Uppercut Crit

Unsurprisingly, 2023 has been another packed year of game releases, and things don’t show any sign of slowing down as we head into its final portion. With blockbusters like Detective Pikachu Returns and the Super Mario RPG remake on the horizon, plus several higher profile indies like El Paso Elsewhere and Slay the Princess joining them, it felt like a good time to shine a spotlight on some titles that I’ve found really special so far, ahead of the onslaught of holiday releases. N. O.

(This essay includes spoilers for the entire plot including the ending of Pokémon Black and White.) Astrologers look at the charts of things other than humans – your business has a birth chart from the moment its doors first open the public, your marriage has a birth chart from the moment the clergy says “I now pronounce you,” and a major game franchise has a birth chart of the moment the first game in the series is released.

Video games, just like any art form, are too vast to put in one box. However, the one thing that makes video games different from any other art form is the illusion of control through the ability to choose. Unlike movies, books, and TV, where the viewer has no direct say in what happens in the plot, players usually have control over the details of the game’s events to some degree. Even failures are just a manifestation of the player’s actions.

The horror genre has carved out a substantial space for itself in film, literature, and of course, video games. It’s known for its rules and tropes like any other genre, but horror is also defined by its greatest sins and the struggle to avoid common blunders in spinning spooky stories. Perhaps the biggest sin of horror in any medium is pulling the curtain back too much and demystifying the terror that was first instilled.

“The Sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” In spite of how iconic this opening line of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, the novel that alongside movie classic Blade Runner launched the highly influential genre of cyberpunk, is, it’s rife with technological nostalgia and anachronism.

This time on Indie Mixtape, Ty and HB explore the oceans of alien worlds, do Russian folk magic, traverse dimensions to fulfill bounties, ruminate on being a shitty teen, and experience the existential dread of graduating high school. Games discussed in the show: South Scrimshaw pt.