MangoBat
309 Reviews liked by MangoBat
Undertale
2015
i have daily traumatic flashbacks to high school where i was walking down the halls wearing an Undertale shirt and this one random guy was like "wh-what??? a gamer girl!" and then blocked my path and did the entire Sans speech. the whole thing. in public.
Mother 3
2006
the suburban pastiche of earthbound (and mother) was comforting thanks to its familiarity. it's a game where you can point at the screen and say "look, that's like my life!" pulling money from an ATM, stopping by the mall to grab a burger, or wandering around the natural history museum, these aesthetic choices work precisely because of how the expected unreality of the game world becomes subverted into a representation of reality. it's novel in its presentation, and enhanced by the quirky charm of the townspeople along with the tangents into both goofy myth and unsettling sci-fi horror.
which makes your first moments walking into a similar world after a between-chapters skip of multiple years in mother 3 such a slap in the face. our protagonist lucas, one of the few remaining denizens attempting to reject a new capitalist order, now glumly walks through these same suburban streets. former stalwart geezers contributing to the town's safety have been all but locked away in a dilapitated nursing home, while lucas's peers scarcely older than he work for wages in the nearby clay mines. the cheerful dialogue from the townspeople now solely consists of those chiding lucas for not getting with the times in between questioning why virtually every other defector's house has gone up in flames. it's the same carefree music of adolescence, the same bright thin-line artstyle, the same casual strolls around town, but tainted by your knowledge of the utopia of the society that came before and the decadence of the modernization that has come in its wake. it is, in essence, a loss of innocence. the unfair and early death of lucas's mother at the start of the game shattered it, and post timeskip you get a close glimpse of its proverbial corpse.
it is indeed somewhat funny the lengths that itoi went to establish the despair of modern civilization; endearingly awkward as his writing is, occasionally it gets into simply awkward territory the more it moralizes. yes, there is a token native american stereotype, and yes, his tipi gets blown to smithereens by artificial lightning post-timeskip. the magypsies as well, in attempt to enforce their alien nature given their status as immortal standardbearers of the world as it stands, are othered via their gender representation... which ends up being rather distasteful "okama" cariactures. my reason for pointing these out is not to discredit the rest of the work, but more to note that itoi bit off more than he could chew with some of the themes. he really wanted to demonstrate how fucked modernization is, man! so in the process some of the imagery gets a little hamfisted or straight-up ???... but that first time you walk into the modernized tazmily it hit me so hard.
likewise when you finally arrive at new pork city late in the game, the ghoulish tackiness of it all is so evident. the bizarre international mishmashes and cardboard cutout buildings, like toy props in a set of figurines (or buildings without polygons in the rear like a video game with fixed perspective) they illustrate gestures towards culture generation with vapid facsimile in place of rich tradition. it's a childlike conception of urban life: video games in walking distance and 24/7 screenings of heroes from another world. the idyllic norman rockwell landscape of earthbound has been grafted onto the communal tazmily like metal plates welded to biological creatures. all of it enforced by heiling stormtroopers in sneering pig masks... ok again, the imagery is really hamfisted. let itoi cook!
somehow even with this ideological shift in the people of tazmily, itoi still goes out of his way to illustrate the cruelty that lurks under the otherwise flawless exterior of their transactionless lifestyle. duster's bum leg, a physical reminder of his abuse at the hands of wess, is openly acknowledged, and yet the weight is silently borne by duster himself. his plain looks and questionable hygiene belie his thief tool mastery and serious upright bass chops, regardless of the verbal degredatation his father puts him through. likewise flint, stoic in his initial voiceless protagonist role, suffers a truly heartbreaking outburst of rage late in his campaign, indicating the dam about to burst on the societal shift to come. even lucas and claus play-act fighting with the local dragos at the very beginning of the game; the language of violence is still engrained in the minds of those living outside of capitalism.
the first three chapters are dedicated primarily to this plot, with the old rpg elements streamlined and the party limited. admittedly I'm not a big fan of the parts of earthbound where you're limited to a one or two person party; I just don't think you can come up with strategies that interesting when there's only a couple of moves to work with each turn. likewise, mother 3 provides different perspectives across each chapter with small parties carefully paced around the relative strength of the bosses they'll face. each character at this point can use special attacks and debuffs for free, removing the resource-management usually inherent in jrpgs. this isn't entirely bad, as it allows the player to experiment with various special abilities, but it would've gotten rather tedious after the six or seven hours it lasted. the point at which I got tired of this setup was in the lucas/boney fight against the jealous bass, which virtually necessitates using explosive items in order to outpace the devastating jam sessions they lay on you.
thankfully after this mother 3 wants to remind you that it's a real-ass jrpg, and thus the party is assembled... lucas, black mage kumatora, duster with his thief tools, and boney the dog. out of these mechanically boney is unfortunately undercooked; his only special move is "sniff" which senses the enemy's weaknesses, and his stats are gimped by being unable to use most equipment. thus most of the interesting fighting relies on the other three characters. I love how the mother series crystallizes the heroism of their heroes through making them healing mages, and lucas is no exception. while he has excellent attack, he's also equipped with a bevy of abilities such as setting up shields, buffing stats, and giving full revives to anyone or everyone in the party. kumatora handles all of the debuffs and attack magic, while duster is able to also apply free debuffs in exchange for a middling activation rate.
in turn the bosses get significantly more powerful, especially in the lengthy chapter 7. this whole section serves as a truncated redo of the same kind of "find the macguffin in each area" structure from earthbound, and with each needle pulled at the end of each area comes a more fiendlishly difficult boss. high base defense, extremely strong full-party attacks, switching between physical and PSI attacks, and even being able to destroy your shields at will all make character death frequent, and without smart planning and exploitation of the series's distinctive health counter system, it will be difficult to overcome some of the late-game fights. to my surprise other than the infamous barrier trio fight I didn't find that most of the fights revolved around simple weakness matching either; there's legitimately challenging turn-based slugfests balanced just right not to require grinding as long as you don't mind taking detours for items here and there.
complimenting the basics here are rhythm game elements which require the player to click the attack button in time with the backing beat to create a combo of up to 16 attacks in a row for a notable damage increase. while conceptually simple, the expansively eclectic soundtrack makes following the rhythm often require a significant amount of concentration. beats are dropped occasionally or sections will have tempos that vary, forcing the player to keep track of when they start attacking to ensure they don't get interrupted and lose valuable damage. following the beat itself rarely varies outside of simply tapping the backbeat however, which is a bit disappointing outside of a couple outliers like the 15/8 timpani-led Strong One. other songs occasionally try off-beat rhythms or more complex bass patterns, but unfortunately all of this is held back by the game's inconsistent timing windows. I played this on 3ds through rom injection which is generally considered to be extremely close to hardware-accurate, and yet I consistently noticed that the windows on certain songs required me to be a touch late. anything with eighth notes is a total crapshoot unfortunately, and thus I can see why they limited the songs that contained these pretty significantly. surprisingly enough the final chapter of the game features few difficult songs, making most of the encounters relatively easy to finish with only regular attacks, and I was hoping to hear the really bizarre tunes come out during the final mobs and bosses. however it's obvious the system was meant to be more of a bonus damage system, and thankfully the whole game can be managed without it if you're crafty enough with your PSI and thieves tool use.
without a doubt when compared to its meandering predecessor mother 3 focuses its satire on actually tearing apart the origins of the americana it draws from. at the same time it's a perfectly enjoyable jrpg with a neat rhythm mechanic and the same counter mechanism from earthbound to make timing your actions carefully utterly important; a rarity for turn-based games. as the game comes to a close those who played earthbound will receive an unsettling reminder of the artifacts from those games and the influence they played upon the creation of the world our heroes exist in, and the ending is cataclysmic and only partially resolved. for a game infused with so much levity, it's remarkably grim at the same time. I can only assume this juxtaposition of tones is what itoi was trying to summon all along.
which makes your first moments walking into a similar world after a between-chapters skip of multiple years in mother 3 such a slap in the face. our protagonist lucas, one of the few remaining denizens attempting to reject a new capitalist order, now glumly walks through these same suburban streets. former stalwart geezers contributing to the town's safety have been all but locked away in a dilapitated nursing home, while lucas's peers scarcely older than he work for wages in the nearby clay mines. the cheerful dialogue from the townspeople now solely consists of those chiding lucas for not getting with the times in between questioning why virtually every other defector's house has gone up in flames. it's the same carefree music of adolescence, the same bright thin-line artstyle, the same casual strolls around town, but tainted by your knowledge of the utopia of the society that came before and the decadence of the modernization that has come in its wake. it is, in essence, a loss of innocence. the unfair and early death of lucas's mother at the start of the game shattered it, and post timeskip you get a close glimpse of its proverbial corpse.
it is indeed somewhat funny the lengths that itoi went to establish the despair of modern civilization; endearingly awkward as his writing is, occasionally it gets into simply awkward territory the more it moralizes. yes, there is a token native american stereotype, and yes, his tipi gets blown to smithereens by artificial lightning post-timeskip. the magypsies as well, in attempt to enforce their alien nature given their status as immortal standardbearers of the world as it stands, are othered via their gender representation... which ends up being rather distasteful "okama" cariactures. my reason for pointing these out is not to discredit the rest of the work, but more to note that itoi bit off more than he could chew with some of the themes. he really wanted to demonstrate how fucked modernization is, man! so in the process some of the imagery gets a little hamfisted or straight-up ???... but that first time you walk into the modernized tazmily it hit me so hard.
likewise when you finally arrive at new pork city late in the game, the ghoulish tackiness of it all is so evident. the bizarre international mishmashes and cardboard cutout buildings, like toy props in a set of figurines (or buildings without polygons in the rear like a video game with fixed perspective) they illustrate gestures towards culture generation with vapid facsimile in place of rich tradition. it's a childlike conception of urban life: video games in walking distance and 24/7 screenings of heroes from another world. the idyllic norman rockwell landscape of earthbound has been grafted onto the communal tazmily like metal plates welded to biological creatures. all of it enforced by heiling stormtroopers in sneering pig masks... ok again, the imagery is really hamfisted. let itoi cook!
somehow even with this ideological shift in the people of tazmily, itoi still goes out of his way to illustrate the cruelty that lurks under the otherwise flawless exterior of their transactionless lifestyle. duster's bum leg, a physical reminder of his abuse at the hands of wess, is openly acknowledged, and yet the weight is silently borne by duster himself. his plain looks and questionable hygiene belie his thief tool mastery and serious upright bass chops, regardless of the verbal degredatation his father puts him through. likewise flint, stoic in his initial voiceless protagonist role, suffers a truly heartbreaking outburst of rage late in his campaign, indicating the dam about to burst on the societal shift to come. even lucas and claus play-act fighting with the local dragos at the very beginning of the game; the language of violence is still engrained in the minds of those living outside of capitalism.
the first three chapters are dedicated primarily to this plot, with the old rpg elements streamlined and the party limited. admittedly I'm not a big fan of the parts of earthbound where you're limited to a one or two person party; I just don't think you can come up with strategies that interesting when there's only a couple of moves to work with each turn. likewise, mother 3 provides different perspectives across each chapter with small parties carefully paced around the relative strength of the bosses they'll face. each character at this point can use special attacks and debuffs for free, removing the resource-management usually inherent in jrpgs. this isn't entirely bad, as it allows the player to experiment with various special abilities, but it would've gotten rather tedious after the six or seven hours it lasted. the point at which I got tired of this setup was in the lucas/boney fight against the jealous bass, which virtually necessitates using explosive items in order to outpace the devastating jam sessions they lay on you.
thankfully after this mother 3 wants to remind you that it's a real-ass jrpg, and thus the party is assembled... lucas, black mage kumatora, duster with his thief tools, and boney the dog. out of these mechanically boney is unfortunately undercooked; his only special move is "sniff" which senses the enemy's weaknesses, and his stats are gimped by being unable to use most equipment. thus most of the interesting fighting relies on the other three characters. I love how the mother series crystallizes the heroism of their heroes through making them healing mages, and lucas is no exception. while he has excellent attack, he's also equipped with a bevy of abilities such as setting up shields, buffing stats, and giving full revives to anyone or everyone in the party. kumatora handles all of the debuffs and attack magic, while duster is able to also apply free debuffs in exchange for a middling activation rate.
in turn the bosses get significantly more powerful, especially in the lengthy chapter 7. this whole section serves as a truncated redo of the same kind of "find the macguffin in each area" structure from earthbound, and with each needle pulled at the end of each area comes a more fiendlishly difficult boss. high base defense, extremely strong full-party attacks, switching between physical and PSI attacks, and even being able to destroy your shields at will all make character death frequent, and without smart planning and exploitation of the series's distinctive health counter system, it will be difficult to overcome some of the late-game fights. to my surprise other than the infamous barrier trio fight I didn't find that most of the fights revolved around simple weakness matching either; there's legitimately challenging turn-based slugfests balanced just right not to require grinding as long as you don't mind taking detours for items here and there.
complimenting the basics here are rhythm game elements which require the player to click the attack button in time with the backing beat to create a combo of up to 16 attacks in a row for a notable damage increase. while conceptually simple, the expansively eclectic soundtrack makes following the rhythm often require a significant amount of concentration. beats are dropped occasionally or sections will have tempos that vary, forcing the player to keep track of when they start attacking to ensure they don't get interrupted and lose valuable damage. following the beat itself rarely varies outside of simply tapping the backbeat however, which is a bit disappointing outside of a couple outliers like the 15/8 timpani-led Strong One. other songs occasionally try off-beat rhythms or more complex bass patterns, but unfortunately all of this is held back by the game's inconsistent timing windows. I played this on 3ds through rom injection which is generally considered to be extremely close to hardware-accurate, and yet I consistently noticed that the windows on certain songs required me to be a touch late. anything with eighth notes is a total crapshoot unfortunately, and thus I can see why they limited the songs that contained these pretty significantly. surprisingly enough the final chapter of the game features few difficult songs, making most of the encounters relatively easy to finish with only regular attacks, and I was hoping to hear the really bizarre tunes come out during the final mobs and bosses. however it's obvious the system was meant to be more of a bonus damage system, and thankfully the whole game can be managed without it if you're crafty enough with your PSI and thieves tool use.
without a doubt when compared to its meandering predecessor mother 3 focuses its satire on actually tearing apart the origins of the americana it draws from. at the same time it's a perfectly enjoyable jrpg with a neat rhythm mechanic and the same counter mechanism from earthbound to make timing your actions carefully utterly important; a rarity for turn-based games. as the game comes to a close those who played earthbound will receive an unsettling reminder of the artifacts from those games and the influence they played upon the creation of the world our heroes exist in, and the ending is cataclysmic and only partially resolved. for a game infused with so much levity, it's remarkably grim at the same time. I can only assume this juxtaposition of tones is what itoi was trying to summon all along.
Bayonetta 3
2022
Although I had so much fun with this game they made bayonetta straight so I can’t give it 5 stars.
Overwatch
2016
“You know, the world could always use more heroes”
Before I start this review off properly, there are a few things I will tell you from the get go.
1: this will have little to do with the actual gameplay of overwatch. Go to ign if you really wanna know how the gameplay in a 5 year old game is
2: this review will be focusing very heavily on my personal experience with overwatch. If that isn’t something you want to read, bye.
3: This will probably be my longest review ever.
With that out of the way, it’s time for me to tell you how Overwatch has become the lowest rated game i will ever have on this website.
My story with overwatch started out not too different from a lot of others i’d imagine. I was a 15 year old kid with no money. From one source or another, I heard about a free first person shooter demo people were going crazy over: some game I knew nothing about, from a studio I knew nothing about: overwatch. Overwatch didn’t have to wait very long to draw me in. I believe I installed it within hours of the open beta going live. I was hooked then and there. I loved the world of this game, the characters, the art style, the gun play, just about anything you could really think of. I played that beta all day, if i wasn’t at school, i was trying my best to learn how to use high noon (and failing at it).
I could not get enough overwatch, i would say ages 15-17 were for me were essentially dedicated to overwatch. Making friends in overwatch, watching official overwatch media, speculating about overwatch, and most importantly, playing overwatch. For those first two years, it really was just me, a ps4, and 20 something heroes that held my attention better than most other games did. I made some good friends at that time, but by the end I held onto none, with the exception of a single one of them (who is now my best friend, go figure).
Around the age of 17, the faults of the gameplay of overwatch seeped in like a vile, red wave and broke the rose colored glasses right off my face. Losing started to annoy me immensely, and victories felt hollow. steam rolls happened every match regardless if i won or not. Trolls got to me more than ever, and I hated blizzard’s approach to balance at the time. This all ended up culminating in me not seriously touching overwatch for years of my life. I let it go for a very long time, and I can honestly say I was happier for that choice. I needed to do that, and should have done it sooner.
But that didn’t last forever. Eventually, Overwatch sinked its talons (ha ha, get it? talon?) right back into me and drug me right back to that hellscape i walked out of ,who knows how long ago now. You wanna know what I found out? I liked it a lot more then. Games felt more balanced. Heroes didn’t piss me off anymore. It actually felt good to play it occasionally, in small doses. Usually only during events, but that isn’t really the point. For 2 or so years, I continued on like this with one of my favorite franchises. Dropping by to say hello, and walking out before either of us grew tired of the other’s presence. It worked for me. I brought friends sometimes, had a fun time working towards certain skins, it could be a very fun time at points. But, as of a few months ago, things changed drastically, and this is the main point of this entire review.
Sometime in the last summer of the year I typed this review, the state of california found years worth of evidence pointing against the activision blizzard corporation. Blatant abuse of women and poc in the workplace, truly disgusting things i will not say here. I am sure if you’re on a site like this, and are somehow reading this part, you already know all about it anyway. Before I go any further onto my thoughts on this, the one thing I need to make abundantly clear is that a video game is not my main concern with this situation. I care much more about the human lives being abused than a stupid bundle of pixels. In no way does overwatch overshadow the innocent women harmed by the degenerates at activision blizzard. The reason I will be focusing on Overwatch is because this place is specifically for that.
It took a while to sink in, and even longer to understand why this news hit so hard in regard of being an overwatch fan. The most obvious thing is I simply had to leave it behind for the last time. A final goodbye that was simply not on my own terms. An unsatisfying slap in the face and a boot out the door. Or, you might think that it was because I could no longer be a fan in any context, and that stung as well. But no, neither of those things is what brought me here today. The reason why I hate overwatch with every fiber of my soul is that it gave me hope.
There was a time I genuinely believed in overwatch, Wholeheartedly. That quote at the top of this review? That meant something to me. With almost every short film, I could feel a lump in my throat. I genuinely believed in what the world of overwatch stood for. One person could make all the difference, one person could be a hero, one person could make the world a better place. It meant so much to me. For five years, it meant a lot to me. Even when I hated the game of overwatch the most, there was a piece of my heart that couldn’t help but love that world. But that piece is dead and gone now, and bitterness quickly filled its place. Don’t get me wrong, overwatch didn’t, like, destroy my mental health or something dramatic like that. I’m still a positive guy, I'd like to think, but there was a certain positivity that the world gave to me, and it is simply gone and can not come back. The people telling me to make a difference, and to be a hero, were sexually assaulting their co-workers the same day they fully thought these themes out. It makes you feel disgusted. To put faith into something, and have to realize how stupid you were to put any faith into it.
This is why I hate overwatch. Not some hero I don't like, not a map, but that hopeful part of me. The hope a 15 year old felt, being snuffed out in a slightly more bitter 21 year old’s heart. A hope that can never be given back. I miss the days where my biggest issues with overwatch were petty squabbles that meant next to nothing for anyone but me. Those days are simply gone. I can never go back to overwatch, and what it meant to me has been pissed on and defiled to the point it just pisses me off to think about. A promise from monsters, hiding in the cloth of good folk. There is nothing in Overwatch for me anymore, which disappoints me greatly to say. I was very excited for overwatch 2 before all this. I still loved that world, but it’s all ash now. Ash and regret. And I'm left here asking myself why I ever bothered. Overwatch can not and will not redeem itself. It is gone, and it will stay forever gone. Fuck blizzard for giving me hope for a time. “The world could always use more heroes” says the sex offender. Heroes my ass. What a waste of my teen years. I have sworn off blizzard activision products. And that’s where my overwatch story ends. I will not watch new cinematics, i will not buy overwatch 2, and i will never smile when i think about all that time i wasted. This would be a 0 if i could put it that low.
Before I start this review off properly, there are a few things I will tell you from the get go.
1: this will have little to do with the actual gameplay of overwatch. Go to ign if you really wanna know how the gameplay in a 5 year old game is
2: this review will be focusing very heavily on my personal experience with overwatch. If that isn’t something you want to read, bye.
3: This will probably be my longest review ever.
With that out of the way, it’s time for me to tell you how Overwatch has become the lowest rated game i will ever have on this website.
My story with overwatch started out not too different from a lot of others i’d imagine. I was a 15 year old kid with no money. From one source or another, I heard about a free first person shooter demo people were going crazy over: some game I knew nothing about, from a studio I knew nothing about: overwatch. Overwatch didn’t have to wait very long to draw me in. I believe I installed it within hours of the open beta going live. I was hooked then and there. I loved the world of this game, the characters, the art style, the gun play, just about anything you could really think of. I played that beta all day, if i wasn’t at school, i was trying my best to learn how to use high noon (and failing at it).
I could not get enough overwatch, i would say ages 15-17 were for me were essentially dedicated to overwatch. Making friends in overwatch, watching official overwatch media, speculating about overwatch, and most importantly, playing overwatch. For those first two years, it really was just me, a ps4, and 20 something heroes that held my attention better than most other games did. I made some good friends at that time, but by the end I held onto none, with the exception of a single one of them (who is now my best friend, go figure).
Around the age of 17, the faults of the gameplay of overwatch seeped in like a vile, red wave and broke the rose colored glasses right off my face. Losing started to annoy me immensely, and victories felt hollow. steam rolls happened every match regardless if i won or not. Trolls got to me more than ever, and I hated blizzard’s approach to balance at the time. This all ended up culminating in me not seriously touching overwatch for years of my life. I let it go for a very long time, and I can honestly say I was happier for that choice. I needed to do that, and should have done it sooner.
But that didn’t last forever. Eventually, Overwatch sinked its talons (ha ha, get it? talon?) right back into me and drug me right back to that hellscape i walked out of ,who knows how long ago now. You wanna know what I found out? I liked it a lot more then. Games felt more balanced. Heroes didn’t piss me off anymore. It actually felt good to play it occasionally, in small doses. Usually only during events, but that isn’t really the point. For 2 or so years, I continued on like this with one of my favorite franchises. Dropping by to say hello, and walking out before either of us grew tired of the other’s presence. It worked for me. I brought friends sometimes, had a fun time working towards certain skins, it could be a very fun time at points. But, as of a few months ago, things changed drastically, and this is the main point of this entire review.
Sometime in the last summer of the year I typed this review, the state of california found years worth of evidence pointing against the activision blizzard corporation. Blatant abuse of women and poc in the workplace, truly disgusting things i will not say here. I am sure if you’re on a site like this, and are somehow reading this part, you already know all about it anyway. Before I go any further onto my thoughts on this, the one thing I need to make abundantly clear is that a video game is not my main concern with this situation. I care much more about the human lives being abused than a stupid bundle of pixels. In no way does overwatch overshadow the innocent women harmed by the degenerates at activision blizzard. The reason I will be focusing on Overwatch is because this place is specifically for that.
It took a while to sink in, and even longer to understand why this news hit so hard in regard of being an overwatch fan. The most obvious thing is I simply had to leave it behind for the last time. A final goodbye that was simply not on my own terms. An unsatisfying slap in the face and a boot out the door. Or, you might think that it was because I could no longer be a fan in any context, and that stung as well. But no, neither of those things is what brought me here today. The reason why I hate overwatch with every fiber of my soul is that it gave me hope.
There was a time I genuinely believed in overwatch, Wholeheartedly. That quote at the top of this review? That meant something to me. With almost every short film, I could feel a lump in my throat. I genuinely believed in what the world of overwatch stood for. One person could make all the difference, one person could be a hero, one person could make the world a better place. It meant so much to me. For five years, it meant a lot to me. Even when I hated the game of overwatch the most, there was a piece of my heart that couldn’t help but love that world. But that piece is dead and gone now, and bitterness quickly filled its place. Don’t get me wrong, overwatch didn’t, like, destroy my mental health or something dramatic like that. I’m still a positive guy, I'd like to think, but there was a certain positivity that the world gave to me, and it is simply gone and can not come back. The people telling me to make a difference, and to be a hero, were sexually assaulting their co-workers the same day they fully thought these themes out. It makes you feel disgusted. To put faith into something, and have to realize how stupid you were to put any faith into it.
This is why I hate overwatch. Not some hero I don't like, not a map, but that hopeful part of me. The hope a 15 year old felt, being snuffed out in a slightly more bitter 21 year old’s heart. A hope that can never be given back. I miss the days where my biggest issues with overwatch were petty squabbles that meant next to nothing for anyone but me. Those days are simply gone. I can never go back to overwatch, and what it meant to me has been pissed on and defiled to the point it just pisses me off to think about. A promise from monsters, hiding in the cloth of good folk. There is nothing in Overwatch for me anymore, which disappoints me greatly to say. I was very excited for overwatch 2 before all this. I still loved that world, but it’s all ash now. Ash and regret. And I'm left here asking myself why I ever bothered. Overwatch can not and will not redeem itself. It is gone, and it will stay forever gone. Fuck blizzard for giving me hope for a time. “The world could always use more heroes” says the sex offender. Heroes my ass. What a waste of my teen years. I have sworn off blizzard activision products. And that’s where my overwatch story ends. I will not watch new cinematics, i will not buy overwatch 2, and i will never smile when i think about all that time i wasted. This would be a 0 if i could put it that low.
Overwatch
2016
Attention. This is a pre-recorded message.
If you are reading this, it means that 2016's Game of the Year Overwatch servers closed down worldwide, for the best. The once fabled TF2 killer closing down when said game only received one major update.
The world shall experience peace like never before, for approximately 26:59:55 hours, until the launch of Overwatch 2.
Be happy. Prosper.
After dropping the game with 309 hours spent, seeing it get worse and worse, now banned userMeeeeeeee :3 whose crimes were picking off-meta picks in casual matches still retains somewhat good memories despite it all.
Such as:
- 6 v 6 Winston only.
- Release Mccree.
- Lucioball.
- Pre-Nerf Roadhog in Ilinois.
Those shall permanently stay as fond ones.
That be it, hidden behind other extensively more painful ones
Such as:
- Shitty e-sports enforced meta
- Queerbaiting
- Literally everything about lootboxes
- "The Cosby room"
That's all. No end messages or anything. Just a brief passage. Like the game it represents.
Goodbye Overwatch.
Thank you for killing Blizzard's reputation forever.
We needed that.
If you are reading this, it means that 2016's Game of the Year Overwatch servers closed down worldwide, for the best. The once fabled TF2 killer closing down when said game only received one major update.
The world shall experience peace like never before, for approximately 26:59:55 hours, until the launch of Overwatch 2.
Be happy. Prosper.
After dropping the game with 309 hours spent, seeing it get worse and worse, now banned user
Such as:
- 6 v 6 Winston only.
- Release Mccree.
- Lucioball.
- Pre-Nerf Roadhog in Ilinois.
Those shall permanently stay as fond ones.
That be it, hidden behind other extensively more painful ones
Such as:
- Shitty e-sports enforced meta
- Queerbaiting
- Literally everything about lootboxes
- "The Cosby room"
That's all. No end messages or anything. Just a brief passage. Like the game it represents.
Goodbye Overwatch.
Thank you for killing Blizzard's reputation forever.
We needed that.
Overwatch
2016
Hard to completely despise this despicable game because it's been polished to an absolute mirror shine through a lifetime of quality over quantity updates. Sadly, these updates were hyper-focused towards catering to the Elite Gamer demographic and far less towards the people who play games to have fun, and you're lying if you think there's no difference between the two. I went into this game at release hoping it would shape up to fit the hole in my heart left by Team Fortress 2, but Overwatch's walled garden content approach means the sheer user-created variety will never ever coalesce.
I'm not saying I'd love this game if it lets people make surf maps or play on servers with insane plugins - but I'd PROBABLY love it, if it even as much as let me set my spray to an animated gif of Konata Izumi.
My wildest hopes and dreams for Overwatch 2 begin and end at hoping they hired a writer this time. Overwatch trailers are seriously written like when you just press the middle suggested word on your phone keyboard. "We are heroes and we must protect this world because it is just the right thing to do and heroes must come together to do what is right and". I literally need to stop myself before I start talking about how good the TF2 comics were.
I'm not saying I'd love this game if it lets people make surf maps or play on servers with insane plugins - but I'd PROBABLY love it, if it even as much as let me set my spray to an animated gif of Konata Izumi.
My wildest hopes and dreams for Overwatch 2 begin and end at hoping they hired a writer this time. Overwatch trailers are seriously written like when you just press the middle suggested word on your phone keyboard. "We are heroes and we must protect this world because it is just the right thing to do and heroes must come together to do what is right and". I literally need to stop myself before I start talking about how good the TF2 comics were.
Valorant
2020
ppl shouldn't be allowed to use voice chat in video games unless they pass a nice test where you have to be nice online
My House
2023
This review contains spoilers
Scrapped my first draft of this review. I’ve struggled to write about this game, so I’m not going to talk much about the game itself here.
I didn’t finish MyHouse.wad. I played up until the Poolrooms and I couldn’t figure out much else by myself afterwards (I finished the Nursery as well). I watched a playthrough that showed me what I’d missed: the gas station and, eventually, the beach.
It is technically impressive, as anyone familiar with Doom is quick to remind players, for its clever workarounds and wizardry; although it appears simple for someone unaccustomed to playing Doom .wads, there’s a lot happening underneath the surface which is undeniably interesting and very cool. Watch this video if you’re at all interested in the technological sorcery afoot.
The community reaction to MyHouse.wad was spectacular. Huge name streamers were quick to hop aboard the hype train. When John Romero himself streams your .wad, that’s how you know you’ve created something truly special.
For my two cents, I think MyHouse.wad is nothing if not creative, transformative, and complex. I also think that some pieces of the puzzle are cryptic to a fault. I don’t think all games are beholden to communicating everything to its players, and obviously the community-driven aspect of the game fueled weeks of fervent discussions surrounding it; still, solving a puzzle is one thing, unraveling the narrative another.
It is shocking, then, that the journal takes so much more from the narrative than it adds. Although it’s a handy clue book containing some hints as to progression, it essentially amounts to a creepypasta, and a generic one at that. I can’t really imagine anyone championing the MyHouse.wad journal as a triumph in video game storytelling, or even regular storytelling for that matter. The original post sows more intrigue and reads as much more compelling in just a few paragraphs than the journal does in ten full pages.
To recap: MyHouse.wad is a tribute map to the creator’s friend who’d recently passed away, based on the map his late friend had originally started.
That hook is compelling enough on its own. The journal then removes any kind of ambiguity, veering into nightmares, dissociation, and an obsessive, unreliable narrator which casts doubt on this narrative anyways. Most egregious, however, is the insistence upon the blue text, which is lifted wholesale from House of Leaves. Stuff like this normally wouldn’t bother me, but here it takes an element of the work which was already implicit throughout and puts a blindingly bright spotlight on it (even the Navidson Realty sign in the bad ending was a little too on-the-nose).
Major spoilers for House of Leaves incoming – I’d turn back if you haven’t read.
It took me out of it. I’ve read House of Leaves, man. I have a deeply personal attachment to House of Leaves. It was a gift from an ex-partner. I read it exclusively in my parents' bedroom around sunset. I finished it during the pandemic and it hurt me profoundly. I also don’t think it’s an untouchable work of art above criticism. The amount of gratuitous sex scenes during Johnny’s sections are way too much (even if it has thematic relevance, which I know it does!! I read the book and I know it has thematic relevance!!) There is a part in House of Leaves that discusses Will Navidson winning a Pulitzer prize for a photo of a starving child. Observant readers may draw the connection between Navidson’s photo and the real-life Kevin Carter, who took an identical photo. However, most readers will probably not draw this connection right away, or at least not before the book itself makes the Kevin Carter connection explicit in a footnote – because Will Navidson isn’t real. He’s a character that exists only in the fiction of the Navidson Record, an account of a film that doesn’t exist, written by the late Zampanò, who is dead before the story even begins.
It’s easy to draw connections between House of Leaves and MyHouse.wad. The author, Veddge (or Steven Nelson) is an easy Johnny Truant analog. The creator’s late friend, Thomas Allord, is a dead ringer for Zampanò. Johnny aims to finish Zampanò's story as Veddge attempts to finish Thomas’ level, meanwhile the readers (or players) grow conspicuously wary of the author and their creative liberties – where exactly does the original incomplete work end, and where does the author’s influence begin?
This conundrum gets exacerbated tenfold by the end of House of Leaves, where Johnny’s story becomes an incomprehensible mess. Maybe none of it was real at all. On a metanarrative level, the entire book is fiction anyways, so of course none of it is actually real. The same paradox occurs in MyHouse.wad if you happen to find a certain QR code on a hidden tombstone. Steven Nelson didn’t survive a week without Thomas. That, of course, begs the question: who is Veddge actually?
If you dig, you’ll know that Veddge isn’t a greenhorn. He’s been on the Doomworld forums for a while. In the months leading up to MyHouse.wad, he’d been active on multiple off-topic forum discussions: “I haven’t logged into the forums in over a decade, but a close childhood friend of mine passed away recently and I decided to go through some of the Doom stuff we were making when we were kids.” So, the seeds are sown.
Reading a few of the later forum posts, Veddge also explores his malaise: “I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. For most of my life I could just put my head on my pillow and fall asleep, but lately I find myself lying in bed staring into the darkness. What’s the opposite of claustrophobia? I can’t explain it, but when the lights are out, I’m paralyzed by thoughts of emptiness while seemingly trapped in a void from which I will never escape.”
These forum posts are nothing if not an interesting extension of the narrative… that is, if they’re meant to be an extension of the narrative in the first place. I’d like to say that everything Veddge posted up to and including MyHouse.wad was a clever use of storytelling through forum posts – but what I haven’t mentioned was that, before he resurfaced in late 2022, the last time Veddge had used his account was in October 2006.
There’s no reason to think that Veddge wasn’t just revisiting his 15-year old account and having fun with a little roleplaying. But then the other day, while I was searching MyHouse.wad on Twitter (I refuse to call it X), I found something that actually shook me. A video taken inside of the actual house. Although this video was originally posted on Tiktok in May of this year, it seems to have been recorded around Christmas. There was something very unsettling about watching it. I certainly believed the house was based on somebody’s actual home, I just never expected to see it - even the painting was there.
What was even more unexpected was the additional context. This Tiktok user wasn’t the creator – rather, this was the creator’s previous partner. A throwaway question asked by one user read, “So does the house change like in the mod,” to which she replies, “No, but our marriage did. As our marriage fell apart, so did the house in the game”.
I realize now I dug too deep. I felt nauseous reading this. I felt nauseous typing this.
House of Leaves is full of mysteries, although I suppose the central question lies far beyond Johnny Truant or Zampanò – who themselves might be characters in a story, or… maybe not. I believe the real question is: what can even be considered real in House of Leaves? In a story that is consumed by another story, about someone that doesn’t even exist – did Zampanò see himself in Navidson? Or was Zampanò even real? Or was Johnny even real?
That maddening death spiral is at the center of House of Leaves, turning inwards, eating itself alive.
MyHouse.wad is not only an extension of these ideas, but an inversion. How much of this is actually fiction? Is this Tiktok user actually the creator’s ex-wife? Is this just another extension of the narrative? Did Veddge actually lose somebody close to him?
I can’t help but wonder (and the idea is morbid enough) if this game was the real product of profound sadness and grief for a loved one lost. If the creator had actually been recently bereaved, or that maybe the house itself was always a metaphor as the ex-wife had explained it – the same as in House of Leaves. Maybe Thomas was a stand-in for his wife, and the narrative that idea – losing a loved one, symbolically.
I don’t know. But I’ve felt that grief before. Sometimes all you can do is pour it into something. I am again reminded of when I read House of Leaves in my parents' bedroom. I am again reminded of that orange sunset pouring in through the curtains as daylight slowly slipped away. I am again reminded of people I will likely never see again.
I’ve given up on this critique because I’ve been here before, man. It hurts.
I am again reminded that happiness has to be fought for.
I didn’t finish MyHouse.wad. I played up until the Poolrooms and I couldn’t figure out much else by myself afterwards (I finished the Nursery as well). I watched a playthrough that showed me what I’d missed: the gas station and, eventually, the beach.
It is technically impressive, as anyone familiar with Doom is quick to remind players, for its clever workarounds and wizardry; although it appears simple for someone unaccustomed to playing Doom .wads, there’s a lot happening underneath the surface which is undeniably interesting and very cool. Watch this video if you’re at all interested in the technological sorcery afoot.
The community reaction to MyHouse.wad was spectacular. Huge name streamers were quick to hop aboard the hype train. When John Romero himself streams your .wad, that’s how you know you’ve created something truly special.
For my two cents, I think MyHouse.wad is nothing if not creative, transformative, and complex. I also think that some pieces of the puzzle are cryptic to a fault. I don’t think all games are beholden to communicating everything to its players, and obviously the community-driven aspect of the game fueled weeks of fervent discussions surrounding it; still, solving a puzzle is one thing, unraveling the narrative another.
It is shocking, then, that the journal takes so much more from the narrative than it adds. Although it’s a handy clue book containing some hints as to progression, it essentially amounts to a creepypasta, and a generic one at that. I can’t really imagine anyone championing the MyHouse.wad journal as a triumph in video game storytelling, or even regular storytelling for that matter. The original post sows more intrigue and reads as much more compelling in just a few paragraphs than the journal does in ten full pages.
To recap: MyHouse.wad is a tribute map to the creator’s friend who’d recently passed away, based on the map his late friend had originally started.
That hook is compelling enough on its own. The journal then removes any kind of ambiguity, veering into nightmares, dissociation, and an obsessive, unreliable narrator which casts doubt on this narrative anyways. Most egregious, however, is the insistence upon the blue text, which is lifted wholesale from House of Leaves. Stuff like this normally wouldn’t bother me, but here it takes an element of the work which was already implicit throughout and puts a blindingly bright spotlight on it (even the Navidson Realty sign in the bad ending was a little too on-the-nose).
Major spoilers for House of Leaves incoming – I’d turn back if you haven’t read.
It took me out of it. I’ve read House of Leaves, man. I have a deeply personal attachment to House of Leaves. It was a gift from an ex-partner. I read it exclusively in my parents' bedroom around sunset. I finished it during the pandemic and it hurt me profoundly. I also don’t think it’s an untouchable work of art above criticism. The amount of gratuitous sex scenes during Johnny’s sections are way too much (even if it has thematic relevance, which I know it does!! I read the book and I know it has thematic relevance!!) There is a part in House of Leaves that discusses Will Navidson winning a Pulitzer prize for a photo of a starving child. Observant readers may draw the connection between Navidson’s photo and the real-life Kevin Carter, who took an identical photo. However, most readers will probably not draw this connection right away, or at least not before the book itself makes the Kevin Carter connection explicit in a footnote – because Will Navidson isn’t real. He’s a character that exists only in the fiction of the Navidson Record, an account of a film that doesn’t exist, written by the late Zampanò, who is dead before the story even begins.
It’s easy to draw connections between House of Leaves and MyHouse.wad. The author, Veddge (or Steven Nelson) is an easy Johnny Truant analog. The creator’s late friend, Thomas Allord, is a dead ringer for Zampanò. Johnny aims to finish Zampanò's story as Veddge attempts to finish Thomas’ level, meanwhile the readers (or players) grow conspicuously wary of the author and their creative liberties – where exactly does the original incomplete work end, and where does the author’s influence begin?
This conundrum gets exacerbated tenfold by the end of House of Leaves, where Johnny’s story becomes an incomprehensible mess. Maybe none of it was real at all. On a metanarrative level, the entire book is fiction anyways, so of course none of it is actually real. The same paradox occurs in MyHouse.wad if you happen to find a certain QR code on a hidden tombstone. Steven Nelson didn’t survive a week without Thomas. That, of course, begs the question: who is Veddge actually?
If you dig, you’ll know that Veddge isn’t a greenhorn. He’s been on the Doomworld forums for a while. In the months leading up to MyHouse.wad, he’d been active on multiple off-topic forum discussions: “I haven’t logged into the forums in over a decade, but a close childhood friend of mine passed away recently and I decided to go through some of the Doom stuff we were making when we were kids.” So, the seeds are sown.
Reading a few of the later forum posts, Veddge also explores his malaise: “I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. For most of my life I could just put my head on my pillow and fall asleep, but lately I find myself lying in bed staring into the darkness. What’s the opposite of claustrophobia? I can’t explain it, but when the lights are out, I’m paralyzed by thoughts of emptiness while seemingly trapped in a void from which I will never escape.”
These forum posts are nothing if not an interesting extension of the narrative… that is, if they’re meant to be an extension of the narrative in the first place. I’d like to say that everything Veddge posted up to and including MyHouse.wad was a clever use of storytelling through forum posts – but what I haven’t mentioned was that, before he resurfaced in late 2022, the last time Veddge had used his account was in October 2006.
There’s no reason to think that Veddge wasn’t just revisiting his 15-year old account and having fun with a little roleplaying. But then the other day, while I was searching MyHouse.wad on Twitter (I refuse to call it X), I found something that actually shook me. A video taken inside of the actual house. Although this video was originally posted on Tiktok in May of this year, it seems to have been recorded around Christmas. There was something very unsettling about watching it. I certainly believed the house was based on somebody’s actual home, I just never expected to see it - even the painting was there.
What was even more unexpected was the additional context. This Tiktok user wasn’t the creator – rather, this was the creator’s previous partner. A throwaway question asked by one user read, “So does the house change like in the mod,” to which she replies, “No, but our marriage did. As our marriage fell apart, so did the house in the game”.
I realize now I dug too deep. I felt nauseous reading this. I felt nauseous typing this.
House of Leaves is full of mysteries, although I suppose the central question lies far beyond Johnny Truant or Zampanò – who themselves might be characters in a story, or… maybe not. I believe the real question is: what can even be considered real in House of Leaves? In a story that is consumed by another story, about someone that doesn’t even exist – did Zampanò see himself in Navidson? Or was Zampanò even real? Or was Johnny even real?
That maddening death spiral is at the center of House of Leaves, turning inwards, eating itself alive.
MyHouse.wad is not only an extension of these ideas, but an inversion. How much of this is actually fiction? Is this Tiktok user actually the creator’s ex-wife? Is this just another extension of the narrative? Did Veddge actually lose somebody close to him?
I can’t help but wonder (and the idea is morbid enough) if this game was the real product of profound sadness and grief for a loved one lost. If the creator had actually been recently bereaved, or that maybe the house itself was always a metaphor as the ex-wife had explained it – the same as in House of Leaves. Maybe Thomas was a stand-in for his wife, and the narrative that idea – losing a loved one, symbolically.
I don’t know. But I’ve felt that grief before. Sometimes all you can do is pour it into something. I am again reminded of when I read House of Leaves in my parents' bedroom. I am again reminded of that orange sunset pouring in through the curtains as daylight slowly slipped away. I am again reminded of people I will likely never see again.
I’ve given up on this critique because I’ve been here before, man. It hurts.
I am again reminded that happiness has to be fought for.
My House
2023
I swear, the housing market is crazy these days. What used to be a 3mb .wad is now a 60mb .pk3