2064: Not A ROM Hack

You thought visual novels were only for weebs and horny teens. Believe it or not, you'd be wrong in that assumption. A while back I found a truly hidden gem; 2064: Read Only Memories. In this game you play as the average broke-ass Joe who probably just got out of living with their parents, when suddenly a robot breaks into your run down apartment and asks you for help because some guy you knew back in college or whatever disappeared. Travel around a city in the year 2064 where technology is everywhere racism is at its finest because furries can actually be furry and people are confused if its moral or if its a breach of humanity.

How exactly does the game work, you might ask? Is it super sci-fi or political or adventure or what? Allow me to answer those questions the best I can.

The game is mostly a visual novel, but does have some point-and-click puzzles. I don't really have anything else to say regarding the mechanics, as that's really it. You click through dialogue, click dialogue options, click things in a certain order, et cetera. Not really that complex. Don't get me wrong, this game has plenty of action and suspense, the plot is really good. It's not even something that takes a while to actually pick up, like Steins;Gate or Psycho Pass: Mandatory Happiness. Honestly, the plot has something for everyone. Politics, sci-fi, cyberpunk, action, adventure, city wandering (apparently thats a genre?), all that tasty stuff.

Now, I've pretty much explained why the game is amazing, but maybe I should touch on some reasons to stay away. First off, pixel graphics. Some people don't really like the aesthetic. I love it, but I'm not judging. Second off, voice acting. Some people don't like voice acting either. Also, some of the plot can be either obvious or tedious. But really, it's not that often at all.

I also forgot to mention this game has multiple endings, for those of you who dig that. I'm pretty impartial to it. That's really all the replayability you get. There's somewhat of a 'postgame', but it's really just going around the city and talking with all the people you've met along the way to see how they're doing. Other than that, there's a few easter eggs here and there.

So, 2064: Read Only Memories. My verdict? Definite 9/10. I kinda wish it sucked just so that I could give it a verdict of 20/64, but hey, it's a pretty awesome game, I'm not complaining in the slightest. So yeah, go play it, its fun. Unless you don't like visual novels. Then uh, maybe don't.

Fortified Nuts

I should have done this when the game was still relevant, but I saw a discord notification and was reminded of this game's existence and thought, "Why not review this one?" And so I went with it. You've more than likely heard of Fortnite. It's a game that got really popular back in about late 2017, and somehow is still generally popular today. Most of the time, I'm deterred from big bandwagon games such as this. However, as it bragged a low low price of free, I went ahead and checked it out after a bit of peer pressure from friends. I played a few rounds and uninstalled the game about a half hour later or so. 

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, whether you be very old or from the distant future of like 2070 something, allow me to explain what Fortnite is. It's a third person shooter game that focuses on a Battle Royale style of gameplay, and boasts a unique mechanic of being able to build things in battle. I don't mean like, crafting weapons, I mean like building walls and stairs and traps and such. Now, you're probably thinking that there's a reason this game got so big and popular, right? Well, if there is one, I can't see it. The game's UI is an absolute hellscape, being more of a mess to navigate than an overly complex RPG. It makes Apple's UI look simple. You'd think that the game would make up for the terrible UI in gameplay, right? Wrong. It follows basic shooting and driving and moving and whatnot, but the building mechanic is implemented terribly. The building and the shooting do not mix. I applaud anyone who managed to jam together such different and polarizing aspects to be good at the game. You have to swap menus from a combat menu to a building menu, switch to your breaking tool, whack enough stuff to give you enough resources to go into a submenu bigger than the original menu itself and go through a whole mess of things to find the correct thing you want to build with the correct resource. This probably could have been implemented way better if the UI wasn't a dumpster fire.

Now, obviously, I have to give credit where credit is due. When it comes to the combat alone, they did a good job. Rarity of items is color coded, it's easy to understand what items are, the Storm mechanic allows the game to not drag on, and the camera/replay mode is really neat. Ah, I should have explained earlier, the Storm is, well, a storm, that continues growing larger, causing the eye of the storm to shrink, which causes the battle area to shrink, which ultimately keeps the combat going until a winner is decided. The replay camera is one of my favorite things about this game, something I wish more games had as a matter of fact. Because of how the game records its replays, you can watch your replay in a multitude of ways. You can watch it in first person, you can watch it in third person, you can freely control the camera to look in places you weren't looking at during your actual play, it's just cool. And keep in mind, it records the entirety of the match, so you can watch from beginning to end, rewind, fast forward, pause, all that great stuff.

Alas, the replay camera does not make up for all of the games shortcomings. With a terrible UI forcing the game to merge two separate mechanics into a gross confusing mess, I'm afraid Fortnite will result in an overall score of 4/10.