Like many of developer Supermassive’s previous games, The Quarry is clearly made both by and for people who love horror movies. From the start, it slowly builds tension and atmosphere, getting you invested by constantly asking you to make small decisions that will guide its teenage cast of potential murder victims. By the time the blood started flying, every choice felt like one more step in a rolling disaster, and that made it nearly impossible to put down. When I went back to replay it again, however, it was impossible to ignore just how non-interactive much of The Quarry actually is. As a spiritual sequel to Until Dawn, it's a better movie, but a worse game.
You follow the story of nine camp counselors who get stuck in the woods for one more night at the end of the summer, with nothing to do but throw one last party before they go back to their lives. There's something stalking them from the treeline (because of course there is) and your choices determine which, if any, of the counselors will be able to survive the night. This setup layers three fairly textbook horror plots on top of each other as you progress, but you can tell that Supermassive Games had a lot of fun figuring out how to connect them together. When you play, you may think you're in one type of horror movie, but you're often in another.
Growing up as a child of the 90s, whenever I stepped into an arcade, I’d always do a walk around to see what they had before putting my quarters into any machines. This usually didn’t last very long because as soon as I saw a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cabinet, I’d shout to my friends “They got Turtles!” and we’d rush on over.
It’s abundantly clear that the developers at Tribute Games share a similar love for the 90s TMNT beat-em-ups. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is nothing but unwaveringly reverent to the classic 1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade game, and more prominently, 1991’s Turtles in Time. Best of all, it transforms the arcadey quarter-munching design of combat into something much more skill forward while still maintaining the same button mashy appeal. Put simply, Shredder’s Revenge is a prime example of how to breathe new life into a classic arcade beat-em-up.