Sea of Thieves: The Pirate Game I Didn't Want

Since AC: Black Flag, I have searched for the perfect pirate game. Some have popped up in the last few years, there’s Blackwake, Blood and Gold: Caribbean an also Ubisoft have announced Skull and Bones, a game that uses Black Flags pirate ship combat. However none of these really scratch that pirate itch. Blackwake focuses on PvP multiplayer and working as a team to be successful almost like a pirate Chivalry. Blood and Gold: Caribbean is at its core a re-skin for Mount & Blade, but the developers seem to have stopped touching the game anyway. Whilst not much is known about Skull and Bones, it seems to just be ship combat with a focus on PvP. So when Sea of Thieves was announced at E3, I was excited. When it was shown it had interesting ship combat, it had melee and firearms, there was treasure hunts and though it encouraged teamwork it was also accessible as a solo player. I thought this was it, the pirate game I’d been waiting for. 

As it turns out, Sea of Thieves is a game that gives me nothing but mixed emotions. It is really exciting, but at the same time equally flawed. I have played a couple of hours so far in solo and as a duo (with my brother). I do plan on putting a bit more time into it and jumping into a bigger group and seeing if that changes much gameplay wise, but I highly doubt it will have much of an effect. 

The first thing you notice when you start up Sea of Thieves is the lack of character customisation. The game randomly generates a group of pirates that you get to pick from, which is infuriating because the characters look really fucking cool, however because you don’t create them, the character you pick doesn’t really feel like it’s yours. I wish I got to design what MY pirate looked like, especially in a game were the only real progression is to get gold in order to customise your outfit, to me it doesn’t make sense to start from a base that you haven’t created. This leads me onto my next point, progression. 

The progression in Sea of Thieves is barely existent, there are three factions, and you do quests for each to be rewarded with gold and faction rep. As far as I’m aware Faction rep just unlocks more ‘difficult’ quests, whilst gold is used in order to buy new clothes and equipment. The clothes and equipment you can buy seem to have no effect whatsoever on gameplay, no numbers get bigger, no abilities unlock, they are purely cosmetic. 

The fact all the progression is horizontal is no surprise, Rare said it would be numerous times in their press releases since its announcement. As an idea it’s a choice that makes perfect sense, it allows for new comers to jump right in and not have to worry about getting blasted by a Super Mega Canon that fires flaming heat seeking shot. It makes the game a level playing field (assuming you aren’t playing alone). However, in practice the horizontal progression feels massively flawed. 

Maybe it is because my tiny reptile brain is so used to numbers getting bigger, that I need that little endorphin rush to fully enjoy a game. Why is it that I don’t care for buying any of the cosmetics? It’s not that they don’t look good, some of them are really interesting (even though there isn’t many items to buy at launch), is it because they don’t offer me anything new? What I plan on doing is saving up all my gold and wearing nothing but the rags I started in, becoming the secret millionaire of Sea of Thieves. 

But have we become so goal orientated that having a sandbox to play in with friends and have fun simply isn’t enough? Even the quest loop in the game is awful because there’s no real reasons to do quests unless you want different cosmetics, also this isn’t helped by the absolute lack of variety in the quests given from the three different factions (however it’s possible at higher levels quests get different and change but I haven’t seen that reported anywhere yet).

However, even in the face of all these negatives, I’ve had boat loads of fun with Sea of Thieves (I hate myself for that). As said earlier, all my time has been spent either in solo or as a duo with my brother so I am yet to experience the large ship. However the act of sailing in this game is absolutely amazing, the teamwork needed to sail a ship efficiently is so well designed, I often find myself heading towards a storm to test our abilities as sailors. Sailing the boat is so well designed, that it never really feels like you are just waiting to go from A to B, you are constantly moving around the ship, angling the sails, checking the map, acting as lookout, preparing the cannons or god forbid… repairing the hull from damage or relaying buckets of water from your rapidly sinking ship.

Sea of Thieves is a game that relies on emergent gameplay and the unplanned experiences you have -arguably more than any other game I can think of - and in my experience so far it has succeeded, however how long can Sea of Thieves lean on emergent gameplay before everyone has the same stories to tell each other and experiences get repetitive? Nevertheless the time I’ve spent so far sailing the seas and finding treasure have been incredible. 

Adam (my brother) proposed a quest for the merchant’s guild, we were tasked to track and capture two different type of pig and deliver them to an outpost, how hard could that be? As we lifted up the anchor and drifted away from the dock we met at the map to discuss where we were best headed to find these pigs. We agreed on Snake Island, a group of three small grass covered isles that were sure to be home to the pigs we sought. We sailed north, leisurely, we were in no rush and besides it was sunrise so we relaxed and took it in because Sea of Thieves is absolutely breath-taking. *DING DING* “That’s the Island” Adam hollered as he ran to raise the sail in order to slow down our approach. We got within 200m of the isles and I took a cage, jumped into the sea and swam toward the centre landmass as Adam docked the ship.

As I made my way out of the surf and trudged up onto the beach I heard Adam sheepishly mutter “Uh oh…. This is bad”. Without thinking I dropped the cage and headed towards where he was making dock, “You don’t wanna see this” he exclaimed. As I followed the beach around in search of our ship, it’s then I noticed it. A ships bowsprit, our ships bowsprit, poking through the trees. “I told you, you didn’t wanna see it”.

We both jumped aboard and began repairing the ship in an attempt to keep it from sinking. With all the damage patched, I left Adam on bucket duty whilst I tried to manoeuvre back into open waters. After a couple of minutes of messing with sails and raising the anchor, we found ourselves in a decent position to dock. And to our surprise, we heard the sound of pigs. Adam grabbed a cage and headed toward the island with me in pursuit. And as we got up onto the beach we seen it, the spotted pig, our buried treasure. We pounced, within seconds the swine was ours.

I directed Adam to the other cage whilst I took the pig on board and readied the ship. Soon after, my brother jumped aboard with another pig, however, it wasn’t the right type. No problem “Just release it an go find the right pig” I said.

“It won’t let me” said Adam. “I don’t think you can.”

Shit. I knew what this meant. I knew what we had to do. Adam had made far too many mistakes so far, it was up to me to rectify this one. The image of George standing above an oblivious Lennie sprung to mind. I drew my gun and with one squeeze we were back on mission. “You absolute dickhead” my girlfriend shouted, she had been watching me play all along and had enjoyed it up to this point.

 

Almost deflated, I remained on deck as Adam went looking for another pig. When he returned we didn’t even mention what had just took place, we just quietly sailed toward Ancient Spire Outpost to deliver the livestock. As the outpost came into sight after what seemed to be 20 minutes of sailing in silence, I seen what I dreaded. *DING DING, DING DING* “That’s a Galleon!” I shouted “We have no chance! Get out of here!” Adam took a sharp right as I kept my eyes on the Galleon to make sure they weren’t giving chase.

We seemed to be in the clear, the Galleon was docked, and we were far away enough and out of sight of the ship. That’s when Adam suggested I should sneak onto the island, hide on it and then signal when it’s all clear. After positioning the cannon just right, I loaded myself in and soon found myself hurtling through the air. Thankfully I didn’t have much of a swim to make dry land.

I positioned myself in a bush, and looked through my spyglass. After a couple of tense minutes trying not to be spotted I noticed the captain of the Galleon turning the ship, his team angling and lowering the sails. “Thank God” I thought. They were leaving. I notified Adam who had took the ship and hid it at another island (the south side of Devils Ridge) that it was all clear then I used the merman teleport to get back to our ship.

Worried that we may encounter the Galleon I checked all the cannons were loaded, that’s when I noticed the silence. No longer could I hear annoying oinks of our cargo. “Adam, what the fuck have you done?” I yelled as I ran below deck to check the cages. Empty. The cages were empty. “That’s what you get for murdering that pig!” my girlfriend muttered under her breath. Adam swore he hadn’t done anything. Even now we are both unsure what happened, though we think they starved as I recently seen you could feed caged animals with bananas.

With our cages empty, and time running out we decided to rummage through Devils Ridge and pray we would find the pigs we needed. As I breached through a tree line I stumbled upon a barrel of gunpowder, I figured that was some profit at least. “Bring the cages” Adam exclaimed. I made my way to him and as if by an act of God, there they were, the two pigs we needed. Quickly we got them aboard and headed north to our final destination.

We finally arrived and delivered the goods, was it all worth it for 1500 gold coins? I don’t know but I can tell you now it was a lot of fun. To celebrate me an Adam went the pub, got drunk, puked and decided to call it a night. Yes, Sea of Thieves has its problems, but it also has its moments. Almost everyone who has played the game has stories similar to mine and maybe that is what’s more important than making numbers get bigger. In my opinion the game is exactly what was advertised, an open world pirate sandbox where you get to hang out with friends and go on adventures. However I do hope the game is supported with content updates as Sea of Thieves really is a fantastic base with so much potential.

I plan on playing more Sea of Thieves with Adam, and I can’t wait to get my other brother online with us too, then we’ll get to try out the Galleon. The game is worth trying with Game Pass especially if you have a bunch of friends who you can play with, even the dullest of quests become interesting when you are hanging out with the people you know, and I think that’s where Sea of Thieves really shines, being a fantastic space to hang with friends and create your own stories.

How Into the Breach turned me onto Mechs

I want to preface this by saying my only experience with mechs is through my enjoyment of Pacific Rim and the few series of Power Rangers I watched as a kid. Other than that, I know absolutely nothing about mechs, are Gundam mechs? Are Zords mechs? What about Titanfall? I honestly have no idea.

A couple week ago I heard Waypoints, Austin Walker smitten with a game from the creators of FTL (Subset Games). I couldn’t help but be suckered in by his passion and enthusiasm as he spoke about his team of mechs working together to save people from big bugs, however I was left disappointed and pretty deflated when a quick search revealed it was a turn based strategy game.

I’ve had a spotty history with strategy games, I adore the historical Total War series and they are the only strategy games I’ve spent a stupid amount of time learning, I also dabbled in Advanced Wars on my DS as a kid when my dad bought it for cheap from a guy in a pub not having a clue what it was. I absolutely love the concept of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but in practice it didn’t click with me.

However, hours before Into the Breach released, I came across some reviews on Reddit that done nothing but sing the games praises. With a Steam voucher I had saved from Christmas for Fire Pro Wrestling’s management mode (which has been delayed) I decided I would dive into the breach take the plunge, and it has got me hooked.

Into the Breach is an 8x8 turn based strategy game where you command a squad of 3 mechs and fight the Vek (a giant insect species/army). However, what makes it special is its ability to make me feel like a Kaiju killing mastermind. One of the first major things that I noticed was that the game allows you to undo movement before you commit, letting you test out potential moves, it even allows you to reset one full turn once a round. In doing so it is a perfect learning tool to show how to use individual units as a team, and even acts as a great first strategy game to find your feet in the genre.

However, there has been claims that the game is falsely labelled as a strategy game, and that it is closer to a puzzle game. Whilst I understand the arguments I don’t necessarily agree. Into the Breach can feel like a puzzle game at times, as it is completely transparent and gives you all the information you need to solve each scenario and often feels like there’s an optimized move each turn. However the decisions you make, the strategy you execute all matter. One false move and you can doom your pilots, lose vital power from your grid and fail objectives.

For me, the stand out features of Into the Breach are its tiny story beats. These minuscule, brief flavours of story really created a more human world one that completely immersed me, but blink and you’ll miss them. The majority of these are delivered through speech bubbles appearing from buildings you are tasked to defend, the rest come from your pilots as action develops on the battlefield.

Picture this, your mechs drop into the map from the sky and crash into the ground with a ground shaking thud, they activate ready to fight the Vek and defend the city. Then, from a skyscraper somebody cries “Look, they’ve arrived, we’re saved”. You realise there’s people in the buildings, people who are scared for their lives, people who thought they were doomed. Those poor people could see the Vek approaching from emergence holes, and there was no sign of any help. That is until now. Hope has been restored.

Somehow these tiny speech bubbles manage to convey pure elation, hopelessness, and unadulterated fear. More often than not I pictured a child, face pressed against the window, wide eyed watching in awe as he witnesses my mechs dash, roll and fly into a ballet with the Vek.

Similarly, when a building is encased in a web, in preparation for an attack, its occupants cry out in terror “It’s attacking us”. I can’t even begin to imagine the panic and hopelessness inside, people looking for a way out, others cowering in corners, comforting their loved ones, those who turn to their Gods an begin to pray, the people who are at peace and have accepted the inevitable.

Into the Breach features pretty decent customisation options, you get to choose a pilot and one of the ready built squads each time you start a playthrough (providing you have unlocked them), on top of that there is an abundance of skills and weapons to discover which I’m still finding after 15 hours in. Aesthetically, the only choice you have is a pre-set colour scheme for your mechs which is a little bit disappointing, I wish it was a bit deeper but that’s just me nit picking.

Into the Breach is fun, there’s no question about that. I love that if I find myself stuck I can walk away, make myself a cuppa and come back with a fresh mind to hopefully make the right call and minimise damage the best I can. More importantly though, after playing Into the Breach I had an epiphany, I realised exactly what it is about Into the Breach that made it stick with me.

I started thinking about the mechs I had seen in Pacific Rim and Power Rangers, I started thinking about all those people who must have been so relieved to see the Megazord arrive in Angel Grove and those who watched as Gypsy Danger went toe to toe with numerous Kaiju from the safety of their skyscrapers, only to then be massacred as the enemy crashes into their building as a direct result of the heroic mechs actions. It is here where Into the Breach is different, I have the power to ensure I don’t send the enemy crashing into occupied buildings, I can attempt to save those people who are scared for their lives, and I can prevent collateral damage. But if I fail to do so, I can always warp into another timeline, start fresh and save the world.

Games of the Year 2017

2017 has been a hell of a year, arguably one of the best for video game releases in close to a decade. Meanwhile there has been a load of shite happening elsewhere in the world so as one Vincent Caravella is said to say ‘there has been no better time to play video games’. 

I will start this list by saying I have not played many peoples top games of the year, I weren’t able to play Mario, Zelda as I don’t have a Switch and I never got around to playing NieR: Automata.


There are also some games that deserve a mention that didn’t make it onto this list, games such as Resident Evil 7 which massively rebooted the franchise and had me feeling how I did when I first explored the mansion in the original Resident Evil. Another game that narrowly missed out on the list is Everything, a game which allows you to simulate… everything. It is a weird existential screensaver that even plays itself if you put the controller down. You want to be a microbe? So be it. You want to be a planet? Well go on then, Everything has you covered. 


Well here we go, in no particular order, here is the list of my favourite games which I think are worth checking out.

Assassins Creed Origins

Assassins Creed Origins was a game I originally played reluctantly. I have played every major title in the series and fell off each and every one at some point since Assassins Creed 3 (Granted some quicker than others). So after Ubisoft took a year off and hearing positives from the media I decided I should probably jump in and test the waters myself.  For the record, I enjoy Assassins Creed, I think the balance of ‘not quite history’, magic & myth is fascinating. However the previous games are filled with so much busy work that it takes away from the experience so it is always just a matter of time before I call it a day. Origins was different. 

 

Part of the process of purchasing the game was that I decided I was going to complete it 100%, it was a deal I was making to myself to justify buying it when it was on sale. I was going to make it my game to play in my ‘killing time’ time since I abstained from PES and FIFA this year. 

The thing that grabbed my attention first was the combat overhaul. No longer did I find myself waiting to counter enemies and therefore insta-kill them. I had choice, a choice of light and heavy attacks and I could block… with a shield… in Assassins Creed. The combat feels deliberate, similar to that of a Dark Souls, each attack has to be timed to land because there is no backing out once you’ve committed. I found myself locking onto enemies, circling them with my shield up either waiting for the right time to strike or attempting to parry or evade to then get my attack in. I played on hard and I think that added to the combat but even on normal, prepare to die, there is definitely a learning curve from old titles. 

Then, after a short tutorial the world and story open up and it’s this which really pulled me into Origins. I will avoid story specific spoilers where I can here but the story is built on revenge, when it began I thought ‘Here we go again’. But I had made that deal with myself, I was sticking with it and thank god I did. Assassins Creed Origins is the most human feeling title in the franchise since Ezios storyline. The main characters Bayek and his wife Aya feel like actual human people, the ones you encounter in the real world, they aren’t snarky pirate dickheads, they aren’t the naive child from AC3, and they aren’t the forgettable one from Unity. These feel like characters with feeling that develop and learn as you progress.

Bayeks personality and development (you barely play or see Aya, but she plays a big part still) comes mostly from side missions, where you get to see him do his actual job. Prior to devoting his life to murder for revenge, Bayek was a medjay, an ancient Egyptian policeman of sorts. His interactions with people who are suffering under greedy abusive overlords, people who have had things stolen, and people who simply need help show him as an actual person not fully engulfed in seeking revenge. He can deal with more than one thing at a time, the side quests show a side to Bayek not seen in any of the other Assassins creed games, he actually wants to use his abilities to help people. 

The couples struggle with grief is also one of the themes that gripped me. Bayek and Aya are two very different people and it’s within the context of this grief that you see this really play out. Both decide to busy themselves and throw themselves fully into different tasks with similar aims. This is another way that makes them feel human and it is because of this I wanted to see where both Bayek and Aya would be at the end of Origins. 

Origins ends strongly, it left enough unanswered to keep me interested and bring me back when story dlc is available. In the meanwhile though, I have been riding around Egypt helping its people, freeing rebels, fighting in roman arenas, hunting, and racing chariots. Oh and defeating Gods. As of writing, I have completed roughly 99% of the game. All I have left to do is the arena fights (which in a recent update added a horde mode), I have completed all side quests (even the one added in the latest update), and all locations. So for now, Bayek is wandering around Egypt looking for trinkets to loot in order to get the final achievement. 

Assassins Creed Origins is my biggest surprise of the year, I thought I would be returning to familiar waters but I was wrong. This is an Assassins Creed with no stalking missions, no double hidden blade, no flags, feathers or sheet music to collect, a dedicated crouch button, shields, spears, bows, interesting characters and camels.

  

Bomber Crew

A month before release, Bomber Crew appeared on my radar….. I hate myself. After stumbling on a couple of articles on the game on twitter I gave the developers a follow. Bomber Crew is a strategic sim where you command a WW2 British Lancaster bomber in a series of missions over the channel and Europe. Think Dambusters meets FTL. 

Don’t let the games simple look lower your guard, it gets difficult quickly. After learning the basics of take-off, landing, navigating, targeting and maintenance you are thrown straight into the deep end with a fresh full crew and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The game has you moving different members of your crew to complete tasks to meet the mission objectives. Sounds nice and simple when you say it like that doesn’t it. 

One of my first memories took place on a mission to drop off supplies in the Channel to a downed fighter pilot. With my plane in the air and my course navigated, I positioned a crew member in the bombing bay, opened the hatch and readied the supplies to be dropped. Only then I was notified about the enemies that just appeared on our radar. Three of them, all heading straight for me. I mark them as targets which allows for my gunners to pre-emptively attack. We open fire and the three enemies split up. Shit, in the panic I just flew over the downed pilot I was trying to help. 

We adjust our course to sweep around and try again. The rear gunner lands a stream of rounds that takes out an enemy on our tail. There’s two left. As we turn to make a second pass we open ourselves up to fire. Its then our top gunner is hit, close to death he needs first aid. I send my bomber to assist him. But now there’s nobody manning the bombing bay, and thus the supplies. We miss the target again. Altering the course we try again. The other two enemies are incapacitated in quick time. The rear gunner has proved himself today. There’s not much fuel left, but it should be enough. My bomber takes his place in the bay as we anxiously make our third pass. We make the drop and we are notified ‘return to base’. Spirits are high, everyone’s alive, we are on our way home. 

It’s a short lived success. Somewhere over Dover we lose our hydraulics, which means we lose our landing gear. The engineer is quick to get to work but repairs take time. But time is something we don’t have since we have 2 minutes worth of fuel left. Fuck it. With not enough fuel to keep us up until the issue is fixed and no landing gear yet, we aim for the tarmac. The mechanic is working as fast as he can, but we are coming in fast. I’m certain I’ve doomed my crew to a humiliating fate. 

It is when I have started to pray for my crew that the mechanic gets the job done, we have our hydraulics back. I lower the landing gears as we rapidly descent, maybe it’s too late, maybe there’s a chance. I have done all I could, It’s out of my hands. 

Mission Success. We pulled it out of the bag and it was absolutely exhilarating. We got everyone home safe, the rear gunner got a promotion along with the mechanic and the navigator. Back at base as we heal and repair the plane you get a chance to customise your crew and your bomber. The options for customising the plane can get pretty deep, there’s a lot to choose from as every part affects something else, usually negatively. Then there is the same decisions to be made with your crew’s equipment and skills they earn which adds to the relationship you have with the crew. 

Bomber Crew is a tense game, the management of the plane is stressful enough, but add in combat and you have yourself an adrenaline ride. The reason it is all so stressful is because you care about your crew, you recruited them, you flew with them on their debut mission, you seen them get promoted, you seen them at their happiest completing a mission, you see them terrified when it looks like they don’t have long left, you grieved with them for the crew that didn’t make it. 

Fire Pro Wrestling World

I love professional wrestling. I have always wanted a good wrestling game. Until earlier this year I had never heard of Fire Pro. Fire Pro Wrestling World is my first game in the Fire Pro series. After hearing Spike Chunsoft was using Steams early access I knew I couldn’t pass up on the offer. As a massive wrestling fan, I have been disappointed year after year in my search for a quality wrestling game. In my opinion, the 2K games fail to recognise wrestling’s ‘worked’ nature and take place in a world where kayfabe never died, feeling more like a bad sports game than a wrestling game. It’s here Fire Pro World succeeds.

What make FPWW feel like a true wrestling game is that it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, all’s that matters is working a good match for the crowd. At the moment there is no career mode or ‘Universe mode’ (though there is a management mode scheduled for release early 2018) so the only thing that measures any level of success is each individual match rating. Whist actually playing the game and controlling a wrestler is great as you can direct where the match is going the real fun for me comes from simming matches. 

Utilising Steam Workshop, Fire Pro allows players to upload created wrestlers or ‘edits’ to be downloaded by anybody. This provides infinite value as the only limit is your imagination. On the workshop you have edits of wrestlers from all throughout history, from across the globe, from the biggest names to the smallest indie talent, which allows for you to create your dream matches; Ric Flair vs Shinsuke Nakamura, Shaun Michaels vs AJ Styles, John Cena vs Hulk Hogan, and the Bullet Club vs NWO. 

Along with a massive creation tool to make edits look like their real life counterparts, each edit comes with their own customisable AI and logic. Mastering the AI and logic settings of each edit takes some time to master, but doing so allows them to wrestle just as they do in real life which gives you realistic feeling matches that have you on the edge of your seat. 

I’m aware Fire Pro Wrestling World is a niche game. Generally speaking you have to like wrestling, you then have to be happy with a 2D game, and on top of that one of its main draws is its ridiculously deep creation suite and AI editor which may feel overly complicated and pretty cryptic to some (me included, I had to seek help from the community as the game doesn’t make much clear in terms of its editing). Nevertheless, if you want to just download some of your favourite wrestlers, boxers, pop culture icons and see them fight it out in a landmine death match, then this is the game for you. 

PlayerUnknowns Battlegrounds 

Beyond a doubt my horror game of the year has to be Player Unknowns Battlegrounds. Only Arma has provided me with this same tense fear that makes me question my every single move, which is no surprise considering PUBG’s lineage. Whilst this isn’t the first battle royale game to exist, it is definitely the first to grab so much attention. 

The premise of PUBG isn’t original either, Battle Royale, The Condemned and I guess The Hunger Games all use the idea of numerous people fighting to the death until there remains only one survivor. However it is this premise that is so simple which lends itself to video games so easily. On paper, it’s a massive free for all death match where players search for loot to increase their chances of survival on an ever shrinking battlefield. 

It’s the survival element of the game that makes it so scary, and in turn makes it such a good game. Every decision you make effects your chances of survival on the battlefield. Do you run through the open field to move quickly from the deadly blue wall or do you crawl to avoid any potential sharpshooters. Do you stay camped in a bathroom because you heard a creek from downstairs, or do you move and try and get the drop on them? Do you shoot and give away your position or do you wait patiently and let him pass? 

But what makes PUBG stand out so much is that it allows players to create their own moments, moments they talk about in work, with friends, in the pub. Everybody who plays a game of PUBG has a story to tell. Every player has an experience that is uniquely theirs, and this is what makes PUBG so special. Add to this that you can play as a duo or in a squad of four, then you end up creating stories with friends. 

However there is a downside, PUBG is a janky mess. With its 1.0 release on PC it has improved massively and most problems have been ironed out, but the Xbox version has a long way to go. Yet, with that being said, when it first entered Early Access on PC, PUBG was still fantastic. Some people honestly can’t play a game if there is a frame rate drop or any late texture pop in and that is completely fine, but if you can look past the technical hiccups and see what lies at the core of battlegrounds, then you can have yourself an amazing time.   

Doki Doki Literature Club 

Ok, so the less said about this game the better. It is a visual novel but there I so much more to it. The premise? You are a school kid who agrees to join your friend’s literature club, from there you meet new people and write some poetry to appease different members of the club. After launching the game, it makes you aware of the serious themes the game handles. Often I found myself thinking I knew where the story was going to go next but it somehow managed to stay fresh (maybe this is because I hadn’t played a visual novel/dating sim before).

Anyway, Doki Doki Literature Club is free on steam and will probably run on a calculator. I recommend you do no research on the game and just dive in. 

 

Yakuza 0

The Yakuza series is one I have always wanted to jump into but I never quite knew where to start. Thankfully Yakuza 0 came out this year and after watching the first few episodes of Giant Bombs playthrough I knew I should stop and dive in myself. I bought a PS4 for this game out of sheer excitement. 

I don’t think I have ever played a game that evokes such a strong sense of time and place. The 80s Tokyo setting is absolutely astonishing, the handcrafted open world is full of atmosphere whether it is day or night and it feels huge even though it is relatively small, part of this is because there is just so much to do. This is most evident when you can finish the main game and rack up just 13% completion. Whether it is pocket circuit racing, karaoke, or visiting the arcades there Yakuza manages to present the illusion of a full city to explore and take part in when you aren’t punching yakuza in the face. 

In addition to its world and atmosphere, Yakuza 0 manages to be the funniest game of the year and also the most dramatic. Somehow it balances absurdist comedy with it tough gangland story. You go from fighting to get free from the yakuza to defending an off brand Michael Jackson from ‘zombies’ for a Thriller music video. And let’s not get started on the Karaoke scenes, as soon as they become available, do it. 

 

Kingdoms and Castles

In trying to escape the shithole of a year 2017 has been, I stumbled across Kingdoms and Castles, a city planning game with a massively welcomed ‘non-combat mode’. When I started playing, I never (and still haven’t) attempted a playthrough with combat, it is something I simply have no interest in so I’ll admit I can’t speak for that side of the game. 

This is one of those city builders that allows the player to choose their desired level of depth, you can make this as complicated as you want you, and this is why it stuck with me this year. In the beginning, I spent hours looking after a tiny hamlet with just 50 citizens in making sure I could provide enough resources and entertainment to keep them healthy and happy. 

Eventually I expanded, creating houses for new settlers to stay, districts for entertainment and industry, religious and academic districts, I even found myself building a bridge to another small island to create a mini village on the outskirts of my now growing city (I think the word I’m looking for is suburb). There isn’t much more I can say about Kingdoms and Castles, it has a nice style it allowed me to live out my dream of being a benevolent dictator, I can’t ask for more than that.