I sometimes have the tendency to look down on these ‘Lost games' ARG BS that flood itch.io and steam. Not because they're bad or not scary but because they're always the most basic bog standard creepypasta BS you could possibly think of with very little to show for it in scares, puzzles, or clever use of the ARG format. I think the only games I’ve seen done well were Ben Drowned, Godzilla NES, and Petscop, two of those are just hi-effort Creepypastas and one that doesn't even exist. Which is why I'm glad to say that this game goes out of its way to not only pass the super low bar of lame creepypasta lost game bs; but also carve its own path as a pretty great ARG and a genuinely scary experience. Finally we can have a lost game ARG where it's not about a dead person/child controlling the game but rather something much MUCH worse.........disgruntled employees.

Also I really wanna give this game a huge thumbs up for the game's N64 like presentation. It's not one for one like the games of its era and at points you can clearly tell it’s not a game that could’ve worked on a real N64, but they make it work in the lore of the ARG along with still having the ability to make the atmosphere all the more dreadful by going for a more basic lower quality look.

I don't have much else I wanna say about it without giving away spoilers but I do think the puzzles are a little too obtuse at times but the game was designed to be a community driven ARG experience so really if anything they did too good of a job if you think about it. But overall it's just a really solid horror experience I'm glad I gave a chance instead of just scrolling past it like any other itch.io ARG creepypasta schlock.

I spitefully resisted for eons but. Shit. What do you want me to say? Fate is good! I admit it! Its really good! I like Saber a lot, maybe one of my favorite characters ever! Shirou has endless bounds of depth and nuance and one of the most psychologically damaged characters I've ever seen. Rin's story is introduced from her perspective, immediately cutting me off from being able to just dismiss her as a normal tsundere archetype. The narrative gives every character different tragedy and dynamics across 40 + hours of story. The beloved huge anime franchise I've intentionally avoided for years is good! I was wrong! Fuck!

It alright, it not subtle or nuanced, it tasteless and lukewarm.........naa that's being a bit too mean.

The truth is I did enjoy this game quite a bit, the combat is still pretty solid, the side missions feel less like filler and more like proper missions, everything with Kraven is fantastic, and side stuff with Peter's former villains are all really great and do a better job delivering the game's overall narrative themes better than the main story to an extent. I feel like the further we get into the story the worse it gets and the more rushed it feels. I genuinely believe if you gave the symbiote arc more time to breath, made Venom less of a one note villain, and actually found something for Miles to do in the main story besides getting over his anger towards Mr. Negative you could've had something really special on your hands, and I know that for a fact since Kraven is by far the best part of the game hands down, Insomniac did their homework and then some like holy shit.

All and all a perfectly serviceable sequel that I wished tried a little bit harder
(Wake me up when Arkane's Blade comes out in 4 years)

Starts off as a pretty solid psychological horror but leans too hard towards the absurd later on, akin to watching a lackluster version of Courage the Cowardly Dog. The transparent metaphors didn't help alleviate it either.

Nevertheless, it's a pretty simple story of a man learning to deal with his guilt, and for a crudely animated janky ass point-and-click game, it did manage to evoke some genuine emotional moments.

I just wish good things happened to video game characters named Max.

It's clear that this game was made with a lot of passion and heart with most work being done by solo developer Jacob Janerka. That said, your enjoyment of this game will largely hinge on how much you gel with the particular brand of absurdist humor on display here.

There was an early scene that actually had me laughing out loud for two solid minutes and gave me hope that there would be more where that came from. Unfortunately, the game never quite reached the same heights for me.

Paradigm hews close to its point & click adventure genre conventions, while managing to streamline the experience somewhat. The puzzles were never weirdly obtuse and solutions have a logic to them that is satisfying enough to solve, and if you should happen to get stuck there's a really good hint system which keeps things appropriately vague while giving you just enough of a hint to not have to look something up.

I also adore the art style of the game, and seeing the next weird thing rendered in this style was a good enough propellant to keep going forward. As I stated at the top of the review though, your enjoyment of the game as a whole will depend on how the jokes land for you personally, and I'm sad to say that after that first hour nothing ever really hit for me in the same way.

Really interesting fan game that exemplifies both the recurring strengths and weaknesses of Ace Attorney as a series. This is an obvious labor of love that, while mostly its own thing, also takes deliberate strides to more elegantly segue between the trilogy/Investigations and Apollo Justice than the official games ever attempted. Maya not being present for Phoenix's final pre-timeskip trial is given an explanation here, which makes sense even if it isn't satisfying. Likewise, Edgeworth is finally given a chance to show off the character development he received in his spin-offs. It's the little touches like these that show how the developer truly cares about the AA storyline in a way Capcom almost seems reluctant of doing.

It's amazing how the main plot here is basically the same as the one from Dual Destinies, except Contempt of Court actually has, like, foreshadowing... yet is somehow also less obvious with its twists. In general, the writing is pretty good - at its best, the characterization of the legacy characters is indistinguishable from in the official localizations. There are a fair number of frustrating typos, but I can't really fault a (nearly) solo dev for that when it still has way less than Justice For All, a shorter game that costs money to play.

The whole affair definitely feels a bit fanficcy, with new sprites that look suspiciously like recolors and an edgy, omniscient main antagonist who is more obnoxious than threatening (though that's definitely the point, at least near the end). This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though; it's honestly rather charming. Gameplay is just like the 2D AA titles - you're actually required to think and aren't just told the answer to every puzzle (like in DD for instance). There were only a few moments where I needed a guide to progress, certainly no more than in the originals, though there is one particular moment early on with an obvious solution where progression is rendered almost impossible due to the UI blocking your view of an object you need to click on.

The first two cases stand alone (until they don't) and are just damn good Ace Attorney, channeling the brevity of the earlier games to refreshing effect. Unfortunately, the penultimate case is one of those that exists mostly as a prologue to the final one, and while it has an interesting through line with some great moments it's really frustrating watching the characters repeatedly fail to understand obvious clues you, the player, figured out hours prior. The final case is also far too drawn out in an attempt to be epic, but that's been a problem since the DS rerelease of AA1, and this one doesn't start wearing out its welcome until the last couple hours, which is remarkable in its own way.

In the end, Contempt of Court more or less lived up to the hype for me. If you're willing to understand the nature of its shortcomings, you'll find a wonderful, insanely fleshed out fan game that not only improves the overall canon of its source material by existing, but somehow manages to be better than a fair few of its more technically advanced brethren. Highly recommended, but only for Ace Attorney diehards who have played every game released up to at least Investigations 2.

WIKTOBER 2023 Log #001 - Stasis: BONE TOTEM
I am so fucking down with this game its unreal.
As far as point and click games go its good, great even. The gimmick is having a three person party where you can swap control over any member at any time, as well as sharing each item between each member. The puzzles themselves are pretty reasonable, especially compared to other adventure games. Things generally make sense and if you read PDA's/logs, and the flavor text each character has for any particular item, then you won't get stuck often. So mechanically the game is solid. But the story, setting, and characters are what elevate it.
This is peak sci-fi horror. The only thing that comes to mind that tops it is Soma, and that's saying a lot. The actual timeline of events is confusing as hell, but thankfully the side characters, all equally interesting to listen to, fill in the gaps.
The dynamic between the three playable characters is great. Husband, wife, and their deceased daughter's animatronic AI teddy bear make a great combo.
Oh yeah, Moses. I could write this whole review on how much I love Moses. He is the cleverest little bear. The relationship between him and one of the side characters that show up is actually very touching. Then there's Calaban. Who/what he is is kind of a spoiler, but what I can say is that he's an aggravating little cunt in the best way possible.
Bone Totem is another entry in the nuthutcore genre and holy shit does it come out swinging. Can't wait to see what this studio produces next.

My Moses. My sweet Moses.

In stench there is a story.

A genuinely moving articulation of faith through virtual mediums. Hope dies in the vacuum of space and is found again through the fuselage of blood and deep water. On the oceanic floor where we once drowned I emerge - a nü-man. I am a very smart bear now. I will see the sky.

The world of Stasis left a big gash on me because like the dead genre that it is point’n’click needs a jolt, to be dragged across waves engines and into a space where flesh and interface meld into one - behold, my precious Bone Totem. The convergence point of adventure-play with a place vivid enough to make the trajectory of our clicks worth more than a mere curious inquiry of hidden nooks and crannies. My sea is no corporation, my sea will crush you. There can be no logical order of exploitation to the whims of the depth's currents therefore locating your story inside an environment whose hostility far surpasses any capital contempt, that will only deal in blood and iron as its sacred currencies; to make it through the day deeper truths need to be held - a belief in something other than broken ribs, powered by said-broken ribs. DEEPSEA15’s all rust and grime, a place for the true masochists, lovers of algaes and wire-grids alike, actively pressing down where it hurts and yet prodding at our insides with a great deal care - binding itself instead of shredding our characters, a slow-burn of cog-wheeled violence amidst stormy seas. Oil rig's always the play, because here it's the only play. Nobody wants to be down there yet we’re all exactly where we're meant to be - wound up in this great skeleton unfit for any sort of humane life, unable to function for long without our continued presence within itself. And in this mother of all contraptions “the only way out is through.”

The big question posed by Bone Totem's vast array of characters and computer terminals is as follows : Is survival even worth it in this world? Capital has become its own religion & theology, a literal promise of digital afterlife for the devout worker while their exploitation fuels the expansion of CAYNE Corporation and its Churches into further enslaving mankind. Liberation only exists in the glimpses of shadow organizations off-world whose motives may not even be all that benevolent and by the time the credits roll on the last act's torture porn, barely anyone is left alive to answer my questions. This is a story about what happens when you take the pay that's too good to pass and sink in the process anyway. In the derelict's underbelly Charlie, Mac and Moses make sickly sweet bed, a grieving couple and their teddy bear, each one pushed to go on by their faith in something larger than themselves - that could save them as much as it could swallow their body and soul whole. Mac is a true believer in Cayne's gospel, implanted with the technology that's supposed to transport his mind into the Nexus at the final hour; Charlie's the practical cynic, a clever and desperate engineer, while Moses sits in-between those two as Bone Totem's touch of uncanny genius : It's their dead daughter's animatronics bear, one infused with the artificial intelligence to match; a pure soul in the most profane body. The second stroke of ingenuity of the narrative lies in the use of each character's abilities throughout the game and the way they communicate with one another : Mac possesses the brute-strength to bend contraptions to his will while Charlie expertly crafts sparks out of the dead and inert. Moses, due to its size and circuitry, finds wiggle room in ventilation shafts and back-panel motherboards to get his humans out of tight spots. But what binds this whole system together is the ability to AirDrop objects between the three of 'em in order to take advantage of their respective skills at any moment, swapping characters and squeezing the abstract bits out of the gameplay loop by allowing the player to guide the story's rhythm through each perspective, the actual pointing and clicking pushed to serve a constant state of fiddling and putting things together, connecting skin to metal and arteries towards their new orifices, making due of the broken state of it all just to get through the day in one piece. Shit’s a breeze for my monkey brain, as much as a slow, catastrophic systemic failure of corporate machinery can in any way be qualified as swift - spaces compressing and then stretching themselves, water-filled elevators in contrast to their air pockets, finding finality (always) in death puzzles whose fail-states splatter in grizzly 3D. Here violence is not so much a shock factor as it is the character-building exercise in which we must all partake - the atrocity of which Stasis spares us no detail. Only the most broken and dysfunctional of families could get through this sloshing steel. But even then their survival is not the point in Bone Totem. What sits at the heart of the game's troubled conscience is artifice and hesitation - how we may progressively find ourselves bound by the clauses of the new flesh. Everyone on DEEPSEA15 is kept on a loose leash, wanting out of the hurt that comes from being born in this putrid place called reality. And it's not happening. And it keeps happening. No one's got the keys - we simply cannot leave, nor be left to our own devices.

[This is a MULE Emergency Broadcast]
WATER PRESSURE REACHING CRITICAL LEVELS_
SEEK THE SUN OR DROWN IN THE DEEP_
BE A GOOD BEAR NOW_

In Moses, Bone Totem finds its few answers.

Towards the end of third chapter, damaged and stranded from the rest, he discovers that one of the trapped scientists who's been helping him through radio in exchange for his own freedom was nothing more than a brain in the proverbial jar, condemned to sink with the rest of the station. We enter a room and find the cable-crucified approximation of a circulatory system atop which sits what little remains of Faran, a consciousness unaware of their own predicament. Eyes in literal darkness. It's impossible for me not to think of my first steps back in PATHOS-II, finding the robot body of Carl Semken and him looking at me, believing, truly believing, that he was still human - and then unplugging the cord because the only way out is through. Bone Totem walks a lot like SOMA - threading a bleak and complex existential line - but what separates it from Frictional's work mirrors the gap in emotional fortitude between the original Blade Runner and 2049. The question that gets its hooks into me isn't whether Deckard is a replicant or not and, henceforth, if androids do indeed dream of electric sheeps but rather the turnstiles of such an existence, or in other words, what meaning do you ascribe to the wooden horse that Constant "Joe" K finds in the furnace? Knowing you are nothing but a byproduct possessing the ability - however life-like in its fakery - to feel things and coming back to DEEPSEA15 with that same line of questioning, from Moses to Faran, presents a difficulty...the horse could, in essence, mean nothing - in fact it does. So why the struggle? Moses is remarkable in his artificiality because it grants him the most human quality a robot could have : Delusion. Contrary to Faran who scorns his watery prison as a physical manifestation of Hell itself, Moses only perceives it through the rosy programming of a glass-eyed teddy bear who does not like to be wet - the lens of tales and arborescences. This world taken as a whole may well be humanity's future purgatory but Moses doesn't see it that way. How could he? Charlie and Mac may still survive. The memory of the little girl he played with remains. This day has not yet met its end. Reality, as he perceives it, is still magical, still to be thought of as something more than an oil spill even as he himself is nothing more than a facsimile. A faith brittler than bones is still worth carrying by souls untainted. And so as Moses leaves the room for the last time, promising hope to his artifical brethren, the once-human Faran asks :

"I...can never leave here. Can I?"

To which the plastic bear responds :

"Yes, but it is still a story."

There’s still life and tears to be found, even under the water.
And the only way out is through.

🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕 Fuck This 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕

I think this utilization of indie devs as a guerilla advertising force is enormously fucked up. It'll almost definitely dilute the indie scene and what videogames we talk about going forward. However, it's nothing new, in the sense that liscensed flash game shlock to sell products have been around forever (remember those LCD happy meal games? It's just like that but updated). It's a polished face to an age-old exploitation. Instead of giving the substanceless game the respect of actually getting direct scorn, which would ultimately embolden the product's aim of attention grabbing. Or otherwise meming around the existence of this which would flaccidly play right into its hands. Let's do a more 'macro informative' approach. Here's some interesting articles on recent abuses from the company in question to sate the appetite a bit:


Pandemic Racism
"McDonald’s actions speak louder than words. The reality is that 80 percent of McDonald’s majority Black and Brown workforce don’t have access to paid sick leave. That is dangerous under normal circumstances; during a global pandemic, it’s deadly." McDonald’s is Hiding Policies That Perpetuate Systemic Racism Behind Woke-Washing

Sexual Harrassment
"According to the lawsuit, since at least 2017, AMTCR knew about sexual harassment and allowed it to continue, unabated, by supervisors, managers, and coworkers at various of its McDonald’s restaurants. The harassing conduct, which was mainly directed at young, teenage employees, included frequent unwanted touching, offensive comments, unwelcome sexual advances, and intimidation. As AMTCR failed to adequately address the complaints of sexual harassment, many workers found the working conditions so intolerable that they had no choice but to quit." McDonald’s Franchise to Pay Nearly $2 Million to Settle EEOC Sexual Harassment Lawsuit


Corporate Malfeseance
"According to the SEC’s order, McDonald’s terminated Easterbrook for exercising poor judgment and engaging in an inappropriate personal relationship with a McDonald’s employee in violation of company policy. However, McDonald’s and Easterbrook entered into a separation agreement that concluded his termination was without cause, which allowed him to retain substantial equity compensation that otherwise would have been forfeited." SEC Charges McDonald’s Former CEO for Misrepresentations About His Termination

Check out The McDonald's Videogame (2006) by the dev team Molleindustria using Flashpoint to foster a better understanding of these corporate ghouls.