appstore
2023
Man, with the year i've had, i'll take some fucking fan service. It feels great to me right now. I've liked every Remedy game I've played (I haven't played Quantum Break) and this game now exists deep enough in their lifespan that they can pull back upon it, and let us both just sit there and enjoy how long a road it's been. They made a game full of Sam Lake pictures I will giggle at over and over again.
2023
I knew I wasn't the only kid that had their life transposed by finding Ultima IV before I was ready. I didn't love it as much as the person who made this, but I find the gesture just as heartwarming. Laser focused and charitably released, I hope this game sideswipes the kids the same way that Ultima IV caught me when I was young. Either way, I'll dip into this particular comfort on and off for years.
2021
There was a point where I closed it on a win, and then caught myself reopening it immediately, and that was the point where I realized that the rerolling mechanic in these games is just slot machines and the gambling design castoffs had got me again.
2021
This very good game unfortunately plays into My Big Phobia so I'll never be able to complete it, but everything about the premise and the gameplay is fantastic and I recommend this without reservation.
2019
"What's the matter with you?! It's got monsters! You hunt them! I didn't leave anything out! What's there to leave out?! Honestly, the entitlement you kids have, I don't know where you get it."
2018
Picture a bell curve that represents Katamari Damacy misunderstandings. The center of the curve is "lol japan." On the extreme end of one curve is "this game is for [pejorative]s." On the other extreme end is this fucking thing, a game trying to smol bean the trashgyre with quips and pastels in order to give a teachable moment to a straw man made to look like what they think powers bad decision making in poverty.
2015
Just about as much involvement as I like in any kind of simulation/survival game: distant, observant, sorta influential but not really, and mainly there to just to absorb vibes. Kingdom has Untouchable Vibes.
1995
Often as fun as being cajoled into trying a show that "really gets good in season 3."
more like super mario actually good world
2022
Affectionate in gesture and execution. A lot of people on this website (and like hey this is just how time works) didn't have enough exposure to Pre-Windows 2000 era computers to really, really understand how wild of a world computers felt back then. Before things had to be designed to death to make it in front of an audience, some machines worked Just Enough to let you do what they wanted. I remember coloring black & white still frames from Batman: The Animated Series on the old church's computer. I remember the one time I got to use the pastor's computer and discovered they had a PC port of Mortal Kombat 3 installed to it for some reason I am still not capable of figuring out (They Were Weird, It's A Long Story). Trying AOL and realizing it wasn't good enough. Downloading a demo overnight only to learn it didn't run on my computer the morning after. My father's... aggressive approach to hacking prevention. This game is a dream about gilded ages, re-created with ship-in-a-bottle precision.
I'm really really glad that in my lifetime video games have evolved to a place where when I say "I don't get it," I can talk about pace, theming, tone, story... all sorts of actual interpretive tasks beyond baseline interaction and aesthetic. The dude who makes these games is my analog to a director who I respect the hell out of and don't think I'm ever going to like anything he's made. Maybe one day it'll click. I'm not going to try and force that.
2017
at least one's good
2014
The last dealer you saw before you decided you had to straighten up gets very inevitably hurt or arrested: The Game. There's no going back here, only clusters of memories that were pleasurable times but are since turned into hollow pockets of endorphins, cleaned out so thoroughly that all there is to observe is what was lost.
I'm mainly writing a review of this to bask in wonderment at remembering Absolutely Nothing about this game. I cleared it twice! I couldn't tell you what the game exclusive power up was, I couldn't tell you about a single level, I don't remember if this one had a minimap or not... just utterly vanished from my brain. Maybe it's awesome! Mostly I'm disturbed to have this vacant chamber in my brain where I know I played it and beat it and can tell you not a thing else about it.
1999
Pouring one out for the "Sequel Is A Totally Different Genre" move, a thing only Final Fantasy tries anymore. The original Fighting Force arrived with dozens of reviews lying about how much like Streets of Rage it was. Imagine constructing your identity around that, and then the sequel comes out, and you are a super spy fighting zombies. Imagine if The Last of Us Part 2 was just Tokyo Jungle. I wish more games had the nerve to make a sequel that's just fuckin a total misunderstanding about what anyone could have liked about it.