What a Difference a Dog Makes: Some Thoughts on the Dogs of Fallout 4 and Fallout: New Vegas

Chris

When a prospective owner starts looking for a dog they typically make a choice that reflects their personality. An extroverted person might opt for a bouncy, fun-loving bundle of activity where a more mellow home might prefer a dog that fits a slower pace of life. Not owning a dog myself means I speak with zero authority on the subject, but with Brexit looming I’ve been pouring hours into Fallout, recently. You know, just to get a feel for the way things might pan out over the next few years. It turns out it’s not just people that like their dogs to ape their nature, the same is true of the two most recent Fallout games: New Vegas and Fallout 4.

Fallout 4’s ‘Dogmeat’ quickly became the poster-mutt for Fallout’s move to Boston. Standing about like a furry lemon directly outside the starting area means he’s pretty much impossible for the player to miss. He’s a sleek, gorgeous, mysteriously well-groomed German Shepherd that’s immediately obedient and doesn’t poo all over your slippers or shed fur in the wiring of all your energy weapons. But despite the ease of Dogmeat’s companionship you can’t help but feel that there’s something missing, a certain spark lacking behind those big, brown eyes of his.

All we’ve got to go on in regards to his past is the odd mention from non-player characters that don’t really offer anything with any real substance. The optimistic side of me might think his origins are purposely shrouded in mystery but the increasingly dominant cynical side suggests that perhaps not a great deal of thought went into the pooches place in the wider world. But hey, who cares about those finer details when he looks so cute in doggles and munches down bad guy genitals like a consumate professional? Having a dog is cool, right? Surely it’s better that more people are able to find him early and appreciate his company? The less personality and backstory the easier it is for more players to project their ideal onto Dogmeat’s blank canvas. That way everybody’s happy, right?…right?

*Beep boop* I am a real dog. Please initiate petting protocol #443 *fzzt*

Fallout: New Vegas’ ‘Rex’ is a totally different kettle of fish, though. You won’t be finding him until you hit Freeside, a run-down district walled-off from the bright lights of New Vegas, hours away from starting the game. He’s tucked away in the back room guarded by a goon squad of well-armed Elvis impersonators and you won’t be getting acquainted until you’ve charmed or blasted your way through the gang’s compound. Finding Rex feels like a discovery. It’s unlikely that you’d miss him but it still feels like you’ve tracked down something that could have been glossed over, and got a wicked, sweet robo-dog as a reward for proper diligence. When you find Dogmeat in Fallout 4 it doesn’t really feel like you’ve earned anything. It’s like beating a toddler at arm wrestling or crushing n under-watered house plant in a round of 3D chess. It’s a curious freebie in a wasteland supposedly so harsh and unforgiving that drags you out of the whole experience.

Much like Fallout: New Vegas, Rex isn’t likely to win a beauty contest any time soon. After two hundred years and rough work as a police dog, a hound of Ceaser’s Legion, and a companion to a gang boss it’s safe to say that time hasn’t been kind to dear ol’ Rex. Years of degeneration have taken their toll and by the time you find him the poor mutt is knocking on death’s door in desperate need of a new brain. The quest this sets up provides a genuine reason for the two of you to team up and form a bond. Progressing his story further leads to a choice that permanently alters Rex’s stats and, no matter your decision, the player has real impact on the cyber-dog’s life, strengthening the relationship between pooch and player. Unlike Dogmeat, Rex feels like a genuine character that fits with the setting, complete with a history, troubles, and personal development that shine through the more time you spend together. Dogmeat feels more like a tool the player uses than a character they get to know. In many ways the full-flesh dog feels more like a robot than the one with stainless steel legs and visible wiring, a telling irony.

The heart and soul of a faithful friend fused with the metallic legs of an awesome robot.

Both Rex and Dogmeat make fantastic representations of the games they star in. Like New Vegas, Rex is ass-ugly, a bit kooky, and utterly falling apart but despite all this you can’t help but love him. He’s not a dog for everyone but for those who like him they couldn’t imagine anything better. His character outshines all of his faults and he’s nothing if not memorable, even if he is a bit janky sometimes. Like Fallout 4, Dogmeat is pretty and extremely functional. He’s a dog that’s easy for everyone to like but difficult for anyone to truly love. With such broad appeal he feels lacking in any kind of personality, lest he run the risk of turning anyone away. You can tell that an awful lot of time has been spent working on that glossy coat but underneath there’s not a great deal of substance to sink your teeth into. While it’s true that Rex and New Vegas might both piss all over themselves and fall to pieces every now and then, if it’s a choice between that and Fallout 4’s Dogmeat, I wouldn’t hesitate in backing the cyber-pup every single time. 

The worst boss encounters in Dark Souls – Basically, I’m annoyed at Namco again

Haydn

Dark Souls III is here and, if you know me, you know one thing: I freaking love Dark Souls.  I love playing Dark Souls. I love writing about Dark Souls. I love sitting alone in a windowless room just thinking about Dark Souls.

Given that I am flat-broke and can’t afford to buy Dark Souls III for a few more weeks, I decided to take a look back at some of the best bosses from the series thus far. I’m not joking when I say that I was on the second paragraph of that post when my goodwill towards the series was promptly soured once again by more PR bullshit from Bandai Namco, so I think I’ll take the piss out of the rubbish encounters instead.

For those not in the loop, let me direct your attention to particular offence that changed the nature of this post. In what should have come as a surprise to no-one, Namco have demonstrated an absolute disregard for health of the Dark Souls brand. Instead of seizing the opportunity to provide us with a genuinely nice collectors piece, some cretin in a boardroom signed off on this.

For only $129.99, you too could own this abstract green lump. By simply harnessing the power of your imagination, it could be anything you want it to be.

The Dark Souls III Prima Official Game Guide was sold for $129.99 with the inclusion of an Estus Flask replica, an item from the game that it is literally impossible to find good replicas of, even on Etsy. So the promise of an official one was enough to peak the interest of everyone with an unhealthy relationship with the series. But Namco, clearly not content with the slow poisoning of the Dark Souls brand, decided to throw a healthy dose of false advertising into the mix, just to really drive home the point of how little they care about Dark Souls and its fans.

The replica flask as pictured in the promotional material for the guide. It looks like a digitally drawn image rather than a photograph so the fact that it’s not representative is hardly surprising in retrospect.

You could call me petty for turning on the games I love simply because Namco are being terrible again. Surely, you might say, if I were to lambaste the Souls series each time Namco riled me up, I would have little time in life to pursue other interests, such as scouring B&Q car parks for free DIY supplies and waiting in train station cafes for connections I have no intention of taking. You’d be right to call me out like that, but I spend so much time gushing over the Souls games that I feel they deserve a gentle prod. Plus, a disproportionate number of the worst boss encounters are in Dark Souls II which isn’t even that good anyway.

To clarify, I’m looking at just the vanilla Dark Souls & Dark Souls II. While I’ll not deny that both Bloodborne and Demon’s Souls have their fair share of less than excellent boss encounters, it only complicates things when you start writing about five different games from three different IPs.

The Bed of Chaos (Dark Souls)

Totally bodacious, heavy metal tree monster with an interesting place in the lore. Also, a total shit-show from a game design perspective. 

Despite the superb visual design and strong core concept behind the Bed of Chaos, the actual encounter is insufferable. It plays much more like a set piece than a fight, with the player working to destroy barriers around the heart before diving into the writhing mass of flames and branches to slay the tiny but powerful being within.

I love the idea that something so small is responsible for such chaos, both in the room and the wider world, but the actual encounter is a tedious slog through instant death pitfalls and wonky code. Dark Souls was plagued with technical issues due to the sheer scope of the original game and Bed of Chaos is a prime example of where things went wrong.

Executioner’s Chariot (Dark Souls II)

The screenshot looks like it was taken from Beta because Dark Souls II is ugly as sin. Also, it’s misleading because this fight almost looks interesting. Which it patently is not. 

Upon passing through the boss door, you’re immediately swamped by re-spawning skeletons which you must dispatch while avoiding the actual boss as it rampages continuously around the circular room.

Once you’ve been stun-locked into a corner and died a couple of times, you might make it through to the second phase where, after pulling a leaver, the chariot crashes and you have to fight the horse. The executioner died in the crash presumably but his horse lives on; obviously distressed that it can no longer spend its its days running in circles for seemingly no reason, it’s out for blood.

The actual fight is laughable and amounts to little more than a quick scuffle as you dodge its predicable attacks. The entire experience plays out like you’re committing some urban knife crime towards a horse while riding the London underground during rush hour. The only redeeming feature of this boss is that it’s entirely optional.

The Skeleton Lords (Dark Souls II)

I was going to make some joke about Motorhead but the actually band had like 100 different members over the years and I figured the only one people would recognise is Lemmy, and then the rest of the joke wouldn’t scan.

Another boss encounter where the most difficult aspect is something other than the boss itself. The Skeleton Lords are three desperately weak and easy mobs that guard the path of progression. However, the skeletons which are summoned on mass upon their death are another question entirely.

With each lord you defeat, a small horde of weaker mobs will spawn and really put the word “cluster” into cluster fuck. The main offenders here are the bonewheel skeletons that zip around the arena at lightning speeds and will instantly pulp you should you not be playing as some sort of uber-tank.

I actually like the bonewheel skeletons as a standard enemy, but what I don’t like is when they appear in my goddamn boss encounters and quickly become the most threatening thing in the room.

The Royal Rat Authority (Dark Souls II)

It’s like a rat, but it’s also like a dog. The best thing about this boss fight is the environment which reminds me of basalt columns found in places like Iceland. I can say that because I’m a prick and I’ve been to Iceland and I like to make you all think I’m really smart and know things about rocks.

You remember Sif, the Great Grey Wolf from Dark Souls? Of course you do. Well, the best way to describe this shambles is like Sif, if he was a gross rat-thing that destroys all your gear with corrosive sludge, is guarded by two needlessly difficult smaller rat-things, and completely lacked any atmosphere or relevance to the lore.

If you’re lucky enough to dispatch the two smaller mobs before the big fellow gets to you (which, spoiler alert, you won’t) the fight is very straightforward. It’s just a big rat-thing. It jumps, it bites, it pukes on the ground.

Given that you’ll probably fail dealing with the two smaller mobs in a timely fashion, you’ll get stun-locked and destroyed in about two seconds flat. On top of that, the corrosive rat-thing puke will have broken all of your gear so you’ll have to repair it – with the souls you dropped when you died which are… in the room with the rat-thing that just killed you. Do you see the issue here? Ultimately this is a classic example of artificial difficulty but one that is vastly worsened by the chronic item degradation.

The Royal Rat Vanguard (Dark Souls II)

If you love giant rats, buckle your pants because this room is full of them. In the absence of giant rats, there are even statues of giant rats. 

“But Haydn, this doesn’t look like one of those infamous Dark Souls boss encounters I’ve heard so much about. This looks like a room full of giant rats, the weakest and most boring of all fantasy genre enemies, second only to goblins,” I hear you say.

Firstly, I’d question your ranking system if they’re second to goblins, and secondly I’d say you’re right about pretty much everything else. This boss battle is literally a room full of giant rats. It’s not difficult or cheap like the others on this list (though the sheer volume is quite galling despite being easy to handle), it’s just a room full of giant rats. That’s it.

“Well actually, it’s one giant rat and the others are all decoys-” shut up, you. It’s a room full of giant rats and it’s the second most lazy piece of boss design I’ve ever seen in a Souls game.

Belfry Gargoyles (Dark Souls II)

I can only presume that this boss was born from over eager copy-pasting. No one realised that Danny the Intern had done it until it was too late. 

The Bell Gargoyle from Dark Souls was a great encounter wasn’t it? You tentatively step out onto the roof, the sky is a dreary grey with gentle spots of blue; it’s beautiful in its own miserable way. The camera pans over to a gargoyle on the ornate bell tower before you, it slowly cracks and moves as it springs into life and descends with frightening speed, smashing onto the tiled roof and letting lose a blood curdling howl.

It’s a pitched battle between you and an opponent with all the advantages; speed, flight, range, fire breathing, an axe for a tail. You get it down to about half health and you’re feeling pretty good about yourself when, all of a sudden, a second gargoyle appears. This one is already weakened and missing its tail but still, you’re outnumbered and things are looking rough. It’s okay though, you have plenty of room to maneuver and the time spent with the first gargoyle has clued you in on what to expect. This encounter is Dark Souls boss design at its finest. It teaches you the ropes, then makes sure you’ve been paying attention.

Such brilliance only makes the mere existence of the Belfry Gargoyles in Dark Souls II all the more baffling. It’s literally just the same from Dark Souls only this time there is six of them and the roof is a little smaller. Once again, difficulty in numbers takes precedent over clever design, a fact which is only made more aggravating by the clear misunderstanding of what made the original incarnation of this encounter so good. Simply adding more gargoyles does not a good boss fight make. It lacks intelligence, purpose, and grace and is the most artificially difficult encounter in the entire series.

Having replayed Dark Souls, Dark Souls II and Bloodborne recently, the absence of game director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, in Dark Souls II couldn’t be more obvious. Both Dark Souls and Bloodborne are on an entirely different level to Dark Souls II,  and the boss encounters are just the superior dressing on what were already vastly superior salads.

Death in Dark Souls is its own reward

The Soulsborne games (Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls I & II, and Bloodborne) have a pretty fearsome reputation for being difficult. It is a rather well earned reputation at that: ‘Prepare to die’ reads the tagline for Dark Souls, a game that was very much sold off the back of it’s difficulty but burrowed into our hearts proving that it was much more than a few tricky boss fights. Soulsborne games are popular for more than just their difficulty. They take place in beautiful, twisted worlds that play havoc on your mind. A Soulsborne game isn’t just hard like Ninja Gaiden 2; it’s a marvelous feat of game design that never fails to impress. It offers satisfaction and frustration in well balanced portions and every mechanic is finely tuned almost to perfection.

From the very outset of development, From Software have in mind that you will die again, and again, and again. You will fall into the inky blackness of Blighttown and shatter your bones against the scaffolding on your way down; your defences will crumple under the fierce blows of Old King Allant; you will definitely get ripped to pieces by Vicar Amelia. It sounds cruel and brutal, and in many ways it is, but it is far more forgiving of deaths than most games, and certainly more forgiving than it would appear on the surface.

Taking Demon’s Souls as our first example: following the tutorial you have your maximum health reduced by 50%. Initially, this seems like an utterly insurmountable barrier to be presented with but you quickly realise that this is all about learning. The death mechanic is central to the game and so the developers waste no time making sure you understand it and, as ever with Soulsborne, the only way you’ll learn anything is to die first.

As Josh Bycer wrote in his article about difficulty curves, Soulsborne games use a Darwinian curve. From the very beginning players are introduced to more or less every mechanic and tool the game has on offer. In games like this ‘The player is not going to find an item or power-up that completely changes how the game is played halfway through,’ writes Bycer. Instead, a Darwinian curve ‘forces the player to learn all the tools in their arsenal’ from the offset.

As a result, the difficulty curve of Soulsborne games are more likely to resemble a very gradual decline in challenge for most players. It feels somewhat odd that this series of games, renowned for their extreme difficulty, can be considered to get progressively easier rather than harder. But it’s built into the very mechanics of the game. It rewards players for failure more than it does for success but that’s not a bad thing.

In Soulsborne, players will fail. They will fail dramatically and often but each failure presents an opportunity for great gain in a way which more traditional games don’t. Let’s take a traditional modern shooter as an example. Let’s say your objective is to clear the area, disarm several explosives, and then proceed to extraction. If you eat a grenade at any point throughout that operation and splatter the nearby walls with chunky pieces of marine meat, you are sent back to the last checkpoint and have to repeat the process from scratch. You’ve lost time and gained nothing except for some basic knowledge of the map and its hazards.

However, in a Soulsborne game, you could kill the first two enemies and then fall off a cliff but still have more to show for it than any dead marine that nearly made it to the helicopter. Soulsborne‘s infamous reputation is part in thanks to the souls mechanic whereby players get souls for killing enemies but lose them if they die. If a player can make it back to the spot where they died, they can recover the souls and spend them on weapon upgrades, spells, and levels. Of course, if they die on the way to recovering their souls, the loot becomes lost forever and they can now only retrieve what they were carrying when they died the second time.

On the surface, such a system sounds almost barbaric. Souls are an absolutely necessary resource for the average player and losing a large amount can feel like a catastrophe. In reality though, it’s a golden opportunity that can level the playing field for players who may be struggling.

When a player dies halfway between checkpoints, they have reached one of the many walls which will appear in a Darwinian curve. Once the player finally overcomes the challenge, they are very likely to have far more souls to spend than a player which breezed through the area with nary a backwards glance, the steel of their sword glinting in the sunshine; a brilliance matched only by the magnificent teeth which still remain in their head from not having died six times.

The player which has been repeatedly eviscerated by the savage blows of some lowly undead solider will be a higher level, have better items, more spells, a limo, a pile of cocaine and probably even a thoroughbred racehorse. The more successful player, however, will press on, impoverished but adept until they too hit the next natural wall and soon find themselves raking in stacks of souls as they hoover up souls, each death providing a new source of wealth in the form of respawning enemies. Even if a player only has to repeat a section once, they could have twice as many souls as if they had done it first time. Most importantly though, this boon wasn’t the result of needless farming, but instead the result of progression.

This process ensures that players don’t advance too far before becoming entirely under-leveled and under-equipped. It’s a simple but elegant system that isn’t nearly as harsh as it would initially seem. From Software want players to be challenged but ultimately to overcome. The developers aren’t looking to unfairly block players from progression or mercilessly punish them. The ethos of the Soulsborne design is to help the player finish the game, but it’s very much a stick before the carrot method.

A player will either naturally progress through improved skill, hammer their way through with a wealth of souls related upgrades, or a mixture of both. Soulsborne games give the players everything they need to progress and more but it’s done in such a delightful way that leaves players constantly challenged, or at least under the illusion. It’s unrelenting and but feels more punishing and cruel than it really is.

Once a player has mastered the mechanics, and has overcome the need to evolve or die as part of the Darwinian curve, they will not need to farm or grind out levels to succeed. A player that has been less able to master the fundamentals is held back until they do or until they become powerful enough to proceed despite their lacking grace with a weapon. ‘Adapt or die’ is less of an ultimatum, and more of a choice. In essence, both are valid ways of finishing a Soulsborne game.

Xbox One has a sad Japanese birthday

Let’s talk about the Xbox One, shall we? It was just over 12 months ago that it flopped unceremoniously into the Japanese market and continued the profoundly dismal sales of its predecessors. The success of Xbox over the last 14 years has in many ways been overshadowed by the lackluster performance of its various console releases in Japan. Microsoft’s repeated failures have become a blemish on the otherwise triumphant record of Xbox as a global brand.

The Xbox One officially launched in Japan on September 4, 2014 and has managed to rack up a meager 54,813 sales since then, with 23,562 of those being in the first four days.

For context, lifetime sales for the PS4 and the Wii U in Japan are 1.43 million and 2.29 million respectively. In fact, let’s really drive the nail in and draw attention to the fact that the PS4 had sold 620,000 units in Japan and was already considered to be doing somewhat poorly before Microsoft had even launched the Xbox One there. Sony had set the bar for failure pretty low in Japan and left it wide open for Microsoft to swoop in and clean things up. They didn’t, of course, or I wouldn’t be writing this.

Takuya Hirano, head of Microsoft Japan, told the world back in July that Xbox was not giving up on the Japanese market. With the Xbox One selling nearly 250,000 units less than the original Xbox’s lifetime sales (300,000), one cannot help but wonder if that will continue to be the case.

The Xbox Japan Twitter account, which has more followers than Japan has Xbox One’s, wished itself a happy birthday. There is something genuinely sad about the image as it gives off a degree of happiness and enthusiasm that can do little to mask the train wreck that is reality.

Xbox One の日本発売から今日でちょうど 1 年です! これからも応援よろしくお願いします!! pic.twitter.com/PVf0hZAqiS

— Xbox Japan (@Xbox_JP) September 4, 2015

According to Dualshockers.com, it reads, “Today, it’s exactly one year since the launch of the Xbox One in Japan! Thank you for your future support!!”

I’m undecided if ‘Thank you for your future support’ is a lighthearted jab at the fact there was no past support, or a desperate cry for help. Microsoft is beset upon from all side as its dominant market share in all things tech has slowly dwindled over the years. It doesn’t have the hold over the industry that it used to, as people turn to Google and Apple for alternatives in it’s core markets.

By 2012, Microsoft’s shares had been loitering around the $30 mark for 10 years, whereas Apple’s share price grew by 2,000% in that same period. This stagnation hasn’t relented in more recent years either. By the end of April this year, Microsoft announced a 6% improvement on revenue, bringing it to $21.73 billion, but this was somewhat countered by a decline of 5% in operating income, and earnings per share declining by 10%.

By the time the Xbox One launched in November 2013, the Xbox 360 had shipped 80 million units. At it’s current rate of sales, the Xbox One is going to need nine more years (11 total) to hit those numbers. Good luck I suppose.