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hello, video games

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Favorite Games

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Super Mario Galaxy

Sayonara Wild Hearts

Outer Wilds

Touhou Youyoumu: Perfect Cherry Blossom

1320

Total Games Played

025

Played in 2023

099

Games Backloggd

Recently Played See More

Life is Strange 2

Jun 01

Sneaky Sasquatch

May 30

Picross S7

May 28

Lifeline

May 21

Octopath Traveler

May 20

Recently Reviewed See More

Life is Strange 2

Completed

Windows PC

You know how kids are gross? Not like, playing with dirt and bugs gross, just an inherent background grossness. You share your game controller for 5 minutes and they hand it back sticky, why is it sticky, do your hands secrete slime?

Daniel looks gross. Visually, I can tell he'll make my controller sticky. He's so real. It's an awesome accomplishment of animation and writing.

Daniel has psychic powers which go unexplained (it's a metaphor!). He has to learn how and when to use them. You... are not Daniel. You're his older brother. You can't control Daniel, only influence him through your words and actions. It's terrifying. I don't have children so maybe this is naive, but I feel like I've gotten a taste of how scary it is to realize someone you've raised their whole life is indeed a person independent from you. Making Daniel a separate entity is a brilliant choice that makes story branches natural and meaningful. Gone is the "choose your ending" ending of LIS1.

The story is about anger, and sometimes you can feel that anger directing the story instead of the other way around. The animation I praised earlier also starts to look more budget as the game goes on. Apparently there were lengthy delays between episodes when it was coming out, but that was the only seam I could spot. As a single package I loved this, and I want to replay it with different choices as soon as possible.

It's unfair even to say "It's unfair to compare this to LIS1." It is, deliberately, the exact opposite of that game. I appreciate that.

1 Like

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Sneaky Sasquatch

Completed

iOS

That moment I realized I took this humble Sasquatch from his den in the woods and made him put on a suit and drive his sports car to his office job so he can pay rent from his bank account was actually a little affecting, if that was the intent.

But I also made him a professional racecar driver so capitalism is good actually.

0 Likes

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Lifeline

Completed

iOS

There's one interesting moment in here, early on: Taylor, stranded on an alien planet and presumably wearing a spacesuit with "I'm Fluent In Sarcasm" written on the front, asks you whether it's safe to stay in the mildly radioactive ship overnight. How do you know if it is? Well, you google it, of course. You're asked to do that fairly directly, and you get some good results about what dosages are lethal to humans before the results turn into walkthroughs for this game.

All of the most interesting moments are early on. The game gives the impression of being written entirely in order. Any tough decisions are near the beginning. The middle turns the choices into "Progress" and "Not Progress." By the end your only options are different ways of saying "What's happening?"

This is apparently a lengthy series and I genuinely can't tell if it has a really dedicated fandom or if the devs wrote their own fan wiki. Either way, I won't be continuing. I cannot overstate how much I disliked Taylor. Started intentionally leading them to danger very quickly and had to consult a walkthrough to get the good ending.

1 Like

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