Izzy's 2022

[isthatallyougot]

It's just that I sit at my PC for work all day and don't want to go back to my workspace come gaming time... I just want to chill in my recliner in front of the TV.

That makes sense. Although, to be fair, it's not difficult to PC game from the couch, but I get what you're saying.

[canedaddy]

Maybe one of these days I'll give that a shot.

[isthatallyougot]

21) Where the Water Tastes Like Wine (PC)



You stumble into a darkly lit place where a poker game is going on, and you sit yourself down and asked to be dealt in. One by one, the other players are eliminated until it's just you and a mysterious man in gray sitting across in shadows. It comes down to a final hand for all the chips, and you've got an Ace-high spades royal flush. The man has more chips than you, but offers to take your word that you'll pay the debt even however he asks if you lose on a wager for everything. You give a drop of blood on the pot as a blood oath to your word. Easy call, right? The mystery player in darkness shows his hand only to reveal the same Ace-high royal flush of spades you thought you were holding, and as you look at your cards, you're see a handful of tarot cards with the fool right at the front. So now you owe the man, who lights a match to reveal his features as a wolf in that gray suit, and he tasks you with collecting and spreading tales of the people from all over the country - finding the “seeds”, as he calls them, of the fabric of America so that you can square your debt.

That word “seeds” plays prominently in the concept behind the game called Where the Water Tastes Like Wine. As a wanderer, now transformed into the skeleton on the image of the fool card you held in your hand, you put your bindle on your shoulder and head out to satisfy your debt. As you wander the contiguous forty-eight of depression-era America, you come across all types of people in all sorts of circumstances and experience many different adventures and people who relate the tales of their own journeys through this land in these hard and formative times. As you collect your own tales, share them and continue to wander, you will find that they have grown and changed as you visit new locales and hear familiar but altered accounts of what happened to you from strangers you meet along your vagabond road. You find that sometimes simple stories grow into legends that shape the sense of place we call America...or home. And as these tales grow, their impact is also weightier, which factors into the central part of the experience which entails finding a collection of 16 unique characters that embody the bulk of the flavor of the game. This group of characters are people you meet at campfires across the map as you wander, and in these sessions by the fire you exchange your experiences with each other. They tell you of the joys and sorrows, the victories and defeats, the lessons learned and the regrets carried from their own lives, and in return they ask you to share your tales. You can only share what you're carrying, so you pull from the things that you've experienced up to that point from a collection of 237 potential tales on the map to discover. Each fellow tramp will ask you to tell them a story with a particular theme as the night progresses. They may want to hear something hopeful or scary or sad or exciting, and you have to pull from your bag of adventures to relate something that invigorates them and their bond with you. This mechanic is represented as an eye at the top of the screen that opens little by little with each successful account (or all at once if you've got a real whopper). At the end of the evening, if the eye is all the way open, the next chapter will become an option and the character will inform you where they're heading on the map if you want to encounter them again. After you've finished three or four chapters with a character, they will transform into an image of their “essence” and when you complete that last chapter, your adventures with them conclude. I have to say that many of these characters were particularly well-written and voiced. The quality varied for me, but they did an excellent job of encapsulating and reflecting a nation struggling within the individual expressions of their own unique journeys, and I felt a real empathy for many of them. And if you want to see each of them through their journey, you'll want to collect as many of your own adventures as possible by stopping at highlighted points on your travels to collect this “currency” in the form of your own stories, as well as hearing them grow from others after you've shared them, granting them more influence on the characters you meet. In my time with the game, I collected almost 200 of the possible 237 stories, and many of them grew to be wildly different from what happened to me in the beginning, and this was a powerful sensation, realizing how our shared or personal conceptions of truth - of time and place - is comprised of mostly hearsay. We often take much of what we hear at face value, whether it comes from authority figures or simply people we know and trust that are close to us. And this idea of a collective “reality” really being nothing more than our collective imagination was beautifully conveyed. If we stop and think honestly about many of the things we claim to know, we'll find that few of them are tied to direct experience, and I really loved how this sensation was imparted here.

In addition to all the stories that made up the bulk of the experience, there was an absolutely amazing soundtrack that really captured the essence of the Americana of the era. There were a variety of songs that had different versions tied to the geographical and cultural flavor of the regions as you wandered about, and the musical stylings were really well-done for the most part, providing an excellent accompaniment to all your traipsing about across the land. And the narration of the stories was engaging and well-done in most cases, painting a vivid picture of many little snap-shots of your adventures as you went. And I just love the idea of being a wandering tramp. There's a part of me that could easily have been a gypsy, roaming from place to place as I soaked up the world - maybe in another life. And I also loved the use of tarot symbolism and the idea of how interpretation shapes perception of reality, as it does with any form of divining or interaction with the world in general. The "outer" is always a reflection of the "inner" (and vice versa) and that was nicely communicated. The overall flavor of the game was just very unique and cohesive.

There were some things that I felt could have been done better. As mentioned, most of the little stories you collected were interesting and worth hearing, but there were some boring ones that didn't really click with me. To be fair, none of those 237 stories were particularly long, so it wasn't really a big deal if you stumbled across a random dud. There were also instances where you needed to cross a river, but you could only do so at designated points, requiring you to walk longer than you wanted. Also, mountains could sometimes get in the way or slow your route. You could walk over them, but it was very slow and tedious, if appropriate. And travel by foot in general was very slow, and I've heard some people who really hated that aspect, but there are numerous ways to travel. You can hitchhike, hop a train (where you might get beat up), pay for a train ride or utilize a mini game where you match-face buttons as you whistle to speed up your pace. There's also 16 collectibles - one for each special character - which grant you immediate fast travel to a destination, and they're spread out across the country. Granted, by the time you've acquired all 16, you don't need them anymore. But the bottom line is that while conventional travel is indeed slow, there are ways to mitigate that, to greater or lesser degree. But I really didn't mind slow traveling by foot most of the time. It felt very much in harmony with the essence of things. There were also some superfluous survival mechanics thrown in. There were meters to monitor your rest/sleep, your health/food, and your money, but I never encountered an issue where they came into play, at least not in a way that was consequential or apparent to me. They seemed absolutely pointless, and I don't know why they weren't cut from the game or used in a meaningful manner. Finally, while I love Sting (who voiced the wolf), it did seem a little strange to have a Brit voice an important character dealing with the roots of America, despite our shared and intimately connected history.

But despite the negatives, I mostly enjoyed my time with Where the Water Tastes Like Wine. It took me about 16 hours to finish. It was heavy on narrative, but the narrative beats were worth the price of admission and the time I dedicated. And the characters often had some worthwhile things to say that had some philosophical weight and merit, and were worth reflecting upon. Their stories, along with the music, transported me to a place and time that felt real, as real as anything else that lay in our imaginary worlds that we all construct individually and collectively via the stories we hear and tell each other. 4/5

20) Milkmaid of the Milky Way (PC)



I was going through my massive itch.io backlog and was interested in a pixel-art point-and-click adventure called Milkmaid of the Milky Way. In this game, you play a young adult named Ruth who lives with her parents as a dairy farmer high on a mountaintop in the fjords of Norway. One day her mother, who has seen some strange lights on the peaks, vanishes permanently and eventually her father takes ill and dies, presumably because of the sorrow of losing his wife. Prior to these events, a calf she named Lykke is born, a significant event in this tale, and the protagonist girl promises to always care for the animal. The young woman eventually also starts noticing some strange things on the mountain, and one day her herd of cattle are abducted by an alien craft, and being the dedicated girl she is and wanting to keep the promise she made, she overcomes a childhood fear of heights and leaps off the mountain onto the spacecraft as it is leaving her isolated, lofty home on the peaks. Thus begins an adventure that is in stark contrast to the quiet, natural life she has always known. In the course of events, she meets a malevolent queen of a people whom she learns is draining their life force in order to keep herself young, and in her quest to save Lykke, she also seeks to aid these oppressed aliens. The game plays out in standard point and click fare with inventory, puzzles and plenty of characters with which to interact. One thing that really set Milkmaid apart is its use of rhyming to deliver all the dialogue and narrative. It felt very much like Dr. Seuss meets classic adventure game and was often quite charming and clever in its use of language. The simplistic pixel graphics were well-animated and attractive and the puzzles were fun without being overly difficult. There was no need for a guide in this adventure, but there were a couple of moments where I was unsure what to do, and it was satisfying to work things out. It wasn't especially long. I think it probably took me close to three hours, but I was pleased with the overall quality, having been made by a single person. And there was a surprise ending that I wasn't expecting that made me curious about the girl's future. I've played better point and click adventures, but this one can hold its head high as a fun example of the genre and just a good game in general. 4/5.

19) Inside (PC)



I played Limbo years ago - back in 2014, and while I enjoyed it, it didn't land for me in the way it seemed to for so many others. But it was good enough that I was open to experiencing more of the developer's work, and so I played Inside to see if it could build on the strengths present in their earlier title. And clearly, it follows a similar blueprint. You control a boy in an oppressive world where it seems forces are hunting him and others for an unknown, but obviously sinister, purpose. You navigate the environments on a 2D plane and utilize a basic skill set to bypass puzzles and threats. You can move (with the stick), jump and grab (some) items, and that's the extent of your options. Buy layered upon these simple inputs are a set of often wonderfully creative and clever puzzles that force you to look at circumstances with a flexible eye in order to work out your progression. I was really pleased with the amount of possibilities that were expressed, given the simplicity of the controls, and there were some thoughtful and interesting, if not overly difficult, brain teasers that were really fun to solve. Outside of the core mechanisms, there was also a wonderful atmosphere. The 2D movement was complimented by a very rich and 3D-feeling collection of backdrops that really made you feel like there was a great deal more than what you had access to within the world, and it imparted an expansive sensation to how the world felt. I often felt the urge to direct the character into the background, so convincing were the environments. It was fun to be exploring on a flat plane, but to feel very immersed with a sensation of breadth and depth. The animations were also wonderfully done, with everything moving smoothly and naturally, as you may expect from these creators. And visually, there was a great deal of light/dark contrast that made things pop. It was similar to Limbo in that regard, although there was a (minimal) element of color here that was absent in that work. And there was a real sense of menace that was conveyed via the variety of threats that stood in your path. There were some tense moments that, in addition to the thoughtful puzzles, kept things exciting throughout. I also really appreciated the wordless narrative. I'm always more of a show-don't-tell type of person, and Inside allowed for circumstances and events, rather than language, to tell their tale, and I love that sort of minimalist and direct engagement when it's done well. And the story itself had enough ambiguity that there was plenty of room to play with interpretation if you're the sort that likes to chew on potential meaning. The auto-saving also deserves mention due to how well it works to prevent you from having to replay lengthier sections, not that the game is overly long, clocking in at a few hours. Overall, I had a good time with Inside, and I prefer it to Limbo. The conclusion was a bit disappointing in terms of where the narrative went. It's not necessarily bad, but it felt a bit out of place with the lead up and I found it somewhat unsatisfying, although it certainly presented grist for the mill of analysis. Also, puzzle-centric games are rarely my cup of tea, but when it's got such a strong foundation in terms of presentation and a solid collection of well-conceived obstacles, it's far more palatable. If you liked Limbo, enjoy minimalist dystopian settings with great atmosphere or thoughtful environmental puzzles, Inside is worth the relatively brief time it asks. 4/5.

[isthatallyougot]

18) Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat (PS2)



One gaming motif that feels particularly underutilized is that of the realm of pirates. Granted, there are surely examples to cite, but given the potential within the setting and the popularity of some other media properties, you'd think it would have had a greater spotlight over the years. I remembered a game that I played on a demo disk back in the PS2 era called Pirates the Legend of Black Kat, and it seemed interesting, if not quite enough to spur me to purchase it at the time. It seemed to be attempting to draw upon the popularity of Lara Croft in its protagonist, while placing her in a unique setting, hoping to offer an interesting adventure. Well, I played it in 2022, long after the fact, assuming it must not have set the sales charts ablaze, given the lack of a sequel or a surge in pirate themed games on its heels.

Graphically, I remember feeling that it wasn't particularly impressive, even at the time of playing the demo. It didn't look bad, but there were many other games which were superior visually. Playing it with 20 years of hindsight, I find it pretty impressive, especially given the scope. The play space is a semi-open world with a good number of island chains to which you can sail and explore. There are the typical tropical islands with palm trees, sandy beaches and primitive huts, of course. But there are also regions of wintry islands, thicker jungles, and molten lava locales. (I still don't know how my wooden ship was able to sail about in the lava, lol.) The variety in each of the island chains did a good job of keeping things fresh and interesting visually, and it was much needed because exploring the world and figuring out how to progress often required revisiting previous areas, and you could spend a significant amount of time scouring a particular set of islands while you looked for important items, both primary and side-quest related. There were many things to discover, with buried treasure chests being the most stereotypical. Kat had a “nose” for it, and she would make an exclamation of knowing that some was nearby while your controller rumbled in physical response to her instinct. At that point, you'd move around slowly until a dig icon revealed itself allowing you to unearth the booty. And there was plenty of it to find - 250 chests in total, some of which required special keys. I must have done a good bit of exploring, as I found over 200 during my time with the game. There are also sea shell collectibles to find which open up concept art to browse outside the game proper.

In terms of combat, things were functional, if not particularly thrilling or nuanced. Kat could wield her sword and block as the primary means of interaction, and so combat often distilled into a bit of a clumsy block/counter type of dance until foes were dispatched. And there was a good variety of enemies to contend with, from fellow pirates, to apes, spectres and all manner of critter and ghoul that you might expect in this sort of “Sinbad-like" setting. There were also consumables to utilize in combat, both in the form of projectiles like bombs, knives - poison and regular, among others as well as magical incantations to be found that would allow you to freeze, burn or electrocute enemies along with spells that would allow you to become briefly invisible or invincible. And these secondary tools were often appreciated as things could get quite hectic, with many enemies being in groups and tough to contend with as their numbers increased, in addition to them often throwing projectiles of their own. So while the combat wasn't particularly exciting, it did have some depth to how you wanted to approach encounters, and that was appreciated.

As for navigating the world, I found the act of exploring and uncovering new regions to be fun and satisfying. As you sailed about from port to port, you would often encounter rival pirates, both on ship and at land-based guard towers and bases. Your ship could fire cannons as well as use projectiles and special skills of its own as you each fired away, hoping to disable and/or sink the other before you met your own watery grave. You also could carry (via purchase or pick-up) cloth material and lumber to fix your vessel on the fly as it was taking damage in an “all hands on deck” set of active repairs while still engaged with the enemies. Some of the special abilities were really useful, like the magical harp obtained from one particular side quest that allowed for invincibility for a few seconds. Those added moments of taking no damage could often be the difference in victory and defeat when you were surrounded by a group of land-based towers and ships, as it allowed you to turn the tide in your favor with your own damage with no incoming strikes to worry about. The whole sea faring act of combat wasn't necessarily that deep, but it was fun, and the spectacle of watching your foe ignite and explode as the camera panned around was always satisfying.

There were some issues that I found problematic in Pirates. In the first place, the narrative felt underdeveloped, with only a smattering of bullet points covered. There was no attempt to flesh out the story, and I felt disconnected and kind of disinterested in the whole thing. It wasn't horrible or anything, it just wasn't explored with sufficient detail. In terms of mechanics, the camera could only move vertically in a limited range - you can't look straight up to the sky, for example. In a game with 3D camera control, this is very frustrating for me. It feels really limiting and lessens my sense of immersion as well as just being annoying. The areas themselves can be pretty big, and there's lots of on-foot traversal which can be pretty slow without too much happening other than running past spawning enemies. To be fair, there are some teleports to minimize the tedium, but there was more pure slow-jogging over expansive stretches than I would have liked as you traversed the various islands. Finally, there was just a bit of clunkiness to the on-foot combat, just a sort of jank that you might expect in an older game. It wasn't bad, and the handful of bosses fared better, at least in terms of requiring a bit of tactics, but it wasn't deep or super exciting.

But despite the negatives, I most certainly did have fun with Pirates. There's a nice sense of freedom, discovery and a fun swashbuckling theme. The various clusters of islands and sailing among them made the world feel large and gave the sensation of a grand high-seas adventure. There wasn't any real hand-holding, which only added to the sense of discovery. And I found it to have that “just a bit rough around the edges” appeal where things don't feel formulaic or copy-pasted from other games. It feels like a unique work, despite inspirations, warts and all. This is part of what I love so much about older (mainstream) games. They were more experimental, and they just had personality that was undiluted by the chase for the most exploitable "gaming formula". They felt distinct and, good or bad, had their own justification for existing. It was also a decent length. My save said I was a little over 15 hours when finished, and it felt like a good, thorough adventure when I was done. It might not be a “must-play” on the console, but it's deserving of a bit of hidden-gem status. It's a 4/5 for me. It's worth playing if you have any affinity for the setting or if you are just fond of third-person adventure gaming or maybe just want to do a little bit of a deeper dive on the classic PS2.

17) Momodora : Reverie Under the Moonlight (PC)



Always interested in a new (to me) Metroidvania, I pulled Momodora : Reverie Under the Moonlight from my backlog. It's a prequel to a game series that started in 2010, and it's the fourth game in the series to be released. The main plot revolves around a priestess who has traveled from Lun to Karst trying to overcome some curse that has infected the lands. We come to find that the queen of Karst is a malevolent being and that she must be killed to end the darkness upon the land. There were some little moments of narrative that were interesting, but as is often the case for me, the narrative failed to really excite relative to the general mood and setting. There's not too much exposition to begin with, but there's enough to get a feel and flavor for what's going on.

The primary reason to play Momodora is for the gameplay and exploration. I found it to be a responsive, tight controlling and mostly interesting take on the genre. The protagonist can run, jump and double jump as well as eventually air-dash, which was a really fun move. She can roll through attacks without taking damage as she has no block move. She deals with her enemies with a maple leaf, which was surely unusual, but in practice it functions like any other melee weapon. She also has a bow to deal with targets at a distance, and you can find upgrades to fire quicker projectiles in addition to launching poison arrows. Speaking of upgrades, there were a variety of active and passive abilities to be found which could heal, increase attack and defense, turn you into a cat to navigate tight spaces, cause enemies to drop more in-game currency, give you a notification sound when in a room with a secret, among quite a few other things. There was some flexibility in how you approached the game's various bosses, primarily due to these abilities, but most of them weren't needed outside of those big conflicts. The handful of bosses that were on offer varied in quality, but they were generally unique, fun to fight and figure out their patterns. There was a decent challenge provided by the normal difficulty I experienced, and there are harder difficulties if you're really wanting a challenge or a return trip. The map wasn't especially huge, but it did require some backtracking. I'm always pretty bad at remembering what areas are currently blocked off in this genre and so I end up returning to places I've been numerous times only to find out yet again that I can't proceed and end up wasting my time. And the bigger the map, the worse the problem, of course. I'm old, lol. But even with my pointless backtracking, I spent about 5 and a half hours to beat this one. But it was engaging throughout, mostly because of the polished mechanics and the variety of enemies. The music was also noteworthy, being really moody in spots and fitting the setting quite well. Everything also animated nicely and had a generally pleasant, if lower-budget look. One small thing that I really liked is that you ring a bell (like bonfires in Souls) for your save points. (I love moody bells - also appearing in Dark Souls.) And they are spaced nicely so you don't feel like you lose too much progress if you die, and like many other genre entries, you eventually learn how to warp (via “praying”) from bell to bell to minimize pointlessly lengthy navigation. There are also a variety of endings (I got the bad ending), a good number of secrets, including secret bosses and a new game+ if you are really feeling it.

I wouldn't say that Momodora does anything particularly outstanding, but it does most everything very well. There's something to be said for being good across the board, even if you aren't necessarily setting the world on fire, and I think it's a fine example of a Metroidvania from a smaller developer, for sure. It can't rub shoulders with the Symphonies of the Night of the world, but it can hold its head high knowing it's a worthy entry in a beloved genre of gaming. I had plenty of fun with it. 4/5.

16) A Short Hike (PC)



Looking into the tons of games in my itch.io backlog, I noticed a game I had some interest in called A Short Hike. I went in pretty blind, although I did know it had a very positive reception with the gaming crowd and that it was a colorful, light-hearted appearing title. Things open with you, a bird (not in the British sense, a literal bird) named Claire, in a car ride with your mom telling you that "you're going to have a great time here this summer" and that it will be good for you to get away from the city as the car travels on a road in front of a forest backdrop with a mountain in the distance. You reach a ferry (you're told) and find yourself on a beach in the forest with a cottage beside you. You have a conversation with your aunt, who will be looking after you, where you let her know you are waiting on a phone call, and she informs you that it will be a long wait because there's no reception in this remote valley setting. But she lets you know you may be able to make a connection on Hawk Peak, which will be a long trek, and off you go. From the outset, you are free to explore and discover on your own with that singular goal of making it to the peak in the back of your mind. But this is not a game about a destination as much as it is about exploration, relaxing, and enjoying the moment, as it should be on any idea of a restorative vacation.

You'll soon discover that there are many things to, well, discover sprinkled about this remote natural park. There are numerous NPCs who will give you quests or challenges as well as providing advice and general entertainment. You'll find an array of gadgets and tools to aid you on your quest as well as simply pass the time in an enjoyable manner on your adventures. There are treasures to find, coins to seek out and unearth, pick axes to open short cuts, fish to catch, collect and sell, mini-games to play, just to touch on a few of the distractions at your disposal on this vacation. As you make your way up and around the mountainous region, you'll find (and/or buy) gold feathers which allow you to flap and climb longer, aiding you on your ascent to previously unreachable heights. There are also these magical rubber flowers that, when watered with your bucket, bloom to launch you skyward when jumped upon. There are many of these and if you're able to get water to them, they provide numerous shortcuts up previously scaled territory. And when you're launched upwards or simply choose to leap off a cliff, you - as a bird, appropriately enough - can soar on the currents around the mountain, a sensation that controlled beautifully and was a thrilling throughout. There was just a wonderful sense of progression and pacing, with bite-sized rewards present at every turn to hold your engagement and propel you to discover more.

Visually and thematically, it strongly reminded of Animal Crossing. It had that Nintendo bright and happy color scheme, along with a wonderful and dynamic soundtrack that captured the mood of a fun and relaxing adventure. It was loaded with that type of charm in all aspects. And all the anthropomorphic characters you meet had little stories to tell, and I was consistently reminded of my time with that Nintendo franchise. Everything just had this easy, breezy vibe, and I couldn't help but unwind as I soaked in the mood. There was minimal challenge as you climbed, bopped and flew your way to the top, but that constant sense of wonder at what you might encounter next made everything fun all the way through and made venturing off the beaten path a real treat. If there are any negatives, I will acknowledge that the game doesn't take too long to complete if you just want to bull rush your way to the top - probably a little under 2 hours. And the graphics are faux-pixelated (which can be adjusted for the level of pixelization in the settings) which some may not like, but I love low-res, low-poly...anything old-school visually. But I note it for those who may be repelled by such visuals. And I should note that the game looks much better in motion than any stills do justice. Despite how quickly you can complete things, it's a game that invites you to take it easy and explore as you feel. It's a game full of little joys that continually remind you to live in the moment and just be, and I had a wonderful time, playing significantly more than would have been required to just achieve “the goal”. For me, this short hike was well worth taking. A very pleasant surprise. 4/5.

[canedaddy]

I recall checking out Black Kat back in the day and moving on. Given what gaming has become now, I think I'll take another look. That sounds like it's 100% a cane game.

Same with Short Hike.

Adding both to my wish list. Thanks.

[isthatallyougot]

I recall checking out Black Kat back in the day and moving on. Given what gaming has become now, I think I'll take another look. That sounds like it's 100% a cane game.

Same with Short Hike.

Adding both to my wish list. Thanks.

No problem. Yeah, I think you'd really enjoy A Short Hike, in particular.

15) Punch Club (PC)



Do you like the 80s and the pop culture of the era - things like Rocky, The Terminator, The Karate Kid and other cultural sensations from the time (and a bit outside the period)? Do you still like retro aesthetics in terms of visuals and music? Do you enjoy combat sports? Do you like the idea of managing things rather than taking direct control yourself? Do you like cheesy revenge stories? Well, if those things click for you, have I got a fun (and challenging) game to tell you about.

I became aware of Punch Club a few years ago, and I've had it in my backlog for a while, thinking that I would really like it. The questions I asked above are prompted by my perspective after having played the game. But, all I knew going in was that it was a retro game that focused on fighting. And it is indeed that, but it is much more than what I expected. Things begin with the death of your father and that sets off a sequence of events that leads you on the path to becoming a fighter, a road that will also see you seek to unravel the mystery surrounding your dad's death. I won't go into all the narrative details, but I will say that there are the aforementioned cultural references along with a crime boss called the Don in a nod to the Godfather. There's a street fight club as an homage to Fight Club, and plenty of other cool little scenarios that I won't spoil. Everything is pretty light-hearted and is mostly an excuse to get your pugilism on, but I did enjoy the variety within the story and it kept me entertained and invested as things progressed. I wanted to see the hero make it to the top and figure out what happened in his past.

The method of interaction in Punch Club is one of management. You don't directly control the hero, rather you decide what actions he will take in an effort to build himself into the best fighter he can be. There are three primary attributes that need your attention, in the form of strength, agility, and stamina. And these attributes are raised through the relevant training exercises. Some exercises only increase the bar of a single attribute, while others may affect two or all three at once. The challenging aspect is that these attributes are always in decline, and not only that, when you train too consistently on one discipline, you start to have diminishing returns - so you're forced to mix up your training for maximum return on investment. And in the beginning money is sparse, and you have to make time to work (to make money for food), for gym visits, (eventually your own fitness equipment), sleep and eat, and enjoy a little fun and battery recharging R&R. And it can be really hard to find time to train up your fighter while you're balancing the four “wellness” aspects of health, food, fun, and energy. And so you find yourself in this real uphill war-of-attrition grind. I cannot emphasize strongly enough the sense of frustration and exhaustion imparted via the balancing here. Everything feels like a real struggle, which in the vein of a Rocky is certainly appropriate, yet nonetheless draining emotionally. When you scratch and claw just to get enough free time and energy to get some attribute-boosting training in and then you watch it all slip away as the clock announces a new day along with its accompanied degradation, and you know you've got to work to earn money for food with no time to train that day, it can be incredibly deflating. But you plug on because there are disciplines and skills to learn. You can - with enough experience and primary skills - unlock three distinct fighting paths. The way of the bear is a path that is focused on strength and pounding your opposition into submission. The way of the tiger (which I chose) is about agility and speed, about evading your opponent and wearing down their stamina, frustrating them with lots of dodging and countering. The way of the turtle is about stamina, taking abuse and outlasting your opponents. Each of these disciplines, once unlocked, has a skill tree that can be developed with tokens won from fights on the journey. When you earn enough, you can select some new skill(s) to incorporate into your fighters arsenal, an arsenal that can be equipped as you see fit from fight to fight and from round to round, based on the opponent you are facing and their strengths and chosen skills as well as how a fight may be playing out. You can eventually earn up to five slots for active skills for each fight/round, but you will earn many more than that as you progress, so each fight is about choosing the best selection of your acquired attributes in relation to your opponent, and that amounts to your fight-plan. It was really enjoyable to see how things changed as you opened up and used new skills and your fighter showed progress and developed as you guided him. You take tons of abuse early on, and as mentioned, everything is just this overwhelming attempt to merely hold on in this underdog tale. So when you see your fighter start to gain a foothold in his abilities, it comes with a real sense of reward. And things remain challenging throughout as you find yourself in a variety of fight leagues - some chosen by you and some forced upon you through circumstance as the story unfolds. So you'll always be trying to get ahead - or simply tread water. Things do get just a bit easier in terms of resources as you progress. Eventually you'll stop paying for gym memberships because you've bought your own equipment, you'll fall in love (if you choose to do so) which gives you more stamina for training - although your girlfriend is pretty high maintenance and requires gifts (which cost money) and time for conversation to reach that state. (You remain "in love" for 4 in-game days, after which you'll have to put in the work for her again.) It had that feeling of morale boost like the Rocky 2 scene where Adrian finally overcomes her reluctance to support Rocky's desire to fight and tells him to "Win." And later in the game, you'll have a crew looking out for your needs in terms of food and money, which gives you time to really train up nicely when you don't have those burdens constantly pressing upon you. But throughout, everything remains this delicate balancing act as you look to grow in stature as a fighter. For me, the formula on offer here had a real addictive quality, in part because of the theme (I've always loved the Rocky motif) and in part because of the structure of the math that caused you to always feel on the cusp of defeat and just wanting to surrender.

There are some negatives for me that I want to point out. At its core, it's largely a game of balancing meters. The skin over that foundation may or may not be compelling to you, but if it isn't, I'd probably steer clear if you don't enjoy that sort of thing. Also, it has a feeling that I find in some more modern games that seems to be by design, and I'm not sure it's a good thing. There is this formula of engagement, a formula that is always offering you little “Skinner-box” rewards at just the right clip to keep you playing, even if you are not really having fun. I'm not necessarily talking about how I felt about this game as I did really enjoy it, but it's something I've seen become more prevalent. I think I realized why it's addictive in my case. It has that sensation of trying to hold on to something that's always slipping away, and so you're always engaged in preventing that erosion, that loss, and you just keep playing in the hopes of maintaining. It's a sinister way that it taps into that urge to ward off loss, at least in terms of how its mechanisms worked with me, but I've got a bit of a masochistic streak within. Another point that I'll mention is that if you don't know what you're doing, you can find yourself in a dead end and have to restart. If you have no food and no money and your food meter gets too low, you'll be too tired to sleep or work, and so you can never replenish your food levels and I wasted about an hour when I first started because I didn't know I could reach an end-game in that manner. Also, I enjoyed watching the fights play out most of the time, but sometimes you might know that you're the clear winner (or loser) early on and it doesn't have that sense of engagement. But you do have the option to speed up time by double or quadruple in order to let the fights resolve more quickly if you desire. And finally, while I don't care too much about these things, I know some do. The achievements in the Linux version, which I played, were broken, as is the case more often than should be. Again, for me personally, it's not a big deal, but the Penguin and its devotees deserve better.

But I remained engaged with Punch Club from the very beginning. I almost gave up a couple of times early on because it seemed like too great a struggle, but my stubborn persistence prevailed and I finished the campaign in just under 22 hours, all in under a week. So I certainly didn't want to stop playing. There was just something compelling about the setting and the struggle that gripped me and wouldn't let go, and finishing the game felt like a real accomplishment, if only in the obstinate refusal to quit, lol. But most of the time, I was really enjoying myself. It's a solid 4/5 for me.

14) :The Longing: (PC)



You don't find so many unique experiences in gaming these days. It's not a criticism of the medium necessarily, it's just that the market has responded to what has proven to be successful over time, and development is often tilted towards chasing those trends that have proven to be popular. Of course there are exceptions and minor deviations from the tried and true, but it's rare to play something that feels utterly original relative to the immense amount of content available in the gaming landscape from inception to the present moment, particularly if you're the type of gamer who already likes to sample from the full breadth of potential forms/patterns of expression. I am such a gamer, and I love giving some of my gaming time to more fringe and experimental offerings in the hopes of finding those unique, gleaming pearls amidst the sea of sameness confronting the seasoned player.

In that quest, one game immediately jumped out at me as having such potential when I first came across it. A game called ": The Longing:" grabbed my attention because the premise is about waiting. Can you imagine trying to pitch such an idea to any mainstream publisher? I can see it now... Publisher: "Well, what is your game about?" Developer: "Well, you see, you wait...for 400 days." Granted, there's more to it than this, and I'll get to the finer points, but just imagine such a scene. Clearly, in premise alone, the idea of waiting isn't something that immediately lends itself to dollar signs flashing in the eyes of any would-be publisher who might foot the bill for such a project in our short-attention span, please-me-now/please-me-quickly world. So, in concept alone, :The Longing: was destined to merely dream of the spotlight, being relegated to the shadows with no hopes of the warm embrace of mainstream attention that at least exists as a faint whisper of a fantasy for most games. And that rebellious and creative fire to follow your own road is a big part of what drew me to pick up this work and see what the creator had to offer.

You play as an isolated "shade" living in an underground series of caverns. You are a tiny and lonely little black being with a disproportionately large head and glowing yellow eyes. You have a personal little cave home and just outside that is a frozen (or stone/earth-encased) king who is massive relative to your diminutive size. He is stuck on his throne in stasis and when you walk past, there is a prompt to "awaken the king" which isn't possible until 400 days have passed - a time frame which is tracked by an ongoing clock at the top of the screen that shows the days, hours, minutes and seconds remaining as time ticks away in real time, whether you are playing the game or absent. You theoretically don't have to play the game at all. You could start and then wait 400 days, open it up again and awaken the king for an ending. But that wouldn't be very compelling, so I'll try to cover what you actually do in the process of waiting.

The most impressive element that permeates the experience is the mood. Because of being isolated and in a vast underground network of paths, doors, tunnels, rooms and caves, you kind of turn inward in this process of seemingly-endless waiting, as might be expected in a similar real-life scenario. You wander about and explore - at a very slow pace, mind you. This shade saunters and shuffles as if he is bound to a timeless realm with nowhere to go and nothing to do. And it's understandable that he might feel that way, given the lonely and lengthy wait ahead. He also makes little comments (text only) about how he's feeling and what he's thinking that added ongoing and dynamic flavor to the world and his state. I should make note that you don't directly control your shade, rather you point him in a direction and watch him walk. As you explore, you can bookmark a (limited) number of places that you find interesting or worth revisiting, and these "bookmarks" allow you to direct your shade back to those points with a single click rather than continuously prompting him along as he reaches the point of the screen that you had previously clicked on. These shortcuts to traversal are really useful because it can be easy to get lost as paths intertwine and you find yourself disoriented in this massive-feeling nether labyrinth. The size of the space feels intimidating and a bit overwhelming at first, but it's due in part to the slow movement and you eventually find that this subterranean world isn't quite as large as it initially appears. But there's plenty to explore nonetheless. Once you've found some points of interest, you can navigate without too much trouble though and expand from those points of familiarity, and you'll be returning to many locations because there are puzzles to solve and items to collect, things that can impact your experience and home-cave setting in a variety of ways. There are constantly lumps of coal falling from the ceiling which your shade refers to as fallen brothers and can be used to start fires, one of several methods of speeding up time - a concept that is expressed by doing things that are engaging, making the awareness of time feel less noticeable. There are many public domain literary works to find and adorn your home shelving. You can choose to either read them on your own or plop your shade down in his recliner and set it to auto-read which he will do until finished, whether you remain in-game or not. There are some great classics here too, although it's easier to just download a free PDF than bother reading within the game. But I did spend a fair bit of time reading myself as I wanted to embody this spirit of a lengthy wait, and it was a nice way to pass the time. You can also find paper and various forms of marking implements that allow you to combine colors that open the possibility of creating many (pre-determined by color combinations) artworks which you can then hang in your cave. There's a music instrument to find and play. You can find (several actually) a mattock that will allow you to excavate your initially small home to expand it for greater comfort and uses. There are also mushrooms to find, collect, grow and consume for some special dreaming states. And you collect disappointments as well, funnily enough. And these bits of sadness can be used as a sort of currency at some point. And there are also a variety of puzzles that are clever in how they involve particular forms of waiting that I won't spoil. The puzzles are very thoughtful and subtly integrated into the environmental communication, and solving them was really satisfying and logical (in retrospect sometimes) - although I didn't discover everything in the game by the time I had finished. There's an area where time stops altogether that, again, involves patience/waiting in order to uncover its mysteries. And that pacing, that idea of waiting and general slowness to everything, did a really nice job of helping me inhabit the game world. I started to feel the sense of isolation and loneliness that was conveyed due to all the various elements at work, not the least of which was a wonderfully moody and understated soundtrack that enhanced the vibe that permeated the rest of the game and its rhythms. But as slow as things are, there's a satisfying sense of progression as the little things you discover and puzzles you solve really feel significant due to the lack of hyperstimulation you might find elsewhere in most forms of audiovisual media. I found myself entranced in a meditative sort of hypnosis that only comes when the mind slows down. The more time I spent in this world, the more absorbing it became. It just sort of calcified into my bones as I waited, as I read, as I wandered and pondered. And this world isn't static. It has a dynamic quality that displays changes over time, incentivizing a return to areas throughout the experience to see what may have been altered. And the look of the game was intriguing, if for no other reason than the fact that it's all hand drawn, giving it a very distinctive feel, which I really appreciated.

Of course, I'll mention some elements that maybe weren't what I would have preferred. Once you get to a certain point in progression, it's more or less just waiting. You can read or wander, and I did (both) simply for the atmosphere, but at some point, you'll probably want to take advantage of the methods to speed up time. It's not designed to literally fill 400 real-life days of checking in/playing, and that can result in you feeling like you've exhausted the game before you have reached the point that it's over. Again, reading the great public domain works is enjoyable, and it's got great atmosphere to soak in occasionally, and there are changes that occur sporadically, as mentioned, even later in the game, and some obvious carrots-on-a-stick that hint at undiscovered elements, but you come to feel like you've essentially seen it all and know the game at some point, which your shade even acknowledges when he says, “There must be more to life than just waiting for things to happen.”. Also, it's more of a singular experience where you live with the results you get, but I was at a point where I could (obviously) get a game ending of some kind - there are apparently several, and I wanted to see it even though I wasn't ready to end the journey, so I went ahead with it just so I could know that particular outcome. But a part of me feels like I cheated myself and spoiled that “singular” nature of the you-have-one-live-to-live sort of idea. Oh well, at least my curiosity was satisfied, lol. I suppose I could have ignored that possible route and tried to find it on YouTube later, although I'm not sure this game has enough of a player base for that sort of thing. The game auto-saves, and I was using Steam cloud saves, but I just turned that off and deleted my most recent local save so I could “undo” the ending that I wanted to see and continue on as if it never occurred. But I still kind of wish I hadn't done so, just to keep the purity of the “one trip/one result" vibe. I feel like I know something that wasn't meant for me because I wouldn't have opened up that path/end were it not for the sake of pure curiosity. And to top it all off, it was a very sad ending, which really makes me wish I would have just let it be, remaining forever in blissful ignorance. Oh well, what's done is done, and I've only myself to blame in this case. And the ending I did get (after the 400 "days") was also a bit anti-climactic. Not because it was necessarily poor, but its themes and essence had already been expressed through what you had discovered in-game prior to the grand finale. A game that has that massive carrot on a stick of "you can awaken the king after 400 days" really puts pressure on itself to deliver something special for the climax, and it didn't do that for me. Finally, as mentioned, I didn't discover every possible secret, and the pace of the game precludes any desire to start again. It's a one and done, and if I decide I want to find out anything I missed, I'll just look it up.

But I still truly enjoyed my overall time with :The Longing:. I spent 56 hours with it according to Steam, and it was mostly a positive experience. It was very resonant with me on multiple levels, one of which is a spiritual/philosophical predilection. The Longing is very Eastern/Buddhist in essence. The world (and time) arises (within you) because of (unfulfilled) desire/longing. When desire is no more, the world - as previously perceived (and time which brings about the changing expressions allowing for the possibility of desire's fulfillment) is no more. It was more than a simple "game" for me. It's a spiritual journey reflective of my own personal journey - a meditation on a road to surrender - allowing all to be whatever it will, without resistance or struggle, a sort of peaceful return towards stillness within the transient nature of waking expression in this thing we call life. It was very unique, which I always appreciate, but aside from being different, I also found it to be worthwhile. It is most assuredly not a game for the bulk of hobbyists, but it caters nicely to the fringes and those who have a bit more tolerance for slower rhythms and can find some appreciation for subtlety and less frantic methods of stimulation. It's a 4/5 and something I would cautiously recommend for the curious and/or patient.

[isthatallyougot]

13) The Good Life (PC)



If you like games that don't conform to convention, you may be familiar with Swery's work, he of Deadly Premonition fame. I certainly enjoyed that game, and he developed another title via Kickstarter that recently released in the form of The Good Life, dubbed a “debt-repayment RPG” in press materials. You play as Naomi Hayward, a journalist from the Big Apple who is sent to a small countryside village in the UK named Rainy Woods to do some detective and reporting work for her employer, Morning Bell News, so that she can pay off what she owes. Known as the “happiest place in the world”, Naomi is sent to uncover the secrets surrounding the rural hamlet, and so you begin snooping around the village and getting to know its cast of characters to unravel those secrets, and in the process of doing so the story unfolds.

The primary activities are taking photographs and uploading them to an in-game social media platform called Flamingo. Some of these pictures will be requests from your employer, but there are also periodically updated “hot words” that are essentially currently popular topics, and you'll get paid more for uploading images that reference those trends in your photo sharing as you grow your profile's popularity. You'll also engage in conversations with the locals that open up missions and activities, both within the context of the main narrative as well as offer up opportunities for exploration and additional content. And the inhabitants of Rainy Woods are surely an interesting bunch. From a bed-and-breakfast owner convinced the angel of death will steal his soul if he ever goes to sleep, to a drunken vicar, to a rival reporter from Boston who's always screaming “Lobstah” every time he makes an appearance, to a Sherlock Holmes knockoff named Norlock Homeless who walks around with an African Grey parrot perched atop his head that is always saying, “Fish and Chips”, to the town's craftsman adorned in armor and speaking as if he's from another era, there's a plethora of the peculiar when it comes to colorful characters, and the ones I've named are certainly not the only oddballs to get to know. There's lots to do and see, ranging from planting crops in the garden by the small house you're given by the villagers, upgrading said house to much nicer dwellings than that initially humble and tiny abode, mining for diamonds and precious metals, buying and eating dishes - that grant various effects - prepared at local establishments until you've learned through enough taste-testing how to make them yourself, exploring a decently sized open world and collecting a large inventory of consumables and materials to use in crafting, cooking and other medicinal and performance-enhancing concoctions, activating shrines scattered about the landscape that serve as both fast travel points and serve to open secondary missions, taming, riding, racing and upgrading sheep, along with many other things, including transforming into a dog or cat which, without spoiling things, is at the crux of the mystery surrounding this mysterious place. And these transformations carry their own abilities which incentivized their usage, from marking your territory as a dog to reveal points for digging up loot and digging in trash bins for treasures, to hunting animals and climbing buildings as a cat to find objects out of reach to Naomi or her dog form. There's plenty to keep you occupied and exploring, and there was always a push to do something, whether it was something related to the primary plot or simply following your own whims relative to the myriad other possibilities.

I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the world presented here due to the pastoral and idyllic setting. Roaming over the open spaces and undulating hillsides and small villages just carried a pleasant mood, whether you were in human form or animal, as you playfully galloped as a dog or scurried and climbed as a cat. And the presentation was nicely accentuated by an excellent soundtrack that had a charm of its own. Everything was just strangely soothing in terms of atmosphere, and I spent much more time than was necessary to complete the game because of this happy sensation. (I spent more than 40 hours with the game.) Inhabiting this place carried a unique charm and tone and really facilitated ongoing interest in a “life-sim” sort of way. Although my enjoyment of this place was in stark contrast to Naomi's as she endlessly referred to Rainy Woods as a “Goddamn hellhole” as she lived in a state of perpetual culture shock and homesickness for the big-city. And the narrative also kept things interesting as things unfolded in strange and interesting ways. There are references to royal lineage/bloodlines, King Arthur/Avalon and Excalibur, and the unfolding tale is full of bizarre touches that are entertaining, if often more than a bit silly.

Despite its strong points, The Good Life wasn't always good. The performance was not optimized very well, which was obvious at times with some slow-down and less than optimal frames occasionally. Cycling through your large inventory to get what you wanted was slower than I would have liked, and when you wanted to transfer something from your active inventory to your storage shed, there was no option to transfer a whole stack of an item you were carrying, so if you wanted to move 99 of an item, that meant 99 clicks which was beyond tedious and just poor design that should have never made it into the final product. Similarly, gardening/planting was tedious because of the lethargic inventory menus. Transforming into different forms was also annoying at times. There was a brief pause when you switched and if you wanted to switch from one animal to another, you couldn't do so directly - rather you had to go from dog to human to cat (or vice versa), and when you're doing it so often these little pauses add up. These changes should have been instantaneous, given the focus on these forms. The sheep races were quite poor. You have narrow areas to navigate where you need to weave in and out of obstacles in addition to obstacles popping up right in front of you (not in the technical "pop-in" manner), but your sheep - even after having upgraded their handling - just aren't nimble enough for the courses and any contact with the geometry will stop you in your tracks. They were fine, even enjoyable, when riding and navigating within the village and the surrounding countryside, but the races were just not designed around the level of control you're given. The game also doesn't really explain all its systems and options clearly at times. For example, the “stress” meter was never explained in-game or in the in-game tutorial book you can read. You kind of figure out how it works, but it should have been covered. Stamina was annoying to manage at times. If it ran out while running, you'd be briefly slowed to a crawl until it recovered, so if you weren't paying attention to that bar, you'd get hit with another pause. The ending was very abrupt feeling with everything wrapping up with an unexpected quickness. There was plenty of grind involved if you wanted many objects or clothes due to them requiring an absurd number or selection of rare and hard to accumulate items. On the flip side, it gave these things a feeling of added value, but things weren't balanced well, making the acquisition of many things feel punitive rather than motivating - again, grindy. Things could often feel a bit “check-listy” and didn't have much in the way of depth, failing to engage on the same level you might expect from a Harvest Moon-like. The voice work that was there was good, but it was minimal outside of some story bits with characters repeating grunts or short “personality phrases" in lieu of all their lines most of the time. There was just a significant amount of jankiness that you might expect with a lower budget title that is already coming from a developer known for his jank - jank squared . The good outweighed the bad, but there were plenty of annoyances, large and small, and you'll need to love the positives and charm enough to forgive some of the poorer elements.

Overall though, I really enjoyed my time in Rainy Woods. It was addictive and consistently agreeable exploring the bucolic open world and the story was an interesting, if bizarre, mystery populated with a quirky cast of personalities. So much of the game reminded me of the PS2 era where games weren't so risk-averse due to ballooning budgets. The Good Life felt experimental or at least less concerned with any idea of what the mainstream might be looking for, and that's very refreshing in this ever-greedier, black-hole-of-homogenization industry. It had its own identity and was happy to do its own thing, and I respect that. But aside from its independent identity and charm, it was just a fun time. I'm really happy to have played it. 4/5.

12) OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast (PS2)



Arcade racers are usually a low-barrier, accessible form of fun. You turn off your cognitive brain, put the pedal to the metal and weave in and out of traffic and winding roads as you zoom towards (hopeful) victory. The immediacy and reactivity prompted by the speed strips away the rest of the world as you melt into instinct, forgetting yourself, surrendering to the rapidly changing road and its conditions. It's a liberating and exhilarating feeling when done well, much like any activity that quiets the endless chatter of the mind. It's easy to see how people can become addicted to that sensation of speed and the lost-in-the-moment feel that comes along with pressing its limits. One classic and beloved racer from the 80s that has had a variety of iterations received a fresh coat of paint in OutRun 2006 Coast to Coast for several platforms. I played the PS2 version in 2022, and here's what I thought of it.

The most obvious thing about Coast to Coast is its arcade feel. It's not a Gran Turismo sort of experience with endless upgrades and tuning, no, this is low-barrier-to-enjoyment “Sega fun” through and through. The main mechanic of racing you'll have to perfect is that of drifting. As you approach turns, you can brake briefly and slide into the bend, allowing you to gain extra grip instead of taking things head on and turning normally, which would not allow for addressing the sharper turns at high speed. As you drift sideways, you still have an element of control that allows you to nudge your sliding Ferrari across the road, avoiding traffic and opponents while you go careening up the track. It's not immediately mastered, but once you get the hang of it, there's a real thrill in utilizing the technique to its fullest in order to win races, accomplish game goals, and get the best possible times. And overall, the control leans very much into that arcade feel. Things are loose and slippery, with a chaotic sense of interaction. You'll be navigating hairpin S-turns all while sliding around traffic and opponents, and it's a thrilling rush when you manage to pull off good sections or runs as you slip past all the oncoming opposition, flying past at a breakneck pace. The fundamentals of the racing were, for arcade style fans, excellent, and the simple joy of the race was ever-present throughout the various game modes and tracks.

And speaking of modes, there's a variety of ways to engage with this iteration of Outrun. There's the familiar old-school Outrun mode that has been a part of this franchise since its inception. Here, you'll try to complete sections of track fast enough to reach checkpoints to gain additional time while choosing various routes to the finish line as you earn points for passing other cars and the distance you cover. It's a fun mode, and enjoyable to see all the permutations of possible paths to the finish line for various tracks. There's also Heart Attack mode where your in-car girlfriend will offer you challenges as you drive. She'll ask you to pass cars, bounce a beach ball ahead of you, drift as much as you can among other things, and as you satisfy her thrill-seeking you get graded throughout the various sections of the track and earn a final score and grade when completed. The main mode of this version of the series is the titular Coast to Coast, and that's where you'll spend most of your time. Here the bulk of the content is racing against rivals to try and races in traditional fashion. You may face only a handful of opponents in some races all the way up to 30 at the max. And you always, naturally, start at the back, and so you have to make your way past all the competition to win. In some races in this mode, you simply have to beat your rival - a matchup against a single AI opponent. In others, you test your drift abilities, where winning the race isn't as important as scoring points for drifting as much as possible. And there's a type of contest where you have to slip-stream better than your opponent, a mode where you gain more points for riding closely enough behind traffic to reduce wind resistance and increase speed. In all of these Coast to Coast events, you have to rank high enough in order to unlock further competitions. There are four sections of challenges in this mode, all with plenty of contests in each, and things can get quite tough as you advance and really push the skills that you've acquired in a satisfying way. Finally, there's also a time attack mode where you can try to beat a variety of track bests against ghost runs. There's plenty of meat on the bone here, to be sure. And in all modes you earn “Outrun Miles” for each track that you finish, whether you win or not (but you earn more for better runs), that work as currency for buying new cars, paint jobs, musical tracks, challenges, courses and the like. There are plenty of things to purchase, making the acquisition of in-game currency, and thus your participation in various events, feel meaningful on a larger scale. There's also an Outrun “License” that tracks your overall completion percentage across all game modes as well as your total time played. I don't think this sort of measuring stick belongs in every game, but the statistics nerd in me appreciated seeing that percentage rise as I progressed through all the content here.

In terms of visuals and overall presentation, I found Coast 2 Coast to be very attractive too. There are plenty of courses available and they all have a unique style, despite some similar stretches that act as transitions between regions. There were plenty of undulating hills and sharp turns that reinforced that sense of persistent and tense engagement, as mentioned. There was a pleasant cartoony appearance befitting the overall tone, and everything was crisp, vibrant and generally attractive. There are also plenty of catchy, fun and light-hearted musical tracks, many of which hearken back to previous installments as well as new tunes and all sorts of remixes covering older sound stylings in addition to newer, more modern takes. It was nice being able to select the soundtrack for a run to match the mood you wanted to feel.

In the way of negatives, I sometimes found the artificial intelligence to be a bit too artificial and “rubber-bandy”. You'd get to the end of a track, make a small slip, and get passed by a bunch of cars in a flash, sometimes going from the pole position to well back of the lead. It can also be really easy to over-steer while you're learning the feel of the controls. As mentioned, things have a slippery feel, and that both works to positive and negative effect. You're always engaged because of that looseness, but it can also betray you as you try to compensate, and just a little bit too much adjustment has you losing control, even without any bump from traffic. Also, despite the large variety of modes and races, things can feel pretty much the same across all the events for the most part. You're running on the same tracks many times, and the sense of familiarity stretches a bit thin when measured against all the content. It's not purely negative though, because you'll need familiarity with some of the tougher tracks if you hope to win some later stage events, but I did feel a bit of fatigue after doing so many runs on the same tracks after a while. And while I enjoyed the overall difficulty, at the upper end you could sometimes feel like you had to be perfect as things progressed. I occasionally felt as if there was no room for error if I wanted to finish first, or even top three (in order to advance). If you miss your turns even a little and wind up on the edges of the road, the speed penalty is stiff, let alone bumping into a barrier. And there is so much traffic in addition to your opponents, it sometimes felt like more luck than skill when you successfully navigated some particularly harrowing convergence of moving parts. Don't get me wrong, the controls were very responsive and excellent overall, but you could encounter sections where the amount of dynamic obstacles became a bit overwhelming. Finally, traffic and especially opponents had a nasty tendency of shifting into your space right as you approached, causing you to bump into them. This “feature” could sometimes be really frustrating when it slowed down a good run.

In all though, I really had a great time with Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast. The racing was often exhilarating with that white-knuckle-on-the-edge-of-your-seat feeling that fixates attention at the expense of any other stimulus. It was so easy to want to do just one more run, and the simple fun of driving and racing was consistently enjoyable. There was such a fun vibe overall that I just wanted to keep playing, and I did for a long time. It's not a hall of fame racer for me, but it's not far off. And it's certainly an easy and strong recommendation for anyone who loves the genre or just pure arcade fun. 4/5.

11) Pale Cachexia (PC)



I've always been a gameplay-first type of gamer, a gamer who, if forced to choose, would pick mechanics, strategy and that sort of engagement over narrative and atmosphere. Now in a perfect world, of course, I'd love all elements to be of a high quality, but I can live with a lesser narrative and mood if I'm having fun via mental or mechanical play. It's a bit harder in the reverse, although many games I dearly love are stronger on the atmosphere and story elements than gameplay. I always want both - naturally, yet many of my all-time favorites lean heavier to one side of that equation or the other. I bring this idea up because I've started venturing into a genre which was mostly foreign to me, that of the visual novel. To be fair, there are sub-genres within this genre and varying degrees of interactivity and influence. But one particular niche within this niche is something that I learned is called a “kinetic” visual novel. It's a story with no player agency, no multiple endings, no stats or the like. It's more a book with audiovisual elements than any idea of being a "game" as it has existed within the formative roots. But having dipped my toes into this genre and seeing potential and finding that I was enjoying myself, I was open to experiencing a visual novel of this more narrow scope. And I found myself drawn to a game called Pale Cachexia, a title I had picked up unaware in an itch.io bundle some time ago.

The story opens as Esther, one of three main characters, wanders about in, what is rumored to be, a haunted forest in search of an apothecary whom seems to be her last hope for discovering a cure for her condition, the titular Pale Cachexia, or simply “The Pale” for short. This condition causes a draining of physical and muscular energy that, when untreated, eventually results in paralysis and coma. In order to treat this seemingly incurable disease and avert a horrible frozen fate, Esther must treat her blood with a concoction that she carries within a special watch that both reminds her of time for her daily dose and extends a needle for delivering the regular remedy. But the drain of life force is an ever-present reminder of her condition, and her struggle is an ongoing battle. She has informed her family that this is her last search to finally find a cure and that if she is unsuccessful within a year, she will return and live close by to them going forwards, managing her condition with the only available conventional treatment. As she wanders alone in this intimidating and spooky forest, she almost gives up before stumbling upon an isolated manor. Certain this must be the rumored apothecary's dwelling, she makes her way forward in the night and is eventually greeted by a younger girl named Seina, who she comes to discover is the daughter of the apothecary, a man named Isaiah, and she's been living alone in this secluded mansion for a number of years, even as a child, caring for and tending both the house and grounds. Her father has vanished, but also suffered from The Pale, and his library is full of research, books and scattered notes that cover his own quest for a cure. As things play out, Esther spends much of her time scouring Isaiah's library, hoping to find the key to her condition. And within this framework, she and Seina get to know each other and develop an incredibly deep and meaningful bond. Seina, having lived alone for many years, is self-sufficient, but craving companionship/friendship. (She has remained alone in fulfillment of a promise to her missing father.) Esther, seeking her cure, has an introverted, even distrustful nature, and Seina's guileless and buoyant spirit is a balm for her wounded heart. I won't spoil the details of the plot, but suffice it to say that the writing and character development were phenomenal, some of the best I've ever experienced in this medium. Not only were the characters well-rounded, relatable and likeable, but the general use of language was very skilled and wonderfully descriptive, creating both a sense of place and relationship dynamics that were deeply engaging and very emotionally moving. As they got to know each other, we sometimes flashed back to Seina's father's life, which informed the dynamics of the interaction between the two girls in large part. And the limited use of these three characters (with a few references to people on the periphery of the main characters' lives) provided an intimate focus that really allowed for a richness to all involved. The story left me touched and absorbed in a way that was entirely unexpected as it dealt with themes of love and loyalty, longing and loss, vulnerability and trust, and just a kaleidoscope of human feeling that brought this fictional world to life in an unforgettable way. There are also plenty of twists and turns as well as an undercurrent of constant mystery. And the answering of some intriguing questions along with the resolution of some delicately balanced drama kept things exciting throughout.

The setting itself was also particularly evocative. The sounds of nature, the birds chirping, the rain on the windowpanes, the crackling fireplace, the candlelit rooms and the gentle, thoughtful musical pieces worked together with the concept of a remote manor in the midst of a vast and mystical forest to create a feeling that was incredibly cozy. (most of the time) “Cozy”, yes that's the right word for the feeling conveyed so vividly. It just established this world of natural intimacy and seclusion that was such fertile soil for this blossoming and healing relationship to unfold. (this is in no way a romantic or sexual tale in the slightest, to be clear. SORRY PHASE ) There was also this “Walden/Thoreau” undercurrent of self-reliance and self-trust that permeated the characters and much of the experience. I loved and could really relate to the desire to extricate oneself from society altogether. If you've ever had an off-grid fantasy where it's just you and those very close, this approximates that feeling nicely. Much of the static art-work was of natural settings outside the manor itself, and I really found myself in this beautiful oasis within my own mind as I experienced this journey. The overall presentation was sublime and only served to accentuate the strong narrative.

I suppose there are some minor elements I would have liked to see addressed. There weren't tons of environments, and what was there was so nice, I wanted to see more. There was this apparently huge manor and endless surrounding grounds, but the locales were limited in scope. I wanted to be shown more aspects of this setting. Also, as mentioned, this is a kinetic visual novel, a work without player input. On the one hand, having no impact on things, no real interactivity, pushes the idea of a video game to the old gamer in me, but on the other, even in most "traditional" games with a heavy narrative focus, the impact on everything is often small or subtle. And of course, being a linear tale, there's not much in the way of replay value, but this five or so hour trip may be worth experiencing again, much like a good book or movie. Finally, I mention this for others more than myself, there was no voice acting. Anyone who knows me knows how picky I am in terms of voice work, and as much as I loved these well-developed characters, it would have been very easy for voice work to have shattered that affinity for me. Of course, if it was well done, I would have had no objections, but that's very rare in my experience. But I know many can't tolerate anything without voice, so that's worth noting.

Overall though, I'm left a little shocked at how Pale Cachexia landed for me. The narrative, characters, setting and atmosphere were so strongly enjoyable that they overcame the lack of interactivity and really convinced me of the potential in visual novels. I had been on the precipice of really delving into this genre, and this pushed me over the edge. I'll be seeking out more within this gaming realm. It probably won't ever be a staple, but I've found the genre to be worth my time and with great potential. It's hard for me to consider it an all-time classic because the roots of the gamer in me still wants some gameplay and can't quite distance myself fully from that requirement, but taken for what it is and not, maybe, for what my expectations of gaming are, it's fantastic. 4/5 and recommended to anyone who enjoys or thinks they may enjoy this genre, or just can appreciate a thoughtful, well-written story. Why can't mainstream gaming have writing and characterization that is this well-crafted and interesting?

[isthatallyougot]

Well, it has been a long countdown and there have been some stinkers, some really good games and a bunch of ordinary, but I'm finally to the top 10 I played last year. It's probably safe to say that no one else on the planet would have my specific top 10 for the year, even if some entries might match. If any of you have read everything I've written, well, may the divine help you!

10) Boxing Legends of the Ring / Chavez II (SNES)



Since I was little, I've always loved boxing/combat sports. There's something appealing in the primal, physical man vs man contest that strips away much of the facade of civilization. In the end, we're all trying to survive and if push comes to shove, things will get physical for most anyone in a battle for their continued being in this place. Most all of us would resort to some method of force if our life were truly on the line, and boxing touches, if only delicately, on that possibly uncomfortable truth. Additionally, the sport lover in me appreciates the tactics and the hand-eye coordination involved in confronting a variety of opponents and styles in the ring. There's a great deal of nuance to boxing and in my view it has earned the moniker of “the sweet science” as prescribed by Pierce Egan.

Having always loved the sport, I've sought out digital representations in the world of gaming as early as Boxing on the Atari VCS. And as primitive as that was, it did a pretty good job of replicating the fundamental feel of trading blows. Later, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! landed on the scene and is surely an all-time classic in my book. There have also been some good entries from EA in Knockout Kings and Fight Night, among others. So there's been quite a bit to enjoy for fans of the scene. I was looking through some releases on the SNES as I was in the mood for some retro gaming, and I stumbled across Chavez II. It looked interesting and so I fired it up. I was a bit surprised to find the menus to be in Spanish, not so much because of the title and the demographic of its namesake, but because it was a US release. So I was a bit confused. I fought a couple of matches and was enjoying it, so I did a bit of digging and it turns out that Chavez II was a special release of a game called Boxing Legends of the Ring, and it only saw release in Mexico and a small region in the American Southwest. So now knowing that the original game marketed to the entire US was also available, I put down Chavez and fired up the primary entry.

The first thing that made an impression - in both Chavez II and BLotR - was the fact that this was no arcade styled boxing game. If you were going to make any headway in fights, you had to be prepared for a war. You (and your opponent) have a stamina meter that is represented by a boxing glove at the top of the screen, and as you expend energy with your punches, flurries, dodging and weaving, it depletes gradually. If your glove is empty, the only thing you'll be able to do is defend yourself. In practice, if you are fighting smartly, it's not a problem, and you shouldn't spend all your energy, but it's surely possible to find yourself out of gas. You really have to pick and choose your spots, learning your opponents patterns and waiting for them to finish a string of attacks as you block and evade as best you can, and as soon as one of their (many different) patterns concludes you have a brief window to respond with your own attacks. You can still attack at any other time, but your most effective chances are in response to your opponent's combinations, countering immediately after a pattern has finished. As they finish a string, there is a brief pause and learning what the most effective punches are against a particular opponent and sequence is a big part of the strategy. You'll find that certain groupings of punches can land in succession without being blocked, while others are absorbed, and as you find what works, you “unlock” your opponent and gain a tactical edge. I found that in early rounds, it was best to be primarily defensive, mostly observing the actions of the man across from me until I was confident in recognizing what they were trying to do before opening them up with my own responses. And the fighters varied greatly in style, not only from one another, but if you faced them in a career mode rematch, they could often come at you differently, which kept things fresh throughout the campaign. Some fighters didn't give you much time to rest because they were constantly coming at you. With these fighters I found it best to “turtle” until they tired themselves out, much like Muhammad Ali's famous rope-a-dope against Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974. Other fighters were far more tactical, predominantly using their own defense, and all fights boiled down to finding an effective balance of exertion against stamina limits in conjunction with the overall momentum of the fight. I often found it best to wait until later in the fight to unleash my “fury”, but sometimes openings presented themselves early on and you just had to go for it while the moment was there. Every round you also get a “super punch” which does extra damage. If you don't spend it, you keep accumulating them until you've acquired 3 - the maximum. You can spend these all in the same round or use one to kind of turn the tide and dish out some pain against the flow of a fight going against you. You also get an additional super punch if you knock down an opponent in a round, so if you're really close, you can spend one, knowing that you'll get it right back if you manage to put your opposition on the canvas. And speaking of going down, the game had a couple of really cool ways to communicate damage. Each fighter has a profile picture on the top of the screen and as damage accumulates, you can see a gradual change in the fighters' faces. From the smile leaving their face to red eyes, bruising, swelling and bleeding, there are various stages representing the decline of condition. Also when a fighter gets close to going down, the screen (if it's you) will start dimming in literal "lights out" fashion and you won't be able to see clearly as the attack keeps coming in. And all of the punches you'd expect make up the combat. You can throw simple straight jabs to cumulatively wear down your foe, along with hooks, uppercuts, crosses in addition to defensive ducking, side dodging and blocking. You can throw all punches from both sides as well, with the predominant hand doing more damage, and the basics were very well represented. And the actual impact and feel of punches was weighty and satisfying when you connected. You can also grab and hold if you're on the verge of going down or just want to regain some stamina as you play the long game. The crowd will boo as you employ this boring but tactically effective strategy to rest, which was a nice touch. The overall flow of the fights just felt remarkably realistic in some really important ways. You can turn fights around from losing positions or find yourself on your back from winning positions quite easily if you're not careful and consistent with your strategy and responses. Sometimes, if you just got yourself in a tough spot it could feel like all you could manage was to simply hold on, grabbing and evading until the final bell, in the faint hopes of getting a decision. The fights (and fighters) just all felt unique and like real wars of stamina, skill and will, and were very stressful (in a good way), and I was surprised at how authentic a representation of the sport this game was, all things considered, especially given its age and other examples of the genre I've played, both from its own era and more modern.

The main mode of Boxing Legends was a career mode where you must try to climb the ranks of the top 10 fighters in the world. There are a variety of all-time greats represented here (middleweights only). As a teen from the 80s, I loved seeing Hearns, Hagler, Duran and Leonard among others. This was a golden period for the sport and weight division, and it was nicely reflected by the roster of fighters. In the career mode, you have the option to select your special punch - your most powerful weapon, which will deal more damage in fights. You can also customize how you allocate skills across punch power, stamina and chin attributes. After every fight, you can make a small increase to any of these traits, and by the time you've climbed the ranks, you'll be a pretty formidable warrior. The downside of this career mode is that if you lose only two fights, it's game over. And these fights are not easy, especially as you progress up the rankings. (It was much harder - and different - than Punch-Out!! in my opinion.) Thankfully, I was emulating the game and could take advantage of save states because I can imagine it would be a tall order to take the title without losing two fights on your journey without many restarts and significant experience. If I had rented or owned this game back in the day, I'm not sure if I would have stuck with things, given those very strict career-ending conditions. That is the biggest complaint I have with the game, despite it not affecting my own play-through. I have to acknowledge the game as it was made though, and that is poor design in my view, especially considering the overall challenge and difficulty. It's also hard on the fingers if you're using a controller with a sharp d-pad. There's so much movement between directions for blocking, dodging and punching that you can really feel the punishment in your thumb after a longer session, although it felt kind of appropriate given the nature of the game. Witness my "suffering" on the road to glory! There were also "Exhibition" and "Legends of the Ring" modes. The latter only opens up after you've beaten the career mode, and it's apparently a single elimination tournament featuring all the boxers in the game, but as of this writing I haven't explored that mode. One other little gripe I have is that after an opponent completes a combination and you are in a blocking state by virtue of either holding up or down on the pad, you must release and quickly re-establish the direction of your counter punching or you'll stay in a defensive state. Sometimes that window for countering would close before I could cease blocking and begin attack or I would forget to release and re-engage, costing me an opportunity to get in some damage of my own. It's not badly designed necessarily, but I just would have preferred that it continued to register the direction as currently-held while shifting from defense to attack.

Taken as a package, Boxing Legends of the Ring was really fun and authentic to its inspiration. The visuals were clean and nice-looking, and while the presentation didn't have the personality of a Punch-Out!!, the feel of being in a real boxing match is something that was perhaps the best I've experienced in the genre. In the end I was very surprised by this hidden gem of a game, and I'm so glad I spent about 13 hours with it. It was so much better than I anticipated. You just never know what you may have missed out on unless you take a look. Its minor problems didn't take much away from my fun, and in truth, the biggest problem the game had was something that I never personally experienced due to emulation. It's short of champion status, but it's a genuine contender with tons of talent. 4/5.

[isthatallyougot]

9) NORCO (PC)



If you have any love for conspiracy theories or just like to consider how deep the potential rabbit hole of this thing called life goes, you might enjoy a game called Norco, which I played via Game Pass in 2022. It’s fundamentally a point and click adventure game with some really attractive pixel art that has a unique sense of style. You play as two characters – a disenchanted youth named Kay who had ventured out on her own as a vagabond due to prior conflict at home and wanting to escape her oppressive city before returning to look for her missing brother as the story picks up. You also play, in flashbacks, as her deceased mother, a woman who worked for one of the biggest corporations in the Louisiana Bayou region, a company named Shield which is a large oil refinery that has their tentacles in everything and is central to the plot. (It felt a bit reminiscent of Umbrella from the RE series in its power, reach and sinister nature.) The setting is in the future where things like consciousness-uploads called “head drives” exist which allow for the creation of facsimiles of the deceased, granting a sort of ChatGPT-like communication with the departed. This is a world of robots, artificial intelligence networks and high-end tech, and the flavor is very corporate, cyberpunk dystopian, although the setting doesn’t have the feel of being too far into the distant future, perhaps presciently. As the narrative unfolds, we’re treated to a mystery that is full of suggested esoteric knowledge, cultish organizations and secrecy, both explicit and implied, the belonging to which promises a type of salvation or realization for the holders of these exclusive “keys”. Throughout the tale, there are plenty of threads which are juggled to keep your curiosity engaged and these strands really drove me forward with continued interest all the way to the climax. There are a number of unique characters that have plenty of personality and who may be more than they seem upon initial meeting, and they (and the plot) are all woven together with an overarching and interactive “mind-map” that helps you to connect everything conceptually as well as literally in a visual sense. The thirst for wanting to know how everything would play out and intersect was strong and was only accentuated by the stylistic visuals and a wonderfully future-chic soundtrack that kept the mood throughout. There are a number of puzzles, as you may expect in this genre, but despite getting briefly stuck at a couple points, I found the resistance to progress to be mild in general, and this is ultimately a game that can be easily enjoyed without a guide. (I was tempted to consult a guide at one spot, but realized what was blocking my path before doing so, and was just a simple oversight on my part.) There's also some combat and mini-games that unfold via pattern and/or rhythm matching. These mechanics were simplistic, but engaging enough given the type of game. I don’t really have much in the way of negatives to express. There was a character that was a little comical who felt out of place with the otherwise intense and serious tone. I didn’t find the need for breaking the mood in such a way, and would rather not have had that type of tone-variance, but it wasn’t overly off-putting or persistent. The story also had some bizarre aspects to it that really pushed things into some strange territory. I was mostly able to surrender to the fantasy, but there were some moments that really wandered a bit far down the yellow brick road. So if you like stories that press conventionality and stress those limits in creative ways, you'll be pleased here. And if you don’t like reading, you’ll be turned off since there is plenty required to flesh out all the details. I should also mention that there are some religious references to Christianity, and some characters are tied to its history. I’m not sure if those who identify with the faith would find anything offensive, but those elements have a presence, although not to an abundant degree, despite some references and themes existing in the background of the plot throughout. Overall, I really enjoyed Norco. There was such an oppressive sensation of forces that lay out of sight and beyond the awareness or comprehension of the average individual, a sense of hidden powers-that-be exploiting and pushing down upon the populace as the gears of an impersonal system rotated coldly, indiscriminately and without humanity, generating a feeling of powerlessness, much like may be familiar to individuals in our own world today. All-in-all, we’ve got an engaging setting and interesting mystery that is full of great presentation and delivered with a nice sense of polish and skill. And it’s a pretty lengthy adventure. I spent about 11 and a half hours with it, although I did really take things at a leisurely pace. If you enjoy the genre or dystopian, high-tech settings with wildly imaginative narratives and a one-of-a-kind style, it’s certainly worth your time. I thoroughly enjoyed myself with this one. 4/5.

[isthatallyougot]

8) Painkiller : Black Edition (PC)



Of all gaming genres, the first-person shooter may have the broadest appeal. From Doom (or Wolfenstein) to Call of Duty, it's an archetype of gaming that has persisted from some of the earliest days of this medium. No matter the device, you're likely to see many examples of this beloved form, and they're often among the top sellers. I suppose it's the simplicity of both concept and execution. You see bad guys and you kill them. You point your death implement and you click/shoot. Now upon that simple foundation there is the potential for myriad worlds and mechanical subtleties, so it's a breed of gaming that has those fundamental basics with all manner of flavors which can layered upon, and it's easy to see why it has had such penetration into the collective gaming psyche. Anyone can understand the concept immediately, and it can be fun, and maybe a bit cathartic, to unleash a hail of gunfire.

Personally, I'm not as big of a genre fan as many, but there are a few which I consider to be all-time greats, and they're usually good fun regardless, even if they're not my gaming staple. A couple of years ago, I played Bulletstorm for the first time, and that quickly became one of my all-time favorite games, especially within the genre. Developed by People Can Fly, it was full of great action, unique mechanics and plenty of humor. I honestly didn't know much about the developer, but when perusing my Steam backlog, I noticed that Painkiller was also developed by the same group, and so I knew I had to give it a try. There's minimal narrative, only presented in a smattering of cut-scenes outside of game levels. In the intro, the protagonist dies in a car accident along with his girlfriend and finds himself purgatory, forced into a battle between heaven and hell. He's informed that if he wants to see his beloved again, he will be tasked with fighting the good fight and ultimately overthrowing four of Lucifer's generals along with countless dark minions in order to earn the right into heaven. It's a simple but effective set-up that lays the foundation for all the ensuing carnage. From there, we're dropped into a variety of scenarios in that quest. The main game has five chapters with 24 levels, and the version I played (Black Edition) also included ten additional levels from the Battle Out of Hell expansion that were released later in 2004, the same year the original game dropped. So there was quite a meaty campaign, even without considering the expansion. The levels were also quite long and varied greatly in setting. From a cemetery, to an opera house, to an asylum, a castle, among many others, you always found yourself in changing surroundings. There was also plenty of diversity on offer in terms of enemies for your shooting pleasure with some really creative looking hellspawn, many of which were unique in terms of their movement and attack patterns. To be succinct, everything remained interesting and engaging throughout, which is much appreciated in a genre that is mostly doing the same thing from beginning to end. There are also a variety of guns. In the main game, there are five weapons, each with a primary and alternate fire. There's a shotgun which has an alternate freeze fire which will encase an enemy in ice allowing (most of) them to be shattered into icy bits with a normal blast. There's a stake gun that sends a sharp and heavy projectile into an enemy, often piercing them and catapulting them into a fixed position on the wall - very satisfying. Its alternate fire is, strangely, a grenade launcher that, despite the strange combination, was always fun and did a great job of obliterating tight groups in pursuit. Your primary - although probably least used - weapon that you have from the start is the titular “painkiller”, a weapon with retractable blades that, when activated, turns into a spinning fan of death for some up close and personal baddie-blending. In addition to the five weapons in the main game, there were two additional weapons in the Battle Out of Hell expansion. All modes of fire were ammo pickup dependent, so you could find yourself in situations where you had to rely on armaments that weren't your favorite, and it did a good job of keeping things fresh in that regard. The general moment to moment action was very intense, and the carnage was nicely conveyed visually and aurally. From exploding enemies rended into meaty, dripping chunks to blasts that sent foes ragdolling across the map, the power fantasy of first-person shooters was in full and satisfying effect here. Another aspect that was really cool was a “tarot card” system that allowed you to select both active and passive powerups within levels. These cards could imbue your run with many different effects, from halving damage received to increasing your speed to increasing damage, among many other tweaks. In order to unlock these cards, you had to fulfill certain level requirements, but once unlocked, they could be activated with in-game gold found throughout levels. The only negative with this system was that the requirements to unlock these cards were not made known until the level was completed, and many were quite tough to achieve. So if you wanted to unlock a particular card - or all of them, you'd probably have to consult a guide first, or do so on subsequent play-throughs. I unlocked a handful just playing the game blindly, but there were many that remained unearned once I'd completed things. As cool as they were in premise though, you'd have to really want to replay things in order to get the most out of them. But there are multiple difficulties that might entice in that regard. I played on “Insomnia” (normal) and it provided a good challenge for the most part. There was also a fun feature that acted as a god-mode of sorts. If you collected 66 souls (what enemies dropped when killed), the screen would turn black and white and all enemies would be red and anything you shot or touched would explode instantly. It was visually very fun and offered a sense of great power, and sometimes relief, when activated. It would have been nice to choose when to use it, as sometimes you'd find yourself in that state without too much opposition around. Although to be fair, the game does give you an audiovisual cue when you're a couple souls away from kicking things in, and so you can kind of plan for it by not picking up any souls until you're surrounded by chaos. There are also plenty of secrets to find and uncover like hidden armors, ammo caches and treasure, but many are very well hidden as I missed the bulk of them on my time with the game, but it's another element that I appreciated and also adds replay value.

There were some aspects that prevented Painkiller reaching its highest potential, however. There was some awkward ladder-climbing and first-person platforming, and those things are often clunky in this genre, and it was no exception here. Some jumps were just odd and unintuitive. For example, your character's jump felt much lower than ideal, and I never really felt entirely comfortable with it. And it was easy to fall off (sometimes long) ladders resulting in damage or just having to tediously climb it again. And in the beginning I was having some freezing issues. I ended up running it in compatibility mode with an older version of Windows, which thankfully alleviated that issue. I also had one instance where I had killed all available enemies in a section, but the new checkpoint would not spawn. I googled around a bit, and it seems that it was a frame-rate issue that may have been making a single enemy invisible or vanish, and since all enemies must be killed in an area to prompt progression, I was stuck. I had been running an unfettered frame-rate of about 500 fps (I didn't even check on this older game prior to learning this issue), and apparently that messed up the game logic in some way. So I throttled it back to 60 for that section and the checkpoint spawned normally. I let my frame-rate free again after that, and had no more issues. It's weird that it only happened that one time, but older games sometimes have their idiosyncrasies with newer hardware and operating systems. Also, as mentioned, you must kill all enemies in an area in order to spawn a new checkpoint/progress, and there could sometimes be a straggler or an enemy perched high atop some structure that you missed, and you might find yourself wandering a bit in order to clear the section, which broke the pacing sometimes. Finally, bosses could be hit or miss. They all had some weakness, which wasn't always apparent, causing you to do no damage until you figured it out. But once you knew what to do, things felt a bit rote, and they didn't really present much challenge, spectacle of the foe notwithstanding. Also, the difficulty could feel uneven at times, with strange spikes that didn't seem to fit the overall pacing, but stuff like that is common with many older (and sometimes modern) games. There were a noticeable amount of “oddities” that should be familiar to anyone who's been gaming for a long time, things that aren't as prevalent as the medium has adopted more or less accepted “norms” for many things. I was mostly fine with the quirkiness or “jank”, as I often am with many older games though. There's a sense of personality that is sometimes lost as games/genres become more homogeneous with the passage of time, and I appreciate that unrestricted/unconfined by established conventions, formative Wild-West feel that is lost in so many games of the present.

Overall, my time with Painkiller was just plain fun. It's simple in many ways, without some of the bells and whistles some gamers might expect. But despite its simple nature, it was tense and cathartic fun to blast your way out of hell, often against overwhelming opposition. And the older graphics were clean and appealing, the soundtrack was rocking, and the overall vibe was digital gaming heavy metal. It was a lengthy game that took me around 20 hours, and there's plenty of incentive to keep the repeat button pressed. It did have some issues and didn't quite reach the heights of Bulletstorm or that of my other personal all-time favorites within this genre, but if you're looking for a good time without too much pesky thinking, this is more than worth your time. 4/5.