This review contains spoilers
This isn’t “a parody of 90s internet.” It IS the 90s internet.
Every character in this game you have seen before if you've ever laughed at someone vicariously through somethingawful.com or The F Plus: boomers who can’t figure out how to use the platform they’re on, who get outraged over the tiniest slights toward their entitlement and turn them into ridiculous crusades for free speech, and who fall for dumb hoaxes that are obviously false on their face (don’t those banners “protecting” them from “beef brain” remind you of your aunt back in Wyoming posting “I DO NOT consent to Facebook using my information! I hope it’s not true but if it is I’m posting here, better to be safe than sorry”). Edgy fifteen year old dorks who write angry livejournals about Steve who isn’t even their real dad, make embarrassing wish fulfillment webcomics where they kill zombies with uzis and tell mom to shut the fuck up, and of course harass girls until they tell them to stop, to which they reply whatever, ur ugly anyway. Fantasy and sci-fi enthusiasts, conspiracy theorists, and a whole slew of lonely dorks realizing they finally have an outlet to express themselves and figuring out on the fly how to do so appropriately on what, at that time, was a wholly new technology. And of course, the tech bros controlling it all, giving off a facade of friendliness an camaraderie but underneath caring only about “innovating” and “pushing boundaries” while being wholly unequipped to provide its users with even basic safety measures, (let alone protect them from a whole disaster that kills five people from an imploded subm- I mean mindcrash glitch), and piss and moan when someone reports them for breaking their own rules which, damn, apply to me too?! Everyone has either met people like this for real, or else has definitely encountered them online, even well after the 90s. They’re all here, baby.
The difference here, aside from maybe the fact that the posts here are if anything actually toned down compared to the really out there forums irl, is that I actually gave a shit about almost all of them. Even Abbywrites, and to be sure Abbywrites definitely sucks. I have to admit, I was laughing at Zane’s stupidass hot or not posts even as I was getting paid to report them for harassment. I was heartbroken that I could have reported him for just one more violation to get him banned, and save his life later on, but I missed just one 😔, which also means in the timeline of my playthrough he never gets to make Slayers X. Remember that boomer who couldn’t figure out how to make her page work? She gets some help from her friends and makes a nice functional little page right before her trial period ends, and now she can’t wait to spend New Year’s Eve with those new friends of hers! Seeing her new page after the fact, when she becomes one of the mindcrash victims, and reading the eulogies for all of them with this song playing, it nearly fucked me up. I couldn’t believe I laughed at her before. She was just an old lady who wanted to go online! What is wrong with me?
I would be remiss not to mention the slew of made up music genres, celebrity figures, video games, and mediums of storytelling is dizzying; I thought chowder man was a little too unrealistic at first, but I gotta say, his eight minute eighties synth-prog song about shaving, it grows on you. There is also a GENUINELY GOOD sludge/noise rock band with a full album that you can download and listen to while you play.
This is by far the best written story out of any game I’ve played this year, and it’s the silly dumbass point and click internet game. Do better, other game writers
Every character in this game you have seen before if you've ever laughed at someone vicariously through somethingawful.com or The F Plus: boomers who can’t figure out how to use the platform they’re on, who get outraged over the tiniest slights toward their entitlement and turn them into ridiculous crusades for free speech, and who fall for dumb hoaxes that are obviously false on their face (don’t those banners “protecting” them from “beef brain” remind you of your aunt back in Wyoming posting “I DO NOT consent to Facebook using my information! I hope it’s not true but if it is I’m posting here, better to be safe than sorry”). Edgy fifteen year old dorks who write angry livejournals about Steve who isn’t even their real dad, make embarrassing wish fulfillment webcomics where they kill zombies with uzis and tell mom to shut the fuck up, and of course harass girls until they tell them to stop, to which they reply whatever, ur ugly anyway. Fantasy and sci-fi enthusiasts, conspiracy theorists, and a whole slew of lonely dorks realizing they finally have an outlet to express themselves and figuring out on the fly how to do so appropriately on what, at that time, was a wholly new technology. And of course, the tech bros controlling it all, giving off a facade of friendliness an camaraderie but underneath caring only about “innovating” and “pushing boundaries” while being wholly unequipped to provide its users with even basic safety measures, (let alone protect them from a whole disaster that kills five people from an imploded subm- I mean mindcrash glitch), and piss and moan when someone reports them for breaking their own rules which, damn, apply to me too?! Everyone has either met people like this for real, or else has definitely encountered them online, even well after the 90s. They’re all here, baby.
The difference here, aside from maybe the fact that the posts here are if anything actually toned down compared to the really out there forums irl, is that I actually gave a shit about almost all of them. Even Abbywrites, and to be sure Abbywrites definitely sucks. I have to admit, I was laughing at Zane’s stupidass hot or not posts even as I was getting paid to report them for harassment. I was heartbroken that I could have reported him for just one more violation to get him banned, and save his life later on, but I missed just one 😔, which also means in the timeline of my playthrough he never gets to make Slayers X. Remember that boomer who couldn’t figure out how to make her page work? She gets some help from her friends and makes a nice functional little page right before her trial period ends, and now she can’t wait to spend New Year’s Eve with those new friends of hers! Seeing her new page after the fact, when she becomes one of the mindcrash victims, and reading the eulogies for all of them with this song playing, it nearly fucked me up. I couldn’t believe I laughed at her before. She was just an old lady who wanted to go online! What is wrong with me?
I would be remiss not to mention the slew of made up music genres, celebrity figures, video games, and mediums of storytelling is dizzying; I thought chowder man was a little too unrealistic at first, but I gotta say, his eight minute eighties synth-prog song about shaving, it grows on you. There is also a GENUINELY GOOD sludge/noise rock band with a full album that you can download and listen to while you play.
This is by far the best written story out of any game I’ve played this year, and it’s the silly dumbass point and click internet game. Do better, other game writers