RULE 83: ALL ROADS LEAD TO FRAUD

not the first shrine I was expecting to make when I first started this website, but one I am now making. A friend got me the game, and frankly it's skyrocketed into top 3 for me. and there's some *serious* heavyweights you have to get past to get there. and of course, I could talk about how cool the gameplay is, the way the game doesn't need to ever slow down with cinematics to let you feel cool or do a mechanic, the way all the weapons so fundamentally play into each other such that none of your kit -- not one variant -- goes unused by the time you're getting a real hang of things. I could talk about the music, but I don't think I could begin to do it justice. no, I wanted to talk about something else.

FRAUD /// THIRD

What The Fuck, Hakita

and I'm not here *just* to point and say how cool the Fraud update is, either. though, it *is* extremely well executed. no, no, no I am here. because I have NO FUCKING CLUE HOW HAKITA PULLED THAT OFF. okay okay, so first off just the rendering right? the obvious thing. Portal walked so Hakita could make us all shit ourselves an hour and a half into 8-3. impressive, but not *unheard of,* right? I did just bring up Portal, a (checks) NINE YEAR OLD GAME I HOPE YOU FEEL OLD that employs similar technology to what's being used here, right? that and a bit of Mario Galaxy. but... no, not really. firstly, there's a *lot more of it.* even Portal 2 only ever lets you have two simultaneous portals via the two player mode. Fraud puts them *everywhere*, and yes to an extent this is through clever management of doors but even that's smart in and of itself. second, I have it on good word that this evil piece of software, developed on an indie budget, is well enough optimised to run on *decade old hardware.* and considering it does that in fully consecutive levels that don't have to stop *once* to catch up with the player -- in a SPEEDRUNNING GAME -- with levels that in one case has a FULLY MODELLED SKYBOX THAT CONNECTS TO THE LEVEL. is HELL-DAMNED INSANE. Nintendo fucking *wishes* they could ever pull this off. and yes yes I'm sure I can hear you whining about the low poly count and everything MAYBE WE COULD ALL FUCKING LEARN SOMETHING THEN. because I'm sorry, when I see a fucked up accurate vista from a cool vantage point in a modern game I look at it, go "cool painting" and move on. when Ultrakill revealed *Fucking Space* just because *just* doing the third fakeout was too predictable, I wrote an entire damn shrine about it. I'm going insane. I'm listening to Event Horizon on loop as I compose this, I-- Fuck.

and don't go thinking I'm done. the above is a surface level awareness of how screwed up this whole thing is. y'see -- notice how the enemies actually still pathfind *perfectly fine* through portal doors? and how in looped rooms, they fire at you from the closest clear angle, not just whichever one doesn't go through the portal plane? THE PHYSICAL SPACE IS PROCESSED AS NON-EUCLIDIAN. NO TRICKS. YOU CAN JUST PROGRAM THE IMPOSSIBLE TRIANGLE, THE ONES AND ZEROES CARE NOT FOR WHAT IS "REALISTIC" ONLY THAT WHICH CAN BE MATHEMATICALLY RESPRESENTED AND HAKITA DID NOT HESITATE TO ALGABRAICALLY ENCODE A GODDAM WARCRIME OF A LEVEL GEOMETRY. I have NO IDEA what they did in that engine code to make this doable in a way that's not *brain melting* to level edit, but New Blood did it. and now Ultrakill is the game I consider Most Technically Impressive of everything I've seen or played. not a triple-A title with millions poured into it, no Source 2 powered marvel of physics -- no. Ultrakill is a simple concentrate of sheer engineering excellence that will inspire me long into the future.

and it's really well used ultrakill's a really fun game you should go play it the final 8-3 reveal I skimmed over it but seriously it's a *really* clever way of subverting expectations, "I see your prediction and I raise you: I do it anyway and you're stunned anyway because we got Really Stupid with it" is a fucking spectacular solution to the problem of ending that level and the *entire game* is made like this.

thanks, Hakita. thank you, New Blood. seriously. you're as good as they come.