#midnightgaming — Public Fediverse posts

Hey all, been a bit huh. Had some things happen irl, got some plants potted and growing in my lil greenhouse, some tomatoes, potatoes and peppers. Anyways im back for another round of Midnight Gaming and we'll talk about a couple of rpgs here.

Now to clarify, these are games that were on xbox game pass and since the BDS boycott highlighted Microsoft to be included due to their funding towards genocide, I would like to clarify that for the sake of this review I have not given any money to microsoft at all. My brother-in-law has an xbox game pass subscription on his account and that was where I played these games.

Now without further ado. from the 5th of May to the 11th, I played the Oblivion Remaster and Avowed so lets talk about those 2 and some news.
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I loved the hell out of Oblivion when it first came out, this was one of my first elder scrolls games I played. Cyrodiil was such a wonderful place to explore with the forests and open coasts, to the dank dungeons and ruins to explore. The various quests were memorable with examples like clearing out a ship of ghosts, entering a painting world, collecting ayelid relics for a rich elf and hell that whole deal with the paranoid elf over in skingrad. Theres the factions with their own storylines and characters, theres the main quest which i… never actually completed past kvatch. Theres the knights of the nine and the shivering isles expansions which I never owned as a kid unfortunately.

But the game was truly great, so surely with the release of a remaster recently, I should be happy and love it right? Its a game from my childhood now with better graphics and fixed leveling. Isnt that great?

Ehhhhh…. its… fine.. i guess.

Listen, I dont think theres anything inherently wrong with the remaster, its fundamentally the same game as it was in 2006 with a few fixes and better graphics. Its just that I personally dont think this is the most definitive way to play Oblivion, on PC atleast.

Does the original game not play nice on modern pcs nowadays? Theres guides you can look up to make it run better on modern hardware. Are the graphics looking a bit too dated? Theres graphic overhauls available on sites to make the game look incredible. The level scaling was fucked? Yeah folks have created fixes for that over nearly two decades since it released. Theres a bunch of mods for og Oblivion that revamps a lot the games mechanics, pretties up the graphics and adds in new quests, items, dungeons etc. If your just on console then on xbox atleast, you could still play og Oblivion on game pass, then again the remaster is also on game pass so its kind of moot point in that regard.

To be honest, it feels like any changes that the remaster makes to improve the game already have equivalents available for free on sites like nexusmods. Outside of consoles, I dont see much of a reason to pick the remaster over the og since you can still get the original Oblivion with all its dlc at a fraction of the remasters price, follow a guide on how to patch it to run well on current hardware, download Wabbajack or Vortex and download a collection of mods to start your Oblivion playthrough with all the improvements, fixes and overhauls you could want.

Or just wait for Skyblivion. The fan-made project to remake Oblivion for Skyrim? Yeah thats coming out this year too. And Bethesda seems to know this too since they gave that team copies of the remaster and talked positive about the fan project on social media. But to be honest, I cant help but feel like this generating of goodwill and positive pr is solely to cushion the blow when they update skyrim and break the modding right as Skyblivion is set to release. Because they did that with fallout 4 when the fanmod Fallout London was about to release, a project that has you in apocalyptic england with all the style and charm that the fallout series has. Now the only way you can play that mod is to downgrade your copy of fallout 4 to an older version. They did it once and they'll no doubt do it again. Mark my words. [Future ej here, skyblivion is still yet to come out and the dev team that did the obilvion remaster fired a bunch of their staff and is doing ai :/]

Getting a bit sidetracked here, so to refocus onto the remaster, yeah its Oblivion and Oblivion is good and the remaster does have some notable improvements. A lot of the enviroments look great and the new character models have a lot of detail packed into them. They revamped some skills to have new perks such as acrobatics now introducing a dodge move you can do. Those are atleast the good parts i've noticied in the remaster, but I have noticied a few things that are a bit…. strange.

For one they added new npc voices into the game which is fine in concept. I mean Oblivion is kinda noted as having so few voice actors that you often hear 2 npcs talking to each with the same voice. Thing is if you played Oblivion before then you're probably already pretty familiar with the voicecast. Its just something you accept and dont think too much on, some guys gonna have the nord voice, this guy will have the imperial voice and this one will have the khajiit voice and on and on with a few notable exceptions such as the emperor and LaChance. So when your playing the remaster and you come across an npc with one of the new voices, it might catch you a bit offguard like it did me. Not to say the voices are bad, its just that I instantly know that its new and it takes me out of the experience a lil bit. But thats fine if its just some guards and a few of the new generic npcs added to towns. Except, some of the old npcs had their voices replaced so it kinda creates a bit of conflict between my memories of the game versus the remaster. I did the quest with the bloated float and dealt with the first threat before rescuing the orc bouncer and I get hit with a bit of whiplash upon hearing him in a different voice. Its a bit jarring but i'll admit, this nothing more than a nitpick.

But then we come to the graphics which as I've said look nice and well detailed but I cant help but notice it looks like it lost some color. It feels like a filter is applied to make everything look a little bit duller, maybe because it looks more realistic I guess? Honestly I chalk it up to Unreal Engine 5 which is the engine that this remaster is running on with all the og files, kind of like how Daggerfall Unity and Open Morrowind work. But then there are some hiccups with the engine that i've noticed. For one when loading into an area, npcs tend to fade in rather then just appear which is a bit odd and then theres the water where if you have a weapon unholstered and look at it, the reflections for some reason think the weapon is the same size as the buildings. But again, these are just some nitpicks, not much if major criticism is it? Well….

One big thing that this remaster touts as a selling point was how the levelling and level scaling in this remaster were "fixed". The original had it so that there was a chance you could screw yourself if you level up too much. Either because you didnt level up enough of your skills to qualify for the +5 attribute bonuses those skills relate to or because you level up too many times and now the enemies are too spongey and hit you hard on your ass. So howd the remaster fixed it? Well they changed the levelling so now you have 12 points and can choose 3 attributes to increase. Definatly a good change, gives you some autonomy on how to improve. So why'd they decide to make it so that both major AND minor skills contribute to leveling progress?? Used to be that leveling major skills would cause you to level up but now minor skills too? You end up levelling faster than before and can encounter higher level enemies much earlier. Why did they change it like that?? If you regularly sleep to cash in those levels, you run the risk of the enemies outpacing your equipment leaving you a bit underprepared. But you know, its not the end. You can still manage just fine….. on adept difficulty atmost. If you play on expert or master then congrats, the damage you deal is reduced heavily meaning enemies will now feel spongy while…. hitting you… hard. Wait wasnt that the same problem that og Oblivion had? Did we end up going full circle? Thats honestly weird the way they did this, but its not the worse thing that irks me about this.

One of the best reasons I think for a remaster of oblivion as well as morrowind, fallout 3 and new vegas is if they include the modding tools that fallout 4 and skyrim had on consoles. They might not be incredible compared to pc and the whole creations thing of paid mods does create some controversies, but you cant argue that allowing mods on consoles is a bad thing. So why didnt the oblivion remaster have that? Is it ever gonna have anything like that on consoles? Just seems like a missed opportunity to allow people on consoles to inject some mods into oblivion and yet, nothing of the sort exists here.

To be honest, Im not feeling this remaster. I love oblivion and all the good times I had exploring Cyrodiil will stay with me till the end of days but this remaster was not to my opinion the best way to revisit those memories. It looks less like Elder Scrolls Oblivion and more like one those "This is what "x" will look like if made today" videos. This is Oblivion if Todd Howard decided to hire that man. I don't recommend this and I think most people being excited about this might reconsider once the nostalgia honeymoon wears off. But that is solely my opinion. I think that if you wanted to play Elder Scrolls Oblivion, there were better options available to you atleast on the PC. On console theres definatly an arguement to be made and at the end of the day, its oblivion. Cheese and all.

So next we have Obsidians Avowed, an rpg where you get to play as a clicker from The Last of Us and you get to have Garrus Vakarian from Mass Effect as a blue fishman.
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So Avowed takes place within the same universe as obsidians crpg series called Pillars of Eternity and has you playing as a godlike, essentially a messianic figure working as the envoy for an emperor of the Aedyr empire and being sent to a locale known as the living lands to investigate a sort of magical plague known as the dreamscourge.

So what got me interested enough to play Avowed for this Midnight Gaming? Was it because its an obsidian game, a developer that carried a lot of notoriety for games such as new vegas? Was it because I played the pillars of eternity games and wanted to visit the world in an open rpg? Was it because it was on game pass and I figured Oblivion and it were similar so I lunked them into the same post?

No, never played POE and no. It was because after trying to search on Youtube to see if the game was fun and instead being met with a wave of political tangents that I found on social media a video of someone playing Avowed where they casted a spell with a grimoire on one hand and shot a flintlock pistol with their right hand. And that got me very interested to play it because…. gun wizard…… GUN WIZARD!!

How many fantasy rpgs have guns and magic in them and how many let you wield them both? Like thats an easy sell for me, let me play a wizard with a glock. So yeah starting off Avowed you get shipwrecked on the way to the living lands, you go through the tutorial and end up at the first major area before picking up your fishman and start exploring/doing quests in the first area. So initial thoughts? Lotta mushrooms about.

Given i've never played Pillars of Eternity, a lot of the established worldbuilding is gonna be completely over my head so its all down to this game to explain to me what the hell is up in this world and what a godlike actually is. So apparently a godlike is someone who was "touched by a god while still in the mothers womb and is bestowed with that gods essence" and these godlike tend to be in commune with the god who chose them. Except you, you never knew which god chose you so you ended up being on your own until the emperor saw use in you. Its not until you get onto the living lands that you start to hear godly voices reaching out to you, implying that your god is on the living lands and is trapped there. So that, along with investigating and stopping the arcane version of covid is pretty much the hook for this games story. Me though, I just wanna see how many people and creatures I can freeze with an ice spell, stick my gun onto their forehead and ask them "do you believe in god" before shattering them with a point blank gunshot.

Feels like a good time as any to talk about the combat huh? Yeah honestly, combat feels good in this game. You have your melee options with swords, hammers and axes as well as spears with all of them having 1 handed and 2 handed flavours. You got bows, pistols, wands and rifles for ranged options and you have grimoires which you can cast spells from when you equip them on your hand. You also have a dedicated throwables key with different elemental explosives you can find or craft in the world, you can pause the action to access an action wheel much like mass effect where you can use abilties, tell your companions to use their abilities and use any items or equip any throwables you have on you. Blocking and dodging are your means of defense and theres a lil bit of sekiro here where enemies have a yellow bar under their health representing stun which rises when they take damage, with some different weapons and abilities raising the bar quickly, and once full they become stunned and you can do a sort of cinematic attack for big damage. Since i'm regulary using a pistol I get a scene where I aim down the sights of my gun, aimed squarely at the stunned target and fire a big shot which, i mean, thats just cool as hell.

Now is this a good game? Well from what i've played in the 1st region surrounding the city of paradis, its alright but its also not incredible. Its mostly just, ehh, how do i explain it, the combat loop and general exploration of the enviroment is great but outside of that, in the downtime its just…. fine. Conversations with npcs is the traditional affair of picking a response and hearing dialogue which is mostly serviceable with some good bits here and there but thats it really. Out of all the quests in the 1st region, i think the only two that really stood out was the one where you search for an expedition team and come across another godlike and the other involving the mermaids den. Again its just the 1st region but then it occurred to me what the issue im feeling is.

You remember The Outer Worlds? I did a midnight gaming post on that game and my thoughts on it were it was fine enough but was mostly a game that walked, a nice enough walk where people were expecting it to run. And thats mostly down to the games marketing outright saying that the game was by the creators of new vegas. Avowed hasnt tried to invoke anything like that but that hasnt stopped people from comparing this game to the elder scrolls even though its not the elder scrolls, having none of the similarities of that series other than being fantasy rpgs with a first person view. Atleast if you played the pillars of eternity games you might feel justified in feeling disappointed with Avowed given how you're going from a crpg where you have multiple ways in building your characters, different ways to approach quests and several novels worth of text to this. I remember a segment in a magazine talking about the deadfire expansion for pillars 2 and showcasing a pirate stronghold and all the multiple ways you can influence the enviroment there to accomplish your goals. Avowed doesnt quite have that flexibility in its quests and world but to be fair, when isolated from pillars and the elder scrolls, on its own Avowed feels on par with Outer Worlds in being a fine enough walk of game atleast from the 1st region alone and when I play this game more after this review, i'll see if it maintains that pace or if it manages to improve to a powerwalk or even a jog.

So I think its fine, not great just fine, so what about other folk, hows the general consensus on this game? Well I checked up on the steam reviews and the metacritic user scores and I can report that at the time of writing this, Avowed on Xbox has a 6.9 (nice) user score of 643 reviews, 59% being positive. On pc the user score is 5.6 with 364 reviews and 42% being positive. On steam it has a mostly positive rating with an all time score of 77% and 9,024 reviews. Not too bad scores, seems above average with a lot of the positive reviews reflecting on the games combat and exploration carrying the game were things like the story and dialogue fall. A 7/10 game overall, which is fine but not deserving of the full asking price. A game you'd want to wait for a sale before picking up. Also dont buy the deluxe upgrade, its overpriced garbage and the fact that they sold the ability to play the game a few days early is genuinly awful, even if its mostly Microsofts doing.

But then thats one part of the story aint it? If you have searched Avowed online, you got exposed to some real shit. And I suppose I cant talk about this without mentioning the elephant in the room….. BUT FIRST!!!

NEWS ROUNDUP!!!!

First up on the roundup some news on emulation and lost media with the original version of star fox adventures getting some recompilation on the way. So on the nintendo 64, the dev team known as Rare has made some incredible games on that system with banjo kazooie, conker and perfect dark to name a few of the games they made during one of their more prolific periods in the history of their company. One of the games that didnt quite make it was a game called Dinosaur Planet which eventually became the Star Fox game that introduced Krystal, the blue fox of every furries dreams, best known for her cameo on Half-Life 2. Well the original version of Dino planet has a fanproject ongoing to try and recompile the early beta version for folks to experience. Your article is right over here
(https://www.timeextension.com/news/2025/05/rares-cancelled-n64-title-dinosaur-planet-is-getting-the-recompilation-treatment)

So a post came up from Chris Bores generally known as the Irate Gamer, one of the many, many, many AVGN-Clones that have popped up back around the early 10's, and in that post hes announced officially that he'll be retiring, with one big project coming up as a send off.

Over on Eurogamer, an article mentions that Hideki Kamiya, known for Bayonetta and a very straightforward block policy, has answered on his show on youtube that he'd love to do the remake for Devil May Cry 1 which was pretty much the genesis of a spectacle fighter game, a sort of hack and slash game where you do stylish combos on various enemies. Im sure some folks would like to see a remake of DMC with kamiya leading it but for me, what interests me is what was also mentioned in that video according to the article. "Kamiya said, "With today's technology and game design approach… I'd want to remake it from the ground up. If that ever happens… well, I don't think seriously unless it's really happening, so right now, I don't have anything in mind. But if the time comes, I'll come up with something. That's what I do! So Capcom, leave it to me! Also, let me handle Viewtiful Joe too!"". Yes Capcom, let kamiya do Viewtiful joe, let him, please, capcom Please, Please PLEASE LET ME SEE MY VIEWTIFUL BOY!!!
(https://www.eurogamer.net/devil-may-cry-creator-hideki-kamiya-would-love-to-remake-the-series-first-game)

Finally over on rockpapershotgun, we see an article dicussing Mobius Digital of the outer wilds fame, not to be confused with the outer worlds, announcing that they have started work on a new title in an update page for the outer wilds, where they also mention that no more updates is coming to the game. Thats it really, maybe its a sequel, maybe its a different space game, maybe its got nothing to do with space. Who knows, all thats known is that they are working on a new game and thats that. Yep.
(https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-outer-wilds-developers-are-making-a-new-game)

NEWS ROUNDUP OVER!!!!

Ok, I didnt want to talk about this. I wanted to keep politics out of this series but eventually I will be forced to discuss it so here we go.

For as mocked, as lampooned, as memed upon as it was. As much of a bad take as it was. In all fairness, as much as it pains to admit.

The IGN review for Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire saying that there was "too much water" was, technically speaking, a more valid criticism than it was to say Starfield was bad because it had pronouns.

Oh god I felt sick writing that. That felt really bad, I can almost feel the death threats and pitchforks a coming. Oh lordy this is gonna bite me in the ass. The only thing I can do now is try to provide clarification and hope they go easy on me.

So, am I saying it was a good take? NO! ABSOLUTLY NOT! It was a laughably bad take, it was weird to mention it and given the review was a 7.8, it raises a lot of questions as to whether it was just a joke or if the reviewer was being serious. That to them there was too much water on this game and that it was enough of a drawback to dock points off the score for it. And did the editor read the review and agreed with it or did they assume it was a joke or did they just not care and greenlit it anyways.

It was a bad take, and people reacted to it as you'd expect. So why would I say that there was perhaps some validity to this take? Well, how much water do you think there is in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire?

Well i'm gonna refer to information from the site Bulbapedia so lets try and get a rough idea on that. First off, Hoenn is based on the island Kyushu which according to wikipedia "Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands" so ok, theres definatly some water there. Now within Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire theres various towns, routes and areas in the Hoenn region and going by what I can gleam from bulbapedia and some ingame maps.

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To my understanding,

11 out of 16 settlements have water in them.

10 out of 20 landmarks have water within in them.

29 routes within OR/AS have water within them and all 5 of the OR/AS exclusive areas have water in them.

Now, Pokemon tend to grouped into one or two different types, each having a resistance and weakness to another type and out of the 211 that can be caught within this game, 46 have water as a type either as solely water or a mix of water and another type.

There are quite a few moves that are a water type move such as bubble beam or hydro cannon, but theres also the move known as Surf which lets you travel across water and not only that but in some areas that have deep water, you can use the move Dive to go underwater and explore the ocean floor.

Out of the gym leaders you need to battle to obtain a badge from, Wallace is the water type gym leader who awards you the rain badge.

And one last point to make, the games storyline involves the gangs Team Magma and Team Aqua with their conflict being a disagreement over whether there is too much water or too little water with Omega Ruby having Aqua as the antagionists and Alpha Sapphire having them as protagionists.

Yeah, its fair to say that water does have a pretty hefty presence within this game, enough that you could technically say, from a purely subjective point of view I like to clarify, that there may infact be too much of it. Not that it would be a good point mind you, at best its just a nitpick but the game has enough water within its enviroment and its mechanics, to have a significant enough presence to allow that nitpick.

Same cant be said for a certain criticism that was levied at Starfield.

So when Starfield launched, a big stink was made over the fact that the game had pronouns. Ok, and? It came free with your english language. No thats not it, its because you can select your perferred pronouns and instead of having male and female genders, you have body type 1 and 2, even though it was litterly just male and female just renamed different. In starfield when you create your character, selected your background and traits, once you hit finish you will be prompted to name your character and on that screen there is a button on the bottom of the popup window for "pronoun" which lets you change your pronouns from the default ones based on which of the 2 body types you picked, 1 for male or 2 for female. You could just ignore that button, name your character and move on. The game does not force you to pick a pronoun, you have to voluntarily choose to press the button and bring the selection up, otherwise it'll use the defaults.

Now, what effect does any of this have on the game. Well, if you walk past or directly talk to an npc, they may just refer to you with the pronoun you choose…..maybe. To be perfectly honest I dont remember much about Starfield because it is such an unremarkable game. I remember seeing it be revealed and thought to myself "No Mans Skyrim" and it wasnt until I saw there was an m1911 handgun you can get ingame that I decided to try the game out on game pass. I shot some enemies with a futuristic p90 and noted how it took nearly 2 magazines to do half of their health, and then got the m1911 from my video game parents and noticed it took 3 shots to outright kill an enemy. I then pondered why folks in the future even bothered switching from regular bullets unless Nerf somehow owned a monoply on arms manufacturing.

The last thing I did was shop around on a planet for a spaceship part to hide a piece of contraband I wanted to sell before I decided to play something else and never bothered to return, eventually forgetting about it.

Now I did start up a new Starfield save to get to character creation and to verify the pronoun thing and sure enough, completly and utterly ignorable. I checked online to see if anyone has noticied any other effects the pronouns have, nada, zilch. Outside of maybe some npc dialogue, theres nothing else that your choice of pronouns will effect during a playthrough of Starfield. Now during that initial playthrough I went with they/them to see if anyone would refer to me as such, in hindsight this was pointless since I wouldnt be able to tell if an npc uses the gender neutral term because I choose it or because it was simpler and less expensive than re-recording for each pronoun.

To be honest, Starfield was a generally plain as hell sci-fi, mostly because they dont have any cool alien races you could converse with (and romance). You pilot a ship, explore planets, maybe research tech and perhaps build an outpost. There was maybe a new game+ system in there that was….unique. I dunno. The only thing I believe choosing pronouns actually did for that game was made it so that the game stayed relevant for maybe another day before eventually being forgotten. The controversy over that was honestly not worth the spit and hot air.

So yeah, on a technicality, "too much water" was, in my opinion, a more valid critique compared to pronouns because the formers point of criticism had a significant enough presence in its game whereas the latter was largly insignificant and completely forgettable, much like Starfield itself.

So you might be asking, EeJay… the hell does it have anything to do with Avowed?

Well… just that gaming discussion nowadays sucks shit I guess.

Any time a game comes out, theres a good chance the first few days is gonna be swamped with videos and comments spouted by some love child of Alex Jones and the Angry Video Game Nerd, often in their late 30s to 40s, spewing hot air and outrage over some conspiracy theory relating to video games. A crowd who demands that politics stay out of video games yet cannot seem to keep games out of politics. A crowd if they hear you speak favourably towards a game they decided to hate, will proceed to harass and accuse you of being bought out or having some sort of mental illness because why else would you possibly like this slop unless you have brain damage. A tar pit of cynicism that'll look down on a game for looking like a 10+ year old game yet will fawn over a game that is litterly 10+ years old but has bee sold again with a shinier coat of paint, talking about how it exposes the gaming industry and that its a new standard of how a game should be remastered, before changing their minds and calling it woke censored slop because they noticed it uses body type 1 & 2 in the character creation and that the female models breasts are 2% smaller than in the original.

What can I really say about it other than the fact that it takes no effort to get pissy about shit? Like I could do it, I can buy a microphone, puff up my chest and talk complete disgenious garbage for several hours. Talking about how the games industry sicks, games suck, the woke left sucks, concord sucks and how sweet baby sucks. I could do that with several videos all having titles like "X is SEETHING" or "WOKE Y TOLD ME TO GO FUCK MYSELF (gone sexual?)". I could probably build a following that way, I could maybe make enough ad revenue to afford…. I dunno a large meal at wendys? I could do all that, it wouldnt take any effort to follow that path, to sell my soul that way…. but is that really a way to live? Is that really how I want to be remembered? As just another loud voice amongst the outrage choir. To wear such a bitter, angry persona solely so I could make ends meet? To create something to be consumed by algorithm in return for pennies and clout? Wheres the fun in that? Or is having fun suddenly woke?

Video games are fun. They ought to be. As a form of entertainment they ought to be entertaing or at the very least, not boring. Having the best graphics, stories, music and so on doesnt really mean much in the end if the game just isnt fun to play. If its frustrating or boring to play throughout the whole experience. And theres a saying by former president of Nintendo of america that has stuck with me to this day:

"The game is fun. The game is a battle. If its not fun, why bother? If its not a battle, wheres the fun? Its a test that you pass or quest that you fail. A race against time. Fun and battle, always locked together, but the game is also something else. Its a journey. A passport to new worlds. Maybe even, an odyssey. A look, a feel, an exploration. Close your focus and open your mind. Yes the journey requires the right ticket, but in the end its not just where you can take your game. Its where your game can take you." - Reggie Fil-amie

For as long as I can remember, I have a fascination, a passion and a love for video games. I love the genres, I love the adventures and I love how people from all walks of life can have a different experiences with each game. You will never find something that can grab my attention better than anything related to video games. I know that nowadays it feels easy to just be cold and cynical about the games industry and everything in life as a whole, but at the same time, I feel that it is also quite redundant since theres no shortage of misery in this world.

Outside of a significant event happening like with Crime Boss Rockay City or Deathspank, this is more or less the only time I'm gonna talk politics on this series. I know that for most people they already get enough world weariness from social media alone so I wont bother mentioning it here If I can help it. My only aspiration to how I want to be percieved in this sort of read-only online gaming discussion is something akin to homer simpson when he first became a food critic, loving every bit of food he reviewed and recommending them all to the point a lot of folks in springfield end up gaining weight.
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So to summarise:

Oblivion is a fantastic game thats wonderful to explore, with quests and adventures that tantalise the spirit. Its good enough to become game of the year…. and it did… when the golden joystick awards awarded it back in 06. The remaster has some nice graphics but it also makes a few misteps, some kept from the og and some that are new to the remaster, and at the price they're asking, you could find a better Oblivion experience elsewhere and for cheaper atleast on PC.

But I mean. Its still Oblivion at the end of the day. And if you're deadset on the remaster, by all means go for it. Im just a guy on the internet, im not your dad. Do whatever sounds fun to you.

Avowed is fine enough so long as you dont have a tar pit yelling in your ear. Theres enough to enjoy here if you just want an acceptable yet unremarkable fantasy rpg to occupy your time though i'd recommend waiting for a sale to pick it up rather than pay the full price. Despite some flaws, its still a single player offline game that isnt a games-as-a-service product so it stands head over heels over half of last years games.

So thats that for this edition of midnight gaming. Feel free to leave feedback and game suggestions and just remember.

If nothing else, have some fun when you can because if you cant have that in this life.

Then why bother?

GLHF

Midnight Gaming: Being a switch for hot robot women - 6th October 2025

Hello hello hello!!!♡ and welcome again to another edition of Midnight Gaming. This week we will be revisting a couple of games that I covered on this series before, with the first of them being a remaster by nightdive studios.

Yep its System Shock 2, the 25th anniversary remaster edition.

So last time I talked about SS2, I was talking about how a good number of games that Ken Levine had a major hand in often have a twist or a sort of betrayal in it. SS2 had with Dr Polito who talks to you at the beginning of the game and its revealed around halfway that shes been dead for a while, you then had Bioshock try to pull a similar twist with Atlas and the words "would you kindly". Bioshock 2 didnt really have a twist I dont think (which makes it the best bioshock out of them all FIGHT! ME!), and then there was infinite which opened up freaking multiverse shit with the villian of the game being you all along…. oh yeah spoilers I guess.

But were not gonna focus on that, were gonna talk about the remaster that nightdive did and what changes are made to this version compared to the original…. well for one they redubbed the tutorial voice that greets you when you step off the train and into the recruitment facility. Yeah thats a bit annoying, also they changed the end credits so instead of seeing the developers lying dead on the floor, its just a slow text crawl. What the hell nightdive?

Ok well there is some notable inclusions, for one, similar to the doom 1 and 2 as well as the heretic + hexen remasters, theres now a vault where you can look through some gamedev notes, concept art, pre-release screenshots, trailers and even magazine review scans and ads. They apparently managed to get coop multiplayer working and with crossplay being an option. I havent played the multiplayer, and thats the last i'll talk about the multiplayer.

Now, being a game made for pc, its use of the mouse and keyboard control setup is gonna be a bit hard to translate to a gamepad what with the number of bindings this game has for leaning, switching ammo or psi powers or even just managing your inventory. But I have managed to get a playthrough under my belt of this game using a ps5 controller and it seems like nightdive did a decent job with the controller. Switching ammo and the fire setting for your guns can be done with the left and right arrows and the up arrow respectively, you can press the left stick to switch from moving to leaning and while you might end up stuck leaning instead of moving a few times, you can get use to it and find it quite intuitive. They also added a way to add hotkeys to 4 weapons and 4 psi powers, each attached to the right and left shoulder buttons. You can't hotkey consumables though so if you need to heal during a dangerous situation it'll be a bit of a hassle… atleast the quantum bio-reconstructer will revive you for some nanites :/.
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Another thing to note is how this remaster incorporates some updated models as well some community fixes. The weapon models look fairly decent , you can see the pistol slide actually move back as it should rather than in the og where the gun just suddenly snaps back and moves back into position to simulate recoil. The new enemy models look alright, I dont believe they had it in the og game but the the service bots do seem to now break apart as you shoot them before they explode which is a nice touch. Oh and the cyborg midwife keeps her breasts covered here unlike some other graphical mods. So the remaster is perfectly competent I suppose, it works well and plays like the original with some updates and balances.

But should you buy it? Cause lets be clear here, you can still just buy system sock 2 on steam and just mod it. You can look up mandalores review on ss2 and look for the mods he recommends and get more or less the remastered experience at a fraction of the cost of the official remaster.

Infact regarding remasters, they are popping up quite frequently arent they? And while there are valid criticisms about how the industry is just constantly rehashing the old stuff for a quick buck and how folks still buy therefore enabling ths, I'd rather touch on what games are remastered and if its done well by fixing some issues and improving the game overall while also maintaining the original charm of the game being remastered without changing too much, theres already countless youtube videos out there that talk about remastering/remaking and whether its good or bad. Since I started writing this, two remasters were announced recently by two different developers who have a reputation of handling remasters.

Theres Nightdive who did this remaster but have also announced a remaster of… Blood refreshed supply which is a remaster of another remaster…… um…. so fresh supply had issues at its launch which did get somewhat fixed, though it apparently still had issues that nightdive wanted to fix, so I guess now they can do that now that atari and warner bros have reached a deal or something? Oh but this will have a new episode and it'll include the deathwish mod and sure but the fact that having fresh supply already doesnt mean you'll get this as an upgrade is just…. nah.

And I like Nightdive, they do decent work with their remasters, their work helped fix the issues that held some games back and make them more available for people to play. This blood remaster is just…. not ideal and I can imagine its not what they had in mind either, they would have just updated fresh supply instead, but atleast it'll be a perfectly serviceable, if not completely unnecessary and a bit of shill order.

But thats nothing compared to the Deus Ex Remaster which is….. jesus christ what the hell?

Now that ones being done by Aspyr who are also in the remaster business but they seem to have a different work ethic on producing remasters that folks have been critical on. Mainly that they seem to do the bare minimum and upscaling the graphics and making it playable on a system before calling it quits and moving on, even when theres still bugs and issues in the remaster. They have been panned for how they handled remastering stuff like the star wars battlefront games, the lok soul reaver and neverwinter nights 2 but this deus ex one really and I mean really took the cake….(to be fair, I saw reviews on that soul reaver remaster that mentioned serious bugs back when it launced but I checked it again recently and it seems like there was some fixes, so I bought that during a sale)

It looks awful, really awful. Its been pointed out that they apparently used ai to upscale models and textures with misspellings being observed and pointed out in the trailer. Its looking to be on the same level of quality as GTA trilogy "definitive" edition. And thats sad because I seem to recall Aspyr being a bit better in the past or atleast they werent criticised as heavily. They were doing ports on some star wars games and they were set on releasing ports of KOTOR 1 & 2 with the news that they'll include the restored content mod for kotor 2 along with the reveal of a proper remake of kotor. And then disney said no on the mod idea, Aspyr gets taken off the remake and now it feels like they've been a bit more apathetic as of late. I guess considering they went through financial issues during that fiasco they've decided its best to just do the minimum and move on while cashing their revenue cheques.

Kinda sad really.

Anyways… why did I buy this remaster? Well I wasn't planning to let alone cover it here but I had a real shit monday and decided to just buy some games that were on sale to cheer myself up. This game, Sulfur and Cult of the Lamb. I figure I'd cover this remaster to tie in with revisiting stuff I covered, along with a second game that I wanted to take a second look since I received a comment explaining some things that I felt confused before.

And that game…. will be revealed after the break.

NEWS ROUNDUP!!!

Steam Deck LCDs experience price drop - I enjoy my Steam Deck. I had no interest in buying a series x or going with a ps5 and I wasnt sure at the time the next nintendo console was going to be worthwhile (spoilers: I was right) so I decided to purchase a Steam Deck OLED and since then i've been pretty pleased with that, being able to play my steam library in a portable format and even buying a dock and ps5 controller to connect to my tv and play my library on a tv screen.

Now if you yourself have been interested in the Steam Deck but refrained due to price concerns, there is some good news as Valve are now selling the LCD model at a reduced price of $319.20/£279.20 on their online storefront. So if this appeals to you then maybe give it a look or just look at the linked pcgamer article below for further details.

www.pcgamer.com/hardware/handheld-gaming-pcs/valve-has-just-dropped-the-steam-deck-lcd-to-usd319-gbp279-making-it-a-stellar-deal-for-entry-level-portable-pc-gaming/

Frictional Games seem to have announced Soma 2 through a "Hotel Samsara" website - Soooo…… you ever hear of Amnesia the dark descent? You did? Good, then you know who Frictional Games are since their the devs behind that as well as their previous Penumbra series and of course, SOMA which I've heard described as Amnesia but sci-fi.

Anyways a recent update to SOMA was noted in the patch to have fixed some "faulty spam filters" and sure enough near the start of the game your protagonists pc has a spam email for a hotel. Following the link leads to a real website acting as a sign up page for a hotel samsara which according to the RPS article, is described as being spooky. While folks are busy speculating what this all entails for SOMAS sequel, you can maybe check out the RPS article or even the hotel samsara site yourself if you're interested.
 
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/amnesia-creators-frictional-are-teasing-what-could-be-soma-2-through-a-sinister-luxury-hotel-website

Animated Death Stranding movie announced with working title "Death Stranding Mosquito" - Kojima loves hollywood, this is isnt really a secret or anything if your invested in his games or just happen to pay enough attention to news involving him.

Western hollywood movies are a major inspiration for his work in the metal gear series, he's fanboying over actors, hes ecstatic to work with Guillermo Del Toro, Mads Milkkelsen and Norman Reemus for Death Stranding. Hes a pretty big movie fan is what i'm saying and I'm fairly sure I heard or read somewhere that he wanted his own studio Kojima Productions to not only develop videos games but also branch out into films as well. So with the announcement of an animated movie set in the Death Stranding ip, you would think thats them doing just that, except its being handled by the A24 folks.

The film is being directed by a Hiroshi Miyamoto from ABC Animation and its being written by an Aaron Guzikowski whom this Game Informer article credits as being behind works such as Raised by Wolves, Prisoners and The Red Road.

I've had Death Stranding on my list of games that I wanted to play but havent gotten around to since I heard it described as a walking simulator/ horror game? I hear it was well received along with the sequel, I should really get around to buying and playing it, in the meantime feel free to look through the game informer article and check out the trailer they included too.

 https://gameinformer.com/2025/09/23/death-stranding-animated-film-announced

Payday 2 now has a Subscription Service….. why tho?? - So…. I saw this when I opened up steam and read through the announcement before thinking to myself…. goddamn not again. Its lootboxes all over again.
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This announcement reeks of desperate… like payday 3 bombed pretty badly and Overkill and starbreeze are having some issues but this wasnt gonna help. The last time they had serious financial issues, they had to reopen devlopment on payday 2 and create dlc to sell to folks, thats how we got the dlc collections that take place near the white house finale that took heisters to Mexico, San Francisco and Texas.

Now though it doesnt seem like they're doing that, instead its just pay a sub to access dlcs please. You can still buy the dlcs seperate but some folks pointed out that the infamy collection which had all the dlc up to the white house heist along with the game itself apparently had a sudden price increase which overkill lowered again claiming it was a mistake… yeah…. sure….

And the real kicker? This might've gone a bit better if they did two things. First off, they could've made the base game of payday 2 free, just straight up free to bring in new players who havent already bought the game and most of the dlcs already. The second is they could've announced new dlc for payday 2 will be developed. This might seem embarrassing and they'd get lampooned for basically doing the same thing they did before, but atleast the subscription option would actually have some use instead of just being seen as a greedy crash grab.

Isnt there already a large amount of dlc for payday 2 that would be expensive to acquire fully… yes but the the infamy collection, which includes most of the dlc up to white house, often goes on sale along with the post white house dlc. So why would you pay a subscription to have temporary access to some dlcs for a 12 year old game????

NEWS ROUNDUP OVER!!!

So now our second game we're are revisiting is none other than… Nikke Goddesses of Victory, yeah that gacha game with the android women.

So you might wonder why am I revisiting this? Well as it turns out, when I posted my part 2 on Tumblr, someone actually commented and gave a pretty good explanation over some of the questions I brought up regarding it. Plus I felt that maybe I didnt give it a fair shake so I decided to give it another look to see if my thoughts change this time.

So gonna give a big thanks to kumokimiko and hopefully if you're reading this you don't mind me directly quoting you here:

"in-universe, Nikkes look the way that they do because the procedure generates a body profile based on the human's exceptionally strong sense of self or ideals. at time of creation, they become an idealized version of themselves. however, if they lacked such a personality or conviction, they become a mass-produced model.

the Nikke manufacturing companies capitalize on this phenomenon, by ensuring the strong and independent designs are marketable and aspirational. Mass-produced models are fodder that nobody need think twice about (well, until it's YOUR daughter who got turned into a mass-produced, but you're more likely to just disown them to avoid the heartbreak), but the sexy top-end models, they're the "Goddesses of Victory", fighting Raptures for mankind, who every girl wants to be like someday.

why only women? in-universe, not much explanation beyond "we tried using dudes, it didn't work". out-of-universe, however, it plays into the borderline feminist critique the writers are making of women as second-class citizens in South Korea. Nikkes have no agency and have their free will subjugated by nanomachines in the brain, may be subject to horrible experimentation or memory wipes with minimal justification, and are widely distrusted by the general populace on account of being susceptible to corruption and turning on humans at any time. in Nikke, the protagonist must essentially learn how to become the Ultimate Feminist, using his own status as a 'Human Commander of growing renown' to advocate for Nikke rights and support their mental health and autonomy"

Sooo…. to my understanding:

1. The nikkes look like attractive women because the process is based on what that person believes is their most ideal form, provided they have the willpower and drive, otherwise they become a basic mass production grunt. The ones who do are essentially used for marketing and pr purposes to attract more candidates for nikke creation. Though in that sense it doesnt quite answer as to why some nikkes look like minors. Maybe they litterly used kids in some cases?

2. While it makes little sense ingame, the fact that all the nikkes are women does serve a narrative point since this game uses the framework of a post-apocalypse with android women soldiers to touch on the subject of rampant misogyny and treatment of women in places such as South Korea. In my past playthrough and this one, the games story did explain that nikkes are treated somewhat expendable and unfairly. One example is how in the story my commander is told they'll get punished severely for breaking some rules yet in the court trial, they get suspended for two days while 2 nikkes in their command are ordered to have their memories erased, essentially being given a soft death penalty despite following orders.

3. This is definitive proof that someone has actually read some of my work on this series.

No really, this is a problem. See while I would've liked to see some traction and attention on this series, I kind of gotten used to being cursed with obscurity so I just wrote my thoughts and feelings on games and news without worrying about comments because who the hell is gonna read it lmao….

Well someone did, they actually read that part 2 I did and they wrote a comment that helpfully answered my questions regarding the game and…. i'm not sure I feel comfortable with this. I know I get the rare like and even rarer repost but I never really had a comment like this, if ever. Right now it makes me wonder if I should be careful from now on, this comment might have been nice and informative but how do I know the next one won't just straight up be my home address. How do I know I'm not being scrutinised on every word even as I type this. It's just….l i've been observed….

I've been observed.

I've been observed.

I'VE BEEN OBSERRRRRRVVVVVEEEEDDDDD!!!!!!!#!@#@!#£

(Insert technical difficulties)

"Ah you must be the new commander"

"hello…."

"Yes the doctors told me you suffered severe brain trauma from that helicopter crash. Its amazing you managed to survive that as well as all the raptures in that area. Anyways commander I have some bad news, it seems that crash has had some serious side effects as all of your misogyny has been knocked out of you, effectively making you woke"

"women….deserve better.."

"Normally we'd execute you infront of firing squad who would shout slurs at you till you die by a self-inflicted injury but the central government has decided to go with a rather unorthodox strategy. Apparently that crash has also made you a gifted commander as according to the performance reports, it seems the nikkes you commanded actually like you and that made them more effective soldiers."

"women so beautiful… give equal pay"

"Commander this pains me to say this but I need you to….. respect women. You need to respect women as hard as you can in the hopes that maybe they can kill all the alien robots. That means you cannot assault, call them slurs, grope or stare at their breasts and asses. You have to actually listen to them talk and hear their problems as well as give them gifts without any expectations for sexual gratification in return. And you positively can't smell them especially on anywhere they sit. We need you to do this, it may very well be the only way to protect our future dystopic society where BANGCAPITALISMBANGSTILLBANGEXISTS!!!"

"women deserve autonomy….. pretty women"

"Look we've tried hitting them, sexually harrassing them, stalking them, we've tried everything but for some reason nothing worked as well as what you did. Now get the fuck out there you liberal cuck. I need to detox by binging andrew tate videos and then go on fortnite to shout slurs at childrenCOUGH"

"blood…"

"Yes sorry for that, I was aura-farmmaxxing last night. Also I ate some shrimp that may have been contaminated with radiation, I have seconds left to live."

(We now return you to your regulary scheduled blog post)

ok…. ok… i'm calm now… had a small meltdown but i'm cool now….

You know something? The devs for nikke and glitch productions should do a collab involving murder drones. I mean this game has robot women, murder drones has some robot women and men. That could honestly work because nikke does do some collabs, they did one for nier and evangelion, hell atm they're doing one with resident evil. They could definatly do one with murder drones, it'd be pretty neat.

Anways uh….. right last time I talked about nikke I mentioned that playing on a phone didnt feel ideal due to screen space and that'd I'd had to rely on the auto functions for aiming. Since then i've gotten a tablet, so the game should play better on it right? Well yes…. and no. Yes the large screen space is better to aim with, but for some reason its locked in portrait mode rather than landscape. Not to mention aiming via dragging my finger feels too sluggish. I ended up failing a stage while doing manual aiming and when I tried again while letting the nikkes aim themselves, they managed to beat the stage no problem. So I mostly just let them handle the shooting while I sit back and activate burst skills, only occasionally taking manual aim during boss fights to attack vital points to interrupt an attack.
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I have also mentioned the fact that you could bond with your nikkes to increase their affection before but didnt really touch on it much unlike in this session. So not only do you increase a nikkes stats by leveling their affection, you also unlock episodes for that nikkes unique character story. Between these episodes along with the text message conversations you can have with a random nikke and even events in the outpost you could view for a limited time each week, it does help flesh out a lot of these characters personalities. Now granted i'm a gacha casual. I don't know if nikke is the one that did a system like this in such a way. I know I saw similar bonding mechanics in granblue and reverse 1999 but i'm not sure if they allow the same opportunities for thier characters to show their personality off unlike here.

I did manage to get a better idea on how to build a squad rather than just go with an auto-created one. I have either 1 level 1 and 2 level 2's or 2 level 1's and 1 level 2 and usually have two level 3's. The single ones tend to have skills that have a 20 second cooldown while the pairs tend to have longer cooldowns since I can choose the alternate one for that level, this way I can activate more full bursts to get complete buffs. Usually the squad contains a healer/shield nikke, buff nikke and a couple of damage nikkes.

You know looking back on the points from that comment, theres definitely an avenue for the nikke devs to do a story that touches on transgenderism given the whole "nikkes that arent mass repro are based on the subjects own personal idealised form" angle. You could definitely do a story where either a male subject did manage to be a successful transfer but they end up discovering something about themselves and end up transitioning or just one of the nikkes could have their pre-nikke history reveal that they were originally a man. I dunno I feel as if that is something they could actually do in this game…. though theres a potential chance they do it poorly or the whole nikke community goes in full meltdown over it but it is an idea.

To be honest I do feel my opinions on this has improved a bit given the context provided by that comment. Playing the game again and putting a bit more attention on some of the visual novel scenes does make me a appreciate how the game portrays the characters it has you playing gacha for, atleast on the conversations and personality side and not the pinup model one, though if this game was trying to go for story about feminism, it would kinda hurt the angle they were going if they went all "fan-servicey" over it and from what I played so far, they do manage to atleast avoid going too far, for the most part. I mean the resident evil event story did have a small scene of the commander walking on someone changing clothes and immediately backed out and apologise without showing an image of said character mid-changing, I feel like another game would have actually showed said scene in detail for a quick bit of pandering and I do appreciate they didnt do that.

Still kinda sucks that they dont look like actual robots, that would've been pretty cool and looking through all the nikkes you could get, most of are usually attractive women or just straight up rugrats, but then I found them….. Kilo.
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A nikke who pilots a mech suit, uses a light machine gun to spread dakka and has some good shielding skills and a damaging burst skill. Unfortunately shes was only available during the 1.5 anniversary event and few other events and doesnt seem like you coud get her via the regular gacha. You just have to wait for her to be available in a special gacha which….. sucks.

So yeah, I gonna keep this on the tablet and maybe look at on the odd occasion but I do feel like its a lot better than I initially thought in my intial playthrough of this game.

Now, was there anything I wanted to cover about this game….

Oh right…

Syeun, the ceo for Missilis Industry, is a cunt. I dont think thats controversial to say and I don't care if she has a tragic backstory, her introduction at the outpost and her attempt to force you to work for her, even threatening to frame you if you try to extract early, makes her a massive asshole in my eyes. If shes your favourite then fine, more power to you, she just ain't mine.

So that'll be it for this edition of Midnight Gaming. Next time will be covering something I havent covered beforehand. Until then i'll see you then, feel free to leave comments and game suggestion

Midnight Gaming: ADAB (All Division Are Bastards) - March 28th 2025

So, from 3/16/25 to 3/22/25 I played Tom Clancys The Division. A third person "looter shooter" from Ubisoft where you're a sleeper agent activated to take back New York after a viral epidemic brought the united states to a near total collapse…. this was released in 2016 by the way…..
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Honestly The Division is a series i'm unsure of whether its aged poorly or well. On the one hand its about a major worldwide outbreak not too disimiliar to covid with the united states failing to handle it, leading to civil unrest and the healthcare system swamped. Not too mention the whole "sleeper agent" story that the game is built off of. I mean the opening goes with the lines of how "we could be your friends, your neighbours, your coworkers" as agents gets activated and armed. It tries to potray it all as heroic but it comes off as disturbing given you are playing essentially as the american secret police. Not helped is how the early brooklyn area that acts as your tutorial has you shooting "rioters" with the excuse being they "stole" medicine to sell/use or have taken hostages to "trade for drugs". Yeah sure, thats exactly whats going on, surely I an activated sleeper agent given absolute power and no oversight will definatly not question that mister handler. I'll just shoot the "bad guys".

On the other hand, seeing new york in its dilapidated state, with all the abandoned cars and empty streets, with a lot of people locked within their homes to avoid the chaos outside, with the clinics and treatment centers that were meant to treat the infected and give medical aid now abandoned, with some of the mass graves in some infected buildings, the subway and in the park. Certanly creates a compelling vibe post covid huh? I mean pre-covid the game felt like a zombie apocalypse but without the zombies, now it looks like some alternate universe where america somehow handled the epidemic worse.

Beyond the whole awkward "secret police" vibes in brooklyn, once you move into the game proper and start levelling up, you start to warm up to the gameplay loop, clearing different objectives and leveling while grabbing any gear and crafting materials you come across. A lot of the combat in game relies heavily on cover since you are still just a regular ass human and can be mowed down by bullets quick if you're just standing out in the open. Usually you'll need to take cover and try to prioritise which targets to take out while keeping in mind on where to move to safely reposition or even where to fall back to avoid being surrounded as enemies try to flank and shoot your exposed sides. There were plenty of fights where I had to retreat away from enemies to try and secure some defensive ground because I realised the threat was close to surrounding me and I either had to move or be overwhelmed.
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Course as a division agent you do have tools at your disposal, up to two atleast with one ultimate with flavours of more damage, more resistance or just revive nearby allies (and automatically yourself if your running solo). You got your first aid shots and support stations for healing, pulses for revealing enemies and a turret for area control, seeker mines and sticky bombs for explosives and three varieties of cover which range from boosting the benefits of nearby cover, deploying your own cover to hide behind or just pulling out a ballistic shield.

Anyways theres more to shooting looters in this looter shooter, you do have some enemy factions that are definatly less of a grey area issue that you can fight such as the rikers who are ex-cons out to rob, defile and kill and not in that order. You have the Last Man Battalion who are a mercenary group with decent combat experience and equipment available to them and then you have the cleaners, the working man faction who have decided to sort the outbreak themselves since the government failed to do so. Of course their method is to construct makeshift flamethrowers and volumes of napalm to incinerate anyone they suspect of being infected, going full scorched earth on NYC. I like the cleaners as an enemy faction since they often talk in those thick new yorker accents like "LET ME DO MY JAWB!!" plus a lot of fights tend to end in explosions since you can shoot the fuel tanks on their backs and blow them up. Its no surprise they wind up being the returning faction for division 2's warlords of NY expansion, they are undeniably the more memorable antagionists of the division series.

NEWS ROUNDUP!!!!

Warhammer 40k Darktide about to recieve a rougelite wave defense mode - You ever played Vermintide? That Left 4 Dead-like that takes place in warhammer fantasy and focuses more on melee combat? Well Darktide is essentially Vermintide but in the 40k universe. I've played some Darktide and enjoyed it even if it is just Vermintide again but with less content but still enjoyed it all the same. Well now its getting a new mode where you need to survive waves of chaos along with some roguelite elements. Not the first time fatshark introduced some roguelite to their game since I recall the chaos wastes being a roguelite mode itself for Vermintide 2. [Future EJ here, this came out and i havent played the new update]

Remedy announces coop fps game based on Control. - Remedy has gained some well-deserved notoriety over the years from the Max Payne series to Alan Wake to… something and then with Control, a take on an scp style adventure with the Federal Bureau of Control. Well recently a new cooperative fps called FBC Firebreak was revealed taking place within the oldest house from Control with you needing to work with your squad to clear missions while dealing with various supernatural threats such as… post-it notes. I have the game Control, I should really get around to playing it, I hear its good…. QUANTUM BREAK thats what I was forgetting.
[Apparently it recieved middling reviews and is a bit starved on content, would stay give it a go]

Industry wide union announced by communication workers of america calling it the United Videogame Workers. - Lately its becoming disturbingly common to hear news of layoffs within the games industry, I have certanly talked about it before in this series. It seems like it doesnt even matter if you do a good job or not, you will get laid off regardless, its a very shortsighted way to run things as people who were interested in working in the industry will just see all this and realise that its essentially a dead end, that theres no job security whatsoever and that you may as well not bother. It sucks.

Thankfully it looks like a new union has been announced by the Communication Workers of America to try to push for protections for those working in the games industry, formerly known as United Videogame Workers. It'll likely be a long fight before any of the demanded protections will be agreed upon by many of the major players in the gaming industry but i'll try and keep an eye on it from time to time to see how it all plays out.

NEWS ROUNDUP OVER!!!!

Looking at Manhatten in the division, it honestly looks quite fantastic with all the dilapidated streets and snow. But at night its downright majestic. The snow falling, covering the streets and abandoned vehicles. The lights and tv screens clashing against the dark streets. And the fog rolling to create a blanket of mystery throughtout the snowy city. I dont think much folk appreciated let alone noticied how pretty the city in this game looked, the various buildings and locales draped in the snowy midnight.

Beyond acquiring levels and loot, completing any encounters, collectables and missions as like any other open world ubisoft game, you also have some activities you can play around with in The Division, assuming you have the gold edtion which gives you all the expansion content. Starting off with one thats a part of the base game and was heavily advertised is the Dark Zone, a large chunk of central manhatten thats been walled off due to being the area the dollar flu hit the most, with many of those sick and dying abandoned when the US government lost control and decided to cordon the area off to try and isolate it with very little success. Now its a whole area divided into sections where some of the toughest enemies lurk with decent loot to be found, though leaving with it will be difficult since most loot in the DZ will be contaminated and will need to be cleaned before it can be claimed, hence needing to be kept in a very limited inventory until you call for an extraction chopper to come pick up your loot while various enemies attempt to attack you for it along with other human players. Yeah the dark zone is technically a pvpve area where you and other players can essentially "go rouge" and attack other players, causing any DZ loot they had be dropped for the victor to pick up and during extractions, a player can run up and cut your attached lootbag off before the heli leaves, ruining your chance to secure that loot. Yeah its not something i've had experience it being sorta pvp and all but heres the thing, what i've described is more or less the modus operandi of most extraction shooters including Escape From Tarkov which was in beta during 2016. I dont think many people bring up The Division when they talk about the genre but I feel it deserves some credit along with Tarkov for being an early example of that genre since a lot of the core mechanics of an extraction looter were present in the divisions Dark Zone.
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Moving past that, one of the first expansions was the underground which is essentially a randomly generated operation with an objective to do, taking place in various subways and tunnels underneath NYC. Honestly underground can feel a bit samey since you'll often see repeats in various areas but there are a few unique things in this game mode such as enviromental hazards such as gas fires and sparking electrical junctuons that you need circumvent as well as skill jammers that'll block your abilities and alarms that can call in enemy reinforcements if they get activated. Not too mention when starting an operation in underground you can apply some directives which are essentially modifiers that provide one benefit along with a drawback, with the bonus of extra rewards for completing the operation wether its a one phase or a three phase back-to-back operation . Be more durable when moving? Be less durable when standing still. Have better stability for your guns? You carry less ammo for them. Have a chance to shock your enemies with your bullets? Shoot too much and you end up shocking yourself. Have ongoing health regen? Healing skills have longer cooldowns. That sort of thing. Also doing an operation in the underground gamemode doesnt take very long so its not a bad way to occupy your time and get some loot.

The next gamemode is survival which, if the dark zone is an early example of an extraction looter, division's survival gamemode is an early example of a battle royale game. Its playable in either a pve only or pvp enabled format where you wind up in a random area of manhatten during a massive snowstorm stuck with a handgun, a torn hazmat suit and a case of sepsis. A lot of things change with an ongoing timer counting down to your death that can be paused with antibiotics though overtime they will become less effective, a temperature gauge that'll lower if your outside and not near any heat sources and will start to gradually lose health. A lot of the cosmetic items you usually find in the main game such as beanie hats or jackets now serve a new function of raising your thermal resistance, allowing you to move inwards into the city. Seriously the divisions survival gamemode was something unique and it sucks it never made a return. A lot of its mechanics created a natural flow for players to go from gathering some basic equipment and clothing, moving closer to get better gear and craft a mask before entering the dark zone to grab a final few pieces of gear and parts to craft a flare gun and call for an extract before fighting a final boss. God it was fucking good.

Moving towards some pvp modes for a bit, you get a choice of skirmish which is a team deathmatch and Last Man Standing which is a pvpve kind of mode where you need to capture and control points along with taking out enemy npcs to get currency for boosts and fortifications. Never touched the pvp side of things so thats it as far as im concerned. Resistance is a game mode thats been included with the west side pier area thats been added in with a past update, resistance being a wave survival mode against a mixture of all the games factions and honestly plays a small bit like cod zombies since the currency you gain can be used to open news areas or spawn in boosts and supplies. Occasionally there is a random event that can happen such as one where the outside becomes dangerous so you need to be in a building to avoid damage or have to take out a boss before a time limit expires. Honestly a neat lil gamemode to take part in.

So the division, going back to my question of whether the game has aged better or worse, I can honestly say if nothing else it has unintentionally created a unique vibe in a video game of a city in crisis as a result of a worldwide outbreak. The time period of 2020-2023 was a dire time when covid was at its height, with lockdowns in full effect, hospitals and clinics being overwhelmed and staff overworked to handle the input of patients and with toilet paper prices skyrocketing, that looking at Tom Clancys The Division, a game that was released in 2016 and potrayed such a scenario, has managed to create a rather profound work of art in spite of some of its questionable setting and protagionists.

So is it worth playing now? Eehhhh….. Yes and No…. The game is an online only game and is about 9 years old now. Its not hard to imagine that ubisoft will shut it down one day and render it unplayable. As much it be nice, they arent likely to allow any resources to create an update to allow for offline play or some sort of way to allow the game to be played in the future, just look at The Crew, an open world racing game by Ubisoft that was shut down. Its not likely to happen soon this year since there was atleast a notice showing the global events will be available for this year so there is that. My time playing this game for this Midnight Gaming was pretty lonely since matchmaking often felt like hours until I was able to find 1 other person to work with. It wasnt until at max level and unlocking world tiers, at the max tier with a gear score of 255 that I was able to finally find full squads to run missions with so thats where the playerbase mostly resides. Your best bet is to look for a discord group to go with since I imagine a lot of players are doing for commendation hunting. But the game is worth playing, i've had a decent time with it and if you can get it on sale, its worth going for.

Was there anything I missed?

Oh yeah this was released around when "surprise mechanics" where a thing the games industry tried. So guess what was patched into this game at one point….
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That'll do it for this issue of Midnight Gaming Thank you all for taking the time to read this. Feel free to leave feedback and game suggestions. Talk to you all later
[Sorry I took a bit to upload this old piece, got stuff irl but im still trying to post the old stuff while working on a new midnight gaming piece, you'll get it eventually wafrn folks]