I like this game in a really weird way - looking at it objectively, what people wanted it to be, and what it is? Like, it's a zero. Failed completely and set the franchise back years. it's so fucking extra, as Capcom's most maximalist approach to their impression that they could turn Resident Evil into a AAA big budget action franchise by throwing as many Michael Bay-isms into big pharma zombie games as they could. As a horror game? It's dogshit. Completely valid if that's what you value RE for because this BARELY meets that with Leon's campaign, and even that doesn't last long.

But I like 5 and this game for the fact that they're doing their own thing and taking more of an action-focused approach; using it as a vehicle to create fun co-op gameplay. Playing this game with a friend or watching two friends play this game together is undeniably fun. Either in terms of actually decent action mechanics and set-pieces or just in shitposting about how ridiculous the story is. RE6 is the equivalent to a schlocky horror action flick, and it aligns alot with the movie series developed from the games which I love for their complete ridiculousness - so of course I'm gonna love Jake Wesker and his total Main Character Energy as he does stupid parkour flips off hanging poles in the environment, and Chris Redfield becoming the human embodiment to a massive boulder that occasionally screams in edgy military speak.

It looks good for the most part, it has some decent visual design and environments, I think a decent amount of the music bangs, and at the end of the day, it's just cool to see these characters across RE history interact in these ways. Sherry getting a big part here is cool. That scene with Leon and Chris, ow the edge, sure, but like, damn it was dope to see those guys fight at the time and it's still dope now. (I wish they were able to sneak Jill or Claire into one of the campaigns even if it was just a cameo. If this was supposed to feel like a big come together celebration of RE it feels hollow without them)

It's main issue is just its length, some missions go on for FUCKING AGES, some meh enemy and encounter design that reek of 2000s cover shootin', and the fact its got a lot of bad boss fights. Otherwise, it's still really fun as a co-op game to get baked with a buddy and laugh your ass off at. RE5 is the actual better game, and the recommendation of mine is always gonna be that first, but this? It sucks as an RE game, but it's fun just in of itself. It's not even close to the worst thing to ever happen to RE as a franchise

I think it's really hard to review Minecraft given its experience is so reliant on the means by which you're playing it and with what group, but just speaking from my own experience, I've always found it one of the most continually rewarding 'project' type of games - even in vanilla with the right group of people.

I met a new group of friends early last year, among them two ardent Minecraft fans who asked me with my (alleged) knowledge of computers if I could set up a server for them. The three of us - with some occasional special guests - have now enjoyed four different servers together with different modpacks as the focus and continually returning to the server with them and working on a daily project with them in a voice call is always fun, and a great way to spend time. We take breaks here and there as we feel the need to enjoy other games we like but we continually return to it as a way to bond and have a thing we can all enjoy together. And Minecraft is a pretty powerful little modular platform in how people use it to create these crazy experiences beyond the means of the vanilla game - and it's always got staying power for me in that even it's vanilla gameloop is just very pleasing to the creases of my brain. I'll probably be playing Minecraft for as long as I have a computer in some capacity and I can never hold any shame in regards to enjoying diggy diggying a hole the way I do when it's the way I've bonded with some really good friends.

This game is gonna stay timeless for fucking ages, I can only imagine. It sometimes gets lost in the ol' 'X will remember that' decision making that feels impactful in the moment but ends up feeling inconsequential at the end, but for my money it's still the most effective storytelling for its genre and format in all of video games. And I can forgive a choice here or there feeling empty for that. If this game can't guilt trip you into taking care of the child, I just don't think you have a soul. Clementine is so well written and all the ways you interact with her are so effective in achieving the goals of the narrative. All the well written characters around her and Lee are just the icing on the bloodsmeared zombie gut cake. This is a pretty special one

I don't really like Last of Us as a series in a high concept way. I don't think it's trying to be too heady in and of itself, I think it's a concept it fits squarely into in what it tries to achieve and how it's talked about by its creators. Now, I do think it's fair criticism of the game to hold Neil and Naughty Dog as a whole to the standard of trying to push the AAA medium forward, given they talk about Last of Us alot in that way, and it feels a lot of the time like these games are barely trying to. And if that's the middle ground you try to meet this game at, that's completely understandable and you're more than in your right to view it in such a light that it's been detrimental to the industry as a whole - even I, loving this game, can't deny that it absolutely has.

I just... love the story. And I love the gameplay. The music is incredible. The graphics are beautiful and pushed the PS3 to its fucking limits. It's an enrapturing experience with a piece of interactive media that I still really love diving back into from time to time, and I think about doing so a lot more than other games I tend to replay.

I love the video game. I love it objectively. Outside of any above-itself understandings about its themes of love and sacrifice.

Maybe I'm a baby gamer but I found the controls tight, the push-and-pull of stress / reward with the resource management engaging, and every encounter interesting to play using the tools at my disposal. I can pretty solidly recount every area and encounter in this game and tell stories about cool shit I did to save my own ass as my ammo and other crafted items dwindled. It's linear, and it's a bit formulaic, with a lot of downtime where you just listen to people talk and explore pretty environments, but nothing about those things actively took me out of the experience of playing a video game to ruminate on the influence such rudimentary gameplay has on the state of the industry. It just stayed gripping, the whole time. It felt really good to whack a clicker in the face with a brick. Collecting parts and pills over time to upgrade weapons and your abilities was always effective in making you feel smart for searching the right nooks and crannies and was always fun. (Shoutout to the fully upgraded El Diablo.) It nails that feeling of hitting a really good headshot and that small sigh of relief hitting you suddenly, now that you have a bit more ammo to work with even as the encounter continues.

This game is violent and brutal. And sure, is it the essential Male Gamer Experience that the story, having that theme, holds the gamers hand through the whole thing as it paints Joel as the evil man who damned the world for the daughter he lost? And is it true all the doomer-y blackpilled bullshit of that left a horrible lasting influence on how game stories were told given how well this one sold? Yeah. To both those questions. But just in and of itself, it works for me. It's a simplistic straightforward story that's not actively trying to do anything too high concept for its genre and just uses it as a vehicle to get you from place to place, encounter to encounter. But I love these characters. I love Joel, even in spite of how much I hate him for what he's done. I love Ellie, the relationship she forms with Joel overtime becoming the backbone to your inherent want to keep playing. It's continually effective for me in how it takes its time developing those characters in such small ways. But even for as good as the story is, it stays secondary to the gameplay - and actively enhances it at every turn.

In my opinion, The Last of Us wasn't effective because it was a well told story that could immediately translate to an adaptation on a major broadcasting network - they tried it, and in most fans' opinions, large parts of it didn't work. You need those ten to fifteen hours spent walking through Pittsburgh actively seeking interaction with Ellie by pressing triangle to talk to her as she learns to whistle, badly at first, and that helps you truly feel that relationship with that character. You sought that interaction out. That's a gameplay element first, that uses the existing story beats in an advantageous way to further immerse you in the experience. The way it did it is artful, but as time goes on, I find it a bit reductive to keep referring to this game as some high art piece itself - it's just a really good adventure survival horror hybrid video game. One that you play with a controller, and immerse yourself in whilst in front of a big TV or a computer monitor. Nothing less, nothing more. For that, it and it's sequel are two of the most effective games in their genres.

But high art they are not, at least not in my opinion

Talk about tonal whiplash, jesus. This game's got some of the most tearjerking beautiful shit Takaya Kuroda's ever gotten to work with in character as Kiryu, and it also has some of the dumbest most stupid bullshit fetch quest side content in the entire series. I think overall the highs ever-so-slightly outweigh the lows but this game is not nearly as good as people say it is and I think it'd be a crime to dismiss this game's flaws off the basis that it's a fitting wrap for Kiryu's last solo game. Sure, I like the ending. Got me REAL in my bag. But the unneeded retroactive explaining of LAD that eats up so much playtime and the shitty character writing in this game's more original parts that got us to that end, alongside the subpar combat? (Fuck Agent style lmao) No thanks.

Shishido is cool and I like that final fight but Nishitani III is just a dumb 0 asspull that doesn't add anything but fan service for fans of that game and even then he's a dogshit character, one of the worst villains in the series in both text and (grossly hidden) subtext. They cocktease Ryuji weirdly? And like, fine, but what purpose does it serve if he gets almost no mention in 8 either? It feels weird. And rushed. Makes sense given they slapped it together in 6 months.

It largely feels like DLC. Part of me wishes I skipped but I got something out of the story I guess. The Yakuza series' quintessential 5/10. At least it's got Sayonara Silent Night

JRPG's are hard for me to get into, I'm hard to please with very little attention span so I gotta really jive with it and this didn't grab me, so it was a struggle for me to enjoy even in spite of how much I wanted to

I think my ideal way to enjoy these games is through watching other people who do enjoy the niches of the mechanics play them, and that was how I got through to the end here and got to appreciate all these great characters, this wild story that stretches across all different corners of the Yakuza canon, and the great way everything is presented.

More than anything it feels like the game made to get you falling head-over-heels in love with Ichiban, and for that, it made me a full believer. No one else I'd want taking over the reins of this series, he's such a lovable character. He's this game's biggest achievement in my eyes, after so many years of imagining what this series would look like without Kiryu, it's a sigh of relief to know it's in good hands. And they did it in one game! Good shit RGG

I have a soft spot for Nishikiyama as a character so I really appreciate 0 and this game taking the time to flesh his and Kiryu's relationship out when previously he was just Mr. Ten Years In The Joint

It's not perfect, especially in comparison to the first game which feels wholly original, and just reeks of the blood sweat and tears which were forced in the process of making it. Kiwami in comparison feels like its really resting hard on Yakuza 0's laurels, not doing anything inventive with Kamurocho visually in comparison to 0 and the original game, and the jokes I hear of it being Yakuza 0.5 feel scathingly accurate when I'm still swapping combat styles to beat dude's asses in this game and then in Kiwami 2 we're at Dragon Engine fuckery and Kiryu's only got one fighting style. Majima Everywhere, for as much fun as I had with it and as much as I love Majima as a character, is grindy as fuck and annoying.

But it's still Yakuza 1 at it's core with extra Nishiki and better presentation in the form of the Japanese cast. Even if it's the better game objectively I don't play the PS2 original, I play this. Oops

Such a good game that really got fucked by being so successful that many of its elements which worked in its own game got copy and pasted into other games in the series where they didn't belong

Combat is tight as hell, some of the best in the whole series. Great substories and lots of fun mined from being the earliest game timeline wise for those who love the series. Presentation is beautiful, '80s Kamurocho might be the best look for it in the series period. Writing-wise Majima's story is the real highlight here (goddamnit he's just so cool) but no shade on Kiryu who gets a really rewarding arc at the beginning of his journey plus a full fleshing out of his relationship with Nishiki to build on the first game. Suffers a bit from prequel syndrome but all the characters introduced are written well and interesting so it doesn't really matter much.

It has the sewer Kuze fight with Pledge of Demon so it's a 10/10 no matter how much I gripe about how it hurt the series in a lot more ways than helped it but it's not as good as 5