Truly one of the most disappointing games ever for me personally. Everything good about either of the Mario RPG series is STRIPPED away here, no unique characters story or locations. Just the boring NSMB tripe we had A LOT of back in those days. Although, Paper Mario had already been struggling for a few good years at this point. This could have been a great love letter to both series, but it succumbed to the sterilization of the Mario brand.

Though at least this game is MUCH better than those sub par and foul modern Paper Mario entries. You can still just veg out and play a Mario RPG and actually level up. Bowser is always great as usual, though I don't know why Starlow is still here?? She's so mean to Luigi get her out of here!! And the soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura is wonderful as always.

But All in all, your better off playing the Super Mario RPG remake, or hell even the M&L remakes. At least their foundations are from GOOD games.

"Tutorial too long 😫😫😫 i have to unlock everything 😫😫😫"

GET YOUR ASS BACK TO SRBBK YOU CLOWN.

THIS IS RACING ON THE NEXT LEVEL.

HOW IS THIS THE MOST POLARIZING GAME ON ALL OF BACKLOGGD AHAHAHAHAHA LOOK AT THAT RATING DISTRIBUTION

It's a maximalist kart racer which throws anything and everything in because the developers are as talented and prolific as they are sadomasochistic. Or more charitably, they knew people typically played SRB2K with heavily modded servers, and sought to kill two birds with one stone by making their sequel filled with an intimidating amount of content. While plenty of new mechanics are introduced, the game's namesake helps balance out the grid in a highly volatile but ultimately successful way. Chugging rings and speed-gating shortcuts might seem as baffling as... Well, everything else in DRRR (what an acronym) but it's sensible in the same madcap way every other goddamn thing here is. Hell, even the positioning system before a race starts helps even the field more than first impression would suggest.

At first I was perturbed by everything being locked behind a Brawl / Kirby Air Ride style checklist (or most, as of v2.1) but it's so endearing. Consider it a hot take but what a blessing in disguise that Kart Krew felt committed to making you commit to playing their game to an unhealthy degree. That kind of cocky energy is so rare these days, especially given that the passwords are included in the game folder to tempt the player constantly. "Oh, what's wrong, too many spray cans for you, hmmm?"

If you're still on the fence, play for at least another hour, because it will click. I don't see this replacing SRB2K whatsoever but it's an utter monolith of a game. I HATE BALLOON PARK I HATE BALLOON PARK I HATE BALLOON PARK I HATE BALLOON PARK I HATE BALLOON PARK I HATE BALLOON PARK I HATE BALLOON PARK

The most immersive game I have ever played.

"Player immersion" is a concept often at the forefront of AAA game development, whether that be creating extremely realistic graphics, telling a cinematic story or even the idea of using AI dialogue in NPCs to simulate a real life conversation- all of these ideas have one thing in common. They strive to create a truly immersive experience for the player. Fallout: New Vegas does not have any of these traits and yet is the most immersive experience I have ever had in any videogame.

For example, Red Dead Redemption II, another AAA open world game, boasts a beautiful world with compelling stories and character animations that resemble real life and yet, I never feel truly immersed in this world. Sure horse balls shrink in cold weather and Arthur Morgan will physically load a weapon with different ammo each and every time you want to switch ammo types and while yes this is realistic, the game as a whole is not immersive. You can shoot up entire towns and the story will still play out the same and NPCs outside of the story don’t really matter at all or have anything interesting to say outside of mentioning a small quest. This isn't to say that RDR2 is a bad game, far from it! But rather, that Fallout: New Vegas is able to build a truly immersive world solely with stellar writing and player choice.

Right from the get-go you’re given the main quest. You were shot in the head, go find who did it. Of course, the logical next step is to ask around town about the man who shot you but what if you just wanted to shoot up the whole town? Well you can! And if you do, the main quest marker is just GONE. You’ve killed the person who had information on the guy who shot you, so of course you’re gonna have no idea where else to go. Any other game would have had an NPC who cannot be killed forcibly tell you where to go to complete the main quest, but it doesn’t! And the game is FILLED with moments like these. NPCs will offhandedly mention places of interest and mark it on your map only if you choose the correct dialogue that would get them to do so. Or, you could find these places organically on your own and bring up to them that you’ve already been there before! Nothing is locked behind a quest or NPC. If you do decide to shoot up a town you are realistically vilified or idolized by different factions in the world. The NCR may be happy you took out a portion of Caesar’s Legion and organically bring that up during conversations, or you may not even be allowed near NCR outposts as you’ve killed too many of their members. The world feels like one cohesive experience where every decision and quest weaves perfectly into each other. Combined with the brilliant setting of the post-post apocalypse where as a player you believe anything can happen. Robots and giant hulking mutants coexist in a world where there’s a realistic power struggle for control of the Mojave wasteland. It’s so believable and immersive to the point that when I get tired of the 40’s and 50’s music present in the game I turn off the radio and listen to other 40’s and 50’s songs through Spotify just to keep myself in this world. I cannot stress enough how much I love Fallout: New Vegas, and I implore anyone to get immersed in this world as well.

It's pretty cute i guess.

As much as I'd love to not mention it, it's impossible not to compare this game to Lethal Company. I feel like any game going forward that wants to try and recapture that Lethal Company appeal is going to have a hard time beating what Lethal Company already offers.

I think this game is way more chill than lethal company. Not that I'm ever a "try hard" when I play lethal with my friends, but this game incentivizes the silliness that tends to come with your average game of lethal. Both the games are dumb fun, but this game encourages you to be dumb. You are playing as a group of "Spooktubers" after all.

The camera mechanic is pretty cool, and is where most of the "chill factor" comes from in the game. Rather than hunting for junk like in lethal company, you're on the hunt for views on a clip show you make with an in game camera. This is where the magic of this game comes in, as one player can record up to ~2 minutes of footage with the in game camera. This leads to everyone being dumb on purpose, after all your best friend dying means more views right? It's a ton of fun finishing a dive into the "old world" and coming back up and watching the stupidity unfold in a sporadic retelling of your adventure.

The other chill factor in this game is the monsters. Compared to lethal company, the monsters in content warning are much less, well, "lethal". This is done purposefully since as I mentioned earlier the game wants you to be stupid. Where a lot of the comedy of lethal company comes from the instant-ness of death the monsters in that game cause, the comedy in content warning is seeing the monsters brutalize your friends, only for them to stand back up and walk it off.

There's a lot less pressure in this game than in Lethal Company, and in a lot of ways it works well. There's one treasure (the camera) and you're a lot more likely to all survive due to the inherently less hostile game design.

However, the game just doesn't have the depth Lethal company does. All the rewards in this game are mostly cosmetic, Expensive emotes, Party poppers, Silly microphones, etc. It plays into the gameplay loop well enough, your videos get "higher production" the longer you go. But they don't really effect how you interact with the world, unlike Lethal Company. In lethal you can get new tools that let you explore outside of facilities, or teleporters that can create clutch saves, or instant chaos. In Content Warning each loop is the same, even the location you dive to is picked for you and stays the same for the 3 day loop for each view quota. As it is now, I feel like I've seen most of what Content Warning has to offer. And it was a good time! But I don't think I could play this more than maybe one or two more times.

I got the game on launch when it was free for the day, and as a free game it's a 100% recommend. At $8 It's still pretty cheap, but I would only get it if your friends already have it or want to play it. However, if the game gets some updates, then I might change my tune! I do think it has room to grow and be a more "chill" alternative to the game play loop Lethal Company currently dominates.

I think this is a pretty fun little expansion, and a fun little foray into roguelikes for Nintendo. Notice how I said little twice?

I don't want to sound like an entitled gamer with this review, but my biggest complaint with Side Order is that it felt like it was JUST short of being something really special. The first chunk of this DLC is really cool, the tutorial climb up the tower is full of dialogue and character interactions, there's cutscenes and intrigue. You get to the top and win the fight! But uh oh, the real big bad appears! Back to the bottom of the spire with you! Now for the roguelite to begin!

Now the first couple runs of Side Order proper are really fun! Seeing all the new bosses, the new enemies and floor layouts, the new chips to modify your weapon! It's all super cool to see, what's next! With little to no upgrades its super challenging and has a good amount of butt clench! I really was proud of myself for beating it on my third attempt (#humblebrag) because it felt like the odds were against me! I cleared the final boss with my final life and got hyped up for the final sequence of the game! It was a really good time, and now they're challenging me to beat it with every weapon? Sick!

However that's where the cracks start to show.

The first thing that kind of grated on me was that excluding the final boss, there are only 3 possible bosses, and you see 2 of them on each run. This leads to the randomness of bosses during runs being, pretty limited. I wish they had either had all 3 bosses during the run and eliminated the random chance, or perhaps added just one more boss so that there weren't so few boss combos possible. Second, the chips simply aren't as run changing as they should be. The ultimate change in each run is what weapon you're using, it doesn't feel fun to build around certain chips when all that REALLY matters is the gun. Finally, the "hacks" from Marina make subsequent runs trivial once you have enough. After clearing the tower 2-3 times, I don't think I lost a run until the final challenge.

As for the story, well. It's really bare bones. You get scraps each time you beat the final boss with a new weapon, and the dev logs explain how the expansion came to be, but it's not really anything crazy, unlike the octo expansion in the (much better) game before this. There's some cute dialogue in the elevator going up the tower, but in a game that encourages you to beat it at least 12 times, it repeats too soon, and I started skipping it.



Ultimately I think it's the best part of Splatoon 3, which is not a high bar as I think splat 3 is a step down from it's predecessor. So if you already own the game and have 20 bucks to spare, check it out, its fun enough to dive back into Splatoon for a bit.

Finally I want to talk about the final challange Spoilers ahead for that I guess (it's just gameplay mechanics.)


The idea of climbing the tower with no upgrades again was cool, something deserving of a giant reward. It was cool to some extent! I liked only having one life, it made every mistake feel grave and I went into a panic! Beating the final boss as "wimpy" as possible felt cool too...



and then nothing. no cutscene. barebones rewards. nothing. Hell, the story implication is that you just saved your own soul and they don't. really mention that. I was really pissed at this. I get a reskin of a weapon I don't use in the multiplayer, and a sticker for my battle tag? and story wise all i get is a pat on the back from Pearl? come on dude.