Overwatch has completely deteriorated in quality during the last few years. At this point, it's oversaturated with characters. As a result, matches are too chaotic for their own good, there's just too much random... stuff happening.

And now, they went the extra mile and turned Overwatch into a game as a service. I already anticipated this development back when they announced Overwatch 2 and financially, it's probably the smartest decision Blizzard could have made. But it absolutely doesn't help the game. I'm bothered by daily missions, season passes and having to unlock new heroes, all of that junk. It's just not for me.

To be fair, reducing teams to only 5 heroes was a very healthy decision, but it's not enough to make me enjoy Overwatch 2. I may play it occasionally with friends in the future though, who knows. (EDIT: So far, I haven't touched this game again)

Maybe the PvE content will be fun, I'm still open to trying it out. (EDIT: This aged horribly, wow)

Oh and screw Blizzard while we're at it.

God I loved this game when I could still play it... I've had so much fun with all of the different characters and maps, even though I usually never play MOBAs. It was pure and simple fun to me. The presentation was top-notch as well, Gigantic looked and sounded amazing! Life was good, when Gigantic came out...

It's really weird that we live in a time where games like these can just... die out... Even if you payed for it, it's gone now. There may just be a lesson to be learned here about the fleeting nature of time and... things.

No one can play Gigantic anymore and it makes me so sad.

How do you even review 3D All-Stars? I recently saw a YT comment that said "3D All-Stars isn't a great collection of games, but a collection of great games". And I don't think I could put it better. All of the games included are some of my favourite games of all time, and I loved completing them for yet another time.

But no Galaxy 2?
No 3D Land & World?
Tbh, the collection can't be called "All-Stars", the title "Super Mario 3D Some-Stars" would be far more fitting.

And I'd have wished for more quality of live improvements. Sure, the updated aspect ratio of Sunshine and the increased resolution of all of the games is nice, but in my opinion, that is less than the bare minimum. Why isn't Mario 64 running in 16:9? Why are Sunshine and 64 both still at 30fps and not at a nice, buttery smooth 60? Seriously, it's not that hard, fans do this in their free time, yet Nintendo can't even be bothered to do it for money?!

Personally, I didn't have the epiphany that most others seemed to experience after playing 3D World after having played Odyssey. Yes, this is the best version of 3D World, but at the end of the day, it's still 3D World, which is fine, but it's not a lot more than that for me.

Bowser's Fury. Damn. Bowser's Fury is what elevates this package. It's open world, yet it's focused on platforming (unlike many other open 3D platformers like Odyssey). It's super short and bite-sized which I appreciate. And it manages to remix 3D World so damn much that it seems like an entirely different game.

Kid Icarus Uprising surprised me. I went in with 0 expectations and I was blown away by the writing. This game doesn't just send a shit ton of enemies your way, it also sends you one joke and funny bit after the other. The characters get so much dialogue, because the whole story takes place during gameplay, I love that! And it's fully voiced!!! When does that ever happen in a Nintendo game?

The gameplay is also a ton of fun. Kid Icarus Uprising never gets old, as it's not afraid to constantly push forward, always exploring new ideas. The fact that they got this game working on the 3DS is just insane.

I also love the weapon variety, allowing you to choose your favourite style of playing with so many options. And the length is also great! It's long enough to be satisfying, but also short enough to not overstay it's welcome and leaving me longing for more after seeing the credits.

Super Mario 3D Land knows exactly what type of game it wants to be. A 3D Mario on a handheld providing you with quick & short bursts of fun. And it succeeds amazingly well in that regard. 3D Land would not work on a platform that isn't a handheld, because it would get boring really quickly. But on the 3DS, it's right at home. Sure, the levels are nothing to ride home about compared to previous 3D Mario games, but they aren't meant to be big and grandiose. They are supposed to provide short and simple fun and they do their job really well.

Super Mario Odyssey is a very difficult case for me. On the one hand, tt arguably has by far the best movement in any 3D MarIo game. The seemingly simple act of moving around has so much depth, just because of how many movement options the game provides to the player. Mastering Odyssey's movement feels absolutely perfect. Seriously, just look at how fluently pros can move around in Mario Odyssey and tell me that shit isn't satisfying to look at.

On the other hand, the levels do basically nothing to accommodate for the game's insane freedom of movement. Answering questions to a Sphinx? Spotting taxis in the sky? Moving in a circle?! You've got to be kidding me. And FISHING?! If you played or even did so much as hearing about Sonic Adventure, you know how well suited fishing mechanics are for 3D platformers. And even in the rare cases where Mario Odyssey let's you do some platforming (you know, because it's a 3D platformer), it's the easiest stuff I've ever seen. In the first few kingdoms, that's absolutely fine. You gotta ease the player into the difficulty. But by the last few worlds I was seriously baffled at how easy the game still is.

But that's not it. So many moons are just repeated content. You can buy a moon in every kingdom, you can get a moon for cosplaying in every kingdom etc etc. As a consequence, the end result of 880 moons feels fluffed out. I know, that was done to ensure that you can progress through the game in many small steps, even if you only have a few minutes on your hands, but that leads to the moons not giving me a sense of accomplishment. How much of an achievement even is a moon if you can get one in like a minute and there are literally hundreds of them in the game?

And I know, you're not supposed to grab every moon in Mario Odyssey, but damn it, I want to complete all of the 3D Mario games whenever I play them, especially when the movement is this good. However, getting every moon just made me feel burnt out, because of how MANY DAMN MOONS THERE ARE and because of how boring most of them are to grab. And only getting the minimum amount of moons felt even worse. It felt like I barely got to explore in a kingdom and then I was already done.

It's frustrating to see how amazingly well Mario Odyssey controls paired with how shallow and lackluster the game's content is.

I love the modern Rayman games so god damn much, wow. Rayman Legends has not aged a single day in the last ten years. It still looks absolutely stunning and its controls are the most satisfying out of any 2D platformer I have ever played.

And the levels, my GOD THE LEVELS. Rayman Legends goes absolutely bonkers with all of its ideas and I love it. As a result, it's both fun in single- and multiplayer. Usually, platformers can get really annoying in multiplayer (looking at you, NSMB), but Legends is fun no matter how you play it.

Possibly the only gripe I have with Rayman Legends and the reason as to why I prefer Origins by just a tiny bit is that it kind of doesn't feel like an adventure and more like a level pack. The whole thing of the hub world being a gallery and level themes being all over the place with little cohesion makes it feel a bit artificial. Idk, I prefer the epic adventure vibe of Origins. But that's a tiny nitpick, Rayman Legends is still one of the best 2D platformers ever made in my opinion.

I did not grow up with Mario 64. I started playing through it over and over again when I was 14/15 in 2016, in a time where a plethora of more modern 3D platformers existed.

Yet still, I kept coming back to Mario 64, because there is an unmatched excellence in it that no other game I know pulls off. Everything feels so satisfying and intentional. This is even more impressive when you consider that Mario 64 basically pioneered 3D platformers. To think that Nintendo stuck the landing so effortlessly in their first try when nobody else had done it yet is mind blowing.

Even after all of my playthroughs, I have a total blast whenever I play through Mario 64. The controls, the leveldesign and the soundtruck just do it for me. Moving around is simply... fun. The importance of making sure that controlling your character is as intrinsically fun as possible is something that Nintendo understood very early on.

I am truly grateful for all of the memories this game gave me.

Me and my partner have a tradition of trying out any billiards game we can find. This one is of course no exception.

There's a simple beauty in playing a billiards video game with someone else. It's... special. It's comforting.

This one is pretty limited, angles can sometimes feel off, but it's very impressive for an early SNES game. It aged really well, still very enjoyable today.

I really thought I'd like Environmental Station Alpha. The graphics and gameplay looked simple, yet intriguing. A metroidvania that focuses on the essentials of the genre, it seemed exactly like the kind of game I needed.

But playing it myself just felt exhausting. I got lost constantly and while I enjoyed the challenging enemies and gameplay, I never felt as if the game actually rewarded me enough for the struggles it made me go through. I've had my fun for the first two hours but after that, the frustration outgrew the enjoyment.