Greetings and salutations! Welcome to the first installment of Backlog Busting! Where I will be rambling on for as long as I can about all the games I’m clearing off my backlog. It’s fitting that my first entry into this — let’s call it a column — is the first game I’ve finished since I thought of the idea. Not only that, but it’s the game that made me come up with the idea of Backlog Busting in the first place.

Severed Steel is a game so cool that I brought back my substack and decided to do a regular column on all the games I’m clearing from my backlog. Why? Because I really wanted a place to share how cool this game is. And then I decided I might as well do it for all the cool games I play because I only play cool games. Even the bad ones.

I’ve been meaning to play Severed Steel for several years. I first heard about it when I saw a trailer at Gamescom 2021. It was one of the few bright spots in a routinely dull Geoff Keighley snoozefest corporate bootlicking events. The trailer was really cool, and I put it on my list to eventually play and then immediately forgot about it. Until a couple of weeks ago.

It was a cold January night when for some reason that I cannot recall with any clarity, I opened Steam and began browsing the store. If you know me — which I’m assuming you don’t and that’s why I’m explaining it — you would know that’s an extremely odd thing for me to be doing. You see, I am not a PC gamer, in fact, I actively dislike it. Or at least I did before Severed Steel.

Before you grab your pitchforks and get ready to take away my gamer card, let me explain. I grew up on consoles. One of my very first memories is me playing Mario Party 3. Literally, it’s just a void of nothingness and then me playing Fowl Play as Waluigi. From the N64 to the PS2 to the PS3, I never even considered playing on a PC. Unless you count cereal box classics like Reader Rabbit Math Adventures Ages 4-6 and Tonka Construction.

Then, one day in 2010. I’m assuming it’s 2010 because, according to my Steam account, it is, but I honestly have no memory of PC gaming in 2010. But I guess I’ll trust Steam. I bought a laptop capable of playing games. Not new games, mind you, old games. So I downloaded some old games, played them for a bit, and quit because my console-playing ass just couldn’t deal with using a keyboard to play a game. There are too many buttons, and my fingers don’t like to stretch. I can barely figure out the keyboard to type things, let alone control a game. Frankly, it’s a miracle that I’m a writer.

As the years went on and I upgraded to better and better computers I still always installed Steam just in case. Sometimes I’d play a little bit with God Mode turned on to compensate for my inability to use a keyboard, other times Steam would be on my computer unused. One year I got really into World of Warcraft. I wasn’t great but I finally became a little more comfortable with keyboard controls, not comfortable enough to continue PC gaming but still.

Another reason I generally have disliked PC gaming is because I enjoy playing video games on my big screen 4K TV from my comfy chair while reclining and sometimes rocking. And before you say it, yes, I’m aware I can connect my PC to the TV, but I’m not about to run a giant unsightly cable from the PC to the TV, so just stop it. I work at my computer, and I don’t want to stay hunched at my desk to engage in my favorite leisure activity.

Back to Severed Steel. I don’t know what compelled me to look at Steam, an application I haven’t used in over a year. Whatever unforce got me to browse the Steam Store opened the floodgates because my god these sales are ridiculous. Of course, I’ve always known that Steam Sales are ridiculously seductive siren songs that tempt you with full priced games for the price of a candy bar that you’ll never play. This was my first time falling for it though.

I saw Severed Steel on sale for 3 dollars. Upon seeing the name Severed Steel my mind raced back to that trailer. Suddenly I had vivid knowledge and memory of a game that to that point I had all but forgotten existed. This is the first-person shooter where you have bullet time. And so without thinking, I bought it and the almost immediate feeling of regret turned into acceptance once I saw it had controller support. I may have had to play this hunched at my desk but I least I could use a controller like the scrub that I am.

The best way I can describe Severed Steel is this; Superhot but everything is real time. Actually, no. That’s the 2nd best way I can describe Severed Steel. The actual best way to describe it is rad. In fact, it’s the kind of thing that the word “rad” was invented for in the first place.

There’s a story but I have no idea what it is and it doesn’t really matter. Static comic style cutscenes play out between chapters but this is a game that drops you into it’s levels and tells you to go ham.

In Severed Steel you are invincible when you’re in bullet time and you essentially have unlimited bullet time. As long as you always on the move and getting kills, you’ll always have bullet time. So what you’ll be doing for the entire 4 hour campaign is sliding, jumping, wall running and diving in slow motion while you kill fools like you’re Neo.

Every kill you get is cool because of course it is. You’re essentially punished for playing it in normal speed like a regular first person shooter. All you’re kills will be in slow motion while you’re sliding, diving or wall running. And we all know that the only thing cooler than killing bad guys in slow motion, is killing bad guys in slow motion while you;re sliding, diving or wall running.

The other cool thing about the game is there’s no reloading. When your gun runs out you need a new one. With this mechanic comes the ability to chuck your gun at enemies and kick their gun out of their hands. Since you’re gonna be doing this in slow motion, you’re able to do things like throw a gun at and enemy then drop kick their gun out of their hands, grab it mid air and kill them with it all in one smooth motion. Like I said, rad.

There was one particular moment where I wall ran across a gap, dove through a glass window and killed some dudes with an uzi (because diving through glass and shooting an uzi is rad) then slid under a table, threw my uzi at a guy’s feet grabbed his shotgun from midair as I came out from the table and then killed him. That’s when I knew I had to write about this game. I mean look at this.

You’re probably mad at me for not mentioning the music sooner and I get it. That music is, say it with me, rad. I’m not really and EDM or Techno guy but it may be the only music that can give heavy metal a run for it’s money when it comes to music that makes shooting games as cool as possible.

And just look at those destructible environments. All the bullets do tangible damage to the levels. You also have an arm cannon. Another thing I should have mentioned sooner. The arm cannon can be used to kill or to shoot holes through the environment for more traversal and killing opportunities. Want to shoot a hole through a wall to dive through and flank a squad, you can. Want to shoot a hole in the ceiling that sends an enemy above falling through the floor and into your shotgun, you can.

Basically anything you want to do that’s rad, you can and then you can say “wow that was rad”. Then you’ll go tell everybody you know to play this game and also revive your long dormant newsletter just to write about it so you can also tell complete strangers to go play it. I honestly feel a little guilty that I only payed 3 dollars for this.

Severed Steel is so good, so rad, that it had the unintended side effect of getting me to do something I’ve never done. I started putting games in my Steam wishlist. That’s right, I may have been the only gamer in history who has never put a single game into their Steam Wishlist. Why would I? I never played PC games and when I did it wasn’t current ones, it was old ones I pirated aquirred legitimately. But now, I’m all in. If this is the kind of thing I can get for just 3 dollars I want more.

I’m still gonna be a console guy. It’s in my blood and as all my ex-girlfriend were so eager to inform me, I’m incapable of changing. Part of my love of consoles also comes down to physical media. I love physical media. I’m potentially the only Gen Z that does. But I do, I love my 4K blu-rays, I love my retro game collection, I love all my Switch cartridges in their little wasteful cases that are 95% empty plastic. I love my PS4 games and my PS5 games (shockingly they do exist) I even love my physical Xbox games despite Microsoft’s seeming desire to stop making them (looking at you Avowed).

But I also love a good deal. I could have gotten a physical copy of Severed Steel but not for 3 dollars. There’s tons of digital only games that I can now also buy once they are eventually 3 dollars on Steam instead of settling for 5 dollars on console. I still have my preferences and I made up my own little rules in my head for when to get games on PC and when to get them on console just to make sure my physical collection knows I’m not a complete Steam Sale slut. Maybe one day I will get Severed Steel physically just to have it but I’m content only having it in my Steam Library. I know it’ll at least always be available until Gabe Newell dies and takes our game libraries with him.