Death Stranding was as incredible as I knew it would be, though it's also a game I can understand others wouldn't see the same way. Every step is a puzzle, and every action serves the narrative. Of course, it took Kojima to discover the best way to make a walking simulator. It's also very convoluted in classic Kojima fashion, but I enjoyed trying to make sense of it. I don't know what the replay value will be like, but I put in 100 hours on one playthrough, so I'd say that's pretty good. Recommend to anyone who likes long walks on the Beach.

The black sheep moniker is certainly earned, but I'd hesitate to say that it's deserved. What many overlook is that this is where Zelda's core contextual puzzle solving gameplay really got its start. By that, I mean, generally, the pattern of hanging out in the local town's rumor mill and then using its citizens' chatter to plan your exploration of the overworld. Of course, you could argue that this started in Zelda I, but this game manages to have more convincing inhabitants than geezers in caves. That's not to say the copy/paste villagers here really feel like much more than dressed-up hints, but it's still hard to imagine Kakariko or Clock Town or Windfall existing in the future without them. A lady in Nabooru tells you she's thirsty and it's not like you have to brave a dungeon to fetch her a pail of water, instead you pick some up at a fountain about ten feet from her house, a sort of semi-realistic logic that later games in the series would expand on as technology progressed. Unfortunately, in 2023 this one's best played with at least a world map pulled up, which ruins the positive side of its cryptic nature. Stumbling upon Bagu's cabin in the middle of the woods is a great moment, but it's diminished when you realize that doing so unlocks the shameless trial-and-error section on Death Mountain. Though, the combat is what remains especially interesting 35 years later and dungeons are where it shines- combining the unconventional core of platforming, twitch reactions, space management, and strategic resource utilization with classic dungeon-crawling route development in an extremely challenging but always encouraging adventure. The Dark Souls ancestry is obvious on the surface level (leveling stats individually, having to internalize an enemy's rhythm to effectively block and avoid attacks, being able to clear roadblocks to create world shortcuts) but I'd contend that this general feeling is the two's biggest shared element. Despite how difficult (often egregiously so) both can get, you can make consistent progress as long as you're skilled and clever enough, and stuff like the one-time use extra lives and EXP pickups really add to that. Beneath it all is a gratifying power fantasy- every new spell, every heart container, every magic upgrade is a genuine triumph, a new notch in Link's belt, a permanent enhancement that you really just feel. But, like nearly every other NES game, this one's difficulty curve devolves into absolute insanity at the eleventh hour. This kind of stuff makes it prime material for a remake with a few more modern sensibilities, but, if Zero Mission is any indicator, the soul of these 80s games tends to get lost in adaptation. Guess I'll have to settle for the inevitable indie spiritual successor...

Replaying this one made me want to see an alternate history where the series applied its anthological story approach to its gameplay genres while retaining the same core philosophies for each entry. For better or for worse, the one-two punch of A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time etched the franchise's formula into the most solid stone known to man. Of course, Breath of the Wild would eventually come along and shatter this set of traditions into a million pieces, but this came at the expense of.... it not really being a Zelda game at all! Can't have my cake and eat it too, I suppose.

Look, the prequel trilogy is pretty bad, but preteen-me didn't care about that. I was knocking back Pepsi with Boss Nass on the can and terrorizing my younger sister by rolling towards her screaming "I'M A DROIDEKA!" By that point I was already ingesting a steady diet of Star Wars crap - reading Shadows of the Empire comics, collecting pogs with Dark Prince Xizor on them, and wearing the tape out on my Special Edition copies of the original trilogy; I wasn't just swept up in the hype, I had become one with it. It is perhaps for this reason that I still hold The Phantom Menace up as the best in the prequel trilogy. Yeah, it's still bad but I think it's better than what came after. From time you time, you might catch me making the case that it used more practical effects and sets, that Yoda was still a puppet or whatever, but that's a weak argument. No, it's because I was directly in the target demo when it came out, and because seeing a new Star Wars movie wasn't just special in 1999, it was almost unexpected. Of course it was going to imprint something onto me.

Anyway, hearing Greg Proops say "Beeeeeeen Quadinaros!" has a calming effect on me, like the gentle crash of waves easing me into the ocean. Fun fact: you can pay Greg to say that or any podracer's name on Cameo and he'll not only do it, he'll put a little mustard on it for you, because he's just that kind of professional. How do I know this? I've made some financial decisions that are unwise but which I do not regret, thank you for asking.

Naturally, I loved Star Wars: Episode One - Racer when it came out. Played the hell out of it. It only seemed fitting to buy a cart and add it to my Nintendo 64 collection back when I was building that (along with Shadows of the Empire and Rogue Squadron.) Just like the prequel trilogy, I think Episode One - Racer is something I liked way more as a kid and whose faults only became perceptible to me with age.

Controls are tight and I never felt like they were encumbered in any noticeable way by the N64's wacky gamepad, and there's a good variety of racers and parts for your pods to fine tune things to your liking. The presentation is also on point, and it almost goes without saying that the sound design is excellent. All of this is exactly how I remembered, Watto saying "eeeugh, anybody seen-ah my chance cube?" has never sounded better. What I don't remember is these tracks being long as hell. Too long, even! As courses become more narrow and rich with hazards, you'll find yourself in a position where you've blown the hell up one too many times for the race to be salvageable, and the thought of having to make up for the sheer length of time you've spent on a race that's become unwinnable just makes quitting out and retrying that much more aggravating.

I also have to acknowledge the fact that I played this game on a 4k TV using a Retrotink, and although the Retrotink is a far better option than your run-of-the-mill no brand upscalers on Amazon, it still has some issues with brightness and color vibrancy. There are some courses here that are dark, and while they're perfectly readable on a CRT, when you pass them through an upscaler you're just asking to careen into a pillar or wall that you couldn't see coming. So I'm taking that into consideration with my complaints, and even then I don't think the issues I mentioned are so severe that they encroach on the experience in a significant way.

But... maybe I'm making excuses again? Maybe this is just another version of my "Phantom Menace still used a puppet for Yoda. It has Yaddle in it, man. Yaddle." Some sick problem I have where I see a podracer and I take my shirt off, pound my chest, and walk around the room shouting "Yes! YES!" It just does something to me.

Episode One - Racer gets four kisses on the cheek out of five.

This is honestly one of the greatest game compilations I've ever seen. Where other publishers lazily throw a handful of roms in an emulator package then call it a day this one acts more as an interactive museum about Atari and gaming as a whole during the 70s and early to mid 80s onwards. It is filled to the brim with fascinating historical documents, interviews, and overall insight into an era of gaming most people ignore in favor of the NES onward. Even if you're not into this period of video games I highly recommend picking this up for this historical context it provides.
Also it's got Tempest 2000.

My rating for this game would likely be much lower had I played the original mafia II because after seeing gameplay of the original, this is a really poor remaster as the graphics aren't all that much better apart from a few good looking cutscenes here and there and this game can get pretty buggy.


Despite that though, as someone who hadn't already experienced this game before, I really enjoyed this game for the most part. The characters are really engaging and the story is fantastic. Not massively overblown and dramatic, alot of the activities within this game seem really realistic as to what would go on in an organised crime group.

The melee combat, while extremely simplistic, is very fun. The guns are nicely authentic for a post - WW2 game but I don't find the gunfire to be all that satisfying, it's a little bit flat.


I liked this game for the story largely, the charm and realism makes it a really fun playthrough but like I said, as a remaster it's very flawed