It's so ambitious and full of vision and obviously a technical marvel for getting all this on the Goldsrc engine, and I loved this so much back in the day, but man. A lot of this really doesn't hold up, especially the designers tendency to just spam tons of enemies at you in all scenarios.

The co-op campaign in particular, is hilariously against the tone of the whole thing to the point where it wraps around to being absurd. All the weaknesses of the main game exacerbated into a linear series of combat challenge maps with questionable ammo drops (the scenario of which gets only more ridiculous as you will find plenty of "Donator Only" TMPs placed throughout the campaign).

I played it with a friend in what I thought was a private server but then a random stranger named <rotate=180>amogus joined through bizarre means, who clearly had played the campaign many many times and was just waiting for someone to start it up again, and all of a sudden the vintage Goldsrc experience of playing with a mysterious stranger re-emerged for us, and while those 2 hours weren't necessarily good, it felt like revisiting an old hometown. God bless you, <rotate=180>amogus.

I couldn't exactly tell you what it is about Side Arms that I like so much. I had never heard of it before it appeared in the virtual arcade of Street Fighter 6's Battle Hub, but immediately upon playing it I clocked it as something of a pseudo sequel to Section Z, a more fondly remembered Capcom shooter from the era.

Side Arms starts incredibly strongly, taking the two button directional shooting from Section Z and combining it with a Gradius style weapon system and really excellent graphics and sound. Side Arms revels in spectacle, and this is exemplified no better than when you find the secret AlphaBeta power up which has both Player 1 and Player 2 to combine into a super robot with a devastating 8 way attack. There's an adorable little transforming animation where the two ships combine and you then gain an extra hit point.

I love the environment design, which manages to stay nice and varied for its entire runtime, but unfortunately the same can't be said to the bosses, which there are only two for the whole game.

Aesthetically a lot was clearly taken from popular robot anime of the time (stage 4 has little Zakus jumping around as enemies and its very cute.) but honestly there's a lot of charm here. The protagonist Mobichan would go on to appear as an easter egg in many other Capcom games, notably on the title screen of Street Fighter 2, and I just don't know, the whole thing is so endearing to me. It's not a perfect game and there are many better shooters out there, but I've got a lot of love in my heart for it.

343 is a land of contrasts.

The campaign is undoubtedly the most fun and solid one that 343 has managed to put out, but while it lacks many low points it also trails behind in high points. The campaign remains pretty consistently Alright the entire way through with very few moments that actively thrill or excite.

The core combat is the best Halo has been in a long time, which extends to the multiplayer, a fantastic core game which is unfortunately deeply marred by the Games as a Service model that stinks up the whole thing. This is the best Halo has been in a long time, but the entire time you can't help but wonder what it would be like to play this game without its many compromises.