Man, I love Hitman. I've always been a fan of the Hitman series since I first played them who the hell knows when as a teenager when I first picked up Blood Money. The experience was clunky, a bit confusing, and obtuse as hell in many ways, but goddamn was that some of the most fun I ever had. Years went by and until I really grew up I didn't visit the series in full but now that I have, lemmie tell you, this first one is skung as shit. Hitman Codename 47 is a jank ass experience that often feels incredibly stilted, obtuse, and downright wild in so many aspects of its core gameplay design. Yet all the same, much like Blood Money and every title after it, the world it sets up and the sandbox it puts you in are amazing right from the get go. So many sets in it are actually incredibly impressive for the time and even today look pretty good. The amount of ways to kill people is not nearly as diverse as later titles sure, but the experience is also a fundamental building block the series would go on to use. The story is, well, it exists and is fine but also it's goofy as absolute shit, which I like, so I'm a bit biased here. Overall I still highly recommend smoking it today, there's a lot of heart on display here.

Alright, I'm just gonna lead with it. I don't like new doom, but I particularly didn't care for Doom Eternal at all. Where Doom (2016) [ugh] felt at least like it kept some of the spirit and simplicity of Doom at its core, Doom Eternal adds so many new elements that it really dilutes the actual experience for me. Yes, I know, "you control the buttons you press" or whatever dumb meme people always share, but that also neglects the fact the entire fucking game is balanced around your use of these abilities and powers, not using them is something that lessens the experience and feels like it adds unnecessary challenge without really adding much fun.

The gameplay itself is still tight, still feels good, there's just simply a bit too many new added elements for my taste. When I think doom I think simple quick fun, I think of hordes of enemies for me to shoot down and beat back. I do not think of an arena shooter where I have to manage every single one of my many different resources and secondary weapons and trying to keep in my head what button does what. The experience while fun was just really not all that interesting to me and while I know most people prefer this type of gameplay, it really just made me miss the simplicity of the original. Maybe I'm crazy, but I uninstalled it before I completely finished it out of boredom and then played through the entirety of Doom 1 & 2 in its stead and had a much better experience.

Singularity is a last gasp of air for a studio that would go on to be owned by Activision and become nothing but a call of duty support studio. As such, it's an incredibly creative and fun combination of horror and sci-fi blended together in a solid action packed shooter that feels really tightly put together. I'd argue it's probably one of the better shooters of its generation though it lacked much of an impact on people when it launched as there was a sea of a million fps games that all blended together.

This one does stand out though, as long as you're willing to actually give it a try and put up with a few bugs in the PC version. I played the 360 version which held up super well at least and I really came away from it feeling like it was one of my favorite experiences. From the set pieces to the cool weapons that are among my favorite in video games and the entire setting it's just really giving you everything it has. Absolute blast to blast though, can't recommend it enough.

Alright so, everyone has more or less said everything there is to say about this game so I'll simply just go ahead and toss my flame onto the already burning bonfire. It's good, like really good. Pretty much every change here is one that I feel improves on the original without replacing it. FF7R is a VERY different game than the original FF7 in so many ways while also keeping its core themes and character relationships close to its chest.

It adds an entirely new level of depth to the combat with possibly my absolute favorite combat system in any RPG I have ever played, rapidly allowing you to switch between your party and at the hit of a button go into a turn based tactical mode between combos and chains of your own attacks. It feels so incredibly fleshed out and rock solid. On top of that pretty much every major area of midgar is expanded on and just feels like a more livable, walkable environment. So much of the time I just spent walking to places and through these amazingly rendered cramped towns and just being in absolute awe of it all.

Truly a rare home run of a video game that it's going to be hard to follow up on, but at this point I have complete and utter faith that it will be done correctly.

The Callisto Protocol is a game that by its very existence was fighting an uphill battle. To follow up Dead Space is an impossible task, a task so hard that since the release of 1 & 2 literally nothing has even come close until now. Given that and going into this with an open mind, I had a lot of fun with Callisto for what it was, both because of what it took from Dead Space and what it did to stand out for itself. There's just as many tense moments, some truly amazing set pieces to walk through, and a core combat loop that despite what people might say still is fairly engaging if you learn how to play with it properly.

Coming out of nowhere Nightmare of Decay released on steam for 4 dollars and should have been among the many looked over indie projects that release on it. However something remarkable happened, somehow despite its low cost and unremarkable UI and key art, for some reason it hit it big. This could to some degree be related to all the streamers and youtubers that brought it to the eyes of people but I also think it's because of one other major fundamental aspect. It's absolutely fantastic.

What you get with Nightmare of Decay is about 2 hours of condensed classic Resident Evil that feels like a send up to the both the Resident Evil series and the genre of survival horror in general. It's style while simplistic I think works really well with most of the actual environments and models looking incredibly high quality. The gameplay itself similarly feels really good in that it has some of the sluggishness you would expect from those early survival horror games yet still feels responsive enough to mostly avoid feeling bad. Mostly, there are boss fights and some areas where the spring and exhaustion system do get annoying but most of those sections are over pretty quickly as the whole experience for a first playthrough will clock in at around 2 hours. However much like all Resident Evil games part of the experience is also replaying and speed running the game once you beat it and this game does have that same potential.

Easily one of the greatest open world video games that's ever existed Elden Ring will probably go on influence many others like it in the future. This thing is possibly the most packed AAA experience we've gotten in awhile without muddying the waters with pre order DLC, cut content, or a sloppy near unplayable finished release. Instead Elden Ring is such a hit because it feels like a solid video game through and through, it wasn't market tested into oblivion before releasing months earlier then it should have. I also wouldn't say the game is flawless, being packed with 100s of hours of gameplay basically guarantees reused bosses and assets past a point, the side dungeons in particular are where you'll notice this. However it's also very clear the true way this game was intended to be played is by simply focusing on a single build and not exploring 100% of the map and completing 100% of the content in a single playthrough. instead it feels like the ideal way to play the game is simply going through it multiple different times with multiple different builds and not exploring each and every thing you find. To me the end result is a virtually endless sandbox of an action RPG that dwarfs almost every open world game released before it, being one of the only games that took major notes from Breath of the Wild to release in the last few years who's takeaway wasn't simple "make the map big and empty". There is so much to see and so much to do, so many interesting builds and ways to play. To me these possibilities are the reason I play games, to have a sandbox to try things out and try different styles. I think because of this design any of the bad and notable issues it has are outweighed and I really hope other developers in the industry take something away from its design.

I think enough time has passed for me to admit I didn't particularly like NieR: Automata. Technically it's a great game with an amazing cast, story, gameplay feel, and jaw dropping visual and audio experiences to delight anybody. However while the original NieR felt dripping with hope and emotion this feels far more distant, almost robotic at points. For me none of the cast came even close to the original and while Automata has its own good cast I don't think I ever would have played it to completion if the name NieR was not attached.

It's not a bad game at all, it's a good game on almost technically every level and I recognize that, but it isn't for me. I replay the original NieR regularly but this I don't see myself ever returning to. If you like NieR there's a good chance you won't enjoy this as much, if you like Automata there's a good chance you won't enjoy NieR as much. Unfortunately due to their design being almost exactly the opposite of each other it creates this weird situation where for me, somebody who loved every part of the original, it just feels like an entirely different type of thing.