more than anything else, the silver case is one of the most endearingly cool games i've ever played. every change of the interface the reflect the themes of the chapter at hand, every swing-for-the-fences plot beat, every gruff toothpick-sucking one liner, every new order song title drop, everything we're shown and just as important the deliberate anticlimax of what we're NOT given and NOT shown - it all blends together to create this early masterwork that's still every bit textbook suda51 as killer7 or no more heroes, but so much more subtly grounded (in comparison) to any of his succeeding work i've played.

there's a deliberate feeling of monotony and repetition in the world and gameplay of the silver case that becomes an essential part of its narrative - whether it reflect on the beeline nothingness that is the life of tokio morishima, the scale's juxtaposing shift which grows literally larger but equally smaller and more intimate... there's just this grinding, menial feeling to all of the tasks and days gone by in the silver case. it feels as if nothing really happens until the right pawns are on the board and properly in play. you learn to love basically every person in this game to the point that you look forward to the next mundane conversation with them; you anticipate morishima going home and talking to red, or getting cyberbullied on chatrooms by teenagers, or the ballbusting stakeout chats between kusabi and sumio. so when even the slightest change occurs, it's going to take your heart for a spin. it's by design.

one of the other fine juxtapositions of the silver case is its dialogue, one of the finest localizations i've ever seen. everything about the silver case feels deliberately plastic at first; you're thrust into the world of hardened police officers spouting badass quips and insults - it's almost pastiche. the one-liners will stick around, the cool designs will stick around, but ultimately the story becomes that of broken, aging men who are being asked to examine their world and how it really works for the first time. the story of tetsu kusabi - potential candidate for my favorite character in ANY video game - carries this idea home the hardest. it's the story of a man pure in his mind of absolutes and superlatives essentially waking up for the first time, seeing the world for the pollockian quagmire of intentions, reasonings, and deliberations it actually is. the silver case is a game about hearts and minds connecting in the looming presence of y2kism, a story about the old guard and the new world on the horizon. i'll get more into the thematic underbelly of this game at a later date, because this is far from the only piece i want to make on this game - but its core structure and analysis of the dotcom era, masculinity and what we define that as, grief and trauma, isolation and abandonment, it all rings pretty true now as it did in '99, and i daresay this game even tackled concepts that it would take 2 years for mgs2 to get to earlier and perhaps equally as memorably. i see a lot of influence on death note down the line too, and as far as contemporaries, i'd say silver case is like 1/3 cowboy bebop, 1/3 ghost in the shell, and 1/3 serial experiments lain. it's memorable, powerful, important stuff.

the silver case’s ultimate resolve is pretty simple - the mysteries, the secrets, the twists, it’s all a load of bullshit anyways. it existed in a moment and that moment is gone. it’s in the past. the only way you're going to push through the pain, the grief, the trauma, the anticlimactic goodbyes, the old flames, the words left unsaid, the last memories of people and places you can't ever go back to or relive, is to simply refuse that darkness which cultivates in your past to manifest itself anymore. you have to grow and reflect and move on to become your true self. you HAVE to kill the past if you want to find that first ray of light; hope for yourself, hope for the future.

"Seize that fucking light, Akira."

THE SILVER CASE COMPLETE.
FLOWER, SUN & RAIN IS COMING...

🌕 Dreams Never End
https://youtu.be/WS1X0EBlQ3Y

brutal doom for the video essay generation well, color me impressed. this is actually cool!

it seems like every other day i find a new indie game or analog horror video in my youtube feed using hackneyed "subversions of expectation" or file manipulation or arg elements for spooks. imscared was cool, but imscared came out 12 years ago. so when i heard about myhouse.wad, i brushed it off. it wasn't until last night that i bit the bullet, and let me tell you: i should have done it sooner.

the house of leaves inspiration is blatant enough as to call it an adaptation. there's no point in dissecting it, but i'd like to use it to explain why my house doesn't suffer from the pitfalls you might expect. remember how house of leaves has a bunch of hidden shit inside of it that redditors have been talking to death for years? well, you don't need it to enjoy the book. it's an addendum for people who wanna go crazy over that kind of stuff. my house is the same way with its metahorror. the creepypasta elements are contained in the downloadable journal rather than the game itself. the "deeply emotional" (read: tactless and generic internet psychological horror) themes fans don't shut up about are contained in secret content that you won't find unless you're looking for it. in that case, why should you play the wad?

cuz it's a damn good time! if you liked lost in vivo's combat-heavy take on otherworld from silent hill, you'll like my house. the maps are super pretty and fun to explore. there are cool new enemies too! if nothing else, play it to see a modern action horror doom map with strong atmosphere. it only took me 30 minutes and i'd recommend it even if you already know the "twists".

as much as i still want to mock the fandom and compare it to brutal doom, i do hope this inspires people to take full advantage of gzdoom's special features. maybe someone will make a map that uses similar technical tricks to make something in a genre other than horror. as it stands, i super enjoyed my time in my house and i recommend it to all the skeptics. this one's different.

SOLD

Lindo, lindo, maravilhoso. Em questão de mensagem da narrativa além de história ou da gameplay, esse é o melhor shmup, sem dúvida. Ele tem algo que eu admiro muito, e acho incrivel, que é a vontade do autor de homenagear os clássicos shmups, não só para parte da evolução, com claras referências, de cada um de suas respectivas eras, mas também em design de bosses, até alerta de estágio, e etc, que mostra claramente como o jogo é um atestado de amor do criador pelo gênero. Foi com Genetos, que comecei a me aprofundar nos shmups, que venho a se tornar o meu gênero favorito.

Depois de passar por um bom tempo conhecendo o mundo dos “jogos de navinha”, voltar a Genetos e zerar novamente me fez ter uma experiência ainda melhor, e posso dizer que ainda mais divertida. Além do meu amadurecimento pessoal deis da última vez, que com algumas situações nesse período de tempo deis do ano passado em que joguei pela primeira vez, me fez entender um pouco mais a mensagem do jogo, por mim mesmo, que as vezes passa em minha mente em épocas e momentos ruins, sempre tentando evoluir, mesmo quando as coisas parecem acabadas…

Hoje em dia eu cultuo a ideia de criar meu próprio Shmup, que meio que se tornou um sonho de vida pessoal, eu espero conseguir realizar, e também, que ele seja algo belo e que me satisfaça, como eu imagino que agradou ao criador de Genetos em ter colocar suas ideias de uma forma linda, em um jogo de um gênero que ele tanto ama. Enquanto apenas planejo, escrevo, e desenho, com uma esperança do futuro, irei continuar me divertindo com esse gênero, aprendendo cada vez, não só sobre esquivar de balas e zerar sem continues, mas também sobre as histórias e ideias que estão nesses jogos. Então tenho muito a agradecer por esse jogo, que é um dos mais influentes, não só sobre o que eu gosto de jogar, mas também pelos vários desejos que ele despertou em mim, me trazendo ao meu de agora, com um sonho, e também me mantendo acreditando nele. Obrigado, Genetos, obrigado, Tetsuya Koyama

E obrigado ao Frost51 pelo vídeo comentando sobre o jogo que me fez conhecer essa obra prima

If you are sad that bloober team is going to stomp on everything that Silent Hill 2 is all about with their eventual dogshit remake than don't worry because the best silent hill game made since 3 is right here! Enjoy this game while you can before people try and tell you it’s overrated or nothing but annoying people talk about it and get you mad

After losing my save when the game came out and putting off replaying back to where i was 2 years later i am happy i finally did it. I knew i would love it, i knew it would be amazing and still it blew me away.

Playing through this piece of shit on veteran is one of the most joyless experiences I have ever had. There is nothing good here, the gameplay is some of the most bland stuff ever, the visuals are absolutely washed out and ugly, and not only is the narrative 100% uninteresting, the messaging and takeaway is as miserable as the rest of the experience.

Anti-war, but only in the way that the game is so mindnumbing, you would not want anything to do with the desensitized and distasteful garbage displayed.

A game that excels at delivering the unexpected. It's a shoot 'em up crossed with a twin stick shooter with a focus on puzzles over reflexes. Mechanics change often - often within the same level - and I think there's thirty-five levels and seven boss fights. I delighted in how these changes were visually communicated and how tightly designed they were. There's often just enough time to react, then work things out, then embrace the new structure, and then bam it's time to adapt again.

While its mechanics are inspired, the music and art aren't worth much mention. Anything that could be mentioned as plot is nonsensical. Oddly, my thoughts on those things don't matter much to me. Playing Eigengrau is more about having fun and basking in varied and well-executed game mechanics than anything else.

System Erasure had a whole thread of shmup recommendations, most of which I'd already played and they absolutely kicked ass. So, I picked up one of the couple I had not played, trusting that it would also kick ass.

Reader, it kicked ass.

Eigengrau is in no way a """traditional""" shooter, and could easily spark arguments I don't care about regarding what counts as a shmup (I don't care if you're talking about this game. If you count Star Fox I'll get into a fistfight over it) and might be more like a twin-stick shooter except it's not one of those either. You can shoot in four directions is what I'm saying. The game is broken up into a normal number of levels, and each of those levels has 6 subsections: the first five all have some kind of gimmick. A twist on the controls? Some new kind of obstacle? A particular kind of enemy? One of the joys of Eigengrau is that you really never know what's going to happen in the next 60 seconds, and it's always entertaining when you find out. The sixth substage in each group is a boss, which serves as an exam on all the gimmicks you were just introduced to. It reminds me of some bad games I made in Game Maker Studio 1 some years back, which adds to my sunny opinion on the thing.

The visuals are just serviceable, and there's not a lot of real oomph in the presentation. No real plot here. The soundtrack is great, though, and you can interact with the game all at once like an arcade game, or piece by piece. Each substage has one or more special goals to achieve, which seem to unlock a few new weapons and features once you get enough.

Eigengrau is just great, and I only really shy away from calling it a real shmup because I know people who are shy of shmups who would still love this. It's an action game for people who like their action games to have lots of bite-sized nooks and crannys to explore. The kind of joy you can only get when you're not tied to anything less abstract than "I dunno, spaceships? shapes?" for your flavor. A video gamer's video game. Great stuff.