T w e n t y S i d e d

This week was just Terraria.

We haven’t really made much progress since last week since my sibling and I are jumping between different playthroughs. Our main world is early hardmode, and our second world is almost caught up at just before the Wall of Flesh. The only thing noteworthy about this run, is that through sheer determination and luck, I got a shadow key from the dungeon without killing Skeletron by using a hoik to get through the walls of the dungeon, I did die many times but it was worth it for the novelty alone.

What’s everyone doing this week?

This “review” will be spoiler free for Resident Evil Requiem.

I rarely preorder games anymore. I’ve learned to wait to see if a game turns out to be a disaster or if I lose interest. My backlog is big enough. I don’t need to add to it and waste money at the same time. On this particular release I deviated from that path for Resident Evil: Requiem because I’ve grown very attached to the series in the recent past. Also the few trailers I ended up seeing sold me on it. Now that I’ve gotten the game and gotten through to the end of it, I’m left conflicted. I enjoyed my time, but was the game actually good or do I just love the IP?

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “I Can’t Decide If I Like Resident Evil 9”

Ethan Rodgers

This week was just Slay the Spire 2 and Terraria.

So far the update for Terraria is their normal array of additions, quality of life improvements, rework of old items, and new items to fill out the more sparse parts of the game. I don’t have much to say, I like Terraria, the update is good.

Slay the Spire 2 is good. Still playing it this week, I finally got some good runs with the Regent, I got a good star based build going with the main highlight being an X cost card that uses stars instead of energy, it deals 5 damage to a random enemy, but I got enough boosts to that cards damage to get it to 11 damage, and I got to use it with thirty stars. I also got a forge build working. It definitely takes some time to get it going, but it does so much damage once it gets going.

I’ve learned that just was the case with the first game, I am terrible at playing as the Defect.

What’s everyone else doing this week?

Issac Young Youngest child of Shamus Young. He/Him

With the recognition that horror movies broadly, and slasher movies explicitly, had to be made within the context of an audience and cast that knew how horror movies functioned, the tropes that made the original franchises work were…sort of…put to rest. At least they were retired as “high-concept” ideas. Really they already had been to a degree. “Escaped mental patient kills babysitters with no motive” was a great idea in the late 1970’s. But despite John Carpenter’s intentions the series couldn’t escape from the trend of “just doing the same thing over again.” As good as I would argue Halloween 4 is, you wouldn’t be wrong to point out it’s just a different take on the original, using information developed in the second film. From the beginning Friday the 13th was designed as a cash-in on Halloween and other early slashers. It proved to be a repeatable hit thanks to extremely low budgets. That it occasionally even did something interesting was just a bonus. A Nightmare on Elm Street arguably had the loftiest goals and cleverest idea. But even though New Line pulled the rug out from under Craven, the second film has subtext that didn’t reach a wider audience until years later and the Dream Warriors era that dominated the sequels successfully re-imagined the franchise in a new way. So thoroughly, in fact; that Craven was able to revisit his original idea through commentary to try to remind everyone what the point was (or points were, depending on your argument.) Horror movies hadn’t been doing as well at the box office since the late 1980’s, but even as the latter half of the 1990’s saw a resurgence in interest, the major slasher franchises would produce future installments as remakes, re-imaginings, reboots, or even just simple genre films.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Horror Slasher Evolution: Final Villain”

Paige Francis He/him

So, my friends and I have been waiting for the newest “last” Terraria update to come out and it finally arrived. The timing was terrible, though. We all had our own fixations and real life fun things keeping us busy so we didn’t get the opportunity to play together until this week. Now having had some experience with my buddies and on my own solo worlds, I have to say it has really taken me back.

When Terraria first came out in 2011 I was in college. I was with my ex. I was just getting into PC gaming after building a PC with a friend. I was living with my parents but spending as little time at home as possible because that life was hell. I had no money. I had no job. I had no life, really. Now, 15 years later I have an incredible wife, new friends, new hobbies and interests. I don’t have much in common with my past self. I don’t like my past self. And yet Terraria takes me back in time to the simple pleasures of watching some good background content on YouTube or Netflix and spending hours mining away. It’s incredibly fun visiting a classic that happens to be one of my favorite games of all time and still having some of that wonder of new things in the game to discover.

In my DLC article recently I discussed the current trend of Indie games being supported long after the normal lifespan of your average game and Terraria is a perfect example. It’s 15 years later and they still haven’t stopped cranking out free content for us. There have been multiple “final” updates that get followed up with more additions. It’s not just regular content updates either. The game has had tons of quality of life improvements too. Terraria has relatively seamlessly kept up with modern expectations in gaming and that makes it an easy recommendation for the group to go back to every once and a while.

This might be a short post but take it as a prompt to spend some time revisiting a classic with some friends. Also last week’s article was basically novel length, I’m giving myself a bit of a reprieve. <3

Ethan Rodgers

This week was Slay the Spire 2.

It released into early access a few days ago, and even though it’s in early access, I’m greatly enjoying it. All of the playable characters return except the Watcher, and there’s the addition of two new characters, the Necrobinder, and the Regent.

The Necrobinder’s gimmick is having a minion that takes damage instead of you, and you can use cards to increase it’s health. Her other gimmick is doom, it kills enemy if there current health is below the amount of doom. I haven’t played her much yet, but I did play her more than the Regent. His gimmick is having a second pool of mana called stars, they don’t get removed by the end of a turn, and you don’t get more by the start of a turn, you only get them through cards as far as I know, His other gimmick is forging. Forging creates a special sword card that deals damage based on how much forge you have, and it uses stars to play it. That’s all I know about him.

The game itself is good, there seems to be just more of everything, including power. It feels like enemies and the player is stronger, as a result the Silent gets a power card that makes her do double damage to enemies with the weak debuff, on the other hand you can get an enemy that debuffs you so that every card you play, you will lose 1 strength and 1 dexterity for that turn. It seems moderately well balanced in the end, but the highs and lows of how strong you feel are definitely more extreme.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about everything having animations, but they just fits right in. I love most of the creature designs, the card art, and the event backgrounds.

Instead of getting a choice between three buffs at the beginning of a run like the first game, you now get a choice between three buffs at the beginning of each act. These buff can be the standard upgrade a card or get a rare card but you lose your money, but sometimes it can be a new feature, card enchantments. Card Enchantments can get added to a card to give buffs ranging from add two block when played, or add two damage, to the first time that card gets played it gets replayed once per combat.

It also has co-op as well. It works fine, if you can’t agree on who gets what relic from a chest, then it chooses randomly, the gold and shop are different for each player, and there are a handful of co-op exclusive cards.

So, I’ve been enjoying it so far. what’s everyone else doing?

Issac Young Youngest child of Shamus Young. He/Him

Meta, or self-aware horror, is typically said to have begun with 1996’s Scream. But as any pedant will gleefully point out Wes Craven’s New Nightmare incorporates the fundamental conventions of meta-horror in 1994. Wait! Kevin Williamson wrote the first concept of Scream in 1994! Yeah. Probably about the same time Wes Craven’s New Nightmare was being made. Except the concept for Wes Craven’s New Nightmare was at least eight years old. The basic plot was pitched by Wes Craven originally when he signed on to write the third Nightmare movie; a project that would become 1987’s The Dream Warriors. It became The Dream Warriors because New Line Cinema didn’t like Craven’s story, mainly the entire “meta” idea. But none of that matters anyway, because There’s Nothing Out There was made in 1990 for less than the cost of most houses in the United States.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Horror Slasher Evolution: Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?”

Paige Francis He/him