Titans (DC Direct, Seasons 1 and 2)

Dick Grayson has had a falling out with Batman; Kory Anders doesn’t know anything about herself; Rachel Roth is facing evil supernatural phenomena. Love! Drama! Superheroes!

( Read more... )

Overall: Regardless of the R-rated content, it’s about on par with the CW DC shows in terms of mixed-quality writing and boneheaded characters. If they feel the need to cram in another half-dozen main characters in season 3, may I suggest Bumblebee or Duela Dent?

HUMBLE POSTMODERN BUNDLE

Beckett - A surrealistic noir detective story, where people are represented by abstract drawings and the world feels deeply disturbed. Functionally a visual novel, as there are occasional dialogue choices, though only two choices actually matter to the story at all. I’m sure all of this represents the rot in humanity’s collective soul, but I don’t care enough to finish it.

Thomas Was Alone – A puzzle platformer featuring a series of jumping blocks that are apparently AIs in the process of becoming sapient. An appropriately British narrator details their thoughts and feelings over the course of the adventure. I tend to get annoyed with games where you need to focus on platforming and also maneuvering multiple characters, and it turns out this was no exception. The narrator was entertaining, but I didn’t like the game.

Rusty Lake Hotel - An entirely surreal point-and-click puzzle game in which you run a hotel and each night, you must murder one of your guests in a convoluted way in order to serve them as the next day’s dinner. Weird, interesting, but suffering from “moon logic puzzle” syndrome. (Side note: Poison is not a cannibal’s typical weapon of choice; at least, not if they want to continue living as a cannibal.)

Yume Nikki – A exploration horror RPG Maker game (without any really fights or danger) that’s explicitly a dream. The Earthbound influence is strong in the art style. I feel like I had played at least some amount of this before, but can’t find my notes. “Played” is a relative term here regardless, because while you can in theory reach an “ending” (by collecting all 24 effects), the point of the game is to explore and find all the weirdness stuffed into it. If you want to wonder as you wander, it might be good for a spin. What does it mean? Anything you want; your English teacher would be proud if any theory you can support.

Overall: I figured there was some risk in the collection of games intended to be brain-bending (because that always means a good chance of falling over into utter nonsense), and I’m glad I only bought the first tier. Nothing in here really made my brain tick the way they clearly wanted to.