trailerwaif
didn’t replay obv but thinking lots about it!! grew up playing this on my psp and it was such a big comfort 2 me as a kid that I could never be impartial and unbiased BUT I did replay sections of this in like 2020/2021 and kind of got obsessed w it again. this is what my mind thinks of when it thinks of 3d platformer which is prob why im consistently disappointed by them lol. nothing plays or looks or even has the humor and level design of this rlly dumb game. unapologetically stupid and kind of “low art” in the same way viva la bam or other early 00s artifacts were, but also im very attracted to that aesthetic and era, i personally thought bmx looked very cool as a child. weirdly “punk” or in the very least as anticap and anticorp as a franchise game made for kids can be. reminds me a lot of rabbids go home in that regard, both take instantly recognizable and sought after places for kids like malls and theme parks and make weird funhouse freakshow versions of them. not especially deep in its portrayal of these structures but that’s not important to me bc imo it’s important children and teens grow up w at least a little bit of distrust of corporations and organizations meant to monopolize on their feelings + suburban middle class white boredom. the 00s were rlly strange but im happy to have grown up in them even if they were a politically damaging era as the art of the era that was meant for kids taught me to be distrustful of authority figures/groups. would def be interested in hearing of other scrimblo games that were weirdly edgy
1999
they chibi robo-fied robbit what the hell?? very cute though in that it’s mostly just about robbit helping out random v cute npcs rather than just finding the goal as in the other games. bit too much focus on precision platforming which I don’t rlly fuck w but I think that’s fine bc each level is so cute and truly beautiful in regards to layout + skyboxes,, amount of care poured into each one of these games is kind of insane and it’s a shame they never made one for the ps2 as it def wouldve been one of the best games on the console.
also yeah it sucks that this isn’t translated bc it does have way more dialogue and flavor text in comp to prev entries but also it’s a platformer lol just play it and stop letting language barriers keep u from experiencing cool works of art idk I like a bunch of russian emo that ive found but idfk what they’re saying lol u can still infer a lot of emotion and intent without knowing the language !!!
also yeah it sucks that this isn’t translated bc it does have way more dialogue and flavor text in comp to prev entries but also it’s a platformer lol just play it and stop letting language barriers keep u from experiencing cool works of art idk I like a bunch of russian emo that ive found but idfk what they’re saying lol u can still infer a lot of emotion and intent without knowing the language !!!
2001
-this is just what its like to be a tall girl dating a shorter boy 😭😭
-like a lot of work made by non-americans ppl stateside seem to ascribe meaning and interconnectedness to works of art made by foreign artists. team silent or kojipro or remedy or team ico, a lot of these games are deliberately sparse and minimalist and almost eschew the stereotypical trappings of what it means to be a game and a narrative, or like at least an american game. not everything in the first four sh games are connected to each other, if u bend things and squint ur eyes maybe u can make connections but it doesn’t mean they’re deliberate + purposeful and even if they are it doesn’t mean they matter anymore than a wink and a nod to those that came before them. it is a very weird and a very basic/colonialist type of mindset to have where everything has to be connected and have to be set in the same “universe”, very,,,,,marvel disneyfication brainrot. think ico is rlly gorgeous and rlly beautiful bc of what it doesn’t say and what it doesn’t imply,, the weird negative spaces between everything,, this is a game that can mean anything u want it to bc its as base and traditional as like a hans christian anderson faerietale and I think that’s great. works of art should not only be able to viewed at as to mean one specific set thing and when u view art like that is when u stop connecting w and when u start putting creators in a weird box. dangerous mindset frfr!
-love these very bright and blown out shades of colors and lights the game uses, no grass has ever looked like the grass in ico which makes everything have ethereal and otherworldly vibe and contrasts rlly well w all the dark grungy rusty areas elsewhere in the game.
-the most y2k game that ppl don’t typically talk about as being y2k, purposely obtuse and meandering w an oppressive atmosphere and fucked controls,, bright red death screens I love it. every game should utilize weird floaty cameras + a manual zoom. the narrative is also so wonderfully emo and heartfelt its great💗
-rlly like the way ueda handles endings and how the endings are kind of locked in from the start. Im not sure if I believe in like predestination + fate but ik they’re concepts I tend to gravitate towards and fuck w in media. idk feel like this is when every game was starting to experiment w illusions of choice and multiple endings and this is so its own thing.
-too many video essays about how this game inspired other adventure games of the decade and guess what I don’t care !!! make a better looking and more original vid dweebs omg
-also idk y’all are hating on this NA box art!!! it means smth diff and is showing the game in a diff way that isn’t necessarily bad. the european box art is the game at its most minimalistic and obtuse where as the american art is it at its most literal and that’s fine!! both exist and both can work as pieces of art themselves selling someone on the game.
-love this ost smmmm, listened to heal while getting my bloodwork done today,, sounds like fucking james ferraro or opn or mfs like them!!
-like a lot of work made by non-americans ppl stateside seem to ascribe meaning and interconnectedness to works of art made by foreign artists. team silent or kojipro or remedy or team ico, a lot of these games are deliberately sparse and minimalist and almost eschew the stereotypical trappings of what it means to be a game and a narrative, or like at least an american game. not everything in the first four sh games are connected to each other, if u bend things and squint ur eyes maybe u can make connections but it doesn’t mean they’re deliberate + purposeful and even if they are it doesn’t mean they matter anymore than a wink and a nod to those that came before them. it is a very weird and a very basic/colonialist type of mindset to have where everything has to be connected and have to be set in the same “universe”, very,,,,,marvel disneyfication brainrot. think ico is rlly gorgeous and rlly beautiful bc of what it doesn’t say and what it doesn’t imply,, the weird negative spaces between everything,, this is a game that can mean anything u want it to bc its as base and traditional as like a hans christian anderson faerietale and I think that’s great. works of art should not only be able to viewed at as to mean one specific set thing and when u view art like that is when u stop connecting w and when u start putting creators in a weird box. dangerous mindset frfr!
-love these very bright and blown out shades of colors and lights the game uses, no grass has ever looked like the grass in ico which makes everything have ethereal and otherworldly vibe and contrasts rlly well w all the dark grungy rusty areas elsewhere in the game.
-the most y2k game that ppl don’t typically talk about as being y2k, purposely obtuse and meandering w an oppressive atmosphere and fucked controls,, bright red death screens I love it. every game should utilize weird floaty cameras + a manual zoom. the narrative is also so wonderfully emo and heartfelt its great💗
-rlly like the way ueda handles endings and how the endings are kind of locked in from the start. Im not sure if I believe in like predestination + fate but ik they’re concepts I tend to gravitate towards and fuck w in media. idk feel like this is when every game was starting to experiment w illusions of choice and multiple endings and this is so its own thing.
-too many video essays about how this game inspired other adventure games of the decade and guess what I don’t care !!! make a better looking and more original vid dweebs omg
-also idk y’all are hating on this NA box art!!! it means smth diff and is showing the game in a diff way that isn’t necessarily bad. the european box art is the game at its most minimalistic and obtuse where as the american art is it at its most literal and that’s fine!! both exist and both can work as pieces of art themselves selling someone on the game.
-love this ost smmmm, listened to heal while getting my bloodwork done today,, sounds like fucking james ferraro or opn or mfs like them!!
2015
clockers (1995) https://youtu.be/8_UU0ZfVMos?si=g6aSYqC7LaC4lU99
inside man (2006) https://youtu.be/sYNUp5rAZJo?si=Np8X1CqGkXXIK--K
when i first watched inside man a few years ago i loved the above scene even tho i didnt care for the movie and at the time the scene felt very jack thompson early 00s core. in retrospect and within context of both clockers and lee’s work on nba2k16 i find that it’s a beautiful scene portraying all of lee’s neuroses and fears. the games in both scenes are overly violent and gorey and v critical of a kind of baseless and “satirical” type of game that he was sort of prescient of. in 95 the most extreme types of games were like doom/mortal kombat or some kind of fmv horror things but they were not semi realistic fully 3d open world games where u have full control and a full arsenal, but by 2006 that was the biggest type of game. for more or less the entire decade of the 2000s most every game that tried to examine crime in semi realistic metropolitan cities did so crudely and cruelly, with rlly nothing to say about real world cases of violence. empty games with fake worlds that try to say smth but hide behind a sort of calculated satire and irony. rockstar games for the most part are saying nothing about america or the major and minor cities dotted alongside each coast. it’s kind of insane to watch the clockers clip and remember that games didn’t look like that or play like that almost 30 years ago and they never rlly did or at least not the kinds of games that would play like the fictional gangsta vr game. in looks and aesthetics alone it looks more like some indie project like smth that would be made by theresa duncan or thecatamites, open world crime dramas didn’t look like psych-horror like they do in clockers, they looked like the game in inside man. a case could be made that inside man is a spiritual successor to the 1995 film, I haven’t seen inside man in in years so im def not the person to do that but also these are prob the only movies in lee’s career that can solidly be described as crime dramas. enough of his post 90s work is about his fears and neuroses surrounding masculinity and childhood being proven right post 2000, to see aspects of black culture and trauma commercialized and commodified like never before by corporations that don’t gaf. think it’s super interesting that in both scenes the kids are playing portable devices to distract themselves from real world problems but the games just mirror what happens in the films worlds, super interesting stuff!!!
idk all of this is v all over the place but damn clockers is such a cool and sad and sincere movie and i found it v interesting to compare how digital and commercial inside man and the game in that movie is to how weird and disorienting clockers and the game gangster is. fucking idk i bought nba2k16 forever ago just bc i rlly like spike’s work across all mediums. I don’t care about sports or sports games but it seems like he did smth sort of new and interesting w it so yk that’s good ill never play that but it’s always cool when ppl not involved w game development work on one. fucking idk watch some of his more underseen stuff,, even the ones that aren’t great have moments of rlly good stuff.
didn’t realize the vr headset was real and shelved lol
inside man (2006) https://youtu.be/sYNUp5rAZJo?si=Np8X1CqGkXXIK--K
when i first watched inside man a few years ago i loved the above scene even tho i didnt care for the movie and at the time the scene felt very jack thompson early 00s core. in retrospect and within context of both clockers and lee’s work on nba2k16 i find that it’s a beautiful scene portraying all of lee’s neuroses and fears. the games in both scenes are overly violent and gorey and v critical of a kind of baseless and “satirical” type of game that he was sort of prescient of. in 95 the most extreme types of games were like doom/mortal kombat or some kind of fmv horror things but they were not semi realistic fully 3d open world games where u have full control and a full arsenal, but by 2006 that was the biggest type of game. for more or less the entire decade of the 2000s most every game that tried to examine crime in semi realistic metropolitan cities did so crudely and cruelly, with rlly nothing to say about real world cases of violence. empty games with fake worlds that try to say smth but hide behind a sort of calculated satire and irony. rockstar games for the most part are saying nothing about america or the major and minor cities dotted alongside each coast. it’s kind of insane to watch the clockers clip and remember that games didn’t look like that or play like that almost 30 years ago and they never rlly did or at least not the kinds of games that would play like the fictional gangsta vr game. in looks and aesthetics alone it looks more like some indie project like smth that would be made by theresa duncan or thecatamites, open world crime dramas didn’t look like psych-horror like they do in clockers, they looked like the game in inside man. a case could be made that inside man is a spiritual successor to the 1995 film, I haven’t seen inside man in in years so im def not the person to do that but also these are prob the only movies in lee’s career that can solidly be described as crime dramas. enough of his post 90s work is about his fears and neuroses surrounding masculinity and childhood being proven right post 2000, to see aspects of black culture and trauma commercialized and commodified like never before by corporations that don’t gaf. think it’s super interesting that in both scenes the kids are playing portable devices to distract themselves from real world problems but the games just mirror what happens in the films worlds, super interesting stuff!!!
idk all of this is v all over the place but damn clockers is such a cool and sad and sincere movie and i found it v interesting to compare how digital and commercial inside man and the game in that movie is to how weird and disorienting clockers and the game gangster is. fucking idk i bought nba2k16 forever ago just bc i rlly like spike’s work across all mediums. I don’t care about sports or sports games but it seems like he did smth sort of new and interesting w it so yk that’s good ill never play that but it’s always cool when ppl not involved w game development work on one. fucking idk watch some of his more underseen stuff,, even the ones that aren’t great have moments of rlly good stuff.
didn’t realize the vr headset was real and shelved lol
2000
WEIRDLY almost my platonic ideal of a platformer lol. even more sludgy and slow than 4 which is rlly good but i think i fuck w this more as this is kind of a chiller game than that one. wario cannot fucking die, he’s indestructible and that’s rlly fun to play w in a game like this. didn’t finish bc i have a life + i do not have that dog in me but yeah this fucks. had to have been the most annoying game in the world to play without the ease of like save states/replay functions
1992
can’t believe this is what passed for fun to millennials 😭
1996
robbit chuffing back a fat dart call that jumping hash 💯💯
fr some of the most creative and beautiful games,, one of the songs sounds like BIPP lmaoo
fr some of the most creative and beautiful games,, one of the songs sounds like BIPP lmaoo
2011
playing and having to log this vers makes me feel like when influencers are seen w fucking a mcdonalds bag or starbucks cup in 2024 lmaoo
-ep 1 more than anything this seems to work as a weird writing exercise for lake and dealing w both extremely positive and negative reaction and reception for the past 25 years. prob the most metatextual thing remedy has ever done at least in regards to themselves as a game dev company. idk def not the first game to tackle parasocial relationships but maybe the highest budget one to do so and idk that’s v interesting to me!!
-loved rose so fucking much in the base game,, cute ditzy but ultimately sincere and sweet bpd girlie. endeared by this cute and glossy world she’s kind of conjured up to deal w the monotony of both working a dead end job + obsession w someone who you’ve put on a pedestal and who doesn’t see u in that same way. relatable shit fr!! love the color palette here and how rose is living in a literal fantasy within the framework of the fake show just as she does in the base game. cool usage of flowers especially how it’s photos of flowers like it’s this v melodramatic almost douglas sirk type beat aesthetic choice but it’s just framed photos in an otherwise kind of unrewarding job. the rockabilly ass soundtrack LMFAO. cinnamon and gunpowder 😝😝
-love when remedy leans fully into the Alan is a very bad a narcissistic guy type of thing,, it’s great and always funny !! not subtle in the slightest but idk remedy works best when their writing is blatant and obvious,, stories about broken men breaking down other ppl in weird miscalculated shots at revival and retribution. so the idea of him spending thirteen years in the dark place only writing hackneyed scripts where he’s always the center of the attention and secretly a good guy,, a misunderstood nice guy type of archetype is good and funny and works for what remedy is trying to say about these men.
-i wish i could say i like the original alan wake’s dlc a lot more than i actually do,, turning a survival horror game into an arcade shooter is fun and cute fluff i just wish the writer and the signal did more in retrospect. everything in those levels for the most part just looks like cut levels from the base game where ur redoing waves and waves of killing enemies and it’s just not rlly fun?? this however,,, great fun,, more fun than alan wake 2 tbh!! guns feel better and enviros look great when they’re being destructed
-episode 2 is like one of the most inconsequential and pointless things i think ive ever played? don’t rlly gaf about control like at all so was fully expecting this to not hit for me but wow it rlly does not hit for me!! mostly it’s just running back and forth between two places three or so times in a row bc this entire dlc is v obviously padded. best thing i can say about this specific chapter is i rlly do appreciate that each ep gets its own color scheme i think that does kind of make them look a tiny bit diff from base game even though everything here is just reused assets + locales,, fun visuals in the very last two places u visit in this ep but that also consists of maybe five mins of a fifty min thing so it all just feels pointless loll
-ep 3 i mostly like bc its trying to do a lot of new stuff both w visuals + gameplay that hopefully will bleed over into future remedy games. on some travis strikes back or like smiling friends type of multimedia work and i think that’s great to see!! the comic section straight up some of the fucking ugliest art ive ever seen jfc on that rolling tray blacklight type shit, v embarrassing! also i just dont rlly care about the remedy connected universe type stuff its rlly boring and like basic to me,, i don’t gaf about marvel bc im not a sixteen yo boy lol! i think quantum break is a v good game i like it a lot but i am not clamoring for a sequel that obviously can never be + a part of me wishes remedy would kind of move on and away from all of that but whatever lol.
-loved rose so fucking much in the base game,, cute ditzy but ultimately sincere and sweet bpd girlie. endeared by this cute and glossy world she’s kind of conjured up to deal w the monotony of both working a dead end job + obsession w someone who you’ve put on a pedestal and who doesn’t see u in that same way. relatable shit fr!! love the color palette here and how rose is living in a literal fantasy within the framework of the fake show just as she does in the base game. cool usage of flowers especially how it’s photos of flowers like it’s this v melodramatic almost douglas sirk type beat aesthetic choice but it’s just framed photos in an otherwise kind of unrewarding job. the rockabilly ass soundtrack LMFAO. cinnamon and gunpowder 😝😝
-love when remedy leans fully into the Alan is a very bad a narcissistic guy type of thing,, it’s great and always funny !! not subtle in the slightest but idk remedy works best when their writing is blatant and obvious,, stories about broken men breaking down other ppl in weird miscalculated shots at revival and retribution. so the idea of him spending thirteen years in the dark place only writing hackneyed scripts where he’s always the center of the attention and secretly a good guy,, a misunderstood nice guy type of archetype is good and funny and works for what remedy is trying to say about these men.
-i wish i could say i like the original alan wake’s dlc a lot more than i actually do,, turning a survival horror game into an arcade shooter is fun and cute fluff i just wish the writer and the signal did more in retrospect. everything in those levels for the most part just looks like cut levels from the base game where ur redoing waves and waves of killing enemies and it’s just not rlly fun?? this however,,, great fun,, more fun than alan wake 2 tbh!! guns feel better and enviros look great when they’re being destructed
-episode 2 is like one of the most inconsequential and pointless things i think ive ever played? don’t rlly gaf about control like at all so was fully expecting this to not hit for me but wow it rlly does not hit for me!! mostly it’s just running back and forth between two places three or so times in a row bc this entire dlc is v obviously padded. best thing i can say about this specific chapter is i rlly do appreciate that each ep gets its own color scheme i think that does kind of make them look a tiny bit diff from base game even though everything here is just reused assets + locales,, fun visuals in the very last two places u visit in this ep but that also consists of maybe five mins of a fifty min thing so it all just feels pointless loll
-ep 3 i mostly like bc its trying to do a lot of new stuff both w visuals + gameplay that hopefully will bleed over into future remedy games. on some travis strikes back or like smiling friends type of multimedia work and i think that’s great to see!! the comic section straight up some of the fucking ugliest art ive ever seen jfc on that rolling tray blacklight type shit, v embarrassing! also i just dont rlly care about the remedy connected universe type stuff its rlly boring and like basic to me,, i don’t gaf about marvel bc im not a sixteen yo boy lol! i think quantum break is a v good game i like it a lot but i am not clamoring for a sequel that obviously can never be + a part of me wishes remedy would kind of move on and away from all of that but whatever lol.
2022
He damn hit me and it damn felt like a kiss wtfff??
when i go to bodegas or supermarkets near me I usually end up stealing a yellow bon o bon. love them and to see them beautifully recreated in this v pretty art style was kind of special !!!
love this sm,, feel like there’s not a lot of games about specifically gay male relationships so this was v cool. third installment looks crazy good and im happy xiri is evolving their art,,, love 2 see it,, more vn artists should fuck w their style and aesthetics like the new hitme seemingly is doing
gorgeous ahhh watercolor esque visuals n backgrounds + fucking deviant art tier emo boy character designs i loveeeee that <33
when i go to bodegas or supermarkets near me I usually end up stealing a yellow bon o bon. love them and to see them beautifully recreated in this v pretty art style was kind of special !!!
love this sm,, feel like there’s not a lot of games about specifically gay male relationships so this was v cool. third installment looks crazy good and im happy xiri is evolving their art,,, love 2 see it,, more vn artists should fuck w their style and aesthetics like the new hitme seemingly is doing
gorgeous ahhh watercolor esque visuals n backgrounds + fucking deviant art tier emo boy character designs i loveeeee that <33
https://apjvff.tumblr.com/post/77890737972/creative-angel-gonna-visit-you-tonight-you-gonna
prob the last thing I expected to have a meek mill ref in lol
prob the last thing I expected to have a meek mill ref in lol
1995
tbhh nothing looks or feels like this and it’s very fucking lame that every ps1 era throwback indie game that comes out (of which there are like several big ones every year bc everything is stagnation rn in terms of art lol) is trying to look or feel like re1 or mario 64. spice it up pls and blatantly rip off of this or gaball screen or any other cool curio from the nineties. every video game would be better if there was 3-5 guys that I would shamelessly get a stick n poke of w no regret or thought put into it. love love love this 💗💗 also my family had like the tall version of this games case under our big box tv when I was growing up and I didn’t understand what the fuck this was so i never played it but the box art scared me lmao
(why does it sound like a seal bark everytime he jumps on someone’s head ???)
ALSO would feel stupid if I didn’t link to lute’s vid on this series bc he’s one of the only interesting content creators tbh,, good vid the thumbnail is an opn ref that’s funny ! https://youtu.be/RnWajBTAzTM?si=YVRGrDpwsEDU_OZ_
(why does it sound like a seal bark everytime he jumps on someone’s head ???)
ALSO would feel stupid if I didn’t link to lute’s vid on this series bc he’s one of the only interesting content creators tbh,, good vid the thumbnail is an opn ref that’s funny ! https://youtu.be/RnWajBTAzTM?si=YVRGrDpwsEDU_OZ_
2024
-not a game for coomers and gooners as many have said !!! fr though i have seen lots of both pos and neg attention being given to this game in that regard and in a way i do absolutely understand the negative reaction to it. however idk it’s all mostly in the background and in the advertising,, i think my politics and opinions on womens bodies and issues tend to lean more radfem than anything else (tho not in a scary or bad way bc like lmfao look at the site im on yk) and i dont have much to say about the treatment of women in this game. obv it’s shitty that in 2024 a game that’s more than a one handed type of thing has to be sold as such but that’s more to do w where we’re at a society and culture lol the word society being said earnestly. but this is not a game that’s turning any straight man into anything he’s not already + the game never treats womens bodies as commodities or objects but obv straight men will see it as such. the story never treats womens pain in a overtly sexual way and while theres def weirdo type men that’ll see women being violent and having violence done onto them and be gross about it, the narrative of the game and the framing of bodies in these scenes is never truly gross or objectifying. idk idk TnA exists and it’s a fact and not necessarily smth that’s bad it just usually leads or ties into smth kind of gross and shitty but personally I don’t think so here.
-which is to say i like both the design and characterization of eve!! she’s cute and strong but still obviously can fail and let ppl down and that’s not an especially riveting or new concept but it’s nice ig. love a good dress up sim lol. thought the characters of lily and adam were like genuinely pretty poorly written and consistently boring,, kind of bad designs too. idk idk im not uhh fourteen so marvel type quips rlly do nothing for me but rlly thought all the other npc’s were v charming and lively and well rounded
-tbh it’s okay that the actual dialogue is pretty bad bc i dont gaf about dialogue but i do care lots about like world building and lore and especially vibes and feelings and w all of that the game excels sm. u can feel how real the games world feels and how each individual place in game has a reason for being and it’s own sad shared history w the ppl in these places. very much so fucking w like how hard games in the last decade lean into overgrown mall abandoned core pinterest image search type aesthetic. shit looks lovely and almost always gets across this nice nihilistic and melancholic worldview that maybe I don’t one hundred percent fuck w irl but do in stories about the end of the world.
-been watching lots of anyaustin as of late and find his thorough searching of game worlds and lesser explored areas of those worlds endlessly fascinating!! this game is like full of unexplored and uninteresting areas. every inch of the world of the game exists as a simulacrum of a real worlds pain and sorrow and regret. everything looks purposeful but also painfully real,, places left in a hurry due to a panic, stores shuttered and places of living abandoned but still furnished. every new area tells a story visually and doesn’t need to or care to explain it to u. <3 seeing a game so thoroughly committed to being realistic in some way break apart in small ways under close examination. lots of smart ppl have said it in more intelligent ways but yeah it is very pleasing to see textureless and flat rocks ur not supposed to jump on or even rlly see off of or above these highly detailed and sort of realistic looking cliffsides. it’s nice to see the bones of a game and the real life work spent on creating them inside the game itself. love how goofy the blood will sometimes look and how shii just clips sometimes.
-don’t usually gaf to do side quests in open world/open world adjacent games but idk feel like I did a vast majority of them here. like 75% or so and not everything has the strongest writing but all the side characters/quest givers do feel like real ppl w issues and problems that u can choose to fix. very rarely is the reward needed or worth it but idk think the places u visit and stories u piece together by doing a bunch of the side stuff is def worth it for ppl that enjoy exploring in games like this. u open urself up to see more unexplored areas by doing all this random content.
-crazy how each new area looks so visually distinct and diff from each other. for a game that very rarely changes up type of gameplay I never felt bored or like I saw everything I needed to see,, always felt like there was something more yet to be seen. don’t even gaf that it’s clear that part of the visual identity for levels in this game are heavily inspired by the resident evil remakes and the avatar films bc what the game does w those areas looks rlly good. there’s also all these beautiful slow moments where ur just meant to chill in the games environments and take it all in and stop the bloodshed and action for a sec and appreciate the art of every abandoned building or the backgrounds of shops or whatever. to me the best and most remarkable and memorable moments are when the game takes itself very slow and just wants to invest and immerse urself in what the game is doing.
-most side quests narratively are about finding some sort of closure. it’s a bleak world and most side content begins w suspicion of death and ends w confirmation of a death. ur usually tasked w either finding out what happened to ppls loved ones or finding a keepsake belonging to the loved one. it’s incredibly repetitious but i still found myself consistently doing these types of quests bc i wanted to see a good ending for these npcs and i think that says sm about how excellent the world building is and how real some of the stories feel. I loved these stories of false hope and delusions that these characters needed to rely on to simply keep surviving in this world.
-which is to say i like both the design and characterization of eve!! she’s cute and strong but still obviously can fail and let ppl down and that’s not an especially riveting or new concept but it’s nice ig. love a good dress up sim lol. thought the characters of lily and adam were like genuinely pretty poorly written and consistently boring,, kind of bad designs too. idk idk im not uhh fourteen so marvel type quips rlly do nothing for me but rlly thought all the other npc’s were v charming and lively and well rounded
-tbh it’s okay that the actual dialogue is pretty bad bc i dont gaf about dialogue but i do care lots about like world building and lore and especially vibes and feelings and w all of that the game excels sm. u can feel how real the games world feels and how each individual place in game has a reason for being and it’s own sad shared history w the ppl in these places. very much so fucking w like how hard games in the last decade lean into overgrown mall abandoned core pinterest image search type aesthetic. shit looks lovely and almost always gets across this nice nihilistic and melancholic worldview that maybe I don’t one hundred percent fuck w irl but do in stories about the end of the world.
-been watching lots of anyaustin as of late and find his thorough searching of game worlds and lesser explored areas of those worlds endlessly fascinating!! this game is like full of unexplored and uninteresting areas. every inch of the world of the game exists as a simulacrum of a real worlds pain and sorrow and regret. everything looks purposeful but also painfully real,, places left in a hurry due to a panic, stores shuttered and places of living abandoned but still furnished. every new area tells a story visually and doesn’t need to or care to explain it to u. <3 seeing a game so thoroughly committed to being realistic in some way break apart in small ways under close examination. lots of smart ppl have said it in more intelligent ways but yeah it is very pleasing to see textureless and flat rocks ur not supposed to jump on or even rlly see off of or above these highly detailed and sort of realistic looking cliffsides. it’s nice to see the bones of a game and the real life work spent on creating them inside the game itself. love how goofy the blood will sometimes look and how shii just clips sometimes.
-don’t usually gaf to do side quests in open world/open world adjacent games but idk feel like I did a vast majority of them here. like 75% or so and not everything has the strongest writing but all the side characters/quest givers do feel like real ppl w issues and problems that u can choose to fix. very rarely is the reward needed or worth it but idk think the places u visit and stories u piece together by doing a bunch of the side stuff is def worth it for ppl that enjoy exploring in games like this. u open urself up to see more unexplored areas by doing all this random content.
-crazy how each new area looks so visually distinct and diff from each other. for a game that very rarely changes up type of gameplay I never felt bored or like I saw everything I needed to see,, always felt like there was something more yet to be seen. don’t even gaf that it’s clear that part of the visual identity for levels in this game are heavily inspired by the resident evil remakes and the avatar films bc what the game does w those areas looks rlly good. there’s also all these beautiful slow moments where ur just meant to chill in the games environments and take it all in and stop the bloodshed and action for a sec and appreciate the art of every abandoned building or the backgrounds of shops or whatever. to me the best and most remarkable and memorable moments are when the game takes itself very slow and just wants to invest and immerse urself in what the game is doing.
-most side quests narratively are about finding some sort of closure. it’s a bleak world and most side content begins w suspicion of death and ends w confirmation of a death. ur usually tasked w either finding out what happened to ppls loved ones or finding a keepsake belonging to the loved one. it’s incredibly repetitious but i still found myself consistently doing these types of quests bc i wanted to see a good ending for these npcs and i think that says sm about how excellent the world building is and how real some of the stories feel. I loved these stories of false hope and delusions that these characters needed to rely on to simply keep surviving in this world.
2024
there are cathedrals everywhere for those with eyes to see :-)))
rlly makes you FEEL like ur 19 again and still experiencing religious delusions/paranoia. which is like such a specific feeling and thought process and not one I wouldve thought a video game could nail. but nah this took me right back to 2019 and how ill and scared i felt back then. loved any moment where indika was able to sit down and u would be able to cycle through all these beautiful camera angles where each one is centered on her through these like far away creep shots,, like she’s being stalked and looked at w hatred by some unknown figure. idk the feeling of being totally alone but still being watched and like ur never alone even when u want to be is ultimately like an entitled and self important one but it’s crazy to me that a game can get across these v specific feelings.
reminded me lots of i saw the tv glow,,, both ultimately about how living inside ur head and through fantasy is like a v unhealthy lifestyle and bad for mental/physical well-being. how any kind of fantasy whether a positive or negative one is end of day bad for u if it’s all consuming and u can’t live without the fantasies that play out in ur head. u end up seeing and hearing what’s inside ur head rather than what’s actually there in front of u.
religious horror team ico game (tho im sure a case could be easily made that that’s exactly what those games already are) or like alice madness returns w more contemporary aesthetic pretenses. kind of shit that yorgos lanthimos would be making if he wasnt a fucking coward and freak loll and im NOT just saying this bc there’s a disorienting usage of fisheye here tho more things should def use fisheye. zulawski vibesss here too for sure. love this,, finished all in one sitting,, had me in a trance fr
(wish the gendered violence had more of a statement or take before the ending and not just in the final section but yk oh well play the cards that im given)
ok but where’s sativa tho😭
rlly makes you FEEL like ur 19 again and still experiencing religious delusions/paranoia. which is like such a specific feeling and thought process and not one I wouldve thought a video game could nail. but nah this took me right back to 2019 and how ill and scared i felt back then. loved any moment where indika was able to sit down and u would be able to cycle through all these beautiful camera angles where each one is centered on her through these like far away creep shots,, like she’s being stalked and looked at w hatred by some unknown figure. idk the feeling of being totally alone but still being watched and like ur never alone even when u want to be is ultimately like an entitled and self important one but it’s crazy to me that a game can get across these v specific feelings.
reminded me lots of i saw the tv glow,,, both ultimately about how living inside ur head and through fantasy is like a v unhealthy lifestyle and bad for mental/physical well-being. how any kind of fantasy whether a positive or negative one is end of day bad for u if it’s all consuming and u can’t live without the fantasies that play out in ur head. u end up seeing and hearing what’s inside ur head rather than what’s actually there in front of u.
religious horror team ico game (tho im sure a case could be easily made that that’s exactly what those games already are) or like alice madness returns w more contemporary aesthetic pretenses. kind of shit that yorgos lanthimos would be making if he wasnt a fucking coward and freak loll and im NOT just saying this bc there’s a disorienting usage of fisheye here tho more things should def use fisheye. zulawski vibesss here too for sure. love this,, finished all in one sitting,, had me in a trance fr
(wish the gendered violence had more of a statement or take before the ending and not just in the final section but yk oh well play the cards that im given)
ok but where’s sativa tho😭
2007
vague half formed ramblings but like this used to be sort of fun right?? like obv a gimmick and not smth you’d play around w for long stretches all at once but yeah i remember liking this site and being impressed/scared that he always got it right lol. was playing this w my bf last night and seeing who could win first one of us or akinator and this just straight up doesn’t work now. how is it that my bf was trying to get domnhall gleeson, famous midrate nepo baby actor, and the genie just ran to almost a hundred guesses before giving up. feel like before it would be able to guess way more obscure shit relatively fast,, idk shit got me reminiscing on when the internet was a lot smaller pre-2020 pre covid pre tiktok. like I remember being scared at like 12 bc akinator was able to guess a youtuber that i liked that always hovered around 300 k subscribers,, that impressed AND terrified me. and idk now this shii now keeps asking about cancelled-for-being-creeps mcyt ppl even after ive already answered several times that no i am not trying to get you to guess that im thinking of the mcyt guy that bit his girlfriend lol…
idk jus thinking and I don’t want this to seem like screams at cloud formation simpsons gag type review I understand enough of my perception of this is playing it at a v formative age and then not thinking about it for like almost a decade lol. rose colored glasses and all that and ig i dont know how to end this other than by saying it is nice when u revisit something from ur childhood/teenage years and it’s still v good. like ive been listening to lots of pure heroine lorde this week and i haven’t listened to that album in years,,,, still great !!!! 💗💗
idk jus thinking and I don’t want this to seem like screams at cloud formation simpsons gag type review I understand enough of my perception of this is playing it at a v formative age and then not thinking about it for like almost a decade lol. rose colored glasses and all that and ig i dont know how to end this other than by saying it is nice when u revisit something from ur childhood/teenage years and it’s still v good. like ive been listening to lots of pure heroine lorde this week and i haven’t listened to that album in years,,,, still great !!!! 💗💗