“Star Trek Picard” Review

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Star Trek Picard, or just Picard, is a science fiction series streaming on Amazon Prime. Its premise is that the Romulan star threatens to go supernova and destroy the Romulan homeworld. The Federation offers to help and constructs a fleet of transports to resettle the populace. This offer would save the majority of Romulans and potentially heal the animosity between the Romulans and the Federation.

Of course, things go awry. The transport ships mysteriously attack the Federation shipyards on Mars, destroying the transport ships and means of production. 

So far, so good. It is a galaxy-impacting event worthy of the Star Trek brand and the eponymous now Admiral’s attention. The series also weaves in questions around the ethics of synthetic life, something suitably contentious.

However, the series immediately deviates from expectation. The galaxy blames the Federation for its woes. It forgot the supernova or that the Federation was also a victim of the attack. Far from showing its skill in diplomacy, compassion and problem-solving displayed during almost every Star Trek season and episode, the Federation turns inward and tacitly accepts the blame. 

Jean-Luc Picard sulks in his chateau for fourteen years rather than showing the stubbornness and ingenuity evident throughout Star Trek The Next Generation (TNG). Instead of getting a ship or helping, something that takes a single call at the series’ start, he abandons both his cause and crew.

Even when Jean-Luc Picard returns at the series’s start, he is oblivious to his charisma, unwillingly tormenting characters like Raffi and Elnor. He forgets to respect and be patient with others, even scoring points with Federation Admirals when the old Picard would think strategically, building a trusting relationship.

Perhaps the writers felt a seemingly perfect character needed a fall to develop. It is hard to improve perfection. However, Picard’s blinkered self-righteousness endangers any pathos.

Meanwhile, examining synthetic life’s ethics promised much. Star Trek has a history of exploring what makes us human. The original series contrasted emotional humans with Spock, the logical Vulcan. TNG had Data. However, the series reduces synthetic life to a MacGuffin. The series would have lost little by substituting an alien race or a unique technology.

Picard, the series, wants to be the gritty, dark Star Trek for the new millennium, where we see every leader and public institution in shades of grey rather than the more straightforward “black and white” of yesteryear. Heroes tire from the impossible standards to which others hold them, and their faults are laid bare. The hopeful patience of the Federation has waned, as seen in other series like Discovery.

By contrast, while the almost perfection of TNG characters was unrealistic, TNG presented an aspirational version of humanity. While TNG often dealt with ethical issues superficially, it introduced them to a broad audience. While humanity faced challenges, TNG’s underlying themes were always positive.

Instead, this series seems obsessed with fan service. It provides a touching farewell for Data. However, while seeing familiar characters helps rekindle parasocial relationships, their age also shows the thirty years since TNG finished. TNG and the subsequent movies were fun and much loved. However, time moves on.

When not lounging in nostalgia, the series gets endlessly sidetracked. Picard’s companions invent gravitas in each episode by a rushed flashback, then deal with it by boarding themselves in their quarters to brood. Of course, they briefly exit their stupor to perform plot-dictated tasks.

Each character deserves more screen time to develop organically and subtly. Alternatively, consolidate characters. The writers could have combined Rios with Raffi or Jurati, for example.

Despite the complaints above, the series is enjoyable. The plot weaves unpredictably, taxing the viewer just enough, and leads to a suitable climax. The acting and special effects are what you would expect for such a series.

Patrick Stewart portrays perhaps his most memorable role well. His deep, resonant voice and slightly-British accent give him a disarming, reassuring authority and grandfatherly charm. However, Stewart appears awkward when expressing genuine emotion, like during the Raffi and Elnor character arcs. Picard’s emotions are most impactful when understated.

The series is at its best when dealing with the psychology and ruthlessness of Romulans. The early, slow-burn mystery is enticing. The series finally shows the terrifying potential of the Tal Shiar, the Romulan secret police.

However, the test of a work is whether it stands on its own. Remove the fan service and nostalgia, and I wonder whether anyone would have produced Picard. Add potential misinterpretation of or disrespect to its source material, and you have a contentious, polarising series.

The trailers for season 2 appear to continue the nostalgia trip, revisiting the “fish out of water” time travel trope from the admired movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Perhaps I am old fashioned, but the producers are treading dangerous ground.

“Reclamation” Review

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Reclamation cover, showing the elite logo superimposed over an earth-like planet.

Reclamation is a military science fiction novel set in the galaxy from the computer game Elite Dangerous. It follows Kahina Loren, the unfavoured daughter of an Imperial senator. A coup thrusts her out of her cloistered world into a storm of competing political and economic interests. 

Drew Wager wastes no prose. The book moves quickly, only dwelling enough on any topic to push the reader forward. Character roles and motivations are quickly apparent. Description and background are minimal but vivid.

The book demands little from its reader. Other than the context setting, nothing relevant happens outside the reader’s attention or in retrospect. The reader always knows as much or more than the characters. 

Reclamation is faithful to its source material, the Elite Dangerous lore and universe, while not confusing or overloading newcomers. The game’s archetypical ships appear, as do Coriolis starports, frameshift drives and the Federation and Empire. Much of the plot involves flying in and fighting these ships, just like in the game.

Reclamation also helps fill that yearning void in Elite Dangerous around lore. Elite hints at so much but shuns story-driven content in favour of letting players tell their own. 

Reclamation is light on themes and subtext. There is some eventual recognition that violence is less effective than diplomacy. Those looking for introspection or dialog other than to hurtle the plot forward will be disappointed. 

Characters develop little and are unnuanced. Kahina, the protagonist, is part anti-hero and part reader surrogate until some rushed character development at the book’s end. The supporting characters are shallow and functional, mainly helping the protagonist progress.

However, I enjoyed the conversations between diplomats and patrons, each dripping with insincerity and occasionally wit. It allowed Drew Wagar to be more subtle, contrasting them with the rest of the cast.

The book is a fast but light read, accessible to many. In the small but crowded military science fiction genre, it holds its own, focusing on an action-filled and weaving plot. Elite Dangerous players looking for lore will enjoy Reclamation, as will anyone looking for a novel version of an action movie. Someone looking for something more profound or character development should look elsewhere.

“Elite Dangerous Odyssey” Review

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Elite Dangerous Odyssey image showing armed, suited commanders on a planet surface with an Anaconda and Cobra Mk II (space ships) flying above them

I had mixed feelings when Frontier Development released the Odyssey expansion for Elite Dangerous. On the one hand, new content and improved graphics could breathe life into Elite Dangerous and take it in a new direction. However, the on-foot play could dilute the core premise of flying spaceships. The inevitable launch bugs could also cause a player backlash. Both turned out to be true.

Odyssey introduced the ability to finally leave your ship and walk on planets or in space stations, what some call “space legs”. It added two new ranks to progress: Mercenary (on-foot combat) and exobiology (scanning plant-like organisms on alien worlds). Suits and guns appeared alongside ships as the things to upgrade and engineer. Settlements, small planetary outposts, became mission locations. Surface conflict zones hinted at mixing ship and ground combat.

The problem with the above description is that, while accurate, it is ambiguous. For example, the above could turn Elite Dangerous into a universe simulator, where ships become tools rather than classes. However, Frontier provided something more modest, much to many players’ disappointment.

For example, many players were looking forward to walking around inside their ships. Frontier mentioned this early in Elite Dangerous‘s development as a long-term goal. Unfortunately, Odyssey lacks this. Many feel “teleporting” to your pilot seat from outside your ship breaks immersion. While that is true, I cannot think of anything I would sacrifice in Odyssey to add ship interiors given Frontier’s finite resources.

The new Exobiology rank added thousands of new types of plant-like alien life to find and scan. It adds additional play loops to exploration and more reason to land on planets. However, it could have been more than scan three organisms more than a few hundred metres apart.

I liked the better world-building in Odyssey. Elite Dangerous largely eschews lore to let players write their own stories. However, Odyssey’s in-game advertising and bar music emphasize things that make Elite’s galaxy unique, like the various companies that produce ships and weapons or the rare commodities players can trade. The new engineers are not just tools for progression, each having personalities and visually interesting planets.

One of the most polarizing aspects of Odyssey is the new graphics engine. The new planet graphics are gorgeous, turning Horizon’s (the previous expansion’s) beige into coloured hues and blocky barrenness into beautiful vistas. Anyone playing Elite Dangerous for sense pleasure, like many explorers, found a galaxy worth re-exploring just for the visuals.

However, the new graphics engine led to other problems, particularly in Odyssey’s new settlements. PCs that happily played Horizons on maximum settings were suddenly humbled. While Frontier is working hard to improve performance, fixing it is a long-term effort.

Odyssey’s FPS combat is polarizing. For example, some weapons are more effective against shielded opponents than non-shielded opponents and vice versa. While an Elite Dangerous staple, constantly swapping weapons frustrated many.

Some felt that high-end suits were too resilient, requiring too much damage to take down. However, while engineered suits help, you are hardly impregnable. The resilience forced a tactical- rather than twitch-based playstyle.

Many speculate Frontier released the expansion too early, possibly due to financial commitments. The poor reception and low quality were enough for Frontier to delay Odyssey’s release on consoles (PS and Xbox).

Whereas many blast Odyssey with hyperbole- and expletive-ridden rants, I take a long-term perspective. No Elite Dangerous release has been bug-free. No online game release, either. Frontier has also improved communication with a player-voted issue list and more “meet the developer” sessions. 

Odyssey is not perfect. I was frustrated by the poor performance and felt exobiology was underdeveloped. However, I enjoyed the new content. The visuals are spectacular, particularly the local star casting its rays through a coloured atmosphere. On-foot conflict zones capture FPSs’ frenetic pace while still being characteristically Elite. 

Odyssey demonstrates why many AAA FPS games have nine-figure budgets. It is hard to make an FPS with a bespoke engine (Frontier’s Cobra engine) and a setting whose scale precludes pregenerated optimizations. 

Handling player expectations is harder. As mentioned above, the promise of “space legs” conjured desires for exploring ship interiors and a Star Citizen-like experience. Many players also looked at the work required to complete the new ranks and engineer suits and decided to seek their space game thrills elsewhere.

Elite Dangerous is a relatively old game, and the wonder has faded for many. Some players yearn for unexplored mechanics and settings. Novelty has a strong gravity, even to the unreliable and incomplete Star Citizen with its dubious funding practices.

My main criticism of Odyssey is the lack of content. After a few hundred hours, most players had sufficiently engineered on-foot gear and Elite ranks in Mercenary and Exobiology. For a game that prides itself on complexity and self-discovery, even the popular Elite Dangerous Youtubers ran out of Odyssey content after a few months. Idleness breeds discontent, as they say.

Take engineering as an example. Unlocking engineers from Horizons, the previous Elite Dangerous expansion, required players to experience the game’s breadth. You had to travel far into deep space, mine, sell stolen cargo at black markets, trade rare commodities and fight. This requirement was a great example of exposing players to neglected parts of the game while leveraging existing game loops to provide new gameplay.

I suspect Frontier wanted to do something similar for the new on-foot engineers in Odyssey. However, the required content did not exist. Instead, unlocking many on-foot engineers requires a frustrating grind. Players need to repeat tasks for hours, like logging out then back in at the same location, hoping for rare materials to spawn. 

Moreover, Odyssey relies on having a strong “middle game”, specifically randomly generated on-foot missions, settlement assaults and conflict zones for replayability. From Frontier’s perspective, this maximizes the number of players using the new features. However, even fun game loops lose their appeal after hundreds or thousands of hours.

Instead, Elite Dangerous needs more “late game” content. For example, something akin to Thargoid combat with a higher difficulty level, a social aspect, and correspondingly better rewards. Such content keeps the experienced players engaged and is aspirational for new players.

Such content will likely not arrive soon. Until Odyssey releases for consoles, Frontier appears focused on performance and stability. That makes sense, given every new Odyssey-only feature added incites more resentment in console players.

Meanwhile, Frontier includes “hero” features in each monthly patch, like on-foot emotes and a new surface vehicle. They promised fleet carrier interiors for early 2022. These are all welcome. However, none will add more than a few hours of new content. They continue to emphasize “middle game” content, reusing what is already there. Perhaps new ships or on-foot Thargoid combat are coming later.

Is Odyssey “good” or “worth buying”? These are the wrong questions to ask. I have enjoyed the new content and am glad I bought it. Yes, there are performance issues and bugs. However, Frontier will have to fix these to get the revenue from the console release. 

Is Odyssey the best FPS game available? No. Many specialist FPS games offer deeper or more varied FPS play. Odyssey, like Elite as a whole, is a victim of its breadth and shallowness, becoming unintentionally comparable with specialist games that do niches better. 

However, Odyssey’s FPS is fun, distinctly Elite Dangerous and integrates well with Elite’s other game loops. New features will likely be Odyssey only. Odyssey is the best choice if you want more of the same but better. 

Odyssey takes Elite Dangerous in a new direction. Like Horizons, Odyssey starts a journey and is not the end. If you want something with a different vision, Odyssey will only constantly remind you of that. 

“The Vale: Shadow of the Crown” Review

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The Vale: Shadow of the Crown, or The Vale, is an action adventure game from Falling Squirrel and Creative Bytes studios.

You play as Alex, a blind princess sent to a distant castle in her brother’s kingdom. After surviving an invading army’s surprise attack, you need to find your way back to safety while learning about the world, the war and your place in both.

The Vale is uniquely experienced only via audio. Its only visuals are particle effects indicating motion, weather, and time of day. The game even reads the menus aloud, presumably allowing people with visual disabilities to enjoy the game without aid.

Much of The Vale relies on the player deducing directions and distances using only sound. For example, enemy combatants telegraph upcoming attacks with yells, allowing you to raise a shield or time counterattacks in that direction. Evading enemy camps may require listening for their crackling fires or banter. Good headphones help, as does enabling any 3D or directional audio enhancement. 

The Vale executes well. Most challenges are intuitive or quickly learned. You return to the challenge’s start if you fail, sometimes with a short hint. However, discerning multiple incoming attacks while using your abilities can be tricky in the more complex fights. 

Communicating setting and dialog solely via voice can be slow. However, The Vale‘s script is tight. Descriptions are vivid and concise, and I never got bored or frustrated waiting for dialog. The choices of accents and voice acting are brilliant, immediately identifying the speaker. 

The story is similarly tight and has many twists and reveals. Flashbacks teach skills and build relationships. “Flash forwards” unexpectedly show incorrect paths.

Removing visuals also awakens the player’s imagination. Like reading a novel, you wonder what characters and scenes look like based on accents and the occasional brief but lucid description.

The Vale makes you realize how visuals dominate games. Even for games that use stylized or simplified graphics, simple things like art and animation dominate the language used to describe them.

The Vale also reinforces that game accessibility is not about reducing the difficulty. Accessibility is about reimagining and redesigning game interaction and content. 

That said, The Vale is still niche. Visuals are more effective at quickly communicating information and adding emotional context than sound. Using sound for feedback means the game cannot have a soundtrack. The Vale will not dethrone any AAA games from the top sellers’ charts.

The Vale is also short, requiring about eight hours to complete, including all side quests. The game introduces ideas, uses them a few times then moves on to the next ones.

The Vale succeeds as a game, experiment and tech demo, and it will appeal to those looking for something unusual, those with visual impairments or students of game design.

Hopefully, these ideas spread and are enhanced or included in other games. Imagine the same techniques applied to imaginative, story-rich, graphics-lite games like Disco Elysium or Planescape: Torment. 

“Star Wars: Visions” Review

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Star Wars: Visions is a series of short Star Wars-themed animations created by Japanese studios. It continues the rise of anime in Western culture and examines a beloved franchise through different eyes.

Not surprisingly, the episodes show a strong Japanese influence. Jedi ronin fight with lightsabre katanas or wakizashis. Fights embody arguments around ideals and purity. The environment mirrors the story’s mood, such as the foreboding rain in The Elder or lifegiving sunshine in TO-B1. The music uses characteristic flutes, strings and drums. Even the architecture and society in later episodes are distinctly Japanese.

However, the episodes are still unmistakably Star Wars. The Force and Jedi feature in every story, even if implied in Tatooine Rhapsody, and are almost overused. Sidekick droids are plentiful. Iconic star destroyers and X-wings appear although space combat is mainly absent.

Star Wars stories always centre around a human element despite the alien races and the untethering decrepit, rusting technology. Star Wars: Visions is no different, examining family in Lop & Orcho or The Twins or the coming of age in The Village Bride or The Ninth Jedi.

The niche audience also allows some episodes to stray from traditional Star Wars themes. 

I enjoyed the protagonist’s moral ambiguity (and the almost monochromatic colour palette) in The Duel and twists in Akakiri (meaning “red mist”). The Star Wars universe is known for balance. Does good always win, or is that just the way we tell the stories?

Tatooine Rhapsody’s premise is music can be as consequential and relevant as a Jedi. It would be laughable fan fiction if released stand-alone but contrasts other works in the compilation nicely.

The Elder deals with impermanence, a humbling and reflective theme. It is the opposite of Star Wars’ usual galaxy-shaking space opera. 

Star Wars has traditionally bypassed biases or prejudices by removing countries or times – by being set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”.

However, a few Star Wars: Visions episodes also consider current themes like environmentalism. Sometimes it subtlely shows the Jedi religion’s animist roots, such as in TO-B1 and The Village Bride. Sometimes it underlies a political or economic divide, like in Lop & Orcho. Referencing a passionate and current political and cultural theme threatens to break the disarming isolation that Star Wars enjoys. 

The California-style alternative rock in Tatooine Rhapsody threatens the same reassociation. Music in Star Wars has always been passive, like the cantina scene in A New Hope, or foreign to western ears, like The Hu‘s theme to the game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

I enjoyed The Ninth Jedi the most. Its story weaves many subtleties, like Kara destroying the pursuer’s speeder bike but leaving the rider unharmed or the chilling danger revealed by the blue colour of Ethan’s lightsaber.

The shadow of famous anime casts long over some episodes. TO-B1 is very like Astroboy, with the Dr Elephant-like father figure and a naive boy robot protagonist with a heart of gold. The Twins has a strong Kill-la-kill vibe, with its loose and exaggerated animation style, casual and metaphoric destruction and focus on siblings.

I hope to see more nuanced and cerebral content like Star Wars: Visions revitalising and expanding the franchise. Japanese cinema and folklore famously inspired George Lucas. A Japanese perspective on Star Wars brings it full circle.

“Breathedge” Review

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Breathedge is a space survival crafting game from Red Ruins, a small Russian development team. It is superficially similar to Subnautica and similar games in the genre, but how deep do the similarities go? 

In Breathedge, you play as a dutiful grandson accompanying his deceased grandfather on spacecraft. A catastrophe ensures, leaving you stranded. Your oxygen and propulsion are initially limited, meaning you can only visit nearby parts of the wreckage. You scavenge materials from the wreck and craft food and equipment to survive, then venture further. Eventually, with the aid of your fast-talking suit AI, you start to discover more about the catastrophe. Except for the first sentence, these elements are common to survival crafting games.

Both Subnautica and Breathedge create a feeling of weightlessness, the controls allowing six axes of movement. However, Breathedge creates the feeling of being in space. The laboured breathing constantly reminds you of the limited oxygen supply and claustrophobic spacesuit. The subdued soundtrack and subtle blue light of the nearby star impart space’s loneliness and alienness. 

Subnautica and Breathedge structure their maps differently. Most of the game-relevant stuff occurs on the seafloor or surface in Subnautica. It is essentially a two dimensional game with some vertical shafts. Subnautica also has a limited draw distance due to the water’s “fog” effect. 

However, Breathedge places areas of interest everywhere, including above, below and behind other objects. Areas of interest must be within a reachable distance of safety, such as the player’s ship. There was also no need for “filler” like barren parts of the seafloor in Subnautica or credible life to populate it.

These differences mean the Breathedge developers have more control over where things are. Moving content is quicker and easier. Far away areas need to be large or otherwise distinct. Developers can focus more on the areas of interest, including intricately detailed debris or frozen plumes of liquid. However, they must manage the level of detail to keep the frame rate up.

Thematically, Breathedge replaces Subnautica‘s wonder and horror with challenge and tension. The surface, with its supply of breathable air, is everywhere in Subnautica. However, pockets of safety are rare in Breathedge. Breathedge delays access to vehicles and base building, with their safety and increased range, until the late game. Subnautica has an infinite supply of water and food once you know where to look. Breathedge‘s supply of these is limited.

These changes reduce the available play styles. Subnautica‘s meandering exploration is not possible. With areas of note in all directions in Breathedge, exploration is slower and more disorienting, unlike Subnautica‘s focus on the seafloor. It is easy to miss something important.

However, initially restricting the player to small areas allows Breathedge to tell a more linear story. Subnautica has several light story threads the player experiences at their own pace. Breathedge can also gate progress more effectively. For example, you cannot reach the milestone for the next chapter until you have found sufficient upgrades.

Breathedge swaps Subnautica‘s subtle, occasional deadpan humour with an initially self-deprecating then fourth-wall-breaking humour. This swap is not so bad by itself. However, it is constant, unyielding and delivered poorly.

The suit AI prattles on like a syrupy, fast-taking American game show host. Concentrating hard on the game’s dialog while distracted with the punishing gameplay mechanics (like limited oxygen, slow movement and resource scarcity) not only restricts the humour’s impact but induces stress. Subtitles help but do not alleviate the problem.

Add “Babe”, a parody of innuendo-filled spam emails, and a chicken with superavian survival abilities, and it becomes hard for the player to relate. Is the game meant to be YouTube fare, played while inebriated as you laugh at the protagonist’s misfortune? Is Breathedge meant to be a harrowing tale of survival in a universe of dysfunctional equipment? Is Breathedge a satire of Russian engineering?

Breathedge is not a bad game. Instead, it subverts the expectations that successful games like Subnautica entrenched. Many distant asteroids and wreckage pieces glimpsed as you first open the airlock are still inaccessible late in the game. Tools’ fragility quickly dashes the relief of finally crafting what you need.

While the developers could reduce the humour and tighten the thematic focus, Breathedge‘s small development team successfully pushes boundaries. This game is not Subnautica in space. Those looking for meditative exploration will be disappointed. Those looking for a gorgeous game that mixes challenge and irreverent humour will fare better.

“LEGO Builder’s Journey” Review

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LEGO Builder’s Journey is a short, casual game about building with LEGO. However, the choice of characters and theme make this game shine.

You play alternately as a LEGO parent or a child in a LEGO world. You start with simple acts of bonding, such as the parent taking the child hiking. You return home, where the parent juggles the demands of a dull, repetitive job and playing with the child. Then something interesting happens.

The gameplay consists of moving bricks to traverse a level and solve puzzles. The controls are straightforward but sometimes frustrating, clearly borrowed the original mobile version. It can be hard to see whether a mouse click will place a brick or drop it. The game provides no guides or other indicators, presumably prioritizing realism. 

The player learns and infers the simple mechanics through trial and error, even when facing new mechanics or goals. LEGO Builder’s Journey is a master class on teaching through subtle but effective hints and limited options. 

Like many games in the LEGO franchise, LEGO Builder’s Journey is also a master class in expressing emotion through character animation. It establishes the parental bond through simple acts like cooperative play or extinguishing a campfire once the child is asleep. It also captures the frustration and conflict parents have with balancing work and family.

The graphics are gorgeous, using ray tracing on high-end graphics cards. The game looks just like playing with LEGO bricks in real life but animates some of them, like subtle waves in transparent blue water bricks or bubbles popping on brown mud bricks. It imbues otherwise sterile LEGO bricks with imagination and energy.

The soundtrack is ambient, ethereal and slightly upbeat. Extended, soft chords encourage contemplation. Occasional scale fragments sound like learning an instrument, just as the child is learning LEGO.

LEGO Builder’s Journey is short. It takes about three hours to complete, including all achievements. Some expect a longer game at its price. However, stretching it further risks diluting rather than enhancing it. I suspect the LEGO corporation also takes a significant cut.

LEGO Builder’s Journey is a brief, beautiful and heartfelt game about playing with LEGO. It celebrates a new generation growing up with a toy build around imagination and creativity. It is accessible to all ages. However, parents will appreciate the themes more. The game should be called LEGO Builders’ Journey, with the apostrophe after the “s”, to emphasize shared play and joy.

“Death Stranding” First Impressions

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Death Stranding is an ambitious and heavily thematic game that tweaked my curiosity. Given fifteen hours to play through it, I captured my initial thoughts.

You play as Sam “Porter” Bridges, a porter that carries cargo between human settlements in a post-apocalyptic world where the divide between the dead and the living has muddied. The remnants of human civilization live scattered and disconnected.

The gameplay chiefly consists of the mundane but meditative act of hiking. Initially, Sam focuses on balancing his cargo while avoiding rocks, steep inclines and deep water. He soon gains additional abilities, like constructing ladders and bridges, and encounters challenges like humans, the dead or worse.

The gameplay is refreshingly unique. It takes the oft-maligned “walking simulator” moniker given to games like Gone Home and Dear Esther then renders them all pretenders.

Graphically, Death Stranding’s world is a persistently overcast landscape initially of grey bogs and rock exposed through green moss, like Scotland or Iceland. Playing with ray tracing and DLSS, the images would be awe-inspiring if the world was not intentionally dull. The water effects are superb.

Thematically, Death Stranding’s world is Shakesperean and human-centric, with the natural environment reflecting problems of the human one. Crows plummet to the earth to herald danger, while seagulls represent safety and the assurance that being surround by life brings. Grey, beached dolphins and whales denote when the player is at the boundary between life and death. The black dead claw at the protagonist to drag them down into the hellish depths. An inverted rainbow subverts the usual happy connotations as an augur of doom. Elemental water tries to extinguish the fire of life while air and earth passively observe.

Mechanically, Death Stranding tries to be too many things. The horror, body horror, combat and stealth conflict with the more meditative and novel hiking, load management and exhaustion mechanics. The transitions between them can be jarring and sometimes occur outside the player’s control.

Does some of Death Stranding‘s symbolism have to be so unsettling? Umbilical cords link the living to the dead, like dehumanized BB (“bottle baby”), your companion. The handprints of the otherwise invisible approaching BTs (“beached things”) are textbook horror.

Death Stranding’s overt symbolism also borders on clumsy. Is handcuffs the best model for Sam’s communication device, something so dualistic and confronting even Sam mentions it? Was it necessary to call a device to connect settlements a “q-pid”, like Cupid?

The game explains everything in detail under the guise of world-building or tutorials. The journal entry explaining “likes”, used as experience points, is unnecessary given our increasingly complex relationship with them in the real world. Letting the player guess or infer may be more effective.

Playing Death Stranding is like someone meticulously explaining a comedian’s jokes, removing the player’s inference and agency. When the player carries no burden, unlike the protagonist, the meaning and achievement disappear.

Worst of all, the symbolism and heavy themes are unrelenting. Sam is an isolated, herculean, messianic figure carrying others’ burdens through a purgatorial landscape. There is no middle ground between hope and despair. There is no mundanity or humanity, like a local merchant or comic sidekick. Supporting characters lack personality, with thematic names like Heartman, Deadman or Fragile. Place names are functional, like “Central Knot” or “Middle Knot”. Even showering and using the toilet have in-game uses.

Death Stranding is not a bad game, despite the comments above. It is an allegory about how social media disconnects us, with Sam gaining “likes” for successful deliveries and giving or receiving likes for shared constructions like ladders or bridges. Most human detract from constructive discussion by stealing deliveries (attention or content) but distract us from real threats. The game’s tenet is we are stronger together and must never lose our compassion.

Death Stranding also blurs the line between cinema and games, with character models matching their actors. The prologue slowly rolls credits as the player trudges through the dreary landscape set to an alternative rock soundtrack.

I suspect the developers wanted to make a subtler, thematic game. However, a requirement for mass-market appeal and sales dictated compromises. Playing further may alleviate these concerns. Death Stranding introduces some novel mechanics and deals with timely themes. It is worth a look for anyone looking for novel gameplay or something emotional, if unsubtle. 

“Spiritfarer” Review

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Spiritfarer is a game about dying masquerading as a disarmingly upbeat casual crafting simulation, like Stardew Valley or a less social Animal Crossing. It examines the emotional and social impact, a much rarer and more delicate topic than the usual in-game failure state that dying represents.

You play as Stella, the ever-smiling replacement for Charon, the Greek mythological figure who ferries newly departed “spirits” to their final ending. Stella and Daffodil, her feline companion and the avatar for optional cooperative play, travel between islands in their ship, finding spirits that need shepherding toward their last moments.

Each spirit has different needs, such as unique accommodation or favourite food, and introduces a minigame. Most of the gameplay revolves around Stella gathering word or ore, fishing or growing food, then processing these into ship upgrades or food. Exploration plays a part, both finding islands and navigating them, with light platforming puzzles.

Spiritfarer depicts spirits as animals, creating caricatures and personifications of their personalities and achievements. A picky and aloof art curator becomes a bird. A selfless housewife and mother becomes a cuddly hedgehog.

Each spirit spends their time with Stella to reminisce and work through final regrets, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. Much is implied, such as via quest names, leaving interpretation to the player. However, it also precludes judgement.

Spiritfarer’s music does a lot of emotional heavy lifting and context setting. Most pieces use soft, ethereal piano and flutes with support from the rest of the orchestra. The soundtrack is sometimes solemn, sometimes playful, sometimes mournful, and sometimes hopeful. It is almost as if the orchestra assembled to let each instrument remember its favourite motifs, inviting reflection and introspection.

The simple, clean, watercolor art style counterbalances the heavy themes and emotive music, preventing them from overwhelming the player. Some animations are absurdly funny, like the wide-eyed trepidation of a sheep about to be sheered or a hummingbird carrying a water buffalo. The writing also has some cheeky humour, like enjoying “fakinhage” for breakfast.

Spiritfarer’s setting is highly metaphorical. Stella travels an astral sea that bridges the nebulous time and distance between islands of memories. Her experiences, represented as awkwardly shaped and increasingly precarious buildings on her ship, accumulate in unique ways for each player, creating comforting chaos. The expensive baubles coveted in life, such as jewellery or art, are sold off as trash and replaced by items of emotional significance

Spiritfarer has a day and night cycle that initially feels like an artificial constraint around navigation, crafting and building. However, it soon recedes into something benign and dharmic. Like the seemingly self-absorbed other inhabitants, the world continues, oblivious to the gravity of the spirits’ final moments.

Spiritfarer shares a few similar themes with the movie Nomadland. Both deal with grief and the twilight of people’s lives. One’s taste and emotional state determine whether they are cathartic, triggering or introspective.

As for criticisms, Spiritfarer’s travel, resource gathering, and crafting can be repetitive. While these are non-challenging, meditative and provide recovery time between the weighty, emotional storytelling moments, Spiritfarer could be just as thematically effective with less busywork. It may expand the audience of the game, too.

Like Gwen’s or Astrid’s surprise when getting hugged, key animations are more impactful if not overused. Repeating these actions daily to increase a happiness score reduces them to something mechanical. Less may be more.

However, I applaud Spiritfarer’s heartfelt and restrained approach to a serious and sensitive topic. As each spirit departs, they leave behind an empty dwelling and a constellation, testaments to who they were. Hopefully, Spiritfarer will also remain. “After the artist has been long gone, turned to dust, the art remains,” as one spirit says. The game’s message is one of hope, allowing everyone to be at peace with themselves, leave a legacy and have sympathetic company at the final goodbye.

Like Nomadland, Spiritfarer is not always fun. Spiritfarer’s heavy themes and introspection will repel some, particularly those initially entranced with its casual gameplay and cartoony graphics. However, Spiritfarer demonstrates the power of games as a medium. The player is involved and not just a passive observer of the mundane but powerful acts of supporting and listening. Spiritfarer takes 30 to 40 hours to play and is worth it for players looking for something emotionally powerful or introspective.

“Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order” Review

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Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, released at the end of 2019, is a single-player, action-adventure game. Think bits of Darksiders, Dishonored and Dark Souls combined with the Star Wars setting, music and visuals.

You play as Cal Kestis, a padawan that survived order 66. He etches a mediocre existence on the planet Bracca, salvaging spaceship parts to fuel the empire’s war machine, when an accident reveals his force powers. Cere Junda, a former Jedi, rescues him from the inquisitors, the empire’s Jedi hunters, then Cal embarks on a quest to protect other force-sensitive children from the empire.

Cal starts with minimal force powers. He learns or acquires new abilities by achieving in-game goals, which initiate cut scenes re-enacting parts of his childhood padawan training. These reflections contrast Cal’s old and current lives, help us empathize with his repressed grief and provide a temporarily safe learning environment for the player.

The levels are complex but well-designed. They are bi-directional, and the backward traversal often needs newly acquired abilities. Many short branches provide exploration opportunities. However, some require powers gained later, meaning the player must revisit old areas.

The level designers made each planet distinctive, such as the ochre sandstone and bright, yellow sun of Bogano; Dathomir’s reds, browns and sinister twilight or the vibrant, lush, green, humid Kashyyyk. Imperial interiors continue the original three Star Wars films’ styling with stadium-framed fluorescent lighting set into austere blacks and greys.

The parkour gameplay fits well with Jedi and Star Wars lore, going back to Luke’s training on Dagobah. Star Wars has always emphasized verticality to imply danger and declutter sets, such as in A New Hope’s death star.

The combat is defence-oriented, built around blocking and dodging to reveal short moments where you can attack. You eventually gain the expected gamut of Jedi powers, like pulling, pushing and jumping, and a double-bladed lightsaber.

However, you rarely feel comfortable enough to have a dominance or power fantasy. Once you can comfortably beat an opponent, the game throws in more or harder ones.

The soundtrack is standard Star Wars “John Williams-esque” orchestral, with playful woodwind and ominous brass and strings. However, other than a brief appearance from the Mongolian band “The Hu”, it lacks memorable musical moments.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is challenging. Repeatedly failing can be frustrating, but iterative learning is the path to the required and desired mastery. Dying is progress. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is essentially a puzzle-solving game, whether learning and countering enemies or combining force powers and movement to reach a seemingly unnavigable goal.

Thematically, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is about healing after trauma and loss. As Cere says, failure is part of the process and is not the end. For Cal, it is about the loss of his mentor and father figure. For Cere, it is about the loss of her padawan and estrangement from her master. For Trilla and Merrin, it is about abandonment and betrayal. These parallel the setting, both the fall of the republic/rise of the empire and the descent of the ancient Zeffo race, whose tombs you explore.

Almost all thematic treatment is during cut scenes, conversations between missions, journal entries or enemy banter during boss fights. Later cut scenes, in particular, effectively embody the “show, don’t tell” mantra, symbolism and abstractness reminiscent of Star Wars. Even the main menu theme is subdued and mournful.

Unfortunately, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order does not extend themes into missions. In other words, most of the game. It is not ludonarrative dissonance, more a missed opportunity. The player will repeatedly fail with the game’s challenging mechanics. However, respawning when you mistime a jump or an enemy defeats you may be frustrating but not a genuine loss.

Meanwhile, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s challenging game mechanics easily distract players from internalizing and examining themes. You are focused on how to get places or beat opponents, not what doing so means or its impact on the game’s characters.

One solution is involving other characters more during missions. They steal the show in their brief appearances with spot-on voice acting and scripts. Apart from BD-1, the R2-D2 substitute with the requisite cuteness and courage, Cal only briefly works with two other characters during missions

Cal’s personality is also underdeveloped. This “blank canvas” may make him a better player surrogate, but the developers could flesh him out beyond his withdrawal, grief, and the wide-legged swagger the animators gifted him.

That said, genuine love and attention to detail have gone into the game, whether it is the authentic motion blur and whoosh of a whirling lightsaber or the fantasy-fulfilling glee of briefly piloting an AT-AT. I laughed at the mundane stormtrooper banter, Cal not translating BD-1’s jokes or BD-1 beeping a Star Wars motif when hacking a security droid.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order strives to be a good game and not just a faithful Star Wars game. Perhaps this is why it lacks the signature Star Wars initial text crawl and subverts the opening star destroyer camera pan. The game is a challenging but enjoyable 35 hours to finish, more for all achievements, and worth it for action-adventure fans, not just Star Wars fans.