A driving game that's so awesome, SEGA is a possessive douche to anyone that wants to make one similar to it! I didn't get into Crazy Taxi until a local arcade randomly got it and I slowly became obsessed with clearing it with high rankings.

One of the most rowdy arcade driving games ever made, nothing compares to its breakneck pace! It feels incredible to drive the vehicle and understand its mechanics, building up a score by attending customers is supremely satisfying, the soundtrack is very fitting, and the visuals are so colorful and charming! The game really breathes with that SEGA arcade heart I miss so dearly.

Donkey Kong Country was a platformer with an interesting design, where the platforms and even playable characters' physics are kind of vague, they're kind of loosely designed. And on a console like the SNES, it worked very well as it made it easy for the player to flow and react in order to execute quick stage runs! Trying to cram that into a Gameboy does not really work.

The platforming tends to be frustrating, and even at times "too" loose. The entire game feels very haphazardly put together, thus the controls suffer a bit for it. I'm sure there's some miracle story that they got this game working the way it does, but I don't care. It's not fun. It doesn't really fit as even a remotely suitable experience to the SNES game.

The swan song to Cuphead was a big, chunky one for only $8. Shitty anime fighters charge more than that for a single character! Now ain't that a bitch? The entire 4th Inkwell Isle has its own series of unique surprises, secrets, and content that bleed over to the original game including new weapons, new abilities, and Chalice herself as a playable character with her own fundamentals.

The bosses in this new DLC are the highlight, of course, and don't disappoint for the most part. The final boss was especially a delight. My one complaint regarding the DLC bosses, they seem to rely a bit too much on RNG and making a mess of hitboxes on the screen. Much more than the original game's bosses, at least. It feels slightly less fair and fun to learn overall, I think.

Even so, this last course was indeed delicious with its peak artistry and catchy tunes all harking back to the era of classic cartoons and vaudeville nonsense. I look forward to whatever it is MDHR have planned next.

One of the cutest survival games you'll ever play! Pikmin is so charming and simple, yet can get you sweating with its huge enemy types, calendar system, and countdown to dusk hour! How can a game be so adorable but stressful at the same time?

Building up and moving with your pikmin arsenal is a lot of fun, and I love the atmosphere of the game, it really gives off the vibe of Earth years after humanity was wiped out, so this little guy is exploring tiny parts of nature in order to rebuild his ship to get back home. I also love the strategy that comes from using different kinds of pikmin to overcome obstacles and find secrets. It's an incredibly satisfying game that thrives on its simplicity, while also impersonating aspects of a really good RTS! It's as Nintendo as things get, so to speak.

An almost unbelievably strong and face-changing revolution for what is a considerably humble car combat series. Twisted Metal: Black attacked early PS2 owners with air-tight game design, rock-solid 60 fps performance, and gigantic levels full of nightmarish atmosphere glazed with oppressive orchestras that perfectly hammer down how horrible and bleak this world is.

The story itself lugs its share of the weight too! This is the Twisted Metal game that keeps the basis of the story intact, but dropped the goofy vibes of 1 and 2. You still got crazed racers with a monkey's paw-esque opportunity to change their lives, but no longer are they stories of vain assholes looking for fame or fortune, but downtrodden victims of mental destruction merely looking for peace from their life, or pure revenge.

This game scared the absolute shit out of me when I was 11, and I never forgot that. It's also tough-as-nails with its razor-sharp AI that go rabid as soon as you get near them, as well as the pits they threw you in throughout the campaign. The story is what shines the most for me, as the tales were enthralling and really made you connect (or completely fear) the character you would play as.

For those without a PS2 to play it, the PS4 port is a mostly fine experience, slight input lag aside.

If there was any game in the 90s that made kids want to impulsively air guitar, it was F-Zero X! This intense racing game was something no other racer could even come close to being as awesome (until its own sequel years later).

I also adore that the staff involved opted for the game to have a smooth, stable 60 frames-per-second, which meant sacrificing most textures and graphical fidelity. They just knew how important a high framerate was not only for playability, but also to emphasize the SPEED of the game. And damn, was it fast!

I also adore the character designs that perfectly meld with the atmosphere the soundtrack ensues! I wouldn't be surprised if the artists involved were inspired by "Heavy Metal" magazine and/or its 1981 film! Literally everything about F-Zero X kicks so much ass! I just wish we somehow got the expansion kit here, I definitely would've spent hours on-end making custom stages!

Also, the Switch emulation is garbage. Don't play it on there.

An ambitious platformer that gave Nintendo a run for its money back in the early 90s! Sonic the Hedgehog is an interesting 2D platformer that gives you the ability to go really fast, but what it really calls for is careful platforming. Not that there ever isn't a need for speed, as it can be awesome once you learn and understand the stage designs!

It's not the most graceful platformer, and its successor would end up blowing this game out of the water, but the visuals, music, and satisfaction that comes from clearing the stages make it a genuine classic!

A hack-n-slash game that emphasizes on the hacking, which I find appropriate, considering an oversized chainsaw is the primary weapon. Lollipop Chainsaw is a cheeky action game that's humorous and creative in its own fun ways, but leans a bit too heavily on references in lieu of clever comedy. Not that the game isn't funny at times. The gameplay itself is a bit monotonous as well, rarely will it ask you to be strategic with your ways of attacking, and their way of congratulating the player with multi-kills really start to feel like punishment when you've refined your methods to group-up and kill.

The game has plenty of highlights too, I adore the concept of the zombies not just being able to talk, but also talk shit. A lot of their weird little lines and cadence are a delight. The music is also pretty fantastic, specifically the non-licensed tracks. Akira Yamaoka did a fine job providing more of this whacky punk atmosphere, and Jimmy Urine's boss tracks stand out the most, as they should.

Even so, it's a repetitive game that doesn't do a lot asking for replays. The most interesting thing about this game, to me, is seeing it in the lens of sexism. I personally think this game is trying to say some curious things about sexist roles in fantasy. The fact that the roles between the main male and female characters have been reversed from its norm (Nick literally becoming an "object" that's mocked and ogled for his appearance) says plenty, and I like how Juliet isn't exactly a perfect character either, showing her flaws throughout the game.

In other words, Lollipop Chainsaw is a good example of bait-n-switch in the world of power fantasies, but I think the eye candy is a little too in-your-face that I don't blame people for not seeing the game in the same light as I do.

A tale of a lone man trying to solve a mysterious terror attack in a land of absolute paradise. Sumio Mondo is stuck in this perpetual timeloop, but inches ever so closer to answers as these days go by. Figure out what the heck is going on (and probably still not understand) in Flower, Sun, and Rain!

Directed and mainly written by Suda51, the narrative and how it's presented is extremely alluring, and just about all of the characters have this oddball charm and quirkiness to them, and in a way that doesn't feel out-of-place at all. If any game of Suda's is inspired by David Lynch's work, it's this one. I also can't help but adore the setting itself, I love how obsessed game devs were with shores and beaches in the early 2000s, it can't get more cozy than games like this! Much of the dialogue is as hilarious as it is unique, I adore all the characters involved.

The gameplay itself is extremely minimal, as it mainly revolves around solving "puzzles" which are all numeric, and the answers are laid in a digital guide you have. If it's not stated where the answer can be found, it's up to you to solve it through context clues.

The graphical fidelity is dwarfed through this DS demake, but it still presents itself very well, and the interpreters--thankfully--did not mess with the script too much, despite how much it harks back to Suda's previous game that was only released in Japan at the time.

I expect a proper remaster of the PS2 title soon, it's something Suda51 has been very vocal about for the past few years.

One of the best third-person shooters ever made, even now. Max Payne showcases simple, easy-to-understand combat with creative ambition. The bullet-time mechanic is world-changing! All while keeping the action intense and fast-paced.

I also loved the gruff noir story of a man seeking revenge, only to dig up seedy, underground corruption of countrywide scale! All while not giving a shit, and cracking jokes along the way. It's undeniable that Max as a character is full of charm, even in the darkest scenarios!

The PC version is the way to go, just make sure to look up the fixes to get it to run swimmingly!

You ever go see a movie you're excited for because it's from 'LEGENDARY DIRECTOR [x] AND GODLIKE WRITER(S) [y and/or z], and then you go see it with a friend who is less savvy on the subject, but wouldn't mind checking it out too? When the movie is over, you're sitting in the theater as the credits roll. Sullen . . . resentful . . . disappointed. Your friend is like "What's wrong?" You say "This movie." And they're like "Really? I thought it was okay!" And all you can retort with is "Yeah, it was 'okay'! That's the problem!" Shadows Of the Damned is that feeling wrapped up into a video game. Also your friend is easily amused by basic milquetoast action and dick jokes. I feel like that detail is important.

The game is a decent third-person shooter with some really nice atmosphere and fantastic enemy designs, however its story is mostly uninteresting as it's carried heavily by the banter between Garcia and Johnson: The main character and his talking gun. The writing has some good nuggets within--the storybooks you can come across deserve to be specifically shouted out--but it's very run-of-the-mill and uninspired. As for the gameplay, it's a watered-down Resident Evil 4 with only 3 different weapons to use, a severe step down from a game released 6 years before this. Enemy confrontations aren't too challenging, even on highest difficulty, and the bosses amount little to just shooting a spot that's glowing red.

Of course, anyone that saw an ounce of marketing from this game (of the 3 ounces EA provided) can't miss the names plastered on. Shinji Mikami, Suda51, and Akira Yamaoka. 3 very talented developers that provided excellence in their respective fields. How can a pot stewed between the creator of Resident Evil and the creator of killer7 come out so bland? Probably because EA didn't show you the rest of the chefs shoving their pounds of spam, powdered vanilla, or even their own body hairs into said pot. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that EA severely meddled with the project for the near-5 years it took making this game, going as far as kicking Suda off director's chair and appointing someone themselves.

I could go into severe detail, but I already have in an analysis video. The skinny of it is that EA didn't trust Suda at all to sell the game through his own vision, and saw Mikami as this excuse to just try and hock their own Resident Evil 4. Suda nor Mikami wanted a third-person shooter. Hell, the original concept was a survival horror in a world of darkness where your torch is your only weapon! Suda has very complicated feelings regarding this game. Its production forever changed how he looked at the industry. And that's all extremely interesting . . . much more than the game itself. Shadows of the Damned will forever be this testament to how a multi-billion dollar company can easily kill creativity.