Games You Missed

  True Crime is a series oft forgotten by the gaming world, surpassed by its spiritual successor, Sleeping Dogs. Languishing as nothing more than a “GTA Clone”, however. Both games are more than meets the eye. Today I’m focusing on the first entry. Streets of LA. Effectively, its an RPG, but one where you don’t consciously make choices. The story and the protagonist's fates are shaped through your actions. It’s in the literal sense, stealth fails, dying, failed objectives, and your successes.  You play as Nick Kang, a puckish rogue who joins the “Elite Operations Division” of the LAPD. He joins the division after being recently suspended due to excessive force; his father also served but disappeared after being indicted. Reviews criticized Kang’s character at the time but reality is, his character was just too early for this era of games. His demeanor and attitude isn’t too dissimilar from Nathan Drake; so if you like Drake, you’ll like Kang.  From the very first tutorial...

  Games today are designed to keep you hooked, consistent feedback loops trying to keep you playing for hours on end. Metrics matter nowadays, it’s not about how much you spend, it’s how much of your time is invested into a single title because then you’re not engaging with any other titles. battle passes, seasons, the like, it’s all designed to keep you engaged, giving you little nuggets of affirmations so you continue to chase the next dopamine hit. It’s not for your own volition, it’s for the little pop ups saying “you did good” giving you external justification for your time, whether or not that time was actually “fun”. Now what if there was a game that didn’t just do away with all that, but got out of your way as quick as it started? Short Peace: Ranko Tsukigime’s Longest Day, released in 2012; developed by Grasshopper Manufacture makes its statement and gets out, yet I have more to say about it after a single playthrough than I do about Grand Theft Auto Online after hundreds...

  Haven, developed by The Game Bakers; released in 2020, follows a couple of your choosing living “off the grid” in an alien world. The narrative itself is centered around the couple, Yu and Kay who’ve escaped from the cyberpunk sci fi world which they originate. Harnessing the power of Flow, Yu and Kay, glide through their shattered planet, cleaning up corruption known as Rust. Let’s talk about that… Rust is the antithesis of Flow, where Flow creates, Rust corrupts. This corruption affects the animals which inhabit this world, which brings us onto combat. Unlike most games, Haven doesn’t use the corruption as an excuse to kill; Yu and Kay are here to heal. While you still beat the bloot out of some unique creatures, you use joint finishing moves to clear them of the rust, thus healing them; each encounter ends with a celebratory high five. Now about that combat… Haven is a turn-based game where you control both Yu and Kay simultaneously via the thumb sticks. You have your standard...

  We all have games we wish we could’ve played, I’m still salty about Prey 2. The feeling of anticipating a title for months or even years only to have it never release stings for both players and developers. For the devs that’s years of work and effort that’ll never come to fruition and be enjoyed. For players, the feeling of being robbed of an experience you once anticipated leaves many to wonder “ what if? ’  filling in the blanks of a game never to be, imagining it to be a masterpiece taken away from us. Star Wars 1313, Scalebound, and the aforementioned Prey 2 are just a few examples. When a game is canceled, that’s it, game over; possibly the IP may be put to use elsewhere, but that game initially promised never hits store shelves. Apart from one time it did… The Disaster Report series traces its roots back to the PlayStation 2, developed by Irem and released in North America in 2003, it followed a reporter on an artificial island slowly collapsing due to earthquakes. Th...