An almost flawless game. There's never been better combat in an action fighter. The mobility, combos, versatility, it's all here. There's just a few crippling issues. V just sucks to play. His damage is very low and he can not only be played lame, he can be played successfully lame. In order to do well on the other characters, you need to master their movesets. V lets you do what you want and get away with it. The other major issue is character distribution. I should be able to play as who I want whenever I want after my first run, no obstacle in this game can't be tackled with another character

It's a 2014 Town Builder for the Bloons Tower Defense series. That's the best way to describe it. You've got waiting, microtransactions, waiting, and more waiting. The game's unique visuals for this series are enjoyable, and the music goes very hard. I can't hate this game, and I've put a lot of time into the handful of villages I worked on progressing over the years. There just comes a point in the game where the time invested into capturing single tiles greatly outweighs the value you get by having that tile, and you'll soon start just running through spaces just to get that one artifact or terrain tile you need. There's the classic Bloons charm to the game and over a long time you could make real progress for a great village, but you'll likely get bored long before then. Especially with the game being stuck in the Pre-BTD6 era with 2 paths and about 15-20 towers, with this number shrinking with the shockingly difficult later tiles needing only the viable towers. Can't really recommend unless you're very into both Bloons and town builders.

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.

CSGO Is one of those difficult to talk about games where due to the competitive nature, opinions on it aren't really taken seriously unless you're especially skilled at the game. This is understandable, but there are a lot of people who just won't click with this game the way they will with other multiplayer shooter games. I consider CSGO to be the Smash Melee of FPS games, an older title with a ton of depth but also a very very high skill floor to get through before you start having fun. The game being online only and not having many interesting modes outside the 6v6 competitive format really holds it back for me. I really respect the legacy of this game and the people who enjoy it, but it's just not for me.

I put a metric ton of hours into this game on Xbox when I first got it and PC when I could play there. The modding scene is excellent and the game still gets DLC support in 2023, almost 7 years after launch. The game's fighting engine is very simple and allows anybody to get into it really easily but the game in exchange is pretty shallow. Any PvP encounter just boils down to whoever has more stamina. The DLC creep can make the whole package pretty expensive but I think it's worth it. I'd recommend this game if you can get it on sale since it usually goes for 10-15$, if not less.

Five Nights At Freddy's 4 is a solid game. It changes up the loop quite a bit from the familiar office setting and immerses you in one of the most creative and terrifying scenarios I have ever seen in media. We're beyond using crappy video cameras and even crappier doors and ducts to fend off animatronics. We now go face to flashlight in our own bedroom as a small child with the "Nightmare Animatronics". The animatronics themselves aren't especially scary and creepy like those of the 1st games, but they aren't something you want trying to kill you as a kid. You play the game in a bedroom with the most uncomfortable lack of security ever. There is a closet that won't close, a huge bed that you never look under, and two doors going into both sides that will never stay closed. You shine your flashlight onto your target area. If it's the closet, you get Foxy who will make a startle noise all the time until you close him away, and if it's Freddy, you need to scare his vestigial bears away before they build up and make Freddy attack you. The doors are the scariest part - in which you need to hold your head out them to shine the flashlight down the hall to get Chica or Bonnie to back away. Alternatively, you may hear "breathing" that is so quiet you essentially have to squint your ears and crank up the game volume in order to hear clearly, which while scary when in the mood...gets pretty annoying and genuinely ear grating having the loud noise blast into your ear if you mess it up. On top of these, you hear a damn grandfather clock chiming on and off throughout the night which will do wonders for your nerves if you happened to grow up with one in your house like I did which would bang and ding throughout the whole house ominously at night. The atmosphere of the game is truly outstanding and I mean it when I say it's one of the scariest pieces of media I've ever experienced - game, movie, book, etc. The sheer anxiety of going up to each door or the closet just to hope nobody is there so you can survive the night is palpable. The previous games on their first runs could be scary or at least unnerving until you got the core gameplay loop down, especially with FNAF 2 and 1. These games basically become arcade games, and I find FNAF1 really boring once you get it figured out. This isn't the case at all here, as you need to be extremely active in your movement and checking in order to stay safe, since the game has multiple extra nights to test your skill. And luck. FNAF is no stranger at this point in the series, nor the future, to having a lot of your game outcome be genuinely luck based. Even high level players of the series can be seen struggling with the sheer speed of these characters at the max difficulty. After gameplay and presentation come story, and this is where the game will probably lose people. You get the "atari style" cutscenes which contextualize the life of your player character as a child with an upcoming birthday party, but he is regularly tormented by either his older brother or his own fears of what he sees around him. The plot of this game individually is fine, seeing as how the previous games were just a nightguard working a job. The greater lore implications of the character and his family are what I see as the first truly conveluted part and the eventual spiral into insanity FNAF would become infamous for. I can only give the game 3 stars since it is still fundamentally *1* gameplay loop, is really strict on any kind of failure, and the RNG in the higher difficulty can just become tedious and not fun. However, the first few playthroughs of the game I think will give you an extremely memorable and enjoyable experience. Many fans of the series tend to not think super highly of this one for whatever reason they have, but I think it's a very valid entry in the series and definitely stands out as really unique.

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 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.

Sonic Frontiers is a GOOD game, that much I can say for the very least, especially given the absolute train ride Sonic fans have gone through in the decade of game releases that came before Frontiers. The game's hype moments in the boss fights are no doubt going down as some of the most epic and fun moments the franchise has ever seen, with some musical surprises for those who don't know what's ahead for them. The game continues SEGA's track record of including junk nobody asked for unfortunately. The Cyberspace levels have a pretty awkward sense of control if you're familiar with 2D Sonic and most of the levels are rather unremarkable, if not plain bad, but there are definitely a handful of great highlights that I found myself replaying. They ended up being fairly easy in order to 100% complete with all 4 objectives. (Completion, Time Rank, Red Rings, and X ring total). The overworld is pretty fun to traverse. Sonic controls very well in a large open space, but I found the islands themselves to be pretty underwhelming for the most part. The game on large feels like Sonic just dropped into an Unreal Engine 5 demo world, since the only SONIC universe additions are the enemies, most - if not all of which are in a new style of...gray and geometric with red shapes? They're all a little abstract looking mechs compared to what we've fought before. The game's objectives and length really dragged for me by the end but the in-game fishing mechanic lets you get a ton of collectibles as a reward for exploring for the Purple Coins. On the flipside, I found the character writing to be the best the franchise has ever seen. Ian Flynn knows these characters inside and out, and he just KNOWS how to get the likes of me engaged with what they're saying. I would always take the time to stop my adventure and watch the cutscenes or listen to characters talk. I really can't think of another time where these characters would just sit around and shoot the shit about what's going on with their lives. How do they feel about their relationship to Sonic? What do they want out of their lives? It's a healthy balance of not too dramatic and serious and fun, engaging delivery. The new character, Sage, is a big new favorite of mine and I think she's earned a place in the hearts of many other Sonic fans. I will keep the events involving her unspoiled for you to find out. The story itself however I thought was just ok. The main plot of going island to island dealing with what's going on there gets pretty tedious by the endgame, but the 4th Island shakes things up and has an absolutely stunning track to go with the story events there. Despite my negativity about the gameplay, Frontiers was a game I truly did enjoy my time with and I would recommend the game as both a Sonic fan and someone who loves a good story. I just hope SEGA will take the stuff that worked here - music, writing, and combat, and cut out the nonsense like the bad 2D levels and extra puzzles nobody asked for. Here's to hoping Sonic makes a comeback. Only the next game will tell us if they learned.

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.

Lazy. Lazy as hell. Some genuinely good ideas for the setting and gameplay concept buried deep, deep, deep, deep beneath the ultra shallow executions and the hyper short stages. The Avatar is fun to customize and see in action, but just not that fun to play since the game never EVER challenges the player to see what they can overcome, and I think it's partially because of the differences in all the Avatar races and weapons that the devs would need to consider. Classic Sonic is a horrible waste of programming that wasn't fun to play and was honestly completely redundant given the release of Sonic Mania in the same year. One of the worst Sonic games ever made despite funnily enough being one of the most polished and least buggy. Those and the core concepts of rebellion and settings I actually unironically enjoy saving this from being at the bottom of my barrel of least favorite Sonic games. Don't play this unless you can find it very cheap and it's only like 3-4 hours long, maybe 6-8 if going for 100% completion.