videolamer

Waiting for Arc the Lad – PlayStation RPG Memories

January 16, 2026August 25, 2022 by jay

Currently playing: The Sexy Brutale

In the early months of 1995 my friends and I poured over every drop of PlayStation information we came across, whether it be a magazine ad with Polygon Man telling us the system was more powerful than god, Sony suggesting we were UR NOT E, or the giant cardboard cutout of whip wielding Sofia at the local Palmer Video that still managed to be half an hour away. The older consoles were looking less appealing by the day (thanks, Vectorman), especially when compared to generation-defining beauty such as the widely advertised Battle Arena Toshinden (Sofia wore leather, you see, which really pops when rendered in cardboard).

By the midpoint of the 90s my friends and I were all 13 and desired a higher caliber of digital entertainment regardless of platform – the RPG. The first one previewed for the upcoming PlayStation console was called Arc the Lad and we all eagerly anticipated the game and expected it would be available soon after the system, at this point having no concept of localization, publishers, and all the messy stuff at the rotten core of the game industry. → I’d buy that for a dollar.

Review – Tyranny

January 16, 2026August 23, 2022 by chris

Currently playing: Master of Magic

Not long ago – it feels like yesterday – I put Tyranny on my New Year’s resolution list. It’s still 2022, right? I’m happy to report that I completed Tyranny. I’m not sure I’m happy that I chose it for my list. It looks unique, and starts out feeling different from other CRPGs, but by the end it feels like a reskin of other games.

Tyranny starts out on a high note – the animated style of the narration and Conquest portion of character creation mesh to give a very different feel from the typical beginning of a CRPG. The backstory (fleshed out in Conquest), in which you are effectively middle management for the conquering despot Kyros, also feels fresh. Not enough games have you start as middle management, assigned to a failing project and expected to turn it around. I’m still left waiting, however, for a CRPG that features a lengthy change control board meeting (where you need to pass a skill check to stay awake). → Call me game-shmael.

Awful Boss Fights

January 16, 2026August 19, 2022 by christian

What do Wolfenstein: Young Blood and Halo: Infinite have in common? If you guessed that they’re both mediocre games, you’d be right, but that’s not what I was thinking of.

No, what I was thinking of is that they both have similarly terrible final boss fights.

The basic rules of each fight are as follows:

They both take place in a vaguely circular arena. You’re exposed if you go into the center, but you can find some protective walls if you move toward the outer edges
The boss flies and/or teleports around hurling projectiles at you, some of which can be difficult to dodge when you’re also trying to shoot back
Multiple waves of enemy mooks spawn in to try and distract you
The boss has multiple phases

It is uncanny how similar (and similarly terrible) these fights are. The main problem they share is that because the arena is circular, there is no true cover. The protective walls along the exterior may block attacks from head on, but they can’t stop enemy mooks from flanking you from the left or the right. → Welcome to read.

The Quest to Make Everything Playable

January 16, 2026August 16, 2022 by jay

I have been on a long, expensive, two pronged quest to (1) make all games playable with original hardware (2) on my modern television. The two huge caveats are that it may all stop working at some point when the HDMI standard is replaced by something good, and “all games” actually means a lot of games, not “all games” as you would reasonably infer by my choice of the words “all games.” I covered some of my journey setting up old consoles for my OLED months back, so it is time to discuss the game portion. I will spoil it for you now – the answer is piracy.

Just joking, obviously I have cartridges and CD/DVDs for anything I have in ROM or ISO form because I deeply respect copyright law. It feels like just having the games should account for the majority of this whole project, but ripping or finding them in dark corners of the internet is the easier and cheaper part of the process. → How many games must a gamer play before you call him a gamer?

Gamifying Exercise – An Exercise in Patience

January 16, 2026August 11, 2022 by christian

Currently playing: Nier: Automata

Like a lot of middle class white collar workers, I should exercise far more than I do. It’s a challenge that my spouse and I have been trying – and failing – to conquer for years now.

I’m not going to go into detail about why it’s challenging. Anyone with a modicum of empathy, with a modicum of experience with the stressors of modern life, and who isn’t an Instagram fitness influencer will understand that finding consistent time, motivation, etc. with which to regularly exercise is easier said than done for a whole lot of people (and if you have established a successful routine, it was probably really challenging to do so, regardless of what Survivorship Bias might tell you).

(For better or for worse, I’m also not one of those white collar workers who is obsessed with endurance sports because it’s the only way they can feel alive in their otherwise soul sucking existence. Between my hobbies, my family, and the work required to support my family, I feel plenty of joy, pain, sorrow, fulfillment, etc.) → An article approaches.
- Read
- Run

Gacha by the Nostalgia – Fanservice, or Predation?

January 16, 2026August 9, 2022 by chris

Currently playing: Tyranny

I’ve played Gacha games – only four or five total – off and on for years. I’ve rarely spent money on them, but I know they are – by design – predatory. I find them relaxing and they offer just the right level of engagement for 10-30 minutes a day – sometimes more, sometimes less.

On some level, I know it’s a bad idea to play them. Having played for years, I know the feeling of spending all your “free currency” on summons and getting nothing of value (where value can mean either a useful unit or a favorite unit). It was tempting to spend real money – maybe $5 or $10 – to “support the game” and try for one last chance to get something good,but I managed to resist the temptation. The games remained both a fun diversion and a distant threat.

I’ve stuck to games that are obviously pandering to nostalgia – primarily Final Fantasy Brave Exvius and Romancing SaGa Re;UniverSe (ugh), although I dabbled in the now-defunct Dragon Quest of the Stars for a bit. → Fine, but this article then no more.

What to Do with my Apple II

January 16, 2026August 4, 2022 by christian

Currently playing: Nier Automata

I have an old Apple II. I got it years ago at an antique store, for much less than the seller could have asked. The only problem is that it was just the Apple II, without any disk drives, and no software. That means I could do absolutely nothing with it.

Eventually, some family members got me a (single) disk drive and a copy of Apple DOS for Christmas. I eagerly plugged it all up, only to have it go up in smoke. Turns out that when the power supply gets old enough, it can’t really handle the extra power draw from the floppy drive(s). I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sight of blue smoke (or the smell of it) coming from inside the box.

So now I have a broken Apple II. It’s been sitting in my basement, on a cheap Ikea end table that is entirely too short to sit next to. I recently had to move it to make room for some exercise equipment, and that’s when I realized that I had to decide what I was going to do with it. → The King of Articles 2002: Unlimited Match

Maximum Spoilage: Inscryption Loses its Edge

January 16, 2026August 2, 2022 by jay

Currently playing: Vampire Survivors

The Maximum Spoilage series of writings is focused on discussing aspects of a game that would spoil said game to any normal person. Please continue reading at your own riskryption.

Inscryption is a great game that perhaps begins with more greatness than it ends. If you have any interest in playing, and you should, I would really not read this. Anyway, after being forced to “Continue” a game from the top menu when you start the game for the first time, you realize your character is playing a card-based board game under some duress. The game is legitimately unsettling when it dawns on you that you’re a prisoner and the in-game game you are playing likely has mortal consequences. The Frog Fractions-esque ability to step away from the board game – where you play the in-game board game – and examine your gloomy confines, all while your captor remains invisible sans his eyes, lends the game an ambiance of true horror. → You reading at me?

Some Itch.io Game Reviews

January 16, 2026July 26, 2022 by chris

Around a year ago, I joined a fortnight-ly Itch.io game club after picking up the Palestinian Aid Bundle. The club leader would post a (semi-curated) random game, and everyone would play through it.

The large itch.io bundles are perfect for buying entirely more games (and sprites, and rulebooks, and engines) than you need, while feeling like you’re helping to make the world a less terrible place. It’s the perfect way to build up a crushing, overwhelming backlog and get some unusual games without a large investment.

Here’s a sampling of the games I played and enjoyed from the bundle:

Closed Hands

This is an interesting visual novel about a terrorist attack in the UK and political/social reactions to it, told from five different perspectives. The timeline varies by perspective, and each perspective is (typically) linear in one direction or the other, so you have a fair amount of freedom about whether you want to go forward or backwards in time. → God of War: Readnarok

But First, Stadia