It's hard for me to talk about this one because on the one hand I honestly don't personally vibe with this style of RPG (but that's not the game's fault and I feel like it does it fairly well) and also it made me feel weird and anxious and uncomfortable (which speaks to the quality of the game and its art direction but does mean that I did not Like It in the traditional sense). BUT. ALSO. It looks so fucking cool, the claymation thing kicks ass, it's like 3 hours long which is great, Somsnosa please call me. I love the existence of any art that can make me feel weird and nauseous and annoyed even if I don't Like It. Can't wait to play the second one and want to die the whole time.

I can understand why people like this game a lot because there's a lot of room to play it however you want to with different builds and the level design is quite satisfying in that regard BUT I had fun playing this game like it was Neon White, which means I probably shouldn't have bought a stealth game (but it was on sale for a dollar!).

Since this was my first playthrough it also made me feel a bit like I was punished for playing the game like that given how the High Chaos ending feels sort of like a 'bad end' with all the characters punishing you or acting more callous towards you. Idk, I'm an assassin, sorry for killing everyone. The narrative isn't anything to write home about so I wasn't really attached to anyone beyond Corvo so I had no qualms just killing everyone, including Samuel, whom we are supposed to be attached to, or at least more attached to than I was. I ended up killing him so I was laughing over the shot in the ending montage of Corvo standing next to his grave instead of standing next to oh, idk, his dead sort-of-wife's grave.

My grievances aside I loved the world building and the lore of the game! It's really cool and incredibly unique. I'm a bit bummed the narrative of the game itself was as straightforward as it ended up being but I just know that fic writers are doing some crazy stuff and I actually feel compelled to go looking around for some of those stories because I think the world is just so interesting.

The game's morality is very 2010s, which isn't bad or good, it just reminds me of how people made games in this era, so again, I can really understand why it stood out to people so much at the time. I'm glad I played it especially since it was a dollar and was as short as it was, but I have no interest in playing it again for a Low Chaos run or checking out the DLCs unless I watch an LP.

Watching some people react to this game's pretty simple and inoffensive message of "when you're isolated and on the brink, a small connection from another human can help begin healing" with "it's illegal to tell stories about mental illness that don't end with the illness 100% cured but also if you do cure the illness that's cheap but suggesting that there's no moment where you're 'cured' you just grow and become better at dealing with it is ALSO evil. And suggesting that small things might help depression is evil and ableist and also suggesting that getting help is good is also evil and ableist. And also displaying mental illness as being debilitating is bad but also displaying it as being minor amounts to shooting mentally ill people in the head. And also it's misogynistic to suggest mentally ill people, some of whom are women, can be helped or even saved by human connection" makes me SO excited for how today's media landscape is going to absorb, flatten and wreck the themes of games that actually HAVE deeply nuanced, complicated things to say about mental illnesses and healing from them.

Like, say, Silent Hill 2.

ANYWAY! I thought it was fine, great in some parts and weak in others. It's VERY on the nose about its theme — but people are still missing it, so whatcha gonna do. The reaction from people with 0 media literacy is frankly more interesting to me than the game itself. STILL, I enjoyed it well enough and I think a lot of the disdain it's getting has more to do with the way that modern Silent Hill fans have decided that anything new is inherently bad and cheap and will never live up to some imagined past of perfection than the actual game itself, which is, at WORST, mid and anvilicious.

It's one of my favourite point and click horror games ever, but it does unfortunately come from the "game difficulty is the game forcing you to desperately click on every single pixel to solve puzzles" school of development, which was common for the time the but feels super punishing and irritating now.

It shows its age in other ways, too; Ellen is one of my favourite game characters ever and a lot of her writing is really lovely. I adore how she's allowed to be extremely strong and self-assured and also terrified and wilting. But she's definitely written as something of a "sassy Black woman" stereotype, and while I do genuinely appreciate how the game portrays how PTSD can create triggers that appear "nonsensical," the way the game handles her trauma can come sometimes come across as under-researched at best.

Obviously I'm giving it four stars, so I still think it kicks ass. This is my second time beating this game (and I've watched others beat it lots of times) and I continue to enjoy it a lot; the story kicks ass and is delightfully dark and horrific, I love how it expands the characterization everyone gets from the short story, Harlan Ellison is clearly having the time of his fucking life as AM. Its commentary on human nature is timeless. Just use a walkthrough (and, if you know you've got trauma that games can bring to the surface, consult a list of triggers) and keep in mind the game's age.

Coming off of the arcade version of Frogger, which is a characterization masterpiece and paragon of gameplay, this version of Frogger is impossibly catastrophic. Frogger makes a leap (lol) from being our likable blank slate protagonist who we just want to see get to the other side of the road safely into a deeply unlikable and disappointing excuze for a frog. What’s with the bone sound effect?

Graphically the game is ugly. Plain and simple. Voice acting is mid but what else do you expect from Frogger.

The game’s antifeminist rhetoric is deeply entrenched in the naming of Lily, which eagle-eyed Frogger fans will recognize from the HIT TITLE, Swampy’s Revenge. Naming all girls Lily and therefore reducing them to one singular entity, especially when that name is congruous with a frog’s home, the lilypad, is misogynist.

If this hasn’t convinced you, they stole Silent Hill 2’s Promise. Lily’s not your Mary.

But Slick Willy can get it tho

1/2 star