I put this down when I realized the only moment I had fun--and not dripping with sweat from anxiety or full of anger--was when that game-ending "VICTORY!" graphic hits the screen.

There's design here and there that's admirable, they make it feel good to movey and shooty as far as this lightly skilled FPS player can tell. But ultimately, the structure of its competitive aspect is not for me. Most aren't. So I uninstalled it during lockdown because, even with friends, I was just not having fun at all. Then the Blizzard fallout happened, and I was like "Hey what an easy boycott, avoiding Blizzard and Activision is easier than ever now!"

There's no real ethical consumption under capitalism, but hey this is the least I could do. Never playing 2 either.

A great bite-sized survival horror that does a fine job recapturing some of the magic seen in the iconic classics. From the low-poly graphics with proper CRT filters, to the controls and muffled voice bytes. Murder House does a surprisingly good job balancing between being an homage to survival horror video games, and slasher flicks that thrived in the 70s and 80s!

There's also something to be said about how well this kind of game can create fear within the player. The way they present the main threat throughout as the Easter Ripper is sandwiched in the middle of an oppressively terrifying score and sound design, it's all extremely effective! The fact that this game doesn't need super-charged graphics to immerse the player in fear shows how talented these developers are.

The game also doesn't overstay its welcome. The design is pretty simplistic, and they knew that. Instead of dragging this out into some eight-hour campaign, it isn't hard at all to clear the entire game in about two. Which is appropriate, considering the slasher movie feel of the game!

A good first start in the subgenre of light-hearted racers, Super Mario Kart makes some design choices that were completely baffling to me as a kid, but make a lot more sense now.

The most apparent being the screen itself. Games were presented in 4:3 at the time to accommodate the common tube TV's aspect ratio. Dissimilar to F-Zero, Super Mario Kart wasn't just about going fast and seeing the road ahead, the numerous competing racers and hazardous item use make it so you need to be more aware of your surroundings. Thus, the front camera only takes up the upper half of the screen, making this "widescreen" look so you can better see everything in front of you, while having the bottom half of the screen represent either the live map of the race, or your review mirror. I appreciated these creative means of changing the way people would've likely seen racers at the time. Just as well, considering they changed a part of the genre forever.

The gameplay itself is serviceable, but isn't very gripping. At least not these days, or even the first time I went through the game myself as a teenager. I'm probably too influence by the countless hours I've sunk into its sequels. Regardless, it's still a charming little game that was certainly impressive at the time.

From what I understand, this entire package was originally to be sold as a single game, but there were troubles with its development, and SEGA saw a solution where the developers didn't have to make sacrifices, and they could essentially sell the game for twice the regular price.

Regardless how much of this was for the sake of helping out the developers or just plain ol' corporate greed, I've only ever played "S3&K" in its complete package. And . . . it's amazing! Such a huge assortment of levels, fantastic music, fun to play from beginning to end, challenging as hell (at least when I was a kid), and I loved the very light story between Sonic and Knuckles while pursuing the dastardly Eggman!

The only thing that sort of turns me off is the updated art style. Everything looked softer and more cartooney, whereas I adored Sonic 1 and 2's sharper nature. Otherwise, this is a jam-packed experience that set a precedence of what a Sonic game should be!

As far as quarter-munching arcade beat-em-ups go, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles '89 is one of the better ones. I would argue that among the "Konami licensed beat-em-up triumvirate" (just made that up) it is overall much more fairly designed than the likes of X-Men and The Simpsons. What I mean by that is, beating this game by yourself or maybe even friends to further confuse boss AI is possible to achieve with only perhaps 2 or 3 dollars worth of continues. Of course, that's if everyone involved is trying their best to understand the mechanics, or at least the i-frames the enemies are granted almost constantly.

The graphics were also pretty impressive, and captured the essence of the cartoon it's based on very well. However, as I mentioned before, fighting enemies can be cumbersome and their i-frames to ensure you can't absolutely trounce them with your mashing is annoying to say the least. I understand the notion, I just think the designers could've provided challenging beat-em-up gameplay in a different way. Although I can't even make suggestions that would've worked in the late 80s, I'm sure they were pushing limits with how much this game provided. Perhaps the enemy count couldn't get too high before things go internally haywire. Boss fights also amounted to quick 'touch-and-go' strategy, lest you get pummeled by their devastating attacks.

Overall, it's a fun game to learn and tear apart if you're willing to do so, perhaps even a good place to start you're trying to figure out the beat-em-up subgenre, but I think most remember it for just mashing buttons with friends for a good 5-10 minutes. Like many did in their popular arcades, or even Xbox Live back in 2007. There were pretty much random games happening all the time you could hop into at an instant back then. It was magical.

A competitive [REDACTED] in the style of sumo rules! Super Smash Bros. was EVERYTHING to me when I was 8 goddamn years old. I never experienced a crossover of such proportions (12 characters and I only liked about 7 of them). This was a brilliant swan song to the Nintendo 64 that probably didn't know it would start a monumental movement of BO brawlers for decades to come!

The gameplay is simplistic, but extremely satisfying. The sound effects are especially remarkable, and something the sequels never really captured after this. It's hard to explain, but I just love the audio feedback to nearly everything in this game, especially the heavy attacks that launch away the opponents! It's nice looking back at this franchise's humble beginnings.

While not being too aware of the entire cast at the time, I was absolutely floored the first time I unlocked Captain Falcon, being one of the few that knew who he was before this game. He's been my main ever since.

I sunk a ridiculous amount of hours into this game. I made an analysis video on the experience. I made this game part of my morning routine for at least two years. And finally putting it down for good (probably), all I can do is look at the screen in 2022 and say "shit."

Let It Die is pretty cool . . . for a f2p game. It doesn't really bare any pay2win mechanics, as it asks for your time, rather than your money. The mountain of grinding this game demands is gigantic, and that's just in regards to clearing the first 40 floors that is the original campaign (which I've done on a fresh save twice). Never-mind the floors above 40 which only ramp up its difficulty.

However, the game is undeniably tedious and monotonous. Enemy variety is very low, as most equate to merely being bots with equipment you can also get yourself. And the difficulty spikes get very annoying past the 12th or so floor. It's a frustrating game that I won't argue in its defense whenever folks decide they don't want to put in the time to clear the main campaign. I can't ignore its highlights though, such as the unique soundtrack and charming atmosphere full of personality. The host, Uncle Death, is a pretty fun character as well.

There's probably a conversation to be had about this kind of game being put in a $60 product. For a simple style of traversing and combat, it would certainly had to have done a lot more with its core design to be a full-priced game, but with so many games doing what this game already does, I'm not sure if that would be worth it.

With its sequel "Deathverse" approaching soon, I think it's the best time to put down this game and look forward to the new experience instead.

It's neat looking back on this game and seeing how a rushed project can go so horribly wrong. What's more agitating than neat is thinking about all the awesome games Capcom could be porting, but one of their most hated/poorly reviewed games ever continues to survive on Playstation 4, Xbox One, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X, FUCKING NINTENDO SWITCH because it's simply part of this trilogy. There are underpaid programmers out there that make sure this game runs from beginning to end just as shitty as it did in 2002 or whatever on the latest hardware because of this factor. It's so strange to think about.

Anyway, game plays like ass, but don't skip it if you're getting into the series. It's bad, but at least it's easy. You don't deserve DMC at its 3 if you won't have it at its 2.

A fun game with a pretty unique design and cute-ass style. Very Very Valet expects you to simply perform your duty, and gives you carte blanche to be as efficient--or messy- as you'd like, so long as you get the job done.

The most fun aspect is how you can ram and pile-on cars just to get them in the right spots. I'm glad they didn't factor in things like the condition of the car, the developers clearly knew they weren't making some "Valet Simulator" or anything of that sort, it's supposed to be kooky fun, right?

The game is just a bit too simplistic with not much to do outside of the main game, besides the extra stages that test your driving and parking skills. The game clearly took a lot of inspiration from Crazy Taxi, which is great. It can be fun in multiplayer as well, only upping the sheer chaos that can come from your valet jobs.

A cute little rhythm game that's pretty strict on reacting and learning the stage patterns! Bit.Trip Runner was a fairly early highlight in the indie sphere, despite first coming to fruition on WiiWare (whatever that was).

As someone that doesn't care for chiptune music most of the time, I actually found the soundtrack in this game very endearing. It has this atmosphere that's a little hard to pin down why I like it so much, but it fit the world perfectly. Not exactly ideal as a game that featured stereoscopic 3D, but I chipped time away on my 3DS with it either way.

The only other taxi game in existence that isn't called Crazy Taxi. Other ones probably do exist, but I've never heard of any besides Smashing Drive. Even so, it doesn't play like Crazy Taxi, having a much more linear design and objective. Basically there's only 3 main courses, with their own tracks, and it's up to you to figure the best way to go while seeing the giant upgrade bubbles on display.

The game basically encourages you to try going for any alternate route you can find, as your "competitor" bot takes the boring route, but that's mostly a non-issue as the time is your real enemy. Alternate routes usually help you reach your destination at a faster time, and they're also the more exciting paths as well.

Not too much to say about the game in general. It's alright to play, but nothing too remarkable either. The soundtrack has this weird alt-techno/rock vibe that sounds insanely y2k. I think this game was trying to depict a taxi cab of the future, but even that I'm not sure about.

I was always confused why Mega Man 2 was regarded as one of the greatest games of all time. This is honestly so much like the original Mega Man, that it only gets the merit of a slightly higher score from me because the level design is noticeably less obtuse. They made this game in under a year, so I wouldn't give them much flack for not really attempting to evolve the design in any meaningful way. Perhaps a sign for how this franchise would be handled for decades to come.

Even so, Mega Man 2 is a satisfying little action platformer that I can enjoy from time-to-time. Something I have to force myself into doing is experiment with the different weapon types against things other than the bosses. I think that's where the real meat is, which I missed on back when I was a kid.

Contra STOPPED walking in the mid-90s so Metal Slug could run . . . AND GUN. And boy howdy, did this game run! Metal Slug 1 is such an impressive game with its expressive characters, giant enemy vehicles, and beautiful sprite work of this war between SD mercenaries and soldiers!

The gameplay is great too, with easy-to-understand mechanics and playing with a buddy can be a blast too! While the sequels would thrive with fantasy elements of all kinds, this was the only Metal Slug game that purely focused on "war" aspects and cartoon versions of actual military weapons and vehicles. Metal Slug X and 3 would be the peak of this game series, but I still love this original title and everything it stood for.

It's weird, thinking about this little $5 piece. Some say it was a "glorified demo Capcom DARED TO CHARGE" (their reputation was in the crapper around this time), others felt it was just a teasing little taste whipped up by the marketing team. And it may or not be those things, but I still found this to be really endearing of a little experience.

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero is certainly a sample of what the full "Dead Rising 2" experience had to offer, but something about it was just so alluring and interesting. It could just be from the fact that fans were anticipating a sequel for about 4 years before this. I looked past the obviously worse movement options and slow animations because . . . holy crap, I'm playing a new Dead Rising game . . . at least, that's what my 20 year-old self said to my 16 past self back in 2010. It was just kind of a magical moment as someone that adored the original game.

It's also neat to see how much content here didn't even make it into the final game, so it'll always be this nice little piece that remains exclusive to a $5 experience, rather than something they could've lopped off from the full game. From what I understand, this is how a lot of people feel about Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes . . . Case Zero, Ground Zeroes. Weird coincidence.