Reviews from

in the past


You better not be having opinions against the outstanding foreign policies of the great nation of Arstotzka. You better not be having any opinions at all.

Lo platiné en cosa de una semana del vicio que le pegué. Ojalá los pasaportes fueran reales

One of the seminal entries in the "games Brian Griffin would make" genre, except the surrounding game is decent.

Papers, Please was a game that I really enjoyed when it came out, and I think the overall gameplay loop and presentation carry the game in a way that similar disasters like Not For Broadcast can't. Unlike that game, I really enjoyed most of the cast and following their ongoing stories.

The thing that brings those stories down is that the narrative is tied to a very confused and outright reactionary view of the eastern bloc. It's to be expected, I don't think Lucas Pope mentally has left the suburbs of Virginia since his birth, but the Red Dawn tier depiction of a vaguely leftwing, vaguely slavic rogue state that willingly deprives its citizens of basic needs based on the market is a disingenuous and purposeful political statement. It's also one that's very hard to believe once you have a basic understanding of the history of these regions, and going back to the game even four years after its launch, this stood out to me.

It's also just hard to find the despotic nature of the setting that gripping compared to the immigration system of the United States, which is significantly darker and more cruel than anything depicted in this game. We have the secret police, we have the "work or die" economic system, we even go a step further and have outright concentration camps. These weren't recent developments within the writer's lifetime either. He was around for the formation of ICE! There's a version of this game, if you absolutely have to set it in the "evil gommunism" of the vague east, that cuts so much deeper than this game comes close to approaching.

It really fucking sucks, because if this game wasn't such a cowardly and confused mess of a setting, it would make the individual stories of the regulars you meet at your desk job so much more engaging.

Chega uma hora que fica impossível de acompanhar oq ta acontecendo, mas a história e gameplay são mt boas.