Author: Nimgimli

My wishlist for The Division

Posted on by Nimgimli

Now that I am a complete and total expert at the game (that’s sarcasm, just to be perfectly clear) I decided it was time to let Massive know what they need to make their game even better. I have only one real gameplay item on my wishlist; the rest is about new content:

1) Give us the option to play in a more open world in what is now the PvE areas. I know I can matchmake, but when I’m roaming around solo it’d be great to just stumble on another agent and be able to work together to take on a mini-boss or something. I know this isn’t an MMO, and it certainly isn’t anything like Destiny despite a weird compulsion in the press to compare the two (which I think is based primarily on the fact that both games start with the letter D), but I do wish they would borrow this one feature from MMOs and Destiny. Of course they’d have to add some random tough content in the PvE areas to give these ad-hoc groups of players content that would challenge them.

We know they have the tech to do this since it’s exactly how the Dark Zone works, and the Dark Zone can be fun but it can also be stressful and some days you just want to chill and shoot baddies without worrying about someone stabbing you in the back. So expand the Dark Zone PvE mechanics to the whole world but leave the PvP in the DZ and I think the game would be even more compelling than it is now.

2) I hope we see the map expand over time. I’d love them to extend it south into Soho. Get it far enough south to encompass NYU and Washington Square and all the narrow streets around there and I think that area would have a unique feel as compared to the rest of the game.

3) When The Underground DLC comes out, I hope it isn’t limited to known public subway tunnels but that it extends into the semi-mythical labyrinth of forgotten tunnels. We know some of these exist for sure, but there have always been rumors of huge secret areas down there (if you remember the old TV show Beauty & the Beast, it capitalized on these rumors). If you’ve ever taken the LIRR into Manhattan you know how vast the underground area is and you see all these mysterious openings leading to who knows what? That could be really cool to explore.

So that’s my short list. In the intro to the game they flash a map of the world showing dollar flu outbreaks scattered all over the place, so I doubt The Division II will remain in NY, but I’d be happy to spend a long time in this particular city…

Day 1 of The Division

Posted on by Nimgimli

At long last, Tom Clancy’s The Division has launched and in spite of what some of the gaming blogs are saying, it was a fairly smooth launch. Let’s talk about the bad stuff first.

At midnight the Ubi servers struggled a bit. Folks were getting random connection errors trying to get in, but a tad of persistence would see you through. At worst I had to try 3 times to log in. By Tuesday instead of getting an error I was being put into a short queue, so they either implemented that or fixed something to help with the initial rush of players.

A bigger problem was that they never beta-tested the intro and so didn’t notice an easy griefing technique. Early on you have to go into a small office and when you come out you’re in a social space. Grief issue #1 is that people would stand in front of the door out of that office, preventing you from getting out (avatars are solid in the social spaces). The solution to that problem was sprinting…eventually you’ll pass through another character if you’re in a sprint. The next step is to sign into a laptop on a desk. Again, it’s easy to disrupt everyone’s fun by standing right in front of that laptop. You need to be in front of it to use it so 1 or 2 people can cause this:

The solution here is to log out and log back in and hope you log back into an asshat-free instance. Hopefully this issue will be patched very soon. If the intro area had been in the beta I’m sure this would’ve been caught.

For me at least, those were the only two issues. I jumped back and forth between playing on the Xbox One and the PS4. I prefer the game on PS4; it just feels crisper somehow. I’m not sure if the framerate is a little higher or that the controller is tighter or what, but I feel like I play better on PS4 (another example of how The Division isn’t a shooter…I’m better at shooters on Xbox). I also like the gimmick of having radio chatter coming from the PS4’s controller (you can disable that if you don’t like it).

All that said, many more of my friends are playing on Xbox One and Microsoft has purchased a 30 day exclusivity window for the first two DLC packs, so for now I’ll probably focus on the Xbox One version.

Over the course of the day I played solo, which is pretty easy aside from a few bosses, and a lot of time as a team of two, which isn’t much harder. You can tweak the difficulty of “story missions” to make them harder but the various “encounters” are what they are and at least in the low-ish level stuff (I got to level 8 of 30 on day 1) it’s really easy unless you wander into higher level areas. The game is supposed to scale content in response to team size but that wasn’t really apparent to me in a team of two.

Then late last night we added a 3rd player to our team and that’s when things went crazy. We were doing a side mission (I think) and we were just swarmed with baddies. I was quickly over-whelmed and killed, but luckily my team-mates were much better players than I am and we carried the day. But that was a hell of a lot of fun. I can’t imagine what the game is like with a team of 4!

Overall it was a really good first day. No real surprises since much of what I was doing I’ve already done several times in the beta tests. The intro area, as expected, is Brooklyn and it was a tad disappointing just because there’s not much to do there. It’s a fairly large area but you do a few quests and move on. Maybe we’ll return at some point and have more of a reason to explore.

My biggest challenge now is deciding what to do with surplus loot. Do I sell it so I have $$ to buy better gear, or do I break it down into components for crafting? Decisions, decisions!

Needed a hit of fantasy, so back to The Elder Scrolls Online

Posted on by Nimgimli

For the last few months I’ve been playing games that take place in a modern setting. First it was Watch Dogs, then it was Dying Light, with a few The Division beta tests mixed in. Last weekend I found myself craving some good old fantasy gaming. With the launch of The Division so near, it didn’t make sense for me to start in on some 50-100 hour RPG so I turned to good old dependable The Elder Scrolls Online.

I have a curious relationship with TESO. I really like it, but I never make any progress in it (and I sometimes forget about it for months at a time). I started playing when the game launched. When the console versions came out I moved my characters to the PS4, which is where I’ve been playing lately (I own the game on PC, PS4 & Xbox One for some crazy reason). Last weekend when I went back to the game my highest level character was…. 23! I’ve seen videos of players who go 1-50 in under 10 hours and over the course of a few years I’ve managed to get to level 23!

But that’s OK because what I enjoy about TESO is just being in the world. I know the aesthetics of the game are somewhat divisive. I believe a lot of people find it all kind of drab. I find it believable. Adventurers wear armor that seems reasonably practical (though I question some of the helm designs) and villagers seem to have quests that make sense. To me the world feels like it could be real and there aren’t zany comedy bits to constantly remind you its a game (I’m looking at you, Wildstar with your guitar riffs and announcer voice going crazy whenever something happens).

Oddly I think it’s the food that best encapsulates this aspect of TESO. Instead of making a dish of, y’know, spider venom glands with troll spleen sauce, you’re making Alik’r Beets with Goat Cheese or Ginger Wheat Ale. The food I make in TESO sounds like food I would actually enjoy eating.

I know it’s silly and it doesn’t impact gameplay in any way but it just helps me to become (yes I’m going to go there) immersed in the world. I don’t make a lot of progress because I spend so much time roaming around reading books, talking to NPCs and picking flowers.

But last weekend something different happened. I got frustrated after losing a fight I should’ve won, several times in a row. For the first time I decided to research builds and boy did I ever go down a rat hole. I’ve watched so many videos from Deltia’s Gaming this week that I feel like maybe I need to put him on my Christmas card list.

What I learned was that my race/class combo just isn’t viable. (And I later learned that’s not really true.) And in fact most of my characters were awkward combos. That led to a shake-up that saw me deleting characters, creating new ones, and re-speccing one to rebuild him in one of Deltia’s images.

My (I thought) non-viable main, I decided, would become my crafter, doing all skills except alchemy (since fighting characters should learn alchemy for one of the passives). Of course to do that, he needed some skill points. I decided I’d just run around collecting skyshards for some easy skill points. So I started doing that but got side-tracked by some quests and…

Spent the last week playing him. My new and re-specced characters sit idle and my non-viable main is doing just fine now that I’ve tweaked my skill bars and re-learned2play a bit. Turns out the difference between a good class/race combo and a poor one is something like 8-10% damage at end game (don’t quote me on that, but the point wasn’t that you couldn’t play these ‘poor’ combos just that there are combos that were more efficient).

But man have I been hard-core into the game for the past week. I’ve been doing little else besides work and playing TESO. I have been taking notes to make sure I don’t miss anything. Like on paper with a pen like I’m some kind of dinosaur (hush you, no old man jokes). Progress is still slow because I still play my way, but my crafting progress has been good and I hit level 27 last night. Just finishing up Stormhaven and finally ready to move on to the next zone. And all my time spent with Deltia wasn’t wasted because the character feels SO much more powerful now that I have a better grasp on how to use the skills he has available. So no regrets for the time I spent doing that.

The Thieves Guild DLC hits PC tomorrow (I think) but us console players have to wait until March 22 or 23rd. That works well since I’ll probably be in The Division for a solid few weeks before I’m ready to mix things up. So after Monday night TESO will go back on the shelf again, but it’s comforting to know it’s always there waiting to scratch my fantasy itch.

Oh and it’s worth noting that the game seems to be doing well, on PS4 at least. There’re always people around; even when I started new characters there were plenty of other fresh avatar-faces entering the realm for the first time. I was happy to see that!

The Division: Something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear.

Posted on by Nimgimli

I haven’t talked about Tom Clancy’s The Division here on the blog but I’m super stoked for it and have talked about it so much on some social media services that people have asked me to please shut the f- up about it (in a much nicer way).

I had the game pre-ordered on the PS4 mostly because I had $100 in PSN credit and because these days, I generally gravitate to the PS4. But a few of my friends had pre-ordered on the Xbox One. Well, I’m socially anxious enough that I don’t often have the gumption to join in on MP festivities (though the few times I have done so I’ve had a great time) so I was fine with being the odd man out over on PS4.

Then this morning CoutureGaming caught The Division bug and if you don’t know Aaron from CoutureGaming, let me tell you that guy’s enthusiasm is INFECTIOUS. So that got my Twitter feed rolling along about The Division. Blowing up, really.

And it turns out there’s maybe 10 people I know who seem really excited for co-op-ing their way through the streets of Manhattan together. I was starting to doubt my decision to go PS4 on this one. Then not one, but two people offered to buy me a copy of the game on Xbox One so I could join in with the gang.

Now let me tell you something about myself. I’m an old geek. In other words I was a geek when being a geek meant being picked on, shoved around, and generally shunned. I was also a fat kid. I was never wanted for any kind of team activity. I was the guy who was picked last. I also lived far from any other kids, so I spent most of my childhood doing solitary activities. Even though that was 45+ years ago, I think it really set a path for my life to follow. I tend towards doing everything alone. I can overcome this; I spent a few years tending bar back when bartending was 1 part drink mixing, 1 part therapist. And I was well-liked as a bartender too. But as I get older I return to my solitary ways.

So when a couple of people actually wanted my company to the point where they offered to buy me a copy of the game, I was sincerely moved. Of course I couldn’t take them up on their offer; I wouldn’t impose on such kindness unless I was in dire need. But it did convince me to order an Xbox One copy of the game.

We (and by we I’m referring to my social media circle of friends and acquaintances) talk about gaming a lot, but we don’t actually get around to playing together very often. There are a couple of duos that get together frequently (I admit I’m basing this all on outside observation) but getting 4 people together for a team event seems pretty rare.

But somehow I think The Division is going to be that special snowflake of a game where there are enough people interested and playing on the same platform that we might have full groups playing together rather frequently, at least during those heady early days of launch.

Now all I have to do is overcome my anxiety and take that first step to join them, and playing The Division could become a very special experience for me. I have to admit I’m even more excited about the game now.

Oh, and to any PS4 owning friends that might read this, I still have the game pre-ordered there too. I have Destiny on both platforms and have played it on both. I’m content to cross-own The Division as well.

No Man’s Sky starting positions

Posted on by Nimgimli

nomansskycoverSometimes my brain gets stuck on weird things.

Today the No Man’s Sky launch date was revealed (June 21st) and it got me thinking about the game again. In case you’ve not bought a ticket for this particular hype train, No Man’s Sky is a space exploration/combat game (for PS4 & PC, at least initially) that features a huge procedurally generated universe. In theory it is multiplayer but the devs have said that the universe is so large that it’s unlikely you’ll run into other players accidentally until far into the game.

The goal, as far as I can tell, is to reach the core of the universe. I think it’s a pretty ‘loose’ goal and the game is all quite sandbox-y. As you discover planets they will be tagged as being discovered by you, so there is at least some vague perk to finding a planet first.

In order to make reaching the core at least somewhat plausible, your initial spawn has to be a finite distance from that core, right? So we can imagine a kind of fuzzy sphere with the core in the center and that is, generally speaking, the play-space of the universe. Players will start somewhere on the surface of this sphere.

The radius of this sphere will determine how many unique starting positions there are, right? As a sphere expands its surface area increases and we’re all going to start on the ‘surface’ of this conceptualized sphere so that we’re all starting on more or less equal terms, with regard to how long our trip to the core is going to take.

So here is my concern (and to be clear, it’s not a major concern, just something to muse about). A Day 1 player gets his/her starting spot and heads core-ward and every planet s/he encounters is a discovery for him/her. This is the pioneer player.

Six months after launch it’s Christmas and a gamer gets a PS4 and a copy of No Man’s Sky. When this new player starts, will there be a ‘fresh lane’ for him to follow to the core? Or will he wind up following in the footsteps of a gamer who started the game earlier? This player is more like a settler, following in the footsteps of those who came before.

I need a math whiz. We need to estimate the sales numbers of No Man’s Sky, calculate the desired amount of time it takes to reach the core, and the average velocity core-ward of a typical player. From there we can calculate the radius of the play-field and from that, the total ‘starting area’ available. Once we know sales estimates and the area of the surface of the play-sphere we can finally know if this is a concern or not. It may be that the No Man’s Sky universe is so large that every player, no matter when they start, will have a fresh, unexplored path towards the core. But if that is the case, I wonder how feasible it’ll be to actually reach the core? Alternatively the universe may be restricted in starting positions which would make playing early desirable so you have a ‘fresh playing field’ to explore.

I told you my mind gets stuck on weird things…

nomanssky2

Protecting my Playstation 4 controller’s analog sticks

Posted on by Nimgimli

A couple weeks back I read a post on Eurogamer titled How to upgrade your Dual Shock 4 – with Xbox One controller parts. My biggest take-away from the article was that a lot of people are having issues with the rubber grips on their PS4 controllers starting to degrade. Both the author of the post and some of the folks in the comments talk about the problem.

I checked my controllers and the rubber still looks sound to me. Maybe I’m naturally ‘gentle’ with my controllers or maybe it’s because I’m a bit OCD about washing my hands (Maybe the oil from your skin breaks down the rubber?) but for whatever reason, I haven’t had any issues yet (my controllers are both from the PS4 launch).

In reading the comments though, I learned that there are covers you can buy for controller sticks and they’re cheap enough that I decided to order them as a preventative measure. I settled on the Grip-iT Analog Stick Covers from Total Control and they cost about $5 for 4 of them.

grip_itsThey arrived earlier this week. It’s a dead simple product; just a little rubber cap. You turn it inside out, set it on top of a stick them flip it back right-side out and in doing so it wraps around the sides of the stick. I had to mash them around a wee bit to get them perfectly centered. They’re shaped like a rubber bottle cap, so they cover the top and sides of the stick but don’t extend to the underside at all. It took just a few seconds to install them.

The intent of the product is to give you better grip, not to protect the analog sticks. So do they help? Yeah, they seem to, at least a little bit. Sometimes if I’m pushing a stick in one direction for a long time (typically the left stick, when I’m running or something) my thumb will slowly slip and I’ll have to reposition it, which means the stick re-centers for a second. Does it really matter for a casual gamer like me? No, not really. But for $5 who can complain?

I guess if I had to complain about anything it’s that the grips come in 2 colors so one of my black controllers has blue stick tops now, but honestly I don’t care. If it really bothered me I could go all-out and spend $10 for two sets I guess. I do like that these are not PS4 specific so you can use the same covers on your Xbox sticks as well.

Over on Amazon there are some 1 & 2 star reviews that complain about the grips sliding around on the stick or even of the grips hitting the controller. Mine haven’t slipped yet but I still have the original rubber on them. I wonder if the slipping concerns are from people who have peeled off the original torn rubber tops? Either that, or the complaints are from gorilla gamers who really mash the stick around. If you’re a gorilla these might not be the right product for you. Of course maybe it’s you gorillas that need them in the first place. Like I said, none of my sticks show any wear and tear, and I use them pretty much every day.

Checking in on Star Wars: Battlefront

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Yesterday EA released a patch for Star Wars: Battlefront that included a new map (another Hoth map that takes place at night during a snow storm), among other things. I still like this game, although I don’t play it as much as I did at launch. I still pop back in for special events (double exp mostly) or when a patch drops. I keep hearing the game is dying and maybe it is, but by playing when I play I never have any trouble getting into a match.

I still pretty much ignore everything except the larger MP modes. The 20 v 20 ones like Walker Assault and Supremacy are big enough that I don’t get my usual case of the guilts when my team loses.

I also like that hardcore gamers seem to have written off SW:Battlefront as being a game for filthy casuals, because guess what? We casuals need games too! I can’t really argue with them though. I played for about 3 hours last night and came in anywhere from 3rd to 17th place and was on the winning side roughly half the time. That’s because so much depends on what power-ups or vehicles you grab. If I was a really skilled shooter player that would probably bug me.

It’s kind of sad, though that most gamers think every game needs to be aimed squarely at them and if a game isn’t, they can’t just accept that but have to rant and rage about it.

Anyway, I digress.

The only problem I have with the game now is that there are enough maps that it takes a long time to cycle through them. I guess I just missed the new map when I logged in. I played through the Outpost Beta map (the old Hoth map) and then Tattooine, Sullest, Endor, 1 match on Jakuur and by then it was midnight and I had to quit, so I never saw the new map. It had to have been next on the list but…being a responsible adult sucks. Midnight is my limit (you play 2 matches on each map, one as Rebels and one as Empire).

[Update: I finally got a chance to play the new map. Here’s a quick video of random gameplay. Turns out its an entirely new map, not just the hold Hoth map played with different lighting. Huzzah! My only complaint is that the blue lighting hides the blue health bar of friendlies and I keep shooting them thinking they’re the enemy… there’s no team damage but shooting makes you light up on radar.]

I’m not sure what the solution is though. If EA lets us cherry pick the maps that we want to play on it would fracture the player base (maybe?) unless you just happen to love the same maps everyone else loves.

Folks really tore into SW:Battlefront for not having enough content and being ‘shallow’ but I’ve definitely got my money’s worth of fun out of it, and expect to continue to play it now and then for the foreseeable future. I find it to be a rare (for me) beast: a competitive multiplayer game that offers casual fun. Usually I find competitive MP, and even some co-op MP, games to be very stressful, but not this one.

Here’s a quick video of me playing badly but still having fun:

Not yet Following the Dying Light

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My obsession with Watch Dogs has finally run its course, though I still intend to play through the DLC at some point. My next obsession will probably be The Division which launches on March 8th. I played both closed and open beta weekends and LOVED it, even though I was playing it completely wrong (solo and not spending a lot of time in the much-discussed Dark Zone).

To tide me over until March I’ve returned to Dying Light. I last posted about this game over a year ago. As so often happens with me, I drifted away before getting very far into the game. In the year since, Techland has continued to support and enhance Dying Light and they recently released a giant expansion called The Following that adds a big area outside the city plus zombie-slaying buggies. I had to get in on that and was happy to plunk down $30 for the Season Pass which included The Following as well as a few other smaller DLC packs. (If you just want The Following you can get it for $20 and if you’re new to the game you can now get everything for $60.)

I decided to start a new game after I loaded up my save from a year ago and couldn’t remember how to do anything. I felt like I was really struggling, and checking some game forums suggests that it wasn’t my imagination: the game is harder than it was at launch. Early game weapons are pretty weak and zombies are surprisingly tough, plus your skill set is pretty sparse. If you decide to try the game out I urge you to persevere because once you get some levels behind you it becomes incredibly fun.

What is really scratching the itch for me is constant progression. You have 3 attributes, each with its associated level: Survivor, Agility and Power. You earn Agility EXP from parkour stuff: jumping, climbing and generally running around like a mad person. You earn Power EXP from fighting zombies. And you earn Survivor EXP from doing tasks. Basically whatever you’re doing (other than idling in a safe zone), you’re feeding a constant drip of EXP into one of these three systems. When you die you’ll lose Survivor EXP though as far as I can tell you’ll never backslide in levels. You don’t seem to ever lose Agility or Power EXP though, and of course as those levels go up the tasks you’re trying to achieve for Survivor points get easier, so it’s a nicely balanced system.

Each time you level up you get a skill point to spend in the skill tree associated with whichever trait you leveled up with. Agility skills are things that you’d generally associate with dexterity like using a charging zombie’s momentum against it and tossing it aside. Power gives you combat abilities like Stomp, that lets you squish a zombie’s head when it is on the ground. It’s very handy when skills start working together. Shove a rushing zombie, it stumbles and falls, then run over and squish it’s head. (It’s a very gory game.) Survivor skills are things like additional inventory space, better prices with stores and access to traps and things.

In addition to your stats, as you play you’ll find blueprints that let you craft crazy weapons like an axe with a propane torch attached or a police baton that also delivers an electric shock. In RPG terms you’re getting weapons that do elemental damage. You’ll also start getting powerful enough that you might start severing limbs off your opponents. Yeesh! So gross and yet so satisfying. This is when the game starts getting really fun since you start feeling like you’re in a scene out of The Walking Dead.

The game is called Dying Light for a reason though. Once you get to level 8 or so you can run around during the day without too much concern. You’ll still have battles where you struggle but just running through the streets will start to feel comfortable. At least until night falls. When it gets dark the really dangerous zombies come out. I have to confess I still run to a safe zone and hide out until morning. I’m just now, at level 10 or so, starting to flirt with the idea of staying out at night. The risks are bigger but so are the rewards (you earn double experience at night).

The irony is that I picked up Dying Light again because of The Following expansion and so far I haven’t touched that yet. TechLand suggests you be about level 12 before jumping into the expansion and I’m not quite there yet, but I’m still looking forward to it!

So how gory does the game get? Here’s a video of me doing a Challenge. Sadly I had to give this amazing weapon back at the end of it.

Watch Dogs: Well past the narrative and still enjoying myself

Posted on by Nimgimli

Plenty of parking on the roofI’m STILL playing Watch Dogs. I finished the storyline a LONG time ago. It’s pretty rare that I “finish” games and it’s unheard of for me to keep playing past the end of the narrative. But here I am.

Why?

First, timing. A few weekends ago I played The Division beta and loved it and I can’t wait for that game to launch in early March. I think my anticipation for The Division is casting a pall on the rest of my backlog. Watch Dogs is what I was playing when I started to get really hyped for The Division so I continue to play it out of inertia. It doesn’t hurt that in some ways the two games feel the same (both rely on cover and 3rd person shooting in a modern setting.)

Second, the progression wheel. Watch Dogs, like every other modern game, has a lot of Achievements (well in my case Trophies, technically, since I’m playing on PS4). But unlike some games, many of them are bound to clearly quantifiable objectives that the game tracks for you. Complete X instances of Mission Type Y and earn Trophy Z. There’s an in-game interface showing your progress. What this boils down to is a checklist. If you’re a checklist lover, you can understand the satisfaction of working through that list checking things off. If not, well you’ll have to trust me. Some of us have brains that love ticking off checkboxes!

Third and most importantly, the game is just plain fun. Does it live up to that initial reveal oh so many years ago? Maybe not. Is it a little janky in spots? Sure. But I just love racing through the streets of Chicago, yanking the emergency brake to send my car into a slide, then jumping out with machine gun drawn, spitting lead everywhere. Or other times, creeping into a gangster base with a silenced pistol and taking out guards one by one. Or yet again, jumping into one of the online modes, which are super fun, with the caveat that they don’t use a central server so there’s some host advantage and at times lag.

For a long time I hated Achievements but I’ve come around to seeing them as a way to kind of nudge you towards getting more gameplay out of a title you’re enjoying. Now I finally see why I can ‘finish’ a game and only earn 30-50% of the achievements. The whole point is to give you more goals to work towards once the ending credits roll.

Anyway, yeah I love Watch Dogs. I think it’s a shame that it never got the recognition it deserved. I’ve just recently heard a rumor that we’re going to learn more about Watch Dogs 2 at E3. I sure hope it’s true. I want more!

How important is the (pre-defined) character you play?

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I have a lot of RPG and MMO players who read this blog (well… “a lot” is a relative term) so first to clarify: in this post I’m talking about ‘pre-packaged’ characters like Lara Croft or Master Chief, as opposed to characters you create and are kind of a vessel that you can mold as you see fit.

Back at Gamescom Microsoft showed us a little more of a game called Scalebound. It was about a young man and his dragon companion. Here’s some footage:

After that aired, some friends mentioned they wouldn’t be playing because they didn’t like the protagonist. I thought that was kind of harsh at the time, but now I think I understand where they were coming from.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve finished two games: Watch Dogs and Infamous: Second Son. In broad terms they’re kind of similar. They’re both open world games that take place in a city. Both offer lots of side quests and both are generally about a lone wolf going up against an organization. I really liked Watch Dogs but I feel pretty “meh” about Infamous: Second Son.

Much of the reason I really liked one game and not the other comes down to the main characters. Aiden Pearce (Watch Dogs) is an adult. He’s also a criminal, and during a heist he unintentionally runs afoul of the local crime syndicate. They put a hit on him, but the hit goes wrong and Pearce’s 6 year old niece is killed while he survives. He is a character driven my anger, guilt and frustration. While I’ve seen players of the game complain about him being emotionless, to me his attitude is that of someone kind of suppressing emotions in order to get a job done.

Delsin Rowe (Infamous: Second Son) is in his early 20s. He is a Conduit, meaning he has what are essentially magical powers that he gets early in the game. He delights in these (I probably would too). In theory he is driven by a desire to help the people of the small town he is from, but we see that at the very start of the game and the very end, and nothing in between. Honestly I’d forgotten about them by the time he returned to them. More immediately he wants to free other Conduits who are imprisoned, but there’s no passion behind that desire. It boils down to “He wants to beat the final boss” really. He’s sarcastic, flippant and a punk. His big brother is in the game, trying to look after him, and Delsin just mouths off to him over and over again.

I hated being in Delsin’s skin. Even though Aiden Pearce is a bad person, I actually didn’t mind playing as him because I could identify with his motivations. Really Delsin is a nicer guy (the way I played him). He can use his powers to directly save lives, for instance. Aiden can stop crimes to get the populace to like him but he does tend to leave quite a body count behind.

But I think it boils down to two things. First, Aiden Pearce feels like a real person while Delsin Rowe feels like a video game character. Second, as an older person I could identify with Aiden’s motivations while Delsin just reminded me of all those damned kids that I’m always trying to keep off my yard.

So yeah, now I’m a little worried about Scalebound too.