It wants so badly to be Vampire May Cry — This review was originally posted to Twitter on January 27, 2020. Initial release: October 31, 2002 Platform: PC, PlayStation 2, XBox, GameCube Developer: Terminal Reality The post-9/11 era: a time when geek culture lost all concept of good taste, when the aesthetics of 1990s comic books, mallcore and the cringiest of the German industrial music scene frequently blended together to disgorge diarrhea orgasms of…

A ‘Schindler’s List’ for the Pacific theater — This review was originally posted to Twitter on January 23, 2020. Initial release: April 22, 2009 Director: Chuan Lu Human history is one long string of people finding new ways to inflict misery on one another. World War II gave us a raft of examples, but few are as horrific as the Nanking massacre, also cheerily known as…

Before there was Amnesia, there was Echo Night — This review was originally posted to Twitter on January 23, 2020. Initial release: August 13, 1998 Platform: PlayStation Developer: FromSoftware You know, on balance it makes sense that Dark Souls and especially Bloodborne would have a survival horror feel, because FromSoftware have been making horror games off and on for years, all the way back to Echo Night, an…

A wealthy pedophile gets away with his crimes, but enough about Roman Polanski — This review was originally posted to Twitter on January 16, 2020. Initial release: June 20, 1974 Director: Roman Polanski Let’s just get right to it: Roman Polanski is a child rapist who also happens to be a filmmaker of considerable skill and has directed a number of culturally important films, including a neo-noir classic that has inspired imitators…

Cult classic ghost noir sets the standard for its successors — This review was originally posted to Twitter on January 15, 2020. Initial release: February 10, 1944 Director: Lewis Allen With films like The Ring, Paranormal Activity and the Amityville series one could be forgiven for thinking the ghost genre has always been about malevolent spirits. But up until Lewis Allen’s 1944 film The Uninvited, that wasn’t strictly true…

Shadow of the Comet followup left me feeling cold — This review was originally posted to Twitter on January 15, 2020. Initial release: 1995 Platform: PC, Mac, PlayStation/Saturn (Japan only) Developer: Infogrames Few studios have had the opportunity to play with the Lovecraft mythos as much as French developer Infogrames. Alone in the Dark and Shadow of the Comet weren’t perfect, but there was an element of care. …

Indiana Jones meets roguelike XCOM — This review was originally posted to Twitter on January 13, 2020. Initial release: April 11, 2019 Platform: PC, Switch Developer: Robotality Strategy games have had a lot of themes over the years. Everything from alien invasions to zombie apocalypses, with historical warfare and civilization-building in between. But a two-fisted-tales style game in the vein of Indiana Jones? That’s new. …

Indiana Jones makes his debut in this adventure classic — This review was originally posted to Twitter on January 8th, 2020. Initial release: June 12, 1981 Director: Steven Spielberg Few film franchises define Gen X and early Millennial culture like Indiana Jones. …

A horror movie where the monster is Nazism — This review was originally posted to Twitter on January 7, 2020. Initial release: October 14, 1969 (Rome) Director: Luchino Visconti Most people think of “spaghetti westerns” when you talk about Italian cinema, but Italofilm, especially during the 1960s and 70s was a much broader tapestry than that, a circus of transgression and pushing the envelope. …