Unpacking is truly wonderful and offers what video games can do best.

While the mechanics are fairly straightforward (you take things out of a moving box and place them into a room), the actual experience of playing Unpacking is much more than that. In giving consideration to each individual item that the player interacts with you get to know who character in this game is. That experience is wonderfully effective and leaves you with a solid understanding of who this person is. That also extends over time as the narrative of the game plays out of many years. In moments this can be devastating and also triumphant, which again is surprising for a game with such straightforward gameplay.

In a broader sense, Unpacking is about taking a space. That may seem like a simple read of this game, but in a world where finding a place where one belongs can be challenging, that act can feel subversive and significant. I did not expect a game about picking up and putting down trinkets, books, dvds and stuffed animals to be this well considered.

TL; DR : the game is good.

Parasite Eve is very surreal experience in more ways than one.

Just on the surface level, the narrative of the game and the way it plays out is a bizarre and often times scary experience. The story ping-pongs between body horror, sci-fi and approaches cosmic horror as the game presses forward. The unsettling imagery and grotesque PS1 graphics (by 2021 standards) make for a truly bracing horror RPG.

Below the surface however, the game is a surprisingly deep RPG and one that feels comfortingly familar to anyone who played a Square RPG from the late 90s. Rather than swords and sorcery from something like Final Fantasy or Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve uses guns and 'Parasite Energy' (which ends up playing out like a more biological based magic system). While I could understand if someone prefers swords over guns as their primary attack verb in an RPG, I do feel like the way that Parasite Eve handles it's combat makes for a much more enjoyable system as it feels unique and well thought out.

While I'm sure nostalgia plays a role in my enjoyment of this game, I also believe that there is a lot to be appreciated here. If you have a soft spot for the post Final Fantasy 7 Square era in game design, I'd give Parasite Eve a chance as it still feels like a wildly fresh take on the JRPG genre.

Whenever I put down the plastic and nearly broken toy gun attached to the House of the Dead at my local movie theatre, I always left slightly dissatisfied. Not because there was any lack of zombie shooting fun, or campy 90s dialog, or really tough boss battles that demanded you dump your lawn mowing quarters into it. No. I was disappointed that I couldn't also hone my typing skills while saving the world from the evil Goldman.

Everyone is well aware at this point that Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing was just not edgy enough for we-the-teens in 1999, so Sega modified the lore of the House of the Dead extended universe to solve for this problem. They posited that the agents in House of the Dead would not be carrying guns, but rather a large apparatus that strapped onto the characters and also would shoot bullets if you typed a word fast enough. Isn't that harder than pulling a trigger? Perhaps for someone without keyboard prowess, but not for Typing of the Dead's titular heroes: James and Gary.

You progress through the game by shooting zombies after quickly unloading words like 'Octopus', 'Flea' or phrases like 'Collect the Stamps'. Long story short, if you can type, you can win.

All in all, this game taught me to type, taught me to love, and taught me to cry. I don't know what else you would need from a video game.