What I can only describe as relentlessly addicting. Judging by the admittedly cheap-looking presentation, it seems like this would be another bare-bones Facebook game formula that by no means should be anything more than forgettable shovelware - but instead this employs one of the most aggressive "Okay, just one more..." mentalities I've ever seen in a puzzle game (to the point where I swore it was my last try 12 consecutive times in a row and suddenly an hour of my day was missing). Just impossible to put down, constant fast-paced frenetic thinking where you can't put your guard down for even a second or it's all over in a flash. Even on easy mode some of the later stages offer a real challenge, and all three modes are excellent. Shame this got ripped off into obscurity because this has been one of my favorite puzzle games for years. Always a good pick-up-and-play blast.

Fantastic puzzler moment-to-moment that's phenomenal in its early stages before eventually becoming tiresome and janky well before its endpoint. Granted this does add new environmental hazards and powerups as the game goes deeper into its sizeable collection of levels (those invisible blocks suck hard, though) - and they do work towards the fun factor overall - but unlike superior puzzleball outings along the lines of Mojo! and Ballistic the way in which you acquire points just isn't open-ended enough to hold your attention as long, it's much more on the linear side by comparison. That being said - it's still got a pretty groovy, surreal vibe and is absolutely engaging when you're in the mood for it. Just didn't grab me as long as some others.

"Why does everyone hate me?"

Louisiana hothouse horror meets a black comedy snuff film - rightfully a revelation when it came out, if not the masterpiece I was led to believe. Enemy design still sucks as much as the last game, get used to fighting a bunch of generic unicolored blobs again! If I have to play one more zombie game that does the whole "there's the normal one, the fat one, and the fast one!" thing again I'm going to be pissed. Plus the F.E.A.R. knockoff stuff here is largely hit-or-miss for me, feeling contrived even at its best. But where this thing really sails imo are in its deeply haunting themes of lower-class suffering at the hands of governmental incompetence - being chewed up, spit out, and ultimately discarded entirely for serving your exact purpose to the best of your abilities. Its undertones of having your desires warped into physical mutations and violent outward expressions, having no choice but to see them as gifts in order to cope with simply existing are just brutal - even in spite of its poorly implemented "choose-your-own-ending" misfire placed insecurely onto the end of them (only one is canon anyway, and the other one sucks). Plot twist is amazing though, genuinely pulled the rug out from under me right in plain sight. It's got eye-popping graphics and memorable characters (Jack Baker > Mr. X). All its DLCs are necessary imo, and add a great deal to this. Even as a staunch Resident Evil 6 defender, this really was the course correction the series needed badly at this time - balances scares, laughs, texture, and action very well. Plus this new engine runs like a dream. I have my gripes but it's a damn fine game. "You're about to see something wonderful." Jesus Christ I hope not..

Top 50 Favorites: #46

Games I Like That Everybody Else Dislikes

Two major flaws right off the bat: first and foremost its boneheaded attempts at a grimdark tone which just end up being juvenile and insufferable. Second - and this is a less severe blemish but still necessary to mention - the combat system posed here is genius in theory but just isn't 100% here yet, you'll get caught in a move and fall off the edge to your death or accidentally select the wrong limb to attack right in the heat of battle fairly often. Thankfully its sequel would fully rectify both of those problems - but for now, with all that being said, in the end this is still a gorgeous and addicting Souls-like that has an identity all its own. When this game puts you in the zone, oh man... you're dialed in down to the very last nerve. Fighting some of these bosses and then finally tackling them is a religious experience. Its monochromatic world of nanites and technology gone loose is a feast for the eyes, too. Should get automatic bonus points for having an eighth-gen opening cinematic that isn't totally boring, and the Don Hackett storyline is one of gaming's most sorrowful shocks.

I've seen the conversation about which video game makes you feel the most like Superman to the point where it seems to have become a meme now - and if I were to answer that question I would say that I really don't think these games get enough credit there imo. Sure it's littered with glitches and unintentional softlocks probably due to being rushed at some point, as well as being loaded tight with tedious Ubisoft-esque collectibles/sidequests that don't really amount to much. But what they're doing with the DC license here is just incredible, it prominently lets you play as so many classic and underappreciated heroes/villains from the comics while allowing you to essentially do whatever you want as you bust apart everything that is or isn't nailed down from famous DC locations. It's something of a blast. They may be a bit of a one-trick pony but Lego games just have their own unique brand of fun and this is definitely one of the better ones.

Pretty wonderful until the home stretch of future stuff becomes fatiguing and highlights the PS1's particular 3D clunkiness (the roller coaster section specifically feels unplayable with this game's zero draw distance), I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just waiting for it to be over at a certain point. And the NA version's voice acting is some of the worst you'll ever hear. That being said, this is still a fun and extremely inventive gameplay loop - with controls that feel sophisticated for their time (maybe aside from the heavy, delayed R1 jump that never really feels good to use), vibey music, and poppy level design. Though as is the case with many PS1 re-releases, the trophy list should be way more in-depth than this. One series that actually needs a remaster/remake - a modern version of this would rip.

"Mom, can we get Skyrim?"
"No, we have Skyrim at home."
Skyrim at home:

Not for me, I can't go without mentioning the vast array of content crammed into this and all its DLCs - which could easily consume hundreds of hours without even getting to it all. And making a massively-scaled fantasy game within the world of Conan the Barbarian is a sound idea on paper. But also... no. Hard on the eyes as well as the hands - pretty violently butt-ugly graphics for 2018 and frumpish to control, you can also just use the in-game menus to cheat every trophy within 15 minutes. And then the worlds aren't even any fun to traverse if you do choose to play it legit. Can't see any way I would have a good time with this.

A bonafide classic - not only a quintessential encapsulation of Nintendo's GameCube-era magic, but just one hell of a charmer on its own. I feel this is underappreciated even by its supporters imo, the camera/level layout is incredibly unique and the combat is swift and satisfying - not to mention Charles Martinet's brilliant voice acting as Wario is always on full display here. If I have only one gripe it's that it could probably use a world or two more as it does run just a bit on the short side, but otherwise a tremendous 3D platform collect-a-thon.

Chintzy. As if being able to play as LEGO Amber Heard wasn't bad enough, they also widely cut down a pretty cool movie into two bare-bones levels (between both DLCs) you can complete in like 10 minutes combined - both of which featuring a noticeable lack of polish even compared to how glitchy and rudimentary the base game could get. You could (and imo should) buy Horizon Zero Dawn's The Frozen Wilds DLC for less than the price of this - just ONE of the six puny level add-ons to the game which all combined you can complete in an hour's time total, if that.

Novel little historical Telltale knockoff that starts engrossingly but goes nowhere fast. As someone who's kind of over these episodic, choice-driven narrative-focused games I actually don't mind at all that most of the choices don't really amount to anything here - but out of all the places you could have gone with this genuinely mysterious premise and enticing cast of morally questionable characters (most based on famous real life figures from the time)... THAT'S the conclusion you decided to settle on? Really? That? Bummer, because while there's noticeable hiccups along the way (some weird pitch issues, a few bugs, and the occasional clumsy voice performance) this actually adds a lot of new elements to what I consider (at least in 2018) a rather tired genre. It's clear that a lot of brains went into developing the lore and puzzles, as if it were tailor-made exclusively for history geeks - which I am not, though I still admit that's a nice niche to fill. And idk about you but the locales in this thing are graphical beasts, anything made out of marble is pretty much guaranteed to look divine on PS4. Play the first two or three episodes then just use your imagination, trust me it's better than where this anticlimactically ends up.

It's... another racing game - end review. One which happens to have mostly airless track design, occasionally wonky physics, and an aggressive Mario Kart 64 level of A.I. rubber-banding. The colors and graphics are generally pretty nice but the soundtrack sounds like it's made up entirely of fake songs (a few of them are kind of fine). Also gets docked major points for its bullshit EA pay-to-win tactics where better cars are locked behind paywalls. Fun for a few spurts, forgettable and tedious afterwards - like most of these.

Games I Dislike That Everybody Else Likes

An aesthetically dazzling 2D platformer ruinously plagued by common flaws of the genre (i.e. occasional bad platform hitboxes, trial and error bullshit, arbitrary difficulty spikes, leaps of faith, repetition, etc). The advanced (for the time) mechanics feel surprisingly good to pull off but some of these levels are the actual spawn of Satan - I'm all for a challenge but a lot of this feels like a 9-year-old's shitty Ultimate Chicken Horse level: random hazards thrown everywhere with no rhyme or reason at all to the point of feeling at least partially incompetent. It seems like you have to break the game speedrunner-style just to get past basic obstacles, and at a point it begins to blend in with the lot of these that were hot in the 90s despite starting out with such promise. Still, its vibrant personality is just too strong to reckon with even then. Pains me to report this but... not as good as Gex.

Pretty awesome little DOOM clone for the first half until it falls prey to thoughtless, bullet-spongey enemy spam. Even still, it's just too easy to root for this thing imo - it boasts incredible graphics for 1996 and (despite having the type of pre-analog-stick controls that eventually start sanding your thumb away on the D-pad) has first-person PS1 movement that doesn't feel clunky (if anything, it's actually a touch too slippy). Despite being Insomniac's first game, their knack for idiosyncratic sci-fi level design and eccentric weaponry are already immediately apparent - you don't have to look too deeply to see the seeds of what would later become Ratchet & Clank, Resistance, and even Fuse being sewn here. Cannot believe I hated the - to quote 50 Cent - "legendary corny" FMV cutscenes the first time I played this because honestly they're a hoot and holler: totally tossed-off exposition being delivered dead serious in sets that resemble a Chuck E Cheese, how can you not dig it at least a little bit? Great game if you turn it off after the Reactor level.

The fact that I predicted this would be a disappointing trainwreck before it even came out once they started delaying it by, like 6 days in a clear mad dash to rush it out before the quarter deadline was up is still one of my proudest achievements in gaming tbh. Yet, the reason this game sucks has virtually nothing to do with the glitches at all. Sure it's annoying when your mission softlocks, combat just straight-up doesn't work, or your screen irreparably gets layered in unsightly visual hiccups - but tons of games that come out these days are broken, buggy messes on launch that just get patched later on so it's nothing you haven't seen before. No, the reason taking two months to 100% this hog was one of the most soul-crushing experiences of my life is honestly because of how deliberately un-fun this all is. The missions are laborious to pad out length, the side content is repetitive, the much-hyped free DLC is paltry, the overworld is bland as can be, the menus are unreadable when they even operate to begin with, the choices don't matter, and even after all the supposed quality-of-life updates it's still a barely functioning mess.

But the story is its biggest sore spot, I think - because in fits and starts there is a ton of potential here. This is CDPR after all, so there are rock-solid characters (Judy Alvarez, Takemura, and Keanu's charisma-machine Johnny Silverhand are standouts) and moments of poignancy which I was just craving to be in a better game because it's all promptly undercut by the butt-ugly modernization of it. This was originally intended as something darker and more intriguing, but ended up being another drab GTA clone instead. Serious Dead Island storytelling going on here too which I hate - i.e. "do this thing to have x happen, uh oh... x didn't happen after all so that mission was totally worthless. Well here, do this and maybe y will happen, uh oh... y didn't happen after all so that mission was totally worthless. Well here, do..." rinse and repeat. So you never actually believe this already thin story is going anywhere. Plus every ending is a total dud. Just miserable even if it did play correctly, which it doesn't.