I played a lot of Skate 3 when I was kid. Revisiting it so many years later and after finishing Skate 1 for the first time and Skate 2 for the first time in years, it makes 3's flaws stick out a bit more glaringly.

The skating feels more refined than ever and the off board control feels a lot better than 2, so that's good. Hardcore difficulty was a cool addition and makes from nice, closer to realistic skating. The art style sucks, the game is dizzyingly vibrant and almost cartoony in aesthetic. The city pales in comparison to both of the prior ones. The parks are fine I guess, but I actually enjoyed the DLC ones a bit more than any in the base game. The challenges are absurdly easy; death races might be challenging if you lack reflexes and killing some of the films and photos can require some precision, but generally speaking most of the challenges are one-and-done without much effort.

It's not a bad game, I have many fond memories of it and still enjoy skating around in it, but it just lacks that gritty street spark that 1 & 2 had and it suffers for it.

The addition of walking is nice for stairs at least, but it's so floaty and unwieldy that it just kind of sucks otherwise. Other than that, it's basically more of Skate 1 except grittier, and a little heavier as far as physics go. I still like the first map more, but 2's is still good and both are superior to 3's. The challenges are about the same mix as in the first game; some easy, some challenging, some obnoxious. Doesn't take long to technically "beat" the career, but there's a bunch of challenges to play afterwards in addition to just skating around. Some of the control wonkiness (grind magnetism behaving weird, walking in general) and some of the more grating challenges can mar it down a bit, but it's still plenty of fun.

This was my first time with Skate 1, though I did play a bit of Skate 2 and hundreds of hours of Skate 3.

Right off the bat, I loath the low camera angle, just makes it hard to read things for me. It's easy enough to adjust to but I still don't enjoy it. Some of the challenges suck, specifically SKATE matches and the film challenges that give you 30 seconds to accomplish multiple things. The deathraces are also kind of rough due to the camera angle (for me) and the AI. Speaking of, the AI are basically skate terorrists. I cannot be convinced that they weren't programmed specifically to get in the player's way and run into them.

That said, I think this might actually be the best map in the Skate series. It's not as big as 2 or 3's, but the whole map feels so good to skate in. Lots of hills for speed, the environments were crafted super well to be skateable all over the world for the most part. There are a few areas with a lot of stairs that can be annoying to navigate due to not being able to walk, but it isn't a common issue. The game looks great, too, it's not as dark aesthetically as 2 nor is it as bright and ugly as 3. Small stuff like X-Games having a custom UI is neat too, and the X-Games park is potentially my favorite event park from the series.

Overall, the skating feels good and the map is great. The camera gimps enjoyment for me and some of the challenges can get pretty obnoxious, but it's still plenty enjoyable outside of that.

I'm gonna start with the flaws, because they are present and may be a turn off for some, but this game also has a lot going for it I think.

I played on normal, I'll probably do another playthrough on a harder difficulty and make an addendum if it's notable. The game is really easy; aim is more of a general thing rather than precise. Upgrades sort of inevitably route you to splash damage and explosions, which makes pretty much any gun capable of keeping you alive. I died more from platforming than combat, to put it in perspective. It's also pretty short, I just finished the story and am currently at 115 minutes, meaning I could even refund it. I won't though; on to the good.

The game is very stylish, they had an aesthetic they were going for and they nailed it. The animation is good and wears the anime inspiration on its sleeve with references and details. The voice acting (I think there's only 2 VAs for a total of 3 voices) is also pretty enjoyable, good personality. The writing is cheesy (presumably intentionally), I found it amusing enough - even if a little ham-fisted at times. The soundtrack is also fantastic, some bangers in it for sure. While precise aim isn't necessarily needed for the game, it is rewarded in the sense that if you can consistently get headshots, you will NOT run out of time as long as you keep moving. More than that though, the gunplay is very satisfying thanks to the combination of sound effects and meaty feeling guns. Even though normal wasn't especially challenging, I still had a whole lot of fun playing. I'm going to check out the endless mode and also see how harder difficulties fair and may update this, but overall I found the game fun and charming.

(Episodes 1 - 3, will revisit E4 after Doom II)

I don't think there's anything I could say about Doom that hasn't been said better by someone else, so I won't. Instead, I'll talk about the VR port by Team Beef because that's how I played it. It was also my first time playing Doom I all the way through.

The game looks surprisingly great in VR, I would have expected sprites to look jarring but it is all incredibly immersive. The environments look really cool and seeing them in this way really helps you appreciate the detail.

The controls are also incredible, very smooth and very natural for the most part. My only gripe is jump being on B, it's easy to forget but there is also isn't really a better option so it isn't major.

Really enjoyed playing it in VR and I think I'm just gonna play all of the "essential" classic FPS games this way.

I've played a bit of 2 and a lot of 3 (and unfortunately, 4), but this was my first time touching 1. Some parts aged a lot better than others. The story is engaging and the way bits are sprinkled out through books is cool, the atmosphere and music combine in a great way to be just eerie enough to keep you on edge, and the overall spookier, more horrorish vibe than the later games sets a nice tone for the game. I'm very mixed on the gameplay, the actual mechanics of it were no issue to get used to and loot and skills were pretty self-explanatory.

The more glaring issues come from the grid-based system. When levels start getting crowded, moving around and aiming gets really rough, with it feeling like you're fighting the game just to hit your target sometimes. I had a good bit of fun with it up until Hell, and Hell didn't make me hate it entirely, but I'm not particularly in a rush to return.

There's the bones of a good ARPG here. The story is pretty standard, world overrun by evil and YOU get to save it, though with a vampire flavor. The gameplay itself feels pretty good as far as mechanics go, and it has a neat approach to builds. Each class of weapon has a specific skillset and they all feel unique and fun enough to play. The crux of your build comes from a tiered tarot card system, with each card having different effects. It's fun to play around with at first but I found it hard to really utilize in a playthrough because you have so few card slots and so few discipline points (you have a cap on these points, and each card costs so many) to really work with.

The game had two primary issues for me, one big, one small. To start with the small, there is so much CC throughout this game. Basically every fight I found myself getting annoyed because of constant knockbacks, stuns, or pulls, and slightly related is that there's a lot of enemies that will randomly turn invisible in a fight due to two affixes, hitting them in that state seemed like a complete coin flip, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.

The bigger issue, however, is the way scaling works. Scaling feels absolutely awful in this game, and it works in a way that you almost feel progressively weaker rather than stronger. The way the developer explained it is that enemies have set stats, but as you level, they are granted new affixes that make them stronger and those affixes have varying levels of difficulty themselves. I get the idea behind it, to have some modicum of challenge across the board, but it just really hampers gameplay and slows every fight to a crawl when combat just gets longer and longer as the game continues on.

I was so annoyed by it on my first character (who made it up to the final boss, but couldn't beat it) that I made a second one (to make use of the knowledge gained on my first playthrough) and ended up beating the game in nearly half the time by actively skipping content like challenges and farming and instead just rushing the final boss, and at five levels weaker. I can appreciate trying to take a unique approach, but it really just turned the game into a chore.

That said, it's a fun enough game. If you're a fan of ARPGs, I'd say it's worth a shot at the very least and it's generally pretty cheap during sales. Just be prepared for an odd difficulty curve.

ODST isn't quite up to snuff with Halo 3, but it definitely has some strong points. The atmosphere throughout the game, though especially on the "hub" level of New Mombasa, is fantastic. The music is also at its best here, with quite a few heavy-hitting and memorable tracks on it. The gameplay's fine, not overly different from 3 but you can see some aspects of what's to come in Reach starting to show. The story's fine, it's a bit underwhelming compared to the other three but it holds up fine independently. There's also a side story going on via audio logs found in New Mombasa that I enjoyed, it was a nice touch. Speaking of underwhelming, the final mission's "warthog run" equivalent is also pretty subpar compared to what we got with the last three games. Other than that though, ODST is still a pretty solid experience, if a bit of a short one.

A step up in quality from Homefront, The Revolution improves in some aspects but is still, ultimately, pretty unremarkable. The gunplay feels a little better, but still not especially good as weapons just lack punch and never really feel powerful, even when they are. The open world gameplay loop (collectables, clearing outposts, hacking transceivers) is pretty similar to something like Far Cry. While fun at first, it wears out its welcome very quickly when you realize that it's the bulk of the gameplay. The more central missions that don't revolve around aforementioned loop are fine enough, and they at least provide a semblance of variety. Enemy spawns are pretty horrendous, red zones in particular will have enemies spawning in waves of 6+ and frequently, making a shootout pretty undoable as you'll be outgunned within minutes. Also airships, if one spots you then you end up with the same issue of rapidly spawning large groups of enemies (and there were several instances that I saw enemies spawn literally directly in front of me). That makes the later part of the game devolve into "do something to advance hearts & minds > shoot your way to a hiding spot > hide until they stop looking > repeat ad nauseum". Alternatively, you can just die instead of trying to hide because you aren't really punished for deaths and it's honestly just quicker than trying to hide. One thing I will give the game credit for is visuals, the game looks good and some of the set pieces make for good eye candy. Other than that, even while being a bit better than its predecessor, The Revolution still doesn't do anything well enough to set it apart from any other mediocre shooter.

This version is better than the 6th gen version, but it still sucks. The goals are still largely bad and unfun (though they're not as bad as the 6th gen ones), balance meters are still weird and inconsistent, AND the controls still feel bad compared to old TH games. This version comes with a bail system and goals that also just kind of sucks and feels awful to control for goals, it's sort of like a prototype of what Skate would go on to include but it's so floaty and unwieldy that the bail goals are just kind of miserable.