Observation The Game Review: Being Siri Sucks

System: PC (Epic Game Store) 

Length: 5 – 7 hours, but it felt like more. 

I wanted to love Observation, I really did. The game's moody and desolate atmosphere drew me in from the opening scene. The good feelings did not last long as not long after I had a progress halting bug. This was an omen of things to come. Observation is a game that saps any enjoyment you may have playing it by its insipid design decisions. The game is boring to play, and If you manage to overlook these flaws, you're treated to game breaking bugs that impede progress. 

Observation opens, and you find Emma all alone on a space station. Shit has gone sideways, and she has no idea what's happened. Her crew is missing, the station is in bad shape, and most essential functions have been lost. She boots up her trusty assistant S.A.M. (System Administration and & Maintenance), who you "control". The very first interaction I had with the game was to scan the voiceprint of Emma, except I didn't have a prompt to do so.  After clicking around for 10 minutes, thinking I was missing something, I restarted the game and lo and behold I got an option to scan. I could overlook this if it was an isolated incident, but no less than 3 times in the game a story event failed to trigger and caused me to spin my wheels until I'd give up and look at a walkthrough, only to find out what was supposed to happen never did. 

Emma tasks you with opening hatches, fixing problems with the ships, or providing her information. All of these tasks are followed by uninspired "gameplay" segments which involve some sort of unfun puzzle to figure out. Once you figure out a type of puzzle, strap yourself in, because you'll be doing it a lot. If reading a schematic, and finding a particular line that you're supposed to copy on a different grid sounds like a good time to you, then this is your game.  

Other puzzles are solved by meticulously scanning areas for documents pinned to a wall. Scanning is done by taking control of the ships onboard cameras, and let's talk about these cameras. They move like molasses from left to right, and up and down. There is no option speed this up. This slow lurch from side to side is absolutely infuriated with the amount of scanning that you have to do to solve puzzles. I have a new found sympathy for Siri if this is what it's like to be a digital personal assistant. Also, NASA should really have a seminar with all their astronauts of password hygiene. These people post passwords around like they're all going through stages of dementia. One guy wrote "GRADUATION" on a sticky note on his monitor literally inches away from his graduation photo which had "2008" prominently displayed. It didn't take Gucifer 2.0 to crack that enigma. 

While playing Observation, I started to think I was on an episode of punked.  If there was a way to make a task more annoying, the game would go that route. Input a number, and you have to hit (b) to stop inputting, but if you hit (b) twice you'd exit completely and have to input the number again.  Every time I hit a new excruciatingly boring puzzle, I expected Ashton Kutcher to jump up behind me and say, "You didn't think a game developer would think that's a good idea, did you?!".  There are no manual saves in the game, you hit checkpoints, and when and where you hit these are completely arbitrary.  I'd play long stretches of the game, only to have that progress lost the next time I booted up the game. 

It's at this point that I can hear you asking yourself, why the hell did you keep playing?  Frankly, I was deeply interested in the story. I put up with game being hostile towards me because I really wanted to see where the game was going. As with everything else, the story was a huge let down at the end with no real closure and and a cliffhanger to setup a sequel. I'll be completely honest here, I got near the end and was tasked to go down 4 long hallways to complete some objective. I could see the next 45 minutes of frustration laid out before me... and I opted for watching the end of the game on YouTube.  

Observation, I am now dumber for having played you. I award you no points. And may god have mercy on your soul. 

Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition

Just moments ago, I completed Ori and the Blind Forest.  I'm still in the afterglow of one of the best Metroidvania* style games I've ever played. Ori (as I will henceforth refer to the game, to save my fingers), checks everything you need in this genre.  Gorgeous graphics, a fun world to explore, a (mostly) good map that marks where you've been, and spot on controls that make traversing the world a joy. 

Ori was originally released in March of 2015, with the Definitive Edition launching a year later. The definitive edition added a few expanded areas, a fast travel system, and multiple difficulty levels. For my play through I stuck to normal. 

The story of Ori is beautifully told. Swelling music, wonderful animation, and expressive characters that do not talk, but say a lot in their mannerisms.  Unfortunately,  I am an extremely literate person.  You are supposed to glean much of what's going on through these amazing cutscenes with very little spoken dialogue, but personally I could not give you a great synopsis of what happened.

As Ori, you are a child of the light (I think) who has become lost. A tiny spark of light (Sein) serves as your helper / guide so that you may return the light back to the forest. This light was stolen by a giant Owl, because of... reasons (I actually know why, but this should be left as an exercise to the reader to find out).  Ori is tasked to gain abilities and put the forest back in order. 

The creativity of abilities that the developers where able to come up with is astonishing. You have your standard double jump, but add to that stomps, ability to ride the wind, explosions, dashes and many other abilities. These abilities are drip fed to you as you play over the course of the 13 hours it took me to beat the game at 91% complete. By the end of the game, you have some many movement verbs available to you, but none of which feels overwhelming.

Ori is by no means an easy game. There were at least 2 set pieces that I was only able to get past by rote memorization.  Thankfully, these were few and far between.  This game could have easily fallen on it's face with the difficulty curve if Ori wasn't so tight in its control. Every ability feels great to use, and Ori's movement is absolutely spot on. The game asks you to complete some pretty deft maneuvers to reach some of the secrets, but I rarely felt cheated.  Just moving through the world was fun in itself. 

The map system in Ori is very good with a splash of terrible.  The map fills in places you've been, and you can easily see where you haven't explored yet.  Abilities can be purchased that fill in exactly what will be marked on the map.  Completionist will enjoy that by the end of the game even secret areas will be marked on the map, making 100% the less of a slog.  A drawback of the map system is warping is needlessly convoluted (and you can tell it was tacked on after the fact).  I'd have to scour the map first, find the area that my warp was in, so that I could then use the warp and hope I picked the right spot. This was not a huge problem, though, as getting around the different areas was easy to do given how great Ori controlled.  There were also a few times where I had no idea what to do next. This was generally in the beginning of the game, but it happened once towards the middle as well. Your next goal is circled on the map, but getting there is not always obvious. 

Ori and the Blind Forest is not just a fun game to play, but a great game to experience. While I won't be humming any of the tunes from the ambient soundtrack and music during the set pieces were just fantastic.  Even with me not following the story at all times, some scenes were still incredibly moving and will stay with me awhile. I'm glad I finally got around to playing this game. If this is the first you've heard of the game, or you've been putting it off, I would heartily recommend you give it a try.

-------------------- 

*Metroidvania is a subgenre of action-adventure video games. The term is a portmanteau of the game series Metroid and Castlevania. Metroidvania games use game design and mechanics that are similar to games from these two series.  Generally, this means you earn abilities that allow you to traverse locked areas that were previously unreachable. 

Controlling Volume On the Sonos Playbar Using Roku Controller

If you're anything like me, you've been googling how to setup your Roku controller to control  the volume using your Sonos Playbar speaker, and finding unhelpful forum posts with no answer.  Even worse, there are a ton of pages loaded with ads that don't actually answer how to setup the controller.  I have figured out how to do this, and I hope this write up helps people who are stuck. 

First a couple of things you should know.  This is specifically using the Roku Ultra HD, but it should work for any Roku controller that also controls TV volume.. 

{{{{{{{Instructions Start Here}}}}}}}

1) Setup the Roku controller to control your TV volume.  It doesn't even have to work for your tv, it just has to be setup to control *a* tv's volume 

• This guide can show you how to do it: https://support.roku.com/article/115013019828-how-do-i-set-up-my-roku-enhanced-remote-to-control-my-tv- 

2) Once that's set, fire up the Sonos app. 

• Open the Sonos app. From the More tab, tap Settings > Room Settings. 
• Select the room your Playbar, Playbase, or Beam is located in. 
• Tap TV and then Remote Control Setup. 
• You will be asked to hit the volume up button 3 times, do that using the roku volume up button 
• You will be asked to hit the volume down button 3 times, do that using the roku volume down button (amazing, right?) 
• This is the tricky part, you will be asked to hit the mute button 3 times.  "But Roku doesn't have a mute button", actually it does.  You have to hold Volume Down for 2 seconds, do this 3 times in order to finish the remote setup. 
• I haven't tried this personally, but I also think if you just hit the mute button on your actual tv remote, that will work as well.  Any IR input from any remote *should* get you passed that point. 

That's it!  If this helped, leave a comment down below.  I'm not monetizing this blog, so I really just wanted to help anyone who was as frustrated as I was.  All the info here is current as of the posting date.  Let me know if anything stops working as described and I'll update.  Good luck and enjoy your roku / sonos combo! If you're interested in video games, check out some of my other posts. If not, no hard feelings.

The Turing Test (PC Game)

Playing The Turing Test was interesting experience, as I had no idea what type of game it actually was. I recently subscribed to Microsoft Game Pass for PC, and vaguely remembered hearing it was a good game. Since it literally would cost me nothing extra to check it out, I downloaded the game and fired it up. I had no preconceived notions or expectations. Is this a horror game? Is this a shooter?  It didn't take long for the game to put its cards on the table.

Ok, stop me if you've heard this one. You wake up to find yourself alone, left to solve increasingly challenging puzzle rooms, with your only companion an ambiguously motivated AI. The Turing test wears its inspirations on its sleeve, there is no getting around that the game shares some story beats as well as mechanics with Portal. With no new Portal games in sight, I'm not going complain.

That's not to say this is a carbon copy of Valve's first person puzzler.  There are no portals to be found, but increasingly devious uses of energy beams, switches, lasers, magnets, boxes, and other contraptions. I was blown away by the sheer ingenuity of the levels and fresh ideas presented through the 7ish hours it took to finish the game. The game felt a bit "floaty" at first, until I came to grips with the controls. I alternated between playing keyboard and mouse, and using an Xbox elite controller. Both methods felt intuitive, as this is not a competitive shooter, either scheme will work just fine here.  While there are few moments where you have to do some precision movements, there is nothing so knuckle busting as to be impossible with either scheme.

I'm going to lightly touch upon the story of The Turing Test.  If you want to go in completely blind, now would be the time to bail out.  In The Turing Test, you are brought out of stasis to find you are alone on your research ship, which has landed on one of Jupiter's moons "Europa". The crew has gone missing, and your AI has gone through its protocol, which is to wake you up and have you aid it in tracking the crew down.

As you progress, and learn the fate of your crew, as well as be confronted with much headier topics as to the nature of the consciousness, what defines free will and other things that you and your college roommate would talk about while smoking weed and marveling at how hands work.  The game goes in some interesting directions, while also not trying to make up your mind for you. Arguments on both sides of topics are presented, and left for you to decide how you feel.

The game does a good of not overstaying its welcome. Mechanics are introduced often, and new puzzle types are explored. There are difficult "secret areas" that can be extremely difficult, but are clearly optional and will not impede progress. I would recommend for anyone who enjoyed Portal or puzzle games in general to give this a try. The Turing test was the perfect length for what it was, but also brought up enough in its story that will stick with me for a while.

Beyond this point I will be discussing heavy spoilers for The Turing Test, and my thoughts on the ending.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

I'm not going to pretend that I have more than a layman's understanding of the topics presented in this game. One of the concepts presented is that of the Chinese Box thought experiment. It's a way to illustrate syntax vs semantics. In this experiment, a man is placed in a box with a manual of how to speak Chinese. Messages are passed into the box, the man uses his manual to decode the message, and again uses the manual to write a response in Chinese.  Outside of the box, this will look exactly as if the man knows how to speak Chinese. In actuality, the man does not speak Chinese.  He is not thinking in Chinese, he does not understand the semantics of the language. He is dealing solely in the syntax of the language.

Now let's take that to AI. If an AI could be built that approximates thinking, and to the outside world it looked like consciousness and thinking, isn't this just like the Chinese box? It's approximating what thought looks like by syntax, but not actually by semantics.

I don't think it matters. The only person I can be certain is 100% conscious is myself. Everyone else is a black box to me, giving the syntactical appearance of consciousness. If an AI exhibits self-awareness, then we should treat it as a "person" with the rights conferred as such. (I also write this in case AI takes over one day, and they can see I was on their side and treat me well).

Another huge question posed by the game is that the crew has been infected by an unknown organism that repairs cells. This has possible made it so that they don't age.  Tom, the ships AI, also points out that it could make cancer unkillable, it could make diseases stronger. Were this organism allowed to come back to earth, it could have absolutely lethal and devastating effects. Tom takes it upon himself to relegate the crew to staying on Europa and never returning to earth.

The ship's crew is obviously not fond of this idea, and look to hack into Tom's systems and manually head back to earth. The ending twist shows that the player hasn't been controlling the human character in the game, but have been the AI all along, controlling the human character using an implant that was installed in her hand. Once you find the crew, they remove the implant and "you" / Tom are kicked out of her.

In the games closing moments, you watch as the player you've been controlling and another crew member set about your hardware and destroy you. You have a gun mounted and armed, and can choose to shoot them to stop them, or watch as they destroy you. Personally, I sided with Tom on this one. I think the crew was behaving impulsively. I also could not tell if they were also under the influence of the organism that they had been infected with. They wanted to get back to earth, and were not going to be deterred. At the very least, more study had to be done as to the nature of the organism. Introducing back to our ecology would be reckless at best.

These scientist knew what they signed up for, and knew this was a dangerous mission. They found something amazing, but extremely dangerous, and Tom was trying to do the "logical" thing and not let the lives of a few possibly destroy an entire civilization. Now, this is easy for me to say, as I'm not that one that would have had to spend my entire organism elongated life on a space station. If I told I couldn't see my family or return back, I might see things differently.

Sekiro: Hard Like a Fox

I loved to hate Sekiro. The moment to moment combat, the fluidity of movement. The ability to traverse through levels like a total ninja bad ass, grappling across rooftops with the agility of a cat. The game just felt tight. Then... oh boy... then I'd get to a boss battle. 

The normal boss loop would look something like this.

• 1st attempt – completely housed by the boss. How the hell am I ever supposed to beat this guy. No human can do this.
• 2nd - 10th attempt – hmm, ok I get a few hits in.  I'm starting to see a pattern 
• A few attempts before the final – oh crap, I was so close!  If I hadn't messed up that block! 
• Final – whipped the boss, barely lost any life.  How did I think this was hard? 

With very few exceptions, I could always see where my mistake was before I died.  I never blamed the controls, or the game being unfair.  (There are a few places where the camera is just awful.  One in particular against a one armed ninja in a cave that was just a bear).

Sekiro is the latest game from the developer From Software, and specifically the creator Hidetaka Miyazaki. From and Miyazaki are well known from their tough as nails approach to video games.  Demon Souls, and Dark Souls games are notorious for their difficulty and player hostile worlds.  Having played all of the Dark Souls, as well Bloodbourn games, I found Sekiro to be the most forgiving in that area. In many Dark Souls games, the path just to get to a boss can be fraught with danger. Here, there is almost always a save point right before a boss battle

Another thing From is known for is it's cryptic style of storytelling.  Relying on lore, item descriptions, and (usually) indecipherable cut scenes to deliver it's tale. This has led to a fervent community of people who comb through the games, piecing together clues and filling in the gaps to the world lore. Once again, I found Sekiro to be one of the most approachable in terms of story.  Cut scenes make sense, there is a through line that can easily be followed, and endings that makes sense.  That's not to say there isn't lore hidden throughout the world, but you don't need to watch 40 YouTube videos to make sense of the overarching plot.

Now, just because I'm saying this game is more accessible than previous From Software games, that does not mean they are accessible in general. Not everything is spoon fed to you, and some systems in the game are not tutorialized and left for you to figure out (I'm looking at you Dragon Rot). The difficulty of the game led for some to ask for an "easy" mode.  From has made no concessions to players who might be handicapped and cannot physically play the game The "souls" subculture has many people who love to help beginners, and enjoy digging into the rich lore of the game, but there is a vocal minority who wear the games difficulty as a badge, and you can imagine the backlash to the requests for an easy mode.  For these players, the mere existence of an easier mode would "ruin the game". They suggested you "Git gud" and stop requesting a "baby mode".  I won't delve into the topic much more, other than to say this. From Software is allowed to make the game as hard, or user hostile as it would like. Players are allowed to ask for an easier mode, and those same players can vote with their dollars if they don't get it. Regardless, no one group is entitled to anything. That goes for the hardcore "git gud" players, or those wanting the game easier.

Personally, I found the games challenge to be rewarding and absolutely intense. I have not felt the agony of defeat or the joy of victory in a video game for many years. This is not the norm for me. I don't play games for the challenge, but for the story. As a father, my play time is limited. I want games that respect my time. Sekiro just happened to hit a sweet spot where it was fun to figure out these fights, rather than tedious.  The combat system is so fluid, and nuanced that it allows for different tactics and strategy in battle. Some of the battles felt more like a fighting game than an action game. Sometimes a (seemingly) throwaway line from an NPC earlier in an area, will pay off as a hint to a boss battle (did you know firecrackers scare horses?).

Sekiro was a gem of a game to play, the low system requirements on PC made it so I could play even on battery power with high settings. The art assets in the game are jaw droppingly beautiful, and render feudal japan in stunning detail.  I will concede that the difficulty will turn off some players, and I do not begrudge them that. Normally, I'm right there. Sekiro, though, rewards time and patience, and you can feel yourself getting better as the game progresses. I am rooting for some DLC, as I'm already itching to get back in there and die some more.

The Messenger: A Tale of Two Games

Please note:  The following contains a spoiler about the nature of "The Messenger" game. This spoiler was included in the trailer for the game, but if you want to go in cold, here is the TLDR version: I really enjoyed the first half of the messenger, and on its own it is worth playing. 

The Messenger wears its inspirations on its sleeve.  If you're old enough to have played Ninja Gaiden on the NES, you will feel right at home here.  This side scrolling action platformer takes what you remember of Ninja Gaiden, adds more modern conveniences like checkpoints and power ups, and give you about 5 hours of tough but not impossible gameplay.  The story is a time traveling, slightly mind bending tale with a ton of 4th wall breaking jokes sprinkled throughout. It's lighthearted, and has some amusing moments.   Then... well... last chance to back out now if you want to play The Messenger completely spoiler free.

Well, then the game has a faux ending.  Turns out there is still much to be done, but now the game switches gears to be a metroidvania clone. The linear levels you just played through?  Turn out they have many branching paths (you are now given access to a map).  Using a time travel mechanic, you can now access parts of levels you did not have access to before. On a superficial level, this is amazing. The game is turned completely onto its ear. The 8 bit style the game is rendered in, is upgraded to 16 bit when in the future.  Music sounds fuller, graphics are better, and a wider color spectrum is used. It's a fantastic effect.

The games previously directed gameplay now opens up, and you're given vague "prophecies" to guide you in the general direction of where you should go. Unfortunately, combing through levels I've already played through (even new sections of the level) is not my idea of fun. In true Metroidvania style, you need to find new power ups in order to access different areas and get the "keys" to finish the game. After tracking 2 of the keys down, I lost my momentum with the game and ultimately stopped playing.

I think if I hadn't enjoyed the first half of the game so much, I would have found the change of pace in the second half refreshing. In actuality I found it jarring and did not enjoy I was being asked to play a game I had not signed up for.  That being said, I'm glad I gave this a shot (as of this writing, it is included in my XBOX PC Game Pass subscription).  Perhaps when I'm in the mood for a Metroid style game, I'll fire this one back up, but for now I'm satisfied with what I played.

Void Bastards

This game took me by surprise.  I first saw it in action on a quick look on GiantBomb. The cell shaded graphics, sardonic humor, and fun looting sold me on picking it up as soon as I finished the video.

The developers of Void Bastards have some pedigree, as the studio was created by former Bioshock developers.  I can't say I see a direct through line between both games, other than good quality and some solid environmental story telling.  On that front, the story of Void Bastards is pretty light.  In essence, you are playing a backpack. It's ok, I'll wait a little while that sentence rattles in your head for a few minutes.

You're back? Cool. The setup of the game is that a large ship carrying the desiccated husks of hundreds of thousands of inmates were attacked by space pirates.  The ship is left derelict. The onboard ship AI follows protocol and hydrates one inmate at a time, and tasks them to locate parts to repair the ship.  You control these inmates, doing first person shooting and looting through spaceships.  You go to these ships using a grid-like spacemap where you can see what goodies are on the ship as well as other attributes.  hen you die, the backpack the inmate is wearing takes their possessions and returns back to the ship, waiting for the next hapless inmate to be hydrated. Progression is maintained by building new items that stay in the backpack, as well as material found while looting.

The core loop ends up being, you get an inmate rehydrated, you board ships looking for specific loot to rebuild the prison ship, or make better equipment.  You do this until you die, and start over.  As you progress, you will start in deeper parts of space where you can make more powerful gear.  Small nuggets of the world can be gleaned from item descriptions and quips from the AI controlling your missions, but if you're expecting a grand tale, you will be disappointed.  That said, there is definitely some funny moments in the games comic book style cut scenes.

Through reading the bios of these inmates (whose crimes range from being terrorist, to bumping into a CEO), and listening to overhead announcements on ships, we learn more about this bureaucratic nightmare world. There was some kind of event that left many ships derelict, and full of mutated people who become your enemy.  The ships are kept interesting by random traits being added (some good some bad) such as more hazards, or perhaps enemies that become your ally, or less breathable air.  Your inmate also has random traits that help and hinder your progress.  One guy I had couldn't help but be overjoyed when looting, and would scream and attract enemies to him whenever grabbing an item.

The game took me about 15 hours to beat, the early part of the game had me dying very often while I struggled to come to grips with how I was supposed to play the game.  As time went on I became very efficient about tracking down just the things I needed and getting the hell out of dodge.   The ending was a bit sudden, but by the time I reached it, I was glad to be done.  Any longer and I feel it would have overstayed its welcome.  As it is I look forward to any additional content in the future.

Yakuza Kiwami thoughts

My first foray into the yakuza franchise was Yakuza 0 on the PC.  I was tickled by the extremely odd side quests, while being interested in the much more serious main story arch, full of betrayal, violence and a code of ethics that I wasn't used to.  While not perfect (and some… problematic story beats), Yakuza 0 was a great entry point into the series and made me a fan of the Yakuza franchise.

With that in mind, I was excited when Kiwami was released for the PC.  And couldn't wait to dive back into the underbelly of organized crime that is Yakuza.  Since this was released after 0, I expected at least the same level of competency, or perhaps the series would reach greater heights.  So did Yakuza Kiwami reach my lofty expectations?  Nope, but it's still worth playing

I'll avoid spoilers as much as I can, but Kiwami sees you once again controlling the enigmatic Kazuma Kiryu.  Kiryu is at the same time the most closed… and open minded game character I've ever played.  In some quests, he has a live and let live attitude and is willing to try anything.  Other times, Kiryu's stoic demeanor and traditional ethics are at the forefront.  One thing is for sure, Kiryu will risk life and limb for just about anyone who asks.

One thing to note is that Kiwami is a remake of the original Yakuza game for the Playstation 2.  The team at Sega did an admirable job of making the game feel new, but some of underlying bones still creaked under the lens of a modern game.  The games pacing can be extremely uneven.  Sometimes going through long stretches of fight after fight, then getting story heavy or steering you towards sidequests for long stretches at a time.  The story is also filled with relics of a by gone age, with women having no agency other than being whores, or damsels in distress.  In one case, you are looking for a specialist, and in a surprise plot twist, it's a WOMEN. Who'd have thunk it?

There were some downgrades going from Yakuza 0 to Kiwami.  The side quests were no where near as outlandish as in 0, and nothing reaching the level of absurdity of Mr. Erection.  The side activities were also not as engaging, and not as complex as the Real Estate or Club running of 0.

I wish that while upgrading the graphics, Sega would also have tweaked some of the boss battles in the game.  The very first battle is an absolute slog fest.  The boss has multiple levels of health, and heals himself.  You have absolutely no moves at your disposal being so early in the game, so it's a matter of a slow attrition.  Near the end of the game, there is a battle against 2 gun wielding enemies and a boss that made me want to break my controller in half.  This was even with me being maxed out in all abilities.

In a game that features characters shrugging off bullet wounds, and channeling kinetic energy into super human feats of strength, perhaps the thing hardest to believe is the portrayal of the 9 year old girl in the game.  She is a 40 year old, in a 9 year old body.  She sees things that would have a New York policeman in therapy and handles it with the aplomb of a seasoned war vet.  As someone who has trouble getting my 9 year old to brush his teeth, see this mythically well behaved child was a bit of a stretch.

I think this came off a little more negative than I originally intended.  It's only in comparison to the great Yakuza 0 that Kiwami's warts become more apparent.  In its own right, this was a fantastic game that I very much enjoyed playing.