Well this is a charming little project :)

With Aggro Crab's upcoming crustacean-themed souls-like "Another Crab's Treasure," releasing this coming week, I figured I'd familiarise myself with their debut game, Going Under: Internships Are Heck, to give it its full title. Suffice it to say, I was incredibly charmed by the cut of this game's jib.

Going Under is a procedural roguelike dungeon crawler where you play as newly-employed intern Jacqueline Fiasco as she tries desperately to climb up the corporate ladder of her employer, Fizzle, a lowly subsidiary of megacorporation Cubicle. Though she was hired based on her marketing skills, Jackie finds herself instead trawling through dungeons and fighting goblins, demons, and skeletons in the vague hopes of getting a promotion.

It's a cute and humorous premise, and honestly, it gets a lot of mileage out of it, employing (pun intended) a sharp wit (with some genuinely funny dialogue) and a charming cast of co-workers to pull you into its world and keep you there with a simple yet engaging combat loop that never really gets tired, thanks to a rotating roster of skills, modifiers, and weapons that help continuously switch things up.

Needless to say, the art style is, of course, also a huge draw, seemingly drawing from corporate motivational posters as inspiration and spinning that off into its own kitschy, genuinely adoring look and feel for all of its characters and props.

Really, I'd say the only part that could bring the whole thing down a bit for many people is the difficulty spike in the second half of the game. To provide a bit of context, as spoiler-free as I can make it, the game has its own "rotating of the castle" moment at the midway point and encourages you to go through it all over again except with an extra challenge this time in order to get the true ending.

Now, usually, prospects like this (especially if they are mandatory to seek out the "true" ending) generally turn me off, but to its credit, Going Under isn't a particularly lengthy game; it has a really enjoyable gameplay loop, and there are some handy 'assist mode' settings for accessibility purposes that you can tweak on top of that, so it's really not as taxing as that might sound.

So yes, there is a difficulty spike in the second half, but it's much more manageable than it might seem.

Really, my only complaints are down to issues with RNG, but really that's more of an issue with roguelikes as a genre than this game specifically, as its kind of built-in to the whole experience of them. Besides that, the combat can perhaps get a bit repetitive, especially if you're attempting the same dungeons multiple times in a row during that tricky second half, but again, it does the job well enough.

For a first outing, though, Going Under is incredibly charming and supremely impressive in how well it is put together and presented in all facets of the game. There are some setbacks but not enough to warrant caution in recommending it to anyone at all.

In fact, if you're tired of scrolling through Indeed or LinkedIn all day, playing this will no doubt prove to be an incredibly cathartic experience.

8.5/10

The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile was made by an alternate universe version of me that knew exactly what i'd like; is my leading theory on how this lil' thing came to be

one of the best character action games that's been released just kinda Overall. Ska studios makes good-ass shit with very intriguing settings, a lovely to look at artstyle, and the right amount of teeth-kicking "do this over and over until you're good at it, or leave" overwhelming, difficult design to it. this is no exception, and i think it's a greater testament to their games overall than Salt & Sanctuary just because it's so them.

i for one also specifically like taking any given opportunity to RELISH in full-package scene & emo aesthetics. this game occupies the same ten-or-however old girl in me that'd want a gory, unabashedly edgy, monochromatic kill-murder game about you butchering dudes in suits. integral to healing the inner child of me that didn't get to experience that as much as they wanted to, and i'm always here for it.

from the perspective of game design specifically, i think this is one of the only games that Gets It in regards to designing your protagonist to be weighted towards a specific style of sorts rather than being an all-rounder or a zippity, fast little shit, which are archetypes i can appreciate but it leaves a severe lackage of, in fighty game terms, Grappler or big heavybody lumbering shits. the only games i think really get the feeling of that nebulous concept "right" are Vampire Smile's Yuki & DMC4's Nero.

it is occasionally not about doing an anime combo as you port around the screen all the time. sometimes it is about grabbing a small wastrel and making them into a new carpet and/or wallpaper. no substitutes are sufficient.

In a seedy motel down in El Paso the lord of all vampires, Draculae, has opened a rift to Hell and is ushering in a ritual to end the world. A drug-addicted monster hunter, James Savage, ventures into the bowels of the motel to stop it, knowing that this adventure may be his last; but hey, he can’t let his ex-girlfriend destroy the world after all.

El Paso Elsewhere wears its influence from Remedy’s oeuvre on its sleeve. The opiate popping hardboiled detective soliloquizing in between shooting down enemies in John Woo slo-mo clearly hearkens to Max Payne and the motel’s hellish depths of dimensional shifting corridors filled with supernatural aberrations are akin to a fusion of Max Payne 1’s nightmare sequences and Control’s eldritch halls of The Oldest House. El Paso uses these elements as a springboard to make its own identity though.

Mechanically the game is similar to Max Payne though its focus on tighter corridors and mix of melee and ranged enemies does bring its own sense of hecticness that sets it apart from Max. You have a full arsenal of weapons here ranging from stakes, which you can only hold a limited amount and guarantee an instant melee kill on any basic enemy, shotguns, molotovs, and rifles. I was constantly switching between weapons throughout the whole game as they all have their uses; even the basic dual pistols stay viable throughout as they are fairly long-range, accurate, and good for getting critical hits off of headshots.

Narratively the game does an actually real good job being a supernatural neo-noir. Max Payne 1 and 2 were mainly just noir pastiche, purposely goofy in a way that didn’t give its cast much depth beyond archetypes. El Paso actually manages to be a quality character study of abusive relationships and addiction through a noir genre lens. James yearns for the past, that one perfect day of his relationship as he puts it; even though he knows nothing but pain and self-destruction awaits him down that road. Affection and care had devolved into abusive control and thinly-veiled threats of violence as true characters were revealed. But like the drug addict he is James still can’t stop trying to regain that impossible high. All of this is well portrayed through the quality voice-acting in between levels as James is transported to each floor through the dimensional elevator. The game also has some levity with its Remedy-esque easter eggs like the continuing adventures of Pill Cop that you find throughout the levels.

It does have its share of flaws and jank though. One thing is it takes some time for the game to actually start taking off, the game has fifty levels, and for around the first fifteen or so you’re basically just fighting basic vampires and werewolves where you're not going to really have to bother using slo-mo that much. The first boss is also a bit of spike and I think they probably could give you a bit more ammo for the strongest weapons for him. I still managed but just be sure to rebind the roll onto something where you can hit it faster and easier for that fight.

Despite any missteps El Paso Elsewhere is still a genuinely great game and I actually like it over most of Remedy’s games aside from Control. Definitely worth checking out.

I've played Tomb Raider 2013 three times. Not because I love it or even like it. I played it once on PS3 when it launched, then again on Xbox One when it became free on Games with Gold. (Yes, I was one of the rare people who switched from PS3 to Xbox One) And now on PC. Why is that?

The story kept going over my head. Each time, if you asked me what the game was about, I wouldn't be able to tell you. Now that I've replayed it, I understand why now that I'm a bit older and can retain it better. It's a below-average Indiana Jones plot mixed with a D-list crash survivor flick plot held up by mediocre writing. Lara herself is written well, but her friends aren't - and it feels like the writers really wanted to kill most of them off since they didn't enjoy writing for them. Roth was one of the more interesting side characters but they didn't really use him as much as I wanted.

But on a third replay, I've grown to love this take on Lara way more than I used to. See, playing the OG Tomb Raider trilogy made me see Lara as a badass. A staple of video game badasses. So I was originally disappointed in this take on Lara since it felt like she was living in the shadow of a cooler, more interesting Lara. However, with the timelines intended to be unified now, this Lara IS that Lara now. 2013 Lara is the same Lara that has always existed since the 90s. This is her origin story, and it works so well with that in mind, retroactively giving this game a boost in its story. The adventures and trauma Lara goes through are now part of a bigger whole, and she no longer feels like she's living up to insurmountable expectations from the audience. Lara is perfectly characterized with the notion of a unified timeline in mind.

Tomb Raider 2013 got flak at the time for QTEs, but on a replay they're not as overbearing as I thought. I did crank the game down to easy to focus on the story since I've already played the game twice before. I know how Tomb Raider plays already. I just wanted the story and characterization this time and that was my goal with a third replay.

Speaking of gameplay, the level design and systems are pretty solid. Nothing too crazy but it's not 100% polished, and it's easy to tell. There was a few hit detection issues with latching onto walls at times, as well as in combat. Many times I felt like my arrows were hitting an enemy directly and I was whiffing it. I also get that Lara is inexperienced with guns, but does every gun's spread have to be as big as the moon?

It's a pretty good game. And no, I don't intend on playing it again. Not anytime soon at least. But I do like it more than I originally did.

Score: 83