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Super Mario Odyssey
Super Mario Odyssey
Tony Hawk's Underground
Tony Hawk's Underground
Titanfall 2
Titanfall 2
Night in the Woods
Night in the Woods
Wattam
Wattam

315

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Games Backloggd


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Picross 3D
Picross 3D

Mar 11

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga

Mar 11

Super Mario 3D Land
Super Mario 3D Land

Feb 24

Celeste 64: Fragments of the Mountain
Celeste 64: Fragments of the Mountain

Jan 29

Max Payne 3
Max Payne 3

Jan 22

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Effective in so much its core sensory experience rather than as a narrative on grief. The latter aspect being considered critical (as brought up in the game’s marketing and positive/negative reactions to the actual game) is strange because I do not think it registers in any method where it significantly impairs or uplifts the experience. Rather, it is something that is occasionally gestured to but never capitalized on, making it feel as if it were added last-minute to the narrative. The five stages of grief structure to the narrative, for example is not something deeply woven into each level, but only existing as a peripheral analogy alluded to with color and broken buildings. I also find it somewhat questionable to find agreement in the developers’ idea of the main character’s inability to jump or walk cleanly at the intro as a “shocking” experience that is deeply resonating in regard to depicting the character’s mental health.

I do not write this to ultimately claim that the game was not built on the theme of mourning in the first place (especially considering the sincerity found here overall). Rather, it calls into attention how much media language surrounding mental health remains limited and often vague without a deeper understanding of how to truly elaborate on individual struggles. I think trying to incorporate universality and linearity in depicting mental health in games such as this, as much as it is a noble intention in attempting to find resonance with as many players as possible, ultimately kills any potential for creating a powerful artistic product. Grief and depression as abstract ever-shifting black creatures that are “defeated” (see Sea of Solitude as another example of this) is a kind of idea attached to the broader structure of gaming: conquer the levels, defeat the boss and save the day. Even as developers attempt to not explicitly depict depression as something that is “cured” in material like this (and I believe they are sincerely attempting to make sure this does not occur), the structure of something like Gris prevents looking at mourning from a more holistic (or life-long) context and instead only does so as an immediate crisis resolved linearly. Perhaps this is something that does apply to some people who have gone through this, and it’s good if something like this relates to them. However, the limits of this structure remain clear to those whose issues cannot be treated in a manner as Gris does.

It’s especially clear seeing how limited Gris’s language is in regard to mental health in comparison to its competence as a platformer. As much as there are mechanical limits to what can be made under a structure which does not desire for frustration on behalf of the player, the limitations also feel matching to the aforementioned sensory experience. What is enriching to Gris is not so much the intended thematic ideas but rather the underlying flow of being subsumed into the watercolor environments. This flow, though, almost never really matches the game’s themes outside of key moments related to the “creature” of depression; to a degree, the lack of tension is what perhaps hollows out any intended thematic depth. The dissonance showcases the ultimate challenge of attempting to integrate aspects of mental health into gaming, a kind of challenge that I ultimately don’t have any answers to other than to consider paths besides universality.

A core test of visual processing and withstanding information overload that is built not only into Tempest's core framework of tube shooting, but also into its proto-Y2K aesthetic. The aesthetic on its own is an inconvenience for a game such as Tempest; unlike Tetris Effect, which also adds an aesthetic aiming for spectacle, the proto-Y2K aesthetic here does not act as a visual layer underlying the core model to induce a "trance" state, but is instead more explicit and overwhelms the player's visual line with a slurry of neon explosions and score announcement pop-ups. Tempest's original arcade version also dealt with information overload, but was made somewhat manageable by default given the simplistic wireframe textures and lack of non-diagetic visual elements that may have been displayed with the player's achievements. Here, visual overload cannot be avoided and can only be combatted in the moment by the matter of the player's gradually improving visual discrimination. Although the spectacle here perhaps betrays the appeal of the original Tempest's minimalism, it also creates a continual duel between the impulse to give in to spectacle and the need to ignore such "distractions" in order to identify and eliminate targets. Aesthetic, here, acts as the lure and the weapon against the player.

Competent in establishing a ghostly east coast Americana (as one would hope), but falls apart when attempting to zoom in on any stronger narrative strand. Bethesda comes off as apathetic towards truly establishing a macroscale narrative to grasp on to in regard to empowering the self-insert protagonist's autonomy and motivation to reshape the Capitol Wasteland. Heritability looms over the main story with much of what drives the player's exploration being hints towards answers as to the nature of your existence--where you were actually born, how much you truly are in the shadow of another, why you were kept miles away from the truth, etc.--but you never walk away as a character that grew up with a father who cared for you over decades, with James's dialogue being largely restricted to small passages over his technological goals for the Capitol Wasteland and grief for a love whose face is left a mystery (at least up until New Vegas).

So much of the main story being apathetically built on heritability is perhaps what dooms it: the past, where James heavily looms over as a parental figure motivating much of your decision-making, is collapsed into three sections built solely of character creation and tutorials to their name while being broken up by title cards as the only gesture towards a longer temporal span with little of who you were or are now to be gleaned from these elliptical interludes. Meanwhile, the future denies your narrative footprints to be truly weightful enough in comparison to your father's shadow that you continue to live under. The ending cards more clearly outline the flaws of the "future" here: those who walk the Capitol Wasteland cannot express their future in their own words, and their faces can only be deployed as the stinger to the list of good deeds or sins, respectively, honoring or tainting your family tree that the narrator speaks from. You don't truly "influence" the Wasteland; your legacy is built off of how much you truly respected the forces who helped bring you into the Wasteland.

Much more can be said about the heavily flawed DLC, especially when weighed in comparison to New Vegas. Operation Anchorage displays Bethesda's worst instincts in comedy with none of post-apocalyptic America to act as the contrast to jingoistic military propaganda, while Mothership Zeta only desires to make a mockery out of sci-fi with little punchlines to draw from outside of alien gibberish. The Pitt and Point Lookout fare better in emphasizing the Capitol's relative optimism in comparison to what's outside of its boundaries for those unluckier, but finding anything to establish the political structures that led to the outcomes within these add-on cities is a stretch (the latter being somewhat more successful here). Broken Steel is a half-written apology for those disappointed by the base game preventing them from seeing their footprints in their brought upon Wasteland, with its goal only serving to act as a rushed drive towards final domination via energy weaponry. None of what's found here, even in the best case of Point Lookout, can match up to New Vegas's engaging explorations of the wider west coast, whether in Dead Money with its paranormal holograms haunting the skeletons of the Sierra Madre or in Honest Hearts drawing the persistent threat of colonization into a post-apocalyptic America.

I can't fully bring myself to work against what exists here. Fallout, as a concept, rarely fails to allure the player into exploring the gestures towards another America that lived full lives in your footsteps before disappearing in a flash, whether in the emptied out diners or dormant Metro robots waiting to be awoken from their mechanical slumber again. However, it would be hard to deny the disappointment brought upon by Bethesda's narrative failures, with Obsidian's future work in the series existing at the edges as the force that only truly realizes what could compose a 3D Fallout. Before that, though, is work left unfinished and only a sandbox for you to click on heads in V.A.T.S with.