03 - THE BACKLOG QUEST LOG - Firewatch

Developed locally here in the Bay Area by Campo Santo, Firewatch is a love letter to a lot of things that I hold in high regard: 

1980's setting ✔️

Great voice acting ✔️

Beautiful outdoor environments ✔️

Strong art direction ✔️

Flawed as fuck, but likable, protagonist ✔️

Great atmosphere ✔️

It's kind of weird that I put the game off for so long, right?

WRONG. I had my reasons.

I'm normally not one for heavy story in games. That probably sounds weird to anyone else who's picked up a controller but in my experience, story usually comes at the expense of something else. Gameplay, that is, the challenge and elation of inputing a specific sequence of commands in response to meticulously designed and calculated stimuli on the screen, is why I play games - because of how things feel, not because of why I'm doing them. The story is context - it explains why you're doing the thing you're doing, and that's really all I need from a game's story.

I explained the difference just so I could say that even though I was a film studies/english lit double major, I just don't give a shit about story in games. I don't like the Uncharted games all that much, I've never played the Last of Us, and as you saw in my first Backlog Quest Log - I think the Telltale games are historically kind of underwhelming.

So yeah, I was as surprised as anyone that I liked Firewatch so much. It definitely helps that I beat it in about 3.5 - 4 hours, but more than that, I was genuinely engrossed in the story. So let's start there.

It opens with a selection of "this or that", choose-your-own-adventure prompts that feel kind of like the Scientology personality test. More than choosing dialogue, you're choosing behavior, modeling yourself after the lead character, Hank. You're at the bar one night you meet a knockout, and the two of you immediately hit it off. Over the years, you two have a passionate and loving romance that  before Julia is beset with Alzheimer's. While you manage to take care of her for a bit, you get arrested with an unfortunate DUI during a stressful night you were having. Julia's family returns to the States to take their sick daughter back to her home country of Australia, and you're left without her.

Hoping for a fresh start, you take a 90 day rotation assignment on, well, Firewatch, in Wyoming near Yellowstone, following the fires of '88. After taking a grueling hike up to your post, you meet Delilah over the radio. She's kind of like your manager, and the only person you'll speak to over the next three months, strictly through your walkie-talkie. On your first night you're asked to check in on some fireworks being shot in the park. You find it's teens and head back to your post (or, like me, you threw their radio in the lake where they were swimming because teenagers suck, cleaned up all their beer cans because nature, and confiscated their whiskey because whiskey). On the way back, you see a mysteries shadowy figure who scares the bejesus out of you. 

As the summer goes on, strange things happen. Your post is ransacked, communication wires are cut, unreported fences are established by shady (maybe) governmental agencies, you're kind-of-sort-of framed for murder, and a deeper mystery beckons. I don't want to get too much into it because the game is short enough for you to beat in one sitting and it's pretty compelling stuff, making it feel even shorter. 

Though not a horror game, there were parts of Firewatch that were genuinely creepy and unsettling. The game made me afraid of the dark (y'know, in the game), and kept me on my toes so that every time I was rappelling down a cliffside, I found myself holding my breath because I assumed something would go wrong, whether accidental or malicious. I was scared playing the game, I was brave playing the game, and I was genuinely moved not just by what happened to me, but by what I felt I had to do.

Damn that's immersive. 

There are supply caches throughout the area you're in charge of monitoring, and in each of them there's updates you can make to your map and some supplies that will help you get into new areas. These moments are subtle though, and don't feel like learning a new power in Metroid or anything. It's incredibly helpful to seek out these caches, but it never feels video gamey.

The through-line is the player's relationship with Delilah. It's simultaneously the biggest pull and greatest frustration of the game. It's kind of like that movie Her which is an awesome to pull from because let's be honest - that movie rules. You select what to say to her from a series of options and you get to cater how you want your relationship with her to go. The frustrating part is that ultimately it feels like no matter what you do, things will always end the same way. That was my biggest gripe with Emily Is Away, an awesome nostalgia-fest that presented choice, but was ultimately just the illusion of choice. 

But what makes it work is the way storytelling and gameplay mix together, even if the gameplay is technically limited. Traditional AAA rely too heavily on cinematics or in game cutscenes to advance the plot, but Firewatch doesn't. There are interstitials that let you know what day it is during your rotation, but they're really just loading screens to change the over-world, and it's a smart way to mask those changes. It never feels like "now's the time for the story" and "now's the time for the game" - they're simultaneous and don't come at the expense of the other. 

I really, really dug Firewatch, and I think you would too. You can beat it in the amount of time it takes to watch the first two Batman movies from Nolan's trilogy, and while those movies are a perfect way to spend 4 hours and 50 minutes, Firewatch scratches a completely different part of your brain that can itch and is more than enjoyable in its own regard. If I didn't have a blog where I was going through my backlog trying to play all the games I haven't gotten to, I probably would've replayed it already. 

02 - THE BACKLOG QUEST LOG - Halo Wars

I freaking love real time strategy (RTS) games, but unfortunately, I'm also terrible at them. I don't play them as intended - instead of balancing your resources with production, upgrades to existing units, and maximizing your actions per minute, I save up a miser's fortune, I purchase upgrades before I should, and I don't even like building offensive units until A) I can afford them all or B) they're already upgraded. 

But there's something so cool about Real Time Strategy games, especially those with an emphasis on combat - and I think it's because playing them I feel like someone who owns every single GI Joe i could possibly want and I'm able to smash them against every single Cobra trooper I can possibly imagine. 

On top of that I'm a huge Halo nerd, playing *every game multiple times, following down rabbit holes on wikipedia (halopedia if we're being honest), and recently I even bought a Halo novel to on my phone to read on my commute, and... yeah, I'm close to reaching peak Halo nerd. 

So the other day, not just remembering that there was a Halo themed RTS game but remembering that I packed it with me and have an xbox one that can play it made my second game for the Backlog Quest Log a pretty obvious choice. 

And the fact that I play every single Halo game like a ravenous trashmonster, I beat it in three days, throwing off my schedule a bit for the BLQL, but giving me plenty of time to watch Celtics games or Beat Bobby Flay. 

Which is nice. But let's kick it to the review of Halo Wars. 

Set some 20 years before Halo Combat Evolved, Halo Wars opens with the UNSC essentially finding the hostile alien collective, the Covenant, right after they destroy the prominent human colony of Harvest. Humanity has met the enemy and the enemy has them outgunned, outnumbered, and out-technology'd. But more troublesome than the Covenant destroying a human settlement, it seems like they were looking for something on the planet of Harvest, more worrisome still - it looks like they found something, too. 

You'll chase this particular fleet as they make their way through the system and eventually make their way out of it, and about 2/3 through the game you'll meet the other enemy known from Halo games - the Flood. 

The story isn't anything revolutionary, but it does an adequate job to explain why you're going from one crazy situation to another, and why you'll get white knuckled trying to save the universe from a two pretty sinister threats. The cutscenes don't hold up incredibly well between people - that is to say normal humans talking on the deck of the main ship of the game, The Spirit of Fire. something about their faces looks too smooth and unnatural because of it - like everyone is wearing three pounds of foundation. The covenant faces look fantastic though, complete with scales and, y'know the gross sinew and musculature you'd associate with an alien race. 

It's good that there's a low cap placed on your population because the UNSC unites are actually pretty powerful. The reverse of that though is having the same units throughout the level is kind of boring. Playing only on normal, I was pretty much guaranteed that any armored units I built would survive, and most of the marines I built would survive the fray as well. And on one hand, it's really nice to see that humans stand a fighting chance against the Covenant, which is something you don't really get from the mainline halo games, but part of me wishes this game were a bit more about reaction than preparation. For each mission there was basically one ideal unit that over-performed in some ridiculous manner, basically being untouchable, especially when complimented with the hero units of the game, some spare Spartans stationed aboard the Spirit of Fire. 

The reason that a few units were all-stars in each level is because of how bases were designed, and they can only be built in very specific locations. There's a central structure that you build additions on, and can eventually upgrade to unlock more addition slots, but there's no real versatility. You're ostensibly forced to decide what kind of base you want to build at the beginning of each mission, with little wiggle room to improvise or redirect resources. In some missions you'll be given opportunities to to take over a second (or third or sixth) base location, but taking over more locations doesn't allow your basic unit population to rise, giving very little incentive outside of resource management to expand to other locations, especially once you have a decent engine running and can churn out the needed units at your original base. 

The basebuilding makes perfect sense to be a streamlined, competitive console multiplayer RTS, but the concessions made were just a little too much. Even the final level, despite coming out nearly 11 years after Starcraft, still fails to reach the same level of epic deregulation that campaign ended with. Unforgettable games establish rules and then either break them or change them, and unfortunately Halo Wars, while overall fun, failed in this regard.  A year later, Supreme Commander 2 would come out on 360 and push the the genre pretty far before it basically disappeared from consoles altogether. 

The few levels where you're not constricted to base locations (like when you're fighting on the deck of the Spirit of Fire), are some of the standouts, and come the closest to breaking the established rules, but the lack of gather-able resources asks a lot of patience from the player. Unfortunately, you aren't really fighting either enemy (The Flood or the Covenant), at the same time in great numbers, so it's not a terribly challenging task that begs a lot of strategy, but still fun nonetheless. 

It's sort of hard going back to a game that's nearly a decade old. Do you grade it on the merits of it back then, or now? Should it be compared to its contemporaries or its place in the genre now? Either way I'd mark Halo Wars a success, since it asked me to have fun in a fun universe, but a few tweaks could've extended the game into a higher tier of conversation. I'm stoked to finally check out the very recent sequel in the coming weeks, after I play a game called Firewatch that I've been curious about. 

01 - The Backlog Quest Log - Guardians of the Galaxy

Huge disclosure: I love-hate Telltale games. I shouldn't. I should outright love them - they're trying to marry movies/tv and video games, that should be a home run for me, but their execution always falls flat. 

The games run so poorly on console, it sometimes feels like they're actively trying to get me to quit them. For the uninitiated, Telltale Games is a developer that essentially takes popular franchises and turns them into a choose your own adventure of sorts, where decisions you make will impact the world and the characters around you, making some paths of the story accessible later on, and close off others entirely. I've played a bunch over the years, and they're all of varying quality. 

• Back to the Future C+
• The Walking Dead Season 1 B
• The Wolf Among Us B-
• Tales from the Borderlands B+
• Game of Thrones D

I love everything about Telltale Game's output, except actually playing their games. I find them chore-like, since progress is inevitable, and there's no decision you can make that will prevent you from ever finishing the game. 

So when Guardians of the Galaxy came on sale on the PSN a few months back, I grabbed it somewhat begrudgingly. I'm a huge comic book nerd, but after Game of Thrones I wasn't sure if I was ready for another slog through the formula they've made for themselves. I bought it, thinking I would get to it sooner or later. I started it and yup, couldn't handle it, putting it back on my digital bookshelf to be picked up another day.

But then I remembered I wanted to play 52 video games in a year, and it doesn't hurt that this game stars a talking raccoon and a meandering sentient tree that can snap a Buick in half. But mostly the 52 video games thing. 

And to be honest... I really enjoyed it. The first episode was admittedly slow, but the underlying mystery of the device you find, and how it's warping Peter's memories of his mother was genuinely fascinating. Also interesting, was that the main characters kind of hate each other. They're like a family, sure, but an extremely dysfunctional one. Choosing one teammate's side over another's in an argument actually felt like it carried weight that would affect the story in interesting ways. 

The story itself was pretty fun too - it felt like a lost backup Jim Starlin and Al Milgrom would've banged out in the early 90's - fun, somewhat emotional, but neatly wrapped up by the end, which kind of leads me to the game's biggest problem outside of the weak opening chapter. 

There was this dude named Blake Snyder who wrote a book called Save the Cat. In it, Snyder breaks down the formula most movies follow, the beats they have to hit to tell a complete, satisfying story. So, you know that moment when the hero is abandoned, Plan A didn't work, everything fell apart, yadda yadda yadda - that moment is key. It's essentially a 15 minute version of It's A Wonderful Life packed into every single movie. We see the hero fall so their ascension at the end can be even higher - more romantic, more epic, mo' better. 

It's Luke's hand getting chopped off in Empire. It's Hans Gruber finding out who McClane's wife is in Die Hard. It's the Ghostbuster's being shut down by the EPA and then arrested.

Guardians of the Galaxy absolutely has this moment, but it's still only about 15 minutes. 15 minutes is all we're given to see doubt - it wasn't just the "All hope is lost" moment of the episode, it was the "All hope is lost" moment of the entire series and it was just underwhelming in scope considering how quickly it's resolved. 

You didn't even really get to do any gameplay in that moment, it was essentially an elongated cut scene (like the whole game, but c'mon, you know what I mean). It didn't feel proportional to the story, and it felt like it was over right after it began, leaving very little for the player to imagine life in this new status quo, because it changed back so quickly. 

All things considered, I liked Guardians more than the average Telltale game, and considerably more than I thought I would. The first episode is a slog, and the emotional impact as the overall story nears its finale is a little light, but still a pretty fun way to kick off the Backlog Quest Log. 

52 Video Game Challenge

The Backlog Quest Log

Every year I get a little disheartened in January. For a pretty obvious reason, people use January as a time to plan how they'd like to better themselves. Gym memberships swell because people decide this is the year they're going to work out. Grocery stores look like season 3 of the Walking Dead because all the fruit is gone thanks to newly minted diets. And that's great - that's fantastic. 

But for every person who wants to make a positive change, there's always at least one jerk who says "Yeah, but resolutions are stupid, if you really want things to be better, make them better all the time. There's no day like today. Forest Gump deserved the Oscar over Shawshank Redemption, Tom Brady will never win another Super Bowl" and ten thousand other dumb things that aren't just reductive, but useless. 

So, in the spirit of these people I see raining on everyone's parade, and inspired by friends of mine who are taking the 365 movie challenge (to watch a new movie everyday), I'm making my own resolution: I want to beat a video game every week, for the next 52 weeks. 

I love movies but I just don't have that kind of time. Football is starting back up in 8 months, so watching a movie on Mondays, Thursdays, and Sundays is already out (not to mention the playoffs right now, #gopats), and plus there's a lot of pub trivia and nights that are vaguely warm enough to barbecue here in the Bay Area, so I'm setting my sights a little lower, on something I feel is a bit more manageable - one thing a week, one thing I love, for 52 weeks. 

And since I'm a writer who's dying to work in the video game industry in some capacity, I should probably, well, write about it. 

So, let me lay out what I'm thinking: 

• one video game a week
• going back and getting a platinum trophy counts as replaying a game
• replaying old games that I love counts
• any system counts
• the game (ideally) has an ending
• a game is a game, no matter how small. Final Fantasy counts as much as Oxenfree
• Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this backlog

And for now, that's all I've got. I decided to do this blog retroactively after already beating the first game, so the scheduling at first will be a bit wonky, but I plan on posting about the last game played every Monday. You don't really need to read this part, this is mostly just to hold myself accountable, but since no one is going to read this anyway, I'm going to sign off here to go watch some Julian Edelman highlights and think about how easy Super Bowl 52 would be if we still had that little flying squirrel.