Tag Archives: Xbox One

Grand Theft Auto V

Well, what I’ve actually been playing for the last few months is Grand Theft Auto V. I’ve been a fan of the series since the first game, and even dipped my toes into GTA V when my partner would occasionally recruit me to help her with her playthrough years ago, so I knew I’d be playing it eventually. Despite owning an Xbox 360 copy of it for years now, it showing up on Game Pass at just the right time inspired me to finally take the plunge and install the Xbox One version. Of course, it was removed from Game Pass well before I was finished, and by then purchasing it was incredibly easy to justify. Congratulations Microsoft, your insidious plot to make us buy games by giving them to us for free totally worked! *shakes fist*

“Back behind the wheel again!”

I’d say it should be no surprise to readers of this blog, but honestly, my game logs from GTA IV (along with The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony) weren’t really as positive here as they are in my head. Perhaps I focused a little too much on my criticisms? To save you some reading and myself any further explanation, let me just summarize by saying that I loved GTA IV. It wasn’t without its flaws, not by a long shot, but it was an amazing game. Thinking back to almost 10 years ago when I first played it, here are the prevailing impressions it left, in no particular order: the absolutely incredible job Rockstar did on Liberty City and its various simulated systems; the numerous improvements and additions to the series’s core gameplay systems (the cell phone, the GPS, improved combat, better mission checkpoints, etc.); the brilliant Niko Bellic and the noticeable “Ludonarrative Dissonance” around his story; the weird, weighty physics to everything, particularly when controlling vehicles; and the busted pacing of the story, which sometimes felt a bit aimless and certainly seemed to fail to really push most players through to the end. Obviously, those aren’t all positives. There I go again!

Well, I’m happy to say that it’s follow-up addresses or otherwise enhances every single thing on that list, and much more. I think that Rockstar might have literally bulleted every major complaint people had about GTA IV and used that list as the foundation for their design documentation. Really! It would be incredibly blatant if they weren’t improving what was an already great game.

“GTA V’s San Andreas is a technical and artistic achievement.”

Going back through my list, to start, GTA V’s San Andreas is just as incredible as Liberty City was, and for every one of the simulated systems that’s been slightly dumbed down, another has been added. Plus, we have the expansive desert area to the north of the city, and even the underwater areas of the map (and keep in mind San Andreas is a coastal city) have been fully fleshed out. It definitely takes some cues from Red Dead Redemption, with more scenic outdoors areas, better natural lightning, and more wildlife than ever before. While I wouldn’t call it perfect, it is without a doubt an astounding technical feat. While I may not end up having the same long term emotional associations with San Andreas as I do with Liberty City, I’d chalk that up to my personal connections with the real-life locations those in-game cities are based on and not any fault of the games themselves.

Systems wise, pretty much every last thing I complained about from GTA IV has been “fixed” in GTA V, and even the major improvements GTA IV introduced have been yet further improved. For instance, the cell phone is less intrusive and more usable, the GPS is less finicky and much easier to read, the combat is even smoother, with things like targeting and the cover system being a lot easier to use, and mission checkpoints continue the trend of GTA IV’s DLC episodes (and the later Red Dead Redemption) of being more conveniently placed to make failing and/or dying on a mission way less of a headache. Every mission is also scored and easily replayable, not to mention better integrated into the open world in the first place. Perhaps my only real complaint in this department is that more and more of the side systems have become buried as the series has gone on. As an example, I didn’t even realize I could “hang out” with characters in GTA V until near the end of the story because it simply isn’t a feature that factors into the core gameplay. This has always been a thing in Grand Theft Auto though, and maybe it’s better than the alternative of the game forcing these little fun diversions on you by awkwardly shoehorning them into story missions.

“Trevor being… Trevor?”

While I wouldn’t claim there’s zero story and gameplay segregation issues with GTA V, Rockstar largely solves this problem by giving you three characters to play with their own personalities, backgrounds, and motivations, all of which can, to some degree, justifiably engage in those classic Grand Theft Auto open world rampages. This certainly helps avoid situations like Niko complaining about how he just wants to live in peace and start a new life sandwiched in between the massacre of hundreds of cops and the slaughter of half of Liberty City’s gang population. Hell, the infamous Trevor Phillips seems to be largely designed to represent that most chaotic side of player tendencies, and they even brought back the old “kill frenzy” system in the form of side missions for him. These new player characters are a little divisive it seems, but I can’t really relate to most people’s criticisms of them and their particular parts of the story, as I found them all perfectly enjoyably, even if Trevor’s violent insanity sometimes slips from being hilarious to feeling genuinely disturbing. Hell, you’re introduced to him brutally beating Johnny from The Lost and Damned to death in probably the series’s most WTF moment, at least for fans of that story.

GTA IV’s weird take on “realistic” physics are, for all intents and purposes, totally gone. The game still feels a bit more grounded in reality than previous GTAs which is probably necessary to maintain Rockstar’s priority for strong player immersion with this engine, but driving feels more like an arcade racer yet again, and it really seems like everything has been repurposed with a focus of being, you know, actually fun, in mind. What a concept! Speaking of which, planes are back! There’s even submarines!

“But there’s still a bit of moody crime drama too…”

Finally, the story definitely meanders a lot less than GTA IV and doesn’t run out of steam before the end despite being around the same length overall, if not a tiny bit longer by the time you throw in a healthy heaping of side missions. No, it’s not flawless. Everything you’d been doing in San Andreas comes to a screeching halt as you end up in a new setting and with a new cast of characters when Trevor’s first introduced, for example. Still, it didn’t feel like it dragged on anything close to as badly as GTA IV did. Despite being able to swap between 3 protagonists at will, the mission structure is more linear which helps a lot with this, and the missions themselves tend to be much less linear as a nice trade off. Tonally, it feels a lot more like The Ballad of Gay Tony than GTA IV proper, which is to say a little more action movie than moody crime drama, though, in keeping with that similarity, the missions are a lot more over the top (and a lot more fun) as a result. Besides, Rockstar has Red Dead Redemption for that mature, serious storytelling stuff now, right?

In the end, GTA V feels like a great summation of the entire series, with the best overall versions of almost all of its systems, a ton of throwbacks and references to earlier games, and quite a lot of fun to be had. I could go on and on about this game. I mean, I haven’t even talked about the new first person mode, the excellent soundtrack and radio stations, all of the new side activities, or hell, GTA fucking Online, but I’ll just finish up here by saying that I absolutely love Grand Theft Auto V!

PC screenshots car jacked from random Steam Community users! Braaap braaaaaap!

Bastioneer

I’ve had a few of the more well-known survival games in my backlog for a while now. No Man’s Sky has had my eye since it was first released, well before it was patched into a reportedly vastly improved experience, I’ve heard nothing but amazing things about Subnautica, and can’t wait to dig into that one, but it was Astroneer I decided to go with this time. Between the three, Astroneer looked like a much more casual experience, and I didn’t want to dedicate myself to some massive galaxy spanning adventure or spending several tense hours cowering from giant alien shark-beasts in some underwater cave. Not yet, at least.

“Caverns of fun!”

As luck would have it, it turns out that Astroneer actually scratches an itch that I don’t believe either of those games would have. That would be the same very basic mining and caving gameplay loop that Minecraft’s survival mode employs. While plenty of other games have implemented much deeper and/or more interesting survival modes since Minecraft first blew up, that particular aspect of it has always been left by the wayside. Whenever I’ve gone back to Minecraft, that always seems to be the most compelling component for me. Playing cooperatively with my girlfriend, she’d often be the one crafting and building, while I’d spend almost all of my time digging out elaborate mines and exploring the game’s massive, randomly generated cave systems when I’d encounter them. When it comes to those aspects, Astroneer absolutely delivers.

The basic premise of the game is that you’re some sort of an astronaut dropped onto a planet and, well, it’s not readily apparent what the fictional reason for your mission actually is, something vaguely related to gathering research, I guess? From a gameplay perspective you’re immediately thrown into a classic loop of gathering material to build upgrades, to gather better materials, to build better upgrades, and so on that just about every survival game incorporates to some degree. The difference is that Astroneer focuses entirely on that loop – there’s no additional survival elements related to eating food or water, staying warm, etc. nor are there enemies or many other direct threats to your character. Your only survival concerns are oxygen and the occasional dangerous variety of plantlife, which are usually easy to avoid once you’re aware of them.

“I spent countless hours trekking around the surface too.”

So, that pretty much leaves you with mining, exploring and scavenging, and upgrading your base and equipment. Eventually this has you even leaving your starting planet to head to another one of the other 6 planets and moons in the solar system for a change of scenery and access to some new resources to mine or otherwise gather. It’s a relatively simple and fairly open-ended game, with little in the way over any sort of overarching goals that you don’t set yourself, which, when combined with the game’s beautifully clean, stylized visuals and excellent, minimalist soundtrack, make for an extremely relaxing experience, whether played alone or cooperatively. I spent way too many nights unaware of how much time had been flying by while I was deep into a grinding session.

Sure, there can be some stress, like when you accidentally fall into a cavern, breaking your connection to your oxygen tether network, or end up getting lost for hours while exploring (damn you, shitty beacon system!) but overall Astroneer really nails owning this particular corner of the survival genre like nothing else I’ve played. I do have some other complaints, like the lack of split screen coop on the console version, and some fairly serious performance issues that seem to relate to the number of objects in the world (and likely those two things are directly related) but nothing close to a deal breaker.

“…and when you get bored of that stuff, you can GTFO!”

That said, I’ve had my fill for now. While I wouldn’t say I “completed” the game, I accomplished enough to feel like I had more or less mastered most of the systems before it all started feeling too repetitive. I got most of my tech to tier 2 (of 3) and beyond, visited every planet, unlocked some cores, and just basically got a healthy taste of almost everything on offer. The biggest compliment I can give the game is that I absolutely think I’ll be back to Astroneer instead of Minecraft the next time I’m feeling a strange, primal urge to go delving into deep in pursuit of rare materials.

For a bit of a palate cleanser, I followed that up with a quick dip into Supergiant’s now something of a classic action RPG, Bastion.

“In a stroke of innovation, NPCs with quests have exclamation marks over their heads!”

Bastion was one of the darlings of the wave of new, sexy indie games hitting Xbox Live Arcade back in the Xbox 360’s heyday, and it seemed like everyone was playing it for a time, the ever-present and extremely divisive narrator being a hot topic on every podcast I listened to. Having always enjoyed narration and frankly surprised it hasn’t been done in more modern games (cue flashbacks to Dungeons and Dragons Online) I was quite looking forward to it myself. A huge Diablo fan, I was far more skeptical about playing a colorful, consolefied take on the ARPG genre, which was honestly probably the main reason I hadn’t got around to playing it until now.

Immediately upon jumping in you’re treated to the game’s sublime visuals. A painted, colorful floating world filled with squat, cartoony characters that evoke isometric Japanese tactical RPGs from the 90s more than Diablo and its ilk is assembled around as you walk through it to cool effect. Then the narrator comes in and… well, that wasn’t what I was expecting at all! Instead of a narrator chiming in here and there, and feeling fairly removed from the game world like an overwatching dungeon master or the hilarious narrator from a Sierra adventure game, the narrator in Bastion is actually another character in the world with his own personality, and he really is ever-present, chiming in about every other little thing your character does. It’s not that it wasn’t cool, it just wasn’t what I had in my head for all these years.

“Even Bastion’s junk yards are beautiful.”

Then I got into the action and, eh… it was fine. Nothing too particular to complain about, but something about it just didn’t click with me. I knew it was a short game, so I figured I’d keep playing it and at worst, have to write a fairly negative review. Then, maybe my third session in with the game, out of nowhere I found myself having a ton of fun. I think a big part of my enjoyment came from the extremely smooth pacing. Having such bite-sized levels was genius, making it feel effortless to dive in and out, which ends up being vitally important as you start unlocking new weapons, weapon upgrades, spirits, and secret skills to play with.

I’m the type of person who typically settles on one good loadout in a game like this and won’t deviate from it all too often outside of a cursory test of any new items and abilities I pick up, but Bastion absolutely nails its upgrade and loadout systems. Soon I found myself experimenting wildly to find the best ways to best each of the weapon challenge areas and the “Who Knows Where” wave attack arenas. I was actually having some of the most fun I’d had with a game like this in recent memory.

“When in doubt, use a shotgun.”

Once I was hooked on the combat and the progression, the intrigue of the story, the aforementioned beautiful art style, the amazing soundtrack, and really, just an overall highly tuned experience from front to back, brought me the rest of the way to the end of the game. I ended up enjoying it so much that I went from barely interested to now committed to trying some of Supergiant’s other games, like their 2014 follow-up, Transistor. Hell, I even briefly considered giving the new game+ a go, something I almost never do. In the end I settled on being happy with as close to 100 percenting the game as you can get in a single playthrough, and calling it a day. Still, that was a pleasant surprise!

Screenshots are from the PC versions of these games, stolen from random users on the Steam Community pages for these games.

Before the Storm

After finally wrapping up Life is Strange we wasted little time before diving into the game’s follow-up prequel, Life is Strange: Before the Storm.

“Chloe and Rachel bonding.”

When I first heard about Before the Storm back in 2017 I was a little skeptical. First, it’s a prequel to a game that, back then, seemed unlikely to need one, a suspicion I can definitely confirm having finally beaten the game. A major concern for me, personally. Second, developer Dontnod wasn’t signed on for this one, with Square Enix instead passing the reins to Deck Nine, who had never worked on anything like Life is Strange as far as I can tell. Concern rising! Perhaps most controversially, due to a Screen Actors Guild strike several voice actors, including the voice actors for the two lead characters, Max and Chloe, wouldn’t be on board for this one. While it turns out that Max would barely be featured, BtS centers around the character of Chloe, whose excellent voice acting in the first game was an undeniably crucial component. Oh dear…

Working backwards through each of those concerns, the voice acting turned out not to be much of a problem at all. Deck Nine was able to find someone who was capable of sounding reasonably close to the original voice actor, Ashly Burch, for Chloe. I say “capable of” because, while for the longest time I had wondered if they had indeed managed to source the original talent, or if maybe they went back and re-recorded her lines after the strike was over, there definitely were some moments in the latter half other game where the illusion shattered, taking me out of the moment to ponder how unlike Chloe the impostor on the screen sounded on a specific line, or in a particular scene. Thankfully these moments were few, and replacement, Rhianna DeVries, mostly nailed it.

“In lieu of Max’s time powers BtS adds a new backtalk system to conversations.”

As for Deck Nine? While I’m about to go into more specific details in a bit, let me just sum it up by saying I was surprised at just how incredible of a job they did with this game. I’m not sure what they’re working on currently but I really hope that this wasn’t just some sort of a one time experiment for them and that they have more narrative games in their future. Amazing job!

The justification for Before the Storm’s existence as a prequel is probably a much more fundamental issue. Did the original Life is Strange need a prequel? Not at all. Is Life is Strange stronger with the existence of BtS? Surprisingly, I think so! As improbable as it is that shoehorning a new story into a timeline that was already somewhat established would be successful, it’s executed extremely well.

Before the Storm takes place during the often alluded to time in Chloe’s life after her father died and Max moved away, and after she’s already well on her way to becoming the rebellious Chloe we met in Life is Strange proper. An early scene in the first episode has Chloe sneaking out to see a band at a shady-ass club in the middle of nowhere. BtS shows us a Chloe who, at least from the new perspective of being inside her head, wrestles with how to handle the adversity she encounters and later muses about how she’s managed to pull off being such a badass. This is a different Chloe, one who is still developing the defiant confidence we saw in Life is Strange. I love this sort of subtle attention to detail, especially given that the events of this game are surely critical to that development.

“…and instead of snapping artsy photos, Chloe just vandalizes shit.”

Therein lies one of the real successes of Before the Storm. This time, lacking Max’s supernatural abilities and as much of a dramatic plot to deal with, BtS focuses more on the “slice of life” sections of the original game. While this makes it perhaps a little less exciting, the relationship between Max and Chloe was easily one of the best parts of Life is Strange and is echoed by the relationship between Chloe and the game’s other main character, the legendary Rachael Amber. I might argue that BtS is perhaps even more affecting given how much of a strong, passionate personality Rachel is, and for the record, not only does Rachel live up to the lofty reputation built up for her in the first game, but in some ways she even exceeds it.

Unlike the first game, the romantic undertones between Chloe and Rachel also seemed more obvious, and while we took the bait in our playthrough, despite the game seeming to want the choice to be more binary, we felt like it was more realistic for Chloe to respond apprehensively rather than leaping haphazardly into a relationship with someone whose signals weren’t always exceedingly clear. In any case, Chloe’s connection with Rachel goes on to justify many of the interpretations of her later relationship with Max. Was Chloe trying to reconnect with her old childhood friend, or was she actually trying to recapture her romance with Rachael? It’s even more interesting when you consider how Chloe takes on Rachel’s role as the fearlessly impulsive, assertive one. This is just one example of how Life is Strange feels stronger with the character development present in BtS, which culminates with the elephant in the room, the tragic events around Rachel Amber in the first game, being all that more disturbing after getting to know her here.

“Make sure you also play the bonus episode!”

It’s not all perfect of course. Any time you expand a story with a prequel like this you risk inconsistencies or full on retcons of earlier established events, and while the events of Before the Storm seem to be carefully considered, there are tons of issues with the changes to the already sloppy timeline of the first game. None of these issues felt problematic, if we even noticed them at all, but this is a complaint I ran across a lot online.

Another frequent complaint is how the course of the entire game seems to take place in just a few days, which feels like way too short of a time for numerous reasons, not the least of which is how quickly the bonds between Chloe and Rachel form. While I agree that the timeline feels compressed for no real reason, that’s one specific assertion that I don’t agree with at all. I believe that at that point in her life Chloe desperately needed someone in her life and Rachael came along at just the right time to catch her in this vulnerable state and knock her off of her feet. Simple as that! I’ve heard some people suggest that Rachael may have even sensed this in Chloe and actively exploited it, and while, erring on the side of optimism, I’m not necessarily prepared to pass that judgement, it does fit with the events fairly well.

I can’t say I’m exactly immune to these kinds of complaints though. I was bothered by the timeline of the bonus “Farewell” episode, which has you playing through one of Max and Chloe’s last days together as kids. Avoiding spoilers here, but that is a compressed timeline, folks! While I really enjoyed the episode, it definitely clashed harshly with my impression of the events as presented in the first game, even if those details are ultimately fairly inconsequential to the overall story.

Some people also hated the end, particularly the very end, and of course I understand the reasons why. For me, despite being incredibly sobering, it felt thematically totally appropriate and helped tie the stories between the two games together.

“The Tempest scene was truly memorable.”

I suppose I should stop there before getting into spoilers. To quickly run through a few remaining notes: the music is much more consistent and fits the tone better even if there are less standout tracks than the first game, the graphics are quite similar, though perhaps a bit more stylized this time around, and while the gameplay is mostly the same, we found ourselves feeling strangely pressured by no longer having Max’s ability to rewind time, having to live with the consequences of our decisions. God forbid!

While I’m not sure if BtS manages to surpass it or not, in some ways it’s probably superior to the first game and, in any case, I came away just as affected by Chloe and Rachel’s relationship which is a huge accomplishment all by itself. That said, the game seems to be quite divisive. I’d have thought if you liked the first game, BtS would be more of the same for the vast majority of people, but I suppose the people who loved Life is Strange loved it so much that of course they’re going to be super sensitive to any changes something like this inevitably brings. Regardless, I wouldn’t hesitate checking it out if you are a fan of the original Life is Strange.

Screenshots were take from various places on the Internet. Most of them are from the PC version rather than the Xbox One version but the difference isn’t huge, especially when reformatted for this blog.