I made a no good video about this game. The main point was that deckbuilding is way better than experience points.

Please, whatever you do, don't watch it. Thank you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhvUGrxfqnk

This games got good fishing.

I want little to no mechanical depth to my fishing in a video game. Fishing in real life looks like it sucks eggs and the further games get away from that the better. What makes fishing good as an activity in a game is that it forces you to idle. People went buck wild for the benches in Life is Strange because sitting in a game rules and fishing is like advanced sitting.

You want to fish because it forces you to stop interacting with the game mechanically and start admiring the world. Find a place to fish, cast your lure, and then pan the camera. The gameplay is not catching the fish, the gameplay is panning the camera. Fishing is the sightseeing skill. It's the skill you should focus on if you just want to be a tourist in the world of FFXIV and I swear they designed it around this idea.

Training the skill gives you an ability that makes you not aggro monsters way above your combat level thus allowing you to explore the higher level areas way before your ready to from a combat perspective. It levels up super fast, opening the world to you immediately. The fishing mechanics are the same from start to finish and the only variable is the location you fish. You have to thoroughly explore the maps looking for bodies of water. The entire gameplay is explore and admire. Admire the world, admire the water, admire your characters fashion.

And then at the end you get a tiny tortoise pet.

This is a tough one for me to review. I’ve got biases out the wazoo here. I played this game with the love of my life over the span of months after smoking the big bowl of weed every single sesh. It’s not the easiest scenario to recreate. You’ve got to find the right person, wine them, dine them, take them home, marry them, inherit a dog, acquire another dog, buy a house, experience the good, the bad, and then ultimately show up together, late, to the adolescent activity of recreational drug use. They then have to introduce this concept of “Wallace and Gromit” into your life. The ignorance is key here. You’ve got to want to learn about this clay man, his dog, and his love of cheese. This curiosity must be tangled into the youthful nostalgia of your special friend.

These are my circumstances. I was put in a situation where the game could literally not fail. I was destined for a good time. The banks are just too big and no one else could possibly expect to recreate these circumstances, so how could I, a reasonable and humble reviewer, give this seemingly nothing game the full 5 stars. Two reasons:

1. I don’t care about other people’s playing experience and frankly think it’s their fault (and a great offense) that they are literally not me.
2. and cause its just good dude.

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is the perfect video game adaptation of Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and by simply achieving that core idea through laser precise execution has produced some of the best hang out vibes in any game I have ever played.

From a purely visual perspective Wallace and Gromit is a stop motion clay animation and by luck(?), good timing(???), the PS2 is the perfect console to create choppy 3D models that imitate this look and feel to the fucking letter. It feels like you are controlling the literal characters from the show not a video game version of them. And it just don’t stop. They took this little backdrop town from the movie and recreated it into this huge lived in and explorable 3D space in the game. When you click the right control stick and hide the radar you can experience this whole town with literally no HUD. When you pause the game the menus are all a UI from one of Wallace’s gizmos. I feel like I’m controlling the movie and not playing a game. I, as a person who loves video games, absolutely despises video games, and never ever wants to feel like I am playing a video game while playing a video game. The attention to detail here to let the player be fully immersed playing as Wallace and Gromit of all things is ridiculous but above all: effective. Very effective, frighteningly effective. Sometimes we would boot up the game and just run around having Wallace say hi to all the citizens of the town, aesthetically different and named. When running past Pip Windfall, the red-haired soccer playing youth, Wallace would sometimes refer to him as “a scamp”. It’s delightful.

The gameplay is much in the same vein. Wallace and Gromit in the movie are “vermin-catchers”, the main gameplay is herding critters and protecting prized pumpkins. This is done with a variety of tools but it’s mostly using the sucker vacuum. You suck stuff up and shot them into an even biggerer non-moving sucker. Once big sucked the vermin is officially considered “catched.” There are different vermin with different characteristics and methods of catching. The standard rabbit can be herded into the big suck using just body positioning which is where this shit gets wild. There are several environmental tools that need to be operated by two players. This game is designed primarily as a two-player experience. Gates open with levers that need to be held open while another player runs through. You got lifts, bridges, doors, all the classics. Herding large amounts of rabbits through the games obstacles is a test in cooperation that would leave us audibly yelling every time we succeeded. Adapting 'Wallace and Gromit' they did not forget to leave out the 'AND.' Focusing development on a two player experience, a two player main storyline, there's a lot of untrodden gameplay innovation here. A third person, co-op, herding game. I'm never going to get another game like this until some kickstarter indie FREAK with actual skill and talent decides they would like to spend a lot of time making approximately no money.

If you are specifically me and specifically meet my specific life criteria, you are GOING to have a good time with this game. I hope everyone everywhere can find their own Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I hope everyone everywhere can also experience the 10mg CBG gummy known as the “Mother of all Cannabinoids.” Though in our house we just call her mommy.

A beautiful bridge between classic castlevanias and the more metroid-like castevanias. Being essentially non-canon the story is very simple. The controls are heavy and committed similar to a classic castlevania game but not to the degree where it impedes movement, it just punishes unnecessary and suboptimal movement. Once you get the hang of the whip and the double tap sprinting controlling the game is a real joy. Ascending up the more vertical segments with speed while also fighting enemies feels good but still vulnerable, a trait I think later metroid-like castlevanias lose a bit of. Combine that with the interesting DSS system, a beautiful castle, excellent bosses, and a banger of a soundtrack and you've got my favorite metroidvania of all time.

It's everything I've ever wanted out of a tabletop game. The rolls and skill tree are present enough to feel like I have a real input and customization in the actions of the character. Just enough interactivity to separate it from a visual novel.

Which is all good and gravy, but the main appeal is in the excellent setting and narrative.

Tabletop games like DnD have plagued me for a long time. I love the concept of them. Immersing yourself in a role and telling a group narrative. Unfortunately they never actually play out that way. The sessions I've experienced always turn into a frantic rush to the nearest dungeon or fight and then 5 hours of trap checks and the absolute slog that is tabletop combat. This of course is all dependent on your group and your DM, but for me, these sessions were a nightmare and have completely soured my opinion of games like DnD.

Citizen Sleeper gives me a taste of what I've always wanted out of DnD. I played the game from start to finish playing the role of the sleeper and doing what I thought my character should do and I was rewarded with every step. The world is easy to immerse in, the multiple narratives are all excellent, the rolls of failure and success effectively simulated the failures and successes of real life that tabletop dice rolls are supposed to simulate. My motivations were one to one with my character. I didn't do stuff so I could min/max my engineering stat line. I did stuff because I needed to eat, I wanted to help my friends, I had to pay off a rough customer. When I eventually got to a point of comfort, where I could make a steady income and survive, I felt a weird sense of pride. The Eye, in real time, began to feel like a home.

The creator of this game in a recent interview said he could keep making games and stories in the Citizen Sleeper world for years and if that's the case I'm ready for it.

I figured I'd better mark this date (11/28/2023). I maxed my silly little account. Got the big 2277. All it took was being unemployed for 2 months but I did the dang thing and no one can take that away from me. Unless they hack my account and take it away from me.

So there's a really REALLY good like 3+ hour video that explains why OSRS kicks so much ass. Definitely go watch that.

All I can say is that I spent very long, very intimate hours with every skill in this game and even the ones I thought I'd hate I eventually grew to love. There is a constant forward progress in OSRS. Every thing you do is always a step forward towards your goal. It's like doing the dishes or shoveling the driveway. Each action gets you closer to the finish line, there aren't really any step backwards to a number going up. As someone who does not like to waste his time I got a lot of quiet, peaceful, zen-like satisfaction from my 3000+ hours of gameplay.

Instagram also informs me that these are all symptoms of autism and as far as I'm concerned a max OSRS account is as good as an official doctor's diagnosis.

NOTES:
I will admit that I may be exaggerating with the "love every skill" thing. Aside from artifact stealing I think thieving sucks eggs. I also think firemaking was saved by the new afk method introduced recently. The only viable way of training it before was wintertodt and wintertodt is like a recruiting ground for bigots. I can only read so many racial slurs before I quit and train something else.

Also I am employed again. So that's cool.

Everything I could want out of a rhythm game.

The visuals are so intense and disorientating at times. The game actively tries to get you to really get lost in the flow and the rhythm. The adlib system deserves a special shoutout for actively rewarding the player for hitting notes that do not appear visually. It's like the game is giving me points for tapping my toes.

All the music is great but the vocaloid tracks in particular are perfect for the rhythm game genre. While other games have you normally playing a single part of a larger song, like just the guitar or just the vocals. Groove Coaster pretty seamlessly transitions from vocals to instruments and makes you feel like you're playing the entire song, not just a part of it. I think it works so well because vocaloid is such an interesting crossroad between vocals and instrument.

It's just a fun fun time. I've got an arcade machine just an hour drive away and I can't wait to get my grimey little mits on one of those big groove coaster nipples.

There's something about this particular era of games where the developers would make a giant castle/courtyard you can fly around that is completely empty of content. Like maybe 5% of it is interactable. It rules.

There's this balance between player convenience and realism in scale. Like you don't want the player to have to travel a long distance to get from one "fun" to the next "fun" so you abstract the scale and distance between the "funs". In the FF7 overworld, Cloud becomes a big cartoon boy and hypothetically is traveling very large distances with his thundering abstracted steps. The trade-off here being that you lose a little immersion, a little realism not in graphics but in scale. Games as an interactive medium promise worlds you can live in and can get a lot out of that scale if your willing to inconvenience the player a little. You've got to find the right balance.

The castle/courtyard in this game doesn't have much in it but the sheer act of existing on the Hogwarts campus at full scale is fun.

Best part about being the second child in a middle class family in America is capitalism will sometimes just price out your family from engaging in Christianity. Shit is way too time consuming and costly. By the time I was of a memory forming age my parents had long ago given up going to church or really any engagement in religion at all. Pretty sweet!

Not that I don't feel the weird religious guilt that is just kind of engrained into our culture but a lot of the major trauma I think I've expertly avoided.

We Know the Devil captures the subtle and not so subtle baggage of Christianity through some very clever and well written prose. Each of the gals are suffering from similar but distinctly different internal struggles and mental anguish and their interactions by themselves, as a group, and paired off are all subtly different and well explored.

I loved Venus's confused frustration with the rigged system. Neptune's anger at her friends self deprecation. Jupiter's internal disgust with herself. The dialogue can get very intimate for how short the runtime is but it never comes off as corny. The casual bits are fun and the emotional highs really hit. It is such a tight package clocking in at barely 2 hours.

Combine that with a spooky aesthetic, neat art style, some sick tracks, and a fun choice system with multiple endings and this is probably as good as visual novels are gonna get for me.

A deeply mid experience. The drilling is fun for a level or two but it becomes very clear that this core mechanic does not have the mechanical depth needed to even carry it through its 4 worlds and sub 2 hour run time. It's pretty satisfying to go into the dirt and pop out once or twice but the areas you can dig really hinder the level design. They are essentially just linear lines. You go in one end of dirt and navigate your way to the other end. This then gets combined with a grapple hook that feels truly awful to use and the cannons from Donkey Kong Country. These cannons felt like archaic game design in the 90s and here they are now in the year of our Lord 2024. I mean I love stickerbrush symphony as much as the next guy but the cannons in this game don't even require you to aim or time your shot like 90% of the time.

Then whatever momentum you can muster is stunted by the constant stop and start of looking for these dumb collectibles which I would love to ignore but they literally lock levels behind collecting them. So many of them are hidden behind walls or off screen that it forces you to crawl through levels scanning every wall for subtle cracks. Their inclusion is in complete opposition to the core appeal of the game.

Idk, the girl looks cute and I assume the fine folks worked hard on the game, but this game was just so frustrating to play. I feel a lot of love put into it but not a lot of thought.

I'm not the biggest fan of the slower paced soulslike combat that a lot of games have so I immediately turned on the infinite stamina and that was definitely the way to go. The combat is a passable attribute of the game but if you want to play Tunic for the combat then you should play something else.

Tunic's appeal is in it's world and the discovery. It is constantly playing tricks like hiding paths to later stages of an area right in front of the player but obscured by the visuals or the camera angle. Later areas begin testing you on your environmental awareness to find these tricks to progress and the last part of the game throws the combat straight into the dumpster and is solely about puzzles doable through environmental observation. I was drawn to the game from it's beautiful visuals and actively wanted to explore and this shift in gameplay seemed to have that mindset as the main design philosophy. Which ruled for me but I can see it being a turn off for others. Not that I care about other people, please definitely keep making games for me.

The other aspect of the game that was delightful is the lack of communication. I was figuring out very basic functions of the game much later than intended. Things like leveling up stats and running. It was awesome. The fake language in Tunic provides a confusion to playing the game that was nostalgic and humbling. Games have gotten so main stream now that they make a lot of assumptions out of the player to know how to accomplish basic functions. Things like operating a 3rd person camera, picking up on a characters weight and gravity, common button layouts for attacking and interacting. It was not too long ago that players were playing genres like "3D platformers" for the very first time and coming to grips with operating in a 3D environment. The average gameboy has played enough games now to have a fundamental head start in any new game they pick up but Tunic does a really great job putting new players on a similar playing field when it comes to mechanically operating the game.

Also

Also

You play as a cute fox. yessssssss