What a way to start off the year in gaming. Cursed to Golf was an immensely satisfying rogue-lite adventure. Everything from the course design, to hazard placement was perfect. Some great customization with many skins that are references to other games. The ability cards were very unique, and it was super fun experimenting with everything. The MUSIC, the soundtrack has been on loop for the past couple days, I can't get enough of it, especially Scotty's theme. Huge kudos to the composer. I won the game in a contest from the director, and I couldn't be happier! Heck, I'm gonna buy the game on switch myself to support it. Play it!

Downwell is an addicting roguelite which focuses all about pattern recognition. The premise is you're falling down a well, trying to get to the bottom, all while defeating monsters along the way with your gunboots. A good variety of weapons and power ups which are extremely satisfying to pull off and execute. It's easy to pick up and get as far as you can, and extremely addictive. Best $2 for an indie I've spent. Can't wait to try Poinpy, the next game from the creator which came out relatively recently.

The Callisto Protocol was a game at the top of my list in terms of excitement since it was announced due to the pedigree of developers behind it in their work on dead space. There are things I found that worked really well, and things that need to take a hard left turn and stop for a theoretical sequel. For positives, the game is gorgeous, ambiance and environmental noises were very well done. The weapons, while I wish they were a bit more varied and creative, had a kick to them and were satisfying to use. Jacob is a cool lead, and the performances were pretty good. The use of haptic feedback and the controller speaker were nice. However, there's a lot I hope is improved on, enemy variety was minimal, and the combat didn't feel like it was supposed to be part of a horror game. It became frustrating in certain areas, and feel it didn't work nearly as well when there's more than one enemy on screen. It was hard to tell where to even go sometimes, and could use an indicator or tracker. The story was fairly basic too I hope the next game is more open, a bit more creative with it's environments, and improves all the shortcomings with the combat. All in all, I'd say the game is worth your time, it was a fun, albeit short romp, and I hope wherever this series goes it gets even better. It feels good to have more horror in the AAA space.

I've put a lot of time into this game since it came out back in June. Coming from the current Shantae and River City Girls art director, Holocure is a vampire survivors-inspired fangame based on Hololive, and I'd argue it's even more fun. Chock full of references and memes from your favorite faces, a good chiptune soundtrack, and hours upon hours of addicting gameplay. The addition of strafing is a godsend, each character has their own unique weapons and abilities, and each session gets you thinking, "maybe just one more round." Best of all, it's free! The game is getting constant updates, so I can't wait to see what more they add.

I will knowingly say this has been my favorite Pokémon game since gen 5, glitches, framerate dips and all. I genuinely think this gen has had the best mon designs, difficulty, and seamless world design since then. The ost was great, with many composers bringing their talent, too. The negatives, obviously the performance at points but I was lucky to barely encounter anything big outside of framerate dips. Pokémon needs voice acting, too. I imagine certain points would hit a lot harder if it was present. Pokémon needs more time in the oven. Gamefreak needs to re-evaluate their release schedule to ensure each gen comes out in the best possible form. Lastly, no spoilers but the story was great. The final area is something super cool and I hope Pokémon leans into that aesthetic a lot more in the future. Fantastic game.

I'm gonna preface this by saying I've played every God of war game, from ps2 to ps5. I'll always prefer the raw combat of classic God of war, but that being said, Ragnarok is an improvement on 2018.

If you liked that, it's basically just more of what you'd come to expect. There's some changes to the upgrades and skill tree, more side quests and more exploration, too.

The performances by the cast are great, and this is still my favorite version of Kratos, as well. Exploring and hearing dialogue was probably the highlight for me again, as it was with 2018. I guess to sum up my thoughts, there's a lot to love in the current iteration,

what the team gave us with Ragnarok is still a well-crafted adventure, but to me personally misses a lot of elements of what made the series special. I'd say wait for a price drop if you want to experience it, personally.

I still enjoyed my time with it, and there's a lot to love, but it felt like I was moving from point A to B for story. I'm passionate about God of war, a lifelong fan and am happy the current series continues to exist and thrive, but I'll always want to see it improve, be better.

Side note, you can really notice a lot of whats holding the game back being cross-gen, a lot of tight wall squeezes and "can you give me a boost" areas to mask loading. I imagine there would be quite less of that if the game was being made as a current gen only title.

Playing Mario + Rabbids Sparks of hope felt like I was back in the days of playing Mario RPGS like superstar saga and thousand year door. Everything that I've experienced in my time with the game deserves the highest compliment, because overall, I vastly prefer SOH to KB. I played on hard difficulty, tackled every single task for 100% completion, I just could not stop playing it. The free-form movement in battles is such a game changer and feels fantastic to even control your character. I've been humming a lot of the music tracks from all the great composers, there's so many good tracks. A standout to me was Spout forth from Gareth Coker. Sounds straight out of Ori. Story-wise I liked the angle of tackling galaxies way more than the first game, though I will say some of the bosses didn't feel as grand. Midnite (Who was shown off pre-release) is still my favorite. I could never aptly finish Kingdom Battle for one reason or another until very recently, while this game had its hooks in me from beginning to end. A must play, and I usually never feel the same way about other Ubisoft games. Sparks of hope    is truly a goty contender for me.

I never played the original Pac-Man World way back on PS1 when I was a kid, but if I have I would've eaten it up. A fairly short romp, but an enjoyable one packed with charm nonetheless. The platforming is satisfying, using one base moveset and building solid level design around it. Story's a very basic, bad guy did the bad thing so let's stop them, but it doesn't need to be much more. Music-wise it left me a tad disappointed cause it just feels like it re-uses the ps1 tracks as they are, and could have used a bit of improvement there. Overall, I'm very satisfied that this remake exists at all and I hope they eventually remake Pac-Man World 2 which I HAVE played and loved on GCN. Support it so we can get more!