The game has massive flaws, some pretty big bugs, even to this day, but Mafia II's last set piece and story ending do some heavy lifting at the finish line to make it a pretty enjoyable experience despite those flaws.

The camera is wonky at times, every vehicle feels bad to drive, the AI can be unpredictable, including the cars on the road, which can be frustrating at times. A lot of this though is just an age thing though, so some of these frustrations are a bit forgivable for me.

A lot of it is big dumb empty calories of gangster cliches and action-movie-levels of gameplay depth. But if you like those types of games and want one that's got a better than average story, Mafia II is an easy recommend.

Papers, Please meets.....Monkey Island? Lil' Guardsman is a super charming, well written game. It's got some flaws with the gameplay loop that drag it down a bit, but overall, this game is able to get passed those issues without problem.

Some of the decisions you have to make feel incredibly arbitrary. Mixed with the grading system the game features, it can be a lil' head scratching with some of the decisions it wants you to make in order to get a perfect grading.

Luckily the game features a pretty forgiving rewind system so you can replay some of these areas without having to do a full playthrough.

It's relatively short for a single playthrough so the flaws and nitpicks are all manageable. Those things aside, Lil' Guardsman is well worth your time if you're looking for something with a ton of offbeat personality and charm.

I really dig the style of this game and the music is pretty damn good, the rest is abysmal.

The game mixes wrestling and all the tropes that come with that, with a turn based RPG. All cities are dedicated to various classic wrestlers and themed around this. All attacks are based around this as well. Stylistically, it all works really well.

Then you play it, and it stops working well.

The gameplay itself is boring and maddening. Especially given the game length (my playthrough was a little over 40 hours while skipping a lot of side quests). The various special attacks/tag team/triple team moves almost all feature QTE. Most of the time, your special attacks are the quickest way to get through these fights, so you'll be doing QTE pretty much every attack for 40+ hours.

The game features a ton of playable characters but the core mechanics will not change a whole lot.

You can move around the various stages and avoid some battles (the enemies you have to fight will be seen on screen at all times) luckily, but not everything can be avoided. Plus, you do have to be leveling up to get through the game.

Throughout the stages, you'll come across items that can damage you. Oftentimes these will dish out a ton of damage. The hit detection is bad too, so there were times I never really felt like I had hit something, only to get hit with a big spike to my health. To make matters worse, you don't really get a lot of time where you're invulnerable after taking environmental damage, so one fluky hit from a spike sticking out or a fireball can turn into multiple hits or death.

The game lets you save whenever you're not in a battle but there were a few time where I'd lose progress because I forgot to save after something and then get killed by environmental damage.

The game attempts to break up the monotony by adding racing levels or various other types of gameplay. None of these were enjoyable. The car levels in particular were frustrating because of the hit detection and invulnerability period issues this game has. These areas would often feature car damage meters where, if the meter hits zero, game over.

The game has a healthy amount of characters that, because of the story, you'll be constantly swapping between. It gets to be a little too much near the middle part of this game, where it felt at times where I'd have one conversation with something or exit one area with a group, only to immediately swap over to a different group of characters to play as.

The biggest annoyance though with this is, because of the swapping and the fact that damage taken carries over, and that all these groups have separate money/inventory/equipment, it gets to be a pain remembering to heal, stock up on supplies and new gear, and all that with groups you are constantly ping ponging around. The game also sometimes auto fills spots in your party when you obtain characters but then sometimes it doesn't. So sometimes I was walking around with two party members with one just in reserve because the game just didn't feel like adding them to my party.

I could keep nitpicking this game to death but I just can't keep going. This game could've been something really neat and fun. Instead, it's just a major disappointment.

The game is fine but definitely has some issues. Combat is bad, the camera not great, tricks are fairly basic, and stages are very hit or miss. Despite that, the game is fairly out there and ambitious for being a heavily Jet Set Radio homage.

The game also crashed at least 5-6 times in my playthrough. This did cause me to have to replay the final boss, which features the worst combo of controls/camera in the game. This game certainly won't be for everyone but if you've got some nostalgia for the Jet Set series, this does a decent job of recreating that, warts and all.

A pretty good game that has me worried about the future in more ways than one. Starfield has the unenviable task of living up to a mountain of hype that I think really hurts this game more than the loading times and stale open world mechanics do.

The first 20 or so hours really had me worried because of these two major issues but once the main story starts to unwrap, as you upgrade things, get a new ship, and you start messing around with some of the deeper side quests, there's a lot to like from a writing standpoint.

This mixed with some creative end game design does a good job of hiding some of the flaws this game possesses.

There are other issues I find with this game of course. The maps are awful, the menus are not great, companions are aggravating a lot of the time, detrimental at other points. The game is definitely not for everyone and if these mechanics aren't fun, it's a tough ask to sit through 20+ hours to get to good story moments that makes sticking with it feel worth it.

The biggest issue with this game, really isn't even a problem with the game. It's just the realization after playing through this that the Bethesda style game is really feeling dated, and that's honestly a bigger bummer more than anything. Like I've said previously, there is a lot of story and side quests that make up for it.......this time. But without some changes to the mechanics, I'm not sure how another one of these kinds of Bethesda games will feel 8+ years from now, (or whenever the next open world game from the team actually sees the light of day) and if another well written game can make up for that datedness.

Yeah, this rules. Tears of the Kingdom takes the foundation of BotW and improves on it in really fun and creative ways.

The building aspects and the new power ups are both bulls-eye level additions. These both give you so much freedom to just try and figure out the hurdles and puzzles in the game.

On top of it, the additions these bring in combat are all great. Being able to fuse weapons to make them more powerful is great and makes weapon's breaking a little less frustrating. The sages also bring a nice addition to the combat in this game.

At its core, there are still issues I have with how this game feels and plays but it's still a positive step compared BotW.

The shrines and temples are also an improvement from the original game. Shrines don't feel as repetitive with less frustration overall. The temples and the bosses inside are also more fun and less repetitive.

The story is better, exploration is much more fun, especially with various levels of the world to explore. Again, its nearly across the board with improvements.

Really, the game's only faults are minimal. It's way too long and given how free this game is, there are times I really wished I was given better direction. Especially near the end of the game after already putting so much time into the game. Some of the new enemy types are also a miss for me as well. The weather system is also unchanged and something that's more annoying and in the way than anything else.

It's still incredible despite some of these bigger flaws. There so many awe-inspiring moments, the score is one of the best of the year and one of the best in a franchise filled with great music. It's a home run of a game.