Shadow The Hedgehog if it was good

Improves on AC3 with a more daring storyline and some gameplay refinements, bringing some much needed big concept strangeness to the setting

The king is BACK. Fast, sharp, technically challenging, excellent sound and visuals. narratively and mechanically propulsive singleplayer and skill-testinng and diverse multiplayer, sexy voice acting…

A real man oughta be a little stupid

A methodical and punishing entry in the series, maybe the slowest Armored Core I’ve played. A weak plot lets it down a bit in the aggregate

One of the greatest successes in making you feel like a huge badass. Deeply cool asymmetrical multiplayer design, remarkable singleplayer campaign, very cool mechs

Ichiban Kasuga is one of the most Dudes Rock protagonists in gaming and he is delightful

Kazuma Kiryu has never killed anyone but Ryoma Sakamoto has killed so so many people. Game’s good if a bit politically dodgy

All of the best the Yakuza series has to offer, in gameplay, writing, environment design, sense of place…sets a very high bar

Best anti-bullying PSA ever made. Incredible child-fighting gameplay

I miss my wife, Shinji.

Deeply clunky but there’s obvious greatness nascent in the moody and technical mechanical nightmare

Absolute zoomies. No player character in game of any genre has ever matched the speed and power of a well-tuned NEXT

A masterpiece and a cornerstone of modern gaming. Sharpens the mechanical underpinnings of Demon’s Souls and King’s Field to a fine edge, with purposeful and deliberate design that defines itself by what it withholds

This is the dark souls of videogames