Hi there. Welcome to Discussion: [indie game] (spoilers!), a series which should really have a generic introduction in italics at the top here but, for some reason, doesn’t.

Today’s game is Emily Is Away Too, a 2017 follow-up to the previous game we covered. Yep, you’re back on Windows XP, exchanging IM messages with someone called Emily again. Although this time, there’s another friend – Evelyn – also vying for your attention, making things a little more complicated.

Otherwise, it’s a similar tale of teenage awkwardness and intense feelings clumsily expressed, with some potential moments of hot shame thrown into the mix too.

Here’s a trailer:

Emily Is Away Too is available fairly cheaply, although its predecessor can be played for free, so that’s probably where you want to start if you’re not sure if these games are for you.

Otherwise, unless you’re sure you’ll never play this game but nevertheless want to read a transcript of two people talking about it, or just don’t care about spoilers, we’d advise you to go no further.

Here’s our ***FINAL SPOILER WARNING***!

(I’ll also add, although it’s not particularly representative of the game, or our discussion, that there’s a brief mention of self-harm below, too).

Discussion: Emily Is Away Too (spoilers!) continued »

Hello.

With a modern tale of an expensive investment quickly destroyed due to a fundamental weakness unfolding as we speak, how about we go back a long time, to a galaxy far, far away (again) and try and blow up the Death Star?

It’ll take some doing, though. For me, it’s taken 28 years.

Yes, it’s that ‘white whale’ I mentioned a little while ago. Here’s a review of X-Wing.

Ah one two, microphone check; one-two, microphone check one-two; microphone checka one-two, tell you what I’m gonna do!

Yo yo yo yo yo! It’s ya boy Rik from the F-to-the-F-to-the-G, with a sick new ride comin’ to you from 2005, when they knew how to do it! Y’know what I’m sayin’? [No – and can we please have another word about these intros – Ed.]

Ahem. Here’s a review of Street Racing Syndicate.

Hello! This is Discussion: [indie game] (spoilers!) – a series which, like Ronseal quick-drying woodstain, does what it says on the tin. [What tin, you say? What’s Ronseal, you say? Never mind! Let’s move on.]

Today’s game is Emily Is Away, a 2015 interactive novel by Kyle Seeley. During which, you are whisked back to the year 2002, and a Windows XP-alike environment, to take part in a series of instant messenger conversations with the eponymous Emily. Starting in the final year of high school and spanning the next five years, the game features all of the awkward ups and downs of teenage relationships, as well as plenty of era-relevant pop culture references. Choose your dialogue options, tap away at the keyboard, and prepare to cringe a little bit as you remember what it was like to be young.

Emily Is Away is available for free on Steam and itch.io, although the latter allows you to make a donation to the developer. And it’s short even by the standards of what we usually discuss here, so if it sounds at all like it might be of interest, we’d recommend checking it out before proceeding to the discussion below. Which, like Ronseal quick-drying woodstain, contains lots of plot spoilers. [No – Ed.]

Oh, and here’s a short trailer:

Ok? Here’s your ***FINAL SPOILER WARNING*** for the discussion below…
 
Discussion: Emily Is Away (spoilers!) continued »

Hi there.

Once hyped as an exciting new chapter of the Star Wars canon, with input from the grand high beard himself, now officially relegated to ‘never happened, sorry’, today’s game is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

(Not to dazzle you with thrilling ‘behind the curtain’ insight, but I had a more old school title, and something of a personal white whale, lined up for the next review, but, uh, it’s probably going to be a while. It *will* happen though. That’s the FFG guarantee.)

Soundtracks is where we take a look back at the use of licensed music in games. Go here if you want to know more.

Hello and welcome to Soundtracks, a series that is likely to be ending soon.

For a finale, let’s do some more racing games: why not? Specifically, all of the Need for Speed games that have some good tunes but not quite enough for me to be able to write an individual piece about them. Need for Speed: Underground and, especially, Need for Speed: Carbon might not be the best games in the series, but I’d argue that their soundtracks are the most memorable.

So what do we have left? A mopping-up exercise involving the best of the rest, in my completely subjective opinion? Or a bloody great compilation showstopper to send this series off with a bang? [The first one – Ed.]
 

Need for Speed: Underground 2

Need for Speed: Underground 2 has more *stuff* in it than the first game, and is probably a marginally better game overall. But it also has adverts for Burger King and Campbell’s Soup, as well as a less enjoyable selection of songs. I don’t want to hear an Australian rock band’s cover version of Black Betty, which also featured on the soundtrack to the 2004 film Without a Paddle (starring Matthew Lillard, Seth Green *and* Dax Shepard), ever again, thank you.
 
Soundtracks: Need for Speed Special continued »

Hi there.

We’ve got some 90s karting action for you today, plus a bonus feature on its slightly nightmarish music. The game is called Manic Karts.

[What did we talk about with these intros, Rik? – Ed.]

Ah, ok. Also – how are you? Did you have a good summer? September already, huh? What about all of those troubling domestic and world events? I’m fine, yeah. Can’t complain, can’t complain.

[Great stuff – Ed.]

Hi there.

We’re heading to the newer end of our normal reviewing territory today (so about 10-ish years ago), although there are plenty of echoes of older games here, in Wadjet Eye’s sci-fi adventure, Gemini Rue.

Hello and welcome to the latest Discussion: [indie game] (spoilers!), a series which, I’ve just decided, needs no further explanation in the introduction. I’m sure you can work it out, readers, even if you’re new around here.

Today’s game is Telling Lies, a spiritual sequel (of sorts) to the subject of our very first indie discussion, Her Story. Developed by Sam Barlow, in partnership with Furious Bee, and published by Annapurna Interactive in 2019, Telling Lies is, like Her Story, a game in which you conduct an investigation by searching through video clips.

Here’s a brief trailer:

I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that we both liked the game, and would recommend it.

Otherwise, though, if you haven’t already played Telling Lies but are sufficiently intrigued by the trailer to want to do so, you should probably leave before the discussion starts and we talk about what happens at almost every stage of it. (Also, be warned: there’s a couple of spoilers for Her Story in there too).

Ok? Here’s the ***FINAL SPOILER KLAXON***!
 
Discussion: Telling Lies (spoilers!) continued »

Soundtracks is where we take a look back at the use of licensed music in games. Go here if you want to know more.

Welcome! If you thought the premise of this feature started off thin and has only got thinner since, get ready for the barrel to be scraped. By which I mean, in celebration of the likely near end of this series, we’re going out with a bang with a couple of specials.

This time, we’ve got a double-feature, covering the racing games Juiced and Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights, two of the sexiest/sexist-est racers of the mid-00s. (No, of course the two games being together in one piece isn’t just because I don’t know enough about the songs on either – weren’t you listening? This is a double-whammy, a super-extra-special feature!)
 

Juiced

To be fair, while the first game was the subject of a notoriously abhorrent TV ad, its content was comparatively inoffensive by 00s standards. And it was a fairly good racer, if you ignored the ludicrous and punishing auto-save feature that most sane gamers would use a workaround for.
 
Soundtracks: Juiced/Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights continued »