Blaze

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/28151762

Bonus: it also seems that the episodes have been rolled into the base game. Full details of the anniversary update.

Arcade car games don't seem that popular nowadays, so what is your opinion on this series?

Some food for thought (not mine)

It's hard to believe the OG NFS Most Wanted is 19 years old. To this day, I don't think there has been a better car game. In fact, I'd even claim it's the best car game ever, but that would be too dramatic, so let's just leave it at best in the franchise for now. I think a lot of people would agree with me though, and I mean a lot.

A little explanation for that title: If you're a Need For Speed fan, chances are you support one of the following opinions:

1. Underground 1/2 is the best NFS.
2. Most Wanted is the best NFS.

Now, let's see how Underground 1/2 is objectively better compared to MW:

• Customization is more extensive

The end. That's literally it. MW on the other hand has:

• Better graphics, physics, etc...it's just more polished in every way, which is to be expected from any game sequel, or at least it used to be.
• Police pursuits (more on that later).

I could of course say a lot more, but I don't want to cross the blurry line of subjectivity, so let's leave it at that. Most Wanted is simply a better made game, with an extra added mechanic: Police Pursuits.

Honestly, you could have an entire post just for the pursuits alone. Arguably what made the game as legendary as it is, at least partially. I don't know if I've ever played another game that features police as good as this one. And its beauty is in its simplicity as much as it is in its execution. There are levels to how "serious" a chase can be, called "heat". There is a counter and as long as you run from the police, it keeps counting. Get chased long enough and the heat level rises. Every time that happens, the police get more aggressive and use different methods to stop you. And it's just done beautifully. It starts out easy, and you get cocky. Maybe you feel like challenging them. The heat rises, but you keep having fun. Eventually, you feel like it's time to bail, and that's when you realise that you have been played. Now they won't let you leave. The difficulty really sneaks up on you, even though it's absolutely linear and predictable in its progression. It can be fun, annoying, stressful, hard, in all the good ways.

That alone is enough to lift MW above any of the Undergrounds. And I've said virtually nothing about the rest of the game. I'm going to get into the subjective stuff now. The map is frigging awesome. You start out in what looks like the countryside, with its beautiful forested highways and what look like higher income areas. Then, as you progress further through the story and unlock more areas, you turn towards a more...dystopian look, for lack of a better word. Brown, filthy, rusty industrial areas, with garbage and graffiti. I mean look at this. This is a perfect image to give you a great idea of what this game is all about. Grunge, decadence, dystopia. You don't get the neon lights of Underground 1/2 here, as cool as they are. And the whole thing is absolutely elevated by its metal/rap mix soundtrack, one that would be called "grimdark" today, but would also be instantly recognizable by any fan of the game. This is another way MW excels over the predecessors in my opinion. And that is the vibe. The atmosphere. I know people love the night from Underground, but in my opinion, MW offers a far more cohesive, far more complete package, and not just when it comes to aesthetics.

I feel like the whole experience is streamlined beautifully. Each thing flows into the next. The story is simple, yet it has stakes. At the same time, it plays into the game's Blacklist mechanic, which has you competing with members of the "blacklist", in order to climb up the ladder. But you have to challenge these drivers first, by completing milestones. That's how the game basically "forces" you to experience all it has to offer. No shortcuts here, you have to work to get to the top and earn back what's arguably the single most iconic car ever to be put in a video game: The BMW M3 GTR. The absolute legend, the unicorn. A car so iconic, they're still milking it 20 years later, to remind you of the long past glory days of the franchise.

Yes, I am fanboying. I mean, this was THE GAME when it was new, especially for car people. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that it is, to this day, my benchmark for car games. Seriously, it holds up, graphics look good to this day (if you don't focus on the backgrounds), driving physics are arcade-y, but still grounded enough to make you feel like a hero, even though they're not even close to being realistic. This game has the mojo and the franchise has been in steady decline ever since. There were some highlights of course. Carbon was a good attempt at a sequel, but rushed, it even brought back the customization from Underground...or most of it at least. Shift tried to do something. Then there was the 2015 reboot, which is easily in my Top 3 Need For Speeds, plagued by issues as it may be, some tiny, others not so much. And ever since then...crap.

What happened to Need For Speed? When did they lose the recipe? At some point, they went back to doing classic NFS, no customization, no story, not even the option to buy cars, nothing, just races to get to the finish line first. They just can't seem to get it right anymore. I still go back to the original MW every now and then and I can't help but appreciate how perfect it is, within reason. Everything in that game is what it needs to be, and every thing works with each other to create a great well-oiled machine that just does what's it's meant to do. I don't understand why newer games can't get it right. I thought the aforementioned NFS 2015 was an honestly GREAT attempt, but some of the decisions made for that game baffle me. But I can forgive virtually everything about it...except for one thing. Always online? Really? I can only hope that they patch the game before they inevitably take down the servers. Anyway, I digress.

Need for Speed used to be THE franchise for car games, and now it's but a shadow of its former self, if not a joke. I guess it still sells though, which is why they're still pushing the games out. I just wish we could once again reach those same highs from -sigh- 20 years ago. It really is incredible that it's been that long.

Play Need For Speed: Most Wanted if you haven't, it's great.

Seems to be the remaster of a PS3 / Xbox 360 title. The name rings a bell, but I never played it.

Some context on the remaster (not mine)

For those who never heard of the game, it's a remaster(?) of an old PS3 Action RPG that apparently had a real rocky development. And you're absolutely gonna notice some rough areas with quests that don't really resolve, story wise, or choices that seem big having few(if any) consequences while others will turn a whole faction into your sworn enemy.

Despite all that, there is certainly fun to be had here. I'm playing a pure rogue build at the moment and the shit I can get up to is downright silly. In town I rob basically everyone. If the pockets can be picked or the chests/drawers/desks/etc can be looted, I'm taking a look. I've got a smoke bomb to drop the odds of being detected to near 0%(or literally 0% when not picking pockets), and I use alchemy to craft potions to turn me invisible when the smoke bomb is on cooldown. Most recently I hit up a gnomish capital, robbed everyone of note I could find, and used their stolen bank keys to burgle the local bank.

In combat, I've got a permanent poison application buff for my daggers and bow, and a permanent crit damage buff. I like to sneak up on enemies and assassinate them quietly, dealing absolutely absurd damage and often leaving a poisoned corpse that will likely explode and poison every enemy nearby. The smoke bomb I mentioned earlier? In a combat setting it stuns and poisons enemies while cloaking me. So often when I'm spotted I'll let the enemy get close, drop this and get behind the stunned, dying enemies to start assassinating again.

When that's not an option is typically when the bow and mines come out. I've got a pretty chill set up for most battles where I scatter a bunch of bleed inducing mines in front of me, then fire a scatter of arrows that inflict poison and can stack bleed. And because of another silly skill of mine I've a chance per hit to add a nice chunk of damage against bleeding foes.

But yeah, did I mention the game is fucking big? I think I've been at it for 50-60 hours and I'm still nowhere near the front lines.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/warcraft-2-orcs-and-humans-remastered-apparently-leaks-ahead-of-the-rts-series-30th-anniversary-direct-next-week

Found this review elsewhere (credits at the end). First time I hear about it, curious to see what people think

I expect most people have heard of Return of the Obra Dinn. It’s a 2018 Game where you are investigating the fate of the crew of the ship Obra Dinn, and its perhaps even more mysterious return. Your task is to discover what became of each crew member (and passenger), with the aid of a watch that lets you return to the point of their death and a ledger that confirms correct fates in sets of three. It’s probably one of the best known and regarded indie games of recent years.

I started the game years ago, got stuck, and gave up. Last week I went back and started a new game, and completed it fairly quickly. As far as I know Obra Dinn is the only game where you play as an insurance investigator, which makes me regret never completing a Chartered Insurance Institute qualification as that might have given me an advantage.

To keep from going on too long I'm just going to talk a tiny bit about the gameplay, then focus on the atmosphere & story, before giving a few tips that I hope might help new players avoid frustration.

Gameplay

Return of the Obra Dinn is partly a game of deduction. But I think it’s a game of observation most of all. Paying attention to where people are, who they’re with, what accent they have, making sure you look all around, being careful to pick up on every mention of someone’s name.

It’s meant to be possible to complete the game without guessing at all, but I expect only a vanishingly small number of people manage this. How much to guess is really up to you. I generally held off unless I had 1 in 2 odds or was particularly struggling. (I was more flexible with the notoriously difficult Chinese topmen.)

Atmosphere & story

To me Return of the Obra Dinn is a triumph of atmosphere and empathy. The stark presentation, the design of the scenes, the vivid voice acting, the need to pay attention to what’s around you. There are few, if any, games that have made me feel for the characters so much; the crew cracking as the voyage goes from bad to worse.

There are scenes that stay vividly in my mind: on a walkway around the edge of a deck, peering in through narrow viewports to a scene of terror and violence; perched on the rigging as a lightning strike cracks the sky; two characters sitting in shock by the bloody body of another in the mess, one holding his head in his hands.

I wonder if this is helped by the fact that you don’t interact with the characters. There’s never a reason to think of them instrumentally, as a means to a gameplay end, and they will never react (or fail to react) to you in ways that seem odd or limited.

What feels less successful is the overall story and characterisation. The story never seemed to fully come together. It mostly followed logically enough from an initial incident, but there were a couple of things that seemed to come out of left-field (eg. the background to “justice at sea”). The background to what’s going on should be mysterious but I never felt quite satisfied with how it was set up. Of course it’s always possible I missed some important details.

If anything I think the limited characterisation matters to me more than the story. It was hard to get a read on the characters and how their feelings and knowledge changed over the course of the story. I would have loved to get a better idea of the relationships between the officers, why some groups formed, exactly what motivated some actions, even why some people were on the ship at all. This would add depth to the scenes and tie them together better.

That kind of detail is always going to be difficult when you have 60 odd people to investigate, and you’re only seeing flashes of them at particular moments. It’s perhaps a problem that can’t be solved within the format of the game, without incongruously jamming in extra information or scenes.

Tips

I don’t want to stop people figuring things out how to approach the game by themselves, but these are a few things that I wish I’d thought of when starting the game. The first two are to help keep track of what you’re doing, the last is something that can potentially screw you over a bit if you don’t do it.

1. Write down fates you’ve tried which aren’t correct: when you verify three fates, you know that every other fate you’ve put in is wrong.

2. Write down your guesses at matching names and faces: you’ll usually have a mix of people you’re certain of (but don’t know the fate of) and those you’re not sure of, so it helps to know the difference.

3. Use fates you’re certain of strategically: if you’ve got three fates you’re sure of, fill in two and then test out one you’re unsure of.

Conclusion

Return of the Obra Dinn is a highly praised game so you probably don’t need me to recommend it. What I will say is that it worked for me. I got caught up in the atmosphere of the game, which doesn’t happen easily, and the deduction in the game struck that tricky balance between challenging without being frustrating (well, second time round).

Also the music gets stuck in my head really badly.

https://old.reddit.com/comments/1gjd93l

Credits: https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1gk8l99/mile_pace_of_nyc_marathon_finishers_by_age_group/

I had fun analyzing data from the NYC marathon, which was this past weekend. I made this chart in python with the joypy library, my first time using it. You can access the data in this google sheet if you're interested: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O_zxndHKhKMIfJ9e7_M5L7b4F3S__d1nVnUS8iZn8yE/edit?gid=0#gid=0

And see my full analysis of it here:
https://residualthoughts.substack.com/p/marcelo-and-karolina-the-fastest