Quarantine Control #14: History, Monsters, and Robots

We are within a pandemic that feels like it will never end, evinced by how this is the fourteenth entry in Damage Control’s Quarantine Control series. It feels like we’ve been in it longer here in the United States because of our inept national leadership, along with the foolishness of certain heads of states around the country, and the knuckleheads who’ve heeded their advice to pretend the pandemic is over. It’s absolutely not over, as the climbing number of cases in most of the country shows, and it won’t be until there’s actual leadership or a vaccine — whichever comes first. Either way, were in this hell for a while.

 

Geoffrey Barnes

I’ve been posting about Assassin’s Creed Odyssey for the last three weeks, because I haven’t been doing much else with my free time. It’s a long and involving game, and I fully dedicated myself to it as a good distraction. But it was my original plan to stop talking about it and get back to the backlog of movie and TV shows I have (physical and through streaming — especially the latter) for this feature. Unfortunately for you and me, Odyssey sunk its figurative teeth into me more than I thought, and I didn’t want to leave Joseph to contribute anything by himself in the last two weeks. So, I continued discussing my progress in the game, though with unique takes so as not to rehash themes every week. That’s easier to do with a game that goes on for hours upon hours.

You’ll never guess what happened. I promised to have something else to discuss this week to spare you all from the fourth week of this, but I’m afraid I can’t uphold that. I did little else but play this in my free time again; but I have a good excuse for it. The world is going through a rough time, as referenced in the lede and is clear to anyone who isn’t trying to live their lives like a once-in-a-century pandemic isn’t happening. But I haven’t had the best week personally either, which I won’t delve into any further here. Because of that, I’ve been focused on exploring the world of a certain game mentioned above. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it shorter than the previous weeks.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (2018)
Format: PlayStation 4
It’s a video game

As of this writing, I’ve finished Odyssey’s main story quest at a hair over 110 hours, which has put me on the higher end of the completion time spectrum due to my OCD preventing me from leaving most of the game’s figurative and literal stones unturned. At this point, I still have quests that were released as free DLC remaining, and I’m not even thinking about jumping into the expansions just yet. As I approached the end of the story, I realized why I enjoyed this game and predecessor Assassin’s Creed Origins so much: They’re fantastic comfort food.

Sure, both games are very repetitive and overly-lengthy experiences on the surface, but especially so in Odyssey’s case considering I spent nearly twice as much time with it as I did Origins. But it’s tough to break the addictiveness of a solid gameplay loop, most of which worked for me for a good while. I was sick to death of raiding identical-looking military camps by the end of the game, and a batch of late-game environments had little outside of those peppered throughout. On the other hand, I never got tired of exploring the lush environments of the game’s world and raiding the caves and tombs, even though the latter aren’t quite as long and intricate as Origins’.

I’ve been to several locations in the game’s world of Ancient Greece, and yet, there are still two islands that I traveled to. They’re probably similar to Origins’ deserts that don’t have to be visited for the main quest, which contained little to actually do in them outside the occasional treasure and beautiful sites. These games’ worlds are a bit too big for their own good, again, especially in Odyssey’s case. Time will tell if Ubisoft’s development team is serious about making the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s map smaller, even if that means it’s actually denser.

I’d be ashamed of the completion time of over 100 hours if I wasn’t staying home more often thanks to the pandemic, but in the end, it just means Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was the best friend I could ask for in these stay-at-home and social distancing times. I cannot direct feelings of regret towards a friend, and I don’t feel bad about it.

I’m hoping to have a review ready by next week, but I know better than to make any promises. I do promise to have something else to discuss for the next Quarantine Control entry, since I don’t have a choice at this point.

 

Angela Moseley

I’m slightly horrified that four months into this pandemic we in the United States have effectively reversed flattening the curve. I see it every day at work and on the streets here in Philadelphia, people have pretty much given up on wearing mask and social distancing. Talk of a second wave of infections seems pointless when the first wave never ended. Avoiding crowded places for prolonged periods of time is still the best option for now. I haven’t been watching much when not working, but I have been gaming.

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse (2016)
Source: Nintendo 3DS
Episodes: 1 video game

At this point my journey into Final Fantasy VII Remake is effectively dead in the water until my next vacation at the end of this month. Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse is just too interesting of a JPRG and is taking gaming time way from FF7R. Granted it is much easier to play in short chunks on a 3DS versus a PS4. At this point I’m roughly 14 hours into the game and I’m still enjoying myself. When I last wrote about SMTIVA, I thought I had a rough understanding of the plot and the game mechanics. Turns out I was wrong on a few fronts and the game is even better than I originally thought in terms of quality of life improvements and story.

I do like the updated mechanics from Hama and Mudo spells. I just needed to play on a little further to learn they do have an insta-kill element to them. If a player or enemy smirks and uses those skills, it will instantly kill anything not immune. Apps have become more useful as they now have new skills such as the ability to increase the chance of preemptive smirks, they can help protect the party when walking through poisoned areas, or give you the ability to talk to a demon multiple times in one turn. One of my favorite new additions to your partners feels like it was partially inspired by Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey and the modern Persona games. Partners can team up to beat down an opponent. This happens when they take a turn during fights and the assist gauge is filled. This gauge is slowly filled when a partner takes an action during a fight. Once it is full and it is their turn, they will take several actions. They cancel the enemy’s turn, heal and buff your party, and then they do a powerful multi-hit attack. Between the assist gauge, the ability swap out partners, and the AI actually being good, this make partners infinitely more useful than they ever were in SMTIV.

One change I dislike is the removal of Macca drops from enemies each time a battle is won. Macca is already hard enough to come by in Shin Megami Tensei games. This means that even if you grind for EXP, it’s possible to never increase the amount of money you have. The only way to get more money is do all of the quests, collect relics to sell, and to force demons to give you Macca either as a gift or outright stealing it from them. Yes, the Fundraise skill sill works in this game, especially if you paralyze an enemy before demanding money from them. The lack of easily obtainable money isn’t a big deal yet, but it does mean that it is more of a challenge to upgrade armor and weapons on a frequent basis. It’s a good thing Fundraise can be upgraded several times via apps.

I originally called Apocalypse a side story, but it is a little more than that. It is an alternative retelling of events from the neutral ending path in Shin Megami Tensei IV. If I had gotten a few more hours further along in my first impressions it would have been clearer. The shift from side-story to alternative retelling begins shortly after completing the first real story quest of the game, i.e. helping Nozomi out at the Fairy Forest.

After returning back to the Hunter Association, Asahi and Nanashi are unsatisfied with the small fetch quests they’ve been given. As they sulk a mysterious old man approaches them. He reveals himself to be the Norse god, Odin and tells them that he can give them a quest that will bring them glory and help out Flynn’s efforts. He begs the children to release a seal holding a powerful demon trapped in an ark.  This demon could turn the tide of battle in favor of the humans, but only human hands can break the seal. Asahi agrees to this suspect request without a second thought.

Once the boss is guarding the Ark is defeated the obvious trap is sprung. The demon released from the seal turns out to be Krishna, a divine hero in Hindu mythology, but he is more than ready to wreak all kinds of havoc in Tokyo. He joins Odin and a few other god-like demons and forms a faction called the Divine Powers. They stand in opposition to both Lucifer and Merkabah’s factions, and offer humans a chance to join their cause in defeating The Creator. They forcefully kidnap Flynn and release a giant snake known as Shesha. It goes on to kill a bunch of people. With the kidnapping of Flynn and the Divine Powers, Tokyo has now been split into three factions that vie to take control as the humans watch helplessly.

There are some elements to the story that feel a bit weird (like all of the Flynn worship), but I am still enjoying my return to this version of Tokyo.

Monster Hunter World: Iceborne (2019)
Source: PlayStation 4
Episodes: 1 video game

For the last week I’ve been playing Monster Hunter World: Iceborne again. Today the elder dragon, Alatreon comes out and I wanted to be ready for the fight. He’s a black dragon that can use five elements (fire, water, ice, thunder, and dragon) at will. He originally appeared in Monster Hunter Tri and veteran hunters stated that MHW players would be in for a world of hurt. Additionally, Capcom spent the week giving away strong elemental decorations (skills you can add to weapons and armor) that would help in the fight. These decorations are rare drops in-game which indicates a really tough fight. I knew going into this fight I would need high level equipment to stand a chance against him. Unfortunately, Alatreon dropped before I could finish grinding to improve my strongest weapons in the game. I need one particular monster (a tempered Zinogre) to improve my strongest elemental weapons.

However, my fiancé has been preparing for the fight. Early this morning after work I watched him take on Alatreon with random a few times before I went to bed. First, this dragon is unlike anything I’ve witnessed in the game so far and his main gimmick is both cheap and infuriating. If enough damage is not dealt to him within a certain period of time, he will unleash a supernova like attack called Escaton Judgement. This insta-kill attack that is extremely difficult to negate. In order to survive this attack, hunters must damage him enough to suppress his power so when he unleashes the attack it is possible to heal through it. I’ve read accounts of players surviving through the full powered attack, but only with great effort and coordination.

In addition to that, he switches between elements on the fly, often using two at a time. Water is oily and can be ignited with fire. He rains down electricity. Ice attacks explode in an AOE style attack and are charged with dragon energy. He can dash across the field, cloaked in dragon energy. If these elements aren’t guarded against, they can cause debuffs and make your own attacks ineffective.

Worst yet, when he cycles through phases of fire, dragon, and ice, he can only be damaged by opposite elements. I.e., fire can be combatted with ice or water, ice can be dealt with by fire or electricity, and dragon is always weak to dragon (don’t ask me how that works). That said, you’re not allowed to switch weapon types on the fly (unless KOed and sent back to camp). If he switches elements to whatever element you’re rocking, those weapons become useless, save for dragon. Worst yet, non-elemental weapons are some of the strongest in the game and they’re worthless against Alatreon.

To make things just a tad more spiteful, not only is he strong but he manages to keep just out of range making that DPS check that much harder to reach within a reasonable time. While playing, my fiancé has yet to beat him, and I don’t know how much better my chances will be this weekend. As I promised Geoff in our Discord, I will get video of me trying my luck. Even with our friends in a hunting party, I think I’m going to need it with this fight.

 

Joseph Daniels

YouTube’s current ad system is still horrible, with ads often interrupting videos in the middle of statements because their algorithm doesn’t know when a natural break is.  Given the subject matter of what I usually like to watch and/or listen to, you’d think that the algorithm was purposely trying to sabotage leftist videos, but then you remember that the site itself caters to leftists and it wouldn’t make sense to sabotage your own side’s videos.  Plus, if I were to look for videos by supporters of Trump and the alt-right, I’m willing to bet that (if they haven’t been demonetized), the exact same thing would be happening to them.  It’s a mess all around and I figure I’ll not recommend any more YouTube things until they clean up their ad system and figure out a better way.

As a result, I’ve been watching more Netflix lately.

History 101 (2020)
Source: Netflix
Episodes: 10*

It was only a matter of time before the video essay format made its way to a platform like Netflix.  The production values make it seem like the series was green-lit before Covid-19, so the format of using stock and historical footage as well as animated infographs don’t seem to be a reaction to the current epidemic as it is just a method of conveying the information presented within.  With topics like how China became a superpower and the history of plastics to fast food and the history of feminism, History 101 has so far covered many topics from a very informative but seemingly leftist point of view.  The series is very keen to point out that the war the United States waged against Saddam Hussein was based on fabricated evidence and only happened because the country was reluctant to pursue the real villain due to their desire to keep the Middle Eastern oil flowing.  It points out that women are still not equal to men and that there’s still a long way to go.  It also talks about HIV and the AIDS epidemic, which was not helped at all by Republicans refusing to grant the right of universal health care to the citizens of the United States.

Unfortunately, the episode on the AIDS epidemic was removed due to the Haitian community in the United States taking issue with how some of the information in the episode was presented.  Hopefully the episode can be corrected and brought back, not just because the failings of those in charge during the initial outbreak should be brought to light, but also because now more than ever, the United States needs universal health care and an episode like this one illustrates why this is a very good idea.  We need people in the streets chanting “Health care is a right!” again, and given how many jobs have been lost due to Covid-19, more people than ever have nothing but time on their hands to protest.

Sorry, that got a little preachy near the end, so here’s something a bit more fictional.

LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS (2019)
Source: Netflix
Episodes: 18

Do you like Black Mirror, The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone?  You’ll likely love this series, which uses the medium of animation to take the genre of anthology fiction to new and exciting places.

It can sometimes be hard to come up with twist endings that successfully shock and surprise the viewer, especially as we get savvy to the format.  This is something that the current Twilight Zone revival doesn’t always succeed at, making episodes like “Six Degrees of Freedom” a bit frustrating to watch, but episodes like “Replay” played a lot better, since the ending was not so much a twist as it was a part of the episode’s message.  This even retroactively harms the original Twilight Zone.  The episode “The Rip Van Winkle Caper” ages a bit poorly, for it contains a moral that is pretty obvious to today’s audience but which likely took viewers in 1961 by surprise, the notion that gold in 1961, or even money in general, might be absolutely worthless in 2061.

One of the aspects of The Twilight Zone that improved its storytelling was that it didn’t have a high budget, so special effects couldn’t be used to the extent that they were in shows like Star Trek.  In fact, some of the best science fiction episodes in general from that era came out of episodes written to save as much money as possible.  Without having a lot of money to throw at special effects, a showrunner often had to figure out how to make something work with what they already had available to them.  This made episodes such as “Five Characters in Search of an Exit” so good, because the setting could be very minimalist and manages to carry the entire episode. without feeling like they needed to pad out the time.

In the age of streaming and with higher budgets to work with, it can be tempting to make an episode run for longer than absolutely necessary to tell the story you want to tell.  Overindulgence is something that has plagued everything, from video games that feature as much land area as possible but then don’t fill that land with much of anything, to science fiction shows that use their budget to throw every idea they have at the screen to see what sticks, quality is harder and harder to find.  Love, Death & Robots takes the freedom of creating for a streaming audience in the other direction, and makes an episode only as long as is absolutely needed to tell its story.  Episodes can be as long as the 17-minute “Good Hunting” or as short as the 6-minute “When The Yogurt Took Over” and the former doesn’t feel like any time was wasted while the latter feels like a complete story.

Not every episode needs to have a twist ending either.  “Ice Age” delivers its premise in a nice and neat ten minute package without twists, whereas “Three Robots” delivers a twist ending that could be seen as making fun of the entire premise of science fiction anthologies: first, one of the robots delivers a hit-you-over-the-head moral that you would’ve seen coming from a hundred thousand miles away, then the real twist ending happens and you realize that this anthology series may just be a little bit different than anything else you’ve seen before.

 

This has been referenced in the conclusion of Quarantine Control for weeks, but it is absolutely imperative that you listen to the advice of medical experts instead of the death cult horny for herd immunity. Recent evidence even suggests that herd immunity will not be a working strategy, but a certain group of people in power are still hoping — and, more likely, praying — that the pandemic will just go away to sustain the economy. Shifting the responsibility to the people has quite clearly been catastrophic, but it’s the best we have in fallen societies like the United States of America and Brazil.