Garoozies

6 - Good. Artistically, I enjoy this game more than either of the Hazelight co-op releases. Genuinely perfect realization of the 80’s anime aesthetic put in smooth and snappy 3D motion. The narrative tone and character tropes from that era are also revived with great fidelity. Continuing the comparison with Hazelight, Orbitals’ decision to decouple unique mechanics from the 2 selectable player characters was a great change. My wife and I would take turns using different tools and not being restricted to playing with only one half of the games unique mechanics was very nice. I also enjoyed having a proper hub to hang around at and play mini games. Where orbitals doesn’t quite reach Hazelights pedigree is in its level and boss design. They don’t commit any grave sins, but don’t push the envelope further in any respect. The co-op traversal puzzles are a little samey - a product of using the same 4 tools from start to end. A potentially better system allowing for more puzzle diversity could’ve been to have all these tools at each characters disposal on something like an item wheel to switch between on the fly, making even the act of selecting between them a puzzle of its own. Lastly, I feel it’s important to note that evaluating this game as a product highlights one regrettable flaw - it’s an incredibly short game. Comparable in content to StarFox 64, but the latter is a lot more replayable. Important to consider when making your purchase.

7 - Great. I’ve never played Dragon Quest builders though people claim Pokopia is just a reskin of it. I’ve played some sandbox/city builders like Animal Crossing, a bit of Minecraft, and some others but it’s not a genre I have extensive experience in. So I may be woefully oblivious to the highs of the genre but my limited exposure tells me Pokopia is the best. It has a mix of elements that make it engaging in multiple ways. It’s got excellent item collecting and interior design like Animal Crossing, it’s got the sandbox block building of Minecraft, it’s got a villager system that is incredibly engaging. The Pokémon have unique personalities, engage with your builds in interesting ways, play together, ask you for things, react negatively to changes they don’t like, and more. And on top of all that, Pokopia is the only city builder I’ve played that had an engaging single player narrative and progression. The structure from area to area is really well implemented and culminates in a profoundly melancholic, yet hopeful finale. The postgame reward is perfect and with the 2 additional DLC areas releasing I can promise you I’ll be hanging around for a long while yet. I loved the unique problems each new area presented and how traversing them all felt completely different. Palette Town is a perfect addition as a blank slate where you’re encouraged to use all the tools you’ve gained to make your ideal Pokémon settlement. There’s just so much room for creativity to flourish. Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be going back to the comparatively restrictive Animal Crossing any time soon.

7 - Great. Dishonored 2 is another game to add to the "great video essay" list. Not because it hit all the marks. That doesn't make an interesting essay. No, the best video essays explore games that didn't reach their potential. To try and capture why I feel this game failed to deliver on its premise, I'll begin with the dual protagonists, Emily and Corvo. It was a mistake to make them interchangeable. Since there are 2 playable characters and 2 possible playstyles (high and low chaos), most players assign high chaos to Corvo and low chaos to Emily. Unfortunately this means that I never naturally got to experiment with Emily's full kit. Domino has such fun combat implementations but is not suited to a low chaos playthrough. You could get creative with NG+ but the truth is these levels couldn't get me through more than 2 playthroughs. Conceptually they're superior to the original's. The Addermire Institute, Clockwork Mansion, Grand Palace, and especially A Crack in the Slab were extremely interesting locations with cool gimmicks. I genuinely liked Karnaca. But even the Clockwork mansion, once you know the layout, is over within 5 minutes. The superficial complexity only lasts you one go. and while the levels are cool and the gameplay is as good as before, its hard to enjoy while its all constantly bogged down by bad level structure and narrative. The character monologues hurt the atmosphere. The targets are too disconnected from reality. I was completely taken out of it when the nonlethal way to take out Breanna Ashworth was to magically MacGuffinize her powers away. Delilah is an uninteresting and grossly mishandled antagonist. And my biggest criticism of all is the dumbed down Chaos system, that has become no more than a glorified kill counter. This is a very negative review for a 7/10 - a great game. So just know that the game is great, and holds some of the most creative ideas in games. Just unfortunate it failed to reach the heights of the first Dishonored.

9- Amazing. I had vague memories of Dunwall and the Hound Pits Pub from my youth, and I couldn’t let go of the itch to revisit this game. Well, 90 hours later and with all 80 achievements I can affirm my stance that this is one of the most special games the medium has ever produced. It’s a complete package that honed in on a certain type of experience and delivers on it excellently. Its stealth and immersive sim systems strike a great balance of simplicity with satisfying depth. I played the game 3 times: one Role playing run where I just tried to get into the character of Corvo, one complete chaos run, and one stealth/clean hands run. Doing this allows you to appreciate just how many major AND minor details change in the world and characters. The reason this game outdid any other stealth game is that it put all the control in your hands. Rather than needing to sit crouched, waiting for a guard to make his rounds before slowly crawling across a room, Dishonored gives you tools to move at the pace that your mastery allows - even while remaining completely undetected. And when you want to wreak some havoc, your combat arsenal is varied and well synchronized to taking out foes in style. The narrative is quaintly potent, without excessive exposition. I recommend Dishonored to every gamer. With that recommendation extended, I’ll now lay out those small grievances I have that knock Dishonored out of the perfect 10/10 category:First, the ease with which you can choke out guards to leave them unconscious. There’s no limit to doing so, and pretty much no drawbacks. I wish knocking out guards was only temporary - and maybe that when they regained consciousness they’d alert nearby allies.. something. Second, The fan favorite mission - Lady Boyles party- has no negative consequence for killing the wrong Boyle sister. It should’ve been a fail-state or had a severe drawback. Third, and I say this only half in jest, the Dunwall City Trials **** ****. Almost lost my marbles.

6- Good. This games bordering on a 7 for me, really good game, almost a great game. If you’re a big Sonic/Shadow fan I’m sure you think even higher of this title. Finally Sonic gets some polish on a release.

6- Good. Was a super fun game, I dropped it when they patched out the option to time travel. I disagree with Nintendos approach of making players engage with a game their “intended way”. ACNH wasn’t competitive in any way so why were they bothered by people time traveling? I’m just not the type of gamer to play something a little every day, checking in on my island as if it were a phone app. I hope whatever’s next for Animal Crossing doesn’t restrict player choice like ACNH did.

6- Good. A cozy handheld game that was good at what it offered. Cozy village, neighbors, and gameplay.

9- Amazing. Following Starcraft, Warcraft III came along and knocked my lil sockies off. Its no wonder Starcraft became the bigger Esport as Id say the skill ceiling and balancing of that game are better. BUT I’m not a pro player and for my ****** *** Warcraft III is the whole package. I liked the campaign here more and LOVED Frozen Throne, i loved the heroes mechanic, the races, the visuals, just everything. They even introduced an arcade where people made their own game modes where I sunk hundreds of hours playing tower defense games, Hero builders, dungeon crawlers, just like anything you can think of. That **** is responsible for WoW AND Dota. Which in turn created League of Legends. So all of my teenage addictions started here. These were Blizzards golden days.

6- Good. This games artistic merit far outweighs my enjoyment of it and I think everyone should try it. I still had a good time with it and found the design to be fresh and innovative.

5- Fair. Enjoyable enough but the experience is consistently the same for its whole runtime. When you’ve played 10 minutes of it you know what your next 10 hours will look like, and it’s not particularly riveting.

6- Good. Simple and highly replayable. It’s still the best Luigi’s Mansion for those very reasons.

5- Fair. Mostly enjoyed as a party game, Air Rides single-player appeal is quite limited. The modes are all quite different and comparably fun, so you can switch things up from City Trial, to top ride, to air ride and get very different experiences from each. The racing is not as good as other dedicated racing games, partially due to Sakurai’s commitment to the 2 button scheme. Granted, he does get a lot out of those 2 inputs. I commend the creative vehicles that actually function differently, which is not common in racing games.

4 - OK My nostalgia for this game is begging for a higher score but in reality this game is extremely unbalanced. It’s just so fun to memorize the green pickups for constant teleporting. I truly love this game but I’m sure there are many that would bounce off of it.

7- Great. Civ is very relaxing but not like a farming sim or the like. Theres strategy and planning that is very fun to engage in but its slow methodical pace makes it the type of game you just wanna soak in and enjoy. One single game can go on for 10-20 hours of game time and i usually had multiple game saves progressing at any one time. Theres lots of complexities to game systems like research and development, civilian health, exploration, and diplomacy that you’re always juggling.

7- Great. Unlike the stale Madden titles this game made football fun with street rules and smaller teams that put you in more direct control of the players rather than playing coach. Wall running, drop passes, dodges, and more were satisfying to pull off for flashy plays. Great soundtrack as well.

6- Good. I’m not an FPS fanatic, especially not military shooters. This game is pretty good though, saw campaign to the end and sunk hundreds of hours into online death matches.

6- Good. Unfortunately as a 2025 review I have to admit the controls are horribly outdated and the visuals suffered greatly from trying to put realism onto about 5 poly models. But this game is so nostalgic, the missions are fun, the multiplayer was revolutionary, and it was one of my childhood 10/10s

4- OK. Lots of this game is really quite boring if you’re not playing with friends. There’s a good time to be had with them however, both in arena battles and the mini games

5- Fair. There are other games Ive rated lower and yet would replay before Pokémon Snap. But this game is just such a fun concept. It’s not broad or ambitious, but it’s one of the most relaxing games to pick up in an afternoon and beat. I bet this game will make you feel nostalgic even if you’ve never played it before.

5- Fair. Collecting Pokémon and forming your team how you want is fun but Pokémon isn’t entirely my cup of tea. It was a fine experience but I played it then never looked back.

5 - Fair. I’m not the one to look to for Pokémon reviews. I can hardly differentiate the ones I’ve played.

3- Mediocre. A worse RPG than most even though I’m still a little nostalgic for it. Some Magic types are just broken while others ****.

4- OK. Big jumps & boosting are the appeal here, but there are so many other racing games I’d rather play.

2 - Poor. Very barebones and despite having lots of nostalgia for this game, revisiting it highlighted just how unremarkable it is as a racer. The bot racers posed virtually no challenge and that was on the hardest available levels.

3- mediocre. A finicky 3D platformer that reminds me a lot of Crash Bandicoot in its movement- hard to read depth for platform hopping in a lot of levels. The game is charming and can be worth your time if you like pac man or want something relaxing to play. It’s just not the type of 3D platformer I find compelling.

2- Poor. Kind of a terrible 3D platformer… the games goofy and seems to know its in a lower weight class by throwing wacky ideas around so much that I can’t say the game is boring by any means. It’s just really unpolished with some frustrating movement and platforming.

3- Mediocre. Just a whatever military shooter. It holds historic interest since it’s based loosely on a real military operation, but the gameplay is bland when compared to COD or other military shooters.

2- Poor. Main theme is a solid 8/10 but gameplay is broken up into levels with no cool setpieces and monotonous 3rd person shooting.

7- Great. Just like the NFL Street games, NBA followed a similar formula for success with an actual fun basketball title. Great music, style, and mechanics.

6- Good. Best pack-in game ever released for me. Just a jolly good time. It was simple but offered endless hours of fun.

3- Mediocre. If every minigame included had the effort put into it that tanks did, then I’d recommend Wii Play. But tanks is the only game in the collection that’s fun for more than 2 seconds. Everything else forgettable and low effort.

4 - Fair. It’s a good time with family and friends, but only for a short while. The combat feels floaty and low impact which is not a good mix for a boxing game.

1 - Bad. Just so stale compared to the Wii sports lineup of games this title pretends to be a successor to. Poor effort on Nintendos part to expand this genre.

4- OK. The original AC is nostalgic to me and still pretty fun… i would have thought back then that this would serve as a rich foundation for a masterclass game series, so knowing what has become of AC now, it being a series that is honestly content with its own mediocrity, is sad to me. AC is middle of the road, not falling in the pitfalls of some of the series les favored titles, but is also dull compared to the better games that came afterward.

5- Fair. If you want the best classic AC experience you can find it’s right here. Ezio is the best AC protagonist to this day, in part thanks to his trilogy of games that fleshed him out and gave expansive development to his character.

5 - Fair. No Assassins Creed game is great IMO… as long as their design remains as is the most they can ever be is good. But I do like this game and enjoyed the setting and characters as much or more than any other AC title.

5- Fair. Actually had a lot of fun with the online mode here, though the main story is just more of the same, perhaps a step down from AC2.

5- Fair. Revelations offers a compelling conclusion to Ezios story, and also Altair. I liked how all the assassin protags were brought together/interacted, including Desmond. Seeing Ezio in his advanced age and being more of a sage character was really cool actually. It’s a good game but structurally is just…. AC again.

6- Good. The single player campaign in this game is what other Mario sports titles need. Progressing through all the different clubs, going to a national tournament, winning the tournament, and then being invited to play with the Mario gang was the best progression I’ve seen in Mario sports.

7 - Great. The best of the Rollercoaster Tycoon series and a really enjoyable time sink.

6 - good. The last worthwhile RCT game. A different flavor from the first two but still lots on offer. There’s small additions that make being in your park funner even if the tycoon aspect isn’t as good as 2.

8- Excellent. I think Hazelight has outdone themselves with this title. This is more creative, more engaging, and more challenging than It Takes Two, which was already a great game. A little more action oriented and the level gimmicks are so innovative. Co-op at its best.

7- Great. The last of the Dark Souls games I played. This game was significantly more obtuse and complicated for me than DS1 or 3 were. In those games I always knew where I was going, but here I had to google where to go probably like 5-6 times. Also think this game is the longest of all. It overstayed its welcome for me just a tad. But the combat was great, definitely a middle ground between the slow combat of 1 and the intense fights of 3 which is probably stating the obvious.

7 - Great. Bananza doesn’t stop ramping up the creativity from level to level. I’ll say the terrain smashing lost its novelty but it’s not the focus of the puzzles and traversal most of the time. There’s tons of postgame content and it felt like a natural 100% for me. I appreciate this game a lot for what it does different.

3 - mediocre. This game is mediocre for these reasons:- they added all these mechanics for more dynamic kart racing yet you don’t go any faster or gain any advantage by using them. - the open world is tacked on and empty with what feels like an alpha versions amount of content- all the anti consumer/player decisions surrounding this game like the lack of in game options (intermissions forced on you) and the $80 price. If they fixed all these issues (not likely) the game would clear every Mario Kart before, even my beloved MK Wii.

7- Great. I find this style of combat more engaging than the 2d fighters like Guilty Gear or Mortal Kombat. Its so easy to sink hours and hours into this game especially if you’ve got people to play with. Theres some fun single player gauntlets to go through and as you improve and get out of button mashing it feels so good.

6- Good. As my only MK experience I liked this game quite a bit. Played some online and with friends. My issue with these fighting games (this even includes Smash Bros, soulcalibur, and Guilty Gear) is theres always next to no single player. Getting destroyed online gets old quick, and friends aren’t always readily available to play. Some games I’ve tried to get into had extremely small communities and the only players you’re going to find online are the sweats. Because of this i always end up dropping any fighting games even if i really like their gameplay. As a fighter however i prefer most others I’ve played to this one ( Those aforementioned titles). Mostly due to a lack of parrying or combo breaks. I could 100-0 combo at times with Ermac at my peak.

2 - Poor. Here’s the Wii-ified SSX title that was bound to happen. You’d think motion controls and sports games would be a natural pairing but drawing shapes midair to do tricks is quite unfun imo. Didn’t care for the visuals or soundtrack over the other SSX titles.

6 - Good. Top tier snowboarding with style, creative over-the-top courses to race or trick though.

6 - Good. Not everyone loves this one because it’s not the SSX they grew up with. Pretty sure this is as good as Tricky or 3 if you’re not nostalgia blinded. It’s a similar experience but this one offers a globetrotter angle where you’re traversing the world’s highest peaks, with each region having its own unique hazard. Idc what’s the popular opinion but I love the survival tracks. The O2 tanks, the wingsuits, the headlamps and dark tunnels, the large ice patches, etc. it feels very SS”X” as in an extreme sport. It’s just videogamey fun. Soundtrack is good and visuals are great.