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rollerdrome and ghost in the shell (1995) rollerdrome is a very one of a kind game, something that comes along and does something so unique and cool that it feels like it's almost making its own genre. It's a real rarity in the modern games space. it's short, fun, genuinely thrilling and it has a sense of style all its own and it's one of the best action games of the generation, easily. It could even be argued to be one of the best shooters ever made, at least from a gameplay standpoint. so rollerdrome's gameplay is the main reason to play it, it's basically a mix of an extreme sports game like tony hawk, jet set radio or aggressive inline mixed with max payne or wet, which is on the face of it, a cool enough sounding mix that it will make a lot of people impulse purchase on the spot. for me it certainly seemed interesting and it looked like a wildly good time, but my own mixed feelings on the extreme sports genre held me back from committing. that and a digital only release. I am happy to say though that when I did eventually try it by mooching off of a PS plus sub, it really did well to become a total favorite and make me actually sold on the genre. so it's an extreme sports game with guns, something like a third person shooter character action game ala max payne or wet and it's a damn good one. it's got the slowdown and the speed and the jumping but it adds its own spins on it. the extreme sports aspect ads a lot, with goals akin to tony hawk that you need to finish to unlock new levels, combos that act like a style meter and moves like rail grinds and tricks you can do to earn back ammo, which is a great way of doing ammo i have to say. the new doom games could really learn a thing or two from this since it doesn't interrupt the flow of the game. you have 4 guns too, which isn't a huge roster but each one is really useful and you'll be switching them out a lot, i find. the grenade launcher is good for crowds and the big mechs, the pistols are great for the snipers and small grunts, the shotgun is great for the shield guys and the mechs too and the rail gun is great for the long range guys. it kills the missile shooters in one hit and it's the best for the teleporting enemies (tip: if you shoot a charged rail shot at those enemies and shoot a few pistol rounds after it's more or less a guaranteed kill before they're able to teleport) and it's so fun to switch them on the fly and rack up some seriously stylish combos. it's the kind of game where it's very easy to look very cool while playing it, even in the tougher levels. the game just feels so good to play and there is nothing like it, going from tricks to rail grinds, flying over enemies and killing them while in slow motion, pulling those last second dodges to get bonus ammo (you have a dodge that instantly negates ranged attacks and it is the most satisfying dodge mechanic I've ever seen). it's a total one of a kind experience, especially if you bring your own custom soundtrack to it. another part i really like is how it handles its world, it's one of the more impressive current gen games I've played because of this. the game takes place over two worlds, the normal one inside of the mansion and a dreamlike otherworld that goes to many different locations. the cool thing is how the transitions between these worlds happen. it's instant and always out of nowhere. usually there isn't even a cutscene or a load screen, you're just in the mansion in one second and in some nightmare the other. it makes them all the scarier and it means that even in the safe zones you never feel quite as at ease as you otherwise would be. it makes it so every saferoom is still a threat and i love that. it's also just really impressive, it's one of the first times I've ever played a ps5 game and had it feel truly next gen. it's that impressive. this is helped by just how varied the dream sections really are: swamps, world war trenches, overrun boats and bridges, ancient tombs and graveyards and even the New Orleans streets. it gives what would otherwise be a fairly small scale game this grand globetrotting adventure energy and i love it. it fits the game’s pulpier vibe so well and all of these locations are a treat to explore and many even have their own gimmicks, like a pursuer enemy (who forces you to commit suicide if you try and attack him which is really cool and a fun shock if you fall for it), power switch hunts or light puzzles. the mansion itself is something special too. it's huge and detailed and super varied with the kinds of places you can explore. i especially loved the gardens, greenhouses and the large abandoned wing of the building. it's a game that sounds good too. Its very jazzy at times and i like the song that plays during the NG+ intro a lot and the credits theme is great. it reminds me a lot of some of the silent hill vocal tracks. its weird how it's the composer's (Árni Bergur Zoëga) first game. they did a great job on it as for the structure, i didn't like it much. the challenges being mandatory was super unfun and i really didn't enjoy doing them. while i did beat the game with them, i turned them off for the postgame campaign. i just did not like how it made the game play when you had to focus on these. i think the game works better when you can go all out and be as expressive as you want with how you play the game, less like a tony hawk and more like a devil may cry game. there's a postgame too with an entire second campaign thrown in there, there's no story and it's all reused levels but it really cranks everything into overdrive and ends up being the more fun of the two campaigns. there's less challenges but the thing with it is they're *much* harder with higher damage, harder enemies, all weapons unlocked and all enemy types spawning in all levels. it's a brutal challenge and while it's one i whole heartedly recommend, do so knowing this will be be tough. though for whatever it means i did manage to beat it and I’m not the most skilled at games (though i did use the assist to unlock all levels without doing the challenges). without it the game is about 5 or so hours long, but this mode can easily double or triple that and make it about 15, which i think is a perfect length for the game, breezy if you don't want to go too in depth, but giving a lot more to people who do want to go all in, same with the assists. the game has a ton of help for those who need it to make it a lot more manageable, but the movement and damage i think do make this a difficult game on the default settings, especially with all the challenges, which I have to admit i did not enjoy doing. the games storyline is very much not the main focus, but it's also not bad. you get a few first person exploratory bits inbetween some levels and a few letters to read but its very much just a background detail. it's cool to see it progress though and it's tale of authoritarianism in the UK is one that's became shockingly relevant over the last few years, though again it's mostly background stuff. there's no cutscenes or anything. the style is good though. it's got a very cel-shaded comic-y style, similar to mobius's work, and it looks really good. the environments and characters especially but I also love how explosions look. it's a beautiful game. the levels too! there isn't a huge variety: deserts, stadiums, malls and snowy resorts—the latter two are my personal favorites. they repeat a few times but it's fine since it's a very short game and the levels are pretty and very well designed. the music i was a lot less into. the darker synthy tone fit the game’s story well but i found it just kind of didn't work for me as a score to the action, though that may very well be intentional and i did like how reminiscent it could be at times a little like a ZX spectrum sound. it's cool how the game’s second campaign gives it a bunch of remixes, too. for me the music was i think what held me back from really getting the game. it felt too low energy for what the game was going for mechanically and the moment it clicked for me was when i switched it out for some J-pop (mainly some kimura yuki and tommyfebuary 6), some Eurobeat and K-pop (a ton of KARA and girls generation). carameldansen got me through a few stages, too. it just got me so into the mood and turned a fun enough game into an all timer. I had a blast once i started it and I’d happily do it again. give it a try with some of those music choices if you struggle getting into the game as is! the sad thing is that the game never really got much of a chance to really thrive. despite how unique and good it is, the game was digital only and never had a physical, though i do hope this changes. it's devs got shut down and lost the rights to the game. the game was even delisted for a time. because this industry is fucked, even a small game with a small budget doing solidly enough isn't enough. no one is safe from the corporate reaper, even though roll7, who also did the amazing olioli games which i played a *ton* of on vita, made successful and critically acclaimed games. But none of it is ever enough. it shows us just how badly things are fucked in this industry. It's something that mirrors the game’s story perfectly in its own weird way. to complement one flavor of dystopia i also want to cover another piece of near future media, ghost in the shell. it's already well walked ground but i did see this in the cinema earlier in the year and it's been on my list to write about for a while, especially since i really want to work my way up to playing through some of those games (especially the PS2 game by cavia and the PSP FPS game). admittedly the theater experience was a little lacking this time. while I've never had a strictly *bad* time at my local indie cinema, bar watching lost highway which i *really* hated, they're good about keeping a crowd quiet and off their phones and the kind of audience that goes there tends to be a lot nicer and more respectful of others, but this time wasn't like that. it as an anime audience in the more derogatory sense of the word. it's something I’ll talk more about in a future page on the demon slayer: infinity castle movie but anime audiences can for sure attract a specific kind of person who thinks they're the funniest fucker in the room and treats the place like their own RiffTrax screening for them and their friends and they always burst out laughing at super inappropriate stuff and make just the most disgusting comments. this time they happened to be right behind me and one of them fucking reeked. the guy was eventually asked to shut up and ended up leaving shortly after (i assume, rightfully, from embarrassment), but it did put a real stain on the showing. the movie itself is great, it's a beautiful movie and seeing it on an actual cinema screen was seriously nice and made what was already a very well realized world shine just that little bit more. the amazing soundtrack by kenji kawai on cinema speakers was a hell of a thing. it's the kind of experience it was made for and it's a shame it took me this long to really see it since before now the movie never clicked with me as much as I’d have liked it to. it's a very small scale movie, despite everything it goes for. it's not overly long and it doesn't do more than it really needs to and for years for me this always felt weirdly disappointing after how it was hyped up for me; that it wasn't this big grand thing but instead a smaller, more tone focused movie. nowadays though i am *all* over that and i can appreciate what it's doing a lot more, especially the themes of feeling hollow and lacking identity. It resonates in a big way as someone with borderline personality disorder. it's a real spectacle, too. the animation is constantly impressive during the action. the character design is fantastic with batou and the major especially and the environments are always full of cool details. it's easy to see why the movie was as influential as it was, from both its style and it's story and it makes me wonder why it never clicked with me considering how much of what it does is stuff that i now love. i love slower paced movies, i love it's style of writing and scifi with a focus on philosophy and i love classic Japanese animation. this kind of near future cyberpunk setting is among my favorites. it'd be easier for me to write it off as me being a dumb kid but at the time i was into stuff like this. i loved the zero escape games for example, which have some similarities in writing and pace. i think it was just the hype surrounding it. i was expecting something much bigger and more epic than what was really given to me, it was a sense of false expectations tossed onto me by people who mostly relied on memories of it from a viewing decades before. it's a real cautionary tail for me to not get caught up too much in other peoples opinions on something and to go into a piece of art like this on its own merits and based on what i want to see. i think if i had have went into it like that it would have likely been a total favorite of mine, so don't be like me. go watch it and make up your own mind, don't let me set those expectations for you.