Campaign Review:

Yeah, took me a while to get around to finishing this. Like Halo 4, it's a mostly forgettable campaign that's saved by some solid action in the last 4-5 levels. But far more than any previous Halo, this made me realize how much I hate it when modern AAA titles craft huge, detailed, yet forgettable areas that you just walk through without interacting with anything. There were a few times where my team of four Spartans was just walking across an alien planet with nothing else going on. It was all style over substance, but the style wasn't impressive or memorable. To be clear, I love a lovingly crafted environment in a game, but if it's in a linear level and you pass through an area in 30 seconds without engaging with the environment in any way... what was the point?? It doesn't contribute anything to the game, it just felt like adding more work to the dev team for the sake of adding more work. I dunno man, it got me real cynical.

Speaking of style over substance, Halo 5 has a habit of putting stuff in cutscenes that we should actually be playing, like killing the Elite boss in the beginning level, or a set piece in which Spartans are jumping across falling panels over lava. There's a cutscene where Locke briefly fights Chief, and I can't think of a single reason why it wasn't playable other than "it looks cooler this way". I'm not here to watch characters do cool stuff, I'm playing games to DO the cool stuff AS the characters!

Anyhow, everything I said in my Multiplayer review still applies to the core mechanics. The weapon variety is unmatched, and being able to use The Answer to take down a couple of bosses was just delightful. It's still frustrating that there's no split-screen, but whatever. My wife and I beat this with one of us on XCloud and one on console, and the streaming was fine about 80% of the time. At least when we play the Infinite campaign we'll be able to actually install in on a PC. Why is this the only Halo not on computers?!?

It's a fine campaign, but definitely the weakest in the series. Ending felt kind of pointless, and there really wasn't much in terms of standout sequences other than the huge numbers of enemies in the Battle of Sunaion. Glad I've finally beaten it, just wish it was better!

The problem with a game that messes with your head like Superluminal is that when the game glitches, you can't tell if it was on purpose or not.

Like you've already heard by now, this is very clearly aping Portal and The Stanley Parable in terms of presentation. However! The visual tricks and perspective-based illusions do more than enough to make the game stand on its own merits. It's not too long and keeps things fresh by constantly throwing new ideas at you. It's nice when a puzzle game makes you mumble "Whoa..." every once in a while.

Definitely recommended, but only on powerful hardware. I tried this on my XB1S last year and the framerate was so low it was making me motion sick. Runs great on Series X though!

I shudder to imagine the performance on Switch.

EASILY the cutest game focused on mercilessly beating the crap out of your closest friends. The character designs, animations, and top-down perspective make this arena brawler stand out amongst other 90s fighters. It's worth downloading the Japanese version of the NSO app just for this!

Side note: Sugoi Hebereke is one of the rare SNES games to utilize the Multitap. This is a FOUR PLAYER game! So WHY does the NSO emulator only support 2 controller inputs??? I gotta figure out if there's a way to make 4-player matches work on this thing.

The first Bullet Hell to realize that true Hell is life without breakfast foods.

Hazelnut Hex is delightful! It's the most pastel-tinted game I've ever seen, the character designs are cute, and the dialogue is beyond charming. It's kind of weird that alongside all of that, it's also REALLY HARD. This game isn't messing around, and the screen is regularly filled to the brim with projectiles. Luckily, it's playable for those of us with skill issues because (A.) your hitbox is a lot smaller than your character, and (B.) there are unlimited continues, though they reset your score and level/rank. I thought I got the bad ending for using too many continues, but no-continue runs on YT got the same ending as me. Guess this story's a bit of a breakfast tragedy no matter what you do!

Wait... You mean to tell me THIS has secretly been the best SNES racing game all along?? I was put off by F-Zero and Super Mario Kart as a kid since the N64 versions were so much better, but if I had owned Stunt Race FX, I would have played the heck outta this. Forget about the framerate issues, they don't stop this from having superior and more intuitive handling than its peers, none of which look as charming as this adorable truck with its animated eyes and Rayman-esque limbless movements. If you can get past the choppiness, there is a KILLER racing game in here!

Hey, this one doesn't suck!

Apparently in Japan, this is the third entry in the "Rushing Beat" trilogy, with the first and second games being Rival Turf and Brawl Brothers, respectively. I tried all three in order today, and while the first is awful and the second only seems good in comparison to its predecessor, The Peace Keepers is actually a solid beat 'em up! I'm shelving it for now because I wanna come back and do it co-op with my son.

IMPORTANT: For some reason the music is turned off by default. I don't get it! In the options, change the Music from "BGS" to "BGM" and it'll work.