"playing it, that's not the hard part. it's letting go"

fallout new Vegas is by far, in my opinion, the best fallout will ever be. the 'fun' gunplay of 3, but with the amazing writing of the older fallout games, whose gameplay is, to me, not fun whatsoever. this game has a wonderfully political conflict that is just so fun to get sucked into, I still see hour long video commentaries on YouTube over this game and the politics in it. almost every quest has two or more options with substantially different outcomes. the main quest especially gets across the feeling of change. you can still find people arguing what the best option for the Mojave is, and I think that's a sign of a well written game. this is the kind of game I will always come back to. I love it dearly, and I can only hope fallout can somehow reclaim even half the glory this masterpiece has.

"is this the one with the British robot people want to fuck?"

portal is a solid, well written puzzle game, but is totally outclassed by it's kid: portal 2 I would say there isn't even much of a point to picking this up before portal 2. it's very short, a lot less diverse than 2, and also handles the visual aspect of portal travel nauseatingly. it's a solid puzzle game, but if you play portal 2 and play this you will feel this games age. with all of that being said, it's a good game! just totally outclassed for years now. it's worth a buy during summer/winter sales you can get it for like, less than 50 cents. i wouldn't pay full price for this one, as much as i like it

"wanna defeat capitalism? throw a bunch of stuff in an abandoned building!"

stardew valley is the kind of game where there's no good way, at least for me, to put into words why it is so amazing. there's a lot I could praise. the characters, plot, gameplay design, music, how cute the game is, or that it was made by a single talented young man. but none of any of that really matters for me in regards of this review. the most important thing to note about stardew valley, is the emotion it makes you feel. from the second you step off that bus, you are now in a world separate from your own. stardew has this amazing power to just calm you down, it's something another video game has never been able to do for me. the town of stardew valley, it's citizens, and just about everything else you can see or hear, makes it so easy to forgot about your real world problems. you are no longer someone who needs to constantly worry about making rent on time, you're a farmer who gets to pet 20+ every single day. you're not so tired from work you just lay in bed, you live every day of your life in stardew to its absolute fullest. more than anything, stardew is an escape. it's an escape from most, if not all, worries of modern society. nothing matters in stardew, but you feeling good, and helping others. this game is truly magic, and i would never be able to articulate this to you accurately enough to do justice to this game. please, play this game immediately.

"don't say it don't think it don't say it don't think it don't say it don't think it don't say it don't think it"

memes aside, this game was actually really fun during a time. though, i only think it's fun if you have friends. public lobbies are just blatantly unfun to play in. no one really touches it anymore, but it would still probably be a good time. i also feel a need to be a bit nicer since my favorite streamer, jerma 985, is an unofficial face of this game. a simple party game. can't go wrong. make the memes stop.

In many ways, Metroid is a franchise I've always wanted to get into but kinda couldn't. I enjoyed Metroid Prime a lot and I did like reading up on the lore of the franchise, but Samus... I dunno. Whenever I tried to explore fan stuff, I would just be inundated with ~sexy Zero Suit Samus~ art and everything about Other M and it just seemed like the franchise would never be the version of it I was interested in. Despite her non-gendered armor, she'd get treated as this sex object and kind of tone and well-handled emotional core I was looking for wouldn't happen. I would never Get the love people have for Samus Aran.

WELL. THAT CERTAINLY CHANGED.

This game is carefully manufactured by people who LOVE Samus and LOVE the universe and want to drive it towards new directions. The storytelling is almost all visual and environmental. Its devastatingly hard, but you're always learning patterns and improving your tactics and getting just a little bit better every single time you die. Samus gets an emotional arc built on the roots of the story, without turning her into a "cuter" more "marketable" anime wife.

And she's just fucking COOL. I feel cool playing as her, I feel thrilled by the dangers she encountered, and I'm a fucking lesbian for Samus Aran. Completely won me over as one of the greatest protagonists in all of video games. I'm so thrilled to finally fall in love with this universe and I can't wait to explore it more and see where it goes from here.

(No spoilers, but two abilities are mentioned, so read as you will)

Metroid Dread is fantastic and is probably now my favorite Metroid. I have enjoyed the environment and atmosphere of the game, it's probably going to give some chills at first even if it wears off with time.

Overall, I found the game to be increasingly hard with some little difficulty spikes at some moments, especially at bosses. But with some attempts, I found myself getting used to the bosses' patterns fast enough for my liking, which made it enjoyable and rewarding.

As weaknesses, first, I wish the game had two, maybe three more hours of gameplay. I personally finished it with 11 hours which felt a bit short, but I prefer that instead of feeling eternally long. Just a wish.

Second, some collectibles are hard to obtain because of tricky uses of the Speed Boost/Shinespark ability. While the way of getting them is indeed challenging, I found that most of the time, what annoyed me in them is that the distance you have to run to activate the ability is way too short, sometimes requiring almost perfect inputs. In short, the challenges took time not because it was hard, but because I couldn't even start running properly. It was especially annoying when the enemies respawn once you're far enough, instead of a respawn when you cross two, three rooms.

And third, I wish the controls were a little improved. I felt like sometimes there wasn't enough buttons on the controller for all the abilities and items you could use. And I also hated the fact that to use the scan, I had to hold down the button and not just press it to activate. It didn't felt comfortable or efficient when you want to explore at a normal/fast pace, instead of having to stop to activate it.

Nonetheless, these three weaknesses are very light, and it's pretty much nothing compared to the myriad of qualities this game has. As a final note, I really liked the designs of the enemies.

I will keep this as brief as possible and keep spoilers vague and to a minimum.

I went into this with tempered expectations. I really liked Samus Returns, so I had confidence that Mercury Steam could do well and improve on the mechanics and concepts they introduced there. But I wasn't sure quite what they'd end up with, and I was hesitant to expect it to do everything I wanted.

This game's pacing is utterly impeccable. Now, I didn't find terribly many sequence breaks myself - I did fight one boss quite a bit earlier than expected, which was cool, but I didn't find much else. However, even playing this game in the "intended" sequence was extremely satisfying. The game is paced very well and introduces new powers at just the right times I find, with the main path being relatively linear while also allowing you to get lost and have to figure out where to go on your own. Having now finished the game and seeing other's experiences with the game though, it seems there's decent work being done finding more substantial skips and breaks which is very promising to see.

Samus has, hands down, the best-feeling moveset and controls in the entire series to this point. Minutes into the game, I noticed that when you slide off a ledge, you still have a little bit of leeway to jump - that "coyote time" is just one of the many contributing factors that make Samus feel at her absolute best in Dread. Even back with Samus Returns, Mercury Steam had a very clear understanding of how to make Metroid feel good to play, and to see them iterate and improve on that even further with Dread is phenomenal. Of course, they have an even clearer understanding of how to make satisfying, engaging (and admittedly very punishing at times) boss fights.

But even beyond being fantastic to play, this game brings back ideas and concepts from prior Metroids that I genuinely never expected to see. And they handle it with such restraint, holding back on showing you their cards until the precise moment they'll leave the biggest impact, so that when you finally encounter them, it's an incredible and unforgettable moment. This truly feels like a sequel to Fusion, in the best possible ways.

All of that applies to the endgame as well. Absolutely nothing could have prepared me for everything that happens. The final boss is easily the best fight in the entire game, and one of the best bosses in the entire series. Everything that happens during the finale had me losing my mind and cheering at the screen, I was giddy and screaming basically the entire way through. The finale of Dread is such a perfect culmination of what the series has been building up to and it was both everything I wanted and nothing I expected.

I can not wait to see where the series goes from here. However long it takes to get Metroid 6, I'll be there for it. With Mercury Steam at the helm, the series is in good hands.

See you next mission, Samus Aran.
See you next mission, Metroid.