I feel conflicted about this game. Gameplay is true to form for classic RE and overall very enjoyable. Code Veronica takes a step back from the slightly action leaning RE3 and goes full survival horror with some pretty great gothic theming.

Acting and dialogue is the most hammy out of any RE games I’ve played with Alfred Ashford stealing the show in this regard. He’s one of the most ridiculous, poorly directed, and ill conceived villains I’ve seen in media outside of Sharlto Copley in Spike Lee’s baffling and appalling remake of Old Boy. Still can’t decide whether or not this is a good thing or a bad thing to have in an RE game. I personally didn’t mind him since I was at least always laughing with disbelief when he was on screen. Similar situation for the angsty teenager sidekick Steve although he’s not nearly as bad and has a couple of genuinely nice moments despite being very cartoonish and poorly acted for most of the game. On a more positive note - Wesker returns in this game and is campy in the best way possible. Easily my favorite character in the game from a writing and acting standpoint. Story on the other hand is typical RE fare and has some decent moments and a couple fun twists and turns. Overall story is good with character concepts being promising but often very poorly executed. Instead of being fun campy Alfred and Steve are so bad you can’t help but laugh campy. I’ll let prospective players decide for themselves whether or not that’s a dealbreaker. It wasn’t something I minded but I can understand people being out off by it.

CV lives up to its reputation as one of the harder RE games. For starters it only has one default difficulty, so if you’re a new player and find it to be too difficult you’re out of luck. The gameplay ends up being difficult for a couple of reasons - both good and bad.

The good: resources in this game are truly scarce and many of the enemies hit harder than they do in other games. There are also quite a few parts of the game where save rooms are very limited - especially in the first half. All of these things ramp up the difficulty and tension of the game, which I enjoyed. This shouldn’t scare off prospective players however. CV is definitely the hardest of the classic RE games but not to an unmanageable or unfair extent - especially if you’re familiar with the series and the need to conserve resources. Puzzles are also the hardest I’ve encountered in the series, which isn’t saying much, but is a welcome change nonetheless. Contrary to what I’ve seen some people say online there aren’t any overly cryptic or moon logic puzzles in this game.

On to the bad: it’s more possible in this game than any of the other RE games I’ve played to soft lock yourself. This can be through resource mismanagement, which I don’t think is necessarily a negative, but it can also be from not being prepared for the character switch, which definitely is a bad thing. You can easily lose all of your weapons except the pistol and the knife when you switch from Claire to Chris if you don’t put them in the item box before this happens. This essentially bumps up the difficulty of the 2nd half to extra hard mode, which I imagine can be a potentially game ending situation for some players. Definitely be aware of this and look up when the characters switch before playing if you don’t want this to happen. There are only a couple of times when characters switch, but it is important to be prepared for each of them. Preparing for the switches is pretty easy and guides should be able to tell you how and when to do it without spoiling anything. The fact that you need to do this in order to avoid potentially getting soft locked and potentially needing to repeat hours of gameplay, however, definitely brought this games score down a bit for me.

Overall this game does a great job scratching the classic RE itch with great survival horror gameplay, a compelling setting, and some of the most tense moments I’ve experienced in the RE series. However, it has some of the worst writing and acting in the series (saved only by being hilariously bad most of the time), and it also has a pretty poorly implemented character switch mechanic that you’ll need to read a guide on to mitigate. I definitely enjoyed my time with it overall, but I can understand why this is such a divisive entry in the series.

Addendum: just finished The Darkside Chronicles which is an RE light gun shooter that contains a pared down and more cinematic retelling of CV’s story and holy shit it fixed everything wrong with the writing and acting in this game. Would def recommend playing it if you like CV and want to see its story done well. This game has so much potential. It has such a wonderful setting and it’s probably darkest and saddest RE game and can be genuinely emotionally impactful when done right. I think a good remake that maintains its survival horror elements, fixes the story, and takes full advantage of the game’s excellent setting with modern graphics would a home run. Capcom is definitely capable of producing something like this. It’s a shame we probably won’t get it though since they’ve already skipped over this game - as well as RE0 (another flawed but fun game that could be excellent with some small tweaks) - and I wouldn’t expect them to go backwards to remake these lesser known and poorer selling titles.

This game has a decent concept - a Sonic themed and goal oriented pinball game where the player has some control over the movement and direction of the ball. The latter half of this concept is the only thing really distinctive about this game - I don’t think I’ve seen any other pinball games use this mechanic although there probably are some out there: it’s not a particularly creative idea to cook up after all.

The game is fine on paper. The levels are big and it can be enjoyable to explore them and find the emeralds necessary to take on the boss. Other than that it’s a pretty standard pinball experience.

The biggest problem and why I’m giving this game a low rating instead of a middling one is the physics of the ball - or Sonic I guess. It’s insanely slow and sluggish and floaty and just doesn’t feel right for pinball. The levels in mainline Sonic games that contain paddles and bumpers actually do a better job at replicating a real pinball machine than this does. Getting the physics of the ball wrong is honestly unacceptable for a pinball game. You can have the most standard and simple virtual pinball machine in the world and the game will at least be decent if feels good to play. Spinball ends up having some interesting and creative pinball machines but ones that all feel terrible to play. Really no reason to play this one. Not even particularly interesting as a curiosity. Would only recommend playing it for 10-15 mins to get a feel for the game if you’re interested in it from a historical standpoint, which I can understand with it being the first Sonic spinoff game and one of the most popular pinball games out there.

Playing Resident Evil (2002) and absolutely loving it has inspired me to give the other games a try, which I picked up ages ago during a deep sale. I already have all the mainline ones in my collection because they were such a good deal. We’ll see how long my interest in the series lasts although I’m definitely going to play 4 at some point.

RE2 definitely has better bones than RE1, IMO. Better story, better characters, more creative enemies, more differentiation between the two playable characters, more reason to experience both arcs, etc. The core design philosophy of RE1 is of course present here and it’s once again fantastic at creating tension. Resource availability is perfectly balanced — Getting hurt by a standard enemy or wasting too much ammo on them is always a stressful experience because you know you’re going to need to save up both for the boss fights, which can be surprisingly difficult at times. All in all this creates an experience that isn’t particularly scary but is nonetheless brimming with the tension and dread that only the best pieces of horror media are able to create.

My biggest criticisms are mostly technical in nature. While the static camera works pretty well, it definitely hadn’t been fine tuned at this point. There are a lot of situations where enemies (including bosses) are annoyingly placed off screen making aiming and avoiding their attacks frustratingly difficult. Additionally, RE2 is a somewhat challenging game but isn’t nearly as strategic as RE (2002) mostly due to map layout, enemy characteristics, and enemy spawn locations. In RE2, the player isn’t required to think too hard about route and loud out selection, which is one of the things I liked the most about RE(2002). Most of the challenge in this game is honestly just getting good enough with the tank controls to evade enemy attacks and successfully bypass zombies you don’t want to waste bullets on.

On a related note, this is the first game I can recall playing that uses tank controls. There was a bit of a learning curve for me but they felt surprisingly intuitive once I got the hang of them, which I wasn’t expecting. I did my first playthrough with Leon, and I think I died maybe 8 times before reaching the first save point because I was so bad with the controls. This was a pretty funny albeit frustrating experience, which I was thankfully able to overcome relatively quickly. By the end of my second playthrough with Claire I was able to adequately evade enough of the penultimate boss’s lighting quick attacks to take him out.

As an aside, it’s honestly insane to put a boss as agile as Mr. X’s final form in a game with tank controls. I died in about two seconds during my first fight with him, which I couldn’t help but laugh at. I’m absolutely in awe of people that can beat him without getting hit. I initially didn’t conserve enough healing items to beat him and actually had to go back to an earlier save to rectify this. Some people might dislike that the player has the ability to essentially soft lock themselves by not conserving enough resources, but I think that’s one of the things that makes this game special. RE2, despite not being super difficult, definitely isn’t playing around with the survival aspect of “survival horror”. This is key to creating tension in the game, and if the frustration of potentially soft locking yourself is a byproduct of this I think that’s a worthy trade off.

One of the things that really surprised me about this game is how well it’s able to create an atmosphere of horror with its relatively simple graphics. Compared to the original Resident Evil (1996) this is a huge leap forward. Backgrounds are more detailed and generally feel more well thought out and more in tune with the tone of the game. There aren’t any moments where the graphics look primitive in a way that spoils the mood, which definitely isn’t the case for RE(1996) - the tunnels in that game for instance.

Overall this is a really enjoyable experience, and I can see why it’s considered a classic. RE2 holds up great today despite some technical issues that precent it from being even better.

Tbh the first true survival horror game I’ve ever played and holy hell what an amazing introduction to the genre. Feels legitimately perfect from a gameplay perspective. Cohesive in its design to a degree I don’t think I’ve ever encountered previously. Absolutely everything - the backgrounds, the camera angles, resource scarcity, health pool, carry capacity, the save system, the crimson heads - works in concert to create an experience of constant tension and uncertainty for the player. An experience where you have to really think about every item collected, every item left behind, and every route taken because making the wrong decision means losing significant progress. RE requires the player to respect its gameplay systems and in return it respects the players intelligence and their time; deaths absolutely never feel cheap or unavoidable. Honestly worth playing just to see how well designed it is even if you - like me - don’t have a ton of interest in the survival horror genre.

An almost perfect near 10/10 experience. This is one of the very few modern immersive sims that has the same level of openness (both in terms of gameplay and story choices) as a classic like Deus Ex. Reading the wiki after finishing the game I’m struck by how many gameplay mechanics and small story alterations there are that I never thought of while playing. What you can do with the mechanics of the game is almost only limited by your own imagination.

This freedom can be a bit of a double edged sword however. Prey tells you at the very beginning that you can “play your way,” and as a result it is possible to play in a way that ultimately ends up being kind of boring.This isn’t necessarily a criticism but more of a warning to future players.

This is a game primarily concerned with how the player inhabits and manipulates their environment. The entire concept of the Mimics and the fact you can learn to use their copying ability is a testament to this. Accordingly, the most enjoyable part of Prey is the act of exploring Talos 1 for the first time and discovering what you can do with that space. Once you’ve fully explored the station and settled into which gameplay mechanics you want to use the game starts to lose steam. By the end you’ll probably be mindlessly traveling from level to level to finish off remaining objectives and sitting through very long loading screens in the process. This thankfully only happens in the last hour or two of the game, so it doesn’t spoil the overall experience. In a similar vein it’s also very likely that players will become overpowered by the end of the game unless they impose their own difficulty increasing limitations on gameplay to counter this. For example the player has the option to avoid installing any neuromods (abilities and upgrades) during their playthrough which would certainly make the endgame much more difficult and rewarding. If you attempt to upgrade your character as much as possible, however, your endgame very well could be jumping and gliding past every single enemy with ease, which can be a bit boring. This - again - is more of a warning than a criticism. It’s a testament to Prey’s openness that you can pretty easily break the game by the end if you want to. System Shock 2 - Prey’s most obvious influence - is quite similar in this sense and can fittingly be broken in almost exactly the same way. (Brief spoiler alert: on standard difficulty if you fully spec into ballistic weapons, health, and mobility increasing abilities you can turn both of these games into the easiest Doom levels you’ve ever seen)

Story and writing - like with System Shock 2 - isn’t the deepest or most critical, but works really well for a sci-fi horror experience. Piecing together what happened on Talos 1 and the different relationships between characters is incredibly engaging. The fact the 200+ NPCs are all actual named characters with jobs and email correspondence that can be located in the game world is a stroke of genius for this kind of audiolog and environmental based story telling. This kind of story telling in other games - Bioshock for instance - can often be engaging but very artificial feeling. (A lot of digital ink has been spilled commenting on how ridiculous and nonsensical the existence of audio logs is for Bioshock’s world). Prey’s take on this story telling - in line with its immersive sim gameplay - feels incredibly real and adds to the feeling of Talos 1 as an actual place that can be interacted with as such. The way Prey handles its NPCs is IMO one of its best inventions and something I hope other developers have seen and been influenced by. Overall, Preys writing shines brightest when it comes to portraying the relationships between characters and creating a compelling mystery for players to unravel, and it makes some important strides when it comes to storytelling techniques to achieve these ends.

Prey does have some philosophical and political aspirations, and while these don’t fall flat in a juvenile “makes you think” kind of way (cough Bioshock Infinite) they’re not terribly complex. The big questions and moral dilemmas that Prey interrogates don’t go much deeper than the trolley problem and the question of how much we’re willing to sacrifice in the name of progress. This isn’t really a bad thing though. Prey successfully engages with these topics in a way that organically encourages players to think critically about them. I always appreciate it when games try to engage players in this way, and I think Prey deserves some praise for its efforts.

Overall this is a fantastic game and one of the very few contemporary titles that can stand along side the classics of the immersive sim genre. (It’s honestly the only one I’ve played so far but I’ve heard very good things about ctrl+alt+ego and don’t want to discount it before playing). Prey also does quite a lot to advance storytelling techniques and gameplay mechanics in this genre, and I hope it can serve as an inspiration for future designers.

Played this game with my partner and it was a fun time although would probably recommend playing it alone for a couple reasons. Does an excellent job at making you feel like you’re digging through real pop culture artifacts for information. All of this is very lovingly crafted and feels very authentic. The game is quite short and also pretty easy so I’d definitely recommend taking your time and really trying to lose yourself in the atmosphere of the game. Playing with another person tends to make this a bit more difficult, so I’d rec playing alone.

What people generally say about this game is definitely true: an entry in a series famous for fast player movement that forces the player to go slow and punishes them for going fast. It’s a really baffling contradiction especially if you’re playing this after having played sonic 2 or 3 and knuckles. Game is also somewhat famous for hitting you with unforeseeable hazards that can only be avoided by proceeding very slowly and carefully. What a strange contradiction. Honestly can’t rec that anyone play this for any reason other than historical significance. Really not a very enjoyable game and pales in comparison to the other classic Sonic games.

This is a game that had a rough start but really grew on me as i played. The first mission, IMO is by far the worst in the game and almost made me put it down. I’d urge anyone who plays it to stick with NOLF through at least the third mission before deciding whether to continue.

Just a couple of brief points:

Fantastic AI with a lot of care and detail put into how they respond to the players actions. Here’s a good example that I haven’t seen in many other games. If you’re playing stealthily you can get silencers for various different weapons one of which is an SMG. If you shoot an unsuspecting enemy in the chest with this silenced gun they go down before they can return fire every time. The only problem is, they scream in the second or so that it takes them to die and this can alert nearby enemies. If you go for a headshot they of course don’t scream and your kill is totally silent. NOLF has a ton of stuff like this - really specific and creatively thought out parameters for player AI interaction. It makes the game immensely fun to play and experiment with.

On the level design front this is a mostly linear game but one where there are enough alternate paths and different ways to deal with enemies that it can probably qualify as a near immersive sim. It is, however, first and foremost an FPS, and I would definitely recommend you go into playing it with this in mind. If you’re expecting a true immersive sim you’re going to be disappointed.

Story and tone is exactly what you’d expect: a campy tribute to the already campy spy media of the 60s and 70s. Not many of the jokes landed for me personally but the tone definitely does work, which made up for it. Despite all the campiness this game exudes, the story is surprisingly engaging from a plot and character standpoint and kept me entertained throughout.

Biggest critique is somewhat janky stealth mechanics where getting spotted feels very inconsistent. Stealth is still a fun time in spite of this but will probably necessitate frequent quick saving if you want to play the game that way. Stealth is very seldom required, however, so it’s jankiness doesn’t bring the game down too much.

This is overall a surprisingly detailed and well designed romp that does a good job delivering on what it promises. Its also very ambitious and feels very much ahead of its time for a game released in 2000, so it might also interest some people for that reason.

Unexpectedly really liked this one. Max Payne 3 is pretty different from its predecessors, both in tone and gameplay, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. MP3 manages to shake up the series in quite a few ways while mostly still retaining the gritty tone and flashy, fast-paced gunplay that the series is known for.

First thing for series veterans to know is that MP3 is a full-on cover shooter, and levels are generally designed around this. Enemy encounters mostly take place at long range with both parties cautiously popping out from cover to take shots at each other. Because of this, most encounters require a relatively slow pace of play with the use of bullet time to line up long range shots and the ocasional use of shoot dodging when switching between cover. There are certain moments (I would say about 20 percent of encounters) that take place at close range and allow the player to easily adopt a more chaotic style of fighting akin to how most people play the first two Max Payne games. In these encounters you can do the Max Payne classic of storming through a door unprepared and trying to survive by strafing wildly and diving over enemies as you pick them off in slow motion. These are, imo, the most fun moments of the game, and I wished there were more of them. That said, the cover shooting segments are still rather fun and can be very chaotic and reactive in certain situations.

One improvement in presentation and gameplay, which is very much in line with the goals of the first two games, is the improved rendering of bullets and bullet wounds. One of the selling points of Max Payne 1 was the fact that every bullet in the game (apart from the sniper rifle) was a fully rendered object that had to leave your gun and travel through the air before hitting an enemy. You could pretty easily see this during bullet time or shoot dodging. Shoot dodging away from an enemy and being able to actually see a cluster of buckshot whiz past your previous location is still awesome and exhilarating even 20+ years later. MP3 does its best to recreate and improve upon this effect and definitely succeeds. I’m unsure exactly how bullets are rendered in this game or if MP3 utilizes the same technique as MP1 but the resulting experience for the player is largely the same. MP3 further ups the ante on this by rendering the actual location of bullet wounds on enemies in great detail. When you’re shoot dodging or getting a kill cam you’re able to see exactly where and how each bullet is entering an enemy. This gives gunplay a hugely visceral edge to it making each of your shots feel weighty and powerful. Placing a kill cam (the most violent gameplay visual in Max Payne by far) at the end of each encounter also produces a possibly unintentional but really interesting effect for the player. A lot of the encounters in this game are pretty difficult and can really get your blood pumping even on normal difficulty. Because of this seeing the game enter a kill cam can be a very cathartic moment of relief - you’ve finally done it, you’ve killed the bastards, and now you have at least a short moment to rest and collect yourself. Max Payne 3 gives you the option to keep shooting these already dead enemies during kill cams and will show each new bullet entering their still standing corpse as you do it. With all the residual adrenaline and relief present in some of these moments I actually found myself continuing to shoot these enemies not out of a desire to see the effect but out of a heightened sense of emotion - part anger, part adrenaline, and part inability to get myself out of simulated fight or flight mode. It was a really interesting and disquieting experience that I’ve never had playing a video game, and I would honestly recommend playing MP3 just to check it out.

One of the most immediately obvious things about Max Payne 3 is that it doesn’t take place in the bleak, isolating, and snow covered streets of Max’s hometown of New York City. Instead Max Payne 3 chooses the neon lit and sun soaked nightclubs and favelas of Sao Paolo as it’s setting - literally the opposite MP1 and 2’s in many ways. A lot of fans didn’t like this change, but I think it works. Setting a third game in New York would have felt a bit too safe for my liking. The setting of Sao Paolo and it’s outskirts also allows MP3 to have the greatest variety of mission locations in the whole series. Almost single mission feels totally different from an environmental standpoint, which helps to keep the game fresh. Sao Paolo is definitely not quite as noir-ish as NYC, but this makes sense given MP3s slight shift away from the noir cliches that defined MP1 and to a lesser extent MP2.

MP3 doesn’t carry over all the noir conventions of the previous games but does adopt enough of them that it ends up as a sort of uniquely sun-soaked and action oriented take on the genre. A lot of the noir conventions of the previous games - some of which have probably just become Max Payne conventions for a lot of people - like Max’s narration, the presence of corruption, crime and conspiracy just below the surface of Max’s world, and a sense of fatalism are still here and work well. The game, however, does sometimes lean heavily into action movie tropes like big car chase set pieces, which leaves it feeling less noirish than the previous two games.

Max’s characterization in this game is also brilliant and one of the few instances of the middle aged self destructive anti-hero that I really enjoy. This is an honestly brutal depiction of substance abuse and depression - with Max drinking enough and taking enough pills that his doctor - were he the kind of guy who’d bother to go see a doctor - would probably tell him he’d be dead in five years if he didn’t stop. Max also at various points strongly implies that he’s half hoping to die in a shootout. Both of these things tie into gameplay in interesting ways. Max’s substance abuse of course relates to gameplay with pills being health items and his death wish nicely ties into the incredibly reckless combat style the player can adopt. There are a lot games out there that address depression and substance abuse through metaphor and abstract imagery - trying to give the player a sense of how these things feel to go through; This is not one of those games. Max Payne 3 is unapologetically blunt in the way it addresses these topics, and I think it works for the most part. Seeing this really ugly portrayal of a severe depression and substance abuse problem - of an intensely self loathing and guilt stricken character at deaths door in more ways than one because of it feels very refreshing. Max knows that he’s sick and that he’s hurting other people because of it, but for most of the game he doesn’t have the desire or wherewithal to try to help himself. One of the most emotionally compelling and resonant elements of Max’s story was how Max could see the negative impact his lifestyle had on other people, felt guilty about it, and then recklessly threw himself into doing anything he could to make up for it shy of actually getting sober (at least for most of the game). I think this is a dynamic that in broader and more grounded sense will probably be familiar to certain players and one I that I feel is underutilized in media in general. I do have some qualms with how the game portrays Max quitting drinking however. This is mostly due to how unrealistic it is, and think it would have been more effective had the player been forced to deal with his withdrawal symptoms (or if the game had at least shown something or this kind) or if he vowed to quit and then quickly relapsed, in part due to the stress of the situation he was going through. Regardless, this game does do a lot right IMO, and I certainly commend it for that.

This is a bit of a weird game to recommend because it’s so similar to MP 1 and 2 but so different from them in a lot of ways. For MP fans I think reactions to this game will be very split. I can, however, recommend this game to people who enjoy cinematic shooters and cinematic 3rd person cover shooters especially. This is probably the best one of those that I’ve ever played both in terms of gameplay and story. Rock solid satisfying gameplay and a surprisingly insightful and emotionally resonant story that knows exactly what it wants to be and doesn’t overreach or undo itself through pretension or muddled writing.

Greatly improved gunplay mechanics although default difficulty felt far too easy. It was very possible to just recklessly charge into rooms without any sort of plan and take everyone out, which could not be more different of a gameplay experience than Max Payne 1 where the game’s high difficulty necessitated very careful planning. Leaning towards a more run and gun style of gameplay isn’t necessarily a bad thing though - it makes the gameplay experience of Max Payne 2 very reactive and spontaneous, which is fun. However, the low default difficulty tends to make these encounters rather mindless, which is a shame. This sort of gameplay is much more enjoyable when the player is challenged to react to situations in a creative way instead of just strafing and easily gunning down enemies in slow motion for almost every encounter.

Max Payne 2, despite having some comical moments, adopts a far more serious tone on the whole than it’s predecessor. This game doesn’t joyfully lean into the noir cliches and action movie schlock nearly as much, and its writing is unfortunately not strong enough to carry a mostly serious story. A lot of the charm present in the first game is noticeably absent here as a result.

There is additionally (and somewhat paradoxically) both a heavy refinement of gameplay mechanics and also a lack of polish and detail on display here. Like I said before, gunplay has been greatly enhanced - mostly though small but important tweaks to Max’s movement during bullet time. MP2 also fixes some balancing issues present in the first game like making the effective range of shotguns feel more realistic or at least more in line with what most players would expect from a shooter. Despite all this, Max Payne 2 feels very unpolished and a bit underbaked from a technical standpoint. There’s far less visual variety in the levels with many of them feeling quite samey and several of them being reused throughout the game. There are also some significant problems that I noticed with sound design and mixing - particularly Max’s footsteps, which are way too loud, as well as guns, which sound super compressed and low quality. Dialogue during cutscenes is fine but in game dialogue - a lot of which is Max’s inner monologue (something I certainly wanted to be able to hear) - is way too quiet. I needed to switch on subtitles to be able to actually understand what he was saying. I would have missed out on quite a bit of plot and character development without doing this. I’m unsure if this game was rushed or had its budget cut part way through or there was a totally new dev team but it feels like significantly less care went into making it than its predecessor.

Overall this game is a fun time and is able to fully realize the potential of Max Payne’s signature bullet time mechanic, which is certainly to get commended. Max Payne 2, however, is the perfect example of a very enjoyable game that’s truly nothing special. It’s not particularly interesting or charming and it doesn’t do anything particularly creative. MP1, for all its problems, was still oozing with passion and charm and creativity. I’m certain I’ll remember that game for a long time. I highly doubt I’ll remember much about Max Payne 2 a week from now.

This feels like the ideal for classic Kirby. I wasn’t expecting to like this more than Dreamland 3, which is probably the cutest and one of the most pleasant game I’ve ever played, but the gameplay in Superstar is much better IMO.

This is the first game to have multiple moves for each copy ability, and it allows for much more player creativity during combat. Player creativity in combat is rarely required due to the game’s low difficulty, but it’s hardest moments - like the arena boss rush mode - do challenge the player to really learn Kirby’s expansive move set and make full use of it.

One of the biggest improvements Superstar makes over Dreamland 2 and 3 is regarding the implementation of puzzles. The puzzles required to reach collectibles and secret areas in D2 and D3 revolve around the creative use of copy abilities and animal friends - most of which require some backtracking to obtain before use. I wrote about this extensively in my reviews of D2 and D3 but the way these puzzles are implemented can end up being very frustrating and monotonous. This issue is pretty much entirely fixed in Superstar due to the puzzles being based around thorough exploration of the level and then sometimes the creative use of copy abilities, which are always readily available. This might not sound significant, but it ends up making a big difference regarding gameplay experience. Instead of backtracking to gather copy abilities and animal friends you can spend your time engaging in combat and exploration, which is where Kirby games really shine.

All the core game modes are enjoyable and actually manage to create very different experiences through just a couple of small gameplay tweaks. Spring Breeze (a remake of dreamland 1) and Dynablade are your classic Kirby adventures. The Great Cave Offensive is based around exploration and puzzle solving in a large open level. Revenge of Meta-Knight implements a timer and requires you to speed through the level, which will drastically alter play style for a lot of people. Finally, Milky Way Wishes gets rid of Kirby’s ability to copy enemies and instead requires that you gather hidden copy ability collectibles in each level. Once you nab a collectible you can use the corresponding copy ability forever and freely switch between the ones you’ve already gathered. On top of the core game modes, Superstar also includes the rather short Gourmet Race where you race King DeDeDe through a level and try to gather more food than he does. There are also two mini games included - one based around timing button presses and the other around fast reaction time. Once you complete all the game modes you’ll also unlock the Arena, which is a pretty challenging boss rush. After beating this as well you’ll unlock the sound test, which allows you to play songs and sound effects from the game.

All of the core game modes are legitimately great. My favorite was definitely Revenge of Meta-Knight due to how unexpectedly fun it was to speed through a Kirby adventure. My pace is normally very leisurely when playing Kirby games, so this was a refreshing experience.

This is, IMO, the definitive classic Kirby experience, and I’d recommend it to any Kirby fans who haven’t played it as well as any newbies looking to try a Kirby game for the first time.

This is a game that oozes charm and really nails the postmodern take on neo-noir it’s going for. Tone, atmosphere, and writing are top notch. Gameplay is good but doesn’t shine in the same way. This is a pretty difficult and at times rather unfair game that starts to creep towards a trial and error experience due to enemy placement and the power of their shots. Your pattern of play towards the very difficult endgame will probably be like this: enter room, bullet time shoot the two enemies in the corner, get one-shotted by a barely visible enemy with a shotgun who’s 50 feet behind you, reload your game, make sure to shoot the shotgun enemy as well, keep resetting until you can successfully kill him and the other two. This isn’t a great gameplay loop but Max Payne’s charm and the tension and challenge created by its gameplay allowed me to mostly ignore this issue. Moreover, even when gameplay boils down to trial and error there’s enough creativity and dexterity demanded of the player that Max Payne never feels monotonous and can’t be beaten simply through rote memorization of enemy positions. I would definitely recommend this game to people who like shooters and people who enjoy playing games with a really clear and well defined artistic vision. I would also recommend downloading some community fix mods because the game has some bugs and can be quite difficult to run on modern machines.

So yeah the movement in this game is absolutely insane and feels like trying to steer a car with your feet. Booting it up for the first time was such a shock that I just started laughing and muttering “what the fuck is this”.

That said this is still an enjoyable game that’s dramatically enhanced by the weird movement scheme - that’s basically what makes this game fun. Without it this would be an incredibly easy and boring little maze game.

Biggest critique is that the gameplay gets boring relatively quickly. Each level is pretty much the same with incredibly slow and gradual difficulty progression after approx level 4. Before this, Bubbles - the player character, who is constantly moving - gets faster each level, which ramps up the difficulty very quickly. After this point, however, the game is basically just the same thing over and over again. There are only four level layouts and having a different picture to reveal each time doesn’t do much to change the experience of the levels. I think it’s a testament to the brilliant design of games like Pac Man or Space Invaders or Tetris that they can give the player the same thing over and over again and still remain incredibly fun and addictive. I’m not sure why this isn’t the case with Clu Clu Land, but it just isn’t - not for me at least. Would recommend this to basically anyone to play once if it’s readily available e.g if you have Nintendo Switch Online or already own it. It’s honestly a hilarious experience and one of the most joyfully unhinged movement schemes I’ve ever seen in a game. Would probably make for a good laugh if you play it with a friend.

I’m not much of a 2D Mario fan but have been playing through the early ones out of curiosity. This is the first one that really held my attention. Much greater variety in level concepts and enemy types than previous games. Hunting for secrets is really enjoyable - just the right amount of challenge for most of them. I found only a couple to be too obtuse for my taste. The cape power up is also probably the most fun 2D Mario power up I’ve yet encountered: allows for a lot of freedom but is challenging enough to master that it doesn’t feel overpowered like the p wing from Mario 3. First 2D Mario game that feels like it really lives up to the full potential of its concept.