Well, mathematically speaking, it's just as good as McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure.

I didn't give Prey a fair shot back when it released. 2017 feels much further away than it actually is, so I can't explain exactly what had me so distracted that I couldn't invest myself in "the best immersive sim of all time," but those opening few hours didn't hold me. I found myself meandering around and bounced off right around the point where you do your first spacewalk.

But here's the thing, if you're friends with Larry Davis, you can't just be like "oh I didn't enjoy Prey." That doesn't fly. You'll start getting texts while you're out that are just pictures taken from inside your apartment, some of which show you sleeping. He lives halfway across the country, how did he get in there? When was he there? The only way to stop the threats is to acquiesce to his demands. Play Prey or else. I always negotiate with terrorists, I'm a huge coward.

And I'm glad I did, because Larry's right, this is (probably) the best immersive sim ever made. I do, however, have to dock points for not having any Art Bell, something Human Head's Prey has over Arkane's. I'm aware that these games are not related at all outside of a very ill-advised, corporate decision to cash in on Prey's red hot brand name, but the least they could've done is throw in a few Midnight in the Deserts as audio logs. Not a problem, I just played a few in the background while making my way through the wreckage of Talos 1, bashing Typhons with a gnarly looking wrench while listening to Art's guest drone on about collecting and selling Big Foot scat.

Art: When I was in high school I ate erasers. No erasers on my pencils. I guess you could call that a strange addiction. When I went to erase something, I'd just scratch through the paper. Mmm... Erasers. That flavor has faded as an adult.

Ah, the true Prey experience.

That omission aside, Prey checks all the right boxes for me. Talos 1 is a great setting populated by interesting characters and engaging side quests that command your attention from the mission at hand not because they supply you with a list of things to do, but because Arkane has crafted a world so interesting and so fun to occupy that you want to delve into every nook and cranny. I see a locked door and I find myself compelled to know what's inside, even though the last three rooms I busted into had like, a corpse with a single discarded lemon peel in their pocket. Why did they have that? Every body tells a story...

Some of those side quests are going to stick with me for a while, which is both a sign of solid character writing and good mission structure. The fake chef booby-trapping fabrication machines and entry ways after you let him go adds a fun twist to revisiting old locations and makes your revenge that much sweeter when you finally catch up to him, and it's hard to imagine what shape the end game would take if you ejected Professor Igwe from his derelict storage container and skipped his multi-part quest. Which, you know, I initially did because I wasn't patient enough to hear him out. It's fine, I had an autosave, Igwe is totally okay!

That's just the way I play these games, with a dozen backup saves so I can test the boundaries of every moral crisis my character finds themselves in. I'm the kind of dude who will release a Typhon halfway into an inmate's cell just to see what kind of reaction I can get while turning over the long-term consequences of pushing the big red button. Not enough mirror neurons in my head, that's my problem.

Early in the game, you're presented with a personality test, an ink blot, and several variations of the Trolley Problem. An excellent way to establish what Prey hopes to accomplish with the player long-term, as so much of the game is affected by the choices you make both on a macro and micro level. The ending you get is clearly delineated between one of two set paths, but how those play out on a more precise level is affected by the small choices you made along the way. Take that chef, for example. You did get your revenge, but what of his other victims? Did you help them? Did you even try to find them? And what of your brother, Alex? So much of what happens aboard Talos 1 is his fault, but does your love for him win out in the end? Can you condemn him to his fate, or will you spend 30 minutes trying to wrangle his limp body in zero-gravity because the game won't trip one of the god damn objectives, which are clearly bugged-- oh wait, shit... I put him in a grav lift and it snapped his neck. Problem solved.

One area where I deviated from my typical immersive sim habits was combat. I often build my characters around stealth and avoid direct confrontation, but the Typhon abilities you're given work so well in concert with your weapons that turning Morgan into a violent powerhouse felt much more satisfying. There are also a few "survival" modifiers you can toggle at the start of the game, and I went with allowing injuries and suit damage, but not weapon degradation, because weapon degradation always sucks and is not as fun as getting concussed and needing to take "brained pills."

These modifiers add an extra layer of tension to resource management, something you'll be doing a lot of as you lug around literal garbage in the hopes that you might be able to squeeze a few extra shotgun shells out of whatever hard drives and bananas you have on your person. Fabricators are far between in the early parts of the game, often requiring you to loop back to your office for resupplies, which is a smart way of teaching the player the ins-and-outs of the game's resource economy while drilling in how Talos 1 is interconnected.

Is Prey the best immersive sim ever? Look, it takes a very boring man to admit when he's wrong, but it may very well be. Everything from the setting and story, to combat and the larger ways in which the game questions the player's morality is fantastic. My only complaint outside of some technical issues like the aforementioned problem with tripping objectives and a few crashes/freezes on the Xbox version is that there's no Art Bell. A whole .5 off the top of the score, I'm afraid. What's that? Art Bell was dead at the time? Nonsense. If Arkane only opened up a time-traveler's line, they could've booked him. Not an excuse.

*I played Ys Origins "twice" on Switch and on PS5.

Ys Origin is yet another solid Ys game that polishes the Napishtim system to its max. It's the only mainline game not to have Adol Christin as the protag and the protags consist of two main characters (with a secret final character) with their own story, development, and unique play styles.

Gameplay is polished with better platforming, better use of the magic system, and the bosses mostly being fun. Music is solid with a lot of remixed songs from Ys I, though all the original songs from the game are great. The playable characters are all fun to use and I appreciate the effort they made to make them feel different from Adol. The levels of Darm Tower were all unique with a campaign that least barely under ten hours. While the side characters aren't anything special, the main playable characters were all solid characters themselves.

Despite the positives, there are a few negatives I'll share. Despite how fun all three playable character were, the mage Hugo Fact kind of makes the game really easy and invalidates many of the bosses. Finally, and the reason why I personally think Origins is my last favorite of the Napishtim system is only for the simple fact you need to play all three characters to get the full context of the story. It wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that all the levels of Darm Tower are the same regardless of which character you play. Despite the fact I still had fun and the campaigns are still short, I wished there was better variety in the Darm Tower levels between all three characters.

Despite my grievances with the needed replays, Ys Origins is a great game that give so much more context to what happened to Ys and why specific details are the way they are in Ys I and II. For that, you should play this game only after playing Ys I and II (and the other two Napishtim games for that matter). If not, it's still is a solid entry point since it is a prequel for the entire series. Easy 4/5.

Incredibly cool atmosphere for the time wasted on that awful platforming. I was really excited to see what this edgy ass Genesis game had in store for me. You watch the opening crawl, realize you have a double jump and can slash in any direction, and read the introductory text to the levels thinking this shit is about to be so cool. Then you experience having to use the double jump to make it to platforms. Trudging through the water level makes it hard to believe this game was ever playtested. I love this game's aesthetic so its low quality in practice just breaks my heart.

I don’t know what’s with Game Boy platformers having random shoot ‘em up sections but I’m all for it, nothing like seeing my favorite plumber commit aerial manslaughter against some octopuses and a literal cloud!

It’s pretty interesting how despite the Mario series being pretty off the wall setting wise when you really think about it, Super Mario Land sticks out by being even weirder somehow, and I mean that as the biggest compliment it can be. A result that could only come from the combination of the lack of the series prominent director and the Game Boy’s own particularities, this game kinda fascinates simply because of the fact it exists at it is, and that no game would really rival it in that regard ever since… maybe Mario Land 2 and Odyssey but I digress.

Sarasaland has the madness of the Mario world and mixes it with UFOs and aliens, the aforementioned shoot ‘em up sections in the sky and underwater, Koopas that explode and Zombies that cannot be killed, and worlds that, instead of being based around a theme like forest or ice, are just the Easter Island or Chinese bamboo forests. The insanity of the new concepts that it brings and the spin it puts into older ones and how fast the adventure goes by makes this what’s probably the most surreal game in the series; a game that makes of the incositencies its greatest strength, and makes for some memorable moments, and I’m pretty fond of it for that reason alone honestly…

…BUT aside from that, this isn’t that great, sadly…

It has some other amazing elements, like the music which is kinda fire, the Underground/Temple theme is probably one of my favorite songs in the series and the Overworld and Muda Kingdom ones aren’t that far behind, but aside from that and the whole creativeness of these four worlds… this is kind of whatever. It has some cool ideas like the upper final door in each level that leads to the bonus game and the fireball changing into the superball —which is a pretty funny name change in all seruiousness—, but both have things like that irk me, like how the former only plays into action on repeated playthrough and some can be a pain in the ass to reach, and the latter being a pretty obvious downgrade when you really consider it; I understand the change was probably made for performance reasons, but being able to shoot only one ball this imprecise in levels this maze-like… isn’t great or satisfying, to put it nicely.

And when it comes to the levels themselves…. They sure are levels! As I said, I like some moments and sections, but in general terms, this is pretty middling at best; some parts of levels repeat not in other levels of the same world, but within the same level, and while creating multiple possible paths to traverse is a great way to compensate to being unable to create genuinely interesting obstacles in paper, they never do anything cool with it aside of finding the fastest way to beat it.

The movement isn’t the best and can be frustrating at times, the bosses sure do exist… aside of the excellent ideas and originality at display, this isn’t anything more than a serviceable, kinda clunky portable Mario game… which hey, not bad for its first go!

It’s fine, it’s decent, I can see why some people love it, I can see why some others dislike it; it’s a pretty impressive feat and a showing of how different creative visions and hardware can loead to extremely interesting results, and has a ton of historic value, but aside from that, I had a decent time with it and that’s about it.

This being the first appearance of Daisy and Tatanga is pretty rad tho, sad that the little guy didn’t show up in more games than he did, he was pretty cool me thinks…

Unbelievably hard and manic game, but it has infinite continues and an easy password system so you can surely see every level if you're dedicated enough. The level 20 boss rush was as much as I could handle. I really admire how this game has an absurd amount of moves for a 16-bit action game. If you're a hardcore fan of run and gun games then this is probably a masterpiece. This is also a pretty excellent display of the Genesis's visual prowess, with lots of fast, smooth animation and a lot of stuff onscreen for a game that's virtually lag free.

Glad to finally have my hands on this childhood classic of mine and it has aged more brilliantly than I'd hoped for. A grounded, atmospheric, and even sometimes terrifying survival game. The default settings are HUD-less, not even a crosshair. You use every resource available to you, mostly bone spears, to navigate the hostile Skull Island. Fight dinosaurs, giant centipedes, primordial gators, you name it. All of these monsters eat each other as well. Kill one and use it as bait to make your escape. Stick a big bug on a spear and throw it into thorny bramble to lure them in then set the bramble on fire to burn them all to death. It's filled with these little emergent moments. Then suddenly you play as Kong in a big monster brawler, climbing vines and breaking V-Rex jaws. Easily the gold standard for movie tie-ins, a genuinely great survival game on its own. The best game Ubisoft have touched.

Played a TON of this at release and climbed the ranks using the ultimate badass: Crustle. If your team doesn't have that nasty motherfucker you might as well surrender.

Look, they'll kill me for saying it, but I fucking love this doofy ass game. I love a MOBA that doesn't require hiring private tutors to grasp (DOTA 2) or a MOBA that doesn't require you be on the sex-offender registry (League of Legends) to play.

What I think I like about it in comparison to other MOBAs is that the cast hasn't been infested with Anime Badass Action Heroes. Because it can't. Because it's Pokemon. All the Pokemon are so visually distinct that you always know who you are up against and what to look out for, instead of every League character becoming a variation of "Shonen Hero" who has 12 different abilities and can't die and also his ultimate is always off cooldown.

Hey, speaking of that. Is there a character better designed than Blastoise? Like, visually, how did they nail that? The original designer probably was nervous to show it to his boss because he was certain that Blastoise had already been thought up, I mean, he HAD to have been. I fucking love Blastoise.

Basically, if I can play as Blastoise I will play your game.

i am so fucking tired of every game being sekiro. please god can one acton game come out where you do something besides read animations and deflect on the right key frames. can one historical game about the tokugawa shogunate have some personality to it and not be more boring than reading a book about the actual events. can one open world game come out and have shit to do in it thats fun and beneficial for more than just clearing icons and getting bigger numbers. anyway, Like a Dragon: Ishin! is available now on digital storefronts everywhere

Zenozoik looks more alive now thanks to UE3, but I can't help but miss what Source brought to it. Narratively this is the more impressive game, peeling back layers of this world I hadn't foreseen. My initial pull to Zenozoik was thinking about it's place in time, whether it was of Earth or a distant planet. These secrets are (partially) revealed in a way that makes you question the order of this world. Are the Zenos worthy of existing in a world of order? Can they even respond to order? The Corwid are seen to the inhabitants of Halstedom the same way the Zenos on the whole are likely seen by the world outside, if that world even still exists. They are a people without history or the means to live in a world devoid of chaos.

Anyways, mechanically this is more complex, but I feel a bit like I miss the simplicity of the first. The introduction of combos is welcome, but there are 2 combos taught at the end of the tutorial that will carry you right through without error. The ally system is cool, but also sort of needless. You're pretty capable of taking on most enemies in the game on your own, even in groups, and the healing time on allies can mean you won't even be able to summon them when you most need them. You can level up now, but I wish this was a little more fleshed out and that maybe the XP was tied to enemies encountered rather than tokens found in the world but it does reward exploration and I was all too ready to explore.

This all may sound a tad underwhelming, but I can't speak more highly of the atmosphere these games offer. The design and mystery of Zenozoik make me want to see every corner, better understand the lives of these chimera. The score in this one is evocative of a time and place beyond ours, it's so good. A fantastic game and sequel and I'm looking forward to Clash. I'm late to the ACE party, but I'm eager to play more of their games.

Shadows of Valentia is such an interesting case where it's almost a perfect game. The presentation, voice acting, narrative, and music are all so goddamn perfect that it carries that really repetitive and mediocre gameplay that this game has. It's clear that Intelligent Systems wanted this game to be pretty faithful to the original Gaiden in terms of gameplay, but I feel that is what really brings it down for me. Especially in the last quarter of the game where the dungeons become a lot longer and the map design is either nonexistent or really bad.

I do really love this game, but replaying it after 4 years from my last replay has made me realized the game's highs and lows pretty clearly.

Really loved this, even as short as it is. It took roughly 3 or so hours to finish and I was fully immersed the whole time. This world has such a unique atmosphere and mystique, brought to life in Source. It looks just phenomenal, the animations and design of the world and its inhabitants feel so raw and bizarre but also impressive and inspiring. The combat loop is just complex enough, brawling and blocking, dodging and punishing, even shooting. It's enough to give you a good amount of control in how you play, with a decent skill ceiling that I never got a chance to master by the time the credits rolled. I'm glad I have Zeno Clash II and Clash: Artifacts of Chaos to look forward to.

Dragon's Dogma II is beautifully idiosyncratic, if not lacking somewhat in enemy/location variety, but makes up for that in it's open-ended approach to design. Changing your class whenever you like adds so much to this game that is lacking in most other fantasy RPGs. Grounding the way you traverse its world makes you put thought into how you navigate it. Creating your own skillset allows you to build weird and wonderful characters, a very fun way to experiment with how you will approach combat. The way it doesn't hold your hand, making you pay attention to the inhabitants of the world or even becoming obtuse and confounding separate this from your typical game. Overall it's almost like they turned Monster Hunter into an open world RPG, it's really something. I never played the first, something I'll likely rectify, but I really enjoyed my time with this and will probably return for a quicker second run.

I wrote out a short review a couple days ago because I'd believed I had finished the game when I sat on the thrown, becoming the Sovran. I was mistaken, Dragon's Dogma II had just begun. A gorgeously textured "epic" fantasy that became a deconstruction of the hero's journey. The submission of your pawn and the other pawns you encounter is turned into a mirror where you are faced with your own lack of will in the grand scheme of this world. That this was all designed exactly for the Arisen's journey. You don't take on quests, they are mandated by the game's creators just as the Arisen's path is to carry these quests out in a facsimile of will. A game greater than the sum of its parts, and there are some very strong parts.

These later NES games are where it's at. I love the dark, action-packed cyberpunk style of this game, which was already enrapturing and cool before I learned the Japanese version was based on a pre-existing TV show. I also love how there are multiple combinations of powerups you can put together for different assistance drones. The graphics and sound are also among the best on the system. The game can be a bit overly difficult with some truly durable bosses, but that's the nature of the NES. No passwords, but it's relatively short and has infinite continues.