While I've always enjoyed the Mr. Driller series, they were never the kind of games that I would play for hours at a time. That all changed when I played Drill Land. Originally a Japan only Gamecube game released in 2002, Bandai Namco decided to localize and remaster this game in 2020 as part of its Encore series.

For those unfamiliar with how Mr. Driller plays, your goal is to drill your way to the bottom of the stage while avoiding any falling blocks from above that will crush you if you’re not careful. Your oxygen meter will also deplete over time so you need to collect air capsules to replenish it. Where this game really shows its depth is in its puzzle mechanics. When 4 or more blocks of the same color connect, they’re cleared from the board. Skillful drilling can result in massive chain reactions which lead to big point bonuses. It’s a simple, yet addictive game that is easy to learn but hard to master.

Drill Land consists of five unique gameplay modes presented as theme park attractions:
First up is Drill Land World Tour, the standard Mr. Driller gameplay mode with 6 playable characters to choose from, each having their own unique abilities. Then there’s Star Driller, which adds power-ups to the mix, ranging from screen clearing bombs to black holes that suck up everything in its path, including you if you’re not careful. Drindy Adventure is an Indiana Jones inspired mode where you must collect a certain number of golden idols before reaching the goal, all while avoiding spike traps and rolling boulders. Horror Night House has you hunting for ghosts hiding in blocks. To capture them, you first need to collect holy water and then inject the blocks containing the ghosts; otherwise, all of the ghosts on screen turn into a swarm of bats and hurt you. Last, but not least, is The Hole of Druaga, my personal favorite. This mode basically turns Mr. Driller into a dungeon crawling RPG complete with side rooms to explore, an item inventory system, enemy encounters, and boss battles. This one mode is so feature rich, it could have easily been its own game.

In addition to the story mode, there’s also two multiplayer modes that are playable for up to four players. Race mode is exactly what it sounds like; it’s a split-screen game where players race to the goal. Battle mode has players competing on the same screen as they search for hidden medals. Your controller will vibrate when you’re close to one. These modes are fun, but they’re not really games that you’d want to play for more than 20 minutes. It’s a shame that none of the main Drill Land modes are playable in multiplayer. The Hole of Druaga is really the only mode that might be considered too complex to turn into a multiplayer game, but all the other modes could have easily been playable in split-screen. The barebones multiplayer is the only blemish on an otherwise stellar game.

Drill Land is widely considered to be the best game in the series, and I totally understand why. It takes the simple gameplay formula of the arcade original and over the course of its five game modes, explores every possible way to expand and build upon that groundwork. Add to that a stylish presentation with fully voiced animated cutscenes, a catchy and diverse soundtrack, and a charming art direction and this game is the complete package.

I originally played this game a few years ago with just the bots and had a real hard time enjoying it, but getting the fan servers up and playing it all the way through with some pals has elevated this game to my top 5 RE games.

Outbreak fucking rules and I can't believe how well it actually makes co-op survival horror work! Now is probably the best time to play Outbreak, with voice chats services like Discord making it easier to create plans and strategies with your friends than it ever was back in the day.

Setting the game up so that it'll plan online again is a 10 minute job, so if you have a semi-functional PC from the last 10 years that can run a PS2 emulator, and if your a classic RE fan, you owe it to yourself to check this one out!

CW: Sui, Possible Transantagonism, COVID-19

All of my life, I've been consumed by an anxiety around people. The unpredictability of how they act, why they do what they do and the sudden emotional shifts of others, has frightened me as I spent a large amount of it seeking connection, care and companionship. As such, my encounters with people have been littered with everyday fears that festered silently amongst a field of caution within.

And then, the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic rendered people no longer just frightening but avatars of illness and death. Everyone wasn't just an emotional unknown, but a physical one, where isolation brought loneliness but company brought the fears of somethings far worse. It was no longer just a fear of people as an experience, but also on a conceptual level that drove me further inside and afraid of the world. And in the wake of that, came the early release of World of Horror.

World of Horror is a roguelike, point and click adventure game in which your choice of character must stop an Old God, corresponding to ideas and myths built around the drab and dreary Lovecraft canon or the works of horror creators like Junji Ito, George Romero, Sam Raimi and so forth, by stopping the summoning of this being who you cannot defeat by those who wish them brought here more than anything; cultists, rapt lovers of the end of the world and those who think the end of us as people is what is best for us all. And in it is in this timeframe, with the mindset I have told you, in a world filled with people ushering on endings for people without any semblance of remorse of understanding, that World of Horror so perfectly captured me.

The game itself is drenched in atmosphere, from the use of classic black and white colour palette's that seem reminiscent of old manga to the use of creased, greasy looking and smudged character art and designs that remain moulded in emulation of the dark works that they so adore. Whether this veers deeply into plagiarism over homage, is something I am unsure of, as the experience I've had directly of Ito's work among the others is limited. As I say, the inspirations clearly strike many people but for me, the experience of solving mysteries, and stopping a great evil with you and a few friends, not only felt loose enough to impart myself into, but the feeling of hope even among the dark it grasped was one I desperately needed in the place I found myself in.

Flash forward to 2023 and the full release of the game; and I've found I've changed a little. While the world is no less under threat from ignorant people hastening a doom for others they believe is deserved and that desire to save the world, to stop the darkness keeps my passion for the game burning, the flaws of the game and the real world horrors it attempts to deal with, perhaps in a clumsy manner, stick with me. It's use of sui in both a focused case and as a status effect confound me with how it still feels like it doesn't quite feel right to do. One of its characters backstories makes me worry it's echoing transantagonism tropes of trans 'serial killers' or those who kill those of the identity they want out of jealousy or desire. And the bugs, the still quite bugged mysteries in some cases, the new release feeling only a little more expanded then where it started, the inherently too RNG based experience leading to experiences that feel almost too unfocused. At some point, the horror is bypassed to become essentially a speedrun game and while that's no bad thing, it means that as I've become more fluidly good at the game, the less enjoyable it's been for me. I found that maybe, what drew me most to the game, was it was the right experience for the right time and the right moment. The world now may still be horrible for people, but I've found better ways to see it through, with friends that anchor me once again to people, then getting stuck in this game. And I am thankful for that, to be able to move past World of Horror, thankful for what it's given me, then simply staying stuck in that endless cycle of trying to save a world I no longer wish to obsess over.

This was a flawed but interesting game. It definitely needed more love and care from Konami. But Konami is Konami so in less than 24 hours, you won't be able to play this game anymore! And the sad thing is, no one seems to care... The sad fact that my friends Wild Potato, RealHaloMan, Sputnik and myself are the only ones who even bothered to write a review for it here says alot. Steam DB said we were the only people in the whole world playing it when we were too...

There won't even be an offline patch, this game will just be GONE. Forever.

According to Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation, 90% of pre 1929 American films are lost. The Library of Congress estimates puts 75% of all silent films as dead as Dillinger.
The video game industry has not learned from history. It refuses to. Because, in a joker voice capitalist society, all that matters is profit. To the rich ghouls who control every facet of our world, money is the end all be all. Not art, not anything meaningful. Just as long as any of these parasites can afford a 76th yacht, a toilet made out of solid gold, or another trip to Epstein Island (or wherever the hell they're going to now), that's all that matters.

Sorry, I'm getting weirdly mad over losing a game that I just think is only "ok" but it's more than that god damnit! Art is art. Good art is art. Bad art is art. Even mid art is art. Erasing it is, and will always be, a fucking crime against the human race.