F.E.A.R asks a simple question: what if a John Woo movie was a first person shooter?

In that sense, F.E.A.R not only answers that question, but gives an answer so good you'd be hard-pressed to find any alternative that is somehow better.
Everything, from the enemy AI (which is mostly programmed to appear smarter than it is, but is still engaging and works incredibly at that) to the level design (which while visually bland is perfectly handcrafted to make the AI function on all cilinders and give you multiple ways to deal with each encounter>) to the visuals (initially the game doesn't seem that impressive on this front but the lighting and environmental damage is still second to none and while leave you dead in your tracks to admire it at times) to the gunplay works to make one of the best first person shooters you'll ever experience.

You haven't lived until you've jumped and kicked a dude in mid-air, shotgunned some other sod right after, somehow separating his head from the rest of his body (?) and thrown a grenade into a doorway, catching a third dude trying to flank you and leaving nothing but a red mist and crimson splatters on the wall, bullet holes and broken equipment in your wake, all the while you were in slow-motion.

Where F.E.A.R falters quite a bit is, ironically enough, the horror. If you think skeletons radgolling from the ceiling with the same gravitas a middle school play is scary, F.E.A.R is the most terryfying game ever, but otherwise the moments that will get you are few and far between and are mostly attributed to more organic gameplay moments than scripted scares. The story also feels like a background to the action rather than something to be invested in.

If you love the FPS genre you own it to yourself to play F.E.A.R at least once in your life.

"This can't be good for me..."
POSTAL: Brain Damaged is a rarity in this specific franchise: a game that isn't held together by glue, chewing gum and violent dreams.

You play as The Dude, who is quite literally lost into his own mind trying to get his TV back from...himself, all the while going through the, pardon my French, fucked up parts of his psyche.

It's very clear from the moment you get your hands on the game's double-barreled, chain-hooked shotgun that this game owns a lot to DOOM Eternal, and that inspiration becomes even more evident as the game progresses, from its encounters to its level design.

The guns, which very from the relatively mundane pistols, double-barrels and miniguns to the much more absurd didlo-shooting bows and holy grenade launchers, all feel good to shoot, most of them having very interesting secondary fires to booth.

Visually the game looks pretty darn good, with the art-direction going for a pseudo-pixellated 3D style, which imo will probably age better than the more visually standard main titles in this franchise. Sound-wise you can kinda spot some stock sound effects here and there, the voice acting is relatively minimal and it's usually just one liners both the protagonist and it enemies will repeat semi-frequently (you can toggle said frequency in the menus). The OST, while not groundbreaking at all, does have some pretty memorable tracks that fit with the levels they are in particurarly well.

The game is structured in three Episodes, so to speak, each made up of five levels and each ending with a boss fight. While the structure itself isn't a problem, the levels themsels sometimes are, do to their very open and labyrinthine nature, which leads to you sometimes not being sure where to go in order to progress. Visually they all look very distinct and fundamentally there isn't an arena or encounter that is particurarly terrible on normal, but do not be surprised if after a fight you need to look up a guide to know where a button is and such.

Being a POSTAL game, it's irreverent and aims to insult just about everyone (admittedly Brain Damaged isn't as insensitive as the mainline games tend to be), and just like a POSTAL game it rarely actually is funny, but much like, say, Borderlands, if you are like me you tend to turn your brain off and just enjoy the carnage, which is, I am sure, what the devs intended anyhow.

You can also piss on people and there's even power-ups for that so I guess I have to give this game a 10/10 in restrospect.

Crash Twinsanity is a broken, unfinished mess. A hodgepodge of ideas thrown together, not all being used to their full potential, with an "open world" that wears its presence thin when whole segments can be accidentally re-triggered and with no way to go back without reloading a previous save.

It is my favorite Crash Bandicoot game ever made.

Crash Twinsanity is the result of the effort of Traveller's Tales, a studio born out of the shutdown of their previous iteration called Traveller's Tales (yes, I know). Famously released unfinished and broken, Crash Twinsanity has achieved a bit of a cult status among Crash fans, with people such as myself being able to ignore the (myriad) of problems the game is riddled with thanks to TT's willingness to experiment with the formula, and dedication to keep the tone as crazy and funny as it could possibly be.

The game follows after the ending of the previous game, Wrath of Cortex, three years after, to be precise. Everyone's favorite evil scientist starts our adventure by paralyzing Coco Bandicoot, disguising himself as her, and luring our intrepid protagonist to a trap deep in the jungle of N.Sanity island.

We are then free to follow Cocortex or explore N.Sanity Beach, one of many interconnected segments in Twinsanity. The narrow, corridor-like levels of classic Crash Bandicoot have been replaced with wider, "open" levels, each hiding puzzles and platforming challenges for those willing to snatch every gem in the game (now no longer tied with the box counter of old).

Crash's gameplay is about the same as every previous entry, so it is rock solid, but it isn't the only style offering in store for us: as we progress, Twinsanity will change its gameplay from platformer, to a Marble Madness' inspired section where we control a Cortex and Crash as they tussle around, to Crash dragging around Cortex and using his giant head as a malled and a spin-extension, to snowboarding segments (the snowboard being an unwilling Cortex, who in this game gets royally Squidwarded, pardon the term), to, eventually, playing as Cortex himself, in shooting segments with very little platforming (a disappointment, considering this was one of the game's selling points).

Finally, there's Cortex's daughter niece Nina, who is even more underutilized. Armed with giant fists that act as grappling hooks and allow her to wall jump, she is literally played only twice in the entire game. Hers is an encapsulation of the game's biggest flaw: missed potential. Traveler's Tales threw everything at the wall to see what stuck, being limited in time to what they could allow remaining on the wall, whilst still having stuff to throw at it to boot.

Somewhat softening the blow is the game's presentation, as Twinsanity is vibrant and colorful, models are expressive, a much more impressive look when compared to Wrath of Cortex. Accompanying the visuals are the performances the VA put forth, of note is Cortex's, who really sells the sheer pain his character is (hilariously, admittedly) put through. Finally, all is tied up by the game's now legendary soundtrack, all performed a cappella by the group Spiralmouth who really give Twinsanity much of its zany personality.

Of course with the good one must point out the bad, and sadly Twinsanity has plenty: the game is held up by code tied together, it seems, by wet and soft spaghetti, as glitches abound and are frequent enough to become a problem should you not have the patience for it. A couple of times it is completely possible to accidentally access and re-do entire segments previously finished with no way to backtrack to safety until you have completed them again, should you not have finished beforehand.

Whether you enjoy Twinsanity or not is highly dependant on your patience for these things, because there is no hiding them, as you cannot hide there was much more to the game that did not make it in. I, personally, love this game, flaws and all, for its personality and presentation and for being incredibly fun beyond those issues.

Maybe I'm just insane, tho. Fitting, isn't it?