GrooviestPine
2003
This is specifically for the GBA version, which takes the usual Sims micromanagement of a character's basic needs, skills, etc. and shifts the framework around it into something that could almost be called an RPG. It kinda rules, actually.
1971
I've only played the Apple II version which for some reason isn't listed here but wow! What an ambitious and smartly designed game for the era.
1999
along with Papers Please the only game i have ever abandoned because it was simply too stressful
2016
an actual criminal crime that this didn't become the biggest competitive MP game in the world
2012
This has probably aged pretty poorly but who cares!! the impact this game had on me as far as video game storytelling goes...wow
1993
I have difficulty being too hard on Megarace since it may actually be the first video game I ever really played (my parents had an Atari 2600 but we rarely used it). I know it's not like, good, but it makes great use of FMV in place of rendering tracks in the actual environment, and the soundtrack is fantastic.
2018
A terrific throwback platformer that surprise! becomes a kinda-terrible Metroidvania in the back half. The reveal is real cool, but...mixing linear and non-linear platformers sure doesn't seem like a good idea.
1995
can't really help but love this game's weird ambition, but in the pantheon of bad 90s FMV adventure games, this sure is one of those. also, fuck cops, and fuck Darryl F. Gates in particular. wild how this series was apparently proud to display the name of the dude almost singlehandedly responsible for ensuring the LAPD was as racist as humanly possible in the 80s.
2017
Once upon a time this was a shockingly good mobile game but every update has made it more and more predatory and miserable for players who can't or don't want to pay money. Capitalism: it kinda ruins everything
A gorgeous, charming game ruined by just absolute dogshit combat.
2012
just let me be gay please, thats literally all i ask
really not much here (you can get through the entire game in under an hour probably) but the lowkey charm and droll sense of humor carry it a pretty long way.
2019
i've seen people knock this game for being too simple of an RPG which is kinda missing the point. it is exactly as complex as it needs to be. it's not meant to be a hardcore strategy-intensive experience, and why would it be in the first place? it gives you goals, it rewards your progress, and it gives you plenty of room to customize how intense you want your workouts to be. it's the first exercise video game that actually delivers on both the "exercise" and "video game" halves of the equation. i've been sedentary my entire adult life and this game got me full-on into exercising. i'm still exercising two months after i stopped playing this. i've lost close to 30 pounds. if you'd asked me a year ago if a video game was capable of that i would've laughed in your face.
this game was probably terrible. but the uber-expansive recreation of LA was so cool to me in 2005 that i just spent all my time driving around, even though the size of the map doesn't serve the game in any way.
god nathan drake sucks