i’ve felt a shift in the discourse recently - people are starting to openly talk about how console generations are over. i’ve been beating this drum for years now. my take (which i may have stolen from yahtzee, i don’t remember) is that console generations ended the moment that games were able to create a character that was visually convincing enough that an actor cast to play them in a movie would definitively look “wrong.”

by “ended,” i’m specifically making the claim that new advancements in gaming technology are no longer going to yield industry changing paradigm shifts like the transition to 3D or the advent of the home console. from the 6th gen (ps2, gc, xbox) onward, we’ve basically been making incremental improvements on gaming hardware with diminishing returns. the complete set of “gaming possibilities” that would be enabled by increased technology was basically totally possible by the 6th generation of consoles, and at most the 7th generation.

i bring all this up because my GOTY this year will almost certainly be a 7-hour indie game that is deliberately targeting a dreamcast level of fidelity.

if you haven’t played it, get it during the next steam sale. jet set radio nostalgia is welcome, but not required - i’ve only experienced JSR through Youtube retrospectives and i still fell completely in love with this game. when people say “i want shorter games with worse graphics and i’m not kidding,” this is the sort of game that they have in mind. the soundtrack is some of the best stuff i’ve heard in years, the visual aesthetic is unyielding in its commitment to coolness, and the mod scene is… well, the image above this paragraph should tell you everything you need to know.

but against all odds, it doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, because that image doesn’t mention that there’s a mod called slop crew that straight up adds multiplayer to the game. being able to get into skate battles with randoms and hang out watching the sonic OVA with the boys on emerald coast (the tv in the above screenshot really does play the entire movie, with sound and everything) conjures feelings of comradery and bliss that i genuinely haven’t felt since i played WoW for the first time as a kid.

if you’re the sort of nerd to be hanging out on the indie web, you’re the sort of person that this game is for. get it on sale (on pc for mods), and then hit me up and we’ll start a crew and go all city.