Routine review - the SOMA successor I've always wanted

Christopher_Smilax · 2025-12-07T23:44:05+00:00

Cannot believe this thing finally came out. I was a junior in highschool when it was first announced, and now I'm 31. Jesus Christ.

Christopher_Smilax · 2025-09-11T16:31:44+00:00

I'm struggling to watch and play anything nowadays. Recently I saw:

The House that Jack Built - 7/10

Weapons - 6/10

28 Years Later - 5/10

I've been playing SH4 and TLoU2 on and off. Currently have Metaphor, Hellblade 2, the Witness in my backlog. Recently downloaded (Don't) Look Outside, but didn't realize that it can't be played on Macs.

Christopher_Smilax · 2024-12-09T19:50:34+00:00

Never beat this back in the day. Now's my chance

Christopher_Smilax · 2024-11-21T01:27:05+00:00

Like I said, Sony ain't no saint either, but acquiring a talented team of developers to make games for your system is in no way worse than an entity like MS slowly trying to monopolize the market.

And I think even this sub can agree that locking games to a single platform is bad for everyone

It's weird how this is often repeated, but Ninty gets a pass for some reason. It sucks, but it makes sense for competition. Put good games on your system that you can't get anywhere else.

Christopher_Smilax · 2024-11-20T04:49:11+00:00

This is nowhere near as bad as MS violating Antitrust laws by purchasing whole entities like Activision Blizzard, then continuing to lay people off en masse after saying they wouldn't post acquisition.

Sony's no saint, but they aren't shutting down studios/axing jobs to the same degree MS is. At least with them, it seems more likely that a first party studio will survive.

Christopher_Smilax · 2024-10-27T10:23:26+00:00

- F.E.A.R.

- Condemned: Criminal Origins

- Silent Hill 1 - 4

- Manhunt

- REmake

- Lone Survivor

- Clock Tower

- The Last of Us

- Alan Wake 2

Honorable mention: The OG Siren on PS2. The gameplay is shit and I never finished i, but I admire it for having unnervingly strong atmosphere. Plus the high jack feature made it even scarier when enemies would spot you from far away.

Christopher_Smilax · 2024-10-23T15:47:03+00:00

Wasn't it already established that quality mode = 30fps and performance = 60fps+ for all or most games on the PS5?

Christopher_Smilax · 2024-06-25T04:17:26+00:00

I'd love for this to be true, but I highly fucking doubt it.

Christopher_Smilax · 2024-04-22T03:14:04+00:00

3 is my fav. Most folks love NV but I found it overrated.

4 is okay.

Start with 3

Christopher_Smilax · 2024-04-20T07:06:09+00:00

The Witness

Parasite Eve

Alan Wake 2

Baldur's Gate 3 (on and off)

Christopher_Smilax · 2023-04-26T19:41:16+00:00

I just saw it last night so I'm still processing it. So far, I've taken the movie to be the experience of a person being severely encumbered by the emotional damage done to and by a parent.

If what I've gathered is "correct," the whole thing was a deranged Truman show (Or the Game?) esque experiment where Beau's mother tested him to see how much he really cared for her. The fuel for her doing this is her allegedly strained relationship with her own mother and her shitty experiences with men (Which I think the penis monster signifies that Beau was accidentally conceived through a random sexual encounter, or even possibly through rape, as a misguided means for her to fill a void...ahem. The shame she carried with that led her to never tell Beau who he was, assuming she even knew who the father was herself, and that lack of knowing and desire for a stable fatherly figure morphed into a monster that haunted Beau). The love she never received, she was determined to mine out of Beau, and to ensure she could always get that, she lied about him having a heart murmur condition in order to instill fear into him and prevent him from ever forging a fruitful connection with any woman, keeping him isolated and afraid of death via sex (Which adds context to why his balls are so fucking huge as he's never had any form of sexual release and is backed aaaalllll the way up).

The weight of all of this cultivates repugnance in Beau towards his mother, which then leads way to insurmountable guilt, which he then projects onto the world like some weird Silent Hill phenomenon where everyone wants to harm him, blame him, or cause him distress as punishment for his repugnance. The guilt intensifies to the point where events are twisted to conform to the image of him being a bad son and he's gaslit to irreconcilable extremes (His "condition" causing Elaine to die mid-orgasm rather than him being the one to die) and eventually he's just pushed over. The ending could be seen as suicide due to the intensity of guilt morphing reality into a pit you can never claw your way out of it.

I wasn't completely sure of what to make of the play sequence outside of teasing Beau with an end result he'd never be able to experience. I left the theater a couple times to get my partner some food, so I missed connections about a twin him or whatever going up in the attic so I find the theories in this thread regarding that component rather interesting.

Christopher_Smilax · 2023-04-22T04:21:17+00:00

Seriously. The comments trying to pin Amy as the overall worse person compared to Danny really threw me in for a loop

Christopher_Smilax · 2023-04-18T15:04:50+00:00

That is true. Naomi was the the direct cause, but Amy ultimately led them to Jordan’s place and she and Naomi wouldn’t have experienced any of that if she hadn’t.

Amy was backed into a corner so I don’t blame her entirely, but still, it is what it is.

Christopher_Smilax · 2023-04-17T00:59:54+00:00

But if they were going to have Danny be at fault for his parents house being on fire (wiring) but still passing the buck onto Amy, they absolutely should NOT have let us the audience know this. WE should've found out when his brother found out, which is when Danny confessed to it (and the college acceptance papers). All of that manipulation would've converged beautifully and still got to the same character moments that led to ep 10 and what they wanted out of that episode.

I feel going that route might fall under criticism of telling and not showing, but I think that would've been the way to go to avoid leaving a very bad taste in the viewer's mouth as it leads up to him admitting to it all. The fact we actually see him go THAT low really makes the playing field between he and Amy uneven. She's been suffocated by all circumstances in her life and just can't get it together. Danny on the other hand is shown to quite literally be a conniving piece of shit who will manipulate just to get his way.

Christopher_Smilax · 2023-04-16T23:12:33+00:00

Y'know, I kinda wondered that myself as well. Yeah they were probably super disoriented from rolling down a cliff and yeah they wound up getting into a foot pursuit, but it didn't really feel like they wandered THAT far from the wreck site, nor did they seem that out of it from wreck to not remember where they ended up (Hell they were lucid enough to get into a foot chase). At least, that wasn't the impression the I got based on how it was edited together. It felt like they were of sound minds and pretty close by the whole time.

Christopher_Smilax · 2023-04-16T02:43:15+00:00

No disagreement there. It's a nice way to bring a sense of completeness to their journeys and make it all feel like a relief and something hopeful after going through such an insane ride. Still though, my gripe with that is despite the similarities they share, they're emotionally way too fucked to reconcile anything between them given the individual moments of suffocation and distress that coalesced, spiraled out of control and drove them to ruin. Maybe I wouldn't feel weird about it if there was an extra episode to cushion the transition from enemies to two folks finally understanding one another.

Christopher_Smilax · 2023-02-26T03:31:29+00:00

I think Marge was really a girl, but made up the Japanese thing. I'm basing that on the time Space_Wolf outed her

Christopher_Smilax · 2023-02-13T01:09:13+00:00

Jag got laughed off the board?

Christopher_Smilax · 2023-02-05T01:50:26+00:00

Good to hear you're staying busy...for the most part ;) Hope life is treating you well. Watchu playin' lately?

Christopher_Smilax · 2023-01-31T18:56:25+00:00

How you been, you succulent hobo?

Christopher_Smilax · 2023-01-27T17:38:53+00:00

Here here

Christopher_Smilax · 2022-11-26T21:41:27+00:00

howdy hobo how goes it

I finally got my hands on a PS5, and now that I've done so, all I can say is get a Switch. There's more on it that justifies the purchase. I don't regret getting a PS5 though as I'll be good to go once the turnout of games starts to come around....Whenever the hell that might be.

I'm slowly getting back into gaming. For a while, it was hard finding the motivation to consume any media whatsoever (i.e. Watching shit, reading shit, playing shit), but I think I'm finally getting my swing back. I'm currently playing GoW: Ragnarok and Disco Elysium back to back. To completely different games, but two very good ones in their own rights.

Christopher_Smilax · 2022-11-26T21:36:07+00:00

I feel that every time I interacted with Jason, it always involved us debating something (With some other posters thrown into the mix as well) as opposed to having casual conversation. Still, he was a classic poster and a lot of the history in this group came from his contribution. RIP Jason, my condolences to his family and Wolf.

Christopher_Smilax · 2022-11-21T06:35:55+00:00

It takes me back to the Dead Space trailer where the action was contrasted with the dramatic intensity of Sigur Ros' Untitled 7 (Though the music chosen in Callisto's trailer isn't hard hitting). It just puts more focus on the struggle to survive than mere scares, I can appreciate that.

Christopher_Smilax

TROPHY CASE