pure fucking insanity. what the fuck is this game. it's incredible. i hate it. probably one of the most stylish, absurd, surreal, nightmarish things i've ever played. one of a kind doesn't even cut it. i love it not just for its story which initially seems nigh-on incoherent but once you delve into it you see just how geniusly it is constructed with thought-provoking looks at politics and the collective unconscious. not that you'd really get that without watching some videos but hey. i love each member of the killer7 and switching between them on the fly. and the ending is one of the most soul-emptying i can think of. there's just so many cool ideas per second in this game, always some new location to admire the awesome graphical style in, always some unexpected comedy, always some horrifying moments. distinctive control scheme, fun shooting mechanics, and head-spinning narrative aside, there's also the odd level design snafu that makes for some absolutely teeth-grinding moments. also, if it's not obvious by now, it's a pretty obtuse game. not just story-wise with how much it crams in there but the first level will be extremely confusing for first-timers which is not always a good thing. once you're on board and you've stuck with it enough the style really grows on you. apart from those little niggles this is pretty much a flawless aesthetic experience and a triumph of insanity and style. i believe suda51 calls this his best, and it's not hard to see why.

Bro i do NOT remember this shit coming out the same year as the first game, i thought it was like at least the next year god DAMN.

Like the name implies, Wii We ski and snowboard is really more of an expansion of the first game instead of a true sequel. Not only is there the titular snowboarding that is included alongside the preexisting skiing, but the character creator has a bit more sauce to it, and they expanded the game to have TWO maps instead of the singular resort in We ski. There's both a brand new ski resort seperate from the first games resort, as well as a harsh mountain in the wilderness, untouched by the domestication of being ski-resortified. The new mountain map really felt like they took the bonus secret run from the first game and made a whole map out of it, which is hella cool. Since skiing both on real mountains and virtually was quite a family pasttime as a kid, this game and its predecessor def share a very "oh fuck yeah" place in my heart.

The ski resort map still plays namco game music through the in-game loudspeakers, they've made peak once again

Ah, another game from my childhood that i forgot ive done everything in! My family went on a lot of ski trips, and while I definitely liked the vibes of going down snowy mountain courses, I certainly wasn't a fan of the actual activity of skiing very much (especially when all my brother and dad wanted to do was go on the fucking-kill-you black diamond courses, those are NOT vibes)

Wii WE ski is a game that seeks to provide the vibe of going on a fun ski trip without any of the actual annoyances of actually skiing, and honestly, the vibe works. There's really no overarching objective outside of various little side missions and unlockables and whatnot, just explore the resort and go down the different ski runs. It's a good time for folks that have a lot of free time to just explore the resort freely and just vibe, and that's definitely the kind of game kid me was hella into. There are even fun little secrets, like the ultra-perilous secret course that can only be accessed by going off the beaten path into the unknown mountainy wilderness. (Which is a lot more fun than actual perilous ski runs since who cares it you die in the virtual world!) It's certainly a good time! Though I guess it's absolutely surpassed by its sequels at this point.

Oh and the ski resort plays music from various namco games like katamari and ridge racer diagetically through the resort speakers, real ski resorts take note

𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘯?

I’ve taken a considerable amount of time between my experiences with each of the main Silent Hill games. I played the first entry around six-seven years ago when I was still in a mutually toxic relationship and found it excellent yet downright baffling. Containing industrial and metallic horrors beyond immediate comprehension and freaky cults and oddly touching ‘chosen family’ dynamics, it pushed the limits for what I believed a PS1 title could achieve through sheer atmosphere and symbolic prowess alone. After nabbing a decently priced copy of the second game a year post my separation from said relationship (and in the wake of the pandemic), I found myself shattered by its oppressive deconstruction of a guilty conscience and the interconnective nature of trauma- both shared and isolated. How pain binds fractured souls together, and winds them up into botched and abstracted spaces of American normality to fend for themselves on a primal level. It took everything the first entry accomplished and confidently treks into bold territories that challenged the player’s allegiance to their supposed protagonist as well as call attention to their adjacent relationships to side characters- who upon the surface don’t directly contribute much to James’ arc but rather gracefully ebb and flow with the intention of supplementing the themes of the story. These first two games were exhausting to push through, almost sadist in quality and punishing in developer motivation with how they marry deeply complicated and expressionistic narratives with deliberately stunted and claustrophobic gameplay. They are, to me, a primordial testament to what the medium can achieve as singular works of art (as well as propelling the interactive possibilities of horror).

Anyways, Backloggd word salad aside, it has been nearly four years and I have finally gotten to the trilogy capper. I have since healed from my own personal traumas from the relationship that haunted my experiences with the previous two games (but still write the inflated wordy nonsense on here for the four people that actually read my reviews). That word, “healed”, succinctly captures what it felt like to play through Silent Hill III. It is an encompassing coming of age narrative about origin and birthright and interrogates the identity that we are born with versus the one we ultimately choose for ourselves. The game also wraps itself back into the thematic backbone of the first game in a clever way, weaving in ideas of evangelic persecution that removes women’s agency from their bodies and intertwining that with emotional struggles of familial belonging. Team Silent fills the game with the adequate amount of angst, grief, and sass that any teenage girl confronts as they are exposed to the chronic realities of impending adulthood. And yes, it is also very scary; utilizing some fairly cursed sound work and utterly hideous (and frequently phallic) creature designs in addition to incorporating another deliciously brooding soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka. Everything in this game carries the instinct to exercise hostility and discomfort towards Heather. Who didn’t feel that way about the world as an insecure adolescent? At the very least the sense that nothing is quite “okay” permeates much of the game’s wildly structured first half leading up to the story’s venture to the titular town in the second. The player navigates through malls, subway stations, construction sites, office buildings, and apartment complexes with the overall goal of getting home and then from there we are thrust into the familiar spaces we’ve walked before as other characters.

Despite its messy development, this is as much an effectively bittersweet culmination of the franchise’s mythology as it a deliriously unique exploration of its own themes. While I wasn’t as taken with the characterizations here as I was with the previous entry (Douglas didn’t do much for me, sorry), that remains somewhat the only sour note to an otherwise masterful game that I imagine will smooth over with time. Just writing this I look back on my nights playing this fondly and already with slight tinges of nostalgia. Every dream-like moment is so committed to utmost immersion for the player, inducing unease within the most mundane of everyday locations- at least before they are transformed into otherworldly distortions of malice incarnate. This dynamic allows for pulpy levity that toggles self-reflexive tone shifting; registering discordant humor, occasional dramatic poignancy, but mostly unhinged beats of urban surrealism. The game’s iconic visual and thematic aesthetic teamed with Heather’s infectious presence providing a much-needed cushion for the player to fall back on for reprieve against the most ungodly of manifestations, this is truly as well-rounded as horror games can be. Now if someone out there wants to lend me Silent Hill IV..