Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom! is a well-oiled machine.

If I were to whittle down YTGV to a catch-all sentence, I’d call the game “Mario 64 Meets Crazy Taxi”. You explore open sandbox style worlds full of gears to collect, and in certain levels, you’re set to a timer and need to carry locals to their destination.

As the player of a 3D platformer, you're always placed in the driver position of your character. How you operate this vehicle is dictated by the toolkit the developers hand you. Typically, the most common place tool would be your jump.

Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom! does not have a dedicated jump button.

Of course, there is a way to jump. Like any car, the optimal way to gain height is to cancel your spin out and flip your vehicle over and into the air. This spin move normally allows you to dash forward, which helps with verticality when you're on an incline. You can cancel twice before a cooldown timer takes its effect, but if you land on a surface, you'll regain that charge.

You’d think that’d be all your tools but put a stop on your brakes: there’s more than meets the eye here.

Before you shoot up an incline, if you tap the A button at the right moment, you’ll soar even higher than before. Similar to Mario Odyssey’s diving onto Cappy tech, this move is a game changer for your traversal. Your tiny little taxi car mind as well become a full-blown plane with the amount air you gain.

You could casually drive through YTGV without this move, but the game calls for you to keep searching for more goodies to collect. Whether that collectible be the main gears, an assortment of cash, or the many silly hats, each have given me the drive to 100% complete this game. YTGV rewards veterans of 3D platformers with depth of skill to master, along with grit to tightly crafted end game levels.

There’s a specific tone cast upon YTGV. A vibe that reflects what I think was the mindset of the developers making this: silly, wacky, feel good, fun. You can tell the developers aren’t native English speakers, so dialogue often comes out in bizarre ways that’s comical within its own right. This also translates to the random insertion of memes and references throughout the game coming across as insane non-sequiturs. Normally this would be a problem for me, but the game is just so charming from just how much fun the developers are having that I can’t help myself from smiling too. Punchy synths reverberate out your car speakers, sunny beach side views with bright blue skies, the good times are here to stay with YTGV.

I think YTGV embodies what it means to be a video game. Fun, dumb, stupid, addicting, nonsense. I’m not sure I’d crown YTGV with the title of “Most Video Game Video Game To Ever Video Game”, as that title has hard competition, but it’s most certainly in the running.

"I believe our role as game creators is to give dreams to children all over the world." - Yuji Naka

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NiGHTS: Into Dreams is a marvel of a game. Originally developed with the intent of being a 2D game with pixel art graphics with a strong emphasis on Artificial Life sim (A-Life) gameplay, development shifted drastically towards the game we know today. The game was, for all intents and purposes, an experiment: can Sonic Team make a 3D game on the Sega Saturn? What are the limitations, if they could? How can they show the player 3D depth on a 2D screen? Can they create polygonal characters that look as appealing as 2D pixel characters?

The answer was a resounding yes. NiGHTS became a unique title that showcased the potential of the Sega Saturn, demolishing the sales and becoming the top selling game on the system. Sonic Team managed to create a new IP, play around with new ideas, and recharge their creative batteries from creating three or four Sonic game for the past four to five years.

But the reality of NiGHTS's release was that the game was not enough of a draw for the Saturn. The American consumer base desired more of the blue blur, and during consumer questioning with the Japanese side, kids infamously could only mutter "Sonic who?" when asked who Sonic was. Sonic was Sega's face, and Sega's face went missing.

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Between the cracks of the conscious and unconscious, there is a rift that trickles down to Nightopia. Windmills stand atop of pillars that hover aimlessly in the air, decorating the milky blue and purple skies like ornaments of a Christmas tree. Hills and valleys roll in a green mellow stream, spreading across every corner within the canvas of this dream. Sleep is a one way ticket to the carnival of dreams, performing all of humanity's unconscious thoughts and ideals in one place. NiGHTS is your guide, a being that's a culmination of every culture and gender, staving off the nightmares that infest the dreams of the collective unconscious, displaying as a hero amongst the self. Waking is your ticket back to reality, where you're left with your memories of that dream world, giving you the strength to reach out for your dreams in reality.

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Much like Sonic, NiGHTS is the king of fostering replayability. NiGHTS is essentially a prototype for the ranking system that would later be found in the Sonic Adventure series. Rank is based not how fast you proceed through a level, but more determined with the amount of points you received and orbs you collect throughout the allotted route. Each world is broken up by 4 routes, followed by a climatic boss fight to cap off your overall ranking. Mastering the game requires mastering a level's layout, learning the best way to acquire points and orbs, and optimizing your run to perfection. Your verbs are to loop, charge and fly to reach your goal, the motions in doing so feeling eloquent and refined like a figure skater's flow. This flow translates to gameplay and vice versa from one another.

The gameplay loop is addicting on an immediate level, and for me, has been more gratifying than playing and perfecting either SA1 or 2. The reason is simple: in Sonic, the qualifications to gain the best rank aren't actually clear with what the game is asking of you. Here in NiGHTS, it's 100% clear to me how I reach a better rank. The more points I wrack up, the better my rank.

For all of NiGHTS, there's a sense of clarity to the game design with how simplistic and creative it is. I'm not sure Sonic Team has ever quite reached such a level of clarity with their other projects.

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The world was passing me by so quickly. My surroundings were hard to really notice at a first glance, so I began to grow dissatisfied being unable to soak anything in. So, I did what I used to do when I was younger. I let myself get lost in the world.

The ground swerved and bent like an ocean's wave. These waves would envelop me from above and below me, closing me within this world like an open cavern. Walking felt weird, like at any given moment I'd start feeling heavy resistance from the sheer steepness of the terrain, but never did that heavy foot come. I wandered around, finding tiny creatures that would playfully smile, or laugh, or spin with glee.

The world felt still, in a way. Like this was the only moment that mattered. Thinking back on this, I felt like I once did when I was a kid. The world in front of me felt strange, new and a little scary. I didn't know what to expect from the game, and that within itself was such a refreshing experience.

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Despite the fact that NiGHTS started as an attempt to create an A-Life game, aspects are still found within the free range mode within NiGHTS. Before every level starts, you have the option to head directly towards NiGHTS, or to explore the entire level in full. Inhabiting these dreamscapes are tiny little creatures known as Pians, whom are born from eggs that you can find and hatch. These tiny little fairy men come in many shapes and sizes, and even come equipped with a full on breeding system. This system isn't as in-depth as the Chao system found within Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, but this mechanic adds a strange and needed element to the gameplay loop: a moment to relax.

Taking a break from the fast paced gameplay and simply exploring the world here creates a sense of exploration and discovery. There's details to this world that you're merely flying past in the main portion of the game, and being able to explore the same level from a completely different perspective is strangely freeing. Of course, the game doesn't want you to just running around collecting orbs for free, so they add in a slight pressure from an egg strapped with an alarm clock that chases you, along with a lower rank for the amount of time you've spent, so the game ends up being balanced with this approach. These open ended sections truly breathe life into the world of Nightopia.

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Ethereal synths move and sway from ear to ear, samples of children saying hello and every day noises floating in-between them. The sound of a sax screeching in mimicry of an a monster screeching as a bombastic drum 'n' bass and a groovin' bass line kick into full gear. As credits roll, you're treated to the sweetest songs ever conceived.

"In the night.
Dream delight.
I want to see you standing there.
In the night.
Dream delight.
I found someone who really cared."

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The Sega Saturn was considered a commercial failure. Sonic X-Treme was canceled, and there was no recovery from the lack of momentum. The Dreamcast was Sega's last shot to regain their market share and their consumer base. But too many mistakes were made. Sega closed down their console divisions for good.

Their dream was no more.

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As an adult, you don't really have the opportunity to meander. We hold off on leaving the living because there's too much to be done. Responsibilities need to be taken care of, work obligations need to be met. Life can come at you fast, and you can never be sure if the move you're making is the right move. What do I want to do? Who do I want to be? When will I wake up from my fear of rejection, my fear of agency? The idea can often paralyze me. There's more I could be doing, more I could be aspiring towards.

NiGHTS: Into Dreams reminds me that there isn't a need to overcomplicated. Sometimes all you need is to focus on something simple. Take a deep breath and wander. Take a break but get back to it.

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The quote at the beginning was given in an interview with Yuji Naka and developers of NiGHTS: Into Dream. You might cringe at the cheese spewing out of every orifice of the lettering as you read the text, but the words hold weight for me. Despite everything Yuji Naka has done in his career, despite how notoriously difficult he was to work with said by those around him, despite the potential cynical business centric reasoning for this quote, NiGHTS: Into Dreams still encapsulates the feeling of magic into me. The game filled me with a wonder I don't think many games ever have. Just for a moment, I felt like I was a kid again, exploring a new, unknown game for the first time, wondering what this strange new world had in store for me. There was nothing but smiles of joy on my face.

This is me by the way, if you even care.

Happy Halloween!

My hand fucking hurts.

Happy Halloween!

The second to last section left me sobbing in a voice call as I couldn't make a simple indian house.

Happy Halloween!

The cute cat is very cute, but why is there so much porn of it-

Happy Halloween!