2018
This game matters more for its cultural impact than for its actual gameplay. It is the game in which a British YouTuber backstabbed a sitting US congresswoman. It landed at the most opportune time, and became immediately one of the most recognisable games on the planet. Its cultural impact will outlive us all.
I played it with friends. It's no One Night Ultimate Werewolf, but it's fun.
I played it with friends. It's no One Night Ultimate Werewolf, but it's fun.
2002
Ah, Sunshine. The clunky and least loved one of the 3D Mario games. It has seen a bit of a renaissance in the last few years, in part thanks to speedrunners breaking this game in increasingly outlandish ways.
I personally like it still? Yes, it's clunky at times, and some levels are definitely a bit rough, but the challenge levels are consistently excellent (and have excellent music). An imperfect but charming game.
I personally like it still? Yes, it's clunky at times, and some levels are definitely a bit rough, but the challenge levels are consistently excellent (and have excellent music). An imperfect but charming game.
2017
Fun combat, interesting narrative and meta-narrarive elements, and beautiful music. A classic. Worth experiencing it for the music alone.
1996
I remember standing in a game shop, in 1997, looking at a screen showcasing the game. It was unlike anything i had ever seen. I then got it at Christmas, along with a N64, the first (non-handheld) gaming console i ever had, and nothing can recapture the sheer joy of being 11 and beginning a video game journey with this game.
I have replayed it so many times. My PB for 100% is around seven hours, which is abysmal, but i can still do that years later without looking at a guide, because i could recite the full star list off the top of my head.
I therefore can't review this game objectively. I genuinely think it has aged well and that it was a landmark in video game history, but i will never be able to see this game without the pink tinted glasses of nostalgia.
I have replayed it so many times. My PB for 100% is around seven hours, which is abysmal, but i can still do that years later without looking at a guide, because i could recite the full star list off the top of my head.
I therefore can't review this game objectively. I genuinely think it has aged well and that it was a landmark in video game history, but i will never be able to see this game without the pink tinted glasses of nostalgia.
2020
Sometimes you just want to fire up a silly simple game and play a few quick rounds of a brutally competitive battle royale game that looks more colorful than an entire tub of sprinkles
2022
I'm conflicted. On one hand, it's a short but forgettable adventure game, that doesn't innovate a ton. On the other, YOU PLAY AN ADORABLE CAT AND YOU CAN MEOW.
I feel like the cat aspect is what saves the game. The exact same game, but playing as the robot that accompanies you, would not have received anywhere near the same critical acclaim. Which is not to say that it's not a good game! Just not groundbreaking.
The best part of this game will forever be the videos of cats reacting to it.
I feel like the cat aspect is what saves the game. The exact same game, but playing as the robot that accompanies you, would not have received anywhere near the same critical acclaim. Which is not to say that it's not a good game! Just not groundbreaking.
The best part of this game will forever be the videos of cats reacting to it.
1985
It's one one those games that you can't review now without taking into account the historical context. It's a game that launched a franchise and an empire, that has been so deeply optimized by speedrunners that the difference for the world record between human and machine is measured in frames. Should you play it in 2023 if somehow you haven't? Yes, probably, if only to witness where it all came from. It's a bit rough, it's difficult, it has puzzles that aren't very well explained... but at this point, it's a historical document more than a game.
2012
There's something extremely visceral and primal about this game. It also solidified the genre so well that it is what That Scene of John Wick 4 is always compared to. And the soundtrack is fantastic. This game is a gem, but it's a blood diamond.
2011
With a friend of mine, we've debated for years about whether Portal 2 is even better than Portal, or if it doesn't live up to it. I believe the latter.
While this game is incredible, don't get me wrong, it sometimes feels like it jumped the shark: Portal was goofy, sure, but in an unsettling way; Portal 2 pushes the goofiness a bit further, and ends up feeling a bit too goofy at times. Cave Johnson almost feels like a TF2 character (a game in which Abraham Lincoln canonically invented stairs, which was a huge relief because it provided an alternative to rocket jumping).
But, yes, it is an incredible game. The puzzles are good, the humour lands, it has tons of iconic lines... While it no longer has the novelty factor of Portal, it is a more polished experience, and has a much more developed story.
While this game is incredible, don't get me wrong, it sometimes feels like it jumped the shark: Portal was goofy, sure, but in an unsettling way; Portal 2 pushes the goofiness a bit further, and ends up feeling a bit too goofy at times. Cave Johnson almost feels like a TF2 character (a game in which Abraham Lincoln canonically invented stairs, which was a huge relief because it provided an alternative to rocket jumping).
But, yes, it is an incredible game. The puzzles are good, the humour lands, it has tons of iconic lines... While it no longer has the novelty factor of Portal, it is a more polished experience, and has a much more developed story.
2012
This review contains spoilers
This game won't be for everybody, but i love it dearly. The majesty of the gigantic world you glide through, the poetry of a wordless game, the euphoria of reaching the summit, when the music soars and you fly free... It is a short magical experience.
Its nature as a hidden co-op game, kinda, which is never technically revealed to you until the end, is also magical. You end up forming a bond with someone with whom you can't speak, with whom you're just doing this pilgrimage, that you might not even realize is another person at first.
A beautiful, lovely game.
Its nature as a hidden co-op game, kinda, which is never technically revealed to you until the end, is also magical. You end up forming a bond with someone with whom you can't speak, with whom you're just doing this pilgrimage, that you might not even realize is another person at first.
A beautiful, lovely game.
2019
This review contains spoilers
Oh this is a difficult review to write.
To start with, i agree with everybody else: if you're reading this and haven't played the game, STOP READING! Go play it! A lot of the charm of this game comes from discovering what it is about without prior knowledge.
That being said... i am not sure i understand what made people resonate with this game so deeply? Was it something about the mood of this game, about the story? I feel like i'm missing something. Sure, i liked it, i enjoyed my time with it, but... i seem to have missed the transcendental experience that others got from it.
Part of it was perhaps frustration: sometimes i knew what to do, but was failing to execute it properly. Sometimes i was unsure where to go next, and would loop through places i had already seen. Part of it is also that, for some reason, it scared the shit out of me. The black hole effect made me physically uncomfortable, the anglerfish were traumatizing.
I feel like there's something deep, profound, or perhaps poetic, that i'm just missing here, and to an extent i'm sad, i wish i got to experience that too.
To start with, i agree with everybody else: if you're reading this and haven't played the game, STOP READING! Go play it! A lot of the charm of this game comes from discovering what it is about without prior knowledge.
That being said... i am not sure i understand what made people resonate with this game so deeply? Was it something about the mood of this game, about the story? I feel like i'm missing something. Sure, i liked it, i enjoyed my time with it, but... i seem to have missed the transcendental experience that others got from it.
Part of it was perhaps frustration: sometimes i knew what to do, but was failing to execute it properly. Sometimes i was unsure where to go next, and would loop through places i had already seen. Part of it is also that, for some reason, it scared the shit out of me. The black hole effect made me physically uncomfortable, the anglerfish were traumatizing.
I feel like there's something deep, profound, or perhaps poetic, that i'm just missing here, and to an extent i'm sad, i wish i got to experience that too.
2007
Picture this. It's 2006. You think you know video games, you've been playing them for a while, you've even started doing some basic 3D stuff yourself. And then the first Portal trailer drops, more than a year before the game's release, and everyone loses their mind. You can see infinitely through portals! Objects move through them! WHAT SORCERY IS THIS! No one had seen anything like this.
Even if it was short, and the concept has been since refined by so many other games, Portal was the first, and it was iconic. It wasn't as carroonish as Portal 2, and ended being almost unsettling at times, in a good way. It introduced GLaDOS, the cake, the companion cube, it brought us Still Alive. It was the first game like this, and it absolutely nailed it, and transformed the game industry overnight. I still replay it every now and then: i genuinely think it holds up better than Portal 2.
Now you're thinking with portals.
Even if it was short, and the concept has been since refined by so many other games, Portal was the first, and it was iconic. It wasn't as carroonish as Portal 2, and ended being almost unsettling at times, in a good way. It introduced GLaDOS, the cake, the companion cube, it brought us Still Alive. It was the first game like this, and it absolutely nailed it, and transformed the game industry overnight. I still replay it every now and then: i genuinely think it holds up better than Portal 2.
Now you're thinking with portals.
2010
This review contains spoilers
THIS GAME. OH MY GOD THIS GAME.
It's a very simple game, and i played it without understanding what the core idea of it was, which made it so incredibly impacting. It's a simple "decision tree" flash game, in which you attempt to save the world (or at least you can choose to do that) from a plague of your own accidental creation. Each day, for a week, you get to choose how to spend your potential last few days on earth: work all the way, abandon your family; spend time with them, ignore the plague.
What destroyed me was reaching an end. Because the end i got sucked. It was bad and disappointing. So i pressed F5! Let's retry! Let's find another ending!
And i got greeted by the end screen. The game would not let me replay. I had only one chance. What had i done with it?
This game broke me. It was 2010, and i had never seen anything like it.
It's a very simple game, and i played it without understanding what the core idea of it was, which made it so incredibly impacting. It's a simple "decision tree" flash game, in which you attempt to save the world (or at least you can choose to do that) from a plague of your own accidental creation. Each day, for a week, you get to choose how to spend your potential last few days on earth: work all the way, abandon your family; spend time with them, ignore the plague.
What destroyed me was reaching an end. Because the end i got sucked. It was bad and disappointing. So i pressed F5! Let's retry! Let's find another ending!
And i got greeted by the end screen. The game would not let me replay. I had only one chance. What had i done with it?
This game broke me. It was 2010, and i had never seen anything like it.
Hard Drive nailed my feelings about this game in their article titled: "Heartbreaking: Man Too Good at Fighting Game to Enjoy Playing Against Friends But Not Good Enough to Play Competitively".
More seriously, this is the definitive version of Smash for me. The most fast, responsive and dynamic since Melee, the full roster of characters... I love this series, despite not being very fond of more traditional fighting games otherwise.
Docking half a star, however, for the poor quality of network play.
More seriously, this is the definitive version of Smash for me. The most fast, responsive and dynamic since Melee, the full roster of characters... I love this series, despite not being very fond of more traditional fighting games otherwise.
Docking half a star, however, for the poor quality of network play.
2007
Would you kindly like this review?
While the morality system was a bit underwhelming ("would you kill a child for precious resources?!?!"), this game was otherwise a classic. And it still provides regular entertainment years later, when libertarians end up praising it on social media for being a "conservative game", while the game is pretty explicitly a critique of Ayn Rand's objectivism.
While the morality system was a bit underwhelming ("would you kill a child for precious resources?!?!"), this game was otherwise a classic. And it still provides regular entertainment years later, when libertarians end up praising it on social media for being a "conservative game", while the game is pretty explicitly a critique of Ayn Rand's objectivism.