Spirit Roots is Fine...It's Fine...It's Fine... | FIRST!

Spirit Roots is not a bad game, it's just...fine, and when it comes to talking about a game, there's nothing worse that trying to talk about a game that's just...fine. Why? Because it's...fine. It doesn't do anything special or memorable and won't impress you in any way, but it also doesn't do anything to overly annoy or aggravate you. It works; tt feels relatively good; and it's...fine. Spirit Roots is a fine game and, if you've got nothing else to play, it'll deliver a fine time, but just know you'll likely forget everything about it the day after and, if that's fine with you, well, then, that's fine.

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Tentacles May Suck, But Octodad Most Certainly Does Not | Attack the Backlog

On this episode of Attack the Backlog, Marc stays sweet and wholesome instead of tying hens while tentacling some holes, son, in Octodad: Dadliest Catch, a game where you play as an octopus who marries a human woman with two human children (who are never explained) and has a penchant for making a mess wherever he goes, delightfully so. Octodad originally came out on January 30, 2014, for PC and later made his way to everything else, from PS4 and Xbox One, to iOS and Android, and even the Vita and Wii U, before retiring to spend the rest of his days with his family on the Switch.

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To Quote the Bulletproof Monk, Reverie Knights Tactics Likes to Do A Lot of Talking | FIRST!

Reverie Knights Tactics does one of the things I hate most--it overloads you with story and characters right at the start, forcing you to take in the story before you even know if you like the actual game. I guess, in a way, this is a tactic of trying to get someone invested in a story so, in case they don't care for the gameplay, they'll still stick around because of the story. Maybe this works for some, but it's never worked for me. Games are games first and foremost and no story will ever make up for bad gameplay. Now, I'm not saying the gameplay of Reverie Knights Tactics is bad--it's not great, just kind of meh--but when I spend an hour and a half with a game and only play it for 10 minutes, if that, we've got ourselves a problem. Reverie Knights Tactics might be a good game, but it makes a terrible first impression and fails to give the player much reason to keep playing because of it.

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Just Like in Real Life, I Appreciate The Humans More Than I Actually Like The Humans... | FIRST!

QUByte Classics - The Humans by PIKO is a collection of two versions of the classic game, The Humans. Like many collections of old games, if you go into it without nostalgia, you'll likely end up appreciating the games more than actually liking them, which is how I felt after playing The Humans. Little was done to modernize the controls and little was added to make the experience less tedious--like a rewind system, which would have been great for fixing dumb mistakes. That said, the music is still great and, if you're someone who likes experiencing old games you've never played before, The Humans is worth checking out. Just remember that a spear is a spear and if you throw one at your fellow human, you're going to kill them, even if your intention was only to throw it next to them. Gotta crawl before you can walk and the same goes for spearing humans--you gotta spear a few before you learn to spare the rest, no cap, no jest.

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Is El Gancho the Worst Game I've Played So Far This Year? | FIRST!

Yes. Yes it is. El Gancho immediately grabbed my attention with great music and lost it seconds later as soon as I started playing the game. I only spent 15 minutes with the game, but that was 14 minutes more than I needed in order to know El Gancho wasn't for me. Great music and decent art are nice, but gameplay is king and El Gancho's gameplay makes King Joffrey seem like a sweetheart. The controls never clicked and I only grew more and more frustrated the more and more I played. I never like being this mean, but El Gancho is absolutely the worst game I've played (so far) this year and, sadly, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone; however, if you like good music, I would recommend seeking out the soundtrack, which is available on both Bandcamp and Spotify.

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I'd Rather Eat Myself Than Spend Anymore Time Playing Cannibal Cuisine | FIRST!

Cannibal Cuisine takes the Overcooked recipe, throws in a bit a tourist killing, and hopes its one new ingredient is just what the doctor ordered, except this doctor is apparently a vegan. There are a lot of Overcooked-likes out there and Cannibal Cuisine is both bad at being one of them, while also failing to do anything interesting with its one unique element--the whole cannibalism thing. Unless you love games like this and are beyond sick and tired of every other imitator, there's no reason to waste your time or money on Cannibal Cuisine. I never like saying that because such blunt statements come across as mean, but sometimes the truth hurts.

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Battle Brothers Fails at Welcoming New Members to Its Family | FIRST!

Battle Brothers commits one of gaming's greatest sins when it comes to onboarding new players: it doesn't. It says there is a tutorial and recommends starting on Easy, but if what I played was supposed to be a tutorial, it was a cruel joke. Opinions will differ, but if a game can't take the time to teach me how to play it, I'm not going to take the time to learn how to play it, especially when it comes to strategy games. Battle Brothers might be a good game, it might even be a great one, but it didn't respect my time by expecting me to seek outside help in order to learn how to play it and there's nothing I hate more than a game that doesn't respect my time.

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Best to Leave Blackwind as Little More Than Dust in the Wind... | FIRST!

I think we've all had enough of the number jokes by now, so let's just keep it nice and simple, eh. In this episode of FIRST!, I talk about Blackwind, a sci-fi action game where you pilot a mech suit and take out aliens and giant bugs while quipping endlessly along the way. The thing about Blackwind is, it's not a bad game, but it's not particularly good either. It falls into the "Perfectly Fine and Forgettable" camp. If you literally had nothing else to play, you wouldn't have a terrible time with Blackwind, but if you don't find yourself in such an improbable situation, you're best finding something else to spend both your money and time on--at $25, it's hard sell--but don't take my written word for it, take my spoken word instead.

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Night Trap? More Like Night Mirror If You Know What I Mean... | Attack the Backlog

Updated on Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 6:00PM by Marc Kusnierz

On this episode of Attack the Backlog, Marc spies on teenage girls while trapping vampire ninjas in Night Trap, an FMV game that's pretty stupid and infamous for its help in creating the ESRB thanks to having scenes that were considered, "sexually suggestive and exploitive." Night Trap originally came out on October 15, 1992, for Sega CD and has since been released on a handful of other platforms, including, most recently, the Switch, PS4, and Vita (yep, even the Vita). Anyway, something-something, I think it might be a trap, but I'm still going to fap fap, cheers and enjoy the...wait for it...show.

Anyway, that's it and that's all folks. You can get an even more in-depth discussion by listening to the podcast and, if you're feeling extra generous, you can become a patron, donate a little something, or subscribe to show your support for the site, the podcasts, the streaming, the videos, the art, and everything in between. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to consume any of the content I make and thank you for being a fan. I can't begin to express how much I appreciate each and every one of you. Cheers.

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It's Pronounced Va-Gan-Te, Not Vag and Tea...I Think, Hehe | FIRST!

Say hello to the third episode of FIRST!, the second episode of SECOND!!, or maybe, just maybe, it's the first episode of THIRD!!!. All I can say for sure is, this joke is well past the point of being even remotely funny, I'm sorry, and I hope you can all forgive me. That said, this episode is all about Vagante, an action-platformer roguelike that's almost a good time, but falters in one key area and, sadly, the sum of the other parts doesn't make up for this one deficiency--which I'll leave a mystery so you have some reason to watch the video. Does that mean Vagante is a bad game? No--in fact, my problem may actually be a good thing in your eyes--but I can't help but be disappointed by what could have been and I think, with a few tweaks, Vagante could have been a great game instead of the "just okay" game it is.

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