I'm gonna be as nice as I can be.

This game is probably the most stripped down and archaic form that Borderlands will ever be. It's actually unironically astonishing that this game got sequels. I've played Borderlands ages ago on the Xbox 360, and I don't remember it being this irritating, but upon a recent playthrough with my partner, I felt like an asshole saying "yeah I love borderlands, this series is so awesome it's so whacky and fun"

No. This game is very much not whacky and fun. The game doesn't really feel very "borderlands". The side quests are boring and repetitive. The gunplay is very weak and I felt like I was using the same guns for a really long time, without much deviation or upgrades because nothing really compared. That Borderlands feeling of having to think outside the box and not really think of your guns as you would traditionally expect them to work just doesn't happen in Borderlands 1. The enemies are REALLY annoying at times, it felt like late game was obsessed with just giving enemies explosives for no good reason or placing turrets which weren't fun to kill. I also feel like the game's weapons were just.. not good to begin with? Weapon sway with rifles feels way too brutal. Revolvers feel clunky. Shotguns have no oomf. Assault rifles are sluggish. I know weapon proficiency is supposedly supposed to help, but I used rifles the whole way through and they still felt terrible to aim with (especially with enemies that instantly lock onto you the moment you are within their line of sight. Stealth? nah. never heard of it.)

The special abilities on the characters also sucked. I recall Mordecai's being fine, and I don't know what the Siren is like. Roland's sentry sucked ass and did nothing for me. Brick's goober mode felt like a really easy way to cheese through bosses as my partner just went gorilla mode while I kept him healed up with Roland's healing bullets.

Oh, right, and bosses. You remember Baron Flynt? Nine-Toes? What about Jaynis and Taylor Kobb? No? You don't? Me neither. The game has so little flavour to it, with really bland characters, bland environments, bland dialogue. There are moments where the game reaches that Borderlands feel, but I felt overall that this game was dry, uninteresting, irritating, and a far cry from the follow up.

I respect it for what it had done for shooters, and I think it is an incredible game on paper. Its music goes hard, its setting is fun and it was funnier then I expected it to be.

However, I found the gunplay to be unpleasant and the level designs to suck. Many levels simply had you doing the same objective multiple times in very same-y, complex rooms. If I wasn't playing with a friend who already had experience with the game, I'd reckon I would have had a terrible time.

Overall, that was SURELY Halo 1.

An utter classic. I love the sense of humour this game has, even if some people mind find it a little dated towards the kind of humour that was popular when it dropped.

Regardless, as a teenager I always enjoyed blasting through the game with a new character in a day. The game's main story is short but sweet, it's a very simple "save the princess" affair but it has some of the most addictive combat with banger tunes and very appealing art. It is totally newgrounds but all the best parts of it.

And shoutouts to the Necromancer, one of the best boss fights of all time.

They're gonna hate me for this one, but it's my second favourite Persona game. It's Persona 5 but perfected.

I feel that Persona 5 Strikers best benefit is being a sequel. We don't have to establish any core ideas because Persona 5 already happened. The game dedicates screen time to characters that didn't get enough, like holy shit Haru gets a whole arc that isn't robbed by Morgana??? All of the characters are incredibly fun to use in combat, except for Joker (at least I thought so). The story feels a bit derivative, but I don't mind that. The experience is very simple and fun, its your friends whom you're already acquainted with going on a silly little road trip. I feel like this setting, as well as the action combat is just much more fitting for Persona 5.

oh also Sophia is one of the cutest fucking characters I've ever seen I love and adore her so much please please please Atlus find a way to use her again

If you see this as an ultrakill clone, I think you need your eyes checked. It is a brutally unfair and reductive way of looking at this game. I get it, Ultrakill is your messiah but put down the pitchfork for literally a second and give this game an honest look and try and see what it attempts to innovate on. Believe it or not, more than one game can aim for the same idea.

What Reaver offers me that ultrakill doesn't is the feeling of pure madness in its movement as well as the abilities being catered to shred mobs of enemies. You feel like a flea hopping around the walls with your nearly uncapped movement, and you can just be utterly insane with it. It's so incredibly fast paced that Ultrakill, no, Dusk even feels sluggish to me now. The game offers an adrenaline rush that not many games can match up to.

Its art style is fun with its neon look. Not many people may like it, but at least for me I found it to be colourful and full of whimsy.

The weapons are also all really nice. I think the red revolver is the weakest link here, but every weapon so far has such unique ways of utility. The tech itself also feels very self explanatory. One of Ultrakill's weaknesses in my opinion is that it does not convey ideas very well to the player. You're often left to figure out the niches of a weapon yourself, and while I enjoy that in premise, the execution leaves to be desired when there are plenty of mechanics that you just can't even begin to understand, usually unless someone else told you about it. There's nothing that really tells you or gives you a hint that you can do certain cool things. I don't need hand holdy tutorials, but at least a room that could suggest to how you would go about learning a new ability would be appreciated. This game works much like a fighting game with combos, in a way. "You have your tools, you have your inputs clear as day, how do you use them?", kinda thing.

I think Reaver is a lovely adrenaline rush of a game, easily my favourite singleplayer shooter. I cannot wait for the full game to drop, I'm keeping my eyes peeled for this one.

I don't think I can talk about Portal 2 without talking about Portal. Portal almost feels like a prologue, so I'm lumping the two together as one complete package.

Portal 1 is an incredible tech demo of sorts. It showed off brilliantly that Valve still had it, they could still innovate and exercise the genius that they still had in 2007. It's an engaging game with a fun setting and a fun singular character. GLaDOS is an incredibly fun villain and is iconic for a reason. I loved playing Portal as a kid and to this day it remains one of my favourites. However, I don't think I'd think of it so highly without the existence of Portal 2, and vice versa.

Portal 2 expands on EVERYTHING Portal 1 offered. Aperture labs is almost Seussian now, it is so whimsical in how everything moves and glides past one another, mechanical arms and panels moving around effortlessly. It feels like an organic creature that lives and breathes, literally putting life into an otherwise cold, desolate environment. GLaDOS is still as amazing as ever, just as funny and witty. However, she's also accompanied by Wheatley, another incredible antagonist. The twist that he was the game's true villain sent chills down my spine, and the slow, creeping realization that people have whenever they realize that he is going to betray you- I'm literally having goosebumps thinking about it.

Portal 2 also introduces so many new mechanics, all of which are fun. The gels, the laser bridges, excursion funnels, all of it is so fun to toy around with and it gets the brain going.

Overall, the Portal games are some of my favourite and in my opinion, some of the best video games ever made.

It's like undertale but the gameplay is fun. The characters are just as whimsical and colourful, but more so. They're more defined, they get to have arcs independent of what the protagonist sees. Kris as a protagonist is also a really nice change of pace from the silent Frisk- they have more of a defined character beyond "nice to the monsters". Oh, and the art and music? Toby and the gang have kicked it into 10th gear with it, utterly astonishing work in that department. I can't wait for the game to finish. I do have some criticisms, however I think I'll save them for the final release, as they might be worked out.

The characters are iconic. The gameplay is like a dark souls style of dodge into strike combat. It's more like a puzzle game with action, it tests your memory and reaction speed, intuition and skill of deduction. All the while the coat of paint it bears is that of borderline racist stereotype boxers, ones that if you don't love you have a massive stick up your ass. The animation and sound design is incredible. Von Kaiser is a great example, as his attacks using the sounds of guns cocking and firing makes for an incredible sense of impact.

This is a classic done perfect justice. I recommend to anyone that they should at least try this game once.