I think Mikami understands to an unnatural degree that video games are fundamentally about problem-solving. Unlike an academic interpretation of "problem-solving" though, Mikami understands that the exercise of problem-solving is less about solving the actual problem but of learning new ways of thinking. Sure, other video games are problem-solving in a base sense, but Mikami's problems have that magical "Oh Shit" element to them; everyone who's done one playthrough of this game will instantly remember all three wolverine encounters, the first time they encountered Regenerators, the Krauser section, the entire 4-4 homestretch, etc. Consistent to all these amazing sections is that the game feels like it's adapting along with the player--as if Mikami was a math tutor guiding us along the workbook. "Ok you know how to deal with Wolverine now, but what if we stuck in you a locked cage with one of them? What if we put two of them in the same room? How would you adapt then?" You have to recontextualize and reinvent constantly, without forgetting the fundamentals that got you there. One of the fundamental pillars of a conservative mindset is the idea that change is risky--the problem might get worse if you approach in a new way, so it's safer to keep doing things the same way. RE4 looks at this mindset, kneecaps it, then gives it a head-exploding suplex--change is necessary, even if it is risky; use more of your resources, resupply, be more precise, exploit another weakness, or use a goddamn rocket launcher if you have to--just don't think the old way is the only way if you want to make it through. It's a constant escalation of gameplay, and that the narrative matches this escalation tit-for-tat is just aces. Literally one of the most radical games of all-time, in every sense of the word.

ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVORITES:

at the time of writing this review it's been my fourth reread overall and it's still just as good as i remember. without getting too emotional i'll just say i'm really glad that the innocent middle schooler all those years back downloaded this off of god knows where and laughed reading all the h scenes at times while also crying over some genuinely great character moments that still resonate with me to this day. sure there's a lot of criticisms that can be levied against it and there's a lot more visual novels i've read since then but to say that fate changed my life is a drastic understatement and it's still something i'm very grateful i decided to read all those years back. your mileage might vary but as the years go on i think i'll still love fate as much as the first time i read it. honestly, there's really not enough i could say about this visual novel without keeping most of it a surprise still so i'll just say rin tohsaka is literally me and i'll leave it at that ! kamige/10

something about playing this game on virtual console non-stop for 24 hours straight during the summer of 2009 as a sixteen year-old taught me a valuable life lesson.

i learned how to scam the exhaustion system in the game. if you work late enough in the day, time will eventually stop in the early morning (i believe 5am to be exact).

once you reach this point, the only limiting factor you have is your stamina, which can be continually increased by visiting the hot springs in the mountains outside your farm or eating specific foods. by doing this repeatedly, you can lock into this cycle: tend to your farm until your virtual self collapses, go to the hot springs and wade around for a few seconds, and then repeat this cycle until you complete everything you need to.

i did this for two in-game years, until i had what i considered to be the ultimate farm. however, my farm required too much upkeep every day to keep everything happy. i had so much money that it became meaningless. i had spent so much time each day farming that i had NEVER ONCE EVEN TALKED TO ONE OF THE BACHELORETTES.

i couldn't garner the affection of one of the girls in a measly six months. it had to be earned over time. i would be alone in a decaying farm when my father showed up to evaluate me six in-game months later. i supposedly had everything that i thought i had wanted, only to see it crumble before me. i cried and turned off the console. in this moment i realized that capitalism makes fools of us all.

five stars.

i have not played replicant ver. 1.22 at all and i imagine it may be some time before i do, but i wanted to take a moment to say a couple things about this game. mostly, i wanted to talk briefly about nier's particular place in recent games history in the west.

think of what video games looked like in america in 2010: extremely dominated by AAA western games design, to the point that many games by japanese developers were coming from increasingly disadvantaged development studios trying to keep up with what sold. jrpgs were at an all-time low—call of duty and gears of war reigned. final fantasy was as maligned as it would ever be. from japan, we saw the likes of binary domain, quantum theory... lots of cover shooters and miserable militarized shootmangames. (don't get me wrong: binary domain is cool!) there were certainly examples to the contrary, mostly niche games in staple genres, but this was the prevailing flavor of the day.

so: demon's souls? while not a massive departure from western aesthetics, it clearly signified a resurgence in fresh, inspired games from japan. i don't think it would be a significant stretch to suggest that nier may have benefitted somewhat from the renewed interest demon's souls and bayonetta elicited, but much more than that i'd say it owes its success and its legacy entirely to itself. nier came out swinging: fuck you, this is japanese games. bullet hell shooters, farming sims, references to zelda and resident evil, the sheer weirdness of it... it was a game that seemed to be proud of japanese games, unwilling to bow down to the demands of the western market. and i think the success of this approach speaks for itself. just look at how things have turned around over the last decade! and these days, how many games can be praised for this level of sea change?

A hugely endearing jank-fest from the days when the biggest companies in the business could afford to put major weight behind strange, experimental curios. An awful factory level at the mid-point drags it down, but otherwise, this is a riot. At just two or three hours long, there's no reason not to just sit down and give this thing a go.

I genuinely think a sequel would be an incredible time if they worked around some of the more awkward bits of design here. Unfortunately, the absurd cost of AAA development means that throwing the equivalent weight behind a sequel is a practical impossibility, which is just yet more reason to dismantle the entire games industry and start over from scratch.

It's also one of the most aesthetically pleasing games ever made and I'm not even remotely kidding. Possibly my favourite menus...ever????

Games don't have to be good to be great.

there's a lot said already abt the hypnotically repulsive audiovisual presentation with the frantic camera and barebones controls, it made me feel tweaked out and paranoid in a horrifying way and it rocked, but the thing worth talking about for me is the structure of this game, how vitally spartan its character is. how utterly, necessarily devoid it is of much sympathy for its leads. i skimmed through a playthrough of K&L1 after playing this, which i have no desire to ever play, and it just felt very of its time. a pair of antiheroes make a huge mess of things and argue incessantly and ruin lives but you gotta love their camaraderie and attitude!! and then the women in their life dare to nag nag nag at them about all the fucked up shit they get put through because of them until they inevitably get shot, because they talk too much

the second game inherits their disgusting personalities and their capacity for misery--in fact increases that aspect to a fever pitch--and you might look at it as just following in the boring footsteps of its predecessor with a more interesting aesthetic going for it. but the difference is how unsettlingly off things feel from what you'd expect. the cutscenes are so curt, there is hardly any kind of relatable stakes for the characters other than some vague deal to further imperialism (they dont care abt that part obviously why would they). everything happens with hardly any dramatic rhythm, just hot headed banter and death, with things getting worse and worse. the misogyny is still here but even that has a different tone; the women in kane and lynch's lives this time become little more than convenient excuses for them to continue their evil rampaging, not the motivation to do better that they probably tell themselves they are to help them sleep at night. they're in a hell of their making.

the bluntness behind the narrative helps make the bond between the two MILES more interesting. lynch's schizophrenia isn't exploited for :twisted: funny comedy this time but instead to render him as a pathetic crazed animal with a gun. and the stroke of genius of basically ignoring how K&L1 ends gives kane's more levelheadedness by comparison a delusional sociopathic underpinning. they scream at each other about how much they ruined each other's lives (much like the women they love in the previous game hmm [thinks really hard abt this]) yet at no point in the game does that tension come to a head between them like the first game would tease. it always evaporates away awkwardly. there's no bro moments of "heh you're alright" or anything like that ever in sight because they do not deserve that, they just drop their in-the-moment tantrum and go back to doing the only thing they ever know how to do. this is because, despite how they are unable to actually feel love or not destroy things, they ultimately understand each other better than anyone. they NEED each other so bad. AND YET!!! not even this is portrayed with much more than a kind of pity, if that, it's just a human tendency to prefer not being alone in your cosmic punishment. it's nothing to get too attached to.

if this game has anything that could be called a positive human emotion it wants to hone in on, it's this, and it is so incredibly compelling in its smallness to me that it sticks out beyond the rest of the genre subversion in the game to heighten it further. even a couple of rabid dogs will feel loyalty towards each other, when they know neither of them's going to heaven

its a humbling feeling to find a game that feels bigger than you

i dont even know where to start describing it. at its core, its a game about not understanding. the gameplay revolves around trying in vain to learn about your surroundings - to piece it all together and find a solution to a problem - only to die not because of a lack of trying, but because we just dont have the time.

the beauty of Outer Wilds lies right there. its galaxy is small, yet feels huge and only gets bigger the more you dig. by all means it should feel like a hopeless venture to continue exploring, but its too engaging not to. there is no end goal, and it makes no promises other than the fact you will die.

and the magic is that we did anyway. even if i didnt know what for, i kept exploring its planets to find its secrets. i felt giddiness meeting every character and hearing their stories. i pat myself on the back after solving puzzles once i asked the guy at the starting campfire how to.

Outer Wilds - despite playing as an alien - is a deeply human game. a journey about facing adversity through sheer willpower despite not having all the answers, and knowing youre not alone in that.

i cant do this game a service with my $5 speak and someone else could do a much better job, and thats ok. because like i said, this game - like its setting - is big. theres so much to talk about, yet its message is so precise. its mysteries are so complex, yet so simple in retrospect. games like these remind me how special this industry is, and what kind of art it can produce. Outer Wilds is a profound experience i likely wont forget for a very long time.

The fact that YIIK and Christine Love games are shilled in VA-11 Hall-A at the behest of the publisher would nominally be a terrible flaw in any other game, but in VA-11's case as a very tongue-in-cheek but incredibly sincere look at what it's like to be an everyday civilian in a cyberpunk dystopia, there's something brutally and morbidly real about this love-letter to cyberpunk's heart and soul being tainted by being forced to promote artistically hollow products.

VA-11 Hall-A is a game about knowing where home is, and how important that is in a cruel and violent world. "Comfy" is a word that gets thrown around a lot to describe it (including in the game itself, before a playthrough!) and in more ways than one there's not a better way to describe it.

Invader Zim levels of critique on capitalism.
We're better than the corporations because our social atomisation, dissociation from community doesnt have a Pip Boy mascot. Let's kill "Marauders" (please don't ask who or what they are). Damn is that gun a Gucci? We replaced the politics of New Vegas with a gripping perk system that entirely leans on combat stat boosts. The extent of this game's role-playing capability is deciding whether or not to be a character who presses the bullet time button. Randomly generated loot lends to the sheer artifice of this world, the characters are all jokes and interacting with them is like flicking a bobblehead. This review is as short and unfocused as the game is.