Now Playing: Days Gone

I think the best way I can sum up my thoughts on Days Gone is that it’s a potentially great 30 hour game trapped in the body of a mediocre 60 hour one. If you’ve read my First Impressions post you’ll know that despite feeling the opening of the game was rather slow, I concluded by saying that ‘I don’t mind a slow burn as long as the game pays it off in the long run.’ Unfortunately, Days Gone doesn’t quite manage to do that.

Whereas some games really suck you in and make you want to keep playing every minute until you reach the end, Days Gone is the kind of game you might need to take regular breaks from playing, not because you don’t want to see it through, but because you need to take a rest from the relentless monotony.

The map is split into six separate regions, and although each region offers a varied locale to explore in terms of terrain, they do fall into the Ubisoft style ‘regional content’ system, whereby every region has the same pattern of side content and collectibles – marauder / ambush camps, Nero outposts / checkpoints, hordes and nests.

I’m sure you can argue that you can ignore the majority of this additional content and only focus on the main story missions. And if you do, maybe you can get through the game in 30 hours or less. But if you don’t explore the side content in Days Gone you’re going to miss out on a lot of pretty useful upgrades and crafting items – not to mention the importance of increasing your ‘trust’ level in each region to unlock new supplies and bike upgrades.

You’ll also miss out on what is by far the best aspect of Days Gone and one which, sadly, the game doesn’t really focus upon enough – fighting the hordes. There are only three main missions in which you’re forced to fight a horde and these come towards the very end of the game. The zombie stuff in Days Gone is the real highlight – the way the hordes move, coming at you like a relentless tide, forcing you to plan and prepare, using traps or the local environment to your advantage.

Taking on a horde and winning when things go to plan – and especially when they don’t – is exhilarating and exhausting. Fighting the hordes in Days Gone is brilliant. Unfortunately, aside from those three main missions, hordes are just considered another ‘side’ activity in the open world. This, to me, was a massive mistake. Instead, the game focuses on what is probably the weakest and worst aspect – fighting humans.

Days Gone really does focus on the wrong thing. It begins with Deacon searching for his wife and in contact with a group called Nero. Things move slowly as you work through a series of repetitive missions in which you stalk a Nero researcher and listen to their conversations. You do this about seven times before even Deacon gets sick of it and demands the plot continue.

But then Nero and Deacon’s wife kind of stop being the focus and instead the game shifts attention to a group of crazy cultists called the ‘Rippers’. Once you’re finished with them, it seems like the game might actually be turning its attention to dealing with the hordes and that maybe that will connect to what Nero are up to?

But . . . no. The focus then shifts onto another human group – the Militia – who Deacon initially works for, but ends up fighting against leading to an absolutely terrible final mission. For a game that really takes its time with its story, it ends in a way that’s incredibly abrupt and disjointed and leaves a lot unresolved. Nero just disappear out of the story entirely. The hordes you were talking about trying to stop just get forgotten.

Instead, the game decides that fighting humans is the most fun thing to do *insert Picard facepalm*. The bulk of the side content is fighting humans in marauder or ambush camps, and most of the main content is also fighting humans in the form of the Rippers or the Militia. There’s nothing clever or fun about fighting humans in Days Gone. There’s nothing terrible about it, either – Days Gone is a competent third person shooter. But it’s not really what the game should have been about.

If it wasn’t already clear, I’m really frustrated with Days Gone. I really like the world. I like crazy, shouty Deacon. I like the direction the game was going with Nero and the increasingly mutated freakers. I loved fighting the hordes and I’m going to keep playing Days Gone until I’ve destroyed them all. I liked upgrading and customising my ride. I liked exploring each of the regions to see what I could find.

But I really got sick of fighting humans. I got sick of the game dragging its heels and meandering along with a plot that ultimately, doesn’t really go anywhere. I got sick of the game forcing me through a series of repetitive missions just to advance the story. A perfect example is towards the end when you’re preparing to fight the Militia and then, for no real reason, you have to destroy three Militia camps in a row to advance.

It’s just the same mission, over and over again, no different to the other thirty human camps you’ve cleared – marauder, ripper, drifters, bandits – whatever, they’re all the same. It’s so . . . well, lazy, to be frank. And the game didn’t need it. It didn’t need those quests. They just bloat the game and drag out the experience.

Just like those irritating Nero quests where you roll from one bush to another so you can listen to a conversation. And if you get spotted, you’ve got to do it all over again from the top. It’s such a dull and repetitive way to advance the plot.

Here’s what Days Gone should have been about – fighting zombies. Working with Nero and the other human settlements to destroy the hordes. You can still have Deacon searching for his wife, giving him that personal stake within the story. Cut all the boring marauder / ambush camp nonsense. Cut the pointless and forgettable ‘bounty’ missions. Days Gone is at its best when it’s focused on survival – humans versus freakers.

Despite all my complaints, I do still like Days Gone, because the good stuff is good enough to outweigh the bad and the boring. And if you’re looking for a decent game to sink time into, Days Gone certainly has plenty of content to keep you busy.

But Days Gone is also one hell of a grind to get through and it ends in a way that just makes you sit back and say ‘seriously, is that it?’ It’s a real mixed experience and it’s frustrating to think about how much better the game could have been if it had focused upon the right things – if it hadn’t bloated itself with so much repetitive and boring content.

6/10

Steam Summer Sale: Damage Report

I picked up Skyrim VR in a previous sale but decided to refund it when I realised how terrible it was. Skyrim, obviously, was never designed for VR, but that doesn’t excuse this exceptionally poor and lazy conversion. The fact they had the audacity to charge 40 quid for this garbage at release is practically criminal. Even if they gave it away for free I’d still not recommend it.

So why did I buy it again? Mods, of course. Mods are the same reason I sunk 600 hours into the regular Skyrim and mods, once again, come to the rescue of this VR version. At the time of writing I have 60 active mods running and I’d say that’s roughly the bare minimum you’d want if you want to transform the base game into something playable and enjoyable in VR – in addition to numerous configuration tweaks.

I’m sure I’ll go into more detail when I review the game but for now I’ll just say that if you’re not willing to spend several hours modifying and tweaking Skyrim VR then just don’t bother. It’s not worth it at any price. If you are willing to put in the time and effort and you’re already a fan of the game, then you should be able to knock it into shape but it’s never going to be perfect.

Despite having a fairly small reduction in price (35%) I decided to pick up Yakuza: Like a Dragon. I loved Yakuza 0 and enjoyed Kiwami 1 & 2 a lot. But I wasn’t too interested in moving on to 3, 4, 5 or 6 because I was kind of happy with how the story wrapped up in 2. But I did want more Yakuza, and this new game with a new cast and a new style of combat looked like a fresh twist for the series and I’m looking forward to getting stuck in.

Now Watching: Mortal Kombat (2021)

I watched the 1995 Mortal Kombat film multiple times as a kid, but I can’t say I recall too much about the film today. Even back then, I don’t think I thought the film was very good, but something made me want to keep watching it. Maybe it was the music. I did have the soundtrack on cassette.

I can’t say I’m a big fan of Mortal Kombat as a franchise. I don’t think I’ve actually played a MK game since MK2. But I heard good things about this new MK film so I decided to give it a shot and I’m kind of surprised by how good it is.

I say ‘good’ in the sense that it’s ‘good for a video game movie’ and that’s not exactly a high bar to clear. I’d go as far to say that it might be one of the best I’ve seen but . . . yeah, compared to the competition that’s still not exactly a ringing endorsement.

This certainly feels more ‘serious’ than I recall the 95 film being and I’d say it mostly works. The premise is pretty silly whatever way you tackle it and the film doesn’t bother trying to make the plot less so. It dumps all the exposition about the tournament in a short, expository scene, and then it’s straight back to the fighting.

It doesn’t waste time on something that if you really start to break down, is kind of silly and doesn’t make sense. I mean, the whole notion of the ‘tournament’ doesn’t even really apply to the film, as it seems you can just do whatever the f**k you like regardless of the ‘rules’.

But, whatever, it’s a Mortal Kombat film. What really matters are the characters and the fighting and for the most part, the film gets these two aspects right – with one notable exception. The main character in MK 2021 is kind of bland and useless. He’s an OC DO NOT STEAL that feels weirdly out of the place and lacks the personality of the established video game characters.

There’s plenty of references to the games sprinkled throughout the film, probably more than I know because I’ve not played the series for going on twenty years. The film is, thankfully, short and sharp. It doesn’t drag on for longer than it needs to and the fighting, overall, is pretty well handled with some decent camera work and choreography.

I don’t really have much else to say about it. It was a fun watch and I’d probably watch the sequel if they decide to do one. But yeah, I probably wouldn’t bother watching this one again. It was fine. I think if you like MK you’ll probably enjoy it.

5/10

Days Gone: First Impressions

Days Gone gets off to a strange, disjointed start. It kind of just throws you into things. For the first few hours I wasn’t quite sure if Sarah – the woman our hero (Deacon) is mourning – was his sister or his wife. Spoiler: it was his wife. Maybe that’s on me. Maybe I missed a line of dialogue or misheard something. But even so, the opening of Days Gone is a little muddled. It takes a few hours for you to really find your footing.

The game is set in a world that’s seen some kind of virus turn people into zombies. They don’t call them zombies but that’s pretty much what they are. Not the slow kind, but the fast. You play as Deacon, a biker who survives in the wilderness with his best mate, Boozer. Yes, that’s really his name.

Deacon has a strange habit of either mumbling to himself or randomly shouting things. I don’t know if it’s a bug or if it’s some kind of suggestion that he’s lost his marbles living in this world. If it’s the latter, I can kind of understand the intent, but it sometimes happens in the middle of an otherwise ‘normal’ conversation which suggests it’s a bug. Maybe it’s a little of both? It does make Deacon oddly fun to play, though, when you imagine it’s because he’s totally unhinged.

Days Gone is an open world third person game and it does follow the open world ‘regional’ template that Ubisoft are so fond of – although not quite to the same, formulaic and tiresome degree. So far, I’ve ‘unlocked’ three regions, all of which have a similar pattern of content – camps, hordes, nests, evacuation posts and bandit hideouts – but the local terrain and the local characters do a good job of separating the regions, giving them a unique identity and providing the variety we need.

You’ll get about the world on your bike which is a pretty big part of the experience. Your bike needs fuel and fuel is limited. If you’re planning on a long drive you’ll actually need to plan your route in order to stop somewhere and refuel on the way – either that, or hope you can find some if you’re entering a new, unexplored area.

The fuel mechanic could have been incredibly irritating, but it’s actually not very punishing. You can conserve fuel by ‘coasting’ with your bike down hills, and fuel cans tend to be placed around pretty much every major structure you’ll come to. In the 17 hours I’ve played so far, I’ve only actually run out of fuel once.

But even this presented a pretty neat situation in which I had to hike on foot through a horde infested wood at night in order to find some fuel and then hike back again without getting eaten. It was tense and exciting and pretty fun. As you progress through the content and increase your ‘trust’ with each survivor camp, you’ll gain access to new bike parts, including bigger fuel tanks, so the issue becomes less and less of a concern as you go.

The pacing of Days Gone during the opening hours is a little odd, to say the least. 15 hours into the game and I was presented with what was essentially a ‘tutorial’ quest to clear out a local bandit camp. The problem is, I’d already cleared out about 3 camps before this either as part of a quest in another region, or just coming across them in the open world.

I wouldn’t say Days Gone drags its heels early on because you can pretty much just drive off and do what you want – but it does result in a weird situation where the game is almost trying to catch up with you and teach you about things that you’ve already been doing for several hours.

The PC port of Days Gone runs flawlessly and the game looks fantastic. That said, my performance went to shit after I updated my drivers, forcing me to roll back. By the time this post goes live, the issue with those new drivers may have been fixed, or they may have already been replaced. Either way, it’s something to keep in mind. At the time of writing I’m using the NVIDIA 466.27 drivers.

Aside from the driver issue, a single crash and a bug where a character got stuck on some stairs, forcing me to reload the mission in order to progress, I’d say that Days Gone has, overall, been a very stable and impressive port based on what I’ve experienced so far.

And, overall, I’m really quite enjoying it. Now that I’ve really got stuck into it, unlocked some new bike upgrades and got my hands on some better weapons, it feels like the game is really opening up. Fighting the ‘freakers’ is always fun, and taking down my first horde was a pretty tense and exciting moment as I really had to be smart and plan my approach.

The story stuff is interesting, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve really progressed very far with it at the moment. I guess that’s my main criticism of Days Gone right now – it sure takes it’s time to get going. But that’s okay. I don’t mind a slow burn as long as the game pays it off in the long run. For now, it’s back to random shouty Deacon who has another horde to kill, the crazy bastard.