Steven Nguyen Scaife Sep 8, 2022. 3 minute read
The Best Games You Aren’t Playing: Orbital Bullet and More
Previously: The Best Games You Aren’t Playing: Growing My Grandpa & More The Best Games You Aren’t Playing: Mothmen 1966 and More The Best Games You Aren’t Playing: Kharon’s Crypt and More Blob Omelette Free in browser (Itch) | Jérémy Bouin Sure, a quick Google search for “Blob Omelette” might…
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FEATURES
Steven Nguyen Scaife Aug 25, 2022. 3 minute read
The Best Games You Aren’t Playing: Growing My Grandpa & More
Previously: The Best Games You Aren’t Playing: Mothmen 1966 and More The Best Games You Aren’t Playing: Kharon’s Crypt and More The Best Games You Aren’t Playing: Nightmare Reaper, FEWAR-DVD, and More Growing My Grandpa! Paid (Itch, Steam) | Yames Some grandpas aren’t born. Some are made, in the dilapidated…
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FEATURES
Steven Nguyen Scaife Aug 19, 2022. 4 minute read
‘Inu-Oh’ Review: You’re My Best Friend
Some of Inu-Oh‘s most gorgeous visuals don’t even involve its centerpiece, a series of musical performances flagrantly anachronistic to its setting in 14th-century feudal Japan. Instead, they’re all about Tomona, who was struck blind as a boy by the light of a legendary sword. To convey his POV, one scene…
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TV/FILM
Steven Nguyen Scaife Aug 17, 2022. 6 minute read
Old-School Anime Lives (and Dies) Again at Netflix
Maybe you’ve heard them whispered about in hushed tones, part of some diatribe about the way things used to be: the anime OVA, for “original video animation.” OVAs can be (and have been) just about anything, from cyberpunk action to horror-tinged porn to historical epic. We associate them with a…
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TV/FILM
Steven Nguyen Scaife Aug 3, 2022. 3 minute read
The Best Games You Aren’t Playing: Mothmen 1966 and More
Don’t be fooled by the number of headings; there’s a whole lot of games covered here. Mothmen 1966 Paid (Steam, Switch, Playstation, Xbox) | LCB Game Studio A visual novel with an arresting style, this “pixel pulp” is told through the ZX Spectrum’s color palette and interspersed with choices to…
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FEATURES
Steven Nguyen Scaife Jul 27, 2022. 4 minute read
The Best Games You Aren’t Playing: Kharon’s Crypt and More
I don’t typically set out to do themes for this feature, but I did hit upon one this time: these games are about feeling trapped. Sometimes you’re trapped, sometimes you’re the one doing the trapping, and sometimes you don’t quite realize you’re trapped until it’s too late. Kharon’s Crypt –…
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FEATURES
Steven Nguyen Scaife Jul 7, 2022. 8 minute read
The Prolific Dev Team Behind Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate
Go to the Steam page for Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate, which made a splash as the winner of the 50th Ludum Dare game jam, and you might note the distinctive name of its developer: Punkcake Délicieux. Click on their name and you’ll learn that Shotgun King is their first…
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FEATURES
Steven Nguyen Scaife Jun 29, 2022. 4 minute read
‘The Black Phone’ Review: Toll-Free Terror
After a middling sequel and a detour into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the collaborators behind 2012’s Sinister reunite to test out what more or less worked last time. Like that film, The Black Phone is a Blumhouse horror-thriller tangled up in old technology and dead children. It also counts Ethan Hawke…
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TV/FILM
Steven Nguyen Scaife May 27, 2022. 5 minute read
‘Men’ Review: Trash Indeed
Still recovering from the death of her husband James (Paapa Essiedu), Harper Marlowe (Jessie Buckley) has rented a country cottage, retreating to the sort of stone-and-brick village that makes her blue car look like an intruder. The landlord, Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear), seems harmless enough, insofar as she won’t be seeing…
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TV/FILM
Steven Nguyen Scaife May 27, 2022. 6 minute read
‘Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers’ Review: The Loneliest Number
Does it really matter if I dislike Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers? I found it empty and pandering, an instance of some typically reliable comedians on autopilot, but is it even for me? It’s a PG-rated movie that got dumped on Disney+, that comes with a supplemental list of what…
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TV/FILM
Steven Nguyen Scaife May 26, 2022. 4 minute read
‘Petite Maman’ Review: Little Momma’s House
Grief pervades every aspect of Petite Maman, though not as a free-floating metaphor or even as much of a focal point. It’s understated, to the point where we never see the death that looms over the entire film: the Grandmother of 8-year-old Nelly. We don’t hear it talked about, either…
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TV/FILM
Steven Nguyen Scaife May 11, 2022. 3 minute read
The Best Games You Aren’t Playing: Nightmare Reaper, FEWAR-DVD, and More
It’s time once again for another one of these! spirits mirror::digital possessed paid (Itch) | Taylor Swietanski spirits mirror::digital possessed is intense to look at, of a piece with Taylor Swietanski’s prior (and free!) series of eye-warping vignettes, THAT NIGHT, STEEPED BY BLOOD RIVER. It’s a particularly distinct niche, the…
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FEATURES
Steven Nguyen Scaife May 3, 2022. 4 minute read
‘Bubble’ Review: No, the Netflix Anime, Not the Netflix Comedy
Netflix’s anime movie Bubble (not to be mistaken for The Bubble, Netflix’s live-action comedy released 28 days prior) is a classical sort of story that deals, thematically, with something we’ve been asking in stories since humans first began to tell each other stories. We’ve levied this existential query upon animals, objects,…
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REVIEWS
Steven Nguyen Scaife Apr 27, 2022. 7 minute read
‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’ Review: Nic Cage Manages His Brand
The following review contains spoilers for, uh, the 1994 film Guarding Tess. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent has the most bite at the beginning, when it’s establishing the woes of a fictionalized Nicolas Cage. During a lunch meeting with a director (David Gordon Green, playing himself) to discuss a…
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REVIEWS
Steven Nguyen Scaife Apr 13, 2022. 6 minute read
‘RRR’ Review: It Doesn’t Stand for ‘Rules Rules Rules’ But It Should
I’m not sure what I expected from RRR, the three-hour Telugu-language Indian action epic. I think I expected to learn how to say the title out loud in conversation, but I’m still not sure whether to say the individual letters or to make a growling noise. I do know what…
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TV/FILM
Steven Nguyen Scaife Apr 6, 2022. 6 minute read
NORCO is an Old-School Adventure in a Grimy, Vivid World
I have spent about seven hours with NORCO, which means I have spent a lot of time moving a cursor around its pixelated scenes, hoping to reveal some point of interaction. We decried this sort of thing in days of yore, when such “pixel hunting” signified a point-and-click adventure that…
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REVIEWS
Steven Nguyen Scaife Mar 23, 2022. 8 minute read
After Yang Uses Robots to Explore the Expectations of Being Asian
After Yang is a quiet and often beautiful film, set in a future where people and technology seem a little more attuned to nature rather than the climate-ravaged dystopia we are plainly headed towards. But one of its early touches is surprisingly showy, a delightful competition held in living rooms…
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TV/FILM
Steven Nguyen Scaife Mar 22, 2022. 5 minute read
Tunic’s Secrets Are So Much More Than a Nostalgia Trip
The hero of Tunic, a nameless little fox in a little green outfit, awakens near a cave. It’s tough to miss, marked by torches and a mailbox. Inside, there’s a weapon (a stick), and we take it because it’s dangerous to go alone. Nobody tells us to do this. We…
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FEATURES
Steven Nguyen Scaife Mar 15, 2022. 3 minute read
The Best Games You Aren’t Playing: An Outcry, Red Tether, and More
After a brief detour into some indie games I hadn’t finished last year, we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming. An Outcry Paid (Itch, Steam) | Quinn K. The dark, surreal story of An Outcry unfolds in an Austrian apartment complex, its run-down conditions half-justified by venomous notices from the landlord…
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LISTS
Steven Nguyen Scaife Mar 2, 2022. 6 minute read
Maybe Uncharted Movies Were a Bad Idea Actually
Common wisdom holds that an Uncharted movie should be obvious and impossible to screw up. Every year that passes without one is easy money left on the table, and many, many years have passed — we’ve reached the point where the fourth game and its spin-off have been remastered for…
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TV/FILM