It's easy to write about how almost disappointing it is that the malicious, ill-advised actions of Domina's sole developer overshadowed what must have been his life's work up to that point in such a short period. That's the only pity I can give to someone like him; the ideology that brought his game down is not only corrosive to those around it but actively self-destructive in the process. What's not easy to say about Domina, but what I feel is absolutely true, is that not only is the implosion of its developer's status on Steam indicative of the damage hubris can inflict, but that it's depressingly representative of the worst that the Steam community has to offer. Domina's Dev is all of the anti-SJW megathreads with 50 pages worth of users fellating the original poster and hundreds of 'Take My Points!' awards embodied into someone who would take offense to the phrase "salty" being reasonably thrown their way. He's the kind of guy who thinks that racial slurs are funny and spams "you can't spell ignorant without IGN!" like he's stuck in 2016. I'm not angry, I'm just shocked it took this long.

There will never be a more pathetic piece of culture war nonsense than 'Kids these days would never a survive a MW2 lobby!' Is that supposed to be some kind of flex? Like, wow, you played a game that had a mute button, and you didn't use it. Very brave! Who would have known that a decade filled to the brim with slurs adopted as slang would have put out such bangers as racial slurs and homophobia spoken over a busted-up Turtle Rock microphone while your mother shouts at you in the background? Ignoring that, there are two things to consider that make an already embarrassing talking point downright depressing. 1) your fixation on something that's otherwise menial makes me think the verbal harassment traumatized you, and you don't want to admit it, and 2) it sounds like you never grew up. The nature of maturity can be vague and undefinable, but something I've always held to is that maturity represents acceptance. The kids of tomorrow won't talk like the ones of yesteryear. Different things will offend them, and different things will bring them comfort. I wouldn't consider it regressive to get upset about a new generation of children not behaving the way you did at your age because that would assume such an action has any tangential impact on anyone outside of yourself. This onion has a fourth layer, though: just because somebody says this line of thought doesn't mean they were there. I've been told this in Roblox before and, like, do you know what the average age of a Roblox user is? Much less one that goes around trying to get a reaction out of people. Somebody taught them to practice the same self-flagellation-disguised-as-masculine-pride, and if they don't snap out of that soon, they will have a rude fucking awakening when it finally hits them. Kids these days are surviving their own Modern Warfare 2 lobbies; yours don't seem as interesting.

Social media dick-measuring is a fucking blight. The problem is not Reddit, not Twitter, not 4Chan, not YouTube. It's not even that profound!
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Since this is made to goad a reaction by virtue of existing, I'll cut it short there and just ask why this sort of humor is "funny". See, it's funny when Eric Andre does it because he's actually creative. One of the reasons I love Bad Trip is because he actually works with the reactions he gets and bases the movie on them. I'll admit that there are a few 4Chan raids that I found funny as a teenager where, on paper, the participants do something similar (hindsight is a bitch). But I mean, come on, man. You can only get imaginary reactions out of something like this. But social media has been infested with Wojaks since before 2019, so what did I expect? My bad, you guys. My bad. Let me put on the shitty white fedora that my brother bought when we visited New Orleans in 2018 because he thought it looked cool.
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So, anyway, my favorite part of this year's Anime Expo was getting to see the premieres and tidbits of anime where sexualization is not a priority. Color me shocked, Saint Ceceila and Pastor Lawrence looks absolutely adorable and is totally up my alley. And I'd never heard of it before the Expo, but Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken is the kind of thing that would have inspired me as a child.
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Oh yeah, Cuckold Simulator. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha? There, developers, you made me laugh. Good job.

(List-exclusive author's note: I don't know what I was smoking when I wrote this, but for the sake of posterity, it's been preserved here in all of its wackiness.)
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See also: my thoughts on Hello Neighbor 2
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Fuck mascot horror.
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It's more fascinating to ponder on why Garten of Banban stands out than it is to talk about the game itself because Mascot Horror is an inherently cynical cesspit. I applaud Scott Cawthon for accidentally stumbling upon it, even if his creation eventually became an intentional drag. The main reason I think Banban stands out isn't that same accident factor. Without the sliver of artistic value that even Hello Neighbor 2 or Security Breach had, this is two-steps away from having been AI-Generated. Garten of Banban is verifiable proof that when it eventually happens, mascot horror will be its first prey. What makes Banban particularly egregious in this case is that the AI hasn't learned how to draw hands yet. It may be soulless to an extent, but its failings more than make up for that. Garten of Banban is a funny game—I just don't believe that its creators were in on the joke.

Since I haven't played this yet, I can't say whether or not the intense response this has generated on platforms like Reddit and Twitter is the fastest I've ever seen Death of the Author invoked. Just going off of the description, it kind of seems like it's not supposed to be a glorification of this kind of relationship. But that being said, I think something we should have all learned from the, "but she's 1000 years old!" crowd is that, more often than you might assume, fiction is used to excuse some pretty questionable shit. And I think you see that a lot in horror, too. That's pretty much what the slasher genre is, to a degree; like, it's hardly shocking that more than a few of the Friday the 13th sets were sleazy coke fests where some casting couch-type shit went down. Jason wasn't there to slash libidos like umbilical cords, he was just a tarp.
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I will say this, looking from the outside in: the art looks pretty good! I'm not a big VN connoisseur, so I don't have a lengthy spiel about how it's actually art planned out. What I can tell you is that, everyone who loves VNs love them for the art! Having shitty art in a VN is like having Nutella and Bananas on bread—not toast. That shit slides right off, my man. Right off.

The issue I have with Hatred isn't that it's so juvenile that it makes Gaspar Noe look nuanced and mature in comparison—that's actually pretty funny. The issue I have with it is that it was made by reactionary, artless cowards. That artlessness is really where this thing stops being interesting. If you're going to be tasteless, at least commit to it? Be interesting, be deranged! This is a game about mass shootings with gratuitous kill cams and an Adults Only rating, and yet playing Hitman: Blood Money with cheats on feels sleazier. It's exploitation without punctuation, a throwback that's more archaic than revisionist.
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I don't think this is a great send-up of video games or wholesomeness. Honestly, what the fuck is up with that? I want to know why is it so controversial to want to be cute? Are you going to tell me it's childish? Like this is any better, right? You know what's really mature? Not grittiness, not brooding violence. Honestly? Just not giving a shit. Caring for the people around you, owning up to your own flawed ideologies, and understanding how your attitude reflects the work you produce—those might be basic fundamentals. But I honestly can't think of a more adolescent viewpoint than naked, tryhard misanthropy for the purpose of headlines or "subversion". You're not subverting anything, you're just a drag to be around.

I don't know what the politics of reviewing something like this is. Do I have to pretend that I've never met these people before or spoken to them? Do I have to pretend that they didn't make a couple of my days in ways they wouldn't imagine if I didn't explicitly state it? I don't know, it just seems pretty biased to me, and something about that sours the pot. I might play this at some point because it looks cool, but don't expect me to do its creators any favors until I'm done with my own project. Then, it'll be fair.

Allow me to say right now that I understand that this is being falsely marketed as a Remaster. I don't doubt that a significant amount of work was put into this, but judging from the side-by-sides I've seen, it feels more like a port. And I say that not too bemoaningly. What you're seeing here is pretty much what we started the eighth console generation with. I suppose now that our games are tied to less archaic technological frameworks, it's less necessary. But cut the bullshit; this isn't a new sales tactic, and it's silly that you're singling this out in particular when we've been through this for nearly a decade at this point.
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What grinds my gears so much isn't that it's inherently wrong to point any of this out but for this game in particular? I'm sorry, but it feels woefully inauthentic. Let me be as blunt as possible: the only thing that differentiates the top reviews for this from the culture war bullshit you see on Metacritic is this thin, pretentious veneer of prestige. Because you're not giving out the scores that IGN and Gamespot give out, you're not talking about video games on their level—you're an Art critic, with a capital-A that you can shove right up your capital-A Ass. And trust me, it is inauthentic. I would know because this bullshit is exactly what my top review is. Essentially, it's trend-hopping. You know that there's going to be an influx of views in one area, so you make what is essentially a rough draft, or a shitpost, to capitalize on it while it's ripe for the picking. There's a discussion to be had that social media does not only reflect our world but also its shallowest, most boring desires on an unimaginable scale. And it is low-key a boomer discussion, but it's one corner I'll peacefully capitulate on.
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What bothers me about inauthenticity as far as platforms like Backloggd go is that there is potential in democratizing the power of criticism. What separates media consumption from a hobby, in my opinion, is analysis. You can learn a lot from the people around you through analysis in ways that small talk stifles. Even if I'm learning about a complete stranger, it brings me an inch closer to the world around me, and I love it! But ultimately, it's ripe for abuse, and I kinda hate it. You cannot convince me that that isn't what reviewbombing is. I can imagine how much it would suck to be a creator whose work got reviewbombed, but from the perspective of someone who just wants that connection, it robs me.
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And do you want to know what the cherry on top of this sundae is? The Last of Us is not the most ported game of our generation. Two different versions of the first game and now this make three—and if you count how many times Resident Evil 4 has been redone, it goes well over that. It's gotten to a point where there are two separate VR versions of RE4, both exclusive to two separate platforms, representing two separate versions of the game. That is fair game to criticize, in my opinion. And this is all without bringing up Myst, which is just fucking cheating. That's all you need to say, really. Skyrim has a lot of ports? Myst.