9 reviews liked by Gortiamas


Never play a game that you can immediately tell is worse than Run Saber is what I’ve always said

You crank your nuts to heal.

This review contains spoilers

A nice little game that introduced me to magical realism. I also like the fact that what really happened is not resolved. Was it all real? Did Sohta make it all up or dream it? Is this an episode of a series? Or a giant hoax orchestrated by the townspeople?

Oh, god. What to say? Weird ranty, unfocused review incoming.

The Stanley Parable, in it's original state was a whip-smart, clever, and chuckle-inducing romp that subverted the expectations of traditional game design, allowing the player to push back against what are normally conceived as rigid boundaries, designing for the aspects of games that most people think "they couldn't have possibly thought of that, could they?"

It became viral with the help of word-of-mouth reviews as well as (though I doubt the game's originators William Pugh or Davey Wreden would be happy to admit it) let's play videos. It blew up on Youtube as the kind of "oh I wonder what my favorite personality would think of this silly thing" kind of trend for a while, and made a name for itself as a genuinely clever piece of work about the nature of choice (and lack thereof) in games, and whether the fourth wall is really your friend or not.

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is odd. It's mired in a cloak of marketing that defines it as "refreshed, yet familiar" and yet is itself the core of an identity crisis about it's own meteoric rise to fame.

A very long, overdrawn bit wherein the orgulous, yet iconically lovable Narrator prods fun at reviews of the original Stanley Parable left by journalists and community members alike seems difficult to distinguish whether Wreden, the game's writer, is venting about his "art" being unfortunately misconstrued or if this is just some odd, several-layers-of-irony laden pit that the "character" of the Narrator has found himself unable to escape from.

Wreden has not minced words in the past about the burden of expectation placed on those who find themselves in the shoes of the "creator" (see: The Beginner's Guide), yet so much of this game seems to fall flat at being a source for absurd laughs. Self-aggrandizement (and deprecation, for that matter), for better or worse, just isn't that funny anymore.

I do admire the effort placed into this new experience, it's clear it's been done from a place of love for the art rather than an obligation to make something new about The Stanley Parable, yet something about it all just kind of leaves a bit of a sour taste in the mouth, and a rolling in the eyes.

I think this game missed it's mark to be it's most impactful version of itself. Had it been released a handful of years earlier (an impossible ask, I realize,) it feels as though it would've been much more prescient and "of the moment."

Instead, The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe simply feels like a remnant of an age long past, an age before mass corporate franchise consolidation, before shared IP universes, before the demolition of the fourth wall, before the news became which ideas belong to which boardrooms and how and why they're going to show up on X Y and Z platforms.

The internet full of Paying Consumers Who Vote Virtuously With Their Wallets knows what it wants, and it's just economical to give it just that and nothing more. The Fourth Wall can't be subverted anymore, because it simply isn't there.

Call me cringe if you must, but damn, I kind of miss 2013.

very conflicting game. on one hand, the very unhinged and wistful nature of the first game was it's best aspect in my opinion. there were dozens upon dozens of different interactions with the random camp characters that really breathed life into the experience of the game. After each major junction, (even one as small as the timeframe between the first brain tumbler experiment and completing sasha's basic training) you were treated to new interactions with those characters, and the writing was actually funny. The second game eschews this; possibly because even in developer interviews they mention how they toiled away, implementing features and things to a game with a myriad of logistical issues that most people just wouldn't end up experiencing. There are only a few different things a character can say at a given time, and what they say doesn't really change throughout the course of the game until near the very end; where the game's latter half is segmented by being set appropriately, at night, just like the first. the game's subtext isn't as beautiful as the first's; aside from the best mental worlds in the game (Hollis' Hot Streak, Cassie's Collection, Compton's Cook Out, ) almost everything leading up to that respective mental world gives you TOO much context about them, and then whatever you learn within doesn't feel particularly earned or as insightful as it did in the first game. And I can't tell if that's just me or not; The reasons why I love Psychonauts are very personal and unique, I can't exactly explain why I love that game so much. It's not due to a lack of words, but because there are so many little things that make the experience of that game one of the best I've ever had; Perhaps expecting the 2nd game to deliver on that level of charm is unfair; I mean, it's still a great game, the writing's still way more than passable; As a "game" it's much better than Psychonauts 1, it has some of the best 3d platformer controls since Mario 64 pretty much. By no means is it somehow way worse than the original, but when you make a sequel it inherently exists in reference and in contrast to something else. I think this game as is is a very healthy product, and although it's not as great as I think I want it to be, it's probably one of the best sequels ever created.

Tunic

2022

aggressively boring visuals meets aggressively generic rtx lighting meets aggressively generic soundtrack meets aggressively simple wait-and-see gameplay meets gorgeous, charming in-game instruction manual that outshines legitimately every other soulless aspect of this adventure meets aggressively tedious backtracking meets aggressively cowardly lack of writing, dialogue, and environmental storytelling whatsoever meets aggressively cute gator enemy meets aggressively one-note enemy designs otherwise meets thirty fucking dollars.

If I had the money to make something as slight as this at this scale I'd do it all the fucking time. Games can be like jigsaw puzzles and one-shot television episodes and they're usually a much better thing.

Mega Man 3 is what I consider to be a step up to 2 without all the weird gameplay decisions that made 2 a rather underwhelming improvement to 1.

Introducing several aspects that remain present in the series later (such as the Rush items, Proto Man, and Mega Man's iconic slide), levels are generally really solid with a challenging yet satisfying difficulty for the most part. Controls feel rather tighter this time around which I appreciate, and the addition of the slide makes maneuvering levels and avoiding attacks more interesting than in the previous 2 games. Furthermore, the Rush items were introduced which I would consider an improvement to the items in 2, as they're generally easy to use and levels seem to lend themselves well to utilizing them for the most part. Bosses this time around are also fairly challenging. While they lose invulnerability to most weapon like 2's bosses, their weapon weakness this time around doesn't completely obliterate them with one or two hits.

After the eight robot masters the game has an additional eight more bosses, 2 in 4 stages each. These are the "Doc Bosses", and are basically reused bosses from 2. While I don't mind this part of the game, as the levels and bosses I found enjoyable, I do feel it wasn't really necessary and the game could have skipped us directly to Wily's Fortress after beating the eight robot masters. Weapons this time around I also didn't think were as interesting as those of 2's, but this is more of a nitpick I suppose as you can still utilise them well enough against bosses and during levels.

Story is present in the game, however I assume you need the manual yet again to fully understand the context as most of it is only just before the wily fortress section of the game and after the final boss. Visuals are as usual good and I found the soundtrack to be more memorable than in the previous 2 games.

Now, onto my major complaint with the game: the slowdown. The slowdown in this game is far more notable than in 1 and 2, being present most of the time in almost every level and during most boss fights. It makes the game needlessly more difficult than it needs to be and can easily sour the whole experience. While I personally got used to it for the stages, it was a major annoyance in boss battles as it made avoiding their attacks and aiming with your weapons at them more difficult. I highly suggest that if you give this game a try, it should be through the legacy collection as I heard it has a "Turbo Mode" that lessens/removes the slowdown. Alternatively, if you're using an emulator, check if it has an overclock feature and see if that helps.

Overall, Megaman 3 is a fun time and a generally great improvement to the previous two games. The slowdown is really just my main issue with it, as my other complaints with it are not really enough to ruin my enjoyment with it otherwise. If you enjoyed any other Classic Mega Man game then I definitely recommend to give 3 a try.