Messofanego
Banned
After seeing Wheels Of Aurelia show up in a few GOTY lists (Austin Walker, Meg Jayanth, Leigh Alexander), and having been a fan of Santa Ragione's past games like MirrorMoon EP and Fotonica, wanted to give it a try. I was hesitant at first because I seemed to get an impression of it being like a visual novel game with the way critics talked about it, so didn't try it out when it was first released. Apparently sometimes with art games, how it is to play goes out the window in some critics' conversations
Man, no one told me how fun the game actually is to play! Everyone goes on about the heady stuff like storytelling, well written female characters, themes, politics of the time, but no one talks about how this is basically a Micro Machines game with a cool story/theme/setting attached to it.
Juggling the dialogue choices about womanhood while driving and holding down spacebar on full blast as you're in a race with a "prick" by avoiding incoming cars but also overtaking is actually intense!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHbaRtWF8jU
It's quite addictive which is unusual for a narrative game but it helps because it's so short, so I want to get all of the endings now cause playing the game itself is still unconsciously enjoyable while picking up on different hitchhikers and following their stories.
As someone who knows zilch about Italian culture or politics of the time, it's cool to learn some local tidbits along the ride. Talks of fascism, kidnappings, massacres, popes, UFOs, popes and UFOs, communism, abortions, feminism, are cool too.
There was another rad roadtrip game from 2014, the surreal nighttime Twilight Zone-ish Glitchhikers. The upcoming Hac looks neat. I'm a fan now of this tiny genre.
