Sable is my Breath of the Wild. An open world design staple that is second only to the super condensed A Short Hike.

Stellar art and music. Lovely map design that invites you to sit down and take the world in.
Writing, both dialogue and world building, is very good and often can get emotional. Sable's world is intriguing from the get go and unravelling its history was very fun.

It's a tragedy that a game this pretty and clever runs so very poorly.

I took my time with Sable's Gliding and did nearly everything the game has to offer, part of me didn't want to let go of the beautiful desert scenery and serene music. Part of me didn't want to let go but as the game keeps telling you - Journeys must end and that's part of what makes them special.

This is just kind of disappointing. I was looking forward to starting this game that had been sitting around on my shelf a while that was presented as some sort of big AAA aerial combat title from Sony and Santa Monica Studio, but in reality it's just an online only pvp game with questionable polish. It's a shame because there are some cool ideas such as being able to switch from jet to vehicle to foot in combat, and the scale of its massive multiplayer battles, but it's really ruined by the fact that it's online only. Now that the PS3 is pretty much dead there's not really anything left to play here

I love everything about this game. The art, the music, the story, and oh my goodness the 90’s everything. Though I was not actually born in the 90’s, I was always surrounded by 90’s stuff for whatever reason. My primary source of entertainment as a child was an old CRT (the only TV my parents had) alongside my collection of Hand-me-down VHS tapes from family. The one crappy Canadian TV channel I had access to had no good original shows, and so it would mostly rerun 90’s nickelodeon cartoons. For a period of my life I even lived in a neighbourhood in Toronto that had been largely built up in the 90’s, and remained visually pretty much unchanged since then. All this is to say that I felt an immense attachment to everything in this game and exploring its world was genuinely amazing. Even the story was pretty charming for only being around 3-4 hours long. If I were to have ONE complaint it's that one of the main characters that accompanies you just DISAPPEARS before the end of the game and NEVER GETS A CONCLUSION TO HIS STORY. Otherwise though this game is seriously amazing and incredible and perfect and amazing and incredible and perfect and also amazing and incredible and oh, also perfect and fabulous and the best video game ever.

Slowly this year is becoming the year of great reimagined “casino” games. Buckshot Roulette takes the simple premise of Russian Roulette and makes it an indie horror gem.

Gameplay is primarily passing a loaded shotgun back and forth between yourself and a dealer while using a mix of items and luck to turn the odds in your favor. A general run will involve chipping away at your opponent’s health bar before taking away life support to really up the ante. Once a run has been won you will unlock a double or nothing mode that spice ups items and become essentially endless if you are prepared to take the risk for bragging rights.

Buckshot Roulette seems to take place in some kind of secret backdoor Russian nightclub that lends itself greatly to the twisted washed-out horror aesthetic. All runs begin in a dirty bathroom as you pass through a walkway with loud thumping techno music before entering the dealer’s den. At all times you can almost always hear the music muffled through the walls as the sound design is honestly fantastic.

The simple premise makes it easy to pick up and the addictive double or nothing mode is great to try for a high score. With such a low asking price I can’t recommend Buckshot Roulette enough.

The last time I had played Battle for Bikini Bottom (the original at least) was in 2019. According to my PS2 memory card, I had played this in 2010 prior to 2019. Back then, I never did 100% the game but I did beat it. 2019 though was the first time I 100%ed the game and I remember being so happy I finally did so since this was a game I liked a lot as a kid. I remember thinking it was great back then, but I wanted to see how I'd feel nowadays. While I don't think it's quite as good nowadays, it's still a really fun time overall.

I'd say the thing this game does best is replicating season 1-3 of SpongeBob. It doesn't always hit but when it does, this game is super funny and is basically just like those early seasons. There's a ton of callbacks to the show and references you'd only get if you've seen specific episodes. For a kid growing up on SpongeBob, this is basically like playing through a couple episodes of the show. Every voice actor from the show is here too, besides Mr. Krabs and Mermaid Man, and they don't half ass it. They bring their A game in every scene. However, going back to those two outliers, it's unfortunate they couldn't appear here. Mr. Krabs isn't too terrible, and the voice actor at least sounds like he's trying to replicate the character. Mermaid Man though is totally off and sounds pretty bad, I think. Even with those two being different tho, it's still super authentic to the show and a lot of fun seeing each scene be reminiscent of the show. The game also really replicates the world of SpongeBob well. The overworld of Bikini Bottom is done super well. You have all the main characters homes represented here. You have the Krusty Krab, the Chum Bucket. All the staple locations. The areas themselves also represent the show well. Rock Bottom, the Mermalair, Kelp Forest..even SpongeBob's Dream from that one season 1 episode appears. The characters, their dialogue and the world itself just perfectly represents the early seasons.

Getting into the gameplay itself, it's a collectathon and is basically mimicking a game like Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie. While I don't think it's as good as either of those, for reasons I'll explain shortly, that type of game still works well in the SpongeBob universe. Instead of Stars or Jiggies, your main collectable in this game are golden spatulas. Thematically super fitting to the show, though I gotta say I never found them as satisfying to get as the aforementioned stars or jiggies. There's no jingle that plays, only a crowd cheering for the player (and SpongeBob's laugh if you're playing as him). It's just sort of a bummer since it never gave me a rush whenever I collected them like Mario 64 or Banjo did. Anyways, you collect these golden spatulas in each level alongside collecting any other assortment of collectables along the way. You have shiny objects which you get from tikis or the robots. These are used to spend on shiny object gates or to get golden spatulas from Mr. Krabs. Socks are a collectable that you can trade in to also get golden spatulas from Patrick. These are mostly easy to get but can be annoying in their placement depending on the stage. Some, mostly the first couple stage ones, require backtracking with abilities you get later on. This like barely happens at all though so if you're a Banjo Tooie hater, you might like this game. In fact, this game is maybe too linear for my liking. It's obviously no Tooie, but it's not even a Mario 64 or Kazooie in terms of its exploration. Very rarely will you travel off the beaten path to do a little side challenge but that's about it. I prefer the more open games I mentioned before for that reason, as it feels like you're being guided along a straight path most of the time. Still, what's here is mostly fun. The levels in general, besides being faithful to the show, are either pretty fun or harmless. The only two I didn't care for much were Mermalair and Kelp Forest. Both had songs that kinda got on my nerves and Kelp Forest is too dark a lot of the time and also has the worst slide in the game. My two favorite levels though, were Flying Dutchman's Graveyard and SpongeBob's Dream. I found neither annoying and they were both endgame levels so they were pretty fleshed out.

You can also play as both Patrick and Sandy, if you find a bus station in each level. They each have different abilities but basically, Patrick is strong and can throw heavy things while Sandy has a lasso she can glide with and can also swing from these lasso Texas things. Both characters change the gameplay up enough for it feel different and fun. Their move sets are simpler than SpongeBob's. His move set consists of a double jump, a bubble wand attack, a bubble butt stomp, a bubble helmet that shoots upwards, the bubble bowl which is a bowling ball you can throw to hit things and the cruise bubble which is this missile attack you can use to hit enemies or buttons from a far. Those last two abilities are ones you unlock as progress and I generally like the move set SpongeBob has. Only thing I wish he had was a movement ability. There's no long jump or talon trot here so he doesn't feel quite as fun to play as because of the lack of something like that.

Between each set of three levels, and also in some of the levels themselves, are the game's bosses. The bosses in the actual levels aren't that great imo but are fun references to the show at least. The main game's bosses you must defeat to proceed tho are actually pretty fun. They're more fleshed out and have cutscenes between phases. You also switch between characters between phases too, which again, changes up the gameplay somewhat. The final boss was definitely the best, it's a fun nod to SpongeBob's love for Karate and also to the anchor arm episode. But I also gotta give props to robot Patrick's fight. The atmosphere of the industrial park combined with the eerie music, always freaked me out a bit as a kid. Still does even now lol.

Speaking of the music, while I don't think it's that amazing overall, there are still some tracks I quite like. Jellyfish Fields is an upbeat classic, Industrial Park again is quite eerie but really good and the best track in the game is probably Flying Dutchman's Graveyard. That one just perfectly fits the level and also rocks on top of it. Like I said, there are some tracks I straight up don't like whether it's cuz the level annoyed me as a kid or I just don't like them in general, however the OST is still solid overall.

I will say, I never noticed how unpolished this game could be at times. Whether it's me clipping through a tiki that doesn't have hit detection, or the slide portions being really janky depending on how I jump, it's not as polished as thought it was back then. Still, this is super helpful to the speedrun community as the game has some well-known glitches and exploits that are actually super cool to see someone perform. I remember getting into these speedrun videos shortly before Rehydrated came out and being amazed I'm just now finding out about all them. Speaking of rehydrated, I'll just say one thing. Play this version, don't play Rehydrated for the love of god. It's so bad, the fucking warp boxes don't even animate.

One more thing I wanna mention before I end the review off, is the golden spatula warp feature. If you go into the menu, to the golden spatulas you've collected or have to collect still, you can take the taxi from the menu and warp to that location. Holy shit, this may be the best feature in this game. It's super convenient and frankly should be in more 3D Platformers lol.

This is a game I played as a kid and while I think it's not quite as good as once thought, and is not as good as Mario 64 (and definitely not as good as Banjo), it's still a fun time. It's not too long either so it's a game you can easily replay. Maybe I'd think lower of this game if I wasn't a SpongeBob fan or grew up with this, as it's just kind of an average 3D platformer, but it's still one of the best licensed games I've played because it represents the world of SpongeBob so well. Glad it holds up even to this day.