Command: Modern Operations, the sequel to Command: Modern Air Naval Operations, is out now. And I wasn’t a bystander or even just a beta tester-I wrote the manual for it in all its 353-page glory.
I’m very, very excited for this, and I hope you are too.
Get it at its official page here.
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.
So, Fire Emblem Three Houses is now officially released for the Nintendo Switch.
What I’ve seen of it has been very good, I love the art-style, and from what I’ve heard, a lot of my biggest fears have been overtaken [without spoiling anything]. It feels like Intelligent Systems has been using the series new tent-pole status and the success of Heroes as a way to move outwards a little, not as a way to stay huddled on the track like some other successful franchises.
Plus, there’s a bit of guilty pleasure. I’d previously made the goofy thought exercise of “what if I stuffed the entire playable cast of every previous Fire Emblem game into a modern military battalion?” And now, guess what? There’s a “battalion system” to reinforce your fighters. Not since I anticipated “The Dentist” as being important to the Payday 2 plot have I been vindicated in such a fashion.
The role of video games in the decline of the technothriller cannot be discounted. Beyond this, looking at just how closely they matched is fascinating to me.
The first (Splinter Cell) is very unsurprising. The plots of the first few Splinter Cell games match the themes and formats of contemporary technothrillers almost exactly. What else would you expect from a game bearing the “Tom Clancy’s” name?
The second (Metal Gear) is a little trickier, thanks to Kojima’s er, “eccentricity”. The technothriller influence is still definitely there, and at least the original, more grounded Metal Gear Solid is still not that much worse, if at all, than some of the more out-there entries in the genre (which definitely exist).
I was somewhat critical of the “FICINT” concept in my last post on it, so I feel it’s fair to provide an example that is both positive and humorous. The prediction of drones, especially drones dropping/carrying weapons, was unintentionally foreshadowed by two missions in the infamous Grand Theft Auto video games. The “Demolition Man” and “Supply Lines” missions are among the most (rightfully) reviled in the series. And yet they were the most accidentally prescient concerning drone proliferation and use. Imagine that.
Who remembers SSX and 1080? The waves of Tony Hawk games that were all the rage in the 2000s? I do. I vaguely played a few of them, and watched my friends and classmates play a lot more of them.
I guess it was the “EXTREME SPORTS” trend of that period extending to video gaming. I don’t really miss it, but I can see the appeal. And I can also see how that influence extended into non-extreme sports games starring a certain Sega mascot.
So I saw the preview for Fire Emblem Three Houses, of which more was finally released in the latest Nintendo Direct. While a lot of it looks impressive, I have to say that I’m wary. I think it’s just the trend of the series and the school setting.
Basically, my reasoning goes like this. Since Awakening, IntSys has thrown every anime antic but the kitchen sink at FE. Now they’re drilling straight into the Anime Antics field of school settings. That’s my wariness. My hope is that the gameplay can get something interesting out of the system (and I can see the possibilities), and the “anime school antics” aren’t done too badly.
Although I like the design of the three main characters, at least.
I think I’ve outgrown Payday 2. I don’t regret the time and money spent on it-it was very fun and worked very well. But now with the story (such as it is) concluded, all I’m left with is, when I try to go back to it, I just find a mindless wave fighter in a clunky, badly optimized engine that I was losing some interest in before (for the last few updates I would return to the game for a bit, play them, and then go back).
I had fun with it, but I think I’ve played out my time in Payday 2. I’ll remember doing the classics like Hoxton Breakout and Big Bank, maybe being the only person who unironically liked Henry’s Rock, and just running the easy early heists again and again for relaxation. But now it’s done.
So, Payday 2 got its official end.
I only got the bad/non-Secret ending myself, and am nowhere near as good a player to get the good/Secret Revealed ending. While the game turning into a ridiculous wannabe-Assassin’s Creed mish-mash of every conspiracy ever might seem bad in isolation, in context it worked as well as it could have and showed how a little earnestness can go a very long way.
I feel bittersweet. I’ve been playing Payday 2 for a very long time. It’s (a distant) second only to Command: Modern Air Naval Operations, my dream game, in terms of actual time played. I remember playing it on a computer that could barely run it at all, and then seeing the contrast when I got a better system. It’s definitely one of the most mainstream games I’ve played and enjoyed. And the music-the music is incredible.
So, I’ve been fascinated by small scale skirmish wargames lately. Stuff like the ones in this excellent post. Why them?
Partly because a down-and-dirty infantry firefight is what I like in a story, having also read many small-unit action stories recently. Partly because it reminds me of XCOM, Fire Emblem, and other low-unit strategy games. And partly just because I can think of the figures more as individual characters than generic units.
Coiler's Creative Corner 