not "perfect". but it's been a refreshing and creatively rejuvenating reminder that games as a medium are capable of whatever the fuck you want them to be, and that conventions and genre expectations are there to be broken down. and this is coming from a game that - on the whole - doesn't stray too far from the kinds of design and genre tropes that we have become so familiar with.

plenty of flaws to point & laugh at but dwelling on them would be a real waste of time. there's a lot more to love than there is to hate. mainly that it looks proper Fucked in HD. cel shaded graphics and low poly models make for an insane glowup with the transition to HD resolutions. of course the game already looked great anyway, freely mixing multiple art styles, photographic textures, uncanny anime cutscenes, and the signature hyperstylized pseudo-gritty low poly look. fab. also it's like, really funny too; i was always excited to see travis' ghost so that i could catch up on whatever batty bullshit he "heard through the grapevine". same goes for iwazaru's antics and johnny gagnon's increasingly frustrated pigeon-carrier letters.

game's good as fuck so like check it out on your gamecube that you own or pick it up for a fiver on sale on steam. first three levels are kinda the best ones as you struggle to get onto the game's puzzling level, but it is worth finishing

"the bouncer" for ps2 is a game called the Bouncer, in which you play as a bouncer. it is on the ps2.

i was initially drawn to the bouncer because i saw a four second clip of the guy going "the BOUNCEr" at the title screen. which was very funny. but then i saw the flashing, overedited, bloom-overloaded pre-menu cutscene that plays when you boot up the game. and as kitschy as it is, there's certainly something to like about it. so i gave it a try.

and i was delighted to find that the game continues to overindulge in that wonderful excess. aggressive bloom everywhere. awesome and eccentric character designs. awful (just awful), over the top, dogshit, etc. combat. "campy" is what you could call it. that's what i would call it.

tragically it isn't all so wonderful, as there is of course the matter of the combat. which i think i could overlook if it wasnt taking place in the most sauceless environments with terrible colour palettes, and if the enemies weren't complete chumps, and if the music wasnt the most boilerplate dramatic_music dot audio file format stuff. it's laughably balanced too, the protagonist is the weakest character by far; he's outclassed in damage, health and utility by the dude with the tats and the leather vest, so there's literally no reason to ever pick him. or you could just big the big dude with the facial piercings and tank everything, that works too.

mercifully it makes up the minority of the game, as the the Bouncer is short, and gameplay is not actually a focus. and it does still have its moments, like teaming up with the boys to take on a gang of lackeys, or stunlocking bosses with your combined attacks. so there is some fun to be had. overall very funny game i had a good time but i was certainly glad when it was over. the kind of game that probably had really good concept art, but kind of sucks (/ rules actually) in practicality

certainly very enamored with residence evil: remade (two). the shooting & looting is very fun by itself, but they throw a bouncy ball in with Mr X's random appearances, changing how you think about pathing and planning. i enjoyed the game enough to play as both characters and finish all the side modes, which is not really something i often do so that's got 2 say something.

i did find the "Leon" character's personal playthrough to be quite weak in comparison to Claire's though. he feels somewhat limp, has very little chemistry with Ada, and despite his more frequent appearances, the delightful mr X felt relegated to the role of gimmick, as he spends too much time chasing you in scripted set piece sequences rather than dynamically roaming around the environment, jumping you at unpredictable intervals. yet it was still good fun, so all complaining is basically meaningless! gonna play this one again some day for sure

the demos were great and left me excited to see how they would further expand the gameplay and aesthetics in the final release. and then they just kind of didn't. the final game was just the demo but bigger, with more cards and jokers and shit to gather in your runs. more Numbers. more Gaming. not to say there isn't artistry creating and uncovering that strategizing, calculating, number crunching gameplay loop, but i think i'm kind of done with endless, repetitive games that have nothing to offer you beyond the pursuit of landing bigger and bigger numbers. a disappointment, but i had a some fun

thoroughly enjoyed this game where you play as silly swashbuckling swordswoman Adalia who has to defeat a cartoon villain with a handlebar mustache. my initial verdict upon beating the story mode was that it was too good, too short, but then i stumbled on the excellent arena mode, which pits you against up to 6 arenas of enemies with wacky (but horribly balanced) modifiers being added to the mix with every escalation. and it just revealed to me how well the game's mixture of spectacle fighter gameplay and slapstick comedy works even outside of the context of linear, scripted sequences. adalia and the count-duke's henchmen slinging a never-ending supply of dynamic one-liners, banter and occasional compliments back and forth while trading blows somehow always stays funny, and watching a lackey teeter on the edge or blowing a duelist across the room by luring him into the path of a cannon never gets old. some games can't even be funny with carefully controlled cutscenes and dialogue, but "en garde!" can do so without

oh and the music! can;t forget the music!

This was another game that I wanted to finish before it left Game Pass this month, and I am extremely happy that I did. Immortality is best experienced blind, so I won't say too much, but this is an insanely impressive interactive movie that I loved going through. There's a really great narrative here with strong performances and I definitely have never played anything like it before. I will say it was a little tedious trying to 100% this game, and I finished the main story without realizing I was near the end, but that was just my experience and depending on how others interact with the game they might not feel that way.

Overall Immortality is something really special. While the gameplay itself isn't particularly gripping, the story and construction of it all definitely is.

i've literally never been able to get into fighting games, but last year i picked up street fighter 6 for some reason thinking that it would be different. except it was. modern controls definitely got me started early on, but it was also just the fact that sf6 has such elegant, easy to comprehend mechanics that are still so endlessly dynamic and interesting. making "Drive" the main resource for basically everything works very well, and it's balanced out of by the looming threat of burnout. the tools you have at your disposal are both highly functional and impossibly stylish. "drive impact" is a star here, the flowing splash of character-specific colour paired with the sublime sound design make this one of the most exciting moves to successfully land in the game. and that's the other huge reason sf6 worked for me so well, the presentation. the detailed backgrounds, the way it blends multiple different rendering methods together, all without ever sacrificing visual clarity, the animations, the sound design, the phenomenal dynamic soundtrack. it's all so sick. and i love how the overall vibe of the game is kinda cute? like the way you and your opponent come out together in local matches, the pre match face off where you get to pull faces at each other, the funny announcers who commentate on your matches. none of these things needed to be in the game, but they add so much to the vibe just be being there, even if you dont use them.

i'm still in awe of how much dynamism there is in sf6's highly robust but conceptually simplistic mechanics. there always is, and always will be so much to learn. it's been incredibly fun climbing the ranks, learning to play on classic, memorizing combos and getting better at reading the opponent. and i hope it continues to be fun. capcom really have lightning in a bottle with this one, yet the post launch support has been quite poor for a "live service" game. only time will tell how it shakes out. but as of now i'll say that my 100 hours with street fighter 6 have been indescribably worthwhile. Five stars out of Five