#dreamsaturn

[luvdsaturnn]

just bc my entire life revolves around pink lightning doesn’t mean i don’t enjoy some good sapphics every now and then

[blazehedgehog]

Why do you think Dimps Sonic games made getting the Emeralds so obtuse and frustrating?

I always blamed it on the fact that, as far as I've heard, Dimps is made up of former SNK and former Treasure staff. Or, at least, they were at the time.

This is why the Sonic Advance games have such good animation, because some of those guys came from the Metal Slug team, apparently. And what else did Metal Slug have? Extreme difficulty! A lot of SNK Arcade games did, really. And Treasure was spun off from Konami, and Konami games were known for extreme difficulty as well. Treasure games weren't exactly pushovers, either.

So you have a bunch of dudes who value a stiff challenge. And you say it's getting the emeralds, but honestly I think the Dimps Sonic games are know for big, weird, random spikes of difficulty in general. A bottomless pit in a place you weren't expecting, or a boss that can suddenly kill you in one hit regardless of how many rings you have.

Or the simple fact that, like, the Sonic Advance games have power-ups, but you almost never find them. You might get lucky and stumble in to a green shield, but invincibility? Speed shoes? A magnet shield? May as well not even exist, because they're hidden in very difficult, obscure places.

This philosophy extends to special stages, where I'd assume the logic is, "if you want to do this, you're going to have to work for it and earn your right." Old, old, old school game design, where challenge is gameplay, so more challenge equals more gameplay.

At least in Sonic Advance 2 (and 3, I guess), once you open a special stage, completing it is relatively easy. All the difficulty is in getting there. They at least had a little mercy.

[speeps-highway]

Not sure if you'll take this (but I would greatly appreciate it if you did) but could you replace the "Aw yeah this is happening" text with "Saturn is pretty rad!"?

Sure:

[isitepic]

Is It Epic? Sonic Mania (Plus) Review

Sonic Mania is a pretty special game, from it’s creation story to the end product we see before us today. During the days of the Dreamcast and the days following after, there would be several attempts to recapture Sonic’s glory days on the Genesis. Though none of them quite matched the quality of those games, for many, Sonic’s handheld adventures such as the Sonic Advance trilogy would be Sonic’s only 2D games for several years.

But that’s just for official Sonic games, meanwhile, there was a steady, lively community for Sonic mods and fangames, yet again trying to recapture that Sonic 16-bit magic. While many fell flat on their face, some of them actually came quite close. Enter Christian Whitehead and Simon Thomley.

Christian Whitehead, also known as the Taxman, had coded his own engine, dubbed the Retro Engine, and showed it off at SAGE of 2009. This engine would of course, be used for his pitched remake of Sonic CD. Whereas games like Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 were available on iOS at the time, they ran on rather crummy emulators. This was different. This was a complete remake from the ground up.

Enter Simon Thomley, aka Stealth, who worked on several well known Sonic fangame projects like Sonic MegaMix, and possibly most famously his own version of Sonic the Hedgehog on Gameboy Advance Hardware. Being friends with Christian, he provided his own advice on the Sonic CD remake before joining him on the remakes of Sonic 1 and Sonic 2.

After a failed pitch for a Sonic 3 and Knuckles remake, the two would not be deturred. Enter Sonic Discovery, after a lengthy meeting with Takashi Iizuka, Sonic Mania was born. After it’s reveal at San Diego Comic Con 2016, people were excited, and I was right along with them.

After a frustrating delay for the PC version and dealing with the fallout of Denuvo, many people, including myself, were completely enamored with the game. But that was a year ago, and a lot can change in a year. I’ve certainly changed a lot in the course of a year.

With the new Sonic Mania Plus DLC that was released in July of this year, the game has changed quite a bit and the hype has died down significantly. With this in mind, I figured now is as good of a time as any to sit down and really analyze Sonic Mania, especially with the new 1.4 update.

The plot of Sonic Mania is unfortunately a lot of wasted potential. After discovering a mysterious power source on Angel Island that teleports whoever it is you’re playing as to Green Hill Zone, it transforms the surrounding EggRobos into the new Hard Boiled Heavies. Through one big adventure, The Heavy King faces off with the Egg Reverie and Super Sonic. After defeating them both, a portal opens up and Sonic is sucked in, kicking off the events of Sonic Forces.

In essence, the story only exists to advertise Sonic Forces and that ends up working against it. The original story saw Dr. Robotnik falling into a deep depression after the events of Sonic 3, with the Hard Boiled Heavies taking over, but that was scrapped for reasons I’m not entirely sure of.

But story was never the drawing point of Classic Sonic the Hedgehog. While games like Sonic CD or Sonic 3 had something of a narrative, it was never the heavy focus of the game. What really sold Sonic was his gameplay, and luckily, Sonic Mania excels in that regard. What made Sonic work in the original Genesis games were his physics and level design.

The key to good Sonic level design is fluidity, keeping Sonic moving is as important and his speed itself. Take Sonic 1 for example, all the best levels in that game are filled with slopes and loop de loops that Sonic can roll around and pick up so much speed that he can outrun the screen itself. Sonic Mania keeps such design mentalities in mind, as even in more rigid levels such as Titanic Monarch, skilled players can speedrun it as easily as something like Green Hill Zone.

What’s also important is Sonic’s physics, and by extension, his momentum. This is where Sonic Mania succeeds and something like Sonic 4 fails miserably. How Sonic reacts to the terrain below him is cruical, because if he doesn’t react properly, then the game won’t function right.

Sonic Mania is the first “Classic” Sonic game since 1994 to truly feel like it understood why the Genesis trilogy was so beloved, expanding on what people liked about them in every way. That’s not to say the game is without it’s flaws, however. Some of the bosses way overstay their welcome. Hydrocity Zone Act 2 in particular can really feel like a slog, being two full bosses back to back. Metal Sonic also can be a bit of a drag, but thankfully in the recent 1.4 update, it’s been updated to be slightly more forgiving, adding a checkpoint right before the final phase, which has also been updated quite significantly.

Some of the levels in general can also go on for a really, really long time, and that’s especially a bit of a problem when the save system saves only by Zone and not by Act. What’s especially strange about this is that the Sonic Advance trilogy, Sonic Rush games, and the Sonic 1, 2 and CD remakes all had this figured out, save by Act, and those levels are significantly smaller than those found in Sonic Mania. If I stop playing at Mirage Saloon Act 2, I shold, at the very least, be able to pick it back up again at Mirage Saloon Act 2.

While it’s nice to see the Elemental Shields get some more creative usage, they don’t really get enough of that creative usage. I mean, yeah setting fire to Oil Ocean Zone is pretty cool, and yeah, sticking to the ceilling in Flying Battery Zone is a pretty creative idea, but aside from setting fire to a bridge here or there in Green Hill Zone, that’s kind of it.

Sonic Mania also got paid DLC in the form of Sonic Mania Plus, adding two new characters, Mighty and Ray. It also adds some new Bonus Stages, new Special Stage layouts and a brand new Encore Mode, with new stage color palletes and slightly altered stage layouts. But that’s the operative word: slightly. Mighty is essentially the easy mode of this game, with a ground pound that can destroy certain objects and occasionally lead to different paths, and his shell protects him from certain dangers. Ray is essentially Super Mario World’s Cape Mario in the form of a Sonic the Hedgehog character, allowing him to glide over large distances.

The new level layouts don’t really lend themselves well to the new character’s abilities. By and large, aside from different entity placement, the levels are basically identical. The Special Stages have also seen a significant overhaul, with all new, much more difficult to find Warp Ring placement, the Special Stage design aesthetics going in reverse and being BRUTALLY unforgiving. One slip up, and at that point you may as well throw yourself off the track because you aren’t getting the Emerald.

The only reason I got all the Emeralds in my playthrough of Encore mode is, what I assume was a Debug feature left in the PC version by mistake that allowed you to instantly go up a speed level and the press of a button.

But as cool as it is to see these characters return after over 22 years of absence, and as fun as they are to play, these levels aren’t entirely built around these characters’ abilities. We have fewer Warp Rings and those are moved around quite substanstially, and we have a lot more harsh enemy placement, but that’s all, really.

To be completely honest, I am beyond the point of burnout with Sonic Mania. With over 100 hours on record, gathering all the footage for the video review and getting 100% clear on all files in Encore Mode, I am Mania’d out. I am taking a long, long break from Sonic games until Team Sonic Racing comes out.

Though I sound pretty negative in this review, don’t take that the wrong way; Sonic Mania is a gorgeous, beautiful game that serves as a love letter to fans of Classic Sonic. While not a perfect game, for the first time in many years, we finally have a worthy followup to Sonic’s adventures on the Genesis. If you fell in love with the potbellied hedgehog like I did, Sonic Mania serves as a beautiful reminder of why Sonic set the world on fire.

[cosmicsponge2004]

Phantasy Revierie's Klonoa 2 Remake does alot of things that make me mad. So I decided I'll just wait 'till the Original's Value eventually goes down from $80+ to $60+ and buy that for my PS2. Since Klonoa 1 on PS1's Value will NEVER go down (and to play the Europe/Japan Exclusive Klonoa Beach Volleyball) I decided to finally set up Duckstation and play the original Door to Phantomile. I love it.

So even though I didn't buy it, and won't buy it, I say BUY Phantasy Reviere Series on Steam & PSN. And maybe those Soundtrack Vinyls and Casettes too if you can. Support the Klonoa Series. We may even get a Klonoa 3

[yunasaturn]

ー dream users ☆★

• dreamnvier

• alwysdream

• astrdream

• dreamsaturn

• urgnctdream

fav or reblog if you save

yeristail on twitter !

[blazehedgehog]

Is OverBite still in stasis?

Sadly, yes. I was cleaning up the design document a little a few weeks ago, and I still think about the game a lot, but... I wish I had more to say or more answers or more anything.

I know it was more than three years ago, but moving like we did really threw a wrench in to my entire life and I’m still trying to sort things out and recover from that. I made a lot of promises and there’s a few I haven’t kept yet. It weighs on me a lot.

But I’m also just... burnt out, on a lot of things, I guess. Some of that is just this time of year, some of that is everything that happened last year, and things that have yet to pass this year...

I know what I need to do and I’m still pointed in a general direction, but it’s also hard not to feel rudderless right now. I’m used to following my inspiration wherever it goes, but lately that just feels like it’s getting me in to trouble. The institutions I was once proud to be a part of don’t want me anymore.

There was a feeling there, like I was part of something bigger, and therefore it made me bigger, too. It proved that I had worth. Now I have to prove that to myself, and I’m not great at doing that. It’s like this blog, right. I write a lot because of this blog, and often about subjects I’d never even consider writing about unless somebody else prompted me to. And I’ve thought about that a lot, about what I’d do if I was ever tasked with just... thinking up articles to write, without having anyone specifically prod me and say, “Write about this, please.”

I never came up with an answer for what I’d do there, and now I’m faced with a scenario where it feels like I’m stuck in that reality and I’m starting to panic. I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t know what to do. I feel a little lost, these days. I’m sure it won’t last forever, but it’s not exactly something I can give an ETA on. I know what my brain is doing, I’m aware of the problem, it’s just hard to grab on and not slip further down.

I’m sorry for disappointing everyone. I’ll get through this.

[blazehedgehog]

Why do you think of all the games to port to PC, Sonic Team chose Lost World? My only working theory is that it's because it would be cheap and they wanted to make up for the fact that LW Wii U didn't sell especially well

From my point of view, I’d say what happened is that Sega poured a decent amount of money in to Sonic Lost World, after striking the three-game exclusivity deal with Nintendo. The game apparently tanked hard on Wii U. I’d heard a rumor that it was under 200k sales in its first month, which is pretty bad for something like a Sonic game.

This most likely spooked them pretty bad. BigRedButton asked for more time and more money for Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, and Sega said “No.” Partially because they had to meet the deadline of the TV show launch, but also because I assume Sega kind of sent it to die, knowing it wasn’t worth the effort after Sonic Lost World did so poorly. There was no point in saving Rise of Lyric.

I seem to remember after Lost World came out, it was retroactively declared that some other game, like Mario & Sonic Sochi, was part of the three game exclusivity deal. I think that behind the scenes, Sega might have panicked and asked Nintendo to renegotiate their contract. By declaring Sochi part of the deal, Nintendo let them out early rather than lock them in for a third new game.

Given that Rise of Lyric was a Sonic-06-level disaster, there was no point in salvaging it. But Sonic Lost World wasn’t a dumpster fire. Well, I mean, comparatively. That game has a lot of problems, but it’s not especially buggy or broken or even really that unfinished. It just had some weird, dumb, clumsy design decisions made by people who did not seem to know what they were doing.

So a PC port was probably just Sega trying to recoup their losses, somewhat. They knew not a lot of people played Lost World, and there was already precedent for porting Hedgehog Engine to PC, so they slapped something together on the cheap.

Makes sense to me.

[blazehedgehog]

With your leaning more intro retro games for your reviews, do you think a Mario Sunshine review could be in the cards? I remember you mentioning not liking it and I'm interested in hearing your thoughts more in depth

Among some of my earliest game reviews on the internet was one for Super Mario Sunshine. I suppose it could stand to be updated, though. I did finish my replay in late 2018, so it’s kind of fresh in my mind, still.

Though, like, the short of it is that Super Mario Sunshine is a very repetitive game and isn’t as polished or varied as any of the 3D Marios around it. It was from a brief window where people were complaining about how long Nintendo took to make its games -- they were promising a new Mario platformer and it had been, like, four since Super Mario 64 and they hadn’t ever even shown anything of the sequel.

So with the launch of the Gamecube, Nintendo vowed to find ways to speed up development.

I always attributed this to why we got, like, the triforce hunt at the end of Wind Waker. It was a quick, easy way for them to add another two or three hours to the gameplay clock, especially after they cut several islands from the game.

I also attributed to this to a feeling of, like, “cheapness” to their Gamecube output. There wasn’t as much “Nintendo polish” in a lot of their games from this era. Like, you look back on it now, and Mario Kart Double Dash is a very ugly, weird, messy game.

In Super Mario Sunshine this just manifests itself as the game being very repetitive. All the levels blur together because they all look very similar, the music isn’t very memorable, and they have you repeating the same level objectives over, and over, and over again. It’s not devoid of fun, but the unique, interesting and enjoyable parts of that game only make up maybe 20% of the experience. The rest of the game is being lead around by the nose and doing the same stuff again and again.

I’d actually started writing out all my specific problems, but the post was getting kind of long, so that just says to me that yeah, I should probably just re-review it. My last review is probably 15 years old at this point.

[blazehedgehog]

Dracula OverBite is totally the surprise character for the next Smash reveal, right?

I love that his full name is “Dracula Overbite.”

[blazehedgehog]

Do you think you'll ever release the soundtrack for Sonic Legends, or is it something you'd rather keep to yourself?

Anything that was finished on the Sonic Legends soundtrack is uploaded to vgmusic.com already. My version of Sonic Legends is old enough that the soundtrack was just going to be MIDI.

https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=007557153183693834903%3A-vcc4ruk5dw&cof=FORID%3A1&q=Sonic+%22Legends+Remix%22&sa=Search

Looking now, what’s been uploaded were all the tracks that were considered “complete.” The full soundtrack I have is:

There are a lot of WIPs here, as you’ll note by some MIDIs being marked by numbers. Some songs, like Scrap Brain Zone, are what would probably just be considered a “sketch.” It’s 18 seconds long and is just a basic chorus.

I could give some of this stuff a once-over in FL Studio, as I tend to do, but would it really be worth it?

More to what I think you’re really getting at, I think you’re talking about the fact I have Sonic Legends MP3s that aren’t on my Bandcamp. There’s a simple reason for that: songs on my Bandcamp are for things I did hands-on work with. Though I’m only “remastering” MIDIs, it’s never been as simple as a drag-and-drop process. I replace all the instruments, sometime add new instruments, sometimes change notation, tweak tempo, add new effects, fine tune the EQ... It’s different from composition, but obviously I can spend weeks tweaking a single song trying to get it to sound “right.”

The Sonic Legends MP3s predate all of that. They probably came right before a friend sent me Fruityloops for the first time. They are just raw MIDI recordings. The only thing special about them is that they were recorded using the Yamaha SYXG-50 Software Synthesizer, so they don’t sound like Windows GM MIDIs.

So I don’t feel comfortable sharing those on Bandcamp, because I didn’t really do anything to them besides hit “record.”

As I said, I could run them through FL Studio now, but that presents its own unique challenge, in that I believe there’s a “canonical” way those songs are supposed to sound, and it’s with the Yamaha XG synthesizer. XG allowed MIDI sequencers to add extra effects to their songs, like reverb, flange, and so on.

Now, I also have a variety of VSTs (music plugins) that will let me re-add a lot of those effects to replicate what the XG synth could do, but that’s easier said than done, because again, it’s not a drag-and-drop process. There is a very specific sound to the XG synth that needs to be respected. A cadence to the way certain instruments sound, to the way the reverb sounds, and so on. 

There are also VST versions of a couple Yamaha XG software synths, but those don’t sound quite right, either. They aren’t the specific versions of the XG synth I used to record my original MP3s back in the early 2000′s, so they don’t sound “canonically correct.” The instruments are all slightly different, the effects are slightly different, and it just feels wrong.

Believe me, I’ve gone back to the Sonic Legends MIDIs a few times and tried to replicate the “Yamaha XG Feel” and it just never sounds right. Those MIDIs were designed for a specific version of the XG Software Synth, and anything else is living in the shadow of the way that sounded in 2003 or whenever that project was last active.

If you’re really bent on hearing those MP3s, here’s a download link. I don’t think any of them are tagged, but I think most of them were done by Malcolm Brown (DragonXVI), with Angel Island (and possibly Sky Sanctuary) belonging to Jarel Jones.

[blazehedgehog]

Honestly, that Inside game looks like such a rough draft of what could be an okay game that roasting it feels almost too easy? Maybe English isn't the dev's first language, I dunno, but it all feel super amateur

Oh! Right! You reminded me, I never posted about this on tumblr. I’m all out of sorts these days. If y’all out there reading my blog like my Dare to Scare videos, here’s another one, and it’s a grab bag of indie horror games.

I mean, Inside definitely seems like an okay concept. Certainly, the Lovecraftian undertones can be done well, and I think there are scary concepts in there. I can see how the game would evolve to become scarier as you played. They give you a device for detecting “the energy” but it only ever registers when you can see a physical being, but totally expect that once you get far enough, eventually the being will die and you just have to use the device to detect something that’s invisible. If done right, that could be terrifying! Like the very first year I did Dare to Scare, there was a game with an invisible monster, and I couldn’t get past it because it legit scared me.

It does feel amateur, and in that regard I think the developer is kind of punching above their weight class. Which is admirable, but also... know your limits and scope appropriately, I guess. There can be a charm when something shoots for the stars but can’t quite go the distance, but that’s not a guarantee.

English being a second language wouldn’t excuse the weird waddling animation the monster does, or the missing ceiling texture in the power room, or the fact you can’t skip the intro cutscene. I think certain gameplay concepts are indelible and cross language barriers because fun is fun. Like, the rules of soccer don’t really change just because you speak Spanish or Italian, right? The game is the game.

What also struck me is that... I think I play four games in this grab bag, but I downloaded seven or eight. Two of the games in the video have poor English, and I played two more on my own time that also have poor English. That means half the games I downloaded (most of which were rated as “popular” on Itch.io in the horror tag) were by developers who made English-language horror games despite it not being their primary language. That’s very interesting, and I wonder what that says about the state of the horror gaming genre.

The full list of games I downloaded, incidentally: TRAPT, Lights Out, Skywatching, Cursed Soul, Tape, Inside, Jack’s Home, and Dispatch. Of the ones not featured in the video, I played Lights Out, Cursed Soul, and Tape on my own time. The only game out of that batch I haven’t played yet is Skywatching, come to think of it.

Lights Out could possibly be described as an inverted Five Nights At Freddy’s. I think you’re house sitting or something -- it’s not important. Point is, the lights keep going out and something is lurking in the darkness. Your phone has a light, but you have limited battery, but you have to head down and reset the fuse box every so often and manage which rooms have lights on and which don’t. I think I managed to turn my phone’s flashlight on but couldn’t turn it back off, so I ended up not playing it very far.

Cursed Soul is one of those games that punches way above its weight class. You’re like, a detective and can shift in to the spirit realm like Soul Reaver on PS1. It’s more like an adventure game, where you have to gather items and use them to solve puzzles. It’s a cool idea but it’s lacking a lot of polish and the puzzle solutions could get pretty bland.

I played about five minutes of Tape. Nothing I haven’t seen before, and the game is caked in bad VHS filters, amateur voice acting, and it’s a generic chase game in a boring, pseudo-retro environment. There’s also an obnoxiously loud “jump scare” if you get caught. It doesn’t happen when you’re caught, it only happens after you pick “quit” or “retry.” It’s more annoying than anything, because it’s deafening static noise.

I should probably make time and play Skywatching soon.

[blazehedgehog]

I'm not burning any bridges in game development if I call Robert McNamara of LA Noire fame an asshole, right?

I think you mean Brendan McNamara. Robert McNamara was a politician, apparently.

And, I mean, I dunno. You’re talking to the guy who is honest to a fault. I have probably burned more than a few bridges in my day because I don’t bother with the “professional filter.”

And for the sake of people who maybe don’t read my blog tons or whatever, that doesn’t mean I’m over here being one of those RABBLE RABBLE CENSORSHIP weirdos, either. But I’ve almost always been truthful to my actual feelings. People ask me about Youtubers, or websites like Giantbomb, or whoever, and I give my honest opinion. After a certain level of fame you probably aren’t supposed to do that anymore. It’s considered biting the hand that feeds you. And I’ve definitely thought to myself, “maybe I should stop answering these asks.”

But I’ve also thought about maybe just taking on a different tone, right. You can be honest without sounding rude, you can make an effort to see things from their perspective. I’ve had humbling experiences like that before, where I used to be just like everyone else on the internet and cursed the name of video game critics until I had some friends move up in the ranks of the games press and saw more of the other side of things, and the struggles those people face and the undue harassment they receive for it.

So when I get an ask about what I think about “where GiantBomb is right now”, my tone isn’t as aggressive as it may have been five or ten years ago. I’m smarter than that now. More empathetic to their situation. So why can’t I be that way about everything? I try to make that my base level reaction to everything.

That being said, all of these are industries in which my venn diagram intersects with. I was, maybe still am, small time games press. There’s a chance I might meet Jeff Gerstmann in person some day. Do I really want to have the guilt of being an internet goblin on my conscious if that ever happens? No way. Jeff seems like a cool dude. I may not agree with all of his opinions, but who cares? It’s just games.

And I find that the “Am I ever going to meet this dude in real life, and if so, how would that go?” question can be a great equalizer that can align your morality on everything pretty easily.

Are you ever going to meet Brendan McNamara? Is it going to matter if he thinks you’re an okay person? Are you going to apply for a job anywhere that it would matter what your public opinion on Brendan McNamara was? 

It’s been a while since I read up on this dude or what happened during the development of L.A. Noire, but I seem to recall that it was the classic case of toxic leadership and merciless crunch. I don’t think he sounded like a nice person to work for.

You’re probably fine.

[blazehedgehog]

So what's the plan for that Bubsy project you were working on?

There kind of isn’t one. It was supposed to be for April Fools, I missed the deadline, and it was hard to keep up momentum after that. I kept going until I got the first level done, and I stopped for two reasons:

SAGE was starting and I figured I’d focus on writing my reviews, which took a week and a half.  

I had this moment of wondering if there was anything else I wanted to add/change about the game before moving on. The way Clickteam Fusion works is that code is self-contained in each level. If you finish a level and find a bug in level 2, you have to copy the code from level 2 back in to level 1. The more levels you make, the more increasingly tedious it is to deal with bug fixes like this. New features are even harder to deal with. So I wanted to stop and think what I wanted to do before locking things down.

And then I, uh... never went back to it. When the Zelda CD-I fan-remake gained a bit of notoriety a few weeks ago it made me realize I could work on Bubsy more now that my Jurassic Park video is out of the way, but it’s been difficult getting those gears turning again. I’m kind of in that “post holiday drift” right now.

The plan was two levels and a boss, but feature creep started whispering in my ear that maybe I could keep going beyond that, or maybe two one level from each of the game’s four or five worlds, but I’m trying to ignore the siren’s song for now.

[blazehedgehog]

I can't believe I *just* now caught that TFH Caron Forest track you uploaded a few years ago is a reference to Tails Adventure

It was one of those things where I’d been working on the game for a while and I realized I should probably pay tribute to the only other Sonic-franchise Metroidvania, so I asked my music guy to gin something up. I think Caron Forest was intended to be the starter area.

[blazehedgehog]

Even with my lack of access to VR, I still think Half-Life Alyx is awesome to see, both in the sense that the franchise is back from the grave and Valve apparently feels like making games again.

Watching Danny O’Dwyer play through it this last week really turned me around on the game.

I was convinced that there was no real reason for this to absolutely need VR, but by the end of the game I now think it’s definitely one of the best demonstrations of not just VR, but of motion controls.

Around chapter 7 or so, there’s a whole section that just would not be fun with traditional controls. You absolutely need the physicality of working with your hands, including using different hands for different tasks at the same time, and having the added depth perception of VR undoubtedly helps a great deal. It’s practically a Nintendo-quality realization of an input method. It’s probably the best use of motion controls since Wii Sports.

And yeah, like… Valve can still make good singleplayer games! Who knew? They did not skip a beat. This feels like City 17 should feel like.