Irrefutably antiquated but how on earth is that supposed to be a pejorative? Games aren't this unencumbered anymore. Visions aren't this uncompromised. When was the last time you played a platformer with this kind of rhythm, this much palpable momentum? I'm obsessed with the way things move. I've found myself drawn to platformers my entire life. They are one of the few arts that explore the beauty of motion. Playing this game is like looking into the inside of a watch, seeing all of the minuscule gears twist and turn in perfect rhythmic synchronicity. And there you are, a being of glorious human error trying desperately to survive. If gameplay is commentary then Crash Bandicoot has more to say about the sordid merciless momentum of life than anything I've ever seen try to communicate it through dialogue.

I've had a pretty strange relationship with difficulty in games. For the longest time, my brain simply rejected games of a certain ilk. If I'm not progressing often then I'm not having fun, and the higher the difficulty the more likely I am to be doing the same stuff time and again. That's boring. It's that simple. But eventually, I realised it was all about mindset. Difficulty can be incredibly fun if it makes room for mastery. It shifts the progress from the external to the internal. This was the shift required for me to get into FromSoft's games last year. I will game over and repeat large sections of levels, but I relish that when I redo earlier parts I'll blow through them to a degree I'd have previously thought impossible. The finish line is all the more satisfying when you know you've earned it. Few games make this experience so rewarding.

The level design is blatantly experimental. As embryotic as all 3D platformers of this decade are, this one feels far more alien. For every idea your Mario 64s of the world ingrained into the lexicon of the genre forever more, there is a level of Crash Bandicoot no one would ever again have the balls to try for. You'd have to be crazy to think you could pull off a 'The High Road' in a 2024 platformer. But here it is. Unreal! In many ways, it still feels futuristic. I can't name another platformer where your depth perception is a skill the game finds worth testing (not to be confused with games that test your depth perception because they fuck up the camera placement), and this game builds many levels around it. Initially, this game can feel like one big reaction time test, but the longer you play the more you learn it's about ingratiating yourself into its flow. If Sekiro is secretly a rhythm game then this is Space Channel 5. Part 2. It isn't offering you ways to play it. It's a sergeant barking an endlessly wonderful song of orders.

There are many things to say about this as remake, most of which I'll save for after I've played all three games. But the biggest feather in this version's cap has to be Stormy Ascent. For a bonus, cutting room floor, "too hard and too long," DLC level, it is the perfect ending to the game. A necessary payoff to every lesson you've learned and skill you've acquired. The experience would be incomplete without it.

I find the idea of 100%-ing this game at once cumbersome and totally insane but it's so good I may do it anyway. Either way, Any% (+ Stormy Ascent) is such a phenomenal experience that I am more than comfortable counting anything else as a bonus.

If you call this "imprecise" in your review, see me after class.

I have a fun story about this game - I really had to crunch to make the final rent payment in the game, I played poorly and was more interested in the characters than min-maxing the drink orders. I also was a really bad bartender in real life at the time, so it makes sense that I was a bad bartender in the game. As a result, I got to the deadline just under the amount of money I needed with a day to go. By serving the Media mogul a "Big Beer" rather than the regular-sized one, I was able to eke out just enough money, but my laptop battery died and I needed to play that final day out again. In this second playthrough, I forgot to give him the big beer and ended the day $2.80 short - netting me the bad ending. Something about that felt right, and I accepted the bad ending as my ending of choice.

Thief is methodically mapping space from the shadows. Thief is exploring an architecture of absurd, arcane labyrinths. Thief is rotoscoped & roughly layered 90s FMVs scored with industrial beats.

The Black Parade, a fan campaign mod for the now 25 year old Thief: The Dark Project, brings Thief into the present as an act of alternate-history building. Within the tight restrictions of the Dark Engine, this imagines what Thief could be given decades of further contemplation, or in this case, seven years of development led by famed modder Skacky.

The Black Parade echoes iconic levels: here is a mansion, or a sprawling, vertical city, a rain-swept church, a plague stricken derelict district. But everything is now denser, more honeycombed, more varied. At times you’ll be lost, but they’ve paid special attention to every room’s volume, materials, light and colour, so that your mental map is as rich as your potential targets.

Thief separates itself from other Im-Sims by refusing to be an everything-game (Deus-Ex). You are a thief. You can’t fight for shit. You can jump from carpet to carpet and knock someone out if you’re good, but you can’t do much about two guards on your tail. Thief is narrowly designed to do one thing. The Black Parade knows this and is as close to Thief 3 (5?) that we’ll ever get.

Some cool tech & snappy gameplay trapped in Free-to-play hell. We talk a lot about games being tied to & shaped by their technology but little about how they’re shaped, and hollowed out, by their revenue model: GaaS “living games” are released (and shut down) before there is any life in them.

The Finals contains the movement & sugary energy of nu-battlefield (post-Battlefield 1) wrapped in the most horrid vibes: Forza Horizon-esque npcs at their infinite party, Siege/Valorant/Hyperscape-adjacent esports mush. Embark has managed to make Unreal resemble Frostbite, including impressive physics & destruction that echoes the chaos of bad company 2, but it’s all wasted here.

Even for a tight competitive shooter, this needs a more fleshed out setting, either leaning further into the surreal elements (bodies exploding into coins) or situating it in a world that is more than a watered down squid-game/mirror's edge/DICE's entire catalog. Feels like a very polished tech-demo and I refuse to play 100 hours to unlock interesting mechanics or outfits, which has led to every character running around in the default tracksuit/pyjamas. And don't get me started on the AI voices.

I am cautiously optimistic about embark’s other beautiful but empty sci-fi project, ARC raiders, which has seemingly transformed into yet another extraction shooter.

fumbling in the dark

The bunker is a smaller, narratively unambitious left-turn for Frictional. While they tinker away with what I assume is a larger, SOMA-like project, here they've shed much of the weight they’ve accumulated over the years, weight that really dragged Rebirth down, and turned their attention back to the moment-to-moment mechanics. They’ve finally confronted the minimalistic hide-and-seek gameplay that has become increasingly tired, and re-embraced tools & limited weapons (last seen in their Penumbra series).

The immersive sim approach to puzzles allows for multiple solutions & is simple and direct: every tool is a key, a distraction or a temporary defense. Combined with the tight, claustrophobic map, the Bunker asks you to build a mental model of the spaces so that you may eventually navigate them with your eyes closed (& with the lights out). Much of the horror is suggested, a threat conjured in the dark.

Another strength of Frictional’s is their HPL engine and its tactile physics system (surprisingly uncommon in a post-half-life 2 world). Pulling at a loose board clumsily, the creaking drawing the creature, has a weight to it that a pre-canned animation couldn’t carry. Like many im-sims, it is the abysmal failures and inexplicable systemic outcomes that stay with you (especially if you survive them), rather than the authored story.

Some may find it a little too stripped-down (along with a rather abrupt, clumsy ending), but after Rebirth’s incessant narration, I’m happy they had the confidence to just leave you in a desolate space of worn concrete and tangled wire and simply ask you to escape alive.

My favorite horror game and possibly my favorite game period.
The atmosphere and visuals are unmatched. Visually, the colors are muted and depressing. The sound design is genius. You are pretty much left alone with your thoughts and the sounds around you.
The backgrounds of each room are extremely detailed, not a single thing left without thought put into it. Little objects on shelves even have detail. Each area of the game is well developed and distinct. Each have a part in the game that can't be traded out or forgotten.
The story is simple yet interesting and is a good set up for the series. It isn't really story heavy, it's moreso a game that focuses on scaring the shit out of you, but what little story there is suits it well.
The gameplay, although a learning curve for modern gamers, becomes fun once you get the hang of it and can become addicting. Just don't play RE0 thinking it's going to be similar lol.
It's a cold and unforgiving game that you have to fight your way through to finish, with good visuals and scary monsters that will make you shit yourself. Need i say more