By Ronald Gordon

Hello and welcome back to the Roundup, my column focused on shining a spotlight on our many skilled Members and Interns! It’s the big, fall season, and gaming news follows us along with announcements of all kinds – and sparkling new articles! Featured here are Hades II’s excellence, publisher Acclaim’s revival thanks to Katanaut, Bennett Foddy’s new open world game Baby Steps, a look at the blood-fueled rampage within Insomniac’s Wolverine, Silent Hill f not scary enough, and a GTA college course.

Before we begin, I’d like to highlight the Critics Circle’s longevity with the fact that the 15th Annual New York Game Awards show is on the way! It’s been well over a decade since the Circle began its efforts to show that New York appreciates developers just as much as LA does, and there have been many enjoyable occasions because of it. Before we begin our big announcements, the Circle urges everyone to take a walk down memory lane. Remember moments from the first few years of the New York Game Awards. 

At the first ever NYGA, the Circle not only featured an adorable cameo from Dash, then the newborn son of Dan Ackerman and Libe Goad-Ackerman. It also highlighted the comedic stylings of the Daily Show’s Daniel Radosh as the 2011 Game of the Year announcer. As the first ever awards show, it proved that anything was possible in NYC. The Circle took even bigger steps at the 2nd NYGA’s, hosted at NYU. The show was bigger, better, and featured the rap stylings of the Queens-born rapper Schaffer The Darklord, who encouraged the crowd to have fun and enjoy New York’s only awards show solely for video games!  

Saniah Etienne experienced Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight: Silksong, and was unprepared for the game’s difficulty. With little to no prior exposure to the series that is Hollow Knight, Saniah quickly found herself lost in the vastness of Silksong’s world. She writes, “My first impression was the gorgeous graphics and peculiar setting. I knew I was a hornet in a red dress holding a blade, but I had no idea what I was doing. You start in a lush moss grotto, and the visuals are adorable. You kill these small moss critters and maneuver through the grotto using parkour. Judging by the first minutes, I thought the game would be enjoyable and easygoing. But Silksong does not offer much of an objective.” As a Metroidvania style game, Hollow Knight offered the player little to no objective as you dove into the grim dark halls of Hollownest, and it seems Silksong follows in its predecessor’s footsteps as you venture into the new world of Pharloom. Not only that, but the fandom itself is quite unforgiving as Saniah discovered, relating her experiences as she writes, “As simple as it seemed, I was really bad at it. The checkpoints were also very spaced out, which made the process of getting back on track quite drawn out. The most notable example of this was when it took me an hour to defeat the first boss. I felt so hopeless, I searched up a tutorial on ‘How to defeat Moss Mother’. I opened the comments expecting to find other players facing the same challenge as me. One person said, ‘If you need a tutorial for this, you are unworthy of this game.’ That’s a bit much. But perhaps this statement has some truth to it. Hollow Knight Silksong can be inaccessible for new players.”

Jatin Gundara begins his thoughts on renowned publisher Acclaim’s new roguelite with joyous surprise, writing, “Of every genre I expected to come from the gaming world this year, a roguelite about a space samurai fighting through hordes of the undead in the midst of a cosmic horror hellscape certainly wasn’t on my list.” It’s been a while since Acclaim has had the chance to show their stuff, with their unfortunate bankruptcy taking them out of the game for over 11 years. Yet, despite losing the foothold they had gained from the days of NBA Jam and Worms 3D, Acclaim Entertainment is back once again with great games like Katanaut to add to their new resume. Jatin couldn’t stop himself from enjoying the game’s high octane ferocity, stating “With each run I found myself becoming more and more addicted to seeing how far I could get, longing for the thrill of discovering a new weapon (memory fragments can be found that unlock weapons for future runs), using a new skill, or exploring a new area. The main weapon used in combat is a katana. The sword added a light, fluid feel to combat as I endured a level of sweet suspense that resulted from being forced to be up close and personal with such grotesque abominations.”

Our Founder Harold Goldberg has always been a man about horror, yet he was disappointed to discover that the f in Silent Hill f doesn’t stand for frightening. Silent Hill f is one of Silent Hill’s newest attempts to expand the franchise, pushing the bounds outside of the staple town of the same name and setting the game in a new location with brand new characters. In spite of being steeped in Japanese folklore and the eerie horror that follows exploring old buildings and shrines, Silent Hill f’s attempt at depth only appears to be surface level at best. Originally intrigued by the game’s atmosphere, Harold shares his disappointments as he writes, “An immersive level of detail is often lacking. Although Hinako is sliced many times by enemies, it is not until after the fall down the stairs that her outfit appears dirtied and ripped. I kept seeing the same beer bottles, washing machines and radios wherever I went in the foggy town. The wooden boxes and bookcases throughout the Dark Shrine look identical. When Hinako, who is portrayed as an intelligent young woman, strikes an enemy, she frequently wonders, Is it really dead? They come back, often. Yet the developers have her ask this so many times.” 

Harold also reviewed Hades II for The New York Times, and was gobsmacked by its overall excellence. Harold writes, “In Hades II, it’s not the power of godliness that’s winning; it’s the creation of a foibled humaneness, bolstered by an empathy that never dies. The gods relate their stories of try, try again even when they’ve been broken a little — or a lot. It’s not hand-holding. It’s the uplifting friendliness of community that’s an especially welcome respite from a real world where aggressively belittling politicians and pundits are everywhere.”

Giovanni Colantonio speaks on Baby Steps, another challenging title from the mind of Bennett Foddy. Slowly but surely, the developer of one of the most challenging flash games to date is becoming a household name relating to games meant to push your patience to the brink and back, as evidenced by QWOP, Getting Over It, and now Baby Steps. This is no small feat, as Bennett Foddy, alongside Ape Out creators Gabe Cuzzillo and Maxi Boch, somehow manage to captivate players like Giovanni, whose thoughts toward the game are as follows, “There’s a version of this that could come off as nothing more than an interactive shitpost meant to earn virality through Twitch clips of overacting streamers raging out after a big fall, the man on screen slowly sliding down a mountain ass first. After all, Bennett Foddy is no stranger to that kind of success thanks to QWOP and Getting Over it, both of which serve as the foundation for this project alongside Death Stranding. But during my 12-hour playthrough, Baby Steps captivated me more than any other game I’ve played this year. I couldn’t put it down. Some nights, I found that I had gripped my Steam Deck so tightly that my palms began to hurt. I’d spend hours sliding down the same muddy hill, only to stay up past my bedtime to keep failing. And all of that was coming from me, a guy who feels like he’s wasting his life if a Soulslike boss takes more than 30 minutes to beat.”

In covering the absolutely bloodsoaked trailer for Insomniac’s new Wolverine game, Jordan Minor couldn’t help but share his excitement over the fantastically gruesome show put on at PlayStation’s recent State of Play. Marvel’s The Wolverine game had been mentioned time and again by Insomniac, and the new trailer didn’t disappoint. Jordan covered as much as he could from the trailer, mentioning an interesting tidbit behind development as he writes, “After the extremely R-rated Deadpool and Wolverine movie earned more than a billion dollars, it shouldn’t be too surprising that Marvel’s Wolverine is filled with violent action, true to the character’s comic book roots. Wolverine uses his adamantium claws to slaughter with abandon, severing limbs and spilling blood. In the trailer, the developers discuss how they had to create new technologies to render the carnage. It harkens back to the surprisingly gory X-Men Origins: Wolverine tie-in developed by Raven Software in 2009.” From creating brand new technologies for carnage to spilling about actors and potential release dates, Insomniac made sure people were aware that Marvel’s Wolverine was blitzing towards its eventual release. Jordan mentions one other interesting tidbit later on, referencing Insomniac’s slowly expanding Marvel centered game universe as he writes, “After all, developer Insomniac has already created multiple acclaimed, console-exclusive Marvel video games for the PlayStation 5: Marvel’s Spider-Man, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. In fact, Wolverine will follow that same continuity, creating a Marvel Video Game Universe on PlayStation 5.”

Shannon Liao shares her time in Paris thanks to Pokémon Legends: Z-A’s preview in the Eiffel Tower! After just barely catching the last elevator up the tower, avoiding solicitors and peddlers alike, Shannon was stunned at the sights she witnessed within Pokémon’s pop up cafe, enjoying the sights, sounds, and foods before engaging in a one-hour preview of the late October title. After having a hands on look at what’s to come for Pokémon fans, Shannon shares her thoughts as she writes, “Pokémon Legends: Z-A tells of a happier, yet still familiar city, a Paris lookalike where little critters live in harmony with humans, and venturing into “Wild Zones” just means going on casual adventures with a band of merry friends in your knapsack. Particularly intimidating foes, aka Alpha Pokémon, a variant introduced in 2022’s Arceus, hide in plain sight or tucked away corners, but even if they knock you out, a tea or coffee will pick you right back up. The canine Pokémon Houndoom roughed me and a lot of players up a surprising amount for what I thought was going to be a tame experience, but some careful running away meant we eventually prevailed. Some parts of the game were pure nostalgia. A Pikachu delighted me on the rooftop, and a Magikarp flopped by the water, like he always does.” At the end, she even got to take a picture with Pokémon poster child Pikachu, studded out in Z-A merch and bouncing happily for everyone who came. All in all, it’s sounding like now is a great time to be a Pokémon fan! 

“Blippo+ is a retrofuturistic fever dream that I feel richer and weirder for having experienced.” Deven McClure said as she reviewed the absurd and nostalgia ridden channel surfer Blippo+ with an honest admittance: not even she understands the story! Her thoughts continue as she writes, “I’d been enraptured by the game since its trailer premiered during Day of the Devs, and I was left with absolutely no idea what was going on. After having completed its story, I honestly still don’t fully know what’s going on, but I do know I enjoyed myself immensely.” Blippo+ is a game only by the slightest margin, your main interaction is through the changing of channels and such, but that doesn’t mean it won’t leave you without an interesting experience. As Deven channel surfed through an alien TV network she couldn’t help but yearn for more of the narrative and lore behind life as a Blippian, sharing her thoughts as she writes, “The main narrative is all linked to the discovery of The Bend, a mysterious space rift linking to another world, and the subsequent mission to explore it. Without giving too much away, it results in a story full of aliens, existential questions, and a revolutionary movement with the iconic slogan, ‘Get Bent.’ Watching a sort of intergalactic crisis play out in such a strange universe made what would’ve otherwise been a fairly simple story much more compelling. Much of Blippo+’s fun is also derived from the element of surprise, since I could never predict what program plot points would pop up next.”

Beyond the Circle 

In an unexpected turn of events, the University of Tennessee will be piloting the first ever history of GTA college course. The lore surrounding the myriad games playable nowadays has long since been something only deciphered by the most dedicated online outlets and content creators, but one man has been looking to bring the history of some of the biggest games to the public eye one course at a time. IGN’s Wesley Yin-Poole spills the details on this man, writing “‘Grand Theft America: U.S. History Since 1980 through the GTA Video Games’ was devised and will be taught by history professor Tore Olsson, who eagle-eyed IGN fans might remember from our coverage of his Red Dead Redemption American history class — another world first. Accompanying that course was Professor Olsson’s book, Red Dead’s History, and its audiobook narration by none other than Arthur Morgan actor Roger Clark.” The article is a long and in depth interview with Olsson, detailing his trials and tribulations with drafting up this course and what he hopes to teach through the study of analyzing the deeper lore and narrative within the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Be sure to give it a read if you’re interested in learning all there is to know about GTA’s history! 

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

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