My buddy is on a quest to play every mainline Mario Kart and rank their courses against each other, so I decided to join him on this adventure.

Mario Kart 64 is one of those games that's best played at parties where alcohol is flowing and no one has to drive anywhere for hours, because the controls of this game handle like a drunk driver. The drifting is so sensitive, I only ever found it useful on tracks with wide open turns. Attempting to drift on narrow, hairpin turns will magnetize you to the nearest wall/edge. And because someone at Nintendo hates fun, they decided that if you steer too hard in one direction or attempt to change steering directions too fast, you'll spin yourself out, because that's totally fitting for an arcade racer.

It's not just the karts that are working against the player, the items are, too. The items are straight up unfinished; their programming was completed 50% and Nintendo shipped the game yesterday. Sometimes red shells will chase your target to the ends of the earth [SHOOOOCKEEEEEEEER!] and sometimes they'll decide existence is pain and end their own lives against the nearest wall a foot from where you shot it. Sometimes a banana peel will slip you up as normal, sometimes it'll maintain your momentum and slow you down for a second before returning to your top speed. During our playthrough of all four cups, I straight up out sped my own green shell and hit myself with it. And this isn't even to mention how wonky the physics can be sometimes, how picky it can be with what constitutes out of bounds or not, the CPUs that straight up cheat with their rubberbanding, and the goddamn hell nightmare that is Banshee Boardwalk. All my homies hate Banshee Boardwalk. In 150cc, the game goes from an easy first two cups to a difficulty wall for the last two. It won't let you advance unless one of you get top 4, and places 5-8 don't get any points, meaning getting 5th is just as bad as getting last place in a game with eight racers.

With all that being said, this game sucks to play by yourself, wallowing in your own misery with no one to scream out to... but multiplayer... this game gets good again. Obviously the more the merrier, but when you have a friend (and maybe a buzz going around the room) the game's worst aspects turn into its funniest moments, and you'll be shouting in anger and excitement all the while. It's too hard for me to get upset about the game's faults when I'm too busy laughing at watching my friend get wombo combo-ed by multiple items back-to-back, causing him to miss a scripted jump and die. And Battle Mode? Oh man: get four friends, boot up Block Fort, and the war is on.

Mario Kart 64 gets a big bump for its multiplayer, as playing it alone will induce feelings of unalive. The aesthetic and theming of the game based on advertisements and sponsors a la professional racing is also neat. It's far from perfect, but if you want tight controls, just play 8 Deluxe. If you choose violence, play Mario Kart 64.

I really tried, man. But the old Sonic games just aren't that good. Granted, this is the only one of the OG trilogy I played without the Drop Dash, which 2D Sonic clearly needs in order to be good, but this game is commonly heralded as the best 2D Sonic ever, so I thought maybe this is the one where Sonic Team had it all figured out.

The graphical overhaul is great, and Sonic is much more expressive now, but the MUSIC. Getting one of the greatest musicians of all time on your soundtrack just automatically reserves you a throne in heaven. Ice Cap is one of the greatest tracks in any game, period.

That being said, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this level design. Punishes you for going fast with enemies and traps, a few too many one-hit kill scenarios, and horribly unbalanced bosses.

Angel Island > Ice Cap > Hydrocity >>> Carnival Night > Launch Base >>>>>>>>>> Marble Garden

Some of these levels go on for too long and the nonstop punishment from unforeseen enemy and trap placement kills any desire to go fast, which by Sonic standards should be a week in the thumbscrews. For the first time ever, I got killed by the time limit because certain levels just go on forever (although the more I think about it, why is there even a time limit in the first place?) You'd think the new elemental shields and their unique abilities would've encouraged more combat, but thanks to enemies either having an unfair position or are just unfairly designed with stupid hitboxes, the shields' mechanics are basically worthless.

Have yet to play "& Knuckles," but we've definitely gone backwards in terms of 2D Sonic here.

Dummy fun multiplayer game. Ranking system actually works, netcode surprisingly immaculate, mechanics are easy to learn, middling to master, there are zero bad maps, and while teams are encouraged, there is always potential for an individual to shit on everyone around them.

My only gripes are a slow level up system (you telling me there are 900 levels in a season; hell naw) and on the blue moon occasion when the game does lag, it is the most unplayable multiplayer game ever. Like, worse than Super Smash Bros. Brawl online. Some new modes would also go a long way to make this stand out.

This is not a single player game, this is absolutely a burst of team-based multiplayer 3v3 perfection. I really hope this game takes off like Fall Guys did sans the community-killing social media.

It’s a different flavor of tactical shooter strategy games than XCOM. Comparing it to other strategy games I’ve played, FE7 had more diverse and fun gameplay, but Heist barely edges it out with better moment to moment gameplay. Ricocheting bullets is sick as hell, the Steam-Powered Giraffe soundtrack sets the mood incredibly (I gotta check out the whole soundtrack album) and the banter among crew mates is endearing.

Heist’s two biggest flaws are its crew systems and gunplay. Levels have set crew counts with as little as one member and as many as four. The average is three, so you end up focusing only on 3-4 units instead of all-around leveling your crew.

Characters do this stupid thing when aiming their guns where they’ll move it up and down ever so slightly. It throws off aim when going for headshots, trick shots, or tight shots. 9/10 times it’s not an issue, but sometimes the 1/10 can cause a game over.

I 100%-ed all the levels using Piper, Seabrass, Sally and Fen. A well-oiled machine of a pseudo-sniper, a DPS tank, a crowd controller, and a flanker.