generally have a well-earned distaste for video game remakes, especially with how N. Sane Trilogy turned out. unlike that game, this game is pretty and the music isn't butchered. in fact, it's better than the original and one of my favorite games ever.

Beenox was smart. they knew that Naughty Dog already made the greatest kart racer of all time. what can they do? copy the tight controls, except make it faster and add more stuff. Beenox further developed mechanics like u-turning and blue flame, allowing you to use both with less restrictions. it makes the game fast as hell, while still feeling like you have complete control.

the tracks and roster are both great, and do something I wish more remakes would do: use the good from the bad in the good. sorry for the stroke. what I mean is, take characters or tracks from less than good Crash games and put them in a good game. they did this perfectly, reaching across Crash's entire (except Twinsanity) history. finally, I can play Nitro Kart tracks without falling asleep

there are definite issues: Activision are greedy little piggies that added microtransactions to buy inflated cosmetics, 30fps, and long load times being the big ones. playing on Switch emulator is the best option and fixes the former two, but sadly the load times still suck, some textures are N64 level shit, there's minor emulator bugs, and obviously there's no online. one day my endless prayers for a PC port will be answered.

they even added the placeholder line accidentally left in the original by having the character voice it himself!! that’s so cool! this game rules!!

How did Naughty Dog pull something like this off on a first try?

An absurdly fast, absurdly content-packed kart racer with mechanical depth that took a decade for Mario Kart to even begin catching up to. Can you believe that Mario Kart 64 wasn't even three years old when this came out? Crash Team Racing makes that game look like it was last-gen. Hitting a triple boost off of a single powerslide and breaking the sound barrier as you get three full seconds of airtime off of a ramp that you hopped off of to clear a barrier and nail a shortcut is an unparalleled feeling. Getting rocked by any item and spinning out while everyone overtakes you will make you unwittingly spit a line like "you little fucking polar bear shit" at your TV. Oxide cheating in the boss duel and rocketing off before the starting gun made me want to run his kart off the tracks and launch him forever into the infinite depths of outer space.

Immense respect for not having rubberbanding in this. It absolutely sucks to be on the receiving end of it, but stealing a lead and keeping it is incredible. Crash Team Racing is a game of maximizing the suffering of everyone who isn't you, especially if they're playing the fucking polar bear.

Didn't grew up with a PS1.
Didn't grew up with Crash.
Didn't grew up with racing games.
Didn't grew up with hot italian gay rats.

And it still made me feel nostalgic. What a timeless classic.

Whenever the sceptic in my brain starts giving Smash Melee purists funny looks I have to slap myself and remember how many hours I've sunk into Worms 2 and Armageddon specifically. There have been many more Worms games since, and yet this is the one for me.

Much like Smash Bros, this series is all about mixing several genres together, which in its case are strategy and shooter, with elements of golfing sprinkled in. In a match each player commands a team of worms, taking turns controlling one individual at a time. Positioning is key here - staying closer to the enemy makes it easier to land precise shots while also making yourself vulnerable, and staying far means dealing with wind, grenade weight and bounce, very precise charge-ups etc. As such, movement is key, learning how to jump can open up more of the map without wasting resources, and doing it properly can shave precious seconds off your turn. And if you are to waste resources you have options, with none being as important as the Rope, mastery over which separates men from boys.

Like the best multiplayer games, Worms walks a fine line between a party game and competitive sport. A rather broad suite of customization options helps determine how precise or how random you want your matches to be. If for some reason what is offered out of the box is not enough, Armageddon is probably the easiest game in the world to mod.

That goes for aesthetics too. In case the game's default Monty Python-esque humor isn't enough for you, turning it into PC gaming's Smash by making your worms say Duke Nukem lines in a high pitch or replacing their sprites with Starcraft's Zerg Ultralisk or whatever is as easy as adding or replacing some files in game's folder.

And that's all fine, but even if you're not interested in all that, Armageddon is still the absolute GOAT. The reason for that is something that cannot be understood through words, it's got to be felt. It's all in the physics. The way an explosion can send a worm flying at supersonic speeds, the way everything bounces off of surfaces. The mad unpredictability of the map destruction that can lead to your grenade flying back in your face because a tiny piece of land was left there and you just couldn't see it. This game is a masterpiece of slapstick comedy that sets ablaze whenever somebody playing it says "Imma try something now", which can end as either a limp whiff, a hilarious, disastrous misfire or a jaw-dropping success, as if the map was a Rube Goldberg Machine and only that player could see it the whole time.

Much like with Melee, concessions have to be made that yes, a huge part of the arsenal is trash and the Rope is over-emphasized. But none of the sequels, which I can't honestly say even fix that problem, made me laugh and fill me with so much joy as consistently as this game does to this day.

Banana Bombs.

Super Banana Bombs.

Sheep.

Super Sheep.