TheBluejay
2020
Review #4 - 2021
Never have I ever played a game that made me tremble with fear upon first booting it up. Even with the company of friends, I was extremely unsettled the entire time. The sound design is so fine tuned to your surroundings, that every little noise you hear feels as if it were happening in the very room you're sitting in. Playing with headphones is a MUST, unless of course you have a fantastic surround sound system, which works just as well if not better (can confirm).
It's best played with friends, for working together to figure out what ghost you're dealing with is such a fun thing to experience. Sometimes you have to "split up gang" which can lead to some funny, and terrifying results. My first session ended with me all by myself, with no one to talk to. I was MORTIFYED. The fear never wore off even after the 2 or so hours we played. It was a real blast, and a highly immersive one at that.
It's janky looking in a lot of places, but it's the tension this game builds, and the thrill of being chased by feral haunts that makes this game worth the while. If you're a scaredy cat like me and love getting spooked, you're going to have a good time (playing by yourself in the dark is something I highly recommend). If you don't get scared easily, you'll probably get tired of the gameplay loop very quickly. I for one, had an unforgettable time, and look forward to getting the gang together again for more haunts.
Never have I ever played a game that made me tremble with fear upon first booting it up. Even with the company of friends, I was extremely unsettled the entire time. The sound design is so fine tuned to your surroundings, that every little noise you hear feels as if it were happening in the very room you're sitting in. Playing with headphones is a MUST, unless of course you have a fantastic surround sound system, which works just as well if not better (can confirm).
It's best played with friends, for working together to figure out what ghost you're dealing with is such a fun thing to experience. Sometimes you have to "split up gang" which can lead to some funny, and terrifying results. My first session ended with me all by myself, with no one to talk to. I was MORTIFYED. The fear never wore off even after the 2 or so hours we played. It was a real blast, and a highly immersive one at that.
It's janky looking in a lot of places, but it's the tension this game builds, and the thrill of being chased by feral haunts that makes this game worth the while. If you're a scaredy cat like me and love getting spooked, you're going to have a good time (playing by yourself in the dark is something I highly recommend). If you don't get scared easily, you'll probably get tired of the gameplay loop very quickly. I for one, had an unforgettable time, and look forward to getting the gang together again for more haunts.
2022
Dev Mailbag Review #2 - 2022
Highlight:
"Galacticon"
Bluejay's Dev Mailbag
https://youtu.be/x9Akecsj9Fg
A "pick-up-and-play" arcade space shooter that has you saving little alien fellas in order to progress to each section. There's nothing much else to it than that, but it's addictive, and easy to get lost in trying to get farther along.
Highlight:
"Galacticon"
Bluejay's Dev Mailbag
https://youtu.be/x9Akecsj9Fg
A "pick-up-and-play" arcade space shooter that has you saving little alien fellas in order to progress to each section. There's nothing much else to it than that, but it's addictive, and easy to get lost in trying to get farther along.
Dev Mailbag Review #3 - 2022
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1699980/Daydream/
This JRPG inspired title has you playing as a daring adventurer aching to see the world, only to find himself embarking on a treacherous journey that will lead him and his friends toward a destiny bigger than themselves. It plays the way you'd expect using classic JRPG mechanics, but also uses a clever QTE system to make the turn-based combat more interactive. It's fully voice acted, and features a beautiful soundtrack to go along with this epic tale. Don't be fooled by the look of this game either, for this is a fully developed story that provides you with 8-10 hours of gameplay. Definitely give this game a shot.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1699980/Daydream/
This JRPG inspired title has you playing as a daring adventurer aching to see the world, only to find himself embarking on a treacherous journey that will lead him and his friends toward a destiny bigger than themselves. It plays the way you'd expect using classic JRPG mechanics, but also uses a clever QTE system to make the turn-based combat more interactive. It's fully voice acted, and features a beautiful soundtrack to go along with this epic tale. Don't be fooled by the look of this game either, for this is a fully developed story that provides you with 8-10 hours of gameplay. Definitely give this game a shot.
Review #6 - 2022
https://www.re4hd.com/?page_id=9303
This is the peak Resident Evil experience when it comes to the main series (at least pre-RE7). It has an engaging, action-packed story that takes a now tenured Leon S. Kennedy far from Racoon City, and into a remote location in Spain, where the virus that's plaguing the world by storm is continuing to be innovated on by more power hungry zealots.
This is the PC version I'm writing on of course, so I'll save my thoughts on the game as a whole for another day. More specifically though, I played the RE4 HD Project, which mods the not so great PC port, and makes it much better. It even plays great on my Ultra Wide screen, but I did notice screen tearing while in water locations (the boat segment for example). All and all, it's a pretty decent upgrade, and makes my favorite game even more immersive. I just can't get enough of the action, the horror, and that sweet, sweet treasure hunting too. It's nice to be able to revisit this game with ease on my PC!
https://www.re4hd.com/?page_id=9303
This is the peak Resident Evil experience when it comes to the main series (at least pre-RE7). It has an engaging, action-packed story that takes a now tenured Leon S. Kennedy far from Racoon City, and into a remote location in Spain, where the virus that's plaguing the world by storm is continuing to be innovated on by more power hungry zealots.
This is the PC version I'm writing on of course, so I'll save my thoughts on the game as a whole for another day. More specifically though, I played the RE4 HD Project, which mods the not so great PC port, and makes it much better. It even plays great on my Ultra Wide screen, but I did notice screen tearing while in water locations (the boat segment for example). All and all, it's a pretty decent upgrade, and makes my favorite game even more immersive. I just can't get enough of the action, the horror, and that sweet, sweet treasure hunting too. It's nice to be able to revisit this game with ease on my PC!
2000
Review #7 - 2022
This is a game I hold dearly to my heart. I remember it fondly, but never had a means to relive it, until I discovered the wonderful world of Virtual Machines. Indeed, I did what I needed to do, installed the game into my virtual XP, and voilà, that ear worm of an intro starts playing, and I was transported back into that elementary school computer lab. Things were about to get wacky!
And it's exactly as I remembered! Wacky brushes and pens and stamps galore. Many different ways to manipulate your paintings with the whisk tool, as well as all kinds of textures to make your digital paintings pop! There's backgrounds and sounds to go with your image to bring them to life, a stick of dynamite to start fresh, and of course, the unforgettable undo button. I click it, and I get an autotuned "Now wait a minute!" to fix my mistake. Gosh I missed this game.
Kid Pix began as a way to make digital painting fun, and it certainly succeeded, inspiring many children like myself back in the day, to create and let their imaginations soar as they did so. It's still much fun to mess with as an adult, and I'm certain that if you share this with the next generation, they'll enjoy it too!
This is a game I hold dearly to my heart. I remember it fondly, but never had a means to relive it, until I discovered the wonderful world of Virtual Machines. Indeed, I did what I needed to do, installed the game into my virtual XP, and voilà, that ear worm of an intro starts playing, and I was transported back into that elementary school computer lab. Things were about to get wacky!
And it's exactly as I remembered! Wacky brushes and pens and stamps galore. Many different ways to manipulate your paintings with the whisk tool, as well as all kinds of textures to make your digital paintings pop! There's backgrounds and sounds to go with your image to bring them to life, a stick of dynamite to start fresh, and of course, the unforgettable undo button. I click it, and I get an autotuned "Now wait a minute!" to fix my mistake. Gosh I missed this game.
Kid Pix began as a way to make digital painting fun, and it certainly succeeded, inspiring many children like myself back in the day, to create and let their imaginations soar as they did so. It's still much fun to mess with as an adult, and I'm certain that if you share this with the next generation, they'll enjoy it too!
Review #1 - 2023
Peter Gabriel, the artist, the activist, the appreciator of music from around the world. This CD-ROM experience brings you all 3 of these notions into his interactive point-and-click "secret world", where you'll discover not just his music, but music from around the globe, as it showcases several many artists from his label, Real World Studios, a recording label that provides a means for artists all over the world to record and share their music on a global scale. Not only that, you'll discover WOMAD, yet another opportunity started by Gabriel, that showcases these artists from around the world, live and on stage in a festival weekend setting. Real World and WOMAD are still going on to this day, so it's cool seeing it's early beginnings!
Given his love for world music, you'll learn about different cultures, and the instruments they wield. It's actually an idea I've had for a long time to create a game where you explore a globe, and learn about music and how culture spreads. This game has that going on in a smaller scale, and I absolutely adore what it's trying to achieve.
There's all kinds of oddities to find in this game, so definitely explore your options, and keep an eye out for Easter eggs along the way for you to click on! I will however warn you, that there is a section that brings awareness to the horrible human rights violations that were going on at the time, and really, still going on today. It's a video about his WITNESS organization, a project that aims to bring cameras to people all over the world, so they can film and bring to light the injustices happening on the daily. Just know, the video has some horrifying and graphic footage.
Xplora is a testament to Gabriel's care for the world. It goes beyond the music and culture. He aims to help us get a little bit closer to a world where a culture and its peoples aren't held back by the cruel injustices we see time and time again. The fact that Real World, WOMAD, and WITNESS is still around today, proves that his outreach is doing something good. We should all aim to do something bigger than ourselves to make the world a better place, and I find music to be an incredible tool to do just that.
Peter Gabriel, the artist, the activist, the appreciator of music from around the world. This CD-ROM experience brings you all 3 of these notions into his interactive point-and-click "secret world", where you'll discover not just his music, but music from around the globe, as it showcases several many artists from his label, Real World Studios, a recording label that provides a means for artists all over the world to record and share their music on a global scale. Not only that, you'll discover WOMAD, yet another opportunity started by Gabriel, that showcases these artists from around the world, live and on stage in a festival weekend setting. Real World and WOMAD are still going on to this day, so it's cool seeing it's early beginnings!
Given his love for world music, you'll learn about different cultures, and the instruments they wield. It's actually an idea I've had for a long time to create a game where you explore a globe, and learn about music and how culture spreads. This game has that going on in a smaller scale, and I absolutely adore what it's trying to achieve.
There's all kinds of oddities to find in this game, so definitely explore your options, and keep an eye out for Easter eggs along the way for you to click on! I will however warn you, that there is a section that brings awareness to the horrible human rights violations that were going on at the time, and really, still going on today. It's a video about his WITNESS organization, a project that aims to bring cameras to people all over the world, so they can film and bring to light the injustices happening on the daily. Just know, the video has some horrifying and graphic footage.
Xplora is a testament to Gabriel's care for the world. It goes beyond the music and culture. He aims to help us get a little bit closer to a world where a culture and its peoples aren't held back by the cruel injustices we see time and time again. The fact that Real World, WOMAD, and WITNESS is still around today, proves that his outreach is doing something good. We should all aim to do something bigger than ourselves to make the world a better place, and I find music to be an incredible tool to do just that.
Review #2 - 2023
It's quirky. It's bizarre. It's incomprehensible. It's so unapologetically 90s, an era where the CD-ROM allowed for developers to take advantage of multimedia, and push the medium to its limits with reckless abandon. Videos, music, interactive graphics galore. You could do anything. Literally anything. There were no guidelines to how these things should be made, nor was there very much in the way of quality control. That's how you end up with products like this.
The game has you play as a member of the Smart Patrol (if I gather that correctly). Your job is to... well I actually don't know. You're thrust into this strange Factory Pomo designed world where you have hardly any time to explore it. You visit an area, only to be told you need to get back to your vehicle before the time runs out (I swear you only have 5 minutes to do anything). That's the gameplay really, if you can call it that. In true 90s gaming fashion, you don't have a clue what to do, and it's all down to doing things in a specific, unspecified order so you can progress. It expects you to start the game over, and over, and over again in order to get it right, but any person in their right mind would quit playing the moment it ends.
I'm not any person in their right mind.
I intend on returning to this game, and I intend on figuring this thing out. I'm a sucker for cheese like this. The aesthetic is enough to draw me in, and the scenes I did encounter, had me dying to uncover more. I don't know how involved DEVO was in the making of this game, but regardless, it has their abstract worldview written all over it. I for one, will be back. Everyone else, you'll be better off saving your sanity. Here, watch this guy play it.
It's quirky. It's bizarre. It's incomprehensible. It's so unapologetically 90s, an era where the CD-ROM allowed for developers to take advantage of multimedia, and push the medium to its limits with reckless abandon. Videos, music, interactive graphics galore. You could do anything. Literally anything. There were no guidelines to how these things should be made, nor was there very much in the way of quality control. That's how you end up with products like this.
The game has you play as a member of the Smart Patrol (if I gather that correctly). Your job is to... well I actually don't know. You're thrust into this strange Factory Pomo designed world where you have hardly any time to explore it. You visit an area, only to be told you need to get back to your vehicle before the time runs out (I swear you only have 5 minutes to do anything). That's the gameplay really, if you can call it that. In true 90s gaming fashion, you don't have a clue what to do, and it's all down to doing things in a specific, unspecified order so you can progress. It expects you to start the game over, and over, and over again in order to get it right, but any person in their right mind would quit playing the moment it ends.
I'm not any person in their right mind.
I intend on returning to this game, and I intend on figuring this thing out. I'm a sucker for cheese like this. The aesthetic is enough to draw me in, and the scenes I did encounter, had me dying to uncover more. I don't know how involved DEVO was in the making of this game, but regardless, it has their abstract worldview written all over it. I for one, will be back. Everyone else, you'll be better off saving your sanity. Here, watch this guy play it.