52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

[bikingjahuty]

3. Super Punch Out (SNES) - ABANDONED

I was a late adaptor of the SNES. I was through and through a Genesis kid in the early 90s and it wasn't until my birthday in 1995 that my Aunt got me an SNES. Even after getting my SNES, I still mostly played my Genesis. I fact, there were probably about 6 games in total on the SNES I spent any serious time with, and a third of those were DKC games. In other words, I missed out on the vast majority of the console's most defining titles. One of those games that belonged to that category was Super Punch Out.


I actually did try out Super Punch Out at a friend's house before I got my SNES and unfortunately it just never clicked with me. This was probably the reason we would always either play Zombies Ate My Neighbors or Firepower 2000. But yeah, I always had a hard time figuring out the mechanics of Super Punch Out despite it involving only three buttons on the SNES controller. I got you were supposed to read your opponent in order to gauge when to block attack, or dodge, but understanding this did little to help me actually progress past the third or fourth opponent in the game. Unfortunately, 30 years of gaming experience has done little to improve my skills in Super Punch Out, which I will partially place on me, but also, the gameplay isn't the shining example of SNES gaming excellence some people pretend it is.


For starters, the more you play Super Punch Out, the more you can feel yourself getting slightly better. However, my main gripe is as soon as you do figure out the quarks of a specific fighting and their move gimmicks, the next fighter will make you completely rethink how to play again them. This sounds like a plus rather than a negative, but the reason it isn't, is because your limited continues will ensure you'll have to start all over from the beginning just as you start to get the hang of a specific fighter. You pretty much have to really, really like this game to get to the end, or just have a crap loud of experience in Super Punch Out to beat it. I tried getting good, but this limited continue knock back and having to refight the first two or three fighters over and over again really got old quickly, hence why I decided to stop playing before even getting half way through your opponent gauntlet.


The in game gameplay itself isn't bad, but it is still kind of clunky and imbalanced, even for early 90s console gaming standards. As mentioned, you'll be blocking, dodging, and punching your way through each fighter. Reading your opponent is key, however the role luck and knowing how to cheese certain fighters seems be almost just as much a factor. Successfully landing blows fills a super meter, which allows you to unleash stronger jabs to KO you opponent faster. Unfortunately the CPU seems to almost have input reading, which means it'll often jump out of the way or block when it knows a powerful strike is coming. That aspect alone of the gameplay really sapped a lot of my enjoyment of playing Super Punch Out and contributed heavily to be abandoning it.


Super Punch Out's visuals are definitely its best asset. The cartoonish, yet highly detailed sprite work really makes this one of the better looking first party SNES games. Each fighting is visually distinct and memorable, which is in no small part to how they look different than any other fighter you have or will fight.


Audio in Super Punch Out isn't quite at the standard of quality the visuals are, but is still pretty impressive for a early/mid-90s 16 bit console release. The OST is definitely lacking in this game, but it makes up for this with limited dialogue and lines unique to each fighter, as well as things like the crowd cheering, the ref announcing things, and the meeting fight sound effects that make each move feel impactful. I'm a huge fan of video game OSTs, so the fact that this is fairly lacking in Super Punch Out was in mono small part why I felt the audio overall was inferior to the visual presentation.


While I hate playing an old classic I missed growing up only to find out I didn't feel like I missed much, I'd rather find this out than never have played a specific game at all. This pretty much sums up my experience with Super Punch Out; the game definitely has that SNES charm, mostly due to its presentation, but the gameplay not only hasn't aged that great, but I can't imagine it was lauded by the masses either when it first came out. I certainly didn't hate playing this game, but rather, it just wasn't able to grab my attention, and the haphazard, and somewhat inconsistent gameplay were enough for me to realize after a little over an hour of playing it that the game just isn't for me. (6/13/26) - ABANDONED

[dhaabi]

22. 10 Mississippi || Browser || 06.13.2026



10 Mississippi is one of those games that I just sort of found myself playing without really meaning to—I actually stumbled upon it in a small list that included another game I was reading about. The game's page auto-loads without input, and it's a short experience that can be completed before ever realizing how far you've reached even if your intention was just to experience a quick glimpse of its mechanics and presentation.

In a way, 10 Mississippi is an interactive visual diary told through a series of vignettes presented in stop-motion photography. Without dialogue and little text (most of which is an optional triggered effect) the game is a looping narrative about a woman's daily routine, beginning where it ends each sequence as if no time has past. At times, the actions a player controls feel as if they mimic their own personal life: the buttons to the shirt you've just put on are put in place nestled in fabric one-by-one, monotonous office tasks at your desktop are worked on, a razor glides across your body as you shave, a simple meal is prepared after the stovetop's burners are turned. These moments all feel familiar, but they simultaneously feel intrusive as who players control is ultimately a stranger to us.

Each of the game's scenes is momentary, and the majority of them pause for user input in the form of simple key strokes being pressed that are often in quick succession and loop. How these scenes are presented have some thought to them in regards to their interactivity too, such as food being stirred that requires specific keys to be pressed in a circular order or the struggle to get out of bed requiring multiple attempts at holding the up arrow key as the stop-motion imagery mirrors the player's actions. However, some scenes will advance even if player action isn't completed or even taken at all. In the game's first linear playthrough, players will unlikely be able to see all of these actions or notice all of the game's minor details as they're still learning the key strokes needing to be pressed, often in a short time window. So to some degree, playing the game one or two additional times to see what more information is revealed or environmental changes occur, as little or insignificant they may be, may be worthwhile to those curious.

Apart from visuals, sound is sparse and is mostly a looping audio recording of the current action taking place such as a key unlocking a door, but it all complements the ordinary, familiar experience of just another day to get through well enough. One music track can be triggered that helps reinforce the routine to the player-character's early daily routine as well, and it, too, functions adequately.

In some ways, 10 Mississippi is a game assigning players to be a silent observer of just another day that makes up some stranger's life, but observing feels wrong as we violate societal boundaries and intimate moments of varying degrees in what I'm assuming to be an autobiographical, slice-of-life interactive experience. What's presented ostensibly has no plot, but the connection of individual moments do, in some way, provide a greater insight to the player-character on screen. While I personally found enjoyment without such element, the game's opening and closing scenes do suggest something larger at play that I'm not sure how is intended to be understood in the game's larger context, so having some additional detail—however minor it may be—or omitting these two moments altogether may have been more effective.

[2ko]

10. Naruto: Ninja Destiny (DS) - If a fighting game dev ever needs an example of "What not to do" in your fighting game, this would be it lol

Characters are not balanced at all and they don't try to hide it. Some characters are twice as fast as others with little to no downside. Other characters have supers that will delete 80% of your health bar. And do you know what's cool about supers in this game? They are completely unblockable... Meaning if you time it right, you have a 100% chance of it hitting. All you have to do is knock down your opponent, and when they are stuck in the get up animation you use your super for an unbloackable attack, which on some characters, will take 80% of your health bar. The fast characters don't even need to knock you down. Simply blocking their attacks is enough to get hit by their super, because you will not be able to react due to block stun + being slower (since you can't block, the only counter is to hit them when they use it).

The mechanics are super simplified which I think can be done in a good way but here it leads to some very boring matches. There are no throws, so most games are basically "spam your fastest attack on their block until you build enough meter to use their super, which they cannot block".

It's not the worst game ever. A 3D fighter on DS is pretty cool, and you can kind of turn your brain off and just button mash because all of the combos are just 4 button strings (sometimes just B>B>B>B). But after a few matches that novelty starts to wear off and you realize all the flaws in the mechanics. I'd give it somewhere in the 2-3/10 range. Not the absolute worst game I've played, but still prettty bad.

[dhaabi]

23. Night Drive || Browser || 06.14.2026



For a while, I've been wanting to try out Bitsy games but never got around to it until now. With all its limitations, it's a simple yet fun, little game creation tool. And from what I've gathered, much of the creator's initial thought toward it presumed it'd be a program to "make it easy to make games where [one] can walk around and talk to people and be somewhere," and this is even demonstrated by a fair amount of the earliest games created with it. However, it really didn't take long for others interested in the program to extend beyond those basic gameplay mechanics and design philosophies even without the array of tools that would later be released to evolve the types of experiences that eventually would be crafted. One of those games is Night Drive, which is what I settled on playing first.

As the faceless protagonist, players control a disembodied hand of the driver longing to find some escape in the direct aftermath of a relationship that's ended. Along this perpetually never-ending drive, the protagonist provides context to before, during, and after this life-changing event alongside general musings of what little they're able to see in the far-off horizon of the empty desert nightscape. Feelings of hopelessness are evident in the moment, but two brief lines of text imply the protagonist's ability to someday move on past this ordeal—even if that ability is granted in the form of forgetfulness only. How these bits of story information are conveyed is by selecting one of the several interactive screen elements that triggers dialogue. There isn't a linear path to follow, though there is some continuity between short excerpts that will make more narrative sense when moving the cursor along from one element to the one directly next to it.

Visually, the game establishes a strong sense of atmosphere. Unlike most other projects made in Bitsy, Night Drive is designed with an unchanging, first-person camera perspective that reinforces the unknown of what's to come during the aftermath of a time when stability was, but now isn't, constant. Unlike most other projects designed with Bitsy, what's presented isn't a room either in a traditional sense but instead a viewpoint. Graphically, what's presented is restricted in design but in a way that maintains the ability to convey just enough detail that's needed to craft a convincing setting. And even when considering Bitsy's low-fidelity constraints, animation is used sparingly but not in a way that sacrifices the setting's quality.

Like a fair amount of early Bitsy games, Night Drive doesn't have an ending. No concrete resolution is ever achieved either, resulting in the protagonist to remain trapped in their mental anguish at the response to a relinquished love. Yet, while the game's reflective anecdote proves able to capture a player's attention in a way that may even be relatable to some of its audience, I was most enamored by its vibrating cinematic.

[kamikazekeeg]

21 - Project Zomboid (PC 2013 EA) - ENDLESS - This is actually the second time I've picked up this game, I tried it back in 2021 (Had to look it up), where I refunded it back then for whatever reason, but I've thought about giving it another go as I wasn't super happy with it back then.  There's still things I don't like, the "vision cone" where you can only see what is in front of you is still annoying.  I know why it's there, part of the difficulty of this game, but I wish you could just turn it off, no vision cone, I don't care if it's unrealistic, it's just more enjoyable.

That being said, the actual survival aspect is involved and interesting, and quite challenging.  Gotta learn how to deal with everything, the mechanics, it's very in depth and I had multiple characters die.  My first was from illness, though I don't know what the illness was and I couldn't find meds to help.  Steep learning curve here. 

Combat is mixed, it's functional, but it's an isometric viewpoint game and combat has you go into like a tank control stance and I had moments where I just looked the wrong away and got attacked.  I'm abit torn on that one compared to the vision cone, where I'd just like the option to turn it off.

Otherwise I am putting the time in, and can see myself really trying to get into it further.

[bizzgeburt]

06 - Die Hard: Vendetta [DE] (GameCube)
https://vgcollect.com/item/205981

Hardware: Nintendo Wii + GameCube Accessory
Playtime: about 11 Hours

Wow, in quite short time, Episode 3 of Bizz playing GameCube-FPS on Wii ... after suffering through Medal of Honor: Rising Sun, I took on the last of the 3 GameCube-FPS I own - Die Hard: Vendetta.
Whenever I came across a Die Hard game, I wanted to try it out at least. Growing up in the 90's, I loved the Die Hard movies, and man, did I enjoy the light gun shooter on PS1! So when this particular game came out in 2002, I instantly kinda checked it out, in fact, a friend owned it, so I watched it a little bit. I wasn't that deep into gaming back then, so I kind of ignored Die Hard: Vendetta, because it looked like an average shooter at first glance. I revisited it now in 2026.
At first I cursed on this game the same way I did with the previous, but this time, after laying down my CoD-esque way of storming through every stage mindlessly with cannons blazing, and instead playing the game the way it seems to be intended, I really drew a lot of entertainment out of it.

The german version of Die Hard: Vendetta was released on GameCube in 2002 by publisher NDA Productions, a subdivision of Vivendi responsible for europe and asia, and also saw releases on other platforms of the time, the PlayStation2 and Xbox. Developer Bits Studios, former B.I.T.S. should later rename themselves Playwize Games. I for myself know them best as the originators of the R-Type shoot-em-up series, that I grew to like over my years as retro gamer. According to some data on the internet, Bits Studios seemed to have worked on a Die Hard title for N64, which ultimately never came to reality, as well as a Game Boy Color Jet Force Gemini.
Sadly, this version of the game was released during a time when censorship of games was strict in Germany, so many
features regarding visual violence were cut out entirely or altered. Most of these things could've been left in the game, if one decided to release it 18+, but they didn't, which I don't understand given the material at hand.

Die Hard: Vendetta comes with an awesome plot imo: John McClane works as a normal street cop in a fictive city - which obviously resembles Hollywood - as he get's called to a hostage situation within an arts museum. What unravels during the further game is a cinematic story including the son of a well-known former villain, the comeback to a famous movie location and appearances of a few beloveth side characters of the movies as well (Carl MF Winslow!). Actually, the plot of this game would make a great Die Hard movie, which I guess was intentional by it's creators. Of coure it get's personal - again - and John'll have to kick multiple ass.

Most players might start into this game expecting it to be a straight up action first-person-shooter, and will probably get humbled the same way I got humbled - McClane still is a cop, so on many occasions during gameplay, you'll have to sneak, arrest, interrogate or rescue people. There are some sections where you simply blaze away groups of terrorists, but in between those intense firefights, you mostly try to stay undetected by enemies and grab them from behind to not risk them shooting any hostages - which they'll do ... fast. Once you get into it, Die Hard: Vendetta plays like a sort of rougelike-shooter, it's hard to explain. Most missions also include various types of riddle-segments, where you have to figure something out or to find something, to progress further - some of which are quite headbreaking. After the martyrdom of playing MoH: Rising Sun, this is yet another shooter expecting me to wait, sneak and think, instead of just aiming for faces and pulling the trigger. But Die Hard: Vendetta does this way better I think. By the end of the game I was seriously enjoying it. As with almost all 3D-games on GameCube, controls are a substantial part of the game's difficulty, I must admit.

For a non-Nintendo franchise GameCube-game, the visual presentaion of Die Hard: Vendetta is quite good. Building-textures, NPCs, items to interact with, everything looks sophisticated and detailed. As goes for the weapons you can use, although you don't have many to choose from. Missions and locations vary in size, but are also build really detailed and unique. Every mission features a totally unique location, from an arts museum to Hollywood strip, Chinese Cinema, film sets, warehouses, subways etc., which makes playing this game often feel like literally playing a Die Hard movie.

The cineastic soundtrack of Die Hard: Vendetta adds even more to the vibe of playing an action blockbuster. It's composer and conductor, Frank R. Favre (God of War: Ragnarök; The Punisher), did a great job in writing tense pieces for every mission, that - though not very memorable - complete the all-in-all action move / Die Hard'y experience perfectly. There's also a lot of fan-pleasement included with our ol' buddy Ludwig Van's "Ode an die Freude" playing during John's "Hero-Time"(bullet-time)-sprees.

Starting off confusing, after getting into Die Hard: Vendetta, I totally enjoyed it, just like watching one of the movies. Having played a few Die Hard games now, I can say that none of them gave that all-around vibe of the movies better than this one - especially for fans of the franchise, this is a must play.

6 games finished in 2026, let's see how few/many may follow … 

[supremeusername]

24. Zenless Zone Zero | 2024 | Season 2 | PC | 5/27:



     I'm not invested into gacha games. I like them -- and I have played my fair share of them -- but nowadays I only play Zenless Zone Zero. If nothing else, the one thing that keeps me logging in almost everyday is that daily missions can be done in less than a minute if need be.

     The BIG reason why I keep playing is that the combat is fabulous. I'm devoted to figuring out the right combos for characters: finding the right timing to use them and when to counter with another character on my team. It's a lot more fast-paced than any other gacha out there, considering it's a pretty-straightforward hack n' slash. There's meta teams -- just like any other gacha -- that objectively perform better than others, but it's possible to make it through the endgame Deadly Assault & Shiyu Defense game-modes with some dedication. Just ignore the fact that MiHoYo tempts you to summon for the limited banner characters by making buffs (pertaining to endgame content) always synergizing with the current banner units. ALWAYS pick who you jibe with over any meta.

     The biggest letdown of Season 2 for me is the story. The first couple of updates were fine as it was moreso about foreshadowing and building-up the main plot. Most of the narrative focus was instead given to the allies of the new Waifei Peninsula region, with their own individual backgrounds and struggles. I never thought a gacha game with jiggle physics could get me to ugly cry but the Seed side story really did it for me, I have to admit. When more focus was put towards the main antagonist Sarah & The Creator, I just lost interest. It just felt sloppy and anti-climactic. One of the story updates was rewritten at the last minute, so about half of the dialogue that would normally be voiced wasn't. This certainly added fuel to my disinterest in the story and impacted part of the experience.



     The biggest part of Season 2 (and what Zenless is good at) is the events. There was a Fall Guys-like event (with minigames against numerous people online), an extensive summer event with fishing & surfboarding minigames, and an extraction-style gamemode featuring the game's adorable Bangboo characters. Some events are better than others, but it felt like something to look forward to with each update and at worse, it would only take a couple of hours of my time to complete.

     Overall, I was pretty content with how Season 2 turned out, even with the more lofty expectations I had going in. I haven't been much engaged with hack n' slash games in the past, but I always look forward to the new characters coming out in ZZZ, looking ahead for gameplay leaks and pre-planning who I'm summoning for and how I'm to go about building them. Season 3's story better be good though. Grade: B

[supremeusername]

25. Forza Horizon 6 | 2026 | PC & Xbox Series X | 6/11:



     The 4th game in the Forza Horizon franchise is one of my favorite racing games ever. It seems like Playground Games & Turn 10 Studios have fully understood how to make a racing game fun, even to people who don't like racing games. There's an overabundance of activities in the open-world, but the experience really comes from having a goal in mind and immediately becoming side-tracked from that initial goal. There's so many times in these games where I suit up a car -- ready to race -- and I somehow ended up completing 3 PR Stunts and 2 separate Cross Country events before starting the road race I planned on doing before. That's the real appeal of Forza Horizon for me.

     Horizon 6 isn't any different. Actually, there's not much that's changed at all. The big selling point of this game is that it takes place in Japan. I didn't play much of Horizon 5 due to: one, being burned-out from playing the prior entry, but also because the map of Mexico wasn't all that inspiring. It felt like there wasn't much elevation or variation to the land -- and hardly any cities or memorable landmarks to speak of -- so racing or exploring didn't feel as exciting as it should've been. I think the Horizon 6 team noticed this as well because the map of Japan is, in contrast, diverse. You have the metropolis of Tokyo City, the sprawling highways, signature touge roads that twist & turn, and even a snow area at the top of the map. Horizon's Japan is flushed with collectibles, races, story missions, and distinct landmarks; and even moments that inspire you to use the game's Photo Mode to take pictures.

     Forza Horizon 6 is no different from any of the other recent entries, but it really capitalizes on everything that makes the series so great. I felt that Horizon 4 was near-perfect for what it was, and this entry just inches past it. The one gripe I have that keeps this from getting an S grade is the presentation. Despite the dialogue being more acceptable than what it was in Horizon 5, this series has never been able to match the story or presentation of the first game. It's fine for what it is, but it would've been even better if I could switch the voice language over to Japanese as less of a distraction. Also, there's some visual bugs that may be a PC thing? Like when I'm doing a cross country race at night with snow on the ground, the glint from the snow is all bright yellow instead of white. I haven't noticed it on the Series X version, so I've just been switching between Xbox and PC throughout my playtime.

     Other than that, this is pretty much what I expected a Horizon game in Japan to be. It's a more stylized, celebratory version of Japan than a 1-to-1 recreation, which is what I figured if it meant getting a more exciting, driving & racing experience. The licensed music is actually a lot better than it normally is IMO, and you even have a dedicated radio station to all Japanese-speaking music -- even the DJ only speaks Japanese! I'm really looking forward to seeing the expansions for this game, and if there's any indication based on what I've been playing: they're going to be a lot of fun too.



Grade: A+

[realpoketendonl]

16. Snap & Grab: Episode 1 - The Penthouse



Okay, so this one opened up a new question for me. How do you include a game in this challenge that's released episodically, and of which not all episodes are out yet? I just beat every heist challenge in episode 1, beating it. Do I then just not count this until all episodes are released, whenever that is? And assuming I'll even buy them? Eh, whatever. I got a fair few hours out of this. I decided to count episode 1 in here for now, and if future episodes are released and I end up playing them, I'll add them to a total tally of Snap & Grab and then not count those separately.

So yeah, Snap & Grab! This is an indie game releasing in 5 episodes, with episode 1 having launched just last month. I had my eye on this because it seemed right up my alley. Set in the bright campy neon 80s, you play as Nifty Nevada, one of the world's most famous photographers and, unbeknownst to everyone, a master thief. You walk around the location taking photos of everything that's interesting. Things to steal, any obstacles in your way like guards or alarms, and ways you could take care of those obstacles. You then use your photos to plan out an elaborate heist, that your crew will then execute.

It's a really unique idea, and it's a lot of fun to play. Walking around, taking photos, trying out a plan, seeing where it goes wrong, and figuring out another workaround, it's a fun gameplay loop. Especially when you start incorporating steps not part of the mission so you can steal something extra. Every heist has multiple solutions, so you have freedom to try and figure out a solution in your own way. I'm also a sucker for the game's vibe of 80s neon camp. It's silly and it knows it, and its main character Nifty Nevada is a total queen. I will say, the game could do with some more polish. Graphically, some parts look a little rough. Especially the cutscenes when the heists play out have graphical bugs and oddities nearly constantly. And right now, one of the heist mission solutions appears to be bugged (I did it and did not get the stars for it, and I see reports of other players with the same problem). I'm hopeful that will get fixed with an update soon.

But all in all, I had a good time with this! If it looks interesting to you, I say check it out. It's a little rough around the edges here and there, but the core gameplay loop is fun and unlike anything I've played before. This is a small indie team that I think deserves support for this project. I'm definitely keeping an eye out for the next episodes, looking forward to see what planning heists can become when even more crew members become involved.