It's the arcade classic Pong, except now there's stages and each one offers a unique gimmick to contend with while duking it out with a CPU or a friend! Sadly, the game gets super hard super quick, making going against the computer to unlock more stages really tough. Each stage also has different phases to challenge, with each one offering a new twist on whatever the initial gimmick was.

Overall, it's a punishing Pong experience. Unless you consider yourself a Pong pro, I don't think you'll have much fun here.

Fun fact about the PS1 version of the game: This is one of those games that doubles as an audio CD. While the game does have a fun soundtrack, that is not what you get when you put it in a music player. You get the main theme, but you also get a bunch of ambient sounds for some reason. Weird.

Rare Replay is cool in concept but as you explore Rare's catalogue you'll start to see just how rough most of their portfolio is. Yeah, the Banjo games are cool, Viva Piñata and Kameo are alright, Perfect Dark is decent, but the rest of the offerings on here are middling at best. Games like Conker's Bad Fur Day and Battletoads are grossly overrated, and most of their old computer and NES titles are confusing and often unfair. The more you look at Rare's history, the more you see that they just got really lucky with the Donkey Kong Country and Banjo series of games, and the rest just can't hold up for the most part. There's value in this package with the few good titles here and there, but don't expect to get a ton out of each game featured here.

Also make sure to get it digitally so you can get Goldeneye for free. Physical copies don't get it and it can't be bought as DLC. Physical owners either need to buy the digital version or subscribe to GamePass to access it.

People like to lie and say this game is great or a hidden gem and I can't see eye-to-eye with them, and I like Sonic 3D Blast.

I think the level design is needlessly maze-like in places and in others it feels disjointed and off. The time travel mechanic is cool, but you can only get it to activate under specific scenarios, making it easy to get on a path that gives you consistent speed for it only to lose it because you hit a weird part of the stage that ate your speed. The limited "Past" and "Future" signs in each stage adds to this problem, making it so you only get so many chances to check out a different time for a stage. The bonus stages to get Time Stones are awkward to play. The boss fights are all weird and either end in seconds or drag for minutes.

If you genuinely like this game, good for you. I will never be able to see things from your perspective on this. At the very least, we can agree that the soundtracks for this game are pretty fire. Music is subjective as Hell, so I won't start a debate on which soundtrack is better, but I do prefer JP.

This game is a guilty pleasure of mine. Despite that, it's full of problems. Combat doesn't feel great. The collectables being nudes of your girlfriend feels weird. There aren't many glory kills and they get repetitive fast. One of those glory kills is fisting an enemy's anus. A lot of the stage design is uninspired. The 2D sections feel terrible to play. There's enemies that can kill you in one hit by decapitating you. The loading times for when you die are absurdly long. There's a lot against this game.

Despite all of that, I still enjoy it. I like the interactions between Rick and the Mask (Voiced by Disney's Pete). I liked unlocking the original trilogy as a bonus. It has the greatest "#$%@ you" dropped in 7th gen, beating out the one in DmC: Devil May Cry by a wide margin.

Playing Splatterhouse is like ordering Domino's: It's not going to be great to get through. It'll probably find some way to haunt you. You're probably going to go back for more, despite that.

This game is bizarre. It's a by-the-numbers JRPG for the most part. The music's pretty good, also. However, Working Designs has once again provided a highly questionable localization, creating one of the most bizarrely sexist dialogue choices I have ever seen in a commercial product. The rest of the localization is pretty rough, also. It's playable, but you'll be groaning a lot throughout your playthrough. If you can stomach some questionable writing, you might have an okay time with this one.