i enjoyed metroid prime, although i find it less polished as a gameplay experience than its 2d counterparts, with a lot of parts having me question whether or not someone actually made sure it was fun before shipping the game out. having to constantly switch to different beams during combat with this control scheme or arbitrarily for random doors is annoying (seriously, why are any of the doors that arent the progression gates not just power beam doors??), any room with more than 2 metroids in it is an excercise in tedium, and i don't have a single nice thing to say about the morph ball or its implementation, the world (especially in the remaster) while beautiful, is very generic feeling in a way that doesn't feel very alien to me, and the chozo ghosts and artifact hunt are such an annoying way to pad out length. not a bad game at all, but a lot of it just isnt as fun as the 2d games to me, and i don't think i'd call it a masterpiece like so many people seem willing to

Still largely unmatched in terms of receptive feedback to player action. It's genuinely a novel sensation to play a game where I set out before hand to play in a specific way, and actually be accommodated accordingly for that play style, even among other Immersive Sims I've played thus far, none have really successfully integrated that level of freedom. I think this is largely due to the game prioritizing being a good RPG first and being an action game second.

Warren Spector's game design roots go back primarily to table top RPGs. He's said on multiple occasions his whole career has been him attempting to capture the feeling he had when playing Dungeons and Dragons for the first time in the 70s, and you can tell, especially on Deus Ex. There exists a specific relation between player, to DM, to systemic gameplay that is, as of now, still entirely unique to table top games. It is currently literally physically impossible to create this relationship in a video game directly, and any attempts at actually creating it are very much in their infancy, look at AI Dungeon for the most direct attempt, a great game/tool to use if you wanna have a laugh and partake in a dreamlike nonsense space, and completely useless if you want to play an actual coherent narrative gaming experience. That being said, people have been trying to approximate this relationship in video games for decades. You could argue that Immersive Sims, as a genre, are an attempt to synthesize the player freedom allotted by this kind of system, with the goal oriented mission based structure of action games. This is a game seeking to combine the role of DM and game system into one entity, and let you the player interface with it, and it feels so fucking good, I'm not sure literally anyone has done it better. The sensation of in real time working out how you want to go about solving problems, being forced to carefully consider your approach and being rewarded for that forethought, every combat encounter feeling like a puzzle where you need to consider the unique enemy placement, environmental shape, abilities and equipment on hand in order to solve, it's just such a good texture of interactivity. The game is balanced around making your character slow and bad at everything by default, until you put skill puts or use augmentations to become Not Terrible at those things, gradually. This makes even simple things, like shooting one enemy, into things you need to carefully consider and plan ahead at first, and put a lot of time and skill points into if you want to be able to do them effectively and more intuitively later on. This makes both the early game, where you need to be very careful and intentional about every move you make, and the late game, where you've built a character entirely unique to your play-style and can efficiently utilize your unique set of abilities, extremely interesting in distinctive ways. It makes progress and exploration much more rewarding than it would be otherwise, it makes solving problems that can't be solved by your specific skill-sets more challenging and interesting, while making problems that can all the more satisfying. It's a dynamic feedback loop of carefully crafted systems that are more effective the more you put time and thought into them.

It's hard to overstate how immaculately crafted this game is, even though its such an over discussed game already. But it's so easy to keep talking about I think cause Deus Ex is literally a different video game for everyone who plays it. Hell, it's gonna be a different video game every time You play it. It's a game that feels almost, collaborative with the player in its construction, in a way open-world or sandbox games are kinda incapable of being. So until I get to fulfill my newfound dream of playing a D&D campaign led by Warren Spector as DM, it is probably the best RPG ever made.

final team:
L48 Kadabra (Jorts)
L50 Clefable (bladee)
L53 Venusaur (Uh-oh! he)
L51 Golduck (Mewtwo)
L52 Articuno (NOrbert)
L53 Zapdos (Zap Those)

Hm. Everybody's gotta start somewhere, I guess?

A lot of people who are total dorks about Pokemon will tell you Gen 1 is pretty much held together by toothpaste and spiderwebs, and if you take the time to actually complete it it really shows. There's far too many head-scratching inconsistencies and design choices for me to even count, and if you look around online you can find videos of people reducing the game to a glitchy mess by doing menial bullshit like walking in a certain spot too many times.

The core gameplay itself is also horribly tedious here, even more so than other installments. Since there's no color yet, just about everything looks exactly the same and it's super easy to get lost in your back and forth shenanigans you're urged to go on. A lot of sessions started with me loading a savestate and not knowing which fucking town I was in and having to spend a few minutes catching my bearings. Around what turned out to be the halfway point was when I decided I just wanted this to be over as soon as possible, and so even for my standards I used a ridiculous amount of savestates to power through it faster (hence the underleveled team).

I've attempted to complete Gen 2 many times when I was younger, and although I've not quite managed yet, a large amount of the issues present here are either mitigated or gone by then. But most of all, the sights and sounds make it so much less tedious than this game. Gen 1 is the embodiment of tedious. It could be worse, but I'd never play it again, nor will I spend time catching the 120 or so Pokemon that I didn't catch in this playthrough. If you google what your reward for doing so is anyway, all it is is some shitty paper from Professor Oak. Thanks, man.

When your wheels touched concrete in the summer of 1999, you were sure nothing would ever compare to this. Propelled downhill, less by gravity but more by the venerated asphalt spirit, skaters far and wide convened here, a jam to end all jams. While you were happy doing everything you could, holding on to what you were, you couldn’t help but stare skyward at the street zephyrs soaring suspended; They careened through the air, making waxed wood and molded metal both their playthings. As you crashed down to the soul-shattering gravel, face bloodied and back broken, you could only wonder how they ascended from simple skaterdom, piercing the heavens of the board.

It took a year of shattered bones and busted lines to reclaim those halcyon days. A year of spilt blood and scattered teeth, splintered wood and worn polyurethane. It all felt like a dream then, placing bronze out in Roswell, but the age of simple skating had come and gone. You perfected flatland balance, dual-wheel worship at the altar of Mullen, but even perfection wasn’t enough for elusive gold; the Bullring by the Sea didn’t just cost you your metal, it cost you years of knowing you weren't good enough.

So now we’re here. Somehow, another year felt like two decade’s separation; Gone was the California sun, the first to die in the American Wasteland. A nation of Sparrows and Jackasses, failed projects and unproven theories, crept under wheel, biting at the ankles of the past. The spirit of yesterday was buried underground, leaving today to mourn in remembrance.

Well, maybe for some. The only angels you prayed to struck gold, immortalized in sharp vertexes and warped textures. They would be memorialized not in the world’s destruction, but in a final tour, eight stops; a send-off of olden days.

You forged your craft, refining your spark-casting perfection on the rails of automation, before skating to the north. Calgary’s frost-bitten hospitality was the first real test, but as if guided by Hawk’s holy hand, the snowy providence of Alberta bowed down, hailing 900s and McTwists like the second coming. For the first time in decades, a smile spreads across your face, your cheeks still rosy-red from the icy air…

You blink, and awaken to a crowd cheering your name. Looking down on the masses, faces revered and reviled stare back; Muska, Campbell, Reynolds and Margera. You glance around for Burnquist, hoping to celebrate with the hometown hero, but the master is missing in action. Somehow, you were sure you’d be able to show off this gold to him somewhere down the line.

It repeats, on and on: Suburbia becomes New Jersey, the Airport becomes a Mall. Twenty years made it all blend together. Even now, your second gold medal in hand, it barely feels like you’re awake. When those wheels roll, maple boards of a bygone age, time disappears, rendered in heelflips and darkslides. The pomp and circumstance of it all becomes an excuse, more than anything. In your immortalized element, the past is as real as you remember it.

The final jam beckons; neo-chrome Tokyo glistens, welcoming only the best of the best. The competition rages on, dreams dashed in fractured bones and dislocations. No matter what you do, face-to-face with your idols, no, your contemporaries, there's no break, no chance to cover lost ground. Rivals dwindle as career-ending injuries take one after another, but the legendary Birdman flies past.

Seconds are left in the last heat; only a miracle will change the course of destiny. You think to the future, to the final 900 and the first 1260. As if coming free from its wheels, the board possesses you one last time, as you pivot hard on impact, momentum propelling you into the cosmos.

180. 360. 540.

Tony looks skyward, the same shine that was in your eyes twenty years prior.

Two rotations. The 900. 1080.

Nothing else matters. An amoeba with a mind of its own, an ace of spades, whatever you were and where you come from don't matter. This lone moment, spinning on a golden axis, is what it all comes down to.

Zero seconds. You don't bother looking at the scoreboard; you knew better than to think that's what this is about.

All you were looking for was this lone moment of perfection, a revision of the summer of '99. You wrap your hand tight around your medal - does it even matter what it is? - as you board the plane back to California. Staring out the window, you see the past and future together, a first-hand account of what it's like when worlds collide. You never forget the past, and tomorrow closes in fast, but this single moment is eternal.

All the grand gestures can't ease your wonder. You finally unwrap the medal and take it in.

100% Pure Gold.

I needed a bit of a chill out type game in between a lot of stressful shit going on and I was growing a bit tired of Tony Hawk games as they began to progressively get worse and worse in certain ways post American Wasteland and I'd been meaning to try out Skate forever now.

Skate nails those vibes of fucking around, finding a spot and practicing over and over again until you can nail a spot basically however you want to. When you've checked into this game's flow, you get in this kinda rhythm with it, you end up feeling like you're accomplishing a goal you couldn't before and it gives you that kind of weighty gratification that skating can give. Only here you can't get off of your board and some of the missions aren't the most clear/difficulty spike seemingly out of nowhere sometimes in ways I found frustrating.

This game absolutely has a real good vibe to it though, nailing some of those spots or film challenges was so satisfying. When I ended up completing the X-Games Ramp finally I was so stoked. Felt like after just not getting it it just kinda clicked for me.

I just really wish they'd let you get off of your board in this one. Seems like a bit of a massive oversight but maybe they tried and couldn't get it working right for this one.

But yeah honestly really loved just going down a hill and trying to perfect a line or two if I could. There's a really strong base that just needs more within its world imo.

Capturing footage for a video and ended up doing a whole playthrough with Demoness and X-Ray. Was also testing emulation for Xbox games.

Remains one of my favorites in the pro skater series. May not have as many mechanics as the rest of the series does but it absolutely nails the classic style and perfects it with very few levels that miss (cruise ship could be better but it's a fun final level). The difference in how characters feel, the game constantly being a dopamine hit of reward after reward, level after level, character after character. It just gets what I feel the first two almost had and drives it up to such a fun to replay degree. This is classic THPS perfected.

Controls like a dream and tons of customization for tricks, characters and boards. It just hits in all the right ways. To me it's the perfect arcadey skateboarding game (right next to Underground and American Wasteland).

The most terrifying, oppressive, claustrophobic experience I've had in the medium is no surprise a stalking disturbing message of an encroaching patriarchal faith. Heather wants nothing to do with it, and neither will I. Monsters of repressed memories and physical/sexual trauma stalk the corridors, but catharsis is found in making them all Burn. Aborting god is probably the rawest turn on killing god tbh. I personally got lost in the woods of the threads near the end but I think on just initial reflection that there's a large point in there about an incomprehensibly massive societal issue that makes it difficult to form into something tangible (e.g. male gaze and abuse). It's also like a crystalized end to everything the series culminated in before, tying everything back together. Genuinely super well crafted, and a crazy good final message. That cycle of disparaging hatred is still overturned by the real spark of sympathy, we just want love.

Good morning.
This farewell is as sad for me as it is for you.

I’ve prepared a goodbye party for tonight. A game competition will be included as well, so please feel free to participate.

The difficulty is small, but not to be trifled with.
As this will be the last opportunity, why not take part yourself?

Written in 1928 by S. S. Van Dine, the article “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories” is a fascinating collection of 20 writing regulations that could, in theory, elevate a given investigation tale to its best possible iteration. Described by close friend and timeless author T. S. Eliot, as to one day having a nervous breakdown and spending the following 2 years in bed reading more than two thousand detective stories, the poet argues that during that time, Van Dine methodically distilled the genre’s formulas and began writing novels, to which he considered them to be masterpieces.

Out of his absurdly strict rulings, some may argue that most of them can in fact improve the narrative such as (10) stating that the culprit must play a role in the story and (15) stating that the truth of the problem must at all times be apparent, giving so a chance to the reader to decipher the story alongside the detective and not having to rely on hunches from time to time. The reception for his failed jurisdiction on the detective genre became a moderate success from the makers of such stories but not so much by the fans. It rejected possible clichés such as (11) servants not being able to be the culprits, and narratives that were not explored around enough at time such as (12) multiple culprits. People like clichés what can you do...

Over time however, reception of it started to get even worse, not only because of what was mentioned before, but in no small part due to the release in the following year of a much more CHAD reasonable article dissecting the mystery genre and its inner workings, called Knox's Decalogue, written by Ronald Knox. In one of literature's biggest middle finger ever, his 10 points were almost 1 to 1 with half of the Twenty Rules, prioritized giving the viewer a fair challenge of a tale, but this time allowing cliché tropes and creative liberties about its possible cast. Imagine Van Dine’s reaction seeing that become overwhelmingly more praised from writers and viewers alike. Take this big fucking L, nerd.

And while we get gaslit into thinking that the viewers rights to “fight back” in the intellectual game wasnt started by Dine, he will probably keep seething in his grave over the fact that some rules are obviously made to be broken at times, simply for fun. Even looking at the books in "golden age", some break fundamental rules that are praised nonetheless for it's creativity, as sometimes you can fix this unfairness in the game by using foreshadowing effectively (hats off to Disco Elysium). I am here solely to add to his perpetual torment in the history books arguing that his ruling number 3 in particular, is fundamentally why people like me and other highly sexy and intellectual individuals preffer the CHAD reasonable Knox's Decalogue more.

COMMANDMENT 3:
THERE MUST BE NO LOVE INTEREST. THE BUSINESS IN HAND IS TO BRING A CRIMINAL TO THE BAR OF JUSTICE, NOT TO BRING A LOVELORN COUPLE TO THE HYMENEAL ALTAR

It’s easy to just stop here and think about how many great mysteries would have not existed or be less impactful had every writer followed up on that, but we have to remember that this comes from someone living in what was soon perceived as the “golden years” for said genre. While you could argue that love could bypass any resemblance of a logical reasoning to which it would be the ends but not the why’s (aka when love devolves into lunacy with the killer incessantly screaming “I loved her” while being taken away) these are far and few between to be argued on Van Dine’s favor. Human affection can and will lead to insanity, but if the ultimate end goal is also one, was it really love?

The important element about love as a reason that has failed to be comprehended here, is that it can take many forms that I simply wouldn’t have time to begin describing here, as with just the change of a simple word in “love for others” becoming “love of others” you can turn tragedy into fortune. While the advent of romantic love that is heavily implied here does mean that the amount of plausible given possibilities are diminished, lesser infinities are still endless.

Now I’m sorry, but will there EVER be a better motive to kill, murder and slaughter someone, than the reason that brings up the loss of reason itself?

I will go further. There CANNOT be a single plausible reason for a murder in a tale that values the life of its characters and doesn't treat them as pieces waiting to fall off the board, other than actions relating to the innate fondness of others that we so desperately need. A given character in a tale that has their own romantic life all figured out should never be the killer nor suspect, as the most impactful and sincere motivation, from the bottom of their hearts, cannot be present.

Van Dine’s precepts make it very clear that (17) crimes by house-breakers and bandits are the province of the police department, not of authors and brilliant amateur detectives. If you fail to treat your victims and killers with the same amount of respect for an action that isn’t guided by an illogical leap-of-faith that seeks adoration of some sort, was it really a murderer or an overly intricate common burglar?

Love is the reason we sin.

Love is the reason we go further.

Love is the reason we are humans.

And to put it extremely bluntly.

Love just makes us do some stupid ass shit.

“ Love is generous, love is merciful.
Love does not envy, it does not boast. “ - Zepar & Furfur

" At times, love can make the invisible visible. " - Featherine

“ The love we give away is the only love we keep. “ - Ushiromiya Ange

“ To fear love is to fear life, and vice-versa.
One must never embrace death as long as love persists. “ - Ronove

“ Without love, it cannot be seen. “ - Beatrice

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Welp, I’ve used all my pretentiousness for now.

I know someone really special will be reading this soon so I’ll be brief now.

Merry Christmas Audrey.

I love you so much.

Do you want to be my girlfriend?

Maybe not a perfect 5/5 but given, you know, EVERYTHING that's going on here both technically and structurally (whether for it's time or not) it just feels wrong not to give it that. This is like everything I could ask for in a narrative video game. Further proof that nothing matches the original PlayStation's aesthetics. I always kind of push survival horror to the side despite the fact I'm always playing near perfect games from that genre. Haven't played something that's crawled under my skin this well in a long while, if ever. Hope to get the good ending (the one time I don't fully explore an area in this game upon immediately entering it and it SCREWS me) and try out those sequels (legally, but also I'm not paying like $100+ each for them) someday in the future.

hoping in the coming year to educate myself more in adventure games!! i dont quite have the internal or external vocabulary to talk indepth about them yet i dont think but this is certainly one of the most enjoyable ive yet experienced. my understanding is that if theres any Skill that one can Hone to get better adventure games, its not just logical thinking or even lateral thinking, but to slowly form an intuitive sensitivity to the genre's rhythms, taking clues from convention and tone and other precedents to comprehend the moon logic a particular title is likely to invoke. im definitely not far enough in that yet to make it through them consistently without assistance (this one was generally approachable to me but i didnt feel any guilt using a guide when my stubbornness run out), but theres a reason why Context and Vibes are so important to these games. and this ones definitely got something vivid in its fun and cartoony world of kitsch and color , with a seedy underbelly of apathy and lowkey sadism...i hope nobody was on that bus!