What I'm getting at here isn't just the juxtaposition of a classic mystery genre with the weird but something that emerges from that juxtaposition, and what it says about us and the world that we live in.
Read More
This game is, of all things, a police procedural RPG with a surprising depth of thought, as well as deep political and philosophical consideration; it pulls no punches, and layers a naturalistic and emotionally effecting story over the top of a thoroughly-drawn and not-entirely-realistic setting. That’s the thing: when someone can pull of Naturalistic Un-Realism, I sit up and take notice — and I think everyone should, too.
Read More
YIIK very much wanted to be a new version of Earthbound, the seminal 16-bit RPG that was essentially John Carpenter’s Peanuts, mixed with Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series. It has the same quality of self-consciously blasé psychedelia, but can’t seem to match the thematic weight of its source material.
Read More
The game itself takes place in the far future, and all of the characters are “Lancers” — giant-robot-piloting aces engaged in campaigns between different states that make up the Union, a laissez-faire interstellar state that claims to represent all of humanity in the vastness of space. Aliens are notably absent, but that is not to say that there is nothing inhuman about the setting: a rogue machine intelligence, RA has stolen Mars’s moon Deimos, and it is sometimes seen floating strangely near significant events in the history of the galaxy.
Read More
There is a bit of generational discourse that forms the backbone of the plot. The older generation knew prosperity, they knew the value of a hard day's work and that if you put in your time you should get what is due to you. The younger generation knew only the loss of that prosperity, a town where local institutions close down, where jobs are few and far between.
Read More