The game that made DLC expansions a thing, but somehow cool. You were a kid and you begged your parents for the the next pack so your Sim could hug a dog or learn to do ballet. Back then they came in 4 discs and you prayed on your hands and knees that your cube PC wouldn't fry itself in the process of installation. You made the same Sims over and over again and followed the same storylines. Life was good.

In hindsight, you'll never get this era of Sims again. As much as EA wants to replicate that feeling, it'll either never happen or it'll cost you $2,000. This is that old flame you got separated from because you simply grew apart. I'm here to let you know that this game is very easily accessible on Ebay. Follow your heart and never settle, gamers.

Edit: Used to be a 4.5 star rating, but I stopped doing halfsies.

No idea how I got my hands on this game. My childhood is so repressed, it's a blurry fade in the distance. I'm starting to believe that a copy of it just one day materialized tangible data into my hands and already installed into my PC.

The best thing about this game is definitely the Creature Creator where you animorph two animals together like you would make a combo pizza in your own kitchen; smashed together.

Forget about the rest of the game, it's a pretty standard RTS with unfair AI but that part's been done ten times over already. I refuse to believe that there is any actual thought into the mumbo jumbo that is customizing the animals for success and perfect stat optimization. NO! You want to make cool things and watch them murder coal miners for sport.

"THE CRITTERS ARE UNDER ATTACK!!!" will haunt you for the rest of your life. You'll play this earnest and honest once, get completely rocked and then limit your AI opponents to only using Animal/Snake combos that can't do anything other than slither around. You'll then win and feel very good about yourself.

GREAT NEWS, this game is older than my mom, yet it's available on Steam.

This is the game that I think Stray wanted to be but it is obviously a snake and not a cat. You are a snake, man. What more do you expect? But, here's the thing, please consider this. Platforming, but as a snake.

Everything about this game, from the tiny details, to the balls to the walls platforming is completely built around the fact that you are a snake, no ifs, ands, OR buts, bucko. You might think that is dumb as bananas, but where I come from we slurp up the crumbs of unique gameplay like it's the last bit we're gonna get for years. (Because it is.)

This game should have won 2017 Game of the Year, and you know it.

Definitely one of the better Final Fantasy titles, if not the best currently in my eyes. Trust me, bro, I've played four of them so I know exactly what I'm talking about.

This game got that old fashioned turn-based good good that just hits the spot. It's so weird to think this was the last Final Fantasy to have that sort of gameplay. Really makes you look at Final Fantasy VII Remake and go, "But why....?" Don't get me wrong, the plot here is borderline unhinged and the characters are their own batch of JRPG annoying. The main character is such an absolute shitter until you realize he's the most relatable character you've ever played in your life. (THANKS DAD.)

Loads of challenges in here for the most naughty and daring, it'll consume your whole life for 3 months, but it is optional so don't do it all if you don't want to.

I always recommend this Final Fantasy first to anyone who's never played the series, it's got the perfect graphics without the old pixel look, that good turn based combat that doesn't exist anymore, a bright colorful aesthetic that's hiding a darker, pretty existentially dreadful plot that would keep someone new completely hooked.

There's something about this one that just gives you all the nostalgia, even when playing it for the first time in 2023. Probably that bangin' soundtrack and all the beachy vibes.

The Sphere Grid is massive but not the worst level up system in the series. However, the mini-games in this game are the worst I've ever played, minus Blitzball. BLITZBALL BAYBEEE, LET'S GOOOOO.

A really good mini-game compilation if you want to feel stupid.

The academy Blob guy told me that my brain was so small and feeble, that I needed to work on my education. He basically threw me out of the classroom because I couldn't effectively count quarters in 30 seconds. He told me I was so stupid that I wouldn't be able to go on to do great things. Lastly, he told me that my brain capacity is the same as Michelangelo, the guy who sculpted THE STATUE OF DAVID and painted THE SISTINE CHAPEL and proceeded to give me a C- as an overall grade.

No great things will be had in my life, I already quit everything great ahead of me because of the Blob man in this game. I will never live this down. He beat my self-esteem with a frying pan and still haunts my nightmares.

The people claiming that this is a better game than The Sims 4 are smoking crack cocaine. There were some great ideas being put into the foundation of this game that were so ahead of their time that they could never be implemented correctly for when it came out.

The UI and Sims look atrocious, on top of the fact that most people couldn't even run this game on accessible hardware, and still can't. I wish to God that they would have just fixed the game or built on these ideas, but they never did. It costs 2 quantimillion dollars to access the full arsenal of DLC this game comes with and the more you download, the worse it runs.

I have great memories with this game of course, but there are unpatched bugs and lackluster story progression that requires mods to function properly.

I will always love The Sims dearly, but I am also not legally blind. This game gets booted up when I want maximum chaos in ruining my Sims lives for the worse, but it's not my choice of Sims game to play normally.

This game has aged like fine wine somehow, looking like THAT. It's a crazy, wacky racing game for people who hate racing games.

The only thing I hate about this game is the GTA style wanted system that exists just to PISS ME OFF. Let me run over my Simpson neighbors in peace and drive off cliffs if I want to. The police impede on your ability to do some missions where destroying other cars is literally the objective and it's annoying.

This game is stupid, but the good kind of stupid. Not as stupid as the car AI though, those idiots are morons. Look over to your right though, there's Grampa Simpson saying the same line over and over again. SHUT UP GRAMPA.

Finally some good content. Dead Rising 1 is almost a perfect game and it deserves to be called one, I don't care. What this game misses in lack of smart AI and weird arcade shooting controls, gets outweighed by the sheer fact that the concepts baked into here are unique to itself and haven't been done again outside of this series.

This is a sandbox adventure game first and foremost, just in the setting of a mall with zombies as the obstacles. There are hidden items and survivors laid about to encourage the player to naturally investigate all areas of Willamette while also providing them with some challenge.

The AI can be stressful and stupid, but they aren't impossible. They are literally a living collectible that give you massive rewards for doing them.

The time limit mechanic is not a bad mechanic, and anyone complaining about it is an infant who helped ruin this series. Timing in this game is a very effective tool to get you to move your god damn ass across the mall so that you always have something to do that isn't just standing around, while giving you a bit of challenge that revolves around time and resource management. You won't level up simply by killing zombies, and you won't get better weapons unless you challenge bosses. The mall isn't THAT big, and it doesn't have to be, because you're almost always on the move doing something.

On top of that, you have the mechanic where almost everything that is selectable can be used as a weapon to fight enemies. Realistically, your options are limited, this being an Xbox 360 launch title but this is another idea I don't often see in other games. I'm not talking about picking up your neighbor's Excalibur sitting in a cave, brother. I'm talking about using the TV in your living room to bust some dude's ass wide open because he just simply looked at you funny.

Don't go into this plot expecting fine course cuisine, but treat it like it's your parents coming home with surprise McDonalds instead. The story and characters are as campy as camp can get. Frank is not only the toughest guy you'll ever meet, but he's also the world's best Ally. The only thing I hate doing in this game is getting an upskirt photo of a woman so I can 100% it. (Sorry, weirdos!!)

This game is the perfect candidate for a Capcom Remake in that sweet sweet RE Engine that they make everything in and not just RE. You could fix all the issues this game has so very easily while keeping the time challenge mechanic. More items that are able to be used as weapons, fixed and amplified survivors that have personality values that actually work, etc. That would be if Capcom didn't HATE Dead Rising with every fiber of their being and remembered that they even made it in the first place.

Out of the 5 mainline games, minus the Wii and Java ones (don't even start with me), this one is by far the best. Numbers and stars are arbitrary, my friend. This baby is a 5 star if I've ever seen one.

Originally I had played the 2011 version for Xbox 360 and that is what most of my review will be about.

At a core gameplay level, Catherine has a very complex puzzling system with actual stakes. The act of physically manipulating the level map while avoiding obstacles is very fun, and at times reasonably challenging! It'll make you feel like an absolute champion having waded through some of the cock and ball torture that is some of these levels.

The mystery of the plot and why things are happening are carefully sprinkled in-between the slower portions of the game that focuses much more on relationship building between your two, or three in this case, girlfriends. Multiple endings encourages you to seek out different options and find out for yourself which path you truly want Vincent, the main character, to take. The small side objectives help build so much tension when you meet other people in your dreams that you may or may not be able to help, only to be punched in the gut later when you've realized you've made irreversible mistakes.

In the original, I completed the game and saw all of the endings where most were thought-provoking at best and pure fan/ship service at worst. It is a very intriguing game and I do like it for the most part, but it's also pissed on with some transphobia that just gets even more amplified in this remake of it.

Most of my review is on the original mainly because most of the puzzles don't change, aside from the inclusion of a 3rd romantic option; Rin. This is the only route I took while playing the remake, because it was new.. and uh, hmmmmmm. Without spoiling, there's some themes going on in here that they fumble completely. I will say it was an easy route to take since it's kind of difficult to get the questions leading that way wrong so I never felt as though I needed to look anything up to get there. But, I don't think I learned really anything from doing this route, nor did it honestly add anything to what was already going on in the plot. It's just kinda there for the sake of being kooky crazy and that's really it. If you're into that fine, but I can just open the trending tabs on Twitter and get the same transphobic jokes on there for the same exact experience.

I did not play any of the other endings in this. Supposedly some were changed or modified in some way for the worse so I probably won't bother. It's a great example of a game made well and made to be fun but if I want to go back to it, I'm more likely to play the original without Rin, and I'd probably recommend that version over this one if anyone asked.

This game made me realize that I am completely unbothered by survival action horror games. I suppose I am much too desensitized to endless waves of flailing arm monsters and repulsive explodey boys because I found myself getting way more annoyed every passing minute as opposed to terrified and pooping my pants.

This isn't really the game's fault so I'm not going to ding it too harshly for that, although I didn't really feel any tension at all. I always knew that when I entered a big room, it would result in the classic jumpscare stinger noise and then hordes of the same 3 enemies would start pouring out from the ceiling again.

It was made competently well and had a pretty thorough line of mystery from start to end, which was at least enjoyable. The act of cutting off limbs is a creative way of dealing with constant droves of enemies and their varying types you run into.

I do blame this game for having obnoxious, unskippable death scenes though that definitely inspired other games to do so. After the first three deaths and past the initial "POGGERS, I GOT DISEMBOWELED!!!!!", it does start to wear off pretty fast. (I know it's inspired by RE4 OG, but they just went nutty here.)

If your response to this criticism is to just "get better" at the action horror survival game, I'll have you know that your Mom is great in bed.

The PC port also has terrible audio mixing where Volume 10% is actually like 4,000% and I am deaf now, so I won't be hearing anymore horror jumpscare stingers at all anymore. Thanks for that.

A short, but very fun creature collecting game that is always surprising you with how funny the bugs are.

Different tools will become accessible to aid you in catching the creatures, and there are in fact bosses. I don't quite remember how many Bugsnax there are in total, but it's enough to keep you on a quest to find each one.

Aside from the collection challenge, you just HAVE TO know what kind of abominations you can build by feeding your Wumpus friends different kinds of ungodly foods that change their appearance limb by limb.

Don't get me wrong, the plot is a weird one and just saying that line above is odd, but just trust me, bro. It'll be hard to explain without spoiling, but what you see in the art style is simply just a sweet candy coating; once you dive deeper into this game you will soon realize that it's dripping with thought-provoking existentialism that gets amplified by your relationship with your neighbors, as well as their interpersonal relationships with each other. THIS GAME HAS GOT SOME DRAAAAAMAAAA before you even show up, and it's up to you if you want to help them figure that out or not.

There was also a free update about 2 years after the release of this game that added much more to explore and many more Bugsnax, but only further develops about half the cast. It seems to me though that it's setting up for more Bugsnax on the horizon and you will see me on the frontlines, Captain. God bless, Bugsnax.

Edit: Used to be a 4.5 star rating, but I stopped doing halfsies.

Man, I like Kingdom Hearts music as much as the next weirdo but this game is kind of like getting spit in your coffee.

It's a rhythm game that "develops" the plot further after Kingdom Hearts III, by forcing you to re-listen to the entire Kingdom Hearts Youtube playlist with work attached to it and sending you straight to the hospital with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. For all of this you get 1 measly cutscene and even worse representation for the one character that needs the most development in the entire series. This is supposed to be "Kairi's game" yet you still play as everyone else who gets to have all the fun instead.

As a rhytmn game it works mostly fine, but I found myself needing to play this game on Proud Mode because Normal mode was simply too easy and it felt as though a lot of the tracking was watered down. This made the game have more of a challenge for me, with some of the songs becoming absolute wrist destroying gauntlets.

All the visual noise gets annoying after a while. Sometimes there is so much going on in the background and on screen that it's hard to focus on the task at hand, especially during the movie and boss levels where they just show cutscenes and loads of particle effects until the song ends.

It's great if you like Kingdom Hearts music and if you want to celebrate how far the series has come to this point, but aside from that I'd honestly just look up the ending and move on.