proximete
1985
funny mario
2020
Saying Half Life: Alyx was made for virtual reality is a factual statement. Declaring that virtual reality was made for Half Life: Alyx is ambitious, yet it's exactly what I stand by.
What am I to really write when penning words alone feels hollow? I don't want to tell you how fun it is or how immersive it feels or the genuine tension you'll experience, the sweat that'll mount on your brow. Words don't work! I want to take you, you who are on the fence of whether Alyx is worth playing, you who believe VR to be a gimmick, you who couldn't possibly care less about a shooting game, and I want to slap a headset on you and push you forward and have you PLAY it! Because it is only when Combine forces are firing upon you and you scramble to find cover, shoving boxes aside and pulling out drawers in a desperate bid for ammunition that you can understand why Alyx exists. It is only as you step through the streets of City 17 just as well as you pass under and into the innerworkings beneath the city do you understand how impressive the scale of Alyx is. It is only as you inch forward, slowly--ever so slowly--through a building of shatterable glasses and corked wine bottles, accidentally bumping into a drawer and failing to catch the now smashed vodka--an alert to all who dwell there--that you understand how immersive Alyx is.
But I will defer to some concrete notions and let you put the rest of the pieces together. First and foremost, Alyx does wonderfully by the Half Life series--City 17 is more than a return to home. It is built upon, elaborated, expanded in ways that make sense and ways you never could've anticipated. It is lovely to see the Combine once again, and it is lovelier to put a bullet in them. The level design is superb, as all Valve games are, and there are several memorable locales that I fail to shake days, weeks after.
The biggest compliment I can give is how Valve solves the "VR problem" when it comes to grabbing objects that are simply too far away. In some games, you have no choice but to go up to it and pick it up yourself. In games like Boneworks or Blade & Sorcery, you instead can use a Star Wars-like "force pull" where you hold out your hand, press a button, and the object slowly comes into your hands. The issue with these solutions (and lack thereof) is that it never feels elegant nor natural--it feels, instead, like a growing pain of not being really in your world. Personally speaking, I'd always find myself purposefully avoiding using the aforementioned force pull because it just felt like cheating VR.
But what does Valve do?
They make that cheating a part of the gameplay. The gravity gloves become a real world item, a real world tool utilized by the player. When you see an object from a distance that you want, you may outstretch your arm until the object is in your sights, and then yank the item towards you. Flying in an arc, it hurtles in your direction to which you then must catch it. It's amazingly interactive, and it's a simple gameplay motion that never gets old. I applaud that.
There isn't really much else I can offer. If you do not have VR, bide your time. Alyx is not a game to be played with the sticks and stones you're used to. It's the future.
What am I to really write when penning words alone feels hollow? I don't want to tell you how fun it is or how immersive it feels or the genuine tension you'll experience, the sweat that'll mount on your brow. Words don't work! I want to take you, you who are on the fence of whether Alyx is worth playing, you who believe VR to be a gimmick, you who couldn't possibly care less about a shooting game, and I want to slap a headset on you and push you forward and have you PLAY it! Because it is only when Combine forces are firing upon you and you scramble to find cover, shoving boxes aside and pulling out drawers in a desperate bid for ammunition that you can understand why Alyx exists. It is only as you step through the streets of City 17 just as well as you pass under and into the innerworkings beneath the city do you understand how impressive the scale of Alyx is. It is only as you inch forward, slowly--ever so slowly--through a building of shatterable glasses and corked wine bottles, accidentally bumping into a drawer and failing to catch the now smashed vodka--an alert to all who dwell there--that you understand how immersive Alyx is.
But I will defer to some concrete notions and let you put the rest of the pieces together. First and foremost, Alyx does wonderfully by the Half Life series--City 17 is more than a return to home. It is built upon, elaborated, expanded in ways that make sense and ways you never could've anticipated. It is lovely to see the Combine once again, and it is lovelier to put a bullet in them. The level design is superb, as all Valve games are, and there are several memorable locales that I fail to shake days, weeks after.
The biggest compliment I can give is how Valve solves the "VR problem" when it comes to grabbing objects that are simply too far away. In some games, you have no choice but to go up to it and pick it up yourself. In games like Boneworks or Blade & Sorcery, you instead can use a Star Wars-like "force pull" where you hold out your hand, press a button, and the object slowly comes into your hands. The issue with these solutions (and lack thereof) is that it never feels elegant nor natural--it feels, instead, like a growing pain of not being really in your world. Personally speaking, I'd always find myself purposefully avoiding using the aforementioned force pull because it just felt like cheating VR.
But what does Valve do?
They make that cheating a part of the gameplay. The gravity gloves become a real world item, a real world tool utilized by the player. When you see an object from a distance that you want, you may outstretch your arm until the object is in your sights, and then yank the item towards you. Flying in an arc, it hurtles in your direction to which you then must catch it. It's amazingly interactive, and it's a simple gameplay motion that never gets old. I applaud that.
There isn't really much else I can offer. If you do not have VR, bide your time. Alyx is not a game to be played with the sticks and stones you're used to. It's the future.
1998
it's got a wonderful art style and aesthetic, the music and sound design is superb, the voice acting is great, and the writing/dialogue/story are all pretty damn good (good, but not quite great). by all means, it's an evolution of what metal gear on the msx was.
it's just a shame that the gameplay is horrific. frustrating level design, annoying forced combat sections, boss fights that range from "hey, pretty cool!" to "jesus fuck this is nails in my hands" all culminate in an experience that's just not very fun to play through at all. there are moments of brilliance in its gameplay--there is a cat-and-mouse bossfight that utilizes enemy pathing, the radar, and the player's own explosive tools and it is easily the highlight of the game. there are certain parts where it feels quite slick to slide by enemies and dip in and out of cover. but this is overshadowed by ridiculousness in difficulty and repetition that plagues the whole experience.
it's not very long, and it is worth playing. but it'll be for its storytelling versus its gameplay.
it's just a shame that the gameplay is horrific. frustrating level design, annoying forced combat sections, boss fights that range from "hey, pretty cool!" to "jesus fuck this is nails in my hands" all culminate in an experience that's just not very fun to play through at all. there are moments of brilliance in its gameplay--there is a cat-and-mouse bossfight that utilizes enemy pathing, the radar, and the player's own explosive tools and it is easily the highlight of the game. there are certain parts where it feels quite slick to slide by enemies and dip in and out of cover. but this is overshadowed by ridiculousness in difficulty and repetition that plagues the whole experience.
it's not very long, and it is worth playing. but it'll be for its storytelling versus its gameplay.
TBD
unexpectedly difficult. kept trying to get her onto the knob but kept missing. great game
2018
i would rather be playing avalon
2001
it's bursting with charm, it's deceptively simple, and it doesn't really overstay its welcome. i really enjoyed figuring out the different boss fights and all the varied places the game sends you. it's impossible for this game to be worth five stars, however, and it is because of its complete and utter lack of explanation concerning a crucial mechanic. indeed, the game has no tutorial, and it doesn't need one for the most part, but if you don't know how to exorcise enemies (which, by the way, costs points on every use and doesn't even always stick...), you can't finish the game, and there is absolutely nothing in your playthrough that'll warn you of this.
that's just crazy.
that's just crazy.
there isnt much i can say about this that i didnt already for mgs1. the story is (mostly) great, the dialogue is (mostly) well written, and the overall aesthetic is strong, but it's all in the face of annoying, frustrating, downright awful gameplay.
the fatman boss is really fun and combines stealth with action in a way none of the other fights do. i wish all the bosses were like that, just like i wish all of the bosses in mgs1 were like the minigun fight. but kojima had other plans
the fatman boss is really fun and combines stealth with action in a way none of the other fights do. i wish all the bosses were like that, just like i wish all of the bosses in mgs1 were like the minigun fight. but kojima had other plans
2020
the following is based off my first two hours:
really not impressed with this whatsoever. even the technical bugs like trees popping in sporadically aside, the gameplay is unbelievably clunky and the writing is both bland in concept and bland in delivery. i'm a huge stealth fan and went into this with that in mind, dumping the majority of my points in the sneaky stats. i then sit through what has to be, what, an hour of molasses pacing with nothing really happening? no, really, i picked the corporate tree and here's what your fun, fun first hour consists of:
walk out of bathroom, walk down halls with little of interest, sit in elevator, walk down more halls, talk to my boss for ten minutes, get a fun sounding mission, don't go on the mission yet, sit in helicopter, fly for five minutes, go to bar, walk around bar, sit down, another ten minute conversation with another guy discussing the fun mission, other guys come over, they tell me i don't get to go on fun mission, i frown, my character's friend gets mad and makes it seem like something's about to happen, nothing happens, the guys go away, and then i'm treated to a big montage of my character doing things that i wouldn't want him to do, which is weird because this is an RPG, right?
actually, that's the weirdest thing. why am i not getting any choices? whenever your main character is prompted to say something, the options both seem to offer the same sentiment--that is, if you get any options at all. sometimes, you just get a line that you're forced to say along with the choice to get a bonus throwaway line. still gotta pick the forced dialogue in the end. and this really sucks, because my character keeps saying things that i really don't want him to say. it feels very fallout 4 all over again, and that pisses me off. compare this to deux ex's last two entries where the player is offered multiple dialogue options straight from the start that all have different intentions and, more importantly, give the player a 100% view of what the hell they're going to be saying.
and speaking of which, it's that saying that bothers me. the delivery of the lines are just terrible. your main protagonist, should you choose to be male, sounds like a dumb yokel, and this is particularly funny if you start your background in corporate. he's not hick or anything, but he sounds like he's down a few braincells--there's one line in particular when he mocks his friend for "not being nice" and he sounds like a damn child. there's an encounter with an asian police officer too featuring some real poor English and some even poorer interaction with the player's friend that's just eyerolling. while we're on that topic, there's a part where you get in the car and your friend starts driving, and this... just horrible trap beat starts playing and i could not have frowned harder. i went into the options to see what the radio key was--F, or R, or something--and i mashed the hell out of it. a fruitless endeavor. trapped in the trap.
i said something about the writing, right? it's not really bad or anything--just boring and uninteresting. i won't go into this too much because it's unfair to just say something's bad and not elaborate, and i literally can't remember what any of the dialogue was. nothing memorable. also, any given scene just looks like a generic synthwave album cover. giving credit to deus ex again here, that game's developers saw the writing on the wall and were very forward thinking in their aesthetic compared to this, a vague idea of what cyberpunk looks like.
anyway, i want to end this talking about the gameplay--specifically the stealth, since that's what i cared about going in, what i built my character around, what i brushed up on in the tutorial, and what i set out to do, clearing the entire first mission with no deaths.
it sucks. here, i'm going to describe the process for you. i might mis-remember some exact keystrokes but the sentiment is the same: FIRST, you hit your crouch toggle key. oops, hold on, the crouch toggle key broke, so you have to go into the options, bind the toggle key to the other crouch, and then bind it back (you'll be doing this a lot, so get used to it). okay, what were we doing again? right, stealth. so, you crouch successfully, your first hurdle accomplished, and then you see some enemies. NOW, you have to hit tab and go into batman vision mode. now, you highlight enemies and mark them (with a different key, of course). why are you doing this? why aren't you just going in and sneaking?
because there's no. fucking. leaning. in a game. with fucking. stealth.
why is leaning important? because it allows you to take cover behind objects and peek to see where hostiles are and what they're doing. what's the alternative? you literally have no idea what direction someone's facing so you just bumble out from behind cover and get immediately spotted. therefore, your only solution is to have to highlight enemies so that doesn't happen. but then, this means you're having to spend the damn game constantly with these glow-in-the-dark villains, something that's a powerup or unlockable in games like dishonored or, again, deus ex. anyway, i'm getting off track, let's continue with the stealth process.
so now you've successfully highlighted them, and now you're ready to hunt. you sneak up from behind someone and press F. now you have them in a vague chokehold? it doesn't really... look right. anyway, now you have to decide if you want to kill them or knock them out, so you press F again or whatever the key is. a weird animation plays where your character looks like he's grasping at air, and then, congrats, he's on the ground. NOW, you have to look at the body and hold R to carry it. okay, now we've got to bring it somewhere. you go to a hiding spot and you press--what? what do you press? oh. oh you know. E. and congrats, you've finally achieved your first stealth takedown. now, just to sum it up, let's go through all the steps one more time.
you hit control, then you hit tab, then you hit your second mouse button, then you unhit tab, then you walk forward, then you press f, then you press f again, then you hold r, then you walk, then you press e.
i want you to imagine an exasperated AVGN face right now because WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
i keep bringing up deus ex but holy fuck, in that game you just hold q, they're automatically being dragged, and then you let go and continue on. no need to highlight enemies either because the game goes in third person when you take cover. or hell, if you don't want that, dishonored lets you, in first person, you guessed it: LEAN. YOU CAN LEAN.
i don't really know where the story goes from here, and i don't know how the other backgrounds start, and i don't know how much more fun it is to play the game like an action hero--but i don't care. this was enough. now, i'll probably be back after a year or two of patches and updates, but for sixty dollars? you could do a lot, lot, lot better.
[EDIT: apparently you can lean! you have to specifically have a weapon out and then attempt to aim it while at a corner. seeing as i was playing as a stealth pacifist, i saw no reason to have a gun out at all. that's a good thing! there is definitely still way too many buttons for what should be a simple action. but this definitely makes this more playable, now. i'll update these first impressions with a fuller look if i continue on]
[EDIT 2: yeah it still sucks. play deus ex]
really not impressed with this whatsoever. even the technical bugs like trees popping in sporadically aside, the gameplay is unbelievably clunky and the writing is both bland in concept and bland in delivery. i'm a huge stealth fan and went into this with that in mind, dumping the majority of my points in the sneaky stats. i then sit through what has to be, what, an hour of molasses pacing with nothing really happening? no, really, i picked the corporate tree and here's what your fun, fun first hour consists of:
walk out of bathroom, walk down halls with little of interest, sit in elevator, walk down more halls, talk to my boss for ten minutes, get a fun sounding mission, don't go on the mission yet, sit in helicopter, fly for five minutes, go to bar, walk around bar, sit down, another ten minute conversation with another guy discussing the fun mission, other guys come over, they tell me i don't get to go on fun mission, i frown, my character's friend gets mad and makes it seem like something's about to happen, nothing happens, the guys go away, and then i'm treated to a big montage of my character doing things that i wouldn't want him to do, which is weird because this is an RPG, right?
actually, that's the weirdest thing. why am i not getting any choices? whenever your main character is prompted to say something, the options both seem to offer the same sentiment--that is, if you get any options at all. sometimes, you just get a line that you're forced to say along with the choice to get a bonus throwaway line. still gotta pick the forced dialogue in the end. and this really sucks, because my character keeps saying things that i really don't want him to say. it feels very fallout 4 all over again, and that pisses me off. compare this to deux ex's last two entries where the player is offered multiple dialogue options straight from the start that all have different intentions and, more importantly, give the player a 100% view of what the hell they're going to be saying.
and speaking of which, it's that saying that bothers me. the delivery of the lines are just terrible. your main protagonist, should you choose to be male, sounds like a dumb yokel, and this is particularly funny if you start your background in corporate. he's not hick or anything, but he sounds like he's down a few braincells--there's one line in particular when he mocks his friend for "not being nice" and he sounds like a damn child. there's an encounter with an asian police officer too featuring some real poor English and some even poorer interaction with the player's friend that's just eyerolling. while we're on that topic, there's a part where you get in the car and your friend starts driving, and this... just horrible trap beat starts playing and i could not have frowned harder. i went into the options to see what the radio key was--F, or R, or something--and i mashed the hell out of it. a fruitless endeavor. trapped in the trap.
i said something about the writing, right? it's not really bad or anything--just boring and uninteresting. i won't go into this too much because it's unfair to just say something's bad and not elaborate, and i literally can't remember what any of the dialogue was. nothing memorable. also, any given scene just looks like a generic synthwave album cover. giving credit to deus ex again here, that game's developers saw the writing on the wall and were very forward thinking in their aesthetic compared to this, a vague idea of what cyberpunk looks like.
anyway, i want to end this talking about the gameplay--specifically the stealth, since that's what i cared about going in, what i built my character around, what i brushed up on in the tutorial, and what i set out to do, clearing the entire first mission with no deaths.
it sucks. here, i'm going to describe the process for you. i might mis-remember some exact keystrokes but the sentiment is the same: FIRST, you hit your crouch toggle key. oops, hold on, the crouch toggle key broke, so you have to go into the options, bind the toggle key to the other crouch, and then bind it back (you'll be doing this a lot, so get used to it). okay, what were we doing again? right, stealth. so, you crouch successfully, your first hurdle accomplished, and then you see some enemies. NOW, you have to hit tab and go into batman vision mode. now, you highlight enemies and mark them (with a different key, of course). why are you doing this? why aren't you just going in and sneaking?
because there's no. fucking. leaning. in a game. with fucking. stealth.
why is leaning important? because it allows you to take cover behind objects and peek to see where hostiles are and what they're doing. what's the alternative? you literally have no idea what direction someone's facing so you just bumble out from behind cover and get immediately spotted. therefore, your only solution is to have to highlight enemies so that doesn't happen. but then, this means you're having to spend the damn game constantly with these glow-in-the-dark villains, something that's a powerup or unlockable in games like dishonored or, again, deus ex. anyway, i'm getting off track, let's continue with the stealth process.
so now you've successfully highlighted them, and now you're ready to hunt. you sneak up from behind someone and press F. now you have them in a vague chokehold? it doesn't really... look right. anyway, now you have to decide if you want to kill them or knock them out, so you press F again or whatever the key is. a weird animation plays where your character looks like he's grasping at air, and then, congrats, he's on the ground. NOW, you have to look at the body and hold R to carry it. okay, now we've got to bring it somewhere. you go to a hiding spot and you press--what? what do you press? oh. oh you know. E. and congrats, you've finally achieved your first stealth takedown. now, just to sum it up, let's go through all the steps one more time.
you hit control, then you hit tab, then you hit your second mouse button, then you unhit tab, then you walk forward, then you press f, then you press f again, then you hold r, then you walk, then you press e.
i want you to imagine an exasperated AVGN face right now because WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
i keep bringing up deus ex but holy fuck, in that game you just hold q, they're automatically being dragged, and then you let go and continue on. no need to highlight enemies either because the game goes in third person when you take cover. or hell, if you don't want that, dishonored lets you, in first person, you guessed it: LEAN. YOU CAN LEAN.
i don't really know where the story goes from here, and i don't know how the other backgrounds start, and i don't know how much more fun it is to play the game like an action hero--but i don't care. this was enough. now, i'll probably be back after a year or two of patches and updates, but for sixty dollars? you could do a lot, lot, lot better.
[EDIT: apparently you can lean! you have to specifically have a weapon out and then attempt to aim it while at a corner. seeing as i was playing as a stealth pacifist, i saw no reason to have a gun out at all. that's a good thing! there is definitely still way too many buttons for what should be a simple action. but this definitely makes this more playable, now. i'll update these first impressions with a fuller look if i continue on]
[EDIT 2: yeah it still sucks. play deus ex]
2018
a definitive vr experience and one of the best games out there for it, but that doesnt absolve it of some of its issues (which is understandable--it is an early access title after all). combat ranges from either feeling excellent and extremely responsive to weird, floaty, and weak, and it all depends on what weapon you use. daggers, short swords, shields, hatchets--anything that's not too big works well. you stab, you swing, you slice, and it all has impact and visceral. in contrast, long swords, warhammers, claymores--these feel like garbage. they don't really SWING like you expect them to, and it ends up feeling floaty and weird. if you pretend the heavier side of weapons have a heavy feeling to them, they definitely work better, but not great. the warhammer in general just ends up doing things you don't expect it to, and not doing things you do expect. the spear sucks at stabbing particularly, but it's actually really fun to use as a two handed staff instead. archery is neat, but the limited arrows is kind of garbage and collecting more off the battlefield sucks, too. you can mod that out, but you really shouldn't have to.
anyway, your experience will vary, but it's a great feeling game at its core--it needs to be, considering there's no story or progression or anything else. you get gameplay, and it's gameplay for the pure sake of it, and it feels damn cool. my favorite and personal recommendation is to use dual hatchets and just rip and tear.
for reference, this was on the oculus rift s. i wonder how some of these weapons feel on the index.
anyway, your experience will vary, but it's a great feeling game at its core--it needs to be, considering there's no story or progression or anything else. you get gameplay, and it's gameplay for the pure sake of it, and it feels damn cool. my favorite and personal recommendation is to use dual hatchets and just rip and tear.
for reference, this was on the oculus rift s. i wonder how some of these weapons feel on the index.
there have been so many bad games ive played. halo 4. nu thief. so forth. but i cant really bring myself to hate any of them--just a great distaste or disliking, i guess
but this shit right here. this is easily the worst video game i've ever played in my life, firing on all cylinders as a completely miserable experience to both established paper mario fans of old and approachers of new. an ugly art style plastered with generic, boring designs mixed with a soulless soundtrack and obnoxious dialogue all make for an ugly exterior, but all of this could be good and it still wouldnt save the baffling gameplay. who in fuck thought it would be a good idea to make a combat system where the only winning move is to not play? i think i treated sticker star like a stealth game with all the running past enemies i did, considering the combat consists of wasting your resources and giving you nothing but coins for your effort, a complete waste of currency. when you're not surviving these encounters, you're either solving puzzles that range from brain dead easy to "this is legitimately not possible without a strategy guide on hand unless i want to spend three hours wandering around aimlessly." this game will never fail to not make me angry in some way, and i feel even angrier knowing that, slowly but surely, a new wave of defenders is building for this shitty revival of paper mario.
i was pissed off back then, i'm pissed off now writing this, and i'll be pissed off forever. fuck this game to hell.
but this shit right here. this is easily the worst video game i've ever played in my life, firing on all cylinders as a completely miserable experience to both established paper mario fans of old and approachers of new. an ugly art style plastered with generic, boring designs mixed with a soulless soundtrack and obnoxious dialogue all make for an ugly exterior, but all of this could be good and it still wouldnt save the baffling gameplay. who in fuck thought it would be a good idea to make a combat system where the only winning move is to not play? i think i treated sticker star like a stealth game with all the running past enemies i did, considering the combat consists of wasting your resources and giving you nothing but coins for your effort, a complete waste of currency. when you're not surviving these encounters, you're either solving puzzles that range from brain dead easy to "this is legitimately not possible without a strategy guide on hand unless i want to spend three hours wandering around aimlessly." this game will never fail to not make me angry in some way, and i feel even angrier knowing that, slowly but surely, a new wave of defenders is building for this shitty revival of paper mario.
i was pissed off back then, i'm pissed off now writing this, and i'll be pissed off forever. fuck this game to hell.
2005
This review contains spoilers
surprisingly ambitious, what with its fully animated scenes that render the whole thing less a visual novel and more an interactive season of anime, school days is a surprising product. while the idea of a vn looking completely like an anime theoretically sounds cool, the end result is the player has to sit through hundreds of scenes all using the same 3 or 4 faces/poses each character has (much like an actual vn, but far less appealing here). it gets old real quick and, because the game is presented like an anime, you can't just mash through dialogue as you read it, either, so you're just stuck with these boring 2d cutouts you've seen a million times. in this sense, you become desperate for the actual bite sized scenes where there is a modicum of animated effort on display, where a character does more than stare awkwardly while flapping their gums to "uhhh" and "umm"s.
the writing is pretty bad. the main character is a spineless, gutless scumbag, but i hesitate to call him a lovable one because there's virtually no personality to him. the player receives the tiniest snippets of what COULD be personality defining--in one specific route, he reveals his pot making hobby, and in another, he's able to cook. other than that, he's a self insert puppet... which isn't usually that bad of a thing in visual novels, given the medium, but it's made so much more offensive by all the decisions he makes that the player is NOT able to control or direct. on top of that, he acts depressed, dejected, and moody over literally every event, acting ridiculously soft spoken to a fault and spending most of his dialogue fumbling through ellipses. it's not really in a cute way, either. just aggravating, and it makes it harder to believe that he's unintentionally built up such a harem, too!
every girl loves the player, and unconditionally, too. i played through as many routes as i could, and only one of them really gave the main character, makoto, an actual punishment for his scumbaggery and inability to control which warm hole his penis finds itself in. even on routes where i specifically aimed to be a piece of shit, makoto still got away with all sorts of crap that love interests merely brushed off and continued loving him despite of. in this sense, school days appears to exist in some sort of bizarro world where you can just sort of fuck whoever you want, wherever you want, and still maintain the admiration and infatuation of girls everywhere. their personalities suck, by the way, and are easily defined by "this one is shy, but loves makoto" and "this one is timid, but loves makoto" or "this one is feisty and sarcastic and playful... at first, and then she becomes overly dramatic and loves makoto." in almost all girl-to-girl conversations, nearly none of them are able to pass the bechdel test save for ONE who manages to stir up a conversation about burgers and milkshakes.
i said i went on as many paths as i could and, truthfully, that was kind of a fun experience. don't get me wrong, the initial main routes of the two main girls are completely boring and melodramatic, but deviating from them purposefully (using the huge green love meter at the top) meant that i had to play a sort of balancing act while navigating choices to nudge the characters along in ways i wanted them to go. often times, things spiraled out in ways i really didn't expect. two endings even culminated in flat out disturbing (but appreciable) scenes where one girl, quite pregnant, got a little handsy with a knife, and another where a girl's head exploded like a plump tomato dropped from the sky. those were cool. one ending that really surprised me was it resulting from me making zero choices through the whole game (which is, in and of itself, another choice). it netted me a unique scene! how about that. after this review, i'll probably hit up a route guide out of curiosity to see what i missed, but i felt using that before a review would harm the experience somewhat.
anyway, the writing sucks, it's all very melodramatic, the main character is, frankly, a bitch, and no one in school days has any real personality or merit to them. but hey, it's kind of an interesting experiment, and you do bang some women.
the writing is pretty bad. the main character is a spineless, gutless scumbag, but i hesitate to call him a lovable one because there's virtually no personality to him. the player receives the tiniest snippets of what COULD be personality defining--in one specific route, he reveals his pot making hobby, and in another, he's able to cook. other than that, he's a self insert puppet... which isn't usually that bad of a thing in visual novels, given the medium, but it's made so much more offensive by all the decisions he makes that the player is NOT able to control or direct. on top of that, he acts depressed, dejected, and moody over literally every event, acting ridiculously soft spoken to a fault and spending most of his dialogue fumbling through ellipses. it's not really in a cute way, either. just aggravating, and it makes it harder to believe that he's unintentionally built up such a harem, too!
every girl loves the player, and unconditionally, too. i played through as many routes as i could, and only one of them really gave the main character, makoto, an actual punishment for his scumbaggery and inability to control which warm hole his penis finds itself in. even on routes where i specifically aimed to be a piece of shit, makoto still got away with all sorts of crap that love interests merely brushed off and continued loving him despite of. in this sense, school days appears to exist in some sort of bizarro world where you can just sort of fuck whoever you want, wherever you want, and still maintain the admiration and infatuation of girls everywhere. their personalities suck, by the way, and are easily defined by "this one is shy, but loves makoto" and "this one is timid, but loves makoto" or "this one is feisty and sarcastic and playful... at first, and then she becomes overly dramatic and loves makoto." in almost all girl-to-girl conversations, nearly none of them are able to pass the bechdel test save for ONE who manages to stir up a conversation about burgers and milkshakes.
i said i went on as many paths as i could and, truthfully, that was kind of a fun experience. don't get me wrong, the initial main routes of the two main girls are completely boring and melodramatic, but deviating from them purposefully (using the huge green love meter at the top) meant that i had to play a sort of balancing act while navigating choices to nudge the characters along in ways i wanted them to go. often times, things spiraled out in ways i really didn't expect. two endings even culminated in flat out disturbing (but appreciable) scenes where one girl, quite pregnant, got a little handsy with a knife, and another where a girl's head exploded like a plump tomato dropped from the sky. those were cool. one ending that really surprised me was it resulting from me making zero choices through the whole game (which is, in and of itself, another choice). it netted me a unique scene! how about that. after this review, i'll probably hit up a route guide out of curiosity to see what i missed, but i felt using that before a review would harm the experience somewhat.
anyway, the writing sucks, it's all very melodramatic, the main character is, frankly, a bitch, and no one in school days has any real personality or merit to them. but hey, it's kind of an interesting experiment, and you do bang some women.
2020
why on earth the devs put such a huge amount of effort into art and animation and sound design and music all for a fucking call-and-response keyboard DDR game is baffling. it doesn't matter how good the game looks and sounds when it plays this boringly. a complete waste
2020
if it wasn't a shallow gacha, it's still a shallow botw-but-worse
2019
let's be straight forward. pistol whip is incredibly fun. reaching for a common vr cliche, you do feel like a genuine badass as you frantically point in all directions to clear your screen of well dressed adversaries. the obvious analogue is john wick, something pistol whip's achievements are more than happy to endorse, but it definitely feels the same. gameplay's solid and frantic and sweaty and exciting, some levels genuinely leaving me on my back. i always keep coming back for more gunning--more than i can say for beat saber.
let's hit the critiques. the music sucks--absolutely. pistol whip prides itself on hard hitting electro, but its selection seems to stem but from the worst of generic american EDM producers in a way that makes me frown at the idea of replaying most of these horrid levels. and believe me, i love electronic music--i cut my teeth on justice and sebastian and soulwax and jackson and--very few songs are emblematic of these, instead quite generic and obnoxiously drop heavy. there are a couple of really solid songs... that's it. a couple. an additional critique, and quite minor, is that a lot of the level design blends together. i swear to god, i've seen the same default_town_square setting in four different songs, and it gets old. i'd appreciate some variety.
bottom line--it's definitely fun to play. i just wish the music were better.
let's hit the critiques. the music sucks--absolutely. pistol whip prides itself on hard hitting electro, but its selection seems to stem but from the worst of generic american EDM producers in a way that makes me frown at the idea of replaying most of these horrid levels. and believe me, i love electronic music--i cut my teeth on justice and sebastian and soulwax and jackson and--very few songs are emblematic of these, instead quite generic and obnoxiously drop heavy. there are a couple of really solid songs... that's it. a couple. an additional critique, and quite minor, is that a lot of the level design blends together. i swear to god, i've seen the same default_town_square setting in four different songs, and it gets old. i'd appreciate some variety.
bottom line--it's definitely fun to play. i just wish the music were better.
what a horrible piece of shit. you can apply all the resolution tweaks and game altering mods all you want--you're still bandaging a rough corpse of a video game, a shallow followup to some of stealth's finest. basic movement is fucked, every single action is clunky and awkward, guard AI interaction is ridiculous, and the simplified level design leaves an ugly taste in my mouth. a game not even worth finishing its first level.