Review: The Wanderers

The Wanderers is- for a book that was billed to me as being about space and the future- the least science fiction like novel about space. When reading the general premise of the book, that might surprise you. The novel takes place in the near future and focuses on three astronauts who are living in a simulated mission to Mars. The story jumps around from chapter to chapter focusing on the three astronauts and some of the people closest to them. While the novel sounds like a promising backdrop for some excitement in space, that never really seems to happen. There are a few moments here and there, but nothing too interesting seems to happen. In fact, perhaps the greatest problem with this novel is that nothing apparently happens. Characters literally profess to have changed, but beyond insisting that they are transformed, there is no evidence in their actions or thoughts.

Amongst the supporting cast is a band of  relatively dull and at its worst, completely unimportant characters. Madoka, the wife of one of the astronauts, is a brilliant but bored woman who contemplates the same problem for the entire novel. Mireille, the daughter of another astronaut, is a struggling actress whose insufferable nature is never entirely justified. However, Madoka and Mireille are at least tied to the emotional core of the story. One of the observers for the mission, Luke, is inexplicably given chapters of time in the story to do… nothing? Cutting his chapters from the book would have made absolutely no material difference to the story, which is a telling sign that Luke’s inclusion in the story is pointless.

The saving grace of the supporting characters is the story of Dimitri, a young man trying to understand his place in the world. Dimitri’s story is the only one with a sense of actual momentum and the only story in the entire book that suggests he becomes a changed person. The reader is perhaps left to guess at what the change might be, but at least something happens to him.

There is, to be clear, nothing wrong with a story about characters and their thoughts. The human condition is a big, bold topic that every eager writer is keen to tackle. A novel set in space that inspects the nature of our relationships and the (in this case very large) spaces between them is an interesting idea. The Wanderers gamely attempts to look at these things, but the larger problem with its plot is that it introduces an tantalizing thread, something that could actually shake up the story, only to leave it behind. It is difficult to understate the degree to which this was a major disappointment. Why bother introducing a major story element and then essentially abandon it for the rest of the novel? Perhaps most frustratingly is that it’s referenced offhand by a minor character in the last few pages of the book.

It is hopefully clear at this point that my feelings on this book are largely negative. The cast of characters had the potential to be interesting, but the glacial pace at which nothing happened left me wishing for something else. The something else that is promised in a major plot twist is completely abandoned. In the end, the characters are as they were in the opening pages of the book. Space is a big place, surely there’s room and time enough for something to happen.

What to make of the Nintendo Switch

There’s something about the announcement of the Switch that has me thinking about Nintendo more than I have been in a long time. I’m looking at the Switch from a lot of different angles, trying to decide what it means as a piece of hardware and as a statement about where Nintendo as a company is going. For many people of my generation the Nintendo name was synonymous with video games. If a person didn’t know what a game console was, they’d simply call it a Nintendo. It says something about the mindshare that Nintendo controlled that Mario was one of the most recognized brand mascots around.

Nintendo is not quite the same company today.

In terms of their mindshare, they hold a surprising amount of sway even today. Amongst young and old gamers alike, Mario and his fellow mascots are well known and the company’s affable Reggie Fils-Aime seems to be a meme machine that resonates with younger consumers. However, despite being recognizable, the company doesn’t seem to be consistently compelling enough to warrant purchasing their hardware or software.

The Wii sold an industry and expectation shattering 100+ million units. The Wii U barely sold a tenth of that amount. The Nintendo DS sold 154 million units, the 3DS has shipped 60 million. While both systems are caught in the shadow of their highly successful predecessors, their sales don’t exactly inspire confidence. Anecdotally I’ve encountered several people that own Wiis that didn’t even know the Wii U exists. That alone is problematic for a plethora of reasons.

The last decade has been perhaps one of the bumpiest roads I’ve ever ridden with Nintendo. The DS was a seemingly unassailable piece of hardware that captured the imagination of so many different consumers. The software was imaginative and the hardware was approachable different. The Wii was an incredible experience because it was so accessible and had the promise of great games with new ways of playing. 

However both systems struggled with their success. The DS and the Wii (and particularly the Wii), dealt with an incredible deluge of shovelware. Garbage games that were piled high into bins at electronic stores. For every Zelda there were 10-20 random mini-game packages that simply bogged the machine down. The attach rate of the Wii was seemingly abysmal as many of the systems were seemingly purchased to be dedicated Wii Sports machines.

Fast forward to the Wii U and the 3DS.

Nintendo’s successor systems seem to have a shades of the charm that worked for the Wii and DS. In the Wii U, a tablet that seems to offer the functionality of the DS with the graphics of the more modern game console. In the 3DS, a more powerful version of the DS that incorporates glasses free 3D in a time when consumers and marketers are obsessed with the technology. Yet, despite being two seemingly market friendly devices, both the Wii U and the 3DS fail to gain immediate traction.

The Wii U seems underpowered compared the event horizon that is the PS4 and Xbox One. The Wii U tablet doesn’t capture the imagination of owners of the system or designers of the games. Despite price cuts and a few excellent titles, the Wii U languishes in the shadow of its competitors. Nintendo themselves cannot produce software at a fast enough rate and third parties abandon the platform because of its low install base.

The 3DS struggled to gain traction and its 3D technology, while novel, didn't inspire purchases. After an aggressive price cut, the 3DS begins to show signs of life, but its 3D functionality is reduced from a selling point, to a talking point, to no point. The technology is seemingly so unimportant to its success that Nintendo actually releases a 2DS. A cheaper model of the 3DS with a redesigned form factor and no 3D functionality.

So where do you go from there? Apparently, you double down.

Enter the Switch.

The Nintendo Switch is, remarkably, a hybrid beast of sorts. Its design pulls from the Wii, the Wii U, and the DSes. Despite everything that has happened over the last 11 years, Nintendo seems confident that it was right all along and that the technology has perhaps finally caught up with their vision.

While it is being marketed as a home console, the Switch is seemingly a portable at heart. The portable tablet portion of the Switch powers it completely. When you want to play on your TV, you just slam the tablet into a docking station. This docking station provides constant power to the tablet, so the Switch seemingly increases its clock speeds and allows the system to run a bit faster than in portable mode.

The controllers which attach and detach from the tablet are clearly designed in the spirit of the Wii. They can track some motion, sense objects, have “HD rumble” and also serve as a small self contained controller. The tablet has a touch screen.

None of this is new ground for Nintendo. In fact, they are all very well worn. What worked and failed for the Wii and the Wii U are now together in one home. Can this possibly work? Time will tell, but there are clearly a few things that Nintendo can do to help make this system a success.

1. Provide owners with consistent 1st party software support.

If you’re a Wii owner feeling burned, you’re almost certainly not alone. Nintendo has a cavalcade of stars and their studios simply don’t seem to be able to produce software at a fast enough rate for their ravenous fans. Make Zelda, Metroid and Mario a priority. Sprinkle in Kirby, Donkey Kong. Make some interesting games with the Ice Climbers and the kid from Star Tropics. Do whatever it takes. Spend some of your money to get some more developers staffing your first party offices.

2. Price accordingly

This is going to be a hard one. The Wii U and the 3DS both could’ve really gone to be at least $50 cheaper out of the gates. It’s a hard business and nobody wants to take a loss, but it’s kind of a tough pill to swallow paying more for a Switch when it is demonstrably less powerful than the two other consoles it hopes to compete with. Even with the cool portability factor and the screen it is really hard to justify. Of course it’s going to sell out initially, but will it be enough to carry them? If sales trail off too hard and too fast the market is not going to react well.

3. Court indies

Nintendo’s indie games are not good enough. Look at Sony and do your best to do something like that.

4. Make your brand more than just Mario

It’s funny to think that the company that had a “Seal of Quality” to certify that games on its NES system were not garbage, let the Wii become a graveyard of garbage. Good, consistent first party support backed up with interesting and polished independent efforts will go a long way to making the Switch a great system to play games, not the only system to play Nintendo games.

5. Be online friendly

Gaming is a social experience and online multiplayer has become a big part of that. Nintendo’s online services are poor. While it works, it’s hard to compare it to Xbox live and PSN. It’s unnecessarily difficult to use, almost to the point of user hostility. It was perhaps excusable because it was free, but seeing as how Nintendo wants to charge for the service on the Switch it needs to better or cheap.

Also, the 1 month game rental is not an equivalently good value to the free offerings of Sony and Microsoft. Just let them keep the game.

6. Be user friendly

While Mario’s moustached face is very friendly, the business end of Nintendo’s relationship with its users is often as pointy as a stick. Having to purchase the same the Virtual Console game time and time again is not friendly, it’s downright mean. Leveraging your huge and coveted back catalogue should be a reason to keep people locked into your ecosystem, not a reason to never buy something again.

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At the end of the day, the Switch’s chances for success aren’t clear to me. I admit that I am excited by the system and the potential it shows. It speaks to me in a way that my Wii U and 3DS do not. I don’t think about my Wii U and I don’t use my 3DS much. The idea of bringing a decent console experience with me anywhere is pretty exciting. 

What scares me though, is that Nintendo is doubling down on a currently losing formula. Their launch lineup is thin and their release schedule following it aren’t exactly a massive treasure trove.

This new console for Nintendo represents a new beginning for some old ideas. Its success is far from assured and the weight placed upon it by industry eyes seem to be exceedingly heavy.

48 Hours Later, the Apple Watch

About forty eight hours ago, I opened up a package containing a space gray, 42mm, Apple Watch Sport. Having followed the launch of the device for the weeks leading up to it, there were few surprises when I first opened up the package. I knew what the watch looked like and having tried on the watch at an Apple store, I knew what it felt like to wear it. Still, there was something about it that was undeniably interesting to me; It was the promise of a new device.

Smartwatches are not new, they've been around for a while. I have not ever owned a smartwatch, but I have a fairly good sense of the field. To listen to the pundits, the problem with the smartwatch industry so far is that no manufacturer has been able to truly find a compelling raison d'être that easily answers the question of "what does it do" and "do I need one". Interestingly though, after spending some time with the Apple Watch, I'm beginning to wonder if those are the right questions to be asking.

Smartwatches are products seemingly torn between being an extension of the phone or a phone unto itself. In design they struggle with the choice of appearing like a conventional watch or some new form factor. In terms of interface they are stuck trying to interpret our gestures and input methods from much larger devices. The Apple Watch faces all of these struggles and questions too. Apple's device is certainly bold in terms of the choices it makes, eschewing iOS and its visuals and inputs for something completely different. Over my first days with the Apple Watch I am left impressed, but perhaps just beginning to see the value that the watch offers. The Apple Watch's value is perhaps best understood not by what it does like an iPhone, but what it does as a unique device.

Inevitably the question anyone gets asked about a new device is "What does it do?". Generally speaking there are two ways this question will be answered. The first way is to have a very clear and obvious demonstration of the technology that will wow the person asking the question. Think about the first time you saw an HDTV, the question of, "what does it do", was essentially a pointless activity as the product largely spoke for itself. You flick it on and it's TV but better. The second way the question of "what does it do" gets answered is with a long show that will generally leave the inquiring party a bit confused and underwhelmed. Much like showing a grandparent your new game console, they probably won't quite understand or appreciate the difference in fidelity or capability that the new machine offers you. The Apple Watch falls somewhere in between these two demos. People who are inclined to be impressed probably will be and those who are not will probably not be.

When people kept asking to see the watch today, I would flick my wrist and they would see exactly what they were expecting to see, a watch. The Apple Watch is in its namesake alone, a watch, and this is probably the first thing it should show you. What that watch face looks like will vary greatly. It could be the same boring face they've seen for the whole lives or something splashy like animated jellyfish or a visual representation of the sun rising and setting. The watch faces are fun and easy to personalize and I suspect people will spend a great deal of time fiddling with the many complications and visual options available to them. Personally, I've opted for a fairly muted face; A classic analogue clock with complications to display the weather, my activity (fitness) tracker and my upcoming calendar appointments.

In a demo, this is the point where people are going to ask what else it can do. It's not an unreasonable question because they've already seen a watch before. Yes, the Apple Watch is doing more and displaying it on a small high resolution screen, but it alone isn't going to dazzle many people. So what else can it do? Surprisingly, quite a lot. With varying degrees of functionality the watch does email, messages, photos, music, maps, fitness tracking, weather, calendar, phone and more. Add in third party applications and there isn't much that the watch doesn't do. This too is impressive, but probably not going to really make a believer out of a skeptical inquiring party. Your phone can already do all of this, and it does it well. So what exactly does the watch do that makes it unique? As I alluded to earlier, the watch impresses in the moments when it does what your phone doesn't. Unfortunately for anyone you're demoing the watch to, these moments are not easily demonstrated. 

The most impressive moments of the Apple watch are hard to demo because they are the small moments that occur during daily use. There is an incredible amount of joy to be had from the gentle tapping on of your wrist as your watch passes along a message from a loved one. There is a certain enjoyment of glancing quickly at a message and being done with it before you could have even removed your phone from your pocket. There is a sense of achievement watching your activity rings fill up. There is a jolt of motivation when the watch encourages you to finish a simple exercise. These are a collection of nearly frictionless moments that add up over the course of a day and will presumably continue to add up over weeks, months and years.

In terms of design, I think that removing friction of interaction continues to be one of the most undervalued attributes a product can offer. Small things like thumbprint scanners on smartphones were derided but have become commonplace because they are simply more efficient. The cynical argument made whenever friction reducing elements are introduced is that they are barely meaningful interactions and that the old actions were not sufficiently arduous to warrant replacing. Time, however, has shown us that generally these arguments don't hold much weight as superfluous inventions such as smartphones, televisions and computers continue to be made and improved upon.

My time so far with the Apple Watch has been limited, but I'm starting to understand two things about it fairly well. The first thing is that it shows, if nothing else, that there is definitely room for a wearables market. What the shape of that market is going to be isn't totally clear, but I think Apple's entry into the market shows that they believe the growth potential is going to come from an established industry. Google clearly believe this too as they have invested heavily in watches and glasses as future technology platforms. Microsoft on the other hand seems to believe that wearables might literally be something bigger, with helmets/visors and chunky bands being offered.

The second thing I'm beginning to see is that as personal technology becomes less and less about leaps and bounds and more about efficiencies and reducing the friction of interaction, the usual questions are destined to become less meaningful. Products like the Apple Watch, the Moto 360 or Google Glass are not going to be sold on questions of "what does it do" and perhaps the even larger "do you need it". Instead the question is going to shift by necessity to "do you want it" or "does it appeal to you"? The reality is that most of the products we own are not needs. We buy vehicles well beyond our needs and accessories (like smartphones or watches) that are beyond the simple objects we truly require. Instead these purchases are made largely around desire. As consumers we generally want things, because they appeal to us aesthetically and functionally. The Apple Watch might be one of the first personal technology products to embrace the idea that it is not a need product, it is a want product (perhaps best evidenced by the $20,000 gold Apple Watch Edition models). This might be an unappealing truth for some people to consider because admitting to wanting something may seem akin to idolatry. 

To conclude: how do I feel about the Apple Watch after forty eight hours? It feels fun and different. The device immediately feels personal, but not immediately necessary. It has been lovingly designed and it looks and feels amazing. The interactions are cleverly considered, but not completely intuitive when compared to the interactive language of smartphones. The software has all the rough edges and fancy flourishes one might expect from a 1.0 product. For those inclined, the Apple Watch is exciting and endlessly fascinating. It's hard to deny that the Apple Watch is an interesting product that will no doubt continue to generate significant attention. No matter how one feels about Apple, when they make new products the industry and its watchers take notice.

So, do you need an Apple Watch? No, but you may very well want one.

Thoughts on Battlefield Hardline and the enduring hatred towards EA

Battlefield Hardline

I think that Hardline might be one of the most interesting entries in the Battlefield franchise in a long time. Each entry of the main series feels endlessly fun when you're playing with others, but the single player game is generally a horrible slog. Battlefield 4 tried its darnedest to replicate the sort of highs and super highs of a Call of Duty campaign, but failed to do so. It's hard to put one's finger on the exact reason. The game was composed of the same set piece moments and high flying stunts you'd expect from a Call of Duty game yet somehow they managed to be devoid of the intensity.

Hardline on the other hand, manages a balance of character development and gameplay that no other game in the series has managed. It's still far from perfect, but the characters are genuinely fun and funny. The tone is absurd and works best when it shies away from taking itself too seriously. Detractors love to point to the (spoilers) cocaine and train scene. In the scene the crew somehow manages to wedge a forklift loaded with cocaine in the middle of rail tracks as a train bears down upon them. The train hits it and then they are covered in what I can only assume is flour. It's silly, but it works. There is very little in the game that is believable to this point, and to lionize this scene for its inauthenticity is foolish.

In many ways I feel sorry for Visceral, who worked their butts off to deliver an accessible Battlefield entry which caters to both fans and newcomers alike. Why do I feel sorry for them? Because EA is probably going to bury them this winter with the release of Star Wars Battlefront. 

Long and short version: if you're fishing for a fun first person shooter to help pass the time, I'd give a thumbs up to trying on Battlefield Hardline.

EA and the Hate Train

Full disclosure: I worked for Electronic Arts for several years in the early 2000s.

I've never understood why people dump on EA quite as much as they do. I can relate to a certain extent because they've released some pretty bad products and killed some beloved studios. Of course so has the rest of the industry.

Yet somehow EA has been voted multiple times to be the worst company in America, beating out companies who helped tank the entire global economy. EA has won numerous accolades for being an incredible employer and for its commitment to diverse representation in its games, yet they are accused of being an industry crushing force. Check out this (admittedly three year old) article on how EA is bad for a plethora of reasons including having "broad appeal". How can a company possibly win mindshare when their target audience is upset that they are catering to as many of them as possible?

Gaming culture can be incredibly entitled. Look no further than the deluge of .99 cent games on the iOS app store that get ripped for having in app purchases or for being too short for their value, while the top grossing games are free and subsist on marketing and the same in app purchases that gamers hate.

According to metacritic EA has released about 15% more games (since metacritic started recording data) than Activision and holds a 72% average rating versus Activision's 66%. These are two huge publishers that people love to hate on and yet they've managed to release hundreds of games that average very well. These are average ratings that movie studios would kill for (not that games and movies are reviewed in the same fashion, but I think the point remains valid).

Not everything that comes from these studios is going to be gold and I respect a critical eye. However, the endless thrashing and shouting into the void of negativity surrounding EA feels like a tired old routine that says more about the mindset of gamers than it does about EA as a company.

A review for The Order: 1886

In the days leading up to the release of The Order: 1886 some eager person popped the game into their Playstation 4 and somehow managed to complete the game in about 5 hours. They recorded the footage, promptly placed it on YouTube and everyone began to debate the merits of the game. Eventually the footage was pulled, but the damage was done; The Order: 1886 was a certifiably short game.

Generally speaking reviews were mixed to negative on the game. Most people addressed the time controversy by acknowledging the game was indeed short, but took slightly longer to complete (7-8 hours) than the YouTube video seemed to show. There was talk of quick time events and gorgeous graphics, rumination on gameplay and story. The words "boring" and "dull" seemed to pepper reviews. Polygon even opened their review with the rather stern statement that "Games like The Order: 1886 are why [they] don't pre-order games anymore".

Seeing as how press copies of games don't generally come flying into my lap, I panicked and quickly considered my own pre-order of the game. Should I cancel it? Did I really want another Thief on my hands? I quickly visited Amazon and saw the game had already shipped. It seemed I was about to trudge through what I was prepared to accept was probably one of the dullest games ever created.

When it arrived, I tossed the game in and gave it a go. What did I really have to lose beyond a few hours? So I started in, trudging through a slow opening and wondered what I getting myself into. Eventually some 7 or 8 hours later, I was watching the credits scroll. How did I feel about it all in the end? Pretty good. Decidedly entertained.

Everything people had been saying about The Order: 1886 was largely true. It was short and loaded with game elements that are not original or particularly in vogue. The story and character motivations can seem a bit silly at times. As I played the game for myself, I was acutely aware of seeing all the things that had been mentioned in the various reviews I had read. Yet despite all of it, I never found it to be dull.

Perhaps I did find the game restrained, but I think in many ways that is commendable. Not every game needs to be an endless series of high risk and high tension set pieces. The Order: 1886 is slower and more methodical in how it builds its incredibly realized world. It eschews the bombastic and instead delivers a game that is slower and subtler than its contemporaries.

In the end The Order: 1886 is seemingly the sort of game you make it. If you want and are able to immerse yourself in its detail and story, I think many more will walk away impressed. I found it easy to get lost in the world, inspecting all of its details. I found myself wanting to know more about this world. It is a game that shows rather than tells. For many, that will be a frustrating proposition, but for myself this game provided an exceptionally interesting adventure.

The games I played in 2014

I present to you, my always popular list of all the games released in the last calendar year that I have played. Some games on the list might appear to be releases from 2013 or earlier, but I assure you I played some new/delayed version released on some other platform in 2014. Each game gets a one to two line review. Enjoy.

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• Nidhogg - Fun game, bad controller support.
• The Banner Saga - Everyone loves a tactical RPG. I've played 3 minutes of this game.
• Octodad - It's weird that a game with awkward controls is a thing.
• Outlast - Too scary.
• The Wolf Among Us - Easily the best Telltale game.
• Threes - Best game of the year? Best designed if nothing else.
• Bravely Default - Fun game that is exactly like an old school JRPG. Overhyped and underloved all at once.
• Assassin's Creed 4: Freedom Cry - One of the few pieces of single player DLC I've ever played. It was fun.
• Guacamelee: Gold Edition - Metroidvania in Mexico. Love it.
• Rayman Legends - Rayman is still a fun game that nobody plays and nobody really needs.
• Strider - A fun remake/reboot of a game that no one under 30 remembers.
• Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze - If nostalgia was the theme of video games in 2014, I would not be surprised. It's fun, but probably not as fun as the original DKC.
• Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare - Joke game that is somehow fun despite the joke.
• Thief - I wrote a big thing about Thief. I don't remember what I said, but ultimately this game was a huge downer and has probably killed this franchise.
• Dark Souls 2 - Not spelt with a 2 but an II. Either way it is a critical darling of a game that I would argue is actually questionably bad in many, many ways.
• Hearthstone - This might be the best game of 2014. It's free to play and somehow compelling as hell.
• Towerfall: Ascension - In a year with couch play being a thing, this is the best of those things. It's better than smash.
• Luftrausers - Vlambeer is a cool developer. This is a cool little game they made.
• Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes - One of the dumber titles of the year, but still pretty fun.
• Infamous: Second Son - One of the best looking and easily best playing games of the year. Seattle is a great setting for a super hero game.
• Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil Edition - A huge personal favourite this year. The console version is divine. I played it so much it gave my TV image retention issues.
• Fez - Finally got to play Fez. It was charming.
• Goat Simulator - We live in a weird time for games.
• FTL: Advanced Edition - Just as good as FTL. The game translates better to the iPad than it did the PC.
• Hitman: GO - A fun puzzle game with an even better visual style.
• Peggle 2 - It's more Peggle. That is a good thing. Best sound design of 2014?
• Transistor - A beautiful stylish game that didn't grab me quite like Bastion did. Great soundtrack.
• Wolfenstein: The New Order - A surprisingly good game that firmly plants itself in old school FPS design. Somehow Wolfenstein even manages to have a good story.
• Watch Dogs - A super hyped new IP that mostly delivered on its promises, but still failed to impress long term.
• Broken Age: Act 1 - Beautiful, charming and funny.
• Mario Kart 8 - I have played and possibly own every installment of the Mario Kart series. This is one of the best.
• Valiant Hearts: The Great War - A game that surprises and charms with its characters and art style. Probably not as a good as their REALLY good E3 trailer.
• Rogue Legacy - Really good, really hard.
• The Last of Us Remastered - As good as the first time around, even better with the inclusion of the superb 'Left Behind' DLC.
• Road Not Taken - A puzzle game from the makers of 'Triple Town'. Triple Town was enjoyable in its simplicity, this game, while charming, is too complex for its own good.
• The Swapper - Kind of like a weird depressing Portal in space. I dug it.
• Hohokum - Best soundtrack of 2014? Maybe even best visuals?
• Hotline Miami - Kind of a cheat because this game came out everywhere before 2014, but its release on PS4 lets me include it again on my 2014 list. This game is awesome.
• Minecraft (PS4) - Just play it on your computer. Minecraft on consoles feels awful.
• Don't Starve - It's a fun little game I guess, but I think I kind of hate it. Too stressful.
• Velocity 2X - Despite sounding like it's twice as fast as velocity, I think it was just a sequel. It's fun, but maybe a little too speedrun focused for my tastes.
• Destiny - Controversial and huge, Destiny was fun and now has been expelled into the void. A dedicated group of fans will keep this franchise alive for a long time.
• NHL 15 - Like every NHL game. Consistently fun.
• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - This is a fun game. It's not as good as everyone keeps telling you, but I assure you, it's very fun.
• Super Smash Bros (3DS) - I'm not sure why I got this game. It's fun, but the 3DS version is definitely the lesser of the two.
• Spelunky - I want to love you Spelunky, but you hate me so.
• Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare - Call of Duty is so tired you can feel the pain in its knees. For what it's worth this is the best entry in ages, but the series needs some time away.
• The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth - A tick burrowed itself into my character's head. Such is the nature of this game.
• Assassin's Creed Unity - AC is tired and needs some rest. Another fun entry, but the release schedule is killing the creativity of these games. AC is desperate for an engaging story to appear.
• Dragon Age: Inquisition - Probably the best game of the year. There is so much to do in this game.
• Far Cry 4 - Like Far Cry 3, but with one more. It's very good.
• The Talos Principle - A thinking man's Portal. Very good, but maybe not as immediately engaging as Portal.
• Wayward Souls - A great roguelike/zeldalike for iOS. Best mobile game of the year?

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I think that's it. I played a lot of darn video games this year.

Dag yo.

Epic wants people to test Fortnite

Epic Games has finally started taking the wraps off their free to play game Fortnite. They also seem to be looking for people to play the game and tell them if it's any good. You can sign up here.

When kickstarters and success combine

Joel Johnson (great name) at Valleywag has put up an interesting piece looking at the fallout of the Oculus VR - Facebook deal from the eyes of a Kickstarter backer.

The fact that everyone involved made a rational choice to sell out isn't what I find frustrating, I don't think. (I don't even particularly care that Oculus sold to Facebook and not, say, Microsoft. Ultimately a sale is a sale, even if Facebook is the worst possible partner for Oculus of any of the large technology companies.) It's that I, as a consumer, bought into the narrative that underpins almost every Kickstarter project: that without my contribution, something novel would not exist. And while that remains true—and is a reason that Kickstarter's owners continue to underline that their goal is to fund "creators" and not "products"—Oculus' sale to Facebook also highlights the disparity inherent in the current capitalist and investment structure, where small investors are excluded from returns by regulation, but investors with more capital can quickly extract more capital by pushing a quick expansion into untapped markets, even without proving that those markets actually, truly exist.

I mean, I don't even get to claim my contribution to Oculus on my taxes as a charitable deduction.

There has been a lot of knee jerk reaction to the sale of Oculus VR. Most of the reaction is based on Facebook and how the general public perceives Facebook's potential involvement in this project (Though I would point out that Facebook's involvement in other big companies such as Instagram and Whats App have continued those services with little to no interference). Reaction from backers of the Kickstarter have been largely negative and Johnson's point is particularly salient. I'm not sure that I agree with everything Johnson has to say on the issue, but I think it's fair to say this has the potential to change the nature of Kickstarter.

Flappy Golf is sublime

The good people at Noodlecake have baked up a delicious twist on the ever expanding Flappy Bird formula: Flappy Golf. 

Oculus VR acquired by Facebook for $2 billion.

I had some other stuff I wanted to write about today, but then Facebook just threw down $2 billion dollars and purchased Oculus VR. As per The Verge:

Zuckerberg says that Facebook will "focus on helping Oculus build out their product and develop partnerships to support more games." But he makes clear that after Oculus sees through its gaming ambitions, Facebook will expand the product into new territory. "We're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face — just by putting on goggles in your home." Zuckerberg equates Oculus to "a new communication platform" and clearly has a vision that extends far beyond the gaming focus that helped Oculus become a smash Kickstarter success.

Seems like a crazy diversification by Facebook, but ultimately it seems to make sense. That being said, from a game angle I can't help but think this will hurt more than it will help.