Garry's Mod

Hoo boy, where to begin. Where indeed. There’s just so damn much to say about Garry’s Mod. Well… for starters, it’s not so much a video game as it is a physics engine that allows for an insane level of creativity on the part of its users. …Yeah, that’s the short version. I don’t think I can properly review this as a video game, as it really is more like a tool to create games… or to have fun putting items together and seeing how they interact. Unless the games made by its users count as the game itself. Anyway!

Developed by Facepunch Studios and published by Valve, Garry’s Mod was released on… November 29th, 2006. Almost 20 years ago. That makes it one of the oldest products in my Steam library. When this game came out, my French-speaking ass was still learning English in high school!

Everybody has to start somewhere. Me? I got myself
crushed by that tower. That's how I found out that we
still have HP during sandbox/construction...

Officially, this software was created by Garry Newman, a developer from Valve who worked on Half-Life 2. The original, titular mod was just that game with a few additions; but then this expanded into a full sandbox game comprising not only H-L2’s physics engine and assets, but also the assets of other games made with the Source engine. Notable ones include Left 4 Dead and Counter-Strike, as well as possibly the biggest name out of all of them, Team Fortress 2. The only requirement is that you own the other base games in your Steam library in order to access the assets.

If you ask me, the funniest thing about this article is that I took so long to get around to talking about Garry’s Mod that Facepunch Studios released a sequel in the meantime; S&box came out last April, roughly 19 and a half years after its predecessor. But let’s focus on Garry’s Mod, or as it is also known, GMod.

I could decorate a cozy home with this stuff.
Too bad this field isn't much of a house!

Full disclaimer here, I did play a few hours of this game in preparation for this article, but not dozens, so I obviously won’t have the experience of others who've spent hundreds of hours on it. Heck, this article will be less like a review and more of an informative thing. Though, it will have some of my impressions based on what I’ve tested. I wasn’t even sure whether I could cover this product correctly, it’s just a sandbox after all; as a result, expect this to be less about the game itself and more about what others have made from it. Honestly, I’m coming in so late to this that it’s probably the best I can do; celebrate how this program was used and how it left a mark in gaming history.

Exploring the Itch.io Collection #5

It’s been a while since I last did one of these! I figured I would do one to fill in while I make my way through larger games that take longer to finish.

Last month, I spent an entire week re-making the list of games in my collection over on itch.io, because I felt the original was incomplete and I wanted to make it feel right. The result? Well, instead of about 800, I actually have 1269 games to check out. That’s without counting the 80 I covered last year, or the other 26 I already had on Steam and which I have either already played or will play in the future, for a grand total of 1375 games. …I know, that’s a lot. And more than 500 of them don’t have recorded times on HowLongToBeat.

Most of today’s article was written last year. I added to it after every super-short game I played. A few of the ones covered here, though, have been played this past week. I can’t promise to cover 80 games like this once again in 2026, but any progress will be good. Especially with those revised numbers.

As stated in the Index, I have this page where anyone can see the games I have already tested on the platform. You can always go back to it to see how much progress I’ve made in that collection, or which games are coming up in the next article. I still include a link to every game I discuss here, since I am giving visibility to everything I cover in these articles, and you can go check out each one. Even if I didn’t like one of them, you can go check it out for yourself; maybe YOU will enjoy it!

Experiences

Can I at least get a glass of water to help that
block of brick and sand down?

The Indifferent Wonder of an Edible Place: In the fashion of taking a metaphorical image for a real issue and making it literal, in this game you are someone who eats buildings to make them disappear. This is accompanied, and inspired, by a poem from 1960, translated to English in 1983, about the historical erasure done by the state of Bombay. In the game itself, you are told to eat specific numbered pieces of a large tower. If you don’t eat the correct piece, your character gets poisoned and is incapacitated for a moment. You can use the scope with the right-click button to figure out where the next “correct” piece is. Either way, this is history you’re making disappear, with no way to get it back.

If you see a giant green eye under war trenches, I think you
may be suffering from something worse than PTSD.

Please follow: A walking simulator/horror/puzzle combo in which you play a lone soldier venturing into the tunnels dug by the enemies and find… something. Deeper into the tunnel, there are puzzles involving worms, giant leeches, and other supernatural stuff. This short exploration ends with a freaky acid trip. The game’s look is very “early 3D” of video games (think N64 or PS1), the sound design grossed me out the entire way through, and the visuals…. Jesus, that’s freaky. It’s horror alright.

Exploring the Itch.io Collection #4

I’m in-between big articles, so I figured I’d do one more of these in the meantime.

However, I must bring up something important first, while I’m at it. Earlier this year, online gaming platforms such as Steam and, yes, itch.io, faced a major problem. An organization known as Collective Shout wrote an open letter to all payment processors, lobbying them to act against online gaming platforms that housed video games containing heavy topics such as incest, rape or child abuse. Payment processors (PayPal, credit card companies, and so on) acted with a swiftness, threatening to pull their services from Steam and itch.io unless adult-only games with those themes were pulled or impossible to purchase from now on. A request that Steam and itch.io agreed to follow!

Okay, so let me start by saying that these topics are horrible things in the real world. Do I really need to state such an obvious? However, video games are a medium for fiction, and as such they, too, should be allowed to cover these topics, in the same way that movies, TV shows, music and novels have for decades. Imagine if, at the height of the popularirty of Game of Thrones, VISA or MasterCard decided, "Nope, some people don't like the stuff in there, therefore we won't let you buy that Blu-Ray set or subscribe to HBO!"

By the same metric, we can assume that people who purchase and play those games consent to experiencing these themes (bonus points if the game does come with a trigger warning just in case), and have enough of a head on their shoulders to understand that what’s going on in the game is NOT glorification of those themes. (If a video game seriously advocated for rape, incest, child abuse, whatever, you’d be able to tell, and such a game would be rightly called out for it.)

Tons of games were stricken down that had nothing pornographic about them, and were either portrayals of LGBTQ+ experiences and/or were autobiographical in content. Experiencing something difficult safely through the medium of fiction can mentally help those who have lived through similar things in the real world, with the barrier of fiction giving some distance. Use of these themes in fiction can also help others recognize when such situations are, in fact, happening in real life.

That payment processors suddenly get to decide what the average person can and can’t do with their own money is outrageous, ‘cause last I checked it wasn’t illegal to buy fiction. The response from the Internet has been to organize campaigns and mass-call the credit card companies and PayPal’s phone lines to tell them to reverse the decision. As far as I can tell, a first step was made by the platforms enacting their own rules to circumvent some of the payment processors’ new requests, and even today I don't think all the games are back for sale. Despite the Internet rersponse, don’t be fooled; if Collective Shout's ploy has worked once, even temporarily, it will be attempted again.

Call it what it is: It’s censorship. It may benefit a small group in the short term, but it will penalize everyone in the long term, and we can NOT let this slide. We must never forget that this happened. We must not let up in calling the payment processors who took part in this, and admonishing them for it. They do not have a right to block legal purchases, based solely on their content. Nor can we forget the gaming platforms that bowed. Slippery slope is a sophism, fair; but we must be prepared for the possibility that another group tries to make this happen once more. I did not address it until now because I just didn’t have the time to write about it at the height of the issue in July; I figured I’d use this article to talk about it in the intro, since the itch.io platform was affected in a significant manner due to its creative community being struck hard by that controversy. Anyway, in short: Prepare yourself, just in case this happens again, because it could.

Sorry about the downer starter. Anyway, here’s a bunch of games under 13 minutes long.

Experiences

Yeah, that thing ain't right.

ring ring: A mysterious phone found on the beach, which functions without electricity or a phone line. Calling any 4-digit number leads to odd discussions, but something’s off. Someone contacted, named George, tells you that everyone you’ve spoken to is trapped in the phone, and so your goal is to avoid getting taken as well (which is a Game Over) while looking for a way to defeat the evil spirit it contains within that's causing all this. This one’s simple, you use the rotary dial to make random calls, occasionally get proper phone numbers to call and further the plot. The only thing on the screen is that clay sculpture phone, so it’s minimalist yet does things very well. Be aware, there may be jump scares!

Quick Review: Dreams of Aether

First, Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, now this – more of these April Fools games, please!

Guess we've got to intrude into the dreams of others
to rescue them, and beat whatever nightmare this is!

Developed by Lepioid LLC, published by Aether Studios (which are behind the Rivals of Aether fighting game series, which expanded into a franchise), and released on April 1st, 2025, Dreams of Aether is an odd thing. Then again, for an April Fools title, this is to be expected, really. This entry focuses on standout Rivals character Absa the goat, who gets trapped in the land of dreams by some Eldritch entity. She is helped by some strange piñata creature, who reveals that other fighters are stuck in their dreams as well. The only way to leave from this story of a dubious degree of canon is to reunite everyone and fight the entity, with the piñata creature, Añi, joining in for the showdown!

Just one of fifty microgames!

Gameplay is WarioWare with a Rivals of Aether flavor. Series of seconds-long microgames that increase in speed and difficulty on each stage. Each of the main four stages introduces 10 microgames and one “boss” (just a longer microgame). Controls change for each vignette, but always involve either the arrows, the Z and/or the X keys. This, combined with the pixel art style, gives it a Game Boy Advance feel.

Featuring cameos of unofficial/fanmade Rivals characters!

Two at the same time? Oh, that might be ovewhelming.

The final stage, Añi's, adds another five microgames; but then, the game takes a hard turn into something I’ve never seen a microgames collection do. For the final boss, you must complete TWO minigames at the same time, on every round! You better be good at multitasking. The system is made so that microgame controls don’t mix up during that round (ex. You won’t have two games that require pressing, say, the Z key next to each other, so you won’t fail one while doing the other correctly). The final boss microgame is a music stage where Absa repeats Añi’s dance moves to the rhythm, all while also beating more microgames. It’s a kind of challenge I’ve never seen before! (It’s also a bit more lenient; you technically have eight lives for this one instead of four.)

A true peanut butter and chocolate situation, somebody put
WarioWare and Friday Night Funkin in my furry fighting
game. All at once.

It's so much fun to see these characters do stuff other than,
well, fighting each other endlessly.

In classic WarioWare-like fashion, you then unlock three bonus stages – one where all the microgames are mixed up, one where you start at max difficulty, and one that’s all about the dual microgame mechanic with complete randomness. You can play every microgame on its own; in that mode, you play the three difficulties of each microgame in sequence, then they repeat a little faster, up to 300% of the original speed. Finally, you can replay every stage and try to get three stars on each; you gain a star by beating the boss stage, thus up to the third difficulty.

Oh, these dual microgames get tough.

This isn’t just an April Fools, it’s a solid game. It takes every good thing about WarioWare-style gameplay and executes it perfectly, even throwing curveballs for those who are already fans of the "genre". It’s not as big as those games, with about 50 microgames instead of a hundred, and the story mode can be finished in under 30 minutes, both of which are acceptable for a quick and (originally) free game. There’s enough in terms of bonus challenges to extend one’s playthrough! As a tie-in to Rivals of Aether II, released in october 2024, this one feels like a clever promotional thing, sure, but also, it’s just a good game.

Dreams of Aether may no longer be free, but it's still got a decent low price of 2.99$ USD.

Exploring The Itch.io Collection #3

Even more of this! I promise, it's the last one this month. With this article, we've reached the games that can be finished in 10 minutes.

Experiences

Just kids becoming friends, regardless of species.

Summer Gems: Two young kids, one human girl and one frog, meet on the seaside beach. They share gifts, your character writes to the other, then receives the response. It’s cute, raises a good point about environmentalism, but stops at showing this budding, momentary friendship over three scenes.

Arigatou, Ningen-San!: In this game partly developed by USC Games (of WereCleaner fame), you just arrived in the neighborhood and are tasked by a bird to befriend all the local animals… by petting the Heck out of them with the mouse. No real goal past that, and the only funny thing to this one is how the animals get squished as you “pet” them.

Dawndusk Dream Sewer: In this isometric experience, your character is going down some dream sewers and speaking to the people trapped within. All the way down to some sort of chaotic deity. I didn’t feel much for the esoteric, absurdist discussions in there.

Miles of endless corridors, and not a single bathroom in sight.

Hotel Paradise: Look for your room in a seemingly endless hotel. There is no rhyme or reason as to where the rooms are located, so don’t try to figure it out with logic. Just keep walking through the halls until you finally spot your room number. Apparently, each number is completely personal, no other player will have it (though considering there’s a maximum of 999 rooms, I personally doubt that statement). Very basic gameplay, intriguing concept (and finding your room WILL take a while), but this game doesn’t offer a lot else.

No Wheels Racing: A parody game about a race where none of the cars have wheels. Pick a driver! Pick a car! (There’s only one.) Pick whether you want wheels (not available) or no wheels! Then, it’s off to the races, and all you can do is stay in place, honk, or press Escape to get disqualified! …Yeah, it’s just a quick joke, especially with the build-up to the “race” or how racers honk their horns louder the longer you wait. Silly thing.

And then, of course, judgment gets passed on what you've
made of Heaven based on which folks you've let through.

The Political Compass: Devil’s Labyrinth: A visual novel in which you’re the new hire who must choose whether to send souls to Heaven or to Hell… the latter, with EVISCERATION! The “practice souls” you get are all a bunch of exaggerated stereotypes: The crypto bro, the ultra-rich, the app developer, the reality TV watcher, y’know. Guess the game tries to be comedic, but I didn’t feel like it was particularly funny, and any commentary felt wasted.

for|rest: In this walking simulator, you visit a completely grey, lifeless forest. You can click the mouse button to wave your hand at transparent thorny vines to make them disappear, which causes colors, plants and fauna to reappear in the area. Sometimes, though, a girl may appear instead… can you hear her story? While I appreciate the concept, I think I missed out on the ending because at some point I could no longer find any vines to erase, and so I was seemingly stuck. It’s a good and meaningful idea presented in a very artistic (if low-poly) manner.

All things you can do with ropes and little spheres.
Hey, that's creative!

Il filo conduttore: Italian for “the common thread”. In this experience, all you can do involves strings and little balls. Activate things, make music, see what odd interactions happen. Every scene is something different. You could be excused for thinking most of this was done with live-action objects. Nice little thing, good for at least one playthrough.

Otherside: Is supposed to be a trippy, puzzle-based experience with psychedelic visuals (the page describes it as Myst meets the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey), but I tried playing it thrice and each time, I either got stuck because puzzles were unclear, or a new screen just failed to load (with no way to leave using, say, the Esc key). Ain’t trying it again, nope. Hard pass.

Not sure what this machine is supposed to be, but...
it's all very ominous.

please: A horror/environmental storytelling game in which you are the repairman in a building in an odd… place and setting, is the best I can say. You’re asked to “please” repair stuff downstairs, always machinery that's left unexplained. We never quite know what’s going on, but we do hear sounds by the doors, and we’re left wondering. The ending doesn’t help either, mking things even more ambiguous. Sound design’s great here, graphics are low-res 3D but work great for the desired effect. Recommended!

Conversations With My Anxiety: A visual novel in which the player is on their first date with a woman named Gina, and the date isn’t going entirely as planned; thus, the player’s anxiety butts in to make things more difficult, especially to weigh in on what’s going on. You always have the option to let anxiety win, but there are different bits of text to read depending on which option you select. Accurate depiction of living with anxiety. I bet there’s quite a few possible endings, too. Do check that one, I liked it.

I'm too honest, my response would be "it's a first date, of
course I am." But I'd still have hope the date goes well.

Self-care

Take your time - I know I'll need some time myself to
write down what I want to leave behind.

little boats of farewell: A point-and-click story in which a ghost participates in the ritual of leaving paper boats to float down the river at the end of the year with what the memories they want to leave behind. Along the way, you can talk to the others there, hear what they’re willingly forgetting on the dawn of the new year. You can even pick things off the ground to decorate your boat. At the end, once you’re ready to let your paper boat go, you’re encouraged to write down your own message. Feels therapeutic. For a 10-minute game, this touched me more than I thought it would.

Social reach

A HerpWitch and their weird little critter.
No matter which one it will end up being.

To Be A HerpWitch: A riff on Pokémon created for a Nonbinary Game Jam, you play a nonbinary character who dreams of becoming a HerpWitch, AKA a trainer of Familizards. They are first seen dreaming of the classic “boy or girl?” question from early Pokémon, choosing neither. They get ready for work, then head out. They weren’t set to get their own Familizard, but an unlikely twist of fate leads to them getting one regardless. It’s cute, and I get that it’s short because it was for a game jam, but it does leave one wishing there was more.

down.: Self-described as “a short, somber atmospheric experience about depression, anxiety and the inability to forgive oneself”, this game is just the character walking towards the right and finding notes from her own mind that belittle her and push her to suicide. …I get the point, dealing with those thoughts is rough, but there's almost nothing to gameplay, nothing to interact with, so it feels otherwise uninspired. Maybe don’t play that one if you’re already struggling on that front.

Misophonia is decreased tolerance to certain sounds or what
causes them, hence why the character is struggling to
get past someone blowing their nose.

Escort Yourself Out: An autobiographical game about suffering from eating disorders, anxiety attacks, misophonia, and other trauma-born issues, and learning to live with them. The author made this game for a university thesis, and most of the game is a discussion on her part about how these issues affect her day-to-day life and her studies. The more game-like portions are the author escorting her younger self across a busy store, and you hold down a key to offer comforting words to help her get through all these encounters.

Plain games

Beat that evil witch! You can do it! Good boys!
You're gonna get treats if you win!

Dogs Throwing Swords II: Three Barks To The Wind: A shmup with a clever concept. Three dogs are chosen to fight the witch that has corrupted the woods and the desert. Each dog has a type of attack, the three go through the stage as a group, and you can change their position with Left-shift or their order with Left-Ctrl. Each doggo has their own health, which depletes when they’re hit specifically. Two worlds of two levels each, and two boss fights. With its 16-bit look, this game is adorable. And fun, too! Makes me wish there was more of it.

Bunflower: A Game Boy Color-style game in which your player bunny must collect three pieces of food (namely, plants) before a blizzard hits. You obtain them by helping people around bunny town. It’s super easy, but neat and just the kind of game you could give a kid that’s starting their journey in gaming.

Well, I need food! Just watch me, I'll be back
before the storm. Promise!

Filing this one under "disappointments". Might have
enjoyed, if it didn't bazoo-krash constantly.

Bazookrash: ACAB, am I right? Morlando the bear wants to sleep, but the damn sirens in the distance keep him up. Time to grab the firearms and unleash Hell on the night noise. First-person shooter, aim for the pink cars, leave the civilian blue ones alone. You have a rifle, a gauss and a bazooka. Decent idea and concept, it could have been fun, but the damn thing kept crashing on me.

Stophat: You play as a rich jerk’s hat and must try to land on your owner’s head as many times as possible, though he will start moving to avoid you. A and D to move left and right, S to descend. As another quickly-made GameJam entry, this is as basic as it gets, but… yeah, feels rather meh.

It's got the basics, so there could be a larger game
in the same genre made by the same person someday.

Gigabit: In this 2.5D platformer made in 16 days for a Halloween game jam, you play as a little robot who has to get through six stages with Halloween theming. Each time the robot hits the floor or a wall, little debris come flying out. If you get stuck, hit R to restart the level. Move with A/D or the arrows, jump with W, Up or Space. While enjoyable, it does feel like someone’s first attempt at 2.5D platforming, as some platforms aren’t defined well and there are slight issues with lighting that make some threats hard to spot. But it’s a commendable product, especially if made in this short a timeframe.

INDECT: A platform game about a cyberpunk future. Or, rather, a demo for such a game, as it only contains a tutorial and two levels, the second of which already ramps up the difficulty. Your character can move with the arrows, jump with Space and shoot with alt. Not a lot to get immersed, though it looks promising. Notably, in the second level, new enemies appear when backtracking over a path that didn’t have them before. Unfortunately, the project is on hiatus.

Nigel: A game that homages Nigel the gannet, a real bird with quite the history. You play as Nigel, who becomes a matchmaker for the couples of animals on Mana Island, solving simple puzzles to make them meet. After solving all the puzzles, Nigel gets to pick a partner of his own... a concrete bird statue. Very easy to finish, but it’s the thought that counts.

Now, how to get the two kiwis together...
Kiwi! Kiwi, c'm'ere! There's another kiwi for you!

She's gonna have her step count through the roof
once this night is over.

Night in the Storm: Help Vera the lighthouse keeper seagull through the night in a very faulty lighthouse. Gotta keep the boats safe! Close the window so the bottom floor won’t flood and short-circuit the generator, change the lightbulb every time one burns out, and repair the engine that rotates the light when it also stops. It’s a stressful stormy night! This one is fun, and I thought it was a good thing that you could zoom out to see the whole place at once to keep track of what you must work on. Great-looking sprite art, too.

We're so devoted to the job, we'll even try selling to your dog!

This Call May Be Recorded: You’re a new telemarketer/scam caller annoying people over the phone. Gameplay is split in two parts. The first part has you click the “Stop” button and trying to land into the blue areas over a green bar. The more successful hits you get, the more annoying your pitch is to the person called. They respond with spite, and the second part has you blocking the words from your ears by clicking where they’re coming from: Up, down, left or right. Five callees, with an increasing difficulty level. The last one is GREAT. Loved that game.

A spider in the bathroom. Someone sampling the
wines for free. The homeless guy at the door.
Truly, even for monsters, retail is Hell.

Vampire Night Shift: Designed to also work on Game Boy emulators. You play a vampire who works a night shift at a store. Help the rude customers, stock the shelves, and deal with other supernatural events. Your boss tells you early on to do everything to avoid getting fired, but that never comes up again, as far as I know – though I do suspect some events can happen differently based on your actions. Fun one, I liked it. I love the GB aesthetic, it’s cozy nostalgia.

Akuto: Showdown (formerly, Akuto: Mad World): An isometric multiplayer game (with extra options for single player) where your character must kill every other character in the arena. You can move in eight directions, throw your sword at opponents and NPC enemies alike, try to kill more than you get killed. There seems to be a whole bunch of different environments to fight in, and hazards to encounter, but I lost interest real fast when the NPC and hazards turned out too good against the player.

There's chonk, then there's C H O N K.

Fat Bear Week: A bear awakens for the yearly bingeing before going back to sleep. The bear starts off normal, but after eating enough it’ll turn round and roll around the stage to eat, then keep growing as it eats more. Each stage has a special flower hidden in it, and keeps track of how many of each kind of edible item you caught. There are five bears available, the last of which is unlocked only by eating everything in each of the three stages. This is harmless and easy enough, and I could see this as a quick game for younger kids.

Laser Paddles: Pong, with powerups and lasers! And by lasers, I mean it; the CPU paddle is programmed to shoot as soon as it can, tearing holes into yours. There are lots of powerups on the screen, and those cause balls to bounce around the screen with various effects. There are multiple balls, but all that matters is which side the last ball gets through. Tons of modes that switch up gameplay, possibility for multiplayer, etc. It’s not my cup of tea, but it’s exactly what it set out to do, so it’s fine.

This game gets hard fast, AND both the bounce mechanics
and hitboxes are kinda wonky. Nothing to help our pumpkin...

Pumpking: A platformer in which you control a pumpkin along a lengthy continuous stage still split into levels for simplicity. Stomp on opponents, or jump even higher by bouncing on their heads; collect coins, extra hearts, and later down the line, look for keys to unlock the path going down. Nothing too groundbreaking, just a decent quick thing with a Halloween theme. Though I did think the bouncing ability was hit or miss, and that some sections were a little cheap here and there.

And... that's all for now! Might not seem like much, but over three articles, I covered exactly 80 games. Proper long reviews will be coming up soon!

Super Mario Odyssey (Part 3)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

Time to end this!

Land on the Moon

... ...I'm speechless. It's beautiful.

Mario and Cappy, with the Odyssey at full power, depart for the moon, with Cappy dressing Mario up in a white tux. The final showdown at Honeylune Ridge, Moon Kingdom. For a land up there, it’s got a lot of activity. Including a giant chapel in the distance. Low gravity, allowing Mario to make huge jumps around. The planet, giant and visible from this spot, truly magnificent. Makes one feel minuscule in the universe.

If you fall in the lava, might as well kiss that health
goodbye, you won't jump high enough to return to safe land.

There’s plenty of Power Moons to be found here as well, but it’s not exactly the focus now, is it? We have a nonconsensual wedding to crash. To get to the chapel, Mario passes by an underground cave… actually a long stretch of platforming over lava, with enemies to take over. That section felt more like a “Bowser’s Castle” area than Bowser’s actual castle! And it’s a tough part, too. I remember a portion where I had to capture a Chargin’ Chuck and run through on a tight stretch of platform. The underground ends with a rematch against Madame Broode.

Looks warm and welcoming. And yet, ominous.

Kind of incredible that for the wedding, Bowser even
bothered to get his messy red hair combed.

This leads us to the plateau, and into the Chapel where we find Bowser and Peach alongside a whole crowd of people seemingly kidnapped to attend. Even the audience is non-consenting! Bowser, you gotta learn to accept a “No”. What kind of example are you setting for Jr.? No means no! At the sight of his forever enemy, the dragon isn’t happy. A trapdoor opens and the plumber falls to an arena under the chapel. Final boss! This fight is very similar to the one in Cloud Kingdom; same gimmicks, stealing Bowser’s top hat and punching him repeatedly with it to send him flying into electrified barriers. Bowser’s pattern is a lot trickier than before, but aside from that? Yeah, pretty much the same fight. It’s kinda disappointing, really.

Super Mario Odyssey (Part 2)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

Gonna run through several kingdoms in one go.

Lands of Themes

Put a coat on that man, he's freezing!

From the Cascade Kingdom, Mario and Cappy travel to the Sand Kingdom, the location of Tostarena, inhabited by Dia de Los Muertos-style skeleton people. And yet, the first thing the heroes do upon landing… is shiver. The desert is overtaken by ice. Well, that’s a new twist on an idea! We’ve seen plenty of video game worlds that were a mix of lava and ice, rarely one where part of the plot involves one taking over the other – and generally, it’d be the opposite, like fire burning a frozen land. Several worlds in Super Mario Odyssey play on the concept of contrast, and as a result many have two coexisting themes, which is more interesting than just having classic video game world themes to walk around in. (Not the first game to do this, but those are rare. The only other example I can think, off the top of my head, is Rayman Origins.)

2D or not 2D, that is the question!

The fancy bunny gal with the explosive temper. (Fun fact: I
added images to this article right on Easter day. So I'm only
a day late with all the bunnies!)

We investigate, going past the  town and into the ruins, where we find one Power Moon; this opens the way towards a floating island, in which we’re introduced to another concept: Collecting five Moon Shards to obtain a full Moon. That, in turn, opens the way to an inverted pyramid, with the Broodals’ ship hovering around its top. The bunnies up there boast that Bowser has stolen this land’s most prized treasure, the Binding Band, to put on Peach’s finger during their nonconsensual wedding. One of them, Hariet, comes down and fights Mario with an arsenal of explosives. Nothing we haven’t seen before. Following that, the inverted pyramid rises in the air, and Mario descends into the new chasm to fight this land’s deity, Knucklotec, protector of the ring and the true reason why the desert has frozen over.

When the occasion arises, Mario doesn't turn down a good ol'
mano a mano combat.

Super Mario Odyssey (Part 1)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

Covering another Mario title here almost feels like an event. I’ve always been a huge fan of the Mario franchise. I didn’t get my Switch until 2023, so for six years I witnessed, from a distance, the new evolution of Mario’s adventures, now taking on a more semi-open world feel thanks to its latest outing. Of course, as soon as I got the console, Super Mario Odyssey was on the must-buy list alongside other major titles from Nintendo.

This new entry, released on October 27th, 2017, was Mario’s latest proper 3D adventure since the Galaxy duology, so it was interesting to see which direction the franchise would take this time. Well, it didn’t disappoint. There isn’t a ton I can say for an intro, I just want to jump right into it. Jump up, super star!

Land of Hats

There probably wasn't an adventure, we're still in the
Mushroom Kingdom.
(P.S. I am using ZebraGamer's playthrough for the
screenshots. Go check it out!

If there’s an adventure before this one, we don’t get to see it; all we know is that Princess Peach was captured by Bowser. Dude just can’t get the hint that she isn’t into him. This time, he’s wearing proper wedding attire; goes to show how serious he is, even as he battles Mario. A quick boomerang toss of his top hat, and Bowser sends Mario’s cap flying, then tosses his forever enemy overboard. All Princess Peach can do is watch and yell out to her hero, while her crown… jumps on her head? With eyes? A propeller shreds the red cap to bits, but it is picked up by a strange top hat ghost.

Cappy, Mario survived the literal death and rebirth of the
universe. He'll be back on his feet in no time!

When Mario comes to, he is being awoken by the same ghost, and he has landed in a world with very little color. Aside from the giant moon in the background. Do I hear a skeleton sing? The ghost flies off with the piece of cap, but Mario catches up to him. Poor little guy, he looks so sad. We learn that this is the Cap Kingdom, inhabited by his kind, the Bonneters; they just got attacked by Bowser. This little guy, Cappy, is in distress, as his sister was kidnapped by the monster; she's the crown on Peach’s head.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game - Complete Edition

Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series is one most people know of, though not everyone may know about its finer details. It’s fair to call it a franchise, too; six graphic novels originally released from 2004 to 2010, an animated short, a movie (which I reviewed), and an anime series released on Netflix (which I haven’t seen). It’s got enough of a following to get revived every couple years in some way, shape or form. Every iteration tells the story in a slightly different manner.

Alongside the movie came an associated beat’em-up video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and released to the PlayStation Network on August 10th, 2010 in North America and the next day in PAL regions, then to Xbox Live Arcade two weeks later. While the game is well-known, its claim to fame – or, should I say, to infamy – was its delisting from both digital platforms on December 30th, 2014 due to the license expiring at Universal. Thus, despite its association to a popular franchise, the beat’em-up could not be played at all, and would remain in that state for several years.

…until time came to celebrate the movie’s tenth anniversary in 2020, and efforts were made from both O’Malley and the film’s director Edgar Wright to rescue the game from purgatory, while we’re at it. Talks with Ubisoft led to interest, and so in September that year Ubisoft announced a remaster for release to several more digital platforms (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC, Xbox One and Stadia – lol, that last one is dead already). Even better, a deal was made with Limited Run Games, which specializes in creating and distributing physical formats of games, usually indie and/or only available digitally. The remaster, both on digital and physical formats, was released in January 2021.

I found the Nintendo Switch physical edition at a convention and practically threw my cash at the seller. I knew of this game’s tumultuous history, and I wanted to own a copy. Alongside the cartridge came a free shiny trading card, an alternate box art, an old-school SNES-style instruction booklet small enough to fit in the box, and a “concert ticket” for The Clash at Demonhead with opening act Sex Bob-Omb at Leo’s Place. Feelies, we have feelies, there’s something so nice about those.

Now that this is all out of the way, I can talk about the game!

Brawl Across Toronto

"Hey, are you a 1-Up? 'cause you give me a new life."
Note: Playthroughs I'using for screenshots can be seen
here, here and here.