tonolov
10 reviews liked by tonolov
"In the terms of our Great Society the Mascot Horror games and their ilk are losers - dropouts, failures and malcontents. They are rejects looking for a way to get even with a world in which they are only a problem.The Mascot Horror games are not visionaries, but diehards, and if they are the forerunners or the vanguard of anything it is not the "gaming revolution" in vogue on indie developer spheres, but a fast-growing legion of young unemployables whose untapped energy will inevitably find the same kind of destructive outlet that "kino" like the Mascot Horror Games have been finding for years." -Poppy S. Thompson, Mascot Horror's Angels
I have been banbaning it so much recently I completely forgotified this shit can be good. Mob entertainment has proven two brothers that could or could not be euphoric can in fact make a pretty fucking decent horror game, for the kids at least. It's kind of amazing how much they have upped their A-game on this one. The wait was well worth it, if you ask me (I did not wait for this piece of shit, I infact forgot it even existed for like two years).
Everything just kind of clicks on this one, getting through an extremely solid experience with actual puzzle solving and exploring some arguably fun platforming situations. This fucking thing also has very good monster designs for the most part and an honest to god creepy atmosphere, getting a good scares out of me and the things I call friends who pestered me to play this on stream for 4 hours, most of which felt like actual game time and not padding. The game is still kind of buggy, with a lot of possibilities for sequence breaking and jumping out of line to skip sections of the game (sometimes unintentionally)
"The videogame sphere is crowded with devs who create as if their sole purpose in getting behind the keyboard is to avenge every wrong done them by man, beast or fate. The only thing that keeps them in line is their fear of death, jail and refunds.” -Poppy S. Thompson, Mascot Horror's Angels.
Quite possibly lightning in a bottle, I'm not confident they can top this one because of the track record of videogames in general, but if they do it right and hire me as a psychotic latino they might become a staple of this genre.
I have been banbaning it so much recently I completely forgotified this shit can be good. Mob entertainment has proven two brothers that could or could not be euphoric can in fact make a pretty fucking decent horror game, for the kids at least. It's kind of amazing how much they have upped their A-game on this one. The wait was well worth it, if you ask me (I did not wait for this piece of shit, I infact forgot it even existed for like two years).
Everything just kind of clicks on this one, getting through an extremely solid experience with actual puzzle solving and exploring some arguably fun platforming situations. This fucking thing also has very good monster designs for the most part and an honest to god creepy atmosphere, getting a good scares out of me and the things I call friends who pestered me to play this on stream for 4 hours, most of which felt like actual game time and not padding. The game is still kind of buggy, with a lot of possibilities for sequence breaking and jumping out of line to skip sections of the game (sometimes unintentionally)
"The videogame sphere is crowded with devs who create as if their sole purpose in getting behind the keyboard is to avenge every wrong done them by man, beast or fate. The only thing that keeps them in line is their fear of death, jail and refunds.” -Poppy S. Thompson, Mascot Horror's Angels.
Quite possibly lightning in a bottle, I'm not confident they can top this one because of the track record of videogames in general, but if they do it right and hire me as a psychotic latino they might become a staple of this genre.
Pain is mandatory
What is a Doom II on Ultra Violence? A misserable lttle pile of go fuck yourself. A huge amount of issues regarding the pacing of the whole experience sadly make this sequel fall short of surpassing the original game. Sure, the new enemies are pretty good for the most part (I will find whoever thought of adding the Pain Elemental, and I shall teach them) and the super shotgun is probably the most iconic weapon in gaming at this point, but the whole experience gets bogged down by downright mean level design. I began theorizing with a friend that they did it this way so you would just skip the single player campaign and go play deathmatch since that was all the rage at the time. The small pockets of pure fun are incredible, blasting through scores and scores of baddies and meanies with a finelly tuned arsenal of deathfuck, but the puzzle and fucking platforming sections just tank the experience to a whole new degree of unfun.
There was a whole lot of hurting in this one fellas, mostly from Petersen's level design. You heard about traps and hidden switches? Now get ready for THE AGONY CONTRAPTION. You could fill a small nation with the amount of cacodemons present in his levels (my personal theory is that he is such a TTRPG nerd he just adds them because it reminds him of DnD).
Shoutout to the music tho. I found myself stopping to just hear it after every carnage. Yeah we all know it's mostly juststolen heavily inspired by the metal they were listening at the office at the time, but the ambient tracks and original stuff knocks it off the park.
On to build engine games, starting with Duked Nuked DDD. I won't play them on the hardest difficulty since from my experience the level of fun just goes to the shitter with them, while in Doom it's a somewhat achievable punishment for trying to have fun.
What is a Doom II on Ultra Violence? A misserable lttle pile of go fuck yourself. A huge amount of issues regarding the pacing of the whole experience sadly make this sequel fall short of surpassing the original game. Sure, the new enemies are pretty good for the most part (I will find whoever thought of adding the Pain Elemental, and I shall teach them) and the super shotgun is probably the most iconic weapon in gaming at this point, but the whole experience gets bogged down by downright mean level design. I began theorizing with a friend that they did it this way so you would just skip the single player campaign and go play deathmatch since that was all the rage at the time. The small pockets of pure fun are incredible, blasting through scores and scores of baddies and meanies with a finelly tuned arsenal of deathfuck, but the puzzle and fucking platforming sections just tank the experience to a whole new degree of unfun.
There was a whole lot of hurting in this one fellas, mostly from Petersen's level design. You heard about traps and hidden switches? Now get ready for THE AGONY CONTRAPTION. You could fill a small nation with the amount of cacodemons present in his levels (my personal theory is that he is such a TTRPG nerd he just adds them because it reminds him of DnD).
Shoutout to the music tho. I found myself stopping to just hear it after every carnage. Yeah we all know it's mostly just
On to build engine games, starting with Duked Nuked DDD. I won't play them on the hardest difficulty since from my experience the level of fun just goes to the shitter with them, while in Doom it's a somewhat achievable punishment for trying to have fun.
High on Life
2022
I-if there's a game that's ashamed of its identity, it's this one. W-w-what's the point of being in an alien world when all the jokes revolve around Earth stuff, right? REMEMBER, uh, APPLEBEES? I LAUGHED B-B-BECAUSE FUCKING I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!!! S-S-S-SPACE APPLEBEES IS JUST SO F-FLIPPIN' CRAZY!!!
E-every joke in this is just so fucking unfunny, which is subjective I'll admit but as someone w-who enjoyed Rick and Morty S1&2 I'm just, uh, begging for them to try harder. Yes, some v-videogame shit is tedious, uh, you weren't funny the first time you told the joke about it, y'know? and it's not f-f-funny the fifth. Babbling on and on while overexplaining the joke isn't a punchline, r-right?. Y-y-y-you can't even run thru the horrible dialogue because the game sticks you in place so you just look at the, uhm, Simpsons a-aliens like a dumbass while they g-go on and on about how videogames are just so q-q-quacking crazy.
A-a-and if you thought the jokes were reiterative, the levels are worse! Barely t-t-two levels in and they start recycling the planets!!! And, uh, you know what they came up with for alien planet designs, huh? A-a desert and a jungle (but the folliage is purple!), and it doesn't stop there, the, uh, character designs are awful too. All of them are just, uh, "a-ant" or, uhm, "humanoid body with freaky head" and it's just so d-dull, y'know?. I'd say the game runs out of ideas quick but, uhm, that's implying it had any ideas in the first place. Only t-thing... only thing it has g-going for it is the premise of the living guns which is cool in theory but nothing in practice, specially with the main gun talking in the Justin, uh, Justin Roiland stammering dialect.
I can only give credit for, uhm, the gunplay which was f-f-fine but a lot of the ideas it are, y'know, half baked are best. Most of the special abilities don't even gel with the gun themselves! Shit!
The jokes; the ending; the repetition, it's all a mess. The game isn't even embarassingly bad, it's just bad. And if you thought this was annoying to read, just imagine having to hear it for ~10 hours.
E-every joke in this is just so fucking unfunny, which is subjective I'll admit but as someone w-who enjoyed Rick and Morty S1&2 I'm just, uh, begging for them to try harder. Yes, some v-videogame shit is tedious, uh, you weren't funny the first time you told the joke about it, y'know? and it's not f-f-funny the fifth. Babbling on and on while overexplaining the joke isn't a punchline, r-right?. Y-y-y-you can't even run thru the horrible dialogue because the game sticks you in place so you just look at the, uhm, Simpsons a-aliens like a dumbass while they g-go on and on about how videogames are just so q-q-quacking crazy.
A-a-and if you thought the jokes were reiterative, the levels are worse! Barely t-t-two levels in and they start recycling the planets!!! And, uh, you know what they came up with for alien planet designs, huh? A-a desert and a jungle (but the folliage is purple!), and it doesn't stop there, the, uh, character designs are awful too. All of them are just, uh, "a-ant" or, uhm, "humanoid body with freaky head" and it's just so d-dull, y'know?. I'd say the game runs out of ideas quick but, uhm, that's implying it had any ideas in the first place. Only t-thing... only thing it has g-going for it is the premise of the living guns which is cool in theory but nothing in practice, specially with the main gun talking in the Justin, uh, Justin Roiland stammering dialect.
I can only give credit for, uhm, the gunplay which was f-f-fine but a lot of the ideas it are, y'know, half baked are best. Most of the special abilities don't even gel with the gun themselves! Shit!
The jokes; the ending; the repetition, it's all a mess. The game isn't even embarassingly bad, it's just bad. And if you thought this was annoying to read, just imagine having to hear it for ~10 hours.
Puyo Puyo Tetris
2014
you would not expect the game with the cutest art styles ever to be able to incite such rage unto its players but next time one of my friend's screen starts going TETRIS TETRIS HOWS THAT HOWS THAT HOWS THAT CYAN CERULEAN LAPIS LAZULI while im fighting for my life im straight up killing them
Credit where credit is due: this is MILES better than Man of Medan in pretty much every conceivable way. That said, if you're unfamiliar with the first entry on the Dark Picture Anthology, be forewarned: being better than MoM is an easy feat!
Regardless of any comparative praises, which as I said before are practically null considering the circumstances, I will say that the mystery of the apparent reincarnations, the monster designs, and at least the overall idea that the game wants to put out there is good. It's just a very underwhelming execution that ultimately dooms it all.
One of the first big things is the monotone pacing and sequence of events. The chapters can be described with a simple flowchart consisting of: PCs enter a place -> they gotta get outta there! -> they get outta there -> repeat. Sometimes they escape from a VERY slow monster in between, but most follow that structure. Even if you can look past that, it becomes impossible to ignore how badly distributed the screentime of the scenarios is. Andrew has 11 playable scenarios while most of the other characters have around 5, which makes Andrew make up most of the gameplay. Angela straight up vanishes for a shitton of chapters just to make a cheap kill, even if you don't have the means to actually undergo that event!!! what!!!
Locked traits, a mechanic introduced in Little Hope and dropped from further entries immediately after is a terrible mechanic. It ties thematically with the game, of course, but whose ideas was it to put such a mechanic in a game with such a binary philosophy? What's the point of locked traits if and endgame decision can override them entirely, making the whole mechanic a "if you choose wrong, die" instead of something that actually leads towards a horrible fate? It makes no sense and makes the final fate feel underdeveloped and confusing.
Story spoilers for the ending below because Backloggd has no way to spoiler tag without compromising the whole review
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Nothing kills a good mystery than a bad reveal, which if you know anything about this game it's common consensus that it doesn't stick the landing, and I can now confirm that it really doesn't. Not that the twist is insultingly bad, even if it's just "lol nothing was real actually" again (at least it has more to it this time), but how it's so much less interesting than what was building up to it. It's an attempt at a Silent Hill plot written by people who endlessly lurk the "appearance and symbolism" section of the Silent Hill wiki, without realizing that a lot of the strength from Silent Hill's stories doesn't come from what is real and what's not, but what is on the gap between reality and delusion. If James looked at the camera and said "this is what Pyramid Head REALLY means, also he's not real!", what's the point? There's a review on this game that calls the ending something along the lines of "ending explained material" and it couldn't be more true. The twist makes the witch plot feel weightless, and when the crux of your mystery has no weight, the truck slam (because he was the bus driver...) that should be the final twist becomes a limp slap to the face.
Even ignoring the twist, everything regarding the family from the prologue feels underbaked. I assume the whole idea behind the game is that Andrew blames himself or Megan for the fire. Maybe both. But it's no one's fault because it was accident, but you have to condemn the reverend to reach that conclusion. He's a devil worshipper! Also the devil was on the prologue too, I guess? And he wanted to get Megan on the satanism? Or it's a CSA metaphor, but probably not?! Why was the devil there?!??!?!?! Why did you give me so few Angela scenes???????? Fuck you Supermassive, I picked her you fuckers!!!!
Regardless of any comparative praises, which as I said before are practically null considering the circumstances, I will say that the mystery of the apparent reincarnations, the monster designs, and at least the overall idea that the game wants to put out there is good. It's just a very underwhelming execution that ultimately dooms it all.
One of the first big things is the monotone pacing and sequence of events. The chapters can be described with a simple flowchart consisting of: PCs enter a place -> they gotta get outta there! -> they get outta there -> repeat. Sometimes they escape from a VERY slow monster in between, but most follow that structure. Even if you can look past that, it becomes impossible to ignore how badly distributed the screentime of the scenarios is. Andrew has 11 playable scenarios while most of the other characters have around 5, which makes Andrew make up most of the gameplay. Angela straight up vanishes for a shitton of chapters just to make a cheap kill, even if you don't have the means to actually undergo that event!!! what!!!
Locked traits, a mechanic introduced in Little Hope and dropped from further entries immediately after is a terrible mechanic. It ties thematically with the game, of course, but whose ideas was it to put such a mechanic in a game with such a binary philosophy? What's the point of locked traits if and endgame decision can override them entirely, making the whole mechanic a "if you choose wrong, die" instead of something that actually leads towards a horrible fate? It makes no sense and makes the final fate feel underdeveloped and confusing.
Story spoilers for the ending below because Backloggd has no way to spoiler tag without compromising the whole review
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Nothing kills a good mystery than a bad reveal, which if you know anything about this game it's common consensus that it doesn't stick the landing, and I can now confirm that it really doesn't. Not that the twist is insultingly bad, even if it's just "lol nothing was real actually" again (at least it has more to it this time), but how it's so much less interesting than what was building up to it. It's an attempt at a Silent Hill plot written by people who endlessly lurk the "appearance and symbolism" section of the Silent Hill wiki, without realizing that a lot of the strength from Silent Hill's stories doesn't come from what is real and what's not, but what is on the gap between reality and delusion. If James looked at the camera and said "this is what Pyramid Head REALLY means, also he's not real!", what's the point? There's a review on this game that calls the ending something along the lines of "ending explained material" and it couldn't be more true. The twist makes the witch plot feel weightless, and when the crux of your mystery has no weight, the truck slam (because he was the bus driver...) that should be the final twist becomes a limp slap to the face.
Even ignoring the twist, everything regarding the family from the prologue feels underbaked. I assume the whole idea behind the game is that Andrew blames himself or Megan for the fire. Maybe both. But it's no one's fault because it was accident, but you have to condemn the reverend to reach that conclusion. He's a devil worshipper! Also the devil was on the prologue too, I guess? And he wanted to get Megan on the satanism? Or it's a CSA metaphor, but probably not?! Why was the devil there?!??!?!?! Why did you give me so few Angela scenes???????? Fuck you Supermassive, I picked her you fuckers!!!!
This review contains spoilers
all of these guys are pussies, me and my friends wouldve smoked the shit out of manchurian gold 🥴🥴🥴🥴
Ecstasy of Gold
If this was the first one I would totally understand the clunkyness, but knowing that this came out after the critical darling that Until Dawn was, I can't help but wonder what was going on in the studio during the development, because the end result feels extremely amateurish from a narrative point. The game is honestly terrified of you not understanding what's painfully obvious, with characters and even the narrator of the game taking it's time to spell out for you every single second of the plot while making absolutely sure the "twists" are fully explained to you and your friends.
The one thing I can commend this game is the fact of how it absolutely feels like watching a B horror movie with friends, although I doubt they expected it to be a really bad B movie experience with friends shooting the shit. Even when understanding that the game wants for you to have fun while also playing with other people, it also has ZERO reactivity to anything you do. I played this alongside 4 other friends and by the end we were pretty sure nothing we actually did would change the plot in a meaningful way aside from maybe reducing the kill count. Every chapter is written in such a robotic way that you can clearly see what choices you made before made it ever so slightly different, with characters badly tacked on with zero dialogue or items you managed to bring but prove to be useless in the situation (or outright dropped by the character at the start or during a chase sequence).
Overall a pretty mediocre affair, saved by being unintenionally funny on a vc with 5 people and listening to some rapper singing about how he likes to get fucked in the ass.
Can't wait for Little Hope.
If this was the first one I would totally understand the clunkyness, but knowing that this came out after the critical darling that Until Dawn was, I can't help but wonder what was going on in the studio during the development, because the end result feels extremely amateurish from a narrative point. The game is honestly terrified of you not understanding what's painfully obvious, with characters and even the narrator of the game taking it's time to spell out for you every single second of the plot while making absolutely sure the "twists" are fully explained to you and your friends.
The one thing I can commend this game is the fact of how it absolutely feels like watching a B horror movie with friends, although I doubt they expected it to be a really bad B movie experience with friends shooting the shit. Even when understanding that the game wants for you to have fun while also playing with other people, it also has ZERO reactivity to anything you do. I played this alongside 4 other friends and by the end we were pretty sure nothing we actually did would change the plot in a meaningful way aside from maybe reducing the kill count. Every chapter is written in such a robotic way that you can clearly see what choices you made before made it ever so slightly different, with characters badly tacked on with zero dialogue or items you managed to bring but prove to be useless in the situation (or outright dropped by the character at the start or during a chase sequence).
Overall a pretty mediocre affair, saved by being unintenionally funny on a vc with 5 people and listening to some rapper singing about how he likes to get fucked in the ass.
Can't wait for Little Hope.
Cooking Companions
2021
let's say you go to a restaurant and, for the sake of this dumb analogy, order the full course. they keep the theme, the element that ties it all together, a secret because hey, people due love figuring it out by themselves! that's what everyone else is doing! look how good it worked for hello neighbor!
you start digging into the first course and getting your hopes up! what you thought was gonna be cooking DDLC has more up its sleeve that you believed and you begin feeling optimist up for the main dish...
...after a few bites, something's off. What was supposed the highlight of the whole experience is absolutely not what you expected it to ramp up to. You start to feel... a subtle aftertaste that becomes increasingly more apparent with each bite until it finally completely turns you off from it. You finish it anyway because whatever, you've payed for it and hopefully the dessert can wash away the lore from your mouth.
then the dessert arrives and it looks familiar in the worst way possible. do you remember imscared? do you remember spooky's house of jumpscares, SPECIFICALLY (for some reason) the rebecca black spoof? well, that's dessert baby! and you know what? have a side of some of that LORE that you're just DROOLING to DIG INTO!!!!
all the positivity that had ingrained itself in you from the first course is promptly uprooted and you get get as bitter as the "twist" coffee they tried offering you as you were finally able to walk away from this mess. it is then that the true horror is revealed. you look up to your waiter as you prepare to pay the bill and finally realize: it is none other than MatPat himself
you start digging into the first course and getting your hopes up! what you thought was gonna be cooking DDLC has more up its sleeve that you believed and you begin feeling optimist up for the main dish...
...after a few bites, something's off. What was supposed the highlight of the whole experience is absolutely not what you expected it to ramp up to. You start to feel... a subtle aftertaste that becomes increasingly more apparent with each bite until it finally completely turns you off from it. You finish it anyway because whatever, you've payed for it and hopefully the dessert can wash away the lore from your mouth.
then the dessert arrives and it looks familiar in the worst way possible. do you remember imscared? do you remember spooky's house of jumpscares, SPECIFICALLY (for some reason) the rebecca black spoof? well, that's dessert baby! and you know what? have a side of some of that LORE that you're just DROOLING to DIG INTO!!!!
all the positivity that had ingrained itself in you from the first course is promptly uprooted and you get get as bitter as the "twist" coffee they tried offering you as you were finally able to walk away from this mess. it is then that the true horror is revealed. you look up to your waiter as you prepare to pay the bill and finally realize: it is none other than MatPat himself
Silent Hills
TBD
Shawty served tap water flavored cunt, ruined a company's image, inspired one of the worst styles of horror games possible and retro actively rewrote an entire franchise to make a hack director look good
This was the first dating sim I had ever played, obviously got into it because I was a fan of Normal Boots back in the day. I thought it was really sweet and enjoyed it a lot, though my assumption is that avid fans of the genre might find it rather generic. Since its release JonTron and ProJared have both gone and done some fucked up shit, which would kind of make this a hard one to go back to. It's a hard one to rate, as those two characters would make me want to give it something more like a 2 star rating; while my memories of my initial experience playing it would make me want to give it something more like a 4 star rating, so I'm compromising at a 3 star rating. I went the PBG route, that boy better not mess up!