This is literally just Dead Rising 3 rereleased on Windows PC with 'most' of the DLC and stripped of the Xbox phone app junk. The only reason this gets a slightly higher score than the original release is due to the value of modding. Even the most basic ones make a world of difference. I suggest the very easy .txt edit that removes the pesky 30 fps cap, making all the animation look buttery-smooth. I can also recommend the camera mod that replicates Dead Rising 1's camera angle.

These two alone make a huge difference in how much more appealing the game looks. Please, if you happen to own the game on Steam, do yourself a favor and slap these mods on.

The epitome of not just the Rock Band series, but the mainstream appeal of rhythm games in the Western regions. Rock Band 3 felt like the final ounce of creative evolution of the concept that is plastic-rocking with your homies while buzzed at a party. With the inclusion of a keyboard peripheral as well as harmony vocals in a mainline game, this meant you can have up to 7 people in one performance handle different parts of the game! That's kind of amazing.

This was also the first game in the series to have a semblance of a story, and it was surprisingly heartfelt and endearing, especially for one that didn't have any speaking roles. You just get to see the characters you made build a road to stardom from ground level! It was really cute.

There's also the "Pro Guitar" mode to speak of that can actually teach you chords and such for actual songs, but the concept was a bit too soon and ambitious, as it would be something perfected by a different company shortly after with "Rocksmith." Even so, it shows how genuine Harmonix was about providing a gateway for fans to actually learn instruments along with its real MIDI keyboard peripheral, and add-on for drums to more closely emulate actual drumming.

Where Guitar Hero drowned itself with its obnoxious nature, Rock Band managed to bow itself out maturely and sticking to what it did best, going so far as separating itself from EA shortly after release while still maintaining support and DLC for multiple years. I love Rock Band.

Where Twisted Metal 3 and 4 shows the absolute worst case scenario of a Twisted Metal game without David Jaffe and his team, Twisted Metal Small Brawl shows what a PS1 sequel would've been WITH David Jaffe's team . . . but without David Jaffe.

The co-creator and lead director of Twisted Metal 1 and 2 initially came up with the idea of Small Brawl, but was not there for any of its development as he got caught up with pre-production for God of War. The rest of his team got to have fun providing a more delinquently themed--but less sinister--take of Twisted Metal, replacing the cars and venues with RC cars and suburban playgrounds.

It's a cute little idea! And it plays fine, but kinda wears out its theme and doesn't really do anything that interesting with it. Jaffe has expressed, if he were able to direct it, he would've done more with the environment and even include raunchier humor a-la "Porky's (1981)". But without David's edgier sense of humor, his team's natural direction is into something softer and more family friendly.

A step-up to the original game in various ways, most especially raw gameplay and core combat. Batman: Arkham City runs, punches, and glides with so much more confidence than its predecessor, likely due to working on established grounds with the Batman franchise.

While the core combat is more intuitive, the exploration aspect is much more grand than the original, and even the story itself is considerably a step-up . . . I kinda like the way the original game presented itself more. From the comic book art profile pictures, the greasy stained menu, to the Metroid-like architecture and mapping!

I completely understand Arkham City going towards the open world aspect, and it's still really fun! I just have a weird bias towards the first game. But I can't deny, the boss fights in this game were brilliant. I also love how you start with all the gadgets from the original games, and continue earning new tools throughout on top of that. Great game design, and getting great scores in brawls is always a lot of fun.

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.

Extremely short, but satisfying platformer that does the bare minimum of telling the story of the film, while adding some extra bits for the sake of having more stages and bosses. Aladdin feels a bit slippery at times, especially if you hold the run button down the entire time like me, but it feels just right where you can blast through the stages with your platforming skills, like I try to.

I wish there was a bit more variety, but it's still pretty good as it is, and the music is especially charming. It was a little golden period of Japanese devs working on Western IPs and making some dope ass games out of them.

I love love LOVE the product placement in this game. It was such a cute and creative way for the game to make a connection with the person playing. And seeing all the kinds of names Olimar would make up for them, being artifacts he is not aware of, was so pleasing and funny. Dr. Pepper isn't just a soda, it's a DROUGHT ENDER.

Besides that extremely charming aesthetic, I actually do not like this game very much. It plays and controls fine, but the level design just feels overbloated most of the time. I was already annoyed that the sense of pure survival and the calendar were completely omitted, but if the trade-off was having so so SO MANY CAVES with monotonous tasks? I'll take the original game's design any day of the week.

Possibly Telltale's strongest title, The Wolf Among Us provides a great story in this 80s noir setting that's really fun to take in and comprehend with the mystery. It's equally an interesting new story for fans of the "Fables" comic, and something folks can get into without realizing this game is based on said comic series.

It is not without its flaws, though. Literally every single game of this format suffers from a lack of diversity and variety in its dialogue, where certain characters act irrational to your decisions and responses, or even the main character is saying things that don't align with how we're perceiving the story. This is the fomat's weakest point when we're talking about the abundance of point-and-click adventures that is most of Telltale's entire library.

Regardless, it's a blemish on an otherwise enthralling tale of these mystical characters smacked into a disheveled New York and seduced by its seedier, human nature.

The only explanation of Frank West being in this game is bias. Somebody over at Monolith definitely pushed them to write his character in. Ain't no other goddamn way, as he is easily one of the least popular characters in modern Capcom's arsenal regarding the Japanese market.

Anyway, gameplay is awful. The fights are so incredibly monotonous, and you're completely railroaded between stages. Character animations are nice, and the dialogue can be pretty fun. But that's the extent of this otherwise banal game.

Among the entire Metal Slug library, this is the best game made without the original team. Unlike the last two games, Metal Slug 6 doesn't appear to be severely rushed or crippled from underbudgeting. The enemy variety is large, the stages are lengthy and interesting, there's actually a couple branching paths, and the new weapons are fun to use!

There are also the attributes tied to individual characters which made replays more interesting. The lowest points, however, would be the venues, backdrops, and music. The backgrounds are these ugly paintings instead of crisp pixel art like it always was before this, and the music is either droll, or too busy as it's aped as a remix of a previous song.

Overall, this is leagues better than 4 and 5, but doesn't quite capture the tight design of 1, X, and 3. They just don't have it in them to make something as remarkable as those, but that's okay! This is still not bad.

Want a cute af platformer that's not too hard? Well, Kirby's Dreamland is a great place to start. It's a cute game where even on your first time around, you won't have much trouble beating it as it's a pretty slow pace and Kirby himself is pretty capable of gaining height for a platformer character. That's probably the most unique aspect that started here. You didn't need to worry about jump height and distance, since Kirby was able to float and flap as much as the player desired.

Anyway, cool and cute game. Not amazing by any means, but it's a humble beginning to what would be a significant Nintendo franchise.