Easily the most essential of any of the Quake expansions. Huge strides have been made visually, and the designs of the maps are pretty uniformly excellent (bar a couple of exceptions, but they're forgivable). It's also nice to see a developer trying to switch up the Quake format a bit, giving the player a level select hub like the original game with some extra freedom. The final boss sucks about as much as the main game's, so that's an unfortunate bruise on things. All in all, though, I'd happily jump back into this over any of the other expansions if I wanted to do a playthrough of Quake again.

Silent Hill's low point, Downpour haters be damned. Even though that entry has its fair share of problems, this fails in nearly every level as a SH game. The main character is a total non-entity, the tone is too blaring and garish to be scary, the gameplay is utter garbage, focusing on the cult makes no sense following the events of the earlier games - it's all subpar. The boss fights do manage to leave an impression, although that's more due to their gruesome designs than the actual fights themselves. Honestly, I hated this game, and I can't say that about any other entry in the franchise.

The humble beginnings of one of my favorite survival horror franchises. It's almost cute to see where things started, with mute Isaac fixing up a decrepit mining vessel as it falls apart and piecing together what happened to the ship while fighting off a singular set of sci-fi terrors. I love learning the story of the Ishimura and putting together a picture of the Dead Space universe through the various audio logs and environmental details you find in your journey. The plot leaves a bit to be desired, though, especially since most of it is just "Run to this part of the ship, Isaac. Now run to this part, otherwise we'll die. Great, now head here before it's too late." The character work is also a mixed bag - Hammond, Kendra, and Nicole are all underwritten to where they barely leave an impression, and Challus Mercer is comparatively over-written and blunt to the degree where I thought I'd unwittingly wandered into a Bioshock game for a bit. Still, reservations aside this is a fantastic game to play at Halloween, if only for the fantastic atmosphere and spooky vibes that come from the first few hours.

The last Bethesda game that leaves me at least mildly satisfied on a writing level. It may be an absolute mess in the back half - the Enclave is a giant question mark of motivation and characterization despite the admittedly neat President Eden reveal - but there's a degree of thematic focus other games from the studio lack. I'd even argue that the pre-DLC ending, while very obviously misguided, is a solid wrap-up for the story being told, having you follow the footsteps of your father in sacrificing yourself for the sake of the Wasteland at large.

I also dig the Capitol Wasteland as a setting, although I prefer to ignore the cognitive dissonance I have from the fact that the desolation of the landscape doesn't make much sense after nearly 2 centuries. It's a fun space to run around at your own leisure, full of unique locations and solid side-quests that rival the main quest in quality - the Republic of Bob, the battling superheroes, Tranquility Lane. It may be sloppier than I'd prefer and serve more as a technical foundation for New Vegas to capitalize on than a great game in its own right, I still get some enjoyment from popping it in every once in a while and appreciating Bethesda's last real scrape with greatness.

Weirder and harder than the original, sometimes to a fault. The open world driving is a welcome addition, especially with the amount of collectables and how cleverly the developer hid them in the environments. The boss races, though - some are reasonably difficult while others seem so poorly designed that it's hard to see how the player is intended to win at all. I'd love to see this franchise get resuscitated some day since there's the skeleton of a really unique racer here, although I sincerely doubt it'll ever happen.