Recent reviews by Swinetower

It's free and... and I knew what I was getting into. So.

A CYOA visual novel, a sort of a grimy and solemn riff on the Time Machine books you might have picked up after scoring a $20 off your mom for the scholastic book fair. Take it for granted that because it is a visual novel that there will be multiple endings; but unlike the expected vestigial aspect of a typical branching narrative, each playthrough here provides feedback toward discerning the larger plot. You can search all the endings to figure out the Big Mystery; or maybe just 4; or maybe just one if you're a lil cheatin-ass punk.

It's kinda clever, and a surprisingly satisfying game that spites its current asking price of "free." Yeah yeah, you can spend "free" on a bunch of other stuff too, I'm sure, but it's all stuff like... sloppy handjobs from a bitter housewife at the Church fundraiser. You can do better. This is definitely better than that.

You do, indeed, find out who Mike is. 11/10 "finding who Mike is" simulator.

You always knew they were gunna meet God, and that God would fix everything. What? That's not even a spoiler, it's so obvious.

Now, a proper spoiler would be revealing that near the end, you get to see Adolf Hitler's micropenis.

You know what I like spending money on? Videogames that lecture you.

"We're going to do va11 HALL-A but better" by making everybody obnoxious AF to the tune of screen-length paragraphs. I really wanted to like this one but Jesus dickslapping Christ, what a waste of time.

Damn. Hate to be talking crap about anything that plays at decent calciumbro representation, but this one's damn near painful.

Cute, creepy brickbreaker (no, we are not calling it an "Arkalike") underserved from jump by the exclusion of mouse-paddle controls, yet further bogged down by a miserably plodding loop and, yeah, a ♥♥♥♥ ton of bugs (and the canned music does little to help smooth it down.) I'm sure that playing this on the same day I tried Breakout: Recharged might've cast this in a negative relief but like, a decent breakout clone just has to be judged against itself. And this one, it ain't good... but it could be, with a few tweaks.

(Besides, Revenge of the Headless is still there to fill in that "Spooky Bone Boy Goes Bink-a-bonk" niche. That would be an apt comparison.)

Writing this scrip for a decade-old niche indie for two reasons:
A. easily one of the sexiest and most mechanically-attuned "smack the ball against the blocks" thing ever made for less than the cost of a McDonald's sweet tea, this is a bargain that sells itself. Bonus - fυckable soundtrack.
2. Good on the publisher for not delisting this from the store (see, Gearbox? Other people have it figured out) double that considering the disastrous launch of their remake. Bonus - this version still runs native, without fixes or modding (at least as recently as Win10 22H2.)

Oh, man. SO many fart noises! Wooo doggy, it's like a bukkake of fart sounds up in here. Conker's Bad Fur Day is in the next room like DUDE, we have NEIGHBORS. Earthworm Jim just moved out, he couldn't take it anymore. You remember Clay Fighter? No? Well, you won't remember the name of this one after finishing it either, cos from then on, it'll just be "That One Game With the Flatulence." Or maybe "That One Ghosts 'n' Goblins clone, except it's easy. And has farts."

Fun and short, tho. Trivia: early work from the Donut Dodo devs!

Caution: may contain farting sound effects.

Edit post-"Safer Seas" announcement

So, I uninstalled this shortly after writing that last review, which I think was in like May of 2023. At that time, I made this thing walk my NVMe's plank for two reasons: 1. the PVP and II: the fact that it's still 90 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gb. I wanna talk about the first thing, tho much noise has been made of the PVP experience in SoT already and there's not much useful that yet another casual Tall Talesman could add to this.

The last time I played this game, my ship got sunk while moored off of Thieves' Haven. Major crime, right, 3-month noob sinking an unmanned ship isn't big shakes; for the guy who sunk me, tho, it seemed to be free therapy. And what followed that was... I don't even know how to describe it, behavior that one would never see in any other game (except for possibly the aforementioned Rust, but even then?) Like, if it just stopped at basic slurs, one could just chalk it up to typical small ♥♥♥♥ hijinks and leave it at that. But yeah, it was incomprehensible stuff (and he really only called me something once, with the epithets not getting much worse than "♥♥♥♥♥♥.") Thing is, I left that game silently after that, not quite sure if my last outing in Sea of Thieves was shared with a potential ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ school shooter. It was weird and haunting.

So sack up, ♥♥♥♥♥, right? Quit being a ♥♥♥♥♥ and go get another boat and quit ruining the experience for the rest of the sweats! "It's called of Sea of Thieves and not Sea of Friends," you might be thinking to yourself, when you're not wondering what uncovered boobies actually look like. Yeah see, here's the thing: I have a friend who doesn't let his kid play TF2 because of an experience he had where he was told to murder himself; to me, who's been part of the notoriously "toxic" TF2 community since W was in office, this is just another round on Dustbowl. But he'll let his kid play SoT without supervision, and has done so since he was 9 years old? 8?

To call the Sea of Thieves player base "toxic" is to undermine the potency of arsenic, but the ESRB lists this game as OK for Teens. It is not. Which means it certainly isn't OK for younger children.

The reaction to the "Safer Seas" update is more than telling in this regard: PvP players calling Hunter's Call and PvE players the "actually toxic ones," accusations of Rare "killing the game by splitting the players" and, most ironically - yet predictably - PvP diehards balking at the idea of having to engage with only other PvPers on an open server.

So why is this still a thumbs up? Good question, and I hope this serves for a good answer: Sea of Thieves is a good game what's only negative quality is its own cannibalistic player base. Rare can make all the claims to amends that it wants to, but that's a cultural problem no amount of chat filters and server segregation could ever fix.

Original re-edited edit

Absolutely couldn't stand it the first time I played - at worst, Rust but with cartoon pirates and 3 guns. Bad luck led me to experiencing Sea of Thieves' "at worst" right off the bat (edit, Sept 2023 - lol so young, so innocent). Why no, Captain, I do not like anal; not without proper introductions, anyway.

Played it years later with actual people, amounting to a completely different experience; and then I learned to solo, which elevated the whole affair to sublime. How? Couldn't tell you, unless you were also one of those weirdos that got off on just aimlessly sailing in Wind Waker. IYKYK.

There's good ♥♥♥♥ here, but you should start with some good people to find it.

Yknow, I was beginning to believe in the infallibility of the "hordelike" format after having rolled the dice on x many Vampire Survivor imitations and coming out sure shot every time. That's why I'm glad something like Dont Sheeyat On my Fargin Roof exists: any assumption that any dev could spit out one of these for a quick revenue pump without really trying is totally evaporated, as this game sucks like black holes. This ♥♥♥♥ is so bad that, due to my no refunds policy, I feel a bit of guilt in not being able to personally apologize to the money I spent on this.

Also, reviewers: bite your own balls. Seriously. Wtf.

I mean... I'm not typically hard on bad product, and I think my review history would support this. A little snide, sure, but most games would have some kind of redeeming quality - passive, interactive, aesthetic, etc - that make it worth keeping around for a giggle. But ♥♥♥♥ me man, I haven't played anything that made me this disappointed in my lack of skepticism since Osmos back in 2009. Osmos was so bad, it made me drink. Time to open up a new tab, I guess.

Anyway, yeah, pass on this. Unless youre really thirsty and haven't felt profoundly embarrassed in a while.

(Fast edit: so as not to be seen as too hasty in running down a game that's still in Early Access, take a look at how many EA titles you have in your own library and how many are still, at bare minimum, fundamentally sound. This one ain't one of those.)