Like, I don't personally agree that not having a click-to-walk option makes Earth Must Die feel more organically like a cartoon, but I love to see a developer stand by the artistic choices they made. (And worth noting: Earth Must Die plays wonderfully.)

This is certainly a choice!

Hoping to put up an independent review of Earth Must Die soon, but the thought that an "alien orgy" in a comedy game needs "context" is just wild to me. No issues, of course, with graphic violence (the game opens with an alien impaled on a beam, guts hanging out). (NEITHER should be a problem.)

I am fascinated by this take, as I respect Wesley's writing, but can't imagine wanting to dip into Early Access: to me, they are very much still "a black mark unworthy of my free time." I think EA is great for people who want (to feel like they have) a hand in the game's development!

It's the "performative" bit that hits home for me. Art's meant to be personal, and the second you start reducing a game not just to an aggregate but for where YOU fit in with OTHERS based on said game (be it skill, enjoyment, etc.), you've ruined it.

Delighted to see such top marks for CAIRN (which means that in terms of games that caught my eye for January, I've been 4 for 5, not that that matters). Can't wait to check it out myself and see how it stands in comparison to Jusant, which it sounds like it has a lot in common with.

I know I mainly talk a lot about puzzle games, platformers, exploratory action games, and metroidvanias here, but I also really like top-down twin-stick shooters, and let me tell you, DAMON AND BABY has my full attention. Here's hoping for some Lone Wolf and Cub exploits!

Very curious as to the circumstances in which real voice actors worked on an project that replaced real actors with AI, because it's making it real hard for me to defend not replacing voice actors with AI with anything more than the general "AI damages the environment."

No, children "belong" to themselves, and their parents are simply their guardians until they come of a legal age where the State trusts them to make decisions on their own. But at the very least, even Linda McMahon seems to know that ICE should not be kidnapping kids.

"Your negative score brought down the aggregate so now they're not paying out a bonus" has always been nonsense (I dunno, why didn't all the other reviewers give even higher scores?) is a complete distraction from all the other ways workers and sometimes studios are messed with.

When people tell you they're okay with AI writing articles and they don't need editors, shove stuff like this down their throats. www.si.com/fannation/mm...

"I think this is a great idea," I say, bringing a tray of fresh reviews to Swen's table for scoring. Aside, to the camera, "Little does he know that each of these reviews was written by an AI trained to dislike Baldur's Gate III and which has comprehension neither of souls nor calluses."

Sadly, I have no heat in my apartment, so I'm not going to be streaming tonight. Will try to pick this back up another night this week once that's fixed. (It's *really* cold.)

Holy shit, is the new Marry, Fuck, Kill going to be Return to Silent Hill, Melania, and Mercy?

I know this is hyperbolic, and mainly targeting a silly SEO-bait type of shallow article that makes hay of things like concurrent player counts BUT: Stop talking about AGGREGATE scores PERIOD. Be swayed by one person's passionate description of a thing that moved them; numbers are emotionless.

So wait, let me get this straight. It is doxxing and dangerous for people to post information about ICE officers, or to track their location on Signal, but it is totally fine to essentially put out bounties on people who "interfere" with ICE?

Puzzles and games are a respite from daily stresses, which everyone deserves and in fact needs. But that doesn’t mean that their makers exist outside politics, or should be exempt from political responsibility. Saying nothing is a political choice — a conservative one, in fact.

Film homeland's heart gripped by panic (7)

Well, here's hoping this rightfully backfires on Highguard. It's one thing to get praise from an odious individual: it's another to not only seek it out but to PAY for it.

I do my best not to penalize hard-working customer support staff for their companies being deplorable, but I just lost it on a MetLife rep. I told them their website doesn't allow new members to register. They reproduced the error and said they'd call back with an elevated ticket code.

I absolutely love talking to AI customer support, don't you?

Assuming I see a dentist in time, I'll be doing my usual cryptic stream this Tuesday night at 9 Eastern: minis from @royjohnson490.bsky.social and Faddy @maddogcryptics.bsky.social #30 featured #3 @longyfan.bsky.social cryptic of the year #8 @joeadultman.bsky.social twitch.tv/thatcrypticguy

One of the best things I’ve read in a while:

No idea how long EARTH MUST DIE is, but since I don't yet know if I'll be doing a formal review, I'll leave some early impressions here: Point-and-click games thrive on obstacles, and nobody comes up with as comically convoluted contrivances as the Size Five Games team.

I would change the laws here. ICE is responsible for disproving any allegations made against them. If they cannot, because they don't have the footage, they should lose the case. Maybe then they'd be more careful about backups and redundancies.

Figures that just as my insurance provider changes and I have yet to find a new dentist AND we get hit with stay-inside/closure weather, I have a massive toothache situation where the Sensodyne and even Motrin are doing very very little.

If it was about safety and security, all Trump would have to do is WITHDRAW his worst-kept-secret police from Minneapolis and WAIT for Minnesota to grovel and beg for help staving off all the so-called violent "illegals." Instead, it's obvious that it's about punishing blue states at any cost.

The ORCA Awards added cryptics as a category this year (and are defining what is eligible even more clearly for next year) so I encourage you to check out their work and be in touch about how to make sure your 2026 US-style clues and cryptics are eligible for consideration next year!

I think my biggest issue with Metroid Prime is the scanning functionality. I love it in theory, and it's great to learn about the flora and fauna. But it also removes organic learning, especially from bosses. Moreover, the planet is never REALLY alien: you've got a too-helpful guide.

Understand that a movie doesn't magically get better when it moves from theaters to streaming. It just becomes FREE to those who have the service. It was still a bomb on VOD, you know? So yeah, free things are often popular, especially heavily marketed things like, say, The Running Man remake.

I just want to say that as someone who has played (and reviewed) the game, I appreciated this perspective *and* it being a SPOILER REVIEW. I had a different takeaway--fascism spreads when people are allowed to introduce lies as truths--but that's not a bad thing!

Terrible trailer, understated movie (especially today).

So pass a PLANT Act. If I have to disclose when I'm reviewing a product I got for free, it should be a crime to accept (or offer) payment in exchange for public appearances UNLESS FULLY DISCLOSED. You'll see that these protests are very real. Payments Limited for Appearances at Non-disclosed Times

So just to be clear, Jim Jordan's big gotcha moment is that Jack Smith hadn't yet ruled out calling a weak second-hand witness? Smith's a criminal for for what he COULD have done, not what he actually did?

I hate the prong glyph in CIPHER ZERO so much, not because it isn't clever, but because my mind just doesn't want to cooperate.

You know, the Emperor's New Clothes was significantly subtler.

To be clear, the "cards" he is referring to is defaulting on our national debt, a thing this multiply bankrupt "businessman" knows all about. That's giving him too much credit. He might also be talking about nukes.

This is the shit that should enrage every American. It's not that the banks will stop making money if they cap credit cards, it's that they won't make AS MUCH money. Profits should give you the stability to CUT prices, to charge less for a loan, not to hone your exploitation of the desperate.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was worse than I was expecting, despite the NPCs and desert not bothering me. I found the combat incredibly boring and the puzzles/platforming overwhelmingly simple. Biomes felt elementally cookie-cutter, too. Throw in a linear hub-spoke design and it just ain't my jam.

Society will speak for itself, thank you very much, and what it has said, relentlessly and negatively, is that it doesn't want AI products.

TR-49 shines most in the ways in which it addresses and celebrates literature. Read @illogicaljoker.bsky.social's review.

Embargo lifted late last night so I'm reposting for the early crowd. TR-49 is a great game to think about.

TR-49 feels like a librarian's dream (or nightmare): you must learn how to operate an archaic device in order to catalogue its contents and figure out how you wound up in this basement and what dark secrets these books hold. Perhaps a bit light on deductive puzzles, but rabbit holes full of lore.

Reviewing games is like fighting a hydra. I get two done, and then meanwhile there sprouts Earth Must Die, Steel Century Groove, and Relooted. I just want to write up all these games!

Should be going live tonight in about an hour at 9 Eastern with two more US cryptic outlets (NYT and GAMES) and then it's indie constructors like @tshellstudio.bsky.social and @maddogcryptics.bsky.social. Expect puzzling fun! twitch.tv/thatcrypticguy

This is a good take of MIO, but I think that platforming challenges are "pattern recognition" only in the sense that reading is learning how to put strings of letters into words and sentences. I don't think it's Simon Says so much as test of how well you can translate hieroglyphic cues into actions.

My video countdown of the 25 Best Games Of 2025, set to some of my favorite film music of 2025. Go watch. Go share. Let's fucking go. #GOTY2025

Given that the first issue sold out, this might be your last chance to order a copy. As long as it's OK with the constructors, I'll hopefully be stream-solving some of these over the next few months while I wait for Issue 3. :)

Would anyone be interested in, like, a Metroidvania of the Month? Everybody plays (or replays) the same gem of the genre and chats about it? Yes, Axiom Verge and Ori, but also Gucamelee 2 to Iconoclasts, Laika, The Knight Witch, Yoku's Island, Benedict Fox, Dandara, Rebel Transmute....

This is a real good review that name-checks all the great games and reminds me that I should probably replay both Ori games this year. Ori hit me hard emotionally; MIO brutalized me cerebrally. I think both are stunning, though MIO makes you work harder.