest.  You play as a pair of sisters caught in contrasting worlds.  For the sake of this article, we'll call them Nice and Punk.  Nice has been thrown into the decaying, fungal Nightmare World whereas, her sister, Punk, has been thrown into the happy, green Dream World.  The game freely lets (and occasionally requires) you to switch between sisters, which adjusts the level and atmosphere accordingly.  Imps from Nice's Nightmare World become Owls in Punk's Dream World.  Aside from the really well-crafted platforming, two things make this game special.  First, the switching.  Seamless changes from Nightmare to Dream and back again as you swap between sisters.  Not only does the level ebb and flow as you would expect, but the background and foreground landscapes change in a very appropriate manner.  Gross brown mushrooms change to lively green trees, the dead landscape perks up.  Everything is rendered in 3D and feels very fluid.  Second, the soundtrack.  Nice's upbeat, dreamy platformer music is composed by Chris Hülsbeck and the same exact tunes flow directly into Punk's heavy metal versions of the same songs composed and recorded by Machinae Supremacy.  The game also includes an option to limit yourself to one version of the soundtrack in the menu, which is really cool for those that prefer one over the other.  Giana Sisters is extremely reminiscent of your early platform games like Super Mario Bros. and will be well appreciated by anyone that grew up with those games.

Mark of the Ninja - Okay, so you've heard me say it a dozen times.  I don't like stealth games.  I abhor it when developers/publishers tell me that I can play a game "any way I want" and I go in guns blazing, only to be punished by an insurmountable number of enemies coming out of the woodworks to put the 2-3 bullets into me that will end my life.  I generally go out of my way to avoid games like Metal Gear Solid, or the more recent Dishonored, that have an extremely strong stealth focus.  Well, I'm happy to inform you that this is the game that may have changed my mind and stance on the whole issue.  Mark of the Ninja is all about being just that, a Ninja.  Hiding in the shadows, assassinating soldiers, sneaking about in the dark, the whole shebang.  There's something so gripping about the game's side-scrolling design and freedom of movement that actually brought me about to liking it.  I haven't finished the game yet, but I can safely say that I plan to.  It's also helped me change my outlook on titles like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which had a very strong stealth focus, since Adam Jensen the walking cybernetic badass, fucking died after taking two bullets.  Sure, we rebuilt his carcass from scratch after he was thrown through a fucking wall in that intro sequence, but we built him to be roughly 20 times as fragile as your average hero.  Now, I've started to embrace the stealth and non-lethal aspects of such games (though there's nothing non-lethal about being a ninja) and am actually starting to enjoy them.  All thanks to this little indie gem.

Now, you may have noticed that my entire list consisted of A-list indie games.  That's just my point.  We live and game in an era where there is an A-LIST OF INDIE GAMES.  If two guys in San Jose can realize their dream of creating a game about some kid in an artistic take on a post-WMD-apocalypse world, and it can sell near 2 million copies and be handed accolades out the ass, who knows what will come of Sony's support and nurture of indie devs in the future?  I get giddy just thinking about it.

On Manuals, Tutorials, and Replay Value

One of the biggest developments this console generation has been the digital release of retail titles, which has led to the eschewing of the traditional packed-in manual with a large number of recently released triple-A titles. This has led to a larger number of introductory tutorials in games, which I feel causes more harm to the overall structure and integrity to the game than it benefits the player.

The problem here is that it is, in most cases, an unskippable segment appended to the beginning of the game, and some run far too long. Borderlands 2 is a fine example of this. It feels far more linear and forced than it's predecessor, and in a game that encourages you to try multiple character classes, and sit through two to three playthroughs with each, it reaches a point where it's just wholly obnoxious and unneeded. This in turn, reduces overall replay value compared to titles where the tutorial is optional, or only shown on the first play. Vanquish, Injustice: Gods Among Us, and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance all do a fantastic job of making the tutorial optional, while not making you go out of your way and searching through the menu to get to it initially, but still have the option on the menu if you would like to revisit it at any time. Max Payne 3 is an example of the other end of the spectrum, where, what were previously tutorial sequences become regular sequences in subsequent playthroughs, and still maintain a feeling of fun either way, however, there is no way to revisit tutorial sequences, which can be problematic if picking the game up again after 6-8 months.

There has to exist a happy medium somewhere on the spectrum. If you're going to force your tutorial, keep it succinct and fun, with something to strive towards in later attempts, such as the optional boss at the end of the Demon's Souls tutorial. If you're going to make it optional, keep it short, make it easy to revisit, and do not place any collectibles in, or base any achievements/trophies on finishing the tutorial. If you're going to go the Max Payne 3 route, have an option to reset tutorial progress on subsequent playthroughs, so that your players are not flying blind after spending 2 years playing other titles.

The forced tutorial in an increasingly large number of games is why I feel that I haven't replayed as many games this generation than I did in the prior two, and unless work is done to change this in the industry, replay value will suffer, and we will continue to see quick turnarounds of titles in the second-hand market. 

Next-Gen Garbage: Revisited

So E3 is over.  Now that Sony is done making Microsoft look like an ass and Microsoft is done making Microsoft look like an ass, it seemed like the perfect time to revisit this topic.  I know that I was originally pretty hard on both consoles, but this was also at a time where all we had to look forward to was a new Assassin's Creed, a new Call of Duty, and Watch_Dogs, which is releasing on both current and next-gen platforms.

Now, after press conferences from both MS and Sony, along with two major developers that will be releasing content on both platforms,  I have to say that I've got somewhat of a new outlook on the future of gaming.  That doesn't, however, mean that it's bright.

Re-Review: The Last of Us

Often, towards the end of a console generation, there's a lot of questioning as to whether or not it is the time to move on to newer, better hardware, and to how much untapped potential lies in the current generation. The Last of Us, by Naughty Dog, is the finest example of why it's time for next-gen, pushing the PS3 to its limits, and leaving a nigh unreachable bar in its place as the standard for the end of the current generation.

I've gushed about it an earlier piece, and still feel I have not praised this game enough. In every sense of the word, The Last of Us is an experience, and one that, should you have the means and a PS3, you should partake in. Graphically, it is THE most beautiful title currently on the market, and will likely remain so until the next generation releases. It doesn't suffer from brown palette syndrome, the use of ambient lighting and color makes the space really come alive, and it doesn't suffer from obvious texture pop-in. From urban decay to the wilderness, the world looks and feels vibrant and alive. The designers and artists have even gone as far as creating handwritten notes left behind by others that can be viewed, opposed to just being a blurry texture and the HUD font placed over it. It is also one of the most incredible sounding games this generation, without having been over-produced. It can be so reserved and subtle at times, with the unsettling silence in places to create a larger fear of the unknown.

The gameplay in The Last of Us is something of a hybrid, with pieces coming from the traditional 3rd-person shooter, the survival horror, and stealth genres. Items are scavenged for from the environment, and are more often found as requisite components as opposed to finished goods. Crafting takes place in real time, as does healing, adding to the tension of every encounter. Ammunition is scarce, and the melee combat is brutal and, at times, off-putting, due to the sheer savagery of it. The shooter and cover mechanics are very solid, however, Joel, not being a highly trained soldier, has some accuracy shortcomings at times. While commonly thought of as a single player game, The Last of Us does include multiplayer. While sometimes criticized for it's small team sizes, this was likely a design choice to make it fit into the setting better, and it is highly enjoyable.

Where The Last of Us really shines, however, is in its characters. With a strong and diverse supporting cast, and some of the best portrayals of actual human beings, the weight of the story is increased, and it compels you to see it through to its conclusion. It's incredibly easy to get very attached to these characters, and when it's over, it feels a bit like losing a friend. This seems to stem from the way Naughty Dog uses their voice actors for motion capture as well, forcing the actor to give a more convincing performance overall, and giving the digital artists more to work with on the animations and faces. The story, while set in a variation of the overused zombie motif, is one that manages to break away from the stereotype, and will both shock and surprise you. From the cold open, all the way to the closing moments, the pacing and writing are superb, and to say much more than that would only spoil it. The Last of Us will be talked about for years to come, and is a highly memorable and moving ride.

10 IPs This Generation That Deserve A Sequel

I attempted to find 10 IPs that made their debut during the current generation of consoles, with no currently released or announced sequels, that I personally wanted to see more of, and that felt like there was room to expand upon. I failed, and was stuck at 8 until I allowed myself some exceptions. Now, moving on to the list, and why these titles made the cut.

Update: The Zero Tolerance Schedule

So things around here have been a little haphazard as I'm sure most of you have noticed.  My original plan was to post updates every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  However, I realized quickly that this schedule was much easier said than done.  I had planned to pull myself back to twice a week, perhaps Tuesdays and Saturdays or something, but didn't get the announcement out before Tsaikotyk joined up and declared his schedule.  Then, thanks to E3, things have been a little chaotic with the news, press conference coverage, etc.

Time to get this bitch back on track.  For the foreseeable future, here's the schedule for us here at Zero Tolerance:

Tsaikotyk will be updating every Tuesday and Thursday.
Latency will be updating every Wednesday and Friday.
There is no content planned for the weekend.
Once Tsaikotyk returns from Evolution in Vegas on July 17th, we'll return to recording our podcast which will be released every Monday.

We'll be doing our best to stick to this schedule and I'm sure we'll apologize profusely if we fuck it up.  Thanks for sticking with us while we work this mess out.

E3: Abridged - Part IV

So over a week after the fact now, I'm finally getting around to finishing this series.  I'd had plans to complete it earlier, but some personal illness got in the way of that.  Finally getting around to watching the last of the press conference footage and I've got to say that I'm significantly more enthused than I thought I'd be.  Roll up those sleeves.  Bring down the cage.  It's time for the Sony Smackdown.

Why Microsoft Still Needs to Lose Mattrick

After the news about the XBox One from this past Tuesday, and picking up from where I left off here, I'm almost stymied at how poorly they played out their hand.

This information came entirely too soon after how forcefully they presented it both at the console reveal, and at E3, yet it still feels like a case of "too little, too late", and even if it weren't, it's definitely coming from the wrong voice, as this is straight out of the mouth of the same person who said "The 360 is an offline product."

So, let's dive right into the update released earlier this week, straight from the desk of everyone's favorite President of Interactive Entertainment Business, Don Mattrick himself, translate some of this PR spin, and get to the root of what is really said.

"We imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming, family sharing, and new ways to try and buy games. We believe in the benefits of a connected, digital future. " - We had a bunch of great ideas, then you all complained because we tied it into our terrible policies. We deep-sixed all of it, though we stand by it, and may revisit this in the future, when Kansas finally gets off dial-up.

"Since unveiling our plans for Xbox One, my team and I have heard directly from many of you, read your comments and listened to your feedback." - We tried to wait until after E3, but the bitchmob was already too large, and still growing at an alarming rate. We're going to try and turn this ship around, and if we fail, it's your fault as consumers. You can also stop sending death threats now.

"I would like to take the opportunity today to thank you for your assistance in helping us to reshape the future of Xbox One." - We really just don't have a fucking clue what we are doing.

"You told us how much you loved the flexibility you have today with games delivered on disc. The ability to lend, share, and resell these games at your discretion is of incredible importance to you." - Okay, so you guys know about first sale doctrine, and refuse to go the same route as PC games because our consoles aren't backwards compatible, next gen probably won't be either, and you don't want games to vanish from brick and mortar stores.

"Also important to you is the freedom to play offline, for any length of time, anywhere in the world." - We were so looking forward to slamming you with Doritos and Mountain Dew ads during matchmaking, and making you repurchase all of your games every time our servers went down for extended maintenance.

"While we believe that the majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds." - We know we're right, but you're stupid, so we'll let you have your way. You want it both ways, and we'll claim to give you that right here, but we're actually taking away all the interesting things we previously unveiled when we do away with the draconian DRM.

It's pretty clear that this is a thinly-veiled "Fuck you" to everyone who criticized their policies, while attempting to put on a facade of pro-consumerism in a bid for your dollars. While it may work in the short term, the sheer audacity of the situation, and to have it come from Mattrick is a slap in the face to anyone who has followed this story for more than two days.

If it was this easy for Microsoft to just pull an about-face, there's nothing to stop them from doing so again in the near future, with even less functionality, and even less consumer goodwill in mind.

This man has alienated more than half of your intended audience, including all of those serving in the US armed forces, who were huge supporters of the 360. Having him make the announcement is insincere at best, and a sign of things to come at worst. There is very little to gain by having some of your worst PR blunders embodied in one of your highest ranking executive posts, and very little to lose by promoting one of his subordinates, even if in an interim manner, as a show that, even at the corporate level, this man's methods, statements, and policies were not what was expected of someone in that position, are all undergoing review, and may be changed in the future.

Though, if you really want to save face, and possibly the embarrassment of a bad launch with all the pre-instilled distaste for the X1, consider taking this year off the table as far as a release, work on upgrading the hardware further, refine its aesthetic, lower the price, and re-brand it for a summer release next year. I don't want to see you fall flat on your face come release, because the market needs competition, and between the Wii U's current-gen hardware, and your PR calamities, I'm not seeing a lot of that around.