Legacy of Kain: Defiance Remastered
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Legacy of Kain: Defiance Remastered
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Following the reveal of Reanimal, I finally delved deep into the haunting world of Little Nightmares. This is a masterpiece of environmental storytelling where silence speaks louder than words. From Mono’s tragic time loop in Pale City to Six’s dark descent into hunger within The Maw, Tarsier Studios crafted a grim reflection of adulthood and corruption. It’s a chilling journey about how trauma turns victims into monsters. A must-play experience that lingers long after the credits roll.

Super Mario Kart - Tadashi Sugiyama Hideki Konno

This is the first instalment of the now household title. 

Some things have remained constant since the beginning, and others have come and gone. My first experience with the Mario Kart series was Mario Kart 64.

That game was much more forgiving and playable than this. Without a joystick, racing games are very difficult.

The thing that was new to me that was not part of Mario Kart 64 was the need to collect coins. You lost coins when you ran into things or were hit by other racers.

The little cloud guys that rescued you when you went off the map or into lava also took coins from you. If you didn’t have any coins, any collision, even hitting a wall, would spin you out.

In all the Mario Karts I’ve played, there is certainly a point where the computer players will start to work together to stop you from winning the grand prix. I’ve never seen it deployed as viciously as I have seen it used here.

The 50cc cups were all beatable with some practice. It was more down to your skill and knowledge of the tracks. Towards the end of these cups and definitely by the start of the 100cc cups, the computer players are in concert to stop you winning.

It got to the point of ridiculousness where one of them would purposely ram you off the track into lava, going in with you, just to slow you down.

I found the cups towards the end of the 100cc completely unplayable because of how brutal the computer players would be. After race one, they had chosen their winner, and every other racer had one job: take you out.

I think that this would be more fun with other people playing, as this may balance out the computer’s rage against the human players. Without this, it was unplayable in the later GPs.

Super Painter Review – A Fun Little Single-Screen Platformer With Loose Controls!

Single-screen Platformers was a big part of 2D Platformer genre back in the day! Super Painter is a more recent example available on the NES and Evercade through Mega Cat Studios Collection 1!

I Felt Like a Child Being Made to Shoot a Gun: Playing Affective Games and Confronting the Moral Friction of Winning

A Broccoli Sprouts Critical Game Review | Molleindustria’s McDonald’s Videogame & Oiligarchy

There’s a moment in McDonald’s Videogame where the creepy background music starts playing and you realize you’re already being brainwashed. Or, more accurately, your subconsciously embedded instructions are being reactivated. Internally lying that you don’t like the catchy jingle is the first moral compromise with yourself you’re forced to confront. It only gets worse from there.

I played two of Molleindustria’s free browser games this week, McDonald’s Videogame and Oiligarchy, and I need to talk about what it feels like when a game makes you win by being evil, and then punishes you for being good at it.

What Are Affective Games, and Why Do They Hit Different?

Affective games are designed to make you feel things on purpose. Not the “I’m having fun building a house” feeling of The Sims, or the zen observation of watching a city grow. These games use what game designer Paolo Pedercini calls procedural rhetoric. The mechanics are the argument. The game doesn’t tell you corporations are exploitative. It makes you do the exploiting, and then watches you squirm.

The difference between affective games and something like The Sims is the difference between obvious, intentional critique and understated psychological conditioning. The Sims quietly teaches you to be a passive consumer. McDonald’s Videogame hands you the supply chain and says: here, optimize this nightmare yourself.

Playing God, Losing Your Soul

Both games give you a “God’s eye view,” but here, having God’s perspective means having God’s ego and being expected to wield God’s wrathful vengeance, or you lose.

As a McDonald’s executive, I found myself treating workers and animals as interchangeable resources rather than humans. In Oiligarchy, viewing the world as extractable zones mirrors exactly how fossil fuel companies must conceptualize the planet to operate successfully.

The games don’t obscure reality. They reveal how dehumanizing the viewpoint required by these industries, and their customer base, must be in order to create a profitable margin.

Playing “successfully” rewired psychology in my brain I thought I had matured out of. Abstraction was favored over logical thinking. Numb reactivity and greed replaced linear common sense.

I felt like a child being made to shoot a gun, and I think that is the point.

The Punishment for Not Being Evil Enough

In Oiligarchy, the first time I played, I delayed as long as I could to interfere in the Middle East and drill in Alaska. I tapped Texas wells almost dry by 1980 and even drilled in Nigeria, hoping I could avoid a disaster. Then, without my asking or ordering the action, the Nigerian government protected their financial interests by assassinating dissenting members of the Oboni tribe. Meep.

In McDonald’s Videogame, maximizing profit through seemingly “smart” agricultural choices led to environmental devastation and social upheaval every single time. The more efficiently you play within the system’s rules, the faster everything collapses.

This design intentionally traps commonly understood concepts of morality, science, and nutrition under the player’s inherent goal to win. The contradictory mind-switches you have to make to get there, ignoring the actual mechanical connection between actions and consequences, is the whole game. You’re not optimizing a system. You’re exercising and strengthening your tolerance to moral friction. That’s what corporate success actually is, and these games make you feel it in your body.

What These Games Include (and What They Leave Out)

These games curate their procedures according to the supply chain. From the ground up, literally. Conquer and spend. Money makes the world go round; you gotta spend money to make money.

The tutorials were helpful, because without them I might have spent the whole game raising happy cows in South America and bankrupting myself every time, blissfully unaware that the claws don’t take the cow into the skies. (They definitely do not take the cow into the skies.)

McDonald’s Videogame focuses specifically on the cattle and beef industry: displacing jungle for GMO soy crops, labor exploitation, environmental destruction. It pointedly excludes marketing and franchise dynamics. Oiligarchy emphasizes resource extraction and political corruption while simplifying the geological and engineering aspects. This selective modeling allows for deeper exploration of specific systemic issues rather than attempting comprehensive simulation.

Do These Games Make You More Empathetic?

Here’s where it got personal.

These virtual experiences increase empathy not through emotional manipulation and psychological coercion into favoring consumerism, but by bluntly helping players understand how systems shape behavior. Pedercini’s approach works because the discomfort is procedural. You can’t skip it, you can’t opt out, you have to do the bad thing to play the game.

I wasn’t inspired to take direct action. I don’t drive a car or eat McDonald’s, and haven’t in years. But I was inspired to think harder about the human cost of every “sight unseen” service and product I use for convenience. How often am I blindly living out my life according to reflexes, and at what cost, to whom?

Take calling 911, for example.

A neighbor could smell smoke and call the fire department, not realizing someone was just burning their food. Diverting that resource could cost someone else their life. Or maybe the absent-minded neighbor has PTSD, and being barged in on by three fire marshals after midnight induces terror. Surely the opposite of what a well-intentioned neighbor wanted.

This actually happened to me. I’m the absent-minded neighbor who burnt food, still dealing with the reverberations in my health, my relationships with my neighbors, and the legal status of my tenancy.

The day after playing these simulations, I found myself on the other side of the equation. I saw a three-foot campfire blazing inside a bus shelter in North Portland, ten feet from a building where I used to buy textbooks. I saw a person huddled under the shelter, warming their hands. I felt bad, but I called 911 anyway. By the time the fire department arrived, it was a smouldering ash-stain. One firefighter got out to tell the guy to move along. They looked annoyed.

I wondered what kind of reaction my neighbor had when our own incident occurred. Of course I bit his head off in the hallway, an almost uncontrollable reaction that night due to my C-PTSD. How dumb! How could you think it was a good idea to call 911 because I was burning food!?

The greatest empathy I developed wasn’t sadness for exploited ecosystems or outrage at corrupted elections. I already knew those things. It was understanding for the fear and inadequacy instilled in everyone, from national economic systems down to the individual CEO, the local manager, the farmer doing the bidding of a corporation whose president holds their livelihood in soft, unworked hands.

I didn’t think I would get there, but I feel bad for how scared my neighbor was now, more than how pissed off I was at him being such a dumbass. Unlike the CEOs in question, he at least utilized his fear hoping it would benefit someone else. He was acting out of ignorance, not being able to see where the smoke was coming from and hoping his decision was for the best.

Do the CEOs tell themselves the same story? Or are they like me, dialing 911 out of fear and concern, but looking at who they’re going to push out of the way the entire time, already knowing how much others will suffer before the consequences reach them?

Play These Games Yourself

Both are free, browser-based, and take under an hour:

• McDonald’s Videogame: mcvideogame.com
• Oiligarchy: molleindustria.org/oiligarchy

Fair warning: you will not feel good about winning. That’s the point.

Affective games serve as powerful tools for systemic critique, using their mechanics to create meaningful emotional and intellectual experiences that prompt shock, laughter, and then grim reflection. Through careful design and selective modeling, they achieve their goals not by perfect simulation of life, but through applying life through an impeccable simulation of art, revealing truths we hide from ourselves about the systems that shape our world via cute characters doing deadly and awful things to achieve “success.”

As a complicit observer, player, and actor on consumerist demands, this is hilarious, depressing, wry, and terrifying all at once.

Have you played either of these games? Did winning make you feel like garbage too? Reblog with your experience, especially if you felt that moment where the game decided you were losing even though you were “winning.”

#gaming #indiegames #gamereview #molleindustria #oiligarchy #mcdonaldsvideogame #affectivegames #proceduralrhetoric #criticalplay #medialiteracy #anticonsumption #systemscritique #broccolisprouts #unburyingaseed

Virtua Tennis - Katsumoto Tatsukawa

Virtual Tennis with the stars of the time. I’m surprised that this is actually playable and plays like tennis.

The game is just too hard. You have to play well all the time to win.

Which makes sense, I guess, but tennis games are long, and you need to be able to make errors and be able to come back from them. 

The arcade mode was beatable, but the main game mode ‘world tour’ was impossible. While you do have the ability to shorten the game to single sets, this in no way helps with the next problem.

The gameplay’s repetitiveness is unbearable. This might be an issue with the computer.

I imagine that with some variety of shots, head-to-head might be fun. Playing today was pretty funny to see the characters from tennis past in action again.

I would not recommend wasting your time with this one.

Fala, galera da Pixel Nostalgia! Tudo na paz? Preparem os corações e liguem suas máquinas do tempo, porque hoje a gente vai desenterrar uma verdadeira raridade, um game que muitos ‘players hardcore’ talvez nem lembrem: Riviera: The Promised Land no WonderSwan Crystal. Se você achava que só os consoles “grandões” tinham RPGs épicos, segura essa! O portátil da Bandai, muitas vezes subestimado, entregou uma pérola que merece todo o nosso respeito e uma boa dose de nostalgia.

O WonderSwan Crystal: A Jóia Rara da Bandai

Antes de mergulharmos de cabeça na aventura de Riviera, bora falar um tico do console que sediou essa maravilha. O WonderSwan Crystal, lançado em 2000 no Japão, era a última versão da linha WonderSwan da Bandai. E mano, ele era um bagulho único!

Era um console pra quem curtia o lado B do universo gamer, saca? E foi nesse playground peculiar que Riviera WonderSwan Crystal encontrou seu lar original.

Riviera: The Promised Land – O RPG Tático Que Virou Lenda (Silenciosa)

Desenvolvido pela Sting (a mesma galera de Yggdra Union e Knights in the Nightmare), Riviera: The Promised Land é um J-RPG tático que simplesmente explodiu a cabeça de quem o jogou na época. Lançado em 2002 para o WonderSwan Color/Crystal, ele quebrou umas regras e mostrou que dava pra fazer algo super original mesmo em um portátil.

No game, você assume o controle de Ein, um Grim Angel (um tipo de anjo exterminador, saca?). Ele e seu parceiro, Ledah, são enviados para o mundo de Riviera pra impedir o “Apocalypse”, que seria causado pela ressurreição do Overlord. Mas calma lá, não é só mais uma história de bem contra o mal!

“A Sting sempre teve essa vibe de subverter expectativas. Riviera não é um RPG onde você só upa e mata monstros. É sobre escolhas, exploração e, acima de tudo, gerenciamento inteligente.”

A filosofia da Sting brilha aqui: você não tem um mapa-múndi gigantesco pra explorar livremente. A história é linear, mas cheia de desvios e escolhas que afetam o relacionamento de Ein com suas companheiras e, consequentemente, o final do jogo. É tipo um “visual novel” com combate tático e muita personalidade.

Ah, o sistema de combate! Essa era a cereja do bolo em Riviera WonderSwan Crystal. Não era o RPG de turnos “quadradão” que a gente tava acostumado. Era tipo assim:

Era um sistema que te fazia pensar, planejar e valorizar cada item. Nada de spammar a melhor magia até a mana acabar! Era um desafio manero.

E os gráficos, galera? Pra um WonderSwan Crystal, eles eram simplesmente top! A pixel art era detalhada, os sprites dos personagens eram expressivos e os cenários, mesmo estáticos, tinham um charme especial. As cutscenes eram ilustradas de forma linda, quase como um anime interativo. A trilha sonora, composta por Hitoshi Sakimoto (o mesmo gênio por trás de Final Fantasy Tactics!), era atmosférica e perfeita para a vibe da aventura.

Por Que Riviera WonderSwan Crystal É Tão Especial?

Riviera WonderSwan Crystal não é apenas um jogo; é uma experiência que define o que de mais legal podia sair de um console “alternativo”. Ele provou que com criatividade e uma visão clara, dava pra fazer um RPG profundo e envolvente, mesmo com as limitações de um portátil. Ele se destacava pela:

Depois do WonderSwan, Riviera ganhou ports para o Game Boy Advance e PSP, expandindo seu alcance. Mas a versão original, a que nasceu no WonderSwan Crystal, tem um tempero especial, sabe? Aquele “primeiro contato” com uma joia rara, descoberto por poucos.

E aí, pirou nessa viagem no tempo? Riviera: The Promised Land é a prova de que a era 8 e 16 bits (e um tiquinho de 32, vá lá!) tava cheia de surpresas, mesmo em consoles menos badalados. Quem jogou o original no WonderSwan Crystal sabe a emoção de ter em mãos algo tão único e bem feito. Se você nunca ouviu falar, tá na hora de procurar uns gameplays e sentir essa nostalgia!

Pixel Nostalgia
Relembrando o melhor da era 8 e 16 bits — um byte de cada vez.

The 18th Attic
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The 18th Attic
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Crisol: Theater of Idols
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Crisol: Theater of Idols
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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 — A Dark, Hypnotic Story That Changed My View on JRPGs

For a long time, I honestly didn’t believe I would ever sit down and play this game. Its world looked intriguing, but turn-based JRPG combat was never really my thing — and in games like this, it’s a core pillar of the experience. Still, glowing recommendations from friends and the controversies surrounding The Game Awards 2025 convinced me to give it a chance and discover the fate of Expedition 33.

This spoiler-free review focuses on what makes Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 such a special experience. Developed by Sandfall Interactive, the game takes us into a surreal, beautifully haunting world ruled by a mysterious entity known as the Paintress, who once a year marks a number on a Monolith — and everyone who reaches that age turns to dust in a ritual called gommage.

The story follows a group of characters determined to end this deadly cycle before it claims another generation. With its rich narrative, striking art direction, emotionally charged themes of light and shadow, and a surprisingly engaging turn-based combat system enhanced with real-time elements, the game delivers a journey that is both melancholic and unforgettable.

Despite some technical hiccups on PS5 Pro and a frustrating upgrade management interface, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 stands out thanks to its exceptional storytelling, atmospheric world design, and outstanding soundtrack. It’s one of the most memorable narratives I’ve experienced in gaming — and a strong contender for Game of the Year, even for players who normally avoid JRPGs.

Almost Hero Review – While Trying To Be Like River City Ransom, Does It Bring New Ideas to the Genre?

River City Ransom is the first Beat'em Up I played with RPG elements. Almost Hero follows its footsteps and tries to capture its greatness. Does it succeed?

Minky Monkey Review – Technos’ First Game Is a Weird Puzzle Platformer Hybrid!

Technos Japan is widely regarded for its Beat'em Ups. Oddly enough, their first title was a single-screen Puzzle Platformer?

I finished Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth.

While I love the RyuGaGotoku series dearly, it is definitely not a perfect series. That being said, while I still liked 龍8, it definitely left me with some questions at the end.

spoilers below

At first, I didn’t really understand the point of giving Kiryuu cancer. The man has already gone through so much, and now he’s sick on top of all that? Leave him alone???
But it’s also, I kinda get it now because as long as Kiryuu is looming around in the background, there’s always going to be that sense of security in the world. Like, “oh no, this uppity bad guy is getting uppity and our heroes are having trouble. who can save them” then Kiryuu approaches and the problem is basically solved.
But still… seeing my main character physically break down in the middle of the game (when they were chasing after Chitose) made me feel REALLY BAD.
The part where we went around and revisited Kiryuu’s old memories and the people he loved was great as a series player. Although I feel we did a lot of similar stuff in 龍6–it’s whatever.
Loved seeing Dr. Emoto again. I thought he was dead lol. I guess he wasn’t THAT old.
Also Sayama! It was great to see her again! I thought she got together with that FBI agent in 龍3, but I guess it didn’t amount to anything. But also, girl, forget about him. He literally renewed his vows to another woman in Hawaii.
And… I guess Hanaya just doesn’t exist.
The ending for Kiryuu’s storyline though…
I haven’t played Pirates in Hawaii yet, so maybe my questions are answered in that one…. but what the hell happened to Majima, Saejima, and Daigo afterwards???
With Haruka and Haruto showing up in Kiryuu’s hospital at the end… did Daidouji forgive Kiryuu? I mean, with Chitose coming clean about everything in the end, it could be brushed off as another of Tatara Hisoka’s lies or something, but technically, the netizens already know Kiryuu is alive and kicking, so did they just… give up? I’m not complaining. I’d be more than happy if Kiryuu successfully got treated, retired happily, went back to Okinawa, and lived the rest of his life in peace. Man definitely deserves it… but WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED??
He looked so… sickly at the end. Although the gaze in his eyes was still very strong, and I understood that him just accepting the treatment was his personal growth into wanting to live… but my heart TT Please get better…
I swear, if this is another set-up to get Kiryuu miraculously involved in 龍9… I mean, if they do it well, I won’t be pissed, but after all that we went through in this game, it feels like it’ll cheapen Kiryuu’s lessons with life and death.

Was anything actually solved at the end of the 龍8?

The big dilemma, past the whole Palekana, radiation waste debacle, was solving the issue of finding a viable livelihood for past gang members who wanted to come back into society, right???

But… I don’t think it was actually addressed at the end?
What happened to Sasaki?! Did he find happiness?! Give me a good ending for this guy!!

What’s with the extra long shot of sending Eiji to the police anyway?! You think I give a crap about Mitamura Eiji??? Let me also throw bottles at him, huh huh huh?!
No, that’s an exaggeration. But I was very confused that Ichiban spent all that time on Eiji, but I guess he forgot about the other poor forsaken souls who were about to be sold into modern-day slavery by him? But what do I know, hmm?

With Ebina too. We got the conclusion of Eiji’s story, but what happened to Ebina? Did he go to jail? Did he and Ichiban talk at all after Ichiban learned about the truth of their relationship?
Speaking of which, omg Arakawa Masumi is so messy? He grabbed the wrong kid, sent his actual son to jail, and also didn’t even know he had another son? I know Ichiban hero-worships him, but I do NOT share that sentiment pfft
Oh, but that sequence of him going absolutely berserk in the flashback was amazing and brutal, so props to daddy.

And Jo. He’s alive, yeah? Also jail? I wouldn’t mind if Jo went back to jail, just saying.

Anyway, is this whole “how to help 元暴” plotline something that’ll be discussed in 龍9 again? If it’s not, then I'm… I’m going to be disappointed?
Like, I desperately hope Daigo’s original plan actually pans out this time. I’m kinda sick of Daigo’s plans always going to shit. It makes him look incompetent as hell. (Where’s Watase in all this, by the way?)
A bunch of character murder in this story too. Like, Daigo being useless is something that’s in-character, but my ultimate GOAT Majima would never just lie down and take this defeat quietly. Hmph. This is a man who built up a dying cabaret from the ground up into the skies. He’s the creator of Kamurocho Hills. Like, what do you mean he just gave up and ran into hiding? Make it make sense.

A huge positive this game had was adding Songhee as a playable character. She’s so strong and so funny. Also, so nice to look at. Although I keep getting scared I’m gonna see her underwear whenever she uses leg-based attacks.
I generally liked all the new characters.
Although Tomizawa’s involvement with the overall story was pretty much minimal, I didn’t mind him. There was a lot of character growth in him overall, which definitely contributed to my positive impression of him.
Chitose was a much more important character to the story, but I feel like she’s probably a very polarizing character. I don’t know. I don’t lurk fan spaces for this series. I personally did not mind Chitose. I understood her fears well enough that I was willing to overlook everything she did. Although WOW, all the streamers in this game were so annoying? I think there was a social commentary about how people were willing to sacrifice morals and common sense for CONTENT, but anytime the GP came out with their phones and selfie sticks, I’m just like ugh ugh ugh
I don’t think RGG Studios has a great impression of streamers with how they’re always presented in their games lol

Anyway… here’s to hoping a happy end for everyone that I care about.

A List of All the Reviews I Did in 2025!

With 2025 ending a couple days ago, I’d like to share a list of all my reviews I did in the year. I hope you find something to enjoy!

Basic Math Review – How Is One of the First, and Most Disliked, Atari 2600 Games Ever?

If there’s any genre that is not very popular, it’s education games! Still, Basic Math was a launch game for the Atari 2600, and one of the hidden games on the Atari 50 collection. How is it?

KUBO 3 Review – One Step Forward, One Back.

My regular readers will know that I have already reviewed KUBO 1 and 2. With KUBO 3, it’s the first game in the series where I’ve had to pay money to play it. How is it?

Game News: Top 28 Games of 2025
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