DormantBear
5 reviews liked by DormantBear
Bullet Witch
2006
"i don't get no respect!" - bullet witch
when i first got my job - this stupid job where every employee i enjoy being around gets fired and where i spend half my time terrified of my bosses and the other half fighting for shifts - i used to come home after late nights and spend hours playing bullet witch. i think i did 6 back-to-back playthroughs before i moved on to something else. i don't understand how someone could dislike blowing up massive buildings and backflipping over demons whilst wielding a top 10 video game shotgun. like, are people stupid or just lame?
the most egregious of bullet witch's purported offenses is having technical issues - all of which are ironed out in its fantastic pc port. what do y'all even have to complain about? if something as unfinished as vampire: the masquerade can be so beloved, i don't see why bullet witch can't. and before you hit me with "TEH AMBITION AND UNIQUE" - for a budget ps2 studio, making a next-gen ornate gothic shooter with giant, fully-destructible environments (all of which boasting awesome setpiece direction) is super ambitious. just cause 2 wouldn't hit these heights for another 4 years! though some would argue that perhaps that ambition is exactly what makes the game a failure, i say that's some myopic bs. if it weren't for so-called "trash" like bullet witch, we wouldn't have half the criticommerical successes that populate the backloggd charts. so put aside your hollow prejudices for once in your life and enjoy the game for what it is, rather than what it's not. cuz what it is is easily one of my favorite pieces of art i've interacted with. that's right. bullet witch is art, motherfucker.
that being said: play it with the japanese va. i'm not crazy enough to defend the awful english dub. the japanese voices are also awful, but in a very endearing "random dev team members" kind of way.
when i first got my job - this stupid job where every employee i enjoy being around gets fired and where i spend half my time terrified of my bosses and the other half fighting for shifts - i used to come home after late nights and spend hours playing bullet witch. i think i did 6 back-to-back playthroughs before i moved on to something else. i don't understand how someone could dislike blowing up massive buildings and backflipping over demons whilst wielding a top 10 video game shotgun. like, are people stupid or just lame?
the most egregious of bullet witch's purported offenses is having technical issues - all of which are ironed out in its fantastic pc port. what do y'all even have to complain about? if something as unfinished as vampire: the masquerade can be so beloved, i don't see why bullet witch can't. and before you hit me with "TEH AMBITION AND UNIQUE" - for a budget ps2 studio, making a next-gen ornate gothic shooter with giant, fully-destructible environments (all of which boasting awesome setpiece direction) is super ambitious. just cause 2 wouldn't hit these heights for another 4 years! though some would argue that perhaps that ambition is exactly what makes the game a failure, i say that's some myopic bs. if it weren't for so-called "trash" like bullet witch, we wouldn't have half the criticommerical successes that populate the backloggd charts. so put aside your hollow prejudices for once in your life and enjoy the game for what it is, rather than what it's not. cuz what it is is easily one of my favorite pieces of art i've interacted with. that's right. bullet witch is art, motherfucker.
that being said: play it with the japanese va. i'm not crazy enough to defend the awful english dub. the japanese voices are also awful, but in a very endearing "random dev team members" kind of way.
A 7/10 that you'll love like a 10/10. A co-op split screen adventure that made me go "remember when games used to be fun?" This game has a pointing mechanic and a flashlight that can reveal hidden items. You can also kick people down and beat the shit out of them once they've been stunned by the light. 50% RE action, 50% we have TLOU at home; 100% fun. And just a little bit of bullshit to keep you humble.
Alan Wake
2010
someone at remedy thought that the scariest thing in the world was having inanimate objects of various shapes and sizes thrown at you and yknow what more power to 'em
Balatro
2024
I showed this game to my wife and I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm straight-up addicted to video poker.
This feels like it's missing an x-factor. StS or BoI have this feeling like anything could happen at any time dozens of runs in, and at least so far it feels like the Joker design could have got a little more zany to keep runs fresh or introduce brand new mechanics. They really just revolve around number crunching, and it gets a bit repetitive. Talking it over with a (math major) friend it sounds like the high card strategies are a little one-sided and really the only way to certain success. Standard card packs also suck. It definitely needs some balance tweaking, but as-is the (math major) crunch is still pretty fun. Plus the aesthetic is great. I can't believe the one song is so - wait, am I straight-up addicted to video poker?
This feels like it's missing an x-factor. StS or BoI have this feeling like anything could happen at any time dozens of runs in, and at least so far it feels like the Joker design could have got a little more zany to keep runs fresh or introduce brand new mechanics. They really just revolve around number crunching, and it gets a bit repetitive. Talking it over with a (math major) friend it sounds like the high card strategies are a little one-sided and really the only way to certain success. Standard card packs also suck. It definitely needs some balance tweaking, but as-is the (math major) crunch is still pretty fun. Plus the aesthetic is great. I can't believe the one song is so - wait, am I straight-up addicted to video poker?
Terracards
2023
It is really adicting, but has its flaws. Once you get to play for a while, you will have no idea what's going on because you can't check additional information about the production or consumption of stuff. There is a "nerd mode", but it's not clear or helpful. There's also no indication about how many resources each machine can process or in which order, which makes the complicated recipes feel overwhelming.
As a roguelike, I think there's some balance between really niche cards and generally good cards, but the card system is stupid. The cards get consumed when you use them, so there is not a deck in a classical way, which defeats the whole purpose of using cards. In these kind of games, you rarely need to get a certain card more than once or twice for assembling a synergy and you can control the number of cards (by not adding them or removing old cards), but here you either get lucky and roll the specific cards you need everytime, you play a bit of everything and hope the crops don't interfere with each other or you have some way to produce cards from other cards, which basically breaks the game.
I played until I got the "you win" message at round 200 and kept playing until my farm collapsed at 220. There was so many stuff in screen that the game lagged every new turn. I think the game can be a pretty decent roguelike, but it needs several changes to the core gameplay.
As a roguelike, I think there's some balance between really niche cards and generally good cards, but the card system is stupid. The cards get consumed when you use them, so there is not a deck in a classical way, which defeats the whole purpose of using cards. In these kind of games, you rarely need to get a certain card more than once or twice for assembling a synergy and you can control the number of cards (by not adding them or removing old cards), but here you either get lucky and roll the specific cards you need everytime, you play a bit of everything and hope the crops don't interfere with each other or you have some way to produce cards from other cards, which basically breaks the game.
I played until I got the "you win" message at round 200 and kept playing until my farm collapsed at 220. There was so many stuff in screen that the game lagged every new turn. I think the game can be a pretty decent roguelike, but it needs several changes to the core gameplay.
