RIP René Auberjonois

René Auberjonois has just passed away.

The actor had a very long and diverse career, from Father Mulcahy in the original MASH movie to Odo on Deep Space Nine to independent films. I know Auberjonois best from his role as the reclusive Howard Hughes-esque businessman and scientist Mr. House in Fallout New Vegas. Auberjonois played that part very well.

RIP.

Happy 19th Birthday, Pokemon Gen II

So today is the 19th anniversary of Pokemon Gold and Silver being released in North America. Having played the Silver version ridiculously extensively when younger, I feel like Gen II remains my favorite to this very day. The grumpy you’re-no-fun part of me says it was because I was old enough to truly appreciate it but still young enough to have a child’s awe. Oh well. I still think it’s my favorite generation.

It just felt BIG. All the activities you could do made it feel big. That you had two regions made it feel big. The different day/night cycles and weekdays made it feel big. It felt big and lively.

When I got the Ruby version, yes, the graphics were much better. But the day/night was now a technicality and it just didn’t feel as big. Oh, it was probably as big or bigger in terms of actual tiles, but it didn’t feel big to me. Silver felt big. Silver felt really big.

I’d say Silver and Fallout New Vegas are my two favorite RPGs of all time.

 

The Paper Cow and The Paper Wasp

So, there are two types of enemies in video games that have a reputation for being memetically impossible, for being tough, for being bad. These two are Whitney‘s Miltank from Pokemon Gold/Silver, and Cazadors from Fallout New Vegas.

These happen to be two of my favorite games of all time and I played both extensively. And I can say that I never found either of them that challenging.

First, Whitney’s Miltank. I have an idea as to why she got the memetic reputation. Because Gold/Silver, at least the initial portion, is a very, very easy game. Even as a child, I still knew it was a very easy game. So, anything that makes you grind a tiny bit or use a tiny bit of optimization will look harder in perspective. I never found the Miltank that hard, even by the game’s standards.

Second, the Cazadors. They’re easy to take out compared to say, Deathclaws. My speech-optimized first courier could easy handle them (this cannot be said for some other opponents.) They have venom, but thanks to the “generosity” of legion assassins that dropped it after I took them out, I had plenty of antivenom at all times.

(I also think my playstyle might have helped. Because I mainly ran through the main quests and didn’t wander around, I could navigate cazador-filled areas in short, prepared bursts, so I wasn’t caught by surprise.)

So I’m considering these paper tigers. Or paper wasp-thingies and cow-thingies.

Closing the book on Fallout 4

A while back, I posted that despite getting a computer specifically so I could use Fallout 4, I no longer had any interest in the game itself.

Now, I’ve closed the final door by formally removing Fallout 4 from my Steam wishlist as part of a general pruning.

Indoctrination Theory

There was a discussion on Space Battles about what people thought of the “Indoctrination Theory” of Mass Effect 3’s infamous ending.

(If you’re brave you can see a detailed site on it here. The short version is that Shepard was mind controlled). Bioware has officially stated that it is not canon and forbids discussion.

Now, my post on the subject had three parts. (Read the whole thread, it’s very good)

• Mass Effect is not an ambiguous art game like say, Yume Nikki. It was supposed to be clear.
• By itself, the theory is just a goofy one, much like the theory that the entire Pokemon anime is the dream of Ash in a coma.
• However, the real ending was so bad a critical mass of fans attached to the weird theory.

I’d also like to add, after a night of reflection, that the ending, much like the Reapers, was set up to fail. The expectations were so big, and the lack of planning so great, that A: Anything was bound to be disappointing to someone, and B: The chances of a slip up, as happened to the villains, were great.

So that there was controversy wasn’t surprising. What’s a little surprising to me is that there isn’t more controversy over Bethesda’s tiny, bland endings to their Fallout games. You couldn’t take a page from New Vegas?

 

 

The irony of Fallout 4

Fallout 4 was one of the main reasons I got a higher-end computer. I wanted to play it, and I even used its specifications as the baseline for what I wanted. That was last year. Now, I not only haven’t gotten it, but I have no more interest in getting it.

Why?

• I know what happens. So the fun of a blind playthrough would be gone. This wasn’t the biggest problem. After all, my runs through New Vegas weren’t blind in the least. The second reason is more important
• Fallout 4 seems to be the anti-New Vegas. New Vegas had a restrictive level design that encouraged players like me who just go through the story and don’t look for secrets. It also had extremely vast dialogue options. Fallout 4 is the opposite-set up for exploration but with extremely limited dialogue, with the horrible voice acting to boot.

So, because of that, I’ve let the wasteland pass me by.

Still, the computer was a good buy, it’s just ironic I never got what I originally planned.

Blank Slate Heroes

I have to admit, I have less enthusiasm for Fallout 4 now than I did when it was released. Part of this is me knowing what happened rather than going into the game excitedly, but that’s not everything. (After all, I loved New Vegas despite my runs adhering rigidly to walkthroughs)

I think one big thematic misstep, which one of my favorite game bloggers, Shamus Young agrees with, is making the protagonist voiced. It’s a sort of uncanny valley where they’re too detailed to just be a blank slate, but aren’t detailed enough to be an interesting character themselves.

(That I’m not impressed by the voice acting doesn’t help matters either)

I had three couriers for my New Vegas playthrough. One was a talker who sided with the NCR, one a brute who sided with Caesar’s Legion, and one a physically weak ex-gangster who sided with Mr. House to redeem themselves. (Said courier compensated for her physical weakness by getting power armor and blasting the final boss with a super-railgun).

Even games without the customization of New Vegas make blank slates. For the protagonist of Undertale, the players (eventually) know their name, that they’re nice, and that’s it. For a Pokemon trainer, their family is known, but they’re not.

I do invent backstories for blank slate characters that often contradict the rest of the setting. Why not?

Who Could Be A Fitting “Sans”?

First, an obligatory spoiler warning for Undertale (even if this is like closing the barn door long after every single horse has left).

 

 

So, one of the most interesting and challenging characters in Undertale is Sans the skeleton. At first seeming to be just a silly, lazy character (in contrast to his overexcited, bumbling brother, Papyrus), he’s later revealed to know about the timeline changes caused by the main character/player saving and restarting the game, and becoming apathetic to the world because of it.

Unlike his brother, Sans never fights the player on either a “normal” route or a pacifist route. However, on the so-called “genocide route”, where the player must go out of their way to keep killing literally every single monster in every single area throughout the game, Sans finally rouses himself into action and serves as what is generally considered by far the hardest boss in the game.

The Sans battle in its entirety.

Sans is jokingly referred to in the game’s “check” screen as the “easiest enemy”, having only one HP (but dodging every attack), and only doing one damage (per frame).

Now, I goofily wondered what a rough counterpart to Sans would be in other games. Not in terms of the character (either lazy or uncaring), nor even in terms of being an incredibly hard battle (the mechanics would be different). No, what I was thinking of was the style. To be a Sans-equivalent, said character would have to:

• Be established throughout the main storyline, regardless of what path the player takes.
• At the same time, having a good justification not to fight the player unless they go to a terrible extreme.
• Nonetheless, in that extreme case, going to action.

 

For the most literal example, from my favorite RPG of all time, Fallout New Vegas, the replacement for Sans would be none other than-Yes Man.

Yes Man is a robot/computer program that is programmed to enthusiastically obey any order given to it by anyone. The character is a clear plot device, intended to serve as a bailout for players who fail the other three main quest lines. Yes Man obviously can’t say no, and their inability to be permanently killed (even if contrived) is to prevent the the player from losing that way.

New Vegas’ own pseudo-genocide route requires the player to use Yes Man (after all, even the crazed Caesar’s Legion needs you to spare them). 

The psycho ending.

So, while clearly not existing in the real game, my fanon would involve the Yes Man battle. Throughout the game, not only will he not oppose you, but he can’t. (If you went down that path in the fanon, you’d see hints of indecision and warning start to pop up in his speeches).

Then, after the normal final bosses are dealt with, Yes Man comes, and instead of his congratulations and statement of “assertiveness” (misinterpreted as him going rogue, but another plot device to make him just loyal to the player), he’d (with a changed voice tone and image from the silly smile), say “Do you really want to rule?”, and have a short conversation about how the Lucky 38’s computer installed a defense protocol inside him (the same one that largely spared the area from the nuclear war).

(The player can do a speech or science check, which doesn’t do anything even if passed-the implication being “Ha, now you’re trying to bypass fighting, sorry nope”).

From there, the player has to fight through waves of upgraded Securitrons (all with the “Yes Man” angry face) until they blow up the Lucky 38’s reactor, which destroys the entire area in a giant mushroom cloud and kills them. The end.

Ok, that was still pretty dumb, and me trying to shoehorn in too exact an analogy.

_ _ _ _ _ _

From my childhood RPG dream, there’s a lower-stakes but much easier way to include a “Sans”. That setting would be Pokemon, and the metaphorical skeleton is obvious-the professor that gives you your starter.

Give the player the option of evil shortcuts (stealing trainer Pokemon, using dubious power-ups)-and then, should they use said shortcuts, have them face the disappointed professor with a team of six level 100 fully evolved Pokemon.

The boss would say things like “Do you really care about loving your Pokemon, or just winning at all costs?”

 

(Even Rare Candies might technically qualify, given the number of people who used the item duplication glitches to munchkin their way to the top.)

There are undoubtedly more ways, both as contrived as my Fallout example and natural-seeming as my Pokemon one, to give the player a bad time throughout numerous games. This is one of those silly speculations I love thinking about way too much.

 

When a scenario is too balanced

Here it goes.

I’ve been having less fun making Command scenarios than I did when I first made a few. They haven’t become unfun, just less fun. I didn’t know why, until a Tasteful Understated Nerdrage (excellent video series, btw) video described it.

The games were described as “too balanced”, and having “too much choice”, and the video explained why that was the case. To me, I emphasized with “too balanced”-and the mindset that made games shift from unbalanced to the opposite extreme.

I missed the original Infinity Engine games almost-OK, totally completely. But in other games of that era, I can see the imbalances described at work-the original Pokemon, with its overpowered Psychic type, the stuffing of “poison” to all but one grass-type, the glitches, and so forth.

So, exploring Command, exploring the editor, exploring the circumstances, and, without the clearest picture, making something, was an experience that was majestic. This was also an experience that could only happen once. Even if I made an unbalanced scenario, it would be a calculated one-one of “Ok, let me handicap the Italians with third-gen fighters”, not “Ok, what do they have, hmm, F-104s, ok, I’ll use those”. I know too much about the context and the game mechanics to repeat my initial experience-and that’s both a good and bad thing.

Looking At Loopfics

So, I feel like writing about the “infinite loops” fandom again, after revisiting it. Looking at a few loops here and there, and taking the recent drama into account (which brings about both cynicism and hope), I want to blog about it.

I mentioned the time loop craze on Spacebattles before. I feel saddened, annoyed, and-disappointed by it, but also slightly hopeful. Very slightly.

The Infinite Loops aren’t/weren’t (just) a decision to write Groundhog Day-styled stories in various fandoms. They are their own universe of countless crossovers. The TVTropes page can at least bring a slight explanation. And-yeah. They’re something.

I like weird crossovers. Even with Sturgeons Law of 90% of everything being “bad”, and even knowing how especially hard it is to make a weird crossover good, I still like the concept. (The amount of theoretical heists I have daydreamed for the Payday cast is astounding, as is me mixing Fallout and the straight JRPG fantasy of the Fire Emblem series). Now, the issue is very simple.

To do a weird crossover right, it must be either extensively thought through or be a total goofball of a fic. The latter can work, but can’t really sustain a full story. The former requires a lot of thinking. To use my example- is there any chance that a noble (in all senses) squeaky-clean JRPG hero would back the psychotic Caesar’s Legion simply because they’re still the form of government they’re used to and know best? Could they stand House treating them as an especially bad primitive?

The loopfics somehow manage to combine all of the weaknesses of both approaches with none of the strengths. Most stories end up as tiny snippets. The ones that “continue” use the format as a way to shove aside anything in the original canon that the author dislikes-nearly always for the worse. So, they’re just tiny “crackfics”-

 

-that are tied together by a set of rules-Anchors, Admins, Awake, and terminology that I still have trouble getting. References to past entries that in practice take the form of in-jokes and arguments. Constant talk of violations of the rules. This was what kept me away from the loops far more than the content itself.

So, now for the events. Mods stepped in, trying to bring order to the chaos .The loop threads had one of the lowest posts-to-views ratios on the forum, and there was precedent in the Familiar of Zero threads, which went from anything goes “Louise summons ____ lol” to structured ones with strict observation and a firm requirement of substantive content.

This slowed the threads down but prompted much argument and few cohesive requirements. So looking at them now, can I say that it’s a total failure?

No. I’m seeing some better self-restraint, and some attempts at bringing order. Maybe that’s all that can practically be done-Familiar of Zero was at least a single setting, while the Loops were focused on massive crossovers from the start.
But there’s still a tiny bit of hope amidst the goofy.