Nostalgick Tumbles

I originally tried all 50 games in their listed fictional chronological order of release, as I believe was probably intended, and will present them as such here as well:

Barbuta (1982) feels grindy, obtuse, slow, and overly-punishing until you start to make sense of the game's design language and solving its mysteries. As many others have theorized, I think Barbuta was put first in the list primarily to encourage users to try other games and come back to it later. I'll probably have to draw my own map of the layout to finish it, and I'm actually looking forward to that. I really like Barbuta overall, as both a callback to 1980's CGA/EGA graphics PC platformers of yore (none of which I'm very familiar with) as well as a contemporary of games like Animal Well, You Have to Win the Game, and I Wanna Be the Guy.

Bug Hunter (1983) immediately called to mind modern tactical roguelike games for me, primarily Into the Breach. Unlike Barbuta, this game felt easy for me to sink an hour into before moving on, though I've since put twice that much time into Barbuta. It has fun systems, a fairly gentle learning curve compared to many of the other games, and great art and UI that tells you just as much information as you need to make informed decisions.

Ninpek (1983) - I'll be honest and admit I'm not the biggest Contra fan (although I do really like Ninja Gaiden), but I don't think Ninpek's brutal difficulty does its genre of platformer/shooters many favors. That said, I keep coming back to it and find that I do make a lot of progress after I've warmed up a bit. I also appreciate that the game is fairly generous with extra lives and doesn't force a total restart until you've lost them all. It is very easy to get into a death spiral and quickly lose your last few lives though. While it's tough, I think Ninpek will be completable for most players who dedicate a few hours to it; I just don't know how enjoyable those hours will be on average.

Paint Chase (1983) gives me some nagging anxiety in a way that's hard to describe. There are so many things happening on screen at once that it's hard to pay attention to any of them. Trucks and planes barreling down lanes threaten to undo all your hard won progress, right down to the last few seconds of every round. The constantly changing blue and red squares can really mess with your vision too. I think I still enjoy the game, especially the meter that agonizingly ticks up your paint percentage at the end of a stage, determining if you pass or fail. I'm just not itching to finish it any time soon.

Magic Garden (1984) is the kind of game I wish I was naturally better at, but surviving in twitchy, one-hit kill arcade games long enough to rack up impressive high scores has never been my strong suit. Still, it's impossible to ignore this game's charms, and I'll keep coming back to it, even if I never really expect to master it.

Mortol (1984) struck me as one of the zaniest and most interesting game ideas I've ever seen. It's something of a bummer to spend a lot of bodies finishing a stage only to not have enough to finish the next one, but the game is so fun to play that I don't think I'll mind by the end.

Velgress (1984) has been on my mind a lot, distracting me for a few minutes here, a half hour there. It's easy and addicting to play a few runs, in the same way that Downwell or Spelunky are. I'm very confident I'll finish this game after I'm more accustomed with levels 2 and 3 - it's really just a matter of time.

Planet Zoldath (1984) I gave several solid attempts at first but it's not a game I enjoy playing all that much. I like what it's doing as a game idea though, as a procedurally-generated Zelda-like with some off-the-wall writing. The game seems directly influenced by the randomizer trend too, which is a really interesting design space to explore.

Attactics (1984) is one of the only games I really dislike so far, mainly because of its frantic and disorganized nature. I'm not really an auto-battler person, and having to play a Chess-like game with real-time movement just makes me panic and makes the game very hard to learn at first. I'm expecting this one to be a lot more enjoyable after some more practice, but it's very rough at the start.

Devilution (1984) weirdly reminded me of a game in another collection of games: Dungeons & Diagrams from Last Call BBS (2022) by Zachtronics. I enjoy setting up a Rube Goldberg machine of monster attacks and rocket launches and seeing all the dominoes fall at the end, but I can't help feeling there are some missing quality of life features here that could make the game a lot easier to parse.

Kick Club (1984) reminds me of Bubble Bobble, a game I've loved since I was a kid. It's relatively tough as a single-player game, but I imagine it's a lot easier with a Player 2 in coop. I love the sports theming of the enemies and the many different ways you can knock the deadly soccer ball into them.

Avianos (1985) is not nearly as hard to grock as it looks at first, which is something I can't say for a lot of contemporary strategy games. I quickly learned what the different symbols meant and tried to pick the most optimal Ancestor to pray to every round, and I find the core loop really satisfying. Sure, it doesn't have nearly the same depth as a Civilization or a Crusader Kings, but I also dislike having to spend upwards of four hours on a single match of those games.

Mooncat (1985) is meant to be a spiritual sequel to Barbuta, but I don't think I'll end up liking it as much. The gimmicky movement controls are more frustrating than interesting to me right now, and I don't see how even the best level design in the world could help me get past that. I've been wrong before though, for sure, and I want to give the full game a fair shot.

Bushido Ball (1985) is mildly enjoyable but can often be frustrating due to what I suspect is a very quick ramp up in difficulty of the enemy AI. Not only do you need to learn every character's strengths and weaknesses, you also need to react extremely fast or predict where the enemy will hit the ball next, usually long before the ball actually gets there. It's not impossible or completely unrewarding to learn, but I'm not convinced the juice is worth the squeeze with this one.

Block Koala (1985) will probably end up as one of my most-played games of the set, and I'm excited to get back to it. Even the early puzzles are really daunting, though, and I'm not very experienced with sokoban-style games. I'm glad the game comes with an undo button, but it still feels tedious to rewind more than a few steps. There's inherently a lot of trial and error involved in solving a puzzle, which can make individual puzzles take a very long time and make watching your koala slowly navigate through the same areas over and over more annoying than fun or relaxing.

Camouflage (1985) is a cool, logical extension of Frogger with kind of a stealth twist. I wish you didn't need to watch the same long animation of your lizard getting devoured every time you die though. The game is really asking you to go slow and plan your route ahead of time, but it's still easy to mess up and accidentally step into a hungry amphibian's path.

Campanella (1985) is both adorable and challenging as the titular UFO of UFO 50, and I'm still making up my mind about it. Flying the too-tiny UFO around can be physically painful when you have to constantly hold or mash the A button to keep it aloft, and its momentum definitely takes some getting used to. The ship also can only attack nearby objects, making every encounter with an enemy or obstacle a risk. 50 levels seems like a really tall order to complete when any brush with a random wall can end your run. Thankfully, though, it's easy to earn 1UPs in this game and many helpful secrets abound. I've already found one hidden teleporter in the first world that skips you forward a few levels, and I suspect there are others later on. The music, art, and humor of this game are great too, and Campanella is probably one of the more polished games of the set.

Golfaria (1985) is one of those weird game ideas that kind of works despite itself, like Pac Man 2 or the Sonic franchise. I don't love tediously navigating an entire world with limited golf ball physics, but I tend to enjoy golf games and ball-rolling games like Kirby's Dream Course, so I think it'll grow on me.

The Big Bell Race (1985) is Campanella racing and most reminds me of the Top Ride mode from Kirby Air Ride. I'm always down for silly racing games with power-ups like this one, but I still don't understand why the UFOs can only slash and not shoot lasers. This game is probably best played with another player.

Warptank (1985) feels like Blaster Master but with gravity switching and I'm mostly into it. Controlling and aiming the tank upside-down is not always intuitive, but the checkpoints are plentiful and you can retry a section as many times as it takes you to progress.

Waldorf's Journey (1986) is a great idea that's as funny as it is potentially frustrating. I love the idea of a flying walrus in a drug-induced dreamscape, but I don't love trying to land on tiny platforms or watching Waldorf fall to his death due to running out of fish meter. A little more leniency could have gone a long way here, but thankfully Waldorf's dream doesn't last long and focuses more on speed than stamina.

Porgy (1986) is another game that looks more fun than it is to play, due to some tough controls, water physics, overly-aggressive enemies, and punishing stamina mechanics. I keep bouncing off it right after I boot it up and get killed by the shark, but I'm determined to make some real progress.

Onion Delivery (1986) might be someone's favorite game (maybe even yours), but for me it's too annoying to control and too difficult to finish all the deliveries and return home without dying. I really like the cutscenes though and want to see more of the aliens and the story. If you're a Grand Theft Auto 1 & 2 fanatic, this game is probably for you.

Caramel Caramel (1986) might also be on the too-hard side of things for me but I really enjoy playing it. Just don't ask me why this fish-ship thing has a polaroid camera strapped to its face. The camera mechanic is brilliant in gameplay, though, serving the purposes of freezing enemies (making them easier to shoot and blow up in a chain reaction of double points) as well as revealing the many secret caches of orbs hidden in the environment. I don't understand why there are no checkpoints in this game though, when extra lives are so difficult to earn already. The music, art, and gameplay are killer otherwise though, making this one of my favorite games in UFO 50.

Party House (1986) is perhaps the best game in the first half of UFO 50, so it makes sense to put it at the halfway point chronologically. I really enjoy roguelike deckbuilders, and I've never played one with this goofy or charming of a theme. Again, the difficulty is very finely tuned, but you can definitely win scenarios with a little good luck and patient planning. Unwinnable situations still come up, for sure, but it's quick and easy to reset the game and try again if you don't want to play out all 25 days of a scenario.

Hot Foot (1986) calls to mind the Kunio-kun soccer and dodgeball NES games of my youth, but it's neither as ridiculous nor as fun as those. The writing is funny but the bean bags just feel awkward to both dodge and throw, and I haven't gotten a handle on what makes a good team yet. Combine that with some weird NPC AI and needing to manage two characters concurrently and I just don't think this works as a single-player experience. 2-player coop though I could see being pretty fun, so long as you don't chuck too many bean bags at your friend's head (in the game or otherwise).

Divers (1986) I know is one of the longer games included and so I've mostly put off playing it. I do really like the callback to the TMNT NES game's dam level though, and I'm excited to discover the game's secrets.

Rail Heist (1987) is one of the few games I've finished so far and probably one of my favorites. It took about four hours for me to complete all 20 missions (not going for stars or good times) and I was engrossed the whole playthrough. Getting the cowboys to do exactly what you want within your 9-second window can feel a bit random, and it never feels great to be shot from offscreen. But I think Rail Heist is mostly about those panicky moments between certain death and success, teaching you to form a plan and play precisely rather than waste a lot of time, which is what I love about Spelunky too.

Vainger (1987) has a lot to live up to as a Super Metroid clone, but I'm interested to see how its gravity-flipping will be used as more than just a gimmick across the whole game.

Rock On! Island (1987) is the first tower defense game I've played in a long time and one of the best, period. It's hard, it demands a lot of thought and attention, and it will upset you when 10 pterodactyls fly a B-line directly into your base because you didn't think to set up air defenses beforehand. But I really love the core loop of this game and there's something about the theme that feels very nostalgic to me. There are so many interesting decision points along the way to building a winning strategy, with just enough wiggle room for experimentation. There were a lot of NES and SNES games with cavemen-versus-dinosaurs themes too, for some reason, and Rock On! feels very faithful to that tradition.

Pingolf (1987) looks, sounds, and feels great to play but has some truly agonizing level design. I'll often line up a shot and whack the ball, only to watch it ricochet back at me and land further behind than where I started. This can happen very often in the later holes, demanding that you memorize the best routes to win. Getting good enough to win a match of all 18 holes will probably take me a few hours of practice, but I'm not sure I won't be sick of the game by the end of it.

Mortol II (1987) fails to live up to its predecessor's genius for me so far, sadly. The different classes feel stiff and difficult to manuever, and it's very frustrating to lose a man and then have to start over from the beginning yet again, even with 100 of them at your disposal.

Fist Hell (1987) makes a lot of sense and it's fun to play a River City Ransom-style beat-em-up with zombies. It's just very difficult to survive for long. Attempting the game with two players seems ideal.

Overbold (1987) lets you dig your own grave through raising the stakes of each fight with the promise of winning more points. It seems like a false promise, though, for all but the most dedicated of players. Getting killed in one hit here seems overly-mean, and I don't really enjoy this game's brand of Robotron-style slaughter either way.

Campanella 2 (1987) I've heard is the "Spelunky 3" of this collection but I've yet to see how that plays out. I'm not very excited about flying more Campanellas through tiny spaces or moving around as a slow, pixellated astronaut though. At least Isabel can shoot lasers when she gets out of the ship, I guess, similar to Cave Story or Blaster Master. This is yet another game I really wonder about the lack of checkpointing.

Hyper Contender (1988) was surprisingly easy for me and I finished my first run of the game using Elka, which took about 10 minutes including a few deaths. It's very similar to the versus mode in Spelunky 2, and I think it'd be fun to play with friends.

Valbrace (1988) is one of the games I was most looking forward to trying, and so far it's lived up to the hype. It has some of the same navigation issues that many classic dungeon crawlers had, but the automap is pretty helpful and the combat is a lot more engaging than just picking the same old options from a menu.

Rakshasa (1988) feels like Ghouls N' Ghosts or Contra but doesn't seem nearly as hard as those games to me. I really like the death save system turning the game momentarily into something like a shmup. The player's ghost also seems like a callback to Ninpek, and I love when these games are in conversation with each other. You can really see how UFO Soft progressed and developed in a lot of areas throughout the collection.

Star Waspir (1988) is unfortunately too hard for me and maybe needlessly so at first blush. I'm not an expert at shmups but to me this seems to be targeting only the most dedicated and hardcore of arcade grinders who can spell EGG.

Grimstone (1988) is a "Western" Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest clone and I'm super excited to play through it and see how my party develops.

Lords of Diskonia (1988) is what happens when you mix Heroes of Might & Magic with something like marbles or crokinole and it works surprisingly well. There's a lot of strategy and skill involved in how and where you shoot your disks, and sometimes a weaker army can still win the fight through some clever placement and opportunistic bounces. I'm looking forward to playing through the whole campaign.

Night Manor (1988) lives and dies by the quality of its art, atmosphere, scares, and puzzles, and it's mostly successful. I'm really glad there's a puzzle horror game included in the list at all, though, and the fact that it works surprisingly well with a controller with two buttons is remarkable.

Elfazar's Hat (1988) is tough but seems mostly fair so far. I really like this kind of slower-paced shooter and played a lot of Gun.Smoke on the NES growing up. The card pick-ups are a fun sub-objective and keep you exploring the environment.

Pilot Quest (1988) I knew was an idle clicker game going in and so I've mostly left it to its own devices after planting a few seeds at the start. It and the original Planet Zoldath remind me of Pikmin, but the gameplay doesn't seem nearly as fun or interesting so far. It's very cool that the game continues collecting gems even when you're not playing it though.

Mini & Max (1989) really appeals to me as a Chip N' Dale Rescue Rangers kind of game with a shrinking mechanic. The opening level seems a bit plain and empty, but I'm hoping it gets more interesting from there. The pixel art and writing so far are top-notch.

Combatants (1989) - or "Combat Ants", if you will - might be the weirdest game on this list, combining the theming and obtuse non-controls of Sim Ant with a hardcore RTS like StarCraft. I'm not sure if it's a joke game with a larger meta-reason for being the way it is or simply just bad, but I'm betting on the former.

Quibble Race (1989) appears to be purely a gambling game, and as such I have basically zero interest in it thus far. On the surface, it reminds me of one too many boring mini-games to want to play it. Maybe it will surprise me though!

Seaside Drive (1989) released the month and year I was born (in the fictional world of UFO 50) and as such I feel some kinship with it. Thankfully, it's got a great, synthwave theme, chill music, and fun gameplay. It plays kind of like Moon Patrol on crack and adds a drifting mechanic, and recalls other nostalgia-fueled indie games like Hotline Miami and Retro City Rampage as well as films like Drive and Point Break.

Campanella 3 (1989) shifts the perspective of the Campanella series from 2D to 3D, in one of the more technologically impressive outings of UFO 50. I mostly enjoy games like Star Fox (when I can survive long enough in them anyway) and I'm looking forward to giving this a real shot.

Cyber Owls (1989) spoofs on the likes of Battle Toads and many, many other NES and SNES team action games, but I'm not convinced it's as good as any of the best of those so far. The gameplay ideas are there but the execution feels a bit lacking, in the case of each individual owl's levels and gameplay.

And that's it! I also wanted to mention the Garden in UFO 50, which acts like a trophy room for your achievements in every game, and I love it. Please don't take anything I've said about the games too seriously, as, again, my opinions are likely to change about many of them. But I hope you've enjoyed reading this if you've made it this far, and maybe I'll end up doing a full(er) review of this game down the line when I've collected a lot more gold disks. Until then, I really hope you go out and play UFO 50 yourself; the devs deserve the support and I know you'll find a game or two you love here.

Games & Mods

Might & Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven

When I was making my 2020 resolutions list late last year, one of my goals was to play more old games in my backlog and not buy many new games this year. That goal largely went on hold, because, well, I sought out enjoyment wherever I could find it instead of forcing myself to play one thing or another. But before Covid, I was really enjoying my new playthrough of M&M6. I’d made attempts at it before, but it was really GrayFace’s mod that made the game click for me. Modern features like quick saves and mouselook make the game much more accessible, and I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to try an old-school RPG. It’s a great stepping stone into a mostly-dead genre. I’m hoping to get back to it soon. I just jumped ship to simpler ventures like Doom Eternal after the pandemic hit and haven’t looked back since.

Pathologic 2

I learned about the Pathologic series late last year and have since become a little obsessed with it. Hbomberguy’s lengthy video essay on the original game really intrigued me and lead me to trying the sequel/remake in April via Xbox Game Pass. In a weird way, it was cathartic to be a doctor in an even more dire situation than our current one and still see signs of the townsfolk trying to help each other deal with a supernatural plague and little help from their local government. The game helped me express a lot of what I was feeling at the time, when I was still getting used to working from home and wondering just how long this could go on for. I’ve gone back to it recently, and I’m hoping to finish it someday, if I can find a way to stop dying. Above all, Pathologic 2 teaches you how to make choices in no-win scenarios with little information or resources and still persevere, despite the world going to Hell around you. And that’s maybe the most important thing to practice at the moment.

Overwatch

I’ve continued to look forward to weekly Overwatch nights with my friends every Thursday, and it’s really important to have something like that right now. Even if it’s just a new episode of a show airing, a new video from a favorite YouTuber, or a regular Zoom call with coworkers, it helps so much to have something to anticipate from week to week and month to month. Otherwise, it’s really easy to feel like nothing’s going on besides the entropic deterioration of the universe. Overwatch itself helps with this, because it’s such a positive, bright, and optimistic game, as only Blizzard can create. And it’s improved a ton in the past couple of years, in a lot of ways. If you haven’t played in a while, hop in and check out all the new content with your friends; I think you’ll have a great time. It’s looking more and more like Overwatch 2 is right around the corner, and I’m very much looking forward to it.

Go

I learned how to play Go after watching a documentary released this year about  AlphaGo, the computer that beat the Go world champion, and I have a huge appreciation for the game now. I think it’s even more beautiful than chess, though even more insidious to learn. If you haven’t played before, start with a 9x9 board, teach yourself the basics, and try playing with another beginner friend. I guarantee you’ll be amazed at the amount of strategy and imagination that a game ostensibly about placing black and white stones on a grid can inspire. Go’s one of several new hobbies I’ve picked up this year, and those new hobbies have really helped me pass the time in a way that feels productive as well as take my mind off whatever depressing news just got blasted across Twitter.

Doom 64

Doom Eternal was fine, but Doom 64′s where my heart lies. The PC port on Steam is great, allowing everyone to easily play the game with mouse and keyboard. Its levels are tight and colorful, often asking the player to backtrack multiple times through the same areas to unlock new ones and take on whatever new twists await down each darkened corridor. It’s a surprisingly fresh experience. Unlike many modern Doom mods that strive to be sprawling marathons, 64′s levels are short but memorable, and the game is a great entry point to the series for newcomers because of that. Retro FPS’s continue to inspire and entertain me, and Doom 64 is one of my new favorites.

Golf With Your Friends

I’m not usually that into party games, but Golf With Your Friends strikes the right balance between casual tone and skill-based gameplay. The maps are vibrant and devious, the different modes are creative and often hilarious, and the pacing is near-perfect. If you’ve got a squad itching to play something together for a few nights, I guarantee you’ll have a lot of laughs trying to knock an opponent off the course or turning them into an acorn just as they’re about to attempt a nasty jump.

Quake 1 Mods

I probably sound like a broken record by now to a lot of you, but I won’t rest until I get more people into retro FPS’s. The outdated graphics and simple gameplay can be off-putting at first, but it doesn’t take long at all to get hooked after you’ve played the likes of excellent mods like Ancient Aliens for Doom 2 or Arcane Dimensions for Quake 1. And it’s only getting better, with this year marking probably the best year for Quake releases ever. The industry even seems to be taking notice again, with many talented mappers getting picked up for highly-anticipated, professional indie projects like Graven and Prodeus. And while the marketing around the retro FPS renaissance as the second coming of “boomer shooters” should be much maligned, the actual craft involved in making mods and brand new games in the genre has never been stronger. I even contributed four levels to the cause this year, but you’ll have to play them yourself to decide if they’re any good: https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/?filtered=burnham.

Streets of Rage 4

I had not tried Steam Remote Play before this year, but it works surprisingly well if you have a decent internet connection. Because of Remote Play, I was able to complete Streets of Rage 4 with my friends, and it was very close to the experiences I had as a kid playing brawlers like Turtles in Time on the Super Nintendo. The game is just hard enough to make you sweat during the boss fights but just easy enough that the average group of gamers can complete it in a night or two, which is ideal for adults with not a lot of free time.

Hard Lads

Hard Lads is a pure delight of a game by Robert Yang about the beauty of a viral video from 2015 called “British lads hit each other with chair,” which is even more ridiculous than it sounds. It made me smile and laugh for a good half hour, and I think it’ll do the same for you.

Commander MtG

The Commander format for Magic: the Gathering is one of my favorite things, and in 2020, I dug into it more than any other year. More so even than playing or watching it being played, I created decklists for hours and hours, dreaming up new, creative strategies for winning games or just surprising my imaginary opponents. I sincerely believe this little ritual of finding a new legendary creature to build around and spending a few days crafting a brew for it got me through the majority of this summer. I didn’t have a lot of creative energy this year, but I was able to channel the little I did have into this hobby. Especially during the longer, more frustrating or depressing days at work when I had nothing else to do or just needed a break, I could often dive back into card databases and lose myself in the process of picking exactly the cards that best expressed what I wanted to do for any given deck. And it’s nice to know I can always fall back on that.

Yu-Gi-Oh!

I played a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh! growing up but never had the cards or the skill to be particularly good at it. I just knew I enjoyed the game and the 4Kids show, but I quickly them behind when I got to high school. Fast forward to 2020, and the game and franchise have evolved substantially, not always for the better. But I do find it so intriguing, with a skeptical kind of adoration. It’s not nearly as well-supported as Magic, but what it does have are gigantic anime monsters on tiny cards with enough lines of text to make your head spin. And it’s so interesting to me that a franchise like that can continue to thrive alongside more elegant games like the Pokemon TCG and Hearthstone. And the further I’ve delved into how the game has changed since I stopped playing, the more invested I’ve become, going so far as to start buying cards again and looking into possible decks I might enjoy playing. An unequivocal win for Yu-Gi-Oh! is Speed Duel, which seeks to bring old players back to the game with a watered-down, nostalgia-laden format with fewer mechanics and a much smaller card pool. So if all you want to do is pit a Blue Eyes White Dragon against a Dark Magician, that’s 100% still there for you, but the competitive scene is still alive, well, and astoundingly complicated. And I think that’s kind of beautiful.

Black Mesa

I wasn’t expecting to have the tech to play Half Life: Alyx this year, so Black Mesa seemed like the next best thing. And it really is a love letter to the first game, even if it’s far from perfect. I even prefer the original, but I did very much enjoy my time with this modern reimagining. If you’ve never played a Half Life game before, I think it’s a great place to start.

VR via the Oculus Quest

Around halfway through this year, I started to get really stir crazy and yeah, pretty depressed. It seemed like I’d be stuck in the same boring cycle forever, and I know for a lot of people, it still feels like that. So VR seemed like the perfect escape from this dubious reality where you can’t even take a safe vacation trip anymore. And you know, I think it works really well for that purpose. The Oculus Quest is especially effective, doing away with cords or cables so you have as much freedom as you have free real estate in your home. I don’t have a lot of space in my studio apartment, but I have enough to see the potential of the medium, which is completely worth it. Next gen consoles are neat and all, but I’ve got my heart set on picking up the Quest 2 as soon as possible.

* Beat Saber

I was most looking forward to trying Beat Saber on the Quest, and I was not disappointed. You’d think rhythm games had reached their peak with Rock Band and DDR, but the genre keeps on giving with gems like this. It’s hard to convey if you’ve never tried it, but the game succeeds so well in getting your entire body into the rhythm of whatever song you’re slashing through.

* Half Life: Alyx

Again, I really did not expect to be able to experience this game as intended this year, and I still don’t think I really have. The Oculus Link for the Quest is admittedly a little janky, and my PC barely meets the minimum specs to even run the game. And yet, despite that, Alyx is one of my top three games of 2020 and maybe one of my all-time favorites. Even as I was losing frames and feeling the game struggle to keep up with all the AI Combine soldiers running around, I was still having a blast. For me, it is one of the best reasons to seek out and own VR and a pinnacle of game design in its own right.

Hades

For me, Hades has mostly been similar to every other Supergiant Game that I’ve played: fun and well-polished but ultimately not engaging enough to play for very long. And there’s always this sheen of trying to be too clever with their dialogue, narration, and music that rubs me the wrong way. But Hades is certainly their best game, and I can’t deny the effect it’s had on people, much like Bastion’s reception back in 2011. And I’m really hoping Hades gets more people into roguelikes, as a more accessible and story-driven approach to the genre. Timing-wise, I wish it hadn’t come out around the same time as Spelunky, because I think it did make some people choose one over the other, when the best choice is to play both and realize they’re going for very different experiences. The precise, unforgiving, arcade-like style of Spelunky isn’t fun for everyone, though, and Hades is thankfully there to fill in that gap. I’m really glad I found more time to play it this year at least to succeed on one escape attempt; it’s a fun game to think about in a game design context. And I do think the game has a lot of merit and is doing some clever things with difficulty that the studio likely could not have honed nearly so well without the help of Early Access. The most impressive part of the game to me is not the story or the music or the combat but the massive amount of contextual dialogue they somehow found time to program, write, and record at a consistently high level. All of this is just to say, Hades is obviously one of the best games of the year, and you should play it if you have any interest in it at all.

Spelunky 2

I’ve spoken a lot about this game on Twitter, so I’m not going to rehash much of that here. For me, it’s been a journey of over 1,000 attempts to learn the intricacies and secrets of a deep and demanding game that’s been as frustrating as it’s been rewarding. But it remains a constant source of learning and discovery as well as mastery and pride for me, and I still have hopes of reaching the Cosmic Ocean and getting all the trophies someday. It’s been a joy to watch other Spelunky players too, even as some fair worse than me and others fair far better. And the Daily challenge keeps me coming back, because seeing my name high up on the leaderboard just makes me feel so damn good (or at least I’ll get a good laugh out of a hilarious death). At its heart, Spelunky is a community endeavor, and I think it succeeds at that better than almost any other game this side of Dark Souls. I think it is my Game of the Year or at least tied with Alyx, I really can’t decide. If you don’t think you’d enjoy it, all I’ll say is, the frustration and difficulty are integral to the experience of discovery and surprise, and your brain is better at video games than you think.

Chess

Okay, yes, I watched and enjoyed The Queen’s Gambit, but I think 2020 had already primed people to get into chess this year regardless. Like Yu-Gi-Oh!, chess was a childhood pastime of mine that I really enjoyed and then quickly left behind as I discovered things like music and the internet. If I had to assign a theme to my 2020, it would be rediscovering old hobbies to remind myself how good life actually is. And now I’m more committed to chess than I ever was before. I’m watching international masters and grand masters on YouTube (as well as the incomparable Northernlion), I’m playing regularly on Chess.com, and I’m even paying for lessons and probably my own theory books soon. Like most fighting games, chess is a complicated form of dueling a single opponent with zero randomness, so mistakes are always on you. And modern chess platforms offer extremely good analysis tools, showing you exactly how, when, and why you screwed up so you can do better next time. Like Hearthstone, it’s a quick, addicting, tense, and rewarding way to train your brain and have fun. And it seems more popular now than ever, in part due to a certain Netflix original TV show...

TV

The Queen’s Gambit

I think a lot of people want to be Beth Harmon, even if they know they shouldn’t. It must feel so good to be the best at something and know you’re the best, even while under the influence of certain substances. It’s what makes characters like Dr. Gregory House so fun to watch, though you’d never want to work with the guy. For me, anyway, I always wanted to be a prodigy at something, and what little success I’ve had made The Queen’s Gambit very relatable to me. More so, it’s easy to relate to growing up in a conservative environment with few real friends and fewer outlets of expression, only to realize you’ve finally found your thing, and that no one can take it from you. That’s mostly what I’m going to take from The Queen’s Gambit anyway, more than chess or the Cold War commentary or the problematic relationships Beth has with her cadre of rivals/boyfriends. The show gets a strong recommendation from me for fans of chess as well as lovers of optimistic coming-of-age stories.

March Comes in Like a Lion

Similarly, March Comes in Like a Lion features a protagonist who is scarily close to a version of myself from like eight years ago. My best friend has been urging me to watch this show for years, and I’m still only a few episodes in. But I love how it portrays a young person who’s moved to a big city away from home for the first time, with nothing more than some meager possessions and the hopes of becoming the best in the world at something. And Rei is not confident in himself or outgoing at all, he’s extremely depressed despite pursuing his dreams and trying to distance himself from his somewhat toxic family. It’s a great reminder that the smallest kindnesses can often change our entire perspective on the world, and that even the people that seem the most well-equipped to handle life often still need help. I’ve been very fortunate to have people like that despite mistakes I’ve made, and I hope to be that person for others too.

Umbrella Academy

I’m pretty burnt out on superheroes, but UA put a good enough spin on them that they felt brand new. The show is rough in places, but it’s surprising in some really clever ways. And the comics are some of the wildest stories I’ve ever read, like Hitchhiker’s Guide meets Watchmen.

HunterXHunter

I binged about 100 of the 148 episodes of HxH this year, which I recognize is not a significant number in the wider world of long-running shounen anime, but it’s quite an undertaking for me to finish a show of this length. The series goes places I never expected and made me care so strongly for characters I thought I’d hate at first. It’s the smartest and most endearing show about a band of misfits going on crazy adventures and punching people for the good of the world that you’re likely to find.

Hannibal

This is the rare show that’s simultaneously comforting and nightmare-inducing if watched for extended periods. I can remember nights after binging a few episodes where I couldn’t get many of the disturbing images out of my head. Fair to say, Hannibal is not for the faint of heart, nor is it without some low points. But for those who enjoy gory thrillers or gritty detective dramas, it’s a must-watch. 

Yu-Gi-Oh! Original Series, English Sub

You can probably imagine my surprise as I discovered this year that the Japanese version of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime is not only much better than the 4Kids version we got in the States, but it’s actually a decent show. The plot makes much more sense, it’s more interesting, the stakes are higher, the voices are better, and overall it’s just more enjoyable to watch. I don’t know if I’ll stick with it long enough to finish it this time, but this is definitely the way I’d do it and would recommend to others.

Fargo Season 4

It’s a miracle we even got another season of Fargo this year, let alone on time and of the same high quality as the first two seasons. It has a great setting, cast, and conflict. I love Chris Rock, and it was so cool to see him act so well in such a serious role. There’s a Wizard of Oz homage episode that is nearly flawless. And the post-credits scene at the end of the season is just the cherry on top. If you haven’t checked out Fargo by now, you are really missing out on some of the most interesting stuff happening in TV. I can’t wait to see what Noah Hawley does with the Alien franchise.

Movies

Cats

I had to include this one because it was the last full movie I saw in theaters before the pandemic hit. I technically went to Sonic too, but my friends and I walked out after about 30 minutes. The less said about that movie, the better. Cats, though, is a strange and curious beast (pun intended), adapting an already unruly animal (pun intended) to the big screen and yowling to be recognized (pun intended). But for every awkward or embarrassing scene, there’s one of pure joy and magic, like the extended ballet sequence or Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat. The film knows exactly what it is and leans into it hard, like a familiar yet slightly insane feline begging to be stroked, which I imagine is exactly what fans of the musical wanted.

Children of Men

There’s not much I can say about this film that probably hasn’t been said better elsewhere. I was intrigued to watch it when I learned it was one of my friend’s favorite movies. And I have to say, it’s really profound in a prescient way. Clive Owen gives one of the best performances I’ve ever seen. You should watch it, but only when you feel like taking a severe hit to the feels.

Basic Instinct

Vertigo is probably still my favorite film, so when I learned this year that Paul Verhoeven made a bloody, sex romp homage film to it in the 90s with Michael Douglas starring, I simply had to watch it. And you know, it’s not bad. It’s nowhere near as good as Vertigo, and you can see the ending coming a mile away. But what it does have is the immaculate Sharon Stone, who you cannot take your eyes off for the entire movie. And the movie knows it, making her look as alluring and suggestive as her character is to the detective investigating her. You could do worse than to watch it, just don’t expect any of Hitchcock’s subtlety or looming dread to seep into the final product.

Books

Dune

I finally finished Dune this year, and I can genuinely say it lives up to the hype. It’s not the easiest book to get through, but it’s by no means one of the most difficult either. I’m still bummed that the new film was delayed, but it might give me time to read the rest of the original book series.

The Fifth Season

Another fantastic piece of fiction, I cannot recommend this book enough. N.K. Jemisin is one of the best living authors of our time. If you want an original setting with a brilliant magic system and complex, compelling characters, look no further.

Video Content

Northernlion

I’ve been a fan of NL for years, though I’ve never been that into The Binding of Isaac. He just has a charismatic intelligence to him that sets him apart from most “Let’s Play” YouTubers to me, and he’s very funny to boot. I guess I’d say he seems a lot like me or the person I could picture myself being if I were a professional video content creator. So I was really excited for NL’s series of Spelunky 2 videos, and I still watch them every day, months later. And now he’s teaching me how to get better at chess, being a good 600 ELO higher than myself at the moment. His sarcastic and improv-laden banter have withstood the test of years and gave me some much-needed comfort and laughter in 2020. Somehow, the man even found a way to keep up his prolific output this year while raising his firstborn child. There are those who said it couldn’t be done...

The Command Zone - Game Knights

Josh Lee Kwai and the rest of the crew at The Command Zone continue to put out some of the most well-produced tabletop gameplay videos on the internet. It’s perhaps no surprise, seeing as how Lee Kwai created trailers for such blockbuster films as Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and Jimmy Wong had a supporting role in the live action remake of Disney’s Mulan. But the crew around the two hosts are just as important and talented, and it’s clear that they all share the same singular vision for the channel’s future. They’ve carefully crafted a team of expert editors, animators, cosplayers, and voice actors to deliver one delightful video after the next at a consistently high level. If you’re into Magic: the Gathering at all, you simply need to watch Game Knights.

Cimoooooooo

I found Alex Cimo’s channel shortly after the algorithm learned I was interested in Yu-Gi-Oh! again, and at first, I was less than impressed with him. But it’s clear to me now that he not only loves what he does, he’s an expert Yu-Gi-Oh! player and analyst. Plus, he’s very good at explaining some of the more complex concepts in the game in a way that newcomers can understand. I’ve watched every new episode of The Progression Series and The History of Yu-Gi-Oh! so far, and they’re the best way I’ve found to learn how the game developed and changed over the last 20 years.

Team APS

This is another great Yu-Gi-Oh! channel, focusing more on skits, gimmick videos, and casual games rather than analytical or theoretical content. Mostly, they seem like a really great group of friends that just have a blast playing Yu-Gi-Oh! together, and their love for the game makes me want to play more too.

Tolarian Community College

Somehow, a community college English professor’s channel went from a quirky little deckbox review platform to the most popular Magic: the Gathering channel on YouTube in only a few years. But it’s easy to see why when Brian clearly loves what he’s doing more than most people ever will. He’s not only a fantastic reviewer and MtG scholar, he’s one of the most outspoken voices for positive change in the community and the game. Is he too hard on the Magic team at Wizards of the Coast? Perhaps, but without his measured and well-reasoned takes on all things Magic, I think we’d be much worse off.

IRL

Cooking

Even I get tired of eating the same things every day, so I’ve taken it upon myself to learn how to make more dishes, mostly out of sheer boredom. And I know I’m not alone in that, but I have to say it’s been a rewarding and fun adventure. It’s really surprising what you can throw together with a decent recipe and a little creativity in a modest kitchen when you decide to break away from the microwave for once.

Chinchillin’

Like many people, I felt that I needed a pet to survive this year, and I’ve always wanted a chinchilla. So I took a risk and bought one from a seller on KSL a few months ago, and my life has definitely changed for the better. No longer simply alone with my thoughts all day, I have a furry little companion to commune and bond with. And it’s more difficult to find time to feel sorry for myself when a basically helpless tiny creature depends on me for almost everything. Not to say it’s been a perfect experience however, people don’t say chins are difficult to care for for nothing. And I have learned more about them than perhaps I ever cared to know before, but that’s only made them more interesting to me as a result. Overall, I would recommend them as pets, just be prepared to give them a lot more time and attention than you would to say, a fish or a hamster. I’ve seen the commitment compared to that of a large dog, and I think that’s fair, though chins seem far more difficult to train and are far less cuddly. Basically, imagine a fluffy, super fast squirrel that can jump half your height, shed its fur at will if grabbed too tightly, that sleeps all day and bathes in dust, and that cannot get wet or too hot or eat 99% of human foods without serious complications. And they get lonely, and they all have their own surprisingly distinct personalities, some shy and mischievous, others bright and social, and everything in between. But I’m glad to be part of my little buddy’s life and hope to make it a long and enjoyable one for him. Part of why I wanted a chinchilla so badly is they typically live between 10-20 years, much longer than the average rodent or even many cats and dogs. And they’re sadly endangered in the wild, poached for their incredibly soft fur, which is why I believe it’s critical that we care for and learn more about them now. And above all, I adore my chinchilla’s antics, even when he continually tries to dig up and eat the paper bedding below his cage when I’ve provided perfectly edible hay and pellets for him in much easier to reach locations.

And that’s all, folks...

First of all, Aminatou’s a great commander, giving us draw and blink all on one card. Plus, she’s cheap to cast for a planeswalker, so we can rely on being able to cast her a few times every game. We’ll probably never set off her ultimate, but it might just save us in some games. The only other two commander choices by Seb right now are Bladewing the Risen and the newly-announced Prismatic Piper, so Aminatou is the obvious pick here (Seb’s only illustrated for one other dragon card, Herdchaser Dragon, as of this writing).

Scryfall tells us that Seb has art on 86 commander-legal cards in Esper colors (some of which are only on Magic Online or Arena), so I just had to pair down to 64-ish cards from there. And once I did, themes started emerging. Aminatou herself gets better with enters-the-battlefield effects, so I threw most of them in.

Looking more closely at them, there’s actually quite a few cards that generate or work with tokens too, so the token cards were the next obvious inclusion.

Seb’s also worked on several cards that return creatures from the graveyard, including the iconic Deliver Unto Evil, so recursion became another theme.

We don’t have a Nicol Bolas to work with, but Deliver is a fine card without it anyway.

Immortal Servitude in particular looks like a good win condition for the deck, along with Dirge of Dread and Debt to the Deathless.

And to make sure creatures get into our own graveyard, we’re running Entomb, Nagging Thoughts, and Stream of Thought, which also help thin the deck so we can find more lands.

There’s also a discard sub-theme that can help us fill up the yard between Archfiend of Ifnir, Pale Rider of Trostad, and a couple of other cards.

All in all, the deck has a great amount of creatures, removal, draw, and recursion. The one thing it’s lacking, though, is mana ramp. Hopefully, we can circumvent some bad draws with Aminatou’s plus ability so we don’t get totally mana screwed. And we do at least have access to Springleaf Drum and Unknown Shores for color fixing in a pinch. 

It’s unfortunate that Seb hasn’t worked on more lands in our colors (although I’d rather not buy a $70 Secret Lair Misty Rainforest any time soon), but we can run Silent Clearing, which is awesome. And we might as well run Seb’s version of Secret Base at this point, because, well, just look at that outrageous art.

There’s a sub-theme of vampire tribal in the deck which I find amusing. Twilight Prophet is an extremely powerful card on its own, so it seemed worth it to run Seb’s other three vampires alongside it.

And there’s more than enough zombies in the deck for Compelling Deterrence and Necromancer’s Stockpile to work great as well.

Overall, I think this deck is surprisingly strong, and the art speaks for itself. It’s not amazingly powerful, but I think it could hold its own against most pre-constructed decks. It’s tough to make artist-themed decks like this work, but I think this is on the better end of the scale. Only way to know for sure is to playtest it. At about $100, it’s a little steep, but maybe worth it to someone that really loves Seb’s art. Plus, you could finish off the deck-oration with an awesome Seb McKinnon playmat and sleeves.

(This place is really significant to the game and the story, because up until now, everyone’s been saying that all the plants in the City are dying. Yet they’re still thriving here.)

But the Mechanists have been killed too, presumably by the pagans or their woodsie allies. After you poke around the pagan village enough and either sneak by or dispose of the mace-wielding Mechanists still guarding the place, you find two large rubies that you slot into the eye sockets of a giant, stone face, whose mouth opens another portal.

Through this portal, you find the corpse of the last Mechanist, so you can surmise their invasion probably only made it this far.

The next area gets even weirder, first having you travel through an eerie patch of eyeball flowers that turn to look at you as you pass. You can stop to pick up some more water arrows from the pools near them, which you’ll need later. After the eyeballs, you enter into a dark grotto with glowing crystals, poison water, and giant pitcher plants.

You’ll also find your first Ape Beasts of the game here, who walk around with an unsettling lilt to their animation, guarding the entrance to their home. You can put them to sleep with gas arrows which you can find lying around, or you can sneak up on them and knock them out. If they spy you, though, they attack with blow darts and chase you relentlessly. It’s also worth noting that, you’re always searching for the path of blood as you move through these spaces, but it’s often worth it to stray from the path and explore a bit. This level is mostly linear, but it does reward your curiosity.

The Ape Beasts can be difficult to deal with, because they walk quickly and like to hang around torches. There are also little forest sprites flying around that light up whatever area they happen to fly by, making some areas a lot less safe than you’d first assume. The Apes argue over plums (which you can find and consume) and comment with glee that no one could possibly get past them.

Garrett can, of course, and after passing through giant trees themed after the four seasons, you follow the blood trail into the final area. Garrett makes a wistful comment around this point, hoping that the pagan you’re following doesn’t run out of blood before you find him. It’s a really funny joke on the plot and level design of the mission and helps to bring some humor to the other-worldliness of it all.

After finally tracking down the corpse of the man, you’re given a fantastic cutscene where Garrett confronts his nemesis from the first game, the wood nymph Viktoria, who took his right eye. She explains that the woodsie pagans are not Garrett’s true enemy, though, and reveals that the Mechanists are working to destroy Garrett as well as her and her followers. After Garrett reluctantly agrees to help her, she gives you your next objectives, which involve sneaking into a high-profile dinner party and finding out what the Mechanists are plotting next.

The Oculus Quest

I got the 64 GB Oculus Quest through Amazon for $400, and I feel like it’s important to say that upfront. I recognize it’s a privilege just to be able to afford something like this right now, let alone have a decent job that allows for it. VR is not as cheap as it should be yet, but I think it will be within the next five years or so. 

64 GB is plenty so far, and I can’t see the size limit becoming a problem for a while. Maybe once more premium apps like Half-Life Alyx hit the Quest I’ll regret it, but for now I’m totally happy with the smaller hard drive. The controllers are super comfortable and responsive, though figuring out left from right takes some getting used to, especially with something blocking your vision. But it’s easy enough once you realize that the second trigger is on the inside of the controller, so the wrong orientation will feel awkward. The device and controllers are very portable, if awkward to transport because of their shape and fragility. I expect I’ll have to purchase a carrying case for them sooner or later, but for now a backpack has sufficed.

The headset itself is truly a wonder. The four cameras on the front can create a live black and white feed of your surroundings so you don’t bump into things if you walk with it on, and they can even track just your hands for additional control options (currently in beta). The straps allow for easy size adjustments, and they’re tough enough that I don’t feel like they’ll wear down any time soon. There’s a slider for the lenses to adjust your viewing angle if things still look blurry, and the lenses themselves blend nicely into your vision, so you truly feel like you’re in another place with the headset on and running. The built-in speakers only heighten this effect, providing a surround sound experience in a small package. There are headphone jacks on the sides of the headset as well, but I haven’t had cause to use them yet.

The hub interface experience is fairly smooth, and you can choose your background environment for it from several thematic choices. Getting around the menus is easy enough, but it can be hard to know what to look for or even where to start. There are a few free demos, but after that you’re on your own to discover what’s best for you. Since VR is still so new to most people, I would like a little more guidance there, but I’m enjoying the process of discovering things for myself too. One nice thing is every game is listed with a comfort rating, so you know which are likely to give you motion sickness and which are basically 3D movies.

Beat Saber

It’s no secret Beat Saber is one of the most successful VR games so far, and it lives up to the hype. It’s a rhythm game where you have to slash at different colored blocks with the corresponding saber, in time with the music and in the right direction. You also dodge obstacles on occasion, either by leaning or ducking. This sounds simple, but it allows for a ton of different patterns and complexity. The best levels have really satisfying sequences to perform, and it does almost feel like conducting or drumming along with the music. The main campaign is surprisingly lengthy and difficult. At one point, it starts to require you to go against your instincts and mess up songs on purpose in order to not let your combo go above a certain number or to hit a required number of misses. I’m sure they were added to give the game some more mechanical depth, but I’m not sure they’re necessary. Fortunately, there’s also a solo mode and leaderboard where you can play any song you have access to on any difficulty you like. I haven’t bought more songs yet, but I suspect I will before long. Overall, this is an easy game to recommend and a must-play for anyone with access to VR.

The Climb

I’m a novice rock climber who hasn’t been able to go to a gym since March, so this game caught my eye. It gives you the experience of free soloing (climbing tall, long routes without a harness or other people) and bouldering (climbing very short but difficult routes, which is the style I prefer in real life). So far, I’ve only tried the tutorial, and I’m still working up the courage to go back. The game gives me a lot of vertigo and kind of freaks me out, as your character screams for their life whenever you fall (which, in the tutorial at least, will happen often as you learn the controls). Falling is a very real part of climbing, but if you’re doing it right, you should never get hurt. Free soloing is only really attempted by the most expert climbers, and even many of them die in their attempts. A better way to experience it though is through the Free Solo 360 VR documentary by National Geographic, which is free on the app store and thrilling to watch, just like the regular doc. I’m sure I’ll go back to this game soon, but I’m not sure how long it’ll take me to get used to falling in VR.

National Geographic VR

This game is very cute and allows you to play the part of a National Geographic photographer in Machu Picchu and Antarctica. So far I’ve only started the Machu Picchu route, but I really like it. Your producers tasks you with getting different shots, and you have several locations to choose from in each area. Not very deep, but the views are great.

Job Simulator

In Job Simulator, you play a boring, everyday employee for sentient, floating robot TV’s in a few different roles, and it’s awesome. There’s tons of physics objects to play with, which is definitely one of my favorite parts of VR. The writing is clever, the world is cartoon-like and inviting, and it’s much better than actual work. This is another game I’d strongly recommend for VR beginners like myself.

Netflix VR

As weird as it sounds, I like Netflix in VR. The TV in the environment seems much larger than the one I own in real life, so it feels bigger even though it’s virtual. I like the cabin setting and atmosphere, and it beats staring at my apartment walls. I was able to watch several episodes of Death Note in a row pretty easily, although the headset does start to feel heavy after a while. I wouldn’t say this is the ideal way to stream TV by any means, but it’s worth a try as a fun distraction.

Other Odds and Ends

I’ve dabbled with various other apps and games so far, as one does when one acquires a new electronic toy. I started the tutorial of Vader Immortal Episode 1, and it has you deflecting lasers and slashing robots just like a Jedi, so I’m excited to start that game properly. I was able to hook up my headset to my PC in order to try Google Earth, and it’s great. I don’t think my PC will be able to handle much else, however, so I’m thinking about upgrading it relatively soon. It is nice to know, though, that all you need to make the connection now is a USB 2.0/3.0 to USB-C cable. Until May, you had to buy a special $80 cable directly from Oculus, so I’m glad they removed that barrier. I still feel weird about Superhot in VR. I’ve tried it once before, and the demo still felt awkward to me this time. You have to be so precise in Superhot that dodging bullets while attacking and moving becomes really strenuous, and I don’t think the game really accommodates that well. 

Next Steps

All that said, I’m looking forward to digging into all the games I’ve only touched the surface on as well as exploring new things. I’ll try to continue to document my thoughts here so you can all share in my journey with me. I’m coming to realize that VR time is separate from my regular gaming time, in that the experience is totally different. It’s not a replacement for the games I own already; it’s an expansion on a medium and still very new. But there’s something very freeing and magical about VR that comes with the masking of the senses and trickery that the headset provides. Very soon, within the next three to five years even, I think it’ll be much more commonplace.

The Commander Ezuri’s a great, straightforward commander for a budget build. He’s cheap to cast, he fits our tribe, he can protect other elves, and he can give our elves Overrun at instant speed. So our game plan with him is also simple: establish a large board presence with a huge elf army, take out our opponents’ key threats with removal, play Ezuri, and swing for the win.

Elves Galore We get to run all the fun, cheap elf cards in here, many of which are my favorites from way back in Onslaught block. Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen is another elf pumper and buffers our life total against other aggressive strategies, as does Wellwisher. Heedless One can get very large and crucially has Trample so she can get in for lots of damage. Imperious Perfect pumps elves and makes elf tokens. Wildborn Preserver can become a huge blocker against flyers and gives us something to do with all the green mana we’ll be generating. And Wirewood Symbiote, while not an elf itself, can simultaneously save an elf from death as well as ready another creature. The Symbiote is even better in multiplayer, because we can activate it on each of our opponents’ turns as well as our own.

The Big Green We need a LOT of green mana to play as many elves as possible each turn, and many of our mana generators also happen to be elves. Classics such as Elvish Pioneer and Llanowar Elves make their obligated appearance. More exciting cards, though, are Rishkar, Peema Renegade; Rhonas’s Monument, and Elvish Archdruid. Rishkar can pump two elves as well as turns all our creatures with counters on them into mana dorks. This combos with Wildborn Preserver; Renata, Called to the Hunt; Ivy Lane Denizen; Elvish Vanguard; and Oran-Rief, the Vastwood. The Monument can give our creatures Trample, which, again, is crucial to getting damage through. And the Archdruid doubles as both a huge mana generator and an Anthem effect, making it one of the MVPs of the deck.

Drawing on Nature Green’s draw options have gotten considerably better in modern Magic, but many of the best of them are outside our price range at $10+. We still have good budget choices though, like Keeper of Fables, Primordial Sage, Harmonize, and Sunset Pyramid. Bag of Holding and Kithkin Mourncaller help us get value from elves that died or that we discarded as well. We’re not too upset if someone blows up the Bag before we get everything back from exile, either, as it will likely have drawn us a few cards already.

Cleansing the Earth We’re still limited in the realm of removal and board wipes, but hopefully we can rely on our opponents to destroy some big threats as well. Desert Twister is an old classic that can take care of almost anything for a high cost. Viridian Shaman and Reclamation Sage are elves that hate out the unnatural, and Kenrith’s Transformation and Lignify can deal with any pesky Indestructible creatures. We also have a cute trick in Eaten by Spiders that can totally shut down a flying Voltron commander by destroying them along with their favorite toys. Hurricane and Whirlwind deal with flying armies, and Stone-Tongue Basilisk can sometimes wipe out an opponent’s board (gets even more devastating if we can pump it). Hurricane is some of the only direct damage in the deck as well and helps to close out games. And in the case that an opponent is relying too heavily on broken enchantments, artifacts, and nonbasic lands, Wave of Vitriol and Multani’s Decree can really set them back while leaving our mostly creature-based board relatively unscathed.

Elf-Help Finally, we need ways to address the deck’s chief weaknesses, i.e. it’s vulnerability to board wipes, control decks, and faster aggro creature strategies. One of the worst outcomes is for you to spend all your time clashing your elf army against someone else’s Merfolk or Zombie deck while the red deck sneaks in a mass damage win or the blue/white deck locks everyone else out of the game. So for damage control, we’re running Wrap in Vigor and Fog. Taunting Elf and Copperhorn Scout ensure we can go all-in against our opponent’s similarly-large army without waiting for them to tap out. And Fierce Empath and Wirewood Herald can find some of our most valuable pieces (like Soul of the Harvest) if we haven’t drawn them already. Reclaim can get anything back from the graveyard, and we’re also including Overrun and Bounty of Might just in case Ezuri dies too many times for us to play him efficiently.

And that’s the deck! It’s a classic tribal strategy, but the deck can eke out wins surprisingly often. And it’s a great intro deck for new players, as it's easy to understand, won’t get mana screwed often, and doesn’t require a lot of skill to pilot successfully. Plus, who doesn’t like elves?

Thanks for reading if you got this far, and let me know if you liked the deck and/or the write-up. :) I’d definitely like to do more of these for my other brews.

You can follow me on Twitter @NCBurnham

With Wizards of the Coast deciding not to work with Noah Bradley or Terese Nielsen anymore, Commander players now have an interesting new conundrum to think over: should I continue to run cards with art by these creators? For me, I think it’s worth the time to take these cards out of my decks and find replacements. In other mediums, it can be harder to separate art from the artist, and even worthwhile to explore how some innovative or groundbreaking works were created by problematic people. In magic, though, the art is not just what sits between the card name and the type line: it’s all the pieces of the card, from the frame, to the flavor text, to the mechanics, coming together to form a cohesive whole. Bradley’s and Nielsen’s art, while objectively beautiful, is also now a negative reminder of the people that made it, and that reminder is not entirely cohesive with the messages the rest of the game should strive to communicate. Recently, some cards with racist depictions have even been completely removed from the game, and I hope WotC continues this trend going forward.

So how do we go about finding alternatives for cards with Bradley’s and Nielsen’s art that we may be running already? Well, I’m going to tell you which offending cards I found in my own decks and the suitable replacements I’ve picked for them. Hopefully, you’ll have an idea of what you’d like to do with your own builds after you see what I’ve done here. 

I currently own six commander decks built around these commanders: Ayula, Queen Among Bears; Niv-Mizzet Reborn; Princess Twilight Sparkle; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden; Zedruu the Greathearted; and Gavi, Nest Warden. My first concern when examining the decks for Bradley or Nielsen art was the commanders themselves. Thankfully, none of my commanders were painted by them. A quick Scryfall search shows us that Nielsen has created art for seven legendary creatures, and Bradley does not have art on any commanders at present.

Thankfully, for the two Akroma’s, gorgeous alternate versions of the art do exist and are cheap to acquire in a variety of card frames (I think I personally prefer the Angel of Wrath art by Chippy anyway). For Hanna, Ship’s Navigator, we have to go all the way back to Invasion to find the original art. Basandra, Ertai, Sydri, and Thromok, though, do not have other versions yet. Hopefully, they will see reprints someday. For now, I wouldn’t begrudge anyone for running them, as they all have unique niches in their colors, and I’d never want to ask someone to give up their favorite commander. If you do run them, though, you may want to consider commissioning an alternate art version from an independent creator, if that makes you more comfortable with playing them.

So that leaves the other 99 for each of my decks. For Ayula, I found that I was running a basic Forest of Bradley’s and Hunter’s Insight by Nielsen. The Forest is trivial to replace, and I already have a Fifth Edition one by David O’Connor I want to use from a Starter Deck I recently picked up. Hunter’s Insight is a good draw spell for the deck, for sure, but there is no shortage of those in green now. I just happen to have a Heartwood Storyteller lying around (art by Anthony S. Waters), so I’m going to slot that in for the same draw function. It’s a creature to boot, so it can pick up the deck’s equipment, and it might even make me some friends around the table. Ayula’s not a particularly group hug-y deck, but it couldn’t hurt, since most of the deck is creatures anyway.

For my Niv-Mizzet Reborn/Maze’s End deck, I was happy to see that I don’t have to worry about replacing any of the Gates or Maze’s End itself. I did place an additional constraint on the deck of only including cards from Ravnica sets, so it already doesn’t have as much wiggle room. But the only card I found to take out was Transguild Promenade by Bradley. I do hope it gets a reprint someday, but it’s honestly not that good of a card. I was mostly running it for flavor anyway, so I don’t feel too bad about putting in a Novijen, Heart of Progress that I have instead (art by Martina Pilcerova). This card is not optimal for a five-color deck, but it is flavorful. And I can always find something else later.

Princess Twilight Sparkle was running Nielsen’s Swords to Plowshares and Bradley’s Winds of Abandon. I’m replacing Swords with the original Path to Exile, since it basically does the same thing and I’ve always loved Todd Lockwood’s art for it. It also helps my opponents find lands if they’re mana screwed, which feels a little better than just giving them some life. Winds of Abandon is a lot harder to replace, since it’s still a new card and I was really looking forward to playing it. I could definitely see it getting reprinted soon, though, so I’m sticking in a Kirtar’s Wrath (art by the prolific Kev Walker) as an alternative board wipe with some upside.

My Grenzo deck was running Bradley’s version of Forgotten Cave and Nielsen’s Darksteel Pendant. Luckily, I still have an original Forgotten Cave from Onslaught, so that was easy to replace. I have a soft spot for Darksteel Pendant since there aren’t that many Darksteel cards, so I do hope WotC reprints this obscure common someday. Scry is an all too common ability now, though, so there’s no shortage of options. I’m slotting in a Conjurer’s Bauble (art by Darrell Riche), since it’s cheap utility and getting things from the graveyard to the bottom of the library is actually super great for Grenzo.

I recently bought Approach of the Second Sun for my Zedruu build (my long-time favorite commander deck), so I’m the most sad to see this one go. The card has become a commander staple since it was printed, as it’s a great alternate win condition for white. It’s especially great in Zedruu, which doesn’t have many other ways to close out games. I’m replacing it with Sphinx’s Tutelage (art by Slawomir Maniak) as a way to mill someone out, although there’s really no replacement for Second Sun. I was going to take out Bradley’s Leyline of Anticipation in favor of another Fifth Edition card, Ray of Command, but then I realized Ray’s Fifth Ed. art was created by known neo-Nazi Harold McNeill, the artist behind the infamous Invoke Prejudice. So I’m going with Dack’s Duplicate instead (art by Karl Kopinski).

Finally, my newest deck is headed by Gavi, Nest Warden, which really likes to have Forgotten Cave and Lonely Sandbar to function. Since I don’t have another Forgotten Cave or Heather Hudson’s version of Lonely Sandbar at the moment, I’m just slotting in a Fifth Edition Mountain and Island (art by John Avon and J.W. Frost respectively). That just leaves Bradley’s Spirit Cairn to take out, which isn’t a particularly stellar card anyway. So another Fifth Edition card, Forget (art by Mike Kimble), is going in instead. It’s cool to have some targeted discard in blue, so it can either trigger Gavi or disrupt an opponent’s hand in a pinch.

And that’s all of my decks updated! Phew.

This is a game and a format I love and want to continue to share with others. I think that can only happen as long as the space we provide for new players is kind and inviting. Bigotry and harassment have no place in games or elsewhere. So by ditching some of these potentially-problematic symbols, my hope is that it makes Magic a little safer for everyone.

If you stuck with me this long, thank you for reading!

You can follow more of my thoughts on Twitter @NCBurnham.