This game is utterly terrifying.

It's actually one of the very first games I have any memory of playing. Loved the movie and show as a child and my local library always had this disc to borrow.

To say this game is low budget is an understatement. Even for 2001, this had to have been one of the cheapest games made that year. There are basically zero animations, all of the audio is compressed and low quality. There is barely any music, and what ones are here, loop every 10 seconds. There is basically no combat, and the game uses tank controls like RE4. Having to turn your entire body just to move in a direction.

So what makes this game scary? Well for one the lack of animations create an uncanny valley of discomfort. But in general the audio clips and music in the game is just super unsettling. Look up the music for Jimmy's house in this game. Does it sound like a cozy middle class home?

Area 51 is what really scared me at first. The track is this loud dub step type beat on a loop. It's totally barren and empty, aside from a patrolling car who takes you back to spawn if you get caught.

Then you get captured by the aliens. "INTRUDER ALERT" they yell in the background, their arms outstretched. And all you can do is run. You have no way to defend yourself apart from going invisible.

You feel really alone in this game. Unintentionally so because of the budget, but the maps are barren. No life, no energy. The towns are deserted. There are only NPC's when they need to be there for a mission.

But then you look in the background and can see the adults being warped up in the spaceship, just barely out of reach. There is something so unsettling going on here. You are so powerless and alone, and in the background you see people getting abducted. Coupled with the creepy music and uncomfortable cutscenes, this game becomes something more sinister than what it was aiming for.

I'm not really sure what to rank it, but one thing I liked is you can go to the amusement park and ride some rides. Also it was fun to fly around in the rocket ship. So it gets minor points.

But yeah, this game is creepy. I was scared of it for many many years as a kid.

Revision is a complicated undertaking.

There will always be 2 groups of people: Those that desire the purest, most faithful reinterpretation of the thing and those that desire a complete reimagining of whatever work is being revised. And as the creator of a remade work, which of these camps do you attempt to appeal to? Do you attempt to appeal to either at all?

For Capcom’s remake of Resident Evil 4, they did an excellent job of appealing to both sides and neither of them the same time. With every well implemented modernization or quality of life improvement, there is a compromise to the original game’s tone and direction. With every missed improvement that could’ve been made upon the original, there is something new and original and exciting. This towing of the line makes for an experience that feels uneven and inconsistent. Had this been a wholly original work, these inconsistencies wouldn’t exist but as a remake of a work that came to define the entire trajectory of its series, they loom like a colossal shadow over what is a very well made, likable experience. Oh, and the island segment is still way too long.

Where’s everyone going? Bingo?

DISCLAIMER: This review is not a review, it's a bumbling, messy rant I wrote at 2 AM. I apologize in advance for any grammar and spelling errors, as well as the occasional nonsensical sentence.

It has truly been some time since a game has so fully captured me to the degree that Little Big Planet has. There is something truly special about this game that is only shared with some of the best I’ve ever played, in fact, the last time a game was able to make me feel anything like this would have been my first playthrough of Super Mario Galaxy. I don’t Think I can ever truly, properly put it into words, but I'll certainly give it a try.

Before the actual review I’ll start by saying that I don’t have any nostalgia for this game, In fact, my first time ever playing would’ve been the day before writing this review. All of my opinions stem from very freshly playing through the game and experiencing everything it had to offer for myself.


This may be a fairly generic statement, but I think everyone can agree that today’s world has more than its fair share of misery. These past few months for me it's felt like on a global level there have been historical levels of suffering and wrongdoing happening all at once, and there is nothing I can do about it. When combined with the smaller stresses of simply living your life, it can be easy to accidentally start to live with a dark cloud over your head. This is not to say that I’m a miserable person or anything, It's just that I feel we sometimes forget how important it is to smile. I am of the opinion that we need more ways to spread positivity and happiness in the world, and that is exactly what Little Big Planet is. Little Big Planet completely counteracts everything negative I just mentioned on a personal level in nearly every way. It feels so purely created with the sole intention of bringing childlike joy and wonder to the faces of all who play it. From the animation to the music to the gameplay, everything feels so lovingly, passionately created to be the absolute best it can be. One of my favourite things about all forms of media, be it traditional books, comics, movies, tv, or games, is that they can give you such intense emotions that you would normally be unable to experience in ordinary life. Through Seething anger or incredible sadness, I’ve been affected by many of the things that I have watched, read, and played, but there is one thing even the best of movies and games are often not capable of, something that makes them truly stand out above the rest if they can accomplish it, and that's them being capable of transmitting pure, unfiltered joy to the same degree that they can other emotions. Throughout my whole playthrough, Little Big Planet had me grinning ear to ear. It's the first time in so long that I’ve been so completely invested in a game, that I’ve spent so much time in a game all at once, that I’ve been willing to give up doing anything else to actually find time to play, and since I’ve had my love for video games so overwhelmingly re-ignited like this. For all that alone, I will likely forever remember Little Big Planet and consider it one of the all time greats that I’ve played, But there is still so much more to discuss here.

Before even discussing the gameplay, there is so much to appreciate about Little Big Planet. Everything feels meticulously handcrafted, because it literally is. This game at its core is a level editor that all players have the ability to use, and the developers truly mastered everything about that level editor and managed to produce levels for the story mode that wouldn't feel out of place if they were found within a real, purely 2D triple A platformer. Within these levels there are representations of cultures from all over the world that are so obviously lovingly represented, and they have great humor to go along with them. This game genuinely made me laugh a few more times than I would have expected. The sackboy that you explore the Levels with is also an incredible addition to this game. Each sackboy exhibits so much personality and is so excellently animated. Something about their expressions just makes their emotions feel so real. The Developers really went above and beyond when it came to allowing players to fully express themselves without even speaking.

Speaking of player expression, the one part of this game that I’m really devastated I’ll never get to experience is the online. Exploring an infinite amount of community made levels with my friends and other people while being able to fully express myself and have fun at the same time seems like it would have been an absolute dream. I get hit by a little wave of sadness everytime see the crossed out online buttons on my screen, but even without them I had plenty to love about the game.

The campaign mode is spent helping numerous troubled characters throughout the earth in any way you can. Often just seeing how the developers had crafted characters and made them feel so alive through the crude level editor was enough to make me laugh, but it was also very charming. Every step of the way you are offered encouragement and witness so much creativity it's hard to not just constantly smile. Alongside just being fun to play through, these levels feel like they would be excellent inspiration for anyone who would have tried to truly dedicate themselves to the level creator as well.

In terms of actual gameplay, this is definitely the weakest part of the game, but still fun. It controls like a standard 2D platformer, with the sole issue being that sometimes sackboy feels a little bit slippery to control, putting you in the occasional situation that will feel a little unfair. Otherwise though the level design is so clever that the game never gets old. There are so many gameplay concepts and ideas featured within them I almost wish there were more levels so I could have seen them more fully explored. The game does get more difficult towards the end, but even with the slightly awkward controls I never felt it was too unfair, despite having to redo some levels a fair few times. What it really shows is that this game's potential for level design is more or less unlimited, something that would have made it all the more amazing when the servers were still up and running.

The music (partially composed by the guy who did spiderverse btw) was also a key factor to my enjoyment of this game. Almost every track is so uplifting and happy it felt like it was directly planting energy into my soul. Somehow these songs make me feel nostalgic despite having literally never heard them before yesterday. There are just so many different instruments and styles of music that all collide together in this game, making it one of my favourite gaming soundtracks of all time. Maybe I’m just weird but there were even 1 or 2 very oddly nice tracks that even made me tear up a bit.

In conclusion, Little Big Planet is just kind of a perfect video game to me. The combination of its endless creativity, interactive community, fun gameplay, and amazing music gives me the impression that it was lovingly created with the sole purpose of spreading Joy throughout the world, something we can always use more of. It's very rare that something is able to make me feel the childlike wonder I experienced while playing this game, and I'm so grateful I just randomly happened to check it out. Everything about it feels so human; you can clearly see the overwhelming passion behind the game poured into every nook and cranny within it, something I’ve only really been able to notice in a very small few of the best games I’ve played. In my opinion, more games should strive to be as joyous and as pleasant an experience as Little Big Planet. I definitely feel like this is a game everyone should try playing at least once in their lives, because if for some reason it strikes the same chord with you as it did with me, you’ll never regret it.

Silver Jiken will re-wire your brain. Not because of a plot that is expertly executed or gameplay that is particularly fun or engaging. Rather, it’s the complete absence of conventionality in any aspect of Silver Jiken’s gameplay, narrative, or mixed-media presentation that is so profoundly interesting. Grasshopper Manufacture are the game developer equivalent of a punk band and on this first release, as many punk bands strive to do, they push the envelope as far as they can within the confines of their budget and the genre they’re stabbing at. The result is magnificent. There is spiritual and creative purity within these lines of code.

Believe in the net. God is in the wires.

God of War: Ragnarok represents everything wrong with big budget, single player game releases. That being said, giving it anything less than the rating I’ve given feels disingenuous to me. This is by design. Ragnarok is a very competent title by every measurable metric- It’s graphics and overall visual presentation are top notch, the gameplay is fun and engaging, and there’s a story here that I imagine many will want to see through to its conclusion. But with a budget of around $200,000,000, how could it not have all of those things? Ragnarok is a game that feels more like a product than an artistic endeavor- a game that feels like it was created and endlessly focus-tested in a lab somewhere to be as digestible to the largest demographic of consumers as possible with it’s unrelenting safeness and sterility. Ragnarok could never fail because it is completely adverse to any sort of risk. And to that end, it has been abundantly successful, winning multiple awards and the praise of fans and critics worldwide. But it was in this pursuit of appealing to everyone that something important was lost. Ragnarok comes off as an all too lateral move from a series that had just boldly reinvented itself only a few years prior.