Gaming along with aliens, cartels, and robotic moose…oh my!
I am going to be up front with this folks: it’s been abysmal in the triple A release market. Maybe my time-in-gaming-service has rendered me jaded with high expectations, but in my defense when you have watched the game industry evolve from 8 bit to 4k gaming in just three decades you develop some critical evaluations. This time around I have three of the latest games to face my sour scrutiny for better or worse.
Mass Effect: Andromeda. I am going to take a deep breath now and just say it: it’s Mass Effect in skin and combat only. To be honest it barely feels like a Bioware game at all and I’ve been riding the Bioware wagon since Baldur’s Gate and own everything up to Dragon Age: Inquisition. So I know my Bioware, and given the ugly character creation and lack of real dialogue choice in the game, it feels very wrong fundamentally.
I’m a Mass Effect fanboy and have been a supporter of the original franchise since day one. I am not going to hate on Andromeda, I just can’t shell out the money for it, and it’s too silly to take seriously with the glitches, horrible character animations, and lack of interesting story.
Where it shines is the combat which should have been expanded through multiplayer, or something like Ubisoft did with a persistent campaign in For Honor. Just let me go ape with biotics and three of my friends. It’s not a bad game but I’d move on and wait until a price drop if you really must get this game.
So coming back to Earth a bit is the operator-a-f Tom Clancy game called Ghost Recon: Wildlands. I was given a definitive couch demo in my friend Ian’s living room which I lovingly call ICDs because if not for these couch demos, I’d be completely clueless.
Ghost Recon: Wildlands feels like a serious take on the Mercenaries and Just Cause franchises, it’s not as cartoony as the former or the latter and offers that exhilarating coordinated team effort that is so fun about Tom Clancy ground combat games. I am a Splinter Cell/Rainbow Six fanatic and I always find the little upgrades and tweaks keep these games interesting.
Wildlands has some crazy detail to the character models, weaponry, and tactics that should make those SpecOp wannabees salivate. It’s like playing digital G.I Joes in a heavily vegetated backyard with drug cartels. You can customize your kit and unlock killer swag for your operators. I believed we spent 30 minutes just looking at all the product placement and items from several real-life tactical equipment companies, it’s quite ridiculous.
Graphics are lackluster for the Xbox One but the solid team gameplay and the varied approaches to mission objectives gives Wildlands a Far Cry and Just Cause flavor. But other than that, Wildlands stands on its own because it’s pretty easy to get into and screw around for gear unlocks and back story content. It’s Tom Clancy, it’s Ghost Recon. Is it ground breaking? No. Is it fun? If you like tactical team shooters and helicopters, then absolutely!
I play games to see and do fantastical things. Videogames are immersive and interactive fiction that allows me to crawl inside a digital novel and play with the universe and its characters.
This year I was and still am blown away by a childhood culmination of my two favorite genres, post-apocalyptic and robot sci-fi. As a kid I had a small collection of Zoids and Transformers and I remember fondly of days imagining vast open worlds where I would frolic with gigantic ersatz dinosaurs or dragons and witness epic beastly duels with hydraulics, circuitry and violence.
I am going to take a deep breath and close my eyes: Horizon: Zero Dawn delivers those childhood dreams in a package wrapped in wonder and sunshine and yes, I’m a bit misty eyed. I hate to say this, but it’s the game Mass Effect: Andromeda should’ve been.
Hands down it’s amazingly gorgeous and the writing is both compelling and imaginative. It’s a game that will seize you in its metallic jaws and take you on a fantastic ride. I have only begun to scratch the surface of Horizon: Zero Dawn in terms of lore and backstory but I feel no pain investing time and effort looking under every leaf and finding every vantage point.
This game is a joy and I am excited to embrace it as an essential title for any adventure gamer.
When not vaporizing zombies or leading space marines as a mousepad Mattis, Brandon Watson is making gourmet pancakes and promoting local artists.