BeachEpisode
2016
I miss sending glitter to my homies.....
The world lost a shade of colour when the Switch released with a different type of touchscreen to the 3DS, I guess it's a capacitive one similar to the type phones use? Either way, it disincentivises the use of anything but a finger, or a specialised conductive stylus that the system doesn't even come with. No Art Academy, no Etrian Odyssey, no freaking Swapnote. Not swaggie. The humble social doodler has been hunted down and destroyed. Swapnote Nikki found dead in Miami.
The world lost a shade of colour when the Switch released with a different type of touchscreen to the 3DS, I guess it's a capacitive one similar to the type phones use? Either way, it disincentivises the use of anything but a finger, or a specialised conductive stylus that the system doesn't even come with. No Art Academy, no Etrian Odyssey, no freaking Swapnote. Not swaggie. The humble social doodler has been hunted down and destroyed. Swapnote Nikki found dead in Miami.
2021
Fills me with a rare feeling. I've played a lot of games in my time - far too many, if I'll be honest. I often find myself playing something others laud as a groundbreaking new exploration of genre or visuals where it only leaves me thinking I'm experiencing deja vu. Cuccchi is one of the recent cases of me playing a modern game and it feeling genuinely otherworldly. Visually, this is unparalleled, I've never seen anything else like it. Even on replays, I find myself stopping in my tracks, just to pan the camera around and absorb what I'm being presented, both to take in its beauty, and to try to understand its composition.
I am so hungry for the further exploration of games as vehicles for concept albums, digital museums or virtual mausoleums.
Cucchi is Intensely reverent of an artist I'd otherwise never heard of; Enzo Cucchi (pronounced "cookie"). His artwork is wonderfully realised, riding the wave of expressionism and shaking its own visual conventions with surprising regularity. Something about the low-resolution rendering direction somehow lends every scene from every angle a genuinely painterly feel. The music is astounding too, remarkably reactive to the player's position in the world.
So naturally, the catch is that it has a certain lack of confidence in itself. One of the central mechanical pillars of the game is the task of finding collectables and avoiding enemy skulls in Windows 95 maze screensaver-esque sequences. The levels themselves are peppered with unlockable artworks by Enzo for you to later inspect via a submenu, which adds some annoying blemishes to the landscapes. No reason for any of this to be here at all, I'll be frank, just because you're a game doesn't mean you have to carry the baggage of one. The heart and soul of the Cuccchi is the exploration of sight and sound, that's all it needed.
The game has recently received an update that adds a few more levels and songs to what was present at the time of writing, as well as a difficulty setting modifier you can use to outright remove the enemies! Sadly, the maze segments remain - and with a distracting sense of emptiness if you choose to remove the hostile annoyances. An imperfect solution, but it's nice that the experience can be tuned none the less.
I am so hungry for the further exploration of games as vehicles for concept albums, digital museums or virtual mausoleums.
Cucchi is Intensely reverent of an artist I'd otherwise never heard of; Enzo Cucchi (pronounced "cookie"). His artwork is wonderfully realised, riding the wave of expressionism and shaking its own visual conventions with surprising regularity. Something about the low-resolution rendering direction somehow lends every scene from every angle a genuinely painterly feel. The music is astounding too, remarkably reactive to the player's position in the world.
So naturally, the catch is that it has a certain lack of confidence in itself. One of the central mechanical pillars of the game is the task of finding collectables and avoiding enemy skulls in Windows 95 maze screensaver-esque sequences. The levels themselves are peppered with unlockable artworks by Enzo for you to later inspect via a submenu, which adds some annoying blemishes to the landscapes. No reason for any of this to be here at all, I'll be frank, just because you're a game doesn't mean you have to carry the baggage of one. The heart and soul of the Cuccchi is the exploration of sight and sound, that's all it needed.
The game has recently received an update that adds a few more levels and songs to what was present at the time of writing, as well as a difficulty setting modifier you can use to outright remove the enemies! Sadly, the maze segments remain - and with a distracting sense of emptiness if you choose to remove the hostile annoyances. An imperfect solution, but it's nice that the experience can be tuned none the less.
Taipei ➡️ Zuoying (Kaohsiung City)
Duration: 01h34
Train Model: THSR 700T
Train No: 0145
Number of carriages: 12 (1 business car, 11 standard cars)
Number of seats: 989 (66 seats in business car, 923 seats in standard cars)
Seat allocation: 2+2 in business car (4 seats each row); 2+3 in standard car (5 seats each row)
Top operation speed: 300 km/hr
Length of train: 304 m
Electric system: 25 KV 60 Hz AC
Welcome aboard Taiwan High Speed Rail! This train is bound from Taipei, to Zuoying. All seats are reserved. Please make sure you are in the correct seat. We wish you a pleasant journey. 🌸
Slim but unquestionably reverent and adorable. Maybe I'm gassing this up too much but it's nice to see the Trainguy subgenre have a little more meat on its bones beyond polygonal simulations and instead could be secret FMV games - accelerating and decelerating your train like it's a really meditative Superhot or something. Railfan seems very keen to show you a brief look into late-00's rail transit life, right down to explaining the historicity of the locales the line calls at, the specs of the train, even local cuisine!
Looking up the devs of the Railfan titles to find that they are predominantly dedicated to educative tactile train driving simulations, still making use of full-motion video rather than computer generated sims. I dunno man I think that's neat. I've seen people with the Densha de Go joystick but now I want a carriage door peripheral for me to lean out of.
Duration: 01h34
Train Model: THSR 700T
Train No: 0145
Number of carriages: 12 (1 business car, 11 standard cars)
Number of seats: 989 (66 seats in business car, 923 seats in standard cars)
Seat allocation: 2+2 in business car (4 seats each row); 2+3 in standard car (5 seats each row)
Top operation speed: 300 km/hr
Length of train: 304 m
Electric system: 25 KV 60 Hz AC
Welcome aboard Taiwan High Speed Rail! This train is bound from Taipei, to Zuoying. All seats are reserved. Please make sure you are in the correct seat. We wish you a pleasant journey. 🌸
Slim but unquestionably reverent and adorable. Maybe I'm gassing this up too much but it's nice to see the Trainguy subgenre have a little more meat on its bones beyond polygonal simulations and instead could be secret FMV games - accelerating and decelerating your train like it's a really meditative Superhot or something. Railfan seems very keen to show you a brief look into late-00's rail transit life, right down to explaining the historicity of the locales the line calls at, the specs of the train, even local cuisine!
Looking up the devs of the Railfan titles to find that they are predominantly dedicated to educative tactile train driving simulations, still making use of full-motion video rather than computer generated sims. I dunno man I think that's neat. I've seen people with the Densha de Go joystick but now I want a carriage door peripheral for me to lean out of.
2011
Pretty fun seeing and agreeing with this tweet yesterday & blindly starting From Dust only to realise it was exactly the same thing.
I think being an observer of the press cycle and online blowback in 2011 for this game coloured my expectations a little - those were my halcyon Born Different, Born Innocent days - I expected shit from a butt I'll be perfectly honest with you. Thoughts and prayers for the unfortunates who purchased this game at release, full price, expecting a fully-fledged God Game by the then on-top-of-the-world Ubisoft. People were pretty scathing as a result of their expectations being sidestepped, to the extent that I was successfully scared away from even trying the game all the way until now, over a decade later.
Anyway I thought this was fine lol. A fun little puzzle game where you worm around a map, scooping up elements and plopping them where they'd hopefully aid and protect your villagers from natural disasters. Hits some surprisingly high notes at points with thanks to some surprisingly good fluid physics and overall level of presentation - making tsunamis, terrain-warping earthquakes and volcano eruptions a truu thrill. Routinely £2 on Steam, which I'd say is apt, but you're honestly better off pirating the thing. The version of uPlay From Dust is packaged with is about ten layers deep into being fucked beyond repair, and the port in general feels like it's peddling to power its own iron lung.
I think being an observer of the press cycle and online blowback in 2011 for this game coloured my expectations a little - those were my halcyon Born Different, Born Innocent days - I expected shit from a butt I'll be perfectly honest with you. Thoughts and prayers for the unfortunates who purchased this game at release, full price, expecting a fully-fledged God Game by the then on-top-of-the-world Ubisoft. People were pretty scathing as a result of their expectations being sidestepped, to the extent that I was successfully scared away from even trying the game all the way until now, over a decade later.
Anyway I thought this was fine lol. A fun little puzzle game where you worm around a map, scooping up elements and plopping them where they'd hopefully aid and protect your villagers from natural disasters. Hits some surprisingly high notes at points with thanks to some surprisingly good fluid physics and overall level of presentation - making tsunamis, terrain-warping earthquakes and volcano eruptions a truu thrill. Routinely £2 on Steam, which I'd say is apt, but you're honestly better off pirating the thing. The version of uPlay From Dust is packaged with is about ten layers deep into being fucked beyond repair, and the port in general feels like it's peddling to power its own iron lung.
1996
Part of a very specific genre of game I quite literally cannot fathom "working" outside of a 90's club chill-out room. You're on your comedown double fisting lucozades and you're hypnotised by the light reflecting off the dolphin's scalp as it explores homebrew Windows Media Player visualisers. There's some very loose gameplay here where you collect samples and edit songs but it's all very unconvincing, you're here to nurse your friend back to health as he's has too many Es and is chewing his lips off. Honestly, I'm easily swayed by any soundtrack that is predominately jungle techno or downtempo, and the headline act bein a dolphin. Played for 5 mins.
2022
True enough, a game I wholeheartedly consider to be a watertight little marvel was graced with a sequel that promises bigger and better - and in their attempt to deliver, it begins to burst at the seams. There was a certain elegance to the way the Okomotive, the main mode of transport in FAR: Lone Sails, was designed. In the context clarity for which every function and dial coexists with the rest of the machine and how breezy it felt to dart around its internals. Much of that game’s appeal was in the ease with which you could Zombie Mode it, stringing together repeated steam release speed boosts while spinning all the other managerial plates thrown your way, all with enough spare time to enjoy the journey you’re making.
FAR: Changing Tides trades the Benz for the boat, with an interesting inversion of the previous title’s control scheme, and a very different internal routine you’ll have to learn and adapt to as an increasing amount of plates demand to be spinned. I’m all for a spot of intentioned friction in my games, but it felt as though I was struggling with the control scheme more often than the barge itself. Changing Tides’ doesn’t let you hold on to the momentum you build for very long before you need to grind to a halt, it’s a very harsh stop-and-start routine you have to rigidly follow. My main source of disappointment is in how I felt as though I stared at my vehicle’s gauges and switches for far longer than the stunning environments rolling by, bumping around its cramped internals and trying to nurture any semblance of speed I built. All of this is a thorn in the side of a game that deserves to be absorbed into. It pains me to hear a wonderful piece of background score coming to an end before I can reach the finale of a setpiece or chapter. There's a lot of strained silence in stretches of Changing Tides that smack less of Muted Immersion and more that I’m Fucking Up Somewhere. This kind of lack of clarity tends to extend to the puzzle the segments that break up the boat trips, I’m somewhat in disbelief at how often they’d place items or levers behind obstructing pieces of geometry.
Not without its flashes of brilliance, don’t get me wrong. When the going gets going, and you hit the supercharge, carving your ship through the cerulean nebula, I felt like I was driving a carmine dagger and dealing the killing blow to God. In a stunningly good final act, Changing Tides is genuinely host to one of the biggest sentimental sequel popoffs I’ve had since Shadow Moses in MGS4. I can forgive all matter of ooo clunkiness when a game makes me loudly exclaim “No Fucking Way”.
FAR: Changing Tides trades the Benz for the boat, with an interesting inversion of the previous title’s control scheme, and a very different internal routine you’ll have to learn and adapt to as an increasing amount of plates demand to be spinned. I’m all for a spot of intentioned friction in my games, but it felt as though I was struggling with the control scheme more often than the barge itself. Changing Tides’ doesn’t let you hold on to the momentum you build for very long before you need to grind to a halt, it’s a very harsh stop-and-start routine you have to rigidly follow. My main source of disappointment is in how I felt as though I stared at my vehicle’s gauges and switches for far longer than the stunning environments rolling by, bumping around its cramped internals and trying to nurture any semblance of speed I built. All of this is a thorn in the side of a game that deserves to be absorbed into. It pains me to hear a wonderful piece of background score coming to an end before I can reach the finale of a setpiece or chapter. There's a lot of strained silence in stretches of Changing Tides that smack less of Muted Immersion and more that I’m Fucking Up Somewhere. This kind of lack of clarity tends to extend to the puzzle the segments that break up the boat trips, I’m somewhat in disbelief at how often they’d place items or levers behind obstructing pieces of geometry.
Not without its flashes of brilliance, don’t get me wrong. When the going gets going, and you hit the supercharge, carving your ship through the cerulean nebula, I felt like I was driving a carmine dagger and dealing the killing blow to God. In a stunningly good final act, Changing Tides is genuinely host to one of the biggest sentimental sequel popoffs I’ve had since Shadow Moses in MGS4. I can forgive all matter of ooo clunkiness when a game makes me loudly exclaim “No Fucking Way”.
1996
The best artstyle a Sonic game has ever had. Bellies look like dart boards. Logging as "mastered" to avoid becoming a laughing stock.
F.I.S.T. has been brought to us with the aid of "China Hero Project", Sony’s big initiative to help fund small indie devs based in and around China in order to help bring their games to a more global stage, and to more platforms. An exciting little prospect for me, as I've always wanted to see some decently-backed singleplayer entries to come out of China.
Honestly I kind of love this game, despite a few shortcomings by way of bizarre difficulty spikes, somewhat bloated playtime, poor localisation, it all feels palpably ambitious and filled with heartfelt detail! A Brawler Metroidvania with a wide array of combat and movement abilities that feel gr8, and everything from bosses to projectiles are parryable if you can react fast enough, which is my personal catnip.
Lovely furry-noire setting with vibes immaculate. The locales being widely varied and stunningly realised lent the city a lived-in feeling I tend to only yearn for in this genre. It's all very endearing!
Honestly I kind of love this game, despite a few shortcomings by way of bizarre difficulty spikes, somewhat bloated playtime, poor localisation, it all feels palpably ambitious and filled with heartfelt detail! A Brawler Metroidvania with a wide array of combat and movement abilities that feel gr8, and everything from bosses to projectiles are parryable if you can react fast enough, which is my personal catnip.
Lovely furry-noire setting with vibes immaculate. The locales being widely varied and stunningly realised lent the city a lived-in feeling I tend to only yearn for in this genre. It's all very endearing!
2021
Some surprisingly good mountainbiking and snowboarding controls pinned against the wall by progression systems designed to feel like a merchant is always sitting on your shoulder & peddling wares. The saying goes "you're never more than ten feet away from a drive-thru intercom". When the game shuts up & stops bombarding you with currencies/exp/bad dialogue it's actually a blast lol, wide mission variety and a world map that feels sufficiently frictive and challenging to explore apace. Rider's Republic makes navigating the range something of a Sisyphean task, keypoints connected thru hazy vertical infrastructure designed to jostle and jive. It's not Burnout Paradise levels of map density or flow but triple-a doesn't make games that lean or mean any more. If this wasn't such an industrialised player engagement mill I'd definitely see it further along, best in class downhill biking and some of these ski races hit those SSX notes.
The clarity of intent should be squarely on the thrill of riding, with the rewards being set dressing - but it holds so much back from the player that it feels like you're just grinding to earn the game's trust before it finally places u behind the bars of a new bike frame with +5 Stability and +2 Speed. Give me all the vehicles and unlock all the challenges on the world map from the get-go you cowards.
Tired of this nasty Fortnitepunk aesthetiq too man, the true measure of the wheelman's guile is their faceless peerless performance on the loam road, not the funny emote and neon bunny hat they bought @ the cash store. Every graphic designer on staff emptying their portfolios into a gumbo of oftentimes genuinely good illustrative work that just melds together all messy and mismatched. The soundtrack is kind of a secret bop though.... Chaka Khan blessed.
The clarity of intent should be squarely on the thrill of riding, with the rewards being set dressing - but it holds so much back from the player that it feels like you're just grinding to earn the game's trust before it finally places u behind the bars of a new bike frame with +5 Stability and +2 Speed. Give me all the vehicles and unlock all the challenges on the world map from the get-go you cowards.
Tired of this nasty Fortnitepunk aesthetiq too man, the true measure of the wheelman's guile is their faceless peerless performance on the loam road, not the funny emote and neon bunny hat they bought @ the cash store. Every graphic designer on staff emptying their portfolios into a gumbo of oftentimes genuinely good illustrative work that just melds together all messy and mismatched. The soundtrack is kind of a secret bop though.... Chaka Khan blessed.
1992
Surprisingly charming for a game where one of the bosses is a maggot-ridden rat carcass in a sewer. A solid entry point for me into the world of Amiga shmups; soundtrack filled with wall to wall bangers and well-conceptualised stages, enemies and hazards - many of which are genuinely unsettling, bookended with hilarious Wife Guy germanic-anime melodrama.
On a side note, the credits for this game are adorable. 90% padded with the devs thanking everyone they know and love, including their passions and influences.
On a side note, the credits for this game are adorable. 90% padded with the devs thanking everyone they know and love, including their passions and influences.
a first person game where at the end it is revealed you have been a clown with a big clown nose and wig the whole time
1994
buy energy saving lightbulbs or this will happen to you
1997
Honestly, a pretty sick Virtual-on esque action arcade thing that has left me in complete awe of its final boss. Every battle that comes prior is designed to force the player to make full use of their land and air traversal abilities, dodging and dealing damage, all the while the adversary's high speeds make them very difficult to keep on-screen. During my first playthrough, this struck me as a detriment; I barely know anything about the Saturn controller and was honestly under the impression I didn't bind the buttons correctly, on top of simply feeling that the game wasn't all too well designed.
The game has a "M.I.S.S." navigator function that acts as a boss lock-on, which could turn out to be completely missable because you need to find and pick them up on the map physically. This is where the replayability factor comes in. Each navigator has their own abilities, different designs and personalities on top of cute unlockable artwork based on overall score-based performance. Each stage has one unique navigator - and if you want to challenge yourself, you can choose to play through almost the entire game without a lock-on to unlock a later navigator. This is..... kind of genius!!!! What a great challenge and way to bring the game's clunky controls to the forefront with a mindful nudge and wink to the player as a reward for toughing through it! I love anime pics!!
Anyway, after realising that the game is all about maintaining focus on a slippery enemy, I come to the final boss. Instead of doing everything it can to outmanoeuvre you and attack from your flank, this boss is fucking BOLTED to your nose. You can't avoid the guy no matter how hard you juke and jive; they even increase in size and ferocity as the overbearing fight goes on. The ability to switch between land and air used to allow the player to feel as though they had a sense of control over the way the boss needed to approach you, but now you're in the lion's den. I love it so much it's terrifying and exhilarating and already one of my favourite final bosses ever.
The rest of the game is alright, too! I love that it shakes up the rulebook every couple of stages with different clear conditions and level design ethoses. When these controls finally clicked, I found myself replaying on max difficulty purely to revel in a rare sense of mastery as what was previously clunky and abstract is now second nature!
J'adore the presentation too, chunky mechs and chunky explosions with some of the 2D charm of like, Pilotwings.
The game has a "M.I.S.S." navigator function that acts as a boss lock-on, which could turn out to be completely missable because you need to find and pick them up on the map physically. This is where the replayability factor comes in. Each navigator has their own abilities, different designs and personalities on top of cute unlockable artwork based on overall score-based performance. Each stage has one unique navigator - and if you want to challenge yourself, you can choose to play through almost the entire game without a lock-on to unlock a later navigator. This is..... kind of genius!!!! What a great challenge and way to bring the game's clunky controls to the forefront with a mindful nudge and wink to the player as a reward for toughing through it! I love anime pics!!
Anyway, after realising that the game is all about maintaining focus on a slippery enemy, I come to the final boss. Instead of doing everything it can to outmanoeuvre you and attack from your flank, this boss is fucking BOLTED to your nose. You can't avoid the guy no matter how hard you juke and jive; they even increase in size and ferocity as the overbearing fight goes on. The ability to switch between land and air used to allow the player to feel as though they had a sense of control over the way the boss needed to approach you, but now you're in the lion's den. I love it so much it's terrifying and exhilarating and already one of my favourite final bosses ever.
The rest of the game is alright, too! I love that it shakes up the rulebook every couple of stages with different clear conditions and level design ethoses. When these controls finally clicked, I found myself replaying on max difficulty purely to revel in a rare sense of mastery as what was previously clunky and abstract is now second nature!
J'adore the presentation too, chunky mechs and chunky explosions with some of the 2D charm of like, Pilotwings.
1995
Wasn't expecting such an early foray into the 3D platformer genre to be this consistently engaging and easy to control. Bouncing around and blasting enemies into polygons felt visceral and I loved it.