tap, rack, bang.

essentially an extended exercise in bullet meditation. its arcade-esque structure belies how much rigor and alertness receiver 2 demands of its players regardless of how uncompromising the randomized threats can be. most games become faster as you improve, but receiver 2 instead gets slower; refining your play here often means being methodical, taking your time, steadfastly running through your keyboard rituals as though they were rosary prayer beads, surveying environments carefully, and retaining a stalwart level of composure against the odds. brilliant map design evokes a constant dread & claustrophobia by endlessly looping hallways of industrial boiler rooms, penthouse apartments, and construction scaffolding, suggesting both subconscious impermanence and familiarity ('you' have had gunfights here before, sometime, somewhere else). you're thirty floors up in this intensely alienating, inescapable nightmare realm and the only one who can save yourself is you. and things continue in this genuinely frightening way until you learn to start flipping the script and turning the stringent limitations of its level design into opportunity. whether that means having a quick exit plan between floors, shimmying across ledges to avoid detection, or bolting and jumping through a window to avoid a barrage of turret fire. this isn't even yet digging into the intensely granular gun mechanics - the long and short of it is that by so sternly forcing players to abide by its ruleset, receiver 2's simulacrum is one of the sharpest games to ever transpose ideas of mindfulness onto a set of mechanics. a good few too many games about mental health only demand faux-resilience through narrative affect or through memorizing sequences of buttons in simplistic twitch platforming fashion, but receiver 2's interweaving of constant repetition and punishing failure reveals a strict & cohesive prescription and regimen: your mind and body have to be in sync if you're gonna stand any real shot out there.

tap, rack, bang.

generally speaking, in martial arts, a weapon is an extension of your body. it's cliche, but holds true. the only way to master a sword is to consider it as a limb. and in other games this is, i would argue, felt as a guiding philosophy. thinking and problem-solving is abstracted across these body-oriented mechanics. lavish one-button reload animations in games have conditioned players into seeing a gun as an extension of the player; i've argued in the past that leon in resident evil 4 is a particularly good example of this. a rifle to leon is as central to his kit as a knife, a grenade, a herb, a roundhouse kick, all executed with more or less the same mechanical apparatus.

tap, rack, bang.

receiver 2 brings guns and mental health to the forefront, but it shrewdly elides the easy question or metaphor regarding the grisly culture surrounding firearms in the united states to instead focus on your simulated gun as an extension of your mind and the implications of that idea in a diseased sociopolitical climate. reloading has been calibrated across not just one key, but several, and each gun will have different quirks or tics to master in this regard. revolvers are simple and reliable, but slower to reload and less equipped to deal with multiple threats, whereas the automatic pistols have more complex inputs in tandem with more versatility, but similarly present more opportunities to malfunction (and yes, your guns will jam in multiple different ways - good luck diagnosing and treating that while threats have their watchful eyes on you). likewise, dozens of other minor nuances are present: a colt m1911 has a safety switch, but when using a glock that same key is utilized to turn the glock's full-auto feature on, so holstering unsafely with a glock you attempted to make safe means your thigh is about to eat two or three bullets. without weapon acumen you are every bit as likely to kill or incapacitate yourself as a turret or drone is likely to gore you.

tap, rack, bang.

the central structure of receiver 2 revolves around the collection of analog tapes concerning firearms history, media representations of guns, common logical and emotional fallacies, and tips for maintaining a more lucid mind. these tapes are randomized and don't explicitly spell out their associations given how wildly varying they can be, but its lessons and mantras all hone in on a few key ideas which are subsequently internalized over the unfolding hours. the act of physically pointing and shooting has been entirely stripped of context and weight - what has this gratuitousness and gratification done to us? we live in a fractured environment which has the potential to fracture ourselves in turn - how can we safeguard ourselves against these negative influences? just as there are rules in place for the safe operation of a firearm, so too are there rules for the exercise of one's mind. and if you can safely train to have a mind impervious to adversity, you can begin to survive and aid others in survival.

tap, rack, bang.

receiver 2 is mechanically, narratively, and artistically sympatico in a way very few games have achieved. its prescription of an analog remedy for the digitized nightmare we've slowly come to inhabit over the past couple of decades is novel and commendable, regardless of a couple of minor issues i have with the game's prose (that said you will find no other game which explicitly draws a parallel between the birth/subsequent expansion of the universe and a chambered round shot in the dark). and it is a game presented with total earnestness and clarity regarding its subject matter. few sequels expand on the core concept as meaningfully as receiver 2 - a third game would be redundant, but its ending gracefully reminds us that the work we've set in motion doesn't end with our investment in these abstracted life-or-death scrambles. we break free, and we are made to live with the lessons we have slowly accumulated and grasped. "perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time". excellent stuff.

tap, rack, bang.
your mind's eye sharpens.

"Worries go down better with soup than without it." This is a Yiddish proverb. I am told, at least; my relationship with Jewish culture is a little messy. But I think of this saying often. Soup holds a kind of venerated position in Ashkenazi cuisine. Kreplach, matzo balls, mushroom barley, all that. It’s a staple. My dad, who provides my Jewish half, ironically, doesn’t enjoy soup much. He finds it boring. But the simplicity of a good soup is often it’s appeal. When we say “soup”, what do you think of? There are cold gazpachos and hot and sours, of course, but I think most of the time we think of hot, salty broth. The soup is clear but heavy, simple but filling. Soup is a potent food when it comes to meaning; it immediately conjures care, home, nourishment, warmth. Soup is hot, soothing, healing. Bad times with soup are better than bad times without soup.

In Below, knowing how to make a good soup is essential. After all, it is a game filled with worries. Soup will save your life. Each time you make it to a campfire, you get the chance make more soup, something that will carry you further into the depths. I won’t go as far as to say that the campfire feels like home. It, like your own little character’s life, is fleeting, and trapped in a dungeon. You constantly grow hungrier, thirstier, colder; you are creature of temperature and appetite, and you must abide by your bodily needs. That decay is a constant that defines Below. While you may know where the next campfire lies, you never know what lies between you and it. You have to be weary of each step and prepared for each sword swing. But for a moment, when you’re next to the fire, you can stop, breathe and nourish yourself. The campfire is an opportunity to replenish your supplies. To take a breather. To warm your bones. To make more soup.

There is a tragedy to Below's legacy. Generally, folks have seemed to be either underwhelmed and annoyed with it. It had been in development for over 5 years, announced during the bright and hot summer at E3 2013, and it was released in the cold winter nights of 2018. As it lead up to release, I got the creeping sensation that it was going to flop. And I think I was right. In an interview with Newsweek, Kris Piotrowski (Creative Director at Capybara Games) said “It's very important for there to be some people who make something very specific. And maybe you're not going to like this. But somebody else will fucking love it.” I think it is pretty clear that it will be divisive from it’s first moments: the first thing you see in the game is a long, slow zoom on a single little ship in the ocean, for several minutes. For me, I adored every moment of this crawl, but I think others will immediately shut the game off.

I’ll call it an unsung masterpiece for a specific reason: there are underrated masterpieces out there that I love a lot, but Below doesn’t even really have a ride-or-die fanbase. It released to tepid praise and hasn’t had a second wind. Part of the issue is that Below lacks a lot of character. That’s not to say it is not impressive. It is visually stunning to look at: the tilt shifted camera, the muted tones, the geometric geography and architecture. And the sound design is some of the best I’ve encountered in I think maybe any game. No, the issue isn’t a lack of presentation, but a lack of flair. There are so few discernable qualities. There aren’t any memorable characters, no flashy boss battles, no unique settings. Even mechanically, there is little that stands out about Below. I can give you the high level pitch, of course: it’s a procedural death labyrinth with survival elements. But will that pitch actually sell anyone on the game? I doubt it.

Which is a shame, because despite that lack of character, Below is expertly crafted and pretty beautiful.

If I had to use one word to describe Below, it would be “dread”. Every single surface of this game is covered in dread. Each sound, each inch of dirt is both beautiful and eerie in the same breath. Below’s environment is incredibly dark, often necessitating the use of a torch or the lantern. The game is set to a distance from your player character that dwarfs them; there’s this tilt-shift effect that makes everything seem minuscule. I found myself hunching over (more than usual) to squint at the darkness surrounding me. Shadows cast against the floor, the glowing eyes of beasts, prey in your periphery. The soundtrack by Jim Guthrie often sounds less like music and more like the groans of the earth itself. And if it’s not an ominous hum, it’s a somber, thoughtful ambiance, the wind brushing through the grass and the waves crashing on the shore. Sounds echo through the caves, scrapes of stones and trickles of water, the chitters and growls of something hunting you. You crawl into dark, terrible and ancient sepulchers, lined with death and sorrow. The distant scrapes and dark corridors become a canvas on which to paint your deepest fears.

Every time you die, you hear this sound. It’s a strange, sinister bellow, a deathly horn. And when you respawn, a new wanderer drifting onto that same rainy shore? That same haunting bellow sounds. As if to say, “This will happen again.”

Below is a difficult game. At times to a fault; there are a few death traps in there that are genuinely cruel. You’ll die a lot, and it’s a big part of the experience. You play not as a single adventurer, but dozens of them. Each death is final, and you play as a successor to the poor doomed soul who met their end in the caverns below. Below is an incredibly slow kind of difficulty. Combat is a deliberate, punishing affair. Sprinting through a room will often lead to a swift death. Your inventory space, too, is incredibly limited. You have sixteen slots for food and sixteen for materials. Personally, I am an inventory hoarder. I will maximize the use of every pound I can carry. But Below, in its limitations, has liberated me from this curse by forcing me to get rid of anything I truly don’t need. Any slot with an unneeded stick or stone is taking up space that could be taken by arrows or bandages. Be careful what you pack. Often you may die because you didn’t have enough materials on hand. Many deaths are deaths by attrition. Many players, I imagine, are going to feel these deaths are overly punishing. I certainly did, at times. But I also recognized that it was core to what the game was doing. It is an easy mistake, I think, to assume Below would be better if it wasn’t a Roguelite. There are lots of games like that nowadays, where the proc-gen structure seems more to be a mechanic on a dart board rather than a deliberate choice. But Below, really, can only be a Roguelite. Because structurally, it isn’t about beating the game. Having to delve even deeper with each death just to make progress can be intimidating. You’ll often lose a lot of materials, too. You can find your body with its wares still on it, now only a dry skeleton. How long has it been? Months? Years? I couldn’t say. But only take what you need.

At its most tense, Below’s dungeon crawling is either a desperate sprint or desperate struggle. On certain floors, you’ll sprint like your life depends on it, because it quite literally does. At the same time, you’ll have to be careful to dodge attacks or not to trigger any traps. So these marathons begin to ebb and flow from trepidation to a frantic sprint. At other times, Below puts you up against the wall. You feel surrounded, outmatched, overwhelmed. I wanted to flail in retaliation like a wild animal had leaped up against me, please, God, anything to get this thing away from me. But you have to be patient. Put up your shield. Wait to parry. Dodge their attacks. At these times, you need to be careful and patient, but also keep moving. Your hunger and thirst aren’t going to slow down. No matter which of these modes you end up playing in at a given time, Below’s most suspenseful moments are at the middle of a tug of war between a need to rush and a need to be as careful as possible. There is a specific area in the game (Floor 14 onwards, for those who know the game) that is genuinely one of the most dreadful levels in any game I’ve ever played; every single time I step foot in that place, my heart starts pounding, a frantic and desperate crawl through the darkness, pulled between the tension of needing to go slowly but needing to go faster. It’s dreadful. But I persevere. I make it through. Eventually.

Success in Below is not overcoming a mountain. It is about going deep down. There is no dragon in Below. No corrupt king, no great sea serpent, no devils or demons. There is nothing here for you to conquer. There are maybe one or two things I would call “boss battles”, but the biggest obstacles in Below are impossible to even scathe. Below is not a game about accomplishment. It’s a game about mastery. The game teaches you almost nothing about how to play; most mechanics have to be discovered by the players. And if you make it far enough, you begin to realize the goal is not descent, but the collection of these items called shards you discover with your lantern. And suddenly, it clicks into place. Succeeding in Below does not come from a single fell swoop, but a series of knicks. It comes from a series of successive runs. You stand on the shoulders of a thousand dead wanderers who you will join soon enough. By the later hours of Below, your player character(s) will not become any stronger. But you have learned so much. You know where to find the materials to make bombs, or how to make bandages, or how to get to the deepest pits of the island in only a few minutes. You begin to realize that you actually don’t lose much with each death. Sure, you might lose a hefty sum of crystals, or a stockpile of arrows and bandages, or a piece of gear you were saving, but there are ample ways to farm materials, and you can always find that gear again. Your goal is not to descend deeper, but to collect these shards with your lantern. And acquiring those shards is far less about slaughtering and spelunking, and more about knowing and understanding the cave systems of this island. You gain mastery, gain an understanding, of the world of Below. You find comfort in the little rituals you develop, of going and gathering picking supplies and hunting for materials, of making soup. It is a game about, despite all the insurmountable dread, finding a way forward anyway.

Again, there’s little I can say that will sell you on Below. There’s no big twist or hook to pull you in. It is just a nearly-perfectly designed game. Like a good soup, Below doesn’t look like much on the outside. But it’s a product of profound craftsmanship. It’s a stew of mechanics which compliment eachother precisely, a perfectly balanced mixture. And maybe once you’ve taken a spoonful, you’ll find that you think it’s a little boring. But give it time, pay close attention to it, understand it’s balance, and you might find that it grows on you, and you can recognize it as a rich and masterfully made experience.

This is the game which sold me on Takahashi's vision all the way back in 2011. Xenoblade's story stands the test of time as an incredibly beautiful narrative on the desire for revenge and what it means to be in control of one's own destiny. Xenoblade Chronicles combines a beautifully different world with an amazing OST, compelling characters and a wonderful narrative which makes Xenoblade not a game, but an experience. Takahashi and Monolith absolutely popped off on this game.

I had 100% this game back when DE first released, so this replay was dedicated entirely to re-experiencing the story and I can say for certainty this game resonates with me the same as it did all those years ago.

The mid-00s compressed onto a DVD ROM.

It's got attitude, a grumpy protag who transforms into a rage monster, and his constant sexual innuendo cracking sidekick. Flying cars in a still-impressive realised cyberpunk city bustling with pedestrians, guards, propaganda, and the world-building logic to include farmland.

But if you don't want to ride a jet engine hoverbike (which you do, because it rules), then you can opt for a futuristic skateboard that has a far too in-depth trick system and level design to pull off crazy platforming runs with it. It can be pulled out any time, including the final boss to escape their attacks. A videogame where you can do kickflips and shoot a giant insect golem in the face at the same time.

Jak II is also in the rare genre of "platforming game with shooting" - which is probably one of the greatest genres ever made. Some great combat moments, with a tight selection of satisfying weapons that are great fun to combo with melee attacks. And Naughty Dog still flap their Jak-&-Daxter-Crash-Bandicoot platforming chops, with some climb-tastic setpieces.

Credit to Naughty Dog for completely nuking the magical fun time elf world of Jak & Daxter, because screw it, lets do GTA instead. They somehow wrangle what plot they can to make a story that satisfies when the credits roll, especially for those who did play the first.

The game is far far from perfect however. The difficulty is all over the place, with some of the most ridiculous missions and checkpoints I've seen in a game. The part where you have to fight your way through the rickety docks against infinite Krimzon Guard (it's really spelt that way) is an absolute hair-ripping out nightmare. All boss fights will take multiple tries, lots of platforming will take multiple tries, the racing will take multiple tries.

There's also a bit where you pilot a mech with sluggish controls, (which the game also kinda just drops on you, like no explanation, "have fun with this mech we designed) and it sucks and a whack-a-mole game you need to perfect to progress among other things.

However, by far the most egregious aspect of this game is the layout of the city. It's lots of winding streets, and you come to know it well and truly appreciate how it is designed to be long and tedious to traverse. Maybe this is an attempt at an illusion to make the city feel bigger? Or make the game longer? (which it really doesn't need to be, and you WILL be spending lots of time driving to missions). Or maybe, Naughty Dog just want you to appreciate the city, soak in that dreary, damp vibe,and get good at driving that jet engine motorbike.

But who cares?!

Jak II is a game for teens who play games. Naughty Dog asked what games said teens liked, and just put them all in. You gotta play it. You gotta kill Praxis.

About halfway into Returnal I had to put everything away and take a quick look over the rest of the devhouse’s catalog. And it’s good that they don’t disappoint. Instead I’m more disappointed with me.

Simply put, it would appear after Black Bird and Resogun, the cylindrical/defense shmup is not for me. I couldn’t really meter out a lot of joy or satisfaction from the mechanics here which is surely a death sentence to a game that is begging you to play it over on greater challenges with different scales of weaponry.

But in lieu of a grand time, Resogun gives me so much to appreciate! I’m astonished with the powerful set of Intent housemarque brings to their work. The mechanics weave an intricate interwoven dance that never ceases. Enemy design and spawns are tightly built to keep you moving and stress your whole arsenal. There’s so many moments where the game is begging for you to do a mad Boost to save a human, or surround you with enough to force an overdrive. Your movement is so key and requires pinpoint direction, leaving none of the space unoccupied in your head. This can definitely lead to some dizzying play but I was grateful that the difficulty moved itself up piece by piece without getting too overwhelming. The bosses especially are all perfect, and the last level was a great ballbuster.

While I have no intention to come back due to my own limitations, I hope so much more people grab it if it seems like a right fit. It’s an extremely solid adrenaline rush as you save the humans through apocalyptic blocky space. It’s video games baby!

This game is currently in the Humble Choice for January 2022. If you are interested in the game and it's before February 1st, 2022, consider picking up the game as part of the current monthly bundle.

A keyboard-based hacking game.

Midnight Protocol calls itself a tactical RPG, though I disagree. Midnight Protocol is a strange keyboard-based game that completely removes the mouse from the game. It also is a hacking simulator where players have to breach networks that are more similar to Uplink or Hacknet. Though controlling the entire experience through just a command line makes for a very interesting experience.

I’m a little shocked to announce this isn’t made by Zachtronics, and yet still really feels like a Zachtronics style game. The entire game gives the player the power to breach networks and then adds moral choices such as robbing random people and earning profits as a black hat hacker, or trying to remain noble as a white hat hacker. There’s a strong narrative as well, which is intriguing.

Pick this up if you think you’d be willing to play a keyboard-based command-line game. The game is interesting and unique as you’ll see but if you aren’t intrigued by a game that only allows the player to use the keyboards, this one probably won’t be for you. It’s a special game, yet I adore this one.

If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/j3gs3-4WiQI

Essentially a playable Liveleak video with no interest in catering to the comfort of the player. The goal during development, per art director Rasmus Poulsen, was to be non-pleasing. In this effort, it incorporates an interesting combination of things that immediately make it stand out. The nauseating shaky cam, weapons that are frequently inaccurate, a screen prone to visual artifacting, sound that gets blown-out from explosions/gunfire, and some of the most disorienting and oppressive soundscapes you'll find, which were appropriately done by figures from the 1980's German industrial music scene. It all comes together to create an experience unlike anything else in the medium, for better or worse.

How this got past publishers without the vision being severely compromised in favor of a safer and more player-friendly approach, I don't know. What I do know though? To me, this shit rules, and I'm glad it exists.