Marigold
2020
Reminiscent of Hotline Miami and Katana Zero, made 3D, and slathered in cyberpunk aesthetics. The cybernetic portions of the game sport much more fascinating, hazy visuals, particularly in the paths that construct themselves in front of you.
I want a game like this, but with less focus on puzzling out how to Efficiently Kill The Dudes and more on moving around with the toolset. Perhaps I set myself up for disappointment by hoping for something that it simply wasn't going to be.
I want a game like this, but with less focus on puzzling out how to Efficiently Kill The Dudes and more on moving around with the toolset. Perhaps I set myself up for disappointment by hoping for something that it simply wasn't going to be.
2017
There's something to be said for Sledgehammer's return to the First Infantry Division and the health packs system, at least. It still designs itself around spectacle, but there are attempts to pull itself together into a coherent experience as much as possible. It hinges heavily on its presentation, but the cracks in game feel start showing quickly and spiral out of control after a certain point: nothing has weight when being fire and responsiveness to doing damage is all over the place. It could have been much worse, at least it's very good to look at on PC, I'm not sure how you'd look at anything with the pitifully low console FOV.
2014
Initially enjoyable (with the caveat that the writing straddles the line between moderately funny and insufferably annoying), mostly in the Tony Hawk / Jet Set Radio movement that slowly wears off thanks to how.... slow it is. The whole game should be twice the pace that it actually is.
2015
Would have loved to play it, but it crashes at every other load screen and also randomly, both on native linux and when played through Proton.
2023
Not even the addition of femhacker could make the crawl tempting enough, especially the hacking/cyber portions.
2020
RE2make DLC in all but marketing (lol), to me it was still worth playing just for Jill. Excessively streamlined in comparison to RE2make, trades out the layered RPD crawl with a bunch of mini-crawls through city streets or much smaller buildings. Milquetoast Nemesis fights, but decently fun for a while. I'm just here for Jill, in the end.
2016
The natural conclusion to the popcorn shooter. A profound sendoff to the traditional FPS campaign, composed with some of the most incredible level concepts I've seen in years. Time traveling, levels that build themselves around you, getting fastball'd across deadly gaps, crying yourself to sleep at the end of everything. The multiplayer is a love letter to fluid movement and it's where I'll be spending the rest of my life.
2020
Initially good impressions that became marred by poor multi-weapon binding (why default to the lowest power weapon in your possession instead of the strongest?), weird performance issues (Linux, via Proton, other reports indicate similar experience on ProtonDB), and a strong dislike of the secrets -> in-game shop system.
The laser wheel setpiece is eternal.
2010
PC port of this game can be found here: https://archive.org/details/infinity-blade-pc
This series was The Game at the time, it had a presentation and vision that was just something else compared to anything else you could dig out of an app store. Playing the PC port nearly a decade and a half later puts into perspective how much of the difficulty at the time came from doing all of the tapping and swiping motions on such a small phone screen. Playing it on said PC port now turns it into a bit of a meditative grind that you can do while half paying attention to something else. Hopefully there will be a source code drop for the sequels at some point, I'd love to explore memories related to those too.
This series was The Game at the time, it had a presentation and vision that was just something else compared to anything else you could dig out of an app store. Playing the PC port nearly a decade and a half later puts into perspective how much of the difficulty at the time came from doing all of the tapping and swiping motions on such a small phone screen. Playing it on said PC port now turns it into a bit of a meditative grind that you can do while half paying attention to something else. Hopefully there will be a source code drop for the sequels at some point, I'd love to explore memories related to those too.
Visual overload as an expression of love.
Cool of Night Dive to give it the KEX treatment, but a Star Wars theme only keeps you going so far through painful design.
2023
Wonderfully beginner friendly, great gameplay-based incentive for playing dangerously, silly characters, and just generally cute all around.
2020
Cute game for demon girls who want to save other demon girls and overthrow evangelical priests and holy knights. Visibility becomes a bit of a problem later, unfortunately.
2006
Solid gold presentation, odd gameplay choices.