Prime Gaming – January 2023

“New Year, new me!” they say. Well, I’m still the same grumpy old man moaning about Prime Gaming, so the new year is about as refreshing as a stale fart. As always, you can pick up a lot of “in-game content” or guff that has no tangible value, with only a few days left on some Candy Crush Saga and Bloons TD 6 (which was recently free on Epic) thanks to the “hit pause, start playing” thing that started last week. A correction on that is that you can still get Dishonored 2 and the SNK classics for the next while, alongside content from Marvel’s Avengers, Destiny 2, BTS Island: In the SEOM, Fall Guys, and many more.

Similar to Dishonored 2, all the games available this month will end at the end of the month, starting with Faraway 2: Jungle Escape. This sequel is something we already have if we’re longtime sufferers of the Jeffrey Bezos subscription service, and one that is the answer to the question “what if Jonathan Blow was a Dyson?” It is a simple version of The Witness from a few years ago, and it captures my interest (and I assume yours) about as well as Jonathan Blow’s attention to a puzzle that is actually difficult.

Next up is a noir detective ’em up in Chicken Police – Paint it RED!, a visual novel with about as much color to it as an episode of The Black and White Minstrel Show in 1968. It’s not bad, but with the likes of Blacksad doing something very similar and having color and a better tone on the surface makes me less inclined to the superimposed animal heads to make them anthropomorphized humanoids.

It was highly praised for many reasons including the writing. However, the one downside that is often leveraged against The Wild Gentlemen’s adventure title is the frequency of mini-games that get in the way.

From one tale of cops and racism to being a cop in the 80s of New York City where Black characters sit on steps and eat watermelon, we move on to Beat Cop. Intended as some sort of parody of the cheesy 80s American cop shows that predate your parent’s favorite show with Mark Harmon, it takes sexism and racism as something to throw around casually. However, it doesn’t really make a point out of doing so (like a parody should). It is a fine adventure game with an interesting gameplay loop, but Beat Cop certainly has its highs but also its lows.

One of the few interesting survival-crafting games around, Breathedge is Subnautica in space!… ace, ace, ace. A joke that would only work if there were reflective surfaces for sound to bounce off of, but that’s why you are in the inky black, isn’t it? To build a two-story house with an extension, a garage, a pool, and the endless horror of not being able to breathe anymore.

Breathedge might have direct references to Subnautica and wants to wear it as a skin, but the base building has been removed like a xenomorph out the chest of John Hurt but with insufferable Deadpool 4th wall breaks. So apparently that isn’t actually the focus.

I’m a casual devotee of the boring simulator, as is any man (or wo-man) that graces this green and pleasant hellscape. For some reason, Lawn Mowing Simulator doesn’t light a spark under me. Bully (Canis Canem Edit to you and me) might have a fun grass-cutting mini-game to “punish” you for setting fire to a child and killing a few teachers, but something about a whole game of that doesn’t have the same appeal as a few short minutes of trimming bush. The fact that it was free on Epic only a few short months ago also makes it a little redundant.

Like most people who yell about their love of the PS2, Shinji Mikami is a bloke that gets very rare praise from me as being one of those creatives I actually like. It is just a shame he keeps trying to widdle on that with the likes of The Evil Within 2, this month’s final game.

Jumping off of the first in the series, this bold new direction for survival horror to the team (and the man that made Resident Evil 4) was to add a sandbox and crafting elements. You might as well have let someone else direct and produce the series to begin with Mikami.