[blog] Matt's Vidyagame Log

[ I N T R O D U C T I O N ]

Hey,

I'm still somewhat fresh to this website but I'm growing more and more fond of it as time goes by. I ended up on HLTB after trying out a whole bunch of videogame logging websites and this one just happened to stick.

I actually just recently realized that there is an old school forum attached to this site and honestly it's a strange sight to me to see such an active message board in this day and age. It's kind of a fun blast from the past. I also noticed that you guys have this blog category here and that seems like fun so I wanna give that a shot. I'm not used to old school message board features anymore so bear with me as I try this out. Things might change a lot until I figure things out.
It is a nice thought though to have a place to write about the videogames I'm playing since that is what I've been doing for movies for almost a decade now over at Letterboxd and I was always looking for a place to give the games I play a similar treatment. Movies are my true passion as a consumer so I'm not always on the gaming trail but I do come back to it again and again. I'm not a particularly good gamer either and I probably play a lot of casual games so don't expect great things from me.

I'm not sure yet how I'm gonna structure this whole thing but we'll see.

I also make YouTube videos for fun (not a big channel at all), a lot of which are gaming related, so I'm probably gonna include links to those here too if they relate to what I write. I hope that's okay.

Anyway, let's see how this works.

- Matt

----------------------------------------------------

[ O V E R V I E W ]

Newgrounds November 2021 - Master Post

3-D Ultra Radio Control Racers Deluxe: Traxxas Edition - Entry
Aggretsuko : the short timer strikes back - Entry
All-Star Fruit Racing - Entry
Bacon Man: An Adventure - Entry
The Black Iris - Entry
La Carbonara - Entry
Clickroach - Entry
CLASSIC GAME - Entry
Counter-Strike: Condition Zero - Entry
Crazy Frog Arcade Racer / Crazy Frog Racer 2 - Entry
Crow Crime: A Murder Mystery - Entry
Darkness Springs - Entry
David. - Entry
Depression The Game - Entry
Devolverland Expo - Entry
Disney Heroes: Battle Mode - Entry
Distrust - Entry
Dubstep Raven - Entry
Escaped Chasm - Entry
euphoria - Entry
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout - Entry
A Firm Handshake - Entry
The First Tree - Entry
Flower - Entry
F-Zero: Nebula Highway - Entry
GRIS - Entry
Grounded - Entry
Hatred - Entry
The Hex - Entry
Icescape - Entry
Kind Words - Entry
Little Spider & Little SpiderS Halloween - Entry
LOVE - Entry
La Maleta - Entry
Mario Kart Arcade GP - Entry
May Cause Seizures 1/2/3 - Entry
The Messenger - Entry
The Messenger - Picnic Panic DLC - Entry
Moss - Entry
Ninja Gaiden (NES) - Entry
Pokémon Crystal - Entry #1 // Entry #2
Pony Island - Entry
Red Alarm - Entry
ring ring - Entry
SOMA - Entry #1 // Entry #2
Therapy with Dr. Albert Krueger - Entry
This Is The Only Level 1/2/3 - Entry
Tick Tock: A Tale For Two - Entry
Virtual Boy Wario Land - Entry
What Lies In The Fog - Entry
Who wants to strip this babe? Hentai Streamer Girl - Entry

Game: SOMA (2015) [PC] - Entry #1

A few days ago I started playing SOMA, an underwater horror game. I bought it during this year's Steam Summer Sale without the intention to play it soon but it did sound very interesting. After playing the psychological horror game The Town of Light and starting a thread about "depressing games" a few people replied mentioning SOMA and it really made me want to start it up.

According to Steam I'm 4hrs deep right now and I'm hooked. Everything from the grimy futuristic environments, the fantastic sound design to the story about existential dread and the whole underwater theme is absolutely amazing. In a way this game is what I always wanted Bioshock to be. That atmosphere is amazing.
Every time I boot the game up I feel this mix of discomfort and intrigue. I don't want to be in that terrifying environment but I also want to see all of it. Probably pretty much the best thing a horror game can do.
One thing I love about this game especially is the unique way the actual underwater sections work. Instead of swimming around in a submarine maybe like in most games you just walk around the ocean floor. It gives the whole environment a completely different feeling, makes you feel more vulnerable because you don't have a safety shell between you and the strange world of the deep sea, and ulitmately heightens that delicious thalassophobia. I love walking around thousands of meters under the surface like it's just a stroll through the park. Well, a terrifying park at night in the sketchy part of town, that is.

The game is very stealth-based since there is no combat system but there are malicious creatures lurking around. A bit similar to those classic Amnesia games that were made by the developer many years before. I'm not a big fan of stealth mechanics and it can get frustrating to me at points but so far it has been mostly fun. My only worry with this game is that these sections are gonna become too overbearing at some point or too frustrating for me in the later parts of the game. But we'll see about that. So far it seems very competent at handling them.

I'm very excited to continue playing this game and I think I haven't been into a story-driven videogame this much in a long while so this is refreshing. It really made me excited about videogames as a whole again.
I also found out about this other underwater horror game called Narcosis that looks really great and I'm probably gonna play that very soon after finishing SOMA.

Game: SOMA (2015) [PC] - Entry #2

So, I just finished SOMA after I pulled an allnighter and pretty much marathoned the second half of the game. I just couldn't let it go.

I played the original Silent Hill earlier this year but aside from that it really has been a long time since I was this invested in a story-driven game the last time. Even though I don't think the concepts about AI and digital immortality that are at core of this game's plot are some sort of mastermind level genius like many apparently claim it to be I definitely agree that it is very clever and well established. It lends itself for some effective moments of grim existential philosophy.
What really pulled me in though was the amazing atmosphere thanks to the great soundtrack, sound design, and setting. The ocean floor walks just became more and more intriguing. When the plot steered towards even deeper ocean I was excited and since the deep crevices of the sea are one of my favorite things and in my opinion criminally underused in fiction I was really, really happy to see this polished, interactive version of it.
These could be considered mild spoilers but this was one of my favorite moments in this game: Near the end at the deepest point in the ocean that the game takes you you have to follow a bunch of lights in the gloomy water to find your way to your destination. Eventually you crawl through a cave system full of spider crabs, an incredibly unique setting for a videogame and a horror story, and once you find your way out of it you see a single dim light in the darkness. I immediately ran for it thinking it was another one of the guiding lights I was supposed to follow but eventually noticed that I was running straight at a giant anglerfish. I loved that moment so much. It wasn't a particularly original trick but it was pulled off so flawlessly. I have never seen these rare creatures and this inaccessible location be explored so hands on like this.

The ending is, as expected, quite bittersweet but I felt a bit of a disconnect between myself and the character I played in the very last minutes as I was very clear what I was doing while he apparently wasn't. It was still quite effective though and I felt relieved in accomplishing what I was trying to do for so long. Not for myself, but for a character that I grew very fond of over the playtime.

While there were certain moments focusing on the stealth mechanics that went for a bit long, something I don't dabble much with and easily frustrates me, it never was too overbearing and it always had it's satisfyingly tense moments as well. I much preferred the quieter moments of problem solving and exploring. But looking back I would say they managed to create a pretty good balance. Also, even if I didn't love every second of the stealth gameplay, I did always adore the sound effects on these creatures. Whoever made those did a fantastic job.

This was a great experience. I definitely recommend this to anyone who likes horror games and/or games set under water.
I certainly loved my on-foot stroll through the Marianna Trench while pondering existential dread.

Game: The First Tree (2017) [PC]

After playing a bunch of rather dark games I decided to go for something more colorful and bright next. I didn't quite remember what The First Tree was when I saw it in my backlog but it looked nice and I expected something in a similar style as Shelter. It did end up packing an entirely different punch though.

The First Tree is a mild platforming/exploration game about loss and family.
You play as a fox searching for her lost children as part of a dream a man has. While walking through the different environments you learn more and more about the man's relationship with his father.

It looks quite clean and beautiful, and the orchestral soundtrack is really nice. The voice-over dialog is pretty compelling. The controls are very simple and the platforming is rather basic but still fun. Clearly the story and philosophical themes are in the foreground here.
I was a bit skeptical at the beginning as things felt a little aimless for a bit and the transitions between levels was quite rough early on. But I eventually got more and more invested in the story that was told and was able to immerse myself into the colorful environments and relax.

I was a bit surprised when the game really got to me emotionally at the end and I even shed a few tears. A big part of that is this mechanic that I have to go into spoilers for but it's my favorite thing about this game:
While walking through the levels you keep finding these seemingly pointless collectibles. Because they are a staple of 3D platformer games it seems natural to collect them but they don't seem to have any purpose other than sometimes show you the way and increase a meaningless score. So you just go through the game collecting them as you see them without expecting anything specific from them.
Near the end, you suddenly get prompted to write a last message to your lost children and the number of collectibles you gathered becomes the number of symbols you are allowed to write. I loved that mechanic. Not that it had much effect on the gameplay but as far as the story goes and its emotional effect it was great.
So I typed my last message out, glad that I went out of my way to collect as many of these things as I could. Further down the road you eventually get a message yourself and from what I understand it's a message another player wrote in their playthrough.
If you want to see what I wrote and what I received check out my tweets about it.
It's a beautiful concept that really brought a lot of humanity to the game and really surprised me after spending an hour on simple platforming puzzles.

The First Tree is definitely a game you best play without knowing much about it. It's a rather short experience (around 60 to 90 minutes) that focuses on emotional themes rather than challenging gameplay. It's a rather tranquil game but it might stay with you for a while.
I enjoyed my time with it for sure and I would recommend people giving it a shot if they're down for something short and sweet.

Hey there! As an aspiring filmmaker (and Letterboxd enthusiast), it's great to see another one of us here! I've definitely been more of a gamer since quarantine began as I'm garbage at balancing my hobbies, but I'm eager to follow this! I haven't played any of the games you've listed yet, but I'll keep an eye out.

Cool to see more about The First Tree! That one's been hovering around my wishlist for a while now, so it's nice to see something a little more in depth. It sounds like something I'd like

Hey there! As an aspiring filmmaker (and Letterboxd enthusiast), it's great to see another one of us here! I've definitely been more of a gamer since quarantine began as I'm garbage at balancing my hobbies, but I'm eager to follow this! I haven't played any of the games you've listed yet, but I'll keep an eye out.

Nice. So what's your Letterboxd?

Cool to see more about The First Tree! That one's been hovering around my wishlist for a while now, so it's nice to see something a little more in depth. It sounds like something I'd like

Have you read the spoiler part? I hope you enjoy it when you decide to play it. It makes sense though, that there is not that much in-depth commentary on it I think since it's such a personal thing that you really should experience yourself rather than others telling you about it.

Game: Kind Words (2019) [PC]

Kind Words is one of the best games I have ever played.
It's not really a game in a traditional sense as it is not about achieving a set goal. It's about writing encouraging letters to other real-life people. You can either send a general message that gets send to multiple random people or you directly reply to one of the requests someone put up into the stars and help them out with some kind words and advice. You can also put up a request yourself in which you vent about something you struggle with or ask for advice. All anonymously.

It's an extremely therapeutic game as it can be used to seek help with serious problems like mental illness, relationship advice or one of the many terrible things in the news these days. The community seems to be thriving and so far out of the many messages I have received on my own personal problems none of them haven't been heartfelt and sincere.

I genuinely recommend this to anyone who is struggling in some form or another. Which should include everyone. I highly appreciate the effort the devs put into creating this polished and wholesome platform for serious and honest human connections.
I will definitely pop in and out of this to ask for advice about whatever is troubling myself as well as trying to give some personal wisdom and warmth to people seeking for help themselves. I really hope this game will be functional and active for the longest time. It's incredibly valuable and I think we all need this right now.

Here is a screenshot of a message I got to one of my requests that I feel comfortable sharing and two of the random messages that float around for anyone to grab.

Have you read the spoiler part? I hope you enjoy it when you decide to play it. It makes sense though, that there is not that much in-depth commentary on it I think since it's such a personal thing that you really should experience yourself rather than others telling you about it.

I didn't, but you wrote enough that's positive to reignite my interest. And be curious to know what the spoilers may be alluding to...

Nice. So what's your Letterboxd?

https://letterboxd.com/BeatUnhappening/

Note that for the past few months I've been watching a criminally low amount of films. I've been throwing myself into gaming instead. Check out my diary a few months back though, I was on a roll.

https://letterboxd.com/BeatUnhappening/

Note that for the past few months I've been watching a criminally low amount of films. I've been throwing myself into gaming instead. Check out my diary a few months back though, I was on a roll.

Nice. Yeah, I'm probably going down the same road right now spending more time with gaming than watching movies for now.

Kind Words has piqued my interest. I haven’t seen a game do something like this before. It’s such a simple concept but it encourages a lot of positive community engagement.

Nice. Yeah, I'm probably going down the same road right now spending more time with gaming than watching movies for now.

Says the guy with 25 entries in July so far...

(That's me on an extremely good month.)

Says the guy with 25 entries in July so far...

(That's me on an extremely good month.)

Oh, yeah. I've seen a lot of films this month but I think that's gonna slow down for a while now that I started playing more games a few days ago.

Game: LOVE (2014) [PC]

LOVE is a very simple, yet smooth little platformer. While it joins the indie platformer staple of dabbling in pixelated retro visuals it still manage to look unique enough to be appealing. The very basic color palette looks sleek and the different levels are able to have a lot of visual variety despite the purposefully set limitations. Screenshots don't really do it justice though. You gotta see it in motion.
The soundtrack is also quite diverse and has some really nice tracks like the one called Kid.

What's more important though is that the gameplay is very satisfying. The controls are extremely simple: You can walk at one speed and have a singular jump. But they feel good and responsive.
You also have the ability to place checkpoints anytime as long as it's not on a moving surface and no projectiles hit it. There is no limit to how often you set these checkpoints. However you only have a limited amount of lives and you can only move back to the last checkpoint you set by dying. The freedom of setting checkpoints makes the platforming pretty satisfying because it puts the responsibility of where you return after fucking up in your hands. No annoying "you die, you have to start the whole level again" nonsense. You have the power and if you forget to place a checkpoint or you put it in a bad spot you only have yourself to blame. And even with the limitless checkpoints there is still a very solid amount of challenge as the platforming isn't the easiest and requires some precise movement.
The checkpoint ability also adds a bit of dilemma at points which I like as it can become a tactical decision in certain situations: On some stages it can happen that you miss a platform and fall down onto a previous part of the level. Now you have the choice, do you want to kill yourself to respawn at the last checkpoint you set and lose one of your precious lives or do you want to be safe and instead walk all the way again to keep the headcount low? I liked that.

It's a pretty small game that you could breeze through rather quickly if you just want to get through every stage once. It banks on replayablity by giving you multiple game options instead. Things like making it through all levels with a set amount of lives, doing a speedrun with a global leaderboard, doing it all with only one life or doing a run through a bunch of remixed versions of the levels. How much time you're gonna spend with is is gonna rely on how many challenges you want to accept and how much you want to improve on your runs.

I had a very good time with this game. Going in I wasn't sure how much this very basic looking platformer would actually be able to captivate me but in the end I played it until I was able to beat all the major challenges and I came out of it wanting more. I'm definitely going to get the sequel game at some point. It looks like Love 2: Kuso does have a lot more content to offer.

If you're into platforming games without many gimmicks, simple gameplay, and a solid amount of challenge then I definitely recommend this game.

Game: Who wants to strip this babe? Hentai Streamer Girl (2019) [PC]

Time to play some trash.

I bought this game together with a bunch of other cheap shit as potential content for my YouTube channel. Its base price is already at 99cts but when I bought it I paid even less. I can't say I went into this with any great expectations. It just looked like lewd garbage to have fun with for a minute.

Genuinely this could have been a decent little time-waster since it's essentially just a gaming-themed Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The goal is to answer 15 questions about videogames and the sleazy game developer rewards the player by taking an item of clothing off the gamer girl show host. That's it.
The unnecessary undressing part aside, this could have been fine. But somehow they managed to fuck up the very simple concept of a quiz.

The questions aren't ranked in an order of difficulty like they usually are in these kinds of quizzes. So, the questions you get are literally just randomly chosen and you could get the hardest thing based on some obscure game for the $100 starter question but then something about Mario's mustache as the final million-dollar finale. It doesn't feel like a satisfying challenge and more like it's mostly based on luck.
The questions aren't very consistent either. Some of them just make no sense or are grammatically incorrect so that it's hard to tell what they are even asking. It thinks Pokémon Go is a virtual reality game and misspells Hearthstone everytime it comes up.
There are also no jokers like in the quiz show that was the obvious inspiration for it. So there is no strategy involved and it's all just really repetitive. They didn't put checkpoints at certain stages either and so once you answer one question incorrectly it's simply back to the title screen for you. You have to answer the 15 random questions in one go without failing once and there is nothing more to it. In the end, you'll get one of 6 possible nude images of the girl and that's all.

I know it might sound stupid to criticize a 99cts game about undressing some girl but I genuinely think this could have been an okay little quiz game if the developer actually tried. This is so barebones that it's just frustrating and boring.
The only reason why I eventually got through the 15 questions once is that the questions started to repeat after a while.

Yeah, this ain't great. Shocker, I know.

Game: Crazy Frog Arcade Racer / Crazy Frog Racer 2 (2007) [PS2]

I briefly looked at this game out of curiosity last month and after around 30 to 45 minutes I got so nauseous that I had to stop. I didn't plan on returning to this but something about it didn't let me go. I just wanted to finish it. I wanted to slay this ugly beast. It's not very long after all: The main game consists of only four cups each made out of three tracks. That's all.
So, I picked it up today to just give it a quick second try to see how long it would take me to finish all tracks and it turned into 2hrs of suffering.

It's crazy to me that this game even exists. It's a racing game based on the characters from music videos based on a ringtone based on someone impersonating their motorcycle for a friend. What a weird story that whole thing is. And just like you would expect from a concept like this the game sure delivers quality entertainment...

Crazy Frog Arcade Racer is probably the most uncomfortable experience I had with a racing game. The track designs are complete dogshit and the wonky controls make it a chore to get through them. A lot of the tracks is really narrow and very winding. It's easy to fall off and you're gonna be bouncing against walls a lot. Since the characters move rather quickly and are mostly pretty small it gets really easy to lose sight over things.
A lot of the items are shallow copies of what most people are familiar with from Mario Kart games and some I could never figure out what they were actually supposed to do. None of them feel very satisfying or consistent either. I never really have the feeling what I'm using here is very effective. It all just adds to the confusion and overall noise.
There is also this damage system where you get slower the more damage you take but it's balanced so badly that it's just annoying. Pretty much every track has big drops that damage you which you cannot avoid but health items are often pretty sparse or so small that you can't even see them through the speedy mess while desperately trying to stay on track.
The game just looks and feels really ugly.

I also don't feel like there is a proper rising difficulty through the four cups. The final cup for example, the Beach Cup, starts with two relatively easy tracks. They aren't much better than the other tracks in terms of design but I was able to get a pretty consistent first place one them pretty quickly. All in all probably two of the easiest tracks to me in this game. But then the final track is this disgusting, confusing behemoth of a mess with parts that I cannot tell at all how you're supposed to get through them efficiently and a terribly frustrating balance between damaging drops and health items. I kept losing all my health and got last place almost every time but it never felt like a fair loss. It just felt like I was suffering from the badly thought out, insane track design and the half-assed gameplay mechanics.
Also, fuck this game for putting you under the enemy on the scoreboard even though you got the same amount of points.

The soundtrack is of course made up out of different Crazy Frog songs. You got the famous ones like Popcorn, Axel F, and The Final Countdown, but also some songs I never heard of. They are all very annoying, naturally, except two tracks that I found surprisingly tolerable.
There are also bonus games like a pinball sort of thing and a rhythm game but they both suck as well.

I'm sure this is not gonna surprise anyone but this game is absolute trash. Frustrating, ugly, and obnoxious. Maybe that's the only fitting way to present Crazy Frog though.

Game: Hatred (2015) [PC]

Remember this game? Remember when this was released back in 2015 and videogame critics and censors were all appalled? Remember how it got straight up banned in several countries?
Yeah, I don't know. I never liked the concept of this game. Just like most people I just think it's distasteful and unnecessary. But its existence is kind of an interesting thing to read about.

I've been thinking about just giving this fabled game of controversy a shot for shits and giggles for years now and I guess I just buckled this week and went for it.

I live in Germany which is one of the countries that banned the game completely. Thankfully we live in a world of technology that allows us to cross those borders of regional censorship. It also just feels appropriate to pirate a game like this.

If you don't know, Hatred tells the story of a nameless edgelord stereotype who writes misanthropy with big letters as he despises the entire human race and plans to singlehandedly kill every person on this planet. In his eyes, people are all worthless maggots sucking on this planet like parasites although I doubt that he actually cares for the rest of the creatures on Earth.
The gameplay sees you steer this dude in a trenchcoat through different sections of town and gun down increasing numbers of people as well as doing some random side missions while on your way to a power plant to blow it up.

Now let me be honest here, there are some things about this game that I can appreciate. The black and white style can look very nice with only certain things like fire and blood being the colorful things giving a nice effect at times. The side missions can be neat at points like one area gives you the option to storm a bank and burn the money. I'm down for that even if it's very on the nose, just like everything else in this game. It also controls fairly well most of the time. The flamethrower in this game is one of the most satisfying flamethrowers I've seen in a videogame. Also for some reason, you can make the cross-hair a heart symbol which is always nice.
If it wasn't for the ultra-graphic nature of this game I could totally see this be a pretty solid contender in the top-down shooter genre. Nothing amazing but polished enough to give a fairly solid gaming experience.

But then there is of course the controversial nature of this game. Executing people, mostly innocent civilians, in very graphic and violent ways is a major mechanic that this game rides on as it is the only way to replenish health. From a gameplay standpoint, it's kind of a fresh idea I guess but it's frustrating at times as it can be hard to consistently find an enemy that is in the right condition to perform an execution. I found myself struggling to survive, trying to replenish health but not able to get one of these prompts going because everyone just straight-up died. There is not enough control over this vital mechanic. At least with health pick-ups, you can stock up and choose when to use them instead of having to actively run into combat when you're low on life.
The gameplay can also become very repetitive after a while. It's a rather arcadey game with a pretty simple premise and a short playtime; about 3hrs according to this site. But it can get tiring after getting the "Kill 100 civilians" task for the 5th time in an hour. Especially when the areas become so big that it's a chore to even find those people running around.
The AI is also pretty dumb. From what I've gathered that's one of the most prominently criticized things about this game anyway and I can see why. People just run all over the place without much rhyme or reason. Cops run right in your face or just strafe past you until they are shooting at walls trying to hit you. Instead of being an active threat trying to stop you they sometimes just feel like randomly programmed robots which makes fighting them more frustrating than engaging.
The soundtrack is also rather weak. I was really hoping they would go for some proper black metal or death metal tunes. That would have fit really well.

I've played the game for around 2hrs 30mins and from what I can tell I'm in the second to last area but I can't manage to get through it. The game made an immense jump in difficulty and while I was able to get through the previous levels rather confidently, I feel completely lost in this one. I cannot get my head around how I'm supposed to handle the amount of heavily armed enemies in that level and so I gave up after a while. I don't know if I'm gonna revisit this game but a part of me does really want to just beat it and check it off the list. Especially now that I'm already through most of it.

Hatred is the ultimate stereotype for the "videogames cause violence" argument. I'm pretty sure this is what concerned parents thought GTA would be. Just mindless killing of civilians in a hyper brutal way. The pseudo woke edgelord protagonist feels like something out of a 15-year-old's revenge fantasy. It's hard to not just groan and roll your eyes when he talks about how much politics suck and how everyone is just a pathetic sheeple.
I've heard some people say that's exactly the point. That Hatred is supposed to be a parody of what the anti-video game lobby accuses them to be. That it's supposed to poke fun at these ridiculous nihilistic viewpoints of angsty teenagers all over the world. And all of that is a very, very interesting theory. But it doesn't feel that way to me. I wouldn't bet money on the possibility that that's exactly what the developers were going for. This feels too genuine. And even if it wasn't it's debatable whether or not a game like Hatred was necessary.
I'm honestly a bit surprised they didn't go even further and put kids in the groups of civilians to mow down or add some form of sexual violence. But that would probably just get it banned in even more countries.

Anyway, it's not a great game. While the gameplay isn't completely awful, the concept and tone of this are just awful. I'm willing to read more about it and its developers after having played this game for myself a bit now but I'm not sure if I'm ever gonna come back to try to beat the rest of it.

Game: Flower (2009) [PC]

I remember hearing about this game a lot when it originally came out and I was bummed out that I didn't own the console to play this on. I'm really glad it eventually made its way to the PC 10 years later.

Flower is an interesting concept for a videogame as you essentially control a torrent of flower petals flying around landscapes in search of more flowers. The gameplay feels like a flying/racing game but the tone is much more tranquil. In a weird way, it reminded me of the pollinating levels of the Bee Movie Game.
I was actually really surprised at the variety in level design. Going into this I wasn't sure if it was gonna be much more than open fields without much direction but they managed to come up with different, interesting ideas that made each stage pretty unique to play through. I thought that was kind of admirable. The orchestral soundtrack underlines it really well.

The game isn't flawless though. The controls can be a bit iffy at parts. It was frustrating at points to redirect your movement after you missed a flower and there was one later stage that needed some more precision in tight spaces that didn't feel very well. The camera also didn't play along the best all the time.
But I still had a very good time for the most part.

This was really fun. It was more engaging as a videogame than I thought it would be expecting more of an ethereal, free-form experience out of it going in.

Game: Flower (2009) [PC]

I remember hearing about this game a lot when it originally came out and I was bummed out that I didn't own the console to play this on. I'm really glad it eventually made its way to the PC 10 years later.

Flower is an interesting concept for a videogame as you essentially control a torrent of flower petals flying around landscapes in search of more flowers. The gameplay feels like a flying/racing game but the tone is much more tranquil. In a weird way, it reminded me of the pollinating levels of the Bee Movie Game.
I was actually really surprised at the variety in level design. Going into this I wasn't sure if it was gonna be much more than open fields without much direction but they managed to come up with different, interesting ideas that made each stage pretty unique to play through. I thought that was kind of admirable. The orchestral soundtrack underlines it really well.

The game isn't flawless though. The controls can be a bit iffy at parts. It was frustrating at points to redirect your movement after you missed a flower and there was one later stage that needed some more precision in tight spaces that didn't feel very well. The camera also didn't play along the best all the time.
But I still had a very good time for the most part.

This was really fun. It was more engaging as a videogame than I thought it would be expecting more of an ethereal, free-form experience out of it going in.

The game isn't flawless though.

Surely you meant to say it's not flowerless.

No? Alright, I'll sign myself out 😶

Game: Flower (2009) [PC]

I remember hearing about this game a lot when it originally came out and I was bummed out that I didn't own the console to play this on. I'm really glad it eventually made its way to the PC 10 years later.

Flower is an interesting concept for a videogame as you essentially control a torrent of flower petals flying around landscapes in search of more flowers. The gameplay feels like a flying/racing game but the tone is much more tranquil. In a weird way, it reminded me of the pollinating levels of the Bee Movie Game.
I was actually really surprised at the variety in level design. Going into this I wasn't sure if it was gonna be much more than open fields without much direction but they managed to come up with different, interesting ideas that made each stage pretty unique to play through. I thought that was kind of admirable. The orchestral soundtrack underlines it really well.

The game isn't flawless though. The controls can be a bit iffy at parts. It was frustrating at points to redirect your movement after you missed a flower and there was one later stage that needed some more precision in tight spaces that didn't feel very well. The camera also didn't play along the best all the time.
But I still had a very good time for the most part.

This was really fun. It was more engaging as a videogame than I thought it would be expecting more of an ethereal, free-form experience out of it going in.

Out of curiosity, how do the controls work on PC? I've played this game on PS3 and it controls exclusively with the gyro in the DualShock gamepad.

Out of curiosity, how do the controls work on PC? I've played this game on PS3 and it controls exclusively with the gyro in the DualShock gamepad.

Oh, I don't think I would have liked that.

On PC you can choose between mouse control, WASD, and a controller (movement via analog stick). I played it with my PS2 controller.

- Matt

Oh, I don't think I would have liked that.

On PC you can choose between mouse control, WASD, and a controller (movement via analog stick). I played it with my PS2 controller.

- Matt

Gyro controls were actually good in my opinion.