If Judero has a million fans, I am one of them. If Judero has one fan, I am that fan. If Judero has, etc., etc. Now the creators of Judero are running a Kickstarter for their new project, one that I am eagerly anticipating. Until its release, I have no choice but to ABIDE.

Sorry We're Closed: not a masterpiece, but a good game that holds up some real wisdom, not to mention style and panache. One of many decent showings that the attention economy can't, but should, reward.

Lunacid honors its inspiration so much that the homage overtakes the game. King's Field doesn't have that much in common, after all, with the series that inspired From Software, but I believe its creation does far more credit to Wizardry precisely because of its originality.

Rise from the ashes and begin anew. This month's issue of Unwinnable Monthly features @aeneas-nin.bsky.social on Re-Animator, @kellymerka.bsky.social on Phoenix Springs and our regulars on the topics poking their brains. Buy: buff.ly/LRotYmo Subscribe: buff.ly/L0T9hxk

It's a joyful experience showcasing much design excellence, but: Like so many classics, the new Hitmans will always require the caveat that its storytelling is clumsy and ineffective, and it always makes us look like ignorant provincials when we disregard this weakness to announce masterpieces.

I've played through a growing cadre of games, most recently Metal Garden, (but also Falcon Age, Season) that, whatever their merits, are too large in spirit and too limited in scope. They need more stuff, more duration, to excel in the telling of what they aim to tell.

There's a certain kind of film product whose essence, along with its particulars, is spelled out in such large letters that, to me, it barely feels like watching a new movie. And that's Predator: Badlands.

At this moment I can only read One Battle After Another as PTA's attempt to shame America's left with a fantasy reality in which they actually do something to protect their polity.

Claire Denis returns to French Africa in White Material, a fevered drama about a coffee plantation owner desperate to get in one last harvest before the civil war overtakes her land. The formidable Isabelle Huppert goes well beyond ostrichism as the radios hail the end of "white material."

I have joined this throng of the talented with a thought on Team Bloober's Cronos: The New Dawn.

This is what I wrote this year: Diablo IV is a victim of its environment, and so are we. unwinnable.com/2025/02/25/t...

My top 10 games of 2025: 10: Hell Is Us. This AA joint lacks the superbly refined combat of, say, God of War, but it's one of the more interesting games this year. It's a modern Final Fantasy set during a civil war whose violence recalls the Yugoslav Wars. Like FF, held back by weak writing.

There's nothing more festive than Frankenstein. In this month's Unwinnable Monthly, read @orringrey.com's feature on the creature as well as our regular columnists' latest thoughts. Happy holidays! Buy: unwinnable.bigcartel.com/product/unwi... Subscribe: unwinnable.com/subscribe/

Flock is a delightful ride through the beastie-to-bestie pipeline atop a bird who knows how to sing. It's a Pokemon sans combat. The hooting, crooning, hopping and soaring of its animal cast manages to carry it despite its unexpectedly small scope.

Claire Denis channels Ozu in 35 Rhums' tale of a father-daughter relationship disrupted by the passage of time. I don't know when it was I finally realized this was essentially doing Late Autumn Afternoon, but the bright red rice cooker is such a wonderful first touch.

A rainbow opens our visit to the cosmically green, misty hilled Ireland of Martin McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin. At first, Banshees seems an allegory. No. It is a post-modern detective story in which the central mystery is not the death of a friendship but the despair of one's own heart.

The Intruder (2004) features Michel Subor in a very Denisian role as a former mercenary who is heart-stricken in more than one way. The color blue regains its dominance, and Gregoire Colin features in a few critical scenes as the son, in what surely must be a reference to Beau Travail.

Glass Onion: a nice fantasy but I feel as if the liberal section of the internet had already written half the jokes before Rian Johnson. Daniel Craig is really funny. The resolution feels false, the camera is meant to deliver a revelatory coup but never quite succeeds. The Hateful Five.

Friday Night, 2002, marks the halfway point in Claire Denis' filmography. Something about the poetry in it has hit me with so much more clarity that it's brought into focus some of the choices in her 90s work. I look forward to discovering what she's been up to in the new millennium.

Gun Crazy is the last of the noirs for now. It follows a premise so well trod that I need not describe it. But I wonder: Did the Hayes Code influence the development of these darkly ironic endings? Is the femme fatale a product of biblical misogyny in a far more religious America?

I watched Detour, 1945. To quote David Lynch: wowee! Also amazing is this: male lead Tom Neal later copped an actual charge for involuntary manslaughter. Life, my dears, is strange. I also realize that I know very little about the history of independent cinema, to which this movie belongs.

The film community's never been shy about The Third Man's quality. But they've never been forward about its (literally) off-kilter vibe. My congratulations. Visually this film looks like the crowning glory of the hardboiled family. Tonally, it has more in common with The Big Lebowski. What a movie.

I started The Seance of Blake Manor tonight and while I don't know how the mystery will resolve... Diabolik, is that you?!

The Killers, 1946, a gorgeous noir flick adapted from Hemingway starring Burt Lancaster in his debut, and Ava Gardner in what Wikipedia informs me was her breakout role.

It's an unfortunate constant that videogames so often attach to a genre which they represent badly. Recently Bloodlines 2 did to noir what sunlight does to vampires, and had me flying towards relief. Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett provided that and more. Great book.

I watched The Naked Gun and while I laughed, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the onscreen romance between Neeson and Anderson's characters.

Watched Del Toro's Frankenstein.

Munich, 2005. Spielberg knows how to spin a yarn, but this movie needed something more. It doesn't feel like it comes out of the reality which it depicts, with great embellishment and gorgeous cinematography, but out of the Hollywood dream factory. It's simply built with the wrong grammar.

Trouble Every Day, Claire Denis' 2002 erotic horror gig with Vincent Gallo, Beatrice Dalle, and regular Alex Descas. Its genre identifier is a bit bold, as, regardless of its themes, and even imagery, it felt like watching any of Denis' previous works. I think showing gore requires some bad taste.

Demons, 1971, Toshio Matsumoto, is so classically structured it wouldn't surprise me if it was adapting something. The web makes this sound like a gory revenge flick. It is a tragedy and it does not hold back.

Continuing Claire Denis' filmography with Nenette and Boni. Denis' depiction of sexual fantasy is so disarmingly straightforward sometimes -- because it's so real. And it's usually a key force that's rarely acknowledged in the coming of age milieu.

Finally watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which I now realize was the last of the classic Spielbergs I was missing. What can I say: class.

I watched Lo Mao aka The Cat, a 1991 movie about a cat burglar from outer space who is also a literal cat. The creature from the Thing is also involved for some reason. Even more mysterious is the inclusion of a romance subplot involving (yawn) human characters. Good bad.

I've experienced all manner of imperfection in games, some of it even beneficial. But Bloodlines 2 is the first game I've played that, relative to its neighbors, appears to suffer from lobotomy. Wish I was a fly on the wall during some of those meetings.

Onibaba.

I Can't Sleep is Claire Denis' third feature. Visually closer to the previous No Kill, No Die, splashes of blue are our constant companions. While I respect Denis' commitment to outsiders, the movie is both too unfocused and its characters so hermetic that it failed to build into anything for me.

Cronos: The New Dawn won't be many people's darling. It has that eternal game problem: its digital actors stink and their lines are shaky and overwritten. But I still enjoyed it. Its narrow interest of being a horror game shines through in its positional play, sound and art design.

I watched Flow.

I've learned over the years that bugs and jank don't make a game boring. Some of the most boring games I've ever played are superbly polished AAA joints. The production quality isn't a boon, but an imposition. These games aren't allowed to appear less than respectable. Jank can be liberating.

Some endings are complete surprises, some known well in advance. There are those that fall neatly into place. Others humbly shuffle on and off the stage. Still others must be orchestrated, frogmarched, or finessed. And some leave you utterly befuddled. And that is Hades II.

LIFEBAR 005 begins now!!! Starting with a hot take: What if @easbygames.bsky.social told you that MyGM Mode in WWE 2K25 was one of the best post COVID-era strategy games available???

Steam sale time! Pillars of Eternity I & II are the finest CRPGs of this generation. Together, they are 20 bucks and they will allow you to a. learn how to live with an insufferable piece of shit, b. vibe with the piece of shit-ness of history writ large.

I spent half an hour with the Industria 2 playtest tonight and I felt more tension in that time than during the entirety of Silent Hill F. That game is doing something very right.

I swore I was done with superheroes but I watched Mask of the Phantasm, one of too many Batmans in a world that never gets tired of Batman origin stories. Not only does Phantasm share the same fate, it also buys into a secondary trend of Bat-fiction: explanations for why Batman is still single.

Alien: Earth was supposed to be so much smarter. In the end, it's the same old TV, the glimmer in its eye fading away as its early touches of brilliance and character take it nowhere. Even its visual language gets stale. Prometheus with a delayed fuse.

I played Metal Eden, (came for the similarities to Metroid, stayed for the music), and found a game that plays much like Doom 2016, replete with tactically switching between your many guns, plus wallrunning. Fights take place in small arenas, the story gets told to you by guys on the radio.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans sounds like a game published by Don't Nod, but it's actually a masterpiece of the 20s, and, I learned this from Wikipedia, one of the earliest silent pictures to feature sound effects. It's a gorgeous melodrama that is already speaking our cinematic language.

Whatever fealty Silksong earns from me, it swiftly claws back with some truly dishonorable design. There was joy in the struggle, but now I'm starting to regret my time.

I watched S'en Fout La Mort, Claire Denis' second feature. It's a cramped, Mean Streets-y picture with a gritty look and unromantic colors. We always look over someone else's shoulder as black migrants Dah and Jocelyn set up a cock fighting ring for a shady -- you know how it goes. Not Denis' best.