Nuclear Monster

  • Ace Combat is a beloved series to me. I have a box full of the collector’s edition joysticks from a decade and a half ago when I found out how great the series was on PS2 and graduated to the Xbox 360 version. Dogfighting doesn’t require those sticks, it’s perfectly fine on any gamepad since the Dual Shock 2, but it felt even more glorious to fly through the arcade dogfighting skies of Ace Combat with joysticks and throttles.

    After the ignominious spinoff Assault Horizon distanced the series from the shores of the strangereal eight years ago, Ace Combat 7 is finally available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows via Steam after a short period of console-onlyness. Brendan Caldwell called it well, for Rock Paper Shotgun:

    …the story explodes outward like an expanding foam, into a complex sequence of nonsense and counter-nonsense. There is a space elevator. There are deadly drones. There is a princess. At one point you, a professional fighter pilot called “Trigger”, are relegated to a prison base, yet still expected (and trusted) to pilot an immensely expensive instrument of war over hostile AA guns. “Your mission,” says your new commander, “is to atone for your crimes.”

    I won’t say why this line is uttered to you, because one of the biggest joys here is laughing out loud at the wall of batshittery that hits you with each mission, like a volley of missiles. But I will say this: Ace Combat 7 is the best JRPG so far this year.


    There’s a brief VR mode that is exclusive to the PlayStation 4 version, Edmond Tran enjoyed it in his review for GameSpot:

    The PlayStation 4 version of Skies Unknown also features an exclusive VR mode consisting of an Ace Combat 4-inspired mini-campaign. There are only three missions, and their objectives are less complicated than those of the main campaign, but even so, the experience of flying from the cockpit of a plane is engrossing. The feeling of speed and height is literally dizzying, the ability to freely look around and track a target with your gaze is terrific, and the act of pitching and rolling your plane is so effective at eliciting a feeling of actual g-force that I personally had a hard time doing more than one mission at once without breaking out into a nauseous sweat. It’s a shame that there’s no option to play the main campaign in VR–the head tracking and freelook alone would be incredibly useful–but the mode is a great addition nonetheless.

    Ace Combat 7 is out now for your typical $60 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Steam for Windows. The “launch edition” for the Xbox One includes a digital copy of the 360‘s Ace Combat 6 and other goodies. The PlayStation 4‘s version of the “please don’t wait until there’s a discount” edition includes the aforementioned VR mode, Ace Combat 5, and the goodies. Sadly, Steam users on Windows only get the goodies and are told to get fucked if they’d like to play the older games. All launch editions expire on the 18th. There are also some kind of season pass shenanigans with three missions exclusive to it.

    Somehow, it’s still not as bad as the Anthem purchasing grid. Although Anthem doesn’t support real-world weapons manufacturers, Ace Combat 7 is at least veritably fun. Hm.

  • Nintendo announced Super Mario Maker 2 for the Nintendo Switch during today’s Nintendo Direct, coming out this June. I’ve been hoping for this one. It’ll have (quoting the press release) “…access to even more tools, items and features.”

    Also announced:

    • More details for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, exclusive to the Switch, out this summer.
    • Box Boy + Box Girl announced for Switch, 270 stages, April 26th, 2019. It’s a beloved puzzle game from everyone I know who has played it, this version will have co-op.
    • Super Smash Bros Ultimate 3.0 Update and new Amiibos. No details on the update yet.
    • Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is getting new levels for the Switch version and two-player co-op. Out today. New paid DLC out now as well. More on March 14th.
    • Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is out this summer. This was just a video clip telling us about the Miriam character.
    • Dragon Quest Builders 2 will have co-op and first-person mode when it comes out on July 12th. It’ll also be on the PlayStation 4.
    • Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age: Definitive Edition: S: out this Fall. I fell asleep briefly during this trailer.
    • Disney Tsum Tsum Festival: I will never understand the tsum tsum thing. It looks a little like Mario Party, but probably worse and with weirdly long, rectangular, characters in the tsum tsum style. No specific release date for this, just “2019.”
    • Starlink: Battle for Atlas gets an exclusive Switch spring update with new Star Fox missions. April.
    • Rune Factory 4 Special “Battle along townsfolk and before long you may become more than just friends” out “later this year.”
    • Rune Factory 5 is announced, no info, just a logo.
    • Square’s got a new action RPG called ONINAKI. Out this summer.
    • Yoshi’s Crafted World. March 29th. Free demo out today.
    • Fire Emblem: Three Houses is anime as heck. There’s two editions out on the new delayed date of July 26th. This trailer just talked about plot details until I fell asleep again. Where is Advance Wars?
    • Tetris® 99: It’s an online Tetris battle royale. It’s “free-to-download” today.
    • Dead by Daylight’s Switch port looks like a PSP port of a PS2 game. It’ll be out this Fall.
    • Deltarune: Chapter 1 is out on the Switch for free this month, February 28th. I think it’s an Undertale sequel, but I didn’t get far in that game. The trailer reminds us that further chapters won’t be free.
    • Daemon X Machina gets a free, limited-time to download, “prototype missions” demo today. If you play it you might get an e-mail survey where you get to act as a focus tester for the game. Who doesn’t like doing work for for-profit businesses for free? The game is supposed to be out this summer.
    • GRID Autosport is coming to the Switch. The framerate looks real bad during certain parts of this trailer, ouch. Summer 2019.
    • Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is getting a Switch port this Spring.
    • Mortal Kombat 11 is out this April 23rd on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and now we know it’ll have a Switch port at launch.
    • Unravel two is getting a Switch port on March 22nd.
    • Assassin’s Creed III Remastered also has a Switch port out on May 21st. It’s out for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC’s on March 29th. “In addition to the full game, Assassin’s Creed III Remastered also includes all of its original post-launch content” […] “Also included is Assassin’s Creed III Liberation Remastered, an enhanced version of Aveline de Grandpre’s battle for freedom in 18th-century New Orleans.” I liked AC3 when I played through it on Windows, but I also got it for “free” by selling all my Team Fortress 2 items.
    • Final Fantasy VII out on March 26th
    • Chocobo’s Mystery Dungeon Every Buddy! on March 20th
    • Final Fantasy IX is on the Switch today. Wes Fenlon reminds us that modders are making better upscaling work on Windows.
    • Astral Chain is a new Platinum action game from the people who brought you Nier: Automata and Bayonetta. Exclusively on the Switch, August 30th. Nice.
    • The Legend of Zelda™: Link’s Awakening:  gets remade and anime as heck in the intro. It looks like a tilt-shifted 3D world in-game with side-scrolling as well. Very cool. Out later this year.

    Full video direct:

  • Waypoint’s Patrick Klepek:

    Activision Blizzard, a company of more than 9,000 employees who’ve built some of the world’s most popular games, is a few things. They are a company who bragged about having a “record year,” on an earnings call this afternoon, a quarter where only raking in $2.4 billion in revenue was considered a disappointment. They are a company who granted a $15 million signing bonus and a $900,000 salary to a high-ranking executive who joined last month. And they are a company who just laid off around 800 employees, or 8% (!!!) of its total workers.

    800 people will be without jobs at the end of the day. 800 people head into an uncertain future, wondering how long their severance and health insurance will get them before the next job.

    Eric Bailey’s “Blizzard Gives Employees Box With 8.3% Chance of Containing Pink Slip” for The Hard Times:

    After a recent earnings report announced record revenue, Activision-Blizzard initiated layoffs by handing out boxes to its 9,600 employees that had 8.3% odds of containing employment termination paperwork.

    “A lot of companies might just hand out pink slips to a select few, but our ‘layoff boxes’ allow every employee to be part of the overall firing experience,” said Blizzard human resources manager Clint Bullock. “Our employees have all worked hard to make our company so successful over the past few years, so it’s only fair that everybody have an equal chance of having their lives totally upended while we keep making huge profits off their creations.”


    Unionization in today’s companies and employee-ownership of new businesses would help prevent mass layoffs.

  • There’s a new competitor in the Battle Royale genre of multiplayer-only survival shooters, Apex Legends, from Respawn. It’s a free-to-play Battle Royale-style shooter with a risky system that lets you revive your teammates by retrieving an object at the box they leave behind, and a middle-click option on your mouse to let you mark items, enemies, and other important objects on your HUD that you would otherwise have to manually call-out.

    The good news is that Respawn are some of the original Call of Duty developers, so the shooting feels good, even though this game lacks the wall-running and mech-suits from Titanfall.

    Apex Legends also has different character classes. The first of which drops a healing drone, for example.

    There are only 3-player squads in Apex Legends, are no other modes besides a short training mode that doesn’t really explain the now-traditional Battle Royale mechanics of the shrinking battlefield and dwindling players until there is one winning team.

    Wes Fenlon has a positive write-up from his experience at a preview event on PC Gamer:

    I had a lot of thrilling moments in Apex Legends, mostly around reviving and respawning squadmates. Death isn’t necessarily the end in this game: even if you get killed, your squadmates can pick up your ID tags within a short window and bring you back at respawn points scattered about the map, as you spectate and bite your nails. It’s a feature you wouldn’t see in most battle royales, but it makes total sense in a squad-focused game, and adds great tension to every fight. You can be dead but still rooting on a friend. You could be alive and wonder if your squadmate’s killer is camping their body, waiting for you to come claim their ID. You can make it to a respawn point and stand there activating it, totally exposed, praying you don’t get shot in the back.

    No matter what you’re doing, the ping system is just such a great tool for communication. In some cases it’s better than voice chat: you can highlight a specific object, like a door or a gun, and tap middle mouse to make your character say something about it. They’ll call out the name of a gun you might not know. You can double-tap to signal an enemy’s nearby and that’ll show up red for your teammates. After someone pings an item, if you pick it up, a prompt will pop up on your screen to thank them for pointing it out. In the world of horrors that is online gaming, it’s so pleasant (and, honestly, weird) to have a built-in courtesy button. Saying thank you: Somehow, just as thrilling as shooting a guy.

    Unfortunately, like most free to play games, Apex Legends has loot boxes and different currency systems. They mostly seem to be for aesthetic choices, like weapon skins, but there are also new characters to unlock with unique skills you won’t get to play without ponying up with either real money or through another currency that might be earned in-game. The free-to-play business is as sad as ever, and many games that cost money up-front have these systems anyway.

    Apex Legends is out now and free-to-play on Origin for Windows, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

  • If you use Apple Music, the streaming music service from Apple that gives artists pennies instead of dollars, and want to listen on your computer, Musish is open source, runs in your web browser, and a much better alternative to running the full desktop iTunes instance if you don’t need to listen to a locally-stored collection of music.

    Musish appears to log in to your Apple ID via an Apple-supplied authentication system. Very handy, I look forward to using this on Linux, where iTunes isn’t available at all.