episode one is a boring, tedious mess by a then-amateur level designer. everything is functional, but rarely fun.

episodes two and three are an impossibly rare example of a retro fps improving on the formula of the classics. easily the best thing to come out of new blood interactive. the unnecessary-but-cool touches (item kills, crossbow jumping, backflipping, pretty colored lighting) are free to shine with the brilliance of 1000 suns now that the maps are made with them in mind. the art direction is incredible too, largely due to david's penchant for horror. the man's a genius and one of the best modern fps designers. we have dusk to thank for that.

FOR ONE MUST ALWAYS REIGN BENEATH...

How can I review a game like this? Can I write without confessing, endlessly confessing, an acknowledgement of the fundamental lack? A performance beyond the screen, a perforation between lives. I divulge to a blank ear; the inscrutability of the reception to the confessional performance destroys the art of speaking, annihilating the relationship I have to the audience I spill guts to. I exsanguinate myself in front of a crowd, and yet at the same time the crowd spills over and beyond themselves; a closeness only available via anonymity.
I love the sticker they send, the initials they sign off, the attempt to re-assure for the sake of reassurance. A beautiful moment, self-contained, the care for someone who cannot be realised, a love which precedes specificity.
The game upsets notions of amor-ity, an attempt to recenter agape, perhaps. Does it fail by the unacknowledged double-ness of all interaction, the razorblade that accompanies a revelation? Maybe. But it also attempts to illicit a compassion that is so often denied, something that would've failed in any larger project, in any less of a pinhole-d design.
Do I confess to someone? Or do I confess only to myself? Who else can love like a stranger?

so cute AND quirky in a very real and genuine way. reminded me a lot of three separate times in my life. being like 9 and playing the genesis sonic games in my father's room w him. being like 15 and working under the table for this video game/dvd/music store where i mostly just priced items, it was dirty and dusty and the pay was basically nonexistent, the owner was like hella sexist and racist but to my 15 yo brain that just wanted to learn about everything in regards to media it didn't matter in the moment bc i just got to gawk at rlly rare stuff every couple weeks. and then like playing automata near its release date and it was the first new game i picked up since like 2013 and just being so amazed at what games could actually be when made w passion and love and not just for profits/to be consumed. all rlly important moments in my life when it comes to actually understanding what matters to me in terms of art. literal perfect length for a game like this too. usually i get sooo bored of 2d side scroller stuff bc it just never rlly ends and it's all just variations/reskins of the same layout, this is like different and special. it never gets the chance to be boring or to outstay its welcome bc it uses its time in such a smart way. and all the worlds are so cute and colorful and lively and most importantly diff from each other. there's like a weirdo carnival stage and a jungle stage and haunted castle one, one of the stages ends w a boss fight in front of a drive in theater, it's so gorgeous. and there's so many interesting characters, ice skating faeries and the flatwoods monster and frankenstein, so much life and detail is happening in the backgrounds of scenes that u go through so fast, love this <3

Papers, Please is a McCarthyist 'critique' on communism, made by an American who knows nothing about communism.

It is the usual propaganda about the Soviet Union: poverty, brutal regimentation, breadlines, and violent suppression. This is an incredibly reactionary view of the USSR that isn't historically accurate at all, but Lucas Pope, like many conditioned liberals, has bought into it wholesale.

Arstotzka is 1960s East Germany, after the Berlin wall was constructed. The political backdrop is the Cold War, but Pope has taken a side here in exaggerating the 'dystopian horrors' of Communism, while giving the West, especially America, pretty much a free pass. This is a game about immigration, but Pope, a citizen of a country with one of the most brutally hellish immigration processes in human history, thought the best vehicle for this would be a long-gone regime with no relevance on the global stage.

It is telling that Pope's inspiration for the game came from his direct experiences with travel from the US to Asia and back again. From Wikipedia:

"From his travels in Asia and some return trips to the United States, he became interested in the work of immigration and passport inspectors: "They have a specific thing they're doing and they're just doing it over and over again."[8] He recognized the passport checking experience, which he considered "tense", could be made into a fun game.[4][6]"

What led Pope, a white man, to immediately think of Communism when he experienced the hellish ordeal of American Capitalism?

Pope has said that he intentionally avoided references to real world Communist nations for "narrative freedom" in a game that proudly declares "Experience the Communist state of Arstotzka" on its product description page. Also from Wikipedia:

"Pope also based aspects of the border crossing for Arstotzka and its neighbors on the Berlin Wall and issues between East and West Germany, stating he was "naturally attracted to Orwellian communist bureaucracy".[11] He made sure to avoid including any specific references to these inspirations, such as avoiding the word "comrade" in both the English and translated versions, as it would directly allude to a Soviet Russia implication.[9] Using a fictional country gave Pope more freedom in the narrative, not having to base events in the game on any real-world politics and avoiding preconceived assumptions.[10]"

And yet, the end result is exactly that, and somehow even worse. By removing history and specificity, Pope has given himself license to strawman Communism however way he wants. And if someone smart enough calls him out, he can very slyly go "Actually, none of these countries exist, bro ;)."

Pope wants it both ways: he's using real world propaganda in a 'fictionalized' way. But the ghost of Mccarthyism has made Red Peril omnipresent. The player, through Capitalist media and education, is conditioned enough to put the pieces together. When they play Papers, Please, they're thinking of the Soviet Union, they're thinking of China, they're thinking of Venezuela or whatever other State Capitalist country that has been coded Blood Red Commie.

His latest game Unsolicited seems to be an 'anti-capitalist' mea culpa of sorts, focusing instead on...writing emails and junk mail? To Pope, the horrors of Communism/socialism are mass genocide, long lines of immigrants being denied their own freedom, and a ruthless black-hearted government hellbent on using the blood of its own citizens to fuel the war machine.

The horror of Capitalism is spam mail.

Much like Ken Levine and the Bioshock team, Pope's ideal future is neither late-stage capitalism nor communism, but a make-believe in-between. Papers, Please is a damning demonstration of the liberal-fascism compromise that isn't concerned with the history of Capitalist violence. Pope plays very irresponsibly hard and fast with real world anti-leftist politics, which has very real world implications.