I’ve always been a critical person and I’ve been trying to be less so, but I’ve got about 30 years of experience to walk back on. I’ve been lucky enough to float around friend circles of a number of very, umm, un-critical (?) people, and I get to learn bits and pieces from them. Part of the problem is I’ve always thought it to be smart to be critical, but clearly that’s not entirely true and I’m not as smart as I thought I was.

Harsh reviews of bad media have fallen out of fashion lately, and despite my internal claims to being an independent thinker, I’m still right there with the mainstream trends. I’m loving modern reviews that are like “x is terrible, but I like it because…”

Minimme is excellent at this. Their videos are more specifically about shining light on underrated or relatively unknown games, but the games are usually in that category because they’ve been panned by audiences for some reason. This makes the reviews very complete and balanced feeling. Not necessarily because they are balanced, but because the biases are clear.

Minimme is very clear why Alone in the Dark is a bad game, but is very objective about that, and about what the game has done well. They do this from both a personal perspective and by comparing to other relative games. It makes it very understandable what kind of audience the game is for. So not only is it a great review, but the air of appreciation is infectious. I, for one, do not want to play the game, but dang, some of those features are downright inspiring. Maybe I could try it? Well, at the very least I’ll try hunting down a Lets Play.

I’m loving the good vibes that are bringing about encouragement. That’s what I want in my life on a personal level. I wanna see the critical aspects of things, but I want to be more upfront and excited about the positives. Everything just kind of dies when the focus is on the critical. Even if you get decent advice with the critique, it’s not encouraging to try again unless you’ve got some clear positives to build off of. I want to learn to be more positive.

As Minimme says, “Get yourself in a forgiving mood.”

source: https://saturdayxiii.tumblr.com/post/648587249729110018

May walks us through the grim themes of Tideland so we don’t have to.

This movie is sitting unwatched within my hoard, and this video was a rollercoaster. I was set on deleting my copy through most of it, but the longer it went on, the more intricate and personal things got. Tideland has lots to say about personal, social, and natural situations, and May captured and reflected all the best parts perfectly. I thought about this movie, myself, my relationships, and the greater world that contains us all. I’d call that a perfect review.

source: https://saturdayxiii.tumblr.com/post/648282593639481344

SuperGreatFriend recently attempted to play Michigan: Report from Hell. Despite all the deserved flack this game gets, it’s still amazing how it is never not entertaining. No matter who plays it, or how apathetically. The game is a comedy force.

I’m sharing iconoclast187’s playthrough because I favor his knowledgeable explanations of what’s actually going on.

This movie version is also good.

Neither is complete though. 100% playthroughs are not possible, and it’s a shame to miss any of it.

source: https://saturdayxiii.tumblr.com/post/648191989641347072

I’ve been hanging around some ps1 communities, and no one talks about Sentient, but I still think about it regularly.
SuperGreatFriend’s playthrough is probably the most complete source of information out there for this game. Reminds me of when everyone needed to use MikeNnemonic’s LSD playthrough to research that game… SGF got, I believe, 11 of the possible endings in the game, and there are still questions left unanswered.

This game probably deserves to be right up there with Martian Gothic, and Echo Night for ps1 story gems.
Depending on your attention span, you might want to start on video 5 or 6. There’s a lot of false starts that are inevitable with a game this cryptic.

source: https://saturdayxiii.tumblr.com/post/648101381193023488

Yesterday I caught a Sonic Advance race on GamesDoneQuick. It reminded me how under appreciated Sonic Advance 2 is, despite seemingly everyone in the chat reassuring each other on how amazing it is.

Maybe “under appreciated” is the wrong term, perhaps its too accepted. Not controversial enough. Sonic is a huge brand, so even though the Advance games are an offshoot, there is still a huge amount of people who have played them, and I’m under the impression that the majority have enjoyed it. But when people speculate, albeit less so since Sonic Mania, how Sonic games haven’t really improved since the Genesis days, Sonic Advance is still regularly overlooked.

I’d love to see the Advance games picked apart, or over glamorized, as much as the other Sonic titles. Actually that goes for most of the Sonic portable titles, or at least including the Rush series. There’s just so much there that was brought to the franchise that just seems like it’s fenced off in its own fractioned fandom.

Anyway, here’s an old vid by the Geek Critique which I don’t agree with, but he makes a lot of great points that I think apply better to gaming in general. I’d argue that being a good Sonic game is a bit different than being a good general game, but hairs would need to be split.

source: https://saturdayxiii.tumblr.com/post/648018812796600320