my first point of reference for this game, like prolly everyone else's, is to pinpoint the similarities to it being a glow-up of rail shooters found in arcades. for about a third or so of the game, it definitely feels that way. yet, it still felt disingenuous; right from the very get-go, it defies a proper description because of how it has its hands in as many places as possible; some may call that a fatal flaw for smth that has a severe case of adhd, i say it's a goddamn masterpiece not solely thanks to it, but that for as complicated as killer7's plot and battles gets, it settles itself into its own comfy routine, using the same game mechanics as leverage for the banal form of evil and indifference its world plays as

the killer7 themselves are almost mythic in their creation, an idea of gameplay so insane that it works itself into being a downright ingenious form of a shooter; everything directly said or implied about the personas is stepping into a tightrope the player has to walk: tread too safely and you get lost in the design, tread too wildly and you get too careless in the design. for as easy as it is to shit on repetitive gameplay, the concept alone is still appealing and everlasting from just how much it exchanges invested time and muscle / mind memory to each other back and forth. it's cliched to say but each member really does bring their flair to an already high-concept game, and it's very excited to let you indulge in setting you up for preparation itself

but it feels all too futile as well. its evil and indifference found in the story isn't just routine, but robotic, directly being a pawn in cover-up after cover-up and conspiracy after conspiracy, and meant to navigate the murky waters outside. every abitrarily-seeming route is drenched in post-wwii anxiety and post 9/11 paranoia from japan and the u.s. in the game, and at certain peaks, especially when you get characters talking directly to you, so much of post-ironic humor and storytelling driving it forward know too well of it going only so far as it allows itself to always right before shit hits the fan. killer7 is practically banking on the player to not only accept its bullshit at face-value, but actually get you to recognize it as a meaningful farce of what is literally dissociated identity from the call of duty

it's a blessing that smth like this was released right in the sweet spot of the 2000s; video games, along with media in general, delved straight into using the war on terror as a means to retool people's own confusion into a spectacle for entertainment; no one, much less the governments in power, actually knew how to handle their own egos that came with fighting the stereotyped evils of the world made from their own bloodstained and dirt-soaked hands. yet, out of many woodworks, there also came plenty of media that took the absurdity of war as a way to both joke around and rampage angrily at our mistakes. killer7 wasn't made to be an ultimate answer or commentary on the era, since it knows most ppl then and now were looking for a good time for whatever special bullshit gave them their own solo parties at the edge of the world, but it sure as succeeds in all its glorious and bittersweet bullshit

remember back in my re1 review where i talked about how the charm of how "clunky" the voice acting and story was made me really appreciate it as trying to emulate a playable b-movie? in one hell of a twist, that same strength works both ways for this. silent hill is actively straining to deliver smth beyond the normal mould of horror gaming, and even putting aside how it spun off into a gigantic franchise and because a blueprint for the genre, it's almost hilarious how deceptively simple approaching the game is. that might sound ridiculous to some, but when stripped down to its bare elements, survival horror is any other video games' concentration on surviving taken up to 11, where every element from saving items, health, and time works to make for a suffocating experiences that's as routine as a game of catch with your dad and him preparing you for the big leagues when you were fiddling around with shit like a nintendo switch just yesterday

but silent hill never loses sight of the ball. every single minute of this game is milking as much gameplay as it can to see how far it can go to actively torment me as much as humanly possible; not so much in the battles or even the puzzles, but some of the absolute best level design and application of tank controls yet, limiting itself to keep me in the dark about what is essentially many elements of stock horror stories drawn out to liminal spaces akin to an open-air prison. the amount of mental suffocation that the game uses at any time (that sound of the glass breaking out of nowhere even when there was no one around made me scream 'fuck' out loud) is staggering, and enough to disorient my already piss poor sense of video game direction, even with the maps

it shouldn't be ignored tho that, at the end of the day, this is just as much indulgence in becoming a part of horror as resident evil was, no matter how many critics and gamers call this game the moment survival horror "grew up." like i said, it's mostly toying around with how far an experience like this can go made with the same love that keeps the genre alive, and it obviously doesn't take much to get spooked for the same reason

peaceful, at least the same way a fly at a picnic in the park is; it may be overwhelming when trying to steer you away from food, but it becomes another charming addition to the outdoors. despite how much it deviates from typical formula of video games, as well as how much the team set out to create smth "realistic", ico is essentially going thru the bare essentials of what amounts to a bedtime story that became a dream of a child. everything feels so simple: the combat is always the same when fighting the shadowmen, the tasks are similar to each other more often and not, and the story plays out like a fairy tale

but, not in spite of, but because it moves by, it feels less then charitable to say that it goes against the "realism" aimed for this game; more then anything, my favorites parts of the game was when i decided to walk instead of run and just press myself into how much love was put into the design, how each pristine pixel and low-key sound mixing; the flies are always at every picnic, but they're just as much little creatures of their own nature as any of the quirks and bugs here. no need to be bothered by how it took ya out of everything; it's the exchange between the two that is another form of interactive beauty