Cruelty Squad is a very interesting game, one that I thoroughly enjoy but also feel somewhat sour on.

I love the art style, vomit on the screen that somehow ends up being cohesive when you actually play the game. Same thing with the vibes, the bleak and hyper-cynical capitalist hellscape where human life is worth less than the price of the organs. However, the game is very on the nose so it feels less like scathing commentary and more so a parody. The writing is also quite funny and fits with how absurd the game is. The music does suck though, it fits, but it just sounds like ass. The absurdity also extends to controls and game systems as well.

What is the reload button? If you said R then what were you thinking you buffoon, clearly it would be holding right-click and slamming your mouse downward you stupid idiot. R is logically the interact button. L-shift is aim-down-sights, swap weapon is C, and crouch is X. This is the way God intended man to play FPS games. To keep to wackiness going, there is not one, not two, but three different stock markets; one for actual company stocks, and the other two are for speculative biological investments, human organs and fish. I am a big fan of Balls Fish.

Levels are large and filled with multiple routes. You may even notice places that you can’t reach. That’s where bodily enhancements come into play. Ever felt like your appendix is just being a freeloader and not contributing enough, then why not make it a grappling hook. Why stop there, make your back and feet shoot gunk to jump and zoom around the place. Frickin’ absolve yourself in a flesh suit to be more protected but removing more than have of your visibility. The augments are all very thematic and some really shake up how you play the game, like the grappendix. The grappendix is one of the earlier augments that really shake up how you approach missions. You start off peaking around corners to get the jump on enemies, to flinging yourself to your target and finishing levels in less than a minute. There is one caveat though, why is everything so expensive. There is cheapo stuff, but it ranges from boring to making the game nigh unplayable, looking at you nightmare goggles.

If you want to truly experience Cruelty Squad, you have to grind for money. Which I guess fits the capitalist hellscape, but this is a game, and I want to have fun on a game. You don’t get paid relatively much for completing missions, so you’re forced to play the market. Playing the stock market is not something I enjoy doing, I want to be a Cruelty Squad employee not some wannabe stock trader. You can also grind for fish, especially a certain sewer dwelling fish, but again I want to play Cruelty Squad, not be a fisherman. It sucks that you have to go through menial garbage, just to open up the game. Also, the “final” level sucks. The best parts of the final level are the shortcut that skips the godawful block pushing puzzles with Gorbino from megahit Gorbino’s Quest harassing you and the ending. The rest of the level is fine, it’s just that terrible block pushing. Additionally, difficulty selection is overly convoluted, even for this game. If you’re confused how difficulty selection can be convoluted, then pay attention to the screen borders and you’ll figure it out soon enough.

Cruelty Squad is a truly absurd and strange game. I wish is didn’t feel as sour as I do on it, but I walk away from it thinking about how one of a kind and different it is. That alone elevates it to something special, even with my gripes. It is definitely worth experiencing firsthand.

It's not Silent Hill 2, it's not PT, therefore it is worthless I guess. Sure, the writing can be a little clunky but I think it is trying to explore horrific themes in a way that is not at all out of place for the series. The atmosphere, sound design, and score are pretty great and the story loop is legitimately enticing. Even for how short it is, it does lack some focus but it definitely lands on its feet and is ultimately a game with a positive message that's actually about something. I think it is fine to not like this for its execution, but to criticize it for daring to tackle difficult topics is kind of ridiculous.

"AI: The Somnium Files - Nirvana Initiative" takes a lot of inspiration from Hideo Kojima's, "Metal Gear Solid 2." There are multiple references to Metal Gear Solid throughout both games, as well as an excited reaction from Aiba, being under the impression that, "The Director Kojima" himself was standing in the pond of a Japanese politician's home. This includes a protagonist who experiences a disassociation with the narrative itself while his only connection lies entirely with a character who doesn't exist at all, You. It's also important to mention that this game can't be understated for how unique it truly is. Post-modernism is inherently schizophrenic, you find yourself needing context in order to understand it and will often leave the consumer in a position where they question whether or not its art at all. Dialogue spoken in the now directly contradicts what was spoken a moment ago, and it takes being able to finish the experience and go through it again for you to realize how false everything truly is.

But this doesn't leave Nirvana Initiative without its flaws, as the dialogue can't service the player in any meaningful way beyond adding another line of subtext all on a single page. This really just leaves players exhausted to even finish the experience, but really the context of the experience hinders on this necessity to complete the game. Much like 2001: A Space Odyssey, people have over-verbalized their obsession over the film, so much so, to the point where any critic trying to point out a flaw is immediately met with a setback of making you realize that this is all intentional and apart of the experience. Sound familiar? To most who have played the game, that 'moment' is 'The Twist' but to me, it's whenever Kaname Date makes an appearance that makes me realize how unique AI: The Somnium Files truly is. So thank you for the first game Uchikoshi.

okok, so you know how Date is like, "date" and Solid Snake has Liquid Snake? Hear me out, AI: The Somnium Files 3 - Porn Reader. "I'mm stillllll in a dreeaaaammmmm, Porn Readerrrrrrr." These are my expectations.

I should preface this by saying that I wasn't that much of a fan of the original AI game, while fundamentally solid, I just found most of what it did really annoying and boring, despite most people seeming to love it.
With that being said, I was hesitant coming into Nirvana Initiative, knowing it has a far more mixed reputation, yet somehow, this ended up being my favorite Uchikoshi game SINCE the original 999.
On paper, NI does a lot of stuff I didn't like about the first game, it has some cringy horny writing, and it falls into a lot of similar plot trappings, yet I think the thing that made this one stick with me a lot more is the FAR better cast of characters. In AI 1, I only really liked Aiba and Mizuki, and couldn't stand a lot of the folks like Ota and Iris, who are still in NI, but play a far smaller role.
On paper, characters like lien and Tama should be really annoying to me, yet there's something about them that just made them really enduring, to the point where I did end up feeling for them during some scenes. Not every new character is a winner, but a very solid amount of them are.
Other then that, I also think I preferred the faster pacing, and found the plot to be a lot more interesting, though this is where I think I can see why a lotta folks don't dig this one as much as the first.
AI 1 has one of the tamer "uchikoshi mindfucks" but NI has one of the most extreme. I personally thought it was really neat on reveal, but looking back, I can see why so many think it's total BS, and on top of that, for people who DID really like the first game, this one does kinda shit over a lot of what it did with its characters and retcons. Now thankfully I DIDN'T care for them, so that stuff didn't bother me much, but I can see how it would be a total dealbreaker for many.
At the end of the day, It's kinda hard for me to explain just why I liked this one so much more then AI 1, I guess something with it just happened to click in the way that one didn't. It repeats a lot of the same stuff the first game did even, to a bit of an excessive degree. But while I was rolling my eyes during the credits of AI: The Somnium Files, in Nirvana Initiative, I just had a dumb smile plastered over my face throughout.