Sucker for Love: First Date Review

Sucker for Love started life as one of a collection of games from publisher Dread X; a dating sim where you summon an eldritch outer god with the intent of smooching her, humanity and the universe be damned. I found out about it because I follow Autumn Ivy on twitter, and while it looked good, I never got around to playing it. Then developer Akabaka revealed that a longer version with additional outer gods was going to be sold on steam; Sucker for Love: First Date, so I gave it a look.

Your character is unnamed, but the gods in the game call him Darling, Dearest and Dog respectively, and he has a necklace with a D on it, so I’m going to call him DD. DD summons a cute, female and more humanoid version of Cthulhu called Ln’eta for the purpose of smooching her, something she’s amenable to but stresses that now she’s awake, reality will soon come to a violent, horrific end. Not in a malicious way; the outer gods all dream our existence into being, and it’s time for her to wake up. We are all doomed though, so I hope that smooch is worth it. In order to win her heart you have to perform a number of spells that create the necessary conditions for her to end it all, ones that do a real number on DD’s physical and mental health. While this is a dating sim with a sense of humour, there’s a strong horror vein to it, and this first chapter where you begin to rip reality apart and doom us all to a horrible, unspeakable death at the hands of eldritch monsters at the cost of your body and mind is surprisingly unnerving and panic inducing at times.

If you somehow manage to survive the first chapter you unlock my favourite part of the game: performing The King in Yellow play in order to smooch the King herself. I love The King in Yellow: her being involved was a major reason in my buying this game, and I was not disappointed. Chapter 2 is your classic “Oh no, two girls like me and I can’t let either of them meet!” situation but with unspeakable evil from beyond the stars, with all the shenanigans that entails (following a certain path makes you tear your face off to prevent one girl from finding out about the other). Estir, as she’s called here instead of Hastur, is a fantastic depiction of the King in Yellow; you get to perform the play with her to give over control of reality to her, and her character is, by her own admission, a physical representation of entropy; inserting herself into locations and groups to tear them down from the inside. It fits really well with the original collection of short stories having The King in Yellow book and its contents be some weird menace that drives people to madness and is linked to bizarre, tragic events. Ln’eta is also really sweet in this chapter, to the point where upsetting her genuinely made me feel bad. I never knew Cthulhu could be such a caring, loving sweetheart but here we are. Both characters are well written and voice acted, and the game has a lovely classic anime art style that adds to the lighter aspects and contrasts the horror elements well.

Finally, we have Nyarlathotep; The Crawling Chaos, messenger of the outer gods and right hand man of blind idiot god and creator of all that is, Azathoth. Here he’s reimagined as a tall, flirty cat lady called Nyanlathoptep; The Clawing Chaos, or as she prefers, Auntie Nyan Nyan. I consider this section to be quite spoilery, so if you’re bothered about that kind of thing, skip to the next paragraph. Nyan’s section is where things jump into a completely different gear; she turns up to put a stop to all this dating her nieces nonsense, and has you sever humanity’s connection to the outer gods for good. In exchange for a smooch, natch. However, should you reject her proposal the game throws you into a sort of turbo powered version of Henry’s apartment from Silent Hill 4: a multitude of curses appear one after the other at random, and you must check a spell book to find the specific counteractions to deal with them. Things like your flesh turning porous, a variety of unstoppable but avoidable malevolent beings, voices and writing on the wall (written in chiller font, my eternal nemesis) trying to trick you; it’s great. Successfully weathering the gauntlet leads to a beautiful thesis statement for the game and summation of DD’s character: the outer gods use fear to keep humans in line and stop them discovering too much, lest they bring about their own destruction. Through pure lust DD is completely unafraid. Unafraid, and sprinting at the outer gods at full speed with lips puckered and arms outstretched. His desire for smooches is too powerful. HE is too powerful.

I love Sucker for Love. Its interpretations of beloved eldritch gods is fun and endearing whilst staying true to their horror roots. Its mixture of comedy, genuinely sweet moments and unnerving, grim horror is excellent. It’s well-written, well-acted, and I got to perform The King in Yellow with the King herself. It’s smart, it’s funny and honestly it’s one of the best adaptations of Lovecraft’s work I’ve ever played. Certainly kicks the shit out of that official Call of Cthulhu game from a few years ago. If you’re into cosmic horror regardless of whether you’ve read the original stories or not, like dating sims that do something a bit different or enjoy unconventional horror stories, this is definitely one to check out. Akabaka’s announced a sequel called Second Date where you play as a woman, and I can’t wait.

By James Lambert
@jameslambert18

Halo Infinite Review

I nearly played and reviewed this in December, when it came out, but I elected instead to play through the Master Chief collection first instead. Halo is something I’ve struggled to get into in the past, but I thought I’d give it one last go. Turns out I actually really like it, I just had to get past the original game. Having voraciously consumed all five Master Chief games as well as ODST and Reach, and enjoyed them all, I moved on to Infinite filled with anticipation. I kind of wish I had reviewed it last year, because it would have had a real shot at my game of the year list.

So this is a direct sequel to Halo 5, but things about that game’s ending aren’t a factor here for reasons that only become apparent at the end of this game, so I can’t really talk about them without spoiling things. What I can say is that a new group of Covenant aliens, rallied under Brute leadership and calling themselves The Banished attack the UNSC Infinity, a Brute called Atriox throws Master Chief into space, and the ship is subsequently blown up. John floats around in space for a while until he’s found by a pilot, callsign Echo-216, who brings him on board his pelican and revives him. After a fantastic opening where Chief shakes off the rust by boarding and scuttling a nearby Banished ship and acquiring a new A.I named “The Weapon”, the three of them arrive on Zeta Halo; currently broken but in possession of the Banished, having crushed the UNSC’s efforts to stop them. It’s an open world; filled with forward operating bases to take, captured or pinned down groups of marines to rescue and high value targets to assassinate. Doing so earns you weapons, vehicles and increasingly well armed and armoured allies, available at captured bases. The head of the Banished is a Brute named Escharum; a grizzled, battle-worn leader who views Master Chief’s presence not as a nuisance but as a chance at one last, great battle before he bows out. While still stoic, it’s clear that constantly having to save humanity and everything that happened with Cortana have worn John down. At one point, when The Weapon remarks that she doesn’t know how he keeps going, he grimly replies that it’s all he knows. Later, when she asks if he’s okay, he straight up says “No, not really”. It’s not the deepest emotional story a videogame character’s ever had, but it’s still impactful. Chief having to keep it together for a panicky, exhausted Echo-216 who just wants to bin off saving the day and get the hell out of there, and be emotionally accommodating to the chipper, friendly Weapon is a good idea; he’s the only experienced person on the team for once. His relationship with The Weapon is particularly strong; it’s a cheery young lady and her stern Dad, cutting about battering aliens together. Escharum is a good villain, too, and his partner in all this business, the Harbinger, introduces a new race put down by the Forerunners; The Endless, who will presumably play a part in future games. The only weak link is Jega ‘Rdomnai; a cool looking Elite with two red energy swords, hyped up over the game as a Spartan killer you’ll have a dramatic showdown with. He went down in seconds. Overall though, the campaign’s really solid; personally I think it’s easily the best of the 343 ones, and I’d put it alongside 2 and 3, which are my favourites overall.

Gameplay wise, it’s the best the series has been since Halo 3. It takes what Halo does best- fights in wide open spaces- and runs with it. While the game does have its fair share of indoor fights, the open world makes the most of engaging in outdoor combat. The forerunner enemies and weapons are gone, replaced with new electricity based guns and new human weapons, and the shooting is just as good as it’s ever been. You have access to a grappling hook that makes getting around said open world intuitive, as well as letting you pull weapons and throwable explosive barrels into your hands, pull yourself towards enemies and hijack vehicles. You also have other new equipment mapped to the same button, but I never really bothered with any of them; a beacon that highlights enemies, a deployable shield and the jet pack dodge thing from Halo 5. Switching between them doesn’t fit into the flow of gameplay very well at all; equipment and grenades are selected by pressing left (for grenades) or right (for equipment) on the D-Pad, then pressing one of four directions to select what you want. It’s fiddly and I never bothered with it; it’s the kind of thing crying out for a weapon wheel. The Banished are all talkative and have a lot of personality, particularly the Grunts, who have become self aware over the years. They alternate between misplaced bravado and yelling things like “I’ll find you, then I’ll run away!” Elites will prepare for an honourable, dramatic duel then yell out in frustration when you grapple over to them and punch them in the face, and if you commandeer a vehicle, they and the Brutes will be aghast at you touching Banished steel with your filthy Spartan hands. It might be distracting depending on whether you like the enemies in Halo to speak or prefer the approach taken in 1 and 4, but I really like it. I also like the propaganda towers dotted around the map through which a Grunt tells any marines that might be listening how badly everything’s gone for them, and that the Master Chief is totally dead you guys.

Halo Infinite is superb. It uses the open world well, the combat is as good as it’s ever been and the story is really solid, with a great supporting cast, villain and some nice emotional moments for Master Chief. It grabbed me immediately and had me hooked until the end, and I’m looking forward to the next one, however far away it may be.

By James Lambert
@jameslambert18

Game of the Year 2021

Even by the standards of long years filled with bullshit, 2021 seemed unnecessarily drawn out. One of the games on this list came out in January and that feels like a whole lifetime ago. I suppose it would be for someone who was born on its release date and died the day I wrote this. Anyway, I didn’t do anything to ring in the new year this time around because I didn’t care, I was content to just drink a lot and read Komi Can’t Communicate. I am, however, still fully into the idea of naming five games of the year and two honourable mentions. Let’s get into it.


Honourable mentions:

1: Doki Doki Literature Club Plus
When I played through the original version of DDLC on PC, I never wanted to play it again. It was excellent, but so harrowing and upsetting in ways targeted specifically at people with the three mental illnesses I have that it left a mark on me I felt could never be removed. Of course, when they announced a PS4 port with additional content, I knew that I was going back in. It was inevitable. Fortunately the new content, which is what landed it on this list, is all just really wholesome, positive stuff about the girls as regular, non-meta characters trying their best to run the literature club. The protagonist never joins, it’s just the girls making friends, navigating each other’s mental illnesses as best they can, and coming out the other side stronger and closer. I had to play through the still traumatising main game several times to get it, but it was worth it to see characters I’m attached to get a much happier ending, without some cruel manipulator forcing them through their own personal hells.

2. Corpse Party Blood Covered: Repeated Fear
Corpse Party was a game I’d been interested before due to its USP of unflinchingly violent, horrifying written descriptions of brutal violence. I nearly bought the PSP version on Vita, but fortunately didn’t because they ported it to PS4 with some additional content. The additional content wasn’t anything special, but the game itself was great; a retro-style 2D RPG with sprite graphics that made the most out of sound effects, superb voice acting, music and the lack thereof and of course the written descriptions to create a strong horror game.

5: HITMAN 3

This is the game that came out in January, and it started the year off with a bang. The final entry in the World of Assassination trilogy was a Blood Money-esque look at a vulnerable, hunted Agent 47 that gave a sense of bittersweet finality to this series as well as Hitman as a whole. Barring the linear finale every level was superb, the tone was dark and grim in the style of Hitman Contracts, and the story was implemented well; influencing gameplay directly without getting in the way. HITMAN as a trilogy was fantastic, and this was a superb final act.


4: No More Heroes 3

2021 was the year Travis Touchdown finally got a new full-fat sequel, and it did not disappoint. The set up of alien invaders coming to conquer Earth, led by a petulant brat who fancies himself a “Goddamn Superhero” was a great one. The combat was streamlined but lost none of the impact or satisfaction, and the irreverent tone and strong sense of style the series is known for was as good as it’s ever been. Apparently despite the blatant sequel hook this is the last No More Heroes game. If that’s true it’s a shame, but if it is, then this one hell of a way for Travis to bow out; a great action game, a great sequel, and one of the coolest games I played all year. KILL!


3: Lost Judgment

Another year, another great game from Ryu Ga Gotoku studio. P.I spin-off Judgment was good, this is great; this is the one that showed just how confident RGG is with this series in particular. Its intense, dark story exploring bullying, the different degrees to which people are complicit and the nature of taking the law into one’s own hands to seek justice where the system has failed was excellent. The main side content this time around was long enough to be its own game but held my attention throughout; an investigation in a high school alongside a cute, smart, mystery-loving student and involving going undercover in various clubs, ending in a big blow-out finale. The main story’s finale involved certainly one of, if not the very best final boss in a RGG game; a battle between the letter and spirit of the law; two people who seek justice in different ways, unable to settle those ways with anything other than a climactic fist fight. Said boss’ wail of anguish before charging headlong at you, and breaking down in tears when they realise it’s all over and the one thing they wanted to avoid at all costs will come to pass, are fantastic. Superb.

2: Disco Elysium The Final Cut

Disco Elysium is the best RPG I’ve ever played. Having your skills tied into different aspects of your character’s mind, and having those aspects A) chime in and offer their opinion on the situation and B) be able to get things wrong, are all strokes of genius. The story of a detective who drinks so much he obliterates his memory and has to piece things together while dealing with a murder during tensions between striking dockworkers and pissed up, monstrous mercenaries in a town that has no time for a police force that can’t be arsed with it is fantastic. It’s depressing, funny, beautifully written and poignant. You shape Lieutenant Double-Yefreitor Harrier Du Bois’ beliefs, dialogue and approach to every situation but regardless of what you pick he still feels like an established character with real presence in the world he inhabits. It is an experience unlike any other I’ve ever had, and I adore it. But there is one game I enjoyed more.


1: Resident Evil Village

My game of the year is Resident Evil Village. I did give serious consideration to making Disco Elysium my GOTY, but Resi struck a real chord with me that I can’t ignore. Capcom have gone from strength to strength recently and this was no exception; a rollercoaster through multiple different genres of horror all executed beautifully, tied together with a gorgeous snowy village setting filled to the brim with wolfmen. The intense, action-focused combat, exploration and treasure all maid a return from Resident Evil 4, making it feel like something of a spiritual successor whilst simultaneously feeling like its own unique thing. It made Ethan into more of a character, had some cracking villains including, of course, the iconic and beloved Tall Vampire Lady, and unlike its predecessor it was good throughout. It also had genuinely one of the scariest and most unpleasant sections I’ve ever played in a videogame and I cannot praise it enough. It’s a great horror game, a great Resident Evil game, and one of the best games to come out of Capcom’s now years-long hot streak. It was everything I wanted, I loved it from start to finish and it’s my game of the year 2021.

So that’s another year down, I’m sorry I didn’t get to NieR in the end but I got caught up in other things. This year I’m looking forward to Sifu, KOF XV, God of War Ragnarok, the Getsu Fuma Den remake and while I’m not at all hype for it I imagine I’ll have a good time with Elden Ring. Not sure what game will be the first review of the year (I’ve got my eye on Sucker For Love) but the next pieces of writing will be another Komi episode, and the start of my in for the long haul on JoJo Part 6. See you then.

By James Lambert
@jameslambert18