Games I Like That Everybody Else Dislikes

Like the other Fallout 3 DLCs... it's fine! If it doesn't totally crap out on you before dropping down to the framerate of a Viewfinder, that is. It truly wouldn't be the seventh gen if even Bethesda didn't have their own little CoD clone where literally all you do is mow down waves of enemies in grey wartime FPS combat. It's a neat change of pace - brisk and unfussy, plus you get some killer white Power Armor as a well-earned reward at the end of it. The Alaska maps look nice, and its shooting gallery combat is tight and consistent. Just wish it had even an ounce of interesting writing in counterbalance.

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

Unpopular but I prefer this to Point Lookout. Just good-ole-fashioned, unpretentious alien-blasting fun. Yes it's low-framey, yes there isn't a single theme to be found in it, yes it's still only like two dull colors, and yes that spaceship 'battle' at the end is pretty shit. But these big-headed, green Propaganda-era-B-movie aliens are a perfect fit for the retrofuturist Fallout universe - not sure why the series purists have gotten in such a tizzy over this, extraterrestrials really aren't such a far fetch considering all the other preposterous leaps taken in this franchise. So satisfying nailing crits with the sci-fi weaponry and watching these things crackle into a pile of ash. Sally is better than most of the characters in the base game. Kind of awesome.

"What is my fate? Will I become one of them?"

Quintessential seventh-gen action adventure: random overblown bouts of Micheal Bay action, color palette that consists seemingly strictly of grey + brown + green, tons of slow & simple automated sequences, bullet hell, impossibly hot lady, 100% bullshit multiplayer mode shoehorned in for the kiddos who would refuse to even touch a game if you couldn't mow down your friends with bullets and/or knives and/or 'nades every half second... But fuckin' A does it do it all so damn WELL (okay except the stupid multiplayer), a total platonic ideal. So effortlessly nostalgic. I was hesitant towards this at the time, but looking back even in the face of its sequels this is fantastic stuff. Really puts this new Lara to the test right out of the gate - with a game that has mysterious narrative intrigue mixed with poignancy, personalized systems, expensive graphical prowess, and gnarly jolts of violence. In the words of Todd Howard, it all just works. Never wanted it to end - a more than ample apology for the misdeeds of Tomb Raider: Underworld.

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??

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.

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.

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.

"Heroes never die, they keep coming back as re-runs!"

Mindless gonzo combat as an analog for scathing potshots at manufactured celebrity - a much more resonant theme now than on release - they made you, and will turn on you in an instant for being exactly what they created you to be. Unquestionably a downgrade from the previous games though, Ratchet is barely an entity in this and you can't even play as Clank - but boy does this do the whole forced 2000s grit cringe WAY better than Jak II and III. In fact this whole thing feels like a predictor of the gaming generation to come - with an emphasis on fleeting short-attention-span gameplay over depth, so you can crank out these missions (in dull, empty environments) as fast as possible without having to really think about it. But it's also reasonably fun at doing that, plus the story is loaded with searing social satire and is absolutely fucking hilarious to boot (Dallas and Juanita ftw). PS3 port is rife with visual glitches and framerate drops. Grindrail sections are HOT ass. Had a good time with it no doubt, but also really glad they got this out of their system.

"Heroes never die, they keep coming back as re-runs!"

Mindless gonzo combat as an analog for scathing potshots at manufactured celebrity - a much more resonant theme now than on release - they made you, and will turn on you in an instant for being exactly what they created you to be. Unquestionably a downgrade from the previous games though, Ratchet is barely an entity in this and you can't even play as Clank - but boy does this do the whole forced 2000s grit cringe WAY better than Jak II and III. In fact this whole thing feels like a predictor of the gaming generation to come - with an emphasis on fleeting short-attention-span gameplay over depth, so you can crank out these missions (in dull, empty environments) as fast as possible without having to really think about it. But it's also reasonably fun at doing that, plus the story is loaded with searing social satire and is absolutely fucking hilarious to boot (Dallas and Juanita ftw). PS3 port is rife with visual glitches and framerate drops. Grindrail sections are HOT ass. Had a good time with it no doubt, but also really glad they got this out of their system.

"🎶🗣🎶I want my, I want my, I want my MTV 🎶🗣🎶"

Snags a high 3 for now - but at first I was honestly enjoying this more than both Guitar Hero III and 5. The first half of the campaign is elite - with essentially wall-to-wall bangers, a neat spin on its story mode, and characters that look fantastic. But the second half dwindles intrigue almost immediately - with what feel like the most filler-iest filler songs the console releases have ever seen and winners only few and far between. But even a lot of its hits are ultimately undone by this game's weird collection of re-recordings and live versions which - I'm sorry - are never superior or even on par with the originals. That Ozzy + Metallica "Paranoid" rendition outright SUCKS, and didn't they already use the original like barely three years before this? Tiering system based on vibe was done so much better in my beloved Guitar Hero World Tour. I dig when this gets weird like the grotesque + straight-up badass transformations, that huge titan amp monster thing, as well as a few standout venues like the haunted house, dingy pub, and Lars' awesome forest place. Appreciate that this took steps to differentiate itself, but it doesn't all pan out - needed another couple years in the pot to avoid the rhythm genre running out of steam the way it did at this time, as this is clearly still the product of crunch and overuse. Too much to a formula that craves simplicity.

Why does Pandora look like a Teletubby? I'd be saying nothing new by mentioning the clear evidence of genre apathy having set in by this point - which can still be felt in it strongly to this day - or a setlist with almost a 1:1 ratio of songs that matter versus mid filler songs. Though perhaps I'd be treading some new ground by stating just how fucking UGLY this game is - given the era, they made the confounding decision to replace the charming highway designs with a plain jet black across all characters, along with EVERY venue being all washed-out and gross. And if you thought Guitar Hero World Tour's encore events were uneventful, ohh... just you wait and see these duds. But at the end of the day, it's that unmistakable Guitar Hero gameplay with a fairly smooth engine - and the songs that rip here really rip: Shout it Out Loud, Blue Orchid, Feel Good Inc., Sweating Bullets, Only Happy When it Rains, Ring of Fire, Sympathy for the Devil, Sex on Fire, Lithium, Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting), Jailbreak, Hungry Like the Wolf, Hurts So Good, Sultans of Swing, Runnin' Down a Dream, A-Punk, What I Got, Du Hast, Under Pressure, Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Comedown, All the Pretty Faces, Kryptonite, Dancing with Myself, 2 Minutes to Midnight, Fame, Play That Funky Music, So Lonely, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Superstition, Woman From Tokyo, You Give Love a Bad Name... like Jesus Cristo the sheer POWER on display only for it to still be just "eh, pretty good". Shame they went with the shittier Zakk Wylde "Bring the Noise" instead of the infinitely superior Anthrax version that was on THPS2 :/