Hours spent on 5 “debuts” in 2024

It can still be called “early November, 2024” and here I am making my end of the year list, or just one of those. Part of the reason being the theme I picked for this year’s new releases that I have played: debut as in Giantbomb’s “Best Debut” category. I am rather firm on the no license and no sequel front, so it seems that no new release for the rest of year fits that bill. Ironically enough my most played 2024 new release is a remake of a fairly old soft reboot (So old that its series is facing another soft reboot now). So, more than one lists it is. Since I am in the process of playing a not-exactly-2024 release now, the list of “old games” would be around the time of Keighley’s, while this earlier than Golden Joystick “part 1 or 2” would start with my foul view on the sorry current situation of this industry…

Fuck you! (Pointing at Colm Feore as Dr. Malcom Walsh) Fuck you! (Pointing at CCH Pounder as Hollis Miller) Fuck you! (Pointing at Robert Wisdom as Tito Biondi) Fuck you! (Seemingly to himself before collapsing.)

----Face/Off (1997), Nicolas Cage’s first lines as Sean Archer

I disagree with “Youtube.com’s” Yahtzee Croshaw on video games more often than not, but on the following 2 principals I find him to be a trustworthy critic: A the Last of Us is overrated and B consoles are hustle we put up with instead of er “objects of power” worthy of altars. It’s strange how people identify with those boxes let alone the heartless corporate entities behind them.

As a video game critic wannabe, your truly find the so-called Big Three to be low-hanging fruits in this year 2024. I wrote that I wanted to say FU to every goddamned one of them 2 years ago and that foul mood only get fouler now. Guess end of year list is a place good as any to spread out the whys partially.

Sony’s raising prices on everything even made the overtly celebratory Braian Altano of IGN go nuts, guess the man just felt the pressure of being a father of school kid in San Fransico. Yet a couple of weeks later, Mr. Altano remembered that sugarcoating the They Live style CONSUME sign is part of his job at IGN and started to advocate for PS5 Pro. Cannot really blame him, but both Ziff Davis and Sony Interactive Entertainment can eat a bag of dicks each for the way they made the man to do so.

The question of “where to even start” should be asked regarding Microsoft. As if “reconstructing” their “new boy toy” called Activision Blizzard was not enough, their “old concubine” Bethesda/ZeniMax got the cuts as well. Rip to Tango and I don’t think Crafton would treat them better. Their usual parade of bullshot might get IGN’s poor “Xbox team” to ignore the layoffs for a whole, but we all know that they ever-shifting policy would not bear sweet fruits now don’t we?

The last but not the least of the big three, good old Nintendo. I mean I have no interest in ever playing Palworld, but the Kyoto based company’s suit against it seems gross regardless. And it’s just the most high profile of Nintendo’s legal death squad’s exploits in recent years. Oh, I do believe that they do so to protect their brands, it’s just that they had done enough damage to sad brands themselves with Switch hardware not able to realize the developers’ ambition.

And finally for real: fuck me for ever give a shit about those corporate sons of bitches.

I don’t like video games, I love them! If I’m not “in heaven”, I wouldn’t play pass the tutorial.

------- Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, paraphrase that food critic line in Rataouille

Okay, time to move on from the lousy “providers” and onto the products that brought me some joy, more or less. Ranking is just about numbers and never about meaning. With video games, the length of time spent on them has the inherent vice of diminishing return. We adults have bigger fish to fry in life and there are escapes not as time-consuming. So “I bothered to spend time so I can see it through” is a passive aggressive way to say “I do like this game”.

Then there is the illusive nature of “debut” or its shitty counterpart “new ip”. It seems like a rare beast in this corporate jungle. More importantly, it does not guarantee innovation as some industry myth proposes. Still, a game one can jump right in is a game one can jump right in is a game one can jump right in like them roses. Except, I played the games made by some of their developers before, so only 2 can really say that they came out of nowhere.

PC’s client clock seems like the only reliable way to count time played I have, so this list will only have PC games on it. Sorry, Stellar Blade, your honey trap sugarcoating the usual bullshit just ain’t enough for me to get a PS5.

No, Black Myth: Wukong, do not pretend that you are a “debut” in the non-sequel and non-adaption sense. You ain’t even a debut in the “first game of a studio” sense. Got hand it to Game Science Studio, among oh so many Disney Wannabes in the world, this lot managed to step on three Mickey Mouse shaped mines with one single product: public domain mining, pointless sequel and potential connected universe. Just about the 3 things I loathe the most in showbiz products.

Enough with things I didn’t play and onto those I did.

Bronzes: Fun size

We can all argue that not all video games should or could be sprawling epics. Sometimes, it just needs to commit to a bit and not overstate its welcome like the pair in the bottom here.

5. What the Car?

(From the maker of What the Golf?)

Let’s get the curve ball out of way, first. Depends on whether you count the comedic What the series’ “detour” into virtual reality, this is either the series' third or second installment. I ought to know. Back in fall 2019, I rather enjoyed the then Epic exclusive What the Golf on the Surface Pro I am typing with now.

But What the Car? has 2 things going for it: on the one hand the title does not have number at its tail; on the other, one can argue that this’s the first runner made by its studio. It’s not to say that Car does not feel like an evolution of Golf. Levels in Golf deliver the punch line after whatever counts as the ball hit the flag, while in Car, such punch lines about the variables of car with 2 legs are merely standups, “Despite all that, player helps Car to reach the goal” is the real punch line.

This is a game I would not have played if Mr. Croshaw has not mentioned it despite my fondness for Golf. The foul-mouthed limey mentioning that he stopped talking and just played the game during stream reflected good design is quite the recommendation from a cynic. And one would listen to praise from cynic.

4. Mullet MadJack

(Actually, out of nowhere.)

I have a bone to pick with shooters published by Devolver Digital and it’s the enemy type that can only be killed by back-stab. From 2013’s Shadow Warrior reboot to 2021’s Boomerang X, nothing can turn me away from a game faster than those back-stabbed. So Mullet Madjack’s shielded enemies just require extra shoots or kicks to kill felt rather refreshing. The game is sold on ever forwarding momentum and it did not shoot itself in foot at least on that front.

Then I guess overstating one’s welcome is subjective as well. As Mr. Croshaw was not so hot on this one. But then again, I only went through the game twice on its 2 lowest difficulties. Playing this game with 10 seconds long limit is likely too frustrating.

Intermission: time is not on your side.

Video game is the odd type entertainment the audience of which actually celebrate long run time. The “value” marketed is almost always about the amount of time spent playing rather than the joy it might provide. Which is fair given the subjective nature of joy and fun. Still, when something takes up more than 10 hours, no one sane would say that they enjoyed every second of it. The following three took up more than 10 hours of my time each, so forgive me for nick pick.

Sliver: Chiller than books

3. 1000X Resist

(Also out of nowhere, though it does not help)

1000X Resist is somewhat a regional EGS exclusive here in the city hosting miHoYo global headquarters. The curators over at Steam saw one too many references to Hong Kong and decided that it’s too dangerous to sell the game in the Mainland, while Epic seemed a lot looser. So, during an August sale on EGS, I bought the game on discount.

And this science fiction adventure game is very much rooted in Hong Kong. Its studio’s Chinese/Asian Canadian members likely all have family came from Hong Kong at one point of time or another. It shows in the language used in game. The near future segments have relatively long dialogues in fluent Cantonese while the game’s one teenage girl from Taiwan use Mandarin in “Hollywood laconic” fashion. It only exposes the team’s inexperience when it comes to the common tongue of both PRC and “ROC”.

August, 2024 was probably the worst time I got into 1000X Resist as I was also catching with science fiction literature written in Chinese between 2007 and 2023 back then. Compared to action-packed turn-pagers that got my adrenaline pumping, 1000X Resist’s pacing feels sluggish. The studio’s intention of mimicking both post-EVA anime and experimental theatre really got in their game’s way. Otherwise, it’s a fairly compelling tale of one sci-fi trope handed the world to hell in a handbasket after another until some solution was finally found. More than 10 hours of minimal interaction and meandering is bit much to tell such tales. There really should have been an editor who can shave 2 hours or 5 off this game.

Golds: sleepless nights spent on high fantasy lands

Sword Art Online series of light novels and its animated adaption rightfully get a lot of criticism for its uncritical uses of gross adventure story tropes. But I for one would really hope one aspect of its science fictional VR to become a technological reality: how the gaming section overlaps with sleep time rather than takes over. Especially when I got to handle a day shit faced because I played video games until 4 or 6 in morning. Well, I had done that 3 times this year, and the one took up 2 nights of my sleep got the top spot.

Both games also seem to have their own twists when it comes to do their own Dungeon & Dragon world. One set in a world like ours while the other after. High Fantasy should have more variety than it does now and those 2 at least tried to make their own difference. Anyway, for the relative long of it for those, here they are.

2. Tactical Breach Wizards

(From the makers of Gunpoint)

Only one sleepless night on this one and it was when I saw credits roll. And it did not click with one Mr. Croshaw. Well, as much as I enjoyed Gunpoint back in 2013, I did not know of TBW until June 2024’s Steam Next Fest.

“Wizard with gun kicking in doors” does sound like a set-up for a joke and the punch line is they get the job done. Failure is not option but death of squad members is merely one step towards success.

1 Metaphor: Refantasio

(Led by the trio behind Persona 5)

Two sleepless nights on this one, the first one being when the game finally clicked in its third major hub area and the second one ended with the penultimate dungeon. Well, I would have declared it my game of the year 2024 but this lousy year hardly put me in a celebratory mood.

Metaphor does have Persona’s finger prints all over it. One of such is the Anakin Skywalker motherfuckers (I grew up with that prequel trilogy, so bite me.). In this all-new 2024 RPG, the sort is made of 2 brothers, one would join the party after the other bit the dust. It’s quite funny how Metaphor and Persona 3 Reload are mirror images to each other, the former was released days after miHoYo’s country of origin’s last nation holiday for the year while the latter was released about a week before the country’s first for the year. Metaphor’s texture has the messy characteristic of Atlus’ in-house engine while Reload’s texture seem the clearest even among products powered by Unreal Engine. But both has their own duo of Anakin Skywalker motherfuckers, and one would (really) join the party after the other bit the dust. 18 years sure ain’t long enough to make that trope go, heh?

(All hour counts below were as of November, 11th , 2024)