Early access streamer bait (derogatory) that I was initially apprehensive about but jumped in on after caving to peer pressure and ended up having more fun with than any other multiplayer game since freaking 1 vs 100.

You probably know how this game operates by now: you and a crew of three others (Apprecations, HaroKid, and TransWithSammy with a few guest appearances by friends of friends thanks to the More Company mod) plumb abandoned facilities, desolate planets, and "MILF mansions" - as they were colloquially referenced by my crew - for treasure... Or trash, as Lethal Company frames old soda cans, whoopie cushions and sheets of metal as items of value in much the same way Pikmin does. Complicating your excursions are violent bouts of inclement weather, natural and artificial hazards, and monsters. Lots of monsters. There are no MILFs in MILF Mansion, just a crackerjack-man with a shotgun looking to blow your head off.

Note: I am aware a nut-cracker is not a "crackerjack-man," I just called him that in a panic (I believe while running away screaming "CRACKERJACK-MAN!") and kinda kept going with it. I'm old and kept playing this game past my bed time. I once tried to explain how I thought Red Bull tastes like perfume, I should be in hospice.

Horror-comedy is pretty well defined even within the medium of video games, but I'm hard pressed to think of many examples that express this genre quite so effectively through their mechanics. Sure, there's some eerie monster designs, and you can buy some very silly items in the in-game store, but moments of genuine tension and comedy are more often borne from how you engage with the game rather than being experienced passively. Being lost in a pitch-dark maze far from your friends - who might be dead for all you know - is dreadful, especially when you start to laugh after a circling monster steps on the whoopie cushion you dropped, alerting it to your exact location. In other words, it's the perfect game to showcase Weatherby's many foibles.

Lethal Company's most interesting feature is how it plays with audio cues. Proximity voice chat places an emphasis on sticking together and coordinating, and becomes vital given the procedural nature of facilities, which are often labyrinthine and steeped in darkness. Monsters are identifiable by the sounds they make, and their distance and placement can be discerned from how their growling and stomping pans between audio channels. Much like every other facet of Lethal Company, proximity audio plays a large role in fostering anxiety and humor, whether it instills panic as the thunderous pounding of an Eyeless Dog's paws spell imminent disaster, or relief as you trek back to the ship from a harrowing expedition only to hear your crewmates blasting Canned Heat in the distance.
 
Mods add a lot to the game too, allowing players to replace the models of monsters with dumb shit like Son Goku, change the hazmat suits to NOS tracksuits, or expand the total number of allowable crewmates. In a lot of ways, I could see Lethal Company becoming as customizable and well supported by mods as Left 4 Dead 2, if only it would get Steam Workshop support so I don't have to deal with dumping weird dll's into file trees.

Being in early-access does come with a slew of problems. Instability, pieces of geometry loading in wrong, and general issues with mod compatibility are all standard and predictable consequences of being in-development, though Zeekerss does hope to have the game completed "within six months." Given how simplistic the game is, that doesn't seem like an unreasonable target, and it's explosive popularity does engender a lot of confidence that new features will be added over time. I'm not one to buy-in on early-access games, but Lethal Company is worth jumping into for its low asking price, especially given the level of official and community support.

Stating the obvious, you might not have as much fun with Lethal Company if you play it in a random group. Maybe that extra chaos factor of not having a rapport with any of your crewmates is it's own kind of fun, but I was never willing to wade into that part of the game. Call it social anxiety if you want, frankly I think the sound of my voice is as much a horrible burden on my friends as my inability to stay alive longer than two minutes. But with a familiar party, Lethal Company is so perfectly poised to exploit the usual antics of your friend group that it becomes a blast.

(I don't rate early-access games so, no current score for this one.)

After watching TransWitchSammy play Illbleed at the behest of myself and Appreciations, I knew Blue Stinger was the next game she ought to play in order to fully appreciate Crazy Games and Shinya Nishigaki's mad genius. However, I'd previously committed to playing the game myself and had intended to do so in December, coinciding with when the game takes place, and it was quickly settled that I would play and stream it instead.

I'd like Sammy to know I took a bullet for her and I hope she never forgets the sacrifice I made.

DINOSAUR ISLAND TRAVEL LOG

Day 1:

For a Sega Dreamcast launch title and a first outing by Nishigaki's Climax Graphics (rebranded to Crazy Games two years later), Blue Stinger leads with its best foot forward.

Elliot Ballade is sailing around Dinosaur Island with his friend, who is so busy occupying himself with fitting a PVC figurine into a jar that he gets caught in a time dilation bubble. Elliot is saved a short time later by Dogs Bower, and now might be a good time to mention Masaki Segawa of Basilisk fame did all the character designs for Blue Stinger. Not to disparage his future work, but he's really never designed someone quite like Dogs since.

The story takes itself a little more seriously than Illbleed, with Nishigaki preferring to skew more towards a tone similar to that of Jurassic park, carefully balancing action and suspense while sprinkling in bits of his humor. People are mutating into horrible amalgamations of mammal and reptile, and though you have an arsenal of traditional and high-tech weapons, you can also like, put on a sumo shirt and come at them like the gassed up middle-aged, denim shorts wearing freak of nature Dogs is-- and all while thunderous music by composer Toshihiko Sahashi (who later worked on Gundam Seed) blares at a level that's just a bit too high in the mix to be able to hear your friends talk over Discord even with the game dropped to 20% volume.

In other words: this is a crazy game by Crazy Games. Or it is for now....

Day 2:

It doesn't take long to reach the Hello Market section of the game, which is littered with tons of great examples of video game signage, including so much marketing for Hassy Recovery Cola that you might be forgiven thinking it's a real product you can put your real lips to. However, Hello Market also exposes an especially frustrating aspect of Blue Stinger's design that plagues it through the duration of the game: it's "gero camera," the Japanese onomatopoeia for vomiting, which Nishigaki unaffectionately refers to it as in in an interview with Game Developer's John Andersen.

The camera tightly follows the player-character, and is at times so closely zoomed in that your visability when entering a room is limited to the back of your character's head. This was the result of an edict by Activision, which felt this sort of camera system would play better in Western markets as opposed to the more zoomed out position it takes in the Japanese version, because why on Earth would you want your game to be readable?

Unfortunately, I don't speak Japanese and I want to hear Deem Bristow go "GAH'CHA!" so I was forced to constantly eat shit when entering into rooms because Blue Stinger's enemy placement is practically the template Signalis followed, only with greater and more devious intent. It's fine, I spent all my money on large cans of Hassy. Dogs is leaving Dinosaur Island with his life and the price is only a few thousand dollars in soft drinks and completely calcified kidneys.

Day 3:

I'm starting to get a little frustrated.

Elliot is equipped with a shotgun and Dogs has a god damn gatling gun, and both these weapons do shit damage. What the hell, man? How do you make a video game gatling gun feel bad. How do you make a video game gatling gun wielded by reigning sumo champ Dogs Bower feel bad.

The whole weapon economy is fucked. Your arsenal is largely purchased from vending machines, necessitating a certain amount of grinding to afford new armaments. But when certain guns feel weak despite their cache in gaming culture, blowing 8,000 bucks on a laser sword or bazooka carries a risk that the weapon might be a total waste of money. Do you want to horde your cash and trade it in for ammo, cheeseburgers, and hot dogs? Or do you want to see what's in the mystery box?

By this point, the wildly variable audio mixing was actively causing problems with hearing my friends and being able to absorb needed context for where to go and what to do. Sammy became my Otacon, using a guide to keep me grounded and focused on the task at hand, only we discovered so deep into the walkthrough that the author was littering it with half-truths and totally glossing over important pieces of information, as if they too were a bit fed up with Blue Stinger. If IAmYoFatha was on the job, this wouldn't have happened, but he's either dead or in jail.

Day 4:

Elliot swallowed monsters.

Day 5:

Ok, man, let me tell you about burger-frames.

The final boss comes after a three minute and 45 second long defense mini-game with no save inbetween, meaning at minimum you're doing that over again if you die. Or worse, you'll have to do that plus a run back down and up a tower to restock on bazooka ammo if you didn't have the foresight to overstock your supply beforehand, because it's about the only thing that does a reliable amount of damage.

Despite having predictable patterns and attacks that can be led, the final boss feels like a bunch of random bullshit. His fire breath frequently hits outside of the effect and sometimes does not actually harm you when standing directly in the middle of it. I cannot stress enough how wildly incongruous the hitbox is with the animation itself. It also deals an insane amount of damage, killing Elliot in two hits if you didn't upgrade his health (something I didn't know was even possible until after I beat the game) and Dogs in three.

This is where cheeseburgers come in. Of all the consumable items in the game, cheeseburgers have the longest period of invulnerability from the time you eat them to the time your health is recovered, meaning you could bypass potential damage by eating a cheeseburger at the right frame of the boss's attack. At worst, you'll get a little cooked but still heal, rubbing your tummy while your head is engulfed in flames. This was the only way I was able to keep myself alive and beat the boss.

By this point, I was already at my wits end with Blue Stinger, frequently flipping the high-speed toggle in Redream and going "VROOOOM" while throwing sumo chops at a million miles an hour just to keep myself awake and invested in what was happening. Towards the end of the final night, I was making plans to buy a Japanese copy of the game and frame it.

"Oh, you must like this game a lot, huh?" some unsuspecting guest might say.

"Fucking no I do not!"

___________________________________________________

Blue Stinger is brimming with charm, humor, and that signature Nishigaki style. It's also obtuse, frustrating, and ill-conceived. It has Dogs Bower and Hassy, and it also has the worst gatling gun in video games and a "vomit camera." It's Crazy Games - or rather Climax Graphics - at its most nascent but not at its most pure.

Stand for the national anthem.

Sonic has never been a consistent series, but the sixteen years following the death of the Dreamcast and Sega's departure from the console hardware market represents it at its lowest point. Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) nearly killed the franchise where it stood, both episodes of Sonic the Hedgehog 4 failed to live up to its namesake, and Sega couldn't even get a port of the original Sonic the Hedgehog for the GameBoy Advance right. Brief flashes of triumph broke apart dire releases before swiftly returning to the status quo, and games like Colors and Generations seemed almost accidental when followed by the likes of Lost World. At a certain point it became hard not to feel like the series was held captive by a rudderless publisher and a dispassionate developer.

The "Sonic Cycle" became a popular meme during this era both within and outside of the fan community, and constant promises to "go back to what made Sonic special" felt hollow when every subsequent release was decidedly not that. By the time Sonic Boom released, there was genuine debate as to whether or not it was worse than Sonic 2006. It felt like it was time to just pull the damn plug.

Sonic's 25th anniversary party was appropriately disastrous. Audio drops, a delayed start, and constant mechanical whine piercing through the event did not engender much confidence that Sega's upcoming slate of Sonic titles would be anything to get excited over. But seven years removed, the thing I think of when reflecting on the event is the reveal of Sonic Mania. The crowd's reaction to the announcement trailer was infectious. Sure, they may have been diehard fans hopped up on room temperature Totino's Pizza Rolls™, but seeing a proper 2D Sonic game helmed by Christian Whitehead and Simon Thomley - well regarded for their contributions to the hacking scene and the excellent mobile remasters of the classic games - felt like this tremendous release of pessimism and anxiety. Finally, a Sonic game worth getting excited about rather than remaining cautiously interested in. oh yeah and Sonic Forces was there, who gives a fuck

A lot of preamble, but necessary context for why people went ape for Knuckles and Tails being playable characters. The oft-touted return to form seemed real now, powered by the Retro Engine, which had previously proved capable of creating a near-perfect simulacrum of Sonic's Genesis era physics and momentum-based speed. Whitehead, Thomley, and PagodaWest were so honed-in on what made the old games work that the Drop Dash, Sonic's new signature move, was indirectly and unknowingly copied from a scrapped mechanic in Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic 3 are the main mechanical inspirations behind Mania, blending Sonic 2's speedy setpieces and knack for pushing the player forward at all times with Sonic 3's large levels, platforming, and rich exploration. This fusion results in the best balance of speed and platforming I've seen in any of the classically styled 2D games, and the way each zone's pathways intersect and split apart never feel like they box you into a single linear route or result in you getting lost. Knuckles once again has his own bespoke routes, some of which are pretty substantive, like a totally different Act 1 for Mirage Saloon and exclusive boss fight at the end of Lava Reef Zone.

My only real complaint is that there's just too much overuse of classic zones. All but four are taken from previous Sonic games, and those that are not directly lifted are referenced in some way, typically by transplanting a gimmick or enemy into another zone, like the spinners from Marble Garden which show up in Mania's Stardust Speedway, or Angel Island Zone's Catakilla Jr. floating around in Chemical Plant. Mania ends up being a remarkably comprehensive celebration of the Genesis games as a result, and while these remixed levels are still a joy to play, the real highlights are the four ground-up zones exclusive to Mania. At least everything looks incredible, the sprite art is brimming with personality and the new coat of paint each of the returning zones are given - especially in the more divergent second acts - makes them feel fresh. TeeLopes incredible soundtrack also features some of the best remixes I've ever heard for these returning levels, but much like the original zones, his new compositions are the real highlight.

According to an April 2017 Famitsu interview, the inclusion of remixed levels came at the behest of Iizuka, though I do not know who is responsible for tying Mania's story in with Sonic Forces. At face value, these creative choices seem like a hindrance, but regardless of any limitations the team faced, they walked away with a game that feels positively energetic and celebratory of a series that no doubt inspired some of them to pursue game development. And, presumably, any follow-up to Mania would feature entirely original zones, right...?

Rumors of bad blood between Mania's former development staff and Sega have been spurred on thanks to the controversy over Denuvo's inclusion in Mania's PC release, and Simon Thomley's negative experience with Sonic Origins. Whitehead has since stated that the Mania team (Evening Star) and Sega are on good terms and that some of their discussions about the direction of the classic series influenced Sonic Superstars. It's easy to take rumors to heart, and I know I certainly have in the past. After all, it's natural for heads to butt on any creative project, and Sega doesn't have the best track record. However, it's more likely Evening Star wanted to make Penny's Big Breakaway and things just didn't work out for sequel. A bummer, as what little of Superstars I've played is certainly lacking Whitehead and Thomley's touch.

Even if proper a Mania 2 never comes to be (like my cynical ass believes it won't) I am still immensely happy with Sonic Mania. It's the Sonic game I wanted for years, and inarguably a capstone entry in the series that is responsible for Sonic's popular resurgence. Well, that and the internet collectively patting themselves on the back for "fixing" what turned out to be a real middle-of-the-road video game adaption by forcing CGI artists back to the office shortly before the liquidation of their studio. In a way, that's perfect. Sonic is back! And he's back because of one fuck-ugly CG model and a single good video game. The duality of Hedgehog.

I'm sure anyone in their 30s is more than sympathetic to the difficulties of making friends. Work beats you down, leaves you worn out, and schedules are hard to line up when those in your orbit are also trying to pay the bills and feed a family. People grow apart, they change, and eventually you stop hearing from your friends you used to play Halo with in high school.

Not that those four years were some kind of halcyon, but I do pine for those nights when my buddies and I would lug CRTs two neighborhoods over on foot with Xboxes and copies of Halo 2 in tow. There are many aspects of my teenage and childhood years that I think are best left behind and which I don't envy younger generations for missing out on, but setting up LAN parties is my "walked ten miles both ways in the snow," a sick point of pride for a moment in time that can never be experienced again by young or old. Four greasy, pimple-faced teens huddled around CRTs in a dark and tiny apartment bedroom shooting rocket launchers at each other in Beaver Creek, the way Peter Moore intended... I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss nights like that.

The CRT I have now weighs well over a hundred pounds, and since I'm built like a teacup pig, I won't be carrying that over to anyone's house, even if I had someone's house to go over to. So, while I cannot recreate the sensation of playing Halo 2 with friends back in 2004, I can at least experience the single-player campaign on period appropriate hardware, and that's something; and for what it's worth, I had a really good time going back and revisiting this game for the first time since release.

For the most part, Halo 2 is just more Halo, only with the added level of production you'd expect from a follow-up to one of the most popular and profitable games of its time. The set pieces are bigger, levels more varied, there's more guns, more vehicles, and they even paid big bucks to get legendary comedian David Cross to voice a character. Oh yeah and Michelle Rodriguez is here-- BUT HAVE YOU SEEN MR.SHOW!!?

Halo 2 certainly makes a strong first impression. The opening cutscenes jumping between the UNSC celebrating Master Chief's victory and Thel 'Vadam's punishment for allowing him to destroy Halo sets up the game's main conflict wonderfully. I was initially led to believe that The Arbiter would serve as the main antagonist of this story but was surprised (at least in 2004) when the game relinquished control of him to me. Introducing a deuteragonist and cutting Master Chief's screen time by about half was a bold choice, but one that I think pays off, as The Arbiter is a vastly more interesting character. The way in which his faith is shattered as he learns of Halo's true purpose, and his fight to expose the Hierarchs for their deception gives him more depth than Master Chief, who mostly shows up to say cool guy stuff like "I'm gonna need a gun B-)" and "Sir, finishing this fight." Perhaps there's something to criticize there about how little character Chief actually has, and how he could have been used to better effect in exploring the uneasy alliance that begins to emerge between the UNSC and rebelling Elites, but my vague recollection of Halo 3 tells me that I'll eventually get what I want, and there's still a lot more narrative here to sink into than the anemic story of the previous game.

I have more mixed feelings about Halo 2's gameplay, however. The opening few missions are the strongest, and the game wastes little time in introducing new weapons and vehicles for you to play with. Some may lament the loss of the Starship Trooper inspired assault rifle, but I personally favor the more focused burst action of the battle rifle. If that doesn't do it for you then you can always pick up an SMG and, through the power of dual wielding, it can as powerful as a single gun! Even the Covenant get some new weapons, like the plasma sword which can one-shot most enemies when timed right, and vehicle sequences are better about offering multiple rides, affording the player some freedom in how they have their fun. As good as these weapons and vehicles may feel, none of it would work if they weren't complimented by good level design, and for most of Halo 2, that is the case.

Things really start to drop off towards the end of the game. Levels design starts to backslide into Halo 1 territory, with identical hallways and samey arenas that break any momentum the player may have been building, reducing what should be the most climatic moments of the game to a total drag. It doesn't help that the Brutes - who effectively replace the Elites in the end game - are profoundly spongy and present in great numbers, which causes every firefight to be protracted just beyond the point of being fun. Master Chief's last level sends him through the corridors of the Covenant's stronghold during a Flood attack, and nothing about the level is set up in a way that encourages you to be an active participant in the fight. Just avoid combat and run to the goal. Boring.

There may be good reason for this, however. Enough has been written about Halo 2's underwhelming conclusion, but a significant amount of cut content has bubbled to the surface in recent years to imply that the game was at one point much larger in scope. Take the opening sequence in which Master Chief "returns" the Covenant's bomb, which in the original gameplan would've instead saw him boarding and infiltrating their ship, or Alphamoon, a level that was far too large to reasonably ship. To quote Chris Butcher while talking about Alphamoon: "We were building stuff that just couldn't be played, in any engine, we built, and detailed, and went a huge way down the path with a whole bunch of environments and levels for the game that just totally didn't make it."

However, of Halo 2's cut content, Earth Ark is the most relevant to the final product's abrupt ending. Originally conceived as an ending to Halo as a series (there was no plans to make another game at that point in time), Earth Ark would've sent the fight back to earth for three final missions that would alternate between Master Chief and The Arbiter. A complete walkthrough of how these missions would have progressed can be read here, but my personal opinion is that it would have been a vastly more interesting conclusion to Halo 2, and arguably more than what we eventually got in Halo 3. It's a shame that development troubles and a prevailing need to actually ship a game resulted in a truncated conclusion to Halo 2, having a clear adverse effect not just on the narrative but the quality of gameplay during these final missions.

It's fun to think about this theoretical "true" version of Halo 2 and how it would've radically altered the way the franchise developed, but doing so is a exercise pleasant yet pointless as reminiscing on high school LAN parties. It also should in no way be taken as a sweeping condemnation of the game we got, which I think is very good despite circumstances leading to a compromised end product. It also has David Cross in it, which is at least worth a full star. Oh and Michelle Rodriguez, who is worth like, I don't know, 1/6th of a star. The system doesn't let me go that low so I'm going to round it down to zero.

This is a true story.

I was about 7-years-old when Donkey Kong Country came out. It looked insane, and more than any other game for the system, it was the one that left me the most jealous of SNES kids. I needed to play it, but the only one I knew who had a copy was a boy on my block who I didn't get along with. I tried to suck up to him, but he knew I had a Genesis. He saw through my deception.

One day while riding my bike, I saw him run out of his garage to go over to a friend's house. With the garage door still open, I saw a golden opportunity... And so I snuck into his home and made my way to his bedroom, popped in Donkey Kong Country, and started playing. From the hallway, I could hear his mother approach, asking him a question that I cannot recall, clearly assuming her kid decided to stay indoors. As she turned the corner and peered into his room, she saw me on his bed playing the Super Nintendo. I'll never forget how loud she screamed as she chased me around his house and out into the street.

Just me doin' a little B&E because I love Donkey Kong Country so much.

After taking a brief detour to review Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, I'm back to finish up my Castlevania write-ups. This isn't part of my bucket list, because for some reason I didn't think to add my most favorite Castlevania game and instead force myself to play shit like Wrath of the Black Manta and Ecco the Dolphin. Nobody can harm me the way I harm me.

Rondo of Blood is well known as the direct predecessor of perineal favorite Symphony of the Night. Indeed, the connection between the games is so direct that Richter's final fight against Mr. Dracula serves as Symphony's opening, with Richter himself becoming the primary antagonist for the first half of the game. Unfortunately, if you grew up in the states your lead-in was instead the abysmal Dracula X, with a localization of Rondo not happening until 2007. The TurgoGrafx-16 CD did not do well here. It didn't do well at all! And that's a real bummer, because Rondo of Blood in a lot of ways feels like a send-off to "Classicvania," something that is made more apparent with its direct ties to Symphony. It's both a triumphant final lap and a passing of the torch, and if you rolled into Symphony of the Night off of Dracula X then... well, damn. I'm sorry you got did like that.

All of Castlevania's well-established mechanics are here. Jumping is still stiff, though like other Vanias of this era, you have mid-air control over the direction of your jump, which allows for smoother platforming. There is no diagonal whipping, but it's unnecessary as keeping your whip purely horizontal breeds challenge without ever feeling like a handicap. Familiar enemies return (especially if you've played Symphony first, cause oh boy does that game use every part of the buffalo), including Medusa Heads, Fleamen, and Axe Knights; and though you no doubt know how to deal with them by now, they're not even the slightest bit less threatening. Fleamen are still bastards. They were always bastards, and I will send them to the grave as bastards. However, for as familiar as everything in Rondo is, it's all been refined to a needle-sharp point. In a lot of ways I'd compare Rondo to Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It's really hard to beat the level of quality here, and it is in fact so good that it's difficult to envision Konami being able to do anything else to push this specific style of gameplay forward.

Rondo also brings back Dracula Curse's alternate routes, and a variation on that game's partner rescuing mechanic. In Rondo, accessing alternate routes is a bit more involved than simply choosing which path to take at the end of a level. Rather, certain pits, doors, and switches can open up new pathways for Richter to take mid-level, which provides a strong incentive to explore (see: whip everything.) Thoroughl exploration is also nessecary for saving Rondo's four "maidens," including Richter's girlfriend Annette and fellow vampire hunter Maria Renard. Maria can be found the earliest and also becomes a playable character should you free her. Maria's familiars deal an insane amount of damage and she has different movement tech than Richter, and is overall a lot of fun to play as, though not as much as she is in Symphony. But that's for Saturn fans only...

I can't possibly wrap up my thoughts on Rondo without touching on its aesthetics. The game opens with a German narration as Dracula is resurrected, and after starting the game proper, you're treated to an Anime as Hell sequence of Richter gearing up and whipping some ghouls. There's a few cutscenes done in this style throughout the game, and I have a big soft spot for these kinds of quasi-FMVs. They remind me a lot of the cutscenes in Snatcher, and that's always a good thing. The soundtrack is another highlight and is mostly comprised of remixes of familiar Castlevania tunes. Multiple composers worked on the OST, and among them is Metal Yuhki (sick name) who is responsible for Rondo's versions of Bloody Tears and Vampire Killer. However, my favorite track not just in Rondo but across the entire series is Picture of a Ghost Ship, which just sounds so positively 90s in a way I can't quite pin down. I'm not normally one to link to remixes since they really don't have anything to do with critiques of a game's soundtrack, but I would be remiss in not sharing my favorite version of this song.

Every single part of Rondo comes together perfectly for me. The presentation, its sense of style, the tension, the atmosphere, and most of all the gameplay... Yeah I kinda suck at playing it because it's freaking hard, and I might get a bit frustrated at Level 4 - "The Inner Halls" due to its length and abundance of Fleamen, Axe Knights, and spike traps, but I also just can't bring myself to knock even a meager half star off my review. This one is an easy 5/5.

I'm still on a boomer shooter kick, and thanks to the fan made Force Engine, now seemed as good a time as any to give Star Wars: Dark Forces a try.

Dark Forces makes a number of technical improvements over Doom, introducing more vertically oriented levels with rooms that exist over other rooms, something Doom wasn't really capable of. Environmental effects further enhance the visuals, which are much more varied per level and appropriately capture the look and feel of the original Star Wars trilogy. Blast sounds, the hiss of doors, and the filtered speech of Stormtroopers all sound authentic, though the MIDI renditions of popular Star Wars songs leave a lot to be desired (granted, they're pretty good for the standard of computer audio at the time.)

LucasArts further differentiated Dark Forces by taking a more objective-based approache to missions. Rather than simply running to an exit you'll instead need to set up explosives, redirect platforms, hijack ships, and complete a number of other unique tasks before exfiltrating the mission area. You're also able to jump, sprint, and make use of masks and goggles to survive poison gas traps and darkened rooms. While this makes each level fairly involved, some of the ways in which these features are implemented can be a little clumsy. Jumping puzzles rarely feel good, and the visual design of some levels can make certain alcoves and switches necessary for progression difficult to spot. Levels can be as labyrinthine as they are in Doom and overall I found them to be not quite as good about creating memorable landmarks to ground yourself with, and some of the puzzles and hazards you have to navigate through are more annoying than fun.

Enemies are also incredibly easy to take out. There's some great weapon variety but very rarely does it feel like you need to make use of anything other than the standard blaster. Stormtroopers and imperial officers go down easy and ammo is abundant. Dark Troopers mix things up a bit and require more specialized ammo and harder hitting weaponry, which makes these encounters a lot more engaging. I'd actually say Dark Forces does a pretty good job of ratcheting up the tension anytime a Dark Trooper appears. There's also a lot of mines! Mines everywhere! Considering you move at a million miles an hour, it's easy to just turn a corner and blow Kyle's legs off. This guy is apparently in his twenties but he looks like he's been sleeping in a cigar lounge for a couple months straight. Maybe that's why he's so resilient. Even so, I defy anyone to survive Jabba's ship without losing a limb or two. I'm not sure who designed this level but taking all of your gear and making you punch your way through two gigantic lizards is bad enough without littering mines absolutely god damn everywhere. Terrible.

This is the part of the review where I cop to having a weird health issue that sometimes interferes with FPS games: I get motion sick. It doesn't happen too often, but it has impeded my ability to enjoy some really great games, like Half Life 2 and Jazzpunk. Apparently Dark Forces is another game that makes me want to hurl after playing it for about an hour. I had rendering set to Open GL to address warping with mouse look, and it's not like I was sprinting all over the place, so I'm not sure what exactly about this game made me feel ill with such consistency. I'm not going to knock Dark Forces for this, obviously, but maybe you should take anything I say about it with a grain of salt. Getting lost in levels might have more to do with me feeling like the room is spinning than any sort of design issue, but I also can't quite be sure because I do think some levels are designed in a way that don't make them easy to navigate without referring to a map (which isn't to say it's on the level of Marathon or anything insane like that.)

Dark Forces is still good enough that I persevered through my motion sickness rather than put the game down, and I do think despite some of my criticisms against its level design (as valid or invalid as you may find them given my admission) that says a lot about the quality of the gameplay. I've yet to play a boomer shooter I didn't like, even if I have now played one that makes me want to projectile vomit.

There is a pattern with very few exceptions in the way I experience modular narrative games. The beginning of the game lays out a structure—the game's mechanical thesis—and I begin to understand ways in which that structure can be used to tell brilliant intertwining stories in ways that haven't been possible before. And then, inevitably, as I begin to approach the end of the game, I realize that it will not live up to the promise of its own structures, and however beautifully it weaves its story it will live in the shadow of what could have been.

Pentiment's story is doubtlessly beautiful. It takes a small town in an unglamorized time in history and tells a gripping tale that combines religion, politics, and humanity together as deftly (and with as much research) as any lauded novel of historical fiction. The comparison to Middlemarch is perhaps obvious, but well-earned. And it gives the player ample opportunity to influence characterization without making the protagonist a cipher with no personality of his own.

In the beginning, Pentiment tries to give the player a similar level of control of the narrative with a brilliant structure in which the player is presented with a buffet of choices of what to investigate and who to dine with, but with only a few days to allocate between them so that many paths remain unexplored. Allowing a single playthrough to miss major chunks of content is absolutely necessary for a narrative game to truly be modular, and this structure facilitates that while also presenting the player with a meta-puzzle across multiple playthroughs: learn what each of these events gets you, what information you get or friendships you make, and what is duplicated across different events. Combine this with the player's chosen traits and dialog options opening or closing different paths, and then hide the heart of the game within this web so that only by deeply understanding the town outside the minds of the protagonist—by becoming in a way its protector-saint—can you truly understand its secrets and navigate its innermost channels.

Despite creating a structure in which this is possible, a genuinely inspired combination of Inkle games and dating sims, Pentiment instead lets this structure fall by the wayside to the extent that the last third of the game is almost completely on rails—the player can and probably will see everything the game has to offer at that point, no matter what. Although the narrative is still marvelous it's no longer modular, and it only functions as a game within the scope of a few conversations and the player's trudging between screens.

And, oh, what trudging it is. Although I mourn for its unfulfilled potential and there are increasingly many glitchy moments or unedited lines as the game goes on (the result of a rushed end of production?), the truest deepest flaw of Pentiment is surely the amount of time a dedicated player will simply spend moving from screen to screen. In every hour any part of the map could have a new event or new dialog—but almost none actually do. There are just precisely enough that the player is motivated to check everywhere over and over again, wasting cumulative hours of real human time.

But if Pentiment's mechanics are a little underconsidered and their quality occasionally slapdash, it's still a miracle that it exists at all. I never thought I'd see a AAA studio, a Microsoft subsidiary no less, make something like this that is so openly in conversation with this genre which has for decades been exclusively the territory of indie games (and indeed was rarely a big name there either). I dearly hope that this helps legitimize that space and expands both its popularity and marketability, and I dream as I always have of the day when someone makes a game that truly grasps the potential towards which games like Pentiment extend their hands.