FreeMMORPG sums up the past year. In a series of five fascinating articles, we will determine the most important thing that happened in 2019. Incredible successes, epic failures, unexpected surprises, neglected games and the most high-profile events – two authors with opposite points of view on the situation will express themselves on each topic. So the picture will be more objective. We begin!
Hideo kojima, Hideo kojima, Hideo kojima. 2019 can be safely called the year of the legendary Japanese game designer. He was an icon before, but over the past twelve months he has been given as much attention in the media as it seems that he has not had in his whole life. After breaking up with Konami the genius proved his worth by founding a completely new studio and achieving a tremendous amount of references on thematic and not only resources. But the game itself, as expected, turned out to be controversial. But now you can’t blame the restrictions on the part of the evil publisher: Death stranding – completely author’s project. A hideo kojima game.
Hideo kojima finally entrenched in the title “David Lynch from the world of video games.” On the TV screen you can see “Twin peaks“Lovely and strange. On the Playstation 4 you can run a no less strange and wonderful third-person action game – Death stranding.
Kojima showed a fresh post-apocalypse without banal nuclear explosions and zombie armies. Here the remnants of civilization are trying to establish their former life among the constant leaks of the other world in ours, the moon. Rain is pouring from the sky, causing aging, the human settlements are fragmented, and we are trying to connect the cities into a single network with a gamepad in our hands, a kind of absolute Internet level.
It is impossible not to note the original design of everything that generally falls into the frame. What is worth only all kinds of equipment and equipment of local couriers. But from Kojima first of all, they were waiting for fresh mechanics, and the maestro gave them in abundance. The very walking that the skeptics scold for despondency was performed very freshly, there was no such attention to the movement along the route in games yet. Of the completely unformatted mechanics – baby BB, about which much was said at the development stage. Yes, the main character uses a premature baby as an indicator of the threat. Well, this is a tough game. But the baby can be touched by motion sickness with a first-person view.
With all the pathos, touching epithets and sincere adoration, Kojima’s new work is an overly personal and extremely long-lasting long-time production of minor aesthetics. Such dubious pleasure is unlikely to be appreciated by players who strictly monitor the balance of time spent and a commensurate reward in the form of a coveted plot loop or other “catch” that can hold “for longer.” Death stranding about how you already decided in advance when there will be a hint of new content, and when – freezing backtracking or artificial stretching of a stuffy story.
Given the general grace and beauty of the local Icelandic plains and uplands, this is an arthouse difficult to understand. This is when authorship replaces sanity, when players get a protracted rally with a chase after grains of new story details from a concentrated story for 5-6 hours. You go over dozens of hours to beg the next cutscene without pleasure and due interest, bogging down in stupid and of the same type, long and empty side quests. And in moments when you need to free your heart for drama, fatigue cuts you off, and the narrative moves out into the “Tarkovschina” inaccessible in a snap – into the author’s something, stupidly serious and excessively confused. Not a game, but an emotional lead.
Death strandinglike the sequel Red dead redemption – The story is not about the rapid absorption of content, but rather about a metafetish for fading boomers – so that the gameplay is metaphorical and old-fashioned in a samurai style. Instead of poker and fishing from a video game from Rockstar games, in this you need to swim in the thermal springs and babysit with a screaming baby. How a piece of rare action got involved in such a lounge, and where the ingenious idea of the loudest multimedia project of the year took root is known only Kojime. His last story turned out to be uncontrollably long and ostentatiously confused. In the final, tears did not come, and did not clap their hands on the credits. And God bless him Death stranding First of all, a tool for purely personal meditation and inspiration, and only then – a game in the usual sense.
Restart Call of Duty: Modern Warfare became the most successful game of the series for many years, setting several records. This happened not only thanks to the recognition of the title, reworked mechanics and new images of familiar characters, but also the hype that the project made in the media. The reason is too explicit and one-sided political subtext embedded in the plot by the developers. No one was surprised that the Russians again turned out to be bad, but no one seemed to expect so obvious and thick allusions to modern military conflicts. Wherein Infinity ward not only tried to strengthen the idea of “Russian terrorists” in gaming minds, but also attributed responsibility to the Russian military for real war crimes of the United States of America. But this topic was thoroughly chewed on the release by everyone who is not lazy. Therefore, let’s better discuss the following: what is the reason for all the fuss?
Perhaps so many stories regarding video games, as in 2019, in the news on federal channels, we have never seen. Last time it was on release Modern warfare 2. Then the debatable, to put it mildly, the moment in the game was one – the scene in Sheremetyevo. Now the question is the plot of the game as a whole. Nevertheless, I’ll try to praise the new “spell” carefully, there’s a good reason.
CoD: MW has the best shooting among all competitors in the genre of military shooters right now. Is it the most realistic or maybe the easiest to learn? Not! But she is the most high and understandable. Juicy sound design, great animations, comfortable TTK (yes, you need to get used to it, but this is another plus of the game – there is quite a bit of similarity in this respect, say, with Black ops 4) This mechanics, as well as its balance, are honed here to the smallest detail – it was not in vain that there were so many pre-release tests.
Given that the game supports crossplay, there is no problem with online and, accordingly, matchmaking, regardless of your level, but thanks to a rich arsenal, flexible customization and an unprecedented number of different modes (from 4 to 64 players on the map, and this is not the limit) – get bored definitely not have to!
PC version of the new Call of duty with patches, it weighs about two hundred gigabytes. And biting off such a part of the disk space, the game does not give the impression of something cosmically cool. There is no breakthrough in the chart: the picture is good but no more. There is no dizzying abundance of content – absolutely all game modes have already been seen, and more than once. Before us is a restart, a return, in fact, to the coveted paths. Science fiction experiments on the background Modern warfare looked at least fresh. And here we have war criminals again, on which the rested Price is again lowered. Excluding the epic! No, it’s probably not worth it to destroy the Eiffel Tower once again, but the scope of the new game is not felt. And we are already used to it, to the scale.
Well, and how not to remember Russophobia! So we won’t remember in spite of: when in Russia they will make their Call of duty, it certainly can be blamed for Americanophobia. But how to explain such a high degree of violence in the frame is not clear. Soldiers – perhaps even military service – behave in the frame, like the most selected maniacs. Explicit search even for players familiar with everything.
“The Witcher series” – such a query drives a monthly search engine Yandex a quarter of a million Russians. Let the series end up being extremely ambiguous, but how loud it thundered in the info field! In addition, it is also a huge success for our home industry. Andrzej Sapkowski can ignore the colossal influence that the trilogy on the witcher Geralt’s recognition CD Projekt REDbut you won’t fool us. Series “The witcher“- this is living proof that games can not only follow the trends of” filmmakers “, adopting directorial and narrative techniques, but also ask them. To the result of the team Netflix can and should be treated differently. But deny the fact that the hype around the series “The witcher“- this, including the success of the gaming industry, simply does not work.
7.5 points on Metacritic8.9 points on IMDBfinally 92% approval on Rotten tomato – if this is not success, then what? “Allow me! “You say,” but critics scolded the wig and the boredom! ” But who cares about the critics when two clowns from Entertainment Weekly did not even bother to watch the series, after which they put 0 points and famously lowered the average rating?
Of course, atThe witcher” there is a problem. The story is torn, and not every episode Geralt fights with a coolly drawn CGI monster. At will, you can also find fault with the cast. But let’s not stoop to the level of crazy fans who quote a verbatim description from a book about green eyes and red lips and with foam at the mouth trying to prove that this is a canon carved in stone. “The witcher“Is a work difficult in terms of adaptation, if we are talking about the transfer of stories in chronological order. However, you can quickly figure out the time lines, the storylines are carefully transferred, in some places there are unexpected and pleasant surprises. Cavill plays Geralt with great love, respect for the hero. Played in The witcher in the original they even recognize notes in his voice Dag Kokl (Yes, and tried to dub).
The series has great production. Accurate camera work, excellent sound design, because of which it seems that swords are waving around the head of the viewer, a good-quality game of actors, expensive special effects and, in places, simply chic directing with links to video games. No need to turn into grumblers who are unhappy that among the heroes there are people of Asian appearance or dark-skinned. It’s important to remember that “The witcher“, In short, this is a story about a man who was despised for his appearance, origin and belonging to a separate caste. Do not be like some book heroes. Be cool. And, as Pan Sapkowski said, don’t judge soup by products. Suddenly he was cooked by a Michelin cook.
“The witcher“Earned a better incarnation than the first season of film adaptation from Netflix. The presence of books and games, it seems, made the creators forget that the characters and events should not just be shown and told, but disclosed in depth. But why disclose for the hundredth time what everyone has already read and knows about? It is this lack of “meat” and the soul that remains for me the main hole in the series.
Yes, the cast didn’t respond well to the ideas of some fans about how the characters should look. For me, for example, at first it seemed that Ken Henry Cavill – This is an eerie choice for the role of an experienced harsh man with a multifaceted character and strong moral views. However “The witcher“Filmed representatives of the opposite end of the world with different views on literally everything. They created the series, and it is their right to make a wrapper the way they want. Will have to come to terms with this.
Another thing is that far from caste has become the main claim to the final product Netflix. I would like more seriousness and thoughtfulness in building the plot and the first acquaintance of the audience with the characters. An ideal example of this is the first meeting of Geralt and Yennifer. You kind of watch the series and rejoice that you can see the next incarnation of your favorite saga, but the events seem to look Hollywood empty. They did not show us the chemistry, those emotions and experiences of real people (with some exceptions) that were so clinging to the book. The weaknesses of difficult psychological upheavals and moral dilemmas prevented the “Witcher” from Netflix to become a masterpiece.
