McDoot
BACKER
2021
Today is the 20th of January 2022. I finished this game on the 26th of November last year. Every day since then I have woke up thinking about this game.
When characters in a movie are playing a game on the TV with a PS2 controller, this is the game on the TV. Cruelty Squad was made by a man who has heard of the concept of a game but doesn't have the facilities to actually play one. This game is the opposite of a novelist living in a cave for 20 years to write his magnum opus. This is a man who has plugged his brain into the mainframe. It isn't that Cruelty Squad is post-post-post-modernist - Cruelty Squad is post-criticism, it is caveman art drawn with faeces, it is a sociological phenomenon.
A QWERTY keyboard will wash up on a beach 1000 years from now and anthropologists will use it as proof that we had 100 fingers. They will play Cruelty Squad and say we were blind and deaf.
The levels in Cruelty Squad are impossibilities. Ever since Adventure was released in 1980 we have been hurtling down a predetermined path laid out by God and level designers, alternating between vast open spaces and linear corridors forever, like a fractal. With every game released, the remaining pool of possible games that are left to be created shrinks, not just because one more was just made, but also that the existence of art will influence the existence of other art. There isn't an anti-Mario-64. No one would make an anti-Mario-64. Their brain is permanently cursed with the knowledge that Mario 64 exists and all future decisions will be affected by that.
That isn't to say anything about the quality of Mario 64. The trajectory of video games has been altered by lesser and worse games, but alas. Cruelty Squad is the product of a person with no brain to curse, a spotless mind. Every single level I played surprised me with its ingenuity. I often found myself laughing out loud, not at the non-sequitur or clever jokes, but at how ridiculous and funny the level design is.
When characters in a movie are playing a game on the TV with a PS2 controller, this is the game on the TV. Cruelty Squad was made by a man who has heard of the concept of a game but doesn't have the facilities to actually play one. This game is the opposite of a novelist living in a cave for 20 years to write his magnum opus. This is a man who has plugged his brain into the mainframe. It isn't that Cruelty Squad is post-post-post-modernist - Cruelty Squad is post-criticism, it is caveman art drawn with faeces, it is a sociological phenomenon.
A QWERTY keyboard will wash up on a beach 1000 years from now and anthropologists will use it as proof that we had 100 fingers. They will play Cruelty Squad and say we were blind and deaf.
The levels in Cruelty Squad are impossibilities. Ever since Adventure was released in 1980 we have been hurtling down a predetermined path laid out by God and level designers, alternating between vast open spaces and linear corridors forever, like a fractal. With every game released, the remaining pool of possible games that are left to be created shrinks, not just because one more was just made, but also that the existence of art will influence the existence of other art. There isn't an anti-Mario-64. No one would make an anti-Mario-64. Their brain is permanently cursed with the knowledge that Mario 64 exists and all future decisions will be affected by that.
That isn't to say anything about the quality of Mario 64. The trajectory of video games has been altered by lesser and worse games, but alas. Cruelty Squad is the product of a person with no brain to curse, a spotless mind. Every single level I played surprised me with its ingenuity. I often found myself laughing out loud, not at the non-sequitur or clever jokes, but at how ridiculous and funny the level design is.
2020
If I ever have kids and I walk in on them playing something like this I'm putting them up for adoption.
2016
Pony Island trotted so Inscryption could gallop.
2023
I got 5 pages into Infinite Jest before I realised it wasn't a joke.
Biting critique of the US justice and reform system.
2021
Dunno why they held a funeral for Thatcher, for £3 million they could have bought a shovel for every person in Scotland and they would have dug a hole deep enough to hand her over to hell themselves.
2022
This review contains spoilers
The Quarry is inspiring and depressing.
Inspiring in the same that many schlocky B-horrors (or indeed Hollywood thrillers) are - You don't have to make a masterpiece for people to enjoy themselves and become devoted fans. On the other hand, it must be somewhat depressing to be one of the hundreds of people who worked on this game and watch as its narrative slowly unwinds itself from the spool in the later chapters.
Here is the main reason that I fell so far on the wrong side of this story. There is almost zero tension. The game wanted me to disobey the hunters the entire game, even when in the earliest chapters we had already established that they are the characters who know the most and clearly have the best intentions for the counsellors. An early encounter with Jacob proved this as they slapped werewolf blood on his face and set him on his way. And still the game insists that we shouldn't trust them and constantly wants to make decisions that endangered both the hunters and the counsellors just because they 'be kinda sussy tho'.
And what is my reward for not listening and not trusting the games invisible hands? I don't get to save Silas. I either have to give in and shoot the boy in the back or watch as my favourite characters are slain. There was no twist ending (unless the hunters wanting to kill werewolves and not humans was supposed to be a shocker) and there is no payoff. Just kill the defenceless wolf in a random ditch.
Furthermore, Chapter 7 was an exercise in how NOT to do a flashback sequence, with it being overly long and full of exposition I would have rather just figured out on my own. Thankfully, I had figured out Chris's secret before the world's most blasé plot reveal.
The Quarry does not trust the player's intelligence and repeats obvious facts several times, turning the lodge into an armoury of chekov's guns until the biggest and most obvious one is fired straight into the chest of the nearest werewolf/counsellor.
Inspiring in the same that many schlocky B-horrors (or indeed Hollywood thrillers) are - You don't have to make a masterpiece for people to enjoy themselves and become devoted fans. On the other hand, it must be somewhat depressing to be one of the hundreds of people who worked on this game and watch as its narrative slowly unwinds itself from the spool in the later chapters.
Here is the main reason that I fell so far on the wrong side of this story. There is almost zero tension. The game wanted me to disobey the hunters the entire game, even when in the earliest chapters we had already established that they are the characters who know the most and clearly have the best intentions for the counsellors. An early encounter with Jacob proved this as they slapped werewolf blood on his face and set him on his way. And still the game insists that we shouldn't trust them and constantly wants to make decisions that endangered both the hunters and the counsellors just because they 'be kinda sussy tho'.
And what is my reward for not listening and not trusting the games invisible hands? I don't get to save Silas. I either have to give in and shoot the boy in the back or watch as my favourite characters are slain. There was no twist ending (unless the hunters wanting to kill werewolves and not humans was supposed to be a shocker) and there is no payoff. Just kill the defenceless wolf in a random ditch.
Furthermore, Chapter 7 was an exercise in how NOT to do a flashback sequence, with it being overly long and full of exposition I would have rather just figured out on my own. Thankfully, I had figured out Chris's secret before the world's most blasé plot reveal.
The Quarry does not trust the player's intelligence and repeats obvious facts several times, turning the lodge into an armoury of chekov's guns until the biggest and most obvious one is fired straight into the chest of the nearest werewolf/counsellor.
2019
When The Autistic Girl in my history class found out that I played dota 2, she would show me pictures on her phone of funny item builds that she had seen.
I wish I was nicer to people when I was in school.
I wish I was nicer to people when I was in school.
Y'all are too emotionally damaged.
2019
Cliche and problematic, but at least we now have a game where you walk through a forest for 4 hours.
1999
During the final cutscene my partner asked me if 'that' was the System Shock™️, and you know what, I think they were on to something.
The quicker I accept that this game is a visual novel the better.
You played Final Fantasy VII when you were 8 years old.
I played Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, we are not the same.
I played Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, we are not the same.
2023
Exactly 1 Moon cycle ago I beat Metal: Hellsinger. I criticised that game for forcing rhythm into a genre that is only held back by doing actions to the beat (and in my opinion, every First Person Shooter is a Rhythm Game, with the beats per minute equal to twice the amount of frames it takes to reload a shotgun). For starters, Hi-Fi Rush has a more engaging presentation, I mean I literally downloaded it because it vaguely looked liked Jet Set Radio Future if I squinted, but I think the thought process behind both games execution is the same if I dare give Metal: Hellsinger any credit.
The only deciding factor is genre. Spectacle Fighter games are already Rhythm games! "McDoot!" I hear you cry, "You just said first person shooters are rhythm games too!" And to that I say "yes!" Everything is a rhythm game! But whereas rhythm felt like a constraint in Metal: Hellsinger, Hi-Fi Rush frames it as a Rosetta Stone for deciphering an entire genre. Every character in a Spectacle Fighter game has frame times and parries, it just so happens that here they are perfectly translated to the beat. If you want more complex action and higher reaching ambitions then please go get S rankings in every DMC game - and I am hoping that having beat this game and understood what makes the genre will make that task easier/more enjoyable.
The only deciding factor is genre. Spectacle Fighter games are already Rhythm games! "McDoot!" I hear you cry, "You just said first person shooters are rhythm games too!" And to that I say "yes!" Everything is a rhythm game! But whereas rhythm felt like a constraint in Metal: Hellsinger, Hi-Fi Rush frames it as a Rosetta Stone for deciphering an entire genre. Every character in a Spectacle Fighter game has frame times and parries, it just so happens that here they are perfectly translated to the beat. If you want more complex action and higher reaching ambitions then please go get S rankings in every DMC game - and I am hoping that having beat this game and understood what makes the genre will make that task easier/more enjoyable.
Telling me you won't hold my hand is not an excuse to have a confusing opening experience. I walked past god knows how many puzzles because I didn't realise the storytelling hinged on hunting through the environment to find clues - so thanks for that I guess.