Recent reviews by Annoyone

This game is like being slightly drunk at a college dorm party. The ambient is nice, there is a neon-DIY-decoration in the room and some sombre 80s synth music in the background, yet, you’re stuck with this second semester philosophy student talking about how everything is actually affected by entropy, that the light that reaches your eyes while stargazing is actually from stars that are long dead and did you ever think about how fish actually fly in the water, man? In other words, it's pretentious, slightly annoying and not nearly as profound as it thinks it is.

This is a strange case. I moved multiple times, watched flat shares break apart, said goodbye to people I lived with for years, experienced anxiety about what to become in life, uncertainty about choices I had made, felt the pressure of parental expectations, had periods of existential doubt, consider Kentucky Route Zero one of the best games of all time, in short, I've made many experiences that should make me resonate with this game.
But I didn't resonate with it. Not at all.
I played it through one evening and found nothing: No memorable characters, no relatable writing, no emotions that mirrored my own. It's just puppets rambling that passes by, with you a spectator watching from outside and finding nothing to latch onto. Normally I'd be the first to defend this kind of game against people demanding conflict, involving gameplay, pacing and character arcs, but I won't do so, because I feel like the game simply failed at what it set out to do: Make a phase of growing-up with all its turmoil and uncertainty relatable.

This really is a tiny but amazing experience and I love the fact that these things exist nowadays. It hasn't been that long that a game this short and with this little interaction would have been burned at the stakes. But finally, people have realized that these short, pointed experiences can be deeply meaningful and memorable if you let them.

I gotta be honest with you: There were times when Kentucky Route Zero bored me out of my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mind. Because while the tags claim that it is a Point & Click game and howlongtobeat says it's 7 hours long, it is way closer to a visual novel that lasted me – a usually fast reader – 13 hours. And while it is extremely beautiful and the prose great and vague in the intended lynchian/kafkaesque way, it doesn't completely distract from the fact that all you do is sit there and read, on a screen that doesn't make the process easy, in a font that refuses to do so either, with a text scrolling mechanism that hates your eyes. And the few moments of interactivity only make the fact that most of the game is picking pre-determined text options, that not even influence what is happening, but only slightly change the flavor of the scenes, more frustrating.

So, why is it still getting a recommendation from me? Well, two weeks ago, I finished Rise of the Tomb Raider and never thought about it since and have forgotten most everything about it already. Meanwhile, these past weeks playing Kentucky Route Zero, I saw my perception and stream of consciousness significantly influenced by the game, in that it allowed me to see banal moments as meaningful, made everyday interactions appear as deeply human, and wake a certain aesthetic perception that usually gets buried in the grinding routine of everyday life. I have a feeling that the game, it's moods and aesthetics – especially the transcendental-utopian scenes towards the end – will stay with me longer than most of anything. And nowadays, where video games get ever closer to perfectly exploiting your psychology to provide infinite jest, those lasting experiences are far more valuable to me.

"A true homage to the Bank mission in Thief II: The Metal Age."
Pretty sure the lobby of the bank in Thief II was larger than this entire map.

Ziemlich gehirnamputiert.

Gave someone a light and farted in his face to solve a puzzle. 9.9/10

In all seriousness though this is pretty much a perfect game: it has a unique gameplay idea that it explores to its fullest potential, a charming art style, a lot of subtle humor, it bursts with creativity, and it is an adventure game that doesn't have the usual pacing and logic problems, since it lets you solve any puzzle in at least three different ways.

Had I written this review 5 hours earlier right after an unfair and depressing defeat against the rebel flagship, I would have damned this game to hell and told you to keep away from it.
But I just beat the game with the Lanius Cruiser blowing the final boss into bits and unlocking my ship's B-layout, so I highly recommend FTL.