It is rare to find titles in the medium that provide complete freedom to explore unbound by conventional means of progression. Rarer still are those that leave the player feeling that the world they inhabit outside of the game is a warmer, kinder place than the one they parted with at the door. These feelings have only grown stronger the more time has passed since my inaugural flight from Timber Hearth, where you inherit a rocket ship and the dreams of a space program birthed not as a military show of force, but out of a desire to understand the past and present.

The Outer Wilds is no mere puzzle game, its “solutions” betray the simplicity of the answers we expect to see when we march to GameFAQs in frustration. Nothing in the game just "is". You don't understand how to interact with something? The knowledge required simply lies somewhere else. Knowledge in this game is what items are in typical puzzle-adventure games, and the core of the gameplay is conducting science in tandem; experimenting, understanding and forming conclusions -even just tentative ones- to understand and experiment even more. There are few experiences as fulfilling in gaming to me, or in any medium for that matter.
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Originally submitted to u/Pangburn's S&S list

Convoluted NPC questlines, a huge open world, an understated but verbose backstory told through environmental cues and text dumps, and secrets that reveal themselves to you like layers on a video game onion, or at least ones you make note of for the next time you decide to take a bite through the tears. Sorry, but you were late to the party the second you passed up the spark that kicked off perhaps the most earth-shatteringly loud three consecutive days in gaming history:


June 21, 1996: King’s Field III,
June 22, 1996: Quake,
June 23, 1996: Super Mario 64.

Simultaneously a key collection simulator more nightmarishly hellish than any Doom WAD could ever aspire to be, a Soulslike more hideously obtuse than any happy-go-lucky Onion-in-armor could ever prove to you, and an aural assassin as insidiously persistent as the drippiest faucet; King’s Field II (US), hereafter referred to simply as King’s Field III is definitively the worst “exploration/action game with a deep backstory” that I still somewhat enjoyed playing. In contrast, I did not enjoy my time with Demons’ Souls, nor did I enjoy the second time; but I would hazard a guess and say I would somewhat further enjoy a second playthrough of Kings Field III. As a child sizing up which variety of cough syrup to gulp down to appease a mother resolved to declare me “too sick to play videogames”, I found myself reaching out to garish Bubble Gum instead of the grizzled statesman that was Robitussin when given the choice. Bubble Gum as a medicinal flavor just had an air of mystery to it, and while I don’t think anything purporting itself to taste like Bubble Gum while simultaneously being good for you ever accomplished either with aplomb, it’s the attempt at not sucking that would stick with me and embolden me to return the next time I told mother the can of beef mushroom soup I emptied out into the toilet bowl came out of my body. All this to say that for all the trauma King’s Field III would inflict on my soul, it challenged and surprised me more than the solved quantity of Demons’ Souls ever possibly could; the most comprehensive resource for Kings Field III at the time of this review is a half-working neocities archive of a now kaput fansite, whereas Demons’ Souls has been documented and analyzed to death, most famously by Sony who commissioned one of their own studios to assemble a multi-million dollar diorama of it for it’s winning entry at the science fair titled: Most Exploitable Fanbase. King’s Field III is the first time developer FromSoft united nearly all of these now familiar trappings of success in one compact disc; a bouillabaisse of then unconventional game design that every YouTuber who wore their choice of game difficulty as a personality would yearn for on as close to a yearly basis as they could get it. (NOTE: I did not originally intend to insinuate that Demons’ Souls fans are “tripping” but it would explain A LOT.)

Unfortunately for all it’s ambition it never really executes it’s MO of being a groundbreaking console open-world RPG, and FromSoft probably didn’t originally aspire to such grandiose status either. If King’s Field II was the rebirth of mechanics established in the previous game as Dark Souls would be to Demons’, King's Field III like Dark Souls II sought to prioritize expansion of the game’s world and mythos over massive rehauls to an already proven formula. Say what you will about Dark Souls 2, (I will: IT’S GREAT), it’s varied landscapes complemented by a thoughtful approach to emulating the passage of time/distance with environmental setpieces once relegated to conceptual art cement it as a grand adventure across an entire country befitting of the status of sequel. Tragically however, King’s Field III is ugly. Like, hairy butt ugly. Grand its world may be on paper, 1996’s open world is largely made up of slabs of vomit lined with trees leading to caves lined with vomit wallpaper like some sort of nightmarish creepypasta Animal Crossing village. The framerate does not scale upwards with the amount of butt-ugliness on display either, choosing to run lower almost as if in an act of defiance. “Mind-boggling graphics” indeed. As the fucked up kid who’d peer out upon a foggy day and think Superman 64 before Silent Hill, this game would have rocked my world by wiping the slate clean of either from the foggy games discourse - ushering in an age of King Fieldlian faux pas amid stifled giggles from the gamers in the crowd. This all sits opposed to the labyrinthian approach to level design FromSoft embraces in King’s Field III, resulting in exploration that ends up feeling monotonous and soul crushing at times as the player is sparsely provided with landmarks to anchor their compass at. To their credit, FromSoft did provide an item that automatically maps out the layout of their maze-like playgrounds, as well as provide an in-game log of NPCs spoken to and their dialogues: both quality of life improvements the Souls series would do well not to shy away from. These elevate 1996’s “Hammerfell at Home” to tolerable status, and I’d dare say they would have enhanced the experience of FromSoft’s later games as well, with Elden Ring the first to begin to shed busywork and obfuscation for obfuscation’s sake as what it really is: a waste of time.

Confounded at this game’s reputation as a cardinal sin of gaming and the hate you and I as capital G Gamers are expected to levy at it. Sure, it's got problems, least of which is wearing its heart on its sleeve, but it’s still leagues from what I’d call the true lows of the Sonic series (Chronicles, Labyrinth, etc). So why does everyone take the bait and sweep this one under the rug? To appease the hordes of gremlins cackling endlessly for Sonic Adventure 3 so they’ll shut up for 5 minutes while they bicker endlessly about the game mom wouldn’t pick up at the Rent-a-Video? Are you really content marching into the grave with the most milquetoast of WatchMojian opinions? I had to find out for myself, and as one who found the lulls in gameplay (every single treasure and mech stage) in Sonic Adventure 2 an achilles heel to the pacing, I would have ran head over heels to Shadow if I had known it was structured as a back-to-back series of the Sonic & Shadow stages from its prequel. I hadn’t even know of it’s status as a direct continuation of the story in SA2 because of the persistence of this game as a footnote best forgotten in the same manner the proletariat & bourgeoisie amass in unison to turn their collective noses up at other black sheep of gaming like Dark Souls 2 and Devil May Cry 2.

I do quite enjoy DaSII, and while it’s likely I’ll walk away from DMC2 feeling less than stellar about it, I still want to give it a shot. Unfortunately it’s unlikely I ever will because the people egging me on to do so expect me to validate their own hatred of the game as if I was checking it off a list. I don’t fuck with that approach to absorbing media anymore, and while I’m reluctant to embrace Shadow the Hedgehog I also do not feel emboldened to take cheap shots at the lowest hanging fruit of the early 2000s. I couldn't think of a better poster child for the term “guilty pleasure” if I tried and that frustrates me. Compared to the other 3D Sonic games I’ve played (SA1,2, and Heroes) I found it to be largely jank free with solid collision overall, something I couldn’t say about any of the aforementioned. Why must experiences like Shadow be eternally doomed to categorization in varying shades of irony? As the last game made by the "classic" 3D Sonic group (Iizuka, Eitaro Toyoda, Hiroshi Nishiyama, etc) I can’t not see it as anything but a reappraisal of what stuck in Sonic Adventure 2, even going so far as to reimplement the scrapped branching paths from it’s early development. Admittedly, they didn’t quite stick the landing, and I have my good friend /u/Bojangles4th to thank for helping me navigate through the game with minimal retreads on my way to unlocking the game’s “Final Story”, a feat that requires the player to obtain the other endings by way of playing the game over and over which DISCLAIMER: I don’t recommend doing; call it after a few endings and watch the rest on YouTube. I’d still say Sonic Heroes embodies the worst of these faults but it gets looked over because it’s not the game with a skrunklified genocidal gun-toting baby Vegeta tied to its back.

And that’s a good thing!

Forced walking sections through stale environments that overstay their welcome, an "ahead of it's time" A.I. that will always fall for your proximity mines no matter how blatant, and gameplay that literally just boils down to slo-mo abuse for free kills; when its down you hide behind cover until its back up. That's the entire game: a mindless cover-shooter.

I wouldn't have minded the lulls in gameplay if the horror angle was effectual in the slightest. No game that hands you a shotgun and assault rifle, slomo powers at the touch of a button, and throws waves of soldiers at you is still walking the path of horror. The game never takes these opportunities to create interesting platforming for the player to engage with, the furthest off the beaten path you'll go is through a vent into an elevator shaft to leisurely go up a ladder or two.

After going through the trouble of getting the game's EAX support to work on modern Windows, I'm happy to say that I found the positional audio pretty impressive. Unfortunately you lumber through the world like an elephant in a chinashop, jostling every single little can and cardboard box within a 3 yard radius. I can't count the amount of times I was caught off guard by a stray soda can tickling the back of my eardrums. Outside of that, the scariest thing about F.E.A.R. is that people in 202X still prop up this dreck like it has anything insightful to impart.

+.5 Star for first-person roundhouse kicking. That never got old.

In the same breath used to recall its lengthy name, Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru AKA For the Frog the Bell Tolls AKA The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls is often cast under the shadow of Link’s Awakening; cursed to become a mere footnote in Nintendo’s monolithic history.

The comparison is easy to validate looking at a few screenshots, but I would argue Frog’s side-scrolling sections are moreso a natural paring back of what Zelda II brought to the table, with Link’s Awakening being the conclusion of Nintendo’s brief infatuation with experimentation in the Zelda series. Frog engages with the player by providing a world with clearly laid-out rules and few tricks: either you out-DPS the opponent standing in your way or explore more to become stronger and do so later, sound familiar?

Don’t worry, I’m going to stop short of calling Frog a deconstruction of the JRPG genre, but it playfully flirts with its tropes in a very cute and endearing way that is hard not to smile at. In stark contrast to Zelda II, Frog is on your side and rooting for you all the way to the finish line. It does not waste the player’s time with long walks out of dungeons, nor does it mince words about whether or not the player is equipped to take on a certain foe, very bluntly telling the player exactly how much HP or what item is needed to progress. It was a breath of fresh air at that time in gaming and just the kind of game I need now at a time when my own prospects seem bleak. Bleaker still was the GameBoy’s library back in 92’, and it is a true shame this game never made it stateside to help break up the monotony of sokoban clone #6.

I’m unsure how much of it is owed to the fan translation, but Frog strikes a gleefully self-aware tone that lives on in the Indie games of today. Many find their inspiration in Nintendo games not unlike this one; but this one manages to stand apart from even its own peers. It’s not everyday you’ll see a major corporation break the 4th wall just to enthusiastically admit their championing of planned obsolescence, and all it asks of you is an afternoon’s worth of your time. Please check out the patch at the link below.
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https://www.romhacking.net/translations/1623/

Boom, Snap, Plonk; three aircraft carrying 300 passengers have crashed into the ocean. With the same brevity of a Mario Party minigame, you are tasked with planning and executing a search and rescue operation to save these poor souls. They've waited their whole lives for this moment but you only have 60 seconds.

For being born out of a game jam and clocking in at 30 minutes tops, it does a damn good job of distilling the science of deduction that Lucas Pope has become very comfortable at teasing the player with in his games. The difference here is the cruel reality of the situation unfolding before you is entirely in your control right from the get-go. You will fail, people will die, and before you know it you'll have made a small dent in the unending battle against hopelessness and despair.

Give it a shot here: https://dukope.com/sea/play.html

As a hard-drive carrying member of Xbox Game Pass™, this game struck me as the equivalent of loitering at the Barnes & Noble after a long day of squandering what little savings I had with my buds at the mall. An oasis in the desert? Far from it, but at least they had a working restroom and comfy chairs!

Shredder’s Revenge exchanges your local bookstore's comfy chairs for controls and movesets that feel snappy and satisfying. Strap in, because for the next 2 hours you’ll have a perfectly adequate time while you go through the motions, quickly realizing that despite the options presented to you by the game, there’s really nothing better than spamming your taunt and specials. On and on the mashing goes, and the hooting and hollering of the others in the room grows all the more uproarious. While waiting for a boss’s invulnerability phase to pass for the umpteenth time I found myself wondering: why am I still playing this?

Because I love my friends, and I want to hold on to these fleeting moments as they become more and more infrequent. The bookstore of days past was simply what we were able to settle on as a place to ride out the rest of the day. I don’t even like books! Just the same I was never really gripped by the turtle craze despite being born during its apex. Where and What simply can’t hold a candle to Who. Perhaps I’m just better at remembering faces?

To it's credit I suppose Barnes & Noble did a pretty serviceable job of creating an inoffensive environment for miscreant youth to take shelter in, but soon it will look like the local bookstores that it killed off. Will I mourn it? Not particularly. So too do I not lie in anguish at night about the coming and going of mediocre beat em ups like Scott Pilgrim and its ilk. But I’ll keep listening to their bangin’ soundtracks and remembering the good times I had with my buds.

Also daawwww I want what Bebop and Rocksteady have. Love those buffoons. <3