Press on, employee.

My friend Larry has been acting a little weird lately. He keeps standing in the corner staring at me, telling me we should play Home Safety Hotline in a voice that's not his, and there's this really horrible smell like rotten eggs that's been filling up my apartment. I don't know if it's related, but Larry - who has taken to crawling on the walls and ceiling - showed me the trailer and explained that it's created by Nick Lives, who previously worked on Hypno Space Outlaw. I was intrigued and then partook in a large feast of cornmeal that had been curiously laid out on the dining room table, as the voices in the walls demanded.

Home Safety Hotline sits the player down with a bestiary of common home hazards ranging from bees to Boggarts, house flies to Dorcha, which the player must refer to in order to properly diagnose the problems of callers who are currently in various states of duress. True to the real-world experience of working in a call center, the loop of taking a call and finding a solution can be a bit rote, and much of the challenge is borne from callers providing inaccurate or conflicting pieces of information. On some level, it almost feels like a Loveline simulator. Lot of calls about kids getting eaten tonight... Must be a full moon.

Caller: It... It... It stole me...! It stole me!! I'm not me anymore, I'm... it took me! I can't see myself anymore, I'm gone! Help me!! Help me get b--

Adam: Alright, I'm putting her on hold. Sick of her already... Drew, how many times do we get calls like this and the answer is always carpenter ants?

Drew: All the time.

Adam: Helen? Get yourself some Raid, babydoll.

Those expecting the heavy puzzle solving and obtuseness of Hypno Space Outlaw might then be a little disappointed with how straight-forward Hotline is, but it's really more a vehicle for some very imaginative and entertaining writing, and the excitement of seeing new entries in the bestiary unlock during each subsequent shift dulls how samey most nights are on a mechanical level. You won't hack into a bunch of weird databases or decipher codes here, and Hotline's central mystery doesn't leave many unanswered questions by the end of its short 3-4 hour run, but that's fine. In fact, after biting into several incredibly long games over the last couple of months, it's preferable.

My only real complaint is that the game only leverages audio queues once, and calls rarely share the same answer, which trivializes the late game through a simple process of elimination. Otherwise, I am so into what the game is going for that it feels like targeted content. It's hard to dig into specifics without spoiling some of the more inventive entries or giving away the plot, but I do appreciate how ranged and varied a lot of Hotline's creatures are. You'll frequently diagnose problems caused by benign beings like toilet Hobbs, which enjoy cleaning your bathroom and can be placated by providing them a single egg at night. You'll also have to deal with more abstract and frightening entities like memory wisps, which essentially give their victims Alzheimer's. No cure for that, you have to let them run their course. What can you say other than "good times?"

Maybe I'm predisposed to whatever kind of weird horror Nick Lives is putting out into the world (Night Signal looks interesting and I'm way into the premise of Please Insert Disc), reviews on here appear more mixed, but I do think this is worth checking out if you want something short, simple, and backed by some really fun writing. I have to go now, the soil is calling me...

Now that the dust has settled, what do we all think of Sneak King?

Before this last playthrough, I would've said Sneak King was the best of the trilogy with Big Bumpin' being the worst, but nearly twenty years removed, I'm afraid to say the BK hierarchy has changed.

It's tragic, because Sneak King's opening sets you up for something special. A still shot of a darkened driveway... The King appears from the shadows, stalking about like a predator, his visage a cruel mockery of the human form intended to disarm and draw in his prey. But this beast is no man, and his attempt mimicry is all wrong, glassy-eyed and without life. And then you boot up the game proper and find that it's just a crusty stealth title that asks you to do the same exact thing over and over and over again.

If Pocket Bike Racer's problem was too little content, then Sneak King's is that there's too much. Twenty missions spread out over four levels, but every mission tasks you with essentially the same objective: deliver delicious Burger King meals to hungry masses. The most variety you'll get in how you go about that is in what order you'll need to hit up the various NPCs sulking around the map or how often you're allowed to make a mistake. Sometimes you'll need to deliver [X] amount of meals without getting caught or by climbing into trash cans (coincidentally where I found my copy of this game, I think someone threw it out by mistake) or popping out of houses, but the amount of repetition here really sucks all the fun out. The King doesn't even need to take pentazemin to stop his hands from shaking when delivering Original Chicken Sandwiches™, this game's got no meat on its bones!

The controls are also horrible, which is something I actually wouldn't accuse the other two games of. Say what you will about Big Bumpin' and Pocket Bike Racer, but movement at least feels serviceable. Sneak King inverts the Y-axis and makes climbing into cover so laborious that your mark will likely move away or collapse from hunger before you're able to get into position. The King shrugging his shoulders and shaking his damn head because I botched the timing on his sandwich delivery while the camera was juttering behind a tree branch, what the fuck do you want from me, man? When we get to the sawmill I'm throwing your ass in a woodchipper [Warning: do not do this. The King cannot be killed by conventional means, he will come back and he will be stronger.]

Despite how bad it is, Sneak King is often the entry in the BK Trilogy that people talk about, because it is the most conceptually interesting of the bunch and the one to lean the hardest into the marketing that gave life to this iteration of The King. Tactical Burger Delivery Action is such a good-dumb idea that at least one man has dedicated his time and income to collecting any copy of the game he can find, and by a magnitude of cents it is the most consistently expensive title in the series on the aftermarket. Curiously, graded copies of the game are actually worth less than open CIBs. I understand the economics of this and why that's the case, but it's very funny to think Sneak King inherently has more value when played.

Ohhhh, wait a minute... Sneak King sounds like sneaking. Shit, I just got it.

Generally better than NEO with how you unlock extra abilities and skill customization way sooner on top of a more jovial party of characters, but I'm docking it mad points because 1) the majority of the game is an asset flip and 2) if you pick Cyrille for the end-game chapter you're fucked. Her stats aren't balanced at all for the last dungeon and you have to pull about 5-7 hours of grinding just so shit doesn't kill you in one hit. And when you do finally beat it you get an explicitly not-done anticlimax ending with like 2 lines of dialogue and a cut to credits. I'm gonna dig a bit further to see if Toma's route has anything resembling a real ending, but damn is this an embarrassing way to end your game

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.)

Pour that shit up fool, it's ours
Ha
Monster!
Man so you ain't gon' pour?
Oh, so you're gonna make a nigga beg you to pour?
Okay bool, you dig?
(Wheezy Beats)
Uh

Hopped out my mothafuckin' bed
Hopped in the mothafuckin' coupe (Skrrt)
Pulled up on the Birdman (Brr)
I'm a beast, I'm a beast, I'm a mobster (Ayy)
You got 50 whole bands, you'll be my sponsor (Just for the night)
Them snakes on the plane, me and Kanye-conda (Anacondas)
Yeah (Them anacondas)
I might piece him up and let my partner smoke him (Triple cross)
Chuck-E-Cheese him up, I pizza him, I roll him (Cross)
I'm a gangster, I don't dance, baby I poke
Right now I'm surrounded by some gangsters from Magnolia
I heard I put it in the spot, yessir she told me
My niggas muggin', these niggas YSL only
I heard my Nolia niggas not friendly, like no way
But we not friendly either, you know it
Ha!
Yeah, thumbs up
I've seen more holes than a golf course on Donald Trump's course
My bitch a tall blooded horse, nigga, bronco
And if you catch us down bet you're not gon' trunk us (No)
You got a body, lil' nigga, we got a ton of 'em (Yeah)
You got some Robin's, lil' nigga, we got some Batmans
I let that choppa go "blocka, blocka," get back, son (Back)
You got them MJs, nigga, I got them Jacksons (Racks)

But really what is it to do
When the whole world constantly hatin' on you?
Pussy niggas hold their nuts, masturbatin' on you
Meanwhile the fuckin' federal baitin' on you
Nigga tell me what you do
Would you stand up or would you turn to a pussy nigga?
I got a hundred things to do
And I can stop rappin' but I can't stop stackin' fuckin' figures

Yeah, I'm from that mothafuckin' 'Nolia, nigga ('Nolia, nigga)
Birdman'll break a nigga nose, lil' nigga (Nose, lil' nigga, ah)
You need to slow your fuckin' roll, lil' nigga (Roll, lil' nigga, Thugger)
We created Ks on shoulders, nigga (Shoulders, nigga)
I'm a scary fuckin' sight, lil' nigga (Sight, lil' nigga, ah)
We won a hundred mil' on fights, lil' nigga (Fights, lil' nigga, hey)
A hundred bands, sure you're right, lil' nigga (Right, lil' nigga)
I keep some AKs on my flights, lil' nigga (My flights, lil' nigga, I do)
Birdman Willie B (What?)
Smoke some stunna blunts, now my eyes Chinese (Chinese)
Hundred K on private flights overseas (Overseas)
Choppas City nigga, free BG (BG)
Bentley with the doors all 'round, not a Jeep (Jeep)
Rich nigga shit, smoke two pounds in a week (In a week)
Can't find a bitch that don't know we them streets (We them streets)
Bitches know that I am Birdman, that's OG, brrat

But really what is it to do
When the whole world constantly hatin' on you?
Pussy niggas hold their nuts, masturbatin' on you
Meanwhile the fuckin' federal baitin' on you
Nigga tell me what you do
Would you stand up or would you turn to a pussy nigga?
I got a hundred things to do
And I can stop rappin' but I can't stop stackin' fuckin' figures

Nigga, I'm a crack addict
Thought about lettin' them get a cut
Then I went and snagged at it
Yeah, the new Boosie Badazz at it
I'ma drop a nigga life, just like a bad habit
I stick to the ground like a mothafuckin' rug
I'm a big dog, lil' fuck nigga, you a pup
Lil' bitch, clean your drawers before you think you're a thug
Before I be in front your shows, just like your pub
I ain't even lyin', baby
I swear to God I ain't lyin', baby, no
First I'll screw you without these pliers, baby, or
I might dap you like, "good try, baby"
Big B livin', baby
Them boys on my left throwin' up Cs
I promise their mama see them this week
And I don't break promises with my Ds (Them my dogs)
I want Ms and cheese, mister Mickey Ds
She know I am a beast, I am so obese (Rrar)
In Miami I swear they don't got good weed
Wiz Khalifa can you send me some weed please?

Yeah, overseas, nigga, top floor, clear windows, nigga
Glass house, drankin' GT, you understand?
We in that Red Light District, you understand?
We 3 and 1, that mean 3 on me, nigga, you understand me?
Just livin' the life, boy, ayy, Thug, just a dollar for a 1, nigga
We can blow a mil', boy
Rich Gang, YSL, blatt!