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<strong>Review:  Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk and Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk</strong>

Review:  Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk and Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk

Got Milk?

Go on. Judge it by its title. Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk and Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk. It’s a beast.

However ludicrous it may seem, the title encapsulates what you should expect from the duology. The repetition is disarming, but the words are mundane. Our protagonist’s goals are similarly simple—a trip to the store and a bedtime routine—but her perception distorts these events into nightmarish scenarios. The recursive title also mirrors the protagonist’s attempts to cope with the world through wordplay and obfuscation. Even the distinction between “inside” and “outside” represents the shift in perspective between the two entries. What seems random at first glance is exactingly intentional.

You can also look at the title and think it’s beyond stupid, rendering my commentary irrelevant. “Milk 1 & 2” delight in their own inaccessibility and eschew a clear narrative for surreal commentary. Being visual novels, they traded gameplay for text boxes. Your enjoyment also hinges on your ability to appreciate a slow burn which never builds to a bonfire. If you don’t buy into it, the whole affair reeks of highfalutin angst.

Considering both games clock in at under an hour total, I argue those interested should take the risk and play it without any other context. Recognizing they cost eight bucks, I acknowledge a review may be in order before you make a commitment.

What is it?

Milk 1 concerns a girl going to the store to buy milk. She cheekily frames her errand as a visual novel, casting you as a disembodied voice which either guides or criticizes her. Through her eyes, we discover an alien version of our world comprised of a sludge of two shades of red and black. This filter transforms her grocery run into a bad acid trip. Support her, and she will accomplish her task and invite you into her psyche. Upset her, and she will serve you a game over.

Milk 2 picks up immediately after the first’s conclusion, even beginning with an animated sequence summarizing Milk 1’s events. You need not worry about a game over here, and the visuals forgo the dizzying hallucinations for a more traditional anime style as we see her from the third-person perspective. The girl introduces this sequence as a point-and-click adventure, charging you with inspecting various objects in her room to help her collect her thoughts (represented by fireflies). Based on how you respond to her and if you collect the fireflies, you uncover one of five potential endings, each conveyed as a dream.

What’s good?

  1. From the aesthetic to the soundtrack to her ramblings to our dialogue choices, Milk 1 and 2 craft an oppressive panorama of the girl’s mental illness.  The first game illustrates her relationship with her psychosis and gives us a glimpse into her trauma, all the while disorienting us.  The second game contributes further detail, tracking how a once semi-functional girl became caged in her own room.  Gradually and almost insidiously, we discover we are not her path to relief but just another symptom of her illness.  One of the most visceral realizations comes when we understand why she so meticulously cares for the order of her belongings—including her trash—in her room.
  2. Nikita Kryukov, developer of the Milk games, has designed one of the most compelling video game protagonists in recent years.  The girl’s mental illness has incapacitated and isolated her, but she is by no means a damsel in distress.  She fully recognizes her likely prognosis but shows resilience by adapting to her myriad of symptoms.  Many of her strategies take form as obsessive-compulsive habits, but they allow her to gain a semblance of normalcy and stability.  We also see her personality outside of her illness, a witty child who takes joy in her imagination and delights in gaming, drawing, and 3D modeling.  Her unrelenting determination and positive attitude add to her endearing character, a shining image which becomes all the more tragic once we understand it will be snuffed out.  

What’s up to your preference?

  1. Both games bear the label of psychological horror but don’t supply the scares associated with the genre. Certain images will invoke unease, but neither game is intended to strike fear in the player. We’re meant to empathize with the girl who exists in the chasm between sanity and insanity, a torturous limbo. This connection can stir up existential dread, which is praiseworthy of Milk 1 and 2 but is arguably not what most gamers want from a spooky game.
  2. An hour’s worth of content may not satisfy some gamers. Unlocking all of the endings and trying out different responses will only take another half hour, if that. You have access to the soundtracks for both games, but the songs don’t exactly qualify as ear candy. With these limiting factors, your mileage depends on how much you relish ruminating on the games’ themes after you’ve reached the endings.

What’s bad?

  1. Milk 2’s endings do their best impressions of arthouse film, translating what we already knew into esoteric musings.  The Milk games succeed in their ability to depict one girl’s psychosis as a concrete reality.  What she perceives is what exists, and we experience despair, confusion, and isolation as she does.  The endings approach these emotions symbolically, tasking us with deciphering dreams which are as unrealistic as they are coherently thematic.  Prior to her going to bed, the girl describes exactly why she has come to dislike her dreams, rendering the actual dream sequences unnecessary.  Having her fall asleep and cutting to her waking up would have effectively communicated how disturbing her dreams are to her, no matter what these dreams actually contained.
  2. Milk 2 has a glitch which softlocks the game. After selecting the vent in the girl’s room, she comments, “It’s not easy to get out of here…Ehehe…”. The fact that you cannot progress past this comment is ironic enough to make me question if this issue was intentional. The fact that this issue halts the game is evident enough it should have been fixed before release or with a day one patch.

What’s the verdict?

With most reviews, an “8” rating signals a safe purchase for the majority of gamers.   When approaching Milk 1 and 2 and other games of its ilk, your tolerance for experimentalism takes precedence over whatever opinion we critics dole out.  The duology is not fun or entertaining.  It is neither addictive nor relaxing.  It bathes you in discomfort and distress, allowing for a deeper bond with negative emotions and perhaps some clarity around them. If you’ve appreciated works like Bojack Horseman, Requiem for a Dream, and the Road and can stomach weird works like Serial Experiments Lain, Eraserhead, and Borges’ Labyrinths, Milk 1 and 2 offers another intriguing window into dysfunction. 

Arbitrary Statistics:

  • Score:  8
  • Time Played:  Around 3 hours
  • Number of Players:  1
  • Games Like It on Switch:  Paratopic, Doki Doki Literature Club

Scoring Policy

Posted by Solomon Rambling in Review, 0 comments
What the Golf? Review – But No One Asks, “How the Golf?”

What the Golf? Review – But No One Asks, “How the Golf?”

Reginald Sockembocker crashed into the pro golf scene like a flaming semi-truck into a bouncy castle, bewildering all the pro golfers jumping unsuspectingly inside. In his high school and college days, he could sink balls into holes better than any other man alive. The golfing world eagerly awaited his professional career, and Reginald—or “Ball Bocker” as he came to be, “B-Squared” for short—stole the scene in addition to every tournament. You see, B-Squared—otherwise known as “BS”—loved his over-the-top antics as much as he loved pegging holes on the first try.

His first spectacle involved him winning a tournament with his non-dominant hand and only a putter. The following year, he ensured every single drive he took ricocheted against a bird in the air before hitting the green. The resulting PETA debacle made his name known in every household. After this incident, BS voluntarily replaced his right leg with a driver and proceeded to win every tournament that year with said leg, all the while speaking and dressing like a pirate.

Although the audience initially loved his show, each progressive year’s silliness soured their fun. By the time BS was using only verbal abuse to force the balls across the green, the viewers had had enough. Golf had lost its meaning, and BS’ wackiness became the norm, making any originality seem banal.

One day, after selling his soul to employ Satan as his golf caddy, BS scored his final hole-in-one for the year. When he turned to his adoring fans, he found none of them. No other golfers had entered the tournament. Even all the birds were dead.  Reginald Sockembocker discovered he was completely alone. As Satan entered into a vortex of fire and pained screams, he looked back at the golfer and shook his head in pity.

Left with only his thoughts, Reginald pondered, “What the golf?”

What the golf?

Solomon giggled to himself as he progressed through What the Golf?. As a parody of golf, the game was fun enough, but what made it unique was how it subverted his expectations. The first stage in the campaign seemed to task Solomon with hitting a ball into a hole shaped like a giant “1.” However, there was no ball, only a cup with its flag. When he took his first shot, the cup uprooted itself from the ground and toward the 1. Once completed, the game congratulated Solomon with “Hole in One.”

Player 2 grew sick of how often Solomon nudged her to look at his game. He wanted others to see how creative the game was, and its zaniness was exactly what he needed to pull him through his current depressive episode. As he progressed through zones based on soccer, music, Super Hot, Portal, Mario, and other sports, Solomon felt he had finally found a game to match Katamari Damacy’s brilliance. Both shared a love for the wacky, emphasizing fun over difficulty. There was even a multiplayer option to include Player 2.

But then Solomon continued to play, and What the Golf? became stuck in a sand trap. Solomon became aware he was just playing golf with extra steps, and the jokes struggled to keep the momentum. Later stages devolved so far from golf that it was no longer a parody but an aimless attempt for more content.

At any point, Solomon could have simply set the game aside, yet he didn’t.  He felt compelled to continue.  He yearned for the dopamine rush it had given him earlier. He’d get small doses here and there, but rather than make him happy, he just became more aware of his withdrawal symptoms. Once a source of happiness, What the Golf? became a target for his anger as he cussed it out. It was supposed to be an antidepressant, but it ended up as a reminder that he was still mired in his low.

What’s good?

Player 2:  I still don’t understand why you wrote it like this.

Solomon Rambling:  I’m trying to reflect…uh…embody What the Golf?’s problem. It starts out crazy and awesome, but it later becomes boring and bad.

P2:  I get that, but that final paragraph just sounds bad. Like you got a fifth-grade kid to write it.

SR:  That’s the point.

P2:  Well, I don’t think it’s good.

SR:  I know. That’s the point!

P2:  No, that’s not what I mean. You start off with that ridiculous story. Then you have that really vulnerable section where you describe Solomon, and then you just go to “What’s bad” like a normal review.

SR:  I did a “What’s good” section like I do in my reviews. With the bullet points.

P2:  You did?

SR:  Yeah, I did. It’s right here. Look. Come look. I say it’s funny, is good for score chasers, and has a good multiplayer mode.

P2:  See, I didn’t hear the difference when you read it to me. It’s fine that you did that, but I don’t think people are going to get it. I still don’t like that ending.

SR:  I’m keeping the ending. I like it.

P2:  That’s fine. I’m just saying my opinion like you asked.

SR:  I know. I know. I think the problem is the “What’s good” section. It’s not different enough to be noticeable. I’ll change that. I’ll also switch the “we” to “I” in the next section.

P2:  You don’t have to. I just didn’t like that either.

SR:  I’ll change it.

What’s bad?

I would love nothing more than to heap praises on What the Golf?, but as I had mentioned previously, the game struggles to justify enough content for a full round of golf. The worlds centered on cars, bowling, and Super Hot tend to drag on, featuring more stages than unique ideas. However, the real problem lies with the challenges. Each stage features two additional challenges, with the first often related to hitting par while the second offers a joke or a steeper challenge. These theoretically should further show off the game’s creativity. Instead, they demonstrate why you don’t build off of one-liners.

The par challenges can be especially frustrating due to their uneven difficulty. Some stages will set the par so high that you needn’t even bother with it. Almost all of the timed stages (a variation on par) are similarly generous. Other challenges require near perfect execution from you, and their difficulty translates to multiple retries as you attempt to get it just right. In this limbo, I became distinctly aware that What the Golf?’s level layouts are not nearly as refined as its comedy.

For the majority of players, you can stop once you’re bored, and the game will be good for you. I’m a completionist, however, and I continued coming upon issues. For instance, if you choose not to play the first-person levels in handheld, the game will repeatedly ask you to switch and will not save your decision to remain in docked. Backtracking in the campaign to replay old stages is also a chore, so if you’re looking to 100% the game, you may want to complete all the challenges as you beat each stage. Again, these aren’t big issues, but they still pissed me off.

What’s the verdict?

In conclusion, What the Golf? is a great game, but it has its problems. I liked that it was funny, creative, and fun to play with a friend. I did not like that it was short and not as good at the end. I recommend it to people who enjoy party games or good humor. I give it an 8/10.

Arbitrary Statistics:

  • Score:  8
  • Time Played:  Over five hours
  • Number of Players:  1-2
  • Games Like It on Switch:  Katamari Damacy REROLL, Heave Ho

Scoring Policy

Posted by Solomon Rambling in Review, 0 comments