Hot_Anarcocoa
BACKER
2011
Excellent use of mechanics as narrative. The way in which each player engages with this game says something about that player. Very impactful for the small amount of time it asks of you.
2011
Short, simple, and to-the-point art game about the collateral damage of the so-called war on terror. Conveys its message clearly and concisely.
Surprisingly solid volleyball game, probably my go-to for a volleyball game, not that there's a whole lot of competition. This was back when volleyball was actually in the title of this series, so there's a lot less focus on staring at the sexy anime girls compared to later entries, although it is absolutely still there.
2002
Nothing about this will blow anyone away, but it's a simple and fun volleyball game that I enjoyed as a kid. More fun playing multiplayer, the single player difficulty plateaus and is way too easy.
2019
This review contains spoilers
Edit: I'm putting this edit in here to say that Disco Elysium is the type of game that I've grown to appreciate more over time as I listen to new perspectives on it and spend even more time letting it rattle around in my head. The comments below and the video/article linked therein are great, and honestly should be read in tandem with my review for a more full view of my thoughts on the game now. Since writing this review I've decided that this game actually deserves a spot in my top 5 favorite games of all time.
I just finished my second playthrough of this game, the first time in the vanilla edition, and second in Final Cut. I think it's one of my favorite games of all time, but every time I think about this game there's one thing that always nags in the back of my mind. I made a twitter thread about it, and this is a copy paste of that. I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts on this:
I've had some time to settle on Disco Elysium and I do still think that it's kind of black pilled to a degree that still bothers me. Like, I don't need every piece of art to inspire hope. I'm not trying to say "make Disco Elysium but make it hopepunk."
But at the same time, when the game (which only rarely mentions anarchism) relentlessly presents every single ideology as a failure, I don't think that's a great message to leave people with...
According to the game, centrism is laughable because it is incremental and bureaucratic to a point where nothing changes. Liberalism is laughable because it's just the rich profiting off worker exploitation, and workers chasing the status of the rich.
Fascism is laughable because it strives to go back to an ideal version of the past that never existed, and relies on foolish notions of race science.
But communism, the game says, is laughable because it is at its core about failure. About trying to build something better, but inevitably falling to the immense crushing power of global capitalism.
I think there are some good critiques of a particularly online brand of communism the game lays out. Critiquing the type of person who isolates themselves from the world. Preaching communism but taking no part in community.
Thinking they are The Last Communist who will be the Big Communism Builder and single handedly liberate the masses with the sheer power of rhetoric.
The Final Cut also lays out a critique of the type of person who has an almost religious adherence to communism as a metaphysical force that will solve every single problem as if by magic, rather than taking a materialist approach as is presented in actual communist analysis.
And it also lays out a critique of the constant infighting over minute ideological bickering within leftist circles. Where we shatter all connections with people who by all materialist analysis should be our comrades. The capitalists win when we can't even start.
A lot of these critiques I love, and a lot of them hit hard because sometimes it's hard not to fall into those types of problems. And they are massive barriers to achieving any kind of goal. At some point the work has to be done, and it has to be done together.
Like, even now I feel like this thread is self-indulgent rhetoric. As if I'm going to fix the fucking world by tweeting out my political thoughts about a video game.
But the thing that keeps bugging me in the back of my mind when I think about this game is, it has no solution. The most hopeful element, and to call it that it a huge stretch, is a union strike with ambitions of seizing the means.
The reason it's a stretch is because even then, the union leader is always made out to be someone who talks a big game about worker's rights, but who underneath it all, is out for their own power. This is also why it bothers me that anarchism is only ever mentioned in passing.
The game mocks the standard video game power fantasy of being the individual hero who saves the world, but it is also skeptical of the only means of collective action it portrays. It is very much implied that should be means be seized, they will be massacred yet again.
All of the game's hope lies in a personal redemption arc for the protagonist, for you to get your own shit together, but it is deeply hopeless about any future for society.
And I understand why to a degree. The game was made by an Estonian studio, a former satellite state of the USSR. The country's history is engrained with the fight against but ultimate defeat to the forces of capital.
The game also to my understanding, largely came out of the lead dev's own personal experience of getting himself out of a deep state of depression and self-loathing, and some of the game's best moments shine here.
There are aspects of this game that push it pretty far into "one of the greatest games of all time" territory for me. The absolutely incredible degree to which you can actually role play, and the amount of contextual and skill check based context is something to behold.
There are multiple lines of dialogue in this game that clearly come from such a personal place, and are so haunting, that they'll doubtlessly stick with me for a very long time. This is the type of game that can only be made by an indie studio with a strong creative vision.
But the absolute sheer hopelessness it seems to have for future society...it bothers me. It bothers me that this game, that is in a big way about not being black pilled, about choosing life, about choosing connection, about choosing to stay in this world and be human...
Is ultimately just so bleak about the big picture of it all. I don't need everything to be sunshine and rainbows. I don't need an indie game studio to present the solution that finally liberates us from capitalism. But god, I'd like something.
I just finished my second playthrough of this game, the first time in the vanilla edition, and second in Final Cut. I think it's one of my favorite games of all time, but every time I think about this game there's one thing that always nags in the back of my mind. I made a twitter thread about it, and this is a copy paste of that. I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts on this:
I've had some time to settle on Disco Elysium and I do still think that it's kind of black pilled to a degree that still bothers me. Like, I don't need every piece of art to inspire hope. I'm not trying to say "make Disco Elysium but make it hopepunk."
But at the same time, when the game (which only rarely mentions anarchism) relentlessly presents every single ideology as a failure, I don't think that's a great message to leave people with...
According to the game, centrism is laughable because it is incremental and bureaucratic to a point where nothing changes. Liberalism is laughable because it's just the rich profiting off worker exploitation, and workers chasing the status of the rich.
Fascism is laughable because it strives to go back to an ideal version of the past that never existed, and relies on foolish notions of race science.
But communism, the game says, is laughable because it is at its core about failure. About trying to build something better, but inevitably falling to the immense crushing power of global capitalism.
I think there are some good critiques of a particularly online brand of communism the game lays out. Critiquing the type of person who isolates themselves from the world. Preaching communism but taking no part in community.
Thinking they are The Last Communist who will be the Big Communism Builder and single handedly liberate the masses with the sheer power of rhetoric.
The Final Cut also lays out a critique of the type of person who has an almost religious adherence to communism as a metaphysical force that will solve every single problem as if by magic, rather than taking a materialist approach as is presented in actual communist analysis.
And it also lays out a critique of the constant infighting over minute ideological bickering within leftist circles. Where we shatter all connections with people who by all materialist analysis should be our comrades. The capitalists win when we can't even start.
A lot of these critiques I love, and a lot of them hit hard because sometimes it's hard not to fall into those types of problems. And they are massive barriers to achieving any kind of goal. At some point the work has to be done, and it has to be done together.
Like, even now I feel like this thread is self-indulgent rhetoric. As if I'm going to fix the fucking world by tweeting out my political thoughts about a video game.
But the thing that keeps bugging me in the back of my mind when I think about this game is, it has no solution. The most hopeful element, and to call it that it a huge stretch, is a union strike with ambitions of seizing the means.
The reason it's a stretch is because even then, the union leader is always made out to be someone who talks a big game about worker's rights, but who underneath it all, is out for their own power. This is also why it bothers me that anarchism is only ever mentioned in passing.
The game mocks the standard video game power fantasy of being the individual hero who saves the world, but it is also skeptical of the only means of collective action it portrays. It is very much implied that should be means be seized, they will be massacred yet again.
All of the game's hope lies in a personal redemption arc for the protagonist, for you to get your own shit together, but it is deeply hopeless about any future for society.
And I understand why to a degree. The game was made by an Estonian studio, a former satellite state of the USSR. The country's history is engrained with the fight against but ultimate defeat to the forces of capital.
The game also to my understanding, largely came out of the lead dev's own personal experience of getting himself out of a deep state of depression and self-loathing, and some of the game's best moments shine here.
There are aspects of this game that push it pretty far into "one of the greatest games of all time" territory for me. The absolutely incredible degree to which you can actually role play, and the amount of contextual and skill check based context is something to behold.
There are multiple lines of dialogue in this game that clearly come from such a personal place, and are so haunting, that they'll doubtlessly stick with me for a very long time. This is the type of game that can only be made by an indie studio with a strong creative vision.
But the absolute sheer hopelessness it seems to have for future society...it bothers me. It bothers me that this game, that is in a big way about not being black pilled, about choosing life, about choosing connection, about choosing to stay in this world and be human...
Is ultimately just so bleak about the big picture of it all. I don't need everything to be sunshine and rainbows. I don't need an indie game studio to present the solution that finally liberates us from capitalism. But god, I'd like something.
2019
Along with Neo Cab, this is one of two games from 2019 that I like to call "gig economy dystopia" games. This is a mostly linear visual novel game, with some branches for the ending, but it's so incredibly written and makes you think about the ethics of technology and how it interacts within capitalism. Also all the voice actors in this game are giving incredible performances. You play as Evelyn, a former programmer for the AI driven therapist Eliza. After quitting the company and spending some time battling severe depression off screen, Evelyn decides to work as a proxy for Eliza. An Eliza proxy is a gig job, where you have an app and check in to work as the human face for Eliza, and communicate with the client who is getting therapy from Eliza, and you as a proxy simply tell the client what Eliza tells you to say. The game is more nuanced than something that would paint this as a solely evil thing. It asks you to deal with ethical questions of how technology can be used to help people, even while it's stuck in the problematic situation that is capitalism, and it asks you how one person's use of said technology might be more harmful than anothers. I love these kinds of morality questioning stories, and I love stories about potential new technologies and especially if they mention how those things interact with sociological systems, so this game is right up my alley. Strong recommendation.
This review contains spoilers
The following is a collection of my reactions to this game that I posted on Facebook in 2013:
Ok everyone needs to know about the game El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. This is a Japanese game based on The Book of Enoch...where Enoch gets in a tron style motorcycle battle across a future metropolis and ends with a Michael Bay/ Arnold Schwarzenegger style explosion which he walks away from without looking, like a cool guy.
Now Enoch is fighting a transformer
Armaros is a pop star and Enoch is fighting his backup dancers...I love you Japan.
Yeah they have the Nephilim in there, if you've ever seen Princess Mononoke they look like giant Kodamas in the game, they're so cute until they start eating one another.
The fighting is honestly the most tedious part of the game, it's too simple and repetitive for me. I like it for the in between moments of just walking around the world that has a great unique art style in every level, and for the Japanese weirdness of course.
Ok everyone needs to know about the game El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. This is a Japanese game based on The Book of Enoch...where Enoch gets in a tron style motorcycle battle across a future metropolis and ends with a Michael Bay/ Arnold Schwarzenegger style explosion which he walks away from without looking, like a cool guy.
Now Enoch is fighting a transformer
Armaros is a pop star and Enoch is fighting his backup dancers...I love you Japan.
Yeah they have the Nephilim in there, if you've ever seen Princess Mononoke they look like giant Kodamas in the game, they're so cute until they start eating one another.
The fighting is honestly the most tedious part of the game, it's too simple and repetitive for me. I like it for the in between moments of just walking around the world that has a great unique art style in every level, and for the Japanese weirdness of course.
2019
This is a review of the launch state as I didn't stick around for any updates. I'll start off with the good: This is the best Iron Man game you can play, it's a shame The Avengers game didn't rip it off. That's it, that's the good. The bad is that, likely due to some EA meddling, BioWare sacrificed any semblance of a good story in order to make this a games-as-service looter shooter. The characters are dull, and while the core mechanics of the combat are fun, fighting the same waves of enemies over and over again to get the same kind of loot over and over again gets tiring very quickly. The multiplayer aspect of this doesn't lend itself to helping what little story there is either, as you'll try to pay attention to the plot but then have to try to keep up with whatever your multiplayer partners are doing, and typically their dicking around will ruin any sense of seriousness the plot is trying to have. I'm not going to pretend this is the worst thing ever, because the core mechanics are fun to play around with. It is however, one of the most disappointing games I've played, due to the high expectations I have for a BioWare game. One of the last things I wanted from this was to play it, move on, and never think about it again, but that's essentially the experience I got.
2018
ONLINE BABY LET'S GOOOOOOOOO!!!
Edit: Yeah, it sucks that Nintendo still hasn't figured out online and you can't match with randos, and the AI is locked to normal online, and if you have 2 people on a system you have to find another 2 people on a system or else play with 3. And it sucks that all this was in an update over 2 years post launch. But damnit, I still love playing this game and it's cool that I can play it with my friends who live hours away now!
Edit: Yeah, it sucks that Nintendo still hasn't figured out online and you can't match with randos, and the AI is locked to normal online, and if you have 2 people on a system you have to find another 2 people on a system or else play with 3. And it sucks that all this was in an update over 2 years post launch. But damnit, I still love playing this game and it's cool that I can play it with my friends who live hours away now!
2009
The most fun I've ever had with a Battlefield game. It leans into its video gamey-ness and players can take tons of hits, and it's got the whole numbers flying off of characters thing going on. My experience in other Battlefield games has pretty much been to take a few steps and then get killed in one or two hits by someone I never even saw, so needless to say I much preferred this style. Favorite thing was definitely hopping in a plane and waiting to take empty control points and getting into dogfights. Also the cartoonishness of everything is very fun to look at. I've decided that the fact that it's got no story and is so cartoony will let me break my usual 2 star barrier that I have with most military shooters. This one was I fun time when I played it.
2018
This is a game where you play as a teenage trans girl on the internet in the 1990's, finding out that she's trans. The entire game takes place on the interface of the 90's computer, and the gameplay is primarily talking to friends on the messenger app, while also dealing with an abusive parental situation. The dialogue in this game is so well written and really captures the way someone that age would be talking to their friends on their 90's dial up internet connection. There is definitely a lack of stories about trans people in media, let alone in games, and I can't really think of any that are specifically about someone finding out that they are trans. In every movie or game with a trans person that I've seen, they were already out to themselves. So I really liked this because I think it's a story that very much needed to be told somewhere, and I think the way they told it through this game was really well done. I also ended up watching the trans speedrunner proto magicalgirl play through this game (at normal speed) because I needed help with the one puzzle in the game, and seeing how strongly the game resonated with someone who clearly had a similar experience was really cool to see. It's always great when a game can connect with someone in that way.
2018
The latest game from Supergiant, and I continue to love everything this studio makes. To give you an idea of how addicting this game is and how much I enjoyed playing it, I finished almost everything the game has to offer, and stopped playing it at just shy of five days worth of playtime. The combat in this game is polished to a shine, and all the different combinations of weapons and abilities granted by the various Greek gods keep each run feeling fresh enough to make you want to keep going. While the story is probably my least favorite of the four Supergiant games, the way they pace out the story between your runs through the underworld keeps you wanting to play more, either to see the next story beat, or to try out a new build on your next run. I typically don’t go for roguelike games, because I always thought that the procedural generation of the levels make them lose some uniqueness, as you quickly learn all the components and they stop surprising you. I don’t think Hades completely got rid of that feeling in me, but the core gameplay loop was just so much fun that it didn’t matter, and I was compelled to keep going anyways.
2014
Hugely expanded from the much smaller experience that was Lume. I loved this game, from its gorgeous hand crafted aesthetic, to its extremely chill and relaxing soundtrack. I loved all the residents of the town I could talk to, and the old adventure game style puzzles to solve. I did have to look up the solutions to some puzzles again, but I'm kind of used to that in puzzle games. Overall, I think if you like "twee" games you'll adore this one. It's just a very nice one to sit down and vibe with.
2011
Fun and short little puzzle game with a nice papercraft aesthetic. Had to look up some of the puzzles where the solution wasn't super apparent, but overall very nice game that serves as a teaser for its much expanded upon sequel.
I had to use google translate to play this one since I don't speak French but I still enjoyed it's message. It's very derivative of You Are Jeff Bezos, which the creator cites as an inspiration. For those who might not know, and I didn't before playing, Bernard Arnault is currently the 3rd richest person in the world, and the only person of the top 10 richest people to not be an American. The game focuses on his wealth and on the COVID crisis, as the game was released in April of 2020. I liked this game for many of the same reasons I loved You Are Jeff Bezos. It's great at giving you a perspective on the immorality of billionaires, and showing how much good could be done with the money they hoard. It's also a unique perspective from the typical America-centric approach most games take, although still obviously relatable as we all live under the nation of capitalism. The COVID focus is also immediately relatable at the time of release, as so many people are dying when this money could be used for humanitarian aid.