Been going back to Watch Dogs Legion lately to finish, or try to finish the campaign. Noticed they added a kind of "hardcore" mode since, so just restarted on that mode to,.you know, really get that authentic oppressive British boot on the neck feeling to make Alan Moore proud, whatever he's up to these days. And while it does have the unmistakable problem of no proper central character to latch on to like the emotional parasite I seem to be, it does appear to do something no other open world gta-like has managed before: make death of any NPC feel like a material loss, even if not sentimental (probably not sentimental tbf). Cos they don't disappear forever, they get stuck to a list of deados on your peepo page with all their life hobbies, phobias, addictions, last days activities, sometimes relations - but perhaps more importantly the skills they could've provided for your team if you groomed recruited them into the cause. Their ghost lingers there so whenever you wanna edit or change character you're reminded of your past failures, or indulgences if so inclined.
Also there lots of leeway between getting caught, beaten down, shot up etc, and actual final death, so a lot of times where other games would count your abysmal failure as a death, here they might just be hospitalised, or arrested (or shot during a
the 2 second cutscene of me saving them being held hostage to recruit them, thought they died but were just injured thank fuck, cheeky bastards). Found lawyer who when recruited can shorten prison time for members and sometimes randomly release them early. Building a list of various public service workers to recruit for their skills too, artists, dancers, homeless, as well as a few guards from different private security coporations/gangs. Knocking them out makes them harder to recruit though, like one guy I marked who got knocked out by definelty-not-me was refusing to cooperate, so followed a clue that led to his aunt who I helped and recruited instead. Perhaps I'll convert all his family and friends first, keep the walls closing in till he has nowhere else to turn...then his sweet af kamikaze drone shall be mine to play with!
In a perfect world where monolith didn't have their Shadow of Mordor nemesis system locked within the vault of pointless selfish patents by hoarding disassociated CEOs, would be intriguing to see someone try to combine it with this system in some way. But as this is the worst of all possible worlds, everything is fucked and cringe. except for videogames, sweet precious videogames you wouldn't abandon me, would you? videogames? you can't abandon me, I goddamn own you haha! you're, ohhhh, wait, uhh, no... just remembered the EULAs. forget I said anything videogames, that was the old me, hey, look hey it was a moment of weakness, a bad day ar work, had a couple of drinks, the wife left me, I just stepped on some Lego, come on gimme one last chance!
On the other hand, last thing, more of a weird mentally ill gripe perhaps from watching too many yahtzee videos, I kinda wish I never knew yahtzee did the writing of the AI bot companion cos now all I can hear is some annoying stranger reading his jokes in much less sardonic tone while often missing emphasis where it would've hit better when performed by the original author. the VA tries their best but they are simply too bloody twee and chipper to make it land with a bite (mixed metaphors shaddup) - while unsure if not knowing would've helped, it's too late either way, it's cheese and onion crisps in a blue bags level of jarring
