WWE Ruin the Rumble again

I am choosing to discuss the WWE World Heavyweight Championship triple threat match between Brock Lesnar, Seth Rollins and John Cena first because that might put me in a better mood before I have to talk about the other stuff. 

Safe to say, the match absolutely ruled, quite possibly my favourite WWE match of the year (and by "year" I mean between Wrestlemanias). The match was a fantastic high energy bout with great work and spots from all three guys played out with the smartest ring psychology it could have. 

I am a huge supporter of Brock Lesnar in the WWE, even to the point where I thought him being the man to break the Undertaker's undefeated Wrestlemania streak was the perfect choice. Brock Lesnar is unique, and not unique in a Bray Wyatt kind of a way, unique in a legitimacy sense. On top of his amateur wrestling, football and MMA experience he's also properly trained as a professional wrestler, which means he's an unbelievable legitimately tough as nails athlete who can wrestle perfect WWE style main event matches. 

That's the key difference between Brock Lesnar and everyone, he's not playing an asshole on television he just is an ashsole on television. He leaves wrestling for nearly a decade, comes back and blows all the doors off, wrestles a couple of times a year, gets huge paychecks for it and flips the fans off for it while beating all their favourites. Brock Lesnar does not care about Undertaker's stupid pre-determined phony winning streak, he just beats it. Brock Lesnar does not care about Cena's comebacks, he just destroys him for 20 straight minutes in a main event match and takes his title with no give to sports entertainment nonsense. And the best part about all of this is you believe he could actually do it because well...look at him, watch the stuff he does in the ring! 

That's the magic of Brock Lesnar, and due to his athletic background, experience and the nature of the modern day wrestling business to overexpose every other talent by making them wrestle on television multiple times a week, there will never be anyone like him again in wrestling. Due to this, Brock Lesnar (and ONLY Brock Lesnar) is immune to the stupid pro wrestling clichés that any full timer would fall to on a regular basis, apart from when the time's right and creative don't want him to be any more (note: losing to Cena in 2012 was short-sighted and a big mistake on WWE's part). This is what makes his matches have an utterly unique and big-fight-feel kind of atmosphere.

Which is why I adored the triple threat match at the 2015 Royal Rumble, Brock destroys both guys out of the gate with little resistance. Rollins tries his usual J&J security tricks but that immediately gets shut down by Brock with no consequences to him. Rollins also tries to beat him with his usual briefcase-to-the-head heel trick of stealing matches and even that doesn't work and he just gets F5ed anyway. However, after a parade of finishers and a crazy table spot on the outside they are able to take Brock out of the match for several minutes. In that time Cena and Rollins do their WWE main event shtick between themselves only and give the crowd to kind of action they would be expecting, all while providing half a dozen false finishes, high drama and a lot of good spots.

In the end, all three guys were utilised to their core strengths in the smartest way possible. Brock went in a monster to cause tension at the start, was a monster throughout the match, came out of the match even more of a monster. Rollins was incredible as he continues his streak of great main event match performances in perhaps the most confident rise to the top I've ever seen in wrestling. And Cena was Cena, you know what you get with him. Rollins gets a few fake out near wins with his usual cheating tricks, Cena gets a few fake out near wins with his usual "Super Cena" shtick, then Brock says "screw that" and just re-enters the match taking them both out because he can. It was absolutely perfect.

You know what, I was wrong, even after all that rambling I'm STILL mad as hell about how stupid the Royal Rumble match was.

ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT THE ROYAL RUMBLE MATCH NOW

No, NO, before anyone starts, I am not just mad that Daniel Bryan didn't win. I was prepared going into it that Roman Reigns was probably going to win, and I don't really have anything against Reigns other than he needs a little more polish on him before he can main event Wrestlemania in my opinion. Let's be honest, there are legitimate reasons to not want Brock Lesnar Vs Daniel Bryan for Wrestlemania as awesome as it would be, Bryan's health is still in question and being thrown around by Brock won't help anything if there a danger there, and whoever faces Brock at Mania needs to beat him (preferably clean) and Daniel Bryan might not be able to make that convincing. So in theory, I have nothing against Roman Reigns winning this year's Rumble.

What I'm mad about is they knew everyone wanted Daniel Bryan to win, they knew nobody wanted Roman Reigns to win, they knew what would happen if they screwed it up because this exact thing happened last year, yet regardless they still handled it in the stupidest way possible.

First things first, Daniel Bryan did not need to be in this match at all. The match was already packed with fan favourites like Ziggler, Ambrose, Reigns, Mizdow, Wyatt, Cesaro as well as a bunch of surprise entrants and midcard babyfaces. Daniel Bryan was indefinitely injured a few weeks ago where we all genuinely believed he might be retiring, if having him in the match is this much of a problem then just have him make a surprise return the night after the Rumble! Sure, this isn't enough to get people on board with Reigns winning the title, but at least if you made it look like Daniel Bryan couldn't be in the Rumble at least no-one would hate you (and by proxy, Reigns) for it!

What you definitely don't do is throw Bryan into the ring at number 10 and have him thrown out by number 16 in the least interesting way possible. If you're worried about his health either A) see above and don't put him in the match at all or B) have him come out at the end instead so you don't make the crowd crestfallen halfway through the match (they had no problems doing this with Ziggler!)

Last year's Rumble match wasn't very good, even ignoring the drama not a lot of note happened in it and it was fairly sloppily put together all things considered. But still, at least Batista came out to get booed at 28 and not 19, and the fans turned on the match at Number 30 when they realised Daniel Bryan wasn't in it and not halfway through the goddamn match when they had already seen him and he was gone. I can't believe I'm saying this, but by having him wrestle Wyatt and losing in the first match of the night last year, the Royal Rumble 2014 was actually better booked than this year's.

Seriously.

Here's why I say WWE knew how this was going to turn out; because they knew Daniel Bryan was going to get the pop of the night no matter what, the plan was probably to have him thrown out fairly early on so fans would get over it before the Roman Reigns and Rock party got going because again, they knew Daniel Bryan would overshadow it and fans wouldn't be on board. If that is what they were thinking it's pretty goddamned stupid considering what happened last year, and also when you consider the fact if you're genuinely worried that a guy is so popular he's going to upstage and get THE ROCK booed perhaps you need to rethink this entire plan from step one. 

So by underestimating the popularity of Daniel Bryan (how do you even do that at this point?) WWE undermined the entire second half of the Rumble, put not only Roman Reigns and The Rock but everyone remaining in the match in a really tough situation, and got their fanbase salty leading into their biggest show of the year again. 

Some people may try to play Devil's Advocate and say on its own merits the Rumble match wasn't that bad, or this or that were fun moments or whatever, and if the crowd hadn't booed everything it would have been great. First thing's first, a crowd isn't a single sentient being, if you put on a show that makes 18,000 people turn on it and nothing wins them back you've done something wrong, end of discussion. Secondly, when the match itself has been completely buried without repair all those little fun moments mean nothing. I remember Kane's 2001 Rumble performance where he eliminated 11 guys because it was a fun match, and a genuinely good performance, it sticks with me because it was overall a good presentation. When I think of the 2014 Royal Rumble all I imagine is those last 10 minutes where everything was lost and Batista pointing at his crotch, and Reigns elimination record is just a meaningless arbitrary number lost in that mess. I was enjoyed this Rumble match for the first 25 minutes or so, but does any of that stick with me now? NOPE.

Not to mention it felt like WWE were deliberately twisting the knife this year. Mr "Show Off" Dolph Ziggler comes out at 30, barely gets to do anything and gets knocked out by KANE AND THE BIG SHOW, Ambrose meets a similar fate, Barrett and Cesaro don't get a ton of fanfare on their exits either. I don't even remember who eliminated Bray Wyatt (again, the highlights of the match faze into a blur when it's bad). After Bryan is gone the match turns in a mass of humanity of jacked up big dudes filling the ring almost like an extra FU to any Bryan fans left not demoralised. Ultimately, it was a poorly booked match that they hoped Rocky would save by showing up, but couldn't (and boy did he know it).

I'm just at a loss here, the fact the WWE clearly knew this wasn't going to go down well and hit the panic button trying to do damage control instead of coming up with something different to do blows my mind. Roman looked REALLY bad tonight, this isn't doing his career or your Wrestlemania main event any favours, you guys should know by now from Del Rio/Sheamus/Swagger/Miz that you can't force these things! Once again, it's not the fact that Roman Reigns won the match and Daniel Bryan didn't, it's the fact they could not have handled this any stupider if they tried. 

Instead, you've somehow managed to screw up the most idiot-proof, basically guaranteed-to-be-entertaining Pay-Per-View of the year twice in a row...doing the EXACT same thing.

The worst part is at least last year it seemed pretty unbelievable that WWE would seriously attempt to main event Wrestlemania 30 with Randy Orton Vs Batista and SOMETHING would save us (and it did). This time round they seem to be pretty set on doing Reigns Vs Lesnar so I don't know how they're going to handle post-Rumble damage control this year. Looks like we're stuck with what it looks like this year.

Don't worry everyone, I'm sure the WWE Network "cancel subscription" page will be back online soon enough.

Danganronpa, Transphobia and our own Ignorance

Couple of disclaimers/warnings to mention before this post gets rolling. First things first, unlike my review of Danganronpa this piece will contain some spoilers for the game. I'll stay away from the really big reveals and bombshells the game drops but if you don't anything spoiled you should turn back now.

Secondly, be aware this piece is written by a cisgender male and is meant as a reflection of my own ignorance regarding trans issues as much as anyone else's. For a trans perspective of the character this post will be discussing I recommend you give this link a quick read.

I was disappointed with Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. The central premise and clever moments were enough to hold my attention to the end and give it a tentative recommendation in my review, but ultimately when it's all said and done the majority of the things that have stuck with me regarding the game are the things I didn't like about it. I was planning to do some kind of followup "Danganronpa leftovers" post to get into character arcs and motivations and other things about the story that didn't click with me, but instead it all comes back to one major problem to me:

"That second case really is kind of gross."

To summarise as quickly as possible; the second case of the game involves solving the murder of a young girl Chihiro inside the women's locker room. As the facts of the case start to become clear there's evidence to suggest that the scene of the crime was actually the men's locker room and that the body had been moved. The new mystery emerges of how Chihiro could have possibly got into the men's locker room in the first place considering only a boy's keycard could open the door and any attempts to enter the room with someone else would lead to execution. The solution to this problem; Chihiro turns out to have been a boy this entire time, who dressed as a girl because he considered himself "too weak" and thought life would be easier for him dressed as a girl because the people around him would expect less from him.

It should be made perfectly clear that Chihiro does not identify as a transwoman within the fiction (which is why I'm using masculine pronouns), and this is used as a defence of the character claiming that a non-trans character can't be transphobic. Ignoring the huge elephant in the room that even if the above scenario isn't transphobic, it's pretty much inarguably extremely misogynistic, as the game also implies that Chihiro was self concious about his "weakness" and wanted to make himself stronger so he could be accepted as a boy again. In other words; Danganronpa directly correlates "becoming stronger" with "gaining masculinity".

But even ASIDE FROM THAT, just because a character isn't designed to be a trans person doesn't mean they contain zero commentary on trans people from the writers point of view. The whole plot point of "hiding" in the female form to escape your "weakness" to hold the masculine form in of itself is evidence that the writer neither acknowledges or represents trans people. The fact that Chihiro's entire character arc involves earning his way back to masculinity is also a distinctly transphobic (and highly misogynistic) narrative, as if to imply all trans women are cowards and all trans men are not worthy of the male form. Also, as soon as the remaining cast of characters discover that Chihiro, a character they have only known as a young woman during the several weeks they spent time together, they immediately and without difficulty start referring to the character by masculine pronouns themselves. Again this can't be called "misgendering" as Chihiro doesn't identify as trans, but this can be taken as a point that by the writer's logic gender is entirely defined by the physical form. Case in point, even though the rest of the cast only know Chihiro as a woman, one feel of his goolies after death is enough to completely rewrite everything they ever knew about him.

This all comes back to a larger problem I have with Danganronpa's narrative in general. The characters aren't terrible per se, but often they just feel like pieces of a puzzle. All I remember about Leon is he was good at baseball because it played a crucial plot point in one of the murders, Byakuya is a giant asshole which is an excuse to have him rearrange one of the crime scenes for no reason and never comes up again, Toko has some kind of multiple personality disorder (note: this game doesn't have great depictions of mental health issues either) where her two personalities have entirely separate memories from each other which comes into play in a few puzzles...but otherwise isn't really addressed or explored in any meaningful way. Whereas in Ace Attorney, a series initially based around exploring the behaviour of people on the witness stand, the characters are central to everything going on around them and the clever puzzles come second, in Danganronpa characters seem to just be puzzle pieces that the designers slot together to create elaborate murders. The same can be said of Chihiro, I'm not saying the character is the writer(s) trying to express some kind of anti-trans political message, he's just another puzzle piece where "gender" is the key to a solution. However, this doesn't mean Chihiro isn't a reflection of the writer's internal ignorance.

The ignorance on display really is extreme, as the Mammon Machine link at the top of this post points out Chihiro's character isn't consistent with any real life trans-narrative, so the fact that the character not only exists but is largely unquestioned by Danganronpa's audience speaks to a larger cultural ignorance. This is the only place where I can give any kind of personal perspective on this issue as a cisgender male. I certainly don't feel any strong sense of identity from my gender but I'm also certainly not a contradiction of societal gender roles (which are garbage) either in terms of how I act or the stuff I like.

Because of this the question of gender issues never really occurred to me while growing up. I never felt weird about it as a child and at that age you don't question these things, at least not in any intellectually meaningful ways. Other than general unfocused lessons of "tolerance" transgender issues aren't really brought up to children or young adults whatsoever. In media trans characters are usually horribly represented or more often regulated down to nothing more than a punchline. I'm trying my best to educate myself and read more on the subject of trans issues now, but the fact that I was able to make it to my late teens without being aware of these issues at all is A) not that rare and B) extremely problematic.

And since that is so common in BOTH Western and Japanese culture, that's why we get characters like Chihiro from Danganronpa. The fact these characters exist and are accepted despite having zero connection to reality and making ridiculous assumptions about an entire group of people show that the world has got a hell of a long way to go in terms of accepting and understanding trans people. Myself included. 

On reflection, I initially wanted to write something like this to explore some of my issues with how Danganronpa handles characters and the writing in general, but I just haven't been able to stop thinking about how stupid the second case is and what that says about the people making it and playing it. Don't get me wrong, I still for the most part enjoyed Danganronpa, I still think it's worth checking it out, and you don't have to feel guilty about playing it because of some of the grosser elements contained within. Just remember, trans people are real, they do suffer due to how our culture views them and society treats them, and media getting it this wrong certainly doesn't help anything. So don't feel bad about liking Danganronpa, that's not my point, just perhaps dedicate some of your time to understanding why it got this so wrong. 

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Review

No-one seems to be able to agree whether this game is actually called Danganronpa or "Dangan Ronpa", presumably due to the confusing layout of the box art. According to Wikipedia it is indeed "Danganronpa" so we'll stick with that one, which apparently is a compound of two Japanese words that roughly translate as "bullet refutation". No firearms are involved in any of the deaths contained in this murder-mystery visual novel, so the bullets instead refer to the gimmick of having to aim and shoot contradicting evidence into witness statements as they appear on screen.

In other words; the English title Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc contains two references to the absolute worst part of this game. 

It can also be said that the title doesn't give away too much in terms of what to expect from the actual game. I was attached to it through my enjoyment of the Ace Attorney series and the assurance that Danganronpa's trials would put the former's to shame. The basic premise is 15 high school students (ugh I KNOW it's anime let's just go along with it okay?) are selected to join a special elite Academy, all of which have their own special "Ultimate" skill with the exception of the player character Makoto who lucked out and was selected at random. Things soon get messy as all the student become trapped in their new school, with the only way to escape to murder one of the other students and escape accusation at the following trial. 

So that's the story, the events unravel as the students try to live together in their new prison while being tormented and potentially homicidally motivated by the "headmaster" Monokuma (who's an evil robot bear). Not only do they have the threat of each other to be concerned with, there's also the threat looming in the background of a true "mastermind" overlooking all the events as well as other mysteries that crop up as things develop. It's a pretty fantastic premise, Danganronpa holds your attention by breaking itself down into smaller chunks of drama, investigations and trials while maintaining the appeal and feel of a much larger story. Much like a lot of good books, it's perfectly viable to consume Danganronpa in an episodic fashion or just blow through the entire thing in a couple of long sittings.

Danganronpa also cleverly works its way around some of the shortcomings of other narrative-focused games I happen to like. In my thoughts on The Walking Dead: Season 2 I commented on how the overarching feeling of hopelessness to the franchise was making it more difficult for me to feel attached to any of the characters, Danganronpa avoids this deattachment by making it ambiguous regarding how many characters actually can or will make it out of this okay. There is potentially a happy ending to this mess, and I sure hope *character that I like* makes it out of this hellhole with me! Also, there's also been this dark subtext to the Ace Attorney franchise that the sentence for being found guilty of murder within that game's setting is capital punishment. Maybe Japanese and American audiences don't think much of it, but as a wussy European it sure felt weird at times that I was furiously fighting my hardest to get someone sentenced to death, and sometimes that person wasn't even the one who actually did it (thanks Justice For All!). Danganronpa again avoids this occasional ambiguity by establishing that accusing the wrong culprit not only lets the murderer escape unpunished but sentences everyone else to execution in their place, so not only are they a murderer but they're willing to sacrifice everyone else for their own freedom. So yea, you should probably catch the real murderer!

Now let's talk about the trials, the ones that allegedly put "Ace Attorney's to shame". Well short refutation, they don't. I do like how they play out with all the students standing in a circle having one continuous discussion as it causes the case the naturally play out from key point to key point. Rather than having a stacked deck leading to the wrong conclusion you have to grind against it's more about establishing the truth from the evidence provided. How this plays out is having character argue about relevant points to the case, and certain parts of testimony can be broken with your "truth bullets" (evidence) to render particular arguments moot. Ironically, despite a more stylised and complicated layout the game is actually a simplification of the Ace Attorney system, as you can't press points, there's a limited about of phrases you can interact with at all, and depending on your difficulty setting the game limits what evidence you can present in the first place. 

The whole presenting evidence thing works as a string of puzzles but other than that I find the trials in Danganronpa annoying and gimmicky. Sure, in terms of dramatic story development they play out fine, but actually interacting with them turns out to be a chore. Trial sections also contain testimonies where you have to break a phrase with another phrase in the very same argument. This irritates me because 1) you always get a MASSIVE hint when you have to do this when the game loads obviously irrelevant evidence into your "truth gun" or whatever they want to call it 2) they stole this idea from MY BRAIN and 3) they executed it in a way that barely makes sense because if two characters are saying things that contradict each other in direct response to each other than surely they don't need me to point it out for them?

I also HATE having to shoot the phrases, because timing and aiming are actually important for no discernable reason. Not difficult in any skill based way mind you, it's just that there's a delay on the evidence actually hitting the statement so you have to time the firing perfectly. You can slow down time to make it easier, but this ability is limited and even then sometimes "white noise" or "random phrases that block the testimony for some reason" can block your shots and make you have to waste your time going round and round in circles until the correct phrase turns up again. It's needlessly obtuse and adds nothing to the game other than frustration. Also, there's rhythm minigames and a bit where you shoot letters to spell out obvious clues. All of this is merely window dressing, or some bizarre at attempt to be "stylised" that comes off more as "obnoxious", it's like Danganronpa is ashamed of how simple it is actually is and put in as many distractions as possible.

One part I did really enjoy however was the wrap up "closing argument" segment where you fill up panels of a manga comic detailing how the entire murder played out. It's a visually interesting and clever way to make the player prove he/she has an understanding of the case as a whole. Sometimes it can be a little confusing what the panels you're supposed to be dropping in are actually showing, but hey it's still a neat idea and that's a minor complaint so we'll give it a pass. 

It's also worth mentioning that of the 5 murders that this game contains I consider 3 of them to be pretty obvious, and this includes the final "all mysteries revealed" trial which kind of sucks. This isn't a huge issue, after all half the time Ace Attorney flat out tells you who did it at the start of the case and the fun comes from the adventure getting to prove it and the characters involved. However in Danganronpa it does feel like it's supposed to be a mystery and more often that not it doesn't necessarily come off as one. All 5 cases have their own little twists and turns in the details though so it's not a complete loss, but I hope the sequel contains less obvious culprits and "misleading evidence". 

Speaking of twists and turns, to put it in the least spoilery way I can, the second case is pretty gross. It's twist "gotcha" moment is horrifically grounded in misogyny and is also blatantly transphobic too. I have to say, that's kind of a running theme of the entire experience for me. Not to say Danganronpa is *badly* written, but it does contain a cast of borderline ridiculous anime stereotypes, bizarre takes on mental illness and suicide and has a motivationless mastermind villain who rants and raves about "despair" and is defeated by the power of friendship in the way that shows so little acknowledgement of the concept of "subtext" you'd think all books had been banned in Japan. All I'm saying is the whole thing comes off something written by a man who was locked in a basement for the entirety of the 90s, not necessarily a stupid man, just one who could do with a bit more sunlight. And hey, maybe being in that basement for so long is what gave him the idea for this game!

Anyway that's Danganronpa, I don't think it has the heart or the ingenuity of the better Ace Attorney games, but it is a pretty interesting little trip in its own right. The core premise is more than enough to hold interest right to the very end, and unlike some games I don't think the ending is going to be a dealbreaker for anyone. There's a few loose ends that I was disappointed to not see addressed, but in terms of the mysteries it sets up and then solves it all works out fine. There's frustrations and eye rolling moments along the way, but I think it's worth getting to the end of, and there's very few games of this length I would say that about so consider this a recommendation.

Oh, and this game is what put me over the edge to buy a PlayStation Vita!

The PlayStation Vita rules.

Shuffling Through The Walking Dead Season 2

Despite it being one of my more anticipated releases of 2014 I managed to make it all the way through 2014 without playing Season 2 of TellTale's The Walking Dead. I'm playing it now though! One year strong after everyone else stopped caring about it! Well screw those people, everything becomes interesting again as soon as it's discounted on PlayStation Plus.

Anyway this post will be updated and amended as I play through the chapters, so at the time I'm writing this very sentence even I don't know what I think of the game yet! But I will point out here there will be SPOILERS so don't venture any further if you don't want key plot points or decisions revealed. 

Here we go!

Episode 1 - ALL THAT REMAINS

Oh god I don't want to talk about it.

Well, obviously I do. Complaining about things is usually more fun and engaging from a writer's perspective, but I had to force myself to play Episode 2 immediately after this one just to ensure I didn't give up on this entire thing. If I had stopped here it might have been difficult for me to push myself back into the fray. 

it's not incompetent; Clementine is well characterised as being smarter for the events of the first season, but still young and unprepared for the world around her in many ways. TellTale games still run like they're programmed for a hypothetical PS2/Gamecube/Xbox hybrid console and are incompatible with any modern system, but at least it's not the constantly near-crashing stuttering train wreck the first season was on PS3 (HEY TELLTALE, I SEE YOU PICKING UP THOSE BIG GAME OF THRONES AND MINECRAFT FRANCHISES, MAYBE PUMP SOME OF THAT CASH INTO A NEW ENGINE ALREADY??). And I do happen to like some of the new characters in it just fine, like Luke, Luke's cool, I'm okay with Luke.

The problem is this episode is really really manipulative, both emotionally AND mentally. Perhaps it felt it had to be to follow the success of the first season, but it is what it is, and what it is isn't very nice.

The episode starts (after a janky barely functioning montage of clips recapping the first season) with Clementine travelling with Omid and extremely pregnant Christa also known as the "nice guys who got away" from last time around. After a brief tutorial of Clementine bumbling around a bathroom she's confronted by a desperate scavenger, stuff happens, Omid enters the scene, Omid gets shot.

Omid dies.

Christa shoots the scavenger in revenge, the scavenger dies.

The game jumps forward 16 months, Christa and Clementine are sitting around a campfire looking incredibly miserable. Christa is obviously not pregnant any more, but there's no baby to be seen.

We can probably assume the baby died.

Dudes attack them, at least one (probably more) of said dudes gets murdered. Clementine and Christa get separated, this episode doesn't tell us what happened to Christa. Clementine means a dog that's way too cute to not get killed (first thing I thought). After finding some food the dog begs, I chose to give it some food which led to the dog savagely mauling Clementine despite seeming perfectly domesticated. Clementine kicks the dog off her, she soon discovers she has accidentally impaled the dog on some tent posts.

The player then has the choice to abandon the dog  in agony, or slit his throat. Over 85% of players chose to slit his throat. 

What is this garbage TellTale? Almost everything in the first season felt at least vaguely contextual, everything was based around the characters first. Either we cared about bad things happening to other people because we felt responsible for it through our own decisions, or just because the game had allowed us to get to know and care about these characters (or at least attempted to ) so we cared when the bad stuff happened to them. This episode is just an onslaught of horrible violence and tragedy, possibly in an immature attempt to "top itself" after the finale of the last season. It's borderline gross, there's a difference between hard hitting drama and emotional manipulation, and this episode is firmly set in the latter. When you're introducing cute dogs for the purpose of forcing the player to murder them in the most horrific way possible you're not earning yourself any gold stars for storytelling. 

I know Clementine getting a dog bite is a key plot point for when she meets up with the group later, but I refuse to believe that TellTale didn't just make a list of "Depressing Stuff" which had "murder a dog" near the top of it. What's even the purpose of this needlessly cruel opening? To establish the world is cruel and screwed? About that, I kind of got a good feel for the world being screwed when I played a little game called THE WALKING DEAD: SEASON 1. 

The point is; TellTale didn't know how to follow up the drama of the first season with new characters or tough decisions, so instead they chose to bully you. They couldn't reach your heart so they decided to keep slapping you across the chest until it felt like the same thing. 

Also of note is the fact that TellTale still haven't ditched all the baggage that comes from their origins in more traditional adventure games, so we still have OBJECT PUZZLES. It wouldn't bother me that much except for the fact that the game also uses this element to distract your brain from situations you're supposed to be paying attention to in this "interactive story".

Okay, so after the dog biting scene Clementine bumps into a gang of people who will be the fresh zombie buffet for season 2. They think Clem's bite is from a walker and don't trust her. They don't want to waste medical supplies on her as if she is bitten by a walker she's a goner anyway, so they decide to not treat her immediately and to lock her in a shed until morning. If she's still alive, then they can deduce she wasn't lying about her wound being from a dog bite.

You regain full control of Clementine inside the shed. There's a hammer on top of some shelves that she can't reach, if you attempt to grab the hammer an animation plays of Clementine failing to reach the hammer. The player instantly knows now, even if he/she can't explain it, that they need the hammer. By opening up a little desk thing attached to the wall Clementine can step on it and obtain the hammer (not without violently plummeting to the ground and squealing a lot obviously, this is the generation of videogames that firmly believes protagonists aren't likeable if they aren't constantly having the crap kicked out of them). CONGRATULATIONS, you have solved the hammer "puzzle".

Now you have a hammer, it required effort to get the hammer, so obviously there is a use for the hammer. You look for the one object in the room that you can now interact with due to having a hammer. You use it to take some nails out of a board to reveal a hole that Clementine can crawl out through. You are now outside the shed, the top left corner of the screen is now consumed with a hint informing you of your new mandatory objective to find medical supplies.

But hold on, what if I wanted to just wait out the night in the shed? Clementine has lost everything at this point, these new people are her last hope, maybe she shouldn't jeopardise her one chance to earn their trust by breaking into their house and stealing from them? Sure, I guess there's a chance it'll get infected and she won't survive the night, but getting the wound healed and then stranded in the zombie wild alone seems like a must-lose even worse option. 

It doesn't matter whether you agree or even care about my personal interpretation of this situation, the point is there is a "choice" or at an argument to had here. You know this occurred to the writers because the group does notice Clem's self-stitched wound (which is another horrific scene) and mentions it, and then forgives her because there wouldn't be any more game left if they didn't. Telltale covered their tracks by stringing you along on a bunch of adventure game objects, followed by giving you a clear non-questionable objective, in an attempt to make you not notice a key plot point/decision, which seems to undermine the whole "interactive story" thing the game's going for. Bottom line; you got manipulated again. 

Soon after that the game ends on a token decision between two characters you don't really know that well or care about. One of them was being way too nice for me to not immediately think he was going to die soon (again) so I knew it was coming. I chose to save Nick because Pete was already bitten, so it became less of a moral choice and more a logical choice in terms of "well he's going to die at the start of the next episode any way", which is something else Telltale really needs to think about on their choices for future instalments. 

Ultimately, I didn't really care about the choice either way, and after the game made me feel uncomfortable and gross for playing it for an hour, it managed to turn things around and end on a choice that didn't make me feel anything at all. So yea, not a fan of this episode all round, hope it's only uphill from here!

Episode 2 - A HOUSE DIVIDED

Okay this will be briefer since the first episode took a lot out of me; this one's better! The actual story has got going now and the focus is on events that are driven forward by the characters, and it's not just a big pile of murder and horror on top of more murder and horror.

It kind of goes for the same effect the second episode in the first season went for; in that it's a story featuring a lot of quiet nice moments and people getting along, but you already know it's all about to go wrong. The tension builds as you know the implosion is coming but you can't do a dang thing to stop it.

The scene where creepy camp leader man comes round the house and you're given (probably mostly pointless) regular dialogue options is very clever! It's a scene you see a lot of in movies and TV shows and this episode does a decent job of making you feel the panic and desperation a character would be going through in moments like this. This is a prime example of the "illusion of choice" being far more important than having rock solid choices that actually make huge differences.

Generally speaking, and I'm concerned this might be an issue for the entire series, I do get weirded out by the amount of influence Clementine has over the other characters. Okay, she was a much more mild form of emotional manipulation (compared to the first episode) in season one, as she was the cute innocent girl who would give you the sad eyes whenever you made a hard decision. This doesn't really work now she's the protagonist, and a few years older, and stubborn apocalypse-affected adults she barely knows seem to be leaning on her for advice and moral support. One of the characters flat out admits how stupid it is that she's addressing a little girl in reference to her extremely adult problems. 

This leads to a bigger but more subtle psychological weirdness that absolutely will hang over the whole game. The Walking Dead is all about extremely difficult decisions, and adult situations, and hardcore violence, but in this season we are playing an eleven year old girl not a flawed backstory-driven adult like last time. I am an adult thinking with my adult brain in the role of an eleven year old. I find sometimes this makes me not think too hard on lots of decisions, often I go for the "polite" non-committal dialogue option because it just makes more sense to me a little girl would talk like that as opposed to getting in peoples faces or lecturing adults on what they should be doing with their lives. But trying to role play the game like that falls apart whenever you're forced to make those potentially life or death decisions later on. I understand why Telltale would want the second season to be about Clementine, but perhaps having a child protagonist was a fundamental mistake. 

Overall though, Episode 2 is way better than the first and I don't feel like junk for playing it, or for wanting to play the next one! There's a good villain in place, a nice relationship between Luke and Clementine building, some intrigue with the returning Kenny and some drama with the pregnant lady whose name I've forgotten. Things could genuinely really pick up from here.

Episode 3 - IN HARM'S WAY

Okay, so that thing I was talking about during the last episode about maybe it being a mistake to have a child protagonist for this season, let's go ahead and chance my stance to it definitely being a mistake. There is literally a scene in this episode where a concentration-camp running, enslaving/murdering psychopath goes eye-to-eye with an eleven year old girl and gives her a generic "we're not so different, you and I" speech.

The sad part is there's so much time dedicated to the villain doing cliché villain stuff to make us hate him, and forced as it was I could have got into it before he pulled that nonsense. Again, most of my dialogue options for Clementine are inspired by what I imagine a child would say in these scenarios, so while my version of Clementine isn't perfect she certainly isn't someone mustache twirling zombie-Hitler should be relating to.

Oh, and about the story, it's Toy Story 3. Seriously. No-one got shot in the dick in Toy Story 3 I suppose, but that's essentially what it is. 

That's not to suggest they ripped off Toy Story 3, I'm just pointing out that the narrative itself is not particularly interesting or unique, so this episode needed some other stuff to hold it together..and it didn't really have it. There's a lot of dumb sneaking around with Clementine, some Sarah related decisions that lack any real agency and some bonding with the Bonnie character whose motivation to turn on the camp and help the gang escape are about as flimsy as it gets. Two new characters from the camp are introduced into the gang, despite being introduced as a jerk and a weirdo, they seem to pretty much blend right in when talk of "escape" comes up.

I wasn't very interested in what was going on! The game seemed to be attempting to build tension on whether Luke would help the group or not (maybe it would have made more sense to have Nick in this role?) that I just wasn't feeling, maybe it's because Luke's a graduate of the Nathan Drake School of Cool White Dude Character Design and those guys always come through in the end. Aside from that it was a bunch of relatively dull conversations, broken up with contrived sneaking and Clementine getting moved around the camp constantly for no real reason (I really couldn't keep track of how much time was supposed to be passing during this episode) which all climaxes in an escape that seemed far too easy for all of the buildup. 

Not a lot of action in this episode either, which is fine, but what little action was there still involved the "mash this button to nearly get eaten by a zombie until a scripted event saves you" thing that TellTale are way too reliant on. 

The final "stinger" decision that ends this episode is probably the weakest in the entire series so far. Axe a zombie in the brain who's biting Kenny's lady (who I don't even remotely care about anyway) or chop off her arm. Well considering this episode already featured a friendly guy with one arm who had his life saved by amputation and seemed pretty chill with the concept, and smashing the zombie wouldn't achieve anything at all, it doesn't even really seem like a choice at all (again, over 85% of players chose to cut off the arm). You have to be careful with these games to not confuse your own perspective and world view with criticism of a "lack of choice", but I'm honestly failing to see the logic of the alternative choice here. Maybe you could argue it would make more sense to brain the zombie first and amputate the arm later in a safer scenario, but that's undermined by 1) the way the choice is presented and 2) the end the episode immediately ends afterwards. 

It was no-one near as poor as the first episode, but I can't help but feel underwhelmed and a little bored by this episode. This series is getting me a little too accustomed to death, there's a cynicism running underneath it that's making me less engaged. Meet a new friendly character? Ah, they're going to die. Tough decision between two characters? Ah, they're both going to die soon anyway. Snap decision that will dictate the future of the group? Ahhhhhh, what's going to happen if they make it out anyway, they'll just find some other place to get eaten by zombies. The world's already screwed beyond repair, might as well let it happen.

What I just wrote is the worst thing you could make me feel when there's two episodes of this season to go. Unlike the end of the last episode I'm not even sure what direction this story is going in anymore, not because it's a mystery but because I have no understanding of motivation or goals at this point. 

Episode 4 - AMID THE RUINS

I joked about it before but Luke really REALLY looks like Nathan Drake, in this episode he even does the Uncharted "I'll boost you up" thing and holds an AK47. It's getting distracting.

Anyway, I have to give this episode credit over the other three so far on the grounds that this was the first episode this season that had frequent tough choices that actually felt like they would impact the story. I was genuinely conflicted about whether to leave Sarah or not the first time (I saved her), and I really didn't know whether to steal the meds from Arvo (I did, and regretted it because cool gal Jane runs off at the end of this and Luke didn't approve). Didn't really care about the choice when it came to trying to save Sarah the second time because at that point the game was making it perfectly clear she was doomed anyway.

That's one of the core issues the TellTale formula has in general. Having choices and being able to affect the story is great, but you've still got create both scenarios depending on what choice the player makes. So either you've got tie it back to the same linear narrative at some point, or you've got to create dozens of different stories (this is impossible, as Heavy Rain found out). So when The Walking Dead offers you an opportunity to get a character horribly murdered, that instantly communicates to you that either 1) they're inconsequential to the story or 2) they will shortly be horribly murdered anyway. That was kind of my problem with Sarah as a character in general, I didn't want to feed her to the wolves but it was perfectly clear she wasn't making it out of this chapter anyway so no point risking making anything else worse. If anything I regret saving her the first time now.

Also in retrospect I understand the ending of Episode 3 (which now in terms of the overarching narrative feels like the barely canonical episode of Misfits where modern day Britain is controlled by the Nazis) even less; as I chose to cut off Sarita's arm the episode starts with her bleeding out and dying soon after. Maybe Sarita dying/doing whatever she does on the other choice would have worked better on the end of the last episode to actually make me feel like my decision meant anything. 

I am enjoying what they're doing with Kenny though, I'm feeling real tension to when or if he's going to freak out. I honestly was semi-braced for him to attack Clementine, and I was genuinely thinking he was going to run away with Rebecca's baby and that was going to be the cliffhanger heading into the finale. It's nice to have one interesting element in the core of this stuff that I'm not certain about, everyone else in this game seems to be a drooling moron who relies on the advice/actions of an eleven year old girl to bail them out. 

Seriously, in this episode during my playthrough, Clementine chooses the life-or-death fate of two people, consoles a grieving soon to be mother, kicks down a door, shoots four zombies in the face, robs a guy of his medication and shoots two of her recently turned friends in the face, one of which was trying to eat a baby. I get she's been through some stuff in her time, but wow is it hard to take her seriously as a child protagonist, or at least the world where she would have so much influence. Honestly, from the amount of dialogue options in this game that are "Are you okay?" they could have just replaced her with Terry Bogard. 

Oh god that would have been so much cooler. 

EPISODE 5 - NO GOING BACK

One of the reasons I didn't comment on the cliffhanger of episode 4 is because I genuinely thought they were going to cop out and reveal the Russian/whatever guys were actually shooting walkers or something. This episode actually starts off with a shootout scene, so good job on that.

Also, the anticipated Lee cameo was handled in a classy and intelligent way, I was half expecting a scene where a conflicted Clementine stumbled across zombie Walker-Lee and was forced to shoot him. I guess that wouldn't have made sense for some people's endings to the first season, maybe they would have tried that if it had. 

This is probably the best episode in the season, although that merely comes out as an expression of how inferior this season was compared to the first one. The character development seems more natural here compared to past episodes which contrived separations and situations to get characters to talk about stuff, here there's a nice scene of all the alive characters just sitting around a fireplace getting to know each other more. I also appreciate that this episode plays out depending on your own interpretation of who Clementine is as a character, giving you options for letting her drink and smoke, as well as letting her some to her own conclusions about the world based on everything she's experienced and been taught.

The main difference between this finale and Season 1's is there's five genuinely very different endings depending your final decisions, as opposed to one basically similar ending that you can get to in multiple ways from last time. I ended up with Jane and the family, deciding that it was time for Kenny to get put out of his misery and that Clementine would continue to find support through other people. 

I'm finding it very hard to talk about this episode; I'm stuck in this bind where I acknowledge there was some clever decisions to be made in it, but despite decent writing and competent game design I'm finding myself uninvested in it. Perhaps we should discuss this further in an overall wrap up segment...

FINAL THOUGHTS

Now that it's all said and done, I can say with 100% certainty that I think it was a mistake to go with Clementine as the main protagonist for this season. 

Maybe not a fundamental error, but the game/story that they wrote makes sense for a generic adult character not a child one. There's some mild whispers of approaching this how a child would react and adapt to this world in places, especially the fifth episode, but whispers is all they are. If anything, a lot of this game's drama is actually undermined by how difficult it is to take Clementine seriously in terms of how capable she is and how the stubborn adults around her talk to her. 

The first season worked because Lee was a regular generally well intentioned dude with just enough of a dark past to make it believable for him to make tough decisions, and Clementine was the innocent child thrown into this mess, there to give you the puppy dog eyes when you did bad stuff (whether it was right or not) to make you constantly question yourself. In the second season, Clementine is merely a child avatar for an adult mind, she's not conflicted she's a contradiction. The biggest failure of this season is it completely fails to be about a child.

I'm not really a "fan" of zombie fiction in general, and my frustrations with the genre are really starting to sink in now. The Walking Dead especially is far too hopeless, everyone is already infected, the world cannot possibly come back, humanity cannot continue. The Last Of Us, for all its faults, at least shows a world where some infrastructure remains, and there is a tiny tiny bit of hope that some resemblance of civilisation could return if a cure could be made. That alone is enough to give some motivation or at least feel like something could be achieved if I stay invested. 

I don't know what possibly could be achieved in The Walking Dead, there's been dozens of characters introduced across the two seasons, and all but two of them are dead now. Zombie fiction gets around this by making the drama focus solely on the characters and not the world, but I'm afraid that The Walking Dead has revealed his hand too often now. They've brutally murdered so many people now that's there's a filter on my brain, I know everyone has a short shelf life. Maybe the writing in Season 2 was as good or better than the first, but it had far less affect on me this time around. Too much death, too many decisions leading to death, not enough nice moments (like Carly failing to check the batteries on the radio) to get to know these new people. 

And where were the really clever non-binary "no right answer" bits from last time? Such as the part in the second episode where you had to give four bits of food to ten starving people? Or what about the parts where Larry gets his head destroyed by a cinder block out of nowhere? Or the part where Lilly wastes a character on the side of the road just after you think you've got things calmed down? Not even the ending trick of recapping and judging you for past decisions is in here, it's just people you barely care about getting murdered one by one...then you pick an ending. It's not incompetently done or anything, and compared to the writing standards of most non-Telltale videogames this is still orbiting around the 3rd floor of heaven, but almost none of it is sticking with me this time.

Ultimately, I'm disappointed in The Walking Dead Season 2, it has its moments but absolutely nothing that hits the peaks of the 2nd, 3rd or 5th episode from Season 1. Honestly, considering how trashy and bad the first episode is I would recommend to people who haven't played it to not bother if they don't want to deal with dog murder right now, there's absolutely nothing that's "must experience" here. A lot of "pretty good" stuff sure, but it's mostly the "pretty good" stuff you were expecting and little else.

People have told me The Wolf Among Us is better...I'll guess we'll have to wait and see...

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker Review

In an increasingly unsubstantiable industry obsessed with excess and pandering it's quite nice to have a Captain Toad Treasure Tracker come out. It really is the kind of thing the larger companies should be doing more of; trying out something experimental as an extra in a high tier release that's guaranteed to do well anyway, and if people like it expand on it later in another release that's relatively cheap to develop and gives fans what they want. Honestly I'd be interested in seeing Nintendo do more of this sort of thing, maybe throwing in some weird little concepts into Mario Party or WarioWare games to see what people get into. Anyway, regardless of your opinion of Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker as a game, it's a really positive development that it exists and people seem to be into it.

Personally I wasn't really into the Captain Toad levels that were featured in Super Mario 3D World. I thought they clashed with the hard action of the rest of the game, and I got no sense of puzzles or exploring but rather "find the one straight path to the goal and walk across it". However Treasure Tracker expands on the core concept in the best way possible by pushing the focus on exploring the levels as opposed to "solving" them. The game takes cues from Super Mario 3D Land by making the collectible rewards for exploring and puzzle solving as opposed to using as a rope to drag the player from point A to B. When Treasure Tracker is actually about tracking treasure and doing this kind of thing it's pretty great. 

Although it frustrates at times the central idea of having a 3D stage seen through a completely free to move (most of the time) camera really enhances Treasure Tracker. It allows the game to do a lot of clever tricks with perspective, and lets the player see what need to do and where they need to go before they can do it. It's pretty strong brain oil, it gets you thinking in 3D space (which again gives the stages more of a feel of a "structure" and not a straight line) and makes you sometimes have to think backward from your goal, and other times demands understanding of your surroundings to work forward into getting there. 

But again, that's when Treasure Tracker actually is about tracking treasure. Sometimes it's a rail shooter, sometimes it's a boss fight based around greenlight-redlight start n' stop, sometimes it's a turret sections, sometimes it's just kind of gimmicky and frustrating. And bizarrely, it is a game about getting your girlfriend back. 

I always liked the idea that the Toads were androgynous; maybe they were just magical weird fungus creatures that were grown in the fields outside Peach's castle to serve her, but Nintendo piddled all over that idea by establishing a girl Toad complete with a pink head and shroomy pigtails. Of course she gets captured and the plot ("PLOT"!) is to go rescue her from a giant teleporting crow with a turban. She is playable in the game too after getting saved in the first chapter, but she never gets to defeat Turbancrow and gets captured again immediately before the final boss so the status quo is restored. The second chapter does feature her on a journey to rescue the Captain, but reversing gender roles is also kind of a trope these days, and besides I'm not sure you get points for it when you've forced the initial gender roles in there for literally no reason. It's gosh darn Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, the story (assuming it should have one at all) should be the Toads racing to some treasure before some villains in some DuckTalesesque shenanigans. It's not a dealbreaker or anything, but I can't think of an example where the "dude saves the day and wins girl as prize" trope has been less justified. 

I guess the reason why it bothers me so much with this game is I can't help but wonder why this game bothered with that nonsense at all. Either it's pure laziness and just sticking to what works, or perhaps it reveals a little lack of faith in the project from Nintendo, they just felt they HAD to make it as Mario as possible or people wouldn't like it. A lot of Mario stuff is in here; superfluous lives system, repeated boss battles, the story, stars, mushrooms and levels taken directly from Super Mario 3D World with half the stuff cut out of them because the levels obviously aren't designed for Captain Toad and he can't do a dang thing in them but walk to the exit. Running and picking up items also works the same as Mario by mapping them to the same button, but this a stupid idea in Treasure Tracker because throwing stuff it the only way Toad can defend himself in this game, and I can't tell you how many times I would instinctively hit the run button only to fling my turnip off the stage and lose it forever. I guess it would be weird if the game didn't resemble Mario at all, but Nintendo have been talking about Captain Toad as if it were a brand new IP, in which case they shouldn't feel so shackled to the core principles of another game. 

(For the record, Mario games could do with a bit of tidying up themselves, which is another reason I bring these things up)

Speaking of having a lack of faith; Treasure Tracker has now removed all my faith in the Wii U gamepad forever. I still think it's a great idea to have a screen in the controller, the fact that it's now possible to play AAA home console games in the palm of my hand if I feel like it is something that excites me, but as a controller the gamepad has only ever frustrated me. First things first, DON'T make me blow on my controller, especially one with a screen on it, and ESPECIALLY especially not in situations where I have to react and do it quickly because that often leads to huge chunks of gob on my expensive gamepad. Secondly, it is extremely flow breaking (even if I get used to it later and can do it quicker) to make me look down into my lap to touch something on the screen. Thirdly, when you have levels that are based entirely around touching the gamepad screen, I'm just going to look at the gamepad screen the entire time because it's far easier, and when you've put so much effort into making the game 1080p it seems silly for you to waste my 50 inch plasma. 

Wii U gamepad nonsense does come into play regularly in Treasure Tracker and after a while it really starts to grate. There's no reason a cannon couldn't be controlled entirely by the right analog stick rather than jerking the controller around. There's no reason why a moving platform couldn't be controlled by a switch...or been mapped to one of the many buttons the game doesn't use at all...rather than be controlled by your own phlegm. I think another part of why this got really irritating is by the end of the game I couldn't help but wonder that the Wii U wasn't the best console for Treasure Tracker in the first place. It's definitely far better suited to smaller play sessions and gets tedious if you sit with it for too long, in terms of its appeal it probably would have been better suited to a handheld all things considered. 

Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker is charming, inventive and really quite smart in a lot of ways, but there is an undercurrent of annoyance buried beneath the Captain's pudgy body that'll start to give you twitches if you ride with him for too long.  If you liked the Toad levels in Super Mario 3D World then you'll probably have a great time with this (and probably already have it anyway so who cares), but if you don't find yourself particularly enamored with the concept the game's occasional pitfalls might ruin your day. I LIKE IT, believe me if I didn't I wouldn't have missed an opportunity to call it "Captain Chode", but I'm definitely going to need a breather from treasure tracking for a little while before I go back for those missing gems.