By Ronald Gordon

Hello and welcome back to the Roundup, the column where we gather up the articles from interns and members alike to give them a shoutout! May seemed to be the month for a variety of exciting games; titles such as Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door Remake hit the internet like a storm. Some of the stories that come from his tide of new games includes Khloe’s lovely time drilling through Pepper Grinder, a new intern and their desire for more content in Disaster Golf, news on Bungie’s Legal Escapades, and so much more! 

To start us off, I’d like to mention the Circle coming together once again to celebrate many victories. Returning for another hang out at the Piragua Gallery on the Lower East Side, some of the many faces of the Circle gathered around and shared a moment with Alais Murillo from Microsoft and Marc Anthony Rodriguez of VoxPop. It was a great moment to reconnect and talk about milestones such as Kimari Rennis’ graduation from NYU’s Game Center and Karila Warner’s successful time as a teaching artist at BX Start! 

Moving onto reviews, we begin with Theresa Afful’s experience with PlaneTiles, a cute city building strategy game that demands much more than just a creative mind: “PlaneTiles is an indie city-building and strategy game that involves building your planet with blocks, the number of which you can increase upon completing tasks while playing.” Theresa tells us that the initial challenge may lie in keeping track of the blocks you can use, writing, “PlaneTiles’ main goals are to get the most points and try your best to leave no spaces unfilled on your planet.” From leaving no space left unfilled to discovering new planets to fill, PlaneTiles pushes you to do more and go further with tact and skill. She writes, “I worked on many different planets for two weeks and found myself going back for more. I literally couldn’t stop thinking about the different ways I could have placed my blocks in a way where I could filled out all the gaps on the screen.” 

Next, we have Khloe Wilkerson, who spent her time as a drill-wielding badass in Pepper Grinder! Taking to the drill-based movement of Pepper Grinder fairly easily, Khloe found herself zipping and zooming through the 2D platforms with ease. She writes, “As you begin your adventure, you will learn how to operate your drill and gain more tips and tricks over time. While the movements are smooth and pleasant, it might be challenging to successfully use your drilling ability. Despite this, the flow can become so addictive and rhythmic as you eat your way through pockets of dirt.” Diving in and out of the dirt with the help of a drill sounds like a lot of fun, but Pepper Grinder also has a lot to offer when it comes to combat. Khloe details this when she writes, “Regular enemies are easy to hit and evade, but boss confrontations are when the gameplay really excels. After each world, there are intriguing boss fights that make smart use of your terrain drills. It takes a lot of pattern recognition to figure out how to avoid their attacks and defeat them. This requires pacing yourself in addition to time and patience. It may take several tries to get past a boss because your timing or reactions are off by a millisecond. The bosses, like a green, jumping Incredible Hulk-like giant, aren’t easy to beat either, bringing their unique challenge testing my drilling and jumping skills in a rewarding manner. It’s as if all the bosses are a combination of all the techniques you’ve acquired throughout your journey.” 

Alay Polanco, the Circle’s newest intern, says Disaster Golf has a lot going for it, from a small price to an interesting concept, but it could use is more content! In their first story written for the Critics Circle, Alay writes “Disaster Golf, released by Hippo Havoc, is a unique and creative way to play a classic sport. The game, which is just $1.99, begins with a tutorial that introduces players to four abilities in the form of natural disasters: wind, meteor, geyser and lightning.” Giving you four main abilities to play around with, Disaster Golf has a multitude of challenges to test you with. Still, Alay believes there’s just a few things missing from making it a great game: “Primarily, it doesn’t have enough content. There are only two worlds of nine levels each, for a total of eighteen levels in the entire game. Honestly, I know the game doesn’t cost much, but I did want more depth. This can be fixed with DLCs, which would add more maps and abilities. Further, if you want to have the fastest time overall, you are limited to using the abilities that are best for each particular level, which limits your creativity. Adding more disasters like floods and snow, would be appreciated, as would multiplayer.” 

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 seems to be picking up a lot of traction with its release, which Giovanni Colantonio writes about in his article on Digital Trends. Detailing his journey with the game and what he witnessed, a main point that Giovanni calls attention to is the graphical choices. He writes, “I watched in awe as a fierce storm whirred, debris flying in the distance as Senua’s rough skin was dimly illuminated by the cloudy skies above. Minutes later, my eyes were glazing over again as I ran through yet another rocky landscape.” One minute, Hellblade 2 features picturesque environments. And yet the next backdrop is the same rocky mountain all throughout. Given the generally stellar visuals that Hellblade 2 presents, it’s surprising to see the over-reliance on the same muddy brown environments time and again. “While its tech has impressed across the board, mixed reactions to its comparatively thin gameplay serve as a reminder that the hunt for high graphical fidelity and realism might be a distracting cause in 2024. Studios like Ninja Theory aren’t pushing a boulder up a mountain anymore; they’re rolling it on a treadmill.”

Luis Aguasvivas brings a fascinating story about Nintendo’s Virtual Boy Console, and how avid retro collectors are keeping it from dying in obscurity. Having never heard of the Virtual Boy console, it’s no surprise that an idea such as a full headset reminiscent of today’s VR sets never fully made it around the world in the mid-90s. Luis writes, “The console launched in Japan in July 1995 and was discontinued a little over a year later. After lackluster sales (approximately 777,000 total units sold), Nintendo stopped supporting the console and shifted gears to their new machine, the Nintendo 64.” While its potential sales may have never reached their peak, this wouldn’t stop collectors and retro appreciators from finding out just how valuable the Virtual Boy could be. Two of which are members of the MIT Press’ Platform Studies Series who wrote a book all about the Virtual Boy and its advances. “The new book Seeing Red: Nintendo’s Virtual Boy by José P. Zagal and Benj Edwards attempts to look at the console in a new light. Seeing Red is part of MIT Press’ Platform Studies series edited by Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort. In the words of Bogost and Montfort, the series “investigates the foundations of digital media — the computing systems, both hardware and software, that developers and users depend upon for artistic, literary, and gaming development.” The series has covered Atari Systems, the Game Boy Advance, and the Amazon Kindle, among other platforms.” 

Stephen Totilo brings news of Bungie taking the Destiny 2 cheating lawsuit to court, and the implications of what could follow it. It’s become a common thing for companies within the gaming industry to crack down on people who create cheat engines or backdoors for their IPs. Bungie is no exception in this as they seem to be wrapped up in the most bizarre turn of events as a result of their lawsuit against one such instance of cheaters. “The other side says they’re getting steamrolled for activity that may be disliked by some people but isn’t illegal.

“What bothered me about this case from day one was that it looked like a bully company and a bully law firm pushing around smaller people,” Aimjunkies lawyer Philip Mann told Game File in an interview. Soon, a seven-person jury in Seattle will decide who is right. That’s highly unusual.” What was meant to be a run of the mill lawsuit against the members of Aimjunkies for exploiting Destiny 2 seems to be changing to represent small forces fighting against bigger companies for what’s right, even if that message may be misaligned here. “Bungie alleges that the creation of a cheat for Destiny 2 involves ‘accessing a local copy of the client software of Destiny 2 to reverse engineer it, copying code, and making derivative works.’”

Founder Harold Goldberg has an interesting article written in his role as critic for The New York Times, having had the chance to write about not one but three separate indie games in one story. “In a month rife with original indie games, including Animal Well and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, there has seemingly been something for every player. The creativity continues with Hauntii, Crow Country and Paper Trail, even though one stumbles a bit.” Hauntii hasn’t been review much, but Harold feels it’s been one of the more artful games of the year. From exploring the meaning of the afterlife in Hauntii to playing through an homage to the PS1 era in Crow Country, Harold’s review has insights for anyone looking for a great recent indie title! 

Beyond the Circle

Minecraft Battle of the Boroughs is happening once again, this time being its 2nd annual appearance in NYC on June 8 at the Brooklyn Central Library! As part of the Minecraft Education Challenge, a great effort by NYC to introduce the masses to the educational power of gaming, the Battle of the Boroughs is one of my favorite events to cover. Since then, the partnership between the Mayor’s Office and Department of Education has done much to ensure that students are able to show what they’ve got in the BOTB competition and strive for much more on the grand stage! Be sure to get tickets if you’re interested in what these talented Minecraft builders can make. And this year, the Circle is part of it with our Minecraft Writing Challenge. There’ll be much more next week.

Ronald Gordon is a New York Videogame Critics Circle Member & Mentor. He was the first of our writers – or any intern anywhere – to complete an internship at Rockstar Games.

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