Today Rich and Beto discuss where they are with gaming in the broader context of their lives today, where it fits historically, and their hopes/fears for the future.
Games: Games: Against the Storm, Etrian Odyssey 3, Far Cry 5 and 6
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00:03:06 VR
00:08:21 Vader Immortal (VR)
00:10:10 The Room (VR)
00:12:14 Against the Storm
00:15:28 Etrian Odyssey III
00:35:07 Microsoft News
00:38:24 Far Cry 5
00:42:44 Far Cry 6
00:47:30 Dead Space
00:50:00 Gaming While Human in 2024
For the love of the gods, give Beckett a tag already! Or at least an icon! Been doing the good work for decades now (it seems like).
Our Beckett abandoned tags like Samuel Beckett abandoned punctuation.
Madre de Dios! Es el pollo diablo!
Eternal linebacker?
2/1/2024: Tagged
At this stage I’m too familiar with the Far Cry formula to enjoy the games as much as I used to.
The appeal with the Far Cry series has always been the often unpredictable combat (as exemplified in Far Cry 2.) Many people hated to weapon degeneration and sudden malaria attacks in FC2 but they only added to the chaos and the improvisational nature of the fights for me.
One of my favourite sequences from the series happened in Far Cry: Primal (a game built on the same, overly familiar formula that’s saved by it’s atmosphere, the rambunctious prehistoric wildlife, the taming system and some beautiful rendered chest hair.)
I was out hunting with my tame sabre tooth tiger when I came under attack from several unseen enemies. Arrows and stones flew past me and I heard a clay pot smash. As I scanned the shallow, wooded hilltop I was on, flames started to consume a bush on my left. My sabre tooth ran off and I notched an arrow. I heard the tiger taking down one of my unseen enemies but I still couldn’t see anyone to shoot at.
There were scattered sounds of more clay pots breaking and more fires started raging around me. My sabre tooth ran past and again disappeared out of sight followed by the alarmed cries of an unseen enemy, intermingled with ferocious mauling noises. Finally, a few of my assailants emerged onto the hilltop and I was able to kill at least one of them before my tiger got to him.
At this point, just to top off what had already been an unusual fight, an untamed sabre toothed tiger, that I’d spotted prowling around earlier, arrived on the scene. The two massive animals charged each other and slammed together in front of a wall burning foliage. With the aid of a few arrows and a spear or two slung by me (I knew which was my pet because it’s back end was on fire) my tiger prevailed and we could return to our hunt.
I highly recommend this interview with the man responsible for much of the audio work on Far Cry 6. I was heart broken when I realised how little attention I’d paid to the bird sounds, after learning of the lengths taken to capture them, so I went on a bird listening tour of the islands.
At one point I was standing, listening to the bird song in a random field when an armed soldier approached me and told me I couldn’t just hang around in fields without good reason and instructed me to move on, which I did.
‘…or you can get to work. That's all it is. You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem... and you solve the next one... and then the next. And If you solve enough problems, you get to go home.’ - Mark Watney, The Martian.