Picross 3D Review

And we take the cube and smash and smash and smash!

Dear esteemed readers:

After yesterday's little talk about the purpose of being a writer and how you become a good one, I have noticed that none of you immediately went out and began your own media empire. You would think that someone with more charisma than a lubed up hooker with frankly rude titties would be able to exert her influence. It's a disappointment that I am not that her, as that her is a him, and him is disappointed because you didn't go out and change the world like I did. For shame. Oh, I'm supposed to be mad. For fucking shame. Bitch.

I suppose I forgot to hammer in the point, because as I was showing my blog to somebody who spends their time smoking weed behind a high school dumpster, they thought that my blog had child porn on it because of the title of my very first article. This should be obvious, but I had no idea what I was doing at the time. Yeah, my site design was the same characteristically solid and intuitive mess as it is now, but when it came to writing, I was honestly just throwing words at the wall trying to make a format that works. Now that I've done that, I look back on that article like a stillborn child - one which you probably should throw away but can't bear to because you need to show people that at least you tried.

I didn't even try to dissuade them otherwise - anybody who had convinced themselves that there was illegal porn on a clearnet website hosted on a popular public index, and that I was showing it to them willingly, then I have no business trying to convince them that this wasn't the case. If they think that I'm a child molestor, I'm going to sit here not molesting children, and they'll come to terms with that. Standing up is a different issue though. Lying down? You better believe I'm not sitting.

But beyond that, I think you can do with another example of how far I've come. Here's a 2016-08-06 review of Picross 3D that I never published, back before I was even a teardrop in the eye of the public consciousness.

Why I played it:

Never let it be said that I am not a thinking man, though this is irrelevant because the practicality of destroying a cube made out of cubes to make a different thing made out of cubes is limited to Minecraft Let's Players, and if I found myself at a point in my life where I had to constantly justify my career as a children's entertainer, then I'd probably jump to the polar opposite and be a porn star. Fuck being a barber - you'll always find work if you're willing to fuck.

Anyway, I played this game when I was a youngster and so thought it would do me some good to try it out. I wanted to know if it was as good as it was, and indeed found it as such. Which is to say, it's not the best.

How it works:

You have a block. Numbers are on the block. Based on those numbers, you break the blocks in the block and make a blocky shape. It's Mario's Picross in 3D, and it's about as exciting as it sounds.

Even with simple puzzle games, Nintendo has a presentation to it all that other developers skimp on. The menus are typically big, blocky, and stylised, the music is quirky without being grating, and the one-off characters are still filled with bright colours and personality that a lesser developer would skimp on. I think Nintendo is the glue holding this industry together, even if it's rainbow-coloured toothpaste, because all of their games are examples of how to create a damn good first impression, whereas other games just plop themselves in front of you, spread their legs, and say "fuck me".

What I felt:

The first few levels filled me with the same interest as you would with any game - novel glee and wonder, giving it your all and seeing if it sticks. It did for a little bit. The animations you get after completing each puzzle are interesting and colourful - even though they think lowly of electric cars, zerooutoften. And I guess that's where the novelty ends, because it's three hundred more puzzles of that exact same scenario with slightly different models.

There's no getting past that the entire concept of Picross is boring. You stare at a block, listen to music (which wouldn't feel out-of-place in a Doom map, honestly), and keep tapping until the level ends. It's mentally challenging, but not in the good way where you feel like you're getting better at a task to the point where you can breeze through each one, like in Brain Age. It's more like each puzzle is just as difficult as the last, and you have to pretend you're having fun because the realisation that you've been working on block puzzles for a half-hour would sink like mercury in water.

I can understand the appeal for people who really fucking like puzzle games. I'm not one of those people - I can't even stand Tetris, and every time I enter an arcade game tournament I have to pray that Tetris is the first thing on the list and my opponent is an eight-year-old, and then keep the fast-fall button as far away from me as possible. This isn't to say I'm bad at either Tetris or Picross 3D - I can beat an eight-year-old at either. I am saying that the idea of completing arbitrary tasks with no context or story is as interesting to me as reading Homestuck, which is my personal benchmark for arbitrary tasks with no context or story.

This entire review is redundant, because there's a simple test you can take to see if you like this game. When you wake up every morning, are you genuinely excited to work on your sudoku-a-day calendar? If so, you'll like this game. If not, spare yourself the mental struggle and don't download it. It's not a bad game by any means, and this is probably the third-best game about destroying blocks I've ever played, though even the amount of care that Nintendo has put into its presentation doesn't alleviate the fact that I was looking at grey blocks for one hundred levels, and you'd have to be a very special type of person to enjoy that scenario.

What I learned:

Glamour will get you through the door, but if your audience doesn't like your core gameplay mechanic, they'll leave before the party starts.

I can draw a pretty good copy of my harpy wife from Towergirls, and the ability to draw a picture for your file select screen is something that only Nintendo games have done well. Also, why is she the least popular girl? I bet those mousefuckers are responsible for this.

The right music can make you shit yourself in the most mundane situations.

I still have no idea what that duck thing was supposed to be. It looked like if Picasso got high and threw modelling clay at a wall. Actually, all his paintings look like that.

Blocked but not banned - Froghand.

Today's page was updated on October 05, 2016!

Please send me your Minecraft hate mail so I can call your children twats.