Xantic
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Played in 2024
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I adored this videogame. It nails its own flavor of contemporary (read: absurdist) humor. It revels in the cartoonish violence it subjects its ridiculous characters to. Basically nothing else, like the questionable progression system or shallow gunplay, mattered to me. I loved being sucked into this colorful little world for a while, a world where a turnip can kill a god and rob a bank.
It is an odd feeling to be playing this game in the year 2024, where crypto-turned-nft bros have moved on to “AI” as their next big panacea. It is a game that imagines AI as both less and more than it is today, where its mechanical force is to effectively play the game out in front of you in order to put obstacles there (something we’ve been able to do for decades, at least) but its plot force is to effectively be the singularity, a superintelligence far outside the capabilities we can imagine. But it’s surprisingly easy to suspend that part of my disbelief. I can engage with each part of the game as two sides of the same coin. Or maybe, instead, as one treats a model of the solar system: one a toy of the other.
But it is surprising, which half felt lackluster to me. Its platforming, while serviceable and tight, too-infrequently makes use of its own predictive conceit. The story, on the other hand, was engaging and well told - if a bit basic. It was a pleasantly unique perspective into the genre. It is not so often that we get stories from after the singularity, and very much not in this medium.
But it is surprising, which half felt lackluster to me. Its platforming, while serviceable and tight, too-infrequently makes use of its own predictive conceit. The story, on the other hand, was engaging and well told - if a bit basic. It was a pleasantly unique perspective into the genre. It is not so often that we get stories from after the singularity, and very much not in this medium.
Some games just have the sauce and this is one of them. This game is gritty urban Inscryption. It is all grime and dirt and misery, from the dealer’s grotesquery to its ecstasy-ridden club-music thumping, endlessly, in the background. Why do my hands shake? Is it the speed? Or is it fear?
There’s not a super deep game here and that is by no means a bad thing. It is the dice games played in dirty city alleyways as a spectator sport, played for blood. This is a game of unease and dread and relief. It is a game of risk. It is a game of twitchy, nervous bluster and desperate pulls of a trigger. It is a game where making safe bets gets you killed. And I am all in.
There’s not a super deep game here and that is by no means a bad thing. It is the dice games played in dirty city alleyways as a spectator sport, played for blood. This is a game of unease and dread and relief. It is a game of risk. It is a game of twitchy, nervous bluster and desperate pulls of a trigger. It is a game where making safe bets gets you killed. And I am all in.