Is it possible that, maybe, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. lost some of its charm by veering too close to simulation ?

Looking at Metro REDUX as a whole, it's impossible not to feel a little aggrieved at what was essentially a generational trade-off : "Here, we'll take S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s freedom off your hands and give you vivid AAA background craft instead." Polished but diminutive.

The writing is laughable but the effort at world-building and gunplay sometimes riveting.

Only worth a playthrough in Spartan mode.

Flying cars and impossible havoc ; that was back when Grand Theft Auto could somewhat survive being a white boy's fantasy. Not anymore.

It veers dangerously close to jingoistic militarism before reverting to what Destiny does best once you penetrate the Deep Stone Crypt : Monumental firefights and sprinkles of existentialism to keep you on edge.

How often do videogames take you to space and back again in a wonderfully circular movement around a single boss fight ? That's what happens when Bungie doesn't take itself so seriously and instead plays to the strengths of their franchise. The best raid since Leviathan.

Crammed with so many incredible scenes and sequences that it makes you forget all the times it didn't - couldn't - live up to the expectations of a finale ; simply one of the saga's very best.

Kojima doesn't direct games this well anymore - which makes Sons of Liberty's conviction in nearly everything it does all the more endearing in hindsight.

We don't need to uphold it as the cultural moment when games got "serious", we can simply play it - time and time again - because it's a great videogame.

Snake Eater is what happens when Kojima leans too much into pastiche - a series of moments rather than cohesive greatness.

There is still the ladder, the End, the Boss. But then we have to take into account Groznyj Grad, EVA, and a dozen other things. My least favorite of the numbered entries.

Pretty good, ugh ?

The one-trick chimera of the Ueda family.

Something something about a prisoner and its wardens ; style, rythmia and fate. I couldn't care less, even when the boss fights work - and boy do they sometimes work.

"An ideal detective doesn't shoot and kill his own wife."

Masterful from start to finish.

I somehow got stuck in Monstro's belly, unable to defeat its boss, for more than a year. Then one morning I booted my Gameboy Micro and beat it first time. Simpler times.

This is Kingdom Hearts at its most poignant, perhaps because it's the episode most detached from the Disney requirements.

And THAT combat system, rah.

I almost named my second pet Roxas.