It’s only a couple of hours long, but Old Gods Rising stewed me in my own juices so thoroughly that I woke up, confused, at about 2am, looked at my aforementioned boyfriend as he slept, and thought “he was definitely in on it with Maz… he looks too smug”. That’s got to be a well crafted story, hasn’t it? As long as you don’t mind not having all the answers at the end.
I have, to borrow a metaphor, a lot of Fatigue cards in my deck some days.
The Procession To Calvary is better than Monty Python, because it’s probably more consistent and, perhaps surprisingly for the content, less surreal. But your mileage, as they say, may vary.
It is really very good, though. It’s very meditative. Calming. It’s possibly exactly what you need right now.
While both aspects of Murder By Numbers are pretty good, neither of them are given enough space to really breathe.
The most glaring problem is how The Suicide Of Rachel Foster fails to meaningfully engage with its central themes.
The Pedestrian is surprising and astonishing and delighting, it’s true. But for about the first hour and the last.
Reforged, like a lot of remasters today, is good for a run around if all you wanted was to give your nostalgia a long leash
I think Sayonara Wild Hearts reminded me of all the cool things I’ve liked over the years, because it’s not saying anything deeper than “Cool things are ****** great, and being cool is great too.” Which is fine. It’s all said in this incredibly alluring wash of pink and blue and purple, this brief flowerbloom of a game, this stylish, inescapably cool thing that references Tarot without, you know, trying too hard about it.
Detroit is a perfect game to livestream, or play with three mates and half a bottle of tequila – but if you tell me you genuinely think the story is well done, I will immediately be sus that you, yourself, are an android poorly trying to replicate human behaviour.
But most of all, Manifold Garden makes me break out in a cold sweat. I cannot help but imagine myself, trapped in an endless kaleidoscope.
Afterparty as a whole is surprisingly funny. I did actual out loud laughs sometimes, not just strong exhalations through my nose.
The Outer Worlds is alright, innit. It’s good fun. Sit back and let the orange and neon wash over you. Boo the cartoonishly evil corporations. Exhale through your nose at their Diet Toothpaste. I bet I’ll play it again, in fact. But you can tell it could have been great, if it had taken a few more risks.
A masterpiece, but flawed, and proof positive that if ZA/UM can do flawed masterpiece for their first outing, they might already be chipping away the flaws in time for their next.
Neo Cab is certainly strongly anti-corporate. I already agree with that, so I don’t know if Neo Cab has the power to change minds. But it does excel at capturing how messy things are becoming. How it can be difficult to know what the right thing to do even is. How some people have more breathing room to be ‘good’ than others.