Starch
2001
2004
2007
2012
Very much the definition of a 5/10 game. Exceedingly average. 343 took the narrative in a more pulpy direction, feeling a lot more Larry Niven-esque than the Bungie titles, which often felt more like a mashup of Orson Card and space-Clancy. It wasn't bad by any means and I played a fair bit of multiplayer and singleplayer, but it is a noticeable downgrade. I suppose compared to most other FPS games in existence, it's actually really good, but it really doesn't live up to the Bungie games at all.
2005
Frankly, FEAR is probably one of the best single player FPS games ever made. Sure, it advertises itself as being a spooky horror game which ends up being not very spooky at all, but the tactical combat is absolutely a joy. It's an absolutely foundational pillar of modern FPS games and an important part of gaming history.
2015
Excellent music, excellent writing, excellent characters. Though, I generally hate bullet hells and menu combat, so I wasn't exactly won over by that part of the game. Fortunately the bullet hell sections were easy enough for a newbie like me to get through them but were hard enough to actually make it feel like a challenge to me. But hey, it's Undertale.
2007
Same subgenre of shooters as FEAR. The gunplay doesn't feel as good as FEAR though, but it somewhat makes up for that with the time manipulation aspect. Timeshift also makes excellent use of time travel, as it is effectively necessary to use it in combat to avoid dying. It's definitely worth a playthrough, but wasn't interesting enough to make me wanna replay it. If you can get it for like $5 or $10, it's a decent shooter with a decent setting.
2012
2010
The biggest thing that set this game back was that you had to do all of the timed tracks in one go in order to unlock the final track. Made me so mad as a kid lol. 2nd game has the same problem, but also I never felt a reason to play it at all after the sequel launched. Very lacking on content even compared to other hot wheels games from the same era.