Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom! is a well-oiled machine.

If I were to whittle down YTGV to a catch-all sentence, I’d call the game “Mario 64 Meets Crazy Taxi”. You explore open sandbox style worlds full of gears to collect, and in certain levels, you’re set to a timer and need to carry locals to their destination.

As the player of a 3D platformer, you're always placed in the driver position of your character. How you operate this vehicle is dictated by the toolkit the developers hand you. Typically, the most common place tool would be your jump.

Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom! does not have a dedicated jump button.

Of course, there is a way to jump. Like any car, the optimal way to gain height is to cancel your spin out and flip your vehicle over and into the air. This spin move normally allows you to dash forward, which helps with verticality when you're on an incline. You can cancel twice before a cooldown timer takes its effect, but if you land on a surface, you'll regain that charge.

You’d think that’d be all your tools but put a stop on your brakes: there’s more than meets the eye here.

Before you shoot up an incline, if you tap the A button at the right moment, you’ll soar even higher than before. Similar to Mario Odyssey’s diving onto Cappy tech, this move is a game changer for your traversal. Your tiny little taxi car mind as well become a full-blown plane with the amount air you gain.

You could casually drive through YTGV without this move, but the game calls for you to keep searching for more goodies to collect. Whether that collectible be the main gears, an assortment of cash, or the many silly hats, each have given me the drive to 100% complete this game. YTGV rewards veterans of 3D platformers with depth of skill to master, along with grit to tightly crafted end game levels.

There’s a specific tone cast upon YTGV. A vibe that reflects what I think was the mindset of the developers making this: silly, wacky, feel good, fun. You can tell the developers aren’t native English speakers, so dialogue often comes out in bizarre ways that’s comical within its own right. This also translates to the random insertion of memes and references throughout the game coming across as insane non-sequiturs. Normally this would be a problem for me, but the game is just so charming from just how much fun the developers are having that I can’t help myself from smiling too. Punchy synths reverberate out your car speakers, sunny beach side views with bright blue skies, the good times are here to stay with YTGV.

I think YTGV embodies what it means to be a video game. Fun, dumb, stupid, addicting, nonsense. I’m not sure I’d crown YTGV with the title of “Most Video Game Video Game To Ever Video Game”, as that title has hard competition, but it’s most certainly in the running.

"I believe our role as game creators is to give dreams to children all over the world." - Yuji Naka

------------------------------------------------------------------------

NiGHTS: Into Dreams is a marvel of a game. Originally developed with the intent of being a 2D game with pixel art graphics with a strong emphasis on Artificial Life sim (A-Life) gameplay, development shifted drastically towards the game we know today. The game was, for all intents and purposes, an experiment: can Sonic Team make a 3D game on the Sega Saturn? What are the limitations, if they could? How can they show the player 3D depth on a 2D screen? Can they create polygonal characters that look as appealing as 2D pixel characters?

The answer was a resounding yes. NiGHTS became a unique title that showcased the potential of the Sega Saturn, demolishing the sales and becoming the top selling game on the system. Sonic Team managed to create a new IP, play around with new ideas, and recharge their creative batteries from creating three or four Sonic game for the past four to five years.

But the reality of NiGHTS's release was that the game was not enough of a draw for the Saturn. The American consumer base desired more of the blue blur, and during consumer questioning with the Japanese side, kids infamously could only mutter "Sonic who?" when asked who Sonic was. Sonic was Sega's face, and Sega's face went missing.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Between the cracks of the conscious and unconscious, there is a rift that trickles down to Nightopia. Windmills stand atop of pillars that hover aimlessly in the air, decorating the milky blue and purple skies like ornaments of a Christmas tree. Hills and valleys roll in a green mellow stream, spreading across every corner within the canvas of this dream. Sleep is a one way ticket to the carnival of dreams, performing all of humanity's unconscious thoughts and ideals in one place. NiGHTS is your guide, a being that's a culmination of every culture and gender, staving off the nightmares that infest the dreams of the collective unconscious, displaying as a hero amongst the self. Waking is your ticket back to reality, where you're left with your memories of that dream world, giving you the strength to reach out for your dreams in reality.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Much like Sonic, NiGHTS is the king of fostering replayability. NiGHTS is essentially a prototype for the ranking system that would later be found in the Sonic Adventure series. Rank is based not how fast you proceed through a level, but more determined with the amount of points you received and orbs you collect throughout the allotted route. Each world is broken up by 4 routes, followed by a climatic boss fight to cap off your overall ranking. Mastering the game requires mastering a level's layout, learning the best way to acquire points and orbs, and optimizing your run to perfection. Your verbs are to loop, charge and fly to reach your goal, the motions in doing so feeling eloquent and refined like a figure skater's flow. This flow translates to gameplay and vice versa from one another.

The gameplay loop is addicting on an immediate level, and for me, has been more gratifying than playing and perfecting either SA1 or 2. The reason is simple: in Sonic, the qualifications to gain the best rank aren't actually clear with what the game is asking of you. Here in NiGHTS, it's 100% clear to me how I reach a better rank. The more points I wrack up, the better my rank.

For all of NiGHTS, there's a sense of clarity to the game design with how simplistic and creative it is. I'm not sure Sonic Team has ever quite reached such a level of clarity with their other projects.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The world was passing me by so quickly. My surroundings were hard to really notice at a first glance, so I began to grow dissatisfied being unable to soak anything in. So, I did what I used to do when I was younger. I let myself get lost in the world.

The ground swerved and bent like an ocean's wave. These waves would envelop me from above and below me, closing me within this world like an open cavern. Walking felt weird, like at any given moment I'd start feeling heavy resistance from the sheer steepness of the terrain, but never did that heavy foot come. I wandered around, finding tiny creatures that would playfully smile, or laugh, or spin with glee.

The world felt still, in a way. Like this was the only moment that mattered. Thinking back on this, I felt like I once did when I was a kid. The world in front of me felt strange, new and a little scary. I didn't know what to expect from the game, and that within itself was such a refreshing experience.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Despite the fact that NiGHTS started as an attempt to create an A-Life game, aspects are still found within the free range mode within NiGHTS. Before every level starts, you have the option to head directly towards NiGHTS, or to explore the entire level in full. Inhabiting these dreamscapes are tiny little creatures known as Pians, whom are born from eggs that you can find and hatch. These tiny little fairy men come in many shapes and sizes, and even come equipped with a full on breeding system. This system isn't as in-depth as the Chao system found within Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, but this mechanic adds a strange and needed element to the gameplay loop: a moment to relax.

Taking a break from the fast paced gameplay and simply exploring the world here creates a sense of exploration and discovery. There's details to this world that you're merely flying past in the main portion of the game, and being able to explore the same level from a completely different perspective is strangely freeing. Of course, the game doesn't want you to just running around collecting orbs for free, so they add in a slight pressure from an egg strapped with an alarm clock that chases you, along with a lower rank for the amount of time you've spent, so the game ends up being balanced with this approach. These open ended sections truly breathe life into the world of Nightopia.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Ethereal synths move and sway from ear to ear, samples of children saying hello and every day noises floating in-between them. The sound of a sax screeching in mimicry of an a monster screeching as a bombastic drum 'n' bass and a groovin' bass line kick into full gear. As credits roll, you're treated to the sweetest songs ever conceived.

"In the night.
Dream delight.
I want to see you standing there.
In the night.
Dream delight.
I found someone who really cared."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Sega Saturn was considered a commercial failure. Sonic X-Treme was canceled, and there was no recovery from the lack of momentum. The Dreamcast was Sega's last shot to regain their market share and their consumer base. But too many mistakes were made. Sega closed down their console divisions for good.

Their dream was no more.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
As an adult, you don't really have the opportunity to meander. We hold off on leaving the living because there's too much to be done. Responsibilities need to be taken care of, work obligations need to be met. Life can come at you fast, and you can never be sure if the move you're making is the right move. What do I want to do? Who do I want to be? When will I wake up from my fear of rejection, my fear of agency? The idea can often paralyze me. There's more I could be doing, more I could be aspiring towards.

NiGHTS: Into Dreams reminds me that there isn't a need to overcomplicated. Sometimes all you need is to focus on something simple. Take a deep breath and wander. Take a break but get back to it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The quote at the beginning was given in an interview with Yuji Naka and developers of NiGHTS: Into Dream. You might cringe at the cheese spewing out of every orifice of the lettering as you read the text, but the words hold weight for me. Despite everything Yuji Naka has done in his career, despite how notoriously difficult he was to work with said by those around him, despite the potential cynical business centric reasoning for this quote, NiGHTS: Into Dreams still encapsulates the feeling of magic into me. The game filled me with a wonder I don't think many games ever have. Just for a moment, I felt like I was a kid again, exploring a new, unknown game for the first time, wondering what this strange new world had in store for me. There was nothing but smiles of joy on my face.

This is me by the way, if you even care.

Happy Halloween!

My hand fucking hurts.

Happy Halloween!

The second to last section left me sobbing in a voice call as I couldn't make a simple indian house.

Happy Halloween!

The cute cat is very cute, but why is there so much porn of it-

Happy Halloween!

There's not much to sink your teeth into with Orbo's Odyssey.

Not that this necessarily makes Orbo a bad game, I quite enjoyed my time flinging my little armless scrimblo around with tight and precise movement options. The music pushed you forward to match the extreme speeds you'd reach, the game was absolutely filled with dumb little jokes and goofy faces to make me smile. The problem is, it's difficult to come up with anything interesting to say about Orbo's Odyssey that's not already obvious just from playing the game. Orbo's Obvious? Yeah, let's go with that.

This game has insidious horror undertones, especially with the secret lore, but it's almost as if the game is asking you to find these secrets up front. These hidden areas contain something akin to SCP entries of entities that pertain to the hidden area. These entities are then fragments of a supposed God that Orbo's boss had once tried to harm by attempting to harness their power, but assuming failed. You speak to their mother, and she basically explains all of this to you, along with your fate and your predestination to repeat an endless cycle. It's like Orbo is meeting their creator and was simply speechless from their awesome existence. It's somewhat interesting, giving off the impression that this game is a mere backdrop to a much bigger world, but it's incredibly upfront with what it wants you to know. There may be more secrets to find that completely flip all of this lore on it's head, but what's in front of me here is a bit too blunt for my taste.

These horror undertones are juxtaposed to the silly antics of working in an soul crushing office setting where you and your buddy Peeb have no arms but are locked inside your boss's office due to being unable to open the door out, so you have to run around little worlds to find gears in order to build a prosthetic limb for your limbless ass. It's silly, it's enjoyable, it's incredibly fun.


And that's... really all there is to it. Of course, that's all the game really needs to be to get my Signature Spike The Stupido Big Thumbs Up. Really, there's no point in even reading any of this — just go out and play the game for yourself if you haven't. But I'm left with an almost hollow feeling, a yearn for something more with what was provided here. It's similar to the previous short but sweet 3D platformers I've gone through as of recent, but it's far more empty feeling than those titles. I'm not entirely sure of the reasons, but I'm still glad I experienced Orbo's Big Day Out.

I feel like a fucking crazy person.

For context on this psychological self report, I was already a fan of the original Gungrave. On a recommendation, I had picked up Gungrave along with the sequel for mere pennies on the dollar in an ebay lot circa 2017. I was a massive fan of Yasuhiro Nightow's work — Trigun being the inspiration for my username — so a game where his characters bearing their signature boldenly squared shoulders to carry freakishly huge, thematically blunt objects as weapons was a perfect fit for the medium of video games.

The original game was an arcade style third person shooter, where you play as the titular Grave himself, aka Brandon Heat. It's simplistic moveset involving diving while shooting, standing still to release a frenzy of bullets, and it's frequent special moves and heat mode squeezed an immense amount of enjoyment out of me. This was nothing massively complicated as a concept, but Gungrave provided the feeling of being this massive brick of a human being carrying a fucking coffin on my back with zero subtlety. The character had a massive sense of weight, the coffin would grind against the cramped walls of these desolate street rat hide outs, causing sparks to go flying. You'd shoot out in these fantastically stylized arenas where the music would kick into high gear and would elevate everything on screen as you blew away goons with your twin shooters. It was massive style, jam packed into a small, replayable shoot'em'up.

The sequel was more or less the same, though expanding on the insanity that is the story and the lore to Gungrave, but never quite provided anything new or substantial. As a sequel, it felt like it was by the numbers, but the gameplay was the core of my interest, and what it provided was more Gungrave style carnage.

These two games weren't necessarily jaw dropping, life changing experiences. They were fun, action packed, playable anime sci-fi gangster movies with a great sense of style. They managed to leave such strong impressions on me despite their brevity. I'd always come back around thinking about that first game and just how neat the experience was.

So imagine my shock when years later, a brand new game in the series had appeared abruptly in front of me.

What's this? The same studio behind the original games is working on the game? What?

Oh? A cool new cinematic trailer with a brand new character that's reminiscent of Nicholas Wolfwood, one of my favorite characters ever to exist? Oh me. Oh my.

Needless to say, my mouth was watering like Pavlov's dog. Each time a new trailer would be revealed at a gaming event, I would be that one guy yelling and foaming at the mouth in the voice call as this obscure game no one has ever heard of appeared on screen to the confusion of everyone. This was my shit, and I was absolutely here for it.

... Until the reviews came out.

The game was absolutely raked over the coals. One critic said that Gungrave Gore was "destined to become dead and buried". Ahh, clearly the media just didn't understand a cool game once again. I then decided to check the public opinion of a forum I would sometimes frequent. The reception wasn't great either. I distinctly recall one user on the forum posting a clip and stating a paraphrase of the following:

"This game is absolutely awful, holy shit. I used to love the original game, but this game is just awful. It feels like a fucking PS2 game, and not in a good way. I'm on the third level and this level is absolutely the most bafflingly bad experience I've ever had. Somehow it just keeps getting worse."

I was crushed. Here I was, hyped for a sequel to a niche series I liked, and everyone around me was aggressive in stating that the game was terrible. So, I did what was sensible. I passed up on buying the game. No one seemed to enjoy it, so I figured, why waste my money?

A week ago, I discovered the game was 7 bucks on Steam, and I just couldn't resist the temptation. I had to know how bad the game truly was. I had spent all this time getting hyped for the game, I might as well see it through to the end, yeah?

Upon first gaining control of my character, I could tell the game was different from the original. The sense of weight Grave carried was off, feeling rather floaty in comparison. Diving and shooting didn't have the same sense of weight to it either. Despite this, I was actually enjoying moving around and shooting at guys in the traditional Gungrave fashion. Killing dudes felt about on par to the original game, now with added mechanics like grappling enemies towards you, beating them down in a stunned state to regain shields, amongst other things. So far, this was alright.

Slowly but surely, I'd make my way through halls of baddies. These metallic halls held a very Unreal engine aura, like the game was primarily utilizing pre-built lighting systems or something. You could count the money allocated for the graphics through the textures. I'd clear waves of poorly voice acted Engrish mafia men, and eventually made my way to the third stage.

This was it, I thought. This is where the game was going to become one of the worst games I've ever played.

... And that time never fucking came.

I have never been more confused about the public's reception of a video game than I have with Gungrave Gore's. I'm typically fairly in tune with public opinions. Not that I fear of going against the grain, but I've often found that when I would demonstrate this act as a bitter sad sack pre-teen, I'd be unconsciously doing so with rejection of the status quo for it's own sake. I'd still try and be fair to the piece of media I'd butt heads with, but I'd often overlook/dismiss the game for surface level reasons without ever really giving an open mind to what was in front of me.

This feeling has nearly become extinct within me, and as a result, I've become more in line with the public's perception of good. I have my moments, Doom Eternal has been exemption for that, but rarely are they this drastic feeling.

First of all, what on earth was that guy in the forum saying? The third level is a sewer level with gross little mutant leeches popping up out of green mucky water from time to time, but they provided a break up to the rest of the combat loop. Sometimes, you'd have to run away from a spikey grinder that would attempt to crush you to pieces. But, like, so what? These diversions were fairly basic in their implementation? And I dunno, they were even kind of... Fun?

After playing Gungrave Gore to completion, the only thing I could really think of was that, it was fun. It wasn't anything unbearably bad, it wasn't anything masterful, it was just an incredibly enjoyable budget title.

It was another Gungrave game.

Granted, it's not the best Gungrave game to be made. GORE provides a leg up over Overdose with it's inclusion of multiple playable characters, a fairly decent progression system, and just being a more fascinating attempt in expanding Gungrave's core gameplay loop, but it's never quite as solid as that original title. But still, ultimately, GORE is another Gungrave game.

I have a feeling that many have forgotten what exactly Gungrave was all about as a game. Never was there a focus on exploration; you were here to shoot and kill bad guys. Never was this system meant to be complicated; Gungrave was never a complicated game. Their nostalgic perception of the game clashed with their modern sensibilities, and because of that, they forgot how unpolished and barebones the original game was in comparison to other combat driven action games at the time.

Of course, there are reasons to dislike this title. Perhaps in the heads of some fans, the lack of appealing style to the original was enough to dismiss the game outright. The game certainly doesn't look the best, washing out whatever shading was used originally for a more realistic art direction, albeit slightly more stylized to fit Nightow's concept art. Perhaps it's length overstayed it's welcome. The game has 31 stages, and while for the most part they do a decent job at mixing up combat situations with the mechanics at hand, by the remaining third of the game, they ramp up the difficulty and start chucking bigger and bigger boys towards you. Maybe these fans played on a higher difficulty than me, and struggled more due that experience. Normal was a relatively painless experience for me, but I could easily see how a higher difficulty on a first playthrough might be bone crushingly annoying.

However, many of the arguments I've seen from fans revolve around being fans of the original game, and the expectations from their fond memories of that game, so I believe there's at least a portion here that believes that original premise.

Of course, I come with my own set of biases. I didn't play the game at full price. I wasn't a mega fan of the original games, so I might not be aware of all the intracracies I'm missing out on. My expectations were set to the very bottom from public discourse of the game. But this game's goal was to be a sequel to Gungrave, from the same developers of that original title, and in that respect, they nailed the core of the game. From the stellar heart pumping music, to the insanely stupid and benign plot, to the absolute dumb coolness of every single character's design, they all are the epitome of what a Gungrave game is like. And for that, I honestly genuinely enjoyed Gungrave GORE.

Gungrave GORE has been a great teacher for me. Sometimes, your opinion on a game will be drastically different than what the majority believes. It's best to figure out for yourself if something is worthwhile to you. Experience is the best teacher.

But it makes me feel like a crazy person to be the one guy rooting against the rest of the crowd. Maybe YOU guys are the crazy people, not me.

Psychopomp is meaningless meaningfulness.

Almost nothing about the game is trustworthy. You inhabit the perspective of our main character, an unreliable narrator who believes the world has been lying to them, creating a device to perceive this world for what it really is. The problem is, this turns out to work, at least, from their perspective.

The game frames it's dialogue through our main character, with thought bubbles of her speaking to the player about gameplay tips and "tips" about the real world. Both of these tips are full of false information with the occasional true tip about the game. What's real here and what's not is hard to decipher, and that's exactly the point.

The gameplay is also designed from her perspective, the UI itself being the mechanical workings of the strange device she's devised. There's literal gears pulling up to showcase her inventory, colored tubes punctuating out of the mechanical brace of the helmet demonstrating her stamina, there's a monitor haphazardly placed to the side of her vision with an image of herself in order examine her vitals. Every part of the game is fed through her perspective.

The game harkens back to dungeon crawler mechanics, but with your primary actions being more within the realm of a point and click adventure game. You look at the horrid tentacle demons with anime masks hiding their true fleshy faces, you speak to large humonoid rat creatures with boobs the size of my head, you touch the warm felt of a metal processing worker's apron who's working under a giant creature's baby-like head who desires you to kill him. You attack in this game with your trusty hammer, which comes down with a satisfying animation and crushes everything into a fine meat paste.

You start off in each area you visit in relatively normal settings, only to descend down an elevator towards this new reality. In one, you're in a hospital wing with Alexander The Great, Cleopatra and Plato propped up by fat fleshy bodies, being kept alive with their sickly ideals until you cut their life support off. The giant creature child who only wants to die is being overworked and exploited by those around him, kids laughing can be heard inside burning furnaces, workers are ambivalent everything besides their work. The world is being exposed for it's true nature in it's most metaphorical sense.

Yet there's also hintings of something greater. There's implications on one sign that speaks of human beings like the writer isn't one of them, there's an entire epilogue sequence where we discover a note that showcases a galactic event occurring that has an entire portion of space blacked out entirely. There's a sign that reads interpretations of what stars mean, only for someone to write over it saying "there are no stars". We take perspective of someone waking up from a motel and speaking to someone on dealing with a future plan that will be unfolding, a new UI and everything to match with our maybe current reality. Maybe it's aliens, maybe it's Gods come to Earth in the form of aliens, maybe it's something else entirely.

Psychopomp feels like a stepping stone into a much larger project. Within the 90 minutes I've put into the game, it's managed to hook me in with it's visuals, dialogue, and gameplay, creating a dream-like nightmare that comes and goes in the blink of an eye. It's a fascinating title that I desperately want more of.

"That was absolutely fucking hell."

As I come back home to my reliable vessel, a triumphant victory music plays as me and my teammates perform a goofy little victory dance. The character I inhabit does not reflect the same feelings that I feel. This is because every time I play a round of Helldivers 2, I think the exact same sentence.

"That was absolutely fucking hell."

Which is a bit of a conflicting statement. On the one hand, that's the exact emotion I'm meant to be feeling. Helldivers 2 is an endless onslaught of bug blood, guts, and carnage. It's a loop of the same overwhelming feeling of never having enough fire power to survive, bugs swarming me from every direction, picking, gnawing, spitting, and piercing me - rinse and repeat, over and over again, for the good of Super Earth. The struggle to maintain my vitals as I fumble over a button combination to order an airstrike as I'm attempting and failing at dodging income acid spit is stressful and terrifying. Guns hit enemies and explode them in a visceral explosion of their beefy meat.

The world design informs the game design, and it's Starship Troops inspired tongue-in-cheek satire is brimming into every facet of this game's DNA. The sheer horror and overwhelming odds juxtaposed by the oddly portrayed fascist dystopian government works well together. The game has you tackling missions in real time to collectively liberate a planet from the vile cockroaches infesting humanity's homes, and that means winning and losing has actual effect on whether or not you'll liberate the planet. It's the sticky dough that keeps every aspect of the game from feeling like it's another run-of-the-mill shooter.

Helldivers 2 is effective at placing me into the same feeling as I'm meant to be feeling. On that level, the game is an absolute success.

On the other hand, I feel utterly drained by Helldivers 2.

While the gameplay loop is fun and addicting to an extent, part of me feels drained after every session. The game is designed where when the player is first starting off, they're nearly helpless against the bug's slaughter. The more you play, the better artillery you gain, and the stronger you become. I've been stuck on Medium difficulty for the most part of my total of 16 hours of game time, with only the last 5-6 hours I finally felt comfortable bumping the difficulty up slightly to Hard.

The last game I played was with friends who had invited me to a game with the highest difficulty, and it was like fighting bloody knuckled with every tooth and nail in my body puncturing the exoskeletal skulls of every bug I saw just to keep my head above water. Sometimes my controls would mess up, where I wouldn't be able to stand up or run away, leaving me vulnerable for attacks. Sometimes bugs would prevent me from getting away from a dodge, some how I killed myself with a guard dog, all while I failed consistently to dodge enemy attacks, shredding me to pieces like I was mozzarella cheese.

Of course, that's how I've been feeling on just about every difficulty mode I've played, but being thrown into the truest of deepest of ends really cemented to me just how much the feeling of playing this game was entirely and utterly overwhelming.

Perhaps this is on me and my preferences. I come to games to relax. Some of my all-time favorite games bring me comfort through their gameplay. It's taken me years just to break out of my comfort zone and play games that provide me genuine stress through mechanics such as timers. Helldivers 2 feels a bit like throwing myself into the deep end of the sauce and instead of pleasantly getting lost, I just drown in it. It's enjoyable and I'm having fun with it, but help, it's filling up my lungs, HELP ME, PLEASE, I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SWIM.

This review may be liable to change, as is the nature of live service style of games. My feelings might not be the same within the span of 6-12 months. As of now, Helldivers 2 is a great game that I enjoy, but the game is almost too much for my tastes. It's a fantastic slice of pizza, but the metaphorical onions are overwhelming to my taste buds.

I was waiting on DOOM Eternal.

DOOM (2016) was a game I had greatly enjoyed. The game was a refreshing AAA experience: Meaty gameplay that threw out any convention of reality, a story that didn't need to be engaged with and didn't really care. The player could engage with the game on their own level of interest. In other words, the designers didn't want to take control away from you. Doom (2016) was pure, distilled video game in a sea of movie imitators, and it was refreshing to see.

Yet, I couldn't put into words why the game never deeply resonated with me past that playthrough.

Never mind that, Doom Eternal was announced! I was absolutely ecstatic to get my hands on it! In the marketing, the lead director Hugo Martin mentioned how the enemies were like a chess game, encounters more akin to combat puzzles than just shooting galleries. Each enemy have their strengths and weaknesses, the player having to juggle these pieces with their tool kit in order to come out on top. This aspect sounded more reminiscent of Halo, a series I adored. Needless to say, I was jonesing for the game now.

Around this time, Covid hit, followed by Animal Crossing: New Horizons coming out the same day as Doom Eternal. Animal Crossing was one of my favorites growing up, so my priorities shifted. I made a conscious decision that any semblance of comfort came first during such dark times. I did eventually pick up Doom Eternal, but despite that intial excitement back in 2020, I never felt a massive drive to playthrough it.

Not that I necessarily could — my shitty dilapidated laptop with it's built-in monitor dangling by the most durable exposed wire in the history of the world couldn't handle it — but I also never felt like I absolutely had to. Again, I didn't know why.

This all changed with my newly built computer, where I finally decided to crack open Doom Eternal and seek out all it's insides.

But what I found instead was ugly.

Disappointment.

I never like being overtly negative with games. I purposely make this clear when I have to be. When I was younger, I wore that jaded, teenage ball of angst and negativity on my sleeve. I perform a different song and dance now. I want to love and enjoy every game I play. When I criticize how a game functions, I'm doing so with pure love and thoughtfulness into what could be done better, because that potential is always there. It's never to dismiss ideas outright completely, but to instead improve upon those ideas.

With Doom Eternal, the idea to create a system of combat puzzles sounds great on paper. In fact, this could still work if you stripped back and refined it. The execution though falls flat to me.

Why? Because Doom Eternal is overly complicated.

I feel like I'm a clown who's juggling too much at once. I'm constantly on the offensive trying to quickly slash the throats of as many demons as I can to maintain my health. I have to wait 3 seconds to have the glory kill animation play out, of which I'll be seeing another one within 5-30 seconds from now. Stop and start, stop and start, on repeat, ad nauseum.

I also have to remember the enemy weak points to efficiently take them down piece by piece, dodging and weaving bullets or whatever magical bullshit they send my way. There's a large number of enemies to deal with here, and each of them need to be taken care of with slightly different approaches. Put them all together in a combat gauntlet and it becomes overwhelming.

I also need to set them on fire to increase my own armor, which means I need to use the flame belch. If I run out of ammo during all of this, (which happens incredibly frequently), I then need to focus on finding a weaker enemy to refill my ammo, yet another 3 second cutscene where I need to stop and start. The flow becomes hindered by the constant need to refill on ammo, breaking me out of my flow state, never sated with enough ammo to ever keep me afloat.

I should be using grenades more, but I'm so busy dealing with all these other aspects being thrown at me that my brain forgets the lonely control key located at the bottom of my keyboard.

Then, as you progress through the game, you gain yet ANOTHER button to press with the sword, instantly killing any enemy in your way.

Then there are the runes to collect and upgrade, the weapons to get new modifications for and upgrade, of which then have specific challenges to unlock a major ability within and—

It's just all so draining. My clown shoes can't handle it, it makes my feet hurt.

Not to say that the combat itself isn't fun — it's Doom (2016) with a new arsenal of blood paint to splatter on walls — it's just that these systems become overbearing and overtly complicate a relatively simple concept. The ideas here are good, but all of them in conjunction make the core game feel bloated.

This is also exacerbated by the regression of the design philosophy found in Doom (2016). There's a greater emphasis on story here than 2016's title, and with that comes an emphasis of forcing the player to wait. Part of what I loved about the 2016 title was that there was a story, and I just didn't care. Rarely did the story stop the flow of gameplay for me to care, and when they did carefully place me in a room to spoonfeed me story, I ran around the room like a fucking hyperactive cat with zoomies. There was a comedy there that only could be made with that level of agency that I played into, which was in part both freeing for me, the player, and spoke to just what Doom as a series is. It's video game-y coolness packaged with the absolute sheer stupidity that can only be done if you don't give a shit about any true semblance of a deep and compelling narrative.

That comedy of the Doom Guy not giving a shit is still present, but everyone around him explains in great, excruciatingly slow detail the events of the story and how the Doom Guy is a God amongst men, and how cool and strong he is. It's tongue-in-cheek, yes, but the game sets you up to expect that the story is important by consistently having cutscenes, but in reality, it's all kind of worthless and self fellating. Granted, I began to skip cutscenes very early on, so I don't really know the extent of the story, but I'd attempt to stop myself every once in a while to see how they'd play out. Each time I was met with nothing of interest.

More to the point, I'm not sure even why the effort was placed here. While I'm fond of stories in games, Doom just isn't the series to put any resemblance of focus on such things. And really, seriously, why should it? What need is there for Doom lore? Why do I need to have lore collectibles in a Doom game?

The quote from John Carmack about how "video game stories are a lot like the plot to porn: it's expected but not important" isn't necessarily applicable to all modern day video games: sometimes great lore or a great story can be the selling point of a game to me. It IS applicable to DOOM though because it's DNA is the very embodiment of that quote. DOOM is pure, unfiltered video game, and to make it anything other than that makes DOOM as a franchise LESSER as a result. The developers knew this with their first crack at a Doom title, so why did that change here? My best guess would be that over correcting criticisms from the prequel may be the culprit here, but I genuinely do not know.

This would be more forgiving to me if the game didn't stop and start so frequently. This was a problem in nu-Doom's design due to the frequency of ripping and tearing enemies for health and ammo, but I personally didn't find this all too troubling. But add on top more places where you're required to stop in place, and I'm on those detractors sides. Every area in this game is interspersed with cutscenes to showcase changes in the environment, cutscenes to insert batteries, cutscenes for secret pick ups, cutscenes for elevators, cutscenes for fucking everything. You wait for what feels like an eternity, and I'm a fairly patient person.

By the time I reached 8 hours in, I felt like I was done with Doom Eternal. The saving graces of the sometimes fun gameplay, Mick Gordon's amazing adaptive score that he went through absolute hell to make, and the pretty visuals of hell weren't enough help. I felt like I was done, but I figured that I should still see Doom Eternal to the end.

But it just wouldn't end.

Doom was eternal, and my hell lasted another 11 hours. Granted, I should have expected this, given MF nu-DOOM's 14 hour campaign. I had forgotten these feelings, but by the time I had reached the 10 hour mark in Doom (2016), I was beginning to become fatigued from the endless slaughter. The game was stretched out as far as it could go, and I had become bored by it. Eternal then took this feat as a challenge, and managed to extend it's playtime by yet another 4 hours.

By the time the credits started rolling, I was relived. The trek to get here, the challenging but overly complicated gameplay, the final bosses, everything, was just a slog.

But the credits reminded me, as all these developer faces rolled on by, that Doom Eternal was made by real, passionate people, who really wanted to put together a great game, but put up with a hellish work environment. Everyone here tried, and it's genuinely such a worthy amount of praise to say that it's amazing this game even released given it's development.

I didn't really like Doom Eternal, (as if that wasn't clear), but I don't want to hate on it. Passion lies here from good developers that gave their everything for a fun product. This just wasn't for me. I have the unique perspective as someone who hasn't truly played anything Doom related until this very year to say that Doom Eternal feels like a falter from what made Doom as a video game series such a force of nature. Doom is a mixture of simplicity and high levels of mastery that's difficult to come by. It invented the wheel, and it's difficult to improve on what works so well. To add onto Doom is a gargantuan task, but it's a balancing act that these developers had made in the past. This was a mistep from my assessment. I know this team can refine their over correction from here.

In the meantime, I will be patiently waiting for them to give Doom another chance with a more simplistic, refined direction. But the wait will feel... well, you know.

Doom 64 is more Doom than Doom.

Doom fucking rules and Doom II does too. It's been a truth that's been revealed to me through my first time playthrough of each, and it's left me wanting more Doom. As it just so happens, Doom 64 provides just that.

Doom 64 is a bit of an oddity. It's existence on the N64 was meant to serve as the console's taste of the recent Doom craze. Most console ports would attempt to simply downscale the original game's levels and cram the engine onto low end tech, but Doom 64's approach was novel given that it's essentially it's own game. Yet, with this downscaled game came it's own modified engine, showcasing slight enhancements over the original game. Doom 64 has a much more intricate lighting system, which sets a mood to the game more than any of the id software titles ever accomplished. Levels maintain their lack of place from the original, but add a layer of tangibility due in part to the lighting.

The levels themselves can often be a mixed bag. There's decent maps to be found here, but there's also ones where I've felt more frustrated than I ever had with the series thus far. I would often find myself becoming lost way more frequently, with some evil progression markers being utilized that were never introduced to me before. Suddenly, I could shoot at a panel and have that trigger a platform lowering down. All the weapons from Doom II are present here, filling out the original arsenal, while adding yet another power weapon. This power weapon, while fun, is unnecessary for the weapon pool. Doom II has higher highs and lower lows than Doom 64 in terms of it's design, but neither quite match the competency of their forefather.

It ain't all Doom and Gloom though (sorry), since Doom 64 is, indeed, more Doom. In fact, in some ways, it's more Doom than Doom ever was. Animations are slightly more violent, the tone due to the lighting feels much more in line with the horror genre than that first title — the look to Doom 64 is closer to the Doom I imagined in my head when I first heard about Doom.

Of course, the reality of that statement is that it's impossible for Doom 64 to out Doom what Doom was. After all, it's Doom. It's the real OG. But when I first imagined Doom, I imagined something more brutal, more visceral than what was provided. Doom 64 manages to feed me more of that mental image.

I've been thinking of ways to extend my thoughts about Doom 64, but at the end of the day, Doom 64 is just more of the same. The game doesn't break the mold in any real way, it's defining features are more to it's looks than to it's gameplay. There's a new weapon, but it doesn't really change anything to Doom's formula. As a reinterpretation of Doom, it serves as a neat footnote in the oddities of Doom's legacy, but that's about it.

I'm glad I experienced Doom 64, but the titans before it stand too boldly, casting it's shadow over it near completely.

What's with the recent trend of schizophrenic, dream-like games starring anime girls?

The Serial Experiments Lain inspired anime aesthetic has seeped it's influence into western circles. Artists like Sewerslvt have captured the soundscape to these schizophrenic dream worlds, Milk has gone in and out of bags. Disillusion is no different.

It's hard to put into words just what exactly the appeal to this type of aesthetic is. I guess for me, it's the distortion of reality into a jagged colorful kaleidoscopic nightmare. The ties to it's psychological aspects are intriguing to me. I'm interested in the field, so it's only natural. The disease itself brings about terrifying, if not fascinating outcomes within those who suffer from the disease. Artists with the disease sculpt their reality through art work, bringing all of us closer to their reality. The only time I can ever relate to this is through dreams.

What's always fascinated me about dreams is that can hold unconscious feelings that manifest from the waking world. They're drenched in meaning, yet also filled with garbage data that's been spat out like static on a TV. It's garbled up information that's been constructed and reconstructed to create some kind of purposeless purpose.

Disillusion feels much like this description at first. Imagery taken from the unconscious mind of what someone remembers the early 90's dungeon crawling, computer gaming aesthetic was like. This is then filtered through the "anime girl with schizophrenia" filter. Mix in some weird, bizzare looking creatures, near nonsensical levels for textures, and you've got yourself a genuine fever dream to explore. It can feel surface level at times because of this.

As you continue your journey upwards within the tower, the abstractions become a bit more clear. This is someone suffering from schizophrenia, yet may also exist within the reality of this illusion. The hindu spiritual influence and the creation myth that bares the backdrop of the protagonist's journey to break free of this illusion. The souls of all beings ascend a tower in order to reach Nirvana, prone to losing themselves along the way. The protagonist slowly redevelops their memories, or rather their sense of self throughout this journey, fitting for a character named "Golem".

On this journey you're accompanied by a Sage, who's your anime girl tupla. Often times, she comments on your situation, bringing levity and intrigue to just what exactly she is. She's a bit of an untrustworthy character given she admits that she's here to bring about tragedy, but it is her job as a sage. It's hard to blame the gods for their jobs.

There's meaning to be read from all of this, I'm sure. It's better to stay in reality than it is to live in the illusion is more of the surface level analysis. If I was smart, I would have stopped playing the game to look up some of the names and concepts found within the game to follow along better with the backdrop of the setting.

I did not do this. I am not a smart man.

I was definitely here to soak the atmosphere in more than anything else. Disillusion is definitely built for that. The bizzare world is helped molded by the dissonant soundscape, some songs acting like a distortion of songs and sound clips found on TV. They create this air of uncanny weirdness that's not only foreign to listen to with their composition, but reminds you of the familiarity of the real world.

The gameplay is reminiscent of dungeon crawling turn based RPGs, and is fairly average with it's approach. It's simple RPG maker skeleton has very little added on top of it. Most of the time, I'd just find myself tanking hits, raising my strength and just slashing enemies to death. There never felt like there was a need for experimentation when I could just do massive damage like that. I died only once throughout the entirety of the 5 hour experience, and that may have been due to an enemy glitching out and not staying dead after I had just killed it. Exploring these mazes can end up becoming quite tiresome after 3 hours, one level of the tower just being a gigantic labyrinth filled with drops of lore to find. There's no map to fill out, so I'd often find myself just holding forward and turning whenever I saw a corner, taking up an half hour worth of time. It felt exhausting.

Disillusion let me explore an interesting world that was equal parts uncanny, strange, silly, demented, and eerie, but the game feels more like a concept first that was then shifted into having some kind of meaning. It was as if the creator had a dream that was then crafted to have a purpose. The ending I received had my character rejecting the offer of one of the gods in order to remain free from this prison, only to return to their reality, alone in the forest, looking at a the sun, which is fitting for the story that was eventually built up. In that respect, Disillusion works. As a game though, there's a bit here that leaves something to be desired. The game does have a sequel in development that expands the concept into more of an infinite trek through bizzare worlds, and from screenshots, it looks like it'll appeal to me much more in that regard. I just hope the gameplay satisfies.

Swollen to Bursting Until I am Disappearing on Purpose is a game about many things. A UFO crashing in a small town. The isolating life of an individual who's been deeply traumatized and has lost any semblance of identity within themselves. A funny man who pops out of a box and tries to stab you. The mudanity of life despite the insanity surrounding you.

There's clear influences from games like Yume Nikki and Earthbound here, a dash of Chulip and even fictional games like Petscop. The core of the gameplay loop is more about the exploration out into the unknown in order to find portals to doors that bring the player into surreal dimensions. This then requires you to solve somewhat obtuse puzzles in order to progress. The game is very loosely an RPG with it's non-existent yet existent combat, but it's mostly used as progression markers rather than traditional RPG style combat. Swollen to Bursting is less of a game about it's gameplay and more centric on the emotional feelings it draws out of the player.

There's a mixture of comfort and surreal that's hard to balance if you're not careful, but the game separates it's two feelings quite well. You have an anchor back to reality, which puts the player at ease when they've had enough. The game really let's you soak that comfort in when you need it most. You spend only a day here in this quaint little town, yet it feels like a lifetime. The mudanity of this rainy woodland town is relaxing to explore. The faces you meet are strange, quirky and sometimes inviting, giving that sense of community so prevelant to small towns. All of this is punctuated by the somber yet pop-y tones brought about by the music. It's reminiscent of Jack Stauber's music for me, that same sort of catchy, pop-y sadness with shrilling vocals laid on top.

The game's title is indecisive in what it wishes to be called. Take Care of Yourself, Maybe I Misdirected You, I'm Not Happy Or Sad I'm Just Here All The Time, Mechanical Cows, Fish Fish Fish Soft Spot, they all fit the moniker of this game's MO, but it's so unsure of itself. I believe this is the point. Our protagonist, (at least, I think it's our protagonist, the crux of the story could also be Kick, who is leaving the town this day and disappears from the plot eventually, similarly to the UFO), is going through memories and worlds that feel like abstraction of their own life. The ending of the game seems to be an examination of our protagonist through the lense of the alien, this alien learning more about humanity and maybe itself through your dialogue and choices. I'm not sure they learned the right lesson with my playthrough. Was the UFO even real? Was it a metaphor? Was it both? My assumption is both, given the town is aware of the UFO, but I can't rightly say for certain.

This review has been rather clinical in it's dissection. It could be because of what the protagonist goes through doesn't match up neatly with my own experiences. I have a tendency to have a deep centric focus on my own emotions, something I learned out of necessity, which could be dampening the emotional resonance as well. This could also be the result of aspects of the abstractions within the story going over my head, preventing me from having that emotional connection. I'm okay with media literacy, but I wouldn't say I'm great at it. The game might just be too obtuse for my tiny little pea brain. It's hard to say. Either way, I feel like I don't relate to Swollen to Bursting as much as other have seemed to, which bothers me.

What I can say about Swollen to Bursting for certain, is that it's a piece of media that gave me comfort. It gave me unease. It lead me along on a journey that felt like it meant something to someone. Someone's heart and soul was delved into here, and I could feel it pulsating and beating.

Good art is much like learning about someone. You may never know everything there is about a person. You may never know all the exact meaning of their actions, their words, why they decided what they decided. But you still come out the other side feeling like you knew them in someway. Like you've incorporated a piece of someone else into yourself.

A piece of Swollen to Bursting will be apart of me now, even if I don't fully understand it.

The resurgence of the 3D platformer is upon us, and I'm 100% here for it.

3D platformers are my bread and butter. I've been jonesing for an age just like this reminiscent of the golden years of the genre. If 2D pixel art platformers had their time, 3D platformers required this too. Games like Psuedoregalia, Toree 2, and Super Kiwi 64 have served as sampler platters for this regaling taste of indie platformers. Each game have had their strengths and weaknesses, but all share a single common thread linking them together.

They're too damn short!

Game length isn't necessarily a problem. Short games are worthy experiences on their own, and replay value shines through with smaller sized games. The problem that arises from these games have been that their stay comes and goes far too soon. Like the greedy platforming gobbler I am, I'm always wanting more, unsatisfied with my portions. I'd enjoy my time, but the games would never leave a lasting impression of me because of this.

Corn Kidz 64 is no different in regard to length. With a handful of areas and only 5-6 hours of gameplay, Corn Kidz comes and goes in the blink of an eye.

Yet despite this, Corn Kidz 64 has managed to leave a deeper impression onto me than any of these games.

Part of that has to do with Corn Kidz 64 is emulating. The Rareware 3D platformer is by far my favorite flavor of 3D platformer. Preferences are preferences, after all.

The developer really did their homework here. Splash effects are rendered and animated in the similar splotchy eruption that Conker's Bad Fur Day so distinctively had. Colors are baked into the textures, blending and blurring into each area, reminding me of texture work done in games like Banjo Kazooie or Tooie. Characters contain the cartoony jovial and springy feel that Rare managed to employ so effectively across all their titles. These characters speak with a sharp bite that feels more American than it does British wit, but it's still chalk full of charm.

These worlds consist of dreamscapes concocted by the nacho and soda drinking adolescent that is our main character, each world presenting bizzare and random elements that are fitting with how unfitting this world is. Unlike Psuedoregalia, this dream world has a sense of place and location, which makes navigating around places like Owllohs Hollow easy to follow along. It does suffer from repetition with attempting to reach locations on the map, with no real easy way to retry a jump puzzle, but this is a small flaw. Every element on screen is nearly convincing me I'm staring at a game from an alternate dimension late 90's-early 00's.

This translates to the gameplay as well. While the game doesn't have the level of controls that Psuedoregalia had, Corn Kidz makes up for this with pure game feel. The move set and level of control feels heavily inspired by Banjo Kazooie, but with a fundemental twist. Due to being a goat, your move set revolves around headbutting. This means you can fly forward in the air, butt stomp into the ground, and charge up into the air. These all serve multiple functions within the tool set, such as interacting with screws to activate pieces of the environment or hitting switches, auto locking enemies to charge towards them, and ramming into walls.

That last one might make you cringe a little. A move like that may give the mental image of a move that's a momentum killing killjoy. This may have been be true, if not for Corn Kidz implementing the ability to slide against walls. Nitro Rad compared this wall slide akin to the wall slide found within Megaman X, which is an apt frame of reference, but brings about a skewed image. This wall slide let's you scale walls, but is limited in comparison to Megaman X. You can jump twice upwards, after that, you fall to the floor. This limitation brings about momentous jumping puzzles that revolve around wall jumping that utilizes every other mechanic within the game. This could be an enemy that you ram your head into and can spring yourself against a wall, a ring that propels you forward like a DK barrel.

All of these mechanics work cohesively together in a way that just meshes with me in the right ways. I'm absolutely in love with how this game controls, along with every mechanic found within this game!

But that hunger pane returns, and I crave for more game to sink my teeth into! What's here feels like a proof of concept for something much more grand in scale, and while I'm satisfied enough in comparison to some others within this sampler platter, I want this game to be a full course meal. There's potential for all time favorite platformer found somewhere within here, and I want to just yank out all that potential.

So lend me your ear, indie game developers! Keep making 3D platformers! Keep working on your games! If you don't have enough ideas to make them an 8 hour meal, you don't have to extend it for the sake of length! But PLEASE consider striving for more!

Way back in 2011, I saw a teaser trailer for a zombie survival game. Zombie survival games were around for a while by now, but something about the tone of this particular one struck a chord with me. It held a cartoony aesthetic with horror undertones that stood out in a sea of dark, brooding zombie games, while also attempting to build bases with multiple friends. It piqued my interest.

So, I decided to make a mental note to look out for the game whenever it came out.

A year would go by, and we still never caught word of an update. A couple years had passed, and I was reminded of that game again. I'd watch the trailer again and think "oh man, I hope they finish that game." At some point, I figured they up and cancelled the project outright.

Fast forward to 2017-2018, and abruptly I catch wind of that game again. Unexpectingly, Fortnite had become widely known. That one game I was watching and rewatching the trailer for years ago had released without me knowing, and had very quickly become one of the most popular games ever made.

... All by cashing in on a trend that I held no interest in, with a predatory micro transaction system to boot. My interest was no longer piqued.

See, I have a hard time playing games like this. Whenever I play games like Fortnite, I have a heightened awareness of the carefully designed systems beckoning me with their finger, calling for me like a Siren to take out my burning wallet for a juicy taste of momentary cosmetic pleasure. I can detect and sense the reaction building up within me, and it sickens my skin catching myself becoming lulled by the tactic.

This level of self awareness and understanding of these tactics have fortunately staved me off from partaking in the devil's cosmetics. I often purposely avoid these types of games, simply because I vehemently despise these types of systems so much.

But something about Fortnite would always come back to fascinate me.

What do you mean Fortnite had a full fledge concert take place within the game? What? That's insane.

What do you mean they've added multiple characters from multiple franchises and added new mechanics to accommodate their inclusion? What? That's insane.

What the fuck do you mean they not only dropped an entire new survival mode with Lego, but simultaneously dropped a racing game type and a Rock Band game type with an extremely robust emote music system that let's you change the tempo and mix other songs with one another? That's fucking insane.

If there's one thing to say about Fortnite, it's that it's ambitious. Epic has used the live service model of gaming that I hate and used those funds to experiment with the game to extreme ends. Which, honestly? I had distantly respected it for.

So when friends would come knocking on my door asking to come play with them, I was more willing to partake in the fun. I'd be terrible, of course, and those who've had money put into the game would become frustrated with my goofy antics of driving a car into enemies as a distraction, but I was having... Fun!

The loop of dropping down with your boys, surviving and surveilling a land that encloses around you with roaming packs of weebs and celebrity skins gunning you down has been an excilerating experience. Fortnite does a great job at letting your squad come up with a plan, executing that plan, as the game finds ways for players to develop the need to adapt and adjust their plans in order to win. It's a great gameplay loop.

While I was enjoying my time with Fortnite, for some reason, the game never clicked with me. Sure, it was fun, but it wasn't until a friend of mine showed me that Fortnite had both a creative mode as well as an entire theater mode that it hit me.

This was just what Halo 3 was for me during it's hayday.

This was the next generation's casual, feature complete, low pressure shooter experience.

And suddenly, it clicked.

With this perspective change, I quickly grew to appreciate Fortnite more. Things began to click with how I was approaching the game. Accompanied with the revelation, a friend bought me a battle pass, and I began to understand the progression system much more. The loop to unlock more and more had become addicting, and I've been actively seeking out to play the game on my own. I was rapidly becoming better at the game, and I found myself enjoying the game for what it is rather than what it does.

While this perspective has shifted into a positive direction, I'm still more than aware of what made Halo 3 so much more different than Fortnite.

Halo 3 respected me. The developers asked for my money upfront. The progression came in the box. My desire to gain new armor came through putting time and effort into the game. I earned my achievements, and felt extremely rewarded because of it.

Fortnite doesn't let this progression be as impactful unless you pay. It's a free to play live service, and you can partake in the experience, but you're not going to be as absorbed if you don't pay. This money isn't a set amount, and is nearly infinite depending on how long they provide the service. So I order to feel that itch to keep playing, you need to pay up.

One was a product, the other is a live service.

And that's my biggest problem with Fortnite, even still. Underneath this model, there's a genuinely fun, addicting and ambitious game. I can see that now more than when I wrote it off completely in 2017. But interacting with that system is like having the devil on my shoulder. I'm great at ignoring him, but I despise his presence. He brings down what would otherwise be a fantastic time.

A time I've been desparately looking for within the AAA space.

While I'll keep playing for now, since my enjoyment has by far outweighed the pressure to purchase anything myself, I don't expect to stay for a long time. At some point, the dopamine brought upon by the sense of progression will dull with the next battle pass, and I'll drop off from the game once again.

But it's still strange to say that I've been genuinely enjoying Fortnite.

Sequels are often difficult to perfect.

You have an original concept that you've laid the foundation for. This foundation is often original, innovative, and refreshingly new.

When it comes to making a sequel then, constructing a game that lives up to these qualities is an uphill battle. Expectations are now set that were birthed from a new established standard, and those standards not only require to be met, but are expected to surpass them.

In my Crash Bandicoot 3 review, I talked about a specific type of sequel that developers attempt to fulfill this: more is better. On occasion, it is true that more can be better. Systems can be refined, tweaked, expanded upon, bringing about new and exciting ways to approach the original game's foundation.

Doom II does this approach, and it never quite makes the mark of surpassing the original.

Doom's original maps were quick and to the point, driving the combat forward. Ideas would be set up, played with, and onto the next. Every part of the buffalo was used.

Doom II lengthens and expands on these concepts, jam packing them into levels. These levels last up to 5-20 minutes, sometimes even longer if you became lost, compared to Doom's 5-10 minutes.

By the time I reached the middle of Act 3, I was becoming fatigued.

Not to say that the quality of these levels are poor - far from it. These levels bring about interesting ideas that warrant Doom II to exist and become qualified as a great sequel... It's just not as engaging as the first game.

Doom II puts much more emphasis on the setting than the original ever attempted. Doom's slow decline into hell was effective, but would often sacrifice any semblance of tangibility in it's environments in strong favor for tight level design.

Doom II takes Doom's original act progression but diversifies the environments, which in turn ends up constructing a more cohesive feeling. You're still traversing through dark metallic corridors with the occasional flesh walls and demonic infection spreading throughout until finally taking over completely, but they're expanded by including long stretches of terrain, a larger surplus of baddies, and more buildings and structures to enter into.

Because of this, it's easier to set yourself into this world. In the back of my head as I mowed down demons in droves, I reflected on the idea that these structures are of an earth brought into hell, and the effect that the chaos would have over it's populace. There was something more tangible to these areas that felt more lived in as a real place than previously before.

By it's nature of developing a sense of place, this means that level design isn't going to be as fundamentally solid in comparison to the original's. Coupled with the ideals to make a bigger and more expansive sequel, this causes the level design to feel like I'm meandering about, rather than running and gunning down levels.

I would say that despite it all, it's still astonishing for Doom II to accomplish a sense of atmosphere given this is a game released in 1994.

... That is, until I realized that 1994 is the very same year that Super Metroid, Earthbound, System Shock, Donkey Kong Country, and Marathon all released. Some of these games managed to do more with less, some even managed to do more with competing contemporary technology.

Despite that, Doom II mostly surpasses these games in terms of level design even still, (except Super Metroid), which is arguably the more important feat. On the same coin though, it's ultimately more of the same: Doom with extra levels.

For a sequel, you would expect an increase to the weapon sandbox. Doom II only has one new weapon, and that's the Super Shotgun.

And let me tell you, the inclusion of the Super Shotgun is the primary reason why I wanted to play Doom II immediately after it's prequel. It's damage output combined with it's meaty sound effect and animation really makes an impact on you, as well as any demon foolish enough to stand in your way. A gun this good is a worthy justification of a sequel. Sometimes less is more.

That being said, while the weapon pool doesn't need to be expanded further, I do wish there were more mechanics that played into the level design that transformed this formula into something more interesting.

But that's the thing, yeah? Doom II doesn't set out to expand a formula. It's goal is to make more Doom. And as I've learned, Doom is fucking awesome. But while Doom II is still awesome, it's attempt to achieve the "more is better" approach for a sequel just isn't as effective on me.

But that also doesn't mean that Doom II doesn't still fucking rule though.

Sometimes, you play a game wrong.

I've found myself from time to time thinking of this phenomenon. I'm unsure if it's even a concept found in others — it must be, given the fallible nature of people — but it's something we might not like to admit often.

You can play a video game wrong.

When faced with playing one of the most video game video games to ever video game, I was met with abject failure.

I played the Xbox 360 version instead of any version of Doom on a computer as my first time experience.

I failed to make any sense of the map's layouts.

I failed to use the map screen to help me navigate these layouts whenever I was actually lost.

I failed to make sense of the mechanics within the game.

I failed to aim well while using my Xbox 360 controller.

I failed to live multiple, multiple times, repeating the same levels over and over again.

I failed to realize that at the end of it all, I had not truly beaten Doom, but had instead tredged and bumbled through only the first episode.

Most importantly, I failed to realize that the problems came from not only how I approached the game, but the place I decided to try out this first time experience.

Needless to say, I didn't get Doom when I first played it in 2012. After playing episode 1, I found the game unapproachable and obtuse in it's design. I presented a bold claim made solely to myself that Doom was a product of it's time, and thus, it was not for me as a person of the future.

I was wrong. I was so, so wrong.

Regardless of the quality of life features (including a jump button and mouse look aim) that were included in many thanks to the endless efforts of fans through the work of GZDoom, Doom is STILL a masterclass in design.

I liken Doom to a haunted mansion attraction. Be it from the maze-like level design, to switches activating monster closets ala traps, to the demonic and iconic enemy designs, to the many hidden passageways that the player searches for, it all takes the player by surprise. Simultaneously, the game hides the internal workings of it's tricks, making the game feel dynamic and alive to the player.

It helps too that combat is punchy, quick, and has you on the aggressive. Enemies have you dodging and weaving attacks as you pump your shells into their dumb dopey demonic faces. The real meat of your arsenal are the shotgun and mini gun, with a small variety of others that pick clean of enemies with bloody ease. Power weapons feel powerful to use, wimpy weapons still manage to keep you afloat in tough situations, with later levels making great use of testing your ability to survive an onslaught from hell with only them. All the parts of the buffalo are used for Doom, and it's stellar to see a game this early on get it so right. There's a reason Doom is consider the grand daddy of FPS games, and this is why.

There was a part where I thought this greatness faulter. From time to time, I'd find myself getting lost and taking a minute (or five) searching around for the missing piece of the level that I never made my way towards. Primarily this was solved by a quick backtrack through the level, which was relatively painless, but one of the later levels in Inferno messed with my head so much that I ended up scowering the web for a solution.

To my disappointment, the culprit was a hidden teleporter in an area I believed I thoroughly combed through dettering my progression. Unbeknownst to me in the moment though, the game had purposely locked me in this building, assuming that I would check every square inch of the walls for an exit. While I did check most of the walls, nothing had triggered, so I figured I was softlocked and decided to reload my save instead.

This felt like a small chink in the armor for the level design in the moment, but upon further reflection, once again, this was partially my fault. Needing to find a hidden teleporter in a random building on a level filled with many buildings would feel cheap if not for the game knowing to lock you in. The invisible hand of the level designers are ALWAYS there, and I, once again, failed to realize this.

Doom's genius just keeps going over my head.

This genius must also extend to the soundtrack, right? As of this moment, I'm not sure. Perhaps metal or just the """ heavily inspired"""" tracks of Metallica, Pantera and any bands that floated around the id software office around the early 90's aren't my cup of tea. Besides the more iconic tracks, the soundtrack feels like loud and noisy midi bloops that don't quite work for my special set of ears. Perhaps this'll be another element of Doom I'm just simply wrong about.

I have often found that to challenge a work considered genius by the many is often boiled down to a challenge against your own hubris in reality. Rarely is there ever a work unworthy of the praise it receives that has stood the test of times for so long. It takes self reflection, consciousness, and a pinch of honesty with one's self to admit that.

I was wrong about Doom. I was a stupid, sucky gamer boy who thought he knew better than the legends that stood before him. Doom fucking rules, and don't ever forget that.