One of the benefits of playing a western anime game is that tropes that are more easily identifiable and understandable by western players are filtered through the natural surrealism of an anime aesthetic, leading to some bizarre audiovisual dissonance that nonetheless is interesting. That's why the one redheaded chick here is the best girl, she works only as a character that can exist in the weird space of western anime games. The other girls are pretty nice and there are some standouts, but of the girls I completed she was by far the most interesting. Unfortunately completing a girl's route is pretty short and deterministic, but the number of options does make up for the lack of scenes with some of the girls. The gameplay itself is an actually pretty strong match 3, not a favorite of mine but well-done enough.

Neat little 'irreality' game by the guys behind Alan Wake, Quantum Break, and the Max Payne writer. Remedy, at least from what I've seen, have always had a keen sense for aesthetics, and Control exceeds the mark. It doesn't always hold-up to it's own standard though; they're some areas that are way too rote and generic for this type of game, but there are some really strong areas and levels, with the Ashtray Maze being probably one of my favorite levels of the 2010's. The combat starts a little slow albeit serviceable, but with the access to each successive psionic power the game really opens up. By the time you have levitation, combat has evolved to a dynamic, fully 3-D spectacle of particle effects and psionics, with debris flying everywhere, makeshift cover quickly appearing and disappearing, and a variety of engages and disengages as you switch between your pistol types. It's actually quite difficult as well, with health regen only occuring on enemy death, so knowing the proper weakness and counters for every enemy type is crucial, enhancing the combat stakes even further.

The narrative is unfortunately carried very heavily by the direction; the director was behind Alan Wake so you know you're getting best-in-class stuff, but Sam Lake isn't in his Max Payne days anymore. By way of being a supernatural FBI story, there's some portents of metaphysics and bureaucratic critique here, but it fails to be meaningful in anyway, and the story just plainly falls flat on its face in the last 2 minutes, despite an excellent 1-2 hours beforehand. Still the direction is excellent, and as an audiovisual experience there are really some striking visuals and sequences, as well as the frequent use of visual imposing that is well-handled. Definitely my least favorite of the big weirdo trio in 2019, but a very strong game nonetheless.

Love SOME of the aesthetics here, like episodes 2, 4, and 5. There's also some really impressive exploring levels here; the map inside the castle is one of the best DOOM maps I've ever played, wrapping around itself and providing a variety of different viable paths. Same with E1M6, which has the similar massiveness and variety of paths. The less expansive levels still have some punch to them, usually in way of some interesting encounters or some type of gimmick. The custom monsters are mostly successes, only the mutated mancubus feels more like an HP sink than a legitimate threat in most cases. The main thing holding this back is some unnecessary difficulty via traps and instant-death traps, as well as some less than stellar levels as it heads towards the end. Still a pretty cool map pack.

Really nice combat-focused DOOM wad, the early levels are pretty middling but around map 7 or 8 the encounters become a lot more open-ended and creative in how they're solved. Really good Cyberdemon usage as well, they're always placed in a situation where their presence ratchets up the challenge but doesn't feel overwhelming. In fact the whole map pack is pretty challenging, occasionally dipping into slaughter terriority, but there's enough ammo placement and upgrades to make it manageable. If you're a fan of the vanilla DOOM combat loop like I am this is definitely a creative and fun time; it's like the combat equivalent of all the DOOM wads over the years that prided themselves on being as Carmack-esque as possible. Combat Encounters are what this WAD lives and dies on though; if your preferred WADs are on the level-design, experimental side this won't do much to do alter your opinion.

This game is (mostly) a total piece of shit with several points of hard-coded errors and non-working mechanics, and yet it's still my favourite RTS of the ones I've played. I find that other strategy games have a certain heavy-handedness to them; either the early-game is too long and dull for any real strategy to take place or the late-game is too complex and tedious for me to sit down and full enjoy. I understand the nuances of RTS mechanics and game theory sort of demand this typical acceleration of how a game should go, but my low tolerance for slow beginnings means my enjoyment of the genre is limited. DoW takes that typical RTS curve and throws it out the window; this game is built all around out-snowballing your opponent, and, if that doesn't work, kiting them into oblivion. It's a hilariously stupid approach to an RTS game and one that is super micro-heavy, but its stupidity is so chaotically engaging and varied that it carves out its own niche charm in the genre. Wrap it up in a nice bow of the already absurd WH40K aesthetics and then tie the knot with some even further demented mods and you've got yourself a very unique RTS entry.

1) the game, while certainly not good-looking, was not as ugly as I had anticipated; some character models are bad, but not egregiously so like they were pre-release. Some character models even look quite good, such as Monster Hunter's or Venom's. The addition of DLC costumes gave Capcom the chance to improve some character models as well, with some characters such as Dante or Thanos looking far better in their DLC costumes than their vanilla models.

2) The active tag system and 2v2 fighting ended up being even better than I thought; with active tagging pretty much every character can become the enabler for a mix-up or the character doing the mixing, and vice-versa, meaning that any combination of characters in the game is viable. While some teams are certainly stronger than others, team composition as a whole feels less dependent on finding what assists I need for a point character and more dependent on what play style or characters I as a player like best. The 2v2 focus also meant that the lame duck problem and the rubberband problem are both sidestepped, since, ignoring comeback mechanics, a 1 v 2 comeback is far more likely than a 1 v 3 comeback. 2v2 also meant that resets and setplay are important than ToDs, which can be a good or bad thing depending on how you feel. I personally prefer the former.

3) The actual netplay system of the game was great. There's proper rollback netcode, a lobby system that allows for both KoTH matches and persistent rematch sets, somewhat decent matchmaking, and a decent ranking system that actually punishes ragequitting. All of these together make netplay actually much less stressful and volatile than other fighting games, and perhaps the least inherently stressful on the market, which is very high praise considering the state of modern fighting games' netplay

Ultimately I think this game has unfortunately suffered the same fate as UMVC3 where certain aspects of the gameplay have become so prevalent and dominating, and with the game unlikely to see any updates, that online netplay will eventually reach a point of frustration and stagnation for all but the most dedicated. Which is fine, not everything lasts forever, but this game is legitimately deep, expressive, and y'know, actually playable over the net, which few other fighting games can claim.

The dream game for the baseball history nerds/stat nerds, tons of cool features like having the option to simulate every season all the way back to 1871, full international teams, minor leagues, and of course the ultra maximalist stats and options for any sim game. Macro-manage from trades and scouting budgets all the way to micro-managing pitcher's fastball tendencies. I've always been more attracted to the arcadey and athletic version of sports games than any of the numbers below the belt, but this game has a certain undeniable charm to it. Like, the sheer amount of options and decision-making you can do is impressive, but the game is also very flexible in regards to how much of these options you want to have direct control over. It's really a 'you get what you put on' type of sim game, which is really the only respectable approach to sim games TBH. On account of being so open-ended, some people in the official forums of this game compare OOTP to being a robust and accessible text-RPG over an actual hardcore sports sim; it's a comparison I can understand but one I'm not quite sure I fully agree with.

All in all, the only thing I can say for certain is that Trevor Story is out for 9 months, will probably not sign an extension if we miss the playoffs this season, and that German Marquiez is the most inconsistent 'star player' I have seen in a sports team in a long-ass while. Go Rockies.

If you ever played a JRPG and thought "man, if you gave these high schoolers a diagnosable DSM-5 disorder this story would be fucking lit" you'll probably really like this game.

If you played a Trails/Tales game and thought "man, these combat systems are really good! But if they would add in lower margins of error, more focus on A.I. prediction and turn timing, a little bit more focus on team synergy in exchange of character depth, and then mixed in some kusoge jank the combat would be godlike" then you'll LOVE this game.

Anyone else, you'll probably better off listening to the Love Scope, Sin, Distorted Happiness, Cradle, and ONBORO from the OST and moving on with your life.