hell yeah.



or, alternatively:

i've always had an admiration for kusoge. when i was 12 and i played spelunker, something unearthed in me. a realization that, games don't need to have smooth controls to be fun. games don't even need to be fun to be fun. games don't even need to be good to be good.
i don't remember if i was 12 or 13 when i decided that, somehow, hong kong '97 was my favorite game of all time. i had not played it at that point but all of its parts combined formed a very compelling case for it in my head. the mind-numblingly repetitive song, the backgrounds, the politics. it was a bad game that didn't take itself seriously but at the same time did with its political theme that was by no means Metal Gear Solid levels of complex but even so, somewhat noble for the time.

the idea gets across very easily. capitalism vs. socialism. coca cola vs. deng xiaoping and, you, supposedly jackie chan but with a sprite that resembles much more a normal chinese citizen, vs. an army of "ugly fuckin' reds", who much more resemble normal chinese businessmen.

the game leaves a lot up to your interpretation due to its lack of context. just because a point isn't directly told to you, doesn't mean it isn't there, and just because the creators didn't think of it, doesn't mean it can't be real.

the song that plays repeatedly, I Love Beijing Tianamen is the most obvious political jab here. it literally sounds like endoctrination, and it might as well be somewhere. i like the song though! i don't mind its endless repetiton as someone who defends and enjoys reptition in music fiercely. it has a vibe.

gameplay-wise, the only difficult thing is honestly getting insta-killed and booted back to the title screen, which can be easily routed around with save states. but no one really cares about the gameplay in HK97 because sure, that's what makes it a kusoge, but that's not what it makes it HK97.

HK97 is as much of an art game as it is a shitty game. and, maybe there are art games that try to be deep and fail miserably, but the funny thing is that HK97 doesn't really try to be deep but ends up being somehow. and sure, kusoge are a form of art in and of themselves, but this is different. it's not "the art of kusoge", it's "the art kusoge".

have been playing this for about a week and it's pretty fun. some of the maps are a bit bullshit, they expect you to push different directions on the circle pad rapidly, which would be easier if it were done with the d-pad.
song selection is great but a bit lackluster, i have my favorites and i wish ffx's prelude and besaid theme were here as well as ffvi's kefka's theme. ffvii and ix selections aren't that great either but i can say iii, iv, xiii and viii are really really good. i also wish they'd put songs from "4 heroes of light" here because that soundtrack totally owns.
audio quality is actually great with the songs themselves however some of the sound effects and victory jingle sound like ass. the 8-bit tracks have a little bit of reverb, probably to keep them from hurting our ears, and that's great. it's something i would do myself in a game like this.

overall, i just wish this game had more music.

myhouse is more of a tourist town than a videogame. it's an art exposition showing first hand internet trends, doom modding, and universally shared childhood experiences from the generation it wants to capture.

more than house of leaves, creepypastas or doom maps of people's own houses, the biggest inspiration to myhouse is actually liminal spaces. some of the areas are direct recreations of iconic sets such as poolroms, backrooms and abandoned daycare facilities. when the topic started exploding in 2020, it wasn't just another horror trend, but a phenomenon and a piece of discussion between older people (i.e. not children). most of us who saw the pictures felt uneasy, but not scared. we felt nostalgic. the word anemoia was commonly tossed around and defined. this is a feeling i'm all too common with but it was the first time i saw more people feeling. and more, it was felt in mass.

myhouse has the upper hand over other "liminal space games" because its narrative is greatly enhanced by it. most of these areas are so simple and mundane that they can resonate with absolutely everyone that was alive during that era. the daycare has a bootleg painting of Shrek on its wall, the airport has that 90s style of carpet and even the gas station/road at night seem to take inspiration from a classic doom map called "doom city". these uneventfully universal scenarios, when put inside the doom engine, with these textures, and that blade runner esque song, become a legend of its own. iconic set pieces that can trick your mind into remembering things that didn't happen or condensing a myriad of recollections into just one area in a videogame.

my favorite of these areas is the airport. it makes me think of Toy Story. it also makes me think of the carpet at my town's mall's arcade. it also reminds me of childhood trips to Rio. the pattern on the bus's carpet and chairs. a middle-of-the-road McDonald's. another bus. another mall. another McDonald's. another memory. another place. places i have never been to. memories i have never had. things i have never lived. all at once.

the storytelling in myhouse is not just to the service of one guy's house catching fire and their fear of a dog. things such as the Shrek mini-boss (which could be interpreted as a joke, but also as a manifestation of 2000s pop culture) and the console in the living room that goes from a PSX to an XBOX tell a story about not one single individual but us as an entire generation. the house changes because we change, we change because of the passage of time, and the passage of time is unbearably, terrifyingly painful. the horror of myhouse is not demons and atmosphere. is the reality of existing. growing up, transforming.

however, the driving factor of myhouse is its architecture. the enemies might as well not even have been there, because the main point of the game is not to kill, not to get to the end, but to experience these places, either for the first time or again. you can watch as many playthroughs as you want but it will not be the same as actually opening the game and walking around for yourself, staring at the skybox and taking the time to absorb the vibe. and the vibe is absolutely there, cogent as fuck. you're left to wander that space alone and as the game changes you change too, thinking about everything, absorbing your own fear and projecting your own memories onto these familiar sceneries.

this game is monumental in the most unassuming way possible, while at the same time being a complete rehash of a bunch of stuff we've seen countless times before. as i said previously, however, its rehashing is its strength, and that's pretty cool.

cosmic smash sets the tone.

sonic adventure was a system seller, a response to nintendo's own 3D platformer which was sm64. however, games like Rez, L.O.L., Roommania and most importantly Cosmic Smash were political statements. it was a response not to one game but to the industry as a whole. that was sega saying "we are not afraid to experiment, and look at what that sentiment birthed".

sega gave their geniuses the platform and opportunity to shine. without worrying about money and profit, they allowed for odd and questionable ideas to become fully fletched experiences and the result was one of the best libraries of any videogame console ever. more importantly to this review is that this push of unadulterared >art< resulted in a strong and firm sense of style.

when people think of Y2K aesthetics, they're thinking of the dreamcast. they're thinking of Space Channel 5. they're thinking of Tomoko Sasaki's Serani Poji. they're thinking of Rez. but moreover, they're thinking exactly of Cosmic Smash.

a game that would give the guy who created VIDEOBALL a field day, a simple and finite one-player digital sport that gives the player set challenges that they can choose to overcome with whatever moviments they like. there's a time limit, but you don't need to worry about that when you already know how to control your character. it's ok, you'll make it. the challenges get trickier, but you get stronger, you create muscle memory and your own strategies to each stage. eventually you get a game over -- or you win, who knows -- and then, you think, "i'm gonna do it again".

all of that, of course, coated under the most clear cut and transparent display of what people would later call "Y2K aesthetics". so much in fact that it seems weird to think of cosmic smash as a part of the era and not the trend setter itself. the music, the textures, the lines, the minimalism, even the game design itself, all reek of the turn of the century. it's a more contained and quiet version of what Rez was doing, so it ends up being less eye catching but still beautiful. its minimalism also contrasts Rez's intricate design and artistic execution, being the exact opposite extreme, so it's sort of the anti-rez.

cosmic smash is an era defining statement, a tone-setter that feels like the cherry on top of the dreamcast library. anyone could play this, and everyone should.

a lesser person would say "i'm speechless" when reviewing this. i am not speechless. i got the speech.

this is, somehow, really fucking cool. i love experimental and surreal shit, and this is obviously not exactly a "game" but more of an experience. you watch this weird ass footage while INCREDIBLE music plays -- no shit, this is going on my list of the best soundtracks of all time.

i played this purely out of curiosity. i watched a bit of a gameplay on youtube but i wanted to know how it actually controls, like what do you do while watching. basically nothing. but i still think it's something cool. and i must note, if these weren't images of a near naked woman, i would still love it, hell, i'd probably love it more. if it were bad early 2000s surreal cgi, it would be amazing. this is going on my list of "dream games".

i'll probably not watch this all the way through because i honestly don't care but i'm really impressed lol.

a translation of yume nikki (and LSDDE to some extent) into the game language of Super Mario 64.
yume nikki uses effects to guide and encourage the player to explore and find new areas, while B3313 in theory uses the stars, but in practice, everyone just wants to jump around and see weird shit.
the stars are usually very boring and easy or not intuitive at all, but i can't really see a version of the game in which they don't exist so i can't really complain.
the areas themselves are perfectly uncanny, resembling the real game so much that the changes feel uncomfortable at times. the biggest highlights to me are the different versions of peach's castle (aka the main hub), like the "demo" version, that looks amazing.
i'll also praise the soundtrack, the original songs are amazing and Dry Town is very beautiful and foreboding.

overall, it's a neat little thing but for it to reach its full potential there needs some work.

note: i have only played 0.7, not 1.0, but i'll watch the vinesauce vid for that -_-