I couldn't quite figure out why Super Mario Galaxy 2 doesn't stick out as fondly or as solidly in my brain the way the first Galaxy does. On paper, it feels like it should be better. It's the first direct sequel Nintendo has ever done for a 3D Mario and it improves upon many things from the first Galaxy. Yet despite the improvements, it still doesn't have the same charm or joy that the first game has and ultimately ends up feeling more like DLC that they made into a standalone game.

That said, it's still a really solid 3D Mario that feels great to play and has some fun levels, fantastic visual design, another banging soundtrack, and of course the best feature of all - my beautiful boy, Yoshi.

Instead of taking the "play through the events of the movie" route that 95% of licensed video games used to take, Toy Story 3 instead says "hey what if you just got to play around in Andy's imagination the way he plays with his toys". It freaking rules.

Not only do I think this is one of the best licensed video games ever made, but this game also laid the groundwork for Disney Infinity, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

MNC weirdly kind of felt ahead of its time in some ways as a DOTA-like hero shooter but overall it wasn't really that great and didn't have any staying power.

This game was bad but in a kind of fun way. Pretty goofy.

Freaking loved Hydro Thunder on the Dreamcast, so it was fun to return to the series with this.

This game awakened in me an obsession with Erasure for about one month and then I never listened to that band ever again.

Best use of Ode to Joy in a video game.

I played so much of this dang game in college with friends from back home. I still have a folder on my phone with about 50 saved screenshots of drawings by either myself or friends. Good times.

I always really enjoyed the game's concept as a multiplayer hybrid tower defense and 3rd person action game. There aren't really a ton of games like this, weirdly. I just wish it were better made. It's pretty dang janky.

When I think of Skyward Sword, my first thought isn't the surprisingly good story, solid dungeons, cool new crafting system, fun new gadgets, or the great visuals and soundtrack. No, when I think of Skyward Sword, I think of how much the motion controls fucking sucked, how boring it eventually was to fly around the huge empty sky world, and how stressful those awful stealth sections were.

Everything I listed that I love with the game I fully stand behind - it's got some truly fantastic stuff that no other Zelda before it had, but the game is brought down pretty heavily by the motion controls and empty open world. Seriously how do you make flying around on a big bird boring.

If you haven't played this and you want to know what it's like, go watch the Mega64 Skyward Sword video. This is the only Zelda game I can confidently say that I had a bad time playing. (Still 100%'d it though)

I am grateful to Bit.Trip Beat for being a cool idea that spawned a whole series of games that eventually gave us Bit.Trip Runner which then led to Runner 2 (which rules).

After Words With Friends blew up in popularity, Zynga just dumped out a bunch of junk "With Friends" games. Words was great! This was not.

Angry Birdzooie: Nuts & Bolts

A neat little coaster sim for phones back in the day even though it's more of a coaster building tool with some fun styling than a proper game.

This is genuinely one of the best, if not the best, digital versions of Carcassonne. Back when we were still dating, my wife and I lived apart for a few years and we would just play round after round of asymmetric Carcassonne games. The UI was great and it made playing and scoring so easy that it spoiled me into never wanting to play the physical version anymore. It was just such an incredibly well-made digital adaptation of a board game.
It's too bad Asmodee Digital acquired the rights to this, shut this down, and released their own shitty version.