I feel like a giraffe is probably the animal that would least appreciate snuggling.
So just about everything this week is a throwback to yesteryear in some way or another so I'mma go through this weeks releases in descending order of how much that is the case. And that means we're starting off with the sequel to everyones favorite Hosepipe Animation Except It's a Scary Hike game; Bendy and the Dark Revival. I did not play the original Bendy, but I did want to as it looked neat and its themesong wound up in my youtube algorithim. You're a gal what got stuck in a monstered up animation studio by an evil Walt DIsney (well, a *supernatural* Walt Disney at least) full of half-cartoon body horror monsters and turned half cartoon and would rather NOT be in this situation all together, please and thanks.
The trailer showed a lot of puzzle solving and monster whacking, so I think it's more of an Alien Isolation kind of deal? Either way, it's in the wishlist now.
...also I guess the first one is on sale for dirt cheap so I guess I own that now too.
Speaking of existential terror in a secretive underground bunker, we have Missile Command Delta which takes the tried and true "Well I guess everything is going to die..." gameplay of the original and opts to slow it all way down. And presumably give it a win-state. This time it's a turn based strategy game where you're splitting your time between shoring up an anti-missile defense network to ward off an endless wave of ICBMs with first person exploration of the Missile Command bunker trying to discover new forms of defense through exploration and puzzle solving.
It's MYSTle Command!
Speaking of everything ending badly, you can bet your bottom dollar that's going to happen in Bad End Theater! It's a text-y Choose Your Own Adventure-em-up where every story is a tragedy. There's *a* happy ending in there somewhere but BOY HOWDY is it buried in a labyrinthian maze of Everything Going Bad For Everyone.
Kind of got some Slay the Princess vibes, and those are good vibes to present to the world.
Aesthetically similar, but presumably more Spoopy than unsettling, we have Everdeep Aurora which appears to be the answer to the question on everyones lips of "Where the heck is our Fantastic Dizzy/Undertale mash-up?!?" To which I say "Well, that's basically Animal Well, or Rainworld." but now we have this as well!
Visit scenic "The dirt" and make your way through a vast subterranean society that figured that "down" was the ideal direction for society to travel in after the weather got a bit too meteor-y
Moving on to what is arguably the biggest release of the week, we have the gussied up fancy-lad looking remake of not just the third Tony Hawk Pro Skater game, but the fourth as well! Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 & 4 is here and it's got a guy who looks *just like* Tony Hawk in it. It's astounding.
Visit scenic "A Cube" and gleen the hell out of it. Leave no curved surface or handrail unground.
Doomguy is a playable skater in it now. I... do not associate him with skateboards or the like, but... I mean... we all contain multitudes.
The other two pack of games from the early aughts that represents something I know a lot of people are extremely excited for but didn't really ever do anything for me personally is Patapon 1 & 2 Replay, the real time strategy/rhythm/rpg games starring a bunch of l'il eyeball-y Pikmin-y guys that you command by banging out commands in time to the music.
My sense of rhythmic timing means I was never able to get past the tutorial level but DAMNED if I didn't get their little "Pon-pon-pata-pon" song stuck in my head for the total duration of my entire natural lifespan despite that.
Now, the other big name release for this week is one I'm MUCH more interested in finally playing; System Shock 2 went and got itself a fancy remaster from the fine folk at Nightdive, who are... just the absolute best in the biz when it comes to gussying up 90s/early-aughts FPSs. And System Shock 2 has a reputation of being one of the best shooter/rpgs of the era and one that I've always really wanted to play. SO NOW I CAN!
It's the future, and the AI in charge of the space station you live in has gone a little... Rokos Basilisk-y, decided it's a god, and a psychopathic eldritch body-horror kind of god at that, and you decided to make that your problem to solve.
Speaking of genocidal adaptive AIs dedicated to total human eradication, we have this weeks Egg Console release, and it's one of the ones where not being able to read Japanese doesn't really factor into things; Zanac EX. It's the sequel to the original Zanac which was definitely one of the more impressive shooters of that era and having an still pretty impressive adaptive difficulty where the games challenge is wholly dependent on how well you play it.
This port was on the MSX which didn't really play well with twitchy arcadey-shooters in general, so no idea how well it translates.
And speaking of 8 bit shooters, our final game this week is Griffin, a Game Gear game that I don't believe ever left Japan and became a collectors item as a result. It looks reasonably impressive for the hardware, but it also looks like it has the common GG problem of the screen being so zoomed in that it's impossible to avoid enemies.
OKAY, GO TO BED
So just about everything this week is a throwback to yesteryear in some way or another so I'mma go through this weeks releases in descending order of how much that is the case. And that means we're starting off with the sequel to everyones favorite Hosepipe Animation Except It's a Scary Hike game; Bendy and the Dark Revival. I did not play the original Bendy, but I did want to as it looked neat and its themesong wound up in my youtube algorithim. You're a gal what got stuck in a monstered up animation studio by an evil Walt DIsney (well, a *supernatural* Walt Disney at least) full of half-cartoon body horror monsters and turned half cartoon and would rather NOT be in this situation all together, please and thanks.
The trailer showed a lot of puzzle solving and monster whacking, so I think it's more of an Alien Isolation kind of deal? Either way, it's in the wishlist now.
...also I guess the first one is on sale for dirt cheap so I guess I own that now too.
Speaking of existential terror in a secretive underground bunker, we have Missile Command Delta which takes the tried and true "Well I guess everything is going to die..." gameplay of the original and opts to slow it all way down. And presumably give it a win-state. This time it's a turn based strategy game where you're splitting your time between shoring up an anti-missile defense network to ward off an endless wave of ICBMs with first person exploration of the Missile Command bunker trying to discover new forms of defense through exploration and puzzle solving.
It's MYSTle Command!
Speaking of everything ending badly, you can bet your bottom dollar that's going to happen in Bad End Theater! It's a text-y Choose Your Own Adventure-em-up where every story is a tragedy. There's *a* happy ending in there somewhere but BOY HOWDY is it buried in a labyrinthian maze of Everything Going Bad For Everyone.
Kind of got some Slay the Princess vibes, and those are good vibes to present to the world.
Aesthetically similar, but presumably more Spoopy than unsettling, we have Everdeep Aurora which appears to be the answer to the question on everyones lips of "Where the heck is our Fantastic Dizzy/Undertale mash-up?!?" To which I say "Well, that's basically Animal Well, or Rainworld." but now we have this as well!
Visit scenic "The dirt" and make your way through a vast subterranean society that figured that "down" was the ideal direction for society to travel in after the weather got a bit too meteor-y
Moving on to what is arguably the biggest release of the week, we have the gussied up fancy-lad looking remake of not just the third Tony Hawk Pro Skater game, but the fourth as well! Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 & 4 is here and it's got a guy who looks *just like* Tony Hawk in it. It's astounding.
Visit scenic "A Cube" and gleen the hell out of it. Leave no curved surface or handrail unground.
Doomguy is a playable skater in it now. I... do not associate him with skateboards or the like, but... I mean... we all contain multitudes.
The other two pack of games from the early aughts that represents something I know a lot of people are extremely excited for but didn't really ever do anything for me personally is Patapon 1 & 2 Replay, the real time strategy/rhythm/rpg games starring a bunch of l'il eyeball-y Pikmin-y guys that you command by banging out commands in time to the music.
My sense of rhythmic timing means I was never able to get past the tutorial level but DAMNED if I didn't get their little "Pon-pon-pata-pon" song stuck in my head for the total duration of my entire natural lifespan despite that.
Now, the other big name release for this week is one I'm MUCH more interested in finally playing; System Shock 2 went and got itself a fancy remaster from the fine folk at Nightdive, who are... just the absolute best in the biz when it comes to gussying up 90s/early-aughts FPSs. And System Shock 2 has a reputation of being one of the best shooter/rpgs of the era and one that I've always really wanted to play. SO NOW I CAN!
It's the future, and the AI in charge of the space station you live in has gone a little... Rokos Basilisk-y, decided it's a god, and a psychopathic eldritch body-horror kind of god at that, and you decided to make that your problem to solve.
This port was on the MSX which didn't really play well with twitchy arcadey-shooters in general, so no idea how well it translates.
And speaking of 8 bit shooters, our final game this week is Griffin, a Game Gear game that I don't believe ever left Japan and became a collectors item as a result. It looks reasonably impressive for the hardware, but it also looks like it has the common GG problem of the screen being so zoomed in that it's impossible to avoid enemies.
OKAY, GO TO BED
