Quintessential 6/10 DLC, very proto-Far Harbor - its map is generally more remarkable than the latter but its writing really isn't. Gives you tons of great possible story threads to yank on but does virtually nothing with them - a centuries-long feud between two unkillable assholes strewn strictly out of spite and a cult who seeks to reconcile with their own collective trauma by literally lobotomizing themself into what they perceive as blessed ignorance chief amongst them... both totally shrugged off! For shame!! Still offers up a fun challenge but if you thought Mothership Zeta ran like shit.. hoo boy, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Games I Like That Everybody Else Dislikes

And the "Protagonist Who Needs to Shut the Fuck Up" Award goes to... But I digress, even in spite of its occasional faults you can consider me charmed. A nifty, cute little side-scroller with snappy controls and a very fair challenge (mostly) - the climb-on-walls mechanic in particular is inventive, responsive (again... mostly), and incredibly satisfying to use. Granted you've still got the occasional wonky hit box, bullshit death, and a pretty crummy first boss, and I still think the 3DO port is superior - I mean what the fuck is up with the terrible password system in this version? Saving is totally non-existent, and when you do get a password it doesn't actually even retain all of your hard-earned progress up to that point. Plus the comedy runs at about a 1:9 funny-to-not-funny ratio and there's no way to exit a level from the menu. Still, this is really fun to play and is well designed overall - definitely better than your Bubsies, for instance. My hands were sweating during that final boss, the special stages are capital T terrible though.

Perfectly adequate! Finding the workbenches is one of the most annoying missions in the entire game and the story feels half-finished, but at the same time you've got a massive vault to call your own and build in - which is a key element for a game like Fallout 4. New assets from the DLC will sometimes glitch out and despawn, but there are still ample resources here to justify a full expansion pack. Very middle-tier DLC overall but I still can confidently call it neat, especially at only $1.99.

PS5 version

Honestly as good as the base game in pick-up-absolutely-everything and explore-each-possible-nook-and-cranny gameplay. Granted there are only four levels here, but they're rock-solid levels that feel like an old school expansion in a complimentary respect. Nothing mind-blowing, but still a worthwhile time. And once again I have to give MASSIVE props to this awesome trophy list - as an achievement hunter (yeah yeah, I know) one of my biggest gripes with modern game DLCs are their paltry achievement lists no matter how massive the actual games are. 32 motherfuckin' trophies with loads of variety between them all for four levels here - but Dead Island 2 can't even scrounge up more than FIVE apiece for Haus and SoLA??

Complete meme - the Devil May Cry 2 of the SpongeBob game series. The bones of one of the greatest 3D Platformer Collectathons ever made dressed in such an unavoidable lack of polish that it's hard (dare I say impossible?) not to laugh - making you repeat the vehicle sections four fucking times to get tokens you could easily achieve in one go to pad out a product of rushed deadlines to the point where mechanics we've seen implemented so well before become grotesque, twisted, and unrecognizable. Call it Stockholm Squarepants Syndrome. I think the term 'ironic enjoyment' has lost all its meaning these days, but just play one of those goddamn Spongeball stages and tell me you don't get it too. Ridiculous and deserves to be laughed at.

Cute, bright, weird, and fast - like any good Katamari game should be. I still think We Love Katamari smokes Damacy any day of the week, but fully understand why this one got the first reroll given that it released prior (and it's still a damn fine game in its own right). Like the best remasters, does very little to change the original gameplay experience - essentially just adds a fresh coat of paint and calls it a day. You can't just deny that music either, good shit! The controls being purposefully obtuse makes it all the better imo, fits the funky tone like a glove and otherwise this would be way too easy. All that being said, I feel similarly towards this game as I do to - say - a Splatoon, where I can play it for a couple hours at a time and be totally invested but anything more than that starts to drag. And like others have said, this does get super repetitive on or around the halfway point. But man, when it's on... this gimmick is satisfying.

On the one hand I'm sort of glad we as a society have progressed passed the 'Walking Simulator' era of gaming where you slowly gawk at graphics that seldom age well enough to warrant an expiration date over a year or two with very little actual gameplay involved. But on the other, apart from maybe The Witness this is definitely one of the better ones. Like most of these, the story does most of the heavy-lifting for you - with almost insultingly easy 'crime solving' elements tacked in there to trick you into thinking this is a game and not an interactive movie. But as that interactive movie - it really ain't bad. There's this impending emotional horror in progressing through such quaint, stunningly pretty nature environments to follow a story that progressively becomes more and more doused with pure dread. The ending is a bit of a cop-out but otherwise it's full of really affecting setpieces of poignancy that seldom left me with dry eyes. Not sure how much longer this can still be played with fresh eyes and remain as good as it is now, but I dig it.

Sluggish flight sequences and hot ass platforming that feels like your character is 1,000 pounds while your analog sticks are burning out. I appreciate that this isn't all "edgy macho gritlord" like the previous few games were, but it also totally removes the bouncy fluidity which made these so fun to play in the first place. Flying around in the little contained overworld sections is actually kind of sick, art design for them is also occasionally rad - The Brink and Far Drop and all that are incredible ideas - but I'm sick of pretending that games which were impressive for their hardware are still impressive when ported to more powerful consoles. They aren't. This, God of War: Ghost of Sparta, Resident Evil: Revelations - like sorry, don't want to play them! Not awful, but pointless and shoddy nonetheless. A bore.

Not so much a 'far cry' from the likes of Haus - more like a diet version of it, clearly affected by rushed writing which begs to be further explored even as it delivers some nice quality-of-life improvements to the base game. Still though... no one does this shit like Dead Island - almost completely optimized unpretentious zombie-shredding gameplay. Art design is still totally off-the-chain, and the ripper + sawblade launcher are the most devilishly fun video game weapons since The Heist & the Hazardous' Pain & Gain gun. Its potshots on influencer dullard festivals a la Fyre Fest, performative corpo advocacy, and the spinelessness inherent to slacktivism - not entirely soft targets today - are scattershot but relatively effective. Goddamn I wish there were like 100 more of these - I'm never not down for another blood-soaked Dead Island turret on surrendering to your most basic elemental turpitude to become the malevolent, super awesome beast you truly are.

Games I Dislike That Everybody Else Likes

An outstanding, colorful, creative retooling of one of the greatest video games ever made.. rendered fully unplayable by maybe the worst control scheme in video game history - they give you three options for them but they all suck so hard. Getting the first star on the Chain Chomp's stake in Bob-omb Battlefield should not be such an impenetrable affair. It seems like you are constantly fighting against the game, trying to break/glitch it just to do basic movement. This feels like QWOP. Anyway, I'm sure this is terrific if you could actually do anything in it and moving your character didn't feel like swinging around a heavy rock on a dental floss string with your teeth.

A few things holding this back from true greatness, but still remains a pretty exceptional kart racer. It's a shame that its drift is so finnicky for precise play, because mechanically the thing is close to perfection - beyond satisfying to pop off perfect turbo boosts in quick succession, and it works essentially as intended for casual racing. But in a game that emphasizes its own (fair and richly rewarding) difficulty, reliable inputs are crucial - which are hindered doubly so due to this also having maybe the world's most delayed jump that will fail you at least 50% of the time. The tracks are just phenomenal though, catered sharply to the game's physics/mechanics - the only two tracks in the entire roster that are anything less than amazing are Cortex Castle and Oxide Station (can't believe there's so much love for those two considering how slapdash and awkward they feel to play). Their art style, too, is pristine. Plus, as is the case with the rest of Crash's recent fare, this feels like a God's honest love letter to the franchise. Though the crystal challenges are the same type of horrible, not fun extra content as - say - the Challenge of the Gods in the early God of War games. Also microtransactions.

Not simulation-esque enough to be the Skate clone it wants to be, and not over-the-top arcadey enough to be a Tony Hawk game - so it rests in this awkward purgatory of "yeah, it exists I guess". Runs like molasses on the PS3 and is deeply, deeply ugly to look at (like most of these early seventh-generation games the color is just thoroughly sucked clean out of it and character models look like infected meat) but otherwise it's too inoffensive to be anything other than 'mediocre'. The mechanics are fine, the soundtrack is fine (MVPs "The Queen and I", "I Wanna Live", "Devotion ['92]", and "Club Foot"), it's fine. The open world never feels as entertaining, lush, or varied as Tony Hawk's American Wasteland and most of the different areas blend into the background due to their overall dullness. The random-ass difficulty spike is bizarre, and the way it implements Classic Mode in this is truly horrible. But... it plays. The spot challenges are the best new addition, providing hours of content on just a couple curbs. I don't hate it but I also see 100% why the series started to tank after this.

While thoroughly antiquated by Tomb Raider: Anniversary, I think this should be looked at as its own unique, damn good experience. Firstly, this is one of the best trophy lists I've ever had the pleasure of playing through - I mean the thing is just STACKED - a wonderful balance of tough-as-nails, funny, grindy, demanding, and honest to God fun. Second, I've seen many decry this for its commitment to the original gameplay style - which I understand if you aren't used to - but not only am I glad they didn't just retread Anniversary again (amazing as that style was), I'm also shocked at how well it actually holds up for a 1996 game?? Yeah there's jank (the bonking off of walls is one of the worst features ever implemented into a video game) but with this sort of thing you know what you're getting into - honestly it really isn't that bad when you aren't whiffing random jumps, in fact I find it to be rather satisfying when you get the hang of it. Easy to see why this franchise blew up considering it managed to get a lot of its charm right on the first go - the relaxing atmosphere, smart puzzles, globetrotting locales, legendary music, a touch of creepiness, and that in-the-zone feeling of you vs. the environment all make this such an idiosyncratic product (like the others). Gets the brain juices flowing, I dig it. Way better than Tomb Raider: Underworld. Atlantis' art design here is just superb.