Youtube experiments and general news

This short piece is more of a general update than anything else. This week I was finally able to complete my PC setup. I finally found a microphone that normalizes my sexy speech impediment. I also continued familiarizing myself with my new PC. In the next few weeks you can expect me venture in a number of new experimental directions.

First of all, I recently opened a Youtube channel for Crippled Gaming. So far It's just a DS3 boss reel but I'm working on coming up with a video companion format for my written articles. Of course, the written content will remain the biggest priority for me. My voice is not appealing enough to realistically have big Youtube ambitions. However, I think adding a bit of other media to support the articles will ultimately make them more digestible for quite a few people. Feel free to provide me with feedback on all the different things that I'm trying out.

Obviously, the Twitch channel will also feature higher quality content as the result of all the upgrades above.  The technical goals for the near feature will revolve around incremental improvements to my video editing skills as well as figuring out a more interesting format for the Twitch broadcasts. Again, feedback on all of that is more than welcome.

Thank you for the support thus far. I'm looking forward to providing more high quality editorial content and figuring out new ways to make Crippled Gaming  truly unique and compelling.

The Crippled Gaming Rig key specs:
GPU: 2x GTX Titan X
CPU: Intel i7 5960x
RAM: 32 GB GDDR5
Hard Drive: 512 GB SSD/4 TB mechanical

Twitter: https://twitter.com/UncleBartek
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/unclebartek
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZarHhf96-IlBbKJ2_TioAQ
E-mail: bartek@crippledcaming.com

Indie games and difficulty - it's time to reconsider the old principles

I spent the last week on a variety of cool gaming-related activities, most of them being Dark Souls 3 or anything Souls-adjacent. In my DS downtime I decided to give two very different indie titles a go. The first one was the groundbreaking Super Meat Boy that opened a lot of doors for indie developers couple of years back. My second pick was a direct beneficiary of these open doors; the wildly popular Enter the Gungeon. Both games are fairly unique but, at the same time, they also encapsulate the kind of gameplay that Western indie devs are known for. Both games focus on a seemingly endless variety of new challenges and levels that are driven by a punishing difficulty level. I obviously turned out to be terrible at both Gungeon and Meat Boy and I wasn't in the least surprised by that. Over the last 7 years the term "indie" has become a shorthand for extreme difficulty in game most of us just accepted that as an integral element of independent games.

I personally find it very odd that, despite the incredible growth of the indie space, we never really even considered why many smaller developers build their products around the idea of a very formidable challenge. While analyzing this phenomenon we first have to understand the origins of it. In the early days of the indie movement sales of smaller games were driven primarily by Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade. The was XBLA was marketed focused on a "By Gamers, for Gamers" notion that generated a lot of grassroots support for the program among the core gaming community. I would argue that it was this very concept of gamer legitimacy that first inspired indie developers to make their games hard.  Getting the support of enthusiast gamers was quite obviously key to creating what turned out to be an entire new subset of the gaming industry. Difficulty was initially used to show the indie devs' commitment to cater to core gamers, as well as a homage to games of old. Over the years the indie game as an entity came to be known as a very tricky animal indeed. The problem with this assertion is that indie gaming is in a completely different place in 2016 and what made sense several years ago might actually be holding developers back.

Challenge has always been a central component of most video games. A lot of us play games to get the wonderful feeling of validation you get from overcoming the odds and achieving something.  When games use difficulty to entice the player the results can be very compelling. Super Meat Boy is definitely a superb example of how to use difficulty to convey the ambiance the developers want to create. In Team Meat's 2011 creation you are faced with a ton of bite-size levels that require the player to perform different tiny feats of dexterity. The game is played at a crazy pace that keeps you immersed at all times, no matter the magnitude of your failures. The fail state is so brief of a moment that the player's brain doesn't even have time to properly register what transpired. This is why Meat Boy also incorporates a unique replay mechanic that shows all your different failures alongside the one successful attempt, all on one insane replay screen. Most of all, Super Meat Boy does not gate significant content and mechanics behind a difficulty wall. You are given all the tools from the get-go and your progress simply unlocks more of the very same addictive gameplay. This is why I consider the meaty indie classic to be a shining example of how indie devs should implement difficulty into their creations.

Unfortunately, a lot of smaller developers are struggling to discern when difficulty is truly indispensable to what they are trying to create and when it is merely a feature of their product. Let us take Enter the Gungeon as our test case, even though it has to be pointed out that nearly every game in the rogue-lite genre is guilty of the very same. In Enter the Gungeon you are tasked with fighting your way through a gun-themed dungeon using a wide variety of weapons. What makes the game great is the extremely creative theme and the endless supply of cool guns. Unfortunately, the game is also a very difficult experience that ,in all likelihood, may prove to be too difficult for quite many gamers. The lack of adjustable difficulty in Gungeon is a prime example of the unnecessary insistence on making indie titles hard. What pains me is the fact that including adjustable difficulty in a game like Enter the Gungeon would not make a difference to core players that enjoy the difficulty and, at the same time, it would certainly help to get the full experience for those of us not equipped with flexible fingers.

In the last few years, thanks to the rise of the indies, we have experienced a diverse spectrum of amazing games that would've never seen the light of day otherwise. While I'm certainly thankful for that I'm also a bit disappointed that many developers still feel they have an obligation to make their games universally difficult. Modern indie titles are much more than ultra-difficult retro gimmicks. Making them accessible to as many players as possible should always be a priority. Obviously, accessibility should never interfere with artistic integrity of the dev. We have to remember that some games use difficulty to convey complex messages or evoke specific feelings in the player. I myself argued not so long ago that the inclusion of an easy mode in Dark Souls would interfere with what the game is at its core. Ultimately though, most games are not the From Software masterpiece and the difficulty is most often an ancillary  feature that is just a small part of a much greater design. The obligation to keep all indie games rock hard is a relic of the early years of indie gaming. As we're seeing more and more indie titles enter the mainstream, the expectations put on these games change. Maintaining their legitimacy while opening up to new customers will certainly a challenge. Luckily, independent developers are a rather creative lot.

The future of PC gaming - What will it take to retire the console culture?

Last week was a pretty special time in my gaming life. After investing the vast majority of my life's savings I became a proud owner of a high-end Alienware PC. My shiny Area 51 PC arrived here on Wednesday afternoon in all its' mind-blowing glory.Getting to run video games on a high refresh rate monitor is an almost religious life-changing experience. I had my doubts of whether the difference is that significant but, having tried it out for myself, I now see the error of my heathen ways; high-end PC gaming is the real deal. Running games on Titan X actually gives you an edge in some games. To my surprise, I discovered that I'm actually better at games now that everything runs in 60 or more frames.  This truly seems like it is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

At the same time, starting my foray into the world of high-end PC gaming  has made me acutely aware of one myth I had believed in myself. A part of me had hoped that buying a high-end PC would bring an end to the endless tinkering that every PC gamer is very familiar with. We've all done it, you buy a new game that your computer should not have any issues running and yet something goes horribly wrong. After hours of investigative work on the internet you identify the culprit and conquer the shortcomings of your hardware. A part of me loves this process and solving a compatibility problem can sometimes even be as satisfying as eventually beating the game you're trying to run. Still, at least a fraction of my purchasing decision-making was driven by the faint hope that it would limit my tinkering and experimentation time.

My first week with Alienware has been a lot of great things but I certainly wouldn't call it problem-free by any stretch of imagination. I learned the hard way that SLI (having two graphics cards running in one PC) is a much a blessing as it is a curse. I also realized that, contrary to what that infamous Ubisoft exec stated in 2014, horsepower doesn't really matter if a game is not well optimized. Lastly, I even experienced a glorious game freeze despite my computer dominating the recommended specs. And it was exactly at that moment  that I thought to myself: "If I didn't like solving puzzles, this would have been frustrating as hell".

Why is it exactly that it's 2016 and the quality of the PC gaming experience is as hit-and-miss as it was when the PS1 dethroned the desktop computers in the 90s ? When everything comes together PC gaming is the most rewarding way to experience new games.  However, time and time again we, the consumers, are expected to troubleshoot the products we pay good money for. On one hand publishers are reassuring us how much they value the PC platform but on the other hand even the father of personal computing, Microsoft, can't get one bloody Xbox One port right. When considering this issue we often shrug and blindly accept that PC gaming is at times an extreme sport for only the true enthusiasts. I keep reading that the publishers are aware of the impending end of the console culture. Yet, the same publishers often expect every PC user to be proficient at dealing with the problems created by their own software.

Before we say goodbye to the consoles we first have to solve the ease-of-access question. I find it baffling to say the least that no real concerted efforts have been made to standardize the PC gaming experience for gamers that would love to move on to the PC but are afraid of the extra time commitment gaming on a PC seems to require. A part of ey understands that optimization for the PC is hard. What I can't  comprehend though is the fact that no one is even trying to apply the same standardized best practices found in console gaming to the growing PC market.Valve seems to be the only significant player trying to solve this problem by trying to unify the PC hardware. At the end of the day even they simply lack the conviction in rolling out their Steam Machines. Most importantly, no one seems to have the courage simply come out and guarantee seamless support for a game on even the most robust machines on the market. Instead of embracing or even trying to mimic the plug-and-play mentality that popularized consoles in the 90s, most publishers seem to be reinforcing the anti-consumer "cautiously wait and see" approach that is scaring many people off. Microsoft is a particularly blatant offender here. I keep hearing the same tired phrase being used everywhere: "Your mileage may vary". Instead of creating a line of Xbox gaming computers that promise superior optimization, their novel gaming strategy focuses on creating an impenetrable Apple-like ecosystem with the abysmally implemented Universal Windows Platform.

In short, not providing a standardized gaming experience on the PC platform is a huge missed opportunity that is preventing a lot of people from abandoning consoles for good. The fact that there is not a single PC that can  officially guarantee problem-free gaming across the board is a travesty in itself, especially when we consider how powerful our desktops are getting these days. PC gaming is in some ways the clearly better experience but staying on a console is still a very rational gaming choice for millions of people. Having experienced how fun PC gaming can be at the best of times, I find it really infuriating that in some ways it can still be incredibly obtuse and inaccessible to many. Technology has accelerated to the point where the console model of video game distribution is simply not feasible anymore. It is the PC market's responsibility to open up and welcome the console players with comparable functionality. The fact that such functionality isn't already in place is a little bit of a disgrace in my humble opinion. After all, experiencing the joys of high frame rate gaming should be a viable option for every gamer.

P.S: Just to clarify, I know that I paid 20% extra basically for the Alienware mascot on my rig :P As much as it pains me to be so wasteful I am disabled and I really couldn't find a reasonable pre-made alternative in Sweden that included good accidental damage coverage :P Of course, that doesn't mean I don't love rubbing it in that I HAVE AN ALIENWARE NOW :P However,  please  be aware that me being a douche was not the only reason for this decision :)

Forced Showdown review - The smoothie of sweet masochism

*Copy purchased on release
Builds Tested: PC 41.0
Price: 20 USD / 20 EUR

Couple of days ago I was making the usual rounds on my favorite Youtube channels and I came across something that looked way more engrossing than either Hyperlight Drifter or Enter the Gungeon - two games that have dominated press coverage this week. When I looked at the first minute of a let's play and I said to myself: "someone is ripping off the Warcraft universe aesthetic" . Couple of moments later, when Idiotech started explaining what it actually was, I wondered to myself: "is it a Hand of Fate clone?". As it turns out Forced Showdown is neither. It is actually the sequel to the largely unknown 2013 title "Forced" that combines the elements of literally every major genre. Don't believe what people say about this game; it is far from a  simple twin-stick rogue-lite and CCG hybrid. It's a game that does a lot of things amazingly well while also inexplicably failing at others. I have enough strong opinions on the game to write both a glowing 10/10 review as well as an angry 3/10 one. However, this is anything but a title that we should be indifferent to and sadly enough that's exactly what the sales numbers seem to be indicating.

So what is this sexy Frankenstein's monster exactly? It is a game with a rather straight-forward central conceit. You are a contestant in a type of cosmic Hunger Games. Every run starts with you entering a televised tournament that consists of beating  5 levels that in themselves are divided into 7 regular stages and a final boss stage.You will eventually - after some unlocks - have 4 champions and 3 companions to choose from. Your champion is equipped with 3 unique skills that can be upgraded and augmented. Basically the core gameplay loop consists of you trying to beat 3 major tournaments in the action RPG mode while upgrading your character and your power-ups in between the levels as well as slowly chipping away at the permanent progression elements that give you different bonuses and power-ups.

The combat scenarios are procedurally generated and randomized by a bunch of interesting positive and negative modifiers that always keep them very fresh and enjoyable. In a way, It could be described as a much more polished version of the action encounters found in Hand of Fate with a lot more customability. The card collection element is another aspect of the game seemingly reminiscent of Hand of Fate. Be that as it may, the card collection mechanic is not actually a card collection system but an intricate power-up system with a Hearthstone-like theme. Basically, before every run you choose a deck of 30 cards. Throughout the level you keep drawing cards that can only be activated with mana. Every stage you are given progressively more mana, which in turn allows you to use stronger cards. Unused Mana points are discarded upon starting a stage - you use them or lose them. This makes for some amazing tense situational mana management decisions where you are really required to figure out optimal card synergies. Imagine the amazing variety of a game like the Binding of Isaac with a very interesting balancing twist. And while Isaac will let you breeze through the run if the RNG gods are on your side, Showdown resets the power-ups after every level i.e 5 times in every run.

In short, the core gameplay loop is just damn good. The combat feels amazing and requires you to truly master your skills to really strive to be effective. And being effective is a must since the game is really difficult. Not being aware of your skills and how you've upgraded them will definitely result in a painful death. Every type of enemy requires different positioning and cooldown management. Fighting bosses requires a high degree of pattern recognition and the boss design itself is a sight to behold. With time you will start realizing what your preferred play style is and the power-ups in your deck will all merge into a complex game plan that you can customize to an insane degree. Every action RPG combat connoisseur will most likely appreciate Forced Showdown as it is, in some ways, the second best action combat system I have experienced in the last 5 years. Losing out to only Dark Souls is really nothing to be ashamed of.

 At the same time it has to be said that the game is extremely iterative. Personally, I think that's actually not too bad since it's all put together in a really neat and cohesive way. However, the game certainly wears its inspirations on its sleeve. The aesthetic couldn't possibly be more Blizzard-adjacent even if they tried. The card art design is clearly inspired by Hearthstone to an almost worrying degree. The quirky sense of humor is extremely silly and reminds me of games like Borderlands. I didn't mind it but the boss taunting certainly goes over-the-top with the entire "haha, it's a TV show" theme. At the same time, you can clearly feel that a lot of love has been put into combining all these different elements into something that plays really damn well.

That's why it's a shame that this fascinating experience really lacks polish in so many unnecessary places. If you're a stickler for detail you will most definitely get frustrated with this game. For example, you start it up and jump into a fairly regular tutorial. For some inexplicable reason you can actually fail the tutorial. I ended up having to redo the tutorial 4 times after failing the boss stage. That unfortunately meant going through all the instructional prompts each time. That's ultimately the theme of the entire experience. It's a great game bogged down by some very questionable design decisions. The lack of difficulty options feels like a big missed opportunity since the game can get extremely difficult with some bad RNG and each run feels like a much bigger time investment than something like Isaac. Besides, this is no Dark Souls, the difficulty is just a feature without a narrative reason for adjusting the difficulty of the single player experience.

 The permanent progression system is handled by a slot machine mechanic that arbitrarily gives you random cards based on a dice roll which makes the strategic element of deck-building really hard to control for the first 3-4 hours of gameplay. The most egregious of all the weird design decisions is placing all but one champion behind an achievement gate.  By the time you unlock the other champions, the odds are you will already be proficient with the default Paladin class. The game really fails at encouraging the player to experiment with the other champions. Besides, it might be just me but the paladin clearly feels like the strongest and most accessible class.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the technical problems of the game. I tested the game on both my brand new Titan X Alienware and an older rig with AMD R9 270x. A game that just looks OK should not really be struggling to maintain 30 FPS on Medium. I'm the kind of person who can overlook the 30 FPS lock if it's consistent and stable, which is sadly not the case here. Forced Showdown is certainly a game that should not run the way it does. Also, do not try to Alt Tab while playing on older rigs, you might get a punishing FPS drop upon return. As for the high-end, The Titan X runs the game at around 80 to 90 FPS. Not getting 120 is certainly a very peculiar thing. And for god's sake dear devs, speed up the Destiny-like controller cursor for the menus; I can literally feel my beard growing while operating the bloody thing!

Forced Showdown is a very good game that was perhaps taken out of the oven a bit prematurely. The core gameplay loop, though, is one of the most satisfying action RPG experiences out there. It is iterative in the best possible way; it distills the best aspects of its many inspirations. It definitely is a game that expects you to "git gud" which of course might put you off. At the same time, it is an experience that really makes failing fun. After 15 hours of gameplay I'm still stuck on the final boss of the first tournament.   Yet, going for just one more run has never felt so fresh and exciting. The number of cool combat scenarios is mind-boggling.  It certainly scratched my rogue-lite itch in a way that I have never experienced before.  And that alone warrants a strong recommendation.

Final Verdict:  7.5/10 - Great but flawed

Why Dark Souls' notorious difficulty is largely a myth

If video games were gangsters, the Souls series would definitely be regarded to have the most street cred. It's often considered to be the last truly challenging AAA series left in the market. It is also the series with a very passionate fan base known for working together towards peeling off all the layers of the many secrets hidden in the Souls universe.  And despite the series being truly remarkable in many aspects, the perceived insane difficulty of the games remains the most recognizable quality of From Software's creation. The thing is, I've played all the (currently released in the West!) entries of the series except Demon's Souls and I've come to the conclusion that people making generalizations about the difficulty is often a bit misleading. Ultimately, I feel at times that many potential players are discouraged from giving DS a fighting chance based on a rather simplistic way of looking at the games. Since DS III is upon us and I want every game-loving human being to take part in this glorious experience, let's debunk ourselves some myths.

Let me start off by saying that I'm not a gaming ninja secretly bragging about my "hardcore" gaming skills. While I am an avid gamer I also happen to be a disabled gamer. My right hand's flexibility and strength could be compared to this of a 3 years old baby ,one or two years away from mastering proper fine motor skills. What this means in practice is that I'm slow on the right trigger and kind of inaccurate with the right analog stick. Admittedly, this makes games with the traditional Third-Person Perspective less of a problem than FPS'es, for example. At the end of the day, however, I simply cannot consider myself more than an average gamer in terms of my  overall skill. Yet,  The Dark Souls series never seemed to be an impossible challenge. Generally speaking, I might get stuck on a boss for 2 or 3 hours of gameplay but I always prevail one way or another.

My secret to being decent at Dark Souls is that I never bought into the entire "Prepare to Die" marketing slogan. Do I think the Souls games are easy? God no!  Deaths are obviously plentiful in Dark Souls and Yours Truly probably struggles a bit more than your average  hollow warrior. What makes Dark Souls unique is that it's that the path to victory is always clear and attainable, while your mistakes feel minuscule and completely avoidable.  The Souls series' true greatness lies in the ability to always tease you with the prospect of victory at your fingertips. Upon finally beating a difficult boss you are regularly filled with the peculiar realization that the challenge was in fact quite easy and the only obstacle that impeded progress was your own inadequacy.

From Software's sublime game design strategy makes a point to reward methodical play as opposed to demanding pure skill. None of the core mechanics demand physical dexterity; they simply demand patience. The Souls games teach you to take that extra breath between your moves. The players are encouraged to think analytically and think about a difficult encounter in the same way one tends to strategize during a chess game. When you start seeing the game for what it really is, the experience becomes akin to learning a language. You're progressively becoming more "fluent" and what seemed completely foreign to your brain not so long ago suddenly starts making perfect sense. And, as with learning languages, your willingness to power through the initial overwhelming stage is much more important than skill alone.

The moments when a scary boss fight suddenly starts making sense in your head is where Dark Souls games truly shine. I can hardly think of anything more satisfying in modern gaming. Incidentally, this is why I would actually be against introducing an easy mode into Dark Souls.  Adjustable difficulty makes sense for almost all games and the fact that there is backlash against the invulnerable mode in Star Fox Zero is simply ridiculous. As a disabled gamer I know full well that games should always strive to be more accessible. Dark Souls, however, is my only exception to this rule.

The requirement to be methodical in your approach radiates from every element of From Software's design. The game banks on you being analytical and ready to problem-solve. The way Dark Souls games build immersion is inherently tied to your commitment to the game. Introducing an easy mode would give players an option to effectively break the game. We wouldn't be OK with that if it was a game-breaking technical bug and we shouldn't OK with that in terms of breaking the game's internal logic. The developer takes full responsibility for the experience they deliver and a challenge-less Dark Souls is simply not a Souls experience. At the same time, I'm all for a user-created offline easy mod. The customer always have the right to break the game at his or her own risk.

Dark Souls is still not an experience for everyone. While being a lot more accessible than many people assume, the game still requires a fair bit of finger dexterity and might be too much for some gamers. Also, If patience is really not your forte, DS might not be the perfect fit. Despite all this, I really believe that Dark Souls is one of these essential gaming experiences people should have on their bucket lists. Don't let the "Prepare to Die" mantra discourage you, you should definitely  try it out. Dark Souls wants you to develop a reciprocal relationship with it; the more you'll give , the more you'll get in return. If you are ready to commit, Dark Souls won't mind that your skills are sub-par. Every death in DS is a wonderful learning experience that brings you closer to the ultimate goal of conquering the puzzle and slowly unraveling the mystery.  The game teaches you to take a deep breath and slow down in demanding situations. And that lesson, while requiring quite a bit of commitment, may well benefit every one of us in a way that transcends video games.