Teasing Teasers Teased Teasers

I just watched a six second 'teaser trailer teaser' for the next Bourne movie. This is far from the first time this has happened, and it’s not even the most extreme example. That dubious honor goes to The Episode VIII “production begins” teaser. 

But having typed out the words “I just watched a six second teaser trailer teaser,” I’m now forced to face the reality that I’m at least partly responsible for this bullshit (sharing, liking, retweeting, blogging about it), and I’m pretty sure I hate myself. I’ll get back to you.

Based on this trend of teaser trailer teasers, we’re tracking for a teaser teaser teaser tease for Episode IX sometime next week. Just a single drum beat and the roman numeral IX. It’ll hit 20 million views in five minutes, and immediately be followed by hour long trailer analyses from popular YouTubers, who will incessantly pause the four second opus to give you their expert opinion on the featured drum beat and its appearance in a suspiciously large number of scenes featuring Obi-Wan Kenobi. “We’re out of time, but check out part II tomorrow, where we’ll discuss the significance of this font. So hype! [#EpisodeIX][Patreon link]

I can’t speak for the rest of the planet, but this sort of behavior represents a problem I need to address: I’m so obsessed with the "next thing," that I hardly pay attention to the "thing that’s happening right now." It’s so easy to fall behind, talk about something irrelevant, that I’ve become obsessed with the concept of keeping up. Especially considering my decision to “somehow someway one day” make money talking or joking about video games, which just exacerbates the issue. If I post a YouTube video even one day after its subject matter is done trending, no one’s going to watch it. 

Every week is just another meme-laden series of popcorn farts that can’t stay in the public consciousness long enough to have an meaningful conclusions drawn from them. Should I want to pause long enough to really dig into something, I’d better hope the internet train slows down so I can get a good look. Otherwise, too bad. “We’re not talking about that anymore. But they are,” the internet-conductor seems to say, pointing at a group of megafans as they put on horse-blinders and leap from the train. “Have fun! When they land, they just sit down and jerk each other off.”[Fig. 1]

Fig. 1

All I can do is look forward, and hope to catch something on the horizon that’s actually interesting, and not just a tin-can glinting in the sun from atop a landfill. This way I can guess what it is, make assumptions about how it will look when the train actually passes it, and if I’m proven right; BAM! Proper understanding. If I’m wrong? I just wasted my time trying to figure out if there was any inherent worth to a pile of garbage. But with any luck, the rest of you will be looking with me. [#SoPumped][Link to Patreon]

Maybe I should just get off and walk.

Clank Hole

I just finished Ratchet and Clank for PS4, and now there’s a hole inside of me. You know the one. When a book, or movie, or binged TV series ends, and you just don’t know what to do with yourself. Portlandia covered this pretty well:

Luckily for me, Ratchet and Clank’s challenge mode is essentially new game plus, adding weaponry and upping the ante on the cash and prizes gained for searching every nook and cranny of the map for sweet sweet treasure. In this case, bolts and rareitanium, the game’s currency for weapons and their upgrades respectively. So I have an excuse to stay in Ratchet and Clank’s wonderfully realized galaxy a little longer, and save that galaxy on hard mode. The mode of heroes.

Ned: Hero

The prevailing description of Ratchet and Clank has been that it’s like playing a Pixar movie, and that couldn’t be more true. Minus that ubiquitous Pixar moment that crushes your feels into a fine powder, which I can only imagine is then collected by elves so it can be snorted by the Pixar staff to fuel production of their next emotional kick to the nuts. Just gettin fucked up on feels powder... I need more coffee.

Tony: Interim Pixar CFO

But maybe they did plan such a nut-kick... The game ends. That hole I mentioned was very real before I knew there were plenty of legit reasons to play Challenge Mode, and even though that’s given me a 20 hour stay of execution, this game will end. Then what?

Oh SHIIIIIIT!

Thank. Fuck. It would figure that the last game I play on a traditional screen before getting my VR headset is a throwback to everything that has made these games so great. It’s a greatest hits album; a museum of every technique that evolved with the medium since an oscilloscope was turned into a rudimentary tennis game. That Ratchet and Clank is also a reboot of arguably the last great mascot game of my youth isn’t to be understated, as it recalls all the characters that have colored my video game life: Mario, Sonic, Crash Bandicoot, Ratchet and Clank, Gex... Ok, maybe not that last one. If only because he was clearly too cool to hang out with the rest of the Mascot Gaming Crew. 

Gex: Hideja girlfriend, hideja mom.

So while I replay Ratchet and Clank to get one last look at everything before I turn it off, I’m also looking back over an entire lifetime of video games that began when I was 2 and my mother dropped a quarter into Pole Position to keep her absurdly hyperactive child distracted while she checked out at the local Kroger. I could barely reach the steering wheel, but a permanent electrical connection was established in my brain. For good or ill, the damage was done.

I say all of this because 2D gaming on a monitor may one day go the way of the Tiger Handheld. If it does, it won’t be any time soon, or completely, but in either case VR will irrevocably change video games. You can see it when you put on a VR headset, hear it when you listen to VR devs talk about crafting experiences for the medium. The rules, the lessons learned, the core tenants. The past thirty years no longer apply. New rules are being established, priorities are being shifted. 

Once VR is more affordable (I say “more,” because my Vive cost about what my cell phone was worth when it was new) and in the hands of the masses, who’s to say that everything that draws us to video games in the first place won’t simply be better realized with VR? That it’s just a better tool for accomplishing the same set of goals?

That gaping Clank Hole (wait... fuck it, stream of consciousness) left by completion of Ratchet and Clank, or that Portlandia screaming fit I linked you to, or the depression that comes with “The End” is a result of (at least in my case) being forced to leave a world you’d been occupying with your imagination and the help of a few choice tools; Language, pictures, controller, whatever.

As I said, maybe VR will be better at delivering that sense of presence. It’s certainly got a technical advantage. Either way, as long as I can meet my friends inside of my sci-fi goggles, I’m excited to see what happens.

Friends: Because real people are assholes.

DOOMed

Thanks god Ratchet and Clank exists and is fucking amazing. Were it not for that, the particular brand of horrible on offer in the DOOM multiplayer beta might have been the straw that shattered my sanity. Between my Vive not shipping, Scarlett JOHANSSON as Motoko KUSANAGI in Ghost in the Shell, Batman vs. Superman, and FUCKING DOOM, it's a god damn miracle there's not a gif of me naked in the middle of downtown getting tazed by one of those segway cops.

Well, shit. Doom multiplayer is awful.

The open beta is live this weekend on PC, PS4, and XBone, and my god is it a wreck. Again, I’ve let myself get hyped, only to be dumped like I shit myself on prom night.

And what’s bothering me isn’t that the DOOM’s multiplayer is bad (it is), it’s that it’s called Doom (we’re doing caps lock for the remake, lowercase for the OG, because Bethesda did that “name the reboot the same thing” thing.) 

Every trailer, interview, and gameplay demo since it was debuted at E3 has been hammering us over the head with this promise of a return to the fast paced, rocket jumping, arena multiplayer games of yore. The remake of the original Doom theme pounding in the debut trailer, while the screen fills with the blood and metal and Cyberdemons and “fuck you, kill shit” 90s brutality that put the original Doom and Quake on a historical pedestal usually reserved for the likes of Mario and Pong. DOOM’s promotion asserted with such confidence that its primary concern was staying true to form, that it even fooled a cynical, “no preorders under any circumstances” motherfucker like myself. They convinced me (or I convinced myself) that no matter its shortcomings, at least that much would be true. The single player would be Doom, and the multiplayer would, essentially, be Quake. 

And it’s not. Dear god, is it not. A great arena shooter doesn’t have loadouts. DOOM does. A great arena shooter has twitch-freak speed. Black Ops III is faster than DOOM. A great arena shooter embraces verticality, allowing for frenetic, acrobatic ‘splosion-fests. DOOM’s combat happens at ground level. A reality that results in the game’s greatest sin: The rocket jump is a pointless, flacid, dick waggle in the direction of one of the coolest tactics in the history of competitive gaming.

The rocket launcher in Quake III was a swiss army weapon. The old standby. Rocket jump absurdly high in the air, aim at enemies on the ground, shoot at their feet, land, circle strafe while railing spacebar, and 1-3 shots later (depending on your aim and enemy armor level) you’re swimming in giblets. If that ground based enemy was equally skilled, it was time for a brutal aerial ballet. A ballet that also ended in giblets...It was fucking beautiful... I wasn’t really going anywhere with that, I’m just being wistful for the sake of it. And that’s not my fault. They called this game Doom. Invoked legacy and nostalgia in its aesthetics and branding. Pretended to the throne. OFF WITH THEIR HEAD!

I’ve found it impossible to judge this game without that legacy coloring my conclusions, but unfurling the facts makes it fairly obvious that even if I could judge DOOM on its own merits (lack of), said judgement would be harsh. It tried to be both loadout and pick-up focused, two great tastes that have proven time and again they don't taste great together. Even if these oil-and-water setups miraculously emulsified, the result would be rendered mute as soon as the Demon Rune spawned. A pickup that turns one lucky player (lucky being the operative term) into a dual rocket launcher wielding, STUPIDLY over-armored Revenant. This guarantees a huge increase in frags, tipping the game’s tenuous balance so horribly that it falls over and shatters its coccyx.

I take back that last sentence. Not the balance part. Or coccyx cuz that word's hilarious. I take back use of the word “frag.” These aren’t “frags,” they’re “kills.” They’re frags in Doom or Quake. Unreal Tournament 2k4 even merits use of the term. But not DOOM. You haven’t earned the word frag, DOOM!

All of this is bad enough, but there’s something truly horrible that still lurks in the darkest corners of this shit pile: The combat is paper mache. The guns feel weak, the hits barely seem to register, the deaths aren’t gratifying, and in what can only be construed as an effort to drive this "action-rpg bad" combat home, hit points appear over your opponents head with every successful shot. They can be turned off in the option menu, but as they’re on by default, you’ll just be blinding yourself to the obvious. This is a Bethesda game. And for any perceived good brought by that company (I’m no fan, but I can understand the appeal), they’ve never been the best at making the kind of gratifying combat at the core of Doom’s appeal. Wolfenstein was solid, but not a classic, and DOOM is most certainly a backpedal.

I’ve never had my hopes dashed so quickly as with such finality as they were in the time between loading up DOOM and playing my first match. (I didn’t even get into the “arena shooters are at their best in free-for-all, which is absent from the beta” thing.) 

Single player better show up on time, bring beer, and stay late to help clean up, or there’s no way DOOM and I are gonna be friends.

Your Party Chat Invites Scare Me

If you've ever sent me a chat or game invite, I probably ignored it. And fret not, I feel like an asshole. But maybe this will help explain why. Also (unrelated), WHERE'S MY FUCKING VIVE, HTC?! I'M LOSING MY SHIT!

I have a confession to make: I’m socially awkward.

Not in real life. God no. I’m awesome at that. Not for lack of effort though. I grew up in the middle of the woods on a tiny, bridgeless island in South Carolina, with nothing to keep me company but my trusty PS1 and AOL’s Final Fantasy VII chatrooms. As a result of my isolation, cars and computers interested me more than my “image” (I wasn’t even aware of the concept), leaving me to arrive for my first day of high school after a 45 minute, 5am school boat ride with a bowl haircut and a Garfield Trapper Keeper. I assumed people would like me because of my mint condition Marvel Series 2 card collection [Fig. 1] 

Fig. 1's not gonna work, 14-year-old-me! No matter the lack of foxing! No one even knows what that means!

High school was rough.

I spent my twenties learning to be social. Slowly, methodically, and with a little help from ample portions of bravery gravy. [Fig 2.] 

Fig. 2 - Looooots of Fig. 2.

I learned to talk to people. More importantly I learned to listen (occasionally... I’m a little hyperactive), eventually landing a job as a bartender and in the “big city,” [Fig. 3] and cementing myself as a functional adult. Complete with a carefully cultivated image.

Fig. 3 - Ok, not that big, but it's damn sure pretty... And drunk.

Meanwhile, however, the internet was deciding that everybody needed to talk to each other. Like, actually talk. With words. Fucking constantly. The chats and blogs and IM conversations and “gg’s” hastily typed into Unreal Tournament 2k4’s console that had been the balm I rubbed on my social wounds each day had turned to one-way social media conversations and in-game party chats. Which brings us (finally) to my social shortcomings: I’m awful at party chat. I hate it. It reminds me of high school. And not just because of the number of teenagers with whom I frequently find myself sharing a skill level. #MLG #rekt

I get nervous and hide from party chat invites. If I accept, my heart rate increases and my gameplay skills falter. The social armor and weaponry I spent so much time developing is completely useless when I can’t use my image. An image I’ve spent so much time living with, it’s permanently attached to my personality like the Venom Symbiote. In party chat I can’t be myself (whatever that means), the things I say do nothing to define or endear me to others, and I’m generally a complete wreck; I’m fucking 14 again. And much like that socially awkward Ned of yesteryear, my concern isn’t that people won’t like me if they get to know me. It’s that I’ll poorly communicate who I am, leaving people with the wrong impression. My preoccupation with that concern is certainly worth exploring, but not in a stream of consciousness blog written on one cup of coffee.

This problem is in no way mitigated by social gaming having reached its zenith of late. The fun of many games hinges on their social components (DotA2, The Division), minimizing or in many cases eliminating the solo-play experience. This is a concept pushed by publishers and developers, reinforced by the so-saturated-it-will-never-dry let’s play phenomenon, and the maddeningly voyeuristic reality of Twitch and Youtube Gaming. Party chat invites come and go constantly on PS4 and Steam, and I cringe every time I see and subsequently ignore them. “Shit,” I think “I haven’t even said anything and all these people think I’m an asshole...”

At this point I'm left with two options: Play nothing but single-player and solo-multiplayer games, tearing a large portion from the canvas of modern gaming, or suck it up and learn how to be social in a whole new way. Develop new social armor and weaponry. Upgrade it. Level up.

Speaking of armor and weaponry, I’m going to go play the new Ratchet and Clank. Where I can hide from social obligations and be king of blowing up robots. Then probably make a youtube video about Ratchet and Clank, where I can safely edit and modify and reshoot and retake every second of footage. So I can use my image to convey who I am. Wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong impression.