(The tl;dr companion video to this article):

Some days it feels like one has already failed before even getting out of bed.



Ah, the joys of youth….(as in, this is a much harder proposition to pull off the older you get)

Feeling particularly existential today, though I’m not entirely certain what inciting incident invited such ponderous affairs…outside of like, you know *gestures vaguely* this whole thing, as such. Perhaps I was feeling this way last night, which is my Words Of Wisdom ended up feeling like it was out of left field, as I seemed in between worlds. It was an out of sorts whatever kind of day, and even getting out of bed on those days when there is no real rhyme or reason to is good enough where small victories are concerned.


That’s why it’s so important to have engaging recreational activities; see conquering hell as a great example

I haven’t started the next game I’m going to focus on quite yet, though I will have to come to a decision relatively soon, as having just finished Doom: The Dark Ages DLC Revelations, I’m temporarily a free agent in the world of metaphysical deconstructionism, which is a precarious place to be when one is attempting to write and post an article everyday. Strangely enough, even though today was the start of my weekend, I felt as if I truly didn’t have much extra time to spare, so it might be for the best I didn’t start anything new. However, since I wanted some kind of springboard for today’s article, I picked three games at random to play for about 20 minutes a piece, just to give them the old college effort.

Let’s see what ended up happening.



The first game I took for a spin was Big Walk, a new co-operative “cozy game” where you and your friends explore the open world, that is filled with puzzles, obstacle courses, curious happenings…etc. Part of the allure and charm of the game is suppose to be the camaraderie one feels when playing with others, and connecting with one another in just, run of the mill, everyday kind of ways, with nothing more than some silly distractions and friendly conversation to pass the time. As far as I know, due to the relaxed nature of the game, there is no combat system, to speak of, or enemies, or any official side quests, nor stats….it’s fairly non-traditional, so the meat and potatoes is really about goofing off with others.


Hello darkness my old friend….

Which immediately became a massive problem for me, as I realized, upon trying to start a game, there is no matchmaking for random online play, so if you don’t have friends you can invite and vice versa…you’re pretty much shit out of luck. I mean, you can start a game, walk around in it and everything, but since the game is designed with multiple players in mind, you’re not going to get very far, needless to say. After walking around for ten minutes trying to find some circumstantial nonsense I could get up to, I realized the folly of my pretense, and promptly exited.



Next up, was Date Everything! Obviously, the title spells it out for you…with a twist of course, as you end up getting a pair of sunglasses, ala John Carpenter’s They Live, but instead of seeing the secret plot to control humans and uncovering aliens in disguise, the glasses end up anthropomorphizing an array of household objects, which you can then attempt to…woo, as it were.


I’m here to kick ass and date everything…and I’m all out of things to date

The game seems like mostly a menu navigator, as my brief time with it was essentially me reading through dialogues from other characters, and being given multiple choice responses to choose from when prompted to join the conversation. The writing (and voice acting) seemed solid, at least, which I would hope so, cause if your game is going to live and die on conversational exchange, you’re going to want to allocate a decent portion of your budget to a worthy writing team to keep the ship afloat.


At least it doesn’t take itself too seriously…

I thought at first it might activate within me some bizarre sense of absurdity that may win me over, in attempting to see if I could “get in the mood” to struggle with such realities, but due to my rather dour state of mind, I only got as far as the front door before I realized I hated everyone and everything, which means dating is right out in terms of where relevant interests are concerned. Luckily, since Date Everything! does seem to possess some self-awareness and sense of humor to boot, one can choose to leave the house on day 1, thusly ending the adventure. So, with the option to “Far Cry” myself out of taking the long way around, I promptly exited stage left, and was issued an achievement called “Speed Run” for my efforts in finishing the game so quickly.

Probably about as well as that could have gone.



Lastly, I figured I should make my final game something of a safe pick, or else I will have three examples of games I basically didn’t end up playing, as opposed to any I did, which is when I remembered I still hadn’t tried the Star Fox remake demo yet, so I booted up my Switch 2 and took to the skies. I was surprised almost immediately, as the demo treats you to an extended cutscene which wasn’t in the original, and it shows an event that was only ever previously alluded to in the original Star Fox 64, and that was the infamous “betrayal” mission, where Pigma Dengar betrays the original Star Fox team, leaving James McCloud’s fate, Fox’s father, up in the air, and Peppy Hare barely escaping with his life.


I’m guessing Nintendo wanted an easy win with a demographic they could effortlesslyattract with the updated graphics, and why the collective public is about to se a 1000% increase in Star Fox fursuits in the wild

Pretty cool stuff, as I definitely wasn’t thinking that Nintendo gave enough of a shit about this series to expand on the lore of it in any meaningful way, yet here we are. Following that, the player is treated to the demo you get in the 64 version (as this is a remake after all), but obviously, as a redone glow-up version, with ridiculously sharp looking graphics, rerecorded dialogue, all polished like. The training section is fairly straight forward, and even for a player who has never touched the game before, I almost want to say too ploddingly excessive, as this is not rocket science we are talking about, as getting the hang of an on-rails arcade flight combat game is fairly straight forward, and flying the Arwing takes all of thirty seconds to master, so let’s pick up the pace here a little bit, folks.


Something something barrel roll….I can’t believe I’m not remembering the quote

Afterwards, you are treated to the Meteos mission, which usually acts as the second mission in the 64 version, if you’re going Route A, and this mission is another slow ball down the middle, as being an early mission, it is more or less just pushing you a little harder in seeing if you have the basics down. I found myself quoting the original a lot, as even simple phrases have been rewritten, even though there was nothing inherently sloppy about their original execution, but creative differences I guess.


It’s quiet….too quiet…

Like the majority of Star Fox missions, there are two ways to complete the level; the straight forward method, and the subtle second option. In this particular level, towards the end, if you fly through a series of colorful space distortions while progressively going faster and faster, you’ll fly through a worm hole, which ends up being filled with easy enemies to destroy, and a ton of points and powerups to harvest, making obtaining the high score medal a cinch. The regular way leads to the boss, which I didn’t get to see, as I didn’t replay the level, but most Star Fox bosses are always over over the top and well done punctuation marks to any of the levels, and nice spectacles in and of themselves, so I doubt they’re any less impressive in the remake.

Wondering how many extra modes or side content they ended up adding to the main game, as the story mode from the original is tragically short

That’s where the demo ends, and where the third of my demo experiences wrapped up. I’ve been reading about Big Walk for awhile, and was excited to try it out; it’s a damn shame there is no random matchmaking, as that greatly reduces the levels of accessibility the game possesses for on the fly solo players. Date Everything! seemed like it had a good vibe to it, and if I were in a less malevolent mindset, I might have given it more of a shot due to the humorous, self-aware writing on display. The Star Fox remake was predictable in its execution…if the game is as long as the original, then a single run through to the end is only going to be about an hour of gameplay, so unless a person is all about high score setting, fifty bucks for such a short experience seems pretty steep. I’ve heard that there is competitive multiplayer, but if that mode doesn’t have legs, I’m guessing only the most hardcore of Star Fox fans are going to pick this one up.

That about wraps it up for me today. I’ll probably have downloaded the game I’m going to focus on next by tomorrow, hopefully you’ll drop by and see what it turns out to be. Until then.

~Pashford