52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

[kamikazekeeg]

I hit credits on Ball x Pit today.  It was a really fun Vampire Survivors timed survival style game, that played like Breakout or Arkanoid.  It's not quite as streamlined as VS, though, with some base building stuff that drags down the early game a little.  It gets kinda grindy towards the end and kinda boring if youve been keeping up with upgrades, as you can be pretty overpowered if you are staying on top of the upgrade system.  The VS comparisons really don't help my feelings about it, since it cost 3 times as much, but wore out its welcome way faster.  Worth picking up on sale, at least.

It is interesting how a game that I think is mechanically and visually better than Vampire Survivors, isn't as good as VS, because the draw to these sorta mindless shoot-em up style games is the ease of jumping in and kinda losing yourself to the power creep, but you spend less time in rounds, then have to do base upgrades (Which I generally liked) and then you have to be more engaged with the gameplay because you want to get those ricochets or get behind tougher enemies and such.  I liked it quite abit, but hit 15 hours with the ending and that was sorta good for me, having unlocked all the characters too, while I have currently 105 hours into Vampire Survivors and I'm gonna put more as I'm still not finished with the Castlevania DLC, some other free update stuff, they just added more to the Castlevania DLC, and just did a Balatro free update lol

[Cartagia]

I hit credits on Ball x Pit today.  It was a really fun Vampire Survivors timed survival style game, that played like Breakout or Arkanoid.  It's not quite as streamlined as VS, though, with some base building stuff that drags down the early game a little.  It gets kinda grindy towards the end and kinda boring if youve been keeping up with upgrades, as you can be pretty overpowered if you are staying on top of the upgrade system.  The VS comparisons really don't help my feelings about it, since it cost 3 times as much, but wore out its welcome way faster.  Worth picking up on sale, at least.

It is interesting how a game that I think is mechanically and visually better than Vampire Survivors, isn't as good as VS, because the draw to these sorta mindless shoot-em up style games is the ease of jumping in and kinda losing yourself to the power creep, but you spend less time in rounds, then have to do base upgrades (Which I generally liked) and then you have to be more engaged with the gameplay because you want to get those ricochets or get behind tougher enemies and such.  I liked it quite abit, but hit 15 hours with the ending and that was sorta good for me, having unlocked all the characters too, while I have currently 105 hours into Vampire Survivors and I'm gonna put more as I'm still not finished with the Castlevania DLC, some other free update stuff, they just added more to the Castlevania DLC, and just did a Balatro free update lol

Pretty much where im at with it.  The strength of Vampire Survivors is the pure simplicity (and amount of content). The base building in BxP isn't bad by any means, but it's a hurdle when all you really want to do is play the levels.  Theres too much to think about, comparatively.

[kamikazekeeg]

Pretty much where im at with it.  The strength of Vampire Survivors is the pure simplicity (and amount of content). The base building in BxP isn't bad by any means, but it's a hurdle when all you really want to do is play the levels.  Theres too much to think about, comparatively.

I really wanted to like the base building more, I think it's an awesome way to make upgrades come across as "physical" instead of just a menu option, but what I found was that I'd just put buildings anywhere they'd fit and then when needing to build, I'd create a tiny cul-de-sac of upgrading/construction buildings that they couldn't get out of, and once those were built, they'd get thrown somewhere else to make room for a new batch of buildings that needed a little place to bounce around in, so the village never really took off in the way I think they thought it would.  Cool idea, but in the end not as engaging as it could have been, but an interesting attempt to try and set itself apart.  Sorta feel like they could've added more like roads that could speed up bouncing, or more general decor for the sake of driving people to want to spiffy up the village instead of just throwing buildings wherever.

[kamikazekeeg]

35 - Voices of the Void (PC) - ENDLESS - Thought it was last year when I last played, but it was actually earlier this year, but couldn't help it, new update dropped (Game has been a free WIP for quite a long time now) and it added some really cool features, overhauling mechanics, adding more detail, it's not a super different game, but it's apparently now the functionally "final" design of the base, no more big additions or changes, just tweaks from here on out.  There's a lot of control differences with this update that has been hard to get use to when you get so use to the muscle memory from previous versions.  Love this game, it's weird, creepy, and super engaging and I like that there's been more depth added and there's still a ways for the game to go, but I love it.

Don't know if I'll get to the end of the available story moments this time, it's actually an unstable update for the moment, so it has a number of bugs right now, but I was just way too interested to see the new stuff to wait.  Either way, I'm dumping hours into the game.

[telly]

Game 26 - Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD (PS5) - 8 Hours

Have you ever gone back to your childhood middle or elementary school? Walked through the hallways, looked at the lockers and thought to yourself… when was I ever this small? That’s basically how it felt playing Ty the Tasmanian Tiger. I greatly enjoyed playing this game on my PS2 when I was a kid and decided to pick up the HD remaster digitally for a much-needed change of pace from all the stressful horror-filled games that I’ve been playing over the past few months. And immediately, the game conjured up a lot of fond memories. I thought the game was way vaster and more complex than it actually is, and I also found the game was a lot easier.

Of course now as an adult, I can see that this game is pretty simple and yet it's still fun and offers a really solid gameplay experience. I found the controls to be very fluid, and I really enjoyed the level design that borrows from a lot of Australian topography. Of course the characters are great with lots of Australian slang and silly dialogue. Even though the game is a clone of Mario 64, which was very popular during this period of gaming, it's still fun to collect all the Thunder Eggs the Golden Cogs, all the boomerangs, and the hidden concept art. I had just as much fun playing this now as I did when I was a kid.

This era of gaming will always have a special place in my heart and I think it would be fun to play more games from this time period. Maybe that will be something fun to do next year. I want to start with Scooby-Doo: Night of 100 Frights, the first game I ever played on my PS2. That will be really interesting.

[kamikazekeeg]

36 - Poppy's Playtime: Chapter 4 (PC 2024) - BEAT - This was an interesting shift after the third chapter.  The game stayed pretty PG-13 up to this point, relatively speaking, a few things were kinda dark, but they usually avoided showing real dead bodies, but not this time, 4th chapter had dead human bodies all over.  It's nothing gory or extra violent, but it was not something I expected after the first three chapters.  Definitely the complete realization of its gameplay experience, though they didn't add anything new in particular gameplay wise, which was odd.  Decent enough puzzles, a lot more character stuff as you get to hang around with Doey a lot, talk to Poppy more, they didn't kinda flop with the Safe Haven concept, as you don't get to interact with anyone.

I think I like this chapter less than the last one, because the facade of a friendly place is all gone now, which makes sense for the story, but that means I'm just running around kinda caverns, and tunnels, and this big jail place and it's way less interesting than either the Game Station or Playcare. Once again good animations and character voice acting.  Think it's coming up on the end of the series, I can't imagine they go much further than one more chapter at this point as it all seems to be leading up to this I think.

[bizzgeburt]

13 - Tetris [DE] (Game Boy)
https://vgcollect.com/item/277791

Hardware: Game Boy Color / Game Boy Advance (Screen Mod) / SNES+Super Game Boy
Highscore: 127.531


Oh mighty, what is NOT to say about this game!?
For many console/handheld gamers my age, the first experience with video gaming came along with an iteration of Tetris in any imagineable shape or form. Many of us have fond memories connected to it and starting this review I'm a little overwhelmed with what to mention first of what makes this game the undisputed milestone of video game history it truely is. I decided to start off with my personal Tetris-story:
To ears a bit younger than mine (I'm born 1988), it might sound weird, but before being confronted with the Nintendo Game Boy in the early 1990s, my infant mind didn't know what video games, consoles or handhelds were. Our mother blessed us with the purchase of an Game Boy Tetris Bundle along with a classic series version of Warioland, and this actually was my very first contact with any form of video game. The iconic Type-A music was the first piece of game music that ever graced my ears. After a while, the Game Boy + Tetris became furniture inside our bathroom, suddenly increasing the cases of spontaneous digestive problems within our Family  Since those golden days of my childhood in the early 90s, I've played/re-played this title a bazillion times on almost every original hardware imagineable during my lifetime of now 37 years. I could sum up nostalgia regarding this game endlessly, so I'd rather get into the real informative section:

The history of Tetris reportedly began in spring 1984 with a guy named Alexei Paschitnow. While working for Dorodnitsyn-Computer-Centre of the Soviet Academy of Science in Moscow, he came up with the idea of computing an electronic version of the puzzle-game 'Pentomino' that he knew from his childhood. This forefather of what whould become one of the most influential videogames of all time was thought out by Solomon W. Golomb in 1954 and  functioned by puzzling with shapes assembled out of 5 squares - so called 'Pentaminos'. Realizing those Shapes and reconstructing this game in it's original way wasn't technically possible back under the iron curtain and constant threat of nuclear winter, Paschitnow simplified the puzzle's shapes down to ones composed out of 4 squares, he then called 'Tetraminos', which ultimately lead to the game's name Tetris - if not to say Тетрис (a combination of Tetramino and Tennis). The very first version he came up with this way lacked sound and color, but is said to have already had captivated the rest of the programmers team at Dorotnitsyn. The first colored version was ported to an IBM-PC in summer 1985 by Wadim Gerassimow.
I won't bother you with the confusing story about how this gem made it's way out of the midst of the USSR over to Japan/North America and Europe, but let me say this: this story reads itself like a cold war espionage thriller and would make a awesome infotaining payTV series. The version of Tetris I tend to play was released by Nintendo in Germany along with the Game Boy in 1990 and is said to be the original inventor Paschitnow's favourite version.

Graphically, of course the GB-version already was way more defined than it's first iteration and introduced the game with a beautifully (in 8-bit ways) drawn picture of the Kremlin and it's own well known and loved ending sequences showing either a small or medium rocket, or a space shuttle lifting off, if either 100000, 150000 or
 200000 points are scored.
I always loved to create my own colour-palettes on Super Game Boy, especially for this game. Here's my personal Super Game Boy colour palette code list for Tetris:
0812-7328-4349 (Original Game Boy Screen)
1920-6419-7320 (Soviet Red)
2423-0624-2179 (Sibirian Snow)
1393-0627-8201 (Tundra Blue)
3541-3322-6292 (Magical Moscow)
I'd be glad to see someone using these

And now, my favourite part: music. The Soundtrack of Tetris for Game Boy was entirely composed and/or ported to the system by Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka, who was highly influenced by classical music in doing so, especially old russian folklore music. Most common example is the iconic Music A, which essentially is a shorter version of the russian poem/song 'Korobeiniki' originating in 1861. Music B is mostly Tanaka's own composition, also highly influenced by russian folklore. And my personal favourite, Music C, turned out to be an interpretation of a menuette of Johann Sebastian Bach's 'French Suite No. 3 in B-minor, BMV 814' (ca. 1722-1725). The last known classical influence of Tetris' musical score is known to be the victory-fanfare, which is a part of the musical piece 'Trepak' out of Pyotr I. Tschaikowski's 'The Nutcracker' from 1892. Every other song is said to be composed entirely by Tanaka himself.
With that in mind and the fact that the game's mechanics themselves are based on a very old game, Game Boy's Tetris seems to have been a classic experience all around even way before it's commercial release!

I think I don't really need to mention Tetris' genuine mix of simplicity, addictiveness and rising challenge. Everyone knows of the points that make this game shine out through the decades. But I hope my review gave some of you guys a bit further information which perhaps was formerly unknown to you.
I considered this game as finished because I kept on failing to beat my latest highscore. If you're into this, try beating it and let me know.

With this dinosaur of a game behind me, I'll continue to finish my PS1-games before they rot again 

[kashell]

73. Unicorn Overlord - platinum'd

This was a fun game to replay. I loved it last year, and loved it this year. I really enjoyed trying new set ups and formations, all of which lead to an easy yet lengthy platinum. In terms of story, I feel like I learned more this time around despite skipping familiar dialogue. I'm glad I replayed this. It was long a time coming.

[bikingjahuty]

108. Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (PS5)

Whenever I beat a game, the most common emotions I typically feel are satisfied, bored, relieved, or happy, depending on the game of course. One emotion I typically don't feel after beating a game is genuine anger, bordering rage. I play a lot of challenging games and while there are a handful of these really hard games that had my blood pressure through the roof and ready to hurl my controller through my TV by the time I beat them, it's typically games that screw with me in some other way that makes me feel genuine anger upon beating them. Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is one of those games.


Going into Rebirth, I was pretty optimistic and excited. For one, I really enjoyed its predecessor, Remake, and have very find memories of playing through it during the early days of the COVID lockdowns. While there were some very noteworthy differences between Remake and the original game on the PS1, the game really took nearly everything that made the original a certified classic and just fleshed things out even more. The end result was one of the better JRPGs I've ever played and a game I found deeply enjoyable and satisfying for the most part. I expected more of the same going into Rebirth, knowing full well that there would be changes, likely some being dramatic compared to the original game, but I was ready and excited to see what those were. What I didn't expect was the story to take a hard left turn into WTF is even going on territory and for characters to be downgraded compared to their original game counterparts.


While I'm not going to spoil anything, I will say that Tetsuya Nomura is a troll and a piece of shit. Instead of giving us something definitive at certain very important junctures in Remake, he instead puts you on a fence and doesn't let you have the closure or payoff of what you've worked so hard for in the game. I know that might sound confusing to anyone who hasn't played Remake, but trust me when I say, you will be led to believe something is one way, but also completely the opposite as well, with no clear resolution as to which is actually happening. This is massive problem with stories that use some sort of multiverse plot mechanic, which more often than not just removes all stakes and anything is possible and nothing is definitive. Everything can be undone, changed, or redefined and it cheapens the story heavily. FF7 Rebirth does this while simultaneously ruining characters and making characters act unlike themselves or just plain stupid when the writers need them to be. But more than anything, Nomura and other writers that worked on this game refusing to give you a straight answer and instead flip flopping between events and then at the end giving you a softball conclusion with more questions than answers remaining is just shitty.


Fortunately, there are elements of the story that are pretty good, and these often coincide with parts of the game that stay more faithful to the original while attempting to flesh those parts out more. Speaking of fleshing things out, certain characters are done way better than others in terms of giving them way more depth than was possible on the now ancient PS1 hardware. Unfortunately, sticking close to the events of the original game didn't completely go towards making thIs game better.  Rebirth has some terrible pacing issues at certain sections of the game, mostly starting around the time you reach Costa Del Sol. The game then puts you on an up and down rollercoaster of becoming very engaging and interesting, but then dropping you back into another part of the main game that's dull and tedious. Luckily, I'd say most of the game remains interesting despite the last 10th of the game really dropping the ball and undoing so much of what you may have enjoyed prior to it.


FF7 Rebirth's gameplay is a brighter spot than it's story, albeit it isn't perfect either. The core gameplay which revolves around exploration and combat is mostly pretty fun and well implemented. This is especially true of the combat which is fun, fast, and engaging, but also strategic as well. Anyone who played Remake will be at home with Rebirth's combat system, and outside a few poorly designed boss fights, the combat system is a major contributing factor to Rebirth's overall fun factor. Exploration is also pretty good. There are a several regions you'll be exploring in Rebirth, all of which take the form of large open world maps that have a lot of interesting areas to explore. All regions are also filled with objectives, quests, and landmarks to explore, all of which grant you experience as well as fill out the world of FF7 way more than the original ever could. Unfortunately, a lot of the side tasks and missions in this game take the form of fetch questions and other tedious errands what can really feel more grindy than fun. I found myself enjoying Rebirth the most when I stuck to the main story mostly, but I also spent a fair amount of the game working on side missions and tasks as well, but some of my least favorite parts of Rebirth's gameplay were admittedly doing the latter.


One other aspect of FF7 Rebirth's gameplay that has to be mentioned is the INSANE amount of mini games this game has. When I say insane, I mean there are dozens upon dozens of vastly different mini games present in Rebirth. I was literally discovering new mini games I'd never played nearly 50 hours into my playthrough. It's ridiculous! Unfortunately, Rebirth's mini games are more about quantity than quality. There are a few really good mini games, chief among them is the excellent and addictive card game, Queen's Blood. However, most other mini games are simply just okay, and a few are downright crap. Participating in mini games is a huge part of the side missions and quests I described earlier, as well as an essential part of raising Cloud's affinity with specific characters. Unfortunately because most of the side quests are meh at best, it'll feel like a chore if you want to go for a more completionist run or max out your affinity with specific characters. I can safely say you're enjoyment with this game will greatly depend on not just what mini games you decide to play, but how many of them too.


Finally, there's Rebirth's presentation. Visually, Rebirth is a very good looking game! Nearly everything in this game looks stellar, both during exploration and battles, but also during the games many cutscenes too. The only real gripe I have with the way this game looks are some of the environments can look a bit on the flat side, and certain objects like furniture and large rocks can almost have a weightlessness too them that looks really goofy. As for Rebirth's audio, it too is excellent. The OST is the stuff of legends, with a few noteworthy bad tracks thrown in; I'm looking at you Gongoga jungle music. On top of that, certain voice acting decisions and changes didn't sit right with me and even semi ruined one specific character for me. Other than that, I really enjoyed the audio in Rebirth, but it's still not perfect.


Before reaching the last 5 hours or so of Rebirth, I was ready to give this game around a 40/50, which in my book is the mark of an incredible game. But what really killed not only the story, but also my personal enjoyment of this game, was how shitty the writing was towards the end and how disrespectful it was to the people that spent the last 50+ hours playing through it. It almost makes it worse that the story was decent to pretty good throughout the rest of the game prior because I had to get all the way to the end to find out how much it screwed the rest of what happens leading to that. Now, my final score is bordering a 30/50, which is in that realm between "okay, that was a pretty good game I guess." and "wow, glad that's over despite it having some decent qualities." I'm just so annoyed and pissed off right now fresh off of beating FF7 Rebirth to where I barely care for what happens next in the remake games. I guess time will tell if I end up playing the third part in the FF7 Remake games, but I can safely say there will be no hype or excitement like there was going into Rebirth. Again, Tetsuya Nomura can go to hell. (11/11/25) [31/50]

[kamikazekeeg]

37 - Arc Raiders PC 2025) - ENDLESS - I'm about 13 hours in and while I'm sure there's an "end point" in terms of quests, functionally it's just an online multiplayer game and isn't really a "hit credits" sort of game.  Overall I like the game, it has solid gameplay and there's been a good mixture of people in solo's trying to play nice or be ruthless and bloodthirsty.  I'm often one of them lol It's a casual extraction, which is why I like it, a lot of the other games like this either are more hardcore or don't have good solo action.

PVE is okay, I think there's abit of a lack of variety in enemy types, either some form of ball robot or drone robot and then some crawlers, but of the 15 enemies, two are turrets, two only sound an alarm to bring enemies, 3 you avoid unless you have a ton of higher level gear and you don't get jumped, and one is a "boss" that you'll probably never fight, so not a lot of standard enemies.  They can be intense to fight if you get swarmed by more than one of the smaller ones, and depending on the weapon type, you might not be able to beat them as light ammo is only for the weakest ARC's or Raiders.

One bad thing that I don't like, as it was an issue with their other game is that the game has AI voice work and it's not great.  I'm not sure if every NPC is AI, some seemed okay while others sound horrible, so cutscene stuff could be actual actors and then some of the minor stuff is AI.  They did pay some VA's to do voice bank stuff that is then built off GenAI, but I don't support that either, there's a lot of issues with this.

Other than that, it's a decent enough time.  I will say their microtransactions are really high for pretty basic, middling, outfit, options.  I appreciate they aren't turning it into goofy nonsense, and it all feels right, much like Helldivers 2, but some of the outfits are like 15 to 20 bucks or something, which is crazy for a non-F2P game.

[realpoketendonl]

14. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed [PC/Steam Deck]

This game is not new to me: I first played it over 9 years ago. I enjoy it quite a lot, and I've often praised it as one of my favourite kart racers. However, despite that, I never actually "beat" the game. I know it's debatable what you even consider "beating" a kart racer, but I certainly hadn't yet done it with this one. So I now finally sat down and did it. I unlocked all of the characters, I beat all events in World Tour mode on at least Normal Difficulty (most on Hard or Expert), and I beat all Grand Prix cups on at least Normal difficulty. I think that all must count as beating it, right?

And yeah, I stand by what I said. This is a fantastic kart racer, and one of my favourites. I'm not sure I'd put it above Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but it's definitely up there. This game feels very action-packed. You are driving over gorgeous tracks that dynamically alter as the race goes on, often taking tight turns and doing tricks in tight spaces to boost yourself forward as much as you can, shifting between three vehicle modes that require at least a non-trivial amount of rapid shifting in strategy. Races are a thrill. I will say it can be a bit jank sometimes, with it being easy to bump into walls or something get out of bounds, and I swear there are some tracks with corners that are just too tight for some character loadouts to take without hitting a wall. But overall, it feels great to play. It is also not easy. Mario Kart, at least against CPU's, I can almost always get first place no problem. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed? I have almost fourty hours in this game now (spread over 9 years but still), and it can still kick my ass. Beating everything on Expert difficulty is actuallly challenging (which is why I haven't 100% completed it yet). But I like that. It's annoying when you're just trying to finish some tasks, but in races, it's great.

If you enjoy kart racers and you have not played Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed before, you're missing out. Only thing I'll say is that I've heard reviewers say that the recent Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is apparently even better, but I haven't played that yet so I wouldn't know. But Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, I can whole-heartedly recommend.

[bikingjahuty]

109. XGIII: Extreme G Racing (PS2)

Like many, one of the reasons I play a lot of retro games is experience the zeitgeist of the particular era a specific game was released in. Back in the pre-9/11 early 2000s, there was a general sense of optimism for the future where we all envisioned highly advanced, towering metropolises where everyone lived in harmony and everything was fun, exciting, and interesting. For those maybe too young to remember, or possibly you weren't even born yet, 9/11 was the beginning of the end of that unified, idealistic optimism for the future and its impact has only continued to compound more and more into the very hopeless dystopia most people think of when they envision the future now. Hell, some might argue we are living in that dystopia right now. But anyhow, before things get too serious, the reason I mention that pre-9/11 early 2000s collective optimism for the future is because of how common it was to see remnants of it in a lot of media at the time. Many shows, movies, and even games were saturated in it, and for me one of the most shining examples of it was in XGIII: Extreme G Racing.


I was a huge fan of Extreme G on the N64, so when I heard a brand new game was getting released for the then cutting edge 6th gen consoles, I appropriately freaked out with excitement. When I finally did get my hands on XGIII shortly after it came out in 2001, it was everything I'd ever wanted and then some. I adored it's futuristic settings and tracks that depicted an extreme racing series where futuristic motorcycles capable of touching nearly four digit speeds speed around crazy gravity defying race tracks. Not only that, but the soundtrack would be provided by the biggest EDM studio at the time, Ministry of Sound. Yeah, I was in love with this game...despite it being hard as balls.


Replying XGIII for the first time in probably 20 years or so, I was very happy to see none of the games charms and good qualities had been lost on me as I made several rounds through its excellent career mode, which is really the bread and butter of XGIII. As you race through various cups, you unlock more stages, more races and futuristic motorcycles, and earn credits to make you bikes even faster and more lethal. Oh, did I mention XGIII also has weapons you can use to drain your opponents shields, or just completely frag them too. The game allows you to change weapons on the fly which is a nice feature instead of hitting floating power ups on the track like you had to in the previous Extreme G games, as well as many other combat style racing games of the time. Another thing worth mentioning is your shields also use the same power source as your motorcycle's boost, which creates a very dynamic style of gameplay where you have to choose between being well defending against enemy projectiles and the occasional wall graze, or taking advantage of straight aways to pull ahead of other racers with your boost. XGIII's tracks and overall gameplay show a surprising amount of balance when it comes to juggling the shield/boost mechanic and it definitely adds to how surprisingly fun the game still is. Of course, the controls for racing are pretty damn good too. There is a real sense of speed and agility with your motorcycles in this game that really make for an engaging experience. Luckily most tracks in the game are well designed to accommodate the extreme speeds you'll be reaching in this game too.


It's not all perfect with XGIII's gameplay however. For one, this game is gets very hard the further you progress in it. Even earlier on, this game can really test your reflexed and muscle memory with a controller as you try your hardest not to hit the walls of the track, draining your precious shields. Unfortunately, not all the game's difficulty is by design, which includes some questionable tracks design in certain sections, and also jumps being a bit of an annoyance more than being a fun track feature to contend with. Weapons can also feel a bit ineffective at times, with it being more beneficial to just focus on the track and getting ahead of other racers than attempting to chip away at their shields or blow them up. However, despite these grievances, XGIII is still very fun to play for the most part, difficulty and all.


As mentioned, Ministry of Sound produced the soundtrack for XGIII which makes it a cut above not just most other racing games of the time, but most video games back in the late 90s and early 2000s. My little brother who I used to play this game with often, attributes a much of his love for EDM music to playing this game as a young kid. While I'm a fraction of the techno fan he is, XGIII undeniably has a great soundtrack still that goes perfectly with the visuals and action on the screen. Beyond just the great OST, XGIII has appropriately futuristic sounding narration voiced and sound effects too which all go great with everything else this game has to offer.


Visually, XGIII was also a cut above most games of the time. It's actually pretty surprising to me that this game wasn't a bigger deal back in the early 2000s given how good it looks. There is almost no graphical slowdown or stutter given how fast paced everything on the screen moves, and levels are all vibrant, interesting, and well designed. One minute you'll be racing through some extremely futuristic city, and the next you'll be racing through an equally awesome looking Egyptian looking area that looks like Cairo circa 2780. There was a ton of attention to detail and graphical fidelity put into this game and it absolutely shows. The game would benefit from there being more stages and maybe more variation to the appearances of the different racers, but these are mostly just nitpicks to what it otherwise an outstanding looking 6th generation game.


I can say without any hesitation that XGIII is still a riot to play. Not only does the game hold up very well nearly 25 years after its release, but there's also just very little there for me to fault. Sure, the game gets soul destroying difficult the more you progress in the game and there are a few tracks that are better than others, but on the whole this game is absolutely worth playing still. And of course, I couldn't end this review without mentioning that this game encapsulates the look, feel, and overall mood of the pre-9/11 early 2000s better than most other games released during this calm before the storm era. It was an a very fun time to be alive and thanks to games like XGIII, it can remind me of that as the years march on and I gradually forget more and more of what life was like back then. (11/15/25) [38/50]

[kashell]

74. Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound - Inner Peace

I finished this game relatively quickly, and I already got my next file on Hard mode queued up. It's sleek, polished, sharp as hell, and super accessible thanks to all of the options. I played most of the game without the need to access Assist Mode, but eventually I had to give in on the last part of the last boss. But, oh well. We do what we must. Bosses in this game are hit or miss, which is probably the only complaint I can lobby against this otherwise super awesome 2D throwback. I don't partake in Ninja Gaiden much, which I guess is a good thing since this side story is so different from the norm.

[realpoketendonl]

15. Haunted House [Atari 2600]

I picked back up Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration. My goal is to get through the museum mode (which I will consider its own game) and at least play every game in the collection. Not beat all of them, but at least try them out. (So yes, I beat this game emulated. I unfortunately don't have an Atari 2600 yet (but if you have one laying around, feel free to send it to me /j).

Now, this being an Atari collection, of course most games aren't gonna be beatable. If you know of a way to "beat" games like Pong, Breakout or Combat, please do let me know, but for this challenge I'm not going to be counting any of those. However, some of the games in this collection are beatable, Haunted House being one of them. Granted, within ten minutes, but still, I did it, and I'm gonna count it. At least, the game has nine different modes, with mode 9 officially being called "Ultimate Haunted House" and being the most difficult, but I now beat it on difficulty mode 3, and I'm going to consider that "beating" it and beating level nine "completing" it. That seems the most accurate to how "beating" and "completing" works nowadays, right?

Atari 2600 games are games you need to see through the lens of time. But seen through this lens, Haunted House is charming. It's a fun little challenge, and one of the first examples of survival horror it's also decently effective. If you're ever yearning for some Atari and haven't played Haunted House yet, it's worth a look. It's nothing to search out nowadays, but it's an admirable title for its time and I'd argue still holds more value than a lot of other Atari 2600 titles.