#blops 2

STANDSTILL

5 and 7 for Ashley! 👀

Alyyyy! I feel like I've not spoken to you in a while even tho I literally dm'd you today XD ILYSM <3

Thank you for asking about Ashley 👀

5. What is your OCs moral code?

So, Ashley's moral code is very much influenced by her parents; she has a strong sense of right and wrong and will often defend those who are being wronged. However, it's not entirely black and white - she knows that sometimes you have to do what is morally wrong to ensure that a morally right outcome is achieved and sometimes finds herself in situations where her morals are being questioned. She doesn't necessarily sleep easy at night when she catches herself thinking too deeply about these kinds of things. I think they affect her more than she lets on because of how strongly she can feel about certain things.

7. How far is your OC willing to go to get what they want?

Hm, this is a tough one.

In the first two hours of Yakuza Kiwami 2 I have seen: Two violent coup d'é·tat’s, a man get a bottle broken over his head without flinching, police intrigue, a sniper sneak attack and one very nervous convenience store clerk.  How did it take me until 2018 to get super into these games?  There’s a level of absurdity that Yakuza seems so at home with, that frankly I should have been super into these games from day one.  I can actually vividly remember playing a demo of the first game, with it’s star studded dub on PS2, and thinking it was the kind of GTA chasing trash that would simply never catch on.  I was wrong about that at the time, if only I’d gotten in on the ground floor.

It’s nice to be back in Sotenbori from Yakuza 0!  Though I already miss the small town charm of Yakuza 6′s Onomichi!

Or really it’s probably best I didn’t, from what I understand these Kiwami remakes are better than the originals could have ever hoped to be.  Even though the combat remains pretty simplistic, it’s flashy and fun.  The story is an engaging crime drama that effectively mixes in genuine intrigue with absurd moments and a general sense of silly self awareness.  Awareness that all of these things are crazy and it knows how to absolutely weaponize each and every one of them.  Given how often, in the entries I've played anyway, Yakuza bosses rip off their shits to make dramatic points, the fact there’s a 7 foot tall blonde monster man who seems to have a downright need to beat Kiryu to death seems to be leading to one hell of a shirt rip.

I always think I’m not going to be immediately into Yakuza games when I start them up.  They’re slow, and they can often have bizarre difficulty spikes, but there’s something special about this series that hooks you in right away and doesn’t let you go until the last absurdly muscled gangster is on the floor, horribly injured, but not dead!  We swear!

Random Screenshot Of The Day:

Ollie North, seen here explaining the treasure he’s hidden away to the best damn soldier/singer they have to find it.

Stray Game Notes:

- Yakuza Kiwami 2 has an attack where Kiryu empties the entire clip of a gun into a goons stomach and then throws the gun itself at the dudes face.  Again, Kiryu has never killed anyone, all non-lethal!  Rubber bullets probably! 

- I find myself struggling to stay on with Black Ops 2, but honestly I think it’s because this is the 4th CoD game in a month I’ve played?  Even I can get a little burnt out!  Probably gonna try to push through though!

DREAD

Black Ops 2 is the only Call of Duty campaign with a branching story and multiple endings, only problem is those branches are made of steel.  Actually figuring out what effects the ending, predicting where a certain choice might end up, can be absurdly difficult.  While the missions themselves are top notch, the parts of said missions where you need to decide important story points can be unclear at best, and absurdly difficult at worst. Take, for example, the interrogation of surprise returning bad guy, Kravchenko.  Mason, falling back under the influence of “The numbers” struggles to contain himself from killing the big bad Russian.  How does this manifest in gameplay?  Mashing the X button.  When I say “mashing” here I truly do mean mashing.  The first two times the prompt appears it takes some intense button mashing, like “my hand hurts” level mashing.  The third and final time it shows up though, is absurd, you can fail so quickly, it’s damn near impossible to pass the mini game because who’s fingers work that fast?  It’s a bummer that a few of the branching paths work like this, because it’s a strong idea that add’s a lot of value to the campaign, but it’s handled poorly.

The Numbers Mason!  They’re a piece of shit!

Now I don’t want this to sound entirely negative, I’m not trying to be!  The branching storyline in Black Ops 2 is really cool!  It relies on paying attention to and following clues you can earn through things like the interrogation mini game rather than just outright “moral choices” (Though some of those are certainly there).  Even if a lot of the ways to influence the future of the story are really hard to pull of (the button mashing is a nightmare and I’ve literally never caught up to the bad guy in an event where you can stop a kidnapping and prevent having to do a future rescue mission), they are technically possible, and it goes a long way to refuting the idea that Call of Duty is 100% linear, as is often the case with other entries.

Random Screenshot Of The Day:

I genuinely don’t think there’s a line that Admiral Briggs speaks in this game that doesn’t include “Cocksucker” directed at either a person or an object.

Stray Game(?) Notes:

- That ? Is because I did university homework all day and really have nothing to say game wise because other than like 40 minutes of Fallout 76, I didn’t really play anything!

>>> WATCH HERE! <<<

>>> WATCH HERE! <<<

>>> WATCH HERE! <<<