Bloody Disgusting
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What Byte Barrels has launched is more than good enough for now. Its pulpy comic book take on cosmic horror and retro shooters is a winning combination. Yes, it’s nowhere near the first game to utilize Lovecraft or a retro aesthetic, but crucially, it does so on its own terms.
Nightmare Reaper is a highly enjoyable mash of retro things with a deliciously barbed edge. It doesn’t always hit the high notes of the old favorites it belts out, but you’ll sing along just the same.
I still like to just stand and stare at an abandoned city as the rain drifts down in hazy sheets whilst the pulsing glow of neon and Yanagi’s ethereal soundtrack throb in unison. Moments like that have nothing and everything to do with why I enjoyed Ghostwire: Tokyo.
It’s a rare thing for me that a game so completely sweeps me up in it that I still find that same hunger for more than a good 80 hours in. Elden Ring achieves that. I’m already envisioning future playthroughs with different builds. Sure there are small grievances. Co-op with friends could be a bit easier to instigate, a sturdier frame rate wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, and as expected, there are a few bullshit boss fights that end up more like manufactured obstacles than true tests of your skills. These really do end up as small fry issues though. There’s just too much dark wonder and bleak beauty to savor.
While the game itself hasn’t aged particularly well in every sense, the work done by Nightdive to modernize it respectfully is commendable. Visually it’s been cleaned up and had a few rough edges smoothed out without polluting the original design, and there’s no denying that every effort has been made to tighten the controls in much the same way it did with last year’s Quake remaster. Short of messing with the core of what made PowerSlave Exhumed the game it is, there’s probably little else that could make it more appealing.
This is a confident sequel at heart. One that effortlessly switches between precarious leaps of faith from high-rise buildings and nervous crawls through undead-infested interiors. One that finds time to indulge in dread-inducing horror and explosive intensity. Where it perhaps lacks in structural ingenuity, it more than offsets by finely-tuning the things that made the original a success.
It’s not a particularly lengthy experience, but Sucker For Love probably doesn’t need all that much more to it. As it is, it’s a punchy, fun, and occasionally grim, dating sim that prefers to steer clear of the darker, dirtier lanes of cosmic horror and the raunchier, saucier side of dating sims. Yet mixes up just enough of both to make for an enjoyable treat for horror fans with a sense of humor.
Let’s be honest, there simply aren’t enough Christmas horror games out there. This solves that, evoking the holiday spirit of Silent Night, Deadly Night to create a manic, mean-spirited slasher game that doesn’t linger like a badly-cooked Christmas dinner.
There could be an argument it outstays its welcome, and I’d understand that as a criticism, but personally, the ambition and invention put into the ever-expanding nuttiness on display in Inscryption makes this a forgivable sin. Inscryption has breezily waltzed into the game of the year conversation for me thanks to its ever-changing blend of folk horror-infused card-battling, dark humor, and its increasingly strange, yet compelling story.
I was already fairly sure I’d enjoy Sunshine Manor before playing it. After all, it had authentic horror ingredients I’m very much into, but I still managed to come away from the finished product surprised. It’s elevated by a sturdy gameplay cycle of fetch and return, gentle subversions of expectations, and an engaging cast of characters.
While Maiden of Black Water may not be the best example of the Fatal Frame series, it’s been long enough that a whole new potential audience has emerged in the last few years, and this, flaws and all, will be something of a new experience. It’s more important that Maiden of Black Water got this multi-platform remaster for that reason than any other. If Fatal Frame is to have a future, it will need more than a handful of existing fans championing the good old days. It needs new blood too, and Maiden of Black Water’s remaster for a wider audience gives the series that chance.
For all the grumbling and faults I might have with Back 4 Blood, it excels where it matters most, and ends up as a solidly entertaining zombie shooter. It could be better, and probably will be in time, but for now, if you fancy a decent new horror-led game to play with your friends, Back 4 Blood is worth a shot.
I’ve recently written that with remasters, I truly appreciate them when they don’t try to forget the flaws of the original, but instead just smooth the edges off them in a subtle manner. Alan Wake Remastered is one of those, and while it has its moments of frustration and you can sometimes laugh at the overzealous, but admirable, dedication to having Alan narrate the fuck out of everything, it truly is a part of the package, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
This is primarily for those who whittled away many a night in front of their PC two decades ago raiding dungeons, bludgeoning skeletons, and swimming in glorious loot. A remaster for archival purposes if you will. The only modern stain on the original tapestry has been the online issues that plagued the game’s launch, but even those will be but a distant memory before long.
In Sound Mind manages to be a confident full debut for We Create Stuff that shows its successful time experimenting with the Source engine was of great benefit.
All in all, Bloodwash takes a couple of hours to finish, with a little of that time put aside for finding its rather ace comic books, and chatting to all the locals about the latest scrap of evidence you’ve found. Again, this is just right. A movie-length experience that really nails a lot of the cheap, scuzzy, mean-spirited tone of a certain kind of slasher film, whilst still very much behaving like a video game. When you hear of games trying to be more cinematic or movie-like, the way it’s meant is usually in terms of acting, or blockbuster set pieces. Bloodwash encapsulates the unseemly, dead-of-night accidental discovery of a rude, crude horror flick, and that is, for me at least, a far more appealing way to go about it.
Perhaps my favorite thing about BEESWAX’ GAMES' SPOOKWARE is how it takes the crumb of an idea (Wario Ware but spooky) and runs with it to the point that it becomes something else entirely.
As everything started to fall together and the end of the loop was finally in sight, I felt a tinge of sadness that my first experience of Deathloop was almost over. I dragged out that finale as long as I could, uncovering every possible route, secret, tidbit on the Visionaries, Blackreef, as well as the unclear history between Colt and Julianna. As with Dishonored’s Dunwall and Karnaka, or Prey’s Talos-I, Blackreef has life to it. Diseased, hateable life that often deserves to end, but that in itself drives the grim wonder of the place, and exploring its stories never got old. It’s a place I’m absolutely going to revisit from the start again at some point, with all the accrued knowledge that matters almost undoubtedly set to make the next visit to Blackreef feel as fresh as it is warmly familiar.
Yes, you could argue that in trying so hard to make a game for the mid-2000s in 2021 leaves the developer with a game that’s fundamentally dated before it began, but that’s the point. All the modern indie horror games that work get that. Compromises will certainly bring you a bigger audience, but games like Tormented Souls, as scraggly and mean-spirited as the games that inspired them, are far more likely to scratch that itch for survival horror’s golden era, rough edges and all.
Yuoni was on a hiding to nothing from the start, and while I don’t feel the game has much wrong with it, and offers some freshness in its endless dusk, far too much of how it plays has been done to death, and done better. What haunting enchantment it holds is dispelled by the dull monotony of running, hiding, and waiting over and over again just to get a sliver of a story.