It’s time for another postcard! No introduction needed, so let’s go! WeeeeeeeeEEeee
Henry Halfhead ain’t half bad
Henry Halfhead came out recently, and you know what? It’s good! Clocking in at just shy of three hours, the game puts you in control of the titular Henry and his literal half head as you guide him through key moments of his life, from birth to old age.
Despite being little more than a forehead that slithers across the floor, Henry’s ability to possess objects makes him a surprisingly capable protagonist. The game moves you between a series of minimalist situations and basically asks you to dick around within them. Henry needs a bath, so it’s time to possess the tap, the soap, and even the bubbles. Henry’s job sorting packages requires you to embody each parcel individually to flip them into their designated holes. Cooking involves the possession of pots, pans, the hob, spaghetti, and tomatoes. It’s a varied selection of ideas that moves at a suitable pace.
Ultimately, the joy of Henry Halfhead is the game’s encouragement to be playful. This is done both narratively – as Henry rediscovers the childlike joys of creativity in his adult life – but mainly through the objects that surround him at any given time. Henry’s physical capabilities are so limited that every day bric-a-brac is recontextualised beyond their traditional uses by your ability to possess them. How does half a head dry itself after a bath? Why, by becoming the towel itself, of course! I wouldn’t say that this is a puzzle game, so much as a toybox that is excited to show you its most exciting ideas, but there’s enough here to make you think about tackling situations in inventive ways.
It reminded me a lot of Katamari, actually. A slightly idiosyncratic experience that thinks about games a little differently. One that encourages play over all else.
It’s good!
Liam
I started watching Single’s Inferno and, surprise, surprise, I love it. FML.
I am DESPERATELY trying to stop scrolling on my phone and recover what little attention span I have left, so one way I thought I could counteract my toddler brain would be to watch a show with subtitles. Enter dating show Single’s Inferno. I’ve dabbled with the dating show side of reality TV, but it’s not really my thing, however, Single’s Inferno is so different from the likes of Love Island and Love is Blind, and I’m living for it. The way it approaches the dating show format feels a lot less tacky than the US and UK counterparts, but the drama and emotional highs are still present. It still has those incredibly thirsty mini-challenges, but it’s way less horny. Plus, I feel like there’s a lot less production meddling (don’t get me wrong, I love production meddling, but sometimes it’s too much *cough* RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE *cough*).
I also LOVE how with Korean and Japanese shows, they always have a panel that reacts to the show. It makes such a huge difference, like nothing gets lost in translation, and you get an insight into the different sides of dating in other cultures. It’s what I loved about Terrace House before it got cancelled. So yeah, Single’s Inferno, another one to add to my reality TV pile.
Rachel
Remember when CAPCOM ported Dead Rising to the Wii using the Resident Evil 4 engine?
Here’s something I think about way more than any normal person should: the time CAPCOM essentially created a mod for Resident Evil 4 in order to port their Xbox 360 game Dead Rising to the technologically inferior Nintendo Wii. How did they achieve this? Using the Resident Evil 4 engine, of course.
Yes. This is a real thing that happened. It’s called Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop (lol) and it launched for the Wii back in 2009. I’ve been thinking about it a bit this week, mainly because I’ve been replaying last year’s Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, but also because of that aforementioned flaw in my brain that forces me to hyperfixate on seventh-gen console games (neurodivergence).
I’m not exaggerating when I say that Dead Rising’s Wii port is a mod for Resi 4. It’s literally all it is. CAPCOM took the assets from Dead Rising, reduced their polygonal count and texture resolution to a scale that wouldn’t make the Wii explode, and then crammed them into the Resident Evil 4 engine. Now, at this point, you may be thinking: “Hey Liam, I thought Dead Rising was all about mashing through thousands of on-screen zombies using melee weapons? How does that work in the Resident Evil 4 engine?”. Well, the answer may surprise you! It doesn’t!
Chop Till You Drop is a hugely scaled-back experience that reduces the zombie count and emphasises guns over the everyday objects you scavenge from shops in the original game. When I say guns, I do, of course, mean the same guns from Resident Evil 4, because as we’ve established, this is a mod.
The wildest part? This game is actually a banger! By virtue of the bones upon which its next-gen flesh was poorly wrapped around, Chop Till You Drop essentially becomes a pseudo-sequel to Resident Evil 4, allowing you to use that game’s pristine combat in an entirely new setting. Better yet, this is based on the Wii version of Resi 4, meaning you get all the benefits of that version, such as precision aiming and waggle-based quick time events.
Is it worth playing? Probably! Who am I, your Dad? Think for yourself. Christ.
Liam
ICYMI: Four more episodes of Pokémon Concierge dropped on Netflix earlier this month
Despite the fact that either The Pokémon Company or Netflix or both seem determined to release their best work in ages with minimal fanfare, I know plenty of people who love Pokémon Concierge. I’m one of them! The first four episodes were released on the highly family-friendly (but super Game Awards unfriendly, as a colleague and I discovered when we tried to get it submitted to their Best Adaptation category almost a full year later) date of December 28th, 2023. The second collection of four episodes — which is not Season 2 but officially considered the next installment of Season 1, despite the 20 month release gap, what do seasons even mean any more – came out on September 4th of this year, a date completely unremarkable as far as I’m aware except for being the day after my birthday, so that was nice.
I don’t know how deep into Pokémon TV fandom you have to be to even have received that memo, but even if you’ve never engaged with the franchise in your life, Pokémon Concierge is well worth a watch. It’s a lovely little stop-motion animated series about a young woman who trades in a high-pressure city job for life as a concierge at an island resort for fantasy critters burned out on fighting for their owners’ amusement, most of whom are constructed from fuzzy felt and look suitably adorable. Even with eight episodes now available you’re still only looking at a little over two hours’ run-time, and what a super chill and heartwarming two hours they will be.
Having caught up on the newer stuff now, I would say that Not-Season-2 is slightly less utterly relaxing than the original run, if only because there is some actual peril this time around, albeit so mild it’s unlikely to cause you any discomfort. An admittedly super-stressful day at work and a sad Eevee briefly caught outside in a rainstorm are about the worst of it, objectively speaking, although I’ll admit I’m not 100% sold on the addition to the main cast of a slightly unnerving elderly man who definitely feels more threatening to me than I think he’s supposed to.
One fun fact I learned only after watching Season 1 Part Deux is that the English-language dub scripts for the latter four episodes were written by Michele Knotz, the VA for Jessie in the main Pokémon anime who took over from the late great Rachael Lillis in 2006 and continued in the role until the show’s conclusion in 2023. Which pleases me because it surely means I’m one step closer to seeing my dream Team Rocket Trio cameo in Pokémon Concierge Season 3 (or Season 1 Part 3, or whatever). Obviously it doesn’t actually mean that at all; but hey, a girl who had her earliest glimmer of a bisexual awakening to that one particular held gaze between Jessie and James — and thus, decades later, still wants to see them in every piece of Pokémon media ever — can always dream, okay?
Rebecca
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