198X taps into our love for the games of the `80s, giving you a handful of short gaming vignettes wrapped around a simple story about the pain of growing up. The games themselves look more like `90s SNES games than `80s arcade titles (albeit very handsome SNES games), but 198X`s neon aesthetic (and, of course, its name) is clearly trying to evoke a sense of nostalgia for this period. Unfortunately, despite a few nice homages, it`s not a particularly transportive experience.198X features five faux-`80s arcade games to play through, and they`re short enough that the whole thing, story sequences included, wraps in less than two hours. They`re not quite minigames--they`re framed as tiny slices of full games that exist within the narrative`s world, the first few levels of five larger experiences. These games, which are chained together sequentially by beautiful pixel-art cutscenes set to a synth soundtrack, make up the entirety of 198X`s gameplay. The plot centers on the `Kid` (he`s never named beyond this), who lives in a suburb outside of a major city. He watches the highway at night and thinks about getting out of town. He seems generally unhappy with his life, until he discovers an arcade hidden away in an old abandoned factory and discovers a sense of purpose and place amidst the machines and patrons there.198X suffers from some of the same problems that Ernest Cline`s Ready Player One suffered from. If that book`s insistence that being a geek is inherently good irritated you, then 198X`s vague reverence for arcades and youth will likely have a similar effect. There`s something very immature about the game`s portrayal of the Kid and the way he talks about his idealistic childhood, while giving limited insight into why things are so hard on him now. `You get to high school and everyone`s brainwashed,` he says at one point, which is about as deep as the game gets in its exploration of the difficulty of one`s teenage years. You`re not given enough insight into the ...
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