THUG 2 is a bit of a polarizing one. Gameplay wise, I feel like this was the peak of TH games, everything feels smoother than ever and very easy to play as far as skating is concerned. The biggest issue that it got a little too whacky for its own good. Jackass was pretty popular at the time which led to Bam Margera playing a bigger role than he had in any past games, with the game basically becoming 3/4 skateboarding and 1/4 Jackass. While THUG wasn't a masterpiece in storytelling, it was competent. THUG 2 isn't. The story's unfunny, a lot of the humor was unfunny then and still is now. Most levels have a special character that uses an awkward form of transport over a skateboard (like a mechanical bull, a tricycle, a go-kart, etc.), none of them are especially fun to use. There's a bizarre emphasis on graffiti as well with each level having two graffiti related goals each. The levels are all pretty solid, interesting enough to skate around in and a good enough size that it feels like there's room for exploration without any wasted space. Overall, it's great as far as gameplay is concerned by the writing leaves a lot to be desired.

Borderlands 1 is still pretty solid to this day, it's a competent shooter and loot is fun enough to keep you grinding it out without too much issue. The story itself is fine though it's incredibly scarce, outside of a few cutscenes and small bits of dialogue, you don't really get much of it. The characters are also fairly lacking with none of them really having characterization outside of Tannis, who really only gets it due to her ECHO Log side quests. The biggest issue I faced solo was that, early on, it's fairly easy to get underleveled and find yourself getting one-shotted by enemies with only a single level difference which can be grating, though by the time you reach the central hub, that becomes a lot less of an issue. The gritty atmosphere is very well done, and while lacking as mentioned, the story is fairly grounded (especially compared to what's to come) which makes it serve well enough as a backdrop for the more engaging gameplay side of things. Overall, this isn't really a game you'd play for any story or character interest, but purely for the looter-shooter fun of it.

This is where I would talk about the DLCs as well. I started the Zombie Island DLC, but between one of the new enemies (defiler) popping up frequently and having an attack that slows you to a crawl for several seconds (literally), and then a section where you do nothing but fight enemies for 3 minutes straight (literally), and a crash causing me to have to redo said 3 minute fight, I lost all interest and moved on to BL2. Maybe I'll revisit and update, maybe not.

Disco Elysium is the kind of game where any explanation or review doesn't really do it justice. All the reading may make it an acquired taste, but it's certainly an experience to behold. It was the first game in a while where I finished it, and then was immediately ready to jump into a second playthrough just to go about the whole thing in an entirely different way. It goes without saying that the writing is on another level, all of the characters are unique and stick out in their own ways, the music is great, the atmosphere is great, and there's entertaining options at every nook and cranny for any kind of character build you choose. Phenomenal game, highly recommend.

Max Payne 2 is basically more of the same of what you got with Max Payne, which isn't a bad thing. The gunplay's still just as fun as the first, though it does seem a little less forgiving with death coming just a bit faster. The story is less on the campy side this time around, though it still has its token bizarre moments which is great. The environmental storytelling that came in the form of interactions around the world in MP is replaced (mostly) by TVs around the world that all have a variety of different stories (including a parody of Max Payne) going on throughout the game which is pretty damn cool. There are two missions in particularly that were pretty grating, but forgivable because one was kind of badass (stress aside) and the other was pretty funny. My biggest gripe with MP2 is simply its length, having finished it in just 4.5 hours where MP was probably closer to the 6-7 hour length for me. Other than that, it's just as great as the first was, excellent follow up.

Extraction Point has both more combat and more scares than FEAR did which is pretty impressive considering it's about half the length. Fights are quite a bit bigger with more enemies and that's great because the gunplay is one of FEAR's strongest suits. The mechs that were pretty annoying in the base game seem more bearable now, either because they're squishier or just because strong weapons seem a bit more readily available. This is a great follow-up to FEAR but can also stand on its own even if you haven't followed the story.

I was going to give it a slightly higher rating but the ending was so bad that it singlehandedly took that last point away, FEAR 2 is a demonstration of how to do everything wrong in a sequel. The story sucks, the characters mostly suck (Stokes is okay, the most likable character doesn't get a personality until the literal end of the game), the gunplay is a massive downgrade, leaning is gone which is one of the stupidest decisions I've ever seen, there's very little tension at any point in the game (there was exactly one horror-esque scene that really drew me in, everything else was just cheap jump scares, blink and you miss it appearances, or entirely unengaging due to said lack of tension). They added a sprint for some reason and it's useless, you barely go faster and stamina drains so quickly that it's basically pointless to use, audio seems to be massively buggy (glass shattering makes no noise, explosions make no noise, gunfire's often silent which makes finding where you're being shot from a pain), at one point I encountered the "sound acceleration error" that quite literally removed all sound until it randomly fixed itself on a new launch. It suffers from the same poor choice that Perseus Mandate made with combat just being so constant it becomes a drag, enemies seem to die slower than ever, and enemies that made for tense encounters in the past are spammed so much that they might as well be generic fodder.

The only good things I can say about FEAR 2 are that the writing was actually kinda funny at times, and while the gunplay is significantly worse than it was in FEAR + expansions, it's still a bit above average even while feeling completely gimped. This is a very hard game to recommend, even as someone that likes FEAR enough to be forcing myself through parts that I'm thoroughly not enjoying.

This expansion is, for some reason, better than the base game of FEAR 2 was. The story is at least an interesting idea, even if it is only a vehicle to reintroduce someone, and some of the set pieces were pretty neat. I won't bother going into detail as a lot of my gripes are just an extension of FEAR 2, though I will say that if the expansion was a bit longer I'd be willing to knock the rating up a tad bit more. I finished it in exactly 46 minutes which makes it pretty hard to put stock in, definitely would've been more suitable as an epilogue than a separate expansion.

If I could use one word to describe Perseus Mandate, it would be "chore". The story is just kind of pointless, the pacing is stilted, the characters are mostly unlikable (Chen was the only one that got beyond indifference from me), the relatively subtle and eerie horror from previous entries is replaced with cheap jump scares, creatures/enemies that were scary and/or difficult now appear so frequently that they lose all novelty. Then, there's the combat. One of the series' strengths thus far is also just overplayed in this expansion. There's more fights than Extraction Point, with each fight having many more enemies, and the fights themselves seeming almost constant to the point where I was wishing for a dull moment just to break the tedium. The new weapons are mostly lackluster, the new enemies are just old ones but stronger (meaning bullet sponges and unreasonably fast), combat was already exhausting by Interval 3 (less than halfway through the expansion), not because of difficulty, but simply because of the frequency. By Interval 5 I had fully stopped caring what was going on and just kind of waltzed through what was left with no real regard just to simply wrap it up. While it has a few good moments, Perseus Mandate is mostly an underwhelming follow-up to FEAR and Extraction Point and kind of hard to recommend unless beating your head against a wall for 5 hours sounds appealing. The final stretch of the game is an absolute joke, it's a meatgrinder just for the sake of being one and individually breaking each of your own fingers with a hammer may unironically be a more fun experience.

I'm not quite sure what happened during development, but the magic that made FEAR enjoyable was lost somewhere along the way.

Some of the enemies are annoying (specifically turrets and mechs) and veer more towards being a nuisance than being difficult, and the lab aesthetic gets a bit old after a while. That aside, FEAR is fantastic. The gunplay feels great, bullet time adds a fun dynamic to combat, the ambiance and atmosphere are incredible, the horror is mostly subtle though there are some minor jump scares. The story isn't anything spectacularly but I found interesting enough to be engaged with it, and the environmental storytelling through phone calls was pretty neat. Overall great game that aged like wine, highly recommend it.

One of the more polarizing entries to the series, this is where THPS shifted to the mission focus with bigger levels and away from the timed runs from the earlier games. I was pretty fond of it but this was also my first THPS game so there's certainly a level of nostalgia. The gameplay itself is a bit more forgiving, with it seeming a little harder to bail and the addition of flat ground and switching grind tricks making huge combos more doable than previous games. There's more content than ever with more levels and more goals per levels, more customization content with cash, etc. Takes a bit longer to work through on account of that, but still good fun all the way through (except for Shipyard) and it features my personal favorite soundtrack (still can't get over the fact that Chad Muska produced an album with a bunch of old school hip-hop heavyweights).

Keeping with the trend of evolving in each entry, Underground is the first Tony Hawk game to introduce a story, and a surprisingly good one at that. It's nothing spectacular, but I think it's fair to say it's a lot more competent than anyone was expecting of a skateboarding game. The gameplay feels smoother than ever and is, once again, complemented with more new mechanics like getting off your board and wallplants, and some smaller things as well. It also added some more polarizing things like the vehicle missions that, even as a kid, felt out of place in the game, but there's only one per level so it isn't too bad. Complete with one of the most annoying video game villains of all time, THUG is still a very fun game to this day.

Phenomenal ending to the trilogy. Part of it is nostalgia from nearly two decades ago, but the game still holds up very well. The campaign is incredibly engaging the whole way through and keeps you playing at every turn. With the prior games already being great, everything now is just more polish on top of what already felt fantastic to begin with. As is typical with Halo thus far, the atmosphere's great (helped by the fantastic music much like the past two), the set pieces and level design are beautiful, the combat's tight and fun, it's an amazing experience overall and the type of game that leaves you itching for more.

At its core, Homefront is a pretty bang average military shooter. It does have a couple of neat scenes and sections going for it that can help break up some of the monotony of the mediocre shooting, and the concept is at least somewhat interesting relative to other military shooters. That said, a lot of small faults make it really annoying to play. Friendlies constantly body-block you which can make for aggravating deaths, often times you're railroaded into following behind your friendlies which means standing still for a minute while they catch up with you and open a door or climb a ladder, there's a couple of occasions where you'll suddenly get hit with an RPG out of the blue and have no real time to react, enemies will frequently have higher ground while you're put in an awful position, small things but they all compound to make for a bit of a chore gameplay wise. The characters are also all pretty annoying, there isn't a single one I was particularly fond of and they also repeat voice lines A LOT if you don't immediately do an objective. Not something I see myself playing again, but the gunplay is at least tolerable and the latter half of the game is a bit more fun than the former. If you're keen on military shooters, it might be up your alley, but if you're looking for an especially good tactical FPS game, I would look elsewhere.