Days Gone Review

Welcome to Jman at magic gate. We will be reviewing Days Gone. Days Gone is an open world third person zombie game it was made by Sony and Bend Studios. Days Gone can only be played on PlayStation 4 at least for now as far as I am aware. This is my third review after Spider-Man and Red Dead Redemption 2. Time to talk about Days Gone.

Days Gone is an open world third person zombie game. Open world means that it the player is free to do anything in game the player desires. For instance, if a player wants to sit and do nothing for eight hours the game will not stop the player, however if the player chooses this action in this game the player should expect to be attacked. Third person means that the main character is always on screen instead of first person which would be from the eyes of the main character. Zombie game means that this is a post apocalyptic game or the end of our world as we know it is the setting of this game. This games setting is two years after the zombie infection began. I will do my best to not spoil this game.

Days Gone review! I loved the story. What I enjoyed about it is that everything the player does is story related. So if the player wants to sit in one place for eight hours it would still be story related in that case the story would be a lot worse. The story gets a ten out of ten. However, I discovered many glitches that pulled me out of the game experience. One glitch which was fixed was a loss of sound, another glitch that happened was one night I was playing a horde of zombies was attacking me and as they got close they disappeared without me having to attack back it was a very unsatisfied win until I realized that the zombies were not being credited to me as beating the horde any way. The side missions in the game were mostly easy to find because most of the side missions are collections. Some side missions are fighting missions Ambushers, Marauders, and Hordes. The hordes were hard to find until the main story was over. So glitches have a two out of ten for quality of game. The side missions gets seven out of ten because they were entertaining, but easy.

I really did enjoy this game because they did work to fix the glitches it may have also been a little laggy. What was great about Days Gone was it lead to some theological thinking. Considering that I find God in video games one might ask how a zombie game can make me think about God? As I played this game I found three different types of NPC non playable characters. There are zombies those that are in hell, humans who are in purgatory, and NERO who are heavenly. I personally do not believe in purgatory however, I see this as a metaphor for the three.

I claim that NERO is heavenly because they come from the sky being the only characters in the game to use helicopters. They are also dressed in white and yellow colors. They leave gifts for the main character to upgrade. They study the zombies. They also are not villains that the main character can fight they also don’t attack the main character an encounter with NERO leads to a mission failure. Finally NERO can not be killed.

The humans are in purgatory. The point of purgatory is to give a person the chance to earn grace. Grace was freely given at cross when Jesus died for the sins of the world. Therefore the necessity to work off one’s sins is not needed. Work is important to purgatory and in the camps every one works. The camps in the game are work camps if one does not work they do not eat. The folks fighting the zombies are at work just by fighting. The main character also works by collecting bounties both human and zombies or bringing food to camps either animals or plants. Finally the humans do not extend much grace to the other humans and when they do offer grace it is not accepted. Humans can die the point of purgatory is not for a person to stay the idea is that people can move on to either heaven or hell. The main character does kill humans which would be death other characters also die. Death at this point would lead some to heaven and others to hell.

Zombies are in hell. Zombies live in caves and wear dark clothes. Zombies do not communicate with each other and all they really do is grunt and scream. Zombies also have an animal comparison. The main type of zombies are called swarmers which move like locusts. The screamers are similar to wolves they alert others when they find humans and the screamers work in packs. Newt are small zombies like the ravens they live in high places. The breakers are big strong zombies typically wearing black like the bears. The reachers are fast will stalk prey for a long period of time like cougars. I make this point to say that the zombies have animal qualities making them less human a suggestion that leads the player to the zombies being in hell. Finally the zombies are covered in their own poop meaning they have lost the ability to care for themselves.

Days Gone was a very beautiful game. Days Gone was well made and the creators have been adding content that I have not looked into. Days Gone give the player a lot of choices and tells a compelling story that kept me engaged all the way through. Days Gone has day counter system on the map screen it is in the top right corner of the screen. One more final note I am one trophy away reaching platinum trophy I believe that to also be connected to glitches.

Death has been defeated.

Apocalypse Now

Welcome to Jman at Magic Gate. I am Jman and at Magic Gate it is the end of the world as we know it. Apocalypse is the just that the end of the world as we understand it. Post-Apocalyptic games are games that take place after the world has come to some sort of end. When I mentioned to a friend that I was going to talk about Post-Apocalyptic games they responded with zombies huh? Most Post-Apocalyptic games have zombies.

Fallout has some form of zombies. In Fallout if you remember from my first blog I memorialized the day to come in the future October 23 2077 when in the Fallout Universe Atomic Bombs fell on the world. On this day the world changed making it turn it into a Post-Apocalyptic world. The type of zombies in Fallout are called ghouls. After overexposure to nuclear waste. Fallout has two types of ghouls one that has human qualities and one that has only a human look to them all other traces of humanity are gone. Zombies are not the only threat to humans in Fallout they have the Institute, Super Mutants, Rogue Robots, and Aliens just to name a few other threats depend on certain choices the player makes in this game.

The Last Of Us has zombies. In The Last Of Us there was a medical breakthrough the results turned into a virus that turned people into zombies. This was the world ending point of this universe. With zombies walking around the world had changed into a Post-Apocalyptic world. This is a dangerous world because the zombies are sensitive to sound the further they decay. But also this world is full of people who will do anything to survive which means it is almost impossible to make friends those people have a good chance of turning on anyone in order to survive.

These two worlds have different events that lead to their worlds ending. The Bible talks about the world ending also. The whole of the book of Revelation is about when Jesus returns to earth. Revelation does not talk about anything that sounds like zombies. It does talk about the world ending and being remade. The difference between what these games present and what Revelation presents is hope. These games exist in a hopeless reality. The Bible and Revelation present hope for the world. Hope that even though the world will end it will become a better place for those who chose Jesus and desire to follow God. In Fallout and The Last Of Us when the games reach their conclusion those worlds carry with the dangerous monsters still on the loose.

What is it about Post-Apocalyptic games that are so enticing? To me it is that we as a human species are aware that our days on this planet are numbered. Either because that dinosaurs were unable to survive before us or because so many cultures tell of a time when time ends. We also have examples of cultures that have just died off and disappeared from existence as a whole. Revelation is not the only place that we hear about world ending events. So along with this knowledge we start to ask the question what will this look like? Revelation gives us one answer and it is an answer filled with hope.

I would like for you to be filled with hope. Do not let the Post-Apocalyptic games discourage you instead as you are playing these games watch for the people who do help. I want to thank you for reading today. I personally don’t believe in zombies. I do look forward to your corrections……..eh………your thoughts.

Heartbreaking Moments

Welcome to Jman at Magic Gate. I am Jman and today MagicGate is all about life’s heartbreaking moments found in video games. Life has its heartbreaking moments. Times where we a friend dies. Other times when a friend becomes a foe. Other times where all hope seems lost. As we ask does life imitate art or does art imitate life? I am calling video games art because of all the effort and the beauty involved in creating them. As far as the age old question at times both can be true. As deep as that topic can go we are going to look at those moments in video games that broke our hearts or at least my heart. If I miss one add it to the comments.

The Last of Us is a post apocalyptic zombie killing game. The Last of Us is played in third person mode and it is all about stealth not one of my favorite ways to play. Zombies on there own is heartbreaking with all the lives lost so quickly. The Last of Us has at minimum about four heart wrenching moments with separation where as soon as the player has recovered from one moment the player is hit again. In the interest of not spoiling I will describe the first moment. On the night of the zombie breakout the main character Joel whom the player has not started playing as yet instead the player is his daughter whose name I forgotten. During this chapter the player as the daughter, Joel, and his brother are all trying to escape a town to a less populated area. As the Escape gets closer the player switches to Joel an on duty twitchy officer fires a round near a zombie in Joel’s direction while Joel is holding his daughter. A stray bullet strikes the little girl and the game starts off with this intense heart breaker. And the moments only get worse from there.

Ratchet and Clank is an off planet adventure played in third person mode it is a variation of a platform game with a little bit of camera control issues. Ratchet is a Lombax an alien creature. Clank is a robot that was defective because it was not made to specified instructions he was then discarded from the space station factory which had built him. This is the original Ratchet and Clank for the PlayStation 2. I am a lot less concerned with spoilers here because it has been around for a long enough time. Ratchet finds and saves Clank. Clank fixes Ratchet spaceship when the ship is fixed a message hidden in Clank is freed to show the galaxy is in danger. Ratchet thinks the best way to solve this problem is to take it to his hero Captain Quark. Once they get close enough to talk to the Captain, the Captain reveals that he is the Villain of this story. Ratchet who is now showing how distraught he is. Clank is a robot and shows that he is not empathic. It was not bad enough that the best person to help turned out to be a coward, but this leads to a rift between these two friends. I personally relate more to Ratchet more. So watching him get hit twice like this hurts me. Thankfully this is not the end of the story it is the end of what I will talk about. This was a moment for me where two friends were at odds but with so many more Ratchet and Clank games we know they become good friends again.

Fallout 4 is an RPG (Role Playing Game), FPS (First Person Shooter). We have talked about the date on which Fallout took place October 23 2077. At the start of the game the player gets to choose if they would like to play as a male or a female. After this you walk around your house meet you child and set your characteristics. This is the day that the bombs fall and your character and their family are rushed to the fallout shelter where it is understood when it has been waited out they will release everyone. However the player is placed in a freezer along with everyone else that was brought to this fallout shelter. The spouse of the player is handed their child and frozen holding the child. The next thing the player sees is their spouses freezer being opened the child being ripped out of that person’s hands and then that person is shot the player is then refrozen and until the players freezer breaks. With no idea of how long the player has been frozen. Also realizing that the players spouse is dead and child is missing the player quickly realizes that all the other people that were frozen were also dead. The player is the only one alive in a fallout shelter as far as the player knows everyone outside of the fallout shelter is also dead. This is a gut wrenching moment of complete hopelessness where the player has no items and is unsure if anyone else in the world is even alive anyway. As the game progress from this point the player quickly finds other people who are alive and friendly to aid on the players journey some of these people will even offer to travel with the player.

Heartbreaking moments in video games are to make us feel like the characters are real. It does not matter if they are aliens, robots, or from the future these characters show real raw emotions that would cause even non-empaths to feel the pain too. These moments give me pause as I think about what would I do in this situation. Joel waited years before he could take any real action again after losing his daughter. Ratchet may not have liked Clank at that moment, but knew that there was a bigger threat to the galaxy at large. Even after losing everything home, family, and the prospects of the rest of the world still going on that journey is hard. For me the heartbreak of those games sticks around. As I already asked what heartbreaking moments are you still dealing with if I missed them. As always I look forward to your corrections……er……I mean your thoughts thank you for reading.