iznaroth
68 Reviews liked by iznaroth
This review contains spoilers
the Hearthians are born into a world without choice. you are going down with the ship, so to speak, whether you want to or not. the base game toys with the idea that maybe you might be able to stop this, maybe you can evacuate everyone, maybe you can just fight and do.... Something, anything in the face of inevitable annihilation. slowly through exploration, you learn more and come to terms with your fate. pulling the warp core from the Ash Twin project is looking your own death in the face and choosing Yes, like a warm handshake of a deal for one last goodbye to all of your friends. you understand what Solanum has known for what must feel like an eternity. the Nomai were wrong: the Eye of the Universe was not malicious or cruel, it simply Is. and we Were.
in Echoes of the Eye, it reframes this question. who are we to deny the universe the privilege of hearing the siren's call of the Eye? how do you come to terms with your world's inevitable death when your species is what caused it? how do you cope with the fact that your people destroyed their only home in the stars in pursuit of an unknowable power, only to discover they were wrong about it from the beginning?
the answer is that you do this violently. you hide yourself from the public world. you destroy the evidence of what you've done. you imprison your own kind. you kill intruders. you enact this so that you can maintain the idea that things can go back to The Way They Were, despite the glaring cracks in the façade. it is these cracks that the player is able to exploit and push through, and eventually cause the dam to break.
only at the end of everything, after the waters have flooded and put out every fire keeping the Strangers alive, The Prisoner accompanying you to the Eye is able to see what their kind was so afraid of: Uncertainty.
how strange to meet obliteration this way... not alone by blowing out your own lantern in a prison cell, but surrounded by new strangers that care for you. i wish we had more time together. ah, oh well... until we meet again
in Echoes of the Eye, it reframes this question. who are we to deny the universe the privilege of hearing the siren's call of the Eye? how do you come to terms with your world's inevitable death when your species is what caused it? how do you cope with the fact that your people destroyed their only home in the stars in pursuit of an unknowable power, only to discover they were wrong about it from the beginning?
the answer is that you do this violently. you hide yourself from the public world. you destroy the evidence of what you've done. you imprison your own kind. you kill intruders. you enact this so that you can maintain the idea that things can go back to The Way They Were, despite the glaring cracks in the façade. it is these cracks that the player is able to exploit and push through, and eventually cause the dam to break.
only at the end of everything, after the waters have flooded and put out every fire keeping the Strangers alive, The Prisoner accompanying you to the Eye is able to see what their kind was so afraid of: Uncertainty.
how strange to meet obliteration this way... not alone by blowing out your own lantern in a prison cell, but surrounded by new strangers that care for you. i wish we had more time together. ah, oh well... until we meet again
No Man's Sky
2016
Replayed for the first time since launch to see what the famous Updates were about. They must be good, people never stopped bringing them up every time Hello Games added a new type of fern.
All these years and the game is still an exercise in prefab asset tourism - once the novelty wears thin and the artifice sets in, you come to realise that all of the tension comes in the form of anticipating what colour the trees are going to be on the planet you're leisurely approaching. No Man's Sky does about as poor a job of conveying information to the player as Destiny 2. This thing is now a hulking behemoth of retrofitted mechanics that gracelessly clash together, and poorly explain themselves with a haphazard collage of tutorials and tooltips leaving the first thirty minutes of this game with the UI looking like fucking a ransom note. Way to make space travel feel like homework.
All these years and the game is still an exercise in prefab asset tourism - once the novelty wears thin and the artifice sets in, you come to realise that all of the tension comes in the form of anticipating what colour the trees are going to be on the planet you're leisurely approaching. No Man's Sky does about as poor a job of conveying information to the player as Destiny 2. This thing is now a hulking behemoth of retrofitted mechanics that gracelessly clash together, and poorly explain themselves with a haphazard collage of tutorials and tooltips leaving the first thirty minutes of this game with the UI looking like fucking a ransom note. Way to make space travel feel like homework.
Factorio
2016
I think Factorio manages to do what very few other games in this sort of mini-genre of factory games do and threads a very fine line between being a very satisfying and complex factory strategy game while also conveying through just its aesthetic that this sort of enormous-scale industrialization is definitely making you the bad guy.
a true hidden gem within the MV genre. it thrives on being a game that gives you a lot of freedom to explore and get lost in the depth of the planet you're stuck on.
there are so many possible secrets that you can find if you are willing to look for them. its art style is maybe a bit simplistic, but it does have strong direction at least. the bosses can be very challenging, but the combat and movement systems are deeper than you'd expect and lead to thrilling moments of triumph when you do overcome those bosses. MV fans MUST give this game a look!
there are so many possible secrets that you can find if you are willing to look for them. its art style is maybe a bit simplistic, but it does have strong direction at least. the bosses can be very challenging, but the combat and movement systems are deeper than you'd expect and lead to thrilling moments of triumph when you do overcome those bosses. MV fans MUST give this game a look!
Noita
2020
The best game of the 2020’s and it came out in 2020
Elden Ring
2022
This review was written before the game released
She elden on my ring till i'm far fromsoft
Nuclear Throne
2015
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OlliOlli World
2022
OlliOlli World is a near-perfect skate masterpiece that should join juggernauts like the Tony Hawk franchise in sweet gaming Gnarvana.
The gameplay is smooth, responsive, and layered for those who just want to beat the game and those who want to master it. Challenges are tough and will feel unfair at first, but by figuring out what makes this game tick, you can truly dominate the leaderboards and challenges. I think one of the best examples myself when playing this game was the insane amount of jumps in this game that seem "impossible" to make. At times, I even spent hours on this, convincing myself I was in the midst of a much harder game than it let on. However, after realizing the fact that some rails are slanted upwards, meant to be ridden off, and the fact that the game considers and boosts tricks a couple frames off of a rail, you can hit almost any jump in this game, sometimes even saving a run in which you lacked momentum thanks to you knowing the tech. Games that really make you appreciate the technical abilities and creations of the devs usually shoot to the top of my favorites, and OlliOlli World is no different.
The story is quite basic, but the dialogue is often satiristic of skate culture, oft mocking its "dude-bro" and "radical" perception in the media and replacing it with a lot more sensical characters. Critiques are often satirizations of commercialization and commodification of skateboarding, something with humble roots being turned into a product by our modern markets. I don't want to be the snob who looks super deep into this stuff, it's a skating game for gods sake, but it feels refreshing rather than most games just saying "Good job!" and "Nice!" and "Fail!". The people who made this game obviously were comfortable to make it something deeper.
The art-style is fantasic, reminding me of the early 2010s cartoon franchise "Adventure Time" with its colorful world and cutsey graphics. Players have a variety of choices for their wardrobe and character's bodytype, along with the fact that they'll unlock more gear by doing challenges and setting high scores.
The low-fi soundtrack puts you into a trance while playing, combining tracks meant to put you at ease, with tracks that really are mandatory to listen to while you're setting full combos of the levels, making you feel like a badass as you put down your last trick and wait in anxiety at where you placed on a global scale. Although, it was fun to play with the audio muted and switching over to the Tony Hawk soundtrack. Don't think I'll ever grow out of "Guerrilla Radio".
For the few complaints I do have with the game, they're all relatively minor. The last area, Los Vulgas, is underwhelming often in design whereas the previous four areas makes your jaw drop with visuals. This could also just be attributed to the fact that it is the fifth world, and you're starting to get the hang of the formula much more than the previous levels. They're also designed pretty anti-player, with WAY too many pathways, creating confusion on where you can and cannot go in certain areas. Nothing was wrong with the more linear starter levels, in my opinion.
The only other complaint I have is the fact that it seems like Take-Two has their hands somewhat in this game, and it feels somewhat dirty that there's a multiplayer component they lock some of the coolest stances behind (They put the goddamn Steve Buschemi fellow kids thing in the game, and the only way you can do it is playing the multiplayer until they decide to "give" it to you with a streak of days in a row played, or some other stuff. Ew!). Again, relatively small complaint, but the fact that some of the coolest boards or things that could fit better with your character are locked behind mandatory multiplayer, but I know everyone isn't a progression-obsesser as much as I am.
Overall, buy this game now. I think it's the best thing I've played so far this year, we'll see if I make it to the souls-like-that-shall-not-be-named, but, this is an epic start to a franchise that has always been underappreciated.
The gameplay is smooth, responsive, and layered for those who just want to beat the game and those who want to master it. Challenges are tough and will feel unfair at first, but by figuring out what makes this game tick, you can truly dominate the leaderboards and challenges. I think one of the best examples myself when playing this game was the insane amount of jumps in this game that seem "impossible" to make. At times, I even spent hours on this, convincing myself I was in the midst of a much harder game than it let on. However, after realizing the fact that some rails are slanted upwards, meant to be ridden off, and the fact that the game considers and boosts tricks a couple frames off of a rail, you can hit almost any jump in this game, sometimes even saving a run in which you lacked momentum thanks to you knowing the tech. Games that really make you appreciate the technical abilities and creations of the devs usually shoot to the top of my favorites, and OlliOlli World is no different.
The story is quite basic, but the dialogue is often satiristic of skate culture, oft mocking its "dude-bro" and "radical" perception in the media and replacing it with a lot more sensical characters. Critiques are often satirizations of commercialization and commodification of skateboarding, something with humble roots being turned into a product by our modern markets. I don't want to be the snob who looks super deep into this stuff, it's a skating game for gods sake, but it feels refreshing rather than most games just saying "Good job!" and "Nice!" and "Fail!". The people who made this game obviously were comfortable to make it something deeper.
The art-style is fantasic, reminding me of the early 2010s cartoon franchise "Adventure Time" with its colorful world and cutsey graphics. Players have a variety of choices for their wardrobe and character's bodytype, along with the fact that they'll unlock more gear by doing challenges and setting high scores.
The low-fi soundtrack puts you into a trance while playing, combining tracks meant to put you at ease, with tracks that really are mandatory to listen to while you're setting full combos of the levels, making you feel like a badass as you put down your last trick and wait in anxiety at where you placed on a global scale. Although, it was fun to play with the audio muted and switching over to the Tony Hawk soundtrack. Don't think I'll ever grow out of "Guerrilla Radio".
For the few complaints I do have with the game, they're all relatively minor. The last area, Los Vulgas, is underwhelming often in design whereas the previous four areas makes your jaw drop with visuals. This could also just be attributed to the fact that it is the fifth world, and you're starting to get the hang of the formula much more than the previous levels. They're also designed pretty anti-player, with WAY too many pathways, creating confusion on where you can and cannot go in certain areas. Nothing was wrong with the more linear starter levels, in my opinion.
The only other complaint I have is the fact that it seems like Take-Two has their hands somewhat in this game, and it feels somewhat dirty that there's a multiplayer component they lock some of the coolest stances behind (They put the goddamn Steve Buschemi fellow kids thing in the game, and the only way you can do it is playing the multiplayer until they decide to "give" it to you with a streak of days in a row played, or some other stuff. Ew!). Again, relatively small complaint, but the fact that some of the coolest boards or things that could fit better with your character are locked behind mandatory multiplayer, but I know everyone isn't a progression-obsesser as much as I am.
Overall, buy this game now. I think it's the best thing I've played so far this year, we'll see if I make it to the souls-like-that-shall-not-be-named, but, this is an epic start to a franchise that has always been underappreciated.