Writing N' Video Games

106 hours later, I beat the last story monster of Monster Hunter: World (with slinger ammo.) FEATURING the most advanced and beautiful range of monsters to date, Monster Hunter: World is the fifth mainline game in the series and the first on the XO/PS4 generation.  It's huge.  And filled with large monsters, small monsters, pet-sized monsters, plants you'd be lucky to find during a hunt, bugs, and ore to collect for items, monster specific rewards, equipment (weapons, consumables, and charms), and an arena so that you can't run.  Then, there are high-rank versions of all that.  The general success of this Monster Hunter is taking all that stuff and making them useful to hunting and crafting, so hunting and crafting are interwoven through every scale of the game, be it your current task or the one you're preparing for. Full Ingot armor and a mud monster (Barroth) THERE are 32 large monsters in the New World, meaning the boss sized ones, (the ones we really c...

SLIME Rancher takes the survival exploration gameplay that dominates open world games and drops the survival. I caught my first glimpse of Slime Rancher near the beginning of its early access run and bought it a few months from its official release.  What is it?  It’s a whole lot of farming of wild blob-like creatures (slimes) and food while using a vacuum gun through a day and night cycle to earn money. The catch is that there is no pressure. Home on the ranch THE game starts by informing you that you, Beatrix LeBeau, have journeyed to the Far Far Range, 1,000 light-years from earth and quickly spawns you first person, vacpack (vacuum gun) in hand on your ranch. The gun is easy-to-learn: collect and release things.  You can collect slimes, slime droppings (extremely valuable rocks), food to feed your slimes, and eventually upgrade it to carry water.  You can also sprint and jump, the usual stuff in a first-person game. The machinery with green li...

Why hello, I didn't see you there. Please, step in. Don't worry, despite us never having met, my alien translator perfectly converts our conversation to English. What? Yours doesn't? You should see a doctor about that... Factions - Broader Strokes THE ANGARAN... and Jaal: As a written character, Jaal is fine enough, if you're willing to settle for that. He's the poster boy for his species and as such, is our window into their culture. Our experience with him will either help define his race or defy stereotypical expectations. Many characters in Mass Effect tend to fall outside the norm of their culture. They serve as exposition to their people's norms while also highlighting how and why differ. *My biggest gripe with Jaal has to do with the god-awful writing, scripting, and direction of his loyalty quest. It's not even a terrible premise, it's just executed with utter nonsense. A sub faction of the Angaran are hostile to any foreign aliens, w...

Gabe again, welcome back to me slicing and dicing Mass Effect Andromeda for the sake of narrative exploration. Shout out to my blog partner, Ben, who left me this lovely comment while proof reading this segment: "Gabe sucks jk" Stay beautiful, Ben. Characters: Fine Tuning (Cont.) *Cracks knuckles* Alright, let's start getting to work on the bread and butter of Mass Effect: our alien squad mates. OLD VETRA: Our smuggling Turian squad mate made a great impression on me when we first boarded the Tempest (our pathfinding space ship). I got the feeling she was someone who routinely circumvented regular routines from her demeanor and actions. Vetra's resume comprises a slew of contacts she somehow fostered in a new galaxy that enables to get her hands (talons?) on a variety of resources and tools that suit your needs. In practice, she doesn't actually get you anything specific. She just says she can. This breaks a cardinal rule of story-telling (show don...

You came back! I mean, ahem, of course you did. Welcome back to part two, everyone. Ch aracter Alterations - Fine Tuning RYDER: In principle, I admire what they aimed to do with Ryder as a new hero, in contrast to Shepard. I consider it a mi ld success that grew into a deafening misunderstanding of tone. It makes sense though. Shepard was already established as skilled and noteworthy by the time he was a Spectre. Why not take the opportunity to build someone's story from scratch in an endearing way with fumbling starts? It certainly breaks the mold except...  As the late Rodney Dangerfield would phrase it, Ryder gets no respect. As a replacement Pathfinder, Ryder has no experience and often flounders nonsensically as they figure out the plot. Excuse me, I misspoke. I meant to say, as SAM (his artificial intelligence) figures out the plot. Ryder flies by the seat of his/her pants, treating serious problems flippantly with little to no options to play it one hundred ...

Hello there fans, both new and old.  This is Gabe signing in to take a swing at a dead horse. I've made no secret about my feelings for the Mass Effect series- in fact, I've uploaded about a dozen episodes to our YouTube channel to that effect. Today isn't going to be all that different. As a writer, I've always looked to other works in various mediums in order to refine my own sensibilities, taste, and style. The original Mass Effect Trilogy, Firefly, Star Wars, and Star Trek (among others) all helped cement my desire to step into the science fiction genre.    So, like the title says, I'm gonna tear Mass Effect Andromeda up, pick apart the pieces, shuffle them around, insert some possibilities, and see what happens. For science! As a disclaimer, I've played Andromeda twice to completion (Boy Ryder and Girl Ryder/ Pre-patch and Post-patch!) and dabbled in the multiplayer. It's not a bad game, more like an unlucky one that barely represents the best part...

Symphonic Gameplay: Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of what's left of my life, I have finally beaten Persona 5. I am thou, thou art I. Thou has turned a vow into a blood oath. Your ability to enjoy JRPG's is now infinite.    Full disclosure, I've only ever beaten Persona 4 before getting excited to play 5 but man was it worth my relatively short wait. As a newer fan of the Persona series (as well the Shin Megami Tensei series), my appreciation has come in layered waves of discovery.  The turned-based combat and general focus of the series tickles the nostalgic center of the genre that first got me to fall in love with video games. Combine that with its sincere effort towards fleshing out a distinct cast of characters and I was hooked. Persona 4 took my breath away and retroactively stands as one the best games I almost missed during my PS2 era. I'm happy to say that I didn't miss the boat on P5.  I could talk at length ...