Despite what Gilligans Island taught us, being bonked on the head by a coconut is usually fatal. However, they were right to suggest that a second bonk on the head will fix you right back up.
What better way to kick off the start of Autumn than with a game about a Summer road trip which brings us to our first game; Get in the Car, Loser! Which I believe is first console release for any Christine Love release. And, out of her entire catalog, probably the one that works best on consoles and certainly the one I was most eager to play. It's the start of an unforgettable summer with a bunch of gals (on average, one is enby) on a cross country road trip without a care in the world. Except for the army of furious angels pursuing them because one kiiiiinda stole an ancient holy weapon and also an equally vast army of mechanical demons and cultists in front of them because they have a generally unfavorable opinion on that holy weapons tendency to kill their dark lord.
But mainly it's about gals being pals, doin' smooches, and just cussing like drunken Popeyes. It's like if Steven Universe and Final Fantasy 13 got Brundlefly'd together, abandoned any idea of subtext, and learned how to swear.
I love it.
And just as subversive, but in a narrative sense, not a challenging gender-norms way, we have The Plucky Squire. Which is... hard to peg down overall. It's kiiiiiind of a Wreck it Ralph/Monster at the End of the Book kind of situation where the villain of a storybook realizes he's going to lose the moment the book is over, so he rewrites the hero out of it. So now you've got to make your way around the house, hopping into other kinds of stories to try to get back to where you belong.
And speaking of both genre mash-ups AND rpgs with a primarily female cast, we have Keylocker! It's "2112, But, like the Album, Not the Year" and music has been outlawed by The Man, and that means only one thing; you've got to ROCK your way back to bringing music to the people! And that means "lots of turn based battles with music motifs and timed-hits and the like".
Explore scenic The Footloose Town Except with Robots and beat the absolute holy hell out of a bunch of weird guys who hate guitars.
And speaking of towns from the 80s that have really weird hyperfixations, we have The Karate Kid: Street Rumble, which is a loose retelling of the Karate Kid movies (though not Cobra Kai, or that one with Will Smiths son) as retold through the medium of the side-scrolling beat-em-up. Which, you know... makes the most sense of any genre to cover those movies.
Travel through scenic "A town that is way more interested in a kids karate tournament than you'd reasonably expect, and also Okinawa" in your quest to prove that you're the best around, and that nobody can ever keep you down!
And how many other video games let you play as a pixelated Elizabeth Shue? Not nearly enough, I say!
And wrapping things up with this weeks Old Japanese PC game re-release, we have Egg Console: Star Cruiser, which seems to be something in the Elite/Star Voyager vein, but was also an early example of using polygons in a video game. It also has some pretty solid writing for a game of its particular vintage, and quite a lot of it. Which, of course, means that it being completely untranslated from Japanese doesn't really allow for that aspect shine through.
Okay that's everything I know about this week. Go to bed.
What better way to kick off the start of Autumn than with a game about a Summer road trip which brings us to our first game; Get in the Car, Loser! Which I believe is first console release for any Christine Love release. And, out of her entire catalog, probably the one that works best on consoles and certainly the one I was most eager to play. It's the start of an unforgettable summer with a bunch of gals (on average, one is enby) on a cross country road trip without a care in the world. Except for the army of furious angels pursuing them because one kiiiiinda stole an ancient holy weapon and also an equally vast army of mechanical demons and cultists in front of them because they have a generally unfavorable opinion on that holy weapons tendency to kill their dark lord.
But mainly it's about gals being pals, doin' smooches, and just cussing like drunken Popeyes. It's like if Steven Universe and Final Fantasy 13 got Brundlefly'd together, abandoned any idea of subtext, and learned how to swear.
I love it.
And just as subversive, but in a narrative sense, not a challenging gender-norms way, we have The Plucky Squire. Which is... hard to peg down overall. It's kiiiiiind of a Wreck it Ralph/Monster at the End of the Book kind of situation where the villain of a storybook realizes he's going to lose the moment the book is over, so he rewrites the hero out of it. So now you've got to make your way around the house, hopping into other kinds of stories to try to get back to where you belong.
And speaking of both genre mash-ups AND rpgs with a primarily female cast, we have Keylocker! It's "2112, But, like the Album, Not the Year" and music has been outlawed by The Man, and that means only one thing; you've got to ROCK your way back to bringing music to the people! And that means "lots of turn based battles with music motifs and timed-hits and the like".
Explore scenic The Footloose Town Except with Robots and beat the absolute holy hell out of a bunch of weird guys who hate guitars.
And speaking of towns from the 80s that have really weird hyperfixations, we have The Karate Kid: Street Rumble, which is a loose retelling of the Karate Kid movies (though not Cobra Kai, or that one with Will Smiths son) as retold through the medium of the side-scrolling beat-em-up. Which, you know... makes the most sense of any genre to cover those movies.
Travel through scenic "A town that is way more interested in a kids karate tournament than you'd reasonably expect, and also Okinawa" in your quest to prove that you're the best around, and that nobody can ever keep you down!
And how many other video games let you play as a pixelated Elizabeth Shue? Not nearly enough, I say!
And wrapping things up with this weeks Old Japanese PC game re-release, we have Egg Console: Star Cruiser, which seems to be something in the Elite/Star Voyager vein, but was also an early example of using polygons in a video game. It also has some pretty solid writing for a game of its particular vintage, and quite a lot of it. Which, of course, means that it being completely untranslated from Japanese doesn't really allow for that aspect shine through.
Okay that's everything I know about this week. Go to bed.
