All-Time Favorite:
Everything about this resonates with me. The motion controls, watercolor aesthetic, characters, side quests, revisiting areas to see how they've changed, incredible dungeons, beautiful story, and especially Fi. Having the chance to play it in 1080/60 on Switch was one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. It's the rare game where I can listen to everyone's complaints about it and say "I know right?? Isn't it great!!" Skyward Sword for life.

Favorite Series:
Skyward Sword is my favorite game, but I could probably make the case for any 3D Zelda being the GOAT. Nothing hits quite like 3D Zelda, and playing Ocarina of Time in 1999 remains the most formative experience out of all my time with games.

Honorable Mentions: SteamWorld, Halo, Metroid, Katamari

Best Soundtrack:
I WANNA WAD YOU UP INTO MY LIIIIIIIFE

Honorable Mentions: Pokemon Gold & Silver, DK64, Metroid Prime, Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove, Practically every Zelda game

Favorite Protagonist:
Is this cheating? This might be The Cheating a little bit.

The dumb animal characters of Free Country, U.S.A. are dear to me, in or out of video games. SBCG4AP thrives as a comical adventure game because of its characters, and Strong Bad is as great of a protagonist as the genre has ever had.


Honorable Mentions: Kazuma Kiryu, Sergeant Cortez, Captain Nathaniel J. Claw

Favorite Antagonist:
Uh-oh it's Skyward Sword again!! Ghirahim is my favorite antagonist of all-time. He's such a campy, creepy little freak, and I would love to see him return to the franchise.

Honorable Mentions: Wheatley, Ganondorf, Dr. Loboto, Gruntilda

Best Story:
The most laughs, the most heart, and one of the most compelling reveals of any media I've ever consumed. I would trade the entire Mario franchise for regular Psychonauts sequels.
Honorable Mentions: Bugsnax, Yakuza 0, Golf Story, Strong Badia the Free

Have Not Played, But Want To:
Hey uh do you think Aspyr will ever release that Cut Content DLC for the Switch version
Honorable Mentions: Killer7, RPG Time: The Legend of Wright, Typing of the Dead

You Love, Everyone Hates:
You might look at 5 different colors of bananas in a level and think "ew backtracking"


I look at 5 different colors of bananas in a level and think "aww yiss a good reason to use all 5 of these monkeys equally"

Also, this is probably my favorite Grant Kirkhope score. Just a masterpiece of an OST.
Honorable Mentions: Jedi Power Battles, Game & Wario, Super Mario Party

You Hate, Everyone Loves:
I'm not a fan of overly story-heavy games (JUST LET ME PLAY), but I ALSO don't like repetitive, grindy dungeon crawling!
...unless it's co-op for some reason, but we'll get to that in a minute
Honorable Mentions: God of War (2018), Sonic the Hedgehog, The Wolf Among Us

Best Art Style:
Looking at Tinykin makes me smile. It's just got so much charm!
Honorable Mentions: TMNT Shredder's Revenge, Claw, Katana Zero

Favorite Ending:
Playing King of Cards as the climax to Treasure Trove puts it in a much different light than if you were to just play it by itself. The journey begins with King Knight being easily defeated by Shovel Knight at the very beginning of Shovel of Hope. To see King Knight go through such a journey, obsessed with his lust for power and title, stepping on anyone he can in order to get what he wants, it completely recontextualizes that first encounter. King of Cards ends like a mob movie.
Honorable Mentions: Second Sight, Super Mario Odyssey, Ocarina of Time, Flower

Favorite Boss Fight:
I love every boss in this game (except Soul Master), but the secret boss fight of the true ending was phenomenal.
I still do not believe Silksong is actually happening this year.
Honorable Mentions: Koloktos (Skyward Sword), Razor Beak (Metroid Dread), Killer Croc (Arkham Asylum)

Childhood Game:
I didn't have any video game-specific hardware until I was 10, so it was DOS games only for the first chunk of my life. Claw was the first game I ever got that didn't look like it was drawn with graph paper. The animation, voice acting, music, and incredible gameplay were stunning to me then, and I still love it all today.
Honorable Mentions: Commander Keen in "Invasion of the Vorticons", Rayman, Duke Nukem II, JumpStart 1st-5th Grade

Most Relaxing:
Nothing chiller than taking pictures of cute critters. You don't even have to move on your own! Sit back and enjoy the ride.

Honorable Mentions: A Short Hike, Donut County, Pokémon Blue, Flower

Most Stressful:
Those E.M.M.I.s, man. I've played games that stressed me out in a really bad way, but Dread has that good kind of stress, where I'm panicking but keeping a big goofy smile on my face.

Honorable Mentions: Serial Cleaner, Hollow Knight, Twelve Minutes

Game You Always Come Back To:
By my count, Banjo-Kazooie is the game I've beaten the most (14) times. (I've logged beating Kanto-based Pokemon games 26 times, but since that's like 6 different games I won't count them) It was comfort food for me between the ages of 10 and 19, and now I beat it annually with my daughter at Christmastime.

Honorable Mentions: Ocarina of Time, Halo Infinite, Pokémon Showdown, Nintendo Land, Game & Wario

Guilty Pleasure:
I'm fully aware that Gauntlet Legends and Dark Legacy aren't "good" games, but that has never once stopped me from having a great time smashing thousands of monsters in co-op.


Honorable Mentions: NOTHING because I reject any guilt for playing janky games! I like what I like!

Tons of Hours Played:
It's quite possible that I've put more hours into the 1st Pokémon generation than Breath of the Wild, but nearly all of that was in the 00's. In the past decade, there is no game I've put more time into than BotW. It's not my favorite 3D Zelda by any means, but it is so easy to get sucked into that world. Tears of the Kingdom is gonna dominate my life this year. (I've technically logged more hours in Halo Infinite, but at least 100 of those were spent queueing up for multiplayer matches)

Honorable Mentions: Pokémon Showdown, Halo Infinite, Animal Crossing New Horizons