'time and time again, humans have proven their willingness to trade any amount of personal information for the smallest convenience.' 'despire consistently claiming 'privacy' to be something you cherish, its functional value to you appears to be nearly zero.' 'you lament against progress, only to embrace it wholeheartedly when it becomes part of your daily lives.'

Colorful, fun, well designed and charmingly written, I've not got many notes, it doesn't outstay it's welcome, I honestly just wish games like Neon White had writing like this, that never crosses the line into being unbearable that that game does straight away. Other than aesthetically there isn't that much variation between levels in terms of hazards and enemies, but there's enough.

I honestly think I preferred this to Hades.

This did not come out in 2016, this came out this year, it has to have, this is so far ahead of the entire military FPS genre, the movement is so fun, from the doing and sliding as the BT to the fast, wall running, double jumping action of the pilot; and the character animations on the BTs, it's giving Valve, it's next-level.

It is, however, still just a military FPS. The story would be snore worthy without the amazing level design and gameplay. And it doesn't help that it peaks about two hours in. Big those first two hours are some of the most cool I've played in ages.

The tutorial tests you and sets the difficulty level based on your capability during it, something more games should do, the the first level wastes no time getting you into everything in a rocky mountainous area that lets you really experiment with the movement and combat systems. Then it kicks things into third gear with the factory level, where you make your way around on panels that are gradually being built up into buildings, adding multiple levels of threat and tactical consideration, climaxing with a holographic fight on all of the buildings you've just seen get built. From there you go straight into one of the best levels I've played in a game all year. The time switching mechanic in the third level of this game is so good it puts the entire rest of the game to shame, in the half an hour that it's featured in the game it's so well utilised, fully realised and incredibly impressive that it genuinely boggles my mind that they just... Get rid of it. It fits an entire games worth of mechanic development into just one level, with the most interesting story sections and setpeieces of the entire game, the final setpiece of this level really wows.

In fact, it's so good up to this point that the entire rest of the game feels just... Fine by comparison.

Still worth playing.

’That really hurts. But if you want to kill the mother of god, you'll need a better weapon.'

IMMORTALITY is one of the best games I've ever played, it is truly unique, it is everything I love in both game and film (combining both in an unholy synthesis that goes beyond any other FMV), whilst being a deconstruction of everything wrong with how we culturally treat both film and video games. The gameplay is novel and interesting, and once I realised I didn't have to use my mouse at all, the movieola-style interaction really came into its own, like I was in some alternate version of the movie Blow Out.

Immortality will not be for everyone, some may compare it to point and click games, or 2d puzzle games, or the work of Lynch or Jodorowski, but no comparison can truly prepare you for what this game has to offer, the only thing I can think to really compare it to is Silent Hill 2, and even then only loosely. Again, not everyone will want this, or enjoy it, it doesn't give you a clear objective other than 'find out what happened to Marissa Marcel', and for some that won't be enough, but for others (like myself) this oddity is exactly what I needed. This has energised my passion for both games and film, and has well and truly blown me away in every conceivable way. This is the first time a video game has been posed as 'for adults' and actually felt like something made for mature and fully developed people only, this isn't a gate keeping thing either, compare the likes of GTA and Outlast, posed for adults but also clearly for teenagers who want to feel adult, against this; a surrealist, slow burn character study and esoteric look at corruption in entertainment. It even does something I normally consider a cardinal sin, the presentation of sex as inherently gross or taboo, but considering the religious preoccupation of the narrative and the role sex and sexuality, especially as it relates to gender and the film industry, plays in the narrative, it completely works, even in the more shocking moments. Not only is this a comment on problems the film industry has had for decades, it looks forward to the games industry, comparing the medium of last century to the medium of this century, and asks us to not let the same thing happen in games (looking at you Activision, blizzard, Ubisoft, EA, etc)

However, there are some technical bugs, sometimes inputs can get confused by the game, and there are some sound issues with sounds playing when they shouldn't (and not stoping without a game restart) and the audio track for clips more than sometimes not playing at all unless you hit pause, wait, and then hit play. But these are bugs that won't severely hamper your experience of this phenomenal achievement.

I haven't even scratched the surface of my thoughts about this game, but I'd easily hit the word limit of Backloggd if I attempted to get it all out, I'll be thinking about and digesting this one for a long time.

P.S. I was not expecting this to be a horror game, but this unnerved and genuinely frightened me more than any game in recent memory, it did a lot of things no game in recent memory has done.

I've just finished an extended 10 hour demo of this game. Between Elden Ring, Lies of P and this, we're spoiled this year for soulslikes, and those are just the great ones (too bad thymesia was... Not great).

I've got a really strange relationship with this title. In my previous job I worked doing some of the marketing copy for it before it was announced, now in my new job I'm playing it early for editorial and news content, in a completely unrelated capacity. In both of those roles this game seemed super interesting, with unique visuals with an interesting art mechanic, well-refined soulslike gameplay with its own unique twists, and fun and engaging writing reminiscent of The Stanley Parable.

The great thing is that it has the Mets narrative and commentary about the commodification of nostalgia and IP without sacrificing having the deep world and location-based lore that this genre is known for.

I can't wait to play this game as soon as the full release comes out, and it's one I can easily recommend.

It's such a good time for quick gimmicky action games that absolutely slap... But have awful writing. This is very similar in that respect to Neon White, the other big indie fast paced gimmick shooter of the year. The Doom inspiration is so obvious it isn't worth mentioning, but for the most part this surpasses the label of 'doom clone'.

Over the last couple of years there's been a few games that have tried the 'FPS rhythm shooter' formula over the last few years, and I've played a lot of them, but they've always felt like they're missing something. This game finally hits the mark with a simple and easy to use inventory system, music that's easy to keep track of the best for, a variety of weapons that interact with the beat timings in different ways and enemies that are responsive and interesting.

The only problem I have is with level design, I spent maybe 75% of my time with the game at 16X multiplier, and then 10% was me losing my grip on the timing momentarily, but the remaining 15% was just losing combos because enemies can't find me, are too far away or I've accidentally run from them, I don't think this is a problem with enemy design more than the levels being not ideally designed to keep killing them as quickly as is required by the combo system, and it leads to some frustrating moments.

However, I was expecting next to nothing from this, and it's become one of my favourites this year, easily top 10, I just wish it was longer as I easily beat it in under 4 hours; at least it has challenge modes to come back to.