Phone controllers have come a long way. Gone are the days of clip-style controllers or external clips that snap on to Xbox controllers. We finally get dedicated, high-quality telescoping controllers that feel like a premium console controller. The Backbone has been at war with the Razer Kishi for a couple of years now, and so far, the Backbone has remained king of the phone controllers. The licensing partnership with PlayStation just drives home how much they want console gamers on their phones.
The backbone feels incredibly sturdy in the hands. The buttons are precisely where they should be, and the thumb sticks have a great feel. The software is actually quite interesting, and it is one of the better game launcher apps that supports Backbone natively. With a full list of controller-compatible games, you can launch them from the app without any issues. Here, you can also adjust a few settings and check for firmware updates. It’s miles better than Razer’s app for the Kishi.
This is the single best dedicated mobile controller I have ever used. We have made significant progress since the early 2010s, when Wish and AliExpress offered subpar controllers. Even the Moga controllers were pretty bad. Remember the iPega series of Chinese controllers? The PG-9023 was one of the most popular controllers up until Moga started taking over the market, and then PS4 and Xbox One controllers took over. This controller feels as though it could have been designed by Sony itself. The buttons feel premium; they don’t have obnoxiously loud clicks; the analog sticks aren’t stiff or overly sensitive; and the hand ergonomics are just right.
The backbone can fit phones as large as they come, and it doesn’t have the Kishi’s weird folding design. It doesn’t fold down as far, but it’s small enough to fit into a bag without taking up much room. Overall, the Backbone One is a fantastic controller, made even more so with the PlayStation branding. This fits right alongside all of your PS5 accessories.
1UP Arcade has done an excellent job bringing scaled-down cabinet replicas to our house. Some negative arcade enthusiasts may criticize these cabinets, but their quality has improved over time, and for the majority of us, they are the only affordable, suitable, and accessible options. I had the original Mortal Kombat II Costco arcade cabinet, but it severely malfunctioned beyond repair, having no sound or control input anymore. Replacing the board would have cost nearly as much as a new cabinet, so I decided to buy the upgraded version.
This cabinet isn’t just an upgrade; it’s Mortal Kombat II 2.0. 1Up has completely redesigned the entire cabinet from the ground up, incorporating more Midway games, online play, and numerous improvements over the years. For starters, there is no need for the silly riser anymore. While the artwork was nice, it made the cabinet not look as authentic as it could. Additionally, the cabinet features top-mounted downfiring speakers, and the marquee seamlessly integrates with the side panels instead of appearing as a flat banner across the top. The screws now have black screwhole covers, so I had to buy black screws for the original cabinet because this wasn’t thought of. There is a faux coin door in the front, and overall, it looks a lot closer to the original design.
I made slight improvements to the buttons and joysticks, but I still replaced them with Suzzo Happs and Cherry microswitches. The LCD is of much higher quality, with better color and contrast. I also modified my system to add a subwoofer at the bottom of the cabinet for more bass. While the stereo speakers sound better than the original mono speaker cabinet, there is no bass. I installed a low-cost soundbar on the top of the previous cabinet, but it merely amplified the audio rather than suppressing the internal speaker. With the subwoofer added, the cabinet rumbles and shakes, becoming as loud as a regular arcade cabinet, and it’s glorious. This is a cheap option, and you can add any old PC subwoofer you have lying around.
This time around, installation takes longer due to a more solid design with more wood and cross beams to support the rear, control panel, and marquee area. It feels significantly more solid, and as I assembled it, I noticed that it also weighs more. This is a sturdy cabinet that can take a good knocking and rough play, while the original had thinner wood and felt more delicate. Playing the actual games is what matters most, and there’s no disappointment here. All four MK games play just like they did in the arcades and feel great. The addition of the other Midway games is a huge bonus, and you can upload and track your high scores, which adds replay value to these games.
Overall, while I’m no arcade expert, I can safely say that this cabinet is worth the full purchase to replace your old one. You can either gift it to a friend or your kids, or sell it and purchase this new cabinet instead. It is easier to mod, has higher-quality parts all around, and the bonus of online play, software updates, and more games outside of Mortal Kombat adds to that value.
Adventure games, specifically text adventures, were some of the first video games ever made. These were similar to choose-your-own-adventure books, but you had a set of common commands you could type, such as “Go To,” “Open,” and “Go Back.” Some games were super strict with these commands, while others were more loose. You could pick specific objects in the current text on screen to interact with. These can be very fun, as they are as much a puzzle game as an adventure game. Stories Untold starts off this way, but with a twist. I’m hesitant to reveal the game’s premise as it could potentially spoil the entire experience. All I can say is that there are four short chapters, and they all involve interacting with older 80’s equipment.
The game isn’t really a horror title, despite seeming so on the surface. It can be a bit unsettling, but there are no jump scares or ghosts. The game is full of puzzles to solve, but everything you need is right in front of you. You must tune radios, use scientific equipment, read the manuals for these devices, and follow the on-screen instructions. It’s amazing, and I had a lot of fun with these interactive pieces. I did find it a bit annoying when you didn’t exactly know what buttons you could interact with. In the second chapter, with all the science equipment, I encountered a bug that prevented me from turning on one of the boxes, forcing me to restart the game. Outside of these minor issues, the game has some decent voice acting and visuals, with some great lighting effects.
The first chapter’s 8-bit computer is quite convincing, allowing your typing to translate 1:1 with the sounds of a real 8-bit keyboard. Some will remember the CRT glow and the dark corner full of wood furniture. I never grew up with 8-bit computers as they were before my time (I started out with Windows 3.1), but for those who have, they would get a real kick out of this. My least favorite parts were when you did control the main character in real-time. There are two sections in which you do this, and it’s very slow, plodding, and uninteresting. I found the stationary parts to be more entertaining.
Overall, Stories Untold has four short chapters, and you can finish the game in about 3 hours, but it’s a lot of fun. I found the overall story and ending to be quite intriguing, and the development of the entire experience was commendable. The interactive objects and puzzles are clever and fun, but when you take control of the character itself, the game slows down too much.
The idea of AI taking over the world is an intriguing subject, and it is becoming more and more of a reality with current deep-learning AIs. Ever since Isaac Asimov touched upon the thought of machines becoming closer to humans, we have thrust this into science fiction. The Enigma Machine does just this. The Enigma Machine tasks you with a simulation of entering a rogue AI’s “dreamscape” and finding the hidden code to terminate it. The story moves very fast as there are only four levels, and despite being able to type in pre-baked commands, I would have loved to see some hidden words give interesting results.
A level thrusts you into a first-person view with PS1-style graphics. You can interact with objects and sprint. That’s about it. Your goal is to find hidden codes in the level, either written down or audibly given. You must enter these codes in the correct order, as they are somewhat obscure. The levels are small, with only a couple of rooms. Upon reaching level three, the game requires you to combine all three codes in a specific sequence. The lighting is odd, and the textures warp and shift just like on the original PlayStation, but the game takes this a bit too far. The textures will stretch farther than they should, and the final level is a glitch fest of walls disappearing and textures overlapping each other. It can be an attack on the senses, but given the setting, it’s acceptable.
The story itself, which unfolds as text on the terminal, captivated me beyond the haunting sound effects and the suspense of not knowing what will happen next. Unfortunately, the short length of the story prevents us from learning more about the program and its AIs. You have the ability to type in words enclosed in brackets, and each time you re-enter the terminal, you receive additional information about each item, though the list is not extensive. I tried typing in random words, cuss words, and various other things, but the game doesn’t seem to have any hidden Easter eggs in that regard.
Even though the horror elements are minimal, the computer’s deception and the mystery surrounding your presence and participation in this simulation remain. The game’s four levels limit our learning opportunities, and the ending text largely explains the game’s mechanics. I did find some of the puzzles too obtuse to understand, such as the fact that there’s a hidden gun and you need to complete the last level. This is a game that puzzle enthusiasts will find enjoyable; however, it is not suitable for those who prefer pure horror or a game that revolves around terminal text.
Here we are 30 years later, and the series has literally made a full circle. Mortal Kombat is my favorite video game series, and it was the first game I ever played as a toddler on the Sega Genesis back in 1992/93. While this game is technically a reboot, it’s still a continuation of the overall timeline and a sequel to Mortal Kombat 11‘s story. You follow the cast of characters: Liu Kang and Kronika split time into multiple timelines. Liu Kang wanted to reset everything and create a timeline of peace, but somehow old enemies are returning, and he can’t explain why. I don’t want to spoil anything. Mortal Kombat still has the best story out of any fighting game to date, and this story is fantastic. There were a lot of twists and turns, and I was sad when it ended. The voice acting is fantastic, and many favorite characters return.
Clearly, Ed Boon and his team were reminiscing about the later 3D games, from Deadly Alliance to Armageddon, because there are a lot of references and characters returning from that era. Nitara, Ashrah, Darius, Shujinko, Sareena, and Havik are among those returning. These characters were one-offs who never made it into any other game, and it’s quite shocking to see these seemingly nobodies make a huge comeback. The only caveat is that they aren’t all playable. More on that later.
The story mode plays out the same as in MK9. You watch a cut scene, and it flows into a single fight. Not all characters are playable during the story, but you get rewards for every fight you win; more on the extra content later. I highly recommend completing the more advanced tutorials, followed by the challenges for learning specific characters. They have tweaked and refined the fight system to make it feel faster-paced and more reminiscent of the classic 2D Mortal Kombat games we all grew to love. Air combat has come back, and there is a higher emphasis on creating your own combos rather than relying on set combos already programmed into the game. There’s a lot more freedom in the fighting system.
Of course, there are more advanced systems in play, such as cancellations, interrupts, combo breakers, and the usual throws and final blows. The same tri-segmented special meter is back, allowing you to enhance your moves almost exclusively, just like before. After removing the shackles of pre-programmed combos that have been around since Deadly Alliance, you feel more in control, and the game is so crunchy, punchy, and fluid. The game’s animations and controls are incredibly smooth, enabling even the most advanced players to cancel and interrupt as they please.
Kameos is a new major gameplay feature. We had tag battles before in MK9, but these characters aren’t playable. Kameos have replaced environmental interactions. You can no longer throw someone into the background or grab things. Your health bar now features a Kameo meter, which you can summon twice before it requires charging. You can combo in and out of Kameo summons, as well as hold down the button to use more advanced moves. Throws and fatal blows now bind Kameos. Most fatal blows only have one or two X-ray shots rather than the usual three. They still look cool and are one of the best features to ever make it into a fighting game.
Mortal Kombat 1 is the first MK game in a very long time that actually lacks content. Gone are the multiple modes for replay value or experimental ideas. We only get a new Konquest-style mode that has you moving along a grid on various maps. Each tile has something on it, from a reward to a fight, but gaining Koins (there is only a single currency now) is a serious grind and feels worse than MK11‘s grind. Customizing characters is awesome, and the outfits here are much more varied than MK11‘s numerous pallet swaps. You can even personalize your Kameo fighters. Sadly, the new Konquest mode is sluggish, mostly boring, and resets with each new season. Yeah, MK1 has seasons now. Yikes.
I sadly have to admit that this might be the beginning of the franchise’s downfall. With a bigger emphasis on microtransactions (cosmetic only) and making the player grind into tedium for cosmetic items, the series is losing what made fans love it for so many years. The fight system itself is better than ever, with top-notch animations and a fantastic story mode, but this is short-lived. Online play increases replay value, but the costumes and unlocks are what MK fans love, and they’re being turned into something to profit off of. Though stunning, the images don’t quite erase the vinegary taste of greed.
Myst is notorious for its incredibly complex puzzles, yet its captivating world and style captivate and compel exploration. I remember and recall playing Myst III in the early 2000s in my local library, having only seen copies of the game on the shelf for various systems at stores throughout the years. However, I refrained from playing it due to its incredibly complex puzzles, which even a small child would struggle to understand. Cyan completely remakes the game in real-time, so you can freely walk around these areas, unlike previous versions, which were fixed pre-rendered images.
Myst isn’t very story-heavy, but the world is interesting, and as you explore the main island, you eventually learn the pattern of how to travel to other islands and get to the ending. Technically, you can reach the end of the game in two minutes (there’s an achievement for it, and I got it after many frustrating tries), but you also want all four endings, so I recommend following a guide the first time around. This game is very landmark-heavy, so it’s important you remember where everything is. The main island has a hub that will transport you to the islands, but you must solve the puzzle to unlock their doors.
You can follow this pattern by locating a map in the main library and directing the laser to various locations. Once you have done this, you can go up the library elevator and look for a single clue to help unlock the door to that island. These puzzles on the island are fairly easy and not hard to figure out at all, and each island’s puzzle gets progressively more complex and obtuse. Channelwood Island is the easiest, with just levers that you need to flip to make water run through a pipe to power elevators and bridges. It’s very straight-forward. By the end of the game, you are using audio cues to determine what direction a train goes via a compass rose. These sounds are from another island, which you hopefully wrote down or memorized. It’s very overwhelming at first, but doing a guide playthrough allows you to do randomized playthroughs later to get the last few achievements.
Outside of the run button, the gameplay is very simple. You interact with objects, and that’s pretty much it. Each island has a very linear path, so you can’t get lost, but the cryptic symbols on doors and switches may scare some players and turn many away. I did run across a glitch here and there, such as an achievement not popping up or getting stuck in the game world (there’s a reset option, thankfully), and you can save anywhere, which is nice. Despite the pleasant music and voiced dialog in the cutscenes, the game still feels dated, even with effects like HDR and ray-tracing enabled. The textures are fairly low-resolution, and the lighting just feels very artificial. There’s also a low draw distance, so outside of the island you are on, there’s just endless fog. I would have liked to have seen more stuff in the distance.
Overall, Myst is mostly for those who played it years ago, in 1993, but newcomers who crave brain-scraping puzzles will love this game. With a guide, you can breeze through the game in about 2 hours, but I went back and got all but three achievements, as they were fun to get. Once you get to know the island and the puzzles, the game becomes more fun with random playthroughs. Even though the puzzle solutions vary, you already know how to solve them, which is half the fight.
I’m not the biggest fan of visual novels. Most visual novels, or VNs as the community likes to call them, either lack a compelling story or engaging characters, or they drag on for more than 30 hours without achieving anything. Mediterranea Inferno drew me in because of its visual style and advertised player choices that could shift the story. While this does exist, the story is incredibly basic, with some very elementary writing and characters that are as interesting as a wet napkin.
The game’s inclusion of queer culture may offend many people, but for individuals like me, it suggests that the story could feature some intriguing characters. The game takes place in modern-day Italy, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic (it’s mind-boggling to think we’ve built entire game stories around this pandemic), and depicts the disintegration of these three friends during that period. The overall story hints at how COVID broke friends apart and how the isolation and lockdowns made it difficult for all three of these men to maintain their social lifestyles.
This VN is very “slice-of-life,” with not much going on. The endings express no inner turmoil, and there is no gameplay. The choices you make during Mirages imply that the characters might be taking drugs at these moments. A mysterious character appears and offers a strange fruit that you can peel or turn down to alter the story a bit. You get coins to purchase these fruits by interacting with objects in the mirages. This game’s best ending for each character requires four tarot cards, but only one character can get them in one playthrough. There are three days and three nights to live through.
We learn a small amount of backstory for each of the three men here, but it’s mostly just dialog about complaining or what feels like random, boring daily conversations. I almost wanted to stop the game after the first day, but I kept going, hoping that there would be some crazy plot twist. Sadly, this never happened. I can’t spoil too much of the story (like it matters with how bad it is), but there’s not much here for anyone. Those who enjoy storytelling, queer gamers seeking a connection with LGBTQ+ characters, or anyone seeking a visually appealing game will not find it appealing. The art, while hand-drawn, just isn’t very appealing at all. The game is mostly just a giant slideshow, with an occasional low-poly 3D model thrown in for good measure.
By day three, I just didn’t know what to really expect anymore. The Mirages are weird, abstract, and poetic, but nothing means anything in this game. There’s no reason to care or keep moving. Early on in the game, there’s no hook to keep you in your seat. Most people will click away before the end of the first day. I understand it takes time to set up a story, but for a game that only has a 2-hour runtime, there isn’t a lot you can do. Overall, there’s not much here to recommend, as there aren’t too many redeeming qualities in this game.
I have yet to play Iron Lung, but I know it created a whole new genre of horror games set around claustrophobic spaces and minimal visuals. The PS1-inspired graphics are not much to look at, sadly. The cockpit you are in is almost non-existent, with only some hoses and a monitor. The plot revolves around the disappearance of a spacecraft, and you embark on a 30-to-60 year journey on Voyager-19 to unravel the mystery. The only gameplay is clicking around on buttons on the monitor with various creepy sound effects playing around you. The game is deceptively unnerving and, sadly, doesn’t capitalize on anything that adds up to much.
You have to maintain a certain level of power. You must keep life support on at all times, but you also have power for your camera, radio, navigation system, and thrusters. You have to complete seven missions to finish the game, and these are all exactly the same. Photograph various planets on their lit sides, and record five seconds of radio. On the navigation screen, you will see large orbs, which are suns, and small orbs, which are planets. You’ve got to move your ship to the left, but you can turn while in camera mode to face the planet and adjust. This necessitates the use of thrusters. Once you snap the photo, you record your radio piece, which can be the haunting sounds of planets, and move on.
After each mission, you wake up from hibernation and need to complete the next one. The screen becomes harder to read (in a not-so-fun way, I might mention), and you lose more and more power. This is when the game gets very tedious. The last couple of missions only give you two power bars, so you constantly have to flip around menus, turning things off and on. Occasionally, you may encounter objects in space, yet the game fails to provide further details or allow you to investigate their nature. The game’s limitations shouldn’t constantly leave the player wondering if something interesting will happen, especially when almost nothing ever does.
The game has a lot of potential. Perhaps the game could benefit from varying the missions and providing us with more background information. You have to decrypt a file after every mission, but towards the end, the screen is so hard to read that most people may actually not be able to complete it. There’s too much distortion and effects layered over to make it enjoyable. I liked the atmosphere up until there was no pay-off. I yearned for more reading, seeing, and especially hearing, as these are the primary senses in this type of game. Overall, Voyager-19 will kill an hour of your time if you want an Iron Lung-style adventure, but even for the low price, the game just doesn’t pay off much.
Are you afraid of dentists? Most of us are, and the developers even warn you of dentaphobia at the beginning of the game. Your dentist informs you that you have six days to improve the cleanliness of your mouth. This is a very surreal and trippy game that attacks the senses at every second. You can only explore a limited number of levels, and an object that you must find locks each level away. There are multiple endings. You need to meet specific objectives for each ending, but you can’t finish them all at once. It’s imperative to have multiple saves at different stages so you can go back and branch off to another ending.
Even if you explore everywhere and try to figure things out on your own, it’s very difficult to know what to do. Even when your eyes adjust to the insane visuals and haunting sound effects, you will have no idea what to do. Some endings you may stumble upon by accident, while others are more obscure. There is a main area, located inside your mouth, that functions as a kind of branching hub. Once you figure out how to get there, you will only have one of four doors unlocked. Each door has a requirement to be unlocked. Some doors have items you need for certain endings, while others lead to new areas without any items at all. The game lacks significant dialogue and a compelling storyline. This game feels a lot like the LSD Dream Emulator. The PS1-style graphics and audio are a pleasure to behold, and that’s what kept me going. I also sense a hint of humor in the mix. The items are hardly recognizable as belonging to this world.
Once you have explored each area and identified the items present, reaching the endings only becomes a tedious task. While you can do it, the final scene requires you to complete it in three different ways to get all of the true endings. It’s a very slow and tedious ending, and you can’t skip ahead. I found the lack of a cohesive story or characters not very problematic, as the world and the overall ideas in each area are incredibly entertaining. I wish these surreal-style games didn’t rely on being obscure and difficult to understand. This game is nearly impossible to play without a guide.
Overall, if you want a far-out PS1-style game with insane visuals and a weird atmosphere, then this is for you. This is one of the few games in this style in which I actually tried to see all the endings and explore every area. It’s memorable and will stick with you for a long time.
Another independent horror game featuring a convoluted narrative and characters we find uninteresting. I keep giving these games chances, and while a lot of them nail their main monster and atmosphere, almost none can bring home a good story or good characters. This game is based on Taiwanese mythology and the 2020 film of the same name. I have never seen or heard of the film, but the folktale is interesting. A group of six university students challenge the curse on the bridge near Tunghu University and accidentally “trigger” it. You spend a lot of the game running from ghosts of sorts and finding objects in the first person.
The game begins with a promise for the entire setup. The number of voiced lines and cutscenes suggests a promising story. The voice acting is in Taiwanese and is pretty adequate for what the story needs. The first scene of the game has you running around a small park, hiding from a ghost, and trying to escape. The monsters are fairly well done, but they are nothing we haven’t seen before. Pale skinned girls with long black hair, red eyes, and really skinny. There are a few more imaginative monsters, such as a possessed mannequin, but after so many exposures to this ghost, it’s not scary anymore.
There are a few Asian horror tropes, such as a random limb grabbing something when you open a cupboard, or the main ghost appearing behind someone and showing a single eye. These cheap jump scares detract from the overall game experience and give the impression of a cop-out. Despite this, the atmosphere was rather tense, and just wandering the halls and hearing the ominous music and strange sound effects made me stay on edge for the entire game. The stealth sections were my least favorite parts, and it seems that non-combat horror games tend to focus primarily stealth. The ending sequence was the most frustrating, as these are all trial-and-error events. When caught, you must restart and complete the run in a single attempt because you are unsure of the correct path to take. The ending sequence requires you to restart each time, and you must collect many objects that increase the frustration. I ran into a glitch where a locker wasn’t in the spot I needed, and I couldn’t progress anymore.
Most of the game tells you exactly where to go, and there are signs everywhere that help guide you. There aren’t many puzzles in the game, and the ones that are present are relatively simple. The majority of the game involves revisiting the same locations with six distinct characters, and while their narratives should eventually converge, they never do. The timeline lacks clarity, and the explanation of the school’s shifts and changes remains elusive. Is it a hallucination or is it actually happening? Even reading the flavor text in journals doesn’t explain anything. I’m so tired of the poor storytelling in these games. I feel like there is some sort of love story involved, but I couldn’t really figure it out.
In the end, there’s nothing really here for anyone unless you want a cheap 3-hour horror adventure. If it weren’t for the flawed stealth mechanics, I would have enjoyed this game more, but even the graphics fall short of expectations. It uses Unreal Engine 5, and it is very poor at that. The entire time I thought it was Unreal 4 or even 3. However, the lighting effects give the impression that it’s Unreal 5. They are pretty decent, but the texture and modeling are horrible. Even cranked up to max, the game just doesn’t look good. With that said, The Bridge Curse has a lot of potential but falls flat in too many areas.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Yeah, it's pretty damn awful. Notoriously one of the worst games on the PSP. A 4 was actually being generous.…