A flawed game with a lot of needless friction, but also a sublime realization of some insane ambitions. If you’re willing to accept it for its faults, Shenmue is the pinnacle of janky perfection and an experience unto itself.

Gears 2 trims the fat and just delivers — all killer, no filler. You’ll have a hard time finding a co-op shooter with better pacing and set pieces, even today.

(Classic) World of Warcraft is something of an imbalanced trainwreck, but an absorbing and peerless MMORPG that’s been so resilient for a reason.

Takes classic Punch-Out!!’s action-puzzler antics to new heights with cartoony flair to spare. Probably the game I’ve replayed the most, and one of the first games I truly got hooked on as a kid.

On the surface, it’s a suitably reverent “boomer shooter” stuffed with referential jokes and design from the good old days. Under the hood, it’s a blistering action FPS and a buckshot of gruesome horror that stands out regardless of the nostalgia.

A fascinating masterwork of design, where every step toward your final goal is precarious and paved with tragedy. Uses frustration and friction to its advantage and challenges the player to overcome ever-worsening odds. It’s all in service of a really incredible narrative, too.

What started out as an ill-timed disaster has slowly morphed into a quality survival/craft with a gorgeous and gripping open world. I sympathize with any reservations, but the game has aged like wine (with constant development, anyway); it inherits all the high points of Fallout 4’s gunplay and crafting without the lows of its wimpy dialog.

A phenomenal, one-of-a-kind RPG. The narrative gets a little lost in the sauce, but has tremendous highs along the way. Tactile and unique party-based combat makes the 100-hour runtime fly by.

A grating, hyperactive narrative that indulges every obnoxious JRPG trope the first one managed to avoid. Soldier through it and you’re rewarded with a sublime combat system that improves on the first game’s, with enough variety to last you upwards of a thousand hours. I’m mixed on this one, but its strengths are undeniable.

Adequate and unremarkable. Better than Sonic’s messiest offerings, but a halfhearted follow-up to Mania’s kaleidoscopic creativity.

A sleek modernization with some new ideas that don’t feel like they crowd out Contra’s fundamental strengths. It’s a little pricey, but there’s no substitute for Contra at its best — and Galuga gets pretty close.

Pretty enchanting by DOS standards; as I’ve come to know them, anyway. The puzzles and combat are pretty gentle for the most part, which makes this a chill and atmospheric adventure.

The Atari 2600 games I’ve played were so far removed from the context of their original release that a Gen Z scrub like me could not salvage any appeal from them. Yars’ Revenge is a seriously cool exception; happy accident or not, the game boasts both tense action and a bizarre, kind of eerie atmosphere punctuated by the constant droning bass. It’s a seriously awesome arcade-style shooter with a style all its own.

Fun, if a little hollow. An easygoing run ‘n’ gun with some looting to spice up the shooting. Could have foregone some of the repetition.

I despise two-thirds of this game. The treasure hunt and mech stages are miserable, meandering, and have aged like milk spilled onto a summer sidewalk. But it’s all worth it for those Sonic/Shadow stages… breakneck platforming at its finest.