Leon's campaign > Jake's campaign > Chris's campaign > Ada's campaign

Special people with special relationships - by far the best entry out of RE's "dumb era", totally encapsulating the series' long-standing theme of beauty versus beast: pitting male models, flawlessly gorgeous women, and massive hulking tank behemoth bros against the most disgusting, warped destructions of flesh imaginable. All that goes double the distance when it's one of the best looking video games I've ever played, every cent of its ludicrous budget is right there on the screen at any given moment. Imagine spooky haunted house horror mixed with early 2010s Call of Duty ripoff mixed with hilariously over-the-top action setpieces that would make Michael Bay quiver in his boots - then you get this beautiful specimen. I get why we all scoffed at this on release but it oddly seems like the antithesis of most of its criticisms in the current day. Great shit, needs to be seen to be believed. I guess everyone just forgot about quicktiming away from a colossal robot statue and doing Hollywood judo kicks to waves of enemies in glorified combat arenas in Resident Evil 4 because this really isn't much dumber than that.

Games I Dislike That Everybody Else Likes

Not quite as miserable as the base game but still features each and every returning flaw from it - including but not limited to its mind-numbing shit combat, drab visuals, torturously repetitive + unfunny humor, forgettable missions, annoying RNG loot system, and a map that is a monumental bore to navigate. The type of game that exists only to see how far the medium has evolved since its primitive simplicity, so we can appreciate the type of stuff we get now. Also if you ever needed a reminder how obnoxious 2010's "le epically trolled"/"random XD" shtick was, here you go.

One beefy expansion, like the base game it's infused with some pristine vibes - thanks to once again drop-dead gorgeous graphics and another insanely moody soundtrack (with a few recycled [but still excellent] songs from Watch Dogs 2 that Ubisoft still had the license to peppered in). Though when it comes to the actual campaign I think the realism sort of shoots itself in the foot, getting ridiculously repetitive even before the halfway mark. Get ready to complete the same exact mission three or four times in a row over and over and over again! Seems like it's a touch too easy compared to the base game, as well. Though some of the challenges here highlight just how wonky these controls can feel (the grinding feels like it only works 25% of the time). Still, it's hard to reckon with an aesthetic like this. Shame it got delisted, bought a brand new sealed copy of the Winter Games Edition (despite owning the standard version already) with an unused code just so I could play it.

Well, it was bound to happen eventually - the joke has now officially gotten annoying. The Mayo trilogy ends not with a bang... but with a whimper - a series that went from passable and kind of funny to downright torturous. Feels like a chintzy rehash of the first two with a worse art style than both and what seems like only half the actual gameplay. Making the back half into whatever that walking simulator part was turned out to be a dire move, with minigames that feel awful and increasingly more stale humor ripped right out of 2014. Not even funny bad, just bad. Hated it.

A little sour about the campaign being so bare-bones, but it's clear the multiplayer was the main focus here anyway - and it's good! There are tons of fun modes that anyone can pick up and play right away (even if people these days are only playing one or two). Everything here works as intended and not surprisingly it's a graphical powerhouse with almost fully destructible environments to wreak havoc in - but this sort of game just isn't really my cup of tea to be honest. Most online multiplayer games like this I enjoy for maybe an hour tops before it starts feeling repetitive. Not to mention that I generally tend to be allergic to WWI/WWII stuff. Not a bad game by any means but I can't see myself going back to this after nabbing the plat. Online-only trophies are still a cancer no matter how generous they are.

Perhaps the last of the great streamer bait titans, right before the genre switched from endearing one-trick-pony memes into grating merchandise clowns obsessed with their own neverending, crappy lore. Once again, there's only the one joke/trick going on here - but it's a solid enough one to make this feel almost like a diet Yooka-Laylee/Banjo Kazooie when it's at its best. The snake's a cute character, and the intentionally rage-inducing controls feel complicated enough to be funny but good enough to feel natural. Fun, lightly innovative, and has personality but - like most of these - nothing you'll feel like picking up too often after a few days with it.

As one of the only defenders of the first game, I can't in good conscience say that this one passes the test. It feels tossed-off, committing the grave sequel sin of trying too hard to rush into a potential franchise rather than fleshing out into its own game first. Ugly graphics, truly and deeply janky gameplay, a story that the writers couldn't have cared any less about, along with having one of the shittiest combat systems of all time. Still, it's a passable bout of seventh-generation dumb fun for a couple playthroughs - and many of the good directions taken in the first game do reappear here (I'm a sucker for those electrical P2P puzzles). But sadly this remains weaker than its predecessor in pretty much every respect and is perfectly indicative of Konami's knack for beating its poor franchises into the ground at this point in time.

"Make us whole again..."

Guttural. Still holds the fuck up. A masterclass in horror design that looks simply ravishing all these years later - the environments, characters, suits, enemies, weapons, everything is designed expertly within an inch of its life. If I have two big complaints, it's the repetitious enemy spam which really starts to tire by the final level as well as the game's FPS dipping hard on PS3 when the action really heats up. Otherwise its reputation as a classic is well-earned - just relishes laying down its hand of torment; constantly forcing its lead character to bear witness to a surfeit of death, destruction, dread, setback after setback, people and enemies being gruesomely shredded apart like birria tacos, mental warfare, and an effective collection of jumpscares. The fear of loneliness/isolation conceptualized as an abandoned spaceship loaded with badass weaponry to sever the limbs clean off of a daunting array of grotesque flesh abominations (that just careen right at you full-speed) in one of the most satisfying combat systems of all time. Also lets you play zero-G basketball and telekinetically skewer aliens with their own limbs. Don't think this needed any sort of remake, it's remarkable as it is.

Games I Like That Everybody Else Dislikes

I've said it once and I'll say it again, there will always be a part of me that's a little nostalgic for the era (let's say 2011-2016) when complete and utter memes/trolls were passed off as full game releases. Stuff like your Octodads, your Turbo Dismounts, Max Gentlemans, bevy of "______ Simulator"s - games that only existed for YouTubers to play and give free advertising to, back when that site wasn't a festering cesspool of creative censorship. Even Triple A game studios were trying to cash in on my generation's willingness to take one joke and drive it into the ground for multiple consecutive years until it became a barren void of forced humor suffocation. As a result, by the time this one rolled around the joke had started getting stale - thankfully though this one really isn't obnoxious at all with its gimmick like some of those others: it's brisk, authentically odd, and low-simmer funny. Saw a lot of staunch hatred for this which I think is ridiculous, it's totally harmless for $0.99.

Better than GoW I and GoW II, if only because the combat here feels more like there's some actual strategy involved (though the evade roll is still junk) and it manages its length a whole lot better - this version of Kratos feels better in bite-sized spurts, the repetition issue previous games had isn't really felt so much in this one. The weapons + magic are fun to use, it pushes the PSP to its limits (though of course the dependably pretty HD remaster is the way to play), and even though the environments aren't as dashing as the second game there's still some more winners to add to the series' roster of solid levels here - particularly the giant temple of Helios, and the titan Hyperion melded into the cliff face. Still not convinced there's too much going on in these that you can't find elsewhere, but we're starting to get there. Not too shabby, even the "Challenge of Hades" is half tolerable!

Not even worth discussing, there's an insert in the case that gives you the wrong code to unlock a bonus trivia minigame and that should pretty much tell you all you need to know about it. However, this would be nothing more than mostly forgettable shovelware if not for those God-forsaken boat races. The hunting is repetitive but not entirely unsatisfying, the driving is sluggish but not the worst, the fishing is padded but not terrible, the pranks are basic as can be but are at least a nice change of pace, the open world is unremarkable but at least feels... put together - whatever, right? At least that all functions on a base level. This honestly would just be meh otherwise, I'm not opposed to the occasional relaxing casualcore game like the one this wants to be. But the races were coded by Satan himself - plagued with brutal A.I., horrendous physics, bad hitboxes, and excruciating course design. Well, that and this thing also runs at like 2 FPS and has to load the map every ten feet you move. And why is the audio quality so bad on half of these voice lines?

Better than GoW I and GoW II, if only because the combat here feels more like there's some actual strategy involved (though the evade roll is still junk) and it manages its length a whole lot better - this version of Kratos feels better in bite-sized spurts, the repetition issue previous games had isn't really felt so much in this one. The weapons + magic are fun to use, it pushes the PSP to its limits (though of course the dependably pretty HD remaster is the way to play), and even though the environments aren't as dashing as the second game there's still some more winners to add to the series' roster of solid levels here - particularly the giant temple of Helios, and the titan Hyperion melded into the cliff face. Still not convinced there's too much going on in these that you can't find elsewhere, but we're starting to get there. Not too shabby, even the "Challenge of Hades" is half tolerable!