adventure | Mohammad Moshtaghi

Moonglow Bay

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 15:00:00 -0700

I so badly wanted to love Moonglow Bay from the moment I saw its trailer at Wholesome Direct 2021. Your late spouse loved the titular Canadian small town until the day they disappeared in its ocean. Years later, it stands on the brink of economic collapse and it’s up to you to combine their passion for fishing with your love of cooking to save it. Teaming up with your daughter, River, who drags you out of widowed depression, you sail the voxel-art seas in search of fish both familiar and fantastical—and then chop them up into meals for the townspeople. Reinvesting their lunch money into town renovations slowly transforms a languishing municipality into a booming tourist location, and people love you for it.

When so many problems in the real world feel insurmountably big, saving a small town by putting homemade fishcakes in a vending machine is exactly the kind of videogame magical escapism I’m here for. Unfortunately, Moonglow Bay plays like my persuasive speech in seventh grade English class: solid for about thirty seconds, and then painfully bad for its long remainder. By over-emphasizing its most tedious gameplay elements, failing to achieve cohesive design, and retaining a shockingly large number of near-game-breaking bugs months after release, this game scores lower than most I’ve reviewed.

Let’s dive right into this (fish) roast. After a brief tutorial, you’re told to get out there and talk to people; make friends! I chatted up the twenty-something techy, Haru. He immediately told me he hoped “that vending machine” was working out. What vending machine? Oh, the one that I won’t actually get for another three hours of gameplay. Cool, cool. I later buy said vending machine, but the game doesn’t register that this happened. I remain stuck on this quest until I later buy another completely unrelated item from Haru.

An identity crisis starts to emerge when my largely nautical experience is disrupted by the ability to disembark and do some light walking exploration. In town, this is painful, as any elevation change results in weird voxel-clipping that makes it entirely unclear when I can safely go up or down steps. Out on the sea, I walk for fifteen minutes along a gigantic ice bluff that’s so tall (and evidently not designed to walk on) that it clips out of the camera’s range. Turns out there’s nothing to find—not even a cool view—and there was no reason for the game to let me come here.

On my way back, I find a research outpost and a cave with a lever mechanism. I try interacting with it, only to be scolded by River saying that I obviously don’t know what I’m doing. She’s never actually animated in the world, but still randomly shows up to yell at me or inch the plot along. As it happens, her scolding is a useful hint for a late-game quest if you’re stuck in the cave at that point, but means nothing for the first 70% of the game where for whatever reason it still triggers. At this point, my feelings as a player are like:

Narrative discontinuity and quest progression issues aside, you’d think that Moonglow Bay could at least nail its core fishing mechanic. Taken in isolation, catching a big one is, in fact, satisfying. There’s a nice balance of reeling in the right direction with timing of strong pulls that makes the minigame feel more like a cartoon simplification of fishing in Red Dead Redemption 2 than a beefed up version of Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley.

But so much of this game is catching specific fish—you need at least 90 species to complete the story and a good variety to cook the more advanced meals—and Moonglow Bay chooses to make that experience deeply frustrating. Listening to townspeople’s tall tales gives hints about possible species locations, but fails to narrow down the numerous combinations of rod type, lure type, bait type, specific fishing hole, and time of day at which to catch said fish at said location (there can easily be over 50 unique combinations of the above factors—per fish!). Some locations aren’t locations at all, but rather regions that take up an entire quarter of the map. Other information is only accessible after bonding with certain friends (fair enough), but come in the form of one-time hints that aren’t recorded in your fishing journal. Either you realize you need to take notes yourself, or you’re resorting to Google later.

Cooking is yet another decent idea turned tedious. Each recipe has some fish ingredients to gather and then a series of steps to prepare. Each step (washing, chopping, filleting, frying, boiling, and baking) is a dexterity-based minigame. While your fellow Moonglow residents simply tell you that the more you cook, the more likely you are to be inspired to invent new recipes, the reality is that you need to cook each recipe perfectly (no dexterity mistakes!) up to nine(!) times to unlock yet another repetitive cooking experience composed of the same minigames. There is an option to “batch cook” multiple meals of the same recipe simultaneously, but wait, those only count as one meal cooked towards the new recipe unlocks. And did I mention there are 60 recipes in the game? You do the math on that time sink.

Then there’s the fact that the boat handles like crap, especially in a certain late-game region, which leads to complete jank like this:

I succeed in suspending my boat in midair, fishing some inanimate objects, and then sending my boat careening off map where a cutscene that I’ve already seen replays, this time with River talking to no one.

Moonglow Bay’s bright voxel art, excellent gender representation, and ostensibly chill vibes should have made it an easy win in my book. Too bad it seized every opportunity to take that vision down with the ship.

Outer Wilds

Sat, 24 Jul 2021 12:00:00 -0700

Against the backdrop of a diorama solar system in a diorama universe, Outer Wilds plunges forward into an ambitious adventure of wonder and exploration. You play as the sixth member of your species to venture out into space — and the first to do so with a translation device for the language of the Nomai, an ancient species that mysteriously disappeared a long time ago. Remnants of their civilization are scattered all around your solar system, like bread crumbs in a nonlinear trail, inviting you into their mystery. What were the Nomai doing? Where did they go? What’s it all for?

I enthusiastically recommend Outer Wilds to anyone who will listen; it’s a resounding 10/10. I love the world and its inhabitants, and their ideals to explore and to understand. The music frequently brings me to a very emotional place (more on that in a moment). But this game’s best quality is its unique ability to engage players at the intersection of imagination and discovery: learning new information pushes you to form new questions, which in turn makes you seek new answers, and then the cycle repeats. The nonlinear narrative supports your curiosity in whatever direction you decide to go; there are no artificial checkpoints or cutscenes pushing you towards a specific experience. The way you engage with this world is your own.

Outer Wilds is surprisingly capable at blending the whimsy and brutality of space exploration. Your spaceship is made of wood, of all things, and yet is often your only life support in the cold void of space. Plummeting into a black hole is surprisingly non-lethal, but what awaits on the other side is nevertheless crushingly isolating. Extremely bizarre things happen on a regular basis — like getting launched from a planet into low orbit only to crash back down — but manage to feel more bemusing than terrifying.

And the music! Funnily enough, when I fired up Outer Wilds for the first time, I didn’t make it past the main menu. I was captivated by the title track. As I watched the little campfire come to life, the theme’s dueling banjos sang optimism and hope into the deep black of space. The composer, Andrew Prahlow, layers a bright foreground he recorded just before development wrapped with a background that he’d recorded seven years prior — a detail that’s both beyond incredible and very difficult to appreciate without having first finished the game. Suffice it to say, this is my favorite game soundtrack, and I’ve listened to many.

Lastly, Outer Wilds achieves a mark of masterclass sci-fi, wrapping the vast happenings of the universe into a story that is deeply personal. It sets us off asking questions about physics and ancient anthropology but, along the way, teaches us to ask questions of ourselves. How could we be more open-handed and filled with wonder, like the Nomai? What do we do with the memories of people and experiences long gone? How can we live bravely in the face of a constantly uncertain future?

It’s tempting to linger in this moment, while every possibility still exists. But unless they are collapsed by an observer, they will never be more than possibilities.

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.

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.

The Phantom Tollbooth

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 12:00:00 -0700

The Phantom Tollbooth is a fable in every chapter, clever wit in every paragraph, and careful thought in every sentence. It is both a treatise on critical thinking and a tender story of a young boy’s adventure. It is just as much an epic struggle between Wisdom and Ignorance as it is a playful comedy where the first character to cry is a watchdog named Tock lamenting the fact that he goes ticktickticktick while his brother Tick goes tocktocktocktock. Perhaps most importantly, its excellence is a testament to the fruits of curious wonder and deep wisdom, two values that its fantastical characters try very hard to get Milo — the protagonist — to pursue.

Every word is an absolute joy to read. Norton Juster achieves the kind of simplicity that comes at the cost of both knowing what exactly one wants to write and cutting away all superfluous material that does not achieve that goal. The entire novel is written in everyday prose fitting for a bedtime story, and yet contains layers of subtlety that should give the reading adult pause. Juster masterfully mixes serious lessons (that must not be obvious even to many adults, seeing how our world is) with hysterical moments of relief, all in a stream of whimsical adventure. Take, for example, the following scene:

Except for these, and the big brass cannon being pulled along behind, they all looked very much like the residents of any other small valley to which you’ve never been.

— The Phantom Tollbooth, page 146.

Paradox, absurdity, and humor, all wrapped into such a simple little description. Or take, for example, an unabashed jab Juster takes at the Humbug:

After demonstrating that there was nothing up his sleeves, in his hat, or behind his back, [the Mathemagician] wrote quickly:

4 + 9 – 2 x 16 + 1 ÷ 3 x 6 – 67 + 8 x 2 – 3 + 26 – 1 ÷ 34 + 3 ÷ 7 + 2 – 5 =

Then he looked up expectantly. “Seventeen!” The Humbug shouted, who always managed to be the first with the wrong answer.

— The Phantom Tollbooth, page 188.

The pages of this book are riddled with such perfect moments as these.

I’m sure that many compelling essays have been (or could be) written on the many social tendencies The Phantom Tollbooth chases after with the sharpest wit — getting lost in trivial tasks, becoming an arrogant and condescending specialist, or being too afraid to have your own thoughts, for example — but it suffices to say that The Phantom Tollbooth gives a looking glass into how our own world has banished its Rhyme and Reason. It is relevant even today, nearly 60 years after its original publication. But unlike the dystopias of its time, The Phantom Tollbooth is permeated with hope. And with what better weapon can one burn back the darkness?

“And remember also,” added the Princess of Sweet Rhyme, “that many places you would like to see are just off the map and many things you want to know are just out of sight or a little beyond your reach. But someday you’ll reach them all, for what you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.”

— The Phantom Tollbooth, page 234.

Isle of Dogs

Sun, 17 Jun 2018 12:00:00 -0700

In Isle of Dogs, Wes Anderson brings all the style, heart, and wit of Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) to a story of his own. This story is told by means of a prologue and four (very clearly labeled) acts following a young boy and a pack of dogs as they struggle against a geopolitical scheme to try and rid their home city of its canine friends.

Isle of Dogs plays with language extensively, and uses the quirks of its world to its advantage. Dog barks are “translated” into English for the viewer’s pleasure, while the humans speak their native tongue (Japanese, occasionally translated by a literal translator). There’s low-hanging fruit, like when the lead dog Chief (Bryan Cranston) tells another to pass on a message to a “bitch you’ll find there”, as well as light social commentary, like when Chief asks to see showdog Nutmeg’s (Scarlett Johansson) “tricks” but she refuses, or when Chief tries to reckon with his own nature and violent responses (“I bite, but I don’t know why.").

But as important as dog-to-dog and human-to-human dialogue is in furthering plot points and poking fun at the absurdity of the film, some of the most profound moments occur in the space between humans and their best friends, where actions and emotions establish connections where words cannot. In particular, watching the relationships between Atari (Koyu Rankin) and the main pack of dogs unfold is satisfying, endearing, and at times hilarious.

The winsome, charming world of tactile materials in stop-motion style doesn’t bar the film from diving into more gruesome scenes, like killing live sea creatures to prepare sushi or performing a kidney surgery. It also gives a platform to build up caricatures of relevant issues, like political leaders ignoring scientific findings, youth protesting against the powers at be, and marginalized populations being abused and mistreated for the betterment of the majority. That being said, this is a Wes Anderson film, so it certainly comes complete with its problematic blind spots.

This film was thoroughly enjoyable and another wonderful addition to the Anderson filmography. Smart, touching, beautiful, and odd, it seems to both exist in another world and yet feel deeply personal, a whimsical analogy to a human’s relationship with our four-legged friends.