Russell Revisits 2019
Welcome to the first annual Russell Revisits. These days, video games reviews are a bit tough to nail down thanks to all of the updates, patches, additional content and downloadable content that the modern internet allows for. Because of this, I wanted to take a look back at the games I reviewed this year that were lacking in some way in the hopes that, since their release, they’ve pulled themselves together. So any game that I gave a “Don’t buy this game” or “Buy this game on sale” rating and had received a major update was eligible to for a second look. Ideally, I’ll be able to upgrade their rating, but if not I’ll still make note of any significant changes made to the game.
Dauntless
When I first reviewed Dauntless, I was genuinely impressed by the gameplay. I thought it had managed to streamline the mechanics the Monster Hunter series had been wrestling with for years and made it more approachable than ever. Dauntless had incredibly cool giant monsters to hunt and a fun variety of weapons for players to master. On top of that, Dauntless went above and beyond to help players understand what materials they needed to retrieve from the monsters in order to acquire new gear, what special abilities the gear had, and how players could enhance those skills. Best of all, all players from all platforms were able to play together thanks to Dauntless’s cross-play servers. Unfortunately, Dauntless was also one of the greediest games I’ve ever seen, employing possible the most offensive season pass I have ever come across. By holding quest rewards that players had earned hostage behind the barrier of their season pass, the developers soured my entire experience.
Now, three months after full release, there have been a variety of updates to Dauntless. Setting aside holiday events, Dauntless has added two new game modes, a new weapon, and a brand new monster. The first new game mode is Trials. In Trials, players embark on a hunt with special, unique modifiers that change both their surroundings and the monster. These modifiers can be anything from predatory wildlife that will assault players to vicious winds that obscure sight and move players around. For completing these hunts, players are awarded Steel Marks which can be exchanged for new gear. Additionally, top hunters will have their names and stats displayed on a constantly-updating scoreboard in the community hub. The other new mode is tied in with the new monster. In Escalation hunts, players will fight through a gauntlet of five fights featuring randomly-chosen monsters, often facing two monsters at once, in a smaller than usual arena. At the end of each fight, players receive a boon that will help in all of the remaining fights. Boons can be anything from increased damage to special abilities. If players perform well enough on an Escalation hunt, they will be able to fight the newest monster, the Malkarion. The Malkarion features new gameplay mechanics, as it is the first monster to grapple, and be grappled by, players. Lastly, Dauntless added a new class of weapon: Strikers. These are essentially combat gauntlets, plated gloves that allow players to pummel the monsters with their own two hands. The new mechanic of Strikers is Mantras, different boons that can be obtained when players make sure to vary their attacks, making for a tricky task of managing different Mantras and balancing different attack chains while also fighting a giant monster.
Unfortunately, in spite of all of these admittedly fantastic updates, Dauntless remains as money-hungry as ever, with full hunt rewards being withheld until players pay for the season pass. Worse, bonuses like Steel Marks and reward boosts are now included in the season pass, further attempting to seduce players with more items players who don’t have the extra money to spend have to work hard to get. I wish the developers of Dauntless had done more to improve its weakest points, but it doesn’t look like that’s in the cards.
Second Look: No Score Revision
Pathway
In my first look at Pathway, I had a number of problems. Pathway featured a not very dog-friendly Dog-Friendly mode, the only playable German character was hesitant to commit violence against the Nazi enemies that make up the bulk of the game’s opposition, the story moments weren’t very interesting and about 50% of the combat mechanics were either explained poorly or not explained at all. Worryingly, developers of Pathway, Robotality, appear to have bugged my home because nearly every problem I had with the game at first has been fixed.
Obviously the most important change is the Dog-Friendly mode. Previously, all this option did was silence the sounds dogs made when wounded or killed. I didn’t like it and it was honestly a bit creepy. Now, dogs still don’t make any noise, but there are no longer any reaction animations to being wounded, no player choices or story material that references the harming or killing of dogs, and when a dog’s health is depleted, dogs instead run away while vanishing into an ethereal mist. This is pretty clearly a reference to the way dog units die in Wargroove, but developers explained in an article that it is the dogs disappearing “into a parallel universe when they decide they’ve had enough of human silliness.” The explanation is a bit silly itself but Pathway also features laser guns, zombies, and magic rocks so this inter-dimensional retreat actually fits in pretty well. Other, non-dog-related improvements include the German character no longer doing less damage to Nazi forces and better explanations of combat mechanics. Now, not everything is explained as much as I would like it to be, such as how many hit points does a character get from a boosted Vitality score, but thankfully there is now a much better combat interface. When players are lining up an attack on an enemy, not only will they see how much damage the attack will do, they will also see how likely the attack is to land, how much damage will be mitigated by enemy armor, and what damage bonuses or penalties apply. On top of that, when moving characters around the battlefield, players can hold the Tab key to how moving to different spaces will affect what enemies will be in attack range, what cover will come into play and how likely those attacks are to hit. This is a huge improvement to the enjoyability of combat. The developers have also added new skills characters can use in combat and new magical artifacts with can be equipped for bonuses, but that’s just icing on the cake.
I am thoroughly pleased by the efforts the developers of Pathway have made. At this point it isn’t a perfect game but it’s leagues ahead of where it was on release. Strictly speaking, no company has to do updates to their game after release, unless it’s bad enough to get the law involved, but developers like Robotality go the extra mile to please customers and make good on their promises. I hope every staff member receives a raise or at the very least a few extra days off for the excellent work they’ve done. Though I still think it’s unfair that Fenris isn’t an unlockable character.
Second Look: Score Upgraded to Buy This Game At Full Price
My Friend Pedro
The first time I played My Friend Pedro earlier this year, I lamented its uninspired design and mechanics that were either broken or worked against the theme of the game. However, the game received an update in mid-October that promised several new twists to the game that I thought would help make it more fun and goofy. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
In the Code Yellow update, 14 new game modifiers were added to My Friend Pedro. These updates included infinite ammo, infinite Focus energy, one-shot kills, and Cinematic Focus Camera mode. All of these things sounded like fantastic ways to spice up the otherwise subpar gameplay. Unfortunately, after firing up the game again, I discovered that not only are players forced to track down these modifiers in the game levels to use them, but first players must have already reached the final boss to even begin unlocking these modifiers. This means that if someone wants to play with these new toys, they first have to play through the game twice, once to unlock the ability to unlock the modifiers, and again to unlock the modifiers. It seems weird to add in such fun tools but reserve them for people who want to play the same game three times. I think developers DeadToast would have been much better of if they had let the players use the modifiers from the very beginning, or at the very least allowed them to be unlocked before getting to the end of the game.
In the end, I suppose these game modifiers would have only been able to distract me from the parts I didn’t like about My Friend Pedro, but as any magician or tactician can tell you, a little distraction can go a long way. I guess it would be nice if DeadToast did later allow these game modifiers to be acquired earlier, but at this point I don’t plan on paying attention to My Friend Pedro ever again so I’ll never know.
Second Look: No Score Revision
The Sinking City
The Sinking City was a weird game for me to review, because I knew I liked it a lot more than most other people would, representing a so far unprecedented gap between my opinion and my review. This is because I’m a sucker for Lovecraftian fiction and that’s not an experience the majority of people share, so while I recommended others buy it on sale, I was still pretty happy with my purchase. So my review featured a lot of issues I had with the game on a more level-headed, logical level that was overlooked by the side of my brain that is a Lovecraftian fan, nearly like an Alar mind-split. Revisiting The Sinking City this week meant reinstating this mental divide.
In the original release, The Sinking City had some very real technical issues as some significant shortcomings with the game’s combat. Developer Frogwares issued an update earlier this year that was supposed to fix all of these things, but unfortunately didn’t do enough. The main thing this update remedied was the pitiful guns. Before the update, all of the game’s firearms were quieter than an electric car and had all the recoil of a can of soda, which meant the player wasn’t sure they were properly fighting back and didn’t realize when they were being shot by enemies. Now, the gunplay has been improved with much better sound effects and proper handling. Additionally, the technical issues have been resolved, with some clear processing optimization present. Sadly, the game is still riddled with issues including nonsensical AI villager behavior, bizarre background character spawning and de-spawning, and glitches with terrain and enemy movement.
The developers had the potential to fix my biggest problems with The Sinking City if their patch had done all it said it would, but unfortunately it fell short pretty significantly. At this point, I’d be surprised if the game got any more support as it apparently didn’t sell very well, so this patch was a bit of a last hope for me. I still like it, and it oddly might end up on my Game of the Year list in spite of all of these problems, but that’s because I’m a rube and I have a feeling the rest of you are a bit sharper.
Second Look: No Score Revision
Nowhere Prophet
I think the first time I took a look at Nowhere Prophet, I was thinking of it as a card game. I believe this was a reasonable position to take, as the game advertises itself a both a “card game” and “deckbuilder.” But I think in actuality it’s halfway between a card game and a army-building tactics game like Warhammer. The reason I make this point is because, in my mind, card games are more flexible and can achieve victory in more ways than simply reducing your opponent’s life total to zero. While revisiting Nowhere Prophet, I looked at it through this new lens and, combined with the updates the developer has made, it made for a better experience.
The biggest headline of the updates made to Nowhere Prophet is the addition of two new player classes, a new player caravan and over 40 new cards to play with. I wasn’t able to play with these new classes or convoy, and I honestly have no idea how many of the new cards I’ve seen since it’s been six months since I first played Nowhere Prophet, but none of that mattered thanks to a different update. In mid-September, Nowhere Prophet got an update that enabled the Custom Game mode. In this, players customize their play experience beyond just difficulty. Instead, players can apply up to four of the available 22 modifiers. These modifiers are awesome, with effects that change the game on an almost fundamental level. There are modifiers that make the game harder, such as making followers die as soon as they are damaged once, and there are modifiers that make it easier, such as starting with greatly increased resources. But the best are the ones that shift the game laterally to a new experience. My personal favorite is the Diamond mod, which makes it so follower cards are never wounded or killed, but in response it’s harder to find new recruits and costs more to bring them into your fold when you do finally track some down. This is great because Nowhere Prophet’s normal mode is full of Pyrrhic victories that keep me from feeling good when I play, and I having to work hard to recruit new followers make them feel that much more meaningful when I do get them. I know that the slow degrading of followers in normal mode is supposed to mimic the harsh reality of living in the post-apocalypse but, as I said in my original review, I’m thoroughly over grim and uncaring wastelands by now.
Though the improvements to Nowhere Prophet aren’t as impressive as those made to Pathway, I do think they’re enough to improve my opinion of the game. While the core game is still a flawed gem, Custom Game mode allows players to bend the bones of Nowhere Prophet into a shape that allows them to have fun on their own terms. On top of that, Developer Sharkbomb Studios has released a steady stream of new content in the six months since the game’s release and that’s always worth commendation.
