Critical Hits & Misses #139

• Steam is PC gaming’s primary digital store - and right now, it’s a mess that makes finding interesting (or even working ones) titles more hassle than it’s worth. John Walker of Rock, Paper, Shotgun asks why Valve won’t use the obvious and most productive solution - human staff in charge of quality control… just a day before the process became even harder.


• The Verge discusses how Trump's presidency has caused a soaring in sales of Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale. 

For today's musical hit, we have Rihanna's "Love On The Brain"

Today's critical rolls: what's your post-apop or dystopian novel of choice and why?


Critical Writ has a super-duper strict comment policy that specifies a single rule above all others: we reserve the right to ban you for being a terribad citizen of the internet.

Physical Copies Of 1984 Are Sold Out, But You Can Play Orwell In The Meantime

Yes, you heard right. Signet Classics, the company that prints 1984 by George Orwell, has sold out of copies and are scrambling to print more. I’m sure I have no idea whatsoever why there’s such a sudden interest in the classic dystopian novel, but I would like to take this opportunity to examine the indie game Orwell, which I am sure in no way will remind you of our terrifying new reality.

After a bomb attack in the major city of Bonton, the Party has unleashed a new surveillance system called Orwell. You, the player, are an out of state investigator who was chosen for the job specifically because you are not a citizen of the Nation. By hiring foreign nationals, the Party can keep the operation of Orwell secret. You use the program to sift through public and private information about your suspects, and simply pass off relevant information to your Advisor, Symes. As Advisor, he examines the evidence you present and recommends action to the powers that be.

In theory, the Orwell program is a more efficient version of the NSA’s current spy program. The NSA gathers a huge amount of data on American citizens, but critics will point out that there is so much of it, it is difficult to weed out important information. It is just too much to sift through, and in the meantime actual threats can move faster than someone can find them. With Orwell, the player makes supposedly impartial judgment calls on what is relevant information for the state’s investigation and focuses purely on persons of interest.

The game unfolds over five episodes, and in each episode the stakes are raised higher and higher. What seemed like insignificant data in a previous episode suddenly becomes important. What you have passed off with good intentions can leave characters dead or arrested.

As the Investigator, it is your job to listen in on calls, read emails and texts, and even remotely control their devices and computers.

By cherry picking information, you weave a narrative for Symes, who has his own interpretations and biases that informs his decisions. Your interference can also raise the suspicions of the people you are monitoring, and drive them to extreme acts. I played the game three times. The first playthrough I played simply by passing off information I thought was relevant. I was doing my job to the best of my ability and doing my best to remain impartial. It was an absolute disaster. With blood on my hands, I replayed knowing who the bomber was and what characters I wished to spare pain and misery. It went far better when I thought critically about how information would look to Symes, and what I wanted him to think. Symes himself isn’t a terrible human being, nationalism and loyalty to the Party aside. He, like me, was trying to do his job to the best of his ability and protect lives. He felt empathetic at times and regretted a few of the choices he made.

The interpretation of truth is almost always subjective, and we cannot predict how other people will handle sensitive information. Even the suspects, secure in the knowledge that their communications are private, put up a front, lie, and kid themselves. The information they provide unwittingly is often irrelevant or untrue. They contradict themselves, and the player must resolve these contradictions based on their own intuition or confirmation bias.

Big Brother is watching, and he may just be a civil servant who is just trying to do his job to the best of his ability. But once he reports his findings to his superiors, his good intentions mean nothing. There is no putting the lid back on Pandora’s box. When your private conversations and written thoughts can be held against you, It is all the more important to protect our privacy. And if in today’s world, hypothetically, millions of people were texting each other about how best to resist a hypothetical despot, would you really want said despot to have potential access to each and every conversation going on about him right now? Are you okay with the thought that a huge overreaching spy network now answers to him?

Orwell was published by Osmotic Studios and published by Surprise Attack. It is available on Steam for $9.99. The first episode, “The Clocks Were Striking Thirteen,” is available as a demo on the Steam store front or from the official site.

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.

Critical Hits and Misses #22 - Seussday, September 6th, 2016

• I heard that, Curtis! More classic Sierra games have been added to Steam, including the original Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers,  the King’s Quest Collection, and Phantasmagoria. (Megan)

• If you loved Stranger Things’ Eleven, then you will be delighted by Millie Bobby Brown killing it as she raps to Nicki Minaj’s “Monster.” Also, silly string shenanigans with all the kids ensue. (Ivonne)

• Arab American Women provide some great insight into using comic books as a medium for self expression and social activism over at the Arab American National Museum’s blog. (Miz Opifex)

Also: Seussday is our improvement on Tuesday, so here is a picture of a fox in socks. Foxes don't like socks, doctor. 

"I mean, what were you thinking?!"

What's today's musical hit? The Strumbellas respond: "We Don't Know."

Today's critical rolls:
1. Could your spirit animal take down a Vaporeon? If so, how?
2. What's your favourite terrible idea? Keep it PG, please.

— Critical Writ has a super-duper strict comment policy that specifies a single rule above all others: don't use the word "moist." Also, don't be a vexatious vaniloquist.

Off The Beaten Path: Goetia

Welcome to Off The Beaten Path, where we present reviews of non-AAA gaming titles and discuss issues pertinent to women in gaming.

Do you miss the days where point and click adventure games ruled the PC world of gaming? I certainly do, so I was quick to nab Goetia, a new game developed by Sushee and published by Square Enix. The player acts as Abigail Blackwood, the ghost of a teenage girl who suddenly rises from the grave decades after her death. The family manor and surrounding town are abandoned, at least by the living. However Abigail is not alone, the demons that haunt the house reveal themselves and plead for their release, a deal she will have to take to find out what happened to her family.

The backgrounds are beautiful and atmospheric. Blackwood Manor is creepy, and I enjoyed exploring every nook and cranny. The soundtrack is mostly a haunting piano medley that sets the mood as you explore. There are five major areas: Oakmarsh (the town), the manor, a labyrinth, a chapel, and an underground cavern. On Steam the game boasts of 90 different rooms, but it doesn’t quite feel as expansive as that. The rooms may be beautiful, but there may be only a detail or two to click on in a given space. That isn’t to say the game feels small, but it doesn’t feel huge and expansive either. For example, Oakmarsh is limited to just a few houses, and the puzzles there are some of the simplest the game has to offer, so I didn’t spend much time there.

Speaking of the puzzles, many of them are difficult, and a few are downright aggravating. I’ve had to consult a walkthrough more than once, and I never thought “Oh, duh, I should have seen that.” when I saw the solution. There is at least one puzzle where you will need a pen and paper to work out, and while I had patience for that kind of work back in the days of Myst and Riven it just feels tedious now. That isn’t to strike marks from Goetia, just fair warning: this is not an easy game. My only other complaint about the mechanics is that you do not have an inventory; Abigail can possess objects and move them around, but only one at a time. I’ve lost objects this way and had to search the house for them when I needed them again or figured out what they were for. Eventually I just left objects where I found them until I knew what to do with them.

The story is intriguing at first. You discover that you have awoken during World War 2, and that German airplanes have been bombing Oakmarsh. This is why the townsfolk have fled and abandoned their homes, but your family doesn’t seem to have followed them. Abigail remembers that the Blackwood family has a history of studying the occult. Abigail’s father, Abraham, specifically focused on demon summoning, a magic tradition known as Goetia. I only have a passing familiarity with the practice, but as presented in game it does feel authentic and well researched. Creative liberties were taken with the practice to produce fantastical level design, such as the labyrinth created by photographs you can jump into.

Quickly Abigail discovers that her sister Annie has bound demons within the house, but neither Annie or her sons can be found anywhere. Various notes left around the house paint a picture of a family divided; two of Annie’s sons work with her to achieve her goals, while one son, Alexander, actively works to stop her and runs away.

I was eager to find out what happened, but I personally found the revelation to be a let down. I can understand objectively why Annie would do what she did, but it felt like such an extreme measure that it failed to resonate emotionally with me. The war might have made her afraid, but it is implied that she had been working on her experiments for quite some time and is driven by a desire for immortality rather than fear of a German invasion. In the end it just felt like a generic Faustian morality tale rather than a unique story of personal horror.

If you enjoy challenging puzzles and Victorian horror, Goetia is the game for you. You can download the demo here, and the full game is available for purchase on Steam for 14.99.

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.

Steam Summer Picnic Sale Recommendations

If you are like us, you might be addicted to Steam sales. There's the thrill of the hunt as you find great games for great prices. We're here to point you in the right direction, brave hunter.



My absolute top recommendation for today is This War of Mine. If you haven’t played this game, you need to. It’s hard to pin the genre on this one. It combines elements of survival and strategy in a glorious mashup that's unlike any other game I’ve played before. In most games you play the hero leading the charge with guns blazing; in this game you play as a group of civilians just trying to survive a war. You have to survive through lack of food, lack of medicine, and with hostile soldiers and even other survivors trying to kill you. You can craft items and scavenge for stuff, so it bears a greater resemblance to a survival game in that regard. Graphically, it’s a side-scrolling game in the vein of Mark of the Ninja, so not my usual cup of tea, but the gameplay and concept are just so awesome. It is available now for $4.99. (Ivonne Martin)



My recommendation is Gone Home: a first-person, story-focused exploration game set in the 90s. The story centers on teenager Samantha, but you play as her older sister Kaitlin, who has just come home from traveling the world. The whole game takes place in the same house, where you walk around exploring, looking at objects and getting glimpses of the lives lived there. It plays rather like a detective story, where clues spread throughout the house add together to tell you about people and events. Some information you get simply by turning things over and reading notes, but certain objects also trigger journal entries by Sam, addressed to Kaitlin, which are read aloud to you while you continue playing (or stop to listen, if you prefer that). At the heart of the story is Sam’s relationship to a girl called Lonnie, but you also get to know what Sam’s life was before meeting Lonnie, and a little about the parents’ hopes and disappointments. The level of detail is outstanding: from boxes of photocopied zines to X-Files posters; from pamphlets of the mother’s forest conservation agency to empty pizza boxes with fat stains on the lid. The riot grrrl-heavy soundtrack (largely provided through in-game cassette tapes) is also great, and connects wonderfully with the story. Gone Home is 80% (!) off during the summer sale, so it’s currently $3.99.

My second recommendation is The Stanley Parable. The easiest way to describe this game is as an 1.5 hours long mind-fuck. Though the play-time depends on how you play it, and in fact you can spend very different amounts of time on the game... But explaining why would spoil it. As would most things I could tell you about the game. Sorry! Similarly to Gone Home, this is a game that focuses on experience rather than problem-solving, though here it’s more about raising questions and making you think than about telling a story. It’s not a soothing game, and it doesn’t give you the satisfaction of a neatly tied-up ending or clear tasks to finish—but it’s clever and, occasionally, riotously funny. I'd recommend The Stanley Parable to people who enjoy walking simulators, philosophy, or absurdity—or all of those things. It also seems to be especially entertaining if you've played a lot of video or computer games before, which I discovered while discussing the game with my friend who's a more experienced gamer (let's just say there were some jokes and clever references I didn't get). The usual price may be a little steep for such a short game but its current price of $2.99 is definitely worth it. (Tova Crossler Ernström)

I’m going to go with a really obvious choice: Lego Marvel Super Heroes. While the mechanics are at an "all-ages" level of simplistic, it doesn’t stop this game from being absolutely delightful. It has a fun storyline that skillfully incorporates most of the main aspects of the Marvel Universe from New York to Latveria to Asteroid M. It also has a massive roster of over 150 characters, with all the major heroes and villains from the MCU movies in addition to many of those from the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man comics. In addition to the story mode, you get a massive open world in the form of a Marvel-ized version of Manhattan, with side-quests and races aplenty.

Overall, I’d highly recommend this game for any fan of Marvel or Lego, and very highly for a fan of both, such as myself. It, as well as another ten games in the Lego series, is discounted by 75% at $4.99. (Aranwe Quirke)

If you're like me, you like hard games. These games aren't so punishing that they're unenjoyable. The Dark Souls series challenges you by stripping away gameplay mechanics that we take for granted today. The first entry in the series, Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition ($4.99) is a steal. Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin ($13.59) and the critically-acclaimed Dark Souls III ($44.99) are also not to be missed.

I also recommend The Long Dark ($6.79), a first-person survival game that does not feature zombies! The game is presently in Early Access, currently featuring a sandbox mode: you’ve crash landed in the Canadian wilderness after a worldwide geomagnetic storm knocks out all electrical devices; no hope of rescue, you must survive the cold, stave off starvation, and avoid hostile wildlife. Two story modes are being developed, featuring both a female and male protagonists.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown, where you can play dolls with your soldiers, just like I do

Darkest Dungeon ($14.99), as described by the developers, is about making the best of a bad situation, and probably the most punishing of my recommendations. XCOM Enemy Unknown ($7.49) is a very addictive turn-based strategy game which, among many other positive reasons, is popular for how you can play "paper dolls" with your soldiers, not only changing their appearance, but also their nationality, voice accents, and gender-neutral body armor. Lastly, if you don’t already have Tomb Raider ($4.99), what are you even doing. (Adrian Martinez)