Just Playing

This game is smarter that I will ever hope to be.  But if you are also  smarter than I am (the odds are high): You should totally play this game! I bought this one because I LOVE a puzzle game and I really dug the animation - how simple and squiggly and stylized it was. The idea is: you're Baba - a lamb - and in each level, you have to be very clever in order to get to the "WIN" flag. Sometimes you have to avoid harrowing lava or streams of water. Sometimes, just a simple pile of rocks stands between you and the finish line.  There's wordplay to it, there's thinking outside the box to it and it's honestly a perfectly simple-yet-full concept for a game.  I just can't seem to get past certain levels! I was doing great until I wasn't. Perhaps I should stick to Untitled Goose Game . More my speed.  There's not much to say about this little indie charmer, but I really do recommend it to anyone who is even slightly more able than I am to "think outs...

Don't play this game if you just want to play a game. It's not a good game. I assumed it was due to it's perpetual exposition / magnificent number of excruciating dialogue, like whenever I would attempt a great Final Fantasy game when I was ten/my attention span would not allow (where are the difficult jumps and guns and puzzling levels??). Or perhaps it was just my inexperience with point-and-click adventure games. Regardless of how boring this game was at times: This game is one of the coolest experiences I had last year. It's because it felt less game, more impending doom. Less fun activity and more existential exercise. More moody - think Twin Peaks, first run through season one. More cold, quiet, unrelenting nightmare. The unease this game is able to achieve - without ever being a horror game, per se - is incredible.  There were few parts to enjoy throughout a long gameplay, but those times were fantastic!  Fever dream events and scenes and settings and characters ...

 So.. truth be told: it's been a damn minute since I have played any of the games I am about to cover. I would normally say something optimistic like "maybe I'll come back to this after another play-through", but I think we all know by now that I do not tend to "come back" to anything. When it's done: I release it into the wild, only to ever think back on it fondly before moving briskly onward.  I honestly don't even know how much I'll be able to cover in the next few entries / I won't promise incredible quality / "Done is better than Perfect" / Let's go! I will  say: if there ever was a game that deserved another playthrough for refresher: it is Neva . The sister game of Gris , Neva  is another masterfully beautiful visual with the depths of emotion one would expect coming hot off the heels of Gris .  You are a woman in the woods (relatable), you have this giant, beautiful, Mononoke-esque white wolf companion. Much like its sis...

 This'll be a one-sentence entry if I don't put us on a bit of a ride, so! I spent even less time playing this one than I did Limbo  and it has even less cool lore to look into. But something in me (probably the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) will not allow me to skip writing about a single game played. Not from the beginning era, anyway. If I run into a real stinker later on in my gaming, I can see myself sweeping it under the rug / never to be discussed. But this entire blog (so far) is a dedication to and appreciation of my Gaming Renaissance. Something I don't mind romanticizing. Not only do I not mind - I would love to! So I shall. I'm rambling.  So at first: I figured I could download games I had been wanting to play. (Something I accomplished after downloading Don't Starve  and deciding to wait on the super expensive Breath of the Wild. List wasn't as long as I thought.) I watched a youtube video on cozy games ( Cozy Grove, Gris).  I perused the online sh...

 I recall times, when I would see advertisements for games like Silent Hill 2  and catch snippets of my older sister play Parasite Eve . I would wish with my whole entire body that I could play such thrilling dark games without pooping my pants. But alas: I was (am) a Scaredy Cat. Exactly once  I got brave enough. One Friday night when my mother let me tag along to Movie Gallery, she perused the New Releases movie wall as I peeled off into the gamer's cubby. I knew she would let me rent one - she had to; it was the weekend!  And I had saved my allowance all month.  I had already sped through my latest round of Gex: Enter the Gecko , exhausted the latest Official Playstation Magazine demo disc and I was left wanting for more. Also I had no friends, so... what else was I supposed to do with 48 hours of free-time?  I shrugged and sighed my way past all of the sports-themes and first-shooters until finally I saw it: Silent Hill 2 . I approached the wall cautiou...

 One game I know for sure  has no themes of death, depression or  mental illness: Untitled Goose Game !! Oh, man. The way that I immediately needed to play this game.  I believe I had discovered this one by scrolling through the online shop. It was on sale, but it was still early days and I had just bought my first couple of games, so I didn't want to go too crazy all at once. But then... I couldn't stop thinking about it! I watched the trailer for it: some strategy; mostly silly (goose) gameplay.  So you're a goose. You are provided a to-do list each level. This list will have tasks such as "get farmer wet" and "steal little boy's glasses". And you're not done with the level until all tasks are ticked. So silly, so mischievous, so perfect  after my sustained practice in death and despair with the prior games. By the time I bought this game, I was all too ready for it. Stayed up a bit too late on that first run. In fact, had it not been for the e...