This game legit made me angry, it started good, had cool moments, the first few loops were actually great and made me interested in the story, and the best thing about it is the voice acting.
Too bad it lands in SHIT in the end, what the hell was up with that twist? what were they trying to say or achieve here? beats me.
They could do so much with it, why they went in such direction makes no sense, it's beyond me.
Also the cover has nothing to do with the game, don't go into it expecting to see weird or actual time related stuff.

I never thought this one would be on the same level as the first game, let alone better, but by god they did it. Psychonauts 2 is an absolute treat from front to back. From as early as the opening and tutorial stage, you can just tell how much was poured into this game. Every crevice of this game is absolutely packed with detail. There's not a single level I dislike or found to be filling space for the sake of it. Hell, the second half of the game ESPECIALLY goes firing on all cylinders. Every level fleshed out its characters through symbolism and level design so well, you'd swear it was damn magic. You get to see why characters act the way they do through them, just like the first game, but it really expands on things with how it chooses to display these things. (For example, in Dr. Loboto and Ford's levels, you get to hear some of their inner conversations to themselves, to see how these parts of their brains process trauma, loss and grief). Sure, nothing quite reaches the iconic-ness of The Milkman stage from Psychonauts 1, but does it need to? Again, no fluff here, besides the hubs. The vibes of the game are emotionally rich and yet still darkly hilarious at times, capturing the spirit of its predecessors perfectly, while still making an identity for itself. I laughed, and I'm not going to hesitate to say I cried. There's a lot to unpack, and I loved unpacking it. I have some minor gripes (a lot of collectibles mixed with massive hubs/levels can get a little grating on cleanup, and one boss was a little difficult for how early it was), but as a whole, the core game is just so rich, so dense. It feels like a true project of passion from front to back, something made with little to no compromise. Psychonauts 2 is a masterpiece, and I'm so happy I can call this one of my new favorite games of all time.

(Also, you CAN play this one first but I'd say playing the first game enhances it. You DID pick it up when it was $1 on Steam right? ....r-right?)

The colossus before you stands tall, eclipsing the sun and shaking the earth with it's very presence. The grip on your sword tightens, the ancient relic of legend feeling near-worthless before the sight in front of you. But even in the face of such a mighty opponent, you will not be dissuaded so easily. No beast is too mighty for you. So you will climb, and you will fell the mighty behemoth, because you have no choice. If you turn tail now, then what was the point in taking the first step?

Shadow of the Colossus is a game about the sacrifices we make for those we love. Our protagonist, the Wanderer, has arrived at the edge of the world, a barren and desolate land decorated with the ruins of a society long past; tasked with the slaughter of 16 Colossi in order to resurrect his dead lover. The colossi in question are majestic in their appearance and scope, veritable Goliaths in contrast to our David, the Wanderer. They move and act with the grace and unseemliness their ancient appearance affords them: slowly and with much difficulty, treating you more like an annoyance than a proper threat. As you figure out how to scale and critically strike these lumbering giants, the articulate animations and camera work come together to properly sell the sense of scale such large creatures should possess. You truly feel insignificant in their presence and your battles against them are akin to ant trying to topple a elephant.

With each colossus felled, the Wanderer slowly but surely succumbs to whatever darkness the colossi contained. Yet, even as the Wanderer decays before our eyes and our resolve falters in the face of the Colossi, who are for the most part, docile beasts being ambushed and murdered for the sake of our objective, we will push on. We cannot question our path or our actions, because we've come too far to turn back. This bloodshed is for a good cause isn't it? We're doing it for love. We're doing it to give a second chance to someone who deserves it. The corpses that we leave in our wake is all for a good cause. It will all be worth it in the end.

...Won't it?

Wow this was a really fun time, I gotta play more wario land games, collecting all the treasures and cds were truly satisfying and the platforming was tight and great, and that last level before the final boss was awesome, truly warios greatest achievement..



besides WarioWare

When I was a kid, around fall my family would always plan big camping trips up north. After a decade and a half, the exact locales blur, all dirt campsites and sleepy towns, cut by endless drives down quiet backroads. Connecting every single trip, however, is the same singular image: laying in the backseat, staring to the sky as the pine, beech and maple trees ebbed and flowed with the breeze, a shimmer of greens, golds and reds against a still, cloudless ether.

Despite its northwestern setting, Alan Wake is a game that feels like home. Beyond the woodsy vibes, the spirit of the game keeps that same autumnal energy I associate with those countless trips, down to the same Halloween haunts that filled hours of my life. Alan Wake is read through the lens of Steven King and The Twilight Zone, a sort of contemporary / old school horror fusion, and the game makes it's infatuation with these influences blatant, to the point of embarrassment.

Horror molds the story and setting, leaning into a gun-toting Twin Peaks atmosphere, but the mold is not the full experience. Despite billing itself as a horror game, it feels more aligned with being an acknowledgement of horror's influence. In a sense, Alan Wake isn't a horror game; it's a game about horror, where horror itself is light and breezy.

Alan Wake is a beautiful game, a picturesque capturing of the woods and towns I spent much of my childhood in. To imply the game is mechanical deep or systematically unique would be disingenuous, but as a reflection of some of the most calming, perfect moments of my life, it's flawless. I love this game.

usually I would do a +/- chart right after beating a game just to dump out all of my good and bad thoughts on the game without having to go into essay territory, but here I feel obligated to be a bit more formal with my review. I have a weird relationship with this series... the first game I played a couple years ago just prior to TSA's release, and I was left disappointed afterwards. my idea going in was that the series was a satirical look at the meaninglessness of american culture and the violence/hedonism contained within, and I was let down by the purposefully lazy story and janky combat. no more heroes 2 was a little better for me mainly even with the afterthought plot and the continued jank thanks to a really good run of bosses from ryuji to alice twilight, and TSA had a fascinating story built on suda51's reflection of his career all surrounding utterly lifeless gameplay. with all that in mind, picking up no more heroes 3 at launch was a bit of a tricky proposition for me. it comes as no surprise then that this entry has left me with mixed feelings as well, though at the same time I think it's helped me understand why I keep coming back to this series and enthralled by its main concept.

just as a starting note: if you've played the first or second games I would not recommend playing on bitter like I did. I debated whether to go with bitter (normal) or spicy (hard) given my frustrations with both of the prior mainline games, and ended up going with bitter. at this setting, boss fights were so fast as to not give me any time to actually feel out their patterns and gimmicks, and thus some of the fun I would have had on spicy was sapped out. on the other hand, I've heard from friends that spicy is absolutely more difficult than the prior numbered entries, so YMMV on what the best difficulty is for you. thankfully this game has a boss replay mode where you can fight on higher difficulties as well. I completed the 1st, 2nd, and 9th bosses on carolina reaper difficulty prior to beating the game and enjoyed it quite a bit; hopefully I'll be able to finish out the rest sometime soon.

a big reason for why bosses are so easy to take down now has to do with travis's vastly expanded moveset. the best way I can describe it is moves from TSA grafted onto a refined version of the system from the numbered entries. although you only have four death drive abilities, they are insanely potent and are essential tools for keeping your opponent in check (my usual rotation was d kick -> light attack x2 -> d slow -> d rain -> light x4 -> heavy x4 -> d kick -> full combo while dizzy -> suplex -> tack on extra damage). on top of that you now have aerial attacks, specifically a very useful and quick homing attack that I used rather frequently for closing distances, and a full armor mode that grants even more busted abilities on top of heightened damage and such. while on lower difficulties this toolset leads to bosses that never escape stunlock combos, on higher difficulties it give you a range of options to deal with the opponent's moves. dark step (perfect dodge) finally gets a tutorial and has a very helpful visual cue as well, which is a sorely needed addition to the series. there are interesting situations that use this: there are certain combos that can continue dealing damage to you in dark step that are better taken care of interrupts like d force or just by blocking, but dark step can still be used to lay down d slow or recharge your katana. likewise, there's attacks you can't block or can't interrupt, and memorizing which responses you should use to which attacks is essential.

there are no action stages in this entry as in previous ones, and instead ranking matches are fought as soon as you raise the money required to enter. to pad time between fights, you instead have singleton fights spread across the open world that you must find using hints on the map. while these are in pretty samey locations, the upside is that the enemy variety is significantly better than previous games. most of the enemy types are introduced in the first third of the game, but there are more than enough to keep battles interesting, and each one has multiple attacks and strengths/weaknesses that add a lot of depth to each "designated fight." there are multiple minibosses as well, all of which are quite good. this makes the combat here feel much closer to character action along with the expanded moveset. to further this, enemies also take much more damage and the insane amount of splash damage you could deal in prior games isn't present here, marking a shift away from the older hack 'n slash style.

the open world is pretty much as bad as most people have pointed out thanks to poor performance (combat meanwhile generally stays above 50 fps), weird collision detction, and a general hollowness that sucks the life out of walking around. I didn't really mind the open world stuff in the first game as the world wasn't huge and it felt logically laid out. here half of the areas are entirely empty, and santa destroy/perfect world (the two urban-ish areas) are bereft of life thanks to the sparse objectives. thankfully money grinding is a non-issue in this game thanks to pretty generous payouts from the designated fights. the minigames are still here and are fine, with the best of the bunch being mowing lawns probably. they're definitely deeper than the first game but not really fun enough to play more than a couple of times. there are also side quests in the retro adventure engine from TSA as well as various collectables that are not worth much. rounding that out is defense battles, which send waves of identical foes after you for meager rewards. I stopped doing these very early on due to the tedium involved.

tying all of this together is the plot. the best way I can think of how to describe it is that this is basically the equivalent of a comedy game, if such a thing were to exist. the game openly parodies or explicitly references other properties far more than any prior game in the series, and seems to committed to sliding in jokes or general silliness in as often as possible. it's certainly not bad, and it pulls off the "wacky japanese" thing with much more flair than NMH2, but it's also light on meaningful plot. this tone made me think a lot about the NMH1 and my misplaced ideas about its darker satire; I've come to realize how NMH1 has an singular style thanks to how it juxtaposes the cartoonishness of the characters and the child-like whimsey of the retro game themeing with the griminess of its world and the abject violence contained within. it's the gaming equivalent of a grindhouse flick by glorifying the bleakness of its worldview through the aestheticization of murder, not a satire like I was desperately trying to wring out of it my first playthrough. when it throws a stupid twist at you or glosses over important plot, it's a wink to the player like "look, we've gotta have some cutscenes in here but we know you're here to kill, and we're not gonna pretend otherwise," and I've admired that style this whole time even when I didn't understand it. NMH3 by comparison has the same aestheticization of violence but is way more focused on crazy setpieces, memorable mix-ups, and letting the viewer laugh along with the quips. whereas the original game has a magical realism to it (reminds me a lot of mgs in a way) this game is a full-on cartoon, down to civilians being aliens for some reason and enemies + bosses looking like rainbow vomit. with that in mind, I actually like how each ranked battle is presented as an episode of a tv show complete with great OP and ED, and it pulls it off much better here than, say, the phantom pain. it's got a monster of the week feel where the stakes are low and the fun is high.

the other big component of the plot is the Kill the Past stuff... here is where it really started kicking in for me that this game is basically Suda51's Avengers. KTP as far as I'm aware is mainly based on thematic threads in the early grasshopper games that are linked by some interconnections between the games; the real meat here tho are the topics and concepts suda presents in those games' stories. when TSA dropped with lots of characters from early grasshopper games showing up, the cult following built up around dissecting KTP was overjoyed, and it seems like suda picked up on that in an odd way. his idea here seems to be to turn KTP into his own cinematic universe where the enjoyment is catching references to his other work and cameos with no integration to the narrative. virtually everyone from TSA shows up again here including characters from prior grasshopper games suddenly showing up with basically no involvement in the plot other than to cheer travis on while actual NMH characters like shinobu and bad girl get entirely pushed to the sidelines. it gets to the point where one of these characters making a cameo has a giant break-the-fourth-wall moment talking about how crazy KTP is gonna get, presumably pointing towards this concept spilling into later games. I can't really speak for those who are more knowledgeable about KTP than me but the criticism of these cameos as shallow has been relatively universal it seems, and personally I found these callbacks a little tiring. there's no significant continuation of the KTP themes, so including the characters has no relevance beyond fanservice.

I'm rather satisfied with this game overall though, and there's still plenty of content for me to dig into, with the most important absolutely being beating each of the bosses on higher difficulties. I can't say this is a truly amazing game, but it certainly is a lot easier to play and digest than the older games without entirely compromising their spirit (beyond what I've talked about above). I would love to play this on ps or pc down the line for better performance (after a whole game of sucking off unreal engine, you can tell that team has really realized the limitations of UE esp on switch) but I'm happy that the switch has another unique action game with niche appeal to fill out its roster. it's also given me some closure on the franchise overall... though that won't stop me from finally returning to the gardens of madness with a NMH ng+ bitter run sometime in the near future.

I never thought this day would come but I guess it has.
Psychonauts 2 has finally been released, and it FUCKS HARD.

Pretty much all control problems from the first game are gone, and everything feels so smooth to play; that feeling you get when the controller just melds with your hands making you emerged with your surroundings, very few games can truly give you an experience like that.

Not only does the game look fantastic from a graphics stand but it also looks fantastic from a style aspect. Even 16 years later and it still has the charm and humor the original had and then some. Almost every character looks deformed; like someone a really crap drawing on a napkin and then used that as concept art, but it's so charming and oddly fitting with the world of this game that you just learn to accept it after a while.

The level design in the first was some of the best of that generation and it's just as good here. Not only are the levels masterfully designed from a gameplay angle but they're also outstanding in narrative and stylistic. Each mind is unique for each character, one mind might be a psychedelic Woodstock like concert, and another might be a hospital casino hybrid. The levels become character onto themselves making exploration a treat rather than an obligation.

The one aspect that really caught me off-guard was the game's story and writing. For how funny the game can be it also balances the emotional and heartwarming moments amazingly. This game also gets an award for outstanding portrayals of mental illnesses such as "PTSD, Depression, Anxiety, Schizophrenia, and Panic Attacks" just to name a few. This game also gets the award for having a gay couple that actually acts like real-life gay people. IE regular people.

This was such an amazing surprise. Going into this I was thinking to myself "There is no way in hell this is gonna be as good as the first, at best it's gonna be a fun time with some characters I haven't seen in years"; oh how wrong I was. This game has surpassed the first game in pretty much every category and is now in my Top 5 favorite games ever. Psychonauts 1 will always have its place in my heart, but this game is just so great I just couldn't resist giving this a 10/10. (with a BADASS seal of approval)

At it's best, Art of Rally is a glorious homage to the glory days of the motorsport. It sucked me in immedietly, with it's gorgeous aesthetic and fantastic physics/car handling forming an excellent base for a game. A Tribute that truly captures the madness and zen-like state of blasting a car down a road at the edge of control.

But the more I played AOR, and the further I was torn from that first hour of pure zen, the more the cracks show. The main issue is the stages. Rally games have always suffered with stages, because realistically you'd want about a Thousand Kilometres of Road in every game, which is untennable, But AOR really suffers in both quantity and quality.

There's about 30 unique stages in the game (and a lot of reverse versions). That might have been enough, but they are also all extremely short and there's maybe one good one in the entire game. And considering the career mode will have you go through about 25 courses in every class of car, repeats happen thick and fast and by the time you've even reached the group B cars, which are the most popular and a selling point of the game - I was already tired of them.

And the stage design shows some really baffling decisions - whilst each of the 5 location's aesthetic has been gloriously adapted, the nature of their roads has most certainly not been, and it's incredibly frustrating. Every location ends up feeling the same when in real life there's so much more variety and soul to the tracks themselves. Finland is a particular shame, as it's claustrophobic, tree lined roads in real life feel exactly like every other road in this entire game. Different coutries' rally stages are literally like mario worlds in real life and somehow the artsy videogame version makes them makes them all the same.

There's also a mind-boggling choice to keep the road surface at the same, incredibly wide width for every road in the entire game, and there's a severe lack of variety in terms of corner choice. One of the japan stages feels like it has 10 2nd-gear hairpin sweepers in a row and it's remarkably boring. How does an artsy, arcade rally videogame have less interesting roads than the ones outside my house?

Eventually, the stage design's blandness broke through my sheer love of the core aesthetic and feel. And it's a real shame. There's such a love of a lost era here, and it's just one thing away from working.

If you were a fan of Variable State's previous game Virginia, I'd warn you to prepare yourself for a big change of pace for this game.

Last Stop is the latest iteration of games that beg the question "but what if games were more like movies and TV?" and manages to put a spin on it that's a bit more inspired than most others.

A very diverse cast of compelling characters, competent enough writing, and the right amount of intrigue to keep people going to the end play to this game's advantages.

In terms of gameplay, it's like a Telltale game but with even more walking around and even less impactful choices, but that's about what I had expected.

Overall, I'd say that the story is what stuck with me after the end credits, it's interesting enough and there's a decent amount of payoffs both emotionally and comedically that it justified its playtime.

6/10 "most british videogame ever" is not the resoundingly positive accolade that a lot of people think it is

Really disappointing for me. Gets tedious quickly, and the story gets worse as the game goes on until it reaches a very not good conclusion. I could more easily forgive the weak narrative if the gameplay was consistently engaging, but it plays all of it's cards within 30 minutes of booting up. I think it's visually very interesting to look at, and those initial moments have some promise, but the product seems to be a solid few steps behind it's contemporaries narratively, and within the adventure genre

The peak in aesthetics in arcade racers. Nothing hits like the buildup to Shooting Hoops, backed by one of the strongest soundtracks the PS1 has to its name. Beyond the music, this flawless techno / d'n'b mix, the presentation of this game, namely the audio-visual design of the game, culminates into this ultra slick, pristine visage of early 2000s style.

Mechanically, you're looking at drift heaven, impeccably smooth driving centered careening down straightaways and power sliding around hairpin turns, with the Grand Prix giving you this gradual growth from the easy-breezy pace of 90mph to the breakneck pace of 200mph, all through the lens of progress through heats, the games progression gates that small bit of tension to push to qualify, break through to the new batch of racetracks. Giving each race team a unique (and variable, depending on your skill) storyline gives that extra push to make you feel special about landing that first place victory.

Ridge Racer Type 4 is a love-letter to speed, to the arcade, to Namco as a brand. Amazing game.

This game did not take 12 minutes to finish 1/10 WORST GAME OF THE YEAR.
But for real I did enjoy this game. I did find some of the puzzles a little bit obtuse, but knowing this was a time loop game going in I kinda figured that so it wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be.
The presentation of the game is really great, I have like zero problems with the game on this front.

However that story sure was something, I really liked how the story was told, and all of the performances were spot on (Willem Dafoe has not disappointed me). But on the story front, there is a twist at the near end of the game. I will not spoil it but I will say this, the rest will make or break the story for you in my opinion. It didn't bother me but I'm just used to these types of "out of the ordinary" stories.

(Update) Yeah this didn't sit well with me so I'm lowering the rating to a 2.

It's always so nice to be pleasantly surprised by playing one of these undisputed classiques for the first time, and not have to grapple with the caveat of "you had to be there at the time, aged 9". Quake instantly became my favourite first person shooter from a pure kinetic standpoint, it just feels so good to skate around at mach speed - bouncing grenades around corners and rockets at the feet of goonies.

Amazed by how little I learned about this game through like, osmosis. Every enemy and sleight of hand trick of the levels was completely fresh new n excitin. Had to Google how to beat the final boss after beating my head against the wall for like ten minutes and it's a psychotic method I respect a lot.

Too stupid to get the soundtrack working, so all I had was pure ambient noise & sound effects. The spirit of Trent still manages to resonate within these rusty iron corridors, amazing sound effects that are as toothy and fulfilling as crunching in2 a protein bar.