Hello! Welcome to another Video Game Round-Up! As I’m sure you all know, it’s a pretty weird time right now. Thanks to the current pandemic, I have been stuck at home for about five weeks now. I am lucky and privileged enough to be able to work from home so even though my job is not at all essential, I can still do it and draw a regular salary. This means I don’t have to commute to and from the office, but it also means I don’t go outside very much at all (and when I do, I wear a mask and am socially distant from anybody else who might also be outside at that time). So what’s a guy to do with slightly more free time on his hands? Play a bunch of video games.
Let’s get to the games!
First, I went through the Hearts of Stone DLC, in which I faced off against a few demons, one of which branded my face because he’s a dick. Remember I said some of the side quests didn’t seem to be written as well as in the base game? That mostly held true, but the main quest line was so good, I didn’t even care that the side quests were meh. I don’t want to spoil too much, but I got to go to a wedding and do a bunch of interesting games and stuff in order to give a ghost the time of his life, I got to take part in a heist, including the planning (and y’all know how much I love heists), and in the best bit of the whole DLC, I got to go into the world of a painting to rebuild a woman’s memories, and dude, that was awesome (it’s part of the quest “Scenes From a Marriage” for those of you keeping track at home; really, the whole quest is great, but I super enjoyed the Painted World part). The final “boss battle” was a bit weird, and wasn’t so great compared to the painting part, but the final ending was extremely satisfying. Basically, fuck off, demons.
Immediately after that, it was time to go to a brand-new region of the world (Hearts of Stone just gave us more of the Velen/Novigrad map) in Toussaint, a melange of various western European cultures (mostly French, English, Italian, and Spanish) for the Blood and Wine DLC. Where Hearts of Stone’s theme was demons, Blood and Wine’s was vampires, and ended with the hardest boss battle in the whole game (at least, to me). I died about five times before I finally got the hang of it and won... in the good ending, anyway. There is a bad ending, which I also did just to get a trophy and see what that was like (it was a whole new set of endgame missions, which was kind of cool). Before those endings, though, I did a bunch of stuff, including getting a sword from the Lady in the Lake, getting two portraits painted of me (they now hang in my house), helped build a statue of a Christ-like figure (though he’s clearly not as Christ-like as he’d have us believe - one of his teachings is “Love thy neighbor, but not too much lest they get the wrong idea”, which is pretty funny), got a wine named after me, won a knightly tournament (and saved a woman from a curse at the same time), saved a bunch of knights errant and took down three rather large bandit camps (they were almost like Far Cry or Assassin’s Creed Odyssey fortresses, with tons of bad guys, leaders, signal fires, etc.), and killed a bunch of fairy tale characters in the best quest of this DLC, “Beyond Hill and Dale” (which can be missed depending on what choice you make in the quest immediately preceding this one). The side quests in Blood and Wine were more in line with the base game than Hearts of Stone, which means they were a lot more interesting and engaging.
After finishing my time in Toussaint, I went back into the main game to find all the Gwent cards. This means I played every possible player and beat them to get all their cards, which I know I did because I got a trophy for it. I also ran around a got some other trophies, including all the ones from Blood and Wine, and all but two story-related ones in Hearts of Stone (I have to replay it to get them). I think I want to platinum this game at some point, but it will be far into the future because I’d have to replay the whole base game again in the hardest mode (and not accidentally kill Kiera Metz and do a few more combat-related things) to get the platinum. I will likely start a New Game+ so I can keep all my levels and stats and maybe it won’t be so hard.
But for now, I am leaving my Geralt at his house in Toussaint, with Yennefer of Vengerberg lounging in a chaise lounge that she brought with her, ready to settle down.
PS. If you did choose Yennefer over Triss (and why wouldn’t you?), go back into your bedroom after finishing Blood and Wine for a hilarious surprise (that initially scared the shit out of me because I wasn’t at all expecting it).
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch) - I didn’t do too much gaming on the Switch because the girl has bogarted it for Animal Crossing: New Horizons all day every day, but she did deign to let me borrow it for a bit so I could get the new SSBU spirits from that very same game (but why no Blathers, Nintendo?!). There were four in total, but for some gosh dang reason, I still can’t get the Astral Chain spirits. Is this some kind of punishment for never finishing the actual Astral Chain game?
Control (PS4) - The first story DLC dropped for Control (just in time as I had just finished The Witcher III), and it was great! It’s not very long, but it has Jesse Faden, aka the greatest FBC Director of all time, chasing after Marshall, who disappeared towards the end of the main game. It takes place in a brand-new section of the Oldest House called the Foundation (which is also the name of the DLC). It’s more Hiss, more great side missions, and more general weirdness. The main story is only about five or six hours long, with maybe another hour for the side quests, and then I spent a bunch of time getting all the trophies, some of which were pretty run-of-the-mill combat related things (use the new power a certain number of times, kill a certain number of the new type of Hiss, etc.) and others were finishing a mission or all the missions. But one trophy was ridiculous, and that was the trophy asking you to find all the maneki-nekos. Now, it is possible to find three, maybe four of these lucky cats just by doing the usual exploring you should be doing in this game anyway, but the other four require the solving of puzzles so esoteric, there’s no way to even realize they’re puzzles! I had to look up a guide and thank goodness I did because I never would have figured it out otherwise. And what do we get for finding all these lucky cats? A secret room (that you also have to find) full of more of these cats, and an adorable pair of cat ears that Jesse can wear (and yes, my Jesse is wearing them right now).
There’s a bunch of new collectibles in this DLC that give us more information about the world and the FBC. Most of the collectibles are about the Foundation itself and detail some history of the FBC when Northmoor was still Director (Northmoor was director before Trench, who died at the very beginning of the main game). There is also some stuff about the otherworldly Board, which paints them in not the best light. But the best narratives-via-collectibles in the Foundation DLC are two mini-mysteries originating with the America Overnight radio program (which the FBC started to collect information on possible Altered World Events, Altered Items, or Objects of Power by pretending they were just fielding calls from crazy people around the US). The first is about a Himalayan salt lamp and the weird effects it’s having on a woman’s husband. There are two or three collectibles concerning this item, one of which is a letter written by the husband while trapped under the influence of the lamp, and it’s creepy AF. The second mini-mystery is even creepier and is about a company called Blessed Pictures. There are multiple collectibles about this movie studio, making them seem like they might be a threat to the FBC. The America Overnight episode about Blessed Pictures is damn creepy, as they apparently send them a letter with ashes inside it, along with a fondue set. The letter is creepy by itself, but then the host finds the ashes and he quickly realizes they ashes are human, and also the fondue set has killed his producer. It’s nuts, and I really hope they do something with this Blessed Pictures. Make them some kind of anti-FBC.
I finished this over two days, and am now eagerly awaiting the next Control DLC, which will apparently heavily feature Alan Wake.
Peggle 2 (PS4) - This is a simple puzzle game that plays like the Price is Right game Plinko: you shoot balls from the top of the board and try to hit every orange peg before you run out of balls. The boards get harder as you progress, and there are new rules and such introduced, but what makes this game really fun are the ridiculous characters to the side of the board (like the farting donkey unicorn). It’s got a pretty great color palette, and it’s just a bunch of simple fun.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PS4) - I finally made good on that promise I made to myself back in December and platinumed the game. This meant mostly doing a bunch of combat-related things, like parrying, evading, killing enemies with explosions, etc. Thankfully, I was pretty close to the magic number on most of these things, so I didn’t have to grind too much. The hardest trophies to get were Triple Take, which required me to kill three enemies with one lightsaber throw (it was ridiculously frustrating trying to line up three stormtroopers and then throwing my dang lightsaber in a straight line), and Kicking Back, which required me to let a phillak (a space goat, basically) kick me before kicking it back (the phillak likes to butt you with its head more than it likes to kick, so getting it to kick me was damn frustrating). I prevailed in short order, however, and now this game has been platinumed.
Titanfall 2 (PS4) - I finally played this short campaign (I finished it in an evening!) that everyone’s been talking about forever. It’s a first-person shooter, but with the added brilliance of wall-running and large mechs. It’s not the first game with either of those things (it’s not even the best wall-runner; that crown’s reserved for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (PS2)), but I think it melds them all together in a very fun, very tight package.
Most people play this game for the multiplayer, but I really could not care less about that, so instead I spent like three hours beating the campaign. The best level by far is the time travel level, in which you travel back and forth between two different time periods, flanking guards, robots, and dinosaurs in the two time periods by time traveling at will. It might be the best FPS level I’ve ever played.
...Then there was a pretty tedious platforming level immediately after it that was not great at all :P
That level notwithstanding, this is a pretty fun FPS with a fun story, fun gameplay elements that aren’t all about the shooting, and a sweet mech that made me cry. Also, I got to play the game for free because of my EA Access subscription. Winners all around!
Gone Home (PS4) - This is a game in the vein of What Remains of Edith Finch (PS4), but not as ambitious. Gone Home predates Edith Finch by about four years, and it shows. Where Edith Finch told its stories through different kinds of gameplay, Gone Home is truly a “walking simulator”. The only real gameplay element is walking around the house finding things and piecing together a story. There are a few puzzles to do here and there, but overall, it’s pretty bland, gameplay-wise. The story, on the other hand, is really quite good. I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to ruin it for anybody who doesn’t already know it, but I liked it a lot. There are a few twists, some you see coming, some you don’t, and it is melancholic and bittersweet (and a little scary at times), but ultimately joyous and uplifting.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (PS4) - The sequel to Wolfenstein: The New Order (PS4), this game picks up exactly where the last one left off: protagonist BJ Blazkowicz has just defeated General Deathshead and has called for an airstrike. The game continues the alternate timeline in which Nazi Germany has won World War II, and has conquered pretty much the whole world, including the United States, and this game is concerned with liberating the US from Nazi control. As such, levels take place mostly in the US (New York, New Orleans, and Roswell), but also within the resistance’s submarine base and a Nazi base on Venus because science fiction.
This game is maybe not as fun as the first one, or even Old Blood (though I still enjoy shooting Nazis, and now get to shoot Klansmen too), but the shooting is still weighty and enjoyable. The story is also pretty good, and there’s a really interesting question in the middle of it: is Terror-Billy actually dead? BJ is captured midway through the game, and after a lengthy dream sequence in which he dreams he escapes from his kangaroo court trial and meets his dead mother, the utterly vile villain General Engel beheads him. And then shit gets really weird. The resistance catches his head and hooks it up to a discarded Nazi super soldier body, and BJ doesn’t die. He continues to fight against the Nazi threat, including flying up to Venus and meeting a very old and demented Adolf Hitler while undercover as an actor auditioning for the role of himself in a propaganda movie. It’s strange and weird and utterly wacky, and really points to being an extended dream sequence (but Wolfenstein: Youngblood exists, and BJ is clearly alive there, so who knows?).
There’s a bunch of endgame stuff you can do (killing various Nazi commanders in maps you’ve been through before), but because I didn’t find this game as fun as the first, I didn’t bother doing them.
The Outer Worlds (PS4) - I finally started this, but I really shouldn’t have, as I had to stop rather quickly when Final Fantasy VII Remake came out (more on that below), but what I did play, I enjoyed. I’m still on the opening planet... Actually, I haven’t even completed the first questline with the geothermal plant, so I’m still quite early in the game. But I’m enjoying all the menus, all the dialogue, all the combat, and I’m especially enjoying the company of Parvati, the first companion you get. She is great, and I love her, and I will keep her safe forever... well, I will continue to keep her safe after I finish FF7 Remake.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch) - And now for something completely different, the girl guest stars in Video Game Round-Up! to talk about her new obsession! Take it away, Felicia!
“To be honest, I would probably not have bought Animal Crossing: New Horizons if not for Covid-19. I hadn’t played any of the previous games in the series, and because I have an addictive personality, I knew it would turn into a giant time suck. But then the situation with the virus became increasingly anxiety-inducing, and my decision-making processes were affected along with my ability to leave the house.
My avatar is called Feli, and is one of the few video game characters named after me that has not (well, not yet) died a terrible, painful death [Adan’s note: one of my horses in Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4) was named Felicia, and it died a terrible, painful death]. I chose an island in the northern hemisphere, so it's spring right now and I currently have four neighbours (Annalisa the anteater, Sherb the sheep, Curly the pig, and Fuchsia the pink creature) and the Switch is literally the first thing I reach for when I wake up these days.
ACNH Feli wakes up every day, gets dressed, checks her mail, then rushes over to Timmy and Tommy to sell her fishing haul from the previous night (yes, I fish until two in the morning some days, but you get really great fish at night!). Once that's done and she's deposited all her money into her bank account (like a good Asian child), she runs around the island looking for fossils, fruits, and insects to sell for bells, the in-game currency. I need a lot of bells because I need to expand my house (I have four rooms now) and buy more clothes. What else would I do with my life, I mean, ACNH Feli's life?
My favourite part of the game is a tie between fishing (omg, that oarfish) and buying clothes from the Able Sisters clothing store to dress ACNH Feli up every day. Given the crisis, I feel like I'm living vicariously though her in ACNH, and, I have to say, it's not a bad life.
I've been playing for about three weeks now and I'm enjoying the daily “grind”, so to speak. The repetition is calming and I'm looking forward to discovering more fish, food, and fashion!”
Adan here again, and I just want to add that I have been occasionally playing this as well (on the girl’s save, so I don’t have my own island), and the thing I enjoy the most is getting new clothes for ACNH Feli, and dressing her up (fishing comes a close second). Dressing up video game characters is actually one of my fave things to do in most games (though often other games give clothing different stat boosts and I can’t wear what actually looks good because that fugly-ass skirt or whatever gives me a better DEF stat :P). I also love the fact that none of the clothes are gender specific, so characters can express themselves however they want, regardless of gender. Yay!
Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4) - Video Game Round-Up! is slightly late this month because of this game. I wanted to finish it before I started writing up anything about, and it took me a full week to get it done.
When this was originally announced, and we were told this first part of the Remake would take us up to the point when Cloud and gang leave Midgar. In the original Final Fantasy VII (PS1), that takes about 7-8 hours, so I was a bit worried about what this game was going to entail. While it’s true that it does take us up to when they leave Midgar, it took me 47 hours to complete the game, not 7-8. They really packed in a lot of extra stuff, expanding the story to flesh out all the side characters and introduce new ones, and to really make Midgar feel alive and vibrant. They also hint at future story developments... sometimes a little too much.
This game is not a 1:1 recreation of the original game (especially if that ending is saying what I think it’s saying; I shan’t mention more here so I don’t spoil anything, but feel free to discuss the ending in the comments!), so there’s a lot more to see and do. Many of the original game's main plot points are covered here: Avalanche destroying the Mako Reactors 1 and 5; Cloud meeting Aerith in the top level of Midgar, then falling to the church in the lower level and meeting her again; the whole Wall Market sequence; and the “infiltration” of Shinra HQ, the fight with Rufus on the roof, and the subsequent escape from Shinra HQ on an awesome motorcycle and a ridiculous truck. But they also add in a lot more. Like a lot. There are entirely new sequences that weren’t in the first, like meeting Jessie’s parents on the top level, the fucking amazing Honeybee Inn dance sequence, the whole section in Hojo’s horrible laboratories, and various side missions that help flesh out the different slums in the bottom level. We get summons a lot earlier than in the original game thanks to new character and Shinra-science-intern-but-really-working-from-within-to-take-them-down Chadley and his amazing ability to create new materia with nothing but gumption and VR goggles. There is an even a new boss character named Roche, a SOLDIER still working for Shinra, though the less said about him, the better. But the biggest changes to this Remake are the Whispers and Sephiroth. I won’t say anything about the Whispers because they tie in too much to the ending, but I can talk about Sephiroth.
There is a shit ton of Sephiroth, you guys.
In the original game, we get our first inkling of Sephiroth in Shinra HQ, when someone else is in the building, doing weird stuff like stealing Jenova and killing President Shinra. We see him for the first time soon after these events, but most of his appearances are after Cloud and the others leave Midgar. But in the Remake, dude is all over the place, mostly appearing as visions Cloud is seeing, and then eventually appearing to the other characters as well. The President Shinra murder is handled very differently, and there’s even a boss battle with Sephiroth. I hate to say this, but there is far too much Sephiroth here. I kind of understand the reasoning behind this, but the developers went overboard. They said in an interview that in the original game, Sephiroth was like the shark in Jaws: a mysterious and powerful character teased in the beginning, and only fully shown later. But 23 years later, Sephiroth isn’t mysterious at all, and is a huge cultural icon; it doesn’t make sense to hold back his reveal. And while I agree with that, I still think they overplayed him. Dude shows up in the second chapter, and doesn’t really stop showing up for the rest of the game. It’s overkill, and it frankly overshadows Shinra, who are supposed to be the main bad guys during the Midgar section.
Overall, I liked the game a lot. I liked most of additions, as they build up the world a lot better than in the original game, I love all the characters and their amazing glow-ups (as I said elsewhere, Rude is my favorite of the updated designs, but frankly, this entire game is a bi thirst trap), and I love what the ending very heavily suggests. Again, no spoilers here, but if you wanna talk about it in the comments, I’m game.
And that’s everything for the month! After we finish writing the next Sherlock Sam book, I’ll go back to The Outer Worlds, and then maybe go back to NieR: Automata (PS4) and finish my second and third playthroughs of this very odd and interesting game, or continue my Yakuza run with Yakuza Kiwami (PS4), or play the Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition (PS4), this time with all the DLC. The original plan of course was to also start The Last of Us Part II (PS4), but that’s now been delayed indefinitely, so I instead have to play all those other games I already own.
See you next month, and play more video games!
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