In my opinion, Planet Zoo is the current all-time peak of the zoo management genre. Other games have done specific features better or featured a broader range of topics, but none can reach the sheer detail and execution of said detail seen in Planet Zoo. The things Frontier has accomplished within this game can be truly astonishing. A player can have a zoo that is attended by over 2000 guests who are visiting hundreds of animals, yet still zoom down to the surface and get a detailed individual view of every guest, animal, and decoration. Animals look and behave realistically, they react to how they are treated, have emotions, have individual medical breakdowns specifying their precise health, and the detail is extremely minute. Somehow, all of this detail is simply a bonus. A player can easily ignore all these hyper-detailed statistics and run a successful zoo, with the game taking into account how you’ve decided to play. Your conservation rating will suffer, but if you’d rather prioritize guest experience then the game is willing to let you do so.

The game isn’t without faults, but its faults are rarely unique. Most management games suffer from the occasional odd bug that blocks item placement in a location where it should be allowed, most management games will occasionally break down slightly when larger populations are reached and have certain characters read false-positive issues. Is it still an annoying issue? Yes. Have I encountered similar issues in every management game I have ever played? Yes.

I wouldn't say I was skeptical of Lil Gator Game, perhaps even the opposite. I was happy for more A-Short-Hike-Likes but didn't expect much more out of it. I was very pleasantly surprised.
An excellent marriage of lessons about friendship, communication, and creative struggles combined with the movement mechanics of Breath Of The Wild and the character design and writing of Frog Detective create one of my favorite experiences in recent memory. In its short three-hour runtime I got in three full-blown cries.

Dread Delusion is a game that has some of my favorite RPG writing of all time and thankfully knows it's abilities in other fields. That is to say that the map and exploration is wonderful, the combat is nothing (which I would prefer to it trying to be something and failing. Outside of a complete genre change I see no way that this game would ever end up with astounding combat and it doesn't need it), the writing is impeccable, the music is great, and the art is excellent.

Dread Delusion takes many fascinating routes with its quests. Most major quests turn into a philosophical debate about whatever topic may be at play: subservience that provides comfort, the ability to change oneself, the value that death brings to life, the game covers many interesting topics in its journey and honestly I can't name a weak execution among them.

I went into Palworld planning to chuckle at its absurdity for an hour or two and then dump it. Instead, I've been engrossed in a fantastic expansion of the ideas I enjoyed so much in 2022's Pokemon Legends Arceus without all the headaches of Gamefreak's current technical flaws.

Palworld makes the conscious choice to market to edgy teens with its pals working in factories and holding assault rifles, but I was surprised by just how kind and responsible the player can be. I've spent my time building a lovely life with my pals. A beautiful self-sustaining farm, spas, individual decorated housing, stress and illness free lives, it's a wonderfully pleasant time.

A game with a very neat premise, a cool gameplay style, and an interesting world that unfortunately swiftly became incredibly stale from a gameplay perspective. The idea has so much promise from a gameplay angle but falls incredibly short of said promise. Every character feels nigh on identical in combat, companion AI is incompetent at best and actively detrimental at worst, and even the most dangerous of enemies feel easily defeated. I completed it purely because the lore compelled me to and the story did not really do enough to warrant said investment. It perfectly averages out.

Batman 2 was the first open world Lego game and man did they kill it on the first try. Later open world Lego games tended to take more of an Overworld approach where the map is more of a hub for activity than a level in its own right. Batman 2 on the other hand basically just made Gotham one humongous Lego Batman level with all the same mechanics scattered around to play with. The cast of characters is wildly expensive, it was the first Lego game with voice acting and they crushed it with that, it's exceptional.