Thanks to some sub-par Mario spin-offs on the 3DS such as Mario Tennis Open and Mario Party Island Tour, I was very dismissive of Mario Golf: World Tour when I initially played it. Years later I'd give this game another shot after hearing claims that it was a actually a good game, and I gotta agree. The core gameplay reminds me of the series' peak Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour while the challenge mode alone is a phenomenal inclusion (didn't care for the Castle Club). World Tour helps in solidifying Mario Golf as my favorite Mario sports spin-off.

My first impressions with this game were abhorrent. There was absolutely nothing to do in this wasteland of a game. Since then Bethesda has updated it a ton, and with the hype of the Fallout TV show, I figured I'd dive in and give it another go. I mean yeah, there is certainly much more to do. I wouldn't say I absolutely hate the game now, but the content that was added isn't all that engaging. Most of it feels like busy work. Really, it feels like a watered down Fallout 4 with multiplayer slapped on top of it.

Let me preface by saying this is my first CRPG. That being said, in terms of story, characters, roleplaying, and player freedom, Baldur's Gate 3 is an incredible feat of game design. The combat however, I do not vibe with. Perhaps it's because translating D&D combat into a video game is not especially intuitive or perhaps it's my relative uninteresting in D&D. Most of the time it feels cumbersome, tedious, and if I can avoid it through dialogue, I will do that 99% of the time. Giving me a plethora of spells, attacks, and options in combat quickly becomes overwhelming as the game doesn't really explain anything to you as if it expects you to be an expert in D&D or to just experiment with everything, a truly impossible feat. Even on the easiest difficulty, my wife and I would constantly get frustrated as enemies would do things so abruptly, we'd have no time to even register why we were suddenly almost dead or what a particular debuff was doing to our character - do they expect us to check out the D&D wiki mid combat? It really is a shame. I imagine if the combat were more engaging for me, Baldur's Gate 3 could have been an all-timer.

Regardless of these frustrations (which led to many a save scum), playing through BG3 with my wife in split-screen co-op (a feature I'm thankful was implemented, otherwise I probably would've skipped out on it entirely) has been an enjoyable and memorable one.

"When I'm not Helldiving, I'm thinking about Helldiving."

In an era riddled with egregious live service games and dime a dozen multiplayer shooters, Helldivers 2 is a rarity that manages to do everything right.

The amount of freedom and agency given to the player during missions was a pleasant surprise and keeps some otherwise repetitive mission objectives fresh. Side objectives are a fun distraction and never feel like a waste of time given the rewards they offer, some of which being the game's premium currency. Speaking of which...

Not only does it feel and play fantastically (diving is so much fun), it's non-predatory and generous progression system that doesn't solely rely on a battle pass feels like a breath of fresh air in our current greedy gaming climate.

Little touches like reloading early causes you to throw the mag away losing all those unused bullets in the process or respawning giving you a fresh loadout forcing you to travel to your point of death to pick up any dropped resources and equipment you may have had add to the chaos as well as the immersion.

Tying the game's narrative to the player's and their performance gives a whole new meaning to "live-service game." The unpredictability of it all is exciting. It also gives a bit more weight to completing missions.

Yeah, Johto kinda sucks. On the one hand the lore and world are some of the most interesting in the entire series (especially in Heart Gold & Soul Silver where it becomes much more fully realized thanks to hardware advancements). On the other hand it has by far the WORST PACING in the entire franchise. Not only are the levels of wild Pokemon and trainers incredibly inconsistent, especially in the late game, but due to hardware limitations they had to make Johto incredibly small so they could fit the entirety of Kanto on the same cartridge. When I say the entirety of Kanto, it's more like a hollow husk of Kanto. Heart Gold & Soul Silver certainly made some improvements to Johto, but the terrible pacing is still present.

I also failed to mention the new Pokemon. On paper 100 new Pokemon is awesome! In practice you won't be able to get many of them until the post-game (Larvatar, which evolves into the region's pseudo-legendary Tyranitar can't be caught until the END of the post-game). Not to mention half the gym leaders don't even use the new Pokemon. The very first gym, a flying type user, has a team made up of, get this, Pidgey and Pidgeotto. You'd think the ghost type gym leader would at the very least incorporate the new ghost type Misdreavus on their team, right? Nope, best I can do is Ghastly, Haunter, and Gengar.

Small design decisions like this plague Johto and constantly make me scratch my head.

Buying this for $15 back when it launched on Wii U only to get essentially 4 brand new games as free updates is still the single greatest value I've experienced in gaming. Not to mention Shovel Knight was the game that introduced me to indie games, an interest of mine that wouldn't really hit it's stride (for me) until the Switch era.

The complete package will set you back $40 now, but that's still an absolute steal!

(PS: King of Cards is the best)

I can't help but reminisce over TF2's payload mode whenever I jump into a game of Power Shift (or the Bunny Bash event), and I mean that in the best way possible.

My initial time with this game has been a lot of fun. While Power Shift is my favorite mode not only for the reason I mentioned prior, but because it's gameplay lends itself to being more "solo queue friendly" than the game's primary modes: Quick Cash and Bank It. These two modes are unique to The Finals which see players fight over vaults of cash that must be cashed out. While these modes are refreshing in the grand scheme of multiplayer shooters available now, they require a fair amount of coordination to play effectively. Having the opportunity to squad up with some friends made these modes much more enjoyable because we were able to communicate and strategies accordingly.

The game's highlight however is it's destructible environments which often lead to a sense of emergent gameplay. Defending a vault while your team is trying to cash out and having to not only worry about defending windows, doors, and air ducts but also the ceiling, the floor, and the entire building ensures no two matches will ever play out the same.

Rarely does a multiplayer shooter grab my attention for very long. I have to be in the right mood for COD, Fortnite pulled me in for about month or two before I got bored, Apex failed to interest me at all, and The Finals? We'll see if it can keep me engaged, but I'm thoroughly enjoying my time with it a couple hours in.

Princess Peach Showtime is a fun exercise in delivering bite sized genre variety to it's players. Jumping from costume to costume as Peach keeps the experience feeling fresh as each one tackles distinct gameplay mechanics. Some of course are better than others (my favorites were Cowgirl and Ninja while I didn't care for Mermaid or Patisserie), but perhaps the game's greatest caveat is how shallow these experiences feel. Regardless of their lack of depth, each costume is still fun to explore, even the weaker ones. I wasn't expecting much when I first dove into this game, so I can say I was pleasantly surprised, even if it was just a little bit, by the gameplay variety alone. It really is "babies first hack-n-slash, stealth, rhythm, etc.. game", but hey, there's nothing wrong with that.

Still confused about the E10+ rating given the demographic I believe this game was aimed at.

Also, I am playing this game alongside Elden Ring which has made Peach become a sort of relaxing solace when the later becomes a bit overwhelming.

First Impressions: Online multiplayer is unplayable day one, but the singleplayer is as fun as I remember. These games have never looked so good either! Here's hoping they iron things out on the multiplayer front following such a rocky launch. Will update my rating based on those efforts.

Final Impressions: Look, I love the original Star Wars Battlefront games. If you're just trying to hop into Instant Action for a couple matches, play through the campaigns, or enjoy some classic local split screen multiplayer (a rarity nowadays), this collection might just be worth it, at least for us console players. It really is the most convenient way for me to enjoy what I love most about these classic games. As far as the online multiplayer, god, don't even bother. It's a disaster. I don't even bother, and you know what, for the reasons I listed prior, it doesn't bother me. I never really wanted to play these games online to begin with. But hey, if that was the main selling point for you, save your money. Hell, go buy both games individually on Steam. They're actually functional and it'll be cheaper too. For sake of fairness, regardless of my personal enjoyment of this title as a singleplayer experience, I gotta rate it with all of it's issues in mind. It's got the good, it's got the bad, and, dammit, does it have the ugly.

So, I'm only 14 hours in at the moment but I can confidently say, already, Elden Ring manages to capture a sense of freedom and scale no other game has since I first played Breath of the Wild back in 2017. An absolutely massive game with a seemingly endless amount of content just waiting to be discovered. Ah, and that's just it. Going into this game blind, exploring and just coming across things is a sensation I haven't felt since, again, I first played Breath of the Wild. I know I keep comparing it to Zelda, but the two games share a ton of similarities in their approach to open world game design. It's impossible to ignore especially if you've played one before the other and should be seen as a testament to how important these games are.

Some frustrating QOL issues such as not explaining basic gameplay mechanics clearly (e.g. I had to look up how to aim a crossbow) can be overlooked as they didn't detract from the experience in a substantial way. Yes, Elden Ring doesn't take it's players for granted. This of course can lead to some frustrating moments as mentioned prior, but in a gaming landscape filled with objective markers, meaningless padding, trivial dialogue, and other obstacles putting a damper on player expression, it's refreshing.

Player progression is another facet that shouldn't be overlooked. Coming across Gatefront Ruins at the beginning of the game and getting stomped by the Godrick Knight defending the area only to then come back a few hours later after leveling up and decimate every guard with ease was just one early example of the game's immensely satisfying sense of growth.

Elden Ring lives up to the hype tenfold and is an absolute triumph. Writing this is only getting me more excited to dive back in and see what else I can discover within the Lands Between!

The best Pac-Man title to date, period. Now I know what some of you are thinking. Yes, Pac-Man World 2 is a classic 3D platformer in it's own right successfully transporting the eponymous hero into a completely new genre (more so than it's predecessor), but Pac-Man is about navigating mazes while munching on pellets and chomping on ghosts. Adventures In Time is the final evolution of this classic Pac-Man gameplay loop with creative level design: slopes, obstacles, multiple stories, zero gravity, and a plethora of different maze shapes and biomes. Traditional Pac-Man peaked here.

More inspired, fleshed out, and varied than Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness: a game I find comparable in it's presentation and approach to the character.

A lot of my issues with Resident Evil remake are present here and are, in many ways, worse. Inventory management is atrocious (perhaps the worse I've ever experienced in any video game), backtracking is tedious especially when paired with the overtly cryptic nature of the gameplay, puzzle design is unsatisfying, and the fixed camera angles, oh I'm so glad we as a society have moved passed such an archaic feature. Regardless of my many qualms, I'm consistently drawn back to this game (maybe it's my love for Rebecca Chambers). Few game series are as captivating to me as Resident Evil and Zero is no exception. Perhaps it was the stellar introduction on the train or the mere idea that this game could be so much better with some quality of life adjustments. To see this game remade in the style of RE2 Remake would be a dream come true. Anyway, I find old Resident Evil to be far too obtuse to find fully engaging. If the game wasn't constantly fighting against me, maybe I'd actually finish it one day.