Centipede

Centipede was released before I was born, so I'm not gonna pretend I was there to experience its true glory in the arcade, but I can still appreciate the mechanics, style, and adaptive difficulty as you progress through the levels.

It's fun to note that Centipede was written - in part, at least - by Dona Bailey, who was the first first female game developer, as far as I know. To my knowledge, she didn't go on to become a flashy pink-haired streamer, and I don't know what else she designed or wrote, but it's still a cool bit of trivia. NOW YOU KNOW.

7 Days to Die

7 Days to Die is one of my favorite games to play with my wife, and it's a great game to play with friends. At its heart, it's a zombie-survival-crafting game. The development on it has been dog-slow. It's an 'Early-Access Game' despite being released in 2013, so there are some problems there, but here's the good news: It doesn't matter, because it's a blast to play as-is!

Here's the jist: There are zombies everywhere. During the day, they're pretty chill. At night, they're not. And every 7 days, they come like the madness to kill you. That means you've got 7 days to find a good location to defend, craft up your defenses, gather ammo, weapons, and armor, and do all of that while you're simultaneously keeping yourself fed and hydrated. The map is huge, and some things just have to be scavenged, and can't be crafted, so while you might be walking around for your first 14 days, you need to find or make a bike so you can get out further and get better resources, do quests with better rewards, and find uncraftable medical supplies in hospitals in distant cities.

Why is it fun? Despite the early-access madness, they've actually managed to find a great balance between keeping you under zombie-induced pressure to survive, and making progress possible. You can make progress, even as the game ramps up in difficulty and you find yourself fighting zombie bears and mutated radiation zombies. There's also a lot of options for customizing and developing your character with different skills, and each different skill-group has its own associated weapons and fighting style. The world features ~6 biomes, each with their own feel, resources, and inhabitants. And there are a lot of different weapons, tools, items, and base-crafting possibilities.

Like I said, this is a great one for friends, because there's a lot to do, and I've never tried soloing it. I feel like you need multiple people for every aspect, which is a good thing when you've got them. The carefully balanced stress also makes for fun times with multiple people that you just don't get on your own.

As of writing this, you can get a 2-pack on Steam for $40, which isn't a bad price. I'm a little ticked about their decade-long early-access mess, and wish they'd get their shit together and polish things up instead of changing what was already a great game several years ago, but hey - it's fun, so I say go for it.

Noita

I generally shy away from "Roguelike" games because they just feel like the develop didn't bother to build in any progression. To some people that equates to replayability, but if I want to do the same thing over and over again I will stick to my day job. Noita is a roguelike, but it has enough exploration, diversity, and depth to be entertaining over and over again. Couple that with Steam achievements to give me goals to aim for, and I'm all over this one.

So what is it? You're some kind of Loom-esque mage figure. You equip wands and flasks as your weapons. You can jump/short-fly, and you use these tools to navigate vast (limitless?) underground caverns and structures in order to find more amazing wands, and gain skills and powers, and then... uh... eventually die I guess. Ok but why is it fun?

First off, the art style is awesome. Don't take my word for it - go look at some screenshots or videos or whatever. If you like that style of art, awesome. If you don't, you probably need a brain doctor. As you progress, you go through differently themed areas, and encounter increasingly difficult enemies, and it stays visually interesting throughout.

Secondly, the various things you encounter in the underground make for amazing tactical situations, oil burns, both you and enemies. Fire sets oil aflame. Water douses fire. And it washes off poison. And blood. Wands not only have different spells in them, but different modifiers can be added to wands to create crazy custom weapons suited to your play style, or the skills you've managed to pick up, or just whatever good/bad luck has led to your collection of spells. Some spells are straight forward, and you shoot enemies with them and they take damage or die. Other spells are more exotic and complicated to use, and often result in... uh... dying.

Ok lastly, strategy. While it's a roguelike so you're not really developing things much from game to game, each time you get to the end of a section, you get to choose one skill from some randomly selected ones. Some skills are basic and just make you better, and some are nuts and do things like teleport you or make you invisible or things like that, so the same set of wands/spells might present you with a very different situation depending on what skills you pick up along the way. A crazy spell that shoots fire everywhere might be madness for a normal mage, but once you're fireproof, just let it burn, baby! Of course since everything is random, you rarely end up in super-powered situations, but when you do, oh it's so much fun.

As of this writing, Noita is $20, and I think it's worth it for that price, but this is definitely one to wishlist, because at $15 or less it's a steal.

Frostpunk

Accurately captures the experience of repeatedly dying in a frozen wasteland.

Nimbatus: The Space Drone Constructor

This game is way too fun. If you're an engineer or any type of problem-solvey person, you have to try this one. At a basic level, progress through the game and unlock new parts to make your little drone-ship better, and then pilot it through various missions around a planetary-style gravity well. That's fun, but the pieces end up getting really advanced, and you can eventually make drones that are partially or entirely automated, which is a real challenge, but also lets you do things that are really awesome.

GoldenEye

Back when this game came out on N64, it was unmatched. The single player campaign was lengthy, complex, and a blast. The multiplayer was so so good, and customizable in so many ways to get different styles of deathmatches going. My dad, brother, and I would play this for hours upon hours. We even built a cardboard divider so you couldn't watch the other player and figure out their location just by looking at their screen.

They re-released this game for Wii, which I never got the chance to play, and there is a rumor of a remake for Switch, which would be incredible, but we shall see. Should you go back and play GoldenEye if you didn't play it back in the day? Absolutely not - it won't hold up. But it was great for its time, and if they re-release, I'll grab it for sure.

Mass Effect 2

People are saying this was the best of the series and those people are wrong; dead wrong. The story is good, but the character leveling up and skill specialization was totally dumbed down, which reduces replayability and makes you much more of a generic meathead in how you solve problems.

It also doesn't solve the 'wait around in an elevator' issues of Mass Effect 1, which make even navigating the interior of your own ship an annoyance.

Is it a good game? Yes. Is it the best of the series? No. Should you play it if you enjoyed Mass Effect 1? Definitely!

Mario Kart DS

This one was a shocker. I loved the Nintendo DS, but mainly for turn-based games where quick, detailed action wasn't necessary to communicate to the player, and have the player react to quickly. Then Mario Kart DS came out, and suddenly I'm racing through intricate courses, getting pushed around by waterfalls and macked by shells, and loving it. This was a great execution of Mario Kart on the DS, and I bought this game for my dad when he was stuck in a hospital bed, and it totally helped him survive.

If memory serves, one screen was used for the player's view, and one was the map, or could be toggled to the rear-view, which worked out super well. There were a good number of maps to choose from (find some of them brought back to life in Mario Kart 8 map selections), and multiplayer over WiFi was nuts. Also good Kart customization, if I recall correctly. Great game.

Castle Crashers

One of the best button-masher hack-and-slash games I've ever played. The animations and story are cute and clever (like riding a diarrhea-propelled deer, or being misled as to which enemy is going to be the 'boss' fight), and there are a ton of weapon choices and pets, that help compliment the character level-up system and items.

Some people say you need a group to play this with, and that makes it better, but you can totally do it by yourself too - just be prepared to replay some of the levels a few times in order to level yourself up enough to be strong enough to proceed.

I've played this with friends, my wife, and kids, and it's a blast. And the levels keep changing and introducing new enemies to keep things fun as you proceed.

Ark: Survival Evolved

Ark was a great idea, and one that was executed way too late: Start-From-Scratch survival with building and freakin' dinosaurs. It's a great premise. And the product execution was pretty good, in terms of giving you a good mix of small, huge, easy, and terrifying dinosaurs. And the map was interesting to explore, and visually pleasing.

Big problem with Ark? Poorly-thought-out multiplayer, where you basically need to be unemployed with a group of unemployed friends to actually build and work through the crafting/building aspects on a public server, and that's if you've got a server where they give you 10x the resources and experience. It's more of a job than a game.

I played around with it for 108 hours, including multiplayer with friends and my wife, but I decided it wasn't worth dedicating my life to.

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS

Jump out of a plane with like, 60 other people, and land all over an island. Search for guns and armor and stuff like that, and be opportunistic about killing other people while staying alive yourself, while constantly being forced into a smaller and smaller area of play in order to force conflict.

It is a fun game in terms of the amount and speed of pressure that's put on you, however a few things are problematic:
1. I don't know if they fixed this, but cheating by using aim-bots was a big thing when I stopped playing, which makes it less fun.
2. I like games that allow me to go deep, and you're always in such a rush in PUBG that you don't have time to consider like, which weapon is better, or "how can I use the terrain to my advantage" unless you're playing dozens of rounds and intentionally focusing on that. You can't be a casual when multiple of the 60 other people in the game are pro.

There is a team mode, which makes it easy to stick with a small number of friends, which is really enjoyable, compared to games like Day-Z where the game pretty much prevents you from coordinating with someone else.

I'll not go back to it, but it's a decent game.

F-Zero

Growing up, F-Zero was the ORIGINAL racing game for me. The racing game where it was like, "WHY IS THIS SO HARD" and then your car explodes. The graphics were amazing, even though they were still using sprites, and each racer had their own attitude and attributes, so you could argue about who was best and make fun of your friends for choosing the dumb characters.

The biggest thing that comes back to me for the original F-Zero is just the beauty of the game, especially considering the EXTREME SPEED that you were racing at. Jumping over gaps in the track, and looking down at the megacity below, and having the track swing around while you maneuvered on a standard-definition CRT TV - it was a thing of beauty.

Among Us

Among Us is a fun concept that would work really well in a world where people weren't stupid or cruel. Unfortunately, that is not this world.

Among Us is great because it has a social aspect that you usually don't see in online games, but if you've played Secret Hitler or Werewolf in-person, it's a similar dynamic where one or more people lie about being bad, and then you try to deduce who the bad people are. Unfortunately, it's hard to deduce that when half the players have the intelligence of a kumquat. People who aren't bad will mislead the team just to be annoying. Even people who aren't malicious will make incorrect assumptions, and if you've ever argued with someone on the internet, you know how productive that is. Playing with friends-only seems like a good option, but I don't have that many friends, so alas. Great concept, worth trying, but it doesn't endure when 50% of the games play out guided by stupidity, incompetence, or malice.

Dr. Mario

So you know how the Tetris champions can move the pieces super-fast and it's pretty unreal? My favorite thing about Dr. Mario is that the pieces (pills, 2 colors) are simpler than the tetris pieces, in terms of how they need to be manipulated, which lets you go faster, which makes it seem more like you're good at it even though it's just a simplification. I used to play this with my dad and sometimes it seemed like we were both possessed by the spirit of old man Harada himself.

I haven't played this in like, 20 years, but I assume it aged well since it had simple, arcade-style mechanics.

Rocket League

The beauty of Rocket League is its simplicity. Once you make a game too complicated, anything can go wrong. I'm pretty sure you can build Rocket League in Unreal Engine 5 in about 26 seconds. It might even be a default template: "Car with controls in a box. Click to jump." But you don't really need more than that to make it a fun game.

BACK IN MY DAY you just hit the ball back and forth like football but now they've got all kinds of courses, so if you're looking for more of a challenge or annoyance, you can have it! Great game for co-op play with friends or the team at work.

Red Dead Redemption 2

This is a pretty fantastic game. Basically it puts you back in the time of the wild west, and you go around doing stereotypical wild west things, like robbing trains, shooting people, playing poker, and getting into trouble in frontier towns.

My complaints: First off, I hate games where they're like, "DRIVE A HORSE." You drive a horse, if it's so important, and just let me sit on it. Take me to where I want to go, don't make me drive a horse. It's not just fast-travel, because I don't fast-travel myself off a cliff on an idiot horse, or get stuck running into a tree when I'm trying to make a sharp turn. I ended up walking a lot, and apparently your horse also stores your gear, and you have to feed your horse based on magic attributes, and find better horses - look - if I wanted to play Stardew Valley I would play Stardew Valley. Horse junk should be optional.

Secondly, for the love of god just give me a straightforward weapons system. Polishing my guns? Customization where some things are visual-only and some aren't but you're just gonna be vague about it while showing me chuck it around in my hands? Just tell me what the stats are on the thing or tell me nothing and let me get back to playing. My brother spent like 250 hours customizing his guns and now he's basically homeless in real life, so there's what I think of the weapons system.

All in all, a good game, if a bit gloomy, but I can excuse it for this game because the old west was a bit gloomy, so I get it.

Pokémon GO

The month after Pokemon Go came out was the closest to world peace I have experienced in my lifetime. People were at parks, talking to each other, helping each other out. Kids and parents were sharing games together, learning about Pokemon. My mom and I walked around downtown attacking gyms, and meeting other people who were doing the same. It wore off, but I still think this game presents a beautiful opportunity to bring people together, even if it's on a more small-scale now. I stopped playing because my friends stopped, but I think it still presents the same great opportunity for people who want to get into it together, be they friends, parents and kids, or strangers.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

Fall Guys is a lot of fun, so I don't mean the 3-star review negatively. You dress up some lunk-head-man, and then get to participate in one of those MOST EXTREME ELIMINATION CHALLENGE scenarios with 59 other lunk heads. You can push, pull, jump, and bump other people into trouble, and they can do the same to you. The levels are colorful and diverse, and while they are difficult, they're generally not frustrating, so even if you lose, it's a good time. Why the 3-stars? Playing with friends is a bit awkward, especially when someone gets knocked out right away, and someone else goes all the way, leaving the other person to sit there and wait. Just make a team mode or something, guys. I shouldn't have to come up with this stuff. Also, the match making doesn't seem to factor skill into the mix, so a casual like me will end up playing a game with 3 pros who block the exit, or just generally outclass me. It's still fun, but I'd give it another star if I felt like I was playing with other people like me.

Donkey Kong Country

This was my favorite SNES platformer, and my brother and I spent hundreds of hours beating this game an exploring the secrets. In Super Mario World, you could ride Yoshi. In Donkey Kong Country, you could ride like, 9 different animals, each with different abilities. The enemies were diverse, the game mechanics (shooting yourself from barrel to barrel, or from barrel into a secret chamber) were awesome, it was good natured, banana-collecting fun, and the soundtrack is still awesome. I could leave 'Aquatic Ambience' playing all day while I work. OH WAIT I ALREADY AM DOING THAT

ActRaiser

Erhmagerd I can't believe my eyes, to be met with the opportunity to review the classic 90s game ACT RAISER. This game is great. There are two parts: First off, there's the side-scroller action part, where you fight through these various dark scenes like inside a haunted forest or a dungeon or castle or whatever as THE ACT RAISER HIMSELF and it's ok. Then the really fun part is the overworld view, where you fly around as a little nekkid-butt angel, shooting arrows at demons and directing your people in terms of how to develop their towns. You blast various barriers with magic, and show the people how to build bridges, and go after quests to save people who have gone astray, and direct them to seal demon portals. I could play that part forever. Could it be better? Yes - most of the game was linear, and while you feel like you're directing the townsfolk to do things, you really don't have much of a choice if you want to ultimately progress through the game. But they do a good job of making it feel open. I think it aged decently too.

Fortnite

I tried this game once, and some kind of crazy flying guy built a room around me and then shot me in the head.

DayZ

One of my buddies bought this for me so we could play it together, and while it is an experience, and a lot of fun, it's also pretty annoying and maddening. I will illustrate that as thus: You have to eat to stay functional, just like in real life, and one of the food items you can get is like, meat patté in a little cup, and to eat it, you have to first hold down right click to bring forth the little cup, then you have to left click to prepare to pull the top off, then do a left hold to pull it, then re-left-hold to actually scoop the beef out and put it in your mouth, and it's like, "Yeah I get you're trying to make it realistic, but is that the fun part of the experience? I'm gonna pay money for trying to figure out which click opens which stage of packaged food?"
Also, compared to a game like 7 Days to Die, there aren't really that many zombies. Like, you can walk for 15 minutes and not see a zombie, so how exactly did society collapse? If the controls weren't such a butcher-job, I'm pretty sure my buddy and I could clear the map out and become president and just move on. Oh - that's a good point - the map is huge, which makes it fun. Also there's no in-game map, which makes playing co-op nearly impossible, because it takes literally an hour to figure out where you are, and meet up with somebody.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I played through this, got every shrine and every Korok seed, and then restarted in Master Mode and beat it again. 500,000 hours. Fantastic game. Zero flaws, even though some people dislike the mechanic of smaller shrines over lengthier dungeons. One of the greatest games ever made, period.

MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat

This is the game that spawned the very successful MechWarrior series, and it was way ahead of its time. Released on DOS, with support for multiplayer over the internet, I spent a big chunk of my elementary school days glued to the computer playing this with my clan on Kali.

So what made this game great? The customization of the mechs. You play as a member of the Clans, so you have basically full control of the configuration of your mech. Want to go all-in on large lasers? Do it. All missiles? Do it. And pick any mech you want, as long as the tonnage is ok. No having to unlock or scavenge parts like all the recent mechwarrior games. Also, the graphics were, for the time, just incredible. REAL 3D! Not sprites, not 3d but with forced 2d interactions. You could literally walk up on top of a mountain and peek over it and specifically target your opponents weapons to knock them out of the game, or leg them if you were a coward.

Solid 5-star game, and I wish they'd do a remake with just updated graphics, because the variety of missions and worlds to fight on and mechs was just outstanding. All it needs is a face lift.

Minecraft

It's Minecraft, baby! The original developer guy outbid Jay-Z on a mansion, so tell me it's not good and I will tell you that you live in poverty because of your poor judgement.

Minecraft is great for kids and adults, and really the only bad thing about it is that they made 2 versions that aren't compatible and every time I start the launcher it's like, "What the heck, guys?"

Minecraft is a great game for kids, and you can turn on peaceful mode and just let them go at it and fly around and whack at things. It's great for adults and you can really spend time creating automated farms and building up really elaborate towns or bases or whatever you want. And you can still code your own mods in to the Java version, I assume, which is great for learning how to code, no matter what your age is. If you don't like Minecraft, you can get out of my face.

Roblox

This was one of the worst experiences of my life. I tried it for like 2 hours before I had to stop and spend my time on better things. ROBLOX isn't a game, it's a framework that lets people build games, and then you can spend your money to waste your life. The two games I tried:
1. Bee Farmer - Farm bees, but not really, because you can't figure out what is going on.
2. Pirate Ship Massacre - You spawn on a pirate ship, and then shoot 3 other pirate ships with other people trying to shoot you, and eventually it ends.

Mario Kart 8

Let me talk FOR REAL about Mario Kart 8. There have been 7 other Mario Karts, and I have played all but 2 of them, so I think I can consider myself pretty much an expert here. I will tell you the good, and the bad. First off, this game is bangin'. Lots of characters to choose from, lots of customization options, and lots of tracks. They even let you give them more money for more tracks that they haven't even released yet, and I did it because GIVE ME MORE. This is a great game for kids too, even if they don't have the best kart racing skills yet, because the items you get improve as your placing diminishes. Like in 12th place, instead of bopping around with a bunch of coins and mushrooms, you get THE SERIOUS GEAR like being able to turn yourself into a Bullet Bill and make up some distance with a quickness. Now for THE BAD: As you can tell by the neon rainbow that threw up all over the cover of this game, it's very visually active, so playing single-player on a 75" screen is a very different, and much easier experience than racing the same maps on split-screen, or on a smaller device. The solution, obviously, is to invest in massive screens and multiple Nintendo Switches, but I got kids to feed.