On: PlayStation 4

This, I must say, is a fantastic game. I can’t say that I’ve played any other games made by Remedy Entertainment, like Alan Wake or Max Payne (although I am at least familiar with elements from them), but I’ve now played through this and I had fun the whole time! Usually, when I’m playing a game, I will listen to the music a bit, but for the most part I turn subtitles on, listen to a podcast, and just unmute the audio during cutscenes. I had to listen to the audio here though, and not for any gameplay reasons. It’s because it is honestly the first time in the longest time I was fully invested in the game itself. All the battles, the pure ambience, the characters (Underhill may be my favorite), and the pure vibe that the game puts out there for you to experience. There isn’t much music outside of incidental themes, but the few places where fully fledged music is incorporated is amazing, either through eliciting an unnerving curiosity, or a certain badass prolonged battle segment. The atmosphere is key in the success of a game like this.
Completing this is no real challenge outside of the specific mechanics provided by the game. If you are good at fighting with your weapons and abilities, and you know when it’s necessary to back off to collect health or reassess, you’ll do well. Collectibles littered throughout the game can be obtained once the story is finished, with none of them being designed as missable. That being said, skipping cutscenes or even the credits could deprive you of certain unlocked collectibles in the current build due to a bug. Hopefully that will be soon taken care of to prevent headache for anyone else (I didn’t run into any of this, but I’ve read of others having issues with this happening). The Isolation side missions is an interesting 20 minute diversion, though there isn’t much to it in regards to gameplay, it’s mostly worth it for the dialogue spouted by Dr. Tokui. The Jukebox can be troubling, as failing at the very end of a 25 minute mission is soul crushing, but if you plan the mission accordingly (each on has a random effect you have to deal with), then you can manage it as the missions themselves never really change outside of very minor discrepancies. Overall, I was fully invested in this one and managed to complete everything in just over 30 hours. I’d say it’s worth it to anyone wanting to check it out, especially if you’re a fan of the SCP stuff on the internet.

On: Nintendo 64

This game took my a very long time to complete. I love the original Banjo-Kazooie and have completed it a number of times to this point, but I think the sequel is just too big. There ends up being what feels like a lot of dead space in some of the worlds, primarily the ice/fire world and the cloud area, so many places to go spaced so far apart that it feels so much more open than it actually is. For an open world RPG this is find, but when it’s a collect-a-thon style game, it can wear thin. Another issue I have is that the backtracking in this game is beyond obscene, reminding me primarily of a lot of point-&-click PC games of the 90’s, but those are heavy on dialogue and storytelling whereas something like Banjo-Tooie has fun writing, but is primarily a cartoony adventure game. I think this is the reason that numerous times I felt lost until it eventually turned out I was meant to backtrack three worlds to use a new item I had acquired. Maybe this information was given to me through the characters but it clearly didn’t leave an impact in that regard. All that aside, the game still has its fun moments. Witchy World and Mayahem Temple are standouts worlds for me with a lot of fun things to do in them, and I like that we get to check in on some characters from the previous game as well. I just think they should’ve focused on quality over quantity perhaps. If, as in this case, quantity can directly be attributed to size and scope.

On: PlayStation 4

I have a bit of an irrational fear of glitches in games that cause distorted limbs. Fairly specific, but when objects or game models have long spindly limbs I can't stomach it, especially when they are whipping all around like crazy due to the game not being able to handle the model breaking its set boundaries. Its always struck me, for example, that the Giant Blooper in Mario Sunshine has this problem whenever you rip off one of its tentacles and it vibrates wildly on the ground (note: I have also always been scared of this, which is why I dread this boss whenever I play Sunshine). Anyways, that is at the core of Goat Simulator, as the whole point of the game is that its a ragdoll nightmare where all the models can break at the drop of a hat. Flying through the air is one thing, but when all of your goat's legs are flailing about, stretched well beyond their length, clipping through the model as you soar across the sky. Horrific for me, to say the least, and that made this game pretty difficult for me to complete. There is a Slenderman Goat that just exists in the long leg state and I hated going to his area because he stands there staring at you. He knows exactly what I'm terrified of, and its his model. The only real thing I have to say about the gameplay being difficult is that there is a Flappy Bird parody in the game (which is needed if you want to platinum this game), and its way harder than the original Flappy Bird ever was. Especially because you have to play it from an awful view, since it happens on a television screen independent of the actual game which is difficult to play from that point. Aside from that its just a lot of collecting various scattered items and accruing points towards different attributes. It wasn't really a pleasant experience, which is why even though I had the DLC to play, I decided not to play it just yet and put those on the backburner.

On: Nintendo 64

I’ve been hard on this game in the past, as I tend to focus on aspects of completion when it comes to playing games and I’ve never felt this one holds up. It’s not the only instance by any means, but a lot of Mario games introduce weird secrets or additional levels as you complete more and more, but not Mario 64. Completion gives you a brief glimpse of Yoshi (which definitely was more of a reward for folks at the time) which means next to nothing to me, and 99 lives, so you can... not use them, because the game is over. The game itself has flaws, but when I first played this as a child I was able to overlook all of them and fully bought into the wonder of the world. But even as a kid I really hated what all of my effort had gotten me. I’m not entitled to any specific reward just for playing a game, but I can still say that I think the final get for 100% is disappointing enough to detract from the rest of the game, especially since some of the tasks in the game are incredibly infuriating. The camera, as for most early 3D platformers, is hard to use and frustrating. The shadows are slightly off so in some stages (like the Clock stage) it’s hard to land on platforms and you fall more often than you ascend. The main draw for the game in my eyes is the music. Pure magic, and that’s worth at least playing through. Going after all the stars is worth it if your fully buy into the adventure and gameplay, as it gives you more tasks and some interesting levels to complete. Otherwise, just beat it and put it away.

On: PlayStation

I love this game and I really shouldn't. It is not that good, its your standard kart racer filled with licensed characters to capitalize on the success of the Mario Kart franchise. The models aren't the best (though what could be considered good on the PS1?), drifting feels off, and the soundtrack breaks regularly. The latter point is the most infuriating, because you'll be racing 3 laps on a pretty large track so it takes a while to finish the race. And then, all of a sudden, you realize that the same 4 second of the track are looping over and over again. You feel like you're going mad, but you're also trying to focus on the race ahead of you. Don't let characters pass you, but the word "Figaro" from the Barber of Seville is being drilled into your skull over and over again. And then, all of a sudden, after 45 seconds of this, you cross the finish line thereby starting the next lap and the song continues on like normal as if nothing had happened. I don't know if this is a game problem or if its a problem with my disc, but eventually I shut the sound off and turned on a podcast. Regarding unlockables, its a bit grindy but not terrible. You need to beat the final cup with the initial 6 characters to unlock their respective endings, and you need to go through and get gold on all challenges to unlock various new characters and get a special ending for that. So long as you finish each cup once and get gold on every challenge, you will automatically unlock everything else (i.e. characters and tracks). The best aspect of this game I feel are the dedication to the Looney Tunes franchise. There are tracks with various references to shorts, famous and obscure, and the characters cover a wide variety of characters, including Smokey the Genie who was ever only in one classic short. So that bit is fun at least, but aside from that this game should pretty much be skipped over.

On: Game Boy

Oh boy, this is definitely one of those games where I don’t know how I completed it. It isn’t even exceptionally hard to complete (which in my mind is just to beat all the levels you can before they start to loop), but there are things that in my mind don’t make sense and don’t always work. The most egregious happens right before the end of the “final” stage of the game, where you have to move your marble up an incline and to the left to get to a sort of wind tunnel and progress. I could not get this to work for the life of me and eventually the time would run out, meaning I’d have to start all over again. Joy... . This made no sense to me and I still don’t know how I managed to make it past this point, I think it’s broken. Not like this old GameBoy is going to get a patch to fix it, but it’s horribly frustrating and I could find footage online of people doing it, but I couldn’t. I don’t think I was missing any mechanics either because I was able to get to that point just fine. Oh well, I did it and never have to play this game again. I’d rather play the similarly isometric Sonic 3D Blast, and that’s really saying something.

On: Game Boy Color

I beat this game in a really short amount of time and I didn’t expect it to go that way. If you consider how difficult the SNES/Genesis Aladdin games can be at times, this one was a walk in the park. I died once or twice, but I was able to beat the game all the way through without continuing or starting over or whatever the process is. I don’t know the process because I never lost all my lives in the game. It’s your standard side scrolling platformer where you fight enemies and collect items, so there’s little to say on that front. It didn’t feel like it was broken or anything, so that’s saying something, surprisingly. I will note there doesn’t seem to be anything by way of completion in this game. There are gems to collect, like in the console versions, but I don’t think they do anything. I couldn’t find any evidence of these affecting the outcome of the game in any way, shape, or form, no matter how minor. In I believe the Genesis version, collecting all gems adds a flying scarab to the Congratulations screen, which isn’t much. In fact it’s next to nothing. But it’s still a sliver more than the Game Boy Color version seems to give you. If anyone in the future ever (for some reason) actually reads this, please let me know if I’m just stupid or what.

On: Super Nintendo

I love Kirby Super Star, and all the mini games that come with it. I’ve never had the original copy, which I should get and complete at some point, but I owned and completed it on Wii Virtual Console back in the day and I just completed it on the SNES Mini and I’m proud to say it’s still a treat. Sad to say I didn’t have a second person to play/beat it with this time around, unlike the first time, but no matter as its a delight to play and I can’t wait to complete it again. As with anytime I play it, I forget how the copy system works in Milky Way Wishes and I have to relearn it, and the treasures in The Great Cave Offensive can get pretty obscure and I always need a guide to get the last couple. Besides that, it really is a breeze to go through and I recommend it to anyway that likes platforming adventure games!

On: PlayStation 4

As soon as I saw that the follow-up to one of my favorite games in recent memory had gone live, I just had to give it a play. Thankfully I did get the season pass, so all I had to do was download and start going through it. I think my favorite aspect of how Control is being handled is that new abilities were introduced that you can obtain and upgrade, and that there were just the right amount of ability points (in the form of hidden areas) added to the game so that you can fully upgrade said abilities and end up having spent all your points. Something that bothers me in video games (say, Skyrim, for example) is that there are so many abilities you can put points in to, but never enough points to use to get every ability in the game. I know that a lot of games, like Skyrim, aren't built around this and the point of it is that you have to pick and choose to suit your play style. Coming from a completionists mindset though, its a minor yet personal gripe whenever I see something that cI'm supposed to be able to get but I can no longer, say, complete that tree, it frustrates me a bit. Again, not in the design, but I still always appreciate it. And Control's newest DLC definitely carries on the tradition of scratching that itch for me. Aside from that, it mirrors a lot of what made the core game great, but with two additions that I love. The first is a side mission that takes place in a deep, dark cave. You literally cannot see hardly anything in this cave, except that you are given an old CRT television that is running. You carry this around and it provides light, which gives way to some fights that present a healthy amount of challenge. The other added material are the secret lucky cats. These are a series of 9 lucky cat statues that can only be found through a series of incredibly vague and cryptic conditions. And when you get them all it gives you a cat ear headband. This sounds like a downside, not enough reward for the challenge (especially since a trophy is involved) but I love it because it feels like its adding so much to the Control universe without even trying to. And I realize that's probably just my sycophantic love for the game coming through, but I don't care. I'm not writing an unbiased game review here, this is like... a journal or something. Anyways, taking this luck cat which you already received supplements and case files on earlier in the core game (if you collect collectibles that is), and then having it be a series of collectibles in and of itself in the DLC fleshes out the world a bit in my eyes, and I appreciate DLC that can do that in addition to giving you more actual story. There is one more DLC to be released for Control that I'm aware of, and I hope it keeps up this trend.

On: Nintendo GameCube

Here we go, a game I've been wanting to complete since I was a child but I was never able to do so without cheating because I was terrible at video games. Now I'm at the point in my life where I'm the best I'll ever be at video games (not saying much) and within 4 years my skills will start to decline again, so I decided to put this to good use by completing the Spongebob Squarepants Movie game on GameCube. And, yeah, it wasn't that bad. I was able to get through a majority of the game and its various challenges no problem, only having to look up the treasure chest locations a handful of times, especially near the end of the game. In all honesty, there was only one part of the game that had me stuck for quite a while. There's a stage called Rock Bottom, where you have to sled down a track while avoiding all of the vicious sea monsters lying in wait to kill Spongebob and the starfish friend. The level itself isn't too hard, in fact these "downhill sledding" levels were my favorite in the game. However, the Hard Time Trial version of this level was beyond difficult for me. It wasn't so much a matter of taking all the shortcuts and not dying, but also jumping off the track and falling onto other sections of the track as if this were Rainbow Road. Real speedrunner stuff, in fact I had to look up a speedrunning video in order to learn what shortcuts to take, and I still kept missing the time limit by 1-2 seconds. Really frustrating, I honestly don't know how I managed to make it, but the moment I did I made sure the game saved, ejected the disk, and filed it away as fast as possible. That's how upset I was. As far as Pros go for this game, the minigame sections are all the best parts by far. Spongeball and the one where Patrick has to jump from block to block in a hellish dreamscape of nothingness were probably my favorite things to play in the game. Everything else, I will give a hearty "meh". Interesting to say the least, as I know Battle for Bikini Bottom is a game everyone loves, one that is getting a remake soon in fact, and I believe it shares a lot of mechanics with this game. If that's the case, then I have no idea what everyone is so excited for, sounds like it might just be nostalgia bait to me...

On: PlayStation 3

Another instance of a game that I had beaten before, but never completed and for good reason. Well, in my eyes at least. In fact, the only reason I completed it is because I got it in my head that I might want to complete Assassin's Creed II again here soon and somehow convinced my brain that I needed to complete the original game first, despite really not being a fan of it. I never had a problem with the actual side missions, I was always able to plow through them fairly succinctly. But those damnable flags. I hate those flags. They are beyond being just a nuisance, and it was the reason I had reservations about going back and finally completing this. But I did, I grabbed a guide and I did it and I have no shame having used a guide because I felt like I needed it. I got full synchronization and I sleep well at night. Its true that the sequel has the collectible feathers and they are much harder to make out in my opinion, but there are a lot less of them then every flag in the first one. So I don't mind near as much, and there's just more to do in the sequel, what with the historical puzzles, Templar treasure spots, and a little town to build up. The first game really doesn't hold up, its well known that the controls suck but they only age worse and worse every year. I like the atmosphere and I remember being engrossed by the story when I first played, but that'll only take you so far, especially when you've already played the game before. That latter bit isn't necessarily the game's fault, but its still my opinion, so I don't think I'll be going back to the first Assassin's Creed on PS3. On another console... maybe.

On: PlayStation 3

I'll be upfront about this one, completing this game for me is only getting all the trophies. There are unlockables by way of interviews and arcade versions of some of the games, but those are covered by the trophies. So, if I go out of my way to just focus on the trophies, I get the other things by default. A lot of these compilation games, I don't go out of my way to complete each individual game in the compilation. That is, of course, unless the games are unique to that collection or if completing the game unlocks or does something to scratch that completionist itch that I have. In this game, for example, beating the final boss on Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine gives you a trophy, so of course I went out of my way to do that task. As far as the game itself goes, I love myself some Genesis. Can't remember if I've said it before in these little journals, but it was the first console I ever played on and got games for. Mortal Kombat II, Sonic 2, Columns, Spider-Man and Marvel Meet Arcade... or something. Yep, I loved the Genesis and played it a lot. However, with the exception of Sonic (and Columns, I suppose) I missed out on a lot of the Genesis games that are considered core to the library's existence. You know, what the console is known for. Ristar, Streets of Rage, Alex Kidd. I never owned nor played any of these, so this game was the perfect venue for me to go through and experience a lot of these titles, and I'm appreciative of that. I thought Pokemon Mystery Dungeon was a more unique concept before I discovered Fatal Labyrinth and had a bit of a "Eureka!" moment, so there's plenty of good things like this compilation can do. That could possibly extend to Atari Plug-and-Plays too. Get people to experience things they may have missed out on. If they hate it, they hate it, it doesn't matter. Things like compilation packages or throwback consoles can contribute to other generations understanding of the culture and prevents things from being entirely forgotten.

On: Nintendo Wii

This game is dark. Not in a gritty realistic way, more in a "they messed up the lighting and now I don't know the layout of the level" kind of way. Yeah, that's right, I'm immediately starting this little section off with a gripe, but how could I not? It informed so much of my experience as I played the game. Well, that and the forced motion controls, which so many games in the Wii library are plagued with. I hate wandering around a dark swap in this game, making my arm sore by violently swinging it around like a lunatic as I search for unlockable trophies and costumes, the latter of which has no walkthrough online so I'm glad that I was able to actively locate them. This is one of those instances where about halfway through the game, I got worried I was missing costumes and, the game not being fun to play at all, I tried looking up a guide. There was a list of costumes, but no instructions on where to find them. Now, here's the part that has burned me before: I did end up unlocking all listed costumes, but I didn't write down locations of these items because I didn't know there was no guide for them until much too late. The game was miserable to play through, so I definitely didn't want to start over, and so I contributed to the lack of information on the game online, no doubt burning others that may want to complete this in the future (for some reason). Maybe someday in the future I'll go through the games I've completed and see what had guides. If there are none, I'll go back and write something up just so that documentation exists. For now, though, the lack of info combined with a messy of visuals and rigid controls means that I would NOT recommend anyone complete this. Honestly, I don't even think I'd suggest finishing this. Just play Acme Arsenal for a bit and perhaps see what I'm talking about.

On: Sega Genesis

For "completion" of this game, I figured I would just play Columns for roughly an hour, playing the different modes to get everything I felt the game had to offer, because this is one of those games that has nothing to complete. Its sort of arcade style, get as many point as you can in a certain amount of time or before dying and then your name goes on to a leaderboard. That's it, not much to it. Now, going into the actual game itself, this is a game I was heavily familiar with because it was one of the few Genesis games I had when I was a child. I played it constantly and it always intrigued me, there was a mysterious element to it I never quite grasped. I think I get it after this most recently playthrough though, the music and the sound effects work in tandem to give this game some mystique in my eyes. As a child, having this game alongside Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Mortal Kombat II, I noticed how relatively simplistic is was compared to the other Genesis games I owned. It had these unique sounds that emanated from it as you played, but there were also moments throughout the minimalistic gameplay where things were just silent. Compare that to the boisterous, loud, and violent atmosphere of something like Mortal Kombat. I had no frame of reference for an arcade style game such as this, so its stuck in my mind since childhood due to that fact. It was the first of its kind that I was familiar with so it holds a special place in my heart. One that I won't soon be leaving behind.

On: Nintendo Entertainment System

A bit different for this one, and I knew it would be simply going into it, I just wanted it on record that I've gone through the original Donkey Kong. I played through Game A to the point of the restart of the game's cycle, and did the same for Game B. I think this was my first time playing Donkey Kong with a controller similar to that of the NES for which the game was released (obviously discounting the arcade cabinet it spawned from), whereas my initial time playing this game was through Animal Crossing on the GameCube. It's always weird to play a game with Mario prior to the Super Mario Bros. game that launched the franchise, because it wasn't until that first Super Mario Bros. game that they began to perfect Mario's momentum through movement. In Donkey Kong, often a jump will be made and I realize far too late that I've made a terrible decision, and I just have to watch as the unfortunate outcome of my mistakes comes to my fruition. Of course, the game isn't that long, each level is a relative breeze so long as you're aware of the mechanics of the game. Jump over things, get to the princess. Use the hammer, remove the rivets. There isn't much to it, but that doesn't detract from any enjoyment the game brings. For me at least, its fun just to go through and beat a single cycle of the game and then call it. I know it gets progressively harder/faster with each loop, but it doesn't appeal too much to me in that regard. I'm just in it for some quick enjoyment, and I think that's a goal more games should aspire for.

On: PlayStation 4

I remember back when I had a subscription to Game Informer, the issue with the Stick of Truth art on the front blew me away. I somehow had missed any information regarding a new South Park game. I never owned any of the older ones, but had read enough online about them to know they weren't highly regarded. However, the magazine successfully coerced high school me into wanting to give it a shot once it came out. And then I just... never did. I sort of forgot about it until the sequel was announced, at which point I said I would buy the game. And then I didn't. Maybe it was because I was in a weird place with turn based RPG's back then, I sort of got myself burned out on them, especially with the Pokemon franchise as I was obsessed with Pokemon for the longest time (I think 12 years from the release of Yellow, my first Pokemon game). Whatever the reason, I didn't end up buying it and playing it until recently, purely on a whim. And I'm sorry I waited. With the involvement of Matt and Trey, it just feels like one of their current seasons of South Park, that being a bunch of episodes threaded together with allowances to go into other zany places. It doesn't, however, introduce as many new ideas as I'd have liked. The game is sort of built on callbacks to the show, and don't get me wrong I do enjoy that in a game. And South Park references itself and brings back characters and ideas all of the time. This is just sort of a culmination of that. Underpants Gnomes, the standard South Park aliens, and Canada all play heavily into the plot, which feels very South Park, but also is more the creators understanding what people more or less want to see out of a show that's been on the air as long as South Park. Maybe that isn't so bad a thing though? I may have just brought myself around on that as I type this, because if its still enjoyable and its eliciting a reaction that I more or less expected while still managing to do very South Park-ish things that caught me off guard, then I don't think it can be a bad thing. Fan service isn't the worst thing in the world, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't laugh or pat myself on the back whenever I personally recognized something.

On: Nintendo GameCube

Wow this game is kinda gross. I don't know, the art style doesn't quite appeal to me, and all the living creatures get killed in rather gruesome ways. Not in an over-the-top violent sort of way, still cartoony but more grotesque than I would've liked. Your character can get sliced in half and you can see his brain, he can get stepped on an become nothing more than goo, and more. It goes the same way for the enemies too. The game borrows heavily from the game design of the Frogger franchise, but instead of gathering other frogs, you are effectively murdering any potential offspring of the main antagonist, a giant... magpie, I think? They're all eggs that you collect, and you jump on them and they splat, no problem. But later in the game, the eggs have sprouted legs and are walking around, so they're essentially living baby birds at this point. What do you do? Jump on them and squish them. Absolutely horrible, I say. Imagery in and of itself is bizarre too. My favorite stage with my favorite design has to be the haunted train, which is essentially a train you move along the top of with evil pumpkins and disembodied hands attacking you. But the front of the train, should you make it that far, has one giant eye in the center of it rapidly looking back and forth and for me its just unsettling. I like the game, as I said its basically just another Frogger clone, but boy I don't know if I have the stomach to actually look at it to play it again. Some cool ideas that are well executed, I just don't care for the artistic direction. Sorry Zapper artists...

On: PlayStation

This and Looney Tunes Racing were my favorite PS1 games when I was a child because I was also a lunatic. I enjoyed CTR, and today I hold it up as my favorite kart racer ever, but I never got to fully experience that past the second zone in story mode because my disc was damaged. Anyways, all of that aside because its a major tangent, I loved the Frogger PS1 game. I played it before I ever even played the original Frogger, but, to get a little sappy here, the PS1 Frogger game was a bonding experience. My family never had a large amount of money. We weren't outright poor, we had a decent house and we never went hungry, its just that we got by, so we couldn't go out and have a family trip or even go to the zoo that often for monetary reasons. My mother got around this by having us do events at home, like one week over the summer we had a camp in the house. We set up a tent in the living room, did arts and crafts projects she set up, etc. That's just one example. I bring this up because I was the only one in my family that really liked video games and actively played them. My sisters had handhelds and my father played games occasionally, but I usually did this stuff on my own. Frogger on PS1, for some reason, was the exception to the rule. I remember setting up the PS1 in the living room and all of us slowly making our way through the game. If we lost all our lives, the controller got passed to the next person, and it continued until we were all done talking and laughing. And, at the time we had no memory card for the PS1 and we knew this, so the next time we all played we started it all over. But we didn't care, we had fun. My mother sometimes made pancake breakfasts and we would eat while the main menu music played in the next room, there were long stretches where we would watch two of my cousins and they would partake in this sort of "Frogger ritual" that we had. There were a few other games we tried later to have family bonding over that didn't quite do the trick, but admittedly came close (both of these were for the PS2). Frogger (1997) was special, however, and perhaps that's why this specific PS1 game is one of my favorite for the console. It holds a very special place in my heart, and I can guarantee that this won't be the last time I go back to play it.

On: PlayStation

So after that long, emotional diatribe about the first PS1 Frogger game, what do I think about its sequel? Well frankly I didn't even know it existed until I saw it in a secondhand shop earlier this year and my head just about exploded. The first one meant so much to me, and it had a sequel I had never heard of? I instantly purchased it, and the opening animation started and I was horrified. There is a crocodile character that is terribly rendered and made me regret even turning on the Playstation. Upon starting to play through the game, going through and collecting each frog, I realized that this, in fact, was moreso what Zapper was aping. The first PS1 Frogger got fancy with the stages and the frog placement, making it more challenging to get to each frog. Frogger 2, however, lets you keep going upon collection. Its like comparing Mario 64 to Banjo-Kazooie. One makes you start over each time, the other you can play through the stage as long as you feel you need to. And Frogger 2 doesn't necessarily feel lazy with the stage design either, no sir. It starts out a bit that way, but I can hardly fault a Frogger game for starting in an area with rivers and grassland.

On: PlayStation

This really is just a nothing game. Its sort of party style (though you can play it one player if you wish), and even with the maximum amount of rounds it can be "completed" in an incredibly short amount of time. I put completed in quotes because I don't know that I consider playing through a game of Mario Party to be completing Mario Party, but in the case of Chef's Luv Shack that's all there is to do. I'm writing this after the fact so my memory could be a bit hazy, but I don't even recall there being any main menu, it just sort of launches you into selecting how many round you want before you pick your characters. As far as the game itself goes, it pretty standard for one of these. It has rounds comprised of questions that have no real theme with some questions related to the South Park show and others just being about random nonsense and trivial tidbits. The other rounds that fill out a game/match/whatever are little mini-games based on moments from the show's first two seasons. Even though there isn't much to them, if the game has any charm its located here. The gameplay of each is simple, but its a nice break to look at how different aspects like the town's cattle or the infamous Scuzzlebutt fit into the games that you play. Besides that, thats it. You can play through the game in a fairly short amount of time, getting whatever it has to offer, and then you can sit through an admittedly delightful credits sequence with each employee getting their own South Park avatar displayed, which is cute. I feel safe in saying that this isn't a game I would advise anyone play as its more a waste of time than anything else, although maybe I'll take it to my next friends get-together and con 3 other people to join me for a drunken round of it.

On: PlayStation 4

This may be my 5th or 6th time completing this game since it came out, I simply adore it. Jonathan Blow really outdid it with The Witness, I like it a lot more than I did Braid. Not to say I hated Braid, but this is a much calmer and more ruminative experience in my opinion and it feels like you can complete it at your own pace (because you can). The puzzles can take a long time to figure out depending on what you struggle with, but the rules are so well defined that you always feel well accomplished when you succeed, and (for the most part) you feel it’s your fault if you fail. I say for the most part because the puzzles themselves follow these rules, but some of the side environmental puzzles make a habit of breaking any defined rules as they can be found anywhere. Those aren’t required for finishing the game, though. What’s even more brilliant is that there is no prompting on the rules of these puzzles. They are designed in such a way that you can progress through them with the puzzle slowly getting harder but you never need to be told what the rules are. You learn them organically as you play. Completion, as alluded to, can be rough given how odd the side puzzles can be. The most infamous of these requires you to sit through an hour long video before you can actually complete it. Not to mention the fact that getting all of these doesn’t do anything to the game. The same applies to the collectible triangle puzzles and audio logs. They just further the development of the world, but I don’t mind because there sort of is a reward. There are in-game obelisks and a large pond that update themselves as you complete these sorts of puzzles and that feels like a bit of a reward for me at least because you are adding to the island’s aesthetic. Finally, the only thing I actively dislike is the “challenge” puzzle you can access through accomplishing a series of other tasks. This challenge is timed and I strongly dislike timed challenges as I’ve mentioned before I’m sure. Once you get the flow of the puzzles and their rules you can make it through pretty quickly but the fact that it’s randomly generated each time adds definite stress to your playthrough. If it wasn’t for this I’d think the game was 100% perfect. I will definitely complete this again in the future.

On: PlayStation 4

Another instance of a game that I completed once before through Steam years ago, but before I started logging everything that I played/completed on this wonderful site. So now, I've purchased and played through Fez on PS4 to increase my trophy count and bide my time through quarantine. I like Fez, a lot, but I think that the completion can be a little cryptic. I enjoy writing things down in puzzle games, and this is definitely one of those. You visit a room and rotate the camera around, only to find etchings on the wall. So, I would grab my journal and write the symbols down hoping that I would eventually find a Rosetta Stone of sorts in the world in order to translate this and obtain the cube associated with it. My main problem with some of the more cryptic aspects is that there were one or two instances were I had to go to a "special zone" and input a code that I had to look up in order to enact it. In these two cases, I looked online what the codes were and the people that supply the codes for me said, in their own words, that the code were I guess mined from the code and no one knew how to come across them organically in the game. I don't believe this actually contributed to the overall goal of the game, and I don't know that there were any trophies for this, but I believe it did impact the final completion counter, so I count it. Overall its not bad to complete outside of some puzzles that kind of melt your brain. The world map is good at letting you know what is left to collect/solve and what areas of the game have yet to be fully completed. I always love it when games have this, and frankly I wish that more games had this included. It's important in a game based entirely around collecting things to progress. Its a shame that Fez 2 was canned before development even began, because I can't help but wonder what it would've been like.

On: PC/Windows

Thanks to YouTuber Jesse Cox’s infatuation with the series and constantly streaming entries in the series on his Twitch channel, I decided to go through and play as many of these Rusty Lake titles as I could so that I can then watch his archived streams later while also experiencing things for myself. This was the first of those that I played, and what can I say that won’t be said for the other entries. The most interesting thing with this point and click for me is how there’s a sort of progression system with the rooms. You play through a room and then get that chance to move to a different version of said room to advance the puzzles and status of the environment. However, you also have to go back and forth between the room’s states in order to complete different puzzles as they are affected by the environmental changes. That’s not necessarily unique, my first exposure to this was Banjo-Kazooie’s Click Clock Woods, but you never mind with puzzle games. So long as you are forced to think through your choices to solve the problem in front of you and it doesn’t turn into “plugging and chugging” in a vain attempt to bypass concluding the solution naturally, you’re making an organically good puzzle game. Worst part about completion (and this applies to most Rusty Lake games) is that it’s kind of impossible to gain naturally without playing when it first comes out so you can gain clues through the company’s various ARG’s. You can look up how to access secret levels and stories through guides and then play from there, but it takes a bit of the joy out of it for me.

On: PC/Windows

Man, and I thought Zapper grossed me out. This game has some pretty sickening visuals that I wasn't expecting. Things like boils and maggots, men turning into fly larva, all sorts of gross nonsense. As far as the actual gameplay goes, it feels a bit more condensed than Samsara Room is. Each stage has a variety of interconnected rooms that you have to traverse between in order to solve the various riddles and puzzles to progress through to the next level. This is opposed to how open Samsara Room was, which, although there was only a single room that you were stuck inside, allowed you to travel to different states to affect the environment. While I did like this touch, it eventually got a little convoluted. Its made more simple in this, which is set up like a more traditional point-and-click games. The gimmick this time around I suppose is that each stage is set up like one of the plagues of Egypt. But also there are the zodiac signs at one point that relate to each character you encounter. And also they correspond to other non-zodiac related animals? Yeah, that gets muddled too. It's like they were reaching for any and all motifs to associate their characters with and after looking through the options, decided to use them all. They missed out on using the stages of grief, but perhaps in the next Rusty Lake game.

On: PC/Windows

Roots is cool, because for once we have a Rusty Lake game that, while it relates to the other games in the series rather obtusely, it has its own narrative that is actually pretty easy to follow. You start as a lone individual receiving property after the death of a relative. He starts a family, his kids start families, and so on and so forth. The first individual marks the start of a "tree" of sorts, and as you progress you get different branches that can be pursued, and these branches follow the story of different characters as they live their lives and beget others. All the while, individuals are being killed and a ritual is being prepared. Not only is it interesting that these plots are intertwining the way they are, but you have a visual map in the form of your stage select, which shows where all of the different paths are going and how they relate. A character gets dumped down a well in one branch, and then 20 years later in another branch that character escapes the well, and then in ANOTHER BRANCH you play as that character and solve puzzles to help him escape the well and clean up. I find all of this put together to be pretty enjoyable and I had a fun time going through this one. There are, however, some missable achievements. All I have to say about that is please watch out and maybe look up the missable achievements just so you don't... you know, miss them. The post game puzzle is pretty fun too, as it relates the various tarot cards to the different characters and gets you to relate hidden messages and symbols to these characters in order to offer up alternative solutions to point-and-click puzzles that culminates in a secret ending. This may be the most well put together and mapped out Rusty Lake title that I've played.

On: PC/Windows

Something about this game in the Rusty Lake series appeals to me more than the others, and I think it may be because its the most simple of all of them. The puzzles can still confuse and confound, which are feelings that the ideal puzzle game should elicit, but they stay interesting and they are confined to individual rooms. The whole point of the game is that each night you kill and prepare one of the guests in the hotel by going into their room, solving puzzles, and then murdering them. But whereas in Samsara Room you get to the point where you can visit 5 different iterations of the same 4 walls, each stage of Rusty Lake Hotel is just the 4 walls that make up the room you're in. If you're missing something and are stuck on a puzzle, it doesn't feel quite as daunting as some of the other Rusty Lake games might. It feels achievable as your playing it. And completing it isn't that difficult either, you just need to find the secret ingredients for each guest that you prepare, and they follow a similar formula. In between each stage there is an ingredient you can obtain. As soon as you get it, you can make your way to the next room and while in the room, there is another secret ingredient to obtain. Make sure you get it before you actually kill the guest. Upon completing every recipe fully, you get to experience a special ending that manages to confuse you even more than the previous entries in the Rusty Lake franchise have. That is definitely a theme in these games, they are all connected and share a story in some way, but they go out of their way to make it infinitely more complicated with each title I play. I'm sure there is a fandom wiki out there that outlines and explains everything that has to do with these games, but I don't know how much time I want to invest in reading a guide that explains the stories to me. I can see some of the connective tissue that binds these titles and for now, that's good enough for me.

On: PC/Windows

This one makes me a little angry, I won't lie. Just from a completion standpoint, as there are a lot of puzzles that cannot be solved without participating in various ARG's set up by the Rusty Lake development team. There are clues littered throughout a mini-movie linked to the game, the game's credits, and more. Again, though, I guess it shouldn't really matter, because your standard completionist wouldn't really care because these are tangential puzzles that don't provide much. For me, however, knowing something is there in the game that I cannot get a hold of or manage to unlock makes me a little mad. I've been dealing with that recently with Borderlands 3, as one of the maps has an area you cannot get into and no one has yet to figure out how to access it, so a big black blotch remains on the minimap. That can apply to things like these. The ARG elements have long since passed, so I look up the information in order to get through those specific puzzles once I'm done with the core game. It feels a bit hollow doing it this way, but I can't say I care too much, as I know that is likely the only way I'll figure out those tangential puzzles outside of just plugging in random assortments of values to try and crack the codes, and I really don't have time for that. As for the game itself, its the same as what I've said for the other Rusty Lake titles I've played. You're in a room, you progress through time as you solve puzzles, and it somehow relates to the others in some larger narrative. This one isn't too special and doesn't really stand out in my mind.

On: PlayStation 4

This is a fun little game that is initially incredibly simplistic. You have a hole in the ground, and the more you pull into this hole, the bigger the hole gets, and therefore the more you can pull into the hole, and so on and so forth. Eventually puzzles start getting introduced that are required to fully progress in a stage. Absorb two rabbits so that they... breed... and make an eruption of baby rabbits that allows the game to continue. Another aspect I enjoy is the storytelling, where the majority of the story has already happened, and all of the characters are sort of going around in a circle talking about the events that have already transpired, which leads to the levels which are mostly flashbacks showing how each character ended up getting absorbed by the hole. That is, until near the end, in which you infiltrate the hideout of the king raccoon, who is the primary antagonist, and eventually a boss fight commences. For how simple the gameplay really is, the game does a good job of always introducing new mechanics, even as the game enters the final boss fight. This fight is the only fight in the game and the manner in which you fight the boss is unique to that section of the game. There aren't a lot of hidden items either, which makes the actual completion of this title fairly easy. After beating the game, there were only one or two things I had to go back and take care of to get all of the trophies. That's how natural everything felt, there was a trophy to fill out a sort of bestiary comprised of every item in the game that you can suck up, and just by virtue of playing through the game and wanting to suck up everything I saw, I was able to fill out 95% of this list. The game excels at being fun, short, and it doesn't overstay its welcome, so I would certainly suggest anyone that plays it to just go the extra mile and complete it.

On: PlayStation 4

I'll just start out by saying this is like a weird baby game, but the trophies are way more grindy than I think anyone of the age range that plays it would actually pursue. Then again, maybe its not explicitly for babies, that's just the vibe that is given off. Every character says please and thank you, desires nothing but friendship, cries at the drop of a hat, and has baby vocalization. I think all of the characters were voiced by 5 year olds. None of this is terrible, just makes the experience really strange. This game is straight from the creators of the Katamari franchise, so there is some of that Japanese weirdness you've come to expect. The gameplay in Wattam is way more simplistic, however. You talk to individuals, possess sentient objects to complete quests, eat objects and poop them out to create other objects, and plant objects to create other objects. The fact that there is a sort of bestiary for characters you can create/possess to control is much appreciated, as it means your completion throughout the game is that much easier to actually track. The main downside for me, as mentioned earlier, is how grindy the game is. It takes forever to eat 100 enemies, explode 100 times, and turn every object gold. So if you're going for completing this title and getting all the trophies, remember to do this frequently as you play so as not to have to worry about it later. Again, at least all of these values are tracked in game too, so you always know how close you are to finishing these tasks. Finally, beware the framedrops and freezes. Happened frequently to me while I played the PS4 version, I'm not sure if this was just PS4 version or if it was even just my hardware, but regardless that also got frustrating pretty quickly.

On: PlayStation 4

I should say up front that the original CTR on the PS1 is perhaps my favorite kart racer of all time, and I’m a huge fan of kart racers. The drifting system in CTR, while not largely presented to the user playing, exists and it’s fairly complex compared to other racers. I must say, this is one of my favorite remakes of a game to this point. A lot of games that get remastered, the graphics will be improved and some bugs from the original get taken care of. CTR: Nitro-Fueled, however, was just remade from the ground up with more characters, vehicle customization, more tracks (from other Crash Bandicoot racing games and new tracks made for this games), a toggle switch that allows you to swap between the original soundtrack and the re-orchestrated one, and so much more. The mechanics feel the same as before, just slightly improved, so it really is just a bigger and better version of the original title. The one major downside in my opinion I would say, is a lot of the fun track breaking tricks from the first one aren’t present this time around. When the tracks were built back up, they ended up leaving out a lot of unintentionally fun ways to skip sections of tracks, either consciously or just through good practice while remaking the tracks. Aside from that, this is one of my favorite titles in a long time and I’m glad I played it, even if completing everything took me over a year to do.

On: Nintendo Gamecube

This is a pretty mediocre kart racer, but one that is beyond easy to complete. Just get first place in every cup (including the mirror cups), and each cup you come in first on will unlock a new character. Additionally, you know from the start how many there are because they are all shadowed out on the character select screen. Beautiful. The game handles nicely enough and I never ran into any problems gameplay wise, though I should note it did crash twice and I had to start cups over again. I am not knowing whether this was the fault of my personal copy of the game, maybe my disc being scratched or something, or if this is just a problem with the general release of the title. Regardless, the races don’t take long and the other racers are pretty well too stupid to be actually threatening. I played through the regular and mirrored tournament modes to get through all the cups and unlock the racers, and there was only one instance of my failing a cup and having to go back and get first place in it. This wasn’t even that the A.I. was overly difficult, but rather that two of the tracks confused me and I kept getting tuned around. So, it’s decent enough if you like kart racers to begin with, and perhaps even moreso if you enjoy the Shrek franchise (I could take it or leave it), so go ahead and give it ago. If you play kart racers as often as I do you’ll complete the game in less than two hours same as me.

On: Nintendo Wii

I was worried about this game, because I really love the first de Blob. I played through a bit of the sequel earlier in the year but eventually sidelined it because it felt too open. This seems to be a common issue with sequels I come across (Kingdom Hearts, Banjo-Kazooie, etc.) where they try to literally give you more game and it can end up overwhelming you. So, like I said, I stopped. The only thing that really had me coming back to it is that I put this game as one of my New Years Resolutions, so I started again a couple weeks ago and slowly plugged my way through. And, as I went, I started seeing more of the appeal. If you concentrate and try to do everything you can (within the time limit of course) as you go through the level it doesn’t feel as open and wasteland-ish because there are so many barricades and obstacles to make the level linear. It doesn’t really open up and becoming too big to handle until you complete all main objectives in the stage. When you do this, all barricades and obstacles are gone and it’s like a Banjo-Tooie style zone you can get lost in, and that’s when finding some of the collectibles can become a true nightmare. As with any of these titles, I usually got all but one or two collectibles by the end of the stage and had to look up a guide to get the remaining ones, but as I stopped worrying so much about the time limit and tried to progress more naturally, as I would with any other game, I enjoyed myself more because I put the timer out of my mind. I felt I was able to explore and collect to my hearts content, which is truly what I enjoy about playing games. So, in reality, that’s what I really dislike about the game: the timer. And that is not news, I’ve been open about hating time limits, time trials and the like in the past. I am not a speed runner and I don’t aspire to be one, and that’s is probably my least favorite aspect of completing games. I hate no-death runs, but even those I find preferably as I can take my time. The first de Blob had these time limits too, but the area wasn’t as big so it never felt as restrictive. Or maybe the areas are equivalent in size and I’m conflating it in my head, in which case these are the ramblings of a madman. Which I guess, in the end, they are anyways. So yes, I think de Blob 2 is a worthy sequel and I liked playing it, but I don’t think I’d complete it again.

On: PlayStation 4

Oh boy, does this game have A LOT of issues. Sometimes my music would just stop playing, drifting didn’t always seem to function, fans whoever did the designs needs to be sat down and talked to. I know they’re based on the source material (i.e. the various shows they came from) but they’re mostly just disturbing. Patrick bothers me the most, as sometime is pupils are just way too wide and they stay that way, it freaks me out. However, by and large that worst offense in this game is that a number of the trophies are just straight glitched. To the point that the solution to getting the trophy if it hasn’t unlocked for you is “looks like you need to start a new save and start the work on that trophy over again”. That would be annoying enough as it is, but a number of the trophies are overly grindy with you having to race as every character, do this a bunch of times, do that with every character, and so on and so forth. Not to mention something that always has bothered me: the trophies don’t trickle down for difficulty. There is a trophy for beating all cups on easy, all cups on medium, and finally all on hard. If you go straight for the hard cups and finish them all, it doesn’t unlock the easy and medium ones. You literally have to do all of them. Granted, this helps out with the more grind heavy trophies since you’ll have to be playing anyways to get those, but it bothers me because it shouldn’t be that way in the first place. A sequel to this game is coming out soon (unless COVID sets it back), and I really hope they step up their game for the development of that, because it has more Nickelodeon franchises I actually care about, and I would hate for the first game Rocko and Heffer have been in in an enternity to be an awful buggy mess.

On: PlayStation 4

And just like that, Control is fully completed. At least, I think it is. I don't fully know if there is anything else coming to Control, but the season pass only covered the Foundation and AWE DLC's, so I think that's it until a sequel comes along. This DLC has an awful lot to do with the Alan Wake series (of which I believe there are only two games), and I have no prior familiarity with Alan Wake or anything related to it. There were a healthy dose of Alan Wake references in the core game as well, but as I've never played through Alan Wake or American Nightmares, it didn't mean too much to me. I'm aware of the concept behind Alan Wake and what its about, but I'm sure deeper references are lost on me. This DLC went full Wake though, including references to Alan, his typewriter controlling events occurring at the FBC, his wife Alice, and Bright Falls being investigated by the Bureau as an AWE (Altered World Event). The end of the AWE campaign certainly hints at an upcoming game by Remedy that likely will include both aspects of Control and, obviously, Alan Wake, so there's that to look forward too. The most interesting (and terrifying) aspect of this DLC is that it takes the dark cave sidequest from the Foundation DLC and makes it the core mechanic, fighting a doctor-turned-creature that inhabits the darkness and is hurt by the light. Almost like the side mission in the Foundation DLC was prepping players for how this DLC would work. Another aspect of the AWE DLC I enjoyed is the introduction of the Shum arcade cabinets, explained as Altered Items that transport the user into a sort of game world based on their day to day activities, which is a good excuse to introduce mini-games where you fight a bunch of Hiss enemies or even a boss rush comprised of various bosses throughout the core game. Completing all of these arcade challenges unlocks a new outfit for Jesse, which isn't much, but the challenges are fun enough so I didn't mind too much. They do make it slightly harder to compensate. And that's pretty much it. I loved Control and I loved the DLC that they put out for it, and honestly I kinda want to play through the Alan Wake games before whatever else Remedy is making comes out so I can be fully caught up on the Remedy Connected Universe that they're constructing.

On: Sega Genesis

Oh man, the Sonic games were honestly my primary gaming experiences growing up. I know I already mentioned my Genesis in the write-up on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection earlier in the year, so I'll just mention that Sonic 2 was a game I constantly played on my Sega Genesis as a kid. Later on, when I had my Gamecube, I eventually got the Sonic Mega Collection, and that is where I first played the original Sonic the Hedgehog game. Interesting that I never played a 3D Sonic until Sonic Generations came out, not even the Adventure series (although I guess I did play a bit of Sonic R on PC). I was content with the 2D Sonic games, even those that aren't well regarded like Sonic 3D Blast and the like. All that aside, Sonic the Hedgehog launched it all, and its a fairly fantastic game for the first couple of levels. Around Labyrinth Zone, in my opinion, my enjoyment starts to waiver. I don't mind the "run-out-of-breath" mechanic, especially as it doesn't bother me later in the Final Zone. I don't like the layout of the stage all that much and its the first zone that forgoes an actual Robotnik fight and just turns it into a vertical running segment. I don't care too much for that honestly. Don't even get me started on Scrap Brain Zone, I think there are far too many "unfair" moments in that stage, where you can't really avoid something unless you've experienced it before or just Jar-Jar Binks your way past it. Most of the zone functions this way, and I'm not a fan. The greatest part of the game for me is the music, all of the tracks are iconic in my mind, and I've been whistling them since I was a little kid (and since I learned to whistle), and I'm sure I'll continue to do so in the future. Completion of the game isn't that terrible either. Just collect the six Chaos Emeralds before you finish the game and you'll get the good ending. That's good enough for me. I was pretty surprised when I collected the final Chaos Emerald and, upon starting the next stage, I couldn't access Super Sonic. That wasn't introduced until Sonic 2, but I had no idea. Bit of a bummer, but the game itself also just generally feels shorter and there's one less Emerald than most later Sonic games, so I think it evens out all right. Sonic the Hedgehog is a game that has also been ported to multitudes of different platforms over the years, and I can't wait to go back and complete, and maybe even try to speedrun, the game again some day.

On: PlayStation 4

Another instance of a game that I played back when it game out, but before I actually used Completionator (and on my old account, so I no longer had the trophies). So, I did it again and completed it as I had the first time, though unfortunately I can't say that my opinion on it has changed too much. It looks decent enough, the environments are interesting and the music is still fantastic, but the worlds are much too big, the same issue as Banjo-Tooie honestly. I remember going through the first area, Tribalstack Tropics, and thinking "this is a giant level and I've found not even half of the collectibles here, I guess I'll move on for now" only to exit the level and see that you could expand them, making it even bigger. How awful. The backtracking I initially was upset with, but I circumvented that this time around by going through the first and second area as far as I could and collecting as many quills as I could (quills in this game act as a sort of currency). Then, I unlocked as many of the worlds moving forward as I could and went into each, finding the vendor Trowzers and purchasing all of the moves that he had. Therefore, I really only had to backtrack to the first two of the stages, and then I was off to the races, which is more than I can say for Banjo-Tooie. There may be a way to do that, but the hub of Tooie is much more open than the hub world of Yooka-Laylee, which is also a plus for Yooka over Tooie. I don't think I have much else to say about it, thankfully most of the puzzles are fairly intuitive, though the characters I don't stand out as well as they could, the most interesting in my opinion would be the aforementioned Trowzers and Capital B, the main antagonist of the campaign. Everyone else is either sort of standard and boring, or they don't fit with the various environments crafted for the game, such as a collection of pig knights that need help with various tasks. They tend to stand out in an environment designed to look like a large casino. However, all of that aside, I think the game is well enough and functions for as much as you can expect from a 3D platformer, but I can't say it really succeeded at revitalizing the collect-a-thon genre, though perhaps that wasn't its intended goal. And maybe, although I love those types of games, its better left in the past.

On: PlayStation 4

I would say that anyone interested in horror and side scrolling puzzle platformers should play this game once. Not even complete, just play through it and enjoy it for what it is, because man oh man do I have a problem with actually completing this game. But that isn't initially important, I'll go into pros first. Firstly, the game has a fantastic story with one of those endings that you see constantly peeking its head just enough to give you clues as to what going on, but not fully revealing itself. One of those games where when you play through it a second time, every single line of dialogue and interaction is suddenly much deeper than you initially though it was. The game isn't really all that scary, but it is creepy and I will 100% give it that credence, primarily due to the way many of the characters in this nightmare world talk. I don't have proof of this, but I'm pretty sure its the same technique used in Twin Peaks, where an actor records dialogue, they hear it reversed and then they repeat it, which is then reversed again to give the original line this weird, inverted breath delivery. That always gives me chills when I hear something like that. Of note also is the death mechanic, wherein you as the main character can purposely injure yourself on various hazards and traps in order to disassemble parts of your body. You can do plenty from losing your arm so that you can pick it up and throw it at a button, or becoming just a head so that you can roll into tight spaces. Of course, taking damage as a head will lead you to die as you have no more parts left to lose, but still very interesting and leads to actual thought having to go into solving puzzles. However, hear comes my one major problem with the game, which will only really come if you are attempting to complete it: no collectible counting in individual stages. The game's collectible are donuts, which can be found all throughout each of the stages you play through excluding the last few as they are more cinematically driven. The game, though, keeps your total count of donuts but not the amount in each stage. There is a level select you can use for going back to donut hunt, but this really only helps if you've looked at a guide and know for sure which donuts you're missing. So, for me, it meant going back through the entire game in order to find what I'd missed. I finally finished this second playthrough when I got to the underground head platforming section of the bowling alley locale. I knew I had missed some down here because as I was collecting some of them the first time, I accidentally died and the game spawned me on the other side of the section without any way for me to backtrack without starting the stage over again. That was a weird... glitch, maybe? I don't know if it was suppose to happen that way. Regardless, as I stated before, this is 100% a game that you should experience for the death mechanics and the intriguing story alone and I would definitely recommend that. I would say, however, if you are a completionist like myself, be extra careful while collectable hunting or have a guide handy for your own sanity.

On: PlayStation 4

Inside is a pretty good experience. Personally, right off the bat, I feel like I enjoyed Limbo more, but I don't think that comparison detracts from the experience that Inside provides. Now, it is an apt comparison because both games involve you moving left to right as a young boy, solving puzzles and being put in increasingly dangerous situations that result in the unceremonious death of the player character. But Inside is a bit fuller, there are more colors even if they are drab and dreary, and a more detailed story exists here that allows for easier theory crafting while playing. You never really know where the story is headed, on minute you are focused on the mind-controlled NPC's that you manipulate to do your bidding, and then all of a sudden you are attempting to swim away from child fish hybrids as they try and drown you. Which leads you to start thinking, "what they hell are these things?" before arriving in the next area in the facility you wind up at and start analyzing the gravity chambers. Spoiler alert ahead, but the final section in which you are absorbed by a giant mass known as the Huddle and you play as this creature attempting escape from the lab in which you find yourself is certainly the best part of the game. You are incredibly strong, powerful, killing all in your path, but you're still vulnerable, easily tricked and trapped, and you can sort of feel the anxiety emanating from all of these scientists that admittedly put you in this position but still want to get back home to whatever constitutes a family in this universe. Eventually you can escape and find yourself stopping on a beach, where the game ends. There aren't even any credits or a The End or anything, you just sit there until you exit the screen, its pretty powerful stuff. In the end, I will say the primary reason that I feel Limbo works better outside of the pros of Inside is just how rudimentary Limbo is. The monochromatic color scheme lends itself to the emptiness of your surroundings, and every time you find another character it feels like a surprise. Inside attempts to create a more fleshed out, albeit mostly history free, world, and in the end it does it pretty well.

On: PlayStation 4

I'll be honest, this really wasn't for me. I can't claim the concept of the story is unique, but its at least handled in an interesting way, and there were stressful moments as I was attempting to avoid capture at the hands of various technologically-infected scientists that shambled across the halls of the different facilities I visited. But that was sort of it. The puzzles weren't really that difficult, the information held within the various articles and clippings you collect didn't really interest me and barely furthered my understanding of the world that lay before me, and to be honest (and this may be unfair to SOMA as a whole), I just kept comparing the experience to the superior Bioshock, which I had just played for the first time back in April or May of this year, which means it was fresh in my mind as well. So, yeah, the driving force of the game is really the story, as the game is similar to something like Outlast where you can't fight back and are instead avoid monsters the whole game, and as I stated the puzzles are pretty minimalistic to allow you to live through the story. That is the main aspect of SOMA. And it just didn't click with me, unfortunately. Especially the thick-headedness of the main character. Spoiler alerts moving ahead, but man the character you play doesn't understand concepts that are relayed to him over and over again by one of the main companions, and even at the very end, when you accomplish your primary goal and the launch a copy of your consciousness into space and are left behind in the hellish depths of the ocean, its treated sort of like a twist ending and your character gets pissed and starts screaming. Like, I saw this coming? And not because I have any great insight or anything, but the primary companion explained this concept and what we were doing on multiple occasions. It's just upsetting and, again, infuriating and the ending wasn't satisfying not because its dark and bleak, but because the main character is an annoying ass about it.

On: PlayStation 4

I LOVED this game, it was fantastic, the environment itself was designed beautifully, the handful of creatures that you interact with start fairly generic, but they grow from there until you are either standing still to evade the Lantern Man or running from a large mass that's chasing you. I went and did a bit more of Grim Fandango this year, which is one of my favorite games, and I still need to go back and finish completing it on PS4, and I completed a series of low-budget games in the Rusty Lake series this year too, but for some reason it feels like this is the only point-&-click that I've played this year, and I'm not sure why. Regardless though, it reminded me of why I really love that genre, especially for horror. I've played things in previous years like Slender: The Arrival and I've bought but yet not delved into other large, more open expanses like Outlast, but for me I think point-&-click is the best genre for horror. That may be mostly because scares are more reliant on the ambiance and atmosphere, the feeling of dread that the environment and music can give you while you are attempting to think through a puzzle solution. Of course this also extends to games like Silent Hill that sort of combine the best of both worlds, but that is for another time. Another plus for this game is it utilizes sounds wonderfully. I can think of one instance near the beginning where the game sort of "jump-scared" me, but outside of that most of the things that scared me were sound cues the likes of which I've already sung the praises of before in titles like Uncanny Valley. In one, I had to find a tapedeck that played a few notes, and then I had to go to another room on another floor and play that tune on a piano. A click sounded to let you know you completed the puzzle, and then I exited the screen with the piano to be greeted by tens of grinning specters sitting in seats in the background of the room as they applauded and then suddenly disappeared. I got chills just typing that, it really did freak me out. Of course, I'd be remiss not to mention that the overarching story which highlights the issues of censorship and government overreach are also poignant and even though the focus is on a different country in Asia, its no less meaningful in any other parts of the world and points to blips in history that some may like you to forget. To sum everything up, this game was wonderful.

On: PlayStation

One of few games I was actually able to complete as a child, which was huge for me not only because this may very well have been not the first game I played, but certainly the first one I completed, but also because I didn't have a memory card for my PS1 at the time. So it took a long time and I probably left my PS1 on much longer than it should've been to accommodate my going to school. This is surprisingly one of those examples of a licensed game done right. Especially considering the various Toy Story games that came before this one. Hell, even just compared to other Disney titles on just the Playstation like A Bugs Life and the like, this one certainly stands out. The stages are well crafted and have good flow, I can't say I ever encountered unfair glitches or bugs, and the utilization of different tools that Buzz Lightyear can collect from Mr. Potato Head to accomplish different tasks also provides a boon to gameplay variety. Each stage has multiple different tasks to be done for different characters which gives you Pizza Planet tokens, the collectables of the game. I'm not aware of these as a whole giving you anything other than a certain amount being required before accessing the next stage, but outside of 100% completion, there isn't anything that these tokens provide you. That may be my only negative with the game, though that really was a problem with most games for the time. That is, unless this game does reward you with something for 100% completion that I'm missing. I know movies are unlocked, or rather, clips from Toy Story 2, though I believe that could just be for progressing through the game and beating boss stages, so I'm not sure it applies. Regardless, this may be the best licensed game from my childhood, and as I've been attempting to every now and then go back and complete one that I had as a kid, that is saying something. Although, maybe the next one of these I do should be A Bug's Life...

On: PlayStation

This game has thoroughly surprised me, I must say. It did come pretty late in the PlayStation lifecycle and it did come after big adventure platform we games that sort of greatly influenced the industry, but even still, this game is pretty well put together considering it technically being a licensed game. And a Muppet game no less, I like Muppet Racemania for the PS1 alright, but I wouldn’t say it’s great. At least what both of those games have in common is that they’re well constructed to fit snugly into their genres. It should also be noted that this game came out fairly late in the PS1's lifespan, and it doesn't really innovate much for the genre, but its still surprising just in how decently put together it is for a licensed game in the 3D platforming genre. Outside of some difficulty on a few stages, I never really ran into issues in the game which is pretty neat, and the music varied between stages, which I also appreciated. Something else worth noting is that there are some hidden collectibles that contribute to 100% completion that are decently hidden, which contributes to some difficulty, but the one that I cannot abide by and had to look up a guide for is fairly early in the game, there is a decrepit church which has a bunch of windows lining the outside. One of these you can go through, its a fake window, but there is no indication of this compared to the other windows. I don't mind something like this in a game if its an Easter egg or its a slightly more powerful item that will help with the stage or something. But when something that cryptic contributes to your completion percentage, then I have a problem with it. Its the same thing I already complained about with Donkey Kong Country, so I won't go too much further into my qualms with that. Because as I said, its well put together, it surprised me, and even though I wouldn't call the game scary, it was a nice endcap to another October I spent playing through horror games (when I wasn't attempting to complete Crash Bandicoot: It's About Time, that is).

On: Super Nintendo

After three years of discussing the possibilities of playing this game with one of my friends from college, he recently stopped by for a visit and we decided to move forward with actually doing what we had long talked about. We played Goof Troop for the SNES. Not a huge deal, it started out as a small joke that turned into a recurring gag that has now been officially been laid to rest. So, as stated, we both played through the game and it didn't take near as long as either of us had expected. I played as the slower, yet harder hitting Goofy, and he played as the opposite, Goofy's son Max. The game is comprised of 5 stages wherein you move through, fighting enemies, solving puzzles involving moving blocks onto switches and crossing gaps with hook shots. At the end of each stage lies a boss, and thats pretty much it. Fairly simple, but fun enough. At least, playing with another person and laughing and cracking jokes of course added to our enjoyment. Perhaps the biggest surprise to the two of us is that, while we did end up using two continues, we never reached game over state. In fact, the last stage we made it all of the way through and beat the final boss without even using a continue. The puzzles in that last section were definitely harder, but the enemies were roughly the same. The music was good for the cutscenes and the credits, but boy did the actual stage music drive me absolutely crazy. It was psychotic and loops endlessly, a little variety there would've been much appreciated. As far as completion goes, this is one of those titles that, even in the 16 bit era, doesn't have much of a completion aspect to it. No collectibles, no other endings, not secrets hidden anywhere except for buried items, but those are randomized and are the same items you can find throughout the rest of the game. Of course, I find nothing wrong with it. Just a little less than 2 hours spent with Goof Troop and we were able to not only finish it, but mark it as completed as the criteria for completing Goof Troop is... well, finishing it. Goof Troop is a fun enough co-op game and if you play it right and coordinate with the person you are playing with, you can finish it in a short enough amount of time with next to no trouble.

On: PlayStation 4

What a breath of fresh air I've had recently, after all the trophy grinding I've been doing for other "In Progress" titles that I haven't finished yet, but to have both a SNES game I played with a friend in less than two hours AND to now play a follow-up to a game I had so much fun with, this may end up being the last game I actually complete this year. And that's just due to the ease of it. The first Spider-Man wasn't that hard, but it took an extremely long time to actually complete. Part of that is because I always put extra parameters on myself, things like finishing all the Benchmarks even though there are no trophies for doing that, but still I remember that spanning near a month. The game took me less than a week, roughly 24 hours to be exact, and part of it is because of how small the campaign is comparatively, but also there are just less challenges overall. It was so much easier for me to get all the activity tokens, to get all Ultimate on all of the challenges, and even finishing the Benchmarks. By the time I had finished New Game Plus for that trophy, I only had two Benchmarks I hadn't finished entirely, and even then I was super close. This was for both getting numerous 30x combos and 50x combos, I was so focused on other trophies and combat based Benchmarks that I never really payed attention to how high my combos were getting. Again, that doesn't matter too much. The one thing that bothered me a bit was the lack of enemies in the game, by which I mean mainstream Spider-Man enemies. There's The Tinkerer, Rhino, and The Prowler, and there is a cameo appearance of both the Kingpin and a post-credits scene for another two bad guys I won't reveal here (probably not a big surprise though). Outside of that, not much. Part of that can likely be blamed on the sheer number of supervillains that were shoved into the first Spider-Man game back in 2018. Having only 3 fightable villains show up throughout the course of the game made it feel emptier, and the sidequests to that end felt a little empty as well, just being things like tracking down a cat and saving a local business. There isn't anything wrong with these types of missions, but when the previous game set a precedent for having a seemingly normal sidequest leading to a big fight with Tombstone, it means you're going in with a certain expectation. Again, though, maybe that's for the best. The game was more compact and easier to get through, and I enjoyed that, plus maybe if they included more high profile bad guys in the game they would either have to elongate the missions or it would feel strange having a 5-10 minute mission based around a heavy hitter that's been around since the 60's. Either way, I really enjoyed the game, and they still keep setting up and teasing this possible future addition to the series with all their post game scenes, so we'll see what will come to the next console generation in possibly 2022.

On: PlayStation 4

A title that frustrated me so much that I ended up taking nearly half a year off from it. It really did a number on me I must say, and its not even something like Super Meat Boy. I'd say Celeste is easier than that. But something about the mechanics specifically ended up causing my thumbs a lot of pain. But, that being said, I went back to it for the end of the year. I had a few B-sides left to take care of and all of the C-sides as well, so that's what I did. My favorite part of all of that was me experiencing the difficulty of the B version of levels and fretting about the C-side versions, and then seeing they weren't nearly as bad as I thought. Trust me, they're still way hard, but the actual levels are mercifully shorter because the developers probably realized what exactly they were asking of their player base. As for the title itself, this is a great one, an indie title that will definitely stand the test of time I think and will be remembered fondly. So many indie games are always being released as it gets easier to do so and many get lost and swept away for various reasons, whether that is deserved or not. But the storytelling, art aesthetic, and fun to master platforming controls, this definitely deserves to be remembered.

On: Sega Genesis

This is likely my favorite of the original 16 bit Sonic games to play, but certainly not my favorite to complete. This primarily boils down to the implementation of the Chaos Emerald mini-games. The mini-game in the first Sonic the Hedgehog was decent, jumping around in a spinning labyrinth that made you dizzy was always fun and it felt like it took skill. The mini-game in Sonic 3 & Knuckles felt like a combination of skill mixed in with memorization, and was good enough to warrant its own standalone iteration if you decided to plug any non-Sonic Genesis game into the Sonic & Knuckles lock-on port, and I love it. Its a lot of fun. But I get absolutely no enjoyment out of Sonic 2's mini-game, which involves running through a tube and collecting rings. So, there is some skill in this, collecting rings and avoiding spikes by jumping and pulling a 360 on the pipe you are running down. However, without a second player this may be difficult as Tails is hard to maneuver. He has a delay to him when you move so occasionally he'll take a hit even though you avoided it and then you lose some rings. If you memorize it and decide to move sooner so that he follow, he may just end up overshooting where you stopped and get hit by more spikes anyways. Its a nightmare and I'm not a fan, I'm sure there's some skillful way to effectively handle Tails in this section but I was beyond frustrated and completing each section just once is more than good enough for me. Its a shame too, because by and large I'm a Sonic 2 fan. It was not only my first Sonic game, but my first video-game period as the Genesis was my first console. I love the music, the stages are interesting, the underwater sections (while still frustrating) are handled better and more easily maneuverable than the first Sonic game. Following this most recent completion, I still stand by all of those statements. But I don't like actually completing this game, I can make it through the game and beat it no problem, only losing a couple of lives, but I'm not ashamed to say I used save states to get the chaos emeralds, and I don't think its because those sections are necessarily too difficult skill-wise, I just don't think the implementation of Tails there is done all that effectively.

On: Sega Genesis

Blue Spheres is great, its the best of the original Sonic Genesis mini-games hands down. What is even better is having a standalone version in order to play through them over and over again at any time by utilizing codes to zip around to different configurations. Blue Spheres stages are essentially set up as large puzzle grids. There are blue spheres and red spheres (and sometimes springs and yellow spheres to bounce you around), with the blue spheres being good and the red spheres being bad. Every time you hit a blue sphere, it becomes a red sphere. The goal is to hit every blue sphere. But that's not all! There is a completion aspect as well, because sometimes there are coins to collect, and if you are able to surround a group of blue spheres with solely red spheres they will turn into more coins for you to collect. Now that I've explained every aspect of this, how does it handle? Surprisingly well. It should be no surprised based on what I've completed and wrote about in the past, but I'm a huge fan of horror games, point-&-clicks, and puzzle games, and Blue Spheres is just a large puzzle game. Trying to strategize where to go and what spheres to hit and in which order is a blast, and requires a lot of planning beforehand to do it just right. Or, you could just wing it! That's the most fun I think.

On: Sega Genesis

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is a fun game, but I don't think its for me. Yeah, I think that's a good way to start this semi-review off. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but I think most of it boils down to the design of the stages. I don't quite like any of the environments the game has to display, perhaps the IceCap Zone is the closest to being interesting to me. Completing the game at least isn't that bad, as the Blue Spheres component is perhaps my favorite of the minigames, which I believe I already discussed at length when I "completed" the standalone version. A fun puzzle segment that makes collecting the Chaos Emeralds less of a chore and more enjoyable while still be challenging. That aside, I guess really the only other things I can comment on is that I do like the music, it's a fantastic soundtrack and each song is perfectly indicative of the zone that you're in, though as a comparison point it means little because I feel that applies to the first two entries in the Sonic franchise as well. So, yeah this is probably my least favorite of the original Genesis titles (not including the add on, which I also plan on completing at a later point), with Sonic 2 being my favorite and the original Sonic the Hedgehog falling squarely in the middle.

On: Sega Genesis

Hey! I said I was going to complete it later and I technically delivered on that promise, here it is! Later. Right off the bat, I enjoy this more than I do Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The inclusion of another character in Knuckles with stage variations is already enjoyable, but just the stage environments themselves are so much better, or at least more appealing to me. Mushroom Hill is interesting and Sandopolis is indicative of the Wild West stage in Sonic Mania, which was my favorite stage in that title. Of course, there is probably some inspiration taken from Sandopolis I'm aware, I just have never made it this far into Sonic & Knuckles before this point. Also, though a little late in the paragraph, I should note that being a continuation of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic & Knuckles technically is the same as Sonic 3 but with all of the addons, so essentially this is a continuation of the completion that came before it, but for the sake of this writeup (and saying that I completed both), I've broken them up. Anyways, as for completion it stacks up to be more of the same as Sonic 3 (not that I'm complaining). In this case you come across Master Rings which warp you to an area filled with Master Emeralds, and jumping on top of an emerald takes you to another Blue Spheres stage, beat it and you get the Master Emerald. Of course, you can beat the game with just the Chaos Emeralds if you want, but having access to the "Super" versions of these characters allows for even quicker mobility, underwater breathing, and as always the special ending of the game that most players strive for in which you complete dismantle all of Robotnik's plans and freeing Knuckles's beloved Angel Island to rise back up gloriously into the sky. Having now completed the main line of Genesis Sonic Games, I believe that I would say Sonic 2 > Sonic & Knuckles > Sonic the Hedgehog > Sonic the Hedgehog 3 in my opinion. Of course, as stated before, Sonic & Knuckles is just Sonic 3 with more additions but I'm still splitting them out since you can play Sonic 3 without those added features (and note that if I was including the standalone of Blue Spheres, which I'm not out of fairness, it would beat out even Sonic 2 in my list). I'm looking forward to trying to complete some of the odder Sonic titles that I have never touched before in 2021... Sonic the Fighters anyone?