Story: D1 > D2
Gameplay: D2 > D1
Level Design: D2 > D1

Played as Corvo since I'm painfully gay for that old man, and I didn't wanna deprive him of seeing his goth boyfriend. His abilities still felt really fun and fresh bc of the unique level designs, and I'm glad I chose him. I did a pacifist run, but not a stealth run bc fuck that. This game is already hard enough as is, and full stealth seems a lot less doable in this game compared to the last. Loved the drop and slide knockouts, kinda broken lol.

Overall this game was a lot more fun and dynamic than D1, but I much preferred the story in D1. I also think even though the level design was better in D2, I preferred the slightly shorter levels of D1 just bc the levels in this game got looooooong. Overall though I'd rate it about the same as D1, albeit for opposite reasons haha. Really fun time

I originally bought the Bioshock collection solely for the first game. It was just the most convenient way for me to play it at the time. I was honestly just not interested in either Bioshock 2 or Infinite from what I've seen from them. So I played 1, enjoyed it enough, then moved on. Only recently have I heard talks that Bioshock 2, while flawed in its own right, has been criminally overhated. After taking a small look of some more footage online, I decided to give it a shot. And what do you know, I ended up liking it more then the first game.
It just feels nicer to play across the board. The simplification of the tedious hacking minigame from the first, dual wielding plasmids and guns at the same time so you can shock foes while you're reloading, you tend to get special ammunition and plasmids at a much brisker pace, and no location feels like it overstays its welcome. Was worried about having to defend the Little Sisters in this game, but honestly they were never an issue. Bioshock 2, like the first one, provides a lot of traps that help even out the swarms of crazed splicers out for you daughter. Not to mention, I feel Bioshock combat shines when you're pre-planning for either a Big Daddy encounter or one of the previously mentioned daughter defending missions. Really satisfying when you're patiently hacking security bots and laying tornado or spike traps, and then absolutely thrashing the opposition as they ragdoll into the air as your turrets shoot them midair.
The story was better then I was led to believe. I am in the mind that 1 has the stronger narrative, but if I'm honest I felt more attached to the characters of 2. Especially when factoring Minerva's Den, a very solid 2-3 hour DLC with a strong emotional ending.
I think what speaks volumes about my experience was that I had this game crash while saving... and it erased my data. Thankfully there was an autosave, but it only saves at the beginning of the level. As I found out later, I was right at the end of that level before losing my file. It did demoralize the hell out of me, but replaying the whole level wasn't really exhausting at all. In fact I built my character in a slightly different way, so it wasn't like I repeated everything I did exactly.
I'm not sure if this is one of my favorite FPSs, I need to think on it more, but I'm really glad to have given it a shot.

(...Sorry, but Infinite is not happening. It literally got rid of everything I liked about the first two. I definitely wouldn't enjoy my time with it)

Outer Wilds made me less convinced of Games' potential as an art form. Im being provocative on purpose but How many goddamned times is the message of a game that is praised for its artistic merit be, to one degree or another "Memento Mori"? Spiritfarer, What Remains of Edith Finch, Persona 3, Pentiment, now Outer Wilds. I like all of these games to varying degrees but it just makes me hopeless if time and time again thats seemingly the only subject games are praised for tackling. "Your life is limited and you will eventually die" Yeah thanks game, I already knew that, I literally think about it every single goddamned day, to a degree that actively makes me miserable. I know its stupid but I cannot help it and no amount of whimsical space banjos is going to change that!

In fairness my main issues with Outer Wilds are personal. When you make a game such as this its going to be loved by some and utterly alienate others and that is fine. Outer Wilds is a game that requires patience, and I have none. Fuck it, this is already way too personal of a review : I'm 80% sure I have ADHD and am in the process of getting diagnosed. All of my academic pursuits thus far have been failures because I physically cannot pay attention to anything for more than a few minutes at a time and get extremely frustrated when things don't go my way. When I am forced to queue at the Supermarket I grit my teeth and subequently fantasize about bludgeoning the customers in front of me with my shopping so I can cut in line.

So whilst it was a valiant effort on the part of Outer Wilds fans to tell me to never look anything up because this is a game of information, it was never going to happen. I tried, believe me. I figured some things out and especially in the first few hours or so I had a great time just leisurely exploring stuff and reading text and trying to puzzle it all together. Unfortunately Outer Wilds is a game that is 90% failure and 10% victory/discovery. As much as there is no consequence for failure other than time, figuring out how to get to a place and having to redo the loop twice cause the autopilot killed you or a tiny mistake on your part is demoralising. And that is the word I would use to describe Outer Wilds, it demoralised me in almost every aspect.

Now, I did keep playing the game and finished it, which still puts it better than most games and for sure there is SOMETHING here I enjoyed. Once you get used to the slighltly clunky controls and learn to never use the stupid autopilot unless the planet is literally in a straight line from you with only empty space between its pretty fun to fly around and discover stuff. The couple of "Aha" moments I did have were gratifying but sometimes I had figured out what I had to do but hadnt quite figured out exactly what the game meant me to do (the detective game problem). The artstyle is quite good and the music is great.

The high points of Outer Wilds are high, but to me its low points are so low It just left me cold. The amount of times I left a play session after failing to do something and just feeling shitty for the rest of the day, I just dont play games for that man. I would still recommend Outer Wilds. It is better than Outer Worlds, but I would only recommend it to people who have a lot of patience.

SPOILERS
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On a last note, I can see why people like the ending but I didnt. I was already just wanting the game to be over after the nightmare that was the Dark Bramble which I left for the end, and the dumb item gather quest I found irritating and after all that the ending is just a downer. Yes I know its on purpose blah blah dont struggle against the end etc but it just makes the quest seem kind of pointless to me. I think the Nomai writings about the Eye wherein one of the scholars wonders if the Eye of the universe actually didnt call the Nomai at all, they just ascribed it that significance and in fact the eye may not give any amount of shit about them was supposed to be metaphorical about religion and the indifference of the Universe towards us, as well as mirroring the player's own realization that the timeloop was just a coincidence. You were not on some supernatural quest to stop a supernova, you were coincidentally roped in to a system no longer manned or overseen by anyone. And I get it, but again I just don't like it, it bums me out. Idk, I have no better way to end this unhinged essay so heres a song I like : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzfoSLP_w1I

bounced right off the original back in 02 but this was a pretty fun time. i played this with a walkthrough as i wanted to experience the vibe without having to worry about keeping track of routing and completion. maybe that makes me soft but i think it helped this games strengths shine through. they really nailed the whole isolated, space anthropologist-with-an-arm-cannon feel of metroid, and the unforgiving and sometimes janky difficulty was just present enough to be nostalgic instead of frustrating.

In It Might Get Loud, Jack White explains his approach to choosing instruments. He says he prefers "guitars that are a little bit bent and out of tune. I want to battle it, I want it to be a struggle." That sounds rad when you're talking about Rock music. But it's probably not what I should be thinking of the whole time I'm playing a kart racer.

When I first played Super Circuit on my Ambassador 3DS in 2012, I thought "Wow! This is dumb and bad!" and I quit pretty quickly. But now that it's available on Switch, I decided that I was going to actually finish it this time. It turns out that I was only mostly right.

I don't think it's controversial to say that this is the worst Mario Kart game. The tracks are fine, the game looks pretty good, but a racing game lives or dies by its controls. I tried a handful of characters and eventually did get the hang of Wario at 150cc (enough to get gold on all 5 cups, but not enough to get 1st place every time), but it felt like I was fighting against my kart the entire time. Every track feels like it's iced over, causing constant slipping and sliding. I'm sure there's a technique to be learned here, but I just ended up braking a LOT to counter the lack of traction. Like, more than I ever have in 200cc MK8.

When every other Mario Kart is approachable and intuitive, this sticks out as the worst of the bunch. Not as awful as I initially thought, but I'd be lying if I called it "fun".

WELL that was a long time! 62.4 hours according to Steam, which is the longest time I've played a more-or-less story based game in a loooooong time! Cyberpunk was like just over 30 hours I think for me!

SO y'all should know that I love love LOVE tactical games, and this game, which is basically Fire Emblem Three Houses: Marvel Edition with a really lovely card system, is so wildly up my alley I almost couldn't believe it. I am a lifelong capes comics lover (I will admit that the monstrosity that is the MCU and how much I dislike those movies makes me kinda be very lowkey about how much I love capes) and I love that we get more-or-less comic book versions of folks here.

SINCE it's so up my alley, and I trust my skill in the genre, I don't cheat on games like this. In fact, I bumped up the difficulty to the second highest one as soon as I unlocked it. I feel ok boasting that I only had to restart a single mission [smug sunglasses face]

What else can I say? I loved this game a ton. I loved Hunter's friendships (especially with Nico and Magik and Wanda) and I loved the Abbey and I just loved what this game had going on.

Tips and tricks? Gotta say that, having not read anything else so I could be way off base here, Spider-Man is probably the “best” character. He has lots of abilities that can be upgraded to be “free” and if I’ve learned anything from a lifetime of really loving games with action economy it’s that being able to use moves that don’t count against your action economy is as good as it gets!

Anywho, I cannot recommend this game highly enough!