I've been listening to a podcast called «Something Rotten» a lot lately in which the hosts talk about how video game writing is often time much poorer than other mediums by comparison. It feels like video game writers only consume game writing, and don't take the time to learn from all the richness cinema and novels have to offer for example.

I'd posit Silent Hill: The Short Message as a prime example of this problem.

From my point of view, the love for this franchise comes from rich stories of trauma told in oblique, yet thoughtful ways.

The Short Message in contrast hits you with its themes like a hammer to the face. It's so on the nose and badly written it's hard to believe. Everytime someone screamed «DUMB» as a bullying slur, I rolled my eyes. It works when written on post-its on the wall, but good god, less is more when it comes to voicing lines of dialogue.

It has a fair level of polish in its aesthetic and some interesting chase scene ideas (although they are more tedious than fully realized), but when a narrative experience leans on a script so appalingly poor in subtelty and subtext, the whole thing falls apart.

It's weird revisiting games from childhood. It's always a dangerous gamble to see if they'll hold up, or if the glossy illusion of perfection will be shattered.

In this case, it was a bit of both. Most of this game rocks. Everything concerning the presentation and atmosphere is awesome, and has stayed so for the last 20 years. The coat of paint of the remaster only solidifies that.

The game design as well is remarkably strong (the game feel is still so good), but good god, the BACKTRACKING.

The last two hours of this game are unbearable. Finding the artifacts to go meet the last boss is one of the most tedious things a Metroidvania could hope to ask of a player, and there's no fast travel ! Even the bosses felt like neverending slogs. Their difficulty comes not from actual skill-based challenge, but the minutes you'll spend waiting for them to open up their guard and chip at their gigantic health.

It remains a game I love dearly, but whose flaws I see much more clearly now. I'm glad games of this type have evolved beyond this point design-wise, and although I respect this gem for what it did, maybe fuck that ending a little bit ❤️.

This might be one of my new favorite Soulsborne games.

To start off the level of polish here is unbeliveable. The fact that this game comes close to touching what From Software does right out of the gate deserves a big tip of the hat.

It does borrow a tremendous amount of ideas from past games of the genre, but it blends it all in a way that ultimately, to me at least, felt completely earned.

It has a distinct world, art direction, and soundtrack that truly sets it appart from its contemporaries. The combat system is rich and flexible and encourages exploration. It's somewhat close to Sekiro in its «rhythm game parrying» nature, which I adore. Also, the level scaling on enemies puts Elden Ring to shame as it always feels fair and balanced. It's just so well thought out in every tiny detail, it blows my mind.

One of the biggest draws for me as well is the story of Lies of P. It's told in a clear way with minimal bullshit which is quite a change from games like Dark Souls. It has interesting themes that are explored thoughtfully, and quirky characters aplenty that I loved to saw pop up again and again. And I got the story without having to watch 3 hours of Youtube videos which is very, very welcome.

The one thing I thought lacked a bit was the boss designs. They felt a tad underwhelming most of the time, and safer than Elden Ring's boundless spectacle.

Even so, the whole package is immaculately paced and polished and gives From Software a good run for their money. I totally validates its own existence for it's unique qualities and carefully crafted world and gameplay, and I love it for that.

Almost forgot : I love Pinocchio.

I binged the crap out of this with my girlfriend.

It was an absolute fantastic ride from start to finish. The design of everything is so well-thought out, and all the puzzles felt fair and required knowing about the people whose language you're learning to get it right.

It's such a polished and concise game, no bullshit in sight. We got to the end, the story wrapped up in a great way, and it was done. I love that about it.

It used its language-decoding premise to maximum effect and left no time for repetition or trite puzzles.

I really do think they killed it on this one.

What a delight to discover this now !

This might've been one of the toughest rhythm games I ever played, mostly in terms of how it just slaps you in the face right at the start and doesn't let up.

My fingers hurt now that I've finished it, and that feeling of mashing your controller frenetically really fit it with the idea of «musical combat» in the game.

I felt like my life was on the line.

And then there's the visual style (which is lovely) and the music (which kicks ass) that totally make this great little game.

Although it's a bit short and simplistic story-wise, it has a distinct personality as a rhythm game which I can't say I've seen before. I love it for that.

After playing more than half of Prey, I feel like it's and overrated underrated game.

I was sold at first on its immersive sim premise. It was supposed to be a mechanically rich game, where every system connects with another in order to give the player a huge breadth of choice in how they approach every situation.

While there was this feeling of systemic combat/puzzle-solving, the main thing that kept bugging me down is how stiff and inelegant everything feels. Maybe playing this on the PS4 didn't help, but framerate and loading times were terrible and really discouraged exploring the station. Opening a door to another level afforded me about enough time to go make myself a coffee.

The gameplay on its own was so cluncky that it got me killed up to 10 times in certain encounters. I'm not expecting Call of Duty levels of flow in the first-person shooting here, but being able to escape enemy attacks would have been appreciated. The player's health drains at such a speed that one hit K.O.s are frequent, and it never gets out of that rhythm. You either throw everything you have at enemies to annihilate them, or die trying to be more cautious with your resources.

The story is not much to write home about either. It starts off with an amazing premise, then forgets to elaborate on it while making you go on various fetch quests until the end reveals a quite cliché twist to top everything off.

In the end, I wasn't charmed that much by Prey. I did love the enemy design and the mimic's mechanic of hiding as plain objects. I liked the promise of systemic gameplay that could be felt in the multi-use weapons and powers you were given. I still could never get into the game that much. Constantly getting killed for no reason and waiting in interminable loading screens did Prey in for me.

I'm really glad I took the time to play through the first Ace Attorney to see what it's all about. I'm also kind of glad I'm done.

I'm a bit surprised by my own liking of Visual Novels. Usually, I much prefer gameplay-heavy games to ones that ask a lot of reading of me, but the heart of this series really seems to be in that writing. It's kooky, fun, charming, mysoginistic as hell, all in the spirit of a game that came out in 2001.

But it really does engage the player, and it is good writing for the most part.

The mysteries have depth, and more often than not work very well at revealing surprising twists and turns.

The gameplay is minimal, yet the feeling of slapping evidence in someone's face and watching their jaw-drop as you weed out their contradicitions is amazing. There are a lot of instances of BIG jumps in logic for some of those puzzles though. It's far from airtight design, and requires checking a guide on the side quite often.

The one thing that really annoyed me is how long winded it all feels. Travelling from screen to screen is a pain. Going through dialogues is super slow and cumbersome. At times, there's also just way too much words for nothing. In the end, I just wanted to be done with it because of how tiresome skipping all those dialogues got, just to get to the trials.

I can totally see why this is a huge franchise. It has got fun characters, wild ideas for cases and a great central mecanic of cross-examination and high-stakes trials. But it's got that signature Visual Novel thing of being way too long for it's own good that got on my nerves.

Well worth a playthrough, even if I won't play the rest of trilogy before a good while !

Such a fun time !

Songs are great, and it's all perfectly goofy. The character designs and animations as so damn wobbly, I just love that PS2-era kind of stuff.

The one thing that was terrible in the way I played it was the input lag. Dear god, I've never played a rhythm game that was so off in its timing. But it doesn't matter that much. I powered through and liked it all the same.

So chilling !

It's such a simple game, but it's executed beautifully. The buildup of tension is fabulous, and the gameplay is a very creative way of making the player feel helpless.

That print screen-button ? Genius idea.

Nothing hooked me here.

This felt lifeless, slow and unpalatable. The atmosphere at the start was very strong when it was super linear, but the pacing completely crumbles as soon as the game opens up. It feels as though the first one, although not a fabulous game either, at least had a strong personality. This one just felt like a lesser Last of Us with a seemingly terrible story and ultra-slow menus to progress everything.

Glad I could try it for free on PlayStation Plus though !

Couldn't connect with this at all.

I played for an hour and the gameplay and sound were driving me mad. Sound is generally so badly mixed and annoying, and the gameplay keeps stepping on its own toes with ultra repetitive button mashing and obligatory finishers. The mission where you carry coconuts around for 2 and a half minutes, just to make money to be able to play the next level completely lost me.

It feels nowhere near as interesting, smart or tightly designed as Killer7 which came out before, and it's so misogynistic and dumb in an overt way, I couldn't be bothered to care.

I like gross and violent 2000s-era games just fine, but this, even if it's supposed to be tongue in cheek, just aged like premium quality 2% milk.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder was a delight !

I'm really glad a necessary shakeup was done to the 2D Mario formula. The art direction in general was stunning and magical, and the gameplay ideas very inspired and fun. It truly felt like a big amusement park ride with a bunch of little weird moments every time you pick up a wonder flower. You never know what you're going to get, which makes each one feel special. Ideas aren't always fully developed, but they went for more quantity (with quality) then depth here.

The talking flowers were surprisingly funny to me. Also, put em' in Canadian French and they become 100 times better.

I was really pleasantly surprised by this game since I'd heard a lot of critiques. I generally thought it was a win for Nintendo and this franchise even if it's not the most innovative or memorable of all the Mario games. It was an extremely polished, simple and very enjoyable romp in the Flower Kingdom either way.

Man did this not click with me.

It seems right up my alley with how weird and political it is, but I just find it frustrating and too inscrutable. I keep having to redo levels and repeating minutes of gameplay on a loop because it's so damn hard.

I'm not as in love with the whole aesthetic as I thought I'd be either. Some tiny things surprised me like how the characters say the same lines without much variety. It's also full of long corridors that connect parts of the levels inelegantly by having you walk in straight lines for soooo long.

I just thought the brilliance on display would be upfront here, and not buried in so much frustrating time-wasters and confusing elements.

It's definitely interesting though how it completely forgoes most design rules (mostly in the UI and game feel) to fit within its own world. I'll probably give it another shot someday when I'm more in the mood.

To me, Katana Zero was nigh perfection.

It is a simple game in some respects, but a very deep one at the same time. It bases itself on a Hotline-Miami-esque frame, and pushes it pretty far in how it constructs its combat machanics. It lasts exactly how long I wanted; just enough to fully use its ideas and tell a compelling narrative, and not long enough to become repetitive and tedious.

The style on display in how the dialogues unfold, how every character moves and expresses pain or slashes someone in half is just astounding as well.

The music might be the only thing that over promised a bit. It's a good soundtrack, but nothing that blew me away in the style it was going for.

Katana Zero is a fantastic game, a short but very tight experience that knows what it wants to do and does it superbly.

Damn what a riiiiiide that was.

Killer7 is hands down one of the most unique and weird games I've played, and it is so in a very compelling way. Its borerline nonsensical at times plot-wise and has some game design flaws here and there, but it remains such a strong statement of «trying stuff and seeing what sticks» that it becomes eminently fascinating. It keeps this momentum going for a surprising amount of time as well without ever becoming the least bit tiresome.

Almost 20 years on, you'd be hardpressed to find something that even comes close to resembling Killer7, and that's quite a feat. It stands in a league of its own, and despite some minor hiccups, it quickly warmed up to being one of my favorite games of this edgy, mis-2000s era of games.

Very, very glad I gave this a shot.

In the name of Harman.