Cargo! The Quest for Gravity

My gambling addict friend said if I post a review and it gets 350 likes and 50 Awards that he will buy me a case of beer, some vodka and 1 kg of lemon So im just gonna leave this here. Мой друг-игроман сказал, что если я опубликую отзыв и он наберет 350 лайков и 50 наград, он купит мне ящик пива, немного водки и 1 кг лимона, так что я просто оставлю это здесь.

Perhaps the most spiteful game ever made. Ice-Pick Lodge is a Russian game studio famous for making punishing artistic experiences that demand a lot from their audience through intense difficulty in terms of game mechanics, difficulty matched only by their challenging esoteric narratives. So infamous are they, that many online have taken to describing Ice-Pick Lodge games as hating their audience. Now, as a joke, that's hilarious, but as an earnest critique, I personally don't believe it, as while their games are nearly all defined by their adversarial relationship with the player, it is all to serve the greater purpose of empowering through disempowerment. The feeling of success made all the sweeter by the intensity of the struggle against an oppressive atmosphere of nigh guaranteed failure. In the words of Pathologic 2’s philosophical mouthpiece: “How can anyone be made to feel the heroic torment of Sisyphus if they're given a paper boulder to roll?” And so I don't put much stock into the idea that Ice-Pick Lodge hates their audience. Except this game. This game hates its audience. Cargo! The Quest for Gravity is a game made sarcastically. It is very obviously a reaction to the reaction their previous efforts garnered (mostly in the western world), where critics refused to engage with games like Pathologic simply because it wasn't fun, and games more than anything else —especially when this was released and the idea of games as art was still largely ignored, especially by journalists— must be fun! Otherwise what's the point? Make the game fun, then worry about all that fancy “art” crap later, the reviews seemed to say. Fine, said Ice-Pick Lodge, here you go, here's your “fun”, enjoy. And the resulting game, Cargo, is a joyless exercise in malicious compliance, funneling every oh-so-wacky idea of fun into a game made without any passion. A badass mechanic chick kicking midgets who speak in rhymes across the map to squeeze out their fun (FUN is the game’s currency, no I'm not kidding) and building Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts vehicles to traverse a sandbox map about the size of one city block in GTA V, all to appease the gods of the land; a handful of Aku Aku OCs. The papercraft, littlebigplanet-y aesthetic of the stratosphere is appealing, but everything else in the game looks wretched. Ice-Pick Lodge’s aesthetic sensibilities lend themselves beautifully to their creepy horror worlds, but in an environment that is ostensibly light hearted, that aesthetic looks hideous. The slavjank controls which lent an otherworldly strangeness to Pathologic and The Void, here, are just clunky. Ice-Pick Lodge has some of the most incredible writing in the games industry, and you can tell in Cargo that there's clearly talent behind it, but you can also tell that everyone involved is actively lowering themselves to this material, only brief little moments of their unique personalities shining through (I quite liked the suigenocide line). Everyone involved in this was rolling their eyes the entire time and, to those of us familiar with this studio at their peak, you can absolutely tell. I can't imagine being filled with so much rage and spite that I make an entire game to laugh at the people who asked for it, but honestly I find that intensity of drive kinda commendable. The music is pretty great though. The worst part about this however? It actually is kinda fun. Despite my better judgement, I do in fact enjoy playing this game.

This became my favorite game of all time when it came out in 2011, and today, january 2nd 2025 it is still my favorite game ever. it plays like a more free form version of Banjo Kazooie nuts and bolts in a whimsical world with an absurdist satirical enditement of all that is wrong with capitalism as the story and it is so well done and so absurd that it's compelling you to keep going to see what happens next even as the first half buries the lead and the story feels nonsensical (which is par for the course for good absurdist humor) and it all ties together amazingly at the end. I love my job

Чистейший плющ

So It's like.... "Russian Zelda tears of the kingdom". Never beat it because there's a lot of dead air in missions, can be grindy to get materials to build stuff (So my machines were very utilitarian) and the flying controls are... They're something alright :/ Quirky little thing though! It's got a charm to it. Like a farming sim, but for engineers.

Ice-Pick Lodge have another winner on their hands - bizarre world, simple but deep gameplay mechanics, and a deconstruction of 'what 'fun' is.

Как по мне эврика лучший проект созданный кампанией: катарсис и пиво России, сокращенно К.И.П.Р. В ней проделана отличная экранизация Библии человека под катарсисом (героином). 10 life is strange из 10 papers, please :)

Если вам не нравится Эврика, вам стоит отключить музыку в игре и играть под Кровосток. Невероятная, самобытная игра, наполняющая вашу душу эмоциями, доселе не изведанными. Это заставляет вас чувствовать. Я чувствовала что желаю что б по мне проехался паровой каток, а сверху меня засыпали солью. За время игры я успела пережить все стадии принятия, полюбить и снова возненавидеть эту игру. Визуальная составляющая, сюжет и музыка добились того невероятного баланса, когда ты сразу понимаешь, про какой именно вес говорили в своей игре Ледорубы. Управление настолько непередаваемо шедевральное, что я, кажется, готова играть в Вангеров. Надеюсь, в следующей жизни я буду счастливым голопопым карапузом, который испытывает катарсис от пинков, ну или хотя бы огромным злым пингвином, который жопой давит карапузов. 10 твиринов из 10