I did not grow up with Mario 64. I started playing through it over and over again when I was 14/15 in 2016, in a time where a plethora of more modern 3D platformers existed.

Yet still, I kept coming back to Mario 64, because there is an unmatched excellence in it that no other game I know pulls off. Everything feels so satisfying and intentional. This is even more impressive when you consider that Mario 64 basically pioneered 3D platformers. To think that Nintendo stuck the landing so effortlessly in their first try when nobody else had done it yet is mind blowing.

Even after all of my playthroughs, I have a total blast whenever I play through Mario 64. The controls, the leveldesign and the soundtruck just do it for me. Moving around is simply... fun. The importance of making sure that controlling your character is as intrinsically fun as possible is something that Nintendo understood very early on.

I am truly grateful for all of the memories this game gave me.

After close to 20 years of not getting it, Croteam finally gets it. Serious Sam 4 is a fast-paced and obnoxiously over-the-top shooter that doesn't overstay its welcome and keeps the pace moving forward with constant encounters and difficulty. It retains the spirit, vibrancy and fast-pace of the original, loses some of the old-school charm, but still modernizes elements enough where it gains something new. It knows what it is and it does it well. With the exception, of course, that Croteam forgot to bring back the technical quality from the previous games which means that this game, more than any of the others, has a strong accent of Eurojank.