The Other Side of the Fourth Wall

Facade is one of those games that's more fun when you don't play it how the developers intended you to. You play as a friend of a married couple, Trip and Grace, whose marriage, despite appearances, is on the rocks. You must talk them through a difficult conversation, say the right things and help them mend their fences. Depending on your choices, Trip might throw you out of the house, Grace might leave Trip or they can start to patch things up. The main feature of the game is the ability to type in whatever you want to say. Unlike most games, which either have multiple choice options or a dialogue tree, Trip and Grace will respond to whatever you type, within certain limits. There is one problem the system has, one that it shares with old text-based games with prompts. Players have practically infinite imagination, and the system only can respond to a finite number of inputs, so Trip and Grace end up at a loss when the player acts in a way the system doesn't know how to de

 Whenever people review works of fiction or other products, they often assign a score to the work in question- a letter grade, a scale of one to ten, or one to five stars, among others. The star rating system is the most common for user reviews, but unfortunately, it has resulted in the stars losing much of their meaning. Theory Vs. Practice To begin with, let's go over what the stars mean in theory. A five-star rating means that the work is anywhere from excellent to nearly perfect, or at least has no major flaws, and so comes highly recommended. A four-star review means that the work is fairly good, but flawed enough that it does not deserve the fifth star. A three-star review is average, neither great nor terrible. Most people with discerning tastes will probably want to look elsewhere. A two-star review means that the work is subpar, but not terrible enough to deserve one star. It's safe to say that this is not a  recommendation. A one-star review is for utterly terrible wo

You might have heard of Wisdom Tree, a Christian gaming company that has had a history of making Christian-themed remakes of various other games, including some they made when they were known as Color Dream. Wolfenstein 3D, one of the earliest shooters, got this treatment, resulting in the release of Super 3D Noah's Ark, an unlikely combination of a first-person shooter set on Noah's Ark. What the Game Is   The first thing I should point out is the shape of the cartridge. Most Super NES cartridges are gray rectangles that, when sat upright, have the cover on the front near the top, the title on top and a slot to insert into the console on the bottom, but the cartridge for this game  is different. It's an oddly shaped black cartridge that, most notably, has a slot on the top that fits into a standard Super NES cartridge. The reason for this is because the Super NES does not allow unauthorized games to be played on it, and it's necessary to hook up an official cartridge t

Spoilers for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice for All follow.  Some people describe "Turnabout Big Top" as the worst case in the Ace Attorney series for many reasons, from a lack of impact on the plot to unlikeable characters to frustrating gameplay segments. Those reasons are good, but Turnabout Big Top does have some potential buried beneath its many shortcomings. Investigation Day 1 The case begins six months after "Reunion, and Turnabout," and three months after "The Lost Turnabout," with Phoenix, Maya and Pearl going to the Berry Big Circus and watching the various acts, among them the world-renowned magician Maximillion "Max" Galactica. While cleaning the office, Phoenix gets a call from Maya, who has learned that Max has been arrested for murdering the ringmaster, Russell Berry. As one might expect, Phoenix, not having many clients, decides to defend Max in court. Max doesn't exactly make the best first impression on Phoenix or th

 As a celebration of my blog's one-year anniversary, I will shed some insight into the process by which I make blog entries. Step 1: The Idea The first step is coming up with an idea. As you may have noticed thus far, I have several types of categories of blog entries, from analysis of scenes in various works to essays that express various opinions. This is in many ways, the easiest step, and I often find myself passively coming up with ideas when I am doing other things, such as walking, driving my car or relaxing before bedtime. Not all of those ideas are worth pursuing, but for those that are, I proceed to step 2. Step 2: Planning It Out The next step is planning the blog post. I generally have a rough outline of how I want to proceed, although I may change the specifics when I actually work on it. Some blog entries have a specific layout, while in other cases, it may be a standard essay format- an introductory paragraph, a few body paragraphs and a conclusion. At this stage, I

 Here's yet another bingo board, this time for tropes in yuri manga. The rules are the same- the letters are columns and the numbers are rows, and you can mix up your spaces any way you want. Some tiles will refer to "Character A" and "Character  B,"(the former being the primary one involved in that case) and can be used interchangeably in any case. For example, Hanako might be Character A in "Character A is B's senpai," but Character B in "Character A has a female childhood friend...". Now for the bingo board itself. A1:At the start of the series, one of the two main leads has a boyfriend, who promptly breaks up with her (alternatively, she breaks up with him, which is rarer but still counts) A2: The characters share an "indirect kiss" by sharing a drink. A3:Character A is Character B's sempai at school, a club/sports team or work. A4:The characters have sex by the end of the series. A5:At least one character is the object

 For the best experience viewing this post, please open this video in another window or tab to serve as background music. Happysoft's Hong Kong 97 is a rather simplistic game at first glance, similar to many shmups like Galaga. You move your character horizontally (and to a limited extent, vertically) and fire upward at enemies approaching from the top of the screen. Even in 1995, this type of game was getting a bit stale. But what if I told you that the game was a piece of anti-Communist propaganda that featured, among things, the use of the f-bomb and a picture of an actual dead body? After a request for players to sell Happysoft their games, Hong Kong 97 begins with the following text introduction, referring to Hong Kong being transferred to China in 1997.  The year 1997 has arrived. A herd of fuckin' ugly reds. are rushing from the mainland. Crime rate skyrockeded! Hongkong is ruined! Therefore, the Hongkong government called Bruce Lee's relative "Chin" for t