Like the first one? This one has more fleshed-out mechanics, more engaging combat, better story direction, cutscenes that don't look like molten turds, and is overall a superior experience in every way. Still don't think these have anything on the DMC series - especially not while this still has one of gaming's worst evade systems and fighting that's too easy to get caught in a move with no real way to course-correct - but the work they've done on these environments is simply gorgeous. One thing these games always excel at is placing an ant-sized character in a variety of massive, megalophobia-inducing levels and having you gaze upon how epic everything looks. From pristine Greek marble interiors, great long chains to run across over an endless sea, sticky swamplands, and island-sized gigantic mobile horse statues with metal armor - it all looks amazing, especially on the HD Origins collection (the cinematics there also look incredible). Though at this point Santa Monica is still unable to create challenge modes in these games that are even remotely enjoyable or well made. "Challenge of the Titans" is somehow, against all odds... WORSE than "Challenge of the Gods".

All that finnicky beam-balancing is so much fun, right? I can't in good conscience say I find this as refined, atmospheric, or memorable as Devil May Cry - of which this clearly takes heavy inspiration. Crummy hitboxes (those goddamned blades...) and serious repetition here. That being said, the thing still glistens with that alluring PS2-era texture: locations look good (The Path of Hades in particular) and Kratos is one hell of a protagonist. It's refreshing to see a game make no apologies for its depraved (anti)hero - a game that just downright revels in being mean, with an authentic grimdark atmosphere that flaunts some nice splatty violence where it counts. Looks even better on the PS3 HD collection, keeping the original gameplay/aesthetic experience intact just with a more attractive sheen over the top. Wish more remasters did stuff like this. The "Challenge of the Gods" are still some of the downright least fun postgame content/rewards ever programmed, though.

All that finnicky beam-balancing is so much fun, right? I can't in good conscience say I find this as refined, atmospheric, or memorable as Devil May Cry - of which this clearly takes heavy inspiration. Crummy hitboxes (those goddamned blades...) and serious repetition here. That being said, the thing still glistens with that alluring PS2-era texture: locations look good (The Path of Hades in particular) and Kratos is one hell of a protagonist. It's refreshing to see a game make no apologies for its depraved (anti)hero - a game that just downright revels in being mean, with an authentic grimdark atmosphere that flaunts some nice splatty violence where it counts. Looks even better on the PS3 HD collection, keeping the original gameplay/aesthetic experience intact just with a more attractive sheen over the top. Wish more remasters did stuff like this. The "Challenge of the Gods" are still some of the downright least fun postgame content/rewards ever programmed, though.

Games I Like That Everybody Else Dislikes

A janky, buggy, and frequently cringey plastic paradise filled with a crazy amount of over-the-top wanton destruction - in other words, a Saints Row sequel. For better and for worse, this feels pretty much exactly like what Saints Row 5 would have been if it came out when everyone wanted it to anyway. Not a masterpiece but also far from the alleged worst thing ever - I found this to be virtually indistinguishable from (in fact, better than) Watch Dogs 2, which you all sang the praises of. Sure its attempts at "How do you do, fellow millennials?" crap is hard to stomach, but personally I found it to be less taxing here than in Saints Row 4's repetitive pop culture port-a-potty. The open world is miles better, too - the choice to make it a metropolis/Wild West hybrid was an inspired one that often pays off in just how divine this game looks. Yes the gangs, story, and characters suck (the idea that any of these nonentities are supposed to compete with the likes of Johnny Gat is uproarious) but there's also a throwable football bomb that sticks to enemies/cars and launches them in every direction before exploding violently. Hey I'm a simple man, me likey. An fun distraction that I can always reliably pick up and have a great time with, but there's still no real excuse for it to feel this pared-down from the last few mainline games. Even the radio only has one consistently good station, I mean come on - what's the deal with that? But I digress - it's so, so much fun in spite of all its shortcomings.

An outstanding side-scroller with a beautiful art style, excellent level design, and an insanely entertaining trophy/achievement list. As a rule of thumb this tends to be one of my least favorite genres, but this one does more than enough to separate itself from the rest of the pack - thanks in part to the series' bright personality. If I have one noticeable complaint, it's that Rayman's sprite has seldom felt more lifeless than it is here - I assume to account for the good amount of other unlockable characters, which I guess is a relatively fair tradeoff in the end. But other than a couple minor quirks (wall running can be janky and the bubble hitboxes are kind of fucked) I fell in love with it immediately and never wanted to put it down. Rare to find one of these with a satisfying challenge level like this has, not too easy but not too difficult. And I just can't get enough of that funny babbletalk, I've been saying "Urray-hay!" for like three days straight.

Way more fun than it gets credit for - with mechanics that are just fleshed-out enough to be neither overcomplicated nor too basic, and some cool levels to boot. But I'm well past fatigued by these post-Fortnite cartoony live service online multiplayer games loaded with microtransactions that we see like 4 or 5 come and go within a matter of weeks every year now - which have all started to blend into each other like a wet oil painting. I'm at the point now where I could go my whole life without seeing a battle pass ever again and it would bring me an immense amount of bliss.

An unbelievably charming platformer that I haven't stopped thinking about since I finished it. There's something to be said about the singular sense of personality these types of games have, simple yet fiendishly affective. Full of fun characters, authentic Australian texture, music that fuckin' rips for just being a series of short loops, and not a single dud in its murders' row of levels (Snow Worries, Bridge on the River Ty, Outback Safari, Lyre Lyre Pants on Fire, and Ship Rex are some of the best levels I've ever played in a 3D platformer collectathon). I also appreciate that - rather than rebuilding the original from the ground up and possibly losing out on a lot of its intrinsic charm (still hurt by the hackjob that was Battle for Bikini Bottom: Rehydrated) - it feels more like a souped-up re-release as opposed to a full-on remaster. Glad to see this series is seeing a resurgence, it absolutely deserves it. Only big complaint is (like most of these) that it's too short.

A definite improvement over the first game, the 2D prototype had some interesting ideas going on but from a personal standpoint the jump from 2D side-scroller to 3D platformer collectathon was the right move here. Breezy, fun, and full of charm. Even this early on these games were clearly developing their own identity. That being said, outside of the GBC port this is probably the weakest version of the game - so it doesn't really have anything on its other ports let alone something like Gex: Enter the Gecko which is tighter and more nuanced let alone a genre titan like Super Mario 64, both of which came out years prior. Not that it should be a one-or-the-other deal, this is still a good game - but it can't help feeling somewhat rudimentary in comparison.

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.

Staggering to think of the shift in quality from this versus its 2016 predecessor - if the latter felt like a deeply bland, shitty licensed movie game from the mid/late 2000s then this is beyond a breath of fresh air. Still doesn't quite match the cartoony playfulness of the originals due to suffering from the current-gen problem of straining too hard for prestige seriousness to the point of cutting down gameplay (if I have to play one more tiring tutorial section where you go on a loop of playing for like 2 seconds before getting bombarded with 16 cutscenes I'm going to lose it). But the fact that this even feels like a Ratchet & Clank game again is more than I could have ever hoped for - there's tons of visually smashing planets, fun gadgets, and a decent story. I love Rivet & Kit as additions, and the weapons are as reliably fun to smash through and level up as always. Really good.

Cute. As twee and inoffensive a new-gen tech demo as Knack, which this is (slightly) objectively better than as a game but worse as the aforementioned tech demo. Does little to sell me on the DualSense adaptive feedback stuff even while it's very fun to use; whereas at least Knack's incredible graphical showcase sold me on the PS4's power immediately. Make no mistake, this is fun and reasonably charming enough in bursts to get a pass but you can also effortlessly 100% it in a handful of hours while still taking time to explore everything. Didn't blow me away but regardless, I can confidently call this a nice time. Also gives me a bad taste in my mouth how 'lovingly' they reference games/series that Sony has either totally forgotten about, abandoned, and/or burned into the ground.

"I came from Queens fuh dis??"

Seriously fun and stylized RTS that's just in-depth enough to be engaging but still accessible enough to not be an unlearnable, grindy mess. This honestly should have spawned a franchise imo, I can only imagine the insane fun of later-gen sequels. Played the NA version, so I didn't experience any of the reported racism - but this version at least gets major points for doing the "edgy kid's animation" trope without being completely obnoxious about it. It controls great - also the AI loves to get in your way but it's never a major issue, at least they aren't dumb as rocks like I was expecting. And that's not even mentioning that there's an actually good tutorial! Super underrated, but solo play difficulty fast becomes brutal.