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52 Games Challenge 2026!!!
supremeusername:
1. Mario Kart World | 2025 | Switch 2 | 1/14:
First game of 2026 officially completed!, and why not start the year off right with some good old Mario Kart? I just received a Switch 2 around Christmas and was expecting to marathon through DK Bananza, but was pretty sidetracked at how fun this new MK game is -- and it's not only because of the racing. The open-world of MK World doesn't have any inspiring set objectives. The only objective officially given to you is finding and completing collectibles & challenges for car stickers that you hardly see on your own vehicle. However, I can't help but go back into the open-world (called Free Roam) after every few races. The world that's given to explore, to discover, to complete objectives, and to make your own, is very well-crafted and very Nintendo. Stopping at a bench with a Yoshi or Toad on it and having them wave back at you when you honk the horn is one of the many little things that gives this game life and makes me want to continue exploring Mario Kart's World.
The Free Roam and 10-hour long soundtrack alone make this a great game, but there just so happens to be a mode for racing other players as well. Grand Prix is pretty alright in my opinion. Mario Kart 8 is a complete game that would be nigh impossible for this game to compete with if they were to stick with the traditional track formula, so I don't mind the mix-up. That, combined with 24 players on the same track, leaves for some real chaotic fun & some frustration when you get hit by item spam (which WILL happen). The retro tracks are really cool with how they've been redesigned to fit with Free Roam, but there are some stinkers. Like, what happened to all the hills in Desert Hills? I'm curious as to what Nintendo has planned in terms of future updates cause there hasn't been anything of note aside from adding custom items to local multiplayer (which is admittedly cool, but nothing substantial). I would love to see a playlist mode where you can choose what music tracks you want to listen to or filter out during Free Roam (why this isn't a feature yet, I have no idea). As it is today however, Mario Kart World is a fantastic celebration of both past and present in the Mario Kart franchise & the Mario series itself.
Grade: A-
kashell:
8. Mega Man ZX - Vent
This was a lot more fun than I remember it being. Mega Merging is a rad concept that keeps the action going non-stop, despite some forms being more useful than others. The water form is just about useless. The game was also a lot more challenging. While the save point issue is resolved in this collection, it still doesn't mean the game is simple. Enemies move fast and hit hard. And they're everywhere. This is a big game that clearly took advantage of the jump from GBA to DS. There's also a darker tone with the story. One thing I forgot about until I finished the first boss was that you have to be careful how you land your hits. If you damage a Maverick incorrectly, then your rewards are decreased. E Crystals can be used to make any repairs, but still. It's frustrating to see a Level 1 or 2 finish despite trying to be careful.
supremeusername:
2. Crazy Taxi | 2000 | DreamCast | 1/16:
Man, I didn't realize how fun it would be to replay Crazy Taxi again in the year of 2026. I played a couple of hours of the Steam PC version with restoration mods years ago, and I've probably doubled that time of recent with the OG Dreamcast version. I've since noticed that the open-world is smaller from what I remembered, that the game is very janky and many locations of the clients are the same each time you start over, and that I suck ass at pulling off the special crazy maneuvers that the game does a poor job of explaining to you. And yet, I don't see any of that as a negative. I've had a ton of fun with all my time playing Crazi Taxi again. And that's what matters at the end of the day. Grade: B+
supremeusername:
3. Vital Shell | 2026 | PC | 1/23:
Another addition to the Vampire Survivors, action roguelike-genre: we have Vital Shell. Right of the bat, you control a mech and fight 20 waves of various unique-looking enemies, ending off with a boss encounter. The visuals are chunky and glorious with a jungle,
drum-n-bass soundtrack to round it off. This could easily pass as a classic PS1 or DreamCast title if it were released back in the day.
It does play a bit different to how Vampire Survivors would. You get to upgrade your mech with new weapons, skills, and augments after each wave -- as opposed to when you level up. Leveling up here just gives you stat bonuses that correlate to the build of your mech. Augments -- which are colored gems -- give the game more flavor as you can only equip 4 onto each weapon. Equiping 4 gems onto one weapon will grant it a unique ability, which all depends on the combination of the gem colors. You also have a much more confined space to battle enemies compared to Vampire Survivors. Having enough speed or DPS stats to create openings for your mech is of utmost importance in this game.
This was a surprise to play considering that I kind of bought it on a whim. I had no recollection of wishlisting this game until I got the email from Steam that it was available to purchase & play. It is well worth the asking price of $6 and another great game to start off the year.
Grade: B+
kamikazekeeg:
4 - Dead Island 2 (PC 2023) - BEAT - This is my second playthrough of the game as I had played it on Epic when it came out and got it insanely cheap with the DLC, which was the big reason to check it out. The main game is solid, coming off Dying Light 2 and The Beast, I like the linearity of this abit more, focus on bloody violence and some humor, it's more direct fun, a lot less open world roaming that drags. Dying Light still does movement stuff well, which DI2 could certainly use at times as you'd get situations that you wish you could charge through crowds or leap over better lol I don't want to see grappling hooks and all that, but there's definitely a little more room to improve general movement.
Forgot the ending was such a cliffhanger, you have some big bads teased through the game, but you only interact with one, in the DLC, and it's not to take her out, it's a big setup for a third game for sure.
DLC is overall solid, two favorite areas, Haus built around the artistically driven rich creeps creating a dark cult, built around a mysterious person. And then Sola, which is about a huge festival that's gone horrible wrong, Coachella with zombies. Both dive deeper into stuff with the Autophage, the thing that turns people into zombies, it's not simply a virus, and the way they expand on it I'm a little mixed, it's trying to make it such much bigger, almost makes me think of Death Stranding and I'm not sure how much I love that. Not bad, but it would take the next game to really explore it fully.
In the end, I kinda realized some things I disliked, the combat needs to be less stiff. There's a lot of times where you get locked into animations, heavy strikes usually doing these stationary animation attacks, or if you stun a zombie, you can then get some brutal attacks in, but they take way too long. The stuns need to be glory kills like in Doom 2016, fast, insta-death, and then I'd kinda get rid of the lock on heavy attacks just to move away from being stuck in place. The SOLA dlc in particular emphasized another issue where you could quickly get juggled into hits or stunned on the ground while taking environment damage, and really just lose large chunks of health fast. I died like a dozen times in the final two big SOLA fights because I'd suddenly lose 75% of my health or more and had no chance to recover.
Frustrations at times with the combat aside, I did have fun, I'm not doing most of the side stuff, this was purely a story run, but there's New Game+ stuff here and I think completion on the game, with DLC is probably 40 to 50 hours, so a good chunk of time for sure.
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