Not only I’m interested in people telling the history of their places, away from the USA and Japan, in videogames, but here you also have at least the influence of an older person that I think it’s very necessary in a medium as juvenile as this. And sure, I can understand where some of the critiques of the game regarding a voyeur or a tourist approach come from, the end credits telling you that you don’t see the same thing in every playthrough and a scene selector with places locked behind a question sign unfortunately give weight to this argument. But ultimately, I think the game really comes from a more honest place. To have a touristic voyeur approach to these kinds of places we already have too many action games that disregard the rest of the world as cool setpieces at best or amusement parks at worst. To me the slow pace of your walking in Promesa seems to be a responsive contrast to such a fast paced careless view (maybe it’s representing someone who cannot move as fast anymore too).

Even thinking that Promesa is honestly interested in the places and histories that it contains, I also think that the game doesn’t trust those enough. Julián Palacios puts a lot of care into recreating something that is, or was, existent and habited. It’s when the game just puts you in a mundane place with mundane sounds in the background where I feel it achieves the most. The street that you walk each day or the home where you have lived for years tell more about the life of someone than anything else.

But in its insecurity of not believing in the inherent expressive strength of these places, numerous abstract sections will appear oftenly. Not only seeing a distorted view of the aforementioned real places while flying strips any of the mundane sense that there could be, but the evocative aspects are also a lot weaker in comparison. When you lose someone that has been living with you for all your life it isn’t hard because you see a floating dress in your dreams. It’s hard because you turn your head while sitting in your own home and you’ll notice that they are not there anymore.

There are spoilers in this, but I put them all at the bottom so I didn't bother tagging it so beware! Also don't read this if the mention of animal abuse will make you very upset!

For reference, I played this on challenging difficulty and I have never played any of these games before with the conceit of just not having to. I watched someone else play Until Dawn a loooooong time ago, and I watched someone play Man of Medan and that game seemed OK.

I've seen a lot of horror movies. I've seen a lot of bad horror movies. This is a bad horror movie, but not in the fun way. Do you like... Slasher films with little to no slashing? Do you like... bad Saw movies? So just most of Saw, don't answer that regardless because you won't like this either way. I really don't have anything against these vaguely interactive cinematic type games, they seem pretty cool honestly, I hope there are better examples than this one. I very rarely feel like I've had my time wasted playing a game or watching a movie. Watching bad horror movies that take themselves too seriously is fun! It's not fun when it's a 7-8 hour long game with literally no payoff! Every time characters are running around, hiding, unlocking doors, climbing walls, running from man, it's for nothing. I literally every time some character getting split from the gang and then scene resolves said out loud, "you didn't do anything you didn't learn anything you did nothing", and they continued to do nothing.

Also the conceit of this guy just being down on his luck and having someone randomly call him that can seemingly fix all of his problems that this RANDOM guy couldn't have possibly known about, is very funny in hindsight. There is nothing supernatural afoot here, at least they never say so. They sure make you want to think there is early on, but they don't really care. This killer is just a guy. He's not an animatronic, he's not a ghost or a "Devil", he's just a guy. He gets fucked up a lot and never seems to care, he fell off a fucking roof and did a literal slapstick family guy broken limbs pose and just stood up immediately, he gets his face cut open in a boat that crashes into a rock and explodes, totally fine. I assume the conceit is that it's something supernatural but they don't fucking TELL YOU THAT.

Again hackish horror stories like this can be fun but this overstays it's welcome badly and half of this cast is just insufferable. Also they aren't people. Director CEO guy who is CEO pilled and treats everyone like shit, guy who's scared of heights and also dumped his girlfriend that's pretty much it, girl who got dumped, girl who likes audio, girl that can hack things. These things don't even dominate their personalities it's just all they have going on. Their personalities are hating on each other insufferably for no reason, except audio girl and hacker girl who are lesbians and carry this game on their back until the very end when they are the product of one of the worst scenes in the game.

I guess I'll get into the spoilery stuff now. This fucking bozo is literally teleporting across the entire island constantly and they never explain how. "Oh well he had that sci-fi maintenance tunnel that he toooootally built himself" how did he get out of the wall he got trapped behind LITERALLY IMMEDIATELY. For the longest time playing this I just assumed there were multiple people involved, one of the characters even brings up that possibility at one point and is immediately shut down. So are there multiple people involved? I don't know, they don't fucking tell you anything ever! He even completely whiffs the boat they escape on and misses them and is SOMEHOW on the boat when they're in the middle of the lake, gets his face cut open, crashes into a big rock and explodes, and is still alive. Is there something supernatural afoot? Idk didn't seem like it don't ask me. Also I don't care if you don't have to do it but them giving you the option to kill the dog to make it stop barking is fucking gross. Especially when if decisions are already made so that both of the normal people will survive the scenario it literally doesn't change anything. I didn't do it obviously but I was still upset that I even had the option in the first place, feels fucking gross.

Bottom line, if this were a bad horror movie that took itself way too seriously for like an hour and a half it'd be fun! But it's an 8 hour long 40 dollar game! It's not fun and the few moments of gameplay that were literally just find a door to open move a thing and jump on it was fucking boring I would have rather they'd just not been there. Also I had a bug where one of my decisions I made got a character killed EVEN THOUGH I did exactly what I needed to do for them to live, so I restarted the scene from the beginning, did it again, still died, restarted, tried another method that lets them survive, still died, tried the last possible one, still died, fuck you. Fuck you especially because that specific scene is so overly gross out gross. Maybe this is a PC thing but I looked it up and other people also had this happen at this exact scene so seems like a pretty fuckin big oversight.

The most terrifying, oppressive, claustrophobic experience I've had in the medium is no surprise a stalking disturbing message of an encroaching patriarchal faith. Heather wants nothing to do with it, and neither will I. Monsters of repressed memories and physical/sexual trauma stalk the corridors, but catharsis is found in making them all Burn. Aborting god is probably the rawest turn on killing god tbh. I personally got lost in the woods of the threads near the end but I think on just initial reflection that there's a large point in there about an incomprehensibly massive societal issue that makes it difficult to form into something tangible (e.g. male gaze and abuse). It's also like a crystalized end to everything the series culminated in before, tying everything back together. Genuinely super well crafted, and a crazy good final message. That cycle of disparaging hatred is still overturned by the real spark of sympathy, we just want love.

Is it bad to stay in your comfort zone when your comfort zone is so damn good? Puppet Combo introduces nothing especially new to Stay Out of the House - you’ll find identical gameplay in Nun Massacre and a similar murder house in… well, Murder House. But by this point, Puppet is at the peak of his powers, his formula more refined than ever: the design of the house is delightfully grotty and labyrinthine, the puzzles are fun and fleshed out, the sound is suitably cursed. Most notably, the unhinged shriek of The Butcher when he pursues you, gives him creepiness as well as a certain vulnerability - it invites the player to want to fuck with him in his house; an appealing element of replayability lacking in the almost impenetrable horror of Killer Nun. Moreover, Stay Out of the House may not be Puppet Combo’s scariest game (it has its moments), but as a claustrophobic puzzle adventure, it’s certainly one of his most enjoyable.

a crossection of too many things i find evocative to not be entranced...lonely fog and repetitive tasks and cyclical horrors always going One Further Horrifying Layer then expected thru perfectly placed nightmare logic with a tinge of traumatic religion. the fact that i genuinely found the buildup stuff Comfy (i like repetitive tasks! i like isolation! i like islands! i like rain and thunderstorms!) is a rly good indicator as to how tailor made for me specifically this feels. i dont Understand everything obviously but i kinda dont want too...it feels evocative enough to get obsessed with without any fan theorizing. some amazing flourishes in here, esp anything involving the physical presence "monster." upset and disquieted me in a way ive been craving for ages !

features one of the greatest lo-poly rain effects ive ever experienced, fwiw

The main issue with Alan Wake, still, is that he's a pretty naff writer. Sure I wasn't expecting to be playing Thomas Ligotti Remastered, but this dude's schlocky narration just about dampens any tension otherwise well established when the world goes dark and strange.
As with Deadly Premonition, I enjoyed the overt Twin-Peaksian influence particularly on the setting. I only wish it strived for that level of eccentricity. Most of the characters play it straight, the only exception being Alan's buddy, Barry, who often veers into Disney sidekick territory. The supernatural forces at large feel ominous but the samey evil townsfolk feel disconnected from the actual goings on (also in the same way later editions of Deadly Premonition has thrown in baddies as an afterthought). The combat is also incredibly repetitive: most of the main game just has Alan running through samey drabs of woods and warehouses firing away at the same 3 or 4 guys.
However, as the remaster also includes the two extra 'specials,' I would like to mention that they add significantly to the otherwise underwhelming final act of the main game. Whilst narratively unadventurous, the specials' combat and level design are actually even more varied and interesting - making unique use of floating word barriers (the writer making his words a reality, get it?) and one particularly Silent-Hill-esque level set on a town sized ferris wheel.
Speaking of Silent Hill, as I always fucking do, Alan Wake has similar issues to that of the post Team Silent games, mainly in its lack of character, tension and pacing.
Despite that, this game is not quite as constricted to being a horror game, and probably should have ditched most of the combat sequences in favour of the investigative mystery thriller segments it usually PEAKS in.
Not as unique or groundbreaking as its long legacy would have you believe, but usually pretty fun.

Ditching homicidal maniacs for religious nuts, who also happen to be homicidal maniacs, Outlast 2 can sometimes be as tense as its predecessor, plus slicker visuals and a more ambitious, albeit messy, story.

My main criticism is that much of the time I was able to evade the psycho townspeople by running past them in the wide open village spaces - sometimes the chases were thrilling but most of the time it loses that tight-corridor claustrophobia the first game excelled at. This is probably why some of the most effective horror in the game comes from the psychological segments that flash back to a labyrinthine school setting, where you unravel a suppressed childhood trauma through spooky hallucinations. It’s quite an uneven balance between these ‘classier’ segments and the exploitation gore fest craziness of the main game, but it keeps an interesting pace.

Easily the best graphics and my favorite gameplay of any video game I’ve ever played. I love the original TLOU but damn this one always manages to blow me away with every playthrough.

Seattle Day 3 as Abby is top notch, the Seraphite Island section never fails to leave me in absolute awe at both its horrific and inhumane presentation, but also the drastic difference in setting compared to everything else seen throughout both games. The Ellie portion of TLOU2 is fucking awesome, but damn the Abby days go absolutely insane.

Warning: This essay contains visceral descriptions of mental illness. What was initially intended as more of a critique of The Last of Us Part 2’s narrative became something much more personal, and I don’t want to give a false impression of what this is based on the website it’s posted to. To reiterate, this is intensely personal. Proceed with caution.

What would you do if your life’s purpose was pulled out from under you? How do we find solace in a world that seems to revel in taking everything it can from you? Is it worth living when stability is the only thing protecting you from cold uncertainty? Fundamentally, these questions define both The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part 2. While these extremely open-ended questions are answered in appropriately differing ways in both games, they are used as the backdrop to frame almost every character action in them. In the same way that Joel’s yearning to maintain the only thing that resembles stability in his life endeared many players to the first game, Ellie’s quest of seemingly aimless vengeance polarized many when playing its sequel. It tests players’ willingness to go through the same things its characters go through rather than taking more than a few safe roads. It helped me realize my own answers to the questions it asks of Joel and Ellie, and it’s difficult for me to go more than a day without thinking about them. I love The Last of Us, but The Last of Us Part 2 is bolder, more poignant, and unforgettable.


Despite this essay primarily being a gushfest about The Last of Us Part 2, I still believe the first game displays a large amount of character complexity, but I think the response to its narrative was born out of a character that one can easily relate to. The only thing that stands between Joel and his closest loved one is three people that are about to kill her. Would you not do the same to preserve the last person tethering you to sanity? Personally, I believe that there are very few people in the world who wouldn’t make the same decision in Joel’s shoes. This isn’t to say that this makes Joel’s character simple or easily read, it makes him painfully human. Through all of the murder and zombies, we all see a bit of ourselves in Joel. Framed ambiguously, this contributed greatly to the success of The Last of Us’s narrative with a wide audience. It was a perfect storm of relatability, shock value, fuel for disingenuous water cooler talk, and just plain good character writing. People talk about the negative effect that The Last of Us had on Triple A games, but as far as I’m concerned, studios should take more cues from its simple yet effective writing.

It seemed to most people that The Last of Us Part 2 was a shot into left field compared to the first game, but where else could the series feasibly go? The events of its narrative are bold for high budget games, but I struggle to think of a more natural continuation from the first game’s story. Joel even foreshadows the events of the second game when he tells Ellie how broken he was after losing Sarah. We’re not privy to the 20 years between Joel’s loss and him meeting Ellie. The theme of retaliation against a brutal world is obscured by this time skip to show its evolution: finding solace in what little mercy the world has given you. In that way, both games in this series represent two sides of the same coin. There is solace to be found in Abby’s part of the game, and her story is kind of like an abridged version of Joel’s story in the first game. This time Naughty Dog even included the part where the character finds little meaning in a path defined by hate, almost to yell at the player what they were supposed to learn from Joel. There is much to be said about Abby and how her life is destroyed in different ways compared to Ellie, but honestly I’m not extremely interested in her as a character. I like it in the same way I like the first game, but it doesn’t affect me in a strong way. Ellie’s story wouldn’t work as well without Abby’s, but its value to me is almost entirely predicated on how it improves Ellie’s character.

Perhaps my initial response to this game was so different because of how I see Ellie. Ellie, in my experience, is the closest any fictional character has ever come to accurately portraying my mental illness. The willingness to go to great lengths to show people that the world can be just as grim to them as it is to you, even at the expense of your own wellbeing, hit impossibly close to home for me. My depression isn’t defined by withdrawal, but lashing out at others so they can feel the same pain I do. The fear that everyone will either abandon me of their own volition, or do so before I make peace with it is one that permeates my waking thoughts. I’m not proud of this urge, as it gnaws its way into the way I interact with others. It imparts a hostility to my interactions with others, as my inert response is that they will leave me or hate me. It doesn’t sit well with me when I gain a sick satisfaction out of pushing people away, and just ending it before I get too attached. The few people that I can’t push away despite my best efforts are the only stability I have, and I’m not sure what I’ll do when I lose them. So when Ellie returns to the world all the violence it has shown her because it took away her stability, it made more sense to me than anything anyone has done in any other story. It spoke to me like no doctor or therapist or counselor has ever come close to doing before. All I needed to know was that I wasn’t alone in what I felt; that all the emotions I feel so ashamed of were validated in a strange way, and done with so much uncomfortable accuracy. When the end of the game revealed its hand, and Ellie was left with exactly what she had feared the most, I felt more fear than I had in any enemy encounter. It was as if the writers of the game dispelled the facade with which they were communicating to me through, and told me the bitter truth of my life. This game’s narrative certainly didn’t fix me, but it allowed me to accept that I’m not the only person who bears this curse. It’s the curse of remembering people through their polar moments, only recognizing the best and worst that someone has shown you. It’s focusing on that bad until you lose them, and then reaching out desperately for the good that you ignored the whole way.

I’ve attempted to rationalize The Last of Us Part 2 being my favorite game through the lens of its holistic qualities, believing that its characters, themes, and gameplay were markedly better than many of its competitors. It was my attempt to bridge the gap between what I knew as the most profoundly touching piece of media I had ever consumed, and what most others saw as a solid third person action game. The truth is that for most people, that’s exactly what this game will be. Like most Naughty Dog games, its appeal comes from the combination of many things done well. There will always be a stealth game with more depth, a more complex character study, and a more focused narrative. It’s easy to be ashamed of a story you like almost strictly based on its emotional resonance with you. Recognizing that it’s that story’s ability to reach out and comfort you beyond the very text that contains it is when you let go of that shame, and it’s where that story’s true value lies. Allow yourself to love and be loved by the stories you read and the characters you meet.

Elden Ring is staggering in breadth and detail, and like anything so big, gradually numbing. You want to slow it down, to see these new areas with the same sense of awe that accompanied every turn at the beginning, to press forward in fear of what may lie ahead. But a sense of forward momentum overtakes until it's irrepressible, and then the game is over. Increasingly difficult demigods appear in sequence to halt the flow, as a substitute for the rich environmental mysteries that had us forgetting there was an overall story in the first place. I'm thinking of how I never wanted to get through Stormveil, because that would mean I was done with Limgrave, and there was still so much to be learned in its fields and ravines and dead beaches. And then it was the same with Liurna. Altus Plateau was the last place I couldn't bear to leave, but even then Leyndell sits on the perimeter as a nagging reminder that things must end, and others must keep moving.

There are internal and external contributors to the persistent lapping of the call of progress here. As the player becomes more familiar with the game, they move more quickly through conflicts, and with the greater investment of player time comes the expectation of proportional narrative payoff. The detail of the here and now becomes a blur on the way to motivators on the horizon, and so Elden Ring like other games of its scale eventually becomes a virtual checklist. These factors are reflected internally, in the production of architecturally streamlined and graphically featureless maps that encourage forward momentum rather than the opportunity for getting lost. The player at a certain point either submits to the flow of the game and finishes it, or turns back and looks to rekindle their sense of wonder in the world behind them. The former is rewarded with quick and empty victory. The latter is also doomed, because by this point everything and everyone you ever cared about is devastated in progress' wake. If the player follows this path they turn to complete the game with a heavy heart, having found the world robbed of meaning before it even closes.

Elden Ring knows that it is doing this, because the interplay of internal (terrestrial, world) and external (noumenal, Outer Gods) forces is the defining fixation of FromSoftware titles. Here it gives the progress narrative the form of the 'Greater Will', and stages a conflict between its adherents, and factions that wish to end the world as we know it. The Greater Will is that the player finishes Elden Ring, their character ascending to the Elden Throne, so that Elden Ring can begin again, forever. New Forsaken will continue to be summoned to the Lands Between to keep the cycle turning. That is why the delivery of the Greater Will is so empty. The paradox of narrative progress for the ending-oriented player is that any ending involving a throne is not an ending but a moment lost to the vastness of procedural eternal recurrence. Encountering the devoted Brother Corhyn and Goldmask across the Lands Between transforms the two into a chorus, commenting on the progression of the Greater Will. Corhyn initially holds Goldmask to be a prophet, but soon thinks him mad, complaining that his rituals "betray a suspicion of the holism of the Golden Order." In truth, Goldmask realises the way of the Greater Will is to mend the ring and initiate its eternal cycle. This suspicion of Order is baked into its very belief system, leading adherents to hope the next cycle is exactly the same as this one.

Goldmask's order is bound to the notion of apocalypse as revelation. (Apokalypsis means 'unveiling' or 'revelation', hence the Book of Revelation is the book of apocalypse). For the apocalypse to operate as revelation, it is not to arrive from forces elsewhere, but to have been set in place by entities that are already here. The revelation is both future-oriented and ancestral, and its event means the elimination of future and ancestry alike. There is perhaps no system more apocalyptic than the game system — every ending is already present in the game text but hidden within the code, and all that needs to happen is for the apocalyptic event to be revealed in play. In Elden Ring's late-game revelation, Goldmask discovers what was already there, Goldmask recognises the corruption of the Order, Goldmask waits for the flames, Goldmask mends the ring so it can happen all over again. The apocalypticism of the Golden Order is, paradoxically, eternal stasis. Everything returns to the beginning so that the Forsaken can arise once more and fulfil the Greater Will. For all the flames and tears and wreckage it is an Order without change or difference.

On the other hand, many in the Lands Between hold a contempt for predestination and dedicate their lives to overthrowing the eternal recurrence of dysfunctional Order. There is a lateral (rather than linear) progression to many of the minor quests, in particular those given by Ranni. The theme and shape of these quests is the fate of stars and gravity, as opposed to the main narrative's rigid iconography of thrones, crowns, and bloodlines. Ranni actively sends you against the current, mapping out a constellation atop familiar places that now appear strange, and exposing undead cities beneath your feet. This is not done in the service of 'uncovering' a living, breathing world, but its opposite: the true undeath of the Lands Between. There's a madness to Ranni's story, and that's because it wants to tell you that you have already been here, many times before, under different names and at different times. Everybody has already died and come back. The fates of everyone you care about have accompanied and in fact defined them since before you even knew them, and so all of your action in the Lands Between has been for the deliverance of their microscopic tragedy. Thops will always arrive too late, Irina will always have to wait too long, Millicent will always live diseased, Latenna will always curl up beside her sister in the snow.

The revelation of Ranni's story is not the arrival of all of the pieces that were already there from the last reset, but that the world was already lost and empty. Travelling across the Lands Between on her apocalyptic mission severs rather than traces the golden contours of the world shaped like a furled finger. She wants to find the man who stole the stars so the moon comes back and the tides with it. Rejecting the dysfunctional order of the past, we now seek things born of nothingness, to realise the possibility of eliminating the eternal 'now' that was never present any way. And so we turn our backs to the stars and march ahead, to end things once again. There is an ending with believing in, and it's the one that never eventuates. It's the one born in the coldest night imaginable. Are you ready to commit a cardinal sin?