Had a tiny sliver of hope that this might recapture the glory days (at least in spirit) but nah.

I miss when Overwatch was basically just TF2 2, when everything was goofy and no one was really taking it seriously and it was okay to have gameplay mechanics that were kind of broken, because it was fun! Now every single edge has been sanded off for the sake of "Competitive viability", and what's left behind is just kind of hollow. Great for the guys who inhale more G-Fuel than actual food and have their mouse DPI set to 10,000, not so great for everyone else...

Not to mention they managed to ruin pretty much everything else with the transition to free to play, so, yeah, maybe could have done with a little bit more time in the oven...

Death and Taxes has large aspirations, but doesn't really have the confidence to see them through. It (unashamedly, considering the direct reference) bears a very similar resemblance to Papers, Please (hereby referred to as "PP" since it will probably be brought up a lot) in it's gameplay and narrative, but doesn't reach the same potential in a lot of ways.

I'll start with the gameplay, since there isn't much to speak of. You get a list of requirements unique to each day, and a list of papers you need to file in congruence with those said requirements. For the first few days this does have some light puzzle solving elements, but very quickly it derails itself to try and pull on heartstrings instead. By the halfway point, days start going by quicker than the cutscenes, and it's not much better for it.

That's because the writing is not very good. Like it's inspiration, Death and Taxes tries to make your mundane busywork into an emotionally and morally complex story, but unlike PP it fails for a couple reasons. I'll try my best to avoid direct PP comparisons.

My main problem is the sheer disconnect, since in D&T you're working literally from the top of an ivory tower, completely detached from every person you sentence to death. As the game goes on the world supposedly gets worse, but you literally cannot see it outside of maybe the sky sprite changing to different shades. Your actions have almost no consequence, so there is absolutely no reason to do anything but what you're told, considering that gives you (equally useless) money.

My other problem is the main character: Fate. That's not who you play as, but your character has effectively no personality since dialogue trees will always be the same and could possibly involve your character randomly spouting "I like ice cream." No, Fate is the character you refer to throughout the game that routinely either scolds you for following instructions or for not following instructions, seemingly at random. He has a character arc, I suppose, but it's not particularly compelling or interesting. Without spoiling too much, he essentially progessively builds up the courage to say "fuck it," leaving you with your thumb in your ass with the game smugly saying "wow, don't YOU feel like an asshole."

That's kinda my biggest problem with it. It feels like it has an idea, and at times in the early hours I could feel at least a bit of tough decisions being made, but it tries so hard to look smart without really having the confidence to say anything. Despite all that, though, it is charming and I have a hard time saying I actually hate it.

Also the credits are framed as the "Live or Die" paperwork you file throughout the game and I really wonder if the devs keep track of who kills and spares them

you and i may well be aware of the absolute deluge of indie and double a backed video games that wear childhood nurtured inspiration on their sleeves, titles like a hat in time or here comes niko all too proud to let players know a timeline absent of the gamecube would just as well be one absent of either title. but little did i ever expect a small studio to find themselves filled with inspiration and passion stemming from the absolute most boring fucking trite of video games: those that play themselves. you surely know of those i refer to--the last of uses and the bow raiders and the arkhams and spidermans and ghosts of assassins dogs ages. games that exist as some sort of hollywood mimicry in which high production values are, lol, valued far above anything else, far above the relationship between players and gameplay. games that push, push, push the player forward down the water slide--or really, those dark rides you can watch a defunctland on featuring garfield, because either way, passengers sit tight, see the sights, and leave.

and a large problem with these games lies in their tunnels stretching far, far too long--its passengers lose the novelty of garfield, and most finish climaxing should they have brought a partner aboard far before the eventual light flickers in.

well, the novelty of stray's cat protagonist is one that lasts twenty minutes, a span of useless contextual button presses for reddit and twitter gifs, and this is followed by a further three hours of cinematic slop to slog through. and then the game still goes (for those who have never heard of the sunk cost theory and/or those who, holy fuck, somehow like this shit), and it goes and goes and goes: down linear hallways, up linear walls, along linear paths disguised as well as a blanket disguises the couch. it's a particularly frustrating feeling to emerge into stray's city and find yourself met with all sorts of balconies and vents and roofs and rubble and be able to climb absolutely none of it save the sole path its designers intend.

are linear games bad by design? no. half life 2 is lovely. half life 2 is also not a game made up of multitudes of contextual button presses and cutscenes strung together by cutscene gameplay strung together by more cutscenes. when a chopper chases dr. freeman, the player is threatened and has to haul fucking ass. when completely nonthreatening silverfish chase the stray, the player holds forward, holds their arbitrary run button, the threat of danger not even remotely present, until the next cutscene appears. of course, these moments are broken up by hub world dickery filled with toothless robots who offer no whimsy nor intriguing in their empty words, and the same can be said for your personality-less companion no doubt boardroom blasted to ensure no player would grow weary (or attached).

let's stop dancing around it: stray is an abysmal video game. stray is a complete failure of neutered, paw holding gameplay that is less interested in giving the player tools to navigate its world and more in making sure the wittle pwayer doesn't stway from the wittle path ): and on that note, i wonder to fucking god if its qa players actually enjoyed the experience. were they having fun? were they giving honest feedback? were they actually playing? if i were stuck with this shit, i know i'd be trying to stay off the controller and on my phone as much as possible.

it's rare for a game to truly feel like its designed to waste and absorb your time like a robotic parasite, but stray nails it, let me tell you.

anyway, the star is for the hints of creativity. the half star is for the surprisingly excellent soundtrack from the... guy who did cave story wii of all things. huh.

play this if you don't like video games.

It has finally happened. I've beaten Sonic '06... and I can muster no hatred for it whatsoever. It is, quite obviously, an unfinished mess of a video game. It is full of bad decisions. Each level has at least one poorly conceived piece of nonsense which greedily consumes either a player's time or their stock of lives. The automation of its spectacle setpieces cannot be trusted. Sonic '06 is a game that must be played safe. Flirting with shortcuts will only invite destruction. Its story crumbles to dust under the weight of a single glance of scrutiny. Its voice direction is simply wrong in so many places. On an actual Xbox 360 hard drive rather than my PC's SSD, the loading times are so horrific that I would never, EVER recommend that anyone play it in that way, which until about a decade after its release was the only possible way to play Sonic '06.

And yet... this was fun. I had fun with Sonic '06. More than I have had with Sonic Heroes. I don't know if this makes me a defender or a hater.

Too hard, man. TOO DAMN HARD!

It may seem salty to knock this game solely for its difficulty, but in the closing few hours I really found myself playing purely to satisfy the completionist in me and not just give up. There wasn't a drive to learn it's nuances and master them; I just hate being beaten.

It lacks the 'thats on me, not the game' quality that something like a Super Meat Boy or Hotline Miami has. While there are some genuinely great levels here that walk the line a bit better (boss battles in particular are all really good), so much of this feels like a chaotic Mario Maker level, where the user has just added one or two more enemies than needed -- just to be a dick. To that end, a lot of this game feels like trying to get jumps absolutely pixel-perfect (shades of the very first Crash game) and not very fluid or satisfying in a meaningful way, despite the bevy of cool tricks it has (time manipulation, gravity flipping etc).

Groussing aside, Crash 4 gets a lot right, and does feel like a more worthy sequel to the original Naughty Dog games than anything that came sinse. A great art style and fun writing channel the Saturday morning cartoon vibe that first made Crash one of my childhood favourites. There's a bevy of optional and replayable content if you're a sadist - although non-Crash playable characters are better on paper than in practice. Tawna boasts a wall jump and grappling hook, two of the sweetest traits a video game character can have, but both are stiff as all hell and not any more fun to use than the basic actions Crash can do. The same goes for the unique traits of other side characters I won't spoil here.

This game just accentuates everything I hate about Joycons and Nintendo in general. Bowling and Badminton feel fine, everything else feels jank. Why is this $50? For $50 I can get a USB dongle, wiimote+ and sensor bar and be on my merry way with Dolphin playing Wii Sports Resort which absolutely curbstomps this both in what's offered and how much granularity there is in control.

At one point it softlocked our joycon so we had to full restart the game to get it to respond at all. After that the joycons would only register an input a full second later after viciously shaking them and often going in arbitrary directions. Amazing new lows straight out of Nintendo EPD, only topped by the likes of Amiibo Festival.

I'd say it's baffling but I honestly expected no more than only a couple of these to feel decent. Heaven forbid Nintendo 2022 tries to outdo Nintendo 2006. -.5 star for not letting me throw the bowling ball backwards. You can feel how little of a shit they gave.

Oh golly gee do i have a LOT to say.

Wii Sports was never a top tier franchise, but considering this is a billion dollar franchise and contains two of the best selling games of all time, you'd think nintendo would put at least the bare minimum effort with this one. But they didn't even do that.

For the few positives, the game on a technical level looks decently nice. I think bowling is still as fun as ever and swordplay was actually improved with the addition of different swords, so that's nice. Also the online connectivity isn't that bad, it's above average for the windows xp level switch online.

But that's about it. There are lots of problems with this game that makes it not only easily the weakest Wii Sports game, but also just a super lame party game.

First off, and most subjectively, this game is a creative wasteland. And I don't just mean the ubisoft-ass sportsmates that effectively replaced the miis, though I hate those about as much as everyone else. The appeal of the miis, ESPECIALLY in these games, are that they could look similar to real people in your life. And that suspension of disbelief is much easier with a blank slate design like the miis rather than the more involved, but soulless sportsmates. But it's not just them.

Spocco Square is also just a really lame location for these sports to take place in. In the last game, Wuhu Island felt like a lived in resort because most, if not all, of the sports were framed around this island. Spocco in comparison really suffers in this regard. I don't think people play soccer, field golf, or SWORDPLAY in a shopping mall.

That is a huge letdown, but I am willing to look past these sorts of things if the game is at least fun. But it really isn't. Barring bowling and chambara the rest of the sports just don't really hold up.

The controls on a lot of these are fairly clunky compared to resort as a result of the nature of the joycons. They just don't feel as accurate as the motion plus did, at least not here. Volleyball is easily the weakest here with you just needing to make very slight hand motions to win. I don't think volleyball was built for this kind of game.

This game also suffers in sports variety. There are 6 sports (right now) and three of them are tennis, volleyball, and badminton. If these were all crammed in the same game in order to fit the shopping mall theme, then maybe that's a sign that the idea isn't that great.

To return to the Wii sports resort comparion, that game not only had 12 sports but most of them contained different side modes like 100 pin bowling and swordplay showdown. Apart from the shootout mode for soccer and some minor player counts, this game lacks the side modes that other wii sports games have. You just have the one super short gameplay loop. Take it or leave it.

And to top all of this off, this game released in a half baked state. And not just in the stuff I mentioned before. Golf, the first major post launch update, is not coming until september. Which is a system that always works for these games accept for Mario Golf, and Mario Tennis, and Kirby, and Arms, and basically every other game except Smash and Splatoon. And not only that but even though the game itself isn't $60, the game does come with a leg strap peripheral like Ring Fit adventure. That doesnt work until july. GREAT.

Alright, this is easily the longest review I've made on here and its for a fucking wii sports game lmfao. Bottom line is that this game just feels so empty and soulless compared to Wii Sports Resort, or even other party games on switch like Mario Party Superstars or Clubhouse Games.

Please just get the latter, it has more games, it's $10 cheaper, and it gets golf day one instead of months after launch.

Probably the worst Pokemon has to offer. A short game that's filled to the brim with the most annoying and intrusive story I've seen. Of my 20 hours of playtime in this game, I'd wager over half of that was spent mashing A to get through dialogue and cutscenes. The structure of the game is also weird. On release I didn't mind the trials, but on a replay I think the majority of them are very annoying to sit through. The game was only difficult at all because I chose not to evolve my starter, didn't fight most trainers, and used a monotype team. I cannot stress how awful the story is. On top of being intrusive like I said, the actual content of the story is terrible. It's all over the place with tone and has no buildup to the climax. For like 2 hours before the climax, you just get a complete break in the story and go fuck off somewhere else for a while. The first 10 hours of the story are spent doing nothing that has any impact on the last few hours of it, and it honestly felt like a massive waste of time. This game would have been better if they had decided to rely less on a shitty story and more on fleshing out interesting trials and islands. Bad game.

Hands down the best open world experience. I can see why everybody and their mother got inspired by this game to do more open-world stuff: climbing somewhere high up, pulling out your tablet to mark some interesting locations you see and then going there feels really natural, and thus satisfying. It is the only game of this type to make me feel that way.

And then everything else is OFFENSIVELY bad. Why does exploring this beautiful world matter if all the shrines are terrible, the enemies deal and take too much damage and scale too quickly, making the combat grating, and the tools they give you at the start are ineffective?
Story and characters didn't grab me either, just nothing in this for me, sad!