action | Mohammad Moshtaghi

Fable: Anniversary

Thu, 23 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

When the original Fable was released in 2004, it made waves. As Guildford Games wrote in their eulogy for Lionhead Studios:

The touchstones for Fable were folklore, humour and a desire to offer the player an experience that didn’t demand too much from them, free of complexities… Microsoft’s involvement ensured focused marketing in America, but hardly any in the UK, leading it to gaining a substantial fanbase in America. The US audience were beguiled by the fairy tale nature of the game, they applauded the progressive ‘love is love’ message and welcomed Fable into their hearts.

Ten years and two celebrated sequels later, Fable: Anniversary was released in 2014, updating the Xbox-era graphics with the power of the Xbox 360 and bringing the content of Fable: The Lost Chapters into the fold. Nearly another decade after that (well, seven years later, at Xbox’s 2021 not-E3), Playground Games announced a new Fable, which is forever fated to be disambiguated as Fable (202x) by game writers everywhere. So here I am in 2022, having never touched a Fable game, thinking: “What an exciting time to cherish an old classic!”

Well folks, mistakes were made.

In all fairness, when I decided to play Fable: Anniversary, I was braindead-tired from a long day of research and stuck in a hotel room with very poor Wi-Fi and a modest TV screen that was inexplicably tilted slightly upwards towards the ceiling. This was not the vibe for continuing on in the masterwork that is Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, nor for running duos with my wife in Fortnite only to lag out once every five minutes. No, this slumpy, tired-tech vibe was for an eight year-old remaster of an eighteen year-old classic with a single-player narrative and last-last-generation graphics. And that’s exactly what Fable: Anniversary shaped up to be.

I could go on for too long about what didn’t age well: clumsy combat mechanics, early difficulty spikes followed by an obscenely long difficulty plateau, poor inventory management, romance with NPCs lacking any personality, “powerful” female characters with no agency whatsoever… there’s a lot to suffer through, especially from a modern perspective.

That being said, I think Fable is delightfully nostalgic in two ways: not taking itself too seriously, and applying that same explorative approach to role-playing moral dichotomies. While the occasional joke is Fable is almost too dumb, the vast majority are good-natured and enjoyable. Just as I was getting annoyed with Fable’s excruciatingly long tutorial, the first side quest outside the Hero’s Guild was a triple fetch quest to get a series of haircuts that made me look increasingly stupid—as the mockery of all passerby NPCs confirmed—in order to impress a girl. Turns out the girl didn’t exist, but her “father” greatly enjoyed making me look like an idiot. And that’s exactly what I was in that instance: fresh out of guild training, ready to take on all of Albion, and already spending all the money I had on haircuts to meet a girl. Good joke!

Unlike 2007’s Mass Effect which treats choices between good and evil with the narrative and relational seriousness that earned that series its glowing reputation, Fable takes a much more whimsical route. Flirt with another person in front of your adoring spouse? That’s not even a morally consequential issue. Eat a crunchy chick or sacrifice a human being to Skorm? Those are roughly equally bad. Go on an indiscriminate murdering spree of innocent traders and bloodthirsty bandits? It’ll all balance out. Donate a crappy old axe to charity to outweigh all your sins? Sure, why not! As with everything else in Fable, morality is inconsequential—which is not to say it isn’t meaningful, but rather that it’s a buffet of experiences to be enjoyed.

Hidden in that treatment of morality is a much appreciated bit of gaming wisdom, one that has fallen out of vogue with modern RPGs (thanks, Bethesda) and one that made playing through this aging classic well worth it: Good games can be silly. Good games can be simple. Good games can be fun.

Control

Fri, 03 Sep 2021 19:08:32 -0700

Control exerts full mastery over videogames as a unique narrative form, blending motion-capture acting performances, live-action filmed skits and monologues, puppet shows, radio programs, rock albums, short stories, technical documentation, a whole slew of homages to other videogame genres, and — of course — shooting weird shit that needs to be shot. While not a must, Control and its Oldest House are best experienced in the progressive revelations and immersive weirdness so carefully crafted by its developers. The remainder of this review may contain atmospheric and thematic spoilers.

Control should be remembered, if not for any of its other solid qualities, as a milestone in storytelling with the gaming medium. It’s one thing to have high quality voice acting and motion capture — especially for facial expressions — so that your game characters can converse more naturally than, say, Siri. It’s another thing entirely to film talented actors and put that footage in the game, a technique Remedy continues here from their past work in Quantum Break and, to a lesser extent, Alan Wake and Bright Falls. The narrative tricks needed to pull this off (namely, the Hotline and littering the Oldest House with instructional films and research updates) are clever. Weaving tie-ins between those short films and the mass of mixed-medium work throughout the rest of the game is impressive. But slowly coming to grips with the collective efforts of directors, writers, actors, visual artists, programmers, managers, and the many, many others involved in developing a game of this caliber is staggering. To experience artistry that feels genuinely new is a deep joy.

Jesse Faden (Courtney Hope), our protagonist, is solid ground in the physically and metaphorically shifting strangeness of the Oldest House. We get to watch the depth of her inner worries and assessments balance with her do-what-we-came-to-do attitude to round out a reasonably believable human being. She’s relational, witty, and exceptionally brave: unlike me, she does not freak out when ambushed by shrieking resonance zombies. The player may be holding the controller, but this is Jesse’s story and she is in control.

Control, aside from being the literal name of the game, is a central theme under exploration. What does it mean to have control? Who had it before and who has it now? What do you do with control when it’s yours?

Power, the story posits, is not the same as control. Control is more elusive. It requires understanding, trust, and genuine leadership — qualities that Jesse’s predecessors Northmoor and Trench traded away in their pursuit of, ironically, control. But instead of probing this theme more deeply (for example, asking whether control itself is just an illusory sense of security), the game’s conclusion is satisfied with replacing entrenched, toxic leaders with Jesse and other critically thinking young people and calling it a day. The Foundation and AWE DLCs do a little more work in this direction, but fall short of staking out a thoughtful value claim to complement the robust narrative creativity. I’d hoped for more.

Amidst all this focus on artistry, narrative, and hopes for philosophy, it’s still worth mentioning that the gunplay and paranatural combat abilities feel great. Returning to other games after being Jesse Faden is markedly disappointing. Said another way, you know how exhilarating the combat in Control is going to be from the first moment you accidentally bump into a table and the physics engine sends it flying into a wall, papers thrust into the air.

I’m excited to know the talented folks at Remedy are already working on new stories in the Control universe, and for what other developers and artists this quality of videogame storytelling might inspire.

Bugs

It’s minor, but there was an occasional issue where the floor would just… disappear. At first I thought this was a thing the Oldest House did; then after an extended period of confusion I realized some textures just weren’t loading.

Also, while not a bug, I’m highly skeptical of an office building with lids on their public toilets. Like. Who does this? The Federal Bureau of Control, I guess.

Jedi: Fallen Order

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 22:09:15 -0700

I’m not ashamed to admit that I spent much of my childhood wanting to be a Jedi. My sister and I would duel for hours in the backyard with our plastic lightsabers, having to pause between whacks and parries to negotiate whose limbs were still attached or how far back we were supposed to move when the other pushed with the Force. As a teenager, The Force Unleashed on the Wii was magic: my remote was my lightsaber, my nunchuk was my connection to the Force, and the galaxy was filled with Stormtroopers to send flying. (Too bad it kind of sort of isn’t canon.) Now, as an adult and a whole sequel trilogy and two seasons of The Mandalorian later — not to mention the nine seasons of The Clone Wars that I’m still catching up on — I’m all in on Star Wars growing up with me, learning how to tell new and more mature stories. Jedi: Fallen Order is exactly that, putting the player at the center of a decent Jedi story with slick Jedi combat.

Jedi: Fallen Order takes place during The Purge, which for the uninitiated is a period of Star Wars history just after the majority of Jedi are executed by their clone allies in Revenge of the Sith (Order 66). The fledgling Empire casts the few Jedi who survive as traitors to the Republic, hunting them down to either kill them or turn them to the Dark Side as Inquisitors (ex-Jedi who hunt Jedi). You play as Cal Kestis, a padawan who experienced deep personal loss and trauma during Order 66 and has been concealing his powers to survive The Purge. Other major characters include Cere Junda, an ex-Jedi Master who severed her connection with the Force after an especially traumatic event during The Purge, and a Nightsister whose people were killed in genocide during the Clone Wars. This is a Star Wars story where nobody’s okay and the heroes are the ones who are brave enough to believe in one another as they heal.

The gameplay absolutely does what it needs to do to make you feel like a Jedi, from customizing your lightsaber to dueling against powerful adversaries to bonding with a droid companion. I think all of those things were non-negotiables for a modern Star Wars game, and as such, it suffices to say that Jedi: Fallen Order does them well. What’s really special about this game is how cool it makes you feel despite Cal not being the greatest of Jedi. He’s hidden his abilities for years, presumably. At best, he’s just rusty and has forgotten a lot of his training; at worst, his trauma and guilt pushes his connection with the Force towards fear and unpolished lack of control. In the early stages of the game, Cal can’t even move stuff around with the Force; he can wall-run, however (Respawn just couldn’t resist sprinkling in a little Titanfall, could they?). His best ability, psychometry, makes him a better anthropologist than Stormtrooper-slayer: he can sense an object’s history by touching it, filling out the backstory of the different planets and societies he interacts with.

The five playable planets in this galaxy far, far away are largely linear, keeping you moving towards your next plot point. There’s not a side quest to be seen, and the only exploration Cal can do is to veer off the main path for a slightly less obvious path where he might find a secret or unlockable cosmetic. (As an aside, I love that Cal wears ponchos — as opposed to, I don’t know, Jedi robes? — but I can’t get over how over half of them are badly-fitting, hoodless, plastic raincoats.) 100%-ing Jedi: Fallen Order is a fine and relatively quick experience (except for the very Star Wars and very bad holomaps), revisiting planets when equipped with new Force abilities to get into previously inaccessible nooks and crannies. This feels less like a chore and more like virtual space-tourism, giving players a second chance to appreciate the beautifully crafted set design and try out the very nicely implemented photo mode.

All in all, Jedi: Fallen Order does what it came to do: put players in the shoes of a Jedi powered by the best of what 2019 tech could offer. The experience certainly feels more self-contained and linear than what we may have hoped, but it’s good for what it is. With EA’s Star Wars exclusivity now expired, maybe Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment will give us the beautiful, open-world Star Wars playground of little-Josh’s dreams.

Bugs

I know this isn’t a bug but it’s so bad that I’m calling it one: every sad excuse for a Wookiee in this game (except Tarfull) looks like a stick with clumpy fur. To the developers at Respawn, Chewbacca would be disappointed in you.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Sun, 19 Jan 2020 12:00:00 -0700

It really isn’t fair to watch an early Extended Universe entry like Star Wars: The Clone Wars in 2020 after we’ve been given the gift of the Abrams-Johnson sequel trilogy. If modern Star Wars were to be described developmentally, then the original trilogy is its stellar parents, the prequel trilogy is its stumbling childhood, and this movie is its awkward pre-teen years.

The Clone Wars kicks off in the thick of a broader conflict set in the Outer Rim. The Hutts control the trade routes and thus the supply lines in the area. The Separatists, led by Count Dooku (and Palpatine, of course, on the down low), hatch a plan to kidnap Jabba the Hutt’s son and frame the Jedi for it. Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Anakin’s new Padawan Ahsoka set out to save Jabba’s son. And… that’s pretty much it. 80% of this movie is repetitive clone-droid battles, another 10% is lightsaber battles, and in the last 10% you get heavy-handed “banter” dressed up as character development.

Star Wars mainstays are a crutch this film leans far too heavily on, refusing to take risks with its narrative. The Clone Wars serves up a buffet of Jawas, a brief C-3PO cameo, Tatooine, the Mos Eisley jazz band, Obi-Wan’s circle light speed ship thing, lots of holographic intercoms, etc. all trying to hide the obvious: the world didn’t ask for an animated Star Wars movie. Only two years after Revenge of the Sith, it’s hard to even say this strategy wins any points in the nostalgia category. Instead, we’re left with a whole lot of nothing dressed up in royal clothes. It almost feels like sacrilege to hear the Skywalker theme played as often as it is here.

That’s not to say there aren’t good moments. This is the first entry in the Star Wars universe to have the droids talk as far as I remember, and it makes for some self-aware humor that the later movies definitely iterated on.

Droid 1: “Concentrate fire on Sector 11374265!”

Droid 2: “1137— what was that again?”

Droid 1, grabbing the other one’s head and pointing: “Just fire right there!”

— Star Wars: The Clone Wars, 34:32

The relationship between Anakin and Ahsoka is also nice, when it’s not corny. Anakin even shows some level-headed maturity and humility in reminding Ahsoka that she doesn’t have to prove herself to anyone. There’s a nice touch of psychological safety and assurance there (though it seems totally constructed when compared to his raging tantrums in Episodes II and III).

It’s also worth mentioning that the portrayal of women in this movie is painful (though it was 2007). At one point, a droid addressing Ventress — Count Dooku’s apprentice — accidentally salutes her as “sir” and then stumbles to correct itself, only to again call her “sir.” Obi-Wan condescendingly refers to her as “darling” in his British accent during a lightsaber duel, to which she just responds by clenching her teeth and growling. Anakin gets to play the aloof and displeased male around the baby Huttlet; Ahsoka does most of the caretaking and connecting with it. The Huttlet’s mom/Jabba’s partner, who you’d think would be concerned with this whole kidnapping situation, is not even present as a background character.

So, was this a good movie? Not really. But I’m interested to see how the TV series evolved over the next decade, and especially how it matures into the backdrop for Rise of Skywalker that it so clearly is today.

Batman: Arkham City

Sat, 17 Aug 2019 12:00:00 -0700

I played Arkham Asylum back in summer of 2015, so it somehow seems fitting for this much busier stage of my life that it took me four years to play the sequel. That being said, the gap I’ve taken from the Batman: Arkham series may ultimately have been to my benefit, given just how similar Arkham City feels to Arkham Asylum. We’re still beating the crap out of every other living character in the game (who all seem inexplicably hostile towards us on sight), we’re still uncovering a diabolical plot that features an all-star cast of Batman villains, and we’re still tracking down every Riddler secret using every piece of WayneTech we can get our hands on.

The thing is, all of it is great. Very few superhero games, especially those being made back in the early 2010s, can hold a candle to the experience that Arkham City provides. From gliding and grappling through the city to using detective mode to solve crimes, every moment feels like an authentic, exhilarating experience of donning the cape and cowl of the Dark Knight. Catwoman, Robin, and Nightwing are also playable characters for smaller segments, each with their own exciting gadgets and play styles. A huge amount of the game’s success can be credited to the immersive open-world of Arkham City, greatly improving over the labyrinth Metroidvania-like level design of Arkham Asylum. Adding a mix of outdoor and indoor locations to the game adds further opportunities for the mechanics and side missions to enrich the overall experience.

But this brings me to a point of Arkham City I was surprised by, and one that I would have only picked up on now, in 2019. Thanks to the open-world design, we get a lot of radio chatter from various inmates and characters to make the solo experience feel more alive. Most of what they say is fine but forgettable, like “I wonder what’s on TV right now,” or self-dating to an era where Facebook was still a novelty: “How am I supposed to update my status? …Oh yeah, I’m still stuck here in this stinking prison.” But a lot of it hints at something much more sinister, not originating from the inmates themselves, but from their experience.

You see, the plot of the game is that Prof. Hugo Strange gets Gotham City to agree to a pretty bonkers plan wherein they wall off a huge part of the city, throw all the inmates and supervillains from Arkham Asylum inside, and seal it shut. Strange likes this because he gets to “study” the criminally insane (for the good of science, I’m sure), and because the prison is a perfect way of making sure anyone who knows the truth of his nefarious purposes (like Bruce Wayne) are never heard from again. But in an age where we’re talking a lot more about racial discrimination, police brutality, and other failures of our criminal justice system, you start to wonder why in the world Batman feels the need to be inside this prison, beating the pulp out of everyone he sees. A decent number of inmates will yell “What’s Batman doing here?” when you start a fight. Others get picked up by your police scanner: “Why’s Batman in here anyway, aren’t we already locked up?”

I get that a lot of these inmates are bad people, especially the more ruthless ones who work closely with the big bads (Penguin, Two-Face, Joker, etc.). But my guess is that a lot of the inmates joined up with some villain’s faction just so they had food to eat, or so they wouldn’t get killed in the streets. And while I know Batman will never be compassionate, I wonder if he couldn’t be just a bit more conscientious. Otherwise, I worry that Joker’s right when he says Batman belongs inside with the rest of them.

Bugs

The game would occasionally crash with some pretty unreadable error messages, but was otherwise flawless.

Thor: Ragnarok

Tue, 21 Nov 2017 12:00:00 -0700

Thor: Ragnarok came to finish what both Guardians of the Galaxy films started. Instead of honing in on one hero’s dramatic story arc, Ragnarok stars a group of them. The action takes us from planet to planet across all the known galaxy by spaceship and ~~wormhole~~ anus. But most importantly, Ragnarok acknowledges what we’ve known from the beginning: superheroes are absurd and should be just as ridiculous as they are strong, smart, determined, and attractive. Play is woven into the fabric of the film, from Thor and Loki’s “Get Help” fighting routine to Dr. Strange providing Thor a golden, bottomless beer fit for the Norse god (as promised to us at the end of the sorcerer’s own film). Even more serious topics, like Bannon and Hulk’s brain vs. brawn identity crisis and villain Hela’s description of executioners in Asgard are treated with a jesting lightness.

Ragnarok neatly sidesteps two pitfalls common to recent team-up superhero films: lack of screentime for its individual characters and weakening plot substance for the sake of comedy. In fact, some of the film’s most hysterical moments impressively include dialogue from three or more main characters while simultaneously advancing the story. When Thor, Bannon, and Valkerie discuss Loki’s past mischief while he remains chained but chuckling at their recounting of his past antics, the stratified ages of each character’s relationship with Loki shine: Thor and Loki’s escalating and ongoing brotherly conflict has existed as long as we’ve known them, Bannon last remembers Loki as an alien invader that needed smashing in the first Avengers, and Valkerie — while having as close as possible to a clean slate with Loki — generally mistrusts everyone. This lends itself perfectly to punchlines contrasting Bannon’s concerns with Loki’s murderous moods with Thor’s fond memories of being stabbed by Loki after thinking he was a snake.

The film’s more serious moments feel all the more poignant and starkly emotional against the backdrop of fun and games that dominate most of the dialogue. Watching the Hulk transform back into Bannon after being overcome with rage and grief on seeing Natasha is heartbreaking, and reminds us that the Hulk isn’t the only side of Bannon who carries the weight of his emotions. Heimdall inspires hope in an equally powerful way, and was an unmistakable Jesus figure to me. The way he sees all who are in need and fights for them — often alone in standing against evil and doing so without bravado or recognition — is exactly the kind of hero that inspires me.

So after yet another Marvel movie, what makes Ragnarok stand out? We need look no further than the wonderfully quotable one-liners which litter its script, the well-developed and colorful cast of characters which populate its worlds, the perfected formula of self-aware superhero melodrama that guide its structure, and the underlying lessons of true heroism which are embodied by every main character, major and minor alike. If this is the direction Marvel is taking even a fraction of its future movies, I’m very excited to see what comes next.

Overcooked

Mon, 11 Sep 2017 12:00:00 -0700

I am a panda wielding a kitchen knife, desperately hacking away at as many onions as physically possible and subsequently littering the floor with chopped produce. The noise level in our living room steadily rises as my sister and I frantically shout back and forth at each other; the culinary space station we’ve been thrust into is about to rotate, and we’ll have a very narrow window before the station rotates again to ferry all the onions into another room where pots will transform them into delicious soups. But the discord is quickly joined by my brother, finding himself caught on the wrong side of an airlock, holding clean bowls for a set of soups that are nearly finished cooking. In a few moments, those soups will burn and set that section of the kitchen on fire; onions are bumped and kicked aside as my panda and my sister’s black bear accidentally dash into one another in our simultaneous attempts to get to the fire extinguisher. Orders are being missed, dirty dishes are piling up, soups are burning, tempers are fraying, and — most importantly — hilarity is ensuing. This is Overcooked.

Set with the task of avoiding certain apocalyptic doom caused by the appearance of a spaghetti monster that cannot be sated, players (controlling cartoon people and anthropomorphic animals) are sent back in time to hone their teamwork and culinary abilities. These cooperative teams of 1–4 players face challenges in cooking a variety of dishes, each introducing its own unique mechanics, in a variety of environments, each with its own hazards. Continuous failure to learn each level’s unspoken rules and strategies quickly is more often a source of comedy than of frustration, and any attempts to rely on a comfort strategy are almost always usurped by little surprises to further refine your growing culinary expertise.

For the most part, each level is fairly straightforward: obtain ingredients, chop them, assemble them into dishes, cook those dishes, plate them, serve them, and literally rinse and repeat by washing the dirty plates when they’re returned. The faster dishes are served, the more money they’re worth, and a score of 1 (passing) to 3 (perfect) stars can be scored on each level depending on the total money earned. The numerous ways each stage of preparation overlaps with the others offers more than enough material for flustering and amusing kitchen accidents, but it’s the small mechanics tweaks and zany interactions between the players and their environment that keep the already incredible core experience fresh throughout the course of the game. Mishaps abound, such as accidentally throwing away clean dishes instead of handing them to another player or slipping off an iceberg holding a finished pizza.

Although the game can be played alone (wherein a single player controls multiple avatars and switches between them), Overcooked’s hilarity of mistakes (and mistakes on top of mistakes) combined with the thrill of (eventual) success is best experienced with friends. In an age where couch co-op is largely ignored in the wake of big screen multiplayer titles, Overcooked not only succeeds in creating a satisfying co-op experience but adds innovative elements beyond the usual cooking game. If Overcooked were a meal, then Ghost Town Games has prepared us something truly wonderful and family-style; my compliments to the chefs.