The ending of a story can color everything that came before, for better or worse. This is something I have to keep reminding myself as I have tried to think about how I would review God of War Ragnarok, because I felt, as many have, that the game felt more and more rushed as the titular finale came closer and closer. But ultimately, thinking back on the moments of the journey, I can't let my judgement be too clouded, because there was so much I loved (and honestly, the ending wasn't even bad, it just didn't live up to what came before).

In many ways, the simplest way to assess Ragnarok is that it is the inverse of its predecessor– while God of War had a great story and lacking mechanics, Ragnarok has great mechanics and a lacking story– but that is a little too reductive of both games.

It is true that most of my gripes from the last game have been addressed, mechanically speaking. The UX is way better, the enemey variety and complexity is there and the worlds are bigger.

Unfortunately, for me, some of that expansion is where things start to suffer. I think there's a pretty solid analogue in the new DOOM games- after the success of the reboot, the studios went hogwild in enhancing the sequel, resulting in some amazing mechanics, but also in the loss of the special, understated, 'will-this-even-work' barebones storytelling that made them hits.

There's an argument that we need more characters than the few we had in 2018– heck, the whole world may be ending, so we need to see who else is affected by it, right? Kratos and Atreus fixed their relationship, so we need to see them go beyond that towards their friends and community, right?

It all makes sense on paper, and the performances and writing are solid, but often I missed the quiet journey from before.

I still think the game is amazing, and I wish I could articulate what I would even want specifically, but there's just something here that isn't leaving me feeling whole. Maybe in the postgame, or when I eventually replay it down the road, I will figure it out. In the meantime, I still highly recommend it.

I always wanted to replay this, and with Ragnarok coming out, I figured I would be a patient gamer and do a replay to tide me over, including all of the valkyries and things I never bothered with when I played it at launch.

But it turned out that the pull of Ragnarok was too strong, and I picked that up without having had a chance to write a review for this one. Now I need to review both, and I feel like I have to make a concerted effort to not muddle the two. Suffice it to say that they're both good games with flaws, for very different reasons.

When I first played God of War, I don't think I noticed the lack of enemy variety, but then again, I don't think I did any side quests. This time, I did almost everything, and it was very apparent that the devs probably could have used more time.

In 2018 I also had barely played any Souls games, other than a little of Bloodborne. I'm still not the biggest Souls guy, but having played more of the clear inspirations for this (and Star Wars Fallen Order, similarly) it's a lot more obvious when a game tries to incorporate those award-winning systems, but only to a partial measure.

It's also been said plenty of times, but the menus are pretty awful to navigate and it feels like there are a few upgrade systems too many.

All of that being said, God of War is still amazing, especially as someone who grew up as an angsty teen playing the Greek games who now is a father with a little boy of his own. The story is quiet and the writing trusts your intelligence, and apart from a pretty rapid Atreus-is-now-a-jerk segement, all of the pacing and character development flows in the right ways.

I never got really into the Arkham games, but I did play this one through a number of years ago. This summer, following a little wave of rekindled personal batmania after The Batman, I bought the Return to Arkham trilogy for a steal. I could have skipped this one, but I decided to play it again, and I'm glad I did!

What else can be said about the game that infamously 'really makes you feel like you're batman?' The game has aged pretty well, although the crowd combat isn't as novel as it once was, and I have never been the biggest fan of the TwIsTeD character design, although I do like the general environmental art direction. This version of Arkham Asylum is pretty distinct and memorable.

The island feels intimate enough that I actually ended up going back just before the end for all of the riddler stuff, which I didn't think I was going to bother with, and I felt like they were scattered in a way that hit a pretty good balance between giving a little extra something and being frustrating or redundant (helps when you have the maps).

I wish that there had been more of the stealthy takedown sections, because those really shine. And while the crowd combat still plays well, it's clear the devs knew it would impress for the time, because thug fights play into a good number of the boss fights rather than just giving bosses their own distinct moves.

Anyway, I've already said more than I expected to. It's a solid game from a game-ier era of games, for better or worse. Eager to see how the sequels play.

Man, I was really expecting to like this more. I had heard it was pretty legendary, and it's been a gap in my classic LucasArts experience. The art direction is great, the story is fine, but the design is unfortunately very obtuse.

I can deal with the shortcomings and quirks of the genre in general, but when you add in some other clunky mini games and some deaths with lots of repeated guesswork before them, it's pretty hard to look past. Thankfully the entire thing was surprisingly short.

In terms of the remaster, I mostly preferred the classic visuals, but I did switch to take advantage of the UI a fair amount.

Overall, not a waste of time, but a let down compared to its reputation.

Whew. Beautiful and horrendous, visceral and emotionally challenging.

Story is great but a little hampered by some odd pacing, and there might have been a few too many ideas here for just one game. Feels like The Last of Us 2.5 to its detriment.

The gameplay is really engaging and fun and tense but starts to drag. Can't remember if the first one felt like this, but I do know the Uncharted games have similar shortcomings in that area.

Still love Naughty Dog, among the best in the biz for this type of game!

Can't believe I missed this when it came out, or that it took me this long to get around to it, collectathon platformers are really my formational genre, so it's sort of nice to have an unplayed one in the back pocket after all of these years. Whenever I get a chance to go back, it's a nice change of pace from the modern games I play, despite the rough edges and tedious design choices that have since been smoothed out in the larger medium.

I had always heard good things about Psychonauts, but I think it surpassed my expectations. The controls still feel good, the stylization helps (most) of the graphics age pretty well, the writing is solid, the acting is above par, and the bigger concepts, while anything but subtle to me in my 30s, are remarkable for a game aimed at kids, especially compared to the genre at the time.

Happy that a sequel got made, was well received, and that I don't have to wait 15 years for it (although I think I might go take a layover at Brutal Legend to break it up a bit).

This is the first Mario game I've ever completed except for the GBC Super Mario Bros Deluxe and the GB Mario Land 2 (and the NES Super Mario Bros 3 on an emulator, with save state spamming, if you can count that).

I've tried to get into a variety of other Mario games, and they generally don't hold my attention long enough to finish. I really respect the craft and the design of the whole thing, but they seldom really click in a meaningful way. After sticking with Super MArio Odyssey, I am thinking that that may just be an expectation problem on my end. Of course I've always known there's minimal story to the main platforming entries, but I don't know that I ever internalized that as a core expectation.

These are games for games' sake, short bursts of digestible challenge in varying degrees, sometimes puzzling but rarely frustrating. Returning to SMO after a 9 month hiatus (I first started playing the game in the hospital waiting for my son to be born, then put it aside as life got busy), I forgot just how enjoyable the experience of exploring and hunting down moons could be. I finished the main game, and I am fully energized to continue collecting until I feel satisfied. I doubt I will ever do everything, but that's okay. I'd much rather pick this up for 20 minutes if I was bored than a lot of other things.

My final note is that I'm also 31 years old, and really impresses me that Nintendo has been able to maintain this series in such a childlike way while offering so many different things to so many different ages of player.

Maybe if I play more 3D Mario games my review will change, but SMO has given me a lot of casual enjoyment that I feel I'm missing sometimes in a world of short thoughtful indies and big story games.

There's a lot to like about Pitfall, but most of its appeal has less to do with its design and more to do with the fact that its aesthetics look more modern than most 2600 games. The animations are smooth, the sprites are clear, the setting is iconic.

I try to rate games (and movies, shameless letterboxd plug) contextually, so I can't be too mad at Pitfall's very era-appropriate design. However, I would say that Adventure proved 3 years before this that adventure games could have more interesting objectives. But Adventure also looks like barf compared to Pitfall, so it was all trade-offs I guess. If anyone has any solid 2600 games that really pushed boundaries, let me know.

To sum up my experience with Pitfall: after fiddling around, dying, and resetting for 10 minutes, I finally found my first piece of treasure, and then was immediately swallowed up by a surprise pit and lost my last life. C'est la vie!

I've been playing through all of the Humongous adventures to fill in some blind spots I have in the studio's body of work, and I was wondering when the older games would start to feel like they fit that specific H.E. feeling. Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon definitely feels like the first!

This game has a lot more to do than the first Putt-Putt or Fatty Bear, and the 'go on an adventure & complete a task list' gameplay feels fully cooked. While the previous two games had some of the DNA of the formula, the blueprint of the rocket parts and the setting really feel like the later H.E. that I grew up with in Pajama Sam and Freddi Fish.

More environments, more character, more charm, and more to do! Happy to see how quickly H.E. figured themselves out. Bless Ron Gilbert.

Out of all of the Humongous Entertainment franchises, Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise is the only game that exists alone with no sequel. Despite continuing to use Fatty Bear in promotional material, Humongous never felt the need to revive the character, and it isn't hard to see why.

The characters, setting, and gameplay here just don't have the unique spark of the other H.E. titles, and if that wasn't enough, the game has a weirdly haunting tone?

Set at night, a girl's dead-eyed teddy bear springs to life, enlarges (although his size seems to fluctuate room to room) and sets out to sneak around the house, raiding pantries in hopes of making his owner, Kayla, a birthday cake. The normally cute H.E. googie stylings take on the mood of a Caligari set while Fatty rummages around.

At one point, he inadvertently frees a birthday puppy from a ribboned box, tied up with no air holes and left alone on the kitchen floor. As a solution, he lures the dog back into the same box with a bone found in the fridge and leaves it as it was found. Finally, when morning comes, Kayla doesn't even open the box- her parents just let the dog into her room.

Why am I being so harsh on a game designed for toddlers? Because I know H.E. can do better! See my review for Putt-Putt Joins the Parade, released just 6 months earlier, for more.

I grew up loving Humongous games in the mid to late 90s, but I always felt wary about playing the oldest titles in their catalog. From the screenshots I saw, Putt-Putt had a bizarre appearance and the games seemed simplistic.

Upon completing their first outing, I can now say that's only partially true. There is a lot more groundwork laid here for their signature charm than I expected!

I finished nearly everything this game had to offer in a scant 35 minutes, but I'm a 30 year old man- I easily can see young kids spending hours fiddling around with the minigames in the toy store, or doing extra chores to try new paint colors.

There isn't a lot here, and it certainly wasn't as fully baked as the latter entries, but it was a perfectly pleasant experience.