BeachEpisode
2006
In "BLACK", you get a gun and can shoot people. Instead of seeing your character from behind or above, you see through their eyes, in a "first-person" perspective. A key feature this title is interactivity - for the first time, gamers will be able to press L1 instead of simply pressing Right Click to zoom in and out.
I'll admit to going into this a feeling little hopeful. The general consensus for nearly two decades now is that it was a pretty solid console fps, and I was eager to see how well Criterion managed the break away from their signature dish of highly destructive vehicular combat.
If any facet of Black whatsoever were even a little impressive, it's that they managed to create some surprisingly destructive environments for gen 6 hardware to chug away at. Enough smoke and particle effects to satiate a PS5 owner. The rest is just wretched lol. Character engagement feels like exploring the deep sea w/ these controls, input delay and general poor performance, and the levels themselves are about as disinterestedly laid out as possible despite being made of spit and paper. In no way surprised to learn that the connective story tissue in the form of grotesquely over-edited fmvs between levels was a last-minute addition. Interestingly the initial idea for relating the plot in-game was to have a radio-play-style voiceover spoken over a 'black'(oooh my god šš) screen - would probably have been a little more interesting, but this is tedious enough as is. Let me drift a corner and wrap my car around a streetlamp or I'll just play Timesplitters instead.
I'll admit to going into this a feeling little hopeful. The general consensus for nearly two decades now is that it was a pretty solid console fps, and I was eager to see how well Criterion managed the break away from their signature dish of highly destructive vehicular combat.
If any facet of Black whatsoever were even a little impressive, it's that they managed to create some surprisingly destructive environments for gen 6 hardware to chug away at. Enough smoke and particle effects to satiate a PS5 owner. The rest is just wretched lol. Character engagement feels like exploring the deep sea w/ these controls, input delay and general poor performance, and the levels themselves are about as disinterestedly laid out as possible despite being made of spit and paper. In no way surprised to learn that the connective story tissue in the form of grotesquely over-edited fmvs between levels was a last-minute addition. Interestingly the initial idea for relating the plot in-game was to have a radio-play-style voiceover spoken over a 'black'(oooh my god šš) screen - would probably have been a little more interesting, but this is tedious enough as is. Let me drift a corner and wrap my car around a streetlamp or I'll just play Timesplitters instead.
S&P:SS is a rock solid rail shooter, albeit a much more crowd-pleasing affair than its predecessor, which was akin to an iron-deficient recollection of End of Evangelion as reflected through the lens of a fever dream. Star Successor takes a more generalised approach to the rail shooter formula, with fewer gimmicky segments and an easily digestible rosary of stages that begin & end in the ways you could predict. Being the sole game Yasushi Suzuki has expressly worked on as Art Director, their calibre of style and pageantry in Star Successor is absolutely off the hook - I doubt Iām being controversial in my assessment of their skill as an artist being some of the most refined aesthetic sensibilities to have blessed the medium yet. The level of planning here for boss variety is particularly impressive, Iām convinced the bones are here for a knockout boss rush title. Huge fan of the guy that turns into dolphins that bounce beachballs and jump through hoops which all become dangerous projectiles. As a whole, Iām fairly convinced that this game is more smartly designed overall than its predecessor, as the consistency with which it dolls out mindful bullet patterns that compound effortlessly on the mental stack, and contextualisations for the multi-layered hazards are nothing short of impressive.
Where things turn sour for me is in the dodgy hitboxes and how drawn-out the stages feel, as the excursions buckle under their padding and turn into fairly languid drifts across locales and enemy swarms. Nothing lasts as long as Iād feel they should, and I repeatedly find myself sighing with fatigue when another mob corridor is punctuated with another miniboss as opposed to a more meaningful perspective or narrative shift. Credit where itās due, itās ultimately a good thing that Treasure took a very different approach for this sequel, one that effectively showcases the ways their aesthetic and design tenets matured in the span of a decade. My preference for the original is just a consequence of it winning me over in the battle of appeals - in the personal and artistic fulfillment I gain from āimperfectā games that scan as confused little miracles. Star Successor is solid, but far too articulately concocted to give me any real sense of impact - feeling more like a product, and therefore more prone to being scrutinised over the mechanical minutia. Ultimately a miss for me, but a stunning little simulacrum of a game I still find otherworldly.
Where things turn sour for me is in the dodgy hitboxes and how drawn-out the stages feel, as the excursions buckle under their padding and turn into fairly languid drifts across locales and enemy swarms. Nothing lasts as long as Iād feel they should, and I repeatedly find myself sighing with fatigue when another mob corridor is punctuated with another miniboss as opposed to a more meaningful perspective or narrative shift. Credit where itās due, itās ultimately a good thing that Treasure took a very different approach for this sequel, one that effectively showcases the ways their aesthetic and design tenets matured in the span of a decade. My preference for the original is just a consequence of it winning me over in the battle of appeals - in the personal and artistic fulfillment I gain from āimperfectā games that scan as confused little miracles. Star Successor is solid, but far too articulately concocted to give me any real sense of impact - feeling more like a product, and therefore more prone to being scrutinised over the mechanical minutia. Ultimately a miss for me, but a stunning little simulacrum of a game I still find otherworldly.
2017
Love revisiting this amorphous blob of skinner box contente every hundred-or-so days to see it take on a whole new form, almost unrecognisable to the one I experienced prior. The closest I'll get to channel hopping custom maps in TF2.
On one hand this fuckin game is an embarrassing heap of licences, brands and monetization. Stealing content from internet creators and selling them as pristinely packaged Emotes N Skins, gentrifying the culture of the moment into what is essentially a 33gb Nerf Gun advert.
On the other, there's a relative level of generosity on the user level that strings me along in a way that I need brain correction to effectively fight against. I bought one (1) season pass back in 2017 and have been able to afford every subsequent one through their rewards scheme. When the nefariously intended FOMO kicks in I still know they have my back to keep me a regular. The island of Fortnite goes through drastic changes with a suspicious enough regularity that I'm assuming the devs are crunching nonstop to keep the ship afloat. Entire mechanics and equipment can be introduced to the pool only to be removed without fanfare a few weeks later - They flooded the island and made a Waterworld season because why not. Should also be noted that Fortnite has a history of stealing unique mechanics from competitors hacking them in for themself.
This frustratingly enjoyable mid level engagement is kind of peculiar for me because my preference will always be single-player games, and I think Fortnite accommodates people like me, without a competitive bone in their body, by orienting a good three-quarters of the quest system around things that aren't related to combat. My sticking point with most of these games are that they just don't know when to chill, look at all the challenges on Apex or something, they're all different flavours of "deal xxx damage with x weapon". I throw on a movie or podcast and carve a path across the world map gathering materials, speaking to NPCs, doing environmental puzzles and prop hunts and finish a match in 3rd place under two rival streamers hopped up on GFuel haunted by the spirits of great architects, and still gain enough exp to unlock a handful of Battle Pass rewards. I unlocked Lara Croft by ringing doorbells until they broke. Help!!!!!!!
Also I know this will be contentious but I just straight up like the way the game looks. Any skin that isn't default is so meticulously modelled and textured it blows me away, the lighting as the day/nite cycle rolls over the trees and fog in the marsh and the autumn trees and the lakes and!!!!!! i could eat the screen and it'd taste like skittles. Anyway im logging this as mastered because i got 10 kills on the board right now.
On one hand this fuckin game is an embarrassing heap of licences, brands and monetization. Stealing content from internet creators and selling them as pristinely packaged Emotes N Skins, gentrifying the culture of the moment into what is essentially a 33gb Nerf Gun advert.
On the other, there's a relative level of generosity on the user level that strings me along in a way that I need brain correction to effectively fight against. I bought one (1) season pass back in 2017 and have been able to afford every subsequent one through their rewards scheme. When the nefariously intended FOMO kicks in I still know they have my back to keep me a regular. The island of Fortnite goes through drastic changes with a suspicious enough regularity that I'm assuming the devs are crunching nonstop to keep the ship afloat. Entire mechanics and equipment can be introduced to the pool only to be removed without fanfare a few weeks later - They flooded the island and made a Waterworld season because why not. Should also be noted that Fortnite has a history of stealing unique mechanics from competitors hacking them in for themself.
This frustratingly enjoyable mid level engagement is kind of peculiar for me because my preference will always be single-player games, and I think Fortnite accommodates people like me, without a competitive bone in their body, by orienting a good three-quarters of the quest system around things that aren't related to combat. My sticking point with most of these games are that they just don't know when to chill, look at all the challenges on Apex or something, they're all different flavours of "deal xxx damage with x weapon". I throw on a movie or podcast and carve a path across the world map gathering materials, speaking to NPCs, doing environmental puzzles and prop hunts and finish a match in 3rd place under two rival streamers hopped up on GFuel haunted by the spirits of great architects, and still gain enough exp to unlock a handful of Battle Pass rewards. I unlocked Lara Croft by ringing doorbells until they broke. Help!!!!!!!
Also I know this will be contentious but I just straight up like the way the game looks. Any skin that isn't default is so meticulously modelled and textured it blows me away, the lighting as the day/nite cycle rolls over the trees and fog in the marsh and the autumn trees and the lakes and!!!!!! i could eat the screen and it'd taste like skittles. Anyway im logging this as mastered because i got 10 kills on the board right now.
2000
'Pendulum Hold Your Colour Full Album Free Download [MP3 HQ]' changed their name to 'Windows XP Serial Number 034634-262024-171505-828316'
'Windows XP Serial Number 034634-262024-171505-828316' says: WwwwWwwwwasdaasdsadwwasdwwwassd
'Windows XP Serial Number 034634-262024-171505-828316' triple-rebound beheaded player: 'HD Ricochet Motorola Wallpapers'
'HD Ricochet Motorola Wallpapers' left the server.
'John Ricochet' says: hhow do i i turn off auto Aim>??
'Windows XP Serial Number 034634-262024-171505-828316' left the server - Timed out due to a client-side error
'John Ricochet' wins! 1st place of 1 players. 0 total Points
'John Ricochet' says: how d
'Windows XP Serial Number 034634-262024-171505-828316' says: WwwwWwwwwasdaasdsadwwasdwwwassd
'Windows XP Serial Number 034634-262024-171505-828316' triple-rebound beheaded player: 'HD Ricochet Motorola Wallpapers'
'HD Ricochet Motorola Wallpapers' left the server.
'John Ricochet' says: hhow do i i turn off auto Aim>??
'Windows XP Serial Number 034634-262024-171505-828316' left the server - Timed out due to a client-side error
'John Ricochet' wins! 1st place of 1 players. 0 total Points
'John Ricochet' says: how d
2008
Certainly not lost on me how shallow my revisit of LBP1 was. This was something of a childhood fave of mine I threw countless hours at; be it in couch co-op with fwiends or alone in my room exploring the avalanche of user-created content people spun together. Neither of which was a factor in me revisiting it for the first time in well over a decade now (jezus farckin christ!!!!), the servers are long gone and Iād need to be the richest man alive to bribe someone to play this with me over a cocktail of Parsec + RPCS3 input lag. Nobody will ever understand the joy of slapping the aztec cock motif on your co-op partnersā faces siiiighghhhā¦. Still, an illuminating experience that rekindled something in my heart about what LBP1 stood for!
Admittedly, I was always more of an LBP2 kid, these games being modular meant there was very little reason to revisit the first game once the sequel came out. There is a very strong difference in vibes between the two games though, if LBP1 excels at anything, itās in encouraging the player to go off and create for themselves. Itās kind of wild the extent to which LBP1 offers and explains its tools to the player - its relatively simple levels make no effort to hide the gadgets that make ingame events work. Stages are littered with visible emitters, tags, switches, stuff like only-slightly offscreen circuitry that you can watch move around to inform a boss of its attack patterns and phases. It feels like a childās art project or something, a simple array of pulleys and string animating rudimentary creatures and swings. Itās all so laid bare, I kind of adore it, and is certainly a handcrafted energy that LBP2 loses in its explosion of visual polish. The constant delivery of decorations, objects, prebuilt things you can make your own edits of, itās no wonder this game blew up in the way it did - itās with you every step of the way and always acts as a shockingly good teacher for its own mechanics.
Anyway this was a lot of fun. Unquestionably a hilarious platforming title to insist upon having no-death run rewards when so much of your survivability hinges on Sackboyās physics-based astrology. You donāt realise how much nostalgia you have for something until the first thirty seconds of a song makes you tear up. This kind of williamsburg scrapbook aesthetic is hard to stomach nowadays but it really works here. Holy shit I canāt believe the racist caricatures this game has in every corner, this truly is a quintessentially British game.
Admittedly, I was always more of an LBP2 kid, these games being modular meant there was very little reason to revisit the first game once the sequel came out. There is a very strong difference in vibes between the two games though, if LBP1 excels at anything, itās in encouraging the player to go off and create for themselves. Itās kind of wild the extent to which LBP1 offers and explains its tools to the player - its relatively simple levels make no effort to hide the gadgets that make ingame events work. Stages are littered with visible emitters, tags, switches, stuff like only-slightly offscreen circuitry that you can watch move around to inform a boss of its attack patterns and phases. It feels like a childās art project or something, a simple array of pulleys and string animating rudimentary creatures and swings. Itās all so laid bare, I kind of adore it, and is certainly a handcrafted energy that LBP2 loses in its explosion of visual polish. The constant delivery of decorations, objects, prebuilt things you can make your own edits of, itās no wonder this game blew up in the way it did - itās with you every step of the way and always acts as a shockingly good teacher for its own mechanics.
Anyway this was a lot of fun. Unquestionably a hilarious platforming title to insist upon having no-death run rewards when so much of your survivability hinges on Sackboyās physics-based astrology. You donāt realise how much nostalgia you have for something until the first thirty seconds of a song makes you tear up. This kind of williamsburg scrapbook aesthetic is hard to stomach nowadays but it really works here. Holy shit I canāt believe the racist caricatures this game has in every corner, this truly is a quintessentially British game.
2008
Left my ass cooked and crooked. Easy to let complaints of the rigidity of RPGmaker ATB combat and exploration fall to the wayside when the game's narrative doesn't miss a beat. OFF has a lot of unique ideas, and it tells them confidently with fantastic dialogue, surreal environments and an all around sense of style. For a game that paddles in the abstract so obscenely, the conclusion still manages to expertly close the book and leave the player with exactly what they need. Thanks for the stone in the gut.
2012
Editing this review to paint over the previous one. Basically I am nowhere near as red hot against this game as I was at release and I don't think it's particularly fair or genuine of me to keep that grudge on ink. Feels performative or something, I frankly no longer give a shit about Spec Ops in the same way.
There's really no telling anyone "no, i get it, i'm just not laughing" and it's not even worth it to try.
There's really no telling anyone "no, i get it, i'm just not laughing" and it's not even worth it to try.
"Maybe life is like a ride on a freeway
Dodging bullets while you're trying to find your way" -unnamed polymath
I know I'm not the only person caught unaware of how they made not only one, but TWO mainline sequels to the Crazy Taxi series. While they may not be fully souped-up reimaginings, Crazy Taxi 2 and 3 contain all of the content in the prior entry plus a little more, it's a little more apt to think of these as expansion packs. What this mercifully does is maintain the lean and mean purity of the breakout title and sprinkle in a handful more options and maps for just the right amount of variety and personalisation.
The most standout addition in these expansions for me is the jump button, it's wild how much this shakes up your approach to the West Coast you'd otherwise be nailed to the ground for. With the ability to scale buildings and a sense of mastery of the course, it's insanely satisfying to defy the will of the sat-nav and take batshit and overly-direct routes to a dropoff point. I particularly love pulling off a crazy boost and landing on top of a highrise in the middle of nowhere and finding that the developers had the foresight to put a hidden customer there as a little treat. This is kind of fucking amazing. Unfettered videogames. The moment I understand how the fuck you're supposed to pull off a Crazy Drift it's over for you all.
If ever you feel the meter calling, the PC version of the game is easily available in a simple google search. Be sure to use the CT3Tweaks fan patch that adds certain optimisations, greater framerate and resolution support. The soundtrack is kind of hilariously bad but it's all stored in the root folder as .ogg files and I'm sure it'll be no problem to customise yourself.
Dodging bullets while you're trying to find your way" -unnamed polymath
I know I'm not the only person caught unaware of how they made not only one, but TWO mainline sequels to the Crazy Taxi series. While they may not be fully souped-up reimaginings, Crazy Taxi 2 and 3 contain all of the content in the prior entry plus a little more, it's a little more apt to think of these as expansion packs. What this mercifully does is maintain the lean and mean purity of the breakout title and sprinkle in a handful more options and maps for just the right amount of variety and personalisation.
The most standout addition in these expansions for me is the jump button, it's wild how much this shakes up your approach to the West Coast you'd otherwise be nailed to the ground for. With the ability to scale buildings and a sense of mastery of the course, it's insanely satisfying to defy the will of the sat-nav and take batshit and overly-direct routes to a dropoff point. I particularly love pulling off a crazy boost and landing on top of a highrise in the middle of nowhere and finding that the developers had the foresight to put a hidden customer there as a little treat. This is kind of fucking amazing. Unfettered videogames. The moment I understand how the fuck you're supposed to pull off a Crazy Drift it's over for you all.
If ever you feel the meter calling, the PC version of the game is easily available in a simple google search. Be sure to use the CT3Tweaks fan patch that adds certain optimisations, greater framerate and resolution support. The soundtrack is kind of hilariously bad but it's all stored in the root folder as .ogg files and I'm sure it'll be no problem to customise yourself.
2021
![NieR Re[in]carnation](https://images.igdb.com/igdb/image/upload/t_cover_big/co7bm4.jpg)
More like NieR: Auto[play]a.
Desolate in every sense! Combat is purely numerical and exists solely as power gates - simply upgrade your units, weapons and companions, then breeze through this battery vampire of a .apk for a few more missions before you need to upgrade again. OR u can Pay a humble fee for a chance to win epic units for you to also waste upgrade resources on :)
I just feel so wise and numb to the Twisted Mind of Yoko Taro. Grim "tragedy first" writing that passionlessly beelines towards an arc's desired sad outcome, a soundtrack that is essentially just spacy yoga music, vast post-post-magical-apoc environments that serve absolutely nothing. Sad to see Akihiko Yoshida designs wasted on this.
Desolate in every sense! Combat is purely numerical and exists solely as power gates - simply upgrade your units, weapons and companions, then breeze through this battery vampire of a .apk for a few more missions before you need to upgrade again. OR u can Pay a humble fee for a chance to win epic units for you to also waste upgrade resources on :)
I just feel so wise and numb to the Twisted Mind of Yoko Taro. Grim "tragedy first" writing that passionlessly beelines towards an arc's desired sad outcome, a soundtrack that is essentially just spacy yoga music, vast post-post-magical-apoc environments that serve absolutely nothing. Sad to see Akihiko Yoshida designs wasted on this.
Back in 2018, Splatoon 2ās Octo Expansion was one of my favourite releases of that year. It turned Splatoonās core singleplayer gameplay and weapon system on its head, in a way the campaigns only vaguely hinted at - providing ingenious puzzle rooms and a surprisingly steep difficulty curve that finally demonstrated that Nintendo understood & could capitalise on the seriesā potential. Leaned into the strengths of Splatoonās setting too, exploring its bizarre underbelly and fugged vibes. One for the fans of the āRock Bottomā episode of Spongebob. Seeing Agent 8 in the trailers for this had me a little excited, as Splatoon 3ās campaign was solid but didnāt feel as if it pushed the envelope much, Iāve come to see Agent 8 as Splatoonās Harbinger of Difficulty and it turns out I wasnāt wrong.
Side Order is cool!! I love the setting (even if itās basically just something of a play on the Copied City). I found it pretty easy to be excited by the prospect of delving into whatever Nintendoās idea of a roguelite would be, and itās a solid foundation but thereās so little variety here I canāt help but find the tower loop a little dry. There are only four mission types, FEELS LIKE thereās only enough individual level layouts for you to see every available one in a single run, and the upgrades you collect as you ascend the floors are merely statistical buffs; ā+15% shot speedā type beat. Itās very hard, I like the risk:reward option of choosing harder rooms for better upgrades on top of other chaotic modifiers that can shoehorn you into making rough decisions. As with all roguelites with vertical character progression though, itās only hard for a while until you power creep your way over roadblocks with permanent character upgrades and such. Numerically overcoming odds always feels cheap to me and I knew my completing the DLC would only be a matter of time investment. Eventually you get the option to retract your upgrades for a prestige reward boost, but Iāll be one hundred percent with you, I donāt like the majority of the weapons in this game and I can not bring myself to be a completionist about this if it means I have to suffer the fucking umbrella. It's all a little undercooked and doesn't have enough to really justify playing over and over for.
Anyway the story is great lol, albeit that there's not a lot of it. The lengths they go to show how much Marina loves Pearl is endlessly cute. She made the currency in her gamedev project āPrlzā maan šš„¹. Recalling who won the FinalFest of Splatoon 2 gave me something of a pop-off moment and Iām dying to see how this DLC would have looked if Order won. Endgame is the strongest finale of all of these games yet and thatās honestly a ridiculously high bar. Remix Ebb & Flow forever I will cry every time. Personal favourite soundtrack in the series, too! I love how heavily it leans into its dark ethereal sleep paralysis ambiance. LOVE how the hub/training areas have little environmental tells for the instrumentation in the bgm.
Side Order is cool!! I love the setting (even if itās basically just something of a play on the Copied City). I found it pretty easy to be excited by the prospect of delving into whatever Nintendoās idea of a roguelite would be, and itās a solid foundation but thereās so little variety here I canāt help but find the tower loop a little dry. There are only four mission types, FEELS LIKE thereās only enough individual level layouts for you to see every available one in a single run, and the upgrades you collect as you ascend the floors are merely statistical buffs; ā+15% shot speedā type beat. Itās very hard, I like the risk:reward option of choosing harder rooms for better upgrades on top of other chaotic modifiers that can shoehorn you into making rough decisions. As with all roguelites with vertical character progression though, itās only hard for a while until you power creep your way over roadblocks with permanent character upgrades and such. Numerically overcoming odds always feels cheap to me and I knew my completing the DLC would only be a matter of time investment. Eventually you get the option to retract your upgrades for a prestige reward boost, but Iāll be one hundred percent with you, I donāt like the majority of the weapons in this game and I can not bring myself to be a completionist about this if it means I have to suffer the fucking umbrella. It's all a little undercooked and doesn't have enough to really justify playing over and over for.
Anyway the story is great lol, albeit that there's not a lot of it. The lengths they go to show how much Marina loves Pearl is endlessly cute. She made the currency in her gamedev project āPrlzā maan šš„¹. Recalling who won the FinalFest of Splatoon 2 gave me something of a pop-off moment and Iām dying to see how this DLC would have looked if Order won. Endgame is the strongest finale of all of these games yet and thatās honestly a ridiculously high bar. Remix Ebb & Flow forever I will cry every time. Personal favourite soundtrack in the series, too! I love how heavily it leans into its dark ethereal sleep paralysis ambiance. LOVE how the hub/training areas have little environmental tells for the instrumentation in the bgm.
Subway Surfing in the City of Glass.
The OG Mirrorās Edge is a bit of a darling to me - this laser-focused parkour action thrilla that limits itās scope to densely choreographed sequences through rich, hyper-real urb environments. Thereās a weightines to Faithās movement, allowing the player to feel a sense of inertia to the stunts you string together, putting stones in your gut whenever your unbroken momentum ends in freefall. Itās so lean itās so Mean.
Ultimately I put off playing Mirrorās Edge: Catalyst for yearz because I knew what they did to it. I knew it was an open world game, a sprawling map peppered with waypoints and collectables and challenges and skill trees and XP and shit. This Human Revolutionification of a game I originally adored because it sidestepped that stuff. With a few concessions (I skipped every cutscene and ignored everything that wasnāt a story mission), I was finally able to get over myself and just give the game a shot, and Iām happy 2 share that I think ME:C is Alright!!! Itās OK!
The shift in focus is almost immediately striking as the art direction of Catalyst shifts from heavily stylised minimal realism, to this catastrophic directionless mush of overexposed modernism. It's like every expensive yacht in the world crashed into one another to form a continent. Itās kind of pretty but it really doesnāt inspire awe in me in the same way as the OGā¦ A lens flare fried calamity of white pointy buildings with an accent colour thrown in for good measure. Whenever I replay Mirrorās Edge, I gawk at the level of attention poured into the texture, staging and lighting work - and I just couldnāt find anything to care about here.
The reason for this visual mulch is, of course, gameplay clutter as a result of moving towards an open world. The environment design is stretched thin by taking a very blunt modular approach as a result of attempting to pad out the vast expanses of rooftop between quest markers. The City of Glass is slavishly built for Faith and her moveset, every canopy littered with pipes and platforms and grappling points with the intent to allow the player to maintain an unbroken sprint across vast expanses. I canāt help but prefer the simplicity and muted realism of the prior gameās world, one that felt almost hostile to the existence of the Runners, which necessitated a more thoughtful approach to the moment-to-moment - scanning the environment for ways to use your moveset to reach places you shouldnāt. Catalystās city is Faithās playground - but who can deny the simple joys of swingin on da jungle gym.
Iām not going to shit on the game a whole lot - the core intent is very different, focused on player retention through endless sidemissions and jiggies, but itās pretty great when you meet it halfway. Brushing aside the fluff content and focusing on the story missions allows something of a rush through what the game has to offer. Itās bigger, itās crazier, itās bombastic, Faith goes crazy scaling wacky luminescent architecture that doesnāt even pretend to feel like places built for civvies. Assault course game design. It even follows many of the same beats as the original game, you just canāt help but compare how differently things come across here. The combat buckles very quickly with miserable enemy variants, but I enjoyed the focus on using the environment against baddies by paddling them around/into each other, it's pretty slapstick but a damng lot more dynamic than what was in the original game.
I dunno, Iām middle of the road on this. Catalyst feels like the flipside of the same coin, Mirrorās Edge but hopped up on Ubisoft Juice. You couldn't convince me that Mirror's Edge needed bandit camps if your life depended on it, but the speed and flow and scale is intoxicating but it all rings kind of hollow when it feels like youāre just playing Aesthetique Temple Run. Maybe all I need to be happy in this life is seeing bullets go through Nvidia PhysX cloth & dats why this game isnāt doin it.
The OG Mirrorās Edge is a bit of a darling to me - this laser-focused parkour action thrilla that limits itās scope to densely choreographed sequences through rich, hyper-real urb environments. Thereās a weightines to Faithās movement, allowing the player to feel a sense of inertia to the stunts you string together, putting stones in your gut whenever your unbroken momentum ends in freefall. Itās so lean itās so Mean.
Ultimately I put off playing Mirrorās Edge: Catalyst for yearz because I knew what they did to it. I knew it was an open world game, a sprawling map peppered with waypoints and collectables and challenges and skill trees and XP and shit. This Human Revolutionification of a game I originally adored because it sidestepped that stuff. With a few concessions (I skipped every cutscene and ignored everything that wasnāt a story mission), I was finally able to get over myself and just give the game a shot, and Iām happy 2 share that I think ME:C is Alright!!! Itās OK!
The shift in focus is almost immediately striking as the art direction of Catalyst shifts from heavily stylised minimal realism, to this catastrophic directionless mush of overexposed modernism. It's like every expensive yacht in the world crashed into one another to form a continent. Itās kind of pretty but it really doesnāt inspire awe in me in the same way as the OGā¦ A lens flare fried calamity of white pointy buildings with an accent colour thrown in for good measure. Whenever I replay Mirrorās Edge, I gawk at the level of attention poured into the texture, staging and lighting work - and I just couldnāt find anything to care about here.
The reason for this visual mulch is, of course, gameplay clutter as a result of moving towards an open world. The environment design is stretched thin by taking a very blunt modular approach as a result of attempting to pad out the vast expanses of rooftop between quest markers. The City of Glass is slavishly built for Faith and her moveset, every canopy littered with pipes and platforms and grappling points with the intent to allow the player to maintain an unbroken sprint across vast expanses. I canāt help but prefer the simplicity and muted realism of the prior gameās world, one that felt almost hostile to the existence of the Runners, which necessitated a more thoughtful approach to the moment-to-moment - scanning the environment for ways to use your moveset to reach places you shouldnāt. Catalystās city is Faithās playground - but who can deny the simple joys of swingin on da jungle gym.
Iām not going to shit on the game a whole lot - the core intent is very different, focused on player retention through endless sidemissions and jiggies, but itās pretty great when you meet it halfway. Brushing aside the fluff content and focusing on the story missions allows something of a rush through what the game has to offer. Itās bigger, itās crazier, itās bombastic, Faith goes crazy scaling wacky luminescent architecture that doesnāt even pretend to feel like places built for civvies. Assault course game design. It even follows many of the same beats as the original game, you just canāt help but compare how differently things come across here. The combat buckles very quickly with miserable enemy variants, but I enjoyed the focus on using the environment against baddies by paddling them around/into each other, it's pretty slapstick but a damng lot more dynamic than what was in the original game.
I dunno, Iām middle of the road on this. Catalyst feels like the flipside of the same coin, Mirrorās Edge but hopped up on Ubisoft Juice. You couldn't convince me that Mirror's Edge needed bandit camps if your life depended on it, but the speed and flow and scale is intoxicating but it all rings kind of hollow when it feels like youāre just playing Aesthetique Temple Run. Maybe all I need to be happy in this life is seeing bullets go through Nvidia PhysX cloth & dats why this game isnāt doin it.
2020
The fourth season in and this game is still doing its best to assure you that there are like five maps in total on the roster. I don't find this shit fun at all, no matter how endearingly the jellybeans go "woo :)" or soundtrack does its best Splatoon impression. One of those games where absolutely none of the times you're eliminated feel fair or deserved thanks to griefers and bad physics, made worse by painfully long matchmaking waits.
TBD
It's coming. Any day now.
2008
Beneath a fading silver sky, I found myself locked in a timeless dance of catch with a stranger.
Good +30
Our hands connected across the expansive field through the shared rhythm of a baseball's flight, while our hearts bridged the chasm of anonymity with every gentle toss.
Good +30
Amidst the soft thud of the catch, we listened heartfully to stories that spilled like fragments of a soul's journey.
Normal +20
Each throw, a moment shared, a piece of the intricate mosaic of their life.
Perfect! +50
Good +30
Our hands connected across the expansive field through the shared rhythm of a baseball's flight, while our hearts bridged the chasm of anonymity with every gentle toss.
Good +30
Amidst the soft thud of the catch, we listened heartfully to stories that spilled like fragments of a soul's journey.
Normal +20
Each throw, a moment shared, a piece of the intricate mosaic of their life.
Perfect! +50
āFind a sacred square of earth. Lay down, so you have the dirt at your back. Close your eyes. Close everything. Your ancestors are in that dirt. All the living and all the dead are holding you up. Now Stand. Theyāre still there, arenāt they? Itās time to move. To entangle yourself everywhere with everyone. So that next time you lay down in the dirt, you will have so much more to tell them.ā
As Iām sure many of us can, I recall the time we moved out from our childhood home - the rooms I spent my most formative years and the battle scars they earned through the hustle and bustle of young family life. Iām thinking of my bedroom; my wooden crew bed riddled with teeth marks and Cartoon Network stickers. The pale blue colour of the paint on the walls, frayed and cracked in the areas I gormlessly taped posters without my parentsā permission. The doodles I hid in the corners of the furniture their eyes couldnāt reach, depicting my aspirations for the future, the riches and gifts and moments Iād give to my dearest friends and family. Itās been a good twenty~or-so~ years since I last saw those remnants of my past, and Iām a little stunned in how Season allowed me to think back to them so vividly for the first time in nearly as long. Everything can tell a story, host a spirit of the past - miniscule but never completely insignificant. I wish I could see them again, I wish I had the foresight to have taken photographs or something.
Ultimately, this is what Season: A Letter To The Future is about, sculpting in time out of photographs, sketches and audio recordings. Preserving memories of the world as it stands before a vague concept of calamity threatens to change it. In its opening moments, your character Estelle and her mother are making a pendant to protect Estelleās mind on the journey ahead. Doing so means Estelleās mother has to give up five memories of her own. The courtyard where youāre asked to gather your first recordings is staged perfectly. Decorations from a party last night still hang in a tree, and signs of the villageās lived-in past are everywhere. A leisurely stroll to capture all I could of the gorgeous little village, rendered lovingly with painterly oranges and purples.
I couldnāt believe my luck, itās an amazing start to the game. The establishment of melancholic urgency and the world being rich with cultures and theologies that beg to be preserved for future generations, and the understanding of how frail the mind really isā¦ How eager it seems to omit and alter the past to safeguard ourselves from oversentimentality. Couldnāt have been more captivated. And as my bicycle crested the final stretch of the hilltop, I tip over the edge, letting go of the controller, letting gravity take over and pull me down the long and winding road ahead, I realise that the game is a little special.
Seasonās secret weapon is in its journal mechanic - wherein the player can freely personalise the entries afforded to you with custom placements of polaroid photographs youāve taken, as well as sketches, decals, flora and whatever else you find on your journey. Thereās a decent amount of freedom of expression here allowing you to capture the essence of a location however best you see fit. The kicker is that you only have two pages per key location. It can often be all too tempting to just sweep through a videogame map and hoard every shiny collectible like a kinda crow, but imposed upon the journal is a limited framework per key locale that forces you to be mindful of the things you choose to omit. My mind was on hyperdrive during this early stretch of the game; viewfinding striking angles for my photographs and designing the best notebook pages I felt an area deserved, and deciding what records were of the most importance.
Sadly, this doesnāt last too long. Eventually you reach the open-world segment where most of the playtime is spent - Tieng Valley. While clearly a lovingly realised zone filled with historic locales and mindful touches, it introduces a monotonous feeling to its exploration as things become increasingly clear that the scope of the game falls too narrow to match what I was hoping for. This isnāt Kinoās Journey, itās one episode of Kinoās journey stretched thin over a 5~6 hour playtime. It slows down in its variety of unique stimuli and begins to focus more keenly on the mystery of the sole opposition in the game and their goal of ushering forth the āend of the worldā. Thatās not necessarily a problem on its own, but neither the mystery nor the few remaining citizens of Tieng Valley are all that compelling. The people of the valley are traumatized by memories of past conflicts, and much of life there is centered around how to live with that trauma or forget it completely. Season settles into the most anodyne musings on memory and how people live with the pastā¦ the transience of memory and the collective ability to heal. The themes tackled are so broad, itās hard to pick a message out of all the noise, and it truly doesnāt help that the delivery is so flat. Its focus on small human stories and creative expression is admirable, even as theyāre drowned out by a lukewarm plot, and the worldās beauty canāt be overstated. But rather than the meditative, meandering journey its opening suggests, Season gets locked into a single story that centers on the cataclysmic fate approaching its world more than the wonder that already fills it.
Iām disappointed, ultimately, but it was a nice pilgrimage.
As Iām sure many of us can, I recall the time we moved out from our childhood home - the rooms I spent my most formative years and the battle scars they earned through the hustle and bustle of young family life. Iām thinking of my bedroom; my wooden crew bed riddled with teeth marks and Cartoon Network stickers. The pale blue colour of the paint on the walls, frayed and cracked in the areas I gormlessly taped posters without my parentsā permission. The doodles I hid in the corners of the furniture their eyes couldnāt reach, depicting my aspirations for the future, the riches and gifts and moments Iād give to my dearest friends and family. Itās been a good twenty~or-so~ years since I last saw those remnants of my past, and Iām a little stunned in how Season allowed me to think back to them so vividly for the first time in nearly as long. Everything can tell a story, host a spirit of the past - miniscule but never completely insignificant. I wish I could see them again, I wish I had the foresight to have taken photographs or something.
Ultimately, this is what Season: A Letter To The Future is about, sculpting in time out of photographs, sketches and audio recordings. Preserving memories of the world as it stands before a vague concept of calamity threatens to change it. In its opening moments, your character Estelle and her mother are making a pendant to protect Estelleās mind on the journey ahead. Doing so means Estelleās mother has to give up five memories of her own. The courtyard where youāre asked to gather your first recordings is staged perfectly. Decorations from a party last night still hang in a tree, and signs of the villageās lived-in past are everywhere. A leisurely stroll to capture all I could of the gorgeous little village, rendered lovingly with painterly oranges and purples.
I couldnāt believe my luck, itās an amazing start to the game. The establishment of melancholic urgency and the world being rich with cultures and theologies that beg to be preserved for future generations, and the understanding of how frail the mind really isā¦ How eager it seems to omit and alter the past to safeguard ourselves from oversentimentality. Couldnāt have been more captivated. And as my bicycle crested the final stretch of the hilltop, I tip over the edge, letting go of the controller, letting gravity take over and pull me down the long and winding road ahead, I realise that the game is a little special.
Seasonās secret weapon is in its journal mechanic - wherein the player can freely personalise the entries afforded to you with custom placements of polaroid photographs youāve taken, as well as sketches, decals, flora and whatever else you find on your journey. Thereās a decent amount of freedom of expression here allowing you to capture the essence of a location however best you see fit. The kicker is that you only have two pages per key location. It can often be all too tempting to just sweep through a videogame map and hoard every shiny collectible like a kinda crow, but imposed upon the journal is a limited framework per key locale that forces you to be mindful of the things you choose to omit. My mind was on hyperdrive during this early stretch of the game; viewfinding striking angles for my photographs and designing the best notebook pages I felt an area deserved, and deciding what records were of the most importance.
Sadly, this doesnāt last too long. Eventually you reach the open-world segment where most of the playtime is spent - Tieng Valley. While clearly a lovingly realised zone filled with historic locales and mindful touches, it introduces a monotonous feeling to its exploration as things become increasingly clear that the scope of the game falls too narrow to match what I was hoping for. This isnāt Kinoās Journey, itās one episode of Kinoās journey stretched thin over a 5~6 hour playtime. It slows down in its variety of unique stimuli and begins to focus more keenly on the mystery of the sole opposition in the game and their goal of ushering forth the āend of the worldā. Thatās not necessarily a problem on its own, but neither the mystery nor the few remaining citizens of Tieng Valley are all that compelling. The people of the valley are traumatized by memories of past conflicts, and much of life there is centered around how to live with that trauma or forget it completely. Season settles into the most anodyne musings on memory and how people live with the pastā¦ the transience of memory and the collective ability to heal. The themes tackled are so broad, itās hard to pick a message out of all the noise, and it truly doesnāt help that the delivery is so flat. Its focus on small human stories and creative expression is admirable, even as theyāre drowned out by a lukewarm plot, and the worldās beauty canāt be overstated. But rather than the meditative, meandering journey its opening suggests, Season gets locked into a single story that centers on the cataclysmic fate approaching its world more than the wonder that already fills it.
Iām disappointed, ultimately, but it was a nice pilgrimage.