Geek Bravado

So I found out some interesting brain stuff this week

Posted on June 15, 2018 by Parallax Abstraction

This friggin’ thing…

I’ve long been of the belief that one should be open about mental health. Aside from wanting to help end the stigma and ignorance around it, I’ve always thought telling others what you’re going through not only lets them know they aren’t alone but can provide insights into their own struggles and maybe, give them a basis to start figuring them out. The human brain is nothing if not insanely complicated and we’re all too often left to try to parse all the weird things it does ourselves.

Three days ago, I was officially diagnosed with ADHD and Major Depressive Disorder. Both of these come in numerous variants so for those curious, the official diagnoses are Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder – Combined Presentation (DSM 5 Code: 314.01, Mild) and Major Depressive Disorder – Recurrant, In Partial Remission (DSM 5 Code: 296.35). In addition, while I did exhibit certain symptoms of ASD or what is also commonly called High-Functioning Autism (formerly known as Asperger’s Syndrome, a term now deprecated in the DSM), I did not exhibit enough of them and they did not combine into a significant enough detrimental effect to warrant a formal diagnosis of that. I do have the formal report I was given by the therapist and while I’m not going to post it here as it would in many ways be doxing myself, I’m happy to provide a copy to anyone I know personally who is curious. I am not ashamed or afraid of posting what I am here. Indeed, more people should be able to talk about this without fear. Anyone, whether a friend or an employer who will judge me negatively for this is someone I don’t wish to know.

The layman version of those two things are that I have ADHD but a version of it that doesn’t constiture a major detriment to my ability to function as an adult. It’s clinically considered “mild” but the therapist said the three stage scale they’re supposed to use is a system she doesn’t agree with and I shouldn’t pay it much mind. It doesn’t mean my life isn’t being negatively impacted by it, just that I can get by with it if I had to. I had been formerly diagnosed with depression and anxiety already so that was no big surprise but this more granular diagnosis means that I am prone to major depressive episodes (can confirm) but that they are less frequent than they were before I started treating them with medication (can also confirm.)

So now that all the doctor speak is done, what’s all this then? Back in early 2017, when my ex and I decided to end our relationship, I was getting some remote therapy with a Psychologist through my work’s Employee Assistance Program. We were talking about various things during one session and the therapist said “Out of curiosity, have you ever been tested for ADHD?” I was kind of taken aback because I’d never considered that before. I said no and asked why he thought that and his answer really threw me: “Well, I’m diagnosed ADHD and I can tell from our interactions that you exhibit many signs of it. It might be worth looking into.” After that, a good friend who has two kids diagnosed with it said “I never thought it was my place to say but I could tell within 5 minutes of first meeting you that you had it.”

I’ve always been a very fidgety person. I often talk a lot and hate silence in conversations. I have issues with eye contact and can come across as socially awkward, even when I’m comfortable with someone. I’m also extremely introverted and heavy social situations are draining for me. I will make almost any sacrifice to help those I care about but I also decide very quickly after meeting someone if they’re a person I want to care about and I don’t tend to give second chances easily when I’ve been burned. I’m easily distracted and passive activities like reading and studying I have very hard times with. Most of all though, my brain always runs a mile a minute, trying to process 10 thoughts at once, usually going nowhere fast with 8 to 9 of them. I have major issues with focus and have found that gaming is one of the only activities where I’m able to shut my brain’s multitasking down and just “think normally.” It’s a big part of why gaming is so important to me, even taking into account my love of the medium in general. I have a cousin with ADHD (with a big emphasis on the H part) and much like when I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety some years ago, I always assumed “There’s no way I have that, I’m sure it has to be way worse to even come close to being clinical.” Never assume.

For all the good and security our public health care system in Canada provides, mental health is always one aspect where it’s fallen very short. Psychologists and assessments of this nature are not covered at all, something that’s always frustrated me when you look at some of the things that are covered. While many corporate benefit plans can help, my employer offers a miserably low cap for mental health every year. They’re looking at rectifying this in some way but it hasn’t happened yet. To get a professional diagnosis from a well-regarded clinic that specialises in this kind of thing was between $1,800 and $2,500 when I researched it. The clinic I chose (one that’s considered excellent and also happens to be near me) was on the high end of this scale, partially because they also suggested we test for ASD traits as well. I make a decent living but not enough to just have that kind of money lying around. I ended up scrimping and saving for a number of months and even then, was only able to do this so soon because of a major freelance tech job that came about earlier this year. Thankfully, I’ll be able to write some of this off on my taxes but I still won’t see that for a while and this wasn’t chump change. I consider myself very fortunate I was able to make this work and it really bugs me that so many people who could use it, can’t because our system doesn’t take mental health seriously.

A key thing to note is that despite the high cost, I wasn’t going into this expecting to come out with an ADHD diagnosis. While many signs pointed to that being the case, I knew that if I was going to do this, I had to be prepared to accept the result, even if it was that I didn’t have anything and was just someone who overthought things and stressed out too easily. If you’re convinced of what you have from the get go and are just going for validation of that, you’re doing it wrong. You have to go in with the mindset that you’re asking for a diagnosis but you might also just have it confirmed that you don’t have what you thought you did and it’s going to cost the same either way.

Getting diagnosed consisted of a couple of very long interview sessions, 3 to 4 hours each. In many ways, it’s like going to a Psychologist for general therapy for the first time, where they’re mostly getting to know you and your history, except condensed into two long sessions instead of several short ones. The therapist I saw was very kind, understanding, patient and a pleasure to deal with and I instantly felt comfortable relaying my extensive mental health and life history to her (if you’re in Ottawa and want to know the clinic I dealt with, leave a comment with an obfuscated e-mail address or DM me on Twitter.) I was also asked to provide a copy of my high school transcript for her to analyse as obviously, ADHD can have a major impact on education performance. She had a short phone interview with my Mom and we were both asked to fill out some lengthy and detailed questionnaires. I also did some longer electionic ones in my second session.

My life growing up and indeed, throughout much of adulthood was not a simple or easy one. Though it certainly could have been far worse, I had a lot to make her aware of. Since ADHD is a neurological disorder that you’re born with, we went back pretty much as far as I could remember and worked forward from there. She took a phenomenal amount of notes and was writing something down with just about everything I told her. We talked about my home life, childhood and adult friendships, school experiences (both academic and social), romantic relationships, employment history, life goals such as children, and hobbies. A lot of this involved explaining a lot of past unpleasentness but thankfully, I’m at peace with most of it. She didn’t just want to get to know me, she wanted to know how the ways I handled many key aspects of life could have been influenced by ADHD and other things.

She was not a gamer and didn’t understand the hobby much but was very curious to hear about it, my content efforts like YouTube and Mixer and in particular, how those have benefitted my mental health and why I feel gaming has been the only hobby I’ve found that can truly let my brain focus. My content has paid phenomenal dividends in terms of making me feel at ease talking to crowds and interacting with others and she was interested to hear about how that all works. I told her my theory of why gaming works so well for calming my brain, which is the non-passive nature of it and how being in control of what’s happening and having to manage that while also observing it, keeps my brain more occupied than a more passive activity like watching a movie or reading can. I can do those activities but will always uncontrollably have many other thoughts going at the same time, which can not only diminish my enjoyment of it but also impact how much of the experience I mentally retain. With gaming, that’s far less of an issue. She agreed that seems a likely reason but also agreed that there’s probably other things that could have a similar impact that I just hasn’t discovered yet. Indeed, I’d like to find other hobbies I can enjoy as much as gaming and I hope I can at some point.

Once the interviews are done and the questionnaires are filled out, it takes 4-6 weeks for the report to be completed. It seems like a long time but like with most things, I’m very much of the belief that it should be done right, not fast. They don’t just hand you a printout and bid you good luck, they actually sit down with you for another 90 minutes or so and go over the whole thing in detail, including what next steps might be involved. The therapist and I already had a great rapport so she knew I just wanted an accurate diagnosis and wasn’t going to be upset at anything she told me.

I kind of spoiled the big reveal up top but there were some interesting details in the report that helped determine the diagnosis. Firstly, my academic performance was very telling. Overall, I was an exceptionally average student. I squeaked by in the majority of subjects and the ones I did really excel in were those that involved less direct absorption of information and more hands-on tasks, such as Computer Science, Creative Writing and Stage Crew. This really didn’t surprise me as I’ve never been good at studying, something that’s continued to haunt me to this day as I’ve found studying for IT certifications much more difficult than they should be.

We also discussed a lot of my social quirks, like how I ramble to avoid silence in conversations, issues with prolonged eye contact. and strong introverted tendencies. It was those things that led to the decision to also test me for ASD (high-functioning autism) as they’re common with that. The conclusion was that while I don’t have ASD, the ADHD can definitely be contributing to those and treating it could help alleviate them.

She also detailed something that threw me a bit. I’ve often referred to myself as “solutions oriented to a fault.” Since I’ve had to overcome many challenges in life on my own, my first instinct when I see a problem or difficulty is not to seek pity or comfort but to immediately figure out a way to fix it. Indeed, this is one of the reasons I’m so good at my job in IT. However, this instinct also kicks in when I see someone else in distress. I’ve always found it difficult to just let someone be upset or vent about something. I always have to pivot into a discussion about what they’re going to do about it. In my mind, I always go “Well, the faster we can solve the problem, the sooner it’ll stop upsetting you.” This may often be the most pragmatic approach but it’s certainly not always the best, especially as a lot of people just need comfort before looking for solutions. What threw me though, is that she said even though this approach can be interpreted as cold by others, she said I’m also extremely empathic and more attune to the emotional state of others than many people. My solutions oriented approach may be overly practical at times (as oddly contradictory as that sounds) but it’s done out of genuine concern and empathy because I see it as the quickest path to providing relief to someone. It was put to me that it’s not a fault per ce and not something I should stop doing, I just need to be better at understanding when someone just needs comfort and to check my want to always fix things and just give them that because the solutions can always come later. This probably sounds rather elementary to many of you but it was a revelatory thing to hear.

When we started this process, I was asked what my end goal was. That was always to find out what specific afflictions I had that were impacting my life and figuring out what to do about them. Like I said above, the key thing is go to into something like this not to have your exising self-diagnosis confirmed but to be open to whatever is told to you. It turns out that my self-diagnosis was broadly correct but there was a more nuance to it and learning how it affected specific elements of my life was very eye-opening. In particular, I was told that untreated ADHD can often lead into things like depression and anxiety and while those things could also be operating independently for me, dealing with the ADHD could suddenly make those far less prominent as well. That’s something that can only be found out through treatment.

So why did it take until I was almost 40 to finally have this figured out? I worked with several mental health and learning disability specialists when I was in school try to to boost my academic performance and the concept of ADHD was never raised once, something my Mom confirmed. The answer unfortunately is that much like Autism, ADHD has only really become understood and more clinically identifiable in recent years. When I was in school in the early 80s through the late 90s, only the most extreme cases were considered for diagnosis because that’s just how the disorder was treated back then. Even now, my case is not considered severe. I can be frustrated about that in retrospect and sometimes am but it doesn’t really matter.

On the flipside, there was also a period until recently, where any child that was fidgety, had any kind of difficulty concentrating or in many cases, was just being a freakin’ kid, was considered to have ADHD. The common medications for it were wildly overprescribed and the disorder was being used as a catch-all for any overprotective parent who thought their less than perfect little angel was that way not because they’re simply human, but because they had to be sick. It’s not unlike the current but diminishing trend of everyone assuming they have gluten intolerance, only much worse. These two extremes both happened in my lifetime and are why I really wanted to know for sure what I had and to have a professional be the one to tell me. I hate how overmedicated our society has become and am determined not to take anything that I don’t have someone who knows better, tell me is necessary.

That said, what is my treatment anyway? Well, at least to start, it’s you guessed it, medication. I already take an anti-depressant (plus I have a stronger on-demand one for when it’s needed) and have for a couple of years now. It has evened out that element of things somewhat but it’s not perfect and I still have depressive relapses (I’ve been dealing with one for about a month or so now.) It also does nothing to help with the focus issues or social ticks. The therapist was a Psychologist, not a Psychiatrist, so she didn’t have the ability to prescribe me anything. This involves me having to talk to my family doctor, which is a fun time in and of itself but that’s another story. I’ll likely end up being prescribed one of the two major medications for ADHD. I’m not going to name them here but trust me, you’ve heard of them.

Here’s the really interesting part though. I had always assumed that since these medications alter brain chemistry, they worked the same way anti-depressants do. If you don’t know, an anti-depressant is a process. You have to build it up in your brain when you start taking it and for a period of time, your symptoms will feel significantly worse. A similar things happens when you need to change your dose or get off of it. If you don’t wean yourself down, things can go very bad because depression is nothing if not a treacherous beast. It turns out, ADHD medication enters and exits your system so fast, you can take it on demand, much like an off-the-shelf painkiller. Some people take it daily, others do that but stop on weekends and holidays, others only take it when they need to. You’re able to experiment and find a method that works for you, all without worrying about sudden side effects. This blew my mind and actually makes me kind of excited to try it and see what happens. I had no idea this kind of thing could be so flexible.

The therapist also advised continued therapy if I could manage it. She said she enjoyed working with me and would be up for continuing to. I certainly would be as well and it’s honestly something I’ve thought I needed for a while but sadly, the diagnosis ate all of my measly benefits for the year. I’m hoping that once a raise kicks in at work, I’ll be able to budget a least a session a month with her and hopefully more if our benefits improve. Others have suggested things like daily meditation as well. I’ve always wanted to get into that but having a brain that won’t shut up made it never stick with me. If medication can help me focus, I can easily see it becoming part of my routine. Exercise was also recommended, a no brainer I also really need to start doing as after several years of achieving decent weight loss, I put almost all of it back on in 2017 because of stress and my tendency to emotionally eat.

So after this lengthy story, what’s the the end result of all this time and expense? Though it may sound cliché, it’s a sense of hope, one I’ve not had in a long time. Will treating my ADHD fix my depression or even lessen it? Will it finally allow me to focus to the degree I need to make up the knowledge deficits that have been holding my career back? Will it allow me to finally enjoy hobbies and activities not gaming related the way others do? Will it just shut my damn brain up and let it do 1 thing at a time well instead of 10 things half-assed? I honestly can’t tell you right now. However, getting this diagnosis and knowing there’s a path to treating it has for the first time in my life, made me think that yes, I can take control of what I know has been holding me back and yes, I can overcome obstables that I thought were just going to be there forever. This isn’t a one-stop fix and I’m always going to have struggles and difficulties that many people won’t experience. However, I’ve had to overcome a lot of challenges in my life to get where I am now and though my brain often tries to tell me otherwise, where I am now is pretty damn good. I can only imagine where things could end up once I’m in even more direct control of my mind and by extension, my future. Was that worth $2,500 that it took months to save up? No, it was worth far more than that.

I know this post has mostly just been a lengthy retelling of my diagnosis and I don’t know if it’ll really help anyone or not. However, if you’re someone who has struggled with this stuff, I hope it makes you remember that you’re not alone in your quest and that it inspires you to seek help and guidance if you’re able. I know depending where you are, getting this done isn’t a cheap endeavour. Don’t forget though, you may have benefits better than mine and it may not be as expensive as you think. Even if it is, if you have the means to make it a goal, I can’t recommend it enough. And of course, anyone who needs to can always reach out to me for help or advice and I’ll offer whatever I can from what I’ve learned. Just remember, I’m solutions oriented to a fault.

Our brains are amazing but they can also be real jerks sometimes. When they’re sick, they’ll lie to you, get in your way and make you feel like you can’t do what you know you can. With the right tools, you can fight back, smack it in line and when you can then realise your full potential, it gets a lot easier to keep it that way.
Thank you for reading and good luck and good fortune. You deserve it.

Posted in Personal | Tagged ADD, ADHD, anxiety, Attention Deficit Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, depression, mental health, personal, psychology | 2 Comments

Hey, remember this thing?

Posted on April 14, 2018 by Parallax Abstraction

Oh not so bad.

So yeah, it’s been a bit since I posted something here. Honestly, I didn’t intend for Geek Bravado to just go dark like it did. I’ve continued to have stuff I’ve wanted to say that’s best put into posts here and I’ve always said “I’ll get to that as soon as I can!” and then that time never comes. 2017 was a nightmare year for me personally and though things are improving now, between my day job, my side business, YouTube, my exploding Mixer channel, Extra Life and everything else, some things had to give and this was unfortunately one of them. Geek Bravado’s always been about my opinions and most posts are written in one sitting based off knowledge I already have. They usually only take an hour or two but when you have so much else going on that’s growing faster than your blog ever did, allocating that much time in one sitting is tough.

That said, I’ve never wanted to get rid of this thing. Some of the posts here still get a lot of traction (this one from 2013 in particular for some reason) and I would like to get back to making new posts when I can manage. So, I’m going to keep it around but there will probably be a few changes. I host Geek Bravado on WordPress.com, which is a colossal ripoff and gives a very limited set of features compared to running WordPress yourself. I am in the process of redoing my side business web site, as well as creating a brand new site to promote my other content in one place. The host I am testing does allow WordPress installations and while it’s not the easiest thing to do, it is possible to export all my content out of WordPress.com and move it onto another self-hosted installation, while keeping all the links intact. That’s what I’m going to do with this. Once that’s done, I’ll have access to more plug-ins, design tools and storage and can hopefully update the design of this place a bit as well.

I also do plan to post occasionally in the mean time. I have some things I want to talk about in a long-form way and this is still the best place to do that. I’ve tried to tone down the snark and anger on my Twitter feed (with moderate success) and the stuff I really want to talk about in a brutally honest way, I think better fits this place and the theme I always intended it to follow.

Future blog posts won’t include audio versions on YouTube as those never got any views and took as long to make and upload as the text posts did. I thought making audio versions would allow the posts reach a wider audience but that experiment didn’t work out and that’s fine. What goes up here will just stick to here. Even though this blog never gets a lot of views, being able to say the stuff I want to say in this format helps me in its own way. When I look at my cringe fest original posts from back in 2013 and compare them to the recent ones, it’s clear writing so often has been a great boon and that alone makes this place worth maintaining.

So yeah, that’s the current state of Geek Bravado. I should have written this post a long time ago but hopefully those of you that still check in here once in a while will get some more stuff and eventually, you’ll see this integrated as part of my larger content efforts, which will have a snazzy new home soonish. Thanks for continuing to read. This place has never been popular but I never needed it to be either. If you’ve stuck around this long, it’s really appreciated. More coming soon!

Posted in Personal | Tagged blog, blog update, Geek Bravado | Leave a comment

My Top 10 Video Games of 2016 (Plus Honourable Mentions and Disappointments)

Posted on January 3, 2017 by Parallax Abstraction

2016 pretty much sucked across the board. It sucked for the world, it sucked for humanity and towards the end, it really sucked for my family and I. When it came to video games though, it was actually one of the best years in a while. Despite many of those who would call themselves the “enthusiast press” continuing to dump on their audience and base their opinions of games on identity politics more than quality, gamers got one of the biggest varieties of stuff to play ever in 2016. No matter what kind of gaming experience you like, there’s almost definitely something out there for you.
Every year, I like to compile my own top 10 list of the best games I played. Even though I give myself a bit of a cop out with Honourable Mentions, I force myself to do a numbered list for the big ones because it really makes me think hard about what I played and try to quantify my opinions. This year wasn’t easy by any means but that’s definitely a good thing. I also did a YouTube video where I talked about my five biggest indie surprises from my PXA Peeks first impressions series. Only one of those games is on my top 10 but everything in that video is great and worth checking out as well.
My taste is principally in mechanics and game play. I’m all for a good story but if your title isn’t a good game first, you’ve already failed at your main job as a designer in my opinion. It’s one of the reasons I have very high standards for so called “walking simulators.” This list is going to reflect that. You’ll also see an overall lack of indie titles on here. The very existence of PXA Peeks should be proof enough that I probably like indie games more than most people but I also love stuff that pushes the limits of technology and which can give me experiences I can immerse myself in for hours at a time. Indie games are a different kind of experience for me and even the good ones often just aren’t as memorable to me. Maybe in the future, I’ll do a separate top 10 just for smaller games, we’ll see.
As usual, I’ll start out by discussing my disappointments for the year, listing the games I didn’t get a chance to play but that could have been contenders, the unordered list of Honourable Mentions and the big 10 from last to first. If I did a video or blog review on a particular game, you can click its title to check that out if you want.
I’d love to hear what your own favourite games of the year were and if you disagree with my list, why that is. Drop your ideas in the comments and let’s chat!
Disappointments
Mighty No. 9 – Not the biggest Kickstarter flop in gaming but certainly up there. This was to be a spiritual successor to Mega Man, led by the original creator, Kenji Inafune. Like Double Fine before them, they milked nostalgia to raise way more than they asked for, only to mismanage things to an astonishing degree. It went over its inflated budget, was repeatedly delayed, had a major graphical downgrade and in the end, was at best a frustrating and mediocre platformer that had none of the soul of Mega Man. To boot, they also hired a community manager who frequently banned paying backers from the forums for disagreeing with her politics. A mess through and through and one of the reasons I’m largely done with Kickstarter. Go play 20XX instead.
Inside – LIMBO was an incredible debut from Playdead. People were stoked for their follow-up and while the press are gushing over Inside, I thought it was awful. A return to the once hated grey and brown aesthetic, less interesting puzzles and platforming than LIMBO, coupled to a world and story that clearly thought highly of itself but was full of holes, dead ends and is ultimately pointless and unfulfilling. The key set piece moment near the end was amazing but not enough to redeem the rest. I expected better from Playdead.
Tom Clancy’s The Division – It’s basically Destiny in a city and sucks for all the same reasons Destiny did. It has all the tropes that I don’t like about MMOs: Bullet spongey enemies, endless grind quests, boring, one-dimensional characters and it insists I play everything multiple times to get the best stuff, even though none of it’s compelling enough. It’s also heavily focused around co-op and doesn’t properly balance to a lack of players, even though the community was all but dried up when I got around to it. It relies on an open-world competitive aspect to keep people in once the story’s been exhausted but it’s just team based looting that was full of cheaters in no time, at least on the PC. I hear the new Survival DLC has made things a lot better but I can’t be bothered to find out. At least for as weak as the story was, it didn’t have its head up its ass like Destiny.
Mafia III – The hyper progressive press is loving this because of it’s admittedly admirable take on race relations in the 60s, something we don’t see often from AAA games. While the story, writing and characters are great, it’s a wrapper for the most boring kind of open-world game. Just like Mafia II, you’re given a big city with nothing interesting to do in it, horrible driving mechanics you have to rely on to get around and mushy, frustrating combat. It feels like an open-world game from the early 2000s, despite how many better recent examples they could draw from. A good game story only succeeds if the game itself is good and this one isn’t at all. I love the stories this series tells but it would be better done as just a linear series of missions.
Mother Russia Bleeds – All I needed to hear was gory 16-bit graphic style brawler with Devolver Digital involved and I was sold. Unfortunately, the game play is stuck in the same era as the graphics. Mother Russia Bleeds is a deliciously graphic but also short, shallow button masher and tells a simple story with way too many words. I so want the brawler genre to make a return but it needs to evolve and this didn’t.
Mirror’s Edge Catalyst – The original Mirror’s Edge was flawed but also fresh, innovative and full of promise. Despite not selling well, we somehow got an open-world sequel. It’s gorgeous and the parkour is as slick as ever but the story is rote and predictable, none of the characters are likable–especially the protagonist Faith–and just like Mafia III, there’s nothing to do but boring challenges that don’t reward you with anything you need. That you start with a third of the character upgrades already unlocked told me all I needed to know about this rushed sequel that did nothing to reward the patience of fans.
King’s Quest – This technically started in 2015 but finished this year so I’m including it. I’m an old school fan of Sierra adventure games and the lead up to the rebooted King’s Quest looked like it would be a cool fusion of modern adventure games and Telltale choice-based narrative. The first episode was very promising, then all the ones after it were delayed and almost all bad. The tone flailed wildly between whimsical and intensely dark and the last two episodes are full of frustrating puzzles they are clearly there to pad out a lacking amount of actual story content. On top of that, the epilogue is locked away to anyone who didn’t buy the entire series up front. Even if you bought the season pass after playing the first episode, you can’t get the complete story experience. This series has Activision all over it and it’s the last time I trust them with this formula. A mismanaged insult to modern and old school gamers alike.
Didn’t Get To
Total War: Warhammer
Shadow Warrior 2
Furi
Master of Orion
Salt & Sanctuary
Hyper Light Drifter
Firewatch – I’m planning to stream this soon but just couldn’t make it happen before the new year.
Let It Die
Anything VR – I don’t own VR and won’t for the foreseeable future.
Honourable Mentions
Battlefield 1 – Anyone claiming this is just a World War I skin on Battlefield 4 is just plain wrong. While it’s certainly no simulation, the game play differences by reverting to a much older period of war are substantial and make this feel like a very different game. At the same time, it’s still just more Battlefield. The War Stories campaign is mostly interesting and quite well done but the meat of the series is still multiplayer. I enjoy it very much but the differences don’t cover up that we’ve definitely seen this before.
Overwatch – As they’ve done with other genres, Blizzard redefined the first-person shooter with Overwatch. There’s really nothing else like it right now and it’s full of personality and unique characters that all play vastly different and somehow, all still gel together in almost any combination. The reason it’s not on the top 10 is because there are still major pacing and balance issues that persist to this day which Blizzard gets a pass on because they’re the Apple of gaming. When I have a choice of online shooters to play, this is rarely the first one I go to. Also, this game arguably popularised the trend of single use random loot boxes and screw Blizzard for making this mobile inspired exploitative trend the norm.
SUPERHOT – Also known as Super Badass Simulator 2016, at least to me. This is another Kickstarter success story that gives you incredible first-person combat puzzles that you can approach in a ton of different ways and makes you feel like you’re directing your own Hong Kong action film. It’s a game that will keep a grin on your face from beginning to end. Unfortunately, it’s also $30 and the awesomely bonkers story mode is fairly easy and can be beaten in 2 hours. This pretty weak value proposition is why it’s not in the top 10. If you can find this on sale though, absolutely play it.
Gears of War 4 – I’ve liked the entire Gears of War series (yes, even Judgment) and new developer The Coalition took the reigns from Epic and did it proud. The campaign maintains the iconic action while also having great new, funny characters, a solid challenge and what is probably the best DirectX 12 title on PC right now. Unfortunately, the competitive multiplayer is the same rolling Gnasher bore it’s always been and the new micro-transaction unlock system took the otherwise gold standard Horde mode and balanced it in favour of spending money. Heavy black marks on what could arguably be the best Gears yet.
My Top 10 Games of 2016
As usual, these are great games I think everyone should play if you have the means but if not, this is the order I’d suggest. It was a tough internal fight but I’m feeling good about these choices.
10. Batman: The Telltale Series – I’ve largely been done with the tired and stale Telltale formula for a while. I was going to skip this series, then the first episode was made free so I tried it out. Boy, what a surprise! Sure, they have some core Batman story beats they have to hit but Telltale put their own spin on that to create a compelling, tense and dark tale that’s not like any other Batman arc we’ve seen. There isn’t really much game play here but this is the best Telltale story I’ve seen since The Wolf Among Us. They should still be embarrassed by their engine though.
9. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided – I almost liked this game more just because it got the perpetually outraged in the games press riled up with Mechanical Apartheid and Augs Lives Matter. That aside, it’s an evolution of the exceptional Human Revolution that game before it. It looks gorgeous and is still a great world to experience but it’s also very similar to what came before and has weaker story, writing and diversity of environments. It marketed itself as having a bold and brave tale of oppression and bigotry and only delivered on that in the safest way possible. It’s Breach Mode is also a cool addition but it spends way too much time shoving microtransactions in your face. This is most certainly for Deus Ex fans only but as one of those people, I was very pleased.
8. Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander – Also one of my biggest indie surprises from this year, this is a Canadian Kickstarter success story that combines elements of my favourite game of all-time, Star Control II with Master of Orion, XCOM and spreads a thick layer of JRPG combat with spaceships on top. It requires careful thought, planning and management of resources as you engage in several different kinds of game play and juggle multiple conflicts simultaneously as you try to re-take the galaxy. The systems all gel together great and while you can pause at any time, things are always tense. There’s a ton of value here for its modest price tag and while there is a new Star Control game in the works, this is something very worthy of your time if you’re a fan of that series.
7. Titanfall 2 – Along the the rest of the community, I flamed out on Titanfall 1 so fast, I never thought I’d be interested in a sequel. Boy, was I wrong! Beyond greatly refining the already innovative multiplayer of the first game, Respawn addressed the lack of a campaign by adding one that was apparently thrown together from game play prototypes with a story draped over it but ended up being one of the most fun FPS campaigns I’ve played in the better part of a decade. The movement, verticality and pace of combat is unlike anything else you’ll play and everything just feels so good when it comes together. The reason this isn’t higher up on my list is because the multiplayer matchmaking is completely broken and doesn’t take skill into account, making almost every match a one-sided curbstomping. If they can address that, they’ll have something I’ll keep playing for a long time. It’s a crime that EA shoved this in between Battlefield and Call of Duty. It’s almost like they wanted it to undersell so they could buy Respawn for cheap. Not that I’m into that kind of conspiracy or anything.
6. Dishonored 2 – The first Dishonored was the closest thing we got to a proper successor to the Thief series (no, the latest Thief most certainly doesn’t count.) Dishonored 2 is basically more of that with more toys and a newer engine. In many ways, that’s pretty much all I wanted. You now can play as one of two different characters, each of which have their own sets of powers and abilities. It’s a masterclass in modern level design, with every objective having a huge variety of quiet and loud ways to approach them. You can even choose to play the game without supernatural powers and it still works somehow! Unfortunately, while the world is still as detailed and depressing as ever, the writing and voice acting are a huge step back from the first game and both feel like something more akin to a late 90s or early 2000s game. It’s almost like bringing on someone mostly known for pretentious think-pieces from the games press to help write your game isn’t the way to a great script. Who knew?
5. Watch Dogs 2 – I’m one of the few people who really enjoyed the first Watch Dogs (the game, screw Aiden Pierce.) However, Ubisoft took a lot of the criticisms of that game to heart and addressed them all in Watch Dogs 2. You have a whole new cast of characters, all of whom are ripped straight out of a 90s hacker movie, yet are all still likeable and the setting has moved from a dark and dank Chicago to a bright and vibrant San Francisco, where you go to battle with “Big Data.” While is tackles some very real issues, it doesn’t take itself seriously and that makes things much more lighthearted and fun. Like Dishonored, you also have a wide variety of tools at your disposal, giving you many ways to tackle your objectives and the many side missions you have available, both on and offline. It’s definitely another Ubisoft open world game but their beaten to death formula has definitely made some strides ahead here and it’s one of the most fun open-world games I’ve played in a while.
4. Forza Horizon 3 – This launched rough on the PC where I played it but it’s polished up now and is one of the best open-world racing games I’ve ever played. There isn’t much of a story, just a huge and gorgeous world full of all kinds of cool cars to bomb around in and a total absence of traffic laws. The map is covered with different challenges you can do and this is further complemented by a robust and near seamless online mode. You can spend hours zoned out in the game’s world, just having fun in whatever way you see fit and not having to be concerned with wrecking your car or adhering to rigid rules. Aside from being a lot of fun, it’s just a great way to relax.
3. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End – The Uncharted formula was getting pretty stale but man, what an ending! Arguably one of the most technically impressive console games ever made, it’s filled to the brim with the series’ top shelf set piece moments and combination of combat and climbing. There are a few levels that even go partially open-world, giving you more of a sense of exploration than you normally get from Uncharted. A lot of time is spent breaking from the action and humanising the characters, giving a fitting send off to their stories. It’s still very much an action series but you actually feel some real emotion for them later on. Naughty Dog clearly learned a lot from The Last of Us and this was a great way to end the Nathan Drake story.
2. HITMAN – After the critical and commercial flop of Hitman: Absolution (a criminally underrated title in my opinion), IO Interactive announced they were rebooting the concept of the series and adopting an episodic business model. No one was expecting this to be good and we were all wrong. It turns out that releasing new missions over time was the perfect way to keep the audience engaged. Not only that, each new episode has tons of extra objectives and ways to complete them, encouraging tons of replayability and getting a lot of attention from the streaming community. They’ve also continued to dole out new timed community assassinations like clockwork and even thrown in some extra missions, mixing up the existing environments. The levels are massive and incredibly detailed and despite the business model, this is a 100% AAA game. The Hitman series has never taken itself particularly seriously but this one in particular, knows exactly what it is and revels in it, which is exactly what it should do. It’s apparently done so well that a second season of content is coming and I can’t wait!
1. DOOM – Speaking of things no one thought would be any good, this game started off after the tepid reception to RAGE, getting completely scrapped and rebooted partway in development. Then they released a multiplayer beta that impressed no one and embargoed reviews until the day of release. Many wondered if the post-ZeniMax id Software had lost the magic that made it the household name is was. The new DOOM’s campaign showed everyone how they got their mojo back. An unapologetically fast, brutal, stupid, technological masterpiece, this game takes everything old-school gamers loved about early 90s first-person shooters, marries it with modern design mechanics and progression, layers on the most hilariously dumb pulp sci-fi story on top and tells you to strap the Hell in. It never takes its foot off the gas, throwing you into battle within the first 15 seconds. From beginning to end, you are a walking machine of apathetic death and destruction, gibbing everything in your path as you try to stop a demonic invasion caused because a corporation was trying to frack Hell. I’m not even kidding. In a world where far too many shooters either take themselves too seriously or worse yet, are stupid without realising it, DOOM knows its story is dumb. It not only doesn’t care, it’s going to ride this insane roller coaster with you and it’s going to make sure you never forget it. It’s both a throwback to shooters of old and yet incredibly refreshing at the same time. Only a few teams could have pulled this off so well and id Software’s still got what it takes to make some of the best shooters in the business. Even if you completely ignore the multiplayer and the innovative SnapMap mode, this is worth full price for the campaign alone. I almost never play games a second time and I have every intention of going through this campaign at least once more on Nightmare mode. It’s that good. I’ve told several people on the fence about it that if you like shooters at all, just buy it, you’ll thank me later.
There we have it, a list of what I think is a pretty great bunch of games from a pretty great year for gaming as a whole. Despite how I still, rightfully, take shots at what’s becomes of the games press, it is nice to see that many of these appeared in their lists as well. I still think the disconnect between them and the audience is miles wide but maybe it’s finally starting to improve, maybe.
Like many, I’m nervous about what 2017 holds. I’d like to think it’s only uphill from 2016 but the world sure has a way of screwing with us. I hope my fears don’t come to pass and that everyone has a great, prosperous and fun year, filled with even more great games and the great times they bring. Nothing would make me happier! Let me know what your favourite games of the year were and what you’re looking forward to seeing in 2017. Game on!

Posted in Business, Coverage, Reviews, Video Games | Tagged 2016, Batman: The Telltale Series, Battlefield 1, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Dishonored 2, DOOM, Forza Horizon 3, Gears of War 4, Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander, HITMAN, Inside, King's Quest, Mafia III, Mighty No. 9, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Mother Russia Bleeds, Overwatch, SUPERHOT, Titanfall 2, Tom Clancy's The Division, top 10 list, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, video game review, video games, Watch Dogs 2 | 1 Comment

So That Was Extra Life 2016

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Parallax Abstraction

When I started doing Extra Life in 2011, it was because I saw a few games press people doing it and thought it would be a fun thing for kicks. It was just me alone in my apartment for 24 hours with some donations from co-workers. No live streaming, no stretch goals, no guild I was helping run.

How times have changed.

This year, not only did the Ottawa Extra Life Guild attend almost every geek convention in the city, not only did I have more stretch goals that had the backing of several indie game developers, I organised and live streamed a nearly 20 person LAN party at my work with what I thought was a very high initial goal of raising $2,000USD for CHEO. Not only was it some of the most fun I’ve had in years but that $2,000 goal was completely shattered and we’ve now raised a monumental $4,615USD at time of writing! The total has flown past even my wildest dreams of what we could achieve in our first year as a team and I couldn’t be happier or more proud.

As of now, my own fundraising is at $1,320, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at but it’s also under last year’s total of $1,685. There’s a few reasons for that (more on that later) but there’s still time to donate because Extra Life takes donations until the end of the year! We’ve already crossed one stretch goal, which was my $1,000 one where I now have to play through Syndrome in one live-streamed sitting. It will also be recorded for YouTube but trust me, you’ll want to be there live. That’s probably going to have to wait until December, when my girlfriend will be back in the country and can look after the dog while I’m doing it. Follow @PXAMedia on Twitter or watch this space and I will announce when I have a firm date. I’m very close to my $1,500 stretch goal where I also have to play through Ziggurat in one sitting and we still have tons of time to reach that! With your help, I still can and maybe even surpass last year’s total and if I’m real lucky, get the Grade A IT All-Stars to $5,000! I also have to co-op System Shock 2 with Devon Payette for one of his stretch goals too.

When I put out the call to turn one of our regular LAN parties at my work into a 24 hour marathon for charity, I wasn’t sure what response I’d get. I thought maybe we’d get 10 people interested and we got close to 20. Grade A is a special place. It’s a company full of proud, hardcore nerds, even by the standards of IT companies. However, it’s also a tight-knit group, many of whom are friends outside the office. I see more of that here than I’ve seen at any other place I’ve worked. It’s a culture that’s encouraged and fostered by the management and it’s what makes the place work so well compared to many of its counterparts in the industry. It’s something I’ve always respected but I never understood just how powerful and important it is until I saw this crew playing together to support a great cause, with Devon and his friend from CHEO at our side like they were part of the crew, even though they only met most of us that day. It was almost surreal and something that gave me pause several times.

There are so many people to thank. Aside from every member of the team, I wanted to give shoutouts to some extra awesome individuals. Monica, one of our finance people–who’s only been with Grade A for a few months–was not only on the team and raised a ton of money but she and her chef fiancé offered to feed us for the entire day if we just gave her $20 each for the materials. And this wasn’t the kind of crappy food you normally would eat at a LAN party, it was top shelf stuff for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. We were fed like kings and it made the marathon so much easier to get through. We would have made it through either way but she went way above and beyond and she’s a hero for that.
I also wanted to thank Kevin, one of our network people, for donating his GoPro Hero 3, which allowed us to have a continuous shot of the room on the live stream. That really helped convey how much of a group effort it was.

Michaela, our wonderful marketing person, also deserves major props. She not only pushed our event hard on the company’s social media, she gave me control of Grade A’s Twitter account for the whole event to keep the stream promoted. I never asked her to do that, she just offered it to me. To trust me, a guy who hasn’t even been there a year, with something so valuable to the corporate brand was a great compliment and it was a great help to our efforts.

I also wanted to give a shout out to our various co-workers who weren’t registered with the team but still came by and hung out. Some brought their PCs and played with us for a while, some just came in and shot the breeze with us. One of the owners also came by with his kids and they seemed really amazed by the whole thing. It was really cool to see these people who weren’t doing the event still take the time to come in, hang out and give us a morale boost. Like I said, Grade A is a special place.

Last but not least, I want to thank my various cohorts from the Ottawa Extra Life Guild and Olenka Bastian, our wonderful representative at the CHEO Foundation. This was the second year of the guild and boy, how far we’ve come. The first year, we were trying to find our feet and kind of flailing around a bit. This year, we had more people involved, attended nearly every geek show in the city, signed up a pile of new players, did a second Extra Life marathon on the CHEO Telethon set, had a segment on a major local morning show and helped give Devon a gaming PC. It was an enormous achievement and while we still have more to do, we are off to a great start and are doing it with a great team. It’s been my honour and privilege to help start this guild with you all and I hope we can continue it for a long time yet.

Every year, I also vent a couple of criticisms about how the event went for me and while they are few this year, they’re still worth airing. I was very disappointed how just like Twitch and YouTube do, the official Extra Life communications only promoted events that were already massively popular and had easy ways to reach a large audience. These places didn’t need the help and meanwhile, smaller events like ours were begging just for retweets and never got them. Promoting what’s already popular is backwards and not how you get sustainable growth. I’ve already told them this and they claim they’re passing it on which is something.

I’m also really disappointed in several media outlets I contacted, particularly the CBC. CTV Ottawa has been a big supporter of us, between the telethon and our segment on their morning show. However, I sent numerous e-mails and tweets to the CBC and various personalities about Extra Life, as it’s the perfect kind of local charity event they like to cover. I got zero response. Not even one declining because they thought CTV had it covered, silence. For a public broadcaster (one I’ve vocally defended for years) to completely shun a local charity like this is profoundly disappointing. I’ve had some real issues–particularly in the last year–with the direction of some of CBC’s programming and how they’re devoting an incredible amount of attention to a narrow set of issues, at the expense of everything else. I have to say, I’m really reconsidering how much I advocate for that organisation in the future.

I had a similar thing happen with several local businesses I approached for support. These are companies that either myself, Grade A, or both, have brought a lot of business to and I wasn’t some random person, they knew who I was. Once again, I got nothing from them, not even a no. Donating to charity is a personal choice and I wouldn’t fault anyone for deciding that Extra Life wasn’t something they wanted to back. But at least send a response saying you’re not interested, don’t just ignore people who reached out. Maybe I’m too old school with how I think communication should be handled but this really got under my skin. Thankfully, we did great without them.

Beyond these things that are fairly minor in the grand scheme, almost everything about Extra Life this year vastly exceeded my expectations. I’m so proud of what the Grade A IT All-Stars accomplished and it was an honour and a privilege to have had the chance to do this with everyone.

We sadly live in a time where the mainstream media and in particular, the gaming press that’s supposed to advocate for us, have made a business model out of telling gamers how they’re bad, hateful, exclusionary people because of the actions of a few. I wonder how many of the so-called “journalists” that are poisoning the enthusiast press raised for sick kids this weekend because gamers like us, we collectively raised millions. If I’m to choose between those people or a bunch of third-rate bloggers who have made a business out of outrage when asking who did more good for the world, I think that choice is plainly obvious.

I’m a very introverted person who has few friends and doesn’t make new ones easily or often. I’ve only been at Grade A since March but it feels like somewhere I’ve been for years and it’s because of the people there. As the company continues to grow like wildfire, hold onto that culture with both hands and don’t ever lose sight of what makes that place amazing. It’s the single biggest asset the place has. Those people, they aren’t just my co-workers, they’re my friends and it’s an incredible thing to be able to do so much good with them.

Grade A’s a special place.

Posted in Culture, Video Games | Tagged charity, CHEO, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontatio, Extra Life, live stream, Syndrome, video games | Leave a comment

Review: The Bunker (Spoiler Free)

Posted on September 26, 2016 by Parallax Abstraction

A brand new FMV game in 2016! And it’s good!

Developed By Splendy Games/Wales Interactive. Published by Green Man Gaming.
Available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
Review code provided by Green Man Gaming.
Buy a cheap Steam key from Green Man Gaming and help support my content.

The Bunker is a brand new full motion video adventure game, released in 2016. If you haven’t clicked away after reading that, hear me out. As someone who grew up with these gems of the burgeoning “multimedia era” and who still has a place in my heart for them, I’ll be the first to admit that in almost all cases, they were neither good films, nor good games. Many have tried to resurrect this fascinating sub-genre recently and most didn’t do any better than their 90s counterparts. The Bunker maintains some of the genre’s past faults but makes up for it with a well shot, well acted and very well told post apocalyptic vignette that I think you’ll like if you’re into that kind of fiction.

Your character is John, a man who was born in the UK nuclear bunker in which the entirety of the aptly titled adventure takes place. You entered the world the moment the atomic bombs fell in a fictitious 1986 conflict. The game takes place 30 years later, when the population of the bunker has gone from 59 to just you and your Mother, who is breathing her dying breaths as things start off. The reasons for this aren’t made clear until near the end, where some major and incredibly dark twists happen. Some people may see them coming but when I played this on stream, both myself and most of my chat were stunned. While John is the focus of the game, there are many flashbacks with various characters from the backstory that help flesh out what happened and why. Things start off feeling mundane and boring on purpose but really go places by the end.

Much like titles such as Gone Home or Dear Esther, the story is what you’re really here for in The Bunker. There’s very little interactivity, just some clicking around scenes to examine objects or trigger an automated manipulation of them and the occasional simple quick time event that can determine how some scenes play out. There’s no real failure state, except for a couple of parts that just take you back to the beginning of a scene, which you unfortunately can never skip, even if you’ve seen them already. My opinions on so-called “walking simulators” are well known and I hold this genre to high standards because your story has to be incredible to make up for a lack of game play. The tale told in The Bunker is one that’s disturbing and dark but also surprising and it showcases the tortured life of a character who is trying to live in a world that would drive most people mad. It’s more of an interactive movie than a game but it tells something original and compelling, unlike the other two games mentioned. There are some bits that might make you jump but this definitely isn’t a horror game, more of a thriller.

The acting is well done and conveys the weight of circumstances well. It’s an oppressive place with people working under extraordinary circumstances and it feels that way. Some of the cast are apparently known actors in the UK., though I wasn’t familiar with them. The writing isn’t long-winded and gets to the point and doesn’t use more words than necessary. FMV games are often tricky for actors because they have to film things like idle positions and transitions between scenes. These often appear stiff and unnatural. Your character in The Bunker has some major anxieties and is nervous in general and his constant fidgeting helps make these transitions much smoother. They also flow together well and rarely do you see the cuts between two obviously different clips of footage.

Outside of the flashbacks, you’re completely alone in this place and they nailed the atmosphere. The game was filmed in an actual British nuclear bunker and it’s an austere, dark, oppressive environment that adds to the sense of loneliness and unease. The sets are full of period appropriate props, including old tape decks and British appropriate computers like Commodore and Amstrad, several of which you’ll end up interacting with. Everything is very well shot and framed and you can tell there were professional filmmakers involved. Unfortunately, they don’t do a great job of making the modern elements jive with the old ones. It’s very obvious when you’re using the computers that they’re just projecting modern text elements onto an image of an old school monitor. It’s not too jarring but a few added scanlines would have made a huge difference. This is accompanied by a great sound track–which you can purchase if you wish–that combines some good 80s synth with deep, foreboding tones that inspire dread. There’s elements of the excellent scores from the two recent Deus Ex games in here and they fit nicely.

The Bunker is a short experience as games go at only two hours and unless you want to achievement hunt, there’s no incentive to play it a second time. Some might find its $20 price tag a bit steep and I can’t blame you if you do. Personally, if I spent $20 on this, I would have felt quite satisfied as it’s a good story told in a way that we don’t see too often in this day and age. However, if your gaming budget is limited and you need something you can put a lot of time into, this may be worth just watching me play it instead of playing yourself. Though largely an interactive movie, I still think there is a lot of value in being the one in control and for that reason, I still highly recommend The Bunker. It’s an FMV game done right and with a fiction I find morbidly fascinating and it’s stuck with me since I finished it. I’d play more FMV games like this and I hope this can finally be the dawn of a modern day reemergence of this genre.

Posted in Reviews, Video Games, YouTube | Tagged Adventure Game, FMV game, Green Man Gaming, PC Game, PlayStation 4, PS4, Splendy Games, The Bunker, video game review, video games, Wales Interactive, Xbox One | Leave a comment

Review: Inside

Posted on July 16, 2016 by Parallax Abstraction

WARNING: This later parts of review will spoil the endings of both Inside and Limbo. It’s impossible for me to provide my full critique otherwise.

After debuting with the hit Limbo in 2010, many were eagerly awaiting the next title from Danish indie studio Playdead. They spent the next several years porting it to practically everything with a screen and left everyone wondering what they were going to do next. Their second game, Inside, finally came out recently, with very little buzz for something so highly anticipated. It instantly became an indie critical darling, with many critics claiming it to be far better than Limbo and an easy contender for game of the year. I played and finished Inside in one afternoon and while I did enjoy it, I can’t disagree more with these other critics.

The common elements between Inside and Limbo are plentiful and obvious but Playdead have also made some nice iterative improvements. There is no UI and you use only two buttons and the analog stick. The mechanics are so simple, the games don’t even have a tutorial, nor do they need one. They’re able to use this minimal control style to create some deep and intricate environmental puzzles and while most of the ones you’ll encounter in Inside aren’t very difficult, it’s also impressive what they were able to construct with only two buttons. It’s not a bad formula but it’s not at all out of line to say that the majority of Inside just plays like more Limbo and after 6 years of development, I’d hoped we’d see more than that.

Where Playdead has really upped its game is in the art department. Limbo had a very flat, black & white, almost newspaper comic art style that was striking and beautiful but like its mechanics, very minimalist. Inside is in colour but still uses a limited palette to great effect, using generally subtle variances in tone to highlight important things. If something stands out, you know they intended it to be that way. They also used a means of presenting depth that I can’t really explain without visuals but everything really pops out, almost like it’s being presented in stereoscopic 3D, even though it isn’t. Check Giant Bomb’s image gallery on the game for some great examples. It’s a beautiful, yet oppressive aesthetic that weighs you down with intent.

There is music in Inside and it conveys the mood very well but you won’t hear it very often. Most of the game’s atmosphere is contained within its soundscape and it’s used to great effect. It’s not often where I can say a game is frequently at its best with the absence of music but that’s certainly the case here. Inside is largely a game of solitude and the humming ambience and deep echos you hear when manipulating the puzzles convey that very well. There’s no doubt that Playdead are masters at using as few auditory elements as possible to create a mood.

Here’s where the spoilers come in. Like Limbo, Inside is getting most of its praise for its storytelling. There isn’t a word of dialogue in either game and everything is communicated through the environment and the sounds and movements of your characters and those around him. That’s a great way to tell a story when it’s done well but I don’t see how anyone can think Inside did it better.

Like Limbo, you play a young boy who is on the run. You start off having no idea why and are supposed to find out as you wind your way through the world. Whereas in Limbo, you were being pursued by otherworldly creatures, Inside takes place in something more closely resembling the real world. You’re running from actual people and you discover that some evil corporation or possibly government is enslaving people to essentially become remotely controlled automatons for what I imagine are the wealthy class. You first learn this by being put in a position to control some of these drones to solve a puzzle, then later have to impersonate them in what looks like a human quality assurance line. This was the part that stuck with me the most because it’s truly shocking when you first see it and makes you question just what kind of dystopia you’re trying to get through and why everyone’s so keen on tracking you down.

The problem is, nothing is ever explained to you. You don’t know who you are, why you’re running from these people, why you eventually end up running towards them or why you’re really doing anything at all. Early in the game, you come across a farm where there are dozens of dead pigs everywhere. The one pig you find alive attacks you relentlessly, until you trap it in a corner and pull off its tail, at which point it becomes completely docile. None of this is explained at all.

This is horrible to look at but what does any of it mean?

Later on, you come across what seems like a young girl with long, flowing hair who lives and breathes underwater. Whereas water meant instant death in Limbo, Inside has several sections focused around swimming. This girl pursues you relentlessly in these sections and kills you instantly when she gets her hands on you, except for one point later on where you can’t avoid this and she suddenly bestows you with the ability to breathe underwater. Why? Again, this is never explained.

This is the underwater girl. Who is she? Why is she here? Why does she want to kill you right up until she helps you instead? No idea.

Eventually, you infiltrate the oppressor’s massive and daunting facility. What you end up finding at the end of it is a grotesque ball of humanity in a tank. It looks like a massive concoction of random body parts. You have no idea what it’s purpose is, if it’s fully formed or some kind of experiment in progress or even if it’s sentient, you just know from the crowd of workers around the tank that it’s something important and that it’s where your character aims to go.

You work your way to the tank and dive in with this…thing. Your character then proceeds to merge with it for again, no obvious reason and it’s here where the game takes a massive twist, turning from slow and methodical puzzle platformer to a semi-horror action game. You now have control over the abomination and proceed to quickly break out of your enclosure and raise Hell. Being more or less round and covered in various human limbs on the outside, you’re able to roll yourself around and crush anything in your path but still have the means to use elevators and navigate obstacles. The controls at this point become mushy, slow and unresponsive, very much in keeping with the lumbering, clumsy ball you’re now controlling. You instantly get a dopamine rush at this point that lasts for several chapters, as you barrel your way through this horrible prison, destroying everything in your path and sending the workers scattering in panic. It feels like revenge and like the oppressed going Godzilla on the oppressors. It was a blast.

You will eventually roll your way into an office where a terrified figure in a tie cowers against a window. It’s never stated but it’s obvious that this is the person in charge. There’s no time pressure here, you can sit and stare him down as long as you want, making him live the fear your character did in getting to him. Then you charge, burst through the wall, fall several stories and turn him to red mist as he breaks your fall. As soon as I hit the ground, I instinctively put my first up and exclaimed “Fuck yeah!”

But it’s not over yet. There are several chapters left in which you have to try to make your way out of this place now that you’ve seemingly accomplished your goal. There’s no clear path out or what you’ll do when you get there but you’re going to try anyway. Several more puzzles stand in your way, including a surprising one where one of the remaining staff who is desperate for you to leave, actually provides a measure of assistance. By the end, you find your way to freedom, away from your prison and the awful people who did this to you. Then…you proceed to roll down a hill and die on the beach.

That’s it, hunh?

In the end, your journey is ultimately one of futility. You killed one of the people in charge, who you just know will be promptly replaced. You’ve made no substantive improvement to the world. The evil entity still exists, people are still being enslaved and the elite class who run things still do. Nothing about the other characters you met is explained. Things are more or less the same as when you started, except now you’re dead. So what exactly was the point?

In Limbo, the surreal, creepy state of the world and the fact that you largely accomplished nothing in the end made sense because well, you’re in Limbo. It’s right there in the title. It’s not supposed to end, it’s a place where you live in perpetual failure, unable to accomplish the one thing you want more than any other, which in that game, is reuniting with your sister. It was dark, oppressive and ultimately futile but it all made contextual sense and that context is what made you think.

All Inside does is leave you with a ton of unanswered questions and also having accomplished nothing. In so many key aspects, this game is just a reskin of Limbo, except it’s storytelling is far worse, leaving many previously established things hanging in the air and being an ultimately futile journey with no reason as to why that is. The ending is a cop out, leaving you to try to draw your own conclusions as to what just happened and why. I personally think that’s a crap way to tell a story. Your job as a storyteller isn’t to neatly wrap everything up in a bow but you can’t ask me to spend 4 hours of my life playing through your story, only to just arbitrarily end it out of nowhere with far more questions than answers and go “You figure it out.” without giving any of the tools to do so. That’s the kind of pretentiousness I expect from games like Dear Esther and Gone Home.
Limbo’s storytelling was good because it drip fed you the context of your actions and the world you were in and it’s conclusion made contextual sense. Inside gives you tons of disturbing elements in the world but provides no context for most of them so you have no idea why any of it’s important or if it even is. Then you spend several chapters in an adrenaline fuelled feeling of triumph, only to have it all ripped from your hands and to be told that you just spent 4 hours ultimately accomplishing nothing and seemingly, for no reason.

There’s already tons of discussion and debate online as to what Inside’s true meaning is, what it’s trying to explain and the statement Playdead was making with it. I think those kind of discussions are cool and I’m glad people are having them but I don’t play story driven games to have to crowdsource what might be its message. That’s supposed to be the job of the writers and in this case, they completely failed at that for me. I enjoyed Limbo very much but also just one time. With Inside, I feel like I waited 6 years for something that looks incredible, plays well, has a more interesting world but in the end, did nothing with it and makes you feel like you wasted your time. The story feels unfinished and yet is clearly pleased with itself. I won’t say I didn’t enjoy playing Inside but everything about its story feels like a huge regression from Limbo and its mechanics alone aren’t enough to make up from that.

I’d hoped for much better from Playdead with their second outing and I am very surprised that I seem to be so much the minority on that.

Posted in Reviews, Video Games | Tagged Inside, PC, platform game, Playdead, Steam, video games, Xbox One | 4 Comments

Review: Mirror's Edge Catalyst

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Parallax Abstraction

The original Mirror’s Edge was an impressive AAA anomaly for its time. A single player game set in an oppressive, yet beautiful future, focused on running and parkour and all from a studio that was almost entirely known for competitive online shooters. It was flawed but still impressive and there was nothing like it at the time or since until recently. It’s still one of my most memorable games of the last decade. Unfortunately, like every AAA game that takes a creative risk, few showed up to buy it and it was a sales failure.
EA surprised everyone a couple of E3s ago by saying that DICE was being given another crack at Mirror’s Edge. They were rebooting the story–even though there was only one of them–and going open world with it. I instantly wanted to play it but grew concerned when they released it right around E3 this year and with very little marketing. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst clearly has the kernel of a grand vision but if feels unrealised and more concerningly, unfinished.

Faith, the rebellious yet tortured protagonist is back again with a new traumatic backstory that gives a glimpse into the origins of the corporate “beautiful dystopia” she’s in as well as her reasons for being a Runner, a group of couriers who operate off the grid and outside the law but which the corporate overlords tolerate. There’s some pretty blunt “evil 1%” political messaging in this, not that I disagree with it. You start the game fresh from a stint in prison and not more than 30 seconds out the door, you’re right back with your crew. The rest of the story has a few twists and turns but like everything else in the game, feels half-baked and rushed, ending in a cookie-cutter cliffhanger where you’ve ultimately achieved pretty much nothing. It’s clear the team wanted to setup a sequel in the hopes EA would let them make it but if that doesn’t happen–and it probably won’t–most of what happens in Catalyst is pointless. There aren’t many characters, none of them are particularly likable and the interactions with them are so few and blandly written, you never get to know anyone well enough to care about them. Even Faith herself comes off as bratty, bullheaded and self-centered, taking stupid risks, regardless of how they may harm those around her. I never grew to like her.

The original Mirror’s Edge was a linear experience but a solid, tightly designed one. Catalyst makes things an open world which on paper, seems like the perfect evolution for this type of game. Unfortunately, it’s a largely lifeless world with nothing to do in it. To stay off the grid, the Runners operate on the rooftops. You never get to street level so you don’t see much actually happening in the city. You get around by running, jumping, sliding and scaling your way over and between buildings. When you bring up the map, you see a huge metropolis that gives you the impression there’s tons to see and do. Then as you progress, you realise that only about half of that map ever becomes available to you the game is way smaller than you thought.

You get the standard open world compliment of main missions, side story missions and icon barf of optional activities. The problem is, almost all of these are basically the same thing, either delivering something or running a course, always with an arbitrary time limit that usually makes no contextual sense. There’s no variety and the time limits are often so strict that one slight mistake in a 2+ minute run means doing it all over again, as these are the only times in the game that you aren’t generously checkpointed. Some of the delivery missions come from in-world characters who essentially give you their life story over the radio as you make the run. This is intended to make you empathise with the oppressed of the world but all it does is distract you and provides no value to the fiction. Most of the time, I just wanted them to shut up and let me run. There are a ton of different collectables in the world which yield tiny bonuses but are obviously just there as padding for obsessive open world players. I know that in a game focused almost exclusively around running, there’s only so much you can do but surely DICE could have come up with more than this. It renders the whole point of making this an open world game moot.

By default, your augmented reality system known as The Beat, provides you a virtual in-world line to show you the way to your next objective and it’ll also highlight objects you should scale as part of that route. It’s not always the fastest route, just the least difficult one and for some of the tougher side missions, following it actually means you won’t succeed. The problem is because you’re in an open world, disabling it makes it really easy to lose your bearings and get turned around. It’s definitely possible to complete the game without it but you’ll be making things way harder on yourself. Still, there’s nothing quite like the feeling of when you get a good flow up and have been running and parkouring for a long stretch without a gap, though some of this comes down to how easily this flow can be interrupted.

When you’re not running, you will occasionally have to fight. In the first Mirror’s Edge, it was possible to take guns from enemy soldiers and use them against them but there was also an achievement for beating the game without killing anyone, which I got. In Catalyst’s world, all the guns are coded to the soldiers so Faith has to beat everyone in close quarters melee combat. She still has no conscience about murder though as she has some brutal finishing moves and I regularly kicked guys off buildings. You never see blood but you’ll hear lots of things crack and snap. Like most elements of Catalyst, the combat also feels clumsy and unrefined. You have a few different moves but never get new ones and there’s no combo system. Combat usually comes down to just spamming different moves until everyone’s down. Parkouring well and mixing up your moves rewards you with Focus, a meter that allows you to automatically dodge bullets but instantly drains away when you stop moving. Again, a cool idea but one that doesn’t make a lot of sense when you think about it. If you stir up enough trouble, VTOL aircraft will be summoned that can drop additional soldiers and also shoot at you. When this happens, you have to outrun its scanners and hide for a bit until it gives up, which rewards bonus experience depending on how many soldiers you took out and how long the chase lasts.

The dead giveaway that Mirror’s Edge Catalyst was rushed is the progression system. By earning experience, you can upgrade Faith’s parkour and combat abilities, as well as some pieces of equipment to help you get around. The thing is, you start with a third of these upgrades already unlocked. I’m not kidding. I did the story and narrative side missions and maybe 15% of the optional missions and this was all it took to earn every upgrade. Other than going for 100% completion, there’s no reason to do the optional content after this. I don’t know of any other way to interpret this other than a whole whack of stuff was cut from the game to make a deadline. There’s no explanation given for it and frankly, it feels like DICE went out of their way to showcase it. I know in the world of corporate AAA development, there’s probably too many layers of management involved for this to be a not-so-subtle statement from the team on the kinds of pressures they were under but it sure feels like it. Regardless of the development realities, this was a full priced release and to not only have so little content but to not even hide it is frankly pretty insulting to those who shelled out money for it. They basically told me that I spent $60US on what is in many ways, an Early Access title and that’s not cool.

The original Mirror’s Edge had some gorgeous production values and at least those are still here in Catalyst. The game runs great on PC and while the frame rate hitches on consoles, it does target 60 which is a rare pleasure. The city basically looks like a giant Apple store with lots of white and bright, unblended colours as well as digital billboards everywhere. It does a good job of feeling like a dystopia where the people in charge don’t want you to know that. There’s lots of talk about “The Graylands”, a bleak and unforgiving place where the lowest classes of people are relegated but you never see it and it’s left to your imagination. DICE are experts at audio design and they do a great job here too, with sounds that are believable and subtle audio cues that aid in the flow of your parkour. Swedish ambient musician Solar Fields did the score for the previous game and his work there made me into a big fan of his. He returns again for Catalyst and his tracks once again fit the world well, though I feel his work last time was more memorable.

Both Mirror’s Edge games feel like passion projects from a studio that’s desperate to make things other than Battlefield. I didn’t think we’d see another after the first one flopped but the passion of its small fanbase and DICE’s huge success otherwise managed to convince EA to give them another shot. Indeed, when you look at the core team credits for Catalyst, it’s quite small compared to what we normally see for AAA releases these days. However, either they weren’t given enough time or the team wasn’t able to capitalise on the time they had and we got a full price release that’s pretty and has its core mechanic down but is short on story and full to the brim with boring padding. I didn’t want the first Mirror’s Edge to end but half way through Catalyst, I was wanting it to be over. If this was the best EA was willing to let DICE give us for a sequel, they should have just not bothered. At best, I’d only recommend this at 50% off and only if you either like parkour games or really wanted more time in the Mirror’s Edge world. Even then, you’re probably better off just playing the first game again. I doubt we’ll ever see another one of these but if we do, I hope we get a complete game next time.

Posted in Reviews, Video Games | Tagged DICE, EA, Electronic Arts, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Origin, PC, PlayStation 4, PS4, video game review, video games, Xbox One | 1 Comment

So That Was E3 2016 (with Ramble Video)

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Parallax Abstraction

Another year of the video game industry’s biggest blast of info, spectacle and hype has come and gone and it’s time for my yearly chat about it. Despite being little more than a fancy marketing event, I’ve always really enjoyed watching and reading about E3. As someone who is keenly aware of when I’m being advertised to and takes that as such, I just love this chance to get a huge block of knowledge about the next year’s big batch of games that are coming and consuming all the analysis of it that I can. If you love games and especially, big AAA games, E3 is basically second Christmas.

Last year, a group of us talked over all the press conferences and got to give our impressions of the games we saw as we went. Sadly, real life prevented that from happening this year. This post is mostly going to focus on talking about the show as a whole and some broader concepts about it. If you want to hear me yak about what specific games interested me, I do so at length in the Geek Bravado Ramble video.

E3 2016 was still pretty great but there’s no doubt an air of change and uncertainty permeated this year’s show. Several major publishers have scaled back their presences or pulled out entirely, choosing instead to focus on communicating directly to their customers online, something that’s easier and cheaper than ever before. The show floor was much more sparsely populated and quiet, to the point where Giant Bomb was actually able to record a short podcast in the middle of it, something that would have been impossible even last year.

For the last several years, we’ve heard the lazier members of the games press naval gaze about E3’s relevance. In the past, it was more them wondering if consoles and big games in general were doomed in the face of the mobile games bubble, something I waved off as the nonsense it was later proven to be. This year though, I think there’s validity to the claims but for different reasons. E3 is incredibly expensive for a company to attend and whether you’re an Electronic Arts or a Devolver Digital, there are myriad other ways to talk directly to the people you’re selling to for far less money and on your own schedule and your own terms. I’ve no doubt that the flashy, dual-city press event that EA put on probably cost them far less than a press conference plus booth presence at the show proper would have and Devolver’s street party that wasn’t even officially part of the show definitely cost them less and arguably, got more attention. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more publishers follow their lead in the future.

E3’s never been so much about the games press as getting the attention of the mainstream press but in the era of YouTube and Twitch “influencers”, even they aren’t really that important in the grand scheme of things. I don’t know how the ESA can alter E3 to combat this change. Maybe they can’t and going forward, we’ll see a much smaller show or perhaps, it’ll just disappear after a while. I definitely would miss the concentrated week of crazy gaming news but at the same time, games are getting even more expensive to make and the audience isn’t growing fast enough to keep up so these companies have to save where they can.

What surprised me the most about this year’s E3 was not so much what was there as what wasn’t. Two major paradigm shifts in the games industry are on the horizon, incrementally upgraded consoles and VR. These are two things that were unheard of just a few years ago but in recent months, have had sustained hype behind them. Yet, at the game industry’s biggest show, both were only shown in a rather tepid fashion. Sony didn’t talk about the next PS4 at all and beyond a teaser video, Microsoft said next to nothing about Project Scorpio, instead focusing on the smaller but no more powerful Xbox One S that’s coming later this year. We also got no word from Nintendo on their next system.

As for VR, it was certainly there but I was shocked to how little a degree. Sony is shipping PlayStation VR this year but only devoted a few minutes of their press conference to it, largely showing off another batch of gimmicky tech demos or “experiences” it will launch with and few full games. A couple of publishers have either VR add-ons for existing games coming or some experiments of their own but that was it. I get that Sony is probably going to dedicate their PlayStation Experience fan show to really pushing PlayStation VR but its muted showing at E3 was a real surprise.

The hype over VR went from everyone constantly saying “This game would be so awesome in VR!” to them now saying it has potential but there’s little to play on it and none of it’s worth the price of admission. Even with Sony’s offering being half the price of it’s closest competitor on PC, you’ve got to have compelling software for people to buy into these things. Without an install base, no one’s going to make big games for them and without good games, no one’s going to buy them. Sony and Oculus have been helping to fund new VR projects but many of them are nowhere to be seen and it’s more and more feeling to me that these companies should have held back their hardware launches until more stuff is on them. I could afford a VR headset right now if I wanted to but I’m instead choosing to put that money towards a GTX 1080 GPU, something that can benefit every game and which seems like a much better use of funds. VR has a short window to capitalise on the hype before it fades and it doesn’t feel like they’re doing that.

What made me very happy to see was that at least some of the AAA industry is actually back to taking some creative risks. Much as I like big games, there’s no denying that most publishers have been relying on the safest of bets the last while, especially as they waited with bated breath to see if consumers actually bought new consoles. It turns out they are and in greater numbers than last generation so the money taps have opened again and creativity is being allowed to shine, at least in some places. We saw a number of new, big budget IPs showcased this year and some complete creative overhauls of others. God of War is now a third-person combination of The Last of Us and Dark Souls based around Norse mythology. Resident Evil 7 looks more like Silent Hill style horror and has full VR support. The new Call of Duty is mostly in space. The new Battlefield is set in World War I. The next Legend of Zelda is a fully open-world game with crafting and free traversal. While the big games industry will never be as experimental as the indie space, it’s clear they feel more comfortable taking risks now, even going so far as to flip traditional cash cow franchises on their ear. That’s an exciting thing indeed.

Almost every E3 has some kind of industry gimmick theme that you can see throughout it. It’s uncanny how many of these big companies that are supposed to be competing tend to ride the same trends as the same time. In past years, it’s been things mobile integration into console games that no one asked for. Other years, it’s been turning everything into a big open world, even games that didn’t need it. This year however, it seemed like the overall theme was just an industry more comfortable in its position and that’s realised big AAA games do indeed have a long-term future and that yes, the audience won’t turn their backs on them for trying something different. There’s still a lot of safe bets being made but fewer than before and the risks they’re taking look like they could end up with some pretty awesome things. This new tone was both exciting but also a relief for me to see. It’s arguably never been a harder time to make money developing video games, yet the industry also seems to be more comfortable and less stressed than it was before. I think that’s ultimately a great thing for everyone.

Unfortunately, it also wouldn’t be an E3 without the outrage baiting gaming press doing everything they can to attack the industry they cover and the audience they serve in the most hubristic, tactless, insulting way possible. To the shock and sadness of everyone, the horrible terrorist attacks in Florida occurred the Sunday before E3, mere hours before EA’s press event was due to kick things off. Most of the press events paid tribute to the tragedy with either moments of silence and/or wearing multi-coloured ribbons in solidarity. Hard as it is to have to sell entertainment products mere hours after such horrific events, letting the world stop because of the actions of madmen only validates their actions further. As they say, the show must go on.

Nonetheless, we got a pile of articles and tweets from all the usual suspects, some saying that E3 should either have been delayed or cancelled but most saying that E3 and the industry should have been ashamed because so many of the products being shown “glorify guns and violence.” Let me be clear here: I hate guns and I detest those who fetishise them. I don’t believe guns are valuable or necessary in a civilised society and I think America’s near lone obsession with them is as terrifying as it is despicable. That said, video games aren’t real and watching many of the same members of the gaming press who tore apart Jack Thompson’s insane “games cause violence” rhetoric not even 10 years ago, spewing the same nonsense almost verbatim was disgusting.

I don’t know how one can think any good is being served by piggybacking on a massive tragedy to argue that video games cause violence, arguments by the way that have been thoroughly, repeatedly, scientifically and indeed, legally debunked time and time again. Of course, the hack writers who published this garbage don’t actually believe it, they just found another horrific event they can use to cynically drive clicks to their dying web sites while also pretending to have the moral high ground in doing so. It’s disgusting, abhorrent, unethical behaviour and anyone who did that should be ashamed of themselves. Have the business models of these sites become so broken that this is the only way they can hope to survive as YouTube and Twitch continue to eat their lunch? And if so, what does it say about the character and ethical standards of those who put their names on this stuff?

If you hate your audience and the video game industry that much, why are you people even here? If the only things you can say when getting paid by a video game site to cover the largest, most anticipated video games event of the year, is how your audience are bad people because they like games with guns in them, then get out now. Go start another social justice blog to preach your outrage or go start a new games site where you can write about the pretentious walking simulators and Twine games everyone should play instead. Of course, none of these writers will do that because they know there’s not enough of an audience for that stuff to make a living. You’re not here to serve yourselves and your warped social agendas, you’re here to serve your audiences. If you can’t do that, step aside for someone who can.

I said a long time ago that as much as the games press deserves the reckoning it’s currently going through, that I don’t want the PewDiePies and the Game Grumps of the world to become the new face of games journalism. I still don’t but at this point, I’d take them 10 times over before I would take much of the games press we have now. Say what you will about the most popular YouTubers and I can say plenty but at least those people actually love games and gamers. They know who they serve and it’s the players, not people who can only derive satisfaction from life when they’re being offended at someone other than themselves. The current games press is crumbling and I’m now more convinced than ever that they wholly deserve it.

So there we have it, my top-down, big picture analysis of this year’s E3. There’s no doubt that it was a weird year but it was also a good one and whether you’re into big games, small games or both, there’s a metric ton coming that should interest gamers of all types. Personally, I don’t know where I’m going to find the time to play all the amazing stuff I see coming but hey, that’s a damn good problem to have if you ask me. Every year is a good year to be a hardcore gamer but 2016 and 2017 are shaping up to be some of the best in a good while. I don’t know what the future holds for E3 and one thing is clear, no one else does either. I do hope it gets to stick around in some form as I do like what it offers and what I can take from it. Maybe like the games press that covers it though, it’s time in the sun is fading. I’m very curious how they change it up next year.

Posted in Business, Coverage, Culture, Predictions, Video Games | Tagged Bethesda Softworks, E3, Electronic Arts, Electronic Entertainment Expo, Microsoft, Nintendo, PlayStation 4, PS4, Sony, Ubisoft, video game industry, video games, video games press, Wii U, Xbox One | 2 Comments

34 Hours for CHEO (with Ramble Video)

Posted on June 7, 2016 by Parallax Abstraction

I stayed up for 34 hours this weekend. It’s longer than I’ve ever stayed up and I’m still recovering. And it was among the best 34 hours of my life.

When I first got the e-mail from Extra Life in 2014 inviting me to the kick-off meeting for a new Ottawa Guild, I really had no idea what to expect. I knew what guilds were and what some of them had done but little beyond that. I certainly never expected to get invited to be on the leadership team and I never in my wildest dreams expected that two years later, I’d be doing an entire, second Extra Life marathon, on the set of the CHEO Telethon, one of Ottawa’s biggest and most cherished charitable events. Not only did that happen but the $72,154 that we helped raise for this fantastic event helped push the telethon to a new record total of $8,013,771 raised and without it, they wouldn’t have cracked the $8,000,000 mark.
This still feels surreal to me.

Doing something with the telethon was always an idea our guild had in our minds but we never actively pursued it. It was our awesome liaison at the CHEO Foundation, Olenka, who came to us with this idea several months ago. We jumped at the prospect but it only really started to coalesce into a real thing a couple of months back. We had no idea how it would go or what the experience would be like but we knew it was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up. To say everything went better than we could have hoped is I think, an understatement.

A lot of children’s hospitals don’t really support or endorse Extra Life because they still ignorantly see gaming as a dumb kids hobby that makes people fat and wastes time. Not CHEO. They have supported our guild efforts 110% and have seen the incredible things gamers can do when they band together for a good cause. Many charities are struggling to figure out how to get newer generations of people engaged with their causes. The CHEO Telethon is a huge deal in this town but at the same time, many young people don’t watch TV any more. I’m 37 and I haven’t had cable in six years. To get new people in, you’ve got to embrace new and different ideas that appeal to them and CHEO has had the foresight to see why things like Extra Life do exactly that.

The idea was simple: They invited us to do a second 24 hour Extra Life marathon from the set of the Telethon at the EY Centre and they’d make it a big part of the show so that they could help drive awareness of both the event and what they’re doing to bring young people in.

Our guild showed up in spades. We were allowed to bring up to 25 people and got a full complement. Men and women ranging from teenagers up to old fogies like me. Not only that but this event was even harder compared to the normal Extra Life because it ran from 7pm to 7pm as opposed to the normal game day’s 8am to 8am. This meant that many of us had to go through most of a regular day before even starting the marathon and several from the guild were at the EY Centre setting up well hours before things got going. This was an even bigger challenge but we were up for it.

We had a bunch of PCs, several of which had people streaming, a bunch of consoles and then, the Ottawa board gaming community showed up. They brought a mind blowing 60 board games to the event and I was told that was just their “travelling set.” We had all aspects of gaming represented, except for tabletop RPGs and I have a feeling people might be down for that in the future. Our area was this insane jungle of tables, screens and cables and looked like something out of a cyberpunk novel. You walked into that space and within seconds, you unquestionably knew it was made up of hardcore gamers.
The CHEO Telethon is one of the most well organised events I’ve ever seen. I’ve done things at shows this size before and I’m always prepared for everything to be a fight and for having to nag people to get stuff done. Our experience here was the polar opposite of that. We were given a massive space with a bunch of brand new couches donated by The Brick and were promised 30 megabit synchronous fibre Internet to be used for multiplayer gaming and streams, which was not only delivered but was rock solid. They gave us our own coffee, water machine and fridge and we had tons of food delivered throughout the event and free access to the common food area as well. No details were overlooked, nothing was ever a fight and though this was the first time anything like this was ever done, you’d have never known.

The thing that sticks out to me the most though is what they did for us overnight. The CHEO Telethon goes off-air and loops previously recorded footage from 11pm to 9am because few watch or donate overnight as most are asleep. When this happens, the entire set goes dark and as it turns out, almost everyone goes home for a few hours of shut eye. Aside from a couple of people handling overnight logistics, they left us completely alone and to our own devices for 10 hours. The hall was dark but we were allowed to go anywhere we wanted, completely unsupervised. We could have wreaked havoc if we wanted and there was basically no one there to stop us. Of course, we didn’t do that but it was a really striking show of trust. These people didn’t know at all, many of them had never met us before, yet they trusted us implicitly and treated us like we were part of the same group that’s been doing this for years. That’s really something that gives me pause.
A few of us needed to take cat naps on occasion but the vast majority went through the entire 24 hours without a hitch. I don’t have a total for how much we raised during the event but I know it was significant, especially considering the main Extra Life day is months away. My good friend Devon Payette, the 13 year old CHEO Champion from last year was at the event and despite having major chronic illnesses, said he would stay up the whole 24 hours with us and he not only did it but he did so with an energy and gusto most of the rest of us had long since lost by the time things were done. I gave him my old gaming PC when I got a new job recently and he not only spent most of the 24 hours on it, he streamed a bunch too and raised more money than any of us! That kid is a force of nature and an inspiration to everyone. People like him and what CHEO has done for him are why we play.

We had a number of visitors during the show, including the CEOs of both CHEO and the CHEO Foundation, a bunch of local media personalities and other community leaders. Most of them didn’t know or understand Extra Life before but they were all blown away by what they saw and how driven and committed everyone was to it. It was clear that within minutes, we’d reached them and showed them how awesome this is and why we all take it so seriously. Right after the show, a prominent local radio personality hit us up on Facebook and basically said “I didn’t know anything about this before but it’s awesome. If you ever need help promoting or an MC for special events, let me know.” Even if we didn’t raise a dime, these things alone made this worth it.

I talk about my own experiences and how my stream went in the video but I had a great time. My brain barely worked by the end but I played for the whole 24 hours as well and made a big dent into my backlog. I didn’t get as many viewers and donations as I wanted but a bunch of regulars from my YouTube channel showed up and they made it a great time as they always do. My good friend Andrew “KeyMastar” Scrader hung out for most of the stream because he’s insane, as did my buddy Reetin, whose podcast I regularly guest on. I also met a fellow Extra Life CHEO player from North Bay named Orcryst, who is a prominent Twitch streamer. He was a super nice guy and gave me a whole pile of advice on how to grow my streaming presence and maybe also combine it in a unique way with my YouTube efforts. I’m planning to make some big changes based on his advice. That’s something I never saw coming.

We were all barely functional by the end but when they revealed that the telethon had raised a record of over $8,000,000, we all got a massive boost of adrenaline, something that made it a lot easier to pack up our stuff and get home. There was no trouble, no drama and everyone left with a smile on their face, knowing we had done good. There are few greater feelings to have.

In terms of people to thank, there are so many:

Olenka from CHEO is an incredibly warm and caring lady and one of the most organised people I’ve ever met. Doing this was her idea and without her, I don’t know if it ever would have happened.
My colleagues on the committee, Richard and Frankie are amazing, inspiring people and it’s an honour to work with them.
Conor from the guild has always been an amazing help and is willing to bend over backwards for us.
Kristy and Vicky are newcomers to the guild who offered to take up the challenge of managing social media for us, something the rest of us aren’t great at and didn’t want to do anyway. To say they’ve done an incredible job is a massive understatement and they were the sole reason our social media got so much attention in the week leading up to and during the event.
Devon and his parents for being so supportive of the guild and allowing Devon to play with us. He sat right in the middle of the whole group and was an incredible inspiration. Kids like him are why we do this and everyone was stronger with him there.
Laura from Freeman who was an incredible help getting us our Internet connection and making it possible for us to play online and streaming.
The entire telethon staff for putting so much trust in us and treating us like we were part of the family.

Most of all though, I want to thank everyone who showed up to play. I’d not met a lot of you before and yet we all came together and ran ourselves ragged to raise money for this great cause. You all should be incredibly proud of yourselves. We’re sadly in a time where the media–including the games press that’s supposed to advocate for us–are trying to paint gamers as hateful, selfish and exclusionary, largely to drive easy traffic and ad revenue to their dying web sites. This past weekend, a large, diverse group of us took this hobby we love and in unison, did something completely selfless with it. We showed that when united, gamers can do incredible, virtuous things. The next time the “enthusiast press” says you’re a bad person because you don’t share their politics, think of this and remember what gamers are really about. You all did immense good and you had fun doing it. What can be better in this world?

My girlfriend and I are only children from small families and we decided very early in our relationship that we probably don’t want to have kids. I’ve never really the bond with children that many people, even non-parents, do and it’s sometimes made me sad and frustrated how as my friends have families, that I’m “losing them” to that. Extra Life has given me a special connection to kids and helping them that I never thought I’d have and probably never would have had without this charity in my life. It’s something you can’t really quantify the value of until you experience it. I don’t think I’ll ever be a “kid person” and I still don’t think I want to have any of my own but I get the drive people have for kids more than I had and that enlightenment is something I am so grateful to have had happen.

I say without hyperbole that this past weekend was one of the most rewarding, gratifying experiences I’ve ever had and it’s because of Extra Life and the amazing people in this guild that I got to do it. I’ll remember that forever and it was an honour and a privilege to share this experience with you. You’re all rockstars and I couldn’t be prouder to be a part of this and to be doing it with all of you.

Let’s do it all again! November work for you?

Posted in Culture, Live Stream, Video Games | Tagged charity, CHEO, CHEO Telethon, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Extra Life, live stream, Ottawa, video game marathon, video games | 1 Comment

Why I'm Basically Done With Crowdfunding

Posted on May 3, 2016 by Parallax Abstraction

Anyone who is reading this likely doesn’t need me to explain the epic rise of crowd funding that has happened in the last 5 years or so. An idea most people would have once laughed at, it’s now become not only a popular way for small and sometimes big projects to help get the funding they need, but also a very profitable industry for the handful of popular platforms that facilitate it. Beyond the most popular pioneer that is Kickstarter, we also now have spins on the pre-funding idea, including things like Steam Early Access, which allows you to buy into products that are within some stage of production and also Patreon, a site that allows you to fund individual creators on an ongoing basis, instead of individual projects. There has never been more ways for fans to contribute to projects they love that might not get made any other way and indeed, many think this is a golden age for independent artistic projects.

Yet, despite diving deep into this kind of funding model at its outset, I’ve decided that with the occasional exception, I’m basically done funding stuff this way. I’ll explain why but the crux of it boils down to one word: accountability.

Kickstarter doesn’t allow me to directly link to the page that shows the projects I’ve backed so here’s a PDF of it at time of writing. As you can see, I’ve put a lot of money into a lot of stuff, mostly video games but other things too. The checkmarks denote what projects have delivered and as you can see, the majority have. You might think I’ve got a pretty good track record backing successful projects and are wondering what my problem is. Well, it’s multi-part.

First, most of the projects that have not yet delivered and indeed, even most of the ones that have are extremely late. I’m not certain but I think there’s a good chance that literally nothing I’ve ever backed on Kickstarter has come out when the creators stated it would. Most projects that did ship were well over a year past due. A few undelivered ones in that list like Nekro, SpaceVenture and M.O.R.E. are over two years late, approaching three.
Second, many projects that did ship fell well short of my expectations and many others as well. Broken Age, Strike Suit Zero, Planetary Annihilation, Mercenary Kings, Video Games: The Movie, Carmageddon: Reincarnation, Starlight: Inception, Republique, TAKEDOWN: Red Sabre and the Idle Thumbs podcast all either didn’t live up to their stated promises or were just very disappointing. They’re all projects that had the funding and supposedly, the talent to do well and they all failed at it.

Last but not least, there’s the projects that have just plain died and run off with the money. I’m lucky in that compared to some, I’ve only backed a couple of these duds. Kate Mull’s Tingly Sensation ASMR documentary largely went dark a long time ago. There’s also been rumours that the lead developer of Nekro has shut down his studio before finishing the project and the Early Access version is no longer available on Steam. I didn’t lose much money on these but there have been some much larger profile flops, not to mention huge messes like the development of Broken Age or how Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes vs. Women has still not delivered all its backer rewards, despite her still being buddy buddy with Kickstarter brass.

When it comes to Steam Early Access, one doesn’t have to look far to find the litany of disasters that have happened there, ranging from projects that either get abandoned (something even press favourite Double Fine is guilty of) to others that have spent years in the program with no end in sight to out and out scams. Like Kickstarter, there have been plenty of successes here too and I own a number of them but the problems are widespread and largely unaddressed.

In the case of Patreon, there are many great creators making great stuff on there but like many other platforms such as YouTube and Twitch, it’s biased heavily in favour of people who are already popular, as opposed to those who are new but also doing good work. It’s also been a hub for professional victims who produce nothing but faux and fake outrage and who essentially crowdfund their lives from the naive and gullible. This latter reason is why I’ve never had a Patreon account. There are people I would like to contribute to but not through a company that supports, fosters and profits off of professional victims while banning other valid projects like 8chan, which these people dislike. Their standards are unequal and unfairly applied to say the least.

Now, the first thing these services and their defenders will say is that any money you put into them is not an investment, that it’s buyer beware, don’t donate any money you aren’t prepared to lose etc etc. They’re totally right and I understood the risks when I backed every Kickstarter and bought every Early Access game. This isn’t sour grapes over money I lost on non-existent or disappointing projects, even though it is a lot of money. The reason I’ve largely decided to walk away from this model is that companies like Kickstarter, Valve and Patreon are using these excuses to profit without any responsibility and I think they’re all successful enough for that to no longer be a valid excuse.

Kickstarter and Patreon have made a big deal about how they’re modern tech startups that were able to get big with a minimum of external investment and debt. They’re lean and managed to get and stay profitable very fast. Indeed, to the business community, these are shining success stories. As for Valve, well c’mon, it’s Valve, they’ve been rolling in dough for years.

My issue is that they have rather ingeniously structured their business models around being financially successful off projects that both succeed and fail, regardless of the outcome to customers. Kickstarter, Patreon and Steam don’t produce anything, they’re merely middlemen who provide the tools to get funding from consumers to creators and in Valve’s case, to distribute as well. The former 2 take 5% of all pledges and donations, with Valve taking 30% of all sales made on Steam. The problem is that they get this up front and they have no incentive to provide anything beyond that.

If a Kickstarter project funds and the creators either under deliver or don’t deliver at all, Kickstarter’s stated policy is to wash their hands of the matter and leave it to backers to try to seek restitution. Their FAQ is laden with answers that dodge responsibility while also stating outright that they do keep their fees regardless. In the case of Steam, there are refunds but only for a limited time, far too limited for a project which may take a long time before running into trouble. Even when they directly help facilitate a project that fails or ends up being a scam, these companies simply trot out the “Caveat Emptor” excuse when customers lose their money, yet they themselves never do. Whether you get what the creator promised you or not, the companies always get to keep their piece. In the case of Patreon, at least it’s easy to stop contributing to someone but again, there’s no accountability for money they already received from you and didn’t use as promised.

It’s this fundamental lack of accountability on the part of these companies that has made me decide that crowdfunding in its current form is heavily biased against consumers and backers. These are all very profitable businesses who facilitate far more successful projects than failed ones. There is no reason they cannot have insurance or escrow funds that can help consumers get back at least part of their contributions in the event of a project either failing or especially, if it turns out to be a scam. At the very least, they should not be allowed to keep the proceeds from failed projects and if they can’t return them to backers, they should either be donated to charity or put towards some other cause that is not lining the pockets of shareholders. I cannot think of another legitimate business where it’s considered acceptable to profit off of failure. Projects can fail for myriad reasons, some perfectly valid, others not at all. Regardless of who was primarily at fault for the failure, if you profited in some way off the project, you should have some amount of culpability.

I’m not saying I’ve sworn off all crowdfunding forever. If there is a project I truly believe in and that comes from a creator with a proven track record, I may still back it if it’s necessary to make it happen. However, when I look at many of the projects I’ve backed, the truth is that most of them would have hit their target with or without me. I could have let others take the risk and if the end result was good quality, just bought it on release. Of course, if everyone thought that way, then this whole model would fall apart and nothing would get crowdfunded. The crowdfunding bubble certainly hasn’t burst yet but compared to its heyday, it’s certainly not the guaranteed path to funding it was once seeming to be. Too many people soured the milk for everyone else.

In theory, the object of any business is to serve consumers first and by doing so, that’s how they make profit. The crowdfunding industry has devilishly found a way to get their profit, regardless of whether or not they serve the best interest of consumers. That’s a terrible, unfair, devious way to run a business and it’s not one I want to participate in. Buyer Beware isn’t good enough any more. This industry is making piles of money for simply being in the middle and if they’re going to, they need to take their share of the responsibility when creators mess up. Maybe they’ll have to vet projects more closely. Maybe they’ll have to reduce the number of projects they let run at a given time. Or maybe, they’ll just have to factor in losses from the occasional failed project as a cost of doing business. Truth be told, I don’t think those losses would be enough to offset their successes but if so, I think that speaks more to the long-term soundness of their business model.

I don’t want to see crowdfunding go away. For all the drama and mishaps that have come from it, we’ve also gotten a ton of great, creative content that we likely would never have seen otherwise. I’m grateful to have all of that and want to see more of it get made. This is a fantastic way to fund something that involves your fans and which couldn’t have been done before. However, it requires accountability from all parties involved. Without it, the democratized nature of the idea gets tainted and soured. Until this industry accepts that its part of the process goes beyond just providing a web site, processing payments and distributing bits, I’m stepping out and I don’t think I’m alone in that sentiment. Don’t let this get ruined so early on, there’s too much good that can come from it.

Posted in Business, Culture, Internet, Technology, Video Games | Tagged crowdfunding, Indiegogo, Kickstarter, Patreon, Steam Early Access, video games | Leave a comment

So I found out some interesting brain stuff this week

Hey, remember this thing?

My Top 10 Video Games of 2016 (Plus Honourable Mentions and Disappointments)

So That Was Extra Life 2016

Review: The Bunker (Spoiler Free)

Developed By Splendy Games/Wales Interactive. Published by Green Man Gaming.
Available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
Review code provided by Green Man Gaming.
Buy a cheap Steam key from Green Man Gaming and help support my content.

Review: Inside

Review: Mirror's Edge Catalyst

So That Was E3 2016 (with Ramble Video)

34 Hours for CHEO (with Ramble Video)

Why I'm Basically Done With Crowdfunding

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Developed By Splendy Games/Wales Interactive. Published by Green Man Gaming. Available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Review code provided by Green Man Gaming. Buy a cheap Steam key from Green Man Gaming and help support my content.

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Developed By Splendy Games/Wales Interactive. Published by Green Man Gaming.
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Buy a cheap Steam key from Green Man Gaming and help support my content.