Now that your expectations for excitement have been sufficiently lowered, let’s talk about what I didn’t dig…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Untitled Goose Game<\/h3>\n
<\/div>Yes, I know this was a beloved indie darling this year, and only a complete monster would put it on a “Worst of 2019” list. But see, this isn’t a “Worst of 2019” list, remember?<\/p>\n
I’ll admit that this game is clever, charming, and innovative. The world is wonderfully built and the titular goose is beautifully animated. Indeed, it’s probably the greatest waterfowl to ever appear in any video game on any platform.<\/p>\n
The problem is, I just didn’t like playing it.<\/p>\n
Two things bothered me. One, I wasn’t really into the ultra-specific laundry list of goals the game gave you. I would have preferred something more open-ended and exploration based. Instead of “Steal all the items for a picnic and bring them to this location”, I would have preferred something more like, “Frustrate this person so they leave”, with the game giving you lots of ways to do that and allowing you to discover them on your own. I also didn’t like how vague some of the goals were.<\/p>\n
The other thing that annoyed me was the long reset times. When the game tells you to “make the kid wear the wrong glasses”, it takes you five seconds to solve the problem conceptually and five minutes to enact that solution. I immediately knew I had to steal glasses from the store, honk at the kid as he was cleaning his glasses, and then swap the glasses when he dropped them. But then you end up standing there for minutes on end, watching the kid cycle through his activities and waiting for “clean glasses” to come up. Oops. I missed the timing window and he recovered his glasses. I guess I’ll just stand here doing nothing for a couple more minutes until the next window opens up.<\/i><\/p>\n
Meh.<\/p>\n
The most enjoyment I got out of the game was when I watched a speed run of the whole thing<\/a>. The punchline at the end got a laugh out of me, and the goose will go down in history as one of the greatest villains in video game history. It’s a clever game, but it’s not one I enjoy playing.<\/p>\n Ugh. The writing in this game was atrocious<\/a>. It wasn’t just bad in the sense of having boring characters and a dumb plot with no stakes, it was bad in the sense that it really interfered with the gameplay. Like I said in my Escapist column<\/a>:<\/p>\n It takes about 23 minutes from the moment after you start a new game for Rage 2<\/i> to cut you loose to explore the open world. In that time, there is, at best<\/b>, about three and a half minutes of actual gameplay. Everything else is static cutscenes, scripted events where you have no input, or moments where you stand around with nothing to do while someone takes an exposition dump on you. If story doesn\u2019t matter, why is there so much of it<\/b>?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I’ll do a longer analysis on the writing in this game at some point in the future. The important thing to note here is that this ID Software game has lots of story, that story is mostly terrible, and the game itself is filled with bugs. It’s very clear that the corporate culture and priorities of parent company Zenimax have been creeping into ID Software since the buyout<\/a> a decade ago. In a few more years they’ll probably be indistinguishable from Bethesda.<\/p>\n EDIT: I forgot this game was made by Avalanche, not ID. Still, same publisher, same problems. But it’s important we put the blame on the right studio.<\/p>\n Dragon Age Inquisition<\/i> made it clear that BioWare was a technological mess<\/a>. Then Mass Effect Andromeda<\/i><\/a> made it clear that the magic had left BioWare in terms of worldbuilding and storytelling. Now we get Anthem<\/i>, revealing that the company is also bereft of leadership. Jason Schreier’s expose<\/a> was heartbreaking. I wanted to believe this was a project that went astray due to too much ambition or executive meddling. Maybe their problem was that the team was just… you know… too creative<\/b>? Maybe we can blame those villainous suits at EA?<\/p>\n But no. In the end, it was the product of a team with no leadership, no coherent vision, and no identity as a creative group. Are we interested in making shooters? Creating characters? Storytelling? Worldbuilding? Fostering multiplayer co-op communities? Building a numbers-driven loot grind?<\/i> Apparently the answer was “none of the above”. Anthem was a game that nobody asked for and nobody wanted to make. The game had lavishly produced cutscenes that told the bare minimum of a stock story. It had characters that barely mattered and an antagonist that was the plain, lowfat, no-salt, gluten-free cracker of villainy.<\/p>\nRage 2<\/h3>\n
<\/div>Anthem<\/h3>\n
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>