DeVuego ES_COR

I want to stress that everything leading up to that section of the game is butter. Gravy, even. It’s a loving tribute to Atari’s early console and the games that defined it, and it provides a nostalgic vision of yesteryear’s gaming laced with a bit of horror. The final act might be a bit too much torment, but it doesn’t crack the polish of the game’s bulk. It’s absolutely worth it, just maybe chamber a few swears in preparation.

Minabo boils life down a bit too far. Life is so unbearably exhausting and complicated, and Minabo is boring and simple. It’s not that I think that it needs to be crushingly depressing or maddeningly frustrating, but there needs to be some sort of conflict or tension. Don’t ask me to walk through life 25 times with only minor differences each time. Once is more than enough.

On the other hand, outside its well-executed aesthetics, I found Frogun to be quite mundane. I kept going back to Chameleon Twist, another tongue-based platformer, and thinking about how much more freedom that game had with its mechanics. I’d never try to sell Chameleon Twist as a terrific game — both games in the brief series had glaring issues — but it’s a little more memorable than Frogun will likely be. Whenever it’s mentioned in the future, I’ll probably be able to visualize it, but not remember much of the content. Okay, I might also remember my frustration with that race jerk, but that, once again, is not a compliment.