There are almost 600 reviews already but not one sonnet. So here goes:

A brutal axe slashes right at my face.
I knife parry while dynamite explodes
then whirl around and empty clips with grace;
blasting at filthy parasites exposed.

Heart attacks wait around every corner;
each encounter abounds with gripped tension.
Static no more - frenetic, sans torpor,
yet more options to fight apprehension.

This time I have a friend, not a burden;
a teammate that I miss when she is gone.
Each NPC became their own person,
fleshed out, built up, and much improved upon.

Despite a taste for slower paced RE,
this remake scores a big BINGO from me.

Having not played the original when I was a kid, I did everything possible to get as close to the child-like experience:

Step 1 - Remove all four of your wisdom teeth

Step 2 - Take painkillers before reverting to baby-state and sleep for 24 hours

Step 3 - After baby-state hibernation is complete, awaken as a young disgruntled adolescent who lays on the couch for days on end while playing Mario RPG and eating copious amounts of jello and pudding

Step 4 - Add in watching some Sopranos and some more painkillers and realize the connections between the New Jersey mob and the Super Mario RPG gang - Mario is obviously Tony leading the gang but still has some issues, Mallow is Christopher who comes along early and immediately you're like ah this fucking guy c'mon bro but then he comes in clutch a few times, Geno is Silvio the right hand man, Bowser is the combo of Paulie and Big Pussy with the fat guy enforcer aesthetic, and Peach is the smokin' hot therapist as evidenced by her first special move being called 'Therapy.' The Smithy gang are a combo of Tony's own family and his fears of losing his kingdom - put a pair of glasses on Exor's sword or Smithy and tell me that's not Uncle Junior in the flesh.

Step 5 - Write this dumbass review and boot up Paper Mario

What a fucking game, my dudes and duderinas. I played Pillars of Eternity when it came out way back in 2015 and while I loved it then, I think I still didn't quite get it. The game throws a ton of lore and setting exposition right at the very beginning and it never lets up, which made it difficult, for me anyway, to connect with the setting. However, deeper into the game things do start to fall in place, and as a setting, Eora is incredibly rich not only in history, cultural diversity, and storytelling, but in its ideas and prose as well. Every character the player will meet in Pillars of Eternity comes with his or her own set of flaws, ambitions, and perspective of the world around them that are grounded in the same storytelling and universe that the player experiences, and while they do have realism woven into their personalities, the character writing is more literary mythic than anything else. Eora and its denizens are heavily steeped in historical context within the game-world as well as within the philosophical context of their real world inspirations. Memory, history, and reconciliation of past and present are ever-present throughout the game's narrative and companions.

While the dense writing and lore may cause a barrier to entry on the writing side, Pillars of Eternity's combat and RPG systems are wonderfully CRPG beginner friendly. Every attribute is meaningful and can contribute to any build which makes it difficult to brick a character, allowing for roleplay to take precedence across builds. Obviously, as with any CRPG, min-maxing optimization can occur if a player desires to powergame, but the system does not punish more casual players, resulting in a positive experience for both ends of the spectrum. I played a rogue who wore heavy plate armor and used a gun, but the standard light-armored sneaky rogue would work just as well, for example.

However, the real highlights of Pillars of Eternity happen when the game turns all of this worldbuilding on its head and finally considers the implications of the ideas it sets forth. Themes of post-colonialism, ontology, historical relevance, nihilism, and imperial exceptionalism all are not only represented within the game, but are confronted directly by the player. It's not enough just to represent these ideas within the game world - the player is specifically tasked to think about philosophical questions in order to progress through conversations and form plans on how to move forward.

Few games seem to do this as openly and bluntly as Pillars of Eternity does, and while the game may have originally existed as a kickstarter project meant to placate fans, like myself, of Baldur's Gate, narratively Pillars of Eternity is much more in line with something like Planescape: Torment or Bethesda's post-modernist take on fantasy lore via Morrowind. Like all celebrated and dissected mythologies, Eora isn't afraid to get both historical and weird in order to confront our idea of humanity and the world we live in.

A ship descends on rocky crusted earth.
Alien, yet familiar excitement;
A world I have dreamt to explore preserved.
Nostalgia, though not mine, still existent,
Somehow shapes me - I acquiesce and bend.
Intensely immersed; Samus' view as mine,
Pounding drums smash my ears as I begin;
I completely fucking love Metroid Prime.

Through lava and ice, water, steel, and dirt,
Freedom and exploration - heaven sent.
Boss fights were fun, though some of them sure hurt;
the Omega Pirate, I do resent,
Power Missiles to the face said "get bent."
Definitely was humbled by the mines,
but in adversity, I stayed content -
I completely fucking love Metroid Prime.

In ranking Metroids, I'd put Prime in first.
Though I love Dread and its gameplay augments,
Exploration and atmosphere are worth
More to me by far, one-hundred percent.
I'm glad that I got to experience,
Finally after waiting so much time.
Reputation deserved and I'm content.
I completely fucking love Metroid Prime.

Prime 2 and 3 - continue the ascent,
Remaster them both, so I can spend time
Writing more poems, reviews to be penned -
I completely fucking love Metroid Prime.

It feels weird to try and review one of my favorite games of all time - if Baldur’s Gate is the game of my childhood, the Souls games are certainly the games of my “modern” era - as there are so many feelings and thoughts and ideas just wrapped up and tangled on top of one another, like a giant ball of yarn that’s been growing for years. It becomes hard to unpack everything without turning either into rote descriptions of “I like X thing about game,” or spilling out saccharine word vomit and dumb shit like yarn ball metaphors and “modern gaming eras” escaping, when they should be locked up permanently. Regardless, I wanted to try and tackle the challenge of reviewing my favorites, or at least unpacking my experiences with them for myself, so here I am. I’m not going to go into some ontological or Derridean critique of Dark Souls. I think enough people have deconstructed this game for a lifetime. This is just my perspective on my experience with the game, all cliche and platitudes included.

For a long time, I didn’t really think I liked hard games. I grew up playing NES and all that, but I don’t really think that crossed my mind back then; I would gladly smash my head against something over and over without the thought of it being too hard. It was just the game. So when Dark Souls came out and all I ever heard about it was how hard it is and punishing and impossible, it was a definite no - I didn’t want a hard game, because, after all, I played games for fun. The games I enjoyed were all adventure and discovery, full of blasting enemies with magic, exploring fantastical worlds, and slicing my way through a story whether heroic or grim. None of these things were ever how Dark Souls was described to me, even by friends who loved the game, so I just ignored it and passed it off as something I would never play.

In late 2019, I saw a commercial for a game called Sekiro. I impulse bought it. I knew Sekiro was supposed to be a hard game, but it reminded me of the Tenchu games that I used to rent from Blockbuster as a kid and nostalgia won me over. It destroyed me, but I loved every second of it. I found out it was from the same people that made Dark Souls, and I finally decided that, what the hell, if I can beat Sekiro I can beat Dark Souls. So after a few months, I bought that too. Then I lost my job.

Compared to hours of LinkedIn and Indeed every day, I found that Dark Souls did not measure up in difficulty. It was my reprieve, and I devoured it. I huddled on my couch playing handheld on the Switch, well into the night almost every night. I could not put it down, and while, sure, I did find the game to be difficult, I approached it in the same way that I approached my NES games when I was a kid. I just took the game for what it was and ran with it. Shockingly, Dark Souls wasn’t just a combat simulator with reflex checks and hair-pulling moments - it was an adventure and a new world to explore, and I wanted to see and experience everything.

Obviously, looking back with hindsight, it’s easy for me to roll my eyes at myself being surprised or shocked by the game, seeing as exploration is one of the pillars of Dark Souls’ design, but I just didn’t know. I think that’s one of the things that made the game and experience so special to me, as I was just able to enjoy this gaming cultural behemoth without any of the white noise contamination that I have now. Everything was unexpected, and I was just able to connect with a new world on my own terms and at my own pace, making the entire experience an exercise in solitude and intimacy - further driven home by the same themes being woven throughout the landscape of Lordran and my time spent there. Immediate and total resonance with a piece of art or media is rare and one of the most powerful things a person can experience, and I guess, in a very crude way, that’s why I love the Souls games - they just make sense to my brain in almost every way. That isn’t to say I don’t have criticisms or flaws towards these games, on the contrary, the games I love most are the ones that I can be the hardest on. However, all those things fade away the moment I hear that haunting menu theme.

This day has finally come.
That's right -- the day when you and I will meet.

I was always thinking of you,
here with this DS4 controller in my hand.
I never even knew your name
or face until today.

But now I know.
Oh how I love you, Heather.

It's okay that you run funny
with your feet out to the side.
Or that you got killed by a mirror.
Hey, it happens.

You are still a great protagonist.
Your skill rivaling Sekiro,
with a blade as sharp as your snark.
I guess a hair dryer works too, in a pinch.

I knew you'd defeat your competition.
She doesn't even have eyebrows.
Wait, did she really just eat that???

Either way, great job at being cool.
Thanks for letting me play your game.

After all, you and I exist as one.
What I give to you is the same as
what I give to me.

- Stanley Coleman

I think a lot of people have that game from childhood. The one that we immersed ourselves in without really understanding it, stumbling around in the dark but still so enthralled that we weren’t ready to give up. We threw ourselves at the same things over and over again, weathering down the barrier between us and story, experience, and understanding, until only a sharp bond remained - one strong enough that after all this time, it still cleaves through years and cuts to the marrow of childhood fascination. That game for me is Baldur’s Gate.


Sitting in a sea of game materials - a pc game box designed like an ancient tome, a map of the sword coast, a manual that might as well have been written in a different language - I remember installing the game for the first time, and even that seemed like an epic adventure. It’s silly, but an installation that spanned over five discs and several hours was an event. I could not take my eyes away from the drawings on the screen while I sat and stared at the loading bar slowly journeying its way across the bottom of the screen.

I had always wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons, but there was no one to play with. My step-dad had told me stories of his campaigns, epic and funny stories of exploration and fighting grand battles. I remember one in particular was about a wizard who stopped an entire army in their tracks by stopping a catapult through simply holding up his hand and casting a spell. The boulder smashed against the wall of force that he had conjured, but to the opposing army, it just looked like this wizened old man smashed a boulder with the heel of his hand, so they fled. I wanted so badly to partake in stories like this, and Baldur’s Gate was my first chance.

With this wizard in my mind, I rolled up a Mage without understanding how the stats worked, and ventured forth from Candlekeep only to be killed almost instantly. I honestly can’t remember what I died to anymore, but I know that rather than being upset, I just kept making characters. I didn’t really understand the rules. I read the manual, but couldn’t quite figure out everything it was telling me, so I just put it aside and kept playing.

The Sword Coast had swallowed me up and I could not escape. Around every corner was a new adventure - an artist who just wanted to finish his final masterpiece, a troupe of silly monsters that offered me an autograph, a chance encounter with one of the heroes from a book series I loved, a cranky wizard in his tower, and more. I didn’t even care or know what was going on with the main story. I just kept playing because I wanted to experience more of the world and the characters within.

I had been offered freedom in a video game that I had not known at the time, and I think that freedom and richness still holds up today. It’s why I’ve kept playing these games now for over 25 years. Eventually, I did figure out the mechanics. I did learn the story beats. I did save the Sword Coast. There was no definitive moment, but rather just a gradual deepening of understanding over time, which I think is primarily what makes this series so special to me. My progress mirrored the protagonist. At level 1 leaving Candlekeep, they have no idea of what is going on. They are fragile and disoriented, but piece by piece they begin to understand and grow in strength, and by the end of it (and the saga at large) they are ready to take on any challenge thrown at them.

Baldur’s Gate was truly an amazing adventure for me, and remains that way after all this time. I think this is its biggest strength and triumph as a saga. It manages to weave together small vignettes of stories that are rich and interesting through a large overarching plot, allowing every moment to feel grounded and important while still servicing a grand narrative that leads from childishly fleeing in the night out of terror to challenging nations, powerful sorcerers, terrible dragons, and even gods themselves. Humanity and character expression remain the forefront of the writing in Baldur’s Gate regardless of the stakes, which makes these games timeless, and continues to make me fall in love all over again each time I play. I hear those first words, “Nestled atop the cliffs that rise from the Sword Coast, the citadel of Candlekeep," and I'm 10 years old again, ready to begin my adventure.

Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 are my favorite games of all time, so when I saw the first trailer for Baldur’s Gate 3, I was beyond excited. I knew it was going to be a little different, as the story in the original games is pretty well wrapped up with nowhere to go narratively, but Black Isle had plans for a third entry (The Black Hound), so I figured things would be able to be worked out. I was also completely geeking out because I absolutely love Mind Flayers. They were terrifying in Baldur’s Gate 2, and there was a whole cut/unfinished subplot with a Mind Flayer colony in Athkatla that just brimmed with potential on how they could connect the dots here. One of my DND group’s favorite dungeons we ever ran was a giant library in the astral plane that had been taken over by a singular Mind Flayer that I tortured them with through manipulation, stealth, cunning, and pitting them against each other over 12 hours. By the end of it, they were deathly afraid of him and hated his guts. It was fantastic. I was really ready to love this game…and I tried so hard, but I just don’t.

Turns out, it was a bad idea to make the new 5th Edition game Baldur’s Gate 3. There is a fantastic skeleton here with interesting characters and fun locations, but as a huge fan of the early games, I can’t help but feel like it’s significantly held back by what Wizards of the Coast did to the Baldur’s Gate canon. BG3 isn’t a sequel to Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 - it’s a sequel to the WotC canon of Baldur’s Gate, and it’s done very poorly. Some of the characters that appear are completely divorced from their characters in the originals, as if the person writing them had no idea of their motivations or any understanding of who these people are. I don’t know whether to blame that on Wizards for the terrible choices regarding canon, or to blame Larian for the awful characterization, but it drove me insane. I realize I might sound like a whiny old-head, but it is just such a strange choice to make a sequel based on a game when you can’t actually adhere to the plot of that game.

The legacy characters aren’t the only strange moments of Baldur’s Gate 3’s writing unfortunately, as it struggles to maintain a foundation between being grounded in the Forgotten Realms setting while wanting to tell a grandiose story. At the beginning of the game, I recruited three companions - one that was incredibly fearsome fighting Demons in the Blood War, another was such a powerful mage that he actually had an intimate relationship with the Goddess of Magic herself, and the last one was sent on a mission to retrieve an incredibly powerful and rare artifact from a race of other dimensional beings. They’re also level 1 and we’re fighting goblins. This type of narrative/world disconnect continues on throughout the rest of the game and I constantly felt out of place and just at odds with the game’s representation of the Forgotten Realms.

For a game that is effusively praised for player freedom - don’t get me wrong there is a ton of it - it does itself no favors with regards to pacing. In particular, Act 2 is paced in such a way that players easily can find themselves locked out of almost all the Act’s content if they simply explore the area, which is the exact opposite of how Act 1 encouraged gameplay. When Act 3 rolls around, BG3 again flips things around and gives a giant sandbox city to run around it, all the while dumping quests on you that beg to be solved with urgency. There isn’t inherently anything wrong in this approach, but because the pacing isn’t consistent across the game, it can be very overwhelming and disorienting.

This disorienting feeling carries over to companion quests and the rest system as well, as the game seems to discourage you from long resting too often, but in order to continue companion quests, long rests at camp are necessary. I actually missed an entire companion questline because I did not rest enough in Act 2, and it wasn’t until late game that I realized the game does actually have a cue to tell you to rest. Every time a party member complains about being tired, a new conversation or cutscene is available at camp. Otherwise, the resting mechanic makes a nice balance between the original games’ dungeon rest-a-thons, and the fear of running out of resources in combat.

Encounters and combat were something I personally was worried about, as I’m much more a fan of the Real Time with Pause system, but I actually think Larian did a great job implementing 5e into crpg format. Most of the time, combat feels engaging and quick due to the encounter and level design, and the environment takes a much bigger stage than it ever did in the older games. Later on, the encounters do seem to fall off regarding intentionality and then it can be frustrating when there are just too many enemies and allies for things to go quickly. In the later stages of the game, Larian also becomes obsessed with placing trap after trap, which just makes things tedious in this engine. Traps are a classic part of DND dungeon design, but throwing 6 of the same DC trap in a room does not make a good dungeon. Honestly, this is true for the game at large. Act 1 in all of its Early Access polished glory is wonderful in pacing, encounter design, world detail, and narrative beats, however the whole thing starts to fall apart as the game goes on and then all of the little, minor things that were overlooked as nitpicks start to become giant thorns.

While the combat system mostly does a good job, it does lack polish with basic functionality. There were so many times that I clicked to attack an enemy, was told “too far, can’t reach,” and then I moved my character manually in range and was able to attack. There were entire battles where certain enemies just stood still for their turn, wasting 10-20 seconds without doing anything. There were times in which I got stuck with one character fighting six by himself because the pathing for the other character broke while jumping, and they couldn’t join combat until forced because they were stuck in a different spot. There were many times where I was told I could not see the enemy, only to swivel the camera around to find that character has a perfect line of sight on the enemy, but just can’t attack because the game says no. After 50-plus hours, all of that began to wear me down, and the experience just felt clunky. Apart from those minor things, I also started to hit real bugs like companions talking to me about events that haven’t happened yet, doors not loading, people popping into cutscenes, among others.

It is highly ironic that Baldur’s Gate 3 has gotten so much praise from people pitting it against other AAA releases that were deemed broken, as if the game does not have its share of cracks and broken bits as well. Ultimately, there is a good game here that I’m sure will grow and be ironed out as a “Definitive Edition” arrives, but for me the entire experience was disappointing and lacking. Baldur’s Gate 3 nails the upfront presentation with cinematic style, but what lies beneath is mediocrity.

This fucking game, man.

Here I sit in front of the dim glow of a computer monitor, inebriated, ready to spill my guts over a video game. I will just embrace the cringe and do as the Elden Ring meta dictates and smash that L2 Seppuku.

Playing through the Souls games was a sort-of gaming evolution for me - a transition away from Bioware and Bethesda RPG dominance into widening my perspective. I talked about that in my Dark Souls Remastered review, so if you're interested in more saccharine reflection, it's there. So when Elden Ring was announced and trailers debuted, I thought "holy shit. This is going to be my favorite game of all time."

It's this expectation that has killed me over and over again. I have thought so many times that I loved open world games. I probably put over a thousand hours each into Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. I also love Souls, with over a thousand hours in Dark Souls 3, let alone the series, so it should be the marriage of both things into an epic triumph of everything that I want from a video game. Yet, I remember after finishing Elden Ring for the first time, where this intense excitement and longing had been burning, the shadow of disappointment set in instead. Then followed the guilt.

What a stupid thing to feel - guilt over not liking a video game as much as I expected, and yet it destroyed me all the same. So I parsed out my feelings into a review and then guarded them by joking Elden Ring was a "bad game," because you can't critique me if I'm just being funny! It, obviously, is not a bad game.

And then, I played Elden Ring for about 700 more hours, battling with other Tarnished, and helping others overcome Malenia and her incessant need to remind us of who she is.

Here's the deal: I still mostly feel and believe the same things I did about Elden Ring as I did in my first review, however what has left is the guilt and frustration over those opinions. I still dislike several of the end-game bosses. I still think after the first playthrough the world feels lonely and lacking. I still prefer the more closed structure in these types of games. I still feel like some of the balance is lazy. I still think the multi-player in this game is a big step back.

I don't really care anymore though. The art direction is incredible from the just horrific nightmare that is Caelid to staring down giant arrow-shooting golems in Limgrave in the face of a thunderstorm. The framing of events is spectacular, and I get to be the camera man. There is a ton of customization and build-crafting that can be done, a thousand different ways to overcome obstacles, and despite the irritation I have with some of the end-game bosses, I still look forward to running through the game and fighting everything, as I find something new each time. Sure, some of this transformation does stem from "mad because bad," but so much of it is a result of eschewing expectations.

I have managed to make some amazing memories in the Lands Between, and will continue to find more. I hereby change my disappointed 9/10 review to a 10/10. Please, cringe at me. I invite it - I know the Vow of the Indomitable.

A Play in Three Acts

ACT I

Setting: A Discord Server

Many People Over the Years: DC, you love Twin Peaks, you should play Alan Wake. It's inspired by Twin Peaks.

Me: Oh wow, sounds cool. I'll check it out. I liked Control but it didn't blow me away.

Many People: Just be aware that the gameplay/combat sucks.

Me: I don't care! How bad can it be? I love Twin Peaks! It has a diner in the opening segment! It's about a writer! How bad can it be?

ACT II

Setting: The First Several Hours of Alan Wake: Remastered

Me: Oh wow, I'm pretty sure my grandma can sprint longer than this guy. How did they go from Max Payne to this? Like...I know he's a writer but still..

Me: Doesn't matter! Hallucinations, fake Mrs. Tremond, a book mystery, a wife mystery! This is great! I'll just turn the game down to easy so I can get through the bad parts faster!

ACT III

Setting: Despair. A lone chair on stage while a disheveled man forces himself through a video game out of spite.

Me, quietly sobbing to my controller: please...make it stop. I never want to see a flashlight ever again.

The lights dim and go out leaving the stage in blackness.

Me, a low, trembling whisper: How did they go from Max Payne to this?

T H E E N D

Nice little surprise as a big Mega Man fan. I kept seeing people say this reminds them of Mega Man X, but I think it actually feels more like the Zero games in terms of gameplay and vibes. The music and gameplay (once you start unlocking stuff) are the highlights, but everything else starts to feel generic after a while. The levels aren't nearly as good as the games from which it draws inspiration, and it doesn't separate itself with a unique identity enough in regards to art design or the world itself. Still a fun time though, and a treat if you don't care about anything but gameplay.