secret game club presents...
raw danger! review
[also released as 絶体絶命都市2 -凍てついた記憶たち-]
april 2025
There’s an alternate universe in which Raw Danger is remembered as one of the most weirdly innovative games on the Playstation 2, a strange, not very polished, but insanely in-depth with the ideas it has, type of game, not unlike the beginnings of series of other PS2 classics from around the same time, before whose ideas would only later begin to be recognized by audiences for the brilliantly messy game design they were and blew it up big, there’s an alternate universe in which the Disaster Report games were able to follow the same trajectory, despite everything working against them, they were able to find an audience and maybe, finally have a big break, and people would be clamoring for re-releases of Raw Danger!. As is, that is not the case, Raw Danger! instead is left to be forgotten by most perhaps only ever brought up (if ever) to make fun of its terrible, terrible box art, or in passing by other hipster dorks like me (or Tim Rogers, who’s offhand mentions in his BioShock Infinite and Last of Us reviews are admittedly the only reason we learned about this game…).
It’s the kind of game I’d love to craw the brain of the developers about, ask them what made them think up the driving/jet ski sections or the insane interwoven plot, or the mechanic of keeping of keeping your characters dry or their body temperature warm to ensure safety. But looking up information returns very little, like many Japanese games it seems like its development was hardly tracked, leaving it a mystery, part of me is infuriated on behalf of the lack of preservation of information/history and part of me understands not every magic trick can be known.
Putting it in simpler terms, Raw Danger! is the equivalent of wandering into a record shop, looking in the bargain bin and finding, what seems like at the time, the best album you’ve ever heard, the developers, Irem, the late, great heroin-addled guitarist behind the operation. Though like everything of its stature, perhaps it’s less that it’s actually a masterpiece in the first place and more part of the joy in feeling like you’re the (one of) the only person(s) who’s ever heard of it to begin with, that feeling of discovery in us all, in a time where an algorithm guides our tastes and filters out what it feels like, now more than ever, that feeling of discovery, finding something outside your comfort zone, not up to conventional standards, etc. seems like a key part of what makes us human in the first place finding a wilted flower in an desert, it may break easily and it might not be pretty or even a rare breed, but it is a reminder of life (in possibly the most absurd way possible.)
our score:
