Onion and everything they've been affiliated with in microcosm, down to being an expanded version of a side mode in Moon. The bones of something truly excellent that stands along the best of their work is here, but there's no meat for me to sink my teeth into beyond getting the highest score you can, and I don't think this game is all that great at continuous grinding for that typa thing. Still, I think worth a playthru to the true ending to get a tantalizing whiff of that Oniony goodness. It's been years since I played Dandy Dungeon, but from what I remember I'd show that to someone fully unaware of the pedigree of these guys before this.

official lil ugly mane project ranking

1. volcanic bird enemy and the voiced concern
2. oblivion access
3. mista thug isolation
4. volume 1. flick your tongue against your teeth and describe the present
5. uneven compromise
6. singles
7. third side of tape
8. the weeping worm
9. three sided tape volume 1
10. i believe the world would be a better place without you
11. three sided tape volume 2
12. songs that people emailed me about asking why i hadn't put them on streaming platforms

i didnt put it in the ranking but that tape he released that was just some kid playing michael jackson covers for his dad that he found at a thrift store is really good. remember to like comment and subscribe

"I Dive." -Dave

The surprise Indie* Hit Of The Year, Dave the Diver is a game that's occupied a strange space for me, as I've seen endless praise for it from vidja insider types but I have seen literally nobody actually talk about it. Maybe I just live under a rock but I heard nowhere near as much talk of this thing compared to something like Pizza Tower or Fear and Hunger, which dwarf this thing in cultural footprint despite apparently being less successful. Surely, something was amiss here.

There wasn't, the game's just a perfectly adequate AAA puppeting the skin of an indie game. The cycle of diving to restaurant managing is fun enough for a time, but after a while too many features creep their way in and I decided to hop off the ride before I knew I'd get bored n overstuffed. Wish the game had a smaller scope, it's definitely trying to do too much at once. I just want a game where you hunt for fish and serve them at a restaurant, I don't wanna do farming and gambling and shit! Dave's got too much dip on his chip!

The real thing that sinks the experience for me is just how soulless everything feels. The pixel art is nice but lacking in any real character or personalty, the dialogue has no wit or charm to it, and the ocean environments are largely vacant and bland. How anyone was convinced this was an actual indie game is beyond me, this has the "buffered and polished down all the edges and gnarly bits that leave the product with nothing to latch onto" vibe that basically all big budget games have now. just in 2D. One of the characters is just a weeaboo trope from 2013. It just ain't got no sauce to it!

Meet the new Mario, same as the old Mario.

A definite improvement over how sterile and boring the old NSMB franchise was but this one still retains the problem of basically every level blending together. Even with the new artstyle it feels like you plod through the same five or so uninteresting level presets until you get to the actual good part of each level 70% of the way thru it. Wonder flower stuff is a definite highlight, but more often than not felt too short and just made me wish they could be whole level gimmicks. Every level that focuses entirely on them is an obvious highlight. Cool seeing Mario devs show something more than the same 5 preset enemies each game but I still find the new lil guys created for this game a lot less out there than some of the particularly striking guys you get in something like og Super Mario World or Yoshi's Island. We thought Mario was exiting it's soulless era and returning to soul, but we were tricked into just nusoul. Sad!

Also sick bosses dude, I liked the one where you walk forward for 3 seconds.

Distinctly remember seeing this in the January 2012 issue of Nintendo Power, in that section they had near the end of the run where they went over some random retro game. Fond childhood memories of flipping through the last few issues of that mag before it shut down, very formative in getting me to care about older games alongside shit like AVGN. Iunno, Revenge of the 'Gator is a name that really sticks in yer mind, along with the weird, flatly colored cover art. It's prolly my favorite part of the game as a whole lol

Turned out to just be a demo for what would eventually become Kirby's Pinball Land, but since I have less affection for Kirbs than most I definitely prefer the cute nondescript alligators of this game. They're charming, tho they don't do much to elevate a pretty rudimentary pinball game. As a strong advocate for all video pinball games having a tilt mechanic, the lack of one here basically sealed it's fate as a curio at most. No reason to play this over the far superior Alien Crush, unless you're just really into gators.

Shockingly well made for the first game in a franchise known for very bad video game adaptations. As a certified person that thinks South Park was peak television when it was just children making penis jokes and falls off massively after it tried having A Purpose, I figured this would be something with neat fanservice to gawk at like the other Acclaim titles in this series, but nah, it's a pretty good puzzle platformer with a charming vibe. Plays like an interesting mix between GB Donkey Kong and The Lost Vikings. I imagine you'd get next to zero enjoyment out of this if you didn't find bit crunched samples of two grown men swearing in children's voices funny, but I do so moot point. Those alien timer levels blow though, no idea why they thought those were fun enough to warrant nearly 20 of them being in the game.

The more I learn about this game the more I'm amazed it exists in any capacity. How did this game get basically completed without anyone realizing that putting a South Park game on a console mostly owned by children was a bad decision? Why did they reskin this as a Mary-Kate and Ashley game two years later? Tim Follin did the soundtrack to it??? Incredibly strange choices all the way down on this thing.

I'm also pretty sure this is the only game boy game with an ethnic slur in it. Correct me if im wrong but iunno what else would have one