Biscuit Video Game Reviews

Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order

I remember this being the first game I played this year. Got it on sale on Steam. I had just recently finished watching Mandalorian Season 2 and was still wanting to consume some Star Wars content. I remembered Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order getting some good reception and decided to check it out. 

It was a pretty solid game. In fact, I would actually make this the game to play if you ever want to consider playing any of the From Software games. Fallen Order is very much Dark Souls with a Star Wars skin. I say play this because it’s definitely more forgiving in the checkpointing system. Fighting is more dependent on Force powers, dodging, blocking, and parrying and knowing when to do those actions at the appropriate time, is what gives this game its challenge factor.

You will die. Death is a part of the experience in Fallen Order as every death teaches you more about the enemy's tactics and how to clear areas.

Stardew Valley

I played this game when it came out in 2016. As a fan of Harvest Moon, I was losing interest in the series like many others. Stardew Valley recaptured that magic I felt when I played my very first Harvest Moon game Friends of Mineral town for the GBA.

Not to mention this game has gone through many changes since I last played it in 2016. New areas were added, new crops, recipes, events, and even a new island to explore. When I first played Stardew Valley, I easily dropped 100+hours and I probably dropped another 100+ when I was going through it again this year.

My farm in 2016 was sort of a hodgepodge of everything, whereas the new farm I made in 2021 was more focused on creating Beer, Wine, and Artisan Goods. There’s also a new random mode for the Community Center challenge. The random tasks I got I thought were actually easy to acquire and gather than the original. That could be because I went in having a better idea of how to do things. That or it could be that I didn’t have to play RNG with a rabbit in hopes that they spawn a Rabbit’s foot.

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury

This was a remaster for a Mario game that came out in 2013. I never played the original release and when it got packaged with a mini game called Bowser’s Fury, I figured why not. I had never played 3D World and Bowser’s Fury looked like fun.

3D world took the foundation of a 2D Mario game and placed it in a 3D plane and it surprisingly worked very well. You go from the start to the finish of the stage while encountering secrets and obstacles along the way. There were a couple levels that are easy to go through because of what a 3D space permits a player to do, but nonetheless, I still had a great time playing through this game.

Bowser’s Fury was also a really fun addition as it is more akin to a traditional 3D Mario game. It also serves as a sort of a small expansion to Mario Odyssey. This is truly a more open world Mario experience as the “levels” are a part of the main hub world and feel like a natural piece within the open environment. I’m curious if this was a tech demo of sorts for the next 3D Mario entry.

Final Fantasy XIV

This is actually the third time that I picked up Final Fantasy XIV. Even though the gameplay is really fun, the story never really latched on to me until this new playthrough. 

I have to say being a part of the big population boom that Final Fantasy XIV has been receiving has been quite a lot of fun. There was the 2020 pandemic surge, where players were joining the game as a means to stay connected to friends and family during lockdown. I came in during the Spring 2021 surge when old XIV players that quit long ago picked it back up to get through the story to be ready for Endwalker, which was my reason for rejoining the game. Then there was the great World of Warcraft (WoW) exodus, lead by WoW streamers such as Asmongold, Rich Campbell, and Bellular that occurred this past summer. Many WoW players joined following the recommendations of these streamers after dissatisfaction from Activision-Blizzard’s direction of WoW, as well as the recent investigation that uncovered many cases of abuse within the Activision-Blizzard work environment. The XIV community has been welcoming these new players with open arms. It’s definitely something worth a much longer review because everything that I have to say about Final Fantasy XIV as well my history with this game and MMOs in general, would make this post much bigger than intended. 

As games that I played this year go, this one right here, is what I would give the Biscuit Game of the Year.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Bioware needed a win after stumbling with Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem. Having the original Mass Effect trilogy remastered was in my opinion a great call as the first Mass Effect did not age the best in terms of gameplay. This remaster collection allows players to experience the definitive versions of these three great games, and I really mean definitive. If you haven’t played Mass Effect, play the Legendary Edition, don’t bother with the originals.

The Legendary Edition brought a massive gameplay overhaul with Mass Effect 1 to where it makes the transition to Mass Effect 2 to be much more natural than the originals. Not to mention, all of the DLC is included. All item packs, mission add-ons, decoration packs, it’s all here in the Legendary Edition…except for Pinnacle Station for Mass Effect 1. But honestly all it did was add a challenge mode that wasn’t that great as Mass Effect 3’s challenge mode is much better handled and implemented.

There are still a few minor quirks with this remaster collection. Using powers in Mass Effect 1 are still a bit of a hit or miss to where the game favors the Soldier class over any of the other classes. Shepard’s head still does this weird downward look angle when walking around the non-combat areas in Mass Effect 2 (something that was present in the original). Lastly, Mass Effect 3 does have some weird textures that are more present with the remaster upscaling, but honestly these are extremely minor and do not at all detract from the overall experience.

Twelve Minutes

Of all the games that came out in 2021, this was the one I was the most excited and intrigued about. I actually pulled up my old post talking about this game in 2019 when it was shown off in E3 of that year (which definitely feels like a different time altogether). I remember the week after that E3 I was talking to a co-worker about it and we were just very intrigued by this murder mystery and being stuck in a twelve minute loop.

I do wish I did a review on this game, because there were a lot of good and bad things to discuss. Mechanically, Twelve Minutes was intriguing, trying to figure out why you’re caught in a time loop while also trying to piece the mystery of why someone would want to murder your wife. One positive was that with every loop I got some sort of clue to keep going to know if I was on the right track or to try out something new to get further into the mystery. Even when I did fail, I never felt that the particular loop was a waste of time because I still learned something new to try or uncovered a small detail to ponder on. 

As far as the bad of the game, I hate to say it, but it was actually the mystery itself. The more that got unraveled, the more the story in my opinion got worse when it entered some really creepy territory. I’m not talking supernatural or horror creepy, I’m talking just plain creepy with what the truth of things ended up being. The biggest frustration with me was trying to get the perfect ending. If you want the credits to roll to mark the story as complete, there’s a choice at the end of the game that can be made. If you just so happen to pick the wrong choice, everything and I mean everything is reset to the beginning. You have to go through the entire game again to make the correct choice for the true ending. You might be thinking to yourself, “the bad ending can’t be all that bad, I still get a credit roll, right?” 

Nope.

Pokemon Sword and Shield

When this game came out in 2019, I wasn’t interested in it at all. It wasn’t Dexit or the graphics controversy that had me not interested in this entry. My issue with Sword and Shield was actually the always-on XP share as well as the more story-driven direction the series had taken since Black and White. I didn’t mind the more story driven take until Sun and Moon came out which had the story getting constantly in the way of the game.

With Sword and Shield, the story took more of a backseat and the game was center stage. It allowed me to just play Pokemon. I also ended up not being as annoyed with the XP share system. As a veteran Pokemon player, I trained most of these monsters before. I don’t want to go through training a Magikarp to be a Gyrados for the 9th time. But having the option to turn it on and off at will still would have been a nice feature.

I ended up enjoying this game so much, I even bought the expansion pass and after going through those adventures, imagine my surprise that you actually unlocked an additional Pokemon tournament in the Championship Stadium in Wyndon upon the completion of both the DLC stories. It was actually a pretty nice little bonus because there’s not a lot of games that have post content after the DLC itself.

Halo Infinite

Now, I haven’t played the campaign for this game yet, but I have been playing the multiplayer component and it has been a lot and I mean a lot of fun! The multiplayer has definitely struck a nice balance between what made classic Halo great as well as what makes a modern first person shooter feel more action packed. It feels like a natural evolution of Halo 3’s equipment pickups to turn the tide such as shields and mines.

That’s not to say that there are criticisms to be had. Halo Infinite has tried to push the Battle Pass system to be more grindy and greedy with microtransactions. Games such as Fortnite and Destiny 2 I felt struck a good balance with the Battle Pass to where you still earn some good free stuff, but if you purchase the Pass, you get additional items.

Fans have expressed their criticisms of the Battle Pass and 343 has responded by making it less grindy to gain levels in the pass. However, rewards and cosmetics are still far and few between for free players and are definitely pushing you to purchase the pass for cosmetics. 343 has stated that they are looking into having a better balance for the 2nd Battle Pass that will come out sometime in 2022. This is great, however I do want to mention this. Microsoft has tried to make the Battle Pass less friendly. Even though they didn’t succeed, you can bet that some other publisher or company will see what Microsoft and 343 tried to do and begin to make that a new standard at some point. 

Even though 2021 didn’t have many games for me, 2022 does have some titles that I am keeping an eye on. Horizon: Forbidden West, God of War: Ragnarok, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, Bayonetta 3, and The Breath of the Wild Sequel (which I think is coming out in 2023 as Nintendo has made no announcements regarding any release window, despite current rumors pointing to a late 2022 release). 

In Cyberpunk 2077, you are first prompted to create a character by choosing one of three lifepaths; Street Kid, Nomad, and Corporate. Each of these paths will have a different beginning, some moments where there will be dialogue choices that are unique to that specific lifepath, and one unique quest related to the chosen background. No matter what, your character will be known as V for the duration of the campaign.

From here you can create the look of V. Instead of selecting a gender, you select a masculine or feminine body type and a masculine or feminine voice. One of the marquee features for Cyberpunk 2077 was customizing your genitals. No matter the body type you have access to every form of genital. 

You want to be as smooth as a Ken doll? It’s an option! Want to have a circumcised or uncircumcised dick? It’s an option! Want a pussy with heart-shaped pubic hair? It’s an option! Gender is a scale in character creation. However, something of note is that masculine body type and feminine body types do have different hair options. I personally found this very disappointing as the masculine body type has more options than the feminine body type. To add on the unequal balance of options, the feminine body type only has one style of ethnic hair, whereas the masculine body type has six styles. For a game where one of its themes is looks and style, it's quite disproportionate and a bit lacking. I was also hoping that there could be more cybernetic looking aesthetics like arms or legs rather than just some chrome looking lines on your character’s face and their eyes.

I hope you like what you choose as your V as well, because once you leave Character Creation, that is it. That will be what your V looks like for the remainder of the game. Especially since Cyberpunk itself has the theme of changing your body with implementing cybernetics. Adding additional cybernetics is even a core feature, so it’s really a strange design decision not to customize your character look as well after the initial creation.

Once your character is created you go down your respective life path’s intro, meet Jackie Wells, get a job to steal a chip, V inserts the chip in their head and finds out it holds a digital construct of legendary rockerboy and mascot of the Cyberpunk tabletop, Johnny Silverhand, portrayed by Keanu Reeves.

Think of Johnny Silverhand as a second protagonist because the story revolves around him just as much as it revolves around V. V and Johnny will be working together to save V as it turns out the chip that has Johnny’s construct is slowly killing V and rewriting their body to be the new host for Johnny Silverhand.

I do also have to say that there are some great moments between both V and Johnny. Both show comradery and even antagonism towards one another depending on how you choose to have V interact with Johnny. The writing is also truly great, touching on themes such as the meaning of being human and corporate corruption. Choices also have narrative consequences that could benefit you or come back to haunt you. Even certain gameplay aspects have repercussions such as doing something stealthy or hacking a computer to acquire specific information just to name a few.

As for the choices themselves, it’s a bit of a mixed bag in terms of consequences. For example, there’s a Ripperdoc within the main story that you can question to get additional information. My wife and I took different approaches with this. She chose to beat him up and intimidate him for the information (a choice she does not regret in the slightest) and I choose to simply say some harsh words and drop a few threats. Because my wife took the more “direct” option, it actually locked out the Ripperdoc from being a vendor for her, whereas with my approach, I was actually allowed to purchase items and cybernetics from him.

However, that isn’t true for everything. There was another main mission where V had to help one of the main gangs take down a law enforcement agent. This agent said that the gang was about to betray V and leave them for dead and could provide proof of said betrayal. Now, my wife didn’t trust the law enforcement agent, but I on the other allowed the law enforcement agent to show his proof. This led to my wife getting betrayed by the gang which they were shocked that she lived as they uploaded a virus to V’s software. My decision led to me reversing the virus that the gang uploaded to V’s software to be turned against them which caused many of the gang's leadership to die and fight my way out of their hideout. Because of this, I figured there would be some major repercussions and even the vendors that were aligned with that gang to no longer sell anything to me. But, there was nothing! No repercussions, no attacks from people aligned with that gang, and the vendors that befriended said gang were still willing to sell their wares to me. I can’t help but wonder if perhaps this was supposed to have an effect to the overall narrative and that it just got cut. 

In fact, there are quite a few moments in the story and even some of the side missions that feel like they were just cut to rush this out the door. Even the potential of the lifepath you select has the feeling that there was meant to be more. I can speak this fully for both the Nomad and Street Kid lifepaths as both tease and appear to set up additional events that were meant to be explored. For example, a Nomad V was set up to deal with the repercussions of leaving the Bakkers, a family they abandoned. A Street Kid V is set up to do additional work for Padre (a fixer that provides Gigs that will be explained more later) that would have been unique to this life path, yet we see none of that. 

Even though the story acts like there is a time limit and emphasizes urgency to get the matter resolved, no such limit exists and you can go about the story at your own pace. However, because of this “rushed immediacy” it compelled me more to focus on the story. It does have a few natural pauses, but even then these moments are to fulfill small goals, such as getting enough money to pay off a character or waiting a couple of in-game days for an NPC to call you back.

This approach was intentional as CD Projekt Red wanted people that played Cyberpunk 2077 to experience the story without dropping the game part way through. So much so that the main story alone is only 20 hours in length doing no side content as opposed to Witcher III’s 50 hour story. However, despite the 20 hour story, there is plenty of content in Cyberpunk to keep you busy and engaged in its world.

Similar to Witcher III, there are some side missions that do play and have the same weight as a main story mission.  Some of these side missions will even have consequences that affect the main story depending on your choices and when you do complete them.

There’s also a side mission classification known as “Gigs.” These are similar to the monster contracts from Witcher III. They do have a small little story, but none of these are going to affect the main story, it’s just do the thing, get the reward at the end, and call it.

So how does the ending work? Relationships and certain choices do still play a factor in the ending. However, for Cyberpunk rather than those factors deciding your endgame, they instead determine if you meet certain criteria to select a specific finale. Did nothing but main story missions and none of the side stuff? That will greatly impact how many options you have for the end. However, if you took the time to do those side missions and develop great relationships, you’ll have more choices on how to go about the ending.

Gameplay wise this game has quite a few approaches and caters to various different playstyles. However, in traditional RPG fashion, it does take a bit to actually get to that preferred playstyle to where certain abilities start becoming main stays and heavy hitters for completing encounters.

Both my wife and I were playing this game at the same time and her playstyle was guns and Mantis Blades, whereas my style was hacking and crafting. Both of our styles were equally satisfying. It was amazing just watching my wife go into a building with her Mantis Blades and clearing out an entire room filled with enemies in 5 seconds. Whereas my style, granted it wasn’t as fast, but there was still satisfaction in hacking everything and killing all enemies without actually being in the room itself. Point is, no matter what playstyle you end up building your character, it’s going to be satisfying being a deadly weapon, a silent ninja, or a super hacker.

Night City is also just visually appealing as well. It doesn’t matter what the time of day is, as both daytime and nighttime are filled with vibrant colors that pleases the eye. From the rich colorful buildings to the colorful neon signs, Night City aims to capture you with its aesthetic. Even the in-game in-universe ads are appealing and eye catching, albeit there’s far too much...sex and porn ads for my liking. 

Now, I don’t consider myself a prude by any means. Yes, I know the game also has the “M” rating for a reason and I get that Cyberpunk’s universe is a dystopian that has been ravaged and destroyed by corporations. I still wish there could have been more types of in-universe ads that weren’t necessarily sexual in nature. Like movies, video games, additional products, and travel destinations. Granted you do also see these types of ads as well, but most of them have a sexual connotation. It had me just wondering what other stuff do the denizens of Night City consume or are subjected to that aren’t necessarily sex in nature.

The menu UI is an absolute mess. The quest log has some semblance of logical organization dividing Main Missions, Side Missions, Gigs, and other side activities. As far as organizing by district within Night City, it’s non-existent meaning looking for certain missions can be a bit hard. Quests can easily be lost if you are trying to find a specific one to track. The Codex also has no logical organization, which is really baffling considering Witcher III had an excellent organized list and system on specific topics you wanted to learn more about within its world. 

Let’s not forget the world map accessible through the menu as well. Icons. Icons everywhere. Not since Assassin’s Creed Unity have I seen a world map so cluttered and crammed with so many little icons for various activities and shops. Thankfully you can filter out the icons if you’re looking for a specific shop or activity to easily mark what you’re looking for on the map.

This also wouldn’t be a Cyberpunk 2077 review if I didn’t talk about all of the bugs and glitches that both my wife and I encountered. There was a ton of them: We ran into enemy spawn issues, NPC vehicles just running into objects or outright getting in the way, objects that could not be picked up, UI issues where sometimes whoever you called on the phone their portrait wouldn’t go away, a weird transparent black line that would sometimes just appear out of nowhere, an enemy netrunner hacking you with their respective visual prompt warning not disappearing from the screen, the relic construct malfunction visual effect that sometimes got stuck on a loop, light sources and shadows sometimes acting out of sync with the time of day, enemy death animations not playing appropriately, environment clipping, selling items by bulk would sometimes not work, a quest option that caused 15,000 eddies (the in-game currency) to not be paid after defeating an opponent in a fist fighting contest, not being able to shoot your gun when aiming down the sight, and random crashes.

But that’s not all! During my playthrough when CD Projekt Red implemented hotfix 1.05, we both started having rendering issues like you would see on the consoles. However, this specific issue didn’t happen that often and also didn’t last very long, but it wasn’t until that patch that we had this issue. As of 1.06, I still encountered this issue.

There are also braindance sequences which used to have flashing lights that display in a sequence that doctors use to test for seizures. In a year where game accessibility has made great strides in terms of audio and visual adjustments as well as tailoring difficulty in various gameplay aspects, it was a shame this was a serious issue for many people. Now this has been patched out to where it’s just one light that brightens and then dims. It doesn’t change the fact that it became an uncomfortable or a dangerous experience for a period of time.

That’s not accounting one of the biggest game breaking bugs that you could run into on PC before the release of patch 1.06. That issue being if you crafted too much or had too many items in your inventory, it could cause a corrupted save. Luckily neither myself or my wife ran into this issue, but when this was discovered, I immediately stopped crafting and started micromanaging my inventory a lot more than usual in an open world RPG game. For a small period of time, I was afraid to utilize half of my character build in fear of corrupting my save.

This is a game that in my opinion is worth a Biscuit Replay at some point. Probably when all of the DLC has been released and the bugs have been patched up. CD Projekt Red right now seems to have an ETA of February of fixing the majority of issues that were reported. However, there are also rumblings of an overhaul for the game set to occur in June 2021 according to an anonymous CD Projekt Red dev. It was however later debunked by CD Projekt Red leadership. With how CD Projekt Red has handled Cyberpunk 2077 so far, we can’t say for sure if their official word is actually true or not about this supposed June 2021 overhaul. 

No matter when and if you decide to purchase the game, waiting is definitely something I recommend either way. In its current state, it is not acceptable by any means. Although yes, there have been some patches that have fixed some things, there are still a large number of issues that need to be resolved before Cyberpunk 2077 is the game it should have been on release. I know that I put this on my top games of 2020, but keep in mind, that list is for games that I myself personally had fun with. I did have fun with Cyberpunk, but giving it a high score is something this game does not deserve at this time. 

Although the first major patch is scheduled to be released very soon at the time of writing this review, I would still recommend waiting until the second major patch. There is a great game underneath all of these bugs. It’s just a shame that the sheer amount of these bugs greatly hinder it and hold it back from being what it could be.

Honorary Mention: Among Us

Among Us was a game that came out in 2018, but didn’t gain traction until this year. This was a great party game to play with friends especially during this socially distanced year.

Honorary Mention: Persona 5 Royal

Persona 5 was my personal Game of Year in 2017 and this year an enhanced version was released that fixed some gameplay issues I had with the 2017 release, as well as expanding the story and ending. It was great to revisit this game and story and if you haven’t played the 2017 release, I highly recommended just going with this version instead.

Now to the top games of 2020.

Cyberpunk 2077

Ok, I know. This game is buggy, this game is glitchy, why are you making this a top game Biscuit. Because I had fun with it. I’m not going to get into too much detail because I am going to have a review on this game soon. In fact, I was actually going to make this review #77, but I think it needs to be bumped up to sooner rather than later because there is quite a lot that needs to be discussed with this game. Cyberpunk 2077 could have had it all, but the corpos had to exploit the devs to meet deadlines for max profits, rather than take their time and not overwork their devs.

The Last of Us 2

Even though I thought the story was just average at best, Last of Us 2 did a lot of improvements in so many other areas. The gunplay, enemy intelligence, environments, and the encounters, it was all such a leap forward compared to the original. Not only that but this game also made big improvements in accessibility. This ranged from difficulty to cater the game to your preference to make certain aspects of it easier or harder, ways to help the hard of hearing community by having options for more visual cues, and the sight impaired community by having options for more audio cues, and options to assist with color blindness.

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla

Another game that I do plan to make a review for at a later time so again, I won’t be going into too much detail. Valhalla would also follow in the footsteps of Last of Us 2 with its improvements in accessibility. It’s not as grainlier as The Last of Us 2’s options, but Valhalla also features different aspects of gameplay on their own difficulty scale and there are options to assist those that are sight impaired or those that have color blindness.

Death & Taxes

There are two things in life you can always count on, Death and Taxes. In this game, you are the Grim Reaper. However, you reap souls, not by traveling the world and visiting a person, but rather at the comfort of an office desk going through different files and determining if the person on the file lives or dies. Then once the decision is made, they get filed and their fate is sealed.

The game appealed to my dry sense of humor and it was rather enjoyable. It’s a nice 4 hour story with multiple endings depending on how you go about the Grim Reaper’s office work.

Ghost of Tsushima

What has been dubbed as the “swan song of the PS4” Ghost of Tsushima was an excellent cinematic game that showed the evolution of Jin Sakai. From an honorable samurai warrior, to a silent deadly assassin. Ghost of Tsushima was a perfect sendoff in both visuals and gameplay for not just the PS4, but for video games in general for the 2013-2020 era.

I also loved how the environments catered to the evolution as well with the first area being combat head to head heavy, the second blending combat and stealth, and the final area fully embracing stealth.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales

It’s a shame that this game got drowned out by everything else that happened near its release. I partly blame Sony and Insomniac Games conflicting statements on various aspects of the game. Does it actually follow Miles Morales? Is it a sequel? Is it an expansion? All of these confusing and contradictory statements really hurt this game the most in my opinion.

So I’m just going to answer them seeing how they wouldn’t give a clear one. Yes, it follows Miles Morales. Yes, it’s a sequel to the 2018 Spider-Man. I wouldn’t personally call it an expansion, maybe more of a Spider-Man 1.5 before diving into a Peter Parker sequel.

Another sticking point was the game length. Doing a 100% run on Miles Morales took me about 25 hours, compared to 2018’s Spider-Man which clocked in at around 35 hours. 

I actually personally didn’t mind this as Miles Morales' story was a lot more focused and meatier. Compare this to 2018’s Spider-Man, where yes it’s a good game, but also had quite a bit of unnecessary fat that bloated not only the story, but even some of the side content.

You can also do so much cooler stuff such as using bioelectricity powers known as Venom and camouflage for sneak attacks or quick getaways.

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Even though Remake is in the title, the game itself isn’t exactly what one might call a “traditional remake”. Final Fantasy VII Remake is more of a continuation of the overall Final Fantasy VII story rather than being retold for a new generation. I will admit, this was a game that scared me. I did wonder what that would mean for not only Final Fantasy VII, but the many sequels and prequels that spawned from the original as well.

If there is one thing I do love about this game, it’s how it handled New Game+. It encourages you to play on Hard Mode for New Game+ as that difficulty setting is tailored and expects the player to return to this with an already cleared file where you have all of your spells and equipment carried over.

I think this was the best way Square could have taken on this “remake” and frankly, they did an excellent job.

Biscuit’s Game of the Year: Animal Crossing: New Horizons

This game came out when the world needed an escape the most. The world was locking down and Animal Crossing was being released at the same time. Because of that, many people clambered to Animal Crossing for a small island paradise escape from a world in the middle of a pandemic.

My wife and I played this game for a solid 2 months: gathering crafting recipes, visiting each other’s stores for whatever the Nooklings and Mabel had in stock that day, gathering tickets to help each other get our ideal villagers, and of course, playing the Stalk market to become Bellionaires. It also allowed us a safe avenue to hangout and socialize with our friends during this time of figuring out how to adjust to living life in a worldwide pandemic.

The game starts with Mario receiving a letter from Princess Peach to come to her castle to eat some cake. When Mario arrives he discovers that Bowser has taken over the castle, the Power Stars and is holding Peach hostage. Mario must acquire the Power Stars and defeat Bowser.

Similar to previous Mario games, the developers and designers start the player in an open area to get familiar with the controls and the new aspects of 3D at the time the game was released in 1996. This is something that I don’t think actually gets discussed as much when it comes to this game. Playing in 3D was still a relatively new way of interacting with the game world. Having this small area to learn about new directional movement as well as what the player can interact with in the environment was a great way to learn to play.

As Mario navigates within the castle, he will encounter magical portraits that will teleport him to the world portrayed. Each of these worlds have collectible Power Stars as well as one secret Star that can be obtained by collecting 100 coins. One great thing about this is just because you select a specific Star to pursue, you don’t necessarily have to go for the selected Star. You can pursue any other Star you happen to see on the stage. Granted there are a few Power Stars where you have to actively pursue that Star to acquire it. One example being Star 2 in Bob-Omb Battlefield. In order to acquire that Star, you have to select it in the Star Select Screen for that stage. It’s not often this has to be done, but is something to note.

Mario will also have three special caps that he can use. The Winged Cap which allows him to glide in the air, which is also slightly hard to control; The Metal Cap, which increases Mario’s weight, allows him to take less damage when hit, and he can walk underwater; Finally, you have the Invisible Cap, which in my opinion is the most useless of the three as it’s not often you as a player will need to use it, allows Mario to pass through fences and certain walls.

Princess Peach’s castle will act as your hub world filled with its own secrets. From extra lives to hidden Power Stars, don’t look at the castle as just a place to go from one stage to the next. Think of Peach’s castle as its own level, because you’ll never know what challenges and secrets you’ll find hidden within the walls.

The camera of Super Mario 64, was revolutionary at its time of release. On the other hand, it really has not aged well compared to advancements within 3D gaming itself. The camera is at a fixed angle and can be slightly manually controlled by either panning it to the left or right. You have no control how far to the left or right it pans however and sometimes the camera will not pan depending on the stage design itself. There are some moments where the stage will often get in the way of the camera blocking your view of Mario when you need to make jumps or find the placement of objects and enemies.

Of all the games from the Super Mario 3D All Stars pack, I felt Super Mario 64 could have used a full remake to fix the camera issues and bring it up to modern visuals. Nintendo could have also taken the chance to have the worlds be more organic to where platforms and elevators could have looked like they belonged in that world rather than be an awkward checkered square that moves on a line.

A game should not be judged solely on looks because in my opinion, a game that looks good does not equal a great game. However, if you are going to remaster a game, perhaps actually remaster a game. There were graphical tricks that Nintendo did to help allow the game to still function and render. For example, if Mario was a great distance away from the camera, his model would actually lose fidelity. Now that more powerful hardware is running the game, you would think that his model would no longer look like a flattened polygon.

However, it is possible that Nintendo just took the original code for Super Mario 64 and just ported it over to the Nintendo Switch and didn’t bother to make any changes to compensate for the new hardware. If Nintendo made slight tweaks to Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy for the All Stars Pack, why didn’t they do the same for 64? It’s a title that really could have used some sort of enhancement, no matter how big or small that enhancement would have been. Camera maneuverability is this game’s biggest flaw in my opinion.

Something of note for the Switch version is that the controls are not as accurate. There were times that when performing a jump, Mario would go slightly too far than what I intended. Even simple movement, Mario has a bit of a delay of stopping when there is no longer any input. After some research into the issue, I did find other accounts and reports of players noticing this and they even noted that this version is actually not as precise as the N64 or the Wii/Wii U port.

Although the 3D All Stars version of the game is playable, despite the slight technical issue on this version, it’s still interesting to go back to see just how far gaming itself has come.

I remember picking this game up back when it came out in 2012 excited to see how the Desmond Arc would end and how Ubisoft incorporated the ending of the Mayan Calendar for the game’s plot. We knew more Assassin’s Creed games were coming, but, at that point it was just a matter of where it would go next.

Assassin’s Creed III would also be the last Assassin’s Creed game to really have the modern day aspects actually have any significance to the overall plot. Although Ubisoft seems to be trying to be bringing that back in the newer releases.

You don’t start the game as the Assassin on the cover of the boxart of the game. Instead, you’re some other guy, named Haytham Kenway. Haytham has arrived in Colonial America to search for an Isu Temple. He recruits various people to help him search for this temple, which is later revealed that this group will act as the Colonial Templar Order. I actually thought it was kind of cool that you as the player get to actually build the kill list and set the foundation of the Templar’s presence for this entry, whereas in previous Assassin’s Creed games, you’re just provided the list.

Shortly after, you take on the role of Ratonhnhaké:ton, otherwise known as Connor when traveling through the colonial circles. He desires revenge on Charles Lee for attacking his village, which resulted in the death of his mother, Kaniehtí:io. This prompts Ratonhnhaké:ton to train as a warrior and then later, seek out the Assassin Brotherhood.

Not only will Ratonhnhaké:ton train as an Assassin, but he will also need to rebuild the destroyed Colonial Assassin order and be one of the driving forces that leads the colonists to revolution against Britain. He learns that not only is Charles Lee a member of the Templar order, but that the Colonial Templar branch is led by none other than his father, Haytham Kenway, the character you played as in the beginning. 

However, by the time you finally get going as an Assassin, half the campaign has already been finished and spent on plot setup and tutorials. It’s a slow burn for things to finally get going, which I guess in a way is similar to how the American Revolution started. So, in this case, it might actually be a positive for being in tempo for the historical event happening at the time.

Ratonhnhaké:ton will travel to both Boston and New York to carry out missions, as well as engage in the Frontier, an open world area where he can hunt and travel to various places. Hunting will grant not only crafting items, but also items for Ratonhnhaké:ton to sell as well for money, which can be used to purchase weapons and upgrades. I actually really enjoyed the Frontier as it was easy to just get lost in the various small towns and engage with the wildlife. The Frontier felt more alive and interesting compared to the first Assassin’s Creed Kingdom area, which only served as a hub world to get to cities and search for some collectibles.

Boston and New York also have a Fast Travel System within the cities. However, in order to unlock these fast travel points, you have to find the underground entrance. Once there, you have to navigate the underground tunnels to find the door to create a Fast Travel Point. This could have been interesting as some of them have puzzles you have to complete to unlock the door, but it’s more cumbersome than anything. Ratonhnhaké:ton can only walk or fast walk inside these tunnels. They are also extremely dark and hard to navigate and the light source you have doesn't really give good illumination to wander around the tunnels. Most of the time I was just walking around getting lost because there wasn’t a way to get my bearings. Sure there are some other lamps along the way you can light, but those don’t really help.

There is also a Homebase area known as the Davenport Homestead. It is here that Ratonhnhaké:ton will do missions for its citizens. Doing these missions will unlock recipes that will allow them to craft items which can be either used or sold. This mechanic gives incentive to take care of the Homestead.

One addition that I loved in Assassin’s Creed III was naval combat. Ratonhnhaké:ton will go on missions on his ship The Aqulia where he can escort merchants, assist the colonial army in battles, and hunt down mercenaries and Templars.

As mentioned previously, this was also the last game in the Desmond Arc, which means that there are playable modern day sections where you’re sneaking around places as Desmond. Honestly, I actually enjoyed these segments, they were reminiscent of the playable dungeons from Ezio trilogy and seeing how an Assassin operates in the modern day was actually pretty cool. Of course, Desmond the character is still a bit dry and not that interesting, but nonetheless, fighting Abstergo agents and using what he learned from the Animus was pretty awesome.

One point of criticism I have to bring to the modern day plot, is the introduction of Daniel Cross. The way the game wrote his introduction made the assumption that you, the player, knew him. This was Ubisoft’s attempt to make media outside the game have relevance and weight. Daniel Cross was a central character to a three part Assassin’s Creed comic trilogy known as “The Fall” which was published between the releases of Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood and Revelations. A sequel to the comic trilogy, known as “The Chain” was also released in 2012 to mark the transition of Daniel Cross’s story to Assassin’s Creed III.

Having outside characters from other mediums is fine and does help with world and lore building for those that want more stories. Making those connections is great for those that do consume the story through multiple mediums, but when you bring in a character and don’t properly introduce them and have them carry themselves like the audience should know who they are, it alienates those who did not consume the other media. Luckily, I did read the comic trilogy when it was published, so I already knew Daniel Cross and his relevance to the overall story. But, for those who didn’t read the comics, he will feel like a character that came out of nowhere. Assassin’s Creed III’s story just pushes him in as an additional villain without giving him the proper baseline setup and working with the assumption that you’ve read the comics.

The Remastered version includes all of the missions that were broken apart from various pre-order specials such as the Benedict Arnold mission where Ratonhnhaké:ton uncovers his historic betrayal as well as the Mayan Pyramid where Ratonhnhaké:ton acquires Captain Kidd’s sword.

Having all of the content in one place might make you think that this is perhaps the definitive version. Content wise yes it is, but the remastered version has quite a few issues that make me hesitant to call this the definitive version.

Character models are a mix between great and polished to really rough and rubbery. Haytham Kenway’s model for the beginning of the game looks like a clay model, yet his model in the later section where he’s aged, looks like a truly upscaled model where you can make out the graying of his hair to signify his age. Ratonhnhaké:ton’s character model quality changes depending on the lighting source. There are moments where he looks polished and you can make out small details on his person and then there are moments where he looks so plastic his hair looks like a solid black block. 

Don’t get me started on Kaniehtí:io either. Her character model suffers the most in this remaster. Her arms now look extremely skinny and her chest region now seems more... exaggerated. Also depending on the light source, her model will light up with these weird gray spots on her face and clothing making me question if her model was actually properly rendered for the remaster.

There are also quite a few bugs and glitches present in the remaster as well. I had moments where cutscenes froze, character models didn’t animate as they should, objects would flicker in the environment, and even errors in audio mixing would occur where the volume of some audio files just increased for no reason at all.

Then there was a glitch I encountered when rebuilding the Brotherhood. To recruit new members to the Assassin’s Brotherhood, there are Liberation Missions you have to complete within districts of the city. Once that district's missions are complete, you are then given a mission with that district contact to assassinate a Templar in order to have that contact join you. The contact in the Northern Boston district is broken. I completed the Liberation Missions like normal, yet for whatever reason, the game doesn’t register that I completed them all and shows that I’m missing one mission. The map doesn’t show that I’m missing a mission, the checklist says I finished everything, yet the district says I’m not done with everything. So because of that, I actually couldn’t recruit one of the six optional members for the new Brotherhood.

This version also includes the Tyranny of King Washington expansion and I have to say, this is perhaps my favorite post-game Assassin’s Creed expansion. The premise of this campaign is amazing. I love that it’s a nightmare world that Ratonhnhaké:ton and George Washington are teleported to by an Apple of Eden. The Assassin and Templar Orders no longer have influence. The whole premise is a what-if scenario in which George Washington ended up becoming the King of America, like the people of the time initially wanted. Why Ubisoft hasn’t tackled this sort of subject matter again in other titles surprises me because the idea is really solid seeing this alternative view on other figures in history would be amazing.

Ratonhnhaké:ton gets a new mechanic known as “Animal Spirit” powers that completely change the game and the environments become more deadly and dangerous to compensate for those new powers. In addition, in order to obtain any additional weapons or supplies, you will to search for them yourself. 

The Tyrany of King Washington changes all the locations, with The Frontier being a wasteland with dead bodies everywhere, wolves become more active, and buildings destroyed or boarded up. Boston becomes riddled with King Washington propaganda and road blocks. Then, there is New York, which has gone through the most dramatic change with more destroyed buildings and the addition of King Washington’s Pyramid.

However, The Remastered version also rears its ugly head with this expansion. The Tyranny of King Washington was initially released as three separate episodes. So say you’re playing Episode 1 and while playing that episode, you decide to leave, turn off the game and come back. When you turn the game back on, any side activities you completed or any weapons you might have found are gone and not registered. The side activity challenge list and side mission list resets to 0. Any weapons you found are back in their original chests, even any equipment shortcuts you make are reset. 

The equipment and consumables aren’t even carried between episodes. The only thing that will save and will carry over to the other episodes are what the campaign gives you. The campaign didn’t give you that new club you found in Episode 1 and you hope to use it Episode 2? Too bad, you can’t use it. At first I thought, this was how the expansion acted on the Xbox 360 and PS3 as well. But from what I found in my research, there weren’t any reported issues about this from the Xbox 360 or PS3, so I’m not sure if this is a remaster issue or if this is how the expansion handled everything.

This is where I’m at a bit of an impasse in terms of recommending Assassin’s Creed III. Mainly because the Remastered version is the only version you can get on PC. You could get an old Xbox 360 or PS3 copy, but again, you would not have all the content and would have to purchase the Tyranny of King Washington separately. Also with the Xbox One compatibility to the 360 generation, there’s no telling what sort of bugs and glitches can be encountered especially if playing Altair and Ezio’s games are anything to go by.

I will just say this. If you did get the game from the Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Season Pass, you really have nothing to lose by playing it if you are interested in the series past. However, if you are a new fan going into this series and you have to play it for completionism sake and don’t have the Odyssey Season Pass, I really recommend just tracking down a Xbox 360 or PS3 copy of the game as those versions are a lot less buggy and glitchy compared to this “Remastered Version”.

Super Mario Sunshine begins with Mario, Peach, Toadsworth, and a few Toads flying to the Isle Delfino for a summer vacation adventure. When they arrive they find that a mysterious figure that looks like Mario has vandalized Isle Delfino with a bunch of paint graffiti. Mario takes the FLUDD pack to clean up the mess. However, the local authorities believe Mario to be the culprit and sentence him to community service to clean up “his mess.”

While exploring Mario comes across his evil doppelganger who then kidnaps Princess Peach. So, not only does Mario have to track down his evil lookalike, but also clean up Isle Delfino and rescue Princess Peach.

Mario has a wide range of movement and jump techniques at his disposal for easy maneuverability. The FLUDD pack amplifies that by having a jetpack mode as well as additional attachments for faster movement and higher jumps. This new tool at Mario’s disposal is easy to use, but a bit hard to master. Once you as the player figure out the pros and cons of the FLUDD device, it proves to be a great tool for exploring Isle Delfino. I would feel a sense of dread and slight panic whenever I would enter parts where the FLUDD would temporarily be taken away from me because I had just gotten so used to its added movement functionality.

A problem I do have, and this is something that I’m starting to wonder if it is an All-Stars pack issue, because I am experiencing this with Super Mario 64 as well. I feel that some of the high jumps are perhaps a tad too sensitive and are not as precise as they have been in the past. Granted my memory of these titles are also a bit lacking as this specific mechanic goes. It’s even sensitive when landing and even moving in general and this sensitivity has caused some deaths.

The camera system in Super Mario Sunshine is also not exactly friendly as well. However, I feel this is more of a level design issue as to why the camera gets too much in the way. Because of these aspects in their design, the camera attempts to compensate for that blindspot, but ends up digging into said blindspot deeper, rather than trying to reoriente away from it.

Delfino Plaza will act as the hub world to travel to various levels of the game. Now, what I do love about the levels is that you can see them in a distance from various places in the hub and even other levels. This makes Isle Delfino feel like a place and not a station connected to other little playgrounds. They all even have their own little summertime themes and despite having their own themes, they still feel like a place on Isle Delfino, just an area with its own identity on the island itself. 

Mario will explore Isle Delfino and the levels within to collect Shine Sprites. These Shine Sprites will serve as the criteria of when other levels get unlocked. You need a minimum of 50 Shine Sprites to unlock the final level. However, keep in mind that in order to access the final level, you must complete all seven episodes of the other levels. So even if you have 50 Shine Sprites, if there is a level that does not have all seven episodes complete, you will have to complete that level unlocking the final battle. 

There are a grand total of 120 Shine Sprites to collect. All levels have a total of eight episodes, however only seven episodes per level have to be completed for story purposes. The eighth episode is merely a bonus. There are also hidden Shine Sprites as well throughout the hub world and the other levels. 

Finally, you have Blue Coins and exchanging 10 Blue Coins gives you a Shine Sprite. These Blue Coins will be the ones that truly test your skills as a 3D Mario player. Some of these coins are extremely difficult to acquire, especially in the final level, where you have to maneuver a boat around a lava lake and rocks embedded in the lake to get them.

Super Mario Sunshine is a fun adventure. Even though it took a bit to come around and see the joys of the game, once I saw it I ended up loving this game. I now see it as a fun Mario adventure similar to his other titles.

As mentioned in my past review, Origins follows Bayek of Siwa, a medjay of Egypt on a quest to track down the organization known only as “The Order of the Ancients” who is responsible for the death of his young son Khemu. He is joined by his wife Aya and they both travel Egypt to track down those responsible. I do however want to mention something with the story and narrative and this was something I even pointed out in my original review.

I still believe the game should not have followed Bayek, but rather Aya as Origins reveals her to be the legendary Assassin Amunet, the one responsible for the assassination of Cleopatra. In Ubisoft design and narrative documents uncovered by Jason Schreier, it shows that Aya was indeed meant to be the main playable character for Origins and that Bayek would be playable for a small portion in the beginning. From the documents however, it appears his ultimate fate was not known in that period of time as the notes have him either being injured or killed. Eventually Bayek would be upgraded to the main protagonist with Aya serving as a side character that is occasionally playable. Which again, a huge missed opportunity to further enhance someone already established in canon as being a big deal for the Assassin Brotherhood.

However, despite my qualms with how the story was handled, I do love both Bayek and Aya. Bayek is a person who loves to help people, he enjoys drinking and socializing with friends, and is kind and patient with children. Aya is a powerful and cunning woman who sees The Order of the Ancients as a bigger threat than the personal vendetta that she and Bayek share.

Egypt is a wonderful place to explore with its culture, its landscape, and even monuments such as the pyramids which you can either climb or even go inside them. Bayek can even sail around reed boats along the Nile and lakes to navigate the waters. Bayek can also dive underwater to explore hidden caves or places that may have sunk into the bottom.

Stealth is watered down quite a bit. There’s no hiding among the crowd or even distraction abilities. It’s just crouch and hide among bushes and haystacks in terms of stealth. Bayek does get a hidden blade and it does work...for the most part.

Combat is where I had one of my biggest hang ups when I originally reviewed Origins. I noted how it made sense as the Assassin Brotherhood hadn’t been established, but at the same time, felt that it made such a drastic departure from what was established in the past. Now, I see Origins as the stepping stone for what had Odyssey succeed. Everything has growing pains and stepping stones and Origins combat was just simply that, a stepping stone to what we would see in Odyssey. With Origins you can wield different types of weapons and even use a shield to block attacks. Each weapon also has their own unique overpower ability, allowing for further experimentation for the player to figure out what works better for them.

I will however note that it seems Ubisoft has gone back and balanced it a bit to where armor and attack upgrades do have a factor in if you can fight enemies above your level. So if you don’t bother with the upgrades, you will have a bad time with enemies that are of a slightly higher level.

Speaking of upgrades, Ubisoft has added more upgrade slots to each attribute, such as range weapon stabilization, tool pouch upgrades, armor upgrades, hidden blade upgrades, and melee attack upgrades. These added upgrade slots were put in for free, however, if you want to access the last two upgrade slots, you will need the Curse of the Pharaoh’s DLC as a crafting item needed for those slots can only be found in that DLC.

Another free addition to Origins is Discovery Mode. This mode turns Egypt into what is essentially an interactive museum. It has tour stations, information booths, and prompts to read additional information or even view drawings that Ubisoft used to create Egypt. It also just allows you to explore Egypt in peace with no enemies or wildlife trying to fight you. I do like that it does provide that other option to just interact with Egypt. I feel that sometimes, I don’t actually get to really look at the detail that goes into NPCs or even the environment and Discovery Mode really lets that be the focus, rather than the mission or the story.

There’s also a Final Fantasy XV related quest that gives you the Ultima Blade and a mount of a Chocobo that looks like a camel. The mount related to this quest as a reward is the creepiest thing I have ever laid eyes on. The Ultima Blade on the other hand is actually a really solid weapon that has good damage output and even heals you when you perform an overpower attack.

Now let’s also get into one of the reasons I wanted to do a replay of this game, the DLC campaign addons.

The Hidden Ones takes place four years after the events of the main campaign. Bayek is dispatched to the Sinai Peninsula where the Roman presence has grown stronger. A rebel faction has risen and has asked the newly created Assassin Brotherhood for assistance. You even receive Bayek’s Assassin outfit and personally, I love it.

What you see happening in the background of the story was something that I thought was great and something that is not often discussed when we as humans talk about historical events. In the Sinai Peninsula, you see Romans working on dismantling a pyramid that was in progress. You see Roman Soldiers and Citizens making changes to these Egyptian towns. You see Egyptian merchants notice the Romans taking over and selling Egyptian culture items of significance just to make money. You see the early stages of a culture and a civilization become lost to colonialism. To me, that is The Hidden Ones biggest strength, how its story doesn’t shy away from showing you that.

The Curse of the Pharaohs also takes place in that four year aftermath. Bayek travels to Thebes in response to sightings of another Apple of Eden. Pharaohs of Egypt's past have also risen from the Valley of Kings and are terrorizing the citizens of Thebes. Bayek must not only solve the mystery of why they have returned to the land of the living, but to also track down the Apple of Eden. 

Even though the story felt a little flat and was building up something that I thought would have been related to the Isu Civilization but ended up not paying off, some of what you do in the DLC is amazing. Fighting the risen Pharaohs are actually challenging and require you to read their movements to know when to attack or go on the defensive. The new crafting item needed to further max out your armor and equipment is also fairly easy to come by, making it to where if you were keeping up with your armor already, maxing it out is fairly easy to do.

Now that we know a little bit more about the behind the scenes development drama and Ubisoft having a complete shake up with much of their senior staff. If they really do live up to those changes we could not only see culture changes, but also changes through many titles in the next few years. However, I’m fairly sure we won’t actually see those changes come to fruition until 2022 at the earliest, maybe not even until 2023.

However looking back at Origins, with everything that got tweaked and added it’s definitely a little bit of a more pleasant experience than when I initially played it in 2018. Especially since Odyssey warmed me up to the combat changes.

Okami takes place in the land of Nippon (otherwise known as Japan). It has been 100 years since the defeat of Orochi by the legendary wolf Shiranui and legendary swordsman Nagi. Nagi’s descendant Susano visits the shrine dedicated to his ancestor and after defacing it he discovers that the shrine acted as a seal for Orochi. Orochi has now been unleashed and Shiranui is reborn as Amaterasu. However, Amaterasu has lost all of her godly powers and must journey all over Nippon to restore her lost power and defeat Orochi with the help of a small painter named Issun.

One thing I can praise Okami for is that its story is loosely based on Japanese folklore. I’m definitely not an expert on this, but the research I have done seems to indicate as such and I love that it brought these stories to a new medium. However, it’s also where I have to criticize Okami on as well because it could have chained these stories into an overarching narrative, but alas the story is divided into three separate arcs. The first arc consists of battling Orochi, the second arc consists of battling the Ninetail Fox, and the final arc consists of battling the Lord of Darkness. However, considering how myth and folklore are also just separate stories, maybe this was just the approach Clover Studio, the developers of Okami, wanted to go with.

In terms of overall interest of the story, it waned for me after the first arc because the story was so hyper focused on defeating Orochi, that after it was done, it felt like the other two arcs had no purpose of being included. That is probably Okami’s biggest weakness is how the story was presented. Because you defeat what the game presents as “the big bad” so early, the rest of the story just feels over bloated. I mean, sure you still have to journey to restore Amaterasu to full strength, but again, if she managed to defeat Orochi at not full strength then what’s the point of still trying to restore her to full power?

Now the look of Okami, is very reminiscent of Ink Wash painting that was a dominant art style for Japan during the 14th century. This is where Okami shines the most is its art style. The sharpness of the colors and the bold lines give the game a timeless look in the presentation department. The HD Remasters also show that by making these colors and lines even bolder.

The combat is also fairly unique. You have standard attacks and magic spells that you cast by using your Celestial Brush. When Amaterasu uses her brush, it freezes gameplay to allow lines to be drawn on the canvas. You can draw a slashing line to make a sword strike, a circle with a line coming out of it to make a bomb, and draw a line from water, fire, and lightning sources to take that element and attack enemies with it. 

Aside from the main 13 techniques, there are additional techniques and abilities Amaterasu can learn as well by finding technique scrolls. What I love about these scrolls is that they are optional and can help in fighting, but you don’t need them. What the game presents to you as you progress is all you need. But the game does reward you for the effort of seeking out these additional techniques with flashier and more powerful moves.

Dungeon design is reminiscent of the Legend of Zelda series. There are puzzles and rooms and not only will Amaterasu use things within the environment, but also her Celestial Brush to create paths or restore objects to move forward. Having the Celestial Brush being used as not only a weapon, but a tool for puzzle solving just makes me love this mechanic more.

There is no denying what Okami has accomplished for video games. Despite issues with the story, the gameplay and the uniqueness of the Celestial Brush really make this game stand out and that is what keeps the player moving forward. However, because the story is overblown, it really drags out the gameplay and doesn’t give the player much motivation to keep going. I struggled to get through the other two acts because I really didn’t care for the story. I was just in it for the dungeons, boss fights, and using the Celestial Brush at that point.

Sometimes you have to consider what the point of a game is and what it’s aiming for. Some try for good gameplay and story. Others mostly focus on story or just focus on gameplay. It’s fine. But I felt Okami tried to do the good gameplay and story. However, I felt it didn’t achieve that balance and failed in that. There is nothing wrong with the story, it could have worked, but with how the story flows, it’s too much and caused me to lose interest after the first act. I clocked in about 36.5 hours and I finished the first act around 11 hours. That’s 25.5 hours of drawn out story. I know filler content is a thing, but when you put all the filler content after the conflict rather than sprinkled throughout it just drags and brings down what I thought was a good 11 hours, that could have potentially had high replay value.

The score I’m going to give Okami, might very well be too high, but considering everything with this game, how it was based on Japanese folklore, how much fun I had with the dungeons, how much I enjoyed using the Celestial Brush, and just what this game did with the art discussion. I think the higher score might be warranted.

Among Us is a game that has anywhere from 4 to 10 players. You and your Crewmates are walking around completing tasks to win the game. However, there is an Imposter within where their objective is to kill the crew.

As a Crewmate, while completing tasks, they must also try to figure out which of their fellow Crewmates is the Imposter. 

So as a Crewmate, how do you find the Imposter? By keeping an eye on other Crewmates for suspicious activity and finding dead bodies to report them and call for a meeting to discuss findings and establish alibis.

It is these meetings you and your Crewmates will attempt to trace movements of everybody to figure out who could have committed the murder. If the discussion warrants no evidence there is a Skip Vote option to skip the vote. You have two minutes to discuss the potential Imposter before either the game will kick out the person with the most votes or automatically skip the vote if none were casted.

As an Imposter, their mission is to kill as many members of the crew they can before either being discovered or killing everyone, whichever condition is met first. The Imposter will have Sabotage tools at their disposal to attempt to create chaos among the Crewmates. Some of them can even lead to you winning the game as the Imposter if the crew doesn’t fix the Sabotage within the allotted time. The Imposter also has a list of “fake tasks” which they can use to try to create an alibi for them.

Personally, I had more fun as a Crewmate, because I like the aspect of being on the side of trying to deduce who the Imposter was, while also making the case that I wasn’t an Imposter. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy playing as the Imposter because I did enjoy creating chaos among friends by blaming each other rather than me. However, I found more satisfaction solving the mystery, rather than creating the mystery.

I have to say this game is more fun played with friends rather than getting matched with random people online. By playing with friends, you can get on voice chat and be more chaotic and try to determine tells, lies, and put pressure to get them to slip on their story.

When you are teamed with random players, you could do that and it could be just as fun. However, in my experience playing pickup games with random strangers, no one particularly wanted to do that and I had to rely on the provided text chat. Which, in my opinion didn’t really make it fun as it didn’t have that extra layer that voice chat provides.

The simple controls and tasks involved also create an extremely low barrier for entry to where anyone can pick up this game and play. The concept is extremely easy to grasp and doesn’t require any particularly special knowledge of controls or skills to “get good”. Even if you were to drop this game for a while, you can easily pick it back up without the feel of being out of practice.

The game also does suffer from network issues. Sometimes members of my group would get disconnected or at times not able to enter created rooms. You would think that maybe they were entering the room code by mistake, but when we compared the room code to what they were putting in, we determined that it was network issues rather than user error. Which honestly, when looking at the story of Among Us how it was developed by three people who were then getting ready to shut it down after two years of low activity, it’s actually completely understandable why there are some network issues.

As it stands right now, giving a score to Among Us is difficult because depending on the experience, it can vary greatly. However, I will give it a score passed on my personal experiences with the asterisk of, may vary depending who you play with.

Elder Scrolls (Any of them)

On paper this is a game that I should love to bits. Open world RPG, rich lore, customizable classes and characters. But I hate Elder Scrolls. I have tried so hard to get into the series, multiple times. I tried with Morrowind, I tried with Oblivion, and I tried with Skyrim and it just doesn’t capture me.

More than anything I think it’s the combat that turns me off more than anything. Fighting with swords, knives and shields in first person is just something I don’t like. “But Biscuit, you can just switch to third person.” Yes, but even then going into third person feels awkward with Bethesda games. I love to traverse their worlds in third person and then go to first person for the combat in Fallout, but when it comes to Elder Scrolls, I don’t know, just doesn’t have that same click to me.

Minecraft

Nothing wrong with this game, I see the appeal, but I’m not much of a builder or creative in terms making objects. It’s more a personal taste kind of thing than a “I hate this specific part of the game” kind of thing. More than anything I just appreciate and admire the creations that come out of Minecraft. Playing it just doesn’t do it for me or give me any satisfaction.

Resident Evil 4

I know everyone sings praises for this game and rightfully so. I acknowledge what it did for the franchise and action shooters as a whole. So, why do I not like Resident Evil 4? Well, for one, I’m not the biggest horror genre fan. It’s something that is not a secret to anyone that reads my reviews. Secondly, The controls to me always felt stiff. I’m sure the remasters might have fixed the issue to where aiming feels more smooth. I’m sure the rumored Remake might fix other issues but, I don’t know, I’m in no rush to give this game another chance.

Paper Mario

This one was more of the aesthetic that disinterested me more than anything. I did play the original and did enjoy the gameplay itself, but I couldn’t get past the aesthetic.

Now that I’m more knowledgeable in game design and have learned alot to appreciate games for what they are rather than to just purely hold them by their aesthetics. Paper Mario does make me want to go back and really give this game a proper chance. Especially since I really enjoyed South Park: The Stick of Truth and Paper Mario had those same combat mechanics.

Halo: Combat Evolved

I love the Halo series. I have so many fun memories with this series. Halo: Reach is even one of my favorite games of all time. But Halo: Combat Evolved was a really tough game for me to swallow. The pistol is great and the best weapon, I don’t deny it. What Halo did for First Person shooters specifically for consoles, I don’t deny what it brought. It showed that a genre that normally wasn’t known for worldbuilding, story, and lore, could do all of those things. So what turns me off from this game.

This one, I think it’s more the negative memories that are associated with this game. Everyone was playing it and the constant peer pressure of “Why aren’t you playing this game” “This is the best game ever, why aren’t you playing it” “Play Halo already damn it”.

Is it a bit unfair for Halo: Combat Evolved. Yeah, I admit that it is because there’s nothing wrong with the game itself. But the outside factors really turned me off from it. It was also really hard for me to get into Halo 2, but for that one, I surprisingly didn’t get the social pressure for that entry and when I just sat back and enjoyed it, I loved it.

Every time I try to pick up this game, I can never bring myself to finish it. One of these days I’m sure I will but honestly, I’m in no rush.

Dragon Age: Origins

I love Mass Effect, I love KOTOR (even though I only played the second one and not the first and I know Bioware wasn’t the lead dev for the second, but they still helped), I see the potential of Anthem, I also love Dragon Age. But I don’t like the first entry to the Dragon Age series.

The story is great, I love the characters, I love the world building, I love how your customizable character can have a unique origin depending on what race and background you choose. But, I hate the gameplay and it bogs me down more than anything.

Dragon Age: Origins is hard, surprisingly hard. You know how the internet talks about how Dark Souls is hard. Dragon Age: Origins on Normal difficulty makes it blush. It’s because of the game’s difficulty that I just dropped it and stopped playing it multiple times.

However, Dragon Age: Origins also taught me a lesson when it comes to gaming. That sometimes, you just gotta lower a game to Easy mode. There’s no shame in it. A game is there for you to enjoy and if you’re not enjoying it on Normal or Hard difficulty, don’t be afraid to change it to a difficulty that works for you and your enjoyment. If you feel Normal is too easy and want more of a challenge, change it to Hard. If Normal is too much to handle, change it to Easy. 

When I changed it to Easy, I was able to fully enjoy its story and enjoy the other encounters. The final battle on Easy is still a decent challenge. This is also the only game on the list I actually completed and although it probably isn’t so much of I hate this game anymore, it still induces me with rage so still going to sort of count this a dislike, but not really. More indifferent I suppose.

Those are just a few games that I know a lot of people like, but I just don’t like it for one reason or another. There are others but these are just the one that come to my mind whenever I hear or see the subject someone discuss the subject.

The story is simple. Bowser has kidnapped Princess Peach. Mario and Luigi must rescue her. Bowser’s army has also taken over the Mushroom Kingdom and he has casted a spell on its citizens by turning them into blocks.

There are a total of 8 Worlds with 4 levels each, with the fourth level always being a fight with Bowser in that World’s castle. Throughout Mario and Luigi’s journey, they will be fighting Goombas, Koopas, Hammer Bros, Squids, Cheep-cheeps, and Lakitas and all have their own unique patterns of hindering their progress. Each level also has its own obstacles that the player must navigate through to reach the end of the level.

To help with the enemies and obstacles, Mario and Luigi have access to power ups that will allow them to take an extra hit from an enemy by collecting a Red Mushroom, gain an extra life by collecting a Green Mushroom, have a fireball attack by collecting a Fire Flower, and have temporary invincibility by collecting a Power Star. There are also coins to collect throughout the stages as well. Collecting 100 coins will grant Mario and Luigi an extra life.

Each level builds upon your familiarity with the game and thus challenges you even more as you become more used to the controls and mechanics.

The game will end if Mario or Luigi reaches the final world and level, or if Mario and Luigi run out of lives. If they run out lives, progress will revert to the start at World 1-1. If you don’t want to do that, simply press and hold the A button on the Game Over screen, select how many players on the main title screen and return to the first level of the World you were on. However, with the Nintendo Switch version, you can open the emulation options and simply turn back time to moments you die as if it never happens or reload save states to return to your progress. 

Now some might say that using the emulation controls go against the developers original intent. Although it very well might, if those same developers went back many years later to implement those controls, couldn’t it also be argued that they are simply just giving another option to play their game?

The option is there to play with the original intent or in this other way. This is something that I feel that Nintendo has always approached Mario games, the freedom to explore and to try out different moves and techniques at Mario’s disposal. It’s a topic that I feel will always be discussed 

As I mentioned previously, we also have one of the greatest tutorial levels ever created. So much so that this is constantly referenced for level designers in creating tutorial segments and instructional designers on how to incorporate stealth learning in their courses. Super Mario Bros. World 1-1 offers many learning opportunities for players before they start the game proper. 

The level contains a nice area for the player to get used to the controls such as walking, running, and jumping before advance. Mario is even placed on the left side of the screen with the right side being open to show that is the direction to go. Then there’s the introductory Goomba, an enemy that can be defeated by jumping on it. Even the Goomba’s design indicates to the player this is an enemy with a creature advancing towards Mario with an angry looking expression on its face. Said Goomba will also teach the player that if touched, Mario will lose a life.

It even teaches you about ? blocks with Mario under one and some bricks. That ? block will provide coins and sometimes even powerups, which in the levels case, a Red Mushroom. Even if the player tries to avoid it there are obstacles that will have Mario take the Red Mushroom, which in turn, shows the player the Red Mushroom is good as it makes Mario stronger. There are also various points in the stage where if Mario is hit, you learn that a Red Mushroom will allow Mario to continue the stage after the previously learned one hit.

The game also shows you that secrets in stages exist by having these secrets planted through other tutorial areas such as pits to jump over. For example, the long jump pit has a secret. The long jump in particular works with it’s secret is that it serves as a safety net for the player as they jumped too soon.

But of course, you don’t have to take my word for it: here are two videos that go into more detail about World 1-1’s design

This one game inspired so much for many people. Without the success of Super Mario Bros, there wouldn’t be a Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Halo, or Metal Gear. Because most likely, the video game market might no longer exist or at least not be the juggernaut that it is today.

So by no surprise to anyone: