Massive respect to whoever had the fucking nerve to localise this game officially to the west. Some people in the 90's probably got some well-earned culture shock by the way this localisation makes no attempt to flatten out the Japanese quirks at a time when publishers loved doing so. Is this particularly good? No. It's a cutscene-first minigame anthology where the minigames feel like an afterthought. Generally they're just a bit baffling (not necessarily in the fun Warioware microgames way) and just a tad overlong. Do people who only play "good" games appreciate the finer things in life? No. Sometimes on your pursuit for Gaming Idyll you have to do the Titanic minigame three times. Much to love here, the fun ska soundtrack and general attention variety on top of weaving the character's arcs together in the clumsiest funniest way possible. We have the number one mum in gaming right here. Button Mashing is a tool of sustenance that must be regarded with the same historical reverence as the plow. It's like an hour long too, nice nice nice.

Put off playing this for so, so long! Nice to see how much of the little minutiae of MGS1's gameplay they exploit in creative ways for some genuinely devious and endearing missions. I'm sure much of this is just a compilation of heavily stylised playtesting rooms the developers used to stress test enemy and weapon behaviour, but the abstraction allows for a litany of challenging vignettes that would otherwise be impossible in the main game. It even managed to wrangle a series of murder mystery missions out of this engine. Stupid, bully-able AI and primitive physics are simply the best, and this game knows it. Most of the best challenges force you to think of the enemy guards like bowling pins to knock around.

The task list is doubled up with time trial variants of almost every mission, making this nowhere near as lean as it should be. I'm sorry... I just don't find time trials interesting in any context. Didn't exactly love this, but came out of the experience with a boosted appreciation for the wonderfully textured player freedom in MGS1, and newfound knowledge of ways I can traumatise the Genome Soldiers.

The story behind the development of this game is rather cute, much of which is outlined in the wonderful design document it comes packaged with. Development started in 1993 for the MSX as a hobbyist undertaking and reached a presentable state around 1997, where it was intended to be shown off at Comiket. Sadly, Ikushi Togo's disk drive crashed, causing a dramatic loss of the machine language source code and other data. After a lull of many years where Tarotica Voo Doo would lay dormant, an old demo rom was eventually showcased at Comiket in 2014 and received such tremendous support and praise, the developer realised he had to see the game through. Rather than taking the comparatively easy route and developing the game with more modern tools, they instead stuck to their guns and rewrote the game completely from scratch, once again for the MSX.
A self-imposed challenge that paid dividends - Tarotica Voo Doo operates under its hardware restrictions with such clear clarity of intent, filled with design quirks rare and unseen in games old and new. Where the visual style is indeed crude; being the product of mouse-drawn pixel art, it complements the uniquely tactile control scheme to the point where it feels like flicking through charming flipbook animations - watching the mansion map fill out in the same vein as a growing doodle on a bored schoolkid’s workbook margin or exploratory boardgame. The developer has expressed that they find games less interesting when actions are automated, and Tarotica Voo Doo’s puzzling and combat incorporates an utterly fascinating control scheme that demands deliberate movement and interaction. It’s no surprise to me that the developer has their eyes on getting a project to the Playmate system.
I wanted to be a little vague, this is a 2-hour game that deserves to be played and appreciated. I swear to god I think this mansion has left an imprint on me.

If Vane were to be in its entirety its opening act fully fleshed out - I'd have a new favourite game. An hour of pottering over a vast pearlescant desert where what remains of a civilisation that hasn't been devoured by the earth's crust has the gentle presence of a great elder, sleepily telling their tale. Pulled in different directions by faint shimmers of glass and specks of stone in the distance - as a crow, that's all the provocation to explore you need in this mercifully waypoint-free world. It felt like a game that was finally learning the right lessons from Thatgamecompany and Team Ico; the flatly-shaded polygonal artstyle age-wearing the details and lending a sense of greater mystery to the windswept world, of which the player must take great care and attention in navigating because it's grand architects weren't designing a platformer game stage to collect coins in. To be present is to be prayerful.

The latter chapters give some distinctly diminishing returns as their gameplay shifts to more functionally grounded puzzlesolving. Not without their standout moments, it was therepeutic to scream at an orb.

Look at the way it displaces polygons for a timelapse effect!! This world shakes and breaks as you poke and meander, its wonderful stop-motion environmental unbuilding quirks lend Vane the feeling of a world barely held together by its 3D-printed infill. Not to make excuses for the game, but this was a case where I didn't mind the handful of glitches I encountered during my playthrough. In a game that takes great pleasure in ripping itself to shreds, veering itself wildly off course in a kind of implicit panic, I'd almost expect its rulebook to skip a page or two in the fray. Sometimes you clip out of the world, crash your console, and you just have to think "cool".

Like all the best art, Vane can be brilliant and subversive and confusing and frustrating. Definitely, the best of the Flower/Journey derivatives because it genuinely feels like it wants to carry their legacy like a true apprentice - but the game is sadly just too disjointed for it to stick the landing for me.

Actually kind of love this, feels like a game that would come pre-installed on the terminals at the NERV command center. Riding by the seat of its pants with, no exaggeration, among the sickest visual styles I've ever seen in a game; very much the heavily stylised data diagrams of MGS VR Missions with the frantic hierogram twang found in a Central Dogma red alert. As a game, its gameplay as a top down arena shooter is largely basic & repetitious but not without its little strokes of genius that have me positively enamoured. The framework really is sitting right here, clear as day, for a great roguelite shmup - I adore the fact that adjacent cleared rooms grant you a damage bonus, on top of its breakneck arcade pacing begs some quick strategising to have an optimal run of a floor. With better controls, wider enemy variety and smarter AI behaviour/patterns, this would be the essential shmup tbh. An instant favourite, despite its shortcomings. I will dream beautiful dreams of a game that will never exist, this smashed together with Warning Forever.

HBO Presents: Half Life 2 - Episode 1 (FakeFactory Cinematic Mod).

While both games are surely quite good, I'm still unconvinced by The Last of Us. There's REALLY nothing I can add on top of Pansy's wonderful review.
What mostly struck me was how sanded down much of the theming of this really was, the way the second half of the game begs you to find endearment in Abby and her family struck as cartoonish in the already well-trodden realm of player implicating. What I did find assuring was how much I agreed with the game's own assessment of Joel, despite eroding the ambiguity that gave the ending any kick to begin with. Considering how much the game caters itself to low common denoms, I'm glad it didn't take the easy way out and venerate him, making Ellie's Quest 4 Revenge as dicey as it needed to be. I genuinely only wish this wasn't a roving epic where 13 hours of playtime are dedicated to hugging walls, opening shelves and picking up scraps of metal. The developers dying at their desks for this game feels uniquely frustrating to me because of how... unambitious it felt despite dizzyingly high production values?? The whole thing is enemy chokeholds in dense concrete jungles separated w/ scripted segments where someone grapples you from offscreen for going through a door. Very brave, Druckmann.

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.

Mechanically competent, I'm keen on the Skate-like control scheme making shots more difficult to accurately pull off than the simple stop-and-start QTE that most other golf games roll with. Thing is, in a game this utterly bereft of personality, style, and overall gamemode variety, I somewhat expected it to act as more of a core golfing sim than it really is. It somewhat expounds the little grievances that creep up, like swinging fast causing a left hook, and the slow downswing a rightward slice - which just makes no sense, and the input method is too inconsistent for its bizarre punishments to feel fair.
Begging the PC to get a good golf game, i can't live off this saltine flavored pish forever.

Endwalker's MSQ is a good story clumsily told, but with the fervour and emotional wit of some of the best PS2-era JRPGs.
Found myself bored and frustrated at the direction they've taken on a few occassions. There is a whole story arc I'd honestly prefer excised entirely because while enjoyable in the moment, it's frustrating to reconcile with, as I have to slot it into the grand history of Eorzia and I'm not convinced it deserves to fit. I've wondered for the best part of a year at this point how you top Shadowbringers, so it's almost centring to have Yoship say in no uncertain terms "you don't. chill".
All that to say, I adored parts of this, some of the most affecting segments so far, that perfect balance of self-assured sentimentality I always find charming and moving, despite the final message feeling a little confused? I dunno. It's just so sick to have a game that without fail can find new ways to make me cry.

The trials and duties are such a great spectacle this time around it's insane. So excited for what's to come.

[ / Listen to the silence ]
[ // Gaze at the distant stars ]
[ /// Look back on the path ]
[ //// Offer a word of comfort ]
[ ///// Look to the path ahead ]
[[[[[[[[[ You're Not Alone ]]]]]]]]]]

Revisiting a Childhoode Favve ❤❤❤❤
Late 90's electronica soundtrack filled with out and out bangers. Fatboy Slim and Aphrodite aggressively sampling the Dune movie as u bounce from wall to floor to ceiling with the frankly inspired ""Big Wheels"" innovation. Ultimately only an okay combat racer, coasts by in large part due to the overall presentation (the stages are surprisingly explosive for a PS1 game) and the genuinely satisfying feel of the big weighty vehicles' handling. Some of the enemy weaponry is just downright annoying to get hit by and obscures your vision with multicoloured blurry effects - but this game's entire M.O. is to give you eccie sweats and for all intents and purposes it succeeds.

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.

Christopher Nolan's Dowhill Jam. Hate to be all "Cons: - Too much water" but lol. Has so few levels that feel like they make any satisfying use of the Zineth gravity-shifting mechanic and the cloying story insists on butting in to fuck up the vibes. I just KNOW the dev crew watched Interstellar while feverishly taking notes and none of them related to anything I wanted out of a game like this, very sad. Exo One is screaming from the diaphragm for some kind of Steam Workshop implementation so people can make School II or Hangar or even Bob-omb Battlefield.