BombsOverBaghdad
2022
The best driving and visuals the Gran Turismo franchise has ever seen ruined by one of the most despicable monetization models I’ve ever seen in in a video game.
2014
It’s crazy how an hour-long teaser for a cancelled game is the single most influential horror game of the past decade.
No genre has suffered more within the past two generations of gaming than racing games. Need for Speed is a shell of its former self. Burnout is dead. Namco seems to have forgotten Ridge Racer, and Sony has abandoned MotorStorm and seems hellbent on ruining Gran Turismo. Sure, there’s other racing games out there like Forza, Project Cars, and The Crew, but they all feel so utterly inessential, coming and going without much fanfare except from the most hardcore of racing game fans.
Need for Speed: Unbound is fine. It’s better than Payback and Heat, but that’s the faintest praise I could possibly offer it. I just can’t get excited by it because Need for Speed used to be better than just fine. It used to be that a Need for Speed game would come out and it would be one of the best games of the year. Now a new Need for Speed game comes out and it feels like hardly anyone cares.
Need for Speed: Unbound is fine. It’s better than Payback and Heat, but that’s the faintest praise I could possibly offer it. I just can’t get excited by it because Need for Speed used to be better than just fine. It used to be that a Need for Speed game would come out and it would be one of the best games of the year. Now a new Need for Speed game comes out and it feels like hardly anyone cares.
Nothing special, but a surprisingly decent FPS. Doesn’t have a lot of content but can’t really expect much from a free advergame.
2012
One of GameFreak’s few titles that involves neither pockets nor the monsters therein, Harmoknight is a game that has a lot of potential but doesn’t quite reach it. More than anything else, a rhythm game lives and dies based on how good its music is, it’s the reason why Parappa the Rapper is so universally beloved despite the fact it’s damn near unplayable. Harmoknight’s music is… fine. There’s nothing outright bad here but nothing the least bit memorable either. The only real standouts are, of course, the unlockable Pokémon tracks but that’s a given. Harmoknight’s biggest flaw is, in my opinion, the greatest sin any entertain media can possibly commit: it’s really boring. I don’t regret my time playing Harmoknight, but it’s the same way I don’t regret eating a saltine cracker.
2013
Another one of GameFreak’s games that gets overlooked because it doesn’t involve monsters of the pocket variety, Pocket Card Jockey is proof that the simplest mechanics often make the best games. An addictive combo of solitaire and horse racing with charm spilling out of its every pixel, PCJ is one of the few games I would classify as perfect. Not because it’s flawless, but because I don’t know what more you could want out of it.
I genuinely believe the world would be a better place if everyone owned a Wii U
This game isn’t very good, every single criticism people have of the core gameplay loop (and boy is it a loop) is spot on. I primarily want to highlight, though, how this is game is being lambasted by some of the most baby-brained people on the planet. Apparently to Batman Arkham fans, their idea of a satisfying and compelling narrative is one where Batman beats all the bad guys super easily all by himself and then everyone claps.
2009
A really basic Metroidvania that doesn’t come close to the best either Metroid or Castlevania have to offer and has the most Default Video Game Man main character I’ve ever seen, but a good time overall.
This might be nostalgia talking, as this was the very first GameCube game I ever played 20 Christmases ago, but I genuinely don’t understand why critics at the time slammed this game so hard. It’s fine. It’s not much more than fine, and I can’t genuinely recommend playing it, but it’s not nearly as bad as the reviews would lead you to believe. As far as licensed games go it gets far, far worse than this.
2013
Back in high school I would put on a podcast (shout out Super Best Friends and Giant Bomb/Beastcast) and just play this game for hours. One of those games I could play for a thousand years straight and not get bored.
2002
One of the first games I got with my GameCube many Christmases ago and also the one that made realize that video games could be bad.
2004
Fuck Nicalis
All my homies hate Nicalis
All my homies hate Nicalis
2004
I congratulate the video game industry on the immense amounts of courage it must’ve taken to continue making games after Katamari Damacy dropped. Knowing that they’ll never be able to match, let alone surpass, this masterpiece but continuing to push forward is a level of perseverance that I admire.
Another fun Ratchet & Clank adventure, with no ambition beyond being just another Ratchet & Clank adventure. Into the Nexus doesn’t stack up to the series’ best entries and doesn’t do much to stand out either, which explains why it came and went with little fanfare. The game’s most unique feature is the puzzle sections in the titular Nexus (it’s actually called the Nether, despite being called ‘Into the Nexus’ the word ‘Nexus’ is never said once in the entire game), which take boatloads of inspiration from VVVVVV and are a lot of fun but there are too few of them. In fact there’s too little of Into the Nexus. The whole game feels rushed, not in a ‘buggy and unfinished’ kind of way but in a ‘moves too quickly for its own good’ way. Into the Nexus ends just as soon as it begins, by the time it really enters its groove it’s reaching its conclusion. Had the game been longer it probably would’ve left a bigger impression on me, but as it stands it kinda went through one ear and out the other. A fun but disappointing end to the Future Saga.