Ghost Recon: Predator

I admit, I've spent a lot of time playing Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands, thinking about how the engine for this game is really amazing, and hoping like hell that the bonus costume, the "wasteland warrior" suit, isn't just a fun oddity, but a suggestion that Ubisoft realizes that their "terrorize Bolivia" simulator would be even cooler as a post-apocalypse simulator, or a zombie survival sim, or even....wait for it....a Predator sim:



Well, looks like I got one of the three! Looking forward to trying this new mode out.....Wildlands was made to be a Predator sim.

Confession: I might be an Ubisoft fanboy

It just dawned on me last night, as I was wondering when my Gold Edition Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands key was going to show up from Green Man Gaming, while playing The Crew Completed Edition and Tom Clancy's The Division that I might....just might!.....be an Ubisoft fanboy. Or Drone. Or slave. Whatever works.

I'm not sure how it happened.....somehow, Ubisoft managed to produce a lengthy series of games that all, without exception, have grabbed me in a way where I just happen to enjoy playing them pretty much in to perpetuity. My PC and PS4 are littered with Ubisoft titles: Rainbow 6: Siege, Far Cry 4, Far Cry Primal, and Assassins' Creed Syndicate on the PS4. The Division Gold Edition on both the PC and Xbox One. The Crew, Watch Dogs, Watch Dogs 2 and For Honor on the PC.

I've finished EVERY Assassin's Creed game released except for the 2D scrollers which annoy me and Syndicate, which I am plowing through.

I watched the AC movie unironically.

I love The Division so much that I have plowed through three character levelings in that game.

I'm currently playing The Crew and thinking about how it's more fun than World of Warcraft, and how it's basically like WoW if you could drive in to an auction house and knock everyone over. (Secret: it's not really that much like WoW, I just like the idea).



What the hell happened to me?!?!?!?

My theory is this: while many, many other games focus on a range of fantastical elements, the fantastical bits in Ubisoft games are tempered by an effort to ground the action in some version of "reality," and for some reason this approach really appeals to me. The Division, for example, is proving to be deeply more satisfying to me than poor Fallout 4, which while I enjoy it, the visceral "in the moment, this could happen in the near future" feel of The Division is much more immersive to me than the logic-straining alternate retro 50's future of Fallout. The Crew is am amusing nonsensical car adventure, and it's probably the least realistic of all the Ubisoft titles, but it still manages to be an open world adventure in a way no other car game has come close to (except Horizon 3, which is a whole other level of awesome).



Every Assassin's Creed game, assuming you buy in to the play mechanics, style of game, and "hidden weird history" themes, is a way to have a swashbuckling adventure that doesn't have to involve unrealistic magic and anime swords. Compare For Honor's fighting mechanics to....say....any Final Fantasy title. Nuff said.

Given that every Ubisoft title can take dozens or hundreds of hours to finish, I could technically just buy Ubisoft at this point and never lack for good gaming. I mean....even the Ubisoft Uplay app has been dramatically improved over the last few years. It used to be genuinely awful....these days it's just a mild annoyance, another Steam-wannabe that at least is slightly more functional than Origin.

Well, that was my revelation for the day.....

Death Bat's Top Five Computer Games of 2016

It's that time of the year again! When bloggers everywhere flock to a Best Of series of lists, make predictions for the next year, and attempt a bit of precognitive chicanery. I'll skip the last bit....next year is looking dicey at best....but I've got plenty of top fives to dicuss!!!!

In the world of video games I had to try and exclude titles from 2015 and earlier which I am STILL playing because they are both that good and designed to stick around (Destiny, MGSV, The Elder Scrolls Online), and focus on what's actually new.

Remember, my review criteria are as a full time dad with limited game time. Stuff a twenty-something can plow through in fifty hours over a week are beyond the pale for me; if I get fifty hours out of a game in a year I'm smokin'.

Anyway....on to the list! It was a weird year at times for PC and console gaming, but there were a lot of noteworthy titles to choose from. As usual I favor the more visceral FPS and third-person based shooter with plots (or not).

5. Best Co-Op Experience: Warhammer End Times: Vermintide
   I've barely discovered Vermintide but am finding it quite compelling. The game is set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe, giving you an array of distinct characters to choose from as they face down a grotesque horde of skaven (ratkin) in a doomed city. It's essentially a fantasy edition of Left 4 Dead, and manages to fill that void handily.
Runner Up: Killing Floor 2. Despite a shaky early access window, the final release of Killing Floor 2 is proving to be an amazingly polished and fun experience.

4. Best Shooter: Doom
   I had a lot to say about Doom earlier in the year, but since then two of three expansion DLC have released which added a great deal of content to the game....content I feel would have been better to be included in the core package, as it makes the multiplayer component much more interesting. I also snagged the game on PC with my recent computer upgrade and feel the PC edition is more interesting overall than the console versions.
Runner Up: Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare took it's franchise in to space and while I think it will fail as a CoD game because that's not quite what the franchise fans want, it still made a compelling interplanetary warfare experience that I think out-Halo'd Halo 5: Guardians in every way. When CoD is making you feel more like Master Chief than Halo is, somethings wrong....

3. Best Open World Game Experience: Tom Clancy's The Division
   Tom Clancy's The Division grabbed me earlier this year and has held on. I'm a slow player so take my assertions that it's loaded with content with the appropriate recognition....I'm working on leveling a third character though (now with the PC version of the game) and look forward to the final expansion pack. If you can find the complete package for under $50 I think this game is a steal....but take note that I am amused that the Xbox One version seems to have more glitches and bugs than the PC edition so far!
Honorable Mention: Just Cause 3 XL Edition proved really captivating to me this year. The game's willingness to let you blow things up in any number of inconceivably bizarre and physics-defying ways left me wondering the whole time if the protagonist was a secret metahuman or something, but it never stopped being weird fun.

2. Best Franchise Revamp and Story-Driven Shooter: Titanfall 2
   It is nice to see that the devs behind Titanfall 2 realized their new world was compelling enough to deserve a single player campaign. I love the multiplayer elements with the large mechs, but the story mode really sells this sequel to the MP-only experience of a couple years back. It is far and away my favorite FPS experience so far this year. BT the robot is a great foil to the protagonist.
Runner Up: Destiny: Rise of Iron, but remember I'm a Destiny fanboy so of course I'd put it on my list somewhere! It adds to the lore and provides a great new campaign arc to what I suspect is the last DLC we'll see for the game until Destiny II arrives next year.

1. Best Story-Driven Title: Uncharted: A Thief's End
   This was by far my favorite game this year. Uncharted: A Thief's End tells the last tale of Nathan Drake, debonaire explorer and thief of antiquities using the lessons they learned from The Last of Us to make a narrative that manages to lend even more humanity and emotional resonance to the series, while still going over the top with it's high concept action adventure tale. The multiplayer is kind of fun as well, but utterly secondary to the story itself.
Runner Up: Gears of War 4, which manages to revive the franchise, remain true to the style and feel of the prior games, and provides a really compelling narrative tale that --believe it or not!-- was easy to follow and really interesting all at once. Oh and I hear it has MP as well (heh). My only regret with GoW4 is how I haven't been able to invest as much time with it as I'd like due to all these other games competing for time.

Bonus Mention: Best Game I Only Just Discovered: Watch Dogs 2
   I only just snagged this and have delved a few hours in, but Watch Dogs 2 is a massive improvement in terms of story, design and style over its predecessor, and a much more evocative and interesting experience as a result. The game captures a fascinating near-future take on cyberpunk that is much closer to RL if you are willing to buy in to its core conceits. I'll talk more about this one soon, including some ideas I have on how Watch Dog 2's core conceits for gameplay could translate into a similar experience in tabletop.

Honorable Mention: Forza Horizon 3. This game is a damned compelling open-world racing/exploration experience set in the Australian Outback. My favorite car game experience so far.

Giving Tom Clancy's The Division the Savage Worlds Treatment (Part I)

I've played a lot of Tom Clancy's The Division in the last few months, a game I had intially been skeptical of but ultimately not only warmed up to, but have found it a great periodic "go to" game in a way that I wish Fallout 4 had been for me. It's premise is simple: a viral outbreak of an engineered small pox virus is unleashed during Black Friday in New York, and in the space of a month kills off most of the human population of the United States (and maybe the world). The government tries to hold itself together but is just as devastated, resources drawn too thin. Clandestine operatives belonging to a deep cover black ops program called the Division are awakened and sent in to Manhattan specifically to try and restore law and order while also figuring out who created the virus and whether there's further threat. Amidst all this, groups such as the Cleaners are part of extreme right "solutions" to the problem, using death and flame to purge infected survivors while establishing their own new rule of law.

It's a pretty compelling near-future apocalypse, and the game runs through a variety of primary missions in which your Division agent (and allies, of you roll that way) work to solve the mysteries of the plague while restoring order. Along the way are tons of side missions and events, as well as the brutal Dark Zone where all bets are off, and pvp reigns supreme....there you can become a rogue agent and basically grief the hell out of your fellow humans playing  the game. While this is fun in a video game, it's not so easy to translate into paper and pencil unless you as GM want to cede the game over to warring players...

Anyway, one thing that The Division does really well is show how you can take a perfectly ordinary environment....bereft of pretty much everything "weird" other than some sophisticated computer tech and a super-virus, and make a great game out of it. The environment in The Division would translate well with the right sort of focus into the scenario style of Savage Worlds, for example....and Savage Worlds is honestly one of the best game experiences I've had to date for modern firearms combat, with an excellent blend of tense "die at any moment" events combine with a measure of heroic player agency with the bennies.

I think a Division agent would start off at least seasoned, although one could argue that they may even qualify for more experience. That said, here's a suggested Division Agent archetype for Savage Worlds. Division agents are well-rounded....from the start they have decent stats across the board, and after advancing a bit focus on whichever specific area most benefits them.

Division Sleeper Agent Aerchetype
Attributes: Agility D6 Smarts D6 Strength D6 Vigor D6 Spirit D6
Skills: Climbing D4, Fighting D4, Investigation D6, Knowledge (electronics) D6, Notice D6, Repair D6, Shooting D6, Survival D6, Throwing D4
Charisma -- Pace 6 Parry 4 Toughness 5 (9 or 13 vs. bullets)
Edge: pick two from Danger Sense, Command, Combat Reflexes, Brave, Alertness or Luck. Default is Danger Sense and Combat Reflexes.
Hindrances: Vow (major) to The Division Imperative (alternative: Wanted (major) Rogue Agent)
Equipment: Kevlar Vest w/Inserts (negates 4 AP, +8 vs. bullets), .357 Magnum (2D6+1, ROF 1), M16 assault rifle (2D8, ROF 3); 3 extra clips for each weapon, Personal computer smartwatch with Augmented Reality features (using glasses or implant, presumably)...see stats below.

Division Smartwatch Statistics
The smartwatch is a sophisticated near-future limited AI personal computer worn on the wrist. It projects imagery called ECHOS (Evidence Correlation Holographic Overlays) constructed from other data sources, such as phone recordings, cell data, surveillance cameras and forensic evidence to recreate images showing specific events in sequence. These events are (presumably) projected via augmented reality overlay onto the retina of the agent via chip or relay for viewing (or you can be generous and assume they are actual holograms).

Smartwatches grant a +2 modifier to investigation rolls, tracking rolls and knowledge (electronics) rolls. They also provide encrypted communication abilities within a 50 mile radius. While the ECHO effect is active however they reduce Notice rolls by -2.

Here's the rationale for this design...

Attributes: agents are well-rounded to start, needing to be equally good at everything. You can start differentiating as you advance in experience.

Skills: agents do not intimidate (except by pointing their gun), they shoot. They do not talk much, so no persuasion skills. They are not all that familiar with things, but do know how to flip a switch or fix a machine, thus repair and knowledge (electronics). No cars in New York seem to work anymore, so no driving skill needed, though the agent probably has some driving experience. Investigation is a big deal....they do a lot of that in the game, and use their augmented connection to their personal computer to witness events in the form of ECHOS.

Edges: these seem like the most applicable edges for a starting agent, but if you want something else, go for it!

Hindrances: the agents come off as quiet, dedicated and very persistent. They definitely adhere to their vows to the US Government as Division sleeper agents, and the only way this could be a problem is if you choose to eschew this hindrance in favor of the Wanted (major): Rogue Agent option and be a sleeper agent gone bad, but such a choice would put your character at odds with everyone else, pretty much.

The Division - a reversal of decision

Well somehow I ended up with a used copy of Tom Clancy's The Division, and you know what? It's not crap. Since I had previously talked about how I planned to ignore this one entirely an update seemed in order.

I didn't expect it to be crap in a solid, identifiable way....but this game had a lot of contentious press in all directions. People who normally hate all things Ubisoft suddenly liked this game, casting suspicion on themselves. Others hated it with a weird and apathetic contempt. Others analyzed it to death, pointing out that the game's subject and message was rather heavy in import but not treated as such, necessarily.

As usual, if you try to form an opinion on something or make a decision based entirely on aggregating the internet, it will always let you down.

Anyway, I'll keep on playing and do a review soon. Right now The Division is pretty much a disaster prepper's wet dream, situated in a brutal "not too far in the future" post-apocalyptic New York (possibly natural, maybe not) hit by a ravaging mutated small pox virus, something sufficiently bad that it apparently took the military out and all that's left are a hand full of disaster recruits (who all, I suspect, used to be garbage men before this started) and a bunch of sleeper agents trained all their lives to be ready for this event. It's like a zombie game without the zombies, and more of the guys from "Escape From New York." But near-future realistic-looking type dudes who favor beanies and hoodies to deal with the cold weather over mohawks and piercings.