Playing through the first two games, I was quite curious at how this one could be the least-good of the bunch, just going off Backloggd averages. Did they take a back step on the many improvements Rise brought? Is the story and characters worse than ever before? Is it just not a different game than Rise so its flaws are more pronounced? My answer to all of these is a very decisive "no".

I frankly do not get the mixed feelings on this game. The characters and story are better than ever with an ally faction I actually cared about, Lara getting some much-needed personality and internal conflict, a story with actual good turns to it, and the most beautiful setting of the games for sure. Trading out the wet, rainy island of the first game, the cold, achromatic mountain of the second game, and giving us a lush, vibrant jungle that's rich with culture and life. This setting was very befitting of a Tomb Raider game.

One thing that's somewhat disappointing in this one is a lot less of a focus on combat. Battles don't get started in town areas, and with the city of Paititi being easily the most content-dense area in the series, this means there's a stretch of time where you don't see any combat, assuming you go after even a little bit of optional content. It's a shame, too, because this is definitely the deepest the combat, weapons, and stealth have ever been. The amount of tools at your disposal is great, but there's just simply not enough action scenarios where these skills are put to the test.

I remember before this game came out, this was one of those that I would just roll my eyes at when it would take up valuable E3 time or whatever gaming event was happening - it always seemed to be there. "Who cares?" I would always say. Well, apparently I should have cared. This was a great experience.

This is the game that 2015 should have been. This is also the first game in the series to have real, genuine, actual tutorials and practice options that are actually helpful, making this the first Codemasters F1 game to be decently accessible, and that's without considering the numerous other changes and additions throughout the game that aid accessibility, or the fact that there is a much wider range of difficulty now with both harder and easier options, or the fact that practicing now offers consistent, tangible, immediate rewards, giving players obvious incentive to learn and improve. On top of all of that, the career mode in this game is presented so much better, and with so much more depth, that it makes the career modes of every previous game look bad. This is something completely new, it's in a league of its own, and I'm over the moon about it. The presentation of 2010 was good enough that it sparked an interest in me, and this is the game that's making me pay attention. Seventh time's the charm, I guess.

Before I sing too many praises though, I must unfortunately make clear that nearly all of my problems with the core game in 2015 are still present here, and one is actually worse. The only meaningful improvement to those many nitpicks is in the driving feel, because the cars don't feel like GT cars anymore. Still a bit unpredictable, but they feel properly nimble and sensitive, so it's good enough. The problem that got worse is AI aggression and stupidity, because not only have they gotten a little more aggressive, they also seem to have lost a lot of situation awareness around the player, because I often get hit by cars I didn't know were there - and I check the replays, it's rarely my fault - or they straight up attack me. It's absolutely horrendous on race starts in particular. I had to restart the Bahrain GP 9 times, the Russian GP 10 times, and the Spanish GP 6 times, all at turn one. I preferred to avoid using flashbacks in previous games, keeping myself limited to one, but man am I glad they're unlimited in this game. I have no idea how many flashbacks I used at Monaco after the typical several turn one restarts.

Also my problems with the sound mixing being pinched or tense are still present, but the radio is less ear splitting, my own engine is (usually) less impossible to hear, and while the high pitched whining is unfortunately not just still present, but much worse, there is an accessibility option to reduce the high frequencies in the audio settings now, which is an absolutely fantastic option to see that I wish way more games had. So maybe I lied about there being only one meaningful improvement. That option only does a partial job, though, because while it does always remove the whining, which is great because that's the main problem for me, there's also a high pitched hissing sound that I imagine is related to the turbocharger that dips in and out a lot. It's always quieter with the option enabled compared to with it disabled, but it's inconsistent, and that makes it almost as uncomfortable as it would otherwise be anyway.

But with all that said, the main difference between this and 2015 is the amazing career mode. Rivalries actually mean something now, they're decently engaging by pitting you against your rival even in practice and qualifying on several points rather than just position, and they happen a lot more often without any player input. It's also possible to get promoted to number one driver very quickly if you consistently outperform your teammate and meet team goals - I managed it in four races. Being the team's number one made a difference in previous games by allowing you to set the course of the team's research and development, but in this game, all you get is a few extra points after each race... which is a lot better I think, because research itself is also very engaging in this game, since instead of just getting some upgrades without any input, you actually choose your own upgrades by spending your research points on them, which you can earn more of by performing better in practice, qualifying, and races, and of course by being the number one driver. Other teams actually develop too, unlike before, so you have incentive to maximize your research points.

Points are always in demand, and you maximize them primarily in practice sessions by using the three practice programs, being acclimatization, which tasks you with driving quickly and cleanly through a series of gates along the racing line, tire management, which challenges you to meet a minimum lap time while also minimizing tire wear - which is clearly shown to you through a visual indicator and vibration feedback, along with finally being displayed as an actual percentage in the multi function display along with precise temperatures in the next screen - and a qualifying simulation, challenging you to simply go fast with the fastest tire compound. Once you start getting into the rhythm of things, you can do all three of those things in one practice session and skip the other two, but being encouraged to do all three of these things with the promise of a lot of research points is a great way to push players into practicing for each race and getting better at the game. Although, research in this game is very powerful, so if you get too good, you can take a slow team to the top real fast, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your perspective. I took Renault from the bottom of the list to #4 in less than half of a season, getting a new part installed on just about every weekend, which wasn't very satisfying for me.

In terms of presentation, not only is the general interface a big improvement, not only does the game now feature a more TV-accurate style of presentation with its camera angles, paddock footage, and commentators with their TV voices and platitudes, the whole game feels so much more immersive than any previous one. Every race weekend starts with you in front of a laptop in your team lounge area at the current track, overlooking the area. You have a phone in front of you that you pick up to get qualifying and race objectives. Everything else you do outside of driving is done on the laptop, which you actually open up and look at every time, and when you're in the car, you reach out for and get handed a tablet to adjust your setup. On the grid, your race strategy shows you actual data, and some of that data is personalized to you based on your performance in the tire management program, and sometimes your engineer might suggest a change in strategy while racing. He also tells you things that are actually helpful in races, like specific time gaps between you, the car ahead, the car behind, and your teammate, and specific information about the weather, and best of all, you can actually ask for specific information whenever you want. You can even drive the formation lap yourself if you want to, which I really don't.

I could probably say plenty more in praise of this game if I wanted to, but I don't. I'd also love to keep this game installed alongside 2013 since it's the last game with the first generation of V6 hybrids what with their skinny tires, but I don't think it's acceptable to have to change a setting in my BIOS just to be able to launch the game... and also there's some rather severe graphical artifacting going on that's probably related to running the game through proton, along with severe performance issues including stutters so bad that they affect the game physics. The performance issues were so bad that trying to hold it together at Monaco between the already very hard to drive cars and physics, the murderous AI, and the constant stuttering, audio glitches, weird visual quirks, and input delays, it stressed me out so hard I needed to lay down. Oh, and of course the game crashes occasionally, just for good measure. So one season of this game is enough for me. And boy howdy let me tell you, I was very happy to see that 5 lap races were an option again, because while I did want to finish a whole season, by the halfway point I was really struggling to want to keep playing in the face of all those issues. I kept that on and started doing only one practice program for the rest of my time with this game, with the exception of the final track I had yet to experience, being Mexico, where I went back up to 25%.

To sum it up then, this is by far the best game in the series up to this point, it's in a league of its own. Too bad it barely works for me.

(from my web zone: https://kerosyn.link/i-played-every-codemasters-racing-game-to-prove-a-point/#f1-2016)

While playing The Last of Us Remastered twice before hopping on this, I was still excited to see the upgraded graphics, and they are amazing, I wish there was a way they could’ve changed the gameplay to reflect part 2 tho, but I understand why it’s hard to do.

One of the best story games of all time, which has been turned into a HBO show (massively deserved), this story of loss and hope is written so well, and essentially begun the genre of the unofficial father and child dynamic in media. This game rips your heart open and leaves you empty by the time the credits roll. With great gameplay that is linear and gives you a variety on how you play in this post-apocalyptic world

It’s an instant classic, and will definitely be remembered for many years to come

I was already confident after the first part, but after beating part 2 I was reassured that so far THIS is the best Ace Attorney game (that is duology) in the whole series.
Not just the improvements in the gameplay and keeping and combining what worked best with the previous titles, but the overall style, presentation, music and dialogues are near perfection with well-written stories, interesting plot twists, great characters and the usual hilarious over-the-top animations make this a must-have for any AA and/or visual novel fans! My only minor gripe is some questionable logic leaps at some places (which TBH were present in all previous games).
I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as the entry for the series (cause going back to the OG trilogy after this will be a huge step-back), but definitely buy this if you like this series, you won't be disappointed!
I'm REALLY curious now how will they top this game in quality if they decide to ever continue the main AA story, though I would really like to see a continuation of this spin-off story as well!

holds up exceptionally well still if you're willing to adjust to the controls, and I genuinely quite like the simple but interesting story as it unravels, on a replay some of the missions take on a completely different light

fascinating seeing early AC retain some of the dungeon crawler elements of KF with some of the more labyrinthian levels, I genuinely like the more exploration centric levels and the art direction is minimalistic but still kinda nice

music kicks ass, some of the later levels are sadistic but funny as fuck, and the game is Unbelievably easy to snap in half once you find the right build and hidden parts

Sonic 06 was the Sonic game I was most interested in completing due to hearing conflicting opinions about it. I remember a couple of friends from long ago telling me that Sonic 06 wasn't that bad but when I looked up reviews for it, I saw that it was critically panned for reasons that I would eventually realize when playing the game. After beating Sonic 06, I think both sides of what I heard are kind of right. Don't get me wrong, Sonic 06 is a buggy piece of shit, but if Sega actually took the time to polish it, I think it would be just as good as the Sonic Adventure games.

I'll start off with what I think Sonic 06 does right. The music kicks ass. His World is one of the best songs in the whole series. If you can't get hyped listening to it, I don't know what would. Just like in Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, the Sonic & Shadow levels are still entertaining. It will never not be enjoyable running around as Sonic or/and Shadow kicking bots and taking names.......when it works. Silver while not as fun to use as the former two is a nice change of pace compared to them and at least somewhat enjoyable to use. From what I remember Silver's story was the most tolerable one when it comes to glitches. Mephiles was a villain who was not only interesting but also managed to be very intimidating in contrast to Eggman who I don't think really fills that role anymore.

Now onto the bad parts of Sonic 06 that everyone is very familiar with, the glitches. I hear the Xbox 360 version is the better version which explains why I didn't encounter as many bugs as I thought I would, but when they happen they are VERY annoying. A few at the top of my head I can think of are the numerous tries it will take to beat Silver anytime you fight him due to him grabbing you repeatedly, losing control of my character when using a boost pad or just in general, and just the lack of polish the game has in general. There were times when I felt the game was running on a string especially when the camera would shake around occasionally. All of these bugs made it a rage-inducing experience to go through, especially if it was a lengthy level. You don't just play as the big 3, but also most of the important characters like Tails, Knuckles, Rouge, Blaze, Omega, and Amy Rose. While adding more characters to the roster seems like a positive, most of them were either average or just plain unfun, especially when you encounter glitches. The hub world looks and feels like Sonic Adventure 1's but bloated and uglier. In Sonic Adventure 1, it was quick to get to wherever you needed to go in the hub world, in Sonic 06 it doesn't feel nearly as fast and is way bigger than it needs to be. Running around in the forest as anyone but Sonic is as slow as molasses which is ironic since you're playing a game about a speedy, blue hedgehog. The last thing I think is worth mentioning is that Sonic 06 gave us this abomination of a cutscene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk6cgp7RcL8.

While I haven't played Sonic Heroes due to being either incredibly lucky or unlucky that the one disc I ordered came super scratched, but the impression that I have gotten is that every 3d Sonic game after Adventure 2 has had something holding it back whether it be time constraints or a mechanic that overstays its welcome. Even though Sonic 06 is widely regarded as one of the worst games ever made, it had a lot of potential to be special had Sega taken the time to ensure it wasn't a buggy mess.

Look Romero I bought Daikatana both on Steam and GoG you don't need to punish me THIS much. But thanks nonetheless

Probably the peak of Doom 1. Straight from one of it's creators, John Romero, who would've thought the formula needed even more punishment to it. The levels are a symphony of pain and edginess, perfectly balanced to test everything you know about this game (played on Hurt me Plenty, but I have heard UV is not very well balanced) alongside a banger MIDI soundtrack and a rendition by Buckethead or something, I ain't a music nerd. From the enemy placement to the amount of health and ammo you get for each encounter, this WAD expects the absolute best from you without ever feeling cheap.

Really, a great experience. I'd say play the OG episodes before trying this one tho, it definetely is a product for veterans of the game.