Breakdown has always had low ratings because the audience expects it to be a competent first-person shooter. They realize the guns don't work in a conventional way and drop the game after an hour, which is understandable. Breakdown is not a good FPS. Instead, Breakdown excels as an extremely ambitious, immersive, and downright insane first person beat 'em up made by the Tekken development team. Breakdown is more of an action beat 'em up than a FPS. It is important to understand that the game is all about punching, blocking and dodging rather than shooting and reloading. Once you get into the right mindset, you are experiencing one of the most surprising gems of the sixth generation.

The most realistic role-playing game I have ever played. Not five stars since the pacing of the third act was rushed. For my first blind playthrough, I played in Hardcore mode. I loved not having a player icon on the map and having to look around my surroundings to know where to go. I am so happy this is an actual role-playing game first and action game second, which is hard to come by in the industry. Every quest has an optional way of completing it. The skills you have are important and can change the outcome of some quests. It feels good accomplishing goals in the game, like learning how to read, getting better at hunting, making potions, and sneaking around stealing stuff. The dialogue system has depth, the 'A Woman's Lot' DLC with Johanka is fantastic, and the monastery questline is the peak where every mechanic and system in the game comes together to make a high quality setpiece.

One of the most perfect games ever made. Even its flaws like the bad Raindeer AI can be seen as wild animal behavior you have to accept in this living, breathing, brutal world.

I understand that the free 'Rain World Remix' update is coming soon, which means the vanilla game will be fundamentally different once it is released. In my opinion, that is kind of sad. The update adds accessibility settings and other trite that will ruin the original vision the developers wanted you to experience. The once free mod, now paid DLC 'Rain World Downpour' will add all new modded Slugcat campaigns, creatures, areas, and music. Hopefully they blend well with the original developer's philosophy and content. I will rate Downpour separately once it releases.

Skyward Sword was always weird to me. When the game released in 2011, I hated it and stopped playing when you enter Faron Woods. I gave the game another chance in 2014 by playing it with a friend. We both still thought the game sucked and due to certain events, we stopped playing after reaching the Fire Sanctuary. In 2016, I once again booted up the game and restarted my adventure, thinking maybe this time it would click. It did. The entire game clicked for me. I then proceeded to replay the game every year and dropped it after the HD version came out. This means I have technically started a new game of Skyward Sword on Wii 7 times, and completed it 5 times.

I began to understand the motion controls and how cool it is to have one-to-one sword combat based off your arm movements. Using your inventory never pauses the game, so there's a neat risk factor in opening your adventure pouch to drink a potion while an enemy is about to strike. The level design in each province and dungeon is top notch. Skyward Sword's proudest achievement are the Spirit Realms, which add a sense of atmosphere and brutality to the game. It is played best on Hero Mode, where you have to put effort into learning the mechanics so you don't get a game over. The only real flaws are the repeated Imprisoned fights and forced tutorials. A couple of padded sections also ruin the pacing. Other than that, Skyward Sword is not as bad as people make it out to be.

An obscure arcade game with Punch-Out mechanics that adds RPG elements, special abilities, and weapon variety into the mix. You can block and parry enemy attacks. Using the fast repeating slashing move drains your health, so there is an interesting risk and reward factor when facing a boss or multiple enemies. Sometimes the only way to dodge attacks is by moving horizontally, but since your movement speed is slow, it's hard to time it. Alternate routes and choices that pop up throughout the campaign makes it fun to replay. The archaic coin-eating system is here, and it's as dumb as ever. I appreciate that you can input 99 coins automatically whether your playing on an emulator or on consoles.

You are an invincible entity. Guided by a metaphysical godcube, you save Earth's civilians from foreign intruders. As an unstoppable force, you unlock abilities such as superhuman flight, laser beams that come out of your hands, telekinesis, the power to stop time, and so on. Each city has a health bar; if you accidentally use your powers of destruction on the population, you can lose the mission. It gets very tense when you are racing across the planet's surface, trying to kill the intruders as efficient as possible. Once you escape Earth's atmosphere, you realize our ENTIRE universe is simulated in this game, and you can visit planets from respective galaxies. This game has an incredible sense of scale to pull off things most AAA titles can't. An extremely ambitious indie gem that, sadly, no one talks about.

My favorite Katamari game. Level selection is inside a hub world. No annoying voices that repeat themselves forever like in We Love. All 20 levels have an Eternal Mode, which We Love lacked. The King's strict scoring system makes unlocking Eternal Mode rewarding, incentivizing mastery of each level. Due to the improved power of the Xbox 360, stage assets load instantly when the Katamari gets bigger, erasing any interruptions during gameplay. Most level objectives are "get bigger" but with a neat twist: the King wants one specific theme of items to be the most you collect in the Katamari. This affects your score after the level is finished. The only flaw Beautiful Katamari has is its paid DLC. The DLC stages are great and are on par with the variety levels that were in We Love Katamari, but they should've been in the base game.

Absolutely CRIMINAL that Pig Eat Ball was ignored by the masses. I think of it as the extreme logical conclusion to PAC-MAN. Your a pig princess who has to collect tennis balls throughout hundreds of extremely creative levels. Its an arcade game that's hard to describe, the main feature consists of eating the tennis balls to get bigger and puking them out depending on the situation. As weird as it sounds, its really polished and what it looks like a simple game mechanic turns into a massive amount of variety really soon. You'll go from sucking and barfing out darts, bowling balls, bombs, etc... to dodging giant and weird creatures like a bee-cat or insect-bull, using enemies to your advantage, to solving puzzles inside intricate mazes, to fighting bosses, the list goes on. Pig Eat Ball has an INSANE amount of complexity that's built on top of the chaotic action that is happening throughout the campaign. A lot of levels are mechanically complex that flip the entire game's objectives on its head. There are five hub worlds that all have unique mechanics tied to them. You unlock accessories that change the way the pig princess plays. PLEASE PLAY THIS GAME!