curse
1994
outside of the (understandably) on-the-nose coloured doorways nearly every instance of environmental interaction is rich and tactile. thirty years later it's still a wonder to grope and paw at every (Possibly Maybe) malleable surface and leverage every new upgrade toward greater structural manipulation and command
in ensuring how and when are given as much significance as what and where it forms a relationship between actor and environment that bears uncommonly personal patterns and markings as you learn to use Your body as an implement to interface with the world. sidepaths and back alleys that carve Under - Over - Through reshape the familiar thru layered mechanical discovery and shift the internal v external dynamic in turn; mastery of the self begetting exponential mastery of the other
a fitting problem then that the biocircuitry, plunging intestinal mazes, and gloomy dark ambient synthesis quickly become less something to endure so much as to dominate; the dissonance for show, and the brutality nakedly glamorous and one sided. so much of it exists in service to the pursuit of (Your) power, kneeling with its neck outstretched waiting to feel bones shatter for Your gratification. sure, I feel obscenely powerful, but I'd rather feel anything else
in ensuring how and when are given as much significance as what and where it forms a relationship between actor and environment that bears uncommonly personal patterns and markings as you learn to use Your body as an implement to interface with the world. sidepaths and back alleys that carve Under - Over - Through reshape the familiar thru layered mechanical discovery and shift the internal v external dynamic in turn; mastery of the self begetting exponential mastery of the other
a fitting problem then that the biocircuitry, plunging intestinal mazes, and gloomy dark ambient synthesis quickly become less something to endure so much as to dominate; the dissonance for show, and the brutality nakedly glamorous and one sided. so much of it exists in service to the pursuit of (Your) power, kneeling with its neck outstretched waiting to feel bones shatter for Your gratification. sure, I feel obscenely powerful, but I'd rather feel anything else
I can simply no longer idly stand by while users with names like realbabymario who probably wear polos and adhere to their local exterior property maintenance bylaws say games are "like crack smoked crack"
if you'd like to keep comparing computer entertainment software to drugs I'm going to hereby require evidence that you've done them. to this end you may send a video clip with your username and partaking visible as well as a signed letter of guarantorship from your dealer and That Guy who's always chilling with your dealer to my personal address: johnerowid@gmail.com
anyway, more games should feel like technoweapons. I wanna feel disoriented and unhinged and experience immediate changes in my mental state. I wanna turn it off and feel like thick, heavy cables were yanked from base of my skull. the word visceral was commandeered by marketing freaks selling gratuitous 7th gen killporn animations to teenagers, but once in a while you get a chance to remember what it actually means
some games can take hours and hours to draw a potent reaction from you; this one takes a few seconds. soon as the garish flashing, unbearable speed, and famicom techno hits you immediately understand the experience and the relationship you're gonna have with it
one of the most convincing displays of technical wizardry you'll find in 1992 or otherwise. this is the exact moment yagawa the grey turned into yagawa the white. these boys weren't just cooking, they were on that molecular gastronomy shit. that FFIX 99 frogs shit. that meowscular chef shit — no dango in sight
this hits me like saying games "feel like they were made in an albuquerque RV" hits guys who think mexico's literally yellow
🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
if you'd like to keep comparing computer entertainment software to drugs I'm going to hereby require evidence that you've done them. to this end you may send a video clip with your username and partaking visible as well as a signed letter of guarantorship from your dealer and That Guy who's always chilling with your dealer to my personal address: johnerowid@gmail.com
anyway, more games should feel like technoweapons. I wanna feel disoriented and unhinged and experience immediate changes in my mental state. I wanna turn it off and feel like thick, heavy cables were yanked from base of my skull. the word visceral was commandeered by marketing freaks selling gratuitous 7th gen killporn animations to teenagers, but once in a while you get a chance to remember what it actually means
some games can take hours and hours to draw a potent reaction from you; this one takes a few seconds. soon as the garish flashing, unbearable speed, and famicom techno hits you immediately understand the experience and the relationship you're gonna have with it
one of the most convincing displays of technical wizardry you'll find in 1992 or otherwise. this is the exact moment yagawa the grey turned into yagawa the white. these boys weren't just cooking, they were on that molecular gastronomy shit. that FFIX 99 frogs shit. that meowscular chef shit — no dango in sight
this hits me like saying games "feel like they were made in an albuquerque RV" hits guys who think mexico's literally yellow
🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
1987
guts man should've spent less time usin his super arm in the goon cave and more time usin it to lift some iron. he barely even tried to restore sacredness and dignity to dr wily. he fears death because he does not know beauty
2011
tim willits is a fuckin loser bro. man made some good doom maps (with theresa chasar, his often uncredited sister) and did great work on quake pre-champions, but he never should've been elevated into the position he was by the end of his tenure at id
american mcgee calls him a "serial credit thief" and sandy petersen attributes the collapse of id to his meddling and refers to him only as "snake"; this guy's slime. man was making claims so erroneous that he managed to get both johns to team up on his ass which is saying something. saying he invented DM-only maps for quake when anyone can go check when idmap01 or cross.wad came out for doom, or better yet just think about how goofy it is for five seconds
so what happens when this rat fraud bitch teams up with soulless automaton john carmack? awooga. the most dead eyed fps ever made. together these two men really brought the heat and redefined what it means to be vacant and empty inside. one driven only by a love of machines, the other by cynical careerism. the result would be a tech demo that has virtually no redeeming qualities; even john goodman sounds like he'd rather be anywhere else, and how can you blame him
forget passion or heart or whatever fever drives the average person to create. forget anything that resembles human input. this is referential slop; echoes of better media, better games, better products — cos that's all this thing is at the end of the day — as interpreted and executed by pulseless weirdos. subpar linear shooter, even worse pseudo open world shooter; artless aesthetic sensibilities; internally and externally ugly borderlands gopher bullshit; fallout 3 brown and bloom mad max mcnugget slime created to advance tim willits' career
if I ever write another review this mean it means tim willits just put out another game
american mcgee calls him a "serial credit thief" and sandy petersen attributes the collapse of id to his meddling and refers to him only as "snake"; this guy's slime. man was making claims so erroneous that he managed to get both johns to team up on his ass which is saying something. saying he invented DM-only maps for quake when anyone can go check when idmap01 or cross.wad came out for doom, or better yet just think about how goofy it is for five seconds
so what happens when this rat fraud bitch teams up with soulless automaton john carmack? awooga. the most dead eyed fps ever made. together these two men really brought the heat and redefined what it means to be vacant and empty inside. one driven only by a love of machines, the other by cynical careerism. the result would be a tech demo that has virtually no redeeming qualities; even john goodman sounds like he'd rather be anywhere else, and how can you blame him
forget passion or heart or whatever fever drives the average person to create. forget anything that resembles human input. this is referential slop; echoes of better media, better games, better products — cos that's all this thing is at the end of the day — as interpreted and executed by pulseless weirdos. subpar linear shooter, even worse pseudo open world shooter; artless aesthetic sensibilities; internally and externally ugly borderlands gopher bullshit; fallout 3 brown and bloom mad max mcnugget slime created to advance tim willits' career
if I ever write another review this mean it means tim willits just put out another game
your dumb ass:
randy pitchford is covered in a thin slimy film! he's a greasy pervert! he's a little creep!
reality:
the year is 1999 — randy "anti US hegemony" pitchford directs the first expansion to half-life. you play as adrian shephard, a villain sent by the USMC to assassinate all witnesses to the black mesa incident, including gordon freeman. but before you can be briefed your helicopter is shot down and you're left stranded without heads or tails of your sinister purpose
knowing you play half-life like everyone else under the sun and that you'll gun down civilians without care, pitchford creates a ludonarratively consonant scenario that incorporates known player behaviours into narrative conceits with trademark grace; one where the participant likely fulfills much of adrian's goal before they're told what it is. pitchford provides commentary on the military's success with breeding more aggressive, violent soldiers, understanding that in WWII only 15-20% of polled soldiers reported firing their weapons, whereas this number raised to 55% in korea and 90-95% in vietnam due to manufactured contempt. blending these two ideas he bridges the gap between player and character and entwines the two in an inseparable double helix mirroring both participants; nature born of accursed nurture
you and shephard are funneled along a narrower path; shuttled from combat encounter to combat encounter, and granted "tacticool" tools to make the violence more thrilling than the previous game while puzzles and horror elements are sanded down extensively. you command other soldiers who speak in garish barks and exist solely as expendable resources, the setting is treated with a heightened parodic touch, and gordon himself is depicted as "employee of the month" despite it being his first day, lampooning his impossibly grotesque ubermench status
eventually your arsenal is overtaken by alien alternatives, more explicitly showing shephard as being more monster than man, the futility of his battle, and the lack of freedom he has by design. he's then left detained where he can do no harm nor receive it, and g man closes out the game by saying "I'm sure you can imagine worse alternatives" — an acknowledgement of the struggle many veterans experience upon returning home, and the lack of support they're given from their government once they've outworn their intended function
randy, I kneel
randy pitchford is covered in a thin slimy film! he's a greasy pervert! he's a little creep!
reality:
the year is 1999 — randy "anti US hegemony" pitchford directs the first expansion to half-life. you play as adrian shephard, a villain sent by the USMC to assassinate all witnesses to the black mesa incident, including gordon freeman. but before you can be briefed your helicopter is shot down and you're left stranded without heads or tails of your sinister purpose
knowing you play half-life like everyone else under the sun and that you'll gun down civilians without care, pitchford creates a ludonarratively consonant scenario that incorporates known player behaviours into narrative conceits with trademark grace; one where the participant likely fulfills much of adrian's goal before they're told what it is. pitchford provides commentary on the military's success with breeding more aggressive, violent soldiers, understanding that in WWII only 15-20% of polled soldiers reported firing their weapons, whereas this number raised to 55% in korea and 90-95% in vietnam due to manufactured contempt. blending these two ideas he bridges the gap between player and character and entwines the two in an inseparable double helix mirroring both participants; nature born of accursed nurture
you and shephard are funneled along a narrower path; shuttled from combat encounter to combat encounter, and granted "tacticool" tools to make the violence more thrilling than the previous game while puzzles and horror elements are sanded down extensively. you command other soldiers who speak in garish barks and exist solely as expendable resources, the setting is treated with a heightened parodic touch, and gordon himself is depicted as "employee of the month" despite it being his first day, lampooning his impossibly grotesque ubermench status
eventually your arsenal is overtaken by alien alternatives, more explicitly showing shephard as being more monster than man, the futility of his battle, and the lack of freedom he has by design. he's then left detained where he can do no harm nor receive it, and g man closes out the game by saying "I'm sure you can imagine worse alternatives" — an acknowledgement of the struggle many veterans experience upon returning home, and the lack of support they're given from their government once they've outworn their intended function
randy, I kneel
2017
simply love this kinda working class industrial horror. starts off tonka souls then pulls the rug out and goes all in on daedalic technomazes, gloomy maintenance tunnels, and the kind of homogeneity that makes for the best kinda fevered n fraught navigation. very reminiscent of early 90s pc dungeon crawling, and very much a product of outsized ambitions and design choices; the kind of thing that punches well above its weight and isn't shy about bringing new ideas to the table. we should be thrilled that a developer best known for sludge like lords of the fallen was capable of this much growth in a three year span. that's fuckin sick dude, good on them
it's a shame no one seems to want to engage with it on its own terms, but the pitfall of wearing the mask of a clone is that you'll naturally be treated like one. there's a question of who's at fault here and to what extent, but the response seems especially heightened when it comes to the souls games. nearly every deviation here is done with deliberate intent, for better and worse, yet nearly all of them are treated as if deck13 misunderstands fromsoft, rather than granting even the faintest possibility that fromsoft's fanbase misunderstands deck13
iframes were reduced to bring a greater sense of dimension and purpose to spacing and positioning. limb targeting and its balance between armoured + unarmoured parts create a risk/reward situation where efficiency and economy are at odds with one another while solving the grind dilemma. guard break and overflow damage penalize poor stamina management. dial-a-combo strings provide situational offensive options and punish mashing. duck/hop reward pattern recognition with stylish defensive maneuvers. fast startups hint to get the fuck out of kissing range. and the list goes on. attempting to untangle the R1/O meta isn't easy (tanimura found that out too) but it's evident most of these choices draw directly from fighting games / 3D brawlers and try to shift the dynamic to one where the entire toolbox is equally utile and necessary. these aren't boneheaded mistakes, they're a conscious uprooting of the established verbset
now that doesn't mean you have to like any of it. you don't!! this isn't even really about whether the game's good or not but the strange refusal to consider other modes of exploring a similar foundation. browsing all the long winded steam reviews started to make me dizzy; all this time and all these words dedicated to an almost intentional misunderstanding of what was in front of them. I have infinitely more respect for the guy who says "naw this feels bad" than the guy who puts on their souls veteran uniform and postures as authority like a hall monitor
starting to wonder if any of these games will please an audience that doesn't particularly want to be pleased. it's very telling that Lies Of P's the standout fan favourite because it's the only one where if you close your eyes you could pretend it was miyazaki; a body pillow for ppl whose most formative life experience was beating the capra demon. even dark souls 2 gets berated for experimenting indulgently and drawing more from fromsoft's naotoshi zin era, so pretty much no one's safe. I don't envy anyone working in this space; you either make Demon's Souls 6 or you have to deal with immovably uncharitable weirdos with literally no interest in making adjustments outside their comfort zone
I guess it makes sense, souls fans always struggled with adaptability
it's a shame no one seems to want to engage with it on its own terms, but the pitfall of wearing the mask of a clone is that you'll naturally be treated like one. there's a question of who's at fault here and to what extent, but the response seems especially heightened when it comes to the souls games. nearly every deviation here is done with deliberate intent, for better and worse, yet nearly all of them are treated as if deck13 misunderstands fromsoft, rather than granting even the faintest possibility that fromsoft's fanbase misunderstands deck13
iframes were reduced to bring a greater sense of dimension and purpose to spacing and positioning. limb targeting and its balance between armoured + unarmoured parts create a risk/reward situation where efficiency and economy are at odds with one another while solving the grind dilemma. guard break and overflow damage penalize poor stamina management. dial-a-combo strings provide situational offensive options and punish mashing. duck/hop reward pattern recognition with stylish defensive maneuvers. fast startups hint to get the fuck out of kissing range. and the list goes on. attempting to untangle the R1/O meta isn't easy (tanimura found that out too) but it's evident most of these choices draw directly from fighting games / 3D brawlers and try to shift the dynamic to one where the entire toolbox is equally utile and necessary. these aren't boneheaded mistakes, they're a conscious uprooting of the established verbset
now that doesn't mean you have to like any of it. you don't!! this isn't even really about whether the game's good or not but the strange refusal to consider other modes of exploring a similar foundation. browsing all the long winded steam reviews started to make me dizzy; all this time and all these words dedicated to an almost intentional misunderstanding of what was in front of them. I have infinitely more respect for the guy who says "naw this feels bad" than the guy who puts on their souls veteran uniform and postures as authority like a hall monitor
starting to wonder if any of these games will please an audience that doesn't particularly want to be pleased. it's very telling that Lies Of P's the standout fan favourite because it's the only one where if you close your eyes you could pretend it was miyazaki; a body pillow for ppl whose most formative life experience was beating the capra demon. even dark souls 2 gets berated for experimenting indulgently and drawing more from fromsoft's naotoshi zin era, so pretty much no one's safe. I don't envy anyone working in this space; you either make Demon's Souls 6 or you have to deal with immovably uncharitable weirdos with literally no interest in making adjustments outside their comfort zone
I guess it makes sense, souls fans always struggled with adaptability
that time kazuma kaneko + shoji meguro summoned a whorling liminal space that tricked jrpg fans into enjoying meat + potatoes (teleporters + pitfalls) dungeon crawling. same shit your grampa plinked away at on his apple II a century ago, same shit your grandkids will plink away at on their apple II a century from now in their neofeudal bunkers
and much like your relatives, I love that shit; I love a big ass maze with a million dead ends, and if it ain't broke don't fix it, lest we end up with whatever the fuck those P3 + P4 dungeons were
at its best and most confident it understands the simple things — things like teleporters originally being designed to thwart manual graphing; that automap needs to be accounted for with appropriately disorienting, discordant layouts and structures; and that imbuing a sense of doomed futility is non-negotiable. there's a desire here to smother, obstruct and impede; a love of mazes that reveals its hand in slow motion, peaking with twinned monstrosities — the labyrinth of amala, and the tower of kagutsuchi — that crank the pressure inch by excruciating inch
complimenting it is the arrival of press turn serving as an antidote to blobber slugfests and the sedentary JRPG-isms that descended from them — the dynamic action economy shifting combat from sludgy attrition to a revolving door of lightning round encounters closer to puzzles than math problems. it's no surprise that many of the bosses took up hallowed positions in the genre pantheon, nor that the sinewy party building was so lauded — few games in the genre that succeeded it would be so mechanically accomplished, to say nothing about those that came prior
all of this is further defined by an aesthetic sensibility befitting a "vortex world"; a collage of textures, words, images, sounds, and ideas — from solipsism to darwinism to occult esoterica — delivered in broad, painterly strokes, flickering past rapidly in service of potency and immediacy above all else
the sensation is one of extraordinary emptiness, intentional and otherwise; nihilism born from its themes as much as the capricious relationship it has with them. a fugue state drive through half-conjured nouns and adjectives that recede at the slightest touch; worlds, people, and ideologies just fuel for ephemeral spectacle
nocturne feels like it's trapped in amber: a static image of a bygone era for megaten, atlus, and the medium as a whole, still shadowed by fables and folklore about its difficulty, opaqueness, and bizarre allure. newcomers still looking over their shoulder for matador and finding themselves lost under waves and waves of dead ends and instant kills, further prolonging its mythic qualities
far from perfect in any sense of the word, it persists nonetheless as an object with no clear analogue. atlus will assuredly try and fail to replicate its appeal until heat death of the universe, but it's telling that even they can't quite pin down what happened here, why, or how — and who could really blame them?
brief thoughts on the remaster:
can't say I'm happy about the JRPG Paypig Tax or the crusty ultra compressed 128kbps OST, but it seems few people are mentioning the one inclusion that makes the remaster worthwhile: the option to play the original pre-maniax version of nocturne — previously unreleased outside of japan
while most won't be interested in seeing the game in what's widely understood to be an unfinished state — no fiends, no labyrinth, nodante raidou, or True Demon Ending — it's exciting to have the option to return to the game at its most rudimentary and see how the differences affect an experience long since overwritten by a slew of rereleases and additional material that recontextualize many of its design decisions
unfortunately, it's only present on the PC version, but credit where credit's due: atlus didn't fuck something up for once, and that's a miracle. I'd still rather eat gravel than pay full price for this thing, but it's a big, quiet win nonetheless from the least likely of places
"worst guy you know" etc.
and much like your relatives, I love that shit; I love a big ass maze with a million dead ends, and if it ain't broke don't fix it, lest we end up with whatever the fuck those P3 + P4 dungeons were
at its best and most confident it understands the simple things — things like teleporters originally being designed to thwart manual graphing; that automap needs to be accounted for with appropriately disorienting, discordant layouts and structures; and that imbuing a sense of doomed futility is non-negotiable. there's a desire here to smother, obstruct and impede; a love of mazes that reveals its hand in slow motion, peaking with twinned monstrosities — the labyrinth of amala, and the tower of kagutsuchi — that crank the pressure inch by excruciating inch
complimenting it is the arrival of press turn serving as an antidote to blobber slugfests and the sedentary JRPG-isms that descended from them — the dynamic action economy shifting combat from sludgy attrition to a revolving door of lightning round encounters closer to puzzles than math problems. it's no surprise that many of the bosses took up hallowed positions in the genre pantheon, nor that the sinewy party building was so lauded — few games in the genre that succeeded it would be so mechanically accomplished, to say nothing about those that came prior
all of this is further defined by an aesthetic sensibility befitting a "vortex world"; a collage of textures, words, images, sounds, and ideas — from solipsism to darwinism to occult esoterica — delivered in broad, painterly strokes, flickering past rapidly in service of potency and immediacy above all else
the sensation is one of extraordinary emptiness, intentional and otherwise; nihilism born from its themes as much as the capricious relationship it has with them. a fugue state drive through half-conjured nouns and adjectives that recede at the slightest touch; worlds, people, and ideologies just fuel for ephemeral spectacle
nocturne feels like it's trapped in amber: a static image of a bygone era for megaten, atlus, and the medium as a whole, still shadowed by fables and folklore about its difficulty, opaqueness, and bizarre allure. newcomers still looking over their shoulder for matador and finding themselves lost under waves and waves of dead ends and instant kills, further prolonging its mythic qualities
far from perfect in any sense of the word, it persists nonetheless as an object with no clear analogue. atlus will assuredly try and fail to replicate its appeal until heat death of the universe, but it's telling that even they can't quite pin down what happened here, why, or how — and who could really blame them?
brief thoughts on the remaster:
can't say I'm happy about the JRPG Paypig Tax or the crusty ultra compressed 128kbps OST, but it seems few people are mentioning the one inclusion that makes the remaster worthwhile: the option to play the original pre-maniax version of nocturne — previously unreleased outside of japan
while most won't be interested in seeing the game in what's widely understood to be an unfinished state — no fiends, no labyrinth, no
unfortunately, it's only present on the PC version, but credit where credit's due: atlus didn't fuck something up for once, and that's a miracle. I'd still rather eat gravel than pay full price for this thing, but it's a big, quiet win nonetheless from the least likely of places
"worst guy you know" etc.
ENTRYWAY
thirty second par
but how could anybody
want to leave so soon
initially my plan was to write a series of 32 haikus, one for each level, with the intention of succinctly boiling things down into a heartfelt gesture. the problem there's that doom II's anything but succinct; it's a towering, monolithic game that bears down on you at all times. breathless formatting, increased enemy numbers, more byzantine, avant garde mapping, chaotic texturing, new enemies, and a one-of-a-kind fan community that's opened up an endless limitless world of More Doom and turned it into something you could spend a lifetime emerged in without seeing everything worthwhile or learning all its finest details. to try to sum things up poetically is a fool's errand; doom II can't be boiled down into 544 syllables, least of all by me
REFUELING BASE
this from the man who
put 95 spawns into
quake episode 4
a narrative has developed that suggests doom II's second half is something irredeemable — not just underwhelming, but outright bad — and it's a load of shit. if you don't like TENEMENTS or COURTYARD that's an indictment of your taste, not the quality of the mapping present here. the way sandy in particular maps with such expressive, inventive, and experimental brushstrokes is something we should relish and appreciate; doom and quake wouldn't be what they are without his contributions, and he's one of the genre's most important level designers hands down
that the game feels like a fever dream is largely a result of his 17(!!!!) maps and their wild refusal to adhere to conventional logic or standard. people out here begging and crying for euclidian techbases when my man barfed textures in a pile and turned it into something as good as TRICKS AND TRAPS. "SUBURBS ISNT REALISTIC" you scream into your pillow while I smile big with my cute dimples showing cos I'm enjoying a really fun map. "CHASM IS BAD" you shriek so loud you get evicted while I enjoy some first person platforming and reminisce about turok dinosaur hunter being the best game on the N64. no one, and I mean No One advanced the space for creation here more substantially. fuck verisimilitude, let's dance
SUBURBS
welcome all neighbors
to our annual cookout
bring your own bodies
they could've called it perfect doom: an evolutionary step that marked its final form and near-complete status as a standardized toolset. they could've dropped the number and signaled it as just being a big ass messy sloppy cuhrazy megawad and called it a day and 99% of the shit talk would be stopped in its erroneous tracks. really, I don't even think there's a good argument that doom's better unless you're looking at it as some hermetically pure retail project rather than a couplet of frameworks or stepping stones to greater ideas. hindsight is 50/50, but we're graced with enough distance now to know that any assessment of the material should be done while understanding what it wrought; that none of this exists in that Big Box Vacuum and never really did — shareware being the first and last exposure many, many people had in the first place, and doom always being a game that's chopped n screwed in as many ways as possible. doom is ragged and raw; it's tendrils, it's wild kudzu and overgrowth and every idea every middle schooler ever jotted in a notebook. to appraise this in a sanitized quarantine is geek shit I simply can't abide by. this is an immaculate vessel that had the good grace to show up with 32 mostly sick maps
THE FACTORY
fifty indie games
that look exactly like this
steam early access
if any game exists as some kind of broad communal accomplishment, it's probably doom. opening with an open source branch to the community, and closing long after we're buried. ads for lotions interrupt our epitaphs while someone named grizzlyguzzler releases the cacoward winning "scronky bonky II" and sets neo doomworld ablaze with passionate discussion. Did You See The Part Where. I Can't Believe That. How Did They Even...
billionaires pump sicko dollars into metaverses and games-within-games-within-games; some eternal platform-slash-cenotaph is conjured by the world's most killable humans; disfigured 3D models waggle and wave in cyberspace trying desperately to create something as remotely meaningful, intravenously sucking on your wallet to please money perverts before being sent to the scrap heap
good luck
DEAD SIMPLE
perfect little map
the homages will go on
past our life and death
thirty second par
but how could anybody
want to leave so soon
initially my plan was to write a series of 32 haikus, one for each level, with the intention of succinctly boiling things down into a heartfelt gesture. the problem there's that doom II's anything but succinct; it's a towering, monolithic game that bears down on you at all times. breathless formatting, increased enemy numbers, more byzantine, avant garde mapping, chaotic texturing, new enemies, and a one-of-a-kind fan community that's opened up an endless limitless world of More Doom and turned it into something you could spend a lifetime emerged in without seeing everything worthwhile or learning all its finest details. to try to sum things up poetically is a fool's errand; doom II can't be boiled down into 544 syllables, least of all by me
REFUELING BASE
this from the man who
put 95 spawns into
quake episode 4
a narrative has developed that suggests doom II's second half is something irredeemable — not just underwhelming, but outright bad — and it's a load of shit. if you don't like TENEMENTS or COURTYARD that's an indictment of your taste, not the quality of the mapping present here. the way sandy in particular maps with such expressive, inventive, and experimental brushstrokes is something we should relish and appreciate; doom and quake wouldn't be what they are without his contributions, and he's one of the genre's most important level designers hands down
that the game feels like a fever dream is largely a result of his 17(!!!!) maps and their wild refusal to adhere to conventional logic or standard. people out here begging and crying for euclidian techbases when my man barfed textures in a pile and turned it into something as good as TRICKS AND TRAPS. "SUBURBS ISNT REALISTIC" you scream into your pillow while I smile big with my cute dimples showing cos I'm enjoying a really fun map. "CHASM IS BAD" you shriek so loud you get evicted while I enjoy some first person platforming and reminisce about turok dinosaur hunter being the best game on the N64. no one, and I mean No One advanced the space for creation here more substantially. fuck verisimilitude, let's dance
SUBURBS
welcome all neighbors
to our annual cookout
bring your own bodies
they could've called it perfect doom: an evolutionary step that marked its final form and near-complete status as a standardized toolset. they could've dropped the number and signaled it as just being a big ass messy sloppy cuhrazy megawad and called it a day and 99% of the shit talk would be stopped in its erroneous tracks. really, I don't even think there's a good argument that doom's better unless you're looking at it as some hermetically pure retail project rather than a couplet of frameworks or stepping stones to greater ideas. hindsight is 50/50, but we're graced with enough distance now to know that any assessment of the material should be done while understanding what it wrought; that none of this exists in that Big Box Vacuum and never really did — shareware being the first and last exposure many, many people had in the first place, and doom always being a game that's chopped n screwed in as many ways as possible. doom is ragged and raw; it's tendrils, it's wild kudzu and overgrowth and every idea every middle schooler ever jotted in a notebook. to appraise this in a sanitized quarantine is geek shit I simply can't abide by. this is an immaculate vessel that had the good grace to show up with 32 mostly sick maps
THE FACTORY
fifty indie games
that look exactly like this
steam early access
if any game exists as some kind of broad communal accomplishment, it's probably doom. opening with an open source branch to the community, and closing long after we're buried. ads for lotions interrupt our epitaphs while someone named grizzlyguzzler releases the cacoward winning "scronky bonky II" and sets neo doomworld ablaze with passionate discussion. Did You See The Part Where. I Can't Believe That. How Did They Even...
billionaires pump sicko dollars into metaverses and games-within-games-within-games; some eternal platform-slash-cenotaph is conjured by the world's most killable humans; disfigured 3D models waggle and wave in cyberspace trying desperately to create something as remotely meaningful, intravenously sucking on your wallet to please money perverts before being sent to the scrap heap
good luck
DEAD SIMPLE
perfect little map
the homages will go on
past our life and death
man if i were to rattle off the shit here that doesn't work you'd think I was gonna hit it with a score so far below sea level it'd resemble a skellige treasure chest
almost the entire mechanical backbone here's a write off: dozy combat that even death march can't wake up, detective bits that require ketchup and mustard vision, randomized loot, level scaled gear, and bogus character progression being but a sample of the bungled and fucked nature of the core experience. save for gwent — which I love with all my heart — there isn't a lot on this end that holds up to scrutiny
if TW1 was about being a witcher and TW2 was about not being a witcher, TW3 positions itself back toward a foggy approximation of the role — broader and less angular, more devoted to a holistic approach than the fine details of witching. rather than have you inhabit geralt through stances, investigations, research, and alchemical prepwork, it hopes its breadth can elevate it; that what's been lost can be made up for with its massive world and shift in storytelling
and it works? not so much with the main quest, but just about everywhere else. turns out you can abstract the entire verbset into soft serve and still end up with a decent game if you got the writing, world building, and quest design to make up for it. the most ancient trick in the rpg book appears to be alive and well
but before that we gotta talk about the real shit: monsters
I love monsters like persona fans love the status quo. I love monsters like nerds love looking like this when they see 2B. ogres, trolls, centipede demons, sirens, kappas, demon walls, materia keepers, the doctors from dead ringers, street sharks, whatever man
I love monsters like jet fuel loves steel beams. I love draculas and werewolves and wanyudos and carly beth's haunted mask and that fucker from the end of onimusha warlords. I love lucy clifford's new mother and the thing and worms that walk and gelatinous cubes and black dogs and a cyclops. TW3 is the most monster ass monster game since TW1 and that's what it's all about. fakers and charlatans will tell you monster hunter takes the prize, but that's a game about killing animals buddy
if you thought I was actually gonna ramble on about the writing and shit like some seventeen hour youtube video, think twice; you all know where you stand by now. if it didn't take me five years to finish TW2 maybe I'd have some real juicy points to make but it did and I don't
I love monsters, I love gwent, I love the way the sidequests squirm and wriggle despite the staid limits of the systems and mechanics that house them. I love the gorgeous outfits and fabrics and the lush colour palette and the bestiary and geralt's bone dry quips and how they managed to make a game so frequently fuckin funny. I love everyone's jacked up teeth
first and last time I'll ever get ubipilled, savour it
almost the entire mechanical backbone here's a write off: dozy combat that even death march can't wake up, detective bits that require ketchup and mustard vision, randomized loot, level scaled gear, and bogus character progression being but a sample of the bungled and fucked nature of the core experience. save for gwent — which I love with all my heart — there isn't a lot on this end that holds up to scrutiny
if TW1 was about being a witcher and TW2 was about not being a witcher, TW3 positions itself back toward a foggy approximation of the role — broader and less angular, more devoted to a holistic approach than the fine details of witching. rather than have you inhabit geralt through stances, investigations, research, and alchemical prepwork, it hopes its breadth can elevate it; that what's been lost can be made up for with its massive world and shift in storytelling
and it works? not so much with the main quest, but just about everywhere else. turns out you can abstract the entire verbset into soft serve and still end up with a decent game if you got the writing, world building, and quest design to make up for it. the most ancient trick in the rpg book appears to be alive and well
but before that we gotta talk about the real shit: monsters
I love monsters like persona fans love the status quo. I love monsters like nerds love looking like this when they see 2B. ogres, trolls, centipede demons, sirens, kappas, demon walls, materia keepers, the doctors from dead ringers, street sharks, whatever man
I love monsters like jet fuel loves steel beams. I love draculas and werewolves and wanyudos and carly beth's haunted mask and that fucker from the end of onimusha warlords. I love lucy clifford's new mother and the thing and worms that walk and gelatinous cubes and black dogs and a cyclops. TW3 is the most monster ass monster game since TW1 and that's what it's all about. fakers and charlatans will tell you monster hunter takes the prize, but that's a game about killing animals buddy
if you thought I was actually gonna ramble on about the writing and shit like some seventeen hour youtube video, think twice; you all know where you stand by now. if it didn't take me five years to finish TW2 maybe I'd have some real juicy points to make but it did and I don't
I love monsters, I love gwent, I love the way the sidequests squirm and wriggle despite the staid limits of the systems and mechanics that house them. I love the gorgeous outfits and fabrics and the lush colour palette and the bestiary and geralt's bone dry quips and how they managed to make a game so frequently fuckin funny. I love everyone's jacked up teeth
first and last time I'll ever get ubipilled, savour it
2022
there's a divine sickness here
kaleidostepping thru wormholes and slipgates as glass contortionist. future ghosts looming in red silhouettes. shapeless forms ticking down toward birth. a remote viewer orbiting above a shrinking planet. a killing field itinerary. liquid gold warping into sinister geometries as you try to claw sand back into a broken hourglass
so thoroughly enveloping as to be transportive; the exit back to common sensation being as disorienting as the ominous entrance. delayed anxiety and nausea upon release from cruel hypnosis. rewriting neural pathways with everything you don't want in your brain
long live the new flesh
kaleidostepping thru wormholes and slipgates as glass contortionist. future ghosts looming in red silhouettes. shapeless forms ticking down toward birth. a remote viewer orbiting above a shrinking planet. a killing field itinerary. liquid gold warping into sinister geometries as you try to claw sand back into a broken hourglass
so thoroughly enveloping as to be transportive; the exit back to common sensation being as disorienting as the ominous entrance. delayed anxiety and nausea upon release from cruel hypnosis. rewriting neural pathways with everything you don't want in your brain
long live the new flesh
1989
now I know how all the other guys named john wayne gacy must've felt
2007
I'm in love with the way EO leverages the DS to digitize manual mapping. absolutely wonderful, beautiful stuff that captures the spirit of the genre a billion million zillion times better than any automap ever could. in a perfect world this would've heralded imitative ports of every drpg under the sun, and all of them would've been strong contenders for the best versions by default. unfortunately we live in the eternal piss and shit dimension so I'm doomed to pout about the missed opportunity for the rest of my life
as for the rest: game's like one of those images where either you see the old crone or the smokin hot babe; the lamp or the smoking hot babe; the white and gold dress or the smokin hot babe. you know?
from what I gather if you're coming at it from an EO perspective this thing feels like it was coded straight into zhoukoudian limestone by the peking man. folks act like it's the dustiest, crustiest, most satanic verses ass antipathetic crawler ever made. they're out here throwing blankets over their ds at night like a furby to stop it from talking backwards and shit
but if you're coming at it from a broader drpg perspective it's almost the complete opposite: decidedly modern, breezy, and accommodating; its push toward transparency, telegraphs, and convenience at odds with the core tension loop pre-bradley wizardry clones fundamentally rely on
I fall into the second category and found most of this to be pretty dry. by the time I hit the 5th Stratum I was approaching vegetative status, zoning out and mashing A with one hand while reading scandalous celebrity gossip on my phone in the other. hovering out of body, well above the dungeon rather than being subsumed by it; existing outside of stress, anxiety, and uneasy decision making. EO just doesn't got the stomach to wrench your guts around, put you on the perpetual backstep, or fill the role of derelict steward the way the most successful clones do
which is fine! I like most of the experimentation here in isolation; there's a dialogue happening that's a lot more interesting than reheating 1980-1988 endlessly. the deterministic angle opens up a lot of unique design avenues; character building could easily swerve toward embracing shortform tactics over longform attrition, and moments like B20F show that FOEs can be more than softball fodder goin woop woop woop in a 3x3 grid. there's a lot to be excited about, it just needs to be contextualized in ways that flatter rather than compromise
more than anything EO needs to stop being uncomfortable in borrowed skin and start being comfortable in its own. no reason to be another mediocre wizardry when it could be a great etrian odyssey 🌈 ⭐❤️
as for the rest: game's like one of those images where either you see the old crone or the smokin hot babe; the lamp or the smoking hot babe; the white and gold dress or the smokin hot babe. you know?
from what I gather if you're coming at it from an EO perspective this thing feels like it was coded straight into zhoukoudian limestone by the peking man. folks act like it's the dustiest, crustiest, most satanic verses ass antipathetic crawler ever made. they're out here throwing blankets over their ds at night like a furby to stop it from talking backwards and shit
but if you're coming at it from a broader drpg perspective it's almost the complete opposite: decidedly modern, breezy, and accommodating; its push toward transparency, telegraphs, and convenience at odds with the core tension loop pre-bradley wizardry clones fundamentally rely on
I fall into the second category and found most of this to be pretty dry. by the time I hit the 5th Stratum I was approaching vegetative status, zoning out and mashing A with one hand while reading scandalous celebrity gossip on my phone in the other. hovering out of body, well above the dungeon rather than being subsumed by it; existing outside of stress, anxiety, and uneasy decision making. EO just doesn't got the stomach to wrench your guts around, put you on the perpetual backstep, or fill the role of derelict steward the way the most successful clones do
which is fine! I like most of the experimentation here in isolation; there's a dialogue happening that's a lot more interesting than reheating 1980-1988 endlessly. the deterministic angle opens up a lot of unique design avenues; character building could easily swerve toward embracing shortform tactics over longform attrition, and moments like B20F show that FOEs can be more than softball fodder goin woop woop woop in a 3x3 grid. there's a lot to be excited about, it just needs to be contextualized in ways that flatter rather than compromise
more than anything EO needs to stop being uncomfortable in borrowed skin and start being comfortable in its own. no reason to be another mediocre wizardry when it could be a great etrian odyssey 🌈 ⭐❤️
for less than the cost of Middle-earth: Shadow of War you can image search "Viggo Mortensen Kissing David Cronenberg", which you will enjoy much more
2017
you had to be there
when the online wasn't a ghost town it felt like the full experience it quite obviously isn't in any other context. the fashion, the modular create-a-wrestler style movelists, duels; it was delightful, if insanely obtuse in ways it never should've been allowed to be. absolver is a dreamer's game, made with the impractical grandeur of idealists
the dark souls veneer followed by the realization that the single player content was a total wasteland certainly turned some folks off, and it's not tough to figure out why. uncover this shortcut, now fight this boss, now calibrate the north western stance in your cardinal direction combo deck. regular people turned to goop when this shit hit; folks were disintegrated for thinking it's another R1 bonanza. this is a fighting game, baby, or at least the corpse of one
revisiting it now's a bummer. just doesn't hit the same way without player interaction. an extended tutorial devised to usher you toward a wider community that's dead and gone. bones long turned to dust. the fallout 1 death screen where you're slumped in the desert repeating for eternity
ppl talk about when mmos lose their communities, but there's something extra sad about this space + time for me. reaching for the moon, designing a combat system so heavy and nuanced, and then having it relegated to fighting hollows in the undead burg forever. purgatory shit. gustave dore woodcuts depicted this exact scenario and we should've learned from them
true marvel of ungoverned spirit. indie games rarely felt so brazen and optimistic as in those ten minutes in time
when the online wasn't a ghost town it felt like the full experience it quite obviously isn't in any other context. the fashion, the modular create-a-wrestler style movelists, duels; it was delightful, if insanely obtuse in ways it never should've been allowed to be. absolver is a dreamer's game, made with the impractical grandeur of idealists
the dark souls veneer followed by the realization that the single player content was a total wasteland certainly turned some folks off, and it's not tough to figure out why. uncover this shortcut, now fight this boss, now calibrate the north western stance in your cardinal direction combo deck. regular people turned to goop when this shit hit; folks were disintegrated for thinking it's another R1 bonanza. this is a fighting game, baby, or at least the corpse of one
revisiting it now's a bummer. just doesn't hit the same way without player interaction. an extended tutorial devised to usher you toward a wider community that's dead and gone. bones long turned to dust. the fallout 1 death screen where you're slumped in the desert repeating for eternity
ppl talk about when mmos lose their communities, but there's something extra sad about this space + time for me. reaching for the moon, designing a combat system so heavy and nuanced, and then having it relegated to fighting hollows in the undead burg forever. purgatory shit. gustave dore woodcuts depicted this exact scenario and we should've learned from them
true marvel of ungoverned spirit. indie games rarely felt so brazen and optimistic as in those ten minutes in time
1999
I love shinji mikami but I gotta say
damn bitch, you made this?
they called this shit "panic horror" and boy I'm panicking — panicking that there might be another god awful pipe puzzle from the twisted mind of shu takumi or that once I'm done collecting two of every keycard under the sun someone might ask me to build an ark
with little interest in horror or combat dino crisis bets it all on sludgy adventure game tedium and loses. it might've worked better if there was even a hint of resident evil's unhinged charisma — the weird doors, weird keys, bonkers architecture etc — but what's here is crushingly dull from top to bottom
if it wasn't for the narrative branching and crafting system I'd be hitting it with the chicxulub impactor grade extinction score it otherwise deserves, but I gotta acknowledge how cool that stuff waswhen RE3 made good on it later that year
reading more into the development I found that not only did shu takumi design all the puzzles, he served as the game's director before being fired after throwing the team into "uncalled for confusion" due to his lack of experience. kamiya and takumi corroborate this with the former referring to takumi as the game's director to this day and the latter alluding to mikami's role as being that of a fixer — someone brought in to get the project back on rails after much of the game had been already established
I love shu takumi but I gotta say
damn bitch, you made this?
damn bitch, you made this?
they called this shit "panic horror" and boy I'm panicking — panicking that there might be another god awful pipe puzzle from the twisted mind of shu takumi or that once I'm done collecting two of every keycard under the sun someone might ask me to build an ark
with little interest in horror or combat dino crisis bets it all on sludgy adventure game tedium and loses. it might've worked better if there was even a hint of resident evil's unhinged charisma — the weird doors, weird keys, bonkers architecture etc — but what's here is crushingly dull from top to bottom
if it wasn't for the narrative branching and crafting system I'd be hitting it with the chicxulub impactor grade extinction score it otherwise deserves, but I gotta acknowledge how cool that stuff was
reading more into the development I found that not only did shu takumi design all the puzzles, he served as the game's director before being fired after throwing the team into "uncalled for confusion" due to his lack of experience. kamiya and takumi corroborate this with the former referring to takumi as the game's director to this day and the latter alluding to mikami's role as being that of a fixer — someone brought in to get the project back on rails after much of the game had been already established
I love shu takumi but I gotta say
damn bitch, you made this?