ahhh baby this is dripping with style. sodden and mucky with the stuff. three weeks sleeping in its own panache without a shower. I think someone loved the ending of full throttle (which they should, it's awesome!) and decided to make that the whole game, just a run of thrilling action sequences rendered in a point 'n' click interface. heard one person grouse (it's zarf, I heard zarf grouse, hi zarf I love you sorry I sat across from you at a table one time and couldn't think of anything to say, I wasn't medicated for adhd yet) that the plot hook protecting you from death makes these action scenes unsuspenseful, but I must respectfully say that I'm not sure how it's different from reloading a save? like yeah it's automated and there's a plot explanation for it but that's just streamlining what you'd have to do manually, right? iunno, maybe it just never bothers me.

so ok you're a drifter who comes home for a funeral and then a whole buncha shit goes down: murder frame-ups, kidnappings, all kinds of life-threatening shit popping off from the first scene. the quality of the animation is phenomenal so of course they couldn't actually animate everything; lotta cuts to black where the character narrates something they just did not have the time to draw at the quality they've been drawing things. this means the voice acting has to carry a lot of the drama, and the guy playing mick sure is up to the task. even the visualized stuff - which is plentiful! - is, you know, medium-framerate pixel art, and a lot of the drama comes from careful pacing and just the right pulpy melodrama in the recording booth.

I will share my handful of gripes:

• I liked the pulp mystery vibes of the early going more than the science-fiction vibes it veers into, and do kinda wish they'd stuck with something more grounded, even as the mechanics of vibe 2 are very thoughtfully explored
• they stop short of damseling/fridging the female characters but they repeatedly come so close
• the setpiece trick can't help but wear a little thin as it goes along; only so many times mick's voice can go in that particular register, or the plot can twist mid-chapter, before the effect is lessened

ok but even on that last point: without spoiling anything, they find very creative explorations of the central hook. theme and variation. they know when it's about to get stale and they goose it in creative ways.

damn near impeccable. the only reason it's not a full five stars is I do not feel particularly nourished by it. this is good pulp, through and through, but I don't see myself thinking a lot about it a few weeks from now. there's some stuff about coming to grips with the past, and it lets itself get properly dark along the way - not gruesome imagery dark but emotional complexity dark - but it still wraps up about the way you'd expect it to. however creatively it gets there, 'tis a destination oft-visited. so, yeah: rollicking good time, and that's all it needs to be. banger.