Review: Celeste

Celeste is an interesting game that I’ve been both hot and cold on. It released on January 25, a little less than a month ago, on pretty much every current platform – PS4, Switch, XBox One, PC, etc. It’s a single-player platformer from the maker of Towerfall: Ascension, a very fun multiplayer game that my friends and I enjoyed. I even made a few videos of it for my YouTube channel a while ago. As Towerfall was only multiplayer, it seems fitting that the creator designed an only single-player game using similar platforming mechanics.

The object of Celeste is simple: you are a young girl named Madeline who is climbing the mountain Celeste for…some reason. Through sheer will and determination (along with the ability to dash-jump) you help her navigate the treacherous pitfalls of Celeste. You meet a few interesting characters along the way, but the story is a very light backdrop for the real meat of the game – precision platforming fun.

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Endgame Discontent

Endgame content (also sometimes referred to as postgame content) has always been a thing in video games. What it refers to is the idea that you’ve been the main story of the game, but now that that’s over there’s more stuff for you to do if you want to keep exploring the game’s world. These are different from sidequests that are just super hard but still available to you before you beat the game: this is specifically content you’re only given access to after you’ve completed the main storyline. One of the more well-known types of endgame content include “raids” that were popularized by World of Warcraft – very hard bosses that you have access to once you’ve completed the game and have hit a high (or max) level with your character. These raid bosses can take anywhere from 3-4 hours to complete and teamwork from many different players. But they aren’t required for the main game – they’re only for people who really love World of Warcraft and want to participate in that kind of epic strategical play.

This content is a way to keep players engaged and challenged in your game after they’ve supposedly done everything they actually need to. Super Mario Odyssey, for example, only requires a certain amount of moons to beat the game – but once you have beaten it a whole bunch more moons are unlocked across all the worlds along with a completely new world. These moons are more challenging to get but are completely unnecessary if you’ve already had your fill with the game. It’s a good way for developers to add more content for people who really enjoy the game but not to overwhelm other people who play the game more casually.

The problem is that as developers are extending game length, the idea of “content” starts selling at a premium. And the emerging idea of Games As A Service (which I talked about in my very first blog post on here) had made it so developers don’t want their games to end at all. So endgame content stops being extra and starts becoming a part of the actual game which becomes a detriment to the game (and overall game design) itself.

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The New At Games Experience

Recently with my Nintendo Switch I’ve been showing a few games here and there to my girlfriend and teaching her how to play them. Now I’ve played video games since I was about six years old, while my girlfriend has not played many video games at all. Outside of a few tries at games here and there and some mobile games she plays on her phone, her experiences with video games were non existent. She enjoys playing games like the Jackbox Games (Drawful, Quiplash, etc.) and other party-style games but hadn’t ever played anything else on consoles.

I figured I would get a few different kinds of games that might be of interest to her and start slow to try and find some things that she liked and go from there. The games I’ve downloaded so far are Stardew Valley, Snake Pass, and The Bridge from the Nintendo Switch e-shop. Stardew Valley is a Harvest Moon-esque farming simulator, Snake Pass is a 3D physics-based puzzle game where you control a snake and he collects…things, and The Bridge is a 2D physics-based puzzle game where you have to guide a little dude through some weird, MC Escher-esque levels. And after showing her each of these games, I started to observe something I hadn’t really thought about before.

Video games are not designed for people who have never played video games before.

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Movie Theory: Let’s Talk The Last Jedi

I’ve been putting off putting my thoughts on The Last Jedi into words for a while. I was initially going to do a review of the movie soon after it was released, but the internet almost immediately filled up with “hot takes” where everyone was trying to shout out their opinion louder than anyone else’s. There was a lot of “Yes, The Last Jedi IS the best Star Wars movie ever” vs. “No, The Last Jedi IS the worst Star Was movie ever.” Everyone wanted to point out how Rian Johnson was either a genius or a hack. In the age of the internet and social media, speed is key you see. A nuanced, thought about opinion is not desired because what’s hot and relevant can change in the blink of an eye. So I decided to holster my opinion until after the madness of the initial release died down. And now with the trailer for the Solo movie being released along with the announcement that Disney is giving the Game of Thrones guys their own trilogy to write, I figure now is a good a time as any to go back and talk about Episode VIII.

Before we get into the nitty gritty of it, I will say that there will be open spoilers to the movie in the following review. I’m not going to police my words or jump around the big spoilers if I’m talking about them, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet and that’s an issue to you I’d recommend bailing out now and coming back later when you’ve seen it. I’ll also be openly talking about stuff from other Star Wars movies too, obviously. But if you’ve already seen everything or just don’t care about spoilers then come on in, the water’s fine.

Now with that out of the way, let’s begin.

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Souls Hard or Hardly Souls?

I took the last week off because I unexpectedly needed a bit of a break from writing, but I’m back for a new entry! Today I’d like to talk about a game series that’s near and dear to my heart: the Souls series. The main series is, of course, the Dark Souls series – but there is also Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne, as well as games that have similar styles like Nioh and The Surge. Elements of the Souls series have popped up in all sorts of other genres due to its immense popularity and it’s been one of the more influential modern series in terms of game design.

It’s also unfortunately gotten a bit of a reputation due to a certain subset of its fans. The Souls games are often heralded as a series for “true gamers” and the internet meme of “git gud” is often closely associated with it because the so-called “difficulty” of the Souls games is what lots of people like to talk about as if that’s what draws people to the series. Souls games are almost a trial by fire in the gaming world and lots of arguments have been had over whether the series needs an easy mode or a better way to get new people into the game. And since I’m a huge fan of the series, I have opinions on the subject. So here’s what I think:

The Souls games aren’t hard.

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Top 100 Games of All-Time: #70-61

And here we are again! I return with the next ten items on my top 100 games list. I’m starting to gush more so the entries are getting a little longer. But I know you’re not here to listen to me babble. When I looked back at my other articles, I realized that in every post for my top 100 list, I’ve said “without further ado” to lead into the next ten. So why break from tradition?

Without further ado, here’s #70-61!

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Movie Theory: The 2017 T-Man Movie Awards

My brain is running on empty again today and I have a few things I’d like to talk about in the video game sphere, but I don’t have my thoughts organized on any one particular thing yet. So instead of writing up a half-baked review or writing an opinion piece that bobs and weaves until it goes off the rails, I’ve decided to dip into the movie pool again. The Oscar nominations were announced yesterday and since I haven’t really done a best of 2017 for movies (or anything really) I decided I’d put together the TMan Movie Awards. It’s a bunch of random categories I made up so I can talk a little bit about my favorite movies of the last year. Here we go.

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Apology Not Accepted: The Internet’s Judgment is Final

Last Thursday night, the Dallas Fuel played the Houston Outlaws in the Overwatch League. Going into the match, it was expected that the Dallas Fuel would destroy the Houston Outlaws because the Fuel was considered to be one of the better Western teams in the league and near the top in talent. The Outlaws then ended up crushing the Fuel 4-0 and it looked really, really bad for Fuel. There was no communication, a lot of bad playing, and just in general they did not look like a top tier team.

That night after the match Felix Lengyel aka xQc – a tank player for Dallas who didn’t even play in this particular match – got on his Twitch stream (which he has thousand of follower for and is one of the more notorious and/or popular Overwatch streamers) and insulted the main tank player for the Houston Outlaws, Austin Wilmot aka Muma. Muma is openly gay, and xQc’s insult was homophobic in nature. You can see the clip of xQc’s comment here. (Warning: Graphic language in this clip.)

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Nintendo’s Cardboard Creativity

If you missed it (or don’t care about video games) Nintendo announced something new for the Nintendo Switch yesterday. It wasn’t a game (well, it’s kind of a game) but more of an add-on to the system. Although I hesitate to even call it an add-on because it’s…well it’s weird. Here, take a look at this reveal trailer and then come back here.

You watched it?

Okay, good.

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Top 100 Games of All-Time: #80-71

I’m really tired today – I was planning to write up something else for my post today, but my brain is just not braining properly. So instead I’m just going to go ahead and hit the next 10 on my top 100 games of all-time since it’s already prepared with only minimal work to do and I’ll put out a full article tomorrow. Without further ado, here’s #80-71!

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