What possesses developers that they make all these bizarrely toothless PVP 3D shooter games- movement speed is tuned to be middling, Time To Kill is tuned to be middling, weapon handling mechanics are tuned to be middling, all of the fundamental verbs of these games seem deliberately designed to be roughly average, it makes no fucking sense, who wants to play a game like that.
Call of Duty may not be amazing but it has movement and weapon mechanics that can induce ADHD in a fully grown adult with no prior symptoms, Counter-Strike has those wild ass recoil systems and grenade trajectories, Halo was deliberately made to be absurdly sluggish- Tribes absurdly fast, Gears of War had cover platforming, Quake- Bunnyhopping, etc, etc. These games, whether trying to cater to a mass audience or freaks all had real tangible decision making in the move-shoot-kill fundamentals that set them all apart from each other and it feels like every PVP shooter I try now deliberately avoids any kind of distinction in core mechanics, preferring them to be roughly universal and relying on the various hero gimmicks or structural gimmicks layered on top to distinguish themselves. It's no way to make a fun shooter for any kind of audience.

Henshin a no-no baby :(

Feels like it's running at 0.75x speed, then gets extra crunchy when there's more than two guys. Has a translucent circle in the middle of the screen at all times, to simulate looking through a lens, and it's just distracting. Of the few stages I played, it felt so easy that there was zero reason to use slo-mo or even dodge. Big nothing.

It's a real shame, because I bet they could have made a banger of a VJ on the 3DS.

Unfortunately I never quite made it through my original playthrough of this game, and my GameBoy Cart battery has since died, meaning my save is gone forever. I still plan on beating the remake one day, but for now I'll log my thoughts on the original from what I played.

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening is beyond incredible.
It contains a world so full of life and personality, and somehow it manages to squeeze it all into a teeny GameBoy screen. The graphics, music and story have aged wonderfully, and will instantly charm you in a matter of seconds. It's honestly very easy to forget your playing on such a terrible screen half the time. Not only does this game have arguably one of the best stories on the entire GameBoy library, but also the Legend of Zelda series as a whole. It makes the cast's of games such as Botw look extremely bland in comparison. My only real issue with the game is that there are a few too many puzzles that you could never logically solve without a guide, but that is also true for the majority of older Zelda games. In my opinion this is without question the best 2D Zelda, and an absolute must play GameBoy title.

I remember playing this game when I was young, yet I don't remember anything past the training level. Oh boy, now I understand why. This game is pretty damn hard, even on medium difficulty. Aside from the annoying glitch from this specific version of the game which lets enemies see and shoot you through walls (which I recommend downloading an older patch for), this game puts you on your guard to play as cautiously as possible. Some enemies can kill you with 2 shots, and some situations you are presented with are so laughably impossible. Yet this game has a certain charm that makes you forgive that. The story is pretty bad, the music is really strange, the cutscenes are nonsensical, and the voice acting sounds like it's from an adult film, and that's what's great about Far Cry. Never at any point is the game bad because of this, it just feels like some big, dumb and fun action movie.

You will have some laughs and you will rip your hair out from frustration, yet with an older official patch for the game (or the unofficial one), a walkthrough open for the tough parts, and your expectations low, you will have an absolute blast.

feel like this is everything I wanted and expected from alan wake as a series that the original to me just didn’t rlly come through w.
kind of insane they put all the truly great level design and aesthetics into the four hour long stand alone game that came out three years after base game but w/e. wildly good and CONSOOMABLE,, I imagine most reviews from around the time called it a real pageturner haha. if I wrote fanfic I would write alan/mr scratch yaoi and it would be called alan wake’s american boyfriend. i like how often alan writes these stand ins for alice,, it’s cute bruh a wife guy oml. could def be viewed as misogynistic and it def sort of is but idk seeing how much alan likes his wife got me smiling and kicking my legs Im Sorry. remedy kind of makes games for boys that don’t read books but im a literate girl and I love how unsubtle they are w ripping off popular writers LMAO. smth about the american west is so beautiful and sparse and from another time and that works so well for this,,, shit makes me pog out. for more stuff about that area of america and that I was reminded of while watching this I recommend these rlly good movies: targets, 3 women, come back to the five and dime jimmy dean jimmy dean, human highway, inherent vice and maps to the stars !!! <33

If you couldn't tell already by my name and PFP, I fucking ADORE the Mega Man franchise. It is without a doubt my favorite THING of all time, and while I may not have played every game in the series, the ones I have played are enough to win me over immensely.

However, with that being said, I can take off my love goggles for a second and see that for the original Mega Man has aged a lot, especially after 30 years. It is the first in the series I have played, so I do have a bit of a soft spot for it, and I do love the game, but regardless, it has problems.

The story, if you even know what it is, is simple, and it gets you excited, the graphics are pretty good, the music is very catchy and iconic, the control is pretty good, except for your somewhat slippery movement, the gameplay is fun as fuck and addicting, and the ending is simple, but nice.

However, it has a lot of issues. The level design is very poor, especially compared to later entries, the enemy placement is obnoxious, the special weapons, with a few exceptions, aren't really that useful outside of bosses, the bosses themselves range from being pathetically easy to ridiculously hard, some of the enemies are just a pain, and THAT FUCKING COVER ART. At least in the US, it is hilariously awful.

Nonetheless, like I said earlier, it was the first Mega Man game I ever played, and it does hold a special place in my heart, so I'll give it a higher rating then it deserves.

Overall, while it may not be perfect by any means, this game is still really fun and addicting to this day, and it was the wonderful start to my favorite franchise of all time.

Game #18

brutal difficulty at first, but once I was a few days in i had a safety net of supplies to rely on. still, i cannot stress how under the wire it felt, with my hunger always seemingly being in the red.

progress is slow and navigating without running is painful. i consider this a feature not a bug but my god i feel like i spend most my time running back to camp while keith complains about how tired he is. gameplay loop would get me addicted for a few hours but then i'd run out of inventory space or do furniture crafting and be completlely pulled out of The Zone.

it's very interesting how this game treats interactions with Skye as a kind of wife raising sim- she has zero agency and it feels like caring for a baby at times. i'm sure this is the desired effect for the straight guys this game was made for but i found it a mixture of funny and terrifyingly anti-feminist.

that said, the mechanic of guiding her and the little slap of hand on hand as you pull her up a log, to be deeply tender and a highlight of the game for me.