Month: July 2020

Röki – Walking In A Winter Wonderland (With a troll):

Posted on by in Gaming

Back in October, which seems like it happened a decade ago, I was at EGX in London. After being lucky enough to get a Press Pass for the event, I spent quite a few hours scrolling through my emails, searching for games that I found interesting or ones that I thought deserved a little more love in the indie section. One such game was Röki, an adventure game that follows a young girl named Tove, who is trying to rescue her brother from the claws of the monster that kidnapped him.

In the short demo that I got to play, I was immediately immersed in a fairy-tale world. So, when the full version of the game was released on Steam a few days ago, I immediately threw myself into it. Over the course of a weekend, I completed each chapter of the story, trying my hardest to appreciate and discover every corner of my surroundings. Though I will say that spider is horrifying, I nearly threw my laptop across the room when I first saw it and the NOISES IT MADE WERE TERRIFYING OK.

Look at these gorgeous woods, it reminds me of the woods near where I was born.

Point and click adventures tend to be an experience of trial and error. For games with less well-thought out puzzles, it becomes a rage game, where you try combining anything and everything in a desperate attempt to progress the story. Röki, thankfully, has managed to avoid the puzzle pitfall. The puzzles were instinctive, cleverly interwoven into your interactions with the world. It didn’t feel like the plot was being held hostage until you finished collecting several shiny stones; it instead feels like a genuine obstacle standing between Tove and her brother.

From a technical standpoint, Röki is a masterpiece. Upon opening the game, you are greeted with sweeping vistas of a snowy mountain range. The forest stands out on the snowy background, managing to seem inviting and ominous at the same time. You’re greeted with icy lakes, towering trees, and crumbling castles – the likes of which we associate to the stories that we read to our kids at bedtime. These gorgeous landscapes are enhanced by the lighting engine that Röki implements. When you’re working with the sheer white snow of a mountain landscape like that of Tove’s home, it can be hard to make each explorable area unique enough to interest the player. In fact, arctic explorers must contend with a type of mirage, in which the snow makes it look like there is land on the horizon.

A lovely idyllic house, perfect for a fairy tale to take a dark turn.

Every aspect of Röki has an incredible amount of thought put into it, from the character designs, to the ambient sounds of the forest that you are exploring. The world of Röki is a living, breathing organism that deserves your utmost respect and from my time with the game, I am more than willing to give it that. Footprints will trail behind you in the snow, the wind blows through the trees, ravens will spook if you get too close. The birds sing and the trolls grumble as you walk past. It feels alive and bustling, yet you feel alone. Tove is on her own, in a world that she has only experienced in bed-time stories. Whenever I closed my eyes in Röki, every sound cue and background noise painted an elaborate picture of the world around Tove, a beautiful canvas forged through song.

Although beautiful, Röki is a remarkably dark game when you start to look below the surface. Littered across the forest are trolls that have been petrified by the sun, left frozen and alone until the end of time. A nearby church is filled with gravestones, that on closer inspection are those of children, taken at a young age and never recovered. A tortured soul who drowned in a lake now dwells there, dragging unfortunate souls to meet the same fate. Tove’s journey is not an easy one, it is more than a simple adventure to rescue her brother. It is about forgiveness, empathy, and hope where sometimes we find none.

LOOK AT THOSE MOUNTAINS AND FORESTS. SERIOUSLY. ITS SO PRETTY. SO SO PRETTY.

Personally, the plot hit close to home. It is a layered tale of loss and redemption, told through the eyes of a young girl who has been forced to grow up too quickly. Through exploring a magical forest, filled with whacky and wonderful creatures (plus a few of the more… deadly variety), you begin to uncover the story of a family in distress, whose dispute has had serious ramifications for the forest’s ecosystem and wellbeing. In her quest to rescue her brother and reunite with her father, Tove manages to piece back together the broken shards of a family of powerful beings – the Guardians of the forest.

If you don’t want any spoilers from the main story, then I’d recommend stepping away from this article now, purchasing the game on Steam, playing it through, eating a large amount of chocolate to recover emotionally and then come back to continue reading! I’m going to talk about a big spoiler from later in the game, because I feel it’s well worth talking about.

God I love mythology. And their gods. Ehehe.

So, SPOILERS AHEAD:

At the start of the game, your brother Lars, is taken by a monster through magic portal. Your father was last seen under a pile of rubble and wooden beams, begging you to take your brother and run.  Although not explicitly stated at the start of the game, its clear that Tove’s mother has died – as well as that the loss is recent. Since the loss of her mother, Tove has had to take on the role of caregiver in her household. From caring for her little brother, to stoking the fire, to cooking for the family, this little girl can do it all. Yet, she shouldn’t have to. Her father is deep in grief over the loss of his beloved wife, leaving Tove alone in her own grief and pain.

As the game progresses, you are tasked with waking the three guardians of the forest – the wolf, the stag, and the bear. You learn that there was a fourth guardian, the raven, but she was outcast into another dimension with her son, a result of her falling in love with a human. Each of the guardians were responsible for a season in the year, as well as working with one another to keep the forest in balance. When the family fell apart, so did the forest they protected. Now the raven, seeks her revenge.

Get thee back satan, THIS IS MY BEDROOM. MINE.

With each of the guardians you wake, Tove is forced to walk through memories that she tried so hard to suppress. These memories are about her mother – key days that they spent together and the days that followed her loss. Facing the past, is an incredibly difficult thing to do. Whenever I think back on the people that I’ve lost, the memories that I’ve desperately tried to forget, it brings a tightness to my chest and a pain to my heart that is hard to describe. So, for Tove to face those memories, to battle through them, all to save her little brother from a mythical creature that is most definitely beyond her abilities to win a fight against, is incredible.

This becomes prominent in the climax of the game, where Tove faces off against the creature that took her brother. It turns out that Röki is the son of the raven guardian, who is desperate to have her son accepted by the world that cast them out. She is merely a mother that wants her son to have a normal life, though she really needs to work on her methods because child sacrifice through dark magic is not the best approach. In our eyes, she is the villain of this piece but from where she stands, she’s doing what she must. To her, a random human child’s life is nothing in comparison to the happiness of her own offspring.

Aw sweetheart. Back when you thought it would all be ok.

It is in the finale that one of the most emotional sequences in gaming makes its appearance. I’ve spoken before about games like What Remains of Edith Finch and Drawn to Life, with their powerful plots. However, Röki rockets to the top of that list in my minds eye, because it feels so heartfully genuine and real, that it is remarkably similar to some of the nightmares that I have had due to my ongoing battle with PTS. Tove is forced to relive the day of her mother’s death, which depressingly, is also her baby brother’s birthday. You sprint around a forest, desperately trying to track down the ringing phone that could bring medical help to save your mother. Yet every time that you have it in your grasp, you are teleported back to your parents’ side who beg you to do something, that only you can save her. It’s a harrowing but powerful moment.

Anyways, this review has gone on much longer than normal. If you haven’t played Röki, please do check it out, the folks at Polygon Treehouse are talented and extremely lovely. Have a good week everyone, remember to wash your hands and wear a mask. Remember to follow the site, follow my twitter @OurMindGames and like/comment!

CaitlinRC.

Assassins Creed Unity – Do You Hear the People Scream?

Posted on by in Gaming

When people think of the French Revolution, their minds tend to immediately jump to Les Misérables and the melodious voice of Hugh Jackman. To be fair to them, that is the most contact that many have with that section of history. Unless you grow up in France, study the history of France’s monarchies or have a really dedicated history teacher, you tend not to touch upon these things. What I know about the decade of political upheaval that France endured, comes from Assassins Creed Unity.

At the mention of Unity, most AC fans will wince and try to change the topic. Its not that Unity is a bad game or the story it tells isn’t compelling, its just…flawed in a few aspects that are hard to look past. Let’s get those out of the way first. The main issue is the bugs that the game is plagued with. Even now, nearly six years after it was released, the game still struggles with glitches that should’ve been patched before launch. Whether it’s watching your main character (Arno), fall eternally through an invisible crack in a roof, or staring at props freezing in mid-air – like the many pieces of paper that float ominously and occasionally get flecked with blood.

La Touche the douche everyone

Personally, I find the bugs funny – especially when I look up from an assassination to see a random guard running face first into a wall repeatedly in his attempt to apprehend me. However, I do understand the frustration, especially when you must restart a long and complicated mission because of a stupid bug that prevents you from being able to fight back. One pet peeve I do have with the game, is why we’re in France and 99% of the NPC’s that I come across all have terrible Cockney accents. It’s an incredibly jarring thing to go from the occasional tidbit of French to sudden ruffians yelling “Oi mate come back here, and I’ll rip ya throat out”.

I must admit, I do like Arno as a protagonist. He feels a bit more real than some of the other main characters in the series. His motivations are revenge and justice, to seek the truth behind a traumatic event and to protect those that he loves, rather than just following the Creed because someone told him to. You follow Arno from the loss of his father, to his mentor’s assassination, to his prison break and discovery of the Assassins, through his quest for revenge and his reunion with the girl he loves – Elise. It’s a story that although predictable in places, feels genuine. Arno’s story is one of emotion and love, of compassion and anger, not just of cold logic and strategic violence.

Arno is a good man, though it takes him a while to remember that.

Apart from the standard missions – go here, stab this person, tail this person, steal this thing etc, there is another mission type introduced in Unity that I really enjoyed. The murder mystery cases. Essentially a series of who-dunnits that has you doing the job of the French police force. Each of the mysteries is an individual case, that has you travelling to relevant locations, finding clues, and talking to witnesses. Your goal is to track down the killer using the evidence that you have gathered – even though sometimes the killer is REALLY STUPID, like the deputy warden who claimed to speak to the victim the night before when he’s been missing for several days now. Moron.

My crime senses are tingling

Plus, Elise is great. I’ll say this straight off the bat, SHE DESERVED BETTER. This is your spoiler warning by the way, as to really appreciate my feelings about this game, I need to go into details about the plot. So, you have been warned!

After Arno’s father dies at the beginning of the story, he is taken in by Monsieur De La Serre. De La Serre, has a daughter – Elise. These two grow up together and share many cherished memories before disaster strikes at Elise’s initiation ceremony into society. Monsieur De La Serre is killed, Arno is falsely accused of his murder and thrown in jail and Elise is left alone. We soon learn that De La Serre was the Grand Master of the Templars (you know, the bad guys) and Elise had spent a portion of her childhood being trained to take over from him when he passed. A capable killer, leader, and strategist, she is immediately a force to be reckoned with. Initially, she blamed Arno for the death of her father but soon they began to work together to unravel the conspiracy behind De La Serre’s death. The Templars tried to have Elise killed, seeing her as the last piece of De La Serre’s legacy and a threat to their new way of life, so Elise tried to team up with the Assassins instead.

As the game proceeds, you see the depth of Arno and Elise’s relationship and how far they will go to protect one another. However, what I find most fascinating about Elise is her determination to stand on her own two feet. This is a young woman who has been training with a sword since she was a child, who is highly educated, combat trained and capable of completing athletic feats that many grown adults would struggle with. Damsel in distress she is not. Arno chooses to protect her over getting the revenge they both sought so heavily, which drives that wedge between them once again. She doesn’t need protecting. Not from anyone. She is capable and powerful and strong. Which makes her death scene even more aggravating.

IM STILL ANGRY ABOUT THIS SIX YEARS LATER

In the grand finale of the main story, Arno and Elise have cornered Germain (the new Grand Master) in the catacombs under Paris. Armed with the sword of Eden, he threatens to kill you both. Working together, you chip away at him until he finally drops the sword – which sends a bolt of energy into a pillar, trapping Arno underneath. Elise tries to free him and then suddenly decides to turn and attack Germain. She gets concussive blasted into a nearby pillar and onto the floor, killing her almost instantly. Considering we’ve spent most of a game watching her kick absolute ass and approaching problems with a critical mind, this rash action doesn’t fit the Elise I know and love. If she’d followed through with attacking Germain straight away or had continued freeing Arno, they’d have both been fine. It doesn’t make any sense.

Also – just saying Elise, you deserve better than Arno. He’s a bit of an idiot.

Anyways,

Have a good week, wash your hands, and love one another:

CaitlinRC.

PREY – This Article Is A Mimic:

Posted on by in Gaming

In the eternal time-vortex that is the COVID-19 lockdown and pandemic, I realised that I had never finished my playthrough of the game PREY. Considering I’d had a tonne of ideas for articles about the spooky space adventure, I decided it was time to remedy that. However, when loading up my save, I realised that I had left my Morgan Yu in a corridor with a Nightmare and no real way out. So, like any normal person, I decided to watch an in-depth lets-play and scream quietly into my pillow at every jumpscare. I’ll go back and officially finish the game myself one day, maybe as a Halloween stream if that is something that you’d be interested in.

One of the main features of PREY is the enemy type called the Mimic. As its name suggests, it mimics objects in its surroundings and blends in, until you get too close, at which point it tries to eat your face. Personally, my coffee cup becoming sentient and trying to consume the flesh from my bones is on my list of “Things I Never Want to Happen to Me Ever on The Face of The Planet”. Then again, that list isn’t particularly long (yet). Mimic’s can take on the form of nearly any object, forcing you to constantly scan your surroundings for anything that is out of place. That additional coffee cup? Mimic. That oddly angled chair? Mimic. That person trying to kill you? Not a mimic, just a jerk.

…I love my coffee but am not a fan of getting my face consumed.

You are Morgan Yu, a tester of devices known as “Neuromods”, which allow the user to gain new abilities and skills instantly, though it does involve inserting a needle into your eye which is scarier than most of the game’s monsters.  These abilities fall under two categories – Human, such as improved medicine, attack power and hacking ability, or Alien – which gives you access to the Typhon’s abilities like telekinesis, morphing and telepathy. This wide skillset allows the player to choose how they wish to approach each scenario they face, be it with stealth or an overpowered shotgun. My default approach is to try and be as stealthy as possible, then get discovered and panic until the enemies are all dead or I am dead.

Despite the outer-space surroundings and endless swarm of jerks, mimics, and phantoms, it is the atmosphere that makes PREY such a fascinating game. From the moment you start it up, you are consistently shown not to believe your eyes. Your apartment is a simulated environment, that you have been living in for three years, following the same daily routine (a la Groundhog Day). Three years of your memories have been wiped out from the use of Neuromods, and the entirety of Talos One has been overrun with the Typhoon menace. Every shadow seems to contain another monstrosity and you can’t trust what you see or hear.

You’ve heard of tall, dark and handsome. Welcome to massive, horrifying and demonic.

This look into what it’s like to not trust your own senses, gives us all a slightly glimpse into what people with Psychosis deal with every single day. Every individual’s experience with the mental illness is different but there are three main symptoms associated with a psychotic episode:

  1. Hallucinations
  2. Delusions
  3. Confused and Disturbed Thoughts

The mimic’s ability to imitate the world around you, forces you to distrust everyone and everything in sight. Your senses are heightened, every shadow is an enemy lying in wait and every unexplored corridor seems too dangerous to risk exploring. You are surrounded by death and chaos, followed by long stretches of eerie silence where every clang of metal or hiss of air causes you to jump ten feet in the air out of panic. It’s a remarkable combination of panic, distrust, and paranoia, lumped in with a healthy dose of genuine fear.

Nope, nope, nope, nope nope, nope nope NOPE

When the Nightmare shows up for the first time after entering the Arboretum, you catch a glimpse of your greatest threat yet. Sure, the mimics and phantoms all want to kill you, but their existence doesn’t revolve around it. The Nightmare, however, only has one sole purpose in life – to hunt you down and tear you limb from limb. It really should get a better hobby, I’m just saying. Try fishing or something.

These things are fast, strong, and capable of swiping your head off with one hit. No matter how powered up you are, these things are more than able to take you out. Those Neuromods I mentioned earlier? Yeah, the more of the “Alien” ones that you use, the more the Nightmare will show up. It’s not worth fighting these guys. It’s a waste of ammo for a one-time reward, with a high mortality rate.

GET BACK SATAN

Encountering your first nightmare, you’d probably assume that it’s just a set-piece and that the abomination will probably turn up as a boss fight near the end of the game. A logical assumption but an incorrect one. These things will stalk you across Talos One, destroying everything and everyone that is in their way. To quote the in-game description – “If all else fails, run.”

Another aspect of PREY that I absolutely MUST mention, is it’s ending. The grand finale of the game has you facing down an enormous Typhon called an Apex, which is threatening to consume the entirety of Talos One. You have the choice of trying to escape, neutralising the Typhon, or setting off the station’s self-destruct sequence and sacrificing yourself. Your actions earlier on in the game, will dictate whether you survive your stay on Talos One.

…Please don’t eat me

Throughout the game, when you encounter other humans, you don’t have to kill them. You are provided with plenty of non-lethal options to deal with your non-supernatural foes. After all, everyone on Talos One is also fighting back against the Typhons. They just don’t want their coffee cup to eat them, is that too much to ask? Each person you spare or kill, whether you choose to free or rescue those in danger, as well as the ending you choose – will be laid out in front of you in a post-credit scene.

The whole game was an experiment. Morgan Yu, your player character, is a captured Typhon entity with Morgan’s memories implanted into it. Every part of the storyline that you played through, was a memory and a test to see whether Typhon’s were capable of developing empathy and human emotions. Dependent on your choices throughout the game, the experiment is either deemed a success or a failure. If you fail, then you die.

Is anyone else getting a James Bond villain from Alex?

However, if you succeed, then Alex (Morgan’s brother) reveals something to you. The Typhons have already invaded Earth. The efforts you went through to contain the Typhon threat, were for nothing. However, by showing that you as a Typhon can develop empathy and emotions, proves that peace could be brokered between the remaining members of humanity and the invading Typhons. It is up to you to choose whether you want to be that bridge between the groups as a hybrid of the two.

We all know that I love games that have consequences for your actions. It forces you to care a bit more about the world you are exploring and the character’s you interact with. That fear and paranoia that you experience throughout the game becomes tenfold when you realise that your anxious trigger finger could be the end of a genuinely good person’s life.

Anyways, apologies that this article took so bloody long! I made it a bit longer to make up for the delay, so hopefully it was all that you were hoping for. If you have other games that you’d like to see my take on (eventually), leave them in the comments or message me on Twitter (@OurMindGames).

CaitlinRC.

Rocket League – Defend the Bloody Goal!

Posted on by in Gaming

I’m not a majorly sporty person. A shocking revelation, I know. For exercise, I tend to avoid any form of running, which includes team sports. The only sport I really enjoy watching is rugby, which is most likely a biproduct of my upbringing and my university years in Cardiff. Badminton and football, however, are the two sports that I love playing. Badminton was a sport that I didn’t come across until my GCSE years, where it became my Sunday activity of choice. My friend Crystal and I became a formidable duo, combining the skilful shots that sent our opponents running from one side of the court to the other, with my brutal spikes that more often than not were too fast for opponents to catch in time.

Meanwhile I’ve played football on and off for about eight years of my life. It all started during primary school, when I used to watch my sister at football practise on a Saturday morning and was desperate to join in. So, when I was old enough, I joined the junior team and adored it. When we moved to a new house, I found another team to join and became their main goalkeeper. Although I hadn’t hit my growth spurt yet and a lot of the boys were uncertain about kicking a ball at a girl, I wouldn’t let anything stand between me and saving a goal, which in hindsight did lead to quite a few head injuries.

A more recent addiction of mine.

Sports games such as FIFA, Madden, and the NBA games, have never appealed to me. I can see the enjoyment in the multiplayer modes, as our more competitive instincts make themselves known. The closest that I got to sports games were the likes of Go Vacation or Wii Sports/Resort. However, there is one popular e-sport game that I thoroughly enjoy – Rocket League. Who knew combining football with cars would be a good idea (apart from 90% of the primary school kids that I teach). If you follow me on Xbox (TheCaitlinRC), then you’d see how frequently I’ve been playing over the last month or so.

For anyone that has been living under a rock for the last few years, let me give you a quick lowdown of what it’s all about. Though there isn’t that much to explain. You drive a car into a giant football and try to get it into the opposing team’s goal. Fairly simple. Though like many sports, there’s a great deal of strategy and trial and error that goes into being successful at the game. For example, I’m better at offensive play, such as scoring goals and putting the pressure on the opposing team’s defence. Meanwhile, my friend TheRupertLitterbin (who provided the screenshots for this article), is a great defensive player. He has saved many a goal with some dramatic moves that I’m sure will be made into a musical one day.

Sheer art, if I Steen so myself.

With each match having a five-minute time limit, a losing team can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat within the last minute of the game. Ten seconds can be the difference between victory and loss. Though if you’re playing against our lord and saviours the Steens, you should accept the loss with grace and humility. Nobody will understand that reference, but I still find it funny, nonetheless. Who knew that inside jokes were such a delight?

The matches are remarkably addictive. You keep saying, just one more but then it’s 3am and you’ve been playing for seven hours. Not that I’ve ever done that or anything. I think a large part of that addictiveness comes from the rush of emotions when you score a goal or perform an epic save. As most people know, when you complete a task or do something that you associate with “excitement” or “achievement”, your body releases neurotransmitters to act as rewards. The adrenaline coursing through you during the moment is buffed by the dopamine rush released when you achieve your goal.

Personally, a lot of the adrenaline rushes and dopamine spikes are closely tied to my childhood memories of being a goalkeeper. In fact, I’m sat writing this at my desk at home, where I have a few football trophies on my bookshelf nearby. The rush of being all that stands between a win and a loss, is exhilarating and I think Rocket League captures that essence quite well. Plus, there’s something very gratifying in charging into your opponents at high speeds and annihilating them. What can I say, I’m a simple soul.

Anyways, that’s all I really have to say about Rocket League. I’d like to apologise that my articles recently have been so short and sporadically released in comparison to 2019’s schedule, but motivation has been a real problem for me during the lockdown. However, I’m slowly getting back into it so leave your suggestions for future articles in the comments or message me on Twitter, @OurMindGames!

Have a great week,

CaitlinRC