I Have Some Thoughts on Cobra Kai...

I have…mixed feelings on Cobra Kai, the continuation of the Karate Kid saga I grew up on, a franchise that directly influenced my decision to take up martial arts early on. On one hand, it's not just a remake, and follows on from the events of Karate Kid part III with all the characters and how they have changed, or not, in the forty years since, which is very cool. On the other, it's cheesy, cringey and I would always put back starting to watch the new series so I didn’t have to deal with it. 

I grew up on Karate Kid. It is a franchise that influenced my love of martial arts, but also helped me to navigate the bullying I was experiencing. It was never quite to the level that Daniel LaRusso experienced, and it took me a longer time than it should to learn to stand up for myself like he did, but the broader lesson of learning martial arts so I didn’t have to use it is a guiding principle I still live by today. To quote the first film: 

“So Karate’s fighting, you train to fight.”

“That what you think?”

“No.”

“Then why train?”

“So I won’t have to fight.”

For the most part, that worked. I took up Taekwondo after a few failed starts at Judo and Karate, and within a few months my bullying stopped. Now this might be coincidence or down to timing, and I wasn’t walking around school telling everyone I was a martial artist now as it would have been a fast way to get a target on my back, but it did happen. 

This is a principle I didn’t really pick up on in the movies when I first watched them. Mr Miyagi taught Daniel defense first, while the main villains, the students of the Cobra Kai dojo, were taught to strike first, strike hard and show no mercy. Ultimately that philosophy didn’t pan out and Cobra Kai were finished after an epic showdown at the All Valley tournament and Daniel’s now legendary crane kick. 

Fast forward nearly forty years, and the TV show Cobra Kai picks up with Johnny Lawrence - again played by William Zabka, the main bully from that very first movie more than a little bit down on his luck. He seemed to be a spoilt rich kid who had it all in the first movie, now he is living in a shitty apartment, a drunk, with no real job. 

A chance encounter reignites his passion for Karate and he restarts Cobra Kai. Meanwhile, Daniel LaRusso - Ralph Macchio returns to his role too, is a successful business owner with his own Car dealership, a beautiful wife and two great kids. When Daniel realises Johnny is starting Cobra Kai again, he makes it his mission to shut it down, remembering all the damage the dojo caused back in the eighties. 

This is the premise for what will become six seasons of the show as it follows the ups and downs of an ongoing battle for the hearts and minds of the high school students of the All valley. It starts off as a resumption of the conflict between Johnny and Daniel, then broadens to encompass their kids and the Cobra Kai and Miyagi-Do dojo’s as a whole and in many respects is a well told, classic story that continues the legacy of the original three movies. We don’t talk about Next Karate Kid or that one with Jayden Smith where he learns kung fu but it's still called Karate Kid. 

While the movies had some humour to them, mainly between Mr Miyagi and Daniel, they kept it fairly serious as the student continues to learn from the master. The thing about Cobra Kai is that they kept trying to infuse comedy into it, and it varies in quality from a decent one time joke to outright cringe, and it's this that gave me the most problems throughout the entire show. 

It’s not even the acting that’s the problem, the cast is doing the best with what they have and it’s mainly based around William Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence. I figured it out late, but it's basically any time the show tries to show his fatherly side or deal with his new family dynamic, that it becomes unbearably cheezy. 

Now, the thing about it is that Johnny seems to be stuck in the eighties. He barely uses the internet, has no idea what a smartphone is and his apartment looks fresh out of an old action movie where the heroes hole up while being pursued. I think we are, as the audience, supposed to do one of two things, either feel sorry for him or find it funny. But it’s neither, it's just the worst. 

It always seemed to be at the start of the show/series too. For the first three or four episodes of a series, and the first ten minutes or so of each, I was curling up into a ball to get past this crash course in how not to be funny or endearing. Once I was past that, the show became good and I happily carried on watching. I get having to mix it up to make the show more interesting, but this is ham fisted at best and just down right terrible at worst. 

I am probably in the minority with this, I freely admit, and it could just be my experience as I definitely like my comedy more slapstick than witty, which is why I never got into any version of The Office. Like I said, it wasn’t all terrible, there are some genuinely funny moments scattered across all six seasons but these are few and far between. One thing I will point out is the genius use of a hawk sound effect for one of the most memorable new characters in the whole show as when you hear it you just smile a silly, stupid grin. 

Once you get past that, however, Cobra Kai can be a great show. I doubt it will go down in history like the original trilogy, but the character development can be really great, especially in the last couple of seasons for Johnny Lawrence. The teens at the heart of the story go through some real battles, both emotional and literal and the fight scenes are damn good. They might stretch the definition of karate a bit, but you cannot deny they get the heart pumping. 

The fight in the school in season two is a massive highlight here, and sets the stage for some of the best character arcs in the whole show. There are literally broken backs, forever scars - both psychological and physical and destruction of logn time friendships. It showcases the brutality of what the Cobra Kai ethos is and how damaging it can be, disregarding the basic tenant that most real world martial artists know: It’s for self defense only. 

The return of all the classic villains from the original trilogy, Kreese, Terry Silver, Chozon and even Mike Barnes is pure nostalgia food for people like me and they all have great story arcs, even if Kreese and Silver do become the most mustache twirly bad guys possible. It works though and the original Sensei of Cobra Kai, John Kreese, has a pretty good…I want to say redemption, but it literally took a kid dying for it to happen so I am not sure that’s the right word. 

The main bad guy from Karate Kid Part II, Chozon becomes Daniel Larusso’s quirky best friend and is a delight to watch for the most part. His story does include some of that cringey ‘comedy’ that the show loves to try, but otherwise it's a great evolution of the character. The same goes for Mike Barnes, the ‘bad boy of Karate’ from Karate Kid part III. His role was relatively short, but it was very cool to see him back and a in natural follow up after the events of the third movie. 

Absolutely the best, and most worthy of the term, redemption arc in the whole show is that of Johnny Lawrence himself. Going from down and out drunkard in the opening episode to having everything he could have dreamed of by the very last, it's the type of character development that is filled with hope no matter how much you may have hated him as the bully from that first movie. 

Trust me, that was Johnny, there seems to be this movement recently that it was actually Daniel that was the bully and he was definitely not the titular Karate Kid. This is false, and mainly done, at least by my friends, to wind those who know the truth up. If you are one of those people, you are wrong, time to deal with it. 

The new characters range from great to terrible, but if I am being honest, there is only one kinda rubbish character and he does become a fan favourite that ends up having a satisfying conclusion to his tiny portion of the story. The main ones, Miguel, Robbie, Sam and Tori are all great with arcs often mirror what the original movies were about while also sprinkling in new ideas for the modern age. If you told me in a few years the Cobra Kai would inspire a new generation of kids to take up martial arts then I would absolutely believe you.

Cobra Kai has it’s problems, most definitely, but get past those and you will find a well made martial arts comedy drama that provides pulse pounding fights, emotional highs, crushing lows and a worthy continuation of a franchise that inspired so many kids in the eighties. The sensi’s here are no Mr Miyagi, but his legacy overshadows everything and gets the original students to finally become the masters they deserve to be. A worthy edition to probably the best underdog franchise ever made. 

Call of Duty Has Gaslit the World...and No one Cares

Let me get this out of the way up front: I like Warzone 2.0. Playing the game is great, the weapons, all of them, feel meaty and powerful with the move away from a reliance on loadouts and a slightly slower pace making ground loot more vital than ever. I also really like DMZ mode, even though playing it solo is a nightmare. 

But that doesn’t change the fact that Call of Duty is one of the most successful gaslighting campaigns in history, and no one seems to care. Well I do care, and it's time someone called COD out for its abusive ways. I am under no impression this will change anything, but if I can make just one, of all the millions playing, see how they have been manipulated then it would be worth it. 

So yeah, Call of Duty and specifically Warzone has gaslit the world. It has done this by somehow convincing people that no, it is not, in fact, pay to win. Yet it is, it really really is. The best way to level up your weapons in Warzone is not to play Warzone. It is to play Modern Warfare II, the £70 mainline game, so to be competitive in the free to play Battle Royale you have to spend at least that much to get to the point where you have enough attachments unlocked to get a next level gun. 

Add to that the fact that the weapon blueprints in the store on warzone are weapons with attachments, the things that directly affect their battlefield ability. So even if you bypass the purchase of MWII, you can still spend £20 in the store to get a bundle with a couple of beefed up guns. This means you are able to spend real world money to get a competitive advantage in Warzone. The part I don’t understand is why everyone seems to be ok with this? 

Literally any other game that would dare to come out in this state would be persecuted for daring to offer such advantages for real world money when it purports to be free to play. COD, due simply to its name, doesn’t get such flak. It has been this way since the original Warzone, though I freely admit that its sequel is far superior for putting a focus on the loot you find on the ground rather than the loadouts where all that money would be used to create the most lethal weapons possible in the game. 

Why isn’t there an uproar? Why isn’t there boycotts and twitter rants and a section of youtube littered with people stating just how broken the system really is? There are a few, but I do mean a few, drowned out by people simply ignoring its pay to win nature and playing the game, spending money in the store for not just cosmetics but a tactical advantage they don’t seem to realize they have. These people will then post videos on how broken a gun build is without getting that they paid money for it. 

There are the other people who will moan about hackers and cheaters, some of which are legitimate, but sometimes is simply down to the fact that the person that killed them has done two things: a) Played the game on console (aim assist might as well be a hack) and b) paid for the full game. It really is that simple, paying money for the full game or the bundles in the store, or, if you have the money, both, gives you an advantage. Why doesn’t anyone care? 

I really just don’t understand how Activision and Call of Duty have got away with this for so long? Do people really have such tunnel vision for a good military shooter that they can’t see how exploitative it is? I intend to play, I do, cause it is fun. What I won’t be doing is spending money for a competitive advantage and I know at some point that decision will come back to bite me in the ass when I am unable to compete because everyone else has all the top level guns because they spent the money to get them. 

The other thing is that people are moaning about exploits (now patched) that people can use to gain some extra XP on both their character level and the weapons they are holding. I half get this, but again, a lot of the people complaining paid for MWII and are just completely unaware that they paid real money for a competitive advantage that these exploits provide to those that either can’t afford or are unwilling to pay for. It’s kinda insane that they are then shouting “Just play the game” when they get an advantage for playing a different one. 

As I say, this isn’t going to change a thing about it. It does just go to show the double standards gamers have, and how willing big game companies are to scam them. Hopefully Microsoft will sort out the pay to win aspects when they take over. I can’t honestly see it, but it's always good to have hope. Apparently.

The Beginning

“We are live in one minute Mr President”

The oval office was a hive of activity. The young man who had just informed the president of the time until he gave one of the most important speeches of his time in office had moved behind one of the three camera men aiming their lenses at his face, while advisors, members of cabinet, aides and other members of the film team got ready for the broadcast.

The makeup artist gave the president a last touch up of some powder he couldn’t remember the name of, apparently to remove the possibility of the lights dotted around reflecting off his skin and disappeared to the back of the room. The director started the count down from five, closing his fingers as she did so, turning silent at 2 and finishing out the timer on just her small, well-manicured fingers.

The President took a deep breath to calm and centre himself, looked into the camera and began.

“My fellow American’s, and indeed, my friends around the world, today is a day that will live in infamy. A terrorist attack, unprecedented in scale, has struck several major cities around the world. Today, humanity must come together and unite against a new threat, one brought to us not by race, religion or international borders, but by technology.”

He waited for the screen to show the audience a picture of the person behind one of the worst days in human history.

“This is Dr Maximillion Teroar. He was a member of the international science council until just a few months ago. He was terminated from the council for a plan, one that would technology used to turn humans,” he paused for dramatic effect, “all humans, into cyborgs.”

The image being shown changed again, this time to display the same man, this time with half of his head covered with a red and silver plate covering the right side and the left showing scars and unkept dark black hair.

“He has now become this. No longer fully human, he is now something that only a few years ago was considered science fiction – a cyborg. He is now known as Doc Terror, and this is the person who is responsible for today’s atrocities. Rest assured America, and the World, we will not stop until he is brought to justice.”

The speech went on for a few more minutes, included a plea to anyone with information on Terror’s whereabouts to tell the authorities and concluded with yet more assurance that the worlds governments where working together. To be fair, for once they actually were, for once, working in complete coordination.

Every government was also under the silent understanding that every other government was planning on capturing Terror alive and using him to produce an army of deadly drones like the ones he used around the world today. No one is going to admit that, and some legitimately wouldn’t be trying it, at least, the politicians wouldn’t be. The countries generals could be another matter.

The broadcast had ended and after another ten minutes of activity the President was left in the oval office with just his closest advisors, who were discussing strategies for finding Terror and his army. He apologized, and asked them to leave. He needed time to himself, just a few minutes, to contemplate a day no President should have to deal with. He stood and simply stared out of the window.

He wasn’t sure how long he was stood there, staring into the sky, before a bright yellow flash lit up the room and made the hairs on his neck stand on end. He turned round to find a red haired woman wearing a blue jump suit with a light grey vest over the top, white knee high boots and holding a data pad.

“I’m sorry for the intrusion Mr President, I’m…”

“I know exactly who you are Ms Kane.” He interrupted.

The door to the oval office burst open and three secret service agents ran in, weapons drawn and pointing at the woman. The President held up a hand.

“You’re dismissed gentleman.”

“But, sir…” the lead agent protested.

“I said dismissed.”

The men holstered their guns and retreated, but he could them standing at attention by the door ready for anything.

“You are not a threat to me are you Ms Kane?”

“Please call me Crystal. And no, I’m not.”

“Then what are you? Apart from…” he chose his next word careful, “enigmatic.”

“An ally, Mr President. An ally to the world.”

He scoffed at that.

“I find it hard to believe a trillionaire living alone on a private space station has much to offer the world other than a share of her fortune.”

“You know I pay my taxes right?”

“How noble of you.”

Crystal crossed her arms and pouted, “Who says I live alone?”

The question threw him for a moment. The CIA’s intelligence on her space station, called Sky Vault, was limited. They basically knew the name, and its shape and basic functions from external pictures, but its true capabilities were frustratingly unknown. Given how she had managed to enter the White House, it certainly was a mystery.

“What do you want Crystal?”

“To help, Mr President. The world’s forces cannot react quickly enough to the threat Doc Terror represents. But I can.”

He just stared into her deep blue eyes, unsure what to say. She took this as a queue to continue.

“I have spent the last few years working on a project that could help, not just with the cyborg threat, but natural disasters, large scale accidents and more. It can respond almost instantly and adapt to the situation almost as quickly.”

His interest was certainly peaked, “How?”

She handed him the data pad, containing the basics on the project. He skimmed through and furrowed his brow, unable to fully understand what he was looking at, not because he was an idiot, far from it, but because it looked like something out of a 80’s science fiction film.

“This…this can’t be real…” he said.

“How do you think I got in here?” was the blunt response.

He glared up at her, then went back to the pad. After a few minutes he handed it back.

“What do you need from me?”

“Three people, one for each specialization.”

“I will find the best. What’s the project name?”

She took a step back and pressed something on a wrist computer. As the beam of light appeared around her, she looked at the President.

“Project Centurion.”

Diary of a Geek Dad: My Daughter The Game Designer

Stand aside Miyamoto. Move Along Kojima. Bow down Levine. There is a new game designer in town, one that is shaping the future of games in the most unique way, one that none of you envisaged. That designer? Why, none other than my very own daughter, baby Danarkage (names have been changed, I am not a monster!). 

At four years old my daughter is really coming into her own, she is smart, surprisingly articulate and lots and lots of fun. Tiring is another thing she is, but I cannot deny it is an absolute blast to watch her grow. In the last few months, mainly since starting school, she has started to say the following when she wants to play: “Now we are gonna play a game…” I smile each time because I know what's coming. 

For example, it was followed the other day by “It’s called Mummy’s, Daddy’s, Brothers, Sisters and schools.” She doesn’t do names. This game made the kitchen the school, me the Daddy AND the teacher, a name change for the little one, two dolls, show and tell and the living room our house. I was not allowed to open the kitchen door until it was time to open the school. A time I kept getting wrong, which resulted in a swift “No Daddy it’s not time yet!” and the door being shut on me. The rules were more complex than I first thought. 

It’s a lot like those hokey video games you get from itch.io. There are some standard rules for games design in all its forms, but that doesn’t mean you have to follow them, you could just try to redefine. I chose to believe that's what my daughter is doing, taking standard game design ideas and deciding she can do better. To be fair, at four, this might be me overthinking it. Shut up. 

I played a game called ‘vets’ the other day. For three hours. We both swapped between being the person with the pets and the vet and had to make up illnesses for the pets. Except when swapping, we weren’t allowed to make up new illnesses, oh no, we had to use the same ones as the previous go. I had to battle with her to allow us to make up new ones, and surprisingly my ideas of “This is Roxy the dog and she has green poop”, while getting a hearty laugh, were not the weirdest ideas to appear. 

That particular accolade goes to the ‘sleep walking the baby’ thorn that had been stuck in a couple of dogs legs. Second place goes to the ‘only eats lettuce’ thorn. Not gonna lie, kinda wish the daughter had that one for real. She doesn’t do vegetables. 

Maybe ‘Vets’ is an exercise in the circular nature of life, how things go round and round in an infinite circle, the snake eating its own tail. Or maybe it is the machinations of a nubile new mind just trying to find out how the world works. There is a part of me that wants to believe, somewhat naively and with massive bias, that the first one is true. That my daughter is some kind of genius, a game design savant. The rest says she is bloody four you idiot. 

The rules of these games are fluid, changing over time and make sense to one person and one person only: her. If a new one comes to her, it is incorporated into the game there and then. It’s like a compressed version of a video introducing new rules and mechanics over the course of the first few hours, steadily giving you the tools to beat the game. The twist here though is that you can’t actually beat the game, there is no end state, you play and it evolves to the point where its creator is bored and moves on. 

It’s a bit like those old comedy shows that had the eccentric artist that is all over exaggerated arm movements, crazy voices and nonsense words, who then just leaves for no reason. It leaves you confused as to what just happened, desperately trying to piece together sense out of something you can’t possibly understand because years of ‘the rules’ have stymied you into what you think a game should be. 

Obstacle courses are her domain too, changed almost beyond recognition. These involve blu-tack stuck around the room and running round as fast as possible collecting them all, or running around flowers in the garden. What's the point? Well, there isn’t one, and maybe that is the point. Maybe it's a reflection on just how futile the effort put into more complex courses really is, and how people don’t actually get anything out of things like tough mudder other than bragging rights. Or maybe, she just doesn’t understand what an obstacle course actually is. 

I plan to encourage this, let her come up with as many games and courses as possible and eventually I am going to start asking her questions, teaching her those basic rules but letting her play with them. She might give up on it, then again she might grow up to find that game design is her calling and something she loves. I hope the second is the case, and I can live my designer fantasy vicariously through her, though realistically she is just gonna give up on it. 

Either way, so long as she is happy, then so am I. 

An Unexpected Development

The year is 2035. 

Fifteen years after a global pandemic gave 70% of the population the flu and wiped out five thousand elderly with underlying or pre-existing health conditions globally, the world has finally recovered. 

The country wide lock downs in force across the globe were lifted after just six months, but their effects lasted years. People washed their hands for twenty seconds with a zeal rarely seen among humans, they wiped down everything they touched within thirty seconds of touching it and social distancing became such a habit governments were forced to instigate mass gatherings every two months. 

Gatherings such as these became festivals, multi day affairs that saw a rekindling of the close relationship one human could have with another. After a couple of years, music groups reformed after members attended one of these events, and slowly the music festival was reborn, though none were ever to bear the name Woodstock again. 

The world righted itself and the human race realized just what it had let happen during the pandemic. A new entity had emerged, one that had co-opted governments, religious leaders and big business. A rather unexpected development to most people, but to those who saw the signs, those who used just a modicum of brain power to look around during the pandemic, it was obvious. Inevitable. 

GoJo industries, makers of the hand sanitizer Purell, among many other cleaning products, experienced a decade of unprecedented growth and sales dominance. Their products became the single biggest selling household items of all time, with every home on the planet containing the firm's wares in some form. 

The company’s value rose from $74.4million to over $3 billion in just over two years, and that growth continued over the course of the decade. The company expanded and diversified, buying up what was once considered untouchable giants of tech, manufacturing and entertainment. Amazon fell first, closely followed by Google, Facebook, Twitter and many others. 

GoJo folded these acquisitions into the whole, but kept the brands separate. The money kept building with each new firm they bought, and the once relatively small firm became the only name that mattered. No one could compete at the same level anymore. 

In 2032, and facing little to no resistance from anyone, let alone the modern governments of the world, Gojo declared itself the first of a new breed of company. The first Mega Corporation. The truth was it was the only real corporation still in existence. It formed it’s own police force to patrol the area’s around its massive corporate structures, and later its own private military force. 

The megacorp crushed all opposition. Terrorism has been all but wiped out, though rumblings of a rebellion have started to swell in the last couple of years. Government officials run every decision through the Gojo board, and nothing changes without their approval. The world became governed by fear, but also saw an unprecedented era of peace. No country has escaped Gojo’s influence, fewer still its wrath. 

Still, as a planet, Earth has thrived. Plans to expand to the Moon, and Mars have accelerated, and scientific breakthroughs abound. Medicine and technology have produced wonders in the last decade, that is of course you can afford Gojo’s prices. 

So it is that in 2035, fifteen years after a global pandemic gave 70% of the population the flu, a hand sanitizer manufacturer took control of the world.

Diary of a Geek Dad: The Nightly Boss Battle

As I laid there, desperately trying to get my daughter back into bed, trying not to get angry or frustrated, using every trick I know to achieve the desired outcome and get her asleep I realized just what I was involved in. It wasn’t parenting, it wasn’t a little girl deep into being ‘over-tired’, no, this was a boss battle.

I have been gaming since I was five, that's thirty two years of experience, so I know a boss battle or two. I can’t say I have beaten every single boss I have ever come up against in a game, certainly there has been a few that have caused me to much trouble I eventually gave up on the game altogether. The giving up bit doesn’t really apply to parenting, but the core loop of a video game boss fight is almost exactly the same, just less physical weapons.

Where in a game you will use guns, swords, magic powers etc to whittle down the health of the big bad guy until you win when you are trying to get a three year old to lie in bed and go to sleep your weapons are words and manipulation or threats and treats to be gained. The loop is the same though, and therein lies the trick.

A boss battle in game requires quick analysis of the enemies movement patterns and attacks so you can figure out, depending on the game, when to counter attack, parry or jump. You might also have to suss out which of your attacks are most effective, or elemental weaknesses which can help you out and get that health bar down.

With my three year old however, the health bar is her willingness to actually lay down and, more importantly, calm down. It can be a slow process, but a belief that I will eventually win, despite repeatedly being told “But I’m not sleepy though!”, helps get me though. As for my weapons, well as I say those become words and I have a few very effective ones.

I slowly chip away at that bar, with light attacks like kissing her on the forehead and telling her good night, reading a bedtime story and getting her to switch her gro-light to night mode. We go through all the usual bed time routines, but when that night light goes off that is when her ‘second form’ kicks in.

As she is getting up out of bed to go get a drink from the cup on top of her drawers, I might tell her that is the last one and to finish it. It’s simple enough, but means an excuse she uses to stay up has gone away. She counters of course, and isn’t dumb, so it then becomes “Can I have some water please Daddy?” even after downing a full glass of milk.

Sometimes I might also be hit with “Daddy I want something to eat” and this is where I bust out one of my most powerful counters. I response with “Well, if you lie down and be still and quiet for ten minutes, I will go get you something”. Now, this particular counter is super effective because it has a hidden rule: the timer resets.

Simply put, if she moves or talks, the ten minute counter resets to zero and starts over. So, so long as I stay the course, keep saying that's what she has to do, even when she asks if it has been time yet, that ten minutes might be half an hour but she will soon forget what she was asking for as sleep does in fact take over and that bar gets tantalizing close to zero. While this means I can ‘beat the boss’ so to speak, after only two forms, I know that some bosses can have a third more powerful form. My Daughter does too.

This third form, most recently unleashed the night before I wrote this, comes out when I misjudge the last stage of the battle, when there is still a sliver of health left on the bar. It comes when I think she is down, happily fast asleep, so I get up to leave the room. I messed up, and she wakes, however groggily, there are no words that come from her just screaming and a raising of arms. I quickly try to get back into position and calm her down so she will fall easily and blissfully back asleep but I fail and Daughter: Final Form is here.

There is kicking, there is screaming, there is the weirdest thing that small children do: lock themselves into a loop because they really want something so keep asking for that thing over and over again. For thirty minutes. At their loudest volume. This stage of the fight is simply a war of attrition, so close to the end that I just have to bare the brunt of it and chip away at the final chunk of health with a warm and gentle face, lots of shussing and gentle cuddling until finally, that glorious win is mine.

Can I honestly say that emotion doesn’t get the better of me sometimes and I don’t, however slightly, lose my rag? No I can’t, but who reading this can honestly say that they have never wanted to throw the controller across the room when a boss gets the better of them? Its the same as parenting, sometimes you just can’t help it. My advice? Remember your child does in fact love you, and isn’t actually possessed by some kind of incredibly irritating demon.

Most of all though remember that you can do this. Bosses are meant to be beaten, they gate progress but also access to new abilities, and each time you beat them you get a massive experience boost. All of that applies to both games and real life, and I know I can win the nightly boss battle without a shadow of a doubt. You can too.

So E3 Came and Went...

The yearly E3 expo is a highlight for a lot of gamers, myself included. It is the one time of year I want to watch something live, and I follow all the announcements and news, getting more excited than I do at pretty much any other time of year. So with 2018’s expo now over, what were the hits and misses and what do I have on my radar?

Let’s start with the misses: Sony. While I love my PS4 and found that Sony’s decision to have a smaller press briefing which focuses on just four big games to be bold, it just lacked impact. There wasn’t any cool announcements, and the main bit of news was about why the hell they had to fill time while moving attendees from one venue to another. The Last of Us Part II demo they showed saved them from being a totally forgettable couple of hours, but only just.

Nintendo missed with the amount of time devoted to Super Smash Bros Ultimate. They mentioned the game had every character ever in the game and over ten thousand changes to make it the best ever. It felt like they then proceeded to list all of them over the next twenty minutes of their direct, and it was boring. A general lack of cool looking games also didn’t help, but they did show some that peaked my interest.

As for the hits, Microsoft stole the show by a large margin. Their briefing had all the bravado that I want from one of these things, they had cool announcements and some interesting news, and generally did it right in a year the other two members of ‘The Big Three’ couldn’t. All of this helped along by the ever charismatic Phil Spencer, one of the best execs to present an E3 Briefing in some time.

So what is on my radar now that the show is over? Well the list covers a lot of genre’s and systems, from big name games to smaller indies that just look cool. Lets start with probably one of, if not the, biggest game at the show: The Last of Us Part II. The original game has become one of my favorite games of all time, and seeing some of the scenes played out on stage by the actors that played Ellie and Joel only cemented that fact.

Sony’s show opened with a demo that started at a dance, an older Ellie watching from the bar. There was a brief conversation with a new character, then she was dragged up to dance by the girl she was watching. The scene turned romantic, with some awkward flirting followed by probably the best virtual kiss ever put to screen. If this is the level of detail the whole game shows, then The Last of Us Part II can’t come quick enough. It was the thing that saved Sony from having a terrible show that was barely talked about, bold and progressive. In short, awesome.

This was followed by what is supposedly a gameplay demo of Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding. Norman Reedus walked and talked, a new character played by another film/tv actor showed up, and that was about it. It was a poor demo, but did nothing to extinguish my excitement for Death Stranding because, well frankly, Kojima is so nuts that the game might be just walking and talking but the story will be so out there that it will be worth it.

Spiderman is my favourite marvel superhero, so I was always going to get the new game. The gameplay demo looked cool, but I didn’t want to get too invested in it because I wanted to find everything out for myself. It looks amazing though, so I will definitely be picked this up.

On the Microsoft side of things, there were several games that peaked my interest. I don’t normally play racing games, as these days they are far too close to ‘sim’ for my tastes, but damn, does Forza Horizon 4 look good. The changing seasons look like a great addition, but just the overall look is astonishing, and it's a bit more arcadey so I might actually get on board with this.

The other big names on Microsoft's hat, Halo and Gears of War, had showings too. Halo is my favorite game series of all time, so while all we got was a brief trailer that only really showed Master Chief’s helmet I was happy and excited for Halo Infinite. Gears of War had a strange one. They unveiled three Gears games, Gears 5, Gears Tactics and Gears Pop. The last one was completely out of left field, but the trailer made me laugh, so the mobile only game might get the thumbs up from me but for now I am intrigued.

Gears tactics looked like a cool take on the cover based gameplay of the main games, so i think that could work well. It was only a brief bit of gameplay footage so no real details, but I have my fingers crossed it will turned out good. Gears 5 was shown by a cut-scene playing, and it looks good. While story has never been the series strong point, it looks like this one is taking it up a level and continuing from the foundation laid by Gears 4.

They also revealed Devil May Cry 5. Not to be confused with DmC by Ninja Theory (now a Microsoft Studio!), this a full on Capcom created sequel. It has Nero and Dante and cool shit and demons and cool shit and...well you get the idea. I only have two questions: Can they make it quicker and is former black ranger Johnny Young Bosch reprising his role as Nero?

For smaller titles, Microsoft did well too. They showed a new trailer for Ori and The Will of The Wisps, sequel to the fantastic and gorgeous Ori and the Blind Forest, and I couldn’t be more excited for it. The sequel somehow manages to look even better than the first, a high bar indeed, and if it plays just as well then this will be aiming for the top spot in my 2019 game of the year list I am sure of it.

As well as announcing the acquisition of the studio behind the game, a new trailer for We Happy Few was shown, making it look much more like the Bioshock style immersive sim that original trailer showed us. I thought it looked cool back then, and it looks doubly cool now, I just hope the final game can live up to the promise.

A new trailer for Tunic was shown, a game I hadn’t seen before but it has stunning visuals and is apparently a isometric zelda-inspired game. I cannot see any issue with anything there, hopefully the game will be great.

Finally, a game that was released and played by my good self by the time you are reading this: The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit. A full review is incoming so I will leave that here, but it does also get me excited to play Life is Strange 2, coming this september.

Nintendo unfortunately didn’t get me too excited this year. I am a lifelong giant robots fan, so the small indie game Daemon X Machina looked awesome, and Fortnite is now out for free on Switch, which is cool. The new Fire Emblem: Three Houses, looks cool but I have no history with the series. This might be the one to get me into it, I don’t know, guess we shall see!

I saved the last paragraph for this: Cyberpunk 2077. If you haven’t watched the trailer, go do so right now. If you are a sci-fi, it should get you excited like you wouldn’t believe. If CD Projekt Red can pull it off, that game could well go down in history as the greatest sci-fi game ever made, topping even Mass Effect and Halo. That might be hyperbolic, but...just watch that trailer again!

The rest of 2018 and 2019 should be an awesome time to be a gamer, with some truly stunning titles on the horizon, I just wish they would come out sooner!

Volunteering at Insomnia 62

This past weekend the Birmingham NEC saw gaming take over with the festival Insomnia 62 hitting town. Youtube personalities, Twitch streamers, tournaments, merch and everything you can think of descended on the venue to celebrate gaming culture. It was a sight to behold, and I was able to attend the last day of the event, volunteering to work at the Special Effect booth.

Special Effect is a charity that helps people with disabilities and mobility issues play games. Standard controllers for consoles and even PC are designed with players with full mobility and range of motion, but what happens when that goes away or you want to play games but haven’t ever been able to properly use a standard controller?

Enter Special Effect. They provide assessment and support for people with these issues, allowing them to come to their HQ in Oxfordshire to try out some of the custom controllers available, get advice on how to change settings in games and consoles and where to buy the kit required. They will also, if possible, allow you to borrow a controller setup to test at home and see how things go.

The booth at Insomnia 62 had two demo’s: a multiplayer Forza Motorsport 7 demo and a Kirby Star Allies demo. Forza used a controller setup that saw the left analogue stick mapped to two separate buttons, along with the left and right triggers for accelerate and brake/reverse. One player had the left stick buttons which were smaller, for use by those who found it better to use two fingers only, while the other player had large over sized buttons for the same thing so if they had issues with their fingers they could use the palm or the like for control.

It says a lot about my skill with racing games that I seemed to be better with these controllers than I was with a standard one, but...moving on. The demo’s I gave to people ranged from kids just wanting to play something to families checking out something different and wanting to beat each other. A lot of the adults found it really interesting that the controls could be remapped in such a way, and several said they ran youth groups/clubs and that it might be worth them looking into this more for some of the kids that attended.

The Kirby demo used an over sized joystick and large X/Y/A/B buttons. It was the most familiar setup, because it was just taking what was on the joy-con, splits it out into separate buttons and enlarging everything about four times. There is some comment in here about the size of the joy-con's in general, but it was a great way to play, and the separate buttons could be moved on the Velcro like board underneath so you can rearrange them for what is most comfortable.

It was really great to see such unique controllers at work. The charity does great work helping people figure out ways to play with their unique issues, with the custom controllers but also advice on which settings to change in the game. For example, the Forza demo had auto-braking enabled, so I quickly discovered that steering and keeping your finger on the accelerator was the key, and unless you crash the brake wasn’t really needed.

I had a great time helping out, and everyone who worked for Special Effect were lovely and really made the volunteers feel welcome. It was tiring being stood around all day, but I really enjoyed giving demo’s and letting people know about the work this incredible charity does. If you know anyone who has mobility issues and wants to get into games or has trouble with the games they do play, and are based in the UK, give them a call or email, they will be more than happy to help out.