Digital Neigh-Saying: Horses in Gaming, and other unabashed puns

Generally speaking, I'm a fan of horses. I mean, not the actual, real-life bug-eyed gargantuan monster that is 'the horse', because even having lived in close proximity to my mother's horse for fifteen years, I still find them to be slightly freakish animals. Horses in video games, however, are another story. They give us new ways to engage with available space. They provide lore-friendly means of faster travel around the commonly open worlds in which they are found. Most importantly, they both have and add character to the game. Once you're on your horse, whether it be in Skyrim, Afghanistan, World War I or Hyrule, you're not really controlling your designated PC any more: no, that puppet-person meatbag that you can twist and throw all around the world with ridiculous precision and disregard has been downgraded to passenger on this new, tenacious, fearsome beast that is far less likely to put up with you trying to ride down mountains, or jump fences after approaching at less than a perfect right angle. Video game horses command respect: you play by their rules, or you get bucked off. And if you don't wanna, well, then, enjoy walking.

Of course, their general aptitude depends on how well they've been programmed in, and certainly, over the years, developers have had some interesting ideas about how to attach these sentient rockets to their worlds. Sometimes - rarely, I have to say - horses are sublime joys to ride. Sometimes, they have so much character that their flaws are rendered irrelevant. Sometimes, their programmed flaws end up looking like aspects of their character, and the results can be hilarious. And sometimes, getting on a horse is a really great way to become dead through no fault of your own. One's own patience for any given horse is generally informed by how much patience and good feeling one has towards a given game, and, since I'm generally a very patient and gentle gamer unless I'm playing Pokemon, I've met a bunch of good horses over my time, and would like to pay my respects.

That's right, this post is a listicle! Gotcha!

1. Epona (The Legend of Zelda)

Hey listen!

Epona gets to go first because she is the proto-horse. She might not have been the first rideable horse in a videogame ever, but within my arbitrarily narrow category of 'horses used to navigate open worlds' she's certainly up there. At the very least, she was the first horse I ever rode. Unlike many, she has to be earned, also; it's quite possible that a goal-oriented player of Ocarina of Time might never visit Lon Lon Ranch, and therefore miss both ends of the neat time travel arc that culminates in Link basically stealing his first horse (idea for a future post: Link the criminal). It's hard to have affection for Epona that isn't borne out of nostalgia, however, because she doesn't have much in the way of personality; her only distinguishing feature is her hatred of fences. In later games, she's become a bit of a mystical figure like Link and Zelda, reincarnating to give Link a lift when he needs her, but I like to think she's actually on her own extensive multi-dimensional adventure that keeps coinciding with Link's. I think the same thing about the various Dogmeats in Fallout.

2. Agro (Shadow of the Colossus)

The one on the right

In Shadow of the Colossus, the world is massive, and pretty empty. Throughout the entire game the only things that stir are the twelve colossi, the main character, his horse Agro, and ten thousand lizards. It's a lonely experience, jetting around that world, hunting down magnificent monsters that were just minding their own business until this schmuck with the magic sword came to ruin their day, so it's nice to have some company. Indeed, Argo's constant companionship is equalled only by how he's more than willing to get stuck in and help Wanderer out for some of the battles. In a world where most videogame horses are terrified of slight slopes and errant trees, it's not hard to come out looking comparatively badass, but even so Argo is an impressive dude. He even, completely inexplicably, survives a several-hundred foot drop in the game's climax - I've personally always thought it would have been more emotionally satisfying if his sacrificial moment stuck, but damn if I'm not glad to see him every time he nonchalantly strolls back in during the ending.

3. Horse (Skyrim)

This is fine.

The horses of Skyrim are hardy and strong, and make up for in endurance what they lack in speed. - Skyrim Loading Screen

The main reason that I don't always agree with horses in videogames is because they're not always worth the effort. I'm the sort of open-world explorer who isn't happy until he's uncovered every inch and every secret, and that can be hard to do on a horse: whenever you climb aboard, you have to acknowledge that you're trading the thorough control you have over your character for the far more temperamental control you have over a horse, with the benefit of increased speed. In Skyrim, horses don't go that fast. They also charge headlong into battle against any and all enemies, and usually end up dead, or else find a different way to die by accidentally jumping too far when I'm trying to explore on them, a touch that is remarkably over-realistic for what is such a wildly fantastical game. They are, in summary, more trouble than they're worth.

But that's okay, because they have such a hilarious disregard for physics, as demonstrated above, that I can't help but love them anyway. A combination of side-hops and jump spam is sufficient to climb most of the mountains in Skyrim that you're not supposed to be able to, but if you ever can't make it, come back with a horse, and ride straight up vertical slopes with aplomb. Meme-makers, one and all.

4. Lightning (Breath of the Wild)

CHEEESE

Breath of the Wild is quite remarkable for a Zelda game in that it doesn't have Epona in it. It makes sense, in a way; the Link of this game is actually from a hundred years in the past, so even if he had an Epona, she wouldn't be around anymore. Unless she is a time traveller, which, you know, could be, because it is possible to get her if you have the Amiibo that opens the relevant wormhole. But for all us lowly people who don't have the disposable income to spend on cool but worthless figurines, Link has to choose a horse from one of the many that live in the wilds of Hyrule. I spent much of this game riding around on my decidedly average horse James Baxter, seeking the holy grail of a horse that had 5 stars in each of its three stats. If you're still out there trying that for yourself, let it go. They don't exist. Be like me and find one with maximum speed, then dye its hair purple and give it the monster saddle so that it can embrace the punk life like this joker.

I've never been as attached to a horse as I have to this one. She hit all of the sweet spots of being beautiful to control, ridiculously fast and efficient, and full of character. She also came to my aid in the final battle against Ganon, so she even has Agro checked. Breath of the Wild is considered excellent in many ways, but I give it the most props for really nailing down this whole horse thing.

And yet, there's one more...

5. Roach (The Witcher III: Wild Hunt)

X gonna give it to ya

This is why we're here, why I'm writing this piece. Meet Roach, the biggest troll in The Witcher III, a game that has literal trolls. Roach is, quite simply, the worst horse of all time. She is but the latest in what is implied to be a long line of legacy horses that main character Geralt has owned and given this same oddly uncomplimentary name, but this particular Roach seems particularly eager to put her mark on history, and yeah, she's succeeding. Just look at the meme!

Never in horsing history has there been such a severe disconnect in control between player character and character's horse. Geralt isn't the most spry of PCs - he doesn't have the skills to Skyrim Hop his way up mountains and into places he shouldn't be, although that's not for the lack of my trying - but he does, for the most part, move in the way that I want him to. On Roach, however, things get a little more interesting, because whatever complex algorithms the developers used to connect her to the world seem to have only a very tenuous grasp on, well, the world. Roach loves nothing more than to divert from the game's paths by means of unexpected 90 degree turns into the woods or off cliffs. I would wager the problem is in her autopilot, an excellent feature that first turned up in Red Dead Redemption and then disappeared until this game and Breath of the Wild. When on a path, Roach will automatically follow its various turns without any controller input. That's the theory, at least. But whereas RDR and BotW are games that contain a vast amount of open space, the world of W3 is much denser, with paths that wind their way through forests, closely blocked in on both sides by trees. That's a lot more potential obstacles to mess with Roach's pathfinding, no matter how good it might be. That might almost sound like I'm trying to give credit, but it's the kind of credit that goes 'this thing could potentially be very good if it weren't for all of the things that make it bad'. I mean, she screeches to a halt every time I try to ride her over a bridge for goodness's sakes.

Luckily - and this is a personal opinion, as I'm sure there are many people on the internet who are legitimately angry with Roach - I find that the sheer slapstick nonsense of this horse's ineptitude blows right past 'frustrating' and loops back around to being hilarious. To me, Roach is, in-universe, just a shit. I imagine her rolling her eyes every time Geralt gets on her, and debating as she runs the best places coming up where she can try to buck him off. That'll teach that bastard to keep strapping the decomposing heads of monsters to her and expecting her to deal.

----

There we have it: the assembled horse avengers. And what a superhero team they would make! Agro would be designated hero Captain America. Epona would be the reliable if slightly bland sidekick, so Thor, the Skyrim horses are obviously Spider-Man, Lightning is the bantermeister Iron Man, and I guess Roach would have to be token evil teammate Loki who spends most of her time fucking with everyone, and you know what, this post has gotten silly so I'm going to stop writing it.

Daniel vs. The 2017 General Election

A post about the 2017 Election, originally posted on voting day.

So I guess it's time for my annual political message. Before we start, here's a quick recap of the election campaign so far.

1. Labour's poll position swings upwards as soon as election rules require a balance in coverage and so people start to see that actually, Corbyn is a good'un, and that maybe he'd make a pretty decent statesman and negotiator given how he's come through all the shit that's been thrown at him over the last two years
2. May meanwhile begins to look more and more like a slightly malfunctioning robot
3. Blue tabloid media becomes oddly concerned about how Corbyn talked to the IRA decades ago in effort to make peace, says little about how May went to Saudi Arabia two months ago to sell weapons
4. Conservative manifesto introduces hugely unpopular dementia tax which lasts for about as long as it takes to become disliked i.e. one day
5. Conservatives attempted to idiomise 'magic money tree' in the face of Labour's fully-costed manifesto, despite the fact that their own contains no numbers at all
6. The prime minister refuses to engage in democracy by debating with her opposition, seeding doubt about her negotiating skill in the immediate run up to the most important negotiations in a generation
7. The Guardian attempts to steal May's crown of 'Best Election Campaign U-turn 2017' by remembering it's supposed to be a liberal newspaper and deciding to support the man it's been shitting on for two years
8. Blue tabloid media screams itself hoarse with hatred because there's a chance that the party who gives its' owners tax breaks might not steamroll this after all, non-rich people are expected to read it and think yes I agree, please tax me more instead
9. Terrorist attacks lead people to wonder where all the police have gone, but the Home Secretary who got rid of them all is unavailable for comment because she's too busy 'thinking about Brexit' and pulling hilariously memetic faces
10. Prominent horrible conservatives mysteriously disappear because they're not exactly vote-winners, and it wouldn't be right to show the country what they're voting for (seriously, where are Gove the backstabber, Hunt the NHS Judas, and Fox the all-round twit?)
11. Conservatives call out Labour MP for having the gall to similarly disappear on legitimate grounds of ill health, because no-one in blue wants legitimacy to come anywhere near this election
12. Conservative placards start to appear solely around all of the nearby mansions. Labour placards start to appear in the windows of houses on my street.
13. Corbyn speaks to crowds of thousands, May' s events are full of cardboard people cut-outs.
14. Blue tabloid media abandons all illusions of sanity and starts calling Corbyn a terrorist and calling for the abolishment of YouTube (no seriously, that's The Sun today)

I gotta say, it's been a real wild ride, and that's only the cliff notes version. You can probably guess which way I'm leaning given how kind the above notes are(n't) to the Tories, but do you know why, and why I urge anyone thinking of voting Blue to go Red, or whichever candidate in your constituency can beat Blue? It's because, for the first time since ever that I can recall, we're faced with an election that isn't about the lesser of two evils. There's a definite evil, the one that has been running our country - into the ground - for the last seven years, turning it into a nastier, poorer place to live, the one that called this election out of hubris and is now running around like a maniac hoping to not come out of it looking like twats (too late, idiots). And then there's the side led by a man who is that rarest of things, a politician who people actually like, and who wants to enact genuine change, and who has lit a fire under the young in an unprecedented manner.

Last year, I urged my elders to listen to the young, and the need for you to do so has only gotten more pressing since then. No matter what Bob Geldof might think, this isn't just a Brexit election: there's a chance to bring some hope back to Britain, to start realigning this country as a positive force, a place I for one can be proud to be a part of again. And while part of me wants to enjoy the schadenfreude of watching the Conservatives deal with the Brexit beast they unleashed, the greater part of me fears what lies ahead, and worries a lot about facing another five years of Blue insanity. So yeah, I'm voting Labour, and I hope you are too. I don't even mind that we may not win: the cat is out of the bag, now, and unless the Conservatives absolutely nail Brexit, which, based on this campaign, they won't, then, come 2022, there will be a reckoning. I'd just rather not wait that long to be heard.