Woodaba
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Lost in Vivo
2018
One of the very many games advertised to me as "having no jumpscares" only for it to have jumpscares. Either my definition of the word is very different from other people's, or I'm easy to own.
Probably the best of these indie horrors with a vague and confused "retro-inspired" aesthetic I've ever played, which doesn't put it very high on my actual quality barometer. It essentially has every single idea you've ever read in an ideas guy greentext horror game thread. I struggle to lend any points for originality (the elevator was cool!!). Still, it's just a lot of nice ideas bundled together into a neat package that is suspiciously just as long as it takes an average Youtube audience to drop off a Let's Play. Hmmmmmmm????? Probably a coincidence.
In the interest of fairness, I believe to know the appeal here. This game's success makes total sense; it's the genre in a shot glass, a Now That's What I Call Horror compilation album with all the bang and none of the fuss. But the devil is in the details. After learning that the developer of this game previously made Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion, it all kinda made sense. "No new ideas under the sun" etc., but horror only works for me when it is introducing ideas that feel in some way fresh, with implications that allow them to stew in my subconscious during/after the runtime or for themes to be navigated in a way that evokes something in me.
Lost In Vivo succeeds at what it tries to do, which is take elements from Silent Hill and SCP Foundation, among many others, and allow the player to fight through the layers of horror hell. Enemies with insane designs screaming towards you as you blast them with your shotgun, defiantly keeping your cool under the setpieces and crushing atmosphere that strings the game together like a roving epic. There's an "Abandon all hope ye who enter" graffiti tag near the start of the game, so I mean yea. I find it all a little too grating, obvious and cheap, but hey.
Probably the best of these indie horrors with a vague and confused "retro-inspired" aesthetic I've ever played, which doesn't put it very high on my actual quality barometer. It essentially has every single idea you've ever read in an ideas guy greentext horror game thread. I struggle to lend any points for originality (the elevator was cool!!). Still, it's just a lot of nice ideas bundled together into a neat package that is suspiciously just as long as it takes an average Youtube audience to drop off a Let's Play. Hmmmmmmm????? Probably a coincidence.
In the interest of fairness, I believe to know the appeal here. This game's success makes total sense; it's the genre in a shot glass, a Now That's What I Call Horror compilation album with all the bang and none of the fuss. But the devil is in the details. After learning that the developer of this game previously made Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion, it all kinda made sense. "No new ideas under the sun" etc., but horror only works for me when it is introducing ideas that feel in some way fresh, with implications that allow them to stew in my subconscious during/after the runtime or for themes to be navigated in a way that evokes something in me.
Lost In Vivo succeeds at what it tries to do, which is take elements from Silent Hill and SCP Foundation, among many others, and allow the player to fight through the layers of horror hell. Enemies with insane designs screaming towards you as you blast them with your shotgun, defiantly keeping your cool under the setpieces and crushing atmosphere that strings the game together like a roving epic. There's an "Abandon all hope ye who enter" graffiti tag near the start of the game, so I mean yea. I find it all a little too grating, obvious and cheap, but hey.
Quake II
1997
Trent Reznor’s infamous “this game has no atmosphere” comment hangs over this the whole way through, and it’s only emphasised by the default Steam installation dumping you into the action at some hellish resolution and with no music. HUP HUP HUPing through barren brown mono-textured halls and caves without any music is really funny.
Fortunately, 10 minutes of looking around on the internet can lead you to any number of drag-and-drop replacements for id/Bethesda’s pathetic offering. I played through this using the Yagami sourceport and restored Sonic Mayhem’s appropriately butt-industrial soundtrack, which made things a lot more pleasant. When Descent Into Cerberon is in full swing and you’re instagibbing stroggs with bunny-hopped shots from the hyperblaster, it just feels fuckin’ great.
However, those moments are padded thickly with some of the most obtuse exploration I’ve ever seen - the kind of stuff that should leave the average player begging for Sandy Petersen to come back and save us all. I sometimes walked aimlessly in circles down the same corridors and somehow ended up in new places through no intention of my own. On more than one occasion, I resorted to noclipping my way forward, only to realise I still had no idea where the way out was. Welcome to the machine.
Fortunately, 10 minutes of looking around on the internet can lead you to any number of drag-and-drop replacements for id/Bethesda’s pathetic offering. I played through this using the Yagami sourceport and restored Sonic Mayhem’s appropriately butt-industrial soundtrack, which made things a lot more pleasant. When Descent Into Cerberon is in full swing and you’re instagibbing stroggs with bunny-hopped shots from the hyperblaster, it just feels fuckin’ great.
However, those moments are padded thickly with some of the most obtuse exploration I’ve ever seen - the kind of stuff that should leave the average player begging for Sandy Petersen to come back and save us all. I sometimes walked aimlessly in circles down the same corridors and somehow ended up in new places through no intention of my own. On more than one occasion, I resorted to noclipping my way forward, only to realise I still had no idea where the way out was. Welcome to the machine.
Quake II RTX
2019
My wee brother used to be the main healer in a fairly successful and tight-knit¹ World of Warcraft guild - we didn't have a lot of money to keep our PC up-to-date, so one of the older guys in the guild would post us his old graphics cards every other year. We used to get some buzz off watching those daft benchmark tests that often came with the mid-2000s NVidia cards - I distinctly remember losing it over a shadow looking like the player model it was being cast from.
Quake II RTX is basically one of those, and I'm logging it! It was fun to play at the same time as I'm playing the original (Yagami-enhanced) Quake II. I think the Yagami sourceport looks much better, despite not having refracted water or whatever. Nobody needs to see the Bitterman's reflection.
¹ (To the point of multiple married couples in the guild were having not-so-well-hidden online and IRL affairs with other members of the same guild)
Quake II RTX is basically one of those, and I'm logging it! It was fun to play at the same time as I'm playing the original (Yagami-enhanced) Quake II. I think the Yagami sourceport looks much better, despite not having refracted water or whatever. Nobody needs to see the Bitterman's reflection.
¹ (To the point of multiple married couples in the guild were having not-so-well-hidden online and IRL affairs with other members of the same guild)
I was wondering why I couldn't mine from a mineral deposit in FFXI. It turns out I had to open an item trade with the mining spot and offer my pickaxe.
This game was made by and for psychopaths.
The first day of my subscription was spent trying to log in to the DRM, PlayOnline, something that felt held together by spit and a prayer. Already feeling pressed for time, I started looking into guides, FAQs and walkthroughs to immediately realise that they are filled with conflicting information. What ensued was 29 days of folkloric adventuring, going off years-old rumours and hearsay found among mostly defunct Wikis. A guide would literally say "- Once you meet unknown requirements" and I'd have to crack my knuckles and experiment in any way I could with the absolute wishing well that forms FFXI's design. Unclear signposting, a nightmarish control scheme, and unresponsive NPCs - but what really drags the experience down is the lengthy grind, which not even late-expansion introduced multipliers and buffs seem to alleviate much.
In a way, I almost admire how every single element of this game feels as tuned as possible to be as transgressively rude and dull as possible. Still, I gave it a shot after two decades-worth of quality of life alterations were added to the title. I can't say it really felt that way as a newcomer, but there were entire systems I found myself relying on, such as the NPC summoning Trust mechanic and repeatable quests that I was assured were late additions.
The thing that kept me strung along really was the story elements; they're so fantastic. Great dialogue and large scale narrative events with meta elements that recontextualise entire swathes of the game in genuinely impressive ways. And almost all of them are things that the guides neglect to mention; you stumble upon genuinely stellar moments while trying to do your bread and butter.
I'll probably never re-subscribe, it was a fascinating month of archaic-yet-ingenious design. On the one hand, thank God I'll never play anything like this again, but on the other, ah man I kinda miss it already. Hell is real, and you can pay £8 a month to experience it.
This game was made by and for psychopaths.
The first day of my subscription was spent trying to log in to the DRM, PlayOnline, something that felt held together by spit and a prayer. Already feeling pressed for time, I started looking into guides, FAQs and walkthroughs to immediately realise that they are filled with conflicting information. What ensued was 29 days of folkloric adventuring, going off years-old rumours and hearsay found among mostly defunct Wikis. A guide would literally say "- Once you meet unknown requirements" and I'd have to crack my knuckles and experiment in any way I could with the absolute wishing well that forms FFXI's design. Unclear signposting, a nightmarish control scheme, and unresponsive NPCs - but what really drags the experience down is the lengthy grind, which not even late-expansion introduced multipliers and buffs seem to alleviate much.
In a way, I almost admire how every single element of this game feels as tuned as possible to be as transgressively rude and dull as possible. Still, I gave it a shot after two decades-worth of quality of life alterations were added to the title. I can't say it really felt that way as a newcomer, but there were entire systems I found myself relying on, such as the NPC summoning Trust mechanic and repeatable quests that I was assured were late additions.
The thing that kept me strung along really was the story elements; they're so fantastic. Great dialogue and large scale narrative events with meta elements that recontextualise entire swathes of the game in genuinely impressive ways. And almost all of them are things that the guides neglect to mention; you stumble upon genuinely stellar moments while trying to do your bread and butter.
I'll probably never re-subscribe, it was a fascinating month of archaic-yet-ingenious design. On the one hand, thank God I'll never play anything like this again, but on the other, ah man I kinda miss it already. Hell is real, and you can pay £8 a month to experience it.
This review contains spoilers
An old friend tried out a new cake recipe for me after I complained that the one he'd been making every year for a decade was getting a bit repetitive. It was a bit raw on the inside, and he got the measurements totally wrong, so I ended up eating so much of it that I felt a bit sick, but it was made with love, and I was still grateful that my friend tried something new for me.
The JRPG combat in this is essentially a paradox. It's simultaneously the bedrock of the game and also feels completely unnecessary. It's the lynchpin of Ichi's character - a representation his fantastical, idealistic, manchildish imagination, and also serves as a way to mark out his friendship-collecting character and all the other ways he differs from Kazuma Kiryu... But it also kills any and all momentum the game tries to build, especially in its back half. I really, really just wanted to raw punch bad people. Especially Ryo Aoki.
The "grind your ass off to face a legend" trick was a nice wee bit of fun and a respectful nod to the RGG legacy the first time they tried it with Majima, but then immediately following it up with the exact same thing for Kiryu felt like a stupid jerkoff. Narratively, the game was hurtling towards one of the biggest climaxes in its history; gameplay-wise, I was spending hours upon hours going between kushikatsu restaurants and Pokemon battle arenas to collect gemstones so I could make my telephone nunchucks do ice damage, which is apparently the Dragon of Dojima's one weakness.
Kiryu's presence in the game is something of a sticking point for me. I didn't bother playing Yakuza 6 because the "this time he's REALLY not coming back!" promises rang hollow, and Yakuza 7 feels like something of a validation of my decision. I get that they wanted to have Kiryu (almost literally) pass the torch to Ichi, but there's something hollow about having Kiryu go "Okay, I guess YOU are LIKE a DRAGON, TOO!" after a boss battle where I turtled out his neutered combos with poison damage and paid summons. Why not give us a crumb of the legend with Majima and Saejima in this game, then give Kiryu a meatier role in a subsequent entry? Now RGG Studio have set a worrying precedent for the Former Dragon to come back in a walk-on role for every game, no doubt sporting sillier and sillier disguises to maintain this ridiculous pretence of him being dead. 72 year old Kiryu wearing a top hat and moustache to talk to the chief of police in Yakuza X, please.
Anyway, I feel like I'm ragging a little too hard on what is mostly a very good game. The opening hours of this are among the best narratives these games have ever attempted - which, by extension, means Yakuza 7 is among the best story-driven games ever made. I just wish the game didn't graduate from explorations of poverty, homelessness and sex work into more Yakuza-By-Numbers storytelling that I could find on just about any Battles Without Honour or Humanity DVD (a critical flaw of the series that doesn't just apply to this latest entry - Yakuza 0 and 3 were particularly guilty of this too).
Woops, I slipped into ragging on the game again! Gahhhh!! I really do like these games a lot! I've collectively spent about 500 hours playing them, and they are really fun! I only want the best for this series! Please, forgive me!! cuts off pinky
The JRPG combat in this is essentially a paradox. It's simultaneously the bedrock of the game and also feels completely unnecessary. It's the lynchpin of Ichi's character - a representation his fantastical, idealistic, manchildish imagination, and also serves as a way to mark out his friendship-collecting character and all the other ways he differs from Kazuma Kiryu... But it also kills any and all momentum the game tries to build, especially in its back half. I really, really just wanted to raw punch bad people. Especially Ryo Aoki.
The "grind your ass off to face a legend" trick was a nice wee bit of fun and a respectful nod to the RGG legacy the first time they tried it with Majima, but then immediately following it up with the exact same thing for Kiryu felt like a stupid jerkoff. Narratively, the game was hurtling towards one of the biggest climaxes in its history; gameplay-wise, I was spending hours upon hours going between kushikatsu restaurants and Pokemon battle arenas to collect gemstones so I could make my telephone nunchucks do ice damage, which is apparently the Dragon of Dojima's one weakness.
Kiryu's presence in the game is something of a sticking point for me. I didn't bother playing Yakuza 6 because the "this time he's REALLY not coming back!" promises rang hollow, and Yakuza 7 feels like something of a validation of my decision. I get that they wanted to have Kiryu (almost literally) pass the torch to Ichi, but there's something hollow about having Kiryu go "Okay, I guess YOU are LIKE a DRAGON, TOO!" after a boss battle where I turtled out his neutered combos with poison damage and paid summons. Why not give us a crumb of the legend with Majima and Saejima in this game, then give Kiryu a meatier role in a subsequent entry? Now RGG Studio have set a worrying precedent for the Former Dragon to come back in a walk-on role for every game, no doubt sporting sillier and sillier disguises to maintain this ridiculous pretence of him being dead. 72 year old Kiryu wearing a top hat and moustache to talk to the chief of police in Yakuza X, please.
Anyway, I feel like I'm ragging a little too hard on what is mostly a very good game. The opening hours of this are among the best narratives these games have ever attempted - which, by extension, means Yakuza 7 is among the best story-driven games ever made. I just wish the game didn't graduate from explorations of poverty, homelessness and sex work into more Yakuza-By-Numbers storytelling that I could find on just about any Battles Without Honour or Humanity DVD (a critical flaw of the series that doesn't just apply to this latest entry - Yakuza 0 and 3 were particularly guilty of this too).
Woops, I slipped into ragging on the game again! Gahhhh!! I really do like these games a lot! I've collectively spent about 500 hours playing them, and they are really fun! I only want the best for this series! Please, forgive me!! cuts off pinky
RGG have such a knack for writing the most lovable characters, and Ichiban is some kinda massive step up from even that. A beautiful idiot with a heart of gold. Lost count of the amount of times I audbly went "Yes, brother!" at the screen.
I honestly have barely anything else to say about the game that wouldnae be incoherent praise, other than that the change in combat would have put me right off if the writing and characters hadn't been so stellar. It was fun at first, but quickly felt like a total chore that ruined all feeling of pace and immediacy you get with the real-time stuff. Every single time the wee intro sequence and name drop before a big fight happened I got excited, then quickly remembered I would be doing turn-based and felt deflated again.
Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy turn-based combat. Played a million JRPGs in my time. But for me it just doesn't work well in this setting. Having to go grind to fight a boss for the fifth time because your ability to win is based on numbers rather than your own skill is just a very sad feeling in a Yakuza title. There is no tension or moment to moment adrenaline rush when you're chipping away at a health bar, knowing you have all the time in the world to browse menus and make decisions. However, I understand that the game's Dragon Quest inspired themes that I enjoyed so much couldn't have worked without it chasing this kind of fighting system. It's tough, and I don't think anybody could have balanced it without revamping the whole thing.
I should probably shut up now after mentioning that I had barely anything else to say and then typing that essay above. As much as it sounds like I'm ragging on the combat, I loved the game in spite of it.
Ichiban Kasuga is your new best friend.
[EDIT ADDED 2 YEARS LATER]
I kinda hate the game now looking back, haha.
I honestly have barely anything else to say about the game that wouldnae be incoherent praise, other than that the change in combat would have put me right off if the writing and characters hadn't been so stellar. It was fun at first, but quickly felt like a total chore that ruined all feeling of pace and immediacy you get with the real-time stuff. Every single time the wee intro sequence and name drop before a big fight happened I got excited, then quickly remembered I would be doing turn-based and felt deflated again.
Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy turn-based combat. Played a million JRPGs in my time. But for me it just doesn't work well in this setting. Having to go grind to fight a boss for the fifth time because your ability to win is based on numbers rather than your own skill is just a very sad feeling in a Yakuza title. There is no tension or moment to moment adrenaline rush when you're chipping away at a health bar, knowing you have all the time in the world to browse menus and make decisions. However, I understand that the game's Dragon Quest inspired themes that I enjoyed so much couldn't have worked without it chasing this kind of fighting system. It's tough, and I don't think anybody could have balanced it without revamping the whole thing.
I should probably shut up now after mentioning that I had barely anything else to say and then typing that essay above. As much as it sounds like I'm ragging on the combat, I loved the game in spite of it.
Ichiban Kasuga is your new best friend.
[EDIT ADDED 2 YEARS LATER]
I kinda hate the game now looking back, haha.