Like any iterative sequel, Spider-Man 2 builds on its predecessors strengths - responsive combat, fast-paced exploration, concise open-world, and strong narrative performances.

The combat stays fresh with the inclusion of both Spider-Men, opening a wide variety of gadgets, skills, and move sets to push baddies around. Through skill trees and story progression, your power creeps and unlocks even more ways to protect NY.

Speaking of NY, one of the best parts of Spider-Man 2 is its focused open-world. Truly unique and rewarding side activities are scattered all over. Yeah, it's largely the same map we have seen before, which is usually a problem. But was there anything truly remarkable about the city in the previous entries? The city is just a tool for web-slinging, and while hanging out around Coney Island is cool, the bulk of the world is just a backdrop. But it's easy to move around via possibly the best set of exploration abilities put into a video game. We need more 25-hour open world games.

Spider-Man 2 is a narrative action game. The bulk of the experience is in the thematic thrill-ride that Sony Studios are known for. And the hero duo mostly pulls this off again. Once again, MJ crowds the screen a little bit too often, particularly during pivotal moments that should be all about the titular wall-crawlers. But her inclusion is a large improvement over the original at least. The various plot lines converge somewhat sloppily and don't always feel cohesive. Anything Mr. Negative was just a bore, and unfortunately Miles' personal journey suffers for it.

The finale further sets up the world of Insomniac's Marvel series, and is surely to be a further improvement on a powerful franchise. The detail and care put into this game is admirable, and while the narrative action can't quite keep its consistency, it's a fun ride all-the-way-through.

Some levels were very reliant on luck - which discs were spawned, where yellow orbs were spawned, etc.

It felt like Disc Room started to spin out of control around the midpoint - adding various hazards and room effects that were more annoying than creative.

Still, the music was good and the feeling of clearing a level at 10 or 20 seconds was a frequent, nice reward.

Chained Echoes is a reflection on a lifetime of JRPGs. You can see the inspiration pouring from almost every character, location, item, and system. It's a combination of many great things, which builds up into a phenomenal experience.

While the writing is predictably corny at times, the story has fun twists and surprisingly solid cutscenes for a game presented in this style. The Act structure is well-formed and breaks up appropriate story beats. A particular Act introduces a radical change to the game world, giving the player an all-powerful feeling that is hard to come by.

The turn-based combat is practically perfect. On standard difficulty, you will have to depend on strategy to succeed. The progression system does not especially reward grinding, so you'll need to depend on your equipment and skills.

One additional area where you can get ahead of the competition is the Crystal system. And this is unfortunately an under-developed feature. The menus are clunky and it takes some time and error to fully find its potential.

Speaking of clunky - I can forgive the efforts of a solo dev, but I do need to call out the occasional bugs and stutters that creep up. I had to restart the game a few times to correct some funny issues.

But like previously mentioned, this is an indie title developed by a single guy. And yet it exudes big budget studio energy, making its contemporaries look like the indie titles in comparison. Someone please get Matthias Linda some money and a studio and see what he can do.

I haven't binged a game like this in, well...27 years!

But like a total degenerate, I spent every waking moment on release weekend, doing nothing but adventuring with Mario, Mallow, Geno, and the gang. And I'm so glad I did. It's still difficult to believe we got this game - what has become an admittedly niche artifact of Nintendo's past. An artifact that draws legions of fans whenever a new turn-based Mario game releases and it's not an RPG. It was easy to believe that Nintendo burned every notion of SMRPG after Square abandoned them for Playstation and Final Fantasy, but apparently, the dream still lived.

SMRPG was a special game to me - something I iteratively rented from Video Update until I could finally reach a conclusion. And certainly one of my earliest experiences with the RPG genre. That seemed to be in the conceit for this game way back then - an easy and approachable entry point into the daunting world of RPGs. With charm, recognizable (and unrecognizable) Mushroom Kingdom characters, funny writing, and superb music, it really hit the mark in 1996. But does it do the same in 2023?

For better or worse, this is a 1:1 remake of SMRPG with a few bells and whistles. At times, it really feels like a video game from 1996. For those totally entranced by its nostalgic power, that's perfectly welcome. But I can see it being a struggle for gamers new to the experience. The platforming is still a little wonky and the lack of voice SFX is perhaps a bit jarring. But the game moves at the same breezy pace it always has - one area never overstaying its welcome. A 10 - 12 hour RPG may be a bit surprising to new players, but that's just the way it was.

With the addition of perfect action commands hitting all enemies, and perfect blocks being more forgiving, SMRPG is actually an easier game in 2023. While I would like a Hard mode for veterans, I was also okay with relaxing on my journey. What awaited me in post-game was certainly enough of a challenge...But I'll leave it at that.

This brought me back to 1996. No worries. Ignorance. Just me and a Super Nintendo on the weekends. I leave the safety of the present weekend tomorrow, back into the perils of adult life. But it was fun just being a kid again with SMRPG.

I'll spare you the Lovecraft comparisons, as those are already abundantly clear.

Instead, I'll briefly describe the uncanny feeling the world of Dredge instills. From the opening moments, something is not quite right. The people all a little strange; the music hiding something beneath the waters; the world waterlocked by an unseen foggy dementor. It all begs the question - what the hell is going on here?

Those answers slowly come as you chug over the waves, hauling things onboard your vessel that aren't always quite...right. Helping those strange folks out as best you can and occasionally fleeing from deep-sea nightmares. It creates a wickedly unique little experience.

There were moments in Immortality that caught me by surprise. The first time I stumbled into subversive footage - an eerie momentum creeping over the scene and unfamiliar faces suddenly on screen - I was enthralled.

Gradually, that became less and less interesting as I started to feel the weight of the pretentiousness. The performances were all mostly great, but why would I wanna dive into 3 movies in such detailed manner, when frankly, they all would land on some form of a late night LifeTime movie channel. AKA - they're boring and melodramatic.

This is a tiny adventure best played with friends. Even better - create a shared world that you can explore asynchronously. It was a treat to jump in and find new items and structures that my partner had built. And even more rewarding was when we could explore the game together.

The world is novel and interesting and the exploration is rewarding. There are so many secrets packed into the backyard. The combat was more of a utility than a fun gameplay mechanic, but nailing parries was a decent reinforcement.

I would have liked a bit more enemy variety. Don't get me wrong - spiders are the devil spawn - but there are plenty of other gross creepy crawlies to frighten a player (uh centipedes anyone?)

This game was just shy of greatness. A very inventive pinball metroidvania - I was in a magical place for the first few hours of gameplay. But every new power made the game just a little bit worse. The abilities are typically frustrating instead of empowering and the new modes of exploration just aren't that fun.

Back-tracking is tedious because of the limited fast travel system. Why can't I board at every launch point?

This little dung beetle deserved better.

I treated myself to AC III back in November of 2012 . A 1-night rental from Redbox - a small Birthday treat to myself that day. I remember being excited by the prospect of a game set during the Revolutionary War - a period that is greatly underrepresented in games.

I was as unimpressed as I was returning to the game 10 years later. I picked this back up after Ubisoft threatened to close the Xbox 360 servers. Seemed like a good excuse to revisit. Satan help you, if you decide to 100 sync this game. The mission parameters are agonizing at times.

The general direction and design of AC 3 is often confusing and unintuitive. I had a little fun jumping through trees and the alternate history DLC is actually pretty damn good.