I'm no fan of anime nor do I care for dating simulators, but I was drawn in to Hatoful Boyfriend by the oddball premise of high school life with talking birds. So. At first, I got a few endings and thought "Oh, that was pretty silly, but it killed some time. Guess I'll keep playing." Each bird has his own extremely cliche backstory and hackneyed secrets and it's somewhat amusing to watch it all predictably unfold, but in general it's not that new or exciting. It leans heavy on the tropes of established dating sims without doing anything real original aside from the fact that the characters are birds. I was determined to 100% the game, because there really aren't that many endings, and the game is very easy to navigate once you get a feel for the characters' likes and dislikes. And then. It was time for the true ending. SEMI SPOILERS: Holy ****. HOLY ****. The true ending. I can't even describe it. It was one of the most riveting video games stories I've ever experienced. Had I not seen it, I'd be extremley generously giving this game maybe a 3/5. But the true ending is a mindwarp. It totally blew all my expectations out of the water. Once you find out the reasons WHY the game's world is like it is, you'll never look at it the same way again. There's no going back. I'd place this game in my Top 10 for video games storylines, which is an absolutely ridiculous thing for me to say. I can speak only for myself and my own subjective tastes, but something about this game just clicked for me in all the best possible ways. This game is weird and wonderful, and the rabbit hole goes DEEP. I'm not really sure if this is a recommendation or not, since there is very very little in the way of gameplay and interaction, but if you want to experience a truly weird yarn, you should totally check it out.
Still the greatest FPS. Still a technological marvel. Still the highlight of my high school years. Basically, I bought it just for access to DOOM.WAD, to port it to all the different flavors of engines, and to actually finish the damn game after burning out my Shareware discs years and years ago. Thanks, id!
There's not much to this game, really. I was hoping for something along the lines of the ancient web browser game, NationStates. Long ago, I had a pretty fun nation where my oppressive regime brutalized my cowering, pathetic subjects, but in the process had one of the top 10 cleanest environments on the leaderboard. You can absolutely forget about playing out such silly fantasies here! Somehow, it takes the same concept as an online novelty laid out in 2003, and does an worse job. I tried out a variety of different (much more reasonable) political ideologies from all across the political spectrum, but it almost invariably lead to assassination. In the times I didn't get assassinated, there was nothing left to actually do except maintain my approval ratings and repeat my policy. Assassinations in real life are rare. Endless reelection in real life is rare. There's no balance to the game. In Democracy 3, it seems like the only two endstates possible, and once you're headed towards one, things snowball rapidly. I can't say it was all bad. I had a little bit considering my responses to various policy questions, trying to get in the head of world leaders in a video game-y context, but at the full price of $25 dollars USD, you should extremely avoid. I can't really recommend it to anybody looking for a traditional video game or a fantasy politics simulator. I can't even conceive of what the overpriced DLC would possibly add, so you can probably forget about that too. Maybe it's the game for you if you reaaallly like the idea of taking online quizzes to see how they affect a violent, opinionated spreadsheet? Bleh. No.
Shadowrun is an interesting but very silly setting. It's crumbling technological dolor in a corporatized world that could just be not too unlike what awaits us in our own future, but it also has elves and trolls and stuff and wizards that cast Magic Missile into the darkness. These elements are constantly at odds with each other tonally, but it's always done with a wink and a nod in a deliberate manner. There has been many Shadowrun books and video games over the years, some better than others. Shadowrun Returns was a Kickstarter attempt to bring back specifically the feelings of the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis games, each being their own distinct entity with their own strengths and weaknesses. I feel it succeeded. They never set out to make high art, and they kept their goals and scope reasonable throughout. Here they made a PC Strategy RPG in the most traditional sense. It has a variety of good, flexible character customization options that didn't require me to make much research to understand. The portraits are largely fantastic, so you can really make your main character your own. The plot moves at a brisk pace and is a pretty OK story for a video game, but provides little replay value. It held my attention completely all the way to the end, but I encountered several awful bugs that will never be fixed by the developers, so be prepared to have a search engine handy if/when you get stuck. I didn't feel this really took away from my overall experience. Also, it was also cool seeing Jake Armitage again! He was the protagonist of the SNES game. On sale, it seems to go for around $4 USD, which I think is a superb price for the ride you're getting. I agree with others when they say this is the weakest of the three games, and that it's the best one to start with. Overall, I'd give it a 3.5/5 (rounded up, for the sale price) because of bugs and a story without much choices, but it's pretty respectable in its own right and laid the foundations for two better games.
Let's get this out of the way right now: Phantasmagoria 2 isn't a good adventure game. It isn't even good by FMV game standards. The puzzles are stupid, the solutions are illogical, the gameplay is boring and aimless, the actors are lousy, the plot makes no sense. I'm not even sure who this was originally meant to appeal to, but I feel all the slimy and baffling qualities found within have something to offer to fans of the B-Movie and Exploitation Film genres. Forget judging this game by "good" or "bad," it's WEIRD, and not only does the game know it, it embraces it. It has a very specific story in mind that it wants to tell you, with a specific way of telling you in mind, one that could have only been born from the world of USA Network, mail order CD-ROM's, Roger Corman and the hallowed halls of the Unrated Direct-To-VHS section. It's an interactive time capsule into an outdated world of schlock filmmaking and game development that just won't exist again. From a game standpoint, it's not IMO worth your time. However, if you view this less of a game and more of a strange, uncomfortable experience to be had, I think it's amazing. It's one of the few games out there that I'd describe as actually being like a real life nightmare. It operates on total fever dream logic. One minute you could be standing there bored out of your mind, the next minute you're shown some bizarre scene that has nothing to do with anything, then you're back to being bored, and by the end of it all, it goes so, so gloriously off rails. The gross out factor might be tame by today's standards, but there's a certain naivety and organicness about what bad ideas it portrays. There'll never be another game like Phantasmagoria 2 again. Developers are too hip, too ironic, too risk adverse, too "in touch." It's impossible to replicate the time and place and people and circumstances that went into making this game, and I feel as such, it stands as something one of a kind. And one just kind of yucky.
If you're a fan of ambiguity in storytelling, this game has it all. Everybody in the game is his or her own unreliable narrator. Nobody is ever going to give you the straight story, and even if they're being real with you, they don't have all the facts. Or maybe the facts are a lie. Or maybe they've been passed down from generation to generation for so long, everybody has their own spin. Or maybe the whole damn thing is up for interpretation. Or maybe nobody knows, or cares. Or maybe you're just being taken for a ride from start to finish by forces you can't understand. Even the big bad of the entire game is justified from his own point of view. Everybody in the game has their own reasons, and I really like that. The plot of dubious prophecy and political court intrigue (and there's multiple courts to be a part of) keeps me playing. The storytelling is one thing, but the actual mechanics of the game are another. I don't find early and mid game combat fun. You'll be whiffing at your opponents for no good reason for hours. But then you claw your way to a little bit of power, a little bit of wealth, a little bit of charm, a little bit of crafting skill. You keep struggling, you keep fighting. And then, you get it. It's yours, more and more. Suddenly, you're Hulk jumping across the wasteland, slicing things up indiscriminately with your katana forged by demons, and shooting out Kamehamehas at immortal vampires. Whether the prophecy is true, false, half-truth, complete disinfo, wholesale propaganda, high heresy, it doesn't matter. For all intents and purposes, you ARE The Nerevarine. I love Morrowind. I'm giving this game a 4/5 because certain aspects of the game have aged very poorly, and it is incredibly off putting to people accustomed to modern gaming and modern graphics, but, I'll never forget the story. Never let your guard down. Trust no one. Everybody's out to get you in this game. Except Jiub. Jiub's legit. Enjoy your stay in Vvardenfell.
If you want to experience a bizarro version of the days before social media where everybody had a handmade HTML personal webpage, this game is for you. Just watch some gameplay footage, and you'll know right away what you're getting into. Essentially, it's the year 1999, and you're a volunteer moderator looking for content violations on a dreamworld version of an online service similar to America Online, CompuServe, Geocities, Angelfire. As others have said, you might not believe it, but it's all disturbingly realistic in its own weird hyperstylized way. The gameplay is basically doing adventure/puzzle detective work in an internet browser on a simulated desktop based on links and keywords, to bring down a literal banhammer on violating webpage elements. The game gets trickier and requires more investigation work as it progresses, but you'll also snoop into the personal lives of a wide cast of characters, some sad, some funny, some scary, some obnoxious, all just eager to spill their guts to nobody in particular in this simulated Web 1.0 world. Along the way, you can install shady programs, click dubious links, pirate songs, get spam, and witness religious mania, but don't forget to buy an anti-virus! Frying your poor computer is just part of the fun. The graphics are a Technicolor haze and the music is bizarre and wonderful, which really drives home that this is a world built on dreams and a janky California tech startup. Most of the time I don't think comedy games work, but in this case, it absolutely nails it for me. The satire of this long gone digital age is done with great care and affection for the source material, and has an insane attention to detail. I was there. This is exactly what it was like. Kinda. I don't think The Internet has gotten any better in the last 20 years. If anything, it's just gotten worse, but there's streaming media and faster downloads now, so I'm fine with it. Just remember: Squisherz are really cool. Squisherz are so much fun.
