The more things stay the same

Master Rahool would look good in a Hawaiian Shirt

Some people think Video Games have come a long way over the few decades they've been around, and its irrefutable, games have gotten more imaginative and clever as time has come and gone. Some things, though, simply remain the same and you don't notice it until you look a bit deeper.

Take Battle Hunter. Its an extremely simple game, literally a board game for your console with a handful of plot points to serve as motivators.  It was fun, if a little tedious and dished out a poor serving of ass whooping unless you were particularly levelled and equipped, but fun none the less.  The gameplay was straight forward, bringing player from Battlefield to Hub and back again for no more reason than to find better gear and earn some dosh along the way.

Doesn't that sound familiar to a Space Shooter that was released about a year ago?  Funny that.

So here I am looking at it and wondering what the bloody difference there is between Destiny and some of the games of the '90s and early '00s and I'm finding it difficult to nail it down aside from the obvious things of "It's 3D and HD."

Frankly, Destiny could easily be recreated as an Indie game.  Get some Pixel Art in there and make it a side-scrolling shooter.  Keep all the same aspects to it and let the players go hogwild.  Then just add Flavour to taste and you're good as gold.

You can keep the Tower, just drop it down to a series of Menu options.  Frankly, it'd make the game more personable, making you feel like you actually have some sort of relationship with the NPCs of the Tower.  Because right now, Zavala is the Head of the FBI from Fringe, Cayde and Ikora are Captain and First Mate of the Firefly Serenity, and Banshee was great in Gears of War and Adventure Time.

To be fair, the DLC's have taken steps in that direction.  Cayde is still... well Nathan Fillon, but hey, I like him.  I'll keep him.

Destiny however, is getting pretty stale.  The marketing is, and probably always will be, a flagrant method of extortion, while the game may expand out and up it still comes back to being a repetitive grind for new gear in the end.

Falling Out from Reality

Damn Straight.

Is it weird that the only connection i have to anything outside of Fallout 4 is my obscure references in my Weapon names?  Like my first weapon in the game was a 10mm Pistol.  Its a good pistol, and I've been using it on and off throughout the game, upgrading it to the best mods...

I named it Mjolnir.  A good solid name.  And from then on, it just got more and more obscure.  I had a Bolt Action Pipe Rifle, a gun that essentially looks like a block of wood with some copper pipes and long bolts sticking out of it.  I called it White Death, to reference the Polish Sniper of WWII.  I gave it a scope though, because Video Games don't care about reflections.

It was at this point that i gave no fucks about what the story was.  I was on Walkabout, going to every length of the map to find whatever there was to look at.  I went south and went past the border of the map, going deep into the glowing sea to see what I could see see see.  I lost many Radaways due to the pure radioactivity there amongst the downs planes and nearly empty military bunkers.

Then once I thought I had reached the end, I moved all the way back up to Sanctuary and started my way East, exploring more and more.  My only rule was to never go onto the island where Diamond City is.  Don't cross that bridge, just keep going on walkabout until everything is found.

Throughout all this I've come across a cavalcade of Legendary Enemies, dropping gear all over the joint, only a handful of which I've been using in regular circulation.  But I've kept them either on myself or in my treasure trove in Sanctuary.

My first legendary weapon was a Pipe Wrench called Big Jim.  Now, everyone can get this leg crippling bastard.  He's not a game breaking weapon by any length, but he does his job the way he should.  By hitting whomever in the head and making their legs fall out from underneath.  Its very straight forward methodology, and very effective to boot.

But I put him to the wayside.  That wasn't my style. I wanted rifles, and to drop every bastard from here to Timbuktu from the pleasure of my couch.  So i was happy when I got my first Legendary drop: a Nocturnal Hunting Rifle.

It was cool, interesting, and along the lines of what I wanted, so I modded the shit out of it and started getting people a little jealous when at one point I showed I was doing double the usual damage when it came to the dead of night.  I was dropping every bastard who thought they were hard enough to sort out a puny fella like me.  Little did they know, they didn't even hear the gunshot before they hit the ground.

Mind, everyone else did.  So began the scramble for headshots and a new hiding hole.

I tried to give it a good name though.  Something badass and thematically appropriate.

Well, you are using it to kill under the guise of darkness.  Why not Grim's Reaper?

Oh yeah, i could sit behind that.  Grim's Reaper coming down and separating you from the mortal coil? Done like Dinner!

I had shared this on Facebook, because that;s a feature I thought I could utilise with all the cool kids playing alongside me.

Is that right?  Would i mean Parallel since they're not in the same game as me?  Or concurrently?

Anyway, someone made a comment about the ability saying it works as a night time solar panel.  It was so true, but something inside me clicked:  a solar panel does what? Lays down in the sun. And what happens when you lay down in the sun? I burn, with the intention of getting a tan. And if you were using the moon yo-u'd BE A MOON TANNER.

And because i do love the Moontanner from the last few times i saw Felafel, it wad the perfect name for my rifle.  Not near as badass as Grim's Reaper, but better i feel.

I got more and more Legendary weapons, usually replacing certain models I had already upgraded and used as alternative Ammo sources, and respectively gave them new names.

Like White Death.  It was a plain bolt action rifle, exceptional in its duty.  So when its replacement dealt additional damage to Super Mutants, it was easy: Green Death.

More weapons came and went.  Grymkin (revolver pipe rifle with additional damage against Robots); Kneecapper (auto pipe rifle with chance to cripple legs); Barking Iron (shotgun with critical: refill action points).  I'm still pretty proud of myself with some of these names.

But the time has come that I have reached my limit.  I've explored every nook and cranny of the wasteland of suburban Boston.  Now it's time to tackle the big city, and to kick ass.  Or die trying, since they may be overequipped compared to me.