Nice try, but I'm still not listening to Tool. One of those games where the release itself felt like a historical event - and all these years later it doesn't disappoint, very likely the greatest GH entry. Neversoft showing you how much money Guitar Hero III made by rubbing it right in your face - one of the best looking, sounding, and playing games on the PS3. I can feel my wealth bracket rise up a few notches just looking at this expensive beast. A few filler songs but that's a small, forgivable price to pay for having such a diverse, jaw-dropping, Herculean setlist (for the first time all glorious masters) filled to the brim with underheard beauties and classic titans - not just your expected shouts. Obviously the first one to introduce full band support, as well (with some nice customization options to boot). I also prefer the new tiering system, that combines both vibe as well as difficulty - it's so much more exciting. Some of the most fun charts to play in rhythm game history on a watertight engine, I haven't been this fully enraptured with a game in what feels like years. Tap notes make you feel like a GOD if you don't use the stupid slide bar. I think in the late 2000s' effort to artificially extend the lifespan of shitty casualcore gaming by forcing this poor franchise to cough up multiple major tentpole releases per year, we forgot just how adept these games are at escapism - no one does it like these did, man. Addicting and euphoric.

MY FAVES:
Weapon of Choice
VinterNoll2
Lazy Eye
Band on the Run
Obstacle 1
Some Might Say
Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast)
Beat It
Rebel Yell
Stranglehold
Our Truth
Do It Again
Freak on a Leash
Heartbreaker
La Bamba
The Wind Cries Mary
Mr. Crowley
Eye of the Tiger
Stillborn (wish it was the far superior "ft. Ozzy" version though, especially considering he's in this game)
((Cutting this short because I could just say... like 99% of this setlist))

Good ole' fashioned Goat Simulator fun, second best of the DLCs. It's clear that I've kinda outgrown this type of gameplay despite my fond memories of the original - but even still, there's a lot to admire here. For one, I'm impressed with the sheer size of this map, like... holy cow this thing is massive and just packed with stuff to see. The Portal spoof in particular is very amusing, even if some of the other references aren't quite as strong. The neckbeard brony dude stuff in this is hilarious and bold for a game of this nature. And the quests finally feel semi-substantial here! Satisfied, but also glad to be done with these for a while.

Ehhhhh... even as a Goat Simulator apologist I think this is mid. The characters are funny but that's about it - its map isn't as good as Goat MMO Simulator and as a whole it just flat-out isn't as enjoyable, clever, or humorous as GoatZ. The pranks aren't satisfying, its comedy is mostly stale, there just... isn't a lot here. Easily the weakest of the ragdoll-y, purposefully janky meme games that feature Rocket League parodies. Every criticism I disagreed with for the original I agree with for this.

Some of the most under-the-radar egregious microtransaction bullshit sours what otherwise is an excellent portable Katamari experience. All the expected compromises are here: noticeably less populated levels (which sometimes feel a bit barren), pop-in, collection requirements feeling padded out, runs more slowly than the others - but none of them are enough to ever once take away from the core experience. Stealthily might be the weirdest one? 3D low-res King is nightmare fuel, but also feels oddly fitting here - his horrifying Play-Doh visage, bug eyes, and celebrity veneers fitting this series' particular brand of strangeness like a glove. And it's a nice change of pace to see him being shit-talked by the quest-givers for a change, rather than the other way around. Its stretch gimmick is yet another nice new addition to add to these games' docket of quirky mechanics that feel insanely satisfying and responsive to pull off. Great OST, terrific graphics for the system, and maintains not only the nihilistic sense of humor about the human condition we've come to love from the franchise, but also its fun factor. For a lot of this I was honestly enjoying it more than Katamari Forever - but then it gets upended by the fucking Fan Damacys which are the worst addition ever to be put in one of these, and ONLY exist to steal your money. Still essential for Vita owners imo, in awe that this even exists.

Damn fine game that checks off nearly every qualification a great PS1/PS2 era puzzleball outing should have: funky music, colorful splashpad visuals, eclectic laundry list of tactical hazards, fun unlockable minigames, brain-melting puzzles, vast variety of clever levels, good graphics, control that is neither too tight nor too loose, and an interesting set of gimmicks with the main ball(s) that sets it apart from the others. Vastly superior to the PSP original, wish there was a permanent loop of the ball dancing when you get a good score running somewhere so I could go there if I'm ever feeling down.

Outright Games are guilty of many-a-sin in the gaming industry - chiefly, spatting out annoying, bottom-of-the-barrel, barely functioning iPod touch apps at unprecedented pace and calling them current-gen videos games at FULL PRICE (for way longer than they have any right to be, no less). Charging anything over $1.99 for this should be a punishable offense, let alone 40-50 fucking dollars. If you thought the chintzy licensed game craze of the 2000s was dead then it's not, it's right here and it's so much worse. I'm not one of those grown adults who love to shit on every popular kid's IP because it was funny to do on YouTube back in 2013 or some shit, but this company's games are actually some of the most abominable things I've ever played. That being said, this is easily among their 'better' outings - it's sometimes cute, sometimes funny, and sometimes a little creepy. The crayon-drawn aesthetic of the show makes for a sufficient mask to OG's overt cheapness here, so this actually ends up looking really nice and vibrant. But again... this wouldn't even cut it in 2011 on the App Store - even if all these voices weren't blatantly out-of-sync it still wouldn't have enough polish. Kids deserve to play good games, too.

"MY ASS MY CHOICE"

Laugh-out-loud hilarious, reminded me exactly why I love Goat Simulator in the first place. So much tongue-in-cheek havoc to wreak that it's almost overwhelming - hours of destruction, minigames, funny easter eggs, dense environmental detail, and scathing pieces of satire before you even start the actual game mode. And it's all got that patented GS humor and time-capsule meme culture that shockingly still holds up today (Breaking Bad references are more in than they've ever been!) Forever will be astounded how something that should be really dated and obnoxious is actually neither of those things.

Funny, but not whole lot else imo. You still get that unhinged sense of do-it-yourself mania that these games so sharply offer, but on a noticeably more limited scale. The quests here feel cheap even by the standards set by the base game - practically all of them feel like throwaway B-sides to the jokes in the base, plus you can crank them out in like an hour or so and be done with them. The map is really good though, as expected this is a rock-solid pastiche even as its satire lays on the weaker end. Initially pretty boring but I'm physically unable to dislike what is essentially Skyrim meets Goat Simulator - two of my favorite games brought together.

Games I Like That Everybody Else Dislikes

"Human bodies just can't stay young forever."

Brisk, tense, and surreal - working-class malaise bled out of voodoo economics and rampant consumerism so painful that it's woven right into the products. Also big scary blue guy go brrrr. Harkens back to the creepypasta era of online horror gaming which was often deceptively subtle in its perceived garishness: games like Among the Sleep, Slender: The Arrival, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Outlast, yes... even Five Night's at Freddy's - bangers which often get written off as being just "le meme" despite totally (refreshingly) ditching the wannabe prestige trappings that bogged down a lot of the more 'acceptable' games at that time in favor of scaring the pants off your favorite streamer as its sole word-of-mouth. Yeah some of them stunk but a lot of these games have one job and they absolutely crush that job, this being one of those. Very pretty (nostalgic, even) primary+secondary colors, neat puzzles, one HELL of a chase sequence, and the GrabPack is an immensely satisfying gimmick just perfect for one of these types of things. A little simple for my liking but it'll do just fine. Shame that it's only 1/4th of a game at the most.

World's coldest take: this is quite plainly irredeemable garbage - yes. Forever one of the most effortlessly embarrassing cases of fumbling what should have been a positive moment in gaming through rushed deadlines and general terrible game design. Sort of lukewarm take(?): that is precisely what makes it half-entertaining. Would this have been better if it was an actual good game? Yes. But come on, just have a LOOK at this cracked-out mess lmao. We rightly joke a lot about the busted state of many Triple A releases of today, but there are always new ways to fuck up in this one - you will never cease to be surprised when you think you surely must have seen every humorous glitch or straightup non-functioning mechanic until you have the rug pulled right out from under you once again with a brand new atrocity. Cutscenes look legit incredible and have a similar freakish, awkward vibe as something like Tommy Wiseau's The Room; it's Sonic so of course the OST still SLAPS; and I still remain a Silver defender to this day. I definitely won't make excuses for this actually being some unfairly hated gem, it fucking isn't - and I confess that the memes of this have long gotten exhausting. But there's always an authentic giggle to be had every so often when you think "Heh, remember Sonic 06??"

Games I Like That Everybody Else Dislikes

"6 Ways to Make Your Life Better"
"Why do I feel like this? I've never felt like this before."

The most recent entry into the "Just because your favorite YouTuber hates it, doesn't mean you have to" canon is - unsurprisingly - an honest, raw, mostly unflinching portrayal of modern sensibilities surrounding depression. This isn't easy at all for me to talk about, but I lost my mother very suddenly to the deadliest cancer in the world five months ago - and as of writing my elderly father has been fighting for his life in the hospital for over a month. My life has seldom ever been objectively in a lower point than it is right now - but even before all that I've had my struggles with depression, and this spoke to me on a level that I can't say many other pieces of media have in years. This isn't always as subtle as the glory days of SH (sure as shit beats Downpour there though), and the repeated suicide hotline screen is rather goofy; but as a series die-hard for over a decade I can safely say that this is an exciting return to form. The way Marvel fans cheer at cameos was me when Masahiro Ito and Akira Yamaoka's names showed up in the credits.

I've seen criticisms about how disjointed and blunt this feels - but honestly there's no real tidy, clean-cut way to talk about this stuff. It should be complicated, it should be messy, it should be difficult to take at times because this isn't an easy subject to reckon with at all - and denying that fact is more dangerous than any alleged misdeeds in this imo. I'm impressed by the sheer amount of bulletpoints this ticks (even if some are handled better than others) but one aspect in particular I found to be strong here is how it depicts the looming sense of inevitably which pervades depression - I feel good now but when will it come back? Oh fuck is it going to come back?? It innovates just enough to neither alienate the recognizable series framework nor just lazily rehash old formulas.

Ito's new monster is aces, Yamaoka's music rules, art design is off-the-chain, characters are memorable, graphics are great, and like any good Silent Hill its themes are complex and haunting. I have my gripes but after years of misfires and a presumed demise of this once-proud series, I couldn't be happier with how this tight and chilling fucker turned out. I've waited so long to be able to say the phrase "The new Silent Hill is good" again. If this didn't work for you, that's okay and no one can take that away from you - this is hardly an area that has universal solutions, mental health is a spectrum after all - but for me it was clear-eyed and excellent. Prefer a lot of this to Resident Evil 7.

A couple (major) grievances I need to air about this season, before I get into why I think it's still their best since SS1 - firstly, this signifying the death of new themed seasons is a heavy effin' blow which can't help but feel like the beginning of the end, in a way. Sure not every past season was a mega-hit, but at least they all had their own distinct identity which lend themselves to greater variety mix during play. I mean I loved this digi-polygon theme at first but now it's feeling stale - even a lot of the creator rounds feel samey. Though taking that into account, general gameplay is better than it's felt in what seems like YEARS. The vaulting bullshit that plagued this game heavy since 2022 feels almost totally muted here; with a ton of underappreciated and sorely missed games being put back into the cycle on a nice schedule. No more getting Stompin' Ground or Speed Slider every single fucking match anymore (though boring Blastlantis still shows up too frequently for my tastes)! And while team games can be fun on occasion, I'm glad they've lessened their appearances which before would totally derail any progress you made that match seemingly at random. The creative mode itself here is honestly also a hoot for what it is, though it still feels like its missing key developments. Still can effortlessly boot this back up and have a good time.

Yeah, this one's the weakest - it's a whole lot jankier than the others and seems absent of many qualities which made the previous games so memorable (no QTE sequences with brutal death scenes, no boss fights, no dedicated driving sections, no time trials, no affable side characters keeping you company throughout the journey, etc.) Instead we get a lacking story due to DLC progression-locking EXCLUSIVE to Xbox, so if you're on any other console you're inherently getting an unfinished story (mainly consisting of Laura by herself just going over exposition) and there's nothing you can do about it. That all having been said, this still retains the great puzzle-platforming and relaxing atmosphere which makes the series so lovable. You get to chillax in so many beautiful locations, just you and your brain against the environment - you're given more than enough time to look at it from all angles, and as always it's so satisfying when you can finally best it. The sea levels are really impressive, music is elite as always too. Frame rate on PS3 is often unconscionably choppy and the AI is dumb as literal shit, but if that's a trade-off for these sumptuous graphics which sometimes - and I'm not exaggerating - make this look almost like a PS5 game, then imo that's decently fair. Plus you get to unleash hell on enemies with Thor's hammer by the end so, like, come on that's pretty dope. What ISN'T fair, however, is how little screen time goth baddie Amanda has in this despite being a main villain. Like what the hell, Eidos??

Games I Dislike That Everybody Else Likes

Woeful, a prime example of the seventh generation's knack for mediocrity. Here we have yet another video game world from this era that's butt-ugly, not fun to traverse, and color-coded like puke. Nothing much is really that terrible here but I honestly didn't care about any of it - especially when its linear progression is played out in the most boring manner possible with a story that's impossible to be invested in (we were really obsessed with empty, cheap 'doom and gloom' storytelling at this time for some reason, and it really doesn't work here imo). There's some inventiveness in the weapon/currency system but not enough to justify spending an entire slog of a game with it, one with horrendous characters abound, no less. And the whole moral point system is stupidly cryptic. I liked the trippy stuff though, I guess. Really glad we moved past this kind of game design. Entirely generic.

Just as endearingly clunky as it was when it initially released, but I'm kind of glad they kept the primitive mechanics intact rather than watering them down and/or replacing them with all-too-basic antiseptic controls like some current remakes/remasters tend to do. It's always a treat to go back and see what we used to expect out of triple-A games from the seventh gen, and both this along with the original still look rock-solid for the time. But mostly this thing just coasts off of charm - particularly the chemistry of Nathan and Sully; and there's always been something particularly special about mowing down foes with AK-47s and Desert Eagles in these games. Rough around the edges, but a very important piece of gaming history.