Ah, the classic road trip that goes awry! I was excited to get into this game, and spent a fair amount of time with it, but it felt just a little too big after a while. There's a lot of side content to tackle, some of it compelling, some of it a drag. The main story is fine--definitely improved with the eventual changes Square made to the base game, and the four lead characters are all unique and interesting. Gameplay-wise, the combat feels like a work-in-progress that doesn't really get perfected until FFVII Remake. It's a fun, but only just above average experience.

Much like my review for StarCraft, I'm lumping together the full WarCraft III experience here. I was a little reticent about the game when I saw the change in art style, and it's the one major criticism I have. After WarCraft II and StarCraft, I do not like the looser, cartoonier look of the game. The animations are all just a little too silly for me. But, that being said, I like a lot about what the game does. Adding a fourth race to the formula made for some new strategic considerations, and the new hero units provided interesting opportunities in both the single player and online settings. This is, of course, where Defense of the Ancients began, and that codified an entirely new genre of games. Overall, I'd call this a positive step for Blizzard, but I think they already had their best behind them at this point. It's too bad the more recent remastered version did so poorly!

I very much wanted to love this game, and it started off promising! In the end, though, it just felt like a kind of soulless copy of the best of the genre. My biggest issue was that I grew frustrated with the level design and felt like I had to do a lot of backtracking that bogged things down. Seemed like artificial difficulty that wanted to harken back to the games of old, but just felt hollow. Also, some of the enemy encounters just weren't that fun to engage with. To be honest, that could be a skill issue on my part, but it soured the experience for me. Maybe I'll give it another try in a few years, but I'd much rather go back and play the actual games this one was inspired by.

This game is HARD. I've beaten it exactly one time, and that was not without endless frustration. There are very few hints as to where to go and what to do, so a lot of it is trial-and-error gameplay. Despite that, however, it's an inventive experience with an interesting visual style and some neat world building as you traverse the alien planet. And if you want to put a positive spin on things, it challenges you to really consider your environment and think about solutions to problems that are not straightforward. It may be more difficult than it is good, but I appreciate what the game wanted to do.

For many of the great FPS games of the 1990s, I think perhaps the very last thing on a player's mind was the story. In Wolfenstein, you were killing Nazis. In Doom, you were killing demons. In Duke Nukem, you were killing aliens. The narrative didn't really matter until 1998, when two games took a major leap forward in single-player storytelling. One of those games was Half-Life, and the other... Unreal. This game also introduced the iconic game engine of the same name, that many games since have made use of. I was never quite as immersed in an action game like this until Unreal. Reading through the apocalyptic logs of people who had traversed the alien planet just before me exposed riveting and often tragic stories. And each level you go through has brilliant environmental storytelling, giving you all you need to know about the where and why of your journey. And then, of course, there's the gunplay with some truly inventive weapons, from a 6-barrelled rocket launcher, an explosive acid gun, and a laser pistol that can be upgraded into a potent killing machine if you look around enough. And I haven't even mentioned the great multiplayer maps or that the campaign is extremely co-op friendly! Flashier games have come since, but nothing will ever top this Unreal experience.

Objectively, I'd say this is a better game than the first. It has a larger roster of characters to choose from, and some interesting choices to make regarding their progression. It's also a slightly more complicated story (but only slightly), and it offers a little more exploration, compared to how linear its predecessor is. It has some interesting battles, with a few unique elements for some of the special bosses, and like its predecessor, a very cool OST. All that being said, I think I personally enjoy the simplicity of the original Shining Force a little more. This is definitely a case of improving on what came before, but it really just comes down to personal preference!

Who doesn't love building rollercoasters? This was a hit in my household, even for my mother who doesn't play a lot of games. You get to build your own theme park with rides, shops, and even decorations and landscaping--and all of it becomes intuitive quickly. With many different scenarios in a variety of settings, there's plenty to do as you work up to more extravagant parks. Oh, and yes, you can be an absolute sadist and torture your guests with maze-like paths, a dip in the lake, or a rollercoaster crash...

This game is like taking the classic action hero of the 80s and 90s and placing them into a first-person shooter. Full of references to films, TV, and other cultural touchstones of that era, this is a roaring good time if you're a fan of that kind of stuff. It also stands out from other games of its type with the complete opposite of a silent protagonist, as Jon St. John rips one-liner after one-liner while gunning down aliens and hitting on chicks. Yes, some of the game has not aged well in our culture, but the gameplay is classic FPS action with some very cool levels to traverse if you can look past the dated stuff.

I don't really fault id Software for wanting to take Quake in a new direction. I think I would have preferred the Lovecraftian-influenced setting of the first game, but it also did feel just a step removed from the demonic presence in Doom. Still, the new sci-fi influences are creative and interesting, and the Strogg provided an entirely new set of unique enemies to blast through. The level design is still top-notch, with a single-player campaign that takes you through various installations and facilities, but the real star of the show here is the multiplayer. Back in the day, I played the heck out of this game on Heat.net (how's that for a throwback?), and felt like deathmatches were really taking some leaps forward since the days of Doom. It's a fun game, if not quite as striking or inspired as the first.

This might be the first RPG I played that felt like a true role-playing game--as in, you really took on the role of a character and could make decisions about who you were in this world. (Certainly, other games had done this before, but I didn't get around to many of them until later.) I have not played it since release, so it may show its age these days, but I remember really getting sucked into the game when it came out. It was hard to put down the controller with so much to see and do... and the fact that you could get lucky with romance was all too appealing to a teenaged boy. The sequels certainly improved on the formula, but this felt like a solid, fresh start.