Creamy Buttons

As an impulsive grocery shopper, I have accumulated somewhat of a chocolate backlog akin to my growing list of unplayed games. Back in November I purchased *deep breath* ...Chocolate Birthday Truffle Crumb Cakes from Milk Bar... for my birthday. At the time I had the intuition to throw these in the fridge, though I didn't plan on forgetting them until 2022. The same goes for The Forgotten City , a game I bought around the same time. My question going into both was: would these stand the test of a few months lingering in my PSN library (and chilling in my vegetable crisper)? Fortunately, the answer is a resounding yes! [I will keep spoilers to just the basic premise, but if you're already interested, I strongly recommend going into The Forgotten City knowing as little as possible!] Originally a Skyrim mode, The Forgotten City was re-released last summer as a standalone game. You play an amnesiac who accidentally time-travels back to an ancient Roman city that lives under one ...

Back in December 1998, little Xan (me, not to be confused with rapper Lil Xan, debut album Total Xanarchy , which was almost the name of this blog) got a brand new shiny purple Game Boy Color from Santa, my first handheld and second game console. I was a year into my gaming career, having been gifted a PlayStation the year prior. My mom and sister picked out The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX , a colorized version of the acclaimed Game Boy game, probably by recommendation from an Electronics Boutique employee. Still a baby gamer and with little knowledge of Nintendo's heroes, I absolutely ate it up. While it's considered a departure from the series, this was my gateway into Zelda, trap-filled dungeons, and what seemed like a vast open world to my virgin eyes. Fast-forward to 2021, and big Xan stumbles upon one "Reese's Cake" in a 7-11 near my apartment. It's a twist on the classic peanut butter-chocolate confection: a sophisticated "cake" r...

As a chocolate & peanut butter devotee, Fast Break has always confounded me. It has all the right pieces: the same delectable milk chocolate from Reese's cups, a thick center of creamy peanut butter, and a dense nougat base. You can't fault any single component, but the configuration feels off. Too much peanut butter? Should the nougat be on top? Maybe squash the whole thing and make it narrower? Shove a pretzel in and make it a Take 5? (Not even going there. I'll save that for another post.) Like the Fast Break, I couldn't help but twist and rearrange Resident Evil Village as I played it. The pieces are all there. From the jump, it balances B-movie schlock with genuine frights and disgusting settings you can practically smell. The creatures are vicious and relentless, the ensemble cast of humans charismatic. The gameplay rides that line between retro survival-horror and the action-oriented turn the series took with RE4 . Something for everyone! But by the end, th...

One of the best parts of moving to a new neighborhood is trying out local shops and cafes, in search of new snacks for my Sunday morning gaming sesh. Still fairly new to this side of town, I went for a walk in search of grub and found a coffeeshop not a block away. The pastry pickings were sparse, but a humble little brown package was just the thing to catch my eye. I took this approach when trying Returnal , a roguelike from Housemarque. As a newcomer to the genre, I was curio—oh who am I kidding, I was desperate to justify the half grand I dropped on this whack-ass stupid box that looks like someone left their TiVo in a hot car. Of course I knew I'd be using my PS5 mainly for backwards compatibility for at least a year, but like a fool I was hopeful. Replaying the same games I've played before—but this time in 60fps with no load times—it's not enough! Don't get me wrong, I'm not aching for more unstarted games. My current backlog could last me at least two more pr...

With new indies coming out every day, we've each developed filters to determine how to spend our time. Not just what to play, but which games to even click on in a timeline or storefront. Fortunately as a cat person, pretty much anything feline-adjacent will instantly paw at my attention. PUSS is a puzzle game in which you move a vaguely cat-shaped icon through single-screen mazes, avoiding deadly walls at all costs. Imagine the children's game Operation, but instead of plucking out an ailment, you must carefully levitate it through a tight corridor. The PS1 game Irritating Stick had a similar mechanic, but here the pathways—and thus room for error—are even smaller. Touch an electrified boundary for more than a half-second and you'll lose one of your dozen lives. It wouldn't be all that challenging if it weren't for the various obstacles and moving walls which will repeatedly squash our cat friend. If the gameplay doesn't command your attention, the psychedelic ...