[edit] i'm gonna rephrase this, but basically i'm getting some bullshot vibes off of the perfect dark footage. dunno if it's heavily-choreographed sequences or what, but somehow i'm getting flashbacks to the cyberpunk 2077 reveals. cinematic looking first-person actions that have a bespoke animation quality, tons of items with physics on countertops mid-gun-fight, these are all things i've seen before in pre-release footage.

i'd love to be wrong on this! but my spidey sense is tingling. if i am wrong it's basically the game i've been wanting: touch of deus ex, touch of mirror's edge.

1. there is a weird drive for Authenticity that I think drives Mr. Geoff Keighley, who I have never met but who kinda annoys me all the same. He is out here screaming at a hypothetical normie to take his precious video games seriously, without realizing that video games won the cultural zeitgeist like twenty years ago. He worships auteurs, he seems to care about the wellbeing of the industry but only when it doesn't inconvenience his auteur friends. I do not like that he is the man holding the umbrella that video game shows fall under.

this is sorta akin to people who are constantly on about how comics aren't for kids anymore when everyone and their grandpa has read fuckin' Watchmen, or people who haven't noticed that CRole kinda cut through a lot of TTRPG player stereotypes years ago. Imagine a dude who's never heard an Actual Play get out there and helm the ship of promoting TTRPGs, because he wants to PROVE it's not all just the realm of unwashed nerds memorizing damage tables. That's where Keighley is.

2. it is strange that there is this continual Witch Fantasy going on in the wholesome games market.

like, y'all know you can just be a witch, right? like it isn't hard! there is not broomstick flight yet but if y'all want to mix things in a cauldron and read tarot and wear a nice hat, you can do this!

3. I am eating damn good this weekend as a person who really does like lots and lots of things in terms of gameplay genre and aesthetic. But the other little trick here is that this isn't a new thing! there are infinite cool games happening all the time always! within the last two weeks we had Selaco and Anthology of the Killer and a bunch of fighting game stuff and the gods only know how many things have slid past me! We're only like a month out from things like Animal Well and 1000xResist! you cannot throw a rock around here without hitting at least five neat things!

But also I do like the bigger names too. And this morning, I admit I was fully excited to see that Indiana Jones game and a new Gears of War. And it is bleak to think that I can be excited for 'em, I'll play 'em...and then probably hear news of those devs getting shuttered a few weeks later because the Industry Demands Sacrifice.

....and I can't do much about it. What I can do is try and talk about the things I do like in more detail than I am with the lil' end-of-month posts. I can't sell enough copies of Gears to avoid the inevitable "sales below expectations, only made us a few mil, team thrown out into the snow" articles, but I can probably get a few people their new favorite games by talking up cool itchio stuff instead. So I think I'm gonna try and do that a little bit more.

I don't know what it is about safe, familiar, and unambitious games made with passion that just tickles me.