Awards Time!

[Misagh]

I really don't know how well received this'll be, but I LOVE how Ross gives games unique awards at the end of each episode. So much so in fact that I've started giving this type of award to every game I play. I'll start first, but i'd love to see some of the awards you guys could come up with!

 

CONTORL (Remedy Entertainment, 2019)

 

1. House of Leaves: The worldpsace this game takes place in is one of the closes representation of non-eucledean geometry I've seen. If aliens ever build a house on earth, it'll look like this.

 

2. Hottest Creepy Super Model: This game expertly walks the line between total chaos and autistic order, and this dichotomy is found in every aspect of it, whether it be characters, story, or art design.

 

3. REDACTED: Seriously, it's redacted.

 

Edited March 30, 2020 by Misagh (see edit history)

[Nanking]

CrossCode (Radical Fish Games, 2018)

 

1. Best Portrayal of a French Person: A lot of times it's a bad thing to have a character that's a blatant stereotype of a certain people. But, you know what? I think that we can all agree that if games started having more blatantly obvious french people in them, that it would be a boon to humanity.

 

2. Spin to Win: There is a severe underrepresentation of characters in games that can spin. Besides this game, Street Fighter, and Crash Bandicoot are there really even that many games where you spin?

 

3. Cucked by an AI Recreation of yourself: Happens every time.

[Misagh]

^Haha I love that. Very creative. That game is on my shortlist. Looks highly interesting.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Misagh (see edit history)

[Misagh]

Alright I have another one:

 

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay - Director's Cut (Starbreeze Studios, 2004)

 

1. Some Bones are Better Left in the Closet: When I played this game back in the day it blew my mind hard, and quickly became one of my all-time favorites. Playing it again in 2019 however really shattered that image of perfection for me, as my trained gamer-sense was able to see all the blemishes and flasws on its surface. Replaying your childhood favorites can be dangerous guys. Don't do it.

 

2. Fully Realized World: The moment you set foot in this game you immdiately get the sense that this is a real world, with real people doing real people things. Even though the area you explore in the game is is ironically limited to a single installation (a prison no less), the game world still comes of as highly expansive, detailed and believable.

 

3. Vin Disel Life Simulator: DANGER! If you play this game in VR you will transmogrify into Vin Disel, and this process is irreversible. The game features one of those 'look down and see your body' type views, and you really get to feel as if you are a 250 pound killing machine.

[Misagh]

Conarium (Zoetrope Interactive, 2017)

 

Conarium is a first-person horror adventure game heavily inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness". It is very short at only 4 hours, features highly rudimentary puzzles, and in all fairness is not all that scary outside of a few jumpscares. Really, the strength of this title is in its representation of Lovecraft's mythos. The game looks and sounds beautiful and features a lovingly crafted world which although linear, is nevertheless a joy to explore. The secnary and architecture are bizzare and just as alien as you'd expect them for something out of this universe. The biggest downside of the game is how it actively works against itself to take away player immersion through contstantly taking away your control, having a voiced protagonist, and UI elements constantly reminding you that you are playing a game.

 

Awards Time!

 

1. Non-Silent Silent Mode.
This game features a 'silent mode' which the devs added in a patch. It's supposed to reduce the protagonist's excessive commentary to improve immersion. Well the guy still talks frequently, and whenever he does, it immediately ruins said immersion. His accent is... goofy to say the least, and he never seems to provide any actual value to the story. Really, they should have eliminated his lines entirely, but I guess they didn't want to for some reason that is beyond me.

 

2. Look at me!
The game loves to constantly take away your control to focus your attention on things it doesn't want you to miss. For a game which takes place entirely in first-person view ala Amnesia, it really works against its intentions of immersion.

 

3. Aline Aliens.
In most media involving extraterrestrials, the aliens are really re-skinned humans. Not with Lovecraft. There is no mistaking an Elder God for the average Joe.

[Kaiosama TLJ]

I don't have games from the top of my head to give awards at the moment. For now however, I will give at least one award to a game that Ross covered previously, because I think they deserve it.

 

Nyet 3

 

* Gaming Doomsayer - I know someone already pointed this out in the Youtube comments, but it deserves to be repeated, this game was ahead of it's time in a very sinister way. The game has "optional" power-ups to buy to make levels easier, but as far as you get in the game, you start to realize that these power-ups are not as optional as the game says they are. Does that sound familiar? Yep, this game reminds me a lot of the current gaming landscape and it's predatory microtransactions, especially the mobile market. And the fact that this game's ending show the guy of the title screen in a yatch is the icing on the cake. But hey, you might say, at least they didn't publish a game where they charge us money to save our game. Well... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUX4fGCd_dk)

 

If this game was published today as it is (not with real microtransactions, just to clarify), it could be passed off as a satire like DLC Quest.

[snuffb0y]

I cant help but reading all those awards in Ross's voice, it's awesome 

 

On 4/3/2020 at 5:36 PM, Misagh said:

Conarium (Zoetrope Interactive, 2017)

 

Conarium is a first-person horror adventure game heavily inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness". It is very short at only 4 hours, features highly rudimentary puzzles, and in all fairness is not all that scary outside of a few jumpscares. Really, the strength of this title is in its representation of Lovecraft's mythos. The game looks and sounds beautiful and features a lovingly crafted world which although linear, is nevertheless a joy to explore. The secnary and architecture are bizzare and just as alien as you'd expect them for something out of this universe. The biggest downside of the game is how it actively works against itself to take away player immersion through contstantly taking away your control, having a voiced protagonist, and UI elements constantly reminding you that you are playing a game.

 

Awards Time!

 

1. Non-Silent Silent Mode.
This game features a 'silent mode' which the devs added in a patch. It's supposed to reduce the protagonist's excessive commentary to improve immersion. Well the guy still talks frequently, and whenever he does, it immediately ruins said immersion. His accent is... goofy to say the least, and he never seems to provide any actual value to the story. Really, they should have eliminated his lines entirely, but I guess they didn't want to for some reason that is beyond me.

 

2. Look at me!
The game loves to constantly take away your control to focus your attention on things it doesn't want you to miss. For a game which takes place entirely in first-person view ala Amnesia, it really works against its intentions of immersion.

 

3. Aline Aliens.
In most media involving extraterrestrials, the aliens are really re-skinned humans. Not with Lovecraft. There is no mistaking an Elder God for the average Joe.

That just made me wanna try the game 

[Kaiosama TLJ]

Full Throttle

 

* Half-empty gas tank - It's a short game, especially compared to other Lucas Arts adventure games. But it's still a enjoyable ride.

 

* Curse of Eternam - Like Ross said in his Eternam review, putting sessions in a adventure game that requires arcade-like timing or reflexes is not a very good idea since usually these games would be ideal for non-gamers, and unfortunately Full Throttle has one of these. Of course, it didn't bothered me that much, but well...

 

* 1% Approved - Even if it's not a action game, it still is a good biker gang themed game.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Kaiosama TLJ (see edit history)

[Inglonias]

I could get into this.

 

AI War: Fleet Command is an asymmetric RTS set in space. You fight a pair of evil AIs that already control the galaxy. Your task is to fix that.

 

* SkyNet In Training - Because the AI doesn't need to play like a human, the devs have focused on making it the best player-killer possible. When someone wins this game at its highest difficulty, it is considered a BUG.

[Bench]

I don't know if this really counts as it isn't out yet, but I've had the immense pleasure of participating in the closed beta back in February and March of this year, and frankly, I want to spread the word about it!

 

Sorry in advance for a thinly-veiled sales pitch, but every game cultist has to try and proselytise the masses at some point right? Without further ado...

 

Diabotical (The GD Studio,  Release Date TBD.)

 

1. Fine, have it your way!: This game has the most indepth settings menu I've ever seen in an FPS. You can adjust your HUD in any way you see fit down to size, spacing, font choice, colours, how it reacts to variable changes. It's like a small photo editor that you can craft into your personal perfect FPS HUD and then send links to others they can paste in and check out themselves. Customisation extends beyond UI, as you can choose specific settings regarding mouse input and sensitivity  and netcode options. There's also custom lobbies for your specific game mode tastes that shares the same link copy paste system to allow easy match pick-up's.

 

2. Rise from your grave: Arena First Person Shooters (AFPS) have unfortunately fallen into obscurity in recent years, but this game is trying its damned hardest to bring back the heart of Quake with a modern presentation and feel.

 

Wipeout is The GD Studio's take on Clan Arena, which now has individual escalating respawn timers for every death with rounds ending once a team is successfully wiped out. In Duel, there is the new 'Golden Frag' mechanic that's intended to help new players pick up a game mode notorious for it's high skill gap and punishing ruleset. This rule makes it possible for amazing comebacks once time's up instead of waiting the timer out once you have a decent frag deficit on your opponent and knowing they have no chance of getting sweet sweet revenge.

 

For general mechanics, an Unreal Tournament style dodge/dash has been added for new players to gain UPS quickly and helps set them up for advanced movement mechanics like strafe jumping, circle jumping, etc. There are also utility grenades (called Weeballs) that players get in each mode that help to shake up familiar modes and a ping system for better communication in public team modes such as Wipeout and Team Deathmatch.

 

3. Passion Project: While AAA industry plagues itself with Games as a Service and indie titles make strides with limited resources, Diabotical is a game that shows its lofty ambitions on its sleeve and in my opinion succeeds in spades. The GD Studio is founded by ex-professional Quake players who felt the genre was under served in its modern forms and that it's niche and steadfast community truly deserved a better experience. The intention with this game is to create a base that can stand the test of time, with planned release of server binaries, a simple to use in-game map editor and working in collaboration with the AFPS community such as appearing at TimConLAN and offering money to regional grassroots ESports. This game screams out to me as a passion project unlike any other in recent memory. One of a kind.

 

 

I'm excitedly waiting for open beta later this year, but for those curious this game will be free to play on release and you can still sign up for access on the website. I think this game would make for an amazing play with fans session should Ross look into it, I know he's done UT2004 sessions in the past and this would be much in the same vein with no price cost and it's an absolute blast to play.

[potty_admiral_bop]

On 3/31/2020 at 7:03 AM, Misagh said:

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay - Director's Cut (Starbreeze Studios, 2004)

Why this game didn't shot? This is the best shooter in 2004 as for me, far, FAR better than ten thousand times over rated half-life2.

It has cinematic story, the best graphics for the year which still looks good, voice acting is stellar, music that burns ears, crowd stealth, choice between how to play a level, melee fights, weapons than leaves holes in bodies, screaming like little girls guards when you operate a giant robot, mutants, betrayals and much more. Wtf?

And the remake is so lame, I would not recommend to play it.

 

[Kaiosama TLJ]

Borderlands

* 87 bazzilion guns - I know, pretty obvious award, but we can't deny it is a staple of the franchise.

* Tentacles and disappointment - While I don't find the story to be bad, general consensus is that it is "meh". The best way I can sum it up is that it's a wild-goose chase for alien booty on "Mad Max Planet" where the main antagonist ends up impaled by a tentacle in a non-pornographic fashion, and you end up fighting a eldritch abomination instead. But hey, at least I take this story over any Ubisoft sandbox game plot.

* Downright spiral to identity and insanity - The series didn't became wackier overnight with the second game, we can say that the DLC campaings from the first game helped to shape it to that direction. A mad doctor that's totally not a NPC you met in the main game, a zombie apocalypse, a psychotic sexy clown, midgets coming out of chests, goddamn nepotism, and robotic communism. Compared to the main campaing, the DLCs are far more entertaining plot-wise in my opinion.

MDK

* Best alien invasion method - You only learn this if you read the manual. The aliens you face are called Streamriders, and they have this name because they teleport from planet-to-planet via energy streams, and they invade with gigantic mobile cities that consume everything on it's path, only leaving scorched earth behind. If that's not the most terrifying and kickass way to invade our planet, I don't know what is.

 

* Best WTF ending for a PC game - Just like Ross always says, old-school PC games are notorious for having weak endings, but MDK opted for something different... A music video by a french band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISFXmukrQO4

* All-time favorite - It's far from flawless, especially considering the sniper mechanics, but I can't think of a better game that I beated multiple times because I liked it a lot.

 

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

 

* Symphonical diarrhea - While the soundtrack isn't the worst I've experienced, I have to agree it's bad. Most tracks are bastardarizations of many classic Sonic tunes, and that's enough to put it in low regards.

 

* Between a rock and a hard place - In the second half of the game, Sonic and his friends end up stuck in another dimension where some powerful alien species resides, and they have to fight them before they gain their trust. However, the first aliens you encounter are the Kron, which are sentient walking rocks, and they are extremely tough. Their defense is so absurd that they take 1 damage from ANYTHING your characters can throw, except for ONE attack skill that Shadow has that ignores defense. This is almost the same caliber of level 3 from The Chosen: Well of Souls, since everything after is more doable compared to this. And speaking of The Chosen...

 

* Somebody Cared - ...I have to also give this award, mostly because of the plot. I don't think that this game has a good plot, but of all of laughably failed attemps of shoehorning a plot more complex than defeating Eggman/Robotnik/Whateveryouwanttocallhim in the franchise, I think this one is at least decent and not laughably bad, it also helps that Sonic Team wasn't involved. One of the reasons being that they try to stitch together most of Sonic lore (the main villains are the the ones responsible for creating Emerl from Sonic Battle, just to give a example), which is something that Sonic Team itself doesn't seem to care very much (which begs the question of why they even bother with worldbuilding if they are going to forget and contradict themselves later anyway). Also, many Sonic characters that I usually find annoying are at least tolerable here, especially Big the Cat. I can see that they really wanted to do something special here, but it didn't turned out as they wanted it to be, and we payed the price for it.

Edited August 3, 2020 by Kaiosama TLJ (see edit history)

[StrixLiterata]

I'd like to give some awards to the indie First Person Metroidvania, Supraland:

1) Out of Bouds Bounty

Search aggressively enough, and you'll find ways to exit the boundaries of the world.. only to find more world beyond! It's truly amazing how many things that look like just a piece of skybox are actually real geometry, and contain treasure to boot!

 

2) Toy World

The world is literally a sandbox populated by styrofoam stick figures, with household appliances used as props, and the effect is way better-looking than this description might let on: this kid has a real flair for level design, it seems

 

3) All Time Favourite

[Kaiosama TLJ]

Blood

 

* Rambo cult - Seriously, I never seen a evil cult that packs so much heat like the Cabal. Usually, you see cultists in videogames hurling bolts of magic or hexes against you, not literal sticks of dynamite and also trying to make you a swiss cheese with all the lead they got.

 

* Most satisfying death screams - I have to admit, of all the violent games out there no one gives me the same level of grim satisfaction from the screams of agony of the enemies than this game, especially the screams from the cultists. And saying that indicates that maybe I have a problem...

 

* All-time favorite - Of the 3 Build Engine FPS of that era at least (second place going to Shadow Warrior).

 

Deep Rock Galactic

 

* Dwarves

 

* Digging

 

* Danger

[Kaiosama TLJ]

Did I'm the only one that remembers this thread? Anyway, considering that Ross brough back awards in the recent episode, I think I'll bump this one.

 

Mystic Towers

 

* Best videogame grampa - Well, I don't know if he has grandsons/grandaughters, but the fact that he goes alone to twelve towers infested with monsters to face it's perils to clean up the mess of his evil ancestor (even if reluctanly) at his age is enough to give him this award.

 

* Best weird creatures:

 

 

I rarely see games with a collection of monsters were some (if not all) are like this, and I'm all for it.

 

* All-time favorite - Hard game, especially in the Master towers, but would play again with no objections.

[Kaiosama TLJ]

FTL: Faster Than Light

 

* Interesting portrayal of a rebel faction - They are the bad guys, and by the little you see them you can see they are basically KKK in space (but without the robes). Very rare to see a rebel faction potrayed this way in a video game other than the stock "romanticized freedom fighters".

 

* Space trolley - This game is basically trolley problems in space. Is one tough decision after the other, and some can be questionable...

 

* Love and Hate - Never beated this game on Normal due to how difficult it is, and even on Easy you can lose a lot.

[HQDefault]

Far Cry 5

 

    [Coziest Game Where You Still Get to Shoot Dozens of People] - I've never played a full-on shooter game that felt this comfy before or since. The whole game, from the environmental design, to your interactions with NPCs, to the ability to relax and go fishing or hunting, everything just gives a sense of hominess and community that almost reminds me of Animal Crossing on a certain level. But the core gameplay still revolves around shooting people and beating them with a shovel. I guess "Cult of the Lamb" is something that more deliberately tries to replicate this dichotomy, but in that game it almost feels like the division between "comfy community builder" and "murderous cult leader" is played up for laughs. Meanwhile, FC5 merges the coziness with the combat pretty seamlessly.

 

    [Love & Hate] - Far Cry's formula (at least post FC3) is kind of like comfort food to me. It's not likely that anything using this formula will break one of my all time favorites, but it's very easy for me to like. It doesn't take much for me to get absorbed in the gameplay loop and environments. Unfortunately, FC5, seems really opposed to me doing that. Not only does the game stop you dead in your tracks to force you into the story missions, but as you make progress in each section, the game repeatedly adds more and more hazards to annoy you. Especially the planes. Once you're close enough to a boss fight, you start getting hounded by planes circling the area 24/7, and no matter how many you shoot down, they'll always keep coming. But once you do clear a sector, then it goes too far in the other direction and nullifies ALL random enemy spawns, which just makes exploration feel a little less exciting. This all leads to a gameplay pattern where every chapter of the game starts at its best and ends at its worst, which almost makes me dread playing the missions and making progress.

 

    [Diabolus Ex Nuke] - The game's become kind of infamous for its ending, and spoiler alert, it sucks. It just sucks. If you decide to keep fighting the cult leader, which you are obviously going to do given how much work it took to get to him in the first place, nuclear war starts. For some fucking reason. There might be radio broadcasts about political tensions being high, but that still doesn't explain why you only get hit with a nuke if you decide to kill this random cult leader in Montana.

 

F.E.A.R. 2

 

    [Whiny Game Engine] - You might recall in Ross's video for Revenant, he called it one of the most temperamental games ever made. Well, FEAR 2 is definitely up there.. Instead of behaving differently depending on a series of tiny differences in your system, FEAR 2 has two modes of behaving- it runs or it doesn't. And all too often, FEAR 2 chooses "It doesn't". I suspect this is less prevalent on other machines, but man, there are SO MANY things that can cause the game to just refuse to launch. I've had times where it just works without a hitch, sometimes it only runs if I set the game to my native resolution ahead of time, but other times I'll try reinstalling both my graphics AND audio drivers, and it STILL won't work. There is such a long laundry list of things that can cause this game to boot up to a black screen that this alone makes it hard to recommend someone buy the PC version.

 

    [Minority Report] - Most people seem to regard FEAR 2 as an inferior sequel... I am not most people. I mean sure, I agree that some things aren't as good, such as bullet time being a bit less polished, and the horror elements not being as strong. But on the whole? I think it's a tighter and more enjoyable experience than its predecessor in a myriad of ways. Environments feel much more varied and interesting, the combat is still a ton of fun, the slide kick is way, WAY easier to pull off and therefore is infinitely useful. Hell, I even like the inclusion of proper aim down sights (Although they still should have added an option to disable it). And even if the horror elements are less prevalent than before, I didn't really care since I didn't think the first game was even remotely scary. There was a handful of moments in extraction point that creeped me out a little, but other than that, I have no fucking idea what people are talking about when they say FEAR is a superb horror experience. It really never was. So having the sequel recognize that and use the horror as more of a thematic anchor felt like the right direction for me. And all that makes the "Whiny Game Engine" award all the more frustrating, because I WOULD play it a lot more if it would let me.

 

    [What?] - Yeah, I'm not gonna try to defend the ending. Whoever drafted that is a crazy person.

 

Xenogears

Just one for this game, but it's a good one:

 

    [Best Game that I Never Want to Play] - Do you ever look at a game, appreciate the aesthetic, tone, characters, and story, and then think to yourself: "Too bad it's in a genre that I don't give a flying shit about actually playing". That's the vibe I get from Xenogears all over. Even as someone who doesn't usually like this game's brand of super metaphysical narrative, I found myself supremely interested in the game's world and characters. Not to mention the overall art direction is just fantastic across the board. Unfortunately, it also uses just about every JRPG gameplay trope that I don't care for. Static turn-based combat, random encounters, bad pacing between cutscenes and gameplay, all of that sort of thing. While there are some people who do enjoy or at least tolerate this style of gameplay, I'm not one of them. But hey, if someone were to make a fan game in this universe that plays completely differently, I'd be all over that like frosting on cake.

Edited November 9, 2023 by HQDefault (see edit history)

[HQDefault]

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger

 

[Death of the Author] - I've seen games and movies where the narrator is telling the story in past tense as we watch the events transpire. I've never played a game where the narrator slowly has an existential crisis while telling the story, watching the gameworld fall apart as he drops everything to ponder his mortality for a moment before someone gets him back on subject.

 

[Drawn to the Horizon] - The vistas in this game are absolute top-notch stuff. Even if this game's sketch-outline aesthetic isn't your favorite, you have to respect the artistry that goes into the landscapes here. I mean just look at these mountains here, the sense of scale is stunning. 

 

[All-Time Favorite] - I did not in a million years expect this to become one of my favorite shooters. Like, it's a budget 4-hour title that uses the common modern shooter tropes of regenerating health and ADS (not that those are inherently bad, just often slapped into games without understanding what makes them work) and has a very slim selection of weapons. Now I have played Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood and enjoyed that quite a bit, so I was at least expecting this to be good. But sweet friggin' christmas... When you successfully dodge a bullet before being thrust into bullet time, turning the tables and clearing out everyone in the room, followed by the main character pausing the story to go take a piss... You'll understand. Everything in this game just fits together perfectly in a campaign that is all-killer, no-filler.

 

Go play this.

 

[HQDefault]

SiN (+ Emergence)

 

I have to give these games some awards, because I've had a very unusual relationship with this series ever since Ross introduced me to it.

 

 

    [Could've Been Legendary] - Both the original and Emergence are unique to me in just how unbelievably close they come to being all-time favorites of mine... but they're not. They just have too many problems. The tone, the setting, the overall feel of the gunfights, the level design, just about everything feels tailor-made for my personal tastes (Well maybe not the horny stuff. But it mostly gets out of the way when Alexis isn't on screen so it's not a big deal). But in both games everything starts to fall apart once they start trying to add a bit of challenge. In the original, for starters every time they try to add puzzles relating to unkillable turrets, the game immediately becomes a huge pain in the ass. And then in the late game everyone gets rocket launchers and sniper rifles, which is just not fun at all (And no, the "deliver cleaning supplies instead of weapons" terminal doesn't change that. I don't even know what it actually does).

 

    Meanwhile, in Emergence, the combat feels pretty consistently enjoyable (if a bit same-y) up until they start throwing the armored minigun guys at you, which again, immediately makes gunfights feel like a slog. They have way, WAY too many hit points, and the game's system of randomly spawning in enemy types for each encounter mean that they're never carefully implemented. They're just slapped in to artificially make fights harder. And Ross already mentioned that the personality of Emergence was being strangled, which absolutely doesn't help.

 

    Again, I've never seen a series that feels like it caters so much to my own personal tastes before breaking its neck on the landing. I genuinely believe that if the SiN Episodes series had not been cancelled, it would have become THE all-time favorite of mine.

 

 

    [Best Saturday Morning tone for Adults] - Unlike Ross's opinion on the writing of SiN (and Ninja Turtles), I actually really like this brand of goofy, straight-forward writing. Throw me in a world with a stupid villain who has a new crazy scheme every week, and is thwarted by some guys spouting one-liners and catch phrases, and I'll eat that shit up every time. In fact, I kind of lament the fact that this style of writing is very rare for stuff made for adults. Here's the recipe as I see it: It's the combination of heroic action, colorful characters, a stupid premise, and silly, overly-functional dialogue that really gives something a Saturday morning cartoon tone. And I think a lot of writers making stuff for mature audiences are afraid to put all of those things together. Funnily enough, probably the closest I've seen a game come to hitting this feeling outside of SiN is Call of Duty: Ghosts... if you can believe that. It obviously doesn't have the colorful characters, but it nails just about everything else, and as such always falls flat when it tries to take itself seriously.

 

 

    [Best Main Menu Music] - Obviously I'm referring to Emergence here and not the original since that's the only one that has menu music... but I'm not kidding when I say that the main them of SiN: Episodes might be my favorite song ever made, bar fucking none. Bear in mind that I'm not the sort of person who goes out of their way to find new music, and most of what I do listen to is stuff that doesn't have lyrics. So it's not like it's competing with a host of music where the meaning deeply resonates with me. But even with that aside... this shit is amazing. And I actually think it really fits Blade's character. Like his backstory is that he founded his own mercenary company as a response to all of the other blatantly corrupt security corporations cropping up. And this song really speaks to that underlying feeling of hypocrisy towards using the same systems of violence used by those corrupt businesses to try and fight back against a world that allowed it to flourish. But he feels the need to keep pushing back anyway because participating in that system is the only thing that's allowed him to rebel in any meaningful capacity. Like the song bounces between feelings of disappointment, resentment, frustration, hope, and pure adrenaline. I dunno, maybe I'm reading into this too much, but this is just a fantastic piece of music.

Edited December 21, 2023 by HQDefault (see edit history)

[HQDefault]

I was bored, so I went back and made some shitpost-level award graphics for each of the awards I gave (I would have added these via an edit but the site didn't like me doing that)

 

Far Cry 5

 [Coziest Game Where You Still Get to Shoot Dozens of People]

 

 [Love & Hate]

 

 [Diabolus ex Nuke]

 

 

F.E.A.R. 2

 

 [Whiny Game Engine]

 

 [Minority Report]

 

 [What?]

 

 

Xenogears

 

 [Best Game that I Never Want to Play]

 

 

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger

 

 [Death of the Author]

 

 [Drawn to the Horizon]

 

 [All-Time Favorite]

 

 

SiN (+ Emergence)

 

 [Could've Been Legendary]

 

 [Best Saturday Morning Tone for Adults]

 

 [Best Main Menu Music]