November 24, 2023
Hi there! Greetings and welcome back to our regular segment, in which we discuss some of the games we’ve been playing lately. This time: Skeletor, roller skates, and haunting authors.
Here’s our archive if you’d want to catch up on any of the previous What We’ve Been Playing episodes.
PS5: Modern Warfare 3
The name of my new adversary is Skeletor. In Modern Warfare 3, I’ve been mercilessly pursued by this brilliant purple cartoon monster, and it’s become a vengeance. Call of Duty continues to pose as a serious military game, but since I entered the rapid play mode, I’ve been destroyed by many iterations of Spawn, Todd MacFarlane’s Batman-with-guns superhero; in addition, I’ve been outclassed by a luminous twig monster named Gaia and, on occasion, Nicki Minaj.
This is very good. I haven’t spent many hours playing a new Call of Duty game in a while, but the core mechanics remain the same: circling areas while being shot in the back or outwitting other players. As Chris notes in the Modern Warfare 3 review on Eurogamer, Modern Warfare 3 is also a limited release. However, there are moments when it is nearly hallucinogenic and deliciously weird. I can pretend to be Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s relative, a decorated Navy Seal veteran, and take on a Sardaukar from Dune.
When the Sardaukar is taken out of Denis Villeneuve’s masterful fog and color correction, he is just a man wearing bright white pajamas who is easily seen by snipers on the other side of a map. The Spawn operators flash bright green too, but none are as dumb as my archenemy, Skeletor.
Playing as an operator this ridiculous and flamboyant requires talent. I get furious every time a Skeletor Tokyo Drift-slides on his ass straight by me and hits me in the head with his well crafted submachine rifle. I guess I’ll get you the next time. I’m on the verge of purchasing one of CoD’s expensive operator packs, and a part of me questions if I should just give up and turn into Skeletor. At least it will make my opponents giggle.
-Mr. Tom Senior
Alan Wake, PlayStation 5
Stillness. There’s a squeak under my feet made of wood. A voice from where? The music then begins. How come the music started? What’s coming, oh god? A film plays, as the world whirls, mists, and warps. I’m afraid and captivated.
The Remedy devs show off their flare for the fantastical and dramatic in Alan Wake 2. The game is a masterwork of multimedia. In the end, however, it’s simply lovely stage decoration for a condescending and arrogant game. I find that the game, which revolves on a wounded artist who becomes his own worst enemy, takes a little too much suspension of disbelief. It is a psychological horror and detective noir satire on art. The real world is a book and the novel is the real world; the story folds back on itself in layers of metafiction like to a wrinkled manuscript page. Does pain inspire art, or does art inspire suffering? It’s a narrative that aims to analyze the extraordinary process of creating extraordinary art, but it only works when the art itself extraordinary.
I don’t think the art is worth the trip. Despite the impressive production value, the game suffers from obvious monologues and excessive explanations, as well as the tedious procedure of hanging evidence on a wall in order to go on. Sublime survival horror raises the tension to the point of unbearable terror, yet it also uses cheap jump scares to make you scream. It has a great musical segment before a math challenge destroys the mood.
It adds meta levels to its seeming intricacy, and author Sam Lake makes an ego-stroking appearance as smug investigator Alex Casey. In a way that often seems more like hollow, self-indulgent navel gazing than nuanced interest, writer and artist are inextricably linked. Although Alan Wake 2 is fantastic, it is also really painful. Is that the purpose, perhaps?
-Ed
PC and rollerdrome
I’m playing Rollerdrome for the first time since I have some Roll7 homework to complete. Don’t – I’m not sure how it came to be, but that is the reality. Anyway, what a bad beginning. I find it striking in many ways. For starters, I like the reasoning behind it. I think it’s great that someone realized, “You know what’s very enjoyable? skating on rollers. You know what else is very enjoyable about games? Taking aim. How about we…? Aha! And so they just required that, that it’s enjoyable, and that’s sufficient.
I’m sure I’ve done Roll7 a disservice by saying that, but it’s fun, and it’s enjoyable right away. It takes a minute or so, at the most, to have you rolling around rinks and flipping in the air, doing stunts. Then, strange as it may seem, when you’re shooting, everything seems to have been intended to be. These things go together, of course.
Another thing that catches my attention is the storyline behind it, since it seems a little absurd at first and the manner you’re thrown into it gives the impression that there will only be action, action, action. However, there is a narrative that gives you a very realistic and relatable impression of the surroundings. Furthermore, I particularly like that glances rather than monologues are used to deliver the message. It’s in an e-mail you’re reading, or it’s in someone’s artifacts in a locker you’re browsing. You are the one driving the discovery; no one is ever attempting to make you feel inferior by telling you a narrative they authored.
Okay, go skate and shoot if you don’t want it. But look around if you do. And strangely enough, I discover that approaching it in this manner increases my desire for it and my want to uncover the tale because I feel compelled to put everything into perspective. It’s quite intelligent stuff.
-Bertie