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[figdays]

“Ugly But Trying” Ringer Tee // NerdyBit 

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♡ 8-Bit Senpai Snapback - Link in the source! ♡

[midnight-pursona]

‪Shout out to @nerdy_bit for this beautiful Bowsette shirt! I love all of their shirts and gear! Go give them a follow/like and maybe by some merch!! ‬ ‪#bowsette #bowsettecosplay #bowsettemerch #nerdybit #meme #mememerch #shoutout ‬ https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq3kkIbntTz/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=h4tay8jvfwq7

[cosplaysonarae]

Happy to have come but sad that I’m already leaving ♡ ♡ Check out @nerdy_bit for hats (like mine), shirts, shorts, jerseys, and more!


[nerdy-bits]

Ghost of Tsushima and PlayStation Prestige Storytelling

There is an unspoken, yet constantly spoken, expectation that exists in the game industry that demands that games change over time. That they evolve. Yet, it is an expectation that is demanded hypocritically, or perhaps misguidedly. 

When I started writing about games I remember holding a firm stance that Call of Duty was actually garbage, because it was all just recycled gameplay with minimal facelift year-to-year. There is this unspoken standard in games, it seems, that demands a distinguishable improvement over time. Yet, it never seems to quantify its own qualifications. What does that improvement entail? Surely graphical and mechanical improvements, yes? Do those expectations also include things like gameplay evolution? Does Last of Us II need to feel different than its predecessor or is it possible to just build on the framework that its priors have already laid?

None of these questions seem to have answers. At least I have never seen anyone take the time to sit down and build a more specific set of guidelines with which one can view a game’s…”uniqueness”? See, I even struggle to find the right word for the concept as a whole. 

So let me start over, if not for you than for myself. 

When I sat behind my desk to start playing Ghost of Tsushima, I was immediately confronted by a feeling of familiarity. I knew how to play this game already. Combat was simple, light and heavy attack, parry, counter-attack. It all felt very Assassin’s Creed 2, or perhaps even Arkham Asylum. Truthfully, I haven’t played the game in close to three months, but the mechanics are so easy to pick up that I have no doubt it would be a breeze to return. 

Ghost of Tsushima, for the last AAA exclusive release on the PS4, is largely a summary of the genre for the last generation and a half. It’s both extremely appropriate and - in a sort of way - unavoidably disappointing. See, Sony has realized its version of what we call Prestige Television. Allow me the short diversion to explain myself. 

In 200, 2008, and 2010 AMC discovered that it could deliver a version of television that bordered on the production value of film, but also allowed its storytellers the ability to tell a story over ten or twelve hours. Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead all established that television need not only be a procedural drama focused on serialized formulaity. They established that building a prolonged narrative arc could pay off, and draw record viewership in the process. Were they the first to do this? No, of course not. The Sopranos, The Wire, and before them the likes of Hill Street Blues, or Wiseguy. But see, the difference between the latter examples there and the former, is the accessibility. Hill Street Blues airing on NBC and Wiseguy on CBS. The Sopranos and The Wire continued the tradition of stellar television but on a far more exclusive stage. HBO wasn’t and still isn’t in most households. Then, at some point in the late 2000s, cable television stepped to the plate, and prestige television reemerged, and this time it propagated outward in every direction. Now nearly every network wants its own prestige show. 

But what does any of this have to do with the Ghost of Tsushima and PlayStation? I think that Sucker Punch is another studio swallowed up by this generation of Playstation Prestige Storytelling. If swallowed up sounds a bit negative, that is on purpose. Last of Us started something, and after seven years of AAA exclusives focused on telling mature stories, Tsushima feels like the perfect bookend to this generation. A generation of exclusives full of prestige storytelling but not particularly full of unique or revolutionary gameplay experiences.

Look at both Last of Us titles, God of War, Uncharted, and Horizon Zero Dawn. It’s hard to find better single player experiences over the last 8 years. Each game is well written, expertly acted, and smartly directed. I deeply enjoyed each one. But over time it was hard to not realize one similarity: PlayStation exclusives don’t really push any boundaries outside of delivering highly manicured story and stunning visuals. 

The toughest part about writing this is making clear that my opinion, despite sounding critical, isn’t. I own my PS4 for these titles. I lap them up hungrily. I feel I’ve just recognized what they are for me. Beyond a way to stay relevant, they act as a window into some of the best writing in the industry. 

Ghost of Tsushima is a beautiful game complimented by an equally beautiful story. That story resides in the most refined version of recycled gameplay mechanics I have ever seen. And what’s more? It absolutely works. Tsushima is the summation of open world games for the last decade. It does very little new, but everything it does, it does markedly better than its predecessors. Arguably its most unique feature is its navigational breeze. Removing the non-diegetic quest marker and dotted-line trail for a more diegetic system that draws the breeze to guide you. The flourish of foliage is stunning almost always, and by hour three I had forgotten that it was a mechanic completely, and felt it more as a system of the world’s design. 

But the combat is Arkham, the exploration is Assassin’s Creed, and the stealth is Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell. But the cutscenes. The attention to detail in exposition and composition is deliberate and masterful. In the opening moments Jin finds his family katana in a dark room. After a flashback, showing you his first moments learning under Lord Shimura, he unsheaths the blade over his head. The high moon shining through the torn walls casting a brilliant silver glare on across the folded steel. He positions the blade in a Jodan Kasumi stance, flaring the light of the moon across his face. This extremely good shit is painted across every scene in this game. 

As much as I found myself quietly laughing at the novelty of a game made of a generation of parts, it wasn’t long before I absolutely didn’t care anymore. 

That’s the trick. The conceit. Prestige television ostensibly didn’t change what film had been doing for decades. Rather it took that formula and drew it out, carried it over to a different medium, and used viewers’ desire for a good story to leverage their attention. God of War takes the Dark Souls formula for combat and boils it down, hones, and tunes it to its purposes. Uncharted is Tomb Raider with a heaping spoonful of Indiana Jones. Last of Us is almost literally apocalyptic Uncharted. Bloodborne is, well, Lovecraftian Dark Souls. You see the point. PlayStation’s story based exclusives, have built upon what has come before to hone something truly special for each of its games. Just not unique.

Podcasting and writing about games independently means you play a lot of games to stay relevant. A lot of games. I end up putting at least a dozen hours into most releases. When I like a game it generally means mainlining it to make way for the next game. I put 110 hours into Valhalla in the month and a half since it has been out. Playing that much means that when games are similar it can start to drag on you. It almost impacted my enjoyment of Ghost of Tsushima. 

I started extremely critical of Tsushima’s willingness to borrow. I thought it cheap and lacking imagination. The story even immediately impacted me as a bit of a general take on very mainstream ideas of Japanese culture. I saw the combat and, though thoroughly enjoying it, kept reminding myself that it is just recycled mechanics. The first five hours of the game I tried so hard to convince myself that Ghost of Tsushima was too much of a copycat to be enjoyed. I’m honestly not even sure what it was that changed my mind. All I know is, around hour six, I realized what was really going on under the hood of Tsushima, and I fell in love with the notion of paying homage to what has come before. And that brings me closer to my point.

Ghost of Tsushima is Assassin’s Creed 2 made better. Logical visual update afforded by the passage of time aside, it’s combat is smoother, systems more diagetic, design more nuanced. It’s the culmination of a generation of games striving to be more. But it’s not the end of that pursuit. While Tsushima is incredible it’s not perfect. There are small flaws. Some persistent, some one off. 

But it’s another step forward. In the journey of PlayStation Prestige Storytelling it is a logical step. An investigation of further leaning on established systems as an avenue for improvement. Expect future titles to do the same. We are definitely getting a second Tsushima game. Count on that. We also know we’re getting another God of War. 

PlayStation exclusives refined themselves this generation. They are heightened storytelling experiences with a tremendous amount of good writing, jaw dropping visuals, and reimagined mechanics. Have they been a consistent wellspring of innovation? No. But then neither has prestige television. It’s a familiar system, twisted and turned, made to look fresh. And it’s perfect, and learning. 

@LubWub ~Caleb

[otakify]

@nerdy_bit had the dope stuff perlers out here @lvlupexpo . Make sure to check out their stuff if you guys happen to be here the rest of the weekend. 🙏 #nerdybit #lvlupexpo #perler #anime #animeforlife #animefollow #animeaddict #animelover #animefreak #animeforever #japanese #animefan #manga #mangaaddict #mangafreak #mangalover #mangaforever #otaku #otakulife #otakulifestyle #otakify #california #losangeles (at LVL UP EXPO)

[crimsonsongstress]

One of my favorite things I got from the Convention was this badass Yandere hat. Originally I was like either Thicc or Waifu and some others that were hella funny, ended up with Yandere. It was meant to bed TOTALLY CHECK OUT NERDY BIT!!! They do hats, shirts, hair clips of different fandoms!. You can even get custom orders!!! Totally will be buying from them again, they are fun to talk to and awesome artists! Check their Insta out and their etsy!! @nerdy_bit #NerdyBit #8bitawesome #yandere #anime #funny #love #coolesthat #hanadokicon2017 #hanadokicon

[nerdy-bit]

Daily Perler: Emoticons!! I think that's all I need to say #perlerbeads #perler #kawaii #cute #emoticon #happy #japanese #japaneseemoticon #nerdybit #8bit

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♡ 8-bit D.VA Nerf This Hat ♡ 

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♡ 8-Bit Hime Snapback ♡ 

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(via Overwatch Mei Perler Snapback)

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[nerdy-bits]

XCOM: Chimera Squad Review

XCOM Chimera Squad is my definition of a pleasant surprise. Just soldiering through quarantine on a lazy April Tuesday afternoon, across my news feed comes the improbable: a new XCOM game getting shadow dropped. Just a short ten days away, Chimera Squad would be releasing. What’s more? If you preordered, or purchased before May first, the game was only ten dollars.

 Now I fully recognize, it may be the trying times we’re enduring, but that lazy tuesday suddenly felt like Christmas.

 I’ve been a huge fan of XCOM since the reboot, Enemy Unknown, was released in 2012. I remember doing my research and discovering XCOM had first launched in 1994, but I never had the chance to play those games. Regardless, ten minutes into Enemy Unknown I knew I was sold.

Where Chimera Squad differs from its predecessors is, well, in a lot of places. Where XCOM 1 and 2 finds you operating as the Commander of XCOM, at first an international force assembled to fight back alien invasion, then as a resistance seeking to overthrow alien overlords, Chimera Squad is the result of an XCOM initiative called the Reclamation Project. With the war against the occupying aliens won, XCOM tasks an interspecies team of operatives to support the police of City 31. The former hub of Advent control, City 31 has become the world’s model city for human and alien integration. 

As Chimera Squad, as directed by the Reclamation Project, you are tasked with seeking out and pacifying rogue groups in the city hoping to hamper its lofty goals, and simultaneously track down and reclaim scattered wartime technologies. But, of course, things don’t go specifically to plan. In the first moments of the game you are tasked with saving the life of Mayor Nightingale. Taken hostage by dissidents, 31PD is at a standstill and calls in the cavalry. With Chimera Squad so newly formed, Verge, your Sectoid Psionic teammate has to take a cab and catch up with the team on site. 

That is the other way that Chimera Squad breaks the mold. Where other XCOM games give you a force of editable, backstory-less characters, this title has twelve operatives with names, backstories, voice actors, and personality. I wasn’t sure how I would like this change at first. Part of my love of the series is the stories that I can attach to the characters as I grow familiar with each of their abilities. And losing those soldiers becomes so much more personal when they fall in battle. 

In Chimera Squad there is no such thing as losing a character. In fact, character death results in a game over screen and a “Load Checkpoint” prompt. Gravely wounded soldiers have an increased chance at earning a scar, a semipermanent debuff that can only be cleared by sending them to rehabilitative training. At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about these changes. I have moments from previous games that have stuck with me for years, based on the deaths or retrieval of lost characters. Chimera Squad axes that in the interest of telling a story with its characters, and for such a radical change, it really pays off.

Dialogue in-mission feels largely the same. Conversations back at base however, really lend to the depth of the characters. I found myself constantly bemused by the tidbits of information I could glean from these operatives interacting with each other. It only takes a couple of lines to understand where Godmother gets her callsign. In one instance, Cherub - the affectionate mascot of the squad - asks Godmother to sign off on paperwork allowing the soldier and scientist who found him to adopt him. See Cherub is a clone soldier. Created by Advent for war, but woken after the Ethereal mind control had been lifted. He explains that the two people who found him, set him free, had gotten married a few years later and now they wanted to adopt him.

I truly had no expectation that I would be charmed this much by an XCOM title. But it didn’t end there.

Later in the game, given the opportunity to recruit another unit to Chimera’s ranks, I chose Zephyr, a Hybrid bruiser whose only wield-able weapons were her fists. I rarely choose melee characters, but because Chimera Squad is so unique, I figured I would try something new. In her first mission she was a blast to use. Her attack rooted enemies, meaning they can’t move on their next turn, and after her attack she is granted an additional action point so that she can distance herself from enemies that would take advantage of her close range to shoot her. I was convinced. Then we went back to base.

In her one and only base-dialogue I heard, she asked Cherub to be her training dummy. Except, she didn’t call him by his name, she called him Knock-Off. When confronted by Terminal (another agent) that he has a name Zephyr waved them away and called for Knock-Off to come along. Always the team morale agent, he complied, telling his defender that it was ok. 

I never used Zephyr again. She literally developed workshop projects for the next 20 hours of my campaign.

Again, I never expected that an XCOM game would make me feel like this about my soldiers. And quite frankly, I absolutely fell in love with this game because of it. 

Chimera Squad is clearly built on the XCOM 2 engine. As one would assume, with that fact comes the realization that a lot of the combat mechanics for this iteration of the game are immediately familiar. This lends to Chimera Squad feeling like an expansion in a way that few stand-alones achieve. After learning the non-complex intricacies of the Breach phase, a shock and awe stage that starts every encounter, combat falls into a rhythm that fans of the series will be comfortable with. With one major adjustment.

Rather than the “I go, you go” turn-based nature of games previous, this title takes an approach that feels far more like an initiative roll in a game of Dungeons & Dragons. The devs at Firaxis re-appropriate the term “Interleaved” here. Traditionally meaning to place blank pages between printed pages of a book, here it simply means that your enemy will take turns with you, within a timeline displayed on the right side of the screen. 

This forces players, otherwise familiar with the privilege of running through all of their characters before the enemy gets a chance to act, to plan more carefully. You may only have one agent in line at the start of a fight before hostiles get to retaliate. This leads to an increase in the importance of finding the most synergistic combination of agent abilities. Who can manipulate that timeline? Who can debuff, incapacitate, or eliminate targets the fastest and with the most cascading effect?

I found myself, at the halfway point of my playthrough (about 15 hours), settling into my squad. Godmother, a mobile, agile, hard hitting, shotgun wielding enforcer. Verge, a Sectoid psionic, with the ability to disable, berserk, and mind control assailants. Patchwork, a techie drone pilot whose drone shock can arc between enemies with a chance of debuffing every target zapped. And Finally, Blueblood a gunslinger with two pistols, one that ignores cover, and the ability to fire multiple times per turn. 

In any situation, I could finagle my way into disabling or dispatching two targets fully or up to eight targets partially within my first four actions. Add to this the few odds and ends you can nab from the Scavenger Market, a transient market that visits every week, or side mission rewards, and you can find yourself with a few epic weapons, specialized buff grenades like the Motile Inducer. Two free actions, immediately, to whomever you throw it at. 

Finding these synergies and supplements, is at the core of Chimera Squad, and while the process isn’t entirely unique to this title, it certainly feels more important when the turns are interleaved, the quarters are close, and your innate advantage lasts a single, Rainbow Six-esque, breaching action. 

Over the course of your game you will investigate three factions in City 31: The Progeny, Grey Phoenix, and Sacred Coil. Each faction has different units, abilities, and motivations, and as you take out each faction, the surviving factions will scale up in response. It is your job to root out their goals, foil their plans, and neutralize the threatening potential they hold. As illustrated by the comic book-styled cutscenes, Chimera Squad is against the wall and the clock, as unrest in the city rises you have to manage threats based on their cost to your levels of unrest in the nine districts of the city. You will forgo missions that have good rewards to manage the unrest in an unruly district. Spend your investigation points to deploy Security, Technology, or Financial teams in each district to access buffs that give you the ability to stave off increased unrest, decrease unrest in specific districts, or in the city overall. 

At its core Chimera Squad is truly an XCOM game, forcing its players to train their soldiers, research projects in the workshop, manage unrest across a map, and manage resources, all while fielding an active combat team in harrowing and varied encounters. Is it XCOM 3? No, not at all, but one shouldn’t conflate the two. Chimera squad is a $20 exploration into the ways that XCOM can, and I believe will, evolve. Expect to see hero characters in the future, with backstories and voice acting. Expect to see multiple paths in the campaign, with escalative properties as the game progresses. But more than anything, expect to feel right at home with Chimera Squad, despite the ways it alters the formula. You’ve simply moved on from Sazerac to Vieux Carre. Your rye whiskey is still there, just this time you have some sweet vermouth. Enjoy.

[nerdy-bits]

Episode 124: Holiday Question Bucket

Happy Holidays everyone! Sorry for the delayed upload. Caleb’s wife had a baby on Christmas and that kind took precedent over everything for a moment there.

We recorded this episode on the 23rd, and boy was it fun! Join the Bounty Board crew on a special holiday episode where we rapid fire some questions that Caleb definitely didn’t rip from the Waypoint podcast. We talk favorite holiday foods and drinks, discuss whether or not ham is actually bullshit, and much much more. Happy holidays y’all!

Join us on this week’s episode of Bounty Board!

BLACK LIVES MATTER

HOW TO SUPPORT BLM

You can listen to us below, or on iTunes , Stitcher, Spotify, and Google Play! So whether you have an Apple or Android device, we are available for streaming and download. Give us a rating and a subscribe, we would really appreciate it. You can also catch the episode on YOUTUBE!!!

@LubWub @sketchsawyer @sergeantsodium @TechSupreme

[nerdy-bits]

Episode 028: Halo Infinite, 2042, and Poor Game Launches

Happy Monday everyone! Hang with the #TNBS crew as they dive into the spooky Phasmophobia, gush about the Halo multiplayer Beta, and adjust to a new Battlefield entry. After that, they get into a deep and tricky conversation about the release state of games, buggy games at launch, and how companies can avoid these issues in the future.

Join us on this week’s interesting episode of The NerdyBits Show

You can listen to us below, or on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify! So whether you have an Apple or Android device, we are available for streaming and download. Give us a rating and a subscribe, we would really appreciate it.

@LubWub

@sketchsawyer

@sergeantsodium

[nerdy-bits]

Episode 027: Back 4 Blood, Dune, Halo Infinite Campaign

Happy Monday everyone! Hang with the #TNBS crew as they dive into more games and movies this week. First up, the entire group finished their first playthrough of Back 4 Blood, the zombie survival shooter. From good level design to an interesting and enticing deckbuilding mechanic, the crew had a blast and cant wait to go back. Ben and Caleb gush about Dune for a while. And finally, we got a Halo campaign reveal, and we HAD to talk about that.

Join us on this week’s fun episode of The NerdyBits Show

You can listen to us below, or on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify! So whether you have an Apple or Android device, we are available for streaming and download. Give us a rating and a subscribe, we would really appreciate it.

@LubWub

@sketchsawyer

@sergeantsodium

[nerdy-bits]

Episode 026: Sable, Far Cry 6, and Back 4 Blood

Happy Thursday everyone! This week you get double the podcast! This time on The NerdyBits Show the crew digs into Sable, Far Cry 6, and Back 4 Blood. The first title, Sable, is a beautiful exploration game about a young woman's coming of age journey and it completely captured Caleb's attention. Caleb has also been fighting in Yara, the Cuba stand-in that serves as a setting for Ubisoft's Far Cry 6. Finally the talk about the fun they have been having fighting off the Ridden in Turtle Rock's long awaited follow up to Left 4 Dead, Back 4 Blood. It's a good ol' undead slaying joyride. We also break down the Battlefield 2042 Beta and the community survey responses.

Join us on this week’s fun episode of The NerdyBits Show

You can listen to us below, or on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify! So whether you have an Apple or Android device, we are available for streaming and download. Give us a rating and a subscribe, we would really appreciate it.

@LubWub

@sketchsawyer

@sergeantsodium