This game embodies a mixture of fun combat and a compelling narrative. Mixing a roguelite game style with a good story can be tough, but Supergiant knocked it out of the park with this one. Hades mixed a style of constantly changing level layouts and upgrades with a narrative about escaping Hell through the help of the Olympian gods. I was able to stay engaged to the story despite the countless hours of battling and collecting treasures thanks to the gorgeous art style and great voice performances for the characters. My main playstyle is on mobility mixed with high damage but the game has so many weapons, boons, and upgrades that anyone who even remotely enjoys the hack and slash genre can find something they like here. This game gets my highest recommendations.

This game goes so hard. The title screen rocks your seat with an epic opening theme as you await for the equally exciting journey ahead. The ways this game just takes up to 11 everything Asylum did right demands you play it. The one thing Asylum maintains superior to this game is atmosphere but only due to how claustrophobic the Asylum is compared to the openness of the city. The combat adds several new elements to spice up and test your skills developed in the last game. So many famous Batman villains teased or present in the last game make a great memorable appearance here with most characters reprising their iconic roles. Kevin Conroy steals the show once again as Batman for an intimidating yet empathetic character ready to take on the world as his responsibility and getting out of any tricky situation no matter what. The hunt for all of The Riddler's stuff can drag by the end of the game and honestly this only gets more demanding in the next two titles but exploring the world is satisfying and fun so it doesn't drop the quality for me. A highest recommendation from me.

This is just a bad game. Ugly visuals, unenjoyable music, and unfun gameplay. Level themes are just uncreatively recycled from the first couple Genesis games and puts you through a bunch of automated crap and homing attack chains that weren't in the classic 2D games for a reason. The homing attack was made specifically for 3D precision, but the devs clearly didn't recognize this. The homing attack has no general business being in 2D, obvious exception to the games that have a hybrid of 2D and 3D sections. Sonic 4 was originally a mobile-only game called "Sonic the Portable" (this can be found in the Casino Street level) and it really shows. The physics are uncomfortable to play in, and while Sonic fans are notorious for not knowing what they want and complaining a lot, they are not exaggerating when it comes to this game. You will be walking up slopes and loops, or stopping on a dime regardless of speed. The game is just not a comfortable experience, even with trying to learn it. This game sucks, don't play it, but nobody is going to. This is one of the most infamous Sonic games in discussion over the recent years and rightfully so. Sonic Mania is the TRUE Sonic the Hedgehog 3 sequel that people were waiting for. Sonic 4: Episode 1 is a digital only game, it was never given a physical release. Hopefully this game can be forgotten forever.

Mechanically it's an immersive and addicting game to play. The balance is a little poor in that 99% of the bosses are legitimately infantilized by a specific build that I won't spoil. I love the story and the greater implications it goes for. It's a little dry to some but give the narrative a chance. There are plenty of epic setpieces to keep your attention. The customization depth is immaculate and there genuinely is no other mech-based game as good as this out right now in 2024. I hope this will inspire some others to come out in the future. FromSoft delivers a masterpiece yet again. Beware a couple of those FromSoft bosses. They will get you good.

God of War Ragnarok is a titanic game I have ungodly love for that could be discussed for hours. I'll spare you an essay and give you some highlights. The combat is exclusively improved, giving you 3 weapons with more depth and utility than the last game could even dream of. Barehanded combat has been "nerfed" but you will never be fighting barehanded so I didn't even realize it until someone complained about it. The Blades of Chaos have a whole new mechanic of charging up a swing and wailing on a target. The Leviathan Axe and Blades of Chaos have awesome elemental interaction with each other, encouraging you to constantly use various different attacks to bring on more pain than ever. The enemies and bosses have never been this tough. The game gives you multiple difficulty options to tackle the game in the way you prefer. GMGOW is the obscenely brutal expert mode, only for the best of the best. There are sadly no trophies for tackling this mode, and there aren't any extra rewards in-game so the mode is purely for bragging rights. The peak moments in the game for me gameplay wise were the end-game fights against large hordes of enemies in Muspelheim and the Berserker fights. They're very tough but very rewarding, both personally and in terms of game rewards. The story was compelling, made me cry, and had me hooked from start to finish. Hours would go by in the blink of an eye. God of War Ragnarok gets my highest recommendation and adoration, and it firmly cemented itself as one of my favorite video games of all time.

This is definitely the weakest game in the Post BTD5 Bloons era. The game is plagued with bad microtransactions that are mandatory in order to obtain the most powerful towers. Tuxedo Jake is essentially a banana farm and Monkey Village combined into one. The game is pretty challenging for most objectives but unlike other Bloons games where good thinking and skillful play will get you through, you kind of have to grind for the level system and rewards. There's some good ideas here like equipping the unique one placement towers with special items to customize their advantages in battle for what you need. The game gets repetitive fast, even for a Bloons game which normally has you run through the same map multiple times in order to collect all the medals. I don't recommend this game since there are just better, cheaper, and frankly more fun Bloons games to be playing.

They don't call it Cracktorio for nothing. Factorio is a masterpiece of making positive feedback loops go into each other. Problem solving is put to the test in a world of alien protestors against your gigantic factory of fresh air, nuclear weapons, and fish. You'll sink hours and hours into this game without even realizing it since you just focus so hard on optimizing everything possible. The modding scene is phenomenal, covering basically any problem or feature you'd like. The developers are some of the best in the industry. The hard-locked 30$ pricetag can seem like a lot considering the deals you can find for other games in stores, but the 30$ is an absolutely fair price.

This game was a really good time, and a phenomenal start to what would become one of the greatest series in gaming. A very unexpected hit since for the longest time, Superhero/comic book based games were just mediocre to outright terrible shovelware, but this game was a genuine masterpiece for the time. The Arkham games released since make this a little tough to go back to, but that's only because the combat and stealth would eventually become so in depth and fleshed out. Arkham Asylum still maintains a respectable identity as an engaging game thanks to the iconic setting brought to life for this generation of games. A must play for certain, especially given what the rest of the series has in store.

Halo 3 is just phenomenal. It's a perfect finale to the first trilogy in the gigantic Halo saga and a sendoff to Bungie's legacy for creating the greatest FPS trilogy of all time. This was the first FPS I got invested in when I got my Xbox 360 for Christmas in 2013. I've played the game multiple times since and it still absolutely holds up, both singleplayer AND multiplayer. The majestic soundtrack, the large settings you're dropped into leave a world that I wouldn't forget anytime soon, the game's atmosphere for the campaign is very engaging. The gunplay and movement is Halo 1 and 2's strengths brought to their max. We get a healthy sandbox with multiple options for what you can find, and every gun has a satisfying firing. My favorite is the Shotgun. Halo 3's shotgun is one of my favorite weapons in all of gaming. The incredible BANG that goes off when you fire it absolutely obliterates whatever you're shooting. Halo 3 has a ton of personal value to me and I just love the game a lot. I recommend this to anyone into video games. Play Halo 3. The Master Chief Collection is on sale often and is generally very cheap.

Sonic 1 is a bit strange. It's one of the most iconic and influential video games of all time, and was important back in the day and even in 2022 was still getting port releases and I think will get ported for many years to come. In my opinion the game has frankly aged like milk. The first zone, Green Hill, is fantastic. Now, Sonic 1 isn't speed focused like the the rest of the series (mostly) is. Sonic 1 is primarily a platformer meant to be taken slow for the most part with specific sections letting you go fast once you're able to have the knowledge and control familiarity of the stages. However, there are some obstacles that are straight up stop-and-go like the platforms in Spring Yard and Labyrinth. On that note, Marble Zone just sucks. It has absolutely no speed and is just strictly platforming, and the platforming itself is just not fun. Spring Yard Zone brings back a bit of the speed, and then it immediately gets thrown in the trash with Labyrinth Zone, one of the most infamous levels in Sonic history and people outside of Sonic might even know it. It is THE underwater level in a game that grinds your momentum to a halt. It is just not a fun level in a game to play. Fortunately after that we get Starlight Zone which has a similar momentum to Spring Yard Zone but with nice and relaxing music. Scrap Brain Zone, the final level zone, is ok. Final levels in Sonic game do a good job overall cranking up the difficulty but this mostly comes with constant stop-and-go platforming and falling to your death. The last act is actually Labyrinth Zone Act 4, and it is just as bad as the others. The final boss is just ok. The game ends with Eggman running away to fight another day and Sonic returning to his home after freeing a bunch of animals. I can't really recommend Sonic 1 since I just don't think it's a very fun game to play and has aged poorly. Play it if you want to see where the series started. It gets much better.

It's Doom. It's DOOM. It's THE violent shooter game. Despite coming out in 1993, almost 30 years ago, the game is actually fun to play (if you can avoid the full keyboard controls without a mouse). There is a small but memorable weapon pool tied with a simple movement system that keeps you speedy where you need to be so that shooting demons is reliable, effective, and most importantly - fun! The secrets in this game are ridiculous, and there is always something to dig up and uncover to help you out. The soundtrack is iconic, and the game as a whole just warrants so much sheer respect for the quality it offers on its own and the immense influence it would go on to leave on the industry. The only thing I feel has really aged besides some of the graphics are the level designs. Most of the levels feel like linear closed hallways with a few puzzles, and the later games would go on to make levels more interesting. I cannot bring up Doom without talking about mods but that would leave me here all day, but that is its' own essay. Just play this game, and then the rest of the series.

An unbelievably iconic game with an impact on the games industry and pop culture that nobody saw coming. Taking this game in context of everything FNAF has become, it's a very interesting title with how much people try to extract from it - be it lore or a general horror experience. Setting the hype for the franchise aside, FNAF 1 is a fairly unremarkable game. The setting is very scary - being a night security guard at a Chuck E' Cheese restaurant with disturbingly creepy looking animatronics that are roaming the building to kill you, and your only defense is a crappy camera system, backwards security blast doors, and a power system charged by 16 AAA batteries. I find the game to be really effective at scaring the player for the few times you play. Aside from the setting, the first jumpscares can definitely get you. Unfortunately, even after all my praise for the atmosphere, the game loses its' charm pretty quickly. The gameplay is very repetitive and honestly boring once you know how the game works. Just listen for movement and react accordingly. The power drains so fast that trying to actively look for and be 100% aware of the enemies is just not viable so you're left just staring at the ugly stretched image if you're playing on a screen above 1080p. The endgame of this is borderline luck based with how fast the animatronics react and move. I say give this game a shot purely for the status of it, but on its own it is just ok. Later games definitely have more engaging gameplay and this IS a video game after all.