Games I Like That Everybody Else Dislikes

And the "Protagonist Who Needs to Shut the Fuck Up" Award goes to... But I digress, even in spite of its occasional faults you can consider me charmed. A nifty, cute little side-scroller with snappy controls and a very fair challenge (mostly) - the climb-on-walls mechanic in particular is inventive, responsive (again... mostly), and incredibly satisfying to use. Granted you've still got the occasional wonky hit box, bullshit death, and a pretty crummy first boss, and I still think the 3DO port is superior - I mean what the fuck is up with the terrible password system in this version? Saving is totally non-existent, and when you do get a password it doesn't actually even retain all of your hard-earned progress up to that point. Plus the comedy runs at about a 1:9 funny-to-not-funny ratio and there's no way to exit a level from the menu. Still, this is really fun to play and is well designed overall - definitely better than your Bubsies, for instance. My hands were sweating during that final boss, the special stages are capital T terrible though.

Games I Like That Everybody Else Dislikes

A deeply stupid spectacle that I have an unbreakable love for. Forget for a moment that it has Dante's best character design ever, forget that it has an atmospherically trippy story reminiscent of when you're at that perfect level of high and you start imagining super creative but nonsensical scenarios in your head (I particularly love the way in which in depicts how the corporate world still has a grip on the demon world), and forget that its wide array of enemy/boss styles are absurdly badass (magma bats, fleshy tanks/choppers, dapper suit-clad buissnessman with a revolver, a skyscraper that literally comes to life, and the penultimate boss is a chaotic blob of all the previous bosses) - even without all that it's still a blast. The broken 'square-button-mash-hell' combo system is really fun to manipulate to its limits, and even the big barren environments work imo - there's an eerie sense of isolation while being in such vast cities that are totally unpopulated. The true Achilles heel for me - making this feel its most unplayable - is its obtuse lock-on system which is by far one of the most inconvenient in all of gaming. But even still, I wish the other games acknowledged this one more. Is it the weakest DMC? Sure, but it still absolutely has its own, supremely dopey place in a series known for its madcap elements which don't at all feel out of place here. People who say this is one of the worst games ever made need to play more games.

A game I admire more than I like, but nonetheless is still a pretty cute experience. The representation wills this thing to life imo, it's fantastic and very in-depth whereas the gameplay feels a bit dated and one-note - though never bad, I don't think. I prefer the Foxtales DLC to the base game but both have a pretty neat spirit system that adds a little bit of ingenuity to a simple flash-game-esque final product. But all that being said I absolutely love the little fox and would defend him with my life.

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 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.

You know, I gotta admit that sometimes I miss the simple, unique appeal of the types of games clearly made for YouTubers to play during the "Let's Play" era for free marketing (see also: I Am Bread, Goat Simulator, Turbo Dismount, Max Gentlemen, Surgeon Simulator, etc). Then I remember they used to charge upwards of $20 for most of them despite only offering a handful of hours' worth of content and I'm like 😬😬😬 Like most of these weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird games it's pretty much just the one trick/joke, though fortunately here that's a pretty good one - allowing you to absolutely let loose as a suit-clad octopus in highly destructible, colorful, and interactive environments with intentionally ass controls. Also like the lot of these it feels like it rushes itself out the door and it's way too short, but a fun time for a few bucks.

Unpopular take but I vastly prefer Limbo to this. Not to say this is a bad experience by any means but it appends some pretty tired, one-note themes about control which severely undercut the mystery and intrigue that made the former game so memorable. Not to mention they don't really go anywhere productive with them to begin with, it mostly just feels purposefully hollow and unfulfilling for the sake of being Profound™ which sucks. But hey at least it looks pretty - not as pretty as LIMBO... again... but still, it's something. It's a fine little one-off worth a buck or two if you need a few hours to kill, though it becomes seriously cumbersome even without being minimized in the shadow of its far superior predecessor.

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.

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.

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.