Also available on X1, PC-8801, PC-9801, FM-7, MSX2, X68000, Master System, TurboGrafx-CD, Saturn, PlayStation 2, DS, PlayStation Portable, iOS, Android, AppleIIGS, MS-DOS, and Windows

Over the past couple years, I've fairly rapidly become something of a major fan of the Ys series.  With my transition to Everdrives for my old cartridge consoles and the addition of a RetroPie to my HD set-up, I've decided that I'm going to play through every different version of the original Ys game (and probably Ys II and III).  Joining the Master System and TurboGrafx-CD ports on my "Versions of Ys Beaten" list now comes the port to the Famicom which, thankfully, got a fan translation.

Given that my previous experiences with the original Ys was on the TurboGrafx-16 (the greatest of all 16-bit consoles) and the Master System, a 8-bit system with superior specs to the NES, I went into this playthrough with tempered expectations.  I knew it was unlikely to be as visually impressive as the Master System version, and given that I played the Master System version with the FM Sound enabled, I knew this Famicom port wouldn't hold a candle to the Master System version.  I was pleasantly surprised, though.  I mean, it definitely met my expectations in general, but it wasn't as severe a step down as I had feared.

Visually, the game looks a lot like Hydlide.  It looks like an older NES game with less detailed sprites, but the only area where I felt that was at all to the game's detriment was enemy sprites.  The sprites aren't bad, but they leave some....interesting interpretations.  There are blue gummy bears, self-immolating porcupines, random amorphous grey blobs that look suspiciously like the eggs in a high school cafeteria, etc.  The music is honestly the biggest let down.  I'm certain that part of my disappointment is because I was spoiled first by FM sound on the Master System and then the CD quality audio on the TurboGrafx, but the music in this game just felt mediocre.  It was definitely a solid 8-bit rendition of the music from other versions of Ys, but it felt like playing a classical flute solo on a recorder.  I mean, yeah, it works, I guess, but it's...just disappointing.

The combat - the core of the experience - is thankfully 100% Ys.  It's the bump combat we all know and love (and if you don't love it, you're wrong).  The same strategy still applies; his them from the side, back, or the edge if you have to hit them head on, and you're fine, but if you hit them dead on, you're going to end up taking a ton of damage.  It's a fairly unconventional system for those who haven't played a version of Ys before, but I absolutely love it, and it's iconic Ys.  By no means do all Ys games use this system (I'm not even sure that most do although I've not played past IV, so I can't speak to that), but from my experience, when you mention Ys, what first comes to mind for most people who've played it is the bump combat, and in that respect, the NES port of Ys I is true to form.

Ys I for NES is definitely not the best version of the game to play, but if all you've got is a Famicom, there are definitely worse ways to experience Adol's first adventure.  The music is a far cry from Master System's FM Sound or the TurboGrafx-CD's perfect everything, but it serves the purpose.  Likewise, the visuals aren't quite as nice as the other two version I've played, but they're totally decent.  It's like playing Call of Duty 4 on Wii as opposed to PS3 or 360.  It doesn't play as smoothly, and it definitely doesn't look nearly as good, but judged on its own merits, it's still a perfectly competent and enjoyable game.  I wouldn't recommend this version if other options are available to you, but if you don't have any other options, it's totally worth a playthrough.

Army Men 3D was the third game in the Army Men series following the Windows releases of Army Men and Army Men II and marked the series' debut on home consoles.  Army Men 3D, taking advantage of the hype around 3D game worlds in the mid to late 90s, is essentially a slimmed down remake of the original Army Men but as a 3D third person shooter.  As is par for the course with the Army Men series, it's not a breathtaking game that will make anyone's Top 10 PS1 games list, but it's a fun enough little game especially for fans of the series.

Being a remake of the original game, Army Men 3D follows the same basic story as Army Men albeit abridged.  The short version is that the Green Nation has been invaded by the Tan Nation, and Green intelligence reports that the Tan are assembling a mysterious super-weapon that's being transported in three pieces.  Playing as Sarge, you have to fight your way through Tan forces to secure the three pieces of the key so that you can not only keep the weapon out of Tan hands but discover just what it's supposed to do.  This PlayStation remake cuts out probably a quarter of the game which, given the move from PC to PlayStation, makes sense, but fortunately, what's cut out is largely filler missions that aren't central to the story.  The shorter level list ends up working out well too given the somewhat awkward controls that result in what I felt was a more difficult game than the Windows game.  Overall, I'd say they're roughly comparable in length with Army Men 3D coming in maybe a little shorter.

Visually, the game is about as "okay" as it gets for PlayStation games.  It certainly doesn't look bad for the hardware or the era, but it doesn't look especially good, either.  This is especially true of the cutscenes.  It doesn't preserve all of the cutscenes from the PC original, but it does have the iconic opening and closing cutscenes.  The problem is that these scene are extraordinarily low resolution and noticeably choppy.  To some extent, that's an unfortunate reality of video on mid-90s CD technology, but it's a shame that the presentation took such a hit because of it.  It's admirable that 3DO tried to include those two most dramatic scenes, but given the hit the presentation took, I almost think it would have been better to try to remake the scenes in a style the PS1 could more comfortably handle.

The audio is probably the part of the game with which I have the most issues.  The voiced dialogue is extremely minimal which, truthfully, is more a blessing than anything else given the quality of the cutscenes and the soundtrack.  The music is...truly awful.  It's not even that the music itself is what's bad; it uses the same actual song from the PC original.  What makes the music in Army Men 3D so bad is not what music is uses but how it uses it.  Instead of using the whole song for what I assume are disc space reasons, it uses a two or three measure clip.  And it loops it.  Endlessly.  For the entire game.  I got through about a level and a half before I muted the TV and just turned on Sirius.

Army Men 3D is as competent a first entry into the home console space as a game in that particular series can be expected to have.  It's not bad.  Excluding the music, it's really  not.  I'd even go as far as to say it's a fun time if you're into the premise of Army Men.  Unfortunately, if you're NOT into the premise of Army Men, it's...okay.  The biggest problem is that the whole thing just feels unpolished.  If you're a fan of the series, absolutely play it.  If you're just a PlayStation enthusiast, then I'd still recommend giving it a play as it's a solid even if forgettable title.  Overall, though, it doesn't stand out much from the other "hella 1990s" games on the system.

Also available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows

Question - what's better than brutally slaughtering Nazis and white robed Klansmen?

Answer - brutally slaughtering Nazis and white robed Klansmen on the go.

This is the beautiful world we entered when Bethesda had the brilliant minds at Panic Button port their Nazi-killing masterpiece Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus to Nintendo Switch.  Crated with the same brilliance and attention to detail as Panic Button's previous but no less impressive Doom port, shows once again that when in the hands of talent developers, the Switch is not only the little system that could but the little system that does more than it has any business being capable of doing.

Since I already reviewed this game on Xbox One when it first came out, this is going to be a shorter review as I'm primarily going to focus on some comparisons between my experience with the game on the two different platforms as well as how it generally looks, sounds, and plays on Switch.  As one would naturally expect when going from a 4K-capable console to a handheld, the visuals took a big hit on Switch, but as was the case with Doom, it's not as bad as one might reasonably assume.  The resolution took a BIG hit - it drops down to the sub-SD resolution of 360p - but the trade off is that most of the lighting effects are kept intact (albeit blurry) and the frame rate is shockingly stable.  That was one of my few issues with Panic Button's Switch port of Doom - the frame rate was fairly unstable depending on how many enemies were on screen.  I didn't notice any of those issues in Wolfenstein II.  It seems that the variable resolution system was much improved for this port, and it really shows where performance is concerned.

Stemming from the necessary visual downgrades comes a similar situation to the Doom port.  As was the case with Doom, the game looks pretty terrible when playing docked, but it looks totally fine when playing handheld.  Its visual downgrades are still apparent, mind you.  The small screen hides a lot of the game's visual flaws and blemishes, and the end result is that while it may look pretty disappointing on a 65" TV screen, it looks totally fine on a screen 90% smaller.  The cutscenes, it's worth noting, look much nicer than the actual gameplay.  That's to be expected, naturally, but the difference in this case is pretty major.  Fortunately given the top notch voice acting and soundtrack, the audio carries over pretty perfectly to the Switch.  The rockin' soundtrack still hits just as hard, and the voice acting is still just as brilliantly performed.

Given the system specs on the Switch, it's really amazing that Panic Button managed to fit the whole game onto the system without cutting any content.  The physical release does require a download as not all of it was fit onto the cartridge, but still, the fact of the matter is that NOTHING was stripped out.  This is a fully intact port.  It's just a bit blurry, but again, that's really only going to be a major thing if you're playing it docked.  If you want to play on your sofa with the TV, then yeah, go PS4 or Xbox One.  If you want to be able to play on the go, at work, on the toilet, so on and so forth, then the Switch is a PERFECTLY viable option.  It's really quite amazing that it runs so smoothly and doesn't look worse than it does given the system that it's on, and speaking as one who's played the game on the strongest system and the weakest system currently on the market - the Xbox One X and Nintendo Switch, respectively - this is a perfectly playable version and a downright remarkable handheld version.

Also available on Android, Wii U, Switch, and Windows

Ace of Seafood is a masterpiece.  It's an absolute masterpiece.  Just like Epic Dumpster Bear was for Wii U, Ace of Seafood is a bizarre indie game that scratches an itch you never knew you had - conquering the seas as a fish that shoots lasers out of its mouth.  Seriously, that's the whole game.  Humans have been wiped out in some nuclear war, and now fish fight for oceanic supremacy with lasers.  It's the most gloriously stupid concept I've ever heard.

When you first start the game, you get to pick between three different starter fish, and from there, you have to kill whatever fish you come across and absorb their genetic material.  If you get enough genetic material of a certain type of fish, you unlock the ability to breed that fish.  Some of these fish are small, weak, and easy to breed like a hermit crab or a sardine.  Some of these fish are big, expensive, and pack some serious muscle like the bluefin tuna and the leopard seal.  Some of these fish are massive, behemoth boss-tier fish with a price tag to match like the great white shark or the giant squid.  Depending on how many reefs you've found and secured, your resource pool for your school of fish increases.  This will allow you to add more fish to your school and add better fish to your school.  A salmon, for example, takes 40 school resources to add; the giant squid takes 300 school resources.  It's all about picking the right tool for the job.

Bizarrely, there are also human ships that you can destroy and collect "genetic" material for to "breed."  I don't really get why this is a thing - all the humans are dead, and boats aren't genetic anyway - but whatever, I can have a nuclear submarine fight alongside my giant squid and great white shark.  I'm NOT complaining, that's freaking dope.  One specific reef leads to the final boss, but it doesn't tell you this until you're there.  You're just wandering around, minding your own business, and you beat the guardian fish for this reef, and you enter the reef to save and heal.  Next thing you know, it throws you straight into a battle (after auto-saving and healing you, thankfully) with a genetically engineered super fish bio-weapon.  That's a tough fight, to say the least, but when you beat Metal Fish Solid (not really the name.  Just my dumb nickname), you're rewarded with the end credits.  It then puts you back in the ocean by the reef to continue your conquest if you so wish along with some huge schools of invading fish that spawn and must be repelled.  I mean, you could ignore them, but where's the fun in that?  MUCHO MARINE MASSACRE MAYHEM!!

Ace of Seafood is my new second favorite indie game ever.  Epic Dumpster Bear will always be #1 in my heart, but holy crap, Ace of Seafood is absolutely incredible.  Objectively speaking, it's not perfect.  The targeting can be a little bit finicky, the menus are fairly bare bones with minimal explanations save for the tutorial that's either go through the whole thing again or go through none of it.  What it may lack in the final polish that games with the funding and manpower of big development teams or publishers, however, it MORE than makes up for in charm and sheer bizarre awesomeness.

Also available on Xbox One and PlayStation 4

Starlink: Battle for Atlas is perhaps the biggest surprise of 2018 for me.  I originally bought it because it was on sale for like $30 on Amazon and had a sweet Arwing model to go along with the Switch-exclusive Starfox content.  I thought it was just going to be a stupid toys-to-life cash grab...and it somewhat is.  If you buy it physical, it's a total rip-off; you can easily spend close to if not more than $200 on the various ship, pilot, and weapon models.  Granted, they're pretty decent quality and look pretty cool, but considering that you can get almost everything digitally if you buy the $60 digital edition...yeah, that's definitely the way to go.

The premise of Starlink is that you're part of a crew of humans on the first interstellar starship bound for the Atlas system in search of the homeworld of Judge, an alien who crashed on Earth.  When you get to Atlas, you discover that a race known as the Legion has taken control of the system's seven planets (there used to be eight planets, but then it exploded.  It never really explains why) and are attempting to exterminate the native species and drain the planets of electrum, the resource that serves as both energy and currency for Atlas.  You then being your quest to pew-pew your way through the star system, murdering countless Legion and conquering/liberating the planets of Atlas.  Then, if you're playing on Switch, you can go blow up Wolf because why not?

The missions themselves are pretty cut and dry for the most part, but the majority of my gameplay consisted of scouring every planet to get my discovery percentage to 100 because for some reason, this is one of the few games that captivated me enough to bother 100%ing it.  You go through each planet to discover each planet's four biological samples, three unique fauna species, and freeing all of the various ruins and outposts from Legion control.  There are also imp hives to destroy (imps are like the Legion's ankle-biter grunt soldiers), Legion Extractors to destroy (they spawn Legion enemies), and eventually Legion Primes to destroy.  There's also a "wonder" on each planet that have an exceptionally strong enemy with its small entourage, but if you defeat these enemies, you unlock a "Relic" ship enhancement.

The big selling point for the game is the ability to customize your ship, and aside from the hella pricey physical ship and weapon options, the game does a really good job of giving you a ton of options (just buy it digitally for the sake of your wallet).  There are five main weapon types - fire, ice, gravity, stasis, and kinetic.  Fire and ice are effective against one another, gravity and stasis are effective against one another, and kinetic is kind of neutral to everything; it's nothing's weakness, but nothing is strong against it, either. If you play on Switch and pilot the Arwing with no weapons attached, you get another option - the Arwing's standard laser cannons.  They're not overwhelmingly powerful, and they can't be modified with weapon upgrades, but they pack enough punch to be viable, and there's not much that looks more badass in a space battle.  Othwerise, though, there are 19 weapon options, and you can attach a weapon to each of your ship's two wings.  You can also Frankenstein up to three wings on one side of your ship, but they just sort of stack onto one another awkwardly making a single sort of chimera wing; you can still only have two weapons equipped.

The neat thing about the physical aspect of the game, rip off though it may be, is that you can make changes on the fly.  Find that your weapons aren't working in the middle of a fight?  Just pull the weapons off of the figure attached to your controller and slap different ones on there.  It changes immediately in the game to reflect the change.  Of course, you can also pause the game and do all of this in the menu which is how it needs to be done if you buy the game digitally, but it's pretty cool to see the weapons and ship configuration change immediately.  With that said, though, it's not really necessary for you to have all of the weapons unless you're trying to 100% the game.  It definitely makes it a ton easier to have ice weapons to use against fire enemies, but it's not necessary.  I was able to kill fire enemies with fire weapons, and I used a shotgun in space.  It's just harder.  Of course, you could always just go with Fox's lasers and pew-pew your enemies to death.

Starlink: Battle for Atlas is an infinitely more legitimate game than I ever expected when I first saw it advertised, and the digital option makes the toys-to-life money pit completely optional.  There are a couple of ships and weapons that aren't available digitally (yet at least), but the digital version has a ton of content and configuration options.  I really expected to hate it, but I ended up absolutely loving it.  My biggest complaint with the game is that the tutorial was really hit or miss.  Some features and mechanics are never explained at all and really could have used a tutorial whereas there are some things that are explained over and over again every single time.  Pick up a rare piece of salvage?  Doesn't matter if it's the first time or the hundredth time, the game will remind you that Prospectors will pay you a bunch for it.  Try to use a shotgun in space?  Every single freaking time, Razor's stupid face appears on your screen telling you to try a different weapon because the shotgun doesn't have the range needed for space.  Like, shut up, woman.  I'm an adult; I do what I want.  Other than those frustrations, though, I absolutely adored my time with this game.

I'm not the world's biggest fan of Super Smash Bros.  The obnoxiously toxic competitive scene (which includes a couple of my friends - you know who you are) kind of ruined it for me.  When I bought Smash Ultimate, I did so out of a bizarre feeling of obligation more than anything else.  As an avid Switch fan, a collector, and a Nintendo fanboy, I felt like I HAD to buy Smash.  Turns out, though, the title "Super Smash Bros Ultimate" is quite fitting as this truly is the best of the five Smash games.

Normally any "single player" in Smash is kind of an afterthought.  Brawl made a solid effort with Subspace Emissary, but even then, it was clearly never the focus.  Ultimate is different.  The adventure mode in Ultimate is a fully fleshed out single player that could easily stand alone as its own game.  It kept me busy for around 30 hours, and that's longer than I spend on a lot of full price retail games these days.  In addition to that, each of the more than 70 characters has their own unique classic mode.  All of that is in addition to the standard local and online multiplayer that Smash is known for.  It really feels like they tried to balance the expected multiplayer aspect with a legitimately great single player, and for that, I give some major props.

The adventure mode in Ultimate has you go through a fairly large map fighting TONS of matches against clones of the heroes that have been possessed by spirits (basically replacing the trophies from Melee).  Each match you win frees a spirit which you can use to customize a spirit team that enhances your fighting abilities.  You can have your fighter start off with a beam sword, start off giant, do extra damage to metal enemies, etc.  It adds a TON of options for varying approaches.  They also added a Fire Emblem style type triangle to the "primary" spirits that dictate your type so to speak; Attack spirits beat out Grab spirits, Grab spirits beat out Defense spirits, and Defense spirits beat out Attack spirits.  There's also a Neutral type that's neither strong to nor weak against any type.  Very much like  Fire Emblem's Sword > Axe, Axe > Spear, Spear > Sword with magic being the neutral equivalent (before they added the magic triangle).  Through adventure mode, you can unlock all of the game's characters, and there are three different endings you can get.

The standard multiplayer Smash mode is exactly what you'd expect; up to eight fighters with a TON of playable characters and a TON of stage options.  It's nothing new or exciting aside from a few new items, but it doesn't have to be.  They perfected the formula back in Melee; all they've had to do since then is add characters and stages.  In that regard, they hit the nail on the head.  The toxic competitive try-hards are whining about how they  need to nerf this character or buff that character, but speaking as someone who plays Smash to have fun and not stroke my e-peen, it's fine.  I mean, I also said that about Brawl, so take that for what it's worth, but if you're just trying to enjoy the game and not turn into CS:GO levels of competitive BS, it's great.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate really is the "ultimate" Smash Bros.  Every aspect of this game is clearly carefully crafted.  The single player is a truly fantastic experience that could easily stand on its own as an independent game.  The fact that the multiplayer remains as masterful as ever makes this about as truly perfect a game as Smash has ever been.  This is the perfect Smash package and a definite must-have for all Switch owners.

Among Pokemon fans, the two newest games in the series, Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee, are pretty controversial.  A lot of the more hardcore fans don't like how "dumbed down" the game is in a lot of ways, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It's essentially a remake of Pokemon Yellow, but the 3D visuals and the jump to HD make this the most immersive Pokemon experience for me personally to date despite the simplified mechanics and strictly Gen 1 Pokedex.

As the titles suggest, your starting pokemon with either Pikachu or Eevee depending on your version.  You quickly get the opportunity to catch the three traditional Gen 1 starters, though, and they became the bedrock of my team.  My team ended up being Pikachu (whom I nicknamed Marth), Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise, Gengar, and Starmie.  While some folks have criticized the game for being too easy, I found it to be relaxing more so than childish.  That's not to say that the game is completely devoid of challenge.  You still need to use some strategy - you can't go fight Lt. Surge with a team of water and flying types and expect it to go well unless you're way over leveled - but it's not nearly as challenging as some of the older entries.

The highlight of the game in terms of my immersion is definitely the HD visuals and having a pokemon of your choice follow behind you.  Being a remake of Yellow which was inspired by the anime, the game features the images we've come to know and love for Professor Oak, Jessie and James, Blue, Nurse Joy, and Officer Jenny.  The nostalgia here is real for millennials like me.  It's not just for my age group, though.  In a lot of ways, Let's Go, Pikachu/Eevee is for Pokemon what Mystic Quest was for Final Fantasy.  It's designed intentionally to be an entry level game to bring newcomers to the series into the fold.  As such, the biggest drive was accessibility.  From that perspective, yeah, it's much simpler and less challenging than the mainline entries in the series.  If you let that dissuade you from playing it, however, you're making a big mistake.

One of the ways The Pokemon Company tried to make these games accessible is by only including the original 151 pokemon.  Part of the reason for this is obviously that diving in head first to nearly 1000 pokemon is going to overwhelm potential newcomers.  As a longtime fan, I was personally disappointed that the later pokemon are totally absent from the game, but I can hardly hold that against it; it would be judging the game on what I wanted it to be rather than what it was intended to be.  That's what a lot of the user reviews I've seen seem to forget.  This isn't a game for the established Pokemon fanbase.  There's a lot there for us to love if we stop looking for flaws, but the game isn't for us.  It's for newcomers who may have been hooked on Pokemon Go but never played a Pokemon game otherwise, and that's no small group of folks.

What really sets Let's Go apart from the other Pokemon RPGs (as the title should suggest) is its links to Pokemon Go.  First and foremost, it uses Pokemon Go's catching mechanic.  With the exception of a few boss pokemon, you don't battle wild pokemon, and even those that you do battle, the battle is a separate phase from the catching.  The actual capture consists of throwing PokeBalls at the wild pokemon until they decide to stop breaking out.  You can do this by "throwing" the Joycon or PokeBall Plus controller as if you would throw a PokeBall or by playing handheld and using the system's gyroscope to aim and pressing A to throw the ball.  I personally preferred the latter, but I did get the bundle with the PokeBall Plus controller to try it out.  Then my dog ate the controller.  It still works and everything, but it looks all chewed up and terrible.  So I bought ANOTHER controller!  It's fine, though, because you can put a pokemon in the controller (think the PokeWalker from HeartGold and SoulSilver) and "take it for a stroll," using the internal pedometer to level up your pokemon and collect items the more you walk.

In addition to the shared catching mechanic, there are more direct connections with Pokemon Go.  First and foremost, you can link your Pokemon Go account with your Switch and transfer pokemon from Pokemon Go to your Pokemon Let's Go game.  It's not a two-way transfer - you can only transfer FROM Go TO Let's Go - but it's still super cool that there's a connection.  You can also use your PokeBall Plus controller (if you bought one) as a Pokemon Go Plus accessory when you're playing Pokemon Go.  These are all pretty small things, but given that the intention is to pull in those Pokemon Go players to the mainline series, it's a really nice touch, and it's a cool little extra feature.

Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee aren't the games that established fanbase was wanting, but it's not the established fanbase for whom the game was made.  This is a game that was designed to be a more casual, approachable experience to bring new players to the mainline series, and it plays like that.  To expect a competitive game with deep battle mechanics is to expect the game to be something it was never intended to be.  There is a LOT to love here.  3D visuals in 1080p.  Pokemon followers some of which you can ride.  A more relaxed experience.  Nostalgia for the days of the 90s with the original anime and Gen I games.  Even for Pokemon veterans like me, there's a lot to love.  As I said with Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, if you let the accessible difficulty level and relatively simplistic mechanics deter you from giving it a play, then you're seriously missing out.  This isn't going to challenge an experienced tactical mind, but it will definitely please the nostalgic child from the 1990s trapped within the bodies of cynical and underpaid adults.  Really, that's all I need in life.

Also available on PlayStation 4

One of the big surprise games for me was Persona 4: Dancing All Night when I played that a year or two back.  It was...beautiful.  Definitely one of my favorite rhythm games probably second only to Elite Beat Agents.  When ATLUS announced rhythm games for Persona 3 and Persona 5, I was naturally ecstatic, and being a collector and a Vita fanatic, I naturally had to import the Japanese copies for my shelf and dove into the P3 game almost immediately.  Unfortunately, it doesn't live up to the high standard that its predecessor set.

Part of the reason why this game impressed me so much less than the Persona 4 dancing game in addition to the fact that it didn't have the excitement of being a "new" thing going for it involves the direction ATLUS took with the game.  Dancing in Moonlight (or, as it's called in Japan, Dancing Moon Night) is much more like Hatsune Miku in its design.  It have a few little dialogue scenes in the very beginning, but it doesn't have any kind of story mode like Dancing All Night had.  Obviously a rhythm game doesn't NEED a story, but with the writing talent at ATLUS, Dancing All Night proved that a rhythm game can definitely benefit from a story, and unfortunately for Dancing in Moonlight, it just doesn't seem to stand out from the crowd as much without that added narrative element.

One thing that the game does have going for it is the soundtrack.  As anyone who's played a Persona game can tell you, the soundtracks are always phenomenal.  Again, though, following in the footsteps of Dancing All Night is a hindrance for Dancing in Moonlight; Persona 3 had a great soundtrack, but Persona 4's soundtrack was legendary.  The tracklist just can't stand up in a comparison.  There are a few truly killer remixes in Dancing in Moonlight, but all in all, while it's an terrific tracklist, again it just doesn't really stand out from the crowd for the most part.  Visually, however, the game is great.  Seeing the characters from P3 return in such a jovial and musical setting is wonderful, and the choreography for the characters' dance moves is great.  While I loved playing it on the go with my Vita, this is definitely a game that would also benefit from being played on PlayStation 4 or on a PlayStation TV if you have friends over as the dancing itself is good fun to watch.

The most important make-or-break aspect of a rhythm game is going to be the quality of the input controls, and while I may have had some arguably nit-pick disappointments with other aspects of Dancing in Moonlight, the controls give me absolutely no cause to complain.  It's quick and responsive inputs are everything you'd want from a rhythm game.  That input factor is also another reason I went with Vita over PS4 for this one; while the DS4 is a great controller, having controls hardwired to a handheld rather than wireless via bluetooth is always my preference when it comes to rhythm games.  I'm sure it plays brilliantly on PS4 as well - ATLUS isn't one to release a sub-par product from my experience - but it's hard to beat a good Vita game.

Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight doesn't quite live up to the monolithic Persona 4: Dancing All Night, it is still an excellent rhythm game in its own right.  The soundtrack, while the least impressive of the three most recent console Persona games in my opinion, is still terrific with some truly great remixes of those songs thrown in for some variety and genre diversity.  It doesn't do a whole lot to stand out from the crowd in any meaningful way aside from being based on Persona 3, but that doesn't mean that it's not a fantastic game.  It's just perhaps not the most memorable rhythm game you'll ever play.  It is, however, definitely recommended for fans of Persona or just folks looking for a good rhythm game to pass the time.

Xenogears is the one game in the "Xeno" series that I don't have, but with my new attempt to embrace digital games, I decided to buy it on PSN and dust off the ol' PS TV.  I was SUPPOSED to be playing this in tandem with Colin, but as usually, he flaked out on me and decided not to play it.  -insert sadness-

Xenogears is, in a lot of ways, a perfect example of Square's late 1990s JRPG offerings - it's too long, the story is convoluted to the point of confusion, and it's so much damn fun that you can't just quit.  The BASIC story (and this is a bare bones synopsis) is that a colony ship of some sort crashed on this planet 10,000 years ago when some super weapon went haywire and blew it to pieces.  Human survivors established an advanced civilization until some major war destroyed a bunch of it 4,000 years ago, and then some other giant war destroyed even more stuff 500 years ago.  There are like three specific people whose souls are apparently so important that they get reincarnated infintely, and their memories get passed down as well, and then there's some split personalities, and there are giant robots, and somehow the giant doomsday weapon is god but also god doesn't exist but at the same time god is core to everything and...yeah.  It doesn't make any sense.  Unfortunately, it's also a perfect example of what ruins a lot of otherwise good games - plot holes, huge leaps of logic, and cut funding that led to a rushed and frankly terrible second half (or, in this case, last third).  Imagine if the Democratic Party's 2016 presidential campaign were a JRPG.  On paper, it should be amazing and a hole in one.  Certain aspects of reality, however, forces it to crash and burn.  I love games that incorporate ancient Judeo-Christian mythology into their story.  I don't love it when it's done poorly and doesn't many any sense whatsoever.

The tragic story of Xenogears' production is that it was originally intended to be a four disc game as  several other Square JRPGs were.  The first disc is a long and epic 40-50 hour adventure full of world building and character development, and if the game were judged just on the first disc, it would be a great game.  Unfortunately, when they finished the first disc, they were out of money... and only about a third of the way through the story.  So the rest of it got slimmed down beyond the max and crammed into one disc with the bulk of the story being either skipped entirely or relegated to boring vignettes between boss fights with the occasional dungeon or two (compared to the dozen solidly fleshed out dungeons in the first disc).  There's a ton of potential there, and had the story elements in disc two been given the same treatment that the first disc received, it would probably be remembered as one of the best JRPGs of the era.  As it is, however, the second disc totally sucks and ruins the game.

The games visuals are largely so-so in my opinion with a decent 3D world but 2D sprite characters.  Character attack animations are cool, but the game overall fails to match Square's Final Fantasy offerings of the era (probably because of the cut funding).  The music, however, is quite good.  Again, not on the level of the PS1 Final Fantasy games, but it's a solidly second tier soundtrack.  The piece of the presentation that really falls apart, though, is the anime cutscenes.  There are some full anime cut scenes, but the English dub is like something straight out of a 1950s Godzilla film; you'll see mouths moving a mile a minute with no words whatsoever, and you'll hear talking when no one's mouth is moving.  I understand that it's extremely difficult to get English even half synced with Japanese animation especially with a depleted budget, but regardless, the effect is that is just looks sloppy and half-assed.

Xenogears is a Shakespearean tragedy of game development; the first disc is SO exceptional and well done in almost every regard that they blew their whole budget and were left with a second disc that tries to do way too much with way too little to work with and, as a result, ruins the overall product.  I really can't overemphasize just how soul-crushingly disappointing that second disc is.  It truly does ruin the game for me and leave a bad taste in my mouth for the whole game.  I honestly have a hard time recommending this one just because of how much of a let down the last 20 hours or so are, but I'm going to err on the side of a recommendation simply for how excellent the first 40 or 50 hours are.  If I were rating each disc on its own, disc one would definitely get a 4/5 with disc two being given a 1/5.  Unfortunately, that's not how multi-disc games work.  The experiences on each disc may be of RADICALLY different quality, but it's still one single game.

Also available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, iOS, Android, Linux, and OSX

Banner Saga is everything I want in a game.  Seriously, I let it languish in my Steam library, fated to remain unplayed for far too long, until Colin said "Dude, this game is dope, you gotta play it.  You'll love it."  As is usually the case when Colin recommends stuff for me - Gundam, a rewatch of Deep Space Nine, Castlevania - he was absolutely right.  This game is straight fire.  While it's not quite "perfect," per se, it's definitely got my name written all over it.

Banner Saga is an SRPG, but not quite like any that I've played previously.  It's extremely similar to a lot of others in a lot of ways, but it's just different enough to stand out as unique among the games I've experienced.  Imagine, if you will, the game as a math equation.  It roughly boils down to:

Fire Emblem + a Norse theme - permadeath + TellTale style choices + Oregon Trail = Banner Saga

It plays a LOT like Fire Emblem with the square-based grid, the turn based movement, etc. but with vikings and horned giants instead of a more central European medieval setting.  It also lacks Fire Emblem iconic permadeath at least as far as combat is concerned.  Your characters can and will still die for good through the choices you make and plot points, but if they fall in battle, they're simply "injured," not killed.  Speaking of choices, the game is all about choice and consequence.  Much of the game's dialogue provides you with multiple choices that affect the direction that the story takes.  The Oregon Trail aspect comes into play with your caravan.  For almost all of the game, you're moving towards one city or another as your quest progresses, and you have a small army with you in your caravan.  You also have a finite amount of supplies and a constantly declining caravan morale.  If you try to conserve supplies and not stop to rest unless the game forces you, your morale will decrease, putting you at a strategic disadvantage in battle.  If you stop frequently to make sure that your morale stays high, you'll burn through supplies, and if you run out of supplies, your clansmen and troops will start to die every day.  If you use your renown to promote your units, you may find yourself short on funds for much-needed supplies when you get to the next town's market; likewise, if you use all of your renown on supplies for your caravan, you may not be able to promote all of your units, leaving you with a weak and underleveled army against a far superior foe.  Where do you strike your balance?  That's part of the strategy of the game's decision making.

As far as visuals go, the game is done in an almost hand drawn cartoon style.  While this particular art style is sometimes rather "hit or miss" for me, this is definitely an example of a "hit."  The characters are beautifully drawn, the visuals are bright and colorful when they need to be while dark and foreboding when the situation calls for it, and the way the scenes unfold give the whole game a storybook-like feel as if you're being told an epic adventure tale as much as actually playing a game.  That storybook feel is, in large part, thanks to the fantastic narration.  Not only does the narrator himself do an excellent job with the delivery, but the amount of narration is perfect - enough to set the stage and advance the story at key points but infrequent enough so as not to break the player's immersion.

Difficulty in the game seems almost an afterthought, a factor placed on the backburner to focus on the story and its delivery.  There are a few different difficulty settings to cater to the spectrum of player ability levels and desires for challenge, but since more of the game is spent on decision making and managing your caravan supplies and whatnot, the combat difficulty never felt to me like it took center stage the way it does in many other games of the genre.  That's not to say that the difficult was unbalanced or poorly implemented - it definitely wasn't - but the focus of the game always stayed far more on the journey, the characters, and their experiences and tribulations than on challenging the player in battle unless, of course, you specifically seek that out by putting the game on the highest difficulty.  It was honestly a breath of fresh air for me to have a fun and compelling strategy RPG but have it place the emphasis on story more than challenge.  That aspect is certainly not going to be to everyone's liking, but it turned out to be everything I didn't know I wanted from the genre.

Banner Saga is the perfect type of SRPG in my opinion.  Story and atmosphere always take priority over the combat challenge, and the art style, sound direction, and narration are done in such a way that brilliantly enhances that atmosphere.  The only thing about the game that really didn't sit well with me was that the perspective switches between a couple different parties throughout the game before the parties (or remnants of them) meet up at the end.  It certainly wasn't bad, but I tend to prefer having a consistent set of protagonists rather than switching back and forth between two groups.  That aside, however, it's one of if not the most enjoyable indie games that I've ever played.  It has the indie game hallmark bits and pieces that could have used a bit more polish or could have been expanded upon a bit, but even so, it's an absolutely remarkable game, and it absolutely deserved the Switch, PS4, and Xbox One releases that it and its two sequels got.  With availability on all three home platforms, all three major computer OSs, and both major smartphone OSs, there's nary a gamer out there with no way to play.  I absolutely and whole heartedly recommend this game for any who are fans of strategy or fans of a good Norse tale.

Girls und Panzer: Dream Tank Match is a tank combat game based on the anime film, but since my first time hearing about Girls und Panzer in general was when I impulse bought this on Play-Asia, so I'm going to ignore that for the most part.  The story, unfortunately, is more or less completely incomprehensible if you're not familiar with the source material.  It's told in a flashback sort of manner; there's some festival following a big tournament of some sorts that was depicted in a movie, and the girls who participated in the tournament are telling stories of their experiences, and those stories are told through the game's levels.  After the third level, though, I gave up on having any idea what was going on other than "Cute anime girls blow each other up in tanks to learn how to be good women, wives, and mothers."  But there is, at the end of the day, lots of cute anime girls blowing each other up in tanks, so do you really NEED to understand what's going on?

The game's different stages have different objectives.  Some levels require you to destroy all of the enemy tanks, some will require you to reach a certain area, some will require you to survive for a certain amount of time, etc.  Between the varying objectives and the variety of tanks that you're made to use, the levels are different enough from one another to keep from becoming stale.  Unfortunately, while the game doesn't become stale per se, it never really "grips" you, or at the very least, it never really gripped me.  The gameplay is fun enough, but because familiarity with the source material is so important to understanding what's going on, it's hard to get into the game.

The visuals and sound design are about what you'd expect from a run of the mill weeb anime game - decent.  They're not great.  They're not terrible.  They're just decent.  The graphics push the PS4's capabilities in no way, shape, or form, but the models are smooth with nice animations.  The voice acting is good, and the soundtrack is fine.  That's the problem, though - nothing about the game's presentation ever surpasses "fine."  It's entirely dependent on the concept of cute anime girls blowing each other up with tanks.  Which, in fairness, is exactly why I bought the game, so job well done at hooking your target demographic, but actual overall quality of the game?  Eh.  It's fine.

With my affinity for games revolving entirely around anime girls, I really want to love this game.  I want to say that it pushes the envelope of what thirsty neckbeard gaming can be.  I want to be able to recommend it not just to forever-alone types like but to gamers in general.  Unfortunately, I can't do that.  The gameplay itself is fun enough, but I can't say that it's fun enough to recommend.  Given that the only English language release is an Asian import, it's not exactly a bargain bin game, and the game's overall quality is solidly bargain bin.  It's on the high end of bargain bin, sure, but it's still bargain bin.  Truthfully, I wouldn't pay more than $15 for this game, and I doubt we'll see the price drop that much.  Unless you're already a fan of Girls und Panzer, I just can't recommend this game.  If you are a fan, then maybe there's something here for you, but for newcomers to the IP like me?  Pass.

Mario Tennis is my absolute favorite of the various Mario sports series, and of the sports that have been Mario-fied, tennis is the one I find the most entertaining to watch.  With the exception of hockey, tennis games are just generally my favorite sports games.  It's because of that that left me SO disappointed with Wii U's Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash.  It was just...okay...  That's it.  And that's coming off the heels of the INCREDIBLE Mario Power Tennis for Gamecube and revised for Wii with motion controls.  Thankfully Nintendo decided to make up for the lackluster Ultra Smash and gave Switch owners what may well be the best Mario Tennis game to date (although Power Tennis is a DAMN hard game to beat).

  One of my favorite aspects of Mario Tennis Aces which, if I remember correctly, is a first for the Mario Tennis series, is the inclusion of an actual story mode.  It's not a gripping tale with deep character development, but it does have an actual story.  There's this evil tennis racket that possesses anyone who holds it and seeks to collect five power gems to restore its full power to take over the world.  By beating people in tennis.  Like I said, not a thrilling narrative, but it's good enough.  In addition to standard tennis matches against opponents, the story mode also includes various training/challenges as well as legit boss battles.  As you progress through the story mode, you'll unlock new characters to play as (although you're always Mario in the story mode), new rackets to use, and new courts to play on.

Nintendo seems to be adding more characters over time as there are two currently on the roster that the game says you can unlock early by participating in online tournaments, one in October (that one unlocked Birdo) and one in November (not sure what character that is).  I don't know for certain if more characters will continue to be added over time, but it wouldn't come as a surprise to me.  Speaking of the online play, I haven't done this extensively, but the few matches I have played worked brilliantly.  I found matches quickly, and there was absolutely no lag whatsoever; it felt as if I were playing a match against a CPU.

Visually, Mario Tennis Aces probably isn't pushing the Switch quite to its limits, but it does look extremely nice, especially when playing as a handheld.  Motion is fluid, frame rate drops are either non-existent or so negligible that the average person likely wouldn't notice, and the colors really "pop" on screen.  The soundtrack also really excels for a sports game.  The various themes - forest, desert, tundra, Boo house, etc - are all varied and fitting.  The sound effects are also fitting, although honestly, there are only so many sound effects you need a tennis game.  The real start of the audio show is, obviously, the soundtrack, and there's nothing left to be desired here in that regard.

All in all, Mario Tennis Aces is the game that Mario Tennis fans deserved after the slap to face that was Ultra Smash.  Everything wrong about Ultra Smash is fixed in Tennis Aces.  What little was right about Ultra Smash is improved in Tennis Aces.  The online play works fabulously, the game controls smoothly, the soundtrack is superb, and the visuals look beautiful.  I'm not going to go as far as to say that Mario Tennis Aces is a perfect game, but it is definitely a high point for the Mario sports games, and I would call it a must-play for Switch owners.

Also available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows

I have been waiting for Valkyria Chronicles 4 for years.  The first game was absolutely incredible, but the second game was good but disappointing, the third game never got released in North America, and Valkyria Revolution was....not what I was wanting.  Finally, though, Sega has graced me with a true successor to the series, and not only that, but in a first for the series, it saw a release on a Nintendo platform.

Valkyria Chronicles 4 takes place during the Second Europan War along side the events of Valkyria Chronicles and Valkyria Chronicles 3 and two years before Valkyria Chronicles II.  What makes Valkyria Chronicles 4 different, however, is where in Europa the game is set; whereas the first three main series games (Revolution was set in a completely different fictional universe) cast the player as a soldier fighting for the small kingdom of Gallia against the autocratic East Europan Imperial Alliance (basically Russia), Valkyria Chronicles 4 has one assume the role of a group of soldiers fighting for the Atlantic Federation, a seemingly confederation-type of alliance of democratic nations in western Europa (basically NATO).  I guess that makes Gallia kind of like Yugoslavia if we're going with a Cold War analogy (although Yugoslavia tended to get along a little bit better with the Warsaw Pact than with NATO...eh, an imperfect analogy, but whatever).  It's worth noting , though, that most of the game's main characters are Gallian-born and joined the Federation army to protect Gallia from the Empire before Gallia was invaded.

Following Squad E of the Federation army's elite Ranger Corps, you fight your way east as you try to repel the imperial invaders and, eventually, attempt to push to the imperial capital and bring the war to a close.  Of course, being a Valkyria Chronicles game, the focus is always more on the individual characters than the overarching war itself, and that's part of the reason I love the series so much.  That's not to say that the war itself is just glossed over; the game's story reveals a lot about the context of EWII and expands a lot of the lore that the first game provided.  The way the story is told, however, always has the player caring more about the soldiers' individual struggles, triumphs, and relationships than the Federation vs Empire war, especially once the Federation's dirty secrets start to come to light.

While I've only played the game on Switch and, therefore, can only speak from first hand experience about that version, I have seen several side by side comparison videos that have me feeling confident when I say that the graphical differences between the Switch version and the PS4/XB1 versions are negligible.  There's some shadow and lighting effects that are diminished on Switch, and there's a tiny bit more detail on the PS4 and XB1 versions, but given the watercolor art style used in the game, I doubt anyone would b e able to tell one version from another without a direct side-by-side comparison.  Frame rate is usually where I would expect to see some major differences given the art style chosen, but Sega seems to have locked it to 30 FPS on all versions (not sure about PC; that can probably be unlocked).  With a common frame rate across the board and visual differences that are negligible at best, it seemed pretty clear to me that the portability and cartridge load times of the Switch version made it a pretty easy choice which platform to go with, and I have no regrets whatsoever.  This is probably the best third party experience I've had on the Switch to date.

Valkyria Chronicles 4 is an exceptional strategy game that continues the series' brilliant blend of turn based strategy with real time combat.  It allows carries on the series' tradition of putting character development above all else, propelling the game to an experience that is virtually impossible to put down once you get started.  There's a lot of exposition between each battle - that takes at least as long as the battles themselves if you don't skip anything - but very rarely does it ever feel superficial.  The story has a few plot twists, and while few of them came as unexpected, the delivery is such that even if it's expected, it still retains impact because of how it happens more than what's happening.  The game's sound designed - especially its soundtrack - are stellar, but the real star of the show here is the visual design.  The watercolor art style is truly phenomenal and reaches a level of artistic beauty that I've only seen from Okami and Muramasa.  I cannot recommend this game enough especially on Switch.  It showcases spectacularly the system's ability to delivery beautiful and engaging home consoles experience right along side the big boys of the industry.  It is, in my opinion, the best of the series.

BONUS PRO!  The game teaches you valuable life lessons about consent.

Also available on Wii U via Virtual Console

Advance Wars seems like the first in the series to those of us in the West, but it's actually an entry in a long running series called Famicom Wars; this is just the first entry that got localized.  It's a turn based strategy game, but don't confuse with a SRPG like Fire emblem because Advance Wars has none of the traditional RPG mechanics such as levels or experience or changeable weapons.  It's much closer to a 4X strategy game; you take control of cities and factories, manage your resources, and build up your units while balancing power and cost.

One of the big differences between Advance Wars and most strategy games like it is the tone of the story.  It's story is inherently fairly silly.  The nations involved are Orange Star, Blue Moon, Yellow Comet, and Green Earth.  The COs are all unique and have their goof eccentricities, but none of them really give off a "serious" realistic vibe you would expect from an army general.  While it's obviously understood, the concept of death is never mentioned explicitly; your units just fly off screen during the battle animations, and when a unit is defeat, it just explodes and disappears.  No blood, no gore, no remains.  It's about as non-offensive a presentation as war could possibly have.

The basic story is that you play as Orange Star fighting off an invasion from Blue Moon.  As you're pushing back Blue Moon's advance and retaking Orange Star territory, you end up a couple of skirmishes with Green Earth.  Eventually, you find yourself fighting Yellow Comet, too, and start to realize that something's off about the whole situation.  That's as far as I'll go into the story, but it's a pretty decent story despite being fairly silly all around.  The characters are likable, and the frivolous world minimizes the importance of lore.  While I personally consider that to be a negative, it does allow one to jump straight into the action without worrying about each nation's background or anything.

Advance Wars is a fun, fairly light hearted strategy game.  It starts off extremely easy, but the last three or four missions will provide some legitimate challenge (especially the last one, dear god).  It's not a gritty, serious war story, so if that's what you're wanting, look elsewhere, but the strategy gameplay is solid, and it's definitely a lot of fun to play.  You can also save in the middle of battles, so it's perfect for short bursts (or save scumming if you're like me and suck at games).  Given the ease of access on Wii U, I'd definitely recommend a playthrough for folks who enjoy strategy games especially if you're also a general fan of Nintendo.

One of the great things about my Everdrive GBA is that someone made a Game Gear emulator for it.  I have a Game Gear as well as the Master System/Master System card/Game Gear adapter for my Retron 5, but what I don't have is the ability to acquire some of the prohibitively and out of reach Game Gear imports - Panzer Dragoon Mini, for example, a Japan-only Game Gear exclusive that seems to fetch prices around $300 and up on eBay these days.

Panzer Dragoon Mini plays almost exactly like its Saturn counterparts just scaled down to fit the capabilities of Sega's handheld.  I'd heard all sorts of gloom and doom about how bad it is online, but having played through, I can't imagine why.  It's not a masterpiece or anything, but it's quite a competent game for the system, and I had a lot of fun playing through it.  It's broken into five stages each of which is composed of random enemies that attack you, usually a mini boss with some more enemies following, and then an end boss.  The final stage is largely a boss rush with an extremely brief interlude and a handful of enemies before the next boss.

I'll be the first to admit that my experience with the Game Gear isn't particularly extensive, but of the Game Gear games that I have played, this is definitely one of the better looking ones.  The sprites are fairly simple as are the backgrounds, but the scaling gives a nice impression of a three dimensional environment, and the colors and animations are all well done.  I was playing this one in public without headphones, so I can't speak to the sound effects or music, but as far as the visuals and gameplay go, it's a great game.  The criticism it frequently gets online is totally bizarre to me.

Panzer Dragoon Mini is a seriously good handheld game to play if you have an hour or two to kill.  My playthrough took just a bit over an hour - maybe 70 or 75 minutes if I had to guess.  The visuals are nice and colorful, and while the artstyle does takes a super deformed approach to the dragons, it fits with the handheld and looks totally fine.  It plays well and controls fine, and with a password after each stage and three difficulty settings, it's a very accessible game for players of varying skill levels.  Given the hefty price tag, most folks won't get to experience this one, but if you're open to emulation or Everdrives, then I strongly suggest playing this one if you're a fan of on rails shooters.  For me, at least, Panzer Dragoon Mini did not disappoint.

When I recently bought an Everdrive GBA, the very first thing I did was start loading promising-sounding Pokemon ROM hacks, and of all the ones I downloaded, Pokemon Vega looked to be the most promising.  One of the things I was looking for was a hack with well designed Fakemon, the community-given name for new Pokemon a hacker creates and puts into his or her ROM hack.  From what I'd read, Vega was pretty much the best of the best as far as Fakemon go, so that's where I began.  Fortunately, there's an English translation that's readily available given that the hacker is Japanese.

It's obvious from the first few minutes that Pokemon Vega is an exceptionally well made fan hack that had an enormous amount of care and skill put into it.  It's an all new region, about half of the Pokemon in the game are Fakemon, and something like a half or a third of the real Pokemon had to be added in by the hacker as they're from DS and later generations (I think they're all or mostly Gen IV).  Not only that, but the game features a handful of entirely new moves.  Despite all this, it feels completely natural; one could be forgiven for mistaking it for a legitimate Pokemon game made by Game Freak.  No half-assed sprites, no only-somewhat-tweaked world map, no obviously self-insert characters.  It all feels completely natural and organic.  The best part, though, is undoubtedly the creation of the most glorious Pokemon past present, or a future, and the TRUE evolution of Pikachu - the almighty Electric/Fighting type, Machu (pictured above from the intro sequence)!

Story-wise, Vega picks up where its predecessor, Pokemon Altair and Sirius, left off.  As such, there are references to the protagonist's exploits in Hoenn from Altair and Sirius, but there are never any tie-ins major enough to necessitate playing the previous game; I've never touched it, and I had no problem following what was going on aside from not knowing what the "Hoenn Catastrophe" referenced a few times was.  I've also seen a lot of folks on Pokemon ROM hack forums suggest just skipping straight to Vega as it's apparently a FAR superior game (which makes sense given that the hacker would have honed his skills a lot during the production of Altair and Sirius).

You start the game immediately encountering new Fakemon as your starter choices are all new.  Your fire starter ends up Fire/Steel, your water starter ends up Water/Poison, and your grass starter ends up Grass/Flying.  I won't go into details of the story as it's actually one of the more interesting ones I've seen in a Pokemon game (although not quite as interesting to me as Diamond/Pearl or Black/White), but be warned - this game is BALLS hard.  Expect gym leaders to be 10 to 15 levels above you when you get to a new town while the surrounding Pokemon are going to be 10 to 15 levels below you, making grinding a pain in the ass.  There also exists a fan hack of the fan hack called Vega Minus that is essentially exactly the same except that gym leader and Elite Four levels have been lowered so that they're only 5 to 10 levels above you.  That's the version I played because I'm impatient when it comes to grinding, and even with the lower (read: less brutally high) difficulty of Minus, it's still an extremely tough Pokemon game that took me about 68 hours to beat (and by beat, I mean clear the Elite Four and become the new Champion).

While Vega is extremely difficult, it's absolutely worth while.  It's a hack of FireRed which I, personally, consider to be the best game in the Pokemon series (although it FireRed/LeafGreen and HeartGold/SoulSilver always swap for #1 every few weeks for me), so it's already got that going for it.  Even with those, though, I'd still say it's a better Pokemon game than any of Game Freak's Pokemon games after the GBA era (except for the aforementioned Gen II remakes).  It's not for the faint of heart or those unwilling to bash your heads against a brick wall grinding, but it's absolutely worth the struggle if you have the patience.  Everdrive, emulator, reproduction cartridge, whatever - however you do it, just play this game if you're a Pokemon fan.

Also available on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360

I have a lot of feelings about the Kelvin timeline in Star Trek.  I've been watching Star Trek literally my entire life.  I don't like prequels, and I don't like alternate timelines; Jar Jar Abrams' reboot film is both, and this game takes place shortly after that movie.  So how does this 2013 Star Trek game stack up for a long-time Star Trek fan and a Prime timeline elitist?  Well...it's not terrible.

Have you played Gears of War?  Imagine that with the steroids and chainsaws removed and replaced with space ships and Vulcans.  Throw in a pinch of unpolished game mechanics, and that's basically Star Trek.  It's a third person cover based shooter geared towards co-operative multiplayer in the same fashion as Resident Evil 5 - two protagonists one of which is AI controlled if playing solo.  Unlike Shiva in Resident Evil 5, however, Spock is not helplessly stupid and a bigger threat to you than the final boss.  Also unlike Resident Evil 5, Star Trek is actually rather fun to play.

Unfortunately, being a licensed movie ti-in game, Star Trek is just pretty good.  It's not great.  It's not memorable.  It's not innovative.  It's fun, but it's little more than a decent way to pass time.  It doesn't offer an experience of any true depth.  I only played solo, so it may well be a fantastic co-op experience, but from my time with the game, it was good, but not amazing.  It looks nice.  It plays decently although the cover mechanics are annoying and not nearly as smoothly polished as Gears of War or Mass Effect.  If you're a fan of the Abrams movie, then you'll probably really like it.  If you're a fan of real Star Trek, you'll probably find the game decent but annoying.

Star Trek is an enjoyable game, but it's an extremely okay game.  It's a run of the mill cover based third person shooter that doesn't really do much wrong, but it also doesn't really do much right.  It's an enjoyable enough romp for Star Trek fans, but for folks who aren't fans of the franchise, there really isn't a lot to offer as there are much, much better cover based third person shooters.  If you find it for less than $5, then it's probably a worthwhile play, but otherwise, I wouldn't bother.

Also available on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Android, iOS, OSX, and Windows

Let me preface this by saying that I've neither read nor seen any of Game of Thrones.  Aside from the internet's saturation of "Winter is coming" memes, I had no exposure to the series whatsoever before this game.  With that said, it's important to note that my impression of Telltale's Game of Thrones series comes from a total newcomer to Game of Thrones rather than established fans who are familiar with the source material.

If you've played any of TellTale's series, then you know how Game of Thrones goes from a gameplay perspective.  You make some choices, talk to a bunch of people, realize that your choices were stupid and kick yourself mentally for the next four hours, do some quick time events, and repeat.  Game of Thrones is entirely keeping with the established norm for TellTale's narrative series, and that's what makes it so damn good.  Like their other series (at least the ones I've played), the character development is so incredibly well done that you really do grow attached to them, and because it's Game of Thrones, their inevitable gruesome deaths hurt all the more because of it.

You play as some random soldier dude - I don't remember his name, so we'll call him Greg - on the eve of some big event (I think maybe the apparently infamous Red Wedding?) when you're attacked out of nowhere by ninjas or something.  Well, it was just another regular army attacking your army, but it was a cripplingly effective surprise attack, so I'm going with ninjas.  Anyway, after you escape from the ninjas, you make your way back home just to be told "Hey, you're our scapegoat.  Off to the certain-death exile place with you!" to serve on a suicide mission.  From there, the story revolves around the noble family that Greg was serving and the lord's children through their various exploits.  At one point or another, you play as all of the kids except for the adorable younger daughter.  You learn about the world, the politics, the places, and the characters that inhabit that world.  Then you scream, cry, and sometimes throw your controller in rage when they meet their inescapable and tortuously well voice acted demise. 

As is the case with the Game of Thrones novel and TV series from what I've been led to believe, this game plays with your emotions and revels in putting your heart through an orange juicer.  Good luck putting the controller down, though, because the characters and story are just too damn engrossing to stop playing no matter how much pyschological turmoil the game causes you.  I have absolutely no attachment to Game of Thrones, and I was still ensnared from the first half hour.  It was begrudgingly that I turned off my Playstation after episode four to go to bed.  I can't speak for how much long-time Game of Thrones fans would feel about the game, but for a total newcomer who loves a good story and well written characters, this game is a near masterpiece.

TellTale's Game of Thrones is perhaps their best work yet.  At the very least, it's second only to their Walking Dead series.  It's masterfully written and pulls the player in with or without any previous exposure to the IP.  My only complaints with the game (only one of which is a legitimate gripe about this particular game) is that there were some performance issues - I had several instances of crashing - and the fact that season 2 has been delayed multiple times although TellTale insists that it's still happening.  Eventually.  I cannot recommend this game highly enough.  It's worth noting, though, that my friend, Jerome, took exceptional umbrage to the game's toying with his emotions.

Also available on Xbox One and Windows

Life is Strange is one of my absolute favorite choice-driven narrative games, and the prequel, Before the Storm, absolutely did not disappoint.  I picked it up on Prime Day when it was like $10, and it quickly proceeded to devour the next three days of  my life.  It adds a TON of backstory for Chloe and really fleshes out her character, making you appreciate her all the more in the original game.

If you've played Life is Strange, then you know what to expect from Before the Storm.  It plays pretty much exactly the same albeit without the time manipulation mechanic.  Because it plays, looks, and sounds almost exactly the same, this is going to be a pretty brief review.  You play as Chloe going through events about a year before the original game took place.  Your choices and interactions with people through each episode affect elements of the story down the line.  Some choices have a negligible effect whereas other choices will have severe and widespread consequences.  It's that kind of agency and impact on the game world that really take immersion to the next level in my opinion, and the only folks who I've seen do it better than the Life is Strange dev team is TellTale, and being second to them is by no means a bad thing.

In addition to getting a firsthand look at the events that took place immediately prior to Life is Strange, there are several flashback sequences that do a lot of elaborate on the strained relationship between Chloe and her step-father, David, as well as the childhood experiences that helped shape Chloe into the dynamic character she later became.  Those flashbacks really help you empathize a bit with Chloe and go a long way towards explaining some of her more questionable decisions.  The writing, in addition to being able to evoke some strong emotional responses from the player, is brilliant with its humor both in design and in execution.  Not only are there some fantastic joke lines, but they're delivered in a manner and with the timing to maximize their effect whereas such lines are often misused and ruin the mood of a scene.

Life is Strange: Before the Storm is everything that a prequel should be.  It tells a gripping story, it fills in the backstory of its predecessor while answering some of the lingering questions with which players were originally left, and it tugs at the heartstrings with some incredibly emotionally charged scenes.  It doesn't quite reach the stunningly impressive impact of the original game in my opinion, but it is nonetheless a superb follow-up and a definite must-play for any gamer who appreciates well-developed characters, a powerful narrative, and engrossing world-building.  I absolutely recommend it.

Also available on Xbox One and Windows

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen is DLC for XCOM 2, but it's really more "XCOM 2 Plus" than traditional DLC.  The core storyline is the same, and all of the content from the base game is untouched, but there's a bunch of extra stuff.  Extra abilities, extra missions, three entirely new optional mission lines with end bosses that give some seriously dope weapons.  All in all, though, it's really just the base game plus some extras.

Most of the game is the same as XCOM 2, so this is going to be extremely brief; read my review of the base game if you're curious.  The visuals haven't had any kind of adjustments nor has the sound design.  There is some new voice acting, though, for the new enemy characters, and that's done extremely well.  The additions here are all gameplay, and there are three big additions - the three "Chosen" optional bosses, the three resistance factions, and The Lost.  The Chosen are naturally the biggest of the three since that was the name of the DLC.  The Chosen are three specialized assassins sent to kill the Commander and destroy XCOM, and each of them has a unique fighting style.  When defeated, they each drop unique and obscenely powerful weapons; one drops a sniper rifle and pistol, one drops an assault rifle, and one drops a shotgun and sword.

As for the other changes, the Resistance factions tie in with The Chosen.  Each Resistance faction gives you some bonus "orders" that are basically passive buffs that you can apply - things like cheaper weapons, faster research, more likely to be incapacitated as opposed to outright dead, etc.  You can also send each faction's operatives on missions that run in the background.  These missions will give you more credits, speed some research, unlock new research, etc.  Among these missions are ones required to find the hideout for each of The Chosen.  Each faction also has its own unique soldier class, so it's definitely worth investing some time and attention into each of them.

Despite being arguably the less prominent of those three big additions, my favorite addition is The Lost.  Did you ever find yourself playing XCOM and thinking "You know what this game needs?  Zombies."?  Well, the gods have heard your prayers.  The Lost are like a cross between your traditional zombies and the husks from Mass Effect.  No one really knows why, but something about the alien technology left over from the war started turning people into creatures that look like zombies, act like zombies, and attack and swarm indiscriminately like zombies.  You don't, however, have to worry about turning into one if you're bitten; the cause seems to be some kind of chemical or radiation, not a virus or spore.  The Lost serve as a sort of rogue "third" side in battles where they're present.  While they definitely go after you harder than they do ADVENT troops, they'll attack whoever's nearest.  Another horde is also summoned by any explosion, so try to aim away from cars and keep your grenades on the ship.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen is a truly fantastic expansion to a truly fantastic game.  Unfortunately, it suffers from big issues; just like the base game, there are a LOT of crashing issues on PS4, and I feel that the DLC is a bit overpriced for what it is.  $20 or $25 would be more appropriate in my opinion (hence why I waited until it was on sale for $23 to buy it).  Despite that, however, it's still a fantastic experience and makes and already fantastic game incredible.  Without a doubt, I recommend downloading it.  I'd get it on PC if you have the option as I suspect it's more stable, but no matter how you play it, War of the Chosen is definitely the definitive way to experience the XCOM 2 story.  Just be prepared for it to crash.  A lot.

Also available on Windows

Nurse Love Addiction is basically the perfect visual novel for me (as far as what would actually make it onto a console), and I mean that in all of the creep ways you're probably thinking.  Post-secondary students at a nursing school in a story filled with lesbian pseudo-incest (basically the whole "step-sister" trope) and a surprisingly interesting plot albeit one that's a bit slow to get started.  Best of all is that there are nine endings, so for super ecchi lords like me, there's enough here to keep you busy for a decent little while.

The basic story of Nurse Love Addiction is that two sisters enroll at a nursing school together for reasons that I can only describe as "anime af."  The older sister enrolled because she wrote in a book "I want to be a nurse when I grow up!" when she was a little kid and spend the rest of her life thinking "Well, I wanted to do it when I was a kid, and I don't want to do anything now, so I guess I'll do this!"  The younger sister enrolls because she seems hellbent on following the older sister everywhere for the rest of her life.  I'm not kidding.  When they're there, they meet two particularly bright personalities, a rich girl with a hoity-toity attitude that wouldn't be out of place for a family with a nine digit income and her girlfriend, a blunt-to-a-fault tomboy from a poor family and a motorcycle.

What adds the bit of plot point foreshadowed early on is that your main character has amnesia.  As a kid, she at some point hit her head and lost her entire memory.  Something something plot devices.  I won't say anything more than that because it is a pretty cool story once it gets going, and with the different branches that it can take based on what waifu you pick.  Each of the game's five core characters have unique and interesting personalities, and while they do hit the big anime tropes - you've got your tsundere, you've got your borderline yandere, etc - the characters themselves are pretty well written.  Unfortunately, the game crashed on me a couple times leading to a couple hours' worth being lost between the crashes.

Being a visual novel, there aren't any moving 3D character models to animate, so some of my pet peeves like hair clipping through shoulders are avoided.  As a result, the 2D character images are absolutely fantastic, and the voice acting - all in Japanese, by the way - is great.  My only real gripe with the visuals is that there aren't many backgrounds, and for a visual novel that took me around 25 hours to get through, it would have been nice to see a little bit of variety in the image backdrops.  Other than that, it looks great.  Unfortunately, it does suffer from a bit of the game fatigue problem that a lot of Shin Megami Tensei games have with me - it just lasts too long.  It's a really good story with great characters, but it just lasts longer than it probably ought to.

Nurse Love Addiction is a very enjoyable visual novel and one of the few good ones that I've played on Vita.  It gets a bit tedious and drags on a bit longer than it should, but it's still a really enjoyable story, and since it's on a handheld that you can just put in sleep mode and then pick up whenever you have five or ten minutes here or there, it's a perfect fit.  It's one of the best pooping games I've ever played on Vita.  It's not without its flaws, though.  I had some crashes, and as I said, it wears out its welcome.  I absolutely recommend giving it a download if you see it on sale, though.  I wouldn't dish out the money for the Limited Run release like I did unless you collect LRG releases (like I do) or just LOVE ecchi VNs (like I do), but definitely give it a download.

Super Mario Sunshine is, for me, for the Mario IP what Majora's Mask is for Zelda.  It's that one game in the series that it seems like most people love but that I just detest.  I've got a couple of friends who also didn't enjoy Sunshine, but the general consensus seems to be that this game is fantastic, and I just don't see it.

My most immediate issue with Super Mario Sunshine is that it just feels awkward.  Like, maybe it shouldn't, but so many things about this game make me just uncomfortable.  Mario's short sleeves.  Peach in a short sleeve dress.  The fact that Peach, Toadsworth, Bowser, and Bowser Jr all have fully voice acted dialogue.  Like, maybe I'm just a crotchety old man who's stuck in his ways, but that stuff just made my skin crawl.  The game's mechanics themselves and the setting aren't bad, but the whole thing just felt a little off, and I think that mostly stems from FLUDD.  It was a cool gimmick for a while, but it started to feel like it took the emphasis off of the platforming somewhat to focus on that gimmick.

When I think of a Mario game, I think of a platformer that has interesting power-ups that, while extremely helpful, are all completely unnecessary to complete the level.  Sure, some level specific gimmicks are great, but that's a level built around a gimmick; the game itself remains pure platforming.  Sunshine seemed to replace some of the platforming with the FLUDD gimmick, and nothing highlights that better in my opinion than the complete lack of power-ups.  Sure, you can swap between a hover, rocket, and boost nozzle for FLUDD, but those didn't even come close to feeling like actual power-ups.  A lot of the levels also felt more like the focus was "squirt this thing with water until this one thing happens" rather than "do this platforming."  There are some totally straight up platforming levels, and I loved those even though they got really tough, but most of the game just felt like it had lost its identity.

The game does, at least, look absolutely stunning.  It's obvious that they were showing off the Gamecube's hardware prowess with Sunshine because this game looks better than some PS3 and 360 games I've played if you take into account the difference in resolution.  The presentation is bright and color, aspects that are core to Mario's identity, and the soundtrack is absolutely fantastic.  It's just a shame that the game mechanics fell short of the audio and visual performances.  Well, the voice acting was also a major negative mark for me because was just creepy and uncomfortable, but that's much more subjective an assessment for me.

I really tried to like Super Mario Sunshine.  I played it years ago and hated it, so I let some time pass before trying it again because I really WANTED to like it.  I wanted to say "Wow, I was crazy years ago!  This game is great!"  But it's not.  It's definitely not a bad game, but with a pedigree like Super Mario, this isn't up to par.  The gimmick takes emphasis away from the platforming, Mario's controls feel less responsive and tight than both past and previous titles, and the bizarre choice to have every major character minus Mario himself fully voice acted with dialogue just comes off as awkward.  I think it's a game that every dedicated Nintendo gamer has an obligation to play at least once, but I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed it.

Also available on Windows

Omega Quintet is another love-it-or-hate-it Compile Heart JRPG that, as anyone who's familiar with Compile Heart's games in the past decade or so can tell you, plays exactly like every other JRPG Compile Heart has made.  I, personally, think that's a fantastic thing.  It also means, however, that you didn't like one of Idea Factory's and Compile Heart's other recent JRPGs, you probably won't like this one, either, since it's basically the same game with different characters.

So the story of Omega Quintet is pretty familiar for Idea Factory fans.  There's this world-threatening evil phenomenon that's spawning seven or eight different monsters each of which have approximately half a dozen palette swaps and destroying human civilization, and only a small group of scantily-clad young girls possess the ability to fight this evil.  These "Verse Maidens" have the ability to weaponize their voices...or something...which allows them to slay these monsters and sing the portals spawning them out of existence.  Yep, it's exactly as stupid as it sounds, but for the specific type of weeb that loves Idea Factory's shenanigans (read: me), it's gloriously stupid.  Leading this group of ladies is their "manager" and the main playable protagonist, Takt.  I say playable, but that's only technically true; he's "your" character and who you run around as in your home base, but he isn't usable in dungeons, and he's only usable in battle in a support role, adding an occasional weak bonus attack or taking some of the damage of an enemy attack for your party characters.

The gameplay is your pretty standard modern turn based JRPG.  You pick a character to be the "leader" of the group who becomes the character you see while running around, and you explore dungeons to find items, plot flags, and bosses.  There are no random encounters instead opting for Idea Factory's recent norm of having contact with monsters in the dungeon start a battle.  When you get in the battle, the combat is pretty standard.  Rather than having a "your turn/enemy turn" format, the turns are based on each individual character's stats and actions.  You get a certain number of action points each turn, and the more of those you use, the longer it will be until your next turn.  If you just use one action and then defend, your character's next turn will come a lot sooner than if you used all four of your hypothetical action points to attack.  There are some other nuances - using "Harmonize" to have all of your characters attack repeatedly one after another in a giga-combo of death - but that's the basic.  You have four basic types of attacks.  First if your regular attack that doesn't use any energy.  Then you have magic attacks which use special energy and have particular elemental affinities.  Third are your "mic" attacks which also use special energy but are based on the type of weapon you have equipped rather than a specific element.  Fourth are a kind of special or super attack.  These are technically still mic attacks, but in addition to using a large amount of special energy, they also use "Voltage" which can be charged up to 5 points by dealing and taking damage.  These aren't attacks you'll use often because of the voltage and energy requirement, but they deal devastating damage when you do use them.

When I mentioned the mic attacks, I mentioned that they were based on what type of weapon you're using.  There are six (but really five) types of weapons.  The type that I don't really count is the sword because only Takt can use that weapon type, and that's also the only weapon type that Takt can use.  The other five types, however, can be used by any of the five girls and can be changed at any time though each weapon has an affinity stat with each girl that can be leveled up by using that weapon type and determines how many action points they get.  These five weapon types are the battleaxe, the spear, the sniper rifle, the brass knuckles on steroids, and the fan.  Each of these weapons have varying levels of effect based on distance between the character and the enemy.

Your battles are broken down into 8 "levels" with regards to field positions.  There are five rows on which enemies can be, and your characters are on three rows.  In general, you'll want your longer ranged characters like those with sniper rifles or spears on the back rows, but that's not always the most advantageous place as battles get more complex.  Suppose that your enemies are all on the fifth row of the enemy plane causing a serious drop in damage and accuracy for short range characters even if they're on the front row.  That would be too much distance to have your sniper on your back row, so in that case, you'd want to move them up front even though that opens them up to more damage.  On lower difficulties, this isn't as much of a concern, but it will make or break a fight on higher difficulties.  You can tell a certain weapon or attack's ideal range by the color of the enemy field when you have the attack selected and are choosing a target; green indicates the ideal range, blue indicates a good effective range, yellow indicates a sub-optimal range, and red indicates that it's a seriously out of range attack.  Even in the red ranges, your attacks will still do damage, but they'll suffer big penalties to accuracy and damage upwards of 25%.  Likewise, if your attack is in the green range, it will enjoy a boon to accuracy and damage upwards of 25%.

My biggest problem with the game is the character development.  They're almost all ass holes.  Seriously, like they're all total jerks to each other.  They'll have moments now and then of being cute or sweet, but for like 90% of the game, they're dicks.  I'm totally cool with having one or two characters with generally rude personalities, but it's pretty much the entire cast of the game.  The only one who's mean a minority of the time is Otoha, and that's mostly because everyone's always being mean to her so she's the target more than the one doing the targeting.  It just kind of put a damper on what would otherwise have been a cute harem titty anime game.  >_<  The game DOES, however, feature a separate set of hit points for your character and your character's clothes, and when those outfit hitpoints reach zero, then you've got a cute anime girl fighting in her underwear.  I love this game.  :')  There's also a music video choreography minigame of sorts, but it didn't seem to have much effect on the core game, so I never really messed with it.

Omega Quintet is a pretty standard Idea Factory/Compile Heart JRPG.  Have you played Megadimension Neptunia VII?  Then you've pretty much played Omega Quintet.  There are a couple of little gimmick differences along with the character and setting differences, but in terms of mechanics and actual gameplay, they're pretty much exactly the same.  Idea Factory doesn't really push the envelope far, and its games are pretty niche, but if you're like me and dig that niche, then you already know that this is a great game.  My one big complaint is the ending.  There's a normal ending and a true ending, and the normal ending is...not really an ending.  It's basically "After the final battle, nothing changed, so let's keep killing monsters to protect the city!"  That's it.  No resolution whatsoever.  Other than THAT, though, I had fun.  I'm probably being a little more generous with this score than I should be, and I did start to feel a little bit of game fatigue towards the end, but all in all, I really enjoyed Omega Quintet and the few little unique elements it had.  I'd recommend it for fans of titty anime games.

Also available on PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4

Red Dead Redemption is a game that I hear about all the time and have for years, but I never hear much the predecessor, Red Dead Revolver.  What little I had heard was "It's not nearly as good as Redemption" and "Just don't bother with it."  Well, that sounds like heresy to me, so I stubbornly insisted on playing the first game in the series despite the lack of narrative connection to Redemption and despite the near-universal suggestions to skip it.

The basic story of Red Dead Revolver is that you're the son of a Native American woman and a rugged white cowboy fella, but some bad dudes come to kill your folks.  Naturally, being a video game protagonist, you set out on a quest to kill everyone involved in your parents' murders and find out the truth of why they were killed.  From there, the game consists of a series of levels that involve shooting a bunch of bad guys with the occasional boss fight as well as a quickdraw duel every now and then.  The problem with the quick draw duels is that it just feels abrupt and kind of shoehorned.  Y'all remember how just awkward and out of place the katana fights felt in Red Steel for Wii?  Like, why can't I just shoot him with this SMG I have?  That's how these duels felt to me.  I already have a lever action rifle out, and I'm already hiding in cover.  Why am I going to get out of cover, square off with this guy, and do a quick draw?

Visually, the game looks great running in 480p over YPbPr, and it sounds great, too, although the voice acting is a bit hit or miss (more misses than hits).  The controls can be a bit touchy and finicky especially where taking cover is concerned, but it's nothing that will kill the game for you.  There are, however, a fair number of rather silly bugs and a few irritating bugs (and features that really ought to be considered bugs despite being intentional).  Things like aiming three inches past a wooden wall and yet still shooting the wall, trying to climb up onto a rock and grasping the air in front of the rock, etc.  The rest are just really questionable design choices.  Why can this guy survive six bullets to the face?  Why does this Mexican general sound like Ol' Bubba from the trailer down the road?  Why am I fighting an army of midget clowns?  Why are random civilians running around like chickens with their heads cut off while I'm chasing this one dude around this small down exchanging gunfire instead of hiding which causes them to run RIGHT in front of my gun, get themselves killed before I even realize what happened, and force me to restart the damn level?  I'm a little salty.

Red Dead Revolver really isn't as lackluster as my friends had made it out to be, but I can't say I disagree with their conclusion of "skip it."  It's a fun Western shooter, but there's as much frustration as there is fun.  I'd still recommend it for fans of third person shooters or of games set in the American West, but for the average player who just wants a good time and is neutral about the genre and/or setting, there are better ways to scratch that itch (I recommend Red Steel 2 on Wii).  Overall, though, it's definitely not a bad game, and there's absolutely some fun to be had, but it only barely rises above "okay."

Also available on PlayStation Vita, Ouya, Android, iOS, Linux, OSX, and Windows

When I was in elementary school, my favorite days where the days that my teacher would take us to the computer lab and let us play Math Blaster or Oregon Trail.  I loved Oregon Trail, and I still think it's a fantastic game 25+ years later.  When I was in college, I discovered Super Amazing Wagon Adventure on the Xbox 360 indie storefront, and I wasted dozens of drunken hours on that game with friends.  Now we have the zombie apocalypse parody take on Oregon Trail - Organ Trail.

The basic goal in Organ Trail is pretty much the same as that of Oregon Trail; you have to make your way westward across the United States to get to Oregon because there's supposedly a safe haven from the zombies in the northwestern United States.  There are huge chunks of the country that are irradiated from what I assume to be nuclear containment attempts, and during your journey, you'll get choices on which routes to take.  Do you take the shorter route through the irradiated zones, or do you take a longer route that uses more resources and exposes you to more zombie risk in favor of not having to deal with radiation sickness?  It's that kind of cost/benefit analysis element that REALLY makes the game intriguing for me.

The visuals are done in a pseudo-8-bit style, but given that it's supposed to be a parody of an early 90s PC game, it works brilliantly.  As you travel from landmark to landmark, you have to keep an eye on your supplies, and that's more than just gas, food, and bullets; you have to consider spare tires, spare car batteries, medkits, and the overall HP of both your party members as well as your station wagon.  You also, naturally, have to contend with illnesses like dysentery and typhoid but also radiation poisoning and - of course - zombie bites.  All in all, it does an EXCELLENT job of capturing all of the gameplay functions of the original Oregon Trail.  Instead of fording rivers, you have to drive through hordes of zombies, and instead of hunting, you have to scavenge for supplies while fighting off zombies. 

The fact that there are so many risk vs reward choices to make with regards to your pace and route give the game a lot of replayability, but each landmark also provides you with optional missions to complete.  Some of these aren't at all worth it - a mission ranked "suicidal" with a reward of one tire - but some of them are fantastic - a mission ranked "moderate" with a reward of $80.  It's all about how confident you are at shooting zombies and how much you need whatever resource it is that the mission gives as a reward.  It's really a fantastic take on Oregon Trail that seamlessly integrates the zombie theme.  A lot of "-insert game- but with zombies!" games feel haphazard and like the zombies are shoehorned in just for the sake of the fad, but that's not the case with Organ Trail.  If you'd never played or heard of Oregon Trail, this would feel like a simplistic but completely competent indie game.

Organ Trail is, at its heart, Oregon Trail with zombies.  It's for that very reason that it's fantastic.  The difficulty settings make it a little more approachable to total newcomers than the original Oregon Trail, but given that those difficulties range from "Don't an idiot, and you'll live" all the way up to "Abandon hope all ye who enter," few will find themselves lacking challenge.  It's a seriously addicting game, and given that it's available on just about every system except Xbox's and Nintendo's, there are few who are without a way to play this gem.