Shlooting in a world after Destiny.

Long time readers will know that I've had a very on and off relationship with the Destiny franchise. I obsessively (not a word I use lightly) played Destiny 1 until I burned out hard after a couple months (culminating in my finishing the Vault of Glass and only getting a shader). I played the House of Wolves expansion, but stubbornly refused to play Taken King because I didn't want to also have to buy the bad expansion, and that was the last time I played Destiny 1.

Flash forward to 2017, and Destiny 2. Which I liked a lot, even at launch. And over the next couple years, I played a lot of it, on and off. I'd play when the new expansions came, spent a lot of time with friends, and a lot of time just playing on my own, catching up on podcasts, whatever. Forsaken especially, was just fantastic, absolutely still my favorite time in the whole of these two games.

Then there was Shadowkeep, which was...not so good. I played through the story stuff, and did a little bit of the Vex Invasion season (whatever it was actually called), but then just...fell off. Part of it is that the stuff they've added since then hasn't interested me, but it's largely the monetization side. It's hard to believe, but the game going free to play, and Bungie leaving Activision...it's actually gotten worse. It feels more than ever like the game really just wants people to spend (real) money in the Eververse, and the seasons? Spending $10 for a paltry amount of mediocre (at best) content? And when I say paltry, I mean that some of the free Holiday themed events felt more fleshed out than what I saw. The stuff they did last year was already pretty shaky, but this feels even worse.

I haven't played in months, and combined with my Destiny friends losing any interest in playing, I don't see myself coming back to it any time soon. One of them even uninstalled the game, and this is after I was convinced to reinstall Anthem because we thought we'd play that again. You can probably tell how that went (will say, I hope "Anthem Next" is good). If Bungie puts out a big expansion, maybe finally make good on those repeated teases at a new faction of enemies, I'll jump back, at least long enough to see the new content, but otherwise...

So, it left me with a shlooting shaped hole in my life. It's easy to make fun of this sort of game, for the (intentionally) bad "genre" name, the fact that they try to make you play forever, the numbers are ultimately meaningless if all the enemies' numbers are just increased in proportion to you, etc. But that doesn't negate that they're fun to play, and at their best, always there for me when I need them. Okay, "need" is a stretch, but the point is that it's good to have something I can just turn on and play for a bit on a regular basis.

Luckily, Destiny 2 is not the only game of this sort, so in my desperation, I've spent the first two months of this year playing a couple other shlooty games...

Warframe.

This isn't the first time I tried Warframe. That was way back around the launch of the PS4, in 2013. Maybe early 2014, but I think it was 2013. Anyway, I tried the game, but only for a really, really short amount of time. And I didn't touch it again until some point in the last year or so, when I gave it another shot. This time I at least gave the game a couple hours, but it still didn't click.

Then, this January, I gave it another shot, and...it clicked. And all it took was my remapping the controls slightly so I could more easily slash my way through levels without taking my thumb off the right stick. Who woulda thunk it?

But what is Warframe, exactly? I know that's something that I've wondered about over the years, because it is kind of a weird game. At least aesthetically. Very bio-mechanical, mecha-fleshy game. Structurally, it's not really that weird, you just do missions, which unlocks paths to new missions through the Solar System. There are a couple open world areas, which feel big, and even have stuff like hoverboards you can ride to zip around faster. And there's jetpack missions in space, but those feel like they're missing...something that I can't quite put my finger on.

Eventually there's story missions that take place in the same locations as the regular missions, and some interesting stuff happens in those. For those in the know, the farthest I've gotten is The Second Dream, which might mean there's still a lot left for me to see, but I feel like I've played enough to write about the game. Still, I've been enjoying that side of the game, even if there is a smidge of a Destiny 1 "I don't think this has been fully explained" vibe to some of it. Then again, there's times where that feels somewhat intentional, unlike Destiny 1.

It's fun! Slashing through enemies, shooting when appropriate, once I got a good feel for the game, and its specific eccentricities, I have a lot of fun with it. And it feels like there's a healthy amount of variety too, as each Warframe has its own abilities, and even just in the three I've unlocked (Excalibur, Frost, and Rhino), those feel a lot different. Excalibur has sword related abilities like rapidly slashing around, Frost can freeze stuff and make a protective ice orb, and Rhino, to paraphrase what a friend of mine said, "as you could guess, has rhino powers."

So, the game is fun, it's got a fairly unique, weird aesthetic that has grown on me the more I've played, some of the story stuff is real neat (if a bit underdeveloped, at least so far), there's plenty of variety (I haven't even gotten to the fishing yet!), and I even have a space dog that I can pet! All this, for the incredible price of...free?

Well, yes and no. Warframe is free to play, and I'll say up front that this is the first free to play game I've spent any money on at all. Granted, only $5 so far, but it's more than nothing. That got me a cape and some in game Platinum (the paid currency), of which I already had some from years of redeeming PlayStation Plus Warframe Booster Packs on the thought that I might someday get into the game. And, I must say, thank you past me, because I did, and that money is useful.

Warframe isn't what I would call a pay to win game, but you could do that. I wouldn't, I think the rate at which I've unlocked new weapons has been decent, but the new Warframes has been a touch slow. Especially when that process is quite involved. First you need to get the blueprints for each part of a Warframe (there's always three), and build them. Each part takes, I think, 12 (twelve) real world hours to craft, but there doesn't seem to be a limit on how many things can be crafted at once, assuming you have the parts with which to craft. Of course you can spend Platinum to rush and complete instantly, but don't do that. Then (assuming you have the Warframe's blueprint) you craft the whole thing, which takes 72 (seventy-two) real world hours. That's three (3) days. It does feel like it might be designed to prey on the impatient, when I think about it. From there the Warframes have to be leveled up to unlock their abilities, but that's just regular video gaming.

The real issue I have with this is Warframes, and weapons (which also usually take twelve hours to craft, this is a crafting heavy game) take up space in your inventory. Inventory slots are limited, and the way to upgrade that space is...spending Platinum. Spend a bit of Platinum, and you get...two more weapon slots. Or one more Warframe slot. You start with two Warframe slots, and since you start with a Warframe, that means you could have one more. So, yeah, having to spend Platinum (it's not much, only like 12 I think?) for every new Warframe after the first one you craft feels crappy. Not the worst thing in the world, but it feels just a little stingy.

As for the rest of the monetization, there's a lot of cosmetic stuff, like colors for your Warframe, weapons, ship, etc. At least you don't buy individual ones, you buy big palettes which come with a variety of shades. I got one (it was at a reduced price for the day) with a bunch of blues, pinks, and oranges, and that's done well by me. There's other stuff too, like capes, and it mostly seems reasonably priced? Or at least there appears to be one day sales often enough that if you're patient you can get a reasonable deal.

So I'd say the free to play-ness of Warframe is...acceptable. It doesn't feel quite as 'in your face' as the Eververse is, but Destiny's inventory limits aren't nearly as constrained. Flip side, Warframe doesn't charge for any actual missions, or content of that sort, so I'd still give it to Warframe (which I did, $5 worth). Still could be better, but it got me to spend money on the game, rather than stop playing, unlike Destiny 2. So there's that! I've got enough Platinum to keep me going for a while, I suspect, and I intend to keep playing the game.

It's a lot of fun, and there's a whole lot I haven't even gotten to yet. Story missions, regular missions. From my understanding there's even a Sea of Thieves-ish multiplayer ship piloting mode? At least that's how a friend has referred to it. And like I said, there's fishing, but I think it uses spears instead of fishing rods, so it might be more like harpooning than fishing. Just with regular fish instead of whales.

If I have any other complaint about Warframe, it's that I think the game isn't exactly clear with how difficult missions are. It gives a level range for them, but that isn't what level you should be, it's the levels of the enemies in the mission. Which is fine, except there's no corresponding level for you. There's an overall account level (that unlocks access to certain blueprints), and individual levels for just about everything. Weapons, Warframes, space dogs, etc. But those weapon/Warframe levels all cap at 30, and enemy levels go higher than that. And the account level? I'm only at five, I think, but I've seen people in the 20s? Anyway, I don't know how to judge if I'm ready for a mission or not until I'm actually in it, and I think there should be a better way to know that.

Still, it's not the biggest issue, and on the whole, I like the game. It's good! Great, even. Give it a shot if you haven't. All you've got to lose is time, and maybe data if you have data caps. I don't, which is good, given I've downloaded multiple hundred gigabyte games in the last couple weeks. Also data caps are bad, just like the capitalist system that created them.

Tom Clancy's The Division 2.

Warframe may be free, but this game required a significantly higher buy in: $3. Okay, joking aside, some friends and I decided to try the game on a lark, because we'd surely get at least $3 worth of fun out of it. Turns out, we all kinda love it? Maybe love is too strong, but I've really enjoyed my time with it, certainly much more so than I expected. But enough enjoyment that it left me scratching my head as to why didn't play the game last year.

The best answer I have is a lot of the troubling "politics" around the first Division, which I didn't play beyond the beta. It felt kinda bad to be fighting factions that were just "rioters" in hoodies and escaped prisoners. Now, I'm not saying that The Division 2 is a huge improvement over the first in that regard, or that it really has any story that's especially interesting, but it at least replaces the rioters in hoodies for Mad Max-looking post apocalyptic gangs. I'm only slightly exaggerating, but I'm not exaggerating when I say that even if the actual motivations behind some of the enemy factions makes me feel kind bad for murdering so many of them (one of them are a group of people who were forced into quarantine, and broke out because they were being treated bad), at least in the moment, I can turn off that part of my brain and enjoy the combat as a video game.

It's been a while since I've played a new cover shooter (I have been replaying the older Uncharted game recently, but Lost Legacy may have been the other most recent cover shooter I've played), and I think Division 2 is a really good one of those. The cover mechanics themselves are good (the hold a button to direct your Divisioneer to a specific piece of cover is handy), the areas are well built for these sorts of encounters, and the enemies are just fun to fight. There's a good mix of them, from melee rushers to flamethrower users, to regular fighters, to snipers, to Large People with absurd amounts of armor. There's even those robots that range from Boston Dynamics dogs to malevolent lawnmowers. I'm pretty sure the game literally uses the word lawnmower to describe them. They're all mixed together well in ways that keep me on my toes, get me to move around a lot, and it's really good!

There's special abilities too, like turrets, drones, a shield, etc. My two favorites have been a healing drone (which I can direct between myself and others I'm playing with), and a shield that lets me use most non-handguns (not sniper rifles or light machine guns). I've also enjoyed what I've come to call the "war-crime gas" launcher, which shoots out flammable gas, that ignites when shot. Maybe that's a crass joke on my part, but that's this game!

All that, and Washington DC ended up being a more interesting pick than I expected. I was anticipating this game to all be stuffy old federal buildings, but there's way more visual variety than I thought there'd be, especially in the story missions. I'd say it goes a lot farther to make DC an interesting location than say, Fallout 3 did. Stuff like fighting through an air and space museum, which features shoot-outs in a working planetarium, and an exhibit of the surface of Mars. It's cool, but if anything it just reinforced my wish that this was a fully sci-fi game, instead of being mired in Tom Clancy, and thus trying to at least appear somewhat realistic.

Which is patently absurd, given how focused the game is on loot, and weapons/armor being arbitrarily different from each other, with the same exact (real world) gun firing the same exact bullets doing more damage because it's higher level. In real life a shot to the head is probably going to kill someone, not do 53,000 damage but leave them standing. And yes, the damage numbers not only get that high, they seem to have only gotten higher as I get further into the endgame.

Anyway, it's just odd to me that this game is designed the way it is, because of the Tom Clancy's name. I don't want to be a Tom Clancy purist, I've never read any of his books, don't think I've seen any movies based on his works, and the story has certainly never been the thing I enjoyed about any of these games (even if I think Sam Fisher is a fairly memorable character). But it is weird that the name used to mean a certain attention to detail regarding realism, but in the years since his death, that's been going more and more out the window.

Other positives about the game: It has the best designed co-op invite related stuff I've seen in quite some time. Just simple stuff, like friends joining so seamlessly one friend and I were playing a mission, and didn't even realize a third friend had joined until we noticed her actually in the mission with us, which got a good laugh. There was probably a message at some point saying someone joined, but we didn't notice it (so maybe that's a UI issue in a way). But stuff like having an in game prompt when someone invites you, rather than having to go to the PS4 main menu invite thing, it's simple, but also so simple it makes me wonder why more games aren't so streamlined. Like if a friend invites me to Destiny, I have to go to that other menu and through that, which is just an extra step that I didn't even realize didn't need to be there.

And don't even get me started on stuff like Monster Hunter World, because this is light years ahead of that!

Oh, and the music! It's weirdly good? To the point where I've put the full soundtrack in my rotation of background writing music. Sometimes that gets lost whilst I'm playing with friends, and listening to them talk with the game audio lowered a bit, but when I'm alone, I really dig it.

And speaking of playing alone, while I think this game is at its best when played with friends so you can talk about nonsense like the 2001 Planet of the Apes remake, there is kind of a strangely relaxing vibe to this game alone. Something about walking down the wrecked streets of DC, picking through old backpacks for loot, watching the odd dog or deer run by... I like it. It's not on the level of something like a Death Stranding (which I keep thinking about, months later) in terms of a relaxing walking around game, but it's not at all what I expected. Of course there's plenty of side content, and random patrols of enemies to deal with too, but there's just enough moments of quiet wandering that it scratches that itch for me, just a little.

One last thing about Division 2's endgame. After finishing the story stuff, a new faction of enemies invades the city, takes over all the locations the story missions were in, and basically gives reason to replay them, just with remixed enemies. That's cool, and along with it, a new specialization thing open up, with super powered weapons that have their own skill trees to level up.

And here, is where I come to an addition I had to make after my initial draft of this blog, because of a SHOCKING revelation my friends gave me. See, in the specialization menu (only accessible at the main base of operations, the White House), four specializations are displayed at once, in order of newest to oldest. When I first saw that menu, I saw three options that were locked behind either doing lots of daunting steps of research (in game challenges, basically), or spending real world money (for each individually, or as a part of the Year 1 Pass). And I saw one that was open.

What I didn't realize was the menu scrolled and there were more options ready and unlocked without paying more money. So, instead of the several paragraphs I wrote complaining about the game trying to fleece more money out of me, I'll instead say that menu should have been clearer about there being more options! There was more room on the screen!

So, I don't think I'm going to spend that extra money to unlock those other specializations. I'm gonna buy the Warlords of New York expansion, they'll be getting more money out of me. But then again maybe I will, I dunno. I hate how I obsess about money, and so often it's about dumb little things like this. Ugh.

Okay, so, I've written about Warframe and Tom Clancy's The Division 2, both of which are great games, and games I intend to spend a lot more time playing. But how do they really stack up to Destiny 2, which they've replaced in my regular rotation?

Honestly, in terms of the actual game play, general story/lore, aesthetic, I still like Destiny 2 the best of them. But, that's not exactly a fair comparison to make. In a vacuum Destiny 2 is one of the best shooters ever in terms of just basic feel. At least I think so. But I've spent 347 hours and 1 minute playing Destiny 2, according to Wasted on Destiny dot com. That's a lot of time. Maybe not for some people, but it is for me. That's in contention for most time I've spent on a single game in my entire life. If you include the 159 hours and 51 minutes from Destiny 1, it's definitely the top of that.

Yes, Destiny in general is fun, but...I'm kind of sick of it? Or at least I'm tired of playing the same stuff, and anything new feels like a better use of my time in that way. So, games like Warframe and Division 2, which I do think are really great at what they do, just feel so much more like they deserve my time right now.

But in other regards, I think Division 2's co-op stuff is more seamless. Both that and Warframe do a better job of making variety more accessible than Destiny 2. Yes, there's three classes in Destiny, but I need a different character for each, and I had to play through all of the main campaign three times to get those three characters into the regular "endgame" (which I guess they've changed for free to play Destiny 2, but that wasn't the case in 2017!). I can just change around whatever, whenever in Warframe and Division 2, assuming I've unlocked it. I know I'm still going to end up repeating content because that's how these games go, but it doesn't feel as repetitive when I have my one character that I'm always working toward, rather than three that I swap between.

Also, I gotta say, way more dogs in Warframe and The Division 2 than Destiny 2. Can't let that one slide by. Pretty sure there's also pet space cats in Warframe, but I dunno about the cat status in Division 2. There's lots of wildlife of different sorts, so it's possible they're in there, just not as noticeable as dogs and deer.

They're not the only games I've played this year so far, but they are the ones I've felt most motivated to write about. Well, that's not entirely true, I did want to write about Pyre, but I'd have to get into spoiling that game to really get into why I liked it so much. So I never got around to that. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. We'll see. That, and Return of the Obra Dinn, but outside of the neat gimmick I dunno that I'd have much to say, other than I enjoyed that too.

Dunno when I'll write again! Maybe DOOM Eternal? Who can say! I still don't have a Switch, for those curious. Someday. Someday.

But thank you, as always, for reading.