For a game that predates the heights of the survival horror genre, I'm impressed at how well it holds up. It's certainly held back by the limitations of the hardware and the point-and-click gameplay, but it manages to tell a haunting, shocking, and compelling story nonetheless. It does become a little less challenging after your first go through, since not a whole lot of it is variable... but if you're a fan of horror, it's worth a look and worth playing more than once to see the different possible endings.

Truly an achievement in gaming, and worthy of its many accolades. Baldur's Gate 3 provides a robust experience with good storytelling and gameplay, and it offers many choices that feel more influential on the story than they might in other RPGs. I do have some qualms with the game--mostly some quibbles with frustrating mechanics and a bloated final act--but even after a long 130+ hours of playing, I was ultimately satisfied by the end. It's not flawless, but I don't think I ever got bored with it. It is also the kind of game that (hopefully) sets a good example for those to come.

If you're a fan of Jurassic Park or Resident Evil, have I got a game for you! Dino Crisis is a killer idea. What better threat to humanity than resurrected dinosaurs and questionable scientific practices? The execution is also mostly satisfying. Yes, the tank controls have not aged well at all, but the thrills and intrigue of the narrative make for a classic in the survival horror genre. It has a complex level design with limited resources and threats around every corner, and DINOSAURS! This is a game sorely in need of a remake, much like its sister series, Resident Evil.

I could barely tell you a thing about the story and the lore of this game. I know that there are bad aliens doing bad things and we have to shoot them. So, where the game didn't grip me from a story perspective, it made up for it with some interesting gameplay elements combining the first-person shooter with the MMORPG. Most of what I enjoyed consisted of the game's multiplayer modes. Some of it you can do solo, but my favorite activities were the competitive matches and the raids, so it helps to have a good group of friends to play with! After a while, it kind of devolves into standard looter shooter territory, but that's essentially the nature of the game once you run out of content.

I was ready to really love this game the way I did Remake. I suppose I did overall enjoy it, but there was a lot that frustrated me about this game that led to massive disappointment in the end. I think the most egregious thing for me (and others, as I've seen) is the oversaturation of minigames. My goodness, I thought the original overdid it, and yet they found a way to just make nearly everything into some kind of minigame. Yes, many of them are optional, but I like doing side content in an RPG! I don't like having to learn a new set of rules or a control scheme to do said content. Also, a lot of these are worse versions of already good games (Mario Kart and Rocket League, for example). So there's that. Then there's the exploration aspect. I like that they wanted to make the open world feel wild and expansive, but it just got so tedious to explore certain areas the further along you got. After a while it started to feel like a chore and less like I was playing a fun video game. And my final complaint is something I won't go in-depth on to avoid spoilers... but the ending of this game is an absolute mess. From the final battles to the implications for the story, it's just kind of all over the place and not very cohesive. And yeah, that's saying something compared to the original. Now, despite all of that, there are things I loved. The combat is incredibly satisfying, and revisiting the familiar sights and characters from the original is delightful, and of course the music is absolutely wonderful. A lot of that was enough to keep me invested, but I think there are definitely some missed opportunities, especially as a follow-up to one of the very best games of the decade.

Contemporary CRPGs are certainly more polished and robust today, but boy did this game set the bar for everything that came after it. The first Fallout was a good introduction to this new post-apocalyptic setting, and it established some fundamental aspects of the series... then Fallout 2 came along and improved on the experience immensely. It keeps what works, changes what doesn't, and provides a robust RPG experience that can vary from run to run. One of the strengths of the series is balancing fun gameplay with an interesting story and ideas, along with clever, dark humor. Fallout winks and nods to popular culture while also being a staple of popular culture today, and that could not have happened without Fallout 2 declaring itself as the best of its kind. Sure, the series thrived under Bethesda, but that only happens within the framework of Interplay's original concept, and it's no coincidence that the best modern Fallout game (New Vegas, don't @ me) draws heavily on the influence of this game.

As someone who didn't really get into the show or the cards, this was my true exposure to Pokémon. I was a Digimon kid. Still, this game was amazing for a little kid that was just getting into RPGs at the time. Getting to form a unique team from a huge roster of creatures makes for a flexible experience, and the mechanics are simple enough to provide a gateway into the genre without being overwhelming. The game also has very clear progression as you travel around Kanto, with a few optional paths along the way. Also worth noting that Yellow version in particular lets you field a roster of all the starters if you wish, and it has the recognizable art style that the series has maintained since. All in all, it's a perfect game for having on the go.

I very much enjoyed this game mechanically. The gunplay, the powers, the fast-paced movement is all exciting. And like its predecessors, the setting is so vibrant and imaginative--I think I may even actually find Columbia more compelling than Rapture. And Elizabeth is a fresh take on a video game companion, providing benefits to the gameplay without being a hindrance, all while being nuanced and interesting as a character. All that said, the one thing that holds this game back from being truly great are the godawful politics. It really sucks that it makes it very clear that the oppressive regime is to blame for all the ills of this world... and then halfway through says "oh, but the oppressed and disenfranchised people are also bad because they're too extreme." Give me a break. Recasting people of color and other historically repressed minorities as villains sours what is otherwise an excellent game with some interesting ideas. BioShock deserves better!

Like any good sequel, Dead Space 2 raises the stakes and amps up the peril for our weary protagonist, Isaac. Now taking place on the city-like space station called the Sprawl, you get to relive the horrors of the necromorphs in a whole new variety of settings and face even more monstrous enemies. By its nature, the game feels a little less lonely, with a few more characters to interact with and plenty of people present, but the horror elements are still incredibly effective. It maybe lacks some of the surprise of the first game, but offers improvements in just about every other way.

This might be the first RPG I played that felt like a true role-playing game--as in, you really took on the role of a character and could make decisions about who you were in this world. (Certainly, other games had done this before, but I didn't get around to many of them until later.) I have not played it since release, so it may show its age these days, but I remember really getting sucked into the game when it came out. It was hard to put down the controller with so much to see and do... and the fact that you could get lucky with romance was all too appealing to a teenaged boy. The sequels certainly improved on the formula, but this felt like a solid, fresh start.

I don't really fault id Software for wanting to take Quake in a new direction. I think I would have preferred the Lovecraftian-influenced setting of the first game, but it also did feel just a step removed from the demonic presence in Doom. Still, the new sci-fi influences are creative and interesting, and the Strogg provided an entirely new set of unique enemies to blast through. The level design is still top-notch, with a single-player campaign that takes you through various installations and facilities, but the real star of the show here is the multiplayer. Back in the day, I played the heck out of this game on Heat.net (how's that for a throwback?), and felt like deathmatches were really taking some leaps forward since the days of Doom. It's a fun game, if not quite as striking or inspired as the first.