A certified arcade classic. Even a decade and a half later this game is so satisfying to play, drifting through every corner, passing every rival and completing every request.

There just aren't many arcade (literally in an arcade not the genre arcade) style racers that can hold up against this game. It's a shame that because it's licenced with a tie in we may never see a revival of this classic.

HD collection for the 20th anniversary?

This game is hard. There is no getting around it, if you don't like getting wrecked by a game almost every time you play it, don't bother.

In fact, the game is so hard that I feel like I haven't even scratched the surface of it's content. I can barely get past about 4/5 floors, hidden areas or zones before dying in a spectacular fashion.

The wands and their customisation is mind boggling, what everything does requires a PHD to understand and some of the game mechanics are hard to grasp. I'm certain this is a skill issue, and whilst it's praise worthy for how in-depth it is, its too hard to get your head around sometimes. Half a star off.

With that out of the way.... I think this game is underrated, partially due to its PC only release. I believe this game should be up there with The Binding Of Isaac as a highly revered game in the Rogue Like/Lite space. If it had a console release as well, im sure it would have the respect it deserves.

For a small little indie game it has a decent amount of unlockable content. It's essentially a wave based survival game with rounds in between that allow you to buy new weapons, passive upgrades etc.

Its got that Rogue-like element to it as every run you'll be offered different items to buy etc.

The problem with this game is that it's just a bit too samey after a while. I couldn't help but think it needs a few more enemy types, a bit of variation in the waves and some more explanation of its core mechanics.

An impressive feat as it stands, but its far from being an amazing game that you must play/own.

So this game is interesting. The hexagonal nature of "board" if you'd call it that makes for an interesting gameplay loop that has you strategizing the best way to climb up the mountain. It feels more like a puzzle to be optimised each run than a movement mechanic and it gets praise for that.

The systems at play: Warmth, Hunger, Sanity and Oxygen make for a good balancing act when you're trying to survive and make the game hard enough on longer climbs that they have to be worked around, but not so annoying that it impedes gameplay a lot.

The game is also pretty to look at and does give you a good sense of scale. Most of the time, if you see something within the game world, you can travel to it which is nice.

Having said all of that, the charm of the game wears off quickly. The random events aren't plentiful and as a result you'll see the same set of them even on the same mountain sometimes.

Random events don't appear to have any notable randomness in response to your actions. I.E if a dialogue option worked the first time, its going to work every time after that.

This hugely detracts from the experience as it always feels like you can "win" enough encounters to not really be in any danger at all.

There is a story but I just couldn't be bothered with it and can't really comment on it's quality other than it was there.

I can't help but feel like this game would of been better as a high score type with survival mechanics rather than the psuedo-story game it is with randomly generated levels.

For free, its worth a play. You should only pay for it if you are a serious enthusiast.

5 stars may seem crazy on approach, but considering this is potentially the most iconic call of duty of all time with the most fond memories from a lot of the player base even with it's jank and lack of balance, it seems fitting.

This is 100% the game that I spent my teenage years playing after call of duty 4 and this was a remarkable upgrade in every way.

The 5 star rating is purely based on multiplayer in the context of it's release. Single player is passable, spec ops and other aspects of the release were nice additions but that really isn't the reason that people played call of duty and they weren't bad enough to bring the rating down.

I would really want to remove half a star for the balance, one man army was so problematic, commando pro was a joke with the netcode among other things but I played this game for over 25 days, it clearly wasn't that bad of an issue for me and these were more cheese strats than the meta. No harm no foul.

I admit, playing the game in the present day it may not stand up to newer and more refined titles, but looking back at it from the time of it's release, it was possibly the best multiplayer shooter ever made and fought for it's place there amongst Halo, Gears of War and other fantastic games of the time.

So I enjoyed this game. It isn't really going to be viable for multiple play throughs or anything like that but it's unique and interesting the first time through.

It's taken such a mundane task and gamified it. The moral choices within the story are also interesting within the context of a dictatorial regime.

The story is interesting enough to get you through the experience, but not enough that you'll be actively praising the game for it.

Art style is also cool and compliments more mobile consoles. Played on a PC or console and I imagine this game would be lacklustre. Played on a portable device, this has just the right level of complexity to keep you gaming.

Worth a play at under £5 or so, most likely bought for under £2 nowadays.

So it's losing quarter of a star for how rubbish the tour tracks actually are. Yes they come from well known locations and are gimmicky at first but their lack of any real anti gravity mechanics, good shortcuts or non super wide roads is boring. They all blend into one. Once again, quarter a star off.

It's also losing another quarter of a star for how important stats like Miniturbo, air speed , water speed etc actually are to your karts performance and how they aren't shown in game. Having to go online for an Excel spreadsheet to tell us the same information is not good design. I understand the need to not overwhelm casual fans, but put it in the game somewhere for more hardcore users. (https://www.mariowiki.com/Mario_Kart_8_Deluxe_in-game_statistics see here for stats on karts!)

Overall, 200 CC mode brings it closer to other kart racers in terms of the speeds you can achieve, difficulty in racing and overall playability and I love that they added it but it's not for the casual player so it doesn't impact the star rating.

150 CC is obviously the default way to play the game though and it feels relatively balanced if not a bit too slow. Karts are responsive, boosts feel satisfying and races feel competitive.

Of course, item balance is an issue but this isn't meant to be a super sweaty racing game. It's a party kart racing game and therefore bad-ish balance is allowed. Blue shells having two consistent ways to dodge them (Mushroom / horn) makes the balance better than previous games.

Everything that makes a Mariokart game good is on display here other than the aforementioned. Good base tracks as well as parts of the DLC, soundtracks are on point and memorable, character selection and kart customisation has decent options and game build quality (bugs, glitches etc) is excellent to the point where there are no bugs and glitches that I've encountered after 100s of hours.

Overall a must play/own for the Switch but it's rather a refining of a tried and tested formula rather than a game that's pushing boundaries and seeking to try new things.

So integrating a Tower defence game and a Rogue-Lite is clever. It keeps the game interesting and fresh even if the mechanics don't change a whole bunch.

The game is largely losing stars for it's lack of polish, bad UI and having to install mods to make the game friendlier to play E.G a speed up button.

The interface on towers blocks you viewing their radius for instance, it's hard to really tell what powerups and upgrades you have already unless you bring up a specific window which puts small black text just above the tower buy button which really isn't the most helpful solution.

Navigation around the game, its menus and everything else also feels incredibly clunky and like it should of been optimised before release.

I really do commend this gameplay and think its fun, I just think this game needed a bit more time in the UX and UI department to rank better.

Fixing all of these things would probably take the game to 4 stars. It's still lacking a bit of content for a game within the Rogue-Lite genre as well as lacking a proper guide to let players know about more intricate mechanics. Once again this has been left up to content creators.

Good game, probably recommend to pick it up at about 40%-50% under base price for value for money.

Fantastic story, great acting and impactful cutscenes the game is playable for these alone and on story alone this would get a 5 stars. Having said that, this game is stuck between deciding to be an action game, survival horror or a story driven game and as a result it sacrifices the first two in favour of the third whilst still leaving their remnants in the game.

The game only real instils the fear of dying into you if you play it on it's harder difficulty settings, remove the HUD and play the game more like a controllable movie.

Shooting has an unforgivable level of jank for this game on release especially being towards the end of the consoles life cycle.

Once again, it's only really a good game (still not trashing the story here but rather the mechanics etc) if you play it on its most intense difficulty mode without the crutch of wall hacks from the listen mode.

100% worth a play for the story and narrative experience, but not the revolution in gaming that people claimed it to be.

Right off the bat I'm going to admit that this game has a fundamental problem. It's only really an exceptional game (possibly even capable of 5 stars) in the context of the MGS cannon as a whole.

As a stand alone title, it's story just don't make sense after coming from MGS1. You need to play MGS3 / MGS4 in order to understand the structure of the story and why you are doing the things you are doing. This is the clearest I can be without major spoilers. It's losing half a star for this.

Mechanics wise, as always the game has nailed them for the time of it's release as well as the scope of the platforms it was available on. Having said that aiming/movement/swimming sometimes has levels of jank that are acceptable, but not optimal.

Having watched plenty of speedruns, this may just be an intense skill issue but not everyone is going to get that cracked at the game. I've played enough and its still annoying. Half a star off.

The 4th wall breaking meta stuff in this game is intense, kind of weird and even got me to follow its instructions as a kid. Unique and characteristic of Kojima's style of story telling and experiencing it is a must. Meta commentary in the game about the future of society is weirdly spot on and dystopian which just adds to the immersion and makes the game better retrospectively.

It also has to be noted that the quality of gameplay from MGS1 to MGS2 is a massive step up. It took the same concept and refined it whilst adding a few more bells and whistles.

If you deeply understand the MGS story line, the significance of everything and appreciate the bait and switch that pissed off fans on release, this game is 5 stars. The jank can be overlooked but without all this contextual knowledge the game just isn't 5 star material in its own right.

This is one of the easiest 5 stars I've ever given. This game is amazing and a must play. A cross between Dark Souls and a Metroidvania, this game has such a satisfying gameplay loop.

Combat is fluid, easy to grasp and hard to master. The map and its evolution as you uncover more of it is amazing. On so many occasions did I have an "Oh shit" this leads back to this other section I was in previously and had no idea.

Bosses are well spaced out and have enough variety in them to keep things interesting and fair. So many games have unfair bosses but Hollow Knight strikes that balance between getting your arse kicked for bad play and feeling like a god when you perfect a fight.

New unlocks are meaningful and aid in movement, combat and exploration making everything feel useful and necessary.

The art style and characters are also interesting and well developed with most having just enough dialogue to keep you engaged in their story. The game even takes inspiration from Dark Souls by locking you out of certain NPC storylines if you don't speak to them at certain points within your progression.

Overall, if you haven't played this game, it is 100% worth a play even at full price although it can be picked up rather cheaply at under £7 or so these days.

What an incredible game. Having said that it's an RTS like any others in the "Age of" series but this time just mythological gods as the name suggests.

If you enjoy this style of game, then this will be no different if not a little outdated. If you hate managing micro elements of a game as well as the macro resource management etc you'll hate this.

Pause is a thing though, use it to play the game at a more chilled pace and enjoy it.