Oliver Shellding
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WayTooManyGames Latest Reviews
It never occurred to me that people would make such a big deal out of a half naked genie, but I also didn’t know that people would end up watching Japanese horse racing more than most sports. People tend to gravitate towards characters and ideas if they give them something to look at that sparks a particularly funny feeling in their brain. For the half-genie character Shantae, her powers and unique storyline are often overlooked because she’s curvy, wears little clothing and…that’s ba...
Very few arcade titles have a place in my heart like House of the Dead 2. While I’ve done my fair share of cabinets, only House of the Dead 2 got me to dump literally twenty dollars worth of quarters into it so I could play, from start to finish, with a friend one faithful summer. It was such dumb fun, and I cherish that memory as only an arcade kid could. That kind of glowing memory is what compelled me to pick up House of the Dead 2: Remake. In spite of a less-than-stellar review of the f...
You can really tell how anime a game is going to be based on the length of the title. While I enjoy simpler things like Limbo or Braid, having something that infuses too many adjectives and verbs into saying a game’s name tickles a special part of my brain. No Sleep for Kaname Date – From AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES isn’t even a close contender to the longest one I’ve found, but it has some important aspects. One, anyone reading this who hasn’t played the previous titles will mispronounce...
Back to the Future Part III was a mistake. There, I said it. It is the worst way to end the trilogy and the one saving grace is that it’s iconic enough in its stupidity to be remembered fondly by children who were impressionable at the time. No matter which way you slice it, the changes to the dynamics of Doc and Marty’s relationship, the shoestring science that justifies every invention, and the wrapup that basically was a soft launch for the insane Saturday morning cartoon were all poor...
Anchorman is not for everyone, and I accept that. A movie that I loved to death when it hit me at the right time in life, I get that the style of humor, and madcap delivery of lines and visual gags can be annoying for some. Which is why I don’t insist that everyone I meet watch Anchorman, which I wish I had done when I was in college and alienating people as a result. I am unfamiliar with the comedy creation team of Viva la Dirt League, but I’m sure they’re excellent and have a good, he...
Pocket Trap positively charmed and won me over last summer when I laid hands and eyes on Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo. The game, which is so heavily GBA-inspired in design and execution, had the perfect little demo of dungeon-adjacent exploration, puzzle solving and some witty dialogue to make the twenty minutes just fly by in terms of play. The reps from PM Studio talked animatedly about Pipistrello, citing the influences and flushing out the fullness of the world within. Now, nearly a ye...
When it comes to titles from NIS America, I doubt anyone is going to list Phantom Brave as their favorite all time. To be fair, it’s not a terrible title by any stretch of the imagination: a fairly decent SRPG with cute characters and a whimsical approach to summoning and dismissing troops. However, NIS also publishes Disgaea, which has always done some wild ideas with SRPG elements, as well as Labyrinth of Galleria, which broke my heart back in 2023. Still, Phantom Brave was a fond memory ...
It’s important to remember that supergroups still work and produce excellence. Not everyone is emphatic about Temple of the Dog or The Highwaymen, but they should be because the result is incredible. Did ya’ll forget that ABBA is a supergroup? The point is, when you bring top talent together in a collaboration, what comes out is, more often than not, absurdly interesting. I’ve already done my due diligence in gushing over Uchikoshi Kotaro this year with the releases of Never 7 and Ever ...
It’s been said, by many people, that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. To some degree, that can be true: after all, if a product, design or style wasn’t worth copying, then it would be ignored. As KMFDM put it: Let’s stop saying, “Don’t quote me,” because if no one quotes you you probably haven’t said a thing worth saying. But when you seem to lose your own personal mark in the quest to imitate, then you’ve totally lost the thread. For Star Overdrive, an ambitious a...
