Microreview [video game]: Wolfenstein: Youngblood by Machine Games and Arkane Studios (developers)

Anemic

Let’s make a recipe to describe Wolfenstein: Youngblood:

Take Wolfenstein: The New Colossus

Chop it in half

Move it along from the 1970’s to the 1980’s

Triple the collectibles

Give it to the people who made Dishonored

Add an extensive weapon mod system

Add two player coop

Add microtransactions

And take out the story

There. That’s about right.

Youngblood is a new non-sequel in the Wolfenstein series, much like The Old Blood wasn’t a sequel to The New Order. It’s smaller in scope, taking only about 10 hours to complete. It’s meant to be played in coop but I played almost the entire game solo. It wasn’t terribly burdensome, though, of course, the AI wasn’t quite as useful as a human player.

It plays an awful lot like how I remember The New Colossus playing. Stealth is an option and sneaking around to silently murder Nazis is extremely satisfying. But, more often than not, you’re going to get caught and have to shoot your way out of an area. All of the weapons have that signature Machine Games look and feel. They sound great, they look great, and they’re very effective! Except that Youngblood added a layer of armor to almost every enemy. Some armor is broken with the shotgun and submachine gun (squishier targets), but most armor is broken with heavier stuff, the assault rifle and pistol. At first, I was annoyed by this system, and it never quite felt great against big enemies, but it does force you to use different weapons in different situations. My biggest problem with it is that there are more weapons for squishy targets than armored targets, but there seemed to be more armored enemies than squishy, so I didn’t get to have as much fun with every weapon.

The structure of the game is very reminiscent of Dishonored. There are a small handful of mission areas, and the bulk of the early game is visiting these areas repeatedly to complete short-ish tasks. For example, you’ll go in to one area, make your way to the mechanic’s garage, find an item or kill a particular enemy, and then you can either pick a new mission in that area and do it, or go back to the hub safe area. The result is that a bulk of the game is doing small missions in the same areas repeatedly. There were four major assaults on Nazi strongholds, and those were the big missions. Still not a whole lot of narrative to them, and once I completed them, I was handed another small mission to go back to them. Even the big mission areas get reused. The New Colossus did this too (sending you back to maps you’ve already finished to get more XP or currency), but it was a much bigger game.

The two places where the game fails is in the narrative and failing to exploit the setting. There’s a lengthy cutscene at the start, a lengthy cutscene after you finish three of the five major missions, and a short cutscene after you beat the boss. That’s it. In between, there isn’t a whole lot of motivating narrative to the little missions you’re doing before taking on Nazi strongholds. This is a fairly sharp contrast to The New Order and The New Colossus, both of which were rather competent in their storytelling. It’s particularly painful to have such an uncompelling and absentee antagonist when those prior games had great (well-written but awful) antagonists.

It’s also nominally in the 80’s. I don’t expect it to be all shopping malls and aerobics and new wave, but you can’t just throw around some 3D glasses, VHS tapes, and cassettes as collectibles to make it 80’s enough. The 1980’s in Nazi-occupied Paris should be absolutely fascinating, but instead it’s indistinguishable from any other game depicting a fascist occupation. Rubble, concrete, big Nazi robots. There’s not even radios playing the fascist pop music they made for this game. You only get to listen to it by finding the cassette collectibles and listening to them in a menu. This doesn’t fly for a coop game. Give me a Walkman!

Now let’s get to the ugly. Microtransactions. There are two currencies in game: silver coins, and gold bars. You can find silver coins all over the place in small quantities. You get silver coins for finishing missions. You have to purchase gold bars for cash. Silver coins are what you use to upgrade and modify your weapons, but all the cosmetics in the game (weapon and player skins) can also be purchased for silver coins or gold bars. There’s no lack of silver coins in the game, but for practical purposes, you’re going to spend those on your weapons, not looking good. I know this is a coop game and you can show off your good looks for strangers, but I really don’t understand why they jammed in this second currency. It’s not loot boxes, but it’s greedy and needless.

If I sound down on Youngblood, it’s because I kind of am. It’s the daughters of BJ Blazkowicz fighting Nazis in Paris in the 1980’s, and it’s just okay. This is a concept that could’ve been a full Wolfenstein game rather than a half-step before the next full sequel. I liked it but didn’t love it because I want it to be more than it is.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 the excellent gameplay loop you expect from Machine Games

Penalties: -1 doesn't do anything cool or notable with it's notably cool premise

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10 (an enjoyable experience, but not without its flaws)

***

Reference: Machine Games and Arkane Studios Wolfenstein: Youngblood (Bethesda Softworks, 2019)

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Microreview [video game]: Firewatch by Campo Santo

Controlled Burn

I was going to buy Firewatch no matter what it turned out to be. I've been a listener of the Idle Thumbs podcast since shortly after it started, following Chris Remo from when he was an editor at Shacknews. I love the insightful discussions the Idle Thumbs crew has every week. When the bulk of them joined together to form Campo Santo, I was instantly onboard for whatever game they would make together. "What is Firewatch?" was never a relevant question to me. I'm glad to report that, now that I know what Firewatch is, it's rather good, if a little pedestrian.

You play Firewatch as Henry, a volunteer fire lookout in Wyoming in 1988. You're in Shoshone National Park to look out for fires (obviously), and get away from your life for an indeterminate amount of time. Your boss, Delilah, is in the next tower over, and you communicate with her through your walkie-talkie over the course of the game.

Let's get this out of the way first: Firewatch is a first-person, narrative-driven adventure game. A "walking simulator", if you must, comparable to Gone Home, but set outdoors with more walking to do, but not necessarily more to see. The game is to listen to and talk to Delilah, "solve" a mystery, and get lost in the woods. You have a map, so getting lost is on you, and the mystery is revealed in whole by the time you get far enough in the game, so the bulk of the game rests on Henry and Delilah.

What it does best is that interaction between Henry and Delilah. Over the course of the game, you learn a lot about each other and it's wonderfully voice acted and well written. As Henry, you have a little bit of control over your voice. Many of your responses to Delilah are multiple choice, some with wildly different tones. There's a multiple choice prologue that sort of acts as a mad libs for your own Henry, but your choices don't necessarily change the story in radical ways. Some dialog might be a little snark-heavy, but that's also a choice of the player. Delilah and Henry are great, and Firewatch is non-existent without them

Though it's a short game (3.5 hours by my count), it's difficult to put down once you start. I didn't intend on playing through it all on release day, but as soon as I stopped, I would think about getting right back in to see what the next day brings. The game parts are a little anemic, and the ending abrupt, but the storytelling, character building, and the environments are all fantastic. It's a game that will give you something to think about for at least as long as it takes to play.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 Henry and Delilah's complex relationship

Penalties: -1 don't expect a lot of puzzle solving or action

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10 (well worth your time and attention)

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Reference: Campo Santo. Firewatch [Panic Inc, 2016] 

Microreview [video game]: Volume by Mike Bithell Games

Turn It Up

Thomas Was Alone is the previous Mike Bithell game, and it was a cute, minimalist platformer that I enjoyed but would probably never play again. It was fun and all, but it's really a once-and-done kind of experience. Unless you forget the storyline (which forms the bulk of the appeal of the game), there aren't a lot of reasons to keep playing. Volume isn't like Thomas Was Alone much at all. It's better.

Volume is a top-down-ish stealth game. The plot is an anti-authority tale that is irrelevant, because it's not the game's strong suit and it's almost incomprehensible. It's an awful lot like Metal Gear Solid, in that you sneak around and avoid the enemies' vision cones as you make your way through 100 core levels. Each level takes no longer than 5 minutes to play from start to finish, but that's assuming you never fail. You will fail, but the game is extremely generous with checkpoints. The punishment for failure is a matter of seconds lost, not minutes. Each level has a par time. It's almost encouraging speedruns. It took me about 6 hours, 20 minutes from game start to game finish.

The stealth feels rock solid. If you're not in a vision cone or making noise, you are absolutely invisible. Unrealistic in a way, but completely unambiguous. The game has a crisp, clean design with an abstract, minimalist style. Everything is sharp polygons, which is appropriate as the game takes place inside a simulation. There are a half dozen enemies with their own strengths and weaknesses. Each level is almost a puzzle to be solved with your sneakiness and tools. The tools are doled out most of the game, so even late game is introducing new mechanics.

The whole 100 level core game could be considered an extended tutorial as the game comes with tools to build levels yourself right in the game's interface. No need to download sketchy mods or juggle programs; you can browse user-made levels from within the game as well as create your own. The user-made levels also feature a rating system, and there are "staff picks" if you don't trust the judgment of other Volume players.

Where Volume stumbles is in its story and controls. As mentioned earlier, the story is a muddled mess. It's obviously of the "people rising up against The Man" variety, but it's dribbled out across level descriptions, in-game notes, and three cutscenes. It's not great. And the controls, when played with a standard Xbox 360 type controller, are a little weird. The game fully supported the controller, but all of the button prompts were for keyboard + mouse controls, so I had to fumble a little to find the right buttons. Even with the correct buttons located, the controls seemed to eschew the face buttons in favor of the triggers and bumpers. It's a very minor quibble, but still a little jarring in an otherwise extremely well-made game.

I had a hard time putting Volume down. I spent most of the holiday weekend playing it, and it very much invoked a "one more level" feeling in me. It's not a particularly difficult game, but in the more challenging sections, I truly appreciated knowing that it wasn't an unfair game. It's just that I hadn't figured out how to "solve" the particular challenge yet. It's not going to set the world on fire, and it has a couple of minor flaws, but it made me happy for being such a straightforward and enjoyable game. It's well worth your time for a weekend.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 well designed and consistent gameplay

Penalties: -1 weak plot

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10 (well worth your time and attention)

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Reference: Mike Bithell Games. Volume [Mike Bithell Games, 2015] 

First Impressions: Steam Link and Steam Controller

Half-ready for Primetime

Streaming games from a PC with Steam on it is something Steam's been capable of for a while, but I've taken little advantage of. I don't have a PC connected to any of my TVs, so it's been limited to me playing Luftrausers on my little Linux Mint-running netbook. I was really impressed with the smoothness of the streaming, despite Luftrausers being a fast-paced arcade game and the whole ordeal running over my wireless network on my tiny, underpowered netbook. When Valve unveiled the Steam Link and Steam Controller, I jumped on it just for the chance to do some game streaming to my TV in a fashion much cheaper and more effective than building a whole media center PC. The results have been mixed at best.

Let's get something out of the way first: I am not a hardware reviewer. I'm not counting pixels or framerates. I rely on real reviewers to tell me what works and what doesn't on a technical level. Occasionally, I make a dumb first-adopter purchase because I can. It's fun to take a risk every now and then. All that to say take this as anecdotal information at best. I'm not trying to tell you what to buy, but give an earlier than retail look at something I was really interested in.

Steam Controller upper right, Steam Link (with Steam Controller dongle) lower right. Xbox 360 controller upper left for reference.

Setup
Setting up the Steam Link was really easy. I plugged it into the power, and HDMI, and walked through the process of selecting my language, signing into my wifi network, and choosing a PC to stream from. My partner and I are both running Steam, so I was given the option of which computer I wanted to stream from. The Steam Link gave me a code to enter into my PC to enable the streaming link, which was the first of many trips to my PC in support of the Steam Link. Then it downloaded an update or two, and rebooted a couple times. All expected behavior at this point.

You would think the Steam Controller would be more simple than that, but you would be wrong. The first thing it wanted was a firmware upgrade, and the Steam Link wasn't capable of providing it. Obviously, anyone with a Steam Link or Controller is going to have a PC running Steam on it, but it was real annoying to have to also take the controller to my PC to give it an upgrade. Valve mercifully provided a micro USB cable to enable these type of upgrades, but it seems a little annoying that the Steam Link itself couldn't provide this kind of update.

Streaming
When I first set it up, I wanted to put the Steam Link to the test. I hooked it up to the TV that's furthest away from my wireless router. Finding my wireless networks was no problem. However, the performance of the stream left a lot to be desired. Graphical and audio hitching was frequent. To give some perspective, this same TV has a Roku 3 attached that has no problems streaming Netflix or Hulu in 1080P HD on the same wireless network. I moved it to a TV about half of the distance away from the wireless router and performance got a lot better. Don't expect TV or movie streaming performance out of the Steam Link. Also, no matter how close you are to your network, don't expect to get anything done while Steam is downloading a game. The Steam Link becomes incredibly unresponsive while any game was downloading. However, starting a game will pause downloads, which allows the Steam Link to stream as normal.

Games
When I bought the Steam Link, I thought it'd be a great opportunity for my partner and I to play local multiplayer stuff, like Nidhogg and Gang Beasts. Nidhogg was the first game I started, and it worked flawlessly. Looked like it does on my PC, instant input response, lots of fun. However, that was probably the best experience I've had streaming. Some games work, but theyv'e got problems. Either they play far too slowly to be enjoyable (such as with Shadownrun: Dragonfall) or the streaming will crash Steam when you quit the game, necessitating a trip to the PC to kill the game and restart Steam. I also experienced some games that would dump to the Big Picture Mode interface while the game is still running. There was no obvious way to switch back to the game from the Steam Link, so I would have to go back to my PC to kill the game. Some games didn't work at all, either presenting nothing but a white screen when streaming, crashing when the game begins, or not accepting any Steam Controller input. There were also some little annoyances that accompanied a stream crash. One of those was that the stream will automatically mute your PC, but when it crashes, it doesn't unmute when you restart. Not a big deal, but annoying.

For the sake of perspective, I tested 20 games with Steam Link. Ten of those games I classified as "works great", meaning the game streams at an acceptable rate, controls work, and nothing bad happened. I classified five as "not working", meaning the game was wholly unplayable. The rest were some mixture of the two, either working fine but crashing somehow, or working in some less than perfect state. Here's the breakdown:

Working Great:

• Nidhogg
• Payday 2
• Battleblock Theater
• Bedlam
• Divekick
• Don't Starve Together
• Dungeon of the Endless
• Heavy Bullets
• Pillars of Eternity
• Skullgirls

Not Working:

• Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
• Towerfall: Ascension
• Dead Pixels
• Kisima Ichiguna (Never Alone)
• You Don't Know Jack

Kind of Jank:

• Shadowrun: Dragonfall (runs slow)
• Outlast (works fine, crashes stream on exit) 
• Wasteland 2: Director's Cut (works fine, switched to Big Picture Mode mid-game)
• Five Nights at Freddy's (works fine, crashes stream on exit)
• Gone Home (poor performance)

Steam Controller
I don't have a whole lot to say about the Steam Controller. It has two trackpads with some haptic feedback. The ABXY buttons are a little too small, but the analog stick is fantastic, as is the shoulder triggers. Whether a game supports the typical Xbox style controller is mostly irrelevant; the Steam Controller can be configured to emulate any keyboard or mouse button press. This means games that don't natively support a controller, such as Dungeon of the Endless, can still be played with the trackpads acting as mouse movement, and buttons emulating keyboard and mouse. In nearly all games, the Steam Controller worked great. The one game it didn't work on was You Don't Know Jack. It wouldn't accept any Steam Controller input whatsoever.

Wrap-up
My first night, I played five games, and three of the straight up didn't work. It put a real damper on my enthusiasm. After working with the Steam Link for a little while, and trying out different games, I'm a bit more optimistic. For the games it works on, it does everything you'd want it to. But when it breaks, get ready to walk back to your PC to fix things. It's got a lot of annoyances and feels more like a beta product than a final release. I'm absolutely not giving up on it, but I get the feeling us early adopters are the unwitting true beta testers of this thing before it gets a wider release in November. What it is really missing is an honest list or showcase of games that work great and show off the Steam Link and Controller. I would be less annoyed if I weren't testing these games myself to find out what works and what doesn't.

Since this isn't a review, I don't feel compelled to adhere to a review score. Therefore, here's an emoticon sequence describing my reaction to the Steam Link and Controller.

:D  :[  :|  :\

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014