4/11/2023 0 Comments Spacechem tunnels 3![]() Aaron Riccioĭownwell is a quarter-eater without the quarters, an arcade game from out of time. By keeping the kitchens varied and the action constant, Ghost Town Games avoids the flavorless death known as repetition, and doesn’t overcook its premise. ![]() The meat of the title-cooperative, chaotic cooking-is almost perfectly handled, as are the garnishes, from the catchy musical score to the delightful crew of unlockable animal chefs. At times, the difficulty can make this party game feel like a lot of work, although in fairness, the same can be said for Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, another demandingly chaotic, but ultimately enjoyable, couch co-op title. Instead, Overcooked keeps the recipes simple and the kitchens about as unconventionally chaotic as they come. The subsequent missions, then, are less about tapping out increasingly complex orders, as with Cooking Dash and its ilk, or the exquisite, Zen-like Cook, Serve, Delicious. The Onion King, cheering from the sidelines, implores you to fend him off by hastily preparing a soothing selection of salads after you’ve failed, he transports you back through time, so that you can be a more seasoned chef next time. A giant, ravenous beast-imagine the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man made of spaghetti and meatballs-threatens to consume your rooftop kitchen. To make it absolutely clear that Overcooked isn’t your traditional cooking game, developer Ghost Town Games opens mid-apocalypse. Cosmo D gives no easy answers on how capitalistic culture can reconcile the sins of artistic giants, and that ambiguity makes The Norwood Suite a complicated and essential illustration of contemporary concerns. The more you explore this strange location, the more you see the threat of commercialization in the form of corporate employees aiming to turn the hotel into a greater moneymaking scheme. The characters are literally riffs in Cosmo D’s stupendous orchestration different instruments and notes accompany different lines of dialogue as they appear on screen. Yet this building also bears numerous odd pleasures to behold, not least of which is a soundtrack that seamlessly morphs as you move from room to room. The setting here is a hotel that houses the legacy of a bandleader named Peter Norwood, whose exploitative relationships with other musicians come to the player’s attention via surreal trips down hidden passageways. The public is more aware than ever of the infallibilities of well-known artists, and Cosmo D’s The Norwood Suite evokes the discomfort that many of us often feel when the dirty secrets of an icon are put on display. This is an astonishing game that philosophizes on the human condition-consider that the opponents of Columbia’s segregation aren’t interested in equality, only in suppressing their suppressors-while critiquing its entire genre, concluding that the protagonist of a first-person shooter shouldn’t be allowed to live in any universe. While most shooters shy away from grue or any consequences to the player’s actions, BioShock Infinite vividly depicts these rippling across universes, where a single choice can carry disastrous results. Booker Dewitt is tasked with saving a reality-tearing woman from a floating white-supremacist paradise, leading to the interactive slaughter of its inhabitants so much was made of the game’s violence that many overlooked that the repugnant brutality was exactly the point. Justin ClarkīioShock Infinite is a visceral experience about an irredeemable psychopath murdering a city of despicable fundamentalists. Wherever the medium goes from here, these are the games that point the way forward. The decade’s best games took full advantage of that new freedom by pushing the envelope in every direction. The limits of the medium are seemingly bound only by the human imagination, and at every level, regardless of the horsepower needed, it now feels like anything is possible. This was the decade that saw every platform become a viable place for ideas to sprout and bloom. This was the decade that saw tiny studios, lone creators, and crazy concepts reign supreme. The decade in gaming didn’t lack for astounding technical achievements, but its arc was defined less by powerful technology than powerful ideas. While that’s arguably been true for much of the medium’s history, it ceased to be the case in the 2010s. Comedian Kumail Nanjiani claimed some years back that video games are the only art form that got better solely because of technology.
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