the idea that this isn't the lowest they can sink before the admin starts walking this "absolute immunity" roving death squads thing back is revolting. I think I believed there was some steward of the realpolitik inner state during the last two admins but now it's inconceivable

I ended up deciding quake is also a wizardry descendent and played that instead

I hope everyone's staying warm! the snow has been a bit of a dud over here so far, although maybe it will be prettier in the morning. luckily, I've finally gotten some time to work on my dialhex review! it's certainly not the best of the bit gen games, but it has its charms. link below!

is better call saul the creative apex of the surf dracula genre?

"Is it better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven?" Avenging Angel Hikari Akeldama is my yuri OELVN about a platoon of heavenly soldiers and their mysterious war against the forces of Hell. Available to read for FREE on PC here: conecvltist.itch.io/avenging-ang...

finally switched over to the neocities handle lol dunno what was wrong with it last time I tried the integration. tried to follow a few people I had missed as well! which neocities doesn't make very easy lol but I might spend more time looking through sites on their social portal

putting myself in etrian odyssey purgatory until I catch up on like five reviews

kojima perfectly framed the two mgs ps2 games: flawless, high-framerate vr simulation thriller mgs2 and rugged, vintage, low-framerate jungle survival mgs3. if the two were flipped framerate-wise they artistically wouldn't make any sense...

Before I sign out for a while check out the pod episode on GTA III and please consider supporting the Rockstar devs currently fighting their unfair dismissals. actionnetwork.org/fundraising/... youtube.com/watch?v=8kEX...

our long gestating beach gen episode on grand theft auto III is finally out! a lot of daring design mixed with a lot of mid, and @ziaddd.bsky.social, @kranku.bsky.social, and I go through all of it. I'm excited to kick beach gen off again this year! link below!

inconvenient timing to be singing GTA3's virtues; listen to the latest BEACH GEN GAME CLUB but also consider supporting the workers unfairly dismissed at rockstar! actionnetwork.org/fundraising/... www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kEX...

coming back from wizardry, the linear room-by-room structure from etrian odyssey feels quaint (playing 5 rn). what's the point of exploring the labyrinth when it's a straight line?

tonight I'm returning to everybody's golf with a review of the sixth mainline title, the lone vita game in the series (which eventually made its way to ps3 as well)! digging back on gamefaqs clued me in on its real nature: taut, cruel design for online sickos from the developer's apex. link below!

something sick within my soul is telling me to go play spyro again

not the greatest magfest (got sick early on and missed a lot of people until I showed up in the wee hours on sunday) but aquarush is one of the coolest under-the-radar puzzle games I've played. change each piece's shape on the fly to clear the board as fast as possible... so neat

New video on the channel! I beat one of the hardest games ever. My 1CC run of ESP Ra De with commentary. Enjoy: youtu.be/NGD9L1mo4gs

neon inferno really surprised me with its quality, check out my review www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUvz...

finally got the other 18 entries for the hall of shame worked out! here's some more bullet reviews for things I didn't quite finish this year, from a link to the past replay, to outrunners, to nfl 2k2, to two point hospital! link below!

this is from yesterday on the other site but outside of the single-player discourse bubble league is still popular with normal people... it was huge when I was in high school, huge when I was in college, and now I have students who play it. I don't understand the casual difference tbh

hyped for magfest tomorrow! who else is going?

he's not old enough for it yet but the world has been crying out for a kyle shanahan biopic starring jeremy strong

ninja gaiden (nes) had a worse innovation than its messy combat: adding boring cutscenes to action games

out of the "get a load of my SWEET 3x3" games, has smt nocturne had the biggest fall-off? I don't see it as often anymore and most shooters I knew for the game have cooled on it

last minute bandwagon before the ball drops... here's all the games I finished this year. I've been scaling back every year, although I'm probably still playing the same amount as previous years, just with different priorities (200 hours of TAP and a lot of one-off plays to try stuff out)

server did a re5 mercs tournament (reunion/united) to round out the year and it ended with everyone deciding that it's actually bad. it's so over...

Moved by Backloggd review of Nex Machina from three years ago to my blog, and touched it up a little. As preparation for... something else... (Replies to this skeet will appear as comments under the article!) testamentenjoyment.net/articles/nex...

been having a lot of fun playing video games on my break (and, for better or worse, not writing about them!), and I wanted to quickly drop thoughts on the many games I played this year that I didn't finish but still had thoughts about. I've got 36 games: 18 today, and 18 later this week. link below!

upset that I'm only just now learning that the tengo project guys were behind so many other games outside of that snes trilogy and shadow of the ninja. playing through shatterhand rn and it rips. they did the dr. slump and fotns games on psx as well???

I really hate how games media handles anything out of China: www.thegamer.com/clair-obscur... We're getting a gorgeous remake of one of their best RPGs ever, but the clown does zero research about it and just goes "I'm getting a lot of Boss Baby vibes from this..."

shaking hands with my IRL after we agree that arkham asylum is one of the greatest Focus M games ever made

I have a pretty free christmas break this year (did all of our end-of-year reports ahead of time for once) but I'm bummed I'm not in the headspace to no-life an rpg. been missing doing that when I was younger

just found out from a stray calvin & hobbes comic that "access" only gained popularity as a verb in the latter half of the 20th century???

dmc1 aged poorly (codified ability shops in 3D action games)

in the midst of talking about some other action puzzle games I've been playing recently, I expanded my review on one of my favorites: devil dice, or xi [sai]! I've been playing around with it a bit again now that I finally have a physical copy, and it's secretly a top psx game. link below!

this is thankfully much cleaner now

as promised, i have posted Super Sokobot and you can play it right now erikwmj.itch.io/super-sokobot

I was thinking about this in the middle of researching some action-puzzle stuff I wanna play, and in the middle of looking up info on Spin Jam I came across this tv tropes entry that had me laughing tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwik...

something I want to write about eventually but it's interesting how puzzle has a dual meaning in the game space, where it's both a challenge with a restricted solution space and a blanket term for games that have an abstract (generally non-combat) premise

half an hour before this was posted LOL

every year magfest seems to have some weird tournament that's meant to appeal to me and like five other people. this year that's dialhex???????

lumines arise is one of the best games I've played all year; it's rare we get legacy sequels that legitimately move the original engine forward. despite being lukewarm on tetris effect, the way arise leverages both the unique audiovisual concept and the meter mechanics really shines. link below!

stafford losing mvp to josh allen is gonna ruin me. the supporting cast argument is sorta ridiculous bcs josh has james cook, who's a hair away from leading the league in rushing. and he still was middling for most of the first half of the season...

accidentally threw four hours away pursuing the TAP clear to no avail. incredibly demoralizing. not a single 900 today, only one or two 800s

I'm enthralled by the AARP's arcade games section on their site. action gaming is still alive and well!

👀

a little bit of side action between master runs

I need this asap

getting really into sega games means admitting that their "signature aesthetic" is just putting as many different fonts on-screen as physically possible

first hard S rank... arise is the truth. I didn't really see the scoring implications of burst initially but now that I understand it's a revelation. most fun I've had with lumines in a couple years

another obscure psx action puzzle game: this one didn't get a release until 2003 stateside and has almost completely languished in obscurity (its sequel, tall twins tower, got a gdq showcase over the summer). however, its novel use of gravity and frantic decision-making gives it an edge. link below!