Ethical and Fun?

Today I thought a look at a piece of recent gaming news could be interesting.

A couple of days ago, EA's VP of legal and government affairs, Kerry Hopkins, appeared in the UK before a parliamentary committee to talk about lootboxes. There has been a lot of press about them in the recent couple of years due to strong allegations that they prey on people with poor impulse control and indeed teach/train children to gamble.

At the hearing, Hopkins interrupted an MP to correct him that they “don't use the term lootboxes” at EA. This isn't only rude, but a blatant lie. EA has, black on white, used the term on multiple occasions, even as a selling point. Hopkins went on to state that EA now calls them “Surprise Mechanics” and that like Kinder eggs they are, “both ethical and fun”.

This went over as well as one could expect on the internet. Surprise mechanics is a, frankly bullshit, term that means nothing outside of a corporate boardroom. A nonsensical attempt to cover up their greedy, moneygrubbing ways.

Then we have ethical and fun... They don't get to state what is ethical. Not even a little bit, no more in fact than I can state that this blog post is ethical. That's up to you to decide. As for fun? Come on... pull the other one.

However, the sheer gall to compare their “surprise mechanics” with Kinder eggs and other toys with random content is galling and inaccurate. When you buy a Kinder egg, you know that you are getting a tasty chocolate treat, followed by a really cheap little toy. That's it. EA likes to put game winning elements into their boxes. Their products are devalued without the extra content they sell you separately in an expensive and random manner. Shame on you EA. Shame.

It is no surprise that EA and indeed certain other big publishers are getting desperate concerning lootboxes. They are enormously lucrative, raking in hundreds of millions in revenue each year, and

no business wants to loose that kind of money. That's obvious. They are however already illegal in the Netherlands and Belgium, and now the UK and US are looking hard at them.

Of course the AAA industry is scrambling to defend their garbage, that's a given, but the fact that EA is changing the name and calling them ethical demonstrates that they know the boxes are bad for people. Otherwise they would be defending them as they are, not trying to weasel out of the dilemma sideways, which is what they are doing.

No one else gets to do that, and EA is no different. A burglar can't stop the police by calling his activities a “surprise visit” and a “moral readjustment of wealth”, can he? No, of course not.

Time will tell how this will end, but I for one hope that the politicians have the ethical backbone to protect the people and not the corporations. For once.

That is it for this time, tune in again next time and until then, have a great week!

Third time lucky?

I mentioned last week that I subscribed to HBO for Chernobyl and True Detective 3. We did Chernobyl last week so to no ones surprise I'm sure, we're talking True Detective.

Back when I watched the first season of True Detective, I couldn't praise it enough. Then the second season rolled around, and well... it's not bad, but it's nowhere near the genius of season 1. Now, finally we have season 3. I'll try to be as spoiler free as possible.

Season 3 stars Mahershala Ali as Wayne 'Purple' Hays and Stephen Dorff as Roland West, the two main detectives investigating the disappearance of two preteens.

The story is set in Arkansas, in three time periods; 1980, 1990 and 2015. The kids vanished in 1980, the case resurfaces in 1990 and in 2015 both detectives are old men with Hays (M. Ali) suffering from what is most likely dementia or Alzheimer.

This being a season of True Detective, things are gloomy, sinister and threatening. There is strange symbolism all around, and corruption and conspiracies everywhere. At least that's how it feels.

The use of three times periods as opposed to season one's two periods, is a bit much. They pull it off well enough, but there are scenes where you have to look closely at Dorff's haircut and jacket to get which period it is. They could have made it clearer. 2015 is obvious with gray hair and excellent old age makeup.

In fact, the season is extremely solid in how it is made, no complaints there whatsoever. Actors, sound, cinematography etc. all good and solid.

The biggest flaw in my opinion is the story. Not only do they reference season 1 directly, the whole season seems almost like a homage or love letter to season 1. Though by the end it becomes clear that this is no mistake and I found most of my earlier misgivings laid to rest. As I watched episode after episode, I got a creeping feeling that they were just trying to remake season 1 to appease the fans, but I'm sure that they weren't doing that and that you are in fact meant to feel that way.

In the end I was happy to have seen it, but perhaps I should have waited a day or two after consuming the sheer brilliance of Chernobyl before watching this. In comparison to that, season 3 is a bit flat.

If True Detective gets a fourth season I think they need to dig deep. Neither season 2 or 3 were bad in any way, but it's still the first season that carries them forward. A hypothetical fourth needs to be a home run or the series will probably run into the sand.

So, yeah, a good piece of television and no mistake, but still no where near the amazing first season.

That's that. Until next time, have a great week!

Chernobyl 2019

This last Friday, I signed up for HBO Nordic for two main reasons:

1. The third season of True Detective, and
2. Chernobyl

I sat down and watched all five episodes of Chernobyl in one go. Five beautiful, nearly perfect, horrifying, ghastly hours. I felt slightly drunk afterwards, it's that intense. At the time of writing, 202.066 people have rated it 9.7 stars on IMDB. This makes it the highest rated show on that site, ever. And I'd say it's thoroughly merited. Interestingly enough I've heard that the Russian government does not like it, but also that their own Minister of Culture liked it, stating that the show is respectful and avoids “red cranberries”, i.e. typical cliches concerning Russia.

As the name implies, this is about the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine in April 1986, it chronicles what happened, what was done about it and why it happened. The show stars amongst others: Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård and Emily Watson, not to be confused with Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame.

Before I go further, lets save some space by saying I have no complaints here. None. I can't think of anything or anyone I'd want to change. Not in a meaningful way. But Chernobyl is not a fun show. However, it is extremely compelling. I saw people raving about it on Reddit, and after a couple of clips on Youtube I knew I had to see it. I'm going to see it again.

Let's start with sound. The music is composed, or to be more exact, created by Hildur Guðnadóttir, who sampled sounds from the disused power plant in Lithuania where a lot is filmed, and it's more of a sound-scape than music. It's heavy and foreboding, at times almost a character in itself.

The show is spoken in English, with the exception of announcements which are in Russian, with everyone using their real accents, as it feels more natural. The Soviet Union was a huge mix of nations and peoples, so varying accents would have been common. They decided against starring any Americans however, as that would have felt wrong. The U.S. were the enemy after all.

Finally there is the awful and fascinating sound of the radiation meters, hissing crackling portents of doom. A truly haunting sound.

The visuals, from the (according to people who lived it) perfect recreation of 80's Ukraine, to the environments, to the disaster, all incredible.

Actors, amazing. I'm sure you get the message, it's all incredible...

I feel I should issue a warning however. The show isn't gory as such, but in the early episodes, there is a lot of vomiting, and later on you see what someone dying from radiation poisoning looks like. These are very graphic, if short scenes, but be warned.

It's also worth pointing out that every character is real and portrayed as they were, except Emily Watson's character, Ulana Khomyuk. She is a representation of all the other scientists who gave their all to stop the disaster, but in a five hour show, you can't bog it down with dozen of extra persons, not in a meaningful way. So they created a gestalt to honor and represent them. No one is included at the expense of someone else.

Chernobyl is a masterclass in the old rule Show don't Tell. Sure, they tell you a lot, but the really important things are shown. The direction of the wind, the color of the trees under the passing cloud of smoke.. again and again they demonstrate, rather than lecture, and it's incredible.

My fear now, is that I have been so overly passionate that it won't live up to your expectations, but I leave that up to you. Personally I can't recommend it enough. A hard watch but so worth it.

Well, there you have it. Until next time, have a great week and stay away from radiation!

Silent Hill, The History

Hello and welcome back to Eccentric Spheres.

Sometimes events conspire against you and this sunny Monday morning is one such time. I have a lot to do today, so I'm forced to keep this short.

What I have today is the history of one of the best horror game franchises to date: Silent Hill.

Personally, I have never played a single SH game, mostly because they launch on consoles, and I'm a PC gamer. There exists a "remaster" or two, but experienced fans loathe them as broken nonsense, so I choose to stay away. I have, however, spent countless hours enjoying let's plays of these amazing horror titles, and they are so worth that.

So without further ado, I present to you the History of Silent Hill. Join me again next time for more Eccentric Spheres, and until then, have a great week!

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgIicXN1--s

Sniper Elite V2 Remaster

Earlier this month, Rebellion released their remaster of Sniper Elite v2.

I just got done playing it, and I got to tell you, it's nice. On Steam it sits at a rating of Mostly Negative, which I do not understand. If you read some of the negative reviews, people seem to be mad about not getting it for free or then they're upset at not getting more out of it.

Yes, Bethesda gave their Skyrim remaster for free if you owned the original and all the DLC, but Skyrim like all Bethesda games lives on through mods, and the Sniper Elite series can't, to my knowledge, be modded at all.

Rebellion gave a nice discount if you own the old SE v2, but they had no need to give it away for free.

The graphics are updated, and it looks great, but I guess some people expected it to be even prettier, somehow. The sounds are as they've always been and the gameplay is smooth and fun. No complaints from me.

Rebellion added some extra goodies, though. The remaster includes all the DLC, it has an option to choose your weapon load out and you can choose which character you want to play as, since they added in the characters from the Sniper Elite spin-off, Zombie Army Trilogy.

There is also a photo mode, that I can't talk about as I have ignored it completely. I'm awful at taking screenshots anyway, so a photo mode isn't relevant to me at all.

This is by all accounts a fun game to play, if the Sniper Elite games are your thing. Now, that said, if you came into the series later, particularly in SE4, then this will feel clumsy and old, because it is old. Most of the things that sort of annoy me were fixed in SE3 and 4.

For example, a staple in the series is using your binoculars to tag enemies so that you know where they are even though you can't see them. In V2, those tags vanish after a while which is annoying.

Likewise, instead of running in, on a few occasions an enemy will just spawn in instead, bypassing any traps you may have laid out.

These things are annoying, but in the greater scale, fairly minor. Sure, the maps are somewhat small, compared to what came later, but the original came out in 2012 – seven years ago.

Bottom line: if you have played Sniper Elite 3 or 4 and missed V2, play it, it really is a fun game. The haters really seem to hate for no reason, in my book at least.

In other related news, Sniper Elite 5 has been announced with no further info yet, but I'm eagerly waiting to learn more.

That's my 5 cents, and until next time, have a great week!

Game News

So Minecraft is ten years old. A game that is all about blocks, about mining and building with said blocks and so much more.

I played a bit of Minecraft back in the day, and although I liked it, it didn't really keep me interested for long. I think it's incredible success comes from the same place LEGO does. It give you the tools to do “whatever” you want to do. To this day, it's still played by millions, streamed by hundreds of live streamers on Twitch, and still immensely popular.

A small indie game, developed by Markus 'Notch' Persson, until he set up the company Mojang to help finalize the game, up until he sold the game to Microsoft for 2.5 billion dollars. Yes, billion with a B.

I think it's safe to say the game is a success.

Speaking of old games, fans of World of Warcraft should mark August 27^th in the calendar as that is when WoW Classic launches.

If you're not in the know, WoW Classic is a fully playable version of how the game was before any and all expansions, i.e. vanilla.

If you want a sneak peak, go to Twich and watch a beta tester or two run around in a limited version, to remind yourself what it used to be. Highlights of that experience include:

No mount until level 40, and it costs 100 gold.

The need to keep buying arrows, poisons and other reagents.

No Paladin on Horde & no Shaman on Alliance.

Etc.

I'm fascinated about how it used to be and I will likely try it out, but for how long it can retain my interest, who can say? Probably a week or two.

From gaming history to modern news. The Epic Game Store keeps reeling around making people angry.

I've talked about my feelings toward this so called store, but now they've gone beyond bribing publishers to get timed exclusives. Even beyond snapping up kickstarted games, which is also questionable behavior. Now they have held a mega sale without informing publishers in advance.

You see, when Steam has a sale you get to choose which of the games you publish to include and at what percentage they get discounted. Epic just went ahead and had a sale, and they included amongst other things a game that is not out yet.

Beyond lowered prices, they had a flat $10 cash back on games costing more than $14.99. ( I believe these numbers are correct, I may be off a bit.) So a great deal for the customer, but really bad for some publishers. Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 is set to come out next March, and it was included in the sale. A sale that heavy on an unpublished game is a disaster for the perceived value of a game. Besides, it normally takes months after release before even a small discount is to be found, not a year in advance.

To make matters worse, Epic does not take into account the different values of currencies around the world, which meant that Vampire 2 could be had for the equivalent of $5 in Turkey and $10 in Russia.

Paradox was furious and pulled the game. A couple of other games by other publishers were also withdrawn.

Epics response was to admit they failed to communicate but they also called the publishers 'greedy'. Wow... Words fail me.

A couple of months ago, Epic couldn't stop yelling about how good their store were for developers and publishers, and now they are greedy... Not good.

Beyond that, the Epic store still does not have a shopping basket, so many gamers have had their credit cards locked by their banks as the automated safety systems detects multiple, small purchases in a row. Thanks Epic...

Well that's enough ranting from me. Until next time, have a great and calm week!

Crossing Lines

A few weeks ago, my wife found Crossing Lines on Netflix and suggested we give it a try. I'm very glad we did, since it's the most interesting cop drama I've seen in years.

In a nutshell, Crossing Lines concerns a fictitious international police unit working under the ICC, or International Criminal Court, taking on cross-border cases in Europe. A bit like how the FBI handles inter-state crime in the U.S.

Crossing Lines is a German-French-Italian-American production that was canceled after season 1 and picked up by Netflix and Amazon for season 2 and then 3. This change in management shows a bit between 1 and 2, and quite a lot in season 3. After season 3 the show was canceled permanently, although some fans are still holding out hope for a fourth season, but seeing as it ended in 2015, that is very unlikely.

The show was criticized for misrepresenting the function and purpose of the ICC, as the court does not care about drugs and regular “murder” as an example, and they do not (apparently) have their own task force on standby. Instead they work against things like dictators and genocide.

With a few exceptions, the show uses a case of the week formula, sometimes broken up with a two part episode. Seasons 1 and 2 have more recurring villains, dropping this concept in season 3.

For the most part, the cases are really good, and not just the same old, same old one is used to from American shows like Law & Order. A couple of episodes failed to impress, but they were the exception rather than the rule. The pilot was a little rough around the edges, as they tend to be. Also, the episode about the bikers was pretty bad, otherwise I liked them well enough.

What really carries the show are the actors. As far as I can tell, they all hail from the countries their characters come from, with only one exception. This cements the international nature of the unit and lends authenticity to the whole show.

This in itself creates an oddity, as the point of language is never made. Whether they come from Ireland, Italy, Germany, The U.S. or France, they all seem to speak the local lingo wherever they go. This is of course to keep the plot ticking along, but especially in the beginning I found myself wondering how the hell they could communicate with the locals so easily. Speaking German does not allow you to speak Polish...

Likewise, travel times seem to be irrelevant, as they get where they need to go at the speed of plot. My recommendation is to let these two points go and just enjoy the show.

As for the actors, William Fichtner and Donald Sutherland stand out as the biggest names internationally, with guest appearances by actors like Carrie-Ann Moss (The Matrix) and Ray Stevenson (Rome). The others were equally good though, so don't stare yourself blind on star names.

Sadly, most actors left the show after season 2, with only three remaining, and although the new people are very good, it isn't the same. Still, season 3 is enjoyable enough, especially if one sees it more as a spinoff.

So, I do recommend Crossing Lines, and I'm sad I didn't get more of it.

That's that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week.