I could write an essay on this game and its use of suicide notes. I've mentally drafted the outline multiple times. Maybe I still will at some point. The problem is that my conclusion is a giant shrug. Receiver 2 treats the topic of suicide with as much care as any piece of media I've seen, but that level of care is matched only by how deeply it disturbed me. There's one particular note that felt like it crawled beneath my skin and started burrowing into my marrow. And I still have absolutely no idea what any of this means.

Is it effective? Yes. Is it in line with the game's themes? For sure. Am I reacting this way because of my own history of mental health issues? Maybe! Could the game make the same point without the notes? I don't know. Is it necessary? Again, I don't know. On some level I appreciate that a game has made me engage with such complicated feelings, but I have to stop just short of praise. It leaves me with a messy jumble of thoughts and emotions that I'm incapable of shaping into a single coherent opinion.

Essentially a very cleverly disguised visual novel, though I worry that description isn't giving it enough credit. Imagine Subnautica played entirely on a topographical map, with a heavy dose of climate anxiety and Jeff VanderMeer/China Mieville-esque sci-fi. If the perspective sounds restrictive, don't worry; any doubts have will melt away as soon as you lose yourself in the writing and visuals. The sound design is excellent as well. I could nitpick but it's not worth it in the face of something so unique.

I haven't finished this. I don't even know what it means to finish an Animal Crossing game, unless you're like my old roommate who collected every single item in New Leaf. I probably won't do that, but I have played for over 100 hours now so hopefully that counts for something.

I don't think this is the ideal version of Animal Crossing. It's leaner than New Leaf in some ways, the crafting system is frequently obnoxious, and Pocket Camp's influence is stronger than I'd like. Still, in the face of everything I like about it, none of that matters; the feeling I get from seeing my favorite villager reading on a bench I placed, surrounded by flowers I planted, can't be matched. It's still the game I fell in love with 20 years ago, lovingly updated.

Playing this for the first time years after release just drives home the seismic impact it had on the genre. I don't think it's a stretch to say it's one of most important horror releases of the past decade, if not the most important. It goes so far beyond jump scares, tapping into a deep, primal sense of fear that overrides everything else and commands you to get out of this place as fast as you can. It's a high level panic brought on by the overwhelming sense that you're experiencing something that's wrong in some fundamental way. It's not just a smart, terrifying reinterpretation Sill Hill's themes, it's a horror landmark in its own right. The only other recent game I can think of that even comes close to this is Kitty Horrorshow's Anatomy.

(I played both Unreal P.T. and PT Emulation and I'd probably recommend Emulation if you have access to it. There's a lived-in griminess to it that suits the game, I think, while the Unreal version comes off as a little too clean in places. I know that's the more difficult version to get a hold of though, and I don't think there's a big enough difference between the two to warrant paying for one while the other is freely available.)

Do you ever feel like a game was made specifically for you? That's the feeling I get from Murder By Numbers - or maybe I'm just underestimating the appeal of a Picross puzzler with surprisingly deft portrayal of queer characters. The writing is the main draw here (though the artwork is quite good as well) and keeps things chugging along even when the puzzles start to drag. Aside from a lack of variety my only other complaint is that despite a generally smart script its portrayal of the police is almost completely noncritical. I understand that would be a heavy lift for a game that's meant to be fairly breezy, but it's also weird for a game with so many queer and nonwhite characters to sidestep the issue completely.