You die an absurd amount in these games, let alone any run n gun, & you will die often. It is not a matter of how - you will be shot, blown up, cut up to bits, made into ground beef, turned into a mummy then dissolved, plummet to your death - it is a matter of when. Threading a needle of stray fire will only happen sometimes & what a glorious sometimes it is.

All said, you pay no mind to it. Thee deaths are inconsequential, for thee most part. What deaths ultimately represent in Metal Slug games is thee harrowing loss of yr favorite weapon type. Even parting ways with a deadly friend you knew for so little hardly hurts - you will see it again in a matter of time. It is all forgiven for just how intricate thee sprite work is, how animated each frame is, how detailed thee screen can get, how inspired these games are. Every board is a new surprise, every enemy type a new obstacle course to jump over.

Alas, this game flattens so much of those loving details. Gone are any shocks! Surprises! Twists! There isn't even an inkling of a stupidly goofy narrative or unique moments. Ah, moments. Too much is reused: sprites, ideas, challenges. MS4's idea of difficulty can be boiled & simmered to more enemies, a static stand off of incoming gunfire heading straight for you.

In all of its chaos of flashing bullets & warm flames, speeding missiles & gooey particles, I am bored.

Fears not of its own secrets. No alternative playstyle or hidden level or walkthrough to reveal a sleight of hand. Quite thee opposite. Here, it's transparent of its own shocks & spooks & scares & unnerves. In fact, it goes so far as to proudly chisel a plastic plaque keeping numerical track of its own twists, encouraging players to see them all.

It's thee inverse of what I hold so dearly: mystery, unexplained. To have such confidence in these sometimes subtle, sometimes outlandish anomalies that thee developer is willing to forgo your curiosity in order to enjoy thee scares present is something I cannot condemn in thee slightest.

Normal human errands, including, but not limited to: eating, making coffee, driving, petting wildlife, sledding, walking, hiking, playing meat as instruments, going to church, eldritch strawmen, dreaming, quenching the thirst of the talking head of a goat, using the toilet, burning your hand, unlocking doors with a small figure of your grandfather, shooting an old rifle, collecting hay, making a pact with the devil, getting impaled on an icicle, smoking a pipe, drawing, collecting honey, navigating an old bunker by using the sprites of dead soldiers, seeing reflections of ghosts in water, riding the bus, painting, drowning, being paralyzed with fear, getting stung by bees, drunken comrades, abominable snowmen, giving toilet paper to a man stranded in an outhouse, solving tactile puzzles, & staring at yourself in the mirror until your very own vessel of flesh becomes contorted beyond recognition you don't know yourself anymore your quest is all but finished do not let the dark take you listen to the bell of the headless goat follow the sound sign the pact do not sign the pact the soldiers are coming you must hide take shelter do not give up fire when ready, & sleeping!

Pitch a tent in it, I'm camped! There is a genius somewhere in here, likely taking form of innate complicity in being a voyeur to horrors for thee sake of capturing them in image(s). That in & of itself is a gut churner. Sadly, there are far too few opportunities to capitalize on such a theme. Limited interactivity is thee name of that game, baby, I would never ask for more control here. I would ask for more eroticisms, more moments for your eyes to be passive gashes. After all, its humor is intentional, the deathly sparse set designs are a complimentary nausea, but every facet of this game ends under-realized, even its finest strengths.

Shortly after I graduated from high school, I had made the executive decision to implement a "gap year" in my linear life before entering college. During this year, I had to fill down time with sporadic decisions, woefully, in order to get the water in the mill of my mind turning. Often, I would peruse my neighborhood around midnight, moving various thoughts shooting around in my head from my mouth to a field recorder. Simple fleeting synapses of my brain remembering fonder times or merely speaking to break the silence (as I had less respect for such an absence at the time). I no longer have these recordings, but to this day, the only recollection in my mental possession of those jaunts was walking the exact path I had taken almost every day for years to get to the bus stop for school. Said route is now paired with the best & worst instances of being in high school, but one of history nonetheless. I still live in this neighborhood, & I remember the exact path to this day. Turn left from my house, then left at the end of the street, turn right, then an immediate left, then another right to arrive at my destination. Occasionally, I include this forsaken yet back-of-my-hand "bus route" as part of bike rides on my own volition, as to prove to myself that my life finally has the breadth to no longer be linear.

If you had any doubts that Silent Hill 2 is thee most inspiration horror game of all time, look no further.

"Escape" over "explore". Truncating some of the better areas + puzzles in the original is a sacrifice made for the sake of streamlining an explosive title such as this. While brief, the scale here feels elevated significantly, transforming it from survival horror to action/adventure horror. Solid (but not great) replay value in substitute for a longer experience (more intense difficulties & points to start new playthroughs with refreshing + game-changing items), making this the highlighting feature of the game for me. Removal of the quick-time-selection-branches was a shame & only stands to shine a light on how little wiggle room you have in this game. Look no further than how streamlined the exterior level design is of the Racoon City streets.

Disappointing in the content department, but a reboot of one of the more underrated RE cuts in the series worth playing nonetheless. If REmake 2 is a haunted house, REmake 3 is an amusement park.

A good game, but a butchered remake.

Rocking out is always possible even without any instruments at hand. You just gotta believe! or: Makeshift guitars through & through stir thee imagination. It's all in thee mind!

There is no denying thee simplicity of its charm. It's almost intoxicating how immediately easy it is to become 2D, grossly colorful popping reds & yellows, cool cool cool! You fly & spin, you jam & lam. Granted, to songs that aren't quite as infectious as its brotherly series, but with an equally endearing cast. Designs that strike as alien yet can somehow be drawn from memory after a single playthrough. Progression of character is stunted immediately after a familiar tutorial, which is soured with lateral learning. "It's all in the mind!" repeats in thee mind of Lammy to overcome fears, but flying, maternity, & putting out a ferocious building fire hardly feels in tune with what is deemed necessary in becoming a rockstar, opposite to what PaRappa aimed to achieve by thee end of his life-in-a-day journey.

Possibly oversimplifying each missions intent here, or maybe it's all in my mind.

Far & away thee best American Laser Game production. They're all quite funny, but Mad Dog is hilarious. In fact thee whole series is packed with quirky quotable characters, over thee top ragdoll deaths (some great stunts too). No doubt still suffers from ALG's signature flaw: thee 'fuck you'. Oh you don't know about that? Yeah, it's when a civilian peeps into your view sporting similar attire as baddies. This is especially frustrating seeing as your response time to hit yr target before getting capped yourself is a miniscule window. It's thee worst kind of punishing in gallery shooters like this, but in thee case of thee Mad Dog series, you just cannot get too ruffled about it because you're too busy chuckling your pain/quarters away.

Part of my Light/Rail Shooter list.