James Cunningham
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Hardcore Gamer Latest Reviews
Bubsy 4D is exactly what a new Bubsy game should be: a full 3D level-based platformer featuring the wise-cracking (but no longer insufferable) bobcat.
Luna Abyss is half bullet-hell FPS, half platformer and all Heavy Metal Euro-sci-fi weirdness.
Shapez 2 is an automation game with almost all the rough edges sanded off, built to make creating incredibly complicated layouts as simple as possible
The '90s were a fascinating time in gaming, with an incredible number of cultural forces dragging it every which way. The Sega CD, and to a lesser extent, TurboDuo had brought multimedia gaming to the living room (at least for the niche audiences who bought them), but it was clear which way the future was going even if it wasn't within reach yet. CD-quality sound, including and especially voice, were making characters much more lively, and while 3D was obviously on the way, it was still a work in progress. This was the market the 3DO was released into, ridiculously overpriced but incredibly ambitious, even if it was released a few years before the technology that would have made it work was available. The 3DO company spun off Crystal Dynamics, and Crystal Dynamics gave birth to a smart-talking media junkie gecko named Gex.
Everything breaks and entropy always wins, which is all very nice for the nihilists, but the rest of us are trying to get things done. Inevitable deterioration is a problem and in the long run all is dust and ruin, but the long run can be pushed relentlessly into the future seeing as people are basically tool-using monkeys that have gotten very good at making things as they could be rather than accepting them for how they are. When things break we fix them, and while it's a lot easier when the broken things are small enough to pick up and repair by hand, we've also got the tools to work on the damages when it's the entire landscape in need of repair.
There are good career decisions and bad ones, but it's safe to say that any job requiring company solvency a century after it starts can best be described as "terrrible" and only goes downhill from there. Still, it's too late now for a lone settler dispatched to a remote solar system to oversee the creation of a homestead for colonists who will never arrive, so the only options are to either accept living out the rest of their days alone or figure out a way back to civilization. With an upbeat floating robo-drone by their side and a pile of equipment that was cheaper for Alta Interglobal (motto- Fueled by families) to write off than recall, the settler starts exploring to try and make the best of their new home.
As has been mentioned many times before, the end of the world isn't the end of the world. It's just a change in state, from a planet where humans can live comfortably to one where they can't, leaving room for something else to rise up and take their place. This time around it's rabbits, living comfortably off the wreckage humanity left behind on the frozen Earth. It may be winter everywhere, but Smokestack Mountain has warm thermal vents where good crops can be grown and is large enough to support multiple towns around its base, and not a bad place at all to be a grizzled old junk collector scavenging the ruins for useful tech.
The hero of the planet Woanope has earned her rest, if by "rest" you mean an endless publicity tour for the Bureau of Shipping. After the events of the original Crashlands, Flux Dabes and her best robo-friend Juicebox were sent to every corner of the galaxy to recount their adventures, basking in the fame and admiration of an adoring public until burnout inevitably reared its exhausting head. Having done all she needed to, Flux quit her job and headed back to her friends on Woanope, where she settled down peacefully to live out the rest of her days and nothing adventurous ever happened again.
Ruling Hell is a grueling job and the transition can be rough when a new successor takes the reigns. Hell isn't just where the worst of humanity goes, but is also home to countless powerful demons, and they're not the type to sit back content in their positions. When Enma rose to being Hell's new ruler, it didn't take long for them to be deposed, with Gouma stealing the throne for himself. With the last of their power, Enma summons a champion from the mortal plane to engage in battle on their behalf, who in turn commands a small army of heroes to carve a path through the souls of the dead on the way to depose the usurper.
Death is an event horizon. On one side there's life, and everyone alive knows how that goes, and inevitably there's death but it's only seen through life's perspective. The body stops and becomes fertilizer for the next generation, and unless someone is lucky with immediate medical care, it's a one-way transition with no coming back. If there's anything after death that information isn't coming back to the world of the living, so maybe there's pearly gates, maybe a river with a ferryman needing a couple pennies for the fare or maybe it's every bit as strange as Everhood 2.