187 reviews liked by QuinnK


A perfectly middle-of-the-road runner game that, for some reason, I decided to 100%
Most of this was easy. It's a fine enough game save for some bugs where you escape into the infinite dark void, finally freeing the character until you decide to reload.

But then there's "Mass Creation".

Mass Creation needs you to "interact with 10000 objects". I'm still not 100% sure what counts for this, but it is the only achievement with this high of a bar to clear in the whole game. I certainly did it though. It took me over a year on and off, but I did it.

Fuck.

To preface: I'm very interested in HalOpe, and Starbage's work in general, and I think this is a really cool project for them even if it didn't hit me the same way I was hoping it would. I think this game is fine, I just have some constructive critiques!

HalOpe's main mechanic is dialogue, which contains loose puzzles (bring an item to a character who sounds like they want that item) but mainly exists to convey tone. Unfortunately, the writing suffers from sticking to a static voice, which makes that primary mechanic a lot less exciting as you enact it with roughly the same expected results over several conversations. Most characters will have the same awkward inflection, and a lot of their characterization is shown through the use of ellipses, outside of some more confident monologues about their struggles. There are outliers in the form of the occasional "RPG Maker freak" NPCs that we always love to see, a ghost girl or a shadow creature or a self-aware monster with a goofy dialogue gimmick, but HalOpe stays relatively safe with the types of sprites you're shown (mostly cute girls*, which isn't a bad thing direction for the art, but leaves a little wanting when they're mostly all the SAME cute girl with a slightly different flavor), and these "RPGMFs" don't serve a big purpose, even as comic relief or abstract horror as we see them in other games.
It's a shame, because the art is pulling a lot of weight and I want to be more interested in the characters for how well they're generally drawn, but more often than not they exist as little more than an almost self-aware NPC type that acknowledges it's weird to ask the player for help with a mundane task, but needs to for the sake of the game working. I made it about halfway through the game before I decided it wasn't entirely for me and I wasn't necessarily getting anything new and different from the experience, but I did look at a playthrough to glean some more of the visuals, and man I love the pastel area you get to later on. I don't want to say the world feels less "alive" than it could, because that implies I want it to be bigger budget or something, but I would really love to see it fleshed out a little more, even cluttered up and more experimental.

I'll be looking out for what Starbage does next!! I hope they keep making games!

I'm not giving this a low rating to be contrarian or whatever. Genuinely think this is a bad video game.

It starts out really strong then immediately nosedives into a corridor shooter, and soon nosedives once again as the narrative pivots to just terrible territory.

Absolutely dreadful by the end.

not very good, but in a way that kind of rules? it feels pretty horrible and the level design is monstrous, but there's funny monsters and a suprisingly unique combat system. it has a sprawling and sometimes jazzy soundtrack despite having the aesthetics of a bad power metal album. i dunno, there is something admirable about any moment in history that can birth games that are both basically trash but also surprising and novel. like hell yeah nastar, sure, i dont give a shit about your greased-up beefcake but im glad youre going for it and you've done gone slathered the boy up

Beyond being an excellent game, this was an incredible experience for me. The amount of genuine care and love that makes this game, oodles of absurdity, a world that feels fully formed and ready to be a home. I ate up everything this game had to offer and continue to gnaw the bones. Home's decaying fist has touched my heart

This review contains spoilers

So I got to the Virgil fight, which is where all of the game's issues finally come to a head. The weird direction dependent dodging clashes with the fixed camera perspective (something I like in non-high action games) transforms the Virgil boss fight into a complete shitshow. The worst part is that it wouldn't even be worth shelving the game over if it wasn't for a twenty-minute item fetch-quest beforehand since the game only saves at the beginning of a level.

Shame, cause I would have loved to finish this, but I value my time too much to try again for now. Maybe one day, as I really do appreciate the gameplay and tone, which are sick as hell.

Alright World of Goo; you asked for the truth, now here it is.

I love you: you're beautiful, you're charming, and I can't fucking stand you.

Some may look at your art style and see it as derivative, the amalgamation of Invader Zim-ian quirky-and-edgy joy through the scope of Newgrounds circa 2007, but I love it all the same; It reminds me of the best of times and the worst of times all same.

Even your music, simple and stylistically homogenous as it is, still brought a smile to my face...

No, I'll tell you the reason I truly can't stand you anymore.

I wish there was a nicer way to say it, but... It's your physics. Uncooperative, clunky, grueling, by any other name the word is just as true: My time with you was one of constant struggle. I would labor on marvelous constructions, towers to symbolize all you stood for, and a meager misplacement would have minutes of work, as many as five, or ten even, crumbling to the floor.

First, I blamed God, for forsaking me once more; then, my crosshairs were directed at gravity, the loathsome force; but eventually, I knew the true patron of my patronization.

It was you, World of Goo.

My towers, my creations, meant nothing to you. You would scoff at my attempts, laugh at my failure, and refuse to even glance my way at my myriad victories. It was you -- It was always you.

So knowing this, I have no choice but to part ways with you, wistful World, glorious Goo, Opulent of. You give me no choice, and your bitter banter at my behest broke my brain. Our time was short, but a single second longer in your company could only spell disaster...

Farewell,
Roxy S. Gaming

Far and away the most egregiously misguided attempt at myth-making in games history. This isn't the worst game ever. It's not the weirdest game ever. It is not the 'first American produced visual novel.' Limited Run Games seems content to simply upend truth and provenance to push a valueless narrative. The 'so bad it's good' shtick serves only to lessen the importance of early multimedia CD-ROM software, and drenching it in WordArt and clip art imparts the notion that this digital heritage was low class, low brow, low effort, and altogether primitive.

This repackaging of an overlong workplace sexual harassment/rape joke is altogether uncomfortable at best. Further problematising this, accompanying merch is resplendent with Edward J. Fasulo's bare chest despite him seemingly wanting nothing to do with the project. We've got industry veterans and games historians talking up the importance of digital detritus alongside YouTubers and LRG employees, the latter making the former less credible. We've got a novelisation by Twitter 'comedian' Mike Drucker. We've got skate decks and body pillows and more heaps of plastic garbage for video game 'collectors' to shove on a dusty shelf next to their four colour variants of Jay and Silent Bob Mall Brawl on NES, cum-encrusted Shantae statue, and countless other bits of mass-produced waste that belongs in a landfill. Utterly shameful how we engage with the past.

Bonus Definitive Edition content:
Limited Run Games is genuinely one of the most poorly managed companies on earth and I will never forgive them for giving me a PS5 copy of Cthulhu Saves Christmas instead of what I had actually ordered, a System Shock boxart poster. They also keep sending me extra copies of Jeremy Parish's books. Please, I do not need three copies of Virtual Boy Works.

Off

2008

Hauntingly gorgeous and gently macabre, wearing a unique but demented style all its own. Unfortunately a supreme aesthetic and a great sense of imagery cant do all the work for you, you do also have to come up with something other than just number password puzzles and damage-trading RPG fights.

Off

2008

This review contains spoilers

This title isn't too in-depth of an experience gameplay wise, but is extremely profound through its themes to the point it stuck with me for weeks.
Is death and nothingness preferable to eternal guilt? Is it truly worth it to stop a world from turning apocalyptic if it means your own hands will be responsible for its destruction?
What does purification even mean? What are morals, if you have to destroy everything to ensure that moral code?
I kind of have to rate the game highly, because when I played through The Judge's ending, I genuinely lost contact with reality. I didn't cry, I totally shut down, for hours. It was like a fit of psychosis. I wasn't even aware that a video game could have such an effect on me.
I kind of have to give it a perfect rating based on that alone, right?
The whole game is based on perspective. Nothing changes, but the actions stay the same. The Guardians are incompetent. The people of this world are neurotic. All that's left is bleakness no matter the outcome. You have two options.
One, blame The Batter, and feel the guilt of The Judge for the rest of eternity.
Or two, return this contemptible world to nothingness.
The Batter appears as a monster, but whether or not you think he truly is that way is up to you. It's such a profoundly unique way of handling morality in that The Batter reduces everything to its purest blacks and whites, clearly having a misguided savior complex through his acts of abject genocide... But not entirely being wrong. He even requests the help of The Judge, implying that he doesn't want to fight him at the end, and views The Judge as the only being of the world in question not experiencing neurosis. As well, The Judge views their world as corrupt, but hates The Batter's methods. At the end of the game, he also begs The Batter to join him. They need each other, but their ideologies are so far apart, they can never come to a solution together.
The Batter is a truly amoral, inhuman figure, whereas The Judge is the last monument to the failure of the Guardians echoing the last gasps of a dying world.
If you choose The Batter's side, The Batter stays the same, being a humanlike figure.
If you choose The Judge's side, The Batter turns into a monster.
The Batter is the same person either way. He only changes in appearance because he's viewed as an enemy. He holds the same ideologies either way.
The other characters are equally compelling.
The Queen is one of the few people in the game who calls The Batter an extremist hellbent on destruction. It's easy to see her point of view, because The Batter's ideologue is to essentially perform mercy killings. At the end of the day, The Queen is a mother protecting her infant son from The Batter's rampage through righteous means. The Judge asks The Batter to expiate sins that they both are guilty of, and prevent "this monster" from completing his work.
Whereas The Queen is naive through her well-meaning, Enoch has a heart made of ice. He's a monument to how human sin corrupts each world, including this one. Even then, however, he is not an amoral individual. Enoch insists on giving the citizens of his zone drugs to prevent them from becoming Burnt, malformed souls with horrifyingly distorted bodies. He shows a more pragmatic attitude, but his solution is misguided, as we see denizens in other zones which haven't become Burnt. Citizens and specters murder each other over these drugs.
Dedan is resentful towards The Batter, even after he helps the Elsen rid his zone of the Specters. He's a permanent malcontent, and will never help purify the world, even if it helps his people. He barely even enjoys his own existence, let alone anyone else's.
Japhet is the epitome of naivety turned into madness, as he summoned the Specters as revenge for his subjects fearing him.
Zacharie is a permanent optimist, who takes it upon himself to remain ethereal in his role to aid the player. It's unknown what his connection is with Sugar, but sugar in the game is the drugs I referred to earlier. Sugar asking The Batter to say goodbye to Zacharie is... Utterly soul crushing on a level I haven't seen from any work of fiction before. Zacharie's reaction of, "I guess it's better like that", made me have to stop playing for several days. I understand the metaphor, Sugar is the drug that keeps him happy, the only thing he really had left. Sugar is the one thing The Batter doesn't call purified, as her childish nature simply betrayed her innocence. She's the only thing The Batter truly refers to as 'dead' across the entire game. Even through that one line of text, you can feel just that one pang of regret, that it was no longer a genocide, but instead an omnicide.
The ending of the game is just a different beast entirely. It perfectly encapsulates that there's just nothing left. It's either The Batter literally flipping an 'OFF' switch to turn the world 'OFF', or it's The Judge just wandering... Endlessly. The Judge is left with a chosen few left to run the world, and even then, it's likely the Secretaries will swoop in to finish them off, with the purification of each zone.
Was there even a choice? Was everything going to die like this anyway? Is The Batter a monster, or simply an accelerationist to the inevitable?
It's a game that gets me thinking every time I see anything of it. No game has made me go through so many separate stages of grief and epiphany. It's a brilliant look into the cosmic nature of morality and it's basically a must-play for anyone interested in indie RPGs. Quotes from nearly every character in the game are pure power etched into writing.
"Hence nothing remains but our regrets."