appstore
2005
The invention of the modern video game camera is unfortunately saddled to this, a brave combination of emulated laser pointers, fetishistic luggage appreciation, and Space Ace, that is not as fun as having a laser pointer, packing a bag well, or... well ok i'm not a big enough hater to say Space Ace is better, but it's closer than it should be.
Better than the original by virtue of just Being A Laser Pointer instead of an emulated laser pointer. Has all the other problems still.
2014
Often as fun as telling a joke that worked once to a new audience only to discover that they really did have to be there.
Playtime: 14 minutes.
Breaking Point: the narrator describing the dwarf rubbing the coins in his beard while the model did not move. Just loudly broadcasting how much that game was not going to be for me with how luxurious the fantasy set piece actions & descriptions were going to be in the THREE DIMENSIONAL GRAPHICAL GAME.
Breaking Point: the narrator describing the dwarf rubbing the coins in his beard while the model did not move. Just loudly broadcasting how much that game was not going to be for me with how luxurious the fantasy set piece actions & descriptions were going to be in the THREE DIMENSIONAL GRAPHICAL GAME.
2021
Usually pretty far from the kind of game I like playing, but I bought it during 1.0 and have been able to see this game radically expand twice now, and each time become a more interesting game that smartly addresses meta loopholes while putting in new options to break things open. It also has had the foresight to put in ways to experience the older gameplay so it's not just The New or Nothing. A game with the kind of lifespan and forethought that is only encouraging.
1992
I feel like, in the pantheon of 90s Mario Clones, Kid Chameleon is one of the few that actually tries to just up and down Do It. Lots of these games miss the exploration and the feeling of discovering secrets or warp zones or what have you, in favor of making sure you're a little guy who jumps good. I still remember discovering a shortcut in this game that sent me so far forwards I was intimidated to actually try to finish it cuz man, I must be missing something I needed in the earlier levels. A brave attempt.
If someone were to ask me "what's the most 90s video game," I'd give deep consideration to this. It eerily predates the dark cultural turn of the late 90s and early 2000s, where shit got edgy cuz they had to grrr. Mutant League Football was gross cuz it wanted to be. In the face of EXTREEEME culture, it feels more celebratory and joyous than contemporaries.
In a lifetime of playing weird arcade games, the first time I sat down at a 2049 cabinet and had to enter a pin number with the phone dial to get a ranking to register on the network of systems in the arcade, I remember thinking "this has to be the future." Wrong as fuuuuuuck, but I think the future where homes have arcade cabinets with network upload capabilities is at least a little more fun than this one. Now games just do that with zero flair.
2003
the good last of us
2006
That castle has Sakon written alllll over it.
That castle has Sakon written alllll over it.
That castle has Sakon written alllll over it.
That castle has Sakon written alllll over it.
That castle has Sakon written alllll over it.
That castle has Sakon written alllll over it.
That castle has Sakon written alllll over it.
2010
In the middle of my friend's playthrough they were direly over encumbered, and trying to get up a hill. They had put a lot of their belongings in a crate, and had been pushing the crate inch by inch up this mountain road. Their eyes were drawn from the prize (a mound of loot-filled corpses at the top of the road), and as I warned them about moving too far, the box's physics slipped off the model and it slowly skidded back down the road to cries of anguish. That is the most I have ever enjoyed anything Bethesda ever made.
2013
I tried my best to pitch this game to my friends as being an enjoyable action game with a trashy story that at least knew it was trashy, and no one listened, and then they made the sequel a loot game, and that's probably some kind of useful metaphor but it's more just the kind of trouble I get into, latching onto something good that it turns out the people who made it didn't see either.
2022
Why in god's name is it so fucking hard to play Scrabble with multiple people and not in Words with Friends format? Have y'all tried finding Scrabble on the internet lately? You'd think it was only a 2 player game. I have a 70s Scrabble board. It's fucking not. It's embarrassing that Discord are the only people who went out and got that shit done.