September 2023 results
I sorted the backlog into high priority (games I’ll definitely try) and medium priority (games I’m interested in but might never get around to).
| Priority | Backlog | Added this month | Beaten | Removed |
| High | 136 | 12 | 5 | - |
| Medium | 131 | 3 | 1 | - |
For a game designed as an April Fool’s joke, it’s surprisingly long and competent. Perhaps SEGA should finally give Sonic to the fans and just sell what they get as a result. The franchise is unlikely to get worse from such a move.
It’s as if they started developing this game back in 2010, froze it, returned to it in 2015, updated the graphics, froze it again, remembered it again in 2019, gave it to young interns to rewrite the script, didn’t touch it for another couple of years, after which this Frankenstein monster was brought into a more or less acceptable form and sent for gold. Everything here is exactly the same as in the previous games, and at the same time not a single component reaches either SR2, or The Third, or SR4. There are good moments, but overall it is very shallow and boring.
It doesn’t just work.
A primitive hand-drawn point-and-click game that can be completed in 15 minutes. It’s supposed to be a free game, but for some reason they ask for money for it.
Battlefield 3 looks best in those moments when it doesn’t lead you by the hand, doesn’t show you cutscenes and doesn’t force you to fight a rat using QTEs, but simply tells you to break through with your squad to a specified point. The game has spectacular sound design, amazing interactive environments, and if the enemies weren’t so stupid it would be a great shooter. But even so, it’s pretty good.
Porfirio the Cat is the embodiment of masculinity, a real action hero, left somewhere in the 1990s-2000s, who overcomes in any difficult situation and attracts the best kitty of the village, but at the same time has a broad soul and always rushes to help his neighbor, a great role model, demonstrating what a real human being should be. If you feel like there’s something wrong with you, check out The Cat! Porfirio’s Adventure - perhaps it will help you look at yourself from a new angle.
The Artful Escape could be a fascinating interactive story in the style of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or an explosive ode to music with battles between artists from different genres. But no, this is just a simple message that is conveyed to you rather superficially over the course of four hours. A music game with too little music and style over substance. It’s a pity.
“It should be free/10” is a mood when you know there are free indies better than whatever you just played.
Also, ditto on The Artful Escape. I was told there would be a rhythm game. I was lied to.