From the cover alone, you can probably already tell what you're in for with Little Kitty, Big City, and yes, it is exactly as charming, delightful, and obnoxiously cute as you want it to be.

That said, as ridiculous as it sounds, I did have some slight apprehension going into this, given what kind of game Stray was (or, in this case, was not).

Thankfully, underneath all the sweetness, there is a fun lil platformer to be found in Little Kitty, Big City and it's not merely a cute cat simulator where you run around doing cute cat things. I mean, it is very much that as well, but it's also a half-decent collectathon with some simple but engaging puzzles and side quests for the titular little kitty to embark upon.

Really, 'simple but engaging' is perhaps the best way to describe this game. It doesn't try to be anything more or less than it needs to be. The entire thing can be finished in less than 6 hours, and outside of some wonky catforming controls and animations, it holds your attention the entire way through.

With fun platforming, endlessly delightful little touches to the cat's behaviour and animations throughout, an upbeat, jazzy score and a delightful sense of humour, it's exactly the kind of game you need to take a break from the 50+ hour narrative-heavy, live-service AAA games that inhabit the space.

Sometimes you just want to reject modernity and embrace kitty.

7.5/10

Little Silly, Cute Kitty

I'm a cat owner and have been for the last sixteen or so years of my life. My first cat was an all black football cat named Lurkey. This was a name given by my father because our large lad spent the first year of his life with us after moving in from the frigid outdoors living in the shoe room only emerging from his cave to eat and use the litter. Lurkey passed and my parents obtained a new cat via the cat distribution system while I was away in college, her name was Esme and she was also a black cat with a shame reminiscent of a pigskin. I write this all to say that I have a long love for black cats, and Little Kitty Big City is playing right into its target demographic here... a gamer with a cat who grew up with black cats.

My ferocious feline, named Albert Whisker (yes RE fans that's for you,) began to maul at my screen as SOON as I started Little Kitty, Big City. Maybe upset he isn't getting the same adventure in my humble apartment as our purring protagonist gets in a bustling (presumably) Japanese city, but that's neither here nor there. LKBC gives you one simple objective as the procatonist: get home after a tragic fall leaves you... not home! What gives the game a runtime as long as you want is the world filled with a plethora of collectibles, objectives, and animals to meet and converse with around town. The humor is endearing, a continuous hide and seek match with a chameleon comes to mind here, and the charm of interaction with your surroundings is endless. The environment is easy to make your way around and becomes immediately familiar to the player after a few rounds. I commend the dev team for knowing how to stack things inside such a small area to make it fun and traversal not feel like you're spinning in circles through the same area.

Ultimately this is a short game without too many bones to stand on, but it was fun for the couple hours I ran through the "main story" and putzed around side objectives. I had a few bugs that I couldn't really call frustrating because well... look at the game, but they were a bit annoying when trying to time or prepare jumps that faltered right away. I only had to reload a save once after being stuck in a stool but again, I only lost about a minute or two of progress. Game Pass was the right price for LKBC, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bought it. I'd recommend to anyone with a subscription or people who just really like cats, it's a fun one.

Surprisingly looks like it was ahead of it's time the day it came out while I was still in diapers, but of course, playing it for the first time for real as an adult, it's not really doing anything to wow me the way Yoshi's do when they pop 3 bubbles in a row.

But by god, sometimes when you're having a shitty week, you just want to cleanse your doom palette with some Yoshi's just trying to get by. The game is sweet, and it's short as Hell. There's no gloom here. There never was. Let the Yoshi's do that funny pose they make when you complete a level. Let them live their lives to the fullest, god damn it.

There is just nothing quite like Dead Rising 1. I have a review of this game from the last time I played it, but I don't think I really gave it the justice that it deserved back then. I was too busy trying to be a funny lil comedian, rather than being critical, and having finished it again recently, there is just so much that was left on the floor. I love this game a lot and I won't waver my 5 stars, but bear in mind that while you can be really passionate about something, that doesn't mean you should just ignore the criticisms it may have. It's not a perfect game by any means, and there are things in it that make me uncomfortable. But, I still enjoy the heck out of it all the same and it's a piece of media that I've been wanting to see brought back from the dead (hehe) for a long, long time.

Before the combo weapons, before the bloated map layouts, before all the horrible engine changes, before all the bullshit, this was peak as it is. I have played the other games in the series, minus 4. I've been putting off Dead Rising 4 for as much as I possibly could, but I have a hilarious friend who gifted it to me for Christmas and now it plagues my Steam Library like a nasty tumour. I would have honestly been more excited had he sent me a gift wrapped pipe bomb instead. I’ve agreed to finally sit down and play it, knowing that it was technically free, but I know that I will not like it. I despise Dead Rising 3 and Off the Record is a broken trash pile of flaming garbage. Dead Rising 2 is fun for what it is, and has come to be a game that I've mastered, but it's just not.. the same, ya know? It always lacked the simplicity of Dead Rising's original design while somehow being much easier in comparison at the same time. It’s the game where the cracks begin to form in what eventually lead to this series spiraling out of control and then mercifully euthanized at the vet when the time came.

I’ve always felt that the original baked-in concept of Dead Rising has been its shining star that speaks for itself. View it in the lens of it being an exploration game, before looking at it as a zombie game and you’ll see what I mean. The layout of Willamette’s mall is so tightly succinct, so perfectly sized with little gems sprinkled throughout in some of the weirdest places. The mall has just about everything you’d need, and then some. While smaller in size, it’s still comically filled to the brim with areas like a full-on supermarket, rollercoaster, totally not Home Depot, and a doomsday prepper’s wet dream of a gun store added into the mix just for funsies. There’s spots of infinite weapons or food to go back to when needed and secret items to find for the most devilishly explorative players. It’s so early 2000’s, arcade, before the Internet ruined everything fun. There was nothing quite like finding an SMG in a tree outside on accident, even today. I still find a random food item in a place I’ve never thoroughly looked over before. They’re so meticulously placed, without it being incredibly obvious. It’s everything that the modern open-world games of today are so desperately trying to capture, with many failing.

Uh oh, but- but- the whole damn place is packed to the brim with zombies like sardines in a tin can!! Those are only obstacles, my dear friend. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and grab that 2x4 piece of wood on the ground right next to you. You want to fill your entire inventory with the super OP shotguns that melt the psychopaths? Get to crowd surfing, bitch. You can use just about anything interactable to kill and slice your way from point A to point B. Not a weird combo weapon, or a hero’s sword specific to Frank, but the very definition of what you would call a Television. Anything, really, that’s allowed at the very least. Handbags, toys, sledgehammers, chainsaws, shelves, pipes, benches, bikes, etc., etc., etc. If the game allows you to pick it up, you can use it as a weapon. A real testament of your ability to explore, and make use of what’s around you. Your weapons break? Well, you’re standing next to a potted plant. Or use your fists even. BOTW Link would get suplexed so hard by Frank West, it’s not even funny. There are super powerful rewards in this game, but they come at a cost, which I love. The gun store is inaccessible until you kill the boss standing in it, so on and so forth. Adam’s Chainsaw’s trivialize the hell out of the game, but you can’t get them until he’s been killed, etc. The strongest weapons in the game are locked behind achievements and a daunting Infinity Mode unlocked after finishing the game once. Which is something that I feel the later game’s combo weapons are completely lacking. If you want to blast through the game with a gun that one shots everything, then you should have to work for it. It’s a greater reward to fuck around with once you’ve beaten the game and survived it’s challenges. There is still to this day, nothing quite like this item system in my opinion. You can compare it to BOTW or Dead Island, maybe, but it’s a silly system that flourishes in the mall setting and adds to the desperate feeling of using whatever you need to survive in the moment. It’s always been goofy as hell, and it’s always known what it is.

I’m sure that there’s people out there that would love to leave the walls of the mall, but in my opinion, it’s not needed. The later games try to explore this by making the maps much larger and expansive, at the cost of the player having fun. Not here. The opening prologue gives you a brief glimpse of the chaos outside through Frank’s unique photo mechanics, and you can clearly see that shit out there is bleak. In the first five minutes of the game, you’re fed everything you need to know through the lens of Frank’s camera, quickly loading up on PP bonuses before the game even begins. Pure interactive kino. It's a quick whirlwind of cramming what your goal is and that’s the point. Frank West is a no nonsense motherfucker. He’s a snippy man and has zero time for drama and hysterics. We got places to be and a story to report, people. It’s part of his charm, with brief moments of humanity sprinkled in. He’s not a complete unempathetic monster, but you’ll soon relate to his need for speed when you’re hauling 7 survivors back to the security room at once. I think he would benefit from a bit of fleshing out, of course. The later games seem to turn him into a completely uncaring asshole for pure comedic purposes and it kind of sucks to see. He’s annoying as shit now and it’s such a shame, honestly. The same Frank West that stayed with Brad and Carlito during their critical moments, is just reduced to a fat joke now. Haha!! So funny. Put this man in a dress, and he’ll be feeling himself ten fold. Put Chuck or Nick in a dress, and they whine to the player about it. Frank will always be superior.

Now let’s get to the contentious shit that people hate. The Survivors. Basically the other half of the game, cohabitating with the game’s plot. I see why people hate them, and you’re valid, but I gotta put my foot down and say that the survivors are a staple of Dead Rising. The survivors are what makes Dead Rising. You don’t have to like it, but without them, this game would be a jar of piss. The time mechanics are what separates this game from any other schlocky zombie kill simulator that its counterparts are already happily doing. Sure, you can go on a day binge of killing the zombies if that’s your underwear fit, but without hunting for survivors and killing the bosses, you’ll be seriously lacking in level ups, which means lacking in skill upgrades and health. I find the survivors in this game to be quite a cool collectible mechanic. They’re living experience rewards that require escorts from where they’re found to the Security room, and it adds an extra layer of charm to the game. While none of them are really.. characters.. per se, you can see that a large swathe of them were designed with some intent. Some are more aggressive than others, some are more cowardly, others are tied behind boss fights, etc. Some are easier to escort than others. They’re a challenge that is meant to be difficult and meant to be trial-and-error. A person expecting to find every single survivor in their first playthrough without a guide, is just asking too much for something that should be explored casually first. There are some survivors that are hidden, and others that may become the bane of your existence, but that does not eliminate their uniqueness nonetheless. The game allows you a NG+ with everything you’ve already achieved for a reason, it is not the end of the world to miss a few survivors on your first playthrough. The time mechanics have a stress factor that some may not like, but I’ve always appreciated how it made for something to do the whole game and challenges you to seek out areas of the mall you probably don’t walk through often. It’s a completely manageable mechanic for those willing to best it, and I feel only gets hampered down due to the game’s poor AI systems more than anything else. Where I think the mechanic falters is near the end game, as once you’ve rescued Simone there is just simply nothing to do for hours in-game. I think Day 2’s morning is the most stressful part of the game, while Day 3 is the weakest, with the least to do.

Now about those tricky AI systems, a criticism unable to be ignored. I love this game to death, but this is the part of the game that I think most people remember, no matter how they feel about the game overall. The survivors have what we would call… um.. Stupid Disease? At least, from a first glance that’s how it looks. Sure they walk into walls and can’t climb the simplest structures, or tend to let zombies eat their ass sideways until they die when you look away for a little too long, and that is of course frustrating. But, they were programmed with some thought that I just think wasn’t executed well. They all have a personality and act accordingly to it. Survivors like Aaron Swoop are pants pisser babies who will drop to their knees and crawl when surrounded. On the flipside, Tonya Waters is ride or die for her man and will act as a hero if you give her a weapon. Survivors will completely stop in their tracks if they witness you or their friend getting grabbed in front of them. They’re batshit terrified the whole time, so it makes sense, but that’s where the trouble begins because as soon as one of those dummies stops moving, it’s chaos from there. It is an experience that used to frustrate me to no end, but I am living in Nirvana now. I want to examine these survivors, to their finer details. I want to know why they’re so stupid. I want to peer into the binary code that makes them live. Had they been a bit smarter, or useful, this game would have fared so much better. It’s definitely the survivor AI and lack of auto-save that makes people tilt the most in this game. A speedrunner’s advice for those that may want it: the zombie spawn is affected by radius in correlation with Frank’s location. If you walk far enough away, the zombies on the outside of that radius will not appear, making escorting large areas a lot easier as survivors can stroll for a long time without getting grabbed. If you’re having a hard time, try this out, although I think having a hard time is part of the fun of it being a challenge.

I have yet to mention the story, but that’s kind of because the story is rather mediocre. It’s campy and satirizes a lot of zombie media in a really hammy way. It’s by far not a 5-star fine dining experience, but more like McDonalds brought home from your parents when you least expect it. It’s just a goofy time, not meant to really be taken super seriously nor does it have really that much to say about what it tries to politicize in its twists. There are things that could be made a lot clearer, such as the demise of an important character near the end game, as well as having a rather lackluster open-ended ending that can leave you with more questions than answers. It’s a fun time that swerves and curves while you play it, but the story isn’t why people play these games anyways. It’s the gameplay that makes this game so beloved by the people who cradle it like a baby. Like me.

Aside from all that there are item upgrades I never mentioned, that you of course have to find as they function through the use of holding magazines. There are blenders that exist to mix drinks with temporary stat boosting effects. The camera can be used for other collectibles and small morsels of PP here and there. As well as having an active role in one of the boss sub plots, but here’s where a personal criticism of mine comes from as well. I hate to do this but-but- I’m a.. a gulp- girl gamer, and I have to admit that the added interactivity of being able to take creepy ass photos of women and be rewarded for it with experience, as well as a nosebleed accompanying it, is not really my favorite thing to do in this game lmao. This game is very camp through and through and takes liberties of Isabela’s assets full front and center as they basically eat the cutscene camera, but those are honestly fine. I don’t dislike that aspect, but I can’t help but raise my eyebrow everytime I’m forced to get a good enough Erotica shot of Sophie’s undergarments just to fight Kent every playthrough, it’s just weird and nothing about Frank’s character gives the impression that he’d even agree to do that in the first place. Not to mention, if there’s a survivor like Kay Nelson in frame of the shot, you’ll get Erotica points on her crotch even when she’s not the focal point in the frame. Or getting Horror points for upskirting the older women, haha old lady gross!! farts.

The only one that works for me is Janet Star’s double Erotica shot for each of her gigantic boobs, because it’s so exaggerated and isn’t triggered by the player literally invading her privacy. That one admittedly gets a chuckle out of me, so it can be done in a way that works. But, I can’t help but think that this aspect of the game is kind of why Capcom doesn’t acknowledge that they made it in the first place, on top of the rest of the series being such ass poo poo water. If we ever get a remake of this game, don’t expect this part, or even Jo’s boss fight, to survive it. I’m not exactly sure how they’d go about making those changes, but I wouldn’t mind losing them personally. There is so much more that this game has to offer aside from the random lewdness anyways. L + ratio, girl gamer ruining my video games!!!

Speaking of, I think all of these criticisms and positives would benefit so hard from being remade. I mentioned it a bit in my last review, but just imagine how awesome it would be if everything in the game could truly be picked up. I feel as if there’s something on the shelf, I should be able to either grab it or put it on as an outfit. While the game gives so much to utilize, it also has a disappointing amount of objects that can’t be interacted with. I should be able to knock over objects, destroy book shelves, or even mess around with objects that are so neatly organized. The grocery store is so uncannily stocked to perfection, without any ability to move the objects around. Frank can infinitely take from areas that don’t visibly decrease in size, etc. It would just add so much to the feel, ya know? It would give so much more sauce than there already is. Just let me destroy everything in the area, then fix it when I come back. It would remove the weird barriers that exist in some boss fights like Jo or Steven’s where the display shelves actively get in the way of the two of you fighting. Cletus is by far the most dogshit boss in this game, with Sniper Carlito not far behind. They need to be bonked on the head with a magic fairy wand and changed so badly. Fix the AI on the survivors, give them a little more oomph, inject a little more life into their mini-stories and maybe even give them differing voice lines. Give Frank more modern shooting controls that allow him to walk and aim at the same time, etc. Either add or move around content into the later game that eliminates that boring part, and revamp the story to make the ending have more of an impact. It’s just an unfortunate case of what could be a great, fun time. The only thing that I don’t want them to change is the licensed music, probably the only time in my life I’ll defend the use of it. There is nothing more iconic than Gone Guru or Fly Routine as boss themes. And there is nothing funnier than seeing the sheer visceral panic a new player gets upon discovering the convicts for the first time while the initial “WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL-” blasts in their headphones.

There is just nothing quite like Dead Rising 1. The choices Capcom made to abandon this series is just so baffling and sad to see in hindsight because it could have been so, so much better. It deserved more than to be tossed aside to a studio known for making baseball games. It’s one of the few games that Capcom doesn’t even acknowledge on their 40th anniversary site: https://captown.capcom.com/en either. I could go on all day about why I think this game is awesome despite its flaws, clearly, as I tried really hard here. But, since I’ll be playing the 4th installment soon, I figured I should go back to familiarity for a minute and just live in its bliss before I inevitably tear my own face off. Since Capcom is in their remake era anyways, it could still happen and I’m not going to make any demands of them, but a small part of me can’t help but have a millimeter sized glimmer of hope in the back of my brain for every game conference that Capcom announces they’ll be apart of. Recently, there has been a sign that there could be one cooking over there, but we’ll just have to wait and see. I would even take their own version of a reboot if it means more Dead Rising. This game will always be a game that I come back to and a remake would not replace it, but it sure does deserve so much better.

And yet he complained that his belly was not full.

Atmospherically and visually impactful yet narratively messy with inconsistent themes and nearly no connection to the original game. The story could've been told as a new IP, it being Senua adds nothing of value. The voices which added depth to her character in the original act only as narrative yellow paint to explain every inch of a story that could've had more subtext if it wasn't completely subtracted by the voices overexplaining and negating any depth.

The gameplay is somehow even more shallow than the original which was at least paced better and had a story worth experiencing to back it up. Here the fights last so long it's comical for a system as shallow as it is and the puzzles are not puzzles in any sense of the word.

no good.

Have you ever watched a film or a TV series, read a novel or a comic book, or played any type of video game that was so fucking mind-boggling & completely insane that it literally just becomes one of your main interests for a long time and doesn’t leave your head for a single day? For me, that term belongs to none other than Killer7.

For starters, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is one of my favorite video games of all time, and it’s not just because it has such a well-written story, but because of how relevant the game is in today’s time with its themes, the narrative, and everything it talks about, as well as the fact that I played it during one of the lowest times of my entire life, so you can tell how much it means to me as a person. Ever since I played it well over a bit of a year ago, the game just hasn’t left my mind since I finished it, and for many months after that, I continued to play several games, and as good as some of them are, NONE of them managed to capture the same exact profound nature that Metal Gear Solid 2 did.

That was not until I completed Killer7 on December 28th, 2023 at exactly 2:33 PM where I found a game equally on the same level, if not even crazier. And, to this day, the game has not left my brain at all, and I will remember it till the day I die.

Suda51 is an interesting case for me, as the only game of his that I played before Killer7 was No More Heroes. While at the time, it was pretty cool, there was nothing TRULY outstanding about it that proved to me why Suda was considered one of the best video game developers on the market (PS I take this back now NMH is one of my favorite games lmao), but Killer7 felt as if it uplifted literally everything good about the video game medium and took its own spin on it which no other video game could possibly recreate. It’s almost like if he sniffed 10 pounds of cocaine before he would go to the studio to work on the game, and the insanely absurd nature of it all further proves that.

The narrative and the overall story are what I found to be the best parts of the entire game, as I was literally hooked from start to finish, even if I could not comprehend whatever I fuck I even saw. Like, the whole plot revolving around Japan’s role within the circle of US politics and how Harman’s never-ending fight with Kun Lan serves as an allegory for the conflict between the East & the West just goes incredibly deep, and it also has one of the better portrayals for how terrifying some of our world leaders really are. Outside of all this, you even have the smaller storylines within the game, including the whole Blackburn subplot where we got to see more of the entire idea of sick individuals with how they can easily go unnoticed whilst bigger issues overshadow any problems that we might have with them, and there is just more and more to talk about in regards to the full story of the game which I still did not get a full grasp of.

The game also has one of the best forms of gunplay that I have ever seen within a video game, as it’s not too repetitive, not too crazy, rather it perfects the formula of how guns should be used in a combat system, not to mention the way in which every Smith has their own balance with how you use them. Also, the whole linear structure that forces players into following one set route is brilliant, and fuck the people who think it sucks, because it absolutely rocks, more so with how it literally reflects on the game’s message that the world just doesn’t revolve around you, and that in the end, it will just be the same outcome, no matter what we do. If anything, there are so many things to get out of Killer7’s messages, and this is one of the many that benefit the game in its entirety.

I obviously can’t complete this review without talking about the art style, because holy shit, it’s so clean & stylish that it's genuinely amazing to just look at and see how vibrant it is. Like, how did we reach a degree of style so well during the 6th generation and completely fucking fall off with the 8th-9th generation of video games being mostly over-realistic AAA movie games that are almost completely devoid of any sort of substance? Like, there definitely are some amazing games being released within this period of time, but otherwise a lot of them just don’t hold the same level of creativity or imagination as what we got around twenty to thirty years ago.

I don’t think that video games as a collective medium will ever reach something as insane as Killer7 ever again, and this is truly just one of the best works of art I have ever had to experience. As of right now, there is quite a long way to go in life for me, but truth be told, I will always remember this game, as both it and a few other of my favorite games have become my primary inspiration for writing online about all of my interests.

“Harman, the world won't change, all it does is turn. Now, let's dance.”

He's a freak out the sheeeets and the other guy gets his own cinematic with dramatic lighting just to spout "Moshi moshi?" to the fairer sex. It's time to get acquainted with- wait, what? Oh, it's a common entry point for the series. I'll try not to bring up content from the other games. That said, most of the major players from Yakuza 3 to 5 were still not brought back. I'm satisfied with the substory cameos, though. People were fucking crazy in the late 90s. They had more money and adult entertainment than they knew what to do with. They do know, actually, but I don't think I'm strong enough to give the deets.

After Yakuza 3... this is a strong contender for best story, so far. 3 had tourists, kids and pets roaming the streets of Japan and it's kinda weird they stopped existing afterwards, but now stray cats and dogs can be found again. Fittingly, Majima doesn't sport the role of the straight man that Kiryu has wink wink, actively splashing fuel to the fire. Though when push comes to shove, this Kiryu can be less straight...the man.... less man straight well it's Yakuza bruv when you kill a man he dies and when you give him backshots your name is Mr. Shakedown.

I played Kiwami, but I was glad to see the combat again here. We are eating! But is it good? This is more confirmation that the moveset never was the problem. We were warned, this is what happens when you give a chimpanzee a machine gun. The random super armor on enemies was especially egregious this time around. Is this how disco forged our men? I have that crazy theory that Kiryu can only sprint in this game because he's... under 30 years old! Supposedly. But then he kinda rember in future entries. Never tell him to take a hike, because chances are, he's in Beast style and will actually grab a hike and maul you with it.

It's weird thinking of this Majima as one people may have gotten to know first. But they are very unlucky!! That is the peak of his career. His styles also have nada to do with the true dawg of Shimano. A bat and dance moves? Can't I use a knife and ninjutsu? What's the point in showing the watermelon flashback if not to instill in the player's head that he must be an expert knife user that can fruit ninja irl. Riddle me this. Why is Kiryu's real estate better than Majima's real dump of a club? Because an eye for business has less worth than two forced to commit yubitsume that's enough yakuzing cya next entry or my name isn't goror majimer, the Apex Predator named Princess.