Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in!

The idea of playing the (almost) entirety of the WarioWare catalogue this year was one I’m really glad I went through, it turned out to be a fantastic experience and a made me gain new-found appreciation for this series that I never had before, not even after playing Get It Together a few years back, but it was also a very out of nowhere decision, which kinda fits considering what games we are dealing with, but imagine my sheer surprise and excitement when I saw that Move It! was announced; the timing couldn’t be better, and considering this seemed to be heavily be influenced by Smooth Moves, I was extremely excited to see what they pulled of for their third (technically fourth) fully original home-console WarioWare, and after playing it I can say for sure… that they did Jimmy-T dirty as hell this time around, he gets barely any dialogue and some of the most disappointing micro-games are his, how could they do this to him… how could HE do this to ME?!

It feels extremely weird to me that this released only now and after Get It Together, ‘cause this feels like something that would have launched during 2017’s summer or even the console’s launch. I think no other game in the Switch’s library has used the Joy-Cons to their fullest potential other than this one (Aside of 1-2 Switch, I guess…), and the same thing with Smooth Moves repeats here where it feels more gimmicky than any other of the WarioWare games, but similarly to that game, that doesn’t get in the way of it being yet again another dose of the stupidest fun you could possibly have. It once again invites you act stupidly, to be irreverent and whacky, and it that it succeeds, I’d argue to an even greater degree than Smooth Moves ever did; the poses and their explanations return, this time under the context of legends of the island, and the creativity is commendable and, how else, pretty fucking funny. The micro-games are pure fire, specially the first batches, they are as dumb as ever and easy to understand and just a joy to watch a play, and here we have some of the best boss mini-games in the entirety of the series… but also some really weak ones. Yeah, similarly to Smooth Moves, there are some really high highs and really jarring lows, and while the overall quality of micro-games is far better in Move It!, at least in its Wii counterpart it felt like everything worked; one problem with being far more experimental and daring is that trying to use technology that really can’t keep up, it’s gonna be clear as day that something is amiss, and no there are no better examples of it that the joy-con camera and how the things’ gyroscope acts in certain poses; there are some truly inspired and fantastic micro-games and stands, they are the majority in fact, but I can’t deny that the few that feel unresponsive or undercooked left a bad taste in my mouth, and I imagine that the reason that this game is so forgiving even after losing all 4 lives is that they knew all of this but really couldn’t find a way to make it work.

Well, with all of that said, let’s see what else there is to say… uhmmm…. Huh…….. oh……. Oh I see… Here’s the thing, Move It! is very much designed to be a party games, which, let’s ignore that you need a pair of joy cons for each player which makes it hell to play if other people don’t have a switch themselves or you don’t have a spare pair (which makes sense because… you know, 80 bucks is a bit crazy), even ignoring that, right out the bat for most players a huge portion of the game will be immediately impossible to play, which makes that, aside of the story mode, the extra single player modes you have to play are a bunch of I independent minigames, the three difficulty animal towers and… that’s…. it… Smooth Moves divided its content in a very similar manner to this, but at least having two Wii-Motes was far more plausible than having two pairs of joy-cons, and it still have a ton of modes and minigames unlocked right out the gate before you even beat the story mode. I’m not asking content comparable to Twisted and Gold, but I’m asking anything, you could have added the online components that Get It Together had but… not, no they did not. And, again, Smooth Moves has a similar issue to, but to go and try to replicate the exact same structure of that game EVEN more is weird, and not the good kind of weird. It doesn’t feel even like a sequel, but rather like that they tried to replicate a past success and, don’t get me wrong, in a lot of ways it works, but it also leaves Move it! feeling a bit hollow, not derivative, but it does feel devoid of uniqueness aside from its setting, and similarly with the game over thing, I wonder id that change of style and location is also a patch to cover another glaring issue with the game’s… in this case existence, I guess.
Move It! has fantastic micro-games, fantastic style, and it even has dinosaurs and penguins, but that can’t stop it from just feeling like the first game in the franchise that seems just like more of the same, more so than the game that consists on recycling content from past games. It’s still the better of the Switch Wario games and far better than something like Touched, but at least that one felt unique enough to have a ton to talk about, even if it wasn’t that great. I plan on playing every 2-player mode in the future as soon as I can, and I’ll probably talk about it again when that time comes, but for now, as far as WarioWare games and a single player experiences come, it’s still a really good one, but if falls short by its own nature, and even if I don’t regret playing it at all, I can’t see myself coming back to it when there are so many greater options within the same series… and you know, there’s a clear responsible for all of this… JIMMY!

I know he messed with the poses, I knew how they worked; as if I could ever make such mistakes after busting it down in Smooth Moves, never, NEVER! I just… I just can’t check it in the console settings, he covered his tracks and made that stupid-ass boss game terrible to make me look bad on purpose, and that’s not all! The AR Camera… you think a camera just happens to suck fucking doo-doo balls like that? NO! He orchestrated it! JIMMY! He used a shark as a surfboard! And to think I was a fan, I promoted him as the best WarioWare character! But I shouldn’t have… Saved my best shitty jokes for him, what was I thinking?! Ever since the GBA he was planning it, he was planning this take us all down! And HE gets this drawn out really shitty mess of reference?! What a sick joke! I should have switched to play Wario Land when I had the chance, he will always be Tenacious Jimmy, he- HEY, I’M NOT CRAZY, I’M NOT CRA-

When my high-school math teachers said that when I grew up I would use what I learnt in their classes daily, I laughed, and now... I still laugh 'cause this are the simplest multiplications ever, yet another day without using the quadratic equations babyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

The spare time between uni classes has really gotten me into a little bit of web browser puzzle craze, it all started simple, with me thinking ''Hey, what's a better way to kill time than to boot up short games of Tetris?'', and it begun as only that, but my destiny was already sealed, and it didn't take long before I started to browse and try more and more games; I was deep down the rabbit hole, and it was only a matter of time before me and 2048 crossed paths, and let me tell ya, this game didn't kill my time, it annihilated it, to an even greater degree than Suika Game which is embarrassing to say considering that, as a game, it really just gives only a bit more of fun than messing around with a calculator.

It's funny how in a way this one has the total opposite problems compared to the aforementioned watermelon hellscape; whereas that game was highly RNG dependent and it didn't feel like strategy could really make a difference, 2048 feels like it can only be played one way and one way only, and even if it may take a while to achieve that solution, once you figure it out, you'll be getting high scores and even winning consistently. It's not just that luck doesn't factor here, it's that it feels as if every different run is the exact same thing, even before realizing the ''correct'' way of playing it. The 2s and 4s meld together and sure, it’s not a game that you can play without paying any attention, but I’d say that should be the bare minimum. You can fuck up, and you can recover from those fuck ups, but there isn’t much excitement in any of this, there isn’t an ‘’Aha!’’ moment that makes you feel that smart, since the solution that you’ll come up with to beat it has been already thought of by basically everyone that has played it.

It's not terrible, in fact it’s pretty competent at what it is: it’s just a time killer that really grabs you until you beat it, and it’s not a bad time at all, I just don’t think it really gave me anything memorable of value aside of that You Win! screen. It’s, and I say this both seriously and with the pun very much intended, extremely by the numbers; there are far more competent little puzzle games that feel far more re-playable and compelling to go back, but you don’t really lose anything by playing it, and it can be entertaining to at least beat its mean objective

Me? I’ve done it, and so I break free of the shackles that bind me and move on to the next challenge… that being more Tetris, of course…

Do you ever come across a game that in some way or another ''blows up'' popularity wise and just... get it? Like, a game that a first may seem like a weird or uncommon choice for having such an online presence but then play it and you can only say ''Oooooooooooooooooooh... So THAT'S why!''.

I say this with no ill intent whatsoever, quite the contrary; sometimes a game just so happens to hit the right notes to spread like wildfire, and while this effect can be and has been manufactured, there are others in which it's more of a direct result of the nature of the game itself or the circumstances around it, some games take years before even being put under the spotlight; such is the case of this little bringer of desperation called Suika Game. Of course there’s an asterisk on that, since what really popularized the game was the very recent Switch release and its subsequent explosion in the streaming landscape, which is what brought it to my attention in the first place, but even back in 2021 with the original browser release, all of the elements that make it what it is were already in place: a highly addictive, cutesy looking puzzle game.

Many of its ideas and even presentation are nothing new, but I’ll be damned do they work so great; it’s a joy to the eye and everything is clear from the get go, you simply combine fruits with faces to form other kind of fruits with faces… except bigger! The concept itself couldn’t be simpler, but it does hit many of the right notes: the focus on physics and collision makes getting chains or simply getting lucky manage to feel so incredibly satisfactory, sometimes a well-placed strawberry can make the difference between creating that sweet coveted watermelon or losing miserably. That alone makes it a treat, a really fun gameplay loop that makes you go want to keep trying and go back time and time again, all to see if you can get and even better chain and score, but that sweet spot has a really ugly side, since it’s part of the same coin… and by that I mean that sometimes this shit is sometimes so luck dependent it’s not even funny.

You simply cannot predict nor adapt at some of the things that are thrown at you, which isn’t something I can’t say about the best puzzle games of this style, but here the RNG is not only ever-present, it’s egregious. You are only told of the next singular fruit that will spawn next, and that’s only now that we are lucky, in the original web-browser English version you don’t get such a luxury! That, plus how the collision just can decide to go completely wrong, sometimes even sending fruit pieces flying, or how the game acts weird or unpredictable if three pieces of the same type touch, that’s what makes it so luck dependent in the heat of the moment… and that’s exactly what it’s so compelling to go back to. The highs of getting a nice streak and reach crazy scores is so beyond satisfying because you also beat bad luck, and while I can praise that since at the end this is not a game to which you are gonna become literally addicted or compelled to play for hours, I cannot see as something but a glaring flaw with its design and that prevents it from being even more fun or interesting.

It's a joy to go back to in your spare time, but I’d be hard pressed to recommend it beyond that, there are far more interesting and fairly designed puzzle games, this one is more like a snack, a fruity, healthy snack that’s fun to have sometimes.

Also, this is one of those games that needs either more songs or a better loop, I really had to mute it after a while because I could feel my sanity as I heard this Winnie The Pooh baseball game sounding ass theme while trying to get oranges to touch each other. In a way it brought back memories to Super Hexagon and I would prefer those traumas to be left forgotten, thank you very much…

Years of research and experimentation have led to this, to this very moment: the key of greatness, of peak 2D Funny Plumber doesn’t lie on the level design, power-ups or enemies, no, all along, what Mario needed was… A GRAPLING HOOK!

I say it back in my Super Mario World, and I’ll say it once again; despite my enormous love for the 2D Platforming genre, and despite my love for the Mario franchise as a whole, one which holds some of the most fun experiences I’ve had in the medium and has games that would easily place in my hypothetical favorites of all time list… I don’t really care about 2D Mario. Playing SMW this year, as well as the original Super Mario Bros., has helped a lot putting things into perspective for me; they are very good and sound games, they are well designed and each of them has a different interesting overarching idea and even sense of style (at least until the beginning of the New series that is), hell, three of its original outings are to this day considered pieces of media that shaped the industry and the way videogames as whole are made. Yet, while I find myself enjoying them, I hardly am able to actively care for them, they are competent experiences throughout but they never ‘’Wow!’’ me, they are more of a blueprint, an entry point of newcomers, which hey, I am a Kirby fan, being simple and easy isn’t a bother to me at all, but 2D Mario games, to me, never felt like they strived beyond that simple feeling of pick up and play, and even if it doesn’t harm them as experiences, I can’t say they are memorable; levels blend together and themings can get a bit repetitive, and with the modern New Super Mario Bros series this problems accentuate and even more arise. For me, the ‘’really good’’ Mario was found on the 3D experiences, the more creative, inspired and jaw-dropping adventures that surprise you with each entry and each new step taken within them, and I just kinda wished that Mario would eventually try to be more like others 2D-Platforming series like Kirby or Rayman, that had the courage to break the mold and be completely differet. And now you may be thinking that I got exactly what I was asking for, that Super Mario Bros Wonder is basically all of this, and that would be… wrong, partially at least, because you see… I was wrong.

The very fundamental core of each past 2D Mario is present here and more alive than ever, specially from the previous series; Mario and the gang feel as precise and fun as ever, but they pretty much feel like the one you would control in World moveset wise, the levels follow very similar beats to the New series with your usual suspects like the collectables and the secret exists and the overworld is an amalgam of what you would find both in SMW and 3D World. Nothing has actually changed, what you would expect from Mario is what you’ll find here, you even have a new collection of whacky power-ups, new mini-challenges and secretes galore! Mario Wonder is Mario… but it is as it’s absolute most creative, inspired, unhinged and fun, and that’s precisely what sets it apart, not that it’s a brand new spin on the formula, but that it feels like the best possible result you could get out of it.

The second level in this game would have been one of the last ones or a secret special stage in any of the previous games in the New series , but here it is, the second fucking level, one that goes absolutely whack, it’s hilarious and even has already some secrets, and that’s not Wonder only wanting to make a good first impression, no, it’s setting a precedent for the rest of the game. No two levels feel even close at being the same, your are constantly jumping between ideas, between the possibilities that the ‘’Wonder Flowers’’ can give, and the few times these are repeated is to get even more out of them. Wonder will only return to a precious concept if it can be even more wild with it or propose more interesting challenges, like those in the special world or the colosseums. It’s like a never-ending jovial carnival that has a different attraction at every corner: one moment you’ll be having a stroll through a park while collection coins, the next you’ll be jumping to the rhythm after entering a ninja party in a secret corner of a desert, all with such beautiful presentation I’m still in awe at it, the expressiveness and fluidity of every single element in this god-forsaken game is almost maddening, it’s so vibrant and colorful in all the right ways and I adore it; nothing is confusing, everything is immediately understandable and works to a tea, and the music… OH THE MUSIC! These games always manage to produce auditive dopamine and Wonder is yet another perfect example of it, such a varied and perfectly fitting soundtrack.

It's just so magical to see Mario this full of life, the Flower Kingdom’s locations are a sight to behold, both inside and out; they follow the usual themes that 2D-Mario has, but they make it look and work so different it’s hard to notice, half way through the game even opens up a bit which I really didn’t expect but that coupled with the open areas and the collectables makes for the most rewarding feeling of progression I’ve ever gotten out any of these experiences. The quantity of new enemies is titanic, each presenting a new idea, a new puzzle that depends entirely on themselves or around the mechanic the level itself introduces, and I really want to see theses faces again in the future, I love the new pack of goofballs so very much. The badges are really fun to get and while none of the main levels are really design around you using them, they are at times completely game-changing add-ons that invite you to experiment and let me tell ya, when you use the right badge at the right time and skip or even break the level, that is where the magic happens, and I wished it happened even more, even if letting the level do its thing with the wonder sections was always absolutely enough. I mean for criying out loud, Bowser, BOWSER has a ton pf personality on this one, moreso than in any previous 2D adventure and even some of the 3D games, and you know a Mario game is good when Bowser spits some facts.

Does it feel like I’m rambling a bit here? Well, that’s probably because I am! It seems borderline impossible to fully digest Wonder, maybe it’s because I tried to discover as much of it as possible and the sensory overload is kicking in, but I’m still flabbergasted that this game even exist as the way it does, that it was allowed to be made the way it was done, that it was permitted to be so daring while still managing to maintain the Mario spirit.

If I have to point a flaw, and I do, because I otherwise I’d be ignoring it, it’s how, for all its creativeness and the sheer fun it provides, both the castle and airship levels feel a tad… lesser, in comparison. Not that they are bad, not at all, in fact they also put a spin in the usual Bowser army thematic and looks quite good, love me some toxic metallic madness, but still, with a game that’s just experimentation upon experimentation, hilarity and fun on top of more of it, having levels that repeat the same ideas and even bosses (at least visually) feels really off, like they had to find a way to connect all of the amazing levels and made these using mostly previous concepts. This doesn’t not apply to the final set of levels tho, in fact, the final level may just be one of my favorites in the entire game, the best possible send off to the experience, what a show…

Wonder is… fuck it, I’m gonna say it, it’s wonderful; for a game that’s all gameplay, talking in depth about its ideas and level-design would be a massive spoiler, and that’s what makes it so amazing for it. It refuses to change its DNA, it’s very core, what makes it Mario, and instead celebrates it, celebrates what Mario games can be, what should be, and what now are. It’s bonkers, crazy, bananas if you will, in a ways it can feel like a huge departure, but here’s the thing, it took me 30 minutes for Luigi Elephant to become normal for me, and yet it never lost the charm nor the magic, it’s Mario, but at it’s best, at it’s most fun and well designed. It’s Mario being both what you would expect of it and shattering it, and that, that’s what makes it wonderful.

Also, I really don’t wanna spoil anything, but I just wanna say REJOICE BOO FANS, RISE UP AND REJOICE, THIS IS TRULY PEAK BOO MATERIAL WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

You know you are doing something right when I'm basically shivering and being scared shitless at what are essentially still images.

If I've made something clear from the very start of this rather small Spooktober voyage, is how me and horror... have a very complicated relationship. Not because I dislike the genre, quite the contrary in fact; I've always been extremely easily scared by any kind of horror art-form, from videogames to even paintings, but at the same time... I've always had this sheer fascination for it. It's doubly rare when you consider that I do not enjoy most of the horror films I've consumed over the years, but even back when I was much younger, even if I was being scared as all hell, even if I was covering my face to not see because of the fear... I was always peeking, still watching, the feeling of wanting to run away of danger conflicting head-first with the everlasting curiosity for the unexplainable. Jump-scares do not usually get me, I'm not a jumpy person in that sense, but it's that constant feeling of dread, that feeling of perpetual unnerving and sheer terror what scares me to my very core, and at the same time what keeps me going back, and for me, no other way of horror has the potential to achieve all of this than the ‘’Found-Fotage’’ film genre…

Once again, quite bold of me to say this considering that most movies under the banner are of… questionable quality to say the list; its own nature as a more easily producible and cheaper (monetary speaking) way of horror makes it so the abr for entrance is much, much lower, and overabundance of sub-par quality films was destined to fill cinemas and streaming-sites alike, specially back during the 2010’s; hell, even now, the 2020’s have seen the blow up of the ’’Analog Horror’’ format, a branch of ‘’Found Footage ‘’ in many ways, and the same problems of low quality and over abundance are already very much present… but that also shouldn’t deter us from the truly magnificent delivering of this very experimental formula: The Blair Witch Project, Marble Hornets, REC, even more recent on-line offerings like The Walten Files evoke that most primal of fears, even with a screen between us and the action, the fact that’s acknowledged, the fact we are at the mercy of what a real physical lens can provide, and the fact our understanding of what we are facing it’s so limiting, that’s what makes the horrors blend with reality, and that’s what makes Teleforum so interesting, ‘cause it’s no mere attempt to bring the formula to the videogame realm: it’s a game that seeks to stare at you soul and make you question everything about it, and goddam does the fucking game succeed at that.

I really wasn’t expecting this to be a point-and-click centered game, and much less that it’d work so well; the pacing of each action, the scenery and ambience, it’s all so slow and claustrophobic, so utterly terrifying from the start; being somewhere to investigate why a suicide happened was never going to be the most of joyful settings, but it somehow finds the way to make it even more unnerving; it toys with your memory, it toys with your expectations, as if it was almost laughing in your face the whole time. There’s no real resolution, not even bang to finish things off, the confusing flashing frames fill the screen, the darkness eats away every hallway, the days play out like a broken recording, and it’s never made clear why… If anything, I wished the game played even more with what you are seeing, everything is too clean, to distinguishable, and considering how the game excels at that feeling of discomfort, I kinda wished it went all out with it. It’s a rather brief experience, with two whole playthorughs amounting to an hour tops, but even tho I thing I have my answers and theories… there’s so much yet unknow, so much so unconceivable, so much that still calls out to that primal fear, and even if the game itself asks me to stop looking a it, that enough is enough… like a tape, I play it once again. Incredibly ironic in a way, a game that asks about at what point is worth to keep pushing forward, what’s the limit before we are force to keep going, to evoke this curiosity in me… perhaps that was the idea the whole time, and that thought alone makes it genius on its own.

I still crave for the day a full free movement quality ‘’Found Footage’’ game is released, but until that day, this is the best thing I could have asked for; it’s bound by its limitations and that stops it from feeling truly real, and clashes to hard with the scenes that are fully acted, but still, this is nothing short of an accomplishment, a fantastic little horror game, one that I wish can be a good reference for others to inspire, and to show that it’s with effort, knowledge and mastery that good ‘’Found Footage’’ horror can be produced in the videogame realm, because almost everything I’ve described at the start, this game has…

… and with this, even if the horror ventures haven’t ended for me quite yet, Spooktober comes to a close; happy Halloween everybody, stay safe and stay spooky… and watch out for the biggest monster of all… the public television…

(IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a review for the extra chapter introduced in The Ultimate Doom: Thy Flesh Consumed. If you want to read my opinions on the base game and my in-depth thoughts on the original three episodes, you can check my review here. )

''Hey, remember how for Doom we made a really cool artwork that manages to represent the game and look quite good?''

''Yeah, why?''

''What if, and hear me out on this, for The Ultimate Doom... we put a funny looking smiling demon?''


And that's the story of how someone made the single best decision in the entirety of ID Software's existence.

Before I even played DOOM, one statement that was echoed a lot by people when talking about and even some friends of mine was how the only really good episode was the first one, ''Knee-Deep in the Dead'', and the next two, ‘’The Shores of Hell’’ and ‘’Inferno’’, where kind a bit of a downgrade at best and a dip in quality at worst, and after beating the game myself, while that's a sentiment I'm totally able to understand, it's not one that I share at all. ''Knee-Deep in the Dead'' is indeed an outstanding first chapter, it doesn’t stop at simply establishing the basis for the rest of the game, it also goes above and beyond and delivers some spectacular level design; I totally get the love for it, specially since it’s probably the chapter that the most people have played, but I just can’t get enough of both ‘’The Shores of Hell’’ and ‘’Inferno’’, the former explores what the first episode set and expands on it in brand new interesting ways, and the latter experiments with brand new ideas that result in really challenging and interesting maps. The only thing I can really say that the two last chapters fail in comparison to the first is both the feeling of surprise (which is kind of inevitable) and the bosses (turns out that two Hell Barons are way better final bosses that one that can one-shot you and the giant enemy spider), because otherwise they are all on par when it comes to greatness. So, suffices to say that after finishing the game, I really wouldn’t have any complains if there was even more of it, and when I realized that The Ultimate Doom included a totally brand new episode, let’s just say… I acted appropriately…


Thy Flesh Consumed didn’t need to exist, the original game was perfectly fine on its own and while of course more of it is always fine, that necessity was kinda filled by Doom II, which came out just a year after the original, but still, they did it, yet another year after, the re-release under the ‘’Ultimate’’ banner included a brand new 9-map episode, and it set in being one and one thing only: both a way to connect better DOOM with Doom II and to give players harder, more challenging almost purely combat focused levels. On paper, that’s a fire idea, not only it experiments on yet another layer that DOOM’s formula can have, not only it's a really nice addition to an otherwise two-year old game that gives it a bit more life as it finally released on a physical retail format, but also, if it had the same level quality as the three original chapters, we could be witnessing a even greater package that was already excellent… but you probably can imagine where I’m going with all this…



Thy Flesh Consumed is, for all intends and purposes, competent, and I wanna make that clear; it doesn’t devaluate the overall game by any stretch of the imagination and having even more content is nothing to scoff at, but still… I cannot but wish it tried to not do more, but that it made things differently. As I said, it’s a collection of more challenging maps, and it’s not like DOOM was a walk in the park in the first place, but the idea of more difficult level is a prospect that I think few would dislike, and my problem isn’t that at it’s basis it’s pretty much just that, but rather the execution. The first three maps are hell on earth (pun VERY intended), while in this episode you get your fulll arsenal much sooner than in any previous part, it’s still takes some time for you to be fully arm, double if you miss some secrets, and when in the first time, at which point you’ll only have the shotgun and the gatling and very little ammo, you get thrown hordes upon hordes of Imps, Pinkies, Specters and even a Hell Baron thrown in for good measure.. you might start seeing the problem. That alongside the incredibly claustrophobic level design, filled to the brim with narrow passages and poison pits, and you get a map that’s way more frustrating than anything else, which it’s a sentiment that also goes for M2 and M3.Things do get better M4 onwards, some challenges are very interesting and there are segments here and there can be fun… but that’s only a select few. Overall, I just get this overall feeling of… apathy, nothing on these maps really speaks to me aside of those few stellar moments of pure satisfaction, and in some aspects it just feels like they went ‘’Random bullshit, go!’’ with the enemy placement, none feels particular inspired; it’s as if the ingenuity of the first game was almost completely gone, like they forgot why they decided to do certain things or to not include certain stuff, ‘cause even if M4 to M8 aren’t as consistently tedious as the previously three maps, the dark maze full of invisible pinkies, rooms full of enemies opening on your back and the entire second half of M6… well, made me react appropriately..

It’s just a bunch weird decisions that sometimes borderline the absurd, like, the final boss on this is even more anticlimactic and weird than the final boss of the original, which it’s kind of an accomplishment considering they are the same boss! And do you know the worst part? That the only reason I’m able to say all of this and be this flabbergasted is because not only the three previous episodes are fantastic, but because I still had my fun with this collection of maps; this new addition really has some fun moments and surprises, but I can’t say in good conscience it was an experience I’d be glad to go back to: it is done, I’m fine with it, but I very much doubt I’ll be revisiting it. It’s fine to ask for perfection on my end, it’s fine to try to make some extremely impressive challenges, it’s even fine to do a bit of trolling to the player if you want! But ''Thy Flesh Consumed'' crosses certain lines that do not make it ‘’the hardest DOOM experience, but just the more tedious one.

It’s a shame that this will be now the black sheep of the episodes for me, ‘cause I really, REALLY wanted to love it as hard as I love the rest of the game, but in the end, too many things stopped it from achieving that level of greatness, at least for me. But hey, it’s very much still DOOM, and I at least got to partially avenge Daisy, so it was all worth it.

There is one more thing I have yet to do before I’m fully done with the original DOOM, one last rodeo brought by one of the makers of the game ,but for now, I just have one last thing to say… PLEASE ID Software do the funny demon in the cover more PLEASE; you kinda did it with Doom 3 ’s expansion and Doom VR, but still, I need MORE!

Recommended by @ZapRowsdower (Thank you so much!)

We are still trying to find the key of eternal happiness when the answer has been right in front of us since 1993: using the shotgun in DOOM and one tapping every Imp you come across.

Today is one hell of a day for me huh? Not only it's the day I've FINALLY finished DOOM after multiple attempts at getting into it, not only this is my 150th review, which just saying it's fucking coo-coo crazy to me, can't believe I've written so many reviews on here in just a bit less than a year, but today also happens to be my birthday! So, today is the day, the stars align and my time it's right, it's time for me to shook the entire world with what I'm about to say, my opinion on DOOM will forever change the course of videogame discourse, so buckle up motherfuckers, 'cause this is it; Deemon's verdict on DOOM is..............









Yeah game good.


DOOM is, in a ton of ways, THE PC game, it's not only THE grand-father of the so called ''boomer-shooters'', but it's alsoTHE FPS; we now have the meme spawned by both the press and some players about how ''everything is Dark Souls'', but during the 90's, if your game was in first person, it was bound to get universally compared to DOOM in some capacity. It revolutionized the industry in such a way it's effects are still palpable to this very day, and it spawned a series that time and time again has caused discourse around it. Many people still put hundreds of hours replaying this game or trying many of the community made maps or levels, also known as WADs. It's a game that finds way to modernize itself while never truly changing, sporting level and enemy design that some of its contemporaries and even modern outputs could only dream of.

And here I am, 30 years later, 30 goddam years after it released, to talk about a game almost 10 years older than me. Out of all the games I've written about, this is the one that it feels comical to try to say something new, to add a new perspective to the conversation, because what’s left for me to say? What value can I contribute to the overall conversation around the legend of DOOM? The honest answer, being totally realistic, is… probably none, and while that may be discouraging… but that won’t stop me from trying to sing its praises and faults with my own voice!

And singing its praises I will, and to be honest, I lied. Game isn’t good. Game is FANTASTIC. DOOM’s approach to design is not to introduce as many elements as it can, to make very level distinct by making it have completely new stuff, but instead it focuses on only a bunch of elements and makes the absolute most out of them. You can count all the enemies with the two hands, including bosses, and yet, at no point the repetition settled in. Traversing this seemingly endless mazes, the variety on how challenges and encounters are designed is staggering; no two shoot-outs really feel the shame, and the seeing the non-stop moment that made Eternal so much fun for me being already present in 1993 made feel a certain feeling of happiness I really can’t describe. Kiting around enemies, dodging projectiles or running backwards from Pinkies while pumping bullets onto them produces that feeling of adrenaline so unique to DOOM. It isn’t scared to mess with you; new small rooms filles with enemies will open up after grabbing an item or activating a switch will open up out of nowhere, or maybe enemies will surprise you behind corners, right after open doors or hidden within darker areas, and it not only it never feels cheap or unfair, but also keeps you on your toes and makes it so certain sequences can be kinda scary and creepy, and make you doubt even the most innocent of empty rooms. But the greatness of the enemy placement only means something because of how fantastic the level themselves are: the three chapters have their own flare to own another and overarching elements, the first one for example is the one that introduces all the elements that will be explored upon in the next maps and focuses around shorter, more easy to navigate mazes, while the third one, Inferno, explores the limits of DOOM’s level structure and experiments upon that, one of the maps being a small sandbox.

Even beyond this chapter to chapter distinctions, no two levels feel the same; they all present an unique new perspective within the same ‘’find the correct color key’’ structure; they all feel like real places while at the same time being artificial enough to offer fun and weird- ass moments, and when you factor all the secrets, hidden weapons, power ups and the such, it compels you to look to each and every nook and cranny that the levels have to offer, and who knows, you may end up finding the wonderful BFG or a secret exit that might send you to an extra map. It’s all feels purposeful, natural and… kind of ethereal, the music manages work both as a perfect battle companion and as incredibly atmospheric background, like the grunts and sounds of demons heard across the walls. Those moments of quiet creepiness, like walking around the corpse filled rooms or seeing demons surrounding monuments to a greater superior being, blend with the non-stop weapon changing action and the 90’s dumb ‘’coolness’’ so well it still surprises me; a game that at the end of each chapter presents you with a overly stupid and cheesy ending text and basically makes you lose all your progress but still manages to be so fantastic and have so many more serious moments within gameplay, it’s a game unlike any other.

DOOM shys away from perfection: bosses feel unbalanced, like they Cyberdemon pretty much one-shoting you even at ‘’Hurt me plenty’’ difficulty, and even anti-climactic, like the final boss; some secrets feel too hidden and I think the backtracking, while mostly done excellently, in the final levels is too much and some of the exists should have been a bit clearer, and yet, despite this few gripes, I only walk away from this experience feeling a great sense of joy; DOOM is amazing, dumb in all the right ways and masterfully designed, everyone involved felt for this nothing but a great passion and work, and that it’s made clear through each pixel of this hellish lands. Such confidence emanates from this game that in a lot of ways, it feels like they already wanted to make a DOOM 2 in the future, and I only applaud them for it. Here I am, 30 years later, and having enjoyed this game as if it came out yesterday; Doom is indeed eternal, and even if some may not enjoy it, I think everyone should be compelled to at least try it. This is one of those games which I think everyone will feel completely differently towards, love it for different reasons, hate it for different reasons; maybe everything that has to be said about has already been told, but shouldn’t stop anyone from writing their own piece, from talking about it as if it was 1993 again. The magic of some games should forever relished, talked about, hell, some more flawed games also deserve discourse around them, both positive and negative. Because when everything is truly said, then there’s not much room for enjoyment or surprises, and those are the only things I felt during my playtime in the lunar bases and hell. What a Big Fucking Great Time…

And also, if it just so happens that today it’s also your birthday or it is at the time you are reading this… then happy birthday, and stay safe!

You are on your own.

Good lu- ...

Thrown away into the red sea in a bunch of badly together scraps that could barely be called a submarine, it’s clear from the very get go that Iron Lung doesn't hold its punches off. The mere promise of a barren universe whose life and planets have disappeared out of thin air, with only the ships and lifeless moons remaining and their last decaying bastion, it's already pretty shit-pants inducing, especially for those who already certain fear of the limitless beyond, but that's not even where the focus of the game lies, and the messed-up part if that awaits you is probably more terrifying than that premise.

OXYGEN NOTIFICATION

The Iron Lung only provides you protection against drowning in the blood sea and whatever lurks around this horrific place, and you could say that even that is debatable. You don't even get the gift of sight here, you fo have a camera, which gives you a glimpse of the outside world and it's what you'll need to get the photos of what you've been ordered to investigate, but aside from that, the bulk of the experience takes place within the four small rusty walls of the wretched ship, being forced to navigate using only a map and the coordinates on your ship, and thank god the z-axis doesn't facture in this equation. Iron Lung not only takes advantage of the fear of the unknow, it embodies it, the gameplay itself its extremely simple, only really made interesting by the fact you really can't see shit, but that small little detail is basically what the entire game takes pride of. With almost nothing to see, the sounds that creep through the bowels of the red sea are what make every neuron of the brain go into read alarm mode: from sounds like the ship catching fire (yes, even down here you aren't even safe from that), to the-

OXYGEN NOTIFICATION

-... yeah that, but most of all... the echoing grunts and sounds of the beast that swim outside of you, always out of sight, curious yet afar, being only able to get glimpses of them that are enough to make you shiver, and sometimes you do get more clear view of whatever you are investigation or stalking you... but even in those cases it's confusing, alien, bizarre. It's the primal discomfort or not knowing where you are, what you are even facing, and times things are a bit clearer, it's only to make you feel even more hopeless.

It's a magnificent example of simple yet effective design, even with its caveats. There is a ton of down-time, and while at first its effective and there are some key moments in which the game really knows what to do to not let you put your guard down, for such a relatively short experience, having to traverse huge chunks of seafloor with nothing happening outside of the same sounds you've heard before is a tad disappointing. This same design fault is what makes subsequent playthroughs a tad tedious; Iron Lung invites you to discover it, to explore its secrets, and for a game that pretends you to do that and asks you to at least play it again to discover every major thing it has offer, it certainly isn't scared to make that process take a long while and to sacrifice that feeling of paranoia and fear that made it so special. But it is that first playthrough, the key interaction with the game, what makes it so utterly genius, so horryfiying, and everything outside of this metal prison complements this idea.

OXYGEN NOTIFICATION

You are not the first to come down here, the real name of this ship reveals as much, and it only takes reading the note of the last pilot, reading the terminal entries and discovering the dark secret hidden in the farthest ends of the rift to get a good picture of what's really going on here; the universe is torn apart, even more than what the current situation would have already broken it. The very few survivors, barely more than a thousand and with their provisions dwindling, are divided, broken by meaningless wars of espionage and petty battles, making prisoners go die in the depths of the unknown while desperately trying to find ways to turn into the superior colony; even at the brink of the cease of existence, humanity finds ways to kill each other.

By digging a bit more, what you get is only more desperation; there's nothing to be had, nothing to be claimed, and you are lucky enough to maybe get a chance at freedom, or at least the one you could have in these conditions. It’s bloody genius hidden story-telling, because if at first you already though all of this seemed bad, oh let me tell ya, it gets much worse! And yet, you keep going, maybe its spite, at a certain point it's what I felt, spite of just figuring out what was going on down here and achieve freedom, and that's underlying feeling of desire, of hoping of something better while everything around seems to crumble down, what sealed the deal for me, it feel too personal of a game to also achieve what it accomplishes. There's nothing to grab onto...

But somewhere in the void, there must be hope...

OXYGEN NOTIFICATION

When asked to choose a Ground and Steel type Pokémon, many would choose mons like Excadrill or Steelix, while only a select few will think of Galarian Stunfisk. That is, my friends, what separates the brave from the cowards.

This is quite literally what says on the box and then some; a take on Sudoku in which you guess Pokémon, be it by their types, region, sub-category and more, and it can be a real head-scratcher with how specific it can get with certain combinations in which very few mons fit in. It couldn’t get simpler than this, and it manages to be pretty fun, not only really testing the memory of fans of the series like myself, but also it can get really tricky with having only 9 attempts, meaning you can only really ‘’win’’ by doing it perfectly first try, and the uniqueness stat which really invites you to try to think about mons many others would normally forget about. It just takes five minutes to do it each day and the novelty will eventually wear off like so many games of this style already have proven, but that’s more of an inescapable condition with the kind of game this is rather than a true flaw, hell, the only real gripe I could have with this would be how the original franchise catalogues some of its monsters, and that’s not even a fault of this game specifically.

So yeah, game good! It takes a simple idea and keeps that one while introducing enough to make it interesting and even sometimes funny, and discussing the ‘’doku’’ of the day with others after doing it can be pretty fun and get you to learn facts about the franchise otherwise pretty specific or obscure…

Having said that I have only one request, specifically to Game Freak… MAKE NECROZMA COUNT AS A ULTRA BEAST IN THE GAMES YOU GODDAM COWARDS, IT WOULD MAKE SO MUCH SENSE WHY THE HELL IT ISN’T PROGRAMMED AS ONE ALREA-

Fellas, don't you hate it when you are playing a dark, introspective pixel-art horror indie game, trying to immerse in this world and setting, and then out of nowhere a fuckING GIANT ZOMBIE MURDEROUS ELEPHANT BURST IN?...Yeah same, it’s such an inconvenience…

Non-funny introductory jokes aside, I don’t actually know how to really start talking about Distraint; I could make jokes all day about how it’s the scariest game ever since it takes place in the most terrifying setting of all … the housing industry, but at a certain point I’d have to eventually say something of value, and that’s where the conundrum I’m facing as I write this comes. I don’t really know how to approach Distraint, a game that aims to be so profoundly satirical and critical while striving to hit a particular note of the horror genre, and yet, seems so… confused, confused at itself, and doesn’t always manage to find the right words to tell its story. Maybe, and funnily enough, the reason I myself I’m having problems analyzing it, it’s because the game also doesn’t quite know how to approach itself.

And it’s strange, ‘cause at its most superficial level and in some particular key moments, Distraint displays a level of genius and gut some games wished they had, it’s a very personal story, far more direct and human than something like Inmost or Lost in Vivo, just to name other two horror games I’ve beaten this year; this isn’t the first experience to explore the horrors of the machinery that moves the entire housing system and the companies that mold it, but it’s one that wants to both to do a profound critic of how it works and the people behind it, and how its effects can affect the most vulnerable of us. Doing this when the protagonist itself, Price, is a creditor/collector seems like something that would come out of a really tricky dare, but for everything I’m about to say about Distraint, I really want to stress how much it succeeds in actually presenting this ordeal. Three last jobs, and that’s it, Price just have to do three last jobs, to notify to three different how their house will be taken from them all for unjust and stupid reasons, and after that he will have the position of his dreams… but at what price? The game starts with the response of that answer, Price knows very well that this is utterly horrible, it makes him sick to his stomach, but like a gear in a bigger invisible machine he just keeps on going, and the game acknowledged that the turmoil that he endures for the rest of the game is the fault of those who are higher than him as it is, in a way, his. For the first couple of minutes, in the moments Distraint tries to be its more human and personal, it’s the moment it really hits, and it becomes almost as horrifying as a big scary moment could be; in a way, you are the monster, Price is the monster, and the entire two hour experience is him trying to hold to some kind of forgiveness, to try and face the turmoil to its face, to go and throw it all out because that’s the best thing to do… only to fail, to just keep being that gear, and to never find peace for a deed that haunts you.

It's through that lenses, a very pessimistic yet more real and close ones, that Distraint becomes an indescribable experience… but the problem is, that is not all of Distraint. It is the core ideas and values the game wants to explore, and there are some really special moments in which the game truly shines, but at the same time, accepting only the positives would be ignoring the… well, the rest of the game. Do you know the phrase ‘’I know writers that use subtext, and they are all cowards’’? You probably do, it has earned an almost memetic status, and while now it isn’t the time to get behind the context and person behind it, it’s a really funny statement that, in some sense, I weirdly partially agree with it. Subtext is EVERYTHING, but it is sometimes good to be explicit, there’s stuff in stories that is very important to get immediately across, maybe because of a sense of urgency within the themes of the work of any given reason. I say this because yes, Distraint IS explicit, but that’s not the problem with it, rather, the problem lies within both repetition and its difficulty to manage tonal whiplash. The throws away the ‘’show don’t tell’’ rule out of the fucking window, with only ONE (1) moment in the entire game where I felt that it actually didn’t beat me over the head with either something overly explicit or that it didn’t tell me before. I got the same feeling you would get when reading an essay of an student that has to get to a certain number of words, and it gets so bad to the point you get contradictions like, even after Price himself telling how doing these acts makes him feel sick and even his conciseness tells him that, half-way through the game a character tells him what he himself basically thought several times and says ‘’Ah, I think I get it…’’… WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU GET IT?! PRICE YOU MUPPET YOU LITERALLY THOUGHT ABOUT THIS 12 TIMES ALREADY! The game is also hyperly focused with the first tenant you evict, and while it makes total sense and I do like the relationship between the characters, it makes it so the other two and barely anything more than a passing memory, specially the third one; you don’t really feel like you get to interact with them in any meaningful way, and the dialogue with them can feel weird and empty, and not in a intended way. Also, there are some comedic or less intense moments I find out of pocket, there are some that I do like, like every time you get to meet your bosses which is so charismatically bizarre I adore it, and an interaction with an elderly woman which it is both funny as it is kind of sad, but aside of those instances, everything else feel… off, and sometimes the dialogue can even diminish the theme of the entire game; at one point the aforementioned first evicted tenant says something along the lines of ‘’Oh don’t worry dear, you don’t have to blame yourself, besides, I’m pretty old so I’m gonna die anyway!’’ which… I know it wasn’t the intention at all, but it sounds so wrong…

Hell, I would even argue the horror games feel out of place!.. Oh god I’m sounding like a madman aren’t I… Look, Distraint’s ambience and visual style is really, really good, the Deluxe edition has made a couple of changes that make the game look fantastic, a simplistic visual style that manages to feel detailed and convey the feeling of rot and decay so well… but that’s where it kinda ends. The visuals are nice yeah, but the sound design is really weird at times, there’s an over abundance of stingers and really loud noises while others seem to be completely missing, and it’s doubly jarring when certain moments DO have cool sound design. And I couldn’t wish enough that the game just tried to go for more quite moments horrors, because it is in that machiavellian horror that that game hits the hardest, and when I just see blood, bodies and FUCKING ELEPHANT ZOMBIES... I feel empty, sure I might jump a bit, but after that, that horror really doesn’t add much to the puzzles or the story itself.

I feel as if the reason I’m being so negative it’s because Distraint simply falls flat in these elements for me, and if it succeeded, I would be praising it far more than I would otherwise, but as it stands, I just wished it was more focused, even more personal and satirical, and experimented with that side of horror it can do really well.

I don’t know if I even really managed to say something after all of this, or if I just spat out nonsense… maybe a bit of both.

I've grown wiser with time, or at least I like to think I have, even if only a little bit; I know what to trust and what to be weary of, and I know that you never, NEVER must trust a singing pumpkin under ANY circumstances... a dancing one however? Now that's a whole different story, show them the forbidden steps, Jack!

A few months ago I played and subsequently reviewed Haiku, the Robot, and during my every interaction with that game, I couldn’t scratch off the feeling that despite me having fun with it, despite some of its elements really clicking with me, despite overall enjoying the experience, I just found the game at times just… derivative. I think that’s one of the worst fates any kind of piece of art can have; now of course, when a game ends up falling flat on its face despite the best efforts of the author or team behind it it’s always an enormous shame, but I certainly wouldn’t call some of the worst videogames I’ve played ‘’derivative’’, if anything they’ve made me realize what’s what I truly appreciate in good art and, even when those are blatantly lifting ideas from other works, I certainly wouldn’t say that they haven’t provided anything of value, even if it is for all the wrong reasons. At least they made me feel something, at least I learnt taken something of value out of the experience, and when a game instead is derivative, I’m either just pondering over one singular question while experiencing it: ‘’Man… I could be playing [INSERT OTHER PIECE OF MEDIA THAT ISNPIRED WHAT I’M CURRENTLY PLAYING HERE] right now instead of this…’’ . I’m perhaps being too mean using poor little Haiku as an example of this, since I still would call it a pretty competent metroidvania, but I think it’s a perfect subject to use in this specific case, because while Haiku the Robot was a game that feels hindered by the fact it follows so much the other games that inspired it and seems afraid to form a mold of it’s own, Pumpkin Jack is a game that lends a ton of elements from its inspirations while also forming an unique identity and heart of gold. It also features the best line in any platformer to date:

‘’Hooray, we killed Santa Claus!... OH NO, WE KILLED SANTA CLAUS!’’

The MediEvil inspiration is apparent as soon as you start the adventure, to the point I at first began wondering were the statues with Scottish accent would be or if the villain would say some funny British swear words ; the base of style, presentation and even gameplay of both games have pretty much the same DNA, what with your platforming with segments of light hack ‘n slash, the spooky medieval ambientantion and even the parts where you pull off a MediEvil 2 and Jack enters crawling head mode, but as soon as I kept playing and playing, rather than this similarities becoming more apparent, quite the opposite happen, and by the time I got to the second level, it was clear that Pumpkin Jack, while taking the same skeleton (no pun intended) of the original PSX series and its many elements, manages to craft an experience that it’s completely it’s own, and one could argue that in some instances it parodies those games; with Medievil being the story of an entitled little prick that after being revived and given a second chance tries to be a true hero a save the world, Pumpkin Jack is the story of a massive asshole that gets revived to work for the devil to keep being a massive asshole freely… majestic…

And my devil, let me tell ya something, I wasn’t expecting this game to be bad in the slightest, but to not only surpass my expectations regarding its own identity but also being this fun is just something I wasn’t coming, and I’m ever so glad for my non-existent mouth to be shut by it. The devil is right to accurse these lands, because the change of look is pure fire; one thing is to try to go for a spooky ambience, and other thing is to consistently pull it off this well level after level, idea after idea, being so original while also managing to have that consistent sense of style and visual flare. Pumpkin Jack looks good and it knows it, each area feeling so natural while being as cartoony and comically terrifying as possible, putting on a spin on the most basic of ideas like cemeteries and swamps, to the most fun and original of all like the mines and even a Christmas theme town. The music makes it even more of a blast, there are no weak pieces here, every track slays, and none feel similar to each other, which taking into account the very specific spoopy style they are going for is a major accomplishment. And for almost everyone in the game looking or being dead, holy hell do they have style; even tho I wished there was a bit more enemy variety, part of that is because every single design is a joy to witness; the use of colors and shapes make every single one of these Grimm Adventures of Billy And Mandy rejects so lovable, and even the most generic of skeletons and gargoyles feel so special and distinct from anything I’ve seen in a long while it’s surreal. I honestly wished Jack interacted with more of this weirdos, because where the dialogue is a perfect encapsulation of everything absurd in this world; it feels like every single character that speaks has at least one or two fantastic lines, either comedic or even a bit more serious, and at the center of it all there’s the son a bitch that is Jack. As I said before, he’s an asshole, but a good kind of asshole! It never steps the boundaries of trying to be ‘’ultra-cool’’ or ‘’dark’’, and when it does is for more comedic effect, instead he feels more like a tired prick that just wants to get this thing done as soon as possible, and bounces off the rest of the characters and takes things seriously enough so that it feels both believable, likable, and that the stakes are very much present, even if this time around those are bringing the world to its doom instead of saving it.

Thankfully, dialogue isn’t the only good thing about this weird-ass vegetable, because the way he controls… Oh. My. GOD. Level design nor combat in Pumpkin Jack are particularly deep, but they are varied and fun enough so it’s always fun to do them, and what seals the deal is just how good Jack feels to control. Even if his move set is limited to two jumps, a roll and an attack, the responsiveness and snappiness of every single movement and attack, the weight on his run and the jump being just floaty enough to be responsive and forgiving and the little moments where the gameplay changes up to something more akin to an on-rail section make what would otherwise be a fairly simple but fun set of levels, to a joy of little worlds to traverse through and complete; hell, even when you are just a head it feels good to move. The bosses are also a highlight for sure, showing off the strengths of Jack’s movement and of the combat, specially that of the crow, a nice substitute for a high-range attack that can be extremely satisfying to use on the right moments (Plus, the crow is just funny, I really like that bird). The collectables are so perfectly balanced, the bird skulls, which are also the coin to buy skins, are easy enough to find so you consistently get them, but hidden enough so it’s always satisfying and that you’ll miss a few, and the gramophones are a bit more hidden, tho still easy if you look for them enough, and the reward is… well, you’ve already seen one of it, so I guess it isn’t necessary to say that it’s more than worth it. The developer behind this game clearly knew what worked and what didn’t, and sticked to that all the way through, tho ironically enough, is in that repetition of the formula where I have my gripes.

The game does repeat a ton of beats level after levels: There’s always three on-rail sections, always two or three headless mini-levels, you always get a weapon at the end of each level… things are always varied enough so it never becomes truly boring, but’s it a bit hard to not notice that you are pretty much repeating the same actions over and over again, and I honestly could have done without the second memory game with tombstones full of references, I honestly believe that if the game stripped back a bit some of its sections, it would make the ones that would be left a ton more memorable and impressive. How are weapons handled is also a bit weird? I say it with an interrogation because it’s not that any feel particularly bad, not at all, it’s just… there’s not much incentive to go back to previous weapons once you get a new one, except I guess on the final level; none of the drawbacks the new weapons that you get have are enough to deter you from constantly changing between arms, which was probably the intention, but as it is, it really doesn’t feel right, and now matter how slow the scythe may be, it really doesn’t make me want to go back to the shovel.

But even in these flaws, it doesn’t feel like the age tried to follow the beats of another and screw up, it just tried something different that in some aspects didn’t pan out, and that’s what makes me so happy about Pumpkin Jack. It screws some aspects a bit, yeah, but it’s still a really, really fun platformer, a game with so much passion and love for itself that even the credits are full of images of early builds and designs of it; is yet another proof that yes, you can borrow a ton of elements of other media and videogames while also feeling original and inspired, it’s a fine and hard line to walk on, but Pumpkin Jack holds its horses and nails it. So happy to have yet another spooky platformer than I can say its both fantastic and its own thing, a truly beautiful thing…

Oh, and another thing, when I showed the game to a friend, he said, and I quote: ‘’He looks like the Fortnite guy’’, which I didn’t really understand or see… and then after a boss he gets a shotgun… and if you have it equipped your jump is literally the jump from Fortnite… I… don’t know if to, laugh, clap or to be scared, to be honest.

I know I know, this wasn't in my personal bucket list of spooky games for this month, but I just had to jump into the Backloggd Game of the Week tradition at the very least once, and hey, this indeed has the spooky thematic so it still counts!

Y'know, I wouldn't say that I'm someone who's difficult to charm, I'm very easily enthralled by bizarre or charismatic worlds and characters if they are unique or appealing enough, but I'll admit, I'm a bit of a picky bastard when it comes to humor. I massively respect games that try to go for the humoristic angle A TON, but that also results in me being a lot more strict with, for a lack of a better term, ''comedy games''; if you are trying to be funny cheeky game, then you better not miss (I say this, being the worst '''''''punster'''''' in the entire site...). Graphic adventure games are probably the breed that's most familiar with humor, and that's everything but a secret, Monkey Island and Sam&Max are two perfect examples, while far from the only ones. Whether its poking fun at the tropes of the genre they are part from or just breaking the fourth wall more directly, this more sarcastic, satirical and surrealist is one that I cannot get enough of. I was initially scared that No Rest for the Wicked would fail in this regard, since I didn't really enjoy a few jokes in the beginning, but luckily, it didn't took long before it put my concerns... to rest!... Oh my god that was the worst one yet holy fu-

It has been a while since I've been charmed by a bunch of morons this hard; the nameless servant is a fantastic main character and loved his dry and sarcastic commentary and I actually really enjoyed his voice (the voice acting in general is pretty good to be honest), the count/master is everything I could ever want from a pretentious and dumb as bricks vampire, I adore the depressive son of a bitch that is Otto with every bone in my body and Carla was a really funny character that I wished it had even more interactions with you and the prisoners! The writing is on point, there are indeed some jokes at first that felt too sarcastic or direct to my own liking, but after those everything is a hit; it's not a game to which you'll be constantly laughing at, but the smile will persist during the entire playthrough and will get a chuckle or too out of you.

Puzzles are pretty simplistic for what they are, tho that's not a negative. It's a quick experience after all, and considering the run time, the game is pretty clever with the problems it presents and it has a puzzles that I would call stellar, it's nothing mind-breaking, but it is very creative and it took a while for me to realize what to do. The only negative that I could point to is how many major objects blend with the background and other objects, but at this point, this is more of a generalized problem with this style of game that a particular fault of No Rest of the Wicked.

Weirdly enough, even the negative kinda connects with the biggest positive I can say about the game: if it were to be a bit longer, I could easily see this as a classic of the genre, both in visuals, design, and above all else, script. It goes for that very particular way of writing and nails it, while at the same time managing to feel completely unique. In the end, it is what it is, a very enjoyable albeit short and not very deep experience, but it is like a good pun; clever, lasts as long as it needs to, and it may take a while to get some parts of it, but it's very worth it.

Also, I kind of saw the end coming, but it didn't make it the less funny. All in all, you could say this game is pretty wickedI'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SO-

I may have plunged myself into the depths of the accursed, to the nightmarish house of creatures beyond every mind that has seen the light, faced the impossible and the inconceivable at the same time, unable to understand the otherworldly horrors that stared me at the eye and their sounds rotted my ears, and most of all, getting spooped really fucking hard and wanting to call it quits... but I couldn't... I had to do it... not for me, no... but for the dog

I think I feel pretty confident when I say that horror is perhaps one of the most personal genres in all of media in general. Yes, I know, bold of me to say this considering how many times I’ve stated that it’s the subset of books/movies/videogames I’m the least familiar with, but for the little I have allowed myself to experience, one thing became very clear; true fear in videogames does not come from immediate danger. A Goomba hurts Mario, an Imp attacks the Doom Slayer, space-ships try to shoot down Fox’s Arwing, but fear, fear affects you. I’m not saying that immersion is not possible in games like Doom or Star Fox, but rather that immersion is an essential key factor in horror games; series like Resident Evil or Silent Hill may have characters and protagonist that are their own beings, but those games succeed because the horrors they face affects them as much as they affect us, and is when that immersion fails, that indescribable horror of turning your back against anything but a wall, when a horro game fails. And it’s understanding this when both the successes and failures of Lost in Vivo are clear as water.

This statement may vary since in the days that come I’ll be playing more horror games than ever before, but at this point at time, the time were my feeble, still trembling hands are writing this, that I can say that Lost in Vivo has one of the best atmospheres that I have seen in a VERY long while, and the best opening areas I’ve encountered in any of the terror focused games I’ve played. The adventure to rescue your adorable canine friend doesn’t take long turn into madness made flesh, the sewers twist within themselves, going down and down, each floor more rotten than the last, mor unpredictable, more… impossible. The sewers lead to the metro, which leads to a seemingly forgotten temple, which leads to the mines, and it becomes more and more apparent that this place may not be as real as it might have seemed first, but that doesn’t make it the less scary, in fact that uncertainty of illusion and reality might help it even more terrifying. The fantastic OST and sound design pulls through in way that’s deserving of an standing ovation, the quiet melodies that plague each area tense you up in a way I can only compare to the internal doubt you may have sometimes wondering if you left the oven on, and that tension can turn into peace once you arrive at a save room and that wonderful melody fills your ears, or turns into the outmost despair when an indistinguishable instrument destroys the melody and you realize… you are not alone in this room no more. I can’t sing its praises enough, Lost in Vivo ambience is absolute perfection, accompanied by a visual style that, while clearly inspired by the PSX style and specially that one of Silent Hill, as many things on this game, it doesn’t stop it from feeling fresh and original, thanks to the spectacular enemy and area design and the AMAZING lightning. The puzzles are great too; the game tends to repeat the ‘’You can go to this place, you need to go for three things and every time you do a enemy appears’’ structure, but the steps and set pieces to get there are consistently fantastic and perfectly paced (at least until after the mines) and the small notes that connect to the main puzzles are honestly really cool and clever. When it comes at creating a deep rooted fear in you, the game delivers in spades… but as it goes on, while it never loses it’s essence and still has some stellar moments, by the time I arrived at the forgotten temple, much of the magic and initial impact had sadly vanished.

The game has a prominent Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion structure, which despite both games being made by the same main developer, is not a sentence I was not expecting to say; both games have a very clear linear progression, do break the fourth wall from time to time, and have a prominent ‘’main monster for each zone’’ type of deal; now, this itself isn’t a problem, what is when this clashes with Lost In Vivo’s particular design. The game has a far more complex narrative, not limited to lore itself, but to the main character’s psyche, to their experiences and profound psychological turmoil, so certain fourth wall breaks and some areas can feel a bit out of place, specially after the half-way point. It’s also curious that, while the game it’s linear, there’s a lockpicking system that depends on you finding the items for opening certain doors that have one use only; it’s fine to have secrets and keys scattered around, but the lockpicking being one use each feels a bit weird… and in fact can lead to soft locking! No joke, there was a point I didn’t have any lockpicks and couldn’t go back to get any, so I was… stuck, and I had to do some tuff outside the game to fix it, otherwise I’d have to start from the beginning. I have no idea how this isn’t fixed or if there’s a fix I just missed, but if you plan on playing the game, be wary of this.

And then there’s the combat, which… look, I’m all in for combat feeling clunky in exchange of creating even more dread and insecurity, a less reliable move set and weapons may invite you to not participate in it, and Lost in Vivo be going for that… and the you realize some enemies don’t do shit. And that your life regeneration is fast as hell. And just liked that, a ton of the tension poofs… It’s not all bad, there are some really interesting enemies like the Mimic that are stellar, but in general, I didn’t feel like the combat made the game more terrifying, in fact the moments where you DON’T have to fight or can’t kill the enemy are the scariest by far, and there’s a boss fight that plays very well with that, but aside from that, enemies become just minor inconveniences when you realize that with just being a but careful, you can easily survive (the fact the final area is ‘’Random bullshit, go!’’ when it comes to enemies doesn’t really help).

And the fact the game has these problems deeply hurst me, ‘cause it’s otherwise a beyond amazing experience, one that mad me shiver as much as it made me feel hope, one that made love it despite of the terror and tension. It’s a game that does some things good and does them perfectly, a everlasting bad dream that can end in a happy outcome if you face it, and has many secrets and many others to be discovered.

Just follow the barks.

You’ll feel better.

The game being as flabbergasted at the fact 18-Volt is a nine year old as much as I was probably one of the most hilarious part of a game that quite literally made me smile and laugh every single moment I was playing it.

When making a game which its main premise is that it re-uses content from past entries, developers are faced when simple yet ever-present question: ''How in the all living hell do we make this worth it?''. Nostalgia and getting to re-experience past games or parts of them in brand new systems can be cool incentives, but I'd be hard-pressed to say they are strong ones; the content by itself it's nothing new, so why would we, as players, be interested on not only re-experiencing content that we have already played, but also pay for it?... Well, turns out WarioWare Gold found an answer, a trick...


The trick of haVING JIMMY T. ON THE GAME WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO LET'S-A FUCKING GOO, GETTIN' FIT AND FUNKY BABY!

The decision of playing the rest of the series beforehand was one of the best I could have ever made, because what would still be a fantastic game into an even more impressive one; even if a majority of WarioWare Gold is stuff we have already seen, it manages to make it feel new thanks to a collection of elements that span the entirety of the series plus a new barrage of brand-new content. Gold is the best celebration the series could have ever hoped for: 316 micro-games are nothing scoff at, overpassing even Twisted and its almost 230 fast paced minigames, but as I said before, most of these are micro-games already seen in previous entries, including twisted, so what makes this number shouldn't be so special... but then you see the selection, and then realize this is pure FIRE. Because there was so much to choose from, they picked the best and ONLY the best minigames on the entire series; in the past, with maybe the exception of Twisted there were a few amount of stinkers that were clearly lacking in quality compared to others, and even tho they only lasted a few seconds, in a game so fast paced as WarioWare that still leaves a huge impression. Not anymore: every single one if the crème de la crème, even the new ones, and so everyone may not be here, but that doesn't matter 'cause the best sure are. It even has a Rhythm Heaven minigame thrown in there, you can't make this up! That isn't even going into the Challenges, where we find the expected but always welcomed micro-game towers, plus some new stuff like the fantastic Wario Interrupts, but most of all, the return of Wario Watch and Sneaky Gamer, the former my favorite mode in ANY of the previous games and the latter being the best part of Game & Wario, and after playing, I completely understand why. Now that I think about it, the only games that might not get any kind of representation are Snapped and D.I.Y, which makes sense, one is a departure from the series focused on creating the games, and the other one is... well, is WarioWare Snapped. The rest tho? All gameplay styles come back, even the microphone, and the one game you expect to not see, Smooth Moves actually has a ton of representation, with a couple of minigames being adapted to be controlled in the twisted section; if you think about a thing of the series which there is a way it could be implemented here, then it is implemented here, and that effort for consistency is commendable.

Now, I know I said at the beginning that Gold was more than a simple collection… to then proceed to list things that are returning, but as I also said, is how it manages that returning stuff plus the never seen content what makes it so special, and regarding that new content… Am I the only one that loves how this game handles humor? Like, I adored how past games handled story and humor: as the gameplay itself, it’s pure chaos, incredibly light of dialogue and centered around the bat-shit insanity that plagues everyone. Gold takes a different approach, not only having a pretty more involved story, but actual dialogue, like, REALLY good dialogue; the jokes and on point, and even when some cut-scenes are longer than in previous games, it truly doesn’t feel like it like it did in Touched; it’s still fast-paced and entertaining, only now with sublime voiceovers (in fact the Spanish translation and dubbing is also pretty phenomenal) and mini-stories that are as crazy as ever, only now they connect to the Wario and Lulu cinematics, which, I know that Wario is loved by everyone, including me, but here, his mannerism, his voice-over, his interactions with Lulu and the cast, the way he simply IS, this is by far the best iteration of the character in not only the WarioWare series, but in the entirety of the Mario series as a whole, I love this greedy bastard to death and love him to see him be as dastardly as much to see him fail, they just nailed him here. And that sentiment goes for everyone else, character shine like never before and whereas in the past I only really care about Jimmy T. and maybe Orbulon, I now adore this group of weirdos in a way I didn’t really see coming, like, this game made me like Fronk and fucking Joe, how do you even accomplish that?! This, with the more non linear game you can tackle the different leagues and how Diamond City is shown, makes it one of the most different WarioWare games by far, but every change introduced makes sense and it’s welcomed, and other new additions, like the missions and the store, on top of ALL the other stuff, like small side content like the extra minigames (which includes a Pyoro one and I for one I’m the happiest person on earth right now) and the ability to dub the cutscenes… yeah, this might just be the biggest package in the entirety of the series while also being the most fun by a landslide.

I knew I was gonna have fun, but MAN did this game make me happy; it made me feel rewarded for investing my time into this already amazing series, a love letter that even if released 1 year after the switch launched and doesn’t have a 3D option, I kind of really like that it’s on the 3DS? It still feels right a home, and hey, having two screens makes it possible to play Sneaky Gamer, so on that alone makes it worth it.

To me, Gold is the single best experience in the franchise, Twisted is to this day the best out the full-blown original games, but Gold fills me with such joy, is so fun, so consistently fucking amazing in almost every way, that I cannot for the life of me say it’s not my preferred game. I’m so glad I got to play this series in its entirety, and I’m so happy this is the send-off, or at least until Move It! releases, but until then, we found Wario peak…


…and you know, I could finish this review off with yet another Wario-related joke, but you know what? Nah, I’m good. For once, let the final note be how unironically great Wario is, and how this silly greedy garlic enjoyer, his crew and his dumb ass minigames can be so fantastic… holy hell, what a great franchise…

Riddle me this, if Samorost 1 is so good, then how come there's no Smaorost tw- oh... there is?... Well I got no jokes then, it was either that or making a Starfield pun.

My experience with Amanita Design's catalogue is limited to having beaten Chuchel some two years ago and very little else, which is a shame considering how much I enjoyed that game and the good things I've heard about Machinarium and Botanicula; all of their work has a consistent and unique sense of style, be it detailed or more cartoon, serious or more comedic, even if you haven't played any of them, you know an Amanita Design game when you see it. And if there's one thing I can say confidently, is that they nailed that personality from the very beginning, Samorost may not have been the first game the studio ever released, but while playing it I could clearly see the roots of what would end up becoming the full fledge experience that is Chuchel, and it a ton of ways it kinda felt like a bite-sized version of it.

Pure controlled absurdism captured and summarized in about 15 minutes, a quick space odyssey that managed to be surprising consistent on its presentation. It's also a game starring a funny gnome with a funny voice where you encounter singing goats and an owl with human eyes, so yeah, it was also stupid, the good kind of stupid.

The hand-drawn characters, some with human features plastered onto them, fit in this realistic little planet full of moss and rust almost perfectly, for as little as I was able to stay, I was left captivated by Samorost world and its nonsensical machinations, every screen was seemingly made with the purpose to be both perplexing and easy to the eye, while also having pretty easy but creative little puzzles thrown in. You really get to interact with this weird-ass planet and it is so incredibly cool, and seeing things made out tins and small objects be the same size as mountains or normal buildings made it even more charismatic than it already was. Also, the OST and sound design are oddly fantastic? Like, I wasn't expecting anything bad, but this blew me away, even if most songs and mere ambience, the few full-blown pieces are great, they blend the ethereal with the surreal, and I can't say that I've heard nothing like it in a long while... and the sounds everyone makes here are just really funny, everybody here are little gremlins and I love them all.

The things that hold it back, like its lack of a real story or more complex puzzles, can't be really considered as ''flaws'', it's just a game that wants to be a simple little adventure, and in that it delivers in spades, it's just that because of its own nature, it can't really be more than a fun little space trip; the only thing I would point out as a real flaw is how it sometimes can be a bit difficult what you need to exactly click to find the puzzle or progress; it will never take too long to find out, but sometimes some things mesh with the background too well, especially in the second to last screen.

It was fun to play one of the very first story-book adventures handcrafted by this rather small but talented studio, and it was even more cool to see how many of this game is on later works made by them, or at least in Chuchel. It is no masterpiece, and it isn't anything mind-shattering, but... that's nice, it doesn't have to be, from time to time, it's good to have a simple and short surprise, and this was definitely it...

Also, it had an anteater. If there isn't an anteater in any of the sequels, I riot.