Secondhand Opinions: Hatred

So Edgy. So Dark. Wow.

The controversy surrounding Hatred has been kind of stupid to be perfectly honest. I'm not saying that a game were you play as a mass murderer killing for no reason other then he hates everyone isn't something to raise an eyebrow at, but to act like its going to set the medium back years is just ridiculous. Film, music, and comic books all have their fair share of tasteless, violent garbage with absolutely no substance whatsoever and you don't see people declaring those things the downfall of civilization. Besides, Hatred isn't a very good game regardless. It's functional and works perfectly fine from what I've been hearing, but general consensus is that it's unoriginal and boring. The grimdark edginess of the game has been done to death in every from of media from movies to video games. Everything that Hatred has to offer can be done in litterally any sandbox game and that includes killing innocent civilians which was one of Hatred's main selling points. Plus, the game isn't anywhere near as disturbing as the moral guardians crying outrage let it out to be. You can do more disturbing things in Grand Theft Auto than you can in Hatred ,and the traditional video games elements like objectives and side quests kill any kind of introspection killing innocent people you might have turning the experience into just another generic action game. Frankly it's only distinction it has is its grimdark and too edgy for you style which has already been done better in Madworld. If you want something dark and disturbing play Bloodborne, if you want a fun and original shooting game play Splatoon, and if you want something dark, disturbing, fun, and original play the Hotline Miami games. Hatred is nothing special in the slightest just another boring grim dark shooter to add to the pile.

Broken Age Review: The Best and Worst of Old School Adventure Games

Vella and Shay. Just before their adventure begins.

Developer: Double Fine Productions
Publisher: Nordic Games (Retail Version)
Version Reviewed: PC (reviewed), PS4, PS Vita
Price: $24.99
Released: April 28th, 2015

Earlier this year I reviewed Grim Fandango Remastered, It was a great game with fantastic art direction, unforgettable characters, and one of the best stories in video game history. Sadly, it suffered a fatal flaw that plagued old school point and click adventure games. It's puzzles, which you were required to solve to progress in the game, were nonsensical and illogical and the time spent solving them really killed the pacing of the game. In fact, Grim Fandango's commercial failure is what caused the death of big budget adventure games in the early 2000s. It wasn't until Telltale's The Walking Dead's critical and commercial success that the adventure game genre came back with some very welcome improvements. New school adventure games put narrative above all else and focus on giving players lots of meaningful choices to make with equally meaningful consequences. The nonsensical puzzles of old school adventure games were a thing of the past and I for one was glad about that. However, Double Fine Productions an independent game studio made up of people that worked on Grim Fandango wanted to make an adventure game that took the genre back to its roots. Broken Age is the result of that effort. So is it any good. Well I'm so glad you asked.

Vella and the other maidens of her village that have been selected for sacrifice.

Broken Age tells two parallel coming of age stories. One story is about a teenage boy named Shay that lives on a space ship manned by a motherly artificial intelligence that treats him like he's forever four years old and is trying to find some way to escape. The other story is about a girl named Vella who has been selected by her village to be sacrificed to a monstrous creature, but decides to try and find a way to kill the monster instead. You have the ability to switch between Shay and Vella stories at anytime during the game which is a simple, but never the less interesting feature. At first it seems that these two stories have nothing to do with each other with only a few red herrings loosely connecting them. When the two stories do cross paths with each other I can guarantee that any thoughts you had on where the story was heading will be tossed out the window. Sadly, the story does lose momentum in the second half and it ends in a way that feels like it ended five minutes before it should of. Luckily, the great writing and the strong characters help elevate the few issues I had with the story.

Shay being treated like a baby by the ship's AI.

While I liked the story for the most part Broken Age sadly suffers from the same fatal flaw that Grim Fandango had. At it's heart Broken Age is an old school adventure games which means you will be talking the ear off every character you come across and picking up every vaguely interesting object you come across. For the first half of the game the puzzles aren't that bad. Most of them require you to simply find the right object to use in the right situation and are nice and straight forward. But then the puzzles get incredibly difficult in the second half. Puzzles that require lighting fast reflex, lots of trial and error, and finding solutions in the most illogical places possible. Not all the puzzles are bad and I did really enjoy solving some of them, but most of them were simply time wasters standing between me and the story.

This talking tree is just one of many interesting characters you will meet.

I wanted to see this game soar to incredibility heights. after its amazing Kickstarter campaign. But seems that the financial issues and the hubris of some of the people working on it may have caused problems behind the scenes. I have not watched the documentary detailing Broken Age's production yet so that may help me understand why the game is a bit underwhelming. I wanted to love Broken Age, but my issues with the ending and nonsensical old school puzzle design push me back to simply really liking it. Broken Age is worth your time if your a fan of adventure games, though you'll likely want to wait for a Steam Sale.