This brought me back to when I was trying out a bunch of demos that Digipen and other game design students would release publicly. It was so cool to see how a group of people would express a bunch of systems and visuals to accompany. There is little to no financial capability from being tied to the place of education, unless the creators actively retool things as was the case with Nitronic Rush becoming Distance.
Zineth is such a great example of this small spot of video games. For the capabilities weren't fully formed as could be done later. Polish isn't a top objective or even a capability, so what's done instead is to expand on the core concepts (ex. the playlist shuffling of ~5 or so songs, the odd roughness of the sand dunes). Namely, the big one of skating really fast. Once the player's speeds reach up to 400 units of speed and above feel dangerous to control, the meager jump heights getting stretched small and narrow through the velocity. Having to know where to get the most ideal airtime for reaching other platforms and buildings becomes critical.

Haven't got too much for audio beyond how rewinding time for the several seconds back makes the stock record scratch sound effect pretty funny. Visuals on the other hand are really interesting, as a smaller team getting to (what I assume as) 'toon' shaders and flat color buildings and models. Done as simply as possible to be made more viable.
If I was to praise this further it would then start getting into the small details that would require me to get out a notebook and write down every thought popping up.


Arcane Kids made this? Huh. Guess it does explain the odd smartphone-based menu system. Knew that trying to integrate Twitter and other social media into the play experience was a hip & buzzy marketing move game creators shot for during this period (Skate 3, Superbrothers, the then upcoming PS4 dualshock with a Share button). That sort of early iPhone adopter type optimism that I never truly understood. Though the rest of the phone-as-menu selections are understandable, with the small minigame that does a sort of "pet sim" of killing enemies and dying to upgrade from high scores. The zine as a feature of this is pretty charming too.
I enjoyed messing with Zineth, certain their future work will show through. It's good!

Love it when a game tries convincing the player to try out all the other cars and their different stats but also giving them just enough money to max out all upgrades and the chunkiest Hot Wheels cosmetics onto their 240sx. Solid open world that likely led to many people imagining what the rest of the in-game city would look like. Asking those closest why the closed circuit track and airport levels are not explorable, and making up a new reason outside of technical limitations.

The 'plot' really exists in 5 out of the 100+ events, with that old trick of illustrated stills and narration. You're New Person, here's your car, now race and then there's this new antagonist dude and you beat him in a race and its over. Not really much to 'spoil' in that front.

While the furthest from being a big stickler over older graphics, it's fun to note the PC version and more emulatable versions reveal the more blurry GUI and world textures. The resolution of it being meant for CRTs stretching 640x480 or to 1024x768 twisted nematic flatscreens at the most. This statement on the blurry textures can also be applied on the world and vehicles, if to a lesser degree. Vehicles read well enough as the player continues whizzing by.

A exploration of some space coated in visual effects sharp enough to make many things incomprehensible. The effects and shaders from the chunky render resolution to exaggerated chromatic aberration and small worlds painted with moving textures. Some vague faint shapes of a casino, a school(?), and possible fates. The combined color reduction and resolution lowers, heightening or flattening any level of contrast. Some of these pieces can have a very pleasant angles, perfect to screenshot and share the aesthetic views. This is not the best game for those with issues involving eye strain.

Also of note is that this surprisingly isn't one to be considered a "pure" walking simulator, but having multiple states for having more than a single ending. Something one would expect for a much more spendy, sprawling project than this comparatively humble piece. It's not quite "The protagonist does/does not save the thing", but it does explain that additional element to this.

Was surprised with how much time and money was put into this, especially when the credits began rolling for two main studios with at least a hundred employees each. Granted, Lionhead and Microsoft likely weren't doing this stuff with RenderWare or Unity, beyond QA and sound management.
Competent combat that has a good amount of variety, which I mostly bruteforced with fantasy bullettime. Very visible technical/creative limitations that remains from every LOD level pop and cut content that even The Lost Chapters couldn't bring back. While not the easiest for the industry to see at the time, even in 2005 one can feel the friction of increasing demand of 'Triple-A' scale not being able to be matched. The game tries its best to depict an epic struggle with what its world of janky hallways and omnipresent guards(?) announcing day-night times more frequently than the main quest giver. And it's an effort that sucessfully hit with enough people to create multiple sequels including one in development right now.
Can't knock on this game too hard for succeeding in that regard. In retrospect however, Fable 1 really feels like a bellweather for how big budget games would start trending towards.

A few years back, I was made aware of a Ren'Py remake of this game which was functionally complete if equally unfinished. So why not check out the ur-text of the furry visual novel?

For all of the brief praising air that's made over works like Katawa Shoujo and The Death of Pablo, this is closer to the average chanboard project, be it image or text-based or western or non-western. But it's still on the more 'successful' half, because they managed to get past the "We'll start with the logo!"-Idea Guy stage.
What was originally concieved of as a gay parody of some popular eroge at the time or whatever. Standard japanese vacation to rural village, but this time everyone but the player is a homosexual beastman. The player is just gay, no anthro element there.
The writing is more miss than hit, in that any competent route or plot point feels accidental. Even if the last anime I watched was in 2010, many of the same archetypes are all here, with unique characterization fitting more as window dressing. Characters like Kouya and Shin have serviceable plot beats and pacing, with unique CG. And I do not have the time or patience to get into just how messy the other 6-7 characters are. Kind of like how the volunteer developers got tired of creating 8(-9?) different character routes, including the allegedly canon path. But that Morenatsu was able to be more than half complete before being dropped is something I must give credit to all of those involved. Because I doubt anybody was getting paid to create this. There were even pre-rendered FMVs for some of the endings! And the characters are public domain, so stuff like unofficial comics and the full-blown remake by western devs are fully viable.

Beyond influencing a handful of non-western and western developers to make their own work, the character artist and project lead also went on to do more in standalone art and another game. Another game that I'm also not too fond of.

For what is such an unstable foundation, it's impressive to see this inspire the amount of people it has. Still wouldn't recommend it, just not good.

gamer academic guy in mid 30s to early 40s: ...yeah okay so the main dillemma of picking the best game of all time is that everything is good and delightful so really the only way to get a good measure is to aggregate player data. the largest database of gamerknowledge comes from either mobygames or metacritic or backloggd, so we average out the most common top rated one but the problem this creats is that those top rated games can be biased and weighted so what this actually means is that popular opinion is useless and critic opinion is useless because of publisher backings, and the search for objectivity in wide favor is a worthless endeavor so my answer is that there is no best game of all time though if you held me at gunpoint i would probably say super mario bros for the nintendo entertainment system also known as the famicom because it was such an impact on the gamer world in its essence of the gameplay

me, smart and epic: Ford Racing 3 for the PlayStation 2. Tim Follin's greatest music work.