FIRST OF ALL my "BUMPSLASH ACTION" game angeline era is getting a demo (not full release) on may 9th...go wishlist it!! I know you like weird action games!! you're on backloggd reading a Dragon View review!! we made a good one!! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2393920/Angeline_Era/

anyways,

proto-quest 64 map navigation (the game gives you these hand-drawn-esque maps that you use to navigate a pseudo 3d overworld), baroque music bangers, snappy sidescrollng dungeoning/gameplay, some lovely sprite and artwork... Certified Good Time. i did use fast forward for the overworlds though too big lol. also there's funny old dudes hiding all over the various maps. strange stuff like a guy trading armor upgrades for 50 apples (what is he doing)

Pretty easy to progress without a guide too, i got hard stuck only once

the game doesn't give maps, but i really loved the dungeons and how they use multi-floor grid-based layouts, but it plays out as a sidescroller. the action and how it has you weave forward and back to dodge stuff is fun. maybe i should play beatemups..but i just love the sword to much.

i like how freaky and hostile it felt walking into a way too hard part of the overworld.... platforming through the mountain areas. side-on platforming with some Z-depth movement is pretty fun.

the damage /exp curves in ths feel pretty Ys-y. It's not really my personal favorite choice but it more or less works

weirdly the complete antithesis of what mcgee was going for in the sequel,, the sequel is bright and colorful but ultimately dour and overly dark in tone and story. this is one of the most dark looking games ive ever played and the map layouts for each level are so utterly confounding and disorienting, a labyrinthine hell constructed by others specifically for u to suffer during. the first is a game about growth and progression, forgiveness and regret and the pain that comes w both, the sequel is concerned w regression and ig I just don’t vibe w that as much. this belongs more to an era of game design like max payne or rule of rose where ur small and the world is big and there’s plenty of ppl who don’t want you to exist within it. the structure of every world is chaotic and dizzying and scary! I love some of the weirdo imagery the enemies can conjure up like the flying bomb dropping bugs that seem almost military like.

there’s so much being said here even w like v minimal actual words being said,, alice herself conveys sm through grunts and screams it’s actually kind of wild. a simple jump to a ledge sounds blood cur-tingling and filled w anger + desperation. idk to see her suffer so often and in such extreme ways and come out the other side (at least for this game) a better and more whole person is rlly fucking fulfilling and satisfying to experience.

part of me wishes there was a third game and a better ending to both alice the character and the series, but also I realize that this series obv took a lot out of mcgee and was coming from a place that’s maybe better left sitting dormant for his own mental health. he seems kind of happy as a retired old guy living in shanghai that’s left behind a wealth of art that means a lot to a lot of ppl and now just makes emo plushes that while don’t mean rlly anything to me obv mean something to enough ppl. I think that’s nice ^_^

Estimated read time: 6~ minutes.

I have terrible rhythm—I can synchronize, but that's about it—but I love this game. I practically can't beat Rhythm Heaven (might dive into that at some point), but I adore these tours and subpar live recording album-tier covers with completely nonsense maps that make the guitar play the piano, horns, etc.; not because it makes sense but because it's simply fun.

The intro goes incredibly hard. I think it perfectly represents the series as a whole. Even though Guitar Hero III is widely considered the best by a decent margin, I’m partial to II for its crust. Although one very nice feature starting here was they realized people were buying various types of RPTVs and plasmas, so they implemented a calibration screen to make the game playable in the new era of TVs with high latency (40+ms!!).

I’ve always had stage fright, particularly if it ever involved singing. Despite that, I walk through those venue doors, nervous and frankly embarrassed; social anxiety is a bitch. But my love was secretly listening to hard rock, metal, prog rock and metal, maybe a bit of trance here ‘n’ there. I Am here to enjoy some fucking music, meet fellow musicians, and hopefully grow as one.

You know what I found, though?

The fakest fuckers on the planet lamenting about not being popular enough or whatever. "What about me?" What about you? Another cold burnout song about how much everyone else sucks? Wow, how revelatory, you really shook up the scene today. I'm sure we'll quake in our boots at the idea of your sniggering, side-eyeing, nonchalant disregard and elitism leaving the venue and being laid to rest. I just want to play Guitar Hero for God’s sake!

Do you even understand fun? Talking about playing for the music, the esoterica and innate joy of it all, but it sure doesn't seem like it, not unless it's doing literally the same thing you decry the rest of the bands of doing: low effort punk rock with a bit of crass lyrics in there poisoned with irony, but then you make it worse by painting it with the veneer of artistic understanding and passion. Where is it? You seem content to hide it all up in a little heart-shaped box you’ve deemed only your little act worthy of being privy to.
Also, did you really have to do all that at karaoke night? Unplugging the amp and making a speech about it? Telling people they just don't get it and aren't singing for the right reasons? That punk night is dead! Do you even hear yourself? It's just some karaoke; get over yourself.

Go do your own tour or whatever; literally nobody asked you to leave, but I bet you’ll pretend you were kicked to the curb anyways. Showered in praise, yet you hyper-fixate on a couple of dissenters that pop up throughout the year? Who cares! The next set’s about to be played!
You were never here for the music, and it's no wonder you're completely and utterly obsessed with eras you were barely sentient for, or worse, not even around for. You can't get over the fact that time marches forward without you, someone new showing up one day and curb stomping you at your own act; it's humbling, but rather than take it on stride, you grimace, forcing a pained smile as you pat them on the back for performing so well. But it's clear that this was a massive blow to your ego. Maybe you can convince yourself it doesn't hurt so much if you only care about your fellow burnouts quitting emo and declaring the rest of the venue a madhouse.

It hurts, because I thought your act was pretty cool. I guess it’s pretty “punk rock” to jeer and give the cold shoulder though, right? Maybe it’s in spirit, maybe it’s hypocritical of me, whatever.
Throughout my musical journey it’s been nothing but revitalizing, igniting the flame once more for the medium I held so dear. I was berated and constantly mocked for my love of music, especially metal, combined with curve balls left and right, losing loved ones (or what few I would call those), I became very disillusioned with how people behave. It was branching out and stepping out of my comfort zone, keeping my chin up even in the face of pretentious acts that my love for music only grew more. Yeah, it sucked that some of my favorite bands became increasingly misanthropic, but why should that stop me? Why should it stop any of us? It was never about those assholes; it was about the music- their words, not mine. Well, their words until it was just about themselves. I’ll stop now, I’ve got a set to play whether or not people show up. It’ll probably be mediocre! I don’t care.


Punk rock never died. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Goodnight.

Favorite track: The Sword - Freya

Unrelated music highlight: The Mothers of Invention (Live in London, ‘68)

essentially the video game equivalent of that one south park production story about how trey and matt made an entire episode centered around baseball just bc they thought the idea of the cast in baseball uniforms was cute. princess peach as a cowgirl or a pastry chef is rlly rlly cute and it does kind of seem like the devs and artists behind this came up w cute looks for peach before actually designing the levels or their structure,,, and that’s perfectly fine w me lolol. idk obsessed w how often mario games mess w artifice and play in rlly cool ways,, possibly some of the better meta design elements in pop-game philosophy. cool stuff I love tonya harding princess peach,,, apjvff Ass game

personally I think more games should be eight hours long and allow u to wear cowprint dress and also only use one action button idk !!

a word of advice: if you love psychological horror, especially silent hill, YOU NEED TO READ CRIME & PUNISHMENT. i understand how a 600 page book released 150 years ago in a format that doesn't exist anymore can seem off-putting or intimidating; i promise you it hasn't aged a day. crime & punishment can suffocate you with tension and anxiety comparable to any horror movie or game using words alone. the characters are oceans of beauty and flaws that will stick with you forever. without dostoevsky, there would be no shining, there would be no subahibi, and there would be no silent hill. read it and thank me later.

brutal doom for the video essay generation well, color me impressed. this is actually cool!

if you're anything like me, you've grown tired of metahorror. it seems like every other day i find a new indie game or analog horror video in my youtube feed using hackneyed "subversions of expectation" and arg elements for spooks. imscared was cool, but imscared came out 12 years ago. so when i heard about myhouse.wad, i brushed it off. it wasn't until last night that i bit the bullet, and let me tell you: i should have done it sooner.

the house of leaves inspiration is blatant enough as to call it an adaptation. there's no point in dissecting it, but i'd like to use it to explain why my house doesn't suffer from the pitfalls you might expect. remember how house of leaves has a bunch of hidden shit inside of it that redditors have been talking to death for years? well, you don't need it to enjoy the book. it's an addendum for people who wanna go crazy over that kind of stuff. my house is the same way with its metahorror. the creepypasta elements are contained in the downloadable journal rather than the game itself. the "deeply emotional" (read: tactless and generic internet psychological horror) themes fans don't shut up about are contained in secret content that you won't find unless you're looking for it. in that case, why should you play the wad?

cuz it's a damn good time! if you liked lost in vivo's combat-heavy take on otherworld from silent hill, you'll like my house. the maps are super pretty and fun to explore. there are cool new enemies too! if nothing else, play it to see a modern action horror doom map with strong atmosphere. it only took me 30 minutes and i'd recommend it even if you already know the "twists".

as much as i still want to mock the fandom and compare it to brutal doom, i do hope this inspires people to take full advantage of gzdoom's special features. maybe someone will make a map that uses similar technical tricks to make something in a genre other than horror. as it stands, i super enjoyed my time in my house and i recommend it to all the skeptics. this one's different.

SOLD

Probably the first game in a while that's made me regret not doing scores for games on this website; Children of the Sun is as unwieldy and aggravatingly trial and error as it is aesthetically captivating and mechanically cathartic. I've seen others besmirch it as a poor puzzle game or shitty action game individually -- perhaps it's within that straddling of genre conventions that it never quite finds its way -- yet it's difficult to recall any other game I've played recently that's so confident in its fusion of puzzle-solving and reflexive execution. And while the latter is what ultimately allows Children of the Sun to carve out impactful moments in the player's mind, it's also its most egregious pain point (followed by the semi-optional "strategy phase" whose varying (in)elegance will inevitably filter a lot of players).

It becomes especially damning during the game's later stages where it's possible for the player to have figured out a few viable solutions, but executing the longer sequences of kills can be absolutely excruciating when failure is as easy as a simple misclick -- or your perfect solution gets fucked over by unreliable RNG (?) cycles, among other fiddly (to say the least) annoyances. I imagine this is going to vary wildly from person to person as well; some levels I completed in a single try while others took me upwards of two hours (not including the breaks I'd sometimes have to take). It's a shame when the player's momentary satisfaction is upended by the realization that the next level is the same thing but even more overwhelming intricate. That'll probably satisfy the people who really fuck with Children's unique gameplay toolkit and jazz-like structure, but for others it's going to make playing the game a draining experience, which maybe isn't what you want in a game that doesn't have a whole lot of content in the first place (or maybe that's its saving grace, I don't know! I'll let the gamer reading this decide). The last level was particularly harrowing as unraveling its solution required executing individual pieces of the what is the longest kill sequence in the game ad nauseam, and with its length was probably every single issue I've talked about so far along with it.

This is where I'd love to tell that this is all worth it somehow, that Children of the Sun's ludonarrative adds up to anything, and I... I don't think it does? The striking aesthetic and the revenge porn premise certainly elevate the experience, but the narrative itself feels exceedingly played out. Maybe this will do more for somebody who has had real life experience with cults, or maybe it's just that its story is portrayed through slideshows that are largely disconnected from the gameplay that, despite having pretty great art, don't really impart much upon the player outside of "this cult did bad things, the player character wants to do bad things back to the cult". Which like, understandable, good for her! But it just didn't do a whole lot for me personally. I want to say the ending is maybe saying something? I dunno man, I think I've played too many irreverent and/or Dark Souls-influenced indie titles that I'm just so desensitized to endings like this. Maybe I'm just a heartless bitch tho.

Children of the Sun has its moments though, like, there's a pretty fun quote towards the beginning of the game that I'm expecting fans of the game to repeat an annoying amount. I looooove the main character's design and the cover art itself (honestly it's why I ended up playing it in the first place lol). The whole game has this vibe to it that for some reason dug up forgotten memories of games like Project Rub/Feel the Magic: XY/XX; honestly it'd kinda fuck as a DS game now that I think about it (Killer7 DS real???). Not sure if I'd recommend Children of the Sun to everybody, but if it catches your interest in any way, I'd say it wouldn't hurt to give it a try once it's on sale for sub-$10 or so.

Inessential.

Despite the many quality-of-life changes meant to bring this more in line with the rest of the series, like updating the Zero-G sections and letting you use your kinesis more offensively, the broad strokes of the game are surprisingly close to the original. A change I was really looking forward to was the “Intensity Director” which is meant to dynamically alter the mood of areas and what enemies will spawn, but in practice, this mostly seems to determine whether or not you’ll get ambushed while backtracking instead of radically altering the major combat encounter. It’s a nice thrill to occasionally get surrounded by enemies, but as with so many of the new features of the remake, it doesn’t wholly commit to this idea, more a proof-of-concept that could be really transformative if it was expanded on somewhere else. Basic Necromorphs are also substantially less threatening due to the fact that it’s surprisingly easy to stunlock them by stomping on them once their legs have been shot out, and for the sheer effectiveness of these newly revamped kinesis powers (encounters and the ammo economy needed to be dramatically changed to make threats meaningful the player).

Given that this production seems to owe so much to the success of the recent Resident Evil remakes, I wish it would’ve taken a cue from them and include some bolder pieces of design and pacing- throw in an extra Regenerator fight, change the order of levels, or go all the way and pull the best enemies from the entire series to give these fights an extra edge. There are earnest discussions to be had about what function the RE remakes serve (if they’re replacements or reimaginings) but at least they’re distinct- I’m compelled to go back to them from time to time!

Really, I think the hesitance to change to radically alter the structure and encounter design speaks to the real intent of this remake, which seems far more interested in making the narrative flow more seamlessly between this and Dead Space 2. Isaac Clarke more or less had to be invented as a character in the sequel, and that made the amount of screentime that was devoted to his guilt over Nicole all the more weightless- retconned baggage that hardly landed. The attempt to expand their relationship mostly works, the revelations here about how their relationship ended are much better about setting the groundwork for their arc in the sequel. For as strong as this dynamic, it seems to have come at the cost of much of the supporting cast; compared to their original versions, everyone on the Ishimura comes as the lifeless versions of themselves. Dr. Kyne and Dr. Mercer were amazing presences thanks to great performances by Keith Szarabajka and Navid Negahban respectively, but without that prior context, I’m not sure these new iterations of the characters will stay in the minds of those who’ve only played the remake.

The biggest sin is that the remake ends up being dreadfully boring to play through in practice, the threats so similar to the original that the horror doesn’t land and the action so easy to break that it actively feels like a regression from the constraints of the earlier version of combat design. There’s obvious passion for the project here, especially in some of the granular details, but seemingly not the broader vision needed to successfully combine the old and new ideas together.