January 2022 saw quite a variety of video game releases, but while almost all of the month’s releases play as you would expect of the game’s respective genre, no other game stands out from the pack as much as Needy Streamer Overload. On the cover, this game looks like a visual novel. Once you start playing it, it feels like a simulation and management game. However, this game goes much deeper, and those familiar with Doki Doki Literature Club will feel a sense of déjà vu.
BEWARE: SPOILERS AHEAD!
The core of the game revolves around you assuming the role of a manager, making decisions for a girl who wants to gain success from livestreaming. Although you may conduct normal decisions to help boost her fame and success, this game shatters expectations by additionally allowing you to dabble in less than savory actions and decisions, most of which involve sex and/or drugs. This allows the player to obtain one of multiple endings, all of which depend on decisions the player made during the game.
So what makes this game stand out so much? This game has a “true ending” that ties everything together. Players cannot obtain the true ending until completing all endings available in the game. This means the player must view every action and decision possible, including some horrible and inhumane decisions, to obtain the true ending. Throughout the game, players will occasionally receive an in-game pop-up notification reminding them “Good thing this is only a game, right?” as if to make the player feel less guilty for making some bad decisions. However, the true ending brings everything around only to slam it back in the face of the player. Without spoiling the true ending too much, imagine the existential dread caused by revealing the true plots of the NieR series (both Replicant and Automata). The true ending hits the player’s emotions so hard that some YouTube and Twitch streamers had to take at least a day off to process what had happened upon viewing the true ending.
If you want an emotional roller coaster, look no further than Needy Streamer Overload, only available on PC via Steam. In addition to the story, the game features a banging opening theme:
Honorable mentions:
- Pokémon Legends: Arceus – Perhaps the biggest launch of the month, this entry into the Pokémon franchise introduces an open-world system, something that fans have long requested in a game.
- God of War – One of the greatest PS4 games of all time got ported to PC, receiving a number of visual and performance enhancements.
- Monster Hunter Rise – Another PC port from the Switch, this game also received a number of visual and performance enhancements.
A Punk, A Camera, and An Empty Stomach 