Human advancement but at what cost?

Truly one one the gaming marvels of how to build a world and put it center stage, Bioshock manages convey the feeling of dread and failure from the result of one businessman's folly while still managing to feel the lingering horror coming from those exact failures. What I learned to appreciate from Bioshock is that it's a first person shooter that really doesn't follow any trends at the time and 2007 was a huge year for first person shooters as it is with the likes of Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Crysis and the release of the Orange Box. It doesn't really excel at shooting, the role playing mechanics are a bit lackluster and the enemy variety is not the best so what makes Bioshock work? Everything else.

I think what hooked me extremely hard from the beginning is how Rapture is presented to you and mixing in a feeling of sadness and horror that doesn't go away for a while. Rapture is probably one of the most fully realized cities I can think of. A complete dark and dingy experience the entire way through. Old abandoned sections of the city falling apart at the seams, old defense systems still functioning and killing anything that moves, the titular duo of the Little Sister collecting what's left and the Big Daddy serving as their guardian dog during the process, the small remnats of life playing out through the residual life from audio logs and the result of your altered genetics. I really do like the variety in areas too despite following the same architectural design philosophy for Rapture as it is. You explore hospitals, living areas, entertainment distracts and even their own spin on a public park. It really feels like Rapture is the main character of Bioshock more than Jack is, who doesn't really say much and just does what people say but you could say it might be the point in some way. The few living characters in this game are excellent and their introductions are done extremely well. Despite most of the game's turning wheels being audio logs to the point that actual discussions with the player is audio log centric despite being in the same room, the voice actors actually gave great performance that you can feel how frustrated, ambitious and sadness that themselves becoming a product of their own environment.

Definitely not a first person shooter in the way we know now that focuses on the raw mechanical skill, Bioshock actually leans more into survival horror if anything. The shooting is serviceable and you only have a few weapons granted by different ammo types with a few distinct ones like freezing while most of them being electrical, more damage to human-like/mechinical and the etcera. Controlling Jack works perfectly fine, controller or mouse and keyboard. I found myself using the controller scheme since I found it a bit more intuitive with the plasmid being on one trigger and the weapon control being on the other. The customization and progression throughout your fight for survival relies on plasmids and tonics that provide active abilities and passives that delve into every main mechanic in the game being fighting, hacking and physical prowess. I think it does a decent job for what it delivers although I almost wished for a bit more customization than what was offered.

I can't imagine Bioshock without Rapture since the entire mood, atmosphere and world design essentially steal the show for me here. Everything else is serviceable with a great story and characters but I think Rapture truly elevates it to greatness that seems deserved from my eyes. It's not impossible to build a Rapture of any kind but it's impossible to build a Rapture that surpasses the one we got.

Christmas 2002
A Sears in a shopping mall, late night

In the full spirit of christmas shopping at the time while my parents were looking at clothes in a different section, I went alone to the electronics section to head to the video games kiosks to alleviate the boredom since my GameBoy Advance was completely out of battery. Only one of the kiosks were actually on and it was playing a copy of Dynasty Warriors 3 or at least that's what the demo disc loaded if it was one. I think the notion of mowing down a huge amount of soldiers was something of a brand new notion of fun for me growing up mostly playing Pokemon mostly before that point. The funniest part about this is that despite playing 3 and 4 in some way, I only ended up getting the Xtreme Legends variant and nothing else which is essentially only 10% of the game itself. My own chagrin is that I never played the original versions of these or the combination of the two until this point.

I truly feel like Dynasty Warriors 3 took a huge leap for the series and brought it into some prominance going forward. If Dynasty Warriors 2 built the foundation, Dynasty Warriors 3 built the whole goddamn house. Where do I even begin with what was added? I won't even go into the Xtreme Legends content either and there's still so much. Four weapons for each character (five with Xtreme Legends) that enhance your moveset to a whopping six chain with stats to roll for. A brand new item system that brings more customization and variety into including special effects, stat boosts and the ability to bring Red Hare into battle. Way more characters with their own musou mode each. A plethora of game modes to boot and more events and stages that further flesh out the three kingdom eras. Going into every minute detail would be an extremely herculean task and test my own mental capacity so I rather just go into why I liked this entry in the series.

I think something you realize going back into this entry specifically is the perfect blend of aggression and pressure. Easily one of the toughest entries in the series and while I do prefer the difficulty boost compared to later entries, it does come with some frustrations that kinda hindered my experience back into going into Easy. One of the biggest ones is attempting to level up bodyguards in musou mode on Normal. Playing regularly is fun but those starter two privates die to a sneeze that it felt like babysitting just for them to actually get experience for the stage since that's the only way they develop themselves. Maps are pretty huge too and without a horse item, you're gonna be spending most of the time running around empty fields unless you take all the time to defeat enemies but comes the inherit risk of just dying to an unfortunate musou combo at the end that can waste thirty minutes down the drain. Don't get me wrong, I love the difficulty here since it keeps me focused but I think you should grab some items and upgrades for certain gameplay mechanics before fully attempting it.

The elephant in the room has to be the voice acting which I think is okay but it can be pretty egregious (in a good way personally). Character designs in 3 are some of my favorite with how colorful each design has and how practical they are. Playing a vast majority of the characters myself, they each feel pretty unique and fun especially Lu Bu which is essentially easy mode in itself. It's not a Dynasty Warriors games at this point of the series without a solid soundtrack to boot.

I really think this game is where the series rose into prominence and found its stride especially with the addition of Xtreme Legends adding more content into the game down the line and future spin offs to boot after this. I'm more surprised this still holds up despite some of the gameplay quirks that come with it but it's more to show how strong and familiar the musou formula has been for years. Musou is adapting now it's never bad to forget where we once were.

I spent a lot of this game reading, I wasn't reading anything really, Ringo was reading. Mostly books I'd never read, the kind I feel intimidated by, books that would go over my head. It felt like it gave me a little purpose with a routine, earning money to buy books and spending time to read the books. I didn't think there'd be a reward for it, I just did it, it became a nice little habit to find a scenic spot in town and just watch Ringo sit back and tear through Ulysses or something. Feels a bit stupid looking back on it but some in-game days I spent doing nothing but this. It came to an end, unceremoniously, ran out of books. Not much to show for, doing that didn't amount to anything tangible for Ringo or for me but it was some peace of mind in a way.

I had the freedom to do so much in this game, make Ringo be anything he could be, and I chose to create a basic routine anyone could do in real life, probably to greater benefit, not even sure why. Before the game came to an end I didn't really find a new main activity or routine to replace this with. Some little distractions, getting drunk, smoking, squatting, trying and failing to reenact that one cool shot from Blue Spring, small stuff. I just went on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

I blew through the game in like a day, the next day felt a bit emptier without loading up Ringo Ishikawa and continuing his daily life.

Sorry to sound corny but there's this one line in Texhnolyze I keep thinking about, "True freedom can't lean on anything. It's transient, lonely, arduous. You can't hope for any security or reward beyond it". That's how it felt, very beautiful, I'm still thinking about it.

A beautiful hand-drawn game filled to the brim with personality and charm. You'll find cute, quirky things to interact with sprinkled throughout every area of the game, and the fact that the puzzles change slightly each time you play it leaves it overflowing with re-playability. The game is flooded with a great cast of characters so that you will feel joy wash over you each time you boot it up. You can feel the love and care that the creators poured into it. A classic from my childhood that I played until it went belly-up! I had an amazing time with this game.

I played this game with my boyfriend and his mom, and it was a lot of fun. It's very fast-paced of course, and my boyfriend's mom and I had trouble keeping up with the quick transitions, which helped keep us on our toes. I love the characters, especially Ashley, and enjoyed building my team of characters for each stage. Bright, colorful, and energetic, this game does well at what it sets out to do: provide a fun activity for the whole family. However, I would still prefer to play something like Mario Party when it comes to party or family games, and of course it cannot compete with a story-driven game, but at the end of the day it is fun, albeit a little pricey for what you get out of it.

Club Penguin was a rich, robust fictional universe which unveiled and placed a spotlight upon the dark realities of the economic flaws within the real world. The game’s financial philosophy was based upon enforcing a strict class divide amongst its players—the bourgeoisie, paid members, and the proletarian, free players. It was through this system that the game was able to so eloquently commentate on the injustices within our own reality, as the bourgeoisie penguins grotesquely flexed their clothing and accessories in the beaks of those who were cold, naked, and covered in pizza grease.

Much like the real world, the game did everything it could to keep the proletarian penguin from ever gaining the riches of their bourgeoisie counterparts, as no matter how many hours one would spend making pizzas or competing in surfing competitions, the player would still find they were unable to access the accessories and furniture which were easily afforded by the ruling class. In essence, this was the very genius of the game as it fought to unmask America itself as the cruel mistress it truly is, and even in death it leaves us to ponder this: We will always be the exploited class until we can rise-up together, lifting our fins in solidarity, and pelting the wealthy with our snowballs. Eat the rich.

Complete destruction, utter annihilation and satirical violence

In the middle 2000s must have been when every developer wanted to make something dark and edgy in the broadest way I can describe it that I wouldn't even say that they're really edgy but more of a tonal shift than the developer intended. Naughty Dog with Jak X, most of Square's game during that time, Shadow the Hedgehog and Insomniac with Ratchet Deadlocked. In wanting to test something, I ended up replaying Ratchet Deadlocked again and beating it in one sitting. Ratchet Deadlocked brings some of the best third person gunplay the PlayStation 2 has to offer with the wit and humor the series has been known for at this point. Inspired by Halo and sadly looked down by the developers themselves, Deadlocked is extremely different from the original PlayStation 2 trilogy. Clank is gone from the title, a much darker, only a bit edgier honestly, and removed most of the unique platforming challenges in lieu of arena, obstacle courses and makes the journey a true fight for survival compared to the exploratory flow of the last games. Why I keep coming back to it is the infectious and high paced gunplay that I haven't managed to find anywhere else along with the weapon customization and how each weapon really feels powerful to use.

The premise of the story is fairly simple, Ratchet and his crew get kidnapped and forced to compete in DreadZone, an extremely violent and deadly game show where heroes are pitted against each other to death by Gleeman Vox, owner of Vox Industries and Vox News, Vox Sports and so forth. Even with the constant character assassination from Vox News (yeah you can guess where they got the name Vox from), Ratchet ends up being popular despite the marketing campaign against him. I would say the premise is darker but the humor that the series is known for is still here and honestly hits harder for me.

The visual and audio aspect of Deadlocked is something I've come to really appreciate too with how moody and atmospheric some of these worlds and tracks are. From the brooding metropolis of Kronos with its dark cathedral to the sleek, tall and apocalyptic view of Stygia, these planets aren't tourist destinations and always have danger looming in every corner. The soundtrack is even better especially hearing this after entering the smog and trash ridden planet of Orxon again. Even then the final levels are some of my favorite in these regards but as much I want to gush about them, I rather people experience it themselves.

The sound of metal scraping from the barrel as you launch a bomb onto something while trying to dodge beam attacks that can two shot on the four star difficulty (Hero) difficulty is pretty tough. It's extremely hard to find anything adrenaline fueled and visceral as Ratchet Deadlocked's gunplay especially for the console it was on. Only ten weapons in this iteration but they're the most customizable and useful they have ever been with no useless weapons barring maybe the shield launcher unless you're playing on higher difficulties where you will truly need it. Each gun feels good to use and you can tell they put a lot of work into this aspect of the game. They default you to lock strafe controls from the bat compared to third person from before and it plays so much better. From machine pistols, rail guns, rocket launchers to a explosive flail that shakes the fuck out of your camera when you use it, every weapon legit feels feels powerful. Customization comes from adding mods that can increase the fire rate, ammo count, impact of the shot to increasing the area of effect of the shot with one tier of modding to customizing the element to the other tier. Make your dual pistols fire faster and provide arcing shock lightning around enemies to quickly kill smaller enemies in numbers or do what I did and make every single explosive weapon you own explode into mini bombs that just lag the hell out of your game like THE BOUNCER from the second game. The weapon leveling and health progression is back and even more ridiculous than ever as weapons go up to level 99 in this one. I feel like it's a real quality vs quantity approach here for the weapon design. Something to mention is how you also have to dodge like a manic on a substance on higher difficulties where everything two shots you no matter how much health you have in the higher difficulties. Ratchet doesn't have Clank here so he's just limited to double jumping for aerial movement but it feels more in control and allows better timing for jumps.

Can't be a Halo inspired game without vehicular combat and Deadlocked has that too in addition to the gunplay. Four playable vehicles are used from the fast and light hoverbike, the warthog inspired Puma, the quadrupedal tank Landstalker and the aerial Hovership itself for aerial combat. I think the vehicles are generally fun to use overall and can cause just as much carnage as you can especially later on. I also forgot to mention you're actually part of a team, you're accompanied by two bots that essentially do all of the menial stuff for you which I think is a smart inclusion as it gives you more chance to actually play the game. Eventually you'll have to do side missions to continue on the campaign which I feel pads the game a bit but fortunately those missions are short and actually pretty fun so it's not the worst thing. An average playthrough is five to seven hours so the game never really overstays its welcome and offers a ton of replayability with challenge mode.

Hard to believe I beat this game five times and never got bored especially with the weapon variety to keep in mind. Deadlocked is just a short, funny and visceral romp from start to finish. It's not a perfect game by any means but it's one of the few games that gets the brain cells flowing as explosions fly and the PlayStation 2 lags out because I spammed mini bomb mines against ten zombies again. If you played the original PS2 trilogy and haven't played this yet, you already know what I'm gonna say.

A true start into the three kingdoms

Sort of had enough mental momentum and hearing the unfortunate news that my copy of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will be delayed allowed me to dig deep into Dynasty Warriors 2. This would actually be considered the true start for the series considering it veers completely from the first game fighting game roots into its own sub genre of hack and slash we know today called "musou".

Despite being called Dynasty Warriors 2 in the west, the japanese name is actually a completely different title and series in a sense. The original title is Shin Sangoku Musou while the first game was just called Sangoku Musou thus being the reason why Japan is always a number behind us. This game was actually gonna be another fighting game until they were told to do something different with the franchise which brought about the radical departure. Dynasty Warriors 2 ended up being a launch title for the West and it's actually kind of impressive how many models they managed to render for their very first attempt.

Sadly though there really isn't much to this game either as there's only three modes here: Musou mode, Free mode and the options menu which shouldn't really count as a mode to be honest. The titular musou mode lets you do a story mode with any of the twenty eight characters as you go through a couple of the stages depending on the character. Free mode allows you to re-enact any stage however you want with any character. The main thing to mention here is that Dynasty Warriors 2 only has twenty eight characters and a very low eight stages making this a surprisingly sparse experience compared to what would really come after but I really think it's a great foundation for what was Omega Force's first attempt. Being greeted with the map screen when you load into a battle looks like something that came out of a middle school news program while the user interface really feels like something thrown together in a week.

To my own surprise, the gameplay didn't feel that different to playing another one of the PS2 musous that I remember albeit very simplistic in a sense. You have your four hit combo that you can interrupt with charge attacks, the standard affair but then that's really it. You can never upgrade from the 4 hit combo you get and that's all you have for the rest of the experience. The only form of character progression comes from picking up stat boosts after defeating officers and doing well in the stage to upgrade your overall stats but that's really it. The bodyguard system is here and progresses just through the point system as well. A cool note is that doing a better combo during the final blow on the officer will actually upgrade the stat item you'd get from the enemy making it worth attempting it. The bow makes its first appearance here and after playing most of the series, I never really found a good use for it other than very specific situation that rarely happen. A regular bow attack does what you expect, a charged attack takes a bit more time to charge but it does stun if you pull it up and using your musou meter unleashes a volley of arrows at your own discretion. After putting a good fifteen hours into a couple of musou playthroughs to experience most of the weapon styles and stages, this game is actually fairly difficult. More difficult than I expected actually. Enemies are surprisingly aggressive and tanky in this game on the Normal difficulty. It's also to the point that a musou attack can't even kill one grunt sometimes and they can interrupt your own musou attack as well which I was kinda surprised by. You actually had to be fairly careful in this game. While I do appreciate that the game was difficult, I was a bit put off by not having enough tools to properly deal with it in a sense. You really only have a four hit combo, a jumping attack and that's pretty much it that I feel I couldn't make the most of the challenge. You can defeat gate captains which reduces the flow of soldiers coming in and attempt to increase the morale which on paper allow the friendly AI to do more but I never noticed it do much honestly. Horses are here which allow for faster movement but I got knocked off so many times due to the aggressive AI that I barely used them honestly. Only form of a checkpoint during battles is collecting a memory card item hidden in crates which is an overseas exclusive too. After the end of a battle, you get a score based on how much you do and that goes into upgrading yourself and your bodyguards automatically. Not much to say on free mode itself, as I mentioned you can just pick any character and any stage and go nuts really. Difficulty options are there if you want an easier experience but knowing this series, you'll eventually want to turn up the difficulty soon.

Dynasty Warriors 2 isn't that bad honestly, it's a pretty good foundation that they built here for the series but if you played any of the mainline titles before playing this one, it will really feel like a prototype with the lack of content and not fully fleshed out action movesets. I would recommend checking this title out if you're a fan of the series even more so since this is really the true start into what would be known as Dynasty Warriors and you really don't want to try the fighting game.

An odd start to a hack and slash series despite a bit of identity being born

I can safely say I've been a musou fan since I was a kid with my initial interest starting with Dynasty Warriors 3 back in the early 2000s. The mindless action based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms has become one of the few gaming comforts for me during my life. Wanting to experience the PlayStation 2 musou games again, I decided to take this chance to play every mainline title and really experience the titles and what went behind these games as a tiny passion project of sorts. Extremely doubt I'll finish all of them this year in a row but I hope to get most of this done this year.

Koei was mostly known for their strategy games at the time and the reveal of Dynasty Warriors as a fighting game was a shock to some people and probably even some of the current fans for this series. The game itself would release in 1997 and unfortunately would almost be forgotten despite being released in the same year as Tekken 3 which was almost a technical marvel for the PlayStation at the time. They would eventually try this formula again in a way with Dynasty Warriors 4 with duels and 3v3 with the Warriors Orochi series later on. The intro is about what you'd expect from a PlayStation title, CGI characters doing cool action movements which isn't nothing to really write home about. Despite that, I can't say I like the game that much as I wasn't much into fighting games myself but there's a few things here I like that the musou series itself would actually take and there's a surprising blueprint here that people wouldn't think actually started with this title. I've managed to finish the game with each character which unlocked all of the characters including some you can only unlock with a cheat code as far as I'm aware so I'm ready to share my thoughts on delving into the origin of Dynasty Warriors.

The game itself provides your standard suite of modes that fighting games had at the time. 1P Battle is essentially your arcade mode, Versus mode lets you fight against a friend, team battle lets you 3v3 against your friend or the computer, tournament mode is an 8 player tournament mode that uses the two controllers that allow you to set up a local tournament with your friends, time trial is a timed mode where the objective is to finish the game as fast as possible, endurance is trying to make the most of out of 1 life bar and seeing how far you can go and the practice mode which lets you practice your moves. You start out with ten characters which are three from each of the kingdoms and Diao Chan that belongs in the other category. Each category has four to a grand total of sixteen with Zhuge Liang for Shu, Cao Cao for Wei, Sun Shang Xiang for Wu and Lu Bu, Nobunaga and Toukichi for the other category with the last two being guest characters of sorts. The standard mode consists of nine stages with Lu Bu being the final stage as he really should be. For those that don't know, Lu Bu has been considering one of the most feared warriors in the series to the point of his existence being super boss tier in a sense. Really cool to see everyone has their iconic weapons that would be prevelant for the first half of the series such as Taishi Ci using those dual rods, Guan Yu using his iconic guandao and so forth. Only time they didn't follow through with this was Sun Shang Xiang not having her iconic chakrams and instead just some short sword.

Your actions in combat consist of slashing with square, thrusting with triangle, redirects with circle and parrying with cross. The "special" meter you see represents your musou or "chi" as it was called then. This meter goes up with how well you play and goes down with poor actions and so forth. The meter becomes full and you can do the iconic musou attack and if your health is also low too you can do a true musou attack which have been staples in the series for as long as I can remember, it actually started here. A really cool touch I didn't expect to see was weapon clashes, you know the action where two weapons clash together in a stalemate and it's anyone call who will come out on top. The animations doing these movements are kinda of surprisingly smooth for a title like this which I legit didn't expect much of. The thing with 3D fighters like this as the time is that they were a bit more methodical and not as responsive as fighters today but I can't speak much on it since I wasn't much of a fighting game to begin with.

I would honestly still say this game is worth taking a look into if you're a huge fan of the Dynasty Warriors series just so you can appreciate the little touches and the introductions of mechanics like musou attacks, weapon clashes and the notion of fighting 1v1 with an officer until later entries would make this its own mode. A very cool look into what would become its own entity with "musou" but as a game itself, I would probably put something else in the PS1 disc tray.

See you for Dynasty Warriors 2 hopefully soon.

Do the graphics suck? Yes.
Does it run like shit? Yes.
Do the load times suck? Yes.
Are all the assets reused? Yes.
Is this one of the most unique, creative and fun games in the franchise? Absolutely.

Lightning Returns's unique structure, combat and customization make it a total joy to experience. The key is how well all aspects of the game work with each other.

You want to do sidequests because aside from getting their cool little subplots you earn stats, equipment and extra in-game days with more quests, rewards and things to do. You're on a timer, so you want to get good at the combat because defeating hard enemies means being able to stop time for longer periods.

How do you get good at the combat? By playing the game! Experiment with the garbs, accessories and commands to find the most efficient way at defeating every enemy type. You'll not only get a lot of drops to complete sidequests and improve your commands but you'll also eventually make the monster extinct and earn a new (and usually very good) accessory or weapon along with materials to upgrade your commands to the next tier.

In sum: we have a really fun combat system that's extremely rewarding in every way which complements the extremely rewarding sidequest system which again furthers your combat options and capabilities.

The flow of the game feels very organic, I wanted to do things because they were fun and by doing fun things I unlocked even more fun things while also being handsomely rewarded in the process and understanding how I should play the game more efficiently bit by bit. Earning 100% feels more like a side effect rather than a goal, which to me is great design. I really loved this game and everyone should give it a fair shot, you might love it too.

A true miracle

We all have that favorite form of media we hold dear in our hearts. A favorite game that invokes nostalgia or a favorite film that invokes a strong emotional response. Even with my unfiltered thoughts on Disco Elysium, I feel like I can never do it justice no matter what I say or can even write. It's more than a video game for me at this point but a brilliant phenomenon that has altered my life for the better. It came at the perfect time during one of my lowest points after losing two of my jobs during the pandemic and having no real direction in life once more. It's rare to feel that way about something someone else created, they'll never know how truly thankful and how important it is for you and that's okay.


"What's it like to miss someone?"
"What's it like? Good. And bad. An ache that brings you joy."


A world sundered by war and different ideals brought us to this point in time where the case truly starts. Essentially attempting to give yourself oblivion and forgetting yourself, it makes for a good reason for yourself to ask questions about the world itself. The world of Revachol and Martinaise fully bursting with colorful characters with their own fully realized stories of pain, triumph, fears, and regrets just like every one of us on this Earth. To appreciate the compassion and to fear the impatience of someone, Disco Elysium manages to invoke that emotion as if it was an actual person.


"Real darkness has love for a face. The first death is in the heart."
"See you tomorrow."


Even so illustrated on our very own detective himself, twenty four measures of our knowledge, our feelings, and our own physical urges provide him with the way of being able to piece together reality like we already do. There's a reason he became like this and it's not for the faint of heart either. Alongside him is Kim Kitsuragi, your partner and the perfect companion for you on this case. A stoic man who places their faith in you without being saccharine or overly dramatic makes it hard to ever think about disappointing him. Kim represents a second chance for us. Everyone thinks of you so lowly in the very start that it almost feels like life itself is an uphill battle but with Kim, it slowly becomes a rise into redemption or a descent into hopelessness. Kim won't stand by everything you do, he has his own ideas and motives and if you lose him, who else will you truly have?


“Every school of thought and government has failed in this city — but I love it nonetheless. It belongs to me as much as it belongs to you.”


Failure is inevitable. We'll never make the correct decisions at the right time at the right place and Disco Elysium knows that. You don't actively fight but you learn everything you can instead. Some decisions are easy and can always come back to, some are difficult and some you can never come back from but even in the end despite it all, life goes on. The flow consists of exploring Martinaise, collecting trash, talking to the locals, gathering information and exploring new buildings and areas. Almost every location has a history to it and a story. A failed summer home by the coast, an old rundown commercial area lost to time, a church with an unusual quirk. Disco Elysium really fulfills a bit of wanderlust just exploring and putting the pieces together of what happened to the hanged man or the consequences of a failed world yet holding on. The text might be too much and the game may not be the fastest dopamine rush but it somehow feels extremely cathartic. A weight being removed from my overthinking and intrepid thoughts.


"This is a man with a lot of past, but little present. And almost no future."


There are a few things in life that truly keeps you going. Ambition, love, money, family, camaraderie of those you care about, realizing your ideas and dreams. I can truly only ever speak for myself when I said that playing this game during one of the lowest times of my life, a time where I just wanted to give up because the world was falling apart had kept me going. The world can feel scary, it can feel bleak sometimes but Disco Elysium reveals the true miracle, the speck of pure hope in humanity. Sea Power's existential masterpiece of a soundtrack helped present this too. The true human experience. Disco Elysium's tagline is "What kind of cop are you?" while it should really be "What kind of person will you be in the face of despair?". Even now I feel apologetic for expressing myself in an unusual love for this piece of media and even though I know it's not perfect, I can't stop thinking about it. One million words of excellence. Will any of us truly past the tests given to us by circumstance? Are we strong enough to push in the face of true horror? Will the flesh finally give out? I can only hope it does. It's all I have. The case is all I have now.


"This is somewhere to be. This is all you have, but it's still something. Streets and sodium lights. The sky, the world. You're still alive."