A girl, a ghost, and a lake: Another Code: Recollection Review

Another Code: Recollection is a compilation of Another Code: Two Memories (localized as Trace Memory) and its sequel Another Code: R–A Journey into Lost Memories (never before released in the US). I’ve always been curious about this pair, but other than a brief stay at Hotel Dusk, my only experience with developer Cing’s back catalog is exclusively through YouTube video essays (Hikikomori Media’s channel, especially). If you don’t care about spoilers, I would recommend checking out his thoughts on the franchise, how it came to be, and his deep dive into the changes that were made when remaking these titles for this bundle earlier this year. If you’re like me and prefer going into a game as blind as possible, stick around. The purpose of this piece is to serve as a broad look at what this collection includes and what it excels at. This is my first trip with Ashley, and as such, I can’t compare them to their source material unless Nintendo starts to drop DS and Wii games on their subscription service (do it Nintendo, I’m daring you). Ultimately, without the added context and the foreknowledge that I’m missing out on stamping puzzles by snapping my DS into sleep mode, this still feels like another win for giving us new ways to play old (or forgotten) games.

If you couldn’t guess from the titles, both games are centered on amnesia–which is becoming a theme in these reviews. I’m not complaining, it doesn’t feel like a lazy excuse here. The plot is centered on it and they do a solid job establishing memory loss as anything but convenient. In Two Memories, on the eve of her fourteenth birthday, Ashley Mizuki Robbins is called to a cursed estate on Blood Edward Island (or “Bledward” if you prefer) by her father who she believed to be dead for most of her life. Soon after she arrives, she’s separated from her guardian and  meets the ghost of a young boy named “D” who also only has a patchy recollection of who he was. Together they read documents, solve puzzles, and gradually fill the gaps in their family histories. 

Through the character of Ashley the developers managed to pull off the near impossible–a teenage protagonist that isn’t obnoxious. She has just enough angst that I found most of her reactions believable but never once rolled my eyes. She’s genuine, and doesn’t constantly deflect with quippy sarcasm. I like her a lot and I’m already lamenting that we’ll most likely never get a third adventure together. The voice acting is decent but isn’t going to win any awards (you have the option to switch to the Japanese audio or turn it off entirely). I only felt one character and a handful of line deliveries across both games could have used more smoothing in the studio. I can’t overstate how crucial it is to have competent performances in a game where advancing the plot is so dependent on conversations. The environments are also sprinkled with various knickknacks and objects to examine. Disappointingly, these observations rarely amount to more than commenting on the colors of flowers in a vase or how dusty everything is. Ashley obviously has a personality, this would have been the perfect place to show it off more. 

The sequel replaces the stuffy mansion with the small town of Lake Juliet, and if you play these back-to-back (which you’re going to whether you like it or not because the game literally drops you at a bus stop post-credits), you have to admit, it feels good to stretch your legs. That freedom here is, unfortunately,  mostly an illusion. You’re still guided from objective to objective and straying ten feet in the wrong direction will result in a dialogue box correcting your course. Even so, after the caverns and underground labs, it was nice to see the sky. 

A Journey into Lost Memories begins as an awkward camping trip but quickly snowballs into a fresh set of trauma blocks to work through. You experience more flashes of your deceased mother–but why would she bring you here? Overall, I found the sequel more compelling because of the extended cast of characters. The plot also does a better job of setting up story threads from the beginning and consistently weaves them together to show the connections that lurk just below the lake’s polluted surface in this deceptively sleepy community. It’s a shame that some of the conclusions are rushed and, even worse, resolved offscreen. It would have been nice to witness these reunions and benefit from these catharses considering I was doing all the work. 

With only a couple exceptions, the puzzles in both adventures are compartmentalized. This isn’t a point and click adventure from the nineties where you’ll be rubbing every item on every trigger hoping to stumble upon a Rosetta Stone to the developer’s thought process. If you’re ever stuck, chances are the solution is in the room with you. A few other trials and tribulations function more like mini games. While variety is almost always a good thing, these are overly dependent on motion controls. It’s a bad sign if at any point during your game I shout, “this would be easier in real life.” The sequel also adds timed button presses to unlock doors. This sounds simple, and boy howdy, I wish it was. Prepare to screw up repeatedly (you rotated a control stick the wrong way, that prompt was actually a hold, your tilt was just a little bit off) and hate yourself for it every time. There’s no permanent penalty for failure, but after being forced to retry the same “simple” task three times, I sure felt like one. 

Both games included in this collection have an attractive, clean, cel-shaded look. The Switch handles it well but it’s not being asked to do much (not that I ever expected the remake of a DS point and click puzzler to be a showcase of particle effects and ray tracing). More importantly, it runs flawlessly in handheld mode. It makes for a cozy experience, wedged in a pillow nest, with a mug of hot chocolate at the ready  (or cold brew until the weather cooperates). Just try to ignore the Nintendo 64 textures that are occasionally painted on the distant hills. 

The collection can be completed in around 15 hours and I found finishing a chapter a night as a wind down ritual before bed was the perfect pace for me. Even when the story gets dark (but nothing explored here pushes the “Teen” rating) few things can compete with the intrigue of a good mystery. I hope that publishers take more chances on this sort of endeavor in the future. It’s kind of become a battle cry for me and I’ll never shut up about it (and the announcement of a Lunar collection earlier this week has only emboldened me in this regard): Keep giving us new ways to play old games.

Correction: It’ll be my battle cry and I’ll keep shouting about it AT LEAST until we get official releases of Mother 3 and Rocket Slime 2.

“Not everyone needs to be saved. You should know that by now.”: Alone in the Dark 2024

The original Alone in the Dark is commonly credited with the creation of the survival horror genre; but, like most gamers that developed a love for fixed cameras, tank controls, and item management in the mid-nineties, I jumped straight to Resident Evil. Leon and Claire’s escape from the Raccoon City police station is one of the cornerstones of why I’m obsessed with video games. I circled back around to its predecessor with the release of Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare but by then it had already inherited many characteristics of its more popular cousin. Like Resident Evil 2, it came in one of those sexy, chunky PlayStation cases reserved for games with multiple discs–but other than some gorgeous prerendered backgrounds and impressive weather and shadow effects, my only memory associated with it is that it contains a 40+ page document which you’ll need to at least skim if you hope to absorb the lore (this document is conveniently placed in the mansion’s library, ten feet away from a dialogue trigger that states “I don’t have time to read”). 

I eventually crossed paths with the franchise again at the height of my hunting for platinum trophies on the Ps3. Alone in the Dark 2008 was meant to act as a reboot and had series regular Edward Carnby burning “evil” trees in a semi open world Central Park (it was also developed to show off all the bells and whistles of a fancy new engine). Electricity leaps, flames spread, and you examine gashes in your torso from a first-person perspective to guess at the status of your health. I think I’d appreciate 2008 and all of its strange systems more now, but like The New Nightmare, as it stands, its lasting legacy for me is a YouTube compilation of some of the dumbest dialogue ever spoken in a video game. Also, if I ever needed to catch something on fire, it was easier to stand directly in the inferno–flames rolling off my long coat like a heavy rain. If I remember correctly, all melee attacks were assigned to a control stick, so making slow sweeps with a chair or a two-by-four through fire felt as accurate as buttering bread with a toothbrush.

This probably sounds like I’m nitpicking or judging the past entries too harshly but it’s honestly the space in my gaming history that they occupy. Any narrative twists have long since been overshadowed by an avalanche of weirdness. I don’t necessarily think this applies 1:1, but my trips to Central Park and Shadow Island are not that different from watching a “so bad it’s good” movie–the sort that spawns inside jokes in your friend group for years to come. They’re remembered fondly–but maybe not for the reasons the creators intended. 

When I saw that yet another reboot was announced, naturally, I was curious what direction this one would take. I was also immediately onboard because (and this is mostly thanks to Resident Evil, as well), I’ve never needed much convincing to play anything that’s even a little spooky. If the reviews from the larger media outlets are to be believed, it’s supposed to be pretty good. 

Alone in the Dark 2024 (which I will refer to simply as Alone in the Dark from here on out–any remaining comparisons will be to other contemporary titles) offers dual protagonists: Edward Carnby (played by Stranger Things’s David Harbour) and Emily Hartwood (played by Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer). In addition to their voice acting, the development team went full Kojima and scanned their likenesses. The bulk of the marketing material leading up to release put the cast front and center. I initially felt this was a bad sign, like the team was spending time and resources on something flashy with little to no impact, but in practice I didn’t find it distracting and their charisma goes a long way towards selling the plot. For my first run, I decided to go with the big man himself. After all, we had a history. 

The game opens with Emily on a long drive to retrieve her uncle Jeremy from a sort of estate turned sanitarium named Decerto in the Deep South. Carnby, who she hired back in New Orleans to act as extra muscle, is along for the ride. Upon arrival they discover that Jeremy is missing and finding him is going to be more complicated than wandering the bayou and fending off alligators. As the clues gradually reveal themselves, things get darker and increasingly Lovecraftian. 

The story is primarily told between notes, journal entries, and dialogue trees with the various Lynchian residents of the sanitarium. It can’t be overstated, there is A LOT of talking and all of it, from the objectives to the documents, is fully narrated. You can practically taste the accents the actors have chosen for their respective roles. However, these scraps of narrative aren’t a strike against Alone in the Dark. After all, the monologues are optional. You can mute the dramatic readings or exit the menu at any time. I found it’s one of the stronger things that differentiates itself from recent Resident Evils. The memos scattered across Racoon City are usually there to clunkily foreshadow a boss or provide a code for a nearby safe (ironically, the one time the notes do provide dirt on a boss, your character conveniently forgets and starts stabbing randomly to avoid its weak point–exactly three times, because video games). They don’t do the heavy lifting and they’re not what makes that series special. In Alone in the Dark they create a sense of place. We’re detectives. We’re investigating. 

That lingering flavor that laces these drawls is overwhelmingly of tobacco. Not since Metal Gear Solid 4’s install screens has a game had such an emphasis on drinking and smoking. Alone in the Dark is attempting to be a noir and it’s clinging to those hardboiled bones–but each flick of a lighter or strike of a match still made me chuckle. Almost every exchange, regardless of circumstances, is punctuated with some vice. Is it time to question a child? I’m going to need to light up to get through this one.

The interiors of the estate that make up the majority of the runtime would be at home on the PlayStation 2. Not graphically, the assets aren’t chunky and the textures aren’t grainy, but the layout contributes to a sense of emptiness. Some areas are littered with stacks of old books and overgrowth, but others contain a bed, a desk, and miles of floor space in between. I don’t doubt that the inhabitants of Decerto live in these spaces, but I also find it believable that they’d regularly look for excuses to not spend any time in their quarters.

As you explore the mansion (which you do by completing slide puzzles, cross-referencing zodiac signs, and collecting keys), you’ll regularly be pulled into a cemetery, foggy shipyard, or a swamp with fires burning in the distance. Reality at Decerto is flimsy. It’s cool (and it beats covering the same 10,000 square feet repeatedly) but Alone in the Dark has the bad luck of following Alan Wake 2. In Remedy’s modern masterpiece, new locations and deadly shadows spring to life seamlessly with the flash of a lightbulb. Here it’s more jarring–sudden in a clunky way. It’s still an interesting choice and fundamentally a good thing, but the transitions are noticeably primitive in comparison to its contemporaries. 

The controls are standard for a third-person shooter and combat, while nothing special, is passable. So passable it lured me into a false sense of security early on. I spent the first encounters slowly lining up headshots as creatures closed the distance. I should’ve known that this was risky to attempt but I was confident I’d inflict enough damage to drop my target before they entered bludgeoning range. But no, I failed, and there I was embarrassed, pinned at the end of an alley, getting beat on like a sack of meat by a sack of meat.

Speaking of bludgeoning, you also have a melee attack mapped to a shoulder button for finishing or creating space. Weapon durability encourages  you to cycle through the available arsenal as your pickaxe or pipe snaps off after only a handful of swings. The assets that clutter the stages turn into a nuisance here. You’ve been smacking eldritch beings with a shovel for hours but you’re only allowed to use SPECIFIC shovels. Throwable objects also blemish the combat arenas. It’s nice to have one more wrinkle in what are otherwise straightforward fights, but they reveal themselves too early and dull the suspense. It’s the same feeling as when you enter a new location while playing a cover shooter and it’s packed with waist high crates. 

If it isn’t obvious from the screenshots I chose for this review, the art direction, effects, and graphics frequently come together to create moments of uneasy wonder. Unfortunately,  I still ran into a few technical issues. I once sprinted past a trigger to drop down and ended up suspended in midair until I loaded a previous save (Alone in the Dark offers a healthy amount of manual save slots and I suggest you abuse them regularly). More frustrating, I encountered a glitch where anytime I picked up a hatchet in game text would inform me I was “full on hatchets” and delete whatever melee weapon I was carrying–leaving me empty handed (and usually surrounded by things trying to kill me). I promise you, I wasn’t full on hatchets. I never figured out a fix for this. Luckily, the former glitch occurred 80% of the way through the story and as long as I remembered NOT to top off my hatchet supply, I was fine. Apparently, I have a terrible memory. 

So should you play it? Yes.

Should you play it twice? That’s a more complicated question.

As I mentioned above, Alone in the Dark offers dual protagonists and invites the player to experience two sides of the same story. This is a bit of an exaggeration. While many of the conversations contain unique dialogue for each character, I rarely came away with a deeper perspective of the events than I did the first time. It’s like reading an essay with different body paragraphs but the same thesis and conclusion. The game tries to make up for this by offering a unique level for both Carnby and Emily–so you’ll need to weigh if that one twenty minute  section is worth the retread. My first run clocked in at exactly eight hours (the trophy for eight hours of play time literally popped during the last boss) while my second, with forbidden knowledge of the puzzles and mansion layout, took a little over four. If you decide to take the plunge and experience “the full story” just know those subsequent trips are basically sprints. There are multiple endings to unlock (in fact, I stumbled on to one of the stranger secret endings on my second playthrough), but unless you’re actively pursuing a speedrun world record, the other conclusions are best left to a YouTube compilation.

In what has become the oppressive reality for the video game industry over the last 18 months, Pieces Interactive, the studio that developed Alone in the Dark, was shut down when it “performed below management expectations.” It’s worth mentioning (in the same way when someone is murdered it’s worth mentioning the killer) that these expectations were set by the Embracer Group–a company that gobbles up legacy IPs, dumps them in developers laps, micromanages, mismanages, and eventually cuts staff to celebrate another job well done. Bonuses for all the top brass that don’t make anything! While at this point it’s easy to be numb, these layoffs feel especially tragic because there’s something here. As I established in the introduction, I wouldn’t consider myself a die-hard fan but this is easily my favorite entry in the franchise. I don’t doubt a sequel would have been spectacular.  Pieces built the solid foundation of a haunted house. It’s a shame it was being looked after by shitty landlords. 

My Favorite Power Fantasy of the Year: Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun Review

“In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.”

The 40k in Warhammer 40K refers to the year 40,000. Instead of an era of enlightenment and scientific advancement the human race (and the super soldiers that have ascended to demigod status) has reverted to the Dark Ages–superstition feeds every aspect of a perpetual motion machine of violence that spirals across the galaxy. It’s still the distant future. Plasma rifles and space travel exist, but so do witch hunters and planet-spanning gothic cathedrals. Words like “heresy” and “chaos” get thrown around a lot. 

Anyone who is fully embedded in the Warhammer hobby would probably agree that this description, while accurate, is an oversimplification. After all, you can summarize the Lord of the Rings in a single sentence but that almost requires you to willfully ignore the fiery mountains of supplementary material–the maps, the histories, the creation of entire fictional languages. Middle-earth is a buffet, but you can choose to enjoy it in single servings. 

I’m familiar with 40K, but I’m not an expert. The lone tome I’ve finished in the Black Library (the publishing imprint dedicated to expanding Warhammer’s lore at the speed and scope of a supernova) is a 400 page rulebook for the tabletop game. Unless you have a friend group that’s already been indoctrinated, every entry point is intimidating and nothing comes cheap (a forum post I read a decade ago converted the price of the official model paint to the price of gasoline–the end result didn’t favor the consumer). All I’m saying is, at the peak of my interest, I could only afford one bank account draining pastime and I chose traveling across the country to collect tattoos, instead. 

If it’s not obvious from that comparison to literal oil prices, Games Workshop (the company that owns the Warhammer license) loves money, and as a result, isn’t picky about who gets to make video games based on their IP. Seeing that two-headed eagle logo grace box art is hardly a seal of quality. Luckily, that cynicism doesn’t apply here, because Auroch Digital’s Boltgun is awesome. 

Boltgun is what has come to be known in recent years as a “boomer shooter”--games built by modern devs that recreate the structure and feel of the genre before Half-Life, before Halo, and before Call of Duty. Previously, these would have been called Doom clones (though, in this specific case, the Doom comparison might be the most appropriate). It includes all the ripping and tearing you’d expect and sprinkles (splatters) its own brand of fanaticism into the mix. A divine chorus literally sings when you pluck the eponymous Boltgun off an altar early in the first level. It’s that kind of game. 

Combat is consistently vicious and finds a solid balance between fighting for your life and establishing that you’re meant to be feared. A couple hours in I’d finished clearing an encounter when I thought I saw an enemy sneaking up on me from the corner of my eye (even though stealth is not a tactic these cultists employ even once during Boltgun’s 10-12 hour runtime). I spun, finger ready on the trigger and my eye trained down the sights, only to discover that the movement I’d spotted was chunks of the group I’d just vanquished still falling to the floor. It’s that kind of game. 

The Series X handles this carnage remarkably well with the exception of some mid-level loads. They’re not the momentum killing transitions of Half-Life 2, but they do hang just long enough for me to question if my console locked up. I would have preferred the designers funnel me into a Jak and Daxter style lift to make these skips less jarring but they barely detract from the experience. After all, less time dedicated to riding elevators means more time killing. 

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun by Auroch Digital, screenshot by me

You’ll gradually build an arsenal of eight firearms and three grenade types. For some reason your collection is removed at the beginning of each act (I know this was standard for some shooters of the era Auroch is emulating here, but it’s odd the designers chose to inherit this specific sin). If a weapon doesn’t appeal to you, you’ll almost never need to settle. The handful of times my bullets ran dry it was just because I hadn’t circled around to the side of the arena with the appropriate ammo pickups. Combat operates on a very basic system of power levels. The bigger the numbers, the better at dropping the enemies with big numbers attached to their life bars. Though even the starting weapon is capable of transforming your quarry into unidentifiable mulch in just a handful of shots. 

The simple cutscenes and briefings are a pleasant surprise, but don’t be fooled by the complexity of your crusade, you fight this menace primarily by pulling levers and gathering keys. Heavy backtracking is rare, the level design is excellent in that regard. The devs consistently find new ways to make the same industrial complexes, cathedrals, and caves feel dramatic. A quick note to all designers reading this, no more M.C. Escher inspired portal mazes. I’m pretty sure there’s never been a good one. 

A few annoyances manage to crest just above this ocean of blood. The floating skull assigned to you, your traveling companion, is worthless. This is partly because his comments are confined to a text box in the top left of the screen (though this is probably a blessing in disguise considering how often he chooses to chime in). As it stands, he solely exists as a dispenser for bad information. One time, after I got turned around in one of Boltgun’s cavernous arenas, he informed me that a door had been located. I searched for five more minutes before I realized the door was actually an elevator. On a different occasion he told me I’d completed my purge while I was still being shot from multiple directions. 

Sir, I think you are mistaken. 

All the other details around the edges are very Warhammer. Your armor is named “contempt.” Your melee attack is a sword and chainsaw hybrid (or a “chainsword” if you prefer the technical term). The weight of your footsteps could crack ribs and echo satisfyingly with every stomp. On the Xbox controller, the Y button acts as a flavor text trigger. Each press has your protagonist yell things like “my sword is hatred” and “triumph or oblivion” with full conviction. These aren’t that different from the aspirations I bark in the mirror before sitting down to write essays about video games. 

The pause and post level screens provide a breakdown of villains vanquished and secrets discovered for completionists. Confusingly, the percentage of enemies killed seems to be based on the number that have spawned in to that point. I stress the “seems to be” in that sentence. This makes it impossible to gauge how much progress you’ve made in a given level (most run a uniform 20-25 minutes). The secrets are, unfortunately, a bit limp. The items contained in these nooks (frequently crammed into the backside of a storage container or a high ledge) are always useful, but the minimal exploration required to find them rarely felt stimulating. Though I guess a grenade that can banish an entire room of chaos soldiers to another dimension is supposed to be its own reward. 

I recommend Boltgun. For me, it was the best way to engage with a hobby I would have continued to neglect, otherwise. It’s on Game Pass (that alone should considerably cut down the intimidation factor for most people who are at least a little bit curious). I was able to bless my hands with the blood of my enemies without the need to scrape superglue and model paint crust from under my fingernails. Hopefully, it won’t be my last crusade–devs working in this shared universe have been on a spectacular run lately with titles like Necromunda, Rogue Trader, Chaos Gate, and Space Marine 2 (the latter is set to launch in September). Though I may need to upgrade to a mansion with a room dedicated to display cases before I commit to piecing together any miniatures.

“This Game Should Not Be Played to Win”: Playing Amnesia: Rebirth Before it Leaves Game Pass

I haven't seen many people talk about Amnesia: Rebirth. 

This silence, by default, could be interpreted as it being a weak link in the otherwise decorated series. The first entry,  Amnesia: The Dark Descent, was churning out viral clips of players screaming into their mics years before Five Nights at Freddy’s turned jump scares into big business. By the following Halloween, it was already appearing on lists of the scariest games of all time. I’ve never read a piece that doesn’t consider SOMA a triumph (while not technically an Amnesia game, we lump Bloodborne and Sekiro in with the Souls series and I feel the same treatment applies here). Amnesia: The Bunker was almost universally praised for taking the franchise in new directions. As the lettuce in this influential sandwich, any accolades that Rebirth once had have faded. I vaguely remember it receiving average reviews upon release and not much else. This is a good thing coming back to it in 2024. If I’m not riding the zeitgeist and experiencing something in the moment I want to be surprised, (I want to be scared). You could even say I have amnesia about all the baggage, good and bad, surrounding the project. 

I’m sorry, let’s get on with the review. 

Some additional context for anyone reading this without a video game background (translation: my family). Game Pass is a Microsoft subscription service. It operates similar to Netflix or any other streaming platform. Titles cycle in, titles cycle out, and you usually have a warning of about two weeks before a game is dropped. It’s enough of a window to impulsively play a cozy indie (or, apparently, a terrifying puzzle adventure), but probably not enough for that 50+ hour RPG you’ve been putting off. Seeing something intriguing in the “leaving soon” section has been my push to finally take the plunge on multiple occasions (god forbid I actually have to pay for it). I enjoy digital athleticism every so often–and in this case it’s definitely a sprint, not a marathon. 

Okay, on to the review for real this time.

In Rebirth you play as Tasi. You’re on a mysterious expedition when the plane goes down in the Algerian Desert. After you’ve wiped the sand from your eyes, you set out to find your husband, decipher the fate of your party, and survive the elements (which, this being a horror title, quickly turns into surviving nastier things). Within ten minutes it’s obvious that there’s more going on narratively than what is being presented (even if you discount the flashes of an alien city we see in the opening cutscene). You’re retracing your steps, but how could that be possible if our story begins with pulling ourselves from the wreckage? She’s an unreliable narrator–but also doesn’t recall enough details to convincingly lie to us. It’s almost like she has amnesia about–never mind, she actually does. 

From that first area, sheltered from the sun beneath the crumpled wing of your aircraft, I was impressed by the assets. Not much is being endlessly reused to clutter tabletops and shelves. Some items, like cameras and sextants, I don’t recall appearing in any other location. They look good, feel lovingly crafted, and despite being entirely handled by disembodied limbs two feet in front of your character, carry an appropriate weight. I spent too long at the crash site picking through every piece of luggage. This wasn’t conducive to finishing before my arbitrary deadline (or before the sun boiled the skin off my bones). 

Also from those first steps, I imagine most players will take issue with the movement speed. I’d argue it’s more deliberate than slow. It’s the pace you’d expect a real person to keep while crossing crumbling floorboards or shifting sand (or sneaking past spindly creatures). However, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t regularly check if the crouch was toggled on. 

I’ve always been interested in the unique challenge of injecting horror into sun-scarred landscapes (these might not be the most original examples, but Resident Evil 5 and Spec Ops: The Line come to mind). And while you begin by scurrying from shadow to shadow to survive the dunes, you employ the opposite tactic as soon as you move below ground. Staying in the dark for too long floods Tasi with intrusive thoughts and drains her sanity. Luckily, there’s a wide variety of darknesses–from an otherworldly emerald to a dusty red as the setting sun bleeds through dirty windows. It helps differentiate the environments over the nine hour runtime. 

Eventually you’ll pick up a lantern that guzzles oil like someone who orders extra dressing at an Olive Garden unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks lunch; but until then, matches are your most precious resource. Each strike of sulfur on phosphorus transforms Rebirth into a game of how many torches and braziers can you reach before the flame winks out (the faster you run, the faster the matches burn). In those early areas when you don’t have any frame of reference for their scarcity, the designers knew exactly how many to give you. Finding two is worthy of taking a deep breath–three feels like a miracle. Unfortunately, you can’t ignite the dry brush and kindling that litters your path and pokes through the rock. It’s probably an unrealistic expectation that an indie would include a fire propagation system, but it was a stark and regular reminder I was playing a video game, and therefore, playing by Frictional’s rules. 

The majority of the narrative plays out in notes and flashbacks. The voice acting is mostly strong, and despite face-to-face meetings with your former comrades being sparse, I had no issue keeping the members of the sizable cast straight. Disappointingly, the story also has an over-reliance on Tasi waking up in new locations. It’s a convenient way to teleport where we need to be (some stretches already involve too much walking–I’m looking at you dust mote dark world), but it happened so frequently my suspension of disbelief began to sag. If Tasi really is being knocked out repeatedly, she should enter concussion protocol and take the rest of the game off. 

After a few “levels,” Tasi remembers that she’s pregnant (again, amnesia, I blame the concussions). This introduces a mechanic where the player can press a button to check on their unborn child (from a gameplay perspective, this allows you to calm your nerves represented by black tendrils squirming at the screen’s edge). I recently finished Boltgun which included a dedicated button for screaming at heretics. More games that aren’t already utilizing every trigger, toggle, and stick should add something unique to the world they’re building. As controllers get more complicated, I feel there’s real potential here.   

The “game over” sequence is as terrible as any I’ve ever experienced. Getting grabbed by a ghoul or smacked one too many times means being treated to 20 seconds of flashing images followed by Tasi writhing around for an additional 20 as she collects herself. “I need to keep going,” she repeats in an effort to convince herself to persevere and convince us not to turn the console off. You could argue that there’s a narrative reason that death is presented this way, but I would have preferred anything else. I only met my maker maybe five times during my playthrough, but each was accompanied by an eye roll and a quick bathroom break or water refill. 

Sadly, this consistent blow to the pacing isn’t the worst thing I encountered in eldritch Algiers.

I was 80% of the way through the story when my Series X hard crashed. This crash occurred at the end of an unskippable, five minute tram ride. Rebirth auto saves in the background on console (the only way to save manually is to quit to the main menu) so my lost progress didn’t crush my morale. No big deal, I thought, it had been smooth sailing to that point. This was nothing more than a hiccup. 

I loaded, boarded the tram, and it crashed again. 

Apparently this is a known issue that has plagued the game for years. One forum suggested I replay the previous level. I did–another crash. A different post said I could circumvent the glitch by moving slowly. This time I kept my eyes trained on the tile to avoid overstimulating Tasi (or my console’s memory, I guess). Crash. After fiddling with various fixes for an hour, I did what any sane person invested in the story would do…

I watched the last hour on YouTube. 

That probably paints the title of this piece (which is also the line that opens the game) in a new light. 

So the real question, and the point of this review I suppose, should you bother playing it? If you manage to hack your way past the tram of death, it has multiple endings, and while they do a sufficient job of explaining what has been going on the whole time, I ultimately found each unsatisfying. As I mentioned in the intro, I played on Game Pass which meant my financial investment was minimal (and was probably the difference between my tech issues being annoying and devastating). It’s not an exaggeration to say it saved the experience. Amnesia: Rebirth is the embodiment of the cliche that it’s the journey, not the destination. If you decide to make the trek across the desert, just be aware that in all likelihood, your final destination is an error window on your homescreen.

A Lizard to the Past: Lil Gator Game Review

When I was in middle school, I would regularly recruit friends along with my army of siblings to play elaborate games of Resident Evil around my house. Not in the basic style of cops and robbers (though I guess this would be zombies and S.T.A.R.S.) but an adventure that mirrored its source material. I would design full campaigns with maps, items, puzzles, ammo counts, and (attempted) jump scares as I threw my shambling body out of closets and around blind corners. Players would escape Raccoon City’s fiery fate–if they could meticulously follow directions. Most of the time we ended up soft locked somewhere between the diamond and club keys. 

Lil Gator Game recreates that experience of adapting a digital game, to a real life adventure, and then back into a digital game–but replace Resident Evil with The Legend of Zelda. It’s bite-sized Breath of the Wild (if you’re playing a drinking game based on how often I make that comparison, I’ll do my best to flex my writing muscles so you don’t die of alcohol poisoning by the end of this essay). It’s a scheme to convince your big sister, who is home on fall vacation, to take a break from her studies and join in. This game within the game is being played in the imaginations of the critters scattered across the island. As an outsider, the one actually holding the controller, we have a more objective point of view. We see the enemies are cardboard cutouts (which can be recycled into cosmetics and gear)--we see the gradual transformation of the central playground into a castle town worthy of ignoring a group project for a few hours (your sister is probably doing all the work, anyway). There are no Power Stars or Triforce Pieces to collect. Your primary currency on the island is friends. I’m happy to report that these participants are more willing to drop what they’re doing and contribute than the individuals I was working with over twenty years ago. 

So much personality and care has been put into the animations of these characters. Walk cycles are rare–scampering, toddling, and ninja running is more common. Our protagonist panics and flails as he loses his grip climbing cliff sides (the stamina wheel is pulled straight from Breath of the Wild, but there’s no precipitation or fall damage to rain on your parade). Swimming is refreshingly fast–you play as an alligator, after all. I was worried during the tutorial because the initial melee attacks felt like swinging a stick (your beginner sword is a literal stick); but my concerns were soon forgotten after I upgraded to a weapon more befitting of a hero (which also upgraded my limp slices to a three hit combo). It’s worth mentioning that, while you have an attack, there’s no traditional combat. The flat rate shipping and masking tape abominations don’t put up much of a fight. 

The writing is excellent. It’s cute but not too cute–it’s smart but doesn’t drag. While the topics explored are deeper than you might expect in a title with talking animals and a palette of pastels, nothing presented here is so complicated (or too mature) that younger gamers won’t get a sense of what’s happening even if they aren’t able to read every layer of subtext. Most quests are simple and can be completed in under five minutes (some only last a single conversation). I won’t spoil any by providing extra context, but my favorites involve battling an alien mothership while another references a franchise famous for picking apart contradictions. The ending is perfect and actually feels earned. It made me choke up. 

My only minor complaint, for as approachable as the overall package is, it’s strangely lacking in quality of life features. I respect that the designers at MegaWobble are trying to evoke a simpler time before games became a sprint between markers on a map (Lil Gator Game doesn’t even include a map) but a little more clutter in your spiral bound notebook menus could have gone a long way. At least you’re gifted with a pair of useful gadgets for post game clean up (for this reason, I highly recommend beating it before chasing 100%). None of this impacted my playthrough negatively, Lil Gator Game would not be a better experience with the inclusion of fast travel, but it still would have been nice to have a means of keeping track of how many pieces of trash I needed to satisfy the raccoon shopkeeper. 

The soundtrack is competent, but my god, I wish there was more of it. I believe the triggers for the different songs are region specific (this track plays when you’re in the area with autumn leaves, this track plays when you’re exploring the peaks). To their credit, the handful of songs do evolve over time. They’re upbeat and quirky if you’re running through an area on the way to turn in a quest. If you’re circling the same thicket of bushes looking for something you missed, it’s a different story. 

I hit credits in three casual sittings and dipped back in for one more to finish exploring and craft everything I could get my reptilian claws on. Lil Gator Game doesn’t overstay its welcome and is as charming in the first few minutes as it is in the final hour. As meta as this sounds, it’s the perfect thing to play with your children or a younger sibling. Even if it’s technically a solo journey, games are meant to be played together. Sometimes the simple joys in life come from simple places.

The Showcase with At Least Two Cat Games: Nintendo Indie World Impressions 4/17/24

I don’t think we’ve had a “true” Nintendo Direct since last September. Part of me is thankful for the break after an absolutely stacked Q1 2024.

But is it really a break? 

Stellar Blade launches next week, Hellblade II is a month away, and Diablo IV just landed on Game Pass. 

Once you’ve finished clawing your way out of that backlog avalanche, here are my first impressions of everything Nintendo brought for us today:

Little Kitty, Big City

Stray was released in 2022 and now enough time has passed that we’re starting to get Stray-likes. 

I’m not actually making that comparison because this seems concerned with different things. It’s cute, but I’m willing to bet it will die or thrive based on its movement. Does taking that big stretch feel right? At the very least, this cat won’t wake me up three times a night to be let out of the house. In my current, sleep deprived state, that seems worthy of  a preorder. 

Yars Rising

WayForward is one of my favorite developers–and I have no attachment to Atari as a brand. As always, I wish this had pixel graphics or hand drawn animation (a not so subtle way of me saying I wish it looked more like Shantae), but the gameplay appears solid and I’m ready to get obsessed over new characters and a new soundtrack.

Refind Self: The Personality Test Game

I love the look of this, especially the character portraits  (the limited color palette reads as Game Boy but it might  be a bit too detailed for that). As you may have guessed from the title, you’ll be assigned a personality type as you progress through narrative decisions. I’ll be curious to see if I’m able to turn my brain off and play honestly, if that makes any sense. 

Sticky Business

I’ve never been a sticker person. Maybe I have commitment issues, I wouldn’t want to “waste” a cool sticker on something destined to not be around forever. That’s not a complaint against this game, of course (it has capybaras, sushi, and ravens so it’s basically immune to all criticism). It’s adorable and has been a regular at these showcases. I have no doubt it’ll find its audience (even if that audience isn’t me). 

Antonblast

Is there a rule that all these “run back to the start” platformers are required to look this way? I suppose the thick lines and cartoonish proportions lend themselves well to chaos and shit getting smashed. Also, does this specific type of platformer have a name yet? PizzaTower-like?  We should figure that out because we’re about to see a lot of them and my placeholder name sucks. 

Valley Peaks

The first-person platforming has me a little concerned; but filling out stamp cards is one of my favorite side activities in games (though it was a superficial mechanic, trading quests for stamps is a lasting memory for me from Ni No Kuni). 

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

I’m intrigued, but I also think players expect more from this kind of game since the release of Device 6 (it’s the same developer so they should be up to the task). Aesthetically it’s what I gravitate towards (it’s one coffee shy of Twin Peaks). I’ll be keeping my eye on this one with laser focus. 

Europa

It’s still very pretty. 

At this point, I’m wondering what this game has to offer beyond exploration. It would be amazing if the “building something better” mentioned in this trailer was literal and it inherited some Dark Cloud DNA. A demo is available today so I’ll finally have an opportunity to find out. 

TMNT: Splintered Fate

I have a confession: I don’t care about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The fact that this is a roguelike is also not doing it any favors. However, I thoroughly enjoyed Shredder’s Revenge (in no small part because of the excellent soundtrack from Tee Lopes). 

We’ll see. 

Cat Quest III

Another cat game!

The colors are gorgeous, I’m a sucker for maps, and I love how the devs have chosen to present the overworld here. Plus there’s an NPC named “Momma Milka” so you could say we’re in good hands.

Stitch

A puzzle game based on embroidery. I was initially disappointed because laying down stitches seemed to be too automated, but my fears diminished the deeper we got into the trailer. The advertised touch controls are a blessing because dragging and dropping with the Switch sticks seems anxiety inducing. 

This was one of my favorite surprises of the day. 

BZZZT

BZZZT marks the beginning of this event’s sizzle reel. 

Amazing pixels and amazing movement. This is not a “surprise” in the conventional sense because I’ve been following the developer on Twitter for a while; but I was ecstatic to see it included. 

After the dust has settled, and all these titles are released,  it wouldn’t be a shock if this was the highest reviewed game of everything shown today. 

SCHiM

SCHiM is a collection of traversal puzzles using Splatoon swim mechanics as our little guy hops between shadows. You’ll be hitching rides on vans, forklifts, and a tire swing as it sways back and forth. It will hopefully make a splash when it launches this July. 

ANIMAL WELL

A Metroidvania buried beneath a haze of CRT scanlines. ANIMAL WELL gives off a vibe that’s difficult to describe–it’s somehow simultaneously haunting and relaxing. 

I love that gigantic chameleon. 

Duck Detective: The Secret Salami

Considering the Untitled Goose obsessives that I live with, I’m not going to be able to avoid this one even if I wanted to (I DO want to play it but it’s worth mentioning). I hope the deductions aren’t as simple as they appear in the trailers. Make me work for my breadcrumbs.

Another Crab’s Treasure 

…And this concludes the sizzle reel. 

I’ve written about Another Crab’s Treasure before (a quirky, undersea souslike). It’s out on Game Pass next week and I’m planning to play it soon after as long as I have the hard drive space. It’s the sort of thing I’d enjoy reviewing, so if it’s decent, you can look forward to that. 

Steamworld Heist II

I’ve never dabbled in Steamworld. The characters and universe don’t appeal to me. Plus, there are multiple games across multiple genres and I have no idea where to start. However, I’m getting to that special age where submarines are irresistibly cool, it looks clean, and I’m a fan of the literal fog of war that needs to be cleared from the map. Who doesn’t love a heist? This might be my entry point. 

I’m not even going to make a Silksong joke (Twitter has me covered, there were thousands of them yesterday). No megaton announcements, but it was nice to have a showcase with very little padding. The producers could have easily packed 50 games in–but that would have made for a bloated presentation and an even more repetitive write-up.

Things are just starting to get hot where I’m at which seems like a good excuse to stay inside and play video games. And if I never do one of these essays again, I might actually finish a few.

Another Job Well Done: Thinking Man’s Destruction in Teardown

Your demolition business is crumbling. 

Luckily, a shady cast of characters are willing to help dig you out of debt if you perform a series of heists for them. After all, when the insurance companies and investigators are picking through the rubble, is anyone really going to notice if a few valuables go missing? These dastardly deeds will take you to dockyards, mansions, power stations, tropical islands, and even an amateur amusement park…

And you can destroy almost every square foot of them. 

However, your targets (vaults, fine art, and fast cars) are usually wired and triggering an alarm means you have one minute to finish any remaining objectives and sprint to your escape vehicle. The loop of Teardown is to use that near limitless destruction to plan the most efficient route through the game’s environments. Sometimes this is as simple as parking cars in the right places so you can zip between buildings or chipping away a few layers of brick and stucco to snatch a painting through a wall instead of navigating pesky door frames (the real world nemesis of my poor elbows and wrists). It’s a puzzle game–a puzzle game dusted with a dry rub of gunpowder. 

As you rank up and your clients get more demanding, you unlock the instruments you’d expect to find in a game built around blowing shit up: a blowtorch, pipe bombs, a variety of firearms. My personal favorite is a shotgun that doesn’t discriminate against what material it’s fired at. It can breach doors, gates, and walls without slowing your sprint or starting fires (literally, smoke detectors will also alert the proper authorities–combustion is just one more consideration when selecting the right tool for the job). Not that I have to be at that range, but I’m a surgeon with that shotgun.

In a stroke of genius, your starting kit also includes an unlimited supply of yellow spray paint.  It’s perfect for marking paths so you have one less thing to keep straight when you’re on the clock (that is, if you haven’t learned to just bore tunnels through every structure, yet). Fear not, video game Twitter, the yellow paint is optional. 

This level of chaos comes with constant unintentional comedy. For example, an early mission called for me to remove a safe from the second floor of a seaside office. The safe is too heavy to carry. I remedied this by stealing a nearby crane to yank it free. Extraction was going smoothly–until the crane tipped over on its side. No problem, I thought, the safe was still attached, I could fix things by nudging the crane until the treads could find just enough traction to get upright again. Over the next fifteen minutes, I created a traffic jam as I crashed every car and piece of machinery on the map into that crane which only seemed to dig itself deeper into the pavement. I’d crafted a pile of defeat, a monument to my failure. 

I decided to restart. 

The world of Teardown is composed entirely of voxels (volumetric pixels–think of the blocks in Minecraft), but don’t let this seemingly primitive style deter you because this game is gorgeous. The cubes aren’t uniform here which allows for more detail, and when layered with the lighting and environmental effects, the package sings. When it rains, it comes down in sheets. When fires inevitably ignite, they spread, illuminating the stage in a crackling  glow. Despite my passion for packing fuel tanks and flammables into every nook and cranny, my framerate never dipped on PS5. 

I should specify, my framerate never dipped during the story. 

In sandbox mode the limitations of your inventory are lifted. This provides the opportunity to create a twisting path of nitroglycerin capsules–whose explosive chain reaction can turn the game into a slideshow. This probably won’t affect the majority of people who try Teardown. I admit, I was looking for trouble. 

The narrative is minimal but appreciated. Not a carrot on a stick but cream cheese frosting on a carrot cake. It’s told almost entirely through emails that double as mission briefings (PowerWash Simulator is still the king for this style of storytelling, in my opinion). It’s an amusing touch that your clients are fixated on using you to repeatedly screw each other over. It’s like Yojimbo or A Fistful of Dollars with more sledgehammers. 

Unfortunately, most likely because of all this freedom, the finer mechanics are not as precise as you would want them to be. For instance, at one point, you gain the ability to build simple structures out of wooden planks. During a run, I noticed that the wings of a mansion were close enough together that I could shave ten seconds off my time by constructing a bridge between the two. It was a brilliant idea–but my thumbs became a tangled mess of shoulder button presses, stick swivels, and minor camera adjustments as I struggled to get the angles exactly right. I eventually made it work–but you better believe I kept a quicksave locked and loaded (and reloaded and reloaded) until it was perfect. If you can think of a strategy, you can probably pull it off–even if it means pulling all your hair out in the process. 

While the game feel isn’t perfect the overall experience IS perfectly balanced. The clever way the targets are spread out in each level meant I was never comfortable (I pulled myself into the driver seat of my escape van on many of the jobs with less than a second on the clock). It consistently kept me curious if I could sneak in an extra detour to acquire an extra valuable. It made me strive to be the best thief I could be not because of the promise of a higher score or arbitrary completion percentage but because it’s fun. 

The second half of the campaign attempts to alter the formula and the results are mixed. Replaying a flooded version of a familiar level is a nice change of pace–holding a button for five seconds to “hack” instead of planting explosives is less exciting–moving clunky, heavy barrels to an extraction point isn’t even a little bit. These deviations aren’t all bad, but even with the added variety, it never reaches the highs of when you’re just beginning to test the boundaries of what’s possible with a new toy. 

The soundtrack is barely worth mentioning. The song that plays while you make your escape is fittingly intense with just a touch of jazz (it helps that it’s punctuated by helicopter rotors thundering closer as security tightens the noose). Sittings of Teardown become a convenient place to get caught up on podcasts faster than most games (especially the lengthy planning stages during the final string of levels). I rolled credits at 15 hours having completed around 75% of the optional objectives. If you decide to chase that platinum trophy (which includes destroying 100 million voxels) you could probably plow through a whole library of audiobooks. Maybe consider a book about metals?

Teardown only does one thing but it does it extremely well. I can honestly say I haven’t played anything quite like it (the closest example I can think of is Blast Corps on the Nintendo 64–the final level of the Teardown campaign where you’re forced to demolish a suburb to make way for a bomb on wheels is pulled straight from Rare’s classic). It blends the raw, “lizard brain” of making things go boom with the more complex  satisfaction of a plan coming together. PlayStation Plus Extra subscribers can download it for free and I recommend they do. Even if the structure of the story doesn’t click for you, you can always break things in sandbox mode until you feel better.

11 Things You Should Care About from the Future Games Show: Spring Showcase

When E3 shut down along with everything else in 2020, multiple organizations stepped in to fill the void and satisfy our press conference addiction. One of these that has since become a regular is the Future Games Show. Their presentations tend to be overly long with few big announcements BUT ultimately worth it because they always have at least a few strange things you’d never hear about otherwise. Fortunately, whoever plans these has the sense to hire hosts that have enough charisma to carry most of their bits (today’s event was hosted by international sweethearts Ben Starr and Samantha Beart). 

I could have attempted to write something interesting about every one of the 40-50 games shown but I do my best to respect my readers’ time and I understand that most people can only skim “it looks fine” so many times before their brain shuts off. Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Star Wars Outlaws are still impressive. I enjoyed my time with Tchia but it was so buggy at launch it was barely playable (New Caledonia has great geckos, though). I reserved the spots on this write up for either brand new things or, at the very least, new footage of old things. 

These are the 11 titles shown that interested me the most. You may notice a spooky through line as you make your way down the list but that should hardly be a surprise to anyone who knows my taste. 

Zoochosis

If you haven’t heard of this, I won’t spoil the concept. Go watch the trailer. It’s the one with the giraffe in the thumbnail. 

Do you like John Carpenter’s The Thing? Do you enjoy that uncanny, sinking feeling of seeing recognizable features not quite where they’re supposed to be? The creature designs and animations are spectacular but I’m not sure how this plays, yet. If it leans into the investigation aspect, it could be one of the more unique horror experiences we’ve had in years. I just want it to be more than a jump scare generator. Either way, this is going to be huge in the react community. 

The Constructors

I don’t play many building sims (I’m 95% on console and this is a genre that notoriously hates controllers). I’ve definitely never played one that allowed me to manipulate designs all the way down to the blueprint. 

My interest is entirely tied to how extensive the customization will be in the final product. We might be restricted to a single neighborhood, but I wouldn’t mind too much if I can control everything from pouring the foundation to interior decorating. 

Tenebris Somnia

This was my favorite surprise of the show. It blends the aesthetics of an NES adventure game with live action horror cinematics. The behind the scenes clips put some awesome practical effects front and center. I hope they find ways to push the dissonance between the two visual styles in the final release to their limit. 

As a side note, Andres Borghi worked on When Evil Lurks, one of the best and nastiest horror movies I saw last year. We’re in good hands–or claws. 

Omega Crafter

Under normal circumstances, I’d be cynical about Omega Crafter (have we reached our crafting/farming/survival game quota yet?) but the gimmick here allows players to use the Scratch programming language to assign tasks to their helper droids. Scratch works by slotting together variables and functions like a colorful jigsaw puzzle. I’m not sure exactly who this would be a selling point for (you can play around with Scratch for free in your browser if you’re interested in learning to code), but it caught and held my attention.

Wait, am I the target audience?

No Rest for the Wicked

A brutal, top down, action RPG from the Ori studio. Imagine if Dark Souls had more pirates. It received extensive coverage last month and early impressions hint that it could be a GOTY contender in what has already been a prolific year. 

It enters Early Access on April 18th. I can’t wait.  

Holstin

I’m very familiar with Holstin but I think the first-person forest driving in this trailer is new. The atmosphere is thick–peeking through cracks in the windshield, looking for the things lurking just beyond the headlights. 

Keep moving and shooting or get consumed by fungus is a winning formula. I can tell they’ve taken inspiration from the right places in the way inventory items spiral towards the screen. The devs have said that it will be released when it’s finished and they should absolutely take their time. This could be something special. 

Hauntii

I love ghosts of all shapes and sizes. I’ve been following this one for a while on Twitter and we finally have a release date of May 23rd (two days after Hellblade 2 and one day before Furiosa for those that keep track of that sort of thing). I’d describe the style (inadequately) as sketchy glow chalk. Look up a trailer so you can see it in motion, screenshots don’t do it justice. I’d be okay with simply walking (floating?) through this world and meeting its characters. 

Blockbuster Inc. 

I spent a chunk of my freshman year in college with an old Lionhead title called The Movies (it probably holds the record for the most hours I’ve ever spent in this style of game). Blockbuster Inc. appears to be a spiritual successor to that game in every way  (not only are you in charge of shooting the films, but also designing your studio, cultivating talent, etc.). I’m so ready…

…but if I don’t have the ability to make cinematic masterpieces and then immediately shelve them for a tax writeoff this is going to feel awfully unrealistic in 2024. 

Blue Prince

Is 2024 the year of blueprints? 

The player is tasked with solving puzzles and progressing through a mysterious mansion by altering its floor plan. The cel shaded graphics look nice and the voice-over here manages to be dramatic but not cheesy. I’m intrigued. 

Plus my sister and I both shouted “ohhhhh” as the title was revealed and the pun hit. That’s worth something. 

Someone make a new Eternal Darkness, please. 

Worshippers of Cthulhu

One part city builder, one part cult management sim, one part tentacles. 

Most people feel like the Lovecraftian mythos are overplayed at this point (I don’t necessarily disagree with that), but I love cosmic horror and this could be a new setting to engage with some old ideas (older than death). 

I don’t think Cult of the Lamb or The Shrouded Isle count. 

Tails of Iron II: Whiskers of Winter

I wasn’t expecting this. 

The trailer is intense and wonderfully bleak (it doesn’t hurt that Doug Cockle, the voice of Geralt of Rivia, practically purrs the narration). I haven’t played the original but it’s supposed to be good. Dark fantasy done well outside of the soulslike genre is not as common as you’d expect it to be. 

Give me more things with fairy tale framing. 

Give me all the rats. 

Demos for many of the titles are available on Steam if you’re feeling impatient. Now that we’ve weathered the early storm of 100 hour games (literally three of the year’s biggest titles are launching on March 22nd) it’s time to get cozy with some indies. After a feast of RPGs, hopefully you left enough room for gaming dessert.

My Spell Check is Going to Hate Me: Xbox Partner Preview 03/06/24

Video games can be just as eccentric as any other artistic medium, and sometimes those quirks bleed into their titles (any Kingdom Hearts or Nier fans in the house?). The collection of games covered in this conference required having a dozen tabs open to check and double-check the most mundane grammatical details. Not just the spelling of foreign words and puns but what to capitalize, what words are actually acronyms, spacing, and colon placement (according to Google it’s Unknown 9, not Unknown9). 

Ultimately, it was worth it. 

Or I hope it was. 

Thank you for reading, by the way. 

Even though this event seemingly came out of nowhere, they sure showed a lot of cool stuff in 30 minutes. I’m aware more info was published on Xbox Wire for many of the titles shown today so some of my questions might already have answers. These are just first impressions to add some context to what you’ve already seen. I’ll wade into the interviews for the more murky announcements later. 

Unknown 9: Awakening 

From the first frame, it’s obvious the devs are following the Assassin’s Creed playbook (slinking across a balance beam, hiding in tall grass, shimmying along ledges, the vaguely Middle Eastern setting, etc.). However, deeper into the preview, more stands out–mostly in the form of combat using ghostly projections and some kind of energy shield. 

I’m going to immediately forget about this and reassess when more footage is released in the future. 

Sleight of Hand

There’s not much to deduce from this sleek cinematic–but my love of witches, cards, and stealth all tell me, with no bias whatsoever,  that there’s no reason this can’t be the best thing ever made. 

Matt Jarvis over at Rock Paper Shotgun seems to think this could be a spiritual successor to Metal Gear Ac!d. That feels like wishful thinking (and now I’m also wishing for that). 

Regardless, they have me on the hook and I’m not letting go. Bring on the gameplay trailer. 

The Alters

This looks weird and I’m into it. 

You are tasked with completing a mission on the harshest planet imaginable. To achieve this, you commandeer a giant wheel-shaped vessel populated with clones of yourself (you alter these copies by changing decisions you made in your past). I hope there’s a strong narrative to go with the robust base management and survival mechanics.

Is astronauts with bad marriages a trope? I don’t have trouble believing it but it feels like we’ve been hit with a flood of that recently. 2024 is going to be the year of Space Divorce. 

Creatures of Ava

Whoever put this conference together picked a good spot for Creatures of Ava. It’s more colorful and cute than the solar death and occultism of what we lead with (the protagonist literally pied pipers her way through lush environments followed by mini dinosaurs). The internet is already calling it a “cozier version of Palworld.” I don’t know if that’s a fair assessment yet or if we’re just getting lazy and are tired of comparing everything to Pokemon.    

Griefville x Roblox x Chucky thing

Griefville is what I call my life these days. 

Chucky is already in Dead by Daylight so I’m not sure what purpose this serves (other than to make the Chucky people more money). But I also accept that I’m not the target audience for this and that’s okay. 

The Sinking City 2

The second the Frogwares logo appeared I said it would be funny if this was a sequel to The Sinking City. Then boom, like clockwork, fish people rising from the muck. 

The original Sinking City is really interesting and really flawed. I’ll be curious to see what the developers focus on this time out (getting another crack at something this niche is increasingly rare in the game industry). This was easily one of my favorite surprises of the event. 

Final Fantasy XIV Xbox release

Just in time for Xbox players to get 10% of the way caught up before the Dawntrail expansion releases this summer. (No disrespect intended, I casually started last year and I’m still stuck  in A Realm Reborn).

I like that we’re just referring to FFXIV as a “life-changing story” now. Give Yoshi-P the Nobel Prize or something. Really, he deserves it. 

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: The Legends of the Zone Trilogy

I looked up what that backronym stands for. Ready?

Scavengers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers, and Robbers. 

I’ll say it every time, keep giving us new and accessible ways to play old games. 

This was also the point in the showcase where my power blinked leaving me without reliable internet. I had to watch the remainder of the event on my phone. Spoiler: that tiny screen did not do Monster Jam Showdown justice. 

Monster Jam Showdown 

I’m curious to try this because the physics of monster trucks seem like they would lend themselves to tipping over on every turn. The sense of speed also isn’t what you want (regardless of  how much blur they’ve added). Don’t believe me? Watch the trailer and tell me with a straight face these vehicles are traveling over 100mph. I could probably make the podium with a brisk jog. 

I recognize Grave Digger (See? I’m basically an expert on the sport) and there’s a shark truck. 

At the conclusion of this preview I turned to my sister and told her that I found her next game. She was not amused. 

Persona 3: Episode Aigis 

During the brief window I thought this was dropping today I felt it was perfect–for all the people who managed to play a 100+ hour RPG over the last three weeks. 

When the original Persona 3 was deluxified on the PS2, it included a lengthy epilogue called “The Answer.” This is some version of that. I remember it being difficult and combat heavy. It’s nice to have confirmation that it’s on the way. It looks just as moody and stylish as the base game. 

Don’t panic, it’s coming out in September. 

Persona might be the only franchise that can get me hyped for costume and music DLC. 

The First Berserker: Khazan

I have no relationship to the DNF universe but this looks cool. I like the bleak, dark fantasy setting against the subtle cel shading. It reminds me of Code Vein but less anime (only slightly less anime). 

I imagine its success will depend on its combat. I’m hopeful. The trailer made sure to include plenty of FromSoftware double door pushing.  

Frostpunk 2

I appreciate the balls it takes to reveal your release date before revealing what you’re selling (the Resident Evil 4 Remake premiere is the all-time best version of this). This is another strategy thing that I’ll probably never touch but I like the Frostpunk aesthetics (using the fractures on the surface of a frozen lake to represent choices and skill tree paths is especially nifty). I’ll keep an eye out for reviews in July. 

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU

Despite seeing this for the third time in four months this still looks great. With an April release locked in we should be able to avoid oversaturation (unless they find a way to sneak in a few more trailers in the next month–don’t bet against EA). 

The bright purple particles juxtaposed with a drying and dying world makes me think of Ori. There are worse games to be compared to in the Metroidvania space. 

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess 

Capcom had me at creepy, Asian mythology (to be fair, Capcom had me at Capcom). The real-time strategy and escort aspects shown today don’t interest me at all. At the very least, it has its own identity now and isn’t going to get lost in the character action game shuffle (which was my assumption when it was first announced). Being a day one release on Game Pass means there’s no risk in checking it out. I’m still in. 

God, I want a new Onimusha. 

I think it was just last week that I wrote we’d entered pre-”E3” purgatory (Pre3?). I’m already wrong–but I don’t mind being wrong if that means we get steady reveals like this. Not necessarily titles competing for game of the year slots, but satisfying (mostly less than 100 hour) experiences to fill in the gaps. 

Now if only we could get a Switch 2 confirmation (or a Silksong release date). 

I know, I’ll never be happy.

Chaos Reigns: Splatoon 3: Side Order Impressions

From the earliest teases of Splatoon 3’s Side Order DLC two things were true. The visuals were intriguing and the details were sparse. Nintendo eventually put out a trailer to set expectations (“eventually” means a couple weeks ago)–and those expectations were weird. I was always going to play it, and I’m drawn to the strange like a deep-water mackerel to an anglerfish (a fitting metaphor for my relationship with most things Nintendo). After a few runs through the coral crusted tower at the center of this add-on, I can safely say I got what I came for. I feel qualified to explain how it all works–but I suspect only a specific kind of person is going to shell out 25 clams for it. 

First, I’m going to give a brief primer on what Splatoon is just in case you’ve managed to dodge it for the last nine years. Splatoon is a shooter for people who don’t play shooters in the same way Mario Kart is a racing game for people who don’t play racing games. It’s eccentric paintball. In a match, your success is usually determined by what percentage of the battlefield you manage to cover in your team’s vibrant ink (you play as anthropomorphic squid and octopi–small humans with tentacles for hair). That doesn’t mean that there isn’t value in “splatting” your opponents (after all, the less enemies running around means less of their multicolored ink gumming things up), but it’s possible to win even with terrible aim because your misses make messes that count towards that percentage. Being surrounded by the enemies’ ink feels suffocating. It sounds absurd on paper, but all the systems work so well together the franchise has become one of Nintendo’s most popular (Splatoon 2 is currently the sixteenth bestselling Switch game which is impressive for something without Zelda, Mario, or Pokemon in its title). With an emphasis on art, fashion, music, and customization, the series bleeds style. It’s effortlessly cool and has probably my favorite community in all of gaming. 

It’s also flooded with puns and that’s kinda my thing. 

For the Side Order content the developers decided to try something new–and that something is apparent as soon as Agent 8 (the octoling that returns as our protagonist) steps off the subway to the Order Sector. The primary colors are gone and have been replaced by a blank, white canvas. It’s disturbingly clean–like the giant box of Crayolas that served as the thesis of Splatoon has somehow been corrupted. 

This monochromatic makeover is directly linked to the results of the final Splatfest held for Splatoon 2 in 2019. Splatfests are regularly held weekend tournaments where the playerbase comes together to battle over some arbitrary debate (ketchup versus mustard, werewolves versus vampires, etc). The theme for that last fateful splatfest? Order versus Chaos. 

See what they did with the title?

Agent 8 is tasked with repeatedly climbing a skyscraper (the elevator conveniently only moves one floor at a time) and defeating whatever resides in the penthouse. On each level is a challenge arena that falls into one of five categories: moving an objective through checkpoints, defending zones, destroying spawn points, defeating speedy enemies, and navigating billiard balls into goals (don’t worry veterans, they’ve adjusted the latter since the Splatoon 2 DLC so it’s not as infuriating). Retries are extremely limited. Run out of continues, and you’ll be kicked back to the foyer to begin your climb again. Yes, this is a roguelite.  However, as long as nothing goes terribly wrong, most floors can be completed in one or two minutes. The simplicity takes some of the sting out of failure. The way the story and banter between characters thins with each subsequent run means you’ll be moving through those lower levels fast. 

Your survival revolves around the use of color chips that enhance your weapons and abilities. They slot neatly into a “palette” (a display that’s exactly what it sounds like–it’s as crispy and satisfying as an elementary school watercolor kit). In a fun twist, you get to choose your chips from a limited selection on each floor. The success of your run becomes a game of weighing the risks of better upgrades for completing more difficult objectives. Any chips you’re carrying upon death are converted to a different currency (prlz) which you can use to purchase permanent upgrades before your next attempt. I’d recommend investing in extra lives and damage resistance ASAP.    

Maybe the most impressive thing from a design standpoint is how much attention was paid to making sure everything is useful. Multiple times I picked a skill as an afterthought or simply because there appeared to be no better option–only to have that skill save me later when I was backed into a corner. It’ll be interesting to see what builds reign supreme when the community fully puts this content through its paces.  

There are bosses to mark your progress (I’ve seen four so far) and they usually offer one extra layer beyond shoot until dead. I won’t spoil any of them here, but I will say they put up a sufficient fight and the tutorial boss has Virtual Boy controllers strapped to the sides of her head. There are additional incentives for conquering the climb with different weapon loadouts (keys that unlock more weapons and more lore). You’re still only doing one thing, but at least you have reasons.    

The Splatoon soundtracks are universally excellent and this is no exception. It seems to specifically take inspiration from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (the whole package has a similar feel to the shrines in the most recent iterations of Hyrule). It’s minimalist–but there’s just enough notes to set your nerves on edge. It’s as uneasy and dissonant as it is beautiful. 

Whether Side Order is for you comes down to two embarrassingly obvious questions: do you enjoy the core gameplay of Splatoon and want to engage with it in a unique way? And (I stress this is the more critical of the two questions) do you have a stomach for doing the same thing over and over until you get it right? Normally, I don’t. With so many games to experience, I’d rather be dead than retread. Wasted time is wasted time. However, I wanted to keep playing this instead of writing about it. Regardless of frustrations, I was inching forward with each attempt (minus the few times I tried something stupidly experimental). It will probably have its tentacles on me for at least a little longer. I’m dying to see what’s at the top of the spire.

Pokemon Sleep? Or Pokemon Hibernation?: Pokemon Presents 2/27/24 Impressions

Happy Pokemon Day!

Today’s Pokemon Presents showcase clocked in at a whopping thirteen minutes. Nothing triggers my happy nostalgia more than Pokemon, but I’m terrible at actually keeping up with the series. The majority of the event was dedicated to updates for their ongoing titles. This is great for the people who, you know, play them–less so for the casuals like me. I have no interest in MOBAs. I briefly played Pokemon Masters EX but the only thing I remember about it was it’s the loudest thing I’ve ever put on my phone. Maybe this is the year I finally get into Pokemon Sleep?

And what the hell, no Pokemon Concierge news?

If anything, it was efficient (maybe too efficient, I struggled to speed read the details in between trailers). But somewhere in that big pile of login bonuses, there were two things that grabbed my attention. 

Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket

Introducing a new way to collect cards (not really, it’s on our phones) and we get to open two free packs a day. Nothing causes a dopamine spike quite like unwrapping a booster pack. Two is the perfect amount to break up daily monotony, so I’m set. Having little things to look forward to is important, this could make the world a better (or less painful) place. That probably reads as sarcastic but I’m being mostly sincere. I’m sure it will be rotten with microtransactions, but we can live in blissful ignorance until we get confirmation. 

Regardless of the money making mega evolution that is Pokemon cards, I don’t see this taking over the world the way Pokemon GO did back in 2016. Now if only they could find a way to replicate the smell of fresh paper the experience will be complete (Geoff Keighley found time to advertise a magic box that pumps the smell of golf courses and gunfire into your room in the middle of today’s round of brutal industry layoffs–so we have the technology). 

I also think I recognize the actress on the bus but can’t place where I’ve seen her before. 

Pokemon Legends: Z-A

The “one more thing” of this event was an announcement for Pokemon Legends: Z-A. The teaser offered almost no other clues beyond a 2025 release date. For a half second, with all this talk of urban redevelopment plans and blueprints, I thought it could be a Pokemon city builder (which I would absolutely be down to play). It is set in the same region as X and Y. X, Y, Z-A reads to me like this is the end and we’re moving towards a new beginning. Pokemon Legends: Arceus is one of the most unique titles from Game Freak, so I’m hopeful. 

Nintendo’s 2024 holiday lineup continues to be a mystery (today implies no major Pokemon releases are coming the rest of the year). I guess we’ll just continue to wait for a proper Nintendo Direct. We might already be in the long limbo until E3 (I know “E3” is dead but I’m old and it’s a convenient name for the cluster of showcases in early June). Free of distractions, we can catch up on last year and everything being released in the next couple months (right?..RIGHT???) 

Seriously, we need more than an hour of Pokemon Concierge.

Hitting the Snooze: Nintendo Direct: Partner Showcase 02/21/24 Impressions

As the saying goes, if someone on Twitter predicts a Nintendo Direct every day, they’ll eventually be correct. Today’s offering to the lord of backlogs was a Partner Direct (games releasing in the first half of this year, no first party titles). As the narrator worked through the predictable list, I considered going back to bed (the event started at six in the morning), but by the end, a few things had emerged that I felt were worth talking about.

Then I pounded some coffee and decided to write about all 28 of them because I’m a sicko:

Grounded (and Pentiment)

Last week, Microsoft announced they were bringing four of their previously exclusive titles to other consoles. It was leaked (and later confirmed) that those four were Grounded, Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, and Pentiment. More people having the opportunity to play games regardless of platform is always a good thing. Pentiment should be a perfect cozy adventure to play in handheld mode and Grounded (a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids-like) has the aesthetic of a Switch game, in my opinion. If you don’t have an Xbox, now’s your chance to get a taste of what you’ve been missing. If you do have an Xbox, both are already on Game Pass. 

Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist

Ender Lilies is supposed to be pretty great and this looks like an appropriately spooky and somber follow-up. The Metroidvania market has been oversaturated for years, but I’ll take the excess because I’m convinced that everyone reading this will be long dead by the time Silksong comes out. (Seriously, take as long as you need Team Cherry.)

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure

The world is your slide puzzle. 

The graphics are clean, and while gameplay appears deceptively simple, I’m sure I’ll be  consulting a walkthrough within the first hour (though that could also be my sleep deprivation talking). Something about this reminded me of Carto (a cute puzzle game about making and rearranging in-game maps). 

Unicorn Overlord

Vanillaware is the best (I’m working on something about one of their other titles now). I’m going to predict that Unicorn is a stealth contender for a mountain of awards at the end of the year (even if it will inevitably be up against Final Fantasy VII and Dragon’s Dogma 2 in all RPG categories). 

Monster Hunter Stories

What if the monsters were actually our friends? What if you could ride a Rathalos? 

The world of Monster Hunter is fascinating, it’s cool we get a new way to interact with it (though this is a remaster, so I guess it’s a new, old way). 

This port is also fully voice acted–a major upgrade for people who hate reading. 

Disney’s Epic Mickey Rebrushed

Remember when Disney traded Al Michaels to NBC so they could make this game? (It’s true! Look it up). 

Exploring a “wasteland inhabited by forgotten and rejected characters” is a great story hook. I’m going to keep an eye on this rerelease. 

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance

It’s a good thing this leaked because I couldn’t read the subtitle when it appeared (in the prickly, metal band name kind of way). Atlus teams still have some of the best character and creature designs in the business. The soundtrack is also absolutely insane. However, I have the original release and most likely won’t double dip unless the added content is substantial (Persona 5 Royal substantial).

Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection

My only experience with the Battlefront series is the modern titles (2017’s Battlefront II is absolutely putrid). I’ll be interested in hearing what the people with nostalgia attached to this era of lightsabers and blasters think of these ports. I’ll always take more easily accessible ways to play old games. 

South Park: Snow Day!

Don’t let that exclamation point confuse you, I am not even a little excited to play this. It has the unpolished look of something you grind for achievements offline. As awful as it sounds, nothing in this trailer is going to make Embracer employees suddenly feel like their jobs are safe. They need a win, and while I don’t see this as being that, I hope they’ll be able to weather this snow day.

Sword Art Online: Fractured Daydream

I have no prior relationship with Sword Art Online and I don’t plan to start here, but I’m curious what 20 person online multiplayer in a JRPG translates to. Maybe for raids? Will it play like an MMO? The swarm of life bars in the bottom corner seems to imply as much. 

Gundam Breaker 4

Just like Sword Art, my Gundam awareness is minimal. I admire Gundam–from afar–keeping my wallet at a safe distance. I have no room for more books and games let alone giant models, so this might be a decent alternative. It’s less intimidating than tackling 30+ movies and shows at the very least. 

Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble

I have fond memories of playing Super Monkey Ball 2 on the GameCube. This is more of that. I also love fast and dirty mini games. Those two aspects alone are probably enough to hold my attention for an afternoon. 

World of Goo 2

Just in time for my birthday!

The original World of Goo on the Wii was a big deal (like a Game of the Year contender big deal) and its sequel looks incredibly smooth. I’m ready for some gloopy physics.  

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time

We’ve reached our farming game quota for the event! Now with more time travel. 

I’m going to be a Napdragon as soon as I’m done writing this.  

Another Crab’s Treasure

A soulslike where you play as a crab who equips a variety of shells to alter his abilities in battle. Aggro Crab is not taking FromSoftware’s less is more storytelling approach. Your goals are pretty obvious and it seems to include voice acting every step of the way. The whole thing looks extremely silly and I’m here for it. If the fights against the mantis shrimp aren’t Malenia tier difficulty, the game is biologically inaccurate. 

Penny’s Big Breakaway

Colorful and charming. A new 3D platformer from the Sonic Mania team where you dash to avoid an avalanche of penguins. The composer, Tee Lopes, worked on the Streets of Rage 4 and Shredder’s Revenge soundtracks. I’m all the way in. 

Multiplayer Suika Game Update

I’m bad at Suika Game (I don’t think I have the patience for it). Now I can be bad against someone who can rub my face in it (only in person, online is coming later). The Nintendo Direct narrator felt the need to tell us multiple times in the short spot that this is a paid update, but that shouldn’t be a deal breaker if you’re obsessed with stacking fruit. The base game costs less than five dollars. 

Pepper Grinder

Great pixel art, great music, great concept (a 2D platformer with an emphasis on drilling through obstacles). It’s amazing how a simple trailer can convey so much personality in 30 seconds. The demo is out today so we’ll know soon enough if it’s as glorious as it appears.

Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On

My sister and I binged the 3DS port while watching the second season of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. The better you play solitaire, the faster your horse gallops around the track. It’s not terribly deep, but if you enjoy card games, this is an easy recommendation. 

Don’t watch Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley

Moomin has been a staple in these sizzle reels for a couple years and it’s finally here. It looks cute, but I doubt I’ll ever play it (even if he does occasionally have a knife). 

Just kidding, I play everything. 

Tales of Kenzara: ZAU

If I remember right, this had a strong showing back at the Game Awards last year. These clips didn’t do much to sway me one way or the other (but, to be fair,  it occupied the middle 20 seconds of a sizzle reel–it was only there as a reminder that it’s still being worked on and is out in April). 

Demon Slayer - Kimetsu no Yaiba - Sweep the Board!

As I stated above, I love fast and dirty mini games (even if I don’t have any attachment to Demon Slayer).

Kingdom Come: Deliverance - Royal Edition

Kingdom Come’s brand of hyper realism is something you definitely need to be in the mood for (if you wear a full face helmet, your vision is narrowed to the slit in your visor). I’ll get around to it someday (probably not on Switch). 

Contra Operation Galuga 

I wish this had pixel graphics, but WayForward  is one of my favorite studios, so they’ll have my support from day one. It’s hard (but not impossible) to truly screw up Contra. 

5 Rareware titles coming to Switch Online

These probably aren’t the ones people wanted (where’s Diddy Kong Racing?) but more releases shadow dropped on the service are always a pleasant surprise. Blast Corps is a curiosity worth an impulse sitting (and it was made by seven people). The Killer Instinct soundtrack still kicks ass. 

Endless Ocean Luminous 

I flirted with buying Endless Ocean on the Wii more than a decade ago but never took the plunge. I’m not sure who the market is for this scuba diving simulator in 2024 but I’m thrilled it’s happening. Dump some sea creatures in your 30 person multiplayer game and I’ll probably give it a shot.  

In a move that can best be described as “Nintendo weird” they saved maybe the biggest announcement of the event for their Japanese stream…

Mother 3 is coming to Switch Online

I want to thank Geoff Keighley because without his tweet I would have completely missed this. 

Mother 3 is kind of a holy grail of games we never got in the US (it’s worth mentioning here that it does have a fan translation). I dedicated a section of the acknowledgements in one of my novels asking for it. Twitter seems to think it’s still unlikely–but regardless, it feels like we’re one step closer to that localization actually happening. Nintendo acknowledged it exists, which is more than you can say for some of their other franchises. 

I don’t know if Nintendo knew we were getting an Elden Ring trailer this morning (and, therefore, anything they announced was guaranteed to be overshadowed a half hour later). The whole event had the vibe of something to get out of the way–the Dumpuary of Directs. However, if they’re still planning to launch the Switch successor later this year, the next press conference is going to be massive. It’ll make up for any lingering disappointments. We might not even have to wait that long because we’re supposed to see the future of Pokemon next week. I’m barely qualified to talk about the lightning mouse and his hundreds of friends, but I’ll probably be there. What else do I have going on?

The Gran Turismo Movie is Fine

Neill Blomkamp’s “adaptation” of Gran Turismo opens with a brief history on the creation of the franchise. Kazunori Yamauchi (who doesn’t play himself in the movie but does cameo as a sushi chef) has spent 25 years building and refining his vision for the ultimate racing experience. Polyphony Digital (his studio) is a team of 300+ obsessives. They are a developer consumed with the most minute details in an industry where attention to detail is king. A single car can take up to 270 days to recreate in game–the sixth entry in the series had 1,197 unique vehicles. We get a glimpse into this meticulous process during the ending credits, as well. They are the best in the world at what they do and deserve to be celebrated. 

Unfortunately, there’s a movie sandwiched between these two sequences. 

Gran Turismo as a film is competent and (I don’t mean this as an insult) inoffensive. It’s a sports movie. It’s an underdog tale. It’s “BASED ON A TRUE STORY.” I accepted video games and movies are different mediums a long time ago. I don’t mind when a team gets loose with the source material as long as the legacy is intact and the choices they make are interesting. Is this an end product that could only be that thing? Or is the name simply attached to sell extra tickets? 

It’s always the latter, but the cynicism varies wildly from project to project. 

There are touches here that imply someone cared about the source material (or had someone looming over their shoulder, at least). The use of video game menu sound effects sprinkled throughout are a highlight. They’re unobtrusive and provide a spark of “if you know, you know” without the eye roll of more obvious Easter Eggs. How this fan service is presented visually is more of a mixed package. On the track, I like the augmented reality that regularly reminds us what lap we’re on. I like that we see what position we’re in. In other scenes our protagonist, Jann Mardenborough, is wrapped in a schematic of the car he’s driving. Piston by piston, spark plug by spark plug. It’s meant to illustrate a connection to the vehicle–he’s leaving behind all the noise of his life–the entirety of his focus shifting towards taking the perfect line on the next turn. It’s a glossy distillation of the countless hours he spent practicing Deep Forest and Apricot Hill in his bedroom. 

But why was this extra flash necessary? 

We know about the work he puts in, it’s literally all he talks about. A shot of his calloused thumbs would have been more meaningful. Though I guess it’s better than yet another scene of his father being disappointed in him (which seems to be all his character ever talks about). 

The inclusion of this CGI isn’t a surprise. If you have an army of animators at your disposal (which PlayStation obviously does) you’re going to take the opportunity to flex. My concern is that by including these sequences I think the filmmakers felt that they had fulfilled their “it’s a video game!” quota. But this clashes with the thesis of the movie–Gran Turismo is a “real driving simulator.” The characters literally explain that track time in the game equals track time in the real world. When Jann puts the pedal to the floor, so do the animators. His Nissan might as well be a spaceship. It doesn’t require any deeper level of understanding or enthusiasm for car culture. It’s easy. I would have preferred a dorky monologue about the Mazda Miata or Mitsubishi Lancer. 

Of course, the argument is that this is not an adaptation of the game but instead the extraordinary experience of one person’s relationship to it–Jann’s journey from gamer to professional racer. It mostly succeeds in this regard. We feel defeat when he slides into a wall–we feel triumph when “God Moving Over the Face of the Waters” plays atop the podium like we just watched Michael Mann’s Heat. However, Gran Turismo’s biggest flaw as a movie is that the most exciting sequences, the races that keep the audience pinned to their seats like a five point harness, are summarized. 

I don’t feel like it’s a hot take to say most movies released in the last five to ten years are too long. While I’ll always advocate for artists to cook and do whatever they want–I also have to admit that 90% of what I watch could be cut by at least 10 minutes. Gran Turismo (which clocks in with a runtime of 2 hours and 15 minutes) was always going to lean on its montages. The physical training, the pit stops (it’s a sports movie, it’s an underdog tale, etc.). We’re strung along and teased with a showdown against everyone who has doubted (or sabotaged) our hero for the entire back half of the movie. It’s the culmination of Jann’s dream rounding the last turn and heading into the final straightaway. Unfortunately, when it arrives, we’re met with a string of timestamps.

Three hours later. 

Three hours later. 

It’s the equivalent of reducing the final boss of an epic RPG to a quick time event. I’m assuming a major reason that the aforementioned HUD is almost always present is because we don’t watch many of the passes actually happen. I’m not naive, I know we were never going to see a 24 hour race in real time in a medium budget video game adaptation. But we needed to be present enough to understand the landscape and let the drama build on the track. There are hints of this earlier in the film, sections on these circuits have names because they have a dangerous reputation. Instead of marinating us in these details, the script says buckle up, where we’re going we don’t need context. I’m willing to bet that somewhere a (better) three hour version of this movie exists that a focus group banished to a vault. 

Gran Turismo, despite its insane sales numbers, is not a franchise that lends itself to picking up a controller and running a couple laps with friends. You take license tests to progress. It is the opposite of Mario Kart. The most recent entry in the series even features a virtual cafe where the player goes on (platonic) dates with historic automotive figures as they chat about the cars they designed. It’s disappointing that a movie that was so concerned with packing in mass appeal (There’s something for everyone! We’re playing it safe!) it forgot to leave room for some of those eccentricities. It’s not bad, but nothing about it is unique. Like a trip to the grocery store in your mom’s minivan,  it’ll get you where you’re going–but you’re just waiting for the highway hypnosis to kick in.

Super Kiwi 64: Drive-by Nostalgia Without the Sting

Owning more games than you can finish in a lifetime (not to mention a constantly refilling backlog thanks to Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, and Nintendo Online) means almost always having ulterior motives when going on an impulse shopping spree. While I don’t necessarily feel guilty about these purchases (more people should invest in the things they love shamelessly), I also have no issue admitting I’m a bit ridiculous. My expertly crafted excuse for checking out Super Kiwi 64 on a whim was that I’m in the early stages of planning my own 3D platformer and I wanted to reacquaint myself with the landscape of the genre. 

See? It almost sounds convincing. 

A lot has happened in the game industry since the release of A Hat in Time and Yooka-Laylee in 2017–but as it turns out, not a lot has changed for platformers. 

Super Kiwi 64 was developed by Siactro (a person, not a company according to their Twitter bio). It tells the timeless story of a bird and their dog companion as they gather golden gears and gems to get their biplane airborne again. If there’s a narrative beyond that, I missed it (and I had to do some off the page work to put that vague outline together). This isn’t a bad thing, of course. The aggressive gibberish and honks meant to imitate speech were never my favorite part of those classic games, and once your bleeding ears had recovered from the story dump, it rarely amounted to more than a kidnapping or a banana heist. With no setup and no tutorial there are two less barriers between pressing start and starting to play. 

As the title implies, our hero is a (not so flightless) kiwi bird. This New Zealand native is represented as a pair of fuzzy spheres held together by aviator goggles and a backpack (though SK64 is attempting to imitate the textures of a Nintendo 64 game, so the “fuzz” is mostly in your imagination). Our protagonist has a jump, sprint, glide, corkscrew-attack, and for the real gamer that can handle two button combos, the ability to embed their beak in hard surfaces to gain extra height (it’s literally the same mechanic as the Pokio birds from Super Mario Odyssey with no flicking and no spring). That’s it. This is not Donkey Kong 64 where every button and stick on the controller is pulling double duty. What’s there feels good and responsive. At no point did a mysterious collision launch me into the abyss. I was entirely responsible for my own successes and failures. 

The backdrops to this collect-a-thon are primarily of the generic jungle and desert variety, but there is a darkness lurking just beneath the exterior–sinister details that hint at something more. Robotic sentinels march aimlessly looking for a place to die, mysterious hieroglyphics scar stone monuments, and one level is built overlooking the corpse of a giant alien creature. While it’s never explicitly stated, our feathered friend is plundering a dead civilization for the necessary nuts and bolts to get off the ground. 

Many of these biomes are the perfect size. Small, but there is no padding or wasted space. At no point will you be pixel hunting the perimeter for something you missed (or making a long climb back to the top because of a bad camera angle–I’m looking at you Frantic Factory). Maybe my only annoyance with SK64 is that it doesn't keep track of your progress after you’ve exited a world. Previously picked up gems are grayed out upon reentry, but it hurts to be denied the basic joy of watching the numbers go up on a stats menu. The overall complexity is kept low and you’ll usually be doing the same things in each level. The experience is over before it truly gets repetitive but I imagine some players’ tolerance will be tested when they’re flying through rings and pecking at targets for the fifth time. 

It took me exactly one hour to roll credits with 100% of the collectibles (this play time includes a coffee break and frequently herding cats in and out my house). Calling it a miniature Banjo-Kazooie sets the wrong expectations. It is a miniature Banjo-Kazooie–in the same way a Hot Wheels is a miniature car. But the three dollar entry fee is as low risk as a skin in a first-person shooter and if you understood any of the references I dropped in this essay then you’ll probably enjoy yourself. There’s not much to say beyond that…

Super Kiwi 64: Doomsday

…Okay, there’s one more thing to say. 

I was putting the finishing touches on my write up when the developer announced that after over a year SK64 was getting new content. I had unfinished business. I refuse to leave any shiny, levitating, slowly rotating Mcguffin behind. I went back to work. 

The Doomsday update adds a story (and voice acting!). It involves a kidnapping, a coup(?), realities collapsing (?), and a watermelon wearing a crown(?). 

Don’t think too hard about it. 

You’re actually here for the three new levels packed with a fresh batch of things to collect. The ubiquitous ruins have been swapped out for a space cathedral, a vertical sewer drenched in neon, and a huge wild west town crossed with a 90s screensaver hellscape. 100% will add an additional hour to your play time (more if you get sucked into the time trials that are also present in this update). However, it still doesn’t keep track of your progress on a world by world basis, so try to grab everything in one go. There’s nothing here that fundamentally changes the experience but it’s more of a good thing. It doubles the size of the base game and it’s free. 

This recent wave of independently developed games in the style of the PSX and N64 might stealthily be performing a service. They look old but play new (the quality of life that came with the proper utilization of two control sticks can’t be overstated). Super Mario 64 is one of the most important games ever made and is still worth revisiting for that reason–but it doesn’t feel the way it does in your imagination. The next time you get the urge to revisit your childhood favorite, consider dipping into this cool, faux retro universe that seems to only be expanding. These projects are a sip–the taste of your favorite cocktail without the hangover. Keep your nostalgia intact for a little longer. Maybe things were always this good. 

Side Note: While doing background research for this essay I visited Siactro’s itch.io page and discovered one of their other projects, Silver Trigger 64. Silver Trigger reimagines GoldenEye as a simple rail shooter. It’s free, plays in the browser, and a run lasts less than ten minutes. In the same way that Kiwi 64 is a satisfying bite of retro platformer Silver Trigger could serve as an appetizer before Agent 64: Spies Never Die launches later this year. At the very least, it’s a fun curiosity that deserves your attention.

A sloppy 3 hours with Foamstars

From Foamstars’s first trailer, the Splatoon comparisons were going to be inevitable. Both are colorful shooters with an emphasis on music and style–where spraying the arena is just as important as slaying your opponents. No one has succeeded in doing the Splatoon formula well since its release in 2015 (even attempts have been rare), and since the squid game is a Nintendo exclusive, there is room for more than one of these types of multiplayer experiences. But with the launch of Foamstars a couple days ago, the question still loomed: is this a knockoff or something unique? After three hours I can say it does have its own personality. I’m just not sure it’s the type of personality you would want to spend any time with. 

There are two primary ways to engage with content in Foamstars: Missions and Versus. Missions can be played solo or with a group and primarily act as an extended tutorial. I only played one. It was a slog and I took zero damage. Ultimately, it’s nice that it’s there but most people will be better off jumping straight into multiplayer. If you’ve played a third-person shooter in the last decade and don’t mind taking a couple practice deaths to learn your character’s skills (surprise, they all launch suds in different patterns), you’ll be fine. 

All Versus modes are 4v4 (and you can’t repeat characters, so try to be flexible). I kind of appreciate what they were going for with their character designs. The small cast has slightly more of an identity than mannequins meant to drape overpriced skins on (more on that in a little bit). They can best be described as Overwatch meets The Bouncer with a thick coat of bland. I like looking at them but won’t be ordering any Funko Pops. 

So how are the fundamentals? 

Your bullets are bubbles and, for better and worse, they behave like bubbles. Slow and wobbling. Even though the soap comes in a variety of beautiful pastels (the graphics and performance are strong across the board), the projectile speed paired with thick health bars make even the most intense firefights feel sluggish. In an interesting twist, the suds can accumulate and form small mountains on the battlefield–but this feature rarely played into the outcome of any of my matches. 

Versus currently has three modes (I unlocked two more but they seem to be timed events and not available). Smash the Star is the closest to a standard team deathmatch. Each team has a set number of lives, and after they’ve burned through their stock of continues, the MVP to that point will be elected as the Star Player. The Star Player only has one life while their teammates will respawn endlessly and attempt to defend them. Kill the other team’s Star Player and you win. Despite that convoluted explanation, Smash has the lowest barrier to entry and, so far, my games have consistently been close. It’s easily the most fun I’ve had with Foamstars. 

I only played the second mode, Rubber Duck Party,  once because of how the multiplayer games rotate (similar to how Splatoon rotates maps). Apparently, fate was doing me a favor. It will not be missed. Rubber Duck Party is a tug of war style game where each team guides a single rubber duck DJ through a series of checkpoints. Naturally, everyone flocks to the objective. This leads to chaos–but not the fun kind of chaos where it feels like anything can happen. It’s more the “I guess I’m dead again” style of chaos. Duck this one–it’s five minutes of molasses paced misery. 

The final mode currently available is Happy Bath Survival. You’re still in teams of four, however, the game further splits these teams into pairs. One pair fights on the ground floor while the other watches from the rafters. Their goal is to harass the other team by foaming the map. It sounds interesting, but in reality it’s Smash the Star with only two players having fun at a time. In one match, the opponent I was sharing a chandelier with gave up halfway. I assume they took a bathroom break while they waited for their turn. 

The script, from the story to postgame barks, is odd. It probably seems excessive to pick on the writing of an online multiplayer game, but it really is noticeably strange. It’s a lot of repeating the character names in almost every line and the replies don’t quite match what was previously said. The stilted performances by the voice cast do it no favors. If we later discover the script was written by AI it will be the least surprising gaming scandal of the year. (The album covers were designed by AI, and yes, they look like shit and don’t match the vibe of the rest of the production). 

The combat arenas lack identity–some are shiny, some are neon, and some are both. The lone standout is a giant roulette wheel complete with a ball that blocks off certain routes as the match progresses. I’d expect no less from Bath Vegas. 

I think I like the soundtrack but I’ll wait to form a proper opinion until I’ve listened to it more. I plan to seek it out on another platform–one where I don’t have to continue to play the game. 

There’s a premium season pass (because of course there is) and a shop to purchase cosmetics. There’s no fake currency or “gems” to soften the blow when you see the price of these things. While skimming the catalog, I found one outfit that cost 45 American dollars. For that price, I’d rather buy 15 copies of Super Kiwi 64 (review coming soon). 

In the three hours I played, I unlocked half of the 12 trophies (no platinum). This will not be a dealbreaker for most people, but anyone who downloads Foamstars will be looking for any excuse to come back–any sense of satisfying progression to hold on to. There’s just not much here (the level cap appears to be 25). Will it even be possible to find a match in May? That might seem unfair to the people who made it (this amount of polish makes me believe, perhaps naively, that this wasn’t meant to be a cash grab), but the market can only sustain a handful of these service games at one time. Foamstars might be the first multiplayer experience of 2024 that’s dead on arrival. Ironically, it’s not that different from taking a bubble bath. It’s fun for a little bit, but then the water cools and it all ends up down the drain.

I’m going to play everything: January 31, 2024 State of Play Impressions

These are my first, gut impressions of everything shown at today’s State of Play event. I almost never have the opportunity to watch these press conferences with people anymore and I hate vomiting a string of takes on Twitter. This format seemed like the next best thing. Think of it as a react video without my handsome face screaming into a thumbnail. 

Helldivers 2

It’s interesting how much Sony has pushed this Starship Troopers-like (I think it has had a slot in every PlayStation presentation since its announcement). It could be fun in the right circumstances (a stupid comment, all things can), but I don’t have three friends and rarely play games online so this probably isn’t for me. 

Stellar Blade

Holy hell, what a showing! 

The robotic enemies and desert environments makes it feel like a maximalist version of Nier. The Ghost in the Shell and Evangelion influences are also more obvious than they were in past trailers (both good things). Even the boss's life bars look interesting. This presentation firmly moved Stellar Blade from a curiosity to something I’m actively anticipating. Will I be finished with everything from March in time to play it on April 26th? Probably not! 

Foamstars

With the announcement that Foamstars is a free PlayStation Plus game in February, I’m going to probably write more about this later (specifically if it has an identity of its own or if it’s just a worse version of Splatoon). For me, it will live or die based on what their version of Splatfests are. I still like the colors. 

Sonic x Shadow: Generations

I retired from the hedgehog after Sonic Frontiers. Not even the possibility of motorcycles and guns can bring me back.  

Dave the Diver and Godzilla DLC

I really should play Dave the Diver. Everything about it seems addictive and delightful. I’m running out of excuses with them releasing DLC of one of my favorite franchises. Add Evangelion next, please. 

ZZZ (Zenless Zone Zero)

I applied to write for miHoyO a few weeks ago. They mentioned that one of the traits they value during the hiring process is an extreme familiarity with their titles (translation: hitting max level). I assured them that while I haven’t played Genshin since launch, I watch every trailer they release because their character designs are pure bliss. 

I didn’t get the job.

ZZZ is dripping with even more style than anything I’ve seen from Genshin or Honkai. It includes a cute anime girl who is equal parts maid and shark. I am going to be powerless when this finally comes out. 

V Rising

V Rising dropped off my radar as soon as it entered early access a couple years ago. If I had known it had a build your own gothic architecture feature, I would have paid closer attention. 

Silent Hill: The Short Message

I hope this isn’t what Silent Hill f became. The use of cellphones throughout the trailer implies we’re safe (f is supposed to take place in the 1960s) but you never know with Konami. It seems cool and I’m curious what an “official” PT looks like without Kojima. My guess is I will hit credits on this before the weekend. 

Silent Hill 2

Still no release date.

 A new trailer means we’re about to be flooded with a fresh deluge of bad discourse. I predict this round will be about the stiff, sluggish animations and lack of impact the attacks seem to make. 

I also wish the clip of James picking up the pistol happened before the combat montage (but now I’m nitpicking). 

I will continue to give Bloober Team the benefit of the doubt until I actually play it, though. The world is starving for an average Silent Hill.  

Judas

I miss Ken Levine. 

It’s been 11 years since Bioshock Infinite and this certainly looks like a slicker version of that. The character and environment designs are stunning but no release date has me worried we might have some time to wait. Do you think we’ll get Judas or Cloud Chamber’s Bioshock 4 first? Or Metroid Prime 4?

Metro Awakening VR

I’ve only ever played one Metro game and my only vivid memory from it is the radioactive spiders dancing their spindly legs across my face shield. It’s a perfect fit for a VR game. 

Legendary Tales VR

The graphics are grainy and I kind of love it. Until the title appeared, I thought we were getting a King’s Field reboot. It seems like there might be an emphasis on smithing your own weapons? Give me more of that weird VR. 

Dragon’s Dogma 2

I’m already sold on Dragon’s Dogma 2 and I’m done watching any more content of it until it’s in my hands. However, this trailer may have convinced me to specialize in a bow for my first playthrough. 

Rise of the Ronin

Ghost of Tsushima with brutal combat and a muted color palette. February-March is insane this year but I will be saving room for this. It’s rapidly moving up my priorities list and is a serious threat to me not playing Stellar Blade on time. 

Until Dawn Remastered

I don’t need to play it again, but I think I enjoyed the original Until Dawn more than any of its spiritual successors. I also don’t think I need the film adaptation that was announced a few weeks ago. 

Death Stranding 2

I’m a Kojima fanboy. If I’m having a bad day or feeling uninspired, I’ll watch his trailers. This 10 minute behemoth is instantly going in that rotation. 

There’s so much here I hesitate to deepdive until I‘ve finished dissecting it.  I will say that Yoji Shinkawa’s industrial design is the best it’s ever been (the hands as facemasks are perfection). I am so bummed that I’m going to have to wait at least a year for this. 

Lastly, the announcement that Kojima is working on a new stealth IP is exciting–but with serious production not beginning until after DS2 wraps, I’m not going to commit any brain real estate to it until we’re closer to release. That line of thinking only leads to a full replay of the Metal Gear series and I don’t have time for that. 

Overall, a strong showing (or a showing specifically catered to my interests, at least). There’s a Final Fantasy VII event (because, yes, that’s also coming out this month) next week and (I’d imagine) a Nintendo Direct soon after. There’s plenty to get hyped about–even if we’re all working our way through the gauntlet that was last year. (I finished 80+ games and only dedicated 20 hours to Tears of the Kingdom). 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Silent Hill game to download and a Death Stranding trailer to watch 30 times.