Deus Ex: Invisible War - Thoughts

[contains minor spoilers]

Having played Deus Ex and its sequel Deus Ex: Invisible War relatively close together, one thing is certain—Invisible War gets a bit of a bum rap. Though it's not nearly as inventive as its predecessor, Invisible War makes a valiant effort to stay loyal to the classic Deus Ex formula while also trying to modernize it in some ways. Of course, the parts where it flounders stick out like a sore thumb, but its certainly not a betrayal to its namesake, nor a black mark on the series... it remains a mostly fun—albeit inferior—entry in the franchise.

Is the game a step down from the original? Yes. Streamlining is a common occurrence among renovated sequels/reboots nowadays (largely due to the necessity of being console-friendly), so it's easy to look back and see how evident the signs were in Invisible War: locations are smaller, the game-space is far more restrictive, the inventory has been simplified, and skills have been outright abandoned. Biomods still play a significant role in the game but you're reduced to only having six of them, with a good portion of the enhancements being entirely passive. And on top of that, the game is far easier to blow through since you can dispatch most humanoids with little effort and gather a squadron's worth of medkits, omni-tools, and biomod canisters.

Yet simplification is not always a bad thing. No longer do you have to meddle in bothersome inventory management or hit pause to turn on several of your biomods for a single attack. A denser environment leads to a more meaningful use of space, and a smaller pool of biomods creates tougher choices on how to augment your character (I was torn between high melee damage and stealth optimization). While I enjoy having an assortment of gameplay options available to me, I can also appreciate how Invisible War cuts straight to the point. It may be too harsh of a cut at times—there's fewer NPCs for world-building and every "alternate path" is sadly brief—but for the most part, the direction Ion Storm took here makes sense.

Again, this is not to say I loathed the unrestrictive nature of the first game; the most memorable parts of Deus Ex were where I backed myself into a corner and had to puzzle out how my melee build could survive. By contrast, most of Invisible War's problems were solved by oafishly thwacking someone over the noggin, rendering them unconscious in one or two blows. The game also slips up by making combat against some highly armored enemies mandatory in a couple of sections, forcing me to forego my nonlethal tendencies and utilize explosive ordnance. I may have been disappointed that playing the first game as a pacifist was so difficult, but Invisible War exacerbates this problem to a ludicrous degree. To add to the list of frustrations, the AI is pretty mindless, the combat feels dated, by 2003 standards, and friendlies become aggressive due to strange circumstances (like if you happen upon a random spiderbot). Never would I argue that the gameplay design of this entry trumps the first.

Invisible War is also not as long as its predecessor, clocking out to nearly half of its length. This was somewhat of a blessing since the game didn't have long enough legs to support such a grandiose adventure, though it nevertheless remains an appetizer to Deus Ex's entree. Thankfully the plot was surprisingly robust—I came out satisfied with where the story went and the direction each faction took. True, it's idiotic that Saman was far more shallow and atavistic than he first appeared to be (I thought he'd be more Marx and less Spanish Inquisition), but I felt the direction taken with JC's side was superb, since the Helios merger was clearly a questionable choice. The only downside to the narrative I can think of was that it wasn't well supported with the text found throughout the world (sure did find a lot of coffee books [and yes, I get the metaphor]), yet I still enjoyed the story just as much as the first.

After landing in Cairo, I soon came across a checkpoint in the South Medina. What was striking about this checkpoint wasn't just that the SSC guard was a woman, but on her desk was a picture of her husband, as denoted by the text hovering over it. I thought to myself, "See, this is the kind of creative flair that adds to the world and gives even the lowliest enemy some personality." One mission later, that guard (and only that guard) had been aggro'd for some reason I couldn't comprehend (did the camera above the checkpoint not like me?), so I had to avoid that spot for the rest of the game. I feel this perfectly captured the dualistic nature of Invisible War: on one hand you have a cool follow-up to one of the greatest PC games of yore, but on the other... it sure can be dumb about stuff.
---------------------

Images obtained from: visualwalkthroughs.com

Ori and the Blind Forest - Thoughts

Good lord have mercy, Ori and the Blind Forest is a stunning game. It follows the Rayman Origins school of thought regarding its visuals: high fidelity assets, lavish brush strokes, smooth animation, and rich colors occupying every square inch of the screen. Where it differs from Ubisoft's limbless hero is clearly in its attitude—Rayman wholly embraces the wacky, while Ori is elegant and swells with emotion. The creative talent displayed by Moon Studios' artists and musicians nearly justifies the price point for the game, which makes the excellent gameplay nestled beneath the breathtaking exterior that much more fantastic. Though I don't think its exactly an innovative entry in the Metroidvania genre, I can earnestly state that Ori and the Blind Forest is one of the best platformers to hit the market since Super Meat Boy's debut.

I wouldn't classify the story as "light", but the plot in Ori isn't as heavy as it may seem at first. Like many others, I saw the reveal trailer for the game and thought it would be another slower-paced 2D adventure like Limbo or Valiant Hearts, so imagine my surprise when I heard it was an unapologetic reflex-based platformer! Nevertheless, the story here does pull at the heartstrings, though it's wise enough not to tell its tale in a heavy-handed way, giving the player plenty of control after the prologue. It's a good story too!—rarely do we receive simple, humanless narratives about nature—but Ori is undeniably at its most evocative whenever it lets the art and music flourish together.

I really can't understate how majestic the game is in motion, as the orchestral strings swirl in the background, illuminating your perilous journey through paths beset with bramble. At times the soundtrack reminded me of Journey with how impactful its crescendos were, the main theme's recurring motif striking me as a plaintive cry for this ravaged world. There's a dark, somewhat somber beauty in Ori that's fascinating to behold, whether it be in the arduous climb of the Ginso Tree or desolate waste of the Forlorn Ruins. You feel at both in awe of the ancient land and also a little terrified of it, cautious that death could be lurking around every alluring corner.

Ori and the Blind Forest isn't shy to punish either—like with Super Meat Boy, you'll have to think quick on your feet if you hope to make it to the credits. Thankfully you have the brilliant manual checkpoint system from They Bleed Pixels at your fingertips, so you can drop down a momentary save whenever are getting a tad risky. Spending points for perks on a skill tree also provide some nice customization in the face of a mostly-linear game, though they feel like forgettable trinkets in comparison to the stellar abilities you'll find scattered throughout the world.

I greatly adored how the trench coat in Axiom Verge invigorated 2D traversal, so I have to give equal props to the Bash upgrade here. As soon as I began utilizing it did I understand its potential, Ori suddenly going from a "cool and fun" game to an absolutely amazing (and frenetic!) one. While I was a bit lukewarm on the game mechanically at first, by then end I adored using my skills in tandem, excited whenever I had my repertoire tested on the fly. The final challenge in particular was wrought with trial and error, but I faithfully endured Ori's lashings because the game was so fun to play. For as much as I detest the decision to include areas that can't be revisited (meaning it was impossible to 100% the game on my run—a veritable sin for the Metroidvania genre), I actually look forward to replaying the game in the future because I had such a good time with it the first time around.

Where Moon Studios could've taken an easy road and let the visuals be the focal point of their experience, they actually went the full mile and made Ori and the Blind Forest an engaging platformer with some clever mechanics. I stated earlier that I don't think it's entirely innovative—the combat in particular can be downright deplorable thanks to the glare effects on the bullets—but the way it comes together forms such a cohesive whole that I can't help but look on in wonder. Ori is a sharp, energetic, and resplendent entry that knows precisely wants to do, and surpasses those goals with flying colors. I don't think it's a stretch to say it'll be some time before we see a game of its spectacular caliber again.

Ys: Origin - Thoughts

My journey through the world of Ys momentarily ends on Ys: Origin, the modern prequel to the first two Ys books (er, games). Origin takes the Oath in Felghana formula and refines it, hitching the blood-pumping action onto a linear path to reduce backtracking. Gone is the open world and its towns, replaced by more interesting levels, better bosses, and an overall smoother progression. It still remains an eccentric Ys game at heart, with its hard focus on leveling and generally unambitious plot, but I'd contest that it's the best one I've played so far.

Back in Ys I, there's a gargantuan tower that you climb in the latter half of the game that's surprisingly long and full of labyrinthine corridors. Ys: Origin revisits this tower in its entirety, basing the entire narrative around the 25 floor behemoth. Thankfully the game takes ample liberties in re-imagining its rooms, treasures, and gimmicks, providing a completely new experience in a somewhat familiar setting. Perhaps the only thing I miss is visiting towns—for better or worse, the tower is your home now—but at least there's still a colorful cast of NPCs to chat with.

Speaking of, there's a better sense of camaraderie and fealty in Origin compared to the other titles. No longer do you play as the reticent Adol visiting a foreign land; you have the choice between three characters related to Ys in some particular way, each with their own unique storyline. My playthrough delved into the struggles of Yunica, an ax-wielding understudy of the Holy Order bound by duty to locate and rescue the goddesses of Ys. It was refreshing to play a game in this series where you're not some perfect savior that everyone falls in love with, but instead a sheltered local that has her own hurdles to overcome. While the plot follows a pretty unremarkable structure, the NPCs feel like they play a far bigger role and the pacing of the story beats is great, interrupting the game at exactly the right time.

As I said in my Oath in Felghana entry, the story and presentation in this series always takes a backseat to the fast-paced gameplay. The action piggybacks off of Felghana, but the magic is perfectly balanced (I preferred all spells equally) and the enemies have been tremendously improved. Though each area may be somewhat gimmicky, the environmental hazards and enemy combinations completely outclass Felghana, no longer feeling like needless filler before the adrenaline-fueled bosses. Looking back there's still some things the designers could tweak (like mixing more hazards and enemy types together), but what's here is still the best Falcom has offered.

I cannot understate how great the boss fights are either; the jump in boss quality from Felghana to Origin is almost as large as Ys I to Ys II. While I enjoyed only a minority of the bosses in Felghana, Origin knocks it out of the park with nearly every single one. No longer is it difficult to decipher what is happening or how to avoid attacks—within one or two attempts you should be able to devise a strategy for taking down your foe. Every encounter (outside of that goddamn bat again) is fluid and fast paced, demanding that you to learn your opponent's moveset in order to survive. Perhaps the only problem is that since it is a Ys game, grinding one additional level out will decimate a boss, so it can be tricky to find the middle-ground between "overwhelmingly difficult" and "yawn".

Also, have I said how great the magic is? Charge attacks never lose their charm even after the 100th time.

Whereas Ys I & II left me lukewarm by the end, I was thrilled to finish Ys Origin. It avoids so many pitfalls that the previous entries fall into, finally coming together to form a game where I could side with the fanbase's praise. The music is also fantastic and sublime, which is par for the course really, but needs to be stated anyway. I will confess that Origin is great because it stands on the shoulders of its successors—there were multiple points where I thought "oh, this is a cool throwback to Ys I"—but I don't think it diminishes from its own personal accomplishments. If the newer titles in the series are more like this, then it appears I have some games in the future to look forward to.

Firewatch - Thoughts

[contains spoilers]

Slower-paced games that are centered around natural, beautiful environments can elicit a weird reaction from me. Like, I enjoy gazing out upon a breathtaking vista as much as the next person, but for it to have a lasting impression there usually needs to be more to it. As much as I enjoy exploring the rich worlds of Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, the crux of those experiences hinge on their mysteries for me. No matter how gorgeous a game looks, if my only action is to walk through it at a leisurely pace, I need something substantial to ponder in the meantime.

So as you can probably guess, I have some mixed feelings regarding Campo Santo's debut Firewatch.

There's promise here, no doubt. Right out of the gate Firewatch throws you a curve ball by exploring Henry's life pre-lookout days (albeit in a slightly ham-fisted way), doing the bold thing and—*gasp*—giving the protagonist a compelling backstory. At first I was a little puzzled over its inclusion but I reasoned it was a pretty smart move: it inducts the player into Henry's tumultuous past and gives them a reason to be hesitant towards Delilah. The way the game resolves Julia'a presence through Alzheimer's is a really clever and uncommon thing to see too: it allows her to persist in the story but prompts the player to move on.

The push-and-pull nature of Delilah and Henry's relationship is stupendous, easily becoming the focal point of the game. Even pit against the majesty of the softly rendered Wyoming wilderness, the moments where Delilah radios in to talk to you are among the high points of your days; the banter is well-written (though a mite sarcastic at times) and the small choices you make in the conversations feel like they matter. There isn't a significant payoff for your decisions, but I feel the moment-to-moment challenge of choosing an answer is worthy of merit despite narrative inevitability. This isn't to downplay the visuals either; like The Witness, the game deserves praise for its vibrant color tones, varied locales, and soothing atmosphere. Firewatch may be short and move at a snail's pace, but its characters and world feel well realized and very much alive.

I can't really say the same about the story, unfortunately. I'm not bothered by the fact that there's only one ending or that the central mystery leads nowhere—I'm disappointed that Firewatch steered away from Delilah and Henry's relationship. I do think the subversion it took with conspiracy theories was admirable, expanding on how isolation and paranoia can mix to brew a very potent (and nearly tenable!) concoction. As much as one may detest the numerous red herrings, every event and action in the game has a reason for unfolding the way it did, though I imagine many players will get flustered by the abundant amount of information stored in Ned's hideaway (plus they have to dispel their own convictions while digesting each factoid). It admittedly stumbles a bit in the delivery, but I respect the game for what it was trying to achieve.

However, the conspiratorial element doesn't compliment Delilah and Henry's relationship as much as it distracts from it. The ingredients are there for a very fascinating tale about human connection deprived of physical interaction—both seek to escape into one another, yet for different reasons—but it feels undercooked by the finale. Despite how well the ending captured the poignancy of their miscommunication, I felt that if the game had spent all of its effort on exploring the nuance of their relationship, I would've been wholly onboard. Instead, it pushes the player into pursuing something fishy out in the woods, treating the park as suspect rather than letting it evolve into a welcomed, shared experience. I think the discovery of Brian's body being the catalyst for Delilah's departure works well, but there could've been a more natural way to tie it into the story instead of using it as a springboard for Ned's manic antics. The father/son material is tragic and works well on paper, but it should've remained secondary to the main characters.

A lot of this makes it seem like I take umbrage with one single facet out of the entire experience, but the problem is that a game of this particular style rests on its story. I can see some being sated by the delightful visuals alone, but for me it was different; near the end after I had fetched the ax, I realized that traversing the park had become "normalized", meaning all I had left was to anticipate was where the mystery would lead. The tension of discussing Julia with Delilah had been put on hold, and our own personal insecurities (besides the paranoia) appeared to have dissipated. All that was left for me to ponder was what awaited me deep in the forest, but that...

I guess that just wasn't enough.

We're at a point with video games where the most run-of-the-mill topics can be explored and made interesting. Gone Home was phenomenal not just because it made a single house feel lived-in, but that its heartwarming tale turned the ordinary exotic. Firewatch feels like it took the supernatural bent of Gone Home and wanted to delve into that deception more thoroughly, enabling the player to become as lonely and paranoid as the emotionally wracked character s/he's controlling. It consciously shelves the humane aspect of the story in doing so, which is a great pity since it brushed upon one of the greatest sources of loneliness there is—a long distance relationship that goes nowhere. I didn't dislike it, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm sad it shied away from (what I feel is) its full potential.

Hexcells - Thoughts

Matthew Brown's Hexcells is great! That's the most important thing that needs to be said about the game, but I suppose I'll expand on it a little more.

For the uninitiated, Hexcells is basically Minesweeper meets Picross with a tiny sprinkle of Sudoku. Your only controls are to either destroy or highlight an orange hex with your mouse cursor, and the goal of each puzzle is to destroy/highlight all of the orange hexes using the numerical hints given to you. The starting hints are simple—the numbers inside of destroyed hexes will tell you how many highlighted hexes surround them. You can see this in the screenshot down below:

This puzzle is easy enough that it can be solved through cursory deduction. If you're a Minesweeper amateur like me, the game thankfully eases you into its basic mechanics early on, but be warned: it'll turn into a brain-busting mess before you know it! The first Hexcells game is relatively straightforward (it took me two hours to "perfect" it), but the following Hexcells Plus and Hexcells Infinite took me 10 hours each to plow through. More hint types are piled on as you progress through each game, and the way they shape your comprehension of the game is pretty astounding.

Talking about numerical puzzle games like these are difficult, because you'll either like it or you won't. If you're looking for a twist on the Minesweeper or Picross formula on Steam for an absurdly cheap price (all three games can be bought for under $3 during a sale!), then Hexcells is a no-brainer. I had a damn good time with it!

The Witness - Thoughts

In its entirety, Jonathan Blow's The Witness exists as a challenge. Nearly everything about it is designed to instigate and confound, from its textless puzzles to the verbose audio logs. But it doesn't seek to halt your progress—merely impede, momentarily. It's a game designed around the "aha!" moment, crafted meticulously together to spur your curiosity and wonder. The game's mysterious island will submerge you in instances of apophenia and splendor, kindling your imagination and asking you to seriously think about some of its puzzles. If you play it without a guide, you're bound to have an amazing time.

Broken down to its core components, the gameplay in The Witness is all about clicking on circles and drawing lines. It may not seem like there's ~30 hours of content with that description, but you'll interact with the game's systems in clever ways: perhaps you'll see multiple "exit" points for the lines, or there will be strange symbols on the panel that will bar your way, or maybe you can't even locate what you're supposed to be drawing lines on. Similar to Fez, there's a lexicon of symbols that you'll have to manually decode, but the way they're adjusted and oriented changes up constantly.

But that's what makes the game fun! You know nothing going into it, but by the journey's close you'll be witness to the furtive ways in which the island works. The game guides your hand but does so from the shadows, allowing you to explore any of its locations once you're free from the starting area. Of course some locales will be harder than others, but the nonlinear approach to learning the rules of the world make the game seem far more open and exploratory compared to many other puzzlers. Even when you reach the game's conclusion you'll still be interacting with the panels in very clever—and devious!—ways, never quite sure if you've fully digested everything the island has to offer.

And if the puzzles don't seem to stump you, the inscrutable text will. Blow's natural leanings towards "pretentiousness" have not been curbed since Braid, and I think that's great! I'm all for a larger diversity in gaming. There's a place in this medium for Mario and Call of Duty's A to B storyline just as there is for convoluted meta-narrative pieces like The Beginner's Guide and The Witness. Plus Blow raises some really interesting (if vague) questions with the texts compiled here, weaving their meanings into the "challenge" aspect of the game itself. The narrative is one part celebration of human ingenuity, and another part condemnation of our categorical tendencies, with a ton of angles to approach each side from. Plus Tarkovskiy gets "name dropped", which is pretty cool.

The final thing worth discussing is the art direction. Blow and his team absolutely nailed their attempt to make a modern Myst in style alone, having distinct portions of the island that work harmoniously together. There's a ton of color used in each setting; at times I found myself wondering why other games aren't nearly as vivid and lush with their color palettes. Seriously, the colors are so strong and distinctive that it almost comes off almost as cell-shaded, but continues to deceive you with its realism. Plus the aforementioned apophenia moments are unforgettable—there's so many little details put into the environment that the game may be worth it for the art design alone (er, as long as you don't mind the price of admission).

I have my own theories on what Blow was trying to achieve with The Witness, and I hope that if you're intrigued by what you've read, you'll give it a shot too. It's a welcoming game despite the isolation (kinda the inverse of SOMA), and the puzzles found within are superb. During my time on this beautiful and vibrant island, I only needed to look up a solution for one of puzzles out of the +500 I completed (the ship [sigh]); nothing is ever so hard that the answer lies out of your reach, though you'll likely have to break out the ol' pen and paper when the going gets rough. The Witness is a fantastic experience, from start to finish.

SOMA - Thoughts

[contains minor spoilers]

To put it simply, SOMA is phenomenal. As a fan of Frictional's past work (Penumbra trilogy, Amnesia: The Dark Descent), I'm stoked that they've outdone themselves for their most recent release, and could not be more impressed—or enraptured!—with SOMA's underwater wasteland. While it does little to expand off of Amnesia's revolutionary gameplay, SOMA's philosophical conundrums will linger with you far longer than its scares ever could. At times you may even find yourself thankful you're not living in a reality so flush with robotics; the concept of "humanity" aggressively dissolves when consciousness can be adapted into ones and zeroes, capable of being uploaded, saved, and duplicated.

The most important thing to note is that SOMA isn't exactly pure horror. It's true that there are malformed monstrosities and scary moments lurking down in the depths, but the game focuses far more on oppression, misfortune, and moral grays. In that sense, horror is far from the main draw; perhaps I can best equate it to how fear works within the more action-packed Dead Space, being a tool of delivery for tense encounters. But whereas Isaac Clarke's battle against the Necromorphs is one of physical apprehension, Simon Jarrett's deep-sea struggle is centered around existential dread.

As soon as you (playing as Simon) get your brain scanned, you're immediately transported to a dilapidated sub-aquatic environment. You'll come across no other autonomous humans (there are plenty of corpses) and the only true ally you have in the game can come off as detached and rude at times (I still really liked her). You'll learn that it's impossible to return to the surface, and the only hope humanity has now is to live on in as pioneers in a digital world. And in order to ensure their survival, you'll have to make sacrifices that will force you to grapple with the very nature of consciousness itself. Nearly everything that happens in SOMA is meant to make you feel uncomfortable in a cerebral way, targeting existential anxiety over the more commonly evoked visceral nausea. And it succeeds very well at this.

That doesn't mean that the game does everything right. The monster encounters stay too close to Amnesia's "patrolling in the darkness" design, and the wounded effect is straight-up headache inducing (it's cool, but detrimental to playing the game!) However I can overlook these gripes thanks to how utterly convincing the game's world is. The sound design is lurid and foreboding, the voice acting is uncanny and human, and the art design put into each of the Pathos II stations (and the abyssal endgame areas) are both haunting and breathtaking. Nearly every step of the way is meant to make you feel lonely, separated from the life you once knew, now stumbling upon the threshold of futility. Even the main plot wraps up in a masterfully bittersweet way, prompting a constant stream of conflicting messages and "what if" scenarios in your head as you contemplate questions rare to the video game form (which is surprising given the AI obsession lately).

The scariest thing for me about going into SOMA blind was how/if Frictional could move forward after Amnesia's success. I'd go as far to argue that Amnesia is one of the greatest horror games of all time, yet still—despite the odds—SOMA has become my favorite title of theirs. It's a fascinating experience, gorgeous in a very cold, calculating way, offering forth a future that makes the modern man tremble in his corporeal form. Perhaps what's even more uncomfortable about it is that the questions it poses have the possibility—some centuries from now—not to be seen as frightening anymore, but rather, merely mundane.

(Had I played SOMA in 2015, it would've easily cracked my top five favorites from that year—hopefully I'll leverage my time better in 2016!)