Who do I need to scrub like a stain for Having the majority of E3 conferences cram up one single day? Personally, I am starting college today with a summer session. Leaving when Microsoft begins their talks, and coming back when EA begins. However, I managed to watch all the press conferences and give my impressions. So I’ll just leave this here and sleep up as I regret being a bit outrageous with my emotions because I’m just so overwhelmed with the feels!
Okay, in a not very well inserted edit, I want to address a few common elements I found in these conferences, and what my thoughts are on them, so I can go without mentioning them for every title that did something like this. One, it looks pretty. Not a big surprise, new hardware, better graphics, better looking titles. Although, many of them held a very similar art direction that I’m not sure if I could put into words other than, it looks like Frostbite and Cryengine for many titles, even those that do not use either.
Secondly, the overabundance of CG trailers, things I understand due to how most assets are not finite, and it would be detrimental to development to simulate what the final game would look like. However, after you have gameplay available, making a GC trailer is just foolish. We have gameplay of Watch Dogs, we don’t need a prerendered cinematic that will not be in the game. Although, most of them did look very nice.
Thirdly, social/smartphone integration. Quite simply, I like games to be about the games themselves. No major movements, not peripherals, just me, a controller, and a screen. Or a handheld seeing as how they do both. It is not fun for me to sit on my couch with a friend who is playing the same game on his smartphone, but doing something totally different. That, and I don’t want to use a cell phone, let alone a smartphone.
Part One: Xbox One Conference!
Microsoft did not start out on the best footing, letting the world know of its planned partnership with Mountain Dew and Doritos, a shroud most people want to burn and was never worn by anyone a lot of the core audience wanted to pay much attention to. However the press conference itself, which I had to watch a replay, and will not be annotating, Destructoid should have you covered though. Starting on my five pages of notes, bloody hell, the conference oddly began proper-like with a Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain trailer. Showing off in game footage, the baddies you’ll be fighting, and several new mechanics that will greatly change the game up. From riding on the side of a horse, or fast forwarding time!
The later part is a joke on my part, but even considering that this is a stealth title, pressing the FF button doesn’t make your game look more exciting, more that you don’t want to bore us with your Red Dead Redemption-esc world. Which I’m not calling a bad thing, but after going through the very mechanically clean first three games, I must be a bit cautious about a game trying to be so, how do I put it, large in terms of vision, scope, number of mechanics, and so forth.
Yet after bringing out Kojima to awkwardly speak English, which is not an insult to the man in any regard. Microsoft went full forth on their promise of “13” exclusive titles, which they do have, despite originally promising 15. Well, after going through the Xbox 360 excess, starting with a new design for the Xbox 360 that, like the first one, will be available today. Still the same $200 or $300 price tag though, but at least they’ve been watching Sony. Taking a very rough aim at the who PS+ thing it they’ve been doing, giving Deus Ex: HR and Virtue’s Last Reward for free, which Microsoft plans on countering with two free downloadable titles (Assassin’s Creed II and Halo 3 were named) every month for those with Xbox Live Gold. Which they explained in about two, three minutes.
Moving very quickly to World of Tanks, a smash hit I only thought to be a noteworthy success coming to the 360 late this year. Max: The Curse of Brotherhood, a title form Press Play, makers of Max & the Magic Marker, a Wiiware title. Coincidence? Not likely since following a Dreamworks-esc cutscene, the Magic Marker was evident, as the rest of the game looked very much like Trine, a lovely looking physics heavy 2.5D platformer. Something seeming a bit too kiddie seeing as how the focus was shifted to Dark Souls 2: Bringin’ Home the Badassery. Yes, taking Namco Bandai’s claim of making the series more accessible, the show trailer emphasised being a Big-Ass-Motherfucker (did I really just put that in my E3 coverage?) more than a miserable, slow, and lifeless crawl through elephant feces.
However, none of that will be playable on the Xbox One, which actually did overall impress me with the line-up. Well, it had titles I wanted, but the first shown title, Ryse: Son of Rome, wasn’t one of them. Originally a Kinect game shown as Codename Kingdoms in 2010, (I think) it was later a Kinect first person brawler with the same core title, before being tucked away and is now a Crytek-made powerhouse. Well, it would be if it looked like it wasn’t too focused on showing the Cryengine.
Yet, seeing as how this was a gameplay demo, the combat is very, very QTE heavy, something I can be okay with, when it is like Asura’s Wrath, but when you are doing the same action with a button floating over a guy’s head, I’d recommend removing the button and hoping the player would assume that a staggering opponent can be taken down with the quick kill button. Still will likely be a hit though.
If not, maybe the Killer Instinct reboot that only showed two characters punching it up in-game would tickle your fancy? In an overly brief montage with a very nineties announcer begrudgingly announcing a title by people who have literally nothing to do with the original games. In part due to how Rare isn’t even making the game, as much as that info was omitted, Double “SIlent Hill V: Homecoming” Helix is… Need I say more, aside from that they only worked on stuff like the Green Lantern and Battleship games since then? Yeah, I’m awaiting many an Ultra Combo joke in holiday 2013.
Although, it does seem to understand the importance of color, much like Insomniac’s title with Microsoft, Sunset Overdrive. Which I’d best describe as Overstrike (before it became Fuse) with a bit of a free to play shooter and Jet Set Radio. Mind you, it was just a CG rendition of a parkour participant’s dream city if it were filled with nondescript goo-men, but it certainly makes me want to sink my teeth into the system, though the multiplayer elements aren’t my thing.
Neither are cars, which the Forza bit really wanted me to be into, and not view them as murder machines. Getting one of the “best” cars in the world as a prop for the gameplay reveal that brought up the whole integration feature where the game learns how you play, simulating you for online races even when using cars you never touched. A point where I can’t help but think that Kinect will indeed murder me and wear my face. Exactly why Milo was canned or something else that I lack the time to flesh out!
Just like how Quantum Funk didn’t have the time to explain what the hell it was, to the point where I needed to look up that it was called Quantum Break. I get the impression that it is a mix of a television show and a game about temporal manipulation, but I’m not sure what exactly that means. Is it saying that the cutscenes are really long and live action like in the reveal, or does that game have a “story worthy of a television show”. Which is the new racism as far as I am concerned. Mediumism!
However, I won’t remember that title in a week, but I will recall D4, Swery’s next title! As someone who loved Deadly Premonition to the point where he gave it the highest mark and listed it as his favorite game he played in 2012, I am naturally pissed this won’t be on every system, and will likely have Kinect controls involved somehow. Still Swery can transcend the medium and be entertaining just by being observed.
And at least I can understand his proposed Mystery Cel-Shaded Episodic Adventure more than I understand Project Spark. Containing the same yuck feeling I got from Fable: The Journey, and trying to be a game that also acts as a level creator, I can summarize my thoughts like his, “People who bought your system don’t want to make their own levels, they want to play a game, and not select options with their tablets or voice!” Let alone try and control a 3D level creator with a controller, which seems like a nightmare beyond the proposed integration of other devices.
A notion not made much better in a horribly staged demonstration of bells and whistles that seem more intrusive of the gaming experience, as it considers stopping a game to play another to be something everyone would want to do. Just right in the middle of the action and everything. I do like the video capturing though, but selecting a few seconds and having a custom made, system bound bit of footage isn’t really what most people were thinking when Sony showed off their video capturing services. Although, with just the phrase, “Xbox, Broadcast” you can stream on Twitch, which sounds rather lovely come to think of it.
Just like Crimson Dragon, the semi-successor to Panzer Dragoon and former Kinect title that is not a full fledged rail shooter that looks freaking sweet if i may be so bold, but I can’t say for how it sounds, as it was a rather amusing technical hiccup that nobody saw fit to make note of. Though, they did of minor details like currency changing, and one Gold account being needed per console, or perhaps family. Mind you, this is well before the one hour mark.
Though, a good five to ten minutes were devoted to Dead Rising 3. A title I originally thought would be “Skin of the Dead” as mentioned by a menu prior in the conference. If only because this open world Zombie apocalypse looks nothing, and I mean, nothing like the quirky sandbox title where you wandered through a mall. Not involving Frank West and going backwards in time, the title is the gritty reboot to a title where you fought a killer clown, could rescue a tiger, and had to convince people to stop playing poker to go to a safe house. Now, it’s a brown title where you can summon tactical missile strikes from your iPad. Only on Xbox One this holiday, ladies and gents!
Though, The Witcher 3: WIld Hunt is not an exclusive, as it just showed off some CG and a bit of game footage that interested me, someone who didn’t care too much for Witcher 2, until I saw a Mermaid who I wanted to solve mysteries with before realizing she’d likely be a bad girl or be lynched. With the most joy being found by how few craps the guy from CD Projekt Red gave.
I could say that I have the same amount of craps to Battlefield 4, a title I’ll mention only once despite being in both conferences, and say that it is actually pretty neat looking. With a mighty engine ready to settle the new hardware, the destruction, interaction, and even sometimes lack of grey all made it look pretty lovely. Especially in a live 64 person demo where a building was destroyed. By building, I mean 100+ story skyscraper, by destroyed, I mean shattered as it dropped into a body of water. Although, I can’t help but feel like it wouldn’t be too much fun to play, with the lackluster feeling the gunfire gave me.
Something that they thankfully followed with a title from the makers of Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery, called Below. Not sure what it is aside from the story of a small character in a big world, but in what little of the hype I’ve observed, people are feeling the good feels about what I don’t get, but I haven’t played their aforementioned title, so I’m likely lacking context. Although, aside from it, Minecraft on the Xbox One, and the title from two pages ago I can’t recall the name of, that was pretty much it from indies.
With Microsoft having five new studios to fill in the gap, but likely just try to get another Gears of War/Halo substitute. With a studio called Black Tusk working on a tactical espionage action title in an modern urban setting that likely just entered full development. With their other big exclusive being a Halo title for 2014. Though, they don’t call it Halo 5, in a move as odd as how they hid it was a Halo game for a bit, looking like their gritty answer to Journey in the reveal trailer.
Which normally would be a good place to end it, but not until they said the box would be out by November, for a measly $499.99… Yep, my reaction was pretty much a big old, “Did I hear that right?” It was something that dominated my attention as they showcased Titanfall, a title that looks like a cross between Destiny, Call of Duty: Ghosts, and various titles with mechs. All while leaving me with two questions, “Why is this game first person?” and “Why is everything so much more grey? you’re using the Source Engine for crying out loud!” Though, t is a title where you can pilot a giant robot and throw things with your big old gravity gun. Although why it is still targeting the 360 with a heavy focus on Cloud integration for AI and whatnot is beyond my comprehension.
Which is where I end my thoughts on MIcrosoft’s conference, and reflect. In short, I think this was the best conference they had in years, it was just not enough to make the $500 Xbone look attractive. With most of its titles being skippable to me, or things that I could just look at and get my enjoyment from. Even then, I can’t see anything overly griping about the Xbone, as MIcrosoft seems to want to make everything feel both streamlined, and gritty in one way or another, something I thought we’d be over by now. Yet, it seems like little has changed, and the only reason I care is because in 2008, the Xbox 360 seemed like the better choice.
Part Two: EA’s Geneight Conference
EA is summarized here, seeing as how I’ve lacked the time to do much of anything but eat and do this since I came home. Starting with the notion of the entire press conference being based around the next gen technologies and their Frostbite and Ignite engines for everything else and sport titles respectively. With the first in the everything else bin being Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare. A title that was spoiled by much of the set pieces at E3 itself, but one htat certainly looks impressive. With a very TF2-esc class system with multiple players controlling the plants, fighting against a non-TF2-esc series of waves. Mind you, this could just be one mode, in a very fun looking title, so it could either be a $20 game for a $60 with a surprisingly amount of content, like in the original Plants Vs Zombies. We’ll see in 2014, oddly on the Xbox One and 360 first.
Following a quick announcement of Peggle 2, and showing off Titanfall a bit more, which I already gave my thoughts on, before the inevitable Star Wars: Battlefront tease was thrown in. Two big reveals given next to no information likely due to one is a flash title at the end of the day, and the other just got a prototype out. There was info for Need For Speed: Rivals, showing a nice dynamic weather system and generally keen effects. Which I can acknowledge despite my apathy towards the franchise But what struck me more was how there was a film in production based on the franchise. With a 2014 Spring release of all things.
Stuff like Dragon Age is more my speed, pun intended I suppose. With the prophesied Dragon Age 3 reveal being a numberless title keeping the long known subtitle of Inquisition. Only CG was shown to get the audience who still care after Dragon Age II was fairly meh, but the fully Generation 8 title does seem to have a lot more care and thought applied than the rushed aforementioned title. With a fall release date in 2014 making the time in between the revela and release about as long as the time between the first two instalments. Which I badly want to replay now.
Certainly more so than I cared to watch the information on sports, which I skipped past more due to time than anything, but my general apathy (Yes, I love that word a lot!) would leave me without much to say, as I generally forgot what was said aside from blurts of NFL, FIFA, UFC, and NBA Live. Only gaining interest when I saw a lan party accompanied with some of the best booms I’ve seen from something not prerendered.
Although, like many an online retailer slipped, the conference did indeed end with Mirror’s Edge 2 getting announced, coming out when it’s ready, and with no real clue as to what goes on in it. Just that the colors palette will be the same, and the first person, which I was not much of a fan of based on the demo, would be returning as well. However, it will likely not come out until 2016 at the soonest, when most will have likely forgotten about the title. Capping off my thoughts on EA with a very firm, “It’s okay.” not really a ton of stuff for me.
Part Three: Ubisoft’s Hashtag DollahSines! (More Details here )
Kicking off in a way reminiscent of Wii Music by bringing in a music title nobody really wanted, with Rocksmith getting a 2014 release. The Ubisoft press conference stands out to be if only because of the host they brought back from the last showing, who proudly referenced her 2012 debut with a shirt with “#girlwood” on it. Setting forth a stage of overall awareness that can summarize the most misdirected bits of E3. Namely, why is there a giant black woman on stage in heels talking about how she fapped to some guy’s music?
Regardless, the game focus was firmly established with the showing of Splinter Cell: Blacklist, keeping up with a very odd trend of social control and digital networking that Ubisoft seems to be following in wake of Watch Dogs being a thing revealed last E3. With the stream itself being filled with little blips that I can trace back to the first Assassin’ Creed as a form of style their games are gradually beginning to scare. Which I can’t help but feel is a bit jarring and alienating of people who aren’t cool with that design choice.
Well, I guess that is what Rayman Legends is for, as the game promises to be bigger, with double the stages as Origins had, after the title was shown with a very odd 3D artstyle that first a 2D platformer as much as advertising Assassin’s Creed with a motion comic. Still, the game keeps a gorgeous art style and is a prime contender for my top whatever if the first one was any indication.
Something that might also be said about South Park: The Stick of Truth, which manages to look just like the show while Ubisoft pushes it back to Winter to make sure the game is as polished as it could be. And it certainly looks funnier than The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot, a free to play PC title about building and raiding your friends castles, which was given a very unfunny trailer ending with a barrage of bleeps, likely describing the rape of a jerk with a banana tree and his mother’s puss spewing decapitated head.
But going back to my comparison with the social integration systems in Ubisoft games, their equivalent to Forza or Need for Speed was rumored and revealed to be The Crew. A very social heavy racer about building everything about a car and using cars to rob people. It actually seems more appealing to me than either of the mentioned titles, if only because when driving a car in games, I like to move real fast and break stuff, not caring about roads or any of that trash. Although, it is apparently better if you have a set of pals who play every game with you, something I can only mutter from my palm covered face to be a faulty goal.
Just like how hoping that you have a friend who is anxious to help with Watch Dogs. Not everyone has a tablet or someone to operate it while they’re play a game, and while the rest of the gameplay seems very well done. With plenty of freedom and different ways to get out of the many pickles in your path, while the world is very in tune to your presence and is filled with little random instances that I find to always give games so much more life. That, and throwing in sex slaves… Nope, they’re sex slaves.
Ubisoft cannot only focus on the core audience, with the predictable Just Dance 2014 coming to basically everything. Along with a Rabbids television show on Nickelodeon. Which doesn’t look promising, if only due to languageless main characters with no physical differences, and how it is trying to be annoying. Called Rabbids Invasion, it also plans on being something that I haven’t seen in nearly 15 years, an FMV title! Taking show scenes and throwing a minigame over them, it is something I’d like to not think about much at all.
Instead, Assassin’s Creed IV has a presence, showing CG before a gameplay music video, before a gameplay bit in Sony’s conference. Overall, it looks very nice, with plenty of elaborate sequences and smooth transitions to rustling in the underbrush on a jungle to waging war on a ship. Catching my eyes, but also making e look back and wonder where the complete version of part three is.
And following what I believe is actually well past part three of the Trials series, claiming to be both a mobile and console title in a separate package for each with connectivity bonuses, because why wouldn’t there be? I’m not sure if I’m one to judge, seeing as how I find Trials as fun as petting a old dog for an hour. There is novelty for a few minutes, but I just lose interest.
What did captivate my interest was The Division, an open world RPG based on the idea of, “What if, on Black Friday, a virus was unleashed that sent humanity down the toilet?” You get a multiplayer based, and very anti-menu title that quite frankly looks awesome until I realized that online was a word used in the descriptor. Look, I’m not the target audience, but if Microsoft is any indication, neither are people without decent internet. I like to explore a wasteland by myself, and while that may be possible, I think that multiplayer is best when in a game that realizes it is a game, not trying to build much in terms of atmosphere, which The Division certainly tried to do as I wondered why the voice actors sounded so crappy and were so bad at the second part of their title.
It is a pretty solid lineup, but one very much based on one ideal that makes a lot of the titles seem like they are one big blob. All led by a very odd individual (I write about a nippleless woman with a twenty inch penis in my spare time) who completely lost favor with me as I read her claim, which likely stands for the entire company, That the Wii U is a lost cause. Never has there been a harsher blow to Nintendo that was likely the truth. But we’ll see tomorrow. Because we certainly did not see Beyond Good and Evil 2, like, I dunno, we were all but promised.
Part Four: Sony Takes Home The Golden Apple With a Worm In It (Information here )
Now I’m getting very tired in a move of the most unprofessionalism, so I’ll just jump past the delay Sony had and talk about their PS Vita stuff. Which was actually rather lackluster if I may say so. Firstly, the library has and is a particular gripe of mine with there being way more than 650 PSOne classics and PSP games out there, so why only that few compatible with the Vita? Hell, PS2 titles are still absent when I’d love to play Deus Ex on the thing. Yes, you do have a very wide palette of smaller titles hitting the system, Doki Doki Universe to Counter Spy, to Arkham Origins Blackgate (The staff is about 30, so I’d qualify it). As much as there are remakes of FIial Fantasy X and the PS2 God of War titles, but Tearaway is not much of a killer app. You’ve gotta have something in those 85 titles in development that is a gemstone rather than these very pretty rocks.
However, The Walking Dead appears to be shooting for that basket, despite being on so many other platforms already. Though, these people did give a Black Ops: Declassified bundle, so they might be bonkers. Not unlike how not cutting down the price like they did in Japan would have cured them of at least some of the illness of the brain. I just want to love the system, but the price and $100 memory sticks are like trying to seduce someone who smells like poo, very hard to accept.
Meanwhile, the Playstation 3 is being treated like it’s being played a Swan Song, with The Last of Us being acknowledged for its high praise. Puppeteer being a quirky $40 title that comes out in a fairly save happy time, so it will likely be ignored. Rain being what you’d expect from a game called Rain, it’s about a ghost girl. While Beyond: Two Souls certainly made me turn my head, and not in the, “What the hell are you doing?” sort of way. Well, that’s a lie, because the game about ghosts now will take Ellen Page, Jodi Holmes if you will, to the Middle East so she can fight the terrorists… No comment for that, or the perfectly fine looking Gran Turismo 6.
I do have stuff to say about Arkham Origins, as it is apparently taking cues from the Dark Knight Rises and making Bane the big bad, but with a unique version calling himself Black Mask. I have little doubt that the game will be bad, but as the new toys were throw around, I can’t help but find this installment a bit unnecessary. Why bother telling the origin to the Arkham games? By now, everybody knows about the goddamn Batman and why he is the punk hating crime fighter he is today… I heard of comics, yay!
The PS4 was properly shown about a fourth of the way in with a very okay design. A black mostly flat box with a bit of a 3D parallelogram design to it. Which is more an unnecessary nitpick, like what most of the stuff about Sony media was to me, and I’d assume most people. But a necessity, despite how much Sony seemed to be going in the inverse direction MIcrosoft did with their conference for just media stuff.
First in a rather handsome line of exclusives, Sony unveiled The Order: 1886, a Ready At Dawn developed title about Whitechapel, impractical guns, and Steampunk. Only showing “in-game footage”, it is hard to tell what shape it will be, but there’s a lady with a lightning gun! Which, alongside the previously seen and quite competent Killzone: Shadowfall. The thing that Drive Club appears to be also appears to be succeeding. Knack being a very hard to fully grasp overhead beat-em up if the footage is a good indicator, and will likely be a success if Sony knows what they’re doing. While Infamous: Seconds Son looks to be in the same Watch Dogs-esc camp of a focus on government control, yet you can become dust and set everything on fire while being an angsty teen! With the middle three of the five all being launch titles, and the rest being whenever and Q1 2014 respectively.
Although, they’d be far sooner than whatever Quantic Dream appears to be cooking up. In the same way that the Kara tech demo they did a while back could be its own game or film, their Dark Sorcerer short detailed a glorious semi-parody of an evil wizard and his imp minion, only to be part of a movie set. In something that I refuse to believe that David Cage wrote because it was actually pretty humorous.
Not that multimillion shorts are the only thing Sony plans on doing, boasting such small titles like Transistor, Mercenary Kings, Don’t Starve, Galat-Z, Octodad, Secret Ponchos, Ray’s Dead, Outlast, and Oddworld: New and Tasty. All of which are worth at least a gender from the show footage, and even with just console exclusivity, it shows that Sony does really want to nourish the indie market, as if the Lone Survivor remix didn’t make that perfectly clear.
Yet, those don’t sell the PS4, especially when most of the seem like better Vita games. If I’m any indicator, a Square Enix game will do it, and who’da thunk it, they got two! Final Fantasy Versus XIII is now Final Fantasy XV and coming to the PS4. Downside is that I have both little faith in Square Enix as a company after Final Fantasy XIII’s trilogy of unused assets, and little idea what is going on. With there being a menu, but it not seeming to matter much as you’re going from cover, casting magic, using a sword, climbing on monsters, it is all hectic and seems that the FInal Fantasy XIII artistic design fell in the more grim Versus stew at some point. Along with Kingdom Hearts III finally being announced for the PS4 with some lovely cel-shading and a rundown of how many stupidity named spin-offs had to happen in order to get to part 3. Oh, and Final Fantasy XIV, the one that had to be remade it was so horrible, is also coming over… next!
Well, after a buggy Assassin’s Creed demo, likely the cause of the delay despite how it still ended suddenly, some Watch Dogs, and sport stuff that asks you to look at how odd the faces can look in a semi-cartoony manner, the next in line was Elder Scrolls Online. A title I’ve been skeptical about, and I must admit looks more like the series I fell in love with, or more specifically, the game. Though, MMOs are the greatest evil in the industry, so even if I did wish to enter the PS4 bound beta sometime before the release in spring 2014, I’d be terrified of it.
Just like how I am scared of the claimed 100 titles out by year one, and claimed 40 exclusives being utter lies. Though, I suppose it could become a new PS2, not thanks to the Mad Max game that is being made instead of Just Cause 3: sixty-four Players at Once, Dawg. But because of, well, how Spny looked Microsoft dead in the eye, with their bullcrap about used games and online checking, and took a poo in their face. Getting really 1991 Sega on their face that was covered in feces that nearly went into their eyes. My comparison is certainly a bit crude, but after the fear that this crap would happen, with all of this consumer unfriendly BS, I think Sony won the generation in that fell swoop. That, and the four-hundred dollar price tag.
Which justified their final game being just the reveal of Destiny, which looks… very carefully constructed. Being a very easy to join co-op shooter that is part Halo, Borderlands, and Journey. Even a bit of Guild Wars 2 with the random events that come out every now and again, calling in all nearby players. And above all in the inevitable comparison between Titanfall, Call of Duty: Ghosts, and Destiny, Destiny looks the most colorful and fun! Just give me giant toads, and I just might be okay with you being so hyped!
While far from my ideal PS Vita blow-out, for I really want to love the system, Sony actually did deliver the goods. Exclusives, low price point, and even claiming some PS3 streaming to be up in 2014. And while the whole lack of backwards compatibility does suck, the prospect of the game recognizing the PS3 game in a PS4 disk drive and streaming it does seem plausible… Seriously, 32GB for $100? Is this 2006?
And as the clock strikes well past midnight, I’m going to leave these 5,000+ words and ten pages here. Good night world, and screw you ESA, because I’ve gotta blame someone for this!