52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

[marvelvscapcom2]

16. It Takes Two

My partner and I played this. As a game, I have thoughts. As a story, I have more thoughts. I'll definitely get a review up for this one. We're also going to go through parts of it again to get the last remaining trophies. For now, I'll say that this is mostly competent co-op game worth checking out if you have someone to play with - a requirement.

Me and my girlfriend finished this game a few years back. I always found it interesting how it was split screen even from online multiplayer via 2 tvs. That took getting used to. It was quite the experience and I remember it insanely fondly.  I wonder what itd be like to play with a casual friend because it's so couple focused. 

[marvelvscapcom2]

7. Centipede: Recharged [PS5] -Finished Feb 14th, 2026




ARCADE DAYS REBORN

Centipede Recharged is to Atari 2600 Centipede what The light bulb is to a baked potato with copper coil wrapped around it. Alas nonetheless the original was a fine italian wine that simply knocked it out of the park. Perhaps as good as Atari gets. But now from the video game senior society it has aged from wine into raspberry crush soda somehow, it has added caffiene and cocaine and it's hyper and its sexy. But most of all it's authentic. It is freaking centipede!!

To say this game is a revision is a understatement. It is an absolute rebirth. A face lift. It has Kylie Jenner's doctor on deck. It actually succeeds at what anyone would want it to set out to do.  It doesn't go the way of most remade classic games by changing the formula, adding confusing JRPG plot, adding anime girls, adding new level layouts, robots and tutorials all wandering from the vibe.  This game does it...  it takes the beloved icon centipede. A grandfather that everyone loves and gives you that "this is what centipede woulda looked like today" feel.  It doesn't try to make a new game. It tries to hypercharge what is already known.  And tbh. It's one of the greatest arcade games ive ever played.  It's simple addictive joy. 


If this game had existed in 1978. There would have been a quarter shortage. The new centipede can be played in multiple modes. Arcade mode has 2 modes within itself.  Classic and recharged.  Classic is centipede as you remember it and you can choose to add recharged's powerups to the classic layout. Or play recharged mode which is similar but now the centipedes, fleas, scorpions and spiders attack triaxilly, and you obtain screen sparkling power ups to digitize enemy foe with.  These power ups include a firework bomb, a machine gun blaster, a spinning sphere of bullets, a mirror mode to attack from two ends of the screen, a slow motion power to slow centipedes down, a rail gun Lazer that obliterates all enemies in its wake, and many others.  It is steroids seriously.  And these power ups make adrenaline of making it to higher scores such a blast.   In classic mode you get 3 lives and gain lives as you go.  Recharged mode has 1 life. Sorta like sudden death. 




But the games true joy is found in its challenge mode. Which to me is the main story of the game.  These challenges require you to for example "survive 120 seconds" and trust me... it humbles you with challenge.  Hitting scorpions through tiny openings without hitting mushrooms is brutal. It requires the player to really master the timing. It feels nostalgic in its difficulty.  Starting simple then requiring mastering of the algorithm and npc to really guage what order to do things.   The premise of centipede is simple. Kill centipede in an endless loop to raise the high score. But the new game adds depth to that making you build up skillsets for challenges...  and it is one of the harder games ive beaten in recent memory but also doable. A perfect balance of "screw you" but also "have a nice day" lol. 


It is a blessed remake, a cute and entertaining color fest and I am looking forward to trying the other "recharged games" of the atari series. Which include most of the classics.


Rating - 95/100.

[kashell]

17. It Takes Two - platinum'd

Done! We went through some favorite stages, as well as the stages where we missed stuff to mark this as 100 percent complete. Overall, we did damn good when it came to uncovering everything the first go-around.

[Cartagia]

Stray is a totally fine indie came that got a disproportionate amount of coverage and hype because you play as a cat.  It's a walking simulator that has a couple of puzzles and happens to be kinda cute. A Game of the Year nomination for this is insane.

[marvelvscapcom2]

8. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas [PS2/PS4] -Finished - Feb 17th, 2026



A STAR THAT SHINES SO BRIGHT, THAT IT DIMS THE REST OF GAMING AS A WHOLE. ALL OTHER GAMES LOSE LUSTER IN COMPARISON

(Both PS2 and PS5. Because I started on OG Hardware and finished on Definitive Edition

Speechless.... Speechless comes to mind when describing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The sheer impropriety in which the game transports you into it's world is sickening in the sense that it gives you whiplash with just how good it is. Flawless even, gorgeously perfect. Played it in 2026.
No rose-tinted childhood bias. No “it was my first GTA” filter. It's the difference between the idealogy of existing for human enjoyment and existing for human consumption. A sweet soylent shake meant to sustaine a human, versus charred marshmellow meant to peak glucose. It is a generation coming together to leave a phantom rose on the grave of humanity. It may just be the gamer community as a collective's swan, atop the toxic waters of past tense creativity.  It's an encapsulated human soul. It is jarred charisma. How good it is I wasnt prepared for. How unique and crafty it is... how fun and cunning it is. But in pure retrospect. The game is so incredible that it begins to dwarf its contemporaries. It begins to make a mere mirage out of my all time favorites and it bullies itself into my top 15 games of all time. And it may just Suge Knight dangle GTA V off a balcony to get itself there. It shows me how special a game can be. Perhaps effortlessly. And I now understand why it is the bar Rockstar North and its fan base keeps chasing like it's Orion's belt guiding it to a peak that may never be seen again. How even a decade older did it manage to be this much more immersive, consuming and dazzling is beyond me. But it really is a masterpiece.  The movie colors meets beethoven symphonies meets a Dave Chapelle sketch.

The thing is. I grew up playing vice city with my step dad, dad, mom, brothers, at 7 years old. It was a friend. It was familiar.  I was disallowed from playing San Andreas because at the time it had extreme hype and hate and an AO rating on some copies. So i'd sneak to play it at my cousins and put out atv vs bmx or whatever its called case to throw my mom off the scent.. It is nostalgic in a secret far away distant star kind of way. Well now at 29. I can say. I beat San Andreas. And I missed a lot... but no longer.  It didnt have rose tinted nostalgia goggles. It had just raw day 1 feel and it still knocks socks. 


To put it into perspective how good it is, I will pit it directly against it's flashier and younger sister at times to just show how San Andreas has set a gold standard for sandbox games that can't be sniffed in my opinion or experience.. Although it feels a bit hindsight forward to compare the game to GTA 5. I couldn't help but notice all of the elements GTA V recycled sloppily and all the elements they failed to duplicate that made San Andreas not only feel more Californian, More Genuine but also more hilarity infused pure fun. It feels like someone stole their own potato salad recipe and botched it. For example.  San Andreas's story is draped with extra terrestial espionage, winding water silos with government henchman, area 51, the mob, the movie casino? Basically inside of the movie straight out of compton. It covers all worlds, gangsters, nerds, rivalries, hippies, aliens, big foots, hover crafts, fighter jets, go karts, jet packs, swat unimog tanks, monster trucks, derby cars, tuners, putting out fires, exotics. 3 different destinct police forces with 3 distinct habits. It's a world that lives. RPG elements. Personalities.   Where as in GTA 5 even when I wonder into the wilderness of Los Santos, it feels very grounded. Safe. Things begin to look alike.  Even when you press the relationships within you realize that most behave similarly. 

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas not only features a full fledged 90s gang war torn version of los angeles (los santos) which is plenty large enough and fantastic enough to be the entirety of the game. But it features San Francisco too (san fierro) and everything down to the cobble stone winding hill roads, Bougie boutiques, expensive clothes shops, full house set and even the golden gate bridge is remade in stunning detail for its day.  And just when you think your socks are properly rocked enough. It hits you with a moflippin' sneak shot and anchors the Boyz N Da Hood, straight outta compton meets godfather II masterpiece of a story in this light wrapped Las Vegas clone that is so pretty and immersive that it feels like you are going on vacation everytime you travel between towns.  It's just too much to even describe.  It feels like 3 to 4 worlds in one.  The hicks areas of San Bernidino, the missions make most to dabble you in these new and fresh landscapes it seems to zig zag you between. It works to keep everything you do in this world fresh.



The cameos? The love letter to the franchise elements? But I havent touched on the sheer scope of all there is to do in this game.  Dating? Girlfriends? You can pick between a good handful although Denise is Canon imo. And each girl doesn't just pop up, they have unique plot paths that lead CJ to admiration with them. Flowers can be found in random bushes on highways, graveyards, or other like areas that can be saved as a theoretical gift for a later date in which you take your in game gf to cluckin bell (chic fil a) in game. Of course this is between working out to build muscle which raises your sex appeal and helps chemistry with your partners in general.  Its one of the elements of the game I explored least and in itself is pretty much a dating sim.  Now hear me out boss...  say you finish up with the date and want to drive to Las Venturas and gamble? Put 10000 dollars on Red 23? You can do that.  Maybe you want to race dirt bikes at a dirt ring for 25 grand first place prize? Do it. Perhaps you want to assemble a posse of 7 gang members, drive them all in a bus to a rival gang area and declare war? Have turf. Have stake in properties? Maybe you want to work for a mining quarry for wage? Perhaps all that is wack and you'd rather deliver stolen oil rigs for money instead as one of at least 10 optional "jobs" you can do.  All of this is just the tip of the ice berg of what can be done. I feel like ive lived a second or 3rd life by even playing this game. I street raced Woozie's triads, met friends, became loyal, understood the concepts of friendship over novelty. Honor over material. And karmic retribution. All from a video game.

San Andreas is systemic immersion.

- Stats that matter

- Body changes that matter.

- Relationships that matter.

- Territory that changes color.

- Skills that unlock mechanical depth.

-Money progression that reflects growth.


The ammunations (gun store) even have a shooting range which improves your shooting skill which unlocks you weapon improvements like dual wiedling smgs.  Everything has a method to it's madness. 

You can get fat!!  Like eat yourself to vomiting. But if you eat yourself to the point you vomit. You dont get as fat as you would if you ate a bit less. Because the game literally accounts for the vomit as losing some of what you ate.  Exercise improves stamina stats. Muscle can be built at the gym.  Gym has boxing tutorials, martial arts and more.

To quickly put it in perspective again


NONE of these are available in 5.  5 has 3 full characters who arent able to date or have romantic lives, work out, change body type, go to casinos, or even take over factions with a posse outside of gta online.  To say that it is a poor mans San Andreas as a map, layout and even story is sadly truth and im stunned I waited this long to experience it.  But thats not a knock on V. A titan of industry.  It is a praiss to san andreas. An unbeatable symphony.


Later games do however recycle entire mission sequences that I wont share for spoiler purposes as they may be meaningful to the plot. But man... lets just say. Big brother passed down the clothes that didnt fit him anymore. But San Andreas did everything better. Everything. Thats what happened.  San Andreas is rockstars magnum opus. The beatles had abby road. Eminem had marshall matthers LP.  Simpsons had seasons 4 through 10.  Well this is Rockstar when they werent trying to pedal shark cards to kids or survive off name only. It wasnt playing it safe. It was trying to kill it's competition if it even had any after vice city.  That trilogy of the ps2 era is truly scary.  I clapped during the credits of this game.  It keeps the GTA Hilarity and humor but it also feels so much more beleivable, mature, realistic, nuanced.  Everything from the bond with your mexican friend Cesar, the hatred of the games villains, the funny sibling rivalry that unfolds. The anticipation of events that are rumored but awaiting. 


Turf wars are also a blast. The way they work is the map has 3 colors.  Green (your gang the grove st) purple (the rival gang the ballaz) and yellow (mexican gang. The vatos)  and when you roll up into another area and initiate violence it starts a gang war. Waves of gang members come and you gotta kill them all to claim the hood.



Few games make you feel like you lived an entire crime saga. The licenses both for biking, planes and cars alike at the multiple schools are also a blast. They feel more like mini games than say a tutorial or mandatory boredom.

Landing a commercial liner on a runway that has a giant number 69 on it while Rod Stewart's young turks plays over the hazy sun kissed skies of Los Santos is a core gaming memory. Some of the side characters in this game stand out more than main characters in other games. It does a good job to make you care about these people. As if you have formed commraderie. Money starts scarce and builds to become easily obtainable as you go.  It's fun to watch yourself become better both in money and skill. Everything you do is weighted and it rewards you.

And the game also has the absolute perfect amount of challenge. It requires massive skill. Especially the final mission but it rarely feels cheap. It feels just pure gaming.  Soundtrack? Gangsta rap. The radio dj announces the songs as if they are new. It really makes you feel like snoop just dropped a new banger in 1990s. Boyz to men. Bobby Brown.  Classic alt grunge rock? Bliss




Take the transportive nostalgia and era projecting of vice city and mix it with the expansive map and depth of 5. Give it 3s edge, 1s humor and 4's variety with relationships and you get what I can only call the metacritic love darling... and possibly my new favorite grand theft auto.


San Andreas.


The review is so long but I still havent covered even half. It's just its own world. And I love it. 


Rating - 100/100

[marvelvscapcom2]

9. Mary Kate And Ashley: Magic Mystery Mall  [PS1] - Finished Feb 17th, 2026




If you were alive in the late 90s or early 2000s then you know the Olsen twins as peak consumerism. Just paparazzi fuel, kinda tabloid famous from fullhouse legacy. The straight to home disney dvd craze of the late 90s, the fashion. It is a bit odd to note that the Olsen twins are over a decade older than I am considering when you think of them you think of kids bop, sugar surge and lemon heads with the comcast on demand remote...  they seem to be perpetually remembered this way as a kid and I feel in this sense they sorta are a time capsule to that era. And my knowledge of their works outside of Fullhouse is not vast but I still think they are classic, simple and Americana.  Like the millenial version of Shirley Temple.  So with that.. I dove in to their game. It's not the only game I own of the twins.  I also own "get a clue" for gameboy color. 

Is the game Skyrim? No.  Is it harmless mind rot fun that only lasts about an hour? Sure. But it's funny comically. If you were a teen girl in 1999 perhaps the plot would register but I even doubt that. It's cliche but fairly calming and sweet in premise.  MKAMM is essentially a series of mini games that make up a larger game.

As the sisters you are led to a mall where you break a heart pendant containing crystals which then freezes the mall in time. Ashley says "this is one mall I dont want to be stuck in forever" and then the plot becomes collecting the 5 crystals to fix the pendant and restore the mall.  You can choose between Ashley and Mary Kate. Not that there is much difference being that they are literally identical twins born 2 minutes apart. but Ashley seems to have better fashion sense in almost every skit.   The mini games are


Diner - You must control the sisters to make orders for customers.  This concept has been done in many games. Think dave the diver or krusty krab games. Where you gotta grab a tray, or food and feed it to the corresponding customers before they get impatient. It's fun.  Classic.

Runway - in this mini game. You choose an outfit for both MK and A. MK has denim outfits. Ashley has more pastels. You gotta match the outfit pieces and then take photos of them as they walk a runway making sure to catch them in poses. It's the most useless of the mini games but also the easiest.


The lifeguard boy friends - this one is the funniest, funnest and most 90s teen core to the essence of 90210 vibe.  The girls decide they have a crush on 2 lifeguard boys. The photographs of the boys will help prove they are cool for an editorial.  So you follow the boys around and you have to snap the photos of Ashley with both boys.  This seems dumb but it's hard and actually takes puzzle solving as the boys only pop up in certain areas, and some are at random. So you gotta get the girl lined up with both boys.  Extra points if all 3 poses.  Banter exhanges with them.  The boys start thinking they are being stalked then divert into "yeah but they're kinda cute" acceptance of it which culminates in a group photo.  Its hard, and patterned. It took me most of the time to complete this. I think it has the most ps1 IP stalgia of the game.  It's goofy and made me feel like I was back as a kid again when all this was relevent. My cousin Felicia had ps1 and games like this.  So it's fairly nostalgic even if I havent played it.

Snowboarding - the snowboard levels are easy but also pretty good for the time.  Like ps1 era SSX but with no tricks and the olsen twins lol.  They say "so rad" and 90s lingo which is cool as Im only playing these games for escapism at this point.

Music video - the final mini game is a music video. You choose moves abd have to slowly fade the camera in and out as the Olsen twins videographer.  This one kinda sucks.  It's boring and has no substance.


Overall. It is what you expect it to be.  A time capsule to goof on.  Like when we watch scooby doo movie. It's 2 people larger than life being themselves with youthful nostalgia. It's simple. But as a liesure play.  It was not completely a dumpster fire.  And sometimes I like to dabble in games like this because its funny to see how capitalism and branding and name recognition get used for quick dollars. Sometimes it works.  If the game was like 5 bucks id imagine a girl of the day not compeltely hating it for a night lol.




Rating - 62/100

[bikingjahuty]

1. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PS4) - ABANDONED

One of the harsh realizations I've come to while playing the various classic style Castlevania games is I vastly prefer the Metroidvania style games more. Part of it is due to the fact that most classic style Castlevania games were made in a different era with less advanced technology and more constraints to gameplay, but part of it is also due to how questionably designed many of these older Castlevania games are. Poor difficulty balancing and level design, stiff and slow movement, and cheap as hell bosses and enemies are things that plague nearly every pre-metroidvania Castlevania game I've ever played. Given how much praise Rondo of Blood gets, I figured it must have improved the old school Castlevania formula so much that these egregious issues in games like the NES entires and even newer entries like Bloodlines must have been fixed. Nope. If anything, they're even a bit worse in Rondo of Blood.


Like many people, I'll I've heard for years is how incredible Rondo of Blood is. From a presentation standpoint, I completely get it and will fully agree that this is one of the prettiest and best sounding games of its generations. I adore the art, character and enemy design, the amazing stage art direction, and let's not forget how unforgettable the OST is. It's impossible not to be drawn to this game as a fan of retro video games. Still, I have to imagine that a lot of the people that heavily praise this game have never actually played it.


Rondo of Blood is a bit of a mess gameplay wise. As mentioned, Rondo of Blood suffers from the ultra stiff, slow, and cumbersome movement controls of most pre-Symphony of the Night Castlevania games. You can't control Richter's jump once you've initiated it, your invincibility frame between taking damage is a fraction of a second, meaning you will get utterly destroyed in some of the more difficult, unrelenting sections of the game. Speaking of Damage, nearly every attack, whether it's from a standard enemy or a boss will drain roughly 20% of your health, meaning you're screwed after just 5 hits at most. Bosses are mostly agile and their attacks come at you fast, but as mentioned Richter moves with the ability of a sea cargo freighter meaning the only way to get through this game is an offensive amount of trial and error. The gameplay can still be fun, and most enemies and bosses offer up unique challenges and considerations, but nearly all of this is nullified by the poorly balanced and implemented gameplay. At least in the NES games, most enemies and their attacks were also slow, but Rondo of Blood simply has no excuse.


I only got three stages in before I just couldn't take anymore of this game. That's really too bad since I really, really wanted to like Rondo of Blood after nearly almost universal praise for it since first discovering this game back in the late 2000s. There is so much I appreciate about this game, but none of it redeems how shit this game is to play. I know this will likely piss some longtime fans of Rondo of Blood off, but I feel like you really have to have a preference for the classic style Castlevania games to squeeze any enjoyment out of this one. As for me, my opinion of Rondo of Blood gives me little hope that I'll really like some of the other older Castlevania games I have yet to play. I'm sure I'll give them a shot someday, but for now, I'm feeling pretty pessimistic about any game in this series that isn't a Metroidvania or a 3D entry. (2/18/26) ABANDONED