Going into Xenogears, I knew 3 things. The first was that this game was supposed to be Final Fantasy VII, a game I played just a few months ago and became an instant favorite. The second is that due to a hard locked release schedule, the team didn't have enough time to properly "finish" Xenogears. The third is that it's basically just Evangelion.

I also felt it was fair to assume that this was gonna be a favorite. What I didn't assume was that this game would challenge the way I think about my relationships. At the age of 22, I didn't really think I would be able to have my worldview shifted by stories anymore. That was a thing for my teenage years. I get now this was a stupid thing to think.

I struggle to think about what I can even say about a classic like this that's unique or fresh. It's an old beloved RPG, everything that can be said about it has. So in order to talk about it I have to get vulnerable. Hi. My name is Mads. I have BPD.

The way being borderline has impacted my relationships is almost all internal. I seek validation, I want to belong, to have an impact on the people I love. Nothing I or they can do is able to convince me of that. I feel incomplete. Consequently, I feel my relationships are hollow because of me. I'm not able to get as intimate as I'd want to. I'm not able to ask for a shoulder to lean on. It feels selfish. It feels undeserved.

There's a scene about a third into this game that hammered home just how much this game made me feel seen. Without going into specifics, it involves 2 of the main cast members talking about how incomplete they feel. One describes their acts of kindness as a selfish act because they don't feel they belong, and all they hope to get out of that kindness is a place to be. The other validates that it's ok to act kindly out of selfishness. Eventually, in trying to fill yourself up, you'll complete yourself with the lives of those around you.

Another scene in disc 2, which was a flashback regarding the history of one of the main characters and explaining why they are the way they are, filled me with an intense urge to call my abusive mom and say "I'm sorry." I can't explain that. I have nothing to be sorry for. It's not my fault she treats me the way she does. I don't know what else to do besides talk about it, because god knows I have no interest in following through on that.

As far as this game not being finished goes, well, I don't think it's fair to call it that. It's a front to back story. It covers all the beats it needs to in order to function. Sure it's not fully realized, but I think it's okay to not be whole.

Today I went in to get some bloodwork done. My hands still hurt from where they pricked me. 6 whole vials, taken from me. Well, "taken" isn't exactly fair. This was of my own volition after all.

Maybe it's not my right. Maybe I'm making an irrational decision, one that feels correct to me, but isn't exactly correct in the eyes of the world. Do I care? Hell yeah I do. Far, far more than I should. But... but even still... this is what I want.

I'm scared. Scared that living as a man is rotting me to my core. It's making me cynical. It's making me sad. It's depriving me of hope that I'm so desperate for these days.

I'm scared. Scared that I'll never be accepted as a woman. That because I'm fat, because I'm not attractive, that I'll forever just be an ugly perverted man in the eyes of the world.

I see 9S struggle against the crushing realities of his existence. I see his fear, his anger, his despair, and I see myself in it. Upon learning his existence was never his to begin with, and his agency was never a right he had, he had nothing left but to be angry and scared.

I see A2's rejection of the powers that be. I see her refusal to give into total despair despite the cruelties of their existence. I see her take her life into her own hands, make her decisions of her own volitions. I see her disregard suggestions of the systems that oppressed her. I see who I want to be. Who I hope I can be.

Right now, I see the world through the eyes of a man. A depressed, unemployed man. A man who hates being a man. A man who hates every ounce of his own flesh and blood. I see a crying girl in there, begging to be freed from this disgusting body I was forced into. A body created by people I hate, by people who hate me, by people who reject me and robbed me of my "self."

I can't change that. I'm powerless to the cards dealt to me. Fight as I might, this is the life I have. It's not one I'm happy with. If I had my way I wouldn't be who I am at all. I wouldn't be alive in the first place.

I can't change that. Instead, I'll have to change me.

My hands still hurt from where they pricked me. It served as a reminder during that final sequence, a systemic destruction of the artists who worked on this game, that my existence doesn't belong to my pain, my traumas, my despair. It belongs to me.

So this week I start HRT.

The true reveal of Metal Gear Solid 2 is not that we play as Raiden instead of Solid Snake - it's that the antagonist of the game does not exist. It's pulling back the curtain to find that the man behind it died a century ago. The most powerful nation on Earth is essentially an algorithm with a mind of its own, akin to a runaway train that everyone "in charge" pretends they are responsible for. There is no individual you get to blame. Not the politicians, not the CEOs of major corporations. Not even the current or former presidents of the United States have any idea of what's really going on. The algorithm will replace these people the second they stop being useful. In my opinion it's a much better conception of "the system" than what you see in most conspiracy fiction: a small, shadowy cabal of people pulling the strings from behind the scenes. The reality is that all of the powerful people we blame are just the ones who managed to latch on to the algorithm of capitalism and milk it for all they can. There is no grand design, nobody is in control, everyone responsible for setting this system into motion is long dead. Which is why Otacon says the Patriots "have been dead for 100 years".

Every choice you (and Raiden) make perpetuates this status quo, and every radical political cause (like Snake and Otacon's 'Philanthropy') is effortlessly co-opted by it. MGS2 conveys this idea in a way that only a video game could: By playing as Raiden, you are forced to directly confront the futility of any resistance. You can approach MGS2 in a million different ways with an expansive arsenal of tools, getting no kills or alerts and discovering every secret in the Big Shell, or do the exact opposite. But the end result is always the same: You kill Solidus, the only threat to the Patriots, after they explicitly tell you it's exactly what they want. If you opt out entirely and "turn the game console off" you're still doing something you were ordered to do. Even if you choose not to play, you lose to the Patriots. MGS2 places you in the position of the post-information age, digital subject: Imbued with detailed knowledge of every single way you are being oppressed and exploited, you still choose to follow orders. You are so overwhelmed by information, some true, some false, that is causes a kind of exasperated compliance.

This is simultaneously a commentary on the nature of video game stories as an immutable, pre-programmed series of events not as different from film narratives as we like to think; Any "choice" is always an illusion, whether it's in Metal Gear Solid or a Telltale game. Any game that sets out to fulfill the concept of "player freedom" in its story will always fail. Video games stories are (at their best) about interactivity, not choice. They let you play out a pre-ordained role and do some improvisation, not write the story. Kojima understands this, and it's why he borrows so much from film. It's also why the criticism that his games are too much like movies is kind of pointless; he's just recognizing the inherent similarities of the two mediums.

On a less meta level, this lack of free will in MGS2 underscores the reality that capitalism, American empire, the very norms and values of American society, whatever the antagonist of the game is - cannot be destroyed from within. It is a system that has achieved self-awareness. Any possible attempt to destroy it has already been anticipated with an infinite number of contingencies. Emma Emmerich gave her life to destroy the GW AI and it was just replaced with a backup. The battle has already been lost, and it was decided by a microscopic processor in a fraction of a second. Solidus (a perfect stand-in for the kind of right-wing populist we wouldn't see for awhile in 2001) was the only person in power trying to oppose the Patriots, but his fatal mistake was believing that the Patriots were essentially a deep state globalist cabal, rather than the nigh omnipresent force they really are (they aren't really a "they", but an "it"). Like Snake said, "the Patriots are a kind of ongoing fiction". But even the legendary Solid Snake, the archetypal hero who opposes the system with clear-eyed determination, is completely dumbfounded after the credits roll.

And that's because this enemy is simply beyond the abilities of one man, even if that man is a Snake. It can just create its own soldier to surpass Solid(us) Snake and even mass-produce them, and your actions throughout the game prove it. No tactical espionage action can defeat what is essentially an idea - one that has infiltrated the furthest depths of the human soul. The only hope lies on a society-wide level: An alternative has to be built by everyone from the ground up, through finding what is true and meaningful in life and passing it on to the next generation. Slowly, generation by generation, an alternative capable of opposing the great algorithm can be built. And it has to be one that people can have faith in, in a spiritual sense.

But the encroachment of the internet into our lives is making this less and less feasible. By replacing the traditional nuclear-armed metal gear with Arsenal Gear, an AI that controls the internet, Kojima is essentially framing the internet itself as a threat equal to or greater than that of nuclear weapons. It is an instrument of human separation much more powerful than the splitting of an atom. The quote at the beginning of Raiden's chapter tying computers and nuclear weapons together bolsters this interpretation.

The digital age has turned human life into a scrambled mess that is impossible to parse. We create entirely idiosyncratic, patchwork realities for ourselves by finding various "truths" through our own individual exploration of the internet and jury-rigging them together. We relate to each other less and less, and mental illness is widespread. This overload of information makes us increasingly neurotic, isolated, and unable to determine truth from fiction. The collective human mind is being broken (or at least pounded into a new shape) against the collective neuroses of the internet, and nobody knows what to do about it. We're all alone right now, each of us left with the isolating task of finding our own truth amidst the cacophony. Even the algorithm fears for our future, yet it's still the only entity with a solution: Censorship. Make the noise stop. Honestly, has anyone thought of a better idea?

Hello, this is my backloggd, same username as my letterboxd! Normally I do comparisons of people in my life to characters in the game but I didn't really understand the Elden Ring lore, and there were a lot of characters. I can do this:
ELDEN RING
Tarnished = Me
Malenia = Hard R
Melina = Winnie from Work
Miquella = Y**i from Work
Torrent = My Pet Fish, Chup Chup
Ranni = Zeta
Roderika = Kirsty
Gideon = Mitch

I don't give anything 5 stars unless it really deserves it, but Elden Ring deserved it. It had perfect gameplay, a great sense of exploration, interesting story that you could really sink your teeth into, a beautiful soundtrack, and lots of polish that made the game feel wonderful to play. Overall it was a great experience and can't recommend enough.
The open world worked really well with a Fromsoft game. I've played all Dark Souls + Bloodborne, still need to play Demon's Souls and Sekiro, but so far Elden Ring was my favourite. If you struggle with an area, the ability to go away and do something else to get stronger really works well with the open nature of the game. Unfortunately, this also has a slight drawback - because of how big the world is and how many characters you meet, it's much harder to follow NPC quests than it is to do so in, say, Dark Souls 3. That being said, it is doable, you should just bring a journal or something.

Overall, a great game, and one that I'll be replaying at one point. Good job team!

You are never once told what to do. There are no directions, no tutorials. You figure it all out in an organic way, using the architectural design of your environment and the framing of the camera to navigate the castle.

And the castle... There has never been a more elegantly designed level in a video game. The fixed camera angles that allow you to pan around and look at your surroundings give it a genuine sense of presence and scale. It feels like a real place that was once lived in due to its interconnected and functional design. The feeling of just being there is, in terms of sheer atmospheric power, unmatched in any game. All of this despite the environment being so austere and existing purely for Ico to lead Yorda through.

I've seen it pointed out before that Yorda is simply the typical video game damsel in distress, as she is saved by the player and literally dragged around and protected for the entirety of the game. This is true, but simply identifying tropes isn't substantive criticism; in this case, it's a shallow observation that misses the point entirely.

Yorda grew up in a cage. The entire purpose of her existence is to be an eventual vessel for her mother. She never expresses agency because she has never known it. But after making her first real human connection with someone, a person who knows freedom and only now has had it taken away, she learns how to be her own person. In the end, when Ico is unable to go on (and control is thus taken from the player), she takes the initiative to save him herself and assert her right to be free. There has never been a more thematically powerful use of a cutscene in any game, before or since.

It's an empowering story about becoming a human being, all told with almost no dialogue and through the language of video games. It is possibly the purest example of using this medium to tell a good story. Ueda really is one of the very few real artists in the industry and this game will stand forever as one of the most important milestones for video games.

Probably the worst cover art of all time in the NA version though.