we did it. we've perfected the skinner box. an ouroboros of dopamine, but the snake doesn't have to be conquered. shiny lights, minimal exertion on the player's part, and infinite dopamine to be distributed. not a terrible game, i mean they got me to play it for almost an hour when i have to go to work in 6 hours (it's 3 am lol). but that just it: it's satisfying to play with nothing else to gain. other roguelikes and lites have intricate mechanics. other action rpgs have engaging cross-interaction between items and skills. other games have story, lore, and interesting level design. vampire survivors is designed to just have you click around for as long as it can get you to. a literal timewaster, and theres nothing wrong with that. its just, i mean, there's not much to the game lol. im not sure how to put into words what i feel here. this game is designed for consumption and nothing more, a decision that doesnt really sit well with me considering how more games and online content is streamlining towards mindless dawdling. of course, art with intention wont ever die, but for this game to be as much of a success as it is almost spawns disappointment and sorrow within me. and i think thats stupid because its just a dumb lil game that doesnt present itself beyond being a timekiller. idk, i just think there are better games to play out there if you need to spend an hour or two. it's nothing crazy gameplay-wise, but in the scope of the medium, i fear its consequences.

unemployed behavior. i must clock into the oil rig, NOW

a tranquil puzzle metroidvania filled with emergent gameplay. animal well was something i didnt expect to enjoy so much but the imsim like quality of its tools really brought up my enjoyment by a lot. being able to sequence break with just some intuitive thinking like "oh what if i hug the wall as i fall and use the yoyo to hit all the buttons?" was a continuous joy. while the backtracking is plentiful and can begin to get tiresome, the plethora of secrets hidden throughout the world makes it not as bad as one may think. the world is sometimes desolate, for better or worse, which does hamper the backtracking for me. sometimes i also felt that certain tools were underused in some cases (firecrackers couldve been more than just a combat tool imo). aside from the rare level design mishaps and how tools were so close to being used to the fullest of their capabilities, the game's cool. cryptic in the best way, eerily beautiful, and filled with organic puzzle solutions, animal well succeeds in being a labyrinthine mind worm.

if you fuck with animal well, PLEASE go check out mosa lina. that game's emergent gameplay incarnate.

elden crab? shell-den ring? whatever pun can be made here, another crab's treasure (ACT) is a cute but incredibly competent souls-like. while many of the souls-likes i see and have played try to riff off DS1, Bloodborne, or even Sekiro, ACT's biggest inspiration is so clearly Elden Ring. youve got crucible knights, crumbling farum azula, the open world, and a mishmash of fromsoft's previous game systems such as Sekiro's posture bar and Bloodborne's rallying locked behind a skill. despite plastering the fromsoft formula onto its sleeves, it's still distinct by removing stamina and adding shells. youre forced into a specific playstyle, becoming a bit personalized when upgrading to the skill trees, but at the end of the day you use the same abilities and must adapt to it. the main customization are your umami adaptations (think of sekiro prosthetics), shell powers, and stowaways which are like rings/talismans. regardless of that, you have the same moveset throughout the game. fast swipes with your fork or slow heaving blows when transformed into a hammer with the right skill. it all comes together to make a fun game that gets hampered by some encounter designs. the irritation of being stun locked into oblivion or being knocked off a cliff by a lesser foe because of a tiny ass platform became too familiar for comfort. oh and the camera can be hellish at times with who you want to lock on to or if in a tight spot. but dude, when you combo umami abilities, parries, grapple hooks, and everything else in your kit, its bliss. maybe im just goated but i first timed so many bosses once i got into my flow state. it was genuinely some of the smoothest combat experiences ive had in a game. story-wise, it's very on the nose but it's not pretending to be anything else. capitalism sucks, greedy people suck, money ruins everything it touches, no need to remind me so hard. its like the game is hoping itll change a capitalists mind into seeing empathy, but it knows its a fruitless endeavor since there isnt a single moment of kindness shown to them.

anyways one of the better non-fromsoft souls-likes. its cute and whimsical, aggro crab understand how to bang out a game.

fantastic lil rpg filled with scrutinizing detail and whimsy. felvidek is something special, not because it's innovating or groundbreaking (it's neither of those), but because it's just so precise in its execution. you meander around the countryside, uncovering a conspiracy and fighting hussites, cultists, and monstrosities. every horror is paired by absurdity, making the encroaching apocalypse feel like one sick joke. it's a struggle to get by as two dudes with limited funds and equipment, but eventually, you become terrifying. instead of getting bodied by cloaked madmen and brigands, you start leaving limp ragdolls on the way to the tavern. even when you get the fourth party member, they're basically a meat shield since they arent a renowned knight or priest. the old english dialog, amazing outfits, and cultural taboos of the time are all so well-realized that you're further enveloped into the game's world. listen to two priests debate celibacy and sobriety, watch how coffee influences the balkans, and witness medieval confusion after stumbling upon two gay dudes. for about five hours, you'll be wanting more and more, but you can't really get anything else out of it. pavol's story ended where it needed. the burg is saved and the fires of hell are put out.

honestly would be a "perfect" game for me if there was only one gun in the entire game. that shit's too op!!! I mean, it's a gun, so it makes sense lol but having two in one party is such a freebie.

a whirlwind of emotions encased by desolate beauty. not sure why this is a bit embarrassing to me, but new vegas was THE game that got me to appreciate games as much as i do today. new vegas is good, i love that game (probably, i havent played it since i was 15), but fallout 1 is very special to me. the rugged controls and graphics have aged well in its dilapidated world, making each interaction born out of genuine curiosity. piecing together solutions from scrounged bits of ammo or investigative conversations made the quests feel incredibly organic. not one bit of exploration is falsehood. you are truly lost in the wastes and must dig yourself out. new vegas is similar but fallout 1 has you tread across new california to seek guidance or stumble upon what you need. youre told "yea we need a new water chip, good luck," given a handful of supplies, and propelled into a hateful world of dust. the self-autonomy of saving a whole people, a whole community's world, is daunting yet so marvellously enticing. it's almost like youre 'the chosen one' (i know thats fo2's protag, but thats not what i mean here), given an insurmountable task to complete. yet what differs here is that you arent a godlike figure, youre just an average joe that knows nothing about this fucked up world, making each success so much more triumphant. standing over the corpses of raiders and irradiated horrors never felt so good.

granted, combat is obtusely brutal. "You miss. You miss. Raider hit you for 300 fuck-ass damage. FEEL THE PAIN. The scar looks kinda neat though!" if youre specialized less for combat, each encounter feels more like a roll of the dice. especially in the later game, when otherworldly horrors become common foes. it's a gambling addict's wet dream; trying over and over to finally hit it big and win a lootable corpse. not that it's wholly unfair, but at times you will be one shotted. it's unavoidable. lady luck fucking HATES you. but with the right equipment, maybe some companions, and perseverance, you can topple the mightiest of giants. "You hit for 12 damage. You miss. Raider critically misses and shoots themselves in the face for 800 damage!" the cartoonish violence is a dopamine farm. watching a raider liquefy into a puddle or a deathclaw get its head ripped clean off, you want to conquer more and more of this insufferable wasteland.

but nobody plays fallout 1 for the action. nobody, in their right mind, plays fallout for the action. i guess fallout 4 and 76 are the outliers, theyre more of a sandbox than anything. fallout 1 is a good story, one that i struggle to even explain to anybody. the writing is fantastic with funny as hell dialogue, amazing world building, and evil as fuck villains. throw in some sympathetic characters and investigative quests, and youve got a decent summation of a fallout game. yet, what i found most interesting about this games story wasnt the writing, but rather the gameplay that surrounded it. you constantly make treks and inquiries to secure the future of vault 13. what the main quest boils down to is just living through the world like any other survivor. you arent given priority or special treatment, youre a nobody to everybody you meet outside the vault. youve gotta muster up the courage to get any progress done. along the way, you get tidbits of dilemmas and philosophy. adytum's fascistic regulators, the hub's hellish economy, junktown's feud, necropolis' occupation by mutants, the followers of the apocalypse's existence, so much shit that just begs you to ponder. humanity is diverse in beliefs and cruelty. thats really what makes fallout, as a series, so interesting. it's not the world-building or rpg elements (which are really good), but more so the exploration of different beliefs and violence that humans are so good at conjuring. to see the extremes of every side of humanity, to quell or partake in them in a post-apocalypse, makes it so enticing. really that is just fiction in general, but fallouts american setting and premise hone in on real-world parallels, compelling me more to join on its experiment.

while being able to directly interact with the different philosophies, politics, and levels of violence found across the game, fallout 1 has a sort of disconnect to it. from what i remember with new vegas, you are very linked into whichever factions you support and whatnot. yet in this game, you can help all sorts of groups, commit terrible crimes for mob bosses, and yet you can move on. you're a middle man, a contract worker, helping with a very specific task but not a designated member of a group. while being able to join the brotherhood, youre free to leave and, basically, do whatever you want all because youre an outsider. fallout 1s dilemmas and quests feel more like windows into all sorts of walks of life than commitments. this isn't terrible, i just found it very interesting. this isnt also true to every decision. some acts will lock you into a position a group may hate you for, but most of the time you are a passerby. it feels like a road trip in a sense. you explore a dead america and experience its new frail life, allowing you to believe whatever you want to and feel however you want to. pretty much every conversation with a talking head npc and quest npc has the option to provoke violence! fuck getting to know people, i want blood. all the more to show how much of a jack-of-all-trades mediator you are. true to only you and your vault and nothing else. youre paid to do a job, and you leave because you have more pressing matters like saving the world.

and its all for not. a futile endeavor where youre gloriously praised and thanked. youve accumulated powerful equipment and skills, but you never could return to your old life. a fatalistic ending to shatter your pride and fill in the cracks with a bleak despair. ultimately, it was the impact you had on peoples lives, not the grand goals that vault 13's overseer bestowed upon you, that had any significance. seeing how your actions shaped the land, whether you brought prosperity or ruin, the stops you made on the way mattered more than the destination. revel in the fruits of good deeds, or wallow in crippling societal collapse.

you deserve rest. youre a hero to some and a cretin to others. but you must leave. never come back.

i love this game, cant you tell by the rambling?

this may be shocking, but ive somehow avoided a good chunk of the discourse surrounding this game since its release. so when i say that i had low expectations, that negativity mostly stems from the numbing experience that was the first game. but also because of my bottomless ire for neil druckmann. druckmann is a wannabe, constantly wanting to live up to the names of sam lake, hideo kojima, and shinji mikami. in pursuing fame, the fake auteur clutches onto the medium of video games with pitiful fingers. although he and naughty dog catch a lot of flak, the developers deserve credit for their hard work. the game looks outstanding, feels great to play, has some sick art, and has a neat scavenging gameplay loop. but as a director, druckmann deserves all the shit i and other people throw at him. the story's plot is alright, and there are also some good tidbits (ellie's missing fingers at the end was a great touch). however, the gross romanticization of misery and inspiration for the story throws all the good under the bus. the game wants you to feel bad. it wants you to feel bile in your throat, dried blood on your gamer hands, and an uncomfortable twist in your stomach. violence is cruel, revenge is cruel, but to have players succumb to it for 20+ hours paired with the discord of satisfyingly explosive headshots, the last of us part 2 fails to evoke those feelings outside of cutscenes. it fails so badly that dogs are introduced to the combat as a cheap attempt to guilt the player. which is so odd when the story is already geared for emotional compulsion.

the characters you play as are bad people. they are selfish, violent, and vengeful. they have little to no redeeming qualities outside of helping those they care for. and that's the point. i don't understand the bashing of the protagonists for being unlikeable. they're anti-heroes; you're not supposed to like them, but you root for them because of something they've done that shows some glimmer of humanity. that's probably the one saving grace of the masturbatory playtime (inflated by how almost disrespectfully long cutscenes can get). but even then, the game's idf propaganda. one half, it's a venture into a foreign land for blood. the second half, it's a disgusting dehumanization of the palestinian people. druckmann's gone on record citing the lynching of 2 idf reservists as a major inspiration to the story for this game. and it shows because it's so clearly written from a zionist's point of view. "wow look how barbaric and violent these religious zealots are. theyre so transphobic and misogynist! the wolves (IDF stand-in) are normal people; look how cool they are with their militarist regime!" at times it tries to show that the wolves (WLF) aren't as good as they seem, but it's never fairly compared to the seraphites. it's so excessively biased, only making the WLF a full-on enemy in abby's story when she wants to be her own person. it's never a complete decry of the WLF, but it's always a condemnation of the seraphites. at least the game's version of the idf are just as much of a warmonger lol.

if i could strip away the politics and my ingrained distaste for the game's creator, the game is just mid. it's a run-of-the-mill AAA third-person shooter blockbuster. it looks next gen but it plays like Sony's stuck in 2009. there's nothing special going on here. It's the first game with some new guns, skills, and enemies. the level design is improved, but the visual clutter of photorealism sometimes detracts from the enjoyability of exploration. the story did not deserve the gut-twisting and palm-sweating reactions of its players. this game did not deserve to be heralded as the future of video games. neil druckmann did not fucking deserve to be awarded as a legendary "innovator" of games for directing the same game he did 7 years prior. if this is what AAA games are expected to become, i'll just continue digging into my hole of indies and classics. developers are being abused, neglected, and vacuumed into obscurity just to put out something to fulfill the dreams of the vainglorious. the games industry is fucked.

alas, im but a measly gamer... i dont know what's right for gaming. hail druckmann, the savior of the medium! we've truly found gaming's citizen kane! finally, our hobby is legitimized in the world of art!!1! miss me with that bullshit. im going back to silent hill 3 or some other good stuff.

OTXO is a fun time, but as far as roguelites go, it's absurdly excessive. 40 straight levels of thundering gunshots and hordes of enemies, by the time you get halfway through it your wrist is gonna need a break from all the lightning quick turns youll be making. it took me 2 hours to complete the game, and i think that's a long time for a run to last. some bosses feel very samey, but overall it's just too relentless to enjoy a full 2 hours of non-stop action. especially when i cant adjust my mouse sensitivity (the oddest choice ever, what the fuck). hotline miami is the first thing to come to mind when looking at this game, and that's a fair comparison. top-down shooter, combos, and punishing combat, the two games are almost family. however, otxo lacks the methodical tactician mindset of approaching a hotline miami level where you solve encounters through continuous trial and error. otxo is very much the opposite. you think on the fly. you have no room for error because death means a complete restart due to the nature of the genre. the little planning you can make is to hold chokepoints to lure groups of enemies into a kill room. otherwise, youll be rushing into a room. hell-brazen with lead to spit out into the poor souls inside, turning them into pools of blood. otxo is a real fucking nice looking game, i dig the monochromatic art style. yet it's also too noisy. so much blends in together that it can be hard to find a gun on the ground, notice an enemy that's still alive, or, at times, even figure out where you are on the screen. but visual clutter aside, the biggest problem is progression. unlocking new weapons and perks feels almost right. buffs in this game are liquors you can buy from a bartender and saleswoman, they give you various attributes and effects that can be really good (e.g. dodging bullets refills slow-mo meter) or useless (e.g. kicking enemy bullets refills slow-mo meter). this was well implemented, it's nothing crazy and is a system found in many games. put money into unlocking new perks for future runs, yadda yadda. however, new weapons are locked behind an rng encounter. sometimes, when moving between levels, you enter a combat-free room with readable lore (which is alright, but I still dunno whats going on. I'm just guessing it's some allegory for purgatory) and a gachapon machine. the gacha machine is where you cough up some bucks to unlock a new gun, if youre lucky. see, sometimes, instead of a shiny new mac 10, you could get a little funkopop. so not only do you need to get lucky to get into the room, but you also need to hope to get a new gun instead of some plastic crap that gamers love. I mean, it's not entirely terrible. collectibles are neat, but cmon man, the gacha room was already a chance encounter. don't add more variables to possibly unlocking new guns!! because of this, i only got about 5 new guns out of the many possible others. not gonna completely complain, i got to kill the final boss with a lever action shotgun, but i really wish i got to see the complete arsenal and liquor cabinet. this game is not that hard. you can cheese it fairly easily with certain liquors and strats. I beat the game on my 4th attempt; I must be some super gamer, though, let's just say that. difficulty is very subjective, but once i found the ideal strat for clearing rooms and got the right perks, i breezed through level after level. bosses werent even a problem for the most part. they have well-choreographed attacks but are also quite easy to dodge. Only 2 of the bosses actually scared me by getting me to impossibly low health, thankfully one of them is the final boss. my point here though is that i first-timed every single boss encounter, dying to my own fumbles in previous levels. again, it could just be my hotline miami veteran skills kicking in, but it felt that i should've been grinding this game longer to then finally face the last boss.

i seemed to have been quite negative in this review, and that's mostly because i'm fairly disappointed by a game i was really excited to get into. overall, it's not bad; it's a good time if you ever felt the itch for a hotline miami esque roguelite, but don't go into this to expect the same awe of the hotline miami games. however, i still believe it's a quality game. the combat is satisfyingly explosive, quenching any thirst for explosive 2D ultraviolence. good game if you want a quick roguelite.

cultic is a fantastic retreading of the boomer shooter formula. many a 90s FPS fan will take one look at cultic and instantly think of blood (1997). they wouldn't be wrong, but blood is just a small influence on its enemies, combat, and arsenal. I mean, it's got cultists and napalm. what cultic takes more inspiration from is the explosive nature of the build engine, yet streamlines the interactivity of the famous games made on that engine. it's still quite interactive, but most of the time, you'll only interact with readable notes and doors (thankfully, you can flush the toilets). however, if anything, resident evil 4 is cultic's biggest inspiration. from the absurdity to the stylish combat to the uncomfortably heat-inducing horror, cultic is taking resident evil 4 into the boomer shooter formula. you can shoot axes out of the air, throw dynamite and shoot it, grab an enemy's dynamite to throw back, and combo weapon swapping with slow-mo into a tornado of hellfire, all while offering intricate arenas to maneuver and explore. for the billions of retro 90s throwback shooters saturating the market these days, cultic is a phenomenal execution of the genre's pioneers while also offering cathartic modern twists. sucks that it's unfinished. very eager to play the next game or episode or whatever the weird release structure is called.